FBI Director Christopher Wray Statement on Indictment of Man for the Murder of FBI Task Force Officer and Terre Haute, Indiana Police Detective Gregory Ferency

In July, one of our longtime task force officers, Detective Greg Ferency of the Terre Haute, Indiana Police Department, was shot and killed in an ambush right outside one of our offices. He was murdered while protecting the American peopleeach and every one of us. We honor his life of service and his sacrifice, and we keep him in our hearts. Today's indictment shows that we will never stop working to safeguard the rule of law, the American people, and our law enforcement officers.

This story has been published on: 2022-01-20. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Pro-life Women's Group to Hold Prayer Vigil and Public Witness at the Supreme Court on the 49th Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Decision NEWS PROVIDED BY

Stanton Public Policy Center/Purple Sash Revolution

Jan. 21, 2022



WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ -- Stanton Public Policy Center/Purple Sash Revolution will be hosting the event on Saturday, January 22, at 11:00 AM in front of the Supreme Court.



The activities will include a prayer vigil, laying 2,363 flowers, with Faith and Liberty in front of the Supreme Court, which represents the number of children who die every day from abortion violence.



The event will end with a national news conference, with pro-life leaders discussing, "How the Pro-life Movement will respond in a Post-Roe America."



Stanton Public Policy Center/Purple Sash Revolution is a women's advocacy and educational group that works on issues of human rights and justice which empower and inspire women. It is affiliated with Stanton Healthcare which has life-affirming women's health clinics in America and internationally.



Brandi Swindell, Founder and CEO of Stanton Healthcare, states: "As an advocate for women, human rights and founder of life-affirming women's medical clinics, I am thrilled the tragic history of abortion violence in America, created by Roe v. Wade, is coming to an end. Our nation is now embracing the truth that unfettered access to abortion for the full nine months of pregnancy does not uplift women or advance justice and equality.



"After Roe v. Wade is dismantled, the pro-life community looks forward to working state by state to ensure abortion violence comes to an end. At Stanton Healthcare, we will continue to offer women with unexpected pregnancies professional and compassionate healthcare as well as physical and emotional support for their family.



"The pro-life community is excited about a Post-Roe America where all life will be treated with equality." Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Chief Strategy Officer for Stanton Public Policy Center comments: "Dr. Martin Luther King said, 'no lie can live forever' and 'the Arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' We are seeing the lie of abortion coming to an end and America bending toward justice as Roe v. Wade is being dismantled.



"The greatest strength of the pro-life community has always been our grassroots energy and engagement. Therefore, we welcome a Post-Roe America where we will passionately work state by state and with local communities to end abortion and continue to provide support and care for mothers and their children.



"We will also tirelessly work to ensure 'ending abortion' will be a major issue in the 2022 mid-term elections, local state races and the 2024 Presidential election.



"The pro-life/human rights community will never rest or be silent until abortion ends up on the scrapheap of history like chattel slavery and segregation. We are thankful to see Roe v. Wade and the violent legacy it created coming to an end." For more information or interviews contact

Rev. Patrick Mahoney at: 540.538.4741.



SOURCE Stanton Public Policy Center/Purple Sash Revolution



CONTACT: Rev. Patrick Mahoney,540-538-4741



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https://stantoninternational.org/sppc



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GSE students provide local school with new approach to reading

By MICHELLE KERNS

The more that you spend time with a child, the more they open up. 

As a new tutor with special training to help young students with their reading, Graduate School of Education student Gabrielle Consing was surprised to see how grouping students according to their skill level and then reading stories between short lessons helped everyone feel excited about learning.

The more that you spend time with a child, the more they open up, says Consing, who is enrolled in GSEs mental health counseling masters program. I think that the more I was able to connect with them, the more they looked forward to it. They were just more into what the material was.

Consing was one of 11 graduate students hired to work as tutors for a new GSE program piloted in the summer of 2021. The students trained for a week and then joined the four-week summer school program, with about 180 students in kindergarten through fifth grade at the Charter School for Applied Technologies in the Town of Tonawanda. Designed around a differentiation approach, the program tailors instruction to the needs of young readers learning during the pandemics school disruptions.

It allows us to push the students who are above level, and help get the students who are below level on level again  Its about meeting students where they are, says Madeleine Fierstein, assistant principal at the school.

John Strong and Blythe Anderson, assistant professors in the Department of Learning and Instruction, led the summer tutoring program. They employed an approach Strong learned from Sharon Walpole, his doctoral adviser and professor in the University of Delaware School of Education. While traditional instruction often focuses on matching children with books that fit their reading level, the differentiation approach, as adapted by Strong and Anderson, has two stages:

First, young readers are assessed to see what area needs addressing alphabet knowledge, word-decoding ability, overall reading fluency or comprehension. Based on the assessment, children are placed in one of 10 groups.

When the groups meet, students focus on the mechanics they need to improve on, like understanding the names of the letters and sounds. In the summer program, they also read or listen to childrens books with the tutors.

The pilot program was a resounding success. The graduate students taught daily reading lessons so effectively that most of the young learners passed their reading assessments. Students improved so much in such a short period that, at the schools request, GSE professors trained the charter schools teachers to use the method and its targeted lessons year-round.

The school was very pleased with our tutors, who showed up every day and did the work, Strong says. Wed like to continue with this model, with other schools and districts, as we continue to build new partnerships.

As Consing used this approach last summer, her students seemed especially interested in practicing their reading skills. Students loved reading Christopher Paul Curtis book, The Watsons go to Birmingham, which tells the story of a fictional Black familys road trip to Alabama during the civil rights movement.

It was particularly gratifying to Consing after one child visited the library and proudly reported, Miss Gabbie, I actually borrowed this book.

As Consing worked with about 20 third- and fifth-grade students, some told her they hoped she would come to teach them again this school year. When she explained she was studying to become a mental health counselor at a college or university, they then told her they wanted to come to UB to work with her.

She knew they didnt completely understand her career goals, but their interest confirmed how much they enjoyed reading and learning together. When youre supported through your primary years, it promotes you wanting to have a good future, Consing says.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

In the first few weeks of the pandemic, when physicians were grappling with the unknown like everyone else, psychiatrist Angela Reiersen recalled that an old drug in her field, called fluvoxamine, affected the body in ways that went beyond improving mental health.

In addition to easing symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, the drug also reduced inflammation, which was emerging as a key culprit in severe cases of COVID-19. She emailed Eric Lenze. a colleague at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and proposed testing the drug to see if it might help.

Others were trying to repurpose old drugs, toosuch as hydroxychloroquine, the one touted by President Donald Trump, and ivermectin, a drug for treating parasitesand there were valid reasons to study them in each case. But most of the old medications, including those two, did not pan out.

Yet fluvoxamine, a 40-year-old drug that costs a fraction of the pricey new treatments for COVID, now looks as if might actually help.

The initial study by the St. Louis pair, conducted on a shoestring budget with no celebrity buzz, suggested that the drug might reduce the risk of severe symptoms. Then in a larger, follow-up study in Brazil, patients who took the drug were less likely to need emergency care and hospitalization, compared to those who were given a placebo.

For now, a National Institutes of Health panel says the evidence for treating COVID with fluvoxamine is inconclusive, but the FDA is weighing a request to authorize it for emergency use. At Johns Hopkins Medicine, treatment guidance recently was updated to state that the drug "may be considered" if other options are not immediately available. And in Canada, a group of scientists advising the province of Ontario recently gave fluvoxamine a conditional thumbs-up.

The appeal is the same as for all drugs already on the shelf. Having gone through the FDA approval process, their safety profile is well understood. And for those drugs available in generic form, the cost is minimal.

A cheap drug

That's the case with fluvoxamine, which costs just $4 wholesale for a 10-day treatment of COVID, said Lenze, a professor of psychiatry at the St. Louis medical school. (In contrast, the federal government is paying about $530 for a course of Paxlovid and $700 for molnupiravir, the new antiviral pills from Pfizer and Merck. And another type of COVID treatment, called monoclonal antibodies, costs more than $2,000.)

But the low cost of fluvoxamine comes with a catch. Because the patent expired on the original formulation of the drug long ago, there is little profit in it. No drug companies would throw their muscle behind such an effort, Lenze said.

"The very thing that makes it so ideal for repurposingit's a generic, it's widely available, it's cheapis also what's in our way," he said.

Pfizer and Merck antivirals may help vs. COVID, but they can be hard to get.

So Lenze cobbled together a small study with a $20,000 grant from the chair of his department, and he, Reiersen, and others donated their time.

"We were putting study supplies in brown paper bags and driving them out to patients' houses, because that's all we could afford," he said.

The evidence vs. covid

The team enrolled 152 COVID patients who were not hospitalized, and in their first week of symptoms, randomly selecting 80 volunteers to receive fluvoxamine and 72 to get a placebo. After 15 days, six people on the placebo had experienced "clinical deterioration"defined as developing shortness of breath or hospitalization with pneumonia, along with needing supplemental oxygen. But no one who took the real drug went downhill.

Published November 2020 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study was promising, but too small to draw definitive conclusions.

The Brazil study was 10 times that size, with close to 1,500 participants followed for 28 days. Among those who were given a placebo, 16% needed hospitalization or emergency care for at least 6 hours, compared with just 11% of participants who took the real drug.

It was by no means a magic bullet, but statisticians calculated that the difference between the two groups was likely not due to chance. That is, the drug seemed to reduce the need for emergency treatment by about one-third, the authors reported online in October in The Lancet Global Health. Reiersen and Lenze were among the coauthors, joined by researchers from Brazil and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Some experts remain unconvinced. Among them is Andrea Druga, a research analyst at ECRI, a Plymouth Meeting-based nonprofit that evaluates the safety and quality of health care. Asked to review the Brazil study, she noted that the drug did not appear to have a significant effect on survival or on the need for mechanical ventilation.

The limitations

What's more, just 6% of study participants had been vaccinated against COVID. She said it was unclear whether the findings in that population would translate to the U.S., where most people have received at least one dose of a vaccinea measure that most definitely does reduce the risk of death.

Paul Auwaerter, clinical director in the division of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, agreed that more evidence was needed for fluvoxamine. But because some of the pricier treatments are in short supply, he and colleagues have updated in-house treatment guidelines to say fluvoxamine should be considered for outpatients when other options are unavailable.

"There doesn't seem to be a lot of downside," he said, noting that its potential side effects, chiefly nausea, are fairly benign. "But it's hard to feel convinced that there's an upside."

Another study of the drug is underway at the University of Minnesota. And David Boulware, an infectious diseases specialist at that university's medical school, has petitioned the FDA to authorize the drug for emergency use in treating COVID.

Even without that seal of approval, physicians are allowed to prescribe the drug for indications beyond those for which it is approveda practice called off-label use.

Data from IQVIA, a health technology analytics company, suggest that many are doing so. In the latter part of 2021, pharmacies were filling nearly 130,000 prescriptions for the drug each month, an increase of 25,000 over the corresponding months in 2019, before the pandemic.

Why some doctors prescribe it

Among those who've prescribed it is Owen Muir, a psychiatrist at Brooklyn Minds, a mental-health practice in Brooklyn, N.Y., who recently diagnosed a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The following week, as Muir was deciding which medicine to prescribe, the person came down with COVID. The psychiatrist went with fluvoxamine, reasoning that it might help with both conditions.

"In the context of having OCD and then coming down with COVID," he said, "it seemed like that then became the front-runner."

The patient recovered from COVID, but then again, so do most people. Like Druga and Auwaerter, Muir said he would like more data on fluvoxamine. Before prescribing it, a physician must ensure that patients realize the evidence is "not ironclad" and that it can interact negatively with certain other drugs, he said.

But that is true of many drugs, including Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral pill. Always remind your physician what other medications you're taking.

Lenze, the Washington University psychiatrist behind the initial study of fluvoxamine, acknowledges that the evidence for the antiviral drugs is "more solid." But he said that's no reason to write off fluvoxamine.

"It doesn't have to be an either-or thing," he said. "I'd hate for somebody to give up a perfectly good course of fluvoxamine hoping to get Paxlovid, only to not get it and then get really sick."

Also unclear is exactly how fluvoxamine might be protecting against severe COVID. In addition to its anti-inflammatory effect, it also may reduce the risk of abnormal blood clots.

Neither of these properties comes to mind for a typical mental-health professional, as they are unrelated to how the drug is thought to help patients with OCD or depression, Muir said. But they did for Reiersen. Muir was so impressed that he invited his fellow psychiatrist on his podcast.

"She was brilliant enough to recognize this might be something that could help," he said. "And also brilliant enough to be willing to be proved wrong."

2022 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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A major study by InsideOut Institute for Eating Disorders at the University of Sydney reveals a widespread escalation of eating disorder symptoms during COVID-19 lockdown in Australia, with 40 percent going undiagnosed.

InsideOut researchers tracked 1,723 people with eating disorder symptoms over the JulyOctober 2020 COVID wave, including Victoria's major lockdown, making it one of the largest observational studies to capture the impact of the pandemic in Australia.

The study has just been published in the Journal of Eating Disorders.

Overall, the online survey data showed an increase in all eating disorder symptoms during COVID lockdowns, with increased body image concerns, food restriction and binge eating reported by the majority of participants. There was also a significant experience of depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness.

The study further revealed alarmingly low diagnosis and treatment rates. While nearly all participants (96 percent) reported experiencing active eating disorder symptoms at the time of the survey, only half were engaged in treatment.

In addition, of those participants found to have an eating disorder of clinical significance, 40 percent had never been formally diagnosed.

Lead researcher Dr Jane Miskovic-Wheatley says that while the public health response to COVID-19 has been necessary, it has magnified many eating disorder risk factors and triggers, putting many vulnerable people at risk.

"We found that the risk factors most strongly linked with worsening eating disorder symptoms included: changes in daily routine, restricted access to support people, changes to treatment, and exposure to news coverage and social media. Factors such as these have exacerbated existing symptoms for many people.

"We are also seeing the development of new symptoms among people with no previous experience of those symptoms. Among the worst affected were those participants not actively engaged in treatment during the pandemic, those experiencing loneliness, and those with co-occurring mental health conditions," says Dr Miskovic-Wheatley.

"We were able to capture the beginning, middle and end of the first significant wave in Australia, including Victoria's main lockdown, and our concern is that if these waves keep continuing, the impact might become more and more pronounced. I don't want us to underestimate what the long-term impacts might be for people affected by eating disorders  this is something we are currently investigating."

InsideOut psychologist Rachel Simeone says that even though many jurisdictions are now starting to open up, clients with eating disorders are continuing to struggle.

"For many people experiencing an eating disorder it will take a lot of time to recover from the hit that the COVID pandemic and associated health measures have delivered over the past two years. We cannot assume that eating disorders will simply resolve when restrictions ease.

"We are also seeing a trend of individuals presenting for treatment who have delayed help seeking and are thus coming to us at a more critical stage of illness, as opposed to earlier in the illness trajectory when signs and symptoms are emerging. This suggests that the illness has become more entrenched and is therefore harder to treat.

"This really speaks to the need for greater awareness of eating disorders, in all settingsin the home, the community, at schools and sports, and in healthcare settings, such as GPs. It is everyone's responsibility to be aware of the signs and symptoms, to aid early detection efforts and support individuals to get support and treatment as early as possible."

These findings further highlight the timeliness of the recent Australian National Research and Translation Strategy for Eating Disorders 20212031, funded by the Federal Government and developed by InsideOut, in collaboration with experts and peak bodies from across Australia.

The Strategy highlights 10 research priority areas, which include risk factors, prevention and early identification, with future research to be focused on these important domains.

More information: Jane Miskovic-Wheatley et al, The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health response on people with eating disorder symptomatology: an Australian study, Journal of Eating Disorders (2022). Jane Miskovic-Wheatley et al, The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health response on people with eating disorder symptomatology: an Australian study,(2022). DOI: 10.1186/s40337-021-00527-0
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

The employees at Focused Care of Waxahachie, Texas, end each staff meeting with a group chant.

"RAMP it up!" they yell in unison. RAMP, which stands for "residents are my priority," is a call to action for the nursing home's 62 workers, charged with caring for the community's highest-risk populations.

And it's evident that the staff members take that message to heart. The nurses; certified nursing assistants, or CNAs; kitchen staff and housekeepers say they know their residents as if they were part of their own family.

As the omicron variant spreads, sickening some employees and forcing others to quarantine, Focused Care's staff have stepped up, as they did in every previous surge. They work overtime, stay late and answer calls in the middle of the nightall to ensure their residents are properly cared for.

"We know if we leave, nobody's going to be here for our residents, so we try to help each other out," said Shaniece Dickerson, a CNA at the nursing home.

Staffing shortages have plagued long-term care facilities throughout the pandemic, forcing some to limit the number of new residents they could accept.

Nationally, nursing homes and assisted care facilities lost more than 230,000 workersmore than 15% of the workforcesince the beginning of the pandemic, according to the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living.

COVID-19 cases among North Texas nursing home residents are rising thanks to the omicron variant, according to Texas Department of Health and Human Services data. In the long-term care region containing Dallas, Denton, Tarrant and Collin counties, cases jumped from 1,139 on Jan. 11 to 1,633 on Jan. 18.

Focused Care officials say the nursing home has fared relatively well with staffing compared to other nursing homes. The facility didn't see a mass exodus of workers during four COVID-19 surges in North Texas, said Randy Langford, executive director of operations at the nursing home.

Filling open positions, on the other hand, has proven difficult. Langford said he's trying to hire more workers to give current staff more of a break, but candidates routinely don't show up to their interviews.

At the beginning of the pandemic, he blamed some of the lack of interest in the field on federal unemployment benefits, which gave workers the financial flexibility to stay home. Long-term care facilities also got a bad rap at the beginning of the pandemic, Langford said, because of early outbreaks at nursing homes.

Adding to staffing woes is the fact that nursing home workers aren't immune to COVID-19. Across the country, nursing home staffs had more than 58,000 weekly cases as of Jan. 16, up from 5,919 four weeks prior, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

At Focused Care, 14 workers have tested positive for the virus during the omicron wave. The facility, which tests staff twice a week, has yet to have two consecutive weeks without at least one COVID-19 case since the omicron variant came to North Texas.

Dickerson, who started working on Focused Care's kitchen staff around 10 years ago, regularly picks up additional shifts, sometimes working 15 to 20 extra hours per week. She spends all of that time in an N95 mask to protect the elderly residents.

Even though it's physically and mentally exhausting at times, she said she's there to support the rest of the staff. "We are like family, and that's what keeps us together," she said.

Nursing homes, much like hospitals, are 24-hour businesses. They have to be staffed at all times, with additional staffing required in emergency situations.

Focused Care does not currently have any COVID-19-positive residents. But when a resident does contract the virus, the facility opens the "hot zone."

A six-room corner of the nursing home becomes a mini-COVID-19 ward, with red tape and curtains cautioning people from entering unless absolutely necessary. Employees working in the "hot zone" don't work anywhere else in the facility, and employees outside of the "hot zone" never enter it.

Decked in what interim director of nursing Julia Smith compared to a plastic trash bag, "hot zone" workers have to stay in full protective gear. It's a difficult reality when caring for patients who want the opportunity for human touch and connection, she said.

Visitors are allowed in the facility, unlike at the beginning of the pandemic, although they have to wear masks, answer questions about potential COVID-19 exposures and have their temperatures checked.

Watching her residents suffer from the isolation of the first year of the pandemic was particularly heartbreaking, Smith said. Even if they never contracted the virus, many residents saw their health decline from the sheer loneliness of not getting to be with their families.

"Whenever I'm interviewing someone, I ask 'What brings you to long-term care?' Because this is the hardest job you'll ever love," she said. "If you don't have the heart to do this, you're not going to be successful and you're not going to be happy."

Smith, like many of her coworkers, works far longer hours than she did before the onset of the pandemic. She started her role at Focused Care in late November, when COVID-19 numbers had been in decline for over a month. Then omicron hit.

Responsible for educating the nursing staff on the latest federal safety guidelines, in addition to coordinating care for the facility's residents, Smith said she regularly works more than 60 hours per week. That doesn't include the phone calls she gets from her staff at night when she's technically off-the-clock.

It's not uncommon for Langford to have to come back to Focused Care late at night because of a problem with a resident or the building. Langford, who worked as a pastor before transitioning into long-term care management, was at the facility in the middle of the night just a few days before because a breaker broke. COVID-19 has only made the hours worse, he said.

"I've worked more weekends than I've probably ever worked in my career since COVID," he said. "It has unique issues."

Focused Care's staff is trying to do what it can to remain positive, even with the uncertain future of the pandemic. The little things, like laughing with residents and "cutting up" with each other, are what keep them motivated to come into work each day. That, and love.

"As I said, it's the hardest job you'll ever love," Smith said. "Because, but for the grace of God, that person laying in there could be one of your loved ones."

Explore further Family and friends are the invisible workforce in long-term care

2022 The Dallas Morning News.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

More than a third of care home residents and a quarter of care home staff in England showed evidence of infection with SARS-CoV-2 during the first two waves of the pandemic, according to a new study led by UCL researchers.

The study, published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, looked at blood samples from nearly 5,000 residents (with a median age of 87) and staff (with a median age of 48) at 201 care homes across England between June 2020 and May 2021.

The researchers found that 34.6% of residents and 26.1% of staff tested positive for the nucleocapsid antibody, which indicates prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. (This compares to 16% for the general population over a similar period). The data did not include residents and staff who died of COVID-19, meaning the true prevalence would have been higher.

Analyzing repeat samples from 619 participants and how they changed over time, the researchers found that the nucleocapsid antibody (antibody specific to the virus's nucleocapsid protein) became undetectable in half of the population within eight monthsthat is, in half of the population the test no longer picked up evidence of prior infection.

The researchers said this quick waning of detectable levels of the nucleocapsid antibody showed the need to investigate different antibodies that may not become undetectable so quickly in order to accurately assess levels of prior infection in a population. Commonly used commercial tests currently target the nucleocapsid antibody and may be subject to the same time limitation as the particular test used in the study.

Lead author Dr. Maria Krutikov (UCL Institute of Health Informatics) said: "Our study shows the prevalence of COVID-19 in care homes was much higher than in the general population in England up until May this year. In the period we looked at, before the Delta variant became dominant in the UK, the proportion of care home residents with evidence of previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 was more than double that of the general population."

Senior author Professor Laura Shallcross (UCL Institute of Health Informatics), leader of the Vivaldi study looking at COVID-19 in care homes, said: "In our study the nucleocapsid-specific antibody disappears within a year and the wide use of tests targeting these antibodies to see if people have had COVID-19 before could underestimate the number of prior infections.

"It is important to distinguish immunity caused by infection from immunity generated by a vaccine within a population. Underestimating the number of past infections could affect our estimates of the effectiveness of a vaccine and the level of protection against infection in care homes as both of these are boosted by naturally acquired immunity."

For the study, researchers looked at 9,488 blood samples donated by 1,434 residents and 3,288 staff between 11 June 2020, and 7 May 2021. Individuals donated a maximum of four samples, taken at least eight weeks apart.

To determine how quickly the antibodies waned, researchers looked at blood samples from 239 residents and 380 staff, donated over a period of about five months on average. During this time, antibodies became undetectable in 23% of residents and 35% of staff. Researchers estimated how long it would take for half of the population to become antibody-negative which they found to be 242 days (eight months).

The study found that antibodies appeared to last longer among residents than among staff. One theory, not confirmed by the study, is that residents were more likely to have had severe infection, potentially resulting in a longer-lasting antibody response. It is also possible that residents who survive COVID-19 are particularly robust and this is reflected in their immune responses.

Professor Shallcross added: "We would like to thank all the care home staff and residents who took part in the research. Being able to track the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in care homes, among an elderly population often excluded from research, is important in helping us better understand the pandemic and prevent new cases."

Explore further Prior COVID infection increases immune response in double-vaccinated care home staff and residents

More information: Maria Krutikov et al, Prevalence and duration of detectable SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antibodies in staff and residents of long-term care facilities over the first year of the pandemic (VIVALDI study): prospective cohort study in England, The Lancet Healthy Longevity (2021). Maria Krutikov et al, Prevalence and duration of detectable SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antibodies in staff and residents of long-term care facilities over the first year of the pandemic (VIVALDI study): prospective cohort study in England,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/S2666-7568(21)00282-8
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin announced Friday most pandemic restrictions will be scrapped, including early closing times and other curbs on hospitality venues, declaring the country had "weathered the Omicron storm".

The stringent rules, beefed up last month as the variant prompted a surge of new infectionsforcing nightclubs to close over the Christmas periodwill be lifted from 0600 GMT Sarturday after new cases and other key indicators eased in recent weeks.

"I have stood here on many dark days but today is a good day," Martin said in a televised announcement in Dublin.

"We've concluded that the rationale or justification for continuing most of our public health restrictions are no longer in place.

"The majority of public health measures that we've had to live with will be removed," he added, while cautioning "the pandemic isn't over".

Ireland only fully reopened in October, after 18 months of rolling lockdowns that then returned in early December.

Friday's decision means pubs, bars and restaurants can operate normal trading hoursrather than closing in early eveningand no longer need a COVID pass system or social distancing.

Meanwhile indoor and outdoor events will not have any crowd limits imposed on them and different households can gather without restrictions on numbers.

Employees can also gradually return to workplaces from next week.

Masks will still be needed in some settings, while self-isolation rules will also remain for now for those who test positive for COVID-19 and their close contacts as well as symptomatic people.

Ireland, which has a population of around five million people, has recorded more than 6,000 deaths from the virus.

The country has seen high levels of vaccine uptake, with nearly two-thirds of those aged over five receiving a booster jab in recent months.

"Ireland's first class vaccination programme and the rollout of boosters has utterly transformed our situation," Martin said in his address.

"It was our vaccinations and boosters that prevented the recent wave of infection translating into much more serious levels of illness and death."

Explore further Ireland introduces 8 pm curfew for hospitality

 2022 AFP
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

While both patients and clinicians prioritize information transparency, a 21st Century Cures Act requirement for the immediate release of test and lab results is proving more controversial, according to recently published survey results of clinicians and patients.

The study, published recently in The American Journal of Surgery, found that of the clinicians surveyed, nearly 63% agreed that immediately released results would be more confusing than helpful for patients, whereas about 16% of patients surveyed agreed with that statement.

"I think for clinicians, the concern has been that it's going to cause stress to patients getting these really complex reports that are not written at a level that's easy for non-medical professionals to understand," says Laura Leonard, MD, the study's primary author and chief resident of quality and safety for the University of Colorado Department of Surgery.

"I've called patients back within 20 minutes of receiving their results and they're already down in the fine print," adds Sarah Tevis, MD, a study co-author and an assistant professor of surgical oncology. "As clinicians, we may have just received the results ourselves, so we're not only going through them for the first time, but trying to help patients know where to focus and to know what these results mean for them."

Studying the impact in real time

The 21st Century Cures Act, which became law in 2016, includes a requirement that went into effect in 2021 requiring health care institutions to release all electronic health information (EHI) to patients immediately.

"We recognized at the time that we had a unique opportunity to study the impact of something as it was happening," Leonard says, adding that UCHealth, whose patients and clinicians were surveyed, was proactive in working with and preparing clinicians for the change beginning in 2020.

Leonard, Tevis, and the research team designed a voluntary cross-sectional survey to administer via e-mail to clinicians at UCHealth in October 2020. Clinicians who regularly work with oncology patients were invited to participate. A corresponding survey was administered to patients recruited from breast cancer and pancreatic cancer multi-disciplinary clinics and breast radiology patient lists. These participants were specifically selected to represent patients who have had significant experience with testing as well as reviewing test results.

Survey results showed that of those surveyed, about 90% of patients and 81% of clinicians agreed that providing patients with access to their health information is necessary in delivering high-quality care. However, providers were more likely to disagree that patients are comfortable reviewing blood work results, radiology results, and pathology reports on their own.

The survey results also showed that about 75% of patients felt their provider should contact them within 24 hours of the release of abnormal results, whereas 9% of clinicians agreed with that timeframe.

Balancing transparency and patient benefit

"For a lot of providers, the concern is that these results can come back at 6 o'clock on a Friday night, at 9 o'clock on Saturday morning," Tevis explains. "I've had patients whose results came in on Thanksgiving Day. So, as providers, one of the concerns is how to provide the best care to patients while also managing time.

"With my patient whose results came in on Thanksgiving, I was going back and forth with, 'Do I call my patient? Do I not call my patient?' I tend to send a message through the electronic medical records system saying, 'This looks good for these reasons and I'll call you tomorrow' or 'I'll call you at an appropriate time'."

When the transition to immediate release of EHI was announced, Leonard says, many providers expressed concern about the impact it would have on their patients, as well as how they could adjust their workflows so they could call or message their patients right away.

UCHealth has been at the forefront of connecting patients with access to their EHI, led in particular by CT Lin, MD, a professor of internal medicine in the CU School of Medicine. The access and transparency benefits and empowers patients in their health care, Leonard says, but an area of concern for providers is how to help patients navigate the complex medical terminology and data generally found in lab and test results.

The survey included a section asking patients to define certain medical terms to get a baseline of their understanding, Leonard says, as well as sections asking for their opinions about receiving results and their experience with online portals for medical records.

Understanding patient comfort level

Results from the survey offer significant insights into areas of differing expectations between patients and providers, Leonard says. They also can inform institutions and providers in creating resources to support patients in receiving and understanding their EHI.

"One of the things that was interesting in the survey is how patients view their comfort with interpreting results compared with how providers view patients' comfort," Leonard says. "In general, patients reported they felt more comfortable interpreting lab results, pathology results, and radiology results than providers felt patients were. So how do we address that disconnect between what providers think patients can do and what patients think patients can do?"

Other areas for further research and resource development include addressing the digital divide and supporting patients with less or no access to devices to view their electronic records, as well as supporting patient populations with lower health literacy, Tevis says.

"Even before the 21st Century Cures Act, it's been a challenge in health care to support patients who might want to immediately turn to Google," Tevis says. "It's really hard for anybodypatients, providers, anybody in health careto determine what's good information and not good information on the internet. It can be hard to make your way to reliable resources, especially if you're now trying to understand complex lab results."

Creating resources for patients

Leonard recently received a quality improvement grant provided through the CU School of Medicine's Clinical Effectiveness and Patient Safety (CEPS) program to create and pilot educational tools that patients can use while viewing their EHI in the online portal. The goal, Tevis says, is to involve patients in the process of creating these tools.

The survey results also are significant in guiding conversations with providers, Leonard says, who are looking to give patients the best quality of care while also working with them to manage their expectations about when providers contact them about results.

"Based on the survey results, I don't think provider concerns were coming from a place of not wanting patients to have access to data or not wanting to communicate with patients in a timely way," Leonard says. "We saw in the comments we received that people who were concerned about this were worried about patient distress and causing undue harm".

"Nobody felt that patients shouldn't have the information, they were just concerned about the immediacy aspect. They wanted to be able to speak with the patient first or at least have a plan in place for when they would speak to the patient and how they would go through the results together."

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More information: Laura D. Leonard et al, Patient and clinician perceptions of the immediate release of electronic health information, The American Journal of Surgery (2021). Laura D. Leonard et al, Patient and clinician perceptions of the immediate release of electronic health information,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2021.12.002
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

People who feel depressed are more likely to believe vaccine-related misinformation, according to a new study coauthored by a Rutgers researcher during a time when depression rates are higher due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, found that people with moderate or greater symptoms of depression (such as little interest in doing things, trouble sleeping or concentrating, poor appetite or overeating, and feeling bad about yourself) were more likely to believe at least 1 of 4 false statements about COVID-19 vaccines. Those who believed the statements to be true were half as likely to be vaccinated.

According to National Center for Health Statistics, approximately one-quarter of adults in the U.S. have consistently reported moderate or greater depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest people suffering from depression may be at a higher risk of COVID-19, highlighting the need to address mental health disorders.

According to the data, 29.3 percent of people with moderate or more depressive symptoms supported this misinformation, compared with 15.1 percent of those without.

While the researchers did not examine why, the link may be driven by a negativity bias, which causes people suffering from depression to focus more on content that evokes negative emotions.

"It's clear the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the mental health of Americans, especially young people," said coauthor Katherine Ognyanova, an associate professor of communication at Rutgers' School of Communication and Information. "Now more than ever, we must watch for depressive symptoms among our communities, but platforms and the media also have a major role to play to avoid undesirable health outcomes."

The study authors used data from the research group The COVID States Project, which conducted surveys approximately once every six weeks since April 2020. The researchers analyzed data from 15,464 adults in the U.S. Participants were asked to rate vaccine-related misinformation as accurate (statement is true), inaccurate (statement is not true) or not sure. The four statements of misinformation included "The COVID-19 vaccines will alter people's DNA," "The COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips that could track people," "The COVID-19 vaccines contain the lung tissue of aborted fetuses," and "The COVID-19 vaccines can cause infertility, making it more difficult to get pregnant."

Survey participants completed a health questionnaire to measure major depressive symptoms over two weeks. Additional survey items asked respondents whether they used particular social media platforms and whether they had used any of a list of news sources (including MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, Newsmax, Facebook and the Biden administration) as sources of COVID-19related news over the previous 24 hours.

The authors used survey data captured between April 1 and May 3, 2021, and between June 9 and July 7, 2021. The surveys were administered before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its full approval for the vaccine; since December 2020, the vaccine had been available due to an Emergency Use Authorization provide by the FDA.

Explore further Depressive symptoms increased among seniors during COVID-19

More information: Roy H. Perlis et al, Association of Major Depressive Symptoms With Endorsement of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation Among US Adults,

JAMA Netw Open (2022). Roy H. Perlis et al, Association of Major Depressive Symptoms With Endorsement of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation Among US Adults,(2022). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.45697
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Annual rates of outpatient visits for mental health and substance use among Ontario physicians increased by 27 percent during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. There were 1,038 visits per 1,000 physicians during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 817 in the previous year.

Overall, there were 26,266 mental health visits made by physicians in the year before the pandemic compared to 31,936 in the first year of the pandemic.

The proportion of health care visits by physicians related to mental health also increased. Pre-pandemic, 23 percent of all outpatient visits by physicians were mental health visits. In the first five months of the pandemic, this increased to 28.3 percent, then returned to 23 percent during the next seven months as all-cause visits increased.

Physicians, like other health care workers, faced enormous work-related stressors during the pandemic. These included potentially greater risk of exposure to COVID-19, concerns of infecting their friends, family and colleagues, and challenging workloads.

"Surveys of physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic have found increased reports of depression, anxiety and burnout. However, because these surveys generally only capture a single point in time and many had a very low response rate, it was unclear how reflective they were of physician mental health overall," said lead author Dr. Daniel Myran, a family physician, public health and preventive medicine specialist, and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa Department of Family Medicine and The Ottawa Hospital. "To help understand how COVID-19 has been impacting physician mental health we looked at changes over time in health care visits by physicians."

Dr. Myran and his colleagues linked anonymized data from 34,000 practicing physicians in Ontario to the health administrative databases at ICES. They looked at all in-person and virtual care outpatient visits to a psychiatrist or primary care physician that were coded as related to mental health or substance use.

The study's findings suggest the pandemic has placed a considerable strain on the mental health of physicians. "We found a large increase in mental health visits by physicians during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which raises real concerns about worsening physician mental health," said Dr. Myran. "We found that more physicians were accessing mental health services during the pandemic, and that physicians who accessed services did so more often."

"Physician mental health can be a sensitive topic, so protecting physician privacy was a key part of this innovative research. A specialized team ensured all physician data was anonymous and that it was never possible to identify an individual physician," said co-senior author Dr. Peter Tanuseputro, a physician-scientist at The Ottawa Hospital, ICES, and the Bruyere Research Institute and assistant professor at the Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa.

There were no significant differences in increases of mental health visits between men and women, older and younger physicians, urban or rural physicians, or between physicians who cared directly for patients with COVID-19 in the emergency department or admitted to hospital and those who did not.

"We were surprised to see no change in mental health visits by physicians who provided direct care to COVID-19 patients in hospital, as in other studies they reported greater mental health impacts," said co-senior author Dr. Manish Sood, a physician-scientist and Jindal Research Chair for the Prevention of Kidney Disease at The Ottawa Hospital, and associate professor at the University of Ottawa. "We did notice that this group of physicians, which included individuals in critical care, emergency medicine and internal medicine, already had lower rates of mental health visits pre-pandemic. This could mean they have greater resilience, more reluctance to seek care, or have work schedules that are a barrier to seeking care. However, it's important to note that our study only looked at the first year of the pandemic, and the situation has changed since, particularly with the omicron variant now putting incredible pressure on the healthcare system."

The researchers note that the expansion of virtual care options during the pandemic may have played a role in increased mental health visits by physicians.

"There is a lot of stigma in the medical profession when it comes to mental health and accessing services," says Dr. Tanuseputro. "It's possible that virtual appointments reduced some of these barriers because they fit more easily into a physician's schedule and were less visible to their colleagues."

Aside from insights into the COVID-19 pandemic, the research team also noticed some general patterns about mental health visits by physicians when they looked at the over 50,000 visits included in the study.

First, female physicians had higher rates of mental health visits compared to male physicians (1,059 per 1,000 physicians vs. 596 per 1,000 physicians), which is consistent with what's seen in the general population.

Second, some specialties had far more mental health visits than others. For example, psychiatrists had the highest rate of annual visits at 3,442 per 1,000 physicians while surgeons had the lowest rate of visits at 370 per 1,000 physicians.

"Not all physicians are the same, and some specialties face different pressures and realities. The differences we saw between specialties may be explained by specialty-specific attitudes towards seeking care for mental health," said Dr. Sood. "For example, previous studies have shown that many psychiatrists report routinely attending therapy for both personal and professional reasons, while other work has highlighted that surgeons are less likely to seek mental health care due to perceived stigma. These findings suggest on ongoing need to destigmatize physician mental health, and to encourage physicians to seek mental health care when they need it."

"While the pandemic may have exacerbated physician mental health concerns, our study suggests that many of these concerns predate the pandemic," said Dr. Myran. "Going forward, mental health interventions for physicians should focus both on stressors specific to COVID-19 as well as pre-pandemic factors, many of which may require system-level changes and reinvestment in the healthcare system."

"Physicians were experiencing burn out from overburdened and under-resourced health systems long before the pandemic," says Dr. Katharine Smart, President of the Canadian Medical Association. "This study illustrates the impact of the pandemic on an already exhausted physician workforce. When we talk about health system capacity, we are often talking about peoplethe physicians, nurses, and many other health professionals who care for us all. We must prioritize their health and well-being as we navigate future waves of the pandemic and plan for a post-pandemic health system."

Explore further ED visits for pediatric mental health issues up during COVID-19

More information: Trends in Physician healthcare visits for mental health and substance use during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada. JAMA Network Open (2022). Journal information: JAMA Network Open Trends in Physician healthcare visits for mental health and substance use during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada.(2022). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.43160

Provided by The Ottawa Hospital
The discovery of the cystic fibrosis gene led to treatments and long-term survival for patients. Credit: Shutterstock

The nomination deadline to recognize transformative discoveries for the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine is fast approaching. These nominations are by invitation only and are due by the end of January.

Besides those for the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines, several others are prominent. This includes the discovery of the cystic fibrosis gene and the drugs to treat the disease. The disease was first identified in 1938, and is no longer a cause of near-certain deaths in infants. Today, Canada leads the world with a 52-year median age of survival for patients with cystic fibrosis.

Indeed, it was in Canada that the field of cystic fibrosis research had its breakthrough in 1989 when the gene that causes cystic fibrosis was discovered along with the prevalent mutation that caused the disease. It was in Toronto that geneticist Lap-Chee Tsui, working with biochemist Jack Riordan and physician and geneticist Francis Collins, who then at the University of Michigan, designed a strategy to discover not only the gene but also the mutation that causes cystic fibrosis.

Single gene mutation

Cystic fibrosis affects the fluidity of secretions from lungs, pancreas, liver, sweat glands and other organs, making them thicker and stickier. The recessive genetic defect is due to a mutation in a single gene. Tsui had discovered that a segment of chromosome 7 harbored the mutant gene in patients.

Collins innovated methods to zero in and whittle down the DNA into fragments, and used genetic mapping markers to narrow down DNA sequences housing the cystic fibrosis gene. Using these fragments, the team fished out corresponding DNA fragments extracted from sweat gland cells of patients.

Sweat glands in cystic fibrosis patients are unable to reabsorb salts during perspiration. Riordan used easily accessible tissue samples with sweat glands from cystic fibrosis patients and their parents to grow sweat gland cells. Extracted RNA was then used to make a DNA copy, exactly as we do today for PCR tests to detect the presence of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The sequencing of this DNA then enabled them to deduce a single gene product from the patients' sweat gland cells. They then used a computer to translate the sequence into the protein this gene product generates. In this way, Tsui, Riordan and Collins deduced a single protein made up of 1,479 amino acids.

Lap-Chee Tsui, Canadian Medical Hall of Fame Laureate 2012.

Comparing sequenced proteins

The genius of the experimental design was now to do the same for sweat gland cells isolated from the parents of cystic fibrosis patients. Proteins are made of long sequences of amino acids. When the normal protein amino acid sequence was compared with the cystic fibrosis sequence, a single amino acid known as phenylalanine was missing from the mutant protein. They had discovered the major mutation affecting about 70 percent of cystic fibrosis patients.

The function of the protein they had uncovered was unknown at that time but there were clues that revealed its similarity to other proteins that transported substances including ions into and out of cells. Today we understand the mechanism of how the protein works as a channel that enables chloride ions to leave cells.

It is these chloride ions that enable the surface of the lungs, pancreas, sweat glands and the liver, as well as the kidney and male reproductive tract, to remain bathed in fluid and unclogged.

Treatment breakthroughs

Patients and their families have been in the forefront of the discovery process. Besides being caregivers and advocates for their children, they also supplied tissues for the discovery research. As the diagnosis and care of patients have improved, a further breakthrough was the development of drugs to treat cystic fibrosis. These have had a dramatic effect, doubling the life expectancy of patients such that today patients may reach adulthood and beyond.

Two types of drugs are available; these are known as potentiators and correctors. The potentiators help the cystic fibrosis protein maintain a channel for the chloride ions that help keep the surface of the lungs and other organs bathed in fluid.

The correctors stabilize the fragile mutant protein. The enhanced stability enables enough of the protein to bypass the quality control machinery that otherwise would target the mutant protein for degradation in one of the trash systems of the cell (the proteasome). With the combination of the corrector drugs that enable the mutant protein to access the surface of lung, pancreas, liver and sweat gland cells, and potentiator drugs that keep the ion channel open, the protein can perform its duty.

How fluid builds up in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis.

In the lungs, this chloride channel enables the fluidity of mucus that would otherwise accumulate infectious bacteria and prevent normal lung functioning, especially breathing.

Remarkably, the gene causing cystic fibrosis was discovered without knowledge of how the protein worked in cells. Furthermore, the discovery of the drugs used to treat it were discovered without knowledge of exactly how the drugs worked.

Thousands of labs globally uncovered how proteins such as the chloride channel work in cells, how they are made, how the quality control machinery could select such a subtle change as a single amino acid loss to target the mutant protein for degradation and exactly what is meant by increased protein fragility, how cells decode this and how the potentiator and corrector drugs work. This is basic science research at its best.

Applying the discoveries

The immediate consequences of the breakthrough of Tsui, Riordan and Collins in 1989 were not only for the cystic fibrosis community. In 1990, they proposed the Human Genome Project based on the proof of principal discovery of the cystic fibrosis gene they had uncovered.

Collins left the University of Michigan to direct the Human Genome Project as head of the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This was followed in 2009 by his appointment as overall director of the NIH, a post he held until December 2021. For the drug discovery effort, it is the talented researchers in biotech and academia that discovered how to make the drugs and how they worked, with the most recent discovery in January 2022.

That the breakthroughs made by Tsui, Riordan and Collins are still yielding new insights speaks to its significance and ongoing relevance in science and medicine. The much longer lives of people with cystic fibrosis speak to its great importance to patients and their families.

John Bergeron gratefully acknowledges Kathleen Dickson as co-author.

Explore further New hope for cystic fibrosis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Despite eye and reaching movements being simultaneously directed to the same left hand, these two movements pointed at different parts of the left hand. This finding indicates that there are multipleat least twobody representations in mind. Credit: Kazumichi Matsumiya

Our brain maps out our body to facilitate accurate motor control; disorders of this body map result in motor deficits. For a century, the body map has been thought to have applied to all types of motor actions. Yet scientists have begun to query how the body map operates when executing different motor actions, such as moving your eyes and hands together.

A recent research paper by Professor Kazumichi Matsumiya from Tohoku University's Graduate School of Information Sciences has revealed that the body relies on multiple maps based on the choice of motor system.

Details of his research were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 19, 2022.

Patients with motor dysfunction have abnormalities in their hands and feet that are felt in the brain. Traditional rehabilitation takes in to account the physical dysfunctions. But recovery of the neurological aspects is not visible and subjective.

To reveal more behind our body map, Matsumiya organized an experiment where participants were instructed to point to various parts of their right hand with the index finger on their left hand whilst simultaneously following with their eyes. This enabled him to measure the mind's perception of the right hand for the eyes and the left hand movements.

Even though the eye and the left hand were pointing to the same spots, the imaging from the pointing was more distorted, demonstrating the existence of a separate body map.

Credit: Tohoku University

Matsumiya expects his findings to contribute to the development of new diagnostic techniques for motor dysfunction. "Today, Japan's population is aging rapidly, so we are experiencing a sharp increase in the number of patients with motor dysfunctions. Better understanding of how patients' bodies are perceived by their minds will help to build a more effective rehabilitation technique."

Explore further Using VR training to boost the sense of agency and improve motor control

More information: Kazumichi Matsumiya, Multiple representations of the body schema for the same body part, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Kazumichi Matsumiya, Multiple representations of the body schema for the same body part,(2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2112318119
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Russia on Friday reported a record number of new coronavirus infections over the previous 24 hours, a government tally showed, with officials warning of surging cases driven by the Omicron variant.

A government website reported 49,513 new infections in Russia, which is already one the world's worst-hit countries by caseload, surpassing the previous record set in November of 41,335.

The number of cases across Russia has risen sharply in recent days, with authorities predicting an imminent surge due to the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

The new record set comes one day after Moscowthe epicentre of the outbreak in Russiasaid it had seen its highest number of new cases.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last week that the country had two weeks to prepare for a surge in cases, calling for more testing and vaccinations.

The developers of Russia's flagship vaccine, Sputnik V, said this week that its jab demonstrated "strong protection" against Omicron, pointing to a study carried out by the Spallanzani Institute in Italy.

With four vaccines widely available for months, Russians remain reluctant to get jabbed with just under half of the population fully vaccinated.

Russia's government figures have reported 324,752 deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemicthe highest death toll in Europe.

Those figures are contradicted by statistics agency Rosstat, which counts COVID deaths under a broader definition and says the overall death toll is close to double the official figure.

Explore further Omicron-hit Moscow reports record daily COVID cases

 2022 AFP
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Nearly 70% of college students say they are experiencing emotional distress or anxiety related to the pandemic. That's according to a January 2022 survey that also found nearly 9 out of every 10 college students believe U.S. colleges and universities are facing a mental health crisis.

Below are five articles from the archives of The Conversation that highlight tips for college students to take better care of their mental health.

1. Prioritize your mental health

When students do poorly in a class due to mental health issues, occasionally they might seek a medical exception that can withdraw them from the class instead of failing it. But students who get this exception often fail to seek the actual help they need to deal with the mental health issue that led them to do poorly in the first place.

That's according to Nicholas Joyce, a psychologist at the University of South Florida.

"In my experience, many students who get the medical exception return the next semester without addressing their mental health needs and end up failing more courses," writes Joyce.

Joyce recommends four ways college students can avoid having to seek a medical exception in the first place.

2. Seek campuses designed to boost your mood

When selecting a college to attend, students should look at whether the campus design benefits their mental health.

Two scholars from North Central College in Naperville, IllinoisCarly Drake, assistant professor of marketing, and Diane Bruce Anstine, Dean of the school of business and entrepreneurshipwrite about five campus design features that benefit students' mental health.

"Campus design affects the college experience, and students can choose a campus or change their existing routines to support their mental health," they write. "Such consideration is especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic, when new rules and norms have left many students more anxious and depressed than normal."

3. Make a wellness plan

Before students even set foot on campus, they should develop a wellness plan to help them avoid major emotional distress. That's according to Sandra M. Chafouleas, professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut, who details what every student's wellness plan should include.

" personal wellness plans must be customized to meet each individual student's own needs," she writes. "And I believe that since it is unclear whether new college students will be on physical campuses this fall or learning online, these plans are more important than ever."

4. Avoid academic burnout

When college students suffer from burnout, it often leads them to experience feelings of isolation, low accomplishment and depression.

Ryan Korstange, assistant professor of university studies at Middle Tennessee State University, writes about five tips on how college students can avoid exhaustion.

"The most effective way of preventing burnout is being sure you know why you're in college to begin with," he writes. "Build your internal motivation by identifying the skills you need to develop and the experiences you want to have while you are in college."

5. Spend time with a therapy dog

Research has shown that spending just 10 minutes with a therapy dog can reduce college students' stress levels. That's why Christine Kivlen, an assistant professor of occupational therapy at Wayne State University, recommends students seek out therapy dog programs on campus. Kivlen writes about the calming effects of spending time with a therapy dog.

"Among other benefits, therapy dogs can help students achieve a stronger sense of belonging and better deal with being homesick and lonely, while also lessening their anxiety and stress."

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
FRIDAY, Jan. 21, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- One less excuse to avoid that COVID vaccine: The shots don't affect fertility in either men or women, new research shows, but coronavirus infection could cause short-term fertility problems in men.

"Many reproductive-aged individuals have cited concerns about fertility as a reason for remaining unvaccinated," said lead study author Amelia Wesselink. She is research assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health.

"Our study shows for the first time that COVID-19 vaccination in either partner is unrelated to fertility among couples trying to conceive through intercourse. Time-to-pregnancy was very similar regardless of vaccination status," Wesselink said in a university news release.

For the study, Wesselink's team analyzed data from more than 2,100 American and Canadian women and their male partners in an ongoing study of women trying to conceive.

The women provided demographic, lifestyle and medical information about themselves and their partners from December 2020 to September 2021, and were followed through November 2021.

The researchers found that the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines had no effect on male or female fertility.

However, men infected with COVID-19 may have a temporary decline in their fertility, the investigators found.

The report was published Jan. 20 in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The findings support previous research linking COVID-19 infection in men with poor sperm quality and other reproductive dysfunction. The researchers said the findings should ease concerns about COVID-19 vaccines and fertility prompted by anecdotal reports of women having menstrual cycle changes after getting their shots.

"These data provide reassuring evidence that COVID vaccination in either partner does not affect fertility among couples trying to conceive," said study senior author Lauren Wise, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University.

"The prospective study design, large sample size, and geographically heterogeneous study population are study strengths, as was our control for many variables such as age, socioeconomic status, preexisting health conditions, occupation and stress levels," she explained.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a list of myths and facts about COVID-19 vaccines.

SOURCE: Boston University School of Public Health, news release, Jan. 20, 2022

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A Hungry Horse woman who admitted to selling methamphetamine throughout Flathead County was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on Friday.

Kalynn Marie Moskaloff, 25, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute meth in September. Her time in prison will be followed by five years of supervised release.

U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy presided at Friday's sentencing.

Law enforcement learned through confidential informants that Moskaloff was selling meth around Kalispell and the Flathead Valley area, according to court documents. Officials were granted a search warrant in January 2020 after they had arrested Moskaloff during a traffic stop in Hungry Horse. They recovered 7.32 grams of the drug and firearms in her car.

She was also selling heroin around Kalispell, court documents allege. Informants told officers Moskaloff would travel to Portland, Seattle and Spokane to obtain the drugs to bring them back to western Montana.

In February 2021, Flathead County sheriffs deputies conducted a traffic stop of a car suspected to be driven by Moskaloff. Authorities apprehended her. During a later search of the car 113 grams of methamphetamine was recovered along with a firearm and an assortment of other drug paraphernalia.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer S. Clark prosecuted the case, which was investigated by FBIs Montana Regional Violent Crime Task Force, the Flathead County Sheriffs Office and Kalispell Police Department.

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Students at the University of Montanas School of Journalism will have the opportunity to learn more about documentary photography and freelancing from a renowned photographer.

Daniella Zalcman was named the programs T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professor for spring semester. She will teach a course about documentary photography and building a sustainable freelance business.

Ive been a freelance journalist for 15 years and it has never been as tough as it has been since March 2020, Zalcman said. The idea of just taking a little bit of a step back from being a photographer and being able to fully immerse myself in teaching, which is something that I really love, was pretty exciting.

The T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professor is a guest professor position created in 2001 by the family of T. Anthony Pollner, a 1999 UM journalism graduate who died in a motorcycle accident.

Zalcman graduated with a degree in architecture from Columbia in 2019. Her ongoing photography project, Signs of Your Identity, has won multiple awards including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. She is also the co-founder of We, Women, a project that amplifies women and nonbinary perspectives, and she co-authored the Photo Bill of Rights. Her work has been featured in National Geographic Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, The New York Times and other outlets.

Daniella has impeccable credentials as a working photojournalist and will expose our students to an incredible wealth of experience and knowledge, said Denise Dowling, director of UMs journalism school.

In addition to her impressive resume, Zalcman also is a co-founder of Indigenous Photograph, an online database that aims to elevate the work of Indigenous visual journalists. Zalcman co-founded the website with Tailyr Irvine, a professional photojournalist who graduated from the University of Montana School of Journalism.

Irvine was also the one who encouraged Zalcman to apply for the T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professor position. The two first met at a photography workshop in New York a few years ago.

I wish I had access to a mentor like Daniella when I was in college. She is a person who cares deeply about the people in her photographs and projects and fights to protect their images and tell their stories, Irvine said.

As a graduate from UM and freelance photojournalist, Irvine knows exactly how Zalcmans experience will benefit current students. While in college, she felt that her classes were geared more toward preparing students for staff positions at newspapers, which are hard to come by anymore.

When I began my career as a freelance journalist I realized very quickly that I had no idea what I was doing. I had so many questions, Irvine said.

The industry has quickly changed and there is so much I wished I learned about freelancing, from taxes and contracts to organizing and funding the work I wanted to do, she continued later. Freelancing is so much more than taking images and telling stories, its a full-on business and I think Daniellas class will be extremely beneficial to those who want to know how to balance it all and build a sustainable career.

In Zalcmans class this semester, students will be tasked with following a story for the entire four months of classes, which will be treated like a freelance assignment for a magazine. Students will have to pitch stories, write out coverage plans and how they would theoretically fund their project.

Its, if anything, going to focus less on the photography itself because I have a lot of confidence in Gen Z journalism students  that they understand how to make photographs, Zalcman said.

Its really more about how do you learn how to be a successful journalist on assignment? And then in parallel with that, were going to talk about a lot of the business things, she continued.

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SUPERIOR  Its been a hard day, Angela Mastrovito said as she put up signs for her missing daughter in the wind and rain outside of the Mineral County Courthouse.

Thursday marked six months since Rebekah Barsotti's disappearance.

Barsotti, who turned 35 in December, has been missing since July 20, when she was last seen about 2:15 p.m. at Town Pump in Superior. Her car was seen at a rest area near mile marker 71 on Interstate 90 along with some personal items.

Since then, her loved ones have received little in the way of answers.

The impact has been deafening, the silence has been deafening, Mastrovito said. Shes been staying in Missoula since Barsotti first disappeared. She had originally planned to return to her home on the East Coast in the fall, but extended her trip several months to support search efforts and continue seeking justice for her daughter.

Despite the unfavorable weather conditions, a handful of people showed up Thursday afternoon in Superior Thursday to support Mastrovito and Barsotti. Signs included pictures of Barsotti, with the question, "Have you seen me?" and others that encouraged domestic violence awareness.

Seth Hofer has been helping Barsottis mom with awareness efforts and was at Thursday's vigil.

We cant just forget about Rebekah, Hofer said. This is to let people know shes not forgotten.

Community searches have largely subsided because of the weather and snow, Mastrovito said. They have pinpointed spots to look when searches can resume. Barsotti's family has also hired two private investigators to help put pieces of the puzzle together.

These investigators are separate entities from local law enforcement, and Mineral County Sheriff Mike Toth said his team has continued to follow reliable leads passed along to them. He also said the Montana Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigations will be coming to Superior in a few weeks to review Mineral County's case file on Rebekah.

"We're at where we're at," Toth said.

In September, the Missoula County Sheriffs Office issued a news release saying all leads have been exhausted in relation to Barsottis disappearance. The case was returned to Mineral County, where it remains an active missing persons case.

For Mastrovito, her daughters case has transitioned into an effort to raise domestic violence awareness, citing allegations that Barsottis former spouse was abusive. Authorities have not connected Barsottis case to domestic violence.

Last March, David Barsotti, who Rebekah was separated from, was arrested on suspicion of partner or family member assault that caused a reasonable apprehension of bodily injury, according to court documents filed in to the Mineral County Justice Court. As a result of the arrest, David was ordered to have no contact with Rebekah.

I would love to find Rebekah, but if we have to use this as a catalyst to do good for the community, so be it, Mastrovito said.

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A reporter for a West Virginia television station was filming a live shot reporting on a water main break when a car unexpectedly hit her from behind on Wednesday night.

Despite the accident, the reporter, Tori Yorgey, got up and finished her live shot anyway.

I just got hit by a car but Im OK, Tim, Yorgey told the anchor at WSAZ.

According to Yorgeys Twitter bio, she was born and raised outside of Philadelphia.

Believe it or not, it was not her first run-in with a car.

I actually got hit by a car in college too just like that, Yorgey said shortly after getting hit by the car on live TV.

Sometimes when things go wrong during a TV news broadcast, the camera fades to black or cuts back to the studio, but here, the camera kept rolling and Yorgey went on with her live shot.

The anchor in the studio asked Yorgey if she was bumped down low or hit up high and she responded, I dont even know, Tim. My whole life just flashed before my eyes.

But this is live TV and everything is OK! Yorgey continued as the camera kept rolling.

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A local hip-hop dancer recently took first-place for freestyle dancing in a regional competition.

Jonathan Hensley, co-owner and instructor at The Dance Factory and Event Center of Morganton, was named the 2021 Freestyle Battle Soloist at the senior level of the Showstopper dance convention held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina from Nov. 5-7.

Showstopper is described as Americas first, longest running and most prestigious dance competition, according to goshowstopper.com.

Showstopper set the standards for competitive dance in America with the first and longest aired dance competition television show, broadcasted on national television for 20 years, the website reads. Showstopper hosts over 50 events a year throughout the United States and internationally. In 2018, our stages saw over 50,000 dancers from all across the world.

Angela Hensley, office manager of the dance studio, explained that Showstopper added the freestyle battle soloist competition in 2018.

This is where the hip-hop dancers dance it out in a freestyle battle, Angela said. Freestyle is when they play a song, and you come up with the choreography on the spot (with) no practice time.

Jonathan also was recognized as the top hip-hop choreographer for the 2021 National winning dance Apocalypse.

Angela explained that Jonathan has performed in dance since he was seven years old and has taught at The Dance Factory since he was 12.

If you have watched dance performances at the Morganton Festival or have attended one of The Dance Factorys performances, you have probably seen this young man perform or watched some of his choreography, Angela said. He has practiced and trained under some of the worlds best hip-hop dancers in the industry.

He is an eight-year veteran of the Showstopper competition.

He will judge next years event, which is a huge opportunity, and he is looking forward to many more opportunities with this organization, Angela said.

Jonathans student, Jallen LaFevers, made it to the top dance-off in the junior division and placed second in the freestyle battle.

In total, seven dancers from The Dance Factory made it in the final battles in the Showstopper competition:

Jonathan Hensley

Jallen Lafevers

China Burwell

Ally Bryant

Keiven LaFevers

Emma Brown

Soraya Hartman

For more information about The Dance Factory, visit thedancefactoryandeventcenter.com.
FlixBus, a national intercity bus service, is adding a permanent stop on West Street in Annapolis.

Starting Thursday, FlixBus, which has more than 2,000 U.S. destinations in its network, will begin offering round-trip services at 80 West St. between Calvert and West Washington streets. The new stop is part of the companys expansion of its Northeast corridor, which has stops in Baltimore, New York City, Boston, Richmond and Washington, D.C.

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We are very excited for this long-awaited expansion into Annapolis to continue adding new options for travelers along one of our most popular routes in the U.S., said Pierre Gourdain, managing director of FlixBus USA, in a statement. Annapolis is a community that is rich in history and culture, and we hope FlixBus riders will use this chance to visit one of the most beautiful cities in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The stop is located in the Historic District and within walking distance of the waterfront, Maryland State House and other attractions. Gotts Court and Whitmore parking garages are just around the corner. Its also where the Route 220 Commuter and Route 230 buses currently drop off, which arrive from Washington and Severna Park, respectively. A green FlixBus sign will be affixed to the stop, the company said.

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FlixBus was founded in Germany in 2011 and also operates train, car and Greyhound lines. FlixBus launched in the United States in 2018, pitching itself as an environmentally friendly transportation alternative. The company has expanded across Europe, North America and South America.

FlixBus buses feature amenities like free Wi-Fi, power outlets for every seat and extra legroom.

In an effort to improve environmental sustainability, the company offers carbon-neutral ticketing options. FlixBus has partnered with atmosfair, a German nonprofit that seeks to offset greenhouse gas emissions by developing renewable energy projects, to let riders purchase CO2 Compensation tickets. The slightly more expensive ticket  about 1% to 3% of the original ticket price  is donated to the National Forest Foundation to give passengers a tangible way to reduce their carbon footprints, according to the company.

A round-trip ticket from Washington to New York City, one of the companys most popular routes, goes for about $60, according to its website.
An activists testy exchange with a small-town police chief is stoking outsized outrage on YouTube, turning what could have been a teachable moment into a public relations nightmare.

Sean Paul Reyes is a self-styled First Amendment auditor, asserting his right to record video in public places by staging confrontations with local officials. Those who question him are named and shamed on his YouTube channel, Long Island Audit, which boasts 181,000 subscribers.

A viral video and a dose of negative publicity is just deserts for police officers who assault and arrest citizens without legal justification. That didnt happen when Reyes trained his lens on Pooler, Georgia, a Savannah suburb of 25,000 souls.

The nearly 24-minute video posted to YouTube on Sunday proved Pooler police unfamiliar with citizen photography rights. After filming his trip to file a public records request at City Hall, Reyes proceeded toward the police station next door for a compliance check.

A sergeant approached Reyes and asked for his name, explaining that his trek through the employee parking lot made city workers uncomfortable. Reyes wouldnt give his name or show ID. He didnt have to, as Georgia state law only requires people to identify themselves to police when theyre suspected of a crime.

As cop and citizen spoke, Police Chief Ashley Brown and a plainclothes detective joined them in the parking lot. A circular conversation ensued, with police asking for ID and Reyes refusing. Brown eventually told him to leave the lot, warning that Reyes would be trespassing if he remained. He ambled a few steps over to the sidewalk.

The officers walked away, but Reyes reengaged them to file a complaint. Chief Brown said he couldnt film inside the police station and told him to leave. After completing the complaint form outside and returning it to the chief, Reyes asked for a public records request form and repeated the routine.

Police shouldnt have banned Reyes from walking through an open, unsecured parking lot or declining a voluntary ID check, and they should have let him fill out his forms indoors instead of ejecting him from the lobby. Those mistakes notwithstanding, the interaction was uneventful. No one laid a hand on Reyes, and neither weapons nor handcuffs were unholstered.

Police Chief Demonstrates Why Tyranny Runs From the Top Down in His Department, the Long Island Audit videos title screams in all-capital letters. Reyes pairs this with an over-the-top YouTube description encouraging viewers to complain to Poolers city government on his behalf. His audience was eager to oblige.

Overwrought comments flooded the Pooler Police Departments Facebook page, and the city was inundated with angry messages. Reyes sicced a nationwide network of cop-bashers and antigovernment activists on the sleepy Southern town to demand Brown be stripped of his badge.

Three days after the video appeared online, Pooler was in full crisis management mode. My calls to the mayor, city manager and city attorney to get their side of the story yielded no takers. A request to interview the chief was routed to a voicemail account for the Pooler Police Department complaint line. Even a cordial message for the Greater Pooler Area Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau went unreturned.

First Amendment audits may have started as an earnest effort to educate officers and citizens about public photography rights, but theyve morphed into performative police antagonism. Grifters provoke confrontations, cashing in on public outrage as they portray misguided or inadequately trained cops as sinister authoritarians.

Reyes is no civic-minded volunteer. He told the New York Post for a July story that he made $8,000 in his first month baiting cops for clicks. Its more lucrative than his previous job as a warehouse manager.

Their combative tactics are jarring, but First Amendment auditors often have the law on their side. Joseph Scheid, police chief in Coldwater, Michigan, advises fellow officials to grin and bear it.

Were really going to kill them with kindness, Scheid told Kalamazoo CBS affiliate WWMT last month. Well talk to them and answer any questions they have.

No conflict means no clickbait, and when videos stop going viral, provocateurs stop getting paid. The surest way to send the auditors packing? Smile for the camera.

Corey Friedman writes on political conflicts from an independent perspective. Follow him on Twitter @coreywrites.
A Butte man who had sex with a 14-year-old girl multiple times before she was reported as a runaway and later found hiding in his house told a judge Thursday that she was very mature for her age and he was not a criminal.

Im not that person or that monster that some people have made me out to be, 33-year-old Cody Eaton Allen told District Judge Kurt Krueger.

But prosecutor Samm Cox said Eaton had a daughter the same damn age as the victim and called his actions and text messages with the girl disgusting. The texts included talk of bondage, pimping her out and wanting to kill her parents, Cox said, and he also sent her a photo of his genitals.

After an hour-long hearing, Krueger agreed with Coxs recommendations and sentenced Eaton to 50 years in the Montana State Prison, with 20 of them suspended.

The defendant, just in the statement to the court right now, says hes not a criminal, but this act is truly a criminal act, Krueger said. An individual doing this type of conduct is manipulating and causing sustained physical and mental harm to a minor child.

Prosecutors had initially charged Eaton with four felonies but as part of a deal, he pleaded guilty to one rape charge  sexual intercourse without consent  after admitting he had sex with the girl in 2019 knowing she was only 14. He was 30 at the time.

His attorney, Ronald Piper, acknowledged the text messages included some disturbing stuff but said it was just crazy talk and there was never an effort to kill her parents. He argued for a lengthy suspended sentence with no prison time, saying Eaton had already served three years in jail. If there had to be prison time, he suggested 20 years with all but 15 suspended.

Up to this point, it sounds like Mr. Eaton  he hasnt led a perfect life but hes led a primarily law-abiding life, Piper said. He was employed, he was productive, he made a mistake.

Eaton was married when the crimes occurred and had two children with his wife at the time and a step-daughter who is now 14. His ex-wife and the step-daughter sent letters to the court asking for mercy, saying it was important he be reunited with the kids.

Sexual intercourse without consent, when the victim is under 16 years old and the defendant is at least four years older than the victim, carries a minimum sentence of four years in prison and up to life or 100 years. In Montana, anyone under 16 cannot legally consent to sex.

Eatons brother, 28-year-old Brandon Eaton, was sentenced in October to eight years in the Montana State Prison for fondling the breasts of a 15-year-old girl in Butte. He pleaded guilty to sexual assault.

As part of the plea agreement with Cody Eaton, prosecutors dropped two felony counts of sexual abuse of children for allegedly sending the girl sexually explicit photos of himself and having pictures of children engaged in sex on his cell phone. They carry maximum life terms.

He was also charged with one felony count of custodial interference for allegedly withholding the girl from her mother. It is punishable by up to 10 years but was also dropped.

The girl was reported as a runaway on Jan. 12, 2019, and her mother believed she might be with Eaton, prosecutors said in charging documents. Police went to his house on South Excelsior Street in Butte but did not find her there.

Eaton told police he was in the process of moving out, was home alone with his children and had not seen the girl in question in three weeks. One of Eatons children told a school official that her parents were breaking up because Eaton had sex with the 14-year-old girl.

On Jan. 15, police learned of a Facebook Messenger conversation between Eaton and the girl that indicated she might be hiding in the basement of his house.

Police returned there and found a mattress in a crawl space with a backpack that was full of clothes and the girls Montana ID card. Eaton was questioned again and ultimately said the girl was in his house, and police found her hiding under the headboard of his bed.

According to prosecutors, Eaton admitted to helping plan the runaway and said the girl had been at his house the entire time. He also admitted to previously sending her an image of his private parts.

During subsequent interviews, he admitted being attracted to the girl and having sex with her twice. But police say Facebook conversations between the two detailed numerous sexual encounters and one included a picture of the girl completely naked.

Prosecutors say Eaton initially felt he could be a father figure to the girl but eventually developed a physical and sexual attraction to her.

But after charges were filed, Eaton claimed that he couldnt recall events that occurred during the time. He sought a second mental health evaluation that seriously delayed court proceedings, prosecutors say.

He later admitted to the offense, and in part because of that, clinical psychologist Michael Scolatti determined he was a low risk to reoffend and could safely be treated for sexual disorders in a community setting.

Scolatti testified to that via video Thursday, but Cox then read off a litany of text-message passages between Eaton and the girl. Scolatti said he had not seen many of them and agreed that some indicated Eaton was not forthcoming during his evaluations.

Eaton told the judge Thursday he wasnt making any excuses for myself, but then said the girl was very mature for her age, he was not a criminal and was drinking heavily and had been introduced to drugs at the time.

I think that drugs had a big impact on my decision-making, he said via video from the Butte jail.

But Cox said Eaton was an adult who had planned the sexual encounters, and during some of them, the girl would leave her house to walk the dog, Eaton would pick her up and they would have sex in the car.

He said Eaton delayed the case for a long time claiming he couldnt recall anything, then had a Bugs Bunny epiphany when something fell on his head and got his memory back.

Even then, Cox said, he kind of blamed the victim.

Cox said in the presentence investigation report, Eaton told the court he just enjoyed the attention of the girl, who was the same age as his own daughter, and that hes not a monster, and that if somebody had done this to his daughter, hed kill him.

So he does have some understanding of how atrocious his behavior is here, Cox said.

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Three people are now housed in the Butte-Silver Bow Detention Center after burglarizing a Butte business Wednesday night.

On Wednesday, the owner of the Lost Hours Tattoo Shop, 914 Holmes Ave., reported to police he had received some business threats.

Officers went to check out the business at around 11 p.m. Wednesday. Inside were Ricky Andrew Soto, 32, and Kayla Nicole Huffman, 26, both of Anaconda, and Hunter Dylan Bell, 27, of Butte.

When confronted, both Soto and Huffman gave false information during the investigation.

All three were jailed for felony burglary.

Soto was jailed for felony obstructing justice, as well. As for Huffman, she, too was jailed for felony obstructing justice, and for felony possession of dangerous drugs and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.

Meanwhile, Bell was also wanted on a felony escape warrant out of Powell County.

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Butte police reports

No-bond warrants

William Lee Dunmire, 49, of Butte was arrested Tuesday morning in the 3100 block of State Street.

He was jailed on no-bond warrants out of Judge Kurt Kruegers court, Probation and Parole, and an additional warrant out of Anaconda-Deer Lodge County.

Negligent arson

Brandon Alan Breaux, 46, of Butte, was arrested at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday after he allegedly started a small fire in the stairwell of the Park Street parking garage on Park Street.

Breaux was jailed for misdemeanor negligent arson.

Woman punched

It was reported that Johnny Lee Falcon, 36, of Butte allegedly punched a woman Wednesday night in the face, causing injuries.

He was jailed for misdemeanor partner or family member assault. There was also a felony warrant out for his arrest.

Broken window

Someone broke a vehicle's rear window last Saturday while it was parked at the Front Street Market, 8 W. Front St.

Stolen backpack

A car parked in the 300 block of West Mercury Street was broken into Saturday afternoon. Items taken included a backpack with school books, a long board and a bag of clothes.

Asked to leave

Late Saturday night, an unidentified man at the Town Pump, 531 S. Montana St., was asked to leave by staff. As he was walking across the lot, he pulled a knife and pointed it at staff, but then quickly left.

Flag taken

It was reported Sunday that a flag was taken from a residence in the 1000 block of Gold Street.

Near Clark Park

A car parked near Clark Park was broken into Sunday. Among the items taken were a Carhartt coat, tools and ice fishing rods.

Several items

It was recently discovered that sometime after August, a garage in the 1200 block of East Second Street was broken into. The owner reported Monday that the missing items included a trailer with a snowmobile, a chainsaw, and a canoe.

Give it back

A man and woman living on Center Street are in the midst of breaking up. The woman reported Monday afternoon that her boyfriend took some items that belonged to her. The boyfriend told police he would bring it all back.

Trash on fire

On Monday night, a small pile of trash was on fire in the parking garage at 58 W. Park St. It was quickly extinguished.

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After 3 years of pioneering and establishing South Africas most renowned cryptocurrency arbitrage service; Africas hottest fintech and digital asset trading platform has decided to close its crypto arbitrage offering to focus on accelerating its international expansion through its flagship Crypto Trading product.

The crypto exchange is also doubling down on its popular Cryptocurrency Interest Accounts and exciting new fintech offerings which include debit cards, payment solutions and Stock/FX trading.

OVEX CEO, Jon Ovadia says Were ecstatic to bring our offering to new markets and for the exciting new products were launching this year he added, Even though we have decided to move away from the arbitrage service, it has been and continues to be an incredible opportunity for a low-risk trade.

We have done extensive due diligence on some local arbitrage service providers to ensure our clients have a safe and secure alternative once the product is decommissioned on the OVEX platform.

OVEX will accept new deposits for its arbitrage service up till the 31st January 2022 and will conclude all final trades by the 14th of February 2022 (for clients with outstanding offshore investment allowances).

OVEX Arbitrage users funds will remain in secure custody in the OVEX wallet and can be withdrawn at any point or used in other OVEX products such as the USD stablecoin interest accounts (which yield over 9%p/a).

Alternatively, these funds can be traded for other crypto assets using the exchanges state of the art instant Buy/Sell trading tool.

OVEX has seen immense growth in its Over The Counter and retail trading service.

The digital asset trading platform does a remarkable ZAR5.5billion in monthly volume which OVEX will deploy to bring deep liquidity to Kenya, Zambia, Nigeria, The UK and The UAE  with further ambitions to open shop in other offshore markets in 2022.

To reward clients and partners for their support, OVEX has launched a R100m trading rewards program for South Africas largest volume/frequency traders such as high net-worth individuals (HNWIs), asset managers and brokers.

The program will be used to reward OVEX clients trading over R10m per month with trading rebates, increased interest account yields, and other exclusive benefits.

Trade volume on OVEX today.

Be sure to consult the OVEX Automated Arbitrage Service Termination FAQ section on their portal for more information.
A Circle K being built could be the last new gas station that comes to American Canyon's Highway 29 stretch and Napa County's southern gateway.

The American Canyon City Council for a year has considered banning new gas stations in the city. On Tuesday, it indicated it will approve the needed code revisions, with a second, final vote scheduled for Feb. 1.

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City Council members barely commented on the action. No one from the public spoke.

That might sound strange for so momentous a step. But the City Council isn't suddenly jumping into the issue, having imposed a moratorium on new gas station approvals in March 2021 while it studied how to make the ban permanent.

This has been something in the making for a while, City Councilmember David Oro said.

Besides that under-construction Circle K, American Canyon has three gas stations along Highway 29. They are a Union 76, a Chevron and the Safeway gas station.

The city wants to keep things that way for the foreseeable future. Concerns range from fossil fuels contributing to climate change to the aesthetics of having American Canyons major street becoming a line of gas stations.

All of this looks to stymie two possible, additional gas stations. Rotten Robbie has already withdrawn an application to build a gas station/car wash/convenience store along Highway 29. An existing 7-Eleven on American Canyon Road applied in October 2020 to add pumps.

The planned code change categorizes existing fossil fuel status as legal, non-conforming uses. These stations could continue operating, though they couldnt add fossil-fuel dispensing capacity.

Theyre kind of locked into what they have today, city Community Development Director Brent Cooper said.

But existing gas stations could add electric vehicle charging stations and hydrogen dispensers.

If an existing station stopped operating for 180 days, it couldnt be re-established. The exceptions are if a valid rebuilding permit hasnt received a final inspection or the closure stems from an emergency such as a wildfire, storm, earthquake, pandemic or war.

In addition, the city is adding a new category to its laws. While new gas stations would be out, new zero emission vehicle service stations would be allowed.

American Canyon started talking about gas stations in October 2020, upon the approval of the Circle K.

Were called the gateway to the Napa Valley, resident Chris James told the city Planning Commission. I dont want us to become the gas station of Napa Valley.

The City Council took up the issue in February 2021 and heard from high school students worried about climate change. American Canyon High School junior Emily Bit and Napa High School junior Alisa Karesh spoke on behalf of Schools for Climate Action.

Bit and Karesh raised questions about the present emphasis on gas-powered vehicles. Karesh mentioned the goal of having net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by or before 2030  no more greenhouse gases are produced than are removed.

By the time well be college graduates and by the time well be old enough to fill your positions, it will be too late, Karesh told council members.

The City Council is taking two meetings to enact the code changes because this is what is typically required for ordinances. The council introduces an ordinance at a first meeting, at which any debate takes place. The second vote is usually a formality.

Calistoga banned new gas station construction in December. Napa Schools for Climate Action recently asked the city of Napa to follow.

You can reach Barry Eberling at 256-2253 or beberling@napanews.com.

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Maryland is suing Baltimore in state court and issued a warning it also could join a federal lawsuit against the city over polluting discharges from the Back River and Patapsco wastewater treatment plants that had been ongoing for a year before they came to light in August.

The legal action, taken on behalf of the Maryland Department of the Environment in Baltimore City Circuit Court, seeks fines of up to $10,000 per day of violations and an injunction to stop the pollution. Officials said a lawsuit in U.S. District Court could follow.

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The moves come as Gov. Larry Hogans administration has faced criticism for going too easy on polluters and underinvesting in environmental enforcement. The concerns were the subject of a state Senate hearing Tuesday and an earlier EPA report that raised concern about drinking water system inspections.

State environment officials have said they have been in talks with the city Department of Public Works for months about solutions to stop the excessive pollution.

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Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles said Fridays action was needed to accelerate the citys efforts to stop the violations and to ensure the state and region do not fall back in efforts to restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay by 2025.

Bay advocates say the pollution is significant enough to derail decades of progress to restore the estuary that is so central to the states culture and economy.

The citys law department said in a statement late Friday that its aware of the suit filed by the state. It said the city is looking into the allegations and seeking an amicable resolution with the state.

The lawsuit cites violations of permits that dictate the types and amounts of discharges wastewater treatment plants can make into open bodies of water. The violations include exceeding sewage discharge limits, failing to report sampling results and operating without adequate staff or maintenance.

The plants are owned and operated by Baltimore City and process wastewater from toilets and drainpipes across the city and suburban Baltimore County. The amount of partially treated sewage the plants released for months on end was enough to fill a wading pool the size of 295-acre Patterson Park every day, according to water quality advocacy group Blue Water Baltimore.

The group, which filed its own notice of intent to file a federal lawsuit against the city under the Clean Water Act in December, was alerted to the problems when its work to routinely collect and test water samples from dozens of sites around Baltimore indicated unsafe levels of fecal bacteria around the Patapsco plant.

Alice Volpitta, who serves as the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper within Blue Water, called the states legal action good news and a necessary step to ensure problems at the sewage plants are fixed. She said the move was not a surprise and that she expects it will lead to a consent decree, or a court-enforced plan for how to address the violations at the plants.

I dont think this is an indication that anything is breaking down or anyone is being uncooperative, Volpitta said.

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But another vocal environmental group criticized the state for not doing more to prevent the sewage pollution from happening in the first place.

Grumbles has said the state was aware of concerning discharges at the plants well before they became public in August, but his department has faced questions about why they have continued for so long, and why hazards posed to the public and to the bay were not made public until Blue Water Baltimore revealed the problems.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation called on the state environment agency to accept responsibility for ... past failures to adequately inspect and enforce violations.

We hope this marks the beginning of a more active approach from MDE, said Josh Kurtz, the groups Maryland executive director, in a statement.

Del. Regina T. Boyce said that while she would not suggest Baltimore should not be held accountable, she found it frustrating to see the state suing the city when there are likely many other violations, potentially just as egregious, escaping similar scrutiny across the state.

Workforce shortages, plus the COVID-19 pandemic, meant state environmental officials inspected 32,000 sites in fiscal year 2020, down from 55,000 in fiscal 2019 and 68,000 in fiscal 2018.

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I dont want to point fingers and say, What about them? But its a departmental problem, the Baltimore Democrat said. Do they plan to sue other repeat offenders?
PG&E Corp.'s five years of criminal probation are ending, but not before the supervising judge delivered one last blistering lecture about its troubled safety record and suggested that California's largest utility be carved in two.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup, in an extraordinary eight-page "final comments" filed Wednesday, complained that conditions had dramatically worsened despite the company's efforts to reform.

PG&E preparing before strong storm reaches Bay Area A strong, widespread storm that could dump 4 inches of rain in the North Bay may cause power outages starting Saturday night, PG&E officials said.

"While on probation, PG&E has set at least 31 wildfires, burned nearly (1.5) million acres, burned 23,956 structures, and killed 113 Californians," he wrote. "PG&E has gone on a crime spree and will emerge from probation as a continuing menace to California."

During the probation period, which ends next Wednesday, Alsup frequently sparred with PG&E lawyers over the company's missteps and demanded extensive reports on what PG&E was doing to improve conditions on the ground. "Safety is not your No. 1 thing," he told utility officials during a court hearing in San Francisco in early 2019.

In his latest court filing, the judge acknowledged that the company had implemented "some important wildfire safety reforms," including its public-safety power shutoffs.

But he said its decision to continue outsourcing much of its vegetation-management work to independent contractors resulted in "sloppy inspection and clearance work" in the forests where many of California's worst wildfires have started.

"During these five years of criminal probation, we have tried hard to rehabilitate PG&E," Alsup wrote. "As the supervising district judge, however, I must acknowledge failure."

Responding to Alsup's critique, the company said: "We acknowledge that we have more work to do. In our past filings, we emphasized that PG&E's new leadership team is intensely focused on creating a climate at PG&E where everyone and everything is always safe, and have outlined various steps this team has taken to deliver on this goal.

"PG&E has become a fundamentally safer company over the course of our probation."

Alsup said he had the authority to extend the duration of PG&E's probation but decided not to after federal prosecutors declined to pursue that option. The prosecutors said state courts are the proper venue for any further punishments.

He said PG&E should be split into two companies, with one serving the most hazardous wildfire areas. "Less sprawling utilities would be easier to train and to instill practices that truly put safety first," he wrote.

After being driven into bankruptcy in early 2019, the company resisted suggestions that it be carved up or taken over by the state. But it did agree to appoint safety officers for different regions of the state, as part of a deal with Gov. Gavin Newsom to smooth its way out of bankruptcy.

PG&E was placed on probation in January 2017 after being convicted on six felony charges in connection with the fatal 2010 natural-gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno. In those five years, the company has been blamed for multiple major wildfires, including the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, the deadliest in California history; the 2019 Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, which forced the evacuation of 180,000 residents; and last year's Dixie Fire, the second-largest ever in the state.

Alsup took unusual steps in overseeing PG&E's probation. He ordered a delegation of company executives to accompany him to Paradise, where community leaders described how the Camp Fire destroyed much of the town in November 2018. PG&E later pleaded guilty to 85 counts of felony manslaughter in connection with that fire.

At one point Alsup proposed ordering PG&E to inspect its entire 100,000-mile network of power lines to prevent wildfires. But he backed down after the California Public Utilities Commission said the plan was unwieldy. The commission also complained that the state, not Alsup, had "exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the safe and reliable operation of the electric system."

Even as the probation period ends, PG&E continues to face legal and financial woes because of wildfires. It has been indicted in connection with the Kincade Fire in Sonoma and the fatal 2020 Zogg Fire in Shasta County.

The federal Justice Department, along with local authorities, are investigating the company's role in last year's Dixie Fire, which burned 963,000 acres across multiple counties. Cal Fire has determined that the fire started when a tree brushed against PG&E's power equipment in a remote area near the Feather River.

PG&E's new chief executive, Patti Poppe, has told The Sacramento Bee that the company has made extensive improvements that are making Californians safer, such as enhanced tree-trimming programs and a program to bury thousands of miles of wires underground.

"Something has changed at PG&E and we want people to know that," she said.

However, she said climate change continues to intensify wildfire risks throughout the company's territory.

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After pouring an unprecedented $12 billion into homeless housing and services last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom now is turning to the massive tent camps, shanty-towns and make-shift RV parks that have taken over California's streets, parks and open spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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In a never-before-seen effort, the governor is doling out $50 million this winter to help cities and counties clear out camps and house people living outside. San Jose, Richmond and Santa Cruz are among those that might benefit. Newsom hopes to increase that investment 10-fold in the coming year's budget and add $1.5 billion to house people with behavioral health conditions. In charge of it all will be Newsom's new state homelessness council, co-chaired by none other than the face of California's COVID response  Dr. Mark Ghaly.

"This is probably one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-lifetime type funding that we're seeing from the state," said Michelle Milam, crime prevention manager for the Richmond Police Department and a member of the city's homelessness task force. "We've never seen this kind of investment from the state for encampments."

She and other local officials and nonprofit leaders, who have been battling a growing homelessness crisis for years with little help from the state, are grateful and hopeful. But, they say, the money won't be nearly enough. The funds Newsom has set aside for encampments are one-time grants, not the kind of ongoing investment cities need to make a lasting dent in finding permanent homes for unhoused Californians, experts say.

They acknowledge that focusing on encampments is a smart political move by the governor, but getting people out of camps and into temporary shelters isn't a solution if there is no affordable housing.

"I think we would want to look at it a little bit more holistically," said Christopher Martin, policy director for the advocacy organization Housing California. "We need to address all facets of homelessness, not just encampments."

Richmond is one of more than three dozen cities and counties that have applied for one of Newsom's new encampment resolution grants, which will be awarded by March 1. Although there is about $50 million available, the state has received requests for $120 million. Newsom has proposed allocating another $500 million in this year's budget.

If selected, Richmond would use the money to clear a camp of more than 100 people living off Castro Street in cars, RVs and trailers. Echoing the experience of many cities, such camps exploded in Richmond during the pandemic as shelters reduced their capacity and federal health officials recommended leaving encampments be. With the money from the state  Milam is hoping for several million dollars  Richmond would create a housing trust fund exclusively for Castro Street occupants to use for rent, job training, vehicle repairs and anything else that could help them move into stable housing.

"It's more than just closing down an encampment," Milam said. "It's making sure people have an opportunity to successfully transition."

San Jose also has applied for a grant, requesting $2 million to house people camped along the Guadalupe River Trail between Arena Green and the Children's Discovery Museum.

And in Santa Cruz County, officials are hoping the money would help them try out a new strategy that gets people more involved in finding their own housing, said Robert Ratner, the county's director of Housing for Health. They would award "housing scholarships" to encampment residents, and then work with the residents to spend that money in whatever way makes most sense for them.

The governor's office also is leading a "100-day challenge" this year focused on homeless encampments. A handful of counties, including Santa Cruz and Sacramento, will work with the Rapid Results Institute on new solutions to the crisis. Sacramento County hopes to house 43 people by April 14 during the program, and start another 43 on the path toward housing. Santa Cruz County hopes to house 40 people and get another 100 into the pipeline.

And this year, Newsom launched a new agency to oversee the state's efforts on homelessness  the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, co-chaired by Ghaly and Business, Consumer Services and Housing Secretary Lourdes Castro Ramirez. The agency has new authority to hold cities and counties accountable. When seeking funding, local officials now must lay out detailed plans for the money. If they don't meet certain benchmarks, they get less money.

When asked if Newsom's strategies to reduce homeless encampments will work, Jason Elliott, senior counselor to the governor, said they already are.

"We understand people are frustrated. But we also are proud of 58,000 people who have come off the streets since this pandemic broke open," he said, referring to Newsom's Project Roomkey, which moved unhoused people into hotels, and Homekey, which created longer-term housing. "That's how much worse it would have been."

But one-time grants only go so far, Milam said. For years, Richmond had been working on opening a safe-parking site for people living in RVs. After an intense backlash from some neighbors, the city ultimately . Milam says that's where the state needs to step in.

"We need some support from the state. We're drowning," Milam said. "The funding helps. We're very appreciative of the funding. But there's got to be more at the policy level to help us come up with some creative solutions to try to support people."

Angelina Pena, who lives in an RV in the Castro Street encampment in Richmond, has lost faith in the state and in her city to give unhoused people the help they need. Pena, who makes $18 an hour doing outreach for nonprofit Safe, Organized Spaces three days a week, dreams of having her own home, opening a thrift store and getting custody back of her two sons.

A grant from the state could go a long way toward helping her reach those goals. But after many disappointments, Pena isn't holding her breath.

"I'm not going to depend on them. I can't," she said. "It's hard to take their word for it because they haven't come through."

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A state plan could put a SMART train station in Solano County and create the first passenger rail service along the traffic-plagued Highway 37 corridor.

The plan would create an east-west connection for the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit system, which runs passenger trains along Highway 101 between Larkspur and Santa Rosa.

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Passengers would be able to travel from the Novato-Hamilton station through Sonoma and Napa counties before arriving in Suisun City. From there they would be able to connect to the larger Capitol Corridor network to Sacramento and San Jose as well the national rail system.

The proposal is part of the draft State Rail Plan 2022. The plan is expected to be released in February and will undergo a 60-day public review period, according to Caltrans spokesman Matt Rocco.

Novato Councilman Eric Lucan serves on the SMART board and a multiagency committee formed to address traffic and flooding on Highway 37. Aside from Marin residents being able to connect to the Capitol Corridor, one of the main benefits of the project would be to provide workers a route that bypasses vehicle traffic entirely, Lucan said.

"To provide options for those workers to be able to get to their jobs here in Marin and Sonoma County is a really important piece of our local economy," Lucan said.

Daryl Halls, executive director of the Solano Transportation Authority, said Solano County is known for its relatively affordable housing compared to the rest of the Bay Area. More than 100,000 workers commute out of the county to jobs in Marin, Sonoma, Napa and San Francisco, with many using Highway 37, he said.

The new SMART station is included as part of a proposed Solano transit hub project being considered in the state plan. The hub would also include more frequent Amtrak train trips along the Capitol Corridor, bus stations and a pedestrian tunnel linking the Fairfield and Suisun City downtown areas.

A study of the hub project by the Solano Transportation Authority last year found the best location for a SMART station would be at the Suisun-Fairfield Station along State Route 12. The SMART station is estimated to cost about $8.9 million, not including the track improvements on the east-west rail corridor, according to the study.

The plan also examined the possibility of a second SMART station in Cordelia near the interchange project connecting Interstate 80, Interstate 680 and State Route 12. That station would likely be planned after the Suisun City station and would be subject to approval by Fairfield as part of its general plan update, according to Halls.

The project is still is a "ways out," Halls said, as the state plan envisions completing the Solano hub by 2040.

The Solano proposal follows a separate 2019 state-funded study by SMART. The study found passenger rail service on the 41-mile route to Suisun City would be feasible along the existing east-west rail corridor. SMART estimated the costs, including rail improvements, would range from $780 million to $1.3 billion depending on the options.

"I think the challenge for SMART is coming up with a funding plan, how to build the capital infrastructure first," Halls said. "And of course the hard part is the operating dollars and can we convince the state that this is part of the State Rail Plan and that the state should invest in this as kind of an extension of the plan. Until we can answer those questions it's kind of hard to answer."

SMART spokesman Matt Stevens deferred comment until the state plan is released.

David Schonbrunn, president of the Train Riders Association of California nonprofit group, said he and his organization have long supported a passenger rail connection along Highway 37. However, Schonbrunn said he would prefer to see the rail service started as a pilot project first and disagreed with the "gold plated" cost estimates from SMART.

"Do it as inexpensively as possible and show the demand for the service," Schonbrunn said. "Once you decide we really want to have a top notch system here, you can pay for a contracting firm, clean up the roadbed and relay the track."

Highway 37 has about 40,000 vehicles per day on average, with most traffic traveling west in the mornings and east during the afternoons. The highway bottlenecks from two lanes to one lane each way along a 10-mile stretch of the highway from Sears Point to Mare Island, increasing travel times by 30 minutes during the morning commute and up to 80 minutes during the afternoon commute, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Commission spokesman John Goodwin said Highway 37 is "one of the Bay Area's most important transportation challenges."

A collaborative of four county transportation agencies, Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has been planning to address the highway's short-term traffic issues and long-term threats of sea-level rise.

A short-term proposal is to add one to two lanes in each direction in the bottleneck to reduce traffic congestion.

The new SMART connection could play a role to address traffic congestion, Goodwin said.

"What's most important to my mind is that it would establish a transit option in this corridor where there isn't one now, period," Goodwin said. "There is no scheduled bus service along the corridor. There is no regularly scheduled transit service in the Highway 37 corridor."

The highway, which has already been subject to flooding, is also under significant threat of sea-level rise. In the long term, transportation officials say, the highway will need to be elevated.

State officials have proposed implementing a toll on Highway 37 to begin funding these projects.

Caltrans is set to hold a public hearing on the Highway 37 proposals on Jan. 25. More information can be found scta.ca.gov/projects/highway37.

More information about the State Rail Plan 2022 update can be found at 2022californiastaterailplan.org.

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SACRAMENTO  California lawmakers want stronger policies when it comes to vaccine requirements, but just what those policies will look like is still up for debate.

Democrats for months have said they want to increase the state's COVID-19 vaccination rates, especially among schoolchildren. But given the quickly changing nature of the virus and new information about how variants interact with vaccines, writing legislation is a complicated task.

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A group of eight Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday announced the formation of a Vaccine Work Group with the goal of developing "cohesive and comprehensive, evidence-based policies" to stop the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases while battling misinformation. The group plans to examine data, hear from experts and determine the best approaches to promoting vaccines.

"We would like to return to our pre-pandemic lives as soon as possible, and that will require immunization for everyone," Sen. Josh Newman said in a statement.

The formation of the group comes on the heels of a record-setting surge caused by the omicron variant. According to state data, 72% of eligible Californians have received at least two shots.

Lawmakers previously floated ideas about requiring vaccines to enter businesses or outlawing the personal belief exemption for school vaccinations, but have yet to introduce a bill.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in October requiring all K-12 students to get the vaccine following Food and Drug Administration approval for their age group. Most California students will have to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by July 2022.

Yet districts who sought to move earlier have run into trouble. The Los Angeles Unified School District, for example, had to push back its deadlines because not enough students were getting their shots in time and alternative learning options couldn't handle the demand.

Newsom has the benefit of being able to change or rescind executive orders when he wants to. The Legislature, however, would have to pass additional bills if it wanted to adjust any vaccine policies it crafted.

In August, Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, halted planned legislation to require all employees to show proof of vaccination or take a weekly COVID-19 test. At the time, Wicks said she wanted to "allow more time to create the strongest policy possible, and provide for additional stakeholder collaboration."

Even if lawmakers come to a consensus and propose a bill, it could be months before it becomes law. In order to take immediate effect, a piece of legislation would have to be passed with a so-called urgency clause, which requires a two-thirds majority.

Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, said in December that anything the Legislature passes related to vaccine mandates probably wouldn't take effect until 2023.

The group announced Wednesday is a continued partnership among Wicks, Pan, Assemblywoman Akilah Weber, D-San Diego, Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Silicon Valley, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and Newman, D-Fullerton.

The work group has been reviewing potential legislation related to vaccines, including access to shots and rules for schools and workplaces.

Pan noted that potential workplace vaccination requirements are on the table, especially after the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for large workplaces.

"That's something we should definitely be looking at," Pan said. "We want to keep the pandemic under control. As the pandemic spreads and we have this omicron variant, what's shutting us down isn't a public health order, it's when too many teachers are out or workers are sick."

He said he couldn't give a timeline for when he or other members of the group might introduce new vaccine legislation, but noted that there's an ongoing need for policies as the pandemic continues and more variants emerge.

"By summer, a new one could pop up and all the people that got omicron, they could get infected again," he said. "We need to have policies in place to make sure people are protected."

Aguiar-Curry said Wednesday that the purpose of the group is to figure out how to address a wide range of issues related to vaccinations. She's focused on children, and specifically reducing the spread of the human papillomavirus, a sexually-transmitted infection that can cause cancer. Vaccines for HPV are available, but not required in California.

Aguiar-Curry said the lawmakers want to find the best path forward, which may require multiple pieces of legislation.

"We may come up with nothing. And we might came up with five bills. Who's to say?" she said.

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Will Armenia and Turkey be able to normalize their relations after a third attempt? The chief reason for optimism is that Azerbaijan is dropping its objections. UK journalist Thomas de Waal, who is also a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region, wrote this in an article published for Carnegie Europe.

He added that Turkeys formal reason for freezing relations with Armenia was removed after the 44-day war in 2020. Russia, which was equivocal about the Zurich Protocols process, is also not standing in the way, De Waal wrote, and he added as follows:

The Armenian and Turkish envoys held their first meeting on January 14 in Moscow. That raised a few eyebrows; the two sides are perfectly capable of meeting without any mediation and the Russia government has never been involved in this dialogue before, but it means that the Russians have a stake in the success of the process.

The new talks are a top-down process, led by Turkish President Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Both have identified a national interest in it working. Neither, however, is a consensus-seeker, neither is consulting widely or reaching out to those with expertise in previous negotiations. The main Armenian negotiator Ruben Rubinyan is just thirty-one, with no experience in this brief, but happens to be a close confidante of Pashinyan.

The leaders thus far seem to be without a communications strategy to win over doubters. In Armenia, bitterness against Turkey is still raw because of Turkish military assistance to Azerbaijan in the war of 2020. As elections approach in Turkey, Erdogan will be wary of alienating his ultra-nationalist de facto coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), by seeking rapprochement with Armenia.

If the negotiations fail, it is most likely to be due to the Azerbaijan factor.

Although Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev welcomes the talks, he also wants to extract concessions from Armenia at its point of greatest weakness, following its military defeat in 2020. The Baku authorities want as much sovereign control as possible over a restored road and rail link connecting western Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan across Armenia, a route they call the Zangezur Corridor. If the Azerbaijani and Turkish presidents agree that securing the corridor over Armenian objections is a precondition for normalizing relations, the talks could fail.

The broader economic considerations suggest this could be a win-win. A consensus deal to reopen all the roads and railways closed by the Karabakh conflict of the 1990s would make Armenia and Azerbaijan the connecting point in a web of railways between Moscow, Istanbul, and Tehran.

Many studies have shown that Armenia would benefit hugely from seeing its western land border reopened, giving it much easier access to both Turkish and EU markets.

It is vitally important to stress one point: we are talking here about Armenia-Turkey normalization, not about reconciliation. A huge dark shadow hangs over this process: the deportation and extermination of almost the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16, the mass atrocity that most of the world calls the Armenian Genocide, but the enormity of which the Turkish government barely acknowledges.

No government in Yerevan has made the recognition of the Armenian Genocide a precondition for establishing relations. Much of the Armenian diaspora strongly disagrees. One prominent Californian Armenian columnist wrote on January 9, An unrepentant genocidaire cannot be a trusted party with which one can negotiate in good faith.

Others have their own reason to doubt. January 19 marked the fifteenth anniversary of the assassination of Hrant Dink, the editor of Istanbuls Armenian newspaper Agos.

Dink was a living embodiment of the best in Armenian-Turkish dialogue. He believed that the path to reconciliation and healing lay through the democratization of Turkey and an open dialogue in Turkish society about the dark page of its past that constituted the destruction of the Armenians. He worked to make this happen. But his own assassinationby a far-right nationalist, probably protected by elements of the security services and the rollback of democracy in Turkey in the last five years have made that prospect much more distant. The continued detentionin open defiance of the European Court of Human Rightsof another champion of Armenian-Turkish relations, philanthropist Osman Kavala, is another indictment of the current Turkish regimes commitment to genuine dialogue.

And yet, a top-down political process is still better than no process at all. If the closed border reopens, that will in and of itself stimulate thousands of people-to-people connections between Armenians and Turks. This is an initiative that, however flawed, deserves wide support.
The world is worse in many ways than it was five years ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told The Associated Press.

According to him, the UN Security Council, which has the right to maintain international peace and security, including through the imposition of sanctions and orders for military action, is divided, especially its five permanent members with veto power. Russia and China are often at odds with the US, UK and France on key issues.

He noted that of course we have been in contact with top Russian officials, although the UN is not directly involved in the Ukrainian crisis.
The Annapolis Transportation Board urged the city Thursday to make its transit system entirely free to riders in an attempt to increase ridership, reduce car congestion and increase equity among residents.

At an Annapolis City Council work session, the resident-led advisory group presented a report on adopting a fare-free transit system that recommended doing away with fares on all transit routes, following a trend that has proliferated to more than 100 cities across the country.

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We cant think of a faster or cheaper way to really improve transit in Annapolis, board Chair Kurt Riegel said following the meeting. Riegel wrote an op-ed in The Capital on Jan. 9 to promote the adoption of the system.

The system would come at a critical time when parking will be at a premium in the city as Noah Hillman Garage is first demolished and rebuilt and City Dock is redeveloped over the next several years, Riegel said.

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It could grow ridership, relieve pressure caused by the rebuilding of Hillman Garage and it just seems the right time to do it. The benefits are enormous and the costs are small, he said.

The 16-page report lays out several ways to help pay for the estimated $389,000 in revenue that would be lost annually from fare collection. The board proposed increasing the portion of city parking revenues committed to public transit, seeking additional private or public grant funds, and preserving and enlarging state and county government contributions.

A significant portion of the $5.62 million in annual transit revenues the city receives already come from grants, about 42%. Another 40% comes from transfers from the citys parking and/or general fund.

Another recommendation, levying a sales tax, would require approval by the Maryland legislature. The report also suggested eliminating or reducing free parking for city employees, residents and special events, expanding paid parking, establishing transit subscriptions with major Annapolis employers and earmarking some property tax revenue for transportation.

City Council members were generally receptive to the idea of a fare-free system, though a few remained cautious about finding enough money to offset the estimated revenue loss.

Overall, it doesnt seem like a lot of money. But believe me, having gone through a number of these budgets, thats a lot of money for us to find, said Alderman Rob Savidge, D-Ward 7. And unless we want to cut something, weve got to find a funding source and thats going to take time.

Acting Transportation Director Kwaku Agyemang-Duah said he was not opposed to a fare-free system but adopting one has never been considered during his time with the department because of the financial constraints that regularly plague it.

Personally, I am not opposed to fare-free; it helps, especially those who cant afford to ride, said Agyemang-Duah, who has been with the department since 2009. But given the financial situation of the department and reliance on grants and city funds, we see fare revenue as helpful to supplement the grants. We think [fare-free] is a good idea, but where is the extra revenue?

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The transit system is often plagued by empty buses and lower ridership, which should be addressed before a fare-free system is adopted, Savidge said.

I would hate to further subsidize an inefficient system that is perpetuating and spewing out even more pollution by being inefficient, especially as we talk about our climate goals, he said. So I think we need to look at that a little bit more before we jump into this.

Alderman DaJuan Gay, a Democrat from Ward 6, said he fully supported the proposal and the benefits it could deliver to lower-income residents. He did hesitate about placing any additional financial burden on taxpayers.

The board projected a fare-free system would increase ridership by about 25%. Thats a conservative estimate when compared to other jurisdictions, some of which saw ridership increase as much as 70%, said John Purnell, an at-large board member.

[ Where can I park or take a bus in Annapolis? A guide to getting around downtown ]

We actually think this number could be 50% or 75% with good marketing and good adoption, Purnell said.

With that increased ridership, employers could reach a broader pool of prospective workers, some of whom might not have access to a car or couldnt previously afford a fare. A free bus could also help seniors who lack transportation, or who cannot drive, be more mobile.

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The city currently charges anywhere from $1 to $4 for individual fares with weekly to annual passes ranging from $20 to $500.

The board identified several cities that have adopted a fare-free model, including Park City, Utah, a city of about 8,000, which has done so since 1975, and other cities in Montana, Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Missouri.

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In Alexandria, Virginia, ridership rose 27% after the city went fare-free in September 2021, said Elizabeth Dolezal, the boards vice chair and Ward 1 representative.

In interviews with other cities, we found out that actually, the increase in the ridership is across the board. It isnt just these certain demographics, Dolezal said.

Annapolis does offer some free transit services such as the Circulator. The state employee shuttle, funded by the state of Maryland, is also free.

Anne Arundel County suspended fares for its bus service in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, said Sam Snead, director of the Anne Arundel County Department of Transportation.

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While the countys paratransit service has always been free, Sneads office is currently considering whether to permanently adopt a fare-free system in the future and how the county would make up the fare revenue, which accounts for less than 10% of the countys transit revenues.

The next step for the Annapolis Transportation Board is to work on ways to improve the city and county systems, which overlap in places.

One of the things that needs to be done is better integration of the city and county systems to make it more of a regional [system], Riegel said, but that is a discussion that needs to happen but has not happened yet.
The issue of sending direct military aid to Ukraine is not being considered, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said, AAP reports.

Payne said she had contacted her Ukrainian counterpart and indicated that Australia would be ready to consider any calls for help, but no official requests had been made.

To be clear, this is not about direct military support. From the point of view of Australia, this is not discussed, she told reporters after talks with her British counterpart.

Australia's ambassador to Ukraine, Bruce Edwards, said the country would be prepared to apply additional autonomous sanctions if warranted.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Australia and the UK will be united in their response.
NATO intends to hold the largest military exercise Cold Response beyond the Arctic Circle in early March.

The maneuvers will involve 35,000 troops from 28 countries, as well as the USS Harry S. Truman, the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO said.

The Norwegian Armed Forces notified the command of the Northern Fleet of Russia about future maneuvers on January 13. According to the Norwegian side, the exercises will be held in several stages, including on the territory of the kingdom, DW reports.

The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed to the threat of rising tensions in the Arctic. The scale of the Cold Response exercise will increase the risks of accidental incidents and unintended escalation, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Nikolay Korchunov told Interfax.
Fly Arna, Armenias national airline and a joint venture company between the Armenian National Interests Fund (ANIF) and Air Arabia Group, announces the appointment of its Board of Directors, the company informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The companys Board of Directors consists of the following five Directors each of which is appointed for a period of three years: Mr. David Papazian, Chief Executive Office, ANIF; Mr. Eduard Mkrtchyan, Chief Operating Officer, ANIF; Mr. Adel Ali, Chief Executive Officer, Air Arabia Group; Mr. Housam Raydan, Director, Air Arabia Group; and Mr. Nico Buchholz, expert independent director.

Fly Arna's Chairman of the Board will be permanently nominated by ANIF. During the first three years of operation, the appointed Chairman is ANIF's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. David Papazian.

The board members bring extensive expertise and leadership skills, and they are all well recognized for their contributions in their respective industries. Together, they bring rich experience in Finance, Aviation and Tourism that will provide guidance and support as the company delivers on its strategy of building a reliable operation, achieving accelerated growth, and creating long-term value to its customers and shareholders. With Zvartnots International Airport in Yerevan as its base, Fly Arna follows Air Arabia Groups successful low-cost business model offering comfort, reliability, and value-for-money air travel.
The UK is considering sending hundreds of additional troops to Ukraine's neighbors as a "deterrent" for Russia, the Times writes, citing Defense Ministry sources.

NATO member states have held high-level talks on whether to strengthen their presence in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

The UK leads a 1,200-strong battlegroup in Estonia, where it has 830 troops, tanks, armored fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery, engineers, air defense and reconnaissance. Over 300 French troops also make up the battle group. There are also 140 British troops in Poland as part of NATO's expanded Forward Presence mission.

Under plans being discussed at the Department of Defense, the UK is considering reinforcing these missions with hundreds of combat-ready soldiers that can be deployed at short notice.
YEREVAN.  Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, Armen Grigoryan, on Friday met with a visiting European Union (EU) delegationincluding Isabelle Dumont, Advisor for Continental Europe and Turkey of the French President's Cabinet, and Toivo Klaar, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia.

The parties expressed satisfaction with the active Armenia-EU cooperation, the Security Council office informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. The secretary of the Security Council stressed Armenia's readiness to continue cooperation with the EU in the democratization of Armenia and security in the region.

During the meeting the parties reflected on the situation around the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. In this context, the swift start of delimitation and demarcation of this border and the formation of a corresponding atmosphere was emphasized.

Speaking on humanitarian issues, Isabelle Dumont and Toivo Klaar stressed that the EU is working hard to resolve the POWs crisis as quickly as possible.
Militants from the Islamic State extremist group attacked an army barracks in a mountainous area north of Baghdad, killing 11 soldiers while they were sleeping, AP reported.

Officials said the attack took place in the Diyala province. The circumstances of the attack are not clear, but two officials said Islamic State militants broke into the barracks at 3 am local time and shot the soldiers dead.

The attack was one of the deadliest attacks by the Iraqi military in recent months.

Officials said army reinforcements had been sent to the village where the attack took place, and security forces had been deployed to surrounding areas.
We proceed from the need for full implementation of the trilateral agreements which are enshrined in the statements by the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia on November 9, 2020, January 11, 2021, and November 26, 2021, Russian MFA stated.

"Today the priority tasks are the start of the delimitation and demarcation process of the Azerbaijani-Armenian border, as well as the unblocking of transport and economic ties in the region. Progress in these domains will enable to achieve considerable progress in the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan," the MFA added.

According to him, Russia is in favor that all those who want to join the process of normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as to ensure stability and security in the South Caucasus, do not act on the principle of zero game, but in the interests of the parties and take into account the trilateral agreements between the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia.

"We are making consistent efforts to resolve the situation on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, where, unfortunately, from time to time there are incidents with the use of weapons, there are human casualties. It is necessary to form and start, as soon as possible, the work of the bilateral commission on the delimitation and demarcation of the Azerbaijani-Armenian border. We [i.e., Moscow] are ready to provide consulting assistance to Baku and Yerevan in this process.

As for the issue of captives, Russia is actively participating in its solution. Let us recall that that ever since December 2, 2020, a total of 146 detainees were returned, through the mediation of Russian peacekeepers127 to the Armenian, and 19 to the Azerbaijani side, the Russian MFA said.

Lavrov noted that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and most of the other CIS countries, including Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"We [i.e., Russia] are preparing a series of [respective] anniversary events with each country. Taking into account that a number of events will be cultural and education, we proceed from the fact that they will be interesting for the public as well," the statement concluded.
A male was shot and killed in West Baltimore on Thursday afternoon, police said.

Baltimore Police said they were sent to the 1600 block of W. North Ave. to investigate a shooting just after 2 p.m.

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When officers arrived in the Penn North neighborhood they found an unidentified male suffering from gunshot wounds. He died at the scene, police said.

Twenty people have been killed in the city the first 20 days of the year, according to police.

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Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to contact investigators at 410-396-2100.
A Taiwanese woman faces the death penalty for setting the island's deadliest fire in decades in an attempt to avenge her cheating boyfriend, AFP reported.

The fire raged for hours on several floors of a dilapidated 13-story apartment building in the southern city of Kaohsiung, killing 46 people.

Authorities said the fire started when a resident known as Huang left unextinguished incense ash on a sofa before leaving the building.

On Friday, prosecutors charged Huang, 51, with murder and arson and said she should be sentenced to death for arson to avenge her boyfriend.

Huang intended to light a fire to cause an incident and embarrass her boyfriend, resulting in a major disaster and the deaths of many innocent people, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.

Some 35 prisoners have been executed since 2010 when Taiwan resumed executions after a four-year hiatus.

Government has promised to phase out executions, but there have been two executions since she was elected in 2016. There are currently 38 prisoners on death row, including one woman.
Quite serious work was donebefore PM Nikol Pashinyan came to power in Armeniato develop the military component of the CSTO. Seyran Ohanyan, leader of the opposition "Armenia" Faction in the National Assembly (NA) and former defense minister of Armenia, told reporters about this at the NA Friday.

"And two facts during Nikol Pashinyan's rule: when the issue concerned Armenia, they [i.e., the CSTO] did nothing but organize discussions. [But] when the issue concerned other sectorsKazakhstan, that mechanism worked immediately. The work done by Nikol Pashinyan in it was just technical work. There are bigger players there, such as Russia," Ohanyan added.

When reminding to him that even when he was the minister of defense of Armenia, the CSTO used to equate between Armenia and Azerbaijan and not taking any steps, Ohanyan responded: "In the past, during our leadership [in Armenia], we even compelled that the CSTO leadershipled by [then CSTO chief] Nikolay Bordyuzhacame, been to the borders of Armenia, the Nakhichevan sector, and made a statement from there. Second, in the past, we [i.e., Armenia] had an army that carried out its task.

The CSTO is for more global issues. At that time it was intended to respond in the event of a threat from Turkey.

If you take out my statements, I have said that it is even a shame to immediately turn to the CSTO in case of provocations in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, on the borders, or on the line of contact; the Armenian Armed Forces are able to carry out their tasks, and they have done so clearly.

The situation is different nowafter the defeat in 2020. Its apparent that you cannot solve your security issues alone, and you need to negotiate within the framework of the CSTO."
The German government should have more influence over gas supplies, Economics Minister Robert Habeck said amid tensions with Russia's main gas supplier, Reuters reported.

The options for state intervention in both storage expansion and seizure are currently very limited legally, Robert Habeck told Der Spiegel magazine.

This is unsatisfactory and the last word has not been said yet, he said.

Sky-high gas prices in Europe have received an additional boost from fears that Russia could invade neighboring Ukraine, which could lead to Western sanctions and gas supply disruptions.

High prices and low gas supplies have also raised concerns that industry and households could run out of gas or overpay for it this winter.

Germany's 24 billion cubic meters of gas storage represents about a quarter of annual domestic consumption, according to industry group GIE, but stocks are now just 45%, down 9% from a year ago.

Habeck said the government should do more to protect stocks ahead of next winter

He also said that Germany would not have to pay compensation if its regulator decides that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline does not comply with German and European Union laws.
Newspaper: Armenia opposition members falling into National Security Service trap by opening links

Earthquake shakes Armenia-Georgia border zone

Mark Milley: Potential for significant international conflict between great powers is increasing

EU: Poland fines in rule of law dispute now top $170 million

Putin and Lukashenko discuss ongoing situation

Greece and Bulgaria say new LNG terminal will help reduce dependence on Russia

German vice chancellor calls for rapid construction of LNG terminals

Rally of Resistance Movement takes place in France Square

Robert Kocharyan takes part in opposition march

Mario Draghi calls on EU to abandon requirement of unanimity in making foreign policy decisions

Finland and Sweden not yet decided whether to join NATO

Croatian president uses veto power to block Finland and Sweden from joining NATO

Slovakia will seek exemption from the EU embargo on Russian oil imports

NEWS.am digest: Blinken meets Mirzoyan in US, people detained during protests in Yerevan

Turkish Foreign Ministry on meeting of special envoys in Vienna

Opposition rally in central Yerevan starts with Sirusho's performance

Italy to face serious issues in winter if Russian gas supplies are cut off now

Johnson announces new military aid to Ukraine in amount of 300 million euros

Resistance Movement rally on France Square in Yerevan

EU hopes to adopt sixth round of sanctions against Russia at next EU Council meeting

Peaceful rallies of disobedience held in Spitak

Spain extends OVID-19 entry restrictions

Vayk joins demand for Nikol Pashinyan's resignation

Putin and Macron discuss Ukraine

Citizens demanding Pashinyan's resignation block road from Vayots Dzor to Yerevan

Peaceful rallies of disobedience held in Vanadzor demanding PM's resignation

Citizens demanding Pashinyan's resignation block Gyumri-Yerevan highway

Sirusho: Today I will join our compatriots in France Square

Third meeting of Armenia and Turkey special representatives held in Vienna

Dollar rises slightly after long decline, euro also goes up in Armenia

Civil disobedience actions in regions: Yerevan-Goris highway blocked

Azerbaijan settling occupied Armenian Hadrut, Shushi cities of Artsakh

New colors and new services: Team Telecom Armenia completes rebranding

Armenia legislature speaker receives France-Armenia Friendship Group delegation

France senator: We are leaving for Armenia with Senate group

Putin signs decree on economic measures against unfriendly countries

Armenia legislature speaker: Authorities have repeatedly proposed dialogue to opposition

Backpack action of protest being held outside Armenia parliament (PHOTOS)

Armenia defense ministry: Azerbaijan MOD statement does not correspond to reality

Armenia defense minister receives Kansas National Guard delegation

Armenia Police: Yerevan-Sevan motorway reopened

Ned Price: Mirzoyan-Blinken meeting will launch US-Armenia strategic dialogue

Mirzoyan, Nuland discuss Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement process

Civil disobedience actions are carried out in some Armenia cities

Armenia 2nd-President Kocharyan, ex-deputy PM and now lawmaker Gevorgyan trial to resume

Pashinyan to Morawiecki: This year we mark 30th anniversary of Armenia-Poland diplomatic relations

No new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia Central Bank leaves refinancing rate unchanged at 9.25%

Demonstrators demanding PM Pashinyan's resignation block Sevan-Yerevan motorway

Police: 117 demonstrators apprehended in Yerevan

Kansas National Guard leadership visiting Armenia

Bloomberg: EU new gas partners

Armenian member of Turkey legislature says he was thrown at table of wolves

Italian PM slams Lavrov for his 'Hitler' statements in interview with local television

South Korea and US plan to start air force exercises on May 9

Police special forces apprehend Armenia ex-president Robert Kocharyans son

Police: 70 people apprehended from Yerevan streets

World Press Freedom Index 2022: Journalism as a profession is humiliated in Armenia

Newspaper: Armenia ruling party MPs are worried

Borrell speaks on possible disconnection from SWIFT of new Russian banks

Cyprus becomes first EU country with full 5G coverage

Police apprehending participants of civil disobedience actions in Yerevan

State Department: Deepening US-Armenia cooperation in nuclear energy will strengthen bilateral relations

Peaceful disobedience actions resume in Yerevan early morning

Mirzoyan: Armenia appreciates US support for developing energy sector

Blinken underscores US commitment to help Armenia, Azerbaijan find sustainable peace, prosperity

Eurozone economic sentiment falls much more than expected in April

Apple faces big fine

Armenia ex-president joins discussion in France Square

Poland wants the EU to set a clear date for stopping Russian oil imports

Armenia FM meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

Armenia FM meets with Director of USAID Samantha Power

Ann Linde says Finland will almost certainly apply for NATO membership

Police beat reporters, obstruct their work in Yerevan

European Commission may relieve Hungary, Slovakia of embargo on Russian oil purchase

Resistance Movement to continue large-scale civil disobedience actions on 3 May in Yerevan and regions

EU countries to continue to pay in euros or dollars for Russian gas

Resistance Movement participants return to France Square

Russian and Turkish defense ministers discuss current situation in Ukraine

Ukrainian intelligence accuses Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan of helping Russia evade Western sanctions

NEWS.am digest: Turkey says they have agreements with Armenia on border clarification

Toivo Klaar informs about meeting of Armen Grigoryan and Hikmet Hajiyev in Brussels

PACE initiates resolution on threats to journalists and human rights defenders in Azerbaijan

Diplomat kidnapped in Haiti

Hungarian president asks Orban to form new government

Georgia PM hands over first part of questionnaire answers for accession to EU

Resistance Movement participants march in central Yerevan

Half of Japanese oppose change of peaceful constitution

Resistance movement rally on France Square in Yerevan

Blinken and Armenia FM sign memorandum on strategic cooperation in nuclear energy

Another earthquake registered on Armenian-Georgian border

FLYONE ARMENIA launches regular direct flights between Yerevan and Tbilisi

Georgia abolishes requirement to wear masks in closed spaces

One dollar drops below AMD 450, euro also falls in Armenia

Georgia PM receives Justice Minister of Armenia

Armenia MFA says there is no discussion, agreement on re-demarcating border with Turkey

Cavusoglu claims there is agreement to clarify Armenia-Turkey border

Azerbaijan president receives Brice Roquefeuil

Armenia ex-defense minister: These authorities are able to use force inside the country

Police: 244 people apprehended in Yerevan as of 2pm
YEREVAN.  Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Friday received a visiting European Union (EU) delegationled by Isabelle Dumont, the representative of the French chairmanship at the Council of the European Union and Advisor for Continental Europe and Turkey of the French President's Cabinet, as well as Toivo Klaar, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia.

First, Mirzoyan congratulated France on assuming the chairmanship of the EU Council, expressing a conviction that this chairmanship will be productive and will contribute to the establishment of stability and security in the South Caucasus, the foreign ministry of Armenia informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. The further development of the Armenia-EU partnership was also highlighted.

During the meeting, reference was made to the humanitarian issues caused by the 44-day Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war in the fall of 2020. In this context, the immediate returning of Armenian prisoners of war and civilian detainees still being held in Azerbaijan was stressed.

The interlocutors exchanged views also on taking steps to increase the level of security and stability along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

The need for full observance of the ceasefire, as well as the need for the Azerbaijani leadership to stop its belligerent rhetoric was stressed, too.

In addition, the Armenian FM stressed the importance of the full resumption of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks under the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex and Health Minister Olivier Veran have revealed a timetable for lifting the country's sanitary restrictions related to the coronavirus epidemic, RFI reports.

Despite the fact that more than 400 thousand cases of infection were detected in France the day before, the situation is starting to improve, the Prime Minister assured.

The Omicron wave is starting to slow down, Jean Castex added.

From February 16, other measures will be lifted. Thus, drinking in stadiums, cinemas and transport will be allowed again. It will be possible to hold concerts, discos will open. Bars will be allowed to serve food and drinks to visitors at the same time, eating and drinking will only be allowed standing. The ban on the sale of food on trains, cinemas, and stadiums will also be lifted.

Finally, after the February holidays, it will be possible to soften the sanitary protocol in schools. Jean Castex mentioned the possible abolition of the mandatory wearing of masks in primary schools and a new system for the use of tests and self-testing.
YEREVAN.  Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Friday received a European Union (EU) delegationled by Isabelle Dumont, the representative of the French chairmanship at the Council of the European Union and Advisor for Continental Europe and Turkey of the French President's Cabinet, as well as Toivo Klaar, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia.

The parties touched upon the situation in the South Caucasus as a result of the 44-day Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war in the fall of 2020, and the steps being taken to reduce the tension and ensure stability along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, the Prime Minister's Office informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

In particular, they exchanged views on the results of the respective meetings held in Sochi, Russiawith the mediation of the Russian Presidentas well as in Brusselswith the mediation the President of the European Council and the French President, and on the implementation of the agreements reached at those talks.

The need to fully operate the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group and to intensify the activities of the Co-Chairs toward the settlement of the Karabakh conflict was stressed, too.
Authorities spent Thursday removing more than 100 snakes from a house in Charles County after a man was found dead inside, officials in Maryland said.

Officers responded to the 5500 block of Raphael Drive in Pomfret, Md., about 6 p.m. Wednesday after a neighbor who went to check on the man and saw him lying unconscious on the floor called authorities for help, police said.

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Police said fire and EMS personnel broke through the front door and found a 49-year-old man dead inside the house. His identity was not released.

An investigation is ongoing and there were no obvious signs of foul play, police said. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore will perform an autopsy.

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Officials said 124 snakes, both venomous and nonvenomous, were removed from the home. Jennifer Harris, a spokeswoman for the Charles County Government, said the snakes included king cobras, spitting cobras, black and green mambas, pythons and rattlesnakes. A 14-foot Burmese python was the largest of the reptiles removed.

Afternoon Update Weekdays Updating you on the day's biggest news before the evening commute. >

Police said the reptiles were found in tanks situated on racks.

He was very meticulous, it seems, [in] the caretaking and keeping of the reptiles, Harris said.

Charles County Animal Control coordinated with reptile experts from North Carolina and Virginia to assist in the unusual situation, Harris said. The snakes are being transferred to professional handlers in those states.

Harris said it is illegal in Maryland to possess venomous snakes.

The man lived alone at the single-family home, and neighbors said they had no idea dozens of snakes were inside, Harris said.

The feedback we heard was he was very pleasant, nice, quiet, Harris said. A neighborly guy.

Harris said there was no evidence any snakes had escaped, and there is no cause for alarm or concern for the surrounding community.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Geneva that talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday were frank and substantive.

Our collective aim, the goal that we share, was to seek a diplomatic path to de-escalate tensions caused by Russias massing of troops along Ukraines borders, to address legitimate security concerns put forward by Russia, by the United States, by Europe through dialogue  not through aggression, Blinken said.

The U.S. Secretary of State stressed that Washington strongly supports Ukraine on the issue of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border and commit new acts of aggression against Ukraine, that will be met with a swift, severe, united response from the United States and our allies and partners, Blinken told a news conference with his German counterpart.

"I told him that after consulting with allies and partners in the coming days, we expect to be able to share our concerns and ideas in more detail and in writing with Russia next week, and we agreed to have further discussions after that," Antony Blinken added.
A thought-provoking new exhibition opens at the Michael C. Carlos Museum on Saturday, Jan. 29: And I Must Scream. Developed by Amanda H. Hellman, the museum's curator of African art, the exhibit focuses on different expressions of global crises.

Employing monstrous, grotesque and humanoid figures and forms, the works engage five themes: corruption and human rights violations; displacement; environmental destruction; the pandemic; and renewal.

This exhibition  comprised of photographs, sculptures, paintings, drawings, and site-specific installations  acts as a call to action and shows these crises to be both urgent and interconnected.

The exhibition seeks out the voice of the artists to explore incomprehensible man-made issues and aims to connect artists from a range of countries, Hellman says. These artists important work, and the monumental crises their art confronts, bring vital conversations to the forefront in a way only art can.

Ten local, national and international contemporary artists are featured in the exhibition. They include Laeila Adjovi (Benin/France); Anida Yoeu Ali (Cambodia); Steve Bandoma (DRC); Amie Esslinger (United States); Ganzeer (Egypt); Cannupa Hanska Luger (United States- Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota); Thameur Mejri (Tunisia); Kahn and Selesnick (U.S. and U.K.); Yinka Shonibare (U.K.); and Fabrice Monteiro (Benin/Belgium).

An online curatorial conversation with Hellman and artist-in-residence Ganzeer will be the first program in conjunction with the exhibition. On Sunday, Jan. 30, at 4 p.m., they will discuss the mural Ganzeer is creating for the exhibit and how it fits in the context of Ganzeer's larger body of work that includes street art, graphic novels, paintings and graphic design. The conversation is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Learn more and register here.

Additional programs related to the exhibition will bring scholars and artists from around the world to teach classes, facilitate performances and create new works of art.

And I Must Scream has been made possible with through support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Charles S. Ackerman Fund, the Carlos Museum National Leadership Board, the Massey Charitable Trust, the LUBO Fund and anonymous donors.

The exhibit is open until May 15.

Please note: At the present time, members of the public are required to make timed reservations to visit the Carlos Museum. Emory students, faculty and staff are not required to make a reservation and may check in with an Emory ID. Click here for more details or to register for a time.
Associate Professor of History Jamie Gianoutsos, Ph.D., has been awarded the Istvan Hont Prize for the Best Book in Intellectual History for The Rule of Manhood: Tyranny, Gender, and Classical Republicanism in England, 1603-1660. In May she will deliver the Istvan Hont Memorial Lecture at the invitation of the Institute for Intellectual History, the organization that awards this prize.

The book, published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press in the Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History series, explores the importance of gender, especially masculinity, in anti-monarchy writings of the 17th century and in the republican tradition of thought. The series is a preeminent collection of established and emerging scholars whose research reveals valuable new perspectives on familiar subjects.

For my field of study, Im hopeful that scholars studying the history of monarchy and of our republican heritage will now recognize gender as fundamental to understanding the history of power, and that it will reshape the scholarly conversation accordingly, Gianoutsos said in an interview in December 2020.

Gianoutsos research for this book has been shared in the classroom through elective courses she has offered on the politics of gender and the classical republican tradition. In the Origins of the West course, included in the core curriculum, she taught a unit on Greco-Roman masculinity.

Gianoutsos, who directs the Mounts Office of Competitive Fellowships, joined the History Department as an assistant professor in 2014. She earned her B.A. from Baylor University. As a 2006 Marshall Scholar, she completed an M.A. in Renaissance literature from the Queens University of Belfast and an MPhil in political thought and intellectual history at the University of Cambridge. Upon returning to the U.S. in 2008, she completed a Ph.D. in history at the Johns Hopkins University through a George and Sylvia Kagan Graduate Fellowship and through generous grants including an IHR Mellon Pre-Dissertation Fellowship, Huntington Library Fellowship, and Charles Singleton Center Fellowship.

Elizabeth Boyle, C19, a fellowships student during her time at the Mount, served as a research assistant for The Rule of Manhood before graduating. She is a social studies teacher at St. Maria Goretti High School in Hagerstown, Maryland. Another fellowships student, Daniel Majerowicz, C20, helped Gianoutsos begin research for her second book project, tentatively titled The Propagation of Liberty: Marchamont Nedham and the Classical Republican Tradition. Majerowicz is currently a graduate student in the MLitt in Intellectual History program at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Gianoutsos articles and book chapters have been published in the Renaissance Quarterly, the leading American journal of Renaissance studies, History of Education Quarterly, an international, peer-reviewed academic journal, and Reformation & Renaissance Review. Her book chapter, Loyalty to a Nero? Publicising Puritan Persecution in the 1630s was recently published in an edited volume from Palgrave MacMillan.
Total, Chevron to exit Myanmar amid rights abuses

Human Rights Watch welcomed the French company's withdrawal. Photo: AFP

Energy giants TotalEnergies and Chevron said on Friday they would leave Myanmar following pressure from human rights groups to cut financial ties with the military junta since last year's military coup.



International pressure has been building against the junta since the February 2021 coup ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to four years in prison this month and faces five new corruption charges.



Western powers have imposed sanctions on the junta while some international companies have quit the country, temporarily halted operations or suspended business transactions



The junta will lose key financial partners with the withdrawal of French oil major TotalEnergies and US firm Chevron from the Yadana gas field in the Andaman Sea, which provides electricity to Myanmar and Thailand.



"The situation, in terms of human rights and more generally the rule of law, which have kept worsening in Myanmar... has led us to reassess the situation and no longer allows TotalEnergies to make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country," the French oil company said.



The coup was followed by a crackdown on dissent that has left 1,400 civilians dead, according to local monitoring groups.



US energy giant Chevron said it was leaving "in light of circumstances in Myanmar".



"We have reviewed our interest in the Yadana natural gas project to enable a planned and orderly transition that will lead to an exit from the country," said spokesman Cameron Van Ast.



The military has vested interests in large swathes of the country's economy, from mining to banking, oil and tourism.



Human Rights Watch welcomed the French company's withdrawal and called for governments to "prevent any other unscrupulous entities from entering the market".



"Total's announcement does highlight how pressure from investors and human rights focused business can work. Governments no longer have an excuse to delay imposing targeted sanctions on oil and gas entities," said HRW Myanmar researcher Manny Maung.



On Friday, the junta sentenced a member of Suu Kyi's ousted National League for Democracy party, Phyo Zeyar Thaw, to death on terrorism charges.



Since the coup, British American Tobacco and French renewable energy firm Voltalia have left the country.



Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor, which divested its local subsidiary, this week sold its stake in a Burmese digital payments service over the coup.



Italy's Benetton and Sweden's H&M suspended all new orders from the country last year.



HRW says natural gas projects are Myanmar's single largest source of foreign currency revenue, generating more than US$1 billion every year.



But Total said it had not identified any means to sanction the military junta without avoiding stopping gas production and ensuing payments to the military-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).



The company had announced last year that it was suspending cash payments to its joint venture with the army, Moattama Gas Transportation Company Limited (MGTC).



TotalEnergies paid more than US$400 million in total to the Myanmar authorities in 2019 and 2020 in the form of taxes and "production rights".



Total said on Friday that it had tried "insofar as is materially and legally possible" to limit financial flows received by the MOGE.



But it said it was "materially impossible" to prevent revenue flows as Thailand's national energy company PTT made most gas sale payments.



Total, which holds the biggest stake in the gas field, will continue to operate the site for the next six months at the latest until its contractual period ends.



Richard Horsey, senior advisor on Myanmar at the International Crisis Group, said the announcement is "reflective of how toxic Myanmar has become as an investment environment."



But he said that by leaving without any compensation, it means other partners, including the regime, "will get a windfall in the form of an increased share of the project".



PTT chief executive Montri Rawanchaikul on Friday said the company was "carefully considering" its direction following TotalEnergies' announcement.



Myanmar's shadow national unity government said the news sent a "very strong message" to the ruling junta.



"Other companies must follow Total's example to put even more pressure on the generals to stop their bloody repression," said shadow minister Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe. (AFP)
In the grip of cold, blustery, wintry Bay Country weather, my wife and I embrace the presence of thousands of migratory waterfowl, especially after ospreys and other birds we regularly enjoy seeing in summer have migrated south to warmer climes.

Luckily, the Chesapeake is the Atlantic coasts most important waterfowl migration and wintering area. For millenniums, ducks, geese, mergansers, and swans have winged their way south from breeding sites in Alaska, the Canadian provinces, and the prairie potholes of the Midwest. Their magical appearance from these northern breeding grounds brightens our spirits and sense of wonderment on gray winter days.

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Our region typically supports 24 waterfowl species, although more than 40 species have been sighted. Waterfowl use the 11,684 miles of bay shoreline and 4,479 square miles of mostly shallow open water and thick marshes as well as our Atlantic shores. They feast on aquatic grasses, shellfish, fish, and invertebrates and some on excess farm field grains.

Beginning in November we await the first arrivals from thousands of miles away. The diminutive and plucky bufflehead was the first to appear on our creek in mid-November as I announced with excited delight, The buffleheads are here! We watched from our home as they dove to feed after flights from their breeding grounds in the wooded lakes and ponds of the boreal forests of central Canada. They are tree cavity nesters and commonly use abandoned woodpecker hollows. Some of these jaunty birds breed as far away as Alaska. All are endemic to North America.

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The males appear to be black and white but if you can find them in bright sunlight, you will discover a purple and green iridescence on their head.

Female and male buffleheads on Oyster Creek. (Carol Swan)

These chunky, little buoyant 18-ounce energetic ducks vie with green-winged teal as the smallest of all North American waterfowl, with males larger than females. They feast on shallow bottom crustaceans and mollusks including mud crabs and aquatic insects. Dives average 12 seconds. These butterballs concentrate on U.S. coasts in winter and are common in the Chesapeake region with 2,249 found last January in Anne Arundel County and 11,400 in all of Maryland which, except for 2011, was the lowest in 21 years. The total population was 1.4 million.

Our most exciting bird sighting occurred 10 days ago on Oyster Creek  50 hooded mergansers, a record number for our 24 years on the creek. The male is my favorite winter bird and we were fortunate to see its striking courtship display for the first time. The males, with their yellow eyes, had their large white fan-shaped crests or hoods fully extended and were head-shaking, throwing, and bobbing to attract a mate. While mostly silent, the drake does sound a mating call, a frog-like croooing, and we were lucky to hear it clearly.

Hooded mergansers displaying to attract a female on Oyster Creek. (Carol Swan)

These birds, endemic to North America, nest in tree cavities and use abandoned pileated woodpecker nests and also readily use wood duck boxes. Nesting occurs near freshwater with most hoodies breeding in Canada, around the Great Lakes, and in New York State.

Maryland has a year-around population which, has fortunately grown significantly along with the entire Eastern race. While hoodies breed in Maryland, most fly north to breed. They have excellent underwater eyesight and are strong swimmers, one of the swiftest diving ducks. In Bay Country, they use their saw-toothed bills to grab small fish, crayfish, dragonfly larvae, and mud crabs.

All waterfowl are either divers or dabblers, denoting the way they feed. Divers include buffleheads, hooded and other mergansers, and canvasbacks; dabblers include mallards, Canada and snow geese, and tundra swans. Most waterfowl are sexually dimorphic with the male usually more colorful, or, in human terms, more attractive. Buffleheads and hoodies are but two examples. Both sexes of swans and geese look the same.

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Number 2 on our list of favorites is the tundra swan, which we most often hear first with their whoop-gaggling of one or two syllabic calls in flight, which can be heard from 100 feet overhead. This is sweet music to our ears. Males average 16 pounds with wing spans of 7 feet, slightly larger than females, which cannot be distinguished from males.

Like hoodies, there are two distinct populations, the eastern and western, both nesting on Arctic and sub-Arctic tundra. Our swans nest on Alaskan and Canadian Arctic tundra. I have spotted researchers neck bands on South River swans from Alaskas North Slope 3,300 miles away. Flapping such long distances, swans spend half of their lives flying between breeding and wintering grounds during long migrations and use staging areas to rest and refuel, with some stops lasting weeks.

Swans arrive here in late November after having left their breeding grounds in September and predominantly winter in coastal areas from Maryland to North Carolina..

Tundra swans formerly depended heavily on submerged bay grasses such as widgeon grass and sago pondweed. With the decline in grasses due to pollutants, many of the swans now fly south to North Carolina to winter. About 65% of these beautiful birds used to winter in the bay region  now it is fewer than 20%.

In 2020, 7,100 tundra swans were found in Maryland, the lowest for all but one year of the last 25 years. The total population of eastern tundra swans was 76,701 last year, well below the long-term average.

Just last Saturday, a bitterly cold windy day, we found more than 100 in shallow waters where they feed on the South River side of the Annapolis Neck Peninsula, attracted by corn that residents feed them. We also found a mixed raft of more than 2,500 waterfowl, primarily canvasbacks, on Fishing Creek. That frigid afternoon, we spotted 14 waterfowl species and a pair of bald eagles.

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The swans mate for life and can live 23 years with an average lifespan of 10 years. The adults hang out with their grayish first-year young while here, returning to this same area each year. It is always a mesmerizing treat to watch the swan families feed and hear there melodic whooping. We observe them turning their large bodies head down, tails straight up, to dabble-feed on the bottom.

Tundra swans on the South River near Thomas Point. (Carol Swan)

Threats to the swans include habitat loss and degradation, especially from oil, gas, and mineral extraction in Arctic breeding areas and habitat loss in staging areas they use in six months of migration. The loss of critical Chesapeake Bay grasses, global warming, and lead poisoning from fishing sinkers also pose threats.

These short stories of winter waterfowl feature just a few of these wonders of nature, which like so many other species, are threatened by destructive human practices after attaining millions of years of evolutionary perfection. The fate of waterfowl and other species is in our hands.

But do get out and discover these natural flying machines for yourself as nature hosts The Greatest Show on Earth, a show you do not want to miss.

Gerald Winegrad is a former Maryland state senator. He can be reached at gwwabc@comcast.net.
Acknowledging Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to install Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's statue at the India Gate, Netaji's daughter Anita Bose Pfaff, on Friday, said that honouring Netaji by setting up his statue is 'very remarkable' and called for the revival of Netaji's values and ideas in everyday life. "Honouring him by setting up his statue is very remarkable. Very happy that Netaji's statue would be put up in a prominent place in Delhi. This is a great tribute to a man who has suffered soo much for the wellbeing of his country", said Anita Bose Pfaff. Anita Bose also found it gratifying to see young people still knows Netaji and respect him. "125 years is a long time and 75 years since Indian independence. More than one generation has passed away.......It is gratifying to see that young people still know who Netaji is, still respects him and many love him. This is great a great tribute to him." She further added a befitting tribute to Netaji can only be given if we inculcate his belief and ideas in our life. "What I find more important is having a revival and strengthening Netaji's values and ideas into today's lives and politics not only of high-level politicians but of every single man and woman. Let that be the guideline for action. Jai Hind", said Netaji's daughter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced that to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, his grand statue, made of granite, will be installed at India Gate as a symbol of India's indebtedness to him. (ANI)
Iran's state TV said that 11 of its vessels have been joined by three Russian ships, including a destroyer, and two Chinese vessels.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard will also participate with smaller ships and helicopters.

The military exercise comes at a time of heightened tension between Russia and the West over Moscow's build-up of some 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine.

Russia is also being joined by China and Iran -- two nations which are at loggerheads with the West, with Beijing recently accused of sending a spy to the heart of the UK Parliament -- the report said.

The joint naval exercise will cover some 6,560 square miles (17,000 square kilometres) in the Indian Ocean's north, and include night fighting, rescue operations and firefighting drills.

"The purpose of this exercise is to strengthen security and its foundations in the region, and to expand multilateral cooperation between the three countries to jointly support world peace, maritime security and create a maritime community with a common future," Iran's Rear Admiral Mostafa Tajoldini, spokesman for the drills, told Iranian state TV.

This is the third joint naval drill between the countries since 2019. It coincided with a recent visit by Iran's hardline President Ebrahim Raisi to Russia.

"Improving bilateral relations between Tehran and Moscow will enhance security for the region and the international arena," Raisi said upon returning from Russia on Friday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

--IANS san/arm

( 278 Words)

2022-01-21-17:44:06 (IANS)
New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI/PNN): Fermenta Biotech Limited (FBL) today announced that it has signed a Definitive Agreement with Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services Limited (APSL), a stepdown subsidiary of Dr Reddy's Laboratories Limited (DRL). In this arrangement, FBL will exclusively license its proprietary biocatalytic technology for the synthesis of Molnupiravir and supply its enzyme Candida Antarctica B Lipase (CAL B) to APSL, and APSL will exclusively procure the enzyme from FBL. Molnupiravir API manufactured by APSL will be utilized by DRL for its formulation. Additionally, APSL can also supply the API manufactured through this technology to other formulators of Molnupiravir, a COVID-19 drug that has recently received emergency use approval from the Food and Drugs Authority and Drugs Controller General of India. This development follows FBL's announcement of filing patents for its novel technology for synthesizing Molnupiravir in April 2021. Subsequently, the process has been further optimized at the laboratory scale, with demonstrations being successfully conducted at APSL's R&D center in Hyderabad. FBL's biocatalytic technology possesses unique advantages such as enzyme recyclability, optimum solvent recovery and improved process efficiency. Prashant Nagre, Managing Director, FBL, commented, "Our technology, based on green chemistry, is one of the first of its kind in the world, enabling sustainable and scalable manufacture of Molnupiravir. Additionally, through our expertise in enzymatic solutions, we also bring in cost efficiency by leveraging our in-house enzyme. We are proud to play a role in our collective fight against COVID-19 by making this drug more affordable." Founded in 1951 and headquartered in Thane, Maharashtra, Fermenta Biotech Limited (FBL) is a pioneer in immobilized enzyme technology with the mission to contribute to the emerging transformation of Biocatalysis. The enzyme manufacturing unit in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) approved R&D facility in Thane have consistently developed and sustained FBL's leadership in providing advanced enzyme technologies. FBL is a pioneer in the development and production of fermentation-based Penicillin G Amidase enzyme (PGA) and commercialized immobilized enzymes in India. Further, FBL also manufactures CAL B Lipase for a variety of applications from pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, food and fragrance, leather as well as biodiesel industry. Additionally, FBL is one of the leading manufacturers of Vitamin D3 globally. For more information about the Company and its businesses, please visit our website www.fermentabiotech.com This story is provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/PNN)
New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI/NewsVoir): Direct hair Transplant (DHT) is the world's most advanced procedure for hair transplants. It is a modified version of FUE that allows for more control of depth, angle and direction of the implanted hair, resulting in a completely natural hairline. Since its invention in 2013 by Dr. Pradeep Sethi and Dr. Arika Bansal - Founders of Eugenix Hair Sciences - millions of patients globally have benefitted from it. It has now become the procedure of choice for flawless hair transplants for surgeons and patients alike. The doctors are chief Hair Restoration Surgeons at Eugenix Hair Sciences, which is among the world's best 5 hair restoration centres. It is India's only hair restoration centre with authorisations from the American Hair Loss Association, AHLA and the International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons, IAHRS, USA. What makes DHT highly effective than the other forms of procedures is that in a DHT procedure, hair follicles are extracted individually and are then implanted into the balding patches simultaneously. This procedure decreases out of the body time for grafts for better survivability. The biggest advantage of DHT is the high success rate and a significant reduction in the time taken for the surgical procedure, and since the procedure allows for more control in planting extracted follicles with regard to the angle, depth and direction, it results in a strikingly natural-looking hairline. The advent of DHT has transformed the hair restoration industry and taken customer satisfaction to new heights. Its birth on Indian soil has made India the new global hub for hair transplants. The brand's value of relentlessly pursuing innovation that delivers better results and mastery of medical procedures has been drawing patients from across the globe. Speaking about DHT, Dr. Pradeep Sethi, Co-founder, Eugenix Hair Sciences and Co-inventor of DHT, said, "DHT technique put a spotlight on India, and the global medical community took notice. It challenged and convinced people that the best hair restoration the world has to offer is here in our very own country." "But the buck does not stop there," he continued. "Our minds are always occupied with thinking ahead and finding the next innovation that can disrupt the industry and increase efficacies," he explained. Dr. Arika Bansal, Co-founder, Eugenix Hair Sciences and Co-inventor of DHT, added, "Until its invention (DHT), patients who wanted the best transplant and were unwilling to compromise on quality, went to Turkey, Greece, and the USA. Today, patients all over the world come to us! Even from countries which were once renowned for hair transplantation!" She exclaimed, "60 per cent of our patients are now from overseas, and that number is steadily increasing. India now has access to the best hair treatment the world offers, right in its backyard. At Eugenix, we are committed to setting new precedents for the global Hair Restoration industry." To make it more convenient for international travellers, Eugenix has recently opened its first international centre in Dubai. The brand's strong base of foreign nationals from countries like Greece, Turkey, Singapore, the UK and the USA has helped it grow its brand equity around the world, and the opening of the Dubai clinic will make its presence stronger. As part of the expansion plans, Eugenix will open its clinics in multiple locations in USA, UK, and Australia, along with its consultation offices in Russia and China in the next 2-3 years. Eugenix Hair Sciences is rated among the best three hair restoration centres globally. Founded by the internationally recognized duo of Dr. Pradeep Sethi and Dr. Arika Bansal, who pioneered the DHT Technology and revolutionized hair restoration results forever. Through its 35,000 sq. ft., state-of-the-art infrastructure in the heart of Gurugram, it offers hair restoration surgeries that are at the bleeding edge of scientific knowledge and breakthroughs. It is among the few clinics in the world with highly sought-after authorizations from the prestigious American Hair Loss Association and the International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons (IAHRS), along with equally eminent endorsements from international patient forums like Hair Transplant Network, Hair Transplant Mentor and Bald Truth. This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)
New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI/BusinessWire India): ET Money, one of India's fastest growing investment and wealth management platforms, today launched ET Money Genius, one of its kind membership service that will deliver personalized investing intelligence. To ensure a hyper-personalized experience, ET Money has revamped its entire App, brand identity and introduced a new design system. It has also unveiled a new logo, called Wheel of Wealth that signifies stability, protection, personalized approach to wealth & the sense of freedom that wealth gives to an individual to make & live their life choices. It has also changed how it spells the brand name from ETMONEY to ET Money to align to how users of the App preferred to spell it. Speaking on the launch, Mukesh Kalra, Founder & CEO, ET Money said, "India is witnessing a phenomenal influx of new investors across different investment products. From being just savers in physical assets, Indians are opening up to new investment ideas. Indians are lapping up Stocks, Mutual Funds, IPOs, NFOs, Crypto and many other investment products. But instead of becoming investors, Indians are at risk of becoming a mere buyer, a shopper or just a collector of Investment Products. People are buying investment products like they shop for goods on shopping apps. This is happening because of the missing layer of personalization from the industry where players are focused on inducing transactions or just investment inflows because of a misaligned business model. In absence of personalization, everyone is buying the same types of investment products, irrespective of their Investor Personality, Risk Profile, time horizon or life goals. We are taking on the challenge of ending this impulsive behavior of shopping & collecting Investment Products to build personalized portfolios, that is powered by Investing Intelligence of ET Money. This service will be a member-only offering and will be offered under our new service, ET Money Genius." ET Money's new brand identity and a brand new App experience along with their membership service of ET Money Genius marks the beginning of its adding more impetus to its mission of helping India take informed financial decisions. The brand has always stood for simplifying Mutual Fund investments. It has continuously upped the innovation quotient of its offerings by not merely making it easy to transact but also added a layer of investing intelligence by way of building innovative tools like Fund Report Card, Investor Personality & Portfolio Health Check. It's now set its eyes on a bigger & more transformational goal of helping personalize this investing intelligence. With a renewed App experience and a revolutionary product called ET Money Genius, ET Money is staking a claim to become India's largest Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) within a few months of launch. Commenting further, Kalra added, "SEBI has a vision for the Wealth Management industry & that vision has a prominent role for RIAs who are supposed to be fiduciary to their clients & not create a business model on commissions or brokerage. ET Money has led the way for the industry making Direct Mutual Funds as a preferred way to participate in India's growth story & now we are deepening our commitment further by bringing in hyper-personalized investment intelligence to our investors & become India's largest RIA by number of paying clients. ET Money Genius will start rolling out beginning January 27, 2022 and culminate into a public launch before mid-February 2022." This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)
New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI/PNN): Madbow Ventures Ltd., one of the leading names in the fashion industry, co-founded by Naveen Mahlawat in August 2016, has raised $2 million in their Series A funding round led by Planify Capital, the strategic investment banker for Madbow. Key investors that contributed towards the Series A funding are Junita Majumder, owner at JK Future; Bhumika Srivastava, HR partner at Airbnb; Sanjay Damani, accredited investor from Mumbai; Jagannath MS, angel investor from Bangalore; Pranab Dutta, angel investor from Narayana, Delhi; Bhagya Lakshmi Inti, ace investor from Medchal, Telangana; and others which helped Madbow reach a post-funding valuation of Rs.100 Cr, boosting its share price to Rs.550 per share. Madbow is a digitally native consumer technology platform, delivering a content-led, lifestyle retail experience to consumers. It is a platform for brands where it creates brands across the categories and moves them to scale them at a fast pace with the help of technology, marketing, and years of experience in operations to make successful D2C brands. Since their incorporation in 2016, they have invested both capital and creative energy towards designing a differentiated journey of brand discovery for consumers. They have a diverse portfolio of lifestyle products like footwear, western wear, ethnic, and other fashion products, including their own brand products manufactured by them. As a result, they have established themselves not only as a lifestyle retail platform but also as a popular consumer brand selling on their niche websites as well as in the marketplace. Madbow has a few in-house brands catering to lifestyle and fashion like stalkbae.com, streetstylestalk.com, slaydeal.com, lovedamoda, and SlayXO.com, which are also available on mobile applications. Style stalk has 6 lakh downloads, Slaydeal has 32 thousand downloads, and stalk bae has 11 thousand downloads.All these websites cater to different customer segments, like one that deals particularly with the mass segment, whereas StalkBae is more toward premium products. The brand has a base of around 12,00,000+ satisfied customers in a market of more than 25K serviceable PIN codes throughout India. MadBow currently owns an export license and caters to international borders like Europe and Africa. Madbow's private label brands have had huge success on social media and have amassed more than 1 million followers on social media. Naveen Mahlawat, CEO of Madbow Ventures limited, stated, "The funds raised will be used for the company's expansionary purposes as the company is planning to launch fashion brands and labels in kids, ethnic, high fashion, cosmetics, and general merchandising, as well as bring all the fashion and lifestyle requirements under one roof. After experiencing amazing responses from various events and exhibitions, we are also planning for 100+ MBO stores and 10 EBOs by the end of 2022. Madbow Ventures Ltd eyes Rs 100 cr Revenue in Next 18-24 Months. Recently Madbow has done strategic tie-ups with leading marketplace players like Myntra, AJIO, Amazon Fashion etc., and provided curated designs after discussing with their fashion teams. Planify Capital's CEO, Rajesh Singla, commented, "This funding round will be one of the stepping stones towards the success of Madbow Ventures as a fashion brand. The company looks promising with positive cash flows since inception, scaling at 100% every year. They have a core female and customer-centric approach which would help them scale.". Planify is a fintech startup that focuses on building India's first marketplace for private equity. Planify acts as an investment banking firm for start-ups and private companies to help them raise funds through its various channels. Planify also offers stocks that are not yet listed to investors (Angel, Accredited Investors, VC, AIF, and PE Funds) so that the exchange of hands can become easy in unlisted companies on their own platform. Website link: www.planify.in This story is provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/PNN)
New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI/SRV): Nimbus Agro Farms Private Limited, a part of Nimbus Group has launched its maiden farmland investment project Nandi Farm, in a pristine location, just an hour drive from Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru. This gated community comprising a total space of 13.2 acres of land and around 40 exclusively managed farms also delivers a great visual treat for city dwellers. Nandi Farms is the new feather in the cap of the Nimbus Group, which has already established its strong presence in a multitude of domestic industries. Designed to be a home away from the hustle and bustle of the city or the designated weekend gateway, Nandi Farm offers scenic view and peaceful lifestyle complete with eco-friendly homes. The eco-friendly farm cottages offer a blend of natural outlook with modern amenities; secured through gated community and CCTV cover for top-notch security measures. Moreover, the farm also features a clubhouse, a fruit orchard, swimming pool, open gym, yoga center and kids play area, among other amenities for a relaxed and refreshed lifestyle. The farm is located in close proximity to the world-heritage Lepakshi Temple, one of the biggest and most visited tourist destinations of the city. Staying close to but away from the hustle-bustle and rush of the city is indeed one of the biggest highlights of the place. Sandeep Kumar Prasad, Promoter, Nandi Farms said, "The ongoing pandemic has brought focus on the need to nurture and preserve one's physical and mental well-being. It has also highlighted humanity's role in the society and the importance of nature. In the earlier days, I went to a place that was far away from the city, and there I invested my time in harvesting. I stayed there for a couple of months, kept myself busy in the nature, and the atmosphere, without a doubt, was incredibly peaceful. Inspired by the same experience, I worked with our team towards giving shape to this vision and that is how the concept of Nandi Farms came into existence. It will give individuals much deserved break and help them work on farm, by staying close to nature and bring new-found balance into their professional life." Apart from the modern amenities offered by Nandi Farm, the most distinguishing fact remain be the way nature has blessed this place. Besides the stunning landscape and greenery it shares, the heavenly ambience is something hard to say no to. Ravi Thakur, Sales Head, Nimbus Agro Farms Private Limited. said, "At Nandi Farm, we offer a holistic solution to our customers to treat themselves by being close to nature. This dream venture of Nimbus Group marks a new chapter in its legacy. By bringing in such an ambitious project that too located at a prime spot, being only 100 km from Bangalore Airport, we look forward to serving happy customers across India and abroad." Nimbus Group is one of the most reputed business groups in the country. Their presence in various industries, including Nimbus IT Solutions, Nimbus BPO, Nimbus Educom, Nimbus Hire, Nimbus Dial, etc., have solidified their 15 year legacy of serving a huge customer base of more than 22,000. Nimbus Agro Farm Pvt Ltd. is the latest promising venture of Nimbus Group, which prioritizes customer satisfaction over everything else. With the tagline, 'Going Green is the new opportunity', Nimbus Agro Farm Pvt. Ltd. has developed Nandi Farm and brought together amenities for a healthy and peaceful living. To know more, please visit: https://www.nimbusagrofarms.in This story is provided by SRV. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/SRV)
New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI/TPT): The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most unprecedented times and has led to a dramatic loss of human life across the globe. In addition to the varied adverse effects of the deadly virus, the pandemic has been a growth catalyst for the rise in violence against women. Per the flagship report 'Grappling with the Shadow Pandemic' launched by Akshara Centre, there is concrete data that demonstrates experiences nationally on the steep rise of domestic violence against women, inequality, and discrimination against women along with the pervasive intolerance against the queer community. Intending to shed light on the negative impact of the pandemic on women, the report consolidates substantial data that the majority of women, young and adult, faced a notable increase in household work, increase in household demands, and physical and mental abuse during the lockdown. The report is a joint effort of various women's rights organizations and activists who emphasized that women face domestic and other forms of violence at all times and that the pandemic has exacerbated the existing problems. The report highlights that despite constant efforts and empowerment, women have to go through such crimes across the country. While the lockdown emphasized 'stay home, stay safe', women were unsafe and confided in their households. The post-lockdown impact showed up in the form of anxiety, depression, fear, social isolation, loneliness, work overload, lack of income, lack of space, and feeling of confinement. While laws and services that help and protect women in distress already exist, the services were unavailable during the lockdown as it was not considered to be a part of essential services. This made it hard for women to reach out to these services for help and to shelter homes. The available ones stopped taking new admissions as authorities were concerned about the spread of the virus and would often ask survivors for a Covid negative certificate for admission. Understanding the gravity of the situation, Akshara Centre initiated a heart-wrenching digital campaign - #Lockdown on domestic violence campaign and joined hands with 26 renowned celebrities and social influencers to spread the word. With a heart-wrenching and strong appeal to women survivors and bystanders to report the crime, the campaign was released in 4 languages and reached over 6.5 million views in two months. Some of the celebrities included in the campaign were Sachin Tendulkar, Anushka Sharma, Virat Kohli, Farhan Akhtar, Diya Mirza, Konkona Sen Sharma, Usha Uthup, Vidya Balan, Nandita Das, Rahul Bose, Sakshi Tanwar, and Madhuri Dixit. In the long term, both women's rights groups and the govt. have to pursue their efforts to ensure the enhancement of women's capabilities and agency to resist violence. It has been established that women with some form of safety net are in a better position to challenge domestic violence. Safety nets can be created by supporting women in various fields. -The safety net of employment-The safety net of savings and property-The safety net of education and skills-Engage with men and boys-Ear mark funds-Evolve a more comprehensive Policy Plan Overcoming a pandemic may look like fighting a war, but the real need is far from that. What will help society, the people, and the Government in handling a disaster and pandemic is participatory governance and public discussion. If each listens and nudges the other into action, we have a better chance of surviving a calamity. This story is provided by TPT. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/TPT)
Kochi (Kerala) [India], January 21 (ANI/NewsVoir): On December 31, 2021, when the whole world was looking forward to welcoming the new year, doctors at Aster Medcity, Kochi were performing complex heart surgery. The team of doctors commenced surgery at 8 am and came to a successful end after a grueling 16-hours, well in time to ring in the celebrations. 58-year-old Najeeb, a resident of Kodungallur, after being refused treatment at two private hospitals due to the complexity of the case, was brought to Aster Medcity on December 30. At the time of admission and after a medical evaluation, doctors found he suffered an Aortic Aneurysm, blood flow to both blood vessels to his brain and hands had almost completely stopped. In addition to the risk of stroke and heart attack, Najeeb was at a serious risk of kidney failure as well. His condition was evaluated and a team of doctors, under the leadership of Dr Manoj P Nair, Head - Cardiac Surgery, Aster Medcity decided to perform the long, highly critical & complicated cardiac surgery. Explaining the procedure, Dr Manoj P Nair, Head - Cardiac Surgery, Aster Medcity, said, "The patient underwent replacement of the aorta that carries blood to the head, a portion of ascending aorta (largest artery) and aortic valve, which, regulates blood flow to the body through the heart. The success rate in such complex surgeries is only 30 per cent. As we have expertise and experience in handling such complex cardiac problems, we were able to evaluate and decide the course of treatment in time." "The surgery took 16-hours, and a large amount of blood transfusion was required. The Infectious Diseases team provided full support with special equipment to prevent any post-operative infection. The patient was kept under observation in the ICU for three days and was successfully discharged five days later. Najeeb is currently recuperating at home," he further added. "This is one of the most complicated and critical cases we have performed at Aster Medcity. We are thankful to the management and all other clinical departments for their joint efforts that resulted in a successful outcome," said Dr Suresh G Nair, Head - Anesthesia & Critical Care, Aster Medcity, Kochi. The surgery was successful thanks to the teamwork of Cardiac Surgeons, Interventional Radiologists, Anesthesia & Critical care teams. Najeeb returned to Medcity for his follow-up consultation and expressed his gratitude and love to the doctors and other staff who saved his life. This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)
Children who begin identifying as transgender at a young age tend to retain that identity for several years. That's according to a five-year study of 317 youngsters that was published online Wednesday in Pediatrics. The research involved kids who were ages 3 to 12 when the study began. On average, the kids began identifying as transgender at around age 6. After five years, 94% were living as transgender and almost two-thirds were using either puberty-blocking medication or sex hormones. Most were from high-income families who supported their transgender identities. Whether similar results would be found among youngsters who begin identifying as transgender as teenagers is unknown. more >>
Gurugram (Haryana) [India], January 21 (ANI/NewsVoir): OLX Autos has partnered with AutoCar India, the leading automotive publication in the country to host one-of-its-kind, Pre-Owned Car Awards 2022' to be held virtually on 27th January 2022. The 'Pre-Owned Car Awards 2022' are being hosted to applaud the players in the pre-owned car segment as well as address the rising demand in the sector by presenting consumers with helpful insights and accurate recommendations on best purchases in the Indian market, spread across 3 main categories, comprising - Highest Residual Value, Our Choice, and Special Awards. The jury for the awards consists of prominent names from the auto industry which include Hormazd Sorabjee, Editor, Autocar India, Renuka Kirpalani, Executive Editor Video, Autocar India, Sergius Barretto, Managing Editor, Autocar India, Amit Kumar, CEO, OLX Autos India, Armaan Ebrahim, Car Racer, Hemal N Thakkar, Director, CRISIL Limited, and Ravi Bhatia, President and Director of JATO Dynamics India. The 'Highest Residual Value' Category will have three awards with one winner each under Hatchbacks, Sedans, and SUVs. The 'Our Choice' Category will have 8 awards with one winner each corresponding to the budget and premium models of Hatchbacks, Sedan, and SUVs and MPVs followed by the 'Special Awards' Category that will celebrate the Viewer's Choice - Best Pre-Owned Brand of the Year and Pre-owned Car of the Year. Commenting on the Pre-owned car awards, Amit Kumar, CEO, OLX Autos India said, "We are excited to partner with Autocar India, a leading automotive publication to present the 'Pre-owned Car Awards 2022'. We are confident that this association will help establish our presence in this booming pre-owned car market and will further strengthen our consumers' confidence & trust in this industry. Covering different auto categories including Hatchback, Sedan, SUV, MUV, etc., this award will help educate our customers with the best value for money deal across categories." Hormazd Sorabjee, Editor, AutoCar India further added, "The pre-owned market has certainly come of age with a plethora of choices that are genuinely good alternatives to a new car. The objective behind these awards is to guide our audience to make the best choice when shopping for a pre-owned car. We are thrilled to partner with OLX Autos which has a goldmine of data and a finger on the pulse of this fast-evolving sector." Link for the event: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcCd9zkGa_k OLX Autos is a global car marketplace that's transforming the auto industry. A one-stop solution to buying or selling a car, it's safe, convenient, and offers guaranteed peace of mind for both buyer and seller. OLX Autos operates more than 450 inspection centres across Asia and the Americas, and online trading platforms for people to buy and sell cars. To date, OLX Autos has bought, sold, and inspected more than 400,000 cars. OLX Autos is currently active in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Peru. It operates under the well-known webuyanycar.com brand in the US, and CarFirst in Pakistan. OLX Autos is part of OLX Group, which operates one of the fastest-growing networks of trading platforms globally. It serves 322 million people every month in 30+ countries around the world, helping them buy and sell cars, find housing, get jobs, buy and sell household goods, and much more. For more information, please visit www.olxgroup.com. This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)
New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI/TPT): Indie Songster, Composer and Lyricist Yashraj Shaw releases his new song 'Tum Meri Thi' on his official YouTube channel. It is a Hindi-Pop track which depicts the grit and determination of not giving up on your love with a pinch of innocence. The music video captures the serenity of Meghalaya, from villages to the Shillong city which adds to the beauty of the track. It features Triveni Barman in lead role who was the finalist of Miss India 2017 and was crowned as Miss India Assam in 2017. In this age of swiping left and right, it is going to be old school where moving on is not as easy as it looks like. When you love someone and if it is reciprocated equally, giving up or moving on is a little outlandish. No relationship is perfect but it does not mean that love doesn't exist. Talking about the creation of the song, the artist says, "Every Artist needs an inspiration to create something. I, as an artist, find inspiration from my stories. I decided to write and compose this song after breaking up with my girlfriend but of course, I never gave up and we started talking again after months. This was the time when I created 'Tum Meri Thi' with all the love and emotions in the world It took me a couple of hours to write it and a few more hours to compose it because I knew how I wanted this song to be. The next step was to produce & record it and it was done in Mumbai. Once it was recorded, I was keeping my options open to shoot for the music video. I have spent my teenage in Meghalaya and it is also the place where I met this girl, so there wouldn't have been a better place to shoot it." 'Tum Meri Thi' is all about doing everything for the love which was meant to be destined. It's about how one can travel a thousand miles to get back to the person whom he loves. The main crux lyrics of the track is 'Tum Meri Thi, Tum Meri Ho, Tum Meri hi Rahogi', says the vocalist Yashraj. He previously released his original 'Kaise Kahu' in 2019 and his recent release 'Rehnuma' which was produced by Baanyan Tree Productions released on January 3, 2022. 'Tum Meri Thi' is his third track. The video of 'Tum Meri Thi' is his way of tributing the beauty of Meghalaya where he has spent most of his teenage years. Streaming on Yashraj's YT channel and on all the audio streaming platforms Tum Meri Thi - https://youtu.be/Qc4PhDUQvaQ This story is provided by TPT. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/TPT)
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), India's largest company based on market capitalisation, on Friday said its consolidated net profit surged by 37.9 per cent to Rs 20,539 crore ($2.8 billion) for the third quarter of the current financial year. The company's gross revenue for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 soared 52.2 per cent to Rs 209,823 crore ($28.2 billion). "I am happy to announce that Reliance has posted yet another quarter of stellar performance in 3Q FY22. We have delivered record operational results with strong contribution from all our businesses," said Mukesh D. Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited, when commenting on the Q3 FY22 results. Reliance Industries reported a record consolidated EBITDA at Rs 33,886 crore ($4.6 billion) for the October-December 2021 quarter, up 29.9 per cent year-on-year. The company's earnings per share (EPS) for the third quarter of the current financial year rose by 38.1 per cent to Rs 28.1. The company posted a record quarterly revenue from digital services at Rs 25,200 crore, up 6.4 per cent Y-o-Y. EBITDA for Digital Services crossed Rs 10,000 crore mark for the first time. Reliance Retail delivered a landmark quarter with all time high revenue and EBITDA. The Company's outstanding debt as on December 31, 2021 was Rs 244,708 crore ($32.9 billion). Cash and cash equivalents as on December 31, 2021 were at Rs 241,846 crore ($32.5 billion). Reliance's capital expenditure (including exchange rate difference) for the quarter ended December 31, 2021 was Rs 27,582 crore ($ 3.7 billion) "Our digital services business has delivered broad based, sustainable, and profitable growth through improved customer engagement and subscriber mix," Ambani said. Jio Platforms consolidated gross revenue for the quarter stood at Rs 24,176 crore ($3.3 billion), higher by 13.8 per cent Y-o-Y (adjusted for IUC). Jio Platforms consolidated EBITDA for the quarter was Rs 10,008 crore ($ 1.3 billion), higher by 18.1 per cent Y-o-Y Reliance Retail recorded Consolidated Gross Revenue of Rs 57,714 crore for the third quarter of the current financial year, a growth of 52.5 per cent YoY. All time high revenues recorded across all consumption baskets driven by highest ever store sales and sustained growth momentum in digital & new commerce, Reliance Industries Limited said in a statement. "Retail business activity has normalised with strong growth in key consumption baskets on the back of festive season and as lockdowns eased across the country," said Ambani. Reliance Retail posted a record EBITDA of Rs 3,822 crore, up 23.8 per cent YoY; EBITDA margins stood at 7.0 per cent. Reliance Retail's Net Profit for the quarter was Rs 2,259 crore ($304 million), higher by 23.4 per cent Y-o-Y Digital and New Commerce continued to flourish with merchant partnerships and Digital commerce orders scaling new highs. Merchant partners grew 4x YoY while digital commerce orders grew 2x YoY. Elaborating on the company's plan for green energy, Ambani said, "We are making steady progress towards achieving our vision of Net Carbon Zero by 2035. Our recent partnerships and investments in technology leaders in the solar and green energy space is illustrative of our commitment to partner India and the World in the transition to clean and green energy. We continue to pursue growth initiatives and collaborate with global leaders who share our vision of co-developing a more sustainable future for our planet." (ANI)
PTC India has said that it will hold a board meeting on Saturday post the recent allegations raised by three independent directors on lapses in governance and operations at its financial lending unit -- PTC India Financial Services. Earlier this week, three of its subsidiary's independent directors had resigned from their posts-- Kamlesh Shivji Vikamsey, Thomas Mathew T., and Santosh B. Nayar -- citing some corporate governance issues. PTC India Financial Services is registered with the RBI as a non-banking financial company (NBFC). "The management of PTC India Ltd is committed towards corporate governance of the highest standard in its functioning as well as of its subsidiaries. The interests of stakeholders are of prime concern and the company would like to assure total transparency and ethical best practices," it said in a regulatory filing on Thursday post the resignation of the independent directors. The issues raised by the three independent directors were related to the appointment of a wholetime director and on some operational issues pertaining to corporate governance, said Sushant Chaturvedi, who handles public policy, outreach and corporate communication at PTC India, during a virtual press conference on Friday. An investigation into the matter would be conducted for which an internal committee has been formed, said Rajib K. Mishra, Director (Marketing and Business Development) and CMD (In-charge), PTC India. The committee will submit its report within 30 days. Post the news of the resignation of three independent directors, the shares of PTC India Financial Services declined around 18 per cent on Thursday. On Friday, it fell over 5 per cent and settled at Rs 19.8. The shares of PTC India fell over 10 per cent over the past two sessions and settled at Rs 95 on Friday, down by over 5 per cent. --IANS ad/arm ( 310 Words) 2022-01-21-21:22:02 (IANS)
Actor Jason Isaacs of 'Harry Potter' fame has shared his reaction to JK Rowling's outspoken views on feminism and trans rights, which many view as controversial. Isaacs had played Lucius Malfoy in the 'Harry Potter' films, which are based on author Rowling's mega-hit book series. Rowling came under fire in June 2020 when she appeared to support anti-transgender sentiments in a series of tweets. Though she denied her views on feminism are transphobic, she doubled down on her controversial standpoints in a lengthy essay shared on her website days later. Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint each spoke out against Rowling's much-criticized remarks regarding the transgender community. According to People magazine, in a new interview with a news outlet, Isaacs acknowledged the charity work Rowling has done over the years, and briefly addressed her "very controversial" views. He said, "There's a bunch of stuff about Jo. You know, I play complicated people, I'm interested in complicated people. I don't want to get drawn into the trans issues, talking about them, because it's such an extraordinary minefield. She has her opinions, I have mine. They differ in many different areas." "But one of the things that people should know about her too, not as a counter-argument, is that she has poured an enormous amount of her fortune into making the world a much better place, for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children, through her charity Lumos. And that is unequivocally good. Many of us Harry Potter actors have worked for it, and seen on the ground the work that they do," Isaacs continued. He added, "So, for all that she has said some very controversial things, I was not going to be jumping to stab her in the front, or back, without a conversation with her, which I've not managed to have yet." Radcliffe had stated definitively in a previous essay for 'The Trevor Project' that "transgender women are women." "Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I," Radcliffe wrote at the time. "According to The Trevor Project, 78 percent of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity. It's clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm," he added. Responding to backlash back in June 2020, Rowling wrote that she refuses to "bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode 'woman' as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it." Actor Ralph Fiennes, who played Lord Voldemort in the 'Potter' franchise, told the news outlet in March that he personally feels the "level of hatred" aimed at Rowling is uncalled for. "I can't understand the vitriol directed at her. I can understand the heat of an argument, but I find this age of accusation and the need to condemn irrational. I find the level of hatred that people express about views that differ from theirs, and the violence of language towards others, disturbing," said Fiennes at the time, as per People magazine. (ANI)
An LA judge recently ruled that actor-filmmaker Bill Paxton's family can seek punitive damages against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in connection with their claim that it failed to perform an autopsy as promised in an effort to cover up his cause of death. The actor died of a stroke in February 2017 following heart surgery for aortic aneurysm repair. The family in February 2018 sued the hospital claiming it and its staff were negligent and his doctor recommended an unconventional surgery that he wasn't properly trained for and didn't explain the risks. They also allege that the hospital and Dr. Ali Khoynezhad tried to cover up their negligence by not performing an autopsy, and lying to the company hired for the cremation and memorial service. When Forest Lawn Memorial Park noted no autopsy had been done, Khoynezhad allegedly told the company the family "originally planned autopsy but changed their mind." The family alleges Cedars and Khoynezhad "made a promise and representation to Plaintiffs that they would perform an autopsy of William Paxton ... with no intention to perform an autopsy on William Paxton so they could conceal their role in causing the death of Mr. Paxton." They didn't find out an autopsy hadn't been done until Paxton had already been cremated and were "horrified" by the revelation, according to their amended complaint. Cedars in October filed a motion for summary adjudication of the claim, arguing that the family can't seek punitive damages against the hospital because they haven't met the standards required to hold the company accountable for its employee's conduct. It argued they "do not allege that any corporate officer or member of the board of directors had any role in the decisions concerning whether Paxton received an autopsy at Cedars or in communicating with the mortuary related to the family's wishes concerning an autopsy." LA County Superior Court Judge Steven J. Kleifield on Wednesday found Cedars ignored the key allegation, that the family was deceived. "Cedars submits no evidence as to who made the misrepresentation to Plaintiffs, who was involved in making the misrepresentation, or who was involved in the decision to not perform the autopsy," found Kleifield. He added, "The deception to Forest Lawn was only one act alleged to have been made in furtherance of the fraud against Plaintiffs. Cedars does not address the primary allegation against it. It therefore has not carried its burden on summary adjudication." As per The Hollywood Reporter, trial had been slated for March, but earlier this month was delayed due to the COVID-19 omicron variant spike and scheduling issues arising in another suit against Cedars. It is now set to begin September 9. (ANI)
Pamela Anderson is parting ways with her husband Dan Hayhurst after one year of marriage. A representative for Anderson told People Magazine that she has split from her bodyguard husband. Anderson and Hayhurst have been living in Canada since they tied the knot on Christmas Eve 2020. People Magazine confirmed Anderson's relationship with Hayhurst in September 2020, seven months after she split from her ex Jon Peters. A source had shared at the time that Hayhurst and Anderson had "been together for a while." "She's very happy. And they've been together for the entire pandemic. She's super happy and he's been helping her fix up her home on Vancouver Island," the source said of Anderson. The actress and model appeared on the British talk show 'Loose Women' last February alongside Hayhurst for an interview over video call, with the then-newlyweds answering questions about their nuptials while in bed. Anderson said she and Hayhurst met on her family property. "He was working here and I got stuck here during COVID and we stuck together," she said, laughing and adding, "We're still stuck together." The former Playboy model also said her husband was "a good guy." "He's the kinda guy I would have met if I didn't go round the world and get crazy," Anderson shared. "It's nice to be with a real man who can actually change a lightbulb. He's useful. It's a new thing." This was Anderson's fourth marriage. She married Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee in 1995 but the two divorced in 1998. They have two sons together: Brandon Thomas and Dylan Jagger. The actress later married and divorced Kid Rock in 2006. Then she married and divorced producer Rick Solomon twice -- in 2007 and 2013. Both marriages to Solomon dissolved in less than a year. (ANI)
'Man of the Match', 'One Cut Two Cut', and 'Family Pack' are the three films that will release in the coming months.

In a statement, Ashwini Puneeth Rajkumar, Producer, PRK Productions said, "Puneeth Rajkumar's distinct vision for cinema fascinated audiences for years, earning him the massive fan following and honour he so rightly deserved. It now remains our endeavour to carry that legacy forward. We are happy to continue our successful association with Prime Video and take our films to viewers the world over."

While 'Man of the Match' is a modern-day reflection of human emotions and social challenges starring some of the finest upcoming actors like Atharva Prakash K Jayaram, Dharmanna Kadur and Nataraj, 'One Cut Two Cut' brings the story of a day when everything went haywire in a mad-cap comedy featuring Danish Sait, Prakash Belavadi and Samyukta Hornad. 'Family Pack' is a romantic comedy starring Likith Shetty and Amrutha Iyengar in lead roles.

Fans will also be able to watch five of the actor's most memorable films, 'Law', 'French Biryani', 'Kavaludaari', 'Mayabazaar', and 'Yuvarathnaa' free on the digital platform.

For the unversed, Puneeth Rajkumar breathed his last on October 29, 2021. (ANI)
Honouring the creative prowess of the late Puneeth Rajkumar, Prime Video on Friday announced the premiere of three new Kannada movies from his PRK Productions. The films are 'Man of the Match', 'One Cut Two Cut' and 'Family Pack' and they will be available exclusively for Prime Members worldwide. The three-film announcement is an ode to the craft and legacy of the late actor and filmmaker whose contribution to cinema will make his legacy a part of all creative conversations. Featuring popular faces from the Kannada film industry, this repertoire of films will premiere on Prime Video in India and across 240 countries and territories worldwide. The cast of 'Man of the Match', a modern-day reflection of human emotions and social challenges, also stars some of the finest upcoming actors, such as Atharva Prakash, K. Jayaram, Dharmanna Kadur and Nataraj. 'One Cut Two Cut', which is a mad-cap comedy, narrates the story of a day when everything went haywire. It features Danish Sait, Prakash Belavadi and Samyukta Hornad. 'Family Pack' is a romantic comedy starring Likith Shetty and Amrutha Iyengar in lead roles. Talking about the association with PRK Productions, Manish Menghani, Head, Content Licensing, Amazon Prime Video, said: "Over the last few years, we have had a successful association with PRK Productions. This collaboration is our effort to pay a humble tribute to the creative excellence of the late Puneeth Rajkumar and his unique vision of storytelling." The Prime Video statement also said that five of Puneeth Rajkumar's most memorable productions -- 'Law', 'French Biryani', 'Kavaludaari', 'Mayabazaar' and 'Yuvarathnaa' -- will be available for free viewing for a month, starting on February 1, to non-Prime members as well. --IANS pvn/srb ( 292 Words) 2022-01-21-14:50:05 (IANS)
Fondly known for portraying diverse roles with perfection, actor Sushant Singh Rajput would have turned 36, if he were alive today. Remembering the powerhouse of talent, Bollywood celebrities took to their social media handles to pay their tributes to the late actor on his birth anniversary. Anushka Sharma shared a happy picture of her 'PK' co-star on her Instagram story and captioned it as "In remembrance," alongside a heartbroken emoticon. Bhumi Pednekar also shared a picture of the late actor in which he is seen smiling happily in a white shirt. She captioned the post by writing "In remembrance Sushant Singh Rajput" with a white heart emoji. The duo has worked together in the 2019 movie 'Sonchiriya'. Calling Sushant a "star in the sky", Kangna Ranaut also paid her tributes to the late actor by sharing a fan-edited picture on her IG story. Shraddha Kapoor who worked with the late actor in their 2019 blockbuster hit film 'Chhichhore,' took to her IG story and shared a smiling picture of Sushant with a purple heart emoticon. Siddhant Chaturvedi, who is currently basking in the praises after the release of his upcoming movie 'Gehraiyaan's trailer; also remembered the late star on his Instagram. After sharing a slew of reactions from the Bollywood stars about the trailer, he shared a smiling picture of Sushant and wrote, "Just missing this one reaction. Happy birthday Bhai." Sanjana Sanghi also shared a still from 'Dil Bechara' featuring herself and Sushant dancing together. She captioned the picture as "Happy birthday, our shooting star" on her IG story. Earlier in the day, actor Rhea Chakraborty, Vaani Kapoor, 'Dil Bechara' director Mukesh Chhabra and others also dedicated special social posts in remembrance of the late actor. Sushant died by alleged suicide in his apartment on June 14, 2020. His passing away triggered a massive controversy, with his family alleging foul play and levelling several allegations on his girlfriend and actor Rhea Chakraborty. Sushant was last seen on the silver screen in 'Chhichhore', co-starring Shraddha Kapoor. His last movie, 'Dil Bechara', was released digitally a month after his death. The actor has been a part of several hit films including 'Kai Po Che!', 'Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!', 'M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story', 'Kedarnath' and 'Sonchiriya'. (ANI)
The final episode of 'Bob Saget's Here For You' podcast was posthumously released earlier this week. As per People Magazine, the 'Full House' star died on January 9 at the age of 65. Six days before, Saget spoke to Margaret Cho for what would be the last episode of the show. During the comedian's hour-long conversation, Saget and Cho chatted about her upcoming acting projects, the importance of Asian representation, the coronavirus pandemic, and her stand-up comedy tour plans this spring. "People need to see your stand-up, they just have to do. You're never going to stop doing it, I have a feeling," Saget told his guest. "No, I'll keep doing it forever," she agreed. "I really love it." "Yeah, same here. I didn't know it! I didn't know I was going to love stand-up as much as I love it. I haven't loved it this much since I started, I think," Saget said. On his recent material, the actor added, "I'm doing long a-- sets because I'm saying serious s--- that I never said." Saget had wrapped a stand-up performance in Jacksonville, Florida, on January 8, and was found dead in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando the following afternoon. In his final Instagram post, the former host of 'America's Funniest Home Videos' wrote about how he "loved" the crowd at Ponte Vedra Concert Hall and how the night flew by. "I had no idea I did a two-hour set tonight. I'm back in comedy like I was when I was 26. I guess I'm finding my new voice and loving every moment of it," he wrote of pursuing the passion. After the final episode of Saget's podcast was released, Cho reflected on what it meant to be his last guest. "We talked about how long we'd been friends and doing standup at places like Cobb's (a comedy club in San Francisco) ... it was really easy to talk to Bob. I wish I were not his final guest and I wish there were more to come from him. Thank you, Bob," the 'Sex Appeal' actress wrote on Instagram. At the beginning of the episode, comedian Bill Burr introduced the podcast, explaining, that it was "unfortunately (Saget's) last episode of his podcast." "That guy really was there for everybody. Just truly one of the funniest human beings I ever met, and also one of the nicest. He was as funny as he was nice," Burr said. (ANI)
Deadline confirmed the news that the sequel will premiere on HBO Max, with 'Airplane' star Julie Hagerty playing Billingsley's mother.

The cult classic follows an adult Ralphie (Billingsley) in the 1970s, who returns to the house on Cleveland Street to deliver his kids a magical Christmas like the one he had growing up. With the same attention to the real-life tone of the first, Ralphie reconnects with childhood friends, reconciles the passing of his Old Man and sews the seeds for the origins of the beloved holiday classic.

The script of the project was written by Nick Schenk, who will also executive produce, and Clay Kaytis will direct. Billingsley will also produce along with his partner Vince Vaughn through their Wild West Picture Show banner. Cale Boyter and Jay Ashenfelter will oversee for Legendary.

The project is set to go on floors at the end of February in Bulgaria. (ANI)
Maharashtras daily Covid-19 numbers again shot above the 46,000-mark on Thursday though Omicron cases declined to remain in the 100-plus range, while deaths continued to be in double-digits, health officials said here on Thursday. After a record high of 46,723 cases reported on January 12, the number of daily Covid infections again mounted to 46,197 on Thursday after dropping to 43,697 on Wednesday. However, the fatalities decreased from 49 a day earlier to 37 on Thursday, with the mortality rate falling from 1.93 per cent to 1.92 per cent. After notching a peak of 238 Omicron cases on January 14, the state number of cases of the new variant dropped 214 a day earlier to 125 on Thursday. The government is continuing the intensive surveillance of passengers arriving at the three international airports -- Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur -- since December 1 last year. A total of 299,952 travellers have landed here, including 46,788 from the "high risk" countries of which 570 have tested positive apart from another 663 from other countries, with all their reports sent for genomic sequencing to confirm if they are afflicted by Omicron. Another 5,530 positive samples from field surveys conducted since November 1 have been sent for genomic sequencing with the results of 96 still awaited, the officials said. Omicron has spread extensively across several districts in the state, and out of the 2,199 cases reported till date, 1,144 have recovered. Mumbai is back at the top spot with 865 Omicron cases, followed by 861 in Pune district, 134 in Thane, 116 in Nagpur, 59 in Sangli, 25 in Amravati, and 20 in Aurangabad, among others. Of the 46,197 new Covid-19 cases reported on Thursday, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region recorded 12,054 infections, while Mumbai city's fell from 6,032 a day earlier to 5,708 on Thursday. The next is Pune Circle's 16,382 infectees, Nagpur Circle's 6,076, Nashik Circle's 4,955, Kolhapur Circle's 1,812, Latur Circle's 1,795, Aurangabad Circle's 1,590 and Akola Circle's 1,533 cases. The number of people under home quarantine shot up to 24,21,501 on Thursday, while another 3,391 were 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 dropping first time in a month, down from 2,64,708 a day before to 2,58,569 on Thursday, with a recovery rate of 94.52 per cent. The state's cumulative figures of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 now stands at 73,71,757 cases and 141,971 deaths, while a total of 69,67,432 patients have fully recovered till Thursday. --IANS qn/arm ( 446 Words) 2022-01-20-22:36:05 (IANS)
Beginning with Mizoram, the Centre on Thursday launched a Mobile Covid testing facility -- a first of its kind Mobile Diagnostic Laboratory (I-LAB) capable of performing both RT-PCR and ELISA tests -- for Northeast India. The mobile lab has bio-safety facility and is capable of performing both RT-PCR and ELISA tests. It can also be utilised for testing other infectious diseases like TB, HIV, and therefore will remain relevant even in post-Covid times. The Mobile Lab Technology will be rolled out gradually in other states of the Northeast as the region has unique climatic and topographical conditions. It has been developed with support from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) under the Ministry of Science & Technology, government of India, and is meant to provide Covid testing access to rural and remote parts of Northeast, a release from the Ministry said. Union Minister of State for Science & Technology, Jitendra Singh, launched the mobile testing facility with Mizoram Chief Minister Pu Zoramthanga joining the ceremony online. Exuding confidence that India will emerge triumphant from the current pandemic situation, Singh called for linking the I-LAB with a tele-consultation facility in accordance with disease profile of the population of the northeastern region. He informed that tests like mammography and vision-testing can be added to the mobile laboratory which will prove hugely beneficial for the people of the region. Singh said that ever since Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister, he has accorded special priority to the development of the Northeast, adding that this facility is a testimony of that commitment. Acknowledging the efforts made by the AMTZ (Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone) team for building the innovative facility, Singh said the DBT has also established manufacturing facility in AMTZ for indigenously manufacturing various healthcare technologies, which are hugely imported, thereby helping us realise the vision of 'Make-in India, Make for India'. Speaking on the occasion, Zoramthanga said that this will help bridge the gap in Covid testing in the border districts and remote areas lacking in RT-PCR testing facilities. --IANS niv/arm ( 351 Words) 2022-01-21-00:16:03 (IANS)
The WHO chief cautioned against the assumption that the newly dominant Omicron variant is significantly milder and has eliminated the threat posed by the virus, the BBC reported.

The intervention comes as some European nations saw record new case numbers.

Speaking during a news conference at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Tedros told reporters that the Omicron variant had led to 18 million new infections across the world over the past week.

While the variant may prove to be less severe on average, "the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading", he said.

"Make no mistake, Omicron is causing hospitalisations and deaths, and even the less severe cases are inundating health facilities."

He warned global leaders that "with the incredible growth of Omicron globally, new variants are likely to emerge, which is why tracking and assessment remain critical".

"I remain particularly concerned about many countries that have low vaccination rates, as people are many times more at risk of severe illness and death if they are unvaccinated," he added.

The WHO's emergencies director, Mike Ryan, also warned that Omicron's increased transmissibility is likely to drive a rise in hospitalisations and deaths, especially in nations where fewer people are vaccinated.

"An exponential rise in cases, regardless of the severity of the individual variants, leads to inevitable increase in hospitalisations and deaths," he said.

--IANS vc/svn/ksk/

( 267 Words)

2022-01-21-12:30:01 (IANS)
The Karnataka government on Friday announced that it has lifted the weekend curfew in the state, but restrictions on night movement will remain. The decision was the high-level committee meeting chaired by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday. Briefing reporters, Revenue Minister R. Ashok stated that the weekend curfew has been lifted in the state, as per the recommendation of experts and the relaxation is conditional. However, the night curfew between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. will continue, he underlined. "The hospitalisation rate is five per cent in the state, though the number of Covid cases are increasing. The Covid numbers are likely to go upwards in the coming days. If the rate of hospitalisation is more, then the imposition of weekend curfew will be considered," he said. "I appeal to the people not to give any room for that situation. The decision has been made considering the demands of organisations, opposition parties and mainly on the report of the experts," he added. Apart from this, the 50 per cent rule in pubs, theaters, malls and commercial establishments would continue as the same and the public will have to cooperate, he said. The meeting was conducted for more than two hours and experts from NIMHANS, WHO, and representatives from Home, Police, Health, Education and Irrigation Departments were present and gave their inputs, Ashok said. The decisions taken by neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Kerala were also discussed in detail, he added. "As many as 2,93,231 Covid active cases are there in the state as per statistics till January 20. Among them 2.86 lakh people are being treated in home isolation and 5,344 persons have been hospitalised. 340 are in ICU and 127 are on ventilators. The positive rate in the state is 19.94 per cent. The positivity rate among kids is 8 per cent and among elders is 16.57 per cent. Chief Minister Bommai has directed to take more care about children who are admitted," the minister said. --IANS mka/vd ( 344 Words) 2022-01-21-17:38:02 (IANS)
The pathetic situation of Bihar's health system surfaces time to time, with the latest such incident reported from Vaishali district where a man carried the dead body of his wife to hospital on his shoulder and took it back to his village for cremation the same way as the hospital did not provide an ambulance. Krishna Kumar, a native of Ramdhauli village under Vidupur block in Vaishali, had brough his wife for treatment into the Hajipur Sadar hospital on Thursday. Shockingly, when he was walking with the body on his shoulder, neither the security guards nor any medical staff stopped him. The doctors present in the emergency ward checked her and declared brought dead. Krishna Kumar then requested the hospital for an ambulance to carry the dead body back home. "I have waited for an hour but none of the medical staff arranged the ambulance. As I did not have enough money, I took my wife's dead body on the shoulder and walked out from the hospital," he told local reporters in his native village. When he was carrying the dead body on the shoulder, an onlooker captured the incident on mobile phone and uploaded it on social media. However, Vaishali Civil Surgeon, Dr Pramod Kumar Singh told IANS that Krishna Kumar came with his wife for treatment and the medical officer present in the emergency ward examined her, and found she was already dead. "The doctor told Krishna Kumar to stay for some time until official formalities were completed. The medical officers of emergency went busy. Meanwhile, he took the dead body on the shoulder and ran away from the hospital." "We have given show cause notice to the guards present at the gate of the hospital," Singh said. --IANS ajk/vd ( 307 Words) 2022-01-21-21:58:02 (IANS)
Accusing the Congress of "misleading people" of Goa, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee on Thursday said the party had approached former union minister P Chidambaram for alliance and if the results of the Goa election goes in favour of the BJP, the Congress leader "should come out in public and take the blame on him". Addressing a press conference here, Banerjee attacked the Congress and said "every vote to Congress is a vote cast for the BJP" in the coastal state. "All the Congressis are now running BJP and vice-versa. Congress is the party of anything but ideology," he said. Banerjee said Trinamool Congress has come to Goa as the party has seen "how the mandate of Goa was betrayed in 2017". He accused Chidambaram, who is senior election observer of Congress in Goa, of "misguiding people to serve the interest of his party". Banerjee said those spreading lies from the other parties "must be exposed". "Mr P Chidambaram, for whom I have the highest regard, but the way he has been misguiding people to serve the interest of his party is something that should be exposed and brought to the public domain," Banerjee said. "He (Chidambaram) said that AITC never made any offer. However, Pavan Varma put this in the public domain that being the national vice-president of AITC , he went to Chidambaram's house on December at 1.30 pm," he added. The Trinamool Congress leader said Chidambaram is an eminent lawyer and "if he thinks that if we are fudging any information then he can sue us". "Let us go the court and find out who is lying. Pavan Varma went to Mr Chidambaram's house at Lodhi Road and requested him that we should keep our egos aside and make sure that we fight it out for the sake of every Goans. But he (Chidambaram) failed to rise over his own political and petty interests. This is extremely unfortunate," Banerjee said. "If the results of the Goa election goes in favour of the BJP, Chidambaram should come out in public and take the blame on him if he is so confident. Congress is misleading the people at large. They are misleading the every Goans," he added. Taking a dig at Congress, he said people of the state were telling the party that they gave it a chance in 2017 but it had failed to keep its flock together earlier. "We have to change this and make sure, come what may let BJP use all its might, Trinamool won't cow down," he said.He said Trinamool Congress has come to Goa to clean the politics of this state and make sure the "traitors of this land who are only concerned about their vested interests and not keeping the interests of the public at large will be ousted". "February 14 will be the day of Goenchi Navi Sakal. Goa is ready to bring a change, new dawn, under Mamata Banerjee. Trinamool Congress is the only party that is taking on BJP's might, vigour and juggernaut head-on," he added. Abhishek Banerjee said TMC walked an extra mile to form a unified alliance against BJP.Trinamool Congress (TMC) Goa In-Charge Mahua Moitra had earlier hit out at Congress leader P Chidambaram saying that her party made a "formal and definitive" offer to Congress in Goa to defeat BJP. Moitra, who was responding to Chidambaram's statements about the lack of clarity about TMC's proposal said that if he is not aware of details, he should speak to his party leadership rather than making such statements. "All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) already made a formal and definitive offer to INC on Goa to defeat BJP. INC leadership asked for time to revert. This was almost two weeks ago. If Chidambaram was not aware of details, he should talk to his leadership rather than making these statements," she had said. Trinamool Congress, which is keen to leave a mark in its outing in Goa, had suggested a broad alliance but not much has moved on the proposal due to competing interests and apparent lack of faith between the opposition parties. Congress is peeved at the Trinamool Congress "poaching" its leaders. TMC has announced only 11 candidates so far out of the 40 seats of Goa assembly. Goa will go to the Assembly polls on February 14. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
The incident occurred at Renigunta near the temple town of Tirupati.

According to police, Vasundhara attacked her husband Ravi Chandran (53) with a knife and killed him during a quarrel at their home. She then cut his head and carried it in a bag to the police station where she surrendered.

Police officers rushed to the scene and also brought the accused there to gather clues. The body was shifted to SV Medical College for autopsy.

A police officer said preliminary investigations show that Ravi Chandran and Vasundhara used to have frequent fights. The couple had an argument over some issue on Thursday morning and in a fit of rage the woman stabbed him to death. Not stopping at that, she cut his head and carried it to the police station.

The couple has a 20-year-old son. Ravi Chandran is a native of Narasaraopet in Guntur district. Police have informed his relatives about the incident.

--IANS ms/skp/

( 196 Words)

2022-01-20-21:04:02 (IANS)
In a judgement to protect rights of individuals, the Haryana Right to Service Commission has imposed a penalty of Rs 20,000 on Deputy Civil Surgeon K.L. Malik, who is posted in a government hospital in Rohtak town, for delay in release of a death certificate relating to 1994 on flimsy grounds. Commission Secretary Meenaxee Raj on Thursday said a long-pending issue of a harassed widow was finally resolved through the intervention of the commission. She said though the record pertaining to the death was lost and destroyed in 1995 and this fact was also agreed upon by the Chief Commissioner of the Haryana Right to Service Commission himself who incidentally was Deputy Commissioner Bhiwani at that time. An inquiry had been made into the factum of death of the deceased by Medical Officer Anand Prakash, who was posted at the government hospital in Meham, recommended the case for registration to the Deputy Civil Surgeon, Rohtak. She said the inquiry was based on statements of Anganwadi workers who had made further enquiries with the villagers regarding the death and they also affirmed it. Despite the inquiry, a clear recommendation by Anand Prakash to register the death but the designated officer wrongfully rejected the case, claiming lack of supporting documents to process the case. Meenaxee Raj said even during the hearing before the Chief Commissioner of the commission, pursuant to the suo-motu notice served upon him based on the complaint made by the widow, the respondent doctor kept harping upon absence of proof of death. He had no realisation that once a person is dead, his or her death certificate could be the only proof of death. Chief Commissioner T.C. Gupta said this was the most painful case where the system has turned so apathetic that a hapless poor widow, who has already lost her husband, is made to run from pillar to post to be able to get a death certificate. Extreme and abject case of absolute non application of mind by the doctor concerned has led to imposition of maximum penalty as well as compensation in the case. Gupta that the commission has also directed the Deputy Civil Surgeon Rohtak to directly pay Rs 5,000 as compensation to the complainant. He said the Commission would not spare any officer who does not respect the applicant's valuable time and is not committed to perform task on time. --IANS vg/svn ( 410 Words) 2022-01-20-21:10:04 (IANS)
Centre for survivors of gender-based violence opens in Thanh Hoa

The second One Stop Service Centre for survivors of gender-based violence opened in Thanh Hoa Province on January 21.



The second One Stop Service Centre for survivors of gender-based violence has just been opened in Thanh Hoa Province on January 21.





This is another outcome of the collaboration between the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and the United Nations Population Fund  UNFPA towards ending gender-based violence against women and girls under the UNFPA Project Mitigating Covid-19 Impacts on Vulnerable Populations  Ensuring National Progress to Achieve SDGs in Vietnam, which is funded by the Government of Japan.



The Anh Duong House provides essential, comprehensive, and integrated services to women and girls who are experiencing and/or at risk of gender-based violence. It provides a wide range of services, meeting international standards, including health care, psychological support, counselling, social welfare services, emergency shelters, police protection, legal and justice services, and referrals. Protecting the rights and safety of survivors of gender-based violence, the Centre also has the toll-free hotline 18001744 available 24/7 to detect, prevent, and support survivors of violence.



In her opening remarks to officially launch the One Stop Service Centre in Thanh Hoa on Friday, the Vice Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Nguyen Thi Ha confirmed that the establishment of the Anh Duong House was very timely. She said: The Anh Duong House plays an important role in not only supporting the survivors of gender-based violence, but also strengthening the involvement, the responsibilities, and better coordination among relevant departments, sectors, and organizations in addressing gender-based violence in a professional and friendly manner, using the survivor-centred approach. It will also help raise awareness and change behaviours of communities, thus contributing to preventing and pushing back acts of violence against women and girls.



The first One Stop Service Centre was established in Quang Ninh with technical and financial support from UNFPA in partnership with KOICA. Started its operation in April 2020, the Anh Duong House in Quang Ninh has accommodated more than 300 women and children, who are the survivors of gender-based violence. The Centres hotline, which is available 24/7 free of charge, is receiving more than 1,000 calls a month.



The Anh Duong House in Thanh Hoa is a replication of the model in Quang Ninh. And it is planned that the similar model will be established in HCM City and Danang in the first quarter of 2022, funded also by the Government of Japan, to meet the needs of not only the survivors of gender-based violence but also women and girls who are at risk of violence.



Speaking at the launching ceremony, the UNFPA Representative for Vietnam, Ms. Naomi Kitahara expressed UNFPAs honour to contribute to the Government of Vietnams efforts to stop gender-based violence against women and girls. She said: Ending gender-based violence and harmful practices against women and girls is one of the three transformative results of UNFPAs corporate Strategic Plan. In Vietnam, UNFPA has been accompanying the Government of Viet Nam, especially the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, in the path to ending violence against women and girls. The establishment of this OSSC is one of the outcomes of our collaboration to ensure that all women and girls in Viet Nam, including those most vulnerable, have the right to live a life free of violence and with dignity.



With UNFPAs support, more than 500 service providers have been trained to provide care and support to survivors of violence in Viet Nam. Case management has been strengthened with a well-coordinated local governance structure, and standards in care for each sector have been developed.



The Government of Japan highly appreciated UNFPA and MOLISA for the tireless effort on the prevention and response to violence against women and girls in Viet Nam, which is prevalent especially in the COVID 19 context. By funding the establishment of the Anh Duong House in Thanh Hoa, the Government of Japan was pleased to have been able to contribute to mitigating the negative impact of COVID 19 in Viet Nam, making sure that everyone is part of the countrys sustainable development process.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad K. Sangma on Thursday met Union Home minister Amit Shah in Delhi and apprised him about the efforts being made to resolve six of the 12 inter-state border disputes between the two northeastern states. After the meeting, Sangma said that Shah expressed his happiness on the initiatives being taken to resolve the border disputes and the Union Home Ministry would examine the reports submitted by the two Chief Ministers. The two CMs would again meet the Home Minister on the issue after January 26. After the meeting, Assam Chief Minister Sarma: "I along with HCM Meghalaya Sri Conrad K. Sangma met Adarniya Griha Mantri Sri Amit Shah ji in New Delhi. We apprised Hon HM on the outcomes of discussions held between Assam & Meghalaya governments to resolve the border disputes amicably. We're grateful for his guidance." Taking to twitter, Meghalaya CM Sangma said, "Called on HM Amit Shah with Assam CM Himanta Sharma & appraised him of Regional Committee reports. He expressed happiness on the initiative taken by the both states. MHA to examine the reports and we'll meet HM again after Jan26." Sarma and Sangma submitted the recommendations of the ministerial committees constituted in August last year to resolve the six of the 12 inter-state border disputes. The Cabinets of the two states in their meetings separately on Wednesday approved the recommendations of the ministerial committees. The ministerial committees before finalising the recommendations of the two states had visited 36 villages in six of the 12 disputed areas during the past four months. Sangma said that the boundary demarcation would be conducted after the due procedure in the Parliament. "The officials of the Survey of India along with the officials of the two states have to undertake joint inspections before a possible Bill can be moved in the Parliament," he said. Meanwhile, the Assam Chief Minister said that a roadmap for amicable settlement has been prepared based on the recommendations of three regional (ministerial) committees with representatives from both the states. On January 12, Assam and Meghalaya had in principle reached an agreement on at least six of the 12 border disputes. The Opposition Congress in Assam has threatened to move the court if Assam's land is parted away with. Assam has border disputes with Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram. Assam's border dispute cases with Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh are before the Supreme Court but there are no cases on the inter-state disputes with Meghalaya and Mizoram. Recently, Assam and Nagaland had signed an agreement to remove state forces from the disputed locations. Sarma recently discussed an out-of-court settlement of the boundary disputes with his Arunachal Pradesh counterpart Pema Khandu. The worst-ever violence along the Assam-Mizoram border on July 26 last year left six Assam Police personnel dead and nearly 100 civilians and security personnel of the two neighbouring states injured. --IANS sc/arm ( 499 Words) 2022-01-20-23:06:04 (IANS)
The India Meteorological Department (IMD), as part of its extended range forecast issued for the period January 20 to February 2, on Thursday predicted rainfall in the run up to January 26 but not on that Republic Day itself. A Western Disturbance as a cyclonic circulation lies over north Pakistan and neighbourhood, an induced cyclonic circulation lies over central parts of Rajasthan, a fresh active Western Disturbance is likely to affect northwest India from January 21 onwards while an induced cyclonic circulation is very likely to form over southwest Rajasthan on January 22, it said. Under the influence of above systems, the IMD said: "Isolated to scattered rainfall/ snowfall is very likely over Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan, Muzaffarabad, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand during next two days and it will increase thereafter with fairly widespread to widespread rainfall/snowfall on January 22 and 23 and reduce thereafter." Isolated to scattered rainfall is very likely over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, west Uttar Pradesh and east Rajasthan on January 20 and 21 and increasing thereafter with fairly widespread to widespread rainfall on January 22 and 23. Isolated to scattered rainfall is predicted over east Rajasthan during January 20 to 23, east Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh during January 22 to 24 and Madhya Pradesh on January 22 and 23. Isolated heavy rainfall likely over Punjab on January 22, the IMD said. Scattered to fairly widespread rainfall is very likely over Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Sikkim during January 22-24 while isolated thunderstorm with lightning and hail is very likely over west Madhya Pradesh on January 21 and 22, over Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, west Uttar Pradesh, north Rajasthan, east Madhya Pradesh, and Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim on January 22, over Bihar on January 22 and 23, and over Jharkhand and Gangetic West Bengal on January 23. The IMD has also predicted strong surface winds (20-30 kmph) over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Rajasthan, and west Uttar Pradesh on January 21 and 22. It also said fairly widespread to widespread rainfall very likely over northeast India during January 23-25. Isolated thunderstorms with lightning and hail is very likely over Assam and Meghalaya on January 20 while isolated heavy rainfall is likely over there on January 24. Under the influence of a cyclonic circulation over Southwest Bay of Bengal and another over south Tamil Nadu in lower tropospheric levels, isolated light rainfall/ thundershower over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal, Kerala, and Mahe is expected during next 4-5 days. Minimum temperatures are likely to rise by 2-4 degrees Celsius over northwest India during next 2-3 days and fall by 3-5 degree Celsius thereafter. Very dense fog is very likely in isolated pockets over Uttar Pradesh and dense fog in isolated pockets over Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, west Rajasthan, north Madhya Pradesh, and sub-Himalayan West Bengal & Sikkim on January 21 morning. It is likely to persist over east Uttar Pradesh and Bihar during subsequent 24 hours i.e. till January 22 morning. Cold Day to Severe Cold Day conditions is very likely to prevail in isolated pockets of Madhya Pradesh and Cold Day conditions in isolated pockets over Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh likely during next 24 hours and over Bihar during next two days. After the passage of the Western Disturbances on January 24 from north-western parts of India, conditions are likely to be favourable for another fresh spell of dense fog/ low clouds conditions and Cold Day conditions over plains of northwest and adjoining central India during January 25-27. The new spell is likely to be shorter in view of the stronger lower-level westerly winds likely thereafter over these areas, the IMD said. --IANS niv/vd ( 624 Words) 2022-01-20-23:10:03 (IANS)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new Circuit House near Somnath Temple in Gujarat at 11:00 am via video conferencing today, Prime Minister's Office (PMO) informed. The inauguration will be followed by the Prime Minister's address on the occasion, the PMO said on Thursday. Somnath Temple is visited by lakhs of devotees from India and abroad every year. The need for the new Circuit House was felt as the existing government facility was located far off from the temple. The new Circuit House has been built at a cost of over Rs 30 crore and is located near the Somnath Temple, the PMO said. It is equipped with top-class facilities including suites, VIP and deluxe rooms, conference room, auditorium hall etc. The landscaping has been done in such a manner that a sea view is available from every room, it added. (ANI)
The Central Election Committee (CEC) of the Congress will meet on Friday at 4 pm through video conferencing for the selection of candidates for the Uttarakhand assembly polls. Earlier, on Wednesday, Congress leader and former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat said that a decision on taking back Harak Singh Rawat into the party is not for him to take and the party leadership has to take a call on the matter. "I am not angry with anyone. Congress high command has to decide whether Harak Singh Rawat will be inducted into the party or not. I will accept whatever decision the Congress party takes. I am not in the capacity to decide whether Harak Singh Rawat should be inducted into the party or not," Rawat told ANI. Harak Singh Rawat was one of the 10 MLAs who left the Congress in 2016 and joined BJP. With assembly polls in the state less than a month away, he wants to go back to Congress but Harish Rawat, who is chairman of the party's campaign committee for the polls, is seen to be against the proposal. Sources said Harish Rawat is uncomfortable with Harak Singh Rawat's re-entry into the Congress and has apprised the party leadership about his views. He is learnt have said that Harak Singh Rawat should not be entertained since he is coming with a set of conditions and demands. Harak Singh Rawat was dismissed from the Uttarakhand Cabinet and expelled from the BJP for "anti-party activities". He has expressed a desire to join Congress but suspense remains regarding his re-induction. The polling for Uttarakhand Assembly Election will take place in a single phase on February 14. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. In the last Assembly election, BJP secured a win on 57 seats out of 70 Assembly constituencies in Uttarakhand. (ANI)
After LJP's Chirag Paswan who was ousted from the NDA after contesting independently in the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections, Vikassheel Insan party chief Mukesh Sahani could face the same consequences after he opened a front against the the BJP in Uttar Pradesh polls. Targeted by Sahani, BJP leaders like Ajay Nishad, Samrat Chaudhary, and Neeraj Kumar Bablu have said that he is free to leave the NDA in Bihar. Indicating action against Sahani, BJP MP Nishad, a popular face among the Nishad community in Uttar Pradesh, said: "If Mukesh Sahani is leaving, it would not affect NDA government in Bihar as three MLAs of VIP are with the BJP." The BJP had given 11 seats to the VIP in the 2020 polls and it won four seats. After the demise of MLA Musafir Paswan, VIP has only 3 MLAs. Bihar minister Samrat Chaudhary expressed the same sentiments. "Sahani is independent to go anywhere. If he separates, it would not hurt the NDA. We have given support to Nitish Kumar and we are committed to it. The NDA government will complete its tenure of 5 years. No one can derail it," he said. Fellow minister Neeraj Kumar Bablu, another cabinet minister of Nitish Kumar government and BJP leader, said: "No one has stopped him from going anywhere. We have not invited him to the NDA. He came to the NDA." Sahani is testing his luck in Uttar Pradesh polls, having alleged that Nishad abused him a few days ago on the direction of the top BJP leadership. Sahani and Nishad are from the same Mallah community and the BJP does not want him to enter UP and split their votes. The BJP also threatened Sahani to contest Bochaha by-election, which fell vacant after sitting VIP lawmaker Paswan passed away on November 25 last year. Sahani, who had himself lost in the 2020 Bihar polls, still became an MLC and then minister, and the BJP knew that the three MLAs of his party are approachable, having lost out on a ministerial berth. The situation of Sahani is similar to Chirag Paswan who was also vocal against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar during the 2020 and the JD-U believes that due to the LJP chief, the vote percentage of JD-U declined, Chirag Paswan paid the penalty with his party splitting into two parts as his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras formed Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) with the support of 5 MPs. --IANS ajk/vd ( 424 Words) 2022-01-21-00:30:05 (IANS)
Ahead of the Punjab Assembly elections, where Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is hoping to win big, a former member of the party has brought out an "insider account", in the form of a web series, which claims the party has deviated from its principles. The web-series in the political genre, 'Transparency: Pardarshita' has been produced and directed by Dr Munish Raizada, a medical practitioner from Chandigarh working in Chicago. The web series available on YouTube is an "insider account" showing how things went from being transparent and for bringing in a systemic change to being non-transparent and becoming part of the same political rut. The web series was completed in October 2020 and released on OTT platform MXPlayer and as per Raizada, received positive response. "However, as the platform was not promoting it saying it is a political series, I thought about how I can take it to a larger audience and then thought of YouTube," Raizada told IANS on phone from Chicago. The web series was released on YouTube on January 17. Raizada had taken a sabbatical from his practice in Chicago and had joined the AAP as a volunteer in 2013. According to Raizada, he remained with the party till its victory in Delhi Assembly polls in 2015 and even worked in the government for some time. Then, when the issue of "lack of transparency" in donations came forth ahead of 2020 elections, he raised his voice against the party. The AAP has emerged as a main contender in the political space in Punjab and recently declared Bhagwant Singh Maan as its CM face. Raizada had even toured Punjab recently and held a press conference in Chandigarh in January first week, and again, declared how the party had "systematically deviated from the principles." "Remember they came promising vyavastha Parivartan (systemic change). But now they have totally changed," Raizada said and recalled the happenings in the party that led him to raise voice against the "non-transparent" manner in which donation collection was happening then. Former AAP members Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan too had raised their voices about these things and were later thrown out of the party. The thought of web series came to Raizada's mind to bring out what he claims are the "wrongdoings" that went on in the party. The series could not be completed before the February 2020 Assembly polls in Delhi, so he released only the theme song and a trailer in January. "If you look at it, Kejriwal is still doing the same thing. After gathering large donations in a non-transparent manner, he is still saying, 'I will break piggy banks of children to collect funds for getting work done'. Therefore, I thought, people need to know the truth," he said as the reason for bringing out the web series on YouTube now. The web series has interviews with a whole lot of people who were disappointed with Kejriwal's "deviation" from what he had promised when the party was formed in 2012. The long list includes Kumar Vishwas, Yogendra Yadav, Mayank Gandhi, Shazia Ilmi, Shivendra Chauhan and a number of volunteers. In the end, when Raizada tries to meet Kejriwal, it is shown that he is unable to meet. The six parts web series' song 'Kitna Chanda Jeb Mein Aaya' - sung by Udit Narayan, composed by Pravesh Malik, lyrics for which have been written by Annu Rizvi - had become an instant hit and caught the imagination of people, especially on social media. Much later after the February 2020 polls, when he completed the series, Raizada went back to Chicago and re-started his practice. --IANS niv/shs ( 619 Words) 2022-01-21-03:04:01 (IANS)
After the Arunachal Pradesh incident of abduction of an Indian youth by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Congress Party is taking on the Modi government and demanding that an all-party delegation of the MPs should visit the Line of Actual Control (LAC) under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Speaking to the reporters, Congress MP and spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said, "The Congress party has always put the interest of the country above the interest of the party. We have never tried to derive political gains but have worked for the benefit of the nation. Be it the security of the nation, whether it is our brave army, whether it is issues of terrorism. Whether there were attacks on things like Raghunath Temple or Parliament, we never did politics on it. Even on top of that we never did our vote-bank politics about the brave army. It is the responsibility of all of us to see that the borders of our nation are safe. No one should enter our borders even a little bit." Gohil further said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had warned long ago that China is intruding into Indian territory but the Central Government did not do anything. "Rahul Gandhi warned long ago that look, China is coming to our border, Modi ji, do something. But that matter was not taken seriously at that time. What I am putting in front of you, Rahul Gandhi is the leader of Congress, Modi ji does not listen to him. Some opposition party says in Parliament, he is not allowed to speak. You do not listen to him. But your state president, who is the president of Arunachal Pradesh, member of your national executive, which is considered to be the strongest decision-making committee in BJP, a member of that committee and a senior member of parliament of BJP is saying this. Modi ji, you will believe his words, will you not?" he added. "I congratulate that MP, Tapir Gao ji. I know he must have been under pressure to delete the tweet but he hasn't deleted it. That is why I thank him. We have put his tweet on the screen in front of all of you, in which he has written, 'Chinese #PLA has abducted Sh Miram Taron, 17 years of Zido vill. yesterday 18th Jan 2022 from inside Indian territory, Lungta Jor area (China-built 3-4 kms road inside India in 2018) under Siyungla area (Bising village) of Upper Siang dist, Arunachal Pradesh'. His friend escaped from the PLA and reported to the authorities. All the agencies of the Government of India requested to step up for his early release," said Congress leader. "This BJP's Arunachal Pradesh president, BJP National Executive member, senior MP Tapir Gao had said that a 17-year-old boy has been taken to China from inside our border in Arunachal. He had a friend with him who escaped by somehow saving his life. It has also been said that in 2018, China has built 3 to 4 km road in our territory. There is no one else to say this. Modi ji this is BJP MP, Modi ji this is Arunachal Pradesh BJP president," he said. He further asked the Prime Minister to say something on China. "Modi ji, Gao is a member of the national executive. Will you ignore him now too? If you do this, then what Chanakya ji had said that when despite having a strong army, the ruler of the country who has neither courage nor spirit, that nation comes in trouble, their citizens and their borders. Here our citizens are taken away, a road is built inside our border, they enter and why are you silent on this? Your Twitter speaks like Kapalbhati. If you are not able to gather the crowd, such an atmosphere comes, then every day you keep on giving two-three speeches to the people for hours. Let's say something on China too," said Gohil. Gohil further said, "I want to say this seriously and I also ask my journalist colleagues to take this seriously. A very senior officer of our army said that we have many such points where we are face to face with China and we also used to go patrolling till there. We used to do this patrolling for years, but there are many such points, where the government has forbidden the army to go on patrolling within its limits and these points which they told me from their territory were - PT 17, which is in Gogra. It is also said that Hot Spring has become a point. The second happened in Galwan Valley, where there was face-to-face situation. The third was Pangong, wherever the army of China and our country was face to face and the fourth was Kailash. The senior army officers who were saying on these four points were only talking about their territory that we used to go to these four places in my territory." "The government has forbidden us from patrolling--we should not do patrolling there and China is sitting there piling up and I don't know what it would be doing in that territory of ours. It is not known because we have been forbidden from patrolling," he said. "I demand from Modi ji, my information may be wrong. Perhaps even one of your MPs can lie, so you can say that their information was also wrong. I demand to come to Modi ji. You will fight for the interest of the nation. Rahul Gandhi has said these are the values of the Congress party. We are with you shoulder to shoulder. Let us form a team of MPs of all political parties. The four places that I have said, where your MP has said that China had made a road, let's go with the MPs of all political parties under your leadership. Doodh ka doodh pani ka pani hoga. If you say that no, everyone is safe here, show that to all political party people. Is it your 56-inch chest that you are sitting silently saying that it is a question of the interest of the nation, not a political issue?" he added. Earlier on Wednesday, Arunachal East MP Tapir Gao claimed that a 17-year-old youth has been abducted from inside Indian territory. Gao claimed that the youth was 'abducted' on Tuesday from Arunachal Pradesh's Upper Siang district. (ANI)
"Tomorrow is a special day for the people of Tripura, as the state will mark its 50th Statehood Day. On this occasion, I am looking forward to addressing our sisters and brothers of Tripura at around 12:30 PM via VC," the Union Minister had said in a tweet on Thursday.

Under the North-Eastern Areas (Re-organisation) Act, 1971, Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya attained statehood on January 21, 1972.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also extended his wishes to the people of Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura on their Statehood Day "These states are making vibrant contributions to India's development," PM Modi tweeted. (ANI)
Two months after Delhi Police arrested seven jail staff members for allegedly helping inmate and conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar in extorting nearly Rs 200 crore from a Fortis Healthcare worker, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has asked the jail administration to allow it to probe 82 officials and staff of Rohini jail under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Economic Offenses Wing of Delhi Police has written to Tihar Jail that investigation is needed against the 82 employees of Rohini Jail who helped Sukesh and took crores of rupees in the name of providing him amenities. Prior to this, a letter to DG (Tihar) Sandeep Goel on January 10 had been written, in which DCP (EOW) Mohammad Ali said, "It is stated that a case, dated August 7, 2021, under sections 170/384/386/388/419/ 420/468/471/186/353/506/120B IPC and 66-D IT Act, section. MCOC Act, 1999 PS Special Cell (EOW) was registered on the complaint of Aditi Singh, wife of Shivender Singh and the same was investigated in EOW." "During the investigation conducted so far, 07 jail officials have been arrested in the case as they were found involved in facilitating the organized crime syndicate run by the kingpin namely Sukesh V Chandrashekhar, operating from the Barrack No. 204, Ward No. 03, Jail No. 10, Rohini, New Delhi," the letter read. Sukesh was continuously in possession of two mobile phones of the jail authorities. "From checking of Duty Roaster of prison staff and statements of the accused persons, it came out that the staff was deployed in the Barrack of Sukash in consultation with Sukash in order to facilitate him to carry out his criminal activities. From the analysis of CDRS/PDRS of phones seized, it was noticed that Sukesh Chandrashekar was continuously in possession of two mobile phones," the letter said. This Enforcement Directorate case is based on an FIR filed by Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) against Sukesh Chandrasekhar who is accused of cheating and extorting Aditi Singh, wife of the former promoter of Religare Enterprises Shivinder Mohan Singh, who was arrested in October 2019 in a case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd. Chandrasekhar and his associates reportedly took money from Aditi after posing as government officials and promising to get bail for her husband. Chandrasekhar reportedly persuaded Aditi to transfer money by impersonating a central government official over a spoof call while he was lodged in Rohini jail and promised to manage bail for her husband. Both Chandrasekhar and his actor wife Leena Maria Paul were arrested by the Delhi Police in September for their alleged role in the duping case. The Delhi Police has so far arrested 19 people in connection with the case. The ED suspects that Chandrasekhar had extorted money from several people while he was in jail. At the time of the incident, Chandrashekhar was lodged in Delhi's Rohini jail and was running an extortion racket from behind the bars. In September, the ED had arrested two aides of jailed conman against whom the Delhi Police recently invoked stringent provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA). Chandrasekhar was allegedly running the cheating and extortion racket in connivance with jail officials and some associates outside. (ANI)
President Kovind said that these states, full of natural riches, represent the vibrant culture and unique traditions of the northeast.

"Greetings to the people of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura on Statehood Day. These states, full of natural riches, represent the vibrant culture and unique traditions of our northeast. My best wishes to the citizens of these states for a happy and prosperous future," tweeted the Rashtrapati Bhavan today.

PM Modi also extended his greetings to the three Northeast states on their statehood day.

"Greetings to the people of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura on their Statehood Days. These states are making vibrant contributions to India's development. Praying for their constant progress," the Prime Minister said in a tweet today.

Under the North-Eastern Areas (Re-organisation) Act, 1971, Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya attained statehood on January 21, 1972. (ANI)
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Congress MP Manish Tewari on Friday slammed the Central Government and said that merging Amar Jawan Jyoti with War Memorial Torch means "erasing history". Speaking to ANI, the Congress MP said, "Whatever is being done is a national tragedy and an attempt to rewrite history. Amar Jawan Jyoti is the soul of crores of people. Merging Amar Jawan Jyoti with War Memorial Torch means erasing history. BJP has built the National War Memorial, that does not mean they can extinguish the Amar Jawan Jyoti." "Extinguishing Amar Jawan Jyoti tantamounts to extinguishing history For it commentates sacrifice of those 3,483 brave soldiers who cleaved Pakistan into 02 parts and redrew the map of South Asia post-partition It is ironical that in 50th year of liberation of Bangladesh," he added. He further said that the government seems to be working overtime to erase India's finest hour in Post Independent History. Amar Jawan Jyoti is imbued in the National Consciousness. A billion people have grown up venerating it. He asked, "Why can't India have two eternal flames? Amar Jawan Jyoti and National War Memorial." "Redeveloping the Central Vista was hubris enough but extinguishing the eternal flame at India gate is nothing short of a crime. I am surprised that the nation is silent as a national icon would be snuffed out in the project to re-write History," he asserted. He further appealed to all the political parties and the citizen of the country to stop this tragedy and said that this is our duty to stop this. Earlier today, the Government sources had said that a lot of misinformation is being spread with regards to the same and it clarified that the flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti is not being extinguished. It is being merged with the flame at the National War Memorial, the sources said. It said that the flame at Amar jawan Jyoti paid tributes to the martyrs of 1971 and other wars however none of the names who made that supreme sacrifice for the country were present there. "It was an odd thing to see that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid homage to the martyrs of the 1971 and other war heroes but none of their names are present there but now the names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial. This would be a true tribute to our fallen heroes," the sources added. The Central Government lashed out at the Congress party which was in power for close to 7 decades, however, did not even think of making the iconic National War Memorial (NWM), something that present-day Prime Minister Narendra Modi did in his very first term in office in January 2019. NWM was inaugurated in February 2019. The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at the India Gate would be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial today. "The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at India Gate will be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday in a ceremony," said an Indian Army official to ANI on Thursday. The ceremony would be presided over by the Integrated Defence Staff chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna who would merge the two flames, officials said. The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914-1921. However, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was included in the memorial structure in the 1970s after the massive victory of India over Pakistan in which 93,000 troops of the enemy country surrendered. After a long wait and multiple considerations, the National War Memorial was built in the India Gate complex by the Narendra Modi government and was inaugurated in 2019. After the inauguration of the building in War memorial, all military ceremonial events were shifted to it from the India Gate memorial. The National War Memorial has the names of all the Indian defence personnel who have lost their lives in different operations from the 1947-48 war with Pakistan to the Galwan valley clash with Chinese troops. The names of troops who lost lives in the counter-terrorist operations are also included on the walls of the memorial. (ANI)
The Prime Minister said that Manipur youth is doing great work in the field of start-ups.

"Manipur deserves peace. I am happy to know that they earned it after years of struggle. Development is reaching every corner of Manipur. Not just sports, Manipur youth are doing great work in the field of start-ups," the Prime Minister said.

"Manipur has seen many ups and downs in the last 50 years. At all times, the people of Manipur lived in unity and faced every situation together. This is the true strength of Manipur. Many congratulations to Manipur on the completion of 50 years of establishment!"

PM Modi also extended his greetings to the three Northeast states on their statehood day.

"Greetings to the people of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura on their Statehood Days. These states are making vibrant contributions to India's development. Praying for their constant progress," the Prime Minister said in a tweet today.

Under the North-Eastern Areas (Re-organisation) Act, 1971, Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya attained statehood on January 21, 1972. (ANI)
The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Thursday sought a reply from the Tamil Nadu government and state Police as to why social media companies cannot be included as accused or abettor in criminal cases involving social media platforms. This comes in response to a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu police seeking to cancel the bail granted to YouTuber Saattai Duraimurugan who came up for a hearing before Justice B Pugalendhi. Justice B Pugalendhi, observed that misuse of technology cannot be allowed and asked the police to submit a report on how much the YouTuber Duraimurugan earns by broadcasting the objected videos through the social media platforms. The judge, while asking Duraimurugan's counsel, orally observed that several people are misusing the platform to earn money and some have even admitted that they learned to commit offences like making guns, robbing through videos on Youtube. He also questioned why the social media platforms like YouTube cannot be added as an accused in such cases. The judge also directed the Tamil Nadu ADGP - Cyber Crime branch to submit a detailed report on the mechanism needs to be adopted to prevent misuse of YouTube in a week. (ANI)
Just after issuing directions to stop auctioning of agricultural land on Thursday, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said that once the bill becomes a law, no Tehsildar would dare take such a step. "We had passed a bill in Rajasthan Assembly that barred the auction of up to five acres of land. We had sent it to the Governor, who, I believe, sent it to the Union Home Ministry. If this Bill becomes a law, no Tehsildar would dare take such a step," said Ashok Gehlot while addressing the reporters on Thursday. Gehlot on Thursday issued directions to stop auctioning agricultural land if farmers are unable to pay off their loans to the banks. "State Government has directed officers to stop auctioning under Removal of Difficulties Act by banks if farmers are unable to pay off their loans," read the directions. (ANI)
The Union Health Ministry, in a press release, said, "More than 12.73 crore (12,73,96,806) balance and unutilized COVID-19 Vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs to be administered."

Over 159.91 crore (1,59,91,02,495) vaccine doses have been provided to States/UTs so far through the Government of India (free of cost channel) and through the direct state procurement category.

As part of the nationwide vaccination drive, the Central government has been supporting the States and UTs by providing them COVID vaccines free of cost.

Meanwhile, India's cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 160.43 crores after over 70 lakh vaccine doses were administered in the last 24 hours, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday. (ANI)
Daughter-in-law of Congress leader Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, Nida Khan on Thursday questioned him saying that he is the "one who could not fight for his own family" but is now talking about women's rights. In an exclusive interview to ANI, Nida Khan said, "My father-in-law (Tauqeer Raza Khan) is talking about women rights only because he considers Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as his sister. I believe that a girl can fight for her rights herself. However, let me tell you that he never endorsed or talked about women's rights in our family." "Recently, in an interview to a news channel, he said that he supports the rights of women in his family. I do not believe this. He is just saying this as his new political gimmick. He never supported us after we complained about triple talaq matter. He always issues fatwas against women without any evidence or moral grounds. He is the one who never fights for his own family," said Nida Khan. The daughter-in-law of the Congress leader said the Congress talks about women's rights only when assembly elections are around the corner. "Today, because he is supporting the Congress, he talks about women's rights and giving respect to women. All this is his conspiracy to woo the Congress supporters. Congress also has never talked about giving respect to women. Congress always opposed triple talaq. When I was given triple talaq during the tenure of the Samajwadi Party's government, I kept on wandering from door to door, seeking for justice wherein I received several death threats. A fatwa was issued against me." "After the BJP government came to power, I got security and justice. BJP stands for women's rights. BJP was there when we needed them the most," she said. Politician and Islamic cleric Tauqeer Raza Khan, who was earlier booked for derogatory comments against PM Modi and reportedly issuing threats against the Hindu community, joined Congress on January 18 ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7. The polling in UP 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)
A study has warned that promising new education interventions have been potentially 'unnecessarily scrapped' because trials to test their effectiveness may be insufficiently faithful to the original research. The cautionary note was raised after researchers ran a large-scale computer simulation of more than 11,000 research trials to examine how much 'fidelity' influenced the results. The findings were published in 'Psychological Methods'. In science and the social sciences, 'fidelity' meant the extent to which tests evaluating a new innovation adhered to the design of the original experiment on which that innovation was based. In much the same way that scientists would test a new drug before it is approved, new strategies for improving learning would often be evaluated thoroughly in schools or other settings before being rolled out. Many innovations get rejected at this stage because the trials indicated that they resulted in little or no learning progress. Academics have, however, for some time, voiced concerns that in some cases fidelity losses could be compromising the trial. In many cases, fidelity has not been consistently measured or reported. The new study had put this theory to the test. Researchers at the University of Cambridge and Carnegie Mellon University ran thousands of computer-modelled trials, featuring millions of simulated participants. They then examined how far changes in fidelity altered the 'effect size' of an intervention. They found that even relatively subtle deviations in fidelity could have a significant impact. For every 5 per cent of fidelity lost in the simulated follow-up tests, the effect size fell by a corresponding 5 per cent. In real-life contexts, this could mean that some high-potential innovations were deemed unfit for use because low fidelity was distorting the results. The study noted: "There is growing concern that a substantial number of null findings in educational interventions... could be due to a lack of fidelity, resulting in potentially sound programmes being unnecessarily scrapped." The findings might be particularly useful to organisations such as the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in the United Kingdom, or the What Works Clearinghouse in the United States, both of which evaluate new education research. The EEF reported the results of project trials on its website. At present, more than three out of five of reports indicated that the intervention being tested led to no progress, or negative progress, for pupils. Michelle Ellefson, Professor of Cognitive Science at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, said: "A lot of money is being invested in these trials, so we should look closely at how well they are controlling for fidelity. Replicability in research is hugely important, but the danger is that we could be throwing out promising interventions because of fidelity violations and creating an unnecessary trust gap between teachers and researchers." Academics have frequently referred to a 'replication crisis' precisely because the results of so many studies were difficult to reproduce. In education, trials were often carried out by a mix of teachers and researchers. Larger studies, in particular, created ample opportunities for inadvertent fidelity losses, either through human factors (such as research instructions being misread), or changes in the research environment (for example to the timing or conditions of the test). Ellefson and Professor Daniel Oppenheimer from Carnegie Mellon University developed a computer-based randomised control trial, which, in the first instance, simulated an imaginary intervention in 40 classrooms, each with 25 students. They ran this over and over again, each time adjusting a set of variables - including the potential effect size of the intervention, the ability levels of the students, and the fidelity of the trial itself. In subsequent models, they added additional, confounding elements which might further affect the results - for example, the quality of resources in the school, or the fact that better teachers might have higher-performing students. The study combined representative permutations of the variables they introduced, modelling 11,055 trials altogether. Strikingly, across the entire data set, the results indicated that for every 1 per cent of fidelity lost in a trial, the effect size of the intervention also dropped by 1 per cent. This 1:1 correspondence meant that even a trial with, for example, 80 per cent fidelity, would see a significant drop in effect size, which might cast doubt on the value of the intervention being tested. A more granular analysis then revealed that the effect of fidelity losses tended to be greater where a bigger effect size was anticipated. In other words, the most promising research innovations were also more sensitive to fidelity violations. Although the confounding factors weakened this overall relationship, fidelity had by far the greatest impact on the effect sizes in all the tests the researchers ran. Ellefson and Oppenheimer suggested that organisations conducting research trials might wish to establish firmer processes for ensuring, measuring and reporting fidelity so that their recommendations were as robust as possible. Their paper pointed to a research in 2013 which found that only 29 per cent of after-school intervention studies measured fidelity, and another study, in 2010, which found that only 15 per cent of social work intervention studies collected fidelity data. ""When teachers are asked to try out new teaching methods, it is natural - perhaps even admirable - for them to want to adapt the method to the needs of their specific students," Oppenheimer said. "To have reliable scientific tests, however, it's essential to follow the instructions precisely; otherwise, researchers can't know whether the intervention will be broadly effective. It's really important for research teams to monitor and measure fidelity in studies, in order to be able to draw valid conclusions." Ellefson concluded by saying: "Many organisations do a great job of independently evaluating research, but they need to make sure that fidelity is both measured and scrupulously checked. Sometimes the right response when findings cannot be replicated may not be to dismiss the research altogether, but to step back, and ask why it might have worked in one case, but not in another?" (ANI)
Ahead of Republic Day celebrations, Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant (retd), who has been the R-Day commentator for the past 49 years, on Friday said that Amar Jawan Jyoti will merge with National War Memorial flame. "India Gate, war memorial built by the British. National War Memorial is built in memory of soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the nation from 1947 till today. Amar Jawan Jyoti will merge with National War Memorial flame," said Brig Chitranjan Sawant(retd). In a historical step days before Republic Day, the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate lawns would be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday. "The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at India Gate will be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday at a ceremony," an Indian Army official told ANI. The ceremony would be presided over by the Integrated Defence Staff Chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna who would merge the two flames, officials said. The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914 and 1921. However, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was included in the memorial structure in the 1970s after the massive victory of India over Pakistan in which 93,000 troops of the enemy country surrendered. After a long wait and multiple considerations, the National War Memorial was built in the India Gate complex by the Narendra Modi government and was inaugurated in 2019. After the inauguration of the building in War memorial, all military ceremonial events were shifted to it from the India Gate memorial. The National War Memorial has the names of all the Indian defence personnel who have lost their lives in different operations from the 1947-48 war with Pakistan to the Galwan valley clash with Chinese troops. The names of troops who lost lives in the counter-terrorist operations are also included on the walls of the memorial. (ANI)
The drug peddler identified as Marfuja Ahmed (18), a resident of Kaliganj in the Karimganj area, was held during an operation conducted by the troops of the seven battalions of the BSF on Thursday based on specific information regarding the deal of narcotics.

The BSF troops accordingly intercepted one Hyundai Eon Car (Regd No. AS-04-M-0551) on the Chargula - Kaliganj Bazar road at Pirar Chak, near Kaliganj Bazar, Karimganj, said the force.

"Immediately Police was informed about the interception of the car in which Yaba tablets concealed in a carton were recovered on search by the BSF and the Police," said the BSF.

"On counting the consignment in the presence of independent witnesses, it was found 26,000 Yaba tablets worth Rs 1.30 crores," said the BSF, which is mandated to guard India-Bangladesh and India-Pakistan borders and curb illegal activities in its area of jurisdiction.

The apprehended drug peddler along with seized items have been handed over to Karimganj police and a case has been registered under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, the BSF added. (ANI)
A new study has found that a smartphone app tested at Northwestern University boosts parents' confidence while caring for their babies, and it continues to help them up to a full month after they've left the hospital. The research has been published in the 'Journal of Pediatrics'. Parents in the study who used the app reported higher self-efficacy (i.e. felt more confident about taking care of their babies) while their babies were in the NICU and up to 30 days after being discharged compared to parents in the control group who didn't use the app. There was also an association with how often parents used the app and their reported level of confidence caring for their baby, the study found. "A lot of the things parents do to take care of a baby, like feeding or bathing or even holding, are taken care of by the professionals in the NICU. Many parents don't feel comfortable taking care of them because they're very small, sick and are connected to monitors and tubes," said lead study author and app co-founder Dr Craig Garfield, a professor of paediatrics and medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a paediatrician at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. "Our app was designed to support parents on being the most prepared mother or father for that particular baby," he added. Parents in the NICU are often distracted, tired or under too much stress to fully absorb clinicians' firehose of important information about their babies. To combat this, the app delivered personalized educational information to parents, including developmental milestones by age, common health concerns, and even video demonstrations (i.e. feeding, swaddling), which filled in the information they may have missed from the bedside clinician, Garfield said. "As a clinician, I might only have a limited amount of time to talk to a family about an issue with their child or they may be overwhelmed, but with the information offered in the app, being connected to the electronic medical record, and being able to access the app for a full year after leaving the NICU, we think it's a really useful tool for parents in the NICU," Garfield said. "Our goal is to empower NICU parents with a digital technology providing the right information at the right time," said study co-author and app co-founder Young Seok Lee, an adjunct professor of medical social sciences at Feinberg. "With greater understanding of how to navigate the NICU, parents can confidently provide the right care for their babies and for themselves, too," Lee added. Additionally, when parents need to go home while the baby is still in the NICU, they can remotely check the app for real-time updates on which nurse or doctor is caring for their child and wake up to an update on the baby's medical status. "We found the first thing users would do in the morning is to check the app because it gives them an update on what happened overnight," Garfield said. "Did the baby move into an open crib? Were there any changes in their respiratory situation? Did the baby gain weight? They also check it right before bed at night," he added. To assess app engagement, the scientists tracked how many times users tapped the app. On average, participants tapped the app 15 times per day. Those who tapped more than that had higher self-efficacy scores, the study found, meaning there was an association with how often someone used the app and their confidence caring for their baby, Garfield said. Still, in its research phase, the NICU2Home app is currently deployed in a study at three non-Northwestern Chicago-area hospitals. Garfield and his team also are looking to expand the app to include parents of full-term babies who were born during the COVID-19 pandemic. (ANI)
Lieutenant General (Retd), Former Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO) Indian Army, Vinod Bhatia on Friday hailed the Centre's decision to merge Amar Jawan Jyoti with the War Memorial Memorial and said: "it is a good decision". "Today is a great occasion, the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate is being merged with the National War Memorial. It's a good decision," Bhatia said. "Amar Jawan Jyoti honours our soldiers in 1971 for 50 years. We have a National War Memorial which honours nearly 25000 soldiers, sailors who made the supreme sacrifices in defence of India. The time has come to shift the Amar Jawan Jyoti to merge it with National War Memorial," he said. The 1971 war veteran and former Army Deputy Chief Lieutenant General JBS Yadava (Retd) also supported the Centre's decision and said "Amar Jawan Jyoti should be merged with National War Memorial. There should be only one war memorial in the country." "There should be no politics on the merger of Amar Jawan Jyoti and National War Memorial. It has become a trend to give a political angle to every initiative done by the Centre," Yadava said. The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at the India Gate would be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial today. "The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at India Gate will be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday in a ceremony," said an Indian Army official to ANI on Thursday. The ceremony would be presided over by the Integrated Defence Staff chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna who would merge the two flames, officials said. The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914-1921. However, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was included in the memorial structure in the 1970s after the massive victory of India over Pakistan in which 93,000 troops of the enemy country surrendered. After a long wait and multiple considerations, the National War Memorial was built in the India Gate complex by the Narendra Modi government and was inaugurated in 2019. After the inauguration of the building in War memorial, all military ceremonial events were shifted to it from the India Gate memorial. The National War Memorial has the names of all the Indian defence personnel who have lost their lives in different operations from the 1947-48 war with Pakistan to the Galwan valley clash with Chinese troops. The names of troops who lost lives in the counter-terrorist operations are also included on the walls of the memorial. (ANI)
Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah will release the District Good Governance Index for 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, a move which will bring Jammu and Kashmir the first Union Territory in the country to have Good Governance Index. The event will be organized jointly by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) and Jammu and Kashmir Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development in association with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad. Union Minister Jitendra Singh and Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha will also address the event. The District Good Governance Index of Jammu and Kashmir was prepared by DARPG in collaboration with the government of Jammu and Kashmir in pursuance of the announcements made in the "Behtar e-Hukumat - Kashmir Aelamia" resolution adopted on July 2, 2021, in the Regional Conference on Replication of Good Governance Practices held in Srinagar. The exercise on the formulation of the District Good Governance Index was set in motion in July 2021 which has now been completed and Jammu and Kashmir will become the first Union Territory in the country to have a Good Governance Index. The District Good Governance Index of the government of Jammu and Kashmir represents a major administrative reform in benchmarking good governance at the district level and a significant step for timely collation and publication of statistics at the state/ district level. The District Good Governance Index is a milestone and it is expected that it will provide a robust framework for evidence-based assessment of the performance of all the districts in Jammu and Kashmir. The Chief Secretary Government of Jammu and Kashmir Arun Kumar Mehta and V. Srinivas, Secretary DARPG, Government of India will also be addressing the event. The event will be attended by senior officials of the government of Jammu and Kashmir, District Collectors and Chief Planning officers of Districts. Secretaries of Planning and Secretaries of Administrative Reforms of all state and UT governments and District Collectors of non-election bound states have also been invited to participate in the event by video conferencing. During the occasion, a presentation on the formulation of the district Good Governance Index will be made by the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad. This will be followed by district presentations by selected 12 District Development Commissioners, who will be showcasing achievements of various sectors. Thereafter a panel discussion will be held on DGGI- A Way Forward for futuristic 2.0 version of DGGI for measuring and benchmarking performance and improvement of Districts in future as well. (ANI)
The Delhi High Court on Friday listed the matter for February 3, a plea moved by Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) seeking payment of cost from Actress turned Environmentalist Juhi Chawla and others. The cost was imposed on them by Justice JR Midha (now retired) while dismissing a petition connected with the rollout of 5G technology. On Friday, the bench of Justice C Harishankar deferred the matter for February 3, 2022, after the Lawyer appeared for Juhi Chawla said he didn't serve with the petition copy. Court also noted that the appeal in the matter is pending before the Division Bench of Delhi High Court. The DSLSA has recently moved to the Delhi High Court sought payment of costs of Rs 20 lakh to them by Justice JR Midha in an order passed on dated June 4, 2021, while dismissing Chawla's civil suit against the roll-out of 5G technology in India. Petitioner DSLSA seeks court direction to allow the present execution petition and pass order to attach the properties of the Judgment Debtors or order civil imprisonment for Judgment Debtors to execute the award/order dated 04.06.2021. The Delhi High Court last month had said it will hear the Actor-environmentalist Juhi Chawla appeal challenging the single bench order which had dismissed a lawsuit filed against the setting up of 5G wireless networks in the country on January 25, 2022. In her appeal, Juhi Chawla stated that the single bench order dismissing the suit is bad in law as a suit can only be dismissed once it has been allowed to be registered as a suit by the Court. The actor further stated that the single bench imposed costs on her even after plaint had not been permitted by him to make sure into a 'suit', and acting without jurisdiction, contrary to the law. She also challenged the single judge's finding that the motion was preferred only to gain publicity, whose motive was inferred by the learned single judge merely from the fact that Plaintiff had circulated the video-conferencing link of the High Court on her social media accounts which had resulted in the repeated disruption of the Court proceedings held on June 4, 2021. Single Bench of Justice JR Midha had dismissed the lawsuit filed by actress-environmentalist Juhi Chawla against the setting up of 5G wireless networks in the country. The bench of Justice JR Midha while passing the judgment had said that Plaintiffs (Juhi Chawla and the other two petitioners) abused the process of law and imposed costs of Rs 20 lakh on plaintiffs. The court in its order said, "It appears that the suit was for publicity. Plaintiff Juhi Chawla circulated the link of the hearing on social media which created the disruption thrice. Delhi Police shall identify the persons and take action against those who created disruption." According to the petition, the plaintiffs sought direction from the "arrayed defendants" to certify that 5G technology is safe for humans and every type of living organism and to produce their studies regarding RF radiation in support. The spokesperson further said that if not already conducted, efficient research should also be conducted without the participation of private interests. (ANI)
Kerala High Court will hear the anticipatory bail plea of Malayalam actor Dileep on Saturday in a case registered by the Crime Branch of Kerala Police for allegedly threatening the investigation officials probing the Actress Assault Case. Single Bench of Justice P Gopinath heard the matter today and posted the matter for January 22. The court said that "not that this case is more important than others, but I hear there is a counter-affidavit and a lot of material to go through." "We can have a patient hearing tomorrow and decide the matter accordingly. The special sitting will be physical," the court read. Crime Branch of Kerala Police registered a new case against movie actor Dileep and five others on January 9 for allegedly threatening the investigating officials. They were booked under IPC sections 116 (abetment of an offence punishable with imprisonment), 118 (concealing design to commit an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life), 120B (party to criminal conspiracy), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 34 (criminal act done by several people). Dileep is named as the first accused in the FIR. Anoop, who is Dileep's brother and Suraj, Dileep's brother-in-law are the second and third accused. Appu, Babu Chengamanad are the other accused. One more accused has not been identified yet. Dileep is also the eighth accused in the Actress Assault Case for alleged conspiracy. The case pertains that an actress who worked in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu was allegedly abducted and molested inside her car by a group of men who had forced their way into the vehicle on the night of February 17, 2017. (ANI)
Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday slammed Opposition for questioning the Centre over the decision to 'extinguish' the flame of Amar Jawan Jyoti and felt "astounded by the duplicity and the hypocrisy" of the opposition, in view of the upcoming Republic Day celebrations. "The question that needs to be asked of the opposition is why did you not think of making a permanent memorial in the last six decades when you were in power. This flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti is a temporary one.... India Gate was built in the pre-Independence era and it does not have any name of the fallen heroes of 1971 or other wars," said the minister to ANI. The Union Minister of State called out Opposition for their duplicity and the hypocrisy over the decision. "Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi built the National War Memorial and the name of every fallen hero is put there. That is the best tribute to be given to our soldiers. I'm astounded by the duplicity and the hypocrisy of the opposition," he said. Earlier today, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that it is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame that used to burn for our brave soldiers will be extinguished. "It is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame that used to burn for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today. Some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice - never mind... We will once again light the Amar Jawan Jyoti for our soldiers!" tweeted Rahul Gandhi today in Hindi. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor also took to Twitter and said, "This government has no respect for democratic tradition and established convention, whether in parliament or out of it. The sanctity acquired after 50 years of the Amar Jawan Jyoti is being lightly snuffed out... So everything must be reinvented post-2014?!" In a historical step days before Republic Day, the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate lawns would be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday. "The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at India Gate will be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday at a ceremony," an Indian Army official told ANI. The ceremony would be presided over by the Integrated Defence Staff Chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna who would merge the two flames, officials said. The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914 and 1921. However, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was included in the memorial structure in the 1970s after the massive victory of India over Pakistan in which 93,000 troops of the enemy country surrendered. After a long wait and multiple considerations, the National War Memorial was built in the India Gate complex by the Narendra Modi government and was inaugurated in 2019. After the inauguration of the building in War memorial, all military ceremonial events were shifted to it from the India Gate memorial. The National War Memorial has the names of all the Indian defence personnel who have lost their lives in different operations from the 1947-48 war with Pakistan to the Galwan valley clash with Chinese troops. The names of troops who lost lives in the counter-terrorist operations are also mentioned on the walls of the memorial. (ANI)
Taking to Twitter, Shah said "Great news for the entire nation as Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji has today announced that a grand statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, will be installed at the iconic India Gate, New Delhi".

"This is a befitting tribute to the legendary Netaji, who gave everything for India's freedom," Shah said in a series of tweets.

Noting that "Netaji is an epitome of India's true strength and resolve", the Home Minister hit out at the Congress party, saying "Congress has left no stone unturned to forget the immortal contributions of India's brave son".

"PM Narendra Modi's decision to install Netaji's statue at India Gate on his 125th Jayanti will inspire our generations to come," Shah further said.

The Home Minister's remarks came after the Prime Minister announced that a 'grand statue' of Subhas Chandra Bose will be installed at India Gate. The PM's announcement comes two days before the freedom fighter's 125th birth anniversary.

"I am glad to share that the grand statue, made of granite, will be installed at India Gate. This would be a symbol of India's indebtedness to him," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.

However, till the time the statue is constructed, a hologram bust of 'Netaji' will be put up at the iconic monument in the national capital, PM Modi further said. "I will unveil the hologram statue on 23rd January, Netaji's birth anniversary," Modi posted. (ANI)
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav will face defeat by a huge margin, if he contests from Karhal assembly constituency, said BJP MP Harnath Singh Yadav on Friday. Speaking to ANI ahead of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Mainpuri said, "Akhilesh is nervous and scared. He is panicking these days. Sometimes rumours pour in that he will fight from Azamgarh, sometimes from Badaun, sometimes from Sambhal...The list is endless.." "These days rumours are going on that he will play safe and will contest from Mainpuri's Karhal. Let me tell you all that if Akhilesh is going to contest elections from Karhal, considering that the seat as safe... he will lose very badly," he said. Lauding the efforts of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP leader further said, "But now the situation in Mainpuri district is not the same as before. In Mainpuri district, the BJP is very strong at the grasroots level. BJP, as an organization has a huge voter base and is very strong." "One must not forget that during the tenure of the Samajwadi Party, goons and mafias made it difficult for the common man to survive. Women and girls were unsafe and were forced to stay indoors," he added. Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Mainpuri's Karhal constituency, sources informed ANI on Thursday. However, the SP chief on Wednesday said that he will contest the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Karhal after taking permission from Azamgarh residents. Yadav is currently a Lok Sabha MP from Azamgarh. Elections to 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)
Taking a dig at the BJP-led Central government, the Uttarakhand Congress on Friday termed the "extinguishing" of Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate as the "king's arbitrariness" to build his palace, "Modi Mahal". "Amar Jawan Jyoti has been burning continuously for the last 50 years. It is a symbol of our bravery, courage, sacrifice and self-respect, but today it will be extinguished. The new address of Amar Jyoti established for 50 years at India Gate will now be War Memorial. When the symbolic place of martyr's sacrifice and valour is changed to build a king's palace and the flame that burns relentlessly is extinguished, it not only tells the story of that king's arbitrariness but also the respect in his heart towards the martyrs", stated a Uttarakhand Congress official release. It also further claimed that "martyrs" were "insulted" by conducting a laser show in Jallianwala Bagh. The Uttarakhand Congress unit also claimed that the Central government is also making efforts to change the old heritage like Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad. "Now understand the chronology of the bravery, sacrifice and destroying the heritage of the country. First, hundreds of martyrs were insulted by conducting a laser show in Jallianwala Bagh, then efforts are being made to change the old heritage like Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad to show Gandhiji's sacrifice and dedication towards the country. Is the purpose of displacing this Amar Jawan Jyoti only to build the Central Vista (Modi Mahal)?", stated Congress. "Just as the BJP government did not consider it necessary to consult the farmers before the Kisan Bill, in the same way, even before such a big decision, it did not consider it necessary to consult the families of the martyrs even once. Why insult the bravery, sacrifice and indomitable courage of the Indian Army?", the Congress release stated. The Congress further informed that in the Indo-Pak war of 1971, this Amar Jawan Jyoti was established by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in honour of the brave Indian soldiers as a symbol of the indomitable courage, valour and sacrifice of the Indian Army. "The flame of Amar Jawan Jyoti is like a temple light for crores of patriots in India. This is a temple of sacrificers, just as the temple's Jyoti cannot be displaced, similarly, the replacement of Amar Jawan Jyoti is also not possible", claimed Congress Uttarakhand unit. Congress also claimed that the BJP led Central government has refused to show enough respect to Indira Gandhi and the patriots who led India to victory in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. "Can the Government of India not light the flames at two places for the bravery, sacrifice, renunciation, penance, the valour of our country? The present BJP government also dropped the name of Mrs Indira Gandhi, who led India during the historic victory of the Indo-Pak war of 1971, in the official program of Vijay Diwas on 16 December 2021. You will extinguish the flame, but how will you extinguish the flame of respect, respect and dedication for Mrs Indira Gandhi and the Indian Army in the hearts of crores of Indians?", claimed the Uttarakhand Congress. (ANI)
In a historical move by the Centre ahead of the Republic Day celebrations, the Amar Jawan Jyoti or the "eternal flame" for soldiers at India Gate was merged with the torch at the National War Memorial in a ceremony on Friday. A part of the flame was carried to the war memorial this afternoon in a ceremony that was presided by the Integrated Defence Staff chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna. Krishna laid a wreath after which a torch was lit from the Amar Jawan Jyoti and the flame doused. The torch was then taken to the national war memorial by a ceremonial guard from Guards Regiment of the Indian Army. After travelling for around 150 metres, the torch was used to symbolically merge the flame from Amar Jawan Jyoti with the one at the National War Memorial. Air Marshal Krishna presided over the ceremony at both the locations. The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914-1921. However, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was included in the memorial structure in the 1970s after the massive victory of India over Pakistan in which 93,000 troops of the enemy country surrendered. After a long wait and multiple considerations, the National War Memorial was built in the India Gate complex by the Narendra Modi government and was inaugurated in 2019. After the inauguration of the building in War memorial, all military ceremonial events were shifted to it from the India Gate memorial. The National War Memorial has the names of all the Indian defence personnel who have lost their lives in different operations from the 1947-48 war with Pakistan to the Galwan valley clash with Chinese troops. The names of troops who lost lives in the counter-terrorist operations are also included on the walls of the memorial. Meanwhile, retired Army officers welcomed and hailed the decision by the Centre. Lieutenant General (Retd), Former Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO) Indian Army, Vinod Bhatia on Friday hailed the Centre's decision to merge Amar Jawan Jyoti with the War Memorial Memorial and said: "it is a good decision". The 1971 war veteran and former Army Deputy Chief Lieutenant General JBS Yadava (Retd) also supported the Centre's decision and said "Amar Jawan Jyoti should be merged with National War Memorial. There should be only one war memorial in the country." (ANI)
The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) sleuths of Tamil Nadu were conducting searches at the premises of certain granite factories linked to former Tamil Nadu Minister and AIADMK leader K.P. Anbalagan. The DVAC team from Tamil Nadu had conducted raids and searches at 58 places in Tamil Nadu linked to the former minister, his relatives, and friends. The police have also registered an FIR against Anbalagan, his wife, two sons, and daughter-in-law in a case related to a disproportionate assets case. Sources in the DVAC informed IANS that they had in association with the police department of Telangana conducted searches at certain granite factories in Karimnagar district based on information received during the raids at Anbalagan's premises as also the properties of his relatives and friends. According to the DVAC sources, the former minister has invested heavily in the granite industry of Telangana and the agency was trying to piece together all the information to bring up a proper charge sheet against him. The searches are being conducted on Friday as well and DVAC sources revealed that along with Anbalagan a few politicians and more than ten businessmen from Tamil Nadu have invested in the granite business in Karimnagar. DVAC is continuing the searches in many parts of Telangana in a bid to unearth the benami transactions being carried out by the Tamil Nadu former ministers. It is to be noted that ever since M.K. Stalin assumed office as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in May 2021, six former ministers of the previous AIADMK government were subjected to DVAC raids. This includes M.R. Vijayabhaskar, C. Vijayabaskar, S.P. Velumani, K.C. Veeramani, P. Thangamani and now K.P. Anbalagan. The senior leadership of the AIADMK has already retorted to the raids being conducted at the premises of AIADMK leaders who were former ministers. AIADMK leaders and former Chief Minister's of Tamil Nadu, O. Panneerselvam and Edappadi K. Palaniswami had in a joint statement on Thursday said that the raids being conducted by the DVAC were politically motivated and out of vindictiveness and vendetta of the DMK and said that the AIADMK was a big banyan tree and that it could not be uprooted by such frivolous police raids. --IANS aal/dpb ( 381 Words) 2022-01-21-11:48:06 (IANS)
Attorney General of India KK Venugopal on Friday granted consent to an activist to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against the 'Dharam Sansad' leader Yati Narsinghanand over his recent remarks against the Constitution and the Supreme Court of India. The AG granted consent to activist Shachi Nelli to initiate contempt proceedings against Narsinghanand. Earlier, in a reply to the letter Nelli wrote, seeking consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Narsinghanand, AG said the statement made by him is a "direct attempt to lower the authority of the Supreme Court" in the minds of the general public. "I am in receipt of your request for initiation of proceedings for criminal contempt against Yati Narsinganand. I have gone through your letter and watched the video of the statements made by Yati Narsinganand which have been explained to me. I find that the statement made by Yati Narsinganand... is a direct attempt to lower the authority of the Supreme Court in the minds of the general public. This would certainly amount to contempt of the Supreme Court of India," the AG said in the letter The letter further stated, "I accordingly grant consent to initiate proceedings for criminal contempt of the Supreme Court of India in terms of Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 read with Rule 3(a) of the Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of the Supreme Court of India, 1975." Earlier, Nelli write the letter to AG saying that in an interview that went viral on Twitter on January 14, Yati Narsinghanand has made 'derogatory remarks'. It was said by Nelli that the comments made by Yati Narsinghanand are trying to undermine the majesty of the institution and the authority vested in the Supreme Court of India, and is a vile and clear attempt at interfering in the course of justice by means of abusive rhetoric and baseless attacks on the integrity of the Constitution and the Courts. "Any such attempt to harm the majesty of the institution and diminish the faith that citizens of India have in the Court can result in complete chaos and anarchy. This is perhaps the most vicious attack on the Supreme Court in its history. To permit these remarks to pass unaddressed will be to allow this attempt of lowering the authority of the apex court to succeed, if not wholly then in considerable measure,' it added. According to the letter, "The Supreme Court of India is the first interpreter and the guardian of the Constitution of India. It is appalling to see the lack of faith and sheer contempt being expressed towards the fundamental frameworks of this country. The intent to undermine the Court and its capacity to dispense justice is evident." Narsinghanand has been making headlines because of his anti-Muslims hate speeches. Supreme Court has recently issued notice to Centre, Uttrakhand and Delhi police on a petition seeking independent inquiry into the alleged hate speeches in Haridwar and Delhi. The plea sought the arrest and trial of people who made hate speeches, inciting violence towards Muslims, at the Haridwar Dharm Sansad conclave and in Delhi by 'Hindu Yuva Vahini'. The hate speeches were allegedly delivered between December 17 and 19, 2021, in Haridwar by Yati Narsinghanand and in Delhi by 'Hindu Yuva Vahini'. The plea said that the alleged hate speeches consisted of open calls for genocide of Muslims in order to achieve ethnic cleansing. (ANI)
In its prosecution complaint or chargesheet against Lalit Goyal, Vice-chairman cum Managing Director of IREO Group of companies, the Enforcement Directorate on Friday called him "settler" and named him the beneficiary of an overseas Trust which owns and controls entities holding assets outside India, and that recent Pandora Papers Leak has also named four entities owned by him holding assets of more than USD 77.73 Million (Rs 575 crore) overseas. The ED filed the prosecution complaint against Goyal and others in a Special Court at Panchkula, Haryana under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 in a case related to a multi-crore real estate scam. The federal agency initiated the money-laundering investigation on the basis of First Information Reports (FIRs) under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860 registered at various Police Stations across Gurugram, Panchkula, Ludhiana, Delhi. A total of 30 FIRs have been identified in the case so far. In the prosecution complaint, the agency mentioned its investigation revealed that "over 1,050 homebuyers and investors of IREO Projects, namely IREO Fiveriver, The Corridors, IREO City, Gurgaon Hills in Haryana and IREO Waterfront Township in Punjab, among others, had made advance payments but are yet to receive their booked flats or plots despite elapsing of more than 4-5 years". The investigation further reveals that IREO Group of companies could not complete its projects due to diversion and siphoning of funds, said the ED, adding "customer receipts to the tune of Rs 1,225 crore have been diverted outside India in the form of redemption, purchase, transfer and buy-back of shares and Fully Convertible Debentures (FCDs) violating the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy and other laws". "The modus operandi adopted by the group includes routing of funds to India from various entities based in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands, Mauritius, recording of fictitious expenses in the books of account, writing off a project in progress, interest-free loans and advances to sister concerns and round-tripping of funds through shell companies and creation of assets within and outside India," the ED said. "Investigation further revealed that Lalit Goyal is a settler and named beneficiary of an overseas Trust which owns and controls entities holding assets outside India. Recent Pandora Papers Leak has also named four entities (which are beneficially owned by Lalit Goyal) which are holding assets of more than USD 77.73 Million (Rs. 575 Crore approximately) overseas." Goyal was arrested on November 16 last year after Look Out Circular (LOC) was issued against him. Presently, he is in judicial custody. The ED has conducted searches on November 22 last year in this matter. (ANI)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be travelling to western Uttar Pradesh for the first time since the announcement of assembly polls in the state. He will hold a door-to-door campaign, meet party workers and interact with intellectuals during his visit to Shamli and Merrut districts of this region which is crucial for BJP's prospects in the polls. The Home Minister will embark on a door-to-door campaign in Kairana on Saturday afternoon. The constituency had seen an exodus of Hindu families in 2016 and their return later after huge efforts. The BJP has fielded Mriganka Singh, eldest daughter of late Hukum Singh who had won the seat several times. The Home Minister will hold a closed-door meeting in Shamli with party leaders from Shamli and Baghpat. He will hold a meeting with intellectuals in Meerut on Saturday evening to conclude his engagements for the day. The polls in western Uttar Pradesh are crucial for BJP as it involves about 108 seats and the party had done well in the previous assembly election. The party had won 83 seats in the region in 2017 and the party leadership is confident of repeating the performance. The BJP swept Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections winning 78 out of 80 seats. It won over 300 seats in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and 62 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when Amit Shah was the party chief. Amit Shah is known to have good understanding of caste dynamics in the state and knows key workers personally across constituencies in the crucial state. State BJP leaders are hoping that his campaigning and organisation skills will again help the party register an impressive victory. Elections to 403 member Uttar Pradesh assembly will be held in seven phases. The first phase of polls will be held in parts of Western Uttar Pradesh on February 10. (ANI)
Lok Sabha Secretariat on Friday informed that a function to pay floral tributes to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on his 125th birth anniversary will be held in the Central Hall of Parliament House on Sunday (January 23). "On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Subhash Chandra Bose a function to pay floral tributes to him will be held in the Central Hall of Parliament House on January 23 at 1030 hours," the LS Secretariat said in a notice. Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that a grand granite statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will be installed at India Gate. "At a time when the entire nation is marking the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, I am glad to share that his grand statue, made of granite, will be installed at India Gate. This would be a symbol of India's indebtedness to him," the Prime Minister said in a tweet today. The Prime Minister said that till the time the grand statue of Netaji Bose is completed, a hologram statue of the freedom fighter would be inaugurated on January 23. "Till the grand statue of Netaji Bose is completed, a hologram statue of his would be present at the same place. I will unveil the hologram statue on 23rd January, Netaji's birth anniversary," tweeted PM Modi. In a major development, it is learnt from sources that from this year, R-Day celebrations will start on January 23 -- birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose (125th year this time). It will end on January 30, the day Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. Official sources have informed that the dimensions of Netaji's statue would be 28 feet in height and 6 feet in breadth. (ANI)
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) issued new guidelines on Friday for international arrivals under which isolation facility is not mandatory for people arriving from 'at-risk' countries from Saturday (January 22). The guidelines further stated, "If tested negative they (international travellers) will follow home quarantine for 7 days and shall undertake RTPCR test on the 8th day of arrival in India." As per MOHFW guidelines, "If tested positive, their (international travellers) samples should be further sent for genomic testing at INSACOG laboratory network. They shall be treated/isolated as per laid down standard protocol." Meanwhile, children under 5 years of age are exempted from both pre and post-arrival testing. However, if found symptomatic for COVID-19 on arrival or during the home quarantine period, they shall undergo testing and be treated as per laid down protocol, stated the MOHFW guidelines. (ANI)
The terrorists have been identified as Basit Ahmad Dar from Kulgam, Arif Ahmad Hazar from Pulwama and Momin Gulzar Mir from Srinagar.

The police have also released the contact numbers to reach out to the informers.

"The informer shall be suitably rewarded," said the poster released by the police consisting of the pictures of three terrorists. (ANI)
The state government has dedicated itself to providing 'Thrividha Dasoha of Anna '(food), 'Akshara' (education) and 'Ashraya' (shelter) for all the poor and weaker sections of the society, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said. Speaking to media persons after launching the Dasoha(charity) programme as part of the Dasoha Day celebrations at Sri Siddaganga Mutt, Bommai said, Dasoha is a tradition of Karnataka. This is a day that conveys the importance of food, education and shelter, said Bommai. The state government has raised the per capita quota of rice for Anna Dasoha from 4kg to 5kg. Ragi and Jowar too are being distributed in accordance with the food habits of the region, he added. The ration is being provided for Mutts and other charity institutions which are engaged in Anna Dasoha. As for Akshara Dasoha, the state government has launched the Vidya Nidhi scheme for children of farmers, Rs 150 cr has been released for direct disbursement of scholarships for children of construction workers. State and central governments have taken up housing schemes for Ashraya Dasoha and about 5 lakh houses are being built, Bommai said. On celebrating Dasoha Day as a government programme, Dasoha Day would be celebrated in a more organised way as a government programme. The state government is committed to spreading Dasoha culture all over the state. "I have participated in today's programme with a resolve to tread in the path of Siddaganga Seer. It is our government's mission to provide food, education and shelter for all," Bommai said. Replying to a question about conferring Bharat Ratna for Sri Shivakumaraswamiji, the Chief Minister said he would decide on sending the recommendation to the union government after discussing the issue with his top leadership. The meeting with expert committee members later in the afternoon would decide on the continuation of the weekend curfew. Many legislators, MPs and organisations are set to convey their opinion on the issue. A suitable decision would be taken based on the views of the experts and the trend of the prevailing third wave of COVID-19, Bommai said. (ANI)
Taking forward the spate of attacks on the Samajwadi Party's list of candidates since its release ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday alleged that the party has given tickets to those candidates who were responsible for making the state a "riot state". "Those who have been given tickets by the Samajwadi Party in the Vidhan Sabha elections-2022, they had a role in making the state a 'riot state'," Yogi tweeted in Hindi. The Chief Minister further said that Uttar Pradesh has become synonymous with good governance. "This 'New Uttar Pradesh' is synonymous with social justice with development and good governance. Conscious people of the state will never allow the intention of the opposition to be fulfilled," he added in his tweet. Earlier today, Yogi had termed Akhilesh Yadav's party as "rioter lover" and "tamanchawadi". "Those whose basic character is undemocratic, criminal dynastic, talking about democracy and development from their mouth is laughable. The list of Assembly election candidates confirms that the SP is a 'rioter lover' and a 'tamanchawadi'," tweeted Yogi in Hindi. Samajwadi Party is contesting the polls in alliance with RLD and some other smaller parties. Elections for the 403 Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases. Voting 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)
Two Maoists, also members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), surrendered before the police in Bhadradri Kothagudem district of the state on Friday. The Maoists have been identified as Vemula Nanga (30) and Podium Adami (28), said Sunil Dutt, SP, Bhadradri Kothagudem. He further said that Nanga joined the Maoist party and was promoted as Dalam member and deputy commander of Basuguda LOS in 2016. At the time of his surrender, he was working as supply team section commander under Aithu. Adami joined the party in 2014 under Mangu LOS commander of Jegurukonda. Later, she worked in MMC Zone in the Bhalaghat area under Satish till 2017. In 2014, she was promoted to the rank of Deputy Commander. In 2017, she came to the Jegurugonda area and was working in doctors supplying team. The duo in June 2021 decided to marry but the party rejected their proposal. Subjected to regular harassment from the party, they decided to leave the party. Later, they were expelled by the CPI-M. After realising that there was no support for the Maoist party among the people at present, they decided to surrender before the police to live a better life. The district police have appealed to all Dalam members and militia members to contact any relatives or Police to surrender and live a better life. (ANI)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national vice president Dilip Ghosh on Friday said that Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav invited West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee to Uttar Pradesh to campaign for him because Yadav knows that his chances of winning the Assembly elections are very low. Speaking to ANI, Ghosh said, "The chances of Akhilesh winning the election are slim, therefore he has called Mamata Banerjee to campaign for him. But this is not in the interest of neither Akhilesh nor Mamata." He also took a jibe at Banerjee and said, "Before the 2019 elections, too, the West Bengal CM had invited political leaders from across the country to the Kolkata brigade group and had fed them fish and rice; but to no avail." "Today, Akhilesh Yadav is calling Mamata out of desperation. But how will Mamata help Akhilesh? The people of UP will not be able to understand her Hindi," Gosh added. Further saying that the move is not in the interest of Yadav, Ghosh said that Mamata Banerjee wants to become a national leader. "Anywhere Mamata tried outside of Bengal, she failed. She failed in Tripura and Goa, now UP is an attempt to improve her image," he said. Gosh also alleged that Yadav did not call Banerjee for the campaign, "she herself might be coming forward to lend support." "Nobody calls her, she just reaches everywhere because she wants to become a national leader," Gosh added. Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Mainpuri's Karhal constituency, sources informed ANI on Thursday. However, the SP chief on Wednesday said that he will contest the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Karhal after taking permission from Azamgarh residents. Yadav is currently a Lok Sabha MP from Azamgarh. Elections to 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)
After taking two unpaid weeks off when her family was home with COVID-19, Emma Branson was ready to get her toddler back to day care.

Finally, her 2-year-old could play with his friends, and she could focus on work.

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But after just one day back, the day care closed for 10 days. Again.

It really threw a wrench in things, said Branson, a Logan Square mom and an environmental technician.

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Since the pandemic began, day care centers have been caught in a cycle of managing frustrated parents and changing guidance while trying to operate. And amid recent national headlines focused on Chicago Public Schools issues, parents, teachers and directors said they feel left behind in guidance and left out of larger conversations that seem to forget their families.

I dont feel like a lot of things are considered, said Marisol Nieves, who runs Little Einsteins Daycare, which has two locations on the North Side. We do share a lot of the same challenges as CPS in that our families need care, they need somewhere for their children to go during the day thats safe. Like many, the day cares locations had been closed multiple times in recent months following positive COVID-19 tests.

Toddlers Ingrid Breiseth, front, Griffin Covacci, left, and Helena Pompei play under the supervision of Mercedez Gonzales at an apartment in Chicago Jan. 13, 2022. Some parents got their children together in a pod to share child care temporarily after their Little Einstein's Daycare classroom closed. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Unlike older kids, children under age 5 have no access to vaccines; the latest vaccine trial pushed back that possibility to an uncertain date, crippling some parents hopes for a return to normalcy. Former University of Chicago professor Emily Oster, who frequently writes on parenting and data, recently shared responses she received from parents, with some saying they feel abandoned after asking parents of children under 5 a simple question: How are you doing?

It feels like some folks have just moved on from the pandemic, making it feel like my family is being left behind, said Bryan Roush, a father in Arlington Heights who called parenting three kids ages 5 and under bleak. I honestly dont know how we keep doing this.

Chicago-area parents spoke about feeling theyre in a constant cycle of fear and frustration. Many spoke with dread about the notification  finding out their child was a close contact of someone with COVID-19, followed by a now-too-familiar search to find a reliable and quick test for their kids and themselves.

Parents have no real options for back-up care  such as a drop-in day care or a babysitter  when their child might be carrying COVID-19, especially as infants and toddlers cannot easily or safely entertain themselves. Nannies also are in high demand.

Each time they get a call from their day care, said North Center dad Justin Leinenweber, whether its in their 4-year-olds class or their 9-month-olds class, both children are out for two weeks. He knows the day care is trying to protect as many children as possible. But the constant disruption is exhausting; he and his wife choose who stops working. He is an attorney and she is a public school teacher. Last time, his wife used up the last of her sick time. He knows they are luckier than most to even have this ability to juggle.

I was just getting the sense of a routine again, when boom: an email on Wednesday morning saying to pick up both kids by 11:15 a.m., because of a case in the younger kids room, he said.

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Many parents, exhausted by impossible calculations, have accepted they must send their children to school as a contagious virus spreads and hope they receive no more notifications.

Ive said a lot; Im holding my breath, Branson said. Its really just been kind of balancing the fear and the caution, because (my son is) not vaccinated, and wanting to keep him safe, but also having to get back to normal and back to work and having him in day care.

Some parents said employers had become less sympathetic as the pandemic stretched on. And, of course, not all parents can work remotely, leaving essential workers especially in a bind.

Day care centers follow guidance given by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Chicago Department of Public Health on handling positive cases and masking. State guidance suggests children and staff quarantine for at least 14 days, but this can be reduced in consultation with the local health department. Melaney Arnold, a state health department spokesperson, said they are awaiting guidance from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention specific to day cares.

Day care directors and parents who monitor the guidelines say they can be hard to keep up with or even understand. For example, day cares are directed to follow state guidance but to report any COVID-19 cases to city health officials. Meanwhile, day cares have varying policies on what happens after a positive test.

The CDC recently suggested schools consider a test-to-stay program for unvaccinated students, which Chicago Public Schools is piloting, where students can stay in school as long as they continue to test negative. Jade Fulce, a CDC spokesperson, said although previous studies have not evaluated test-to-stay in child care settings, it can be an option for child care programs. Test-to-stay protocols are included in an IDPH document offering guidance on returning students who are asymptomatic close contacts.

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Mercedez Gonzalez interacts with toddlers Ingrid Breiseth, left, Griffin Covacci, center, and Helena Pompei Jan. 13, 2022. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Having to close for 10 days for a positive case is not sustainable for teachers, parents or kids, Nieves said, especially with the contagious omicron variant. Ive had parents tell me theyve exhausted their COVID pay, PTO and vacation, she said. At the same time, no day care director or parent is eager to welcome more exposure.

Those who run day care centers are tasked with trying to keep them afloat and support employees while balancing keeping children safe and enrolled. Relaxing guidelines could lead to more cases; keeping children out for half a month at a time could mean families find a different option. Used to telling families when they can return to day care after fevers, now theyre tasked with constantly reassessing pandemic protocols.

Some parents might want to keep kids home at any exposure; others might welcome the ability to return them to school as soon as a negative test can be confirmed.

This is not sustainable, these rolling closures, said Lauren Sauer, a Chicago mom who has had one of her two children home for COVID-19 closures for a total of five weeks. She was relieved, she said  while interrupting herself to ask her toddler, What, honey?  that the day cares closure time had moved from 14 days to 10 days.

When the CDC recently reduced the quarantine and isolation time to five days, some assumed day cares would similarly adjust. Chicago Public Schools plans to change its policy to five days. The state health department noted its guidelines take into consideration that masking for young children can be difficult and those under 2 are unable to mask.

Although Branson wants kids to return to school sooner, every decision feels fraught.

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I wish that I could just do that without the thought in the back of my head, Well, what if its really bad for him to catch COVID? she said.

Chicago area hospitals have seen spikes in kids admitted with COVID-19 with the omicron variant.

Meanwhile, teachers worry about their own exposure. And although some child care workers are represented in the SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana union, because child care includes a variety of workers like in-home providers and day care centers, there is no umbrella organization, like the Chicago Teachers Union, that advocates for all of them.

And basic cold symptoms that most would chalk up to a typical Chicago winter can now mean a parent needs to collect their child, quickly.

It is really hard to tell the parents, OK, this child cannot come because the childs nose is runny, said Erma Jackson, who runs Majestic, an in-home day care in Humboldt Park. COVID-19 has changed her job. The pandemic created a whole new layer of vigilance, in that one familys actions or efforts toward taking precautions  or lack thereof  affect an entire day care.

We have to add in a level of trust that the parent will respect the other families and our household, she said. Theres that level of trust, as well as fear.

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abowen@chicagotribune.com
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea filed against actor Kangana Ranaut seeking censoring of all her future social media posts in order to maintain law and order in the country. A Bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud declined to pass an order on the plea. The plea was filed by advocate Charanjeet Singh Chanderpal who also sought direction to transfer all FIRs against the actor across India to Khar police station in Mumbai, and a charge sheet should be filed in a period of six months along with an expeditious trial within a period of two years. The advocate said that Ranaut's remarks and posts on social media "are not only outrageous and blasphemous but also intend to cause riots". "The remarks are not only outrageous and blasphemous but also intend to cause riots, hurt religious sentiments, they are defamatory as well as portray Sikhs in a totally anti-National manner. It also justifies the innocent killing of Sikhs. The remarks are totally against the unity of our country and the actress deserves a serious punishment in law. They cannot be brushed aside or excused," the plea read. The plea filed through advocate Anil Kumar stated that the Union Home Ministry and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India should be directed by the Court to take certain prohibitions and preventive measures regarding social media posts of Ranaut. None of her posts on social media should be allowed without amendment, deletion, modification or censoring in order to maintain law and order in the Country, advocate Chanderpal stated in the plea. In terms of the recent comments made by Ranaut regarding farmers' agitation vis a vis its irrelevant reference as a 'Khalistani Arm twisting tactic', all complaints received and FIRs registered all over India may be sent to the Khar Police Station at Mumbai, it added. Referring to Ranaut's social media posts, the plea said that her posts infer that all Sikh farmers are separatist and are aspirants of a separatist state of Khalistan and that the farmer issue was nothing but a Khalistan versus State. "Such kind of irresponsible statements can spread hatred amongst the Indians resulting in the disunity of the Country," plea further stated. "Khalistan issue not at all related to the farmer's issue and racking up this issue in association with an unrelated topic is only intended to not only gain cheap publicity but also to misrepresent a good number of Sikh Farmer as separatist Khalistani," said the advocate. It also stated, "The farmers who had objected to the three Farm Laws and the farmer policy were from all faiths, various states of India and not only from Punjab or only from the Sikh Community." Ranaut further attacked directly on the worshipers of the Sikh faith by saying that the Sikh must acknowledge Indira Gandhi as their Guru, lawyer added. (ANI)
The COAS was briefed by the Sudarshan Chakra Corps Commander and other commanders on operational preparedness and on the reforms being undertaken towards transforming the formation into a modern, cohesive, lean and agile warfighting force. Naravane was appreciative of the formation's high levels of operational preparedness despite the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He complimented their proactive approach in undertaking flood relief operations at Datia, Shivpuri, Sheopur, Morena, Ashoknagar and Jalon of Madhya Pradesh. The COAS also interacted with troops and exhorted them to continue working with zeal and be prepared for any future operational challenges.

Naravane later visited Headquarters Paschim Madhya Pradesh Sub Area. He appreciated the role of the Sub Area in assisting the civil administration in combating the COVID-19 pandemic by setting up Adhoc COVID Isolation Facilities, provision and repair of critical life-saving equipment and augmentation of Civil Medical Infrastructure.

The COAS also visited 3 EME centres at Bairagarh Military Station and reviewed the training being imparted to mould a future generation of soldiers of the Indian Army. (ANI)
"I welcome the decision of Prime Minister @narendramodi Ji to install a grand statue at India Gate in memory of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the great freedom fighter, the ideal of crores of Indians. This decision is a true tribute to Netaji's loyalty, devotion, and dedication towards the country," Nadda tweeted in Hindi.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that a grand granite statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will be installed at India Gate.

"At a time when the entire nation is marking the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, I am glad to share that his grand statue, made of granite, will be installed at India Gate. This would be a symbol of India's indebtedness to him," the Prime Minister said in a tweet today.

The Prime Minister said that till the time the grand statue of Netaji Bose is completed, a hologram statue of the freedom fighter would be inaugurated on January 23.

"Till the grand statue of Netaji Bose is completed, a hologram statue of his would be present at the same place. I will unveil the hologram statue on 23rd January, Netaji's birth anniversary," tweeted PM Modi.

Official sources have informed that the dimensions of Netaji's statue would be 28 feet in height and 6 feet in breadth. (ANI)
Thwarting a possible terrorist attack ahead of Republic Day, Punjab Police on Friday have seized RDX, a grenade launcher, two compatible grenades, nine electrical detonators and two sets of timer devices for IEDs from Gurdaspur. The police have also arrested one person. Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Border Range Mohinish Chawla on Friday said that 40 mm Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBGL) with two 40 mm compatible grenades, 3.79 Kg RDX, nine electrical detonators and two sets of timer devices for IEDs from Gurdaspur. As per the information, UBGL is a short-range grenade launching area weapon with an effective range of 150 meters and It could be detrimental to the VVIP security as well. The recovery was made on the disclosure of Malkeet Singh, a resident of village Gazikot in Gurdaspur, who was arrested by the Gurdaspur Police on Thursday, based on secret information. The police have also booked co-conspirators of Malkeet, identified as Sukhpreet Singh alias Sukh Ghuman, Tharanjot Singh alias Thanna and Sukhmeetpal Singh alias Sukh Bikhariwal; all residents of Gurdaspur, besides, Pakistan-based International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) chief Lakhbir Singh Rode and fugitive gangster Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dalla. IG Mohinish Chawla said that investigations hitherto, in this case, has revealed that the arrested accused Malkeet was in direct contact with Sukh Ghuman, who had further conspired with ISYF chief Lakhbir Rode, an individual designated terrorist under UA (P) Act and fugitive gangster Arsh Dalla, native of Moga and now based in Canada. The consignment of explosives were sent by Lakhbir Rode from Pakistan, he added. SSP Gurdaspur Nanak Singh said that the role of Malkeet Singh in retrieval and delivery of firearms/explosive consignments intended for recently busted ISYF terror module busted by SBS Nagar Police, was revealed during investigation therein. He said that the FIR No. 11 dated January 20, 2022 under sections 17 and 18 of UA(P) Act, sections 4 and 5 of Explosive Substances Act, section 120B of IPC and sections 25, 27, 54 and 59 of Arms Act has been registered at Dinanagar Police Station. "Investigations are on to identify remaining members of the busted terrorist modules, recover the remaining terrorist hardware received by them and unravel the entire conspiracy, hatched by ISI of Pakistan and Lakhbir Rode," he added. The role of Lakhbir Rode was also found in killing of Comrade Balwinder Singh at Bhikhiwind on October 16, 2020 besides in the recovery of tiffin IED, RDX, arms and ammunition from his relative Gurmukh Singh Rode from Jalandhar in August 2021. Lakhbir Rode's role was also prominently figured in the recently busted terror module at SBS Nagar. Sukhmeetpal Singh alias Sukh Bhikhariwal, who is presently lodged in Tihar Jail, Delhi was also involved in the killing of Comrade Balwinder Singh and in case of a murderous attack on Honey Mahajan at Dhariwal on February 10, 2020. He was deported from Dubai in December, 2020. Sukh Bhikhariwal provided foot soldiers, arms and ammunition, logistics, funds, etc for execution of these crimes. It is pertinent to mention that during November-December 2021, the Gurdaspur Police had busted two terrorist modules controlled by ISI of Pakistan and arrested four members of the modules besides recovered around 1 Kg RDX, six Hand Grenades, one Tiffin Box IED, three electrical detonators and two pistols. (ANI)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said that the next 25 years are going to be extremely crucial for India as well as the people of Tripura because the country is set to compensate for its loss during the prolonged imperial rule of the British and Mughals. "India was ruled by the British for a long time. Before that, the country was under the clutches of Mughal rulers. The next 25 years are going to be very crucial for the country when every citizen of this nation is expected to invest their hard work and labour for its growth," the Union Home Minister said. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his address at Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav event, called upon the states to frame individual-specific action plans for the next 25 years. This 25 years time span shall act as compensation to the losses this country has incurred during this long imperial regime," he added. Shah's remarks came while addressing the people of the state on the occasion of Tripura's 50th statehood day through video conferencing. During the programme, the Union Home Minister released Lakshya 2047 (Target 2047), a booklet prepared by the government of Tripura on its action plan for the next 25 years. Shah also officially launched a postal stamp of "India Perfume"--dedicated to Tripura's rich Agar reserve. Hailing the efforts of the Tripura government, Shah said that the Lakshya 2047 booklet is not like just another official booklet. "This is a document that describes the aspirations and hopes of Tripura people. How Tripura is going to progress in the six selected sectors incorporated in the document that include agriculture, education, climate change and environment, investment etc," Shah said. According to Shah, this document is defining the path of Tripura till the date when the state will be observing the 75th anniversary of its statehood and India will stand its 100th year. "Let's take a pledge that the people of the country, especially the youth shall work harder to bring out a change and recover the lost glory of the country", he added. Slamming the previous Left Front government, Shah said, "North East India is earlier known to be a house of corruption. Lion's share of the funds meant for the welfare of the public used to be misused. Now, NEDA (North East Democratic Alliance) has expanded its base in all eight states and these governments have ensured that people get what they deserve". Hailing Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, Shah said, "After the formation of the BJP government in Tripura, peace has ensured across the state. Whether it is the NLFT accord signed in the year 2019 or the Bru pact in the year 2020, the centre and the state resolved the long pending issues faced by the people." Shah during his address appreciated the efforts of the Tripura government in various fields including agriculture, infrastructure, connectivity etc. He also reminded people of the role of Maharaja Bir Bikram and Sardar Ballavbhai Patel in uniting Tripura with India. (ANI)
Several senior veterans favoured the merger of flame at the Amar Jawan Jyoti with the one at the National War Memorial while some opposed it citing the emotional connect with it. In a historical step, days before Republic Day, the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate lawns was merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday. Lieutenant General (Retd) Vinod Bhatia who served as the Director General of Military Operations hailed the Centre's decision and said, "it is a good decision". "Today is a great occasion, the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate is being merged with the National War Memorial. It's a good decision," said Bhatia. "Amar Jawan Jyoti honours our soldiers in 1971 for 50 years. We have a National War Memorial which honours nearly 25,000 soldiers, sailors who made the supreme sacrifices in defence of India. The time has come to shift the Amar Jawan Jyoti to merge it with National War Memorial," he said. Former Chief of Integrated Defence Staff Lt Gen Satish Dua (Retd) supported the move saying The merger of Amar Jawan Jyoti with the National War Memorial is the right decision to make. "There should be no controversy. National War Memorial has a national character," he added. The officer said the controversy was needless as the flame of Amar Jawan Jyoti is being merged with that of National War Memorial, it is not being extinguished. "National War Memorial is the designated war memorial at national level to pay homage all India's bravehearts, past present or future," he added. Another veteran Lt Gen PJS Pannu (Retd) said, "This is a very good decision taken by the government, shifting is not the question, the honour lies where the names of the soldiers are written. The National War Memorial is the only place the soldiers should be honoured. Air Force veteran Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur said that the eternal flame at India Gate is part of Indian psyche. "You, I and our generation grew up saluting our brave jawans there. While National War Memorial is great, the memories of #AmarJawanJyoti are indelible," he tweeted earlier in the day. (ANI)
Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for opposing the merger of Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate with the flame at National War Memorial and said that the flame at the Amar Jawan Jyoti was under the British established building because a National War Memorial was not built by the Congress government. Speaking to the reporters here today, Puri said, "We were under foreign domination for 190 years. India Gate is to honour the ones who contributed during the British rule. Why is he happy that the Amar Jawan Jyoti was under a building erected by the Britishers? It was under it because War Memorial was not built by the Congress government." The Union Minister further said there should be one national flame to honour all the Indians who contributed in all the wars. "The Modi government built the War Memorial and it is logical that all the Indians who contributed in the First and second world war, or post 1947, there should be one national flame to honour all of them who have made our freedom possible," he said. Puri's remarks came after the Congress leader, taking to Twitter, today said, "It is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame that used to burn for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today. Some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice - never mind. We will once again light the Amar Jawan Jyoti for our soldiers." Earlier today, in a historical move by the Centre ahead of the Republic Day celebrations, the Amar Jawan Jyoti or the "eternal flame" for soldiers at India Gate was merged with the torch at the National War Memorial in a ceremony. Meanwhile, retired Army officers welcomed and hailed the decision by the Centre. Lieutenant General (Retd), Former Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO) Indian Army, Vinod Bhatia on Friday hailed the Centre's decision to merge Amar Jawan Jyoti with the War Memorial Memorial and said: "it is a good decision". The 1971 war veteran and former Army Deputy Chief Lieutenant General JBS Yadava (Retd) also supported the Centre's decision and said "Amar Jawan Jyoti should be merged with National War Memorial. There should be only one war memorial in the country." Earlier today, a part of the flame was carried to the war memorial this afternoon in a ceremony that was presided by the Integrated Defence Staff chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna. Krishna laid a wreath after which a torch was lit from the Amar Jawan Jyoti and the flame doused. The torch was then taken to the national war memorial by a ceremonial guard from Guards Regiment of the Indian Army. After travelling for around 150 metres, the torch was used to symbolically merge the flame from Amar Jawan Jyoti with the one at the National War Memorial. Air Marshal Krishna presided over the ceremony at both locations. The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914-1921. (ANI)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday hit out at Samajwadi Party over the party's first list of candidates in the upcoming state Assembly polls and said that Akhilesh Yadav's party is "rioter lover" and "tamanchawadi". "Those whose basic character is undemocratic, criminal dynastic, talk of democracy and development from them is laughable. The list of assembly election candidates confirms that the SP is a 'rioter lover' and a 'tamanchawadi'," tweeted Yogi in Hindi. Earlier on Wednesday, In an exclusive interview with ANI, Yogi Adityanath said the opposition party was trying to "bring 'mafiavad' in the state once again". He said Samajwadi Party came with its first list close to polls and it had showed its "criminal mindset". "In five years rioters and professional criminals either left the state or were in jail. As elections approached...Samajwadi Party's first list (had) rioters of Saharanpur, of Muzaffarpur, the criminals responsible for migration of Hindu traders from Kairana, the way tickets were given in Bulandshahr, Siyana, Loni, all this shows that criminal mindset, tamanchawadi mentality, mafiavadi mentality, these political parties whether Samajwadi Party or Congress, they have not been able to get over it," he said. Samajwadi Party is contesting the polls in alliance with RLD and some other smaller parties. 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)
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday constituted a committee to hold discussions with government employees and convince them on 11th Pay Revision Commission (PRC) and other related issues, informed officials. The committee will comprise Municipal Administration Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath, Information and Public Relations Minister Perni Venkatramaiah, Govt Advisor (Public Affairs) Sajjala Rama Krishna Reddy and Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma. Earlier, as per the release issued by Chief Minister Office (CMO), the Chief Minister said he has noted all the concerns raised by the employees' unions and assured them that all the issues will be addressed. "Reddy is more compassionate, humanitarian and responsive when it comes to doing good to others and added that it is inevitable to consider certain facts in regard to PRC," reads the release. (ANI)
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah will launch the District Good Governance Index (DGGI) in Jammu and Kashmir via Video Conferencing on Saturday (January 22) at 1 pm. "Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri @AmitShah will launch the District Good Governance Index (DGGI) in Jammu & Kashmir via VC. Date: 22nd January 2022 Time: 01:00 PM," Home Minister's Office tweeted. Shah will release the District Good Governance Index for 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, a move which will bring Jammu and Kashmir the first Union Territory in the country to have a Good Governance Index. The event will be organized jointly by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) and Jammu and Kashmir Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development in association with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad. Union Minister Jitendra Singh and Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha will also address the event. The District Good Governance Index of Jammu and Kashmir was prepared by DARPG in collaboration with the government of Jammu and Kashmir in pursuance of the announcements made in the "Behtar e-Hukumat - Kashmir Aelamia" resolution adopted on July 2, 2021, in the Regional Conference on Replication of Good Governance Practices held in Srinagar. The exercise on the formulation of the District Good Governance Index was set in motion in July 2021 which has now been completed and Jammu and Kashmir will become the first Union Territory in the country to have a Good Governance Index. The District Good Governance Index of the government of Jammu and Kashmir represents a major administrative reform in benchmarking good governance at the district level and a significant step for timely collation and publication of statistics at the state/ district level. The District Good Governance Index is a milestone and it is expected that it will provide a robust framework for evidence-based assessment of the performance of all the districts in Jammu and Kashmir. The Chief Secretary Government of Jammu and Kashmir Arun Kumar Mehta and V. Srinivas, Secretary DARPG, Government of India will also be addressing the event. The event will be attended by senior officials of the government of Jammu and Kashmir, District Collectors and Chief Planning officers of Districts. Secretaries of Planning and Secretaries of Administrative Reforms of all state and UT governments and District Collectors of non-election bound states have also been invited to participate in the event by video conferencing. During the occasion, a presentation on the formulation of the district Good Governance Index will be made by the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad. This will be followed by district presentations by selected 12 District Development Commissioners, who will be showcasing achievements of various sectors. Thereafter a panel discussion will be held on DGGI- A Way Forward for futuristic 2.0 version of DGGI for measuring and benchmarking performance and improvement of Districts in future as well. (ANI)
The staff at Owen & Engine go through a tasting of the restaurants menu, including the korma, seen here, on Jan. 13, 2022. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

By the time she was running three restaurants, Bo Fowler was used to pain  through her legs, in her hands, from ankles swollen to three times their normal size.

She worked 90-hour weeks, oftentimes 16-hour days with a single five-minute bathroom break. She joked with her staff she might die on the job, and if she did, they should roll her into the walk-in cooler and keep working.

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Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. It probably saved her life.

In early April 2020, when the city had been locked down less than a month and Fowlers restaurants were shuttered, she woke one morning with chest pain, struggling to breathe. Numbness crept down her arms. A month earlier, shed had the same symptoms and kept working. She figured it was stress or anxiety.

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This time there was no work. Nothing else to do. Fowler went to the doctor, and was told shed had a heart attack, and probably had one the month before, too.

Fowler checked into the hospital. Three days later, she had a quintuple bypass.

In Chicago, chef and restauranteur Bo Fowler poses for a portrait while holding a bowl of gnudi (gnocchi-like dumplings made with ricotta cheese instead of potato) at her restaurant Owen & Engine, where she led her staff through a tasting of the restaurants menu on Jan. 13, 2022. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Her husband, Arden Fowler, said things would have almost certainly ended badly if the pandemic hadnt forced Bo Fowler to stop working.

If we were open, she would have gone to work with all that pain and probably passed out and hit the floor, and it just would have been a matter of how quick the paramedics got there, he said.

Bo Fowler, who is 53, doesnt doubt it. When she operated her eclectic bunch of restaurants before the pandemic  Fat Willys Rib Shack, inspired by a trip to North Carolina; Owen & Engine, an attempt to re-create the dim intimacy of British pubs; and Bixi Beer, a brewery whose pan-Asian menu nods to her Korean roots  she was like bulldozer, she said: unconsciously plowing forward because it was all she knew to do.

I was almost subhuman in the way I was working, she said. Being in pain was part of my life. I didnt think about it.

Fresh approach

Now she thinks about it. As she reopens Owen & Engine this week for the first time in nearly two years, she thinks about a lot of things differently.

Fowler thinks about taking time off, something she rarely did before the pandemic. Before fall 2020, her last vacation had been six years earlier. She thinks about her health, and the health of her staff, both mental and physical. She used to have a rule in her kitchens: No crying. It was a joke. But it also wasnt.

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It sets the tone, even if youre joking, Fowler said. I used to say a lot of stuff I dont say anymore.

After surviving at least two heart attacks and steering her restaurants through the pandemic, Fowler is determined to emerge a different person in what she hopes is a different industry. Restaurants have long been about the grind, or what Fowler now thinks of as masochism: long hours of hard, physical work with little room for complaint. Its a feature thats long been endemic, but generally far from customer view.

Bo Fowler plates the veal tartare as she leads her staff at Owen & Engine through a tasting of the restaurants menu. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Even before the pandemic, Fowler had begun thinking about wellness. She tried to reduce drinking among her staff by limiting them to one free drink at the bar after work. For years, like at many restaurants, they were able to order as late as they wanted at a discount, which wound up normalizing and incentivizing hours of drinking. Now Fowler would rather they go home and rest.

She is trying to incorporate high standards into a gentler atmosphere. She sees it as the way forward for not just herself, but the entire post-pandemic industry.

The most crucial change, she said, needs to be downtime. That means work weeks closer to 50 hours. It means not assuming her staff will work back-to-back brunch and dinner shifts (It still happens, but shes trying to hire her way out of it.). It means guaranteeing consecutive days off for everyone; that is why Bixi will be closed Mondays and Tuesdays and Owen & Engine on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Things have to change, and I have to drive that change, Fowler said. I want to institutionalize days off for my people. It wasnt before, not for myself, not for them. Was that wrong? Yes. But I grew up in kitchens where we just had to tough everything out. That was my motto: Tough it out. It wasnt fair to my people and it wasnt fair to myself.

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[ Back-aching work. Low pay. No health care: Heres why Chicago restaurant workers arent coming back. ]

It can still be a struggle. Last fall, three of her four servers at Bixi wanted Labor Day off, which meant the restaurant would have to close for the weekend. Fowler wasnt happy, but the general manager said the workers could quit and easily find work elsewhere.

Old Bo isnt completely gone, Fowler said. It took me 24 hours to process what the GM said. Then I embraced the idea because I looked at my poor kitchen. They were tired and I was tired, and I realized how good it was for everyone to have the same days off as their normal friends.

Lesson learned, she said. She plans to shut down every Labor Day going forward.

Jameson Metcalf, center, Edwin Perez, right, and other employees at the Chicago restaurant Owen & Engine go through a tasting of the restaurants menu, including the Scotch eggs. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

Matt Marquez, who has cooked in Fowlers kitchens since 2018  first at Bixi, now at Owen & Engine  said Fowlers relationship to her staff has changed. Before the pandemic, he said, When she walked in the kitchen, everyone tightened up.

Shes very picky and has very high standards, Marquez said. She was just tense and pretty straight to the point, pretty blunt. If you werent ready and didnt have a committed or dedicated attitude and werent ready to sweat, she wouldnt look your way.

Fowler led by example, arguably to a fault. Marquez said he saw her work through dizziness or chest pain, explaining it away as normal pain. In the last year, the kitchen atmosphere has lightened, he said.

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Lately shes been, I dont want to say gentle, but really kind of thoughtful about the needs of her cooks and their mental and emotional state, he said.

I felt like Id failed

Even before the pandemic, Fowler suspected she needed to make changes.

Like many restaurants, her businesses were financially teetering, especially Bixi, which had the twin indignities of shooting past its budget while being built, then failing to pay for itself as a nearby construction project limited traffic on Milwaukee Avenue for two years.

Bixi was kept afloat with revenues from Owen & Engine, which hurt the bottom lines of both restaurants. Weekly payrolls were met with each weekend service. When the pandemic struck, there were no more weekend services and little cash reserves.

I felt like Id failed my employees and myself, Fowler said.

During her months of healing after her heart attack, there were days Fowler wasnt sure she wanted to return to the restaurant industry.

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Id done it for 28 years, and this was all I had to show for it, she said.

In September 2020, Fowler announced Fat Willys would stay closed for good. Around that time, she and her husband had to sell the building that housed Owen & Engine and their apartment above it when the bank wouldnt renew the commercial mortgage loan. Fowler wasnt sure reopening Owen & Engine would even be possible.

Through the pandemic, Bixi has commanded most of her attention; its a larger, more ambitious space with investors. As with Fat Willys, Fowler and her husband opened Owen & Engine on their own, so closing it would only affect them. But they needed Bixi Beer to work, and it had spent its first three years barely working.

[ Where vaccine rates lag, some Chicago restaurants feel mandate pinch; to others its definitely the way to go ]

She went back to work in fall 2020, a few months after Bixi reopened as pandemic restrictions eased. Until Decembers COVID-19 surge, Fowler said, Bixi was doing its best business since opening, even at about 60% of its previous capacity (due both to persisting public health concerns and a struggle to hire enough staff).

And she learned something.

Bo Fowler leads her staff at Owen & Engine through a tasting of the restaurants menu. They are about to sample the hamburger and french fries. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

It taught me more isnt more, she said. We just make do with less people and less everything. And the volume is more or less the same.

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Fowler wants Bixi to work, and not just for the financial implications; it is also a deeply personal pursuit.

Born Bo Im Chow outside Seoul in 1968 to an unwed mother, Fowler was put up for adoption at the age of 6. Fowler landed with a family in Halstad, Minnesota, a town of 600 less than a mile from the North Dakota border. (She retains a trace of the accent immortalized in the movie Fargo.)

In Halstad, Fowler was one of the rare nonwhite faces. She grew up immersed in sci-fi novels and a bustling family that included her parents three biological children, a sister also adopted from South Korea and foster siblings from Vietnam. There was also a steady rotation of exchange students.

Our table at the holidays was always filled with people from all over the world, she said.

With a chemistry degree from the University of Minnesota, Fowler did two years of medical school at Northwestern University  not because she wanted to, but because it seemed like the thing to do.

I was never really drawn to it, she said. I was directionless and not knowing myself and always feeling insecure.

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She quit before just starting clinical work, and fell into restaurant jobs. She wasnt good at serving, by her own admission (Im a nice person, but I say things I shouldnt say  I have no filter), so she asked to move to the kitchen.

She loved most everything about it: the intensity, the exhaustion at the end of the day, the camaraderie. Within a year, she was promoted to sous chef.

Bo Fowler, seen here at Bixi ahead of its 2018 opening. (Paul Beaty / Chicago Tribune)

The kitchen saved me, in a sense, she said. You can see the results of your work at the end of the day. You have a good service and you feel good, like in a small way you shared something with your guests.

About that same time, Fowler returned to South Korea and saw her biological mother and half-siblings for the first time since her adoption. As she spent six weeks traveling through China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, something was jarred loose, and its why Bixi exists as it does. Asian cuisine, Fowler said in 2018 when launching the restaurant, is the food she realized she is naturally drawn to.

My palate was set when I was younger, she said at the time.

Fat Willys was for fun. Owen & Engine was a passion project. Bixi was about returning to her roots: Its the food that strikes a stronger emotional chord in me than any other cuisine, she said.

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Owen & Engine reborn

Fowler was committed to Bixi Beer surviving the pandemic. She wasnt sure she wanted to reopen Owen & Engine. Simplicity was suiting her.

Im not going to lie  I have really enjoyed having only one restaurant to run, she said.

But her new landlord said he would rent the building back to her. And with no announcement about Owen & Engines future, people kept asking when it would reopen. They shared memories of getting engaged there or taking a parent there from out of town to show in a single meal what it meant to live in Chicago. An Uber driver taking Fowler to Owen & Engine told her it was her favorite restaurant and asked when it was going to reopen.

Fowler slowly remembered why Owen & Engine had been a passion project in the first place.

I kind of went, I love being part of the neighborhood like that, she said. I didnt realize it at the time because I was so exhausted.

Owen & Engine opened Monday and Tuesday for the first time in 22 months to a crowd of friends and regulars. After closing for two days, it reopened Friday to the public at large. To navigate crowds and public health concerns, tables will be available only by reservation for the foreseeable future.

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The restaurant is reopening with a menu consistent with its past. The fish and chips have returned. So have roasted bone marrow, bubble and squeak, and one of the citys most ambitious charcuterie programs.

The legendary hamburger  one of the best in the city  is back, and it remains a combination of hand-ground short rib, chuck and brisket packed tight and given a 2-millimeter-thick seared crust to create what Fowler calls the flavor of a Sunday pot roast in hamburger form.

The signature hamburger at the Chicago restaurant Owen & Engine, topped with an egg. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

The burger cost $18 when Owen & Engine closed. Now its $22, and even at that price, Fowler said, she makes little profit because of the ingredients within, including meat from Slagel Family Farm.

Fowler briefly tried using cheaper beef during the restaurants first year, but couldnt get past the difference. Shed rather charge more than serve inferior dishes, she said. She also wont hesitate to charge more to create a healthier workplace that includes raises, paid time off and health insurance, which she began offering employees last year.

[ The 25 best burgers in Chicago, ranked ]

If people wont pay $22 for a burger and I cant pay my bills, I wont keep trying to survive at all costs, she said. I dont want to promote the old kind of culture anymore.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Shes committing to two years; if she feels Owen & Engine is no longer sustainable amid a pandemic and whatever comes after, she said, shell be OK moving on.

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For now, Fowler said, she is determined to work less and rediscover the joy of running a kitchen  one where people can cry, if they need to. The wisdom of the last two years has led her to see tears as a healthy outlet in a job that can be difficult and exhausting.

No crying is a thing of the past. In fact, she said, the staff has cried more than ever lately.

It happened as recently as two weeks ago at Bixi Beer. Before the pandemic, a crying employee would have made Fowler uncomfortable. This time she told the person what had happened was no big deal.

If you cry, you cry, Fowler said. You just keep your hands moving while youre crying.

jbnoel@chicagotribune.com

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The Department of Food and Public Distribution has developed a roadmap to roll out Online Storage Management (OSM) in the country, which aims to put in place a single source of information for food grains stored in the country for the central pool through integration of state portals with the central portal. As per the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, the OSM will develop an ecosystem of storage management applications across the DCP States, each being capable of capturing the Minimum Storage Specifications (MSS). These MSSs , which have been identified through intense and elaborate discussions with the concerned States and FCI are : capability to compute storage capacity , depict storage point-wise stock position (crop year-wise break up of stocks held , depiction of OB, issues and CB), stack-wise, truck-wise linkage (stack wise details of stock position , truck wise information ), quality parameters (infestation details , treatment details). "This would help in route optimization for distribution as well," said the ministry. In a meeting held on January 21 this year, under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Food), Government of India and attended by Food Secretaries of all DCP States, Food Corporation of India (FCI) made a presentation on the progress in the initiative. During the presentation, it was emphasized that the states shall build their respective portals in a collaborative mode, to ensure that the best practices can be imbibed and disseminated among the States. In the meeting, the sixteen (16) States viz. Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand and West Bengal have reassured of their commitment to develop/implement storage management applications with MSSs and integrate them with the central portal. This exercise, expected to be completed by March this year, will improve efficiency and transparency in stocking, storage, movement and distribution of foodgrains. It will help in driving down costs of food storage and distribution by checking leakages in the entire process. It will also enable the Government with readily available information for both monitoring and fast-paced decision making to benefit the stakeholders, especially PDS consumers (ANI)
Congress leader and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, Anand Sharma, has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah urging him to bring amendments in law to counter all manifestations of 'hate speech' targeting certain sections of citizens. "The government may consider legislative action including amendments in the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure to effectively counter all manifestations of hate speech in the larger national interest," Sharma said in the letter. "Hate speech is being used as a tool to promote enmity and disharmony between different groups on grounds of religion, caste, ethnicity, etc.... Free speech, though quintessence of democracy and enshrined in the Constitution, cannot be allowed to be misused to advocate, incite, promote or justify hatred and violence against a person or community," read the letter. Sharma through his letter has requested the Home Minister to urgently intervene in the matter and requested that the "home secretary should sensitize chief secretaries and DGPs of the state to take prompt and firm action to enforce the law and secure order." Sharma's letter comes at a time when various religious leaders across the country are being arrested allegedly for giving 'Hate Speeches' at different events in December. (ANI)
On the occasion of Tripura's 50th Statehood Day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday launched Lakshya-2047, a vision document to transform the frontier State on the path of holistic development. Shah addressed Tripura's 50th Statehood Day celebrations through video conferencing on Friday. Along with Tripura, the Home Minister also congratulated the people of Meghalaya and Manipur also on the occasion of their Statehood Days. On this occasion, the Union Home Minister set a goal before the people of Tripura through Sankalp-2047. Sankalp-2047 is the vision on how Tripura will be after 25 years that is its 75th Statehood Day. Amit Shah said that Lakshya-2047 is not just a document, but a blueprint for the future of Tripura. It mainly identifies six areas -agriculture, social harmony, environment and climate change, industry and investment, administrative reforms, and telecommunications and logistics - and lays out a roadmap of Tripura progress in all these areas. "This Lakshya-2047 document will go a long way towards making Tripura great, developed, secure and self-reliant," he said. Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah said the Centre has always tried to reduce the distance between Delhi and the North East. "Prime Minister Modi has resolved to develop the eight States of the region by giving them the name of Ashtalakshmi. Once upon a time, the North East was known for corruption, but today there are NDA governments in all eight states and money sent from Delhi to these eight states is spent on development. Work is also on to develop Tripura as a gateway to the North East," Shah said. The Union Home Minister said there will be a lot of investment in Tripura in the coming days due to the dozens of road and rail projects and international waterway connectivity with Bangladesh. The work of the Agartala-Akhaura rail link is also progressing at a rapid pace. He said the Tripura government has made great efforts to bring peace and stability. Today, instead of extremism, infiltration, blockades, drugs, arms trafficking, corruption and communal tension, Tripura is now moving towards development, connectivity, infrastructure, sports, investment, and promotion of organic farming. "The Centre and Government of Tripura have done a wonderful job by signing an accord with the NLFT in 2019, ending an atmosphere of unrest. A package of Rs 100 crore was given and Rs. 40 crore have already been released to Tripura. Even in the Bru Agreement, the Government of India has given a large package to solve the 30-year-old problem of about 37,000 people and Bru refugees are ready to join the mainstream and contribute to the development of India and Tripura," emphasised Shah. Lauding Chief Minister Biplab Deb's government, Shah said Tripura has moved ahead with three Ns - N for Niyat, N for Neeti and N for Niyam. The per capita income of Tripura was Rs 1 lakh in 2017-18, which has increased to Rs 1.30 lakh in three years in 2020-21. "Perhaps no State has registered an increase of 30 per cent. The monthly income of farmers was Rs 6,580 in 2015-16 and has increased to Rs 11,096 in 2020-21," he said. The Union Home Minister said that an investment of about Rs 2,000 crore has come into Tripura and about Rs 1,000 crore has been invested in the IT sector. About 86,000 hectares of land was covered under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. He said Tripura is also taking the lead in organic farming and about 15,000 hectares of the area has been cultivated with pineapple, aromatic rice, ginger, turmeric and chilli. Underlining infrastructure development projects, Union Home Minister said six National Highways have been sanctioned for 542 km and work is also in progress. Six express trains are running from Agartala to different parts of the country. Under the Prime Minister's Saubhagya Yojana, the work of lighting up 1,36,000 houses is also underway. Under the Atal Jaldhara Mission, the work of providing free water connections has also been done and a blueprint has also been prepared to ensure that pure drinking water should reach every household in almost entire Tripura, he said. (ANI)
Amicus and Senior Advocate Rebecca John on Friday told the Delhi High Court that there can be a legitimate expectation regarding sex in a marriage, but it cannot lead to forcible sex with the wife. "There can be an expectation but expectation can not lead to forcible sex with your wife," said Senior Advocate Rebecca John, who is appearing as amicus curiae in the matter relating to marital sex. Amicus John made this submission before a bench of justices Rajiv Shakdher and C Hari Shankar, which was hearing a batch of petitions demanding criminalisation of marital rape. Justice C Hari Shankar remarked that in a marital relationship, the husband has an expectation and pointed out that the legislature felt that this act done in the backdrop of the existence of such an expectation should not be equated with another act. Senior Advocate John replied that there is no wrong in having expectations and even both sides can have the expectation. But expectation cannot result in a husband having a forceful relationship with his wife, she submitted adding that this is not about expectation. "This is about a man exercising his dominant right over wife despite the wife saying I cannot..." Amicus said that pointing out that it may result in marriage breaking down or it may result in the husband seeking civil remedies. She further added that the husband may be right and the wife may be unreasonable but there is no right, there can be an expectation that cannot lead to a forceful relationship with the wife. However she stressed that expectation can lead to dialogue, may even lead to the wife being satisfied that she should be in a conjugal relationship. The hearing would continue on Monday too. The court was hearing a batch of petitions including by the NGOs RIT Foundation and All India Democratic Women's Association who have challenged an exception to section 375 to the Indian Penal Code. The exception to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, says sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape. (ANI)
"Party has decided to accept him and we all support that decision. Party decided as per consensus and I am part of it and everybody should welcome it," Rawat told ANI.

He also told that all candidates have been finalized for Uttarakhand polls and the list could be out anytime soon.

"Meeting went well, almost all 70 candidates finalized have been finalized. On 3-4 tactical seats it will take a bit longer due to strategical calculations," he added.

Accompanied by his daughter-in-law Anukriti Gusain, former Uttarakhand Minister Harak Singh Rawat rejoined Congress on Friday.

Harak Singh Rawat was dismissed from the Uttarakhand Cabinet and expelled from the BJP on Monday for "anti-party activities".

He was one of the 10 MLAs who had left the Congress in 2016 and joined BJP.

Uttarakhand will go to the polls on February 14. (ANI)
Chattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Friday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, protesting against the amendments proposed by the Centre in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre rules, terming them "contrary to spirit of federalism enshrined in the Constitution of India". "Government of India has proposed amendments to the rules of All India Services cadre and has sought the opinions of state governments on these amendments. The proposed amendment empowers the Central Government to post officers of the All India Services, unilaterally without the consent of the State Government or the concerned officer, which is completely contrary to the federal spirit adopted and outlined in the Constitution. Officers of All India Services are basically posted in states and are posted on deputation in Centre. Normally, deputation is done after consent of the state government. The state governments, while taking decisions as per their administrative requirements, have been agreeing to deputation," read the letter. Baghel said that in Chhattisgarh, All India Services officers are discharging their responsibilities in various important administrative works like eradication of naxal violence, all-round development of state and conservation of forests. "As a result of these amendments, there is bound to be a feeling of instability and ambiguity among the officers of the All India Services, who are holding various important posts from the districts to the state level. Due to this, there will be confusion in the discharge of official duties by them and due to political interference, it will not be possible to work impartially, especially at the time of elections, due to which the administrative system in the states can crumble and a situation of instability can be created," he added. The Chief Minister said that it is likely that the rules proposed by Centre are misused in future. "Instances of action being taken by unnecessarily targeting members of All India Services exist in several incidents. There are adequate provisions in the present rules for balance and coordination between the state and central governments in the past. Therefore, the Government of Chhattisgarh strongly opposes the amendment in the cadre rules of All India Services and demands that the cadre rules should be kept as before," he added. (ANI)
The Karnataka government on Friday decided to withdraw the weekend curfew in the state. As per a release from the Chief Minister's Office, the decision was taken during a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on COVID-19 situation in the state. However, depending on the hospitalisation trend next week, a suitable decision would be taken at a meeting on whether to reimpose the restrictions, added the release. On January 4, amid surging COVID-19 cases, the Karnataka government had imposed a weekend curfew in the state for the next two weeks. During the meeting, it was decided that the night curfew from 10 pm to 5 am will continue be in force. Malls, hotels, bars, clubs and pubs will continue operating at 50 per cent capacity and mandatory double vaccination against COVID-19. It was observed in the meeting that apart from Bengaluru, high cases are being reported from Mysuru, Tumakuru, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. Chief Minister Bommai was told that extra vigil is being maintained on COVID-19 cases in not only Bengaluru, but in other districts too. Bommai was told by officials that of the 243 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) plants sanctioned for the state, 225 are currently functioning. PSA plants have started functioning in all district hospitals and 113 taluk hospitals. During the meeting, it was observed that the average case doubling rate in the state is 3 days and each infected is spreading the virus to 2.6 persons. It was also observed that Medical and paramedical staff are increasingly getting infected with the virus. Bommai was also informed by officials that the rising infection amongst the COVID-19 frontline workers are being taken care of. During the meeting, it was observed that though the number of cases are on rise, the hospitality rate has remained low at five to six per cent. (ANI)
According to sources, the review meeting is regarding EC's ban on election road shows and rallies.

As India is reporting continuous rise in COVID-19 cases, the Election commission had put a ban on election rallies and roadshows. The progress on vaccination will be a key factor in allowing relaxations.

The five states going to polls are Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa.

The Election commission's aim is to have maximum voters vaccinated before the elections held in these particular states.

Uttar Pradesh which currently has 98,238 active COVID 19 cases has inoculated 96 per cent of its population with the first dose in the 18 plus category.

Meanwhile, Uttarakhand inoculated 99 per cent of its population with the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 84 per cent of its population with the second dose.

Goa has vaccinated 98 per cent of its population above 18 years of age with a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. (ANI)
Meanwhile, CPI(M) party's district convention started today. Petitioner argued that the restrictions were compromised possibly to facilitate the Communist Party India (Marxist) district convention.

Court's Division Bench asked, "what was so special about the meetings of political parties? Whether the current criteria were reasonable? Only 50 people were allowed to attend even in the Republic Day celebrations. The rate of hospitalised people on Kasargod is 36 per cent."

The plea was submitted by Arun Raj PN, an advocate clerk from Thiruvananthapuram as PIL.

Earlier, the District Collector, who is also the Chairperson of the District Disaster Management Authority had issued an order only allowing 50 persons in any public gathering, including political gatherings.

In a revised order issued on Thursday, it was stated that the restriction should not be based on the TPR but on hospitalization and the number of beds available in hospitals.

The petitioner sought the Court to direct the Disaster Management Authority Chairperson to ensure strict compliance to the initial order imposing COVID curbs without any dilutions thereof and to prohibit CPI (M) from conducting their district conference in violation of all protocols. (ANI)
Tamil Nadu BJP president and former IPS officer, K. Annamalai has demanded a detailed and impartial probe into the suicide of a 17-year-old student of the plus two course in a Christian missionary school at Thirukattupalli. The girl had consumed poison on January 9 and the Thirukattupalli police got the information from her parents on January 15 and registered a case. The girl gave a dying declaration at the Thanjavur Medical College hospital on January 19 against the hostel warden of the school. The police registered a criminal case against the warden under IPC section 305 (abetment of suicide of child) and sections 75 (punishment for cruelty to child) and 82(1) (indulging in corporal punishment with the aim of disciplining a child) of the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act. The hostel warden was arrested following the dying declaration of the girl and remanded in judicial custody. The police FIR said that the girl was staying at the hostel and was forced by the warden to do domestic chores and she allegedly took her life as she was unable to bear the pressure by the warden. The BJP Tamil Nadu leadership however said that the girl committed suicide following pressure to convert by the school management and the dying statement of the girl is an indicator of this. K. Annamalai told mediapersons that the Tamil Nadu government must enact the anti-conversion law. He demanded an end to forced conversions in the state. Meanwhile Thanjavur District Superintendent of police, G. Ravali Priya warned of action against those who spread fake news about the death of the student and said that provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act would be invoked against the perpetrators. She also warned against circulating the photos of the 17-year-old student as well as her dying statement and said that action would be taken against them. The Hindu Munnani has also demanded a detailed investigation into the alleged conversion-related suicide of the girl and called upon the government to enact the anti-conversion law at the earliest. --IANS aal/bg ( 351 Words) 2022-01-21-20:12:03 (IANS)
Laddie Leason, right, hands a customer a box of food during the grand opening of The Hot Dog Box on Jan. 15, 2022. The hot dog eatery is owned by her son, Bobby Morelli, background. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Chicago has a new sausage king  and princess.

Theyve dubbed me the Sausage King of Bronzeville, but I would say of The Hot Dog Box, said Bobby Morelli, CEO of The Hot Dog Box. He and his now 10-year-old daughter, Brooklyn Morelli, cofounded the Black-owned business on the South Side.

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She is the boss lady, he said.

The Morellis first opened in a shipping container in August 2020.

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We specialize in gourmet style hot dogs with a twist, said the king.

They just opened their first bricks-and-mortar restaurant in Portage Park on Jan. 15.

Well definitely have some of our signature dogs like The Bronzeville Bourbon, since people travel all over the country for that particular dog, he said.

The Bronzeville Bourbon, the signature dog, at The Hot Dog Box. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

The dynamic father-daughter duo has become a local and national media sensation.

That dog is so dear because it launched us into a frenzy, Morelli said. It comes on a fresh baked pretzel bun, with the filet mignon steak dog.

His wife, Shy Morelli, Brooklyns mother, makes the bourbon barbecue sauce for The Bronzeville Bourbon ($14.75).

We used to do it all the time at barbecues at the house, he said. Then we have what I like to call a cabbage-and-carrot medley. People think its a slaw, but its not, because its not wet at all. They top it all with hickory-smoked bacon and sport peppers.

You can customize your orders with salmon or vegan dogs and even vegan bacon. Complete your meal with fudgy Baileys Brownies ($3.75), credited to 6-year-old daughter Bailey Morelli, available in double chocolate, turtle and also vegan.

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The Portage House at The Hot Dog Box. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Theyve just added a Portage House dog ($14.75), also a steak dog on a pretzel bun.

I make a special root beer steak sauce, Bobby Morelli said. Then we saute fresh onions and a mushroom medley together and top the hot dog with that.

In addition to the core menu of six specialty dogs and The Good Ol Frank ($3.75), theyre planning a rotating schedule of hot dog options and collaborations with chef and entrepreneur friends.

This is my first time endeavor into the restaurant world, said the sausage king.

The Bronzeville location is closed for the winter season.

We do look forward to bringing it back, Morelli said. However, theres no definite right now.

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They decided to open in Portage Park on the Northwest Side after a developer in the area reached out to them. Morelli toured the space, but eventually went with another location down the street.

I feel like we could have gone anywhere, Morelli said. But when we came here, it just made sense. The people in the neighborhood have been so loving and welcomed us with open arms.

Customers enter and exit during the grand opening of The Hot Dog Box in Portage Park on Jan. 15, 2022. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Their first dining room seats up to 30 people.

Were excited to meet all the new people, he said. We like to call our guests road dogs, because theyve taken this journey with us.

Online ordering will be available soon where you can choose your toppings, including ketchup.

I love ketchup on my hot dog, Morelli said, laughing. Im born to break rules.

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In fact, hes working on a specialty hot dog called the Rule Breaker and there will be ketchup.

I believe that if thats what you want to do, put ketchup on your hot dog, then put ketchup on your hot dog, he said.

Thats a bold, but inclusive statement in Chicago.

The new sausage king, whose business started in a small shipping container with his princess, has big plans for their familys happily ever after.

Ultimately, it is a part of our goal to continue to expand, potentially even outside of the Chicago market, Morelli said.

How we started will not be how we end.

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4020 N. Milwaukee Ave., 708-730-4379, thehotdogbox.com

More notable new restaurants, listed in alphabetical order:

Aztec Daves Cantina

Brothers David and Ramon Torres started as their popular food truck in 2015. They opened their first restaurant, Aztec Daves Cantina, in the Humboldt Park neighborhood Dec. 21. The Mexican family-run business offers a full food and drink menu including traditional al pastor tacos ($4), mole de pollo burritos ($10) plus an Aztec Mule cocktail with Union mezcal ginger beer and lime ($12).

1143 N. California Ave., 773-799-8644, aztecdaves.com

Blazzin Bs Chicken

If you love hidden restaurants, then look for Blazzin Bs Chicken inside Trinity Pub. Chef Jamal Williams brought his Tennessee hot chicken with a Chicago twist to the Norwood Park area Nov. 19. His Black-owned business makes traditional Southern-style chicken and fish, featuring the Blazzin Hott chicken sandwich ($13.99) with your choice of fried or grilled bird, and a catfish poboy ($14.99), both served with fries, plus sides include a corn succotash ($3.50 or $6).

5943 N. Northwest Highway, 773-742-8283, blazzinbchicken.com

Cultura Subs

A curious Latin American, Mediterranean and American sub shop hopes to make things different. Chef Jose Luis Vinueza, co-owner with Fabian Gonzalez and Khaleel Musa, opened Cultura Subs in Morton Grove on Dec. 11. Its a convergence and exploration beyond their Ecuadorian, Argentine and Palestinian cultures. The fan favorite sandwich so far has been the Chicago-style steak jibarito ($11). The Cultura Mix sub ($10) loads beef and chicken shawarma plus pepper Jack cheese on a roll with their secret Cultura sauce. An avocado bacon cheeseburger ($12) tops a thick Angus beef patty with beef bacon  all the meat is 100% zabiha halal.

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9432 Waukegan Road, Morton Grove; 872-285-8872; culturasubs.com

Dak Dak Korean Wings

A new Korean fried chicken shop has opened quietly in Villa Park. Dak Dak Korean Wings (not to be confused with Dak, the Korean fried chicken restaurant in Edgewater) started service Nov. 27. Owner Joey Cornell pivoted away from culinary school, when it went online due to the pandemic, to open his debut restaurant, according to his high school alma maters news site ThisIsYork. He and chef Patrick Resing make double-fried soy and garlic wings ($9.99 for 5 split wing pieces); gochujang barbecue boneless wings ($7.99 for five pieces), which are actually thigh pieces; and fresh-cut fries ($2.99) seasoned with chile flakes and black garlic.

321 E. St. Charles Road, Villa Park; 312-859-0627; dakdakkoreanwings.com

Peanut Park Trattoria

The friends and families behind Coalfire, Ristorante Agostino and Tempesta Market have finally opened their highly anticipated Italian American collaboration. They celebrated their first dinner at Peanut Park Trattoria in the historic Little Italy neighborhood on Taylor Street on Dec. 18. The classic menu stars salumi ($22) with cured meat, cheese and mini gnocco fritto; linguine vongole ($21), housemade pasta loaded with tender manila clams; and bistecca ($69), a 24-ounce grilled bone-in rib-eye steak slathered with a rapini gremolata.

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You can order food for takeout or dine in. A rooftop patio will open when weather permits.

1359 W. Taylor St., 312-929-4188, peanutpark.com

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The Wolfhound Bar and Kitchen

An Irish-influenced restaurant and cocktail bar is making pizza with black or white pudding  the sausage-like Irish specialty. The Wolfhound Bar and Kitchen began serving in Avondale on Nov. 18. The menu draws on owner Brendan Byrnes heritage with a full Irish breakfast ($18) for dinner complete with bangers, rashers, black and white pudding, fried eggs, tomato and mushrooms plus baked beans, hash browns and brown bread. Their puffy crusted pizza ($18) offers black or white pudding ($2.50) as a topping. The Counselor cocktail ($13) mixes Jameson Black Barrel Irish whiskey with creme de banane banana liqueur and cherry bark vanilla bitters.

3188 N. Elston Ave., wolfhoundchicago.com

In other bar and restaurant news:

Lost Lake, the beloved award-winning destination in Logan Square that evolved from a Tiki to tropical bar, with astounding yet underrated food, closed permanently Jan. 15, due to the pandemic after seven years in business.

Know of a Chicago-area restaurant thats new and notable? Email food critic Louisa Chu at lchu@chicagotribune.com.

Big screen or home stream, takeout or dine-in, Tribune writers are here to steer you toward your next great experience. Sign up for your free weekly Eat. Watch. Do. newsletter here.
The Supreme Court on Friday set aside a National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission order, in a matter connected with wrong deposit and withdrawal, from an account at State Bank of India. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M. Trivedi said that calling for the report by the National Commission on its own from the officer of the bank was absolutely unwarranted. "Be that as it may, the impugned order passed by the National Commission solely relying upon the suo moto report called for from the respondent-bank during the pendency of the revision application, being highly erroneous, deserves to be set aside and is accordingly set aside. The order passed by the State Commission is restored," it said. The matter is connected with the withdrawal of Rs 3 Lakh from petitioner Sunil Kumar Maity's account at State Bank of India. Maity found that the money, which was deposited through cheque, was withdrawn from the account. Later, it was found the bank had given him the account number of another person by name of Sunil Maity, which led to this goof-up. The bank refused to address Maity's grievance. He moved the district consumer forum, which allowed his complaint. The West Bengal State Commission noted the bank should have accepted its mistake, by crediting the cheque amount to the account of Sunil Maity, who had the account at the same branch. The top court noted: "There was no way that the appellant would have known that the second respondent namely Sunil Maity had an account in the same branch. No sane person would deposit cash or cheque meant to be deposited in his account in an account number belonging to another person with similar name." It pointed out that the National Commission exceeded its revisional jurisdiction by calling for the report from the bank and made it the basis to conclude that the two fora below had erred in not undertaking the requisite in-depth appraisal of the case. The top court said the report that tries to absolve the bank of its liability is based on surmises and conjectures, as it holds that bank has every reason to believe that wrong account number was intentionally inserted by the petitioner himself for reasons best known to him or on account of negligence by him by not keeping the passbook in proper custody. "The suppositions are contradictory as well as incredulous and fanciful," said the bench. The National Commission, allowing a revision petition by the bank, said the complainant can move the competent civil court under the law. The petitioner submitted before the top court that he did not know Sunil Maity, the second respondent, and would not have known his account number unless it was given by a bank officer. --IANS ss/vd ( 479 Words) 2022-01-21-21:16:02 (IANS)
The names of organizations that signed the letter include the likes of Amnesty International, Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights and World Organization Against Torture (OMCT).

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that human rights organizations have documented widespread RAB abuses. UN human rights experts have also voiced concerns about allegations that members of the unit engaged in torture, enforced disappearances, and other human rights violations, it added.

"If Secretary-General Guterres is serious about ending human rights abuses by UN peacekeepers, he will ensure that units with proven records of abuse like the Rapid Action Battalion are excluded from deployment," said Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.

"The evidence is clear; now it's time for the UN to draw a line."

Earlier in December, the US government had designated RAB as a "foreign entity that is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse," under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

The US also sanctioned seven current or former officials of the Rapid Action Battalion, including the country's police chief, Benazir Ahmed.

Responding to the US sanctions, Ahmed had said the US sanctions were based on "false and fabricated lies" adding that people calling for a ban on RAB from UN peacekeeping are "trying to embarrass our government and our country." (ANI)
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the IS militants blew off the gate of the Sina'a prison in Hasakah with a booby-trapped car and an explosive-laden fuel tanker.

It said a number of inmates fled the prison while many Kurdish security members were wounded.

The UK-based watchdog group said helicopters with the U.S.-led coalition fired at the vicinity of the prison and dropped light bombs to help the ground troops in their hunt for the escapees.

IS militants have repeatedly tried to break free from the prison in Hasakah.

A number of IS militants have been imprisoned by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) following the defeat of IS in Hasakah and parts of Deir al-Zour province in eastern Syria. (ANI/Xinhua)
The Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on Thursday voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution slamming the Chinese government's crackdown on press freedoms in Hong Kong. The resolution -- adopted by 585 votes in favour, 46 against and 41 abstentions -- calls for the EU to provide lifeboat schemes for fleeing Hong Kongers and to sanction officials responsible for the crackdown. "Parliament condemns in the strongest terms the deterioration of human rights in Hong Kong, including severe restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of association and press freedom. MEPs call on the Hong Kong government to release all political prisoners and drop charges against all peaceful protesters arrested in recent years," the resolution reads. China controlled government's implementation of the National Security Law has upended Hong Kong's political environment in the past year, according to several media reports. The city authorities now view political participation as subversive, and the authorities are targeting many across a broad cross-section of the population under the new law. The European lawmakers urge the Chinese authorities to repeal the National Security Law as they consider it a breach of China's international commitments and obligations. MEPs note the increasing attempts by the Chinese Government to legitimise its authoritarian system internally and externally and call on the Hong Kong and Macao authorities to fully respect the rule of law, human rights, democratic principles and the high degree of autonomy under the 'one country, two systems' principle. They deeply regret recent modifications to Hong Kong's electoral law and the arrest and harassment of representatives of its pro-democratic opposition. MEPs urge the Council to introduce targeted sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials responsible for the ongoing human rights crackdown, as well as against companies complicit in these violations. They ask for a diplomatic and political boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. (ANI)
Ahead of Taiwan Vice President William Lai's plans to meet with US officials, China has strongly opposed this contact between the United States and Taiwan. Lai is set to travel to Honduras to attend the inauguration of newly-elected President Xiomara Castro later this month, Taiwan Focus reported. During his travel to the Central American country, Taiwan Vice President is planning stopovers in the US. Lai will have a series of phone calls and virtual meetings with US government officials and political representatives, the report added. "The so-called 'stopover' of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party in the United States to establish contact with the local authorities is yet another trick of the island's administration to break away. But no tricks will change the fact that there is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is part of it," said Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of China's State Council on Thursday. The spokesperson asked the US to respect the "One China" principle and refrain from sending mixed signals to pro-independence forces in Taiwan, stressing that Beijing is strongly opposed to any official contacts between the two. The spokesperson also advised against the support of Taiwanese independence ambitions, saying that it would further destabilize the situation and backfire on Taiwan itself. China continues to stake claims over Taiwan despite its self-governance for over seven decades. Beijing views the island as its province, while Taiwan maintains that it is an autonomous country with political and economic relations with several other nations. (ANI)
The Chinese embassy in France on Thursday opposed a resolution that the French Parliament adopted over human rights issues in China's Xinjiang province, and expressed concerns over the "damage" it could cause to bilateral relations. The Chinese embassy in a statement stated the resolution deliberately smeared China and grossly interfered in its internal affairs, state media tabloid Global Times reported. "China has held a strong dialogue with France on this issue on many occasions and at multiple levels, and made it clear and serious that Xinjiang-related issues are not ethnic, religious or human rights issues, but anti-terrorism, de-radicalization and anti-separatism issues, which bear on China's sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security," said the statement. It added that the genocide in Xinjiang is a "big lie" fabricated on the basis of prejudice and hostility toward China. Earlier on Thursday, French Parliament slammed China's "genocide" of its Uyghur Muslims. A resolution that could sour relations between Paris and Beijing, urges the French government to protect the ethnic minority in the Xinjiang region and take "the necessary measures within the international community and in its foreign policy towards the People's Republic of China". The non-binding resolution, adopted with 169 votes in favour and just one against, was proposed by the opposition Socialists in the Lower House of Parliament. As per the adopted resolution, the National Assembly "officially recognises the violence perpetrated by the People's Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide". "China is a great power. We love the Chinese people. But we refuse to submit to propaganda from a regime that is banking on our cowardice and our avarice to perpetrate genocide in plain sight," Socialist party chief Olivier Faure said. He told lawmakers of conditions within internment camps where men and women were unable to lie down in cells, were exposed to rape and torture, and were forced to undergo organ transplants, reported the newspaper. Similar resolutions were passed by parliaments in Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands last year, and the US government has also condemned what it deems genocide in Xinjiang. (ANI)
China and Russia have put on hold a US effort at the United Nations to impose sanctions on five North Korea in response to recent missile launches by Pyongyang, media reports said. This move came before a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on the issues concerning North Korea. This is the second such meeting in two weeks following Pyongyang's tactical guided missiles lunch this week, Al Jazeera reported. North Korea has confirmed it launched on Monday two tactical guided missiles that "precisely hit an island target in the East Sea of Korea." This was its fourth missile test in a month. Earlier, Pyongyang claimed to have successfully tested hypersonic missiles on two occasions. Ahead of closed UNSC discussions on the issue, US Ambassador to the UN Linda-Thomas Greenfield on Thursday said the US, the UK, France, Ireland, Japan and several other countries urge the Security Council to condemn North Korea's recent ballistic missile launches, "Albania, Brazil, France, Ireland, Japan, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom and the United States call on our fellow council members to be unified in condemning the DPRK [North Korea] for its acts in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. It is this unity in speech and action that has helped in the past bring the DPRK to the negotiating table and could advance stability for the region and international community," Thomas-Greenfield said. The US diplomat further called on North Korea to cease launches and return to dialogue toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. "We stand ready to support a meaningful return to engagement and diplomacy without preconditions," she said. (ANI)
The explosives were being delivered to a nearby mine run by Chirano Gold Mines, according to a press officer for the company, Kwabena Owusu-Ampratwum, reported CNN.

Apiate, a small town in western Ghana, seems to be destroyed completely by the blast.

Kwadwo Bempah, who works in the vicinity and heard the explosion said that nearly every building in the region has collapsed, trapping humans and animals beneath the wreckage.

He said that the dead bodies were everywhere and added, "It was a real tragedy for Ghana."

Police said that most of the victims have been rescued but no further details were released of their condition.

"The police and other emergency service providers have activated a full emergency recovery exercise," a police statement said. "We urge all to remain calm as we manage this unfortunate situation."

"The police have taken charge of the situation providing security to enable the emergency workers including the Ghana National Fire Service, NADMO and the Ambulance Service to manage the situation," another statement read.

"The public has been advised to move out of the area to nearby towns for their safety while recovery efforts are underway," it added, reported the news channel.

Police urged neighbouring communities to open classrooms, churches, and other buildings to house surviving victims. (ANI)
Central Bank of Afghanistan-Da Afghanistan Bank- said that UN aid to Afghanistan is going on and they received USD 32 million in cash, Khaama Press reported.

Da Afghanistan Bank in a statement said that the amount of money was delivered to Afghanistan International Bank (AIB).

According to the statement, they welcome all those humanitarian aids efforts that bring positive changes in the lives of people in most need.

The amount of money is part of the process based on which the UN provides to Afghanistan USD 20 million weekly until March 2022.

The Taliban took over control of Kabul on August 15 and following this the country has been battered by deepening economic, humanitarian and security crisis.

A combination of a suspension of foreign aid, the freezing of Afghan government assets, and international sanctions on the Taliban, have plunged a country already suffering from high poverty levels into a full-blown economic crisis.

The international community, from governments to non-governmental organizations, has been providing various assistance to the Afghan people. (ANI)
The VU University in Amsterdam, a university that was under government radar for the possibility of spying for the Chinese government, will no longer accept donations from China to support a human rights centre. This comes after the revelation by a Dutch public service broadcaster NOS. According to documents in the hands of the broadcaster, the Cross Cultural Human Rights Centre (CCHRC), whose mission is to "develop a global vision on human rights," received between EUR250,000 and EUR300,000 from the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongging in 2018, 2019, and 2020, reported Dutch News. In response, Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf stated that 'knowledge institutes must be alert to unwanted influence from other countries' while MPs stated that they will be questioning the government in parliament. VU was one of two Amsterdam institutions to enter a contentious partnership with Chinese tech giant Huawei in 2020. The government has alerted both VU and UvA about the possibility of the corporation being involved in spying for the Chinese government. Initially, the university justified the funding, but now says that even "a semblance" of favouritism in the centre's work has to be avoided. Earlier, several members of the centre, according to NOS, have supported China's human rights record in public and on Chinese state media. Other institutes have not shown 'signs of Chinese influence,' according to the education inspectorate. (ANI)
Its a shame that you dont know Gary Paulsen, that his name was never as recognizable as a Beverly Cleary (Ramona the Pest) or an Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar), all of whom wrote books for children and all of whom died last year.

At least, Im assuming youve never heard of Gary Paulsen. Its a big assumption. His books sold more than 35 million copies, and if you came of age in the past four decades and had a thing for survival stories, chances are good you read him. Either way, your children will know him, and their children will know him. His best books appear timeless.

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Still, nows a good time to catch up.

January in Chicago, February in Chicago, mud season, ice season, the doldrums of another pandemic winter, the settling depression of a fresh chance at normality already slipping away. A lake so slate and overcast you dont know where the sky begins. You just want to stay in and read stories about people who made calm out of chaos, and here you go. Paulsen grew up in Chicago, then crafted meaning out of hopelessness.

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Im whining about icy sidewalks. This guy escaped into the Minnesota woods along the Canadian border and flourished. Sometimes literally, certainly spiritually, he rarely left.

He was often compared with Ernest Hemingway, who was also fond of the wilderness, wrote brisk sentences full of violence, and wore a white beard and weathered face; but Chicago cant claim two Hemingways, and I suspect Paulsen would have found Papa Hemingway kind of soft. After all, he once told NPR that Jack London  whose Call of the Wild and White Fang were obvious forerunners to Paulsens work  was a great writer but he didnt know what he was talking about. London had a modest childhood, though compared with what Paulsen lived, none of us know what were talking about.

Paulsen was a soldier, a truck driver, a paperboy, an actor, an alcoholic (sober for the last 50 years of his life). He was an animal trapper, and sometimes a farmworker. He also made cheese, and was a writer for the original TV series of Mission: Impossible. As an adult, he lived in the Minnesota woods for nearly 20 years, deeply impoverished. Youve only dreamed of leaving home to join the circus. At 14 years old, Paulsen did it.

Read enough of Gary Paulsen and youll think: Well, of course he did that, too.

He did everything.

Mostly though, he wrote. He wrote a lot. He wrote many, many adventure tales, most of which were culled from the details of his own life. He was so prolific that sometimes it seemed we would reading something new by Gary Paulson indefinitely. He wrote more than 200 books, for young adults, and grown-ups, though that line was fuzzy. The children he wrote about were like himself, forced to grow up quickly. Indeed, he before he left Chicago, he had lived a childhood so harsh and cruel, Dickens would have paused. He left and faced down nature, then as an adult, he sought out adventure.

He died of cardiac arrest last fall at his home in New Mexico. He was 82. But he finished one last book, which plays like the culminating words of a life stuffed with incident. Northwind reads in an elemental, back-to-basics register. It is about a Nordic boy who escapes a cholera outbreak in a wooden canoe, setting off for the Pacific Northwest. In an authors note, Paulsen describes this setting as a mythical frontier, inspired by the North American coast I traveled as well as the Norwegian coast of my ancestors. Though it reads quite close to a fable or ancient Nordic legend, Paulsen then mentions that, oh, most of what happens to the boy in this, it also happened to him. For instance:

Once, in the middle of the night in bad weather where the Columbia River comes slashing out to the sea, I had been caught up in dodging half-sunken logs pushed out of the river into open water  many boats have been sunk by them over the years  and I accidentally moved between what I found to be a large male orca and his family pod.

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Thats a footnote in the life of Gary Paulsen.

To be honest, read enough of him, some stories blur together. Last month I wrote a brief, year-end eulogy: His greatest hits are unmissable. He had three honors from the Newbery awards for childrens literature, for Dogsong (1985), The Winter Room (1989) and Hatchet (1986), his beloved classic, about the young survivor of a plane crash in the Yukon who learns to navigate the woods with only a hatchet. Which did not happen to Paulsen. Still, he wrote in 30th anniversary edition of the book, it came from the darkest part of my childhood, and when his character refuses to leave the fire he built behind, you suspect its more out of rare comfort than pragmatic survival. Paulsen often wrote straight memoir. If Northwind feels like a return to the core of Paulsens craft, Gone to Woods, which came out a year ago, read like a summation of his life and what he has learned. It was a third-person memoir, with Paulsen identifying himself only as the boy.

Author Gary Paulsen with his favorite Alaskan husky, Flax, at his Willow, Alaska, home on Feb. 10, 2005. (AL GRILLO/AP)

As I wrote last month: It recounted how he accompanied his mother to local bars, where she danced and flirted with strangers, who, in turn, would buy Paulsen fried chicken dinners so they could be alone with his mother. If no one was noticing her, he would stand on bar stools and sing for attention. That was the routine. She worked in a munitions factory, then took her son to local bars, daily. Eventually, she pinned a note on his shirt and put him on a train to Minnesota, to live with relatives in the North Woods.

I repeat that here because it helps explain why someone would escape into a forest. Paulsen once explained: The woods were the first place I knew I belonged, where I was capable and I felt competent. Its also a harrowing image of World War II-era Chicago. All of that singing and flirting  often in a dive bar cynically named The Cozy Corners  was how Paulsens hard-drinking mother fed her son. So he left for his extended family, many of whom were Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, the classic Midwestern immigrants who populate his novel The Winter Room. He would describe himself as the cousin who showed up at relatives farms. He flitted about, rarely living in one place for long. Eventually his parents  his father was on General Pattons staff during the war  returned to get him. After which, things got worse. They drank, fought. Paulsen told Terry Gross that: I would go down to the basement and hide from them. And around back of the furnace, there was an old easy chair with wires sticking up through the springs and a singe light hanging from the ceiling ... Ill never forget that corner.

Then again, he didnt forget much.

His grandmother was a cook for a crew building roads into Canada. Thats the backbone for his novel The Cookcamp. In Gone to the Woods theres a story so hard to shake you dont even mind you already read it in his 1993 memoir, Eastern Sun, Winter Moon. He and his mother took a ship to the Philippines to visit Paulsens father who was stationed there, and on their way, they witness a plane crash in the ocean and its passengers attacked by sharks. He writes: It took a long time for my eyes to close and stay closed and not make the pictures of the boats and the sharks and the screams and the woman putting her baby on the wing again and again while the sharks hit her.

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He wrote a number of times about the Iditarod dog-sledding races though Alaska, because Paulsen himself ran it a number of times. He liked to describe it as primitive exaltation, an experience so close to nature that he started to feel like a cave painting.

He told interviewers that his publisher, expecting a new book on the races, once asked him to quickly finish the latest manuscript, since they didnt expect him to survive long.

Yet he lived long enough to write Westerns, and mysteries, books of humor and books about farm life, even several historical adventures. Woods Runner (2010) took his prototypical self-reliant 13-year-old and set the action during the Revolutionary War. He began writing novels in the mid-1960s, and it was slow burn; not until the mid-1980s was Gary Paulsen anything like a success. Even then he was never an ostentatious one, preferring, as his New York Times obituary noted, to live simply  if not off the grid, then right at its edge. He was, if nothing, consistent. He wrote of his adoptive Minnesota relatives treating him as a man, never a child, and his books continued that.

He repaid that gift.

He was given a library card when he seemed headed for a life of TV repair, and he never stopped forgetting, writing about the difficulty of surviving childhood with clarity, candor and hope. Read Gary Paulsen. Northwind is a good place to start. Gone to the Woods, too. Ask any kid who reads: Hatchet is hard to put down. Dont worry if youre an adult. Just read him. These are smart novels about cold, fire, hunger, exhaustion, being in over your head, then the realization, you are everything you need.

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said that his country seeks "maximum interaction" with all countries, especially its neighbours and allies. Through the interactions and cooperation, the mutual interests of countries are met and the "civilized global community" is formed, Raisi said when addressing the plenary session of Russia's Duma during his visit to Moscow, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the presidential website. The "successful" model of cooperation between Iran and Russia in Syria has guaranteed the independence of the country and strengthened regional security, he noted. Raisi also mentioned the presence of foreign forces in the region and US sanctions, saying that "the hegemonic strategy has now failed, and the US is at its weakest point, and the power of independent states is in historic growth." The US claims that the sanctions are due to Iran's nuclear activities, but Iran's activities are "under the constant supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency," he added. The fact is that in different historical periods of Iran, whenever the Iranians have raised the banner of nationalism, independence, or scientific development, it has faced sanctions and pressure from the enemies of the Iranian nation, he said. The Iranian policy is that "we are not looking for a nuclear weapon, and this weapon has no place in our defence strategy," the president stressed. Raisi pointed to the process of ongoing talks between Iran and world powers over its nuclear program in the Austrian capital of Vienna, and said that "Iran is serious about reaching an agreement if the other parties are serious about lifting the sanctions effectively." The Iranian president, who heads a delegation, arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for a visit at the invitation of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. --IANS int/shs ( 299 Words) 2022-01-21-04:10:02 (IANS)
As people residing in Afghanistan face the horrors of Taliban atrocities since the fall of Kabul, an expert believes that the Taliban are the root cause of all of Afghanistan's troubles and under their rule people are facing the most difficult scenario in the country's history. Red Lantern Analytica on Thursday hosted a webinar titled "Regional and Global Implications of Taliban Rule: Afghan Voices." The Red Lantern Analytica organized a panel featuring specialists in the fields of human rights, security, and geopolitics of South Asia. Kabir Haqmal, an ex-spokesperson for the office of the National Security Council said, "The Taliban regime has brought upon a crisis which is a humanitarian crisis, a national crisis, as well as an economic crisis and a political crisis. This has been brought upon by the Taliban, which is backed by regional and some international powers." Haqmal said that there is no conflict that may kill millions, but ordinary Afghans are forced to leave the nation while millions live below the poverty line. Also, millions of women lack access to education, and the Afghan community lacks trust in the Taliban regime. He added that the Taliban's actions are backed by ISI operatives and the Pakistani and Chinese governments. Every day, women and members of Afghanistan's ethnic communities march on the streets, refusing to accept Taliban authority. The Taliban's return has set the path for another catastrophe unprecedented in the country's history, necessitating another revolution. The Taliban are unwilling to work democratically because they reject public opinion and deny elections and media coverage, among many other things, Haqmal noted. He further stated that the Taliban are the "root cause" of all of Afghanistan's troubles, and Afghans under their rule are facing the most difficult scenario in the country's history. Talking about the humanitarian assistance provided to Afghanistan, Haqmal said that several foreign groups and organizations are attempting to provide assistance worth millions of dollars, but their efforts have proven largely ineffective. "When a government that has operated democratically for two decades abruptly relinquishes power, these organizations cannot simply fulfil their responsibilities by infusing money into the country at a time when the Afghan administrative system has completely crumbled," he added. According to Haqmal, the ideal form of help for Afghanistan would be for the international community to pressure the Taliban regime into accepting a "loya jorga" system (elections) for a certain term in order to construct a favourable administrative system for Afghans. Afghans should have the right to vote, and the country should hold legitimate democratic elections. If fair elections were held, the Afghans would have ousted the Taliban, he added. In response to a question on whether he could discuss Pakistan's involvement in causing the Taliban crisis, Haqmal stated that Pakistan is the "primary element" driving Taliban rule. Major Amit Bansal, who addressed an Indian perspective on Afghanistan's violence and anarchy, as well as the Doha Agreement Factor, which was a big blunder in the making, stated the deal did not take the opinions of the Afghan people into consideration, and the agreement struck between the US and Afghanistan was a watershed moment. Bansal continued discussing how the greatest threat to Afghanistan throughout the social spectrum is the humanitarian food crisis, which will only worsen as it spreads to the country's most marginalized parts. He also discussed how Pakistan has been a significant impediment and has been responsible for building barriers in the movement of supplies and imports via its shared border with Afghanistan. Bansal concluded by stating that the "only way to resolve these issues is for the Afghan people to take action. Rather than fighting and fleeing the country, the people must find a solution and unify through democratic protests." Meanwhile, Nilofar Ayoubi, an Afghan journalist who touched briefly on the issues of women in Afghanistan, said that both the regional as well as the international community have turned a blind eye towards the plight of Afghan women. Ayoubi mentioned that currently, brave Afghan women are protesting against the Taliban amidst constant reports of their being detained, tortured, and even raped by the Taliban. The families of these girls remain tight-lipped because of death threats from the Taliban regime. "Many female activists are getting detained and their current state of wellbeing is largely unknown. The Taliban are using all the tricks possible to jail and quell any protests against their largely unpopular government," Ayoubi added. The Taliban took over control of Kabul last year on August 15 and following this the country has been battered by deepening economic, humanitarian and security crisis. (ANI)
Members of the United Nations Security Council went on a virtual field trip to Columbia, listening, watching and getting insights into the peace process and what it looks like in Columbia with the help of Virtual Reality (VR) technology on January 20. Indian Diplomat and Counselor of the Permanent Mission of India, Prateek Mathur shared that the UNSC in New York used VR technology in its security council session for the first time. Taking to Twitter, Mathur said, "A proud supporter of using Technology for Peace!. 3-D Virtual Diplomacy in action in #UNSC today. First-ever Security Council session to use a virtual reality #VR experience! Innovative solutions to better understand conflicts, peacekeeping and peace-building." "Bringing the Colombian peace process closer to decision-makers in New York today and having Colombian voices heard," said The United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) in a tweet. (ANI)
The Hazaras of Pakistan, a Shia minority regarded by extreme Sunnis as non-Islamic and persecuted for decades, and the diaspora in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia are commemorating the victims of two terrorist attacks in 2013 and 2021 this month, according to Bitter Winter, an online magazine. Around 1,000 to 2,000 of the community people have been killed in Pakistan in the 21st century. The history of Shia Hazaras is tragic and they called on the government of Pakistan to defend their fundamental rights and protect them from daily acts of slander, discrimination, beatings and killings. On January 10, 2013, a series of bombs in Quetta, Pakistan's Balochistan province capital, killed 100 people in a mostly Hazara neighbourhood. The total death toll was 130 since there were two bombings, the second of which killed police officers, rescue workers, and journalists who had entered the neighbourhood after the first, according to the magazine. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a hardline Sunni Deobandi organisation that is part of a network of violent anti-Shia activities, claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Hazaras are a Turkic people that settled in Afghanistan between the 16th and 17th centuries and embraced Shia Islam. They speak a Persian dialect. In 1893, Afghan king Abdur Rahman Kang resolved to exterminate the Hazaras, both because they were "heretics" in his eyes as a strict Sunni ruler and because they campaigned for regional autonomy. At least 100,000 Hazaras were slain, accounting for 60 per cent of Afghanistan's Hazara population, while more than 10,000 were sold as slaves. Most historians regard the events of 1893 as genocide, wrote Massimo Introvigne in an article for the magazine. Since the late 19th century, many Hazaras have fled to British India as a result of tyranny in Afghanistan, which persisted through the Taliban era and continues today. Hazaras are now number one million in Pakistan. Afghanistan still has a population of four million people. On January 3, 2021, armed men approached eleven Hazara coal miners from the same Quetta neighbourhood who were sleeping in their rooms near the mine where they worked in Mach Town. They separated the Hazara Shia miners from the Sunni miners, kidnapped and killed the Hazaras. The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed credit for the attack, but one year later, the identity of the attackers remains a mystery. (ANI)
The deaths toll from coronavirus also shot up to 23 in the last 24 hours, from five days earlier, taking the overall death toll to 29,065, reported Geo TV.

Earlier, the highest daily toll was recorded on June 13, 2020, when the country reported 6,825 coronavirus cases, the National Command and Operation Centre's (NCOC) data showed.

The cases in the country are soaring. However, the Pakistani government has refused to impose a lockdown to curb infections.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Imran Khan turned down the possibility of imposing a lockdown.

With the new infections, the overall cases have moved past 1.35 million. Meanwhile, as many as 59,343 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, and the positivity ratio shot up to 12.93%, reported Geo TV. (ANI)
This assertion was quickly debunked, as Azhar's writings advocating for jihad appeared in the jihadi media.

According to reports, JeM leaders are running indoctrination and training camps as well as organising and attending conferences across Punjab and other provinces in search of recruits and cash.

On September 19 last, Azhar wrote an article criticising the media for circulating fake news instead of celebrating the Islamic victory in Afghanistan. On December 29, he called for jihad in the name of Allah, reported Islam Khabar.

In the last few months, there has been clear evidence of the terrorist group holding different meetings in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

On September 10, 2021, the JeM held a "Salam Shuhada-e-Islam Conference" at Markaz Jamia Masjid Hanifa Abbasspur, where Masood Ilyas Kashmiri shouted slogans like "India Teri Maut Ayee, Jaish Ayee, Jaish Ayee".

It threatened that its cadres had crossed the Line of Control and would soon carry out suicide attacks in Kashmir and Delhi. At the mosque, posters of fallen terrorists were widely exhibited.

The terrorist group is also infamous for carrying out jihadist activities in madrasas of Karachi and Bahawalpur in Pakistan.

Terrorists claimed responsibility for the December 2021 terrorist attack on Srinagar police and sought funds for future operations at a big public assembly in PoK earlier this month, reported Islam Khabar.

The conference was held in Jaloth, near Rawalakote, and was addressed by PoK's regional chief, Muhammad Ilyas.

The same is also confirmed by a US report which emphasizes that terror groups, including JeM and LeT, are targeting India. (ANI)
The two sides also discussed avenues to enhance bilateral defence cooperation during the meeting.

Taking to Twitter, the Indian Air Force said, "Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schonbach, Chief of German Navy called on Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari #CAS at Air HQ yesterday. Issues of mutual interest & avenues to enhance bilateral defence cooperation were discussed during the meeting." (ANI)
Justice was served too late by the court and Saima's lawyers were not able to share the news of her exoneration to her family members happily.

Saima, 35, who was an aalima and used to teach the Holy Quran to the person she was accused of killing, died in jail on June 14, 2021, due to severe abdominal and kidney issues.

Jail authorities, in her death report, also revealed that she was a cancer patient.

Saima's family says, 'We are poor people, what could we have done?'.The defence counsel, Muhmmad Akbar Khan and his associate Sheikh Saqib Ahmed said, "During the trial, Saima asked us at every hearing: 'Wakeel sahib, hamein bail kab milegi? (When will we be granted bail)?" reported Geo TV. (ANI)
The East Turkistan Government in Exile praised the French people and their National Assembly for recognizing the Chinese Government's atrocities against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan as genocide and called out for a full boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, according to a press release. Prime Minister Salih Hudayar of the East Turkistan Government in Exile said, "We thank the French National Assembly for recognizing China's ongoing genocide against Unbars and other Turkic peoples in Occupied East Turkistan" Notably, on Thursday, the French Parliament slammed China's genocide of its Uyghur Muslim people, in a resolution that could sour relations between Paris and Beijing only two weeks before the Winter Olympics. The resolution also urged the French government to protect the ethnic minority in the Xinjiang region and take "the necessary measures within the international community and in its foreign policy towards the People's Republic of China". The non-binding resolution, adopted with 169 votes in favour and just one against, was proposed by the opposition Socialists in the Lower House of Parliament. France's National Assembly became the ninth Parliament across the globe to declare China's atrocities in East Turkistan as genocide. The East Turkistan Government in Exile is calling on all governments and parliaments to take meaningful actions to bring an end to the ongoing humanitarian crisis by boycotting the Beijing 2022 Olympics, granting refuge to Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples fleeing genocide, as well as supporting East Turkistan's case against China at the International Criminal Court. (ANI)
London [UK], January 21 (ANI/Sputnik): The United Kingdom has sent a group of around 30 elite troops to Ukraine to train the country's armed forces on anti-tank weapons transferred to Kiev by London amid concerns about the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, Sky News reported. According to the media, members of the Ranger Regiment, which is part of the newly created army's Special Operations Brigade, arrived in Ukraine on military flights that also delivered about 2,000 anti-tank missile launchers to the country this week. On Monday, UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Parliament that the UK had decided to supply Ukraine with a batch of light-armor defensive weapons systems, and that a "small number" of UK staff will travel to the country to provide initial training. The next day, the UK minister for armed forces, James Heappey, said that "thousands" of such weapons had been airlifted to Ukraine. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the transfer of weapons and instructors to Ukraine by the UK and Canada confirms Russia's suspicions that the West has been preparing a provocation on the Ukrainian territory. Western countries have recently accused Russia of a military build-up along the border with Ukraine, seeing it as a preparation for invasion. Moscow, however, denied the allegations, and said that it is does not intend to launch a military operation against any country. Russia also views the allegations as a pretext to deploy NATO military equipment near the country's borders. (ANI/Sputnik)
KENOSHA, Wis.  Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois man acquitted of fatally shooting two men and wounding a third during street protests in Kenosha in 2020, is seeking the return of the gun and other property that police seized after his arrest.

Rittenhouses attorney Mark Richards filed paperwork with the Kenosha County Circuit Court on Wednesday seeking the return of the items, explaining that Rittenhouse wants the AR-15-style rifle back so that it can be destroyed, the Kenosha News reported. He also wants the clothing he was wearing the night of the shootings returned.

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Law enforcement has had the gun since the day after Rittenhouse shot three men, two of them fatally, on Aug. 25, 2020, during a night of protests and unrest in the southeastern Wisconsin city of Kenosha over the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer.

Rittenhouse turned himself in to police in his then-hometown of Antioch, Illinois, within hours of the shootings. In November, the 19-year-old was found not guilty of all charges related to the shooting deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz. Conservatives and gun rights advocates rallied around Rittenhouse in the days after his arrest, saying he was defending Kenosha from far-left militants. Others painted him as a trigger-happy vigilante.

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Rittenhouse family spokesman David Hancock said Thursday that Rittenhouse wants to destroy the rifle and plans to throw out his clothing so that no one can use any of it to celebrate the shootings.

At the end of the day, two people did lose their lives, period, Hancock said. That weapon was involved in that. That weapon doesnt belong on a mantle. It doesnt belong in a museum. It belongs where Kyle wants it, and Kyle wants it destroyed. ... Theres plenty of people out there who would like to hold these items up, on both sides. Thats nothing Kyles interested in.

Rittenhouse said he went to Kenosha to protect property from rioters and that he acted in self-defense after he came under attack and feared for his life.

Prosecutors portrayed Rittenhouse as a wannabe soldier who had gone looking for trouble, while his supporters regarded him as a patriot who took a stand against lawlessness.

The gun was purchased by Dominick Black for Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time and unable to legally buy a gun and was to become the legal property of Kyle Rittenhouse upon his 18th birthday, which was Jan. 3, 2021, the motion stated.

Earlier this month, Black pleaded guilty to two citations for contributing to the delinquency of a minor in exchange for prosecutors dropping two felony charges of intent to sell a dangerous weapon to a person younger than 18.

According to court documents, Rittenhouse is also looking to retrieve the ammunition, the sling and the magazine from the firearm, his cellphone, a cloth face mask, the clothing he was wearing the night of the shootings and a $1 bill.

A court hearing on the motion is scheduled for Jan. 28.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the fire started at 3 p.m. local time (08:00 GMT).

Firefighters reportedly managed to rescue two other persons. However, one other person was trapped inside the factory when he fell, the newspaper said.

In total, 16 fire trucks with 40 workers have since been dispatched to the scene. However, according to the media, rescuers faced challenges in accessing the building wreathed in columns of black smoke.

Local authorities and firefighters believe the cause of the fire was an explosion. (ANI/Sputnik)
Geneva [Switzerland], January 21 (ANI/Sputnik): US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that he does not expect big breakthroughs on the Ukrainian crisis and security issues during his upcoming meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which is to be held in Geneva on Friday. "I don't anticipate any breakthroughs," Blinken told the German TV channel ZDF, when asked about the expected results of the meeting. At the same time, he noted that many intensive talks with Russia have been held lately. According to the politician, participants had the opportunity to discuss the results of the consultations, and the forthcoming meeting with Lavrov will show what conclusions the parties reached. "At least, I hope we'll know more tomorrow - about whether Russia is genuinely committed to trying to resolve these differences diplomatically through dialogue or not," Blinken added. Earlier in the day, Blinken arrived in Geneva for his meeting with Lavrov to discuss security matters in Eastern Europe after his visits to Kiev and Berlin. The talks are expected to start at 13:00 Moscow time (10:00 GMT). Sources in both delegations told Sputnik that the meeting is expected to last from two to two and a half hours, after which Lavrov and Blinken will hold separate press conferences. In the past few months, the West and Ukraine have accused Russia of amassing troops near the Ukrainian border in alleged preparation for invasion. Russia has dismissed these claims, maintaining that it has no intention of invading Ukraine while stressing that it has the right to move forces within its own territory. Russia has also expressed concern over NATO's military activity near its borders and ongoing military support of Ukraine, including an increase in the number of Western instructors in Donbas. In December, the Russian government proposed a set of mutual security guarantees in Europe to NATO and the United States, with their response still pending. (ANI/Sputnik)
The injured young child was rushed to the hospital facility in critical condition following the explosion but unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries and breathed his last in his uncle's lap.

His uncle stated that the hospital administration kept requesting him to take Absar around instead of giving him proper medical care.

Furthermore, he said that as a Karachi resident, he is unfamiliar with the Lahore hospital.

He added that Absar was returning to Karachi to meet his grandparents and he bought a bicycle for the boy.

Earlier, high-intensity explosives weighing between one and 1.5 kilograms in Lahore's Anarkali area caused the blast on Thursday leading to the death of three people and injuring 26, reported local media. (ANI)
The plight of a migrant worker in Beijing who was defined as a silent carrier of COVID-19 and whose son died in 2020 has sparked a wave of online sympathy. The missing son of a migrant worker in Beijing who was defined as a silent carrier of COVID-19 was found dead in August 2020, but the boy's parents refused to accept the result of DNA identification, police from Weihai in, East China's Shandong, the hometown of the worker, announced on Friday. The story of the worker touched many Chinese netizens, reported Global Times. The announcement of the missing son's death soon started trending on China's social media sites, attracting nearly 200 million reviews in about one hour with many netizens expressing understanding and sympathy to the parents. Amid nationwide attention on the issue, the announcement soon topped the trendy topics on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo. Some netizens expressed understanding and sympathy to the parents, who could not accept the death of their son and have been looking for him despite the DNA identification results, reported Global Times. The worker, surnamed Yue was identified as an asymptomatic case after he took a nucleic acid test on Monday, the day before his train headed back to hometown Weihai, reported Global Times. His epidemiological survey, which was called "the saddest epidemiological survey in China" by some netizens, went viral after health authorities released the details of his tough schedule. Netizens on Thursday also created a topic on Weibo, titled "finding Yue Yuetong with the help of the Chinese internet." Yue Yuetong is the name of his missing son. However, Weihai police announced on Friday that the police in Rongcheng, Wehai, received reports from Yue's wife, surnamed Li, about their son Yue Yuetong who went missing on August 12, 2020. Police listed Yue Yuetong as missing as they could not find any sign of him after investigation. Rongcheng police then found a highly decomposed body on August 26, 2020, in a pond. They investigated the site and examined the body but found no crime, so did not place the case on file, read the announcement, reported Global Times. Rongcheng police and Weihai police respectively conducted DNA identification and both results showed that the body was that of Yue Yuetong, 19 at that time. But Yue and his wife refused to accept the results, according to the announcement. Since 2021, Yue and his wife have tried several times to find authorities at a higher level to help look for their son. Police said that Yue Yuetong's body is still in a local funeral parlor, reported Global Times. China has been implementing a "zero-COVID" policy, which has resulted in growing public frustration and anger. With the worsening outbreak across several cities, questions are mounting as to how long such stringent COVID measures can last. China's "zero-COVID" policy is doggedly going after every virus case no matter the emotional or economic costs. (ANI)
The Biden administration has suggested the Lithuanian government rename Taiwan's representative office in the Baltic nation in an effort to deescalate tension between Vilnius and China, reported Sputnik on Friday. Officials in Washington have advised Lithuania to change the "Taiwanese representative office" to the "Taipei representative office," a name that is used in the majority of countries, according to Sputnik The Taiwan representative office acts as its embassy in Lithuania. "One of the big problems is that Taiwan does not want the name to be changed," said a source familiar with the diplomatic discussion, adding, "Lithuania also has a very strong faction of people who do not want the name to be changed either." But White House has officially denied that the US officials asked Lithuania to rename Taiwan's representative office. "Anyone who suggests otherwise is not reflecting actual discussions between the US and Lithuania," the US National Security Council said. Washington respects and backs Lithuania and Taiwan's efforts to enhance their ties, the Council added. Tensions have escalated between Lithuania and China in 2021 following the former named latter's representative office as Taiwan representative office in Vilnius. Beijing also recalled its ambassador from Vilnius, lowering the level of diplomatic relations between the countries to that of charge d'affaires. Since 1949, Taiwan has been governed independently from mainland China. But the communist regime views the island as its province, while Taiwan -- a territory with its own democratically-elected government -- maintains that it is an autonomous country but stops short of declaring independence, reported Sputnik. (ANI)
The recent attack on a police party by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan in Islamabad, which left one dead, points to Imran Khan government's failure to realise the affinity between the TTP and Afghan Taliban, a media report said. The banned TTP group, by carrying out such an audacious attack in the capital where there is a heavy security presence on account of numerous sensitive locations, including dozens of diplomatic missions, indicated its capacity to wreak mayhem in 'mainland' Pakistan -- if and when it chooses to, reported Dawn. The continuous surge in attacks by the TTP speaks of a monumental failure of the Imran Khan government's policy in which the Pakistani state wilfully refused to gauge the extent of affinity between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP and what could transpire in the event of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Recently, Pakistan Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa was quoted as acknowledging that the TTP and Afghan Taliban are "two sides of the same coin". The Afghan Taliban have not criticized TTP despite their multiple heinous attacks in Pakistan. The 2014 Peshawar attack by the TTP which killed over 100 children in Arm School did not change the state's blinkered approach. And now the people of Pakistan may have to pay the price, according to Dawn. The TTP had mainly been targeting Pakistan's security forces in the country's former Fata area. For locals, the violence has revived memories of the nightmare years when the area was a terrorist hub, and a target of US drone attacks and Pakistan Army offensives. If reports are to be believed, the TTP has been chomping at the bit to unleash full-scale attacks but has so far been 'restrained' by the Afghan Taliban who have, however, refused to take action against the TTP, said Dawn. (ANI)
A female human rights activist in Afghanistan, her two sisters and another activist have been taken from their homes on Thursday after recent protests in Kabul, friends and activists say, prompting suspicions they were detained by the Taliban, a media report said. Tamana Paryani and her two sisters have been missing since Wednesday night, said Shafi Karimi, a freelance journalist, according to Voice of America (VOA). Karimi also said that the father of Tamana went to all the Taliban offices on Thursday but he did not find any clue of his daughters. Reports have claimed that the Taliban have officially denied the arrest of any women but activists are now suspicious of more detention by the Taliban in the future. "We have reports that the Taliban will conduct more raids," a women's rights activist and friend of Paryani's who asked not to be named for security reasons told VOA via telephone. Activists are not safe in their homes, said Paryani's friend, adding, "We are changing our homes and numbers." She also informed that the Taliban have details about their phones through their arrested friends. The detention has drawn condemnation from the Human Rights Watch as they criticised the Taliban's treatment of protesters and called it a violent crackdown. The suspected detentions are "deeply alarming", said Heather Bar, associate director of the women's rights division of Human Rights Watch, according to VOA. (ANI)
Police in Sweden have announced that tens of thousands of individuals were believed to have travelled abroad with bogus negative PCR Covid test certificates. Around 35,000 individuals who are believed to have fallen victims to the alleged scam, involving a testing company that the authorities listed as legitimate, have now been contacted, reports Xinhua news agency. Their email addresses were found during the investigation into Doktorgruppen, a company that allegedly issued negative test certificates without actually analyzing the tests. The tests cost around 1,500 Swedish kronor ($164) each. Doktorgruppen, which had several clinics in the Swedish capital, was listed as legitimate by the Swedish Public Health Agency and operated for more than six months before it was shut down when raided by police in mid-June last year. Among the things the investigators want to know from the presumed victims of the scam is whether they developed Covid-19 symptoms shortly after taking the test, reported Expressen, a nationwide evening newspaper in Sweden. "There are indications that individuals have received false negative test results from Doktorgruppen and that individuals who thought they had taken a test and were healthy instead may have been ill and travelled abroad at a time when the risk of infection was at its highest," the investigators said. At least five individuals connected to the company have been arrested and are being investigated for spreading infection, fraud, false testimony, and endangerment of others. --IANS ksk/ ( 253 Words) 2022-01-21-12:34:06 (IANS)
Despite all calls to stop forced conversions and marriages from the international community and human rights organisations, Pakistan's government still demonstrates a marginal interest to advance the frameworks of religion, policy and dialogue to ensure the safety of minority's girls and women. Qamar Rafiq, writing in Daily Times said that a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Pakistani Minorities found that around 1,000 girls between the ages of 12-25 from minorities are forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan every year and married to their abductors, which described the situation as a "human-rights catastrophe". The report also highlighted the practice of forced conversions and marriages that have amplified steadily in recent years that hint at the calamitous handling of the government to reinforce much-needed legislation to curb this inhuman crime. Similarly, the government has been unsuccessful to implement the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 and the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, which raised the legal minimum age of marriage to 18 in Sindh province. Regrettably, these laws have not been implemented properly in Sindh and other provinces of Pakistan, wrote Rafiq. The victim girls are largely left in the custody of their kidnapper throughout the trial process, where they are forced to claim that the conversion or marriage was consensual. We are all familiar with the fact that this crisis is a product of the government's failure over decades to protect the religious minorities from abuses by non-state actors and religiously inspired extremists. On the other hand, the incidents of hate preaching, and religious extremism remains an imminent threat for minority communities particularly girls from the Hindu and Christian faiths, wrote Rafiq. The Parliamentary report also casts light on how Pakistan has failed to ensure the security and respect of women belonging to religious minorities, with experts calling the situation a national and international tragedy, reported Daily Times. As per Rafiq, there are many reasons that cast light on how Pakistan has failed to ensure the security and respect of women belonging to religious minorities. Firstly, it is evident that Pakistan's ineffective policy reforms to address forced conversions and marriages have exacerbated the situation. Secondly, the police often turn a blind eye to reports of abduction, forced conversion or marriage, and set up impunity for perpetrators by refusing to record a First Information Report (FIR) or falsifying the information. Thirdly, the Islamic clerics who perform the marriage do not intend to investigate the nature of conversion and age of the girl. Moreover, the part of the problem is also an ineffective justice system that is discriminatory, particularly towards women from religious minorities which means victims and their families are scared of pleading the case with the challenges to afford a lawyer, in many cases. However, in most cases, the production of conversion and marriage certificates is enough evidence to pardon the abductors. It is apparent that the system has loopholes and reform is necessary to protect both the human and legal rights of the victims, said Rafiq. Pakistan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that "the right to freedom of religion includes the right to change one's religion and that no one shall be subject to coercion to change their religion" but there is enough evidence to justify, Pakistan has failed to comply with the international obligation. Perhaps, just like previous governments, the current Pakistani administration believes they are doing enough but the truth is the opposite. Today, the abduction, forced conversions and marriages of non-Muslim girls have become one of the biggest human rights crises of the era. (ANI)
At least three people lost their lives and 26 others were wounded when a remote-controlled device blew up in Lahores New Anarkali Market. A couple of hours after the blast, a Twitter handle purportedly from one Mureed Baloch said that Baloch Nationalist Army (BNA) has claimed responsibility, Samaa TV reported. There are several Baloch nationalist groups that are operating in Pakistan but BNA has not been heard of previously. Officials have confirmed that the group was created as recently as this month. The Transnational Terrorists Intelligence Group (TTIG) of Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) investigates threats from militant groups. Its chief Raja Umar Khattab said BNA is a new terrorist group that has been formed by a merger of the banned Baloch Republican Army and United Baloch Army (UBA). Khattab says the merger or alliance emerged on January 11 when the group was formed. This explains why many officials were surprised when the BNA claimed responsibility for the Lahore attack. Most of the information about the group was gathered after the blast, the report said. The TTIG chief said the Lahore blast was the second terrorist attack claimed by this new group in two days. It claimed to have carried out an attack on a security convoy in Balochistan's Kech on January 19. He said it was not clear who was heading this new group, but Mureed Baloch claims to be its spokesperson. Counter-terrorism experts believe the group could carry out more attacks. The banned outfits that were merged to form BNA have a similar history. BRA is a banned terrorist organization headed by Brahumdagh Bugti. It was founded in 2006 and the government of Pakistan banned it in September 2010. UBA is also a banned Baloch separatist group. Its chief Mehran Marri is the brother of the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) chief Hyrbyair Marri. Mehran Marri was initially associated with BLA, but he later formed another faction after developing differences with his brother. The Pakistan government banned this group on March 15, 2013. --IANS san/ksk/ ( 351 Words) 2022-01-21-14:00:03 (IANS)
A video that circulated widely online of a TV reporter in West Virginia being hit by a vehicle during a live broadcast was met with outrage by broadcast journalists who said it underscored the risks of sending reporters to cover stories on their own.

Tori Yorgey of WSAZ-TV in Charleston, West Virginia, was reporting on a water main break in nearby Dunbar during the 11 p.m. broadcast Wednesday when she was struck by a white SUV and knocked down. The camera fell to the ground, and from outside the shot, Yorgey, 25, could be heard saying, I just got hit by a car, but Im OK.

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She got up, adjusted the camera and continued, in what appeared to be good spirits. You know, its my last week on the job and I think this would happen specifically to me, Tim, she said, addressing the newscasts anchor, Tim Irr.

It was not clear whether the station had sent someone to report with Yorgey, who described moving the camera herself in an exchange with Irr. I thought I was in a safe spot, but clearly we might need to move the camera over a bit, so let me do that, she said.

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This video is still haunting me this morning. I can't stop thinking about how with a photographer there, it's likely they would've seen that car coming and warned her or pulled her out of the way. This could've been me in my 1st market. This could BE so many MMJs. again. today. https://t.co/M8Eo9CPHcU  Deanna Allbrittin (@deannaTVnews) January 20, 2022

Her resilience was celebrated in some circles, but the segment hit a nerve with TV reporters, particularly those who are thrust into situations where they are expected to cover stories without a camera operator or producer by their side  a practice known in the industry as using a one-man band. Such assignments are often performed by multimedia journalists, who are responsible for setting up the camera, then stepping in front of it to deliver a report.

She was a good sport about it, but she should not have been put in this situation, said Ashley Thompson, 33, who worked as a multimedia journalist in Phoenix and Atlanta. In April 2020, a reporter at her station was carjacked after finishing a live shot in downtown Atlanta. The reporter had been working with a photojournalist who traveled in a separate car.

Thompson, who no longer works in journalism, said the video was the only thing people who have worked in broadcast news were talking about Thursday. As horrified as the industry is, I doubt anything will change because local news is all about saving money, she said.

The practice of sending reporters out as a one-man band is not new, but it is more widespread today, said C.A. Tuggle, a distinguished professor of journalism at the University of North Carolinas Hussman School of Journalism and Media in Chapel Hill.

I would really like to see the industry cut back on the number of one-man-band-type of live shots because it is hard to be situationally aware, but I just dont know whether it would have made a difference in this case, he said.

Tuggle, who did one-man band shots in the 1980s, said that if someone had been with Yorgey, she still could have been hit by the vehicle because it came from outside the shot.

Whoever assigned the story could have decided the water main break was not a significant enough story to warrant sending out a young reporter on her own late at night, he said. The newsroom could also have provided a reflective jacket or told her to stand farther from the road than she might have thought necessary, he said.

Representatives for WSAZ and the company that owns the station, Gray Television Broadcasting, did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. Yorgey, who is starting a job at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh next month, also did not respond to interview requests.

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The controversy was all too familiar to Alanna Autler, 31, who worked as a multimedia journalist for another news station in Charleston years ago. Autler said she would sometimes enlist help from friends, colleagues and even strangers to feel more secure as she reported from the scene of a crime or natural disaster.

Autler said managers had on occasion acknowledged that she was being sent to an unsafe location, but there was no one else around to go with or instead of her. If youre the lead story, or the only story, because you are the only reporter, then you feel pressure that the entire newscast falls because of you, she said.

Once, after being asked to cover a rape for an 11 p.m. broadcast, Autler told her managers she was scared to go by herself, but they did not provide support. She asked her then-boyfriends cousin to ride with her in the news van.

Station managers and these ownership groups that own local television stations have all of the power, and a lot of these reporters are young, out of college, this is the first job they have. They have no power to voice their concerns, said Autler, who left broadcast journalism last year and is now in law school.

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Taliban's rule in Kabul from August last year has compounded Pakistan's existing Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) problem. In 2021, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) insurgency escalated its challenge against Pakistan. Operating from bases in Afghanistan, and with a growing presence inside Pakistan, the group mounted an increasing number of attacks against Pakistani security forces, according to Frontier Post. Earlier, on Tuesday, after an attack by the TTP on the police in Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, Pakistan's Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid warned that more attacks by the group are likely. On the other hand, the most significant development in recent times was the TTP's demonstrated alliance with and patronage by the Afghan Taliban. Further, the Pakistani government had long argued the TTP was largely a byproduct of the US presence in Afghanistan combined with external support from the former Afghan government in cahoots with India. Therefore, Pakistani officials often implied, the US exit from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban would limit the TTP's threat against Pakistan. On the contrary, the TTP seems to have been energised with the Taliban's takeover and looks stronger than before. The depth of the TTP-Afghan Taliban relationship became evident after the Taliban's August takeover, according to Frontier Post. Ever since the Taliban's takeover, the TTP has emphasised that the Afghan Taliban is not only a model insurgency but also the mothership of their movement. Meanwhile, the Pakistani government appears to have sought the intercession of long-standing ally Siraj Haqqani, a top Taliban leader, for talks with the TTP especially as the TTP's violence mounted after the Taliban took power. Also, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan publicly took the position that a political settlement was the only way to end Pakistan's war with the TTP. Initial negotiations between the TTP and Pakistan, which took place in Afghanistan, made some headway. A short cease-fire was announced in early November, with reports that Pakistan had committed to the release of over 100 TTP prisoners, including some high-profile leaders that were in detention in Pakistan. But that cease-fire was suspended by the TTP in early December, as they alleged the Pakistani government didn't keep its commitments, according to Frontier Post. (ANI)
"Warmly congratulate @miaamormottley for the resounding victory of her party in the first general elections of the Republic of Barbados and her re-election as Prime Minister. Look forward to working together for further strengthening the friendly ties between India and Barbados," tweeted PM Modi.

Mottley retained her position as the Prime Minister after her Barbados Labour Party swept the General Election 30-0 on Wednesday, reported Barbados local media.

For the second successive election, opposition parties failed to secure any seats.

Recently in November 2021, Barbados officially removed Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and become the world's newest republic nearly 400 years after the country became a British colony.

India and Barbados enjoy close and cordial relations and interact actively in the United Nations (UN), Commonwealth and Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and other international fora.

Barbados is also a signatory to International Solar Alliance (ISA) and has ratified it in January 2021. (ANI)
More than 3.2 million people have been affected by the severe drought which is ravaging several parts of Somalia, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. The Office said the rainfall season between October-December 2021 failed, aggravating severe drought in parts of Somalia, reports Xinhua news agency. "The worsening drought has affected over 3.2 million people in 66 out of the 74 districts, of whom 245,000 are internally displaced," OCHA said in its latest report on drought situation, warning that the drought is projected to intensify as Somalia faces the risk of the fourth consecutive failed rainy season in early 2022. The UN agency said the drought is compounding severe vulnerabilities and humanitarian needs caused by decades of protracted conflict and insecurity, climate shocks and disease outbreaks. "This adversely affected crop and livestock production and, in turn, led to a steep decline in household purchasing power and access to food," it said. According to the Office, families are flocking into towns and others crossing into Ethiopia in search of humanitarian assistance. At least 15 people have reportedly been killed and several others injured in armed clashes over ownership of grazing land in Laas Caanood district, Sool region as a result of the resource-based conflict. "Disease outbreaks, mainly due to lack of access to clean and sufficient water and hygiene services, are reportedly on the rise, as the drought worsens, and more people are displaced into congested settlements," OCHA said, noting Somali communities, local authorities and humanitarian partners are scaling-up responses and intensifying resource mobilization efforts to address the impact of the drought. According to the OCHA, the latest food security projections show that 4.6 million Somalis will face crisis-to-emergency-level food insecurity from February to May. --IANS ksk/ ( 304 Words) 2022-01-21-14:04:03 (IANS)
"We disapprove of the developments between Russia and Ukraine, because the existence of a war atmosphere in the region and the emergence of such psychology upsets us as a country that has relations with both sides," Erdogan said at a press conference here.

"We hope to bring together Mr. Putin and Zelensky as soon as possible and to ensure that they have a face-to-face meeting," Erdogan said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Erdogan said he would pay a visit to Ukraine in early February, reports Xinhua news agency.

"Our hope is for peace to reign in the region," he added.

Turkey has been making diplomatic efforts to hold the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group meeting between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul, state-run TRT broadcaster quoted diplomatic sources as saying.

Turkey aims to hold the next Trilateral Contact Group meeting, which includes Russia, Ukraine the OSCE, and representatives from the Donbass conflict region, the TRT reported.

On July 22, 2020, the representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE agreed on a complete and comprehensive ceasefire in eastern Ukraine starting on July 27.

But tensions between Ankara and Moscow have heightened recently over Turkey's sales of armed drones to Ukraine.

Russia is angered over Ukrainian forces using Turkish-made Bayraktar drones in the conflict in the Donbas region.

--IANS ksk/

( 269 Words)

2022-01-21-14:10:04 (IANS)
Oil refineries in Pakistan have warned the government of a looming shutdown of their operations in a couple of weeks due to high and yet rising stocks of furnace oil, a media report said. The refineries have reported to the government that the oil industry was currently holding about 4,00,000 tonnes of furnace oil. In addition, 3,00,000-tonne stocks were lying unutilised at various power plants, reported Dawn citing informed sources. The Power Division, on the other hand, had placed a requirement of furnace oil for February at just 45,000 tonnes for the power sector. The sources said the Petroleum Division had advised the Pak-Arab Refinery (PARCO) at Multan to export one cargo of about 50,000 tonnes of furnace oil during the current month, said the Pakistani publication. Pak-Arab Refinery Company Limited (PARCO) has, however, told the government on Thursday that it had serious concerns over the low demand projected by the power sector. There will be a high risk of closure of refineries in February in the absence of a significant upward revision in demand, PARCO said further. The total monthly furnace oil production of the refineries was more than 200,000 tonnes, said PARCO, adding that this is on top of about 700,000 tonnes currently in stocks of refineries, marketing companies and power plants. Calling for an immediate need to address the critical issue of high furnace oil stock levels, the refineries have demanded an urgent high-level meeting on the issue to work out a firm demand for furnace oil for February to enable the industry to plan refinery operations. Due to high furnace oil stocks, at least three refineries recently faced shutdowns and others had to go for production cuts, according to Dawn. (ANI)
Guterres also noted with alarm that missile attacks and shelling continued in several areas in the country. All of these actions have resulted in civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman.

"The secretary-general reiterates his call on the parties to exercise maximum restraint and prevent any escalation amid heightened tensions in the region, as well as to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law," Xinhua news agency quoted the spokesman as saying at a daily press briefing.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since the Houthi militia overran much of the country and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition that intervened since 2015 to support the Yemeni government.

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg has just left Riyadh after concluding a visit to Saudi Arabia.

He met Saudi Vice Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Yemeni Foreign Minister Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak, and other Saudi and Yemeni interlocutors, said Dujarric.

During his meetings, Grundberg also denounced the recent wave of military escalation, including the heavy airstrikes on Sanaa, which have engulfed Yemen and spilled over the borders to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Grundberg exchanged views on possible options to achieve immediate de-escalation and pave the way for comprehensive political talks, said the spokesman.

--IANS ksk/

( 263 Words)

2022-01-21-14:40:04 (IANS)
Several social media users alleged it was "an attempt to push LGBT ideology".

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Samsung said it was aware the video "may be perceived as insensitive and offensive".

Singapore remains largely conservative on LGBTQ issues, even as local groups call for greater acceptance, the report said.

The ad was meant to promote Samsung's new wearable products, like noise-cancelling earbuds and a smart watch with a heart rate monitor.

It filmed several participants' reactions as they listened to heartfelt recorded messages from their loved ones. One of the pairs of participants featured a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf as she heard a message from her son, who was a drag performer.

"You are just unbothered having people looking or judging you differently, having a son that does drag," he tells her in his message.

The scene sparked outrage online, with some saying it was insensitive to the Muslim community, although others defended it and criticised its removal, the report said.

"We are against the ideology of mainstreaming homosexuality and transgenderism into a conservative society," one user Syed Dan wrote on Facebook.

"It disrupts the harmony within the Malay-Muslim community", the report said.

Another user, Muhammed Zuhaili, posted that the video had "surfaced much confusion and questions amongst the (Muslim) community".

The South Korean tech giant later scrubbed the video from all its public platforms.

"We acknowledge that we have fallen short in this instance," the company wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

Singapore has a minority ethnic Malay community, most of whom - though not all - identify as being religiously Muslim, the BBC reported.

--IANS san/ksk/

( 315 Words)

2022-01-21-14:44:03 (IANS)
Moscow is not planning to invade Ukraine and never threatened its people but it asked Washington to put pressure on Kiev to implement Minsk agreements, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov following the conclusion of his talks with his US counterpart Antony Blinken as the tensions mount over Moscow's heavy deployment of forces along its border with Ukraine, reported Sputnik. "We discussed Ukraine today," said Blinken during the press conference here after his talks with Blinken on Friday. "Our American colleagues once again tried to put the problems on the Russian-Ukrainian border at the forefront, tried to condition everything else on the need for so-called de-escalation," he added. "We ended with an agreement that we will be provided with written answers to all our proposals next week," said Lavrov, "Russia heard the first verbal reaction from the United States to previous consultations on security guarantees." Russia has never threatened the Ukrainian people and is not planning to invade Ukraine. "You mentioned the statement that Ukraine does not pose any threat to Russia. I would like to once again remind those who are analyzing our position that Russia has nowhere and never threatened the Ukrainian people," Lavrov said, adding that Moscow calls on Washington to put pressure on Kiev so it implements Minsk agreements. Lavrov also said that it would be right if the US responds to Russian security guarantees' proposals publicly. "I think it would be right to make this answer public. And I will ask Anthony Blinken that they agree to it," said Lavrov. (ANI)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday (local time) said that President Joe Biden is ready to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin if progress is made on Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US is "fully prepared" for another Biden-Putin summit "if it proves useful and productive." "If we conclude and the Russians conclude that the best way to resolve things is through a further conversation between them, we're certainly prepared to do that," said Blinken at a press conference after his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva. Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva for an hour and a half to discuss escalating tensions on the Ukraine-Russia border. Blinken also said the US will share its concerns with Russia "in more detail, and in writing next week," during the meeting with Lavrov. "I told him that following the consultations that we will have in the coming days with allies and partners, we anticipate that we will be able to share with Russia our concerns in more detail, and in writing next week," Blinken said during a news conference following his meeting with Lavrov. The US and Russia "agreed to further discussions after that," Blinken said. The top US diplomat said that after the US shares its written responses to Russia's concerns, there will be further conversations "at least at the level of foreign ministers." Meanwhile, Lavrov said contact with the US will continue and did not rule out a Biden-Putin summit. "We are waiting for their official answer (to Russian security demands)," Lavrov said during a press conference after a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. "We're planning another conversation at our ministerial level." "President Putin is always ready for contact with President Biden," Lavrov added but said it the two sides were not in that position yet. He concluded, "we need to understand what will happen before we go to the presidential level." Blinken said there was "no-trade space" when it came to the principle of "the sovereign right of the Ukrainian people to write their own future." He told that Washington is committed to a "united, swift and severe response" if Moscow commits further aggression against Ukraine. The two top diplomats ended their hour and a half bilateral meeting Friday, during which the US tried to convince Russia to de-escalate the situation at the Ukrainian border where Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops and shown signs of a potential invasion into Ukraine. "We are, all of us, all equally committed to the path of diplomacy and dialogue to try to resolve our differences," Blinken said, adding, "But we're also committed, if that proves impossible and Russia decides to pursue aggression against Ukraine, to a united, swift and severe response." At a news conference following the meeting with Blinken, Lavrov said that the US had agreed to send written answers to all of Russia's security demands. Both sides admitted before their talks that neither was expecting a breakthrough on Russia's security demands, which the US and allies have deemed nonstarters. Blinken reiterated he didn't expect the US and Russia to resolve their differences in the meeting but said he hoped to keep a diplomatic path to addressing those issues open. "We're committed to walking that path and resolving our differences peacefully," he said. Blinken's meeting with Lavrov on Friday followed his meetings in Berlin with his German, UK and French counterparts and Kyiv, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Tensions between Ukraine and Russia are at their highest in years, with a Russian troop build-up near the two nations' borders spurring fears that Moscow could launch an invasion. Ukraine has warned that Russia is trying to destabilize the country ahead of any planned military invasion. Western powers have repeatedly warned Russia against further aggressive moves against Ukraine. The Kremlin denies it is planning to attack and argues that NATO support for Ukraine -- including increased weapons supplies and military training -- constitutes a growing threat on Russia's western flank. (ANI)
Welcoming the growing interest among India's European partners, including Germany, to intensify their engagement in the Indo-Pacific region, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said that New Delhi and Berlin's priorities on the Indo-Pacific including strengthening multilateralism and rule of law match and efforts could be broadened between the two countries for collaboration to include security issues in the region through joint efforts in the capacity building against maritime challenges. "We are happy to note the commitment of the new coalition government in Germany for a free and open Indo-Pacific region based on global norms and international law. The priorities identified in Germany's Guidelines on the Indo-Pacific, particularly strengthening multilateralism, the rule of law and democracy, climate protection, trade and digitalisation, closely match with our interests," said Shringla on Friday virtually at the ORF-NMF-KAS symposium titled "Potential for Indo-European/German Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific". The event was held to mark the arrival of the German Frigate Bayern in Mumbai as a symbol of European and Germany's pivot towards the Indo-Pacific by the Observer Research Foundation, the National Maritime Foundation and the India Office of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Shringla during the virtual symposium also said, "Going forward, we could broaden the scope for collaboration to include security issues in the region through joint efforts in the capacity building against piracy and other maritime challenges." Stressing that India can further deepen its cooperation with Germany on matters that impinge on the national security interests of both countries, Shringla said that the cooperation can be intensified through the regular exchange of information, mutual capacity-building efforts, sharing of best practices, mutual legal assistance and cooperation in multilateral fora. "India will be hosting the third "No Money For Terror" Conference this year, and we look forward to participation from Germany in this important initiative," Shringla added. Moreover, he said that Indo-Pacific is not just a geographical construct but is the new epicentre of global politics and global economics. "With 60 per cent of the world's population, 2/3rds of the global economic output and more than half of global trade transiting through its maritime waters," said Shringla, adding, "the importance of the Indo-Pacific region, in political, security and economic terms is not lost on any country. For India, the region has been of prime importance for centuries, bolstered by historical, cultural, maritime and economic linkages." Emphasising that India sees the Indo-Pacific as a free, open, inclusive region, which embraces all in a common pursuit of progress and prosperity, Shringla said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has encapsulated this vision in one term- SAGAR, which stands for Security and Growth for All in the Region. The term SAGAR itself means "Ocean" in several Indian languages. He also noted that India believes that our common prosperity and security require us to evolve, through dialogue, a common rules-based order for the region. "Such an order must respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as equality of all nations," said Shringla adding, "Such an order should enable all countries to use common spaces on sea and in the air, engage in unimpeded commerce, and peacefully settle disputes in accordance with international law." Shringla also said that India's record of respecting and accepting the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) verdict on the delimitation of our maritime boundaries with two of our neighbours - Bangladesh and Myanmar, speaks for itself. Noting that Europe and the Indo-Pacific regions are closely interlinked through strong trade and investment linkages, Shringla said that developments in the Indo-Pacific can have a direct bearing on European economies as the impact of the recent supply chain disruptions was felt by all. "The global challenges of sustainable development, environmental protection and climate change are more acute in the region," said Shringla, adding, "They can only be addressed through a collaborative effort that promotes linkages rather than economic dependencies and debt traps." "Therefore, we believe that all countries, including those outside the region with a clear stake in the security and stability of the region, have an important role to play," added Shringla. (ANI)
First kidney transplant across blood types conducted in Vietnam

Doctors at the HCM City-based Cho Ray hospital have successfully conducted a renal transplant with a kidney taken from a donor who has a different blood group.

Cho Ray Hospital announced on Friday that the transplant was carried out on a male patient, Vi Van, 54, who was suffering from the last stage of kidney failure. The man had to undergo hemodialysis for a long time before the transplant.

"Van's wife, Tran Thi, 51, decided to donate one of her kidneys," the hospital said. "However, Van and his wife have different blood groups and such a transplant was yet to be performed in Vietnam."



Vi Van and his wife and doctors and Cho Ray Hospital



Cho Ray Hospital was carrying out a national-level scientific research project on incompatible kidney transplantation, and the patient was luckily selected for the surgery.



The patient underwent a renal transplant on December 29, 2021, and two days after the surgery, the kidney function returned to normal, doctors said on January 21.



Follow-up examination carried out on January 21 showed that the couple had recovered well. The husband, after the kidney transplant, was able to eat and walk normally.







Van and his wife have both recovered well after the transplant

Im extremely happy, I feel as if I was born the second time, said the husband.



Dr. Nguyen Tri Thuc, director of Cho Ray Hospital said the successful operation on people with incompatible blood groups has opened up life-saving opportunities for patients suffering from end-stage renal failure.
WASHINGTON  Thousands of anti-abortion protesters were in a celebratory mood Friday as they rallied in the nations capital and marched to the Supreme Court with a growing sense of optimism that their goal was finally in reach: a sweeping rollback of abortion rights.

The March for Life, for decades an annual protest against abortion, was held as the Supreme Court has indicated it will allow states to impose tighter restrictions on abortion with a ruling in the coming months  and possibly overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that affirmed the constitutional right to an abortion.

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It doesnt feel real. Theres so much hope and vibrancy and happiness and joy at this thing, said Jordan Moorman of Cincinnati. I really do believe that were in a post-Roe generation.

The rally, held one day before the 49th anniversary of the Roe decision, is taking place amid a COVID-19 surge that limited turnout at the National Mall. Some abortion opponents posted on the events Facebook page that they will not attend because of COVID-19 vaccine mandates for people going to restaurants and other places in the District of Columbia.

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Still, the rally drew a crowd of thousands on a sunny but frigid day, with a heavy contingent of young people and students bussed in by schools and church groups. The mood was overwhelmingly optimistic, with many treating the end of Roe v Wade as an inevitability.

Hopefully this will be the last March for Life, said the Rev. Andrew Rudmann, a Catholic priest from New Orleans, who was attending his 11th event.

Rudmann said previous marches may have had larger crowds but he doesnt recall this level of optimism. He said the crowds grew gigantic under former President Donald Trump and the movements enthusiasm grew with each Trump Supreme Court appointee. He proudly pointed out that his home Archdiocese of New Orleans includes the Catholic high school that educated Trumps last appointee, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Sometimes I would come to the March and it would be great to be united with people who share my beliefs, but there would also be this heaviness, he said. This time the whole language and vibe is different.

After the rally, the crowd marched to the Supreme Court with chants that included: We love babies, yes we do, we love babies, how bout you? and hey hey, ho ho, Roe v Wade has got to go!

Abortion rights groups worry that at least 26 states are in line to further limit abortion access if Roe is weakened or overturned. In December, the court indicated in a major case that it would uphold a Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and allow states to ban abortion even earlier. The Mississippi case directly challenges Roe.

Courts have also dealt Texas abortion providers a string of defeats over efforts to block a law that since September has banned abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks and before some women know they are pregnant. Another loss for Texas clinics came Thursday, when the Supreme Court refused to speed up the ongoing challenge over the law, which providers say is now likely to stay in effect for the foreseeable future.

This law is cruel and unconstitutional, and I am deeply disappointed that our judicial system has done very little to stop it, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Womans Health, which operates four abortion clinics in Texas.

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Lawmakers from both parties weighed in Friday to note the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and reflect on the shifting political landscape surrounding abortion.

It has been an eye-opening year for the cause of life in America, and we have made significant progress in defending our youngest and most vulnerable, said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House.

The stakes are higher than ever, with the health and autonomy of women and families across the country hanging in the balance as Republicans work to methodically challenge and overturn Roe, said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Its time to sound the alarm and make clear: decisions about our bodies, our health care and our future belong to us.

Dozens of GOP lawmakers appeared at the march personally or as part of a video voicing their allegiance with those in attendance. White House press secretary Jen Psaki took note of the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling as part of Fridays press briefing, saying that reproductive health care has been under extreme and relentless assault ever since, especially in recent months.

She said the Biden administration was committed to working with Congress to pass a bill that protects the right to provide and access abortion care free from forced waiting periods, biased counseling and other restrictions.

Were deeply committed to making sure everyone has access to care and we will defend it with every tool we have, Psaki said.

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Mississippi state Sen. Joey Fillingane, a Republican who pushed for the states strict abortion laws, said that if Roe were nullified, he expects states to take different approaches to setting their own abortion laws.

I think thats the way it should be, he said. The laws in California, based on their population and what they want, may be very different than the laws in Mississippi based on what our population feels about the issue of life.

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Staff writer Kevin Freking and video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report. Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Pettus reported from Jackson, Mississippi.
The people in Afghanistan are facing numerous challenges - be it the drought, COVID-19, an impounding economy and declining rights under the new regime, says experts during a recently held virtual summit. The event titled 'Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis: the way forward' was organised by The Democracy Forum (TDF). In his introductory comments, TDF President Lord Bruce noted that, despite the wide range of issues affecting democracy and human rights in the Asia Pacific region, which are all worthy of attention, he felt it was vital to continue to shine a spotlight on the plight of Afghanistan as it faces the prospect of wide-scale starvation amid a plummeting currency and over-dependency on imported food. The largest single concentration of foreign reserves allocated to Afghanistan, held within the World Bank's Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, could enable UNICEF to provide 12.5 million people with basic and essential health services, including vaccinations, and the World Food Programme to provide 2.7 million people with food assistance. But such a programme will not be sustainable, warned Lord Bruce, without the cooperation of the Afghan government and the support of the international community, along with other possible initiatives such as expanding sanctions relief to small businesses, resuming paying the wages of key public sector employees, and the gradual release of foreign exchange reserves to offset the balance of payments crisis. Striking a pessimistic note, Dr C Christine Fair, Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University, saw no obvious way forward, given that the problem facing Afghanistan today dates back to the early 20th century, when Afghanistan entered the comity of nations as a rentier state, paid for by the British. Thereafter, the gap was filled by Russia, then the USSR, then the international community - largely the US - whose huge state-building apparatus was not based around the needs of Afghans but was, rather, driven by the domestic interests of various troop-contributing countries. Fair expressed her dismay at the inability of the international community to focus on economic sustainability in Afghanistan and spoke of the ecosystem of corruption, built by the international system but also benefited from by Afghan elites. She located the problem facing Afghanistan today squarely with the Taliban - who don't want aid to go through aid organisations - and their Pakistani enablers - for example, Pakistan insisted on being the vector of delivery for Saudi aid, claiming to alleviate Afghans' misery when they were, in fact, contributing to it. She also addressed the Taliban's long-standing ties with the Chinese, who had links with al-Qaeda. What the Chinese and Taliban want from each other, said Fair, is far more do-able than what the US and NATO wanted: just enough security to access Afghanistan's vast resources. So, how do you aid the Afghan people without abetting the Taliban? It is a conundrum to which Fair admitted there were no robust answers, though she referenced India's efforts, noting that Pakistan always refused India overland transit of food products destined for Afghans through Pakistani territory. Ultimately, Pakistan wants the Taliban in place in Afghanistan in order to keep India out, she concluded. Dr Timor Sharan, Executive Director of Afghanistan Policy Lab and an International Development expert, spoke of the band-aid effort to address Afghanistan's economic and humanitarian crisis, which is not sustainable. He stressed the need to get the economy running, give people access to education and work, and resolve the banking and liquidity crisis - a situation in which he believed the US should show greater leadership. Also, the key to finding a way forward is that the Taliban must demonstrate an ability to govern and make serious changes, such as female rights to education and work, inclusivity at all levels, diversity in representation, etc. In terms of revenue collection in this largely cash-based economy, the Taliban must be transparent - for example, where is the revenue going, if not to pay public servants? - and the problem of entrenched criminality must be addressed, to prevent localised conflicts. Sharan expressed disappointment at the Biden administration's unfair placing of blame for the current situation at the door of Afghans and concluded that, as well as an international issue, Afghanistan is also a regional one, with Pakistan not doing a good job of enabling their clients, the Taliban, to govern. Repression of the press and media under the Taliban, and its impact on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, was the focus for author & journalist Lynne O'Donnell. She criticised what she saw as revisionism, saying the current situation - starvation, poverty, violence, ethnic disparities, food insecurity in winter - had also been happening before the current Taliban regime. Regarding Afghanistan's once fair and free media, O'Donnell argued that had changed, not on August 15, 2021, but on 29 February 2020, in the Taliban-Trump agreement, which emboldened the Taliban to re-launch attacks on women and the media, taking back gains made earlier. "Only a trace of Afghanistan's free media is left today, with a lot of information now coming out of the country via social media, which is not reliable. There is thus no media to hold the Taliban to account for its actions", said O'Donnell. Regarding regional players, she agreed with Dr Fair that Pakistan will not allow India to be proactive on any level in aiding Afghanistan, and said Islamabad has washed its hands of any responsibility for what is happening in Afghanistan, the takeover of which was an implicit aim of Pakistan's intelligence and military establishment. She also urged people to get real money into the Afghan economy via small, legitimate grass-roots organisations. Dr Arne Strand, a Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, addressed ways to engage with the new Taliban regime, in order to meet the humanitarian challenges facing the people of Afghanistan today, as well as considering underlying economic and development challenges. Aid dependency is not a solution, he said, but development is key, and one cannot overlook the role of the private sector in rebuilding the nation. Strand stressed the importance of creating a dialogue, in order to have a better understanding of what the Taliban stands for today. Even if we don't like the Taliban, we need to engage with them on some level, he said, since, if the international community has no influence in Afghanistan that will provide a space for groups such as Islamic State to proliferate. Assisted by illustrative slides, Jean-Paul Faguet, Professor of the Political Economy of Development at the LSE, looked at what we know about building effective and responsive democracies in developing countries such as Afghanistan. He highlighted models of government structures, saying that political systems should reflect the underlying cleavages that define a society, such as left-right divisions, ethnic or religious divisions, and considered how to organise political systems in societies with such fragmentations, such as Afghanistan. (ANI)
"Minister @PiyushGoyal had a productive discussion with the Australian Trade Minister @DanTehanWannon. As part of an ongoing dialogue on the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, both sides discussed ways to further increase bilateral trade & investments," tweeted Minister Piyush Goyal's office.

The conversations come in the wake of increased strategic cooperation and trade relations mooted between India and Australia. (ANI)
Russia has announced its navy will conduct exercises from the Pacific to the Atlantic involving all its fleets in an effort to show its strength in proportion. The drills this month and next will take place in the seas directly adjacent to Russia and also feature manoeuvres in the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, the northeast Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific, the defence ministry said in a statement on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera. The drills will include drawing on 140 warships and support vessels, 60 planes, 1,000 units of military hardware and about 10,000 servicemen, according to the statement of the Russian Defence Ministry. Meanwhile, on Friday, Russia, Iran and China began a trilateral naval exercise in an area encompassing 17,000 square km (6,560 square miles) north of the Indian Ocean. Iran, which first joined naval drills with China and Russia in 2019, sent vessels from its armed forces and Revolutionary Guards to the exercises dubbed the "2022 Marine Security Belt". The drills will include a range of tactical exercises, namely putting out fires on burning vessels, rescuing hijacked vessels, and shooting at air targets in different visibility conditions, according to Iran's Rear Admiral Mostafa Tajoldini. Russian military forces and hardware began arriving in Belarus this week for the "Allied Resolve" drills to be held near the former Soviet republic's western border with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) members Poland and Lithuania, and close to its southern flank with Ukraine. Moscow has said that 12 Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and a Pantsir missile system would also be deployed to Belarus for the drills. Russian military moves are being closely scrutinised as a troop build-up near Ukraine and a volley of hawkish rhetoric have rattled the West and sparked fears of a looming war, as reported by Al Jazeera. Moscow insists it has no plans to invade but has at the same time laid down a series of demands - including a ban on Ukraine and Georgia joining North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in exchange for de-escalation. The United States has rejected Moscow's demands as "non-starters" and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg this week insisted that the alliance "will not compromise on core principles such as the right for each nation to choose its own path", according to Al Jazeera. (ANI)
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Friday expressed grief over the loss of four Indian nations near Canada-US border. "Shocked by the report that 4 Indian nationals, including an infant have lost their lives at the Canada-US border. Have asked our Ambassadors in the US and Canada to urgently respond to the situation," tweeted S Jaishankar. (ANI)
The American authorities on Thursday (local time) said that they have arrested a Florida Man for human smuggling after four people, including an infant and a teenage boy, were found dead near the US-Canada border. They were found dead roughly seven miles from the US-Canada border in the province of Manitoba, The Washington Post reported. The US attorney's office in Minnesota said officers arrested Steve Shand after they stopped his white rental van on Wednesday less than one mile south of the border. He was driving with two undocumented Indian nationals. The 47-year-old made a court appearance in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday and was ordered to remain in custody, reported The Washington Post. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they believe that the four people, whose bodies were found near the community of Emerson, Manitoba, on Wednesday, were attempting to cross into the United States from Canada and had died of exposure to the cold in a blizzard, during which temperatures fell to minus-31 degrees Fahrenheit. "It is an absolute and heartbreaking tragedy," Jane MacLatchy, assistant commissioner with the RCMP in Manitoba, said at a news conference Thursday. "I offer my condolences and those of the RCMP to every family member and loved one who is affected by this tragedy." Shortly after Shand's arrest, US authorities said they encountered five more Indian nationals who claimed they had crossed the border on foot after walking for roughly 11 hours. They were walking in the direction of where Shand was arrested and said they were expecting to be picked up by someone in the United States, The Washington Post reported. The US attorney's office in Minnesota said a man in the group was carrying a backpack that he said belonged to a family of four Indian nationals that had been walking with them but had become separated at some point during the journey across the border. The backpack contained children's clothes and toys, among other items. After a nearly four hour search, the RCMP found four bodies on the Canadian side of the border. The US attorney's office in Minnesota said they were "tentatively" identified as the family of four that was separated from the rest of the group. "These victims faced not only the cold weather," MacLatchy said, "but also endless fields, large snowdrifts and complete darkness." MacLatchy said she had a message for those thinking of crossing the border by foot in either direction. "Just don't do it," she said. "Do not listen to anyone who tells you they can get you to your destination safely. They cannot. ... I do understand that for some there may be a great need to get to another country, but this is not the way. You will be risking your life and the lives of the people you care about if you try it." Under the terms of a 2004 agreement between Canada and the United States, asylum seekers who try to enter Canada from the United States at an official border crossing are sent back to the United States -- and vice versa. But those who cross the frontier at unauthorized points of entry can enter and file asylum claims, reported The Washington Post. (ANI)
Chinese Foreign Ministry has not given a categoric answer to the incident in which a teenager from Arunachal Pradesh was reportedly captured by the Chinese Army and said PLA "cracks down on illegal border entry and exit". "The PLA controls the border according to law and cracks down on illegal border entry and exit," the Global Times said in a tweet citing the Chinese foreign ministry. It referred to reports in the Indian media about the "kidnapping" of the teenager from Arunachal Pradesh. The Chinese foreign ministry referred to Arunachal Pradesh as "Zangnan". The Indian Army has sought assistance from the People Liberation Army (PLA) to locate and return the youth reportedly captured by the Chinese army. "Seventeen-year-old youth Miram Tarom of Zido, Arunachal Pradesh was reportedly captured by Chinese PLA across the Line of Actual Control. Indian Army immediately contacted PLA through hotline, assistance from PLA has been sought to locate and return him as per protocol," Defence Ministry's Tezpur Public Relation Officer said in a tweet on Thursday. Tapir Gao, BJP MP from Arunachal Pradesh (East), had said that the youth was "abducted" on Tuesday from the state's Upper Siang district. "Chinese PLA has abducted Sh Miram Taron, 17 years of Zido vill. yesterday 18th Jan 2022 from inside Indian territory, Lungta Jor area (China-built 3-4 km road inside India in 2018) under Siyungla area (Bushing village) of Upper Siang dist., Arunachal Pradesh," he said in a tweet. "His friend escaped from PLA and reported to the authorities. All the agencies of the Government of India are requested to step up for his early release," he added. Congress Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Pasighat West Ninong Ering also claimed that 17-year-old was abducted by the Chinese army on Tuesday. His Twitter post said that Taron was abducted at around 6.30 pm near Siungla from the jungle called Lungta Jor under Indian territory by the PLA.Taron went hunting with his friend Johnny Yaying in the last border village of Bising under Tuting. (ANI)
"In my meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov today, I stressed that Russia has two choices: Diplomacy and de-escalation or massive costs to Russia. Our strong preference is to pursue the path of diplomacy," tweeted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Earlier, US President Joe Biden had admitted that Western allies are not entirely united on how they would respond to a "minor" Russian incursion into Ukraine.

They were also met with concern in Europe, where officials and observers said Biden's candid remarks had turned a spotlight on an uncomfortable truth at a dangerous moment.

Foreign diplomats and experts said Biden's comments were also an acknowledgement of a harsh reality: as tensions rise on the Ukrainian border, NATO allies are not all on the same page.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised Russia's sinking favorability ratings in eastern Ukraine when he met with his Russian counterpart in Geneva on Friday in an effort to point out that Russia's aggressions have not been useful in advancing their security interests in the region. (ANI)
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Friday launched a 'tractor trolley march' against the Imran Khan government to support farmers who have been protesting over the alleged poor agricultural policies of PTI. In a video message to farmers, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said that in the last three years, "this selected government" had damaged the country's agricultural economy as much as it had damaged the entire economy, reported Dawn. Agriculture, he said, was the backbone of the country's economy and extended his support to the country's farmers who have been protesting over the alleged poor agricultural policies of the government. He alleged that farmers had not been getting suitable prices of their crops since Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) took power in 2018, whereas the input cost had increased manifold, reported Dawn. "Last season, our paddy crop was damaged due to lack of water. Now due to the urea fertiliser crisis, our wheat crop is getting damaged," he said. "This is the call of the PPP. We are starting protests on January 21 from the Larkana division and the Sahiwal division. We will stand with our farmer brothers and protest with them. God willing, by Jan 24, the protest will spread across the country," he said, adding that the PPP would hold farmer marches and tractor marches in every division. Meanwhile, speaking at a news conference on Thursday, the PPP information secretary and MNA Shazia Marri said the farmers were facing serious problems like the unavailability of urea fertiliser and they had been protesting over the PTI government's "anti-farmer policies," reported Dawn. She claimed that a bag of urea fertiliser was being sold for up to Rs 3,500 in the black market and the federal government was not providing any relief to farmers. She said the PPP would hold rallies against the anti-farmer policies of the federal government. She said the PPP had raised this issue in the National Assembly, but the government's response was "very ridiculous". In the first phase, the party has organised marches in Larkana division in Sindh and Okara city of Sahiwal division in Punjab. In the second phase, such marches would be expanded to other parts of the country from January 24, reported Dawn. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah will lead the protest in Larkana, whereas PPP Punjab president Raja Pervez Ashraf will lead the farmers' rally in Okara. (ANI)
Indian ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, on Friday, informed that they are in touch with the American authorities over the loss of four Indian nationals near the Canada-US border. He said that a consular team from Chicago is travelling to Minnesota to coordinate and provide any assistance required. "An unfortunate and tragic incident. We are in touch with US authorities on their ongoing investigation. A consular team from @IndiainChicago is travelling today to Minnesota to coordinate and provide any assistance required," tweeted Sandhu. Earlier, Jaishankar expresses grief over the tragic incident. "Shocked by the report that 4 Indian nationals, including an infant, have lost their lives at the Canada-US border. Have asked our Ambassadors in the US and Canada to urgently respond to the situation," tweeted S Jaishankar. Meanwhile, US authorities on Thursday (local time) said that they have arrested a Florida Man for human smuggling after four people, including an infant and a teenage boy, were found dead near the US-Canada border. They were found dead roughly seven miles from the US-Canada border in the province of Manitoba. The US attorney's office in Minnesota said officers arrested Steve Shand after they stopped his white rental van on Wednesday less than one mile south of the border. He was driving with two undocumented Indian nationals. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said they believe that the four people, whose bodies were found near the community of Emerson, Manitoba, on Wednesday, were attempting to cross into the United States from Canada and had died of exposure to the cold in a blizzard, during which temperatures fell to minus-31 degrees Fahrenheit. Shortly after Shand's arrest, US authorities said they encountered five more Indian nationals who claimed they had crossed the border on foot after walking for roughly 11 hours. They were walking in the direction of where Shand was arrested and said they were expecting to be picked up by someone in the United States, The Washington Post reported. The US attorney's office in Minnesota said a man in the group was carrying a backpack that he said belonged to a family of four Indian nationals that had been walking with them but had become separated at some point during the journey across the border. The backpack contained children's clothes and toys, among other items. After a nearly four hour search, the RCMP found four bodies on the Canadian side of the border. The US attorney's office in Minnesota said they were "tentatively" identified as the family of four that was separated from the rest of the group. (ANI)
The Taliban's political inability has created an existential crisis for women of Afghanistan, thus endangering country's future, a media report said. At a time, when the issue of Afghan Taliban's recognition remains pending, a humanitarian crisis is looming: the dilemma of the virtually stateless people of Afghanistan, especially women, is not limited to food or medicine shortages. Their existential crisis actually emanates from the Taliban's political incapacity, reported Dawn. Women have also staged protests in Afghanistan as they faced assaults due to current rulers in Kabul. The Taliban had also put restrictions on women's movement hindering their socio-economic activities. Currently, the Taliban seek liberal ways to suppress freedom of expression and deny rights instead of political solutions. The Taliban recently suggested that international aid be unconditionally extended to them -- an effort to depoliticise the tragedy to reinforce their claim of representing the entire Afghan nation. Taking the Afghan people hostage, this approach borders on blackmailing the international community, according to Dawn. In various areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, women are barred from workplaces and schools and later this segregation is used as a means for unrelenting suppression. While violent warlords abuse women at checkpoints, the Taliban confine such abuses to the home. Both instances of paternalistic rules are dehumanising, oppressive and violent, the Pakistani publication said. In 1987, Meena Keshwar Kamal, a founder of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), was kidnapped and then decapitated in Quetta. When the region was erupting in officially patronised militarisation, RAWA was the progressive face of resistance, the lone voice for a secular and democratic Afghanistan. Living in close proximity to the dreaded 'jihadists' in Peshawar and Quetta, RAWA members condemned fundamentalism, imperialism and Soviet puppets and raised their voice for freedom and rights, according to Dawn. The Taliban, as a paradoxical idea, is a religiously inspired group deployed as a strategic option for obtaining political legitimacy through militancy. Dependent on this contradiction is the regional cycle of local violence. Key to the end of this crisis is the radical position of Afghan women as experts have said that each of us needs a little RAWA, reported Dawn. (ANI)
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Chicago aldermen Monday are set to consider another $14 million taxpayer payout to victims connected to Jon Burge, this time for two men who say detectives with ties to the disgraced late police commander beat them into confessing to a brutal 1989 murder.

The proposed settlement for Kevin Bailey and Corey Batchelor comes four years after a Cook County special prosecutor dropped charges against the two, and a judge tossed out their convictions.

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When both were 19 years old, Batchelor and Bailey were arrested for the 1989 slaying of Lula Mae Woods, the wife of a retired Chicago police officer, according to court records, who was found with stab wounds in her South Side garage.

Corey Batchelor, left, greets Kevin Bailey as Bailey is released from Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet in 2018. A proposed $14 million settlement for the pair comes four years after a judge tossed out their murder convictions. Batchelor was paroled in 2004. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

The men had no criminal history. Decades later, when the case was dropped in 2018, the special prosecutor said there was insufficient evidence to show them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Bailey was released the same day; by then, he had been in prison 28 years. Batchelor had been paroled in 2004.

Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.

Scores of Black men have accused Burge and officers under his command of torturing or beating them during the 1970s and 1980s.

Burge had transferred to another precinct when Batchelor and Bailey were arrested. But many of the detectives involved in their case had trained under Burge and have themselves been accused of abuse in multiple convictions, attorneys for Batchelor and Bailey said when their convictions were dropped.

The cost to taxpayers in cases tied to Burge has been at least $115 million for settlements, judgments and other compensation to victims.

Burge was fired in 1993 for torturing a suspect in the killing of two cops. He was convicted in 2010 of perjury and obstruction of justice after jurors found he lied when he denied as part of a lawsuit that he had witnessed torture or abused suspects. He spent 4 years in prison and on home confinement and died in 2018.

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If the City Council Finance Committee passes the proposed settlement Monday, the full City Council would consider the deal Wednesday.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne
American intelligence agencies welcome the new year with a new worry that Islamist terror groups based in Afghanistan may be in a position to launch an attack against the United States between six months to a year. Washington suspects Islamic State of Iraq and Syria-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, could be able to launch attacks within the first half of the new year. They expect al-Qaeda to reach such a situation in one year or more, according to International Forum for Rights and Security. Pentagon's policy chief Colin Kahl, who is the defense undersecretary for policy, has been consistently briefing American Senators about this since end of October 2021. Senators, who are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed concern at the hearings but could not elicit confidential details about the developments in Afghanistan. ISIS-K has around 3,000 fighting members in Afghanistan and they have been on the attack mode since last August. They carried out a suicide bombing outside Kabul airport in which 13 American soldiers died. However, being able to plan and launch an attack on the US using Afghanistan as a base is quite a complex matter which the organisation is currently trying to resolve as analyzed by International Forum for Rights and Security. The Pentagon has plans to counter the terror groups and that includes sharing the information with American allies in the Asian region as well as among the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries. On the other hand, US are unsure of the ruling Taliban can indirectly be of any help to them. Meanwhile, Taliban are internally fighting the ISIS-K and consider the latter their mortal enemy, but it is doubtful of the former have the actual ability to take on the ISIS-K. The Pentagon is also trying to assess how the al-Qaeda threat to the US can play out under the Taliban rule. The last time they were in power, there was great cooperation between both groups. Both sides also have family relations with fighters from both groups marrying into each other's families. They have also put up a concerted fight against the nationalist Afghan forces. The Haqqani network too has links to al-Qaeda. Christine Abizaid, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, is quoted explaining the situation: "The group has gained some notoriety in a way that could be quite compelling for them on the transnational stage. At the same time, they're fighting the Taliban. "How that force on force engagement in Afghanistan will go will have some defining characteristics about what the transnational threat looks like." On the other hand, some defense analysts say the ISIS-K's threat to the US is the most potent. Further, Colin Clarke, senior research fellow at a private intelligence firm, The Soufan Group, says: "Right now, ISIS-K is probably the most capable in terms of orchestrating a plot that could be a viable threat to the U.S. homeland. Other Islamic State group affiliates, including in West Africa and Central Africa, have momentum but are more focused on local issues." The question uppermost in the minds of both Democrats and Republicans after the stunning collapse of the Afghan government before the Taliban onslaught last August is the extent to which the US can maintain pressure on terrorist groups in a country into which it has limited visibility, resolve as analyzed by International Forum for Rights and Security. (ANI)
Pakistan under Beijing's influence is forced to pay compensation for July 2021 terror attack incident. To analysts, this appears to be a case of a Chinese firm, whether Government or private, exercising arm-twisting, with the Chinese authorities leaning on Islamabad, according to Hongkong Post. Pakistan is to pay China in millions \ in billions when converted to its Rupee -- as compensation to the 36 Chinese nationals killed and 26 injured in a terrorist attack on July 14 last year, hoping to remove "a major irritant in bilateral relations." Earlier, Pakistan Cabinet chose from one of the four different packages worked out by the government. They range from USD 4.6 million (Rs 810 million) to USD 20.3 million (Rs 3.6 billion). On the other hand, the compensation for the hydro-power project at Dasu in Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province doesn't fall under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) technically. Meanwhile, the 4,320 MW Dasu Hydropower Project is being constructed by China Gezhouba with funding from the World Bank. Now, the Chinese power firm is demanding from Pakistan six times the compensation it would have paid to its employees had the incident taken place within China, according to Hongkong Post. Earlier, Pakistan is compelled to follow its own 2004 precedence on compensation payment, before it entered into CPEC pact. It must keep in mind that according to Gomal Zam Dam amount of 2004 indexed upwards using nominal GDP increase, the compensation will be USD 20.3 million. The terms for the current and future projects, where they exist, are weighed heavily in the Chinese' favour and it's a bitter pill for Pakistan that is getting increasingly sucked into the Chinese vortex, with or without the CPEC that is expected to be the biggest economic boost since Pakistan's inception, as analyzed by Hongkong Post. The July 2021 incident that impacted bilateral ties was a suicide attack on a bus that was carrying workers to the worksite of the Dasu Hydropower Project. Pakistan initially sought to play it down as an accident. But the Chinese government intervened, issued a terse statement demanding that the terror aspect be also probed, and secured a joint probe that established it as a terror attack. China had immediately retaliated and cancelled a scheduled meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee of the CPEC. The Chinese contractor had also stopped the work on the project and demanded a compensation of USD 37 million, as reported by Hongkong Post. (ANI)
China's government promises that just about every aspect of the Olympics will be "green may not be true". China's effort to cast it as a global leader on sustainability and climate change, are difficult to square with the country's broader environmental challenges. Beijing's water scarcity is a concern for environmentalists, with one estimate suggesting it could take 200 years for water piped into the city to return water resources to 1998 levels, writes Christian Shepherd for the Washington Post. China is also the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter and has avoided announcing a moratorium on coal-fired power. Even as Beijing organizers promise to buy purely renewable electricity for Games venues, the capital and surrounding Hebei province, where co-host Zhangjiakou is located, rely on fossil fuels for the bulk of their electricity. China consumes half the world's coal; output rose nearly 5 per cent to a record 4.07 billion tons last year as the government ordered more production to combat power shortages, as per the Washington Post. That China's Games-specific pledges may ultimately fail to translate into progress on environmental causes fits with a habit of the Olympics disappointing on its goal to encourage sustainability, which became a pillar of the sporting movement in the 1990s. For the Chinese Communist Party, hosting the Olympics is an important source of international prestige that it is determined to stage-manage carefully. While 2008 was billed as China's arrival on the world stage, 2022 is a vehicle for Xi Jinping, the party's most powerful leader in decades, to burnish claims of superior governance. Beijing will supposedly implement a strict "closed-loop" system to separate participants within a bubble and prevent coronavirus spread. A side-effect of the steadfast adherence to a "zero-covid" policy will be a reduced carbon footprint because of spectators being limited to a handful of approved Chinese residents. During the 2008 Summer Games, Beijing's smog, energy-intensive and water-depleting construction were subjects of widespread debate and scrutiny from Chinese and international groups. There have been few external assessments of sustainability for Beijing 2022, according to Washington Post. (ANI)
Moscow [Russia] January 21 (ANI/Sputnik): Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Friday that during his visit to Moscow, the agreements on expanding defence and space cooperation were reached. "During this visit, good talks were also held on the expansion of defence, aerospace and space cooperation, and it was decided that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Petroleum, as the head of the Iranian side of the Joint Economic Commission, will implement the agreements reached between the two countries," Raisi said in a statement published on the website of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Raisi arrived in Moscow on Wednesday on a two-day state visit, which included the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The presidents discussed a raft of issues ranging from bilateral cooperation and implementation of joint projects in the trade and economic sphere to current international and regional topics and the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program. Raisi also visited the Russian Lower House, the State Duma, on Thursday, where he attended a plenary session discussed bilateral parliamentary relations and new formats of cooperation with State Duma's chairman Vyacheslav Volodin. (ANI/Sputnik)
Terrorism is again rearing its head in Pakistan due to 'flawed' policies of the country's Prime Minister Imran Khan, said former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif on Friday. This rebuke comes in the wake of a blast in Lahore's Anarkali area which caused the death of three people and injury to several others. "I condemn the Lahore blast and pray for the recovery of the injured. Owing to wrong policies of (prime minister) Imran Khan terrorism has again reared its head in the country," the PML-N leader said in a tweet from London where he has been living since November 2019. Pakistan's opposition senators on Friday sought an explanation from Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed over the recent terrorist incidents in the country, including the blast in Lahore on Thursday. During Friday's session, the opposition urged Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani to suspend routine proceedings and debate the country's law and order situation in the wake of the Lahore blast and the killing of a policeman in Islamabad during a shootout, Dawn newspaper reported. Earlier on Thursday, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz condemned the blast while taking aim at the Imran Khan government. "Three died and dozens injured in a bomb blast in Lhr today and guess what @ImranKhanPTI is talking about in his propaganda cell meeting? Sharifs! What is next? Blaming the victims for the tragedy," Maryam tweeted. The continuous surge in attacks by the TTP speaks of a monumental failure of the Imran Khan government's policy which experts believe have encouraged extremisim in the country. Analysts say that the Pakistani state wilfully refused to gauge the extent of affinity between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP and what could transpire in the event of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan. (ANI)
"As discussed below, the US Department of Transportation (the Department) is further modifying the decision reached in Order 2020-6-1 in order to respond to recent actions by Chinese authorities impairing the operating rights of three US carriers... In the circumstances presented, we have determined to suspend forty-four (44) US to China passenger flight segments," the US Department of Transportation said in an official order on Friday.

The suspended flights to China begin on January 30 and include flights from the carriers Xiamen Airlines, China Southern Airlines Company and Air China, the order added.

China recently cancelled some US flights bound to their country due to a surge of passengers testing positive for the COVID-19.

The Civil Aviation Authority of China as of January 19 has suspended 44 passenger flight segments to China by US carriers despite repeated objections from the Biden administration, according to the order. (ANI)
Yemen's Houthi group reported on Friday that the death toll in an airstrike launched by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition on a temporary prison in Yemen has risen to 77.

An airstrike on telecommunications facilities in Hodeidah has also significantly disrupted vital internet services across much of Yemen, added the spokesman, said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman, in a statement.

"The secretary-general reminds all parties that attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited by international humanitarian law. He further reminds all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure that civilians are protected against the dangers arising from military operations, adhering to the principles of proportionality, distinction and precaution," said the statement.

Guterres calls for prompt, effective and transparent investigations into these incidents to ensure accountability, and for urgent de-escalation of the situation, it said.

The secretary-general urges the parties to engage with his special envoy for Yemen to advance the political process and to reach a negotiated settlement to end the conflict in Yemen, it said.

Recalling the severe humanitarian crisis in Yemen, Guterres urges donors and all other stakeholders to enable humanitarian relief efforts with adequate funding, access and other support, said the statement. (ANI)
A Taliban delegation is set to visit Norway's capital city of Oslo on Saturday to discuss several issues with the country's officials and representatives of the international community. Norway has invited representatives of the Taliban to Oslo on January 23-25 for meetings with the Norwegian authorities and other Afghan figures from a range of fields within civil society. "We are extremely concerned about the grave situation in Afghanistan, where millions of people are facing a full-blown humanitarian disaster. In order to be able to help the civilian population in Afghanistan, it is essential that both the international community and Afghans from various parts of society engage in dialogue with the Taliban," said Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs Anniken Huitfeldt. "We will be clear about our expectations of the Taliban, particularly as regards girls' education and human rights, such as women's right to participate in society," she added. In Oslo, the Taliban will meet representatives of the Norwegian authorities and officials from a number of allied countries. In a press statement, Norway's Foreign Ministry said meetings will also take place between the Taliban delegation and other Afghans with backgrounds from a range of fields. These include women leaders, journalists, and individuals working to safeguard human rights and address humanitarian, economic, social and political issues, the statement added. "These meetings do not represent a legitimisation or recognition of the Taliban. But we must talk to the de facto authorities in the country. We cannot allow the political situation to lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster," Huitfeldt said. Afghanistan is contending with drought, a pandemic, an economic collapse and the effects of years of conflict. Some 24 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity. Reports indicate that one million children could die of starvation. According to UN estimates, more than half of the population will be facing famine this winter, and 97 per cent of the population could fall below the poverty line this year. Earlier this week, a Norwegian delegation visited Kabul for talks on the dire humanitarian situation in the country. (ANI)
Berlin [Germany], January 22 (ANI/Sputnik): The new German government is continuing to pursue the previous cabinet's policy on the non-supply of weapons to Ukraine and reaffirms its commitment to the idea, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday. "The federal government has a clear position on arms exports, position of continuity, position that the government has pursued over the recent years: we do not support the export of lethal weapons from Germany," Scholz told the press following a cabinet meeting. He added that Berlin has been actively working toward a de-escalation of the situation around Ukraine and urged Moscow to reduce its military presence on the border. The chancellor further expressed the hope that security in Europe will be based on the principle of territorial integrity and inviolability of states' sovereignty in the future. At the same time, Scholz said that Germany was preparing to take appropriate measures in the event of a military escalation of conflict. Tensions around Ukraine have intensified over the past several months after Russia was accused of a troop build-up near the Ukrainian border and allegedly preparing for an invasion. Moscow has denied the accusations, pointing to NATO's military activity near Russian borders, which it deems a threat to its national security. Russia has also said it has the right to move its forces within its own territory. (ANI/Sputnik)
Each year, thousands of women cross state lines to have an abortion in Illinois  and that number could grow exponentially as pending U.S. Supreme Court decisions and new laws in various states challenge reproductive rights across large swaths of the nation.

But women traveling here to terminate a pregnancy will have a new resource designed to make the process easier: Two southern Illinois abortion providers have partnered to create one centralized location where patients can get assistance with travel needs like finding transportation, booking lodging and setting up child care.

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The Regional Logistics Center is operated jointly by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Hope Clinic for Women, an abortion clinic just over the Missouri border in Granite City. Designated case managers there can arrange travel, connect patients with financial assistance, help them find a place to stay and overcome other common logistical barriers to accessing abortion, particularly when traveling long distances.

The Regional Logistics Center is operated jointly by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Hope Clinic for Women, seen in June 2019, a clinic in Granite City, Illinois. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

The center  which is housed in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights  opened Friday, just before the 49th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion rights case Roe v. Wade on Saturday.

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At a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center on Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker called the project lifesaving and life-changing work.

With reproductive rights under attack across the United States, its never been more vital for the state of Illinois to ensure access to reproductive services, he said. On the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we all thought we would be vigorously celebrating this important milestone. Instead, we are forced to contend with the possibility that there may not be a 50th anniversary of this fundamental right.

The centers launch comes at a time when abortion rights are under fire across the country: Some reproductive rights advocates fear this might be the last anniversary of Roe where the near five-decades-old ruling is still the law of the land, as state measures and court decisions increasingly chip away at the right to terminate a pregnancy.

Together, were breaking down the silos anti-abortion politicians created and proving that in community, with innovation and determination, we can secure a future with abortion access, said Yamelsie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region.

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised midyear to rule on one of its most significant abortion cases in history: Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health will determine the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion past 15 weeks gestation  and potentially challenge Roe, which established the right to terminate a pregnancy in 1973, limiting state restrictions on the procedure prior to fetal viability.

Illinois has long been considered an abortion rights haven in the Midwest, surrounded by states with more restrictions on the procedure such as mandatory wait times, gestational limits and tighter regulations on providers.

If Roe were to fall, abortion rights advocates predict that roughly half of states across the country would severely limit or ban the procedure. Many of those states are in the Midwest, including each one that neighbors Illinois.

In 2019, more than 7,500 out-of-state women traveled here to have an abortion, constituting about 16% of all terminated pregnancies statewide, according to the most recent Illinois Department of Public Health data. The number of women traveling here from other states has increased every year since 2014.

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An October report by Reproductive Health Services predicted that if Roe were to fall, southern Illinois abortion providers could in the first year see some 14,000 more patients from outside their service area.

A nurse practitioner works in an office at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights, Illinois, on Oct. 29, 2021. (Jeff Roberson / AP)

The Planned Parenthood affiliate and Hope Clinic have already invested $10 million for additional staffing, infrastructure and clinical capacity to prepare for a post-Roe reality, according to the report.

The states distinction as an oasis for reproductive freedom has long been considered an embarrassment to organizations that oppose abortion.

A recent post on the Illinois Right to Life website encouraged supporters to keep praying that the court overturns Roe.

But the message also urged Illinoisans to remember that while the prospect of Roe being overturned is great news for much of America, it puts Illinois and, for that matter, the entire Midwest, in a precarious spot.

Because of Illinois radical, pro-abortion laws, not only will it remain business as usual for the abortion industry here in our state, thousands upon thousands more women will cross our border to have the lives of their children ended here, the website said. We must act now to stop this disaster from unfolding.

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Enormous influx

The new center in southern Illinois has been in the works for several years, as the two local abortion providers saw an increasing number of patients coming from other neighboring states, many with ever-tightening abortion regulations.

In September, a Texas law went into effect prohibiting abortions as early as about six weeks gestation, before many women even know theyre pregnant, all but banning the procedure in the nations second-largest state.

Dr. Erin King, executive director of the Hope Clinic for Women, said her clinic now sees several patients who travel from Texas every week, as well as more women coming from other southern states likely due to a ripple effect from the void of abortion access in Texas.

She described one patient she saw earlier this month: The woman found out she was pregnant on a Wednesday, made the appointment on Friday and flew in on Saturday to have a medication abortion at Hope Clinic. The same day, she flew back to Texas, King recalled.

And that was her first trip on a plane, ever, King said. If she had not lived in Texas  most of the visit could have happened over the phone, like a telemedicine visit, or a short trip via gynecologist. I think what is so hard for people to understand is that this is care that shouldnt take all of this coordination and all of this funding. 

Since mid-December, King said her clinic has treated 20% more patients than anticipated, many from out of state.

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Weve just seen this enormous influx of patients coming from farther and farther away, she said. Were seeing a lot more patients in the last month needing help with travel, help with funding, all the things the Regional Logistics Center focuses on. Weve been moving in this direction for a couple of years. But weve seen this need increase exponentially in the last month.

Several years ago, Pritzker pledged to make Illinois the most progressive state in the nation when it comes to standing up for womens reproductive rights. In 2019, he signed the Reproductive Health Act, which established the procedure as a fundamental right for women in Illinois.

Pritzker earlier this month donated $100,000 from his campaign to the Personal PAC Independent Committee, whose purpose is preserving reproductive rights in Illinois by making independent expenditures to elect pro-choice candidates to state and local office, according to campaign finance documents.

Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, noted the pivotal role of abortion rights in Illinois amid the increasingly restrictive Midwest.

Illinois is an incredibly important state for access, she said. Illinois is surrounded by states that have worked to really limit access to care.

Based on need

The center will help connect abortion patients with various resources to help with everything from paying for the procedure to travel costs to finding a place to stay overnight, all of which can be difficult to figure out quickly for a time-sensitive procedure.

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One of those resources is the Chicago Abortion Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial, emotional and logistical support to do whatever it takes to make sure people can get to their appointments, said Megan Jeyifo, executive director.

She said the need for assistance has skyrocketed in just a few years. In 2018, the nonprofit served 183 people. In 2021, that number went up to roughly 3,000. The organization spent about $500,000 on abortion funding and support in 2021, roughly nine times the amount spent in 2018, she said.

It was a very quick increase, pretty fast, but definitely based on need, she said.

Most folks the nonprofit serves come from other states, primarily Missouri and Indiana, as well as others in the Midwest, she said. But recently the Chicago Abortion Fund has been getting more calls from Texans, she said.

Destigmatizing abortion is a really critical component, said Jeyifo, adding that her own abortion experiences have informed her work with the nonprofit.

She said she had to navigate parental consent laws for her first abortion and then had to travel for her second abortion.

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I think about what it took for me to travel, she said. I make really clear to the callers that the difficulty you face in accessing an abortion has nothing to do with the morality of an abortion. Its a systemic failure in this country. Abortion is health care.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com
The members of the UN Security Council on Friday strongly condemned Monday's "heinous terrorist attacks" in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as in other sites in Saudi Arabia. The attacks, claimed by the Houthi militia, killed three people and injured six others. The three killed included two Indian nationals. In a statement, the members of the Security Council expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims of the Houthi attacks and to the governments of India and Pakistan, and they wished a speedy and full recovery to those who were injured. The council members reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. They stressed the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice, and urged all states to cooperate actively with the UAE government and all other relevant authorities in this regard. The council members reiterated that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed. They reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. (ANI)
All four persons found dead on the Canada side of the US-Canada border by the RCMP on Thursday were a Gujarati family. They were part of a group of people being smuggled into the US from Canada as part of a wider human smuggling operation. The deceased were a man, a woman, an infant and a teen boy. All four died from frostbites. Their bodies were located about 12 metres inside Canada from the US-Canada border, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP said its officers launched search operations after they were told by the US Customs and Border Protection about the arrest of a group of people who had crossed into the US from Canada. The US agents told the RCMP that they have stopped a 15-passenger van about 1 km from the international border and found two undocumented Indian nationals (Gujaratis) in it. The van's 47-year-old driver, Steve Shand of Florida, was arrested and charged with human smuggling. At the same time, five more Indians -- all Gujarati speaking -- were arrested not far from where the van was stopped by the US border agents. The five told the investigators that they walked across the border from Canada to the US as they were to be picked up by someone. One of them revealed that he fraudulently got a student visa from India to come to Canada and then enter the US. Among the five, a man and a woman suffered frostbites and were both taken to hospital. Because of her severe frostbite, the woman was airlifted to another hospital where she may have her hand amputated. All the seven Indians (two found in the smuggler's van and five arrested ) were found wearing same kind of clothes -- black winter coats with fur-trimmed hoods, black gloves, black balaclavas and insulated rubber boots -- provided by the human smuggler, Steve Shand, according to documents filed against him in the US District Court in Minnesota. US authorities believe Shand is part of a wider human smuggling network as three such incidents -- on December 12, December 22, 2021 and January 12 -- were reported from the same area from where he was arrested. --IANS gurmukh/arm ( 378 Words) 2022-01-21-22:08:01 (IANS)
LEVITTOWN, Pa.  Three Pennsylvania police officers were fired Thursday after being charged this week in the death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility.

Fanta was killed in August when officers fired dozens of shots at a car moving through a crowd after gunfire broke out near a high school football game.

The Sharon Hill Borough Council voted 6-1 Thursday to fire Brian Devaney, 41; Sean Dolan, 25; and Devon Smith, 33. The vote sparked outbursts from the crowd at the meeting.

The firing comes after District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer announced Tuesday that a Delaware County grand jury had recommended charges of voluntary manslaughter, manslaughter and reckless endangerment for the Aug. 27 shooting

Bail was set at $500,000, unsecured, for each officer and a preliminary hearing was set for Jan. 27 in Springfield District Court.

The entire Borough grieves for Fanta Bility and we again convey our deepest sympathies to her family and everyone affected by the shooting," Council President Tanya Allen said in a statement released after the vote. "Now that the grand jury has concluded its investigation, and given the serious charges issued by the District Attorney, we are able to move forward with measures that will hold the officers accountable.

Fanta Bility

How did the shooting happen?

Fanta was killed Aug. 27 when police opened fire while responding to a shooting that sent spectators, players and coaches scrambling for cover after a high school football game in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania.

The game had just finished between Pennsbury and Academy Park high schools. About a block away, an argument between a group of young men escalated into a gunfire as the crowd exited the stadium, authorities said. Two shots were fired in the direction of the police officers, who were near the stadium's exit.

"The police officers then discharged their service weapons in the direction of the Academy Park football field," the Delaware County District Attorney's Office said.

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In this photo provided by the Delaware County District Attorney's Office on Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022, Sharon Hill Police officers Brian Devaney, left, Sean Dolan, and Devon Smith are shown. The three police officers have been charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment after firing their weapons into a crowd of people exiting a high school football game outside of Philadelphia, killing 8-year-old Fanta Bility and injuring three people.

Police fired 25 shots at a car that was driving past the stadium and hit four people  including Fanta and her 12-year-old sister. Investigators later determined the vehicle was not involved in the nearby shooting.

"They picked the wrong target, they shot in the wrong direction at it, and they shot as that target was moving through a crowd of people. And that is why Fanta Bility is dead," Stollsteimer said on Tuesday.

The three officers were equipped with body cameras, but Devaney was not wearing his that night and Dolan and Smith did not turn on their cameras, according to court documents.

Charges against teenagers dropped after protests

Although prosecutors initially said police likely fired the fatal shots, the teenagers involved in the initial fight were charged with first-degree murder in connection with Fanta's death in November.

An investigation later confirmed that police were responsible for killing Fanta and injuring three others. Stollsteimer said Tuesday that murder charges related to Fanta's death were dropped against the two teenagers, a 16-year-old and Hasein Strand, 19.

While I believe these defendants should be held accountable for starting the series of events that ultimately led to Fanta Bilitys death, developments during the grand jury investigation render it appropriate to withdraw these charges at this time, Stollsteimer said in a written statement.

Last week, activists and civil rights lawyers excoriated Stollsteimer over what they called his disparate treatment of the two Black teenagers  who faced charges that could put them away for life  and officers who fired their guns in an area crowded with people.

Stollsteimer said the officers were charged with manslaughter, not third-degree murder, because there was no evidence of malice.

FILE - Protesters call for police accountability in the death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility who was shot outside a football game, at the Delaware County Courthouse in Media, Pa., Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. Three police officers have been charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment after firing their weapons into a crowd of people exiting a high school football game outside of Philadelphia, killing Bility and injuring three people. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) ORG XMIT: PAMR101

The protest came on the day the teen faced a hearing in the case, which was postponed.

On Tuesday, Strand pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for his role in wounding one of the children and to illegal possession of a firearm. He will serve between 32 and 64 months in prison, according to the district attorney's office.

The 16-year-old is still facing charges for his attempt to kill Strand," according to the release.

Contributing: Jo Ciavaglia, Bucks Country Courier Times; The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Fanta Bility death: 3 Pennsylvania police officers fired after charges
Whats tragic about the U.S. Senates failure to alter the filibuster rule in order to advance the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act is not that two of 50 Democratic senators voted against it.

Whats tragic is that there were not two Republican senators willing to vote for it.

Not two Republicans out of 50 willing to protect and expand voter protections. Not two Republicans willing to restore some of the anti-discriminatory authority of the original 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, Democrats, contributed to that failure. And they should be ashamed, particularly Sinema, who often boasted of her support for the act.

Another view: Sinema really should become an independent now

But the most disheartening aspect of what went on in Washington is that all 50 Republican senators turned their backs on an attempt to protect the most fundamental right of citizenship: the vote.

A 'tidal wave' of voter suppression

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who led the fight against protections for voting rights.

As it is, Republican-controlled state legislatures, like Arizonas, have been passing voter suppression laws that make it more difficult to vote in person and by mail; that make it easier to remove voters from the rolls; that reduce the days allowed for voting; that add roadblocks to registration; that reduce the number of polling places, and more.

This in addition to the blatant gerrymandering of congressional districts that has gone on all across the nation.

The Lewis Act would have restored a portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required places that had a history of voting discrimination to receive approval from the Justice Department or federal court before making changes.

It would have protected early voting and expanded voter registration. It also contained provisions to provide protection for local election officials, many of whom were harassed after the 2020 election. And it had restrictions on gerrymandering.

The Brennan Center for Justice researched and described much of what it called a tidal wave of restricting voting legislation.

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Is it racist? Consider McConnell's answer

Most of those state-level bills will now go into effect. Simply put, its a way to rig elections through the law. And all 50 Republican senators went along with it.

Is it racist?

You tell me.

Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked if minority voters had a reason to be concerned about voter suppression.

McConnell said, Well, the concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.

Many, many, MANY of McConnells fellow citizens took to Twitter and other forms of social media to explain to the senator from Kentucky that Black people are Americans.

Mary Trump, the niece and frequent critic of former President Donald Trump, responded with a quote by Nobel Prize winning Black author Toni Morrison, who said, In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

For more opinions content, please subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 50 Republican senators, not just Sinema and Manchin, killed democracy
Susan Sweetman

Facebook

A recent skydiving trip in Florida turned tragic for a 65-year-old woman after she reportedly encountered issues with her equipment while in freefall.

According to WINK, the body of a New Jersey resident  identified by authorities as Susan Sweetman  was recovered on the grounds of Airglades Airport in Hendry County on Saturday afternoon after witnesses said she had problems with her parachute while skydiving.

The owner of skydiving company Skydive Spaceland told WBBH that Sweetman was an experienced skydiver who was using her own equipment during the fatal jump.

The Hendry County Sheriff's Office did not immediately return PEOPLE's request for comment on Thursday.

"She was kind of a Swiss Army knife of skydiving," a friend of Sweetman told WINK, adding that she was a record-holding skydiver and whether she was jumping competitively or just for fun, "she would do it well."

RELATED: 2 'Experienced' Skydivers Killed in Separate Accidents in California and Pennsylvania

Susan Sweetman

Facebook

In a statement to PEOPLE, a Skydive Spaceland representative said the company was "deeply saddened" by Saturday's accident.

"Skydive Spaceland Clewiston is deeply saddened to report that on Jan. 15, experienced skydiver Sue Sweetman of Hainesport, NJ, suffered a fatal accident on her second skydive of the day," the company said.

"Following a successful, uneventful 7-person skydive, she had a problem with her primary parachute," they added. "She released it very low to the ground and did not activate her backup parachute. Weather was not a factor."

RELATED: Calif. Skydiver Injured After Getting Tangled in Power Lines

Sweetman's also equipment appeared to be in working condition, according to the company.

"At 65 years of age, Sue was a very active skydiver who had reported 6790 previous skydives," Skydive Spaceland continued in their statement. "Our hearts go out to all who knew and loved Sue. Her joyful attitude will be greatly missed."

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RELATED VIDEO: 2-Month-Old Baby Dies of Kentucky Tornado Injuries After Being Flung from Bathroom by Winds

According to the United States Parachute Association, there were nearly 3 million skydiving jumps performed at USPA-affiliated skydiving centers across the country in 2020. Of those, only 11 deaths were recorded by the organization with a rate of 0.39 fatalities per 100,000 jumps.

Sweetman's death is still under investigation, WINK reported.
FALL RIVER  Day in and day out, Tony Abreu and volunteers at Angels Anonymous work tirelessly to lift up Fall River residents in need.

And those efforts have not gone unnoticed.

They've even caught the attention of the New England Patriots, which recently honored Abreu, a founding member of the city nonprofit, for his dedication to improving the quality of life for those living in the SouthCoast.

In December, Abreu joined 17 honorees from across the region in being named a 2021 Patriots Difference Maker of the Week for going "above and beyond to support nonprofit organizations in our New England communities."

As part of this recognition, the New England Patriots Foundation presented Angels Anonymous in Fall River with a $5,000 donation to bolster its community service efforts.

This service includes their regular monthly food pantry, as well as neighborhood cleanups, community restoration projects, charitable drives, holiday assistance, LGBTQ events and more.

'Do something great': How an elderly British man inspired Swansea brothers to raise $10k for local 'superheroes'

Im honored to be recognized," said Abreu, in a news release from the foundation. "Im only able to do this work with the support of the Angels Anonymous board of directors, our volunteers, and donors. I believe that one must not just live in a community and take from it what one needs but, must give back to the community in order for the community to grow and flourish.

Abreu has dedicated thousands of hours to Angels Anonymous since coming on as board member on Day One. Utilizing his professional skills as a chef, he created the mobile food pantry.

They started small, distributing food at local parks for those in need, before securing a permanent location at 231 Weaver St., Fall River, and becoming a member agency of the Greater Boston Food Bank two years later.

With the help of the food bank and other donors, the Angels Anonymous food pantry now serves 600 families each month.

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According to their Facebook page, 2021 was a particularly busy year for Angels Anonymous amid the pandemic. Last year, the nonprofit distributed over 600,000 pounds of food and supplies to over 35,000 folks in the SouthCoast.

Betty White Challenge: Bristol Aggie student makes blankets for Fall River's Forever Paws

As families faced economic struggles due to COVID, pantry doors remained open and Abreu facilitated safe, contactless pickups. In November, the pantry provided 500 Thanksgiving meals to local families. Abreu was also involved with the creation of Miracle on Weaver Street, a free holiday event benefiting 300 families.

Hunger is a huge problem in New England and we must all work together towards ending any food insecurities and putting an end to hungry bellies, Abreu said. The goal of any good food pantry is to be put out of business and win the war on hunger.

This past fall, Angels Anonymous also received a citation from Mayor Paul Coogan in recognition of the organization's accomplishments in combatting food insecurity in Fall River by providing free groceries at city events over the summer.

The Patriots Difference Maker of the Week Award, now in its 11th year, is part of the foundations Celebrate Volunteerism initiative aimed at educating fans about the need for volunteering and highlighting deserving volunteers from across the region.

In addition to $5,000 donations to support each organization represented by honorees, Abreu and his fellow award recipients also took part in a year-end virtual celebration with Patriots owner Robert Kraft and other members of the foundation to personally congratulate them on their accomplishments.

Each of these honorees has their own unique story of community service and we are proud to shine a light on the tremendous work they are doing," said Josh Kraft, president of the New England Patriots Foundation, in a press release. "We would like to thank all of this years Patriots Difference Makers for helping to build stronger New England communities.

Abreu wasn't the only SouthCoast honoree.

Richard Jacobs of Dartmouth was dubbed 2021 Patriots Difference Maker of the Year for his work with Angel Flight Northeast, which was awarded a $20,000 donation.

'To save one life is to save the world': Dartmouth pilot surpasses 800 medical flights

Volunteer pilots like Jacobs offer their services free of charge to ensure that distance is never an obstacle for patients who need life-saving medical care. Jacobs has been with the organization since its inception 25 years ago, completing more than 800 flights. He is always on call and is ready to donate his time, aviation fuel and airplane to help those in need, a release from the New England Patriots Foundation states.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Abreu honored for work with Fall River's Angels Anonymous food pantry
By Mrinalika Roy and Manojna Maddipatla

(Reuters) -The World Health Organization on Friday recommended extending the use of a reduced dosage of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine to children aged 5 to 11 years old.

The recommendation comes after the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on immunisation held a meeting on Wednesday to evaluate the vaccine. It is currently recommended for use in people aged 12 years and above.

The recommended dosage for the younger population is 10 micrograms instead of 30 micrograms offered to those 12 years and older.

"This age group (5-11) is in the lowest priority use group for vaccination except, for children who have co-morbidities," SAGE chairman Alejandro Cravioto said at a briefing.

Pfizer/BioNTech shots have already been authorised for use in the age group in several countries including the United States, Canada, Israel, and the European Union.

The WHO's vaccine director, Kate O'Brien, said no safety concerns were raised for application of Pfizer's vaccine in 5 to 11 years old in clinical trials.

The panel also recommended that booster doses of Pfizer's vaccine should be administered 4 months to 6 months after the completion of the primary series, in high-priority groups like older adults and health workers.

Countries with moderate to high vaccination rates should prioritise available vaccine supply to first achieve high booster dose coverage in higher risk groups before offering vaccine doses to lower risk groups.

"Increase in booster dose coverage for high risk priority groups will usually yield greater reduction in severe disease and deaths than use of equivalent vaccine to increase primary vaccination coverage," Cravioto added.

Cravioto said the revised roadmap for prioritisation for COVID vaccines took into account the increasing availability of vaccines, current coverage and the circulation of variants of concern.

The panel said the recommendation for use of Pfizer's booster dose was only for certain priority groups and that it was not endorsing "unfettered" use in all ages.

"We simply don't have evidence yet on the need for or the evidence on the performance of boosters (in children below 12 years of age)," O'Brien said.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy and Manojna Maddipatla in BengaluruEditing by Mark Heinrich and Alison Williams)
Chicagos infamous El Rukn street gang operated out of this heavily fortified former movie theater called the fort in the 3900 block of South Drexel Boulevard in the 1980s. (Chicago Tribune archive)

A former general in Chicagos infamous El Rukn street gang who was at the center of a stunning plot with Libya to commit terrorist acts in exchange for cash has been ordered released from federal prison due to a terminal illness.

Melvin Mayes, 64, had been serving three life sentences at a medical prison facility in North Carolina stemming from his conviction in a massive racketeering conspiracy case that included large-scale drug trafficking, contract murders and other violence.

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Mayes was also deeply involved in the alleged $2.5 million terror deal with Libya, negotiating the purchase of shoulder-fired rockets and even helping arrange a phone call between then-dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi and imprisoned El Rukn boss Jeff Fort in March 1986, according to federal court records.

Mayes began petitioning the court for his compassionate release nearly two years ago due to chronic hypercapnic and hypoxemic respiratory failure, a progressive condition that requires around-the-clock supplemental oxygen and has confined him to a wheelchair. Doctors have given him only months to live.

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Prosecutors had opposed the move on technical grounds relating to sentencing laws. But in an order posted Thursday, U.S. District Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said Mayes attorney had shown extraordinary and compelling circumstances that favor compassionate release.

Mayess terminal illness defines his day-to-day life, Pallmeyer wrote. He can no longer care for himself independently and has no realistic prospect of recovery  Given his debilitating condition, Mayes appears to pose a minimal risk of future criminal behavior.

Pallmeyer ordered Mayes life sentence be converted to time served as of Feb. 15. He plans to live with his sister and her husband in suburban Chicago, where theyve arranged for hospice services, court records show.

Mayes attorney, Richard McLeese, declined to comment Friday.

Mayes pending release marked yet another twist in the saga of the El Rukns, a ruthless and insular gang co-founded by Fort in the 1970s that operated under cover of a so-called religious organization out of a heavily fortified former movie theater that once stood near Pershing Road and Drexel Avenue.

Mayes was among 65 members of the gang indicted for racketeering conspiracy in 1989 in a wave of prosecutions that ultimately brought down Forts organization.

At the time he was charged, Mayes was a fugitive, having disappeared after he was indicted in August 1986 on charges of negotiating to buy armor-piercing LAW rockets as part of the gangs plot to commit terrorist acts in the U.S. for Libya.

Fort, who was still running the gang from prison in Texas, and four other El Rukn associates were also charged in the Libya plot. A jury convicted them in 1987, while Mayes was still on the run, court records show.

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Jeff Fort, center, reputed leader of the El Rukn street gang, enters the Criminal Court Building on Feb. 18, 1982, in Chicago. (Ernie Cox Jr./Chicago Tribune)

At that trial, the governments star witness, longtime El Rukn associate Tramell Davis, testified that Mayes was talking to Fort one day in March 1986 when another phone rang at the gangs South Side headquarters.

It was Gadhafi, the man the gang referred to in code as their young friend, Davis testified. Mayes hooked his phone up to a speaker system and arranged a crude three-way call so Fort could speak to Gadhafi from prison in Texas.

Salame alekum, Fort allegedly said to Gadhafi, an Arabic greeting meaning peace be with you, according to Davis testimony.

The FBI stumbled onto the plot later that month after getting court authorization to wiretap telephones at the El Rukn headquarters as part of an investigation into a drug ring that Fort was running from prison.

Instead of narcotics, however, agents heard Fort and others talking about Libya, which at the time was engaged in an armed conflict with U.S. forces over the countrys terrorist ties. A federal terrorism task force was called in to set up a sting to try to catch El Rukn members attempting to buy rockets and explosives, according to trial testimony.

In early August 1986, Mayes and fellow El Rukn lieutenant Alan Knox bought an M-72 light antitank rocket from an undercover FBI agent in a hotel room in suburban Lansing. They also ordered a crate of hand grenades, flak jackets, night binoculars and five more rockets, according to a Tribune report.

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Five days later, agents executed a search warrant at an El Rukn-owned building on South Kenwood Avenue where they found the rocket in a hollowed-out stairwell, along with 33 automatic and semi-automatic weapons and three hand grenades, the Tribune reported.

Davis also helped prosecutors translate coded telephone conversations in which Fort and Mayes could be heard discussing ideas on how to use the weaponry to their advantage, according to Tribune reports.

In one recording, Mayes proposed testing the antitank rocket on a veteran Chicago police sergeant who had been investigating gang crimes in Chicago for decades, according to Davis testimony.

Fort could be heard laughing with Mayes as he talked about how he would like to canvass the sergeant  an El Rukn code word for murder, the Tribune reported.

In another coded conversation, Mayes could be heard saying, Theyll hear like they be in manifest in the science of up and the last words. Davis explained Mayes meant the gang was planning to blow up an airplane and make sure Gadhafi knew the El Rukns were responsible, according to Tribune reports.

Mayes, who fled to Libya after his indictment, was arrested in a South Side apartment in 1995 after nearly nine years on the run.

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He was convicted at trial a year later on charges including conspiracy to murder four members of the rival King Cobras gang and also arranging a contract hit on a man in South Carolina. He was sentenced to life in 1998 by U.S. District Judge James Zagel.

Fort, 74, is serving a 168-year sentence for his various convictions. Hes currently being held at the Supermax prison facility in Florence, Colorado, records show.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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
When it comes to the 2022 Academy Awards, Amy Poehler may be the woman for the job.

Amid the recent announcement that the Oscars telecast will have a host for the first time since 2018, the Saturday Night Live alum wouldnt mind being considered.

Many boldfaced names  including Steve Martin and Martin Short, and even Pete Davidson  have been floated as hypothetical candidates for the high-wattage gig.

When Poehler was asked if she had any interest in accepting the gig, she didnt rule it out.

A four-time Golden Globe Awards co-host (alongside her friend and fellow Saturday Night Live alum Tina Fey), she told Variety how shed feel putting all that experience to use for the Oscars.

Oh, I think thats a different deal, the Parks & Recreation star said. Its an interesting time. So again, who knows what any of that stuff will...Everything feels like its truly in flux in every way.

Im open to all things, she furthered. I try to keep an open mind to all things.

The 50-year-old funnywoman directed a documentary about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend.
Dona Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart announces her intent to run for a second term on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, during a news conference in the Village of Dona Ana. During her speech, she used a rubber band to illustrate how government agencies will snap back to their previous state just like a rubber band if not for leaders who ensure that reforms stick.

LAS CRUCES - Kim Stewart is ready for round two.

The sheriff of Dona Ana County announced Thursday that she would seek a second term during a news conference in the Village of Dona Ana.

The announcement stages a democratic primary showdown between two long-time police officers. Late last year, former New Mexico State Police Captian James Frietze announced he would seek the sheriff's office in the upcoming 2022 election.

For Stewart, 69, running for a second term is about building up and overseeing the changes she put in place in her first three years, she told the Sun-News during an interview on Wednesday.

If re-elected, Stewart said she wants to focus on cementing the roles, responsibilities, and organizational structure of the sheriff's office. When she inherited the position, she said it was a mess.

"I spent the first year trying to clean up the problems of the past administration, trying to create an organization and a structure where, frankly, none existed," she said.

Additionally, Stewart said she wanted to continue to expand training opportunities for deputies and work to maintain DASO's low rate of turnover.

Unlike other departments in the state and across the country, DASO has not seen a significant decrease in police officers. Stewart attributes this fact to a work environment that prioritizes mental health and provides officers an opportunity for training and advancement.

During her announcement speech Thursday, Stewart emphasized the role community partnerships have played in her term as sheriff so far, such as with the Village of Dona Ana.

She pointed to a tip that DASO deputies received from a Dona Ana resident last month. The tipster reported a suspicious vehicle parked in his neighborhood with a man inside. When deputies confronted the man, he rammed two DASO SUVs and led deputies on a chase out of Dona Ana and into Las Cruces.

Dona Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart announces her intent to run for a second term during a news conference Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, in the Village of Dona Ana.

The man was subsequently arrested. He's facing state and federal charges. Stewart said that that sort of tip only comes when communities feel like they can work with law enforcement.

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"You know your community, you know what you need," she said during her speech.

Winding path

Born in California, Stewart began her professional life as a wildland firefighter in Orange county. She graduated from the University of California Irvine in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in history. She told the Sun-News that she wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a lawyer.

But before going into a graduate or professional program, Stewart said she wanted to take some time away from school.

"I was living in a remote canyon in California that was burned every other year," Stewart said. "I was constantly busy."

While working as a firefighter, Stewart said that an Orange County Sheriff's deputy planted the seed in her mind that she might one day become a police officer. Unlike many who become police officers, Stewart did not have immediate family in the profession. But she did have a mother who practiced law and she said that was her foot in the door to becoming interested in a career involving justice.

Dona Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart announces her intent to run for a second term during a news conference Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, in the Village of Dona Ana.

Despite her interest in the field, Stewart said that sexist beliefs and policies could've prevented her from becoming a police officer. But after waves of lawsuits in the 1960s and 1970s, departments in California such as the Los Angles Police Department and Los Angels County Sherriff's department were forced by court order to hire more women and allow them to perform the same roles as men.

"A lot of small agencies thought 'Well, you know, if LA sheriffs can be hit with a court order, we can too," Stewart said. "I thought, 'Well, let me try this out. Let me see how my personality jives with this.'"

The rest was history  literally.

Throughout her career, Stewart often found herself as the first woman hired as a police officer in that department. Even in Dona Ana County, Stewart is the first and so far the only woman to ever hold the position of sheriff.

More: Dona Ana County sheriff candidate helped link victims to Golden State Killer

Stewart was also involved as a plaintiff in multiple discrimination and civil rights violation lawsuits throughout her career, including in Dona Ana County in 2015.

At the 2015 trial, she testified that before her firing in January 2011, she had been subjected to months of retaliation by county managers for investigating complaints of racial discrimination within the animal control and codes enforcement department.

Following the trial, a Dona Ana County jury found that county officials had violated Stewart's rights under the state's Human Rights Act and Whistleblowers Protection Act and awarded her slightly more than $1.2 million in emotional distress and lost wages and benefits.

In 2016, Stewart and the county signed off on a $1.59 million settlement, according to county records.

In 2018, Stewart ran for sheriff for the first time, ousting the incumbent Enrique "Kiki" Vigil in the Democratic primary and Republican Todd Garrison, who was sheriff for 10 years before Vigil, in the general election.

When she won, Stewart became the first woman elected sheriff in the history of Dona Ana County and the first openly gay sheriff in the history of New Mexico.

Since taking office, Stewart has come into conflict with the county's administration again. During a news conference in January, she slammed the county manager for not allowing DASO staff to work from home and promised to defy his orders from staff to keep working in the building.

The running battle between sheriff and county manager is nothing new, Stewart said. As such, one of her priorities if re-elected would be to lobby the state legislature with the goal of convincing lawmakers to create clearer definitions of responsibilities between the managers and sheriffs.

But before any of that can happen, she's got to hold on to her seat. The democratic primary is on June 7, 2022.

Justin Garcia is a public safety reporter for the Las Cruces Sun-News. He can be reached at JEGarcia@lcsun-news.com or on Twitter @Just516garc.

Others are reading:

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Dona Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart to seek a second term
By Andrius Sytas and John O'Donnell

VILNIUS/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lithuania is under pressure from German companies to back down in a dispute with China to end a blockade of the Baltic state, as European trade officials struggle to defuse the row, people familiar with the matter said.

China has pressed multinationals to sever ties with Lithuania or face exclusion from its market, an unusually harsh move that has dragged companies into a political dispute and placed Beijing on a collision course with the European Union. [L1N2SU0G7]

The row erupted after the Baltic state allowed the opening of a de facto embassy by Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China views as part of its territory.

Some of the companies affected have asked Lithuania's political leaders to de-escalate the dispute or risk a corporate exodus, according to people involved and correspondence seen by Reuters.

Many multinationals are affected, but one of the most significant hits is to the German car sector.

In a letter to Lithuania's foreign and economy ministers, the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce said imports of Chinese machinery and parts and the sale of Lithuanian products to China had ground to a halt and that some firms may have to leave.

Urging the ministers to seek a "constructive solution" to restore relations with China, the chamber said "the basic business model of the companies is in question and some ... will have no other choice than to shut down production in Lithuania".

Last month, Lithuania's Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte met with business leaders, including executives from German car-parts giant Continental, to listen to their concerns, said one person who attended.

The overall damage to industry runs to hundreds of millions of euros, and she was told this would escalate if the dispute continues to interrupt global production, the person said.

This week, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda also held talks with business executives when he was urged to make an "immediate de-escalation," according to one person with knowledge of that discussion.

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The European Union's top trade official, Valdis Dombrovskis, is also attempting to mediate between Beijing and Vilnius, ahead of a possible EU-China summit meeting in the coming months, said a person with knowledge of the matter. Lithuania belongs to the 27-state bloc.

RENAMING

The focus of the dispute is the opening of a representative office by Taiwan in Vilnius, although tensions have mounted since Lithuania's ruling coalition agreed last year to support what it described as "those fighting for freedom" on the island.

Renaming the office to remove the word Taiwan could resolve the dispute. Taiwan has other offices in Europe and the United States but they use the name of the city Taipei, avoiding reference to the island itself.

But salvaging relations will be difficult.

"The Lithuanian government has betrayed Chinas trust," the Chinese foreign ministry told Reuters in a statement.

"For China-Lithuania relations to get back on track, Lithuania must first correct its attitude and take practical actions to correct its mistakes," said the ministry, denying that China was exerting economic pressure.

A spokesperson for the European Commission said it would resist "coercive measures", adding: "We stand by Lithuania. Lithuanian exports are EU exports."

The Commission said it was reaching out to China to resolve the situation and "collecting facts and evidence" to see if China was complying with international trade rules. "We will not hesitate to act to defend our rights," said the spokesperson.

So far, there is no sign of a climbdown by Lithuania, with its president telling the business meeting this week that it was up to Brussels, home of the European Commission, to find a solution.

While one Lithuanian official, asking not to be named, said Brussels' involvement as a go-between was critical, another said EU backing was half-hearted and that its officials too urged Lithuania to compromise.

'NO-GO ZONE'

China appeared to reject Brussels' involvement.

"Problems between China and Lithuania should and can only be solved through bilateral channels between China and Lithuania," said China's foreign ministry. "Linking China-Lithuania issues to China-EU relations is ... unlikely to solve the problem."

The stand-off threatens Lithuanian industry, which has built up clusters of factories making parts destined for overseas, such as furniture, clothing, car parts and lasers. Hundreds of containers of goods and parts are in limbo.

It has rippled through global supply chains and, in the case of Continental, has had knock-on effects on customers such as luxury carmaker BMW and Volkswagen, two of the people said.

Volkswagen said its production is not affected, while BMW and Continental declined to comment.

"Lithuania has become a no-go zone in China," said Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

"European companies cannot register it as a country of origin for products they are selling here. It's been taken off the map."

France's trade minister Franck Riester promised to help Lithuania.

"If a Lithuanian company needs Chinese components for its production but cannot find them because China is blocking ... we will be happy to help by putting it in contact with French companies or companies from other Member States," he said.

Paris, which holds the EU presidency in the coming months, is attempting to speed up introduction of new EU trade defence measures, said French officials.

The measures could penalise China in such disputes, although it is unclear whether Europe, where countries such as Germany depend on it for trade, will agree to them.

Similarly, it has been difficult for Brussels to launch legal action against China because companies affected are unwilling to be publicly named, one person with knowledge of the matter said.

(Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas and John Irish in Paris and Ryan Woo in Beijing; writing by John O'Donnell; editing by Barbara Lewis)
Students participate in Friday's anti-abortion march in downtown Springfield.

Hundreds of local Catholic students and others participated Friday morning in an anti-abortion march in Springfield to protest laws the church says attack the dignity of human life.

The march, organized by the Catholic Diocese of Springfield, started after a Right to Life Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Marchers passed the state Capitol, Illinois Supreme Court building and Governors Mansion.

The march also came one day before the 49th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22, 1973. In that decision, the court ruled that the U.S. Constitution protects a pregnant womans right to choose to have an abortion.

Related story: Gov. Pritzker signs bill rescinding requirement that minors notify parents before abortion

Springfield Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki said the church believes that human life begins at conception. He said he feels it is important to get youths involved in the anti-abortion cause.

The culture is shaping their (childrens) views and beliefs. Our culture is not sympathetic or protective of unborn babies, Paprocki said. We want to teach (students) both from a scientific point of view as well as from a religious point of view that they should respect all human life from that very first moment of conception.

Jacob Mizera, a junior at Sacred Heart-Griffin High School, participated in the march.

Especially with our culture today, they (pro-choice culture) want to silence us, and they want to make us think that we dont have a group, and we dont have enough numbers, but I think we do. That was proved today with 700 people, and its really exciting to make our voices heard and show people that yes, this is a popular idea (protecting life), and this is the truth, Mizera said.

Illinois news: Republicans confirm 'slate' of candidates with Richard Irvin at the top

Planned Parenthood of Illinois issued a statement on the march.

"While Planned Parenthood of Illinois does not share the views of organizations that stand in the way of people having access to essential sexual and reproductive health care, we respect the right of any organization to protest and peacefully assemble," said Paula Thornton Greear, chief external affairs and reputation management officer for Planned Parenthood of Illinois.

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Paprocki said there are Catholic charities set in place to help young women who are perhaps afraid or dont have the proper resources to care for a child. There is also assistance available for mothers who want to put their child up for adoption.

Every year since 1974, on or around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a diocesan-wide anti-abortion Mass and March for Life event has been held.

Students from SHG, Christ the King School, Our Lady of Lourdes School in Decatur and St. Joseph the Worker in Chatham attended Friday's march.

Contact Royale Bonds: rbonds@gannett.com, twitter.com/@Royaleb59699722

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Catholic students against abortion march in Springfield, IL
Kliff Kingsbury is still the coach of the Arizona Cardinals.

But that hasn't stopped some people from speculating about who the team should hire should it fire its head coach.

And for one Phoenix radio host, the choice is clear for Michael Bidwill and the franchise: The team needs to fire Kingsbury and hire Jim Harbaugh.

Oehler made his case earlier this week on his radio show, The Drive with Jody Oehler on Fox Sports 910 AM.

He also laid out his case in a story on the radio's website, calling Harbaugh "the man who can save the Cardinals."

"The Cardinals needs big, bold change in their leadership," Oehler wrote. "The Arizona Cardinals need to hire Jim Harbaugh. I know that sounds crazy but hear me out: Harbaugh is everything that Kliff isn't for this team. You want someone who isn't going to look terrified in every post game press conference? You want someone who won't be afraid to offer some tough love to Kyler Murray? You want someone who brings an immediate identity to this team and leads from the front? You hire Jim Harbaugh."

More: Why Arizona Cardinals should not fire Kliff Kingsbury, overreact to Kyler Murray's woes

VOTE: Would Jim Harbaugh be a good fit as #AZCardinals coach, should team fire Kliff Kingsbury? (Speculation: https://t.co/NfgjEJJbti) @azcentral  azcentral sports (@azcsports) January 21, 2022

Oehler wrote that Arizona needs to do something fast to help the team's starting quarter back, Kyler Murray, and that they can't afford to have him under Kliff Kingsbury for another season.

He wrote that Harbaugh might jump at the chance to coach Murray and the Cardinals after what he was able to do with Colin Kaepernick when he was the coach of the San Francisco 49ers.

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And that Harbaugh would probably love to face the 49ers twice a season as the coach in Arizona.

"Jim Harbaugh is exactly the change in leadership the Cardinals need right now," Oehler wrote. "Michael Bidwill and the Cardinals need to stop trying to copy the Rams and start trying to borrow heavily from the Baltimore Ravens. John Harbaugh has built a tough, physical NFL team based on a punishing ground attack and a disciplined defense. Why not do the same in the NFC with the other Harbaugh? The Cardinals didnt just hit a bump in the road in Los Angeles on Monday night; they crashed through the guardrail and are headed off a cliff. All they have to do to save their franchise is let Jim Harbaugh grab the wheel."

More: Arizona Cardinals should fire Kliff Kingsbury as head coach, azcentral poll results say

Some people think Jim Harbaugh would be a great fit as the Cardinals' head coach. There is one problem, however. Kliff Kingsbury is still Arizona's coach.

Arizona would probably need to act fast, however, for a chance to land Harbaugh. The current Michigan coach has been linked to some other NFL jobs, especially the Las Vegas Raiders' head coaching position.

Oehler isn't the only person to speculate about Harbaugh and the Cardinals.

Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio listed the Cardinals as a potential landing spot for Harbaugh.

"The reality, as we understand it, is that Harbaugh generally has interest in an NFL return, to the right situation," Florio wrote. "Hes 58, and he wants to win a Super Bowl. With 25 percent of the league (and perhaps more) looking for a new coach, Harbaugh isnt restricted to the Raiders. Any of the teams looking for a coach could do a lot worse than a guy who immediately turned a 6-10 49ers team into a contender, and who went 44-19-1 in four seasons in San Francisco. Could it be the Raiders? Sure. Could it be another team with a vacancy? Why not. Could it ultimately be, say, the Cardinals and a return to the NFC West, if they move on from Kliff Kingsbury? Two games per year against the 49ers, Seahawks, and Rams would be compelling, to say the least."

More: Could Arizona Cardinals fire Kliff Kingsbury? NFL writers speculate about coach's future

Sportnaut's Vincent Frank imagined that the Cardinals' job could entice Harbaugh.

"Its not like theres a lack of qualified head coach candidates to replace Kliff Kingsbury in the desert," he wrote. "This job would also be seen as the most-attractive among the openings should owner Michael Bidwell and Co. move off Kingsbury. Just imagine replacing Kingsbury with Michigans Jim Harbaugh or Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich."

Of course, all of this is just speculation, as the Cardinals haven't fired Kingsbury, although chatter seemed to increase on Thursday with a report that Bidwill was very unhappy with his team's late-season slide.

Could Jim Harbaugh be a good fit in Arizona should the team move on from Kingsbury?

The speculation will likely continue until the Cardinals come out with a definitive statement on their head coach or until Harbaugh announces he is either staying at Michigan or taking another job.

More: Arizona Cardinals' Kyler Murray deserves less blame for playoff loss to Los Angeles Rams

More: Arizona Cardinals' Steve Keim called out by ESPN's Mina Kimes after NFL playoff loss

Reach Jeremy Cluff at jeremy.cluff@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.

Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Radio host: Cardinals should replace Kliff Kingsbury with Jim Harbaugh
A man accused of punching a woman and dousing her with scalding soup was released from a Missouri jail hours after his arrest because he tested positive for COVID-19, according to a representative with the departments police union.

Jane Dueker, an attorney with the St. Louis Police Officers Association, says the man was arrested by a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officer soon after the alleged abuse on Jan. 4.

But she says he was released a few hours later  not leaving time for the judge to sign a no-bond warrant at the request of the circuit attorney, and significantly less time than the 24 hours police can hold a suspect before charges must be filed.

The female victim recalls the suspect calling her after his release to say he got released in three hours because of COVID-19, and she now refers to the virus as a get out of jail free card, according to Dueker.

A police public information officer confirmed to McClatchy News that a suspect was arrested on that date in connection to domestic assault charges shortly after the incident occurred, and he was released before a warrant was made.

The department would not confirm if the man tested positive for COVID-19, citing medical privacy laws. However, police confirm a judge has since issued an at-large, no-bond warrant for his arrest.

He is actively being sought by our department, the spokesperson said.

Dueker says he should have been held long enough for the warrant to be signed, adding that the suspect was a danger to the woman and their shared child. She also said hes a danger to the community, having tested positive for the coronavirus.

The police union said it believes this man is not the only arrestee being released from jail because of a positive COVID-19 test. A department spokesperson did not confirm or deny the allegation to McClatchy News.

We certainly have a problem with how this is being handled from numerous perspectives, Dueker said.

It is her belief that what she calls catch and release nonsense can be traced back to the mayor. She suspects Mayor Tishaura O. Jones is trying to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the citys downtown jail as she doesnt want to isolate those in custody at the Workhouse  the citys old medium-security jail  though the union concedes it does not have proof of this.

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Closing the Workhouse has been a part of the mayors plan to re-imagine public safety in the City of St. Louis, KSDK reported in July, as the city worked to reduce the need of people in need of incarceration.

A spokesperson for the mayors office said this is a police matter when asked if the city had a statement regarding the case, and referred McClatchy News to the police departments media contact.

The mayors office did release a statement from Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It said the department works with police, the sheriff and local hospitals on a case-by-case basis to determine our best course of action while limiting exposure to the virus, according to the newspaper.

The commissioner did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

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Hometown burger favorite Hopdoddy Burger Bar is acquiring Grub Burger Bar, based in Bryan, Texas. Together, the two plan to accelerate expansion plans. (Courtesy of Hopdoddy Burger Bar)

Austin's fast-growing Hopdoddy Burger Bar is acquiring Grub Burger Bar, a popular Texas chain based in Bryan.

The two restaurant groups will create a new company called HiBar Hospitality Group that will be backed by private equity firm L Catterton, which is an investor in Hopdoddy.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Hopdoddy has received an undisclosed amount of funding from L Catterton beginning in 2014. The $15 billion consumer-focused investment firm has also invested in Austin-based FlashParking and Snap Kitchen.

HiBar Hospitality Group will be led by Hopdoddy CEO Jeff Chandler. Grub founder and CEO Jimmy Loup will retain a stake in the combined business and join the company's board of directors.

More: Tiff's Treats, an Austin success story, is now a $500 million company

More: 20 restaurants opening in Austin and Central Texas in 2022

HiBar will focus on building up its team to support growth plans, both organically and through mergers and acquisitions. Hopdoddy said it plans to open eight to 12 new locations per year.

"We're thrilled to join forces with Grub, a high-quality and complementary brand that we have admired for years," Chandler said. "We think very much alike and share a long-term vision, which will serve us well as we come together and embark on our next stage of growth."

Together, Hopdoddy and Grub plan to operate 50 restaurants across the U.S., with 31 restaurants in Texas.

Hopdoddy was founded on South Congress Avenue in Austin by four friends in 2010 and has built a strong brand in the competitive fast-casual burger space. It operates 32 restaurants, with seven in Central Texas and locations in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.

Outside of Texas, Hopdoddy has restaurants in Arizona, California, Colorado and Tennessee. The chain's menu features {all-natural" burgers, hand-cut fries, salads, milkshakes, cocktails and craft beer.

More: Amazon plans major expansion in Austin, to hire 2,000 workers

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More: Austin bootmaker Tecovas lands $56 million to open more stores, add apparel

Hopdoddy's is among a number of Austin-based restaurant brands including Torchy's Tacos and P. Terry's Burger Stand that are in expansion mode.

In November 2020, Torchy's announced a $400 million investment into the restaurant chain that started as a food truck in South Austin. The company continued expanding during the pandemic and today operates restaurants across Texas as well as in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Meanwhile, P. Terry's, which in 2015 opened its first restaurant on the corner of South Lamar Boulevard and Barton Springs Road, currently operates 21 restaurants in Central Texas and one in San Antonio, according to its website.

Grub Burger Bar was founded in 2012 in Bryan, Texas with a menu that offers burgers, sandwiches, hand-spun shakes, craft cocktails, draft beer and wine. It currently operates 18 restaurants across four states. (Courtesy of Grub Burger Bar)

Grub Burger Bar was founded in 2012 in Bryan, with a menu that offers burgers, sandwiches, hand-spun shakes, craft cocktails, draft beer and wine. It operates 18 restaurants across four states.

For now, Grub locations will operate under that name, but they will eventually take on the Hopdoddy name. Its name will not change in College Station, where both Grub and Hopdoddy operate.

"For Grub, this is all about adding talent and expertise to our team, benefiting from new shared opportunities, rewarding our loyal investors, and moving back into growth mode again," Loup said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin's Hopdoddy Burger Bar to acquire Grub Burger Bar
Chicagos ward map fight has lurched into the new year with aldermen digging in their heels. But some are focused on a recent federal court ruling as aim to hash out their differences rather than let voters decide in a referendum.

The December decision in a legal challenge to the Democratic-drawn state legislative districts might help predict the outcome of a costly lawsuit that could result from the increasingly contentious city remap face-off.

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Or, depending on who you talk to, it might not.

But with the councils Black Caucus and Latino Caucus at loggerheads over their respective proposals, the implications of the ruling have taken center stage in recent weeks.

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The fight at City Hall over a new ward map could end up in court. The map is redrawn every 10 years based on new census data. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune)

During a Friday hearing of the City Council Rules Committee, Allan Lichtman, an expert on redistricting efforts who provided analysis on Democrats behalf in the federal case, said he believes both the map favored by most Black aldermen and the one preferred by most Latino aldermen would meet the federal Voting Rights Act, based on the ruling in the recent state legislative districts case. Lichtman added, however, that he only studied the maps Latino representation, not that of Black residents or other protected groups under the Voting Rights Act.

But Lichtman argued that the Latino Caucus use of the citys total Latino population to craft its map would make it tough for Latinos to win in all the Latino wards, because of the number of Latino Chicagoans who are either younger than 18 or arent U.S. citizens, meaning they cant vote.

While the 2020 U.S. Census showed Latinos make up nearly 30% of the citys residents, the groups citizen voting-age share of Chicagos population is just 20.7%, according to Lichtman.

The map favored by the Black Caucus seems likely to give the Latino Caucus a better chance to win in Latino-majority wards, he said.

However, Burt Odelson, an attorney for the Latino Caucus, told aldermen Friday that Lichtmans analysis doesnt take into account Chicagos particularities.

If you havent walked a precinct in Chicago, then your opinion is a theoretical opinion based on numbers from elsewhere, not from the city of Chicago, Odelson said. We are unique.

The Latino Caucus has repeatedly rejected using citizen voting-age population as the standard to craft the new ward map.

Many backers of the map proposal that has the support of more than 30 of the City Councils 50 aldermen, including nearly the entire Black Caucus, point to the court ruling. A three-judge panel in the case upheld a Democratic redrawing of the states 177 legislative district boundaries.

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The judges agreed with arguments from Democrats who said Illinois history of racial crossover voting meant Latino candidates can get elected without the court mandating additional Latino-majority districts.

Supporters of the Black Caucus map say the same argument would hold sway if Chicago Latino aldermen filed a lawsuit, making it tougher for them to persuade a judge to overturn the map backed by the Black Caucus and its allies if that version won in a referendum.

Prior to Fridays meeting, Lichtman said the findings in that case certainly could apply to the Chicago ward remap fight.

The analysis found that in primaries its quite common for Latino and non-Latino voters to vote for the same candidates, said Lichtman.

Ald. Michelle Harris, chair of the Rules Committee, discusses her decision not to call a vote on the proposed ward map at a special City Council meeting Dec. 1. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

Anything over 40% (minority makeup of a district)  because of lack of sharp polarization in voting  is sufficient, and the election analysis in the case included looks at voting patterns in some Chicago precincts, Lichtman said.

The Latino Caucus lawyers dismissed the idea the courts state redistricting decision has implications for Chicago.

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That case took a tertiary look at racial voting patterns between whites and Latinos, said Victor Reyes, whos on the Latino Caucus legal team in the remap fight. Theres nothing in that case about racial pattern voting between Latinos and Blacks.

Odelson added that because Chicago municipal elections are nonpartisan, the court ruling just has no bearing on the ward remap situation.

Though a majority of the City Council backs the Black Caucus map, Odelson said he would be happy to let voters decide in a referendum.

I believe we have the more representative map. I think we win, he said.

That view is misguided, according to Harris, who has clashed with Latino Caucus aldermen in recent Rules Committee meetings over how to try to proceed in achieving a single compromise map.

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They have so many novices on their side who havent even been through the remap process before, Harris said. I think theyre being hoodwinked by people on their side.

A group of 15 aldermen filed a petition in December to get the Latino Caucus-backed Coalition Map on the June referendum, while saying they would keep negotiating with their colleagues.

They will lose if they go to a referendum, Harris said, because 34 or more aldermen will work in their wards to get voters to support the other version.

The numbers are on our side, she said.

If at least 41 aldermen vote to pass a single version of the map, that would forestall the referendum. Harris said she hopes to get there before the deadline, 40 days before the June 28 Illinois primary.

The last remap that went to referendum followed the 1990 U.S. census, and taxpayers ended up footing a $20 million legal bill when supporters of the map that lost at the ballot box filed a federal lawsuit.

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The court fight dragged on for six years. Harris has predicted the taxpayer-funded legal bills for a court case over this ward map could hit $40 million.

The Rules Committee map creates 16 Black-majority wards, 14 Latino wards and an additional ward with a Black plurality. The Latino map has 16 Black-majority wards and 15 Latino-majority wards. Backers of both maps say the maps would create the citys first Asian-majority ward.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne
For Naomi Osaka, defeat in the Australian Open third round was a sign of progress rather than crisis. That she returned to Melbourne as the defending champion ignored the tumult the 24-year-old has endured over the past year and, if her main priority now is just to recapture a simpler joy of playing tennis, it frequently shone through in a match that delivered relentless fireworks against Amanda Anisimova.

It was a breathtaking 135-minute contest that demanded the biggest spotlight in Melbourne Park, even if it had not been selected for the main stage. A battle of power and supreme ball-striking, resilience and competitive ferocity, Osaka had surged into an early lead in the first set, breaking Anisimova in her opening service game and never relinquishing that ascendancy. But the momentum turned afterwards as the young American found another gear, gaining the upper hand in long slugging rallies from behind the baseline, and she successfully dragged Osaka into the sort of deeper waters that might expose her lack of match practice.

Every hold of serve proved an exhausting adventure, with games tipping the five-minute mark as the pair traded blows at deuce, but it was Anisimova who produced the decisive moment of imagination: an exquisite backhand drop shot that left Osaka flat-footed and a break down. Anisimova, a 20-year-old prodigy from Florida who reached the French Open semi-final in 2019, seemed to grow in confidence with every point, taking on daring winners and treating Osakas unusually weak second serve with utter contempt. She closed out the set without hesitation to set up the decider and, by that stage, it was clear Osakas defence was in real jeopardy.

To her credit, leaning on all her experience as a four-time grand slam champion, Osaka reset and made a more assured start to the third set. That superior maturity almost proved decisive when a somewhat frustrated Anisimova was forced to serve to stay in the match at 5-4. The nerves invaded her mind, she fell slightly out of her rhythm and twice coughed up match points. The tension was so gripping that Osaka began to repeatedly shake her arms in an effort to release it between points. But that provided no defence against Anisimova, who held nothing back in those key moments, forced Osaka to err and finally closed out the game with an emphatic ace. From thereon, Anisimova was brilliant and ruthless, matching composure and aggression in the tiebreak to take it 10-5. It will go down as a big shock, but it was a case of Anisimovas excellence as opposed to Osakas shortcoming.

Osakas reluctance to conduct press conferences was the contentious spark that eventually caused her to withdraw from last years French Open and reveal her yearslong battle with depression, resulting in extended breaks from the court. She spoke at length with reporters in Melbourne, though, and reflected thoughtfully on the nature of this loss and where it leaves her.

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I fought for every point, I cant be sad about that, Osaka said after the 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5) defeat. You know, like, Im not God, I cant win every match. So I just have to take that into account and know that it would be nice to win the tournament, but thats really special, and I cant think of myself to try to win the grand slam at the start of the year every time... I feel like I grew a lot in this match. The last match that I played in New York I think I had a completely different attitude.

Osakas defeat denied fans a highly anticipated fourth-round meeting with world No 1 Ashleigh Barty, who in contrast required just an hour to dispatch Italys Camila Giorgi in straight sets. Fellow top-10 players Barbora Krejcikova, Maria Sakkari and Paula Badosa also made it through in a draw that remains wide open with possibility.

Rafael Nadal celebrates his win over Karen Khachanov (AP)

Rafael Nadal could hardly have been considered one of the favourites in the mens draw heading into the tournament, even after Novak Djokovics withdrawal. The 35-year-old spent most of last year recuperating from a foot injury and yet, in his four-set victory over Karen Khachanov, Nadal summoned some of his oldest trademarks and eradicated any doubts over his threat this fortnight.

Seeded sixth in the draw, this was a significant test against a fresher, big-hitting opponent but Nadals wicked forehand and fighting spirit were lethal and undiminished. He raced into a two-set lead with total authority, breaking Khachanovs fearsome serve at the beginning of both, and although he stuttered in the third, Nadal restored order emphatically in the fourth, with the sheer quality of shotmaking regularly raising the crowd to their feet as he closed out a 6-3 6-2 3-6 6-1 victory. I have been going through some very tough times the last year and a half but for me nights like today mean everything, he said in an emotional on-court interview. That is a lot of energy in my pocket to keep going, keep fighting, every single day.

If he is to leap ahead of Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic and win a 21st grand slam next week, Nadal will still have to come through far sterner tests though. Matteo Berrettini, who lost to Djokovic in last summers Wimbledon final, secured his place in the fourth round with a momentous five-set victory over Carlos Alcaraz, the Spanish teenager primed to eventually inherit Nadals crown. Olympic champion Alexander Zverev also advanced in a far less scrutinising match against Romanian qualifier Radu Albot. He will now face the No14 seed Denis Shapovalov in one of the fourth rounds standout ties.
A Nashville man found dead in the Cumberland River after he disappeared from a bar last fall died as a result of drowning and alcohol poisoning, autopsy and toxicology results released Friday show.

Dakota Bingham was found floating in the river during the early morning hours of Oct. 15 after friends and family reported him missing five days earlier. He was 28.

Bingham, who lived in Midtown, disappeared after last being seen by friends at Nobles East Nashville, 974 Main St., the night of Oct. 10.

Bingham was last caught on camera "willingly entering the water" where, Kevin Jenkins, a forensic pathologist with the Davidson County Medical Examiner's Office said, he struggled to stay afloat, became submerged in water and did not resurface.

In his five-page autopsy report, Jenkins ruled Bingham's manner of death an accident.

Dakota Bingham

His cause of death was ruled a drowning with contributory "acute ethanol intoxication," the doctor found.

A toxicology report shows his blood alcohol content registered 0.16  twice the legal limit to drive  when it was tested Oct. 16  the same day of his autopsy.

The night he disappeared

Friends said Bingham had been drinking heavily when they last saw him at Nobles. They said he planned to ride a scooter to his West End home but never showed up.

According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, detectives specializing in missing persons cases reviewed surveillance video from area businesses that shows Bingham walk to Fifth and Main streets where he briefly got onto a scooter before leaving on foot.

Then about midnight, he was seen on camera at the TA Truck Stop, at 111 North First St., which is also the same area and time where his phone was last detected, police reported.

The body of missing Nashville man Dakota Bingham was found on the banks of the Cumberland River early Friday morning. A tug boat operator discovered Bingham's body about a mile from Rock Harbor Marina, police reported.

Five days later, a tugboat operator discovered his body near mile marker 175 in the river about one mile from Rock Harbor Marina.

Natalie Neysa Alund is based in Nashville at The Tennessean and covers breaking news across the South for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at nalund@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Autopsy: Dakota Bingham found in river died as result of drowning
Carson Boady, his teacher Tiffany Kurtz and her husband Chris Kurtz present a donation of $500 to the Men's Warming Shelter.

BEDFORD  With the help of his classmates and school faculty, Bedford North Lawrence student and sophomore class President Carson Boady organized a penny war fundraiser at the school that was able to generate money to fund the school's winter dance, as well as $500 that was donated to Bedford's Men's Warming Shelter.

A penny war is a fundraiser where individuals donate their change for a specified period of time, usually in competition to see who can raise the most money.

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At BNL, the penny war was contested between sophomore advisory or homeroom periods where any pennies in their classroom's jar would gain them points and any silver change found in their jar would lead to a point reduction, meaning that you could donate nickels, dimes and quarters to any opposing classroom's jar to lower their point total.

Updated point totals were announced during the BNL morning announcements over the school's intercom each day to further incentivize student participation.

In the end, Mrs. Crowther's advisory won the war, with a total of 17,909 points and an estimated $330 collected in their can, according to Boady, who counted the money during his lunch period each day.

"Penny wars was a success. We raised a lot of money and we gave $500 to the Mens Warming Shelter. We are holding back some so we can fund our winter informal dance," he said.

Boady, who has a long history of involvement with student government, found a passion for charity work after participating in a fundraiser in sixth grade.

I have always enjoyed helping others, and I like to be in positions where I can make a difference, the student said.

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I first realized how big of an impact student council is in our schools and our community when I was in sixth grade. I was elected from my homeroom to be in the Oolitic Middle School Student Council, and we were tasked with raising money for a charity that the sponsor had already picked out. I remember selling cans of pop out of my locker during passing periods and it worked. I was able to raise $150 over two weeks. After this event, I realized how much fun it was raising money for charity, and the hustle towards a certain goal, Boady added.

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As a student at OMS, Boady spearheaded fundraising efforts, including penny wars, which brought in around $5,000 across multiple projects.

After his previous success, Boady was motivated to help once again.

The suggestion for the Mens Warming Shelter as a cause to support came from Boadys teacher and sponsor of the penny war, Mrs. Kurtz.

"We didnt have a charity initially picked out, but Mrs. Kurtz pointed out the Warming Shelter. She had been volunteering there on Tuesdays since November and they needed some help," Boady said.

"I was hoping to spark some interest in people about the Mens Warming Shelter so that other people would donate after they saw our contribution. There are not very many options for men in the community to get some help," he explained.

According to Kurtz, Boady and his classmates assumed responsibility for the fundraiser.

The students did all of the legwork on this and Carson created a spreadsheet for entering the amounts raised by each classroom. They went to the homerooms every day to collect the money and counted it each day. It was definitely an undertaking, but they did it all, she said.

COVID-19 vaccine tracker: 48% of people in Lawrence County fully vaccinated.

Kurtz's class became command central, and was the main location used by Boady and fellow sophomore class officers Ava Bunch, Madalyn Spires and Liberty Strauser to count the money collected throughout the day.

I have always joked that Carson could run the world if he wanted to, he gets things done, Kurtz said about Boady.

Boady visited the shelter himself to present the check to Heather Beasley, director of the Men's Warming Shelter, which was a proud moment for his teacher.

"It was really cool when Carson came to the shelter to present Heather with the check because he was able to see what that money was supporting," Kurtz said.

The experience helped Boady to further understand the important of the cause he and his classmates had rallied to support.

"It was amazing to see where our money was going towards. I was able to sit down with some of the men there, and to realize this is a cause that people need to know more about," he said when speaking about the experience.

Noah Dalton is a reporter in Bedford, IN. He can be reached at ndalton@tmnews.com

This article originally appeared on The Times-Mail: BNL sophomore class fundraise for school dance, Men's Warming Shelter
Four Belarusian officials have been charged in connection with a Ryanair flight diversion last year that led to the arrest of a dissident Belarusian journalist, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan announced Thursday. The plane was forced to land in Belarus on May 23, 2021, due to an alleged bomb threat.

The four officials  Leonid Mikalaevich Churo, the director general of Belaeronavigatsia Republican Unitary Air Navigation Services Enterprise; Oleg Kazyuchits, the deputy director general of Belaeronavigatsia; and two officers of the Belarusian state security services, Andrey Anatolievich Lnu and Fnu Lnu  are each facing one charge of conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.

The suspects remain at large, according to the indictment from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The Ryanair flight was carrying more than 100 passengers, including four American citizens, from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, when it was diverted to Minsk, Belarus, due to a reported bomb threat.

However, according to the indictment, the bomb threat was a ruse. The Belarusian government is accused of plotting to divert the flight so they could arrest the journalist, Roman Protasevic  "who was critical of the Belarusian government, living in exile in Lithuania, and wanted by the Belarusian government on allegations of fomenting 'mass unrest'"  and his girlfriend.

Security officers use a sniffer dog to check the luggage of passengers on the Ryanair plane carrying opposition figure Roman Protasevic, which was diverted to Minsk on May 23, 2021. Western leaders decried the diversion of a plane to Belarus in order to arrest an opposition journalist as an act of piracy and terrorism. / Credit: ONLINER.BY via AP

The Belarusian government plot "was executed by, among others, officers of the Belarusian state security services working in coordination with senior officials of the Belarusian state air navigation authority," the indictment said.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Churo told the air traffic control center in Minsk about the alleged bomb threat before the flight departed Athens, and directed them to divert the flight.

Kazyuchits allegedly instructed the air traffic authorities to "to falsify incident reports regarding the diversion of the Flight in order to conceal the fabrication of the bomb threat and to omit the role of Belarusian security services in directing the diversion."

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Fnu Lnu allegedly joined Churo in conveying the false bomb threat to air traffic control, directed radio communications from the air traffic control tower to the plane and gave Andrey Anatolievich Lnu  who was his superior  updates on the plot.

Together, Fnu Lnu and Churo are accused of coercing the flight to land in Minsk specifically, withholding information about the alleged threat until the plane left Ukrainian airspace and entered Belarusian airspace. Fnu Lnu remained in the air traffic control tower throughout the entire plot, until the plane had landed in Minsk.

Once the plane was on the tarmac, Fnu Lnu oversaw the security operation and monitored the screening of the passengers. The passengers were then instructed to board several buses, at which point security forces entered one and asked for the journalist, Roman Protasevic, to present himself. This showed that the authorities knew the journalist was onboard the flight, the indictment alleges.

A handout photo released on May 24, 2021, by the Belarus government press office shows Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevic speaking to the camera in a prison in Minsk, Belarus. / Credit: Belarus government press office via AP

Protasevic was detained. Meanwhile, his girlfriend and several other passengers were held in the airport for more than three hours. No bomb was ever found onboard the plane, and it was eventually allowed to continue on to Lithuania.

The day after the incident, the indictment alleges, the Belarusian officials began an effort to conceal the plot. At a press conference, the indictment says Churo falsely claimed "that the Belarusian authorities had 'done everything according to their technology and their job responsibilities' in handling the Flight."

Additionally, Kazyuchits is accused of telling air traffic authorities to create false incident reports, "including by doctoring the reports to misrepresent that the bomb threat was received at approximately the same time that the Flight entered Belarusian airspace" and to leave out the fact that Fnu Lnu "was present in the operations room and directed activity during the Flight's diversion," the indictment said.

In the aftermath of the incident, world leaders condemned the Belarusian government. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the U.S. "strongly condemns the forced diversion of a flight between two EU member states and the subsequent removal and arrest" of Roman Protasevic. Blinken said the U.S. "demands his immediate release."

Many flights with paths over the country were canceled, and the European Union imposed sanctions.

In response to the criticism, Belarus' authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said it was a "total lie that the plane was forced down," insisting that authorities had received a bomb threat from Switzerland and were only acting in the passengers' interest.

Each charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, and a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison, the indictment said. But the suspects are not in custody. The U.S. Attorney's Office said the United States "looks forward to working with our foreign partners to bring them to justice."

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PARAMUS, NJ  Bergen New Bridge Medical Center's long-term care facility was named one of the top nursing homes in the nation, in a ranking released by Newsweek and research firm Statista.

Deborah Visconi, president and CEO of New Bridge Medical Center, said the honor was unexpected and has been a boost for staff who have worked so hard during the pandemic.

"We were excited when we first got the notice," she told Patch. "We're very, very proud of that."

Overall performance data, peer recommendations, and how each facility handled COVID-19 factored into the study, which was conducted across 25 states.

Bergen New Bridge Medical Center was ranked 29 on the list.

Deborah Visconi (Bergen New Bridge Medical Center)

Donnalee Corrieri, the chief communications and marketing officer for Bergen New Bridge, said the honor is "a validation of our ongoing commitment to long-term care residents and their families."



"To be the largest (nursing home in the state) and to be on this list is a testament to the leadership of Deb and the amazingness of our team," Corrieri said.

Visconi said the long-term care facility at Bergen New Bridge is unique in its connection with the hospital; residents in the nursing home have specialists nearby if they need care.

"One of the things that sets us apart is that we have all of the health professionals under one roof," she said. "So our nursing home residents don't have to leave the facility to get cardiac care or neurology care, or dermatology or podiatry or surgery. ...any of those specialists are physically there on campus."

At the beginning of the pandemic, she said, the long-term care facility was able to share personal protective equipment (PPE) with the hospital, at a time when nursing homes were struggling to find that equipment.



Visconi also noted the facility's recreational therapy activities, greenhouse, and multi-faith chaplains "add to the quality of life" for the 574 residents who call Bergen New Bridge home.

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"This is where they live," Visconi said. "This is where their Christmas cards get mailed to. This is where they vote from."



(Bergen New Bridge Medical Center)

Visconi added that the hospital worked with Paramus Public Schools to send letters and pictures to residents while COVID prevented them from seeing their families face-to-face.



"The nursing home industry took a tumble during the COVID pandemic," Visconi said. "As health care providers in general, it's been a taxing two years and certainly has tested our resiliency and our ability to pivot and to stay standing and stay vibrant and able to serve our communities."



"We provide the highest quality of care but we also focus on the best quality of life, and that's important," Corrieri added.

This article originally appeared on the Paramus Patch
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government said on Friday it would suspend 44 China-bound flights from the United States by four Chinese carriers in response to the Chinese government's decision to suspend some U.S. carrier flights over COVID-19 concerns.

The suspensions will begin on Jan. 30 with Xiamen Airlines scheduled Los Angeles-to-Xiamen flight and run through March 29, the Transportation Department said.

The decision will cut some flights by Xiamen, Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines.

Since Dec. 31, Chinese authorities have suspended 20 United Airlines, 10 American Airlines and 14 Delta Air Lines flights, after some passengers tested positive for COVID-19. As recently as Tuesday, the Transportation Department said the Chinese government had announced new U.S. flight cancellations.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Friday the policy for international passenger flights entering China has "been applied equally to Chinese and foreign airlines in a fair, open and transparent way."

He called the U.S. move "very unreasonable" and added "We urge the U.S. side to stop disrupting and restricting the normal passenger flights" by Chinese airlines."

Airlines for America, a trade group representing the three U.S. carriers affected by China's move along with others, said it supported Washington's action "to ensure the fair treatment of U.S. airlines in the Chinese market."

The Transportation Department said France and Germany have taken similar action against Chinas COVID-19 actions. It said China's suspension of the 44 flights "are adverse to the public interest and warrant proportionate remedial action." It added that China's "unilateral actions against the named U.S. carriers are inconsistent" with a bilateral agreement.

China has also suspended numerous U.S. flights by Chinese carriers after passengers later tested positive.

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The department said it was prepared to revisit its action if China revised its "policies to bring about the necessary improved situation for U.S. carriers." It warned that if China cancels more flights, "we reserve the right to take additional action."

China has all but shut its borders to travelers, cutting total international flights to just 200 a week, or 2% of pre-pandemic levels, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in September.

The number of U.S. flights being scrapped has surged since December, as infections caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus soared to record highs in the United States.

Beijing and Washington have sparred over air services since the start of the pandemic. In August, the U.S. Transportation Department limited four flights from Chinese carriers to 40% passenger capacity for four weeks after Beijing imposed identical limits on four United Airlines flights.

Before the recent cancellations, three U.S. airlines and four Chinese carriers were operating about 20 flights a week between the countries, well below the figure of more than 100 per week before the pandemic.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Mark Porter and David Gregorio)




President Biden will meet with members of his national security team while spending the weekend at Camp David amid ongoing tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

"The president obviously is regularly briefed every day by his team, but he'll also be engaging with them tomorrow over the course of the weekend as well," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.

Biden is scheduled to depart for Camp David on Friday evening. The White House has been trying to send a clear message to Russia that any aggression toward Ukraine will be met with a severe response.

The president on Thursday sought to clear up his remarks from a day earlier when he appeared to distinguish between a Russian invasion of Ukraine and a "minor incursion."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with his Russian counterpart on Friday, reiterated that the U.S. will consider it an attack on Ukraine if even one Russian soldier crosses the border.

As White House officials warn of the imminent threat of Russian aggression, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are pressing the Biden administration to quickly send more military aid to Ukraine.

The administration on Wednesday announced an additional $200 million in defensive security assistance to Ukraine, approved last month and given in the event of an expected attack from Russia.

Blinken, during a visit to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, told the leader that more military aid is "scheduled in the coming weeks."
A Cook County judge on Friday again shot down a lawsuit that argues consumers should be able to recover costs associated with the ComEd bribery scandal that implicated former House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Circuit Judge Cecilia Horan ruled the court could not consider the class action claims for relief, citing the separation of powers doctrine that draws lines between the responsibilities of different branches of government.

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Horan had dismissed the case previously, but attorneys got a chance to refine their arguments and come before the judge again.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan at the Balzekas Museum in West Lawn on Feb. 25, 2021. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune / Chicago Tribune)

In a hearing Friday, attorney Stephan Blandin focused on Madigan, the longtime Chicago Democrat, and referenced ComEds admissions of bribery in a July 2020 federal case.

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Because Michael Madigan was bribed, he lifted his brick  on the legislation and allowed it to go for a vote, Blandin argued. As a result of the admitted bribery that took place, Commonwealth Edison was unjustly enriched.

The utility acknowledged in the federal case that it sought to win Madigans favor by giving his political pals contracts for little-or-no-work jobs, shoveling internships to college kids in his 13th Ward, handing out legal contracts to a Madigan allys law firm and placing a Madigan-backed candidate on the companys board of directors.

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ComEd agreed to pay a $200 million fine for that scheme. Madigan has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged in the ongoing criminal case.

But the ComEd case weighed heavily on Madigans fellow Democrats, and a newly elected House last year dethroned Madigan from the speakership, a post he had held for a national record 36 years. Shortly thereafter, Madigan resigned the House seat hed held for 50 years and gave up the chairmanship of the Democratic Party of Illinois, a post he had held since 1998.

rlong@chicagotribune.com




Bill Maher is pushing back against blindly following the advice of Anthony Fauci and other doctors amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying, "Don't sit there in your white coat and tell me 'just do what we say.' "

"That's not a criticism of them like they're being corrupt, although there certainly is plenty of corruption in the medical establishment," the "Real Time" host said in an interview with Deadline published Friday, when asked if he believes Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease doctor, or the medical establishment "really know what they are doing."

"But I've always maintained that the big overarching theme should be that people look back and say, 'Oh, look how far we've come medically.' Yes, that's true. We're not putting wooden teeth in our mouth like in the George Washington era, and of course we have antibiotics and lots of vaccines and lots of other things that have been miraculous. But in general, we still don't understand too much about how the human body works," Maher said.

The medical community, the controversial HBO host said, has been wrong "a lot" throughout history.

"They drilled mercury into my teeth when I was a child. Now, of course, we don't do that anymore, but do you really think in 50 years people will look back and say, 'Oh, yeah, we had it all figured out in 2022'? No, they will be appalled at things we're doing right now."

Despite the country seeing more than 860,000 deaths from COVID-19 since 2020, Maher said he was "never scared" of the pandemic.

"I was always scared of the reaction to it, and as this has played out that only proved to be more true for me," he told Deadline.

"It was never that virulent a threat, I thought, to people who were in good health," he continued.

"Now, some people can't help that they're not in good health. We should, of course, protect the vulnerable, but it was mostly a disease of the very old, which every disease is a threat to, and people who have comorbidities, which mostly is due to lifestyle."

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Of vaccines, Maher - who tested positive for COVID-19 last May - said, "They just prevent you from dying, which is a great part of it, let's not undercount that. But if they don't prevent you from transmitting it and they don't prevent you from getting it why are we still treating this disease the way we always have?"

COVID-19 has been known to lead to serious illness and death even in younger and middle-aged adults who are otherwise healthy, and studies have shown - and most public health experts agree - that vaccinations greatly reduce the chances of being hospitalized or dying from the coronavirus.

The comedian sounded off on Democrats and Republicans alike in the interview.

Maher said the country is much different than it was when "Real Time" first premiered in 2003.

"I think the politics around me have changed. In other words, the first years George W. Bush was president and the liberal half of the country was, I thought, pretty sane. Now, since about I don't know 2015 or so there's been a real sea change in what's going on, on the left."

Maher knocked Democrats as "the party of no common sense," saying they have "inverted so much of traditional liberalism."

But Maher also took aim at Republicans echoing former President Trump's baseless claim that he was the actual winner of the 2020 election. A December poll from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found that nearly three-quarters of Republicans doubted that President Biden's election victory was legitimate.

"Now I always will maintain that the right is the more dangerous faction in this country, especially since they don't believe in elections - I mean you have to keep that in perspective," Maher, 66, said. "One side does not believe in the form of government we have. What do you do about people who are in the government who don't believe in your form of government?"

Calling the peaceful transfer of power the "feather in our cap as America," Maher said, "And now these people on the right have broken that and God knows what's going to happen in the future."

Maher also offered a bleak prediction for the future, saying "the real day of reckoning is going to be between Election Day 2024 and Inauguration Day 2025, because that's when the rubber really hits the road."

Asserting that Trump will "definitely be running" and will become the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, Maher said that similar to 2020, the ex-president will refuse to concede.

"But this next time, he's going to have people in place who will back him up on his lie that he won the election whether he did or not. And then what do you do when those people are much more powerful and there are two claimants to the throne?"

"I mean, we've seen this play out in other countries and it's not pretty," Maher said. "And I don't know what will happen, but it frightens me a great deal."

- Nathaniel Weixel contributed.
By Simon Lewis

GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday raised the cases of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, two U.S. citizens detained in Russia and repeated Washington's call for their release during talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva.

The top diplomats of Russia and the United States met in the Swiss city https://www.reuters.com/world/top-diplomats-us-russia-meet-geneva-soaring-ukraine-tensions-2022-01-21 amid soaring tensions over Ukraine, after talks between their deputies last week failed to achieve a breakthrough.

In opening remarks witnessed by reporters, Blinken told Lavrov that along Russia's military buildup near its border with Ukraine he would also discuss the two Americans' cases during the meeting.

The two were tourists in Russia, were arrested, were convicted without credible evidence, Blinken said. "We again ask Russia to do the right thing and let them come home."

Russia convicted Whelan https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-court-consider-transfer-ex-marine-us-sept-27-ifax-2021-09-08 - who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports - of spying in June 2020 and sentenced him to 16 years in jail. He denied the charge and said he was set up in a sting operation.

Reed https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ex-us-marines-parents-urge-biden-push-jailed-sons-freedom-putin-talks-2021-12-06 was sentenced to nine years in jail after being found guilty of endangering the lives of two policemen in Moscow while drunk on a visit in 2019. He denied the charges and the United States called his trial a "theater of the absurd."

(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives for a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on September 14, 2021. Blinken was questioned about the Biden administration's handling of the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan.





U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on Friday in Geneva in a high-stakes meeting at a "critical moment" in the tensions rising between Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine.

"We don't expect to resolve our differences here today. But I do hope and expect that we can test whether the path of diplomacy or dialogue remains open," Blinken told Lavrov during the meeting, The Associated Press reported. "This is a critical moment."

In a press conference following the meeting, Blinken said the U.S. has agreed to provide, in writing next week, concerns the U.S. has and Russia has raised and ideas the U.S. has to reduce tensions. The two also agreed to continue to have conversations following the written proposal.

Blinken said a meeting between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin is also on the table if it is believed that will push the situation in the right direction.

Russia has been amassing thousands of troops on the border with the former Soviet country as the international community continues to warn that tough actions will be taken against Moscow if they invade.

Blinken said at the meeting he wants to use diplomacy to deescalate the situation but "if that proves impossible, and Russia decides to pursue aggression against Ukraine, to a united, swift and severe response."

Military action has not been promised as a response to a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, but Blinken and President Biden have talked about severe economic sanctions.

Lavrov said during the meeting he did not "expect a breakthrough at these negotiations either. What we expect is concrete answers to our concrete proposals," according to the AP.

Russia wants a promise from NATO that Ukraine will not be added to the alliance and wants western allies to remove military equipment and troops from eastern Europe.

The U.S. and allies have strongly rejected those terms as Russia continues to send troops near Ukraine's border.

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However, Blinken did tell Lavrov he had "concrete ideas to address some of the concerns that you have raised, as well as the deep concerns that many of us have about Russia's actions."

Blinken met with other allies ahead of the meeting with Lavrov, including the president of Ukraine.

"It's a crisis with global consequences and it requires global attention and action," Blinken said in Berlin before his meeting with Lavrov.

--Updated at 8:12 a.m.
The United States plans to present Russia next week with a written record of its concerns about Moscows behavior and proposals aimed at resolving the security crisis on the Russia-Ukraine border, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

Blinkens remarks came after his meeting in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, where the two top diplomats held highly anticipated talks following a week of engagements by Blinken with U.S. allies in Kyiv and Berlin.

At a news conference, Blinken described the conversation with his Russian counterpart as frank and substantive, and he said they both agreed that its important for the diplomatic process to continue as Russia maintains its military buildup along Ukraines border.

I told him that, following the consultations that well have in the coming days with allies and partners, we anticipate that we will be able to share with Russia our concerns and ideas in more detail and in writing next week, and we agreed to further discussions after that, Blinken said.

Still, it remains unclear how a written response to Moscow from Washington will help advance the mostly stagnant diplomacy between Russia and the West. The United States has already ruled out Russias major demands: that NATO pull back its presence in the Baltic and Eastern Europe, and that Ukraine and Georgia be permanently barred from joining the military alliance.

This was not a negotiation, but a candid exchange of concerns and ideas, Blinken said Friday. I made clear to Minister Lavrov that there are certain issues and fundamental principles that the United States and our partners and allies are committed to defend. That includes those that would impede the sovereign right of the Ukrainian people to write their own future. There is no trade space there. None.

Weve said from the beginning that there are certain proposals that will not be viable, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at her news briefing on Friday, elaborating on the United States written response to Russia.

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Its not written answers like were filling out a Q&A, Psaki added. Were also going to convey what our concerns are and reiterate a number of the strong statements youve heard the president and Secretary Blinken convey very publicly. So this is just a part of the diplomatic process and diplomatic negotiations.

In his remarks to reporters, Blinken also stressed that Russia would face significant consequences for any further aggression toward Ukraine  a warning that came after President Joe Biden received criticism this week for suggesting that a minor incursion could prompt confusion among Western nations over how to retaliate.

I conveyed the position of the United States and our European allies and partners that we stand firmly with Ukraine in support of its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Blinken said. Weve been clear: If any Russian military forces move across Ukraines border, thats a renewed invasion. It will be met with swift, severe and a united response from the United States and our partners and allies.

Blinkens session with Lavrov on Friday represented the latest round of talks after two straight weeks of diplomacy among the United States, European allies and Russia. Last week saw U.S. and Russian officials meet in Geneva, Russia and NATO member states meet in Brussels, and OSCE-participating countries meet in Vienna.

This week, Blinken traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. He then traveled to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, as well as members of the Transatlantic Quad, which consists of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The security situation has continued to devolve, however, and the United States rhetoric about a potential Russian invasion has become increasingly dire in recent days. Were now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine, Psaki said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the United States is actively weighing whether to evacuate family members of U.S. diplomats stationed in Ukraine, according to a source familiar with the matter. In a statement to POLITICO, a State Department spokesperson did not deny that the department was considering such an option, which was first reported by Bloomberg.

We have nothing to announce at this time. We conduct rigorous contingency planning, as we always do, in the event the security situation deteriorates, the spokesperson said. If there is a decision to change our posture with respect to American diplomats and their families, American citizens should not anticipate that there will be U.S. government-sponsored evacuations. Currently commercial flights are available to support departures.

Despite the escalating tensions, Blinken said Friday that Lavrov insisted Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine. But again, Blinken added, were looking at what is visible to all, and it is deeds and actions  not words  that make the difference.

Following his meeting with Lavrov, Blinken said he would return to Washington to consult with President Biden and our entire national security team, as well as members of Congress, and critically, allies and partners in the days ahead.

Blinken also did not rule out another leader-level conversation between Biden and Putin to advance the U.S.-Russia diplomacy beyond what little it has been able to accomplish thus far. Biden has already spoken twice with Putin about the Russia-Ukraine crisis, first on Dec. 7 and again on Dec. 30.

If it proves useful and productive for the two presidents to meet, to talk, to engage, to try to carry things forward, I think were fully prepared to do that, Blinken said.

It may or may not be the next step, Psaki said. I cant give you a prediction of if and when it will happen. But if that is a step that is recommended and that we think would be effective at this point in the discussion, of course the president is always open to leader-to-leader engagement.

Alexander Ward contributed to this report.
A federal judge has sided with three University of Florida political science professors, giving them a preliminary win in their fight to provide expert witness testimony in a lawsuit challenging a new state election law that starts in less than two weeks.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker granted them a preliminary injunction on Friday in a 74-page order in which he cites the removal of a tower at the University of Hong Kong known as the "Pillar of Shame" commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Back story: Judge blasts University of Florida lawyer in row over evidence; promises order in 10 days

"In many ways, the Pillars demise was emblematic of the demise of academic freedom in Hong Kong," Walker said, tying it to the impact of UF's conflict of interest policy on the academic freedom of its own faculty.

"UF has bowed to perceived pressure from Floridas political leaders."

People say that's China, and it couldn't happen here, Walker said, but the UF professors contend in their request for an injunction that it has already happened, that "UF has bowed to perceived pressure from Floridas political leaders and has sanctioned the unconstitutional suppression of ideas out of favor with Floridas ruling party."

 Read Walker's entire 74-page order here.

The judge, who sits in the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee, issued the order against the university's controversial conflict-of-interest policy regarding giving expert testimony in legal matters.

"Defendants must take no steps to enforce its conflict-of-interests policy with respect to faculty and staff requests to engage as expert witnesses or provide legal consulting in litigation involving the State of Florida until otherwise ordered," Walker ordered.

University of Florida President Kent Fuchs speaks during UF Day at the Capitol Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020.

The injunction applies to the University of Florida Board of Trustees, President Kent Fuchs, Provost Joe Glover, Law Dean Laura Rosenbury, and any of their officers, agents, attorneys and others who receive notice of the injunction.

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But he denied a parallel request regarding policy about filing friend-of-the-court briefs and let stand the university's conflict-of-commitment policy regarding outside work.

Walker set a bench trial date for Nov. 7. A university spokesperson said officials are reviewing the order to determine their next steps.

David O'Neil, lawyer for the faculty, said todays decision is a ringing endorsement of the critical importance of faculty free speech and academic freedom to the health of our democracy."

How the case began

Sharon Austin, Daniel Smith and Michael McDonald challenged the constitutionality of the revised policy after they were denied permission to provide expert testimony in a case challenging a new state elections law that places restrictions on voting by mail, among other things. Smith is chair of the department.

Administrators denied their requests, saying their testimony would be adverse to the universitys interests because they went against the executive branch of state government.

More from UF:

The professors were shocked to be turned down, because the university had not only allowed such activities for decades, but had encouraged and even boasted about faculty taking part in legal cases of state and national import.

A medical professor who was likewise denied permission to testify in a case against the state challenging the rights of school districts to require students to wear masks joined the lawsuit.

The university changed its policy in 2020, the professors said, requiring permission in advance, amounting to censorship after the Legislature passed a new law requiring the state universities to determine that faculty are not engaging in outside activities or financial interests that could affect the integrity of the universities.

"Declaring such activities a conflict of interest, UF has repeatedly blocked professors from providing expert testimony against the State in cases implicating hot-button political issues," Walker noted.

Meet Judge Mark Walker: Florida native, 'Double Gator,' quotable jurist

The governor's office has denied any involvement in turning down the faculty's requests to provide expert testimony.

After news broke of the three political science professors being denied permission to provide expert testimony in the elections case, the university reversed its decision and allowed them to testify, and revised its conflict policy slightly.

"It was not until the wider world caught on to what was happening that the muzzle was lifted," he said.

Walker also noted that the trial in the challenge of the state's election law is set to begin in less than two weeks.

Tigert Hall on the University of Florida campus

Revised policy also unconstitutional

The faculty said the revised policy is also unconstitutional because it does not disavow UF's "interest in "aligning faculty speech with the ruling partys political preferences," Walker said.

Two law professors joined the lawsuit claiming the policy outlining when they may file friend-of-the-court briefs was also unconstitutional, Walker noted.

"Here, fortunately, democracy does not depend upon a lone child to challenge the 'emperors' of our time. Instead, this nations 'priests of democracy,'  its learned professors  guide us in our pursuit of truth and informed citizenship," Walker wrote.

"Yet, when several UF professors were called to speak truthfully on topics related to their expertise in cases challenging the state, their requests to speak truthfully and critically in courts of law were denied in an all-too-familiar display of anticipatory obedience."

Walker also noted that UF's national rise to prominence was tied to the Legislature providing funds to hire faculty and create new endowed chairs. From 2014 forward, the university shot up through the ranks to become the fifth top public university in the nation last year.

"UF officials know that UFs relationship with Floridas government has been key to that success," Walker said, noting comments made by UF Board of Trustees Chairman Mori Hosseini owing their success the support of the Legislature.

Walker also noted that Fuchs told the faculty senate in September that criticism of the state's COVID-19 response would fracture the relationship between the university and the state government ... ultimately leading to a diminished or inability to impact future policies or decisions affecting the university.

A report on academic freedom issued by the UF Faculty Senate days after the professors filed their lawsuit said there was palpable reticence and even fear on the part of faculty to speak up on hot button issues.

The report also said faculty were concerned about retaliation and "a sense that anyone who objected to the state of affairs might lose his or her job or be punished in some way," Walker noted.

Walker's ruling is a win for academic freedom, O'Neil said, and a message that faculty need not fear sharing their views because they aren't aligned with the ruling party.

Said O'Neil: "The decision sends a clear message to public universities across the country  and to politicians who would try to interfere with them  that they too must honor the constitutional principles that make the college campus a vital engine of a free society."

Jeffrey Schweers is a capital bureau reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida. Contact Schweers at jschweers@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.

Subscribe today using the link at the top of the page and never miss a story.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Judge blasts University of Florida conflict of interest policy in injunction
The jagged edge of leaflets gives the palm its fishtail common name.

My first exposure to the distinctive, tropical fishtail palm was in the late 1990s when my job was landscape manager for Universal Orlando. We were in the construction phase of the exciting Islands of Adventure theme park, and one task was to create an instant jungle aesthetic for the Jurassic Park section.

This included ordering massive, leafy palms to anchor the cue lines, creating nearly opaque screening in which a Velociraptor could hide under an overstory of dappled shade. The healthy Hollywood-scale budget allowed us to purchase huge single stem caryota species from southeast Asia via California, and multi-trunk from south Florida nurseries.

The bi-pinnate leaflets appear almost fernlike.

Caryotas get their fishtail nickname because the leaflets are jagged or "chopped" appearing at the distal end, much like the tail of a fish. They are also a species with a bipinnate leaf. Seedlings do not have this latter characteristic, but over time it becomes apparent. Bipinnate means that the leaf has its usual stem like other pinnate palms. However, it also has secondary branching pinna off the primary stem of the leaf. Off this secondary pinna come the leaflets. The leaflets have the "fishtail" appearance. The tallest of the species look like a huge fern in the sky, their huge lacy leaves making a beautiful silhouette. A dark colored webbing, reminiscent of burlap, is frequent at the leaf base and on the trunk. This fabric results as the felted and scaly leaf sheaths disintegrate into black fibers. The unique character of a fishtail palm makes it very elegant and distinctive.

The majority of caryota are single trunk species, those towering ferns in the sky. The one most often used as a houseplant is a suckering species, caryota mitis. "Suckering" means that it normally produces multiple stems, new stems emerging near the base of the "mother" trunk. This is a smaller species, reaching typically ten to twenty feet in height and having trunks about four to six inches in diameter.

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N.C. Cooperative Extension  New Hanover County Center Arboretum horticulture technician Chance Woodrum provides relative size perspective for these beautiful indoor palms.

So, 30 years later, my horticulture career has brought me to serve as director for the New Hanover County Arboretum and Cooperative Extension. Serendipitously connected once again with fishtail palms through the film industry, I had a phone call from the Greens department at our local Screen Gems studio. The filming of Netflix Florida Man was finished, and they offered to donate ten large Fishtail palms to the Arboretum, retired from their film careers. I heartily agreed to accept them as a donation to Friends of the Arboretum to use for raising funds for our worthy programs and grounds. (Being a tropical plant, they are not easily suited for in-ground planting in our zone 8, but we may try a few in a cozy microclimate near a heat-conserving concrete wall at the Arboretum to experiment.)

We have several of these 10+ beauties in nursery pots available for $150 each. Arrange to stop by the Arboretum greenhouse between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday through Friday next week and call MaryBeth, 910-798-7660 to make an appointment for pick up. Or, with membership in Friends https://thefriends.wildapricot.org/, one can be delivered to your home or office in New Hanover County free of charge. Weighing in at about 75 pounds with an overall height of nearly 11, you will want to have high ceilings, bright indoor light, and a large saucer and decorative pot to accommodate a 15-gallon container (13 high by 17 wide).

Lloyd Singleton

Lloyd Singleton is the director of the N.C. Cooperative Extension  New Hanover County Center at the Arboretum and can be reached at lsingleton@nhcgov.com. The grounds are free and open daily from 8 a.m.5 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Bringing outdoors inside this winter with a fishtail palm
Serving cheese and meat platters as a party snack is nothing new. But turning the appetizer into an art form has become a real party pleaser.

Charcuterie boards were the centerpiece of many a holiday spread this season and are continuing to be the newest must-have on tables through the new year.

Creative types, whether culinary experts or not, have jumped on board, seeing the opportunity to marry the trend and good eats into a business opportunity that lets their art take center table.

Becca Ditmar is 21 and a college student, and now a successful small business owner as she delights customers with her versatile charcuterie boards.

Last year, the Sellersville resident launched Cheeseboards by Becca when she saw the cured meat and cheese boards trending on social media and wanted to try them for herself. Ditmar had no culinary background but thought she could bring her artistry to the task.

When I was in middle school and going into high school, I did a lot of painting. But with time in college and everything I stopped painting, so I found that this was a creative outlet. Thats why I think it came pretty easy to me, said Ditmar, a senior nursing major at DeSales University.

While Ditmars business, which has seen her do both large and small parties and events in the county, is in its early stages, she has already seen success. Working from her home kitchen, she just wrapped up a busy holiday season where she had 10 orders for Christmas.

One of her customers had her create a grazing table for about 50.

Everyone likes the aesthetics of it.  People take a picture of it, they'll post it and it's just a really nice piece to have in the middle of your party. It's a talking point for sure, said Ditmar.

A 50-person grazing table made by small business Cheeseboards by Becca was a crowd pleaser at a recent party .

In a pickle?: It's how hoagies are made in this Croydon deli

More than just a cheese board

The term charcuterie is derived from a French phrase meaning cooked meat, yet the boards have grown to include much more. Fruits, nuts and sweets are just a few of the food items that can be found on a carefully curated charcuterie board.

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The variety offered in the platters has led charcuterie boards to explode in popularity over the past year in a half. A search on Instagram or Pinterest for charcuterie will lead you to millions of meat and cheese boards posts, each one looking completely different from the next.

Nastassja Vassileva, an assistant manager at Conquering Cuisine in Doylestown Borough, stands with a charcuterie board she prepared on Wednesday, January 18, 2022.

Denis Chiappa, owner of the Doylestown-based catering company and cooking school Conquering Cuisine, has also seen the charcuterie board trend quickly take off.

Chiappa said between 75% and 80% of all his catering orders incorporate a charcuterie or cheese board.

It allows people to be artistic a little bit. They present themselves really beautifully. You got a variety because on one board you have so many different ingredients. You have different cheeses, different meats, all the condiments that people like, nice jellies, olives, all different kinds of things all in one spot, said Chiappa, who resides in North Wales.

Chiappa and Ditmar agreed that there is a method to creating a tasty board.

Chiappa focuses on ensuring the board has diverse flavors. For instance, to contrast the salty meat flavor he will add candied nuts.

I will even add plain nuts, any contrast and texture is good, he said.

Conquering Cuisine in Doylestown Borough, offers charcuterie boards filled with assorted meats, cheeses and accompaniments, as part of their catering menu. This platter, which serves 20-40 people, includes chorizo, salami, prosciutto, blue cheese, manchego, smoked gouda, aged chedder, pepato cheese, garlic and herb boursin, chopped nuts in honey, roasted pepper and tomato harissa, black truffle sauce, cornichons, candied pecans, cashews, pistachios, caperberries, sliced apples, dried apricots and figs.

Before taking orders Ditmar researched different types of meat and cheeses. She explained that knowing what tastes complement each other results in the best product.

There's a lot of stuff that goes into it. Is the cheese semi-soft? Or is it soft? Is it a hard cheese? Is it a really strong flavor? What fruits and vegetables should go on the border? You don't want to put a sweet meat next to a super sweet cheese," Ditmar said. "You don't want to blend your flavors.

Becca Ditmar, a 21-year-old college student found artistic expression through charcuterie boards and decided to turn it into a business. Cheeseboards by Becca has been a success.

Trending on social media

The charcuterie craze on social media helped Cheri Padulese not only promote her business but find inspiration for her orders. Padulese jumped on the charcuterie trend in 2021 when she started her business Bucks County Boards.

I think it does lend itself well to social media. On Instagram people started taking pictures of their breakfast, right? So that's kind of where it belongs, said Padulese, who receives thousands of views on her charcuterie board Instagram.

A Halloween charcuterie board made by Cheri Padulese for her business Bucks County Boards.

Padulese, a Levittown resident, said social media helped her business reach people across the country. She also uses Instagram to look for ideas. Padulese doesn't recreate the social media charcuterie boards but instead uses them as starting point.

Paduleses creations can differ from traditional charcuterie boards as she transforms the meat and cheese into figures. A turkey, bats and a Christmas tree all have been built for Paduleses customers. She even used a glass skull as a centerpiece on a Halloween-themed board.

I can make a board two or three times before I'm fine with it  I'll redo it until I'm satisfied with it. I really don't like to let it go out the door before then, she said.

The key to a successful charcuterie board

While Padulese went to culinary school and dreamed of one day opening a deli, a chefs background is not essential to crafting a charcuterie board. This sentiment is true for Marina Frayman, of Lower Southampton, who is a mental health counselor, but also runs a charcuterie business.

Marina Frayman of Lower Southampton, who is a mental health counselor, also runs a charcuterie business, La Petite Charcuterie. She said creativity is the key to a successful charcuterie board.

Frayman launched La Petite Charcuterie in 2020 because she liked putting things together. She said for those looking to get started with charcuterie its best to find products that are personal to your taste.

Regardless of how you put it together on a board as long as you have things on that plate or board that you really enjoy, it's going to be wonderful. That's really it, said Frayman.

I honestly think the secret is just having fun with it, Frayman added.

As boards continue to grow in popularity, Chiappa said the availability of higher-end cheeses has grown in grocery stores. He said beginners should take advantage of this new selection.

Local grocery stores now have an amazing variety of cheeses  I always tell people to get some soft cheeses, some hard cheeses, some fresh, some that are aged. So you have different levels of saltiness and flavor in them. And, and just be creative, said Chiappa.

Cheese boards may have a long history but charcuterie offers a way for artistic expression to have a place in the kitchen.

It's just elevated to a whole new level because people can be more creative with it, said Chiappa.

Conquering Cuisine in Doylestown Borough, offers charcuterie boards filled with assorted meats, cheeses and accompaniments, as part of their catering menu. This platter, which serves 20-40 people, includes chorizo, salami, prosciutto, blue cheese, manchego, smoked gouda, aged chedder, pepato cheese, garlic and herb boursin, chopped nuts in honey, roasted pepper and tomato harissa, black truffle sauce, cornichons, candied pecans, cashews, pistachios, caperberries, sliced apples, dried apricots and figs.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County charcuterie businesses bring taste and art to the table
On January 3, 2022, President Xi Jinping exchanged congratulatory messages with First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

In his congratulatory message to Nazarbayev, Xi Jinping pointed out, since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, China-Kazakhstan relations have kept advancing with the times and breaking new ground, and always maintained the momentum of robust development, setting a good example of neighboring countries upholding good-neighborliness and pursuing win-win cooperation. I highly appreciate the fact that First President Nazarbayev has firmly followed a friendly policy towards China and made outstanding contributions to advancing bilateral ties and deepening Belt and Road cooperation.

Xi Jinping stressed, First President Nazarbayev is my old friend, and I cherish the sound working relationship and deep personal friendship with First President Nazarbayev. I attach great importance to the development of China-Kazakhstan relations and stand ready to work with First President Nazarbayev to push for steady and long-term development of China-Kazakhstan permanent comprehensive strategic partnership, so as to bring benefits to the two countries and two peoples.

In his congratulatory message to Tokayev, Xi Jinping pointed out, China and Kazakhstan are friendly neighbors and permanent comprehensive strategic partners. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, bilateral relations have always been running at a high level, with deepening political mutual trust, closer exchanges at all levels and fruitful outcomes in Belt and Road cooperation, which has brought tangible benefits to the two peoples.

Xi Jinping stressed, China will, as always, support Kazakhstan in pursuing a development path suited to its national conditions. I attach great importance to the development of China-Kazakhstan relations and would like to work with President Tokayev to take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to consolidate China-Kazakhstan traditional friendship, seek greater synergy of the two countries' strategies and push China-Kazakhstan permanent comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level, so as to create benefits for the two countries and two peoples.

Nazarbayev said, China was one of the first countries to recognize Kazakhstan's independence. The two sides have established a permanent comprehensive strategic partnership on the basis of mutual trust and mutual respect. Kazakhstan is ready to work with China to push for greater development of bilateral cooperation in various fields.

Tokayev said, since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, Kazakhstan and China have set a good example for the international community to develop state-to-state relations, and have become an important factor for stability and prosperity in the Eurasian region. The two sides have completely resolved the boundary question left over from history, and built the shared border between the two countries into a bridge of friendship and unity between Kazakhstan and China. I would like to work with you to make greater efforts for the development of Kazakhstan-China relations.
Lubbock police confirmed they're investigating a person's death after a check-subject call near Broadway and Avenue K Thursday morning.

Police are investigating a death in which no foul play was immediately suspected after a person's body was found early Thursday morning near a downtown restaurant and brewery.

The development prompted the two business - The Brewery LBK and The West Table - to release a joint statement announcing they'd be closed for the evening and expressing their condolences for the person who died as the investigation continues.

Officers responding to a check-subject call at 4:54 a.m. Thursday at Broadway and Avenue K found a person who was pronounced dead on scene, according to Lubbock police.

By 7:45 a.m. Thursday, police still had the intersection blocked off and yellow tape surrounded the entrance to The West Table and The Brewery LBK, with police congregated inside.

Other information, including the person's identity and cause of death, were not immediately available pending an ongoing investigation. But police Cpl. Tony Leal confirmed, "there are no signs of foul play and this is being investigated as a death investigation."

The Brewery LBK and The West Table released a joint statement on social media late Thursday morning.

"The West Table and The Brewery LBK would like to express how deeply saddened we are by the sudden loss of one of our dear friends and patrons," the statement reads. "The Brewery LBK will be closed tonight in consideration of the sensitivity of the situation. Our thoughts and condolences go out to the family and to the Pioneer Building community, and we appreciate everyones mindfulness and respect for the privacy needed to process and mourn the passing."

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Businesses release statement as Lubbock police investigate death
OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada will offer Ukraine a loan of up to C$120 million ($95.6 million) and is looking at other ways to support Kyiv as a crisis with Russia deepens, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday.

"Russia is aiming to destabilize Ukraine, including economically. This loan will help support Ukraine's economic resilience," Trudeau told a news conference.

"(It) is one of the top things that the Ukrainian government has been asking for from Canada."

Trudeau reiterated his condemnation of Russia's moves to build up troops near the Ukrainian border, saying "any movement of Russian troops into Ukraine will be absolutely unacceptable and met with a clear response from the international community".

Ottawa is "also exploring other options to provide financial and other supports," Trudeau said. He sidestepped questions about whether Canada would send weapons to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed the news, tweeting that "Canada demonstrates once again the real devotion to the spirit of special partnership between our two countries".

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.

($1 = 1.2548 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)  Ahead of an international conference on Haiti led by his country, Canadas ambassador to the Caribbean nation called for a politically inclusive accord to address a deepening constitutional crisis following the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

In an interview in Port-au-Prince, diplomat Sebastien Carriere expressed concern about the degradation of the security situation in Haiti, which will be a central topic of a virtual meeting Friday that will include ministers from Canada, the United States and France, among other countries. The meeting will be led by Melanie Joly, Canadas Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Canada is absolutely concerned with the security situation in Haiti, Carriere told The Associated Press.

But Carriere added that Haitis crisis is multipronged and complex, with economic, humanitarian and security aspects and a looming leadership deadline. Citing U.N. numbers, he said 4.6 million Haitians live in a state of humanitarian emergency.

Canada views elections as inevitable in Haiti given the institutional collapse but their timing is anybodys guess.

Canada believes that the security must be reestablished before elections are held  In the current context it would be very difficult to have elections, in particular with competing political accords, he said.

Moises killing complicated an already fragile political situation in Haiti. He had controversially claimed that his term would end on Feb. 7, 2022. Shortly before his death, Moise had tapped current interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry for the post and many observers think that Henrys term should end on Feb. 7 as well.

To make the matter worse, Haitis legislative and the judiciary branches also face legitimacy crises, along with the executive branch.

Many parts of Haitian civil society are calling for accords that would allow for a consensual leadership of the country while it waits to renew its institutions through elections.

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Henry himself claims to be spearheading one such accord, called the September 11th accord. Competing accords have also been developed in recent months. The main rival to Henrys accord is known as the Montana Accord.

With a showdown looming between the Henry government and parts of civil society, Carriere said Canada will take no sides.

If we do have a preference, it is for everyone to get under one accord, he said, calling for an inclusive accord.

Canada wants such an accord to be reached preferably before Feb. 7. Henrys frail legitimacy risks being challenged even further after that date.

The Canadian diplomat keeps his focus on Fridays conference as a sliver of hope for Haiti.

For him, security remains the top issue I am seeing a population thats being held hostage by the insecurity.
MEXICO CITY (AP)  Two Canadians were killed Friday and one more wounded in a shooting at a hotel along Mexico's Caribbean coast, state authorities said.

Quintana Roo state security chief Lucio Hernandez said via Twitter that authorities were searching for a Hotel Xcaret guest in the shooting. He shared a photo of a man walking with a handgun.

The Xcaret resort is south of Playa del Carmen.

Authorities said all three victims were taken to a hospital, but two died.

The Quintana Roo state prosecutor's office said via Twitter that the suspect in the shooting was also apparently a guest and Canadian police informed them he was a known felon with a long record related to robbery, drug and weapons offenses. The office said both of the dead also had criminal records.

It is just the latest brazen act of violence along Mexico's famed Mayan Riviera, the crown jewel of its tourism industry.

In November, a shootout on the beach of Puerto Morelos left two suspected drug dealers dead. Authorities said there were some 15 gunmen from a gang that apparently disputed control of drug sales there.

In late October, farther south in the laidback destination of Tulum, two tourists  one a California travel blogger born in India and the other German  were caught in the apparent crossfire of rival drug dealers and killed.

Following those events, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent nearly 1,500 members of the National Guard to reinforce security in the area.
Peter Isely, front, speaks to media about the alleged cover-up he claims has prevented victims from getting justice from the Catholic Church. The documents were left for Brown County District Attorney David Lasee.

GREEN BAY - Advocates claim they have obtained thousands of documents from whistleblowers inside the church that reveal over 200 allegedly abusive priests were kept secret across the five Wisconsin dioceses, 69 of whom have associations with the Diocese of Green Bay.

On Thursday, Peter Isely, program director of Nate's Mission, and Sarah Pearson, its deputy director, stood in the lobby of the Brown County Courthouse with a message for Brown County District Attorney David Lasee: investigate their list of priests.

Isely did not show the Green Bay Press-Gazette the contents of the package or any of the documents to allow the newspaper to independently verify the organization's claims.

"We're here (in Green Bay), we were in Madison, in Milwaukee, because of these whistleblowers  church whistleblowers, people who are part of the church and have a conscience," Isely said. "We're delivering criminal evidence of child abuse, widespread child abuse and corporate cover-up of that abuse."

Nate's Mission, an organization pushing for a full accounting of clergy abuse in Wisconsin, is named after the late Nate Lindstrom of Green Bay, who accused multiple priests from St. Norbert Abbey of abuse. Lindstrom received $420,000 in secret payments from the Catholic order over 10 years until the abbey stopped sending checks in 2019. He died by suicide in 2020.

Currently, a list of 50 names appears on the Diocese of Green Bay's public disclosure list of abusive priests Isely claims an additional 69 priests are on the list.

Peter Isely, left, and Sarah Pearson, right, wait to hear whether somebody from Victim Services will meet with them over the documents that they claim list 69 priests associated with the Diocese of Green Bay as alleged sexual abusers.

Green Bay was the second stop in a week to Wisconsin law offices. On Tuesday, Isely and Pearson turned over thousands of documents to the office of Attorney General Josh Kaul.

Among the papers handed over to Kaul's office was allegedly evidence that the Diocese of Green Bay destroyed filings in 2007, according to the advocacy group.

The decision to destroy the documents, made by then-Bishop David Zubik, prevented prosecutors from pursuing criminal investigations of clergy, a release from Nate's Mission said.

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According to the advocacy group, the documents contain alleged systematic cover-ups across the five state dioceses that incriminate powerful individuals, from Zubik to U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who served on the Green Bay Diocesan Finance Council when key filings were destroyed.

Johnson has denied any knowledge of and involvement in the destruction of documents.

According to the advocacy group, the records show personnel reports, parish transfers (of allegedly abusive priests) and minutes from church leaders discussing tactics and strategies to evade prosecution.

In addition to the 69 additional names Nate's Mission has records for in Green Bay, Pearson said they have evidence for 218 more priests associated with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee lists only 48 names on its current page of restricted priests, meaning there could potentially be a discrepancy of 170 priests.

In response to these new allegations of abuse, Justine Lodl, communications director for Diocese of Green Bay, released a media statement acknowledging the press release announced by Nate's Mission but reserving any further comment at this time. The Diocese of Green Bay emphasized, however, the importance of protecting children and vulnerable adults.

"The diocese has, over the past several decades, implemented a variety of tools to ensure the safety of every person in the diocese, including background checks, rigorous safe environment training and education, mandatory reporting mechanisms and outreach to survivors of abuse," said the statement.

To this, Isely wants to know "where the 69 lost offenders" in the Dioceses of Green Bay are. And Pearson said statements like this are hollow and often repeat "the same five sentences" without showing true accountability.

In August, Kaul announced that two cases were reported directly to the Brown County District Attorney's Office. One case was current, and the other was from a few decades ago, according to the Sexual Assault Center of Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin.

Isely said he hopes that Lasee "puts the heat up" on the Diocese of Green Bay with this new information.

RELATED: Wisconsin launched a clergy sex abuse investigation. Here's why, and what it means for victims, church officials.

RELATED: First came sex abuse allegations at the abbey. Then secret payments. Then a suicide.

Natalie Eilbert is a government watchdog reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. You can reach her at neilbert@gannett.com or view her Twitter profile at @natalie_eilbert.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Advocacy group claims it has new evidence of clergy abuse
The increase in COVID-19 cases has forced officials to close several area school systems, but so far Oak Ridge Schools isn't one of them.

Officials with Anderson County Schools closed the schools Wednesday through Friday this week because of "staffing concerns related to illness," according to a post on the school system's Facebook page. In addition to the schools, the school system's central office for administrators was also closed Thursday and Friday.

Tennessee Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey speaks to state lawmakers about coronavirus on Jan. 19, 2022.

In addition to Anderson County Schools, Knox County Schools were also closed Wednesday through Friday for pandemic-related illnesses. Knox News reported that Oneida Special School District and Scott County Schools were also closed Thursday. Knoxville Catholic High students were told they would finish the rest of this week with At-Home Learning due to staffing issues.

But Oak Ridge Schools remain open. On Wednesday afternoon, the school system's Case Count Dashboard showed active cases of COVID-19 among 49 students and eight employees.

"We are experiencing staff shortages due to COVID-19. We are hopeful that cases will soon peak so that we can return to a more normal staffing pattern," Holly Cross, supervisor of career readiness and communications for Oak Ridge Schools, stated in an emailed reply to the newspaper's questions.

Methodist Medical Center

Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge, as well as other Covenant Health hospitals in the area, are posting information on COVID-19 patients on a dashboard. The MMC dashboard is updated on its Facebook page Monday through Friday around noon.

The dashboard for Wednesday showed 28 confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations at MMC, and two more cases are listed as "suspected" of being from the novel coronavirus.

Although the number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital's intensive care unit is not given on the dashboard, it does state that all the ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

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Across the hospital, in the ICU and other floors, 61% of the patients with COVID-19 were unvaccinated, according to the dashboard information.

One week ago, the dashboard showed 25 patients at the local hospital were confirmed to have COVID-19, and at least three more were suspected of having the coronavirus.

The median age of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients at MMC Wednesday was 73.5.

Tennessee Department of Health

Wednesday's weekly update from the Tennessee Department of Health shows 1,909 active cases in Anderson County and a total of 278 deaths since the pandemic began. The death total indicates eight residents have died of COVID-19 in the past week.

In Roane County, the number of active cases was listed at 1,301 active cases and 191 deaths. The death total is seven more than the previous week.

In Morgan County, there are 349 active cases and 63 deaths listed. This total indicates three people have died in the past week.

Across Tennessee, there were approximately 86 deaths from COVID-19 per day last week for a total of 21,694. The dashboard shows there were approximately 16,226 active cases per day for a total of 1.65 million. Hospitalizations across the state from the coronavirus totaled 2,938.

Omicron plateauing?

In a briefing with state legislators Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said the omicron variant is plateauing in the states cities  a hopeful sign of the current surge may be nearing its peak  while the virus continues to spread rapidly in rural counties.

The Tennessee Department of Health's new virus data showed a decline of infections in Nashville and Memphis last week and slowing spread in the Chattanooga area. The virus continues to rise sharply in the Knoxville area.

The Tennessean reported Wednesday that Piercey said the virus was flattening and even declining in "essentially all" metropolitan areas. Less populated regions are expected to follow, she said.

Donna Smith can be contacted at (865) 220-5514 or by email at dsmith@oakridger.com. Follow her on Twitter @ridgernewsed.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: COVID-19 closing some schools, but not in Oak Ridge
ROLLING MEADOWS, IL  A local pop-up COVID-19 testing company with sites across the United States will not reopen in Illinois for the "foreseeable future." Attorney General Kwame Raoul said Thursday the Rolling Meadows-based Center for COVID Control voluntarily suspended operations following complaints from customers to his office.

"Complaints have ranged from testing results being delayed or not received at all, to results being provided to individuals who were never administered a test, to tests being stored improperly, and staff incorrectly using PPE and face masks," Raoul said.

CCC, a privately held Illinois-based operator of COVID testing center sites, was established in 2020, according to its website, "to address a critical need for COVID-19 testing and has gained recognition as one of the largest testing center operators in the country." CCC markets and manages more than 300 test collection sites  both brick-and-mortar and drive-thru locations  across the U.S. It employs more than 3,000 people.





Center for COVID Control is based at 1685 Winnetka Circle in Rolling Meadows, former site of a Weber Grill restaurant. (Google Maps)

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Hennepin County against CCC and its associated lab, Doctors Clinical Laboratory, Inc. The lawsuit said the two Illinois-based companies failed to deliver COVID-19 test results or gave test results that were falsified or inaccurate, according to Ellison's office.



The lawsuit charges the companies with false advertising, deceptive trading practices, and violation of the state consumer fraud active. It also claims Doctors Clinical Laboratory billed the federal government over $113 million for COVID-19 tests provided to allegedly-uninsured patients across the nation, including Minnesota consumers.

"[I'm] deeply concerned. The attorney general is on it. The federal government has been on this case as well." Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Thursday regarding the lawsuit. "There are fly-by-night operations, and we need to make sure we keep those away from people looking for legitimate tests. If we can close them down, we will."

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Raoul said his office contacted company officials and demanded that CCC immediately stop engaging in any fraudulent or deceptive conduct, particularly with respect to the delivery of testing results or billing. In addition to evaluating complaints from residents, Raoul said attorneys from the Consumer Fraud Division interviewed former employees of the CCC.

I am pleased with this result and would like to thank the residents who noticed something awry and contacted my office," Raoul said. "I also appreciate the former employee whistleblowers who came forward to report practices that compromised tests."

CCC, which had temporarily closed operations last week, had planned to reopen Saturday. In a statement, the company said it "remains committed to providing the highest level of customer service and diagnostic quality and will not resume collection of patient samples until staffing resources permit CCC to operate at full capacity."

CCC said it is using this operational pause to train additional staff on sample collection and handling, customer service and communications best practices, as well as compliance with regulatory guidelines. The company said it will provide an update on reopening plans when appropriate.

Pop-up COVID-19 testing locations are not regulated by a government agency. Raoul recommends that people first try to utilize a state-sponsored testing site if possible. Individuals can contact their health care providers for testing or testing center recommendations. People can also find a testing location by visiting the Illinois Department of Public Healths website, the Cook County Department of Healths website and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.



Raoul urged Illinoisans to choose a different testing site if they visit one where something does not seem right. He encouraged residents to file a complaint on the Attorney Generals website if they believe they have been the victim of fraud, were asked to pay out-of-pocket or later received a bill for testing services.



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This article originally appeared on the Arlington Heights Patch
On January 6, 2022, President Xi Jinping exchanged congratulatory messages with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.



Xi Jinping pointed out, since the establishment of diplomatic relations 30 years ago, China-Turkmenistan relations have achieved leapfrog development. China is the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Turkmenistan, the country of the first batches to support Turkmenistan's policy of permanent neutrality, the first strategic partner established through a political document, and the largest natural gas trading partner of Turkmenistan. The development of China-Turkmenistan relations has not only brought tangible benefits to the two countries and two peoples, but also made important contributions to maintaining regional peace and stability.

Xi Jinping stressed, China attaches great importance to the relations with Turkmenistan and will, as always, firmly support Turkmenistan in following the development path suited to its own national conditions, safeguarding national sovereignty and independence, and pursuing the policy of permanent neutrality. I am ready to keep close contact with you and take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries as an opportunity to continue to continuously deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields and jointly promote China-Turkmenistan strategic partnership to a new level, so as to benefit the two countries and two peoples.

Berdymukhamedov said, since the establishment of diplomatic ties, Turkmenistan and China have been carrying out comprehensive cooperation in the widest range of fields and have established a unique multi-level collaboration mechanism. China has been the main trading partner of Turkmenistan for many years, which is a live manifestation of mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries. Turkmenistan attaches great importance to Turkmenistan-China relations, and will work closely with China based on the principles of equal treatment, mutual respect and accommodation of each other's interests, and make every effort to promote Turkmenistan-China relations to reach a higher level.
AUSTIN, Texas  Soldiers sleeping in tractor-trailers. Erratic pay. Rampant COVID-19 spread. Suicides.

Members of the Texas National Guard patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border under Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbotts response to stem the flow of undocumented migrants, have voiced a flurry of complaints about their ongoing mission there.

Abbott and supporters say he deployed the troops last year to protect Texas from a rising tide of human smuggling and drug trafficking.

But critics of the operation contend that Abbott, a Republican, deployed the servicemembers as a political move in the run-up to his reelection campaign in this year and the operation  a mandatory mission of more than 10,000 personnel to help enforce the border  may not be constitutional. Soldiers on the ground have complained of poor planning, lack of proper equipment and deployments that have stretched into months.

At least four soldiers connected to the mission have taken their own lives since October, sparking protests from U.S. Congressional leaders. Last week, 13 Democratic members of the Texas congressional delegation called for an inspector general investigation into Operation Lone Star.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, brought up the soldiers' complaints to National Guard top leaders at a House subcommittee hearing.

WHAT IS OPERATION LONE STAR? Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts border crackdown violates US Constitution, defense lawyers say

National Guard members patrol near an unfinished section of border wall on Nov. 18, 2021, in La Joya, Texas. More than 10,000 Guard members have been deployed to the border to assist in border enforcement.

"What Operation Lone Star represents to me is an absolute abuse of a precious commodity, our National Guard, an abuse of people who stand ready to give up their lives to help the nation," Escobar said in an interview with USA TODAY, "not to help a politician win reelection."

Abbott began ordering troops to the border last year, as the number of asylum-seekers crossing into Texas reached historic highs. The mission began with a few hundred troops on a volunteer basis but soon grew into the thousands, and more troops were mandated to deploy.

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The operation cost $23 million in 2021 and is expected to soar to $2 billion this year, according to the Texas Military Department.

So far, the mission has resulted in encounters with more than 189,000 migrants, of whom over 10,300 were arrested for committing border-related crimes. Over 222 million lethal doses of fentanyl was seized, according to a statement by Nan Tolson, an Abbott spokeswoman.

'A poorly planned operation'

Last fiscal year, Border Patrol agents encountered a record 1.7 million migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border  more than any other year since the agency began tracking the numbers in 1960. Democrats have criticized President Joe Biden's administration for not being able to reverse some of former President Donald Trump's stricter immigration policies, while Republicans criticize him for not stopping enough undocumented immigrants.

"Texas will do whatever it takes to secure our southern border and protect Texans in President Bidens absence, because nothing is more important than the safety and security of our communities, Tolson said in the statement.

But Guard members on the mission have complained that they were not given adequate time to deploy, that their pay while on the border has been erratic and of shoddy living conditions. USA TODAY spoke to several soldiers currently on the mission or who recently left the National Guard and reviewed documents verifying their stories. Many of the soldiers still in Operation Lone Star asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from National Guard leadership.

USA TODAY ANALYSIS: Proposed Texas-Mexico border wall draped in legal, ethical concerns and politics

National Guard members patrol near an unfinished section of border wall on Nov. 18, 2021 in La Joya, Texas. More than 10,000 Guard members have been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border to assist in border enforcement as part of Operation Lone Star.

Jason Featherston, a former senior enlisted advisor for the Texas Army National Guard who retired in November, said Guard members on the border are forced to sleep in cramped, retrofitted trailers and many don't have proper winter gear as the weather turned cold. Some soldiers sleep in their cars to avoid cramming into trailers and catching the coronavirus, he said. COVID-19 outbreaks have been common, he added.

"This was a poorly planned operation," Featherston said. "It was very hastily done."

One soldier, who asked that his name not be published, said there are no bathrooms at the observation posts he and other soldiers man, so they end up defecating on the side of the highway. The soldiers also lack basic equipment, such as binoculars, and end up parked on the side of the road for hours.

"What you get is soldiers who sit in the Humvee all day and just stare out into Mexico," the soldier said.

At a virtual town hall meeting earlier this month led by 36th Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. Charles Aris, some National Guard company commanders voiced concern that the mission was taking an emotional toll on their soldiers.

"Im drastically concerned with the mental health aspects that I see within my formation," one commander said in a recording of the meeting. "I know that [Operation Lone Star] has really been impacting a lot of people."

'YOU ARE FREE, YOU ARE HOME': Haitian migrants to be offered residency, permits by Mexico

A U.S. National Guard member keeps watch while on a border patrol operation on Nov. 18, 2021, in La Joya, Texas. Guard members deployed to Operation Lone Star along the border have complained of shoddy housing, lack of equipment and erratic pay.

Hundreds of Guard members on the border have applied for "hardship requests," which allow them to leave their missions and return to their civilian lives, but many of those were denied, according to a review of hardship requests by USA TODAY.

On Oct. 29, Joshua Cortez, a specialist with the Texas National Guard, tried delaying his deployment to Operation Lone Star by filing a hardship request to attend a job interview in San Antonio with a major health insurance company. His company commander approved the request.

But later, the Guard's battalion commander and brigade commander denied it, writing, "Soldier can deploy. If offered a job, then Soldier can be given time for training," according to the request document. The refusal was dated Nov. 4.

Two days later, Cortez drove to the parking lot of a San Antonio office park and killed himself with a gunshot, according to Texas Military Department records.

At least three other soldiers connected to Operation Lone Star have killed themselves since October, Featherston said. The strain of putting part-time soldiers in long-term missions is exacting an emotional toll, he said.

"They joined the guard to help out," Featherston said, "but they didnt join for it to be a full-time job."

In a statement, Col. Rita Holton, a spokeswoman for the Texas Military Department, said Guard officials have granted around 75% of the more than 900 hardship requests received by the department. She said, to date, 75% of pay discrepancies for troops in Operation Lone Star have been resolved and commanders in the field have identified and are working to resolve other issues, such as lack of portable toilets and improving living conditions.

"Texas communities are safer and numerous citizens, community officials and law enforcement officers have voiced their appreciation to our service members for the significant impact they are making," Holton said in the statement.

'Absolutely unacceptable for our National Guard'

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, National Guard units have been deployed to one-year and 18-month missions to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said John Goheen, spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States, a Washington-based advocacy group.

But those deployments are federal missions, under the president's orders, and Guard members get paid via a federal pay scale, he said. State missions, ordered by governors, usually involve helping out in catastrophes, such as hurricanes or wildfires, and often involve less troops and much less time on mission, Goheen said.

Governors have deployed Guard members for COVID-19 responses, and past Texas governors have ordered troops to the border, though not at this scale, Goheen said.

Aris said in the virtual town hall that Operation Lone Star would likely last two years. Featherston said a mission of that length isn't viable for the Guard's 24,000 members.

"We should have a presence on the border, but not the 10,000," Featherston said. "10,000 is not sustainable for the Texas National Guard. There are not enough people."

'INSIDIOUS ROT': Congressional panel puts National Guard on notice over sexual assault problem

Abbott has the right to order National Guard troops to the border, Goheen said. But reports of suicides and substandard living conditions with Operation Lone Star have caught the attention of association leadership.

"Our mind is open about this mission," Goheen said. "The stories have our attention, but we dont have a clear picture right now."

Kristin Etter, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, testified in a Travis County District Court hearing last week that her organization has represented 751 clients ensnared in Operation Lone Star.

Of those, 99% have been charged with criminal trespass  what is normally a Class C or B misdemeanor that warrants little to no jail sentence.

A judge at the hearing dismissed a man's trespassing charges who had been arrested and detained under Operation Lone Star, ruling it violated the U.S. Constitution by sending state-ordered troops to enforce federal immigration laws. The state said it plans to appeal the ruling.

Escobar said she is exploring the possibility of passing a law that would give greater federal oversight to National Guard missions.

"This is absolutely unacceptable for our National Guard and absolutely unacceptable to our nation," she said. "It diminishes our readiness."

Follow Rick Jervis and Celina Tebor on Twitter @MrRJervis and @CelinaTebor.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Border mission involving Guard troops plagued by complaints, suicides
RICHMOND, Ind.  Wayne County's COVID-19 surge continues.

Just this week, the county surpassed 300 COVID-related deaths, 16,000 laboratory-confirmed cases and a 25% positivity rate. It also set a single-day high of 213 cases Tuesday, according to Indiana State Department of Health day-by-day statistics.

Through just 19 January days, the county had accumulated 2,680 cases and 15 deaths, according to the state. The case total is nearly 900 cases more than any other month during the pandemic, and the month's daily average of 141 cases is just two cases fewer than the highest single-day total from the pandemic's first 22 months, 143 cases on Aug. 31, 2021.

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Christine Stinson, the executive director of the Wayne County Health Department, told the Wayne County Board of Health during Thursday's monthly board meeting that "things are really bad." But, although the numbers are staggering, a winter spike was expected, especially with about half the county's residents remaining unvaccinated.

"We've been sounding this alarm, letting everyone know this is coming, this is coming, and we're here," Stinson said. "We as the citizens are in control of how high we let this peak go."

Stinson continued to encourage residents to get vaccinated, wear masks, avoid crowds, stay home if sick and follow quarantine and isolation guidelines.

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COVID's impact on the county has made it a target for the Indiana Healthy Opportunities for People Everywhere initiative that's a partnership between the state's health department and Purdue University. The two-year program is funded by $34.8 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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I-HOPE sending Purdue, Regenstrief representatives for study

Teams from the Purdue Healthcare Advisors in the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering will study underlying causes of disparities in health outcomes within 30 Indiana counties. Wayne County is among the five counties  with Cass, Daviess, Lake and Elkhart  where the program will begin, said Melanie Cline, the director of Purdue Healthcare Advisors, during a presentation to Wayne County commissioners and council members Wednesday night.

A five-member team plans to spend three days a week in Wayne County talking to residents and leaders to understand the community's perspective on what changes could improve county residents' health outcomes. The team will develop a strategy and priorities to address the relevant issues, Cline said, then measure those actions' impacts.

"We want to learn and figure out what works and makes a difference and spread that to other communities in our state," Cline said.

One reason Wayne County tops the initiative's list is that it's among Indiana counties most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has the 25th most cases per 100,000 residents, but the 10th most deaths per 100,000, according to state statistics.

The county also has struggled with opioid addictions and overdose deaths. More than 50 people have died from overdoses each of the past three years.

The CDC also computes a social vulnerability index that rates the potential negative effects on a community caused by external stresses on human health. In the 2018 index, Wayne County's 0.7105 (on a scale of zero to 1) is the state's eighth-highest rating.

"I think any group that is here to help work on anything to improve disparities in Wayne County, I welcome it," Stinson said.

She said the high COVID-19 death rate concerns her, and this group could help understand why the rate is so high. Stinson said factors such as population age or lack of rural medical care could impact the rate, but at this point, she doesn't know.

The state reports 302 Wayne County resident deaths because of COVID complications. Nearly half (47.7%) were people age 80 or older, and three-quarters (75.8%) were age 70 or older.

"I love any kind of group that can come in and help us figure out what the issues are and what we can do to make this a better community," Stinson said.

The group includes Elisa Worland, who works for Purdue Extension as Wayne County's health and human sciences and community development educator. She particularly spoke about the county's opioid problem, saying the county's Narcan use leads the state. Narcan is an opioid overdose antidote.

"I'm excited to have these folks," she said. "We need to move the needle here."

Worland said the group team will work on "siloing issues" where county groups do not communicate and hopes to bridge those gaps.

Childhood vaccinations

During Thursday's health board meeting, Chris Simons, the health department's director of clinical services, said the department is prioritizing childhood immunizations other than COVID-19.

He said 71% of children 19 to 35 months old have received their necessary vaccinations. The county normally has about 81% of its students having received their needed immunizations, but that number has dropped to 76%.

"We're working on getting that back up," Simons said.

The pandemic could be one reason fewer children are receiving their other vaccinations. Other issues also were mentioned, however, such as a lack of providers and a lack of awareness about the health department.

"We don't want to drop the ball on these vaccinations during the pandemic," said Dr. Paul Rider, the health board's president.

COVID vaccinations

A state COVID-19 vaccination team will return Jan. 25-29 to the Tom Raper Center at the Wayne County Fairgrounds.

Vaccinations will be given noon-8 p.m. each of those days.

The health department is teaming with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Wayne County to provide COVID-19 and flu vaccinations 4-6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24, at the First Bank Boys & Girls Club on North 12th Street.

There will be a raffle, prizes and food during the event.

Stinson said Wayne County lags behind the state vaccination rate. Through Wednesday, 30,934 residents were fully vaccinated. That's about 47% of the county's population.

Vaccination appointments can be made by calling 211 or visiting ourshot.in.gov.

This article originally appeared on Richmond Palladium-Item: Wayne County targeted in Purdue, Regenstrief health initiative
Volunteers from Habitat for Humanity of Craven County work on a new home on Wake Street in New Bern's Pembroke community. The project is part of Habitat's new community focus that will see a dozen homes built in Pembroke by the end of 2023.

Habitat for Humanity of Craven County plans to build a dozen homes in New Bern's Pembroke neighborhood over the next two years. The construction is part of a newly focused project for the area nonprofit  building up local underserved communities one home at a time.

According to Executive Director Mike Williams, the nonprofit will be focusing on a number of home building projects in the Pembroke area throughout the year. The planned construction is part of Habitats push to make larger impacts in individual communities, he said.

Habitat completed one Pembroke home late last year and has two under construction. Williams said by the end of 2023 he hopes to have 12 new homes built in the Pembroke community.

This approach is something we havent done in 20 to 25 years, said Williams. It helps us make a bigger impact because weve been doing like one home here and one way over there. The homes we bring to Pembroke will add to the tax base there, they will add to all of the things that are positive in that specific community.

More: Pembroke community: Four planned Habitat for Humanity projects will 'build hope'

Williams said each of the vacant Pembroke lots planned for the Habitat homes were donated by the City of New Bern.

The city doesn't get a lot of credit for the kind of work they do. They donated these lots to us which really helps us keep the costs down, Williams noted.

Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay 0% interest mortgages or loans. The homeownership program is made possible through contributions of volunteer time and labor, financial contributions, and through donations and purchases at the Habitat for Humanity of Craven County ReStore, located at 930 Pollock St.

Robin Powell and her husband Stephen Wood were the recipients of the first Habitat home finished in Pembroke last year on Moore Avenue. Wood, an Army veteran, said he turned to Habitat after finding out he did not qualify for a VA loan for home ownership. He said the new house is especially important for his two children, ages 2 and 17.

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Having our own yard and our own space. I can put up a fence and enclose it, and then give my daughter a room, because she needs it, he said

A Habitat home under construction on Wake Street for owner Christine Cox should be finished by mid-February, Williams said, with a dedication planned towards the end of the month..

I applied for the home in November 2020, and I got approved that December, Cox said. It was the best Christmas gift, I couldnt stop crying.

Habitats next Pembroke project will begin January 24 with a wall raising for a home on Aycock Street.

Williams said Habitat hopes to build homes on three city-donated, wooded lots on the other end of Aycock Street. They are also working to procure a fourth adjacent lot from the owner, who lives outside the area.

Williams said the internet company MetroNet, which recently started work in New Bern, plans to clear the lots.

Having four homes here is really going to change the look and feel of this community. One of the challenges is managing the water because there are ditches that run through there. Were working with the city to route that around to a lift station and help move the water over to the river, Williams said.

Also in Pembroke, a vacant lot on Pearson Street has been set aside for Habitats Faith Build, which pulls together volunteers from local churches to help construct a new home. The group also participates in fundraising for the project and provides food.

This years Faith Build will include members from local churches Saint Paul Catholic, Centenary United Methodist, First Baptist of New Bern, First Presbyterian, Christ Episcopal, Grace Anglican, Saint Johns Missionary Baptist, First Missionary Baptist, and Ebenezer Presbyterian.

The entire faith community is going to come out and do this, Williams said. It should make a pretty good impact on this community.

Habitat sets sites on Duffyfield area

Williams said Habitat is also hoping to bring new homes to the New Bern Redevelopment Commissions Focus Area 1, the neighborhood north of Broad Street that runs from Cedar Street east to Miller Street and north to Pavie Avenue. The focus area lies within the majority Black Greater Five Points and Duffyfield communities.

For the Focus Area 1 project, Williams said Habitat is hoping to work with a Greenville-based developer interested in bringing affordable housing to the New Bern area.

Were looking to do rehabilitation to homes that are literally falling down, he explained. The challenge is how narrow the lots are here, but Im sure if we work together we can get them redone and get new houses put on these vacant lots and actually start to bring this whole community back.

Williams said the biggest challenge to building on vacant lots in the focus area is locating the properties' legal owners. In North Carolina, anyone who inherits or purchases even a small interest of an heirs' property can potentially force other owners to sell against their will.

Heir properties are a big problem, Williams admitted. "Our hope is we can take individuals and train them in that process of gathering the information. Then they can take that to a real estate attorney and say Heres what we found.

Habitat programs highlight student, women contributions in 2022

Collegiate Challenge

Habitats Collegiate Challenge program provides alternative spring break volunteer opportunities to college students across the United States. Beginning in March, students from six different colleges will come to New Bern for four weeks to help build Habitat homes. During their stay, the 107 students will live at local churches, with cots and sleeping bags supplied by Habitat. Local community members will provide lunch and dinner for the students while they work on at least three Habitat projects.

This year students will come from: Sacred Heart University (Connecticut), Franklin Pierce University (New Hampshire), Eastern Connecticut State University, Elmhurst University (Illinois), University of Delaware, and Hartwick College (New York).

Residents or businesses who are interested in hosting students or providing meals or a gift card, can contact Catherine Campbell, Craven Habitat for Humanity volunteer coordinator, at ccampbell@cravencountyhabitat.org or 252-633-9599, ext. 104.

Women Build

Habitat will dedicate the week of March 8-12 to the tens of thousands of women who participate in building Habitat homes across the globe. The program is a chance for women from all walks of life to help eliminate unsafe, unaffordable housing.

Volunteers will gain the knowledge needed to pound nails and raise walls. No special skills are required. Training is provided as well as water and snacks. Participants can come as an individual or in groups and have the opportunity to work a full day or only part of the day.

Anyone interested in the Women Build can sign up at https://cravencountyhabitat.charityproud.org/EventRegistration/Index/8106

This article originally appeared on Sun Journal: Habitat for Humanity plans to build 12 homes in New Bern Pembroke area
The menu at Bud's Corner at 5750 Columbus Rd NE near Louisville includes this fried bologna sandwich.

Sugardale might be out of the bologna business but your taste buds don't have to be.

Northeast Ohio has several restaurants serving plates of nostalgia with thick and inexpensive fried bologna sandwiches.

Most sell them between $4 and $8.

"We put it on a large brioche bun. It comes a quarter-inch thick," said Scott Ackerman, owner of Bud's Corner near Louisville. "You get a lot of meat for the price."

Bologna fans were dismayed at the recent news that Sugardale has opted to stop making their favorite product, saying the company needed "to focus on the items that appeal to the greatest number of consumers."

Sugardale made bologna for nearly a century. Now headquartered in Massillon and a division of Fresh Mark, the company still makes ham, bacon, hot dogs, pepperoni and salami.

Stark County: MarionMade!: G&R Tavern brings world fame to Marion

Stark County food: Sugardale exits the bologna market and fans of Cleveland bologna are dismayed

The Canton Repository ventured out to find some area restaurants that offer fried bologna sandwiches:

Where in Stark County?

Bud's Corner at 5750 Columbus Road in Nimishillen Township.

Cracked Egg Cafe at 3110 Whipple Ave NW in Plain Township.

Dog Daze Gourmet Hot Dogs at 5805 Fulton Drive NW in Jackson Township.

The Shak at 14755 Gaskill Drive NE in Alliance.

Towpath Cabin at 4462 Erie Ave. NW in Jackson Township.

Irish Pub & Grill at 8009 Hills & Dales Road NE in Massillon.

Where in Summit County?

Pick's at PLX at 530 Portage Lakes Drive near Akron.

Rusty Railz at 2972 N. Division St. in Clinton.

Old Stone Jail Bar and Grill at 5640 Wooster Road W in Norton.

Swensons Drive-In, which has multiple locations in Northeast Ohio and beyond.

Cindy Read Lenos, a bartender and waitress at Rusty Railz, said customers can have their fried bologna on Texas toast, sourdough or marble rye bread. Plus fries.

"You will never go away hungry unless you want to," she said.

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Bestsellers at Dog Daze

Peter Schiller, owner of Dog Daze Gourmet Hot Dogs, described the sandwich as one of his bestsellers.

So did Ackerman.

"It's not like a hot dog. It's not like a burger," Schiller said. "It has its own texture and its own flavor."

Added Ackerman: "It's a good tasting sandwich."

Fame found Waldo

In the small Ohio town of Waldo in Marion County, the G&R Tavern is famous for its fried bologna sandwich.

The tavern has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and on The Travel Channel and the Food Network. The Marion Star, a Gannett publication, recently highlighted the restaurant in a story.

The G&R Tavern uses between 1,200 and 1,500 pounds of bologna in a week, selling their world famous sandwich.

The current owners Bernie and Joy Lewis, along with their daughter Misty Mercer, serve between 1,200 and 1,500 pounds of bologna per week, the Marion newspaper reported.

Brandi Williams, one of the employees, told the Marion Star that the fried bologna sandwich "reminds you of your childhood, but we do it so much different. It's not like bologna from the store."

"We have our own recipes. It gives you that home feeling and brings you back to a simple time," Williams said.

Feeling nostalgic

Ackerman and Schiller said one of the reasons they sell fried bologna sandwiches  and why it is popular  is nostalgia.

"I love them," Ackerman said.

In his youth, Schiller said, one of the first things his mom would allow him to make on his own was a fried bologna sandwich.

"If you were raised on bologna sandwiches or goose liver sandwiches," Ackerman said, "then you love the old fashion (sandwiches)."

Dog Daze Gourmet Hot Dog in Jackson Township serves fried bologna sandwiches. Owner Peter Schiller said it is one of his bestselling non-hot dog items.

Left the market

The reason bologna has made recent headlines is due to Sugardale.

The Stark County company made a decision in late 2021 to leave the bologna market after a nearly a century of producing the popular lunch meat. Fans of their bologna are unhappy.

Their Cleveland bologna was ideal for fried bologna sandwiches.

"I am deeply disappointed that Sugardale decided to discontinue the Cleveland and Leona bologna. My family absolutely loves them both. It is my hope that they will be brought back," Vicki Kelly of Brunswick said in an email.

The company currently does not have plans to bring back bologna.

If you want to add your restaurant to this list, email Benjamin Duer at ben.duer@cantonrep.com.

Reach Benjamin Duer at 330-580-8567 or ben.duer@cantonrep.com.

Follow on Twitter @bduerREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Fried bologna sandwiches are nostalgic, tasty and popular
SANFORD, Maine  Elaine Brady started volunteering in late November at the vaccination and booster clinic at the Center for Shopping. As a member of the Sanford-Springvale Altrusa Club, she wanted to be part of the effort to keep people safe and healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Back then, and up through the holidays, Brady said she would sit at her table and process visitors for two hours straight without taking a drink of water. The line of people waiting to get vaccinated or boosted was like the lines you can see for any of the rides at Disney World, she added.

Especially before the holidays, it was very, very busy, Brady said. Everybody was going to see family. They wanted to make sure they were vaccinated.

Now, though?

At the beginning of January, it slowed down, Brady said. It used to be, at 1 oclock, when we opened, thered be a line all the way down to Planet Fitness.

Volunteer Elaine Brady, of the Sanford-Springvale Altrusa Club, chats with Caitlin Lipert, of the York County Emergency Management Agency, at the vaccine clinic at The Center for Shopping in Sanford on Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022.

Indeed, few people filtered into the clinic during a mid-afternoon stretch on Wednesday.

Fewer volunteers are needed during these slower days at the clinic, according to Caitlin Lipert, the training and response coordinator for the York County Emergency Management Agency, which operates the clinic. On Wednesday, there were about 25 volunteers on duty in the mid afternoon.

With 700 to 800 people a day, we could use anywhere from 30 to 40 volunteers in a shift, if not more, Lipert said.

York County EMA Deputy Director Megan Arsenault said the numbers demonstrate Bradys observations.

We are seeing a pretty steady decrease of people coming through the door, Arsenault said. At this point, were seeing between 250 and 450 people a day, on average.

Volunteer Elaine Brady, of the Sanford-Springvale Altrusa Club, is seen here at the vaccine clinic at The Center for Shopping in Sanford on Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022.

Thats down from between 500 and 800 people who visited the clinic on a daily average before the turn of the new year, according to Arsenault.

Whats the reason for the decrease? It could be that those in York County who plan to get vaccinated or boosted already have done so. That could apply to people in general, as the clinic also has served individuals from other states and even outside of the country, according to Arsenault.

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Were hoping that were getting to that saturation point, but were not exactly sure where the change is coming from, she said.

The weather could be a factor, too. The new year has brought frequent drops to single-digit temperatures, with snow, rain and high, cutting winds often added to the wintry mix. And then there is Bradys suggestion that the long lines before the holidays were people getting vaccinated or boosted before family gatherings.

Whatever the reason, the need is still there, Arsenault said.

Were encouraging people who have not been vaccinated or boosted to check us out, she said.

Arsenault said York County EMA decided on Wednesday to adjust the Sanford clinic's hours of operation in response to the decrease in visitors.

The clinic will be open Friday, Jan. 21, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., but it will no longer open on Fridays thereafter.

Moving forward, the clinic will be closed on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It will be open from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

The clinic is located in the former Marshalls department store at 1364 Main St.

As of Wednesday, Jan. 18, more than 2.4 million vaccine doses had been administered in Maine, including nearly 531,000 booster doses, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

These data do not include vaccinations administered to Maine residents by federal programs such as the VA and DOD, as well as vaccinations of Maine residents administered in other states.

Adding a site for antibody treatment

Arsenault said on Tuesday that the county is in the process of setting up a new operation at the Center for Shopping at one of the current vacancies near the clinic: a monoclonal antibody treatment center.

The center will be for people who have COVID and need certain attention because they have a medical condition or their health care provider considers them a risk for hospitalization or death.

The opening date of the new clinic has not been determined, according to Arsenault.

She added that York County EMA will be on scene to help support the community until the end of the pandemic.

Which hopefully will be soon, she added, echoing the hopes of many as the pandemic approaches its two-year mark.

Vaccination clinic hours of operation

Beginning on Sunday, Jan. 23, the COVID-19 vaccination center operated by York County Emergency Management Agency at the former Marshalls story in Sanford, at 1364 Main St., will be open three days per week:

Tuesdays: from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Thursdays: from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Saturdays: from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Additional vaccination sites are listed on the state's website: www.maine.gov/covid19.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Sanford ME vaccination site cuts hours as fewer seeking COVID shots
Ohio has landed what could become the biggest semiconductor operation on Earth.

Chip giant Intel officially announced Friday that it will invest $20 billion to build two computer chip plants in Jersey Township in western Licking County in what will be Ohio's largest economic development project.

The factories, called fabs, will employ 3,000 workers at an average salary of $135,000 per year. On top of that, the project is expected to create 7,000 construction jobs and up to 10,000 indirect jobs.

The plants will be built on 1,776 of 3,190 acres that New Albany is annexing from Jersey Township. Intel will use 926 acres and has an option to take that up 1,500 acres, according to Gov. Mike DeWine. Another 250 acres will be set aside for suppliers.

A geothermal company works at a farm that is part of the 3,100 acres of Licking County's Jersey Township that is likely to be annexed into the city of New Albany. JobsOhio and other development agencies are hoping for a huge computer chip factory to be built somewhere on the 3,100 acres.

The project is the first of what could be four phases, meaning that the Silicon Valley-based company with a market cap of $227 billion may invest tens of billions of additional dollars in years to come. There could be a total of eight plants at that site with thousands of more workers.

To get a sense of the scale of Intel's investment, here's a list of other high-profile manufacturing projects in Ohio, both past and recent:

Other high-profile manufacturing projects in Ohio

 Exercise equipment maker Peloton has said it will create 2,174 jobs as part of a $400 million facility in Wood County south of Toledo to make bikes and treadmills starting in 2023.

 Steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs invested $1 billion into its hot-briquetted iron facility in Toledo. That was completed in 2020 and sits on about 100 acres.

 Cleveland-based paint maker Sherwin Williams is building a 36-story headquarters tower on that city's Public Square.

 Biotech company Amgen broke ground in late 2021 on a $365 million pharmaceutical packaging facility near Beech Road and Route 161 in New Albany. It will employ 400 and is located on 177 acres.

 American Nitrile is spending more than $100 million to convert a Grove City warehouse into a 527,000-square-foot facility to make latex-free gloves for healthcare and other workers.

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 SK Food Group announced in November that it plans a second Columbus-area food plant on the Far West Side that will employ more than 300 workers. The Seattle-based company plans to lease a 144,000-square-foot building on Charter Street on the Far West Side for the operation.

 The Jackson Center travel trailer maker Airstream, recently opened its largest expansion in its history, tripling production space from 430,000 square feet to 1.05 million square feet.

 Chinese auto glass manufacturer Fuyao (pronounced Fwee-ow) in 2014 bought part of the shuttered GM assembly plant in Moraine, near Dayton. In January 2020, Fuyao said it would invest another $46 million and create 100 more jobs at its Moraine facility, bringing Fuyaos total investment in Ohio to $406 million and the number of jobs created to 2,400.

 Facebook announced in February 2020 that it would build its fourth and fifth data centers in New Albany, bringing total investment in Ohio to more than $1 billion.

How do wages of other Ohio companies compare to Intel's plans in Jersey Township?

Few, if any of Ohio's largest manufacturers are paying the majority of their workers what Intel has said it would, at least according to the job listings website Indeed.

Honda is offering around $110,000 per year for team managers and senior engineers to work at its Marysville plant, and production assistants can make about $52,000 per year there.

But it's unfair to compare Ohio's manufacturers and what they pay to Intel, because semiconductor chip manufacturing is a whole other ball game.

Though Ohio has a long history as an industrial power, the two chip plants will be the first to be built in Ohio the Midwest.

"This is a brand new industry for us in Ohio," Lt. Gov. Jon Husted told the Dispatch. "Semiconductors aren't made here. We have no competency in this area."

Honda has Intel beat in terms of single-site acreage. The automaker's sprawling Marysville plant, which opened in 1982, is about 4 million square feet, employs more than 4,000 and sits on a campus of more than 8,000 acres.

But Intel has eclipsed Honda in terms of investment, at least in the Buckeye State.

Honda, as of 2019, had invested $11 billion into Ohio and had spent $21 billion on overall U.S. operations, according to Dayton Daily News.

Mark Williams and Mark Ferenchik contributed reporting.

Monroe Trombly covers breaking and trending news.

mtrombly@dispatch.com

Twitter: @monroetrombly

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: How does the Intel chip plant compare to other Ohio investments?
NATICK, MA  From a fundraiser aiding a slain Worcester teen to a fatal Route 9 collision, here are the top stories on Patch for the week ending Jan. 21.

Natick Woman Charged In Capitol Riot May Not Be On 2022 Ballot

Elected Town Meeting member Sue Ianni has a new address outside Natick, records show. Her seat is up for election in 2022.

Fundraiser Aids Family Of Worcester Girl Killed In Shooting

A fundraiser set up over the weekend identifies the 17-year-old girl killed on Saturday as Jazmin Rosario.

BJ's Wholesale Club Named A Top Grocer In U.S.

Westborough-based BJ's made the top 15, but another Massachusetts-based grocery chain was No. 3 nationwide.

Worcester Eviction Moratorium Held Up By Landlord, Legal Concerns

District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj sought a new local moratorium amid an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases.

Driver Kills Man Crossing Route 9 In Framingham: DA

A driver hit the man in his 40s in the westbound lanes of Route 9 on Monday night, according to authorities.

Man Found Dead In Framingham Pond Identified: DA

The 71-year-old was found in Learned Pond on Jan. 11.

Proposed Milford Walgreens Gets Nod From Planning Board

A Norwood developer is planning to move a Prospect Street Walgreens to a new site.

Man Shot Outside Movie Theater At Millbury Shopping Center

The weekend shooting left a man injured outside the Millbury cinema, according to police.

Bus Service Cuts Will Affect Natick, Framingham, Hopkinton Routes

The MetroWest Regional Transit Authority is reducing trips on three bus lines due to a driver shortage.

This article originally appeared on the Natick Patch
EAST LANSING  Police have released an image of a person who might have information about incidents early Tuesday involving a man's death and a possible vehicle theft.

Anyone who knows the man pictured in the image is asked to contact East Lansing police at 319-6851.

East Lansing Police released this image as part of a vehicle theft investigation. Anyone who knows the identify of this man is asked to call them.

Police were called to an area of West Road, near Abbey Road, about 5:15 a.m. after a driver reported hitting a man who was lying in the road.

The man was later identified as Michael Wayne Son Jr., 38, who died at the scene. Police were still investigating the cause of his death.

Son lived nearby, and police learned a pickup truck in his driveway was missing. The pickup truck was recovered later in the 6000 block of Abbot Road.

Police also would like to hear from anyone who saw the gray, four-door Dodge RAM pickup between 4:45 a.m. and 5:15 a.m.

This truck was reported stolen from a residence in East Lansing and later recovered. Police are looking for information about a suspect.

Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: East Lansing police asking public's help in investigation involving death and possible truck theft
You are here: Business

China issued a total of 232 car recalls involving 8.73 million vehicles in 2021, said the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Thursday.

The number of recalled vehicles rose by 29 percent year on year, Wang Yunsong, an official with the SAMR, told a press conference. Among them, about 84 percent were recalled due to defects in engines and electrical and electronic components.

About 85 percent of the total were recalled for design reasons, and 15 percent for manufacturing reasons, according to Wang.

As of the end of last year, China boasted 7.84 million new energy vehicles (NEVs), accounting for 2.6 percent of the vehicle population.

China has recalled a total of 1.98 million NEVs, Wang added.

The country has set up a system to report NEV accidents, and more efforts will be made to strengthen technical research on safety of NEVs, according to Wang.
June 12, 1974: Tim Gentzler, horse trainer for the El Paso Mounted Patrol, models the basic patrol uniform to be worn by patrol policemen.

On May 13, 1976, Bill Moore of the El Paso Times reported the end of the 2-year-old El Paso Police Mounted Patrol, the only one in Texas at the time:

Police Capt. Jim Parks nervously paced the floor as he gathered his thoughts. As he finally took his seat behind the desk in the small conference room, everyone knew what he was about to say.

The rumors had finally come true. The El Paso Police Department's Mounted Patrol was going to be disbanded.

For more than two years, the Mounted Patrol, the only one in Texas, had acted a dual role as a public relations-law enforcement arm of the Police Department. During that time, a close-knit family grew within the Mounted Patrol ranks. That closeness was apparent as Parks delivered his announcement.

More: Deer hitchhikes from Germany, lands in Washington Park Zoo: Trish Long

Soft spot for Mounted Patrol

"Today, I was informed and asked to notify you that as of June 5 ... the Mounted Patrol will be phased out," said Parks to the four police officers and three civilians who remained in the Mounted Patrol family. "As you all know, I have a very soft spot in my heart for the Mounted Patrol. It is very hard for me to tell you this."

The small conference room in the trailer house next to the stables where the nine police horses are kept was silent as Parks delivered the bad news. He had been the head of the patrol since its inception, and his feelings for the group clearly showed during his low-keyed but emotional announcement.

"I regret having to tell you this. I have tried to do my best to hold this organization together," he said. "I suppose this is one of those things the city fathers felt it was time to phase out."

After the announcement, Parks said he was first told at noon Wednesday by Chief Robert Minnie of the city's decision. He said there had been many rumors about the Mounted Patrol's fate and the news was not a surprise.

City to save $25,444 a year

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"I really don't know why they made this decision. I have never been told," Parks told one of the officers who wanted to know why the patrol was being disbanded.

The patrol's fate had been slowly written across the wall during the last few months as four officers in the patrol had been transferred to other duties without being replaced.

After the meeting ended, Parks speculated that the city had made the decision "because they felt that for the money being spent they were not getting their money's worth in law enforcement."

Mayor Don Henderson said Wednesday discontinuing the patrol would save the city $25,444 a year.

"There is no way of measuring how much crime was prevented just by the Mounted Patrol's being there. And the amount of public relations given the city by the patrol is beyond figuring," Parks said.

More: Downtown El Paso's historic Caples Building to be sold through online auction

History of the Mounted Patrol

In another article, in the same edition, Fred Williams gave the history of the patrol:

Mayor Don Henderson announced, "We are out of the horse patrol business."

Some of the nine police horses will be sold. Henderson said, and some will be returned to the persons who gave them to the city two years ago. He did not say how many would be sold.

He said the horse patrol corral and other facilities in Washington Park will be turned over to the zoo (also located in Washington Park) and to the city's animal control unit for use as a quarantine facility.

More: Mr. Madden your table is still ready; Van Horn restaurant has big-time regular

Park patrolmen will be hired

He said one of the locations where a mounted patrolman probably was the most effective in law enforcement  Memorial Park  will be continued with an officer using a three-wheeled motor scooter to continue patrolling the park.

In addition, Henderson said, the city will hire 11 more park patrolmen for full-time duty this summer to patrol other city parks.

The horse patrol was initiated under former Mayor Fed Hervey on Aug. 19. 1974. The idea for the horse patrol was suggested to Hervey by William McGaw as a plan to attract and impress tourists coming to El Paso with the frontier history of the city.

McGaw first proposed the idea publicly during an August 1973 meeting of the City Board of Development, which was busily trying to figure out ways to attract tourists to the city.

McGaw told the board the mounted police would not only reduce crime in the Downtown area in much the same manner the foot patrol did, but more important it would give El Paso a special flare, and identity and uniqueness that would draw people here. ...

McGaw had little to say Wednesday about the city's action in discontinuing his brainchild.

"They did the whole thing wrong," McGaw said. "They didn't use it in the way I suggested they do it. It could have been a showpiece for the city. ... It wasn't."

Trish Long may be reached at tlong@elpasotimes.com or 915-546-6179.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso Police Mounted Patrol disbanded after two years: Trish Long
Springfield Public Schools Board of Education meets on Tuesday, July 13, 2021.

As Springfield school officials start to develop a spending plan for next year, they are still dealing with the fallout from a pandemic-induced enrollment drop.

The drop is expected to alter staffing levels for a second school year and may eventually result in less state funding.

The official enrollment in fall 2020 was 1,512 students lower than the 24,677 counted a year earlier.

By last fall, the district had recovered 295 students but remained 1,217 students lower than before the pandemic.

"We will continue to build FY23 projections around the recovery of more students," Cara Stassel, executive director of business services, told the school board Tuesday.

"The long-term financial impact is that if we don't see that recovery of lost enrollment, we will see a reduction in state (funding) formula."

The state allows the district to use its highest enrollment level in the past three years as a baseline to draw down funding to provide a cushion as enrollment fluctuates a little or a lot from one year to the next.

That mechanism has helped Springfield to this point but state funding levels may drop next year or soon thereafter to reflect the lower enrollment, if it does not rebound.

More: Citing high absences, Springfield district cancels school for the week; others follow suit

More: Three Springfield school board members push to reinstate student mask mandate

SPS budget priorities for 2022-23

Stassel, a long-time employee, gave an overview of how the budget proposal will come together, starting with a list of priorities. That list, for the current school year, includes:

Maintaining current staffing levels for instruction consistent with historical classroom ratio levels;

Addressing salaries and benefits of current teachers, staff and leaders;

Adopting strategies and staffing for support of under-resourced or underrepresented students;

Employing instructional and support staff who impact the classroom;

Supporting current initiatives and programming.

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"We do not expect a whole lot to change for the 2022-23 school year," Stassel said.

At the start of the budget development process, the district gathers spending requests and looks at projected revenue levels.

The proposal is fine-tuned with input from the school board and wraps up in late spring after the district completes the collective bargaining process with employee groups and a state budget is approved by the Missouri General Assembly.

The school board is expected to approve a budget by June 30.

The amount of state funding allocated for each district is based on a formula that is heavily influenced by average enrollment and attendance.

"If we see a decline in those numbers, we can see a decline in (state) formula funding as well," she said.

The district has allocated a portion of the federal COVID-19 relief funds it has received to recovering lost enrollment. It is a relatively small amount compared to other priorities for those funds, which include:

Recovering learning during the school day;

Student supports beyond the school day;

Staff support and retention;

Operational support.

More: Here are 3 takeaways from Missouri Gov. Mike Parson's State of the State, including COVID comments

More: Missouri lawmaker wants process to recall school board members, allow 'willful neglect' lawsuits

In any school budget, personnel salaries and benefits are the biggest line item.

"We can't talk about enrollment without talking about the staffing plan," Stassel said.

She said district leaders are discussing staffing needs for the coming year with the goal of keeping teacher-to-student ratios roughly the same as historic levels.

"If there were to be some sort of reduction, attrition is our first step in balancing those positions," she said.

This year, as in recent years, the district is offering a financial incentive for employees such as teachers and administrators who notify the district early of their plans to retire or resign. Currently, the amount is $1,000.

The early notice gives the district more time to shift staffing and start hiring.

This year, 86 individuals gave early notice in January compared to 53 at this point last year, 72 in early 2020 and 59 in early 2019.

Deputy Superintendent John Mulford said he expects the number of exits this year to be closer to a typical year.

"Last year there was a general thought we would see a lot of people leaving the profession," he said. "Across the state, that did not hold true."

Claudette Riley is the education reporter for the News-Leader. Email news tips to criley@news-leader.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: SPS enrollment drop casts shadow over budget for next school year
Andrew Wheeler, then-administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency on May 20, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Al Drago-Pool/Getty Images

Federal workers are lobbying against Andrew Wheeler as Virginia's new environmental secretary.

Critics say Trump's former EPA chief will work to repeal commonsense public health and safety rules.

But Virginia Republicans are denouncing what they call "Washington-style character assassination."

Environmental Protection Agency staff are urging Virginia lawmakers to reject their former boss as the state's top natural resources chief or risk jeopardizing public health standards.

Former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a longtime coal lobbyist and Capitol Hill veteran, has been tapped by newly-minted Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to serve as the state's natural resources secretary.

But federal staffers who worked under him fear a repeat of what they describe as "misguided leadership" if Wheeler is confirmed in the Old Dominion.

In a letter to Virginia Senate leaders, members of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, a union of government employees, railed against Wheeler who served in the polarizing Trump administration from 2019 to 2021.

"He will work to repeal many of the commonsense rules that protect Virginia's public health and safety," AFGE Council president Marie Owens Powell wrote on January 19, adding that welcoming Wheeler is akin to giving unscrupulous corporations "more ways to dump pollutants into your state's air and water."

AFGE members criticized Wheeler for approving regulations that "weakened greenhouse gas standards for power plants, cars, and oil and gas" producers; rejecting the "sound scientific principles supporting the mission" of the agency, and slashing EPA staff "while establishing a hostile work culture."

It's the second time in as many weeks that Wheeler, who is already touted as Virginia's environmental steward on a state-run website, has been panned by colleagues.

More than 150 former EPA staffers criticized Wheeler for "favoring polluters" while he was in charge of the agency and sabotaging internal efforts to restore normalcy on his way out the door, according to reporting by the Associated Press.

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Wheeler's nomination to serve as Virginia's natural resources secretary rankled local Democrats, who consider him beholden to fossil fuel and energy company interests. Youngkin has, so far, vowed to stick with the former Trump administration official. It's a gambit one Youngkin advisor told Insider could backfire if Virginia state Senate Democrats use their two-seat advantage to unanimously reject the appointment.

Complaints against Wheeler are nothing new.

The nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in 2019 called for multiple investigations into conflicts of interest between his lobbying activities and regulatory work as EPA administrator. And Wheeler's comments about Trump being "vindicated" ahead of the former president's first impeachment trial forced EPA ethics staff to confer about whether he'd violated a federal anti-corruption law.

Still, veteran Virginia Republican George Allen said he's pulling for Youngkin to get his preferred team in place. Wheeler is one of a half-dozen former Trump administration officials Youngkin has added to his inner circle since being elected.

"I know he is going to have to run this gauntlet. But I'm cautiously hopeful that members of the general assembly will respect the will of the people," Allen, a former US senator and governor of Virginia, told Insider.

Allen chalked up AFGE's grievances to "federal union folks playing politics," urging sitting Virginia lawmakers to pay no mind to "this sort of Washington-style, character assassination."

And while he acknowledged that former Virginia governors Tim Kaine, a Democrat, and Bob McDonnell, a Republican, had cabinet picks blocked by partisan opponents, Allen said Virginians are better than tit-for-tat squabbles.

"Two wrongs don't make a right," Allen said. "And three wrongs won't make it any better."

Read the original article on Business Insider
By Francesco Guarascio, Trevor Hunnicutt and Stephanie Nebehay

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The United States, the World Health Organization's top donor, is resisting proposals to make the agency more independent, four officials involved in the talks said, raising doubts about the Biden administration's long-term support for the U.N. agency.

The proposal, made by the WHO's working group on sustainable financing, would increase each member state's standing annual contribution, according to a WHO document published online and dated Jan. 4.

The plan is part of a wider reform process galvanised by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the limitations of the WHO's power to intervene early in a crisis.

But the U.S. government is opposing the reform because it has concerns about the WHO's ability to confront future threats, including from China, U.S. officials told Reuters.

It is pushing instead for the creation of a separate fund, directly controlled by donors, that would finance prevention and control of health emergencies.

Four European officials involved in the talks, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the U.S. opposition. The U.S. government had no immediate comment.

The published proposal calls for member states' mandatory contributions to rise gradually from 2024 so they would account for half the agency's $2 billion core budget by 2028, compared to less than 20% now, the document said.

The WHO's core budget is aimed at fighting pandemics and strengthening healthcare systems across the world. It also raises an additional $1 billion or so a year to tackle specific global challenges such as tropical diseases and influenza.

Supporters say that the current reliance on voluntary funding from member states and from charities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation forces the WHO to focus on priorities set by the funders, and makes it less able to criticise members when things go wrong.

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An independent panel on pandemics that was appointed to advise on the WHO reform had called for a much bigger increase in mandatory fees, to 75% of the core budget, deeming the current system "a major risk to the integrity and independence" of the WHO.

LONG-STANDING SCEPTICISM

The WHO itself responded to a query by saying that "only flexible and predictable funds can enable WHO to fully implement the priorities of the Member States".

Top European Union donors, including Germany, back the plan, along with most African, South Asian, South American and Arab countries, three of the European officials said.

The proposal is to be discussed at the WHO's executive board meeting next week but the divisions mean no agreement is expected, three of the officials said.

The WHO confirmed there was currently no consensus among member states, and said talks were likely to continue until the annual meeting in May of the World Health Assembly, the agency's top decision-making body.

European donors in particular favour empowering, rather than weakening, multilateral organisations including the WHO.

One European official said the U.S. plan "causes scepticism among many countries", and said the creation of a new structure controlled by donors, rather than by the WHO, would weaken the agency's ability to combat future pandemics.

Washington has been critical of the WHO for some time.

Former president Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the WHO after accusing it of defending China's initial delays in sharing information when COVID-19 emerged there in 2019.

The Biden administration rejoined soon after taking office, but officials told Reuters they think the WHO needs significant reform, and raised concerns about its governance, structure and ability to confront rising threats, not least from China.

One of the European officials said other big countries, including Japan and Brazil, were also hesitant about the published WHO proposal.

A Brazilian official with knowledge of the discussions said Brazil agreed that WHO funding needed to be looked at, but said it opposed the proposal to raise contributions as it had run up deficits tackling the virus and was now facing a fiscal crunch.

Instead, the official said the WHO needed to investigate other ways to raise funds, such as charging for its services, cutting costs or relocating operations to cheaper countries.

"Raising contributions should be the last resort," said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the discussions.

Two of the European officials said China had not yet made its position clear, while a third official listed Beijing among the critics of the proposal.

The governments of Japan and China had no immediate comment.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio in Brussels and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Andreas Rinke in Berlin and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Editing by Josephine Mason, Kevin Liffey and Daniel Wallis)
svetikd / Getty Images

If youve ever felt you had something to teach others  from a passion such as dancing or cooking to a skill such as editing or providing investing strategy  you might be able to make money teaching classes online. You dont need an advanced degree or special credentials to teach either; you just need a willingness to prepare awesome content to deliver to your students the right way.

See: 94 Money-Making Skills You Can Learn in Less Than a Year

Learn: Side Hustles and Small Ideas That Turned Into Million-Dollar Businesses

Experts recommend some of the following strategies to get you started:

Identify a Problem and Solution

Before you leap into online courses, Keno Hellman, CEO at Midnightdrummer.com suggested, Its helpful to outline a concept, find a technical solution and warm up your existing audience with ideas before launching your first course. Testing out your ideas on a potential audience, either at a low cost or for free, will provide helpful feedback to make your course a success. You should ask your audience what their major pain is. Creating polls can help build a great outline for online courses and lessons people are really looking for.

Check Out: 6 Most Important Financial Skills That Should Be Taught in School

Invest Time in Prepping Content

Between good ideas and earning money teaching, however, lies content preparation, and you cant skimp on this portion because it will be your bread and butter. The most time consuming part of online teaching is creating your content, but once this is done, you are good to go, said David Bowen, CEO and content manager of Bordeaux Undiscovered.

When you are planning and designing your content, you will need to design it in a way that promotes quick learning. It is also a good idea to reuse known and proven methods and resources, as you can be confident that they wont fail. Also, always solicit and listen to feedback from your students so you can tailor your course to their needs. This will only increase your chances of making money.

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Discover: 20 Hot Jobs That Pay More Than $150,000

Choose the Right Platform

Once you know you have a great idea, put some serious thought into the platform you should teach through. If you choose something simple like teaching over Zoom or uploading videos to Vimeo, for example, you wont have to share your profits. Hellman recommends using WordPress to build a website that is a good course environment as a starting point.

However, you can also sign up with existing teaching platforms such as Teachable, Udemy or Skillshare, though they will cut into your profits. Teachable, for example, can increase monthly costs and margins decrease immediately, Hellman said.

See: 45 Jobs That Can Make You a Millionaire Before Retirement

Laura Jimenez, owner of Ishine365 suggests you start your own YouTube channel and upload videos for free. Once you have quite a good number of subscribers and viewers you can start earning from the ads. However, Jimenez also feels that going your own way is likely to be the most profitable. A much better way is to build your own brand new teaching website and start teaching there. This will have full control over the things you want to do. You can also hire others to teach from your platform.

Blog

One path to teaching that you might not have considered is blogging, said Derek Warburton, CEO of Mr. Warburton Magazine. Blogs are one of the most effective marketing tools at your disposal and the most effective way to begin your career as an online educator.

According to Warburton, blogs can serve as a portal to other resources, such as articles on topics that you teach a class around. Additionally, they can be used as a way to get people to sign up for your mailing list. With a blog, you can cultivate your own audience. That is critical because once you have amassed an audience of true fans, there is no limit to how much money you can earn.

Learn: How Much You Really Take Home From a $100K Salary in Every State

Get Business Details in Order

If youve decided to take online teaching seriously, its important to sort out the legal stuff before you scale your business, said Tyler Wall, President & CEO of SD Bullion, one of the largest precious metal eCommerce retailers in the world.

Decide on your business structure  sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, or corporation  have a business bank account so that you separate your business income and expenses from your personal finances, get a website and market your services. The reason for this is that earning anything more than $600 per year from a source requires you to pay taxes to the IRS, and you could end up owing money in unpaid taxes or penalties if you dont do this correctly.

Modern Money Etiquette: Answering Thorny Questions About Tipping, Gifts and More

Narrow Your Focus

If youre a passionate person with a lot of ideas, or big ideas, you might want to narrow your focus to help attract a specific audience, according to financial advisor Will Myers. He gives the example of offering a time management course. If you keep it general, you blend in with every other time management course and online class out there. If you narrow your focus to time management for sales professionals, youve identified a specific audience and can increase what you charge for the course.

Narrowing your focus to specifically who you can help will dramatically increase your income. You can teach the same content, but now that its narrowed to a specific individual and problem, they are willing to pay more.

Find Out: Companies That Let You Work From Anywhere

Create Classes That Will Make Other People Money

In order to make money yourself, you might be better off helping other people make money too, said Cliff Auerswald, president of All Reverse Mortgage, Inc. in Orange, California.

As much as wed like to hope that people go into learning for learnings sake, the truth is that many people are looking for ways to grow their businesses. Create classes that encourage people to start their own businesses or expand their knowledge in their current careers. The more you market your classes as options to make more money on the side, the more people are likely to take your classes.

More from GOBankingRates:

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How To Make Extra Money Teaching Classes Online
Donald Trump. Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock

I have no idea if Donald Trump will actually run for president again in 2024. No one does. He could be feigning an intention to mount a campaign in order to maximize his power and fundraising among Republicans between now and the fall of 2023. He might be holding open the possibility of running in case the interminable criminal investigation into his business practices finally comes to head, with New York's attorney general moving forward with an indictment. The overweight 75-year-old former president could have every intention of running and yet die or become incapacitated by a heart attack or stroke between now and Election Day.

As I said, I don't know whether Trump is going to run.

But I do know this: If he does run, none of the serious GOP contenders in whom so many conservative intellectuals and Republican apparatchiks are placing their hopes will challenge him. Yes, a spoiler candidate with no chance of prevailing and little chance of winning a single delegate  think Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, or Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan  may jump into the ring for a few rounds. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis? Former Vice President Mike Pence? Texas Sen. Ted Cruz? Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley? Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton? It's not going to happen.

Why will none of them dare to take him on? Because they aren't political fools. They can read the polls showing Trump beating them by more than 30 points and understand that they can only change this dynamic by successfully taking him down  something no Republican has come close to doing.

We've been here before, multiple times. During the 2016 Republican primaries. After Trump attacked a Gold Star family. After he insinuated Cruz's father had a hand in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. After the Access Hollywood tape dropped. After the endless string of outrages that punctuated Trump's four years in the Oval Office. And, of course, after the insurrectionary violence against Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

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At each of those moments, a few Republican officeholders and officials rose up and took a stand against Trump. And each and every time, the people who did so either eventually backed down and explicitly or tacitly recanted  or they faced Trump's wrath and saw their political careers (if not their cable news bookings) crumble to dust. Say what you will about DeSantis, Pence, Cruz, Haley, and Cotton, but I don't get the sense any one of them longs for political martyrdom or ending their careers with a gig on MSNBC. All of them are relatively young. They can afford to wait out the Orange Beast.

But wait, say the inveterate anti-Trump optimists. What about a recent NBC poll of Republican voters showing that when asked to choose between supporting the GOP or Trump, just 36 percent name the former president while 56 percent choose the party? That's the lowest number for Trump on record!

Yes, it is. But note: The GOP has never been more Trumpified than it is right now, rendering the polling question somewhat nonsensical. (To choose the GOP over Trump in the winter of 2022 is to choose a party Trump has already remade in his own image.) It's also important to note that Trump himself has a much lower public profile now than he did from the summer of 2015 through to the end of his presidency. Not only is he out of office, but the still-extant social-media ban keeps him effectively muzzled. If he announces a run for the Republican nomination in the summer of 2023, that ban will almost certainly be lifted, allowing him to inject himself once again into the very center of the news cycle. If leading members of the party begin attacking him at that point, those polling results will likely shift back to where they were at earlier stages of Trump's career.

The only significant thing that has changed since Trump left office is that he's succeeded in convincing an overwhelming majority of his party's voters to embrace the Big Lie about the 2020 election. (Recent polls show something like 71 percent of Republicans think the 2020 election was "definitely not" or "probably not" legitimate.) This development, though civically appalling and extremely dangerous, will actually help Trump immeasurably in the 2024 primaries.

To see why, let's imagine how the early stages of the contest would unfold. Trump, DeSantis, Pence, and the others are standing together on a debate stage in the fall of 2023. The moderator opens by addressing DeSantis: Donald Trump says the 2020 election was stolen from him and that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. Do you agree?

What exactly is DeSantis supposed to say in response? One option would be to answer truthfully  which is to say, in the negative: No, the election wasn't stolen, and Biden won fair and square. But this would automatically place DeSantis on the opposite side of that 71 percent of Republicans and open him up to an onslaught of abuse from Trump himself. DeSantis would be labeled a cuck and a weakling who refuses to fight and would let the Democrats get away with murder from Day One of a DeSantis administration.

If, instead, DeSantis offered a tepid endorsement of the election fraud conspiracy, voters will be left to wonder why they should favor that second-best alternative over the man who was personally stabbed in the back and craves vengeance for himself and his party.

Then there's the most standard-issue-politician thing DeSantis could do, which is attempt to skirt the question and pivot to another, less politically perilous topic. But there is zero chance Trump would let him get away with that. He'd merely treat it as a different kind of confirmation that DeSantis is too weak to fight the ruthless Democrats to the death.

Cruz, Cotton, Haley, and most of the others would confront precisely the same politically impossible dilemma, though Mike Pence would face his own distinctly unappealing version of it. Mr. Vice President, President Trump pressured you to stop the electoral vote certification process in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. When you refused, some of his supporters went to Capitol Hill with a mock guillotine to convince you to change your mind. President Trump is here on this stage right now. What would you like to say to say to him about those events?

Can you imagine Pence responding in any way other than fleeing from the stage as quickly as possible?

No politician with an ounce of political self-awareness would put himself in such a situation. And that's why the much-hoped-for anti-Trump melee isn't going to happen.

Donald Trump may not end up as the Republican nominee in 2024, but it won't be because some righteous Trump-slaying alternative has risen up to vanquish him from the party.

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A makeshift memorial near the home of Gabby Petito in Florida.





The FBI's Denver field office announced on Friday that it had concluded its investigation into the death of Gabby Petito, whose remains were found last year following a cross-country road trip with her fiance, Brian Laundrie.

"All logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case," FBI Denver Division Special Agent in Charge Michael Schneider said in a statement. "The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito."

FBI Denver also noted that a review of a notebook that was found near Laundrie's remains in October, "revealed written statements by Mr. Laundrie claiming responsibility for Ms. Petito's death."

Schneider thanked the public for providing "thousands of tips" to law enforcement officials in addition to other local, state and federal partners that worked with the FBI in their investigation.

The announcement concludes an investigation that launched after Petito went missing last year while traveling with Laundrie. After he arrived back in Florida without Petito, she was reported missing on Sept. 11.

The case rapidly gained national media attention.

Footage from a bodycam worn by a Moab, Utah, police officer during a traffic stop involving Petito and Laundrie indicated that the couple had been involved in a domestic dispute shortly before her disappearance, CNN reported. The officer had asked what happened between Petito and her fiance after witnesses claimed they saw Laundrie hit her.

In the footage, Petito acknowledged that Laundrie had hit her, but claimed she had hit him first. Pressed by the officer about what happened, she said, "Well, he kept telling me to shut up."

She said that he had "grabbed my face" but had not punched her, later adding, "Well he, like, grabbed me with his nail, and I guess that's why it looks ... definitely I was cut right here [points to cheek] because I can feel it. When I touch it, it burns," according to the network.

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Bodycam footage reportedly showed Laundrie saying that he had pushed her away, claiming, "She gets really worked up, and when she does she swings," Fox News noted.

Remains were discovered in Wyoming days after Petito was reported missing. The FBI confirmed that they belonged to her later in September, while officials searched for Laundrie, who had been named a person of interest in the case.

Laundrie's remains were found on Oct. 20 at a park in Florida, and an attorney later confirmed he had died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

- Updated at 5:36 p.m.
The Torrance police headquarters in a December 2021 file photo. (Los Angeles Times)

A Redondo Beach man whose car was allegedly vandalized with racist graffiti by two Torrance police officers filed a federal lawsuit against the South Bay city this week, revealing new details about the incident, which sparked an investigation that revealed more than a dozen Torrance cops had been exchanging racist and homophobic text messages for years.

Kiley Swaine, 28, accused the officers of unlawful search and seizure, unlawful taking of his property and violating his constitutional rights in a 46-page complaint filed Wednesday. Ex-Torrance police officers Cody Weldin and Christopher Tomsic were charged last year with spray-painting a swastika inside of Swaine's 2004 Hyundai Elantra after they arrested him in January 2020.

Photographs submitted as part of the lawsuit showed a large white swastika sprayed across the back seat of Swaine's car, which was otherwise covered in a mix of white protein powder and cereal.

My great-grandmother was Jewish and I have curly hair and a big nose, so I did feel intimidated seeing a swastika," Swaine said in an interview. "I felt like potentially my life was being threatened, like it was like a sign that they were going to kill me."

An investigation into Tomsic and Weldin's alleged misconduct led prosecutors to seek a warrant to search their phones, which turned up roughly 200 gigabytes of data showing more than a dozen officers had been exchanging racist, homophobic and sexist text messages since 2018, prosecutors said.

A Times investigation last year revealed the identities of 13 of the officers under investigation as part of the scandal and the details of some of their hateful comments. Officers joked about "gassing" Jews, called Black men savages and used several variations of the N-word, according to documents reviewed by The Times. The officers also shared instructions on how to tie a noose and a picture of a stuffed animal being lynched inside the city's police headquarters, according to the documents.

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The texts have led the Los Angeles County district attorney's office to move to dismiss at least 60 criminal cases linked to the officers, and Torrance city prosecutors have tossed an additional 50 cases, officials said. The California attorney general's office has also launched an investigation into the department.

Tomsic and Weldin are no longer employed by the Torrance Police Department and 15 other officers have been suspended as part of the scandal. A Long Beach police officer, who was a former Torrance police cadet, has also been suspended.

A Torrance police spokesman said he could not comment on pending litigation. Weldin's attorney declined to speak about the lawsuit. Tomsic's lawyer did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Swaine said investigators kept him in the dark about their investigation into the officers for well over a year. He made a report to police about the vandalism less than 48 hours after his arrest, according to the lawsuit, but wasn't notified of the case against Tomsic and Weldin until October 2021. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascon held a news conference announcing the charges against the officers last August. A spokesman for Gascon did not respond to questions about why Swaine wasn't contacted by prosecutors.

Police had actually begun to suspect Tomsic and Weldin were responsible for the vandalism in March 2020, according to a search warrant affidavit reviewed by The Times. According to that document, an employee of the tow truck company told police the vehicle had already been vandalized when it was brought to their yard, and body-worn camera video showed Swaine's vehicle had not been damaged before being towed.

By March, police were listening in on calls between Weldin and a tow company employee that made it "clearly evident [Weldin] had knowledge of the vandalism and he never denied committing the vandalism," an investigator wrote in the affidavit.

Tomsic, meanwhile, tried to blame his partner for the crime in a phone conversation with the tow truck employee, according to the affidavit.

"Weldin is the instigator in all of this  Ive been pissed at Weldin ever since then," Tomsic said, according to the affidavit.

Swaine's attorney, Jerry Steering, referred to the officers' actions as "Nazi behavior" and said his client will never feel safe around police officers after the incident.

Many of the persons entrusted with his protection are more dangerous than most of the people that hes supposed to be protected from," Steering said of his client. "When somebody realizes that, it's an unsettling feeling. Because then who do you call?"

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
At times, nothing is as gratifying to watch as a movie about obsession that lures you into sharing the obsession. Fire of Love, one of the movies that are opening the Sundance Film Festival tonight, is a documentary about an unassuming French couple, Maurice and Katia Krafft, who became the worlds most ardent volcanologists. Starting in 1966, when they met, and over the next 25 years, the two traveled to as many active volcanos as they could find, from Zaire to Colombia to Iceland to America to Japan  and when I say active, I dont mean wisps of smoke billowing out of the crater. The Kraffts got as close as possible to the danger and spectacle of these seismic tectonic eruptions from the depths of the earth. They stood right next to gleaming rivers of lava, to massive showers of hot rocks, and recorded it all, leaving a filmed and photographic record of volcanic activity that remains unparalleled.

Seeing that footage is a lot of what makes Fire of Love a spellbinding experience. Yet the film also tells the enthralling story of two unlikely lives. The Kraffts, born 40 kilometers from each other in the Alsace region of northeastern France (that the region has shifted, over the centuries, between French and German control is part of what lends it a distinctive spirit), were the homespun version of daredevil soulmates, addicted to awe and united in their fixation. The film suggests that they loved each other, in part, through their love of volcanos. And why not? Fire of Love, which has been directed by Sara Dosa with a discursive, lets-try-it-on lyricism, is like one of Werner Herzogs documentaries about fearless outliers, only this one is touched with romance. (The Kraffts were, in fact, featured in Herzogs Into the Inferno, a far less incendiary movie about volcano love.)

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Were the Kraffts scientists? She was a geochemist, he was a geologist, and they became global experts in the field, but they werent academics, and they werent researchers hauling their specimens back to the lab for study. The experience of being there, right on the edge of the earths convulsions, was their finding. They were a lot like storm chasers, and maybe like vertical-rock climbers, with more than a touch of Jacques Cousteau in their pioneering desire to film what they saw and bring it to the world. (They presented their findings in books and documentaries.)

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Through it all, their connection to seeing volcanos erupt was mystical and primal, suffused with childlike wonder. They wanted to touch the uncanny, and did; volcanos were their life force. Once you see an eruption, says Katia, you cant live without it. The close-ups of spewing lava are like Jackson Pollock paintings in motion. The flowing tributaries of molten lava, with a crust on top that it simultaneously melts through, look like a Biblical inferno. The oozing chunks of black rock are like something out of The Blob. The Kraffts, in their way, were true filmmakers. When you see a shot of one of them in protective gear, silhouetted by a shooting curtain of red-orange liquid, its pure sci-fi.

Do the Kraffts come off asyou know, characters? Yes and no. Theyre attractive and charismatic, but in a weirdly normal way, like a couple who could have spent their lives running a cheese shop in Alsace. Maurice is a genially bearish man, with curly brown hair, who looks like a brainier John Laroquette; Katia, with short hair and glasses and a vivacious grin, suggests a pixie version of Terry Gross. They wore their obsession on their sleeves, yet theyre winningly unpretentious and middle class about it. You would never look at them and think, Yes, these two were religious about going to the ends of the earth to watch spewing volcanos.

The films narration, which is read in spun-sugar tones of beguiling curiosity by Miranda July, says at one point that Katia and Maurice were into volcanology because they were disappointed in humanity. They had grown up in the rubble of postwar France, but the protest fervor of the 60s didnt incite them; it alienated them. And early in the film, we learn something about them that makes us suck in our breath. Miranda July says, Its 1991. June 2. Tomorrow will be their last day. The two are headed for another volcano stakeout (of Mount Unzen in Japan), and its clear what were being told: that this is the one that killed them. That stunningly ominous fact sets the stakes for the entire movie. Maurice and Katia always knew they were risking their lives. In an early foray, the skin on Maurices leg was burned off by 140-degree mud  a baptism of fire. But from the start their mantra was (in Katias words), Curiosity is stronger than fear.

One way that Maurice and Katia werent conventional scientists is that they rejected the scientific communitys minute classification system for volcanos. Their take was: Each volcano is unique. But they did have their own classification system. For them, there were two kinds of volcanos: red and grey. The red kind are the ones that spew showers of lava and look perilous. The gray kind are the ones that spew impossibly gigantic clouds of smoke (like the famous images from Mount St. Helens), one of which that we see literally resembles an atomic-bomb cloud. The smoke volcanos may look less dangerous than the liquid fire ones, but, in fact, theyre much more dangerous. And the Kraffts, over time, moved from seeking out the red to the gray. We hear lethal stories of what the gray volcanos can do, the smoke exploding like an avalanche, often stretching far beyond the area it had been predicted to reach. And thats what happened at Mount Unzen. Maurice and Katia stood several kilometers away from the volcano, but that wasnt far enough. It swallowed them up. But Fire of Love is a movie powerful enough to convince you that they died happy.

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The species has been named Taksinus in honor of the Thai king Taksin the Great (JoCho Sippawat)

You may not be aware of the Thai YouTube sensation that is JoCho Sippawatt, but millions watch his videos in which he grapples with armfuls of millipedes, holds venomous snakes, allows hairy spiders to walk across his face, with his videos largely coming from the Thailands biodiverse tropical forests.

But amid his spine-tingling encounters with rare animals, Mr Sippawatt has happened across a previously undocumented species of tarantula, which apparently only lives in bamboo  the only spider known to do so.

In the dense forests of Mae Tho, in the district of Mueang Tak, in north western Thailand, Mr Sippawatt found the spider living in a bamboo "culm"  a botanical term for the hollow stems the plant is known for.

He then collaborated with arachnologists Dr Narin Chomphuphuang from Khon Kaen University in northeast Thailand, and Chaowalit Songsangchot from Kasetsart University in Bangkok, who together studied and described the new genus.

The new tarantula has been named Taksinus in honor of the Thai king Taksin the Great.

The researchers said they chose the name in recognition of Taksin the Greats old name, Phraya Tak - governor of Tak province, which is where the new genus was discovered.

One of the key differences between the new species and all other Asian tree-dwelling spiders is the relatively short embolus of the male pedipalps  the pair of feelers near the spiders mouth  which in this species is used to transport sperm to the female seminal receptacles during mating.

Its habitat type and distribution are also markedly different from those of related species.

While Asian arboreal tarantulas have been reported in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, and Borneo, this is the first such genus known from Northern Thailand, the researchers said.

Tarantulas from Southeast Asia can be either terrestrial or arboreal. Arboreal tarantulas spend time on different types of trees, but, to date, this is the first tarantula that is only found on a specific tree type.

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These animals are truly remarkable; they are the first known tarantulas ever with a bamboo-based ecology, Dr Chomphuphuang said.

The tarantulas were discovered inside mature culms of Asian bamboo stalks.

Their nest entrances range in size from 23cm to a large fissure and feature a silk-lined tubular burrow, either in the branch stub or in the middle of the bamboo culms. All the tarantulas found living in the culms had built silken retreat tubes that covered the stem cavity.

We examined all of the trees in the area where the species was discovered," said Dr Chomphuphuang.

"This species is unique because it is associated with bamboo, and we have never observed this tarantula species in any other plant.

"Bamboo is important to this tarantula, not only in terms of lifestyle but also because it can only be found in high hill forests in the northern part of Thailand, at an elevation of about 1,000m.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that they are now Thailands rarest tarantulas, he added.

These spiders cannot bore into bamboo stems themselves. Instead, they rely on the assistance of other animals such as the bamboo borer beetle, bamboo worm, bamboo-nesting carpenter bee, and some rodents.

In other cases, rapid changes in moisture content can cause bamboo to crack.

Few people realize how much of Thailands wildlife remains undocumented, said Dr Chomphuphuang.

Thai forests now cover only 31.64 per cent of the countrys total land area. We are primarily on a mission to research and save the biodiversity and wildlife within these forests from extinction, especially species-specific microhabitats.

The research is published in the journal ZooKeys.




Increasing emphasis on integrated development of domestic and foreign trade will inject new growth impetus into Chinese enterprises and accelerate implementation of China's new dual-circulation development pattern, experts and business leaders said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, China unveiled a circular with multiple measures to reduce trading costs for enterprises so that they can make better use of both domestic and foreign markets and resources, to coordinate the development of domestic and foreign trade and the growth of imports and exports.

The aim is to help deepen the new development pattern, and realize high-level opening-up and high-quality development, the document said.

Issued by the General Office of the State Council, it stressed improving institutional support for foreign and domestic trade integration, which includes better alignment of domestic trading rules and standards with global ones in areas like intellectual property rights protection, antitrust regulation enforcement, trade liberalization and facilitation, and product certification.

Efforts should be made to encourage market entities like large trading and logistics firms to expand overseas, while growth of cross-border supply chain service providers will also be facilitated, to add resilience to industrial and supply chains, it said.

Yin Zhengping, a researcher at the Institute of International Trade, which is part of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said the document aims to help foreign trade companies facing challenges due to COVID-19 to navigate operations in the domestic market, while encouraging them to increase their presence in global markets.

Yang Guoxiu, chairperson of Hunan Guoxiu Food Group Co Ltd in Yongzhou, Hunan province, a Chinese canned food producer, said the domestic market now accounts for half of the company's sales. Yet merely a few years ago, the company's products were mainly exported to overseas markets.

"The domestic market is now as important as foreign markets,"Yang said, adding high-quality products manufactured by the same production lines for exports using the same standards are popular among domestic consumers.

According to Guan Lixin, deputy director of the Institute of Distribution and Consumption, which is part of CAITEC, integrated development of domestic and foreign trade will accelerate the establishment of a fair, efficient, transparent and unified domestic market.

The move will also coordinate the relations between foreign investment and outbound foreign investment, she said.

Latest data from the Ministry of Commerce showed that overseas direct investment from China surged by 9.2 percent year-on-year to more than $145 billion last year.

Feng Guan, vice-director of the OIG Institute, a research facility of Optima Integration Group, said China's leading services platform for frozen product imports, Chinese trade and logistics firms' overseas expansion will reduce reliance on foreign supply networks and facilitate Chinese exports.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing continued backlash for legislation he proposed last month that critics say panders to white people. The bill would prohibit public schools and private businesses from making anyone feel discomfort when they teach students or train employees about Americas racially charged history. The bill passed its first round of approval earlier this week.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis faces continued backlash for Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (STOP W.O.K.E.) Act. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The proposal becomes the latest move from conservatives in what has been seen as a growing trend to erase critical race theory, an academic concept focused the intersection of systemic racism and policy in the United States, from the public sphere. The passing of laws of this nature would virtually make it illegal for educators to teach students about inequality and race.

CRT was developed during the 1970s and 1980s, triggered by what scholars felt like was a lack of racial progression following the several monumental civil rights achievements in the 1960s.

In part, the bill proposed by DeSantis states: A person, on the basis of his race or gender, does not take responsibility for actions done in the past by other members of the same caste or gender. Discomfort, guilt, Pain, or any other kind of psychological distress should not be experienced.

On Tuesday, Jan. 18, SB 148, which is modeled on DeSantis proposal and sponsored by Miami Republican state Sen. Manny Diaz, advanced out of the Senate Education Committee in the Florida Legislature, the first hurdle it must clear en route to becoming law.

Democrats have said this measure would open the floodgates for unexpected ramifications and ultimately lead to censorship of education in schools.

In a statement to The Associated Press, state Sen, Shevrin Jones, who is Black, said, This bills not for Blacks, this bill was not for any other race. This was directed to make whites not feel bad about what happened years ago.

Jones added, At no point did anyone say white people should be held responsible for what happened, but what I would ask my white counterparts is, are you an enabler of what happened or are you going to say we must talk about history?

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The bill titled the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (STOP W.O.K.E.) Act was announced last month while referencing the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You think about what MLK stood for, he said in his announcement. He said he didnt want people judged on the color of their skin but on the content of their character. You listen to some of these people now a days, they dont talk about that.

Still, Jones believes DeSantis is only trying to please his conservative base. The governor will continue to go across the country with his racist rhetoric on critical race theory  Its a problem that doesnt exist, Jones said. I think the governors policies that he continues to push are racist.

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A move to help business owners fight regulations enacted by cities and counties survived a pair of Senate committees, but faces a troubled path forward with lawmakers who were warned it could trigger a cascade of lawsuits hitting local taxpayers hard.

The legislation by state Sen. Travis Hutson, R-St. Augustine, was condemned by government representatives who warned that expanding the right of a few companies to sue over ordinances they claim cost them profits would stop city and county officials from taking a host of steps that could improve their communities.

If already in place, critics said the measure would have discouraged cities from enacting laws that stopped pill mill pain clinics that fed the opioid crisis, internet cafes doubling as illegal gambling operations, and even septic-to-sewer conversions underway in many communities.

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The potential lawsuit cost to local governments would have been too much for any of these efforts to proceed if Hutsons bill was law, opponents said.

A lot of the things brought up today, Im hearing for the first time, Hutson told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, conceding he was willing to revamp the controversial legislation (SB 620).

Hutson earlier that day overhauled another bill (SB 280) that has been drawing heat, requiring economic impact statements to be prepared for every ordinance a city or county is looking to enact.

Sen. Travis Huston,R-St. Augustine, is sponsor of a lawsuit measure fought by cities and counties.

'Mother of all preemptions'

Some critics called Hutsons pair of bills the mother of all preemptions, citing the term used when state government usurp the authority of local governments, a frequent occurrence in Tallahassee.

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But the changes Hutson made Thursday to the impact statements  limiting the potential cost of producing them and scaling back their scope  won support from city and county associations that testified before the Senate Community Affairs Committee.

The two measures are now ready for votes in the full Senate. But Hutson acknowledged that the lawsuit measure needs work before then to defuse the storm of opposition it is still facing.

Ill continue working with all parties to try to get this into a posture where its a lot more favorable, Hutson said.

The lawsuit measure does have its supporters. The states largest business associations, including the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Florida Retail Federation and Associated Builders & Contractors endorsed Hutsons approach.

But 1,000 Friends of Florida, Florida League of Conservation Voters joined with local government organizations and others opposing it.

Hutson has a goal

Hutson acknowledged that lawmakers frequently file preemption bills that take away power from local governments.

But he said his intention with the legislation was to have disputes triggered by local ordinances settled at the local level through mediation and not result in a bill filed in the Capitol that strips a city or countys authority.

But opponents said his legislation would merely incentivize local challenges to governments and prompt more cities to dole out settlement dollars for dubious claims to avoid the risk of even costlier lawsuits.

The proposal was hit hard in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Its a bad bill. Its a bad idea, said Sen. Jeff Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican.

How it would work

The measure allows any business operating in Florida for at least three years to claim legal damages if a county or city enacts or amends a provision that causes a reduction of at least 15% of the companys profits.

The company would have to notify the local government within 180 days of the ordinances enactment that it was harmed, submit documents backing the claim, and ask for a settlement offer.

The government then would have 120 days to respond with a rejection, settlement or counter-offer, while paying the business legal fees. If the business didnt like the result, it could sue, with the government having to cover all legal fees if it loses.

This bills a tax bill, said Bob McKee, with the Florida Association of Counties. Local governments will have to tax their homeowners and businesses to pay these business damages and attorneys fees.

Seminole County Commissioner Lee Constantine, a former Republican state senator, pointed out that his county has a septic tank-to-sewer conversion program, aimed at improving community services and the environment.

Would that not harm  the septic tank industry? Probably, Constantine said. Under this bill, could they sue us? Absolutely.

Indian River County Commissioner Peter OBryan said the measure would blunt governments from enacting ordinances that protect public safety or impose regulations on businesses.

This bill will promote bad behavior, and local governments should not have to pay a business that is causing a negative impact in our community, OBryan said.

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Networks Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @JKennedyReport

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Bill would give Florida businesses more power to fight local regulations
A task force investigating Wisconsin's impending retirement crisis  more than 400,000 seniors are at risk of living in poverty by 2030  heard a similar sentiment from residents in all corners of the state.

I wish I had started saving sooner.

So the task force looked at ways to incentive savings earlier in life. One result is a proposal introduced this week by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to create an investment savings program that would start at birth for Wisconsin's children.

"I think it's a low-cost approach of folks helping themselves," said state Rep. John Macco (R-Ledgeview). "We're providing a platform and seeding it and then they all get to contribute and move that forward. ... I think it's a great way for folks to become self-sufficient."

The program proposed by Macco, state Rep. Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee) and state Sen. Janis Ringhand (D-Evansville) is called 401(K)ids.

It would automatically open an investment account similar to those used for individual retirement savings for every child born or adopted in Wisconsin. That's about 65,000 children annually.

The idea is somewhat similar to baby bonds or child development or savings accounts, a concept highlighted last year in the Journal Sentinel's Steps to Success reporting. But unlike baby bonds, the funds would be restricted for specific purposes and invested for higher returns than the interest earned from a savings account.

And in contrast to other states' child development accounts, the bill's lead sponsors do not intend to use a 529 educational savings platform and envision several authorized uses for the money.

Under their proposal, once a child turns 18, he or she could access the savings without tax penalty for continuing education, buying their first home, paying for a medical emergency or rolling the savings into another retirement account.

The legislation calls for a $25 seed deposit from the state's general purpose revenue fund. After that, anyone  from parents to relatives to employers to philanthropic groups  can contribute to a child's account. It also allows for a parent or guardian to directly deposit a tax refund into their child's account.

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The proposal estimates an initial cost of about $2 million for the seed deposits and then other costs to set up the program and manage it. Under the draft legislation, the state's Department of Employee Trust Funds would establish and administer the program or select a vendor to do so.

"We do have a provision of the bill that requires as the assets under management grow and the interest that's earned grows, that those initial taxpayer investments to stand this program up get repaid," Goyke said.

State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, chairwoman of the Retirement Security Task Force, said the upfront cost is a fraction of the more than $3 billion the state will be expected to spend by 2030 on public assistance to help those who have not saved enough for retirement.

"There is an economic impact by not taking action earlier," said Godlewski, a Democrat who currently is running for the U.S. Senate.

Research on children's development and savings accounts for education has found such programs can change family's expectations and make it more likely that children pursue higher education. One study even found having a savings account was a better predictor of whether a child with college expectations would attend than race or parents net worth.

"These types of programs can be some of the most effective at destroying the racial wealth gap that we have," Goyke said. "A child born in poverty will have an account, they can start saving, they can have something to start their adult life with."

Although the seed deposit may seem modest, all three lawmakers highlighted the importance of starting early and taking advantage of compound interest.

"It's all about building that wealth," Ringhand said.

The bill's lead sponsors are circulating the legislation and seeking more cosponsors. Then legislation will be referred to committees in the Assembly and Senate. You can find out who your legislators are and how to contact them here.

Contact Ashley Luthern at ashley.luthern@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @aluthern.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin lawmakers pitch program to open investment accounts at birth
Two former Chick-fil-A workers went from behind the counters to behind bars after a federal judge sent them to prison on accusations of a conspiracy to defraud their fast-food employer in Alabama.

Larry James Black Jr., 37, of Center Point was sentenced to 30 months in prison and Joshua Daniel Powell, 40, of Moody was sentenced to 15 months. Black pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud in September 2021 and Powell pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in June 2021.

Black held the title of business director for hospitality at the Chick-fil-A, and Powell held the title of director, court documents noted.

Black and Powell plotted to defraud Chick-fil-As Five Points location in Birmingham, Alabama, while working there as employees by diverting almost half a million dollars in customer payments to bank accounts controlled by those involved in the conspiracy, according to court documents.

The two directors created an email and digital payment accounts that appeared to be the official accounts, tricking customers into sending payments there for catering services and other restaurant sales, the indictment stated.

Between April 2018 and January 2020, Black and Powells scheme diverted about $492,000 from the business through customer credit card payments, the Department of Justice said in a news release.

According to court records, the duo created at least four faulty Chick-fil-A accounts to which they deposited thousands of dollars. Black is accused of using a fake Social Security number to open some of the accounts.

In the past, the court noted that Black from the age of 20 to 29 had a history of passing bad checks, which officials said were used to purchase necessities such as food in several instances.

However, this time, the court said Blacks alleged fraud went beyond a grocery list: He was accused of using his position at Chick-fil-A to forge payroll records to misrepresent his income, securing him a mortgage on a new home for $159,000.

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Black also has reported medical conditions and recently underwent surgery. His health will need to be monitored constantly, according to the court system.

A custodial sentence of no more than 30 months will serve to advance the need to provide Mr. Black with medical treatment in the most effective manner by limiting the amount of time that the Bureau of Prisons must manage his chronic health conditions and allowing him to resume care with his present medical providers sooner, the court said.

McClatchy News reached out to both attorneys defending Black and Powell and did not receive a response.

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Image is everything to Emirates, former flight attendants say. M101Studio/Shutterstock; Rachel Mendelson/Insider

Former Emirates employees say the airline has officers monitoring the weight and BMI of cabin crew.

Internally, they are known to some as the "weight police" and can punish those deemed overweight.

Punishments for failure to meet standards include job loss and salary reduction, some ex-staff said.

Behind the red-lipped smiles, perfectly pulled up hair, and impeccable beige uniforms, some Emirates flight attendants say they have one of the toughest jobs in the aviation industry.

The reality of working 17-hour flights from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to New Zealand is rarely captured on the social-media pages of chic jet-setters, Maya Dukaric, a former flight attendant, told Insider.

But putting on a "glamorous Emirates face" is crucial for the airline's cabin crew, Dukaric added. Former employees said it was so important that there was an "Appearance Management Program" run by image and grooming officers dedicated to ensuring flight attendants meet the airline's standards.

Image and uniform rules were strict, said Karla Bayson, a former Emirates flight attendant who left the airline last year. Emirates required neat hair and nail polish that was red, neutral, or clear, she said. And no one got hired with tattoos visible in uniform. The rules are communicated in an employee handbook and during onboarding training, according to interviews with six former employees, including a former human-resources business partner and a former manager.

But where Emirates appears to go further than industry norms is in its weight requirements. Former cabin crew said image and grooming officers monitored and punished flight attendants deemed overweight.

Internally at Emirates, these officers were known by some former staffers as the "weight police."

The 'weight police' single out flight attendants deemed overweight, former employees say

Cabin crew members find themselves on the Appearance Management Program through two scenarios: They're directly identified by the "weight police," or they're reported by their colleagues, said a former human-resources business partner who worked for Emirates for over five years and spoke on condition of anonymity.

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"A culture of telling on each other to management is prevalent," this person told Insider.

Those in the program are given diet and exercise plans and meet with HR representatives to assess their progress, the former HR partner said. Failure to make progress incurs a series of warnings, weight checks, and in some cases punishments such as pay cuts, this person said.

The program also included meetings with nutritionists and diet experts, said a former manager who worked for the airline for over 10 years and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A former human-resources business partner says there is a "culture of telling on each other." David Ramos/Getty Images

The former manager said such cases were rare and estimated that "150 people out of 25,000" flight attendants were on the program at any given time. According to Emirates' 2020-21 annual report, the company employed 14,372 cabin crew  34.1% less than the previous year.

If the "weight police" spot someone needing to go up a size in uniform in less than six months, "the questions begin," the former manager added. The identities of the former HR partner and the former manager are known to Insider. They both requested anonymity over fear of professional repercussions.

Bayson, a 36-year-old employed by the airline for nine years, said she had colleagues who received warnings about their weight and were given two weeks to "lose it." Every two weeks, they'd be "checked again," she added.

Dukaric said "weight police'' would be present at airports and stop crew periodically to say: "Hey, babe. You need to slow it down."

Emirates declined to comment on the appearance program, "weight police," or other specifics in this story.

"We do not comment on internal policies or procedures or specific, confidential cases of existing or past employees," the company said in a statement.

"As a global airline, we treat the wellbeing of our employees with the highest priority, and we believe being fit and healthy, both physically and mentally, is a critical aspect in them carrying out their duties safely and effectively," the statement said. "It may not always be apparent to our customers, but the responsibilities of our cabin crew are vast, and their ability to influence and achieve safe outcomes when needed, requires extensive training and a minimum standard of physical fitness."

Airlines take passenger and crew-member weight into account when calculating an aircraft's overall weight

Henry Harteveldt, a travel-industry analyst at Atmosphere Research, said Emirates competed with airlines from East Asia and the Persian Gulf for passengers. These airlines, such as Singapore Air and Etihad Airways, have appearance requirements for flight attendants, he said.

Airlines in the US and many in Europe no longer have appearance requirements for flight attendants, but other international carriers view flight attendants as a marketing tool, Harteveldt said.

"Some airlines that have stricter requirements tend to be very focused on their brand," Harteveldt said. "They view flight attendants as one of the most visible and most important representations of that brand image to the public."

Because aircraft weight affects whether a plane can take off and how fast it can go, the US Federal Aviation Administration requires airlines to take crew-member weight into account when estimating an aircraft's overall weight and center of gravity.

An airline expert said for a company as large as Emirates there is no "need to weight crew members." AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

The FAA allows US airlines to conduct a survey asking crew members for their weight, and they also have the option of weighing passengers on a scale before they board an aircraft.

Harteveldt said that for a company as large as Emirates, there was "no need to weigh crew members" because the airline developed operating models using average weights for men and women.

The appearance standard Emirates uses for flight attendants "certainly does seem almost archaic from the US perspective," he said.

Some former employees say pay cuts and job loss are 'weight-police' punishments

"Weight police" punishments include taking crew members off flights and job loss, some former employees told Insider.

"If they see you popping out from the uniform, they're going to put you on the ground," Bayson said, referring to the practice of removing employees from working on flights for a set period of time.

Duygu Karaman, a former Emirates flight attendant, told the Daily Mirror she knew of colleagues grounded with weight issues whose pay was reduced.

The former HR business partner confirmed to Insider the use of such punishments. This person said flight attendants who failed to meet the image and uniform standards in regard to weight could be suspended from flying and therefore wouldn't receive the per-diem flying payment.

For those who continuously fail to meet target goals, the best-case scenario is "redeployment," or a department transfer, the HR partner said. Overweight flight attendants could also be fired, Dukaric said.

"If you don't lose in that exact period of time, you can lose your job," Dukaric said, citing the experience of colleagues she knew. "You're always under the stress of pressure because you always think you need to be perfect."

One 25-year-old former flight attendant who worked for the airline for two years said the company's policies made her fear that "if you get too fat, you're going to get fired."

The 'weight police' don't go easy on new moms, some say

The "weight police" were strict on new mothers and would sometimes ground them until they "lose what is required," Bayson said.

She said she experienced anxiety while pregnant in 2020 after she gained 44 pounds.

"There's a lot of ruthlessness when it comes to trying to meet that standard," the former HR business partner said, adding that the "weight police" didn't go any easier on those returning from maternity leave.

The former manager said the airline gave those who went on maternity leave 180 days to lose pregnancy weight, and that crew signed a contract before departing for maternity leave acknowledging the weight requirements upon return.

It can be especially difficult for cabin crew returning from maternity leave, former employees say. ChameleonsEye/Shutterstock

"We weigh them on their last day of work, and they have to come back within a certain percentile, plus or minus of that weight," the former manager said.

"A lot of them believe they are not going to lose weight after pregnancy," this person said.

A maternity-leave contract viewed by Insider did not outline specific weight requirements in writing but said employees must meet image and uniform standards per the "Uniform Standards Manual including attaining a healthy BMI" before returning to work.

Weight requirements are meant to ensure good health, some say

Public information on Emirates' weight policy is sparse. A bullet point on its hiring page says candidates must be "physically fit for this demanding role with a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI)."

Dubai, where the airline is based, doesn't offer non-UAE nationals free healthcare, so Emirates pays medical expenses for cabin crew who have health complications.

"If your BMI is above what you should be, then you become a danger for yourself and a danger for us," the former manager said. "What if you have a heart attack, and we have to deter the plane to another destination? Who is going to be bearing the $100,000 it's going to cost?"

Medical experts say BMI isn't an effective measure of an individual's health, however. The metric doesn't differentiate between weight from fat, muscle, or bone, for example, and it's a poor indicator of metabolic health.

Cabin crew members are informed of appearance requirements during the hiring process, former crew members said.

But the language of the rules  in both the cabin-crew contract and the image-and-uniform training  is somewhat vague, the former HR business partner said.

"All the policies are written in a very gray manner," this person said. "Image and uniform could mean your weight. It could mean your shoes are not polished. It could mean you didn't get a haircut."

Emirates' image standards are obvious from day one on the job

Filipa Pereira, a former Emirates flight attendant who worked for the airline for eight years and resigned in September, said the airline's focus on fitness and image was evident from her first day.

Pereira, who is originally from Portugal, told Insider that when she flew to Prague for Emirates' open day, when the company scouts prospective employees, she noticed a common appearance in the flight attendants who attended.

"Emirates girls that attend the open day, they are all spotless," she said. "They are the first face that we see from Emirates, and they are already elegant, fit."

The importance of appearance is made clear from the get-go, a former Emirates flight attendant says. Nadia Leskovskaya/Shutterstock

She said weight checks were periodically carried out on all cabin crew during her time at the company.

"I remember the last time I was weighted, it was before going for a promotion," Pereira, 35, said. "They checked all the uniform, plus my weight."

When asked if there was an explanation for why the weight check was necessary, Pereira told Insider it was to ensure "image and uniform" requirements passed.

Keeping to Emirates' weight requirements can difficult, Dukaric said. She was 5-foot-7 and about 121 pounds when she started. Within seven months, she gained 17 pounds.

"You are traveling from one time zone to another," she said. "You cannot go hungry" when you're exhausted, and your bodies are confused from the time changes, she added.

She said it was common for flight attendants to gain weight and become targets for the "weight police" but that Emirates taught flight attendants about the importance of keeping healthy.

"Behind all these glamorous, lovey-dovey things of Emirates, there are a lot of regulations that you need to follow," Dukaric said.

Allana Akhtar contributed to this report.

Read the original article on Insider
A former Southwest Florida-based WFTX-TV Fox 4 anchor has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the station's vice president and owner, Scripps Media, Inc.

In the complaint filed last week in Florida's Middle District Court, Jane Monreal, who is an Asian woman, claims WFTX sabotaged her broadcasting career when it terminated her contract soon after she voiced complaints about race discrimination at the news station.

Monreal alleges the discrimination began after WFTX hired Evan Pappas as vice president and general manager early last year, three months after the media organization awarded her a three-year employment contract as an anchor/multi-media journalist.

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Monreal said officials informed her that her contract would be cut short in November 2021 soon after she informed Scripps' corporate Human Resources that she was considering filing a discrimination lawsuit against the media organization and Pappas. The suit describes Pappas as a white man with "a reputation for forcing out or terminating Scripp's employees, particularly minority employees."

Since 2015, the E. W. Scripps Company has owned WFTX as its Fox-affiliated television station serving Fort Myers and Naples and is licensed to Cape Coral. Scripps is an American-based media conglomerate operating a portfolio of 61 stations in 41 markets and employs roughly 5,500 people.

It is the nations fourth-largest local TV broadcaster company.

Prior to Scripps appointing Pappas, a 30-year broadcast industry veteran, to his role at WFTX in April 2021, he served as vice president and general manager of KOAA, Scripps' NBC affiliate in Colorado Springs, Colorado, since 2011, according to a press release.

At the time, Scripps' Local Media President Brian Lawlor described Pappas as having "a record of leading high-performing teams and building stations' culture and operations to become a leader in the market."

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In an email to The News-Press, a Scripps spokesperson said the company would not comment on a pending legal matter but said Pappas remains on staff as of Thursday.

According to the lawsuit, Monreal seeks a declaratory judgment from the court that her former employer's actions were illegal discrimination based upon race, and asks them to pay compensatory and punitive damages, in addition to reasonable attorney fees.

The allegations

Scripps first hired Monreal in 2015 as the morning anchor at KSHB in Kansas City before recruiting her to a sister station in Southwest Florida two years later in the same role.

KSHB broadcasts to 15 counties surrounding Kansas City in a metro market of 978,200 households. In 2020 the Kansas City metro area reported having more than 2.1 million residents, with one out of every four people being a person of color, according to an NPR report.

In late 2018, former WFTX vice president and general manager Darryll Green reassigned her to an evening anchor spot after Amy Wegmann resigned from the position, according to the complaint.

According to 2020 U.S. Census data, Lee and Collier counties added about 200,000 residents over the past decade, with the share of residents that are white in both counties declining from 83% in 2010 to 69%, and the percentage of multiracial residents jumping from 2% to 13%.

Concerns and complaints from employees made to HR about Pappas' discriminatory conduct and racially charged comments began soon after he took on his role, according to the lawsuit.

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Pappas was aware that employees had filed complaints with Scripps' corporate Human Resources and hotline, and "griped about the fact that he was being reported," and even told, "a white male employee to be careful what he said in the newsroom because 'the others' run to HR," the lawsuit says.

"The evidence thus far indicates that it has occurred where Mr. Pappas has been in charge and that the company has been put on notice but not corrected the problem," Monreal's attorney Kendra Presswood of Shankman Leone in Tampa told The News-Press in an email. "The discovery process has not yet started but we intend to find out if it is companywide."

During a meeting with an HR manager in October 2021, Monreal expressed her displeasure with the lack of support and resources provided to the evening news team and mentioned that she was considering filing a race discrimination lawsuit. A month later, she was informed that WFTX was terminating her contract and employment effective March 2022.

That same week, Derek Beasley, the black chief meteorologist was also terminated from WFTX. At least three other black female employees have resigned and seven out of eight on-air positions have been offered to white people since Pappas took over, according to the complaint.

Monreal claims she first complained about Pappas immediately reducing the marking support for her three-person evening news team, which included two minorities, and instead devoted nearly all resources to promoting the morning news team, which at the time was an all-white staff. Pappas also expressed his preference for white anchors and meteorologists, and "expressed his dislike for Monreal, saying he did not care for the female evening anchor."

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In the newsroom

The lawsuit claims that when Pappas would visit the newsroom, he would criticize and ignore minority employees while praising and engaging with white employees.

As an example, the lawsuit says that Pappas once "criticized the evening news anchors indicating that the broadcast was boring, but told (Patrick) Nolan, the white male anchor, that it was not his fault, it was the 'elements' around him, meaning Monreal and the Black chief meteorologist...[i]n contrast, he described the white male anchors as 'authentic'."

Pappas also asked minority employees if they would like to transfer to other stations while suggesting that "they would be good at the other station, often where the anchor's race matched the general community," and did not suggest that white employees move to other stations, the lawsuit alleges.

The suit claims he once told a prior employee that he sounded too "Black" for Colorado Springs, where Pappas had recently worked.

In addition, Pappas fired Managing Editor LaQunta Dixon, a black woman who accused him and Scripps of racism, the lawsuit says.

"Pappas had indicated he would fire Dixon approximately a month before he did so. He also bragged that he had surreptitiously taken a photograph of Dixon emotionally upset when he fired her," the complaint says.

Dixon could not be reached by email or phone.

Presswood told The News-Press that the other employees mentioned in the lawsuit are not represented by Shankman Leone.

A summons was issued to Scripps and Pappas on Jan 11 and the deadline to answer the complaint is 20 days after service, Presswood said.

Connect with breaking news reporter Rachel Heimann Mercader: @racheyy_marie (Twitter) or rachel.heimann@naplesnews.com

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Fox4 anchor Jane Monreal files discrimination lawsuit against Scripps Media, VP Evan Pappas
Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez

Three Fort Bragg soldiers who were camping with another soldier whose partial remains washed up along Cape Lookout National Seashore in 2020 are facing court martial on drug use and other charges.

Spc. Alex R. Becerra, Pvt. Annamarie L. Cochell and Pfc. Samad A. Landrum, along with four others, were camping on the remote North Carolina island with Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez, 21, when Roman-Martinez was reported missing May 22, 2020.

His severed head washed ashore six days later. His body has never been recovered.

Roman-Martinez, Becerra, Landrum and Cochell were assigned to the 37th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

According to charge sheets, Becerra, Cochell and Landrum are each charged with making a false official statement, disobeying a lawful order and using LSD, a hallucinogenic drug.

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Becerra, who made the 911 to report Roman-Martinez missing, was arraigned Jan. 13 on additional charges of conspiracy, two counts of disobeying a lawful command and another count of making a false statement, according to court records.

According to the charge sheet, Becerra allegedly:

 made a false statement to officials by omitting the presence of another individual when Becerra said he and two others left the island at 3 a.m. May 22, 2020, to board a ferry in Davis, North Carolina,

 made a false statement when he failed to admit another individual joined the group on the camping trip,

 denied drugs were involved in the trip.

Becerra and Cochell are each also charged with disobeying a lawful order for having contact with soldiers they were ordered to stay away from.

Becerras trial is scheduled for May 31 to June 3.

The charge sheets allege Landrum and Cochell conspired with others whose names were redacted to make a false statement when they also reportedly didn't include the name of the fourth individual who was with them on the ferry trip.

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Landrum also allegedly denied drugs were involved in the trip, the document states, and in another instance he omitted the presence of an individual when he told investigators that on the night Roman-Martinez went missing, one soldier was sleeping, another was fishing and another was watching the fishing soldier.

Landrums trial is scheduled for March 21 to March 24. Cochells trial is scheduled for April 25 to April 28.

Roman-Martinez's homicide case remains open but was moved to "cold case status," a spokeswoman for the Army Criminal Investigation Division said in November. No one has been charged with his death.

Lt. Col. Brett Lea, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, said the CID is continuing to offer its $50,000 reward for information that resolves the investigation.

"These charges are unrelated to the death of Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez, which remains unsolved," Lea said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Army special agents at 910-396-8777 or the Military Police Desk at 910-396-1179.

They can also anonymously submit information at www.cid.army.mil/report-a-crime.html.

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.

Support local journalism with a subscription to The Fayetteville Observer. Click the "subscribe'' link at the top of this article.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Three Fort Bragg soldiers last to see soldier alive face court martial
By Benjamin Mallet and Florence Tan

PARIS (Reuters) -Oil majors TotalEnergies and Chevron Corp, partners in a major gas project in Myanmar, said on Friday they were withdrawing from the country, citing the worsening humanitarian situation following last year's coup.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, in its first public acknowledgment of the move, also said on Friday that it no longer held exploration licences in Myanmar as of last year.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army overthrew the elected government in February 2021 and detained its leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta has used brutal force https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/death-toll-since-myanmar-coup-tops-1000-says-activist-group-2021-08-18 to put down protests.

TotalEnergies and Chevron, along with other firms, were part of a joint venture operating the Yadana gas project off Myanmar's southwestern coast, and the MGTC transportation system carrying gas from the field to the Myanmar/Thailand border.

They have now become the latest Western companies to decide to pull out in the wake of the coup.

"The situation, in terms of human rights and more generally the rule of law, which have kept worsening in Myanmar since the coup of February 2021, has led us to reassess the situation," TotalEnergies said in a statement.

"As a result, (it) has decided to initiate the contractual process of withdrawing from the Yadana field and from MGTC in Myanmar, both as operator and as shareholder, without any financial compensation for TotalEnergies."

A spokesperson later added that despite civil resistance movements, "the junta is settled in power and our analysis is that, unfortunately, it is there to stay."

Since the coup, Myanmar security forces have killed more than 1,400 people and arrested thousands, local non-governmental organisation Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said. The junta disputes the figures.

TotalEnergies did not quantify the financial impact of the withdrawal, but said Myanmar represented a minor part of its revenue.

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"Financial considerations have never been crucial in this matter. Our operations in Myanmar amounted to $105 million in 2021, equivalent to less than 1% of the company's income," said the TotalEnergies spokesperson.

Myanmar amounted to 0.6% of TotalEnergies' total oil and gas production in that period.

A Chevron spokesperson said: "In light of circumstances in Myanmar, we have reviewed our interest in the Yadana natural gas project to enable a planned and orderly transition that will lead to an exit from the country."

"As a non-operator with a minority interest in the project, our immediate priority remains the safety and well-being of employees, safe operations and the supply of much-needed energy for the people of Myanmar and Thailand."

Total was the biggest shareholder in the project with a 31.24% stake, while Chevron holds 28%. PTTEP, a unit of Thai national energy company PTT, and Myanmar state-owned oil and gas group Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) hold the remainder.

Shell, an equity holder in offshore Block A7 with partners Woodside Energy and Myanmar Petroleum Exploration and Production Co, said it had relinquished its exploration licences in Myanmar last year.

"Exploration blocks have been relinquished, therefore there is no production, revenue nor related payment to government," a spokesperson told Reuters.

SANCTIONS?

Rights groups welcomed TotalEnergies' move and said more companies - and sanctions https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/un-rights-chief-urges-asean-move-myanmar-dialogue-2021-07-07 on Myanmar's oil and gas - should follow.

"TotalEnergies has finally taken heed of the calls of Myanmar people, local and international civil society to stop the flow of funds to the terrorist junta," said Yadanar Maung, a spokesperson for activist group Justice for Myanmar.

"It is now essential that international governments move ahead with targeted sanctions on oil and gas to deny the junta funds from the remaining oil and gas projects."

TotalEnergies said that before deciding to pull out of Myanmar, it had been in a dialogue with French and U.S. authorities for months to consider putting in place targeted sanctions that would confine financial flows to escrow accounts without shutting down gas production.

"TotalEnergies has not identified any means for doing so," it said.

Total and Chevron last year suspended some payments from the project that would have reached the junta, earning some praise from pro-democracy activists.

The group said it had notified its partners in Myanmar of its withdrawal, which will become effective at the latest at the expiry of a six-month contractual period.

Located in the Gulf of Martaban, the Yadana field produces around 6 billion cubic metres per year of gas, about 30% of which is supplied to MOGE for domestic use and 70% exported to Thailand.

"This gas helps to provide about half of the electricity in the Burmese capital Yangoon and supplies the western part of Thailand," TotalEnergies said.

The spokesperson for TotalEnergies said PTT would be a 'natural' choice for its Myanmar assets, adding it was already in contact with the company over this. PTT unit PTTEP said it was "carefully considering" what to do next.

The military-run Myanmar government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. MOGE officials declined to comment.

TotalEnergies told Reuters the withdrawal process did not require the approval of Myanmar authorities.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Benjamin Mallet in Paris, Florence Tan in Singapore and Chayut Setboonsarng in BangkokWriting by Ingrid Melander and Gwladys Fouche; Editing by David Goodman, Jan Harvey and Matthew Lewis)
The grand jury indicted nearly two dozen people on gambling charges in January 1947, but the indictments were later quashed on a technicality. One of their defenses was that the prosecutor had hand-picked the grand jury.

That legal battle marked the first time the issue of women being excluded from jury duty was raised. It took another decade for local women  and Blacks  to win equal footing in deciding the fate of their fellow human beings.

The re-trial of Charles Sitton, the youth who shot and killed police officer Jack Rainier Nov. 21, 1955, prompted Blacks and women to be included in the jury pool in May 1956. No women heard that case, although Black funeral home operator Charles A. Reeder was seated on that jury.

Henderson news: COVID numbers hit all-time high in Henderson area with nearly 3,100 new cases reported

Cornelia Brown was the first woman to serve on a jury locally when she helped decide an auto accident case in mid-June 1956.

But the issue of women on juries was almost an afterthought in the courtroom drama about gambling in early 1947. Most of the lawyers representing the multiple defendants did not consider that issue worthy of raising in their arguments. The sole exception was L.C. Flournoy.

The Gleaner picked up on the indictments in its Jan. 9, 1947, issue although the problems involved had begun two months earlier. (It was the fourth batch of gambling indictments prior to the last one in 1951; others had been in 1940, 1941 and 1943.)

Those indicted included Art Bridges, Starling McClure, Clarence Fambrough, Roy C. Freels, Allen Wilson, Paul Barr, Clyde Langford, Aubrey Richardson, Robert and Frederick Nichols, and Henry Steinwachs,

Also, Robert J. Bennett, Otto Bunch, James and Anna F. Head, J.C. and Kate Ligon, Thomas Jennings, G.T. OBryan, Carl Pearson, Clarence Wood, and Oswald Poss Coomes.

Confiscated slot machines were destroyed with a jackhammer along Fourth Street in the early 1950s. There were attempts in 1940, 1943 and 1947 to shut down commercialized gambling locally before the idea finally gained traction in 1951-52.

Those named had been operating slot machines although a few others  who were not named  had been indicted for operating crap games. Most of them were owners of nightclubs or taverns.

Story continues

The defense attorneys responded by filing motions to quash the indictments, which was reported in The Gleaner of Jan. 21. The motions were almost identical, except for Flournoys, who noted there were 1,652 women on the tax rolls then but they had been excluded from participation in the jury selection process.

State law mandated the circuit judge to create a jury commission at the beginning of each year, which was responsible for creating a jury pool of more than 500 property owners, although the pool and the grand jury drawn from it werent legitimate until the judge had signed off on them.

More: Biden administration takes action on toxic coal ash plaguing Kentucky and Indiana

The names of those in the jury pool were to be placed in a wheel and the grand jury and the petit juries for each year were created by names drawn by the judge from that wheel after it was tumbled. The judge was supposed to keep the key that locked the wheel, while the circuit court clerk was to keep the wheel and the envelope with the grand jurors names.

The defense attorneys alleged that the grand jury had been illegally created because that process was not followed  the judge never signed off on the jury. Another thorny issue was that County Attorney Allen Rhoads had been present in the jury room while the jury commission was working.

As it turned out, Rhoads wasnt the only one. The only people who were supposed to be in the room were the jury commissioners, who had been appointed by Circuit Judge Marlin Blackwell Nov. 8, 1946. Later testimony revealed that Tax Commissioner Waverlie Crafton as well as Ditch Commissioner Walter Kellen were also in the jury room.

Furthermore, the Jan. 30 edition reported that Circuit Court Clerk Karl Doc Hosbach said the grand jury had not been composed of the first 12 names on the list provided by the jury commission. He said he had skipped around in selecting jurors. He declined to answer when asked who had asked him to skip around.

At that point, the county attorney stood up and clarified he had told Hosbach to do that. He also conceded he had given a list of prospective grand jury members to jury commissioner John W. Gregory, who also took the stand.

Gregory testified there were three different lists of good men in the room while the jury commissioners were working. If names on those lists also were taxpayers, he said, they were added to the jury pool.

Gregory also noted the commissioners agreed among themselves not to use the names of women.

Another member of the jury commission was City School Board Chairman James F. Meyer, who said he had a list given to him by Waverlie Crafton and Richard S. Staples.

The third jury commissioner, Omer Campbell, conceded the wheel and its key were not delivered to the circuit judge as required by law. Instead, both were given to Hosbach. One reason for that, perhaps, is that Judge Blackwell had been sick at his home in Dixon for weeks.

Madisonville Circuit Judge B.N. Gordon subsequently heard the case. He upheld the state on every issue except for the mishandling of the wheel and its key, which he said endangered the sanctity of the whole jury system.

That prompted him to quash the indictments, although he said the cases could be submitted later to the May grand jury. (Thats exactly what happened, although virtually all the cases were eventually dismissed.)

Meanwhile, acting Judge Gordon had formed a new jury commission, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 24. They were Henry Taylor, Emory Cottingham and J.I. Farley. The judge instructed them on the niceties of their task and took care to point out it is legal to choose names of women who are taxpayers and housekeepers in the county to go into the wheel.

During the lengthy hearing right before the judge quashed the indictments, one of the defense attorneys, N. Powell Taylor, said he had seen no indication that any official had acted with criminal intent in creating the jury commission and the jury pool, although, They may have acted improperly.

The Gleaner carried two letters to the editor about the issue and the first was published Jan. 25. Art Nestler said he found it incongruous that the owners of nightclubs were being indicted for having slot machines, while private fraternal clubs doing the same thing but were considered untouchable.

Doing it behind closed doors is the same thing and any grand jury who fails to indict them all is very discriminating.

The second was by George D. Haas and it appeared Feb. 5: In my opinion the jury was selected in the same manner that it has been for years. It is surprising to me that as an intelligent group of lawyers (who) were opposing the way the grand jury was selected, that they were just now finding out that it was not done according to law.

100 years ago

A fellow in Dixon apparently couldnt get enough marital bliss.

Robert F. Donaldson was in jail there, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 28, 1922, because he married two additional wives in less than a week.

His first was Luda Dyer at Senaca, South Carolina, on April 9, 1921. The second was the daughter of a widow who ran a hotel at Shawneetown, Illinois, on Nov. 30. The final one was Lela Trice of Dixon on Dec. 5.

50 years ago

Henderson was among 15 cities in Kentucky who had taken advantage of federal money to train what we now call EMTs, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 30, 1972.

RN Gloria Fleming Sierra was the instructor for the local emergency medical technician class, which drew 19 participants initially. Dr. Dick Wham assisted with the program.

The course consisted of 25 lessons involving 71 hours of classroom training, plus ten hours of in-hospital observation, for a total of 81 hours.

Each lesson provides for practice of the skills taught in that lesson.

25 years ago

Owens Corning Fiberglas Corp. decided against building a plant here to manufacture insulation, ending two years of hope the community would land a $68 million facility that would employ 120 people, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 29, 1997.

The company had taken an option to buy 126 acres offered by the Economic Development Council but notified the EDC it would not exercise that option from the Termo Co. of Long Beach, California. The property is on Kentucky 136 next to the Henderson County Riverport.

The company had first come to the publics attention in early 1995 when it received the state of Kentuckys approval for $30 million in tax breaks if it located here.

Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.

This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: Frank Boyett: Multiple gambling indictments failed to score in 1947
Foreign ministrys spokesperson responds to queries on issues of public concern

Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang presented views on issues that have drawn concern of the press and the public at the ministrys regular press conference in Hanoi on January 20.













Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang. (Photo: VNA)

Regarding the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)s postponement of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat, Hang said Cambodia had announced the suspension of the event, initially slated for January 18 in Siem Reap, due to the Omicron variant, and the absence of some ministers.



Cambodia is coordinating with other member countries to hold the meeting in the time ahead, she said, affirming that Vietnam will continue its close coordination with Cambodia  ASEAN Chair 2022  and other members in the organisation of the meeting.



Asked about Vietnams stance on the Myanmar situation, the spokesperson said as Myanmars neighbour and an ASEAN member, Vietnam wishes that Myanmar will soon stabilise its situation to continue with its national construction and development, for the sake of its people and making more contributions to the ASEAN Community building.



In the spirit of solidarity and responsibility, Vietnam will closely coordinate with the ASEAN Chair 2022 and other member countries of the bloc to push ahead with the five-point consensus, contributing to the ASEAN Community building, and for peace, stability, cooperation and development of the ten-member grouping, the spokesperson noted.



About foreign medias reporting that Vietnam is building up armed militia and self-defense forces at sea and the concern over possible conflicts, Hang flatly rejected the information as entirely untrue.



She said Vietnam persistently pursues a defence policy of peace and self-defence, stressing that the operations of Vietnamese competent agencies completely abide by Vietnamese and international laws, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS).



At the same time, Vietnam has always made efforts to contribute to building an East Sea of peace, security and safety in line with the convention.



We call on countries in and outside the region to make responsible contributions to the goal, she said.



As for negotiations to bring Vietnamese workers back to Taiwan (China), Hang told the press that the two sides are working to help Vietnamese labourers return to the market.



We hope that Taiwan will facilitate the admission of Vietnamese workers, the spokesperson said.



Hang cited statistics by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) as showing that from January 1 to 19, 2022, there were 17 repatriation flights carrying more than 1,700 Vietnamese labourers back to Vietnam from Taiwan.



The CAAV is negotiating with partners to reopen routes to Australia and Europe, to facilitate the travel back home for Vietnamese citizens abroad, according to the spokesperson.



Responding to a query on the trial of the Vietnamese ringleader of a human trafficking ring behind the incident of 39 Vietnamese people found dead in a refrigerated truck in the UK, Hang said any violation of laws should be handled deservedly.



The Vietnamese Government also advocates legal, safe and orderly migration, while resolutely fighting illegal migration, migrant smuggling and human trafficking.



Vietnam has stepped up cooperation with countries and organisations, including Interpol, to prevent, detect, investigate and handle people-smuggling rings in line with the law.



Vietnam stands ready to coordinate with countries to quickly address related cases, ensuring legal and safe migration, for legitimate rights and interests of migrants, she said.



On this occasion, the spokesperson briefed reporters on achievements Vietnam recorded in external affairs in 2021, notably the unprecedented vaccine diplomacy campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic which has helped Vietnam become one of the countries with the highest vaccination coverage.



Vietnam also completed its non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council for 2020-2021, she added.



Vietnam has ratified the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), accelerated the implementation of signed free trade agreements (FTAs), and continued negotiating other FTAs, helping to raise the countrys export revenue to over 600 billion USD last year, she said./.
The Communist Party of China's (CPC) top disciplinary agency pledged to maintain strong and persistent crackdown on corruption in a communique released Thursday.

The communique was adopted at the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which was held in Beijing from Tuesday to Thursday.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the plenum and delivered an important speech.

Party and state leaders including Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng attended the session.

The session reviewed the disciplinary work in 2021, made arrangements for tasks in 2022, and deliberated and approved a work report delivered by Zhao Leji on behalf of the CCDI standing committee.

In 2021, the CPC celebrated its centenary and reviewed its major achievements and historical experience over the past century.

In 2022, the CPC will convene its 20th national congress, which is a major event in the political life of the Party and the country, the communique said.

It urged coordination in punishing corruption, strengthening deterrence among officials, tightening institutional restrictions, and improving their political awareness to make more institutional achievements and greater progress in governance.

Discipline inspection commissions and supervision agencies should play a better role in enforcing oversight over decision implementation, the communique said.

Having the courage to reform itself distinguishes the CPC from other political parties. It is the Party's secret to avoiding the historical cycle of rise and fall and remaining vibrant after a century of struggle, the communique stressed.

Political oversight

Political oversight should focus on several vital tasks, including deepening reform and opening-up across the board, advancing common prosperity, building strength in science and technology, and forestalling and defusing major risks, the communique noted.

The document stressed the importance of putting the spotlight on leading officials, also known as the "key few."

It called for strengthened oversight over officials in command and leadership teams, especially concerning their performance in fulfilling their responsibility to exercise strict Party self-governance in all respects, implementation of democratic centralism, and their exercise of power according to laws and regulations.

Deepening anti-corruption drive

Calling for unswerving efforts to deepen the anti-corruption drive, the plenum stressed that no mercy will be shown to those who run or are engaged in political factions, cliques or interest groups within the Party, and strict standards will be adopted to educate, manage and supervise young officials.

Efforts will be stepped up to investigate and punish any corruption behind the runaway expansion of capital and the monopoly of platform enterprises in order to sever the connections between power and capital, and financial discipline will be strengthened, said the communique.

Defense against malpractice

The communique called for continued efforts to consolidate the defense of the CPC Central Committee's eight-point decision against undesirable work practices, and to persistently address corruption and misconduct occurring on the people's doorsteps.

The practice of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism that affected the implementation of the CPC Central Committee's decisions and policies, and other practices that turned a blind eye to the people's interests or increased the burden on people at primary levels must be resolutely corrected and rectified, it said.

Sound inspection system

The communique also urged the improvement of the discipline inspection system, where inspection authorities at different levels have sound communication and work together to ensure relevant work is conducted at a high quality and with full coverage.

Routine supervision and special inspections should both be strengthened, and the issue regarding "the latter part of the story" of addressing the problems discovered during the inspections into central-level financial institutions should be taken seriously, it said.

The document called for a comprehensive review of the inspection work conducted by the 19th CPC CCDI so that it can be reported to the Party's Central Committee.

According to the communique, the reform of the discipline inspection and supervision system should highlight an integrated system as well as coordination and efficiency to transform institutional advantages into greater governance effectiveness.

Loyal guardians

The communique called on discipline inspection personnel to be politically strong and professionally competent, and work hard to be the loyal guardians of the Party and the people.

The plenary session stressed the need to rally more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, promote the great founding spirit of the Party and the spirit of self-reform, and ensure that concrete progress is made by the time the 20th CPC National Congress is convened.




BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's new coalition government wants to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad each year to tackle both a demographic imbalance and labour shortages in key sectors that risk undermining the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

"The shortage of skilled workers has become so serious by now that it is dramatically slowing down our economy," Christian Duerr, parliamentary leader of the co-governing Free Democrats (FDP), told business magazine WirtschaftsWoche.

"We can only get the problem of an ageing workforce under control with a modern immigration policy... We have to reach the mark of 400,000 skilled workers from abroad as quickly as possible," Duerr added.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats, Duerr's libertarian FDP and the environmentalist Greens agreed in their coalition deal on measures like a points system for specialists from countries outside the European Union and lifting the national minimum wage to 12 euros ($13.60) per hour to make working in Germany more attractive.

The employer-friendly German Economic Institute estimates that the labour force will shrink by more than 300,000 people this year as there are more older workers retiring than younger ones entering the labour market.

This gap is expected to widen to more than 650,000 in 2029, leaving an accumulated shortage of people of working age in 2030 of roughly 5 million. The number of Germans in employment grew to nearly 45 million last year despite the coronavirus pandemic.

After decades of low birth rates and uneven migration, a shrinking labour force also poses a demographic time bomb for Germany's public pension system, in which fewer employees are burdened with the task of financing the pensions of a growing mass of retirees who are enjoying longer life expectancy.

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber, Editing by Victoria Waldersee and Toby Chopra)
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson discussed the situation on the Ukrainian border and agreed that further Russian military aggression against Ukraine must be averted, a German government spokesperson said on Friday.

In a phone call on Thursday, Scholz and Johnson also agreed that it must be clear that Russia would have to face considerable costs in case of further aggression, the spokesperson added.

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, editing by Kirsti Knolle)
Igor Fruman arrives at a New York federal court for an arraignment hearing in 2019





A federal judge on Friday sentenced Igor Fruman, an associate of Rudy Giuliani's, to a year and a day in prison for helping to funnel foreign money to the campaigns of Republican officials in the U.S., according to The Associated Press.

The sentence from U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken, which also includes a $10,000 fine, came after Fruman pleaded guilty in September to a single charge of soliciting foreign campaign contributions. Fruman and another man, Lev Parnas, had been charged together in the scheme in 2019.

Both men had also reportedly been enlisted by Giuliani during the Trump administration to dig up dirt on President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, in a scandal that was the subject of former President Trump's first impeachment but unrelated to the federal charges both had faced.

Federal prosecutors had asked a judge to sentence Fruman to more than three years in prison, partly because of the central role he was said to have played in the scheme.

As part of his plea agreement, Fruman admitted to soliciting $1 million from a Russian oligarch, disguising the source of the funds through straw donors and other means, then contributing the money to various GOP candidates in order to buy influence.

Fruman's defense lawyers had urged the judge not to include any prison time in the sentence.

Parnas was convicted by a federal jury in October of last year on six counts related to the scheme and is awaiting sentencing.
GLENVIEW, IL  Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity announced Thursday that more than $111 million in relief funds have been distributed to businesses  a key milestone to accelerate small business recovery through the Back to Business (B2B) program.

Local Glenview businesses receiving funds include:

Glenview Investors - Hotel LLC (Renaissance Chicago Glenview Suites)  $250,000

Arifi Inc. (Cafe Lucci)  $110,000

First GLV, LLC (Courtyard Chicago Glenview/Northbrook)  $50,000

Glenview Donuts, Inc. (Dunkin' Donuts)  $25,000

Glenview Elly's Inc (Ellys Pancake House)  $75,000

Glenview Hotels, Inc.  $175,000

Insieme A Chicago LLC  $10,000

Lux Salong & Spa Inc.  $15,000

Northshore Cruise Specialists (Expedia Cruises Northshore)  $25,000

SBS Glenview, LLC (Staybridge Suites Glenview)  $250,000

Since the programs first round of grantees last September, 2,913 grants totaling more than $111 million have been provided to small businesses in over 300 cities across the state, with almost eighty percent of awards delivered to businesses in disproportionately impacted communities and hard-hit industries, according to a news release.



Businesses will continue to be notified of their application status throughout the next few weeks until all the funds are exhausted. A list of grantees can be found here.

The men and women of the General Assembly worked with me to craft the Back to Business program. Its $250 million in grants to help small businesses rehire staff, cover operating costs, and afford additional customer safety precautions. These are not loans, so businesses getting help wont owe a cent back to the state, Pritzker said. Im proud to announce that as of today, $111 million of those grants are already out the door, reaching nearly 3,000 businesses in over 300 cities, towns, and communities across Illinois."

In total, the B2B grant program will award $250 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars to help small businesses rehire staff, cover operating costs, and afford additional customer safety precautions. Grants will continue to be awarded to applicants on a rolling basis until the full $250 million is allocated. The awarded dollars will range in size from $5,000 to $150,000, based on the losses each business experienced during the pandemic.

Story continues

The latest wave of B2B grants prioritizes businesses most in need of support due to the pandemic, including hard hit sectors such as hotels, restaurants, arts and cultural organizations, barbershops and salons, dry cleaners, and fitness centers. It also makes allocations for disproportionately impacted areas and businesses who applied for Business Interruption Grants in 2021 but did not receive funding. On average, recipients of B2B grants experienced revenue declines of 41 percent throughout the pandemic, according to the news release.

The breakdown of the grants made thus far includes:

43 percent to businesses which applied to the Business Interruption Grant program last year but did not receive funding.

79 percent to businesses in disproportionately impacted areas, or low-income zip codes that experienced high rates of COVID-19.

71 percent to hard-hit industries, including restaurants and taverns, hotels, arts organizations, and salons.

Grants have primarily gone to the smallest businesses:

62 percent going to businesses with revenue under $500,000 in 2019

79 percent going to businesses with revenue under $1 million

Of the B2B grants deployed thus far, more than half of grants have gone to businesses owned by people of color. This includes 25 percent of grants to Asian American or Pacific Islander-owned businesses, 17 percent to Black-owned businesses, and 13 percent to Latinx-owned businesses. This builds upon BIG award grants, approximately 40 percent of which were given to businesses owned by people of color.

To ensure B2B grants reach businesses most in need, DCEO launched a community navigator program that leveraged the support of over 100 trusted, local organizations to connect with businesses owned by people of color in hard-hit areas, rural communities, and other hard-to-reach populations.

This article originally appeared on the Glenview Patch
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Friday filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, ratcheting up the political battle over the state's use of American Rescue Plan funds as an incentive for schools that do not follow public health recommendations.

In a 24-page federal complaint, Ducey's legal team asked a judge to prevent U.S. Treasury from withholding or clawing back COVID-19 stimulus funds, as federal officials again threatened to do last week.

The Biden administration is attempting to hold congressionally-appropriated funds hostage and is trying to bully Arizona into complying with this power-grabbing move, Ducey said in a statement.

Ducey and the Biden administration have gone back and forth since October over two education programs the governor created that draw on $173 million in American Rescue Plan aid. The funding was tied to an Arizona law that prohibited COVID-19 mandates in schools, and only schools that didn't impose mandates were eligible for money.

The law was later thrown out by a state court, but that hasn't stopped Ducey from continuing the programs.

Last week, Treasury sent Ducey a second letter, more forcefully threatening to take back or withhold the same amount of federal funding if the governor does not make changes to the programs. The governor answered with a lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court, by his General Counsel Anni Foster and a team of lawyers at Snell & Wilmer LLP in Phoenix.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases continue to surge in the Grand Canyon State, threatening to exacerbate teacher and staff shortages and drop student attendance.

The complaint argues U.S. Treasury's final rule dictating how states can use funding went beyond the scope of the American Rescue Plan Act passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in March.

The Act specified just two prohibitions on how money could be used  to cut taxes or make pension payments, the complaint states.

The American Rescue Plan did, however, direct Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen to "issue such regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to carry out" terms of the law.

Story continues

Treasury announced on Jan. 6 the final rule for how states and local governments could spend their collective $350 billion share of the federal stimulus law. The 437-page rule takes effect in April and says money cannot be used to fund a program that "undermines efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19."

The Ducey administration argues that final rule cannot retroactively apply and also claims the Treasury overstepped its expertise when it weighed into public health policy.

A Treasury spokesperson defended the rule on Friday.

Treasury believes the rule is correct and allowed by the statute and Constitution," spokesperson Dayanara Ramirez said in an email.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the federal Administrative Procedure Act and affirms that Ducey will not waver in his support of the programs.

"The Governors Office will not eliminate or change the (education) programs to conform to Treasurys unlawful dictates," the lawsuit states.

School programs created by Ducey

In August, Ducey created two funding streams, the education plus-up grant program that gave districts funding if they did not impose mask mandates, and an educational recovery benefit, which gave families $7,000 per student if they moved their child from a district that had a mandate in place.

The plus-up grant was allocated to 98 school districts as of October, and the recovery benefit awarded to just 93 students as of late November, according to reviews by The Arizona Republic. The governor and his aides already have said they would use state dollars to pay for the programs, should Treasury defund them.

In Arizona, our top priority is to get kids caught up, and we are using a wide range of resources to make that happen  including federal dollars allocated to our state," Ducey said Friday. "Make no mistake, we will always support families and kids, while protecting their right to choose an education that best fits their needs.

Ducey unveiled a third program drawing on federal stimulus dollars this month, though it has not yet drawn scrutiny from Treasury as the prior two initiatives have. The open for learning program gives families up to $7,000 to move their children to schools that are open for in-person instruction, if their current classroom closes.

A number of Republican politicians jumped into the political fray over the funding this week, hoping to put pressure on Treasury to back off. Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, sent a letter to Yellen on Wednesday urging her to stop a "blatant federal encroachment" on the state's authority  while touting his separate lawsuit over the plan's tax cut provisions.

And the Grand Canyon's State slate of Republican representatives  U.S. Reps. David Schweikert, Debbie Lesko, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs  chimed in a day later.

All four voted against the American Rescue Plan last year. But their Thursday letter urged Yellen to retract her threat to withhold funds.

"Threatening to take funding away from a state that is designing and implementing innovative solutions to meet the unique needs of its residents is an abuse of federal authority and fails to make up for the lost education caused by this virus," the letter reads.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669. Follow her on Twitter @sbarchenger.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona sues Biden administration over COVID-19 school funding
ST. CLOUD  The GREAT Theatre cast returns to the Paramount Center for the Arts stage with all the magical sweetness of Matilda.

Fashioned after the Roald Dahl book, the musical has big dance numbers and exaggerated characters. Songs include Revolting Children, Naughty and When I Grow Up.

The music really captures the tone of Roald Dahl, said Director Kendra Norton Dando.

There are these big, bad characters and this darkness, but the strength of this child and her imagination triumphs. Its great to see the little guy win. We need this light; we need this excitement. The musical just captures this so well.

Matildas imagination guides her throughout the production.

The cast and crew of "Matilda" take to the Paramount Center for the arts stage for the first time Monday, Jan. 17. The cast has been rehearsing in the Helgeson Learning Lab at GREAT Theatre since November. The show opens Jan. 28.

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Its so big because of the stories she reads, Norton Dando said. The influence of how story changes us is so integral, its fun to bring that to life.

The cast and crew have also had fun with the magical elements of the show.

Thats a fun thing that weve gotten to play with as a cast and creative team, she said. We bring these moments to life and make them real in the world of Matilda.

Just under half the cast members are youth, and all the cast members are from around Central Minnesota.

For Norton Dando and the group, returning to the Paramount after a COVID-19 hiatus has been uplifting.

Its just been such a joy to be back in that rehearsal space, she said. Theres a real excitement among the cast and crew to be doing live theater and bringing this story to life for our community.

Newly-installed festoon lighting glows over St. Germain Street near the Paramount Theatre Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021, in St. Cloud.

More than anything, Norton Dando said she hopes audiences walk away with the feeling that their actions can have big impact.

I hope that the power of this little girl inspires us all to make changes in our realms of influence, she said.

Matilda runs Jan. 28 to Feb. 6 at the Paramount Center for the Arts. Tickets range from $28 to $42 each and are available at www.paramountarts.org.

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The Paramount Center for the Arts requires proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of attending a show for everyone age 12 and older.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to sctimes.com today.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: GREAT Theatre bringing 'Matilda' to the Paramount stage
Typing on a keyboard

To our valued patients and community members:

As 2021 came to an end and after nearly 20 months of living with the COVID-19 pandemic, we want to thank you for doing your part in this ongoing fight.

We see the sacrifices you are making and thank you for cooperating with recommended guidance regarding masking, testing, and social distancing to help keep each other safe.

Your willingness to get vaccinated is not only helping you but also helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19 to your friends, loved ones and community members.

We know the pandemic has tested your patience. Our hospitals, emergency departments, and outpatient clinics have been overwhelmed with extremely sick patients and there have been times when even getting through our phone lines has been a challenge.

Weve seen a rise in hostilities and violence towards those who are working to limit the spread of the virus  both inside and outside of our hospitals and offices. We ask that you, our community, come together and respond with grace and tolerance during this time of inconvenience.

We are all tired to the point of exhaustion. Many of us are angry and have experienced significant personal loss and trauma in our lives over the past two years. However, we all still have the capacity to express compassion for our neighbors and loved ones by caring for one another.

As we usher in 2022 amid another COVID-19 surge, we have a plea for our patients and community: Help us.

We continue to care for very sick COVID-19 patients in our emergency departments, hospitals, and intensive care units. We know that getting vaccinated could have prevented many of these admissions and deaths. This influx is leading to needless suffering and risks for patients with cancer, strokes and other serious conditions whose care or surgery has been delayed due to a lack of beds and resources.

The term heroism has been used repeatedly since the start of this pandemic to indicate skill, willingness to sacrifice and show strength when confronted with physical and emotional hardship. In our eyes, everyone who is fighting the pandemic is a hero.

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Be part of our hero team and get yourself and your loved ones vaccinated and boosted. The vaccine has proven to be safe over the past year with millions of adult and pediatric recipients.

Please continue to mask, test, and isolate when sick with COVID-19 to reduce the spread of this virus. Please continue to extend kindness and patience to those in healthcare who are doing their best to care for you and your loved ones. You can be part of the solution. You can make a difference.

Be willing to be a hero.

Visit ourshot.in.gov to make a vaccination appointment at your earliest availability.

Jim Laughlin is a Bloomington pediatrician with Riley Physicians and a board member for Indiana University Health South Central Region.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Local physician thanks community, urges residents to be health heroes
Education is one of the greatest investments a society can make in its communities. As President and CEO of BayCoast Bank, I am proud of our long track record of providing significant financial and logistical support to a wide range of educational initiatives throughout our communities, demonstrating our commitment to the people we serve.

For us, supporting educational initiatives is nothing new  we have supported local public, parochial, vocational, private, and charter schools, in addition to non-profits, and local colleges and universities including Bristol Community College and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth for years. While educational support has always been a priority for BayCoast Bank, in 2017, we made the decision to make a major investment toward this priority, and focused the majority of our marketing budget  almost $500,000  on the general promotion of education throughout the region. Additionally, over the next four years that followed, we provided over $2 million to support a variety of scholarships, programs, and initiatives that aim to expand educational achievement specifically across the South Coast.

These investments have been made in collaboration with key stakeholders. Many of our staff members serve on school boards and committees for numerous districts and schools, lending their expertise and working with local school leaders. Working through the One Southcoast Chamber, we have partnered with local school leaders and the Massachusetts Teachers Association to organize and fund regional professional development trainings and summits to provide teachers with the tools to help their students learn and succeed. We recognize the important role educators play in our society, we are proud of our collaborations with these many organizations, and we appreciate the distinct perspectives we all come to understand by working together.

During this time of contention, we think its important to remember that we all still hold common ground. We all agree that expanding access to early college programs is vital toward advancing educational opportunities and positive outcomes for our young people  in fact, in the last few months we donated $25,000 to Bristol Community College to help them expand early college access at Durfee High School in Fall River, and we applaud and support New Bedfords application with DESE to expand early college access for their high school students. We all want the best for our students.

We recognize, however, that our involvement with the plan for Innovators Charter School has become a distraction to that consensus. Therefore, I have stepped down as vice chair and board member for the proposed school, and we have withdrawn any BayCoast employees from sitting on the board of this proposed entity. Additionally, at this point we will refrain from any further discussion, advocacy, or involvement with the proposed school.

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Our core business is to serve the banking needs of our community, which we have been doing since we were first chartered in 1851. We remain unwavering in our commitment toward helping our communities. Providing more opportunities through our broad-based support of educational initiatives is something we intend to continue, because its the right thing to do.

Nicholas M. Christ

President and CEO

BayCoast Bank

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: BayCoast Bank pulling back from involvement in proposed charter school
Goop releases its gift guide for 2021 (Getty Images for goop)

Gwyneth Paltrow is releasing a new limited-edition candle to mark the anniversary of a landmark US Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights.

The actor announced the launch in a post to her Instagram on Thursday 20 January, sharing a video of the lit candle.

The candle, which has been developed in partnership with Heretic Parfum, comes in a black jar with a white and red label, and is named Hands Off My Vagina. It has scents of cacao, coriander and hinoki cypress, a Japanese plant.

Writing in the caption, Paltrow said the candle honours the anniversary of the historic Roe v Wade ruling on 22 January 1973.

In its decision, the US Supreme Court legalised abortion in the US, ruling that a womans right to an abortion falls within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

It came after a 25-year-old single woman, Norma McCorvey challenged the abortion laws in Texas under the pseudonym Jane Roe.

The ruling dictated that state governments do not have the power to prohibit abortions. However, this has come under pressure in recent years in some US states.

As of September 2021, abortion is illegal in Texas once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which may be as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

Paltrow said $25 (18) from each candle sold will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundations Reproductive Freedom Project.

The word vagina holds a lot of power. And yet, there is a recurring need to say: Hands off. Hands off our vaginas in any context where theyre not invited. Your reproductive organs; your choice, she said.

The candles, which cost $75 (55) dollars each, will be sold on the Goop website and donations from the proceeds will be made until July 1.

In a post to the Goop website, Paltrow said she had chosen to create the candle as a small sign of support for reproductive freedom  and against subjugation.

Douglas Little, perfumer and founder of Heretic, said the scent of the candle the power and strength of the great feminine.

We chose hinoki cypress for its ability to lift spirits and create a grounding strength and sense of calm, Little said.

Damascena rose is prized for encouraging communication and balancing and strengthening the heart chakra. And we included flints of toasted cacao to deepen and add sensuality, plus coriander for sparkle, Little added.
The Chinese mainland resolutely opposes any form of official contact between the United States and Taiwan, a mainland spokesperson said on Thursday.

Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said at a press conference that no trick or pretext will ever change the fact that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of China.

Using the "transit" excuse, Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority sought a chance to engage in official contact with the United States, Zhu said.

It is an old trick of the DPP's "Taiwan independence" manipulations and an attempt to solicit U.S. support, Zhu added.

Zhu also noted that those who support "Taiwan independence" will only cause further damage to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and those who play with fire will only get burnt.
The Body Lab offers treatments including hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Rachel Hosie/Insider

The Body Lab is a luxurious fitness and wellness center in London.

Membership costs up to $21,000/year, and it offers cutting edge treatments like hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

I went to try out the facility and was impressed by how fancy the equipment was.

The Body Lab is a brand new facility in west London's affluent Kensington, described as "where science and technology meets the luxury of five-star fitness and wellness."

The Body Lab in Kensington, West London. Rachel Hosie/Insider

As Insider's fitness and nutrition reporter, I was invited to check out The Body Lab and its facilities.

The Body Lab offers a gym, as well as cutting-edge treatments, including hyperbaric oxygen therapy, cryotherapy, and a float tank.

Membership costs 4,950 ($6,800) to 16,000 ($21,800) a year, and the top tier memberships include unlimited use of the facilities (including personal training sessions), one nutritional consultation per month, and a quarterly biomarker analysis.

It opened in January 2022, just down the street from London's first branch of luxury gym Equinox.

As I approached the building, the large glass door was opened for me, and I was welcomed in from the cold.

The Body Lab's entrance. Rachel Hosie/Insider

I was offered still or sparkling water when I entered (which I later learned were available for clients from taps throughout the building). My coat was taken and hung up, and I took a seat on the plush sofa.

The entrance room is light, bright, and fresh thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The Body Lab reception. Rachel Hosie/Insider

There was a fridge containing bottles of Fiji Water and some shelves offering a small selection of products for sale including workout clothes, Theragun massagers, and foam rollers.

The reception is home to a Modbar coffee bar. They were out of milk, but a staff member swiftly popped out to get some for me.

The Body Lab coffee bar. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Nick Jacobs, The Body Lab's head of sales, told me their beans are roasted in Colombia on Friday to arrive by Monday morning.

It was a very good coffee, but I was surprised that it was served in a paper cup (alongside my water in a plastic cup).

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There weren't any food or snacks available either, although they do serve protein shakes.

The lighting is designed to mimic the tones of the sun at all times of the day, thus keeping the body in its natural circadian rhythm, AKA sleep-wake cycle.

The Body Lab counter. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Jacobs told me The Body Lab is all about data, education, and optimization, striving to offer everything busy people need for peak health under one roof.

Kensington will be their flagship site, but the plan is to expand with more sites in London as well as Dubai and Singapore.

The Body Lab's three dot logo is the mathematical symbol for "therefore."

The Body Lab hallway. Rachel Hosie/Insider

The dots represent their three pillars: nutrition, personal training, and recovery therapies.

The interior design is slick and stylish, with marble counters, huge onyx wall light installations, and the same signature shade of brass everywhere from the water taps to the dumbbell screws.

The Body Lab staircase. Rachel Hosie/Insider

The Body Lab has a Hyperbaric Hydroxy Airpod, which claims to speed up the body's healing process by increasing oxygen absorption by up to 35%.

The Body Lab's hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is done in a compression chamber and is often used by pilots, astronauts, and deep-sea divers.

It claims to provide an increase in oxygen and hydrogen to the cells via atmospheric pressure.

Although there hasn't been a huge amount of research yet on this kind of therapy, a small study by Tel Aviv University found that it could reduce some biological signs of aging, as Insider's Gabby Landsverk reported.

The Body Lab encourages its clients to have the therapy for a range of supposed health benefits, including increased energy and stamina, optimized cellular health, better wound healing, improved cognitive function, and pain relief.

I tried hyperbaric oxygen therapy for 45 minutes.

Rachel inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Rachel Hosie/Insider

After climbing (rather ungracefully) into the chamber and lying down, Jacobs locked me in and stayed with me for three minutes as oxygen was slowly pumped in to increase the air pressure three times more than normal.

It felt like going up in a plane, and I felt the need to yawn to unpop my ears. Once it stopped increasing though, the air felt normal.

Some of The Body Lab's clients send emails or work on their laptops while inside the chamber, because it's easier to justify the time spent, Jacobs said.

Rachel's view inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Rachel Hosie/Insider

I took my laptop and phone (and some water) inside with me and attempted a bit of work, but it's quite hard while lying down.

Jacobs encouraged me to relax into it and rest, and he came back to check on me a couple of times before gradually decreasing the pressure again at the end and letting me out.

I felt slightly lightheaded when I came out, but energized too.

Relaxing inside the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Jacobs told me some people step out and immediately feel like they've had 10 coffees. But for others, it's more of a gradual sustaining of good energy levels.

Next, I went to try out the Body Lab's dual cryotherapy chamber.

The Body Lab's cryotherapy room. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Cryotherapy drastically reduces body temperature and the Body Lab says the treatment is designed to decrease inflammation, boost the immune system, blood circulation and metabolism, and aid recovery.

The Body Lab's main chamber is set at -110C (-166F), which you enter after 30 seconds in an initial -60C (-76F) chamber, to not shock the body.

Emerging research supports that it can reduce pain and encourage healing, but a small 2016 study found people did not experience body composition changes after 10 sessions.

I was given a vest top, shorts, ear-warmer, gloves, socks, and slippers to put on to prevent my extremities from getting too cold.

Rachel before cryotherapy. Rachel Hosie/Insider

The aim, Jacobs said, is to drop body temperature by 10C (50F)  before going in, mine was 33.9C (93F).

The leaner you are, the quicker your temperature will drop, Jacobs said, because fat acts as insulation. So people with more body fat need to stay in the chamber longer to get the same results.

Most people aim for three minutes in the coldest chamber, but the Body Lab encourages people to build up to that, starting with shorter sessions. He suggested I do 30 seconds in the first chamber and try for 90 in the second.

It was a new level of cold, but I managed the full two minutes.

Inside the cryotherapy chamber. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Jacobs told me that if at any point I just wanted to get out, I could. It was helpful seeing both him and the countdown clock through the glass.

As Jacobs had advised, I resisted the urge to tense my whole body and tried to relax into it.

Needless to say, the underfloor heating felt great when I stepped out.

My temperature had dropped 16C to 17.9C, which, Jacobs told me, was a lot. I felt good though: energized, but also with a sense of achievement for sticking out something uncomfortable.

While the cryotherapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are designed to energize, the Body Lab's float tank is for relaxation.

The Body Lab's float tank. Rachel Hosie/Insider

A float tank is exactly what it sounds like: The tank contains half a ton of Epsom salts in 35C (95F) water, which feels silky and allows people to float.

You wear earbuds and are in complete darkness, the idea being that when your body is free from gravity, temperature, touch, sight, and sound, you can achieve an ultra-deep state of relaxation.

The aim, Jacobs told me, is to fall asleep or at least enter a nap-like state.

The Body Lab also has private medical rooms for massages, osteoporosis appointments, and blood work.

The Body Lab's massage room. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Blood work can provide data on a person's cholesterol levels, inflammation, and hormone imbalances

Downstairs in the Body Lab is the gym, where clients can workout on their own or with personal trainers.

The Body Lab's gym. Rachel Hosie/Insider

It was quiet when I was there mid-morning  I only saw a couple of members  but the Body Lab has only just opened, and Jacobs said they only have capacity for 250 anyway.

The gym isn't huge but it's fitted out with brand new top-of-the-line equipment, mostly by the brands Atlantis and Prime.

There are squat racks and free weights. Rachel Hosie/Insider

There are dumbbells up to 60kg (132lbs), all of which have "The Body Lab" engraved as well as nuts and bolts in their trademark brass.

The Body Lab's dumbbells. Rachel Hosie/Insider

I tested some of the gym equipment and was impressed by how hi-tech it was.

Rachel in the Body Lab's gym. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Despite being a fitness reporter who is always visiting different gyms, I'd never used equipment that allows someone to change the resistance in different parts of a movement.

For example, you can specify whether you want a bicep curl to feel hardest at the bottom, middle, or top, and strengthen different parts of the arm accordingly.

At the end of the gym there's a red light room, which is for warming up prior to working out.

The equipment is mainly Atlantis and Prime. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Inside there are red light panels and an exercise bike.

The Body Lab's red light room. Rachel Hosie/Insider

It's slightly uncomfortable, but Jacobs told me you're meant to look directly at the light and expose your skin to it to get the purported benefits: boosting your mood and warming up the body.

There is some research, such as this 2018 study, which suggests red light can have antidepressant properties.

The Body Lab has a Fit3D body scanner, which gives people detailed reports on their body composition, posture, and other measurements.

The Fit3D body scanner. Rachel Hosie/Insider

You stand on the plates and hold the handles while the disk rotates and your body is scanned. It tells you how your weight is distributed, your body fat percentage, and whether your muscles and balanced.

Before and after training, members can get ready in the changing rooms.

The Body Lab's women's changing room. Rachel Hosie/Insider

The changing rooms are simple but stylish, each locker containing a robe, slippers, and towels.

Towels are provided in each locker. Rachel Hosie/Insider

While there are Dyson hair-dryers available, I was actually surprised not to see more provided  most luxury gym changing rooms these days contain hair ties, sanitary towels and tampons, sometimes razors, and more toiletries, like body moisturizer or deodorants.

The showers are spacious, stylish, and powerful.

The Body Lab's showers. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Throughout the Body Lab, you'll find their own range of hand wash and lotion.

The Body Lab has its own toiletries. Rachel Hosie/Insider

Jacobs told me they're made by a man in nearby Belgravia who creates hazelnut oil using the nuts from his family hazelnut farm in Turkey.

The changing room also has an infrared sauna, which I enjoyed for a few minutes.

The infrared sauna in the women's changing room. Rachel Hosie/Insider

It wasn't too hot and was a really relaxing temperature.

The Body Lab claims their infrared saunas boost the body's circulation by penetrating the body's soft tissue, and also relieve muscle pain and reduce stress.

Instead of heating the air around you, infrared saunas penetrate the human tissue.

There is limited research on them, but some small-scale studies such as this 2015 one by Kagoshima University in Japan, found they may help decrease muscle soreness.

I was impressed with the attention to data and detail at the Body Lab.

One of the Body Lab's toilets. Rachel Hosie/Insider

The vibe is luxurious and sleek, and the top-of-the-line equipment is impressive.

But for the price of 16,000 ($21,800) a year, members would surely expect nothing less. For that price, you'd want to feel safe in the knowledge you're getting the best of the best in terms of experts, treatments, and equipment.

You might expect some complimentary hair-ties too, but maybe they're still to come.

The Body Lab's offering is impressive  having everything under one roof is a real selling point for busy people, and I certainly walked out feeling good.

The prices are far from affordable for most people, but for those who have the money, visiting the Body Lab might be a comforting way to spend it.

Read the original article on Insider
ROME (Reuters) - The Italian coastguard rescued 305 migrants who were trying to reach Europe aboard an overloaded boat that ran into difficulty off the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a statement said on Friday.

Two coastguard units reached the boat about 20 miles from the Italian coast. Those rescued included 17 women and 6 minors.

The operation was particularly complex due to the small size of the vessel and worries it could capsize due to the excessive number of people on board, the coastguard statement said.

Italy has seen an increase in migrant boats in recent months and hundreds of people rescued in the Mediterranean are currently aboard three charity boats waiting for a safe port.

Geo Barents, operated by charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), said on Twitter it was carrying over 430 people that it took on board in several separate rescues.

(Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Toby Chopra)
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. (AP)  A Detroit-area judge has apologized for wishing that she could send a 72-year-old immigrant with cancer to jail for a weedy property.

I acted intemperately. Im very embarrassed that I did so, said Alexis Krot, a judge in Hamtramck's District Court.

I apologize to the person who appeared before me and to our entire community for having failed to meet the high standards that we expect of our judicial officers, and that I expect of myself, Krot said in a statement posted on the court's website.

The statement was dated Tuesday, days after she ordered Burhan Chowdhury to pay $100 for failing to get rid of weeds and other vegetation at the rear of his property. The judge's apology followed a TV report about the case and criticism about how she treated the man.

Shameful! The neighbors should not have to look at that. You should be ashamed of yourself, Krot said during the online hearing. If I could give you jail time on this, I would.

Chowdhury, a native of Bangladesh, explained that he was weak with cancer. A son, Shibbir Chowdhury, said he helps his father with the yard but was out of the country at the time last year.

Krot said she reported her behavior to the Judicial Tenure Commission, a state watchdog over the judiciary.
Edward Vallejo is shown outside the Crossroads of the West Gun Show in December 2021.

An Arizona man who the government says is dangerous and linked to the extremist group the Oath Keepers will remain in custody while he faces seditious conspiracy charges in the U.S. Capitol riot.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Boyle said the seriousness of the allegations facing 63-year-old Edward Vallejo of Phoenix  that he stood ready to deliver weapons on Jan. 6, 2021, if the call came from the leader of the Oath Keepers  favored detention, though he doesn't consider the U.S. Army veteran a flight risk.

"I'm convinced had (the call) had been given, you believe so passionately in the cause you would have responded," Boyle told Vallejo at a federal court hearing in downtown Phoenix on Thursday.

He called Vallejo "a serious danger at this time."

Vallejo, who is in quarantine, attended the hearing by telephone. He gave short, polite answers, calling the judge "sir," and letting his attorney do the talking.

Prosecutors say the longtime Arizona resident was a key member of a conspiracy to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power, helping to coordinate an arsenal of weapons, ammunition and supplies at a Northern Virginia hotel the day before the Jan. 6 riot.

They allege he was one of at least three "quick reaction force teams" from Arizona, Florida and North Carolina that stationed themselves at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia. Vallejo guarded the stash of weapons and stood ready to respond if called by the leader of the Oath Keepers, said Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Louis Manzo.

But Vallejo's attorney, Debbie Jang, described the Army veteran as someone who played a minor role. He served in the military for two years in the 1970s before being medically discharged, and he suffers from asthma. He is involved in a nonprofit group that helps military veterans and is an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, she said.

"It is clear he does not pose any danger to society," she said.

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After the court hearing, Jang said in an email that she is disappointed in the judge's ruling and maintains he is neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk.

"Every person, including Mr. Vallejo, has a right to a defense of their constitutional rights. Mr. Vallejo looks forward to his day in Court," she said.

The federal case involves 10 other defendants, including the founder of the Oath Keepers, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III. The extremist group recruits former members of the military and law enforcement.

The government says Rhodes and his co-conspirators planned to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power by planning multiple ways to deploy force. They coordinated travel into Washington, D.C., equipped themselves with weapons, donned combat and tactical gear and were prepared to answer Rhodes' call to take up arms, the indictment said.

While some Oath Keepers breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, others remained outside the city as a quick reaction force to potentially transport firearms and other weapons into the city, according to court filings. The government has not introduced any evidence that Vallejo went into the Capitol, although he is alleged to have been outside the building at some point.

Federal court documents released earlier this week revealed more about the government's allegations against Vallejo:

Prosecutors say Vallejo and another Arizona team member  who the government didn't identify in court documents  arrived in Washington around noon on Jan. 5 and met up with the Oath Keepers at a nearby hotel. They used Signal, an encrypted message app, to communicate.

Court filings say Vallejo messaged Florida team member Kelly Meggs on Jan. 5, asking, "Please text location so we will know where to begin in the morning." The 52-year-old Meggs sent him the address for the Comfort Inn.

Meggs and his Florida team dropped off at least three luggage carts full of gun boxes, rifle cases and suitcases filled with ammunition with their quick response team. A second quick response team from North Carolina was made up of four men with rifles "ready to go" in a vehicle in the hotel parking lot.

Prosecutors allege that bags and large bins of weapons, ammunition and essential supplies were wheeled in, according to the filing. Surveillance photos purportedly show Vallejo and another man wheeling bins into the hotel the day before the Capitol riot.

The government says Phoenix resident Edward Vallejo is shown in this surveillance footage, bringing in large bins of supplies to a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia, to support the co-conspirators plot and the January 6 Capitol attack.

The group prepared for a siege to last through Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, prosecutors said.

On Jan. 6, Vallejo and another team member spoke about their intentions on a podcast.

"The American people are going to be told today that we have liberty and justice for all, or they're going to be told 'F--- you.' OK? And if we're told, 'F--- you," that's going to be the declaration of a guerrilla war,'" Vallejo said.

Text messages continued between Vallejo and the leader of the Oath Keepers throughout the day and as it became clear that the Electoral College certification of the election was going to proceed as required by law, according to the federal filing.

As a crowd gathered on the Capitol grounds and headed toward the building, Rhodes texted Vallejo that "Pence is doing nothing," adding that the "patriots are taking it into their hands. They've had enough."

Around 2:30, Vallejo messaged that he was "back at the hotel and outfitted. Have 2 trucks available. Let me know how I can assist." He sent another message minutes later that said the quick response team was standing by.

"Just say the word," he wrote.

The riot halted the official proceedings of Congress while law enforcement tried to restore order and clear the Capitol.

As the Capitol riot was happening, prosecutors said Vallejo also encouraged violence in Arizona, sending a text to someone that said, "Have you secured the Arizona Capitol yet? Waiting on you slacker."

Prosecutors say Vallejo and his co-conspirators continued plotting their next steps. Around 7:30 p.m., they say Oath Keepers leader Rhodes messaged, "Thousands of ticked off patriots spontaneously marched on the Capitol...You ain't seen nothing yet."

Vallejo messaged back, "We'll be back to 6am to do it again. We got food for 30 days."

The following morning, on Jan. 7, prosecutors say Vallejo sent a message shortly before 6 a.m. that he was "departing for Recon now." He asked Rhodes to call him.

"I'll depart when cleared by my Commander, sir," he wrote.

Later that day, prosecutors say Vallejo and another Arizona team member reappeared on the same podcast they spoke on the previous day. Vallejo said he got up before dawn, went to the Capitol and then returned to the hotel to take care of business.

Vallejo's unidentified team member said on the podcast that they were prepared to support the Constitution and honor their oaths.

When asked if he was going to return to Arizona, Vallejo said, "I don't know. We've got to figure out what happens on the 20th."

Jan. 20 is the day Joe Biden was to be inaugurated president.

Vallejo noted for the podcast that he was "never done...I'm waiting for orders from Stewart Rhodes."

Prosecutors say the men continued plotting further actions against the government. They say Rhodes purchased thousands of dollars worth of firearms, ammunition and equipment and went to Texas.

Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, said weeks before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, that his group was armed, prepared to go in if the president calls us up.

At one point, Vallejo tried to meet up with Rhodes in Texas. But court filings are unclear as to whether that actually happened.

Rhodes messaged Vallejo on Signal on Jan. 11, asking "Ed, what's your 20? You in TX?"

Vallejo said he had been delayed. Rhodes said he was in the Fort Worth area and Vallejo replied, "CU there Goodspeed sir."

In late January 2021, prosecutors say the co-conspirators tried to destroy evidence of their conspiracy and discussed securing their communications.

Rhodes messaged Vallejo on Jan. 24, 2021, that, "Ed, keep in mind this is NOT a secure chat. Contains at least one turncoat snitch. Keep that in mind. Please confirm you got this."

Vallejo said he got the message and that he was innocent.

"(i)f you ever need me for ANYTHING I am on call at your service, Sir," he wrote, according to the court filing.

A year later, Vallejo and 10 others were arrested after a lengthy government investigation. He faces four federal charges, all felonies: seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct Congress, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties.

The judge on Thursday said Vallejo will be transferred to Washington, D.C., to await trial.

Vallejo's wife of 34 years attended Thursday's court hearing and left after without speaking to the media.

Adam Kokesh, who serves with Vallejo on a nonprofit group called Homefront Battle Buddies, also attended the court hearing and spoke to the media afterward in support of his friend.

He said Vallejo was aware for several months that the FBI was investigating him. Kokesh said he was present when Vallejo was served with a search warrant last summer while the two were at a 10-acre homestead Kokesh owns in the small town of Ash Fork. After reading the warrant, he said Vallejo unlocked his cell phone and turned it over.

"He's absolutely not a threat to the community," Kokesh said. "It's a shame."

Kokesh said he anticipates there will be a second detention hearing after Vallejo is transferred to Washington, D.C.

"My focus now is getting him the legal support to ensure his release," he said.

Reach the reporter at anne.ryman@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8072. Follow her on Twitter @anneryman.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: US Capitol riot: Edward Vallejo of Phoenix 'a serious danger' says judge
A George Floyd rally





A jury of 18 people, most of whom are white, was selected in one day for the trial involving three Minneapolis police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd, according to The Associated Press.

The jury was picked quickly in comparison to the jury that was selected for former officer Derek Chauvin's trial, which took two weeks to finish selecting, the outlet reported.

Chauvin's trial also had a jury with a more diverse racial background, being comprised of half white and half non-white members, notes the AP.

Former officers Tou Thao, a Hmong American, Thomas Lane, who is white, and J. Kueng, who is Black, are charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority as former officer Derek Chauvin restrained Floyd by pressing his knee to his neck.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson told a potential juror who was concerned that he could not be impartial because of his race, that "There is absolutely nothing about the subject of religion, race or ethnicity that's involved in this case," reports the AP.

The Black man who held the concerns was later dismissed, despite Magnuson's reassurance.

According to the AP, the pool of jurors came from throughout the state, including from more conservative areas than the metro Minneapolis area from which Chauvin's jury was selected.

Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter. He also pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge.
Gov. Laura Kelly signed a bill Friday codifying emergency COVID-19 measures she established two weeks ago in a disaster declaration.

Hospitals and nursing homes will now have temporary regulatory relief designed to alleviate staffing challenges. The measures expire in January 2023.

"The Omicron variant continues to spread rapidly throughout the state, impacting our health care and long-term care facilities," Kelly said in a statement. "By signing this bipartisan bill, we can better address the staffing shortages our health care system is facing during this critical time in the battle against COVID-19."

Kelly also on Friday deployed the Kansas National Guard to assist with COVID-19 testing. The 80 nonmedical soldiers and airmen will support KDHE testing sites and help deliver personal protective equipment. Military medical professionals in the Guard who are already filling medical positions will remain in their communities.

Gov. Laura Kelly signed into law COVID emergency measures to help hospitals deal with rising cases.

The governor also announced federal Veterans Affairs facilities will provide limited, temporary care to ease the strain on hospitals. The VA will take some noneligible patients for acute care and ICU beds through Feb. 17.

"We are at an inflection point with the Omicron variant, and the strain on our hospitals is taking a toll on our health care workers and patients  all while the virus continues to spread rapidly through our communities," Kelly said in a news release. "The majority of hospital patients are unvaccinated. Please do your part by getting vaccinated and boosted today."

The staffing emergency bill, House Bill 2477, had the backing of various health care lobbyists and passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.

The bill's regulatory relief "would go a long way toward helping the proponents staff their facilities and provide necessary services for Kansans," said Rep. Fred Patton, R-Topeka.

"This is something minimal that we can do," said Sen. Richard Hilderbrand, R-Baxter Springs.

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The governor said that while the new law is critical to fighting the coronavirus pandemic, it will not alleviate all of the problems hospitals are facing.

"This bill empowers physician assistants and advanced practice nurses to order the collection of throat swabs for COVID-19, which relaxes the need for having a physician's order to do that testing," Kelly said at a bill signing ceremony. "It allows nursing staff with exempt inactive or lapsed licenses to provide medical services appropriate to their education, their training and their experience, which significantly increases the staff available for patient care.

"It allows both students enrolled in programs to become healthcare professionals and emergency medical personnel serving in the military to volunteer at health care facilities and at nursing homes. It also allows healthcare professionals licensed in other jurisdictions to practice in Kansas."

COVID-19 hospitalizations are higher now than during any prior surge in the pandemic, according to Kansas Hospital Association reports. The latest wave from the omicron variant has particularly affected children.

"Unfortunately, we believe that the reality is that the peak of our hospitalizations has likely not yet been reached," Tara Mays, a Kansas Hospital Association lobbyist, told lawmakers.

Coronavirus case rates continue to climb, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment data. From Wednesday to Friday, KDHE recorded 20,806 new COVID-19 cases, 92 new hospitalizations and 29 new deaths.

Federal data show Kansas had the country's ninth-highest rate of new cases per capita over the past week. More than 2% of the entire state population was diagnosed with COVID-19 over the past seven days. Nearly one-third of all tests came back positive.

"We are seeing a record number of COVID-19 cases across the state, causing staffing shortages and hospitals to reach capacity," Acting KDHE Secretary Janet Stanek said in a statement.

She said the Guard will help provide the manpower needed with the increased demand for COVID-19 testing, while the VA accepts transfers from Kansas hospitals.

Hospital leaders have warned that rationed care may be in the state's future, especially if masking compliance and vaccination rates remain low.

More: Kansas lawmakers fast-track COVID emergency bill, press new KDHE secretary on conspiracy theories

Anti-vax amendment fails

The bill hit a lengthy snag in the Senate when Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson and an anesthesiologist, proposed an amendment that would have barred most health care workers from refusing to treat or otherwise discriminating against unvaccinated patients.

Doctors and nurses could have had their licenses suspended if they violated the law.

He said he has heard of multiple instances where doctors offices in Kansas refused to see patients who had not gotten immunized against COVID-19. In one case, the patient turned to Steffen to fill a prescription, he said.

"She went to her family physician of 20 years and told this doctor that she was not vaccinated and was summarily escorted out of the building," Steffen said. "She was out of her blood pressure medications."

His proposal failed in a 17-19 vote.

Steffen was one of a group of Republican senators who introduced an anti-vax bill during the November special session on vaccine mandates. The bill targeted various public health measures for all infectious diseases  none of the provisions were specific to COVID-19.

Gov. Laura Kelly speaks before signing a COVID-19 staffing emergency bill Friday in the Statehouse rotunda. (Jan. 21, 2022)

The emergency staffing bill was fast-tracked through the Legislature after it convened Jan. 10 because of a 15-day limit on executive orders. Kelly, a Democrat, issued the emergency declaration Jan. 6, meaning the provisions would have expired Friday without legislative action.

"We'll keep these orders in place for 15 days as a stopgap until the Legislature can convene and send me a bill," she said.

At the time, Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, questioned "the necessity of a new statewide disaster emergency" given the imminent return of lawmakers to Topeka. Meanwhile, Republican Attorney General Derek Schmidt and gubernatorial candidate called for lawmakers to "exercise strict oversight" over the governor's powers.

More: COVID disaster spurs Gov. Laura Kelly to declare emergency as Kansas hospitals struggle

Steffen also argued that "the only thing worse than no care is bad care."

Lawmakers had originally intended to sunset the emergency provisions in May, but they now will expire in January 2023. They grant certain people, including those with less formal training and retirees, the authority to help in certain health care settings.

"We do have a grave obligation, a big obligation, to make sure that once this is passed that we do keep track of what the health outcomes or the quality of care is from here on out," Hilderbrand said.

Kelly previously told reporters that lower-quality care is better than no care.

"Right now, we have an issue because of the staffing shortage," she said. "So is it ideal? No. But it's better than what's going on where people are not getting treated."

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: COVID hospital staffing law passed, National Guard deployed in Kansas
You are here: China

A flight scheduled from Beijing to Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, landed safely Thursday afternoon in Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport after a suspected engine failure midway, according to the Sichuan Airlines.

The flight crew started emergency response procedures upon detecting the problem, and informed the air traffic control, airport and the Sichuan airline for coordinated disposal, the airline said.

The flight landed safely at the airport at 2:47 p.m.
Jan. 20A committee of lawmakers voted 7 to 5 Thursday in support of an equal rights amendment to the state constitution that would prohibit discrimination based on gender.

But the unified opposition by Judiciary Committee's five Republican members signals that the proposal faces an uphill battle in the House and Senate, where two-thirds of members must support the measure for it to be placed before Maine voters.

The proposal fell two votes shy of that two-thirds threshold in 2019. Since then, Republicans have gained about eight seats in the House, and any debate this year will be infused with election-year politics, with all of the legislative seats and the governor's office up for election.

The sponsor, Rep. Lois Reckitt, D-South Portland, who has been advocating for such an amendment for the last 50 years, said voters deserve the opportunity to decide whether to add the amendment to the state constitution. She noted that voters narrowly rejected the proposal in 1985.

"The world has changed. I think it's time to give voters another chance to consider this question," Reckitt said. "I believe this amendment is long overdue."

Two committee members  Rep. Heather Sanborn, D-Portland, and Rep. Rena Newell of the Passamaquoddy Tribe  were absent for the vote.

An explicit prohibition on sex discrimination is not contained in either the U.S. or state constitutions, although anti-discrimination laws have been passed both federally and at the state level. Twenty six states have added equal rights amendments to their constitutions.

There was no debate among members of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee before the vote on Thursday. But the proposal drew robust public testimony, both in writing and in person. The committee received nearly 200 written comments and a public hearing last week included three and a half hours of testimony.

Proponents, including Gov. Janet Mills, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and Attorney General Aaron Frey, framed the proposed amendment is necessary to ensure future lawmakers don't roll back existing anti-discrimination laws and to cover areas that are not currently addressed by statute, including employment, wages, domestic violence and violence against women.

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Opponents, however, argued that the amendment would lead to a host of unintended consequences, ranging from mixed-gender bathrooms and dormitories to a constitutional right to taxpayer-funded abortions.

Maine ratified the federal Equal Rights Amendment in 1974, but the movement to enshrine it into the U.S. Constitution received support from only 35 states  shy of the 38 required for a three-quarters majority.

Since then, lawmakers have tried repeatedly to amend the state constitution, without success.

Reckitt said she considered amending the language also to include people who identify as LGBTQ and others, but she believes current draft language would cover them.

"I have no intent to exclude Maine's LGBTQ community from rights that I believe will be protected by the proposed amendment," she said.
Director of medical services Kenneth Mak addresses reporters at a virtual media briefing by the multi-ministry task force on COVID-19 on Friday, 21 January 2022. (PHOTO: Ministry of Communications and Information)

SINGAPORE  If COVID-19 case numbers in hospitals continue to rise, coupled with healthcare workers being unable to work due to COVID infection, hospitals may have to "review and adjust" leave policies, said Ministry of Health's director of medical services Kenneth Mak on Friday (21 January).

Noting that leave policies have not been adjusted since December 2021, Associate Professor Mak conceded, "At this point in time, we'll continue to watch the situation and certainly if the numbers in the hospitals continue to rise, and if there's a potential overwhelming of healthcare resources with an increase in manpower absenteeism, the hospitals may have to review and adjust leave policies."

Prof Mak was addressing reporters at a virtual media briefing by the multi-ministry task force on COVID-19 (MTF), where the MTF was asked if healthcare workers' overseas leave would again be suspended this year.

He added that the last few months had been a "good opportunity" for healthcare workers to take leave and recharge. Some had also been granted overseas leave on exceptional and compassionate grounds, in order to visit their families.

'Unimaginable' burden of care

Last November, Senior Minister of State (SMS) for Health Janil Puthucheary told Parliament that a total of 1,500 healthcare workers resigned in the first half of 2021, compared to about 2,000 annually before the pandemic. The SMS told the House that more foreign healthcare workers had also resigned, compounded by their inability to travel to see their families back home.

In a written parliamentary reply on 11 January, the Ministry of Health said less than one-third of public healthcare workers will not be able to fully clear their accumulated leave for 2021.

Health Minister Ong Ye Kung announced in November that some 100,000 public healthcare workers in Singapore will receive a cash award of up to $4,000 for their contributions to the fight against the pandemic.

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On Friday, Trade and Industry and MTF co-chair Minister Gan Kim Yong said the best way for members of the public to support healthcare workers was by being socially responsible and observing safe management measures.

Ong also urged the unvaccinated to get their shots. "Every healthcare worker when they see the workload building up, ICU beds filling up and mostly by unvaccinated people, they all ask the same question: why didn't they vaccinate themselves?"

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Five Roman artefacts from the ancient city of Palmyra, a site damaged during Syria's decade-long conflict, were returned to Damascus on Thursday by a private Lebanese museum where they had been on display since 2018.

The limestone statues and carved funerary stones dating from the Roman second and third centuries AD were returned at the initiative of a private Lebanese collector, Syrian antiquities chief Mohamed Nazir Awad said at a handover ceremony hosted by Lebanon's National Museum in Beirut.

The collector, Jawad Adra, acquired them from European auction houses before Syria's war began in 2011, Awad said, describing his actions as "a generous initiative".

The pieces, which had been on display at the Nabu Museum in northern Lebanon, were returning to "their original homeland", the Syrian official added.

During the Syrian conflict, the site of Palmyra, one of the most important cultural centres in the ancient world, fell under the control of the Islamic State group, which blew up some of its major monuments, including the Arch of Triumph.

Syria's ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul Karim, said talks were underway to arrange the return of other artefacts from the National Museum in Beirut to Syria.

(Reporting by Maya Saad; Editing by Tom Perry and Edmund Blair)
Facts about CO2 pipeline shouldn't be talking points

I am writing in response to Rep. Charlie Hoffman's guest editorial. In particular, I call into question his statement, "Facts do matter as I have personally witnessed untruths being spread by certain groups on the scientific scope of this operation."

I have been at every informational meeting that I could find on Summit Carbon Solution's proposed pipeline, and I have not seen the representative at any of them. My question is where and when did you personally witness these untruths? The only meeting that I am aware of you attending was the recent, not-publicized presentation that Summit made to the Legislature's Senate Commerce and Energy Committee. Any untruths you may have heard there would have been from Summit Carbon Solutions as they were the only ones allowed to present information.

Additionally, your letter was little more than Summit talking points rearranged into your own style.

Facts do matter, Rep. Hoffman! And the fact is that families, landowners and businesspeople in your district and around South Dakota have serious concerns about this high-pressure pipeline that will transport hazardous liquid carbon dioxide in close proximity to homes and farms. If Summit Carbon Solutions wants to use their big investors' money to pipe CO2 from mostly out-of-state ethanol plants, they should promote their own talking points. We count on you, Rep. Hoffman, to represent us -- the members of your district! Listen to our concerns, ask the tough questions and stop shamelessly promoting their project.

Burce Mack, Leola

Biden's biggest mistake

Joe Biden's biggest mistake was thinking that honesty, integrity, compassion and rationality could get through to the American people and unite them in pursuit of a better country than he inherited from a corrupt and evil administration.

Biden failed to realize that Donald Trump supporters have no interest in truth or justice and will only listen to the stream of lies spewed out by FOX "news" and other right-wing outlets. He should have come out swinging and recognized the Republican Party as the enemy of democracy that it is. He should have fired every Trump appointee immediately and declared war on those out to destroy everything this country once stood for.

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But he didn't. He tried to play the nice guy. Didn't work and won't work.

Terry Painter, Rapid City

This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: Letters to the editor about carbon dioxide pipelines, Joe Biden
Jeremy Smith got sick in October 2020, but it wasn't serious. A stuffy nose. A cough. The proverbial cold-like symptoms of a mild COVID-19 infection, and it passed within a few days.

But he never really got better. Instead, he got worse. Fatigue. Nerve pain. Blood-pressure fluctuations. A brain that fritzes out every so often, leaving him unsure where he's supposed to be or what he's supposed to be doing. Returning to his pre-infection job of helping surgeons in the operating room is out of the question.

After multiple doctors' visits and experimental treatments, Smith, at last, has a diagnosis: long COVID, a condition in which remnants of the virus wreak havoc on a survivors' body. A year after the federal government formally began studying the impacts of long COVID, millions of Americans like Smith are still struggling to get back to work, battling with bureaucrats and employers about their newfound disabilities, and trying to secure financial help as the fast-moving omicron variant is infecting a new surge of Americans.

The ongoing crisis has plagued workers, their families and employers across the country as they cope with a condition that is now formally recognized as a disability but remains vaguely understood, even as the CDC says people who have gotten sick can return to work within a week.

"I'm 29 years old and I feel like I'm 70," said Smith, who lives in Atlanta. "We are alive, but not living. And most of our lab work and testing comes back clean, but we are super sick, and doctors tell us we are crazy."

RESOURCES: Your guide to coronavirus and COVID-19

Experts say potentially tens of millions of Americans face consequences of long COVID, although exactly how many remains unclear. A recent study conducted in the United Kingdom  where health records are electronic and centralized  found that nearly 40% of people who tested positive for COVID-19 had at least one symptom that persisted up to six months post-infection.

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Symptoms for "long haulers" can include fatigue and anxiety, brain fog, joint or chest pain, unexplained changes in blood pressure, dizziness, diarrhea and nausea.

"That's the big fear, that this will become the world's largest mass-disabling event," Smith said.

Jeremy Smith grimaces from a hospital bed in Georgia before a procedure to examine brain swelling caused by his long COVID.

Omicron infecting millions

The world is reporting about 20 million cases per week, or 33 cases every second, and although the omicron variant appears to be milder, many long COVID patients, including Smith, point out their infections were also mild.

"What we're seeing is that people with more chronic effects can't return to their usual function," said Amitava Banerjee of the Institute of Health Informatics at University College in London, who runs a long COVID treatment clinic. "If you're not able to work from home, that's a concern. What do you do when you have to go in?"

Experts also remain puzzled by data seemingly showing that proportionally fewer Latino, Native or Black Americans are being diagnosed with long COVID, despite data showing the pandemic hit those groups harder than their white counterparts. Banerjee said he worries those groups simply aren't getting care for their long-haul symptoms, a reflection of the United States' longstanding inequity in health care access.

"For long COVID, part of the issue is that there's just not enough research and data," Banerjee said. "These are really deep problems, and this is going to last for years. Even if the pandemic stopped tomorrow, we'll have people with chronic symptoms for months."

Physical Therapist Katherine Morin, left, works on Adam Bodony during a physical therapy session Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021 at IU Health North Hospital in Carmel, Indiana. He developed persistent symptoms after a bout with COVID in 2020. He was not sick enough to be hospitalized at the time of his acute infection, but since having COVID, he has had a series of health conditions, many of them connected to what an IU Health doctor ascribed to long COVID.

Health experts say long COVID poses a particularly significant risk to frontline essential employees, such as hospital cleaning staff and meatpacking workers, because those are groups least likely to have good health insurance, paid sick time or savings accounts to let them recuperate. Labor experts say the U.S. labor force today has about 2.3 million fewer workers than pre-pandemic, and long COVID experts say they expect some of those people are long-haulers struggling to recover.

Essential workers on the front lines

"You're talking about people who were out in the middle in the pandemic, putting themselves at risk," said Carri Chan, a professor at New York City's Columbia Business School, where she studies health care decisions, risk and operations. "We need to acknowledge and rethink the policies in how we accommodate people who are suffering from this. There are a lot of inequities that are continuing to grow, and there isn't an easy solution."

Dr. Kathleen Bell, who runs a long COVID clinic in Texas, said most of her patients have seen at least four and sometimes as many as eight doctors and specialists by the time they reach her, which tells her most of the people she's seeing are those with the time and money to pursue a diagnosis.

Edward Williams, 62, a resident at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, New York, receives a COVID-19 booster shot. COVID-19 infections and deaths are soaring again at U.S. nursing homes because of the omicron variant wave.

"We know that a lot of people with English as a second language, gig workers, people without insurance, they are not able to come to see us," said Bell, who runs the COVID Recover program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "Even for people who can get to safety-net hospitals, the hospitals are swamped."

Bell said she's heard from patients that many employers seem unwilling to provide job accommodations, even though the federal government as of this summer recognizes long COVID as diagnosis, and sufferers are entitled to disability protection. She said many employers, especially those offering physical, low-wage jobs, just don't want to deal with a vague diagnosis and hard-to-see symptoms.

Accommodations could include things like more frequent rest breaks or reassignment to a desk job. Workers whose needs cannot be accommodated can often get short-term disability, although that depends on the workplace and state. More permanent disability compensation can be paid by the federal government, although that's a longer, more challenging process requiring significantly more documentation, experts said. It's also not available to people living in the United States without proper documentation.

Long COVID now considered a disability

A spokesman for the Social Security Administration confirmed that long COVID can now be considered as part of a disability claim, but was unable to provide specifics about how many people have applied. Under current federal rules, a person must have a medical condition or combination of conditions that prevent them working for at least a year to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income.

Physical Therapist Katherine Morin, left, works on Adam Bodony during a physical therapy session Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021 at IU Health North Hospital. He developed persistent symptoms after a bout with COVID in 2020. He was not sick enough to be hospitalized at the time of his acute infection, but since having COVID, he has had a series of health conditions, many of them connected to what an IU Health doctor ascribed to long COVID.

"One of the big problems we see is that employers are saying if you can't come back at 100% then you can't come back," Bell said. "And if you have long COVID, you can't give them a great timeline of when you'll be better. If you break a leg, you know it's going to be between 6 and 12 weeks to recover, until you can be weight-bearing. With long COVID, it's harder. If you drive a bus, if you're a dock loader or you work in a grocery store, it gets dicey asking an employer for a four-hour shift or being able to work every other day."

In Illinois, leaders of the Chicago-based Latino Policy Forum have been holding community forums with social workers to help connect undiagnosed long haulers with medical care and advice on how to approach their employers. But the reality is many Latinos have little in savings and work jobs without paid sick time, said CEO Sylvia Puente. She said she worries families who were already living at the poverty line and going hungry regularly are being forced to work despite being sick.

And faced with concerns about being deported or being barred from U.S. citizenship for accepting government assistance, many Latinos are just working sick, she said.

"People sometimes think they need to suffer in silence. They think, 'I work or I don't eat,'" she said.

Kara Ariail, an employment law expert and partner at the national law firm Holland & Knight, said the government guidance has put employers on familiar legal ground, by giving long haulers the same workplace protections as other disabilities, like being deaf or blind. But she acknowledged many employers are struggling to understand what kinds of accommodations they must provide, or what kind of documentation is needed to grant employees short-term disability leave.

"What's so difficult right now is that it's all still so unclear: the degrees of impairment, the degrees of improvement," she said. "What I see is that employers want to do the right thing, but to do that, they need information. If they don't know there's a problem, how can they respond effectively? For the most part, employers want to do that, for employees to feel that they are invested in their success and their well-being."

Actress Madison Sparacello first contracted COVID-19 in April 2020 and struggled with long haul symptoms before getting reinfected in January 2021. She's working with doctors to recover.

New Orleans resident Madison Sparacello suffered long-haul symptoms after her first infection in April 2020 and got reinfected a year ago. An aspiring actress who had appeared in television shows, she now struggles to work for a little more than an hour a day at a bingo parlor. She said she's thankful for the work she has, because her $800-a-month disability claim was denied, and she's now working with new doctors who better understand her struggles.

"I was starting to live out my dreams and my world came crashing down from an illness that was only supposed to last two weeks but never left," she said. "It took a while but I finally found some great doctors that know about long COVID and actually can help."

Dismissive doctors remain a major barrier for workers trying to get a diagnosis, said Lisa McCorkell, a public-health researcher and co-founder of the long-hauler group Patient-Led Research Collaborative. But so does an American capitalist system that all-too-often writes off workers if they're no longer considered productive, she said.

"It's leading to a lot of gaslighting, to a lot of doctors throwing up their hands and saying 'this could be in your head' or just to push through the pain. And that's absolutely the worst thing you can do if you have long COVID," said McCorkell, who is also a long hauler. "It's just this massive failure of society. People want to work. People do want to contribute. But the way our society is set up, if you have any sort of additional need, it's overlooked or seen as being unable to work."

More: The pandemic is changing. Will omicron bring a 'new normal' for COVID-19?

Smith, the Atlanta-based long COVID patient, said being unable to maintain his old work schedule of long hours on his feet or in front of a computer, or flying around the country to meet with doctors, has undermined his self-worth. In most cases, he said, he simply hides his illness from people because he doesn't feel like explaining or arguing about whether COVID is real.

He's spent $25,000 on treatments, including on HIV medication doctors say helped clear virus fragments from his cells. He said he became a vegan and started routine fasts, to help "reset" his immune system. Today, he describes himself as back to about 80% of his former self, but still unable to work consistently. He's now banking on an experimental blood-cleansing treatment in Germany and has become disillusioned about not just medical care in the United States, but his fellow Americans.

"We don't get sympathy, and it's so clear: People here in Atlanta don't wear masks and they just don't care, because they don't want to sacrifice their freedom just even a little bit," he said. "They don't think my life matters. To the general public, we're just dust in the wind."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Long COVID-19 patients struggle with diagnosis, returning to work
A Delta Airlines flight (Getty Images)

A passenger onboard a Delta Airlines flight from Dublin to New York JFK has been charged with assaulting cabin crew following a Covid-related disturbance.

Shane McInerney, who was identified in an unsealed criminal complaint on Friday, was arrested after landing in New York last month and arraigned in Brooklyn federal court.

It comes after, as the criminal complaint alleges, Mr McInerney was embroiled in an onboard disturbance with fellow passengers and cabin crew after he refused to wear mask, despite being asked dozens of times.

As well as violating Delta Airlines rules on mask wearing onboard flights, a passenger had an empty beverage can thrown at them by Mr McInerney, who complained about his meal.

He allegedly followed-up by kicking the back of another passengers seat while the plane was flying above the Atlantic Ocean, and walked into first class section.

While a Delta Airlines employee attempted to escort Mr McInerney back to his seat, he allegedly pulled down his pants and underwear and exposed his buttocks to Individual-3 and passengers sitting nearby.

The pilot, who was identified as Individual-4, spoke with the misbehaved passenger and during the conversation, the defendant twice took off his cap, placed the cap on Individual-4s head, and removed it from Individual-4s head.

He then proceeded to put his fists up close to Individual-4s face and said: Dont touch me. That and other behaviours displayed by Mr McInerney were said to have made cabin crew consider turning the flight around.

As The Daily Beast reported, Mr McInerney has been formally charged with interference with flight crew members, and has been released on a $20,000 (15,000) bond, If convicted however, he could face two decades in prison.

On its website, Delta reminds passengers that US federal law requires each person to wear a mask at all times while in the airport and when using public transit, during boarding and deplaning.

Fines totalling $1m (0.7m) were levied by the US Federal Aviation Authority last year amid a surge in misbehaviour onboard US flights, with about 70 per cent of incidents to do with Covid.

Delta Airlines and a lawyer for Mr McInerney have been contacted by The Independent.
MADISON  Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan is asking the U.S. attorney general to investigate 10 Wisconsin Republicans who met in the weeks following the 2020 election and submitted paperwork to federal officials that falsely claimed Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden.

Pocan's letter comes days after a Milwaukee County prosecutor said Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul is best suited to investigate the matter. Kaul has not said whether he will.

"With less than one year remaining before the next federal elections, it is imperative that the Department of Justice act on this matter to deter other officials who may seek to engage in election fraud," Pocan wrote in a Friday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

Subscribe to our On Wisconsin Politics newsletter for the week's political news explained.

On Dec. 14, 2020, Republicans secretly gathered in the state Capitol to sign formal-looking paperwork that purported they were the state's 10 electors.

They signed official-looking documents stating Trump had won even though the state Supreme Court had ruled just an hour earlier that Biden was the victor. They sent the material to the U.S. Senate, the National Archives, Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette and a federal judge.

"I had to put it in a drawer someplace. It's still somewhere hidden away I suppose," La Follette said.

Attorney Jeff Mandell of Law Forward, a nonprofit law firm focused on redistricting and election litigation, said in a news conference Thursday that he obtained a copy of the envelope the Republicans used to submit the paperwork that showed the group mailed the documents two days after the court ruling.

"Not only did they do this on the 14th, but then they had two full more days of news and information before they made the deliberate decision to submit these documents," Mandell said Thursday.

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More: Immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera sues over GOP election review after receiving a subpoena

More: Gableman subpoenas voting machine companies in 2020 review

Mandell filed complaints a year ago in the matter with Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm's office and the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Mandell represents the state arm of the Service Employees International Union.

Mandell's legal group was created in the runup to the 2020 election amid false claims of expected voter fraud by former President Donald Trump.

Republicans have defended the move to submit elector paperwork despite Biden's win, saying their decision to submit the paperwork was based on advice from election attorneys in case the election outcome was challenged in the future.

Former state Rep. Adam Jarchow of Balsam Lake, who is running in the GOP primary for attorney general, said he would not investigate the matter if elected.

"What they were doing there, as I understand it, was that they were employing a long-standing legal strategy under the advice of election lawyers to make sure that they preserve standing to object in the future if they wanted to," Jarchow said Thursday.

Pocan seeks an investigation of former Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Andrew Hitt, Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Robert Spindell and GOP party officials Kelly Ruh, Carol Brunner, Edward Scott Grabins, Bill Feehan, Kathy Kiernan, Darryl Carlson, Pam Travis and Mary Buestrin.

Hitt is on Jarchow's campaign advisory te

The U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breaching of the U.S. Capitol has received copies of false electors paperwork from Republicans in some states, according to Politico. La Follette said he has not heard from the committee.

The attorneys general of Michigan and New Mexico have asked federal prosecutors to investigate the matter.

Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mark Pocan asks Merrick Garland to investigate GOP's fake electors
Rumours is set to open at 1071 Parsons Ave. in January.

Two veterans of Slammers are set to open a bar in Merion Village as early as this month.

Rumours will open at the former site of Daddy's bar and nightclub at 1071 Parsons Ave.

The bar is set to appeal to a range of patrons, said owner Jackie Sansavera, with five televisions, darts, Keno, and a small stage and DJ booth. The bar hopes to bring crowds out for music, dancing and happy hours. Because the space does not have a kitchen, it will host food truck offerings.

Rumours is set to open at 1071 Parsons Ave. in January.

Named after the Fleetwood Mac album, the bar is particularly focused on inclusivity, said Sansavera.

"I am a member of the LGBTQIA community, and my wife Nicole and I both spent years bartending at Slammers Downtown," she said. "While Rumours will not be defined as a 'queer bar' per se, it is obviously queer/woman-owned, and I won't shy away from that."

"It is very important to me and my wife that our community continues to find safe spaces, as well as bring in diversity on all fronts to create a melting pot of fun and camaraderie in Merion Village," she continued. She envisions a variety of events taking place at the bar, from open mics to drag shows, trivia nights and sporting events.

Sansavera sees Rumours being a part of a continued resurgence of Parsons Avenue businesses.

"We believe we are very fortunate to have landed this location on Parsons Avenue," she said. "Our hope is we got in early and set ourselves up for a long road ahead."

Hours are currently set for Thursdays 4 p.m. to midnight, Fridays 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., Saturdays 2 p.m. to 2 a.m., and Sundays 2 p.m. to midnight.

tmoorman@dispatch.com

@TaijuanNichole

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Merion Village bar Rumours set to open this month
The family of a 15-year-old wounded by a Miami-Dade police officer last weekend after a chaotic early morning car chase and crash believes his shooting was unjustified, their attorney said Friday, and intends to fight criminal charges against the teen and sue the department.

Jarlens Princilis, an attorney for the family of Vito Corleone-Vinisee, said he was running away from the officer and posed no threat when he was struck from behind by a single bullet that has left him partially paralyzed.

From a legal standpoint, I question if it was even a reasonable traffic stop, said Princilis in the first comments from the teens family since the early Sunday morning incident in Northwest Miami-Dade. And an officer can only use deadly force when hes in fear of bodily injury or death. I dont see that present when a teenager who is only 100 pounds is trying to run away from an officer. We dont think the shooting is justified.

A Miami-Dade police spokesman said the agency wouldnt comment any further because of the ongoing investigation into the shooting by The Florida Department of Law Enforcement. But an arrest form obtained by The Herald earlier this week described the teen carrying a Glock pistol, though it does not indicate he pointed it at officers. Police also reported recovering a handgun from the scene and a high-powered rifle in the car that Corleone-Vinisee was in. Princilis said he has not yet asked the teen about the gun allegation.

The department has refused to identify the officer, but said he is a 29-year veteran. The president of the union representing the officer disputed the attorneys claims and said the truth will come out at trial for Corleone-Vinisee, who faces a number of charges.

Our officers were in fear for their lives and the safety of others. He [Corleone-Vinisee] will have his chance to explain why he was in the car, why he was running and why he had a gun, said Steadman Stahl, president of Miami-Dades Police Benevolent Association. Florida law typically gives police officers broad latitude to open fire when they feel their lives or the lives of others might be at risk.

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Corleone-Vinisee remained hospitalized Friday, though his outlook appeared to improve. Princilis, a Miami criminal defense attorney, said the teen can now lift his left arm about three inches off the bed and some feeling has returned to parts of his body below his neck.

While recovering, hes been charged with possession of a firearm by a minor and resisting an officer without violence. Hes also facing charges for failing to appear at two court appearances late last year from 2020 arrests by different law enforcement agencies for attempted burglary and robbery.

The diminutive teen  police said hes 4 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds  had recently dropped out of a North Miami-Dade Charter school called Stellar Leadership Academy. Princilis said the family was still too devastated about the shooting to speak publicly.

He wound up shot after what began as a dispatch to be on the lookout for a stolen car in the area. Police last weekend had been beefed up in the countys Northside District fearing retribution after a Brownsville rapper suspected of being involved in a series of shootings in the area was shot dead in his car in the south end of the county.

Corleone-Vinisee and two others were in a 2021 Dodge Challenger and on their way to what the teen told his attorney was a going to be a gathering of friends showing off cars after midnight on Sunday. Police, according to arrest reports and law enforcement sources, said the stolen vehicle, a Dodge Charger, was spotted next to the one containing Corleone-Vinisee.

When officers ordered the vehicles to stop, police said both cars took off and police gave chase. The Charger, the stolen vehicle, escaped. The Challenger eventually crashed through a fence and into a tree before coming to a stop. Corleone-Vinisee and the two other occupants ran. The other two got away. The teen was shot.

According to the teen and his family, as told by the attorney, what happened has been spun by police to put Corleone-Vinisee in a bad light. Police initially claimed Corleone-Vinisee was the driver but havent mentioned that since. They quickly publicized a picture of a handgun gun on the ground and noted that the teen had a criminal record, one that officers could not have known about before the shooting.

Princilis said his client was in the backseat and said the driver of the Challenger was never told to pull over and only sped off after noticing another car following them in a dangerous neighborhood. At that point, Princilis said, police activated their lights, but the driver continued to try and get away before hitting the fence and a tree at Northwest 56th Street and 22nd Avenue in Brownsville.

The attorney said his client said he never threatened police and believes the officer was within five feet of him when he was opening fire, striking him in the neck.

My client was in the backseat of the vehicle. He was not the driver. He was the last person to get out and I believe he may have exited out the drivers side door, Princilis said. At that point he tried to get away.

Princilis didnt dispute past charges against his client from other law enforcement agencies, but said the teen has yet to stand trial and hasnt been convicted of anything. He also said the two counts of failing to appear in court were because of a change of address.

Besides defending his client in criminal court, Princilis said Miami-Dade police can expect a lawsuit in the near future.

The family will certainly be seeking justice. The Miami-Dade Police Department needs to be held accountable for this wrongdoing and we want the FDLE [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] to keep investigating, said the attorney. The family intends on filing civil action against the Miami-Dade Police Department and we will fight the criminal charges.
Saint Matthews School students fill bins with Thanksgiving meal supplies in preparation for delivery to Sneedville families.

I never would have thought that a little town in East Tennessee called Sneedville would make such a big difference in my life. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit Sneedville with my peers from Saint Matthew School.

We delivered Thanksgiving supplies to the less fortunate citizens. I was truly moved by the stories people told me. All of the people were so caring in the little town. I would have never imagined the amount of thankfulness they showed when we delivered the meals.

Even though the people were financially poor, they were not poor in spirit or in joy. When my peers and I were on the way to help the first family, we drove through beautiful, untouched mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Saint Matthews School eighth grade students carry supplies to a home in Sneedville, Tenn. as part a middle school ministry program mission trip.

Moments later, we arrived at this rundown house that had farm animals and plenty of old items that have been collected over the years and kept around the yard. We met the owner of the house. I never would have thought that she would have been so kind and so sweet.

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When we delivered the food, her expression was priceless. She teared up and began to express her gratitude for us.

Later, she told us that she had never felt at home while in a church, so the mountains were her church. She would talk to God from her porch, and she said that she could hear God talking back to her. She didnt care if anyone called her crazy.

When she said this, I looked around and realized that even though she was poor, she felt great joy. I also became more aware of the world around me, and I realized the true beauty of every little thing on this earth.

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The beauty in giving back and helping others

After a few more stops, we went to a house in the rolling hills on the other side of town. The house was on the side of a lush green hill where the towering trees of the forest stopped growing.

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Cooper Kelsey

In this little house, there was a grandmother who had to raise the young children that ran through the hills decorating their mother's grave. As we began to talk to her we discovered how much she cared for these kids, and we discovered her strong desire to make the kids happy.

She even said, I would take my heart out of my chest for those kids if they needed it. This really inspired me to continue to help others the same way she helped her grandchildren. I realized that it's not just about helping people, but building a relationship with them.

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Most importantly, I feel like the main thing I learned from this experience was that you dont need a ton of money to have joy and to help others.

We got to meet so many people who were great examples of that.

They proved that sometimes you dont need any money at all to help someone in the best way. All you need is a voice to respond with and ears to listen.

Cooper Kelsey is an eighth grader at Saint Matthew School in Franklin and a member of the schools campus ministry program. Cooper visited families in Sneedville during the holiday, along with classmates and faculty members.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: This trip to Sneedville made a difference for me and my peers
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Friday filed a new lawsuit against Columbia Public Schools over its temporary mask mandate.

CPS was just one of 35 districts Schmitt planned to sue by the end of Friday.

The district hadn't yet been served the lawsuit as of press time, but was alerted to it, CPS spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark wrote in a statement.

Public school districts have the inherent ability under state law to implement mitigation strategies to keep schools safe and open during a pandemic, Baumstark wrote.

"Filing suits against numerous public school districts for making decisions in the interest of safety and keeping scholars in school continues to waste taxpayer dollars and resources, which are better spent investing in our scholars," she wrote. "Columbia Public Schools intends to aggressively defend its decision to do everything possible to keep its scholars and staff safe and its schools open."

Schmitt had previously sued the school district over its mask requirement.

From Sept. 2021: Judge denies motion to dismiss AG lawsuit, but rulings leave COVID-19 mask requirements in schools for now

Before the current mask mandate, the school board in December voted 4-3 to end the mask requirement when students returned from winter break on Jan. 4.

When the district took that action, Schmitt dropped his previous lawsuit against the district.

CPS Superintendent Brian Yearwood approved a temporary masking requirement as of the start of this week, through Feb. 4. The school board on Thursday voted to formalize the action, giving Yearwood discretion to extend it to Feb. 18 as the omicron variant causes illness among teachers, staff and students in schools.

The temporary masking requirement came after student walkouts and an online petition.

Some students at Thursday's school board meeting requested the mask requirement be extended to the end of the school year.

The number of new cases of COVID-19 among CPS staff and students has declined in the week since the renewed mask requirement has been in place, though declines in the numbers of new cases had begun before that, according to the district's COVID tracker.

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The number of new student cases was 111 last Friday; 105 Tuesday; 52 on Wednesday; and six on Thursday. The number of new staff cases was 21 last Friday; 14 on Tuesday; 11 Wednesday; six on Thursday and two on Friday.

Hickman High School teacher MacKenzie Everett-Kennedy, in a Tribune opinion piece this week, named Schmitt as one of the leaders who has failed the state's children. Her daughter, who has diabetes, caught COVID-19 at the beginning of the year, after the mask requirement was lifted.

More: Test positive for COVID on an at-home test? It's now easier to report in Columbia and Boone County

"Im just really disheartened he's making a political issue of something that can help so many people who are vulnerable," Everett-Kennedy said Friday about the new lawsuit.

In his lawsuit, Schmitt said there is no basis for the idea that masks prevent the spread of COVID-19.

"School districts do not have the authority to impose, at their whim, public health orders for their schoolchildren," the wording of the lawsuit begins. "That is doubly true when the public health order, in this case, facemasks, creates a barrier to education that far outweighs any speculative benefit."

Besides Schmitt, plaintiffs listed are CPS parents Amanda Hamlin, Tara Arnett and Marisa Hagler. Arnett and Hagler spoke against the previous mask mandate when it was in place. Hagler may be the district's harshest critic. An October school board meeting was halted when school board President Helen Wade declared Hagler out of order for what Wade said were derogatory comments directed at school personnel.

Schmitt warned districts of further legal action Tuesday in a news release.

"It's far past time that the power to make health decisions concerning children be pried from the hands of bureaucrats and put back into the hands of parents and families, and I will take school district after school district to court to achieve that goal," Schmitt said in the release.

School board members David Seamon, Jeanne Snodgrass and Katherine Sasser, who voted against ending the mask requirement in December, didn't immediately return calls seeking comment on Friday.

rmckinney@columbiatribune.com

573-815-1719

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri attorney general renews legal battle with CPS over masking
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., reacts after bumping into an American flag before speaking to the media on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Mitch McConnell spoke to press after the voting rights bill failed in the Senate late Wednesday night.

"African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans," the Senate Minority Leader said.

His comment has received pushback from critics and political opponents.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that Black people show up to vote just much as "Americans" do  seemingly separating the Black population from the rest of the country.

Late Wednesday night, Republicans in the Senate blocked the "Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act," which would have made voting more accessible across the nation, Insider's Grace Panetta reported.

At a press conference following the failed passage of the major voting rights legislation, reporter Pablo Manriquez asked McConnell about the impact and concerns of voters of color.

"Well, the concern is misplaced because if you look at the statistics, African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans," the Republican senator from Kentucky replied.

His comment was quickly met by backlash from critics online.

"Being Black doesn't make you less of an American, no matter what this craven man thinks," former Rep. Charles Booker of Kentucky, who is currently running for Senate, tweeted Thursday.

Rep. Ilhan Omar also tweeted in response to the video, saying that the "othering of Americans who aren't white was never a 'quiet part,' it has always been loud and painful for everyone who has experienced it."

Some referred to his statement as a "Freudian slip"  which refers to a subconscious slip-up in wording that may point out hidden feelings  while others called it intentional.

"Mitch McConnell's comments suggesting African Americans aren't fully American wasn't a Freudian slip  it was a dog whistle," Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta of Pennsylvania tweeted Thursday. "The same one he has blown for years."

In a statement emailed to Insider on Thursday, McConnell said that he has "consistently pointed to the record-high turnout for all voters in the 2020 election, including African-Americans."

Read the original article on Business Insider
(Reuters) - Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer James Gorman will get a 6% raise in annual pay, bringing his total compensation for 2021 to $35 million, the bank said on Friday.

Gorman's total compensation will include an annual base salary of $1.5 million, a cash bonus of $8.38 million, a deferred equity award of $5.03 million and a performance-based equity award of $20.1 million, according to a regulatory filing.

On Thursday, the board of JPMorgan Chase & Co gave a 9.5% raise to CEO Jamie Dimon, bringing his total compensation for 2021 to $34.5 million.

Since taking over a decade ago, the 63-year-old CEO has transformed Morgan Stanley from a Wall Street firm focused on a money-losing trading businesses into a more balanced bank. He was the driving force behind Morgan Stanley's decision to acquire brokerage firm and investment adviser Smith Barney that helped make wealth management the cornerstone of his plan to stabilize revenue.

Morgan Stanley directors based the pay decision on Gorman's individual performance and the bank's record earnings in 2021, it said.

Under Gorman, Morgan Stanley reported a net income of $15 billion in 2021, compared with $11 billion a year earlier and a return on tangible common equity of 19.8% compared with 15.2% last year.

(Reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, introduces a map, dubbed Ad Astra, during a meeting of the Senate Redistricting Committee.

Like it or not, Kansas must redraw its congressional district lines.

The Topeka Capital-Journals Andrew Bahl reports four proposals were introduced in the House Redistricting Committee, two by Republicans, one by Democrats and a fourth by the League of Women Voters. The process is expected to be hotly contested.

None of the presented plans are perfect. If you look long enough, you can pick each one apart.

A map proposed by House Democrats, as well as one posited by the League of Women Voters, would move the southwest part of Johnson County into the 2nd District. This would, however, expand the swath of the 1st District stretching across most of rural western and southeastern Kansas. Proponents of this plan say rural and urban areas of the state have different interests and industries. This map better represents that.

More: Residents, advocates decry proposed Kansas maps as lawmakers advance GOP-authored proposal

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, introduced their own map. While it would also move swaths of Johnson County into the 2nd District, it would keep southeast Kansas in the 2nd District and move most of Reno County into the 1st District.

Rep. Kyle Hoffman, R-Coldwater, also re-introduced a plan from 2012, the last time the state's congressional map was re-drawn, that would also divide Wyandotte County but put half of the area in the 1st District. The plan fell under criticism then by both Kansas Citians and rural Kansans.

The Republican leadership-sponsored Ad Astra map  which of a Senate committee approved Thursday  would move part of Wyandotte County from the 3rd District into the 2nd District. It also moves most of Lawrence, as well as Jackson and Jefferson counties, to the 1st District.

Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, defended the map as sensible, saying, "We are just interested in fairness."

Bahl reports the Kansas Legislative Research Department has not yet released data to support whether Masterson's comments are true.

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It should be noted that this plan would have the most impact on U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, Kansas' lone Democrat who holds the 3rd District seat.

Right now, there isnt a plan were in love with. Each can be improved.

We do wonder if lawmakers heard Kansans during a series of listening sessions in 2021. Many of their constituents told them they want partisan politics kept out of this process.

The temptation is strong to draw up congressional lines that favor the interests of a particular party. Avoid the temptation.

Kansans need congressional leaders who can represent their interests in districts that make sense.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Republicans' Ad Astra redistricting plan doesn't make sense for Kansas
EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ  The omicron-variant surge has shown some signs of slowing down, with a decline in new infections for the second straight week. But case totals still remain high in East Brunswick.

As of Friday, East Brunswick reported 128 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, according to the Middlesex County COVID-19 dashboard. The COVID-19 activity report, ending Jan. 15 places Middlesex County at "very high" risk for COVID-19 transmission. At the "very high" risk level, more than 25 out of every 100,000 people were estimated to have the virus. The County reported 1,956 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours.

Statewide, New Jersey is seeing a steady drop in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations following a surge earlier this month. But Gov. Phil Murphy has warned residents not to let their guards down.

"While it appears the Omicron tsunami is finally pulling back, we are in no position to say we are on dry ground," Murphy said during a news conference on Wednesday, announcing the new daily case count.

"I resist the urge to use the word 'only' with this number  even though it is thankfully lower than what we've been seeing earlier this month  it is still up there with the highest daily totals we were seeing at any peaks of the prior surges," said Murphy.

The number of cases is a "dramatic undercount" since many residents testing at home and are not reporting those cases, Murphy said.

State officials continued to urge residents to be vaccinated, boostered and tested. For more information on vaccines or testing locations visit covid19.nj.gov.

Thank you for reading. Have a correction or news tip? Email sarah.salvadore@patch.com





This article originally appeared on the East Brunswick Patch
The names of the two marines killed in Wednesday's tragic accident have been released.

The names of the two U.S. Marines killed in a tactical vehicle rollover wreck on Wednesday have been released.

Louis Barrera, 19, was driving the vehicle when he attempted to make a right turn onto US 17 from NC 210 near Sneads Ferry when the truck overturned into the median and ejected multiple passengers out of the back of the vehicle, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol (NCSHP) said Wednesday night.

Previous coverage: Two Marines dead, 17 injured after 7-ton tactical vehicle turns over near Camp Lejeune

According to a release out of Camp Lejeune, 2nd Marine Logistics Group said the two deceased marines are Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jonathan E. Gierke, 19, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, and Marine Corps Private First Class Zachary W. Riffle, 18, from Kingwood, West Virginia.

Both Lance Cpl. Gierke and Pfc. Riffle were landing support specialists with Combat Logistics Battalion 24, Combat Logistics Regiment 2, and 2nd Marine Logistics Group.

Both men were pronounced dead at the scene.

According to 2nd Marine Logistics Group, both men entered active duty service in March 2021, and both had received the National Defense and Global War on Terrorism Service Medals.

Two patients still remain at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, where they are listed in stable condition, the release said. One other remains at Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune where they are also in stable condition.

"All other injured Marines have been discharged from medical care and have returned to their parent commands," according to the release.

Brig. Gen. Forrest C. Poole III, commanding general of 2nd Marine Logistics Group, said that his "sincerest heartfelt condolences are extended to the family, friends, and colleagues of the Marines who lost their lives or were injured in Wednesdays vehicle mishap."

Our commanders, chaplains, and medical providers are diligently supporting our Marines and Sailors during this time. We deeply appreciate all of the thoughtful community messages we have received over the past several days.

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All questions pertaining to the ongoing traffic investigation may be referred to 1st Sgt. Christopher Knox, North Carolina State Highway Patrol, piooffice@ncdps.gov or 984-349-6577.

Further updates can be found at 2nd Marine Logistics Group's twitter page at @2ndMLG.

Reporter Morgan Starling can be reached at mstarling@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on The Daily News: Names released of Camp Lejeune Marines killed in truck rollover
A man faces a criminal homicide charge after a fatal Christmas Eve shooting, Nashville police said.

Homicide unit detectives arrested Chidiebere Okafor, 22, on Thursday, the Metro Nashville Police Department said in a news release. Police said Devin Compton, 24, was fatally shot in the parking lot Arbor Hills Apartments off Bell Road in Antioch the evening of Dec. 24.

Okafor is being held without bond, pending a hearing, MNPD said.

FROM DECEMBER: 24-year-old shot and killed at Antioch apartment complex on Christmas Eve, police say

Find reporter Rachel Wegner at rawegner@tennessean.com or on Twitter @rachelannwegner.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Man charged in fatal Christmas Eve shooting in Nashville, police say
Jasmyne Cannick

Jasmyne Cannick, the journalist who brought national attention to the killings committed by Ed Buck in West Hollywood, is releasing a new podcast series exploring the many human rights abuses taking place in Jamaica.

Ring the Alarm, an original podcast hosted by Cannick in partnership with The Advocate, will explore what it's like to be LGBTQ+ in Jamaica, America's top Caribbean vacation destination and one of the most dangerous places in the world for queer people.

With interviews recorded in Jamaica, Cannick has brought her award-winning reporting skills to the country's network of secret safe houses that help to keep queer and transgender Jamaicans safe.

I have always used my platform to elevate Black stories and issues I felt were being ignored, and Ring the Alarm is no different, Cannick says. When I was asked to come to Jamaica to speak to the LGBTQ+ community and share their stories, I immediately said yes. I said yes because Americans have had so much to say about the plight of queer people in places like Iran and Afghanistan but for decades have ignored the murders of lesbian women, gay men, and trans men and women in Jamaica ... well, not anymore.

In addition to the podcast series, Cannick is helping to raise money for the safe houses she visited in Jamaica. One of the people featured on the podcast is the Jamaican-American gay pastor who started the first safe house in his home in Jamaica and through donations and his own money has been able to slowly build a network of other houses. Cannick describes it as a modern-day underground railroad that's working to get queer Jamaicans out of the country before they are murdered.

Americans love vacationing in Jamaica, but just beyond the carefully curated tourism corridor, people are being murdered for being queer. We cant be OK with that. We cant keep ignoring that, Cannick says.

We're so excited to again partner with acclaimed journalist and activist Jasmyne Cannick, says Neal Broverman, editorial director, print for Pride Media. We've had a long relationship with Jasmyne at The Advocate and Out, where we featured several of her commentary pieces and named her to the esteemed Out100 list in 2019. Jasmyne's insight on issues of race, policing, and politics are invaluable. For Ring the Alarm, Jasmyne presents exclusive, on-the-ground reporting on LGBTQ+ life in Jamaica. As part of the LGBTQ+ community herself, Cannick risked her own safety to broadcast the real stories of queer Jamaicans fighting for dignity amid an environment of intolerance and violence. Don't miss this series.

The first of eight episodes is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
Barry Litten, shown here receiving the 2021 Outstanding Ashland County Fair Supporter award, was recognized with a certificate during the Ohio Fair Managers Convention for the Directors Award for Innovation and Excellence Awards.

Barry Litten, the 2021 Outstanding Ashland County Fair Supporter, was recognized with a certificate during the Ohio Fair Managers Convention for the Directors Award for Innovation and Excellence Awards.

More: Ohio Fairs Hall of Fame inducts Ashland County resident Reidenbach into Class of 2022

In his years with the Ashland County Fair, he has been instrumental in numerous capital improvements on the fairgrounds, has offered substantial advice, shared his knowledge of buildings and grounds, maintenance, and repairs, and has given significant personal labor toward the continuing success of the annual event.

The maintenance department has been an instrumental part of every capital improvement on the grounds and he currently, serves as the maintenance supervisor/manager overlooking all things concerning the building and fairgrounds.

Litten is known for encouraging fellow employees with good work ethics and community pride. He served as a director on the Ashland County Fair Board from 1983 until 1995 and currently lives on a small farm in rural Ashland County. The Ashland County Fair Board was pleased to present him with the 2021 Outstanding Ashland County Fair Supporter noting their appreciation for his dedication and careful work on the grounds.

Greater Columbus Convention Center hosts 97th Ohio Fair Managers Association annual convention

Honors were awarded to 48 individuals and organizations for outstanding service to their local fairs at the 97th Ohio Fair Managers Association annual convention at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

Of this group, 17 received the Directors Award for Innovation and Excellence for their progressive ideas and actions to improve and strengthen their fairs.

Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) Director Dorothy Pelanda presented each winner with a certificate. Those chosen for the special honor received plaques.

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Ashland Fairs Barry Litten Recognized During OFMA Convention
Twenty Ohio National Guard members have arrived at Christ Hospital Health Network to assist health workers in day-to-day operations amid the region's COVID-19 surge.

The guard members arrived in the area this week as it continues to battle rising caseloads of COVID-19, record-setting hospitalizations, and a peak still yet to come. The omicron surge has put growing stress on the region's 40 hospitals, with 4 of every 10 patients now suffering from the novel coronavirus.

COVID-19 surge: 200 patients in ICU as total in Cincinnati area hospitals holds near 1,000

According to the latest data from the Health Collaborative Situational Dashboard, the region's COVID-19 hospitalizations rose to 1,033 as of Wednesday. That includes 196 patients in intensive care units and 141 individuals on ventilators.

COVID-19 hospitalization data for the Cincinnati region as of Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022.

Christ Hospital to recieve 30 more Ohio guard members next week

Christ Hospital will receive an additional 30 guard members next week, president and chief executive officer Deborah Hayes said in a recorded video accompanied with a news release Thursday night.

Hospital CEO warns: Cincinnati area hasn't seen the peak of COVID-19's latest wave

"We've been very grateful to have the Ohio National Guard here at Christ Hospital Health Network," she said. "...They have been extraordinarily helpful in both our clinical areas and in all of our support areas.

Ohio National Guard also assisting with Cincinnati COVID testing

On Dec. 29, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine mobilized 1,250 members of the Ohio National Guard to help at the state's hospitals, a move that came after DeWine had previously sent 1,050 guard members to hospitals and other facilities due to the omicron wave.

In addition to hospital assistance, the National Guard arrived in the area at the beginning of the month to help with the growing need for testing.

Hayes said the guard members will provide "an additional layer of support" for the hospital to continue to provide care under stressed levels of capacity.

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News: National Guard to open two COVID-19 testing sites in southwest Ohio

"As everyone has heard in the national news, the strain on health care providers and the support staff has been extraordinary over the course of this pandemic," Hayes said. "The National Guard is a wave of fresh eyes and fresh energy that can come and help our teams to support what they need to get done so that we can continue to provide extraordinary care."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: COVID omicron variant: Ohio National Guard arrives at Christ Hospital
Propaganda: "ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc."

Over the past several months, local FOP President Dan Hils has spewed what can only be called propaganda to support his argument that the way to achieve public safety is for courts to fill the jails and keep them filled. The most recent example of this is his Enquirer opinion piece on Jan. 16, "Public safety should be first priority in setting bail."

The Supreme Court of Ohio building in downtown Columbus.

"Lock-em-up" theories of law enforcement such as those espoused by Hils are relics of the past that, when followed, failed to make the public safer. In fact, adherence to these theories made our communities less safe by needlessly destabilizing families, including the families of criminal defendants not yet  and in many cases never  convicted of the crimes with which they were charged.

Because the targets of Hils propaganda are judges who are merely upholding their oaths to follow the law, its imperative for lawyers like us, whove spent decades making sure the justice system functions fairly and according to the law, to speak out firmly and with facts.

Hils argues that judges have perverted the bail system by daily turning criminals loose to prey upon the community. He contends judges are derelict in not considering public safety when setting bond amounts for criminal defendants. Too bad Hils opinion piece didnt come close to telling the truth about the bail system or the Ohio Supreme Courts recent decision about it in the Justin DuBose case.

The truth is that in DuBose, the court instructed that if a suspect is too dangerous to release pending trial, prosecutors and judges must use a specific statute that sets out a detailed procedure to determine if the suspect may be detained without bail due to public safety concerns. The court held that judges may not accomplish that same end by simply setting bail so high it is impossible to meet. Setting impossible bail terms violates the U.S. and Ohio Constitutions.

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The facts of the DuBose case are straightforward. In July 2020, a man named Shawn Green was murdered during a robbery. Justin DuBose and another man were indicted for the crime. The judge assigned to DuBoses case set his bail at $1.5 million, which DuBoses attorney contested as excessive, given his clients financial situation. DuBose challenged the bail amount in the Hamilton County Court of Appeals, which decided that $1.5 million bail was indeed excessive under Ohio law.

Shawn Green in an undated photo.

In its Jan. 4 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed with the Hamilton County Court of Appeals, holding that a bail amount of $500,000 in DuBoses case was reasonable and not excessive. The Supreme Court reasoned as follows: "The sole purpose of bail is to ensure a persons attendance in court A bail amount that is 'higher than an amount reasonably calculated to' ensure the accuseds presence in court is 'excessive.'"

Hils claims the Ohio Supreme Court does not care about public safety, but he fails to mention the Supreme Courts extensive discussion of a legal procedure prosecutors can invoke to ensure that an accused who represents a danger to the community will be kept in jail, without bail, pending trial. Instead of castigating prosecutors for not invoking this legal procedure in cases like DuBoses, Hils chooses to castigate judges  including the Hamilton County Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court  for applying the bail rules exactly as written and for enforcing the constitutional constraints on bail.

Hils suggests that increases in violent crime are traceable to judges failing to consider public safety in setting bail amounts. Never mind that the Ohio and U.S. Constitutions and Ohio law dictate what judges can and cannot consider and that there is no evidence reforms bringing bail practices in line with the law actually lead to increases in violent crime.

In other words, setting a purposely high bail amount in order to preclude the accused from being released pretrial is not the proper procedure and, in fact, violates the Ohio and U.S. Constitutions. But even when setting bail the court reminds us that Criminal Rule 46 requires weighing "the seriousness of the offense" and "the previous criminal record of the defendant." Indeed, those factors must be considered, and the court of appeals did consider them in setting $500,000 as a reasonable bail amount for DuBose. This, by the way, is twice the amount of bail set just last month in the case of a Franklin County Sheriffs deputy accused of murder  a bail amount with which Hils apparently has no quarrel.

Law enforcement officers like Hils know full well that applying the rules for bail as written and applying the statute to deny bail as written are the best ways to protect the rights of the accused and protect the public. Judges, prosecutors and police officers like Hils take the same oath in Ohio. Each promises to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and the constitution and laws of the State of Ohio.

Upholding the rule of law not spewing propaganda is how they honor their oath.

Al Gerhardstein is a civil rights attorneys at Friedman, Gilbert + Gerhardstein. Paul DeMarco is an appellate law specialist and one of the founding members of Markovits, Stock & DeMarco. Kathleen Brinkman is an attorney at Porter Wright and a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.

Al Gerhardstein

Paul DeMarco

Kathleen Brinkman

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Opinion: Setting high bail terms violates constitutions
Karen Kartal

The Oak Ridge Civic Music Association continues its 20212022 concert series with a performance by the Cumberland Piano Trio on Saturday, Feb. 5, and the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra with soloist Theodore Kartal on Saturday, Feb. 19.

Dan Allcott

Both concerts will be held at First United Methodist Church of Oak Ridge and begin at 7:30 p.m.; the Cumberland Piano Trio will present a pre-concert talk beginning at 7 p.m. Per ORCMAs strategic plan, both concerts feature music by composers from underrepresented groups in the music industry. Individual tickets are available online at orcma.org or by calling (865) 483-5569. Youths 18 and under attend all subscription concerts free of admission charge.

The Cumberland Piano Trio features pianist Emi Kagawa, violinist Karen Kartal, and cellist Dan Allcott performing music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Clara Schumann, and Arthur Foote.

The Chamber Music Series remains a unique gem in the East TN area, said series chairperson Bill Schwenterly. The Cumberland Piano Trio is a favorite group from the East Tennessee region.

Additional spring concerts feature the Harlem Quartet in March, and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet in April. Support for the Chamber Music Series is generously provided by the Tom & Effie Carlson Estate, the Feldman Family, Korsmeyer Endowment & Consulting, Spectra Tech Inc., and individual donors.

Led by Music Director Dan Allcott, the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra will perform music by Bela Bartk, Ernst Bloch, Jessie Montgomery, and Peter Warlock. Allcott will present a class on Monday, February 14, 2022, to discuss the pieces on the concert, according to a news release. Contact Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning for more information.

The repertoire is slightly different than our originally scheduled program, but circumstances dictated a change that will no doubt keep you on the edge of your seat, said Music Director Dan Allcott. It is an honor to feature our principal cellist Theodore Kartal in the beautiful Prayer from Jewish Life by Ernst Bloch; and, of course, the concert continues our commitment to diversity and community.

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All of ORCMAs subscription concerts include music by at least one composer or arranger from an underrepresented group  specifically composers of color and women, according to a release. Donations in support of ORCMAs diverse programming are greatly appreciated. Information may be found at ORCMA.org or by calling (865) 483-5569.

All ORCMA concerts and activities are created following health and safety protocols that are evaluated regularly. Currently, all concert-goers are required to be masked and practice social distancing. Ushers will assist with seating. Musicians will also be masked and distanced.

ORCMA is grateful for support provided through advertisements, sponsorships, individual donations, grants, bequests, and corporate funding. Corporate funding and support for ORCMAs 20212022 season is generously provided by UT-Battelle/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Spectra Tech Inc., First United Methodist Church of Oak Ridge, Holiday Inn Express & Suites Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary Club Foundation, the Oak Ridge Fund for Achieving Community Excellence, the Tennessee Arts Commission & TN Specialty Plates, the National Endowment for the Arts, Oak Ridge Public Library, ORICL, the Klabunde Trust, and numerous generous donors.

Emi Kagawa

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: ORCMA presents chamber music concert and Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra
To provide our community with important public safety information, the Statesman Journal is making this daily update related to the coronavirus free to read.

We'll update this story with the latest news about coronavirus and its effects in Oregon on Thursday, Jan. 20.

10,034 new cases, 8 deaths

The Oregon Health Authority reported an additional 10,034 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, along with eight deaths.

Marion County accounted for 1,073 cases, while Polk County had 226.

Of those whose deaths were reported, none were from Marion or Polk counties.

The health authority's weekly report shows a rise in cases over the past week, and a slight decline in hospitalizations and deaths.

OHA reported 52,337 new cases of COVID-19 during the week of Jan. 10, through Jan. 16, an 11% increase from the previous week and another weekly high for the pandemic.

There were 441 new COVID-19 hospitalizations, down from 486 last week and 83 reported COVID-19-related deaths, a decrease from the 113 reported the previous week.

Hospitals worry about staffing, beds

Officials are sounding the alarm on staffing shortages and lack of beds across Oregon hospitals.

An unprecedented spike in hospitalizations is on the horizon as the omicron variant continues to sweep the state, and the lack of available hospital beds is pushing the system to a breaking point, said Becky Hultberg, president and CEO of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, said Thursday.

Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 aren't as sick as they were with the delta variant, but the sheer number of patients, exacerbated by a lack of staffing and discharge challenges has the potential to overwhelm the health care system, she said.

Forecasting released earlier this month from Oregon Health and Science University predicts a late-January peak of 1,652 people with COVID-19 taking up hospital beds in Oregon. That would be 30% higher than the delta variant's hospitalization peak of 1,200 people in September.

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Eat safely: Facebook group prioritizes COVID-19 protocols while dining

Hospitals statewide were treating 981 patients with COVID-19, including 142 in intensive care unit beds.

The state's adult ICU bed capacity is at 93% and non-ICU bed capacity is at 94%.

The normal capacity for hospitals is between 60 and 70%, Hultberg said.

Between staff who are have left the profession and those who are out sick, hospitals are in a much worse position with staffing than they were at any other point during the pandemic, Hultberg said.

Nationally, one in five health care workers has quit their job during the pandemic. Hultberg did not provide exact data for Oregon but said the state is on par with national trends.

The staffing shortages are causing hospitals to rely on contract staff, an expensive and unsustainable option, Hultberg said.

The state is also relying on Oregon National Guard members, who started their second hospital relief mission Tuesday with approximately 500 soldiers and airmen supporting 40 hospitals throughout the state.

The number of service members will increase to 1,200 by the end of January. They will be responsible for serving in non-clinical hospital roles for about a month.

Statewide, hospitals are also facing challenges with discharging patients to other long-term care and recovery facilities, Hultberg added.

As of Thursday, Oregon hospitals have 582 patients who are ready to be discharged but have no place to go. Examples of these patients are those with payer issues, behavioral health challenges and unhoused populations.

Additionally, 229 patients across the state are waiting for emergency department beds to free up, she said.

Hultberg pointed to a national blood shortage and a limited supply of monoclonal antibodies, which help fight the virus, as another challenge.

COVID-19 patients at Salem Health

Coronavirus patient numbers at Salem Health on Thursday, Jan. 20:

91: Total COVID-19 inpatients, 46 unvaccinated.

9: COVID-19 patients in the ICU.

1: COVID-19 patients on a ventilator.

COVID-19 by the numbers statewide

Here's the most recent data from the Oregon Health Authority, as of Thursday, Jan. 20:

5,916: People who have died from COVID-19.

559,960: Total cases of COVID-19.

981: COVID-19 patients in hospitals.

Oregon COVID-19 cases by county

Here are the number of cases, both tested positive and presumptive, and deaths as of Thursday, Jan. 20:

Baker: 2704 cases, 40 deaths.

Benton: 11,068 cases, 46 deaths.

Clackamas: 48,986 cases, 458 deaths.

Clatsop: 3617 cases, 37 deaths.

Columbia: 5,795 cases, 66 deaths.

Coos: 8,365 cases, 128 deaths.

Crook: 4561 cases, 62 deaths.

Curry: 2574 cases, 41 deaths.

Deschutes: 36,867 cases, 225 deaths.

Douglas: 16,164 cases, 323 deaths.

Gilliam: 224 cases.4 death.

Grant: 1374 cases, 18 deaths.

Harney: 1304 cases, 34 deaths.

Hood River: 2,823 cases, 38 deaths.

Jackson: 33,824 cases, 411 deaths.

Jefferson: 5,666 cases, 70 deaths.

Josephine: 12,992 cases, 291 deaths.

Klamath: 11,033 cases, 178 deaths.

Lake: 1157 cases, 23 deaths.

Lane: 42,887 cases, 397 deaths.

Lincoln: 5,195 cases, 62 deaths.

Linn: 20,085 cases, 221 deaths.

Malheur: 6,871 cases, 96 deaths.

Marion: 54,229 cases, 568 deaths.

Morrow: 2,526 cases, 26 deaths.

Multnomah: 92,679 cases, 935 deaths.

Polk: 11697 cases, 112 deaths.

Sherman: 233 cases.3

Tillamook: 2,897 cases, 54 deaths.

Umatilla: 19,183 cases, 190 deaths.

Union: 4088 cases, 65 deaths.

Wallowa: 972 cases, 13 deaths.

Warm Springs: 0 cases, 0 deaths.

Wasco: 3848 cases, 50 deaths.

Washington: 67,637 cases, 461 deaths.

Wheeler: 172 cases, 2 deaths.

Yamhill: 13,663 cases, 168 deaths.

Virginia Barreda is the breaking news and public safety reporter for the Statesman Journal. She can be reached at 503-399-6657 or at vbarreda@statesmanjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at @vbarreda2.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon coronavirus update, Jan. 20: 10,034 new cases, 8 deaths
Jason Bateman and Bryan Cranston as dads doing crime in Ozark and Breaking Bad (Netflix, AMC)

Netflixs crime drama Ozark was not the most promising proposition on TV when it began, back in the innocent prelapsarian days of 2017. It seemed to draw too obviously on other dramas. The characters looked suspiciously like people we had seen before. Here was a white upper-middle-class family on the run, uprooted from the affluent Chicago suburbs and dumped in a poor little town in Missouri. There, financial adviser Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) and his wife Wendy (Laura Linney) had to somehow find a way to launder $500m for a criminal cartel.

The word Ozark had a certain obscure mystery, at least to non-American viewers. Ozark sounds like dark: spiky zs and ks. But while the specifics differed from other series, the recipe felt familiar, if not outright derivative. There was a dash of True Detective, a spot of Bloodline, and a hefty dollop of Breaking Bad in the Dad does crime concept. Jason Bateman breaks mediocre, said Rolling Stone, sniffily writing off Ozark as Peak TVs greatest hits played by a proficient covers band. Others agreed. Ozark was a lazy attempt to ride a horse that had bolted. Try harder, Netflix! Earn our prized attention span! Our eyeballs are cosseted little Fauntleroys these days, picky and capricious. Many series are cancelled after a season or two. There was little reason to think Ozark wouldnt join them on the nice try scrapheap.

Five years later, the Byrdes are still at it. Ozark is back, with an extended fourth  and final  season, split into two seven-episode sections. Its reputation has steadily but stealthily grown  a rarity at a time when a new series only has to grab a viewers attention instantly and not let go. The first episode starts with a flurry of activity: the Byrdes are now prosperous casino owners, but somehow their list of antagonists is longer than ever. When they air later this year, the final instalments will comprise one of the most anticipated finales of 2022. We dont know whether the finale will see them drive off happily into the sunset, but it seems unlikely in a series that basically sticks bad people up a tree and throws rocks at them.

Ozarks unexpected triumph is partly down to those old-fashioned qualities of writing, acting and directing. Classic. Ozarks violent twists and dark mood are leavened with intelligent humour. In the face of all this misery, what is there to do but wisecrack? It has a distinctive gloomy aesthetic all of its own, which makes oppressive use of the landscape, all looming forests and brackish water, lit in milky sunshine.

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Julia Garner has been a marvel as the tricksy Ruth Langmore since the beginning. She has rightly been showered with awards (including the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series). In Linneys hands, Wendy has evolved from something like a stock wife into an unpredictable, avaricious, power-thirsty anti-hero all of her own. Although Jason Bateman was best known for a comic performance as the put-upon professional holding the erratic Bluth family together in Arrested Development, he had shown in Juno that he was a dab hand at creepy nice guy. His shifty smile told you that for all his outward respectability, in another world he could do terrible things. In Ozark, he has been able to show just how terrible, a sleazy, tricksy anti-hero.

But those things arent enough on their own to build the kind of momentum Ozark enjoys. There is a harder-to-pin-down quality, too, something in the atmosphere that isnt entirely its own doing. The only other programme enjoying the same trajectory is Better Call Saul, coincidentally also about to come to an end. Like Ozark, Better Call Saul has become richer, more complex and more confident over its six series. One show was dismissed as a Breaking Bad rip-off, the other was a Breaking Bad prequel, and its possible both have superseded the original. Especially if you think Breaking Bad might have been a teensy bit overrated. Of all the great dramas since The Sopranos, it is only Mad Men that portrays an optimistic view of America, and that was set in the postwar glow of the Fifties and Sixties.

Playing unhappy families: Jason Bateman and Julia Garner in Ozark season 4 (STEVE DIETL/NETFLIX)

It certainly says something that so many of the countrys great dramas are about drugs. The Wire had crack and heroin, Breaking Bad did meth, Better Call Saul has meth, too. Ozark plays out against the legacy of the opioid epidemic, with its lingering boost for the heroin market. In this world, everyone can be an enemy: not just the gangsters and the cops and the bent politicians, but your family, your customers, your bosses, members of the public who are even more downtrodden than you. Baltimore, Albuquerque, the Lake of the Ozarks: these are the left-behind corners of America, far away from technology gold-rush or clean-living finance bros. Drugs turn the individual against themselves, and the drug trade turns Americans against each other. In a subtly different life, Marty and Jimmy, a financial adviser and a lawyer, would never operated in the shadows. Yet here they are, wallowing in the ruins. Its not just they that have broken, but the system has, too.

EM Forster held that rounded characters were ones who could plausibly change their mind. After Martys initial Faustian pact, the Byrdes descent into criminality has been a believable consequence of the world they find themselves in. Ozark uses its small, back-of-beyond canvas to paint a picture of a country falling in on itself, where morals are optional. It is a tale as old as America, but television has not always had such a pessimistic outlook. The familiar set-up and characters have grown epic proportions. Not bad for a covers band.
Jeff Montgomery, Mindy Montgomery, Debbi Geyer, Chris Geyer, Kaia Garvey, Kristin Colucci, Kate Albright and Haven Garvey take part in the Panther 5K, benefiting Palm Desert Middle School.

Palm Desert Charter Middle School is bringing the community a 5K run/walk fundraiser and fun to benefit students. The event will take place at 8 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 23.

The 5K run is a race, but those who would rather walk or just enjoy a 5K workout are more than welcome to. The Palm Desert Panthers welcome everyone to take part and invite family and friends for a beautiful run/walk.

The event will begin on El Paseo and San Pablo Avenue, with entrance fees ranging from $20 to $95. The $95 will cover a group of four, while $20 is for anyone under 17 years old and $35 is for anyone 18 and older.

The event is made possible by the parent teaching organization (PTO), and 100% of the proceeds will go towards the students.

Its important to support the schools and provide the children with a clean environment and new technology, said Jennifer Zuckerman, a member of the Panther PTO.

With the ever-changing environment kids have endured during the pandemic, Palm Desert Charter Middle School and its PTO have worked to provide children with a safe classroom and new supplies.

Whats really important is this fundraiser will help pay for Chromebooks for the children, Zuckerman said.

Chromebooks are where the kids do a majority of their assignments, and some break or stop working, so we definitely have a need, she said.

Some of the funds raised will help purchase these much needed devices, among other things. Zuckerman was adamant about the need for the communitys support to help make this event possible.

Along with the ability to donate by signing up for the 5K run/walk, Palm Desert Charter Middle School will also be selling T-shirts and other souvenirs on the day of the event. To make sign up easier and cutdown on human contact, the PTO and middle school recommend signing up online at panther5krun.com.

In addition to allowing donors to sign-up online to negate any risk, the Panther 5K run is also a safe space where any guest can safely walk or run and stay distanced, if they please.

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This fundraiser is one of the many that the Palm Desert panthers and PTO host throughout the year. Together they help strive to reach their mission statement of collaborating to provide a safe and nurturing environment in which students pursue academic excellence, environmental stewardship and social accountability as global citizens.

Eric Sandoval is a freelance writer who writes for the Inland Empire Community Newspaper. He is currently a student of Cal State, San Bernardino.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Desert Charter Middle School to host 5K runwalk fundraiser
PANAMA CITY  Although her son has garnered more than 50 disciplinary referrals as a student for Bay District Schools, Rebecca Newell says she does not believe it was fair or right for him to be expelled.

On Thursday, Newell and the Student Advocacy Center, which is based in Bay County, hosted a meeting with different local media outlets at her home in Panama City to announce that she plans to sue the district on behalf of her son, appeal his expulsion and lodge a civil rights complaint.

The event was scheduled to be a public press conference held outside and across the street from the Nelson Building  the district's main office  but its time and venue were changed because of rain.

Bay County schools: race to the future with new technology upgrades for classrooms

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Gregory Dossie, founder and director of the Student Advocacy Center, and Rebecca Newell, a Panama City resident, believe Newell's son was wrongfully expelled from Bay District Schools.

"Being a single parent of three kids (who works) overtime, I was at a loss on how to manage his behavior at school," Newell said of her son, a 15-year-old freshman. "A group of board members decided my son's future in public education based off behavioral referrals that lack the evaluations that he needed.

"School administration should be looking into more behavioral evaluations and cover all avenues before expulsion," she added. "I'm appealing the expulsion verdict and suing Bay District for not identifying and evaluating my son and providing him with the services that he needed  something they are supposed to do by law."

Bay District School officials were unable to dispute Newell's claims because she refused to sign a release  based on advice from her attorney  that allowed them to comment on her son's school records.

In an emailed statement, Sharon Michalik, spokeswoman for the district, wrote that the district "is committed to following all state laws, procedures and policies when it comes to disciplinary infractions and consequences."

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Noting that student safety is the district's number one priority, Michalik also said "our parents and guardians expect us to do all we can to ensure our schools are safe places for teaching and learning and we will continue to do that."

"As we have said before, 99% of our students follow the rules and behave appropriately at school," she wrote. "Unfortunately, the behavior of a few students is what draws the media's attention and that's a shame because those few students do not represent the vast majority of children in our community."

Newell said her son's expulsion was sparked by a brawl in September at Rutherford High School that he and many other students were involved in. She said her son warned multiple school officials prior to the incident that some students might try to incite violence.

His expulsion hearing was then held in November, where Newell expressed to members of the Bay District School Board that she believes expulsion was too harsh since he was never offered an alternative education opportunity, such as attending Rosenwald High School.

She also said it did not seem right for his involvement in the brawl to be grouped together with his past referrals.

Four out of five school board members agreed he should not be expelled and attend an alternative high school, but Bay Superintendent Bill Husfelt, who did not attend the hearing, declined their recommendation, Newell said.

Members of the local media interview Gregory Dossie, founder and director of the Student Advocacy Center, and Rebecca Newell, a Panama City resident who plans to sue Bay District Schools because she believes her son was wrongfully expelled.

"I'm involved ... as much as I can be for as much as I work," she said. "At what point does the school step in. They love to say 'it starts with the parents.' Well I've been involved. I've been disciplining and working with my kids at home throughout their lives. At what point does the school step in and help. I can't be there 24/7."

According to Gregory Dossie, founder and director of the Student Advocacy Center, the September brawl occurred the day the student returned from being suspended  his second suspension of the school year.

Dossie, who acted as the student's representative during the expulsion hearing, said the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires all school districts to identify, locate and evaluate all students with disabilities regardless of their severity.

"This obligation to identify all children who may need special education services exists even if the school is not providing special education services to the child," Dossie said. "The disabilities can be a behavior problem. There could be other underlying things (such as) ADHD or something like that."

Dossie said that the student was in a program to help deal with his behavior from first grade through fifth grade. This ended after elementary school and he then began being suspended and given referrals instead.

"You have a problem with the school district using suspensions and expulsions as a way of dealing with behavior," he said. "Students (of color) are still being disproportionately disciplined. You may have like 12% or 16% ... Black students in Bay District Schools, but yet 40% (are the victims) of unique suspensions and expulsions."

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Panama City mom suing school system over son's expulsion
Families sharing dwindling supplies of at-home rapid Covid test kits amid the Omicron surge are being warned of unreliable results.

Sticking swabs up multiple noses before placing samples on the test cards could produce false-negative results by diluting a virus sample, Susan Butler-Wu, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Southern Californias Keck School of Medicine, told The Atlantic.

The warnings come as families are reportedly using a single kit to test multiple people before going to group events. A positive result would let the families know at least one person has Covid, if not being able to determine the exact person infected.

The issue is, Ms Butler-Wu told writer Rachel Gutman, that false negatives can occur when too many human cells from more than one nose can dilute the positive sample from a person that is infected.

It can also spread Covid to someone who may not have had the virus to begin with and could have otherwise avoided contracting it from within the family.

Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told the outlet that batch testing in groups up to 10, using their own swabs, does work with PCR testing.

But the rapid test kits are designed to test just one sample from one swab, and there isnt any data to determine how reliable any results actually are when taken from the off-label "pool" testing.

A study by E25 Bio tried to answer that question and found its rapid test kit could detect a positive, symptomatic sample among 19 negative samples.

Bobby Brooke Herrera, the chief science officer at E25Bio, told the outlet that families shouldnt "go rogue" and stick multiple swabs into a vial with buffer solution measured for just one.

By the time you put the fourth swab in the buffer, youre probably going to have no buffer left, he said.

Read the full piece, Families Are Going Rogue With Rapid Tests, at The Atlantic.
Environment Minister Ruben Ramirez has said that some 6,000 barrels of oil were spilled in the incident, which has left oil on 21 beaches.

Peru's Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement (OEFA) said in a statement that as of Thursday the area affected included 1.7 million square metres of land and 1.2 million square metres in the sea.

The spill, blamed on unusual swells caused by a volcanic eruption thousands of miles away in Tonga on Sunday, has dirtied waters and beaches along Peru's Pacific coast, with dead birds washing up on shore.

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo declared an environmental emergency on Thursday as clean-up teams struggled to contain a huge oil spill at the country's biggest refinery, after rogue waves rocked a ship unloading crude there.
The Pflugerville school board ordered on election for May 7 to fill the three seats that will expire this May.

The Pflugerville school board on Thursday night called for an election on May 7 to fill three expiring seats.

The spots up for election are the Place 3 seat held by Board President Renae Mitchell, the Place 4 seat held by Vernagene Mott, and the Place 5 seat held by Brian Allen. All three trustees are running for re-election.

Mitchell was first elected to the board of trustees in 2016. Mott has been serving since 2004 and Allen was elected in 2019, according to the district's website. Trustees serve three-year, unpaid terms.

The filling period for the election opened on Jan. 19 and will remain open until 5 p.m. on Feb. 18. The last day to declare a write-in candidacy is Feb. 22.

MORE: COVID-related staff shortages close Pflugerville ISD, Williamson County school districts

The board also unanimously approved a list of recommendations from the district's Legislative Advocacy Committee.

On behalf of the committee,Trustee Cindy Gee presented the board with several priorities for the next Texas legislative session in 2023, including changing how funding is calculated for school districts, a state-funded pay increase for teachers and truancy intervention. For academics the committee recommended prioritizing flexibility in testing , pausing academic ratings for campuses and districts, opposing legislation that promotes the creation/funding of charter schools and for the state to increase support for campus safety.

Gee said that although the Legislature will not meet for another year, the committee will continue to push for the needs of the district.

MORE: Official: Pflugerville will be better prepared for next winter storm

Additionally, the committee recommended the board press for flexibility of teacher certifications and to broaden restrictions and requirements to mitigate the current teacher shortage, including allowing high school GED or equivalent documents to prove qualification for substitute teachers and to impose consequences for employees who break their contract mid-year, Gee said.

"We just wanted to make sure that our public was aware that we are going to continue to push for these items," Gee said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Pflugerville school board calls for May 7 election for three seats
Aid from Australia that will help people in Tonga. LACW Emma Schwenke/Australian Defense Force via Getty Images

An Australian plane carrying aid for Tonga had to turn around mid-flight after it was discovered a person on board tested positive for COVID-19.

An Australian defense spokeswoman told Reuters all members of the flight crew tested negative via rapid antigen tests, allowing them to board the plane. They also took PCR tests before they left, and when the results showed that one person tested positive for COVID-19, the plane was ordered to turn back. The supplies were moved to another aircraft that left Brisbane on Friday.

Tonga is reeling from last weekend's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano eruption and subsequent tsunami, which destroyed entire villages, severed communication lines, and left at least three people dead. Volcanic ash continues to cover much of Tonga, and there is a severe lack of clean drinking water.

On top of that, there have been concerns that someone involved in aid efforts might bring COVID-19 to Tonga, which is home to about 105,000 people. There are no COVID-19 cases in the kingdom, and strict border controls are in place. As supplies start to arrive from Australia and New Zealand, including power generators and water, they will be dropped off via contactless delivery.

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Earlier this week, China's official Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for 2021 was released, showing that over the previous year, its economy had expanded by 8.1%, for a total worth of $17.9 trillion. In the course of the year, the growth saw the country add the equivalent worth of more than the U.K. or France to its economy, boasting a record trade surplus of $676 billion. Despite this, Western media responded to the totals from a negative angle, emphasizing that the last quarter of the year had only shown a rate of growth of 4%, thereby pushing news of an economic "slowdown."



The reality is that throughout the course of the last two years, China's economic performance has been the best out of any major economy in the world, demonstrating both strength and consistency. Not only has it kept up sustained growth and avoided contraction, but also did so without having to resort to extreme levels of stimulus. This shows the country's underlying strength. Growth in 2022 will naturally be lower due to ongoing COVID-19 recovery offsetting the economy, but this does not amount to a sign of weakness or problems.

The COVID-19 pandemic proved to be one of the biggest setbacks to the global economy since the financial crisis of 2008. The wave of global shutdowns, lockdowns, and other disruptions saw GDP contract worldwide. Despite this, China proved to be an exception by bringing the virus under control through its strict prevention and control measures, sustaining local stability without having to invest heavily. This saw growth total to 2.1% in 2020, and then 8.1% the following year, an average increase of over 6%. This contrasts significantly with major economies who suffered enormous contractions, threw trillions at stimulus measures  including the largest spending in peacetime history  and then spent most of the year rebounding.

When this is considered, China's economy has been in an exceptional position because it has sustained organic growth momentum in an extremely disruptive global environment, illustrating its ability to offset challenges. In 2022, growth is forecast to be around 5% or more. While slower than the previous year and slightly below the pre-pandemic trend, this figure is expected to uphold going forward for the next few years, again reflecting the strength and continuing development of China. How can anyone say this is somehow a bad thing?

With this growth in mind, China's GDP per capita is now estimated to be around $12,500, exceeding the global average for the first time. This places China on par with some countries in the European Union, including Romania and Bulgaria, and is soon set to catch up with Poland, Hungary, and Greece. This stands as a testament to China's own story and transformation and how the country  once one of the poorest in the world  is moving towards providing upper incomes to its residents, fleecing what many economists warned as the "middle-income trap."

Given this, predictions on the future of China's economy look to be optimistic rather than pessimistic. China continues to be the single largest development story in history, with a formula of growth that has been adapted carefully and prudently to economic management with the market and adapting growth dynamics. Hence its name "socialism with Chinese characteristics," the results of which could be said to speak for themselves.

Tom Fowdy is a British political and international relations analyst and a graduate of Durham and Oxford universities. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/TomFowdy.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

If you would like to contribute, please contact us at opinion@china.org.cn.
People wait for the early at an anti-abortion election watch party at Trinity Church in Lubbock, TX, Saturday May 1,2021.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas is no longer pursuing its appeal on a U.S. district court's decision dismissing its lawsuit against the city of Lubbock over the "Sanctuary City for the Unborn" ordinance, which bans abortions in the city limits.

The women's healthcare provider on Thursday filed a motion to dismiss the appeal in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The motion was filed ahead of a Feb. 2 deadline for briefs to be submitted to the court.

The appeal stems from a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James Wesley Hendrix in June, dismissing Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas' lawsuit saying his court didn't have jurisdiction over the ordinance. He said any ruling he would make in Planned Parenthood's favor would not be legally binding on the city.

"Because the ability to remedy a plaintiffs injury through a favorable decision is a prerequisite to a plaintiffs standing to suean ability absent herethe Court dismisses the case for lack of jurisdiction," Hendrix wrote in his opinion.

Planned Parenthood sued the city two weeks after Lubbock voters approved the ordinance in the May 1 municipal election.

Texas abortion law: Federal appeals court sends Texas abortion law challenge to the Texas Supreme Court

The ordinance opens to civil litigation anyone who provides abortions in Lubbock. Individuals who could bring lawsuits against abortion providers include relatives of aborted fetuses, as well as any citizen of Texas.

The women's health care provider was asking the court to declare the ordinance unconstitutional and invalid, arguing that the ordinance places an undue burden on a woman's right to an abortion.

Hendrix also ruled that he needed to abstain from the case because there were issues in the lawsuit that needed to be settled in state court first. He dismissed the case without prejudice to allow the remaining federal issues to be determined later in federal court.

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Three months after Hendrix's decision, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 8, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, which bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Ken Lambrecht, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, said in a statement that the decision to drop the appeal doesn't end the group's fight against Lubbock's ordinance, which he described as unconstitutional, adding his organization is considering "all legal options."

More: With Supreme Court considering future of Roe v. Wade, March for Life expects 'historic' 2022 rally

He said the Lubbock health center will remain open to provide health care services including cancer screenings, birth control, STI testing and treatment.

Sen. Charles Perry

"We know people in Lubbock and throughout Texas face insurmountable barriers to accessing abortion due to S.B. 8, the states near-total abortion ban, which has been in effect for nearly five months now," he said. "But it is clear we cannot depend on the courts to protect our constitutional rights, as our challenge to S.B. 8 continues to languish with no end in sight and abortion access hangs by a thread across the country.

State Sen. Charles Perry, who championed the Lubbock ordinance, described the dismissal as a victory.

With the Texas Heartbeat Act taking effect last September, and with Lubbock having outlawed abortion within city limits, the state of Texas is leading the way on protecting the unborn despite the continued existence of Roe v. Wade," he said in a statement Friday. "Texas and Lubbock have shown how states and cities can ban or restrict abortion while immunizing their laws from pre-enforcement judicial review. I encourage other cities in Texas and throughout the United States to adopt similar ordinances.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Planned Parenthood drops appeal in Lubbock abortion ban lawsuit
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's prime minister on Friday called on European leaders to take a tough, united stance towards Russia amid fears that Moscow could be readying an invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy concluded two days of talks with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda on Friday, and Poland has said that Kyiv can count on its support in the event of a Russian attack.

However, Warsaw has not announced precise details of the form this support could take.

"Poland unequivocally supports Ukraine in its pro-Western aspirations," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a podcast.

"In the face of Russian threats, European unity and solidarity is key for Ukraine. Russia must know that it is dealing with a united front without exceptions."

Western states fear Moscow is planning a new assault on Ukraine after sending in forces into the former Soviet republic 2014 to annex the Crimea peninsula. Russia denies planning an attack but says it could take unspecified military action if its security demands are not met.

Following the talks in the southern Polish town of Wisla, President Duda also stessed Poland's support for Kyiv.

"Poland rejects the concept of spheres of influence and supports full Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine," he wrote on Twitter.

Duda's foreign affairs advisor Jakub Kumoch told Reuters by text message that a special channel for continued contact between Poland and Ukraine would be established, with further talks between presidential representatives lined up.

"The Euro-Atlantic community has a duty to counteract any aggression, regardless of its size and scale," Kumoch said.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Koper; Editing by Alex Richardson and Jonathan Oatis)
Happy Local Quilt Shop Day Durham!

First, today's weather:

Clouds giving way to some sun. High: 36 Low: 18.

Here are the top 4 stories today in Durham:

With the declaration of a state of emergency by Governor Cooper, the state's price gouging law is now in effect. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein's office released that he has won three recent price gouging lawsuits, including one against a Durham convenience store. The price gouging law has also remained in effect due to the coronavirus pandemic, but with the winter storms, consumers will want to be aware of the legality. (CBS17) Durham police have released photos of the person believed to be responsible for the fatal hit-and-run on Saturday. Police also released a photo of the vehicle which has an updated description of a 2001-2005 black or dark colored Honda Civic. Anyone with information regarding the vehicle or persons identity is asked to contact investigators or Durham Crime Stoppers. (Durham Police Department Facebook) A Durham man was charged with insurance fraud after lying about the date of an accident. Samuel Stacy Whitlock-Macrae was accused of providing false information on a claim with Progressive Insurance by claiming an accident occurred on September 22, when it actually occurred on September 24, after his policy lapsed. Whitlock-Macrae was arrested by Raleigh police on an unrelated charge and was served with the insurance fraud charge as well. (CBS17) With the surge in cases related to the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the role of contact tracers is changing. Contact tracers have pivoted away from trying to identify where the virus came from and are instead working to provide resources to help get people vaccinated and boosted. The Contract obtained from the North Carolina Health and Human Services reveals the state has paid an estimated $15 million for contact tracing efforts. (abc11)

Today in Durham:

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From my notebook:

It's Local Quilt Shop Day and Durham Orange Quilters' Guild has compiled a list of some of the local quilting spots you can head to.

Today is the grand opening of Mr. Fries Man on W. Main Street! (Durham Chamber of Commerce)

Keep up with all of the exciting new restaurants that are coming to the Triangle soon thanks to WRAL Foodie News.

Loving the Durham Daily? Here are all the ways you can get more involved:

Send a friend or neighbor this link so they can subscribe

Get your local business listed in front of readers

Send me a news tip or suggestion at durham-nc@patch.com

Thanks for following along and staying informed. I'll see you around!

 CJ Fullford

This article originally appeared on the Durham Patch
PRINCE GEORGE  Starting Monday, county school students will not have to wear masks in class if their parents don't want it.

Thursday night, the School Board voted to comply with Gov. Glenn Youngkin's executive order giving parents the right to opt-out their kids from wearing masks while on school property. However, if those students ride a school bus, masks will still be required.

Also, should a student without a mask become exposed to COVID-19, they will have the choice of remaining home for a 10-day isolation period, or return to school after five days but wear a mask inside for the next five days.

Prince George County Public Schools logo

The Youngkin order takes effect Monday, Jan. 24.

"While [the Youngkin order] does provide parents with the opportunity to opt-out of having their children wear masks at school, we ask that all members of our school community be respectful of the choices of others," superintendent Dr. Lisa Pennycuff wrote in a letter on the school system website. "We ask that those who choose not to wear a mask be courteous and kind to others and consider wearing a mask when approaching a person who chooses to wear one."

The decision does not apply to faculty, staff or visitors to the school buildings. In the letter, Pennycuff said masks will still be required for them, but the decision "will be revisited" once the system receives state and federal guidance.

Once the news broke, parents took to social media to express their concerns. One parent said the decision was "1000% political."

"There is NO scientific anything behind this decision," Brittney Garcia wrote. "The same people who will send their kids without a mask are going to be the same ones pissed off in a week or two when we end up virtual due to the increase in cases."

Another parent hoped that the decision will not divide students.

"I pray that my boys walk into school Monday and know - whoever was their friend Friday is still their friend Monday regardless if they have a mask on or not!" Michelle Marie posted. "A personal choice or belief cannot define our children! Dont let this decision cause our children to pick and choose who is right or wrong - just simple respect goes a long ways!"

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Valashareion Whitlow said her daughter is susceptible to respiratory infections, but claimed there is no option for her to pick virtual learning.

"Virtual learning should be put back on the table since going maskless is a choice," she posted.

Related: Virginia State University no longer requires employees to be COVID vaccinated or tested

Prince George's decision was announced the same day that its area neighbor Hopewell said it would not adhere to the executive order. As of Friday, 11 school divisions across the state said they would defy the governor's directive.

Related: Colonial Heights, Dinwiddie join list of school systems keeping mask mandates in place

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is daily news coach for USA TODAY's Southeast Region-Unified Central, which includes Virginia, West Virginia and central North Carolina. He is based in Petersburg, Virginia. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Prince George schools will follow governor's mask opt-out order
Princess Diana Archive/Getty

It should seem implausible that there would be anything new to say about the story of Princess Diana. What piece of pop culture, at this point, could possibly add anything to our understanding and our emotion about her supernova existence in the public eye and her tragic death?

These last years especially have seen her life and the impact of her death parsed and chronicled in an endless torrent of new documentaries, each promising some tantalizing new detail or anecdote to entice insatiable consumers of all things Lady Di. Its also been fictionalized, dramatized according to rumor and assumption in high-profile projects like The Crown and the recent Kristen Stewart-starrer Spencer.

Is it a bad thing that there seems to be an infinite appetite for this content, and ample offerings produced to answer the call? There is so much to learn about the media, the monarchy, and ourselves, let alone about one of the most famous women there has ever been, so why shouldnt there be so much content? Then again, it was the ravenous and rapacious demand for her story, for her image, and for her secrets that did so much harm to her mental health, and then ultimately was responsible for the violent car crash that ended her life. What is this demand for more, if not a cycle repeating?

Kristen Stewart Has Never Been More in Control

Thats a salient point gleaned from the stunning new documentary The Princess, which premiered Thursday night as the opening film of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Those questionswhat else is there to say, and how else could it possibly be said?have already been asked an incalculable number of times. Maybe the questions should instead evolve. How have we been shaped by these events? And how have we remained obstinately ignorant in spite of them?

Directed by Ed Perkins, The Princess begins with immediate unease. There is shaky camera footage being filmed from inside a car as it tours the streets of Paris, France, where the fateful crash occurred. As the car approaches a melee of gawkers, photographers, and camera flashes, the person holding the camcorder gets excited by the commotion. Suddenly the paparazzi in the crowd jump in their cars and start peeling away, chasing the famous figure who had caused such a stir. The civilian chirps excitedly: Its Princess Diana!

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The documentary is a depiction of Dianas life from nearly the moment she became the fascination of the public and the media, told through their lens: the camera. Amid a glut of Diana content, what were seeing here is, as the handheld footage from a tourist in Paris hinted at, a surprising shift in perspective.

The Princess uses only archival footage that was filmed at the time the events of Dianas tumultuous life took place. The goal, as a Sundance Fest press summary says, is turning the camera back on ourselves and illuminating the profound impact she had and how the publics attitude to the monarchy was, and still is, shaped by these events.

Its less whats going on behind closed doors, beyond the palace walls, or inside the relationship we could never know the real truth about, but what there was and is to learn from what was happening in plain sight. What does this footage say about who she was and how this attention, let alone her tortured time within the royal family, affected her? What does it say about the monarchy and how it did and didnt protect her? And what does it say about not just the media, but also us, the voracious consumers of all things Diana even now, all these decades later?

Theres an illusion that comes with this kind of clear-eyed approach, an assuredness that, because the film relies on old news and archival footage, were not watching hearsay. It feels less tawdry or ghoulish, and, because of that, even more emotional. Thats powerful. Segments focusing on how she was talked about and treated by the press are more horrifying; ones that center on the palaces cruelty toward her, essentially leading her out to slaughter, are more infuriating; and the chronicling of the end of her life is all the more devastating.

Its crucial to remember, however, that this could also be sleight of hand. Yes, its archival footage, but there is still a narrative pieced together. We dont know how the clips and the commentary were chosenlet alone from what outlets that may or may not harbor a certain biasand if that played a part in telling a certain story. Nonetheless, theres no denying that this is a refreshing, heartrending, and, in the end, haunting approach to telling this story, just when it seemed every avenue had already been exhausted.

Even with all we know about Diana, there are revelations to be had in watching things unfold in this manner.

We see her, after that Paris-set opening, years earlier, when her engagement to Charles was first announced. Shes walking down the street, being followed by throngs of people running up to her asking when the wedding is happening. Shes giggly and nice, but shy, as she talks to them. Its making her obviously uncomfortable. Shes bashful. She keeps saying theres no comment. Its quite the rewind from that opening scene. Especially after setting up the film with the foreshadow of the darkness to come, its eye-opening to see her so pure and still unscathed.

Of course, that attention quickly escalates. From the beginning, even before the wedding takes place, there are pundits who raise the question of whether the press needs to lay off her.

The scrutiny that was placed on her came at an evolutionary point for the press and news media. To be made aware that this conversation was present from the start of that transformation was jarring. Even then, there was enough awareness to ask those questions and make those points; to wonder openly about whether this was fair or even harmful to a person. Yet there was still the entitlement to take her privacy from heras well as her image, her time, and her existence.

Still, theres a joyfulness to the start of it all. As footage of people watching the wedding on TV, camped outside the palace celebrating in union jack garb, and obsessing over every detail of her styling plays, a newsreader speaks, almost drowned out by the spliced-in audio of shrieking crowds as the marital carriage zooms by: Its the stuff of which fairy tales are made. The prince and princess on their wedding day. But fairy tales usually end at this point, with the simple phrase of they lived happily after. Our faith sees the wedding day not at the place of arrival, but the place where the adventure will begin.

With similar briskness, The Princess illustrates the contrast between the public enthusiasm for this fairy tale and the royal familys indifference, which would eventually metastasize, at least in this films narrative, to maliciousness. Londoners are shown popping champagne after learning the news of Dianas first pregnancy. Compare that to the reaction of the Queen and Princess Anne, who basically shrug at the news, feigning that they had no idea. (Meanwhile grocery stores were announcing it over their loudspeakers as patrons shopped.)

One thing that is unignorable in the documentary is how charming and captivating Diana was. You fall in love with her again, as you always do when you see even a glimpse of the footage of her, for example, interacting with hospital patients and, as so many broadcasters say, ordinary people. The charisma packaged in a 106-minute film is more irresistible than ever.

Prince William and Prince Harry look at a statue they commissioned of their mother Diana, Princess of Wales, in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, on what would have been her 60th birthday on July 1, 2021, in London, England. Dominic Lipinski/Getty

As damaging as we now know all that fanfare, hysteria, and demand for attention was, it is genuinely moving to see how earnestly and enthusiastically people gravitated toward her and adored hernot to mention how warm and intimate she managed to make those interactions in return. It was an electric connection between that ordinary and the extraordinary, a leveling charge between the superstar and the citizen, that was singular. It hasnt happened before or since.

The remarkable nature of Dianas life, at least as it unfolded publicly in this film, is how drastic the contrast is between those high points of her character and the low points of her experience with Charles, let alone how that was gnawed at by the press.

To see the unedited footage of the couple while they were rumored to have discord play on screen while audio of the commentators viciously picking apart every gesture and making assumptions of what that must mean, sure, tells its own narrative about their purported unhappiness. But its simultaneously a searing indictment of the media and its self-appointed right to cast such judgments and aspersions, a license that hasnt expired in the time thats passed sinceno matter how many examples there have been illustrating its toxicity and harm.

Its grotesque to hear again how rumors of her suicide attempts, her mothering, her depression, her eating disorder, and her and Charles affairs were discussed, typically from strangers who spoke as though they were authorities on the manner, as if these secrets and whispers were the gospel truth. Yet its also so familiar to anyone who consumesor is a part ofmedia today.

Things get sinister. You see Diana become desperate in her interactions with the paparazzi. That coy warmness and excitement turns combative. The cameras and reporters are increasingly lecherous. Its disturbing.

Jodie Turner-Smith on What Anne Boleyn, Meghan Markle, and Princess Diana All Have in Common

Heres a sampling of the reaction to a statement she made about stepping back from obligatory duties because of this: Its very Diana isnt it, to call a press conference to say she wants to be left alone? I bet you shell be back. Shell do a song and dance act to be back on the front pages. I think shes close to being a monster.

The reflexive smugness, dismissal, and bad-faith reading of any action: Once again, its hard to hear, and once again it is familiar. Whos to say if this is the international phenomenon that planted the seed of that imposing tree that has continued to expand its roots to the present day, where trolling, attacks, and vitriol are the normalized reaction to any person in the public eyeespecially when a plea is made for empathy.

Its inspiring to once again revisit Dianas focus on her charity work after that and how committed she was to it, but theres also commentary about the adoration she got from it. Was it for her ego, or a tool, as the spotlight brought awareness and opportunity? Or, maybe, both?

It doesnt need to be said just how emotional the end of the film is, though there is a bluntness to the conclusion that leaves you in those thoughts about complicity, about exploitation, about the monarchy, the press, and our own selves.

You dont leave The Princess with a brand new viewpoint, per se. Diana comes off well, while the palace and the media are villainized, as is the common and accepted modern take on what happened during that time.

But to reconsider all of that through how we consumed it and, not only that, how we were fed it, is a fascinating exerciseeven if its one made possible by the excessive lenses and attention that were placed on her that we now feel we should condemn but maybe never will.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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(Hanna Barczyk / For The Times)

Since Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017, our letter writers have occasionally compared the current political situation in the U.S. to Germany's crumbling democracy both before the Nazis were elected into power and before the start of World War II. Since the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, those comparisons have been made more frequently by letter writers.

With the United Nations 2022 Holocaust Remembrance events underway, we asked some readers and letter writers who survived the Holocaust what they thought about those comparisons, and what they want people today to know about that era, less than 80 years ago, when 6 million Jews in Europe were murdered and millions more were enslaved or forced to flee their home countries.

 Paul Thornton, letters editor

Germany's 'good' people failed the Jews in the 1930s. Some 'good' Americans are failing today

When I was a teenager, I asked my father what it was like to live in Germany after Hitler came to power.

"Das kanst du dir nicht vorshtellen"  you cannot imagine it. "At first we thought it wouldn't be so bad, but some things changed almost overnight. My boss said I shouldn't visit certain clients because they might not want to do business."

"But you hadn't changed!" I interrupted.

"My child, you can't understand, and God willing, you won't have to. The boss said he personally didn't go along with Hitler's Nazi rantings, but by 1934 we were no longer invited to their Sunday kaffeeklatsch."

I remembered this when a pro-Trump neighbor stopped inviting us to her annual holiday cocktail party.

Prior to 2016, we respected each other's differing political views, even joked about it. This changed dramatically after I said to her, "But Trump lies." That was the end of the conversation, and she and her partner retreated to their capsules of collusion, for it is a form of collusion when normal, ordinary people look away from facts.

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It was the same collusion as when teachers, lawyers and ministers went along with the Nazi lie that in a pure Germany, Aryan supremacy must be returned to "das Volk."

My parents left Germany for France in 1935; I was born there in 1938. Too many of our relatives were less fortunate, and they were gassed in the camps.

For a time I wanted to believe that the Nazi era was a "never-again" episode orchestrated by some twisted fascist monsters. I wanted to believe that America had saved Europe from the worst evil in modern times.

Alas, "never again" is now.

I fear not enough good people remember history. Why are so many Republicans on board with Trump, even a year after the Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt? I worry about political things, such as the large number of judges Trump has appointed, but there are also other changes that deeply concern me.

I wonder about doctors who refuse to call COVID-19 the killer that it is, especially of poor Americans and people of color. My grandmother was a victim of the Nazification of medicine. She had leukemia. It was treatable with transfusions that she received regularly at a blood bank in Frankfurt. After the Nuremberg Laws, she was denied pure Aryan blood. Her oldest son stayed in Germany to donate blood to her even though he had received an exit visa to America. She feared he wouldn't get out in time.

My grandmother stopped eating so her son would leave. She died.

Where were the good doctors, journalists or judges who could have demanded this cruelty stop? Where were the ruling bodies then?

And where will ours be in 2022 and 2024 if so many election officials have been ousted or quit because they failed to cheat for a would-be fascist dictator? I pray for our democracy, which seems irrevocably on life support.

 Josie Levy Martin, Santa Barbara

Too few Americans know about the Holocaust. There's also been an unsettling erosion of trust

I am a proud American, born in Stettin, Germany (today, Szczecin, Poland) in 1933. My mother, father, sister and grandparents were all Germans of Jewish faith.

Because of Hitler and the Nazi regime, my family was forced to leave the country of our birth. We left behind my father's family business, our friends and our home. My father was a highly decorated officer in the German army for his service during World War I. We were fortunate to be able to escape Germany and spared what so many others faced in the concentration and death camps.

My parents, my identical twin sister and I could not emigrate immediately to the United States because of a quota system that capped the number of Germans allowed to enter. So, we emigrated to England first and waited until we were legally able to come to the United States.

In June 1939, we arrived in the San Pedro harbor after a month-long voyage across the Atlantic and through the Panama Canal. My mother was 26 years old, with two 6-year-old girls. My father was in his early 40s and hard of hearing in one ear from an injury in World War I. We had no relatives or friends in California.

The Nazis forced the displacement of many of my relatives, who today live in India, Australia and Argentina. I relish and respect being a part of their lives even though we live far apart. It has made me humble and thankful for my life. My family was challenged with difficult times, and they turned their lives around with a positive attitude.

Much in today's world concerns me. I sympathize deeply with refugees trying to flee poverty and violence south of the U.S. border. They want to come to the United States for a better life, but how can this country take in millions of people who would come here if they could? This is a difficult question to ask that is just as difficult to answer.

I am also concerned that fewer and fewer people are learning about the Holocaust. My father, mother, sister and I fled Europe before the mass killing began, and I have fond memories of our journey across the Atlantic, a period that my mother recalled as the best vacation of her life. But I also remember my mother and father begging their parents to flee. My grandparents died in the concentration camps.

My immediate family was not killed, but the Holocaust still happened to us. We lost everything we had in Germany and were forced to make new lives for ourselves. I feel it is important for people to know about this, the different ways Jews were victimized. Even though my parents did not talk about the Holocaust with us much at all, and though I am proud to be an American, I believe we must know about this history today.

Finally, I am concerned about a general loss of trust among people today. When I was a child, my father  a distinguished World War I veteran and proud German  had everything taken from him because the people were made to distrust and hate him and other Germans of the Jewish faith. Today, in our world, I worry about a similar erosion of mutual trust among the people.

 Betsy Kaplan, Covina

Comparisons of the U.S. to 1930s Germany get so much wrong

I write as a Jewish refugee from Hitler. My family fled Austria the day after the Anschluss of March 12, 1938. I come from an entirely secularized family, and my maternal grandfather was a leading diplomat from World War I to 1938. Nevertheless, the Anschluss meant that my family, by sheer dint of being Jewish by birth and ancestry, had to flee the country instantly, leaving everything behind. We left with four suitcases and no money. Those Jews who stayed behind, even for a few months, were likely to be sent to concentration camps and be killed in the gas chambers of the Holocaust.

But the currently popular comparison between the U.S. today and early 1930s Germany is highly dubious.

Unlike the U.S., Germany had no real tradition of democracy. Germany became a unified country only in 1871; it rapidly industrialized and became a major power by 1914. But until 1918, it was not only a monarchy but also an empire with a weak parliamentary structure. All government ministers were appointed by the Kaiser. The chancellor, moreover, could nullify any of the laws passed by the Reichstag (parliament). Then World War I decimated the country, bringing on large-scale poverty and, in the early years of the Weimar Republic, starvation. The 12 years of democracy from 1918 to the economic crash in 1929 were already shaky by the time of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.

Then, too, 21st century Americans ignore the role communism played in bringing the Nazis to power. In 1930, there were 37 individual parties running for office. If the Socialist (SPD) and Communist (KPD) parties had joined forces, the Nazis wouldn't have had a chance. But because the SPD and KPD were constantly at each other's throats, the far right saw its chance.

It is impossible to understand today how great the fear of Russian communism was. It would have meant giving up private property  i.e. your house and home. This is hardly equivalent to the "threat" from the Republicans today. Those who turned to the Nazis often regarded it as the lesser of two evils  a temporary state of affairs before a centrist party could win again.

The day Hitler became chancellor, the free press simply dissolved; from then on, all newspapers reported directly to Hitler. In the U.S., on the other hand, every major news outlet with the exception of Fox was adamantly against Trump throughout the four years of his presidency and continues to be obsessed with calling him every name in the book. Even NPR and PBS seem to be 100% pro-Democrat. So where is the parallel?

What comparable state of affairs exists in America? Instead of the Weimar splinter parties, our current moment is Manichean, the country being divided right down the middle. Each of our two parties thinks it is the democratic one and the other elitist, racist or sexist.

And consider the anarchy today! At the moment, schools seem to be barely functioning; some close regularly because there are not enough teachers. This is the antithesis of Hitler's Germany, where regimented children, marching into the classroom, were indoctrinated into fascism. For Hitler, discipline was the order of the day, whereas the Trump administration was curiously disorganized, firing its own personnel left and right. At the same time, the Biden administration seems to be paralyzed when it comes to education.

Finally, it should be made clear that democracy is not just a voting issue. One can, after all, vote in, fairly and squarely, a fascist party. It has happened all over Latin America. Rather, as Alexis de Tocqueville warned, democracy only works when you have a reasonably educated public. Today, when we have eighth graders who can't read and write, when civics courses have disappeared and when geography is literally untaught, it is very hard to have a meaningful democracy in the U.S.

Our first aim should be to restore primary education as well as a meaningful media in which there is real discussion of the issues. As for antisemitism, how can it be avoided at the same time Israel has become such an object of hatred?

 Marjorie Perloff, Pacific Palisades

Jan. 6 brought back frightening memories from 1938

I am a Holocaust survivor and an American. I was born in Vienna six years before the annexation of Austria by Hitler's Germany. My family was very affluent  we lived in a large apartment and had several servants. I was a very spoiled brat.

Everything changed in March 1938, the date of the "annexation." No shots were fired, nor were there protests. German airplanes dropped leaflets advising us not to resist. Hordes of Austrians happily donned German uniforms sporting the swastika.

Several days later my father was physically thrown out of his business. His assets were confiscated. Soldiers came into our home and took anything they deemed valuable. My school, across the street from where we lived, was closed.

One day I heard gun shots and screams. I went to the window and saw maybe 30 ultra-Orthodox men dressed in their traditional garb doing exercises in the middle of the street. Some were very old. They were surrounded by soldiers. If they stopped or sat, the soldiers would prod them with their guns. If they did not get up, they were shot.

There were food shortages. Jews were not allowed in food lines. We were hungry.

One day I had an accident and sliced my knee open. My father wrapped my leg and took me to the local emergency room, where we were refused admittance because of the large "J" stamped on our identification cards. Somehow (I was unconscious), my father found either a medical school or a small hospital on the outskirts of the city, and a kindly doctor risked his life to operate on me.

On Kristallnacht  Nov. 9, 1938  the Nazis determined to kill as many Jews as possible. My parents knew they would be coming for us. A banging on the door did not startle us. The door was opened and there stood a Nazi officer and a soldier. The officer yelled, "Quickly, come with us!"

My mother had secreted some jewelry. She gave it to the officer. He took it and hesitated, then turned and yelled at the soldier to go to the next address.

Shortly thereafter the Gestapo occupied the building as its headquarters. Our apartment was about five steps to the right of the entrance between floors and not accessible to the elevator. They left us alone, and we spent the rest of the time in the Gestapo headquarters building.

For 84 or 85 years, these memories buried themselves in the back recesses of my brain. Jan. 6, 2021, caused a tsunami of memories to come back to the forefront.

Terror, insecurity, fright  will America's Constitution and freedoms be overturned? Will we become a dictatorship?

Tyrants thrive on chaos, incitement to overthrow government, fraud, mass hysteria, lies, manipulation and rallies. That is their playbook. I can still hear Hitler's rallies with thousand yelling "sieg heil," until our radio was confiscated. Will the legislators who have blatantly ignored their oath of office let their conscience guide them?

I instructed my children to always keep their passports current and to keep their assets only in banks that transfer money to foreign institutions via wire transfers. My insecurities are due to my history.

Yet, I have faith in America and that the so far silent majority will be able to protect our country.

 Marianne Bobick, Gainesville, Ga.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Security screeners in the U.S. detected more guns at airport checkpoints in 2021 than any year ever, according to figures released this week by the Transportation Security Administration.

This semi-automatic .380 caliber handgun was detected in a man's carry-on bag in February 2021 at a TSA security checkpoint at Milwaukee Mitchell International. The gun had a bullet in its chamber. TSA discovered 23 guns at security checkpoints at Mitchell during 2021.

Nationwide, TSA officers stopped 5,972 firearms at airport checkpoints, surpassing the previous record of 4,432 firearms caught at checkpoints in 2019.

The figure represents a rate of 10.2 firearms per million passengers.

"The majority of those firearms (86%) were loaded," the TSA said in a statement.

At Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, TSA officers stopped 23 handguns at security checkpoints in 2021, a 44% increase from the 16 guns detected in 2019.

TSA officers discovered this semi-automatic pistol in a woman's carry-on bag at a security checkpoint in February 2021 at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.

While our passenger volumes have not yet fully returned to pre-pandemic levels, we are seeing even higher numbers of firearms, most of them loaded, Mark Lendvay, Wisconsin TSA Federal Security Director, said in a statement.

Passengers are strictly prohibited from bringing firearms onboard planes, and our TSA officers are laser-focused on security and preventing weapons from getting through our checkpoints, Lendvay said.

More: TSA officers stop two loaded guns at Mitchell checkpoints on Saturday, the third time this year that guns have been found in carry-on bags

More: TSA finds another gun at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport checkpoint

At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, security screeners seized 91 guns at security checkpoints during 2021. That compares with 50 in 2019. (During 2020, passenger numbers dropped dramatically because of the COVID-19 pandemic and most air travel statistics use comparisons to 2019 which was pre-pandemic.)

At Chicago Midway Airport, 42 guns were detected by screeners in 2021 compared with 33 in 2019.

Meanwhile, so far in 2022, three firearms have been detected at MKE checkpoints. MKE is the International Air Transport Association identifier for Milwaukee Mitchell.

On Tuesday morning, a passenger presented a bag for screening, and a TSA officer identified a firearm on the X-ray screen, according to the agency.

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The passenger, a West Bend resident, had a concealed carry permit. TSA officers immediately alerted the Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office. The sheriff's office handles law enforcement at the county-owned airport. A sheriff's deputy confiscated the firearm, which was loaded, and issued a citation.

In addition to being cited, if a traveler with a gun found at a checkpoint is a member of TSA PreCheck, that person will lose their TSA PreCheck privileges for a period of time.

Unloaded firearms allowed in checked baggage

Passengers are permitted to travel with firearms in checked baggage if they are unloaded, packed separately from ammunition in a locked hardback case and declared at the airline check-in counter.

"Firearm possession laws vary by state and locality," according to the TSA. "Travelers should check for firearm laws in the jurisdictions they are flying to and from."

TSA has details on how to properly travel with a firearm posted on its website.

Travelers should also contact their airline as the carriers may have additional requirements for traveling with firearms and ammunition.

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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Contact Joe Taschler at (414) 224-2554 or jtaschler@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JoeTaschler or Facebook at facebook.com/joe.taschler.1.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: TSA seized 23 guns at Mitchell Airport in 2021, 5,972 nationally
Lauren Boebert

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert

Rep. Lauren Boebert had another awkward elevator encounter at the U.S. Capitol.

This time, the Colorado Republican ran into a group of Jewish visitors who were there to see New York Rep. Tom Suozzi on the anniversary of the end of the Iran hostage crisis 41 years ago, according to BuzzFeed News.

Some wore yarmulkes and the organizer of the visit is reportedly Orthodox and has a traditional beard.

When their elevator arrived and its doors opened, Boebert emerged. A witness said she looked over the visitors "from head to toe" and then asked if they were there to do "reconnaissance."

"When I heard that, I actually turned to the person standing next to me and asked, 'Did you just hear that?'" a rabbi among the visitors told BuzzFeed. The rabbi mentioned a recent hostage situation at a synagogue in Texas and added that "people are very sensitive now."

RELATED: Rep. Lauren Boebert Faces Backlash for 'Islamophobic and Racist' Story About Rep. Ilhan Omar

"I'm not sure to be offended or not," the rabbi also said.

Boebert confirmed the encounter but told BuzzFeed News her comments were not serious.

"I saw a large group and made a joke. Sadly when Democrats see the same they demonize my family for a year straight," Boebert said, adding that she's "too short to see anyone's yarmulkes."

Lauren Boebert

JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Lauren Boebert

Some Democratic lawmakers have accused Republican colleagues of leading groups on tours of the Capitol before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by supporters of Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Reps. Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky claimed they spotted Boebert with a group of visitors in a tunnel in the Capitol complex three days before the riots.

"Whether these people were people that were involved in the insurrection or not, I do not know," Cohen told CNN a year ago.

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RELATED: Ilhan Omar Calls Lauren Boebert 'Insurrectionist' with 'Pervert' Husband After 'Jihad Squad' Member Insult

Boebert flatly denied the accusation. "I have never given a tour of the U.S. Capitol to any outside group," she said in a statement at the time. "As I previously stated, I brought my family to the Capitol on January 2nd for a tour and on the 3rd for pictures to commemorate the day I was sworn in as a Member of the U.S. Congress."

The lawmaker's freshman term has been checkered with controversy. A provocative conservative in the mold of former President Trump, Boebert feuded last year with Rep. Ilhan Omar after Boebert told a story of running into the Muslim lawmaker in an elevator.

"I look to my left, and there she is. Ilhan Omar," Boebert told supporters at an event in Colorado. "And I said, 'Well, she doesn't have a backpack, we should be fine.'"
A Kansas Senate committee approved a Republican-introduced map that would make sweeping changes to the state's congressional districts Thursday, despite a stream of advocates and residents who slammed the redistricting proposal during public comment.

The map backed by House and Senate Republican leaders, dubbed "Ad Astra," would most controversially move part of Wyandotte County from the 3rd Congressional District into the 2nd Congressional District.

To balance out that switch, much of Lawrence, as well as Jackson and Jefferson counties, would leave the 2nd District and move into the 1st Congressional District, which runs to the Colorado border, encompassing much of western Kansas.

Lawmakers will have to split up one or both of Johnson and Wyandotte counties, which comprise the core of the current 3rd District. The current district layout has more individuals than is allowable, meaning changes will have to be made to the status quo.

Aileen Berquist, community engagement manager for the ACLU of Kansas, speaks in opposition to a Republican-introduced redrawing of the state's Congressional districts Thursday.

The end product was less aggressive in targeting U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the state's lone Democrat in Congress, than many observers initially expected.

But the decision to divide Wyandotte County in half along Interstate 70 was a hotly contested one, as it would splinter off neighborhoods largely comprised of African American and Hispanic residents, while Johnson County was left intact.

Tom Witt, executive director of Equality Kansas, termed the map a "joke" and asked if it was an attempt "to troll" Democrats in the state.

"This is not serious and I am surprised leadership chose to introduce these maps," he said.

More: Proposed congressional district maps would have a big impact on Kansas voters. Here's what to know.

As Senate approves maps, critics slam rushed process, final product

Initially both chambers of the Legislature were set to hold hearings on the GOP-introduced map, as well as two proposed by Democrats.

But it was revealed the House would only hear testimony informally and would instead delay a more formal review of the maps because they were only introduced Tuesday.

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Indeed, the accelerated timeframe frustrated those who testified. In-depth data from the maps were only made public Wednesday, after the deadline for submitting testimony had passed.

"This is redistricting and these are incredibly complex datasets," Aileen Berquist, community engagement manager for the ACLU of Kansas, said in her testimony. "So without those datasets, it's impossible to evaluate whether these maps are legal or constitutional. They might as well just be pretty pictures at this point."

Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, listens to testimony Thursday on a proposed Congressional map he introduced.

The Senate Redistricting Committee ultimately approved the maps on a party-line-vote, but not before a spirited back-and-forth between lawmakers of both parties.

Democrats preferred their own plan, called "United," which would move the southwest part of Johnson County to the 2nd District but largely kept the status quo intact.

Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, proposed an amendment from the earlier plan to ensure the Kansas Kickapoo Tribe's reservation not be split between two districts and instead be placed in the 2nd District.

But the bulk of the plan remained intact, despite concerns from Democrats.

"I think that were rushing this process," Sen. Ethan Corson, D-Fareway, said. "There may be a map between the Ad Astra map and the United map that can solve some of these (concerns), that is a middle ground and consensus map. What we are doing is a disservice to the state of Kansas."

That prompted a testy exchange with Masterson, who dubbed Corson's criticism of the maps to be political in nature.

"Numbers dont lie, people lie about numbers," Masterson said.

More: In State of the State address, Gov. Laura Kelly lays out spending plan, acknowledges COVID surge

Advocates argue plan would harm Kansas City, Kan. residents

A copy of the Congressional map proposed Tuesday by legislative Republicans. It quickly met pushback from Democrats for dividing Wyandotte and Johnson counties.

The vote came after residents lambasted lawmakers for crafting a map splitting Wyandotte County, arguing members of the public fiercely opposed such a move during a series of listening sessions held over the summer on the maps.

Residents pointed to a common argument, saying Wyandotte and Johnson counties are bound together by their status in the Kansas City, Mo. metropolitan area.

Connie Brown-Collins, of the Voter Rights Network of Wyandotte County, said residents routinely travel across county lines for work, errands and other business.

This makes them a clear community of interest, or a like-minded group bound together by a common force, she argued, saying more rural parts of the proposed district were radically different in their needs.

"We do not share a community of interest with Miami County," Brown-Collins said.

But Republicans said their biggest takeaway from public comment was that Johnson County should remain intact in one district, justifying the split.

"I can say that my constituents would like to stay," Sen. Beverly Gossage, R-Eudora, said.

The 3rd District currently has the lowest percentage of white residents of the four districts, largely due to the diversity of Wyandotte County. Under "Ad Astra," however, they would have the second-highest percentage of residents who are white.

Democrats and many Wyandotte County residents argued this would have the effect of watering down minority representation.

"It clearly will dilute the minority vote of the most diverse county in the state of Kansas," Mike Taylor, a lobbyist for Concerned Voters of Wyandotte County, said.

Masterson disagreed, saying the northern part of Wyandotte County was more similar to Shawnee County than Johnson County.

While it is true that Shawnee County has a larger population of Black and Hispanic residents than Johnson County, it is also much closer to Johnson demographically than Wyandotte County.

"I believe it actually does not affect dilution at all," Masterson said.

More: Gov. Laura Kelly, Republicans try to guide policy debate ahead of showdown in Kansas governor's race

Democrats threaten legal challenge to proposed maps

But Corson argued the way Wyandotte County was split posed a clear reason for courts to strike down the maps.

"This is not something where you can say that doing a wrong in the 3rd District is made up by ... doing a right in the 2nd District," he said.

Indeed, Democrats and their allies have already threatened a legal challenge to the maps, if enacted.

Republicans have largely framed these as idle threats, arguing there would have been a high likelihood of a legal challenge, no matter which maps were enacted.

But Patrick Miller, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas, said the decision to divide Wyandotte County would present a thornier set of legal issues than if Johnson had been split up.

Any arguments in state court will likely focus on how closely the maps adhere to guidelines laid out by the redistricting committees themselves  which include common racial and cultural interests.

"They have strengthen the hand of anybody who wants to go in the court and say they racially cracked Wyandotte County," Miller said. "You wouldn't have been able to say that had they broken up Johnson."

More: With $2.9 billion surplus, how will Kansas lawmakers spend your tax dollars or cut taxes this year?

To Miller, the current proposal is a much less aggressive attempt to kneecap Davids' Democratic seat than was expected.

His analysis of the district shows one that will continue to lean Democratic, with Johnson County undergoing a major political transformation  one which will continue to see the district turn bluer in coming years.

The district would still be competitive in 2022, when Davids squares off against Republican Amanda Atkins.

But keeping Johnson County intact, Miller said, will likely placate conservatives in the area who did not want to see the region divided, as well as opening the door for legislators from Johnson County who might want to run for Congress in the future.

"I think they actually picked ... maybe the politically safer map for them and balancing their own internal interests, but exposing them a little bit more on a legal level," Miller said.

Andrew Bahl is a senior statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at abahl@gannett.com or by phone at 443-979-6100.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Redistricting heats up, as advocates decry Kansas Congressional map
Last week, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, along with the General Secretary of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The meetings proved productive, and the group agreed to advance talks on a multilateral free trade agreement, as well as to work towards the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership, marking considerable progress in ties that are already warm.



Recently, China has increased its engagement with countries in the Middle East. On Jan. 12, it invited Syria to join the Belt and Road Initiative. It is a region with many political divisions, ideologies, and, in turn, conflicts. But it is also a region that is critical to the world economy. This has secured growing common interests between China and the various countries of the region, but it is now time to build on this to find a new way and a better way forward.

One of the most appealing aspects of China's role in the Middle East is that it maintains a position of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. For a region that has suffered from over a century of foreign-led intervention, regime change, and meddling, this is a very attractive proposition for all involved. China is able to forge relationships with these countries without seeking to impose its ideological or hegemonic vision on the region, which has been a longstanding theme of British, American, and French foreign policy since the early 20th century. China proposes instead that peace, stability, and dialogue be the fundamental principles of Middle East diplomacy with the view to attain mutual prosperity. This draws a contrast to America's move to outright invade countries, sponsor insurrection, and create proxy wars, which have resulted in humanitarian catastrophes and massive refugee outflows, promulgating in instability back in the West.

As the world's largest exporters of crude oil and petroleum products, the Gulf States have come to recognize China as their largest export market, given that its own economic development requires an ever-growing need for energy consumption. Saudi Arabia alone exported over $45 billion of goods to China in 2019, more than any other country. In addition, ties with China also play an important role in terms of the Middle East seeking to diversify its reliance on energy exports as the world moves faster towards renewables. Thus, China's enormous market and the opportunity to engage in other areas of trade becomes increasingly important.

In this case, the emerging strategic partnership between China and the Gulf is not military- or alliance-based, but a developmental one. The Gulf States are all part of the Belt and Road Initiative and have seen the importance of facilitating their own investments within its projects, as well as in nearby areas of interest such as Pakistan and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

For both parties, it is about facilitating a future path to sustained growth, establishing a partnership that transcends culture, religion, and ideology alike, and one which moves them away from the "oil for security" paradigm. Given this, China is proposing a new way for the Middle East, rejecting the disastrous formula applied to it for over a century, which has ruined countless lives and destroyed nations.

Tom Fowdy is a British political and international relations analyst and a graduate of Durham and Oxford universities. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/TomFowdy.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

If you would like to contribute, please contact us at opinion@china.org.cn.
Richmond County Schools announced early dismissal for Fridays school day and cancellation of all evening athletic and extracurricular activities ahead of forecasted inclement weather.

The announcement came Thursday evening in a school board issued release that stated students of all grades will be released from classes at 11:30 a.m.

Some weather reports predict a wintry mix of precipitation to include rain, snow showers and some potentially icy roads as temperatures are expected to fall below freezing Friday night.

Basketball: 3 things we learned from Josey vs. Laney's girls basketball rivalry game

The cancellations will, in effect, put a halt to Friday nights slate of high school basketball games, some of which have major region implications. But the release assured that region games would be rescheduled.

Well keep you updated on the changing schedules as updates become available.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Richmond County Schools: Games, cancelled due to inclement weather
By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's parliament will hold consultations next week on an idea to appeal to President Vladimir Putin to recognise two pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent states, the chamber's speaker said on Friday.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, made the announcement ahead of talks in Geneva on Friday between Russia's top diplomat and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss soaring tensions over Ukraine.

A Russian troop build-up near Ukraine has stirred worries among Western countries that a war could break out between the former Soviet neighbours, whose ties have been fraught since the annexation of Crimea by Moscow and the start of a Russia-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Formally recognising the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in Donbass, eastern Ukraine, is seen as one potential step Putin could take if he fails to secure security guarantees he is seeking from the West.

The Kremlin reacted coolly to the parliamentary initiative on Friday. It said it was important to avoid steps that could increase tensions and cautioned against trying to score political points in a fragile situation.

Volodin, in a statement posted to his account on the Telegram messenger service, said a decision had been taken to further examine a draft parliamentary resolution submitted on Wednesday by 11 lawmakers -- including Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov -- which said that Russia needed to officially recognise the two regions as independent to safeguard their residents from external threats.

Volodin said that the ruling pro-Putin United Russia party was worried about the security of Russians living in the two breakaway areas. Moscow has handed out over 600,000 Russian passports to residents since 2014.

"The question submitted for our examination is a very serious and responsible one," said Volodin.

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He said it would therefore be right for it to be discussed next week among the leaders of the main parties represented in parliament and then by the Duma's ruling council which decides on the chamber's timetable and workload.

"We see that (Ukrainian) President Zelenskiy is ignoring the Minsk (peace) agreements. NATO wants to occupy Ukraine. Both things can result in tragedy. We must not let this happen," said Volodin.

Zelenskiy has repeatedly said he is open to talks with Russia, while Western leaders have made clear there is no near-term prospect of Ukraine joining NATO.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; additional reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Editing by Tom Balmforth)
A meme included on a slide allegedly used to train officers from several Oregon agencies.

Salem police did not help create or use a meme that encouraged violence towards protestors, police officials said Friday.

The announcement came after reports tied Salem police to training that incorporated the meme.

The meme, dubbed the "Prayer of the Alt Knight," was used during a training program for Portland police officers responding to protests.

It endorses violence towards protesters, uses profanity and depicts a helmeted person hitting someone. It was used during a PowerPoint on crowd response training for Oregon law enforcement officers.

The meme refers to pepper-spraying and beating a "dirty hippy" who stinks and doesn't pay their bills leaving them "stitched and bandaged."

The uncovering of the meme used in police training was first reported on by Portland-area news outlets and drew national attention.

City and police leaders condemned the use of the meme.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a statement that he was "disgusted" that the offensive content was added to a training presentation for police officers.

It remains unclear who added the slide to the presentation. The City of Portland said an internal investigation was underway.

The U.S. Department of Justice chided the city for not releasing the materials earlier in light of the use-of-force settlement agreement the city had with the federal government.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the source of the meme, the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights, formed as the tactical defense arm of the Proud Boys and "has become an accelerant for violence at right-wing rallies."

Further reporting by Willamette Week revealed that the meme may have been included in a training jointly taught by four law enforcement agencies: Salem Police Department, Oregon State Police, Multnomah County Sheriff's Office and Portland Police Bureau.

But Salem police officials said Friday they were not involved.

"We understand the concerns and questions the captioned image raises with our community," Salem police spokesman Lt. Treven Upkes said. "It is important for our community to know that no Salem Police staff was involved in the development or presentation of the offensive graphic."

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He said it is unclear whether any Salem officers were present or knew of the meme because details on when the presentation was shown are not definitive.

But if the training occurred in 2018, as some reports have claimed, then Salem had no officers at training during that time.

"Our training records indicate we didn't have any students at the basic crowd management course," Upkes said.

Willamette Week reported that Portland Lt. Franz Schoening said in a deposition that officers attended a state-run basic mobile response team training to join the now-defunct Rapid Response Team, which interacted with protestors during the 2020 racial injustice protests following the murder of George Floyd.

Don't Shoot Portland, a police accountability group, filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Portland over alleged violence used against protesters.

Schoening, a rapid respond commander during the 2020 protests, said in his deposition that the training was delivered jointly by "Oregon State Police, Portland Police Bureau instructors, Salem Police Department instructors and Multnomah County Sheriffs Office instructors."

Schoening said it appeared the PowerPoint slide was used during the training but said the meme was unacceptable and undermined police training.

"It is inconsistent and it's unacceptable," he said, according to the deposition transcript.

Upkes said a statewide basic crowd control training event is commonly hosted by several agencies and attended by officers from across the state of Oregon.

The Salem Police Department provides instructors and instruction material for portions of this multi-day training.

Salem instructors present their own materials and do not routinely co-present or co-produce with other agencies.

Because no Salem staff provided instruction for the presentation at the heart of the controversy, no further investigation from Salem police will take place, Upkes said.

Salem police Chief Trevor Womack said the meme does not reflect the values of the department or his expectation of officers' conduct in the community.

He stressed that police take their responsibility to protect the community seriously while respecting individuals right to free speech and assembly.

"Our commitment to strengthening the publics trust and confidence continues to be our focus and priority," he said.

For questions, comments and news tips, email reporter Whitney Woodworth at wmwoodworth@statesmanjournal.com, call 503-910-6616 or follow on Twitter @wmwoodworth

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Salem police: No staff involved in the use of 'Alt-Knight' meme
Jan. 21SALISBURY  Almost 150 COVID-19 test kits were handed out in only 20 minutes to town residents at the Hilton Senior Center on Thursday.

Health Director Jack Morris said the town recently received 500 iHealth test kits, roughly 200 of which were set aside for emergency personnel and the Council on Aging.

Morris brought 295 test kits to be given to town residents only  drive-thru style  on Thursday afternoon. Selectman Chuck Takesian joined Morris in handing out the test kits.

"People are very thankful to be able to get a kit," Morris said.

Each resident was also handed an instruction sheet from the Department of Public Health to go with their test kits, which instructed them to stay home for five days and isolate from other people if they tested positive for COVID-19, regardless of their vaccination status.

"They do not need to report these results," Morris said. "If they are positive, they should wait about 48 hours and then take the second test. Then, if they are still positive, they should get a PCR test and get into the (state reporting) system."

The drive-thru giveaway went in a quiet and orderly fashion with cars lining up on Lafayette Road and then turning into the Senior Center parking lot. Morris said just over 150 tests were given out in the first half hour and then people stopped coming.

He said the town is tracking 163 positive cases of COVID-19 reported over the past two weeks.

"We're at about a 24.2% positivity rate as of (Wednesday,)" Morris said. "I believe it was at about 21% last week. So we went up a couple of points. But, the prediction is, that we are going to start seeing the positivity rate going down.

"The omicron variant is much more contagious but not as virulent or as dangerous for most people," he added. "Obviously, if you are elderly or immunocompromised, even the flu or the common cold could give you some problems healthwise."

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The town will host another COVID-19 vaccination and booster shot clinic at the Senior Center on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.

"Those numbers are starting to drop as well," Morris said. "We've got about 95 people preregistered for this Saturday. We had approximately 350 people at the clinic we ran just a few weeks ago."

Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.

Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.
In this 2021 file photo, Jonathan Leal fills a tray of food to be delivered at Aviva Senior Living in Sarasota. The area's unemployment rate was 3.1% in December.

Unemployment in Sarasota and Manatee counties was essentially flat in December, as the labor force grew and competition for qualified workers remained fierce.

The unemployment rate for the two-county region was 3.1% last month, down from 3.3% in November and 3.2% in December of 2020.

Florida's December unemployment rate was 4.4%, a dip of 0.1 percentage point compared to November, and 0.7 points down from the same month in 2020. The state has gained back 92.1% of the 1,269,200 jobs it lost between February and April 2020, according to numbers released Friday by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Unemployment figures for local areas are not seasonally adjusted, but the statewide figures are.

Anthony Gagliano, vice president of business and economic development for CareerSource Suncoast in Bradenton, said the labor market is extremely active.

"You've got people moving in and out and people moving on to other opportunities. You see activity everywhere you go," Gagliano said. "There's a need for people and employment - it's a good time if you're thinking of making a change or going back to school."

In Sarasota and Manatee counties, many restaurants and fast food eateries have reported reducing their hours as they struggle to find adequate staffing as the omicron wave of COVID-19 continues. Some workers are also being driven out of the area thanks to the rising cost of living - home prices reached another all-time high late last year.

Rents have also soared.

The current job market is being characterized nationally by many experts and pundits as "the great resignation." The personal finance website WalletHub released a survey on Friday of the states with the top resignation rates in the U.S., and Florida ranked 25th on a list of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

But despite these struggles, employment in Sarasota-Manatee is up, and so is the number of people actively seeking work.

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Nonagricultural employers added 17,200 jobs year over year, an increase of 5.6%, and the local labor force also grew by 8% as 28,693 new people were either employed or actively looking for work.

Gagliano said CareerSource works to bring people who might not think there are opportunities for themselves into the labor force.

"Were always looking at what can we do to get people start businesses, or take someone on the sidelines on disability or public assistance and show them there are opportunities," he said. "There are a lot of great employment opportunities out there and the competition will be less."

In case you missed it: Amid rising cost of living, Sarasota hospitality employers struggle to hire

The industry that added the most jobs in December was professional and business services. The sector is growing faster in Sarasota-Manatee than it is almost anywhere else in Florida.

Professional and business services 6,500 local jobs year over year. This, Gagliano said, is boosted by gains in real estate and finance, plus staffing agencies that support other businesses.

The education and health services sector added 3,700 jobs, a 6.5% increase over the year before.

"Trade, manufacturing and health care are seeing increases, so service providers are only going to continue to grow as well," Gagliano said.

The region also added 900 manufacturing jobs between December 2020 and last month, giving Sarasota-Manatee the second highest gain in that industry compared to the rest of Florida.

Trade, transportation and utilities added 2,600 jobs, and the mining, logging and construction and leisure and hospitality industries each added 1,200 jobs compared to December 2020.

Usually, when there are lots of job opportunities, it means fewer people go back to school, Gagliano said. But now potential employees seem confident that there will be jobs available when they graduate.

"People are saying, 'I'm not afraid to go back to school knowing there are going to be jobs in the field that I want,'" Gagliano said.

Support local journalism with a digital subscription to the Herald Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota, Manatee County employment grows by 5.6%, labor force up 8%
Lebanon City Schools released a statement following concern from parents that a group called the After-School Satan Club was approved to host meetings at one of the district's elementary schools.

Flyers going around social media advertise the "After School Satan Club" will hold four gatherings through the spring semester at Donovan Elementary School, welcoming any child in first grade to fifth grade.

The flyer said the club will offer science projects, puzzles, games, arts and crafts projects, and nature activities.

Lebanon City Schools said it has procedures where the community can use its publicly-funded facilities outside of the school day.

According to the statement, a local resident and taxpayer of Lebanon City Schools contacted the Satanic Temple and requested it begin a chapter in Lebanon and start the after-school club.

"They completed the required application, the facility use agreement, and provided the necessary documentation, and were approved," school officials said. "The district does not and is not legally allowed to discriminate against any groups who wish to rent our facilities, including religiously-affiliated groups. "

District officials said the club is not a district or school-sponsored event. Lebanon City Schools also stated that it does not endorse the group's activities, nor does it endorse the intent of any other religiously affiliated groups offering after-school activities on its campuses.

The district said it has approved religious groups to use its facilities in the past, like the Good News Club, an after-school child evangelism program that met at Donovan Elementary School for years.

"Either the District's facilities are to be made available to all groups or no groups, according to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Good News Club, citing if public schools rent their facilities to secular groups, they must also rent to religious groups," the statement read.

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The statement ended by assuring parents the flyers and promotional materials for these groups will not be mass distributed or sent home with students. Also, any student wishing to attend the Satanic Temple After-School Satan Club or any other after-school club must get signed permission from their parents.

What is an After-School Satan Club?

After-School Satan Clubs have existed for years. According to USA TODAY, the club is a chapter of the Satanic Temple, a multinational nonprofit that describes itself as a "nontheistic religious and human rights group."

June Everett, campaign director for After-School Satan Club and an ordained minister of the Satanic Temple, told USA TODAY the temple offers the clubs as an alternative to Good News Clubs.

The Good News Club is an evangelical organization that offers Bible and faith lessons after school.

"We offer an alternative club to religious indoctrination programs across the nation," Everett said. "The clubs are not a religious indoctrination program, nor do we teach about religion or offer religious opinions."

Everett also said the clubs are not sponsored by the school or the school district.

According to the Satanic Temple's website, the clubs are "open" environments that welcome parents to participate.

The Satanic Temple also does not believe in a supernatural figure equal or similar to Christian definitions of Satan  rather, according to the Washington Post, the Satanic Temple "rejects all forms of supernaturalism" and instead promotes "scientific rationality."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Lebanon Schools responds to concern about 'After-School Satan Club'
 Flash

Aid from China, which included cash assistance and emergency supplies, has arrived in tsunami-hit Tonga to help the South Pacific island country out of crisis.

"The Chinese side pays close attention to the situation in Tonga, and has taken urgent action to help Tonga in disaster relief to the best of its ability," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a press briefing on Thursday.

The Red Cross Society of China has provided emergency humanitarian cash assistance of 100,000 U.S. dollars to Tonga, Zhao said, adding that the Chinese government, through the Chinese Embassy in Tonga, has managed to put together in the shortest time possible some emergency supplies including drinking water and food and delivered them to Tonga on Wednesday.

Tonga has been battered by the worst natural disasters in history resulting from a massive volcano eruption which occurred on Saturday and its ensuing tsunami and volcanic ash.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday sent a message of sympathy to King of Tonga Tupou VI and Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni respectively.

According to Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Chinese government will continue to assist the Tongan side with a batch of emergency supplies such as drinking water, food, personal protective equipments, and disaster relief equipments, which will arrive as soon as the flight conditions permit.

During the crisis in Tonga, President Xi sent a message of sympathy and the Chinese government immediately extended a helping hand, said Tupou VI, adding that the Tongan government and people were moved by China's act of kindness and are deeply grateful.
The fifth annual Windows of Understanding public art display aims to unite local artists, organizations and businesses to promote compassion and awareness around social justice issues impacting local communities, organizers said.

The project launched Monday in celebration of Martin Luther King Day, as a way of paying homage to his legacy and dream with a designated Day of Understanding. The run culminates on Feb. 28.

The exhibit features windows across New Brunswick, Highland Park, Metuchen, and this year has expanded to a fourth town, South Plainfield. The themes of this year's art and supporting events are centered around climate change, economic justice, protest to policy and public health.

Installations will be on view along Church, George, French and New streets, Livingston and College avenues in New Brunswick; at the Rite Aid and Interfaith RISE Headquarters on Raritan Avenue in Highland Park; the Berkshire Hathaway Home Services on Middlesex Avenue in Metuchen; and SportWorld on South Plainfield Avenue in South Plainfield.

Free virtual programming will complement the window displays throughout the end of April focusing on the importance of creating conversational windows of understanding.

The exhibit is a partnership between the New Brunswick Community Arts Council, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Highland Park Arts Commission, the Metuchen Arts Council, and the South Plainfield Cultural Arts Commission.

Windows of Understanding has always been thought-provoking and important, New Brunswick Mayor Jim Cahill said in a statement. "Each year, the contributing artists have masterfully captured the nations most talked-about social issues and presented them honestly and authentically, stimulating thought and generating dialogue."

READ: The interesting history of the real name of Martin Luther King Jr.  and why it was changed

READ: MLK Day didn't begin as a 'Day of Service,' it became one later

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"Our arts community, and many of our residents, deeply appreciate the variety of artistic works displayed each year and the socially conscious messages they advance," Highland Park Mayor Gayle Brill Mittler said in a statement.

The Windows of Understanding project pairs artists with local organizations to collaborate on a piece in response to the central tagline for this project and will be displayed in windows for the public to encounter: We see through hate.

Through the art comes awareness; through awareness comes opportunities to create solutions as a community," Metuchen Mayor Jonathan Busch said in a statement.

Some of the artwork in the Windows of Understanding 2022.

The local organizations involved include:

The Black Community Watchline

Brady  United Against Gun Violence

Citizens Campaign

Dinas Dwellings, Town Clock CDC

Elijahs Promise

First Presbyterian Church Food Pantry of Metuchen

Food and Water Watch

Highland Park Gives a Hoot

The League of Women Voters

Moms Demand Action

New Brunswick Area NAACP

New Jersey Black Women Physicians Association

New Jersey Harm Reduction Coalition; RCHP Affordable Housing Corporation; REPLENISH

RWJUH HVIP Working together Against Violence to Empower (WAVE) Community Consortium

Stop NESE Coalition

Sustainable South Plainfield

Urban Ag Lab, Rutgers University.

Rutgers Student Food Pantry

The Rutgers Climate Institute

Support for Windows of Understanding 2022 has been provided by:

Middlesex County

The New Brunswick Cultural Center

Berkshire Hathaway Home Services NJ Properties

Arts Institute of Middlesex County

Rutgers University, Office of Community Affairs

Rutgers Collaborative

New Brunswick Free Public Library

Highland Park Public Library

Metuchen Human Relations Commission

Above Art Studios

Civic League of Greater New Brunswick

Things to do

All events are virtual, free and open to all ages.

A screening of "Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama" will take place from through Jan. 23 will be hosted by the Zimmerli Art Museum. Register here.

Virtual galleries of all the artworks in Windows of Understanding can be seen at www.windowsofunderstanding.org/gallery.

Other Windows of Understanding events include:

Living a Hip Hop & Abolitionist Life: A Presentation and Conversation with Dr. Bettina Love, Jan. 20, 6 p.m. at culturalcollaborative.rutgers.edu/mlk-legacy-series

Be SMART presentation about gun safety, Feb. 2, 7:30 p.m. at act.everytown.org/event/moms-demand-action-event/43313/signup

Art of a Healthy Mind Virtual Painting Workshop, Feb. 3, 7 p.m., at tinyurl.com/2s3snbvs

Having Chest Pain? Is It Really a Heart Attack?, Feb. 15, 11 a.m., RSVP to valeri84@hpplnj.org, at us02web.zoom.us/j/87686991145?pwd=RUFKTURXcEtHWE9jVitLcDRaOVp2U%20T09

Opportunities for Advancing Environmental Justice, Feb. 15, 6:30 p.m. at us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYod-uurT4sHN35Y9IKz9aHeuA6Kb59bfxi

Community Conversation, March 10, 7 p.m. at www.facebook.com/MetuchenHumanRelationsCommission

For more information visit www.windowsofunderstanding.org.

Email: alewis@njpressmedia.com

Alexander Lewis is an award-winning reporter and photojournalist whose work spans many topics. This coverage is only possible with support from our readers. Sign up today for a digital subscription.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Public art display in Middlesex County highlights social justice issues
Up and at 'em, Shirley-Mastic! Let's get you started this Saturday with everything you need to know going on today in Shirley-Mastic.

First, today's weather:

Mostly sunny and cold. High: 29, low: 18.

Here are the top 5 stories today in Shirley-Mastic:

Police are investigating a robbery and beating that happened at a home in Mastic Beach on Jan. 16. Two males armed with a pistol invaded the home located at Forrest Road and took the victim's personal belongings before fleeing the scene. (Shirley-Mastic Patch) Community mourns the loss of student Aida Ramonez. On Jan. 15, family and students gathered together in a vigil at the First Presbyterian Church in Port Jefferson to remember the young girl who died unexpectedly. Aida's family lived in the Mastic Beach area before relocating to Port Jefferson. (TBRnews) William Floyd High School junior and artist, Hailey Green, is selected to have one of her artworks as the cover of the school year's book. Hailey was also nominated "Artist of the Month" in December 2021. (Press Release Desk) Patchogue Mademoiselle Patisserie bakery extends its footprints with a new location inside of the new Bayport-Blue Point Library in its grand opening. (Newsday/Subscription Required) Gabby Petito family reached an agreement on asset distribution. Petito's and Brian Laundrie's parents met in Florida to discuss the couple's properties. Attorney Steven Bertolino confirmed that an agreement was made but refused to give any further details. (Patchogue Patch)

Today in Shirley-Mastic:

Home Improvement Workshop at MMS Public Library. (10:30 a.m.)

Dynamite and Live After Death at 89 North Music Venue. (8 p.m.)

From my notebook:



Suffolk County Government: Coronavirus case update for Jan. 19. (Press Release Desk)

Suffolk County Parks: "Get Ready, Get Set, Camp! The Parks reservation systems will be going live today at 11 a.m. online and in-person transactions will be available once again." (Instagram)

Joseph from Nextdoor's Community Team, Nextdoor New York: "Are your exhaust vents clear of snow? Neighbors, remember to keep your furnace vents, water heater vents, air intake vents, and chimney snow-free this winter." (Nextdoor)

Nextdoor Neighbor, North Shirley: Hi neighbors! My 21-year-old daughter is looking to tutor students at the elementary-high school level. She recently graduated from Stony Brook University with honors." (Nextdoor)

Nextdoor Neighbor, South Shirley: "Hi, everyone! If anyone needs assistance with handyman services or small repairs at home, please give Hayron a call at 631-488-8253. Hardworking and responsible guy!" (Nextdoor)

Story continues

More from our sponsors  thanks for supporting local news!

Events:

FREE WEBINAR | The Splendors of Venice Presented by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero. (Jan. 25)

Join Mather Hospital For A HealthyU Webinar On Heart Care. (Feb. 1)

Add your event

Loving the Shirley-Mastic 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 shirley-mastic@patch.com

You're all caught up for today! See you all tomorrow morning for another update.

 Debora Whitehead

This article originally appeared on the Shirley-Mastic Patch
Avera's David Basel speaks at a Thursday new conference about COVID-19.

South Dakota health care officials are urging residents to protect themselves against COVID-19 as the omicron variant continues to slam hospitals, with at least one expert saying the pandemic has been elevated "to a whole new level."

At a Thursday news conference in Sioux Falls, David Basel, Avera's vice president of clinical quality, and Mike Wilde, Sanford Health's vice president medical officer, both spoke about the urgency in mitigating the spread of the virus.

More: Stop visiting the ER for COVID tests, Sanford Health and Avera ask as hospitalizations increase

Basel said Avera is seeing record positive tests as well as positivity rates, resulting in challenges to both staffing and patient care. Omicron may have a markedly lower hospitalization rate than the delta variant of COVID-19, but the "sky-high number of cases" means that it's still a massive challenge for the health care systems, he said.

"We are making harder and harder choices every day," Basel said, noting every open bed from a patient discharge  or often, a death  requires deciding which patient most needs to take it.

Sanford's Mike Wilde speaks at a Thursday news conference about COVID-19.

Both Wilde and Basel said the vast majority of hospitalizations across both systems are patients who were unvaccinated or not fully boosted, and urged the public to get vaccinated, pointing specifically to the importance of COVID-19 booster shots.

Wilde agreed, saying he doesn't believe the general public had a good sense of how "dramatic" the disease can be in the hospital.

That's even if you've already had COVID-19, Wilde said. While the natural immunity provided by an infection wanes after about 90 days, the immunity provided by the vaccine lasts longer.

Sanford's Mike Wilde speaks at a Jan. 20 press conference about COVID-19

But, Basel said, differences in omicron's spike proteins means this variant was especially good at negating the effects of the original series of COVID-19 vaccines, adding the booster shot increased effectiveness from roughly 30% to 75%.

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Basel also said even more than previous variants, Omicron's symptoms have significant overlap with the common cold. Even if you only have a runny nose or a sore throat, stay home, he said.

Another important thing people can do is assume a positive result on an at-home test is correct, Wilde said. With thousands of tests already being processed, there's no need to add another to the mix by getting another one done at a local hospital.

And don't go to the emergency room to get tested for COVID-19, he added  only for a medical emergency.

More: Sanford Health limits visitors amid high active COVID-19 cases

Basel said there is some hope to be taken from the pattern omicron has shown in other areas  hitting extremely hard but fading away soon afterward.

But for the moment, both men agreed that now was the time to act.

"We need you to get vaccinated," Wilde said. "We need you to get boosted.

Local hospitals brace for spike

Avera expects a potential surge of more than 300 COVID -19 inpatients at its hospitals in the weeks to come, according to a news release. To put that in perspective, the health system went from about 120 COVID-19 hospitalizations a few weeks ago to nearly 200 this week.

Fortunately, we are not seeing the rate of COVID inpatient hospitalizations that we wouldve seen last fall with the current number of positive cases and without a vaccine, Kelli Fischer, Avera St. Lukes chief nursing officer, said in the release. But we continue to have increased capacity with routine care, heart attacks, strokes and emergencies."

Sanford Health Aberdeen Acute Care Clinic, 3015 Third Ave. S.E., suite 100, is also preparing. Weekend testing hours are expanding and are now 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through the end of February. To change will help meet increased demand, according to a news release.

People who have symptoms but test negative using a at-home test likely have another illness, such as a cold or influenza, per the release.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who are unvaccinated are:

10 times more likely to die of COVID-19,

10 times more likely to be hospitalized.

And five times more likely to get COVID-19.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Sanford, Avera officials urge COVID-19 vaccinations
South Dakota reported another 19 deaths with COVID-19 in data released by the state Department of Health on Friday morning.

The deaths were reported alongside another 2,183 confirmed or probable cases of the disease, with the state's active cases reaching an all-time high of 35,196.

The deaths were among 10 men and nine women. Three were aged 50-59, nine were aged 60-69, four were aged 70-79 and three were aged 80 years or older. The state's death toll now sits at 2,601.

Hospitalizations fell slightly to 397, with data showing 30.5% of the state's hospital beds are available along with 34.7% of the state's adult ICU beds.

More: Sioux Falls healthcare officials urge vaccination, say pandemic is at 'whole new level'

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 78.6% of the state's vaccine-eligible population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with 62.8% of the state's vaccine-eligible population fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

CDC data also shows that 37.6% of the state's fully-vaccinated population has received a booster dose of the vaccine, which local healthcare officials urged at a press conference Thursday.

More: Stop visiting the ER for COVID tests, Sanford Health and Avera ask as hospitalizations increase

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota's active COVID cases continue to rise, 19 deaths reported
St. Clair County's board of commissioners and other officials met on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, at the Blue Water Convention Center in Port Huron.

Local officials are taking steps to discipline St. Clair Countys chief health officer over what they felt were communication issues in rolling out recent COVID-19 masking rules in schools.

On Thursday night, county commissioners agreed to enable County Administrator Karry Hepting to draft a censure letter against Dr. Annette Mercatante, who has the statutory authority to issue health mandates.

A draft censure measure would be up for approval at board members next meeting in February, and officials said a final copy will be included in Mercatantes employee file.

Its the latest action amid widespread pushback from residents over this months public health order requiring facial coverings in K-12 educational settings through Jan. 28. County board members allege the mandate was unveiled in late December in a manner that defied an earlier promise for more transparency after a previous orders controversy in 2021.

Weve gotten very little to no negative comments about the doctors running the (St. Clair County Health) Department until we got into the health orders. This has caused 99% of issues with that department, said Commissioner Dave Vandenbossche, who serves on the committee formed two weeks ago to review Mercatantes position with fellow board members Lisa Beedon and Dave Rushing.

Despite some residents call to oust Mercatante, officials reiterated that they cant legally reverse her order, nor fire her outright. Censure was, instead, one of four options presented Thursday by that committee to address concerns over the health department officials authority.

Im a true believer in progressive discipline, and we havent disciplined her, Vandenbossche said. As a good manager, youve got to build a case against them to actually let someone go.  Its definitely an employees market, and its going to be tough to let someone go over one issue. In that case, I would like to see us censure, to actually start the discipline process with her. Then, move forward.

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Dr. Annette Mercatante, St. Clair County's medical health officer.

The decision to pursue a censure was unanimous among present commissioners. County Board Chairman Jeff Bohm was absent.

Rushing said the other three options were maintaining the status quo, splitting Mercatantes combined position as both St. Clair Countys medical and public health officer, or waiting to address the job when her contract is up this June.

The fourth disciplinary choice, he said, arose in discussion from Beedon, the boards only Democrat.

I view the issue as a communication issue, so that to me is an employee-employer problem, Beedon said.

Answering other questions

Rather than on the intricacies of the mask order, commissioners discussion on Thursday focused more on the process to issue health orders, whether theyre consulted beforehand, and addressing questions about what would happen if Mercatantes job was suddenly open.

Beedon said there is an existing internal succession plan in the event Mercatante exits her position or if it suddenly became vacant. But officials said they could also contract with a neighboring countys health officer to temporarily cover it.

Commissioner Greg McConnell said he had hoped officials would recruit a couple of board members with some from the countys health advisory board or county administration to act as a sounding board before anything was done about Mercatantes position.

And he added, I think we need to start preparing ourselves to post this position. I think its going to be a hard (job) to fill.

Earlier this month, Hepting told board members that whether they ultimately opt to separate Mercatantes positions or oust her, the jobs would have to be posted with enough time to submit a future candidate and their credentials to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for approval.

Some St. Clair County residents have spoken out against this month's K-12 COVID-19 mask order, including at a board meeting on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, when the pictured sign was posted by the public comment podium.

When commissioners return for committee meetings on Feb. 3, Rushing said he wanted to request bidding out Mercatantes roles to be on the health and human services agenda so they can see what sort of response they get. However, no other formal consensus was reached.

Multiple residents asked commissioners why or how long Mercatante had two positions in the first place. Beedon said St. Clair was one of two counties in the state with that setup.

Just for a historical point of view, that was put into place (roughly 10) years ago before she took the position. So, the board at that time decided to combine the role, she said.  The county was facing budget issues, and so they were able to save money, taxpayer dollars, by combining the positions.

Multiple officials asked if they could legally outline a communication process for potential mandates before theyre issued, recalling the health departments quarantine order last year and the succeeding conversation about briefing commissioners.

Rushing said the sudden announcement of the masking order was not acceptable, and he called its occurrence under Mercatante insubordination  mirroring a common talking point made by some residents, including during Thursdays public comment period that lasted more than two hours.

Gary Fletcher, the countys attorney, told commissioners that a promise was made you would be informed and would be provided information that supported a mandate, adding, Youve got a big problem if that isnt happening.

Although they couldnt diminish her power or invalidate an order, they could, indeed, set up a process, he said. Such a process to communicate orders, he said, would apply to the countys non-elected health officer and emergency manager positions.

Mercatante was not present Thursday  the result of a consensus of preference among board members, according to Beedon, rather than the more controversial absence alleged by public commenters.

She would get talked over and she would incite you guys," Vandenbossche said. " I dont know why one person should have to take that.

The board next meets at 6 p.m. on Feb. 3 at the Blue Water Convention Center, 800 Harker St. Agendas are made available at http://publicagenda.stclaircounty.org.

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: County board moves to discipline Mercatante over communication of COVID order
ST. PETERSBURG, FL  A Tampa court sentenced a St. Petersburg man to three years and six months in federal prison Tuesday for fraudulently obtaining money through various COVID-19 relief programs, a Hillsborough County State Attorney's news release said.

Louis Thornton III, 63, pleaded guilty Sept. 13 to receiving $814,632 through the wire fraud scheme.

According to court documents from April through July 2020, Thornton submitted fraudulent applications for EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan) and PPP (Paycheck Protection Programs) loans through the SBA's online EIDL portal on behalf of several defunct companies. Thorntons applications fraudulently claimed, among other material misrepresentations, that these companies were operational and had suffered economic injury due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Thornton used the money obtained through the SBAs EIDL and PPP programs to invest in stocks, futures, and commodities, documents show.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justices National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

This article originally appeared on the St. Pete Patch
Stanley Tucci. Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images

Stanley Tucci stars as Frank Wild on AMC+'s new miniseries "La Fortuna," which premiered Thursday.

Tucci told Insider that he's a proponent of cutting lines in favor of body language.

He said he went through the script with director Alejandro Amenabar, cutting lines that "rang false."

Stanley Tucci said that as an actor, he's frequently in favor of cutting his character's lines, communicating instead through body language.

The actor is currently starring as deep-sea treasure hunter Frank Wild in director Alejandro Amenabar's six-episode miniseries "La Fortuna." The AMC+ show is a drama about a legal battle between Tucci's Wild and the Spanish government over ownership of the biggest sunken treasure ever.

"La Fortuna" is an adaptation of the Spanish graphic novel "El tesoro del Cisne Negro" ("The Treasure of the Black Swan"), itself loosely based on the real story of a Spanish ship that was sunk in 1804 and later recovered by a Florida-based exploration company.

Tucci told Insider that "La Fortuna" was "really well-written," leaving him little more to do other than "access" what was on the page. His character, Wild, starts the series with overflowing charisma and confidence. By the end, he's turned to desperation in a bid to keep the treasure he found, destroying his relationships in the process.

In approaching Wild, Tucci said that he wanted to make his performances as "truthful" as possible.

Stanley Tucci plays Frank Wild in the AMC+ miniseries "La Fortuna." Teresa Isasi/AMC

"I often am a big believer in cutting a lot of my lines because a lot of writers will overwrite," Tucci said. "Because maybe they haven't spoken it aloud, but they forget a lot of times that the way an actor walks into a room or the way they get a look or something  we don't need words for that."

Tucci told Insider that while it didn't happen frequently on "La Fortuna," he would go through the show's script with Amenabar, cutting or changing lines if something "rang false" or didn't feel right.

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In one sequence in the series' fourth episode, Wild goes verbally head-to-head with Clark Peter's Jonas Pierce, a maritime lawyer with whom Wild shares a fraught personal history.

"I think we whittled it down a bit because it just felt too much. A lot of times the emotion is sufficient," Tucci said.

"People are so angry a lot of times they can't speak articulately," Tucci said. "Here's a guy who really is very articulate, but at that moment he really isn't."

The first two episodes of "La Fortuna" are currently streaming on AMC+, with new episodes releasing weekly on Thursdays.

Read the original article on Insider
ORANGE COUNTY, CA  Starbucks will no longer require COVID-19 vaccinations of its 228,000 workers at 9,000 U.S. coffee shops, including those in Orange County.

Starbucks is one of the first big companies to change vaccination policies after the U.S. Supreme Court quashed a vaccine mandate that would have affected about 84 million workers, or about half of the U.S. labor force. Had the mandate been allowed to stand, workers would have had to either get fully vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

The courts 6-3 ruling on Jan. 13 came as the omicron coronavirus variant was driving a surge in COVID-19 infections. Nothing in the Supreme Court ruling, which allows the Biden administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most U.S. health care workers, requires companies with 100 or more employees to ease vaccination requirements.

The new Starbucks vaccination policy, first reported by The Associated Press, was announced in a memo to employees Tuesday.

Amtrak temporarily suspended its vaccine mandate in December, before the Supreme Court ruling. In a memo to employees seen by Reuters, Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn said nearly 96 percent of its employees were either fully vaccinated or had received an accommodation for religious or medical reasons.

More big businesses operating in Orange County could follow suit as the coronavirus surge worsens the countrys labor shortage. A record 8.8 million people called out sick with COVID-19 between Dec. 29 and Jan. 10, according to The Washington Post.

Retail establishments and their advocates have been vocal critics of the now-blocked requirement, arguing theyre already struggling to find enough workers as the coronavirus pandemic persists. Millions of Americans have quit their jobs since the pandemic began in whats being called The Great Resignation.

Brett Coburn, a lawyer at Atlanta-based Alston & Bird, told The New York Times a lot of companies were pursuing the vaccine or test requirement only because they were being required to do so.

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The AP reported Boston-based General Electric Co. got rid of its vaccine mandate last week after the court ruled, according to IEU-CWA Local 201, the union representing machinists, electricians and other GE employees. Overall, GE has 56,000 U.S. workers.

Not all big businesses plan to follow the lead of Starbucks and GE, though. New York-based Citigroup Inc., one of the largest banks in the U.S., in October said its workers needed to be fully vaccinated or receive an accommodation by Jan. 14. Citigroup told the AP that 99 percent of its employees are now fully vaccinated.

Its up to employers to navigate state and local laws in the absence of a federal mandate. More than a dozen states prohibit COVID-19 vaccine mandates of any kind, CNBC reported.

For most employers, it has proved to be a day-to-day crisis because when they think they know the answer, the rules change, Domenique Camacho Moran, a labor and employment lawyer with the firm Farrell Fritz, told The New York Times.

This article originally appeared on the Orange County Patch
Jan. 21New Mexico State Police has arrested a Santa Cruz man who was wanted on federal charges.

Officials said Daniel Archuleta, 44, was arrested Sunday night in Chimayo after barricading himself inside a home, according to a state police news release.

According to the news release, officers were able to move two of the residence's occupants to safety. Crisis negotiators were called in during a five-hour standoff between Archuleta and police.

Archuleta eventually surrendered and was taken into custody, according to the news release. He was booked into Santa Fe County jail on a federal arrest warrant.

Jim Glisson, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshal Service, said Archuleta was part of a "criminal conspiracy" involving a "prison security threat group" but clarified he was not wanted for federal homicide charges.

Court records show Archuleta was part of the Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico prison gang, which planned a hit on former New Mexico Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel in 2015.

In 2018, Archuleta pleaded guilty to racketeering for his involvement in the gang.

Archuleta was wanted for federal and state probation violations, Glisson said.
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Visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday commended Iran-Russia relations and expressed readiness to boost their ties as the West continues with its policy of expansion.

"Strengthening Iranian-Russian relations in bilateral and multilateral formats will lead to economic development of the two countries, as well as peace and security in the region," Raisi said in an address to a plenary session of the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.

He said that Western countries will continue to pursue a policy of expansion and weaken "independent countries" via economic sanctions and destabilization of their internal situation.

"The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is engaged in penetration into the geographical spaces of different countries under various pretexts and covers," Raisi told the Russian lawmakers.

Iran is ready to develop relations with Russia on a solid basis to jointly safeguard their interests and prevent the interference of a third force in the affairs of the two countries, Raisi said.

The two countries, according to Raisi, have reached fundamental agreements, which will bring about a leap in bilateral trade.
Shari Diaz

LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Fifty-three-year-old Shari Diaz was last known to be in Tippecanoe County, Indiana State Police said, adding she's been missing since Jan. 6.

Diaz is white, about 5-feet, 5-inches tall with blonde hair and blue eyes, according to state police. She weighs about 200 pounds.

Anyone with information about where Diaz is should call Indiana State Police Lafayette Post at 765-567-2125.

Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Police searching for woman last known to be in Tippecanoe County
I attended the Staunton City Council work session and regular meeting on Jan. 13. What I saw and heard was a dysfunctional city council. A sudden closed meeting was called at the start of the work session without notifying three members of city council of this intent ahead of time. Was this done deliberately?

Two days before on Jan. 11, a special city council meeting was scheduled to inform citizens of Staunton about the Augusta County courts and a proposal to move them to Verona. Mayor Oakes and two members of city council boycotted the meeting, and as consequence, the meeting had to be dismissed due to a lack of quorum. This was a slap in the face to all who attended the meeting, in person and remotely. Why did these three council members choose to behave so disrespectfully?

We welcome letters to the editor from all readers. Please write to letters@newsleader.com. We need your real name and phone number and address (we call and also confirm you are the writer). Please write us! You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts ... so make sure any facts you cite are accurate or we won't run the submission.

I blame the mayor, the official in the leadership position, for continuing to fuel the animosity festering among council members. The behavior is arrogant, irresponsible and petulant, and we deserve better. I no longer have hope that this city council can get their act together.

The mayor should resign.

PAUL KAZAROV

Staunton

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Staunton citizen holds mayor responsible for animosity in city council
The Virginia State Senate should vote against confirming the new governors nomination of Andrew Wheeler as secretary of natural and historic resources. As EPA head under President Trump, Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, rolled back environmental protections and tried to weaken standards on pollution from vehicle exhaust and power plants and in drinking water.

Virginia's secretary of natural and historic resources must protect our atmosphere, lands, and waters from pollution, impairment or destruction, for the benefit of the people of the Commonwealth. Given his record, Andrew Wheeler appears to be incapable of meeting this obligation.

The Commonwealth has made rapid progress in the last few years on solar power and clean-energy jobs.

For years, Virginia wasn't even in the top 20 states for clean energy. But in 2021, we ranked No. 5 nationwide for new solar installations. It would be a shame to put that progress at risk and even risk moving backward on protecting clean air and water, especially important in the Valley.

Join me in contacting Sen. Emmett Hanger to vote no on Andrew Wheeler for secretary of natural and historic resources.

ERIK CURREN

Staunton

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Staunton citizen says Andrew Wheeler is a risk to clean air, water
Saturday, Feb. 5 there will be a steer tattoo and weigh-in date at the Fairview Sale Barn with arrival times, 8 to 10 a.m. No pre-registration is required.

FULTON COUNTYThose who want their steers to be eligible for the Fulton County RateofGain Contest, the Illinois State Fair Junior Show, or the Illinois State Fair Premiere Contest, must bring their steer(s) to be weighed and tattooed at the date scheduled by University of Illinois Extension in Fulton County.

More: A sport of a different kind. Here are the details!

Saturday, Feb. 5 there will be a steer tattoo and weigh-in date at the Fairview Sale Barn with arrival times, 8 to 10 a.m.

No pre-registration is required.

In the event of extremely severe weather, call 231-8367 that morning, to see if the weigh-in has been postponed. Any cancellation notice would also be given over 1560 AM or 94.1 FM BYS, and on the Fulton County 4-H Facebook group page.

More: How did local 4-H members do at the State Fair? Find out here!

Electronic ear tags will also be applied. Steers must be castrated prior to tattooing. If possible, exhibitors should be present during tattooing.

More: Fulton County 4-Hers exhibit projects at Illinois State Fair

If you are only weighing in the steer(s) for County Rate-of-Gain purposes (or only for Avon Fat Steer Show), you dont have to get the tag, but without the tag, your animal will NOT be eligible to go to State Fair Junior Show  and you CANNOT get the tag later.

Each person may nominate up to 10 steers for the State Fair Open and Junior Premiere Classes. Junior Premiere Steers are eligible for the Open Premiere Class, if they are properly entered at the time that State Fair Open entries are made. To qualify, carcasses must grade at least low select, have a yield grade lower than 4.0, and have a carcass weight of 950 pounds or less. To qualify for State Fair, calves must have been born on or after Jan. 1, 2021. They must be owned and personally cared for by the exhibitor since Feb. 1, 2022.

For more information, call the Extension Office 547-3711.

This article originally appeared on Canton Daily Ledger: Feb. 5 steer tattoo and weigh-in date Fairview Sale Barn 8 to 10 a.m.
The Dance Theatre of Harlem is set to premiere resident choreographer Robert Garland's "Higher Ground," inspired by Stevie Wonder.

Just before the pandemic spurred a nearly two-year shutdown for Michigan Opera Theatre, the Dance Theatre of Harlem was the last to stage a performance at the Detroit Opera House.

So its fitting that MOTs return will feature that same illustrious New York troupe  including a performance celebrating a Detroit icon.

Dance Theatre of Harlem will perform a program this weekend that includes Claudia Schreiers Passage, a 2019 work commissioned to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in North America.

And theres the real goodie for Detroit audiences: Higher Ground, a contemporary ballet set to an array of Stevie Wonder songs from the 1970s.

The Detroit Opera House performances mark the world premiere of the Wonder-inspired work, crafted by Dance Theatre of Harlem resident choreographer Robert Garland as a piece of social-justice art. Higher Ground was initially set to debut in New York in spring 2020, but was derailed by the onset of the pandemic.

Dance Theatre of Harlem will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. (Note: Newly established protocols at the Detroit Opera House require either proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test within 72 hours of the event. Face coverings are also required inside the venue.)

Garland and three of the companys dancers visited Detroit in mid-December for a tour of the Motown Museum, the Hitsville, U.S.A., headquarters where Wonder cut his musical teeth.

Dance Theatre of Harlem's Robert Garland and Anna Glass and the Motown Museum's Robin Terry (all center) are joined by dancers as they pose for a photo inside Motown's Studio A in Detroit on Dec. 14, 2021.

In a subsequent video conversation with Motown Museum chief Robin Terry, the choreographer called Wonder the consummate spiritualist, the conscience of Black America and an artist whose socially charged music still deeply resonates.

Garlands new work includes at least five Wonder songs  Look Around, You Havent Done Nothin, Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away, Saturn and the titular Higher Ground  plucked from the era when the Motown star was blossoming as a powerful artistic voice. They also reflect a time when Wonder and other Black Americans were reckoning with a new reality, Garland said.

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I chose that music because it spoke to a time, post-civil rights, when people were beginning to understand that things were not going to be as great as wed hoped theyd be, he said.

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Higher Ground had been percolating in Garlands mind for years: He conceived the idea in 2008 when presidential contender Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination to the sounds of Wonders Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

This weekends MOT program isnt the only Wonder-related event hitting Detroit in coming weeks: The much-loved Michigan native will also be celebrated Feb. 26 at the Carr Center with To Stevie, With Love. Drummer and Carr Center artistic director Terri Lyne Carrington and a top-end ensemble will put a 1950s jazz spin on a selection of Wonder songs.

The Dance Theatre of Harlem

'Passage' and 'Higher Ground'

7:30 p.m. Sat., 2:30 p.m. Sun.

Detroit Opera House, 1526 Broadway, Detroit

$29-$129

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Stevie Wonder to be celebrated by Dance Theatre of Harlem in Detroit
Students enrolled in Occupational Therapy at Keiser University.

Students should have the freedom to choose the education best suited to their needs. Attending an institution which allows them to manage their responsibilities and priorities has proven essential in completing their education and to their future job success.

For decades, Florida has kept its best and brightest students in Florida thanks to the EASE Grant, an access grant provided to Florida resident students who choose to attend one of the 30 private, not-for-profit Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida (ICUF).

For Florida, talent remains the currency for workforce development and a prosperous economy. As our state keeps growing and continues grappling with the impact of COVID, ensuring Florida students are prepared to fill critical jobs is the key to recovery and continued economic development.

Keiser University and the other ICUF schools have a proven track record of success and have been vital to Floridas economic growth for approximately 100 years. In service to Florida and the companies that call it home, these schools are leaders in providing the critical workforce talent vital to our economy.

This commitment was never more evident than during the COVID pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, Keiser University students and alumni, along with other ICUF schools, have been actively involved in the battle against COVID.

Since the start of the pandemic, Keiser University students and graduates in most major Florida communities joined those from Saint Leo University, Barry University, the University of Miami, and others on the front lines of recovery to address the needs of Floridians by providing testing, vaccinations, counseling, telemedicine, and other critical services.

Meeting employers' needs

A recent report by the Florida Hospital Association and the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida projects our state will face a shortfall of approximately 60,000 nurses by 2035.

ICUF schools are working diligently with state leaders and hospital systems throughout Florida to address this shortfall. Seventeen ICUF schools, many with multiple campuses, offer nursing degrees and are responsible for producing half of the states graduate level nurses.

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Keiser University Tallahassee nursing students.

Keiser University was the No. 1 producer of nurses in Florida who passed the NCLEX in 2020, and, along with several other independent universities, is filling critical employment needs for hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the state.

ICUF schools are also well known for their innovation and use of technology that is driving Floridas economy forward. ICUF schools produce some of the states best talent in aerospace and engineering, informational technology, research and development, and STEM advancements. As the needs of Floridas employers grow, ICUF graduates continue to step up to meet these challenges.

More than 50% of ICUF undergraduates are from minority populations and many come from economically challenged backgrounds. Many work fulltime while pursuing their college degrees. Keiser University was recently recognized for this long-standing commitment to helping students attain careers when it was named No. 1 in Social Mobility in Florida and Number 5 in the nation, by U.S. News and World Report.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce has referenced the importance of a highly skilled labor force as one of the factors that will continue to drive the states economic future. Considering that ICUF schools award 20% of all bachelors degrees in Florida, the EASE grant remains crucial to the development of our states economic success.

ICUF schools, and our graduates, have proven their steadfast commitment to Florida. These students stay in Florida and become contributing members of their communities and our growing economy.

Please, continue to support ICUF students by supporting the EASE Grant, and encourage your legislators to continue funding this essential program.

Belinda Keiser is vice chancellor of Keiser University

Belinda Keiser is vice chancellor of Keiser University and board member of Enterprise Florida.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Send letters to the editor (up to 200 words) or Your Turn columns (about 500 words) to letters@tallahassee.com. Please include your address for verification purposes only, and if you send a Your Turn, also include a photo and 1-2 line bio of yourself. You can also submit anonymous Zing!s at Tallahassee.com/Zing. Submissions are published on a space-available basis. All submissions may be edited for content, clarity and length, and may also be published by any part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Support for Floridas private college students contributes to states economic success | Opinion
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish audiobook streaming group Storytel has proposed Hans-Holger Albrecht as new chairman after Stefan Blom decided to step down, it said late on Thursday.

Albrecht, 58, has held several top positions in the media industry, including in music streaming service Deezer, telecoms operator Millicom and e-sports and gaming firm MTG.

Storytel, which has 1.8 million subscribers in over 25 markets with around 700,000 titles globally, said in November it had agreed to buy Audiobooks.com, marking its entry into the U.S. market.

"Hans-Holger Albrecht has a strong track record inthe media industry as well as proven experience from international expansion," Lars Bergkvist, chairman of the Nomination Committee, said in a statement.

Blom said that with the acquisition of Audiobooks.com a "new chapter" had begun for Storytel, in which private equity firm EQT owns a 9.7% stake.

"After considering my overall portfolio, I have decided tostep down from this role to leave more room for my other engagements," he said.

(Reporting by Helena Soderpalm; Editing by Simon Johnson)
Talgo Inc. quality control employee Mary Slottke walks past coach train cars in the process of being built at Talgo Inc. in 2011. Talgo was retained to build trains for Amtrak's Hiawatha line after a $810 million federal stimulus grant to establish a Madison-to-Milwaukee line.

The train cars were supposed to run on a rail stretching from Milwaukee to Madison, but now they're heading to Nigeria.

Lagos Gov. Babajide Sanwo Olu toured the Talgo facility in Milwaukee with Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson earlier this week.

A train is not something you can just go on the shelf and pick up. We are very lucky to get brand new trains," Sanwo Olu said.

Talgo, a Spanish train-maker with a US headquarters in Seattle, built the two 10-car high speed trains that have been sitting idle for years in Milwaukee. The trains plan to be shipped to Lagos within the next two months.

Johnson welcomed Sanwo Olu to Milwaukee, but he would have preferred to have found a use for the trains in Wisconsin.

"It is a little bittersweet," Johnson said in a statement. "I am sending my congratulations to the Governor of Lagos State in Nigeria, but also a little disappointed that we missed out on the opportunity to have those train sets operating here in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin."

Sanwo Olu said the trains will provide a "source of livelihood for our citizens" by helping move people to jobs and around the state.

"It is about ensuring that we can build our economy; people can move from one location to another and businesses can grow," Sanwo Olu said in a statement.

With a population of roughly 27 million people, Lagos is one of the largest cities in Africa.

According to the release, there are about 6 million individuals in Lagos with daily transportation needs.

The Talgo trains will run on the Lagos Metro Red Line which is about 23 miles long with 11 stations. The red line is expected to be operational by the end of 2022 with roughly 500,000 daily passengers.

"For us, it is important that our trains are utilized," Antonio Perez, Talgo USA CEO and president, said. "It doesnt make any good for the trains that we built to be stored and kept without passengers riding them."

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In 2009, Wisconsin received $810 million in federal stimulus grant to establish a Milwaukee-to-Madison high speed rail line using Talgo trains under Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. The project was killed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker defeated Doyle in 2010.

Talgo sued the state and in 2015, the state settled for $60 million.

In 2014, the Michigan Department of Transportation issued a request for proposals for ready-to-operate trains that can reach speeds of 110 mph. It was thought the trains in Milwaukee could go to Michigan but no deal was ever finalized.

Later in 2014, two high-speed Talgo trains were sent to Beech Grove, Ind. but those trains were not part of the 2009 deal.

This story misspelled the name of Lagos Gov. Babajide Sanwo Olu. It has been corrected.

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: Talgo trains sat idle in a Milwaukee facility now heading to Nigeria
Mekong Delta localities promote investment, trade with US

A seminar was held in An Giang province on January 20 to promote trade and investment between the US and the Mekong Delta localities.

A seminar is held in An Giang province on January 20 to promote trade and investment between the US and the Mekong Delta localities. (Photo: VNA)

The event was hosted by the Peoples Committee of An Giang, US Consulate General in HCM Citys Trade Office, and the Ministry of Planning and Investments Investment Promotion Centre for the south.



It aims to introduce business and investment opportunities in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang and some other regional localities to potential US partners and to effectively boost trade and investment between the two countries.



In his remarks, Vice Chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee Tran Anh Thu said An Giang is part of the regional key economic zone which has seen strong growth in fishery exports and maintained a leading position nationwide in production of rice and tra fish as well as the maritime economy.



The zone is witnessing strong capital flows into infrastructure development, logistics services and others. However, foreign investment into these sectors still lags behind those in the nearby region, Thu said, noting that although agricultural and fishery products from the Mekong Delta have found their way into the US market, trade between the US and the Vietnamese region remains limited.



Given that the governments of Vietnam and the US have agreed to boost bilateral trade and investment, it is important for regional enterprises to have clear understanding of the USs regulations.



During the event, the US Trade Office briefed the regional businesses on investment programme SelectUSA, and SelectUSA Investment Summit to be held in National Harbour, the state of Maryland in June 2022./.
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Slovenian politicians on Wednesday criticized Prime Minister Janez Jansa for his remarks on Taiwan, saying Jansa's words are "not in line with (Slovenia's) foreign policy."



Referring to Jansa's statements, former Prime Minister Miro Cerar told Xinhua in an earlier interview that "it is disturbing that the government is not seeking a wider political and social consensus on it."

He pointed out that Slovenia has not renounced its support to the one-China policy, adding that the parliament should clarify its position on this issue.

Nik Prebil, a parliamentary member of the center-left party Lista Marjana Sarca, said in a statement that the party was appalled by the inappropriate statements and actions of Jansa.

"These actions are destroying good relations, good diplomatic ties that we have with China," Prebil said, noting that they could bring severe consequences to Slovenia.

Matjaz Nemec, vice president of Slovenian political party the Social Democrats and member of the Committee on Foreign Policy of the National Assembly of Slovenia, said the prime minister's conduct "is not in line with (Slovenia's) foreign policy."

The party has also demanded a session of the parliamentary committee on the prime minister's statements.

Minister of Economic Development and Technology Zdravko Pocivalsek posted on his Facebook that China is one of Slovenia's largest economic partners outside the European Union, with economic cooperation between the two sides deepening.
Emotional family members on the scene after the discovery of the three bodies ( 2022 Houston Chronicle)

A teenage boy murdered his sister and her friend before turning the gun on himself in a tragic double murder-suicide in Crosby, Texas, according to authorities.

The Harris County Sheriffs Office said that Haley Burns and Kadience Cadena, both 17, were shot and killed by Haleys younger brother Hayden Burns, 15, inside a home along the 4500 block of Wolcek Road.

After killing the two girls, Hayden then turned the gun on himself, the sheriffs office said.

The cause of death for Haley and Kadience was ruled as murder while Haydens cause of death was suicide.

No motive has yet been given for the attack.

Deputies were called to the home in the rural community northeast of Houston on Tuesday afternoon after a relative discovered the bodies of the three teenagers.

The family member lived next door and was looking for someone at the home when they came across the tragic scene.

Investigators said that Haleys body had been found in the hallway while Kadience and Hayden were found in bedrooms.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said at a press conference on Tuesday that a preliminary investigation pointed to a murder-suicide.

He said that signs of trauma were found on the bodies and that a firearm believed to have been used in all three deaths was recovered from the scene.

At this initial stage of the incident just based on the trauma, it appears that this may be a case of a possible double homicide and suicide. This is still going to be under investigation, he said.

The homeowner was said to be out of town on a trip at the time, he added.

We were told that the homeowner is possibly away on travel so were still trying to figure all that out, he said.

The identities of the three teenagers and details on who investigators believed to have carried out the attack was not available at that time.

The sheriffs office then released the identities of the young people on Thursday.

The killings have shocked the local community with school district Crosby ISD releasing a statement on Thursday.

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Our hearts continue to go out to the families impacted by the tragedy in the Crosby community this week, the statement said.

Although the teenagers were not current students, we are thinking of and praying for those who knew them in our community.

District counselors have been made available at all campuses this week to speak with students and staff in need of extra support.

Neighbours also revealed their shock at the news.

Its really surprising to see something like this happen out here to one of us. Out here its a close community for the most part. We all watch out for each other, David Givans, a local who lives close by, told KHOU 11.

If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
An explosion at a Canal Fulton apartment complex caused extensive damage to the three-unit building on Feb. 25, 2021.

CANAL FULTON  A triplex tenant admitted causing an explosion that destroyed the building last winter while manufacturing drugs.

Jacob Goliath, 26, now of Clinton, pleaded guilty Friday to three counts of aggravated arson and one count of attempted illegal manufacturing of drugs, said Christian Turner from the Stark County Prosecutor's Office.

Two remaining drugs charges were dismissed.

Stark County Common Pleas Judge Kristin Farmer imposed a prison term of four to six years.

More: Search warrant helps explain Canal Fulton apartment explosion

Court records show Goliath was manufacturing hashish, a marijuana concentrate, when an explosion occurred on Feb. 25 inside his home at 655 Colony Road.

Goliath, alongside defense attorneys Jacob Will and Noah Munyer, changed his plea during Friday's hearing.

"He's a military veteran who took responsibility for his actions," Will told The Canton Repository following the hearing.

Goliath has post-traumatic distress disorder, according to Munyer, and "is looking forward to taking part in programming to further his rehabilitation." Munyer thanked Farmer and prosecutor's office for their work toward resolving the case.

The triplex sustained severe damage. No occupants were home at the time of the explosion.

Reach Cassandra cnist@gannett.com; On Twitter @Cassienist

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Jacob Goliath sentenced to a minimum of four years in prison for arson
A Texas rabbi who was held at gunpoint for 11 hours by a man who was ultimately killed by law enforcement last week said he will continue to welcome strangers into the synagogue because he doesn't want to "live in fear every step of the way."

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, 46, was held hostage along with others at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville on Jan. 15 by a man identified by law enforcement as Malik Faisal Akram. Everyone was able to escape to safety without any injuries before law enforcement confronted Akram and fatally shot him.

Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen, had knocked on the door of the synagogue and said he was cold, so Cytron-Walker took him inside and made him tea. He then pulled out a gun and held Cytron-Walker and some of his congregants hostage for hours in a harrowing ordeal.

The rabbi spoke to NPR about whether he would beef up security at the synagogue going forward after the incident.

"I dont know, but I will tell you that we will do what we always do, which is the best we can," he said. "Whether were in a synagogue or a church or a mosque, whether we are religious or not, we are imperfect human beings, trying to live the best we can because we cant know the future. We cant know whats coming. And we also cant live in fear every step of the way."

Cytron-Walker said he threw a chair at Akram and was able to flee behind two others without anyone being hurt, which had fellow Jewish leaders lauding Cytron-Walker as a hero for his actions.

He also expressed empathy for Akram's loved ones despite Akram's actions. Akram had taken the hostages to demand the freedom of a federal prisoner who had been convicted of attempted murder in a 2010 terrorism-related case, according to NBC News.

"I would say to his family, I am so sorry," the rabbi told NPR. "Im so sorry that you had to endure this tragedy. Its horrible for all of us."

Even after enduring a life-or-death ordeal, Cytron-Walker will not hesitate to welcome strangers to the synagogue in the future.

"And so when someone comes to the door, they are nervous," he said. "They are questioning. Theyre asking  am I going to be accepted?  whether theyre somebody whos Jewish whos coming in from another community or from our community or whether theyre not Jewish.

"And maybe theyre exploring Judaism for the first time, or they just want to see what a Jewish service is all about because theyre curious. And theyre asking, am I going to belong? And I want them to know that they are going to belong. We cant forget about who we are. Hospitality means the world."
From left, Josue Hernandez, Susan Sanchez and Crystal Mousseau.

The last of three people arrested in connection to the last homicide in Sioux Falls of 2020 has changed her plea and been sentenced.

Crystal Lorraine Mousseau, 29, of Sioux Falls had a change of plea hearing and sentencing Thursday at the Minnehaha County Courthouse.

She was initially charged with first-degree murder, robbery and attempted robbery, according to court documents.

More: Man sentenced for 2020 Sioux Falls homicide, apologies 'to God for the sin I've committed'

Her charges stemmed from the shooting death of Mitchell James Houchins, 30, of Sioux Falls, on Dec. 28, 2020, near West Pine Meadows Place and West Sandalwood Place.

On Thursday, Mousseau took a plea deal and pled guilty to being a habitual offender and had her other charges dropped.

Mousseau was sentenced to 30 years at the state penitentiary with 12 years suspended. She will also get credit for just over a year served in jail, according to court documents.

The other two people sentenced in connection to Houchins' death were Josue Emmanuel Hernandez, 22, of Sioux Falls, who pulled the trigger, and Susan Alice Sanchez, 30, of Sioux Falls, who drove Hernandez and Mousseau back from Colorado.

During the trio's court hearings it was revealed Hernandez and Mousseau were "hooking up" and that Mousseau planned for Hernandez to rob Houchins of his money. The robbery attempt ended in Hernandez killing Houchins.

Hernandez got 80 years in the state penitentiary with 30 years suspended and credit for nearly a year served, according to prior reporting by the Argus Leader.

Sanchez got 10 years in prison with 7 years suspended and credit for nearly a year served in jail for her accessory to felony charge, according to court documents.

Why were the trio charged?

Houchins was shot and left for dead in the middle of the street in western Sioux Falls.

The victim laid in the streets for 25 minutes before someone called police, according to prior reporting by the Argus Leader.

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"It's a sad way to die alone in the streets," said Minnehaha State's Attorney Daniel Hagar during Hernandez's sentencing.

The corner of Pine Meadows Place and Sandalwood Place the day after a homicide occurred on Thursday, December 31, 2020 in Sioux Falls.

According to court documents, Mousseau told police Hernandez was mad at Houchins for "taking $1,000 off one of his friends," and was planning to rob him of some money. Mousseau told detectives she didn't see Hernandez's gun, but knew he had one on him.

It was revealed during Hernandez's sentencing hearing that Mousseau contacted Houchins to meet up with the intention of robbing him with the help of Hernandez.

More: Woman sentenced for helping suspect evade police after homicide in 2020

Hernandez and Houchins were in a black vehicle near the scene where Houchins was found dead. Mousseau told detectives she saw Hernandez exit the vehicle and enter a silver Kia Forte she and the victim arrived in. Mousseau then saw Houchins exit the black vehicle and collapse in the street, according to court documents. Everybody fled the scene afterward.

Mousseau and Hernandez fled to Denver in the silver Kia Forte previously driven by Houchins.

Their car was towed in Henderson, Colorado. Afterward, the pair called Sanchez to pick them up, and they told her about the incident. Both Hernandez and Sanchez wanted to flee to Texas or California, but Mousseau demanded to return to Sioux Falls, court documents said.

The trio were arrested in separate incidents in January 2021. With Mousseau's sentencing all three people initially arrested for Houchins' death have been sentenced.

Got a story idea from your community? Email reporter Alfonzo Galvan at agalvan@argusleader.com or follow him on Twitter @GalvanReports.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Crystal Mousseau sentenced to prison in connection to 2020 homicide
WEYMOUTH  The Red Cross is asking for blood donors to come out in droves, as a national blood shortage has reduced the supply in the country and on the South Shore.

Blood donations have been down since the pandemic started, and they have not recovered, Massachusetts Red Cross spokeswoman Kelly Isenor said.

The Red Cross supplies 40% of the country's needs. Normally, officials try to keep a five-day supply of blood in case of a catastrophic event. There would still be enough for other needs including surgeries, childbirth, car crashes, cancer patients and all the other uses.

"What we have on the shelf now, it's less than a one-day supply," Isenor said.

The Red Cross has been hit by the same staffing problem as other organizations, with people calling in sick, being forced to quarantine or taking time off to care for family members. That also applies to donors who don't show up to appointments, she said.

Isenor said bad weather and the omicron surge in COVID-19 cases created a "perfect storm" to drive down the amount of blood collected. Five blood drives were canceled because of last week's storm.

"If there's someone who's never given before and if they've ever wondered, is this the time? Well, this is the time," Isenor said.

Interested in donating?: Find a blood drive near you

Isenor said the demand for blood in Massachusetts has fallen in recent months, partially due to the temporary pause on elective surgeries, but the need is still high.

"Massachusetts is a place with a lot of world-class hospitals and there's a big demand around here," she said.

The Red Cross has limited the number of units of blood a hospital can order on any given day, she said.

Flying high: One man looks to the skies for a little joy

In an email, South Shore Health spokeswoman Susan Griffin said there has been no change to the system's blood supply. South Shore Health also works with the Rhode Island Blood Center to hold blood drives; six are planned this year.

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At the beginning of the pandemic, the problem wasn't a lack of donors but a lack of available appointments because some blood donation centers were closed. That has changed, Isenor said, because more spaces have become available and more locations are hosting donation drives.

High tech theft: How a scammer made off with $459,000 from an Abington pot shop

Janice Kafka, who coordinates blood drives for the Red Cross, said the pandemic has wreaked havoc on how they normally collect blood. Many colleges and high schools no longer allow blood drives on their campuses, and many businesses can't host blood drives because there aren't enough people working in the building to make it worthwhile.

"We used to run them at businesses that historically have 300, 500, 700 employees and we'd run them two to four times a year, and we had the donor base right there on-site," she said. "That segment sort of evaporated."

Kafka has moved blood drives to churches, temples, libraries and vacant storefronts. Larger spaces are needed because beds and waiting areas need to be spaced out.

Interested in hosting a blood drive?: Contact Red Cross to host a blood drive

Kafka said she is always looking for community groups and property managers willing to host blood drives. Anyone looking to host a blood drive can apply at redcrossblood.org.

The Red Cross runs a blood donation center at 208 Main St. in Weymouth and in Dedham at 180 Rustcraft Road. A community blood drive at the Quincy Sons of Italy on Monday, Jan. 31, still has open appointments.

The other four upcoming blood drives in the area, in Scituate, Plymouth, Brockton and Abington, are already full.

To make an appointment to give blood, go to redcrossblood.org.

Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Patriot Ledger subscription. Here's our latest offer.

Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Red Cross calls for South Shore blood donors; reserves hit record lows
By Simon Lewis

GENEVA (Reuters) -The top U.S. and Russian diplomats made no major breakthrough at talks on Ukraine on Friday but agreed to keep talking to try to resolve a crisis that has stoked fears of a military conflict.

After the talks in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of a "swift, severe" response if Russia invades Ukraine after massing troops near its border. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was still waiting for a written response to its demands for security guarantees.

But both said they were open to further dialogue, and Blinken saw grounds to hope that mutual security concerns could be addressed.

"Based on the conversations we've had - the extensive conversations - over the past week and today here in Geneva I think there are grounds for and a means to address some of the mutual concerns that we have about security," Blinken said.

He described the talks as "frank and substantive" and said Russia now faced a choice.

"It can choose the path of diplomacy that can lead to peace and security, or the path that will lead only to conflict, severe consequences and international condemnation," Blinken told reporters, adding that diplomacy would be preferable.

"We've been clear - if any Russian military forces move across Ukraine's border, that's a renewed invasion. It will be met with swift, severe and a united response from the United States and our partners and allies."

Lavrov said the ball was in Washington's court.

Describing the meeting as open and useful, he said Moscow would understand whether talks were on the right track once it had received a written response to its sweeping security demands from the United States.

Russia's demands include a halt to NATO's eastward expansion and a pledge that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the Western military alliance.

"I can't tell you if we're on the right track or the wrong track. We'll understand this when we receive the American response on paper to all the points in our proposal," Lavrov said.

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Tatiana Stanovaya, head of political analysis firm R.Politik, commented on Telegram: "This is partly a trap, of course, because any such written response will be used to discredit the U.S. negotiating position."

Blinken said he expected to share with Russia "our concerns and ideas in more detail and in writing next week" and said he and Lavrov had "agreed to further discussions after that".

Russia and the United States could hold another meeting next month to discuss Moscow's demands for security guarantees, Russia's RIA news agency quoted a source in the Russian delegation as saying.

'LET'S NOT GET AHEAD OF OURSELVES'

Lavrov said Russia had worries of its own, "not about invented threats, but real facts that no one hides - pumping Ukraine with weapons, sending hundreds of western military instructors".

Asked about the possibility of a summit between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, Lavrov was circumspect.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, President Putin is always ready for contacts with President Biden, it's clear these contacts need to be seriously prepared," he said.

Blinken said of another potential meeting between Biden and Putin: "If we conclude, and the Russians conclude, that the best way to resolve things is through a further conversation between them, we're certainly prepared do that."

The two presidents met in Geneva in June last year.

Washingtons hopes of building a united front of opposition to Moscow were complicated by Biden's comments at a news conference on Wednesday in which he suggested that allies might be divided on how to respond to a "minor incursion" by Russia into Ukraine.

Biden and his administration sought to row back on that on Thursday, with the president saying that "if any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border that is an invasion".

Before Friday's meeting, Blinken swung through Europe to try to shore up U.S. allies' commitments to hit Russia with economic sanctions if it goes ahead with an invasion of Ukraine.

In Kyiv on Wednesday, Blinken assured Ukraine of U.S. support. Blinken, before meeting German, French and British officials in Berlin on Thursday, said Putin could order an invasion imminently.

Blinken spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba over the phone on Friday and briefed him on his meetings with European and Russian officials, the State Department said in a statement, reaffirming Washington's support for Kyiv.

Blinkens deputy, Wendy Sherman, and Lavrovs deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, also met in Geneva last week, without a breakthrough.

(Reporting by Simon LewisAdditional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Alexander Ermochenko in Donetsk, Mark Trevelyan in London, Vladimir Soldatkin and Tom Balmforth in Moscow and Daphne Psaledakis in WashingtonWriting by Paul CarrelEditing by Michael Shields, Mary Milliken, Grant McCool, Timothy Heritage and Frances Kerry)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on three Lebanese nationals and 10 companies it said were part of an international Hezbollah network, accusing them of evading sanctions on the powerful group with an armed militia that is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by Washington.

The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said it designated Adnan Ayad, who it said was a Hezbollah member and businessman, as well as other members of an international network of facilitators and companies connected to him and his business partner, Adel Diab, who was designated by Washington on Tuesday.

Friday's move comes after the United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on three businessmen, including Diab, with ties to Hezbollah, saying their activity as financial facilitators for the Iran-backed group was exploiting Lebanon's economic resources at a time of crisis for that country.

"Treasury is committed to disrupting Hizballahs illicit activity and attempts to evade sanctions through business networks while the group doubles down on corrupt patronage networks in Lebanon," Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in the statement on Friday.

Lebanon's economy has been in crisis since 2019 when it collapsed under a mountain of debt. Its currency plunged to a new low last week, and swaths of the country have been driven into poverty.

Lebanon's Cabinet will hold its first meeting in three months next week, local media reported on Monday, after Hezbollah and another group, Amal, ended their boycott of the Cabinet over the weekend.

The two groups, which back several ministers, had been boycotting the Cabinet in a dispute over the conduct of an investigation into a huge explosion at Beirut's port in 2020.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Daphne Psaledakis; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - UK Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss voiced on Friday her full support for embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson, saying he was doing a fantastic job and there was no contest for the leadership.

Speaking at a media conference in Sydney, Truss was asked if she supported Johnson and whether she would run for leader of the Conservative Party if a contest was called.

"The Prime Minister has my 100% support," said Truss. "I want the Prime Minister to continue as long as possible in his job. He is doing a fantastic job. There is no leadership election."

Truss has been tipped as a possible replacement for Johnson who has been rocked by scandals over parties at No. 10 held during strict national lockdowns.

(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) addresses reporters during his visit to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, September 22, 2021.





U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday said a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a "disaster for the world," saying he stands behind Kyiv against aggression.

In a brief comment reported by Sky News, Johnson remarked on the escalating situation in Ukraine and said "any kind of incursion" from Russia would end in turmoil.

"It would be a disaster - not just for Ukraine but for Russia, a disaster for the world," he said. "The U.K. stands squarely behind the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine."

Johnson responded to a question about a potential Russian invasion during a visit to a diagnostics center in the English town of Taunton, the Evening Standard reported.

The prime minister's comments follow backlash over President Biden's remarks on Wednesday in which he suggested Russia could face lesser consequences for a "minor incursion" into Ukraine. Officials quickly sought to clean up the comments.

On Thursday, Biden clarified that the U.S. would respond to any type of invasion and Russia "will pay a heavy price."

The U.K. is a formal ally of the U.S. and is included in the NATO alliance, which has vowed to respond to an invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday, the U.S. cleared three NATO nations to send American-made weapons to Ukraine.
 Flash

The Seventh Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs was held in Dakar, Senegal, and Beijing, China, both online and in-person on November 29. The conference discussed ways to expand Sino-African investment cooperation for sustainable development, and post-COVID-19 economic recovery through industrialization and digitization. Convened in the middle of a gloomy health crisis, the gathering brought hope for a bright future of Sino-African economic and trade cooperation.

Held every three years, the event facilitates high-level conversations between Chinese and African corporate leaders. In 2003, the inaugural event took place in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. "The objective of this conference is to reflect together between Chinese and African partners on the appropriate solutions to enable Africa to achieve its objectives in a sustainable and mutually beneficial manner in a context of economic recovery," said Amadou Hott, Minister of Economy, Planning and International Cooperation of Senegal at the conference on November 29, 2021.

Investment cooperation

The conference took place at a critical juncture in African countries' efforts to sustainably reverse the trajectory of socioeconomic growth that had been suddenly interrupted by COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. According to Hott, the pandemic caused a 2.4 percent contraction in output in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2020, as well as a 1.1 percent recession on average in North Africa. Fortunately, the vaccine drive and resilience strategies designed to promote economic activity in African countries "have resulted in a return to growth in Africa as early as this year [2021], with expectations of consolidation in 2022." However, the epidemic has led to expanding fiscal deficits, rising public debt, and the dislocation of human capital.

It should be noted that there is a strong resilience of China-Africa cooperation to shocks; this was clearly visible during the health crisis. According to China's Ministry of Commerce, Chinese foreign direct investment on the continent amounted to $2.5 billion in the first nine months of 2021. According to the General Administration of Customs of China, from January to October, the total value of China-Africa trade reached $210 billion, up 27.4 percent year on year. This trend can be consolidated especially with the advent of the African Continental Free Trade Area, which offers a unique opportunity to promote intra-African trade while fitting in with Chinese initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative. According to Hott, given the demographic and economic evolution of the continent, which is positioned as a market of 2.5 billion consumers in 2050, Africa will be a land of opportunity for Chinese investors, especially in the private sector.

In reality, Africa today is a continent which has made industrialization and digital transition the key pillars of its growth strategy. It offers many advantages for private investment: a population of 1.3 billion people, young, innovative and quality human resources, large and diversified natural resources, and geographical crossroads of several global trade destinations. "Therefore, this pandemic has shown the need for our economies to produce more and become sovereign in strategic sectors such as pharmaceuticals, agribusiness as well as digitalization," Hott said.

Chinese enterprises play a significant role in this regard. According to Baidy Agne, Chairman of the Senegalese National Council of Patronage, the Sino- African partnership is based on Chinese companies' participation in increasing Africa's production capacity, localizing natural resource transformation, and connecting the African market with the rest of the world. African countries, for their part, are working to enhance the business climate and stabilize currency rates, among other things, in order to attract and promote foreign investment.

Sustainable development

China's investment and trade is based on win-win cooperation instead of being unilateral, which allows for sustainable development. China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd. (CRCC) was one of the first Chinese companies to enter Africa in the 1960s with the Tanzania-Zambia Railway. Through its infrastructure projects, such as the Abuja-Kaduna Railway in Nigeria, the company has shared design, standards, and technology with its African partners. Today, the value of its projects in Africa is about $70 billion, covering transportation, education and health care infrastructure. "This is a joint effort, which has contributed to the economic and social development of African countries while realizing the growth of our own company," said Zhuang Shangbiao, President of CRCC.

For Wen Gang , Vice President of China Communications Construction Co., Sino-Africa cooperation must enter a new era, characterized by projects of higher quality and standards, sustainable development and benefits for the local population. "What is needed now is an innovation in the cooperation model," Wen said. Localization and tripartite cooperation are important factors in the future strategy.

On September 26, 2021, the Alliance of Chinese Business in Africa for Corporate Social Responsibilities was officially established during the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo opening ceremony, as one of the measures of the eight initiatives of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. The alliance consists of associations, organizations, and state-owned enterprises. More than 1,700 Chinese enterprises in Africa have joined, covering infrastructure, forestry, textiles, electronics, telecommunications, agriculture, and overseas industrial parks, among others. The alliance has conducted surveys and provided training to enhance their social responsibility.

The goal is clear: to encourage investment and the sharing of knowledge and technology in order to turn Africa's high-quality natural resources into high value-added goods that benefit Africans and generate job opportunities for African youth. Agne stated that "this e-conference can play a major role in discovering new instruments to stimulate Chinese enterprises to come to Africa and create possibilities for them to collaborate with their African counterparts." Cooperation 2.0, as Wen noted, is already on track, with innovation, people's welfare, and long-term development as the driving forces.
University of Missouri faculty members will soon receive a petition in their inboxes objecting to cutting salaries of tenured faculty to potentially sign and a resolution on shared governance on which they can vote.

The MU Faculty Council voted on Thursday to share both with all faculty.

"Now it's just a matter of giving our colleagues even more of a voice in the mix," said faculty council member Chuck Munter.

The petition begins: "If you are a University of Missouri System faculty member and object to the new, secretive, system-wide policy that could reduce tenured faculty salaries by 25%, please read and sign the petition."

It calls for UM System President Mun Choi to rescind the section of the system's "Collected Rules and Regulations" that he added on May 4, 2020, related to "criteria-based salary reductions for tenured faculty."

From December 2021: Faculty salary cuts, workload policy front and center at University of Missouri faculty meeting

The petition argues the measure undermined faculty authority and shared governance, violated faculty rights, and ignored existing policy for post-tenure review.

Choi has defended the salary cuts at previous meetings, saying job performance was the reason why some faculty salaries were cut.

"Each faculty member must contribute to the university," Choi said at a December faculty meeting. "The salary reductions are only temporary, and there are opportunities to change the status moving forward."

The vote on disseminating the petition was taken after the faculty council defeated an amendment by Chairwoman Kathleen Trauth to replace the petition with a statement that a task force was looking at the issue.

Trauth said she was seeking to negotiate and was trying to take a strategic position, with no action until the task force presented its results.

"The authority to cut salaries exists in the CRR (Collected Rules and Regulations)," Trauth said. "The authority is there. It's been there a long time. It's not going away."

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Several members of the faculty council spoke against the amendment before voting it down.

The faculty council has been working on the issue for a long time and the amendment would sideline the work, said faculty council member Rabia Gregory.

From July 2021: MU Faculty Council approves resolution to request delay in salary cuts

"It's disrespectful, especially for the faculty who already have had their salaries cut," Gregory said.

The resolution on shared governance calls on Choi and Provost Latha Ramchand to commit to practicing shared governance as detailed in faculty bylaws.

It asks that proposed significant changes to policies, procedures and institutional priorities be published to websites accessible by the faculty in advance of their adoption and to schedule open forums that all faculty may attend.

It asks that all changes to the "Collected Rules and Regulations" be publicized.

"Press releases or mass emails announcing new university policies or initiatives as faits accomplis and unannounced or unpublicized changes to university policies and procedure discovered only after the fact fulfill the faculty's right to be kept informed possibly in letter but certainly not in spirit," a section of the resolution reads.

Faculty council member David Singh said he trusts his colleagues to make the correct decisions about the items.

"I feel very privileged to work at this university" with many valued friends and colleagues, he said. "I have great confidence in the faculty judgment and their ability to discern."

rmckinney@columbiatribune.com

573-815-1719

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: MU faculty to have their say on salary cuts, shared governance
After a series of suspensions over allegations of drugging and sexual assault, fraternities at the University of Southern California can start hosting parties again in March  if they hire security guards to keep people out of bedrooms.

The new, unprecedented policy was announced this week after protests and calls to reform or abolish Greek life on campus last fall prompted the Interfraternity Council to halt all fraternity house events. In October, USC's Sigma Nu chapter was suspended after six students said they were drugged at a party and one student said they were sexually assaulted. Three additional fraternities were placed on interim suspensions and another on a "modified suspension" while it underwent an investigation by the university's Office for Equity, Equal Opportunity and Title IX.

Last week, just before in-person classes were expected to resume and Greek organizations were expected to start recruiting new members, the university notified them what requirements they will have to meet in order to resume social events in the spring. A working group of fraternity members, student government, faculty, and safety officials drafted the new guidelines during the winter break, according to a statement from USC Provost Charles F. Zukoski.

"About 4,000 of our students participate in fraternity and sorority life at USC, and many say that this is a central part of their USC experience," Zukoski wrote in a letter to students. "Developing and strengthening this partnership will be critical to our long term success in meeting our goals."

Fraternities and sororities were already required to hire security guards at the doors of their parties, but the new guidelines will also require them to hire security "at stairs or hallways leading to bedrooms."

The security will have to be reviewed by the university.

All fraternity members will also be required to complete prevention workshops, and if any member doesn't participate, they won't be allowed to host parties at all.

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The four chapters that remain under suspension will still not be allowed to host parties or recruit until the investigation into the allegations is complete, Zukoski wrote in the letter.

In October 2021, USC President Carol Folt acknowledged that the university had acted with "troubling delay" after it had received multiple confidential reports about students allegedly being drugged and one sexually assaulted at a fraternity, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The school did not share the information broadly until a month after the allegations were made, when a report of a sexual assault at the Sigma Nu fraternity house was posted by the Department of Public Safety.

"Our community must work together to end sexual assault on our campuses," Zukoski wrote. "We appreciate everyone who brings forward concerns and reports sexual assault and issues impacting safety and well-being, and we understand how difficult this can be."
Vanessa Bryant during a celebration of life for her husband, Kobe Bryant, and daughter Gianna in Los Angeles. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo

Vanessa Bryant's and Los Angeles County's legal teams were unable to settle in December.

Her suit against county staff accused of sharing photos from Kobe's crash is set to go to trial.

Bryant's team wants the people who reported the display of photos in public to testify.

Vanessa Bryant wants the private citizens who alleged photos were shared in public of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, Gianna Bryant, and seven others to testify at a February trial, according to court documents.

The private-citizen complaints were made to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department and alleged that personnel from those departments shared photos of the crash site to people at a bar and others at an award ceremony.

In September 2020, Vanessa Bryant sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the county's fire department, the county, and eight officers in the wake of reports that first responders took and shared photos of the January 2020 crash site. Bryant accused the first responders of "negligence" and "intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of her right to privacy." She is suing for undisclosed damages.

In a series of court filings on Tuesday, Bryant's attorney and the county legal teams said that after meetings, they were unable to reach a settlement. A three-day trial  which her team has said is too short  is set to begin on February 22. Earlier this month, a federal judge rejected Los Angeles County's move to throw out the lawsuit.

On Tuesday, Bryant's attorneys proposed a witness list for the trial, which included some of the more than 30 Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and Los Angeles County Fire Department staff who have been deposed under oath in the case.

Bryant's attorney also moved to ask the court to admit the eyewitness testimony of Ralph Mendez Jr. and Luella Weireter, the two private citizens who submitted complaints alleging Kobe Bryant's helicopter crash photos were being shown in public.

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"The testimony relates to, respectively, (1) the conduct and statements of Defendant Joey Cruz on the evening he displayed victims' remains photos to a bar patron and bartender Victor Gutierrez; and (2) the statements of attendees at the Golden Mike awards who were present at the time Tony Imbrenda showed off photos of the victims' remains," Bryant's attorney Luis Li wrote in a filing.

Joey Cruz, a former deputy trainee at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, is accused of showing crash-site photos to Victor Gutierrez, a bartender, as well as to Ralph Mendez Jr., another person at the bar, two days after the crash, according to the lawsuit.

Bryant's suit also alleged that Tony Imbrenda, a former Los Angeles County Fire Department public information officer, referenced and showed the photos less than a month after the crash at the 2020 Golden Mike awards, which Weireter attended.

The county objected to the requests, saying, "Neither Mendez nor Weireter has seen any crash site photos."

"They either 'overheard' something from 20 feet away or were told by someone what they had been told by someone else. That is not proper evidence," Los Angeles County attorneys wrote.

Attorneys for Bryant and Los Angeles County could not immediately be reached for comment.

Read the original article on Insider
The man responsible for several pipe bombs that rattled an Ankeny residential street last year has pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges.

Chad Williams, 47, of Johnston admitted in court Thursday he attempted to set off three homemade explosive devices in May and June last year in the 1400 block of Waywin Drive SE. Two of the devices detonated as planned, causing minor damage to the street and unoccupied vehicles. A third did not explode and was discovered on June 9 by an 8-year-old girl. Police were able to disarm the device.

Prosecutors filed three charges against Williams: possessing a firearm as an unlawful drug user, making a destructive device, and unlawful possession of a destructive device. Under a plea deal, Williams pleaded guilty Thursday to the first two charges and agreed to forfeit a handgun and ammunition to the government. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop the third charge.

According to court filings, Williams' unexploded device consisted of two aerial firework shells taped together with a bottle filled with BBs and other metal items. It was placed in a cardboard box for concealment. A special agent with the state fire marshal said the bomb "was constructed in a way that it could have possibly gone off and caused some damage."

In previous court filings, Williams' attorney said his client, a Navy veteran, was targeting a truck parked outside his ex-girlfriend's home because he believed her sister's boyfriend, who owned the vehicle, had falsely claimed to have served in the military. The woman told investigators Williams had been sending her "weird" messages since their relationship ended and had once threatened her ex-husband with a gun.

Previously: Defense attorney: Ankeny pipe bombs targeted Johnston man's ex-girlfriend's sister's boyfriend's truck

Williams' wife told police she believed her husband was struggling with drug and mental health issues. Investigators also found that a phone number associated with Williams was used to submit an anonymous tip about the bombs, suggesting that a man living at his ex's residence might be responsible.

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Investigators found a 9 mm pistol, ammunition and bomb-making materials at Williams' home, as well as methamphetamine and marijuana. Williams told the judge Thursday he has received substance abuse treatment since his arrest in June.

A sentencing hearing is set for May 19. Both charges to which Williams pled carry maximum sentences of 10 years in prison, although the range recommended by sentencing guidelines is likely to be much less.

Williams has not been connected to another pipe bomb discovered in March 2021 outside an Ankeny polling place. No charges have been filed in that incident.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Pipe bomb suspect pleads guilty to planting explosives in Ankeny
An adult bald eagle has the tell-tale white head and tail, which makes them easier to identify than the younger birds.

Eight days of hikes, tours and presentations will educate people about the bald eagles living near Lake Monroe as part of this year's annual Eagles over Monroe events.

Thirty-seven years ago bald eagles were reintroduced to Indiana at Lake Monroe as part of a five-year project that brought 73 young eagles to Indiana. Prior to that, the last time a Hoosier eagle's nest was reported was in 1897.

Now, with more than 300 bald eagle nests throughout Indiana, including many surrounding Lake Monroe, there are events so Hoosiers can learn more about the majestic raptors that are becoming more common in the state.

More: Bald eagles flying high after successful reintroduction in Hoosier state

Lake Monroe's interpretive naturalist Jill Vance has developed eight days of activities that begin Saturday with a birding stroll that's already full.

"Anything that requires advance registration is full at this point," Vance said Wednesday.

Vance said there are five free events that are open. She also suggested people who are interested in the eight events that are full to put their names on the waiting list. The only programs Vance believes will remain full are the two live raptor shows on Jan. 30.

Vance suggests people participate in the driving tour and scavenger hunt, which is self-guided and will be available throughout the eight days. An online map gives 13 locations around the lake that are some of the best for viewing eagles.

Participants in the 2021 Eagles over Monroe event use binoculars and a spotting scope to search for bald eagles and other birds.

Anyone wanting to see bald eagles should use binoculars or spotting scopes. Vance said the driving tour would be best if it's completed over several days. Six of the locations also are part of a scavenger hunt, with each location having a letter of the alphabet. Once people have all six letters and unscramble them to form a word, they can enter that in a contest. The winner will receive an annual 2022 state park pass.

Three Sunset Eagle Watches will be open to anyone who wants to look for eagles. Visitors can drop by between 5 and 6 p.m.  a time of the day when bald eagles are more active. Volunteers with spotting scopes will be at Pine Grove State Recreation Area on Jan. 26, at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Office on Monroe Dam Court on Jan. 28 and at Paynetown State Recreation Area on Jan. 29. A limited number of loaner binoculars will be available and hot chocolate will be given to anyone who brings their own travel mug.

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More: Fees for hunting, fishing and trapping in Indiana to rise in April

"We're going to look at whatever birds we can see," Vance said, adding that in addition to bald eagles, people may see gulls, terns, ducks, geese, herons and more.

The people helping at the sites are involved in another Lake Monroe project in which volunteers search the Lake Monroe area for bald eagles and file field reports. That work has given them expertise in knowing where to look for eagles.

Participants in the 2021 Eagles over Monroe event use a spotting scope to search for bald eagles.

Al Parker, a wildlife biologist who helped with the reintroduction program, will give a talk at 2 p.m. Jan. 29 at Paynetown State Recreation Area. The event is full and is one of only three indoor eagle-related events. The wearing of face masks will be required.

A virtual Facebook Live presentation on the return of the bald eagle to Indiana will be at 11:30 a.m. Jan. 27. The direct link for the presentation is https://www.facebook.com/events/974719959793853.

For a complete list of activities, go to bit.ly/eaglesovermonroe2022.

Contact Carol Kugler at ckugler@heraldt.com, 812-331-4359 or @ckugler on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Lake Monroe events: Hikes, tours, presentations about bald eagles
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee issued an emergency order to eradicate a European green crab infestation that could disrupt habitats and harm native species.

Inslee ordered the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on Wednesday to begin emergency measures to remove the crabs before they become permanently established, according to the emergency proclamation.

"The European green crab is a globally damaging invasive species that, if they become permanently established, will particularly harm endangered species, impact resources that are part of the cultural identity of the tribes and native peoples, and affect small businesses," the proclamation said.

European green crabs trapped on the Washington coast

Green crabs arrived by ship to the US in the mid-1800s, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. They were blamed for ruining the soft shell clam industry on the East Coast, and El Nino currents carried them to San Francisco Bay, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia in the late 1990s.

Rotting flesh may be sweeter than honey: These bees evolved to eat meat, researchers say

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European green crabs trapped on the Washington coast

The species is a small but mighty predator that poses a threat to Washington's native shellfish like shore crab, clams and small oysters. An exponential increase of green crab was detected in 2021 in Makah Bay, Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay, threatening Washington's coastal resources, according to WDFW.

The University of Washington website said the best form of eradication is aggressive trapping and removal.

"Managing invasions is a bit like preventing wildfires; keep a sharp lookout and respond quickly to small populations before they get too big to control."

Follow reporter Asha Gilbert @Coastalasha. Email: agilbert@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Washington issues emergency order for invasive European green crabs
Nova Southeastern University students from the Student National Medical Association carried signage in the parade along North Federal Highway during a Martin Luther King, Jr., Day parade in Boca Raton, Fla., on Monday, January 17, 2022.

Floridians celebrated the legacy of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King with parades and homages, while Gov. Ron DeSantis marked the holiday with the seemingly incongruous launch of a redistricting plan critics said would shrink the number of minority congressional districts.

In the state capital city, King's two visits to Tallahassee were remembered, including one in which he advised those attending his speech that: "Freedom is never given freely by the oppressor; freedom must be demanded by the oppressed."

From the Panhandle to the Southeast Coast, Monday was a day of parades, marches and community service. In Daytona Beach, King's birthday prompted a rally in support of voting rights.

That topic resonated louder than usual, because on the eve of the federal holiday, DeSantis' office offered up a new congressional redistricting map that would have increased the GOP's congressional advantage from 16 seats to 12 for Democrats to 18 Republican and 10 Democratic seats. It would have also curtailed Black- and Hispanic-leaning districts including wiping out U.S. Rep. Al Lawson's district, a move Lawson blasted saying the timing was "insensitive."

The Florida Senate, a Republican stronghold, snubbed the governor's offer as the chamber backed a plan that has received some bipartisan backing.

However, a DeSantis priority item, banning critical race theory in schools and constraining diversity training in business, advanced through the Legislature when a Senate committee gave that bill a thumb's up.

DeSantis and Republican lawmakers also gained ground on another cultural wedge issue, abortion. Democrats blistered a bill that would cease abortions in the Florida after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

But a House committee approved HB 5, by state Rep. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, to eliminate more than two months of the current 24-week window in which a doctor can perform an abortion in Florida.

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Lawmakers also moved forward with what has been a key GOP legislative wish item for almost two decades  reducing the scope of the state's erstwhile model open records laws. No fewer than 20 pieces of legislation cleared first committees hurdles, including a highly contentious proposal to shield the names of people applying to be state university presidents until finalists are selected.

That's a major issue as the search for a new president to lead Florida's flagship institution of higher learning, the University of Florida, looms. UF this week also learned a judge would rule on an important academic freedom case in the coming week.

All the wrangling in Tallahassee obscured what could be good news. Omicron cases dropped by 3.4% in the previous week, bolstering hopes that the COVID variant has peaked in the state.

Perhaps an even better signal was found in Palm Beach County, where sewage tests indicate the omicron wave may be nearly over in the northern part of the South Florida county.

Those were hopeful signs in a week that saw a grim rise in the coronavirus death toll across Florida, which has now lost more than 63,158 souls to coronavirus since the pandemic began almost two years ago.

Leon County was a microcosm of how the omicron variant spreads rapidly, and cuts across all facets of society, as county officials reported increases in new infections at Florida State University, the county's school district and jail.

In Sarasota, the Tidewell Foundation's Signature Luncheon at the area's Ritz-Carlton was rescheduled because of omicron caseloads. The luncheon, which was pushed back to April 1, was to honor 1970s Happy Days show star Henry Winkler, the "Fonze."

Jewish faith leaders stepped forward in Palm Beach County, where residents have expressed their share of frustration over the lack of testing capacity, to set up three testing sites.

Unfazed, DeSantis instead ordered up another round of monoclonal antibody treatment centers.

But he again stopped short of promoting prevention through vaccination. In fact, DeSantis put a Central Florida public health director on leave after the official told employees it was "irresponsible" to go unvaccinated.

The one thing omicron couldn't overshadow was the glaring spotlight on a purported rift between DeSantis and his political godfather, former President Donald Trump.

The tempest has been brewing since last summer, but it is being further heated now by disputes over COVID pandemic policies.

While that squall thunders, former New Jersey governor and no-longer Trump adviser Chris Christie broke ranks with the ex-POTUS during a speech in Sarasota.

But it's not a real Florida mud fight until political trickster Roger Stone enters the ring, and the pardoned Trump confidant jumped head first into the DeSantis-Trump fray by warning the governor to get in line.

Want to hear more about that? Listen to the Inside Florida Politics podcast now for the latest.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: The week in Florida politics: DeSantis' "insensitive" move on MLK Day
A community racial-justice organization called WeRISE for Greater Westerville, established in 2020, has announced a new project involving a community read, along with special events that continue through June.

Whats being called WeRead 2022 will feature conversations around Clint Smiths New York Times Best Seller book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, according to Vashitta Johnson, WeRISE executive director.

Dr. Khalid el-Hakim, founder of the Black History 101 Mobile Museum, speaks to school-age children about the museum that teaches about Black history from a historical perspective. The mobile museum will visit the Westerville Public Library on June 24.

"WeRISE is hoping that WeREAD will inspire our community to come together for serious conversations and actions to move forward towards racial equity, Johnson said. We believe our community is ready to address these issues plaguing our community and to show our young people that we are here to support them. We are thankful for the incredible partners we are working with on this project, and we hope this type of collaboration will allow us to make a greater impact together as we seek to uplift the greater Westerville."

The project, hosted by WeRISE, is in partnership with Otterbein University, the Westerville Public Library, the Westerville Education Foundation and Birdie Books & Cafe, with funding for the books provided by 100+ Women of Westerville.

Johnson said book distribution will start in February, and anyone who is interested in taking part, including teachers, students and the community, may receive a book.

Book discussions will be from April 18 through May 29, she said.

Anyone interested in the community read and receiving a book should register by going to the WeRISE website at werisewesterville.org and clicking on WeRISE WeREAD, and then going to Register here.

A reservation may be made for one of the donated copies, or participants may purchase a copy from Westervilles local bookstore, Birdie Books, which will donate 20% of sales to WeRISE.

The Westerville Education Foundation is proud to be a part of WeREAD 2022, said Colleen Moidu, WEA executive director. The WEF looks forward to joining the greater Westerville community in the reading of this book, examining our own local history and learning through community discussions and enriching special events.

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Some of those events will include an African cooking class, a family-centered African dance class, a film screening, a Black history mobile museum and a Juneteenth event June 19 that includes a presentation of WeRISEs local history project.

Johnson said the Black History 101 Mobile Museum, founded by Dr. Khalid el-Hakim, will visit the Westerville Public Library on June 24.

The museum is an award-winning collection of over 10,000 original artifacts of Black memorabilia dating from the trans-Atlantic slave trade era to hip-hop culture, according to its website at blackhistorymobilemuseum.com.

Dr. Tiyi Morris, WeRISE president and an associate professor of African American and African studies at Ohio State University Newark and a cofounder/codirector of the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project, said she envisions the project as a way to build community through a shared learning experience about the nations history.

We hope that this community read will bring us together through dialogue and activities while inspiring people to advance WeRISEs mission of transforming our community through racial justice, Morris said.

Johnson said WeRISE doesnt have any special events for Black history month in February, but it will uplift the events of other organizations and support students in any way while planning and executing the events scheduled for this year.

An interactive calendar for event details, tickets and pricing is online at Werisewesterville.org, facebook.com/werisewesterville on Instagram, @werisewesterville, and Twitter, @werisewestville.

mkuhlman@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekMarla

This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: WeRISE launches WeREAD project involving Westerville community read, special events
 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, on Thursday exchanged congratulatory messages to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of China-Belarus diplomatic relations.

In his message, Xi pointed out that over the past 30 years, China-Belarus relations have been forging ahead, with the traditional friendship between the two countries growing stronger over time.

He noted that jointly guided by him and Lukashenko, China and Belarus have successively established a comprehensive strategic partnership and a comprehensive strategic partnership of mutual trust and win-win cooperation.

The two sides have built unbreakable political mutual trust, and carried out fruitful cooperation in various fields, Xi said, adding that they have also been firmly supporting each other on issues concerning their core interest, and coordinating closely and effectively in international and regional affairs.

After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two countries have been helping each other and fighting shoulder to shoulder, which has demonstrated the close bond between two brothers sharing weal and woe, he said.

In recent years, Xi stressed, he and Lukashenko have maintained communication in various ways, and reached important consensuses on developing China-Belarus relations under the new circumstances.

Xi said that he attaches great importance to the development of bilateral ties, and is willing to work with Lukashenko to take the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to lead the two countries to more results in their comprehensive strategic partnership and Belt and Road cooperation, so as to create benefits for both countries and their people.

For his part, Lukashenko said that over the past 30 years, Belarus-China ties have been lifted from a friendly cooperative relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership of mutual trust and win-win cooperation, with bilateral cooperation bearing rich fruit in various fields.

He said he is confident that the people of the two countries will pass on the spirit of sincere friendship and mutual support from generation to generation.
Wilmington police are investigating a shooting on McRae Street.

Wilmington police detained one man while another was treated for injuries in a shooting on Tuesday.

According to a news release from the Wilmington Police Department, officers witnessed a shooting in progress while on patrol in the 800 block of McRae Street around 10:10 a.m.

Additional units responded and were able to detain 40-year-old Kelvin Williamson. A second man at the scene, 35-year-old Matthew Higgins, sustained a gunshot wound and was transported by EMS to New Hanover Regional Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

During the preliminary investigation, according to the release, it was determined Higgins broke into an abandoned house that Williamson was responsible for watching. This case is under investigation and as of Thursday evening no charges have been filed.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Wilmington NC police investigate shooting on McRae Street
Adama Traores current deal with Wolves expires in 18 months (David Davies/PA) (PA Wire)

Bruno Lage says he will protect Tottenham transfer target Adama Traore in the same way the London club dealt with Manchester Citys bid to sign Harry Kane

Wolves turned down a reported 15million bid for winger Traore earlier this week from Spurs, who refused to sell England skipper Kane to City for in excess of 100m in the summer.

Lage said: We have a top player with us, a lovely guy. Sometimes its about business. I remember how much Tottenham protected Harry Kane at the beginning of the season.

And we will protect our player because we believe a lot in Adama. That is business. Its not my concern. But I will protect my players. The way they work, the value for me is very high.

Traore has 18 months left on his current deal at Molineux and has yet to agree a new contract with Wolves owners Fosun.

Wolves boss Lage said Traore remained unaffected by the transfer speculation and played down the suggestion that all parties would want his future resolving as soon as possible.

Lage, whose side bid to extend their unbeaten run to six games in all competitions at Brentford on Saturday, added: It depends whats best for each, the player and the club.

I dont see any difference in his behaviour, his mentality, the way he works. So Im happy with him. He continues to be the same player.

He just has one more year left. The club talk with him and he talks with them and they will decide the future. Im happy with him, its the only thing I can say. Hes focused, hes ready.

When asked if the uncertainty over Traore made it difficult to plan ahead, Lage added: I dont think about it, I just think about the next game.

It will be a hard game and we try to prepare in the best way because Brentford are a strong team to play against, especially at home.

My attention and focus is every time on the next game and I dont think about if Adama stays with us or not. For now, hes with us so Im preparing the game with him.

Wolves will still be without injured players Jonny Castro Otto, Pedro Neto (both knee), Willy Boly (calf), Hwang Hee-chan and Yerson Mosquera (both hamstring) on Saturday.

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Defender Romain Saiss remains with Morocco at the Africa Cup of Nations, but Lage will be boosted by the return of midfielder Ruben Neves and Dutch defender Ki-Jana Hoever, who are both back from Covid-19 isolation.

The Portuguese confirmed Spanish defender Otto and midfielder Bruno Jordao were back training, while striker Pedro Neto hoped to return in around two weeks.

Wolves, eighth in the table, have dropped only two points in their last four Premier League games and are six points behind fourth-placed West Ham with two games in hand.
Jan. 20YELLOW SPRINGS  A Yellow Springs doctor had his medical license suspended amid accusations of sexual misconduct against his patients.

Dr. Donald Gronbeck of Yellow Springs Primary Care had his license suspended Wednesday, according to State Medical Board of Ohio documents that show at least eight patients filed complaints of sexual misconduct between 2013 and 2022 against him.

The Ohio medical board said in a letter to Gronbeck that it had determined that there is clear and convincing evidence that he had violated state law and "have determined that your continued practice presents a danger of immediate and serious harm to the public."

Gronbeck is accused of having a sexual relationship with one of his female patients, and at least six other female patients reported instances of groping or sexual contact, according to state medical board filings.

A spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General's office confirmed that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Greene County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant Thursday at Gronbeck's business in Yellow Springs as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. No criminal charges have been filed.

The Greene County Sheriff's Office has created a tip line on its website asking people who may have more details about Gronbeck to report it.

Documents from the state medical board further accuse Gronbeck of writing a patient a prescription for Rivastigmine patches, commonly used to treat Alzheimer's and Dementia, and then instructing her to hand out the patches to his employees.

Gronbeck also allegedly created a private email account and used a messaging app called Cover Me, where messages disappear quickly and are not saved, to have sexually explicit conversations with a female patient, according to the state investigation.

Gronbeck, a graduate of Antioch College and Wright State University School of Medicine, opened the practice in May 2014, according to the business's Facebook page.

Gronbeck could not be reached for comment. The state's investigation remains ongoing.
The mission of the Nelson County Education Association is to advocate for Nelson County Public Schools employees. NCEA recently conducted a teacher morale survey  results suggest that teachers need advocating for now more than ever.

Survey respondents echoed the same symptoms that educators across the nation are experiencing: severe fatigue, stress and burnout related to overwork, teacher turnover and ever-evolving pandemic challenges. NCEA board members presented the results and suggested possible solutions to the Nelson County School Board during its Jan. 13 meeting.

The NCEA survey asked teachers to rate the frequency of their work-related stress and anxiety from a scale of one to 10, with one representing no stress and 10 representing a teacher experiencing work-related stress every day. Among the 79 teachers at Tye River Elementary, Nelson Middle School, Rockfish Elementary School and Nelson County High School who responded to the survey, an average score was 8.5 out of 10.

Average responses to questions Has work-related stress made you consider leaving public education? and Has work-related stress made you consider leaving Nelson County Public Schools? were 6.5 out of 10 and 7.25 of 10 on the same scale, respectively.

NCEA president and Tye River Elementary third grade teacher Rebecca Allen told the board that the survey was meant to give teachers a way to voice their concerns. Allen hopes that the survey will lead to improvements and greater communication between teachers and administrators.

Our employees want to be able to work alongside the school board and our administration, Allen said.

The NCEA survey also addressed an extreme workload that Allen and NCEA vice president Phillip Kershner said is only increasing.

We still have pre-COVID expectations, plus COVID expectations that were trying to maintain or meet even though the times are totally different in terms of what were able to do and what were working with, Allen told the Nelson County Times after the meeting.

She described a recent scenario in which three of the 18 students in her class were out for the week. She had to make time to contact parents and forward missed work outside of school hours  time that Allen says is packed with meetings, lesson planning and administrative work.

Kershner, a choir teacher at Nelson Countys middle and high schools, expressed similar frustration with long hours and what the NCEA describes as tasks that inefficiently use up scarce planning time.

When youre working with students you cant do all the paperwork thats expected, Kershner told the Nelson County Times, adding: This is my fourth day this week here staying at work after 8 p.m.

We signed up to be with kids, to educate kids, to make a difference in a childs life and education, Allen said. The whole system needs to change because its a lot about student performance and data keeping and record keeping and fulfilling all the requirements, but in order to do that youre taking away from the teachers time to implement effective lessons.

Allen referenced a national teacher crisis in her presentation to the board and later told the Nelson County Times, We have so many seasoned teachers that are leaving and were seeing trickle down effects of how its affecting the current teachers here.

The morale survey asked teachers how much time they spend working outside their workday to meet the expectations and requirements of their position. Of respondents, 14.3% spent one to three hours a week, 31.2% spent four to six hours, 14.3% spend seven to nine hours and 31.2% of respondents spent over 10 hours a week working outside their workday.

Allen categorized her overtime workload as over 10 hours a week beyond school hours. Teachers never work 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. I walk in the door at 7:30 a.m. at school. I never leave before 5 p.m. I go home, probably have an hour and a half to two hours of downtime, and then I open my computer between 8 and 9 p.m. and work till 11 p.m. every night.

Allen said she feels that these hours are what it takes for her to be an effective teacher.

Allen and Kershner acknowledge positive changes in motion, however.

Were already starting this process to help out our staff address the mental health and the stress, Allen said.

She pointed to Acting Superintendent Joseph Coxs intention to develop a superintendents advisory team that would include educator representatives.

I think its so important for a superintendent to meet every student in the school division, to meet every teacher in the school division, every staff member, Cox said at the Jan. 13 meeting, the first at which he was in the role of superintendent. Im looking forward to getting to staff meetings, I hope in the next two weeks, just to maybe introduce myself.

The upcoming 2022-23 budget includes a planned 5% salary increase for teachers and administrators with an added seniority salary increase of 0.5% between seniority steps. The budget also reinstates a tuition reimbursement to cover the cost of classes that teachers take to keep their teaching licenses.

NCEA officers met with Cox on Jan. 12 for an initial meeting, to repeat monthly, and began addressing problems the group identified for the board.

I appreciate you all presenting this because weve got to all be on the same side, School Board Vice Chair Shannon Powell said. We gotta be on the same team and moving forward as a group for everybody to succeed and at the end of the day for our kids to be taken care of and educated well.

Allen said that she is advocating for change because shes passionate about her work and loves what she does.

We want to provide a work environment where teachers are here, they come here and then they stay here, Allen told the board. They are invested in our community and stay to offer our students with the best education that we can provide.

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Hospitalization rates for COVID-19 have been fluctuating between 150 to 175 patients in Centra's three area hospitals during the past week.

As of Thursday afternoon, 174 patients with COVID-19 occupied beds at Centras Lynchburg General, Southside Community and Bedford Memorial hospitals.

"We are now consistently exceeding our prior all-time peak in January of 2021, which was 131 COVID patients at LGH/VBH [Lynchburg General and Virginia Baptist hospitals]," hospital officials said in a news release. "While these new highs of COVID volume are significantly straining our system, there are early indicators that this may represent the peak of our current surge."

Of the 174 patients presently hospitalized at Lynchburg General, Southside Community and Bedford Memorial hospitals, 121 are not vaccinated.

The number of patients in Centras intensive care unit as of Thursday afternoon stood at 17, of whom eight have been placed on ventilators. Of those patients in intensive care, 15 are unvaccinated.

As a result of the recent surge in hospitalizations, Centra temporarily suspended all visitation at its hospitals, emergency departments, urgent care facilities, primary care practices and Centra Medical Group locations. The restriction does not apply to clergy, parents of minors, doulas and support personnel, Centra said in a news release. Exceptions will be made for end-of-life care.

The change took effect last week.

The rapid increase in COVID-19 cases has added significant stress on area emergency rooms, creating long waits. Centras news release noted the hospital census at all Centra facilities is at or beyond normal capacity and the testing capability in the Lynchburg area is strained.

VDH reported 233 confirmed new COVID-19 cases Thursday in Lynchburg alone, down from a high of 320 new confirmed cases set Jan. 8. The seven-day average of new cases per day still stands at 159. Case counts had been on a steady decline during the past five days until Thursday, when cases shot back up again.

Statewide, 14,803 cases were reported Thursday, down from the statewide single-day record of 26,175 set Jan. 8.

In Lynchburg, 45.2% of the population is fully vaccinated and 20.3% have received a booster shot, according to the health department.

Across the Central Virginia Health District, which includes the city plus the counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford and Campbell, vaccination rates range from 48% to 51.6%.

Centras catchment area for Lynchburg General Hospital and Southside Community Hospital covers Lynchburg and the surrounding counties, the Farmville area and several smaller satellite locations.

Due to the community spread, the following testing events are upcoming:

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays at the Lynchburg Family Medicine Residency (2323 Memorial Ave., Suite No. 10) and Bedford General Surgery (1615 Oakwood St. Suite D, Bedford) through Jan. 29.

From 1 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays at the Lynchburg Family Medicine Residency (2323 Memorial Ave., Suite No. 10) through Jan. 26.

Tests are available to anyone 16 years and older who has COVID-19 symptoms or who has been in close contact with a person with COVID-19. For those vaccinated, test 5 to 7 days post-exposure. For those unvaccinated, test immediately after exposure and on day 5 to 7.

These clinics are for testing only; provider visits will not be available.
RICHMOND  Richmond plans to remove at least nine pedestals across the city that once held Confederate-related statues, and when disassembly begins, workers may find at least three more time capsules beneath the plinths.

According to news accounts and other historical documents, builders put time capsules beneath the Thomas Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and Matthew Fontaine Maury statues, said Dale Brumfield, a local author and historian.

The city has awarded a $1.5 million contract to Newport News-based contractor Team Henry to remove the remaining pedestals. Team Henry is the same contractor that oversaw the removal of the Confederate statues and the Robert E. Lee pedestal.

Its unclear when the work will begin, though its possible dismantling will start in the days to come. Devon Henry, the companys owner, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Lee pedestal became national news again in late December when two time capsules were found, one inside the pedestal and one beneath it. The time capsules represented something of a curveball to historians, who were only aware of one of them.

The Department of Historic Resources earlier this week released a catalogued list of the contents of the 1887 time capsule. That revealed another surprise  there were more items in the copper box than they expected.

What lies beneath the other three statues is more of the same, Brumfield said  newspaper clippings, coins, documents related to the city and Freemasonry and mementos from the Civil War. None of the items are believed to be exceptionally rare or valuable.

In June 1915, workers laid the cornerstone for the Jackson statue in a large masonic ceremony. In the June 4 edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch that year, a headline stated interesting relics had been deposited in the monuments foundation.

A few days earlier, The Times-Dispatch listed the contents of the time capsule, saying they were articles suggestive of the historic occasion, redolent of the glorious past of the South and reflective of the current life of the former capital of the Confederacy. The list includes a badge of the 25th annual reunion of the United Confederate Veterans, a package of Confederate money, a magazine from April 1915, a book of the grand lodge of Virginia, a masonic textbook, a steel engraving of George Washington, a photograph of Jackson and a scrapbook of clippings related to Jackson and his wife.

The time capsule beneath Jefferson Davis already has been opened once, Brumfield said. Originally, the city planned to build an elaborate monument to Davis in the center of Monroe Park. A cornerstone was laid and a time capsule was placed around 1890.

But the money to build the structure couldnt be found, so the plan was scrapped, and a new statue on Monument Avenue was envisioned, Brumfield said. During construction, the builders opened the time capsule, found the contents in good condition and reburied it under the current monument, which was unveiled in 1907.

They placed the time capsule beneath the 65-foot-tall Doric column that once held Vindicatrix, an allegorical figure representing the South. Unlike Lee and Jackson, this statue wasnt built with masonic influence.

Frederick William Sievers, the sculptor who designed the Maury statue, never intended to honor Maurys time in the Confederacy. Instead, it was built to recognize Maurys significant contributions toward sea navigation and oceanography. His nickname, pathfinder of the seas, is inscribed in the stone column.

But the United Daughters of the Confederacy helped raise the money for the monument, so they placed a time capsule containing Confederate flags beneath it before its dedication in 1929, Brumfield said.

Theres no indication builders placed time capsules beneath J.E.B Stuart or A.P. Hill, though Hill himself is buried beneath his statue. But that doesnt mean time capsules dont exist  one of the boxes beneath Lee previously was undocumented.

The Soldiers and Sailors monument in Libby Hill has a cornerstone, but its unclear if anything is beneath it, Brumfield said. The city also plans to remove three pedestals in Monroe Park that held statues to Fitzhugh Lee, Joseph Bryan and Williams Carter Wickham. Its unclear if they have time capsules.

Should the workers find the time capsules, theyll be sent to the Department of Historic Resources for opening, cataloguing, photographing and preservation. Then the city will give them to the Black History Museum, which also will receive the statues and pedestals, a spokesperson for Mayor Levar Stoney said.

What will happen to the statues under the Black History Museums control is to be determined. The museum, along with the Valentine Museum and other community groups, will make a final decision.

State officials havent determined a final destination for the Lee time capsule and its contents. The state cannot simply hand them over to a museum, said Julie Langan, director of the DHR. Procurement law requires the state to advertise the artifacts first. Instead, the state could loan them to a museum on a long-term basis while still maintaining ownership.

While DHR has finished cataloguing the contents of the Lee time capsules, it hasnt come to a conclusion on what the artifacts say about the statues builders or Richmond in 1887, Langan said.
A bill filed in the Virginia House of Delegates this week would ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation except in cases where the pregnant woman is at risk of death or "substantial and irreversible" damage to her health.

The legislation has a formidable chance of becoming law in a state where Republicans now control the House and the Executive Mansion, and Democrats hold a slim, 21-19 edge in the Senate.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who took office last week, said during his campaign that he would support banning abortion at the point when a fetus can feel pain - which other states with similar bans have defined as 20 weeks.

Youngkin supports exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when the mothers life is in jeopardy.

On Friday, Youngkin tweeted support for the annual anti-abortion rally, the "March for Life," taking place in Washington, D.C.

"I stand with the thousands in attendance at the 49th @March_for_life! I proudly stand up for the unborn and their mothers," Youngkin tweeted.

The bill now before the House, named the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," was filed by Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper.

The bill bans abortions at the halfway point of pregnancy, unless the procedure is necessary to prevent the woman's death, or "substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function."

If the bill becomes law, doctors and nurse practitioners performing the procedure would be required to do it in a way that would "provide the unborn child the best opportunity to survive."

Health care professionals who perform the abortion in violation of the proposed law would be subject to a class 6 felony, which is punishable by up to five years in jail and a $2,500 fine. They could also face civil lawsuits from the pregnant woman or the father of the fetus.

The Senate is not up for election until 2023. One of the Democrats, Sen. Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond, sided with Republicans on a significant abortion vote in 2020. Then-Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat, broke the tie, quashing the bill.

Now, Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears holds the tie-breaking vote. She voiced opposition to abortions during her campaign for office.

This is a developing story.
DES MOINES (AP)  A year after dropping charges against an activist who exposed what many viewed as the inhumane killing of hundreds of pigs at two Iowa pork plants, prosecutors have dropped a second case against him.

The dismissal of the second case against Matt Johnson, an activist with the group Direct Action Everywhere, comes in the continued fight over Iowas so-called ag gag laws that criminalize undercover investigations into animal treatment on livestock farms.

Johnson had been scheduled to stand trial Thursday in Wright County, Iowa, on counts of burglary, electronic eavesdropping and food operation trespass at Iowa Select Farms properties. A judge dismissed the case Wednesday at the request of county prosecutors, the Des Moines Register reported.

Prosecutors have not said why they dropped the case, but Iowa Select Farms spokeswoman Jen Sorenson said the company was told it was dismissed due to evidentiary issues.

However, Sorenson said, the judge did reject Johnsons motion to dismiss the food operation trespass charge, citing a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the ag gag law. Johnson had argued in the motion that the law criminalizes free speech and journalistic investigations in violation of the First Amendment.

Even assuming investigative journalism required the ability to trespass in order to record videos of alleged unethical treatment of animals, such a requirement is not sufficient to effectively make any food animal operation in Iowa a public place, Judge Derek Johnson wrote.

Last January, Grundy County prosecutors dropped two counts of trespassing against Johnson at the request of Iowa Select after company executives and employees were subpoenaed to testify.

The charges came after Johnson and others, acting on a tip, secretly placed cameras inside Iowa Select Farms hog confinements and captured the company euthanizing hundreds of the animals using a method called ventilation shutdown, which involves stopping airflow inside a facility to raise the temperature high enough to kill the animals inside.

American Veterinary Medical Association guidelines say the method should be a last resort after others are ruled out, that it should be done quickly enough to kill 95% of the animals within an hour, and that all must be eventually killed.

But Johnson captured audio of pigs shrieking, some for hours, as the temperature rose. The video also showed workers hours later walking through the pile of animals and shooting those showing signs of life with a bolt gun.

The incident came months into the COVID-19 pandemic, when some producers said they had no choice but to euthanize hogs after virus outbreaks at meatpacking plants led to closures and production slowdowns. They said they had no markets to sell them and ran out of space to house them.
Council Bluffs native Cole Button recently announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for Pottawattamie County Recorder.

Button said is a third generation resident of Council Bluffs and has been working in finance since earning his bachelors degree in finance from Iowa State University.

I study finances and budgets for a living, and I know that, as a taxpayer, you expect every one of those dollars you pay to the government to be spent efficiently, Button said.

He has served as vice-chairman of the Pottawattamie County Republican Party. While serving that role, Button he coordinated with local state legislators to provide more resources for parents of children with hearing disabilities, an issue particularly important for the Iowa School for the Deaf, a campaign press release said.

My conservative values inform everything I do. I believe we can make the County Recorders office even more efficient for the taxpayers to help keep property taxes down, Button said in the release. I am looking forward to working alongside citizens and county leadership to better serve Pottawattamie County.

Recently, the Pottawattamie County Recorders Office announced it would begin offering two new services  selling hunting and fishing licenses at the counter in the recorders office and holding a monthly East Pottawattamie County Passport Day at the Avoca City Hall. Button said he has been advocating for the two services for a few months now.

Button also said he wants to cut wasteful spending in Pottawattamie County by going through every operating expense line by line and identifying areas of waste or inefficiencies to ensure that your tax dollars are spent as efficiently as possible.

Button founded the Iowa Federation of Young Republicans and led lobbying efforts for the organization for a Back the Blue bill to support first responders across the state of Iowa.

Pottawattamie County Sheriff Andy Brown endorsed Button, saying in the release Button is a great communicator, leader and very goal oriented.

Button said he has also been active in the community by working with the 712 Initiative to run the Childrens Zone at the farmers markets and helped rebuild the Dream Playground by Lake Manawa.

State Representative Brent Siegrist also endorsed Button in the release, saying hes proud to support Button as he runs for the office of Pottawattamie County Recorder.

Button has a strong work ethic and will bring energy and innovative ideas to the Recorders office as we continue to move Pottawattamie County forward, he said in the release.

Go to buttonforrecorder.com or facebook.com/ButtonForRecorder for more information.

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Some of the communitys future health care workers are starting their training in Council Bluffs Community School Districts certified nurse aide program.

The one-semester course, part of the school districts Certificate Advancement Program, includes 30 hours of classroom learning, 15 hours of lab training and 30 hours of clinical experience, according to instructor Tiffany Parrott. It provides three hours of college credit through Iowa Western Community College, training in 30 skills needed by CNAs and preparation for a state certification exam. Students -- usually seniors -- also have to keep up with their classes at Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson High School.

Its a great opportunity for students, Parrott said.

The course is in its third year at Iowa Western after being held for at least four years at the Tucker College & Career Center, Parrott said. Students use a lab at Iowa Western equipped by the school district.

Council Bluffs has been good about getting us this simulation equipment so when we do things in the lab its similar to what we do in clinicals, she said.

For the state exam, students must complete 100 questions and a hands-on demonstration of CNA skills. An Iowa Western instructor evaluates their skills. Last fall, 12 students completed the course. All 12 passed the state exam.

Were 12 for 12, Parrott said.

Parrott said high expectations help students excel in the class.

Its good to see students rise to the challenge, she said. They were just really prepared. I think the state test is reaffirming that what we do in class and in clinicals prepare them to enter the field.

Among those who took the class last fall and passed the test were Thomas Jefferson senior Erin Exley and Abraham Lincoln senior Abby Evers.

I wanted to go to nursing school, and I know I can take this class to get some credit early, Exley said.

Said Evers, I know that I want to be a nurse, so when I knew I could get credit and start early, I knew it was a great opportunity.

They trained on 30 different skills in the class and got their clinical experience at Northcrest Living Center in Council Bluffs.

It was a lot of fun, Exley said, because it was during COVID so families couldnt come -- so you were their families.

I really liked it, Evers said. You see different things every day.

She liked doing the things they practiced in the lab on real people and just visiting with the residents.

It makes you realize its not all for nothing, Exley said.

Said Parrott, (Residents) loved having the students there.

Exley plans to enroll at Nebraska Methodist College this fall and hopes to work in a pediatrics clinic or neonatal unit.

Evers plans to enroll at Wayne State and hopes to work in a labor and delivery unit.

Parrott is in her seventh year working for Council Bluffs Community Schools. She worked as a full-time nurse for 11 years before joining the school districts team. She still works at a local hospital part time -- just because she enjoys it.

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A roundup of campaign news items of interest:

FAMILY LEADER ENDORSES: The Family Leader, a Christian conservative advocacy organization, has endorsed two Republicans for state legislative races: Reps. Steve Bradley and Dean Fisher.

Both could face fellow Republicans in a primary election. In the states decennial redistricting process, Bradley and fellow Republican Rep. Lee Hein were drawn into the same new district, just as Fisher was drawn into a new district with fellow Republican Rep. David Maxwell.

In its news release, Family Leader praised Bradley and Fisher for their support of anti-abortion legislation and parental choice in education.

GRASSLEY FUNDRAISING: Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassleys campaign announced it has raised $5.25 million this cycle and has more than $3.7 million in the campaign account.

The Senate majority is on the line, and I am working as hard as ever to ensure conservatives take control of Congress, Grassley said in a campaign news release.

The 88-year-old Grassley is running for an eighth six-year term in the U.S. Senate. Three Democrats are running for the right to challenge him.

GROUP ENDORSES GRASSLEY: The political arm of Susan B. Anthony List, which works to help anti-abortion candidates get elected, endorsed U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley for re-election.

(Grassley) has proven his pro-life bona fides time and time again, Marilyn Musgrave, the groups vice president of government affairs, said in a news release.

That news release pointed specifically to Grassleys previous stint as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which approved more than 200 federal judges, laying the groundwork to challenge Americas radical abortion laws that allow painful late-term abortions up to birth.

AUDITOR FUNDRAISING: Rob Sand, the Democratic state auditor, raised more than $892,000 in 2021 and has more than $906,000 in his campaign account, according to state campaign fundraising reports that were due this week.

Sand had been mulling a run for governor, but in early December announced he will instead run for re-election as auditor.

Mary Ann Hanusa of Council Bluffs, a Republican legislator who has announced her candidacy for auditor, did not report any fundraising in 2021.

ATTORNEY GENERAL FUNDRAISING: Tom Miller, the Democratic attorney general, raised nearly $190,000 in 2021 and finished the year with nearly $150,000 in the campaign account. Miller is the longest-serving state attorney general in U.S. history.

Thanks to our supporters, Tom Miller enters 2022 ready and able to speak to Iowans about his tenure and track record of success serving as the peoples lawyer, Millers campaign manager, Daniel Pereira, said in a news release.

Brenna Bird, a former legal counsel to Gov. Terry Branstad and a Republican candidate for attorney general, raised just more than $12,600 in 2021 and finished the year with almost $29,000 in her campaign account.

SECRETARY OF STATE FUNDRAISING: Paul Pate, the Republican secretary of state, raised $38,400 in 2021 and finished the year with roughly $31,600 in his account.

Joel Miller, the Linn County auditor and Democratic candidate for secretary of state, raised just more than $2,400 in 2021 and finished the year with just $791.98 in his campaign account.
Although she raised 13 times more money than her leading opponent last year, Gov. Kim Reynolds plans to run like shes 10 points behind.

Thats how Ive always run any race that Im in, Reynolds said when asked about her most recent campaign finance report showing she has $4.8 million cash on hand compared to Democrat Deidre DeJears $8,500.

Reynolds was elected Clarke County treasurer four times and served a term in the Iowa Senate before being elected lieutenant governor in 2011. She became governor when Gov. Terry Branstad resigned in May 2017 and was elected to a full term in 2018.

Reynolds hasnt officially announced shes running for re-election, but she has a campaign staff and is raising money and making campaign appearances.

However, during a Thursday visit to Van Meter, a wholesale electrical distributor in Cedar Rapids, she insisted that for the time being she is focused on the legislative agenda she laid out in her Condition of the State address earlier this month.

I think it continues the momentum that weve seen in Iowa over the last three to four years, she said. Were going to focus really hard on getting that agenda done and helping Iowans succeed, grow prosperity and opportunities across the entire state.

DeJear, a Des Moines businesswoman, says the state can do better if Iowans elect new leadership this fall.

Weve seen the politicization of so many issues in the last five years of this administration, and none of that has served the best interests of Iowans, she said.

However, DeJear acknowledged the money disadvantage she faces  the fuel that keeps us going, she said a fundraising appeal Thursday evening.

Defeating an incumbent is challenging because of how much money they are able to raise. Kim Reynolds has the entire MAGA GOP establishment backing her, DeJear said, a reference to former President Donald Trumps Make America Great Again campaign theme.

When she shifts her focus to the campaign, Reynolds believes she has a good story to take to voters.

Im proud of the progress that Iowans have made in the last several years  through a two-year pandemic, two derechos, floods, tornadoes. Through all of that, weve continued to be able to grow and expand, she said.

Its a testament to Iowans and our businesses, our small business owners, our educators, just everybody that has really come together over the last several years with everything that we faced, the governor said. Were coming out. Were in a really good position to continue to grow.
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The restoration project of historic mosaics of the archeological site of Volubilis, an ancient Roman city near Meknes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was launched Wednesday in presence of minister of culture Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid and U.S. Charge dAffaires, David Greene.

Supported by the U.S., the $189,000 project will be carried out by Ifker Association of Education on the Environment and Sustainable Development to restore and preserve historic 2nd and 3rd century mosaics, inspired by Greco-Roman mythology.

Volubilis is home to dozens of mosaic panels from the ancient Roman city of Banasa site, some of which the project will also restore and preserve. The project will also train local artisans in the restoration and preservation of mosaics in order to build sustainable livelihoods in the region.

This project is an example of the U.S. Governments continued partnership with the Moroccan government and with local organizations to preserve and share the Kingdoms invaluable cultural heritage, Charge dAffaires Greene said during the launch ceremony held at the Volubilis site.

The project will build upon Ifkers partnership with the California-based Getty Conservation Institute Mosaikon, an initiative dedicated to improving the conservation, presentation and management of mosaics in the Mediterranean region.

Getty experts from the U.S. will come to Morocco to work with the local partners, train artisans on restoration and preservation of mosaics, and do outreach to local audiences on cultural heritage restoration and the importance of Moroccos cultural heritage to the world.

Given the importance of these objects, the project will be implemented with a close coordination with the local community and youth, through training in mosaic restoration, education and sharing of best practices of cultural heritage preservation, as well as promoting the importance of Moroccos cultural heritage, said Ifker President Anwar El Haouari.
Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch defended the performance of his cabinet after 100 days in office saying that large scale reforms are on track with a particular focus on employment and the relaunch of economic activity.

After pointing out to the improvement of domestic demand, Akhannouch said the government plans to create 250,000 temporary jobs and implement the Royal-spurred project of generalizing mandatory health insurance for all.

He voiced hope for having a good crop year despite late rainfall which may affect growth.

Moroccos high commission for planning has revised upwards its growth estimates for last year to 7.2% following an exceptional crop year and an improvement in foreign and domestic demand.

However, Moroccos economic growth is expected to slow to 2.9% according to the same agency which cites uncertainties due to the coronavirus new variants and expectations of an average crop year.

Morocco has unlocked 2 billion dollars to help tourism businesses keep jobs and maintain infrastructure.

But operators want borders to re-open and allow the normal flow of tourists to save economies of tourist-dependent cities such as Marrakech, Agadir and Fez.

Akhannouch said the decision to close borders was based on the opinion of the scientific committee. I hope we will be able to reopen borders soon, he said.
The International Alliance for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms (AIDL) has renewed its total condemnation of the recruitment and exploitation of children for military purposes in the Tindouf camps in Algeria.

According to this French NGO in charge of defending human rights and public freedoms, this is an international crime that requires international prosecution and monitoring of all those involved.

AIDL affirmed that all recruitment of children, their exploitation and their involvement in conflicts and wars is completely prohibited and criminalized under international law, placing all those responsible for this practice under international responsibility and prosecution.

Many experts, NGOs and human rights defenders condemn the military recruitment of children in the Tindouf camps.

This practice, considered a war crime, was recently illustrated by images and photos of child soldiers displayed on Algerian and polisario propaganda materials during the recent visit of the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the Sahara Staffan de Mistura to the Tindouf camps.

The UN envoy started his first tour in the region by a visit to Morocco, before he flew to Algeria and then to Mauritania.
The steadfast efforts made by King Mohammed VI, Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee, in support of the Palestinian cause were hailed during the open quarterly debate held Wednesday at the UN Security Council.

Speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, the permanent representative of Egypt said the Group highly commends the continued efforts deployed by King Mohammed VI for the Palestinian cause, in his capacity as Chairman of the Al Quds Committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The Arab Group also welcomes the Al-Quds Appeal, signed by the Moroccan King and Pope Francis during the visit he paid to the North African Kingdom in March 2019, the Egyptian diplomat said, noting that this historical Appeal insists on protecting the characteristics of Al Quds as a city of peace, brotherhood, tolerance and coexistence between the faithful of three monotheistic religions.

The Al-Quds Appeal calls for preserving the multi-faceted religious, the spiritual dimension and the particular identity of the holy city of Al Quds described as the common patrimony of humanity.

During the debate, the Non-Aligned Movement also hailed the sustained efforts made by King Mohammed VI for the Palestinians and the Palestinian cause. The Movement, which has 120 UN member states, also praised the Al Quds Appeal which recognizes the uniqueness and sacredness of Al-Quds Acharif, and calls for the city to be preserved as a meeting place and symbol of peaceful coexistence and religious tolerance.
The newly appointed UN Secretary Generals Personal Envoy for the Sahara Staffan de Mistura is off to a bad start after concluding a first regional tour marked by Algerias unwillingness to uphold its responsibility as a main party to the conflict.

After holding talks with Moroccos foreign minister in Rabat and a visit to the Polisario separatists in Tindouf and a meeting with Mauritanian officials in Nouakchott, de Mistura held a working session with chief propagandist of the Algerian government Ammar Belani, who has the official title of Algerian government envoy for the Maghreb and the Sahara.

Algerias foreign minister Lamaamra shunned meeting Staffan de Mistura in a bid to show that Algiers is not concerned by the conflict. A stance that is contradicted by facts in the ground reflected in an official statement issued following the meeting between de Mistura and Belani.

The statement reaffirms Algerias position as the party that pulls the strings of the Polisario and the party that blocks any progress towards a political and mutually acceptable solution to the conflict.

Algeria also said it will not take part in the round table process that the UN has assigned de Mistura to reactivate.

After taking part in the round table process in 2018 and 2019, Algeria said it will withdraw in a context of warmongering against Morocco.

Morocco had said that autonomy for the Sahara is the maximum it can offer as a political solution within the framework of the UN, noting that there would be no UN process without the participation of Algeria, the party that arms, hosts, and backs diplomatically the Polisario militias.
The Moroccan government has reiterated its firm attachment to the stability of Mali, which is facing sanctions by European Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) over delays in transition to civilian rule.

The stand of voiced by Moroccan foreign minister Nasser Bourita during a telephone conversation held Thursday with Malian peer Abdoulaye Diop.

Talks focused on the strong relations existing between the two countries, which gained momentum following the Royal visits paid to Bamako in 2013 and 2014, said a statement released by the Moroccan foreign Ministry.

After stressing the importance for Mali to set up a constructive cooperation with international organizations, Mr. Bourita said Morocco is convinced that Malian authorities, together with political parties and civil society, are capable to strengthen national cohesion and take the path of peace and stability.

The ECOWAS has imposed lately economic sanctions on Malian transitional authorities after they proposed a timeline for presidential elections, for the end of 2025, which was deemed unacceptable.

Mali reciprocated with the recall of its ambassadors and closure of borders with ECOWAS member States.
Critical race theory and comprehensive health standards topped the list of hot button topics at the candidate forum hosted by the Lincoln County Cattlemen.

Three candidates  Mel McNea, Chris Bruns and Brenda Fourtner  vying for the District 42 State Legislature seat and two candidates  incumbent Robin Stevens and challenger Elizabeth Tegtmeier  for District 7 State School board shared their thoughts on questions posed by the moderators.

McNea, Bruns and Fourtner are running for the seat currently held by Mike Groene and all three agreed on opposing CRT being taught in the state.

Emphatically Im against CRT and comprehensive health standards that our state board of education tried sneaking through this past year, Bruns said.

Educators and administrators across the district Bruns said have told him they want to focus on teaching the basics. They want to focus on making sure students are ready for the real world.

They want to focus on reading and writing and math and science, Bruns said, not the social engineering, radical policies that are being pushed down by special interest groups.

Fourtner said she had been to state school board meetings and pointed her finger at board members concerning CRT and the comprehensive health standards.

Shame on them, all of them, Fourtner said. With the Critical Race Theory, in Nebraska we dont teach our children to hate each other because of the color of their skin or their religion or anything else. Our kids love each other because theyre friends.

McNea said one of the good things that came out of the pandemic is that parents started waking up and realized what was being taught to their children.

The reality is that a parent should be teaching health standards that have been written by our state board, McNea said. When I first read those, and I have a six-year-old grandson, I was mortified. He wouldnt have even understood any of the terminology.

The candidates were also asked their thoughts on the Nebraska Cooperative Republican Platte Enhancement project, specifically about the use of the land.

McNea said the project meets some legal requirements of the state of Nebraska as far as water rights with Kansas.

I think what we failed to do is to look at that land and property and find ways to use that property, McNea said, because the school district down there does not reap anything for their school system from (property) taxes.

He said the project needs to be held accountable and make sure they are looking at possible uses for that property that would bring in tax support for the school district.

Bruns said we have a responsibility to protect our natural resources.

Water is a huge, huge, important natural resource that we have in this state, Bruns said. But to take nearly 20,000 acres of really good ground in Lincoln County off the tax rolls has negatively impacted local government.

Fourtner said she doesnt know a lot about the project, but said farmers and ranchers are the best people to turn to in Nebraska when it comes to taking care of Nebraska land and water.

The candidates covered a number of other subjects including their stances on abortion, vaccine mandates, voting rights and the use of Federal COVID-19 relief funds.

Stevens and Tegtmeier also spoke to the issues of comprehensive health standards and CRT.

One thing I have heard as Ive traveled around our district campaigning is parents are very upset, Tegtmeier said, at attempts to indoctrinate their children with the sex ed standards that were proposed.

Tegtmeier said she is grateful they are tabled for now.

However, we do need some strong voices to say we are going to permanently scrap this and truly leave these standards at the local level.

Stevens said as the incumbent he was there and knew what was done.

This is a great opportunity for me to share that with you, Stevens said. In March 2020, we all know the health standards became public. In April of 2020, I led the state board in referring those back to the writers.

He said the writers came back with another set and the board did not accept those and Stevens said he led that discussion as well.

What has happened since then is the state board has passed a statute that says the state health standards have been indefinitely postponed, Stevens said. I get a feeling that either people are not understanding that or those who do understand it continue to use it for political gain.

The two candidates also discussed the role of the state board, use of Federal COVID-19 relief funds, the idea of reducing the role of the state board and/or reducing the size of the Department of Education.

Both agreed eliminating the department was not a good idea.

The board has been in existence since 1955, Stevens said. Because of this (health standards) issue theres talk of getting rid of it.

Stevens said the board has done a lot of good over those years.

If we eliminate the Department of Education and consolidate all the power, Tegtmeier said, we give all the power to the governor.

She said that with the board in place, that gives the power to the voter.

In closing statements, both candidates appreciated the opportunity given them at the forum.

One thing I will do is to continue to listen to you, Tegtmeier said. This is a representative position and western Nebraskans deserve a strong voice and I promise to be that voice for you.

Stevens said there is no greater thing one can do than service to ones community.

I want to repeat what I said at the beginning because that reflects my life, Stevens said, faith first, family next and my work based on serving.

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With the lone Democratic candidate called away by a family emergency, Thursday nights Lincoln County Cattlemen governors forum turned into a Republican rally.

Seven of Nebraskas eight announced candidates to succeed GOP Gov. Pete Ricketts competed to be most forceful in denouncing President Joe Biden, critical race theory, now-shelved state school health standards, most state taxes, government spending and illegal immigration.

They made little effort to separate themselves on major issues during the nearly two-hour forum, moderated by KNOP-TV anchor Kent Winder and North Platte Bulletin Editor-Publisher George Lauby.

But all offered variations of a theme voiced by former state Sen. Theresa Thibodeau of Omaha: The nation and Nebraska are doomed if national or state voters choose Democrats.

Our freedoms are under attack every day, she said. We need to stand strong. ... Because if we dont step up now, we may lose our chance.

Also taking two-minute turns in front of more than 100 people were Donna Nicole Carpenter of Lincoln, Michael Connely of York, Charles Herbster of Falls City, state Sen. Brett Lindstrom of Omaha and Lela McNinch of Lincoln. McNinch is Connelys sister.

Herbster has been considered one of the GOP front-runners in the May 10 primary. The other, University of Nebraska Jim Pillen of Columbus, visited North Platte Tuesday on a one-day statewide airplane tour after Ricketts endorsed Pillen as his successor.

Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue, the only announced Democratic candidate, had planned to attend. She canceled after her son was hospitalized in the Omaha area, Lauby told the North Platte audience.

Herbster wasted little time touting his endorsement by former President Donald Trump as the forum participants introduced themselves.

Every day, he (Trump) looks more right all of the time, the Richardson County cattleman said.

The evenings questions touched on virtually all the national and statewide controversies that have dominated political talk since Biden replaced Trump exactly a year ago Thursday.

All seven candidates pointedly declared their opposition to COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates. Ridenour, a computer professional, said he has been thrown out of some Omaha businesses for defying mask mandates.

Nebraskans are losing their jobs because they are not wanting to get this vaccine, he said, quickly adding quote, vaccine to emphasize his skepticism about the shots.

Carpenter, citing experience in biological and chemical warfare while serving in the military, cast doubts on the use of mRNA pharmaceutical technology in crafting the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

We will not even know the true effects (of those vaccines) for the next two years, Carpenter said.

Participants descriptions of critical race theory, an academic theory mainly discussed in graduate classes, broadened the concept to include shaming present-day whites for previous generations acts of racism against African Americans and other races.

You cannot punish people for what began and ended  slavery  over 150 years ago, said McNinch, a former staffer at the Nebraska Center for Women in York. It would be like singling out every Asian, every Japanese person and belittling them and shunning them after Pearl Harbor.

Last years Nebraska State Board of Education consideration of optional K-12 health and sex education standards mostly united the gubernatorial candidates in favor of abolishing the board and putting curriculum in local hands.

I dont see the necessity for the State Board of Education, Lindstrom said. Parents were very angry at what was being taught to the students as they protested the health standards, which the board finally tabled.

Nary a state-level tax escaped attack from one or more candidates, though most focused their wrath on the property tax system that farmers, ranchers and small towns have detested for decades.

McNinch, Ridenour and Connely declared themselves in favor of Bayard Sen. Steve Erdmans bills and petition drive to abolish income, sales and property taxes and replace them with state and local consumption taxes. Excise taxes would remain under Erdmans proposal.

Government spending controls or abolition of entire state departments also were popular. Connely, who is running several petition drives, said hed slash state spending by 30% in his first 30 months in office.

The first to fall by the wayside will be the (state) Department of Education, he said, with Nebraskas Department of Health and Human Services and Labor Department next in line to be slashed.

Herbster brought up one of Trumps regular topics in decrying Bidens handling of would-be migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

If they cant close the southern border, Charles W. Herbster, as governor, will close the Nebraska border, he said.

All seven candidates declared themselves in favor of Gordon Sen. Tom Brewers constitutional carry bill, which would abolish state permits to carry concealed weapons. Brewers Legislative Bill 773 had its public hearing Thursday.

The group also unanimously supported mandating that railroads maintain at least two-person crews on trains in Nebraska. LB 539, which would do just that, remains stalled in committee from the 2021 session.

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Gov. Pete Ricketts and former Gov. Dave Heineman on Friday endorsed state Sen. Mike Flood's candidacy for the 1st District congressional seat in a startling move that conceivably could doom embattled Republican Rep. Jeff Fortenberry's bid for reelection.

Ricketts said he called Fortenberry prior to making the announcement at a news conference with Heineman and Flood in the Capitol Rotunda to inform the congressman of the decision.

Heineman said Flood had earned the endorsement through his performance in the Legislature, but it also represents a judgment that "we do not want to risk losing this seat" in Congress while Fortenberry battles a federal indictment in California on charges of allegedly lying to federal officials about illegal campaign contributions that were funneled into his 2016 reelection campaign.

Reacting to the announcement, Fortenberry said, "it is particularly disappointing, because I have counted these people as friends, and you hope you can rely on your friends to stand by you when you face adversity like a false and unjust accusation.

"The voters will pass their own judgment on the character of the candidates in this race," the congressman said. "And I will spend this year talking with them about the accomplishments, leadership and conservative values that make me the best person to earn their vote and represent them in Congress."

Ricketts said "it is imperative to have a conservative like Mike Flood push back on Nancy Pelosi" and the Democratic agenda in Congress.

"We can't take risks with the 1st District's representation," the governor said.

"We cannot afford to lose this seat," Flood said.

"We need to make sure the 1st District gets the full-time attention it deserves," he said, alluding to the likelihood that Fortenberry's time and attention may be distracted by the court case he is facing in Los Angeles.

Republicans need someone who is "focused 100%" on winning this year's congressional race in eastern Nebraska's 1st District, Flood said.

Fortenberry's loss of support from top Republican leaders dramatically alters the dynamics of the GOP congressional primary contest in May.

Fortenberry, a former Lincoln City Council member, has held the seat since he was first elected in 2004.

If he and his legal counsel ultimately determine that they may need to negotiate a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, withdrawal as a candidate is a potential legal option, along with resignation from Congress.

Fortenberry filed for reelection earlier this month.

Heineman said he respects Fortenberry's service, but wants to protect the Republican hold on the congressional seat.

"What an honor!" Flood said in accepting the endorsements.

"We have worked together on tax relief, preserving the death penalty, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with law enforcement and to protect unborn babies," he said in referring to his work as a state senator in concert with both governors.

"We need a course change" in Washington, Flood said. "It's time to fire Nancy Pelosi."

"I'm asking for 1st District Republicans to come together," he said.

Both Ricketts and Heineman heaped praise on Flood's record as a state senator.

"He authored the most sweeping pro-life legislation in America to protect the unborn, and I signed it into law," Heineman said.

"Competitive primaries are good for the Republican Party," Heineman suggested in answer to a question as to whether he believes Fortenberry should withdraw from the race.

"And they are good for our state," he said.

Flood, a former Speaker of the Legislature, announced his candidacy for the House seat last week, warning that Fortenberry's indictment places the Republican hold on Nebraska's 1st District House seat at risk.

Flood returned to the Legislature in 2021 after previously serving eight years, including six years as speaker (2007-13), before being term-limited out of office.

Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks and Jazari Kual, both of Lincoln, are candidates for the Democratic nomination for the House seat.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSdon
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Chris Roberts, the sole finalist to come out of Auburn Universitys search for its 21st president, weathered his first series of questions from students during a open-mic forum Thursday, with Roberts saying it energized him as he welcomed his chance to introduce himself.

About 100 Auburn students and some university staff congregated in the Melton Student Center Ballroom to get a gist of how Roberts, currently dean of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, might approach student affairs and further modernize Auburns campus if named the successor to school president Jay Gogue.

Over a dozen approached the mic to ask what had kept Roberts at Auburn for nearly 30 years and how he would use his experience to improve Auburn University. Some asked how the university will maintain its credible position amid competition with other schools, as well as questions about how Roberts plans to integrate the university into the community.

I dont think its any secret (that)  I love Auburn, Roberts told students when the forum began. I came here 28 years ago, and I fell in love with what Auburn represented at that time. Auburn has amazing potential for greatness  (and) Ive seen the impact Auburn has on you as students represent part of that greatness and part of that opportunity.

Auburn held two forums open to the public Thursday, with another scheduled for Friday, as the board of trustees urged members of the Auburn community to meet and greet Roberts as the hiring process reaches the closing stages.

For his parts, Roberts also took advantage of his opportunity to introduce himself to the Auburn community. He said, as a kid, he thought he was going to major in a music degree in college to be like his father, who was a professional musician and ran a guitar shop.

When I left for college, I had never met an engineer, and I had never heard of engineering, Roberts said to students. My dad filed for bankruptcy the year that I was leaving for college with that little shop. At that moment in time, it was a challenge  and I was a Pell Grant student.

He told students he often had to perform music and work in the neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital to pay off his college debts while studying chemical engineering at the University of Missouri.

It really taught me a strong work ethic and also taught me about responsibility, and with that, I decided I wanted to make a difference, Roberts said.

Roberts said it was after he was asked to serve as chair of Auburn Universitys chemical engineering department that he was destined for administration.

I realized I enjoyed the successes of my colleagues maybe more than my own events, he said to students. I especially enjoyed being able to shape and help and shape the quality of the program, as it affected the students and their outcomes in the program.

Since becoming dean of the College of Engineering, Roberts boasted hes overseen $357 million in gifts to the college. He said fundraising is an area hes looking forward to if he becomes president.

I firmly believe Auburn University should set its sights on being the preeminent land-grant university in this country, Roberts said. It doesnt mean were going to be the biggest, have the most students or even the largest research firms. But we can make sure that what were doing is highly impactful and that the scale of excellence is really recognized.

Engineering student Jake Hickman took the stage to start the question portion of the forum, asking Roberts what the most powerful part of the Auburn Creed was to him. Roberts said as he has aged, the line about having compassion for your fellow man has meant the most to him.

It has been able to reach me at different times in my life in many different ways, Roberts said.

Lorissa Algarin, a public relations student, stepped up to the mic to ask Roberts if his care for Auburn extended outside of the College of Engineering.

You mentioned wanting to make an environment where all departments feel recognized, Algarin said. I was wondering if you have any specific ideas of how you are going to level it out?

Roberts said he anticipated a learning curve upon taking if the job if selected.

I dont pretend to know everything and Im going to spend a lot of time listening in the first several months if Im selected.

One student reminisced on current President Jay Gogues Popsicles with the President event that acts as an icebreaker for first-semester freshmen and transfer students. Roberts said hed be more than happy to participate and wants to maintain an open-door policy as stands in his current office.

I want to hear directly from people and provide those opportunities to do that, Roberts said. I want to make sure that the students know that you care about them  and that you are working as hard or harder than they are to get them to that level of achievement.

A fraternity member asked how Roberts plans to improve the relationship between the university and fraternities. Roberts answered that he thinks extracurricular groups help to build a better Auburn experience.

When asked what his motto would be, Roberts said that he wants the climate on campus to make every student feel welcomed, valued, respected and engaged.

Finally, a student asked Roberts how he will make decisions, should he become president. Roberts said that he desires to drive his decisions by comprehensive information, surrounding himself with wise people and to continually reassess.

Give yourself the opportunity to pivot and to change, he said.
I realized my lifes calling at the beginning of my senior year of high school.

It was not anything I had ever imagined myself doing. My work experience back then included helping my dad in his coal and building supply business, cutting grass, working for my neighbor in his auto-clean-up shop, and working for my brother in his auto-paint-and-body shop. I had also spent a couple of falls picking cotton.

I did not feel compelled to spend the rest of my life doing any of those things, especially the cotton-picking thing.

When I was 13, Dad closed his business and spent the remaining two years of his life doing long-haul trucking. Since he was rarely home, I decided then and there I didnt want to choose that for my profession. Early on, I had fanciful thoughts of becoming a veterinarian. I have always loved animals, and still do.

Like many kids who get a guitar, and actually learn to play, I also had pipedreams of becoming a rock star. At one point, like many boys in the 70s, I even had the hair for it.

In the early 70s, there was a great spiritual awakening among teenagers and young adults in this country. It was called The Jesus Movement.

In the early part of 1972, there was a great youth revival at Second Baptist Church in Fort Payne. It spread to other nearby towns and churches, including those on Sand Mountain. A great number of young people made decisions for Christ during that time, including myself. Many sensed a calling into ministry. Later that year, I sensed my own calling to a life of ministry.

On a Wednesday night, Rev. Max Tucker, pastor of Second Baptist, gave me my first opportunity to speak. I used all of 7 minutes to say everything I had planned to say, and some I had not. Not long afterwards, Rev. Nolan Ford, pastor of my home church, Broadway in Rainsville, invited me to fill the pulpit on a Sunday night. I was already getting long winded.

I still remember the words my next-door neighbor, friend, and fellow church member, Mr. Ernest Patton, spoke after that second sermon. He said, Bill, if Jesus doesnt return first, youll still be preaching 50 years from now. Fifty years seemed like an eternity to me back then. Now, 50 years later, it seems like the blink of an eye, and although Mr. Patton is long gone, his prophecy has now come to pass.

This past Sunday, my sweet wife and daughter put together a celebration of my 50 years in ministry, as well as my retirement from Tuskegee Lee Baptist Association. Even with snow falling, and COVID rising, many of the ministers from our association, and their wives, came to celebrate and congratulate.

Tables were filled with pictures and memorabilia from my years in ministryoh, and edible goodies. Friends, colleagues, and former church and staff members sent cards and notes, which I greatly enjoyed reading.

Thank you to all who had any part in those 50 years, Sundays celebration, and especially to my family. I am indeed one blessed man!

Bill King is a minister, author, singer/songwriter, and performs humor as Bro. Billy Bob Bohannon (www.brobillybob.com). Contact him at bkpreach@yahoo.com.
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Edit: speaking of, this week my TL was filled with very angry tweets about Encanto and



Edited at 2022-01-21 02:11 am (UTC) *ColombiaEdit: speaking of, this week my TL was filled with very angry tweets about Encanto and #shutupgringo2022 and they left the impression that navigating POC identity in Western/US Media representation is viewed very differently by diaspora origin countries.

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i made the mistake of engaging on twitter and spent all week like, "ok. i'm not latina. my kids aren't latinos. my father IS, but i'm not." and it was legit upsetting, bc i spent the first 3 decades of my life like, "well, i'm not white, according to everyone else, but i'm not puerto rican enough. i'm nothing and not enough for any side of anything," and only got comfortable with myself a few years back. this shit took me off guard.



i called my father last night and we ended up just laughing about it.

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I'm really sorry you experienced that. *huuugs* I'm glad you have your dad - in the end I think that's what matters most. The connections that tether you to something larger than yourself, if not a country then love and family.

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Im sorry you had to go through that. Im glad to hear at least youve got your fathers support and understanding. In the end, no one has any right to define your life, your identity and experiences, least of all the folks on Twitter.

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Oh, this hurts my heart. I'm glad you had your Dad to talk it out with <3

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There was a Tiktok video about this and I was exchanging comments with someone living in a Latin American country telling me Im not latina because I was born in the US and it really made me upset. Not only because its a very stupid argument but because its incredibly hurtful. And finally I said, dont you see the irony that youre basically calling me a gringa and have all these American and western privileges and youre talking to me in English?

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Twitter has pretty much ruined the word gringo, it doesn't even mean anything anymore and a lot of latinos are using it to mask their racism and colorism.

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it is. if you weren't born in latin america is very hard for some of us to see you as latinE.

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I wish her getting spit on was an exaggeration but I've seen it and gawd, I hate it here.

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Colombia mija.

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Funny I wouldn't have considered her a white latina on appearance. To Hollywood I don't think she would look "white" to them.



I did think people making fun of her or dismissing her for being 1/4 Colombian was not cool. Especially when again on appearance I could tell she was latina from a mile away.

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you can tell people just don't like her and will jump on any chance to criticize but ofc need to do in in a "calling out her privilege" way because they can't just admit they hate her lol

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Oh yeah racial heritage and percentages have been lowkey weaponized to shut down someone who they don't like. Gotta make it legit so you don't look pissy and petty!

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Even if you could tell she was a Latina from looking at her, it's valid for dark skin Latinas to be tired of fair skin Latinas always getting roles as love interests in TV shows and films. It can't be that she's the only acceptable shade of Latinidad.

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Yeah shes kinda annoying but I hate policing her latinidad

And I dont think shes perceived as a regular white girl

Im Mexican and I also could tell right away

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Different countries have different standards for whiteness. In Brazil you can be fairly tan and have Afro features and still be considered a white person.

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She is very white to me but I understand that she wouldn't be considered as such in the us

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Did not think she was considered a white Latina.

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at least she acknowledged that latina is not a race lol

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Rachal?

Columbia?



Huh  what is going on here

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Lol it's the OP cause the article doesn't actually talk about it. There's a podcast interview in there.

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was it your job to make sure a puerto rican played a puerto rican

or

nah

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You think she's got that powerplay and clout in Hollywood yet. Last I checked she got the role when she was 17-18, freshly picked outta HS. I think she's thinking for future events.

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Sis she was a teenager when she was casted in that.

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? ontd is very all over the place re: casting the right people in the right roles. when she was cast, i'm sure there were conversations about playing puerto rican when she isn't one. there's always a choice to be made there. i get she was young and the casting decisions were not at all her fault and she was just a kid looking for a good role. i was being semi-facetious. but teenagers today are very self-aware when it comes to race relations. of course it falls down to those in charge making the right decisions, but. eh.

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puerto ricans always play everyone else



let's not go there

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we stan an ivy league qween

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Hmmmm. This is so close to being insightful, but it's a bit awkward when people talk about their ethnic identity as being valid because they've been on the receiving end of bad treatment for that identity.

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.yahoo.com/amphtml/now/rachel-zegler-responsibility-privilege-white-000055903.html She says that she is more close to her Colombian culture in the podcast. Here is a snippet of the conversation.

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LOL, her talking about her connection to her Colombian culture is hilarious in the context of her defending playing Maria, a Puerto Rican character, but that's above me. Nationality, ethnicity, and race stay kicking people's ass.

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she thinks she's a white latina cause she's mixed? baby...

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i personally think she considers herself a white latina because her dad is polish or maybe she doesn't know what white latinas look like. her and her mom wouldn't be considered white, lighter mestiza/morena with more room for social mobility(which could been seen as blanqueamiento). White Latina examples would be like Alexis Bedel, Ana Valeria Becerril, Macarena Garcia, etc. and for male ex Franco Masini from the rebelde reboot or Yankel Stevan



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she is a white latina sis

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She doesnt look like a white latina to me but idk lol



I think people dont realize theres a lot of people that arent considered white, black or indigenous in Latam, but mixed - which is often considered an ethnicity of its own. Like in my country, 95% of the population is mestizo/mixed white and indigenous, and we arent considered white or indigenous but mestizos. I think its also difficult to explain though because the race mixing happened hundreds of years ago so its not like my mum is indigenous and my dad is spanish.



People are finally understanding that Latino isnt a race and that people come in all colours here, but dont know that a significant amount of Latin Americans, if not the majority, are mixed, so they call everyone a white latino lol I mean I saw people on twitter calling Kali Uchis and Stephanie Beatriz white latinas when theyre clearly mestizas like theyre not white passing at all



Anyways rant over, I know thats not what she said but I always see people on twitter being pretty ignorant when it comes to latinos/latin america in general. But I do agree that white latinos get all the representation and opportunities in Hollywood and in general

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"lol I mean I saw people on twitter calling Kali Uchis and Stephanie Beatriz white latinas when theyre clearly mestizas"



Kali has always been mestiza-ish looking to me although she sometimes confuses me with cause she hard with the brownfishing sometimes lol. But she's clearly not all-white.



Neither is Stephanie....in what world would she be considered white?



When we say white latinos we are talking like Anya-Taylor Joy and Guillermo Del Toro.

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Stephanie is white in Brazil

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idk what her home life was like bc culture at home is important, but...idk idk i feel like people sometimes latch onto the "exotic" identity available to them to be different bc being white/American is considered boring. it's very close to lady gaga i'm italian

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Like I said in that ATLA post about the Sokka actor lying about his identity, white people def want to feel different, oppressed, etc. so they'll say stuff like "UM, actually I'm Italian and Swiss" (if they don't lie about being 1/16th Cherokee lmao). I've gotten that in response from white people a lot when I talk about my identity (mixed especially on my mom's side) and it's like they feel... threatened or have to one up it or something.

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It's very reminiscent of "I'm not rich! I'm only a multi-millionaire! Oprah is rich! I have to drive myself everywhere and wipe my own ass just like everyone else!"

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I was thrilled to be on the Longform podcast talking to @maxlinsky about profile-writing, The New Yorker, and, yes, Jeremy Strong. (Actually, it's mostly about that.) https://t.co/NsMY1ADWLX  Michael Schulman (@MJSchulman) January 19, 2022

9:50

13:50

22:35

[ Spoiler (click to open) ] the episode that saw Kendall face down in the pool. Some people speculated that it went up when it did because Kendall was dead and Strong's coworkers were more open because they no longer had to work with him.

30:25

34:15

37:00

Michael Schulman is an author and profile-writer at the. He wrote the infamous Jeremy Strong profile that went viral last year.In a new podcast interview, he talks about the process of writing profiles, his relationship with Jeremy Strong, his previous profile work (), and more. Says he went to the same college as Jeremy Strong but did not know him personally. He also met him briefly after graduation at a film-production office where Strong taught him how to use the photocopier, but when they sat down for the interview Strong did not remember him. However, Schulman had been following Strong's career for the last 20 years because of their brief interactions and social group overlaps and thought he would make for an interesting profile subject because he knew Strong had a more interesting history than what the averagefan probably knew of him. As a student, Schulman actually attended the master class session withwhich was mentioned in the profile, but he had no idea of Strong's involvement at the time until the profile came together. Says that to do a profile of this sort, he tells publicists that it requires at least 2 sit-down interviews of some length. Upon his first meeting with Strong, Strong apparently asked "We can only talk twice?" before Schulman corrected him to say it was twice at minimum and they could talk as much as he wanted. Schulman gave him his number and said for the next 6 months that he would get regular, multiple-paragraph texts from Strong consisting of poems he had been thinking about, his thoughts on acting, or pictures of Strong on set. Said the process of writing this profile started with intensity and did not let up. It was a stark contrast to his previous profile, which was done on, who seemed to not understand what the profile even was and why he kept showing up to interview her more. She also asked to be on the cover of(lol -minute mark). Said he told Strong he would like to talk to some of his previous coworkers and then about a week later while at an ATM he got a random phone call fromwithout warning and was left completely unprepared for the interview. He said that it kept happening:. face-timed him while he was eating sushi andrandomly showed up in his inbox. He found the process of how Jeremy Strong went about this was more interesting than anything his coworkers were saying. At theminute mark, he talks about the famous part of the article where Strong's wife says he's totally normal but Strong says there's an element of acting there too. Says he thinks the profile went viral because it was a bit of a Rorschach test - some people saw Strong as an insufferable diva, others saw him as a delightful weirdo, and others said he was an incredibly committed and genius actor - Schulman says he's sort of all 3 of those things and he thinks the reaction speaks to him representing the different sides of Strong well. Schulman says overall he had a good time with Strong and that he was good company. He was very generous with his time and gave him great material to work with. He says that he didn't have to push anyone for anything they said in the article.andoffered up those quotes without any prodding (minute mark - this is worth listening to because he also does a little impression of Kieran Culkin and it's really funny). Even the fact-checking process was interesting because it kept giving them more material. The timing of the article release had absolutely nothing to do with theepisode that aired at the same time - Schulman says he never anticipated what would eventually happen with the article. He wasn't aiming to write a hit-piece and doesn't think it is one. He just wanted to write a complex and fun-to-read profile. But people responding to it and thinking it was a little bit insane was somewhat validating for Schulman because he says writing it also felt a little bit insane.response tweet in defence of Jeremy Strong felt like entering a phase-2 reaction period to the profile. He thinks there was a disconnect between how the general readership received the story and how celebrities were perceiving it - there was a lot of pushback to these celebrities from people saying that Strong didn't need to be defended (). Thought's response was somewhat jarring but he was ultimately fine with it and then watched how it became a meme.). He did not respond lol. Has not heard from Jeremy Strong since the profile but says that is normal - he often does not hear from the subject after the profile is released. After a similarly intense profile ofa couple of years ago, only Driver's publicist responded and it was regarding a minor line about a relative's instagram account. Atthey talk about the Elizabeth Spiers defence inand the classism discussion that resulted from the piece. His next subject is another huge television star.Source: Twitter
Investments in crude oil this year in Canada could rise by as much as 22 percent, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

While this is an improvement over 2021, the expected spending total of US$26.2 billion (C$32.8 billion) is still much lower than the annual industry spending a decade ago, CAPP said as quoted by CBC.

"Today we're at $32 billion, and we're only capturing about six per cent of global investment," CAPP president Tim McMillan said. "We've lost ground to other oil and gas producers, which I think is problematic for a lot of reasons  and it leaves billions of dollars of investment that is going somewhere else, and not to Canada."

Canadian oil production is set to increase by 18 percent this year, according to the national energy industry regulator. That would come in at a total of close to 4 million barrels of crude daily. In spite of the federal government's ambitious emission-reduction plans, the oil output increase is perfectly understandable, according to Canada's natural resource minister.

"For the [oil] demand that continues to exist, Canada needs to extract value from its resources, just like the United States, the United Kingdom in the North Sea, and Norway," Jonathan Wilkinson told the FT earlier this month.

Higher oil prices are certainly helping make more generous spending plans. Like all other benchmarks, Canadian crude has been on the rise, hitting the highest in seven years, according to CAPP's McMillan. Yet even with such high prices, he says, investment has not increased proportionally.

One of the reasons for this may be the increased caution that the industry is applying in a world still dominated by the pandemic. Another is Canada's reputation as a difficult place to invest in energy. With its track record in pipeline cancellations, a heavy regulatory load, and "negative government policy signals," per CBC, many investors think twice before they enter Canadian oil and gas.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 1.4 million barrels last week to 128 million barrels.

U.S. gasoline stocks rose by 5.9 million barrels in the week to 246.6 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with expectations for a 2.6 million-barrel rise.

Refinery crude runs fell by 120,000 bpd to 15.45 million bpd and utilization rates fell 0.3 percentage points to 88.1% of total capacity last week, the EIA said. Additionally, net U.S. crude imports rose last week by 21,000 bpd, data showed.

Crude inventories rose by 515,000 barrels in the week to January 14 to 413.8 million barrels, compared with analysts expectations in a Reuters poll for a 938,000-barrel drop.

U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose last week for the first time since November while gasoline inventories grew to an 11-month high, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Thursday.

Furthermore, were likely seeing some hedge fund selling due to margin calls being triggered by the steep sell-off in the U.S. equity markets.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures are under pressure on Friday, amid an unexpected rise in U.S. crude and fuel inventories, according to a government report released the previous session. Profit-taking ahead of the week-end and next weeks Fed meeting are also being blamed for the weakness.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures are under pressure on Friday, amid an unexpected rise in U.S. crude and fuel inventories, according to a government report released the previous session. Profit-taking ahead of the week-end and next weeks Fed meeting are also being blamed for the weakness.

Furthermore, were likely seeing some hedge fund selling due to margin calls being triggered by the steep sell-off in the U.S. equity markets.

EIA Reports First US Crude Build Since November, Gasoline Inventories Hit 11-Month High

U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose last week for the first time since November while gasoline inventories grew to an 11-month high, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Thursday.

Crude inventories rose by 515,000 barrels in the week to January 14 to 413.8 million barrels, compared with analysts expectations in a Reuters poll for a 938,000-barrel drop.

Refinery crude runs fell by 120,000 bpd to 15.45 million bpd and utilization rates fell 0.3 percentage points to 88.1% of total capacity last week, the EIA said. Additionally, net U.S. crude imports rose last week by 21,000 bpd, data showed.

U.S. gasoline stocks rose by 5.9 million barrels in the week to 246.6 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with expectations for a 2.6 million-barrel rise.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 1.4 million barrels last week to 128 million barrels.

Finally, stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for U.S. crude futures, fell by 1.3 million barrels in the last week, the EIA said.

Supply Issues Carry Prices Higher

Supply issues drove U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil futures higher early in the week. Prices were underpinned by an already tight supply outlook amid troubling geopolitical issues in Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Traders responded to an outage on a pipeline from Iraq to Turkey.

Prices Setting Up to Challenge $100

U.S. WTI and Brent crude oil futures appear to be poised to challenge $100 per barrel sometime this year, with or without the current supply issues. This is because there is a sizable supply deficit and the impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant on demand is far smaller than predicted.

This notion is supported by analysts at Goldman Sachs who said on Tuesday supply remains in a surprisingly large deficit.

Analysts also wrote that the hit to demand from Omicron will likely be offset by gas-to-oil substitution, increased supply distributions, OPEC+ shortfalls, and disappointing production in Brazil and Norway.

Goldman analysts said global oil demand is seen rising 3.5 million barrels per day (bpd) year-on-year in 2022, with fourth-quarter demand reaching 101.6 million bpd.

Goldman expects QECD inventories to fall to their lowest level since 2000 by summer, and OPEC+ spare capacity to decline to historically low levels, given the lack of drilling in core-OPEC and Russia struggling to ramp up production.

We expect the increase in OPEC+ production to fall even further short of quotas in 2022, with an only 2.5 million bpd increase in production expected from the next nine hikes.

Furthermore, higher prices will allow OPEC to fall behind its monthly ramp up path slightly in order to preserve spare capacity, with the acceleration in shale production growth providing necessary inventory buffer, Goldman added.

Weekly Technical Analysis

Weekly March WTI Crude Oil

Trend Indicator Analysis

The main trend is up according to the weekly swing chart. The uptrend was reaffirmed this week when buyers took out $83.79, hitting a new contract high in the process. A move through $62.05 will change the main trend to down.

The minor trend is up. It changed to up the week-ending December 24 when buyers took out the minor top at $72.82. This shifted momentum to the upside. A trade through $65.93 will change the minor trend to down.

Retracement Level Analysis

The market is currently trading on the strong side of a minor 50% level at $76.52 and the main 50% level at $74.58, making both of these levels support.

Weekly Technical Forecast

The direction of the March WTI crude oil market the week-ending January 28 will be determined by trader reaction to $83.30.

Bullish Scenario

A sustained move over $83.30 will indicate the presence of buyers. If this move is able to continue to generate enough upside momentum then look for a short-term test of $87.10 - $88.18. Taking out $88.18 could trigger a possible surge into $92.38 over the near-term.

Bearish Scenario

The inability to sustain a rally over $83.30 will indicate the presence of sellers. It wont be a particularly bearish signal, but it may mean that buyers view the market as overvalued at current price levels. This would encourage longs to take profits. This could drive the market into a value zone or $76.52 - $74.58 where new buyers would likely re-emerge.

Short-Term Outlook

The price action late in the week suggests traders have become considered about value, meaning the market is overpriced. This could encourage profit-taking.

If it continues next week then were likely to see a pullback into the former top at $80.72. Buyers are likely to come in on the first test of this level.

Breaking $80.72 will be a sign of weakness. It will also mean that those traders who bought the breakout over this level during the week-ending January 14 are holding losing positions.

If these longs get spooked enough by some news then they could start liquidating their positions. If the selling gets ugly then look for the move to extend all the way back to $76.52 - $74.58. We expect to see strong buying on a pullback into this zone.

Although there are predictions calling for $100 per barrel crude, the fine print says this will likely occur during the second half of the year. Therefore, any rallies through $88.18 and up to $92.38 at this time of year will likely be met with new short-selling.

Fundamentally, all eyes are likely to be on the Federal Reserves monetary policy announcements on January 26 and the Russian-Ukraine situation.

Traders should also keep an eye on the stock market. If it continues to weaken, we may start to see margin call selling in crude oil, which will put additional pressure on prices.
China/Iran: On January 20th, China  ever-emboldened  reported official imports of Iranian crude despite sanctions. It was the first time in a year that China has done this officially. The official nature of this reporting is not without reason: Beijing plays an important role in the Iran

Libya: Libyas oil output is back up to 1.2 million bpd after a shut-in caused by a skirmish between the NOC head Sanalla and the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG). Whether they can maintain this without another crisis is questionable at best. Most recently, the speaker of Parliament Ageelah Saleh has said the current governments mandate formally expired on December 24th, when elections were meant to be held but were then postponed. Hes calling for a new government to lead the country to elections, and that will start off another round of jockeying for control over oil and oil revenues to secure leadership.

Ukraine: While the Ukraine-Russia conflict seems to be escalating, its still a lot of hot air at the moment. There are Russian war games in Belarus, UK arms shipments to Ukraine, and American senators pow-wowing on the ground in Kyiv. Germany has still shown no backbone in this game, and the coalition is growing more disunified in its position on Russia by the day. Russia will win the diplomatic victory here unless there is a German response that doesnt bow to Russian money and politics.

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict

Ukraine: While the Ukraine-Russia conflict seems to be escalating, its still a lot of hot air at the moment. There are Russian war games in Belarus, UK arms shipments to Ukraine, and American senators pow-wowing on the ground in Kyiv. Germany has still shown no backbone in this game, and the coalition is growing more disunified in its position on Russia by the day. Russia will win the diplomatic victory here unless there is a German response that doesnt bow to Russian money and politics.

Libya: Libyas oil output is back up to 1.2 million bpd after a shut-in caused by a skirmish between the NOC head Sanalla and the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG). Whether they can maintain this without another crisis is questionable at best. Most recently, the speaker of Parliament Ageelah Saleh has said the current governments mandate formally expired on December 24th, when elections were meant to be held but were then postponed. Hes calling for a new government to lead the country to elections, and that will start off another round of jockeying for control over oil and oil revenues to secure leadership.

China/Iran: On January 20th, China  ever-emboldened  reported official imports of Iranian crude despite sanctions. It was the first time in a year that China has done this officially. The official nature of this reporting is not without reason: Beijing plays an important role in the Iran nuclear talks, and this is its way of showing how much leverage it has as talks proceed in Vienna.

Armenia/Azerbaijan: In an offshoot of another frozen conflict, Turkey and Azerbaijan will start laying a gas pipeline to supply Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan, a landlocked exclave bordering Armenia. The new pipeline will be part of the Igdir gas pipeline in Turkey and will transport natural gas from Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan.

Iran/Russia: Russia and Iran reported that they had agreed to several energy deals between Russian companies and oil and gas projects in Iran. Meanwhile, Raisi lent support to Russia over its amassing troops in Ukraine. Iran said the deals included oil and gas developments and building refineries, but was otherwise nonspecific about the projects.

Markets & More

The latest Drilling and Productivity report this week showed that the Permian basin is on fire, with the EIA estimating production there will increase to 4.996 million bpd in January and 5.076 million barrels per day in February. This level of production far surpasses that of OPECs second-largest producer, Iraq (4.270 million bpd in Dec).

The pipeline explosion that knocked offline the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline has since resumed operations. The pipeline moves oil from Kurdistan to Turkeys port of Ceyhan. Kurdistan exports 330,000 barrels per day. Exxon has announced its goal of reaching net-zero across its operated assets by 2050 through improved energy efficiency and electrification, among other methods. The oil giant will publish later this year detailed road maps that cover 90% of its operations-related emissions.

Gazprom is taking Polish gas company PGNiG to court in hopes of recovering a retroactive increase in the price of natural gas. The dispute between the two has been long in the making and centers around the Yamal contract. Gazprom says it requested a price increase starting in November 2017 and has since moved to arbitration to recoup the increase in price. The move comes just as Saudi Arabia purchased Polish refining assets, knocking Russia off 2/3rds of Polands oil supply. Poland has long sought to break the chains of Russias hold over its energy supplies.

In other Gazprom news, Moldova may declare a state of emergency if Gazprom fails to agree to a deferral on the payments for Januarys gas consumption. Moldova is set to pay for Decembers gas this week. Moldova found itself in the same situation last winter.

Inpex will undertake exploratory drilling offshore the Shimane and Yamaguchi prefectures in Japan. Drilling will take place between March and July of this year. If Inpex is able to find oil and gas, it would improve Japans energy self-sufficiency.

CNPC subsidiary PetroChina Fuel Oil Co had its alleged illegal profits confiscated after China said it engaged in an irregular trade of imported crude oil to the tune of 179.5 million tonnes since 2006. Those barrels were sold to 115 different independent refineries, according to an investigation. China asked PetroChina Fuel last year to stop trading off crude oil import quotas with local refineries in its crackdown on excessive fuel production.

Deals, Mergers & Acquisitions

2021 and the beginning of 2022 have continued the trend for oil and gas company mergers, with the bulk of those mergers focused on the Permian Basin. The biggest of those was on January 12th with the $1.9B merger of Desert Peak Minerals and Falcon Minerals Corp.

Brazilian state-owned oil producer Petrobras and the construction company Novonor announced the sale of shares of the petrochemical firm Braskem and are hoping to raise about $1.5 billion. Petrobras currently owns 22% of Braskem's Novonor currently owns 23%. The sale is expected to be one of the country's largest equity offerings this year.

Polish state-owned PKN Orlen has agreed to sell a stake in an oil refinery and hundreds of petrol stations to Saudi Aramco and Hungarian MOL. The assets in question actually belong to Lotos Group (also state-owned), which PKN is planning to acquire. The sale is part of a necessary divestment required by the EU before the merger can take place between PKN and Lotos.

Australian Woodside Petroleum has inked a long-term deal to purchase LNG from the US Gulf Coast in yet another indication that the U.S. export market is growing at a fast clip. The deal will see Woodside purchase 2 million tonnes of LNG per year (over 20 years) from the proposed export terminal in Louisiana beginning around June 2026.

Chesapeake Energy is in talks to buy domestic rival Chief Oil & Gas, in a deal worth approximately $2.4 billion, according to a Reuters report. Chesapeake, who emerged from bankruptcy last year acquired another competitor, Vine Energy for about $2.2 billion in August.

Shell has reached a deal with Pemex to supply crude oil to Pemexs recently purchasedfrom ShellDeer Park refinery in a deal that will span at least 15 years. The transfer of the refinery from Shell to Pemex took place on Thursday.

South Korea and a handful of Persian Gulf oil producers are wheeling and dealing over oil prices - and the deal could lower the price of Middle Eastern crude grades in the very near future. South Koreas trade ministry has reached an agreement to resume the free-trade agreement negotiations with GCC members for the first time in ten years. One possible item under discussion is the 3% levy that has been imposed on imported crude. South Korea bought about 2/3rds of its oil needs from the GCC region in 2020. The last negotiations between the two parties collapsed in 2010.

Discovery & Development

With respect to supermajor exploration, all eyes are now on Shell in Namibia, with a potential light oil discovery offshore at Shells Graff-1 exploration well in the Orange Basin. It is not yet clear if this is a commercial discovery but we will be closely monitoring for updates.

Norways regulators have awarded 28 companies interests in 53 offshore production licenses in the latest licensing round for mature areas. Of the total, 28 of the licenses are in the North Sea, 20 in the Norwegian Sea, and five in the Barents Sea. Norwegian state-controlled Equinor won stakes in 26 licenses, while Aker BP got stakes in 15 licenses. Sweden's Lundin was awarded stakes in 10 licenses, as was Eni's Norwegian subsidiary Vaar Energy.

BP, Shell, and Iberdrola have all won seabed rights for the development of offshore wind projects in Scotland. The auction raised nearly $960 million. A total of 17 projects in Scotland will produce some 25 GW of wind power in the next decade.
Picking up from where we left off last time on geopolitical drivers that could send oil prices higher, the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have upped the ante with an attack on the UAE, which had largely withdrawn forces from Yemen, leaving the Saudis high and dry.

Now, there is a risk they will be pulled back into the melee after the Houthi rebels launched a drone attack on a key oil facility in Abu Dhabi, killing three people and starting a fire at the Emirates international airport. The site of the attack was an industrial zone where ADNOC operates its pipeline network and oil tanker storage facility. The industrial zone is adjacent to the international airport.

Its not the first time that the Houthis have targeted the UAE, but it is the first time since the UAE largely backed out of Yemen.

The problem is that the UAE hasnt entirely withdrawn support for the Yemeni government, even if it has pulled out its own troops. The Houthi message to the UAE has already resulted in an escalation on the part of the Saudis, who led coalition airstrikes on Yemens capital, Sanaa on Tuesdayjust a day after the Houthi attack on the UAE.

But this isnt just about Yemen. Its about Iraq, tooanother area where Iran wants the UAE to stop meddling. The bigger issue, however, is the UAEs attempt to make peace with Israel and achieve detente with Iran simultaneously. This is where
Over the past week, drone attacks against targets in the UAE and escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine have taken center stage in oil markets.

Oil prices have continued their early-year surge in the new year, thanks in large part to easing worries about omicron as well as tight oil and gas supplies amid growing geopolitical uncertainties.

Front-month Brent reached USD 89.05 per barrel (bbl) in early trading on 19 January, the highest level since 13 October 2014. Brent settled at USD 87.51/bbl, a w/w increase of USD 3.79/bbl. WTI rose USD 4.21/bbl w/w to USD 85.43/bbl, while the value of the OPEC basket of crude oils rose by USD 5.95/bbl to USD 88.08/bbl and by EUR 5.52/bbl to EUR 77.77/bbl.

Along the curve, Brent for delivery five years out settled at USD 66.98/bbl on 18 January, a w/w increase of USD 0.99/bbl and just USD 0.02/bbl shy of a 38-month high. The move higher in prices has been gradual and sustained, resulting in relatively low levels of realized volatility; 30-day annualized Brent volatility stands at 26%, 4.7ppt lower w/w.

According to the latest Standard Chartered commodity report, the most recent push higher in oil prices has been fuelled by two main factors: widespread trader concern about limited spare capacity and demand optimism based on a view that the Omicron wave is waning and is unlikely to hold demand growth back. To wit, South Africa's latest wave of Covid, which began in late November 2021, is now declining as sharply as it once rose and is likely to be declared over, nationwide, in the coming days. Omicron was first reported in South Africa.

Meanwhile, concerns over spare capacity have amplified the effect of geopolitics, making the market highly sensitive to anything that could be perceived as a supply threat. Over the past week, that sensitivity has been shown in response to drone attacks against targets in the UAE and escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Source: BBC

Tight Gas Markets

Three rounds of talks have failed to produce a resolution between Russia, the U.S. and allies to de-escalate the tension on the Russia-Ukraine border, with concerns based on a build-up of Russian forces and associated infrastructure in the area.

The energy market has reacted to the increase in risk and uncertainty with a significant geopolitical premium, particularly in the gas markets, but also permeating into oil. European gas supplies remain particularly tight, despite a moderate winter; gas storage stood at 515.11 Terrawatt hours (TwH) on 17 January, 24.9% lower y/y (2021: 685.6 TwH) and also 24.9% lower than the 2017-21 average (686.23 TwH).

Related: Tight Physical Crude Market Points To Higher Oil Prices

Conflict would likely affect Russian gas transit through Ukraine, particularly if sanctions were enacted. Reuters has reported that the U.S. is investigating contingency plans for natural gas supply to Europe. Maintenance schedules for gas production could also be adjusted. Stanchart analysts have predicted that the situation is likely to lead to significant price spikes, likely to once again impact gas-dependent industries. The U.S. has been a big beneficiary of high gas demand in Europe and Asia, and in December, it overtook Australia and Qatar to become the world's largest LNG exporter.

The latest International Energy Agency (IEA) monthly report puts OPEC+ spare sustainable capacity at 6.47 million barrels per day (mb/d) based on December output, with spare capacity excluding Iran, Venezuela and Libya estimated at 4.98mb/d. Both estimates imply that the market could deal with supply losses of up to 2.5mb/d before OPEC+ spare capacity fell below 5% of total OPEC+ sustainable capacity. However, the consensus among traders is that spare capacity is significantly lower than the IEA estimate.

The latest round of international and national energy agency monthly reports provided no significant reassessment of oil demand prospects. The global oil demand forecast for Q1-2022 was unchanged in the OPEC Secretariat report, revised lower by 50kb/d in the IEA report, and revised higher by 163kb/d in the Energy Information Administration (EIA) report. Demand growth for 2022 is forecast at 3.32mb/d by the IEA (a revision of 20kb/d lower), 4.15mb/d by the OPEC Secretariat (unchanged), and 3.62mb/d by the IEA (a revision of 76kb/d higher).

Views on 2022 oil demand growth in China differ widely. The OPEC Secretariat expects strong y/y growth of 660kb/d, the EIA expects 582kb/d, and the IEA is more downbeat at 470kb/d.

The latest EIA weekly data was highly bullish, according to our U.S. oil data bull-bear index, which rose 87.9 w/w to +52.4. Crude oil inventories fell 4.55mb to a 39-month low of 4.13mb, leaving them 37.32mb below the five-year average and 15.71mb below the 2015-19 average. Crude inventories at the WTI pricing hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, fell for the first time in nine weeks, losing 2.47mb to 34.84mb. The w/w change in the crude oil balance was 829kb/d in the direction of higher inventories; however, this was more than fully offset by a 1.173mb/d w/w swing in the crude oil adjustment term.

The only significantly negative components of the data release were gasoline inventories and demand. Gasoline inventories rose 7.96mb w/w to 240.75mb, a rise of 2.3mb relative to the five-year average, bringing the cumulative increase over the past two weeks to 18.09mb. Implied gasoline demand averaged a 10-month low of 7.906mb/d in the week, in line with the usual early-January seasonal weakness.

Rig Count Rising

Source: Baker Hughes

After a sharp decline at the height of Covid-related lockdowns, the U.S. and international rig count have been steadily rising over the past few months.

U.S. oil and gas rig count moved above 600 for the first time since April 2020, rising by 13 w/w to 601 according to the latest Baker-Hughes survey. The oil rig count gained 11 w/w to 492, while the gas rig count gained two to a 22-month high of 109.

The w/w increases were led by the Eagle Ford region of south Texas, where the oil rig count rose by four to 45, and the gas rig count rose by a single rig to seven. The Louisiana oil rig count gained four to 21, with the offshore count gaining two to 17 rigs. The Permian oil rig count gained a single rig to 292'; within the Permian, Midland Basin activity added one to 112 rigs while Delaware Basin and other Permian activity were unchanged at 149 rigs and 31 rigs, respectively.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

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The energy and environment ministers of the European Union (EU) member states are discussing at the end of this week the soaring energy prices in the bloc and ways to make sure that record-high power and gas prices do not impede the EUs 2050 climate neutrality goal.

Energy ministers will continue debates in Amiens, France, which began in the European Council and the Council of Ministers at the end of last year on how to protect EU consumers from extremely volatile and historically high gas and electricity prices, while pursuing the Unions climate goals, the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union said before the meetings.

The energy ministers will also examine the outline for a new hydrogen economy policy, focusing on how to speed up the development of low-carbon hydrogen, while addressing current uncertainty regarding the technological difficulty of producing it and its place in Europes energy mix in the future, the French Presidency added.

The energy and environment ministers will also jointly consider the principles of the just transition and a green transition that is socially acceptable. The transition to a carbon-free economy and society involves major transformations that will change how we consume, produce, work, exchange, and coexist. For it to be a success, Europe must ensure it is a socially just and inclusive transition that meets the needs of the most vulnerable people and places in society.

Moreover, on Friday, experts are expected to criticize the EU in feedback to the European Commission over a proposal to include some nuclear and natural gas projects in the so-called sustainable finance category, Reuters reported, citing a document from the advisers it had seen.

Early this year, the European Commission launched expert consultations over whether nuclear power and some natural gas projects can be considered sustainable investments, receiving immediate backlash over green nuclear from Germany and Austria, which accused the EUs executive branch of greenwashing.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Germany could consider cooperating with Russia in renewable energy to defuse the tension between Moscow and the West over Ukraine, German Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Robert Habeck, told Der Spiegel magazine in an interview.

We should also think about new business areas that can help lead both sides out of this confrontational position, Habeck told the German magazine in the interview published on Friday and quoted by Reuters.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to hold talks on Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the Ukraine issue.

On Thursday, Secretary Blinken was in Berlin for meetings with the top German officials, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Appreciative of the important opportunity to meet in Berlin with our European Allies about the ongoing Russia-caused crisis with Ukraine. We are all committed to supporting Ukraine and its people in the face of Russias aggressive actions, Secretary Blinken said on Thursday.

German foreign minister Baerbock called on Russia on Thursday to step back from further escalating the tension with Ukraine.

We urgently demand that Russia takes steps towards deescalation. Any further aggressive behaviour or aggression would result in serious consequences, Baerbock said.



Related: Nuclear Energy Investments Are Set To Soar

Germany has yet to give the go-ahead to the Russia-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. But earlier this week, Berlin indicated that it could refuse to approve the project if Russia invaded Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz indicated on Tuesday that if Russia does attack Ukraine, Germanys response could include stopping the pipeline, adding that it was clear that there will be a high price to pay and that everything will have to be discussed should there be a military intervention in Ukraine.

While Germany says it is prepared to do whatever it takes to keep Russia from invading Ukraine, the U.S. Senate voted this week against levying sanctions on Nord Stream 2, despite some senators insistence that Russia is using the pipeline and natural gas flowsor lack thereofas blackmail.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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If youre among the millions of Americans who rely on TurboTax to file their annual income taxes, you could be in for an unpleasant surprise this spring.

For the first time in years, Intuit-owned TurboTax is not part of the IRS Free File program. Free File is a partnership between the government and several tax prep services that allows people to draw up and, in some cases, submit their federal tax returns online for free. Though Free File is notoriously underutilized, its typically stacked with name-brand offers from recognizable companies  TurboTax included.

Until now.

Have you started filing your 2021 Taxes? Select your state to begin the process of filing your taxes with TurboTax.

Why isnt TurboTax part of IRS Free File anymore?

TurboTax announced in a blog post last July that it was not renewing its role with IRS Free File due to its limitations and conflicting demands from those outside the program that leave it unable to continue participating while still delivering all of the benefits that can help consumers make more money, save more, and invest for the future.

However, the company vowed not to give up on free tax filing options. TurboTax said it processed 17 million free tax filings last season; of that, only 3 million came through the Free File program.

Moving forward, Intuit is committed to continuing to offer free tax preparation while accelerating innovation to address all of consumers financial problems, it added.

Its worth noting that TurboTax came under fire a few years ago for using code that hid its Free File page from Google results, as reported by ProPublica. It later changed the code.

How to file taxes with TurboTax for free

Even though TurboTax has left the IRS Free File project, it does still have no-cost options. It is possible to file for free through TurboTax  but there are a slew of requirements you must meet.

For example, TurboTax Free Edition, TurboTax Live Basic, and TurboTax Live Full Service Basic are all free right now  if your return is simple. (TurboTax defines simple is defined as Form 1040 only.) These cover W-2 income, limited interest and dividend income, the standard deduction, the earned income and child tax credits, and student loan deduction.

If your taxes are more complex, including items like unemployment income, stock sales or rental properties, youll likely have to upgrade.

Assuming your situation is simple enough, you can file one federal and one state tax return without charge, but you have to move fast. TurboTax Live Full Service Basic  in which a tax expert does your taxes for you  is only free until Feb. 15. The free TurboTax Live Basic offer  which comes with live, on-demand expert help  lasts through March 31.

If youre fine to file DIY, the TurboTax Free Edition will be available the entire season, according to a news release.

The deadline for most Americans to file their taxes this year is April 18.

Improve your potential refund amount - Prepare and file your federal income tax return using tax preparation software

Tax preparation software companies like TurboTax will help improve your earning potential.

Filing taxes for free with other services

TurboTax isnt the only service to drop out of IRS Free File recently. H&R Block left the project in 2020.

Even so, IRS Free File is still plugging along. If your adjusted gross income is $73,000 or less, youre eligible for free guided tax prep from options like Tax Slayer, FileYourTaxes.com and TaxAct. If your income exceeds that, you qualify for free fillable forms (but youll have to actually file them on your own).

Experts generally recommend starting your taxes early so as to avoid software snafus, refund delays and identity thieves. If youre not opting for IRS Free File, theres also a financial reason to avoid procrastinating: Tax prep fees tend to rise the closer Tax Day gets.

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A former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent in Omaha has been sentenced to one year of probation for structuring bank deposits to avoid reporting requirements for cash transactions.

In addition to the probation, Paul A. White, 52, was fined $5,000, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Iowa said Thursday in a press release. White pleaded guilty on Sept. 14 to a charge of structuring financial transactions to evade a reporting requirement.

He was sentenced Jan. 14, according to court documents.

White deposited a total of $99,900 in two banks from Oct. 29, 2018, to Feb. 26, 2019, according to the press release. White structured the deposits to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions in excess of $10,000 to the federal government.

The money stemmed from sales of military memorabilia, firearms and other items that White started selling in 2016, according to court documents. Most of the cash from the sales were kept in a safe in Omaha.

White's attorney, Clarence Mock, told The World-Herald that the sales were of White's personal assets.

In 2017, White filed for divorce but did not disclose the cash proceeds, according to court documents. After the divorce was finalized, he started depositing the cash into bank accounts at two different banks.

White was aware of the banks' reporting requirements, according to court documents.

Mock said White, a 20-year veteran with the ATF, did not act with malicious intent. Mock said White retired from the ATF after being charged.

"Paul is an honorable man who had a distinguished career in law enforcement," Mock said. "Unfortunately, he made some mistakes in violating the banking laws during his divorce case."

Mock said White did not try to avoid any tax liability or engage in any kind of illegal activity "like you would see in some cases." He added that the charge was "purely a regulatory offense."

"He certainly is no danger to society," Mock said, adding that White's probation sentence "was absolutely warranted" given White's character, professional background and the nature of the circumstances.

The maximum punishment for the charge White pleaded guilty to is five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release.

The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Iowa because of the recusal of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nebraska.

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Several teachers in the Omaha Public Schools say they dont feel valued or supported by the district in the current staffing crisis, which has been made worse by a raging omicron surge.

Six OPS staff members spoke at Thursdays school board meeting to express their fears about the vacancies left by sick staff in schools and asked the board to come up with more solutions to help address the shortage.

Michelle Settlemeyer, a member of the Omaha Education Association board of directors, said 53 teachers had to cover staff absences at one high school for a single day last week.

Settlemeyer said classrooms are not getting cleaned, classes are being split between teachers and we are all running on empty. Teachers are working more than 20 extra hours a week, she said.

The district needs to act now to alleviate the staff shortages, she said.

We are feeling like we are talking to a wall, Settlemeyer said. It makes coming back the next day that much harder.

The shortage is out of control, and classrooms are growing in size because there are no substitute teachers, said Robert Miller, president of the teachers union.

Teachers who are sick with COVID-19 have to stay home without being paid if they are out of sick days, he said.

The current environment that teachers are in require another adjustment to be considered, Miller said.

Kathy Poehling, a fifth grade teacher and a vice president of the teachers union, said shes heard from many teachers who are planning to retire at the end of the semester because they have no hopes things will change.

Miller asked the board to consider strategies other Omaha-area districts are implementing, such as shortened school weeks or COVID-19 pay for sick vaccinated staff.

The Millard and Bellevue school districts have shortened their school weeks to address the staffing shortage. Other Nebraska districts that have announced closures include Beatrice, Lincoln, Grand Island, Hastings and Wahoo.

Millard announced Monday that it will switch to remote learning for Friday, Jan. 28; Monday, Jan. 31; and Friday, Feb. 11.

Superintendent Jim Sutfin said this week that the district is in crisis mode because of the staff absences made worse by the omicron surge.

Bellevue later called off school for the same days as Millard.

Similar to many other school districts, we are experiencing challenges at every position that help schools run safely, Bellevue officials said in a letter to parents on Wednesday.

In an interview this week with The World-Herald, OPS Superintendent Cheryl Logan said her concerns about staffing are at the level where it keeps me up at night. She noted that education, as well as numerous other professions, is dealing with staffing shortages.

Nobody is happy. Children are the most needy they have ever been in the classroom, Logan said. And teachers are experiencing the pandemic along with their students. They dont go home to a non-pandemic world.

As of Wednesday, the district has had to close only six elementary classrooms because of COVID-19 outbreaks this school year, Logan said. Some of them were either early childhood or special education rooms that dont use masks.

Masks are required at OPS, but the district has accommodations for students with significant disabilities.

Logan said on Thursday that the district has implemented several initiatives to help address the shortage, including two new COVID-19 testing sites and five additional non-student days this year.

Logan said the district doesnt have a specific threshold for staff absences when deciding to close a school if enough employees are out sick. The district evaluates student and staff absences twice a day per school.

If its Ponca Elementary School that has eight staff, and you say 10% are out, its different than saying 10% at South (High School), she said. So we really look at it based on whether or not we can safely and sufficiently run our instructional program in person.

Logan said she usually receives a heads-up from a principal if there is going to be a building or classroom problem caused by absences.

We are always going to err on the side of (caution), she said.

OPS keeps track of confirmed COVID-19 cases on its online dashboard but updates the numbers only every Friday. As of Jan. 14, the district had 152 cases among staff and 592 cases among students.

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The annual Shine the Light on Hunger campaign raised enough over the holiday season to provide more than 9.1 million meals, officials announced Friday.

It far surpasses the campaigns goal of 2 million meals.

The campaign, sponsored by Conagra Brands, is part of the citys annual Holiday Lights Festival.

The effort was an overwhelming success, said Rick Hansen, vice president of human resources for Conagra Brands.

Meals generated will go to Food Bank for the Heartland, which serves nearly 600 network partners in Nebraska and western Iowa, including pantries, schools, emergency shelters and meal providers.

Shine the Light on Hunger is truly a collective effort, and we are always astounded and impressed by the generosity of our Omaha community this time of year, Hansen said.

Several community partners participated in collection efforts, including Bakers Supermarkets, the Durham Museum, Holland Performing Arts Center, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha Childrens Museum, Omaha Community Playhouse, Omaha Symphony, Orpheum Theater and Opera Omaha.

During the campaign, Park Omaha encouraged the public to make donations through candy cane-striped parking meters scattered around the Old Market, Blackstone District and Midtown Crossing.

Conagra Brands Foundation matched all campaign funds up to $100,000. Bakers made a matching gift of $20,000, and the Holiday Lights Festival provided $12,500. Additional matching gifts were made by Spreetail and friends of the Food Bank for a total of $220,000 in matched financial donations.

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Its no accident that both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology claim the beaver (Castor canadensis) as their mascots. Renowned engineers, beavers seem able to dam any stream, building structures with logs and mud that can flood large areas.

As climate change causes extreme storms in some areas and intense drought in others, scientists are finding that beavers small-scale natural interventions are valuable. In dry areas, beaver ponds restore moisture to the soil; in wet zones, their dams and ponds can help to slow floodwaters. These ecological services are so useful that land managers are translocating beavers in the U.S. and the United Kingdom to help restore ecosystems and make them more resilient to climate change.

Scientists are studying ways to use beavers to mitigate wildfire and drought risks in the western U.S.

How beavers alter landscapes

Beavers dam streams to create ponds, where they can construct their dome-shaped lodges in the water, keeping predators at a distance. When they create a pond, many other effects follow.

Newly flooded trees die but remain standing as bare snags where birds nest. The diverted streams create complicated interwoven channels of slow-moving water, tangled with logs and plants that provide hiding places for fish. The messy complexity behind a beaver dam creates many different kinds of habitats for creatures such as fish, birds, frogs and insects.

Human dams often block fish passage upstream and downstream, even when the dams include fish ladders. But studies have shown that fish have no trouble migrating upstream past beaver dams. One reason may be that the fish can rest in slow pools and cool pond complexes after navigating the tallest parts of the dams.

The slow-moving water behind beaver dams is very effective at trapping sediment, which drops to the bottom of the pond. Studies measuring total organic carbon in active and abandoned beaver meadows suggest that before the 1800s, active and abandoned beaver ponds across North America stored large amounts of carbon in sediment trapped behind them. This finding is relevant today as scientists look for ways to increase carbon storage in forests and other natural ecosystems.

Beavers may persist in one location for decades if they arent threatened by bears, cougars or humans, but they will move on if food runs out near their pond. When abandoned beaver dams fail, the ponds drain and gradually become grassy meadows as plants from the surrounding land seed them.

Dried meadows can serve as floodplains for nearby rivers, allowing waters to spill out and provide forage and spawning areas for fish during high flows. Floodplain meadows are valuable habitat for ground-nesting birds and other species that depend on the river.

The value of slowing the flow

As human settlements expand, people often wish to make use of every acre. That typically means that they want either land that is solid and dry enough to farm or waterways they can navigate by boat. To create those conditions, humans remove floating logs from streams and install drains to draw water off of fields and roads as quickly and efficiently as possible.

But covering more and more land surface with barriers that dont absorb water, such as pavement and rooftops, means that water flows into rivers and streams more quickly. Rainfall from an average storm can produce an intense river flow that erodes the banks and beds of waterways. And as climate change fuels more intense storms in many places, it will amplify this destructive impact.

Some developers limit this kind of damaging flow by using nature-based engineering principles, such as ponding water to intercept it and slow it down; spreading flows out more widely to reduce the waters speed; and designing swales, or sunken spots, that allow water to sink into the ground. Beaver wetlands do all of these things, only better. Research in the United Kingdom has documented that beaver activity can reduce the flow of floodwaters from farmlands by up to 30%.

Beaver meadows and wetlands also help cool the ground around and beneath them . Wet soil in these zones contains a lot of organic matter from buried and decayed plants, which holds onto moisture longer than soil formed only from rocks and minerals. In my wetland research , I have found that after a storm, water entering the ground passes through pure mineral sand in hours to days but can remain in soils that are 80%-90% organic matter for as long as a month.

Cool, wet soil also serves as a buffer against wildfires. Recent studies in the western U.S. have found that vegetation in beaver-dammed river corridors is more fire-resistant than in areas without beavers because it is well watered and lush, so it doesnt burn as easily. As a result, areas near beaver dams provide temporary refuge for wildlife when surrounding areas burn.

Making room for beavers

The ecological services that beavers provide are most valuable in zones where nobody minds if the landscape changes. But in the densely developed eastern U.S., where I work, its hard to find open areas where beaver ponds can spread out without flooding ditches or roads. Beavers also topple expensive landscaped trees and will feed on some cultivated crops, such as corn and soybeans.

Beavers are frequently blamed for flooding in developed areas, even though the real problem often is road design, not beaver dams. In such cases, removing the beavers doesnt solve the problem.

Culvert guards, fences and other exclusion devices can keep beavers a safe distance from infrastructure and maintain pond heights at a level that wont flood adjoining areas. Road crossings over streams that are designed to let fish and other aquatic animals through instead of blocking them are beaver-friendly and will be resilient to climate change and extreme precipitation events. If these structures are large enough to let debris pass through, then beavers will build dams upstream instead, which can help catch floodwaters.

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A growing body of research shows that setting aside pockets of land for beavers is good for wetland ecosystems, biodiversity and rivers. I believe we can learn from beavers water management skills, coexist with them in our landscapes and incorporate their natural engineering in response to weather and precipitation patterns disrupted by climate change.

Christine Hatch has trained workers at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on Rivers and Roads, mainly free of charge as public outreach work.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
Omaha and Lincoln law enforcement on Thursday spoke out against a bill that would allow Nebraskans to carry concealed handguns without permits, saying it would make their jobs harder and jeopardize public safety.

Its an issue that, in some other states, has put police and gun rights advocates in opposing camps.

But the bills sponsor, State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, said at a public hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee that he is working with law enforcement to address their concerns.

Legislative Bill 773 would allow people who arent otherwise banned from having guns to carry concealed weapons without clearing current hurdles: passing a criminal background check, paying a $100 fee, and taking an eight- to 16-hour gun safety class.

Policies like this are called constitutional carry laws in reference to some gun rights advocates belief that the U.S. Constitution gives people the right to carry concealed guns.

At least 21 states have already passed such laws, including every state surrounding Nebraska except Colorado. As of Jan. 1, more than 85,500 Nebraskans were licensed to carry concealed weapons.

People could still obtain permits to carry concealed weapons, Brewer said, which they may want to do to carry a gun across state lines or potentially expedite a background check for purchasing a gun. Where guns are allowed wouldnt change, he said, and neither would laws that say you cant have a gun with alcohol or drugs in your system.

Proponents argue that the current requirements are unnecessary barriers to a fundamental right and that the costs of getting a permit and taking a class are unfair to low-income people.

The right to keep and bear arms should not be treated like a second-class right, Brewer said.

Those who testified in favor of the bill included gun rights advocates and instructors.

John Lott, a well-known gun rights advocate and economist, argued that the wait time for a permit is too long for someone who wants a gun urgently, such as a victim of stalking, and said poor minorities would benefit most from the bill.

Lott and Brewer wrote a recent op-ed in The World-Herald making many of the same arguments. (Lott co-wrote a very similar op-ed with a Florida state lawmaker published by the Orlando Sentinel last month, which attracted a rebuttal arguing that Lotts analysis was error-filled. Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln also challenged data that Lott presented at the hearing.)

Along with gun control advocates, those in opposition included representatives of the Omaha police union, the Omaha Police Department and the Lincoln Police Department. Lincoln Police Chief Teresa Ewins also conveyed opposition from the Police Chiefs Association of Nebraska and the Police Officers Association of Nebraska.

They worry that the bill would counteract local efforts to reduce gun violence and hinder their ability to seize illegal guns.

Without a permitting process and training, youll have individuals who shouldnt be carrying and carrying without the proper skills necessary to assess the situation and determine when the lethal force is lawful, Ewins said.

Anthony Conner, president of the Omaha Police Officers Association, said he spoke with the president of the police union in Kansas City, Missouri, after a similar bill passed and was told that it made it harder to seize guns from criminals. He said homicides have doubled there since the bill passed.

We must oppose this bill as its currently written today, Conner said. But I thank Sen. Brewer for his sincere interest in our concerns, his stated dedication to find a common ground, and Im hopeful that we can do just that.

Brewer suggested that submitted comments would be more indicative of Nebraskans view on the issue. An updated tally after the hearing counted 202 proponents of the bill, 32 opponents and two people who considered themselves neutral.

Last year, Brewer introduced a bill to let all but Nebraskas three largest counties  Douglas, Lancaster and Sarpy  decide whether to allow permitless concealed carry. He ditched that effort after Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson raised constitutional concerns about delegating a state matter to county boards.

Brewer gave this years broader bill his priority designation, increasing the likelihood that it will be debated. If the committee does not vote to advance the bill, Brewer said he would pursue a pull motion to get the bill to the floor of the Legislature for debate. That would require approval from 30 of the 49 senators.

Nineteen senators had signed onto LB 773 as co-sponsors as of Thursdays hearing. If the bill makes it to the floor, it would need to survive three rounds of debate and approval.

Gov. Pete Ricketts pledged, during a town hall meeting organized by the National Rifle Association last year, to sign a statewide constitutional carry bill if it gets to his desk.

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LINCOLN  Nebraska education organizations mounted a united front Thursday against two bills aimed at controlling the growth of school property tax collections.

But State Sen. Tom Briese of Albion, who introduced both measures, said some type of cap is needed to provide Nebraskans with property tax relief and win support for increased state aid for schools.

He said Legislative Bills 986 and 987 would ensure that additional state aid to schools would actually translate into lower tax bills. In the past, he said, property tax collections have grown faster than either inflation or wages, which puts a squeeze on property owners.

He cited data showing that from 2008 through 2020, inflation grew 20.1% and wages grew 39%, while total property taxes grew 66.8%.

I personally think its unconscionable to allow this to happen, he told members of the Revenue Committee.

At a public hearing, representatives of some business and agriculture groups applauded the proposals, saying the current property tax situation is unacceptable. Property taxes currently provide about 60% of the funding for public schools.

Brenda Masek, speaking for the Nebraska Cattlemen and the Nebraska Farm Bureau, said the proposals are a good start to a conversation about balancing taxpayer interests and the need to educate Nebraska children.

Bud Synhorst, president and CEO of the Lincoln Independent Business Association, said the caps would prevent schools from collecting a windfall when property valuations increase. Now, when that happens, local governments can get more money without changing the tax levy.

It is a step in the right direction toward holding taxing authorities accountable, he said. Its a good bill to address a major problem.

But Jack Moles, executive director of the Nebraska Rural Community Schools Association, who testified on behalf of six education groups, said locally elected school boards are the ones charged with balancing the needs of students and taxpayers.

They should be allowed to do their jobs without additional mandates, he said, noting that schools are facing major staffing shortages and have to compete with rising wages across the economy.

Jason Buckingham, assistant superintendent for business at the Ralston Public Schools, said the state already limits the growth of school budgets and caps property tax levies. Adding the caps proposed in LB 986 or 987 could lead to unintended consequences, such as not being able to make up for drops in state aid, he said.

Buckingham, who testified on behalf of the states largest school districts, noted that the Ralston district had the smallest increases in property tax collections during years when its state aid was the highest.

John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, also opposed the bills. He said the problem with property taxes is largely a problem of lack of state support for schools, not out-of-control spending.

The two bills offer alternative ways to calculate the cap and to accommodate special circumstances facing school districts. Both would allow districts to exceed the caps through a vote of the public or, in some cases, the school board.

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LINCOLN  Two governors who havent always seen eye to eye came together Friday to endorse State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk for the 1st District congressional seat.

The announcement was bad news for Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, who launched his campaign for a 10th term last week amid major legal battles.

He has been charged with three felonies in federal court  two counts of making false statements to federal agents and one count of seeking to conceal the source of $30,000 in conduit political contributions from a 2016 California fundraiser. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial in mid-February.

At a press conference in the State Capitol Rotunda, Gov. Pete Ricketts, the current governor, and Gov. Dave Heineman, his predecessor, avoided saying whether they believe that Fortenberry is guilty of the charges.

But they said the situation distracts from his congressional work and his reelection campaign, and Heineman noted that Fortenberry is the only Nebraska congressman in modern times to be indicted on felony charges.

His actions have resulted in a dilemma for 1st District voters, Heineman said. We respect and appreciate his service, but we dont want to risk losing the seat to a Democrat.

Flood, on the other hand, will be able to focus his entire energy on the race and on being a congressman, Ricketts said. All four men are Republicans.

Republicans need to come together to back the strongest candidate, and thats Mike, the governor said. With Mike Flood, we will win the 1st Congressional District in Nebraska.

Fortenberry, who has represented the eastern Nebraska district since 2005, responded to the announcement by pointing to the endorsements he has received from other Nebraska GOP leaders, including Lt. Gov. Mike Foley, State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue and Norfolk Mayor Josh Moenning.

Todays announcement is particularly disappointing because I have counted these people as friends, and you hope you can rely on your friends to stand by you when you face adversity like a false and unjust accusation, Fortenberry said in a statement.

The voters will pass their own judgment on the character of the candidates in this race, and I will spend this year talking with them about the accomplishments, leadership and conservative values that make me the best person to earn their vote and represent them in Congress.

State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln, who is running for the Democratic Party nomination, said she was taking it as a compliment that the two governors are concerned about losing the seat to a Democrat. But she said the endorsements will not change any part of her campaign.

Our mission is full-steam ahead, she said. My goal is to show voters of Congressional District 1 that its time for change. We need different leadership.

Both governors praised Floods record of accomplishments in the Nebraska Legislature and as an entrepreneur. He is an attorney and owns and operates a media chain called News Channel Nebraska. He served two terms in the Legislature earlier, including six years as speaker. After being term-limited once, he ran again and won in 2020.

Mike Flood is an outstanding leader and a skilled legislator, Heineman said. He is a fiscal conservative, a man of action and a person of integrity.

Ricketts highlighted Floods efforts to fight abortion, which included getting a ban on abortions at about 22 weeks gestation. Flood touted that accomplishment, as well as his work to preserve the death penalty in Nebraska, support law enforcement and promote economic opportunity.

Flood said he has worked to bring people together, get things done and make big things happen for Nebraska, both in his private sector career and as a legislator. But, he said, those opportunities are harder to realize when Washington gets in the way.

We need a course correction, and winning this seat is the first step, he said.

Ricketts and Heineman have not always been unified when it comes to endorsements. The two backed different candidates in a contentious race for the District 1 seat in the Legislature in 2020. Sen. Julie Slama, endorsed by Ricketts, ultimately defeated challenger Janet Palmtag, who was endorsed by Heineman and Fortenberry. Both candidates were registered Republicans.

And in the 2014 Republican primary for governor, Heineman backed then-Attorney General Jon Bruning over Ricketts, who ended up winning the primary and the general election.

After Fridays press conference ended, State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha, a Democrat, criticized Flood for holding a campaign event during legislative debate. She also questioned the event being in a government building.

Other candidates on the GOP side of the race include Curtis Huffman of La Vista, an accountant and 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force; and Thireena Connely of Palmyra. Lincoln activist Jazari Kual has declared his candidacy on the Democratic side.

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.

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LINCOLN  A previously outspoken opponent of medical marijuana is now proposing to legalize its use in Nebraska under strict regulations.

State Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte introduced Legislative Bill 1275 on Thursday, the last day for bill introductions this year. It was among 593 bills and nine proposed constitutional amendments tossed into the hopper.

His proposal would establish a system under which people with specific medical conditions could obtain limited amounts of marijuana. The marijuana would have to be supplied by state-regulated dispensaries, which would be limited to five per congressional district.

Only patients with stage 4 cancer, uncontrolled seizures, severe or persistent muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis or muscular dystrophy or a terminal illness with a life expectancy under one year could qualify to obtain medical marijuana. Those patients would not be allowed to grow marijuana, and they couldnt ingest it by smoking.

The bill is similar to one introduced last year by Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, who has been the Legislatures leading advocate of medical marijuana. Her proposal was blocked by a filibuster, after which she turned her attention to an initiative petition drive aimed at putting the issue before voters in November.

Groene said he introduced LB 1275 out of concern that, if the Legislature doesnt act, the broader ballot initiative will pass. He said his bill would allow the Legislature to put in the controls needed to regulate marijuana for medical purposes.

Groene previously opposed medical marijuana. But he changed his position last year, saying he has heard from a number of families who believe that marijuana helps with the treatment of epilepsy and cancer and in end-of-life scenarios and are getting the marijuana from other states.

Last year, he talked about a man with terminal brain cancer. Traditional medications left him incoherent and unable to function, so his very conservative family turned to medical marijuana, Groene said. That made it possible for him to spend his last three months alert and able to interact with his family.

He said those people are also a key constituency behind the petition drives.

You take all of those people out of the picture because you pass a medical marijuana bill, the petition fails, he said.

Sen. Julie Slama of Sterling, who cast one of the votes against Wisharts bill last year, said on Twitter that she supports Groenes proposal and called it a thoughtful compromise.

In the past, Slama and Groene have been allies of Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has adamantly opposed medical marijuana. He appeared in television advertisements last month decrying the dangers of medical marijuana and arguing that the only difference between medical and recreational marijuana is the terminology.

Among other bills introduced Thursday:

Partisan legislature. The Nebraska Legislature would shed its nonpartisan nature under Legislative Resolution 282CA, introduced by Slama, a Republican. The proposal would repeal a provision in the Nebraska Constitution requiring that state senators be elected in a nonpartisan manner and appear on the ballot without any party affiliation listed.

Private schools. Three proposals would provide state funding to help Nebraska students attend private and parochial schools.

 LB 1237, introduced by Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, would provide tax credits to people who donate to scholarship funds for private and parochial school students. The measure is similar to one that failed to advance last week.

 LB 1240, introduced by Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston, would use federal pandemic relief money to provide grants to low-income families to help students make up learning losses. The grants could be used for a variety of purposes, including private school tuition.

 LB 1251, introduced by Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair, would provide state-funded scholarships to help special education students attend private and parochial schools.

License plates. Nebraskas next license plates would be good for 10 years, instead of the current six years, under LB 1259, introduced by Sen. Suzanne Geist of Lincoln. The state is slated to issue new license plates in 2023 to replace those bearing the image of the Sower statue atop the State Capitol.

Chambers museum. The state would help with construction of a proposed Ernie Chambers History-Arts-Humanities Museum in North Omaha under LB 1205, introduced by Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha. The museum would honor the legacy of the states longest-serving state senator, as well as house his collected documents.

Pandemic money. More than 30 bills were introduced with proposals for using federal pandemic relief money. Nebraska is receiving $1.04 billion through the American Rescue Plan Act. Proposals range from replacing lead water pipes to providing grants to Nebraska-based professional soccer or baseball teams to offset revenue losses from COVID-19.

World-Herald staff writer Henry J. Cordes contributed to this report.

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Among the newer and most deserving of Nebraskas prison inmates is William Billy J. Quinn of Oxford, sentenced in December to a minimum of 176 years, effectively the rest of his life, for sexual assault and sex trafficking of a 15-year-old girl.

Its a horrific case that has led to charges against 18 other men accused of abusing the girl during six months of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, as the Furnas County attorney described it.

Quinns case is one of 22 sex trafficking prosecutions started in Nebraska last year, tying 2020 for the states record number. Kudos to Gov. Pete Ricketts, Attorney General Doug Peterson and Nebraska lawmakers of both parties for focusing attention on a crime that amounts to modern slavery.

Passing Nebraska-specific laws has been extremely important because federal trafficking laws only apply to cases that cross state borders, Ricketts wrote in a recent column. Before that, criminal activity within the state couldnt be prosecuted as effectively.

More than half of the sex trafficking prosecutions in Nebraskas history have been filed in the past two years, but the state hasnt stopped there.

Critically, Nebraska is administering a three-year, $1.5 million federal grant to help victims of trafficking. Survivors need care, resources and support after experiencing such profound trauma, Ricketts notes.

The state also has worked hard to help identify trafficking. The Nebraska Human Trafficking Task Force within the Attorney Generals Office trained more 6,800 people in 2021. The reach is smart  from public safety workers to chiropractors, rural electricians, school counselors, students, parks workers and more.

All of us can help by being aware that trafficking is real in our cities, small towns and along Interstate highways. A tip in Brainard, population 420, led to a prosecution, and Quinns exploitation of the teen was centered in small towns.

Anyone who suspects having encountered a sex trafficking victim should call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888.

Signs of trafficking might include a person who seems dressed inadequately for the weather, who seems fearful, anxious and submissive, deferring to someone else in conversation.

Any commercial sex involving someone younger than 18 is trafficking under U.S. law. Adult victims might live where they work, have little freedom to go out alone or be transported in closely watched groups.

A young person of either sex might have few possessions or be tattooed with someone elses name and be reluctant to explain. The victim might be the target of verbal abuse in public.

These crimes, often perpetrated by relatives, typically victimize vulnerable people through manipulation and intimidation. Immature, needy young people might be flattered by a would-be trafficker, groomed and then controlled in a life of exploitation.

They need our help, from public reporting of suspicions to strong state action like that being taken in Nebraska, including support for victims.
Prison population

A front page story in the Jan. 9 OWH shows Nebraska and Idaho are the only states that have increased prison populations. I see that as a good thing. Bad people are doing the time.

I also see it as a solution. Instead of spending hundreds of millions to build more prisons, ship out our extras to neighboring states. They obviously have room and they might like to make some money renting out their empty cells. Im sure it would be much cheaper than building and staffing more prisons.

Neil Willer, Blair

Moving inmates

The Jan. 9 World Herald article reported that the Nebraska prison population is an outlier in that our prison population has increased over 15%. Every other state in the nation, with the exception of Iowa, have seen prison populations decline. The increased population is primarily due to gun crimes, sex crimes, assault, drugs, and homicide. The blue states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, and New York are among those that have seen the greatest declines in prison population.

If any of those states with extra capacity would like to have these violent offenders, they are welcome to take them. They can incarcerate them, or turn them loose on their streets, at their discretion. Just dont allow them to come back here.

Thank you, Gov. Pete Ricketts and the Nebraska Legislature for keeping these violent offenders off our streets.

Dan Anderson, Gretna

Thank you

Thank you, Lindsay Huse, for your courageous stand in declaring a mask mandate for Omaha. We are fortunate to have you represent us. You may not have been elected to a public position, but you were definitely hired for your medical expertise. It is disheartening to hear that some of our elected leaders have chosen to throw up road-blocks.

What evidence do our elected leaders require to comprehend the need for action? The states health systems are getting hammered by rising COVID numbers and staffing shortages. An all-time high number of new COVID cases occurred this past week in the state of Nebraska. The president of the Nebraska Hospital Association opined that our state could see a doubling of COVID hospitalizations in the next two to three weeks  enough to overwhelm our health care systems.

Health care workers are being sidelined, due to having COVID themselves or within their families. More people have died in Douglas County. The presidents of seven metro area teachers associations appealed for a mask mandate  a plea which has apparently fallen on deaf ears.

Thank you again, Lindsay Huse, for taking this simple lifesaving measure that our elected leaders have chosen to avoid. A final question: Why have our elected representatives allowed your position to exist if it is not to protect the health of the citizens of Douglas County?

Glenn Irwin, Omaha

Bias training

I was dumbfounded when I read that State Rep. Michaela Cavanaugh was proposing a law that would require professionals who need licenses to practice medicine in Nebraska to complete an annual implicit bias training program to expose any unconscious prejudices they may have. Really! I think a better program would be to have our representatives take an annual exam to certify they have an acceptable level of common sense to introduce a bill. Come next November, I will expose my bias by voting against her.

Donald Busenbark Sr., Omaha

Medical choice

Im going to make this as clear and simple as I can: Im the only one that has the right to choose any medical procedure I receive, let alone an invasive and experimental one. We must stop letting blind fear put our fundamental liberties at stake.

Gary Tuma, Fremont
Contact:

Kent Donahue

Kent.Donahue@flhealth.gov

407-858-1418

ORLANDO, FL  The Florida Department of Health in Orange County has issued a Health Caution for the presence of blue-green algae in Lake Copeland. This is in response to a site visit and water sample taken by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on January 13, 2022. The public should exercise caution in and around Lake Copeland.

Blooms have the potential to produce toxins, and what triggers them to begin doing so remains poorly understood. For this reason, it is important to exercise caution, as bloom conditions are dynamic and could change at any time. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) collects algae samples from reported bloom locations for toxin analysis. Once completed, the results will be posted on the DEP Algal Bloom Dashboard, and can also be viewed on the Protecting Florida Together website, where you can sign up to be notified of the latest conditions.

Residents and visitors are advised to take the following precautions:

You should not drink, swim, wade, use personal watercraft, water ski or boat in waters where there is a visible bloom

Avoid getting water in your eyes, nose, or mouth

You should keep pets and livestock away from the waters in this location

Eating fillets from healthy fish caught in freshwater lakes experiencing blooms is safe. Rinse fish fillets with tap or bottled water, throw out the guts and cook fish well

You should not eat shellfish from this location

What is blue-green algae?

Blue-green algae are a type of bacteria that is common in Floridas freshwater environments. A bloom occurs when rapid growth of algae leads to an accumulation of individual cells that discolor water and often produce floating mats that emit unpleasant odors.

Some environmental factors that contribute to blue-green algae blooms are sunny days, warm water temperatures, still water conditions and excess nutrients. Blooms can appear year-round but are more frequent in summer and fall. Many types of blue-green algae can produce toxins.

Is it harmful?

Blue-green algae blooms can impact human health and ecosystems, including fish and other aquatic animals. For additional information on potential health effects of algal blooms, visit floridahealth.gov/environmental-health/aquatic-toxins.

Find current information about Floridas water quality status and public health notifications for harmful algal blooms and beach conditions by visiting ProtectingFloridaTogether.gov. Protecting Florida Together is the states joint effort to provide statewide water quality information to prioritize environmental transparency and commitment to action.

What do I do if I see an algal bloom?

DEP collects and analyzes algal bloom samples. To report a bloom to DEP, call the toll-free hotline at 855-305-3903 or report online.

To report fish kills, contact the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute at 1-800-636-0511.

Report symptoms from exposure to a harmful algal bloom or any aquatic toxin to the Florida Poison Information Center, call 1-800-222-1222 to speak to a poison specialist immediately.

Contact your veterinarian if you believe your pet has become ill after consuming or having contact with blue-green algae contaminated water.

If you have other health questions or concerns about blue-green algae blooms, please call the Florida Department of Health in Orange County Algal Bloom Information Line at 407-723-5216.

About the Florida Department of Health

The department, nationally accredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board, works to protect, promote and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county and community efforts.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @HealthyFla. For more information about the Florida Department of Health please visit www.FloridaHealth.gov.
BLOOMINGTON  A Normal man remains in custody on child pornography charges.

David S. Fry, 70, is charged with 45 counts of child pornography. Sixteen of the charges are a Class 2 felony and 29 charges are a Class 3 felony.

Court documents do not list a victim in the charges. A prosecutor said the charges result from the use of electronics.

The charges are described as a possession of a photograph or other similar visual reproduction or depiction by computer of a minor child whom he reasonably should have known to be under the age of 13, in court documents.

Normal police began investigating Fry in September 2020 following a cyber tip sent to the Illinois Attorney General's Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, which includes detectives from the Normal Police Department, authorities said.

A warrant for Frys arrest was issued and returned Wednesday. A judge preliminarily set his bond Wednesday at $500,000 with 10% to apply, meaning he would need to pay $50,000 plus a bond fee to be released from custody.

A different judge kept the bond as set in a hearing Thursday.

Fry was ordered to have no contact with any minor children.

An arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 4.

Contact Kade Heather at 309-820-3256. Follow him on Twitter: @kadeheather

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BLOOMINGTON  In several ways, it was a shocking lesson for Bloomington Area Career Center students.

Hailing from Paxton, Live Line Demo Inc. owner Steve Hancock demonstrated Thursday the hazards of commercial power apparatus to a class of aspiring paramedics and firefighters, as well as professional first responders. A morning session was held for 27 students at Bloomington Fire Station No. 2, 1911 E. Hamilton Road, and was contracted by Ameren Illinois.

Hancock reviewed gear and equipment that crews typically use to keep themselves safe and insulated from high-voltage currents, such as rubber gloves, poles known as hot sticks, transfer cables and more.

Hancock warned the class that as few as 5 milliamps can stop a persons heart, adding that most accidents happen at 124 volts or less. The instructor warned students that it may not be possible to see, hear or smell an unstable electrical circuit, and you cant outrun it.

Trust me, I have tried, Hancock added.

One demonstrations included arching a high-voltage current with a mock bird. Another blew a fuse with a loud bang that abruptly reclaimed the attention of a few sleepy students attending the 8:30 a.m. class.

Hancock said any downed wire must be avoided until it is verified as safe.

He also said touching a fallen cable line can be deadly, as it might be touching a live wire somewhere out of view. He recalled how a telephone line grounding 24 volts of direct current through a gas pipe fatally electrocuted a lineman trying to move through a crawl space around 20 years ago.

Hancock explained that when working with downed wires, crews must always safely verify whether a line is still hot, no matter what theyve been told.

Additional first responders attended a Thursday afternoon session at the fire station, also provided by Hancock. Eric Davison, public information officer for the Bloomington Fire Department, said complacency is a big killer in the fire service, and any other field.

Its a great reminder of just the danger of it, he said of the demonstration.

Contact Brendan Denison at (309) 820-3238. Follow Brendan Denison on Twitter: @BrendanDenison

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NORMAL  Illinois State University reiterated its intention to resume in-person classes next week, but not all students are looking forward to being back in classrooms.

Junior communications major Jac Wills said the classes she is most concerned about were moved online, but she is still concerned for other people on campus. She worries it will put students into a position of having to decide if they feel safe going to class.

Its not an easy decision, I dont think (it is) for anyone, she said.

Wills and others have created a letter asking ISU to stay on remote learning until COVID cases are back to where they were in the fall, when, after an initial increase, campus was often reporting single digits of new cases a day. In contrast, Jan. 4 of this year saw the largest number of new cases so far this school year  160  as employees returned to campus.

The letter had more than 650 signatures as of mid-day Thursday, Wills said. The majority of those are from students, but faculty, staff and community members have also signed.

The universitys COVID update on Friday said it still intends to resume in-person instruction on Monday, although not all classes will be in person. Students and employees can also receive free KN95 masks, two per person, from the school. Distribution started on Tuesday.

In December, ISU President Terri Goss Kinzy announced the first two weeks of this semester would use remote instruction, in response to rising COVID cases in the community.

University spokesperson Eric Jome said ISU believes those two weeks helped by giving students and employees more time to be tested during the initial surge of cases as the omicron variant spread. The university is also requiring campus community members to test negative before returning to campus, or finish isolating if they tested positive.

We understand peoples concerns about things, Jome said.

Still, administration feels the procedures in place will allow a safe return, he said.

But Wills is not sure just having the procedures is enough. During the fall semester, she was worried by inconsistent enforcement.

We already have all these concerns about how in person wasnt safe before this spike, she said.

As of Thursday, there had been 248 positive cases from on-campus testing in the past seven days. That accounts for just under 15% of the total cases since the start of the 2021-22 school year. There were 58 new cases reported Thursday.

At ISU, 97% of employees and 78% of students are vaccinated. The student number includes 90% of students who live on campus.

Graduate student and teaching assistant Steven Lazaroff said conditions have not changed enough to make it safe to return to in-person classes. As one of the people circulating the letter, he is not surprised to see students taking the lead with signing it.

If we look at who has been driving COVID-safe re-openings, its been unions ( and) its been primarily students, he said.

As a graduate teaching assistant, he has asked for, and received, larger classrooms for the classes he will be teaching, so as to make distancing easier. His preference would be for teaching in-person, he said, but not if he and his students do not feel safe doing so.

A safe reopening would make clear that the priority is on keeping students and employees safe during the pandemic, said junior Doniven Hill-Bush.

We have to focus not on how this individually affects us, but how it affects (the wider community), he said.

The students acknowledged that some may feel remote learning is not getting the bang for their buck." While they agree, they say the safety of the campus community should come first.

(The safety of the community) matters more to me than enjoying class more, Wills said.

Hill-Bush is also concerned that the rush to return to in-person classes will end up meaning ISU has to go back to remote learning later in the semester.

Were basically asking for the same thing to happen again, he said.

At nearby Illinois Wesleyan University, students started the semester with in-person classes. Its baseline testing as students returned to campus saw 100 new cases. Another 55 cases have been identified since Jan. 7, with active cases down to 21 as of Thursday.

Lincoln College delayed the start of spring semester by a week in response to the surge in cases. Traditional courses resumed in-person this week. Lincoln had not yet released COVID statistics for this week as of Friday afternoon.

Eureka College did not use remote learning or extend winter break. It has reported four positive cases on campus since the start of the semester, and another 38 off campus.

ISU continues to monitor the situation and the numbers closely, Jome said. As administrators expected, there was a spike in cases as people started testing to return to campus, but they hope that having that testing in place and having people who test positive isolate will help prevent further spread as classes start.

If something does have to change, we will communicate that out in a timely fashion, Jome said.

Contact Connor Wood at (309)820-3240. Follow Connor on Twitter: @connorkwood

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The first set of data for the Illinois State Board of Education report card is out, but it does not include much information about how schools are performing. Assessment data and a summative designation of how each school is faring were not included.
CHICAGO  Tricia Poreda recently walked inside a COVID-19 testing center on the citys Northwest Side and was immediately appalled by the facilitys lack of basic health and safety protocols.

Employees collecting specimens werent changing gloves or washing hands in between patients, she recalled. The site didnt seem to be enforcing social distancing and the employees performing tests werent wearing proper personal protection equipment.

I would say if you didnt have (COVID) when you walked in, theres a good chance you had it when you walked out, with those kinds of practices, said Poreda, an ICU nurse, who left that center and found another location to get tested for the virus. Some of those places are superspreader sites on their own.

With COVID-19 testing in high demand in the Chicago area, medical experts and government officials are warning consumers to be extremely wary of substandard or fraudulent pop-up testing centers. Some of them have been found operating in sketchy settings while others have reportedly given patients fake results  or failed to return any results at all.

One Illinois-based chain of coronavirus testing sites, the Center for COVID Control, has temporarily shut down amid multiple investigations by federal authorities and various state agencies.

The Minnesota attorney generals office announced Wednesday that it has filed a lawsuit against the company and its Illinois-based lab, Doctors Clinical Laboratory Inc., alleging they collected patient samples but either failed to deliver test results, or delivered test results that were falsified or inaccurate, according to the agencys news release.

The companies did not immediately return Tribune requests for comment; a written statement on the Center for COVID Control website said the business was going to pause operations, citing high demand and stressed staffing.

Certain Center for Covid Control (CCC) locations are experiencing high demand for testing due to the omicron variant surge, the Jan. 13 statement said. This unusually high patient demand has stressed staffing resources, as has been widely reported, in a subset of our locations, affecting our usual customer service standards and diagnostic goals.

A northwest suburban man was ticketed twice this month for conducting unlawful coronavirus testing out of a car in the parking lot of a former Bakers Square restaurant in Niles, and without a business license, according to village officials.

And social media sites are rife with stories about shady fly-by-night COVID testing centers. One woman posted on the Facebook site Chicago Vaccine Hunters that she had recently received a negative test result from a testing center in the western suburbs.

This would be good news except that I havent been in to test yet! she wrote on the site.

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike earlier this month advised residents to be wary of potentially fraudulent testing centers.

We do want to urge some caution with some of these clinics, she said. There unfortunately are those who are taking advantage of these crazy times to try and scam people. So if you have any doubts about the testing location that you are looking at, go ahead and ask some questions. What lab is the testing site using? When will you receive the results, and from whom?

Here are eight tips to help discern which testing centers are legitimate  and protect yourself against all different types of COVID-19 testing scams.

1. Start with state-sponsored testing sites, when possible. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul recently issued a warning about unregulated testing centers, urging residents to first try government test sites or those recommended by their health care providers. Testing locations can be found at the Illinois Department of Public Health website, the Cook County Department of Health website and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website. Complaints about suspect COVID-19 testing facilities can be made at the attorney generals office website.

To give you an idea of the scope of the problem, we have received 244 complaints overall for testing, said agency spokeswoman Tori Joseph.

2. Ask questions about the medical director, the type of test performed and the lab used for results. Infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Murphy suggested asking for the name of the sites medical director and their credentials.

A quick Google search should be informative, said Murphy, executive director of Northwestern Universitys Institute for Global Health and a professor of infectious diseases at the Feinberg School of Medicine. If they will not provide you with a legitimate name with credentials, dont go there.

Ask for the name of the exact test thats being done and if the test has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. Consumers can ask for the name of the laboratory that will be processing the test, officials said, and then search if the lab is appropriately certified.

3. Get a phone number. Ask when the results will be available and how theyll be communicated to you, the attorney generals office said. Ask for a phone number and who you can call with any questions or concerns about test results.

4. Being asked to pay for the test out-of-pocket is a red flag. The attorney generals office added that consumers should be cautious if a site requests cash or credit card payments for a test. Most testing locations will instead bill insurance companies, or, if individuals are uninsured, seek reimbursement from a federal fund, according to the attorney generals website.

5. Go somewhere else if the location says it wont accept insurance. If the site does not accept insurance, this is another red flag as insurers are now required to accept requests for COVID tests, Murphy added. If they will not accept your insurance, which includes Medicaid and Medicare, go someplace else.

6. Check health and safety standards. I would make sure the site has good infection control processes, said Dr. Elizabeth Davis, medical director of community health equity at Rush University Medical Center. The site should be clean. People should be hand sanitizing and changing gloves between every patient. They should be wearing medical masks.

When getting a rapid test, Davis advised asking for the brand name as well as the expiration date, to make sure it hasnt expired.

There should be social distancing on-site and a mechanism to limit flow, she added.

7. Check at-home COVID-19 tests before purchase. The attorney generals office is also cautioning consumers about potential fake at-home test kits offered for sale; the FDA has a list of authorized at-home test kits. The FDA also keeps a list of fraudulent COVID-19 treatments and prevention products, which includes the names of some COVID tests.

Expect to pay between $14 and $25 for packs of at-home rapid test kits. Report fraudulent tests or price gouging to the state attorney generals office.

8. Beware of phony websites when signing up for free government-issued COVID tests. With the Biden administration offering American households free COVID-19 tests requested via the U.S. Postal Service, the Better Business Bureau is warning consumers to be on guard for fraudulent, look-alike websites.

Scammers often take advantage of these kinds of government initiatives, creating phony sites to get access to financial or other sensitive information, according to the BBB.

You follow the link to a website that looks official at first glance, the BBB says on its website. It may have the United States Postal Service (USPS) logo, just like the real website. It also has a form to request your tests. But when you start filling out the form, you notice something unusual. This fake version may ask you for personal information, such as your Social Security number or Medicare ID. It could also request your credit card details, under the guise of needing to pay for shipping.

The BBB advises consumers to examine the domain name: The federal governments website is special.usps.com/testkits, but phony ones might swap a few letters or include spelling mistakes. The BBB also notes that the real website only asks for a name and address; it doesnt request Social Security numbers, insurance information or any other sensitive data.

Shanzeh Ahmad contributed.

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SPRINGFIELD  An Illinois COVID-19 testing company at the center of a controversy about accuracy of results has agreed not to open any additional pop-up locations in the state "for the foreseeable future."

Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office opened an investigation into the Center for COVID Control after residents raised concerns about tests being delayed, tests being store improperly and staff incorrectly using masks, he said in a statement.

Illinois Republicans set tough-on-crime agenda for 2022 The Republican legislators again called for the repeal of the SAFE-T Act.

The Rolling Meadows-based company is being investigated in several states and by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. On Wednesday, Minnesota sued the company. Massachusetts public health officials also ordered three COVID-19 testing sites.

The company operated dozens of testing sites, including ones in Bloomington and Decatur.

A Center for Covid Control statement issued last week blamed high demand for problems. It recently paused operations to fix flaws but plans to resume testing this weekend.

Raoul in a statement Thursday said: Although the company voluntarily suspended operations, my office contacted company officials to demand that the Center for COVID Control immediately stop engaging in any fraudulent or deceptive conduct, particularly with respect to the delivery of testing results or billing. In addition to evaluating residents complaints, attorneys from my Consumer Fraud Division interviewed former employees of the Center for COVID Control," he said. "This evening, I am pleased to announce that the companys representatives have agreed the Center for COVID Control will postpone the reopening of any pop-up testing locations in Illinois for the foreseeable future."

Pop-up COVID-19 testing locations are not regulated by a government agency.

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SPRINGFIELD  Republicans will make a tough-on-crime agenda the focus of their 2022 campaigns, Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin said Thursday.

Durkin, R-Western Springs, joined three other House Republicans  Reps. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, and Deanne Mazzochi, R-Elmhurst  at a news conference Thursday in which they criticized Democrats for their criminal justice reforms and claimed public safety as a Republican issue.

We're going to be running on public safety," Durkin said. "What party has the back of law enforcement? What party, more importantly, has the backs of victims? It's the Republicans. The Democrats have abandoned this.

The Republican legislators again called for the repeal of the SAFE-T Act.

8 tips to help protect against phony COVID testing scams and clinics With COVID-19 testing in high demand, medical experts and government officials are warning consumers to be extremely wary of substandard or fraudulent pop-up testing centers.

A massive criminal justice reform, the SAFE-T Act was passed by the General Assembly in January 2021 and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in February. It requires body cameras for police officers, more phone calls for suspects in police custody, and officer intervention in cases of excessive force.

Many of the acts provisions dont go into effect until 2023.

All four Republicans suggested the SAFE-T Act is to blame for increasing crime rates across the state.

Before the passage of the SAFE-T Act, we warned them what would happen, and it has, said Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis. Innocent victims are in an even more dangerous position than they were a year ago,

Illinois has become the wild wild Midwest, Durkin said.

Rates of violent crime have increased in the past few years, said Dr. Magic Wade, assistant professor of political studies at the University of Illinois Springfield.

But that increase cannot be attributed to the SAFE-T Act, she said, because most of the act has yet to go into effect, and crime rates in some parts of the state have been rising since 2015.

Violent crime was going up before the pandemic, Wade said. So the pandemic sort of put into overdrive a trend that was already happening.

Wade, who studies the criminal justice system, said the increase in crime observed in Illinois is part of a nationwide trend. Criminologists do not agree on why crime rates rise and fall, which leaves room for people to interpret data in more partisan ways.

Politicians in both parties will use crime as a political tool in this years elections, said Dr. Kent Redfield, professor of political science emeritus at the University of Illinois Springfield.

With Democratic supermajorities in the House and the Senate, Republicans simply dont have the votes to repeal the SAFE-T Act, he said. Its especially unlikely in an election year, in which its typical for legislators to avoid major reforms.

But with rising crime rates on the publics mind, its easier for politicians to get public attention on a bill even if it has no chance of passing, Redfield said.

This is not so much about policy arguments as it is about trying to get that major theme out there," he said.

According to Redfield, Democrats will now have to figure out how to more effectively answer to increased pressure from their Republican colleagues and from voters.

The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus responded to Durkin's press conference with a statement accusing Republicans of using racial scare tactics in their repeal attempts.

"As usual with the Republican Party, any effort to make the justice system fairer for Black people is called 'dangerous, the statement read.

Republicans emphasis on the SAFE-T Act ultimately might not be the most effective strategy, Redfield said.

A bill that takes effect next year didn't cause problems," he said.

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CLINTON  Children in DeWitt County will have a chance to receive free books through Dolly Partons Imagination Library. The program is starting out with openings for around 100 kids.

Each child, who must be under 5 years old, would receive a free book every month. The program is being sponsored by United Way of Decatur and Mid-Illinois. United Way and Vespasian Warner Public Library hosted a news conference Thursday afternoon to launch the program, the day after Parton's 76th birthday.

The Imagination Library is a program of the Dollywood Foundation, which was started by Parton for her charitable ventures. It has distributed more than 150 million books to kids across the world.

United Way organizations often end up coordinating and sponsoring the program at the local level, said Ryan Huffer, director of marketing at United Way of Decatur and Mid-Illinois.

Generally, it is United Ways that kind of take this on because it takes some money for the books, he said.

The program is already available in Macon County, where United Way of Decatur and Mid-Illinois started participating in the program, Huffer said. Moving into DeWitt County, where the organization provides other services, was the next logical step.

In Central Illinois, Sangamon, Logan and Menard counties also have programs available to at least some residents, according to a map on the Imagination Library website. It is not yet available in McLean County.

Registration will be available on the United Way of Decatur and Mid-Illinois website at uwdecatur.org/DPIL-DeWitt.

In the news release announcing the launch, the United Way said registration will be limited to 100 children to start. However, they are looking for businesses or individuals interested in partnering to help expand the program to more children. Those interested should contact Huffer or Debbie Bogle at United Way.

It costs around $30 to sponsor a year of books for a child, Huffer said.

Contact Connor Wood at (309)820-3240. Follow Connor on Twitter: @connorkwood

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CHICAGO  Each year, thousands of women cross state lines to have an abortion in Illinois  and that number could grow exponentially as pending U.S. Supreme Court decisions and new laws in various states challenge reproductive rights across large swaths of the nation.

But women traveling here to terminate a pregnancy will have a new resource designed to make the process easier: Two southern Illinois abortion providers have partnered to create one centralized location where patients can get assistance with travel needs like finding transportation, booking lodging and setting up child care.

Watch now: Metro East site to aid out-of-state women seeking abortions in Illinois Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri will cut the ribbon on a first-of-its kind regional logistics center intended to aid out-of-state women in need of abortion services at the organizations Metro East facility.

The Regional Logistics Center is operated jointly by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Hope Clinic for Women, an abortion clinic just over the Missouri border in Granite City. Designated case managers there can arrange travel, connect patients with financial assistance, help them find a place to stay and overcome other common logistical barriers to accessing abortion, particularly when traveling long distances.

The center  which is housed in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights  opened Friday, just before the 49th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion rights case Roe v. Wade on Saturday.

At a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center on Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker called the project lifesaving and life-changing work.

With reproductive rights under attack across the United States, its never been more vital for the state of Illinois to ensure access to reproductive services, he said. On the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we all thought we would be vigorously celebrating this important milestone. Instead, we are forced to contend with the possibility that there may not be a 50th anniversary of this fundamental right.

Illinois Republicans set tough-on-crime agenda for 2022 The Republican legislators again called for the repeal of the SAFE-T Act.

The centers launch comes at a time when abortion rights are under fire across the country: Some reproductive rights advocates fear this might be the last anniversary of Roe where the near five-decades-old ruling is still the law of the land, as state measures and court decisions increasingly chip away at the right to terminate a pregnancy.

Together, were breaking down the silos anti-abortion politicians created and proving that in community, with innovation and determination, we can secure a future with abortion access, said Yamelsie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region.

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised midyear to rule on one of its most significant abortion cases in history: Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health will determine the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion past 15 weeks gestation  and potentially challenge Roe, which established the right to terminate a pregnancy in 1973, limiting state restrictions on the procedure prior to fetal viability.

Illinois has long been considered an abortion rights haven in the Midwest, surrounded by states with more restrictions on the procedure such as mandatory wait times, gestational limits and tighter regulations on providers.

If Roe were to fall, abortion rights advocates predict that roughly half of states across the country would severely limit or ban the procedure. Many of those states are in the Midwest, including each one that neighbors Illinois.

In 2019, more than 7,500 out-of-state women traveled here to have an abortion, constituting about 16% of all terminated pregnancies statewide, according to the most recent Illinois Department of Public Health data. The number of women traveling here from other states has increased every year since 2014.

An October report by Reproductive Health Services predicted that if Roe were to fall, southern Illinois abortion providers could in the first year see some 14,000 more patients from outside their service area.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate and Hope Clinic have already invested $10 million for additional staffing, infrastructure and clinical capacity to prepare for a post-Roe reality, according to the report.

The states distinction as an oasis for reproductive freedom has long been considered an embarrassment to organizations that oppose abortion.

A recent post on the Illinois Right to Life website encouraged supporters to keep praying that the court overturns Roe.

But the message also urged Illinoisans to remember that while the prospect of Roe being overturned is great news for much of America, it puts Illinois and, for that matter, the entire Midwest, in a precarious spot.

Because of Illinois radical, pro-abortion laws, not only will it remain business as usual for the abortion industry here in our state, thousands upon thousands more women will cross our border to have the lives of their children ended here, the website said. We must act now to stop this disaster from unfolding.

Enormous influx

The new center in southern Illinois has been in the works for several years, as the two local abortion providers saw an increasing number of patients coming from other neighboring states, many with ever-tightening abortion regulations.

In September, a Texas law went into effect prohibiting abortions as early as about six weeks gestation, before many women even know theyre pregnant, all but banning the procedure in the nations second-largest state.

Dr. Erin King, executive director of the Hope Clinic for Women, said her clinic now sees several patients who travel from Texas every week, as well as more women coming from other southern states likely due to a ripple effect from the void of abortion access in Texas.

She described one patient she saw earlier this month: The woman found out she was pregnant on a Wednesday, made the appointment on Friday and flew in on Saturday to have a medication abortion at Hope Clinic. The same day, she flew back to Texas, King recalled.

And that was her first trip on a plane, ever, King said. If she had not lived in Texas  most of the visit could have happened over the phone, like a telemedicine visit, or a short trip via gynecologist. I think what is so hard for people to understand is that this is care that shouldnt take all of this coordination and all of this funding. 

Since mid-December, King said her clinic has treated 20% more patients than anticipated, many from out of state.

Weve just seen this enormous influx of patients coming from farther and farther away, she said. Were seeing a lot more patients in the last month needing help with travel, help with funding, all the things the Regional Logistics Center focuses on. Weve been moving in this direction for a couple of years. But weve seen this need increase exponentially in the last month.

Several years ago, Pritzker pledged to make Illinois the most progressive state in the nation when it comes to standing up for womens reproductive rights. In 2019, he signed the Reproductive Health Act, which established the procedure as a fundamental right for women in Illinois.

Pritzker earlier this month donated $100,000 from his campaign to the Personal PAC Independent Committee, whose purpose is preserving reproductive rights in Illinois by making independent expenditures to elect pro-choice candidates to state and local office, according to campaign finance documents.

Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, noted the pivotal role of abortion rights in Illinois amid the increasingly restrictive Midwest.

Illinois is an incredibly important state for access, she said. Illinois is surrounded by states that have worked to really limit access to care.

Based on need

The center will help connect abortion patients with various resources to help with everything from paying for the procedure to travel costs to finding a place to stay overnight, all of which can be difficult to figure out quickly for a time-sensitive procedure.

One of those resources is the Chicago Abortion Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial, emotional and logistical support to do whatever it takes to make sure people can get to their appointments, said Megan Jeyifo, executive director.

She said the need for assistance has skyrocketed in just a few years. In 2018, the nonprofit served 183 people. In 2021, that number went up to roughly 3,000. The organization spent about $450,000 on abortion funding and support in 2021, roughly seven times the amount spent in 2018, she said.

It was a very quick increase, pretty fast, but definitely based on need, she said.

Most folks the nonprofit serves come from other states, primarily Missouri and Indiana, as well as others in the Midwest, she said. But recently the Chicago Abortion Fund has been getting more calls from Texans, she said.

Destigmatizing abortion is a really critical component, said Jeyifo, adding that her own abortion experiences have informed her work with the nonprofit.

She said she had to navigate parental consent laws for her first abortion and then had to travel for her second abortion.

I think about what it took for me to travel, she said. I make really clear to the callers that the difficulty you face in accessing an abortion has nothing to do with the morality of an abortion. Its a systemic failure in this country. Abortion is health care.

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On this date in 2020, wildfires were continuing to consume Australia. Brush fires had been tormenting the continent for seven months.

We may have thought that was the worst the world would get in 2020. But it turned into an appetizer for the worlds banquet of misery.

President Trump was tried and acquitted after being impeached at the end of 2019. He also tested positive for COVID-19. Protests stemming from several police killings of unarmed Black Americans erupted throughout the country. Wildfires hit the U.S. West Coast in addition to Australia.

And let's not forget "murder hornets."

Before any of that happened, though, a virus spread from China into Europe. The 19 added to the COVID designation signified the year of the virus discovery. Seeing COVID in print was alarming, but in early 2020, most Americans found themselves dismissing concerns. The 21st century had already been filled with health threats, from SARS, Ebola, cholera, dengue fever, meningitis, swine flu and measles. Most were contained outside the United States or didnt spread significantly.

But COVID-19 was different. In Europe in early 2020, cases doubled every seven days. Even so, Americans thought the reports were reflecting an emergency that was only taking place somewhere else. Just like Ebola, dengue fever and cholera,

On Jan. 20, the first case of COVID-19 in the U.S. was confirmed, in Washington state. The second U.S. case was confirmed days later. A woman who traveled to Wuhan, China caught the virus while she was there before flying back to the Chicago area. Her husband contracted the virus from her and both were treated at St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates where both made full recoveries. This was the second case of COVID-19 in the United States during the pandemic.

Within weeks, COVID-19 spread through the U.S. the same way it spread through Europe. The other thing that spread immediately was a division of opinion about the virus. COVID-19 was politicized in an unprecedented fashion. Conservatives generally believed the virus was an inconvenience, maybe a little worse than annual flu strains. Liberals viewed it as devastating, and as politicians attempted to slow and contain the disease with measures viewed as an irresponsible use of power, the numbers rose and fell.

The number of fatalities grew, surpassing morbid milestones along the way. Variants of the original virus spread around the world. By January 2022, record numbers of cases were being reported daily. Intensive care units overflowed. Fatalities fell, but the diseases impact was still felt. Work positions were not filled. The number of ill left businesses additionally short of workers. Some cut hours, or were forced to close altogether.

Untruths and misconceptions thrived. The lack of public trust in scientists, medical people and the news media spiked. The Centers for Disease Control gave confusing and sometimes conflicting advice and directives. Messaging was a mess  uncoordinated, contradictory and unexplained. Discussions about COVID-19 devolved into arguments during which no one listened to the other. Even the arrival of a vaccine  long held as the potential slayer of the virus  was greeted by disbelief and ridiculous conspiracy theories.

The number of deaths remains an estimate, but however its sliced, COVID-19 is among the top killers in the recorded history of disease, trailing only two bubonic plague outbreaks, HIV/AIDS and the Spanish flu.

(The Spanish flu, by the way, is so named because when the deadly virus was working through Europe during World War I, British, French and United States media were discouraged from reporting on the spread. Governments downplayed the severity of the spread. The Spanish press was most active in reporting on the virus and its spread, giving the false impression at the time that the disease originated there.)

This pandemic will end. They all do. But there will be many more cases and many more deaths before it runs its course.

The question remains: What kind of society will we have when its over? How much we will still be arguing? What will be the obvious results and the hidden results of what weve been through? When will it be over?

We have no idea yet.

Get vaccinated. We are weary of reporting about deaths from COVID-19, and you are weary of reading about it. Do it for yourself, your family, your loved ones and the strangers you come across daily. You owe it to society.

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The Ghana Health Service (GHS) will today begin the administration of booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines.



The one jab booster is to give extra protection, especially for people with high risks.



The Director-General of the GHS, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, speaking in an interview on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo' with sit-in host Nana Yaw Kesse said the booster shot campaign which is in phases will target health workers, 60+ adults, people with comorbidities, front line security personnel and the executive, judiciary and the legislature; for the initial part.



He further indicated that if "it is three to six months" since your last vaccination, "you're not qualified...This means if you were vaccinated two weeks ago, you are not qualified to get the booster vaccine. You need to wait for a minimum of three months before you can get the booster shots"





Source: Peacefmonline.com









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A youth activist and President of World Youth Opportunity (WYO), Nafis Quaye has bemoaned the misdirection of the energies of the youth in unproductive and destructive endeavours.

Mr Quaye, reacting to Tuesday's violent collision between two youth groups from the Nima and Mamobi communities, condemned the despicable acts of the youth, describing it as unproductive and destructive.



We are at a stage where the pace of development is running faster than we have thought due to technological innovation, therefore the least we could do is to apply ourselves to improving upon our skills so we take due advantage of the opportunities available. Guns and matchets have no role in the scheme of things in this modern times.



Related: Uneasy calm at Nima, Mamobi: 9 arrested - Chief Imam urges restraint



Rival groups in Nima and Mamobi communities, on Tuesday [January 18, 2022], clashed holding machetes and guns and shooting indiscriminately



The police indicated some innocent bystanders were injured and are receiving medical attention.



The existence of these groups have been known to the security agencies, as well as opinion leaders in the respective communities.



Past disturbances have led to similar consequences, a situation that serves as an enabler for future violent act.



But Mr Quaye is calling on all stakeholders to continually engage and ensure the procurement of lasting solutions to this societal cancer.



Deliberate and undivided attention must be devoted to the solution of this matter. It must not be the usual fire-fighting this time round, Mr Quaye advised.



The WYO is an NGO working at creating opportunities for the youth through digital, technical and vocational skills training as well as exchange and volunteer programmes, with the ultimate goal of making them employable, both through entrepreneurship and for corporate environments.



WYO Ghana is a sister organization of WYO Inc in the USA.

Source: graphiconline.com









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Lands and Natural Resources Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor says his outfit, through the Minerals Commission, is working with the security agencies, including the military, the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana National Fire Service, and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to complete investigations into the incident.



Mr. Jinapor has assured that the investigations will be thorough, to determine the actual cause of the incident and its aftermath. He noted that the manufacture, storage, transportation and use of explosives, are governed by law, particularly the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) and the Minerals and Mining (Explosives) Regulations, 2012 (L.I. 2177). Mr. Jinapor said any person found to have flouted these regulations will be made to face the law.



According to Mr. Jinapor, this is without prejudice to any liabilities and/or criminal culpability whatsoever.



The Member of Parliament for Damongo Constituency made this known on Friday, January 21, 2022, when he joined a Government delegation led by Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, to visit the Apiate community and commiserate with the victims of Thursdays explosion.



He assured that, Government will implement all recommendations that will result from the investigations, to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future.



The Minister also said the Ministry will hold meetings with all stakeholders, including mining companies, Ghana Chamber of Mines and mine support service companies, to discuss the entire regime of handling and use of explosives and other hazardous chemicals for the mining, with a view of developing safe and healthy mining operations and support services in the country.



The delegation included Ministers and Deputy Ministers of State, senior officers of the security services and officials of the Minerals Commission.



The explosion, which occurred around midday on Thursday, January 20, 2022, resulted from a collision between a truck belonging to Maxam Ghana Limited which was transporting explosives to a mining company, and a tricycle.



The impact of the collision is said to have caused the explosives to detonate, causing the vehicle to explode. The situation was exacerbated by a nearby transformer which also exploded in the process.



Initial reports indicate that about thirteen (13) people have died in the process, while over a hundred people suffered various degrees of injuries. The injured are being treated in nearby hospitals, with some referred to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.



The impact of the explosion also caused damage to several houses in the community, leaving many families displaced.



The Government delegation was briefed by the security agencies on the ground, and the chief of the community.



Speaking to the media at the site of the explosion, the Vice President expressed the condolences of Government to the bereaved families and conveyed the Presidents sympathy to the injured and displaced families.



He said Government has directed the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, to coordinate with the State Housing Company and the mining companies, to rebuild the destroyed houses. The delegation also visited some of the injured in the hospital and the displaced families who are being housed in schools and churches.



The Vice President disclosed that Government will be fully responsible for the medical expenses of all the injured persons.







Source: Peacefmonline.com/ghana









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Ministry proposes Covid-19 vaccine purchase for children aged 5-11

The Health Ministry is seeking approval from the government to buy 21.9 million doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to inoculate children aged 5-11.





Illustrative photo



According to Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, more than 20 countries have started giving Covid-19 vaccines to children aged between 5-11 but WHO has not made any official recommendations on vaccination for this age group.



"Were continuing to discuss with experts at the WHO on giving Covid-19 vaccines to children aged between 5-11," the minister said. "There are around 11 million children in this age group in our country."



Earlier, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh instructed the health ministry to closely watch and follow Covid-19 vaccination programmes for children aged 5 and above from other countries so that schools can reopen for on-site classes.



"The vaccination plan for children aged 5-11 needs to be based on experiences of other countries to ensure its safety and effectiveness," the PM stressed.



Vietnam began vaccinating children aged 12-17 against Covid-19 from last November. So far the country has administered more than 15.3 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for children in this age group.
BAGHDAD, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- 11 Iraqi soldiers were killed in an overnight attack by the extremist militants of the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, the provincial police said on Friday.

The attack took place after midnight when IS militants attacked an army outpost in the Udheim area, some 60 km north of Diyala's provincial capital Baquba, Maj. Alaa al-Saadi from the provincial police told Xinhua.

The attackers killed 11 soldiers, including an officer, before fleeing the scene, said al-Saadi, who confirmed that the soldiers were surprised by the attack, as the attackers took advantage of the significant drop in temperatures and attacked the military outpost.

The Iraqi security forces in the Diyala province are on high alert after the attack, while high-ranking security officials from Diyala's provincial Operations Command arrived at the scene to investigate the incident, he added.

Over the past months, IS militants have intensified their attacks against Iraqi security forces in the provinces which the militants had previously controlled, leaving dozens dead and wounded. 
Member of Parliament for Sekondi, Andrew Egyapa Mercer has justified the Bank of Ghana's directive that Ghana card will be the only card for bank transactions in Ghana.



The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has issued an ultimatum to Ghanaians who haven't yet acquired their cards to do so as from July this year, the Ghana card will be the only useful card for all bank transactions.



A statement signed by BoG Secretary, Sandra Thompson said with effect from July 1, 2022, the Ghana Card shall be the only identification card that will be to undertake transactions at all Bank of Ghana licensed and regulated financial institutionsThe Public is to note that no other form of identification will be accepted for financial transactions in Bank of Ghana after the effective date stated above.



Lawyer Andrew Egyapa Mercer is optimistic that this directive will help with the digitization policy by the Government of Ghana.



To him, the directive is in the right order, ''why? Because if everyone has the Ghana card, government will have the data on everybody that it can use that means to leverage for every person's contributions to be made. Aside that, significantly, the government will be able to identify the vulnerable and provide them with support''.



He said this during Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'' Thursday morning.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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A Former Constituency Communications Officer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the Abirem Constituency, Mr George Krobea Asante, has called on members of the party to unite in their pursuit to break the eight-year power cycle.

According to him, the partys disappointing performance in the 2020 general election which culminated in the loss of our parliamentary majority status was ample proof that all is not well with our dear party.



Let's unite to give our party a new direction, a new hope and a new crop of leadership, Mr Asante said.



Survey



He was responding to a publication by a private newspaper on a purported survey undertaken by the Research Bureau at the presidency.



The poll, according to the publication, sought the opinion of some 4,000 party delegates on their preferred candidates for various National Executive portfolios as the party prepares to elect new executives. While acknowledging the interest shown by the aforementioned newspaper on matters of the New Patriotic Party, I wish to put on record that details of the said poll are completely false.



Consultations with the leadership of the Research Directorate at the presidency has uncovered that while the said poll was conducted during the National Delegates Conference held in Kumasi, detailed findings of the survey have not even been concluded and analysed, it said.



Checks



Mr Asante said his checks had further revealed that Dr Isaac Owusu-Mensah, renowned political scientist and Head of Research at the Presidency, was incensed that some individuals would concoct figures to misrepresent the findings of a research that had not even been published.



According to the statement, since the country returned to multiparty democracy in 1992, delegates of the NPP had proven to be independent minded who could not be swayed or deceived by false publications.









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The Chief of Shukura, Alhaji Hamidu Ibrahim Dantani, has urged the Majority and Minority caucuses of Parliament to work together in the collective interest of Ghanaians.



He said the chaos that characterised the consideration of the E-Levy Bill in the 2022 Budget was disappointing, and thus called on both sides of the House to develop effective working relationships grounded on consensus building.



The chief said there was the need to protect the sanctity of the law-making house and promote the democratic values in a manner that ensured that the concerns of the people were deliberated devoid of partisan interests.



Consensus



Alhaji Dantani, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the happenings in Parliament before it went on recess were worrying and urged parliamentarians to endeavour to always build consensus, albeit there were bound to be disagreements sometimes.



Parliament will reconvene for the Second Session of the Eighth Parliament on Tuesday, January 25, 2022.



He said on resumption,we want both sides of the House to unite and work for the development of the country.



Speaking on the challenges the community faced, he said the Shukura community was an expanding build-up community with increasing human activities, adding that the community had a poor drainage system, which worsened each time it rained.



Issues



He, therefore, called on the Ablekuma Central Municipality to construct more drainages to prevent environmental health and sanitation issues.



Education, he indicated, was key to national development and thus pleaded with the municipal assembly to prioritise issues of education and construct more public schools to cater for the growing number of children in the community.



The chief expressed concern about the growing youth unemployment in the country and called on the youth to be innovative, while the government provided opportunities and an enabling environment for small businesses to thrive.



Head of Works, Ablekuma Central Municipality, Mr Justice Abdomi, told the GNA that the assembly was working to ensure development across the municipality, adding that the first school constructed at the inception of the assembly in 2019 was the Ayaa Ideen Islamic School at Shukura.







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Former Chief Executive Officer of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Mr Kojo Bonsu, has declared his intention to contest the National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearership for the 2024 election.

Mr Bonsu believes that as far as contesting the polls is concerned, he is a fresh face who ought to be given an opportunity by the party.



He said he had clean and untainted record that will attract floating voters to his side in the 2024 general election.



In this country, it is the swing voters who allow you to win an election both for the NPP and the NDC, he said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.



The reason I want to come is that the NPP has lied a lot about John Mahama, claiming he is incompetent and mudslinged him with other falsehoods, which the NDC has not been able to clean or tell the people that it is not true, he added.



New face



We (NDC) have allowed the falsehood against Mr Mahama to stick in 2016 and we have allowed it again in 2020, so we need to bring a new face to go and tackle it for the swing voters who have made up their minds on Mr John Mahama.



I dont want us to lose the 2024 election and remain in opposition again, he added.



Mr Bonsu touted some of his qualities to include being patriotic, visionary, an optimist and a goal getter.



Mr Bonsu, who declared his intention ahead of the partys official call for nominations, said Mr Mahamas successive defeats was an obvious indication that Ghanaians would want a new candidate, hence the need for party members to repose their confidence in him.



Signal



Already, former Finance Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, has also signalled his intention to run for the NDC flagbearership, which former President John Mahama is likely to contest.



The NDC will later this year outline an election timetable for its branch, constituency, regional and national elections for new officers to run the affairs of the party.



In 2018, Mr Bonsu pulled out of the NDC race to become the partys flag bearer for the 2020 election, three months after declaring his intentions to contest.



The decision to quit, he said, was after considerable deliberation and reflection.



Unlike Elikplim Agbemava who withdrew from the race to support the candidature of former President John Mahama, Mr Bonsu said his support would be for whoever came victorious from the contest.



"However, my boundless optimism for the long-term future of the NDC and Ghana at large remains steadfast. The fight is far from over, I am not ending the fight for unity and accountability and I am not ending the fight for victory for the NDC," he said in 2018.

Source: graphiconline.com









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A former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has called on former President John Dramani Mahama to express his condolences on the death of his brother, Emmanuel Adam Mahama.

The Nigerian and African statesman, who handed over the chair of the continental security, body, the Tana High-Level Forum on Security to Mr



Mahama, used the opportunity to also commiserate with the Mahama family.



He also said special prayers for the former President and his family.



Representatives



Representatives of the Ya-Na Abukari II also called on the former President to express the Gbewaa Palaces condolence to the Mahama family on the loss of his brother.





The delegation was led by the Chief of Pishigu and former Managing Director of Stanbic Bank Ghana, Naa Alhassan Andani.



The National Chief Imam, Sheikh Nuhu Sharabutu, and the Imam of the Ahlsunna Wal Jamaa, Sheikh Umar Ibrahim, visited the former President to commiserate with him.



Family



The late Adam Mahama died on the last day of 2021 and has since been buried in his hometown, Bole. The family is holding the 7th day Adua on Thursday at Bole. A book of condolence has also been opened in Accra for three days.



President Mahama, together with his wife, Lordina, and his siblings who received the Chief Imam and Sheikh Umar, thanked them for the courtesy and for their prayers for the Mahama family during this time.



Also at the Mahama residence was a delegation from the Ringway Estates Assemblies of God Church where the former President and his wife worship.



The church delegation expressed their condolences to the bereaved family and also prayed for them.



The final funeral rites will be held on Sunday, January 30, 2022 at Bole in the Savannah Region.









Source: graphiconline.com









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The Chief of Shukura Community in the Ablekuma Central Municipality,Alhaji Hamidu Dantani, has appealed to Majority and Minority caucuses in Parliament in the collective interest of their constituents to build consensus to sustain national cohesion and harmony.



The brawl that characterised the consideration of the Electronic Transaction Levy Bill (e-levy) in the 2022 Budget and Economic Policy was disappointing, unfortunate and both sides of the House need to develop effective and efficient working relationship in the best interest of the nation, he stressed.



Alhaji Dantani said there was the need to protect the sanctity of the law enactment House and promote democratic values and norms in a manner that ensured concerns of the people were deliberated upon devoid of partisan interests and tribal sentiments.



He bemoaned the happenings in Parliament on January 7, 2021 and before recess in December as worrisome, and urged the House to endeavour to always build consensus, albeit there were bound to be disagreements sometimes and on resumption on January 25, 2022 both sides of the House must unite and work for progress, growth and development of the country.



Touching on the challenges the community faced, Alhaji Dantani indicated that the Shukura community was an expanding build-up community with increasing human activities which had poor drainage system worsened each time by downpours and appealed to the assembly to construct more drainages to prevent environmental health and sanitation issues.



Education is key to national development and thus I plead with the municipal assembly to prioritise issues of education to construct more public schools to cater for the growing number of children in the community, he said, but expressed concern aboutgrowing youth unemployment and admonished the young to be innovative, while the government provides opportunities and an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.



Justice Abdomi, Head of Works, Ablekuma Central Municipality, disclosed that the assembly was working to ensure development across the municipality, and the first school constructed at the inception of the Assembly in 2019 were Ayaa Ideen Islamic School in Shukura and Kraft Tape Dispenser Guangdong.



He said through the Coastal Development Authority, some drains had been constructed in the community to improve drainage systems, forestall flooding, and reduce health and environmental risks.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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" " While most people associate veiling with the Middle East, other countries like Eritrea in Eastern Africa also support the custom. Here, a portrait of a Rashaida tribe girl from the Northern Red Sea, Massawa, Eritrea, shows how she is veiled. Eric Lafforgue/Art in All of Us/Corbis via Getty Images

Every once in a while, veiling becomes a trending topic. The practice of covering the head and face for religious, cultural or customary purposes is one that has endured centuries and transcended borders.

But in contemporary debates, it's difficult to divorce veiling from polarizing issues like women's rights, morality, politics and feminism. That's why stories about bans and mandates on burqas  garments that cover the entire face and body worn by some Muslim women  make headlines.

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Veils are common in Islamic dress, though not all Muslim women wear them. And the practice isn't exclusive to Islam; some Orthodox Christians and Jewish people wear head coverings, as well.

But despite being a historical and worldwide practice, veiling remains a mark of difference, danger, extremism or oppression to people and governments that do not support the custom. Switzerland passed a ban in 2021 on certain facial coverings in public, joining a long list of Western European countries with similar laws. Even some Muslim-majority countries, like Chad, Morocco and Tunisia, have banned the wearing or sale of certain veils. And even in places where bans are not in place, discrimination against veiled people persists.

In 2021, the European Court of Justice upheld its ruling that companies in Europe can ban headscarves in the workplace. In the United States, the First and Fourth amendments to the Constitution, as well as federal civil rights laws, protect the rights of people who adhere to religious practices like hijab (the act of seclusion often expressed through the donning of a headscarf). But schools and employers have fired, suspended and otherwise punished or reprimanded students and employees for wearing hijab.

On the other hand, people have been penalized for not wearing their veils. Requiring women to wear a burqa in public is just one way that the Taliban has terrorized women in Afghanistan. Members of the Taliban have even beaten women for failing to don the garment.

To some people, the burqa is an enduring symbol of an oppressive and dangerous regime. But even outside of Taliban rule, women have chosen or been compelled to wear burqas, for protection or as an expression of their modesty, faith, culture and preferences.

Veiling means so many things to different people that it can be difficult to suss out its real meaning and purpose. Some people believe that the veil is a dehumanizing prison that turns women into second-class citizens. To others, the veil is a sign of modesty and piety as well as a badge of honor. It's possible to see the veil as a rejection of Western values and a symbol of empowerment. In fact, some people insist that veil bans are repressive and an affront to freedom of religion.

So what does the veil mean, exactly?
Soi Dog Foundation has held an emergency vaccination drive at the Phuket Stray Dog Shelter in Thalang  also known as the government dog pound  to help stem an outbreak of canine distemper virus.

Transmitted through direct contact and airborne exposure  namely sneezing, coughing and sharing food and water bowls  distemper can spread quickly in a shelter environment, often with deadly consequences. There is no definitive cure for the viral disease, and dogs are instead given supportive care and treated for any secondary infections.

A total of 248 at-risk dogs were vaccinated on-site against the disease, and those already infected were transferred to the Soi Dog shelter in Mai Khao for treatment.

As part of Soi Dogs longstanding commitment to the hundreds of dogs at the Phuket Stray Dog Shelter, a team of their vets, community outreach staff and animal rescue officers visit on a weekly basis to ensure all dogs are neutered, vaccinated, dewormed, protected against ticks and fleas and treated for any other health issues. In the latter half of 2021, the team administered over 3,100 treatments on-site and admitted 75 dogs to their hospital for intensive care. (The Phuket Stray Dog Shelter was closed to external assistance for the first half of the year.)

The distemper outbreak at the shelter is one in a string of recent incidents which has led Soi Dog to speak out about the dangers of the unmanaged sheltering of animals. Just a few months ago, the foundation helped stem a similar outbreak on Koh Kood which originated at a government shelter and quickly swept the islands street dog population, killing over 60% of the dogs at the shelter and many others across the island.

More recently, the foundation shut down an illegal shelter in Surat Thani and rescued 17 dying dogs who had been left to languish in a cramped and filthy space with no food or fresh water available. The dogs were extremely malnourished, infested with ticks and fleas and suffering from chronic skin infections as well as other medical conditions that had been left untreated.

We at Soi Dog Foundation are against sheltering as a dog population management strategy, said Soi Dogs International Director of Animal Welfare Dr Alicja Izydorczyk. Not only has it proven to be completely ineffective as such, but because most of these shelters are underfunded, understaffed and lack competent management, they quickly turn into death camps for dogs.
Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

A study of electron dynamics timed to millionths of a billionth of a second reveals the damage radiation can do on a molecular level.

The first-of-its kind study used ultrafast X-ray laser pulses to disrupt the electrons in a molecule of nitrous oxide and measure the resultant changes with unprecedented accuracy.

The work, published today in Science, was performed at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre (SLAC), Stanford, U.S. and was supported by a team of five scientists from Imperial College London.

Conventional X-rays used in imaging and radiotherapy can cause damage to cells, but exactly how on a molecular level is not known. Additionally, new high-intensity and short-pulse-duration X-ray lasers are being proposed to image smaller molecules with greater precision, leading to questions about potential damage this could cause to living tissue.

For the first time, researchers have been able to measure the behavior of electrons in a molecule as it responded to irradiation by ultrafast X-rays on attosecond timescalesless than millionths of a billionth of a second.

Understanding to new limits

Co-author Professor Jon Marangos, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: "Being able to reach a few hundred attosecond precision when timing electron dynamics means we can now begin to understand certain phenomena to new limits.

"The fact is that some electron dynamics in important issues, like radiation damage to biomolecules, have so far been too fast for us to understand. With this new understanding we might, for example, conceivably be better able to mitigate unwanted radiation damage during radiotherapy."

The researchers fired simultaneously an X-ray pulse and a laser pulse at a molecule of nitrous oxidethe first to knock an electron out of its place, and the second to time the resultant changes. Previously, using conventional X-rays, researchers had observed electron emission in a process known as Auger-Meitner (AM) decay on a fast timescale.

Now, with the faster X-ray lasers, they were able to observe a new phenomenon imposed on AM decay. Electrons can be difficult to track because of quantum effects, which means the electrons can be in several quantum states at once.

The very short X-ray pulse creates a 'quantum coherence'a superposition of different electron quantum states of the highly excited molecule. Measuring with attosecond precision revealed a 'quantum beat'a repeated pattern created by the coherenceimposed on the AM decay as observed in the emitted electron current.

Co-author Dr. Vitali Averbukh, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: "Tackling individual coherent quantum effects stemming from this irradiation is necessary for building a new physical picture of radiation damage by intense ultrafast X-rays. The current work is one of the first steps in this directioninstead of the familiar AM decay, we observe quantum beats, which are a completely different type of dynamics that translate into irreversible chemical change.

"How much the quantum coherence affects this chemical change is a matter of intense investigation, but the initial results obtained by quantum chemists here at Imperial suggest that such quantum coherence can indeed steer chemical change."

Attoclock measurements

The timing of the AM decay and the quantum beat was accomplished using an 'attoclock,' which makes use of the circularly polarized optical laser pulse fired at the same time as the X-ray pulse. The laser field direction rotates very fast and imparts momentum to the electron, which tags its emission time.

The signal from an electron was recorded as a position on a momentum sensitive detector, recording the time in the laser field's rotation that the electron appeared. This allowed the team to precisely time the electron dynamics based on where on the detector the signals appeared.

The ultrafast lasers and attoclock setup used by the team will pave the way for studies that observe fast electron motion in more complex molecules over sub-nanometer (one-billionth of a meter) spatial scales, allowing researchers to track the interactions between different parts of the atoms and molecules under investigation.

Explore further Decoding electron dynamics

More information: Siqi Li et al, Attosecond coherent electron motion in Auger-Meitner decay, Science (2022). Journal information: Science Siqi Li et al, Attosecond coherent electron motion in Auger-Meitner decay,(2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abj2096
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Federal agents on Thursday returned two ancient stone artifacts to representatives of the Iraqi government at the country's consulate in Los Angeles.

The artifactsa fragment of a stone tablet inscribed with cuneiform characters and a hexagonal prism used to teach schoolchildren the cuneiform alphabetare believed to be about 4,000 years old, authorities said.

The tablet fragment was purchased in an online auction, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection flagged the item because it lacked the documentation needed to import it, said Chad Fredrickson, a special agent from Homeland Security Investigations who handled the case.

Agents showed the artifact to an expert, who determined that it was originally from Iraq. Items of cultural significance cannot be imported from Iraq without the Iraqi government's consent, which it had not granted in this case, Fredrickson said. The purchaser agreed to turn over the artifact to federal agents, who arranged for the tablet fragment to be returned to the Iraqi government.

Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for investigating violations of import and export laws.

The hexagonal prism was being held by a private gallery in Los Angeles, whose operators approached agents with "several items of interest," Fredrickson said, "but the most interesting item they had was this cuneiform prism."

Agents showed the artifact to an expert, who said it had likely been used to teach children the alphabet during the Old Babylonian period. Fredrickson said the expert had only seen two other such prisms, one of which is kept by Yale University and another that has since gone missing.

Because the gallery had no proof of title to the prism, its operators turned over the artifact to Homeland Security Investigations.

While the exact provenance of the two artifacts was unclear, they "almost certainly" were looted from Iraq, Fredrickson said. The tablet fragment is believed to have come from the area of the ancient city of Umma, a part of Iraq that has been robbed of many precious artifacts in recent years, Fredrickson said.

The people who turned over the artifacts will not face criminal liability. "Somebody who buys something at an online auction and knows nothing about it, I'm not looking at them criminally," Fredrickson said.

A gallery or individual buyer who appears to be willfully skirting import restrictions, however, could face criminal prosecution, said Fredrickson, who specializes in cultural property cases. He has repatriated artifacts to Italy, Russia, India and, frequently, the Middle East, where he said the looting of cultural relics has become more common in the last 20 years.

Iraq's consul general in Los Angeles, Salwan Sinjaree, said the two artifacts will be returned to Iraq and transferred to the custody of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, which will place them in a museum.

Explore further Looted Gilgamesh tablet returns to Iraq in formal ceremony

2022 Los Angeles Times.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
PHNOM PENH, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government has extended a cash handout program for approximately 700,000 families hit by COVID-19 for another three months until March, according to a decision released on Friday.

"The subsidy will be disbursed in the fourth week of each month," said Economy and Finance Minister Aun Pornmoniroth.

Cambodia first began the cash handout program in June 2020. Through the program, poor families in capital Phnom Penh and provincial towns receive a cash handout of 30 U.S. dollars a month, while poor families in the countryside get 20 dollars in assistance.

Each poor family member also receives between four dollars and 13 dollars depending on their areas.

Children under five, disabled people, citizens with HIV or citizens at 60 and above receive between four dollars and 10 dollars, depending on their areas.

Cambodia has registered a total of 120,956 cases, with 3,015 deaths and 117,180 recoveries, the ministry said.

So far, the kingdom has administered one dose of COVID-19 vaccines to 14.32 million people, or 89.5 percent of its 16-million population, the ministry said.

Of them, 13.72 million, or 85.8 percent, have been fully vaccinated with two required shots, it said. 
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Addressing climate change is a massive and daunting challenge. But many economists say gradually increasing taxes on emissions would significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gas spewed into the air at the lowest economic cost.

"The question is, will manufacturing firms respond to the tax? That's where our paper comes in, and it looks like the answer is yes," said James Brown, Kingland MBA Professor and chair of finance in Iowa State University's Ivy College of Business.

Brown emphasized that his new paper published in The Review of Financial Studies, one of the top peer-reviewed academic journals in the field of finance, does not provide a policy recommendation. Rather, he and his co-authors offer an analysis of data they collected on roughly 33,500 manufacturing firms across 18 countries to better understand what happens when countries start taxing companies for emitting greenhouse gases.

Brown and his research team found a strong, clear link between countries implementing high emissions taxes and manufacturing firms substantially increasing investments in research and development (R&D).

"Now, what exactly that means, is a much harder question to answer. That's where we try to make inferences with a lot of additional tests," said Brown.

Brown said people typically think of R&D as a path to new products. For example, if a pharmaceutical company increases its R&D spending, it's probably trying to develop a new drug that can be patented and sold on the market.

But during the researchers' deep data dive, they found companies that significantly increased their R&D following the implementation of emissions taxes did not lead to a slew of new patents. This, Brown explained, indicates that manufacturing firms were using R&D dollars to expand their capacity to adopt and implement new technologies that change the way they producerather than to develop new patentable products.

An efficient shift

"Firms don't always have the incentive to shift to cleaner production technologies on their own; that is where policy can potentially have an impact," said Brown.

"Command and control" regulations (e.g., requiring manufacturers to install specific types of emissions mitigation equipment) are another policy tool that can lead to less pollution, but Brown said the emissions tax approach is likely a more efficient policy lever. This is because a tax on emissions forces firms to internalize at least some of the costs of dirty production, which incentivizes them to find cleaner ways of producing in the most cost-effective way possible.

"We usually think about shifts to less polluting ways as being very costly to the economy, but if you encourage this shift through R&D and new technology adoption, you can move to a cleaner production process without necessarily slowing economic growth," said Brown.

Knowledge spillage

The newly published study found the biggest jump in R&D investments in response to country-level emissions taxes occurred in sectors that are high polluters and have a lot of what Brown called 'knowledge spillovers.' Knowledge spillage refers to the ease at which information spreads between firms in the same sector.

"If you're a polluting firm in a sector where knowledge is readily spilling across firms, you have more incentive to invest in R&D and incorporate cleaner ways of manufacturing that have already been developed by another company or external experts," Brown explained.

Brown said examples of high pollution industries with high knowledge spillovers include cement, lime and mineral products. In contrast, petroleum and steel are high pollution industries with relatively low knowledge spillovers.

From macro to micro

In the researchers' data analysis, Japan accounted for the most observations, followed by the United Kingdom and Canada. Brown said the researchers did not pull data from the U.S. because it does not have a country-level emissions tax like other countries; trying to include data from the U.S. could have skewed the results because there are too many regional differences in environmental regulations.

Brown and his research team are working on a follow-up study with the goal of pinpointing what exactly the R&D dollars are flowing towards and whether emissions actually drop.

"Understanding at a micro-level what these taxes are doing specifically to dirty emissions is what we need. We can't do that on the cross-country scale we used for this study, but we could maybe do that at a country-specific scale," Brown said.

Additional research questions Brown wants to answer:

What's the right mix of policies to significantly decrease emissions?

Are there other policies or institutional factors alongside these taxes that would support/prevent a shift to cleaner production?

Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden contributed to the study published in The Review of Financial Studies.

Explore further Strict environmental laws 'push' firms to pollute elsewhere

More information: James R Brown et al, Can Environmental Policy Encourage Technical Change? Emissions Taxes and R&D Investment in Polluting Firms, The Review of Financial Studies (2022). Journal information: Review of Financial Studies James R Brown et al, Can Environmental Policy Encourage Technical Change? Emissions Taxes and R&D Investment in Polluting Firms,(2022). DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhac003
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

We have been living in a COVID-19 pandemic world for two yearsand almost everything about our lives has been affected. Travel and holidays in particular have been constrained through border closures and lockdowns. It's too early to say what effect this may have on overseas travel long term. But one form of travel that is forecast to grow in popularity is pilgrimage.

Often described as "a journey with a purpose or a journey with an intention", a pilgrimage is different from a plain old walk or hike as it tends to be about following a particular path with religious, spiritual or historical significance.

Pilgrimages are a way of finding spiritual solace and a chance to connect with the great outdoors. Indeed, since the pandemic began, many of us have spent more time close to mountains, rivers, waterfalls and parks, for psychological recovery, spiritual recharge, and as a form of meaningful travel.

New and repurposed pilgrimages have also emerged in many destinations including Scotland, India, Japan, England and Italy. While some routes have historical origins, others are modern, newly developed or resignifiedsuch as the Ancient Connections project linking St David's, Pembrokeshire, in Wales to Ferns, County Wexford, in Ireland. The project aims to revive and celebrate the medieval connections between the two Celtic lands.

Pilgrims walk these trails for different reasons. For some, the experience has religious significance, but for others, it's about finding some quality time to think, breathe, heal and discover oneself, during a a simple walk.

Walking the path

The restrictions imposed on religious sites during the earlier phase of the pandemic did little to curb pilgrims' enthusiasm. Indeed, increasing numbers of South Koreans have walked the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. Meanwhile, alternative ways of meeting pilgrims' needs have also emerged, including the virtual pilgrimage.

Fitness apps and virtual guided tours of the Camino have been popular. The Church in Wales also created an online pilgrimage route where e-pilgrims could explore some of Wales' historic churches, while Japan's Shikoku pilgrimage started offering real-time online pilgrimages for those unable to participate in a physical pilgrimage.

Some of the pilgrimage routes also provide distinctive cultural experiences such as Japanese traditional cooking and art and craft classes, or Welsh tea and cakes. The new Michinoku (the ancient name of Tohoku) coastal trail in Japan, for example, has already spurred interest from national and international travellers, and it is expected to become an iconic hiking route, while it is hoped that the new Wales-Ireland pilgrimage walking route will help to boost local economiesand is forecast to attract around 5,000 people a year.

Of course, maintaining pilgrimage sites and routes is crucial for cultural heritage and protection. This also has the potential to create new livelihoods and bring much-needed tourism to rural or remote areas. In central India, for example, a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Nagarjuna is being developed as part of an effort to revitalise Buddhist heritage in the region.

In Bhutan, a sacred hiking trail, that fell into disrepair because of highway construction, is reopening after 60 years with trail tourism programmes packaged to support local homestays, guesthouses and hotels. In the 16th century, the trailwhich follows the route along the ancient Silk Roadwas the only way of getting between the east and west of the country. And it served as the pilgrimage route for Buddhists in the east to travel to sacred sites in western Bhutan and Tibet.

Where to start

As mental health issues have come to the fore during the pandemic, walkingwith its proven psychological and therapeutic benefitshas been a popular activity for many as a way of coping with stress and anxiety. And during pilgrimage walks, people often observe and appreciate simple things more keenly, feel the spiritual connection with their surroundings and gain new, enriching life perspectives.

So if you're keen to get your walking boots on, for those based in the UK, there is an array of new pilgrimage routes to explore. Many of these were established during the pandemic such as the Northern Saints Trails in the north-east of England, the Walsingham Way in East Anglia, St Patrick's Way in Northern Ireland, the Kentigern Way in Scotland, and the Way of St Hild in Teesside. While the Devon Pilgrim, part of the Growing the Rural Church project, which aims to connect rural churches with local communities and landscapes, launched no fewer than three new pilgrimage walks in the summer of 2021.

The Church of England promotes many Christian-themed pilgrimages, and information about some of these can be found on the Centre for Christian Pilgrimage website. Organisations such as the British Pilgrimage Trust and the Scottish Pilgrims Ways Forum also offer guided pilgrimages and advice on self-guided walks.

Pilgrimages, however, need not necessarily entail long hikes. Micro pilgrimages and visits to pilgrimage places are also a great way to find some time for quiet contemplation. And for those looking for a relatively stress-free experience, there is, of course, always the option of virtual pilgrimage allowing you to travel the world from the comfort of home.

Explore further Kitsch religious souvenirs can rekindle pilgrimage experience

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Angela Boysen (left) and colleagues in July 2015 lower an instrument at the study site in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, north of Hawaii. This instrument collected water samples at different depths that the researchers analyzed. Credit: Dror Shitrit/Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology

Though they may be small, microorganisms are the most abundant form of life in the ocean. Marine microbes are responsible for making roughly half of the organic carbon that's usable by life. Many marine microbes live near the surface, depending on energy from the sun for photosynthesis.

Yet between the low supply of and high competition for some key nutrients, like nitrogen, in the open ocean, scientists have puzzled over the vast diversity of microbial species found there. Researchers from the University of Washington, in collaboration with researchers from 12 other institutions, show that time of day is key, according to a study published Jan. 20 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The effort began in 2015, when scientists in the Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology, a program now co-led by UW oceanography professor Ginger Armbrust, looked at microbes in the surface of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, the Earth's largest stretch of contiguous ocean.

"[We were interested in] understanding how that fluctuation of photosynthesis during the day and the absence thereof at night propagates through the microbial community [in the ocean]," explained co-first author Angela Boysen, who did the work as a doctoral student at the UW and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago. "That influences how the ecosystem overall functions, how much carbon is stored, where the carbon moves around, and how organisms might interact with each other."

By integrating data on the timing of metabolic processes of different microbes in the surface ocean throughout the 24-hour light cyclefrom the transcription of genes for proteins used in metabolism to the synthesis of molecules, like lipids, into the microbes' cellsthe researchers discovered that the coexistence of such diverse microbes may not be dictated by competition, but by the timing of their nitrogen uptake.

With staggered uptake of the essential nutrient nitrogen, "instead of having to compete with the whole field, [microbes] only have to compete with the organisms that share that specific shift with [them]. Perhaps that's one way that the competition is slightly alleviated and can facilitate all of these diverse microbes being able to live off of the same nutrient source," said co-first author Daniel Muratore, a doctoral student at Georgia Tech.

Because of the interdisciplinary team present on the 2015 research cruise, data on almost the entire metabolic process was collected simultaneously from the same water every four hours, giving researchers an unprecedented look at how metabolic activity differs among these microbes throughout the 24-hour cycle.

"Collecting all these different sample types  at the same time is really a first way to look at the whole ecosystem all at once from all these different perspectives," Matthew Harke, a co-first author and research scientist at the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute.

The data revealed that most of the activity occurred at four time points: dusk (6 p.m.), night (2 a.m.), morning (6 a.m.) and afternoon (between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.). While these times were important for many types of microbes, different groups' activities at each time weren't uniform.

"Realizing that various types of microbes acquire nitrogen at different times of day helps to answer a long-standing question in oceanography: How can there be such an incredible diversity of life, all essentially in the same place at the same time?" said co-author Anitra Ingalls, a UW professor of oceanography. "Being able to explain the underlying reasons for this diversity will help oceanographers better predict how these communities may shift as the ocean changes."

Sacha Coesel, a UW research scientist in oceanography, is also a co-author.

Explore further Microbes produce oxygen in the dark

More information: Daniel Muratore et al, Complex marine microbial communities partition metabolism of scarce resources over the diel cycle, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2022). Journal information: Nature Ecology & Evolution Daniel Muratore et al, Complex marine microbial communities partition metabolism of scarce resources over the diel cycle,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-021-01606-w
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Concerned about nightmarish traffic jams at Yosemite National Park from more than half a dozen major new construction projects, park leaders are drawing up plans that could limit the number of visitors this summer by requiring reservations for day visits.

"This summer is going to be a crazy construction season in Yosemite like you have never seen before," Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon told a group of local elected officials and tourism leaders at a meeting late last week. "Bring your hard hats."

Many of the projectsmajor road repairs and extensive upgrades to aging campgroundshave been on the park's wish list for decades. But funding is available now because Congress passed a landmark law in 2020, the Great American Outdoors Act, providing billions for repairs and upgrades at America's national parks.

Muldoon told the Yosemite Gateway Partnership that parks planners will know the details of a new reservation system in a few weeks.

"What we want to do is accommodate as many people as we can without causing any gridlock in the valley and other places in the park," she said.

Park spokesman Scott Gediman said Thursday that park officials are studying how many visitors should be allowed, traffic and parking needs and trying to figure out how COVID trends will affect the famed Sierra Nevada park in the coming months.

During the last two summers, COVID concerns forced the park for the first time in Yosemite's 157-year-history to require day visitors to make online reservations. Some people were turned away at the gates on days when all the reservations were filled.

In 2020, Yosemite kept visitor numbers to about 50% of historic averages during the first year of the pandemic. Last year, they ranged from 50% to 80% depending on the month and the severity of COVID cases. The system ended in October, and reservations are currently not required to enter the park.

But this summer, as the omicron variant is expected to wane, the concern is more over projects than pandemic.

Construction crews will be closing the Glacier Point Road all year to rebuild the popular route through Yosemite's high country. The current road was first constructed in 1936, replacing a wagon trail that dated back to 1882. The $42 million project to replace 10 miles of pavement from Badger Pass to Glacier Point, along with culverts, trail head parking and retaining walls, is expected to force more motorists to remain in Yosemite Valley, which on weekends and holidays already can become gridlocked.

Meanwhile, crews also will be building a new welcome center in Yosemite Valley, which will cause the temporary removal of 300 parking spaces. The center will be built adjacent to the Village Store, in a 3,000-square-foot building that formerly housed the Yosemite Village Sport Shop. As part of the $10 million project, an outdoor plaza also will be constructed with new restrooms, paths and signs. The welcome center will feature rangers for answering questions, information kiosks, touchscreens, maps, guidebooks and other information for visitors.

But that's not all.

Parks officials will be closing several major campgrounds this summer for long-delayed upgrades, including Crane Flat, Tuolumne Meadows and Bridalveil Creek, where aging water systems, restrooms and other facilities dating back to the 1950s and 1960s will be replaced.

And crews will be finishing a $15-million project to rebuild the trails and other facilities around Bridalveil Fall in Yosemite Valley.

Road repairs will continue all summer on Tioga Pass Road. And parks workers are expected by Memorial Day to re-open Mariposa Grove, where repairs are underway after a freak windstorm last year toppled 15 giant sequoias, wrecking wooden boardwalks and the main restroom.

Tourism officials in the communities surrounding the park are asking if some of the work can be delayed.

In the past few years, they have seen huge disruptions from COVID and wildfires, which temporarily closed Yosemite or limited visitation.

"Our residents and businesses have really been impacted, and they need to recover," said Jonathan Farrington, executive director of the Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau. "We had hoped that we could finally have a season again that was normal. We have a lot of businesses that are really well managed but which are on the brink. We need to be able to breathe."

Farrington said 52% of the people employed in Mariposa County work in the tourism industry, in hotels, restaurants and gift shops.

"We are all excited to see funding coming back to our public lands and national parks," he said. "It's not easy for us to say you should be postponing projects, but we feel the timing is a bit insensitive."

Gediman said that the way much of the federal funding is structured, the projects need to stay on schedule.

Local tourism leaders also aren't excited about a new reservation system, which limits the overall number of park visitors.

"Hopefully it would only be in June, July and August," Farrington said.

In recent years, day-use reservations have been put in place to curb overcrowding at Zion, Rocky Mountain and Glacier national parks, along with the famous Kalalau Trail in Kauai and Muir Woods in Marin County.

"We support it. It has worked in the past two years," said Frank Dean, president of the Yosemite Conservancy, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco that has agreed to pay half the costs of the Mariposa Grove, Bridalveil Fall and welcome center projects. "Other parks have been doing it. It is something to be looked at."

The short-term pain will bring long-term gains for Yosemite, he added.

"People will notice it for sure," he said. "They should try to avoid weekends and holidays if they can. Plan ahead. Go to a less-used part of the park. It's beautiful to get on a trail away from the crowds."

Explore further California's Yosemite National Park shuts down over coronavirus fears

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GLENS FALLS  Glens Falls is currently in the process of executing its first citywide revaluation of all property values in the city since 2005.

The city has scheduled four public information meetings that are open to all residents and owners of real property. Representatives of KLW Appraisal Group, and Susan McEnaney, the city assessor, will be providing an overview of the project during these meetings and will be available to answer any questions.

McEnaney met a city resident who told her that her home did not have an enclosed porch that had been previously assessed. McEnaney told the resident to update the information online.

We just want them to know about the meetings and to go to our website to look over their inventory and their data and everything. Make sure its all correct, she said.

The city has updated its online property information as a part of the project. Information regarding each individual property can be found on the Assessment page of the citys website.

The new database being used is Image Mate Online.

The program lets property owners review information and provide feedback regarding their specific property data, such as the number of bedrooms or bathrooms in a home.

The Assessment page of the citys website will have instructions on how to utilize the application.

If there are things a property owner wanted to update or change, the owner would provide their email along with their request for KLW to review.

Its not just going to change it, McEnaney said. We want to make sure youre not a nasty neighbor.

She said that it is important to complete a revaluation every five or six years. McEnaney has been pushing for one because of the fact that there have been different assessors with different techniques.

McEnaney has been involved with the city since 2014, when she became the real property clerk. She took over her current role in 2018.

She wants to hit the reset button with this revaluation.

I just want to start working with a clean slate, and (get) everybody where theyre supposed to be, she said.

McEnaney plans to conduct revaluations every five or six years starting with this one. She said that the city works with New York state to make sure their equalization rate stays around a certain figure. The goal is to keep it above 95%. It currently sits at 75%.

If you have a $100,000 home, youre paying taxes on $75,000, she said. The revaluation will bring it up to 100%.

McEnaney said that people think that their taxes are automatically going to increase as a result of the revaluation. She said that isnt the case.

She said it is possible for someone with a house worth $300,000 to only be paying taxes on $120,000, while someone else is over-assessed and paying more than they should be paying.

This evens it out to everybodys paying what they should, she said.

Deadlines for updated property information will be addressed during the upcoming meetings, according to McEnaney. The city is urging the public to attend one of these meetings either in-person or through the citys YouTube page.

Jay Mullen is a reporter for The Post-Star covering the city of Glens Falls, Warren County and crime and courts. You can reach him at (518) 742-3224 or jmullen@poststar.com.

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A downstate Democrat is proposing legislation that would allow local governments to waive late fees, penalties and interest on property taxes owed by landlords who own five or fewer properties.

Sen. Michelle Hinchey, D-Kingston, has introduced S.7390 in the state Senate. The legislation allows local governments to agree not to assess interest or penalties on real property taxes owned by a small rental business from the beginning of the states COVID-19 disaster declaration in 2020 through Aug. 31, 2022.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put an economic strain on tenants and small landlords alike. Across New York state, many small landlords depend on their rental properties as a main source of income or to help with long-term retirement planning. Throughout the pandemic, we have worked hard to make sure that tenants financially impacted by COVID-l9 could remain safely in their homes. While relief in the form of ERAP funds is now underway, landlords have still had to pay the bills associated with their rental properties, including utilities and property taxes, or face late fees, penalties and interest. With many tenants unable to pay their rent, smaller landlords have fallen behind on these critical bills, putting them in danger of accruing debt and increased costs.

Getting ERAP money into the hands of renters has been a priority for Gov. Kathy Hochul since she took office in late August, with the amount of money spent in the program increasing exponentially recently. The ERAP program had been struggling to process applications, leading to concerns that the money could be taken back by the federal government because the state wasnt spending it fast enough.

Among the actions Hochul took was reassigning staff to work with landlords to complete pending applications, which sped up the approval process. After lagging behind other states, New York found itself ranked first by early September in ERAP disbursements.

While getting money out quickly should help landlords, local state representatives were critical of eviction moratorium extensions passed earlier this money in the state Legislature. The bills require landlords to challenge a hardship declaration submitted by tenants and for banks and mortgage holders to challenge a hardship declaration submitted by property owners trying to avoid foreclosure. Judges would require tenants to apply for assistance programs if their hardship claim is ruled to be valid. The bills also extend the Tenant Safe Harbor Act to Jan. 15, 2022, and added a nuisance standard to eviction protections to provide landlords with a way to start an eviction proceeding against a covered tenant if a tenant is a nuisance or has inflicted substantial damage to a property.

Among the criticisms raised by Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, is that landlords participating in the emergency rent assistance programs are automatically at a disadvantage because they forgo any increases in rent for at least a year, have to waive late fees and cant possibly recoup all of their lost rent because the program covers a 12-month period while evictions have been prohibited for 17 months already, with the eviction moratorium now extended beyond that.

The data proves it. You can look at it, Goodell said. Landlords are pulling out of this market. In my district Ive had landlords tell me they were forced to sell some of their houses in order to pay the expenses on the remaining ones. And they sold to owner-occupied residents. And those units are off the market. Other landlords being unable to cover the maintenance costs because theyre not getting enough cash flow and have allowed their apartments to go to the point theyre no longer tenable by anyone. So weve set up a system where landlords, if they can survive, are going to be forced to raise the rent to recoup their losses, and that rent increase is going to hit the people who can afford it the least  the working poor.

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ATLANTIC CITY  An early morning fire that destroyed a vacant rowhome on Siracusa Terrace highlights the threat these buildings pose to first responders and the public, fire officials said.

A call about the fire came into police about 5:40 a.m. Friday. Firefighters were forced to cut through a fence to gain access to an adjacent alleyway, where they found the fire ripping through the buildings third floor, fire Chief Scott Evans said.

The building was structurally unsound and dangerous for firefighters to enter, Evans said. First responders found abandoned propane tanks inside, providing the potential for a major explosion.

Evans said fires at vacant homes are firefighter killers.

Typically the homes are unsanitary. His team finds hazardous material, used clothing and feces during fire calls at these buildings, signs squatters were making them their homes.

You really need to be prepared to expect anything, Evans said.

Other buildings around the alleyway suffered moderate damage, including melted siding and damaged roofs.

No one was inside at the time of the fire, but authorities said homeless people were recently living in the building.

No injuries were reported. The fire remains under investigation.

Although some residents were unaware of the fire, others in the area said they woke up to the smell of smoke and an explosion.

Araceli Navarrete, 17, said she was home asleep with her parents until they were awakened by the smell of smoke.

I could smell the smoke from inside our house, said Navarrete. We all looked around to see if the smoke was coming from inside, but it was coming from the house next door.

Navarrete said it was cold out, so she and her parents stayed inside and watched as firefighters battled the fire from their home on Arctic Avenue, the same block where the blaze was.

Amana Nabizada, 51, also was awakened, along with her husband and daughter, when the smell of smoke filled her home, a few buildings in front of the house fire.

I was a little confused because I could smell smoke and it was a little hot, but it wasnt coming from my house, said Nabizada, who thought for a brief moment her house could have been on fire. I check outside and then five minutes later, I hear a loud boom, like a collision, and saw my neighbors house on fire.

Elvis Salguero, 22, who lives two houses down from the house that caught fire, said he, too, had heard a loud boom before the fire started.

There were windows exploding, and we wanted to get closer, but the firefighters told us to stay back, said Salguero. I think it had to be some sort of explosion, like a gas pipe, boiler or heater, because I saw the tree catch on fire first, which made me think it had something to do with the electric.

The number of vacant homes in the city has steadily increased over the past decade, Evans said.

He credits Mayor Marty Small Sr.s administration for taking a bold approach in the citys attempts to demolish vacant buildings and pursue contractors to replace them.

Evans also credits Smalls efforts to get homeless people out of the citys vacant buildings, potentially saving their lives.

Smalls office did not respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.

Twenty-three percent of the resorts housing is vacant, according to the Census Bureau, compared with 11% statewide. Residents routinely ask for help getting rid of eyesores and forcing property owners to clean up their properties.

City officials have said they attempt to restrict access to the resorts abandoned buildings, nailing wooden boards and beams across doors and windows. Despite their efforts, theyll still be broken into, typically during winter.

Despite the snags, city officials say they are making progress.

We should see less vacant buildings in the future, Evans said.

Contact Eric Conklin: 609-272-7261 econklin@pressofac.com Twitter @ACPressConklin

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WILDWOOD  The Shamrock Beef & Ale, long treasured by locals and visitors as a popular bar and restaurant, may have closed, but the historic building is being saved, thanks to its owner.

The orange-and-green building nearly completed a roughly two-day, 200-yard move Thursday from its spot in the 3700 block of Pacific Avenue to an empty lot in the 200 block of East Lincoln Avenue. Onlookers snapped photos and videos as the building was placed onto a freighter and driven across the street.

Crews moving the building were forced to abandon it on Lincoln Avenue overnight into Thursday, leaving a lowered electrical wire down and forcing police to close portions of the road.

And again Thursday evening, Wildwood police said crews were forced to leave the building just shy of its final destination and will return Friday morning to finish the job. The 100 and 200 blocks of East Lincoln were shut down with the work left undone.

The bar was closed in May of last year when the state pulled its liquor license for COVID-19 rule violations. Owner Tom Gerace decided the fines were too much to handle and put a bad taste in his mouth.

They had me pay, Gerace said Thursday. They were coming after me, and it was just ridiculous.

Gerace sold the property on which The Shamrock stood since being built in the 1900s. He anticipates the sale being finalized in the coming weeks.

After starting as the Berwind Hotel, Irish immigrants bought the building, making it their home. They converted the first floor into the Shamrock Cafe in 1937, as Wildwood gained traction as one of the premier vacation spots at the Jersey Shore.

Gerace bought the property in 2016, hoping to continue Pacific Avenues reputation as a hotspot in Wildwood.

I didnt need to buy a bar, Gerace said. Im basically semi-retired. I did it because I wanted to improve Wildwood.

Several buildings on Pacific Avenue, like the Shamrock, are historic. There are only a few buildings left in Wildwood from that era, which is why Gerace agreed to move the building, which will become his residence once its placed onto its new foundation.

Many in the community are thankful for the move, Gerace said, and have approached him to thank him for his decision.

Gerace declined to comment on who is buying the Shamrocks former lot, but he said hes hopeful theyll help keep Pacific Avenue vibrant, a goal for city commissioners as they look to bring new business into town and lower property taxes.

Historic documents indicate the Shamrock became a popular space for live music, specifically providing local bands a place to showcase their sounds during the 1970s. Records say guitarist Billy Jack was likely the longest-tenured resident at the Shamrock, starting a decade later.

Many in town, like Mayor Pete Byron, will miss the Shamrock. Besides its sprightly nightlife and food, its been an icon for the town.

You could go anywhere in the world or walk on the beach somewhere and see a Shamrock T-shirt, Byron said. Theres a lot of fond memories with that building, so we never like to see a piece of our history go away.

Several historic buildings, recently the former St. Anns Rectory, have been demolished, with fresh condos and homes taking their place. The community doesnt like seeing historic buildings demolished, but the city doesnt have much control as to what goes and what stays.

The last thing the city wants to do is to put constraints or discourage new development, especially in a city thats overtaxed, Byron said, and the way to get a handle on taxes is to bring new ratables to town.

The Wildwood Historical Society is among those thankful the building is being preserved, if in a different location. Its especially important, Historical Society President Taylor Henry said, because many of the citys Victorian-era-styled hotels that were converted to businesses are vanishing.

We think it was very important to preserve that building, Henry said. Theres a lot of buildings that were there that are similar to it, and there arent many left.

Contact Eric Conklin: 609-272-7261 econklin@pressofac.com Twitter @ACPressConklin

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ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi rebel group announced on Friday that the Saudi-led coalition launched an air raid on a prison controlled by Yemen's Houthi rebel group in the country's northern city of Saada.

The bombing of the prison caused more than 100 casualties, Basheer Omar, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen, told Xinhua.

"The airstrike completely destroyed the prison building and there is no sufficient equipment to pull the victims from under the rubble," an official of Saada's local authority confirmed to Xinhua.

All the city's hospitals are now overcrowded with dead and injured people following the airstrike, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Saada is a main stronghold of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who have been fighting the Yemen's government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition for years.

Earlier in the day, the Saudi-led coalition launched a heavy aerial bombardment campaign targeting the Houthi-held sites across the war-ravaged Arab country including the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, according to the Houthi rebels.

A telecommunications center in Yemen's Hodeidah was struck, causing a nationwide collapse of internet connectivity.

The coalition has intensified its airstrikes against the Houthi militia in various parts of Yemen after the Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack against the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an active member of the Saudi-led coalition.

The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has recently intensified cross-border drone and missile attacks against cities in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

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. 
Lifting a longtime ban, New Jersey is now allowing people who have been convicted of felony drug distribution to receive General Assistance.

The highly lauded move ends a 25-year-old law that had defied both fairness and common sense, say advocates who worked for the change, codified in legislation signed by Gov. Phil Murphy on Dec. 21.

Before then, the law allowed anyone who had done time for crimes other than drug distribution or intent to distribute  including violent felonies  the chance to apply for GA, a program that gives low-income adults with no dependent children a monthly stipend of $185.

Though the benefit is small, it can be enough to allow a person to rent a single room in someones house, or compensate a relative for providing a bed or couch, advocates say.

Beyond the money, admission to the GA program has been the prerequisite for receiving vital social services, such as emergency housing assistance, job training and help with substance abuse.

Without the chance to get GA, individuals convicted of drug distribution  many of them experiencing homelessness  have been released from prison at a severe disadvantage.

Thats why the end of the ban has been so roundly welcomed. Nobody Im hearing is against the bill at this point, said Renee Koubiadis, executive director of the Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey.

Beautiful idea

I will absolutely try to get general assistance now, said Amy Eldridge, 41, who is living homeless in Trenton and just learned of the change from Luis Mercado Rivera, her social worker at Arm in Arms, an antihunger nonprofit in Trenton. Rivera characterized the new law as a beautiful idea.

Eldridge said she tried to get GA in the past, but her conviction in 1999 for selling the party drug ketamine and subsequent six-year incarceration impeded her.

In a humiliation she says shell never forget, Eldridge went to her local county assistance office to apply for GA after her release, where an icy clerk denied her.

Why? I asked her, Eldridge said. Then she slapped a piece of paper that had my (criminal) sheet on the glass between us and said, This is why you get nothing.

Though its difficult to keep track, advocates estimate that nearly 1,000 people who had been convicted of felony drug distribution were rejected for GA benefits in 2020 alone.

Overall, more than 13,000 New Jersey residents are receiving GA benefits of around $39 million, Koubiadis said. That number rose 33% during the pandemic, advocates say.

As it happens, both New Jersey and Pennsylvania already allow those convicted of any drug felonies to receive SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps).

But GA is a different program, funded by states, not the federal government. Pennsylvania no longer has GA.

Enmity toward drug crimes

The ban began in 1997, said Ed Martone, policy analyst for the National Center for Advocacy and Recovery for Behavioral Health, headquartered in Robbinsville, Mercer County.

Pleasantville meeting features conversations about expanding opportunity, stopping violence PLEASANTVILLE  People from across the city came together Tuesday night to put students on t

Back then, all drug offenses  including possession, use, distribution, and intent to distribute  precluded formerly incarcerated individuals access to GA, Martone said.

In 2016, former Gov. Chris Christie approved legislation that would allow those convicted of possession or use of narcotics the right to apply for GA, but held the line on people convicted of distribution or intent to distribute, said Martone, who has lobbied for years to reverse the ban.

By punishing those who deal drugs more than those who have committed violent crimes, the ban illustrates an outsize enmity toward drug-related crime, advocates say.

In most cases, people were convicted of dealing small amounts of drugs, often to supply their own addictions, according to Maura Sanders, chief counsel at Legal Services of New Jersey, headquartered in Edison, Middlesex County.

When the ban was lifted last month, some 75 social service and advocacy organizations had been supporting the effort.

This is huge for so many people, said Susan Long, a social worker with Hope One, an Atlantic County agency connected to the sheriffs Hope Exists Foundation. Before the lifting of the ban, it was truly heartbreaking. People with distribution convictions would get on a bus outside prison, then be dropped off, literally stuck on the streets, no General Assistance, no help.

NJ seeing strong uptick in signups for ACA health insurance plans New Jersey is seeing strong health insurance enrollment increases on its Affordable Care Act

But now, the ability to have General Assistance changes everything for them.

Koubiadis agreed. This is great news for our state, she said. This was a harmful ban that prohibited people from asking for assistance. At the time, it forever banned the homeless from getting housing assistance.

Now, people can get help rebuilding their lives.

The new law has been a long time coming, said Cuqui Rivera (no relation to Luis Mercado Rivera), executive secretary and criminal justice reform chair for Latino Action Network, an antidiscrimination advocacy group headquartered in Scotch Plains, Union County.

Weve been fighting for this for years, she said.

Rivera added that it will take a while before people who are homeless and others learn they may now qualify for GA.

Atlantic Cape students explore hunger crisis ahead of holiday season MAYS LANDING  There is a saying in most Latin American countries, said David Pacheco Ruiz.

But when they do, she said, it could only help.

This is major, historic legislation, she said.
EDITORS NOTE: The following article is from the January issue of Flavor, the Press of Atlantic Citys magazine showcasing the food and drink scene in South Jersey. To get Flavor delivered to your home click here.

Before COVID, Lisa Sasscer was happily minding her own business. She sold home-baked gourmet cheesecakes wholesale to restaurants throughout the state of Maryland. Her clients were content and so was Sasscer, who lived in Baltimore at the time.

But all the eateries closed during quarantine, and Sasscers business tanked.

It was awful, she recalls.

Sasscers fiance, Richard Zak, urged her to leave Maryland and start a bakery in Ventnor, where he lives. It was a risky move, but Sasscer had been considering the idea because she wanted to be closer to Zak.

To gauge interest among potential customers, she had been showcasing her cheesecakes at various famers markets at the Jersey Shore.

We sold out every time, she says. It got me thinking that if we had a bakery, we could fill the need.

Sasscer put her house on the market, sold it and invested nearly every dime of her savings to launch Sasscers Cheesecakes in Ventnor.

It was scary, Sasscer says, but it was the best thing I ever did.

Sasscers Cheesecakes, a 1,600-square-foot shop with retail and kitchen space, offers 40 different kinds of cheesecake, from plain to mocha cappuccino to apple peach cobbler to salty caramel cream  and everything in between. The cheesecakes come in three sizes: 4 inches, 6 inches and 10 inches.

The bakery also sells bread, pies, cookies, cream puffs, and cakes, as well as cupcakes that are filled with creamy cheesecake. Two bakers make the confections, and five employees decorate the baked items and handle the register.

When you walk into the bakery, youll smell the buttery, chocolatey aroma characteristic of sweet shops. The retail space opens to the kitchen, so you can watch the activity in the back. The six-shelf oven bakes the confections, mixers whir and cakes are festooned with frosting and whipped cream.

Pull quote I find baking very peaceful and therapeutic. When I come in by myself, I do my best work. I talk to my mom, and I swear she haunts me in a good sort of way. Lisa Sasscer, owner of Sasscer's Cheesecakes in Ventor

Two cases display the bakerys creations  one is devoted exclusively to the cheesecakes, and the other showcases the cakes, cookies, cupcakes and pies.

Stocking the display cases is one of Sasscers favorite jobs.

I love making the cases look pretty, she says. And I want to keep them full. I like the wow factor, and thats what I want when people walk in.

The bakery had a soft opening on May 8, 2021  a function had been canceled and Sasscer had a full complement of baked goods  so we just opened the doors and people kept coming in.

Since that opening, a steady stream of customers kept employees busy last summer.

There arent too many people who dont seem to like our cheesecakes, says Sasscer.

Pure vanilla, orange and lemon oil, instead of extracts, heightens the taste of all the confections.

Using these ingredients makes such a difference, says Sasscer.

In addition to operating the bakery in Ventnor, Sasscer continues the wholesale part of the business in Maryland. Every Wednesday, a driver heads to Baltimore with a truck full of cheesecakes to service the 40 accounts Sasscer now has.

Once there, the driver hands off the desserts to two other drivers, one of whom drops them off to the eastern shore of Maryland; and the other, who delivers cheesecakes throughout northern Maryland.

While demand for the cheesecakes is high on the wholesale side  in late November, the driver delivered 204 cheesecakes alone in one week  its also brisk on the retail side. One day, a line snaked out of the bakery and down the street, which brought Sasscer to tears.

I had to step in the freezer because I was crying, she says. I couldnt believe this was happening for me. I kept crying and saying, Is this really happening? I have to pinch myself.

Sasscer credits her mother, Margaret, for getting her into the baking business, a career she had never considered for herself. And it all began when Margaret, on a dare with her friends at lunch, told them she could make a better cheesecake than the ones they ate for dessert.

Margaret used the cheesecake recipe from Sasscers grandmother, but it wasnt that good, chuckles Sasscer. The cheesecakes came out about an inch high, had cracks in them and were loose.

Margaret revved the recipe, bringing it to new levels of flavor.

My mom was relentless at trying to perfect this recipe, remembers Sasscer. She would make it over and over again, trying different combinations of ingredients.

The recipe for the plain cheesecake is simple, says Sasscer, Its just cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, vanilla and sugar. But its so versatile that you can add anything to it, and it works.

Before passing away, Margaret enjoined Sasscer to continue baking.

When Mom was sick, she made me promise to keep making the cheesecakes, says Sasscer who has many memories of baking with her mother when she was growing up.

I find baking very peaceful and therapeutic, adds Sasscer, who makes all the cheesecakes herself. When I come in by myself, I do my best work. I talk to my mom, and I swear she haunts me in a good sort of way.

Emotion catches Sasscers voice. She stops for a moment, then adds, She created a legacy for me to carry on.
Two years and four months after he was charged with four firearms felonies, a retired Moline police captain is scheduled next week to enter a final plea.

Jerome Patrick, 58, is accused of shooting at two people from his car after a September 2019 bar fight in Moline. He is charged with two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm and two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, all felonies.

He has been granted at least 14 continuances in his case, according to court records. After the defense's most recent delay in September, the court indicated it would be his last.

Also during the hearing, State's Attorney Dora Villarreal said the state was "revoking" all previous offers related to a negotiated plea agreement with Patrick.

She last year offered assurances that her office was not giving Patrick any preferential treatment because of his former role in law enforcement or any relationships with those working at the Rock Island County Courthouse.

Former Moline police captain to stand trial in February The trial for a retired Moline police captain who is charged with four gun-related felonies is to begin in February  nearly 2 1/2 years after his arrest.

The Illinois State Police were called Sept. 12, 2019, to investigate a gunfire complaint in the 2500 block of the Avenue of the Cities in Moline. Investigators identified Patrick as the suspect, and he was arrested the next day in Davenport.

Moline police asked the state to step in to avoid a conflict.

The state police say Patrick fired a gun from inside his silver 1997 Mercedes-Benz convertible in the direction of a man and woman, whom he is accused of following home from a tavern. No injuries were reported.

Patrick is to appear Jan. 27 at 1 p.m. for his final plea. A jury trial is scheduled for Feb. 14.

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Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds found a supportive audience among North Scott Rotary members for a four-year transition to a flat state income tax rate and proposals to address worker shortages.

Reynolds, who stopped at the Rotary meeting Friday in Davenport, touted her proposal for a 4% flat-rate state income tax and eliminating taxes on retirement income, including for employees who received stock in their company.

Iowa is losing too many retirees to states that dont tax their retirement income, Reynolds said, adding her tax cut proposals "reward work."

"Theres never been a better time in Iowa for bold, yet practical tax reform that continues to meet the priorities of our the state, whether that's education, public safety or mental health (care)," Reynolds said. "(It's) a policy that allows Iowans to keep more of what they earn, and that it creates a highly competitive tax system."

Reynolds noted the state ended the last fiscal year with a $1.2 billion surplus on top of full cash reserves.

"That means we kept our spending down, but it also means that despite the 2018 tax cuts that we implemented, Iowans are still paying too much," she said.

Under her plan, the top state income tax rate would be eliminated each year over the next four years, until in 2026 when every Iowa worker, regardless of income level, pays 4%.

The flat tax proposal would reduce state revenue by an estimated $1.6 billion by tax year 2026 when it would be fully implemented, according to the states nonpartisan fiscal and legal analysis division.

"It's fair to Iowans. It's fair to all of us," said Rotary member and Republican Scott County Supervisor Tony Knobbe. "We all would love a little more jingle in our pocket. But, for those of us who work in the trenches of economic development trying to attract businesses to our state, 4 (percent) sounds a hell of a lot better than 9 (percent)."

Reynolds insisted 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. And said she plans to leave $2 billion in the state's taxpayer relief fund to be tapped if state revenue growth falls below a projection of 4% on average per year.

Although the tax rate is the same, Democrats and economists note that individuals with lower incomes would spend more of their wages toward the tax than those with higher income, making a flat tax regressive.

"Iowa Democrats believe we need a fair tax system that rewards work, not wealth and puts more money in the pockets of working families. Kim Reynolds tax plan does the opposite," according to a statement from the Iowa Democratic Party.

Reynolds on Friday said all Iowans would see a reduction in state income taxes, and that once fully implemented an average Iowa family of four would save about $1,300 a year in taxes on top of the $1,000 savings from the 2018 tax cut bill.

The governor also discussed a variety of workforce issues, including proposed changes to the states unemployment system as a means to address Iowas worker shortage, including shortening the time Iowans can claim jobless benefits.

She has also proposed creating a separate division within the states workforce development agency to work with businesses that are searching for employees.

In addition, Reynolds said her office is focused on expanding apprenticeship programs -- particularly in health care and education -- and incorporating work-based learning and computer science into high school curriculum. And she has proposed using federal stimulus funding on a one-time $1,000 retention bonus for all Iowa teachers who remain at their school for another year.

Iowa Democrats argue workforce shortages in the state have been of Reynolds' and other state Republican leaders' own making, through partisan attacks on the teaching profession, limiting collective bargaining rights and opposing mask and workplace vaccine mandates to address increased COVID-19 case counts and hospitalizations that have overwhelmed and exhausted the state's health care facilities.

"Iowans are sick of Kim Reynolds partisanship, and her attacks on teachers and nurses are only making the Reynolds workforce crisis worse," Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Ross Wilburn said in a statement.

Reynolds noted her daughter is a public school teacher and said she "was proud of our educators for keeping the classroom open and staying in school when a lot of other states did not."

"This bonus is to say 'Thank you' for doing that. And, we want you to stay in education," she said.

Reynolds added the Iowa Department of Education is working with the University of Iowa on a program to expand support for mental health to Pre-K-12 educators and schools across the state.

"I'm proud of what we've been able to do for educators," Reynolds said.

As for rising COVID-19 cases in the state, Reynolds said state officials are "doing what we can do" to respond to the highly-contagious omicron variant. That includes sending 125 traveling nurses and respiratory therapists to more than a dozens hospitals across Iowa as health care providers grapple with an increasing number of new COVID-19 hospitalizations.

"We are going to continue to provide testing, continue to encourage vaccines and continue to tell people to stay home if they're sick," Reynolds said.

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Scott County officials raised concerns over plans by the city of Davenport to use a tax incentive for the construction of an onsite wastewater pretreatment facility at PB Leiner's manufacturing facility at 7001 Brady Street.

City officials say the onsite pretreatment facility will help add capacity at the city's Water Pollution Control Plant and help retain more than 100 high-paying jobs.

The Scott County Board of Supervisors, however, objects to the city's plan, arguing the proposed project will not create new jobs and that other, more equitable sources of municipal financing are available.

"We use (tax increment financing) very conservatively from the city's perspective," Davenport Alderman Kyle Gripp, at-large, who chairs the council's community development committee, said.

"But I understand (supervisors) take an even more conservative approach to its use, and I can appreciate that," Gripp said. "But, I think that this particular project the benefit for our sewer system and getting PB Leiner into doing on-site treatment is worth the economic investment to keep them in Davenport and then ease some of the strains their business puts on our sewer system."

Subsidizing on-site treatment at PB Leiner's facility would save the city money long-term in avoiding costly repairs and maintenance items, "in addition to keeping a good company operating in Davenport," Gripp said.

PB Leiner specializes in the production of gelatin and collagen peptides for food, pharmaceuticals, health nutrition and technical applications, according to a city memo.

Production began at the Brady Street facility in 1978 as Hormel, with PB Leiner assuming ownership in 1998.

"PB Leiners plant was built prior to more recent pretreatment requirements," Davenport Community and Economic Development Director Bruce Berger responded in an email. "Once completed, this project will bring all of our larger industrial sewer users in line with current requirements."

The city would take on debt to reimburse PB Leiner up to $600,000 for engineering and design services. The costs would come through the use of tax increment financing, or TIF, applied to the city's North Urban Renewal Area.

The geographically targeted economic development tool allows local governments to subsidize new development and invest in public infrastructure and other community-improvement projects up front. Local governments can then pay later for those investments by capturing the future anticipated increase in tax revenues generated by new development and diverting that revenue to subsidize development.

Doing so, though, means affected taxing entities, including Scott County, do not receive the new revenue they would normally from the new development.

"The Board supports the use of TIF for urban renewal projects that reverse blight and declining property values, but then only if it is to offset the extraordinary cost of such redevelopment in urban renewal areas," Board of Supervisors Chairman Ken Beck wrote in a letter to Davenport Mayor Mike Matson and council members.

"The Board also supports the use of tax increment financing for economic development projects which both increase the tax base and create new jobs," Beck wrote. "The Board does not support the use of TIF for public infrastructure costs when there are other more equitable sources of municipal financing available for such projects."

Beck added that supervisors "appreciate and would like to continue a spirit of cooperation with the city of Davenport on economic development projects that create jobs and we look forward to working with you in the future."

Berger argued the project "will increase tax base, and while it will not directly create jobs, freeing up additional sewer capacity yields indirect job and tax base growth opportunities for the community for years to come."

The city's plant is one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in the state of Iowa, serving the cities of Davenport, Bettendorf, Panorama Park and Riverdale. It serves more than 6,000 commercial properties, 48 large-scale industrial sites and more than 47,400 homes in Scott County.

PB Leiner did not respond to messages Thursday seeking comment.

Davenport aldermen will meet next week to vote on a resolution setting a Feb. 2 public hearing on amending the city's North Urban Renewal Plan and approving the economic development agreement.

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Early last week, a Davenport couple spotted a white swan swimming in the Mississippi River off South Concord.

By late in the week, the swan had stopped swimming.

An animal lover, Phyllis Walker and her fiancee frequently take winter drives along the river to get out of the house and do some bird watching.

"We went down on Monday, and the swan was swimming, floating around; same thing on Tuesday," Walker said. "On Wednesday, it was just sitting in one spot. When it was still there Thursday, we got worried and checked.

"Everything else flew off, but he didn't move."

The pair sprang into action, grabbing a fleece blanket from their truck to wrap around the bird and and a hammer and screwdriver to try to break the ice around it.

"The poor thing was between the rocks and the river," Walker said Friday. "We couldn't get him up. His chest was frozen, but his feet were moving. I called 911, and they said they couldn't help me. The DNR (Iowa Department of Natural Resources) was busy and was going to be a while.

"The swan didn't have a while. Its eyes were closed, and its head was bent down."

Walker's fiancee, who declined to be identified by name, broke away some ice, then got his hands under the bird and pulled.

"It came right up," she said. "It lost a few feathers, but it didn't hurt him. That animal knew it was free."

Just as the bird was freed, conservation officers from West Lake arrived, she said, and took it with them. Identified as a mute swan, it was to be delivered Friday to Wildthunder, a wildlife rehab and sanctuary in Independence, Iowa.

Tracy Belle, who is federally permitted to rehabilitate animals at Wildthunder, said she suspected the swan rescued Thursday is either the partner or sibling of a swan she has been caring for since it was found injured in early December in Davenport.

Mute swans are largely monogamous, and Belle wonders if the second swan was waiting for its mate to return to South Concord.

"The female came in with a pelvic fracture," she said. "We reunited a pair of geese recently, and it was a beautiful thing. They ran to each other, wrapped their necks around each other and honked.

"We'll need to move a couple of fox around so we can put the swans in the same area. These are young swans, I'm told, so they could be siblings, too."

Walker said she spent about an hour on the phone Thursday night with Belle and was relieved the swan she had named Lucky Wapello (because it was found at Concord and Wapello Avenue) was in good hands.

"We see people along the river taking pictures of the eagles all the time," Walker said. "We love watching the eagles, too. But it's important for people to pay attention.

"Instead of just getting their pictures, people need to look out for the animals. Please notice them. Sometimes, you can help."

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NAIROBI, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenya is accelerating reforms in the energy sector to lower the cost of power and invest more in renewable energy in a bid to spur economic development, a government official said on Friday.

Monica Juma, the cabinet secretary of Ministry of Energy, said at a press conference in the capital Nairobi that the reforms that have so far seen Kenyans pay less for power are sector wide and would also help achieve transparency in the industry.

"So far many Kenyans can attest to a significant drop in their electricity bills. Key emphasis here is that while we targeted a 15 percent reduction in power costs, the low tier customers are enjoying a reduction of up to 23 percent," she said, adding that the reduction would translate to up to 10 percent reduction in manufacturing costs.

Juma observed that the government is in talks with independent power producers (IPP), to further lower the cost of power.

"We are in the final preparatory stages for the official engagement with each of the IPP. So far, as is demonstrable, the government has taken critical actions toward the objective of reduction of power costs," said Juma.

The number of households connected to the national grid in the country hit about 8.6 million in 2021, up from 1.6 million in 2013.

Kenya aims to cut power costs by up to 30 percent by the end of 2022, which will enable consumer costs to drop from an average of 24 shillings (about 0.21 U.S. dollars) per kilowatt-hour to about 16.8 shillings.

Kenya has been at the forefront of renewable energy production, as about 92 percent of electricity is generated from clean sources. However, the cost of power had remained unaffordable to many businesses and households. 
SPRINGFIELD - An Illinois-based COVID testing chain has suspended operations statewide for the foreseeable future amid an investigation from state authorities, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement late Thursday.

Although the company voluntarily suspended operations, my office contacted company officials to demand that the Center for COVID Control immediately stop engaging in any fraudulent or deceptive conduct, Raoul said. His office evaluated complaints from Illinois residents and interviewed former employees, the statement said.

The Center for COVID Control, which is based in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows, first said it was shutting down temporarily last week, as federal authorities and multiple state agencies launched investigations against the company.

The company will not reopen any of its nationwide locations Saturday, as they had previously planned, according to its own Thursday news release. However, the release called the suspension a pause, and said the business was training additional staff.

Complaints against the Center for COVID Control included results being delayed or not received, results being provided to people who hadnt received tests and staff not correctly wearing personal protective equipment. These issues were raised by both customers and former employee whistleblowers, the Illinois attorney generals office said.

The Minnesota Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the same COVID testing company and its Illinois-based lab, Doctors Clinical Laboratory, the office announced Wednesday. The company delivered results that were falsified or inaccurate, the agencys news release said.

Pop-up testing sites are not regulated by the government, the Illinois Attorney Generals office said. The agency previously urged consumers to use government-sponsored testing sites, and to be cautious of any testing site that asks for payment out-of-pocket.

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Although she raised 13 times more money than her leading opponent last year, Gov. Kim Reynolds plans to run like shes 10 points behind.

Thats how Ive always run any race that Im in, Reynolds said when asked about her most recent campaign finance report showing she has $4.8 million cash on hand compared to Democrat Deidre DeJears $8,500.

Reynolds was elected Clarke County treasurer four times and served a term in the Iowa Senate before being elected lieutenant governor in 2011. She became governor when Gov. Terry Branstad resigned in May 2017 and was elected to a full term in 2018.

Reynolds hasnt officially announced shes running for re-election, but she has a campaign staff and is raising money and making campaign appearances.

However, during a Thursday visit to Van Meter, a wholesale electrical distributor in Cedar Rapids, she insisted that for the time being she is focused on the legislative agenda she laid out in her Condition of the State address earlier this month.

I think it continues the momentum that weve seen in Iowa over the last three to four years, she said. Were going to focus really hard on getting that agenda done and helping Iowans succeed, grow prosperity and opportunities across the entire state.

DeJear, a Des Moines businesswoman, says the state can do better if Iowans elect new leadership this fall.

Weve seen the politicization of so many issues in the last five years of this administration, and none of that has served the best interests of Iowans, she said.

However, DeJear acknowledged the money disadvantage she faces  the fuel that keeps us going, she said a fundraising appeal Thursday evening.

Defeating an incumbent is challenging because of how much money they are able to raise. Kim Reynolds has the entire MAGA GOP establishment backing her, DeJear said, a reference to former President Donald Trumps Make America Great Again campaign theme.

When she shifts her focus to the campaign, Reynolds believes she has a good story to take to voters.

Im proud of the progress that Iowans have made in the last several years  through a two-year pandemic, two derechos, floods, tornadoes. Through all of that, weve continued to be able to grow and expand, she said.

Its a testament to Iowans and our businesses, our small business owners, our educators, just everybody that has really come together over the last several years with everything that we faced, the governor said. Were coming out. Were in a really good position to continue to grow.

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Workers in the U.S. just suffered a gut punch.

On Jan. 13, the six conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court blocked implementation of an emergency temporary standard issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The standard directed that employers with 100 or more workers must require their employees to either be vaccinated or else mask and undergo weekly testing at their own expense. It was not a vaccine mandate. It encouraged vaccination but allowed other options.

Even so, six justices turned their thumbs down. Congress, they said, hadnt authorized OSHA to issue such a sweeping rule. They also argued that since COVID-19 is a public health problem and not one limited to workplaces, its not in OSHAs bailiwick.

The courts three liberal justices vehemently dissented. The Occupational Safety and Health Act, they said, expressly calls for emergency temporary standards like this one. The enormity and seriousness of the problem justified taking this big step. And nothing in the act suggests that, if a hazard presents a grave danger that extends beyond the workplace, OSHA is powerless to take action. According to OSHA estimates, the proposed rule would have saved 6,500 lives and prevented 250,000 hospitalizations over the next six months.

The court majority did leave open the possibility that a new rule, narrowly tailored to workplaces with the greatest risk of COVID-19 transmission, might survive their scrutiny. But hours after the decision was handed down, President Joe Biden signaled that its now up to individual employers and the states to protect workers against a virus that has already killed some 850,000 people in the United States.

That doesnt bode well. The law creating OSHA was passed more than 50 years ago because many employers werent doing enough to protect their workers from injury and death on the job, and because states werent stepping into that breach. So Congress provided a federal right to safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women.

The law is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives and preventing countless injuries and illnesses. And yet, in the face of the greatest occupational health challenge this nation has ever faced, six justices effectively told OSHA to back off.

COVID-19 calls for a concerted national response; tossing worker safety back to the states is anything but. Worker advocates and unions have been pushing for a federal emergency rule since the pandemic began. When the Trump administration refused to act, some states  California, New Jersey and Virginia among them  issued mandatory safety standards of their own. Others did nothing.

In fact, after the Biden administration proposed the vaccine or testing rule, it was the states  specifically 26 red states  that sued to prevent its implementation, leading to the Supreme Courts action in mid-January.

But now its back to the states to tackle COVID-19 transmission in the workplace. Some may pass new rules, perhaps including vaccine mandates. Others will do nothing or, worse, even prevent employers from requiring vaccines or testing. Businesses will be left wondering what the rules are, or will be.

OSHA was created to set a floor on workplace safety in all 50 states, and the vaccine-or-test rule was designed to save lives consistent with that mandate. Six justices devised reasons to block that effort, and now each state will either address the workplace COVID threat  or not  as it sees fit.

Thats no way to honor our workers  or the will of Congress.

Michael Felsen of Jamaica Plain, Mass., retired in 2018 after a 39-year career as an attorney with the Department of Labor, serving from 2010-2018 as its New England Regional Solicitor. This column was produced for The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service.

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The infamous Martin Shkreli is Pharma Bro no more. On Jan. 10, Shkreli received a lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry.

You may recall that Shkreli exploited lax enforcement to corner the market on a lifesaving drug (Daraprim) and then jacked up the list price more than fortyfold. This went on for years, with Shkreli directing the operation even while serving a prison term for a prior financial fraud.

Considering his actions were a life-and-death matter among those who needed the drug, were all in favor of shutting the door on any repeat performances.

Companies and industries routinely complain that a few lousy actors can make the rest look bad. So, when you catch em red-handed, ban em.

It behooves any industry to crack down on the worst of the worst, and lifetime bans send the right, no-nonsense message. The worst lawyers should be disbarred, the worst telemarketers shut down for good and the worst financial-industry crooks banned as a matter of course.

As the exhaustive 135-page ruling on the Shkreli case illustrates, his misconduct was as rotten as it was intentional. Its easy to imagine him doing it all again if he had the chance.

Shkreli, who currently resides in federal prison, started by researching the pharmaceutical industry for a drug that fit specific requirements. It had to be the sole, gold-standard treatment for a rare but life-threatening ailment, so that patients, hospitals and insurers were at his mercy and had no choice but to pay any price.

The drug he chose also had to be produced from only one source, so its distribution could be closed off to any would-be competitors. That created a barrier to entry and extended the period of maximum pricing power.

Shkreli settled on a drug used for a potentially fatal disease that results from infection with a parasite. The federal government estimates that tens of millions may be infected in the U.S., but a healthy immune system keeps the parasite from causing illness.

Most at risk are those being treated for HIV, cancer or organ transplants, as well as babies born to mothers with active infections during their pregnancies. To save these patients suffering from the active disease, the drug must be administered within hours. It was this small but vulnerable population that Shkreli sought to milk, according to the recent ruling.

He and his gang bought Daraprim from its previous owner at a premium in 2015, then increased the list price from less than $18 per pill to $750, prompting headlines, but no immediate action from regulators: Taking advantage of the slow-moving Food and Drug Administration was part of Shkrelis plan.

This man was not some pure capitalist hero, as some absurdly have suggested, but the exact reverse. His crime was all about prohibiting free-market competition.

At times using a contraband phone, Shkreli worked through a stooge he installed as chief executive of his drug company to keep the pills and their active ingredient inaccessible to competitors who needed them to produce generic versions.

At one point, the ruling says, Shkrelis henchman drove to a Starbucks parking lot to repurchase five bottles of Daraprim from a pharmacy owner for $750,000, twice what the pharmacy had paid. Thats one way to keep the pills away from competitors.

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote noted that Shkrelis lifetime ban was well-deserved for his egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running and ultimately dangerous illegal conduct.

Shkreli expressed no remorse and said no one had proven his scheme was egregious because no evidence had been introduced showing that patients had died. The judge wasnt having this absurd line of defense. This is an egregious case; death is not the only relevant metric, she wrote. If a court sitting in equity is powerless to impose a lifetime industry ban to protect the public against a repetition of the conduct proven at this trial, then the public could rightfully ask whether its well-being has been adequately weighed.

One common argument against lifetime bans is especially weak: Some claim that barring bad actors from their chosen fields hurts the economy, depriving industries of innovators who happened to make mistakes and got caught. This nonsense typifies the thinking of some white-collar criminals who remain amazingly arrogant even after being brought to justice.

Exhibit A is Shkreli, who in 2020 had the nerve to seek release from prison in part so he could use his skills to find a cure for COVID-19. Presumably he meant skills other than defrauding investors and profiteering.

Shed no tears for entitled grifters.

Chicago Tribune

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Rock Island Police have identified two suspects of an armed robbery that left one of the suspects dead and another wounded Tuesday.

An employee of Blackhawks Tobacco & Vape shot at three suspects Tuesday evening who had entered the store, threatened employees and demanded merchandise. One of the suspects had a gun.

One of the suspects, 23-year-old Marcase K. Humphries, of Rock Island, was found later that night by Davenport police at a Taco Bell in Davenport. He was taken to Genesis Medical Center East, Davenport, where he died.

Another suspect, 23-year-old Ernest D. Morgan III, of Rock Island, was found by Rock Island Police in the 2100 block of 16th Ave. He was taken to UnityPoint Health-Trinity Rock Island hospital for treatment and is expected to survive, according to a news release from the Rock Island Police Department.

Rock Island Police obtained an arrest warrant for Morgan while he is being treated. He's charged with armed robbery, with a bond set at $500,000.

The third suspect has not yet been identified by police. It is a man, possibly a light-complected African-American or Hispanic with a large build, according to police. The suspect is about 6 feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds. He is between 20 and 30 years old.

At the time of the robbery Tuesday, Humphries was on parole out of the Illinois Department of Correction's Sheridan Correctional Center, according to Illinois Department of Corrections electronic records.

Humphries was sentenced to five years in prison Jan. 9, 2020, after pleading guilty to a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm during a hearing in Rock Island County Circuit Court.

Humphries was paroled and released from prison on Sept. 24, 2021. His parole was to end Sept. 24, 2023.

Police ask anyone who can identify the third suspect or who has any information to contact the Rock Island Police Department at 309-732-2677 or Crime Stoppers at 309-762-9500 or using the P3 Tips app.

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Emily Andersen Emily Andersen is a crime and courts reporter for the Quad City Times and Dispatch/Argus. Follow her on twitter @AftonEmily. Follow Emily Andersen 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 Davenport Community School District is getting closer to being in the green with state education officials.

For several years, the district has been working on issues that led to state citations, including the need to provide more equitable education for Black students. The district has been only conditionally accredited since 2019 and has been under the direct oversight of the Iowa State Board of Education since October 2020. The state board took control after the Iowa Department of Education argued the district was not making enough progress on the citations.

In November, the state relaxed some of its control, and the relationship is expected to again be reviewed by the state board in March. During that meeting, state officials were complimentary of the districts efforts and progress but said there is still work to be done.

The state board of education receives regular updates on the district's progress. Each update includes a report of the districts efforts on various categories. They are color coded, with shades of green indicating completed elements or those nearing completion.

Amy Williamson, the education departments deputy director for learning and results, said during the state board's regular meeting on Thursday that the categories in the districts January report are all marked at least in progress and many are marked nearing completion or completed.

Theres a lot of green, Williamson said.

A link to the January report can be found on the state board's website.

Representing the district at Thursdays meeting were Superintendent TJ Schneckloth, Dan Gosa, the school boards president; and Linda Hayes, its vice president.

During Thursdays meeting, Schneckloth was asked how the district will keep up the momentum on its efforts.

Schneckloth said the systems the district has been putting in place will be how it maintains its forward motion.

That way, no matter what happens, the system will continue to move forward, Schneckloth said. And you do that with procedures, manuals, systems  things that are repeatable.

The districts efforts to address the problems underlying the citations have included the ongoing development of uniform standards for students learning environments and staff response to crises and violence. The district is also working on improving its early literacy scores, and the school board has been undergoing professional development.

The districts work to date has been on the upper levels of its system, the state education department said in November. The impacts the citation work is having on the students was only just starting to become apparent.

The scaled-back relationship adopted by the state board in November was based on an approach of gradually returning the districts responsibilities to it. The idea was not to just stop the assistance abruptly but return the authority in increments and support the district as it started to exercise that authority again.

A state delegation, including members of the state board of education, visited the district in early January. They toured district buildings and observed a phonics program. They also met with students involved in the newly formed Youth Leadership Teams.

Members of the delegation also were complimentary of the districts progress on the citations, and of the operations and people they observed during the visit.

Toward the end of the visit, the delegation met with members of the Davenport School Board. The school board members talked about the progress the district has made, its readiness and the hope that the districts ability to govern its own affairs directly will be returned in March.

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Two years and four months after he was charged with four firearms felonies, a retired Moline police captain is scheduled next week to enter a final plea.

Jerome Patrick, 58, is accused of shooting at two people from his car after a September 2019 bar fight in Moline. He is charged with two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm and two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, all felonies.

He has been granted at least 14 continuances in his case, according to court records. After the defense's most recent delay in September, the court indicated it would be his last.

Also during the hearing, State's Attorney Dora Villarreal said the state was "revoking" all previous offers related to a negotiated plea agreement with Patrick.

She last year offered assurances that her office was not giving Patrick any preferential treatment because of his former role in law enforcement or any relationships with those working at the Rock Island County Courthouse.

Former Moline police captain to stand trial in February The trial for a retired Moline police captain who is charged with four gun-related felonies 

The Illinois State Police were called Sept. 12, 2019, to investigate a gunfire complaint in the 2500 block of the Avenue of the Cities in Moline. Investigators identified Patrick as the suspect, and he was arrested the next day in Davenport.

Moline police asked the state to step in to avoid a conflict.

The state police say Patrick fired a gun from inside his silver 1997 Mercedes-Benz convertible in the direction of a man and woman, whom he is accused of following home from a tavern. No injuries were reported.

Patrick is to appear Jan. 27 at 1 p.m. for his final plea. A jury trial is scheduled for Feb. 14.

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HAMPSHIRE, Ill.  A chemical explosion Friday at a northern Illinois manufacturing plant killed one person and left another critically injured, authorities said.

The incident occurred about 10:45 a.m. when two employees at the W. R. Meadows building materials plant in Hampshire were cleaning a tank inside one of the buildings, Hampshire Fire Protection District Chief Trevor Herrmann told the Chicago Tribune.

It wasn't immediately known what type of chemicals were involved or what might have triggered the accident, Herrmann said.

W.R. Meadows manufactures asphalt and concrete products for building construction, he said.

The person killed has not been identified pending notification of family members by the Kane County Coroners Office. The injury victim was taken to an Elgin hospital.

All employees have been accounted for and there were no other injuries, officials said.

The explosion caused significant property damage to the materials production facility where it occurred, Hampshire Village Manager Jay Hedges said.

People living and working near the site were evacuated for safety reasons, and a village inspector went to the site to determine the buildings structural integrity, Hedges said.

Hampshire is 47 miles (75 kilometers) northwest of Chicago.

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Republicans are calling for their Democratic counterparts in the Illinois House to join them in efforts to repeal criminal justice reforms, known as the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act, commonly known as the SAFE-T Act.

Reps. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, and Deanne Mazzochi, R-Elmhurst, joined House GOP Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, at a news conference Thursday to announce their support for legislation, House Bill 4499, introduced a week ago, to repeal the SAFE-T Act.

Spain called the SAFE-T Act damaging and dangerous with real consequences for the people of the state of Illinois.

Democratic proponents of the SAFE-T Act, who called the effort by super minority Republicans all for show, pointed out that many of the substantive changes created by the bill had not yet taken effect.

That includes a measure that would eliminate cash bail in favor of a pre-trial detention method that prioritizes aspects such as the level of danger a suspect poses rather than their ability to post bail. The exact parameters for pre-trial detention will be determined by the courts. That measure takes effect in January 2023.

The original SAFE-T Act also changed use-of-force guidelines for law enforcement, created a new police certification system and expanded detainee rights.

Spain said crime has skyrocketed in Illinois with increases in retail theft, carjacking and murders, citing 800 murders last year in Chicago.

Illinois has become the wild, wild Midwest, Durkin said.

Tweaks to the bill, including a measure passed last year diluting some of the use-of-force language in the original bill, arent good enough, the Republicans said on Thursday, and the SAFE-T Act should be repealed entirely. Mazzochi said it would only take a few Democrats to cross over to get it done.

Repeal is a realistic solution. The original, underlying legislation passed with a bare minimum of 60 votes, Mazzochi said.   It almost didnt pass the first time.

The bill, supported by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, passed on Jan. 13, 2021, one year to the day the bill to repeal it was filed.

The Black Caucus countered the SAFE-T Act made the justice system fairer for minorities, according to statement released after the press conference on Thursday. The statement went on to say they continue to work with law enforcement groups, including by passing two follow-up measures.

Many provisions of the SAFE-T Act have not even gone into effect yet, proving the Republican gambit is all for show, the statement said. In fact, when fully implemented, experts say the SAFE-T Act will help improve public safety by supporting a more holistic approach for first-responders. Instead of coming up with solutions to address crime, Republicans are just trying the same racial scare tactics we see across the country.

Durkin and Windhorst, both former prosecutors, said the bill made the state more dangerous. Durkin said Democrats would have to answer to their constituents for the bills passage and Republicans would use public safety as an issue in upcoming elections.

Earlier this month, an amendment passed to clarify issues related to detainee phone calls, pretrial services and moving back effective dates for body cameras and police decertification. The House voted 67-42 to approve the Senate amendment.

Spain said the Safe-T Act will leave half of the county sheriffs in Illinois leaving their posts and has left city and county police departments scrambling to recruit and retain officers after a wave of resignations in the wake of the bills passage.

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CAIRO, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The spread of COVID-19 has prompted the Egyptian Health Ministry to tighten up health restrictions at airports, seaports and land crossings.

Starting Saturday, "Egyptian and foreign travellers to Egypt, except children below the age of 12, will be required to present certificates of coronavirus vaccination or negative results of coronavirus tests," the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

A traveller has to bring a certification of having received a single-dose or two-dose vaccine at least 14 days before arrival, or the result of a test taken within 72 hours prior to the arrival, the statement said.

Egypt witnessed a recent surge in daily infections, with 1,403 new cases and 22 more deaths recorded nationwide by Thursday, pushing up the respective total to 405,393 and 22,260. 
FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS  Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri cut the ribbon Friday on a regional logistics center intended to aid out-of-state women seeking abortion services at the organizations Metro East facility.

Planned Parenthood and Granite City-based Hope Clinic for Women will jointly operate the centralized call center at the Planned Parenthood facility in Fairview Heights. The center will arrange travel and lodging, and connect patients with existing resources, such as abortion funds.

Together, were breaking down the silos anti-abortion politicians created and proving that in community, with innovation and determination, we can secure a future with abortion access, said Planned Parenthood of St. Louis President Yamelsie Rodriguez.

Abortion access has been under threat across the country, with several conservative states moving to restrict the procedure. In Texas, for instance, a new law took effect last year that bans the procedure after six weeks into the pregnancy.

And a decades-long effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established the constitutional right to an abortion, appears close to success. The conservative-leaning high court is expected to rule on a case later this year that could gut or completely reverse that ruling.

If that happens, the procedure is likely to be banned in 26 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights research organization. This includes every state surrounding Illinois, which has become an island of sorts for abortion rights in the Midwest.

What is disheartening, honestly, is that probably half the states in the United States will pass more restrictive reproductive rights laws and take away women's rights, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker told Lee Enterprises in an interview Thursday morning. And that means that states like Illinois, where we're very determined to protect women, are places that are going to have to step up and protect them by providing services like this.

The states abortion-rights position was codified when Pritzker signed the Reproductive Health Act in 2019. The law enshrined reproductive health care  including abortion access  as a fundamental right in Illinois.

That same year, Planned Parenthood and Hope Clinic began planning for the logistics center as more women were likely to come to Illinois for abortion services no longer available in their home states.

Planned Parenthood has projected that an additional 14,000 women from Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee would likely travel to Southern Illinois for abortion care if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

The center, which had a soft opening in December, has thus far coordinated 138 rides and flights and housed dozens of women in need of overnight stays, according to Planned Parenthood.

Since September, when the Texas law took effect, more than $73,000 in financial assistance has been provided to women traveling to Southern Illinois for the procedure.

The center, which currently employs six people, is funded in part by a $10 million investment Planned Parenthood and Hope Clinic made to increase capacity and infrastructure at their Southern Illinois facilities.

Illinois abortion laws are sure to become a flashpoint during the 2022 gubernatorial campaign, where the pro-choice Pritzker  running for a second term  is certain to face an openly anti-choice opponent or someone, at the very least, less comfortable with the procedure.

Every Republican running for governor is determined to take away a woman's right to choose, Pritzker said. They're determined to turn Illinois backwards. And so is it on the ballot? Yes, it is, because if one of them gets elected, that is precisely what they will attempt to do.

Republican gubernatorial candidates state Sen. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia; businessman Gary Rabine; former state Sen. Paul Schmipf; and venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan are openly opposed to abortion.

Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, who entered the race Monday, has not stated his position on the issue, but made comments in 2009 criticizing Planned Parenthood for for using deceptive practices in developing its Aurora facility.

However, Irvins running mate, state Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisionville, is opposed to abortion. In 2019, a then-visibly pregnant Bourne led the opposition to the Reproductive Health Act during the debate on the Illinois House floor.

Last month, Pritzker signed the repeal of the Parental Notification Act, which required doctors to notify a minors parents 48 hours before an abortion procedure. It was considered the last anti-abortion law on the books in the state.

Still, he said abortion remains a front line issue in the campaign.

You're damn right I'll be campaigning on this, Pritzker said. This is not a background issue for women.

While those on the other side of the issue have taken some losses in Illinois over the past few years, they are not folding anytime soon.

"Illinois is a threat to women basically throughout the entire Midwest and South," Amy Gehrke, executive director of Illinois Right to Life told Lee Enterprises last October. "So, this is where the abortion fight is going to be, this is one of the few places in the nation where abortion will remain legal for any reason for all nine months of pregnancy. So, that is why Illinois will be ground zero for the abortion debate."

Meanwhile, the Catholic Diocese of Springfield plans to mark the anniversary of Roe on Friday morning with a march through the capital citys downtown, walking past the Statehouse, Governors Mansion and Illinois Supreme Court.

The march will be led by Bishop Thomas Paprocki and include 700 students from the diocese parochial schools. The group plans to pray for an end to abortion and a greater respect for human life.

It will begin with Mass at Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 524 E. Lawrence Ave., Springfield, at 10 a.m. Friday. The march will take place at 11 a.m.

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A University of Chicago police officer who shot and wounded a man in Hyde Park Tuesday was also involved in a shooting near campus in 2018 in which a student was wounded.

The officer involved in the two shootings was identified as Nicolas Twardak in a statement from the university Thursday. Twardak has been with the schools police force since 2016.

The states attorneys office has approved charges against Rhysheen Wilson, 28, in connection with Tuesdays shooting, according to the schools statement. Wilson was charged with attempted murder of a police officer, aggravated discharge of a firearm to a person and aggravated unauthorized use of a weapon.

The 2018 shooting involving Twardak was also revealed in the universitys statement Thursday, which said the officer was involved in one previous shooting in April 2018. Both Chicago polices and the universitys investigations into that incident found the officers actions were consistent with applicable law, according to the statement.

In the shooting this week, Twardak was on patrol about 11:45 a.m. Tuesday when he saw a man with a handgun walking south on Woodlawn Avenue near 53rd Street, according to Eric Heath, associate vice president for safety and security at the school. Twardak stopped his patrol car just south of 53rd and approached the man, who then fired shots.

Twardak took cover and told the man repeatedly to get on the ground before he fired back and struck the man. The man continued toward Twardak with his gun drawn, so Twardak shot the man again, officials said.

University police rendered aid before he was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was in critical condition as of Wednesday evening. Wilson is not affiliated with the university.

University police also released videos from Tuesdays shooting, including footage from the officers body-worn camera. It is unclear in the video who fired first and who was shooting when.

Twardak is currently on mandatory administrative leave as Chicago police and the university investigate. In addition to routine patrol duties, he has also had special assignments as a field training officer and bike officer, according to the university.

In the earlier incident, charges against Charles Thomas, a 21-year-old student at the university at the time he was shot by Twardak in April 2018, were dropped in May of last year when Thomas was entered into a deferred prosecution program, according to court records. Thomas was facing criminal charges in connection with the shooting, including felony aggravated assault of an officer and two counts of felony criminal damage to property.

Three U. of C. police officers, including Twardak, responded to a call of a burglary in the 5300 block of South Kimbark Avenue on April 3, 2018, where Thomas also lived at the time. Officers found Thomas breaking car and apartment windows with a long metal pipe. Thomas charged at the officers after refusing to put down the pipe, and Twardak fired his weapon once, hitting Thomas in the shoulder.

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CHICAGO  Each year, thousands of women cross state lines to have an abortion in Illinois  and that number could grow exponentially as pending U.S. Supreme Court decisions and new laws in various states challenge reproductive rights across large swaths of the nation.

But women traveling here to terminate a pregnancy will have a new resource designed to make the process easier: Two southern Illinois abortion providers have partnered to create one centralized location where patients can get assistance with travel needs like finding transportation, booking lodging and setting up child care.

The Regional Logistics Center is operated jointly by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Hope Clinic for Women, an abortion clinic just over the Missouri border in Granite City. Designated case managers there can arrange travel, connect patients with financial assistance, help them find a place to stay and overcome other common logistical barriers to accessing abortion, particularly when traveling long distances.

The center  which is housed in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights  opened Friday, just before the 49th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion rights case Roe v. Wade on Saturday.

At a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center on Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker called the project lifesaving and life-changing work.

With reproductive rights under attack across the United States, its never been more vital for the state of Illinois to ensure access to reproductive services, he said. On the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we all thought we would be vigorously celebrating this important milestone. Instead, we are forced to contend with the possibility that there may not be a 50th anniversary of this fundamental right.

The centers launch comes at a time when abortion rights are under fire across the country: Some reproductive rights advocates fear this might be the last anniversary of Roe where the near five-decades-old ruling is still the law of the land, as state measures and court decisions increasingly chip away at the right to terminate a pregnancy.

Together, were breaking down the silos anti-abortion politicians created and proving that in community, with innovation and determination, we can secure a future with abortion access, said Yamelsie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region.

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised midyear to rule on one of its most significant abortion cases in history: Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health will determine the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion past 15 weeks gestation  and potentially challenge Roe, which established the right to terminate a pregnancy in 1973, limiting state restrictions on the procedure prior to fetal viability.

Illinois has long been considered an abortion rights haven in the Midwest, surrounded by states with more restrictions on the procedure such as mandatory wait times, gestational limits and tighter regulations on providers.

If Roe were to fall, abortion rights advocates predict that roughly half of states across the country would severely limit or ban the procedure. Many of those states are in the Midwest, including each one that neighbors Illinois.

In 2019, more than 7,500 out-of-state women traveled here to have an abortion, constituting about 16% of all terminated pregnancies statewide, according to the most recent Illinois Department of Public Health data. The number of women traveling here from other states has increased every year since 2014.

An October report by Reproductive Health Services predicted that if Roe were to fall, southern Illinois abortion providers could in the first year see some 14,000 more patients from outside their service area.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate and Hope Clinic have already invested $10 million for additional staffing, infrastructure and clinical capacity to prepare for a post-Roe reality, according to the report.

The states distinction as an oasis for reproductive freedom has long been considered an embarrassment to organizations that oppose abortion.

A recent post on the Illinois Right to Life website encouraged supporters to keep praying that the court overturns Roe.

But the message also urged Illinoisans to remember that while the prospect of Roe being overturned is great news for much of America, it puts Illinois and, for that matter, the entire Midwest, in a precarious spot.

Because of Illinois radical, pro-abortion laws, not only will it remain business as usual for the abortion industry here in our state, thousands upon thousands more women will cross our border to have the lives of their children ended here, the website said. We must act now to stop this disaster from unfolding.

Enormous influx

The new center in southern Illinois has been in the works for several years, as the two local abortion providers saw an increasing number of patients coming from other neighboring states, many with ever-tightening abortion regulations.

In September, a Texas law went into effect prohibiting abortions as early as about six weeks gestation, before many women even know theyre pregnant, all but banning the procedure in the nations second-largest state.

Dr. Erin King, executive director of the Hope Clinic for Women, said her clinic now sees several patients who travel from Texas every week, as well as more women coming from other southern states likely due to a ripple effect from the void of abortion access in Texas.

She described one patient she saw earlier this month: The woman found out she was pregnant on a Wednesday, made the appointment on Friday and flew in on Saturday to have a medication abortion at Hope Clinic. The same day, she flew back to Texas, King recalled.

And that was her first trip on a plane, ever, King said. If she had not lived in Texas  most of the visit could have happened over the phone, like a telemedicine visit, or a short trip via gynecologist. I think what is so hard for people to understand is that this is care that shouldnt take all of this coordination and all of this funding. 

Since mid-December, King said her clinic has treated 20% more patients than anticipated, many from out of state.

Weve just seen this enormous influx of patients coming from farther and farther away, she said. Were seeing a lot more patients in the last month needing help with travel, help with funding, all the things the Regional Logistics Center focuses on. Weve been moving in this direction for a couple of years. But weve seen this need increase exponentially in the last month.

Several years ago, Pritzker pledged to make Illinois the most progressive state in the nation when it comes to standing up for womens reproductive rights. In 2019, he signed the Reproductive Health Act, which established the procedure as a fundamental right for women in Illinois.

Pritzker earlier this month donated $100,000 from his campaign to the Personal PAC Independent Committee, whose purpose is preserving reproductive rights in Illinois by making independent expenditures to elect pro-choice candidates to state and local office, according to campaign finance documents.

Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, noted the pivotal role of abortion rights in Illinois amid the increasingly restrictive Midwest.

Illinois is an incredibly important state for access, she said. Illinois is surrounded by states that have worked to really limit access to care.

Based on need

The center will help connect abortion patients with various resources to help with everything from paying for the procedure to travel costs to finding a place to stay overnight, all of which can be difficult to figure out quickly for a time-sensitive procedure.

One of those resources is the Chicago Abortion Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial, emotional and logistical support to do whatever it takes to make sure people can get to their appointments, said Megan Jeyifo, executive director.

She said the need for assistance has skyrocketed in just a few years. In 2018, the nonprofit served 183 people. In 2021, that number went up to roughly 3,000. The organization spent about $450,000 on abortion funding and support in 2021, roughly seven times the amount spent in 2018, she said.

It was a very quick increase, pretty fast, but definitely based on need, she said.

Most folks the nonprofit serves come from other states, primarily Missouri and Indiana, as well as others in the Midwest, she said. But recently the Chicago Abortion Fund has been getting more calls from Texans, she said.

Destigmatizing abortion is a really critical component, said Jeyifo, adding that her own abortion experiences have informed her work with the nonprofit.

She said she had to navigate parental consent laws for her first abortion and then had to travel for her second abortion.

I think about what it took for me to travel, she said. I make really clear to the callers that the difficulty you face in accessing an abortion has nothing to do with the morality of an abortion. Its a systemic failure in this country. Abortion is health care.

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The Quad Cities Chapter of the National Organization for Women recognizes and celebrates the 49th anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision in the case of Roe v. Wade. In that momentous decision, the court took the position that individuals have a fundamental right to privacy.

What could be a more fundamental life decision than whether or not to bear a child. In the end, society must give her, the woman who takes all the risks, the power to make the choice.

Quad Cities National Organization for Women knows that women are moral, spiritual, rational-thinking beings capable of making life-altering decisions without the help of priests, congressmen, state legislatures, or rogue governors.

Feminist activist and author Merle Hoffman said it best: "The act of abortion and choice is power. It is women at their most powerful, exercising the right of fetal existence ... but the ability to choose and the ability to act on that choice is in a sense, far more important than the results of that choice".

Quad Cities National Organization for Women stands with the majority of Americans who want, for lack of a better phrase, "to be left the hell alone." We can make our own choices in our own lives. Whether it is childbirth, adoption, abortion, or birth control, these are not the concerns of any politician except in their own lives.

Let us be clear, Quad Cities National Organization for Women opposes governmental interference into personal and private medical decisions. No man is questioned, harassed, followed or hounded when buying birth control in his doctors office for erection issues, prostate exams or even a vasectomy. No laws exist to govern, control or oversee mens bodies.

As for laws governing abortion, a quick review. There were no laws that focused on abortion or womens bodies until the middle 1850s. The American Medical Association was formed and attempting to standardize medical practices in the country. In many parts there were few actual doctors. Most communities looked to the midwives for many things, including child birth. These women also knew ways not to get pregnant and what to do if you did not want to stay pregnant.

The AMA saw midwives as competition and a hindrance to making the doctor the go-to person. The AMA sought to restrict the ability of midwives to assist other women during pregnancy, birth and abortion.

States continued into the 1900s to make access to abortion more difficult. Abortion was always available to the women and families that had money or knew a local doctor who was discrete. Many doctors paid poor women and women of color to actually get pregnant. They could pay her to let them practice on her so when a wealthy white woman needed an abortion (pregnancy while not married was quite the scandal) the doctor had the skills to perform the abortion and be paid well for his services.

Back to today, the Quad Cities National Organization for Women wants to make it clear that no law, custom or religious tenet, invented for the conveniences of men, shall have the moral authority to deny equal rights, opportunities and access to women around the world.

In an opinion concurring with the majority, which remains true today, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote 49 years ago that the court had "recognized 'the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.' That right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

David Stewart is a member of the Quad-Cities National Organization for Women leadership team and Iowa NOW vice president.

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Its rich that Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Sen. Joni Ernst are criticizing Democrats for expanding voting rights. Why dont they want to make voting easier for Americans? The answer is, its an attempted Republican power grab.

Both legislators claimed Democrats are manufacturing a voting crisis. Really? Consider this: Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister for Hitler, said: "Always accuse your enemies of your own sins", a feature of the current Republican Party leadership.

If anyone wants to know what Republicans "know" they are guilty of, listen to their accusations against others.

Its laughable that Miller-Meeks believes the 2020 House election that she won by six votes was an "ill-conceived plan to overturn my election" despite not counting all the legal votes. If all the votes were counted, constituents would have a representative they could trust and who cared about them. We wouldnt be bothered by her foolish behavior always in the news.

Her latest stunt has forced American taxpayers to cough up a $2,000 fine for her refusal to wear a mask on the House floor, for the second time. Even though the fine is deducted from her paycheck, those funds are working class taxpayer dollars.

Ellen Ballas

Iowa City

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On this episode of Utterly Moderate we are joined by editor-at-large of the Bulwark Bill Kristol and University of Baltimore law professor Kimberly Wehle. Both Kristol and Wehle help host Lawrence Eppard sort through a bizarre story about elector fraud in the 2020 presidential election as well as how to fix the Electoral Count Act.

Most Americans are probably aware that we use the Electoral College to elect presidents. When this happens, state government officials sign certificates of ascertainment which verify the states electors and who they voted for in the election. These are sent with documentation signed by the electors themselves to the National Archives who process them and then send them to Congress to count on January 6th.

According to documents obtained by an organization called American Oversight and covered by Politico, CNN, the Bulwark, and others, in the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump supporters sent fake election certificates to the National Archives declaring that Trump won five states that he actually lost: Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Some of the people involved were top GOP officials in the states in question.

The Bulwark has covered this extensively:

On January 15th Bill Kristol commented, The forged electoral certificates show coordination across. . . states. Those fake certificates were key to the plan of the Eastman memo and to the Jeffrey Clark DOJ draft letter to Georgia.

On January 16th Charlie Sykes wrote, Some perspective: If an average voter lied on their registration forms or forged an absentee ballot, they would face criminal charges and a world of legal hurt. But this case is far worse because the forged electoral certificates were coordinated, and part of a larger conspiracy to overturn the presidential election.

On January 17th Philip Rotner argued that, These phony certifications were not isolated, one-off events. They were highly coordinated. A single glance at the five phony certificates shows that they are nearly identical in format and text, right down to the fonts. The strong implication: Somebody somewhere was running this show.

One of the biggest problems with all of this has to do with the Electoral Count Act. A lot of political commentary right now is focused on voting rights, and for good reason. But the biggest immediate threat to our democracy seems to be loopholes in the Electoral Count Act.

As Philip Rotner notes, Nothing in either of the voting rights bills currently pending before Congress would inhibit partisan state officials, acting under color of law, from attempting to overturn popular elections in their states. Our guest today, Kimberly Wehle, noted last October that, There are massive holes in the Electoral Count Act. It is stunning that there is nothing requiring states to count the popular vote. Arizona is proposing legislation to ignore the popular vote and allow the state legislature to pick the electors. That is not democracy. If this is not addressed, state legislatures and/or Congress can steal the next election. The future of our republic is at stake. Writing in the Bulwark on January 17th Chris Truax noted that, Congress is free to reject any states electoral votes for any reason at all. All that is required is the votes in Congress and the political will to act.

Segment One: Bill Kristol

Bill Kristol taught politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University before going on to serve as chief of staff to Education Secretary William Bennett in the Reagan Administration and as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle in the George H. W. Bush administration. He would then go on to help found the well-known conservative political magazine the Weekly Standard. Today he is editor-at-large of the Bulwark and a regular guest on leading political commentary shows.

Segment Two: Kimberly Wehle

Kimberly Wehle is a law professor at the University of Baltimore and has written extensively about the issues that we discuss in this episode. Check out her academic work here and some of her pieces for a general audience here.

Articles Referenced in this Episode:

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A bill that would assist ranchers by classifying more areas as grasslands to feed cattle and other livestock passed the initial review Thursday in the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee by a 10-3 vote.

HB 1039, co-authored by Rep. Trish Ladner, R-Hot Springs, and Sen. Jessica Castleberry, R-Rapid City, would allow for agricultural land to also be categorized as "non-cropland" regardless of the soil classification of the land. A few stipulations must be met for the categorization, including the land must be greater than 1,950 feet in elevation, the land must have been seeded for perennial vegetation for animal grazing or left un-harvested, or if the land is already native grassland.

Ladner and Castleberry said a study that used artificial intelligence to examine soil structure showed that there were "several ribbons and patches of land" surveyed that would have caused ranchers to lose protection of grassland status and instead would be assessed at a higher level for croplands. Castleberry said if the ranchers lost that grassland protection, their assessed value of land could increase anywhere from 60% to 200%.

The bill now heads to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

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PIERRE | A Republican-dominated South Dakota House committee on Friday rejected Gov. Kristi Noem's proposal to require public schools to have a moment of silence to start the day.

The Republican governor first billed the proposal at a conservative Christian conference last year as putting prayer back in schools, but a House committee rejected the idea after education groups argued that voluntary prayer is already allowed in schools and the proposed law would have saddled teachers with an unclear mandate. The Republican-dominated House Education committee rejected the bill on a nine to six vote, but it could still be revived with support from one-third of House members.

Maybe its me, but I view prayer as something that is personal and not performative, said Republican Rep. Will Mortenson, who criticized the bill as vaguely written.

Organizations representing schools and the teacher's union asserted they had not been consulted by the governor's office on the proposal and it would have added a vague and potentially unwieldy mandate to classrooms. An aide for the governor acknowledged to the committee that Noem's office had not worked with school districts to craft the bill, but argued that 15 other states have enacted similar requirements and the moment of silence gave students an opportunity to focus before they start their day.

This bill creates an affirmative opportunity for students to pray if they choose or to use their time quietly as they would otherwise see fit, Allen Cambon, the governors policy advisor, told the committee. Not only will this serve as a valuable learning opportunity, but it's a chance to establish a sense of calm and decorum before students and teachers begin their busy day.

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Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender is asking the public to limit their trips to city buildings due to an increase in illness-related absences among city employees.

Allender issued the advisory warning Thursday morning, citing the rise in COVID-19 cases, influenza and other illnesses. He said there were 32 city employees out at the beginning of the week whereas they were averaging about five per week prior.

"Reports indicate we may be weeks away yet from reaching the peak of this latest variant," he said in a press release. "We are asking the public to consider alternatives rather than making an in-person visit to city facilities."

Masks and social distancing are recommended in city facilities. Allender said the advisory is the first in what could be a number of precautions city facilities take, although any following precautions will be used internally for city staff and have expiration dates.

If the situation progresses, Allender said they could take measures like reevaluating the use of meeting rooms and interoffice interactions, similar to what was created at the onset of the pandemic.

He said the city is trying to avoid changing service delivery or closing down work functions because of absenteeism.

Allender said recreation has been the most impacted.

"We're hanging in there, but it won't take many more employees to shut down some of these recreational operations," he said.

"This is just a friendly reminder to people if you can possibly find a way to interact with us online or over the phone that might be best at this point," he said. "We don't want to make any of the public sick, we don't want the public to compound the problem of absenteeism."

Allender recommends using online city services for paying bills and purchasing tickets for events, using the night depository on the west side of City Hall, using the drive-through or online services for the Rapid City Public Library, calling or emailing city departments with questions, and calling city staff to set up an appointment to pick up or drop off building plans.

 Contact Siandhara Bonnet at siandhara.bonnet@rapidcityjournal.com 

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NAIROBI, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Friday appealed for 28.95 billion shillings (255 million U.S. dollars) to ramp up its emergency nutrition response in priority countries in Eastern and Southern Africa in 2022.

The UN agency said the funds will also be used to support children with adequate and life-saving nutrition services, including treatment for severe wasting.

The UNICEF warned in a statement released in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi that at least 1.5 million children are not receiving life-saving treatment for severe wasting in Eastern and Southern Africa. It said the number represents almost half of the estimated 3.6 million children in urgent need, who are not being reached in time to save their lives or keep them from permanent development damage.

"Nothing is more devastating than seeing children suffering from severe wasting when we know it could have been prevented and treated," Mohamed M. Fall, the UNICEF regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa.

He said despite gradual improvement in wasting treatment outreach in the region, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with climate shocks and ongoing conflict, continues to push children and families to the brink. In addition, consistent shortfalls in funding remain a barrier for the UNICEF's humanitarian response.

The UNICEF said more than 255,000 children received treatment for severe wasting in 2021 in Somalia, whilst the country still undergoes one of the worst droughts ever recorded. Moreover, at least 65,000 children in Kenya were reached in 2021 with treatment services for severe wasting.

The UN agency said families across the region are currently dealing with multiple crises, including rising levels of food insecurity, economic deterioration, disease outbreaks, unprecedented cycles of floods and droughts, and conflict. And millions are having to reduce the quantity or quality of the food they eat in order to survive. In many cases, families are forced to do both.

It said the situation in the region remains dire and any disruptions to an already stretched humanitarian operation could further aggravate what is already a long-running nutrition crisis.

"This is a looming nutrition tragedy that can -- and must be averted. With unhindered access and predictable funding to reach children in need, the UNICEF and partners can save the lives of nearly every child admitted for severe wasting in the region," it said.

In Ethiopia, the country with the largest child population in the region, the UNICEF and partners reached an estimated 500,000 severely wasted children in 2021.

In South Sudan, where an estimated 1.4 million children under five years of age are acutely malnourished, including over 310,000 children suffering from severe wasting, UNICEF and partners provided treatment to more than 240,000 children last year.

The UNICEF said prevention remains the best way to ensure that children survive, avoid permanent cognitive and physical damage, and evade the life-long suffering that results from childhood malnutrition. 
The South Dakota Department of Health reported 19 COVID-19 deaths on Friday, bringing the total number of deaths in January to 115 and the overall death toll of the pandemic to 2,601.

The deaths included 10 women and nine men. Three were in their 50s, nine were in their 60s, and seven were over 70. Pennington and Minnehaha counties each reported three deaths Friday. Codington County reported two deaths and there was one each in Meade, Beadle, Bon Homme, Charles Mix, Davison, Hanson, Hutchinson, Sanborn, Stanley, Todd and Yankton counties.

There were 2,183 new infections reported Friday, pushing active cases to a record number at 35,196  an increase of 1,110 since Thursday's report and up 8,361 in a week and up more than 26,000 since the beginning of the year.

Even with the significant number of deaths, hospitalizations for COVID-19 illnesses dropped by only six to 397. There are still 81 people in intensive care units. There are 70 people in Black Hills region hospitals with 16 in ICU.

Of the 2,183 new cases, 467 were in children under 19.

The Rapid City Area Schools finally saw a small decrease in the number of active COVID-19 cases in schools across the district, according to Thursday evening's RCAS update. There are 346 students out with COVID-19 and 61 staff members. That is 10 fewer students and 15 fewer staff members.

In addition to the active infections, there are 365 students and nine staff members required to quarantine.

The biggest outbreak is still at Rapid City Central High School where there are 57 active cases after 19 new cases were recorded Thursday. Rapid City Stevens is next with 55 active cases. There were 20 new infections at Stevens on Wednesday.

Eleven other schools have at least 10 active infections  Southwest Middle (36), Corral Drive Elementary (25), Rapid Valley Elementary (24), East Middle (23), West Middle (22), South Middle (22), Canyon Lake Elementary (21), Rapid City High (16), Wilson Elementary (15), Valley View Elementary (14), and North Middle (14).

Pennington County overtook Minnehaha County for the most new cases in the state for the first time in weeks on Friday's report. Pennington County reported 427 new infections and active cases here jumped by 341 to a record level at 5,381. Minnehaha County reported 374 new infections, but recoveries outpaced new cases and active infections there fell by four to 9,682.

Meade County reported 78 new infections and active cases there grew to 1,047. Lawrence County has 919 active infections after reporting 63 new infections. Oglala-Lakota County recorded 94 positive tests and there were 27 in Butte County. Fall River County reported 21 new infections and there were 16 in Custer County.

Brown County recorded 100 positive tests and there were 98 in Lincoln County. Codington County reported 89 new cases and there were 74 in Todd County and 72 in Brookings County. Davison County reported 66 new infections and there were 63 in Yankton County. Clay County reported 33 new cases and there were 32 in Charles Mix County. Hughes County reported 27 new infections Friday and there were 25 in Union County, and 22 each in Beadle and Lake counties.
Firefighters in Hill City and Custer fought fires Thursday night.

The Custer Volunteer Fire Department responded to a report of a structure fire in the 400 block of Harney St. in Custer on Thursday night.

Firefighters found a free burning fire in the interior of a two-story residential structure with fire extending to the exterior and roof assembly of the structure, and immediately struck a second alarm, eventually the fire went to multiple alarms.

Firefighters from a two-state, multi-county area, facing freezing temperatures and darkness, contained the fire to the structure of origin.

There were no reports of injuries. The Black Hills Fire Chaplains Association and the Red Cross Serving Central and Western South Dakota are assisting the occupant.

In Hill City, volunteer firefighters responded to a fire in a detached garage, in the 400 block of Allen Gulch Road.

Crews found a fire burning with a moderate smoke conditions, in detached garage extending into the roof.

Rapid attack by volunteer firefighters in temperatures of 26 degrees confined the fire to the initial structure; radiant heat did cause damage to an adjacent residential structure.

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The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. Eden Phillpotts

Nature journaling is the process of slowing down to enjoy nature, making deep observations, and recording the experience.

Valerie Bayer teaches nature journaling for individuals and groups and plans to create more opportunities for a relaxed artistically expressive experience in Ravalli County.

Bayer had a career as a registered nurse in Ohio and always loved being outdoors. She found the time to be outdoors when she retired and moved to Montana. Twelve years ago, she took the master naturalist course at the Montana Natural History Center to learn more about Montana.

And boy, did I, she said. I am a master naturalist, part of the master naturalist course included nature journaling. I found that nature journaling was a great way to help slow down, make close observations and learn because the close observations made me ask questions. I had to go look up the answers because inquiring minds want to know. It was a wonderful vehicle to continue my naturalist education.

She volunteered for the Montana Natural History Center and then realized her next step was to share the process of nature journaling and organize opportunities to get people involved.

She said in nature journaling, the focus is on three languages: words, pictures and numbers.

I try to incorporate all three of those languages as often as possible, or as often as it is appropriate, Bayer said. It provides an engaging and in-depth explanation of what it is Im observing. Other prompts that we use are I notice I wonder and It reminds me of

Rather than being overwhelmed by the beauty of nature, those prompts can help nature journalists focus and get their thoughts on paper. For each journaling outing, Bayer writes the meta-data in her journal of the date, temperature and location.

Two years ago, Bayer organized a local nature journaling group in Missoula, with members ranging from Hamilton to Helmville. The group meets weekly, year-round, to nature journal. She would like to start a nature journaling group in the Bitterroot Valley to meet locally.

There are three planned opportunities but she also encourages setting up appointments, contact her at 406-210-2392.

Bayer teaches nature journaling using scientific and reflective techniques, through Bitterroot Colleges Continuing Education program. Her class meets at 10 a.m. on Thursdays for a month, starting March 3.

On March 5, she is planning a free introductory class at Bitterroot Public Library from 1-2:30 p.m.

On March 12, she also has a meeting open to the public in the community room of the Bitterroot Public Library from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, to see who is interested in nature journaling and form a local club.

We really do a deep dive into the strategies and tools that a person can use in nature journaling, Bayer said. Last year I organized a nature journaling conference in Missoula and this year Im organizing it in Hamilton with Samantha OByrne at OHara Commons.

The Northern Rockies Nature Journaling conference in June will have local teachers plus Roseann Hanson, who coordinates the art and science program for the University of Arizona. Hanson has been keeping nature journals for more than 30 years.

She is a phenomenal lady and I have a ton of respect for her, Bayer said. Im so excited she is coming. In the nature journaling community that is world-wide, she is a leader in the US. Shes a fabulous lady.

Watch for information about the conference on the OHara Commons website beginning mid-February and registration beginning mid-March.

Learn more about the local nature journaling group, their activities and meeting places through Bayers Facebook page called Woodland Star Nature Journaling and the Missoula Nature Journalists groups Facebook page called Naturalists with Brushes.

Nature journaling is great as a solitary activity, but it is also great to do as a group, Bayer said. We generally meet at one location, spread out to do our journaling and get together at the end and do a journal share, to enjoy what the others have created. I find that people are more inclined to stick with it if they have a community.

Bayer stresses that no experience or skills are necessary and fancy art supplies are unneeded.

All you really need is just a pen and paper to get started, Bayer said. You can build your supplies from there, based on your budget. You dont need to be an artist; it is about getting your observations and thoughts on paper. Creating a pretty picture is not the goal.

She said the goal is to relax, have fun and enjoy nature.

There is no pressure, no rules, Bayer said. Bring your sense of curiosity and sense of wonder about the world. It is about sharpening our observations and deepening our experience with nature. Nature journal writers are wonderful supportive people.

She said the outdoors calls her and if the weather is good, she can stay out longer but if it is too cold, she can bring a pine cone or stick inside to journal about it indoors.

Or I can sit by my window by my bird feeder and nature journal from there, Bayer said. This time of year, there are options, but it is always better to be outside. It is an activity that is totally accessible. You dont have to go to Glacier Park, you can go to River Park in Hamilton, or your backyard. [Nature] is everywhere.

She said there are countless resources online that also offer a positive environment but that in-person experience is best.

The journal is just a tool to help us observe, learn and reflect nature, Bayer said. It helps us enhance our relationship with nature. I recommend it as a break from the stressors of life. This is one of my passions and Im doing everything I can to drag others right down that road with me.

As a former nurse, she sees the benefits of being outdoors for health and mental well-being.

When we first get together were carrying the stresses of the world but then we settle down, journal and by the time were finished were all so calm, happy and content, Bayer said. It gives emotional, mental and psychological health. With COVID, this gives everyone a way to get out of the house safely, leave all that behind and have moments of peace.

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Merger plans between two regional financial institutions in Virginia have been called off.

Charlottesville-based Blue Ridge Bankshares Inc., the parent of Blue Ridge Bank, and Fairfax-based FVCBankcorp Inc., the parent company of FVCbank, said late Thursday that both companies mutually agreed to terminate the planned merger.

The proposed combination would have created the fourth-largest community bank based in the state.

The companies said the deal was terminated after careful consideration of the proposed transaction, the progress made towards completing the merger, and the companies ability to fully realize the benefits they expected to achieve through the merger.

Our boards of directors mutually concluded after careful consideration that it would not be prudent to continue to pursue the proposed merger of our companies. The termination of the merger agreement positions both companies to focus on the consistent growth and value creation they have each delivered through the years, according to a joint statement by Brian K. Plum, Blue Ridge Bankshares president and CEO, and David W. Pijor, FVCBankcorps chairman and CEO.

Each company will bear its own costs and expenses in connection with the terminated transaction, and neither bank will pay any termination fee as a result of the mutual decision to terminate the merger agreement, the companies said.

The deal had hit a snag in November when Blue Ridge Bankshares said it had learned that federal regulators in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have identified certain regulatory concerns with Blue Ridge Bank that could impact the application process and timing of the merger. The company didnt say what those concerns were.

When the two companies announced what they called a merger of equals in July, the banks expected the combination to be completed in the fourth quarter or early in the first quarter of 2022. In November, it moved back the merger date to be completed in the second or third quarter of this year.

The deal, if it had been completed, would have created a combined company with about $5 billion in assets with 36 branches and mortgage offices in three states and the District of Columbia.

Blue Ridge has 26 offices primarily in the Richmond region, Northern Neck, Hampton Roads, Piedmont, Southside and Shenandoah Valley areas of Virginia, along with mortgage offices in Virginia and North Carolina. It had assets of $2.69 billion as of Sept. 30.

FVCbank has 10 offices in Northern Virginia; in the District of Columbia; and in Maryland. It had assets of $2 billion.

The planned merger would have come after Blue Ridge Bankshares completed a merger last February with Henrico County-based Bay Banks of Virginia Inc., the parent company of Virginia Commonwealth Bank. Virginia Commonwealth Bank branches converted to Blue Ridges systems and name in May.
Forget the stereotypical images of macrame plant hangers and 1970s barefoot hippies. Hemp has come solidly into the 21st century with surprising range, versatility and renewed popularity.

One of the first companies licensed to grow industrial hemp in New York, Hudson Hemp got its start in 2017 shortly after hemp was legalized in the state.

We decided to go in this direction as hemp is a particularly specialized plant in carbon sequestering, which ties into our regenerative agricultural practices, says Hudson Hemp co-founder Melany Dobson, of the decision to go into the hemp business.

This year, we produced 10 acres of CBD-rich hemp to use in tinctures and salves currently featured on our website. We also partner with external companies to create products for their businesses.

Hemp in regenerative farming

Not only does regenerative farming work to reverse the effects of chemical pollution and decarbonization to improve topsoil health and fertility, it also helps reduce soil erosion and loss that can contribute to climate change.

Together with her sister, Freya, and brother, Ben, Dobson and the Hudson Hemp farm team focus on enriching and leaving the soil of their Old Mud Creek Farm and Stone House Farm properties better off than they found it. Born into a family that raised lettuce and tomatoes, Dobson only decided to follow in her fathers organic farming footsteps after a stint in Northern California opened her eyes to the possibilities the cannabis industry had to offer.

Regenerative farming aims to not only maintain the integrity of the environment, but enhance it with strategic crop rotation and nutrient sequestering, she explains. Organic farming may meet certain guidelines and regulations to achieve certification, but doesnt follow the same format of ecosystem balancing that allows for longevity in sustainable harvesting.

As adopters of the regenerative practice movement, the Dobsons transition began back in 2013 with a move toward diversifying and earning organic, non-GMO status for their farming operations. Hemp has helped them achieve these goals by producing a viable crop that supports biodiversity, sustainability and carbon sequestration  the ability to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and reintroduce it into the soil  through a natural, closed-loop farming system.

All about hemp

Although its receiving renewed attention in recent years, hemp has actually been around for millennia with historical mentions going back as far as 8000 B.C.

Hemp (cannabis sativa) is a type of plant that contains medicinal properties, Dobson describes. Hemp and cannabis are both the same species of plant, only differing in THC content. Cannabis contains higher than 0.3 percent THC content, whereas hemp contains less than said amount.

Cannabis was widely grown in the United States until the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 put the kibosh on the crop until 2018, when the U.S. Farm Bill federally legalized hemp production, ushering in a new generation of CBD growers and suppliers. The versatility of the crop is part of what makes hemp so appealing.

CBD has been known to help treat anxiety, minor aches and pains, Dobson notes. Hemp also provides strong, fibrous material that can be used in the production of food, fuel and fiber.

Hand-in-hand with Hudson Hemp growing operations, Dobson and her sister oversee the production and sales of Treaty, their line of plant extract-enhanced CBD tinctures in four formulas: Calm, Focus, Recover and Balance.

Hemp and marijuana: The same?

Many people mistakenly believe that hemp and marijuana are the same. Not the case, Dobson explains.

It has raised concerns of whether hemp can make someone high, she continues. This is untrue, as hemp and marijuana contain different chemical properties.

Its important to read CBD product labels closely because the regulation of CBD products currently varies by state, which can lead to discrepancies in quality and potency. Hudson Hemp insists on careful in-house analysis and third-party testing to assure high product integrity and standards.

The future of hemp farming

As the CBD industry continues to expand, industrial hemp presents an intriguing proposition for farmers wanting to diversify their crops and venture into new markets. Dobson hopes to continue blazing new trails for others to follow into the world of hemp and regenerative farming.
Tenants in Richmonds largest Latino community were ready to assist lawyers from the Virginia attorney generals office with a housing discrimination inquiry into their landlord.

But since firing the attorney who started the probe, new Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares office has not yet committed to meet with residents at the Communities at Southwood.

There has been no further communication [since the firings], said Jon Liss, co-executive director of New Virginia Majority, an advocacy group that has worked closely with tenants at the apartment complex to fight for better conditions.

The shake-up occurred on the eve of Miyares transition into an office previously led by Democrat Mark Herring. It spurred concern about whether the inquiry into the apartment complex and its property manager, Seminole Trail Management, would continue and, if so, how it would be handled.

Liss and his staff recently had an initial meeting with staffers from the attorney generals office. Afterward, they followed up with two dates for the lawyers to meet with tenants directly.

Two days later, Miyares fired Helen Hardiman, the housing attorney leading the inquiry, in a move Democrats and tenant advocates decried and Republicans defended as a routine part of the transition.

Our hope is that [Attorney General] Miyares will properly staff the office and quickly and thoroughly investigate the bad and potentially discriminatory treatment of Latinx tenants at Southwood Apartments, Liss said.

Victoria LaCivita, a Miyares spokeswoman, said recently that the firings would not stymie the work and that the new attorney general will look at every lawsuit, investigation and opinion with a fresh perspective.

Asked Friday what Miyares next steps were for the Southwood inquiry and whether he had tapped a new lawyer to lead it, LaCivita said in an email: This inquiry remains open and is ongoing by the Office of Civil Rights within the Civil Division. Any wrongdoing found will be fully pursued, but due to the ongoing nature of this case the Office of the Attorney General has no further comment at this time.

Herrings Office of Civil Rights initiated the probe in early January, following a three-month Richmond Times-Dispatch investigation. Reporters observed homes where children live rife with mold, rat and roach infestations; obsolete appliances; and other maintenance issues the landlord is legally responsible for repairing.

Tenants say management ignored requests or failed to adequately address problems brought to their attention.

Over the course of three months, reporters sought to interview Carroll Steele, Southwoods property manager, about the conditions.

Steele ignored or declined the requests before agreeing to respond to questions in writing. She blamed tenants from third-world countries for infestations and claimed her office had no record of maintenance requests from residents who spoke with reporters.

Richmond officials condemned Steeles comments and expressed support for the housing discrimination probe. They also pledged greater oversight at the property, including monthly inspections of at least one building at the roughly 1,300-unit complex. Code enforcement temporarily shuttered two units after finding infestations, mold and fire safety issues on an initial visit last month. Management made the repairs afterward.

The local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization in the country, expressed outrage at the inhumane conditions at Southwood outlined in the report by The Times-Dispatch, according to a letter addressed to Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and the Richmond City Council and obtained by The Times-Dispatch.

The organization called for an immediate investigation into the complex and for tenants to be protected from intimidation, retaliation and displacement for cooperating with investigators.

All members of our community deserve safe, clean, dignified, and affordable housing in which they can live, care for their families, and thrive. We will settle for nothing less.
Amid a worsening housing affordability crisis, a local nonprofit says the Richmond region has made strides toward key goals despite a 12% increase in home prices last year.

About 75 people gathered Thursday for the Partnership for Housing Affordabilitys State of Housing in the Richmond Region event, marking the two-year anniversary of the release of its Regional Housing Framework. The nonprofits leadership lauded housing initiatives underway or completed since then, and praised what they said was a clear commitment from the regions biggest localities to address the overarching challenges.

Theres been a lot of amazing progress that has been made already, a lot of collaboration in our region, but we should not lose sight of how much work we still have to do collectively, said Bernard Harkless, a partner with developer Lynx Ventures and chair of the Partnership for Housing Affordabilitys Board.

The framework recommended short- and long-term goals to meet an array of housing needs in Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover counties and the town of Ashland.

Since the plans release shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, the region has faced unprecedented housing insecurity and a spike in homelessness. At the same time, already rising housing prices skyrocketed in successive years, said Laura Lafayette, CEO of the Richmond Association of Realtors and a former executive director of the nonprofit.

In 2020, the average sale price for a single family house in central Virginia was about $338,000. Last year, that figure rose to about $379,000, according to data presented Thursday from the Central Virginia Multiple Listing Service. In 2020, single-family homes took an average of 26 days to sell. Last year, the average listing period was just two weeks.

A dearth of houses for sale has fueled bidding wars. Those have driven up sale prices and made it more challenging for first-time buyers to purchase a home. Also driving prices up are land values and the cost of building materials. Both trends are likely to continue this year, she said.

It does nothing but create a far greater challenge for affordability, Lafayette said.

Despite the economic headwinds, the nonprofit highlighted initiatives it said represented progress on a variety of fronts.

Jovan Burton, the partnerships executive director, pointed to Richmonds investment of $20 million in its Affordable Housing Trust Fund. He also praised zoning code changes the city made to facilitate by-right development of emergency shelters and transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness. Henrico County, too, updated its zoning policies to allow for accessory dwelling units, such as converting a garage into an apartment  a change Burton said would help increase the housing supply for multi-generational households.

Its very clear we have a shortage of supply, particularly on the rental side, and we need to greatly increase that, Burton said.

In Chesterfield, he credited the countys partnership with a local nonprofit for preventing displacement of more than 2,200 households facing eviction last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The $16.6 million rent relief program was one of the highest-performing in the country, and the need for aid still remains, he added.

State support came in the form of grant funding from Virginia Housing, Burton said. It enabled PLANRVA to distribute roughly $2.5 million to nonprofit developers for about 260 new affordable units in seven cities and counties. Some families will begin moving into those projects later this year, he added.

Grants totaling $5 million from The Community Foundation and Altria would help fund projects comprising more than 1,000 new affordable homes in the next three years, Burton said. The large donations to nonprofit housing providers like Better Housing Coalition and the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust signaled strong support from the regions philanthropic organizations, he added.

Greta Harris, president and CEO of the Better Housing Coalition, said collaboration between the public and private sectors to address affordable housing challenges was as strong as shed seen it during her 30-year career.

So many people talk about housing being a black hole  that well never be able to make tangible progress, Harris said. Your presentation shows we are getting traction.  Even though the road ahead of us is long, I am hopeful well be able to make more tangible progress at scale and be able to serve more people.
NORFOLK  Burke McCormick embraced his remaining son just after the verdicts were read Thursday holding a Richmond man responsible for the death of his eldest son, Graham McCormick.

A Norfolk jury found John Randolph Rand Hooper, 35, guilty of involuntary manslaughter and failure to render aid after a boating accident in Lancaster County in 2017 that killed 31-year-old Graham McCormick.

Graham gets to rest now, Gordon McCormick, Grahams brother, said in an interview after the three-day trial, which ended a day ahead of schedule. Ive lost 4 years of my life waiting for justice.

Graham McCormick was found floating in Carter Creek, off the Rappahannock River, on the morning of Aug. 11, 2017.

He had been visiting Hooper at his parents Irvington home. They had been drinking when they took a boat for a late-night joy ride. It crashed into a bulkhead that juts into the creek about 2 miles, by water, south of the Hooper home, sending McCormick overboard. Hooper returned to his parents home on the boat, leaving McCormick to drown.

His death stunned the family, which only 18 months earlier had buried their youngest son, Will, after a long battle with cancer. During her testimony, Sallie Graham, Graham McCormicks mother, said that when his body was found, she insisted on seeing him.

I held his brother, Sallie Graham testified. I have to see him. I have to hold him.

But the real shock came at Hoopers involvement, which the family didnt know the extent of until after Hooper spoke at Graham McCormicks funeral, a little over a week after the crash.

They were the best of friends, Burke McCormick testified. Later, in an interview after the trial, he added: The enormous sense of betrayal I feel, its palpable.

Hooper left the courtroom in handcuffs. He could face up to 15 years in prison for the two felonies. A date for sentencing has not been set.

Hooper had faced a more serious charge of aggravated manslaughter, but the jury found him guilty of the lesser degree of manslaughter. The most serious charge, felony murder, was dismissed earlier Thursday by retired Norfolk Circuit Court Judge Charles Poston, who said there was insufficient evidence to support malice, which is an essential element in proving the charge.

The jury reached its verdict after a little over 90 minutes of deliberation.

King William County Commonwealths Attorney Matthew R. Kite argued that Hoopers actions were essentially the same as driving drunk on the wrong side of the highway.

He would have survived, Kite said of Graham McCormick. He would have survived if someone would have helped him. He left his best friend to drown.

A state medical examiner determined the cause of death was drowning. Though blunt-force trauma contributed to his death, the lacerations to his head wouldnt have killed him on their own, the doctor testified Wednesday.

After at first denying knowing what happened to McCormick, Hooper later told police he figured McCormick was a good swimmer, detectives testified.

Thats like saying a person ejected from a vehicle in a crash is a good walker, Kite said.

He knew Graham was in the water, and he left. The two were friends. But when push came to shove, it was Rand Hooper who mattered, not Graham McCormick.

Kite said Hooper fled because he didnt want to get in trouble.

Hoopers three-man defense team, led by Craig Cooley, didnt contest that the crash occurred, but they said McCormick was driving, not Hooper, and that prosecutors couldnt prove otherwise.

All that evidence, all of that testimony over the last three days would be identical no matter who the operator of the boat was, Cooley told the jury. No matter if it was Mr. Hooper or Mr. McCormick, or you or me.

Kite pointed out that earlier testimony showed that Hooper claimed not to remember who was driving, not that he wasnt.

The case was tried in Norfolk because of the media attention the long-running case has received in Lancaster County and Richmond. Hooper and McCormick are from Richmond, though McCormick had moved to Atlanta shortly before his death for a job in banking. Both mens parents still live in the Richmond area.

This case had more twists and turns than a bobsled track, Burke McCormick said afterward. It was long, hard slog to get justice.

Former Lancaster prosecutor Jan Smith, who lost re-election in 2019 and has since had his law license suspended for a year for his handling of this case, initially charged Hooper with a misdemeanor for failing to report the crash about two months after it happened. He later withdrew it, saying others would be filed. It took nearly a year for Smith to seek new charges. In the meantime, McCormicks family filed a civil lawsuit and received a $4 million settlement.

In 2019, Smith and Hoopers attorneys negotiated a controversial plea agreement in which Hooper would serve only one year of a 15-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter and failure to render aid, which are the same charges Hooper was convicted of Thursday. McCormicks family said the punishment was too lenient.

Before that plea agreement could be entered in court, Lancaster Circuit Judge R. Michael McKenney recused himself after receiving a letter from a witness in the case. In the letter, Benjamin M. Chip Woodson, who owns the land just off of which McCormicks body was found, said Smith alleged that McKenney had already made up his mind about the case, which the judge denied.

McKenney appointed Circuit Judge Herbert M. Hewitt, who typically presides in King George County. Five months later, Hewitt rejected the plea deal, saying the sentence was inappropriate and that Hoopers actions came from a cold and malignant heart.

The case passed through a few other hands until it landed on the desk of Poston, the retired judge. A special prosecutor, Kite, was appointed after Smiths successor, Tony Spencer, was removed from the case after Hoopers attorneys alleged his election was supported by McCormicks family.

In October 2020, Kite dropped all charges against Hooper; then, in December 2020, Hooper was indicted on the more serious charges.

In the rotunda outside the courtroom, the McCormick family and friends clapped for Kite and his deputy Tiffany Webb.

Gordon McCormick said he had nearly lost faith in the criminal justice system.

All I was after from day one, was the truth, he said. There was not a more truthful, decent person than Graham. He can rest easy knowing the truth has been told.
A Guatemalan man who was detained in his home country in 2020 in connection with the September 2006 fatal shooting of a Chesterfield County man was brought back to Chesterfield on Friday to stand trial after being extradited to the U.S. earlier this week, Chesterfield authorities said.

Dima DeJesus Luna, 46, was taken into custody by Chesterfield police Friday at Dulles International Airport. He was then arraigned in Chesterfield Circuit Court on charges of first-degree murder, malicious wounding and shooting into an occupied vehicle, Chesterfield Commonwealths Attorney Stacey Davenport said.

While living in the U.S. illegally, Luna, then 31, is accused of killing Herber Felipe Sucup, 21, and wounding Elisea Camacho by firing into the SUV they were riding in on Sept. 13, 2006. The shooting occurred just after 2 a.m. in the 6000 block of Cricklewood Drive in the apartment complex where the victims lived.

According to Chesterfield police, Luna approached the SUV on foot and fired two shots into the vehicle before getting into a vehicle and driving away. Camacho, who was driving the SUV, drove to a convenience store at Dundas Road and U.S. 1, where police were called.

When officers arrived, they found Sucup dead in the back seat with a gunshot wound to his upper torso. Officers followed a blood trail and located Camacho in front of Falling Creek apartments. He sustained a non-life-threatening wound to his upper torso but survived the shooting.

The fatal shooting was featured on Americas Most Wanted in November 2009.

In an episode about the incident, host John Walsh said jealousy was the motive behind the shooting. Luna had moved in with a girlfriend who Camacho once dated, and Camacho still kept in touch with her. Camacho drove to her residence the night of the shooting to check in with her, according to the shows account.

After identifying Luna as a suspect and obtaining warrants for his arrest, detectives were unable to locate him and he ultimately fled the country, police said.

Then in May 2018, detectives obtained indictments for Luna on the current charges and began pursuing his extradition from Guatemala, where he was located.

Luna was accused in his home country of killing Angel Amado, the mayor of Rabinal, Guatemala, in a shooting in which Amado and one of his counselors were ambushed on a dirt road as they were riding in a vehicle to Guatemala City, according to the Guatemalan newspaper La Hora. Three other people were convicted of the killing and each sentenced to 71 years in prison.

On Oct. 16, 2020, two days after a Guatemalan court found Luna not guilty of killing Amado, the countrys National Civil Police arrested Luna on a U.S. detainer related to the Chesterfield charges as he was being released from a Guatemalan prison.

During Lunas arraignment Friday morning, the Chesterfield Public Defenders Office was appointed to represent him. He is being held without bond. He is scheduled to appear in court on March 7 for a status hearing in his case.

His extradition was a combined effort that involved the U.S. Department of Justice Office of International Affairs, the U.S. State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Chesterfield Commonwealths Attorneys Office and the U.S. Marshals Service.
BANGKOK, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's authorities have launched a crackdown on the hoarding of frozen pork amid efforts to ease a shortage of meat and curb price hike, a government spokesperson said Friday.

Following the order of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Department of Livestock Development has conducted an inspection at cold-storage warehouses across the country, and cracked down on the hoarding of frozen pork at warehouses in Songkhla, Chanthaburi and Pathum Thani provinces, said government spokesperson Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana.

According to Thanakorn, anyone that are found to be hoarding goods will face a maximum imprisonment of one year or a fine of not exceeding 20,000 baht (about 606 U.S. dollars) or both.

The move came as the Thai government tries to ease the price hike of staples such as pork and poultry. Earlier this month, the country imposed a three-month ban on pork exports as the continued shortage pushed up pork prices. 
A serial sexual assailant who accosted or attacked seven young women in the Fan District between 2015 and 2018 was sentenced to serve 87 years in prison Thursday. The punishment will be served consecutively to a 127-year prison term the Colonial Heights man received last summer for sexually assaulting three other women.

Following a two-hour sentencing hearing in Richmond Circuit Court, Judge William R. Marchant sentenced Justin Harvey, 29, on his earlier guilty pleas to four counts of burglary with intent to rape, attempted rape, aggravated sexual battery and two counts of unlawful filming for seven separate attacks within a 2-mile radius in the Fan.

The defendant imposed a wave of terror on these young women, Marchant said from the bench, in sentencing Harvey near the high end of discretionary state sentencing guidelines adjusted upward for the nature of his crimes.

Harvey already is serving a 127-year prison term that was imposed June 24 after separate juries convicted him of six felonies including rape, malicious wounding, aggravated sexual battery, statutory burglary and two misdemeanor counts of unlawful filming stemming from attacks on three women on May 5 and May 6, 2018. He was convicted in large part because of videos of the assaults he took on his cellphone.

During the course of the investigation, police obtained a warrant to search Harveys phone, and investigators found dozens of incriminating photos and videos. The assaults on the three women on consecutive nights in May 2018 had been recorded. In addition, at least three of the attacks on the seven women for which he was sentenced Thursday were filmed.

Virginia Commonwealth University Police teamed with Richmond police to link Harvey to the 10 cases through confessions, images on his cellphone or DNA he left at scenes. Richmond prosecutors Joshua Boyles and Sarah Heller then spent the next three years preparing and trying the cases.

From 2015 to 2018, this defendant terrorized an area of the state, the Fan, Heller told the court in seeking a stiff punishment. It became this defendants hunting ground. This was the area that he stalked and filmed and preyed upon the woman who lived and worked and went to school there. The only reason he stopped is that he got caught.

Richmond Deputy Public Defender Maggie Pitts, who represented Harvey, said her client knows that the chances of him ever stepping foot into society again, in to any place that is not prison, are slim to none. Nevertheless, Pitts asked the judge to show mercy due to Harveys risk of re-offending, if he were to be released 40 to 60 years from now, would be low in his advanced age, she said.

Court documents described the attacks for which Harvey was sentenced on Thursday:

A young woman reported that on Oct. 11, 2015, following an event where she was drinking with friends, she and others walked to a friends house in the 1300 block of Floyd Avenue at about midnight, where she went to sleep in the living room. The victim awoke to find her dress and underwear cut off and a man standing over her. The woman ran upstairs, locked herself in a bedroom and called friends for help. The man fled soon after the friends arrived and yelled at the intruder.

A young woman reported that on Nov. 9, 2015, she was taking a shower when she heard a loud noise that she initially ignored. A short time later, while still in the shower, the victim noticed what appeared to be an iPhone sticking through the shower curtain; she believed the phone was recording. She screamed, got out of the shower and tried to leave the bathroom, but the suspect held the door closed from the other side. The man ran out of her home after she eventually opened the door.

A young woman reported that on March 28, 2018, she was walking home from Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Cabell Library at about 9:20 p.m. when she sensed someone behind her. She looked back and saw a man who was keeping steady pace behind her until she got to her apartment building in the 1800 block of Grove Avenue. When she hurried up the stairs, the man caught up with her at the top of the stairs, shoved her down the steps, stuck his hand up her dress and grabbed her underwear, trying to pull them down. The woman started to scream and the man fled.

A young woman reported that on May 19, 2018, as she was falling asleep inside her residence in the 3000 block of Ellwood Avenue, she felt something strike her face, and she soon realized that she was being assaulted at about 2:20 a.m. She was dragged naked out of her bed onto the floor before the suspect fled on foot.

A young woman reported that on Sept. 21, 2018, she and a group of friends were walking south on Harrison Street after leaving a restaurant, and when they got close to the 1100 block of West Cary Street a man came up behind her and pulled up her dress at about 12:30 a.m. The suspect then crouched down behind and underneath her; the suspect fled after the victim screamed.

Later on the same night, a young woman reported that after being out with friends at a local restaurant, she walked home by herself and arrived at about 1:50 a.m. in the 1100 block of Floyd Avenue. She left the rear door unlocked, changed her clothes and went to bed. She awoke shortly thereafter to a man sexually assaulting her. The victim pushed the man off her and then out of her home before locking the door; the intruder tried to re-enter before fleeing.

A young woman reported that on Sept. 22, 2018, after she left a party in the 1300 block of Floyd Avenue, she heard someone running up behind her as she was walking on Brunswick Street at about 4 a.m. The victim felt someone lift the back of her skirt, making contact with her buttocks, and seeing a flash from the suspects cellphone. The suspect fled when she screamed.

Not only was my place of living compromised and all of the warmth, love and, most of all safety, that I had associated with it altered, my body didnt feel the same, one of the victims testified Thursday. This was the hardest to come to terms with. The guilt and the shame I carried in my body for something I had no control over.

Another victim said she was so traumatized by her assault that she began to binge drink for a time to self medicate to numb her anxieties. I didnt feel safe in general. Even now, nearly three years later, I occasionally get a sense of panic when Im walking alone.

At trial and during sentencing in the first set of cases, Harveys defense team called his younger brother, who testified the boys were sexually assaulted when they were children. Harvey told detectives after his arrest that he had trouble controlling his urges and couldnt help himself. He told one detective that he did not have a choice but to be like this.

Before his arrest in the series of Fan District attacks, Harvey was convicted between 2012 and 2014 of public masturbation and unlawful filming of an undressed person in Chesterfield, indecent exposure in Richmond and assault and battery, reduced from sexual battery, in Colonial Heights.

Before being sentenced on Thursday, Harvey delivered a lengthy statement that he described as an inadequate apology.

Ive tried to imagine how my actions affected each of you, he said. Ive tried to imagine myself feeling violated, exposed, vulnerable, confused. Ive tried to imagine having my peace of mind forcibly stripped from me. I absolutely, wholeheartedly, hate myself for the things that Ive done to you. Ive never believed something with such conviction in my life the way that I believe that Ill never be able to forgive myself for what Ive done. Because I dont believe I deserve forgiveness.
Five months after voting in unison for students to return to the classroom with a mask, the Chesterfield County School Board upheld its mask mandate in a divided vote Thursday afternoon.

The move puts the board at odds, at least temporarily, with an executive order from Gov. Glenn Youngkin that leaves the decision of masks to parents.

In a 3-2 vote, the board decided to uphold its mask mandate for now. Three out of the five said they support the governors order, but only Ryan Harter was willing to make masks optional before receiving more guidance on how to do so safely from the Youngkin administration and the new superintendent of public instruction.

Vice Chair Dot Heffron was the second dissenting vote alongside Harter, but for a different reason: She said she was opposed to the caveat asking for guidance from the state. Heffron supports upholding the mask mandate, as does board member Kathryn Haines.

I want to be clear that I believe that any changes that we make to our mask guidance should be driven by our board. This is not a decision that should be based on the superintendent of instruction for the state of Virginia. We absolutely need to maintain our mask policy the way it is, Heffron said Thursday.

Youngkins executive order calls for parents to decide whether their children will wear a mask in school. The order, set to take effect Monday, would not apply to buses because a federal order requires masks on public transportation.

But come Monday, Chesterfield, Richmond Public Schools and Henrico County Public Schools will not be following the governors order. And Northern Virginias five largest school districts  Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun and Arlington counties and the city of Alexandria  all say they will continue requiring masks.

In another challenge to the executive order, a group of Chesapeake parents filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Youngkin, asking the Supreme Court of Virginia to declare the order void because it is in direct conflict with a 2021 state law that requires schools to adhere to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions COVID-19 guidelines to the maximum extent practicable.

Haines, one of the Chesterfield board members who voted to uphold the mask mandate, said the board shouldnt take another vote until the Virginia Department of Health weighs in. Haines also said the executive order conflicts with the 2021 state law.

According to our local public health director, Dr. [Alexander] Samuel, whom I spoke with this morning, VDH has not yet provided guidance to local school districts on how to resolve this obvious conflict.

In comments before the vote, Haines read a portion of a statement from the School Health Advisory Board, which was signed by 16 of its 20 members: As individual members of the SHAB we strongly urge you to keep the current maximum policy in place and reassess after the current [COVID] surge is over no earlier than February 1, 2022.

During the August vote, board members Debbie Bailey, Ann Coker and Harter all expressed their disappointment that they were voting for masks.

But on Thursday, board Chair Coker and Bailey were in agreement that while they support parental choice, they want more guidance from state officials before making a decision. Harter, on the other hand, wanted to adhere to the executive order immediately.

In December, Harter, who was board chairman at the time, wrote in an email to a Chesterfield parent saying masks would be gone once the Executive Mansion changed hands.

I have spoken with a few members of the Governors transition team in regards to masking. We stand ready to change when the Governor takes office and action, Harter, who did not respond for a request for comment, wrote in an email on Dec. 4.

Harter, who voted against upholding the mandate, said during Thursdays meeting that, after this executive order takes effect, masking is no longer a practicable strategy.

This emergency order was directed to parents. It gives parents the right to choose what is best for the child. As thousands of kids come back possibly with no mask on Monday, what are we going to do? How is staff going to confront that? Are we going to ask our staff to confront parents, if they choose to have their child wear a mask or not wear a mask? I can tell you that the majority of educators, theyre dreading this and theyre looking for direction.

Coker said she wants to comply with the executive order, but not until more of the unknowns are known. She asked the Youngkin administration to provide appropriate guidance about COVID mitigation strategies, contact tracing, quarantine guidelines and Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements.

I want nothing more than for parents to be able to make the choice for their child to wear a mask in school, for students to return to a normal school day that allows for face-to-face interaction with their fellow students and teachers. Children do better without masks, Coker said Thursday.

Bailey said, I believe the risk of COVID-19 to children does not justify the universal masking in school. I believe parents, children and teachers should be permitted to make informed decisions based on their own values and risk tolerance and choose to mask or not.

Bailey encouraged families to have serious conversations with their children about their expectations for mask wearing. But before a decision is made, Bailey wants more information from Youngkin because a rush decision could result in walking back promises.

Parents, you have a choice. You will have a choice. Its just the timeline is just a little aggressive for me to get it right, Bailey said. As far as Im concerned, the only reason why were waiting is because operationally they have not told us how to proceed.

While a public comment period was not scheduled during the meeting itself, community members were welcome to attend and were encouraged but not required to wear a mask. All School Board members wore masks during Thursdays meeting.

Brooke Pega, a Dale District resident, parent and teacher, wrote that without masks, students will have to quarantine more frequently and potentially for a longer period of time. Pega said schools need more COVID supplies, including KN95 masks and plastic screens. In addition, HVAC systems, especially in older schools, will continue to need improvement.

Some comments not only asked for masks to be gone but also for contact tracing to be abandoned, with one parent calling it a farce. Other parents asked for the option for their children to go virtual if the masks were made optional.

I would prefer to keep the mask optional for students, Matoaca resident Jennifer Schoemmell wrote in. It has been proven that fabric masks do little to reduce the spread unless the school is going to provide KN95 masks; what are we really accomplishing? I am still getting daily notifications about positives, so obviously the masks are not effective.

A Midlothian parent wrote that they would be happy to provide proof of their childs COVID vaccination status in exchange for them not having to wear a mask any longer.

Clover Hill resident Cassie Fiscus, who supports keeping the mandate, said: I urge you to think of the medically fragile students, the families with elderly family members at home, or the mom with a new baby who cannot be vaccinated. The vulnerable population needs our help.

Many of the pro-mask comments noted the districts record-level COVID cases among students and staff in recent weeks.

As of Thursday afternoon, the district COVID dashboard reported 1,113 cases among students and staff for the past seven days. Of the 1,113 cases, 957 were students and 156 were staff members, a slight dip from Wednesdays seven-day numbers. On Tuesday alone this week, the district recorded 335 cases, 299 of which were infected students. On Jan. 11, the district recorded 388 cases, the highest for the month so far.

In response to Youngkins executive order, Chesterfields NAACP branch issued a statement on Jan. 17 in support of upholding the mask mandate, saying the impending order flatly denies science.

While Governor Youngkin may be appeasing parent-choice and anti-mask proponents, he is willfully ignoring what impact this move will inevitably have on the most vulnerable humans in our schools, said NAACP Chair Katherine Poindexter in a statement.

Poindexter said the chapter anticipates vocal opposition, if not a possible strike, by Chesterfield teachers if the mask mandate is reversed.

Christine Melendez, president of the Chesterfield Education Association, asked for the school system to uphold the mask mandate.

On one day in early January 2022, CCPS had 588 instructional absences. This was with indoor mask wearing. The education workers who are the heart, soul, and backbone of this school division are being stretched thin by staff absences. Theyre doing everything they can to provide the world-class education Chesterfield County is known for. An end to indoor mask wearing would jeopardize the ability of the county to continue offering effective, student-centered in-person learning, Melendez wrote in public comment.
Students who attend Powhatan County Public Schools and the Diocese of Richmond Catholic Schools will not be required to wear a mask to school on Monday.

Unlike public schools in Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield and Henrico, Powhatans and the dioceses decisions fall in line with an executive order from Gov. Glenn Youngkin that leaves the decision of students wearing masks to parents come Monday morning.

In the Richmond area, school districts have decided to defy the governors order and uphold their mask mandates. The Hanover County School Board will meet on Monday to discuss whether students should continue wearing masks.

Around the state, school districts large and small are grappling with how to respond to the governors order. Northern Virginias five largest school districts  Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun and Arlington counties and the city of Alexandria  all say they will continue requiring masks.

In Hampton Roads, the cities of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake are making masks optional in school, while Norfolk and Portsmouth say they will still require masks.

If you do not want your child(ren) to wear a mask at school, we respect that decision. Please be advised that choosing not to wear a mask may put students at higher risk for meeting the close contact definition, requiring quarantine, and potentially face longer quarantine periods, wrote Kelly M. Lazzara, superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Richmond Catholic schools, in a letter to parents.

While the diocese is honoring the executive order, Lazzara wrote that employees, students and visitors in all K-12 schools will still be encouraged to wear masks. All unvaccinated faculty and staff members will be required to wear a mask.

Teachers will not be asked to enforce parents pro- or anti-mask decisions in the classroom, Lazzara wrote.

Powhatan School Board member James Taylor told WTVR that when it comes to the mask mandate and Executive Order Number Two, striking down masks and making everything optional, I think thats what the people of Powhatan want.

A group of Chesapeake parents filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Youngkin, asking the Supreme Court of Virginia to declare the order void because it is in direct conflict with a 2021 state law that requires schools to adhere to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions COVID-19 guidelines to the maximum extent practicable.
In the past week, school leaders in Richmond, and Henrico and Chesterfield counties decided to uphold their mask mandates for students despite an executive order saying parents have a choice come Monday morning.

In Chesterfield, some School Board members who want masks off students still voted Thursday to uphold the mandate until receiving additional guidance from Gov. Glenn Youngkin. He didnt make them wait long.

Friday afternoon, Youngkin announced updates to his measure that include alternative mitigation strategies to masking to reduce the spread of COVID-19, including vaccination, contact tracing and distancing. The new details of the plan also give schools practicable flexibility on which strategies to adopt and strongly encourages test-to-stay programs to keep children in school and return them to the classroom as quickly as possible.

I have said all along that we are going to stand up for parents. Executive Order 2 is not about pro-masks versus anti-mask, its about empowering parents, Youngkin said in a statement Friday.

Northern Virginias five largest school districts  Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun and Arlington counties and the city of Alexandria  all also decided to continue requiring masks.

A group of Chesapeake parents filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Youngkin, asking the Supreme Court of Virginia to declare the order void because it is in direct conflict with a 2021 state law that requires schools to adhere to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions COVID-19 guidelines to the maximum extent practicable. Chesapeakes School Board voted this week to make masks optional.

I am confident that the Virginia Supreme Court will rule in the favor of parents  I urge all parents to listen to their principal, and trust the legal process, Youngkin added.

It is unfortunate that the Governor issued an Exec. Order that is to be implemented by Monday, and that has produced much confusion among children, parents, school boards and superintendents about what to do on Monday, Carl Tobias, a law professor of the University of Richmond, said by email Friday.

In the Richmond area

Eileen Cox, a spokesperson for Henrico, said in an email Friday that the executive order is a complex issue in an uncertain and stressful time.

The expectation is that students will be wearing masks, Cox wrote.

The school system and School Board continues to support masking as a best practice for the health and safety of the districts 49,000 students and 10,000 employees , Cox wrote.

However, if a student refuses to wear a mask it will be handled by the respective school administration, the student and their parents or guardians.

If the concern cannot be resolved collaboratively through other means, it may be necessary for a student to learn asynchronously outside of the school building, Cox wrote.

In Chesterfield , the school system remained mum on the mask subject until the School Board held a special meeting on Thursday. A motion narrowly passed, allowing for the mask mandate to be upheld until Youngkin released additional guidance. Fridays announcement from the governor could clear the path for Chesterfield to change its policy.

A schools spokesperson did not respond to questions by press time regarding what happens if students show up to school on Monday without a mask.

In a Friday email to Chesterfield Education Association members, the teachers union wrote that central office directors would be meeting with building administrators to discuss what Monday could look like.

We are thankful for the small win yesterday to reassure us that during this spike of COVID we are the safest and healthiest that we can be to keep in-person learning our top priority, Christine Melendez, president of the Chesterfield teachers union, wrote.

On Saturday, following Youngkins executive order announcements, Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras tweeted that the mask mandate would remain.

Our ability to keep our doors open, which is essential to our kids physical and mental health and their learning, is tied to the extent to which we prevent transmission, Kamras said Tuesday. Masks not only keep them healthy, they will also keep our doors open.

The Richmond School Board approved upholding its mask mandate in an 8-1 vote on Tuesday.

In response to questions, Sarah Abubaker, a spokesperson for RPS, said in an email: RPS will absolutely continue to uphold the mask mandate, as is prescribed by Virginia law and CDC recommendations. More regarding the policy will be decided at Mondays School Board meeting.

The only item on the agenda is a closed session to discuss legal matters. It begins at 6 p.m. Monday at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

We are supporting our district on the mask mandate, Katina Harris, president of the Richmond Education Association said in an interview Friday. We dont want a lot of students out sick or a lot of staff out sick, and without masks that would probably happen.

On Monday morning, educators in the Chesterfield, Henrico and Richmond teachers unions are expected to gather at the Richmond Education Association office to discuss the health and safety of all students and staff as the omicron surge continues and ask school systems for standards on how to safely operate schools.
As she helped compose an obituary for her late friend Comfort Yjakpai Anderson-Miller, the writer Stacy Hawkins Adams asked for input from family members, one of whom noted how the Amazon Prime driver was really going to miss her.

Such a down-to-earth  but telling  detail speaks to her personality and just who she was, Adams said of Anderson-Miller, who had a way of making everyone feel, even on first meeting, that you had met a friend.

She was the type of person who when she enters a room, she just carried this energy and enthusiasm with her that just lifted the spirits of the whole room, said Adams, who wrote extensively about Anderson-Miller and her generous spirit for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, beginning in 1996 when she brought a young boy from her native Liberia for facial reconstruction surgery. The boy, 6-year-old Edward Sando, had lost his nose and upper lip to infection.

A Nose for Edward was the headline of the first story in September 1996 that introduced readers to Edward and Anderson-Miller, who along with her husband, Elijah Miller, later adopted the boy, helping him build a new life in America while maintaining ties to his birth mother and family in Liberia.

Anderson-Miller died the day after Christmas after battling cancer since it was first diagnosed in the fall of 2020. She was 60.

***

Comfort Yjakpai Anderson, who grew up in Liberia in a family of eight children, came to the United States in 1987 to obtain a masters degree in computer science from what is now Clark Atlanta University, but she never forgot where she came from or what she had learned.

Our father taught us how to be persistent and go after what you want, she told Adams in that first story in The Times-Dispatch. Our mother taught us how to pray.

Her original intention was to return to Liberia to help the people, she said, but she married Elijah Miller, an American she met during his Army tour in Liberia, and she stayed in the U.S. with a plan to assist her native country from afar. The couple moved to Chesterfield County in 1989, and she took a job with the Chesterfield Planning Department.

That aid took on an added urgency when the country descended into civil war, as she organized local efforts to collect and deliver food, clothes and medical supplies. Anderson-Miller created the Robert and Mary Anderson Charitable Organization, named for her parents, and obtained nonprofit status to solicit donations for Liberians. She spoke around the state to tell their story and gain support.

Among those who witnessed what she did  and desperately appreciated the benefit of her generosity  was a niece, Charlene Addy McGee, who spent her first years in Liberia.

The woman whom she affectionately knew as Aunty Kpai showed up in the middle of the civil war to help save us, said McGee, 40, who moved to the U.S. as an adolescent and now lives in Oregon.

She helped a lot of people; it wasnt just limited to family, said McGee, citing the disabled, seniors and students among those Anderson-Miller went out of her way to assist. She was amazing. She literally knew no bounds.

McGee considers Anderson-Miller my second mom and that she was part of all of her major life milestones (When my husband said he wanted to propose, I told him he had to get her blessing as well as my parents, McGee says) and that her aunt always told her mother that she had to share me with her.

When she loves you, she never left a doubt, McGee said. She went all out.

Asked to describe her aunt, McGee said she was ambitious, determined and brilliant in every way. Any task that she was assigned, she went above and beyond.

One task she undertook with great determination was getting help for the little boy with the gaping hole in his face where his nose should have been whom she first saw on a mission trip to Liberia in January 1995. As Adams wrote:

She regularly recorded the people she helped and sent tapes to her financial sponsors. As she taped a group of children singing gospel hymns, she saw a small boy join the gathering and stand in front.

I thought he was singing with something in his mouth, Comfort says. Then I zoomed the camera on him and I noticed [his disfiguration].

Comfort didnt ask about the childs condition because she didnt want to draw attention to him, but she left  determined to find a way to help him.

Anderson-Miller later learned the boy, Edward, had been born in March 1989, nine months before civil war erupted. He and five older siblings lived in a town 30 miles from Monrovia, the countrys capital, without electricity or running water and with little contact with the outside world.

The family fled into the bush when rebels invaded the village in 1991. While they hid, 2-year-old Edward became ill and a blister formed under his nose, and a bacterial infection developed. By the time Edward was taken to a hospital, doctors had no choice but to cut off his infected nose and top lip.

A year later, his father and eldest brother were beheaded by rebels. His mother was raising Edward and his surviving four siblings in a thatch hut.

Anderson-Miller spent the next year talking to doctors and arranging to have Edward brought to the U.S. for medical treatment. He arrived 13 months after she first saw him. Over the years, he underwent a series of reconstructive surgeries. A year after he arrived, Anderson-Miller and her husband adopted Edward with his birth mothers permission. In 1999, Edward became a U.S. citizen.

He is now 32 and eternally grateful that Anderson-Miller found him and brought him here for help.

What she did is like a miracle, Edward Sando-Miller said over the phone earlier this week. She being in my life was a blessing beyond words.

Sando-Miller, who graduated from James River High and hopes to continue his studies in college after the pandemic, said his parents have always supported and guided him and that he still senses Anderson-Millers presence.

I think she will always be with me, no matter what I do, he said.

***

Anderson-Miller was the sort of person who never met a stranger, Adams said. Because of that, from the moment she and photographer Clement Britt began work on their series of stories on Edward and Anderson-Miller, Adams said they were never made to feel like anything less than family.

We became part of the family [in Anderson-Millers eyes] because we helped share this story with the world, said Adams, who left her full-time job with The Times-Dispatch in 2006.

And the connection continued long after the stories ended.

Anderson-Miller became Auntie Comfort to Adams two children, and Adams became Sando-Millers Auntie Stacy.

One of the last times I visited her in the hospital earlier this year, she climbed out of bed and did an African dance at the sight of me  two days after major surgery, Adams wrote on her Facebook page. That was Comfort  spreading light in every circumstance and thanking Jesus for it all.

Besides the Chesterfield Planning Department, Anderson-Miller also worked for the Virginia Department of Health, the Virginia State Board of Elections and the Virginia Department of Social Services, from which she retired in 2017.

Over the years, she received a number of awards for her work on behalf of others, including one of the YWCAs Outstanding Women Awards in 1998, and recognition from the Points of Light Foundation.

Besides her son, Anderson-Miller is survived by her husband, Elijah Miller. A service is scheduled for noon on Saturday at Beulah United Methodist Church, 6930 Hopkins Road.

Another service will be held next week in Liberia, where she will be buried in a family plot.

McGee said she believes her aunts drive to do good originated from the notion that to whom much is given, much is required.

In other words, McGee said, Youve been blessed, so you have to help others.

All the way to the end. Anderson-Millers last wish?

Instead of flowers, Anderson-Miller asked for donations to support the children of Liberia through the Robert and Mary Anderson Charitable Organization. Find out more by emailing McGee at yjakpai@aol.com.
The Pacific Boys, a three-person crew including former Hanover County resident and Atlee High graduate Isaac Mackey, successfully completed their 3,100-mile rowing trip across the Atlantic on Friday when they rowed into sunny English Harbour on the island of Antigua.

The team arrived at the finish line of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Rowing Challenge, bearded and all smiles, shortly after noon EST, 40 days after they set off from the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa. They finished 12th among three dozen boats that started the race.

In an interview from sea via his satellite phone on Jan. 12, Mackey, 27, had said one of the things he was going to do when he arrived in Antigua was to hug his mother and apologize for making her worry.

And?

He did! Hugged and said, Sorry, Mom, Carol Mackey wrote in a text Friday afternoon. She and husband, Clyde, made the trip to Antigua to greet their son.

She added that the three crew members  Jonathan Harrison and Kramer Lewis were the other two  look great and are now eating a second hamburger.

Mackey, a 2012 graduate of Atlee and a 2016 graduate of the University of Virginia, is a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is working on a doctorate in computer science. He is also an athlete, having wrestled in high school and competed in a number of triathlons. He rowed at UVA. He met his teammates after moving to the West Coast.

They rowed 24 hours a day in staggered, two-hour shifts. For 18 hours a day, two of them rowed at the same time; for the other six hours, each handled solo rows, so the other two could get somewhat sustained sleep. They stopped only to swim with dolphins and whales  while safely tethered to the boat  and to scrape barnacles from the underside of the boat.

The crew received a warm welcome from supporters when they reached Antigua on Friday.

Before taking his first tentative steps on solid ground in almost six weeks, Mackey dropped and did seven pushups to cheers.

Later during a brief ceremony when asked by race organizers what was next for him, Mackey replied, emphatically: Showers! Food! Sleep!
COLOMBO, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's health authorities on Friday said with a rise in the number of Omicron infected patients, the new variant was soon becoming dominant that would overtake the Delta variant in the country.

To date, over 160 people have been infected with the Omicron variant, but the number was much higher than recorded, officials from the Health Ministry said.

Health authorities have urged people to curtail their movement to avert a massive COVID-19 outbreak in the country and to strictly follow all health guidelines.

"The sudden increase in the number of COVID-19 cases implies that Omicron is rapidly spreading in the country and the current situation could be a sign of a major outbreak in the near future. Hence, it is imperative that people brace themselves," COVID-19 Coordinator Anwar Hamdani was quoted by local media as saying.

"The couple of things that people should do is to wear a mask properly and get the booster dose as soon as possible," Hamdani added.

Sri Lanka has seen a rise in daily COVID-19 cases with over 800 reported on Thursday and over 700 reported on Wednesday.

According to official figures, Sri Lanka has recorded 599,363 positive COVID-19 cases and 15,255 deaths since March 2020. 
Facing a lawsuit just days into his term over his executive order making masks optional for schoolchildren, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is asking the Supreme Court of Virginia to dismiss the complaint.

The filing from the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares cited a state law that says parents have a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parents child.

Miyares said in a statement: We asked the Supreme Court of Virginia to protect the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing, care, and education of their children. He added: Governor Youngkin had every power to issue the executive order and with our filing, we again affirm that parents matter.

Schools in Virginia have been requiring masks in order to comply with an Aug. 12 order from then-Gov. Ralph Northams administration. Northam noted that a 2021 state law required schools to be open during the pandemic while complying to the maximum extent practicable with COVID-19 mitigation guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Currently, that guidance recommends masking.

Youngkins executive order, which he issued shortly after he was sworn in on Jan. 15, left school boards trying to figure out what to do. The Chesterfield County School Board voted on Thursday to continue requiring masks for children in schools. In Hampton Roads, the Chesapeake School Board voted on Thursday to remove the mask requirement, WAVY-TV reported.

A group of parents in Chesapeake filed the lawsuit against Youngkin, other state officials and local school officials, saying his order conflicts with the 2021 school-opening law.

The Chesapeake parents reference a 2016 Supreme Court of Virginia ruling  Howell v. McAuliffe  to make their argument.

In that case, then-House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, and others filed suit against then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe over his executive action to restore the voting rights of convicted felons, arguing that McAuliffes blanket restoration of rights was ignoring state law. In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court of Virginia found McAuliffe overstepped his authority, and the court struck down his executive order.

Kevin Martingayle, the attorney for the Chesapeake parents, says the group filed its lawsuit directly at the Supreme Court to save time and money and go to the final decision-maker as quickly as possible.

The Howell ruling shows that its appropriate when youre asking for this type of relief to file the case directly in the Supreme Court of Virginia, because it clearly worked in that case in 2016, and the rules havent changed, Martingayle said.

Secondly, the Supreme Court made the point in that opinion that the job of a governor is to follow and enforce the laws, and not just the ones you agree with, but it includes the ones you disagree with. And the flip side is not only are you to enforce the laws as governor, but you do not have the power to suspend the law.

The General Assembly passed a law last year to require K-12 schools to be open, but required the schools to follow CDC guidance to prevent COVID spread.

The legislation was a compromise between Republicans and Democrats. And because there was no way to know exactly what COVID mitigation would be needed in the future, the law simply says schools should adhere to whatever the CDC recommends at the time, Martingayle said.

Im neither a doctor nor a scientist, but I know how to read, he said. This was clearly a compromise, and it was designed to strike a good balance between in-person education and safety, and I think it actually did that.

But the attorney general, in the filing, argued that the 2021 law that requires schools to follow CDC guidelines does not conflict with Youngkins executive order and that neither that law nor the CDC guidelines require a mask mandate.

And even if the CDC issued something other than recommendations, Senate Bill 1303 would not require rigid adherence to every CDC promulgation; instead, the bill explicitly provides that in-person instruction should be provided in a manner which adheres to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies provided by the CDC for childcare and education programs, the attorney general wrote in the filing.
The musings of a famed Democratic phrase-maker notwithstanding, Ghazala Hashmi governs in poetry.

The first-term state senator, an academic whose district embraces parts of urban Richmond and suburban Chesterfield County and all of rural Powhatan County, adores poetry. She has since she was small girl growing up in the late 1960s in Statesboro, Ga., a racially riven former cotton town.

The Indian immigrant daughter of a political science professor at the local state university  he and her mother would recite to their three children the ancient poetry of the subcontinent, written in Urdu  Hashmi would borrow from the public library anthologies of poetry and copy by hand verse that moved, amused and informed her.

Mario Cuomo, the late governor of New York and orator par excellence, famously said, You campaign in poetry; you govern in prose. It was an ear-pleasing way of reminding the victors, but more importantly, their voters, that the lofty aspirations of politics ultimately yield to the gritty practicalities of policy.

But Hashmi, a Democrat who holds a doctorate in American poetry from Emory University and is the first Muslim woman elected to the Virginia Senate, has found a way to govern in poetry. It requires, however, planting tongue firmly in cheek.

On her Twitter feed, usually as the annual legislative session is taking an inevitable odd turn, often late at night, Hashmi  drawing from the vast catalogue of poetry that shes amassed since age 9  will blend the words of the crafts masters with an observation of her own. And she will do so in a manner that respects each poets signature style.

On Feb. 26, 2020, during her first months in office, Hashmi mused digitally shortly before midnight, borrowing from Shakespeares Julius Caesar, and with a bow to Mark Antony, a politician from long ago who knew something about a peril that to this day vexes the rackets practitioners: falling on ones sword.

Friends, Virginians, countrymen, lend me your ears, Hashmi wrote. I came to read Bills, not to sit around waiting for them. The nonsense that some men utter lives after them; Their well-thought efforts are oft buried amid piles of paper. So let it be within these Chambers.

Earlier that evening, Richmond-raised Edgar Allan Poes The Raven inspired a commentary on the inefficiency endemic to the General Assembly, if only because its work is defined by the inefficient process of forging consensus among 140 people from different parts of the state, with different agendas and different loyalties.

Hashmi tapped, Once upon a midnight dreary, while we pondered, weak & weary, over many a quaint stack of bills. While we nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping. As of someone gently rapping at the senate chamber door. Tis some Delegate, we muttered, Only this & nothing more.

A little over an hour later, Hashmi returned to Twitter, drawing again from Poes opus to grief, loss and love:

Round & round the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, soon again I heard a rapping, even louder than before! Surely, I said, those are Delegates at our Chamber door. Surely, they have brought stacks and stacks of bills to explore. But twas the wind & nothing more.

For Hashmi, a former administrator at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, the poetic is a means of understanding the prosaic; that exceptional prose can elevate ordinary politics.

For such a perspective, she turns to Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, T.S Eliot, Emily Dickinson, and other American poets who address in their work hope for the common man, frustration with rigid, often outdated, social conventions and optimism, tempered with realism, that society can improve for all.

I am always thinking in the context of poetry and philosophy, a masked Hashmi said during an interview in her office on the fifth floor of the interim General Assembly Building. What we go through on a day-to-day basis can be connected on a transcendent level. ... What tasks do we bring to this fight every day?

Sarah Graham Taylor, Alexandrias assistant city manager and its eyes and ears in Richmond, delights in Hashmis poetic posts, saying they are an instructive window on the legislature, offering an explanatory glimpse of a process that can be confusing even for veterans.

Its a different way of seeing what goes on here, said Taylor. Whereas some members put out a vitriolic tweet or put out a talking point, I appreciate that people like her push out thoughts about their perspective ... their life experience.

Hashmi has yet to share verse with the Twitter-verse this session. Its early days, though, with the General Assembly closing its first full week, one dominated by quarrels over masking, race, and the environment, between Democrats, whose limited power hangs on a one-seat majority in the Senate, and the new Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin.

Youngkins swearing-in this past Saturday included a poetry reading, a regular feature at inaugurals. Suparna Dutta of Fairfax, an engineer, Indian immigrant and Youngkin supporter attracted by his put-parents-in-charge education plank, read Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken, a poem widely viewed as an ode to lifes choices.

During the ceremony, which technically is a session of the General Assembly, Hashmi  while listening to Duttas reading  considered another poem by Frost, Fire and Ice, a nine-line reflection that touches on conflicting emotions, which, no doubt, were abundant with the transfer of power from a Democrat to a Republican.

Wrote Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what Ive tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin has appointed Carrie Roth to lead the Virginia Employment Commission, an embattled state agency that has struggled to process and pay almost 2 million claims for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roth, a Michigan native who grew up in Chesterfield County, has been a prominent Republican political appointee since the administration of Gov. George Allen more than 25 years ago and served as deputy secretary of commerce and trade under Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Her appointment, confirmed earlier on Friday by Youngkin press secretary Macaulay Porter, was among 19 appointees the governors office formally announced late Friday afternoon.

They include Matthew Moran as senior adviser to the governor. Moran is former chief of staff to then-House Speaker Kirk Cox, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination that Youngkin captured in May.

The governor also formally announced that Aubrey Layne, a Cabinet secretary under two Democratic governors, would serve as a special adviser for finance and budget issues, which Secretary of Finance Steve Cummings disclosed earlier this week.

Duncan Getchell, a former Virginia solicitor general and partner at McGuireWoods law firm, will serve as deputy counsel under the firms former chairman, Richard Cullen, who serves as Youngkins counselor.

Other appointments include Phil Wittmer as chief information officer at the Virginia Information Technologies Agency, replacing Nelson Moe, and Greg Campbell as director of aviation, replacing Mark Flynn.

Roths appointment at VEC follows the agencys struggle to handle claims for unemployment benefits and the mounting anger of tens of thousands of jobless Virginians to get the answers and help they needed from the state.

I look forward to seeing her plan on how we can work together to serve Virginians who are seeking benefits that they are due, said Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, a member of the Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee and the legislative Commission on Unemployment Compensation.

Roth served as president and CEO of the Virginia Bio+Tech Park in Richmond from 2013  after the retirement of former Allen Cabinet secretary Bob Skunda  until May 2020 and left her position as the parks chief operating officer in February 2021, when she founded an entrepreneurial consulting firm, Rerouted.

She also served as press secretary for Allen during his one term in the U.S. Senate.

Roth is a member of the Virginia Board of Workforce Development, reappointed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Gov. Ralph Northam, both Democrats.

She replaces Ellen Marie Hess, an attorney who had served as a state government employee for more than 25 years, including six as commissioner of the VEC. Unlikely to be reappointed by Youngkin, she announced her retirement to agency staff earlier this month.

Previously, Hess served as deputy commissioner at the Department of Motor Vehicles, another state agency, along with the VEC, that Youngkin has targeted for transformation in his emerging administration.

Youngkin has not yet named a replacement for longtime DMV Commissioner Rick Holcomb, who announced his retirement earlier this month.

Both agencies have been pilloried by Republicans critical of the states response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The VEC, in particular, has struggled to promptly handle unemployment claims after the pandemic triggered the loss of more than 400,000 jobs in one month in 2020s.

Hess was the defendant in a federal lawsuit filed last spring by advocates for five unemployed women. The legal action became a de facto class action suit that U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson dismissed last month after finding that the state agency had satisfied the terms of a settlement agreement reached last May to improve its performance.
The Virginia Department of Corrections in 2018 closed an investigation into an incident in which an investigator believed a prison supervisor choked a restrained inmate, taking no disciplinary action.

But after the Richmond Times-Dispatch recently obtained a video of the incident, the director said he would refer the case to a local prosecutor for review.

Virginia Department of Corrections Director Harold Clarke said through a spokesman that he had concerns about video footage showing what a former prison investigator concluded was a supervisor choking an inmate who was tied down by his arms, legs and chest. But Clarke wouldnt acknowledge that the video shows the supervisors hand on the inmates neck.

The Times-Dispatch sent the video footage to the DOC after obtaining it from Brian Mitchell, a former investigator at Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Buchanan County who lives in Tazewell County. Mitchell, who left his job in March, investigated the incident.

He said a prison supervisor choked an inmate who was in five-point restraints, violating DOC policy. Mitchell said an investigator with the Special Investigations Unit  the departments internal police force  closed the investigation without any punishment for any of the officers.

Mitchell said he was providing the DOC video footage and records to The Times-Dispatch because the incident was an example of excessive force by a supervisor that the department kept quiet. The cover-up appeared to begin almost instantaneously: An officer assigned to record the entire interaction with the inmate points the camera toward a wall as soon as the supervisor appears to grab the inmates neck.

The incident happened on Aug. 21, 2018, after the inmate was removed from his cell in an extraction because he wouldnt comply with orders to come out. The inmates arms, legs and chest were restrained in a medical cell when the unit manager, Dwayne A. Turner, grabbed the inmates neck and choked him, Mitchell said.

The inmate  The Times-Dispatch is not publishing his name because the newspaper was unable to reach him  also alleged during the recording that Turner had punched him during the cell extraction.

The DOC video shows the man who wouldnt come out of his cell being put in restraints. He said he wasnt getting answers from DOC about where he would be housed. I just want to know where Im going and whats happening, he said.

Officers cut off his white shirt to remove it. He complained that Turner punched him and lectured Turner, cursing at him and calling him a scumbag. He made a quick movement of his head and Turner responded by placing his right hand on the mans head and his left hand on his neck while pushing his head down.

I didnt try to bite nobody, the restrained man said.

Turner, who is now the chief of housing and programs at Red Onion State Prison, declined through a DOC spokesman to be interviewed.

Mitchell became an investigator at the prison in 2016 and reported to the warden after starting a DOC career in 1999.

He said the video footage clearly shows Turners hand move to the inmates neck and choke him. But the DOC officer operating a camera to record the incident immediately pans the camera to the right and films a wall, so the full incident cannot be seen. The camera operator then refocused on the inmate after about 10 seconds.

A special agent in the departments Special Investigations Unit watched the footage and then interviewed Turner with Mitchell present.

Mitchell said he was stunned to hear the special agent ask a leading question: It looks on film like he spit on you.

Turner responded that the inmate had spit on him, Mitchell said.

I was just shocked, Mitchell said. None of the officers can be heard accusing the inmate of spitting, and the video doesnt appear to show him spitting.

The special agent, Jesse Wagner, declined to be interviewed for this story.

Had the inmate spit, the appropriate response would not be choking but rather a spit mask, Mitchell said.

Benjamin Jarvela, a spokesman for the DOC, said earlier this month that agency leadership had some concerns after watching the video, and they turned information over to the Buchanan commonwealths attorney for review.

If the Commonwealths Attorney decides that further investigation or legal action is necessary, we will proceed based on that recommendation, he wrote in an email.

He said the officer turning the camera away at the point of contact is a problem that created uncertainty about what happened and violated department procedure. But he said Clarke, the director, could not conclude that the inmate was choked.

This footage does not make it clear if the staff members hands were on his neck or chin and the inmates large beard and extensive head and neck tattoos only compound the difficulty in making a determination, Jarvela wrote. The video, however, does not show extensive neck tattoos.

Jarvela said the inmate also made repeated aggressive head movements and never complained about being choked and Turner believed the inmate was trying to bite him.

Mitchell, who in 2018 provided still images of the incident to the warden, disagreed. He said Turners hand is clearly on the inmates neck and, because Turner was wearing a blue glove, his hand is visible. The inmates tattoos dont obstruct the view in any way, Mitchell said. The video reviewed by The Times-Dispatch matches Mitchells description.

In their written documentation of the incident, the officers in the cell made no mention of the inmate trying to spit on or bite Turner and made no mention of any choking.

Mitchell said he heard through his networks that some people who worked at the prison werent happy with him, badmouthed him and his investigations, and he feels like he was retaliated against.

There were people there that never treated me like they did before, he said.

His team members were given different duties at times besides investigations and, in 2020 and 2021, fell behind on federal Prison Rape Elimination Act investigations because of the added workload, he said. But Mitchell said he didnt want to be part of what he called a code of silence in the state correctional system. He left his job for medical reasons.
On Jan. 10, in response to a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases, then-Gov. Ralph Northam issued a 30-day emergency order to increase Virginias hospital capacity and support health care workers during the pandemic. This order highlights the essential role of health care workers, including Virginias 13,000-plus nurse practitioners , in providing patient care as our country continues to deal with the effects of the coronavirus .

In 2021, the General Assembly recognized the value of NPs by passing legislation that allowed people with more than two years of clinical experience to practice autonomously. The bill followed Northams April 2020 executive order which, in response to Virginias COVID-19 state of emergency, reduced the number of years of experience NPs needed to practice independently from five to two.

Virginia is one of a few states that restrict NP practice by requiring supervision, delegation or team management by another health care provider in order for NPs to provide patient care, whether in a paid or volunteer role. For states that do impose an experience requirement, the limit is two or three years. Unfortunately, the 2021 session legislation was passed with a sunset provision, meaning that unless a new bill is passed this year, Virginia NPs are at risk of returning to a five-year autonomous practice requirement.

Virginias collaborative rule ties the ability of the NP to provide patient care to the supply and availability of the physician workforce. In addition, studies show states that restrict NP practice are more likely to have geographic health care disparities, higher chronic disease burden, primary care shortages, higher costs of care and lower standings on national health rankings.

NPs are advanced practice registered nurses with masters (and often doctorate) degrees, as well as extensive clinical training in the diagnosis and management of common and complex medical conditions. There currently are more than 1,850 NPs with autonomous licenses in Virginia. Many of them have used their credentials to deliver much-needed telemedicine services, volunteer to administer COVID vaccines or care for patients in communities with limited providers.

Regulation of APRNs varies by state. But in 2008, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing developed a Consensus Model, which provides structural recommendations for state legislatures and boards . Although Virginia has been moving toward alignment with this model, the commonwealth does not grant independent practice to all APRNs.

A recent study by the Virginia Department of Health Professions indicates that granting NPs autonomous practice may increase supply without reducing quality of care. Furthermore, DHP recommends granting independent practice authority to all APRNs in the commonwealth . A separate study by the Virginia Board of Nursing, undertaken at the request of the General Assembly, supports a two-year requirement or the complete elimination of the practice agreement for NPs.

At a time when communities are having trouble recruiting and retaining physicians, NPs  especially ones with autonomous licenses  are crucial to providing access to primary and specialty care, including mental health and substance abuse treatment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States lost 17,500 health care employees in September. The agency also is projecting more than 50% employment growth for NPs by 2029.

Even with autonomous licensure, NPs regularly consult and collaborate with health care colleagues. In fact, a study examining how regulatory environments affect NP practice and quality of care found that those in states with independent practice were more likely to refer to physician colleagues.

Making the two-year regulation permanent allows NPs to remain in Virginia, and provide primary and specialty care  especially in rural and underserved areas rather than leaving the commonwealth to work or volunteer elsewhere. It allows patients to develop relationships with their providers, which is essential for continuity of care. It also encourages NPs to develop innovative practice models, volunteer in free or mobile clinics without the restriction of a mandated collaborating physician, and expands access to care in all specialties.

Recent regulatory changes have significantly increased the number of NPs who can practice autonomously and provide patient care. Lawmakers should support legislation that permanently increases access to health care for all Virginians.
Decisions for public good

As noted in recent news stories, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said that parents have a fundamental right to make decisions for their childrens upbringing, their education and their care in regard to public school mask mandates. Though I agree with our new governor, there also are limits: We must consider everyones rights. The decision of one parent can have an impact on others.

For example, if children have head lice, they are sent home from school until they receive treatment. Parents cannot bypass this by saying lice are normal and they have a right to refuse treatment of their child and therefore can send their child to school with lice. In the same way, during a pandemic, parents should not make decisions contrary to the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other medical experts. Decisions made for public education by those placed in positions of authority should reflect the public good, not politics.
Invoking the golden rule

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Recently we have seen mandates and other methods of compulsion used to increase vaccination rates against COVID-19. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a COVID vaccine mandate for workers at hospitals, but blocked a vaccine-or-test requirement for large private companies.

We would not want someone to force something into our bodies, so we should not force something into someone elses. There is no civil penalty for refusing surgery, chemotherapy or CPR. This is consistent with our values of autonomy and personal determination.

Yet in the case of tuberculosis, Virginia law allows the health department to confine and require treatment of an infected individual. Similar laws are present in other states. Tuberculosis has been around for thousands of years, and it used to kill many people. Today, tuberculosis is rare in the U.S. because of changes our society made.

Do we want tuberculosis to enter our body because someone else made a decision to forgo treatment? No. We do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We dont want to infect someone. We dont want them to infect us.

Mark Domanski.
When Angelique Kidjo was a child, she told her mother that she wanted to be James Brown. Fortunately for audiences around the world, she grew up to be Angelique Kidjo.

The Brooklyn, New York-based, West African native has long been at world musics pinnacle. On Thursday, Virginia Tech brought her to Moss Arts Center for her first performance there, part of the universitys MLK celebrations.

The woman from Benin delivered 90 minutes of music with two encores, most of it derived from her 2021 album, Mother Nature, along with selections from 2019s Celia and 2018s Remain in Light.

Her audience roared a greeting as she took the stage, dressed in electrifying blue-green. Early on, she was pulling from the new album, singing Africa, One of a Kind. She punctuated the music with a yankadi dance, gesturing to the audience as she sang, You are Africa, we are Africa.

Magatte Sow (aka Magatte Fall) on African percussion and Chilean drummer Edgardo Yayo Serka on the trap set had primed the crowd for the stars entrance. Their short rolls and three sharp attacks built expectations. Then, from off-stage came that world-famous voice.

Michael Olatujas bass playing anchored the evening. London-born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, the New York-based artist danced and sang in collaboration with Brooklyn-based guitarist Dominic James. James solos provided the quintessential glitter of mbira-like counterpoint expected in Afro-pop. His rhythm guitar often subbed for the albums horn arrangements.

Both Olatuja and James provided responses aplenty to Kidjos calls.

With the third number, Take It or Leave It, the group achieved its first stage of full-on, in-your-face (if you want to dance with me) energy. The groups combined dum-dum-BAH power shook the space.

Kidjos Celia Cruz album pays tribute to the queen of salsa with the goal of exploring Cruzs African roots. The sets fifth song, Sahara, was a miracle of a slow Afro-Cuban beat baking in the imagined sun.

Kidjos new song, Dignity, addressed recent police brutality in Lagos. She prefaced the song with its connection to police violence here. The musicians live mix enveloped the crowd in a sound intended to, as the lyric says, spread love to all equally and plant the seeds of radical beauty.

A highlight came with Kidjos take on Talking Heads Once in a Lifetime, each return of the signature line lighting up the room, Afrobeat-style.

She shifted band and crowd into overdrive with Meant for Me, from the new album. As per usual, Kidjo demanded audience participation. Virginia can move! Lets do this! Virginia did. A conga line of young men crossed the center of the hall, flanked by different pockets of singing and dancing.

As if in testament to her James Brown-loving roots, she delivered the nights final song in total funk fashion  a terrific close. After she left the stage, the band brought down the house with prodigious final chords.

Gordon Marsh is a music professor at Roanoke College
ROCKY MOUNT  Construction on a new communications tower in Westlake is expected to begin in the coming weeks following the approval by the Franklin County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The Westlake tower will be the last of eight new communications towers constructed in the county to provide fixed wireless broadband internet service to residents. Franklin County entered into a contract with Blue Ridge Towers to build the towers in areas of the county in need of high speed internet.

Approval of the location of the Westlake tower directly behind Grand Home Furnishings has been on hold for several months due to its proximity to Booker T. Washington National Monument located less than a half mile away. Negotiations have been ongoing between Blue Ridge Towers, the Federal Communications Commission and the State Historic Preservation Office over the impact of the tower on the parks viewshed.

With those negotiations nearing an end, supervisors on Tuesday pushed to get construction moving. The county has an April deadline to complete the tower in order to receive grant funding.

The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development awarded Franklin County with a Virginia Telecommunications Initiative grant for $2.4 million in 2020 for the construction of fixed wireless towers in the county. The original deadline to complete the project was last October, but was extended last year to April.

When questioned by multiple supervisors how Booker T. Washington National Monument had the authority to hold up construction, Park Superintendent Robin Snyder said the Federal Communications Commission and the State Historic Preservation Office become involved whenever a communications tower is proposed within a half mile of a national park. She said, if the tower was moved beyond a half mile, they would have no authority.

If it would have just been another half mile down the road, we wouldnt have engaged in this process, Snyder said. This process is designed to protect areas of national significance, to protect your public lands. As a steward of the National Park Service, Ive really just been doing my job.

Through negotiations over the past few months, the towers height has been reduced from 195 feet to 160 feet to lessen its visibility from the park. The tower will also be a monopine design that will resemble an evergreen tree.

Two points of debate at Tuesdays meeting was a request to maintain a 100 foot buffer on the western side of the property where the tower would be located and a request to donate funds to the Friends of Booker T. Washington National Monument to plant trees at the park that will block the view of the tower.

Blue Ridge Towers President Anthony Smith said the 100 foot buffer could possibly impact the number of homes he eventually plans to construct on the property in the future. Smith is the owner of the property.

Smith also agreed to donate $10,000 to the Friends of Booker T. Washington National Monument to plant trees. Snyder questioned if the amount would be enough for want would be needed.

While supervisors questioned if the project had reached an impasse, Smith asked for a vote to approve the project as is and they would work with the park to finalize the rest. I think we are down to the very, very smallest of details, he said. We dont plan on playing hardball on either of those details.

Following discussion, Rocky Mount District representative Mike Carter apologized to Smith for the delays in getting the project moving forward. He then moved to approved the project. Supervisors unanimously voted in favor.
PHNOM PENH, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Friday said the government allowed all patients infected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in the country to get treatment at home if they want.

"Now, Omicron patients are no longer required to undergo treatment at the COVID-19 designated hospitals because we have found that Omicron, even though it spreads fast, but it has lower severity than Delta and Alpha variants," he said in an audio message released publicly.

Hun Sen said all foreigners, if testing positive for the Omicron variant, can undergo treatment wherever they want such as at embassies, hospitals, or hotels.

Locals can receive at-home treatment but must strictly follow regulations and treatment procedures set out by the Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, the prime minister said all Omicron patients, who are currently being treated in the COVID-19 designated hospitals, can immediately leave for treatment at home, hotels or wherever they prefer.

He said that from now on, all COVID-19 patients with the Delta, Alpha or Omicron variant can undergo treatment at home.

Since the pandemic hit the Southeast Asian country in January 2020, Cambodia has registered a total of 120,956 cases, with 3,015 deaths and 117,180 recoveries, according to the health ministry.

So far, the kingdom has administered at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to 14.32 million people, or 89.5 percent of its 16 million population, the ministry said, adding that 13.72 million people, or 85.8 percent, are fully vaccinated with receiving two required shots.

Most of the vaccines used in the country's inoculation program are China's Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines. 
CHRISTIANSBURG  The Montgomery County School Board on Thursday voted 4-2 to keep an indoor masking mandate in place, a move that follows a state law passed last year but runs counter to an order Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued shortly after he formally took office.

With the vote, Montgomery County Public Schools became one of the latest districts in the state to continue requiring masks within school buildings in light of Youngkins recent and much debated order to lift the mandate. School boards across the state are now voting in different ways on the issue, and some are asking for more direction from Youngkins administration.

Jamie Bond and Dana Partin were the Montgomery County board members who voted against the measure Thursday night, with the two elected officials echoing the viewpoints of several parents who spoke out during the meeting and argued that masking should be a parental choice instead of a condition imposed by the school district.

The school boards vote reaffirms a decision the elected body made back in August when it narrowly approved following the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions guidance for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in schools  a condition SB 1303 specifically dictates.

While the federal health agency has adjusted some of its guidance on other points over the past few months, it has maintained its recommendation of indoor masking in K-12 settings for anyone 2 years old and older  students, teachers, staff and visitors  regardless of vaccination status.

Just as Thursdays decision came amid the ongoing surge of the highly transmissible omicron variant, the vote this past summer occurred around the same time as the rise of the past delta variant.

One fact MCPS officials highlighted to school board members was the reporting of 238 COVID-19 cases among students and staff just last week alone, a figure they said exceeded the monthly totals in almost every month this school year.

School board member Penny Franklin pointed to that figure, among other things, in her support of continuing masking for the time being.

That [figure] just says loud and clear there is an issue we need to make sure we stay on top of, she said.

Franklin said she is personally looking forward to when the district no longer requires masking indoors, but she added that another variant is surging. Research shows that it seems to generally cause milder symptoms than previous variants, but is still highly contagious, she said.

Its still making people sick, Franklin said.

Before voting Thursday, the board heard from several parents and area residents who voiced opposing views on the matter and reflected the greater polarization over the topic of the pandemic.

While some speakers voiced strong support for continued masking indoors and described it as a reasonable condition given the ongoing circumstances, others argued that the decision should be left up to parents. Some also voiced widely disputed claims about masking and the science over COVID-19, including the argument that the face coverings are largely ineffective.

Mike Scarry, whose children attend Christiansburg Primary and Christiansburg Elementary schools, said he knows masks arent considered perfect, but remain among the strongest tools for preventing the spread of the virus.

Theyre one of the best tools we have to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and are a far better option than, say, surveillance testing, in my opinion, said Scarry, who voiced support for continuing the indoor masking requirement.

Another point Scarry touched on  and which others, including some school board members, brought up  is the fact children are required to be up to date on their vaccinations to attend school. He said he doesnt view masking as much different of a subject. He said parents can choose to not vaccinate their children, but would also not be allowed to enroll them in public schools.

Ashley Bond, a Christiansburg resident, said shes not against people who choose to mask. She, however, argued the issue is a parental rights one.

Our rights as parents have been stripped from us and left to a few school board members, said Bond, who spoke out against a continued indoor masking mandate. Why should the school board be the authority on my childrens health instead of me as their parent?

Bond said shes aware of the CDC guidance, but said its still not legislation. She said school officials have also been diligent about monitoring students and quickly sending them home when they begin showing signs of illness.

This is not a law or mandate. Its a recommendation, she said about the CDC guidance. Parents know whats best for their kids.

The school board members who voted against the masking requirement reiterated some of the points shared by the speakers against the mandate, particularly the issue of parental choice.

Jamie Bond said she found it unfair that the viewpoints of some families didnt seem to be taken more seriously.

I have a different opinion and lots of other parents in this county have a different opinion, she said. You have to hear the families that do think differently.

Partin referenced some previous research shared by New River Health District director Noelle Bissell, who has frequently come before the school board since the start of the pandemic to share various data on the virus and the crisis in general.

Partin said it was her understanding from some research shared by Bissell that there appeared to only be a minute difference in COVID-19 infections between children who regularly mask and those who dont mask.

I thought that was pretty interesting, said Partin, who later added that other mitigation measures such as the air filtration one are still in place.

Partin said the virtual school option also remains for students who dont feel safe attending in person.

Its time for parents to have a choice, she said. The executive order [from Youngkin] does not say were taking away masks. Any parent that wants their child to be masked, the masking will continue.

School board chairwoman Sue Kass, however, said the idea is to try to keep people as safe as possible and reiterated the previously expressed point about children needing to be up to date on vaccinations before attending school.

And so therefore what were saying is you cant go to school unless they wear a mask, Kass said.

While board members on either side of the issue referenced Bissells past presentation in making their points, the health district directors most recent comments on masking do seem to support the school divisions reaffirmed policy.

Bissell told the school board last week that masks should remain in place, especially as the area and the rest of the state is experiencing a surge due to omicron. She even addressed the different kinds of masks, including the N95 that many experts now strongly recommend over the surgical counterparts.

Bissell, however, did say there is hope that the transition to an endemic, which is when masking requirements could start being, could start after the ongoing omicron surge. She said theres been encouraging data from certain countries, which came off of surges as quickly as they went up.

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ROCKY MOUNT  A push by a local militia to garner support from the Franklin County Board of Supervisors may be coming to a vote as early as next month.

Members of the Franklin County Militia urged supervisors during Tuesday's public comment period to pass a resolution recognizing volunteerism and the need for a militia in the county. Supporters of the militia have spoken during the public comment period of meeting for the past few months asking for recognition.

Before hearing comments from militia supporters, supervisors discussed the resolution and the need for volunteerism in the county. Blue Ridge District representative Tim Tatum said he was in support of a resolution affirming the rights of citizens to volunteer.

Boone District representative Ronnie Thompson agreed with statements by Tatum. He asked the county attorney to draw up a resolution for volunteers that could be approved next month.

Neither Thompson or Tatum mentioned the Franklin County Militia specifically by name.

Two Franklin County residents spoke out against the militia on Tuesday. Larry Moore and Glenna Moore questioned the need for a militia in the county.

"One thing is for sure, this county does not need an unorganized, paramilitary organization carrying weapons," Larry Moore said.

Moore urged supervisors not to approve the resolution. He said, once the county recognizes the militia, "you own them."

Glenna Moore said the militia was present at a Black Lives Matter rally in Rocky Mount last year. She said two members of the militia was there wearing military clothing and weapons around unarmed adults and young children.

Moore said she felt more secure at the rally with the protection of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office and the Rocky Mount Police Department. The two departments are accountable for their actions, she said.

"What would be the county's liability if my grandchildren had been harmed by a reckless militia that has the stamp of approval from the board of supervisors?" Moore asked.

Nearly a dozen supporters of the Franklin County Militia spoke on Tuesday asking the supervisors to approve a resolution they provided to the board. The resolution states Franklin County's support of volunteers as well as "affirm the right of all able-bodied residents of Franklin County to volunteer for lawful service in the National Guard, Virginia Defense Force or the Unorganized Militia."

Brian Wood, chairman of the Franklin County Militia, spoke along with nearly a dozen other attendees in support of the resolution on Tuesday. In response to questions asked concerning whether militia members would be willing to join volunteer fire or rescue departments in the county, he said members of the militia do already serve in some of those departments. He also said volunteering in those departments was not the same as being part of a militia since they don't exercise or protect Second Amendment rights.

Wood urged a vote on the resolution to see which supervisors were in support of the militia. "It would be nice to know who among our local elected public servants would affirm our right to volunteer where we choose to do so," he said. "The people also deserve to know who among their elected public servants stands in opposition to their Second Amendment right to serve in a well regulated militia."

By passing the resolution, Wood said supervisors would only be affirming the militia's rights. "The county is not recognizing a militia. It is not authorizing a militia. The county does not have those powers."

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Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced a new executive order Thursday to provide more flexibility to the states health care system during the latest COVID-19 case surge.

During his first visit to Roanoke since being inaugurated last weekend, Youngkin also personally re-emphasized his new administrations policy shift away from immunization requirements.

As your governor, I will not mandate the vaccine, he said.

But as your neighbor and as your friend, I am strongly encouraging you to please get it.

Youngkin made the announcements as he toured Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital and the new community testing center at Valley View Mall, which opened Thursday.

Youngkin said he signed Executive Order number 11 to add bed capacity to hospitals and nursing homes, better utilize staff during the ongoing shortage, and expand the use of telemedicine to help combat the rise of COVID-19.

The health care professionals that have been giving everything theyve got for two years in this pandemic are starting to get worn out, Youngkin said. This executive order provides much-needed flexibility to our health care system.

The order authorizes any hospital or nursing home to increase its bed capacity without further approval or the issuance of a new license. The need for further bed capacity will be determined by the state health commissioner, according to the executive order.

A licensed practical nurse can administer the COVID-19 vaccine without the supervision of a registered nurse or licensed medical practitioner. And under the new order, the ratio of pharmacy technicians to supervisors will be increased to allow more people to work at a time.

Additionally, any health care practitioner, pharmacist or pharmacy technician licensed by another state will be allowed to practice in Virginia as long as they are in good standing with the state that issued their license.

I believe this executive order is critical to addressing the staffing crisis that we are having across Virginia, Youngkin said. We have to address this by providing flexibility and tapping into out-of-state workers.

The latest surge of COVID-19 cases, largely driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant, has exacerbated staff shortages and increased demand for testing. Virginia reported more than 14,000 new cases Thursday.

Youngkin said he was frustrated that Virginia lacked the necessary tests to meet demand. As part of his COVID-19 action plan, he worked with White House staff to expedite an order of 500,000 rapid antigen tests and put in an order for another 500,000.

This week, the federal government began taking orders for free rapid tests it will ship to households across the nation. Every address is entitled to four tests, regardless of household size or risk of developing severe illness.

In the meantime, he encouraged those who are asymptomatic to stay home and avoid testing in order to help alleviate the shortage.

The COVID-19 action plan also addressed Youngkins initiative to encourage Virginians to get the vaccine.

Youngkin said his plan will focus on communication and outreach efforts to areas where vaccination rates are the lowest. He said the language around the vaccine so far has been clinical and removed from those who have chosen not to be vaccinated.

He said he plans to make the messaging more interactive and bring in spokespeople who are relatable and closer to the community.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch contributed information to this report.

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RICHMOND  To the disappointment of leaders in Vinton and Salem, a state law that moved municipal elections from May to November is unlikely to change, after a bill filed by Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, was defeated in committee.

Since chartering, Salem and Vinton held elections for mayor and town council in May, until a law was passed in 2021 with a tiebreaking Senate vote, moving all municipal elections to November. Elected town and city leaders now face the reality of sharing ballot and billboard space with state and national races.

Suetterleins bill, Senate Bill 147, attempted to narrow the existing law by only requiring November local elections in cities with more than 200,000 residents. It was defeated by a vote of 9-6 in the Virginia Senate Local Government Committee earlier this week.

The vast majority of our towns chose to have their elections in May, Suetterlein said to the Senate committee. By moving all those elections to November  they will run down-ballot from discussions of critical race theory, or presidential politics and foreign policy.

Proponents addressing the committee, including Salem Mayor Renee Turk, said its important that municipal elections are held in May, to prevent nonpartisan local issues from being lost in the frenzy of federal or state races.

Small cities and towns feel very strongly about keeping local elections in May, Turk said. It may be a lower turnout  but informed citizens are who come out to vote, those that know the local issues.

Turk added that it is less expensive to run for local elections in May, when advertising space is not facing competition from larger campaigns.

Despite similar testimony from other elected leaders in small cities and towns across Virginia, the 15-member Senate Local Government Committee voted against SB 147. Eight Democrats and one Republican voted against it, while six Republicans, including Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, voted in support.

In Vinton, town council has actively avoided politics, but there is now concern for that dynamic to be disrupted in future elections, said Mayor Brad Grose.

May elections attract people who are solely interested in giving back to the community and feel like they have something to contribute, Grose said. My biggest fear is that November elections will infuse politics in a big way.

Whereas in the past, towns and cities could decide whether they want to hold elections in November, the possibility has been eliminated by a state decision, against the input of impacted localities.

We as a town and our citizens should have the right to choose when to hold the election, Grose said. Its taken away our option.

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Virginia schools have a $25 billion problem  facilities in underfunded school districts that desperately need to be repaired or replaced.

Those waiting to hear how newly minted Gov. Glenn Youngkin plans to address this problem are still waiting. (Admittedly, its only been a few days.)

But as for the education initiatives he has proposed: Already, theres a lawsuit.

Youngkins executive order forbidding mask mandates in Virginia schools, part of a purported effort to put parents back in charge of their kids education, has inspired a group of parents in Chesapeake to mount a legal challenge claiming Youngkins order breaks state law.

So much for avoiding divisive concepts. While some school districts are rushing to make masks a matter of parents choice, encouraged by the governors implicit permission, others, such as Arlington and Richmond, have vowed to gird for battle to keep their mandates.

Intriguingly, the Roanoke County School Board, which jumped the gun in shedding school masking requirements on Jan. 4 and did a whoopsie-daisy retraction two days later, has adopted a wait-and-see approach, underscoring that Youngkins order does raise legal concerns.

The state law in question, signed by Democratic governor Ralph Northam in March 2021, requires that Virginia school districts offer in-person classes under conditions that follow the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Those guidelines at present call for universal indoor masking for all students, staff and visitors to K-12 schools.

Raising further concerns, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears dropped hints in a Fox News interview that school districts that defy the order might have state funding withheld. Youngkin has not denied this possibility.

Last year, as mask mandate debates roiled the Franklin County School Board, a Carilion doctor who treats COVID patients gave a presentation that didnt quite sync with either side. He cited studies showing that requiring masks for kids didnt have much effect on the spread of the virus, but requiring masks for the adults in the room definitely did.

Get vaccinated. Especially adults, he said.

This suggests there can be nuance to the mask debate  and such nuance gets steamrolled flat by a broad command to make mask-wearing in schools an every person for themselves decision.

Mask wearing shows consideration for the health of others, whatever the wearers actual risk might be. COVID-19 has killed more than 850,000 Americans, and policies mandating masks, however inconvenient, are meant to prevent more deaths. Even if one considers mask mandates government overreach, responding by overreaching in the opposite direction bodes ill, quite literally.

Speaking of overreach, lets circle back to that notion of avoiding divisive concepts. That language comes from another executive order, proclaiming an aim to restore excellence in education by ending the use of inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory.

We put critical race theory in quotes because that term has a very specific academic definition, but in the re-branded context used by conservative advocates, its more of an umbrella term for leftist political correctness gone wild.

Education officials at all levels have said critical race theory is not being taught in K-12 schools, but whats being taught is only part of Youngkins driving concern. The order gives a sense of what anti-CRT activists really have in mind, as it directs new Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow to scour all policies, programs, training, or curricula for signs of inherently divisive concepts and report back with an action plan for stamping them out. (Balow, a Republican, has spent the last seven years as Wyomings superintendent of public instruction, which in that state is an elected office.)

The order targets some specific documents and initiatives overseen by Balows predecessor, James Lane, among those a February 2019 memo in which Lane assembled a reading list for school division leaders considering how to handle discussions about racism. As an addendum to the memo, Lane wrote that the list is not a resource or directive for classroom teachers, nor does it reflect recommended or required student reading. The list includes White Fragility by bestselling author Robin DiAngelo, one of the texts most villainized by anti-CRT activists.

The addendum also contains Lanes fruitless protest, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not included in the Virginia Standards of Learning  Nowhere in the standards is there a requirement for schools to teach critical race theory.

Youngkins order puts an end to the still-under-development Virginia Math Pathways Initiative, a program touted as a new method of teaching math that integrates the various disciplines in ways that appeal to a wider variety of students, but lambasted by mostly conservative critics who see it as a mechanism for eliminating advanced math courses in the name of achieving equity among student GPAs  the sort of thing Youngkin appears to have had in mind when he channeled George W. Bush in his first address to the General Assembly, lamenting the soft bigotry of low expectations. In past interviews, Lane insisted accelerated math curriculums werent going away, which didnt save the program from Youngkins ax.

It would be interesting to compare Youngkins order seeking to stamp out critical race theory with the actual bill introduced by freshman Del. Wren Williams, RPatrick, made instantly internationally infamous as a result of a groan-worthy factual error included in the bills language. However, thats a topic for another column.

The order continues Youngkins have-it-both-ways approach, underscoring that the teaching of history should incorporate the horrors of American slavery and segregation, and our countrys treatment of Native Americans and the heroic efforts of Americans in the Civil Rights Movement. Theres a sort of cold comfort in seeing these unpleasant facets of American history theoretically exempted from the inherently divisive purge, but how will this pan out in practice for teachers, with institutionalized racism a potentially forbidden subject?

Despite claims that eliminating critical race theory will remove politics from the classroom, its Republicans and Republicans only making the call as to what constitutes an inherently divisive concept and marking these concepts for cancellation, i.e. censorship. You might as well call it curriculum gerrymandering.
Researchers on Thursday reported the latest in a surprising string of experiments in the quest to save human lives with organs from genetically modified pigs.

This time around, surgeons in Alabama transplanted a pigs kidneys into a brain-dead man  a step-by-step rehearsal for an operation they hope to try in living patients possibly later this year.

For the newest experiment, UAB teamed with Revivicor, the Blacksburg-based subsidiary of United Therapeutics that also provided organs for the recent heart transplant in Maryland and the kidney experiment in New York.

Revivicor, headquartered in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, focuses on the science of xenotransplantation, or transplanting organs between different species. The company alters the DNA of pigs to successfully transplant hearts, kidneys and lungs into human patients.

Company scientists made 10 genetic changes to these pigs, knocking out some genes that trigger a human immune attack and make the animals organs grow too large  and adding some human genes so the organs look less foreign to peoples immune systems.

The organ shortage is in fact an unmitigated crisis and weve never had a real solution to it, said Dr. Jayme Locke of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who led the newest study and aims to begin a clinical trial of pig kidney transplants.

Similar experiments have made headlines in recent months as research into animal-to-human transplants heats up.

Twice this fall, surgeons at New York University temporarily attached a pigs kidney to blood vessels outside the body of a deceased recipient to watch them work. And earlier this month, surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center gave a dying man a heart from a gene-edited pig that so far is keeping him alive.

But scientists still needed to learn more about how to test such transplants without risking a patients life. With the help of a family who donated a loved ones body for science, Locke mimicked the way human organ transplants are done  from removing the pig donor kidneys to sewing them inside the deceased mans abdomen.

For a little over three days, until the mans body was removed from life support, the pair of pig kidneys survived with no sign of immediate rejection, her team reported Thursday in the American Journal of Transplantation.

That was only one of several key findings. Locke said it wasnt clear if delicate pig kidney blood vessels could withstand the pounding force of human blood pressure  but they did. One kidney was damaged during removal from the pig and didnt work properly but the other rapidly started producing urine as a kidney should. No pig viruses were transmitted to the recipient, and no pig cells were found in his bloodstream.

But Locke said the kidney experiment could have more far-reaching impact  because it shows that a brain-dead body can be a much-needed human model to test potential new medical treatments.

The research was conducted in September after Jim Parsons, a 57-year-old Alabama man, was declared brain-dead from a dirt bike racing accident.

After hearing this kind of research had the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives, we knew without a doubt that that was something that Jim would have definitely put his seal of approval on, said Julie OHara, Parsons ex-wife.

The need for another source of organs is huge: While more than 41,000 transplants were performed in the U.S. last year, a record, more than 100,000 people remain on the national waiting list. Thousands die every year before getting an organ and thousands more never even get added to the list, considered too much of a long shot.

Animal-to-human transplants have been attempted without success for decades. Peoples immune systems almost instantly attack the foreign tissue. But scientists now have new techniques to edit pig genes so their organs are more human-like  and some are anxious to try again.

The recent string of pig experiments is a big step forward, said Dr. David Kaczorowski of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Moving on to first-stage trials in potentially dozens of people is becoming more and more feasible.

A heart transplant surgeon, Kaczorowski has done experiments testing pig organs in non-human primates that helped pave the way but there are only things we can learn by transplanting them into humans.

Hurdles remain before formal testing in people begins, including deciding who would qualify to test a pig organ, said Karen Maschke, a research scholar at the Hastings Center who will help develop ethics and policy recommendations for the first clinical trials under a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Scientists also still have much to learn about how long pig organs survive and how best to genetically alter them, cautioned Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, who led that centers kidney experiments in the fall.

I think different organs will require different genetic modifications, he said in an email.

Then there are practical questions such as how to minimize time spent getting pig organs to their destination. UAB housed the altered pigs in a germ-free facility in Birmingham complete with an operating room-like space to remove the organs and ready them for transplant.

Revivicor raises pigs for research on its farm in Montgomery County.

Chief scientific officer David Ayares of Revivicor said future plans include building more such facilities near transplant centers.

Revivicor began as the U.S. subsidiary of a Scottish company, PPL Therapeutics, which famously cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996. PPL Therapeutics purchased TransPharm, a Blacksburg company working to produce human therapeutic proteins in cows, in the early 1990s.

United Therapeutics acquired Revivicor in 2011.

The Roanoke Times contributed information to this story.
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SEOUL, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's export logged double-digit growth in the first 20 days of January owing to the continued recovery in global demand, customs office data showed Friday.

Export, which takes up about half of the export-driven economy, amounted to 34.4 billion U.S. dollars in the Jan. 1 to Jan. 20 period, up 22 percent from the same period of last year, according to Korea Customs Service.

Semiconductor and automotive export jumped more than 20 percent, and oil products shipment soared 84 percent on higher price for global crude oil in the 20-day period.

Export for home appliances more than doubled in the period, but the shipment of telecommunication devices such as smartphones tumbled 40.4 percent.

Export to China, South Korea's biggest trading partner, gained 18.8 percent for the first 20 days of this month, and those to the United States and the European Union expanded 28 percent and 15.8 percent each.

Import spiked 38.4 percent to 40 billion dollars in the 20-day period, sending the trade deficit to 5.6 billion dollars.

Crude oil import almost doubled on higher price, and natural gas import more than tripled in the period. 
Pancake breakfast

St. John Lutheran Church, 2801 Jackson St., will host a pancake breakfast from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 22. Special guests will be officers of the SCPD, Northside Neighborhood Network, Youth for Christ, and Mark Scheffer. Free will offering. Proceeds will go to benefit our outreach program.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  A jury has been selected in the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing.

Eighteen jurors were chosen after questioning by the judge on Thursday  12 who will deliberate and six alternates.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority. Separately, they're charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson stressed repeatedly to jurors that fellow Officer Derek Chauvin's conviction on state murder charges and guilty plea to a federal civil rights violation should not influence the proceedings.

Legal experts say prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd's constitutional rights. Specifically, they're accused of unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  Jury selection began Thursday in the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing, with the judge stressing repeatedly that fellow Officer Derek Chauvin's conviction on state murder charges and guilty plea to a federal civil rights violation should not influence the proceedings.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority as Chauvin used his knee to pin the Black man to the street. Separately, they're charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter in the videotaped killing that triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing.

Legal experts say the federal trial will be more complicated than the state trial, scheduled for June 13, because prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd's constitutional rights  unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process.

Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor, said prosecutors must show that officers should have done something to stop Chauvin, rather than that they did something directly to Floyd.

Would-be jurors, who answered an extensive questionnaire, were brought into a St. Paul courtroom in groups on Thursday, and U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson questioned them until 40 were chosen. Each side can now use their challenges to strike jurors. In the end, 18 jurors will be picked, including 12 who will deliberate and six alternates.

Among the jurors Magnuson excused was a man who said he has a problem watching video of Floyd's arrest. Several other excused jurors said they could not be impartial, including a man who said his faith also prevents him from judging a human being.

One woman was excused after she said she had difficulty with vandalism in the community. Afterward, Magnuson said he understood such concerns about "anarchy in streets" but "that fear cannot control in a courtroom."

Magnuson also told jurors they must be able to decide the case based upon its own evidence, setting aside anything else. He singled out some jurors by number and asked them pointedly if they could do so, saying he was "harping and harping and harping" because state and federal law are different and he wanted to ensure they could be objective.

The jury pool for the officers' federal trial was selected from throughout the state  much more conservative and less diverse than the Minneapolis area from which the jury for Chauvin's state trial was drawn. That jury was evenly divided among whites and nonwhites. The federal court declined a request to provide demographic information on jurors in the civil rights trial.

Magnuson has said he believes jury selection could take two days, unlike Chauvin's state trial, where the judge and attorneys questioned each juror individually and spent more than two weeks picking a panel.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air. Kueng knelt on Floyd's back and Lane held down his legs. Thao kept bystanders from intervening.

A statement from attorneys for the Floyd family Thursday said bystander video showed that the three officers "directly contributed to (Floyd's) death and failed to intervene to stop the senseless murder" and that the family expects them to be held accountable.

Several activists gathered in front of the courthouse to call for conviction.

"Considering the fact that he moaned in agony, that he could not breathe for minutes on end until he passed, I believe for a fact that they denied him of his civil rights," said Courteney Ross, Floyd's girlfriend at the time of his death. "I demand justice, and I hope everyone remembers what they did on that day."

Federal prosecutors face a high legal standard to show that an officer willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights. Essentially, prosecutors must prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

Magnuson said he expects the trial will last four weeks.

Kueng, Lane and Thao are all charged with willfully depriving Floyd of the right to be free from an officer's deliberate indifference to his medical needs. The indictment says the three men saw Floyd needed medical care and failed to help him.

Thao and Kueng are also charged with a second count alleging they willfully violated Floyd's right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not stopping Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd's neck. It's not clear why Lane is not mentioned in that count, but evidence shows he asked twice whether Floyd should be rolled on his side.

Both counts allege the officers' actions resulted in Floyd's death.

Such federal civil rights violations are punishable by up to life in prison or even death, but those stiff sentences are extremely rare and federal sentencing guidelines indicate the officers would get much less if convicted.

___

Associated Press writer Tammy Webber contributed from Fenton, Michigan.

___

Find AP's full coverage of the killing of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd

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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- An Anthon, Iowa, man was sentenced Friday to more than 29 years in federal prison for taking and distributing sexually explicit pictures of a 13-year-old.

Joshua Baird, 40, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids to one count of sexual exploitation of a child. U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams sentenced him to 354 months in prison. There is no parole in the federal system.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Baird, speaking at his sentencing, referred to his prison sentence as a "court-ordered spiritual retreat" and was excited to be in prison.

In February, Baird took cellphone pictures of the minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct and later sent them to an undercover officer online because he thought they would impress her. Baird also had an inappropriate online relationship with a teenager in Australia.

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SIOUX CITY -- An Arizona man faces federal charges after authorities found nearly 13 pounds of cocaine hidden in his car during a traffic stop.

Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Kelly Mahoney on Tuesday ordered that Scott Pride, 68, of Tucson, Arizona, remain detained. He faces a charge of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance.

A Woodbury County Sheriff's deputy stopped Pride for speeding at 4:30 p.m. Sunday about a mile east of Sioux City on U.S. Highway 20.

According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Sioux City, a Sioux City Police Department K9 unit was summoned, and the dog alerted officers to the presence of a controlled substance inside the Lexus Pride was driving.

Officers conducted a probable cause search on the car and found five heat-sealed packages concealed inside the back seat cushion. A field test on the white, powdery substance inside the bricks was positive for cocaine. Officers also seized $1,000 in cash, a cellphone, iPad tablet and other documents as evidence.

Pride was detained, and during an interview at the Sioux City Police Department, he refused to talk about the items found in his car and asked for an attorney. The interview was terminated, and Pride was arrested.

According to court documents, Pride was arrested in Texas in 2019 for possession of marijuana and convicted in the case in August of possession of 2-4 ounces of marijuana.

During a 2008 traffic stop in Nebraska, officers seized $114,000 from a vehicle driven by Pride. According to court documents, Pride was charged with trying to bribe the officer by offering him $25,000 to let him go. The charges were later dismissed, but the money and car were forfeited and Pride never attempted to regain possession of them.

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SIOUX CITY -- A Sioux City physicians group has agreed to pay more than $600,000 to settle allegations that it billed state and federal programs for medically unnecessary procedures and overbilled for other procedures.

Tri-State Specialists was accused of violating the False Claims Act by billing Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program for the procedures. Tri-State agreed to pay $612,501.44 to the United States, Iowa and South Dakota to resolve the allegations.

"False Claims Act investigations and enforcement are critical in protecting the government healthcare programs upon which millions of Americans depend. We will continue to vigorously investigate allegations of overbilling and medically unnecessary services in this district," Sean Berry, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, said in a news release.

The claims against Tri-State are allegations only, and there was no determination or admission of liability.

A provider of orthopedic services, surgery and other specialties, Tri-State consolidated its operations with CNOS earlier this month. Calls to the Tri-State Specialists phone number were automatically forwarded to CNOS, and former Tri-State members could not be reached for comment.

The settlement would be paid by the former Tri-State members because CNOS did not assume their liability under their consolidation agreement, said Suzi Gausman, CNOS vice president of compliance and engagement. She said CNOS had no further comment on the settlement.

"It would be inappropriate for CNOS to comment on this issue. We were not involved," Gausman said.

The government alleged that from August 2014-August 2019, Tri-State submitted false claims for payment to government healthcare programs for surgical procedures and office visits performed by a plastic surgeon who previously was a partner with Tri-State.

The government alleged that the surgeon performed cosmetic procedures that were falsely billed as medically necessary. The government also alleged the surgeon did not perform services sufficient to justify billing for some of the procedures and that the surgeon did not perform services sufficient to bill for some high-value office visits.

Tri-State was liable for the surgeon's acts, the government alleged, because the surgeon was an agent of Tri-State and because Tri-State knew of the surgeons acts.

Investigators were alerted to the alleged violations by a whistleblower. Under False Claims Act provisions and the settlement agreement, the whistleblower will receive a share of the financial recovery.

Though not named the news release, the dates of the allegations coincide with the dates that Dr. Adam Smith was affiliated with Tri-State. Before leaving in fall 2019, Smith was charged by the Iowa Medical Board of professional incompetency and unethical conduct and accused of providing inappropriate surgical care to 17 patients and other unprofessional conduct from December 2014 to September 2017. The case was resolved after Smith voluntarily surrendered his Iowa medical license. He also surrendered his South Dakota medical license.

In November, a federal judge ordered Smith, who now lives in Minnesota, to pay a civil judgment of more than $236,000 in damages and penalties for filing dozens of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims when he practiced in Michigan before moving to Sioux City. He earlier pleaded guilty in Michigan to a federal criminal charge of making false statements. He was placed on probation and fined $3,000.

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VERMILLION, S.D. -- Maria Milda continues to search for answers to why she chose to hold her young son under the water in his bathtub and hold his nose closed until he died.

Her heart aches every day, she said, and no prison sentence, nothing anyone can say to or about her, will be harsher than the self-hatred she feels for killing 14-month-old Easton Milda in their Vermillion home.

"There are no words to answer why. I robbed him of his entire life. I am weak, tired and confused," she said in a letter read by her attorney Friday, when she stood before Circuit Judge Tami Bern for sentencing on one count of homicide as manslaughter in the first degree.

No sentence will ease the pain felt by everyone still grieving Easton's death, Bern said, but a crime the magnitude of Milda's demands punishment and retribution.

Bern sentenced Milda to 100 years in prison, suspending 55 years of the sentence. Milda could be paroled before serving the remaining 45 years of the sentence, but will be required to participate in an intensive mental health monitoring and assistance program after her release from prison.

"I do not believe this will provide closure for the family, but I wish it will," Bern said.

Milda, 27, pleaded guilty but mentally ill in November in Clay County Circuit Court to the charge, which was reduced from first-degree murder in a plea agreement with prosecutors.

At Friday's hearing, Milda's adoptive mother, Laurie Lister, detailed Milda's lifetime spent battling mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, reactive attachment disorder, antisocial behavior and post-traumatic stress disorder. Milda also suffered from paranoia and delusions, has been hospitalized nine times for self-harming behavior and attempted suicide and was a sexual and domestic abuse victim.

Milda frequently told her she thought human traffickers were after her and Easton, and heard those threatening voices on the day she killed her son.

"Maria adored Easton," Lister said. "My daughter is totally devastated by her loss and is very mentally ill. She didn't do this because she thought it was a good idea. She did it because she was so very sick."

Milda walked to the police station on Nov. 2, 2020, to report that her child was not breathing. Officers and emergency personnel who went to the home in the 200 block of Luxembourg Street found the dead child. A medical examiner ruled the death a homicide and the cause of death was drowning.

Two weeks after Milda's arrest, a judge granted a defense request for a psychiatric evaluation to determine her mental competency to stand trial. Milda spent four months at a Sioux Falls hospital until her psychiatrist reported her competent to stand trial. Dr. Josette Lindahl said Friday that as long as Milda takes her medications and has support, she could hold a job and function well in society.

As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of 75 years, with 35 years suspended. Clay County State's Attorney Alexis Tracy asked Bern to sentence Milda to "not one day less" than the request, saying that though Milda may be mentally ill, she knew right from wrong on the day she killed Easton.

"Even though the alleged voices were telling her to kill her son, she knew it was wrong," Tracy said.

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ONAWA, Iowa -- A Nebraska woman was placed on probation for her role in the theft of copper and damage to electrical substations in rural Monona County.

Whitney Reynek, 40, of Tekamah, Nebraska, pleaded guilty in Monona County District Court to one count of trespassing. Charges of first-degree theft and first-degree criminal mischief were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

District Judge Tod Deck on Thursday gave Reynek a deferred judgment, placed her on probation for three years and ordered her to pay a $1,025 civil penalty. She also must pay $1,000 in restitution to Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative jointly with Craig Keller.

On Aug. 21, Monona County emergency dispatchers received calls of fires at electrical substations that were causing power outages. Workers who responded discovered someone had broken into the substations and removed several feet of copper wiring, causing thousands of dollars in damages.

Reynek was charged with dropping Keller off at the substations and picking him up. She admitted in her guilty plea that she helped Keller gain access to the facilities.

Keller, 40, of Onawa, has pleaded not guilty to one count of first-degree theft and five counts of first-degree criminal mischief.

Acting on a tip, Monona County Sheriff's deputies executed a search warrant at a rural Whiting, Iowa, home, where they recovered items stolen from the substations and in other burglaries in Monona County.

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SIOUX CITY  Sioux City public schools superintendent Paul Gausman is hoping to implement temporary mask mandates at schools with high COVID-19 case numbers to prevent closing schools.

The seven-member board will discuss adding to the district's AR907 policy, which governs operations during a public emergency. This policy is the same that allows Gausman to make changes due to inclement weather.

The addition would allow Gausman to implement mask mandates for specific buildings that may be seeing high outbreaks. Last week, Gausman said he was closely watching one building that had high outbreak numbers, especially in the teachers.

We want to be able to look at this on a building-by-building basis, he said.

Gausman said he wants to keep schools open, and a temporary mask mandate at specific buildings may mitigate having to temporary close the school.

This new policy change comes shortly after the district reported the highest number of cases within the district this year, with 200 students and 109 teachers and other staff in district testing positive in the week ending in Friday.

With new COVID-19 cases spiking in Woodbury County, the district needs to make decisions more quickly to respond to changing conditions with the virus, board president Dan Greenwell said Wednesday.

"The focus of the school board is to ensure that we keep the schools open and keep students in person learning, as the best possible way of educating students," Greenwell said in an interview. "Nearly a third of the people in Woodbury County are testing positive. What we want to have is a policy is place that makes sure the school district can respond quickly if we need to."

His comments came on the same day Siouxland District Health reported Woodbury County added nearly 2,200 new cases of COVID-19 last week, as the highly-contagious omicron variant continued to surge. The case rate was roughly a 31% increase from the week before, and the positivity rate hit 33.1%.

Certain details of the policy still need to be worked out, such as what percentages would trigger the mandate and whether or not there will be weekly reports of cases building to building, Gausman said. He said he will give recommendations to the board, but ultimately they will make the final decisions.

Four months ago, the school board declined to act on a measure that would have required facial coverings for all students, teachers, staff and visitors in all district buildings. Then-board vice chair Monique Scarlett pushed for the mandate days after a federal judge blocked a new state law that had prohibited local districts from adopting such measures.

The new law, passed on the final day of the legislative session, was soon challenged in both state and federal court. A state court upheld the law, but on Sept. 13, a federal judge ordered the temporary halt of enforcement while the courts consider legal challenges to the law signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The federal suit, initiated by the Biden administration, argues the law discriminates against students with disabilities and serious health conditions, because their health is endangered by schools with unvaccinated students who are not wearing face masks.

As it has been in much of the rest of the country, the issue has been controversial locally. Two dozen 23 citizens weighed in during the Sept. 15 emergency school board meeting. The environment in the packed board room was heated, with people in the crowd interrupting speakers and board members with shouts, claps and verbalized frustrations.

Scarlett's motion to adopt the mandate died due to a lack of a second.

Other board members said they saw no reason to vote on the issue, citing a flood of calls, texts and emails they received from students, parents, teachers and other community members opposed to the proposed requirement.

Scarlett and other advocates argued masks have been scientifically proven to be the second best way to reduce the spread of the virus, after vaccinations.

Now, Gausman said he believes a supermajority, if not all of the board members, will be approving of the change, while providing feedback on how it should be implemented.

He said everyday he receives communication from people approving and disapproving of a mask mandate. He added he will never get both sides to agree, but said they can agree on wanting to keep the schools open.

The proposed mask policy change will be on the agenda for the board's regularly scheduled meeting Monday, which starts at 6 p.m.

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Overseas talent returns to hometown in Henan to boost local development

People's Daily Online) 17:53, January 20, 2022

After graduating from the University of Denver in the United States in 2015, post-90s Chinese Pei Jiang returned to his hometown in Peizhai village, Huixian city of central Chinas Henan Province to boost local development by upgrading its tourism services and the local industrial chain for special agricultural products.

Pei Jiang (C) and his colleagues check the growth progress of tulips at a planting base. (Photo/People's Daily Overseas Edition)

Since 2016, Pei has served as general manager of the citys Baoquan tourist resort, which is known for its deep forests, steep cliffs, clear waters and beautiful waterfalls. Despite its picturesque scenery, the resort encountered a bottleneck in its overall operations back then.

The resort failed to attract enough tourists. It received about 700,000 tourists in 2014 and 2015, respectively, which failed to meet expectations, Pei said.

Realizing that raising the resorts profile was the key to attracting more tourists, Pei decided to make full use of newly emergent short-video platforms to cultivate online influencers to promote the tourism destination. Meanwhile, he introduced new tourism-friendly supports such as ropeways and outdoor elevators to provide a better traveling experience to tourists.

To improve the added value of local tourism, Pei invited a professional team headed by Professor Yan Guotai from the Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning and Design Institute to provide high-standard planning for the resort. He also recruited talents with rich experience in scenic area management from Beijing and central Chinas Hunan Province to improve the resorts management.

Peis efforts have started paying off. Between 2017 and 2019, the resort received more than 2 million tourists each year, becoming a popular tourism destination.

Pei Jiang (front C) and his colleagues participate in disaster relief efforts in a flood-stricken area in July 2021. (Photo/People's Daily Overseas Edition)

After many years efforts to develop the local tourism industry, the resort has made great strides to help neighboring villagers improve their livelihoods. While some villagers have found jobs at the resort, others run homestays or restaurant businesses.

Taking advantage of its favorable geographic position, Gezhenzhuang village, which is located near the resort, has provided villagers with a better life by boosting tourism activity. More than 410 households, or 95 percent of the total number of households in the village, have become engaged in the tourism industry, with tourism revenues accounting for 84.5 percent of the villages total income.

Over 600 households in nearby villages run tourism businesses, embracing better lives, Pei said proudly.

Meanwhile, Pei has helped farmers in Peizhai village to increase the added value of their sweet potatoes by rolling out various processed sweet potato products and selling them via e-commerce platforms, thus driving income growth for local farmers.

We helped increase the per mu (about 0.07 hectare) income of sweet potato growers by over 4,500 yuan (about $709.2), and directly lifted 406 impoverished households out of poverty, Pei said.

Pei and his team have also helped farmers in the village to plant flowers. Now the villages flower and vegetable planting bases create more than 800 jobs for residents, bringing over 2 million yuan in additional income to the village.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The year 2021 was a tough one for Europe as the conflict between the European Union (EU) and Poland deepened, the rift between Europe and America grew, and talks between the West and Russia ended without a breakthrough.

A bumpy road awaits for Europe in 2022 with plenty of unresolved issues, including EU integration and strategic autonomy.

GLOOMY INTEGRATION

EU integration has encountered several obstacles in 2021. Poland challenged the primacy of EU law and far-right forces raised their heads, all of which test the bloc's cohesion.

In the new year, the dispute between Poland and the EU over "laws primacy" may continue. Poland and Hungary hold the idea that the national constitution takes precedence over some EU laws, while the Netherlands and Belgium support the primacy of EU law. As tensions between the two sides escalate, some European media even envisaged Poland exiting the EU.

France's presidential election is scheduled for April 2022. Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron is currently leading in opinion polls though he has yet to formally declare his candidacy. In the election campaign, Macron could face a significant challenge from Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Rally.

Italy is scheduled to hold a presidential election in January 2022. Mario Draghi, prime minister and former head of the European Central Bank, is seen as the most likely candidate for the presidency because of his high political prestige.

However, if Draghi becomes president, a new challenge may emerge. The need to choose a new prime minister may stir up Italian politics and bring fresh uncertainties to the European integration process, with several political parties in the Italian parliament, including Eurosceptic forces.

CONFINED STRATEGIC AUTONOMY

A series of U.S. moves vexed Europe in 2021: days after its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States inked a security pact with Britain and Australia, barely consulting the EU; tech giants from America monopolized European digital markets; and Washington used Ukraine to test the nerve of EU-Russia relations for the sake of its own hegemony.

The EU has an increasing desire for strategic autonomy, with Germany's new government pledging to make Europe "strong and sovereign," a desire later echoed by Macron as Paris assumed the bloc's rotating presidency. Yet it lacks the willingness to shed dependence on the United States.

Calling strategic autonomy "an ideal goal," Feng Zhongping, director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua that the EU will continue its policies regarding the United States in 2022, and maintain tensions with Russia in order to keep Washington happy.

On the other hand, internal splits threaten any hope of strategic autonomy. While the "old Europe" guard like France and Germany yearn for independent defense and de-escalation with Russia, most of the "new" states, such as the Baltic countries, remain hawkish on Moscow and turn to U.S.-led NATO for support.

PROMISING RELATIONS WITH CHINA

In 2021, the comprehensive strategic partnership between Europe and China flourished despite challenges. The two sides' economic interests are closely intertwined, with annual trade volume expected to exceed 800 billion U.S. dollars.

China and the EU reached broad consensus on such areas as multilateralism and global governance, and saw promising results jointly addressing climate change and fighting COVID-19.

Still, there was plenty of European interference in China's internal affairs including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang. Ignoring other EU members, Lithuania blatantly violated the one-China principle.

Feng underlined the resilience in China-Europe practical cooperation, saying that 2022 will be a year for both sides to manage differences and expand cooperation.

The Chinese market is indispensable to Europe's economic recovery, he said, adding that the European side needs to join hands with China on global governance and other issues.

According to analysts, enhancing win-win cooperation between China and Europe stands to benefit the entire world. 
NORTH SIOUX CITY -- Pet food maker Royal Canin on Thursday announced a $185 million expansion of its North Sioux City plant that it says will create 149 new full-time jobs.

The company, a division of multinational manufacturer Mars Inc., currently employs more than 380 in the southeast South Dakota City.

Over the past two years, the country experienced a boom in pet ownership and heightened focus on pets health," Cecile Coutens, president of Royal Canin North America, said in a statement. "Royal Canin is seeing significant growth as a result. We want to continue to invest in our business to support these pets, their owners, and our professional partners.

"We already know what an incredible place the North Sioux City community is and are thrilled to expand our presence here.

To support the project, the South Dakota Governors Office of Economic Development has awarded the company a $3.95 million Reinvestment Payment Program grant. The funding was approved by the Board of Economic Development.

I applaud Royal Canins continued investment in North Sioux City with this expansion, Gov. Kristi Noem said. We are proud to provide a business climate that can help companies like Royal Canin grow and succeed.

It's the latest major investments by Royal Canin in North Sioux's Gateway Business Park. In 2019, Royal Canin completed a $120 million project that replaced its aging factory with a state-of-the-art facility. The new 224,000-square-foot plant, almost double the size of the previous one, allowed the company to nearly double its production capacity.

The new building at 630 N. Derby Lane was designed for future growth. The expansion announced Thursday calls for building an addition to the plant.

Founded by a veterinary surgeon in a French village in 1967, Royal Canin manufacturers products geared toward the age and size of animals and distributes them primarily through veterinarians' offices, breeders and specialty retailers such as PetSmart and Petco.

In 2007, Mars acquired the North Sioux City plant from Menu Foods for $26.3 million. Four years later, Mars officially changed the plant name from Mars Petcare to Royal Canin.

Royal Canin is an innovative company and a valued member of the North Sioux City business community," Andrew Nilges, executive director of the North Sioux City Development Corp., said. "Their products are known and trusted by pet owners around the world. North Sioux City is appreciative of Royal Canin choosing to expand here and are proud to collaborate with them on their expansion project.

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SIOUX CITY -- No one was injured Thursday when a fire broke out in a homeless encampment underneath a train bridge in Sioux City.

Sioux City Fire Rescue Captain Ryan Collins said a fire crew working a couple blocks away saw heavy black smoke coming from the 100 block of Steuben St. at 12:01 p.m. and responded.

When they arrived at the scene, the firefighters found a fire underneath a railroad bridge. The fire had been contained to the east side of the Floyd River Channel. The transients had already left the scene, according to Collins.

He said the bridge, which is owned by BNSF, sustained "slight damage." Contractors are expected to inspect the bridge on Friday.

Collins said personal items in the encampment caught fire, but the exact cause remains under investigation.

"We haven't had a chance to talk to them," he said of the transients who may have been cooking or warming themselves under the bridge. "We just don't know the circumstances surrounding the fire at this time."

A similar -- but far more destructive -- fire damaged an Interstate 29 box-culvert bridge in Sioux City near the end of October, 2019. That fire, which also ignited in a homeless encampment, wreaked havoc on the concrete structure of the bridge only a year after it was built. The cost to repair the I-29 bridge after the fire was estimated at more than $1 million, and the repair work constricted traffic flow near the Wesley Parkway and Hamilton Boulevard exits.

The Journal's Mason Dockter contributed to this report.

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FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP)  The boyfriend of slain cross-country traveler Gabby Petito admitted killing her in a notebook discovered near his body in a Florida swamp, the FBI announced Friday.

It was the first time authorities squarely pinned the blame for Petito's death on Brian Laundrie, though he was the prime suspect all along.

Investigators meanwhile announced that Laundrie, 23, had sent text messages to intentionally deceive people that Petito, 22, was still alive after he beat and strangled her in late August, according to a statement released by the FBI in Denver.

"All logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case," FBI Denver Division Special Agent in Charge Michael Schneider said in the statement. "The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito."

Petito's body was found Sept. 19 at a campground near Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming. A coroner determined she'd died about three weeks earlier of "blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation."

Laundrie returned home to Florida in early September but went missing soon after. In October, his parents found an item belonging to him in a nature preserve near their house.

Further searching turned up Laundrie's remains, a revolver, backpack and the notebook. Medical examiners determined Laundrie died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The FBI did not specify what, exactly, Laundrie had written in the notebook and in the texts he'd sent to mislead. The texts were sent between Laundrie's phone and Petito's phone, according to the statement.

"The timing and content of these messages are indicative of Mr. Laundrie attempting to deceive law enforcement by giving the impression that Ms. Petito was still alive," the statement said.

Grand Teton was the last place the couple visited during a cross-country van trip last summer that ended with Laundrie mysteriously returning home alone in the vehicle.

The couple documented their trip on Instagram. They crossed Colorado and on Aug. 12 were stopped by police in Moab, Utah, after the two got into a scuffle.

Police video showed Petito describing a fight that escalated. Police concluded Petito was the aggressor but officers decided to separate them for the night rather than file charges.

Attorneys for the Petito and Laundrie families did not immediately respond Friday to emails and text messages seeking comment about the FBI's conclusions.

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ANKARA, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Friday issued an arrest warrant for 78 suspects, including active soldiers, over their alleged links to a network accused of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2016, semi-official Anadolu Agency reported.

The warrant was part of an investigation into the Gulen Movement's "structuring" in gendarmerie command, with 51 of the suspects already detained during the day.

The Turkish government has been carrying out a massive crackdown on suspects with links to the network since the coup attempt in 2016.

Ankara says U.S.-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen was behind the coup attempt, in which at least 250 people were killed.

A total of 24,256 personnel of the Turkish Armed Forces, including 150 generals and 10,528 officers, had been dismissed since the probes, with 1,185 suspected personnel of the army being subjected to the administrative process, Anadolu reported in December citing information provided by the Turkish defense ministry.

Meanwhile, the Turkish defense ministry has increased the number of the armed forces personnel to 479,833, of whom 440,293 are military staff, according to Anadolu. 
Beginning Saturday, the United States will require all foreign travelers  including essential workers such as truck drivers  who enter the country by land from Canada or Mexico to be fully vaccinated, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.

The change is in line with current regulations that the Canadian government has placed on Americans crossing the border.

With a handful of exceptions, foreigners entering the United States via air travel are already required to show proof of vaccination at customs, along with proof of a negative Covid-19 test.

Land travelers will not be required to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test.

Starting Saturday, DHS "will require that non-U.S. individuals entering the United States via land ports of entry or ferry terminals along our Northern and Southern borders be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and prepared to show related proof of vaccination," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

According to a DHS statement, the rule excludes U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are returning from Canada or Mexico.

Travelers will be asked to verbally attest to their vaccination status and may be asked to show supporting documentation such as a vaccination card or digital vaccine passport issued by their home country, the department said.

The decision comes after the Biden Administration in November reopened the nation's land borders to nonessential travel following a 20-month-long closure dating to the early days of the pandemic in 2020.

Last week, Canada announced a similar requirement of truckers and other "essential" travelers.

Transportation industry leaders have expressed concerns over the new regulations on multiple fronts. The trucking industry is, like many economic sectors, already struggling to find enough workers, and a vaccine requirement for international commercial truckers could further complicate hiring efforts. Also, the additional layer of paperwork at customs could cause border backups and further disrupt the nation's supply chain, which is already experiencing long delays in shipping many products.

American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello told the industry publication Transport Topics that both governments need to be prepared to endure more problems as a result of their respective vaccination requirements.

Governments, you know, both the U.S. and Canadian governments have to be prepared ... to see real impacts on their sides of the border, Costello said. Im talking about, you know, potentially more food shortages because of this, potentially energy shortages because of this and potentially, you know, manufacturing shortages and so forth.

He predicted that with the backlog of domestic freight, some haulers will elect to focus on shipping routes within the United States and turn down cross-border freight if they're short on vaccinated drivers.

Roughly two-thirds of the goods traded between the United States and Canada, accounting for more than $500 billion in annual commerce, travels over land.

The Canadian government's vaccine requirement went into effect on Jan. 15. Like the United States, the Canadian vaccination requirement also exempts its own citizens and only applies to non-Canadian travelers.
OKLAHOMA CITY  As more and more schools go to distance learning in the wake of the latest COVID-19 surge, Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday announced a plan to let state employees serve as substitute teachers.

Stitt signed an executive order directing state agencies to create mechanisms for state employees to substitute teach. The order is effective for 120 days.

We expect state employees to be mobilized tomorrow and be reaching out to the school districts, the governor said. That is our intent.

The governor has criticized schools for not having an in-person option for instruction, saying students suffer mentally and academically without it.

State employees would not be paid a substitute teaching rate but would still be paid by their respective agencies, said Steven Harpe, the states chief operating officer.

Oklahoma has 32,000 state employees, Stitt said.

The governor was asked about critics who suggest that the state employees will be merely babysitters.

No. 1, we know that the best solution is our wonderful teachers across the state, in-person teaching young people, Stitt said. The second-best thing is obviously the substitute teachers.

Kids are home alone when parents have to go to work, the governor said, and he would much rather have students in the classroom and believes most parents would agree with him.

State employees would have to pass a background check to be placed in a classroom, said Ryan Walters, education secretary.

Walters came under criticism last week for social media remarks he made saying schools werent doing enough to keep in-person learning a viable option.

Chad Warmington, State Chamber CEO and president, said his group also has launched a program to allow members of the business community to substitute teach in schools.

State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said the gesture of flooding schools with untrained volunteers is a meager effort.

We all agree the best place for our students is for schools to be open, Hofmeister said. I appreciate that Stitt has finally recognized this crisis. Unfortunately, he has brought a cup of water to a raging fire. This is not leadership. This is political.

Hofmeister recently announced that she is switching parties to Democrat from Republican to run for governor. Stitt, a Republican, is seeking reelection. Walters, also a Republican, is running for state superintendent.

Like many Oklahomans, I have more questions than answers after the press conference, Hofmeister said. If the governor had consulted with the State Department of Education, he would know that substitute teachers require an FBI criminal background check that takes four to six weeks to complete.

El Reno Superintendent Craig McVay said it was noteworthy that the governor was not flanked by a throng of school district leaders and teachers in making his announcement on Tuesday because they were looking yesterday afternoon for people to stand on that podium from public schools to say how wonderful an idea that was.

For McVay, the executive order is a slap in the face and of little help, practically speaking, to schools overrun by employee and student illnesses right now.

Twenty months ago if the governor would have not stuck his head in the sand and said, `Hey, what can we do to help our schools deal with this? and to put out the APB for help then, that would have been nice. Im flabbergasted, said McVay.

Anyone who volunteers in our district is subject to state law, which requires a federal background check showing 10 years with no felonies, for anyone to be around children. There is an absolute barrier to just calling in mom and pop off the streets, McVay said.

Its about 60 days from the time we submit paperwork to when we get the background check back.

In El Reno, the school district already had a dedicated corps of background-checked substitutes from long-standing agreements with the local police and fire unions, as well as a local ministers alliance.

On top of leaning on all of that outside help, El Reno Public Schools has had every central office administrator, including McVay, plus every principal, assistant principal, counselor and secretarial staffer substituting in classrooms for absent teachers  and that has resulted in 100% of them testing positive for COVID after substituting.

Its not like that we arent doing everything we can because we dont believe its better for us to be face to face with our kids. We have the same belief Gov. Stitt has about that, McVay said. Todays press conference did not help us. There are no state employees that want to get in that Petri dish, and I dont blame them.

Asked what he would tell Stitt if asked what help was needed, McVay responded: Trust.

Let us determine locally  seriously locally  when we can and cannot be in person based on whether or not we have the number of adults needed to take care of kids. And honor that decision as if you were sitting in that room with us, he said.

Trust us  we prefer to be face to face because we know its better. And get out of our way.

In a prepared statement, Jenks Public Schools officials said they appreciate anyone who is willing to be a substitute teacher and are grateful to community members who have stepped up to serve so far.

Asking state employees to substitute could be helpful, but there are still unanswered questions about how volunteers will be mobilized to districts across the state, the statement reads. Teachers are not a disposable resource. Teachers are highly qualified professionals, and they cannot simply be replaced. At JPS, in-person learning has always been the priority, and we believe a professional educator is still the most effective leader for a classroom.

Tulsa Public Schools released a statement saying that the pandemic has exacerbated Oklahomas longstanding teacher shortage and state funding challenges. The district is once again pleading for all Tulsans to do what they can to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 to maximize students opportunities for in-person instruction.

While we are grateful that Oklahoma is recognizing the critical need for substitutes across the state, we are also mindful that Oklahoma has quite a long way to go to meaningfully invest in our public education system, the statement reads. Time and time again, weve seen what Tulsans can do when we come together to support our educators, and substitute teaching is a great opportunity for any Tulsan to make a meaningful difference for our children and families.

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Its no accident that both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology claim the beaver (Castor canadensis) as their mascots. Renowned engineers, beavers seem able to dam any stream, building structures with logs and mud that can flood large areas.

As climate change causes extreme storms in some areas and intense drought in others, scientists are finding that beavers small-scale natural interventions are valuable. In dry areas, beaver ponds restore moisture to the soil; in wet zones, their dams and ponds can help to slow floodwaters. These ecological services are so useful that land managers are translocating beavers in the U.S. and the United Kingdom to help restore ecosystems and make them more resilient to climate change.

Scientists are studying ways to use beavers to mitigate wildfire and drought risks in the western U.S.

How beavers alter landscapes

Beavers dam streams to create ponds, where they can construct their dome-shaped lodges in the water, keeping predators at a distance. When they create a pond, many other effects follow.

Newly flooded trees die but remain standing as bare snags where birds nest. The diverted streams create complicated interwoven channels of slow-moving water, tangled with logs and plants that provide hiding places for fish. The messy complexity behind a beaver dam creates many different kinds of habitats for creatures such as fish, birds, frogs and insects.

Human dams often block fish passage upstream and downstream, even when the dams include fish ladders. But studies have shown that fish have no trouble migrating upstream past beaver dams. One reason may be that the fish can rest in slow pools and cool pond complexes after navigating the tallest parts of the dams.

The slow-moving water behind beaver dams is very effective at trapping sediment, which drops to the bottom of the pond. Studies measuring total organic carbon in active and abandoned beaver meadows suggest that before the 1800s, active and abandoned beaver ponds across North America stored large amounts of carbon in sediment trapped behind them. This finding is relevant today as scientists look for ways to increase carbon storage in forests and other natural ecosystems.

Beavers may persist in one location for decades if they arent threatened by bears, cougars or humans, but they will move on if food runs out near their pond. When abandoned beaver dams fail, the ponds drain and gradually become grassy meadows as plants from the surrounding land seed them.

Dried meadows can serve as floodplains for nearby rivers, allowing waters to spill out and provide forage and spawning areas for fish during high flows. Floodplain meadows are valuable habitat for ground-nesting birds and other species that depend on the river.

The value of slowing the flow

As human settlements expand, people often wish to make use of every acre. That typically means that they want either land that is solid and dry enough to farm or waterways they can navigate by boat. To create those conditions, humans remove floating logs from streams and install drains to draw water off of fields and roads as quickly and efficiently as possible.

But covering more and more land surface with barriers that dont absorb water, such as pavement and rooftops, means that water flows into rivers and streams more quickly. Rainfall from an average storm can produce an intense river flow that erodes the banks and beds of waterways. And as climate change fuels more intense storms in many places, it will amplify this destructive impact.

Some developers limit this kind of damaging flow by using nature-based engineering principles, such as ponding water to intercept it and slow it down; spreading flows out more widely to reduce the waters speed; and designing swales, or sunken spots, that allow water to sink into the ground. Beaver wetlands do all of these things, only better. Research in the United Kingdom has documented that beaver activity can reduce the flow of floodwaters from farmlands by up to 30%.

Beaver meadows and wetlands also help cool the ground around and beneath them . Wet soil in these zones contains a lot of organic matter from buried and decayed plants, which holds onto moisture longer than soil formed only from rocks and minerals. In my wetland research , I have found that after a storm, water entering the ground passes through pure mineral sand in hours to days but can remain in soils that are 80%-90% organic matter for as long as a month.

Cool, wet soil also serves as a buffer against wildfires. Recent studies in the western U.S. have found that vegetation in beaver-dammed river corridors is more fire-resistant than in areas without beavers because it is well watered and lush, so it doesnt burn as easily. As a result, areas near beaver dams provide temporary refuge for wildlife when surrounding areas burn.

Making room for beavers

The ecological services that beavers provide are most valuable in zones where nobody minds if the landscape changes. But in the densely developed eastern U.S., where I work, its hard to find open areas where beaver ponds can spread out without flooding ditches or roads. Beavers also topple expensive landscaped trees and will feed on some cultivated crops, such as corn and soybeans.

Beavers are frequently blamed for flooding in developed areas, even though the real problem often is road design, not beaver dams. In such cases, removing the beavers doesnt solve the problem.

Culvert guards, fences and other exclusion devices can keep beavers a safe distance from infrastructure and maintain pond heights at a level that wont flood adjoining areas. Road crossings over streams that are designed to let fish and other aquatic animals through instead of blocking them are beaver-friendly and will be resilient to climate change and extreme precipitation events. If these structures are large enough to let debris pass through, then beavers will build dams upstream instead, which can help catch floodwaters.

[Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversations newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.]

A growing body of research shows that setting aside pockets of land for beavers is good for wetland ecosystems, biodiversity and rivers. I believe we can learn from beavers water management skills, coexist with them in our landscapes and incorporate their natural engineering in response to weather and precipitation patterns disrupted by climate change.

Christine Hatch has trained workers at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on Rivers and Roads, mainly free of charge as public outreach work.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

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A young man and woman from Bellevue who were found guilty of first-degree assault in an attack on the woman's father each was sentenced Tuesday to 40 to 50 years in prison.

Sarpy County prosecutors said Joshua Fithian and his girlfriend, Gabriella Laws, both 19, attacked Robert Laws in January 2021 with a metal meat tenderizer and a wooden rod. The Sarpy County Attorneys Office dismissed charges of attempted murder, second-degree assault, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and conspiracy to commit a felony against the two.

Under state sentencing guidelines, Fithian and Gabriella Laws must serve 20 years before they are eligible for parole and 25 years before they must be released.

Police responded to a home northeast of 48th Street and Nebraska 370 shortly after 2 a.m. Jan. 17, according to an affidavit filed by Bellevue Police Detective Michael Legband. An officer found Robert Laws, who is 60, in his bedroom with severe injuries to the left side of his face.

Laws wife, Maria, who was sleeping in a separate bedroom, said she was awakened by a noise and found a wooden rod in the hallway. She then found her husband unresponsive in bed and a meat tenderizer on the floor. His CPAP mask still was secured to his face.

The detective said Robert Laws was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center with injuries so severe that he had to be placed in a medical coma to treat brain bleeding and cranial fractures. Police suspected that Robert Laws was attacked while he was sleeping.

Laws later went to the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital. He told police who interviewed him there on Feb. 10 that he didnt remember the attack, but he thought Josh may have been responsible based on a previous argument.

Officers questioned Fithian, who indicated that he, Maria, Robert and Gabriella had an argument regarding Fithians history of sneaking in and out of the Laws home. Gabriellas parents had told him to not be in the house between midnight and 7 a.m.

According to Fithian, after dinner on Jan. 16, he and Gabriella Laws went to the basement until 12:45 a.m. Fithian said he left through a basement window because he was there later than the prescribed time. Gabriella Laws told police that Fithian had left through the front door of the home.

While being questioned by police about the attack, Gabriella Laws said, I mean, I dont think it was my mom, and I dont know, I didnt do it, but if I did in my sleep I dont know. Asked by police if she would be capable of assaulting her father, even accidentally, she said, I hope not.

Asked to clarify her response, she said, Well, if I did, well not, I mean, I hope I would have never done that.

Maria and Robert Laws filed a protection order against Fithian on Jan. 20. The protection order said Fithian had told the Lawses on Jan. 16 that he wasnt going anywhere and planned to come into the house whenever he wanted.

Gabriella Laws gave birth to a child while in jail in October. A judge ordered a DNA test to determine whether Fithian is the father. Court records filed later say Fithian is the father. The child is under the care of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

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Tom Somma was a young aircraft mechanic in the late 1970s when he got his first look at the new F-117 Nighthawk.

But Lockheed wouldnt let him see all of it.

We were only allowed to know what we were working on. We werent allowed to know the rest of it, and nobody was supposed to get together with anybody else.

Hed been living and working in his native New York when the company hired him to move across the country -- to Burbank, California -- to help produce one of the prototypes that would become known as the Stealth Fighter.

It took months of paperwork to get his necessary security clearance, but in 1979, Somma began wrapping its wings in sheet metal.

The U.S. Air Force ultimately bought 64 of the distinctively flat, radar-resistant jets, which saw service in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and, later, above Iraq and Afghanistan. The military denied their existence until 1998 and retired the fleet a decade later, stowing them in hangars at the Tonopah Test Range, nearly 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Somma retired, too. Hed stayed with Lockheed for nearly six years, moved back east and found a career on the Long Island Rail Road. He moved to Nebraska -- his wifes home state -- more than two years ago.

And in May, the 65-year-old sat along the highway near his new hometown of Ashland, waiting for the flat-bed trailer that was delivering one of the decommissioned F-117s to the nearby Strategic Aerospace and Air Command Museum.

Chuck Burchess of Lincoln was also waiting. Before he retired from the Air Force, hed served as an F-117 crew chief at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, keeping the Nighthawk maintained and prepared for flight.

When he learned the museum was getting one of the planes, he reached out and offered to help with its restoration. He was at the museum when the truck arrived.

The fighters wings had been clipped and its nose removed, but Burchess knew what he was looking at when the truck pulled into the parking lot.

You never forget that shape. I even think I broke down in tears.

* * *

The museum announced its newest acquisition -- just the fourth F-117 to go to a private museum -- nearly a year ago.

At the time, the marketing manager stopped short of calling it the Holy Grail of aircraft. But it was big. The fighter played an important role in the tail end of the Cold War, and it would serve as a bookend to the conflicts earlier aircraft already on display -- the U2 spy plane and supersonic SR-71.

The single-seater Nighthawks could reach cruising speeds of 620 mph, and they were famous for their geometry and outer coating, which allowed them to elude enemy radar.

But what made the Nebraska-bound Nighthawk special would also slow its trip to the museum. In addition to all of the standard demilitarization steps the Air Force takes when it donates a plane -- disarming the weapons, removing the rockets beneath the ejection seat, recovering radioactive components -- it had to strip the F-117 of all of its secrets.

It removed the nose and all of the leading and trailing edges of the wings and other control surfaces. And it scoured, stripped and sandblasted all of its surfaces to get rid of radar-absorbing compounds.

The museum had planned to retrieve the plane in March, but the trip was delayed to late May.

In the air, the Stealth could have made the trip in under two hours. But on the back of a flatbed trailer, it took four days to make it from Nevada to Ashland.

Burchess was there to help usher it into the restoration bay. The former F-117 crew chief knew his way around the plane.

Im the one that opened the canopy when we put it in the hangar, he said. I was one of the first ones to sit on it.

* * *

Restoration manager Andy Beemer and his team of volunteers werent used to a plane like this.

The first difference: They were familiar with aircraft that were decades old, that had sat outside succumbing to the elements. But the F-117 had flown in the past 15 years, and was then stored inside.

We usually start with an old wreck, and were hunting for corrosion and rot. But this plane is in very good, solid condition. Theres nothing broken; theres nothing corroded.

The second: Because the military was still keeping its secrets to itself, this jet was incomplete. Its missing a lot of stuff -- stuff they wont let us have. Theres a whole lot of stuff we have to fabricate and replicate.

But they didnt let that stop them from putting the wings back on and getting to work.

Other than looking weird, its an airplane. It just happens that its a really square, flat one, Beemer said.

They werent starting from scratch. Beemer had consulted with the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is nearly done with its own Nighthawk restoration. And hed found new volunteers in Burchess and Somma, who knew the aircraft before its retirement.

But even that knowledge was limited.

The parts Im making now, I never got to see, Somma said. They werent installed until they took it to wherever they took it.

The Air Force and Lockheed did provide rough guidelines of what the missing parts should look like, and how to build them. But the instructions were geared toward larger manufacturing plants, with more sophisticated equipment.

For a small shop like us, we had to find some work-arounds, Beemer said. Its been an interesting process of trial and error.

For instance: The knife-like edges of the wings had been stripped, and the instructions suggested bending sheet metal nearly 170 degrees to replicate them.

A big shop would have the equipment and ability to heat-treat the steel before the bend. The museum doesnt.

Wed be cracking metal constantly. So how can we replicate that without breaking a lot of metal?

By getting creative. Aircraft supply houses sell pre-bent wing edges designed for small planes -- like Cessnas and Beechcrafts -- and Beemer ordered more than 200 feet of them.

Other than a manufacturer, Im probably buying more of it than anybody.

The strips are too narrow to fully replicate the F-117s wing edges, but he and the volunteers use them as a guide to add more sheet metal.

Theyve spent seven months rebuilding the rear of the plane -- the trailing edges of the wings, rudders, exhaust and other areas -- and are just now moving around toward the front.

They have at least a years worth of work remaining before it moves from the restoration bay to the museum floor, Beemer said.

And he has measured expectations of what he wants it to look like when theyre done -- especially for a plane thats been shrouded in so much secrecy.

The goal of our restorations is to restore dignity to the airplane and to make it as close as we can, under whatever the circumstances are, to what it looked like in service, he said.

But fooling the guys who flew it is really hard.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7254 or psalter@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSPeterSalter

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Build up or pay up.

That is the message Massachusetts is sending to 175 cities and suburbs in the Boston area, as a bill passed last year to boost housing production begins to take effect. Almost every jurisdiction in eastern Massachusetts, from the New Hampshire border to Worcester to the Cape Cod Canal, will have to do its part zoning for 344,000 new units of as-of-right multifamily housingor lose access to some state grant programs. That means allowing apartments in many tony subdivisions currently reserved for single-family homes.

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For perspective, all of Massachusetts currently builds just 15,000 new units a yeara huge drop-off from the 20th century and one reason that the Boston area has some of the highest rents and home prices in the country. Massachusetts is the first state to actually get a policy like this, said Jessie Grogan at the Cambridge-based Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Are the incentives strong enough? Probably not. But it will have some impact, and more than the other housing tools weve tried.

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In some ways, Massachusetts is thriving. Employment is high; incomes are among the highest in the nation. In spite of that, the population declined between 2020 and 2021a trend that reflects the states crushing housing shortage. As in California and Oregon, policymakers in Massachusetts have realized that splintered metropolitan governments are structurally incapable of effectively addressing the issue. Few towns want to change, and nobody wants to go first.

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So far, West Coast states have had more success breaking down apartment bans than East Coast peers like Maryland and Connecticut. But the East is catching up. Pro-housing reforms suddenly seem viable in Albany. Some are modeled after Massachusetts, where unlike most Republicans Gov. Charlie Baker has not let contempt for the poor outweigh pro-growth instinct.

Baker thinks the Bay States crimped housing production is at the root of its affordability crisis. Its an equity problem, its an economic development problem, its a community development problem, he told reporters last spring. It makes huge differences with respect to where people can actually afford to live here in the commonwealth, whether or not they can stay, and where they make decisions about where to start a family. Liberal housing experts agree, and add that its an environmental problem: Building restrictions in central areas force families to relocate into car-dependent sprawl.

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Bakers 2021 economic development bill included zoning and permitting reform. But the biggest gambit was the multifamily housing mandate for the Boston suburbs. As Michael Kennealy, Massachusetts secretary of housing and economic development, said in a webinar this month: Our housing strategy could be simply summarized as more types of housing everywhere.

The mandate applies to places served by or adjacent to stations of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the state agency that operates the buses and trains that fan out of Boston. The so-called MBTA communities include fishing towns, postindustrial cities, and rural outposts. But the highest burden falls on Bostons bedroom suburbs, such as Quincy and Newton, whose excellent transit infrastructure is compromised by complicated and exclusionary zoning rules.

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Take Newton, where the median home sells for $1.4 million. Its a large suburb of 88,000 souls 7 miles from Boston Common. It has 10 stations of light rail and commuter rail.* But the residential density around those stops, according to the Massachusetts Housing Partnerships Transit-Oriented Development Explorer, never exceeds five units an acre. The median across all MBTA stations is 6.2 homes per acre; the state now requires MBTA communities include at least one district with 15 homes per acre. (That corresponds to a relatively dense but recognizably suburban fabric, such as town houses or duplexes around shared yards.)

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Under compliance with the new law, Newton would realistically need more than one district, since the state is requiring it create by-right zoning capacity for 8,330 apartments. How much by-right multifamily zoning exists in Newton today? None.

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At a zoning meeting in Newton last week, city councilors sounded alternately excited and defiant about loosening up land use regulations. The deep-blue suburb briefly flirted with ending single-family zoning after the racial justice protests of 2020, before retreating in panic during municipal elections last year. Newton has permitted a handful of apartment projects in recent years, but all have gone through lengthy review with the City Council. One 800-unit development, Northland, took three years, hundreds of meetings, and an 18-month public hearing process to be approved. Councilors secured additional units of affordable housingbut also shrank the project by almost 50 percent.

That type of back-and-forth negotiation, beloved by city councils the world over, is what Massachusetts is trying to avoid by making zoning as of rightno horse-trading and no unforeseen delays. Its a huge problem in metro Boston, said Grogan. Local communities have evolved to require a special permitting process, which allows a lot of flexibility to get concessions and amenities. On the other hand, it makes development a lot more expensive and less predictable because you never know what youll be asked to do going into the process.

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Tim Reardon, of Bostons Metropolitan Area Planning Council, noted that even straightforward zoning can be burdensome. The Boston suburb of Essex, for example, requires a four-bedroom apartment include six parking spots! As a developer told us in a forum last week, he said, theres also a concern that as-of-right zoning could have so many restrictions that it ends up being infeasible. Even well-meaning rules, such as affordability requirements or environmental standards, can put a chokehold on new supply.

More worrisome, perhaps, is the possibility that suburbs can fulfill the mandate by redrawing zoning maps to include existing apartment buildings constructed during a more freewheeling era. According to the planning council, this double-counting could reduce the laws impact by 75,000 units, nearly 25 percent of the total, especially in places that are already relatively dense and well served by transitsuch as the college towns of Cambridge and Somerville. Perversely, this means that those places could sneak through allowing little new housingwhile some faraway small towns zone for rapid growth.

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Finally, theres the concern that prosperous suburbs will simply not follow the lawa possibility that a couple of Newton councilors suggested might be easier than abandoning their right to shape future projects. It remains uncertain what the courts will do if they dont comply, said Clark Ziegler of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, which is working with jurisdictions on adapting to the new rules. It is a mandate. Its not an opt-in. But if penalties dont go beyond loss of grants, the mandate may not legalize apartments in very many suburbs. That, in turn, would funnel pent-up demand into those jurisdictions that do permit new apartments, increasing the burden of compliance. (This is one reason the state wants all these suburbs to upzone at once.)

Still, said Ziegler, whose organization has been angling for a multifamily mandate for a decade, its a good start. You have to take the long view here. It will take a while to play out, and thats appropriate. Some communities are poised. Some are going to have to go kicking and screaming.
The Newbery Award is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2022. Such milestones are times of celebration, and merchandising, but also of reflection. Many people perceive the medal as a permanent seal of approval. Bookstores and online algorithms display award winners prominently, and those shiny gold medals on the covers communicate the books prestige. On the eve of its second century, the Newbery is now a venerable institution, and its age lends credibility. But are all 100 winning titles worthwhile reading today?

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Launched in 1922, the John Newbery Medal was designed to create instant classics, the prize standing in for the test of time in an inspired effort to create an American childrens canon. And it did. Today, nearly all medal winners remain in print, and they appear on library shelves and K12 curricula in disproportionate numbers. Their frequently refreshed book covers also make them appear indistinguishable from contemporary fiction. In their appealing repackaging, the books represent the perfect combination of old and new, tapping into adult nostalgia and offering the American Library Associations assurance of literary quality.

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In contrast with many adult novels that won accolades decades ago, prize-winning childrens books can have especially long lives. Do the math: Your teacher assigned a 25-year old-book because it was a timeless Newbery. And now that book is in your childs hands, and its, what, 50 or 60 years old? Thats in part because there is a common misconception that childhood itself is universal and static. Any childhood first, from that first lost tooth to the first time behind the wheel, can feel immutable. Are kids experiences really that different than they were a generation ago?

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But the world has changed, and the idea of a typical child has been blown apart. Many of us are increasingly aware that American childhoods can look very different from one another, varying with race and ethnicity, geographic location, economic status, and many other factors. This has always been true, of course, but until very recently, the imagined child reader was monolithic. So your favorite Newbery from childhood may now seem out of touch, hopelessly uncool. Worse yet, it may feature offensive viewpoints and stereotypes.

Some readers may reject older titles for their objectionable content. But some people feel that recent medal books threaten a long-cherished vision of a universal American childhood experiencea vision they still hold dear. This was the case recently when schools in Katy, Texas, retracted (then subsequently reinstated) an invitation for author Jerry Craft to speak. Crafts 2020 medal winner, New Kid, depicts a Black boys first year in a predominantly white prep school, where he faces frequent microaggressions. Concerned that some readers might experience white guilt, agitators claimed the book ran afoul of Texas ban on teaching critical race theory.

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The fact that New Kid sits on the same library shelf of Newbery winners as Hugh Loftings blatantly racist 1923 medalist, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, shows that the award has succeeded in its canon-making project. But the biggerand arguably more lastingaccomplishment of the Newbery has been stimulating the production of childrens literature in the U.S. Childrens publishing is flourishing, with 32,000 new books for youth published each year, as opposed to 450 at the Newberys inceptionand many of these titles are of astounding quality. To find those standouts, many people rely on the Newbery and other awards as a baseline filter.

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The criterion of prizing for the Newbery (the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children) is the same as it was a century ago, but the librarians choosing the books are not as they were. While the earliest childrens librarians saw themselves as gatekeepers for Literature, todays Youth Services professionals see themselves as information facilitators and youth advocates. The first and 99th Newbery winners present a visual snapshot of the change. The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem van Loon, is a Eurocentric outline history, and history is the most highbrow of genresespecially for youth. New Kid, with its diverse cast of characters, springs from the other end of the genre hierarchy: It is a graphic novel. A comic! we imagine the 1922 prize-givers exclaiming in pearl-clutching horror.

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The books and the prize-givers have changed, but the mechanism of Newbery prizing has stayed the same: Librarians choose the winners, authors get a career boost, and publishers reap the financial rewards. Plus, the Newbery helps kid lit capture the medias eye: The intensely secretive selection process culminates in a dramatic, livestreamed announcement of the years winner. (This years will take place Monday.) The Newbery makes aspirationally high art for children into news.

This is what Newbery founder Frederic Melcher had in mind: Librarians professional neutrality would keep prizing above the taint of commercialism, benefiting publishers bottom lines and also, of course, childrens minds and spirits. The prize was about building a junior American canon, books that cultivated readers and inspired the highest ideals of democratic citizenship in the nations youth. But the result was a canon that is overwhelmingly white and often marked by a colonialist worldview. Today, the Newberys mission increasingly encompasses an awareness of past failures to think about all children as future leaders.

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Newbery Award Selection committees have responded to the growing influence of the We Need Diverse Books movement and the calls to redress historical misrepresentations by awarding the prize to more diverse titles. Publishers, too, have signed on: As more books by underrepresented authors have captured Newbery gold, the industry has released increasingly diverse stories by an expanding pool of authors. Yet publishers also remain committed to their profitable backlists. They have sought to refresh and remedy older titles that dont sit well with current sensibilities, especially in regards to race.

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Publishers have tried a number of tactics to rebrand older Newbery titles for todays readers. Recent examples include books repackaged with forewords that tackle the collective discomfort head-on. The 1974 Newbery winner, Paula Foxs The Slave Dancer, has been criticized for its white authorship and racist framing. But in his 2016 foreword, Newbery Medalist Christopher Paul Curtis, who is Black, places the novel in his own pantheon of great books without denying the novels centering of the white experience or its painful (if historically accurate) use of racial slurs.

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Some introductions serve an entirely different purpose: rekindling child interest. For the 75th anniversary of Esther Forbes Johnny Tremain, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt commissioned a foreword by cartoonist Nathan Hale. Set on the eve of the American Revolution, the 1944 medal winner is a staple of school curricula, but no longer flies off bookstore shelves. Hales foreword, presented in graphic novel format, orients readers to Forbes characters and leisurely narrative style, bridging the gap between the 1940s and 2020s. But Hales kid-friendly character guide ignores enslaved characters, who are not central to Forbes narrative. In Forbess story, Johnnys transformation into an American patriot involves embracing egalitarianism, but this shift does not extend to enslaved people. This new introduction sidesteps the issue: Its aim is simply to keep the book circulating.

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Newbery committees have responded to calls to redress historical misrepresentations by awarding the prize to more diverse titles.

Is that the right approach? Should Newbery gold grant perpetual special status? Or should Newbery winners be treated like any other texts, abandoned when child readers stop reaching for them? Some argue that its time to let older Newbery titles fade away. It used to be that Newbery books never went out of print and that libraries had designated shelves of award-winning titles. Books were adorned with Newbery spine stickers, and librarians prepared flyers listing all the Newbery Medal winners by year. But in some places, these practices are being rethought in favor of collections that retain current and popular titles but allow others to be culled.

But what about those books that children continue to seek and teachers assign? Its past time, many scholars believe, for 20th-century youth classics to be contextualized in the way that 19th-century classics are, with critical scholarship that moves beyond assertions of the books aesthetic value. We need critical editions that provide historical context that is accessible to the teachers, librarians, and parents who share these texts with children. (One of the authors of this piece has produced such an edition: Sara L. Schwebels Island of the Blue Dolphins: The Complete Readers Edition situates Scott ODells 1961 Newbery winner within the Vanishing Indian tradition, demonstrating how the book has participated in the projects of settler colonialism and national mythmaking.)

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Fiction authors and illustrators are also revisiting Newbery classics. Responding to art with art, they are crafting stories that are in dialogue with Newbery winners, even as they address the pressing issues of today. The most Newbery of examples is Rebecca Steads 2010 medalist, When You Reach Me, a remix of the beloved 1963 Newbery winner, Madeleine LEngles A Wrinkle in Time. Similarly, the protagonists of Varian Johnsons 2018 puzzle mystery, The Parker Inheritance, (a Coretta Scott King Award winner) treat Ellen Raskins 1979 Medal winner, The Westing Game, as a key to unlocking their own set of cryptic clues. Both of these award-winning takes respond to contemporary conversations about racism. P. Craig Russells 2019 graphic novel adaptation of The Giver functions in a similar way: The 50s-inspired drawings mean that todays readers cannot miss the whiteness of the dystopian vision Lois Lowry created in her 1994 Newbery novel.

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Some artistic responses are more direct efforts to correct and rewrite. Linda Sue Parks 2020 Prairie Lotus brings an Asian American girl to a Dakota town straight out of Laura Ingalls Wilders 1942 Newbery Honor Book, Little Town on the Prairie. Eric Elliotts 2013 Dear Miss Karana, originally written in Chamteela (an Indigenous California language), narrates a Chamteela (Luiseno) girls identification with the protagonist of Island of the Blue Dolphins as well as the conflicted feelings she experiences as she learns more about the real woman who inspired the story. All of these projectsthe riffs and the rewritessolidify the Newbery winners place in the canon. They are markers of books that have become classics, stories we continue to debate and reinvent.

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This flourishing of activity demonstrates that the Newbery is alive and well at 100. Another marker of vitality is the way Newbery committees are now leveraging the medals power to hasten the diversification of childrens literature. The prizegivers know that the award influences publishing trends. Certainly, such trends can shift. The 1980s should give us pause: The turn to diverse authors and subjects in the 1970s, an outgrowth of the civil rights movement, evaporated in the more conservative decade that followed. Yet demographic shifts and changing conceptions of librarians professional purpose make a turn away from diversity seem less likely today. And regardless, one thing is clear: Weve now seen that the Newbery has the capacity to change the canon at lightning speed.

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We cant yet know which recent Newbery winners will fuel decades of debate and inspire creative output of their own, making the transition from classics by means of prizing to classics in their own right. But surely some will. What does this mean for the bulging Newbery canon? With a centurys worth of winners, the gold-medal bookshelf is beginning to sag. Some number of the first centurys medalists will necessarily be dislodged from their spots, clearing the way for recent titles that better reflect the concerns, experiences, and preferences of todays youth. Because when it comes to the canon that mattersthe books that circulate for decadesits the reading public that shapes and reshapes the Newbery canon within a canon.
How to Do It is Slates sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. Its anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

My wife and I have been together six years, married for three. In the beginning we had frequent, exciting sex but it dwindled, and wed recently been talking about opening the marriage because my sex drive is higher than hers.

My wife had been having serious migraines and unexplained pain and nothing seemed to solve them, so two months ago her doctor took her off birth control in a Hail Mary attempt to get to the root of them. It worked, but it also did something else. Its like Im suddenly married to a different womanshe initiates sex, we have sex three to four times a week, she lost some weight that she always complained about, and she seems to have tons of energy.

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Mostly Im thrilled both for her, and for the direction our sex life and relationship has taken. One problem though: birth control. She had a bad experience with the copper IUD early on, but hormones are obviously not the answer. The thing is, I hate condoms. Hate the way they feel like theyll slip, hate the way they interrupt the moment, hate not being skin to skin. We eventually want kids, so she cant get her tubes tied or vice versa, but it doesnt seem like theres a lot of other options here. How can we keep the new (old) sex life, but lose the condoms?

Lucky and Unlucky

Dear Lucky,

I reached out to Mike Ripley, a friend of the column and an OBGYN at Dalhousie University in Canada. I think the main thing to know here that is that the traditional birth control pill has two hormones in it, an estrogen and a progestin. And these two hormones are chemically very different and have different side effect profiles, he clarified in response to your letter. From what youve said about your wifes experience, this next part wont surprise you: Headaches are a known side effect of estrogen-containing contraceptives and are not recommended in patients who get migraine headaches with auras, so it makes sense that his wifes migraines have improved since stopping her birth control pill.

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But progestin-only pills, or other delivery methods, might be worth a try. Progestins, on the other hand, dont tend to cause headaches, Ripley said. There are a number of options for progestin-only contraception, with a number of routes of administration available that include a pill, an implant that can be placed under the skin which releases a progestin continuously, and a progestin-secreting IUD. Of these options, the progestin IUD is the most commonly used and is very effective for preventing pregnancy (in fact its more effective than the traditional birth control pill). Unlike the copper IUD that his wife previously used, these progestin IUDs tend to make periods lighter rather than heavier.

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Progestin can still cause issues of its own, though: Ripley pointed to irregular bleeding or spotting when starting their use, bloating, low mood especially in those who are at risk for depression or other mood disorders, and weight gain, although in most studies this weight gain has been minimalusually less than 5 pounds. He suggest your wife talk to her gynaecologist about this option.

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I understand traditional vasectomies arent guaranteed to be reversible, and you dont want to go that route. As a show of good faith, though, you can also do some research into the various male birth control projects underway, and keep an eye out for FDA approval of one of those methods.

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Meanwhile, theres a whole world of mutually pleasurable actions the two of you can engage in that dont get semen anywhere near her cervix. You might focus more on the kinds of sex that are unlikely to lead to pregnancy while you sort this contraception issue out.

The Weird Threat of COVID Dick

On the How to Do It podcast, a man tells Stoya and Rich that a bad case of COVID shrunk his penis. A doctor confirms that thats very real.

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Dear How to Do It,

Im a woman in my 20s and recently moved to a new city and into a house with several male roommates. One of the roommates and I have spent a lot of time over the past few months, and its been clear that theres been a bit of sexual tensionwe watch movies late at night together (and talk in the dark long after the movie is over), he once invited me into his room after one of these movies, and were generally fairly flirty. (Another roommate told me he could tell there was something going on.) Ive been pretty into him and have wanted to hook up casually, but never made a move and he didnt either. However, about a month ago, I worked up the courage to ask him what he thought our relationship was, to which he responded that he thought we should just be friends.

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Ive since realized that my move was far too serious given what I actually wantednot to date, but to hook up. He definitely thought he was choosing between dating and being friends, and that he hurt my feelings. (I was a little surprised but not hurt at all.) I havent seen him or talked to him outside a few texts since then, as weve both been travelling. He has also since quit his job and will be moving out of the city/our house in the next few months. Is it worthwhile to clarify what I was asking for? Im not only concerned Ive miscommunicated my intentions, but also that he may feel awkward around me now and that Ive lost one of my few new friends.

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Friend Without Benefits

Dear FWOB,

I think a second conversation to clear the air is worth the risk of upping the awkwardness between the two of you.

Send him a short text, letting him know that you think youve had a miscommunication and would like to clear the air whenever he has time. From there, its up to him to respond and make the talk happen or not. Think about what youll say beforehand. Maybe write it down, practice it out loud, or with a friend. The shorter and more direct you can be, the better. You also might think through the different ways this could go. If he wants to have a casual sexual relationship with you in the time before he leaves, would you still want that? Good luck.

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Dear How to Do It,

My husband is a morning person. Im an afternoon person. Our schedules tend to mean that morning sex is the most convenient way to go, and we can get at it several times a week. The only slight problem is that I am sexually sluggish in the morning, and while I welcome and enjoy the interaction, I usually dont reach orgasm. When we can get together in the afternoon, I tend to come very quickly and intensely.

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I love having our morning connections, but Id love to train my body to react a bit more readily at that time of day. It would be nice for both of us! Any suggestions?

Dawn

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Dear Dawn,

Do you use vibrators? If you dont, are you open to them? Small lipstick vibrators can be good for inserting between your bodies during penetration. And the sonic ones that enclose the whole clitoral glans are manoeuvrable and majestic. If those arent strong enough, the also manoeuvrable Magic Wand is worth a shot. My thinking is that you might orgasm earlier in the day with more targeted clitoral stimulation.

Im also wondering if this is a more holistic sleepiness, and if some part of your morning routine can be quickly done to get your body going. For me, its coffee. For you, it might be a brisk shower or quick exercise.

Dear How to Do It,

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I have been married for almost three years to an overall kind of considerate man. We have fantastic sexual chemistry and typically have sex three times a week. This is the second marriage for both of us. His first marriage was sexless for many years. We are both in our early 50s.

For the past six weeks, I have been having awful neck and back pain. I have been to an orthopedist and I am doing physical therapy. I am slowly getting better, but its been difficult. I can only have sex comfortably if I lie on my back. I cant get on top right now or do the normal things we used to do. Its still enjoyable, but I am looking forward to getting back to my old self.

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The pain has taken a toll on me mentally, and I have been feeling depressed. My husband somehow has been luckily spared in life and he has never experienced depression. I have had several bouts of moderate to severe depression in my life.

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This weekend, I had difficulty just motivating myself to get off the couch. I didnt eat very well, and Im not sleeping well due to the pain. My daughter was out of the house for the afternoon and he wanted to have sex. It has been a week since the last time, and I think he gets antsy if we dont have our normal routine. I told him I was feeling wiped out and not up to it. I have made it clear to him that I am depressed right now and I dont feel well mentally or physically. I am going out of town In a couple of days for a week, so he said that we should have sex tomorrow night then.

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I dont think he understands how depression makes a person feel-and I said this to him. I also think he thinks I can just turn a switch on and things will be back to normal and Ill be raring to go. I felt guilty that I didnt have sex with him this weekend and I feel it is my duty now have sex with him tonight no matter how I feel. I am sad and angry and hurt.

Downtime

Dear Downtime,

Your overall kind and considerate husband is being incredibly self-absorbed and unkind on this subject. I imagine his first marriage is affecting his response to your temporary sexual limitations, and making it difficult for him to empathize with you. On top of that, from what you say, it sounds like he doesnt understand depression, or significant pain. Hes pressuring you into sex that you dont feel like having. This is unfair to you, and an unacceptable situation. Your feelings of sadness, anger, and hurt are valid.

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Youve made it clear to him that youre depressed, and feeling poorly mentally and physically, but have you explained what that means? If he doesnt have experience to draw from, he might not understand the ramifications of depression on your libido and energy levels. If you havent, its worth giving that a try. If you have, Im not sure what else you can do to improve the situation yourself.

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Ideally you both start therapy individually and see a counsellor together. I dont know if theres a budget for that, whether youre open to it, and whether hes open to it, but if its possible, I think itll help a lot. Your husband sounds like hes unable to understand you, you sound like you could use someone to talk to about a lot of thisincluding your depression, yes, and also your long-term painand the two of you could use some help communicating. Its also worth thinking about how much youre willing to tolerate in a relationship, and what the point of no return is for you.

More How to Do It

Im a woman in her late 20s. I recently hooked up with a college friend when he was visiting my city. To me, this felt like the culmination of a long game of hahaunless? and was emotionally (though, frankly, not very physically) satisfying. Directly after the sex, we talked briefly and agreed that we wanted to remain in contact as friends. Then I got a shock the day after.
The debate over whether Democrats should pursue their large voting rights package or a narrower law aimed against election subversion became moot on Wednesday when Democrats could not muster up enough votes to tweak the filibuster rule to pass their larger package. Some Republicans are now making noise that they would support narrower anti-election subversion legislation centered on fixing an 1887 law known as the Electoral Count Act. Democrats should pursue this goal but think more broadly about other anti-subversion provisions that could attract bipartisan support. Bipartisan, pinpointed legislation is the best chance we have of avoiding a potential stolen presidential election in 2024 or beyond.

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The wide-or-narrow voting bill debate was weird because it was never an either/or proposition. As I wrote in the New York Times a few weeks ago, reaching bipartisan compromise against election subversion will not stop Democrats from fixing voting rights or partisan gerrymanders on their ownthe fate of those bills depend not on Republicans but on Democrats convincing Senators [Joe] Manchin and [Kyrsten] Sinema to modify the filibuster rules. Republicans should not try to hold anti-election subversion hostage to Democrats giving up their voting agenda.

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With the wide option off the table, the operative question is how best to go narrow as more Republicans, including most recently House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, signal they might be open to such a bill. Sens. Manchin and Susan Collins are among a group of senators working on reform. Bipartisan buy-in is especially important because it means that both sides are more likely to feel bound by the rules if a future dispute arises.

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Fixing the Electoral Count Act is a no-brainer. As Slates Mark Joseph Stern recently wrote, former President Donald Trumps attempt to reverse his loss to Joe Biden in the electoral college depended upon exploiting holes and ambiguities in the poorly-drafted set of rules for Congress to certify Electoral College results from the states. Stern says Democrats should seize the moment to get this done.

If Republicans are really prepared to come to the table (and that remains a big if), Democrats should not limit themselves to small tweaks to the Electoral Count Act such as ones that would simply limit the vice presidents discretion in presenting state electoral college votes to Congress. Of course Republicans would be inclined to support such a change when the next counting of electoral college votes will be presided over by Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

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Other potential ECA changes should include raising the threshold for objecting to state electoral college votes; right now it takes only one senator and one representative to raise an objection. There are other creative ideas out there as well, such as involving federal courts in resolving certain disputes when there are competing electoral college slates submitted by officials from a state. It is in the interest of both Republicans and Democrats to prevent manipulation of the process and ensure that the winner of the election is actually declared the winner. The more that can be clarified in advance behind the veil of ignorance, the better all who believe in democratic elections are going to be.

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But ECA reform should not be the only thing on the agenda in any bipartisan talks to prevent subversion. Ive proposed a long list of reforms that dont have a partisan valence. Consider, for example, a requirement that voters cast their ballots using equipment that produces a paper ballot that can be recounted in the event of a dispute over the winner of the election. Some Americans still vote on wholly electronic voting machines, where the only proof of the election winner is code spit out by a computer. In an era when voters distrust election results and manipulators like Trump seek to sow doubt in election integrity, physically tangible ballots that can be examined by a court or other neutral actor in the event of a dispute are indispensable. A provision requiring paper ballots was included in the larger voting bill that went down to defeat earlier this week, but theres no reason it cant also be part of any ECA reform.

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So too with laws raising the penalty for interfering with election proceedings or threatening or intimidating election workers and election officials. Some of this activity is illegal now, but not all of it. Those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 with an intent to stop the counting of electoral college votes deserve serious punishment for interference with democracy; this kind of crime is much worse than, say, breaking into a shopping mall or even destroying government property unconnected to the democratic process.

It is not clear if Republicans would go along with another proposal that was in the larger voting bill that would create a federal right for voters to sue if the fair count of their votes were interfered with. Its a strong, desirable remedy that would get federal courts involved in preventing attempts on the state and local level to cook the books, something which we can no longer rule out after the events following the 2020 election. Republicans tend to be skeptical of creating new rights, but federal courts (and the Supreme Court) are stacked with conservative judges, so maybe the aversion to court involvement can be overcome.

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Republicans also may not be on board with laws that limit the overpoliticization of election administration on the state level. The Democrats larger voting bill had a provision that would have prevented states from firing certain election officials without good cause. That kind of federal limitation on state control over elections may be a bridge too far for some Republicans, and so Democrats might want to think about other ways of assuring that legislatures do not interfere with state election officials and states dont interfere with local election officials to try to manipulate election processes or vote totals.

Finally, Democrats and Republicans should support pinpointed anti-subversion legislation aimed at stopping lies about when, where, and how people vote. As I argue in my upcoming book, Cheap Speech, such laws are likely constitutional under the First Amendment because they support societys compelling interest in assuring that voters can effectively cast their votes, and they do not interfere with contested political speech: whether or not voters are allowed to vote by text (they are not) is not a debatable question. Such laws can help assure that elections are not manipulated by private or public actors seeking to interfere with the fair workings of the election process.

Many are disappointed that Democrats could not pass their larger voting package. I was (and remain) a strong supporter of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which was part of that package. But lets not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We will know soon enough if Republicans are serious about anti-subversion legislation. If they are, as Stern says, it is time to seize the moment for the good of American democracy.
If he were anyone else, one could say that former President Donald Trump has been having an exceedingly bad week. Indeed, were he anyone else, one might well be saying that it sure looks like the walls are closing in on him. But Donald Trump has been living in the Republic of Walls-Closing-Inistan for so very, very long that its difficult to know whether the former president will once again get away with simply lying about the square footage of the forever-shrinking penthouse. This weeks would-be significant developments include:

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 In a massive filing on Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James said that her civil investigation into the Trump Organization showed the company had misstated the value of several assets in tax disclosures and financial statements used to secure loans. James thus sought a court order compelling Trump and two of his children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., to testify under oath. James also reported that in previous testimony a third Trump adult child, Eric, invoked the Fifth Amendment about 500 times.

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Subscribe to the Slatest Newsletter A daily email update of the stories you need to read right now. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.

 On Wednesday evening, on an 81 vote, the Supreme Court opened the door for the release of more than 700 documents Trump had sought to withhold from the House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, at this point practically ensuring that at minimum the commission will now receive documents tying the president to the events at the Capitol that day, including, as Slates Jeremy Stahl wrote, early drafts of statements that Trump gave that day that failed to quell the violence as lawmakers begged him for support, a draft executive order on election integrity, and handwritten notes concerning the events of Jan. 6 from Meadows himself. Politico has already published the stunning draft executive order, which ordered the Pentagon to seize every single voting machine in the country in what would have amounted to a much more coup-y coup.

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 On Thursday, the Jan. 6 select committee asked Trumps daughter and then senior adviser Ivanka Trump to cooperate with its investigationyet another step toward piercing his inner circle. In the letter seeking her testimony, the panel said witnesses have now told investigators that she may well have direct knowledge of her fathers actions before, during, and after the Jan. 6 effort to set aside the election results.

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 On Thursday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked for a special grand jury as part of her efforts to investigate Trumps attempt to set aside Georgias 2020 election results. Among other things, Willis is looking at Trumps Jan. 2 phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he urged the Republican to find the 11,780 votes needed to reverse Bidens win in Georgia. Willis is considering charging Trump criminally for election fraud. She requested the special grand jury because a significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.

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Theres more. Theres really a lot more. A criminal probe by the new Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, continues apace; civil suits brought by Mary Trump and E. Jean Carroll and other litigation chug on in courts around the country. Some of Donald Trumps closest confederates, counselors, and boosters are beginning to feel the heat for their own actions around the insurrection, with contempt of Congress charges and referrals piling up and the Department of Justice finally targeting those who led the seditious conspiracy at the Capitol. The real question, then, is, now that hes survived not one but two impeachments and the Mueller report, and settled many other potentially damaging lawsuits, when pundits state that this time, the walls are really, really, really, really closing in around the Trump family, which walls are really walls, and which are simply teensy little hurdles for a family that appears to have been genetically engineered to evade accountability forever?

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The question isnt merely whether Trump and his familys usual bag of legal tricksevasion, delay, threats directed at judges and other litigants, determined noncompliance, and the unfailing ability to spin losses as triumphswill work for them. The question is whether the larger national mood that casts doubt on all legal processes as witch hunts and that deems any accountability for Trump supporters as partisan reprisals actually obviates even the utility of the entire legal system going forward. Put another way, what if we just kept throwing up legal mechanisms for accountability, and time and again nobody came?

In a way, the legal question bleeds into the political question: So long as Donald Trump is still somewhat immune from political consequences, will he remain entirely immune from the legal ones? Clearly that was the case for Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and others who came out on the wrong side of a legal fight and still walked away free men. Donald Trump no longer controls the levers of accountability, however, through the pardon power or the authority to abuse the Justice Department for his own purposes. So when we think about whether the walls of justice are genuinely capable of catching up with the Trump family and imposing meaningful consequences, it is useful to separate the legal machinery from the political.

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In that sense, the findings of the Jan. 6 select committee, for instance, may not result in accountability for Trump, simply becausemuch like the Mueller report that all but stated Trump had obstructed justice but couldnt be charged in officehalf the country wont care. The New York litigation may result in actual accountability for Trump, particularly the civil probe that could produce a monetary penalty, but whether that in fact stops him from running for office again, or inspires him to try harder for the 2024 nomination, is its own question. Maybe the real inquiry here, then, isnt so much about the forever-closing-in walls and possible legal consequences for Trump, but whether the GOP specifically and Trump supporters generally have an unlimited appetite for a guy who looks a tiny bit more like a loser every day. The jurywhich is not a real jury, to be sureis still out on that question, but some of the signaling suggests that maybe the real effect of having the walls look like they are closing in, whether or not they really are, brings with it a growing sense that maybe tethering your horse to a paddy wagon is losing political strategy.

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Donald Trump has kept the walls at bay, long before he ran for office, by undermining, buying off, out-waiting, and intimidating the justice system. Once he took office, he made the best efforts of any president to buy and sell judges and justices, to bully his attorneys general, and to bluster his way to a lifetime of legal immunity. When you no longer have any authority over the judges, and the prosecutors, and the law enforcement officers, its at least no longer possible to simply make the walls just go away. Which means we are really asking whether the illusion of immunity, the appearance of political victimhood, and the repeated claims that the rule law is only for other, smaller, less important people can protect the Trump family forever. Thats an illusory power that only lasts as long as we afford it to him. Whether it endures forever has less to do with the Trumps than the rest of us.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court rebuffed abortion providers request to speed up proceedings against S.B. 8, the six-week ban that allows virtually anyone to sue providers and their abettors. Its decision tacitly rewards a far-right appeals courts scheme to defy the justices own previous decision; it also provides yet another harbinger that the court is on the brink of overruling Roe v. Wade. As she did during each previous encounter with S.B. 8, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a seething dissent from her colleagues refusal to provide relief. Her latest opinion reaches a new level of bruising, eloquent fury. It also conveys the very strong impression that the Republican-appointed justices are on the brink of overturning Roe outright, and there is nothing she can do but denounce its imminent downfall.

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A primer on S.B. 8s circuitous path through the courts: In September, SCOTUS declined to halt S.B. 8 by a 54 vote. Chief Justice Roberts dissented, along with the three liberals. Because the law relies on private citizens for enforcement, providers had sued state court judges and clerks. But in a terse order, the majority expressed doubt that these were the proper defendants. In dissent, Sotomayor condemned the law as flagrantly unconstitutional and a breathtaking act of defiance, scorning her colleagues for opting to bury their heads in the sand.

Then, in October, the justices agreed to hear arguments in the case, but allowed S.B. 8 to remain in effect in the meantime. Sotomayor dissented from their refusal to halt the law, describing its effects as catastrophic and ruinous.

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In November, by a 54 vote, the justices ruled that the providers could not sue state court clerks. (The decision is known as Whole Womans Health II.) But by an 81 vote, the court held that providers could sue executive licensing officials who help enforce the law against clinics. Sotomayor noted that the court should have put an end to this madness months ago. But she wrote approvingly that Whole Womans Health II would finally allow the district court to provide relief for the clinics, a view that Roberts endorsed.

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No relief came. The Supreme Court sent the case back down to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative circuit court in the country. It landed on a three-judge panel made up of Edith Jones, a far-right Ronald Reagan nominee; Kyle Duncan, a notoriously cruel Donald Trump nominee; and Stephen Higginson, a moderate Barack Obama nominee. Texas promptly asked the panel to certify the case to the Texas Supreme Court so it could decide whether SCOTUS was correct to hold that executive licensing officials could be sued. The panel, steered by Jones and Duncan, launched a series of delaying tactics. Panel members scheduled utterly gratuitous oral arguments to run down the clock (over Higginsons dissent), then certified the case to Texas high court (over Higginsons dissent). At arguments, Jones suggested that her court should sit on the case until Juneat which point, she explained, SCOTUS might overturn Roe v. Wade. Despite that audacious comment, Jones also glibly asserted that the S.B. 8 case was not about abortion.

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Awaiting a decision from the Texas Supreme Court could take months, and clinics will remain shut all the while. So providers asked SCOTUS to issue a writ of mandamus that would send the case back to the district court, which could issue an injunction blocking at least part of S.B. 8. The court refused on Thursday afternoon, apparently by a 63 vote, with the three liberals dissenting. (Shadow docket orders like this one do not always reveal the full vote count.) Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a brief opinion complaining that the 5th Circuit ignored our judgment in Whole Womans Health II. But, as usual, it was Sotomayor, joined by Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan, who laid out the true stakes of the case, shaming the majority for declining to protect pregnant Texans from egregious violations of their constitutional rights.

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Much of Sotomayors opinion meticulously explained how the 5th Circuits actions clearly defy SCOTUSs earlier decision by indulging Texas newest delay tactics. In the last two pages, however, she took a step back to survey the wreckage wrought by her colleagues complicity in S.B. 8.a convoluted law that instills terror in those who assist women exercising their rights, as she put it.

Contrary to the assertions of the panel below, Sotomayor wrote, this case is about abortion. As evidence, one need only note [Jones] musings about sitting on the case until this court decides the pending challenge to Roe. She continued:

I dissented in Whole Womans Health II because the Courts dismissal of the most important portions of the petitioners claims, beyond being unfaithful to our precedents, left all manner of constitutional rights vulnerable to nullification. I explained that the Court had clear[ed] the way for States to reprise and perfect Texas scheme in the future in order to target this and other rights with impunity. Todays decision shows that any hope that Whole Womans Health II might protect the Constitutions guarantees in this case was illusory. As it turns out, Texas did not even have to amend its law to sidestep the minimal relief this court left available. Instead, Texas wagered that this court did not mean what little it said in Whole Womans Health II or, at least, that this Court would not stand behind those words, meager as they were. That bet has paid off. Despite this Courts protestations over the extraordinary solicitude it gave this case and the narrowness of any dispute, it accepts yet another dilatory tactic by Texas. As a result, the District Court will remain powerless to address S. B. 8s unconstitutional chill on abortion care, likely for months to come. This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas, who have a right to control their own bodies. I will not stand by silently as a state continues to nullify this constitutional guarantee. I dissent.

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The final paragraph of the dissent reads like a eulogy for Roe.

Recall that Sotomayor already knows whether the Supreme Court will overturn Roe in June. Would she write with such ferocity if five justices had, against all odds, decided to save the constitutional right to abortion? It seems exceedingly unlikely. Much more probable is that Sotomayor knows the end of Roe is near and has given up trying to persuade or placate her anti-abortion colleagues. She is, instead, in burn-it-all-down mode, unleashing her opprobrium on the justices poised to extinguish a fundamental liberty, unencumbered by the fear of losing a vote that she could never win.

Neither Thursdays order nor Sotomayors dissent augurs well for the future of Roe. But the nation is profoundly fortunate to have a justice who speaks so candidly about our ongoing constitutional collapse.
The story of the 2017 Womens March on Washington is so messy, and its unraveling so seemingly a foregone conclusion, its easy to miss the miracle that was at its core: What started as a smattering of unconnected Facebook events that sprung up the day after Donald Trumps inauguration became the largest single-day political action in U.S. historya convening of nearly half a million people, who organized themselves by state and city and bought plane tickets and chartered buses to D.C. to be together on Jan. 21, 2017, five years ago today.

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It is not difficult to imagine how it might have played out differentlyand disastrously. Not hard to conjure, for instance, the prospect of a Womens March that lacked the guidance of the expert organizers who stepped in to right the careening, hastily constructed ship: One hundred thousand people arriving in D.C. with no idea where to go. Desperate women, hemmed in by crowds, taking a leak on the National Mall. A narrow focus on issues that matter most to white women, deepening existing rifts within feminist movements. News coverage focused on the poor planning rather than the message. New activists turned off from public protest for good.

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If nothing else, the fact that we remember the Womens March as a net-positive event rather than a Fyre Festival is a major win.

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But five years after the record-setting event, its a bit harder to identify its place in contemporary politics. The image of millions of Americans filling the streets to express dissatisfaction with the Trump agenda held immense promise for so many. Did it deliver?

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To answer that question, we have to ask a deeper one: What do we expect the purpose of public protest to be? Some critics deem a social movement a failure if it doesnt yield immediate, tangible policy changes. Barely one week after the 2017 Womens March, David Brooks was ready to dismiss the demonstration as mass therapy, nothing more than a seductive substitute for action. Grassroots movements dont have a great track record, he wrote. Change happens when people run for office, amass coalitions of interest groups, engage in the messy practice of politics.

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After the Womens March, participants were quick to put the lie to Brooks assumptions. Some did run for office, and some won. The march itself encompassed a diverse coalition of interest groups and the convention that followed, in October 2017, hosted workshops on the messier aspects of political organizing. A Michigan woman I met at that convention told me that her trip to D.C. for the Womens March inspired her to start an activist group back home. The members of that group threw themselves into the fight against partisan gerrymandering and worked to pass a state ballot initiative for an independent redistricting commission. Now, the Michigan maps have been redrawn. Though its impossible to measure how much the Womens March contributed to that outcome, it unquestionably played a part.

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One of the reasons its hard to get a full picture of the Womens Marchs impact is that most marchers didnt limit their Trump-era political activities to events sponsored by the organization. Those who were already involved in issue-based advocacy returned to their abortion-rights groups or their labor organizing or whatever else theyd been doing before Trumps election. Newcomers to activism joined existing groups or started their own, which functioned as consciousness-raising circles that radicalized their members.

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Some marchers went into party politics: One participant from Mainea woman whod never done anything political but vote before attending the Womens Marchwent home and became the chair of the Maine Democratic Party. Only a fraction of the marchers kept taking their cues from the Womens March organization itself. And that makes sense: The Womens March encompassed an almost unbelievably broad array of concerns.

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Its expansiveness made it a worthy introduction to progressive activism for people whod never felt compelled to participate before, but also meant that it could not be a sustainable, long-term driver of policy change.

Even its most enthused participants grasped from the start that the significance of the Womens March lay in its role as a catalyst for other actions, not as a brand-new leader of the political left.

But the organizers of Womens March didnt get that memo. The nonprofit that grew around it treated its four leadersTamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, Bob Bland, and Linda Sarsouras celebrities, the visionary trailblazers at the head of a cohesive political movement.

Organizers of marches are rarely given such disproportionate credit for their events success. Seasoned activists know that power of a grassroots movement lies not in its branding or executive leadership structure, but in the people who show up and sustain it. And yet, the Womens March foursome quickly claimed to speak for something far more decentralized and organic than their own narrative would suggest.

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They were everywhere: at fashion shows, cutting in front of rank-and-file participants at events, on magazine covers that they complained were not distributed widely enough. They accepted awards, posed for glamorous photo shoots, and fought a two-year battle to trademark the phrase womens march, which they eventually dropped. Media outlets deserve a portion of blame for being so eager to put a discrete set of faces and names to the story of a colossal new force in progressive politics. (It didnt hurt that the multi-racial, interreligious leadership team seemed to lend visual credence to the claim that the march had surmounted its rocky white-feminist start.) But the Womens March organization didnt do much to refocus all that attention on the thousands of local organizers and millions of marchers who gave the march its meaning.

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So when Mallory and Perez drew criticism for their support of noted sexist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, it was no big stretch for critics to use the leaders of the Womens March to smear the entire movement. For several months, when the womens groups that had sprung from the 2017 event should have been publicly celebrating the wins of the 2018 midterms, virtually the only media coverage of the Womens March was about the leaders alleged history of anti-Semitic remarks.

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Turns out, placing a highly visible hierarchy of self-appointed leaders at the top of a still-fluid grassroots movement is a recipe for defection. Local groups split from the national organization and major partners dropped out. The groundswell of women looking for community and purpose after Trumps election needed some guidanceliterally, marching orders. They did not need a clique of unelected spokespeople.

Luckily, that also meant that when the spokespeople came under scrutiny and stepped out of the spotlight, the people who made up the movementthe vast majority of whom were not particularly or exclusively connected to the official organizationwere not derailed.

They had come to the Womens March not as a unified people following a leader with a specific set of demands, but as individuals with a variety of related grievances, wanting to express a broad feeling of dismay at the direction the country was headed.

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Many of them were inspired to undertake a deeper political education and find their place in other movements, including the fight to save the Affordable Care Act and the racial justice uprisings in the summer of 2020. In an alternate timeline, with no Womens March to warm them up, would many of the white people at those Black Lives Matter marches have shown up at all? Insofar as the coalition that came together in the original march disbanded, it did so not because it was weak, but because it was strong enough to propel its participants far and wide.

But did any of that make a difference? The most memorable subsequent actions of the Womens Marchthe groups that traveled to D.C. to beg their senators not to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the marches in the streets to protest the end of Roe v. Wade in Texaswhat did they accomplish?

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When we consider the utility of public protest in an era of crumbling voting rights, rampant social-media disinformation campaigns, and unlimited corporate election spending, its worth taking a long view. Often, demonstrations are judged by their external impact: whether or not a set of demands were met. But in a system of governance thats built to favor an entrenched minority, populated by legislators who seem increasingly unmoved by public opinion as they pass laws that are interpreted by a partisan, conservative Supreme Court, major policy wins are proving harder to achieve. In all likelihood, the efficacy of todays progressive movement will not be measured by its immediate victories, but by its endurance.

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The purpose of mass protest has always been twofold: Theres the strategic, external part, which seeks to change minds and shift the Overton window. And theres the spontaneous, internal part, which concerns the experience of the people who are there.

Protests and marches reassure people that theyre neither alone in their anger or fear, nor crazy for being angry and fearful. They introduce demonstrators to new friends and networks of political activity. Theres nothing like the rush of standing in a chanting crowd, sweating or shivering with thousands of people who share ones outrage, to revive flagging willpower.

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As I looked back at videos of the Womens March this week, I was surprised to be reminded of the good vibes at an event born, for many, of gutting pain. Attendees, many of whom had no doubt spent the previous day grieving Trumps bone-chilling inauguration, were smiling and laughing, dancing to drums, writing cutesy and corny slogans on signs. By some estimations, this gave the march the appearance of unseriousness, or of unearned triumph for the new would-be activists for whom the hard part had not yet begun. But social movements feed on the sustenance of joy, especially in times when joyful news is hard to come by. In some ways, the Womens March functioned as a pep rally to pump up participants for the long slog ahead.

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The internal benefits of public protest were vital during the Trump administration, and theyre even more relevant now. Im sure there are plenty of Womens Marchers who heaved a sigh of relief and went back to brunch after Joe Biden took office, thinking the work was done. But I dont think thats the prevailing view among the people who first woke up to politics when Trump became president. They watched, as we all did, as right-wing rioters took the Capitol last Jan. 6. Theyre witnessing the dissolution of a broad voting rights bill at the hands of two Democratic senators. Theyre watching abortion rights disintegrate in Texas and across the South. And theyre living through the hottest years in recorded history, bracing for the next hurricane or forest fire, as the people with the power to save life on Earth as we know it look the other way.

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The biggest threat to sustained activism in 2022 isnt complacency in a political landscape where everything seems great. Its a feeling of futility, because the political landscape sucks. Its the sense that political organizing on the left is useless because structural advantages and unfair play are tipping the scales in favor of the right.

In this moment, under those conditions, with five years of hindsight, the Womens March looks nothing short of revolutionary. It showed hundreds of thousands of people, for the first time, what it felt like to be part of a movement. It gave them the chance to confront each other, face to face, about the lives that are erased when we talk about women as a monolith. It primed its participants to believe in a better future, and to persevere through spates of defeat. Its effects have long outlasted its leaders. Maybe David Brooks was rightthat does sound like a mass therapy session. And whats wrong with therapy?
ARCHIVED - Cup of coffee in Spain costs 10 cents more due to electricity prices



Soaring energy costs in Spain have had a knock-on effect on many products

The price of electricity reached its highest rate of the year on Monday January 17 at a wallet-busting 245 euros per megawatt hour, and the skyrocketing costs are pushing up the price of everything from petrol and toys to wheat, sugar and even coffee.

The hospitality trade is one of the industries that has been hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, and now cafe owners are facing a new challenge as the price of coffee has doubled in the last year. The 102% increase has forced many establishments to pass this cost onto their customers and, as of January 1, a cup of coffee sets consumers back an average of 1.50 euros; thats 10 cents more than last year.

Wholesale electricity prices went through the roof in 2021 thanks to increasing CO2 emission charges and soaring natural gas costs, so much so that energy costs in Spain, along with the UK, France and Germany, quadrupled.

After a record-breaking Monday, electricity costs eased off by 8.9% on Tuesday to 222.73 euros per megawatt hour. In the first twenty days of January, the daily price of the wholesale market dropped by 19.27% on average compared to December, but its still an increase of 221% compared to a year ago.

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Sanctions against Russia "only cause harm", economy minister opines, attracting Russia's attention.

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A diplomatic back-and-forth has ensued after Richard Sulik described sanctions that the EU has imposed on Russia as "unfortunate".

"Countries should trade with each other. And some of our exporters have been affected. Sanctions thus only cause harm, and Russians will not return Crimea anyway. We need to look forward and we need to build relationships," said Sulik, who serves as deputy prime minister and economy minister, and leads the coalition party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), in an interview with the Pravda daily in December. The daily has now published another story based on this quote on January 19, with the headline "Sulik rejects sanctions and claims Russians will not return Crimea".

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Ukrainian government upset

From there, Sulik's comments quickly made their way to the Russian media and then the Ukrainian media, upsetting the Kyiv government. Tens of thousands of Russian troops, plus heavy military equipment, have been massing on Ukraine's border in recent weeks, with observers warning a new invasion may be imminent. Russia currently occupies Ukrainian territory in Crimea and supports rebels in breakaway parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"It is unfortunate that the official of our friendly state, with which we have strong partnership relations, demonstrates a distorted perception of reality on the issue of Crimea, as well as on the need for sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation," Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko stated in an official statement published on the ministry's website.

Nikolenko at the same time noted that Sulik's comments are at odds with Slovakia's official position. That position, in support of sanctions, is represented by the country's main foreign policy actors: President Zuzana Caputova, Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OLaNO), and Foreign Affairs Minister Ivan Korcok (SaS).

Defence is a topic in Slovakia now

In his reaction, Heger stated that Slovakia does not intend to break from the coalition of states that condemn Russia's actions.

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Minister Korcok is a nominee of Sulik's SaS. He has recently been in the spotlight together with Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad (OLaNO), explaining the Defence Cooperation Agreement between Slovakia and the US in the face of unrelenting attacks from the opposition as well as from disinformation websites.

SaS supports the defence agreement and Sulik as its leader has stated that Slovakia should react in eastern Ukraine in harmony with NATO.
British-Belgian Zara Rutherford has broken two world records, but her global hunt for a tasty pizza was a failure.

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In August 2021, as countries in Europe and beyond continued to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic and accompanying travel restrictions, 19-year-old pilot Zara Rutherford made full use of her gap year before university and set off on a record-breaking trip.

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Her goal was simple enough: circumnavigate the globe solo, preferably before Christmas.

Some bad weather and visa delays pushed back her completion date, but her trip in a Slovak-manufactured airplane was a success. On January 20, 2022, the British-Belgian landed at Kortrijk-Wevelgem airport, where she began her journey, and officially entered the Guinness Book of World Records. She is now the youngest female pilot, and the first Belgian, to fly around the globe solo. She is also the youngest person to do it in a microlight aircraft.

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Suvisiaci clanok Belgian teenager flies solo around the world on a Slovak plane Read more

I really like the freedom of flying, Rutherford told The Slovak Spectator a day after landing in the Czech Republic. It doesnt matter whether youre flying from Alaska to Russia or just around your local airfield. Every flight is an adventure.

Upward bound
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/american-humor-china-takes-dig-at-us-after-whatsapp-ordered-to-hand-over-data-on-foreigners-1092430338.html

American Humor! China Takes Dig at US After WhatsApp Ordered to Hand Over Data on Foreigners

American Humor! China Takes Dig at US After WhatsApp Ordered to Hand Over Data on Foreigners

The US has accused Chinese telecoms of sharing data with the ruling People's Liberation Army, although Beijing continues to deny the allegations. Washington... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

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Beijing on Friday accused Washington of hypocrisy after the latter ordered a tech firm to share user conversations for snooping purposes. The statement has come after a Forbes report claimed that the US Drug Enforcement Administration agents sought WhatsApp data connected with a group of users in China and Macau.Lijian also observed that the US recently sanctioned three Chinese companies it said were engaged in unspecified "missile technology proliferation activities.""This is a typical hegemonic action," Lijian said, while pointing to what China characterized as Washington's "double standards" on selling to Australia Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.Citing an official document, Forbes reported on 17 January that US federal agencies issued an order to WhatsApp for "monitoring IP addresses and numbers with which the targeted users were communicating, as well as when and how they were using the app."The report underlined that "America's unexplained snooping has a global reach, far beyond domestic WhatsApp users and those in neighboring countries."The Indian government has ordered its officials to refrain from using WhatsApp for communication, as local intelligence suggest that classified information is being leaked to foreign countries.Intelligence agencies in India have also advised New Delhi to switch off digital assistants including Siri and Alexa in smartphones during meetings. Office assistant devices such as Google Home, Apple HomePod, or Amazon Echo have been barred from some offices.The US government accuses Chinese hardware manufacturers of snooping on foreign governments. Washington has also conveyed concerns to allies regarding what the US states is the People's Republic of China's (PRC) "irresponsible and destabilizing behavior in cyberspace."

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https://sputniknews.com/20220121/anti-abortion-activists-hold-march-for-life-in-washington-dc-1092430053.html

Anti-Abortion Activists Hold March for Life in Washington, DC

Anti-Abortion Activists Hold March for Life in Washington, DC

The March for Life is an annual event that is usually held near 22 January - the anniversary of the US Supreme Court Roe v Wade decision. The 1973 ruling... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

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Sputnik comes live from Washington, DC, where anti-abortion activists are holding a 'March for Life' protest, organised by the March for Life Education and Defense Fund. The event begins in Washington's great park of memorials overlooking the Potomac on Independence Avenue SW - just west of 14th St SW - with people marching up to Constitution Avenue to the steps of the Supreme Court.Follow Sputnik's Live Feed to Find Out More!

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Anti-Abortion Activists Hold March for Life in Washington, DC Anti-Abortion Activists Hold March for Life in Washington, DC 2022-01-21T15:59+0000 true PT1S

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https://sputniknews.com/20220121/biden-shouldnt-be-picking-amateur-diplomats-for-critical-diplomatic-posts-ex-official-warns-1092423633.html

Biden Shouldn't Be Picking 'Amateur Diplomats' for Critical Diplomatic Posts, Ex-Official Warns

Biden Shouldn't Be Picking 'Amateur Diplomats' for Critical Diplomatic Posts, Ex-Official Warns

The president vowed not to hire anyone solely for being a major donor. Still, he has so far appointed 25 donors to his campaign as ambassadors - presumably for... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T11:02+0000

2022-01-21T11:02+0000

2022-01-21T11:02+0000

joe biden

us

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uk

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US President Joe Biden should appoint more seasoned diplomats to critical ambassador posts instead of picking "amateur diplomats", a former director of global engagement for Barack Obama, Brett Bruen, has suggested. He warned that failing to do so would undermine America's already complicated position in the world.Bruen specifically referred to Biden's recent decision to send former TV executive and ex-US Ambassador to France Jane Hartley as envoy to the UK.Hartley's three-year stay in France is her only prior diplomatic experience, but Bruen argues that the UK appointment requires someone with "exceptional skills and decades of experience". He stressed that if anything goes sideways in US-UK relations, "it will reverberate around the world".Aside from being a former television exec, Hartley is also known for her generous donations to Democratic Party candidates, including the 2012 campaign of Barack Obama, who made her the nation's ambassador to France in 2014, and to the campaign of Joe Biden in 2020.Hartley is the latest addition to the list of 25 former "bundlers"  prominent campaign donors  Biden has appointed to diplomatic posts over the first year of his presidency. Roughly one-third of his ambassador appointees are bundlers and in this regard he has "outdone" two earlier administrations, that of Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Trump never revealed his bundlers.Notably, during his campaign, Biden vowed not to appoint anyone solely because they donated to his cause. Apparently, the 25 appointees possessed the skills needed to advance the nation's relationships with its allies and other foreign countries. Among them are former corporate executive Meg Whitman, who was appointed ambassador to Kenya, and hotelier George Tsunis, who Biden sent as ambassador to Greece. The latter lost his last ambassadorial nomination to Norway in 2013 after his candidacy was rejected by the Senate, who suspected him of not being familiar with the country he was supposed to work in.

https://sputniknews.com/20211217/us-senate-confirms-career-diplomat-nicholas-burns-to-be-next-ambassador-to-china-1091586802.html

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joe biden, us, ambassador, uk
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/blinken-to-meet-with-lavrov-immigration-advocates-turn-on-biden-1092413320.html

Blinken to Meet With Lavrov; Immigration Advocates Turn on Biden

Blinken to Meet With Lavrov; Immigration Advocates Turn on Biden

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are meeting on Friday, indicating that, at least for the present moment... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T07:44+0000

2022-01-21T07:44+0000

2022-01-21T11:34+0000

sergei lavrov

sen. joe manchin (d-west virginia)

antony blinken

minsk accords

the critical hour

kyrsten sinema

radio

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Blinken to Meet with Lavrov; Immigration Advocates Turn on Biden US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are meeting on Friday, indicating that, at least for the present moment, diplomacy between the two world powers continues.

Andrew Korybko, Moscow-based American journalist and analyst, joins us to discuss the crisis on Russia's border. Andrew argues that Russia does not need mediation with Kiev, as the Eurasian power is only interested in the implementation of the agreed-upon principles in the Minsk Accords. Also, we discuss President Biden's odd comment about "minor incursions" into Ukraine by the Russian military.Greg Palast, investigative reporter, joins us to discuss domestic politics. President Biden's voting rights legislation is dead, and many Democrats are blaming Senators Manchin and Sinema. Also, President Biden is downsizing his legislative agenda as it appears that he may get no political wins before the midterm elections.Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, joins us to discuss the Blinken-Lavrov meeting. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are meeting on Friday, indicating that, at least for the present moment, diplomacy between the two world powers continues.Robert Fantina, journalist and Palestine activist, joins us to discuss the Middle East. President Biden is courting with designating the Ansar Allah movement in Yemen as a terrorist group. Also, there are videos showing the US killing of 10 civilians in a drone strike.Laith Marouf, broadcaster and journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon, joins us to discuss the Sheikh Jarrah demolitions. Israel is receiving international condemnation for the demolition of civilian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.Dr. Ken Hammond, professor of East Asian and global history at New Mexico State University, joins us to discuss Asia. President Biden's rhetoric regarding North Korea does not seem to match the reality of the facts on the ground. Also, the US and Japan are jacking up the China threat and ignoring the other areas of mutual concern.Oscar Chacon, co-founder and executive director of Alianza Americas, and Maru Mora-Villapando, community organizer, political analyst, and consultant, join us to discuss immigration. President Biden is facing hurdles in yet another arena as immigration activists, furious over his failure to improve on President Trump's border policies, are abandoning him in droves.Nicholas Davies, peace activist and author of "Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion of Iraq," joins us to discuss President Biden's foreign policy. Nicholas reviews President Biden's foreign policy, and comes to the conclusion that he is continuing the failures of Donald Trump and adding many more dangerous elements.We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com

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sergei lavrov, sen. joe manchin (d-west virginia), antony blinken, minsk accords, the critical hour, kyrsten sinema, , radio
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/doomsday-clock-remains-close-to-civilization-ending-apocalypse---atomic-scientists-1092413891.html

Doomsday Clock Remains Close to 'Civilisation-Ending Apocalypse' - Atomic Scientists

Doomsday Clock Remains Close to 'Civilisation-Ending Apocalypse' - Atomic Scientists

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The Doomsday Clock remains the closest it has ever been to a civilisation-ending catastrophe due to a mix of global threats, including... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T01:18+0000

2022-01-21T01:18+0000

2022-01-21T06:57+0000

bulletin of the atomic scientists

doomsday clock

apocalypse

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The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an organisation founded by Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, made the declaration during their 75th annual reading of the metaphorical countdown to armageddon."The members of the Science and Security Board find the world to be no safer than it was last year at this time and therefore decide to set the Doomsday Clock once again at 100 seconds to midnight", the group said in a statement on Thursday. In terms of mitigating steps, the organisation called on the US and Russian presidents to identify more ambitious limits on nuclear weapons and delivery systems by the end of this year. China, the release added, should commit to a no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy along with the United States and Russia.In addition, Iran and the United States should rejoin the nuclear deal and North Korea should codify its ban on nuclear and long-range missile tests, the release said.The group said the time is based on continuing threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, disruptive technologies, and COVID-19. They also said an environment of corrupt information that undermines rational decision making on these issues has exacerbated the threats.The Doomsday Clock has been set at 100 seconds to midnight for the last two years, the release noted.

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bulletin of the atomic scientists, doomsday clock, apocalypse
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/facebook-blocks-posting-on-sputnik-arabic-page-1092432515.html

Facebook Blocks Posting on Sputnik Arabic Page

Facebook Blocks Posting on Sputnik Arabic Page

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Facebook has blocked the posting option for the Arabic page of the Sputnik news agency. 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T16:01+0000

2022-01-21T16:01+0000

2022-01-21T19:17+0000

russia

facebook

sputnik

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According to the official notice, access to the page has been temporarily restricted for security reasons. Facebook support referred to the social network's Community Standards list, saying that the restriction was introduced due to "potential non-compliance" with the platform's policies. Facebook Concierge Support moderators did not provide a specific reason for the move, and continued to insist that certain features were blocked because of general violations.Sputnik Arabic has never been blocked from posting on Facebook before, with recent posts falling easily within the guidelines set by the social network's Community Standards.Since its launch, the news page indeed had its content marked as violating Facebook policies. It was a video about the life of Iranian top military official Qasem Soleimani, who was assassinated by a US drone attack, posted in January 2020. The social network has also blocked several posts about the approval of Sputnik V vaccine in Russia and tagged them as misleading about the effectiveness of drugs during a pandemic.Sputnik Arabic has an audience of two million people on Facebook.

https://sputniknews.com/20211124/roskomnadzor-says-recorded-51-facts-of-russian-media-materials-censorship-since-2020-1090973359.html

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russia, facebook, sputnik
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/more-than-a-drink-italy-wants-espresso-tradition-to-receive-unesco-status-1092434473.html

'More Than a Drink': Italy Wants Espresso Tradition to Receive UNESCO Status

'More Than a Drink': Italy Wants Espresso Tradition to Receive UNESCO Status

Back in 2017, UNESCO added Neapolitan pizza to its list of "intangible heritage", in a nod to the art of pizzaiuolo passed through generations in the... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T18:47+0000

2022-01-21T18:47+0000

2022-01-21T18:47+0000

unesco

italy

espresso

society

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In another attempt to gain recognition for the traditional Italian espresso, the country is bidding for it to be granted UNESCO heritage status - after it failed to secure the status last year.According to Italy's media, the country's deputy agricultural minister Gian Marco Centinaio announced the nomination on Thursday.Last year, espresso did not make it onto the list of UNESCO heritage, as there had been two applications: the first one was made by the Consortium for the Protection of Traditional Italian Espresso Coffee in Treviso, representing all of Italy, and the other by the Region of Campania, on behalf of Naples. According to The Wall Street Journal, Treviso's application was even decried as an act of war by the north against the south at the time.But what is traditional Italian espresso? According to the Consortium for the Protection of Traditional Italian Espresso Coffee, what distinguishes Italian coffee from this drink in other coffee-consuming countries such as Finland of Turkey is "la crema" - the froth on the surface of well-made Italian espresso. It must be uniform and persistent for at least 120 seconds from the time the coffee has been dispensed without stirring", and also has to be consistent, a dark hazel color, with light streaks.Finally, it has to be made by a trained barista with the use of a coffee machine, and it is obligatory that the coffee is brewed for exactly 20 to 27 seconds.Interestingly enough, traditional Italian espresso appears to have no historic need to be actually tasty: it is more of a daily ritual, "an essential element of a full life, and speaks to generations' worth of Italians going about their business, living well, working hard, and, frankly, being Italian," as put by Ever Meister in her report for Serious Eats.Some critics are less fond of the Italian coffee traditions - even those from Italy.

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Daria Bedenko

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unesco, italy, espresso, society
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/pitch-black-ocean-netizens-shocked-by-view-of-ocean-at-night-1092432637.html

Pitch-black Ocean: Netizens Shocked by View of Ocean at Night

Pitch-black Ocean: Netizens Shocked by View of Ocean at Night

An employee working on a tugboat showed the darkness of the ocean at night and users on TikTok have been staggered by its oily blackness and how it looks like... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T17:44+0000

2022-01-21T17:44+0000

2022-01-21T17:44+0000

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The young man with the nickname trevin_17, who also works on a tugboat in the USA shared a TikTok video that went viral on the platform. The employee demonstrated in the video the sea's pitch-black darkness. "Everyone is posting videos of how dark it is on the boat at night. Well, I work on a ship. Lets see how dark it really is," reads the video caption and then the young man goes on deck with a torch and demonstrates that "the light does not go far", and points the flashlight at the water. Around him is impenetrable blackness and nothing is visible.The video went viral with more than 31 million views, and people said in the comments under the video how creepy it is. "Something about the ocean gives me bad vibes," shared one netizen. Another wrote: "Now I understand why the lookouts didn't see the iceberg in Titanic." Most of the comments are about how it is scary or "new fear unlocked".

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tiktok, ocean, viral
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/putin-and-maduro-did-not-discuss-issue-of-deployment-of-russian-bases-in-venezuela-1092424254.html

Putin and Maduro Did Not Discuss Issue of Deployment of Russian Bases in Venezuela

Putin and Maduro Did Not Discuss Issue of Deployment of Russian Bases in Venezuela

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The issue of the deployment of Russian military bases in Venezuela was not discussed in a recent phone conversation between presidents... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T11:07+0000

2022-01-21T11:07+0000

2022-01-21T11:25+0000

venezuela

russia

vladimir putin

dmitry peskov

nicolas maduro

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Putin and Maduro held a phone conversation on Thursday.The Russian Foreign Ministry earlier said it wouldn't rule out deploying Russian forces to Venezuela and Cuba as tensions with Washington worsen over Ukraine and considerable NATO activity near Russian territory. Moscow noted, however, that the possibility of such a deployment depends on Washington's response to its security guarantee proposals.The draft agreements proposed by Moscow stipulate that troop and missile deployments on both sides should be severely limited and suggest that NATO not expand eastwards or set up bases near the Russian border.Situation in DonbassPeskov also referred to the plan to recognise the republic of Donbass, but stressed that, at the moment, the priority is to prevent any further escalation.Ukraine has been waging a war against the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic since 2014 when they proclaimed independence following a violent coup in Kiev. In October 2020, the tensions escalated in the area, after the Ukrainian military boosted its operations, reportedly using UAVs to launch attacks against Donbass.

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venezuela, russia, vladimir putin, dmitry peskov, nicolas maduro
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/stop-the-circus-mass-killer-breivik-may-see-prison-conditions-eased-following-parole-trial-1092416684.html

Stop the 'Circus': Mass Killer Breivik May See Prison Conditions Eased Following Parole Trial

Stop the 'Circus': Mass Killer Breivik May See Prison Conditions Eased Following Parole Trial

Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 and wounded over 150 people in a twin terrorist attack in 2011, has served 10 years of his 21-year sentence, the harshest in... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T05:26+0000

2022-01-21T05:26+0000

2022-01-21T05:26+0000

anders breivik

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europe

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terrorism

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The trial in Norway, where a court is to decide whether convicted terrorist Anders Behring Breivik can be released on parole ten years after he killed 77 people in Oslo and in a youth camp on Utya Island has concluded, and a ruling is expected within the next few weeks.While there is admittedly little chance for Breivik to be released, as psychiatrists classified him as a "self-absorbed psychopath" who hasn't repudiated his violent ways despite public assurances voiced during the recent trial, the situation is likely to repeat itself. In 2012, Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the harshest punishment in Norway, sometimes referred to as a "life sentence". After 10 years in prison though, he has the right to apply for parole every year.Furthermore, the penitentiary may have to ease Breivik's conditions in the aftermath of the trial.According to Breivik's lawyer, he hasn't had physical contact with people other than the prison guards for the past nine and a half years, which may be seen as a violation of laws, national broadcaster NRK reported.However, former Attorney General Tor-Aksel Busch called on politicians to change the law so that Breivik cannot go to court every year and request parole, which he argued was a "great burden" for the families of victims and survivors."It seems quite clear, based on what has emerged in the media, that Breivik has had quite a bit of progression in his personal development. I would be very careful to predict how he will develop further, but there are many indications that in a year's time he will be in exactly the same situation as today, and that he will pose the same danger of recurrence", Busch told the newspaper Verdens Gang.Similar thoughts were echoed by Lisbeth Ryneland, the leader of July 22 support group dealing with the aftermath of Breivik's twin terrorist acts in 2011. She is glad that the case, which has been "painful" to follow, has ended."It has been quite tough, but also very absurd. But it shows that Breivik is as dangerous as he was before, as he has been all along. That has been confirmed by the two previous trials and now by this one", Ryneland told national broadcaster NRK. "It is absurd and pathetic, but that is how the law in Norway works", she added. At the same time, she ventured that special rules around Breivik would give him even more publicity.The proposal to prevent Breivik from seeking parole has been backed by several parties, including the opposition Progress Party and the Conservatives.Prosecutor Hulda Karlsdottir, who called Anders Breivik a "very dangerous man", as dangerous as eleven years ago, and asked the court to reject his request, also mentioned that Breivik has been using his lawsuits for PR.Breivik performed several publicity stunts during the recent case as well. Among other things, he repeated the Nazi salute he has used in court before and wore placards saying "Stop your genocide against our white nations" attached to his suit and briefcase.In 2011, Anders Breivik (42) carried out the deadliest peacetime attack in Norway since World War II. He started by setting off a bomb inside a truck outside the government quarter in the capital of Oslo, killing eight people and wounding more.After that, he drove to the island of Utya, where an annual summer camp for the country's Labour Party's youth wing was being held. There, he opened fire at the camp, killing another 69 people and wounding 150 more, most of them teenagers.Prior to the twin attacks, he disseminated a 1,500-page manifesto against feminism, multiculturalism, and Islam.

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Igor Kuznetsov

Igor Kuznetsov

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Igor Kuznetsov

anders breivik, news, europe, norway, terrorism
https://sputniknews.com/20220121/swedish-people-parties-polarised-over-joining-nato-amid-russia-scaremongering-1092417911.html

Swedish People, Parties Polarised Over Joining NATO Amid Russia Scaremongering

Swedish People, Parties Polarised Over Joining NATO Amid Russia Scaremongering

As a result of what the Russian Embassy has described as an "incomparable propaganda campaign", a majority of Swedes are now afraid of Russia as a superpower ... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T06:55+0000

2022-01-21T06:55+0000

2022-01-21T06:55+0000

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As the perennial NATO debate has flared up anew in Sweden a poll has indicated that the population is split over accession to the alliance.In a survey conducted by pollster Novus, just over a third, 37 percent of respondents, said yes to the prospect of NATO membership. Slightly fewer, 35 percent, said no. As many as 28 percent were undecided.While somewhat more people in the survey were in favour of joining the alliance, the difference was statistically insignificant. Yet, compared to a previous survey in 2017, the shift is considerable. At that time, 32 percent said yes to NATO, whereas the negative side was much larger at 43 percent.A majority of the nation's parliamentary parties are now in favour of the theoretical NATO option, but are equally divided for and against actual membership. While the Moderates, the Centre, the Christian Democrats, and the Liberals are in favour of NATO, the ruling Social Democrats, the Left, the Greens, and the national-conservative Sweden Democrats are against."Sweden should not join NATO, but the most important thing Sweden should do is to invest more resources in the total defence. However, Sweden should continue to cooperate with NATO", the Sweden Democrats said.The recent round in the NATO debate comes amid unprecedented scaremongering of a war with Russia, regardless of how absurd it may sound. While Russia is being painted as an "aggressor" in the media, top-ranking politicians and members of the military, including Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist and Supreme Commander Micael Byden, have made hawkish statements identifying Russia as a "threat". Furthermore, Hultqvist said earlier this week that an attack against Sweden couldn't be ruled out.Among other things, Russia's recent movement of ships in the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea was named as the chief reason behind the appearance of armoured troops on the streets of Gotland, Sweden's largest island. This comes on top of the "Russian threat" perennially floated in the media, including the mini-series "When the War Comes", where Moscow is featured as an adversary.As a result of this scaremongering tactic, a clear majority, 59 percent, said in the Novus poll they are afraid of Russia as a superpower. By contrast, only a third, 29 percent, were afraid of the US. As the anti-Russian hysteria peaked, the country's embassy in Stockholm even had to assure ordinary Swedes that Moscow has no plans to attack the Scandinavian nation. The embassy explained that it had received "numerous inquiries from Swedish citizens, mainly from children and the elderly".According to the embassy, allegations that Russia would like to fight Sweden are aimed at "convincing ordinary taxpayers that they need to invest more money for military needs and obediently follow instructions from across the Atlantic".By contrast, the embassy assured Russia would like to develop "good neighbourly relations" and develop a "mutually beneficial dialogue".

https://sputniknews.com/20220114/sweden-bolsters-gotland-patrols-amid-nato-russia-tensions-1092251216.html

https://sputniknews.com/20220118/sweden-re-establishes-yet-another-cold-war-era-regiment-1092334143.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20220121/taliban-tell-biden-that-only-united-countries-can-defeat-great-empires-after-his-critical-remarks-1092420719.html

Taliban Tell Biden That Only United Countries Can Defeat 'Great Empires', After His Critical Remarks

Taliban Tell Biden That Only United Countries Can Defeat 'Great Empires', After His Critical Remarks

Former US President Donald Trump signed the Doha Peace Deal with the Taliban* in February 2020. As part of the pact, US-led western forces would withdraw from... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T13:27+0000

2022-01-21T13:27+0000

2022-01-21T13:29+0000

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The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has objected to remarks made by US President Joe Biden that the central Asian nation could never be united under one single government."After occupation ended, we witnessed how the IEA [Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan], with limited resources and in a short period, ensured overall security, established a central government, and united the Afghan nation," he added.Biden made the remarks about Afghanistan on Thursday at a press conference held to mark his first anniversary in power. The Democrat was answering a question casting doubt on his government's competence over some decisions during the past 12 months, including ordering the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.He said that it was for a solid reason that Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of empires.The US and global powers have consistently called upon the Taliban to form an inclusive government with representations from all the major ethnic groups as well as women. However, these calls have been largely ignored by the Islamist group, which primarily consists of members of Afghanistan's predominant Pashtun tribe.So, the question was whether I should continue to spend that much money every week in Afghanistan, knowing that the only thing we'd get in return was more body bags back home  There was no way to leave Afghanistan so easily after 20 years  And I made no apologies for what I did, Biden also said.The US president also reckoned that had he not ordered the troop withdrawal when he did, Washington would have been asked to put somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 troops back in.Bidens decision to pull out American troops has been widely criticised not only by his political opponents, but even by some of US global allies.Another survey in the wake of 15 August, when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, showed that US standing among the public of other countries had also taken a hit over the way the troop withdrawal process had been executed.Former US president Donald Trump and several other Republicans have even asked Biden to resign in disgrace over the Afghan troop withdrawal, describing the event as an absolute humiliation for the US.*Organisation being sanctioned by the UN for terrorist activities

https://sputniknews.com/20210827/brand-america-takes-significant-hit-globally-after-talibans-kabul-takeover-survey-shows-1083729025.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20220121/tories-hit-back-at-whip-bullying-claims-and-more-defection-rumours-1092427907.html

Tories Hit Back at Whip 'Bullying' Claims and More Defection Rumours

Tories Hit Back at Whip 'Bullying' Claims and More Defection Rumours

The threat of backbench rebels forcing PM Boris Johnson to face a leadership contest has receded since Bury South MP Christian Wakeford crossed the floor to... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T15:53+0000

2022-01-21T15:53+0000

2022-01-21T15:53+0000

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Tories have hit back at accusations that party whips tried to "bully" MPs into supporting Prime Minister Boris Johnson and claims of further defections to Labour.East Surrey MP Claire Coutinho  who has been tipped for a future cabinet post  responded on Friday to fellow Conservative William Wragg's statement the previous day during a televised parliamentary committee meeting.Wragg claimed that he and others calling for the Johnson to resign over the 'Partygate' scandal had been threatened with withdrawal of government spending earmarked for their constituencies, and that whips had been briefing the media against them.She pointed out that Bury South, whose MP Christian Wakeford defected to the Labour Party on Wednesday after weeks of secret talks with the opposition, had received tens of millions despite his many votes against the government.Wragg has so far failed to respond to Johnson's challenge to produce evidence for his allegations. Meanwhile, Wakeford's desertion has reduced the ranks of Johnson's opponents by one and prompted others to drop their calls for the PM to go.Half-Baked CoupA media feeding-frenzy ensued this week over rumours that almost enough Tory MPs had submitted letters to the backbench 1922 Committee to trigger a leadership challenge over reports Downing Street staff guzzled wine and beer at work during the COVID-19 lockdown. Five of their number were reported to be ready to join Wakeford in changing sides. Bishop Auckland MP Dehenna Davison denied reports she was the leader of the so-called "Pork Pie Plot" against Johnson among Tory MPs in formerly safe 'Red Wall' Labour northern seats. The supposed rebellion was named for Alicia Kearns, the MP for Rutland and Melton  where the famous Melton Mowbray pork pie was first baked.She also scotched claims she was planning to follow Wakeford in crossing the floor to the opposition benches, or even being involved in attempts to bring BoJo down.The MP said she was "incredibly angry" about the Partygate scandal and Johnson's response to it. But she stressed: It will be for the Prime Minister himself, or the Conservative Party collectively, to decide the Prime Ministers future."Of course, I have had a number of conversations with colleagues about this," Davison added, "but to suggest Im leading a coup is bonkers." No Honour Amongst TurncoatsNorth West Durham MP Richard Holden, another of the five rumoured Tory turncoats, was also quick to quash the speculation.But local Labour Party branch chair Pat Glass, former MP for the seat, bizarrely claimed Holden had started the rumour himself just to get his name in the papers.Glass announced in June 2016 that she would be standing down from the seat at the next election  which came the following year  because she had found that month's European Union (EU) membership referendum "bruising" and "incredibly divisive".Glass had been forced to apologise a month earlier after calling a voter, who did not support staying in the EU as she did, a "horrible racist". Her resignation as shadow education secretary was also seen as an attack on then-leader Jeremy Corbyn, coming two days after her predecessor Lucy Powell resigned in protest at his leadership during the Brexit campaign.More irony was evident on Wednesday evening, when Ashfield MP Lee Anderson  himself a defector from Labour  was interviewed by his Parliamentary predecessor and former boss Gloria de Piero for her GB News show.

https://sputniknews.com/20220121/tory-rebels-reportedly-mull-publishing-blackmail-messages-from-whips-to-prove-intimidation-claims-1092418136.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20220121/uk-mulls-basing-military-assets-in-australia-amid-malign-actors-rise-in-indo-pacific-1092424770.html

UK Mulls Basing Military Assets in Australia Amid 'Malign Actors' Rise in Indo-Pacific

UK Mulls Basing Military Assets in Australia Amid 'Malign Actors' Rise in Indo-Pacific

Australia has boosted its defences by forming alliances with the US, UK, Japan, and India via new agreements such as AUKUS and reciprocal access pacts. Despite... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T14:21+0000

2022-01-21T14:21+0000

2022-01-21T14:21+0000

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A day after inking a cyber-security agreement, the UK and Australia vowed to intensify their defence and security cooperation further to counter "malign actors" that "challenge the rules-based international order and pose clear risks to global security and prosperity".Australian ministers Marise Payne and Peter Dutton welcomed UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to the annual AUKMIN talks on Friday.Noting how the risk of tensions within the Indo-Pacific region had risen, ministers also agreed to undertake a series of tabletop exercises and improve each other's capacity to respond to critical issues in the Indo-Pacific.Dutton has said there are no plans to introduce temporary military basing arrangements. However, at the same time, Wallace underlined that "nothing is off the table" saying "let's take the steps as they come."Both the ministers said that there would be a greater regularity in military visits and training, with people embedded in both services. "Certainly a greater cooperation in exercises and the visits by those various platforms, not just limited to submarines," Dutton emphasised.Australia's Defence Minister expects more visits from allies, including the US, to continue as more countries "understand what is happening in terms of coercion and bullying within the Indo-Pacific".Australia had signed a trilateral pact named AUKUS last September to receive submarine technologies from the US and the UK. The three countries have started negotiations to implement the arrangement.Ministers stressed that the targeted use of sanctions is a critical tool in responding to malign activity, including with respect to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, serious human rights abuses, and malicious cyber activity.They named countries such as Russia, China, and Iran which the UK and Australia believe launch regular cyberattacks, allegations repeatedly denied by Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing. Australia and the UK agreed to enhance cybersecurity by a further exchanges of specialist cyber personnel and increasing bilateral participation in one another's respective cyber exercises. On 6 January, Australia had signed a landmark defence pact named Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Japan to facilitate faster deployment of Japanese Self-Defence Forces and Australian Defence Force personnel.

https://sputniknews.com/20220120/uk-australia-form-cyber-and-tech-partnership-1092399419.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20220121/us-reportedly-dropped-massive-bomb-on-syrian-dam-marked-as-no-go-target-1092435601.html

US Reportedly Dropped Massive Bomb on Syrian Dam Marked as 'No-Go' Target

US Reportedly Dropped Massive Bomb on Syrian Dam Marked as 'No-Go' Target

Washington has never received a UN mandate or permission from Damascus to carry out military strikes on Syrian soil or deploy its troops in the nation... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T19:55+0000

2022-01-21T19:55+0000

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middle east

syria

dam

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A US Special Operations drone unit carried out an airstrike targeting the 18-storey Syrian Taqba dam located on the Euphrates River, although the key infrastructure object was on a "no-strike" list, The New York Times reported, citing several anonymous sources, including from within Task Force 9  the unit responsible for the attack.According to one source, bombs as big as 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) were used in the March 2017 attack, while the dam was still under the control of Daesh* terrorists. The dam was on the no-go list because a US military report showed that its destruction could flood nearby areas causing enormous destruction and widespread civilian fatalities.Carnage was avoided due to a combination of extreme luck and the skill of local engineers, newspaper sources claimed. One bomb, which reportedly did not detonate, was said to have later been safely extracted by workers. What damage occurred was later repaired by local engineers, with warring sides agreeing to a temporary ceasefire to complete the job, the NY Times said.The US Central Command has not commented on the report, although a spokesperson told the newspaper that US military strikes were limited to operating towers near the dam. The Times' sources disagreed with the assessment, claiming that the dam itself suffered significant damage. The reservoir behind the dam saw a 15-metre water level rise following the strikes, coming close to spilling over, a source told the newspaper.American troops are still deployed within Syria, against the wishes of Damascus. The US has carried out airstrikes both against Daesh and Damascus, despite lacking a UN mandate to carry out military operations within the country's borders. The Syrian government and Russia, its chief ally in fighting local terrorist insurgents, have repeatedly condemned Washington's actions and continued military deployments within the nation's territory.*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia and several other countries

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https://sputniknews.com/20220121/us-secretary-of-state-blinken-holds-press-conference-after-meeting-with-russian-fm-lavrov-1092425635.html

US Secretary of State Blinken Holds Press Conference After Meeting With Russian FM Lavrov

US Secretary of State Blinken Holds Press Conference After Meeting With Russian FM Lavrov

Moscow previously put forward security guarantee proposals to de-escalate Russia-NATO tensions by restricting troop deployments for both sides and putting a... 21.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-21T12:18+0000

2022-01-21T12:18+0000

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Sputnik is live from Geneva, Switzerland, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds a presser after his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The two diplomats met to discuss Russia's security proposals and the recent escalation around Ukraine. The US secretary of state previously called the situation surrounding Ukraine "a crisis with global consequences" and urged for it to be resolved.Follow Sputnik's Live Feed to Find Out More!

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US Secretary of State Blinken Holds Press Conference After Meeting With Russian FM Lavrov US Secretary of State Blinken Holds Press Conference After Meeting With Russian FM Lavrov 2022-01-21T12:18+0000 true PT1S

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Executive Director Scott Chaney reported that the University of California, Davis, has appointed acting Equine Medical Directors to fulfill the statutory and regulatory roles of the EMD while Dr. Jeff Blea, the Board-approved EMD, is on administrative leave from the University. The EMD serves on the faculty of UC Davis and, though assigned to the CHRB, is actually employed by the University. The CHRB played no part in placing him on administrative leave, and in fact has repeatedly questioned the propriety of actions taken by the California Veterinary Medical Board against Dr. Blea, which led to him being placed on leave. On that point, Chaney and several commissioners expressed their support for Dr. Blea, and later during closed session the full Board unanimously gave a vote of confidence for Dr. Blea.

Chaney also reported that the Board will not have a monthly meeting in February, so the next scheduled meeting will be on March 17. A Pari-Mutuel Committee meeting is likely to be held on March 16.

In a brief update on the Horseracing Safety and Integrity Act, Chaney commented that, Overall, the direction in which the Authority is heading is positive from the CHRBs perspective in that it will create national standards, while keeping Californias strict regulatory structure.
As a teenager, Nicole DiCostanzo knew only one thing about harness racing  that she loved it. She had no family in the business but watched races constantly and eventually followed friends involved in the sport to the track. Before long, DiCostanzo bought her first horse, and there was no turning back.

Since making that initial purchase seven years ago, DiCostanzos involvement in the sport has advanced from owning and caretaking to training and driving. The 23-year-old got her first win as a trainer in 2018 and notched her first victory as a driver earlier this month in a GSY Series amateur race at The Meadowlands. A second GSY Series triumph followed a week later at Freehold Raceway.

I basically fell into the horse business, DiCostanzo said. As a little kid, I was kind of obsessed about watching it on TV. I had a couple friends that were doing it, and I got hooked up going to the racetrack and started doing some paddocks. I didnt really know what I was doing, but within a month I bought my first horse.

Ever since that day, Ive grown accustomed to it. Ive been doing it for seven years now and its a thrill every morning going to the barn and jumping on a jog cart. I dont actually know what I would do without harness racing.

DiCostanzo has a five-horse stable in central New Jersey. Last year, she won 15 of 122 races and $257,264 as a trainer. Much of her success came at Yonkers Raceway, where she won 10 times and saw her pacer Uptown Funk compete in the open handicap.

As a driver, DiCostanzo got started in 2019. She raced 12 times prior to winning with Rockabilly Charm, trained by Victoria DAlessandro, on Jan. 7 at The Meadowlands. Her second victory also came with Rockabilly Charm and the duo returns to the GSY Series for race seven Friday at the Big M.

The biggest thrill Ive had is winning at The Meadowlands, DiCostanzo said. I always watched the amateurs, and a couple amateur girl drivers, and I was very intrigued by it. I wanted to do it, but I wasnt sure if I could do it. I did a bunch of qualifiers, and I wasnt really too confident.

Last year, I put my head to it and told myself I can do this, and I want to do this. I worked very hard to get where I am today driving. Its crazy. I watch my replays and think, is that really me? Its a blessing.

DiCostanzo feels like she has clicked with Rockabilly Charm.

(Victoria) asked me to drive Billy and hes been a saint ever since, DiCostanzo said. She is almost convinced that he only goes good for me. I think I just get along with him well. I think hes a girls horse for sure. Hes got a great mouth on him, hes great to drive. He gives it his all, Ill tell you that.

DiCostanzos favourite horse, though, remains her first, the still-active Steady Pulse.

Weve come a long way together, DiCostanzo said. Hes probably taught me just about everything I know.

As for her future, DiCostanzo hopes to continue her growth. Gradually.

Last year was kind of the first year that people took notice, DiCostanzo said. Im just trying to succeed on my own. I dont really go over six horses because I do it by myself. I dont have any employees; I still pick stalls.

So, Im going to try to keep doing what Im doing. Im definitely going to claim a couple more horses on my own and Ive got a lot of good owners right now. Im going to try to stay between five to 10 horses training and then drive on the weekends for fun.

My family and my friends are very proud of me. If you put your mind to it, you can do anything. Thats the drive I have.

In addition to two GSY Series races on Friday, the 15-race card at The Meadowlands includes a $31,500 Preferred Trot. Warrior One is the 5-2 morning-line favourite.

Racing begins at 6:20 p.m. (EST). For free TrackMaster program pages, visit the tracks website.

(USTA)
Members with broodmares foaling in 2022 are invited to participate in a study being conducted by the Western College of Veterinary Medicine regarding foal health.

Dr. Madison Ricard is a veterinary anatomic pathology resident at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, Sask., and her research is currently focused on the equine umbilical cord and how it relates to foal health. Ricard is looking to maximize her data set and gather data on as many foals as possible from around the world.

Participation in the study involves the following:

1. Measuring the length of the umbilical cord after foaling.

2. Taking a picture of the umbilical cord.

3. Recording information about the mare, the foaling process, and the foals health at birth.

4. Filling out a survey at seven days and 30 days after birth regarding the foals health.

Members looking to participate in the study can find more information at the study's website, https://wcvm-equs.ca/. The website provides information on how to sign up and start enrolling mares into the online information collection system. There is also a printable form that can be posted stall-side when the mare is due.
The Commonwealth will graduate its 135th generation of Virginia State Troopers at a ceremony this Friday, Jan. 22.

The 58 new troopers will be presented diplomas during 10 a.m. commencement exercises at State Police Training Academy in Chesterfield County. Gov. Glenn Youngkin will speak at the graduation ceremony, according to a state police release on Thursday.

Completing the training here at the Virginia State Police Training Academy is no easy feat, and when you add the challenges COVID has brought, the bar is raised even higher, said Colonel Gary T. Settle, Virginia State Police Superintendent., in a statement

These 58 Trooper-trainees have put their heart and soul into becoming the very best troopers they can be. I am impressed with their resiliency and dedication.

The new troopers received more than 1,300 hours of classroom and field instruction in over 100 different subjects, including de-escalation techniques, strategies to assist people in mental health crisis, ethics and leadership, fair and impartial policing, constitutional law, emergency medical trauma care, and public and community relations.

The members of the 135th Basic Session began 27 weeks of academic, physical and practical training at the Academy on July 6, 2021. The graduates are from every corner of the Commonwealth, as well as Ohio, Oklahoma, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Vermont and the countries of Germany and Mongolia.

Upon graduation, the new troopers will report to individual duty assignments across Virginia the week of Jan. 31. For their final phase of training, each trooper will spend an additional six weeks paired with a Field Training Officer learning his or her new patrol area, according to the release.

Graduates that will be assigned to the VSP Culpeper Division are William Brady Blankenship, of Powhatan and Michelle Lynn Carney, of Roanoke.

Brand new Trooper Kortney M. Leazer, of Remington will be assigned to the Bedford Division, and Trooper Alexander B. Wallace, of Staunton, has been assigned to work with VSP in Orange County, according to the release.
A Greene County Democrat has announced she will seek the party nomination to run in the 2023 election for the new Virginia House of Delegates District 62, encompassing the town of Culpeper and southern half of the county.

Sara Ratcliffe made the announcement Thursday in seeking to represent the newly drawn district, which also spans Madison, Greene and Orange counties. She has three decades experience working in political advocacy and on political campaigns.

Last year, Ratcliffe launched her own, first-ever campaign for elected office running against longtime incumbent Del. Rob Bell, R-Charlottesville, for Virginia House of Delegates District 58. She lost, picking up nearly 15,000 votes, 37 percent of voters, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.

Bell, a former Orange County prosecutor turned defense attorney, started his 10th term in the statehouse this week.

In the release Thursday, Ratcliffe said she raised more money (more than $122,000, according to vpap.org) and received more votes in last years election against Bell than any Democrat has in that district.

The release stated she brings 30 years experience in national advocacy and state policy to her bid to represent the people of the new 62nd district.

I believe in the call to public service, and I am dedicated to serve our community, Ratcliffe said in a statement.

Im committed to fight for the hard-working folks of the 62nd and to make sure every voice is heard in Richmond. Its important for me to listen to the parents and families of the district and deliver results for them in many areas, including health care access that includes mental health and drug addiction services, valuing our small business priorities, and ensuring our localities receive the funding needed for broadband and school modernization.

Ratcliffe holds a political science bachelors degree from George Washington University with a concentration in U.S. domestic policy. She began her career as staff to U.S. Senator J. James Exon (1921-2005) of Nebraska and as research assistant to a noted political author and broadcaster, Elizabeth Drew, according to Ratcliffes campaign web site.

Ratcliffe volunteered on several political campaigns in the Washington metro region and in her native Midwest, and has continued to work on local, state, and national campaigns as a volunteer and staffer.

Her last full-time position was the 2008 Obama campaign efforts in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Iraq War veteran Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, since 2016 has represented the town and parts of the county in District 30.

He won reelection in November with 65 percent of the vote against Madison County Democrat Annette Hyde, a yoga teacher and social activist.

Fauquier farm manager Del. Mike Webert, R-Marshall, in office for 10 years, is Culpepers second statehouse rep. He won re-election in November with 66 percent of the vote against Rappahannock County Democrat Doug Ward, an infectious disease physician who worked in the Peace Corps and under Dr. Fauci at NIH.

Per the new redistricting plan, in effect for the 2023 state elections, Culpeper will also have a District 61, encompassing northwest parts of the county along with Rappahannock and Fauquier counties.

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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  A jury has been selected in the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing.

Eighteen jurors were chosen after questioning by the judge on Thursday  12 who will deliberate and six alternates.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority. Separately, they're charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson stressed repeatedly to jurors that fellow Officer Derek Chauvin's conviction on state murder charges and guilty plea to a federal civil rights violation should not influence the proceedings.

Legal experts say prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd's constitutional rights. Specifically, they're accused of unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  Jury selection began Thursday in the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing, with the judge stressing repeatedly that fellow Officer Derek Chauvin's conviction on state murder charges and guilty plea to a federal civil rights violation should not influence the proceedings.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority as Chauvin used his knee to pin the Black man to the street. Separately, they're charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter in the videotaped killing that triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing.

Legal experts say the federal trial will be more complicated than the state trial, scheduled for June 13, because prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd's constitutional rights  unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process.

Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor, said prosecutors must show that officers should have done something to stop Chauvin, rather than that they did something directly to Floyd.

Would-be jurors, who answered an extensive questionnaire, were brought into a St. Paul courtroom in groups on Thursday, and U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson questioned them until 40 were chosen. Each side can now use their challenges to strike jurors. In the end, 18 jurors will be picked, including 12 who will deliberate and six alternates.

Among the jurors Magnuson excused was a man who said he has a problem watching video of Floyd's arrest. Several other excused jurors said they could not be impartial, including a man who said his faith also prevents him from judging a human being.

One woman was excused after she said she had difficulty with vandalism in the community. Afterward, Magnuson said he understood such concerns about "anarchy in streets" but "that fear cannot control in a courtroom."

Magnuson also told jurors they must be able to decide the case based upon its own evidence, setting aside anything else. He singled out some jurors by number and asked them pointedly if they could do so, saying he was "harping and harping and harping" because state and federal law are different and he wanted to ensure they could be objective.

The jury pool for the officers' federal trial was selected from throughout the state  much more conservative and less diverse than the Minneapolis area from which the jury for Chauvin's state trial was drawn. That jury was evenly divided among whites and nonwhites. The federal court declined a request to provide demographic information on jurors in the civil rights trial.

Magnuson has said he believes jury selection could take two days, unlike Chauvin's state trial, where the judge and attorneys questioned each juror individually and spent more than two weeks picking a panel.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air. Kueng knelt on Floyd's back and Lane held down his legs. Thao kept bystanders from intervening.

A statement from attorneys for the Floyd family Thursday said bystander video showed that the three officers "directly contributed to (Floyd's) death and failed to intervene to stop the senseless murder" and that the family expects them to be held accountable.

Several activists gathered in front of the courthouse to call for conviction.

"Considering the fact that he moaned in agony, that he could not breathe for minutes on end until he passed, I believe for a fact that they denied him of his civil rights," said Courteney Ross, Floyd's girlfriend at the time of his death. "I demand justice, and I hope everyone remembers what they did on that day."

Federal prosecutors face a high legal standard to show that an officer willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights. Essentially, prosecutors must prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

Magnuson said he expects the trial will last four weeks.

Kueng, Lane and Thao are all charged with willfully depriving Floyd of the right to be free from an officer's deliberate indifference to his medical needs. The indictment says the three men saw Floyd needed medical care and failed to help him.

Thao and Kueng are also charged with a second count alleging they willfully violated Floyd's right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not stopping Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd's neck. It's not clear why Lane is not mentioned in that count, but evidence shows he asked twice whether Floyd should be rolled on his side.

Both counts allege the officers' actions resulted in Floyd's death.

Such federal civil rights violations are punishable by up to life in prison or even death, but those stiff sentences are extremely rare and federal sentencing guidelines indicate the officers would get much less if convicted.

___

Associated Press writer Tammy Webber contributed from Fenton, Michigan.

___

Find AP's full coverage of the killing of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd

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After selling its building several weeks ago, the Prairie Vista Unitarian Universalist Church used the funds to give back to organizations within the community with missions that align with those of the church. Thats why following a $10,000 donation to CAPstone on Jan. 4, the church gave another $10,000 to Panhandle Equality on Jan. 19.

One of the principles of Unitarian Universalism is the inherent worth and dignity of every person. And we know the Panhandle Equality is affirming the inherent worth and dignity of LGBTQ+ people in our community, church member Joyce Dohse said of the decision to give to the organization. We really wanted to support and enhance those efforts, and so were really, really happy to be in a position to be able to do this.

Panhandle Equality President Ladessa Heimbouch said the donation was huge for the organization.

This is one of our biggest donations weve ever received, she said.

Panhandle Equality is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that works to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community in the Panhandle and educate the community about inclusivity and equality for all. It started in 2015 with a handful of people hosting a Pride Picnic, which turned into an annual Pride event with hundreds of people attending from across three states.

The money that it received from Prairie Vista Church will be put toward building up a preexisting program and forming a new one, Heimbouch said.

We have a few programs that we want to kind of build on. We have our Trans Care Fund, where we have funds to help transgender individuals here with cost to transition, she said.

The fund currently helps with things like name change costs, gas for out of state appointments and gender affirming clothing. Heimbouch said that with the extra money, she hopes to expand the fund to help with things like rent, utilities and similar costs in the community.

And then we also want to start a program with a local mental health provider to start a youth group/support  like a group therapy with a licensed professional, Heimbouch said. We havent worked out all the details with that person yet, but theyll be a licensed professional and well be able to track progress and help the LGBTQ youth here.

Panhandle Equality member Troy Eberling said the group would also be for family members of LGBTQ+ individuals, since big events like revealing a sexual or gender orientation would warrant familial support as well.

We want to make it a community, and when you go through these big events in your lives, we want to make sure that its not as drastic as what others have went through in the past, he said.

Heimbouch added, Im sure youve heard this before, but like when an individual comes out, their whole family has to come out too with them. Its a whole network of people who you need to have be there for you so you feel safe and supported.

Other programs and resources from Panhandle Equality include trainings for local businesses on supporting LGBTQ employees and/or clients, providing a safe place for individuals in the community who need to be heard and validated and a community directory of businesses that support the LGBTQ community.

All the businesses can sign up, and they actually have to sign a contract saying that theyre going to be supportive of any employees and clients that they have and keep up on issues and things like that, Heimbouch said. And, theyll display a logo of ours that shows that theyre a supportive place to shop and work.

The work that Panhandle Equality does with the local LGBTQ community is one of the main reasons Prairie Vista Church wanted to donate money to the organization.

We decided we would have a greater impact if we gave our money locally, Church member Roberta Boyd said.

Dosche said, We wanted to be sure that the organizations that we give to are getting to the root of whatever the problem is. So, like Panhandle Equality is working directly with LGBTQ+ people in the community to help them as they go through the transition.

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Editor's note: This story is part of the Lee Enterprises series "Grizzlies and Us." The project examines the many issues surrounding the uneasy coexistence of grizzly bears and humans in the Lower 48, which have come more into focus in recent years as the federally-protected animal pushes farther into human-occupied areas. The 10-part series, comprised of more than 20 stories, was produced by reporters and photojournalists across the Rocky Mountain West.

OVANDO - Which grizzly bear defined the summer of 2021?

Was it Monica, the aging sow on the northern edge of Glacier National Park who had to be killed by game wardens after she and her subadult cubs of the year went on garbage-raiding sprees at cabins along the North Fork of the Flathead River?

Or Felicia, an equally prolific female with cubs who became a traffic hazard on Togwotee Pass east of Grand Teton National Park, inspiring a posse of volunteer bear patrollers who tried to keep the peace between camera-slinging tourists and bears trying to make a living along a federal highway?

Or was it the unnamed 4-year-old male grizzly that killed a bike-camper in her tent in Ovando, roughly halfway between Glacier and Grand Teton, in the middle of whats fast become one of the most contentious Endangered Species Act debate in the nation?

The July 6 mauling death of Leah Davis Lokan, 65, made international headlines.

To say the incident happened in downtown Ovando overstates the size of the ranching center along Highway 200 thats grown equally popular with trout anglers and long-distance bike tourists. But looking at where Lokan pitched her tent, a dozen feet from the Brand Bar Museum, next door to the post office and across the main street from a grocery, cafe, and fly-fishing store, puts the attack squarely in the center of human habitat.

The details of the other two grizzlies, including the names Monica and Felicia, illustrate how humans have pushed the other way, into places grizzlies used to dominate. When Lewis and Clark made their Voyage of Discovery at the opening of the 19th century, an estimated 50,000 grizzly bears inhabited the Lower 48 States west of the 100th meridian  the longitudinal line running roughly from North Dakota to Texas.

A dozen decades later, the bear emblazoned on the flag of California was nearly extinct throughout its natural range. Systematic destruction of its habitat and numbers, by ranchers, farmers and government agents, removed the grizzly bear from virtually every place except the preserves of Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

Remarkably, the grizzlys attractiveness to tourists spared it from National Park Service predator culls. An 1895 Yellowstone superintendents report mentions the bears had increased notably after the U.S. Army put out garbage to feed them, while other bounty hunters were eradicating the wolves, mountain lions and coyotes in the park.

When the grizzly bear became the eighth animal given protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1975, somewhat fewer than 600 individual bears remained between Canada and Mexico. Over the next 45 years, two numbers changed: Grizzly populations grew from 600 to an estimated 2,100 in the recovery zones of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. And humans in the same space expanded from 1.9 million to 3.4 million.

What didnt change was the size of the landscape. Put another way, people in the Rocky Mountain West went from 5.9 per square mile to 10.3 per square mile between 1975 and 2020. Grizzlies went from .002 to .006 per square mile.

Monica the North Fork grizzly was about 20 years old when Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks killed her and her three yearling cubs in early September. In her lifetime, annual visitation to Glacier National Parks Polebridge entrance went from 31,000 to 89,000, data shows.

While she often spent time near homes and was observed by residents, she did not cause conflicts that we knew about until the fall of 2018 when she had just two of her three yearlings with her, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear manager Tim Manley noted in a report to the North Fork Preservation Association. The initial reports we had were that the family group had ripped into a yurt, damaged two vehicles, got into unsecured garbage and had pushed on a trailer.

Wardens captured Monicas two yearlings, who were suspected of causing the most trouble, and killed them. She gave birth to three more cubs in 2020, but had no reported conflicts. Things stayed quiet until this summer.

Manley said in late August, Monica and her triplet yearlings got into trouble all over the Polebridge vicinity. They knocked over barbecues, broke into improperly closed bear-resistant trash cans, pulled garbage out of a horse trailer, broke windows out of a pickup topper to get food, damaged a car that didnt have any food, and tore the wall out of a camper trailer to get a big food reward.

The sow and all three of her yearlings were captured and killed.

I have said it many times before, killing bears is the worst part of my job, Manley told the homeowners. We try to avoid having to do it, but when bears become very food-conditioned and start causing property damage and breaking into vehicles, trailers and cabins, those bears are removed.

Outside Grand Teton, the opposite problem developed. People wouldnt leave Felicia alone.

Wildlife biologists call the bear by her number, 863, which means she was the 863rd bear to be caught and affixed with a telemetry collar in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. On social media, she became Felicia.

Either way, the female with cubs who likes to munch on grass and clover near Highway 26/287 in western Wyoming has become one of the most famous grizzly bears after fellow Grand Teton Bear 399. And her propensity to be near traffic  and apparent nonchalance about hordes of people gathering to take pictures  helped make her into a bit of a social media sensation. She also created a traffic hazard, according to Wyoming wildlife and law enforcement officials, not to mention the daily possibility that one of those photographers will inch just a little too close before everyone remembers too late that grizzly bears on the side of the road are still grizzly bears.

Were trying to alter the bears behavior but also trying to fix peoples behavior, and thats where the big challenge is, said Dan Thompson, large carnivore section supervisor for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. From a human psychological standpoint its been fascinating to be involved with.

Draw a line about 25 miles to the south and the human behavior aspect of the story changes.

Ranchers say theyre struggling against an increasing number of grizzlies preying on their cattle. Problem grizzlies must be managed, and often lethally removed. Their ranching livelihoods depend on it. Conservation groups are suing to stop those killings, and leasing in general. Grizzlies and cattle dont mix, they say, among other things.

At the same time, new homeowners are buying houses and property, often sight unseen, throughout the stretch of land bordering Yellowstone National Park on any side. The buffer has long been a place where grizzlies could wander with minimal impact, with its human residents long-ago trained in the art of keeping food away from bears. Wildlife managers worry the flood of new residents may not be so bear wise, and that conflicts will only increase.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Wyoming Highway Patrol and Forest Service tried placing flashing signs telling people not to stop on the side of the road. They threatened tickets to those standing in traffic, ignoring oncoming vehicles. Eventually, the Fish and Wildlife Service decided to spend a couple of weeks hazing the female with cubs to make her leave the road and move further into the mountains.

Jack Bayles understands that some people behaved irresponsibly. Watchers started a live video stream from Togwotee Pass to alert anyone following them when she appeared. People from as far as Montana, Salt Lake City, Utah and Colorado came to the area, and some approached her and her cubs far too closely.

But the best reaction wasnt to shoot the bear with rubber bullets and bean bags, he said. Instead, Bayles said he believes officials should have managed the human side of the situation.

They have no problem when that section is a parking lot in the weekend in the winter and people are dragging trailers 90 mph down icy roads, Bayles said. Its not the land of many uses, just the land of uses we approve of.

Bayles is one of countless guides in the Yellowstone region and across bear country stretching from Jackson to Katmai National Park in Alaska that take people out to watch bears and other wildlife. He started his business in 2015 with his wife, Gina, and named it Team 399 after the regions other famous bear.

The accidental ambassador of her species, she is representative of a new age in human  wildlife relationships where coexistence and understanding are the new way, where a love of the wild is foremost in our hearts and minds, their website reads.

He wants to raise awareness for conservation issues. He wants to give back to the wild places and wild creatures that have given so much to us. He also knows that most people coming to Yellowstone or other areas with grizzly bears are there, at least in part, for the chance to see a grizzly bear.

Its the only place in the world where the common middle class person can see a grizzly bear in the wild, Bayles said. You could say over the course of our life, bear 399 is a billion-dollar bear to the Wyoming economy.

There is going to be conflict between bears and people, Thompson said. We will have to lethally remove grizzly bears for the greater good  theres the potential for humans to be injured and even killed, and thats the reality of it. The notion of a future of bears and humans together without conflict is very naive.

As far as the future? I dont think its going to get any easier.

In Ovando, the future holds a lot of work.

While complete details surrounding the death of Lokan await the release of a Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee Board of Review report, a big part of the small town was on the scene that night, trying to staunch the campers fatal wounds and wondering what had triggered the attack.

For many, it was a replay of The Night of the Grizzlies, the famous book chronicling the 1967 tragedy when two women in two separate campgrounds were attacked and killed by two separate grizzlies on the same night in Glacier National Park. At the time, resort managers in both Glacier and Yellowstone national parks deliberately left garbage out to attract grizzly bears for tourist viewing. Some Yellowstone hotels even set up bleachers to watch the evening show.

That food conditioning combined with growing popularity of backcountry camping put two 19-year-old hotel workers in the path of two predators in a place marketed and managed for recreation.

The grizzly that killed Loken had also raided a chicken coop nearby the same evening. Two nights later, a game warden staking out another chicken coop spotted it with night-vision goggles and shot it to death. The entire time, strings of long-distance bike riders kept pedaling into Ovando, often off-the-grid and bewildered by the swarm of armed agents, helicopters, culvert traps and law enforcement vehicles infesting their vacation itinerary.

This is one of those absolutely very rare and extremely unfortunate events, like a lightning strike, said Seth Wilson, the executive director of the Blackfoot Challenge, whose office sits about 75 feet from where Lokan was killed. This is not a time where we say Lets throw our hands up and go home, but Lets roll up our sleeves and see what we can do to improve our work.

The rural region south of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex where the Blackfoot Challenge works has endured many economic lurches, from the collapse of logging and mining to the rise of tourism and the ever-volatile agriculture sector. It also sits on the southern tip of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem  the most productive grizzly bear recovery area in the Lower 48 States with about 1,000 resident bears.

Ranchers who grew up rarely seeing a grizzly in their childhood now fear for their grandchildren when they visit favorite fishing spots or hunt pheasants in thickets. Ovando and nearby Lincoln both sit in the middle of major wildlife corridors, and bears as well as elk and deer and wolves make a constant presence. That means new costs and hassles in damaged fencing, plundered crops, harassed cows and frightened workers.

Among the most effective changes the Blackfoot Challenge has helped instill has been a carcass pickup program thats overwritten the old practice of boneyards  dumps for dead livestock on the far edge of a ranch. Those boneyards were regular feeding grounds for grizzlies and wolves. But as the numbers of both predators increased, Wilson said ranchers started to see that getting free meat off the menu discouraged big scavengers from hanging around herds.

On the human side, Ovando residents quickly raised several thousand dollars to upgrade protections for chicken coops, buy bear-resistant trash cans for landowners, create a stockpile of bear spray for residents to use and install four new food storage lockers for bike tourists moving along Highway 200. The plan is to first increase Ovandos bear-awareness, and then work with the visitors whose behaviors are harder to influence, Wilson said.

Weve come to expect some level of bear activity in these small towns, Wilson said. Were located in the middle of prime grizzly bear habitat.

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Editors note: Information is provided by the Cowlitz County Corrections Department and local law enforcement agencies. Each individual named in this report is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Robbery, vehicle theft  Longview officers arrested Jacob Gregory, 31, of Kelso, on Wednesday on suspicion of second-degree robbery, theft of a motor vehicle, two counts of driving with a suspended license in the third degree, two counts of operating a vehicle without an ignition interlock, first-degree criminal impersonation and second-degree identity theft.

Theft  Woodland officers arrested Joseph Klimas, 43, of Vancouver, on Wednesday on suspicion of retail theft with circumstances.

Assault

300 block of Third Avenue, Kelso. Wednesday.

Burglary

1100 block of Eighth Avenue, Longview. Wednesday. Report of residential burglary.

Stolen vehicles

1000 block of Mill Street, Kelso. Wednesday. Silver 2000 Honda CR-V. WA AFH1527.

Eighth Avenue and Delaware Street, Longview. Wednesday. Purple or red BMW 330 with dealer plates.

Thefts

100 block of Memory Lane, Silver Lake. Wednesday. Firearms.

500 block of Olson Road, Longview. Wednesday. .9 mm Hi-Point pistol.

7600 block of Old Pacific Highway, Castle Rock. Wednesday. Building materials.

2400 block of Silver Lake Road, Castle Rock. Wednesday. Mail.

3000 block of Maryland Street, Longview. Wednesday. Report of man going through garbage with big-screen TV next to him.

1500 block of 12th Avenue, Longview. Wednesday. Report of client leaving without paying.

2800 block of Ocean Beach Highway, Longview. Wednesday. Cellphone.

Vandalism/malicious mischief

100 block of Guinevere Court, Castle Rock. Wednesday. Report of mailbox spray painted.

1200 block of Mount St. Helens Way, Castle Rock. Wednesday. Report of man driving through flower beds.

700 block of Grant Street, Kelso. Wednesday. Report of broken window of church.

400 block of 17th Avenue, Longview. Wednesday. Report of someone breaking back window of vehicle.

1200 block of Commerce Avenue, Longview. Wednesday. Report of vandalism to dryer.

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RIDGEFIELD  An Oregon woman who wrecked a truck and backed up Interstate 5 Wednesday near Ridgefield was arrested for allegedly possessing a stolen vehicle.

Washington State Patrol troopers arrested Darla Cheek, 31, of Phoenix, Oregon, after they say she lost control of a Silver 2000 Chevrolet Silverado around 11 a.m. at I-5s milepost 14 near the exit for State Route 501. Troopers report Cheeks vehicle left the roadway when changing lanes, and struck a cable barrier in the median.

Cheek was booked on suspicion of possessing a stolen vehicle and attempting to elude, and was in the Cowlitz County Jail as of Thursday afternoon.

Troopers say Cheek wasnt injured during the accident, but both directions of I-5 were closed Wednesday while they removed her from the vehicle.

Washington State Department of Transportation states at least one lane at milepost 14 was blocked as of 11 a.m. Wednesday, then all lanes in both directions. The roadway was cleared by 1:21 p.m., according to transportation crews.

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On Dolly Partons birthday, January 19, a bill was introduced in the Washington State Legislature that would make her Imagination Library into an official statewide program.

House Bill 2068 establishes the Imagination Library of Washington, a statewide program that would be overseen by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, partner with a nonprofit that would work to establish affiliate library programs in as many cities and counties as possible, as well as gathering public awareness.

The bill has bipartisan co-sponsors with Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, and Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver. Abbarno said his family participated in the program and he enrolled other families in the program as a baby shower gift.

If were looking at ways to create or promote a program statewide thats low cost, managed by nonprofits and helps prepare children for kindergarten, we should use this, Abbarno said.

Parton launched the nonprofit Imagination Library in 1995 in a single Tennessee county. The library mails one free book every month to enrolled children between 0 and 5 years old.

Leading the nonprofit side of the statewide program is a job tailor-made for Brooke Fisher-Clark. Fisher-Clark left her position as executive director of United Way of Cowlitz and Wahkiakum Counties late last year to tackle the newly created job of leading the Washington Imagination Library Expansion for the United Ways of the Pacific Northwest.

Everyone that I have ever talked to about the program is so positive and engaged with it. Its an absolute win of a program for its short- and long-term benefits, Fisher-Clark said.

The UWPN was awarded a contract by OSPI to expand the Imagination Librarys coverage. The contract provides around $2 million in matching funds from OSPI to support new affiliates and grow enrollment. Fisher-Clark said one of the goals of the contract is to have 150,000 Washington students younger than 5 years old enrolled in a local Imagination Library by June 2023.

That goal would mark a significant expansion of the librarys current reach in Washington. The state now has 26 affiliate programs and 16,800 children enrolled, according to the official Imagination Library website.

More than 3,000 of those enrolled children are from Cowlitz County and participate through the local United Way office.

Well continue that work this year and hope to continue as the selected state partner for the Imagination Library in the future, Fisher-Clark said.

The Imagination Library has sent out more than 172 million books since the program first launched, including more than 21 million books provided in 2021. Colorado, Kansas and Kentucky all have enacted statewide expansions of the Imagination Library program since September.

The bill has been referred to the House Children, Youth and Families committee for further discussion. Abbarno is hopeful that, with the United Ways foundation in place and no major costs to debate, the bill will pass before the end of the session.

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The staggering number of COVID-19 cases is straining Washingtons hospital system, although a smaller proportion of those patients have needed critical care, hospital officials said Thursday.

However, the sheer number of patients means ICUs still are full, said Cassie Sauer, Washington State Hospital Association chief executive officer, during a news briefing Thursday. The states seven-day ICU occupancy was 92% from Jan. 8 to Jan 14, up from about 85% at the end of December.

Statewide, the rate of new COVID-19 hospitalizations was 23.4 per 100,000 people from Jan. 1 to Jan. 7, compared to the high of about 18 per 100,000 in late August.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Cowlitz County have not spiked dramatically in the past month but remain relatively high.

The county recorded 19 new COVID hospitalizations per 100,000 people from Jan. 1 to Jan. 7. Hospitalizations may be trending up following the countys rise in cases, according to the county health department.

PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center had 22 COVID-19 patients as of Thursday morning.

Unvaccinated patients represent a very high percentage of the hospitals most severely ill COVID-19 patients, said Randy Querin, PeaceHealth spokesperson. Other hospitals reported a decrease in COVID-19 patients requiring ICU care, but St. John has seen that number remain relatively steady, he said.

The omicron surge has hit in King and Pierce counties the hardest, with other areas seeing increases, hospital officials said during a Washington State Hospital Association news briefing Thursday.

About 37% of beds at MultiCares 11 hospitals in the state held COVID-19 patients Thursday, said Dr. Michael Myint, MultiCare physician executive for population health. MultiCare Auburn Medical Center in south King County was at 170% capacity, he said. The hospital has converted surgical areas for acute care patients and surgical staff are helping care for them, Myint said.

PeaceHealth St. John was at 97% capacity Thursday. The hospital has been delaying procedures that would require an inpatient stay to help offset high occupancy, Querin said. With fewer procedures, the hospital also is allocating surgical staff to help in other departments, he said.

Statewide, the number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators and dying have increased, Sauer said. About 180 patients were on ventilators Wednesday, up from 137 two weeks ago, according to the Department of Health.

Myint said MultiCare is not seeing as many COVID-19 patients on ventilators but many are still very ill.

Vaccination status matters a lot in regard to death rates, Myint said. Of 22 COVID-19 deaths that occurred in late December and early January at MultiCare hospitals, 20 were not vaccinated and none had received a booster shot, he said. About 1% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients had their booster shot, he said.

So being up-to-date actually was very preventative, he said. Thats compared with over 20% in our community of patients who are up-to-date, which just shows that is very protective of becoming sick enough to require hospital level care.

Most hospitals in the state are using contingency or crisis staffing strategies, Sauer said.

At St. John, more staff have been out sick because of the highly transmissible omicron variant, Querin said.

Thanks to PeaceHealths mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy, these caregivers are generally experiencing mild symptoms and are able to return to work quickly in alignment with the CDC return to work guidelines, he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines allow infected health-care workers to return after five days if they dont have a fever, their symptoms are improving and if other safety measures are followed.

Cowlitz County Thursday recorded 80 new confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 18,055. The county recorded six new COVID-19 deaths, with 300 total.

Wahkiakum County reported three new COVID-19 cases Thursday, bringing the total to 290, with 21 potentially active. The county health department considers cases with a positive test result in the last 21 days to be potentially active.

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LEWIS COUNTY  Overnight work to repair part of Interstate 5 in Centralia and Chehalis will block both directions at different times Friday and Saturday nights, and early Saturday and Sunday.

Northbound and southbound I-5 will be intermittently closed between Harrison Avenue and 13th Street for emergency pavement repairs from recent extreme weather, reports the Washington State Department of Transportation.

From 8 p.m. Friday to 8 a.m. Saturday, northbound I-5 is scheduled to be closed and drivers will be detoured to exit 82 at Harrison Avenue in Centralia.

From 9 p.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday, southbound I-5 will be reduced to one lane north of 13th Street in Chehalis to milepost 76 and the southbound onramp at exit 77 for Main Street and State Route 6 will be closed.

WSDOT encourages drivers to use alternate routes during closures.

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COVID-19 symptoms for students and staff resulted in the closure of an elementary school class and cancellations or delays of two school districts bus routes Thursday in Cowlitz County. County health officials report positive COVID-19 cases are higher today than any other time during the pandemic.

Castle Rock

A third-grade class in the Castle Rock School District is closed through Friday due to a high number of COVID-19 cases, reports the district. Officials say affected families have been notified and those who did not receive notification are not affected by the closure. Castle Rock Superintendent Ryan Greene said he expects the class to resume Monday.

Bus routes 15 and 17 for the Castle Rock School District still are canceled through Friday due to a staffing shortage. Greene said the routes have been canceled all month due to drivers with COVID-19 and other unforeseen emergencies.

Woodland

Three Woodland bus routes were delayed Thursday due to drivers calling in sick with COVID-19 symptoms, report officials. Bus routes 602, 604 and 609 were on a two-hour delay Thursday, but will return to their regular schedules Friday, said Woodland School District Communications Manager Eric Jacobson.

Officials say school started at its normal time Thursday, and students who arrived late on the bus werent marked as absent. The district reports teachers will work with students to make up any missed work. Jacobson said the three delayed routes affected students from all school levels.

A transportation cooperative of bus drivers called KWRL manages bus routes for Kalama, Woodland, Ridgefield and La Center schools, Jacobson said. The number of buses and drivers assigned to each district fluctuates based on need, he added.

KWRLs website states the organization is hiring drivers at $23.37 per hour, with signing bonuses of $1,500 to $3,000. KWRL states it pays for drivers to obtain a commercial drivers license.

COVID

The state required bus drivers, like all public and private school employees, to be vaccinated from COVID-19, or receive a religious or medical exemption by October 2021.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also issued a January 2021 order stating all passengers and drivers are required to wear masks on public transportation, including school buses, regardless of vaccination status.

Cowlitz Countys two-week case rate for positive COVID-19 cases has quadrupled since mid-December, reaching its highest levels yet, according to the county health department. On Jan. 10, more than 300 positive tests were reported, double the record of about 150 reported in one day during the delta surge in the fall.

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Union Bank of the Philippines plans to offer trading and custodial services for cryptocurrencies.

Union Bank of the Philippines plans to offer trading and custodial services for cryptocurrencies to capitalize on fast adoption of digital tokens in the Asian nation. The average Filipino investor will likely hold 3% to 5% of their personal assets in digital assets like Bitcoin in five years assuming markets are stable, up from around 1% to 2% now, said Cathy Casas, head of the banks blockchain and application programing interface group. Many crypto investors are young people, some of whom earn tokens from play-to-earn virtual games, she said.

Its a way to future-proof our banking business, Casas said in an interview.

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About 5% of the local population have dabbled in cryptocurrencies, Casas estimated. Thats in line with the global average, according to an estimate from Binance Holdings Ltd., operator of the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Like in most countries, cryptocurrency has its critics. Philippine central bank Governor Benjamin Diokno has cautioned against cryptocurrencies, saying they could pose a danger to the financial system as they are very vulnerable to illicit activities like money laundering and terrorist financing.

Client Education

Regulators around the world have taken notice of cryptos rapidly growing appeal, and some are taking steps to limit marketing to consumers. Singapore this week told companies in the sector to stop most consumer-facing marketing, citing concerns that retail traders might get burned. Bitcoin has lost nearly 40% from its November peak, after jumping more than fourfold over the previous 12 months.

We are making efforts to educate our clients also via social media, making sure that they are safe, Casas said.

The banks custodial services for digital assets will also be capable of covering tokenized bonds, Casas said. In 2019, UnionBank became the first Philippine lender to launch its own stablecoin -- called PHX -- providing rural banks in its network easier access to remittances and payments.

UnionBank will use a system developed by Switzerlands Metaco for managing its digital-asset operations, according to a statement from Metaco on Thursday.
35 Pakistan based YouTube channels, 2 websites were banned over their anti-India content. Among them were Twitter accounts, Instagram Accounts, and a Facebook account

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has ordered a ban on 35 YouTube channels and two websites which were running anti-India propaganda and spreading fake news "in a coordinated manner". These websites and YouTube channels were being operated from Pakistan, I&B Secretary Apurva Chandra told a press conference on Friday. Indian intelligence agencies were closely monitoring these social media accounts and websites and flagged them to the ministry for immediate action, he added. The Ministry also banned 2 Twitter accounts, 2 Instagram Accounts, 2 websites and a Facebook account, stated Vikram Sahay, Joint Secretary (P&A), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Friday for spreading misinformation.

Joint Secretary Sahay said, "The common factor amongst all these accounts have been that they operate from Pakistan and spread fake anti-India news and other content." The Ministry has issued orders to the respective social media intermediaries and internet service providers through the Department of Telecom for blocking all the accounts.

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"Vide five separate orders issued under rule 16 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the Ministry has ordered to block these Pakistan-based social media accounts and websites," the ministry said in a statement later.

Sahay added, "The blocked accounts have contents on Indian Arm Forces, Kashmir, India's foreign relation with other countries and the death of former CDS Bipin Rawat", said the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. "The blocked social media accounts had over 1.2 crore subscribers with a viewership of 130 crores".

The 35 accounts blocked by the Ministry were all operating from Pakistan and were identified to be part of four coordinated disinformation networks. These blocked accounts include the Apni Duniya Network operating 14 YouTube channels, and Talha Films Network operating 13 YouTube channels, stated the Information and Broadcasting release.

The contents on the blocked accounts violated five separate orders issued under rule 16 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

The orders were issued on Thursday.
The simulation tool developed by Helmut Schreiber of TU Graz for the transponder occupancy in Austrian airspace is now being further developed for European airspace. Credit: Lunghammer - TU Graz

Transponders are part of the mandatory equipment of civil aircraft: they are electronic devices that respond to radar interrogations and thus help air traffic control and the air collision avoidance systems of other aircraft in the sky to determine the exact position of the aircraft. The time it takes for the signal to travel from the transponder to the receiver provides information about the exact position of the aircraft. Depending on the type of transponder, further information is also transmitted, such as flight altitude or flight identification.

If a transponder has to deal with a particularly large number of interrogation signals, there is a risk of overloadthe transponder may no longer reply to all interrogations and even may no longer respond at all to any interrogation. This can result in the aircraft disappearing from the radar screen for a short time. The risk of such a scenario is small, but it is present.

"An aircraft suddenly disappearing from the air traffic control screen is always extremely alarming," says Helmut Schreiber from the Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). On behalf of the Austrian air traffic control Austro Control, he investigated all factors influencing transponder occupancy and, based on this, developed the simulation tool "TOPAS (Transponder Occupancy Analysis Software)" for transponder occupancy in Austrian airspace. On behalf of EUROCONTROL, this tool is now being further developed for the entire European airspace. Under the acronym ESIT (EUROCONTROL Simulator of Surveillance Interrogators and Transponders), TU Graz is working closely with Austro Control as well as with the German company SeRo Systems and EUROCONTROL. "For the planning and expansion of air traffic control infrastructure, it is essential to know how this infrastructure affects transponder occupancy. This concerns, for example, the addition of new radar installations or changes to interrogation strategies. It is important to find out where any hotspots are and if they need to be relieved. Our simulation tools make an important contribution here," says Schreiber.

Digital twin

A quick and approximate overview of the transponder occupancy is given by a relatively simple spreadsheet. It takes into account only the number of sensors and aircraft, but not their spatial distribution. The tools TOPAS and ESIT, on the other hand, as digital twins, incorporate the actual positions of all radar sensors and also real air traffic situations. "With such a simulation, even more complex interrogation sequences can be programmed, both for entire radar systems and isolated for individual sensors. This gives us more realistic and accurate results. We find out specifically when and where there will be stress situations for transponders and what they are," explains Helmut Schreiber.

Paul Bosman, Head of ATM Infrastructure at EUROCONTROL adds that "we are delighted about the excellent cooperation with TU Graz, Austro Control and SeRo Systems. The simulation tools will contribute to a sustainable use of surveillance radio frequency and transponder critical resource benefiting all European airspace users."

With the ESIT tool, users (government authorities, air navigation service providers) can estimate the transponder load in their airspace caused by their own systems and those of neighboring countries. Since the tool will run exclusively on EUROCONTROL servers, users will not have access to sensitive data of other countries' infrastructure.

Radar asks, transponder answers

In addition to civilian and military radar stations at airports or at neuralgic points, such as the Koralpe, ongoing radio contacts of so-called active multilateration systems are further demanding on the transponders. There are about 70 stations supporting multilateration throughout Austria. Multilateration, or MLAT for short, works like a reverse GPS. Several antenna stations on the ground scan the transmitted radio signal of a transponder, also sending their own interrogations to the transponder.

Depending on the distance of the aircraft, the radio waves from the transponder reach the respective receiving antennas at different times. Each receiving station reports the exact time at which it received the signal to a central computer. This allows the path of the aircraft to be followed. Helmut Schreiber, from the Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering at TU Graz, explains: "MLAT systems have great advantages: they can replace expensive radar stations. And the failure of a single receiver is less dramatic than, say, the failure of an entire radar station. Despite these advantages, the ongoing radio contacts can put an extraordinarily high strain on transponders in a poor configuration, and can likewise cause an aircraft to become virtually invisible."

According to Schreiber, civil air traffic control of the future will be radar-free anyway. In future, aircraft will use satellite navigation systems to determine their own position and automatically send it to air traffic control. This is also simulated by ESIT. TOPAS and ESIT will be increasing safety in the air for existing and for future systems.

Explore further How a drone can soar without using GPS
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The climate is changing, but misinformation about it on the major social media platforms is not.

Climate change falsehoods, hoaxes and conspiracy theories are still prevalent on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube despite pledges to crack down, a new report says.

Social media posts and videos denying climate change, disputing its causes or underplaying its effects not only can still be found on these platforms, they are often missing warning labels or links to credible information, according to Advance Democracy, a research organization that studies misinformation.

Climate scientists say they're frustrated by the lack of progress in stemming the tide of climate change misinformation. For years, they've urged social media companies to identify, flag and take down the misinformation and the accounts that spread it.

Last year, Twitter added a new climate topic to direct users to credible information on climate change. Facebook expanded information labels on posts about climate change to direct users to its "Climate Science Information Center" and YouTube stopped running ads denying climate change.

But, says Michael Mann, director of Penn State University's Earth System Science Center and author of "The New Climate War," "it's as bad as ever."

John Cook, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University who advises Facebook, says the proliferation of climate misinformation on social media reflects the torrent of misinformation coming from a combination of science denial and skepticism about climate policy and renewable fuels and technologies.

"One element of climate misinformation that seems to be particularly prominent on social media is culture war type posts that attempt to paint people concerned about climate change as belonging to some separate social group intent on impinging on people's freedoms," Cook said. "This is a particularly damaging form of misinformation as it exacerbates public polarization on climate change, making progress more difficult."

'Climate fraud,' 'climate change hoax' still popular on Twitter

Last May, Advance Democracy found hundreds of thousands of posts on Twitter denying climate change. A week later, Twitter added a new climate topic to direct users to credible information on climate change.

ADI says the number of posts with climate change denial terms such as "climate fraud," "climate change hoax," or "climate cult" increased after the climate topic was introduced and averaged 679 a day in the second half of 2021. Climate change denial spiked during the U.N. COP 26 climate summit, Advance Democracy found.

Three of the five accounts that received the most engagements in 2021 for posts denying climate change referenced "Grand Solar Minimum," the false belief that the Grand Solar Minimum, a period of low solar activity, will cool the planet and cause the next ice age.

In all, there were some 231,800 posts using climate change denial terms from approximately 77,540 accounts, Advance Democracy says.

"We recognize that more can be done on services like Twitter to elevate credible climate information, and we continue to evolve our approach," Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby said in a statement.

Climate change denial posts still lack labels on Facebook

Internal documents provided to USA TODAY and other news organizations by whistleblower Frances Haugen showed that Facebook is a primary source of climate information for users.

Last May, Facebook said it would expand informational labels on some Facebook posts about climate change in the U.S. The labeled posts would link to its Climate Science Center.

Advance Democracy says 7,290 posts using climate change denial terms generated 800,760 interactions (meaning reactions, comments and shares) in 2021. Two of the most popular posts in the U.S. in the second half of 2021 were not labeled.

"We combat climate change misinformation by connecting people to reliable information from leading organizations through our Climate Science Center and working with a global network of independent fact checkers to review and rate content," Facebook spokesman Kevin McAlister said in a statement. "When they rate this content as false, we add a warning label and reduce its distribution so fewer people see it. We also take action against Pages, Groups, and accounts that repeatedly share false claims about climate science."

YouTube 'information panels' missing from videos

According to YouTube guidelines, when a viewer searches or watches videos "prone to misinformation," an informational panel should appear with background information from independent third-party sources. YouTube also prohibits ads that promote climate change misinformation.

Advance Democracy says no information panels popped up on video searches for 10 key phrases associated with climate change denial but did turn up an ad from Amazon linking to books that deny the existence of climate change.

YouTube says it surfaces videos from authoritative sources in search results and puts informational panels under videos.

"In general, our systems don't recommend or prominently surface content that includes climate change misinformation," YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez said in a statement. "We're always working to expand and improve how we connect viewers to authoritative content about climate change."

It also removed ads flagged in the Advance Democracy report for violating its policies on climate change denial.

TikTok videos generate 1.53 million views

Videos using hashtags associated with climate change denial generated 1.53 million views. The videos were not labeled. TikTok's guidelines do not specifically address climate change misinformation.

A small percentage of the hashtags associated with climate change denial were being used for counter-messaging, Advance Democracy found. A search for #grandsolarminimum turned up no videos dispelling the hoax.

TikTok said it removed the accounts and content that violated its policies after USA TODAY inquired.

"Our community values authentic content, and we do too, which is why we work with accredited fact checkers to evaluate content and limit the spread of false or misleading information when we identify it," company spokesperson A.B. Obi-Okoye said in a statement.

2022 USA Today

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
White steam billows from the Cattenom nuclear power plant in Cattenom, eastern France.

Hours before the window for lodging objections closes, EU environment and energy ministers meeting in France Friday differed sharply on a European Commission provision that would classify nuclear and natural gas energy as "sustainable".

The controversy pits countries led by Francewhere nuclear generates a world-leading 70 percent of electricityagainst Germany, Austria and others in the 27-nation bloc.

Debate over the Commission's so-called "taxonomy" is not on the agenda of the informal, three-day talks in Amiens, but flared nonetheless.

In late December the European Commission unveiled a classification labelling investment in nuclear gas-based energy as sustainable, in order to favour sectors that reduce the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.

Nuclear power is carbon-free, and gas is significantly less polluting than coal.

Countries in the European Union had until midnight Friday to suggest modifications.

After that, the Commissiontaking these suggestions into accountmust "rapidly" publish a final text that will be definitely adopted four months later.

Passage in its current form seems more than likely: it would take a majority of deputies in the EU parliament or 20 of the 27 members states to derail it, and critical mass is lacking in both cases.

A letter to the executive European Commission from some European Parliament deputies protesting that the period for suggesting changes was too short has fallen on deaf ears.

And among EU member states, a dozen have backed France's position and the Commission's proposed taxonomy.

Many are central European nations looking to switch from carbon-intensive coal-fired power to natural gas.

"Nuclear is a decarbonised energy," French environment minister Barbara Pompili told journalists in Amiens.

"We cannot deprive ourselves of it at the same time that we need to very rapidly reduce our carbon emissions."

'A very bad signal'

Despite the strong headwinds, anti-nuclear resistance has not subsided.

"It is neither sustainable nor economic", countered Germany environment minister Stefan Tidow. "It is not a green energy."

Luxembourg and Austria have gone even further, threatening to take the case to court if nuclear is certified as sustainable, citing the risk of accidents and the as-yet unresolved problem of nuclear waste.

"It would be greenwashing," Luxembourg's environment minister, Carole Dieschbourg, told AFP.

"And it would send a very bad signal: it is not a transition energy, it takes too long," she added, alluding to the lag time for building nuclear reactors.

Her Austrian counterpart, Leonore Gewessler, said labelling nuclear power as sustainable will "undermine the credibility of the taxonomy" because it does not fulfil the legal criterion of "not causing damage to the environment".

The EU Commission has proposed a measure requiring financial products to specify what percentage of the activities financed involve nuclear energy, a transparency measure that would allow investors to steer clear if they wanted to.

Berlin has expressed reservations about joining Vienna and Luxembourg in a legal challenge.

"For now, we're working on our response, and when the Commission presents a new text we'll analyse it from a legal standpoint," said Germany state secretary for economic affairs and climate action Sven Giegold.

Austria has also objected to tagging gas as sustainable, with The Netherlandswhich backs the label for nuclear energyarguing "there is no scientific reason to include" gas.

Polish undersecretary of state for the environment Adam Guibourge-Czetwertynski disagreed.

"Gas replacing coal because there's nothing better in the short term, that makes sense," he said.

 2022 AFP
US lawmakers advanced a bill that targets Big Tech marketplace dominance.

A US Senate panel endorsed legislation Thursday that would block tech giants from prioritizing their products over those of smaller rivals, a potentially major reform that will face a tough fight in Congress.

Partisan deadlock has doomed a series of previous bills aimed at cracking down on problems ranging from privacy to business competition for these goliaths, but the 16-6 vote by the Judiciary Committee signalled some momentum.

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act was advanced with bi-partisan support, setting it on a path to be considered by the full Senatebut still a long ways from being law.

Under the bill, dominant platforms like Amazon or Google would be barred from discriminating against other companies that rely on their services to do business.

For example, Amazon would not be allowed to list its brand of products higher than a competitor that also uses the platform to sell to consumers.

Even though Thursday's hearing is just one step in a lengthy potential journey to President Joe Biden's desk, Big Tech firms have flexed their muscle in opposition.

"I spent about 40 minutes on the phone yesterday with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, who expressed significant concerns about the bill," conservative Senator Ted Cruz told the hearing, before voting in favor of the legislation.

Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer for Google parent Alphabet, also lobbied hard with a blog post titled: "The harmful consequences of Congress's anti-tech bills."

Criticism of Big Tech power swelled last year after the Facebook whistleblower scandal revealed the firm knew its platforms could hurt teens' well-beinggiving renewed momentum to regulation efforts.

However, US lawmakers have long lagged behind the technology and social issues it has become entwined in, while Republicans and Democrats have been unable to agree on an approach.

Yet the efforts targeting the industry's titans have drawn support from smaller companies like review site Yelp and web privacy service DuckDuckGo.

"Dominant technologies companies' ability to give their own products and services preferential placement, access, and data on online platforms and operating systems prevents companies like us from competing on the merits," over three dozen firms told lawmakers in a letter.

The bill, however, comes as Biden's Democrats have the narrowest of control over Congress, with legislative elections set for November.

Biden has struggled to get major portions of his domestic agenda through Congress, seeing setbacks on voting rights as well as his social spending package.

Yet Senator Amy Klobuchar argued Thursday that taking on Big Tech is vitally important, too.

"What this is about, at its core, is monopolies," she told the hearing. "We have to look at this differently than just start-up companies in a garage. That's not what they are anymore."

Explore further Apple, Google tell US senators that tech bills will harm privacy

 2022 AFP
This photo shows the company logo and view of Netflix headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., Jan. 29, 2010. Netflix delivered its latest quarter of disappointing subscriber growth during the final three months of last year, a trend that management foresees continuing into the new year in a that tougher competition is undercutting the video streaming leader. The disappointing news announced Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022 caused Netflix's stock price to plunge by more than 19%, deepening a steep decline during the past two months. Credit: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File

Netflix delivered its latest quarter of disappointing subscriber growth during the final three months of last year, a trend that management foresees continuing into the new year as tougher competition is undercutting the video streaming leader.

The Los Gatos, California, company added 8.3 million worldwide subscribers during the October-December period, about 200,000 fewer than management had forecast. Besides releasing its fourth-quarter results Thursday, Netflix also projected an increase of 2.5 million subscribers during the first three months of this year, well below analysts' expectations for a gain of 4 million, according to FactSet Research.

The disappointing news caused Netflix's stock price to plunge by about 20% in extended trading after the numbers came out, deepening a steep decline during the past two months.

It capped a challenging year for Netflix after it reveled in eye-popping gains during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 that drove homebound people to its service.

Netflix picked up 18.2 million worldwide subscribers during 2021, its slowest pace of annual growth in five years. It came after Netflix gained more than 36 million subscribers during 2020. The service now boasts nearly 222 million worldwide subscribers worldwide, more than other video streaming leader.

But other services backed by deep-pocketed rivals such as Walt Disney Co. and Apple have been making inroads in recent years, and a bevy of other networks also are wading into video streaming in an attempt to grab eyeballs and a piece of household budgets. The escalating competition is one reason Netflix decided to expand into video games last year.

"The 2022 backdrop for Netflix seems to have been set with a theme of competition abound," said Third Bridge analyst Joe McCormack.

While acknowledging the competition is having a "marginal" effects on its growth in i ts quarterly shareholder letter, Netflix emphasized its service is still thriving in every country where it's available.

In a Thursday conference call, Netflix executives also said uncertainty caused by the ebb and flow of the pandemic during the past year has made it more difficult to gauge future growth.

COVID "has created a lot of bumpiness," co-CEO Ted Sarandos said. The company's other co-CEO, Reed Hastings, also expressed some frustration before adding, "For now, we're just like staying calm and trying to figure (it) out."

Despite the choppiness, the company is faring well financially, even though its profit margins are being squeezed and cash is being drained by spending on more original programming to attract subscribers. Netflix earned $607 million, or $1.33 per share, in the fourth quarter, a 12% increase from the same time in the prior year. Fourth-quarter revenue rose by 16% to $7.7 billion.

Investors, though, are getting more worried that Netflix may be nearing its peak in popularity. Those concerns have caused Netflix's stock price to plummet by more than 40% from its peak of roughly $700 reached in mid-November.

The opportunities for future growth have become particularly tough in Netflix's biggest marketthe U.S. and Canadawhere it's starting to appear that most households interested in subscribing to the service already have an account. Netflix ended 2021 with 75.2 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, translating into a paltry one-year gain of 1.3 million subscribers in that region.

Last week, Netflix raised its price by roughly 10% within the U.S. and Canadaa move that could cause some subscribers to cancel the service, based on the company's past history with previous price hikes.

On the upside, Netflix on Friday will unveil the fourth season of "Ozark," one of its most popular series and a potential magnet for new subscribers.

Explore further Netflix upping US, Canada prices with competition growing

 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Former Sen. David Perdue and his wife Bonnie didnt have to wait long in line Monday to cast their ballots for the May 24 primary, which will determine who will receive the Republican nomination for the race to serve as Georgias next governor.


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Construction on a new communications tower in Westlake is expected to begin in the coming weeks following the approval by the Franklin County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 18.

The Westlake tower will be the last of eight new communications towers constructed in the county to provide fixed wireless broadband internet service to residents. Franklin County entered into a contract with Blue Ridge Towers to build the towers in areas of the county in need of high speed internet.

Approval of the location of the Westlake tower directly behind Grand Home Furnishings has been on hold for several months due to its proximity to Booker T. Washington National Monument located less than a half mile away. Negotiations have been ongoing between Blue Ridge Towers, the Federal Communications Commission and the State Historic Preservation Office over the impact of the tower on the parks viewshed.

With those negotiations nearing an end, supervisors on Jan. 18 pushed to get construction moving. The county has an April deadline to complete the tower in order to receive grant funding.

The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development awarded Franklin County with a Virginia Telecommunications Initiative grant for $2.4 million in 2020 for the construction of fixed wireless towers in the county. The original deadline to complete the project was last October, but was extended last year to April.

When questioned by multiple supervisors how Booker T. Washington National Monument had the authority to hold up construction, Park Superintendent Robin Snyder said the Federal Communications Commission and the State Historic Preservation Office become involved whenever a communications tower is proposed within a half mile of a national park. She said, if the tower was moved beyond a half mile, they would have no authority.

If it would have just been another half mile down the road, we wouldnt have engaged in this process, Snyder said. This process is designed to protect areas of national significance, to protect your public lands. As a steward of the National Park Service, Ive really just been doing my job.

Through negotiations over the past few months, the towers height has been reduced from 195 feet to 160 feet to lessen its visibility from the park. The tower will also be a monopine design that will resemble an evergreen tree.

Two points of debate at the Jan. 18 meeting was a request to maintain a 100 foot buffer on the western side of the property where the tower would be located and a request to donate funds to the Friends of Booker T. Washington National Monument to plant trees at the park that will block the view of the tower.

Blue Ridge Towers President Anthony Smith said the 100 foot buffer could possibly impact the number of homes he eventually plans to construct on the property in the future. Smith is the owner of the property.

Smith also agreed to donate $10,000 to the Friends of Booker T. Washington National Monument to plant trees. Snyder questioned if the amount would be enough for want would be needed.

While supervisors questioned if the project had reached an impasse, Smith asked for a vote to approve the project as is and they would work with the park to finalize the rest. I think we are down to the very, very smallest of details, he said. We dont plan on playing hardball on either of those details.

Following discussion, Rocky Mount District representative Mike Carter apologized to Smith for the delays in getting the project moving forward. He then moved to approved the project. Supervisors unanimously voted in favor.
Many school districts are questioning the use of class ranks and choosing to eliminate them completely after many debates.

In October 2020, Loudoun County in Northern Virginia voted to join the other districts in completely eliminating class ranks for the incoming freshman class of 2025.

Though many school divisions are coming to this conclusion in recent years, Franklin County has not used class ranks for years.

Franklin County High School seeks to equalize students, as they proudly state that they do not rank students. This is not a problem on its own.

However, Franklin County High School is constantly seeking to lower the standards for its most advanced students.

At a school as large as Franklin County, why do those in charge seek to lower the standards for the many students who want to challenge themselves?

This lowering of standards does not make school easier, and as a recent graduate of Franklin County High School, I experienced firsthand the difficulties caused by the administrations equalization.

A seemingly small way that the administration is equalizing students is through seniors class rank at the end of the year.

Even though colleges and scholarships are looking less at class rank each year, it remains a tangible measure of personal achievement. Those students who take all of the college level classes that they can fit into their schedules, focus on school, and work hard to achieve good grades in all of their classes should be able to see their success at the end of their senior year in a tangible way if they so please.

They work hard for four years, and at the end are told that, even if they ask privately, it is unfair to those near the bottom for anyone to know their rank. The most that they can know is their class percentage, which feels more like an appeasement than anything that truly shows achievement.

However, the administration of Franklin County High School does more to place their students on the same level than just restricting access to class ranks. Those students who are the most academically inclined are offered fewer and fewer opportunities each academic year.

Franklin County High School offers students about 23 dual enrollment or advanced placement classes, with two of these being trade based classes.

When compared to Patrick Henry High School, in Roanoke, not only does Franklin County have fewer overall college level classes (Patrick Henry has about 26 without technical classes), they are less widespread.

Patrick Henrys college courses cover far more than just the basic core subjects. They offer classes outside of the requirements, from economics to music theory. This provides much more support for their most advanced students, including those who may have more diverse interests.

In addition to the lack of college-level courses offered at Franklin County High School, the scheduling system makes it difficult to sign up for multiple in the same year.

The students at Franklin County take four courses per semester, with the majority of advance placement courses and many dual enrollment courses lasting for the entire academic year.

If a student takes one of these yearlong courses, they are only allowed seven classes that year instead of the typical eight. Not only do college courses take away from the total number of courses that can be taken at a given time, they often overlap with each other.

When a student wants to push themselves by taking multiple college courses in a school year, which should be extremely feasible, they are forced to choose between them in many cases.

How can students take advantage of the few advanced courses offered when they are only scheduled in one period and overlap with many other courses?

There are many small things that Franklin County High School can do for their students. More AP/Dual Enrollment classes, encouragement to take those classes, and recognition for students who work hard during their senior year.

Franklin County High School has a very diverse student population and does a relatively good job of supporting those students who require a little extra academic support. However, they need to apply the same support to the other side of their student body.

Academically advanced students are often overlooked. The administration needs to step up and do better for the students that do good for the school.

All students deserve appreciation and support from their administration.

Brooks, a freshman at the College of William and Mary, is a recent graduate of Franklin County High School who lives in Rocky Mount.
Returning to an in-person event, the Race for GRACE will be held Saturday, April 9, at Grand Island.

Registration for the event opened Jan. 1. The in-person event will offer a two-mile fun run and a 10k verified course.

The race benefits the GRACE Cancer Foundation.

Organizers say the earlier participants register, the steeper the discount will be. People are encouraged to contact the GRACE office regarding free registration for a limited number of cancer patients and survivors thanks to the generous memorials made in loving memory of Steve Toner.

The GRACE Cancer Foundation is excited for the return of Race to GRACE as an in-person event. There is nothing quite like it, Sarah Koch, GRACE Cancer Foundations executive director, said in a news release. The race is so special to so many people, most of whom are running in honor or memory of loved ones who have been affected by cancer.

Last year the event was held as a virtual race and hundreds of people from all over the country were able to take part. Virtual options including a 10k, two-mile fun run, and a 25-mile bike ride still will be open to those who are not able to participate in-person.

Participants in both the in-person and virtual races will have the opportunity to raise funds via an online system called Pledge-It where they will can encourage pledges from friends and family.

Offering a virtual component to complement the in-person race opens the event up to so many more people. Koch said. Offering both in-person and virtual options allows us to raise even more funds to benefit local cancer patients.

The GRACE Cancer Foundation provides local cancer patients assistance with financial obligations and unmet needs. In an effort to meet the emotional well-being as well as the financial needs of those undergoing cancer treatment, GRACE is in the process of starting a mental health program.

The program works much like a workplace employee assistance program allowing patients and their families a number of one-on-one or group sessions with Prairie Winds Healing in Grand Island.

Race for GRACE offers the community many opportunities to help raise funds and awareness, according to the news release. In addition to taking part in the race in-person or virtually, there are several other ways to support. Butterfly signs, which will adorn the race path, can be purchased in honor or memory of loved ones. Individuals can also participate by cheering on and pledging financial support to those participating in the race.

Businesses or individuals interested in becoming Race for GRACE sponsors can call the GRACE Cancer Foundation at 308-675-0889.

To register for the in-person or virtual race, visit gracefoundationgi.org. Early-bird registration pricing is honored through January and a shirt is guaranteed with registration through March 22.
A young man and woman from Bellevue who were found guilty of first-degree assault in an attack on the woman's father each was sentenced Tuesday to 40 to 50 years in prison.

Sarpy County prosecutors said Joshua Fithian and his girlfriend, Gabriella Laws, both 19, attacked Robert Laws in January 2021 with a metal meat tenderizer and a wooden rod. The Sarpy County Attorneys Office dismissed charges of attempted murder, second-degree assault, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and conspiracy to commit a felony against the two.

Under state sentencing guidelines, Fithian and Gabriella Laws must serve 20 years before they are eligible for parole and 25 years before they must be released.

Police responded to a home northeast of 48th Street and Nebraska 370 shortly after 2 a.m. Jan. 17, according to an affidavit filed by Bellevue Police Detective Michael Legband. An officer found Robert Laws, who is 60, in his bedroom with severe injuries to the left side of his face.

Laws wife, Maria, who was sleeping in a separate bedroom, said she was awakened by a noise and found a wooden rod in the hallway. She then found her husband unresponsive in bed and a meat tenderizer on the floor. His CPAP mask still was secured to his face.

The detective said Robert Laws was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center with injuries so severe that he had to be placed in a medical coma to treat brain bleeding and cranial fractures. Police suspected that Robert Laws was attacked while he was sleeping.

Laws later went to the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital. He told police who interviewed him there on Feb. 10 that he didnt remember the attack, but he thought Josh may have been responsible based on a previous argument.

Officers questioned Fithian, who indicated that he, Maria, Robert and Gabriella had an argument regarding Fithians history of sneaking in and out of the Laws home. Gabriellas parents had told him to not be in the house between midnight and 7 a.m.

According to Fithian, after dinner on Jan. 16, he and Gabriella Laws went to the basement until 12:45 a.m. Fithian said he left through a basement window because he was there later than the prescribed time. Gabriella Laws told police that Fithian had left through the front door of the home.

While being questioned by police about the attack, Gabriella Laws said, I mean, I dont think it was my mom, and I dont know, I didnt do it, but if I did in my sleep I dont know. Asked by police if she would be capable of assaulting her father, even accidentally, she said, I hope not.

Asked to clarify her response, she said, Well, if I did, well not, I mean, I hope I would have never done that.

Maria and Robert Laws filed a protection order against Fithian on Jan. 20. The protection order said Fithian had told the Lawses on Jan. 16 that he wasnt going anywhere and planned to come into the house whenever he wanted.

Gabriella Laws gave birth to a child while in jail in October. A judge ordered a DNA test to determine whether Fithian is the father. Court records filed later say Fithian is the father. The child is under the care of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.
ORLANDO, Fla.  Dr. Raul Pino, who became a trusted voice of the pandemic response in the nations tourist capital, has been placed on administrative leave from his post as the states chief health officer in Orange County as the Florida Department of Health conducts an investigation.

Sources who spoke to the Orlando Sentinel on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss Pinos status said he was placed on administrative leave after a Health Department employee complained about an email he sent Jan. 4 to agency staff about employee vaccination rates.

Pino, 58, declined to discuss the Health Departments action, but an agency spokesperson confirmed his status.

Keep scrolling for 10 charts tracking vaccinations and cases across the U.S.

As the decision to get vaccinated is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers, the employee in question has been placed on administrative leave, and the Florida Department of Health is conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken in this case, spokesperson Weesam Khoury said in an email Tuesday. The Department is committed to upholding all laws, including the ban on vaccine mandates for government employees and will take appropriate action once additional information is known.

She declined to provide details or Pinos email.

The agencys decision was first reported Tuesday by WFTV-Channel 9.

In the email, Pino said 77 of 568 employees had been fully vaccinated, including receiving a booster shot. Another 219 had received two shots.

I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated, Pino wrote in the email, according to the TV report. We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50% pathetic.

Since March 2020, when the pandemic erupted in Central Florida, Pino has been a fixture on more than 150 press briefings, appearing beside Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings to discuss COVID-19, best practices, safety protocols, coronavirus infection, testing and vaccination rates, and deaths.

He last appeared at a press briefing Dec. 28, discussing the rise of the omicron variant.

Pino has urged residents to get vaccinated against the virus to protect themselves, those more vulnerable and the regions tourism economy.

Clearly vaccines are working for us  and are the solution to this crisis, he said last month, as county officials announced the omicron variant was beginning to crest and emerge as the dominant strain of SARS-CoV-2 in the countys wastewater. The vaccine continues to be effective against the variants.

Pinos journey to Central Florida began more than 25 years ago when he left Cuba as a political refugee and resettled in New England.

Eight years earlier he had graduated from medical school in Cuba and trained in plastic surgery at the Naval Hospital in Havana. He worked odd jobs in the U.S. at first, including picking blueberries in Connecticut. But he never gave up on a health career. He eventually earned a masters degree in public health from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and was hired by the Connecticut Department of Public Health as an epidemiologist.

While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and Demings, a Democrat, have often sparred over vaccination and face-masking mandates, Pino has tread a thin line between the two elected officials, usually offering raw data and opinions based on his medical experience and research.

During press briefings, Pino patiently answered questions posed to him in English or Spanish, whether at the county podium or out in public, because, he has said, accurate information is a significant weapon in the fight against COVID-19. He always offered condolences to families who experienced loss because of the pandemic.

2022 Orlando Sentinel. Visit at orlandosentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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VIRUS BY THE NUMBERS
A measure slated for a Friday hearing in the Nebraska Legislature would make sure patients seeking unproven stem cell treatments for aching joints and other more serious ailments are informed that the therapies are not approved by federal regulators.

LB753 would require health care providers to inform patients and get written consent acknowledging that the therapies they're seeking have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

State Sen. John Arch of Omaha said people see potential when they look at stem cell therapy. And when patients walk into a clinic and see a licensed health care provider dispensing therapies, they assume those therapies are federally approved.

The therapies can cost thousands of dollars and are not covered by insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. Clinics offering the therapies have proliferated across the United States in recent years. A recent study published in Cell Stem Cell by Leigh Turner, a researcher with the University of California Irvine, identified nearly 1,500 businesses promoting the products. That was four times as many as he and another researcher had documented in a 2016 study.

Currently, however, the only stem cell-based products approved for use in the U.S. involve using cells from bone marrow, umbilical cord blood and blood to treat certain cancers and blood-related diseases.

"We just want to make sure that the patient understands," Arch said. "That's really the main point of this."

Arch introduced the bill at the request of Research Nebraska, the lobbying arm of the Nebraska Coalition for Lifesaving Cures. More information about the therapies is available on Research Nebraska's website, researchnebraska.org/stem-cell-therapies.

David Crouse, president of Research Nebraska, said clinical trials are underway for some potential uses of stem cells. Some show positive results. But they haven't yet delivered the kind of data on safety and effectiveness needed to obtain approval for use outside those trials.

"These clinics are just taking their shot at what might work," he said, "and most of them have no evidence of what's actually effective."

The bill comes after the attorneys general of Nebraska and Iowa filed separate but similar lawsuits in July 2020 against Omaha-based stem cell therapy clinics and their owners. The suits alleged that the clinics made deceptive and misleading claims in marketing unapproved treatments to older residents of the two states.

A hearing on a motion for summary judgment in the suit filed by Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson is slated for Feb. 1 in Douglas County District Court.

Named in the Nebraska lawsuit are related entities Regenerative Medicine and Anti-Aging Institute of Omaha, Omaha Stem Cells LLC and Stem Cell Centers LLC, also known as Stem Cell Centers of Alaska LLC, and their owners.

David Fautsch, a Des Moines attorney representing the firms, said he intends to fully defend his clients.

Regenerative Medicine and Anti-Aging Institutes of Omaha, LLC and Stem Cell Centers LLC also are named in at least one lawsuit filed by patients who sought the therapies.

In that lawsuit, filed by Omaha attorney David Cripe in Sarpy County District Court, a south-central Iowa couple said that they received stem cell injections at a Stem Cell Centers site in Gretna on Oct. 30, 2019, and immediately began to experience nausea, dizziness and weakness.

The couple, according to the complaint, attempted to drive home, but stopped after an hour at a hotel in western Iowa. Hotel staff called emergency responders and an ambulance took them to a local hospital. From there, they were taken by helicopter to two separate hospitals in Omaha. Each of them spent about a week in intensive care, and both were diagnosed with septic shock "due to E. coli poisoning from the stem cell injections at issue."

Crouse said the legislation will raise some red flags for people who might consider the treatments so they know what they're getting into.

"We think that it will help," he said. "I don't like to see people be misinformed, or not informed."
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I dont know about you, but more of my friends and colleagues are coming down with COVID-19 as of late. A marketing director I support recently took a trip to Colombia with her family and had to stay behind an extra week after contracting the virus.

A handful of other friends have recently missed work because of COVIDs impact on their families. Fortunately, their cases have been mild and everyone has made a smooth recovery.

But the latest uptick in cases got me thinking about the impact of COVID-related sickness on work and productivity.

More Americans have missed work in recent weeks because of the coronavirus than during last Januarys pandemic surge. In fact, businesses have seen the highest number of virus-related worker sickness since the Census Bureau began keeping record in April 2020.

Between Dec. 29 and Jan. 10, more than eight million workers were out sick with the virus or because they were caring for someone with it. Thats three times the impact felt during the first two weeks of December.

And COVIDs impact is spreading beyond sick days.

New jobless claims bounced to a three-month high this month in another indication of the omicron variants massive impact on businesses across the country.

Pressured to show up?

When it comes to taking sick days for COVID contraction or exposure, many workers feel the pressure to work regardless of their symptoms. After all, a large portion of jobs are now remote, leaving some employers to institute unfair expectations that their employees will continue to work even when sick.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act  put in place to protect workers  expired at the end of December. The law mandated paid sick leave nationally, a first in U.S. history, and included two weeks of full pay for employees who were quarantined or seeking medical attention for COVID-like symptoms.

But the paid sick leave mandate expired at the end of 2020. According to the University of Illinois System, our states version of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act expired Sept. 30, 2021.

Employers are now in the drivers seat when it comes to offering COVID-specific paid leave. And many arent making it easy on their people.

Millions of workers dont have access to paid sick leave, and were still in a pandemic, said Nicolas Ziebarth, a labor economist at Cornell University in a Washington Post article this week.

This leaves potentially COVID-positive workers with a difficult financial and ethical choice: Stay home or show up?

Communication is key

I understand the tension that comes with making the decision between staying home sick or working through it  especially if youre employer doesnt have a flexible sick-day program.

Maybe you tested positive, but you still feel good enough to show up. Or you dont want to go through the inconvenience of missing more than a day or two.

The bills arent going to pay themselves. I get it.

But if youre struggling with this dilemma, its important to consider the impact your actions could have on others. Think about the ramifications of knowingly spreading the virus to your co-workers, who then bring it home to their children or elderly relatives  and the cycle continues.

Have a plan in place before you find yourself in this situation. Questions about coronavirus leave should be directed to your human resources management team. If youre unclear about your companys policy, challenge your leaders to clarify expectations.

If youre leading a company, make sure your employees are well-informed. Not sure how? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has built a communications resources platform with downloadable documents, policies, and procedures.

As a country, weve passed the awkward stage of communicating positive virus tests to others. Ive seen a shift from people going dark on social media when confronted with a positive test to people sharing their status and illuminating their experiences.

Be transparent with your situation and challenge each other to make people-first decisions.

Thats how we end the pandemic.

Joe Szynkowski is the happy founder and owner of The UpWrite Group, a small local firm that has offered corporate communications, personal branding, public relations, and ghostwriting services since 2008. Email Joe@TheUpWriteGroup.com for more information.

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Hundreds of plaintiffs with cases filed in the Southern District of Illinois federal court are joining in a national suit against Swiss company Syngenta Ag over the companys production and sale of the paraquat chemical.

The victims in the case claim the company knew about the link to Parkinsons and other diseases, concealed this and sold the product for decades anyway, records show.

The cases were consolidated within the Southern District of Illinois in 2021 but the litigation itself is far reaching across multiple states and has been ongoing for sometime.

As of January 7, nearly 570 cases were pending.

Trial selection is currently underway within the lawsuit  with some trials set to begin in November and some depositions underway in February.

Syngenta declined comment and instead directed The Southern to its website. There, Syngenta claimed their product was safe and that they did not base this claim off of cost analysis, saying the chemical makes up only 1% of their revenue.

In one of these cases, Robert Colburn V. Syngenta, Colburn  a citizen of Tulsa, Oklahoma  claims that after using Paraquat, a pesticide meant to kill weeds, for a sustained period of time, Colburn contracted Parkinsons Disease.

Colburns lawyers are joining the consolidated lawsuit against Syngenta Ag, Syngenta Crop Protection LLC and Chevron USA Inc. They alleged these corporations knew of the dangers of Paraquat, their link to Parkinsons and yet continued to sell their product.

In response to questions from The Southern, the plaintiffs co-lead counsel sent a statement saying Paraquat is a dangerous herbicide and toxin that "the scientific community overwhelmingly agrees causes Parkinsons disease.

Syngenta knew about paraquats link to Parkinsons and deliberately concealed that risk from the public and governmental safety agencies for decades. On behalf of the many farmers and agricultural workers exposed to paraquat while caring for our countrys crops, we look forward to prosecuting this case and holding Syngenta fully accountable for the irreparable harm and lifelong suffering it has caused, they said.

At the heart of this issue is a fundamental disagreement about the science of adding the right amount of emetic to paraquat formulations. It is a complex issue and not as simple as its been made out. Modern expert medical opinion is on our side. The FAO/WHO, US EPA and other bodies have not changed their recommendations either, Syngenta said. Given the recent attention, we have conducted a second analysis of the effectiveness of the emetic, using data from two major Sri Lankan studies. The new analysis showed that a majority of the people vomited within half an hour, which allows us to reiterate once again that the emetic is delivering the targeted response.

On September 24, farmworker groups, environmentalists and health organizations represented by Earthjustice filed a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency for approving the use of paraquat, according to a release from Earthjustice.

Paraquat is currently banned in 32 countries, including member states of the European Union (where the chemical is manufactured and exported) and China. In July, EPA reapproved the pesticides registration for another 15 years, the release said. Paraquat is one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States, used on crops like grapes, almonds, soy beans, cotton, and more. Its use has grown dramatically in recent years, doubling between 2012 and 2017 despite its serious health risks.

Paraquat is acutely toxic when ingested, and even one small dose can be fatal, the release said. The EPA determined that exposure to paraquat can damage the respiratory system, kidneys, and eyes, but the EPAs final approval abandoned a proposed ban on most aerial applications of paraquat, leaving farmworkers who work in the fields exposed to unreasonable risks. The EPA also dismissed the connection between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's Disease, despite scientific studies finding that paraquat can increase the risk of Parkinsons by 150%.

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JACKSON COUNTY  A drug treatment court has made its way to Jackson County to help those faced with addiction and criminal charges get their life back, Judge Steven Bost said.

The beauty of this program is that it's been researched and studied and studied, and it works, Bost said. For too long we have had people that have gotten sideways with the law. Instead of us going back to what we're doing the last 100-plus years of just sending them off someplace else, were also owning this problem as a community. We all live here. These are our neighbors. I think that adds an extra layer of accountability for not only the participant but also for the team.

In December, the Illinois Supreme Court approved Jackson Countys Drug Treatment Court after they went through extensive training and meetings, Presiding Judge Christy Solverson said.

Jackson County officials held their first meeting going over potential individuals to take part in the program on Jan.13, according to a news release.

Solverson has been interested in starting a drug court in Jackson County since she first joined the office as a judge, Solverson said.

Drug Treatment Court is a special type of treatment court that will target non-violent offenders with substance use disorders and place them in intensive substance abuse treatment programs, which includes increased drug testing and monitoring and weekly court contact with the drug court judge, according to a release.

Bost has been selected to be the judge presiding over the program. Having consistent weekly or bi-weekly meetings with the same judge is an important factor in the successfulness of the program and its precipitants, Solverson said.

Those accepted into the program will receive mental health and social services, along with other services, throughout their 12-to-24-month drug program.

Through the training and various discussions with other drug courts, Bost has found that many of his preconceptions about such programs have been disproved by research.

You have to trust the research because what they find is a little counterintuitive, Bost said. In our hearts, we see somebody that's young and vibrant that can go sideways with the wrong crew. We think we can save them and they can get in school and this great movie kind of scenario. But the research shows that those are the people that are the least likely to have any success. The research shows the people that are the most likely to be successful are the folks that are high risk, high need, and are going to be a little bit older. They are going to have previous felony convictions probably.

In addition research from the National Association of Drug Court Professionals reported in 2018 that adult drug courts result in a 45% reduction of recidivism and 75% of drug court graduates remain arrest-free compared to just 30% of those released from prisons.

Addictions and drugs have been a huge problem across the United States for more than the past 20 years and the Jackson County courts have seen every docket touched by it.

Judges, probation officers, public defenders, states attorneys and police officers we all live and work here. This is our community, Solverson said. We see the addiction and the drug use every day firsthand. It's in front of us and we see it in all aspects. We see it in criminal court and misdemeanor court. We see the felony court, we see in juvenile or we see it in juvenile abuse and neglect cases. We also see it in family court; it destroys families. We see it in foreclosure and forcible entry and detainer. People lose their homes due to drug use and addiction. We start to see it even in what we call municipal or city courts.

The prevalence of drugs and addiction within Jackson County is one of the main reasons many from the States Attorneys Office try to get out and speak at the local schools.

That's one of the reasons that we try to get out to speak to high school students and speak to communities because for the addiction problem that's where it starts, Solverson said. It starts with just a few joints, it starts with eating the gummies when you're 16 because of the addictive nature of the brain under 23.

One criticism the team could see the program getting is the idea that drug court is just a pass.

Drug court is not a pass. It is a process, Solverson said. Our goal is to bring people back so that they are upstanding members of the community and are held accountable. Addiction is hard. It crosses all boundaries. No one is immune from it. Nobody wakes up and says today I'm going to be a drug addict or today I'm going to be addicted to opioids or I'm going to be addicted to methamphetamine. Its a silent thief. We now have the resources and the team members to help these individuals hopefully get their lives back.

Members of the Jackson County Drug Court team include the Jackson County States Attorney, Jackson County Public Defender, Jackson County Sheriffs Department, Jackson County Probation, Gateway Foundation, Centerstone and consultant Dr. Jeff Ripperda, an addiction medicine specialist.

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MOUNT VERNON  Two GoFundMe fundraisers have been set up to help cover funeral and hospital expenses for a family of three caught in a house fire last weekend.

Cody Pauling, 27, was airlifted to a burn unit in Springfield with second-degree burns on his chest, arms, legs, hands and feet as well as lung damage from the familys house catching on fire, according to authorities and family friends.

His 18-year-old fiancee, Ashley Cheatham, and their 14-month-old son Brendon Pauling tragically were found dead inside the house on Sunday, Mount Vernon Fire Chief Kevin Sargent said.

Brandi Baltzell, a family friend of Cody Pauling, rushed to the scene as soon as she heard about the fire.

I was looking through Facebook and saw that there was a fire. I told my husband thats right at Cody and Ashleys, Baltzell said. I insisted we go by there, I had to see if they were OK. We went around the block and there it was, it was their house, or what was left. I jumped out of the car and ran up to the cop that was standing there. I asked where they were if they were OK, he told me they had just taken Cody to the hospital and that he wasnt in good condition. I asked where Ashley and Brendon were and he told me they didnt make it. Of course, I was instantly sick.

The Mount Vernon Fire Department received the call about the fire at 5:48 a.m., when firefighters were met with heavy fire, Sargent said.

The firefighters tried to breach the house looking for people inside while simultaneously trying to put out the first and prevent the neighboring house from catching fire.

Firefighters were unable to breach the house immediately because of the overwhelming heat, Sargent said.

At that time they were made aware that a man, Cody Pauling, a couple of houses down, who had severe burns, Sargent said.

He was then transferred to SSM Health Good Samaritan Hospital and airlifted to the burn unit in Springfield.

Once the fire was brought under control, firefighters were able to find Cheatham and Brendon Pauling, Sargent said.

Shortly after that, Baltzell arrived and headed home to notify the rest of her family.

Baltzells son, Joe David, was Cody Paulings best friend, Baltzell said.

David was devastated by the news.

Cody Pauling is currently incubated and in critical condition, Baltzell said.

His lungs have been scraped and his burns are starting to heal, but he will continue to be sedated until the inflammation dies down, Baltzell said.

However, Cody Paulings family and friends arent sure if he is even aware of what happened to his fiancee and child due to the sedation, Baltzell said.

As loved ones grapple with the tragedy, Baltzells oldest son, Myles Baltzell, started a GoFundMe for the family.

Myles Baltzells GoFundMe has raised $860 out of the $150,000 goal, and all money raised here will go towards helping the Pauling family.

The GoFundMe can be accessed with the following link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/praying-for-pauling?utm_campaign=p_cf+shareflow1&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

The GoFundMe can also be found here.

A second GoFundMe has also been started to help cover the funeral expenses, and it can reached at the following link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ashley-cheatham?utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0us2lTVKdCrhv_mhrt0bhbwXA6hLZEtURq5AxZVQ0cyySYHeqIcjoQy5o

A second GoFundMe has also been started to help cover the funeral expenses, and it can also be reached here.

The GoFundMe has currently raised $275 out of the $1,500 goal.

Donations to help cover the funeral expenses can also be made to Hughey Funeral Home, according to Cheathams obituary.

Memorials may be made in Ashley's honor to Hughey Funeral Home for funeral expenses. These donations will be accepted at Hughey Funeral Home, by phone, or online at hugheyfh.com. Please go to serves, e-pay, and type Ashley's name in, according to the obituary.

Brandi Baltzell asks that the public do what they can to help the family just as her sons have tried to help them.

This young man has just lost everything and has to completely start a new life both physically and most importantly mentally, Baltzell said. I dont even know how you begin to that. Ashley was an 18-year-old beautiful young woman and Brendon was a wonderful joyful happy one-year and 2-month-old happy baby boy. I guess heaven had bigger plans for them.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation by the Illinois Fire Marshals.

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High school students are getting a head start on college and adult life through ACE, a dual-credit program offered by Southeastern Illinois College.

Short for Accelerated College Experience, the program was designed to give academically talented students from area high schools a leg up on the college application and scholarship process through service projects, communications training and specialized test preparation.

Nineteen students from eight high schools in the SIC district on the eastern side of the region participated in the first-ever, semester-long ACE program that concluded in December. The students were selected based on an application as well as GPA and standardized test scores.

During the Tuesday evening classes during which students earned both high school and college credits, students learned the ins and outs of applying to colleges and for scholarships, did community service activities to bolster their applications and learned about written and verbal communication.

They also built a sense of community.

It was great to interact with all of these high school students together. You would think that they come from all of these different high schools and they wouldnt know each other, but they all have competed with each other in things like FFA or other programs and clubs and they know of each other. Here, the interesting thing was they got to see each other in a different perspective and become friends, explained Rachel Parish, high school recruiter and dual credit coordinator at SIC. Parish taught the class along with John Corum.

Parish said an emphasis of the program was to help outstanding students apply to colleges  even if they had no plans to attend SIC.

I think the main goal for many of these students is to attend a university, she explained. Some said they didnt really know what they wanted to do post-high school, so we brought in guest speakers from different majors to give them some ideas about the different career opportunities out there.

ACE participants also participated in a variety of service activities  Getting their community service hours, Parish said  including working at food banks, cleaning up public spaces and more.

She added that the ACE program also gave the students a good introduction to being in a larger setting.

Most of the schools in our district are very rural, so I think this will help them know what to expect when they go on to that next level, she said. Our goal is to prepare them for things beyond the classroom.

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KENOSHA  Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois man acquitted of fatally shooting two men and wounding a third during street protests in Kenosha in 2020, is seeking the return of the gun and other property that police seized after his arrest.

Rittenhouse's attorney Mark Richards filed paperwork with the Kenosha County Circuit Court on Wednesday seeking the return of the items, explaining that Rittenhouse wants the AR-15-style rifle back so that it can be destroyed, the Kenosha News reported. He also wants the clothing he was wearing the night of the shootings returned.

Law enforcement has had the gun since the day after Rittenhouse shot three men, two of them fatally, on Aug. 25, 2020, during a night of protests and unrest in the southeastern Wisconsin city of Kenosha over the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer.

Rittenhouse turned himself in to police in his then-hometown of Antioch, Illinois, within hours of the shootings. In November, the 19-year-old was found not guilty of all charges related to the shooting deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz. Conservatives and gun rights advocates rallied around Rittenhouse in the days after his arrest, saying he was defending Kenosha from far-left militants. Others painted him as a trigger-happy vigilante.

Rittenhouse family spokesman David Hancock said Thursday that Rittenhouse wants to destroy the rifle and plans to throw out his clothing so that no one can use any of it to celebrate the shootings.

At the end of the day, two people did lose their lives, period, Hancock said. That weapon was involved in that. That weapon doesnt belong on a mantle. It doesn't belong in a museum. It belongs where Kyle wants it, and Kyle wants it destroyed. ... There's plenty of people out there who would like to hold these items up, on both sides. That's nothing Kyle's interested in.

Rittenhouse said he went to Kenosha to protect property from rioters and that he acted in self-defense after he came under attack and feared for his life.

Prosecutors portrayed Rittenhouse as a wannabe soldier who had gone looking for trouble, while his supporters regarded him as a patriot who took a stand against lawlessness.

The gun was purchased by Dominick Black for Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time and unable to legally buy a gun and "was to become the legal property of Kyle Rittenhouse upon his 18th birthday, which was Jan. 3, 2021, the motion stated.

Earlier this month, Black pleaded guilty to two citations for contributing to the delinquency of a minor in exchange for prosecutors dropping two felony charges of intent to sell a dangerous weapon to a person younger than 18.

According to court documents, Rittenhouse is also looking to retrieve the ammunition, the sling and the magazine from the firearm, his cellphone, a cloth face mask, the clothing he was wearing the night of the shootings and a $1 bill.

A court hearing on the motion is scheduled for Jan. 28.

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Editors Note: This op-ed was distributed by Capitol News Illinois on behalf of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors own.

Several years ago, the staff of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute was preparing for our Renewing Illinois Summit for university and college students, and we wanted to provide them with suggested reading about Illinois.

I checked my shelves at the institute and jotted down the titles of various books on state history and politics. I then called several colleagues and asked them if they had any recommendations, phrasing my request this way: If you were teaching an Illinois 101 course to highly motivated undergraduates, what five books would you assign them to read? They can be histories, biographies, novels or essays. In sum, they would provide a wide-ranging and nuanced understanding of Illinois.

I decided to extend this question to some respected leaders and analysts in Illinois, including U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, former Gov. Jim Edgar, Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and former Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon. They submitted recommendations that are both inspiring and humbling  inspiring in the sense that the many compelling books underscore the richness and diversity of our state and humbling in that they remind me about how many important books I still should read!

The recommendations included biographies of Illinois political leaders such as Paul Douglas, Everett Dirksen, Richard Ogilvie, Carol Moseley Braun, Robert Michel and Adlai Stevenson. They also revealed a deep fascination with Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and one of his successors, Harold Washington.

Respondents touted two general state histories: Illinois: A History of the Land and Its People by Roger Biles and Illinois: A History of the Prairie State by Robert Howard. Two chronicles of Chicago were frequently recommended: Natures Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon and City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America by Donald Miller. There was also clear interest in regional histories about central and southern Illinois and about two fabled communities, Cahokia and Kaskaskia.

Respondents lauded works by revered Illinois literary luminaries Carl Sandburg, Gwendolyn Brooks and Theodore Dreiser as well as Illinois celebrated writer-presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.

As the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, I was gratified to see several of Paul Simons books recommended: Lincolns Preparation for Greatness, Our Culture of Pandering and Freedoms Champion: Elijah Lovejoy.

The institute assembled the recommendations into a booklet called Illinois 101, which we sent to libraries, civic groups and public officials across the state. If you would like a copy, email us at paulsimoninstitute@siu.edu and well be glad to mail you one.

Inspired by this interest in Illinois literature, the institute launched an Illinois Authors program in which we host conversations with writers about the state. So far, we have had conversations with Robert Hartley, a journalist and historian, about his biographies of Paul Simon and Paul Powell; Kristin Hoganson, a history professor at the University of Illinois, about her book The Heartland: An American History; and Margo Jefferson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning arts critic, about her book Negroland: A Memoir.

Our conversations with these impressive authors have been wide-ranging and stimulating. They have been on Zoom, but after COVID-19 eases we are eager to host Illinois Author discussions in person throughout the state.

We invite everyone to send us the titles of their favorite books about Illinois and recommend authors that we should consider inviting for future discussions. Email your suggestions to paulsimoninstitute@siu.edu.

I hope you will join me this year in reading fascinating and valuable books about our state. You might even consider creating an Illinois book club or focusing your current book clubs reading on Illinois-related titles. Such reading adds nuance, color and perspective to our vision of Illinois and fosters a greater appreciation for the legacy of those who came before us. I hope this reading and the discussion it inspires will guide all of us to do more to renew and revitalize the Prairie State.

John T. Shaw is the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. Shaws monthly column explores how Illinois can work toward better politics and smarter government.

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Liturgically speaking, Epiphany was two weeks ago. Yet, I found myself having a moment of enlightenment last Sunday.

Watching wildlife documentaries has become a pleasant way to pass time this winter. While watching about the short, and treacherous, life of a European harvest mouse last Sunday this thought occurred to me  nothing has changed in 60 years.

That thought made me laugh out loud simply because it is totally true.

It was about 60 years ago that I was introduced to World Book Encyclopedia. That may not seem like a momentous thing to most of you, particularly anyone under the age of 50, but it was a personal life changer.

Within a couple weeks I became close friends with volumes B, M and S -- the books that had 10-12 photo sections on birds, mammals and snakes. The photographs were divided by continent, and I absorbed the information like a sponge.

Like a young George Bailey, I dreamed of traveling to Africa, India and Europe to see these spectacular creatures with my own eyes. Frankly, its amazing how vividly I remember some of those photos  the European roller or the colorful quetzal from Central America.

While reliving these memories, this thought occurred to me  are these documentaries utilized in our educational system? I mean, what kid doesnt like animals?

They seem to be a perfect way to light a fire of enlightenment in the minds of elementary school students. The photography is eye-popping. The narration is done at a basic level. While I learn something with every video, these arent deep dives into classification, survival or reproduction.

They are fun to watch, yet its amazing the amount of information I retain from each one.

I just know that looking at those World Book Encyclopedia photos piqued a life-long interest in the natural world for me. Its difficult to believe that my experience is unique.

We, as a race, tend to care most about things we have intimate knowledge of. So, why not expose our elementary students to the wonders of nature through these spectacular documentaries, the films that take you inside a harvest mouse nest, or explain why a hummingbird is able to hover?

Granted, Ive never been a teacher. Ive never prepared a lesson plan. Ive never had to keep a room of 20-25 third graders engaged for an hour, much less an entire day.

And, I certainly dont mean to tell anyone how to do their jobs, but these films seem perfect for the classroom. My wife and I subscribe to several streaming services, and each service has its own library of documentaries. It would seem there would be plenty of material available to expose students to one each week or every other week.

Certainly, watching the films would cause some students to want to find more information on their own. And, isnt that the goal of education?

Seeing fledging wood ducks dive into a pond for the first time, or watching a kestrel hover over a vole hiding in the field could be the impetus that spurs a lifelong interest in biology, leading a student to a career as a teacher, forest ranger or wildlife biologist.

Given the current condition of our planet, Earth could use a little TLC.

Just a thought on a winters morning 

LES WINKELER is the outdoors writer for The Southern Illinoisan. Contact him at les@winkelerswingsandwildlife.com, on Twitter @LesWinkeler.

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ORANGEBURG  South Carolina State University expresses deepest condolences to the family of alumna Cheryl A. Hickmon, who died Thursday after battling a recent illness.

Hickmon, S.C. State class of 1984, had been elected national president of Delta Sigma Theta Inc. in November.

As a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., her commitment to service was exemplified by the various leadership positions she held within the organization, said Dr. Tamara Jeffries-Jackson, S.C. State vice president of student affairs and a loyal Delta alumna. Her leadership began at S.C. State University where she served as president of Alpha Xi Chapter and regional representative.

She was best known for her humor and her unwavering love for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Jeffries-Jackson said. She epitomized the true meaning of a Delta Woman through her many acts of kindness and service to mankind.

The sorority announced her passing on its website.

President Hickmon was a devoted member of Delta Sigma Theta since 1982 and served in various capacities at the chapter, region, and national level before being elected National President, the sorority stated. She is remembered not only for her role as a leader but for being a colleague, friend, and most of all, sister. The entire sisterhood of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated mourns the loss of President Hickmon. During this difficult time, we ask that you respect her familys privacy and keep them in your prayers.

Hickmon was the first S.C. State alumna to lead the national organization and Delta Sigma Thetas 27th national president. She joined S.C. States Alpha Xi Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta in 1982 and later served as chapter president.

Before assuming the position of national president, she had a dual role as national first vice president and chair of the National Scholarship and Standards Committee. She was a Golden Life Member of Delta Sigma Theta and a member of the Hartford Alumnae Chapter. She also had served the organization as national secretary, eastern regional director, south Atlantic regional representative, co-chair of the National Documents Review and Revision Task Force, co-chair of the National Leadership Academy, and president of the Hartford Alumnae Chapter and Alpha Xi Chapter.

Professionally, Hickmon supervised the In Vitro Fertilization Laboratories for Andrology and Endocrinology at Montefiores Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Health, a division of the Montefiore Medical Center and a teaching hospital of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Hickmon received the Outstanding Accomplishments and Achievement Award from S.C. State, and several other awards including the 100 Most Influential African Americans in the State of Connecticut by the Connecticut Chapters of the NAACP, and the Citizen of the Year Award from Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. (Tau Iota Chapter).

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Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 Exclusive Revealed: Malware from Fake Source, Whistleblower's Gratitude and the Story of the Tek Fog Story Days after The Wires exclusive on the Tek Fog app, an intriguing email from a person claiming to be a Persistent Systems insider arrived. It had a malware payload and Protonmail successfully got rid of it. Devesh Kumar and Ayushman Kaul /

Last week, The Wire revealed the existence of a highly sophisticated secret app called Tek Fog, used by cyber troops affiliated with Indias ruling party to hijack major social media and encrypted messaging platforms. The 20-month-long investigation shows how the app automates hate and targeted harassment, spreads propaganda and is a marriage of big tech and dirty politics. Read all the three parts of the investigation here, here and here.

New Delhi: Tek Fog may be an app that aims to dehumanise and divide people, but our investigation into its use in 2020 also marked the beginning of our friendship. On March 1, 2020, Ayushman and I met for the first (and only) time in person, outside a local market in Noida. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss a report I had independently published a few months earlier that highlighted the massive tweet volumes and complex hierarchies of the BJP and Congress IT Cells on Twitter. Ayushman was interested in finding common ground between his work as a research analyst at a digital forensic lab and the dataset that I had used to analyse the network of IT Cells. A day before we met, he was working on a two-part investigation into neo-Nazi groups on Telegram and was amazed at how the BJP network graph looked in one of my reports. We planned to meet briefly over filter coffee at Lakshmi Coffee House, but the topic of studying dis- and misinformation in India was so intriguing that we kept discussing its different angles on the street for at least two hours afterwards. We finally decided to document our conversations, track the lifecycle of one of the bot accounts in the BJP and Congress networks, and meet again in a month to share and corroborate our findings. Little did we know that the country would come to a standstill in just three weeks, thanks to the series of COVID-19 lockdowns. We, however, kept working parallely to expand this research and regularly chatted about our discoveries on a WhatsApp group. In the following months, we also spent around Rs 54,000 on three new servers to monitor, archive and analyse around 85,000 highly suspicious accounts, most of which propagated the right-wing agenda.

Tek Fog makes an

appearance At around 4 pm on April 28, 2020, Ayushman sent me a WhatsApp message asking Do you know anything about Tek Fog? Simultaneously, I sent him the Twitter link of Aarthi Sharmas tweet that I had received from another WhatsApp group, which mentioned Tek Fog as one of the apps used by BJP IT Cell to bypass verification codes, automate replies and manipulate hashtag trends. Ayush had already searched for the keyword Tek Fog on Google and couldnt find any results matching such an app. I was intrigued about the mention of another app called Tasker in Aarthi Sharmas tweet. Tasker is an Android app that is well known in the niche tech community for automating tasks like sending a message. Tek Fog, on the other hand, was a ghost app. Even if Tek Fog was a figment of someones imagination, why would a person who knows about Tasker and its functions come up with that unique and specific word, we wondered. Ayushman decided to message them on Twitter. For the next 24 hours, there were no replies. It was my turn next. No one replied until 48 hours later. At 2 am, we both received a reply. The person behind the account had no way of knowing we were working together. They thought we were two different individuals reaching out for information separately. We figured this was a better way to cross-verify information and see if two versions of the story match, and if there are any discrepancies. So we kept this going, asking them to provide an overview of their background, their daily tasks, the app capabilities and the infrastructure behind the application. We both proceeded cautiously; after all, the claims made by the whistleblower were quite incredible from the get-go. In our initial conversations with them, we could sense a dissonance in their chats. It appeared that they were bitter and resentful towards the Indian media community at large. Unsurprisingly, they showed hesitation in sharing confidential information all at once. They claimed that they had tried to get the story out before and had been either ignored, threatened or disregarded by the media persons concerned. The whistleblower mentioned a few reporters but we are withholding their names. At this moment, Ayush and I decided to take it slow and not rush them to present all their evidence. Slowly, they started sending us screenshots of the app. We discussed each and every screenshot with them in detail. We asked them to provide us direct access to the Tek Fog app instead. They said it wouldnt be possible and claimed that this was due to the presence of various security restrictions  including the requirement of three one-time passwords (OTPs) to login to the app dashboard and the use of a local firewall that prevents access to external users. We decided to collect as much information as we can, so we asked them to share their daily tasks. Since the Tek Fog app was accessible only inside a specific firewall, the source claimed they had to share these screens from their office premises  a factor that forced them to be extremely cautious when responding to our requests. As part of its regular workflow, the Tek Fog homescreen shows a list of 'daily trends' that operatives are required to amplify across Twitter and Facebook using the automation features built into the app. To verify this feature, we asked the whistleblower to send some of these hashtags ahead of time, before they have automated them through Tek Fog. We followed it by asking them to send screen recordings of their device showing all the screens of their workflow. In these screen recordings, we noticed a dynamic cloud database of private citizens categorised according to their occupation, religion, language, age, gender, political inclination and even physical attributes. We asked the source to drill-down in some of these categories, one of which was female reporters. The derogatory and abusive keywords that the app suggested in this category made us uncomfortable and question the intention of the app for the first time. Was Tek Fog just a digital marketing tool? The answer was clearly no.

That night of

paranoia The investigation would move at an agonisingly slow pace for months, before rapidly accelerating into a cyber dystopian crime drama  which sounds appealing, as long as one avoids finding oneself slapbang in the centre of the whole sordid affair. The night that the whistleblower provided an impromptu demonstration of the inactive WhatsApp hijack, sending messages to five of our contacts and followed it by sending us the screencast of the exploit in six minutes, helped ratchet up our levels of paranoia. The following session, where they sent us a manipulated AI-generated version of an article Ayushman had published for The Print and claimed we can make you say whatever we want you to say didn't help us calm down either. Eventually, after eight months of building their trust and comfort, the source revealed their identity to us, sharing bank statements with a name and address and following it up with a medical prescription which showed they were being treated for trauma. That information allowed us to use direct means to reconfirm their identity.

Persistence

pays off During these conversations, when we asked the source their intentions, they said that they had decided to come forward after their alleged handler  Devang Dave, ex national social media and IT head, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (the youth-wing of the BJP) and current election manager for the party in Maharashtra  failed to deliver on a lucrative job offer promised in 2018 if the BJP was able to retain power in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. (In an email to The Wire, Dave has denied any knowledge of or involvement with Tek Fog.) Surprisingly, two new names emerged from the payslips the whistleblower shared with us  Persistent Systems and Mohalla Tech Pvt. Ltd, the parent company of Sharechat. The source explained that Persistent Systems employs them as a 'social media incharge' based out of the company's corporate office in Nagpur, India. However, their current project to operate the Tek Fog app required close collaboration with Sharechat and the person they identified as their immediate supervisor, Devang Dave. To further corroborate the authenticity of these documents, we compared them to payslips sourced from other employees working at Persistent Systems and found them to be a match. This is when we started independently investigating the role of these companies in Tek Fog. The first was an Indian-American publicly traded technology services company, Persistent Systems. We started locating friends/friends of friends who worked at Persistent. Many people at Persistent said that they had seen some of these features in one way or another. But no one wanted to take the risk of searching for and sending us internal documents of this nature, with a fear that the company might be saving logs or search histories. Eventually, one person took that risk, went to the office of Persistent on a non-working day and shared the screens of their internal collaboration tool showing around 17,000 assets in the search results of the keyword 'Tek Fog'. This second source got so scared that they decided not to go to the office for a week. We suggested otherwise. You should go to the office, else people might be suspicious, we said. This evidence became a key factor in our investigation, thanks to the courage of this one person.

The final piece

in the puzzle Over the next few months, we ran multiple experiments to find a link between Sharechat, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and Tek Fog. I parsed 3.8 million publicly available posts uploaded in the popular 'Hindi' and 'Marathi' trending communities on Sharechat, and found that the platform was plagued by fake news and hate speech issues. Ayushman unearthed every document, social media post, company filing and almost every news article that was written about Devang Dave and his company, Social Central. He also began reaching out to other journalists and political analysts to find more background information on Dave. Interestingly, some of these associations of Daves were revealed by Alt News, right after we had a lead. Though many of these findings were interesting stories in themselves, none of them connected Sharechat and BJYM to the app. Thats when we decided to contact our original whistleblower and see if they could verify these links for us. After remaining silent for many weeks, the source connected us via email to another current BJYM office-holder. This individual sent us a piece of code via their official email id, that helped us identify the various external websites and tools connecting to the secure server hosting the Tek Fog app. This script helped us to locate a live Tek Fog server and verify that metabase.sharechat.com (Sharechats internal dashboard), bjym.org and isupportnamo.org (managed by Dave) were accessing this private app. As an additional step, we corroborated the authenticity of the script by having it reviewed by an independent expert, currently employed as a lead software architect at Microsoft. For 14 months, we kept waiting for a counterfactual  for the source to embellish a claim, for our independent analysis to run counter to their primary testimony, for one of the many technical experts we reached out to with evidence to find an error in our methodology and tell us we had just spent the better half of the last two years on a wild goose chase led by a foriegn adversary, a renegade digital marketing executive or maybe just a really bored teenager who thought it would be hilarious to take two unsuspecting researchers for the ride of their lives. And yet the information continued to hold up to scrutiny, and we had no option but to keep on going.

The Wire

plugged in Six months into the investigation, I had informed Siddharth Varadarajan, Founding Editor of The Wire, about our findings. Siddharth and Anuj Srivas, our tech and business editor, suggested many ways to verify our sources and follow the money trail. Privately, they were also involved in the Pegasus investigation, which was released right at the same time when we located the final piece in our investigation. While the Pegasus story was unfolding, Ayushman and I worked together on creating a cheat sheet that centralised everything we knew, the verification method and what else we wished to know. Here is that list: 1. Twitter trends are manipulated using the Tek Fog app. How do we know? Few hashtags like #CongressAgainstLabourers and # which showed in the task list of the Tek Fog app were sent to us by the source before the amplification. Both the hashtags indicated inauthentic and suspicious on-platform activity from many accounts. We also sent a list of the top 5,000 of these accounts to the Twitter Global Public Policy team, following which many of the accounts in the network have either been suspended or deleted. We have withheld making this list public as it is likely Twitter itself may do so. What else do we wish to know? How does Tek Fog bypass the security limits set by platforms like Twitter, Facebook? Does this process utilise the creation of temporary accounts from the Tek Fog app or is it done by the integration of existing accounts belonging to real BJP workers? 2. Inactive WhatsApp accounts can be hijacked by Tek Fog operators. How do we know? One of the authors' WhatsApp account was hijacked in real time and was used to send a message to the researchers' 'frequently contacted' users on the platform. What else do we wish to know? The precise mechanism through which Tek Fog is able to compromise WhatsApp accounts. 3. Tek Fog operators can modify existing stories to create fake news. How do we know? The whistleblower gave us a link (generated by a URL shortener) that redirected to a manipulated version of an article. Analysis by the team and other independent experts showed that an embedded code (payload) in the query string of the URL can trigger an XSS injection on many blogs and websites. What else do we wish to know? Is there any other method to morph URLs? 4. Female journalists were abused and targeted. How do we know? The network of suspicious accounts that amplified hashtags shown in the Tek Fog app also abused the top 280 most retweeted journalists almost a million times between January 1, 2021 and May 31, 2021. The keywords used in the tweets matched one of the many derogatory keywords shown in the Tek Fog app. What else do we wish to know? Is this abuse based on categorisation as shown in app screenshots or individual targeting? 5. Persistent Systems is involved in this operation. How do we know? An independent source shared screenshots (via their official email id) of the company's Microsoft Sharepoint, indicating the app's active development through around 17,000 assets identified by the search term 'Tek Fog'. What else do we wish to know? The contents in these documents. 6. Sharechat and BJYM are involved in the Tek Fog operation. How do we know? We located a live Tek Fog server. A BJYM office-holder sent us a piece of code via their official email id, that helped us identify the various external websites and tools connecting to the secure server hosting the private Tek Fog app. Three of the URLs were metabase.sharechat.com (Sharechats internal dashboard), bjym.org and isupportnamo.org (managed by Devang Dave). What else do we wish to know? What is the nature of data that Sharechat and BJYM websites are requesting from the Tek Fog app? 7. Tek Fog operators were employed during communalisation of COVID-19 and Delhi violence. How do we know? The hashtags related to COVID-19 communalisation and the February 2020 Delhi violence presented in the Tek Fog app showed accounts demonstrating highly suspicious levels of activity, amongst a range of other indicators. Many of these accounts also showed suspicious behaviour in sharing tweets with other hashtags that originated from Tek Fog. What else do we wish to know? What are the other events of national significance where Tek Fog was employed? 8. What we couldnt verify. We also had a clear sense of claims the whistleblower made which were impossible for us to verify without physical access to the app, or rather the premises where Tek Fog was being used, especially Tek Fogs ability to erase traces. The Wires editors made an editorial call, based on the whistleblowers reliability  and the fact that all their other claims had checked out  to mention this auto-delete feature in the story, with the caveat that it was not possible for us to confirm it. This cheatsheet helped us to make a decision on whether the proof we received and verified was enough and credible, in order for us to publish. The Wires editors also decided to clearly highlight the limitations of this investigation to our readers for transparency. After 20 months of investigation, it was finally decided to release this story in the new year after getting it translated into three other languages  Hindi, Marathi and Urdu. We also left an email, tekfog@protonmail.com, at the end of our article for people to contact us with more information.

The aftermath: Malware scoop from a fake source

and feedback from the original whistleblower A day after we published the first part of the story, we received an email from an individual using a Protonmail account who claimed to be a Persistent source and shared a Tor link to download files that were part of the companys Sharepoint screenshots. The same source also reached out to one of The Wires founding editors asking where they could send some material. "Read your articles on tek fog. I work at persistent and have access to many of the docs youve shown in your share point screenshot. Whats the secure method to send it across to you? Is your phone still infected with pegasus?" We created a separate Linux server to download those files  which clocked in at 20 GB  in the background and went back to finalising the second and third parts of our story. Three days later, we started receiving security emails from Protonmail and our email id became inaccessible for a few hours. On reaching out, the Protonmail security team confirmed that there had been a surge of Denial-of-Service attacks on our email, and added that the email with the Tor link contained malware. The issue has been resolved since then, and none of the contacts or email data has been compromised, thanks to the time-based one-time passwords associated with the account. Clearly, this was an attempt by a sophisticated player to undermine The Wires investigation and also perhaps discover the whistleblowers identity. Ten days later, the original whistleblower, whose Twitter account was hacked a day before we published the story, emailed us with their thoughts. The email is reproduced below after making minor syntax changes. Finally read all the three pieces that were published on The Wire. It was hard and shivering to revisit all those memories again but I could breathe at the end of it, because you both hit the nail on the coffin. Other pieces of investigation which you both did, like finding Persistent internal documents and showing graphs of delhi riots, were solid. Tbh, I didnt behave well enough with both of you during the process. misbehaved a couple of times. My experience working on this app made me bitter and rude. I knew what I was doing, but initially I had no option. It was a good company, the salary was good, I made a few good friends, and they always said I will be promoted to a government job. When that didnt happen and when I started complaining about it, then only I realised the fear and continuously being in the state of trauma, overlooking my sides and checking who is my friend or not. I wasnt sure who to trust or not. I received emails from many reporters from Reuters and Times of India but I didnt follow up with them as they demanded information that I wasnt comfortable sharing with them initially. That bitternesses reflected on our interaction as well. I am sorry for that. I also want to apologise to hundreds of women whose life I made hell. I didnt realise the personal trauma l caused to them, until I suffered from the same. I thought it was normalised and these people dont care about abuses from unknown accounts on social media. I was wrong. After reading tweets of many women who responded to the story, I can see I was so wrong. I am thankful that you all covered the story and thankful to your editors, video creators. I am safe. my Twitter account is hacked and every day 20-30 emails I receive harassing me on this email. I will close it in a few days.

Where from

here? In the last 20 months, Ayushman and I have taken a path of friendship and mutual respect. Indeed, we reached out to our sources with care and empathy, but that doesnt mean that we were not stern and direct in clearly communicating about what we need from them to verify their claims. It appears that during the same time, the whistleblower has taken a journey of self-transformation  towards acceptance and self-help. Only time will tell whether they will be able to redeem themselves, and whether the people they have hurt will forgive them for their actions. What we do know is that this is our first step forward, and we are not going to stop, come what may. We have shown that Tek Fog, like Pegasus, threatens our democracy. The next step is to work with partners and other investigative agencies to probe the unanswered questions in our wishlist. Note: If you are working with Persistent Systems, Sharechat or the BJYM and are using/ have used or know more about the Tek Fog app and the broader operation underpinning its use, please contact us at tekfog@protonmail.com. We will ensure your anonymity and privacy at all costs.
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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.
Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.

Tonight

Partly cloudy. Low 57F. Winds light and variable.

Tomorrow

Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 86F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
China's disciplinary agency vows to maintain strong, persistent crackdown on corruption

Xinhua) 08:07, January 21, 2022

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Jan. 18, 2022. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China's (CPC) top disciplinary agency pledged to maintain strong and persistent crackdown on corruption in a communique released Thursday.

The communique was adopted at the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which was held in Beijing from Tuesday to Thursday.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the plenum and delivered an important speech.

Party and state leaders including Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng attended the session.

The session reviewed the disciplinary work in 2021, made arrangements for tasks in 2022, and deliberated and approved a work report delivered by Zhao Leji on behalf of the CCDI standing committee.

In 2021, the CPC celebrated its centenary and reviewed its major achievements and historical experience over the past century.

In 2022, the CPC will convene its 20th national congress, which is a major event in the political life of the Party and the country, the communique said.

It urged coordination in punishing corruption, strengthening deterrence among officials, tightening institutional restrictions, and improving their political awareness to make more institutional achievements and greater progress in governance.

Discipline inspection commissions and supervision agencies should play a better role in enforcing oversight over decision implementation, the communique said.

Having the courage to reform itself distinguishes the CPC from other political parties. It is the Party's secret to avoiding the historical cycle of rise and fall and remaining vibrant after a century of struggle, the communique stressed.

POLITICAL OVERSIGHT

Political oversight should focus on several vital tasks, including deepening reform and opening-up across the board, advancing common prosperity, building strength in science and technology, and forestalling and defusing major risks, the communique noted.

The document stressed the importance of putting the spotlight on leading officials, also known as the "key few."

It called for strengthened oversight over officials in command and leadership teams, especially concerning their performance in fulfilling their responsibility to exercise strict Party self-governance in all respects, implementation of democratic centralism, and their exercise of power according to laws and regulations.

DEEPENING ANTI-CORRUPTION DRIVE

Calling for unswerving efforts to deepen the anti-corruption drive, the plenum stressed that no mercy will be shown to those who run or are engaged in political factions, cliques or interest groups within the Party, and strict standards will be adopted to educate, manage and supervise young officials.

Efforts will be stepped up to investigate and punish any corruption behind the runaway expansion of capital and the monopoly of platform enterprises in order to sever the connections between power and capital, and financial discipline will be strengthened, said the communique.

DEFENSE AGAINST MALPRACTICE

The communique called for continued efforts to consolidate the defense of the CPC Central Committee's eight-point decision against undesirable work practices, and to persistently address corruption and misconduct occurring on the people's doorsteps.

The practice of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism that affected the implementation of the CPC Central Committee's decisions and policies, and other practices that turned a blind eye to the people's interests or increased the burden on people at primary levels must be resolutely corrected and rectified, it said.

SOUND INSPECTION SYSTEM

The communique also urged the improvement of the discipline inspection system, where inspection authorities at different levels have sound communication and work together to ensure relevant work is conducted at a high quality and with full coverage.

Routine supervision and special inspections should both be strengthened, and the issue regarding "the latter part of the story" of addressing the problems discovered during the inspections into central-level financial institutions should be taken seriously, it said.

The document called for a comprehensive review of the inspection work conducted by the 19th CPC CCDI so that it can be reported to the Party's Central Committee.

According to the communique, the reform of the discipline inspection and supervision system should highlight an integrated system as well as coordination and efficiency to transform institutional advantages into greater governance effectiveness.

LOYAL GUARDIANS

The communique called on discipline inspection personnel to be politically strong and professionally competent, and work hard to be the loyal guardians of the Party and the people.

The plenary session stressed the need to rally more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, promote the great founding spirit of the Party and the spirit of self-reform, and ensure that concrete progress is made by the time the 20th CPC National Congress is convened.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
OMAHA  BNSF railroad wants a federal judge to prevent two of its unions from going on strike next month over a new attendance policy that would penalize employees for missing work.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based railroad went to court after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation union both threatened to strike over the new policy that is set to go into effect on Feb. 1.

The unions said they are surveying their 17,000 members who work for BNSF to see if workers will support a strike.

The heads of the two unions, BLET National President Dennis Pierce and SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson, said in a joint statement that the new policy would violate their contracts with BNSF and could provide an incentive for workers to show up when they are sick in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

This unprecedented BNSF policy repudiates direct and clear contract language, and in application, will attempt to force our members to report for duty without regard for their medical condition as we struggle to come out of a pandemic, Pierce and Ferguson said.

The railroad maintains that this issue is a minor dispute that the unions wouldnt be allowed to strike over under federal law, and a strike shouldnt be allowed because it would hurt the economy too much.

Rail strikes  even if brief or localized  can cause devastating and irreparable harm to carriers, their customers, other railroads, and the general public. The threatened strike in this case would strain an already overburdened supply chain, potentially causing wide-ranging harm to the national economy, BNSF said in its lawsuit.

BNSF said it hasnt updated its attendance policy in 20 years, so it came up with the new system to give its employees an easier way to see where they stand under the rules.

A hearing will be held Monday to determine whether the judge will block the threatened strike.

BNSF, one of the nations largest railroads, operates 32,500 miles of track in 28 western states including Wyoming.

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FORT COLLINS, Colo.  The boyfriend of slain cross-country traveler Gabby Petito admitted killing her in a notebook discovered near his body in a Florida swamp, the FBI announced Friday.

It was the first time authorities squarely pinned the blame for Petitos death on Brian Laundrie, though he was the prime suspect all along.

Investigators meanwhile announced that Laundrie, 23, had sent text messages to intentionally deceive people that Petito, 22, was still alive after he beat and strangled her in late August, according to a statement released by the FBI in Denver.

All logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case, FBI Denver Division Special Agent in Charge Michael Schneider said in the statement. The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito.

Petitos body was found Sept. 19 at a campground near Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming. A coroner determined shed died about three weeks earlier of blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation.

Laundrie returned home to Florida in early September but went missing soon after. In October, his parents found an item belonging to him in a nature preserve near their house.

Further searching turned up Laundries remains, a revolver, backpack and the notebook. Medical examiners determined Laundrie died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The FBI did not specify what, exactly, Laundrie had written in the notebook and in the texts hed sent to mislead. The texts were sent between Laundries phone and Petitos phone, according to the statement.

The timing and content of these messages are indicative of Mr. Laundrie attempting to deceive law enforcement by giving the impression that Ms. Petito was still alive, the statement said.

Grand Teton was the last place the couple visited during a cross-country van trip last summer that ended with Laundrie mysteriously returning home alone in the vehicle.

The couple documented their trip on Instagram. They crossed Colorado and on Aug. 12 were stopped by police in Moab, Utah, after the two got into a scuffle.

Police video showed Petito describing a fight that escalated. Police concluded Petito was the aggressor but officers decided to separate them for the night rather than file charges.

Attorneys for the Petito and Laundrie families did not immediately respond Friday to emails and text messages seeking comment about the FBIs conclusions.

AP reporter Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report.

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CHEYENNE  Two teenagers accused of involvement in the July 5 shooting death of a local 14-year-old are set to appear next Friday in Laramie County Circuit Court.

Raymond Sanchez, 16, of Cheyenne is being charged as an adult with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Xavier Sanchez, 18, of Casper is charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

A preliminary hearing for both is scheduled for Friday in circuit court.

The Cheyenne Police Department announced earlier this month that charges had been filed in the case. CPD said theyd determined in July that Raymond and Xavier Sanchez, identified as cousins in charging documents, had acted together during the alleged homicide.

Raymond Sanchez was arrested on July 10 on unrelated charges and held in custody, CPD said last week. Xavier Sanchez was arrested on July 15 in Casper on charges related to the shooting. Affidavits of probable cause were then forwarded to the Laramie County District Attorneys office with charging recommendations.

Charging documents for both teenagers were file stamped on Dec. 30 in circuit court. As of Jan. 14, both were being held at the Laramie County jail. Charging documents allege that the 14-year-olds death may have been the result of a gang-related conflict, or at least a conflict between two families. The shooting and circumstances surrounding it are laid out in a lengthy 11-page probable cause affidavit.

According to court documents:

At 1:03 a.m. July 5, Cheyenne Police officers were dispatched to an apartment in the 1600 block of Taft Avenue in response to a report of shots fired. Upon arrival, officers observed a bullet hole in the door and a .45-caliber brass shell casing near the door.

Officers found a 14-year-old boy, identified as D.B. in the probable cause affidavit, lying on the floor with a large pool of blood to the right of his head. It was later determined D.B. had a suspected gunshot wound to his upper back. The 14-year-old was pronounced dead by American Medical Response personnel at about 1:20 a.m.

Other residents of the apartment complex told police D.B. was associated with the Blood street gang. During a forensic interview, a teenager told interviewer Lynn Storey-Huylar that D.B. and Raymond Sanchez had recently had beef with each other, possibly related to a couple of D.B.s friends attacking one of Raymonds friends.

Raymond, cousin Xavier Sanchez and a teenager identified as D.M. were hanging out in Cheyenne over the Fourth of July holiday. Xavier and D.M. typically lived in Casper.

In an interview with police, Raymond said that, based on being related to some of its members, he was associated with the Sureno Lincoln Park gang of Cheyenne. He said he knew D.B. and that some of the people D.B. associated with were Blood gang members.

Raymond told police that on July 4, hed learned D.B. and people he associated with had a conflict with Raymonds uncle. During the same timeframe, Raymond said, his uncle told him he would give Raymond $100 to fight D.B. on his behalf. Raymond said he collected the money around 6 p.m. July 4. During the exchange, the uncle apparently told Raymond: Ill see you later homie, handle him.

A police detective spoke with an individual who had a conversation with Raymond Sanchez on July 4, in which Raymond said he was going to take care of business at the apartment complex where D.B. lived in the early hours of July 5. A forensic download of the persons cellphone records confirmed this.

Raymond said he, Xavier and D.M. arrived at the apartments shortly after midnight on July 5 to fight D.B., based on the arrangement with his uncle.

D.M. told police that, shortly after 1 a.m., Raymond said they would just go to D.B.s apartment and get him, or beat D.B. up. D.M. said he didnt think the intention at the time was to shoot D.B.

When D.M. knocked on the apartment door, a male answered. He said D.B. was not there, but that he could give him a message. Raymond and Xavier were standing in a nearby area.

A teenager inside the apartment at the time of the shooting said it was D.B. who answered the door, but because he did not know the person at the door, he said D.B. was not there. Several other people were inside the apartment when the shooting happened, some of whom identified Raymond Sanchez as the shooter.

After D.B. answered the door, Raymond popped out and shot through the door, D.M. told police. He said Raymond was at the top of the stairs, said This is it, and shot the gun.

D.B. had tried to close and lock the door before the shots were fired, witnesses said. One person inside the apartment said they saw a bullet strike D.B., after which he went into a bedroom and collapsed.

D.M. said both Raymond and Xavier had guns before D.M. knocked on the apartment door, and that Xaviers gun had been given to him by Raymond.

After Raymond fired the shot, D.M. said he and Raymond fled the apartment building. Both D.M. and Raymond said they saw Xavier fire at least one shot in the direction of the apartment building as they were fleeing.

Raymond, Xavier and D.M. then got into a white truck, which already contained two of Raymonds relatives.

When asked by police how certain he was that Raymond was the person who shot D.B., D.M. said: I swear to God, on everything, I was standing right there, I felt the bullet. D.M. said the bullet went through the door.

Raymond told police hed let go of previous conflicts with D.B. until hed heard about the apparent attack on his uncle. He said his uncle had given him $100 to beat up D.B., and that Xavier had shot and killed him.

A female relative of Raymond and Xavier told police D.M. told her theyd been at the apartment complex and were being shot at, so they shot back. The female relative said Raymond told her he shot through the door after D.B. answered it, and then he, Xavier and D.M. ran away. She said Xavier told her he saw a witness as they were running away and shot through a window.

At about 10 a.m. July 5, Xavier Sanchezs grandmother received a text message from him, asking to be picked up. She drove to Cheyenne, picked up Xavier and D.M., and drove them back to Casper.

According to text messages, Xavier Sanchez texted his grandmother on the evening of July 6, saying: If the cops come to the house call me before you say anything plz. His grandmother asked Xavier to call her and said she would not lie for him, but she did not get further details about what happened.

On the morning of July 7, Xavier sent a screenshot of a CPD post about the incident to his grandmother.

D.M. said they realized they messed up, bad after seeing the CPD post, but he did not contact police after seeing it.

After agreeing to meet with police on July 12 in Casper, Xavier Sanchez did not show up.

Forensic pathologist Dr. James Wilkerson performed an autopsy on D.B.s body in Fort Collins, Colorado. Wilkerson said a bullet entered through D.B.s back left shoulder. He said there was no evidence of close-range firing, that the trajectory was downward, left to right, slightly back to the front and pierced several organs. He also recovered a large-caliber bullet from the body.

Wilkerson determined D.B. died of a gunshot wound to the back of the chest that continued into the abdomen and that the manner of death was homicide.

The detective who wrote the probable cause affidavit said the bullet hole in the door was consistent with a shooter being outside the door at a higher position on the staircase, near the entrance of the apartment building, and also consistent with the door being slightly open as the bullet entered the door and D.B.s body.

A Wyoming State Crime Lab forensic analyst found that the bullet recovered from D.B.s body and one recovered by detectives near the exterior of the apartments window were not the same, seemingly corroborating that Raymond and Xavier Sanchez had two different firearms.

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SMALL business owners in three Caribbean countries will get the opportunity to showcase how their enterprises are transforming their communities, and themselves, due to support from the social enterprise, Nudge Caribbean.

The opportunity comes tomorrow, at an event called Nudge Now, which is being organised by Nudge Caribbean, which was founded by Anya Ayoung-Chee, design strategist and social entrepreneur, and Julie Avey, Massy Groups senior vice president of People and Culture.
The Point is to Change the World, a collection of writings by Guyanese political activist Andaiye, was in the spotlight on Thursday, the first day of the 2022 Bocas Lit Fest, which kicked off with a series of virtual events.

Thursdays conversation centred on Andaiyes writings and legacy.

Journalist Sunity Maharaj said while Andaiye left a legacy through her work, she also used her platform to be open and honest about every aspect of her life, including her battle with cancer.
Many people are struggling during this Covid-19 pandemic as prices increase, while many are 
And so it has come to pass. One week after the island-wide blackout of February 16, we told you in this space that, from among the best authority available, there would be, there could be no one to blame for what happened.

We told you that the determination had already been made as to what happened, how and why, and that nobody could have been held responsible for that. It was a warning against the natural national tendency to go for blood. Loud had been the shouts of sabotage, the result of worker discontentment, and a clamour for heads to roll.
After serving 10 years on the board of the Rio Nuevo District, Mark Irvin considered resigning in 2020, but two big projects remained unresolved.

The redevelopment of the Tucson Convention Center and helping reopen Hotel Arizona.

Check and check.

Irvin has submitted his resignation after 12 years of ups (and a few downs) on the board.

Its been an interesting, interesting journey, he said. Its fun to walk around downtown and see all thats happened, but I think 12 years as a volunteer is enough.

Rio Nuevo Board members are appointed by the Speaker of the House, the Senate president and the governor due to legislative changes made in 2010. Members serve at the pleasure of the state and have no term limit.

Created in 1999, the Rio Nuevo District is a special taxing district and receives an incremental portion of state-shared funds from sales taxes collected within a defined boundary. The district boundaries are downtown Tucson, west to a panhandle just west of Interstate 10 and east to Park Place mall, along Broadway.

Known as a TIF (Tax Increment Financing), the finance mechanism is used by the state to fund improvement projects.

When the Rio Nuevo District was formed, the Tucson Convention Center was designated as a priority of funding to bring it up to a nationally competitive level.

By 2009, the state determined the TCC had not received any significant enhancements and seized control of Rio Nuevo from the city of Tucson. A new board was appointed by the governor, president of the senate and speaker of the house.

Irvin, a local real estate broker, was among the new appointees tasked with fixing the districts finances.

There were times when it was extremely trying, he said. I almost stepped away early on with all the goofiness going on but said, No. Im going to stick it out.

Highlights for Irvin include offering advice on real estate acquisitions, partnering with the private sector on downtown developments and achieving clean financial audits.

Now theres great leadership in place, he said, and the board understands what it needs to do.

Speaker of the House Russell Bowers has appointed Mike Levin, the CEO of business operations for the Port of Tucson, to the board to fill a vacant seat. The speaker has not yet announced a replacement for Irvin.

I am honored and humbled, Levin said. We wouldnt have the downtown we have now if it werent for their work.

Levin runs the business and real estate operations for the Port of Tucson, an 800-acre inland port on Tucsons southeast side with 2.4 million square feet of industrial space and rail connection to the U.S. and Mexico.

He said he is looking forward to the learning curve.

When I look at what theyre doing and what theyre bringing to downtown and what theyve been through, Im just excited, Levin said. Theyve made such an impact, not just economic but culturally, too.

Fletcher McCusker, chairman of the Rio Nuevo board, welcomed Levin to the team.

We welcome Mike to the board, he said. We congratulate the Speaker on a wise choice that will add a legacy family with significant real estate experience to the effort to revitalize Tucsons downtown.

McCusker also gave a tip of the hat to Irvin.

He will be missed, but his contribution to Tucsons revitalization efforts will be a lifetime legacy, he said. I wish my friend Mark well and, on behalf of the entire board, express Tucsons thanks for a job well done.

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Contact reporter Gabriela Rico at grico@tucson.com

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Testing critical aircraft parts for dangerous flaws before they fail is the focus of new training Pima Community College plans to launch next year, thanks to a recent federal grant.

The $490,000 award from the Federal Aviation Administrations Aviation Workforce Development Grant program will allow Pimas Aviation Technology Program to offer training and initial certification in nondestructive testing of aircraft hardware for continued use, said Jason Bowersock, academic director for Pimas aviation program.

Pima will have plenty of room for the new program, as it expects to complete a major expansion of its Aviation Technology Center that will more than double its footprint at Tucson International Airport and student capacity when it opens this spring.

Pimas highly-regarded aviation technology program has long offered FAA-approved certificate programs in aviation airframe, powerplant and structural mechanics, as well as avionics.

The school  which routinely places nearly all of its graduates in jobs amid a global shortage of aircraft mechanics  also offers an associate degree in aviation technology.

The nondestructive testing program will teach students how to inspect aircraft components for flaws and wear visually and using tools such as ultrasound, X-ray, special dyes and methods using electrical current and magnetic particles.

Kind of a long shot

Bowersock said he was mulling what new training the school could offer with the major aviation expansion on its way to completion, but he wasnt sure of Pimas chances when he applied for the FAA grant, part of an overall $5 million program approved by Congress in 2020.

I actually thought it was kind of a long shot because, obviously, the focus of the FAA program is on aviation maintenance, and though nondestructive testing is widely used throughout the aviation and aerospace industries, its not aviation-specific, said Bowersock. Its not training new mechanics, and theres this huge shortage of mechanics worldwide.

But many critical components removed from aircraft during maintenance must be subjected to nondestructive testing before they can be put back into service, said Bowersock, a 20-year Air Force maintenance veteran who joined the Pima aviation program as an instructor in 2015 and was named director in 2016.

Something as simple as a bolt that holds together a wheel  when thats broken down, all that hardware has to be put through nondestructive testing to make sure it still has the integrity it had when it was manufactured, and its going to hold that wheel together and not cause a failure, he said.

Unfortunately, because Pima was unable to get its curriculum through the approval process for fall 2022, the new program wont be offered until the fall of 2023, Bowersock said.

While Pima currently prepares its aviation mechanics for FAA licensing exams, certifications in nondestructive testing are handled by the American Society for Nondestructive Testing, a nonprofit technical group based in Columbus, Ohio, Bowersock said.

Pimas program will prepare students for certification for nondestructive testing in aviation and earn initial Level I certification and enable existing aircraft mechanics to earn either Level I or Level II certifications from the ASNT, but Level II certification requires a minimum number of hours of on-the-job training, Bowersock said.

The grant money will be used to establish new curricula in aviation maintenance, including purchasing equipment, and support transition to careers in aviation maintenance through Pimas status as a Hispanic-serving institution, the school said in its proposal.

The grants, which are authorized through fiscal 2023 are competitive and can range from $25,000 up to $500,000 annually, according to the FAA.

Companies welcome new program

Pimas new program will be a valuable new resource for local aircraft maintenance, repair and maintenance companies like Marana-based Ascent Aviation Services.

The fast-growing company employs about 500 workers who repair and overhaul airliners at maintenance centers at TIA and at Pinal Airpark in Marana, and plans to break ground soon on a new facility at the Roswell Air Center in Roswell, New Mexico, that is expected to employ about 350, Ascent President David Querio said.

We employ internal NDT technicians, and were always looking through our expansion to grow additional people, Querio said. As Pima expands their capabilities with NDT, well be able to provide additional training for our existing workforce, as well as potentially hiring additional trained personnel from Pima.

Meanwhile, Bowersock and his colleagues and students at Pima are looking forward to the opening of its expanded center at TIA off South Park Avenue sometime in April.

Funded by a one-time state appropriation of $15 million in 2019, the expansion project includes a new aircraft hangar and five classrooms and offices, roughly doubling the programs footprint and allowing PCC to double its allowed enrollment to 250 and its graduation rate to 150 students each year.

The program will soon add its 10th faculty member, Bowersock said, and has already added a new cohort of students in anticipation of the new space.

Bowersock said the program was able to accommodate more students by using classroom space in hangar areas that were initially set up to keep students socially distanced as a COVID-19 safety measure.

When we went away from the whole social-distancing protocol, the spaces remain, so we thought, lets take advantage of those spaces, he said. We can use them as temporary classrooms to start to increase our enrollment now, in anticipation of the expansion opening up, so we can immediately start filling that space with new and existing students.

Querio, who sits on Pimas aviation-industry advisory board, said his company and the local aircraft-maintenance industry looks forward to having more grads available to hire.

We try and hire as many Pima graduates as we can, he said. Their school is pretty state-of-the-art and advanced, and we as industry try to work with them closely to assist in their in their plans for expansion, growth and new offerings that they can offer, as far as the industrys needs and how they can satisfy them.

For more information on Pimas Aviation Technology Program, go to tucne.ws/1jfy.

Contact senior reporter David Wichner at dwichner@tucson.com or 520-573-4181. On Twitter: @dwichner. On Facebook: Facebook.com/DailyStarBiz

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If youd like to visit the most distinctly unique bookshop in Arizona, perhaps in the entire Southwest, you dont have to go far.

It is 45 miles south of Tucson, in Benson. Well, north of Benson. On a cattle ranch carved from the desert 100 years ago.

Just find the right dirt road, open the steel gate, and head toward the barn. Turn left at the mesquite tree, wave to the burros, and park in one of the five or six unmarked spots near the corral.

Welcome to Singing Wind!

Located on Singing Wind Ranch in Cochise County, the Singing Wind Bookshop opened in 1974. It still stocks Americas largest collection of Southwest literature. Authors such as J.A. Jance and Tom Zoellner now think of their visits as pilgrimages to a place where they can re-anchor themselves to home.

Singing Wind is so unforgettable because it is so unfathomable to find a bookstore so far off the beaten path, 5 miles from a small town in Arizona.

And that has become a problem.

Winn Bundy, the force of nature who somehow made it work, died in October 2020. The ranch is now for sale, and the family  like the customers who still look forward to making the drive  can only hope the buyer loves books.

The ranch and bookshop were willed jointly to Bundys son and daughter, T.C. and Sharon Cookie Bundy, and her granddaughter Tasha. The decision to sell was painful.

I think we all knew its what we had to do, Tasha Bundy said. None of us live in Benson. None of us know the book business, or much about ranching, but it took months to decide because none of us wanted to let it all go.

Their fingers are tightly crossed. In their dreams, the buyer hears the same call Winn Bundy heard, and is intrigued by the thought of owning a landmark business.

Barring that, they wonder if a conservation group such as The Nature Conservancy or Arizona Land and Water Trust would like to preserve the property  which borders the San Pedro River  from future development.

Believe me, we think about dream buyers a lot Cookie Bundy said.

They find hope in Bill Gates observation that even if you are one in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you.

Winn Bundy was undeniably one in a million. There are 7 million people in Arizona. The Bundys have done the math.

The 500-acre ranch has been listed for $1.52 million by Hartman Commercial Real Estate. Not coincidentally, Alain Hartman grew up in Benson and was friends with Tashas late father, Ted.

According to Hartmans ad, the ranch has five wells, several pastures, a mile of shoreline along the river  and a collection of 30,000 books.

I think we realize its a real longshot, finding someone who wants to keep the ranch and the store going, but we wont know til we put it out there, said Cookie Bundy.

Cookie is a retired science librarian, Tasha a musician and artist. Both live in Tucson. T.C. Bundy is a retired minister who lives in Phoenix. All three have long, loving relationships with Singing Wind.

Tad (T.C.) and I were raised on the ranch, Cookie said. On a family ranch, everybody does everything, so we all had a job when it came to vaccinating, branding and castrating the cattle. We all had ponies. Because of mom, we all loved books and loved to read.

Tasha lived on the ranch for a few years when she was young and developed a special bond with her grandmother.

Even when theyd left Benson to lead their own lives, the three Bundys were weekend regulars.

My kids rode ponies there, too, Cookie said. My daughter Vanessa tried to teach mom how to work a modern TV.

Only now are they learning how challenging it was for Winn Bundy to manage a 500-acre ranch  to say nothing of her Southwestern bookstore.

She didnt believe in technology, so almost everything needed to be done by hand, T.C. Bundy said. The bookstore has never had a website. For years she wouldnt accept credit cards. One of the challenges for us now is finding a way to catalogue all the books. Winn didnt need to because she knew where all of them were.

And the books? The family is finding books everywhere, in every room of the house.

She had thousands of books that never made it onto the shelves in the store, T.C. Bundy said.

He has been spending two weeks a month on the property, doing day-to-day maintenance and keeping things running. Cookie and Tasha Bundy are on call the rest of each month.

The store is still open, but by appointment only. Visitors should call to set up a time to stop by. The number: (520) 586-2425.

A lot of the visitors weve had just wanted to tell us stories about Winn, Tasha said. She was something. In a lot of ways, shes still here.

FOOTNOTES

According to the Pima County Public Library, Missing and Endangered by J.A. Jance was the countys most popular book in 2021. It led the 12-month list of checkouts by library cardholders. Next came Dark Sky by C.J. Box, Daylight by David Baldacci, Unfinished Business by Jance and A Gambling Man by Baldacci.

Adam Schiff and Noah Hawley are among the late additions to the list of authors coming to the Tucson Festival of Books March 12-13.

Beautiful Little Fools, the latest from Tucson novelist Jillian Cantor, will be available at local bookstores on Feb. 1. In it, she tells The Great Gatsby story from Daisy Buchanans point of view.

Get day-to-day news from the Tucson book community by following Bookmarks Arizona (@BookArizona) on Twitter.

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PHOENIX  Insisting it will make students safer, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to let anyone with a concealed-weapon permit bring guns to university and college campuses, including classrooms and dorms.

The move came as Republican lawmakers on the panel rejected arguments by Michael Thompson, the police chief of Arizona State University, who told them Senate Bill 1123 is a bad idea.

Im here to tell you from first-hand experience that university students make very poor decisions on a daily basis, sometimes hourly basis, he said. Adding guns to an already high-risk environment of alcohol, drugs, overreaction, lack of life experience and immaturity is a very dangerous combination.

Thompson, who has been ASU police chief since 2014, said that doesnt even take into account mental health issues and students who are considering suicide.

But Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, sponsor of the measure, said his objections and those of lobbyists for the universities and community colleges ignore what she said is current reality, that some people dont abide by the existing law.

How do you know how many weapons are on campus? she asked.

Thompson conceded she has a very good point.

Rogers pressed on.

She posed a situation where a potential perpetrator comes onto a college campus.

I would be less apt to inflict harm if I knew that other students might be carrying to protect themselves, Rogers said. Is that not true?

That would be an assumption that I couldnt make, Thompson responded.

Other Republicans picked up on the theme.

Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, cited a 2015 incident at Northern Arizona University. Steven E. Jones, an 18-year-old freshman, shot four people and severely injured three others in a campus parking lot. Originally charged with murder, he later pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter and three counts of aggravated assault and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Petersen said the incident proved there are guns on campuses despite the ban.

The legislation proposed by Rogers still needs approval of the full Senate before going to the House.

They are being carried by those who do not care about the law, he said, adding that they are being carried by those who are going to commit crimes and hurt people.

Petersen argued that the results in the NAU case might have been different had SB 1123 been on the books.

Had those other students been able to defend themselves they probably wouldnt have been shot, he said.

But Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Glendale, said that is based on a mistaken assumption that more guns on campuses create a safer environment.

Quezada said he looked up data from Colorado, which has allowed people to carry guns on campus since laws banning that were struck down in 2012 by that states supreme court.

The rates of rape actually increased ... and not by small amounts, he said, up 25% that year and 33% the year after. The research from other states with similar laws backs that up, too.

Yet Quezada said that hasnt halted perennial efforts in Arizona to expand who can carry weapons, and where.

We keep promoting this false narrative that guns are the answer to all of our problems, he said. We need to stop portraying this narrative that anybody can be a hero if theyre armed with a gun in a dangerous situation.

Quezada told colleagues this isnt just about concerns about college students abilities to react in an emergency.

I dont trust most of you people if there was a dangerous situation to pull out a gun and be able to save anybody, much less not spill your drink on the dais up here, he said.

Proponents noted that the proposal wouldnt allow just anyone to be armed.

Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, said the legislation is limited to those with a concealed-carry permit. That is available only to those 21 and older, or 19 and older for veterans.

But Jody Liggett, who lobbies for the League of Women Voters, pointed out that the requirements to get a CCW permit have been loosened over the years.

A person can obtain one without training in firearms, weapons or showing proficiency, she said. Therefore, to assume that holding such a permit mitigates the danger of guns on campus is wrong.

Much of the argument for the measure, however, came down to pure numbers.

Thompson acknowledged he has just 92 officers to cover four ASU campuses with more than 100,000 students. The staffing is similar at the University of Arizona, which currently has 53 sworn officers  its force is authorized to have 66 officers and is looking to hire  for a campus that has about 50,000 students enrolled.

But Thompson said there are other safety measures, ranging from the ability of students to get escorts at night to blue light emergency call boxes.

Borrelli was unimpressed. The police are minutes away, minutes, he said.

Sen. Vince Leach, R-Tucson, cited a letter he got from a woman working at a community college  he said he did not know which one  who told him that classes can end as late as 9 p.m.

She talks about the parking lots she has to cross, Leach said. She talks about the fact that in those parking lots there have been robbings, there have been muggings, there have been rapes.

He said there just isnt enough police presence to provide sufficient protection.

But Kristen Boilini, who lobbies for community colleges, urged lawmakers to leave the issue to locally elected governing boards.

All of our college boards work closely with law enforcement and security personnel to ensure that the policies they set protect students, she said.

Thompson noted that students are not defenseless, even if they cannot carry firearms. In 2018, facing a demand by some lawmakers, the Arizona Board of Regents agreed to let those on campus carry non-lethal weapons.

Those include things like over-the-counter pepper sprays as long as they are not the same concentration as used by law enforcement. Students, staff and visitors also can have shock devices that can be purchased by the general public as long as the items require direct contact with an assailant and do not shoot out electrically charged wires.

The legislation proposed by Rogers was approved by the committee on a 4-3 vote with Democrats opposed. It still needs approval of the full Senate before going to the House.

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State Sen. Kelly Townsends entry into a southeastern Arizona congressional race is likely to complicate a crowded GOP race.

Townsend doesnt live in the new Congressional District 6, which stretches from Casa Grande, through the northwest side of the Tucson metro area, covers the eastern half of Tucson, and includes most of the southeastern corner of the state. She lives in Apache Junction, which is 40-50 miles north of the districts northern border.

Thats legal  a candidate for Congress only needs to live in the same state as the congressional district, not in the district itself. But there were already six Republicans running for the nomination.

Her entry is likely to split the right wing of the districts Republican primary electorate. This could ultimately affect the outcome of a race that the GOP views as a possible congressional seat to pick up from Democrats.

The new district largely overlaps the old Congressional District 2. Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick represents that district and has chosen not to run again.

Candidate Brandon Martin, who won the GOP nomination in 2020 before losing the general election to Kirkpatrick, said he views the race as between the establishment GOP candidate, Juan Ciscomani, and everyone else.

I believe she splits the vote, Martin said of Townsend. I think she plays more to the Trump crowd, if you will. We both operate in that area.

That could potentially benefit Ciscomani, a longtime top aide to Gov. Doug Ducey who is closely connected to the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The other GOP candidates running in the district are Jason Bacon, Lucretia Free, Young Mayberry and Kathleen Winn.

On the Democratic side, the candidates now in the race are former state Sen. Kirsten Engel, state Rep. Daniel Hernandez, and Marcos Urrea. Former state Rep. Randy Friese dropped out of the race in September. Martin said he viewed Friese as the toughest Democrat for a Republican to face.

Steele leaving the Legislature

State Sen. Victoria Steele announced this week that she will not run for election to the Legislature again.

Instead, Steele said, she is planning to run for justice of the peace in Precinct 1. That seat is currently held by Justice of the Peace Adam Watters, a Republican. Steele is a Democrat.

Steele represented Legislative District 9 as a member of the House beginning in 2012 and the Senate beginning in 2018. The new legislative districts have not been formally confirmed yet, but redistricting has placed Steele in the new LD18. Thats a heavily Democratic district that includes much of the Catalina Foothills and midtown Tucson.

Democratic candidates have rushed into the race in that district. Morgan Abraham and Kat Stratford have announced their candidacies for the Senate seat.

Democrats Nathan Davis, Nancy Gutierrez, Chris Mathis and Charlie Verdin have entered the race on the House side.

Republican Linda Evans is running as a Republican for House in the district. Stan Caine is running for Senate on the GOP side.

Watters wants to run again

Its been unclear whether Watters has a political future after an incident in which he fired a gun near a man later convicted of stalking him.

On Tuesday, Watters filed a statement of interest to run again for the seat he currently holds, justice of the peace in Precinct 1. Steele is the only candidate who has so far announced a plan to run against him.

She is not an attorney, and Watters is, but you do not have to be an attorney to run for justice of the peace.

After a series of harassing incidents, Watters confronted a man driving past his home in the Catalina Foothills on Feb. 14, 2021. Watters ordered the man to get out of his car and on the ground, then fired a shot striking the ground near the man.

The Pinal County Attorneys Office weighed whether to bring a criminal charge against Watters but declined. County Attorney Kent Volkmer said the decision was due to the likelihood Watters would justify firing the shot as self-defense.

This office concluded we had no reasonable likelihood of conviction and as a result, we chose not to bring forth criminal charges, he said.

However, a complaint is still pending at the state commission on judicial conduct.

The man who Watters confronted, Tucson landlord Fei Qin, was convicted of stalking in December and sentenced Jan. 12 to 1 years in prison.

Ducey appoints journalist Rivera

Longtime Tucson journalist Lorraine Rivera has accepted a position as director of Duceys Southern Arizona office.

Rivera, a native of Douglas, has been a longtime broadcast journalist in Tucson, most recently the producer and host of Arizona 360 at Arizona Public Media. She replaces Becky Freeman, who has worked in Duceys Tucson office since he became governor in 2015.

At that time, the first director of the office was Ciscomani, now a candidate for the GOP nomination for Congress in southeastern Arizonas new congressional district.

Justice of Peace Taylor resigns

Pima County Justice of the Peace Doug Taylor resigned from his judgeship on Jan. 6.

His district, Precinct 5, had been eliminated late last year by the Pima County Board of Supervisors in a recent realignment of districts to account for declining caseloads. His term in office was set to end in late 2022.

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Firefighters and employees of the Tucson Fire Department toured the TFD's newly rebuilt and updated Station 9, 730 S. Wilmot, in Tucson, Ariz. on Jan. 19th, 2022.

The Tucson Fire Department is close to completing stage one of their newly rebuilt and updated Station 9, which will be TFD's second largest station.

The 19,250 square feet facility, with capacity for 16 people, will finish stage one in early April where Station 9 firefighters will move into the new facility. After firefighters move into the rebuilt facility, stage two will consist of demolishing the temporary home fire fighters are currently living in and finish the site plan with parking, landscape and driveways.

The rebuilt fire station will have three major improvements from the previous station.

The health and safety of the firefighters is important, said Joe Gulotta, assistant chief of capital projects.

"Through fire design we incorporated the most current health and safety design features," said Gulotta.

The rebuilt fire station will have enhanced ventilation and separate workout areas from the fire truck bays through a zone system. "We were working out on the floor next to diesel exhaust," said Gulotta.

There will be updated technology as well as having the capacity to best serve the community, according to Gulotta.

"It's larger in size and it's designed to accommodate the number of people that we crammed into a station half the size," said Gulotta.

For more information visit https://tucsondelivers.tucsonaz.gov/pages/fire-station-9.
The Tucson-areas fifth Amazon site is being developed on the citys southeast side.

Amazon.com bought 51 acres of vacant land adjacent to its massive fulfillment center on Kolb Road, near Valencia Road, for $7.4 million, according to documents from the Pima County Recorders Office. The site will be used for a distribution center.

Since opening its 1.2 million-square-foot fulfillment center at the Port of Tucson in 2018, Amazon has added a delivery station on the west side, on Silverlake Road and Interstate 10, and another is under construction in Marana, at Silverbell and Ina roads. The online retailer also added a sorting station for air cargo near the airport, at Alvernon Way and Corona Road.

Distribution centers are where packages are sorted by ZIP code for delivery and are usually around 120,000 square feet in size.

Our growth in Tucson is an example of Amazons customer focus, while providing jobs and career opportunities in the community, said Zoe Richmond, a spokeswoman for Amazon. Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than $16 billion in Arizona with 32,000 full- and part-time employees throughout the state.

The seller, Valencia Kolb Properties LLC, was represented by Picor broker Stephen Cohen.

They are pleased with the transaction and further expansion of Amazon in Tucson, he said.

No timeline for the new distribution center completion or number of jobs has yet been announced but the company has job openings at its existing facilities.

Visit amazon.jobs for more information.

Contact reporter Gabriela Rico at grico@tucson.com

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FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP)  The boyfriend of slain cross-country traveler Gabby Petito admitted killing her in a notebook discovered near his body in a Florida swamp, the FBI announced Friday.

It was the first time authorities squarely pinned the blame for Petito's death on Brian Laundrie, though he was the prime suspect all along.

Investigators meanwhile announced that Laundrie, 23, had sent text messages to intentionally deceive people that Petito, 22, was still alive after he beat and strangled her in late August, according to a statement released by the FBI in Denver.

"All logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case," FBI Denver Division Special Agent in Charge Michael Schneider said in the statement. "The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito."

Petito's body was found Sept. 19 at a campground near Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming. A coroner determined she'd died about three weeks earlier of "blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation."

Laundrie returned home to Florida in early September but went missing soon after. In October, his parents found an item belonging to him in a nature preserve near their house.

Further searching turned up Laundrie's remains, a revolver, backpack and the notebook. Medical examiners determined Laundrie died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The FBI did not specify what, exactly, Laundrie had written in the notebook and in the texts he'd sent to mislead. The texts were sent between Laundrie's phone and Petito's phone, according to the statement.

"The timing and content of these messages are indicative of Mr. Laundrie attempting to deceive law enforcement by giving the impression that Ms. Petito was still alive," the statement said.

Grand Teton was the last place the couple visited during a cross-country van trip last summer that ended with Laundrie mysteriously returning home alone in the vehicle.

The couple documented their trip on Instagram. They crossed Colorado and on Aug. 12 were stopped by police in Moab, Utah, after the two got into a scuffle.

Police video showed Petito describing a fight that escalated. Police concluded Petito was the aggressor but officers decided to separate them for the night rather than file charges.

Attorneys for the Petito and Laundrie families did not immediately respond Friday to emails and text messages seeking comment about the FBI's conclusions.

A world ablaze: Top images captured by AP photographers in 2021

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Arizona once again ranked near the bottom of states on a national report card on highway safety laws, earning a danger rating as a state with just five of 16 recommended laws and no primary enforcement for seat belts.

It was at least the 10th straight year that Arizona has ranked near the bottom of the annual Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety report.

But one state highway official said the report continues to ignore key information about traffic safety in the state by focusing on laws on the books instead of Arizonas aggressive enforcement of those policies.

All they like to do is look at laws. Laws are great to have, but enforcement is what makes the laws work, said Alberto Gutier, the director of the Governors Office of Highway Safety.

He pointed to new data on the enforcement of the distracted driving law that took effect on Jan. 1, 2021, which allows police to fine motorists who are caught holding and using their mobile device while driving. Police handed out about 12,000 citations for distracted driving in 2021, Gutier said Tuesday.

This is the 19th year the advocacy group has released its report, Roadmap of State Highway Safety Laws.

The latest report, released Tuesday, rates states by the number of highway safety laws they have from a list of 16 recommended policies. They range from drunken-driving laws to motorcycle helmet requirements, from graduated drivers licenses for teens to primary enforcement of seat belt laws, among others.

States in the report are rated from top to bottom as green, yellow or red. Arizona was one of 11 states to finish in the red category, edging out only Wyoming, Missouri and Montana, which each had four recommended laws or fewer. Eight states and the District of Columbia were rated green and 31 were in the yellow category.

Arizona has received credit since 2020 for the distracted-driving law, which passed in 2019, even though enforcement did not begin until last year. Oro Valley police Lt. Carmen Trevizo, who participated in Tuesdays release of the safety report, said distracted driving is one of two major issues that often cause serious injuries or death on roadways.

While fatalities are the worst-case scenario, the effects of a serious collision because of something as silly as being on your phone can also devastate somebodys life, Trevizo said in an interview after the release of the report.

But Arizona did not get credit for a law banning cellphone use by novice drivers because it only allowed for secondary, not primary enforcement. A primary enforcement law allows police to stop a vehicle if there is a suspected violation of the law, while secondary enforcement applies only to infractions that are discovered after a driver has been stopped for a different offense.

Gutier said secondary laws should not be dismissed so easily, using the states seat belt laws as an example.

We have between 88 to 90% seat-belt use in Arizona with secondary law, he said. We have more people wearing seat belts over the states with a primary law.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data from 2019 said Arizona had a 90.6% seat belt usage, which is higher than 16 states that have a primary enforcement seat belt law and 14 states with a secondary enforcement law.

Trevizo said the other major traffic issue is driving under the influence. While she did not have hard numbers, she said that anecdotally she has noticed more collisions involving polydrug use, with marijuana as the most common drug involved, since Arizona allowed recreational use of marijuana last year.

Again, Gutier pointed to enforcement, noting that DUI drug arrests rose from 7,123 in 2019 to 8,843 in 2021.

The report does not include drug laws in its rating, but it does give Arizona credit for three important impaired-driving laws, covering ignition interlock devices, child endangerment and open alcohol containers in vehicles.

Gutier said Arizona has additional impaired driving laws that put the state ahead of others, including the nations first DUI phlebotomy program and an electronic search warrant system that allows officers to get a search warrant within 10 minutes of requesting it and draw blood on the scene from drunken driving suspects.

Its good to brag about your state when you know youre doing the right thing, he said.

For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.

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'Reasonable' in

eye of beholder

Re: the Jan. 2 article "Manchin, Cheney look presidential."

In this opinion piece, John Vornholt touts the West Virginia plutocrat Sen. Joe Manchin for president (as a Democrat). After all, hes the most reasonable Democrat in the country isnt he? Not only that, but he gets a lot of attention (by that standard Osama bin Laden would have been a good candidate in 2004. After all, he had a ton of name recognition).

Im sure partisan Republicans consider Manchin as "reasonable since he supports them on such crucial issues as tax breaks for the rich and opposing any bills to fight global warming.

Heres a suggestion  I encourage Republican voters to write in Manchin as their candidate in the 2024 Republican primary and the general election. Hes just so doggone reasonable.

David Steinberg

Northwest side

Helpful donations

of unused drugs

Illinois has a new law which permits people to donate unopened and unused drugs to pharmacies to be passed along to the poor or uninsured. This will help a lot of people and makes sense.

Individuals and institutions will be allowed to donate medication to organizations that are legally allowed to possess medicine through a license or permit, such as pharmacies. Pharmacies will then be allowed to give the medication to patients in need, prioritizing those who dont have health insurance, are underinsured, homeless or on public health insurance programs such as Medicaid. The medications are to be provided for free to those in need, though pharmacies may charge a reasonable handling fee, according to the law. Only medications that are unopened and unexpired, such as an inhaler or tube of skin cream, may be donated. Pills may be donated if they are individually packaged, such as when pills are in individual compartments covered with foil. Loose pills in typical amber-colored bottles wont be accepted.

Donors must remove any information that would identify the original patient.

Dr. Pamela Farris

Northwest side

A dog-loving

voter's remorse

As I age, I sometimes think about the mistakes that I've made in my life. Recently, two of those came to the forefront  marrying my first husband and voting for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. With my poor choice of a marital partner, however, I at least got two wonderful dogs  a Great Dane and an Irish setter!

Ginny Williams

Oro Valley

Litter blemishes

city's gateways

I am a native Tucsonan. Three generations of my family have called this wonderful desert home. Lately, the amount of trash littering our roadways, especially the gateways used to welcome visitors into our city, is reprehensible and an embarrassment to us all. Over the next couple of months we will welcome thousands of visitors to Tucson. Our city, county and state need to clean up this mess now. Then it is up to all of us to keep Tucson beautiful.

Jeffrey Kane

Downtown

Dems' 'big lies'

on voting rights

Biden, Democrats, and their allies in the Democrat-dominated news media have repeatedly told "big lies" about voting rights in America. Biden appeared in Georgia, which passed voting reform legislation, and compared voting rights of today to the Jim Crow era. Baloney! Jim Crow was a systematic racist separationist system in America. Biden and Democrats distort and mischaracterize Georgia's voting laws. Georgia codifies drop boxes, expands weekend voting hours, allows election workers to provide water to those waiting in line and water dispensers, but not others due to protecting from candidate advocacy handing out free stuff. It allows disabled people to receive help filling out ballots, allows voters to request mail-in ballots 11 weeks before the election, and expands early in-person voting to 17 days. A December 2021 article by Data For Progress titled "Redistricting Going Surprisingly Well for Democrats" projected nationwide congressional seat gains for Democrats. Biden and Democrats need to stop the big lies!

Mary Ann Starman

Northwest side

Not all rules are

rights violations

Automobiles? Guns? Voting?

Nobody denies that Americans have rights or privileges to engage in each of these aspects of our daily life. But each have certain requirements in order to participate: meet basic qualifications, prove your identity, register, provide documentation, and follow the many state and local laws regulating those activities. And, as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, regulating these and many other activities are powers reserved by the states  not the federal government.

Since I've never heard anyone, progressive or conservative, object or complain that regulation of guns and automobiles is a racist affront to basic human rights, why not take what we Americans have already accepted? Replicate the requirements to own a gun, operate a car and vote. Haven't we already solved this problem of individual states regulating these activities in a nonoffensive way? Want to make things simpler? How about a universal national ID?

Bud Snyder

SaddleBrooke

Sinema harbors

a futile fantasy

When Arizona hopefully elects a Democratic governor this year, I will urge Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to do the honorable thing and resign so that the new governor can appoint in her place an individual who supports the principles and policies of the Democratic Party. Sinema has demonstrated faulty logic and historical ignorance in blocking critical bills on infrastructure and the defense of voting rights that virtually every other Senate Democrat supports and which have the strong support of a majority of voters.

She should make way for a Democrat who actually supports the goals of her Democratic colleagues rather than pursue her forlorn fantasy that Sen. Mitch McConnells Senate Republicans will work on a bipartisan basis to enact critical bills. McConnell has only one goal: to do everything within his power to keep President Biden and Democrats from accomplishing anything.

John Covert

Northeast side

Trump inflamed

science doubters

Re: the Jan. 18 article "Americans used to respect public health  then came COVID-19."

This article requires context. Long before COVID came Donald Trump and the GOP. I believe most Americans respected public health, truth and honesty, science, moral decency and even (to some degree) politics until the last few years. When Trump won the presidency and injected his self-centered views into what used to be a principled GOP, and later those two entities into decent American society, a shift occurred. Trump and the GOP rejected public health and science. Long-established norms that defeated polio, tuberculosis and measles in the past were displaced by a president touting injecting disinfectants, taking unproven aids like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, rather than the vaccine that he helped fast-track. COVID-19 just became the litmus test that proved that the science of vaccinations, wearing a mask and responsible social distancing works. Berating science, public health and experts like Dr. Fauci  not so much.

Gary Simons

Oro Valley

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The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

I have long opposed making voting mandatory, an idea that pops up every few years. I still dont like the idea. But its become more attractive, at least as a thought experiment.

The arguments against compelling people to vote  as Australia and a handful of other countries do  run from the constitutional (its coerced speech) to the cultural (this is America, dagnabbit) to the practical and the partisan.

Historically, the practical case is that its the wrong solution chasing a nonexistent problem. Proponents of mandatory voting think that low voter turnout is a sign of civic decay and democratic entropy. This view, no doubt accurate or at least plausible for some people, misses the fact that for many other Americans not voting is a sign of general satisfaction. We had record-breaking turnout in 2020. Raise your hand if think that was proof that Americas civic and democratic commitments are stronger than ever.

More importantly, if voting is virtuous, its virtue  like all virtue  derives from it being voluntary. Compelled virtue is an oxymoron.

Partisanship enters the equation because both parties subscribe to an enduring myth: that increased voter turnout automatically favors the Democrats. Thus, if everyone were forced to vote  many opponents and proponents believe  some imagined reserve army of left-wing voters would swamp the polls. This belief plays a significant role among those who want to make voting easier and those who want to make it harder.

The problem: Its not true. Yes, of course, turning out more of your own voters is how you win elections, but if everybody voted its unlikely that one party would always benefit more than the other. As Daron Shaw and John R. Petrocik demonstrate in their book The Turnout Myth, there is no systematic or consistent partisan bias to turnout. The recent Virginia governors race saw huge turnout, and the Republicans routed the Democrats.

Partisan Democrats have all sorts of high-minded and sincere reasons for making casting ballots easier for Black voters in particular and disadvantaged communities in general. But on a practical level, the fact that they think these voters will disproportionately vote Democratic drives many of their policy preferences. Partisan Republicans discount the high-minded arguments and focus on the Democratic advantage they see in such efforts. Meanwhile, Democrats assume any concern with fraud or voter integrity is a ruse for disenfranchising voters.

Republicans tend also to suffer from a weird cognitive dissonance. They fear that if everyone voted, the GOP would lose; theyve also convinced themselves that Democrats only win by importing voters (i.e., immigrants) and through fraud.

Each party believes  without evidence  that they have the people on their side and that if elections were run right, theyd be the majority party. For Democrats this means curtailing big money in elections and, lately, federalizing election rules to combat voter suppression. For Republicans, it means catering to Donald Trumps conspiracy theories and psephological rantings.

More broadly, both parties ignore the closeness of their victories and act as if they have mandates to behave like they have supermajorities supporting them. They then devote their energies to pandering both rhetorically and in terms of policy to the slender slice of the electorate that is their base. The incentive to appeal to the vast middle is shockingly weak even though politicians, such as Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin last year or Joe Biden in 2020, owe their victories to the persuadable middle.

The incentives for pandering to the hyper-partisans are all too familiar: the pernicious effect of our primary system, self-sorting polarization, an ideologically skewed media ecosystem, and the ease of raising small donations from partisan super-fans. President Bidens seriously tone-deaf speech on voting rights and Sen. Ted Cruzs capitulation to Tucker Carlsons Jan. 6 fantasies are recent examples of this perverse dynamic.

And thats what appeals to me about mandatory voting. If everybody voted  even just once  it just might dispel the myth that either party speaks for some untapped silent majority. The incentive to drive up the base turnout would evaporate. Low voter turnout  which benefits incumbents and their special-interest allies  would not skew election results. Candidates, elected officials and big donors alike would ignore electoral majorities at their peril.

I still oppose this solution, but at least the case for mandatory voting is no longer a solution in pursuit of a problem. Even as a thought experiment, it helps illuminate the real problems we face.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch .

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The U.S. Attorneys Office in Tulsa has charged a former Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officer with civil rights violations related to alleged falsified search warrants.

Tommy McGlasson, 37, of Vinita faces two misdemeanor counts of deprivation of rights under color of law. The misdemeanor charges were filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.

The information alleges that McGlasson submitted false information to obtain warrants to search for information contained within the Facebook accounts of two individuals identified only by their initials.

The charges allege that McGlasson falsified the search warrants in September 2020 somewhere within the 11-county region that includes Tulsa County and those in the northeastern corner of the state.

Bureau spokesman Mark Woodward said McGlasson worked at the agency from Sept. 20, 2018 to Sept. 22, 2020, when he was given the choice of resigning or being terminated.

We were the ones that discovered it and alerted outside investigators to take over the case, Woodward said, referring to the alleged acts.

McGlasson signed a letter of resignation Sept. 22, 2020, effective that day, Woodward said.

McGlasson referenced his additional work history in an affidavit he submitted in support of a 2019 Delaware County arrest warrant.

The affidavit indicates that McGlasson had worked for the Craig County Sheriffs Office off and on since 2009 with a nearly three-year stint at the Oklahoma Department of Corrections in between prior to being hired at the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.

The crime of deprivation of rights under color of law is punishable by fine or up to one year in prison, or both.

McGlasson has yet to make a court appearance, according to records.

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Tulsa police were involved in two separate pursuits within an hour of each other Thursday afternoon, the Police Department said in a news release.

The driver in one pursuit, which spanned several miles and went through northeast Tulsa neighborhoods, is still on the loose.

The driver in the other pursuit was arrested after he attempted to run away from his damaged vehicle on foot, only to be chased by fire marshals and eventually forced out of an apartment where he was hiding, police said.

One pursuit started after officers saw a white 2000 Ram pickup that had been reported stolen on Interstate 244 near Sheridan Road about 1 p.m. Thursday. A traffic stop was initiated, but the vehicle did not stop.

The resulting pursuit entered neighborhoods near Pine Street and Memorial Drive. Speeds reportedly were reasonable through the neighborhoods, but the pickup sped up on North Sheridan Road.

Traffic also increased, and because the dangerous conditions outweighed the necessity of apprehending the suspect, officers stopped pursuing the vehicle, police reported.

Officers later discovered the pickup crashed into a fence near 2300 N. Kingston Place.

The driver of the vehicle was not apprehended, but a passenger was taken into custody, police said.

Less than an hour after the first pursuit ensued about 1:50 p.m., officers attempted to serve felony warrants to Nicholas High at his address in the 2000 block of West Easton Place.

High was wanted on charges of domestic assault and battery in the presence of a minor, threatening an act of violence and escaping from arrest or detention, according to court records.

Police said they knew that High had run from officers twice in the previous weeks.

High was not at home when officers got there, but he soon arrived in a black sport utility vehicle. Officers tried to initiate a traffic stop, but the SUV accelerated, they reported.

A pursuit ensued in portions of north Tulsa and on U.S. 75, police said.

The SUV blew a tire early in the pursuit, slowing the speed, and High eventually bailed out and ran away near a fire station at 12th Street and Guthrie Avenue, just south of downtown Tulsa.

He fled on foot with fire marshals chasing him, running into an apartment at 1216 S. Houston Ave., police said.

A News on 6 helicopter confirmed with officers that the running man had entered the apartment and did not come out, and after announcements about police dogs were made, High came out of the apartment and was taken into custody, police said.

High was booked into the Tulsa County jail Thursday evening on complaints of possession of a firearm after a felony conviction, knowingly concealing stolen property, grand larceny, first-degree burglary, eluding, resisting arrest and his previous charges.
A judge has issued an arrest warrant linked to a Wednesday morning fatal shooting at an apartment complex west of downtown Tulsa.

U.S. Magistrate Susan E. Huntsman issued the warrant late Wednesday. It alleges that Dillon Charles Wilson, 25, committed first-degree murder in Indian Country in connection with the fatal shooting of Jamitric Landrum at the Sandy Park Apartments in the 6300 block of West 11th Place.

Police found Landrum, 20, in the 5900 block of Charles Page Boulevard after receiving a call about 1:18 a.m. Wednesday of a wrecked vehicle in the area, according to an affidavit submitted by an FBI agent in support of the arrest warrant.

Landrum, who was driving a white Ford Edge, had been shot once in the back. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about two hours later, according to the affidavit.

Landrums girlfriend, who was a passenger in the Ford, was hospitalized with crash injuries that were not life-threatening, according to Tulsa police.

Police initially believed Landrum was chasing suspected car burglars when he was shot, but the affidavit says he and his girlfriend were in their apartment when the girlfriend heard someone trying to force open the front door and turn the door handle, according to the affidavit.

The girlfriend woke Landrum, and the two saw someone in dark clothing around the corner when they went outside their apartment, according to the affidavit.

The two then drove around the complex looking for the person.

The couple pulled into a nearby parking lot, where they saw two men and a woman talking to a tow truck driver, according to the affidavit.

Landrum told one of the men to go inside, according to the affidavit.

That man, later identified as Wilson, then pulled out a gun, according to the affidavit.

The girlfriend told Landrum the man was armed, prompting Landrum to start driving away, the affidavit says.

Wilson started shooting at the vehicle and Landrum grabbed his chest while continuing down Charles Page, where Landrum eventually crashed the vehicle, the affidavit states.

A witness said the shooter drove away in a gray sport utility vehicle.

Tulsa police investigators determined that Wilson was with his sister in the complex, the affidavit states.

Another witness told investigators she was inside the apartment with the sister and others when she heard three to four gunshots.

The woman told police she went outside and saw Wilson put a black handgun in his pocket, telling her he busted back at the people in the white vehicle, the affidavit says.

Wilson is a member of the Muscogee Nation, which gives federal law enforcement jurisdiction in the case since the crime occurred within the boundaries of the Muscogee Nation reservation.

Anyone aware of Wilsons whereabouts is asked to call 911 or Crime Stoppers to remain anonymous at 918-596-COPS (2677).

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Despite Tuesdays executive order from Gov. Kevin Stitt, 10 Tulsa-area school districts said they have not heard from any state employees interested in covering classes.

Officials with Bartlesville, Bixby, Broken Arrow, Claremore, Jenks, Owasso, Sand Springs, Sapulpa, Tulsa and Union public schools all confirmed Thursday afternoon that their districts have not had any state employees sign up as substitute teachers since the order was signed Tuesday.

Weve had a form up on our website to collect the names of interested individuals since the announcement was made, Sapulpa Public Schools Heather Browne said. So far, no one has gotten in touch with us to say theyre interested in subbing.

The closest any of those eight districts have come to having state employees sign up to substitute so far are inquiries from a local judge and municipal police officers about volunteering with Bartlesville Public Schools.

Broken Arrow Public Schools spokesman Adam Foreman said his districts Human Resources Department is still in the process of developing the necessary protocols to allow for volunteers to take on positions that are normally paid.

In addition to the governors executive order, the Broken Arrow City Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday night to allow municipal employees to volunteer up to eight hours per week at Broken Arrow Public Schools. The district has been entirely in distance learning since Jan. 14 due to high absence rates among its teachers and support staff.

Along with individual districts policies, would-be public school substitute teachers are required under state law to be fingerprinted and have a background check on file. According to the Oklahoma State Department of Educations website, that process that can take up to six weeks to complete.

Under the terms of Tuesdays executive order, any state employees who volunteer as substitute teachers would be paid by the agencies for which they normally work rather than by the school districts where they substitute.

According to the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, 156 of the roughly 32,000 state employees across Oklahoma had signed up to volunteer as substitute teachers as of noon Thursday. However, the agency was not able to provide a breakdown of where those volunteers are or for which state agencies they work.

The Oklahoma Public Employees Association, which represents more than 10,000 state employees, is not privy to that information, either, and was not contacted about the executive order prior to Tuesdays press conference, according to its communications director, Tony DeSha.

Acknowledging the staffing shortages already faced by some departments, DeSha said Thursday that OPEA has not heard anything from any state agency about how the executive order will work.

Among the questions still left unanswered for the group are whether there are any internal rules about employees eligibility to volunteer, expectations for missed work, limitations on how many hours per week state employees may volunteer or how employee volunteer requests will be balanced with the need to maintain core services.

Weve only heard from some of our members who are being told itll be limited based on staff availability, he said. We have not had any direct communication with state agencies.

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City Attorney David OMeilia is retiring effective Feb. 1, ending a 10-year run in that position.

OMeilia, 70, was hired by then-Mayor Dewey Bartlett and began work on Jan. 3, 2012. Exactly 10 years later, he informed his staff that he was retiring.

When I left private practice to return to public service as city attorney, I promised myself and my wife that I would only serve for 10 years, OMeilia said. And for the past decade I have had the honor and pleasure to work with my staff of extremely dedicated, talented, and experienced attorneys and legal professionals protecting and defending the legal interests of the city of Tulsa.

OMeilia said he plans to maintain his law license but will take some time off to spend with his family, which includes eight grandchildren, and friends before determining what the future holds.

I have had the great fortune to work for two mayors, who, although their executive and administrative styles differ, have been steadfast in putting the best interests of the city and its residents at the forefront of their mayoral efforts, OMeilia said.

Mayor G.T. Bynum on Thursday thanked OMeilia for his service to the city, saying the city attorneys job is one of the most difficult in city government.

"You have to mediate disputes between the mayor and City Council, stay on top of a rapidly evolving legal environment, and defend the taxpayers against lawsuits, Bynum said. Tulsa has been incredibly fortunate to have a true public servant in David O'Meilia as our city attorney for the last decade.

When you think about all the historic challenges we've faced in that time, they required steady legal guidance for the city government to go about its work, Bynum said.

I am very grateful for his service.

Bynum said the city has completed its internal search for candidates and is extending the search to include external candidates.

We had two internal applicants, Bynum said. Following my interviews with them, I decided to open the process to external candidates.

The city has a hiring process for key department positions that involves multiple rounds of interviews with different groups of shareholders, Bynum said.

That process has yielded outstanding hires in those departments, so that is the same process we will use here, he said.

According to the citys website, applicants for the city attorneys position must have at least 12 years of progressively responsible experience in the practice of law and significant experience in at least one specialized area of law relevant to municipal practice.

Before going to work for the city, OMeilia was appointed by then-President George W. Bush to serve as U.S. attorney for the Tulsa-based Northern District of Oklahoma. He served in that position from 2001 to 2009 and was an assistant U.S. attorney from 1986 to 1996.

While an assistant U.S. attorney, OMeilia coordinated the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force for the Northern District of Oklahoma. The task force was responsible for targeting and prosecuting major drug traffickers and their organizations.

His tenure with the city has not been without controversy.

He declined to sign off on language in a proposed City Charter amendment that would have expanded city employees rights to campaign in municipal elections, arguing that it did not satisfy the charters necessity clause.

The proposed charter change was eventually approved by Tulsa voters.

Under a separate City Charter amendment approved by Tulsa voters in 2020, the mayors appointee for city attorney will be subject to confirmation by the City Council.

Featured video: Tulsa levee system getting $137 million in federal funds for repairs

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"The critical backlog means that there is a 50-50 chance at any time that one of those critical needs can fail and shut down the navigational channel," Mullin said this week by phone. "We're not talking about a nut being loose. We're talking about critical."
For the first time since 2016, Oklahoma voters could have the opportunity to decide whether the death penalty should continue in the state.

State Rep. Mauree Turner, D-Oklahoma City, has filed legislation for the 2022 session that would create a state question to address Oklahomas use of capital punishment.

What I am hearing from my district, and people around the state, is an urgent need to end state-enacted murder in the name of a criminal legal system that seeks to kill people with impunity, Turner said in a news release.

We have seen a growing movement, in the last year especially, of people calling for Oklahoma to abolish the death penalty. And I want to give people a chance to express that on the ballot.

The freshman lawmaker said the last time Oklahomans could vote on the issue was six years ago and that since then botched executions have been in the spotlight.

Oklahoma put to death John Marion Grant in October in what was the first state execution since 2015, when the wrong lethal-injection drug was used to kill Charles Warner. Grant reportedly vomited multiple times during the injection of a lethal drug cocktail.

Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board Chairman Adam Luck recently was asked by Gov. Kevin Stitt to resign due to his position on the death penalty. Luck, who has voted to spare the lives of death-row inmates, indicated that his resignation would allow the governor to appoint an individual more aligned with (Stitts) position, according to the resignation letter.

Stitt, however, then appointed Edward Konieczny, a former Episcopal Church bishop who is one of several clergy members to sign an Oklahoma Conference of Churches theological statement opposing the death penalty.

FBI statistics shared by the Death Penalty Information Center indicate that states with the death penalty have a higher murder rate than those without capital punishment. Oklahomas murder rate is the 11th highest in the nation, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Turner hopes Oklahomans who wish to see the death penalty abolished will contact their legislators and ask them to support the bill. Turners constituents can contact her at 405-557-7396 or mauree.turner@okhouse.gov.

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CAPE TOWN  Three dachshunds lay claim to a big bed, while an agitated mongrel yaps constantly and a miniature schnauzer appears disgruntled despite soothing Bob Marley tunes playing over the stereo.

It's just another morning at SuperWoof, a luxury dog hotel in South Africa's city of Cape Town, where the wealthy check in their canines for some serious pampering.

Should the dogs feel like a sundowner later, drinks are available in little bottles of ChamPaws -- a cocktail of water with a dash of rose petal and South Africa's famous rooibos tea.

Opposite the dog hotel is a night shelter for Cape Town's many homeless -- a pervasive legacy of apartheid. And a short distance down the road, a makeshift tented camp has mushroomed on the curb.

But for wealthier South Africans, doggy daycares or fancy hotels are where they leave their furry babies while away on overseas vacation, or if they are just unavailable for one reason or another.

SuperWoof competitor AtFrits is located in a rapidly gentrifying district.

Situated near the colourful houses of the Bo-Kaap district, this home-away-from-home for dogs is surrounded by hipster cafes, art galleries and sushi restaurants.

Dogs can stay in the budget section of the hotel, where they hang out together, or have a private 'presidential suite'. Photo: AFP

'Presidential suite'

Inside, dogs can stay in the budget section of the hotel, where they hang out together, or have a private "presidential suite."

These are decked out with baroque chandeliers and exquisite wallpapers, with canine portraits in faux-gilt frames on the walls.

One suite has a tongue-in-cheek name: "K9 Nkandla" -- a nod to ex-president Jacob Zuma's massive rural homestead, which the scandal-plagued ex-leader notoriously upgraded using millions of dollars in public funds.

Dogs have been a divisive topic in South Africa.

They were used by apartheid police to crack down on protesters during the liberation struggle.

Some politicians complain that whites care more about their pets than the majority of their impoverished black compatriots.

"If a person can afford to keep their dog in such circumstances that's their business," said Hassan Khan, who works at The Haven District 6 feeding centre next to SuperWoof.

Tilana Kruger, a 35-year-old property broker, recently moved to Cape Town from Johannesburg and regularly drops off her beagle at AtFrits.

"He can't wait, he literally jumps out the car," she told AFP by phone.

Dogs can stay in the budget section of the hotel, where they hang out together, or have a private 'presidential suite'. Photo: AFP

Whether luxury dog hotels should exist in a country with such high levels of poverty and inequality remains a moot point.

A stay in the most expensive of AtFrits' rooms costs 535 rand ($35) a day. The government puts the national poverty line at 890 rand a month.

AtFrits owner Yanic Klue argues that that she is doing her bit to fight poverty by creating employment.

"I have 37 staff I give an income to," she said.

She donates 10 percent of the hotel's earnings towards helping stray dogs, including sterilisation.

She also runs a non-profit project teaching women in South Africa's impoverished townships to sew dog clothes for the hotel's shop.

An employee shaves a dog in the grooming room at @Frits, a dog hotel, in Cape Town on December 14, 2021. Photo: AFP

Doggy chakras

South Africa's strict lockdown at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic depressed demand for dog hotels because people worked from home and didn't go on vacation.

But with the economy re-opening, owners are returning to the office, and many dogs are now experiencing separation anxiety.

The hotel offers a range of therapies for suffering hounds, including gemstone therapy and reiki, a Japanese relaxation technique, said Klue.

Dogs "also have chakras and they also get blockages," she explained, referring to the belief that the body has points through which energy flows, providing harmony.

And for those equally anxious owners who want to check in on their pups while they are away, cameras in all the hotel rooms mean they can watch their pet's antics any time... on "Petflix."
U.S. authorities on Thursday charged a man with human smuggling of Indian nationals from Canada, the day after four people including a baby were found frozen to death in a remote part of Canada close to the Minnesota border.

The U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota said 47-year-old Steve Shand had been arrested just south of the border on Wednesday while driving two undocumented Indian citizens.

U.S. border patrol agents soon came across five more Indians traveling on foot, one of whom was carrying a backpack belonging to a family of four who had become separated from the group as they all tried to cross the border.

They alerted Canadian police who found the victims - a man, a woman, a teenage boy and a baby - about 40 feet (12 meters) from the frontier with Minnesota. First indications are that they died from exposure to the cold.

"These victims faced not only the cold weather, but also endless fields, large snowdrifts and complete darkness," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy told a televised news conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Wind chill had driven down the temperature to minus 35 C (minus 31 F), she said.

The U.S. attorney's office said in a statement that the four victims had tentatively been identified as the missing Indian family.

The five Indian nationals explained they had walked across the border expecting to be picked up by someone and estimated they had been walking around for over 11 hours.

Shand has been charged with one count of human smuggling. He is next due in court on Jan 24.
More ships and aircraft carrying aid are due to arrive in Tonga in coming days as the international community responds to calls for urgent assistance from the Pacific island nation following a devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami.

The first flights from Australia and New Zealand landed in Tonga on Thursday with much-needed supplies of water for sanitation and hygiene as well as shelter, communication equipment and power generators.

A New Zealand maritime sustainment vessel HMNZS Aotearoa carrying 250,000 litres of water and able to produce 70,000 litres per day through a desalination plant, is expected to arrive in Tonga on Friday.

A second Australian aid flight had to turn back on Thursday due to in-flight issues and is now expected today, the Australian High Commission in Tonga said on Facebook.

Japan Air Self-Defense Forces's members stand in front of their C-130 Hercules carrying relief supplies to be deployed to Tonga, to help out the country devastated by a nearby eruption and tsunami, before it's take off at Komaki air base in Komaki, Japan, January 20, 2022, in this photo taken by Kyodo. Photo: Kyodo/via REUTERS

More help is on the way with HMAS Adelaide en route from Brisbane and due in Tonga next week, it said.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted with a deafening explosion on Saturday, triggering tsunamis that destroyed villages, resorts and many buildings and knocked out communications for the nation of about 105,000 people.

Three people have been reported killed, authorities said.

Ash has blanketed the archipelago and spoiled much of its drinking water.

Australian Defence Forces members unload humanitarian assistance and engineering equipment from an aircraft at Fua'amotu International Airport, Tonga, January 20, 2022. Photo: Australian Department Of Defence/Handout via REUTERS

United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a briefing that Tonga has asked for urgent assistance and the agency is in close contact with the authorities.

"Assessment teams have reached most parts of the country, including remote and isolated islands," Dujarric said.

"We remain seriously concerned about access to safe water for 50,000 people throughout the country. Water quality testing continues, and most people are relying on bottled water," he said.

Some 60,000 people have been affected by damage to crops, livestock, and fisheries due to ashfall, saltwater intrusion and the potential for acid rain, Dujarric said.

There are also reports of fuel shortages, he added.

A New Zealand humanitarian relief supply flight is seen at Fua'amotu International Airport on the island of Tongatapu, Tonga, January 20, 2022. Photo: New Zealand High Commission, Nuku'alofa Tonga/Handout via REUTERS

Australia's foreign minister Marise Payne said on Friday cash donations to Tonga for immediate humanitarian supplies - Australia has donated $1 million - would need to be followed with more substantial support for rebuilding.

"The impact of this volcanic eruption and the subsequent tsunami and the damage the inundation is causing will be an ongoing challenge for Tonga, particularly in relation to infrastructure," she told Australian radio, adding that New Zealand and Fiji were also working closely with Tonga.

Telephone links between Tonga and the outside world were reconnected late on Wednesday, although restoring full internet services is likely to take a month or more.

A general view shows damaged buildings following volcanic eruption and tsunami, in Tongatapu, Tonga in this picture obtained from social media on January 21, 2022. Courtesy of Marian Kupu/Broadcom Broadcasting FM87.5/via REUTERS

Tongans have turned to social media to post images of the destruction by the tsunami and give accounts of their shock after the massive explosion.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has said the force of the eruption was estimated to be the equivalent of five to 10 megatons of TNT, or more than 500 times that of the nuclear bomb the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of World War Two.
Vietnam has rejected the false information about it building a maritime militia force which was previously published by a Chinese newspaper.

At a regular press meeting on Thursday evening, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang stressed that the report is incorrect, and that Vietnam completely refutes it.

Vietnam consistently adheres to the policy of peaceful national defense and self-defense, Hang said, adding that activities of Vietnamese functional forces absolutely comply with Vietnamese law and international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The Southeast Asian country always strives to maintain peace, stability, security, and safety in the East Vietnam Sea in accordance with international law, including the 1982 UNCLOS, the diplomat said.

We call on countries inside and outside the region to make responsible contributions to the goal, she said.

A commentary published by China Daily recently said that Vietnam has been arming its maritime militia force, adding that the force engages in maritime confrontation, which threatens stability and safety in the East Vietnam Sea.

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Meteorologists forecast cold and wet weather in northern Vietnam, while sunny climate is expected in southern provinces during the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday.

The 2022 Lunar New Year falls on February 1, with preparations and celebrations starting a week before and lasting until a week after that date.

From January 24 to 27, weather conditions across the country will be warm and sunny with only a low chance of precipitation, according to Hoang Phuc Lam, deputy director of the National Center for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting.

A strong cold front is expected to begin affecting northern Vietnam on January 28 and continue to intensify during the following days, resulting in brisk weather in the region and frost on high mountains.

On February 1, the first day of the new lunar year, northern localities are likely to record cloudy skies, light showers, and temperatures of 13 to 18 degrees Celsius in the Red River Delta and eight to 16 degrees Celsius in mountainous areas.

It will likely be rainy and chilly in central Vietnam on this day, while the Central Highlands and southern regions will see sunny skies.

From February 2 to 7, the cold snap is likely to continue influencing the weather conditions in northern and north-central provinces.

It will remain sunny in southern Vietnam, but residents are advised to watch out for high tides between January 31 and February 3.

A low-pressure area may form in the southern part of the East Vietnam Sea around January 26 to 28, Lam stated.

It may develop into a tropical depression but is likely to travel out of the maritime area, decreasing chances that it will affect the weather on the Vietnamese mainland.

The number of storms hitting Vietnam in 2022 is expected to be similar to previous years, the weather official continued.

The total rainfall in the first six months of 2022 may be higher than that of preceding years, he added.

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Nearly a kilogram of sharp metal objects and brake wires cut into small pieces was found on Tuesday on separate sections of major roads in Ho Chi Minh City, causing an alarm among motorcyclists and local authorities.

In just 15 minutes, workers from IDICO Infrastructure Development Investment JSC, using magnetic devices, collected almost a kilogram of tire metal objects from a 50m-long section of the Provincial Road 10 Overpass in Binh Tan District.

The rhombus-shaped metal objects were believed to be purposely scattered by repair shop owners along the roads to puncture tires and thus force drivers to use their service, normally at exorbitant prices.

Dinh Minh Canh drives his specialized metal collecting vehicle along National Highway No. 1 in Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City.

Dinh Minh Canh, the creator of a metal collecting machine, also found over 100g of other sharp objects, as well as brake wires cut into small pieces, along a four-meter long segment of National Highway No. 1 in Binh Chanh District.

Compared to the last campaign that was conducted at the beginning of the year, the number of sharp metal objects we collected has noticeably decreased, Canh said.

He also shared that the amount of metal dropped 80-90 percent compared to the same time last year.

Hundreds of small pieces cut from brake wires were intentionally dropped on roads, posing a huge danger for commuters in Ho Chi Minh City.

Given that authorities are carrying out routine patrols, and that we have the support from local residents, this long-standing problem is gradually being addressed, Canh shared.

However, motorcyclists should still drive at low speed to ensure their safety."

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A ninth grader died on Tuesday after getting her second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Vietnam, a local medical center said on Thursday.

The girl had her first dose of the vaccine on December 3, 2021, after which she experienced dizziness and had difficulty breathing.

She was taken to the Ha Hoa District medical center in Phu Tho Province, northern Vietnam for treatment and later recovered.

She had her second dose on Monday.

The girls mother had told health workers about the girls side effects following her first shot, but was told to go ahead with the second jab.

Twenty minutes following the second dose, the girl experienced tightness in her chest, dizziness, difficulty breathing, and seizures.

She received emergency treatment on the spot before being transferred to the Ha Hoa District medical center.

She began to vomit blood upon arrival at the medical center.

She then fell into a coma and her heart stopped.

Doctors were able to resuscitate the girl, though she remained in a coma.

Her family received news that she died at 1:00 am on Tuesday.

The Phu Tho Department of Health has not yet officially confirmed the cause of death.

The girls family also declined an autopsy request from police officers.

Vietnam is currently vaccinating children aged 12-17 using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

At least four children between the ages of 12 and 16 years died after receiving shots between November and early December last year.

A 23-year-old woman died following her second Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shot earlier this month.

Authorities said their deaths were caused by an 'overreaction' to the vaccine.

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Police in Hanoi have detained a local man for investigating his severely brutalizing a three-year-old girl, who is the daughter of his unofficial wife, by breaking her arm, forcing her to swallow screws and drink pesticides, and hammering nails in her head.

Nguyen Trung Huyen, 30, a man of Hanois Thach That District, was arrested and prosecuted on Thursday on charges of murder, local police announced the same day.

Huyen has been accused of abusing the little girl, D.N.A., the daughter of Huyens unofficial wife, Nguyen Thi L., also residing in the district, police said.

Officers are clarifying the role of L., 27, in this public shaking case.

In 2012, L. married Do Huu C., 38, a local man, and they have three daughters, but due to conflicts in their daily life, she divorced her husband in June 2021, police reported.

C. has since raised the first two daughters, while L. has taken care of A., the youngest one.

After the divorce, L. had affection for Huyen and the two have lived together as husband and wife at a rented house in the district, without registering their marriage.

In September 2021, L. took A. to live with her and Huyen, who had since exacted his brutalization on the little girl, with an aim to kill her so that he and L. would not have to raise her anymore.

Nguyen Trung Huyen is seen during a crime scene investigation conducted by police in Hanoi.

Huyen is believed to force the girl to swallow screws and drink pesticides, break her arm, and hammer nails in her head, police said.

He confessed to police that at around 8:00 am on Monday, when L. went to work, Huyen slapped A. many times after he called her but she did not answer.

The man then hammered many nails in the little girls head.

After the crime, Huyen left A. in the care of a neighboring woman and then returned to his residence for sleeping.

On the afternoon of the same day, L. took A. to Thanh That District General Hospital as she vomited and was in serious health conditions.

The girl was hospitalized in a coma and convulsions, with her right arm already in a plaster cast, doctors said.

An X-ray scan of her head later showed nine objects that looked like nails in her skull.

This image shows an X-ray film indicating nine nail-like objects inside the skull of a three-year-old girl hospitalized in Hanoi, Vietnam. Photo: Thach That District General Hospital

Due to her conditions getting worse, A. was transferred to Hanoi-based Saint Paul General Hospital and is now being treated at the pediatric emergency resuscitation department.

The girl remained in severe conditions with a bad prognosis, doctors said on Wednesday evening.

Nguyen Thanh Huyen Anh, A.s aunt-in-law, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that before the latest hospitalization, A. was taken to hospital three times, with the first due to a foreign object in her nose, Anh said.

The girl was then admitted to hospital after swallowing three screws, and her third-time hospitalization came when she was found suffering pesticide poisoning.

Emphasizing that the latest hospitalization is very serious, Anh said she wanted relevant agencies to find out about the nail-like objects inside A.s head.

The Department of Child Affairs under the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs said it received the information about the case from Do Huu Chuc, A.s grandfather, through the national hotline for child protection at 111 on Wednesday.

The little girls father was contacted shortly after but he did not have any information that suggested his daughter had been abused.

The departments general director, Dang Hoa Nam, said he was regretful that this case was reported to the agency too late.

Responsibility for protection of children among their families, relatives, and communities remain unsatisfactory, Nam said.

The Vietnam Childrens Fund has decided to provide initial emergency support of VND13 million (US$570) for treatment and care of the little girl.

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Join Edith Salas of Salas Properties & host Jenn Barlow as they visit the Coronado Shores community. The towers have amazing views including the world famous Hotel del Coronado, downtown San Diego, San Diego Bay, the City of Coronado, Point Loma, and the Pacific Ocean.
A 21-year-old woman from Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province, southern Vietnam has been captured for allegedly murdering her father with cyanide over a conflict before staging an arson to cover up her crime.

The provincial Department of Public Security confirmed on Friday they had arrested Tong Thi Tung Linh, who resides in Phuoc Nguyen Ward, Ba Ria City for murder.

Preliminary information showed that Linh had poisoned her father  54-year-old Tong Hong Diep  on Tuesday by mixing cyanide, a highly toxic chemical compound, into a drink.

After the man died, Linh tied up his body with tape and concealed the corpse in a small pit before covering it with cement.

On Wednesday night, Linh staged another crime by setting her house on fire.

The house where the alleged murder takes place in Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province, Vietnam. Photo: D.H. / Tuoi Tre

After the house was partially burned, she ran to her grandfather, who lives nearby, and called for help to put out the flames.

Linh told police officers that she was sleeping when a man grabbed her by the hair and said that he had killed her father as an act of vengeance.

The man then knocked Linh unconscious and burned the house, the woman added.

While officers were examining the residence, they discovered Dieps body inside the pit and launched an investigation into his alleged murder.

During a working session with police, Linh eventually admitted to killing her own father over a conflict.

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Former Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay (Scott & Bailey, Still Open All Hoursl) stars in a new UK series The Madame Blanc Mysteries, on Acorn TV.

This screened in the UK in October.

The Madame Blanc Mysteries follows Jean (Sally Lindsay, Mount Pleasant), a renowned and respected antiques dealer running a successful business in leafy Cheshire with her husband, Rory (Peter Gaynor, Vikings). We meet Jean on a rainy morning in Manchester, overcome with grief as she learns that Rory has tragically died on his way home from their vintage treasure-trove stomping grounds in the South of France.

Things take a dark turn when Jean discovers that along with her husband, all of their money has disappeared, their shop has been re-mortgaged to the hilt and their assets pawned off. With the final thousands in their joint account ironically spent on Rorys funeral, Jeans life is set adrift until her solicitor informs her of one thing her beloved did not sell: their cottage in French antiques hub, Sainte Victoire. And when Jean finds out that the lavish ring Rory was bringing back to her is nowhere to be found, she quickly realises something is amiss and does the first thing she can think ofArriving in Sainte Victoire, will Jean get the answers she is searching for?

Monday January 24 on Acorn TV.
CDC, along with many other professional healthcare experts, are committed to increasing awareness of AFM. Listen to members of our community of experts as they express their dedication to learn more about AFM.
Jo Lee Ferguson wishes she kept her maiden name - Hammer - because it was perfect for a reporter. Shes a local girl who loves writing about her hometown. She and LNJ Managing Editor Randy Ferguson have two children and a crazy husky.

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Tyler, TX (75702)

Today

Considerable cloudiness. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

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Cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
I cover local government in East Texas for the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Im from East Texas and love getting to report on the area I grew up in. Texas A&M University former student. If you have story ideas email me at mmcham@tylerpaper.com

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Tyler, TX (75702)

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Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

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Cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
CHICAGO, January 20, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ventas, Inc. (NYSE: VTR) ("Ventas" or the "Company") announced today that a presentation providing a business update has been posted to the Events & Presentations section of Ventass website at ir.ventasreit.com/events-and-presentations.

These materials will be archived at ir.ventasreit.com/events-and-presentations for a limited period.

About Ventas

Ventas Inc., an S&P 500 company, operates at the intersection of two large and dynamic industries  healthcare and real estate. Fueled by powerful demographic demand from growth in the aging population, Ventas owns a diversified portfolio of over 1,200 properties in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Ventas uses the power of its capital to unlock the value of senior living communities; life science, research & innovation properties; medical office & outpatient facilities, health systems and other healthcare real estate. A globally-recognized real estate investment trust, Ventas follows a successful long-term strategy, proven over more than 20 years, built on diversification of property types, capital sources and industry leading partners, financial strength and flexibility, consistent and reliable growth and industry leading ESG achievements, managed by a collaborative and experienced team dedicated to its stakeholders.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220120005895/en/

Contacts

Sarah Whitford

(877) 4-VENTAS
As France's bid to vaccinate 5- to 11-year-olds against Covid-19 hits the one-month mark, progress remains ploddingly slow, light years behind many EU neighbours. As the Omicron wave rages through France with average confirmed cases exceeding 300,000 a day, Prime Minister Jean Castex on Thursday euphemised that the jab campaign had begun "gently" and pledged to loosen the strict logistics holding it back. FRANCE 24 takes a look at France's lagging effort to vaccinate kids and explores why.

Saturday marks one month since France began vaccinating its general population of 5- to 11-year-olds on December 22, a week after it allowed vulnerable kids access to Pfizer-BioNtech's paediatric doses. Figures vary slightly depending on the official source, but uptake by all accounts has been anecdotal so far.

As of Wednesday, according to the Sante Publique France health authority, 1.8 percent of France's population of some 5.8 million eligible 5- to 11-year-olds had received a first dose and 0.4 percent were completely vaccinated. The French health ministry's figures puzzlingly are slightly better, with some 175,000 children, or 3 percent, having lifted a sleeve, it said Tuesday.

Most of France's closest European Union neighbours, meanwhile, are inoculating kids against Covid-19 at pace. Twenty-six percent of Italy's 3.6 million 5- to 11-year-olds have received a dose and 6.45 percent two doses. Spain had given one dose to 45 percent of its 3.4 million children by Tuesday; regionally, Galicia leads the way with more than 80 percent receiving the first jab. Portugal has vaccinated half of its more than 600,000 eligible youngsters. Even in more vaccine-sceptical Germany, more than 15 percent of the age group have received a dose and 6.5 percent both jabs. And in just two weeks since its push began, Ireland has vaccinated more than 10 percent of its 480,000 kids.

So why is France so far behind? It isn't as if the country's children have gone untouched by the pandemic. Some 19,000 school classes were closed due to the pandemic as of Friday, despite a controversial school health protocol engineered to keep them open. Nearly 6 percent of all French primary schoolchildren tested positive for Covid-19 over the last week alone.

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Hospital admissions of children with Covid-19 are at an all-time high in France, outstripping last summer's previous high by 600 percent. While deaths among children with Covid-19 are mercifully rare, nine children under 10 with Covid-19 have died in the first three weeks of 2022, as many as during all of 2021.

But among French 6- to 10-year-olds, Covid-19 has also been linked with more than 300 cases of Multi-system inflammatory syndrome (Mis-C), a rare but serious illness that sends a majority of its patients to intensive care. The vaccine is known to provide overwhelming protection against Mis-C.

An abundance of caution and a later start

Some European Union countries took up the torch with enthusiasm once the bloc's drug regulator, European Medicines Agency (EMA), gave its go-ahead on November 25. Austria had begun even before that green light, Denmark started on November 27, Portugal's own health authority gave approval on December 7 and Italy, Greece and Spain quickly followed.

Historically vaccine-sceptic France, meanwhile, tapped three separate health and ethics authorities for their own reviews, conditioning its go-ahead for vaccinating all 5- to 11-year-olds on their approval. The last of the bodies waited for data on 8 million vaccinated American children before finally giving its thumbs up on December 22, nearly a full month after the EMA decision.

When France finally opened its campaign, the government did so with a relative lack of fanfare, certainly compared to neighbouring Spain. Eight days earlier, Spanish President Pedro Sanchez tweeted a public-service ad with kids hugging each other and their grandparents. "It's time to vaccinate boys and girls from 5 to 11 years old," he wrote. "We continue to move forward to protect the population and recover the spaces the pandemic had stolen from us; to ensure minors and the people around them are safer."

Bad timing

When inoculations began just 48 hours before Christmas Eve, the country was deep into a two-week school holiday. On Wednesday, France's Scientific Council  the panel of scientists that advises the government on Covid-19 matters (or tries to)  cited that "hardly favourable timing" as one reason for 5- to 11-year-olds' "very weak" vaccination coverage today.

The Council also flagged another timing flaw: As schools reopened after the break, with Omicron spreading like wildfire, a "very large number of children were contaminated" with many more classmates becoming contact cases (sometimes repeatedly). A Covid-19 infection rules out a vaccination appointment for months, while contact cases are asked to postpone the jab to be sure.

In shrugging off a Christmas Day plea by health professionals to postpone the school reopening for a week in order to better secure schools and promote vaccination for schoolchildren, the government inadvertently may have contributed to slowing the campaign altogether.

Vaccine-skittish parents

Did the slow-burn approval process allay sceptical parents' fears or somehow serve their suspicions?

Two polls conducted in December  between the EU regulator's green light and France's OK  showed parents widely against vaccinating children against Covid-19. A poll by the Elabe firm found 68 percent of parents of 5- to 11-year-olds opposed to the jab (with 47 percent "very opposed"), compared to just 31 percent in favour. Another poll for the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) found comparable results with the parents it surveyed (58 percent against, 28 percent in favour).

Both studies found parents to be more skittish than the general French population about vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds. As a whole, France was evenly split on the matter  51 percent against to 48 percent for  on the Elabe poll.

Logistical obstacles

"It is getting less and less difficult to find an appointment," the French health ministry enthused on Tuesday, when it said 175,000 5- to 11-year-olds had received one dose. But France took delivery of no fewer than 1.9 million paediatric doses in December with a million more due this month. Why the gap?

The Scientific Council on Wednesday rapped the inoculation campaign for "initial logistical problems", including too few vaccination centres offering paediatric doses, too few appointments available, doses located at too great a distance from the demand or appointments during school hours. Indeed, the statistics are clear: French kids who do get vaccinated do so on Saturdays and Wednesdays, when school is out.

For a month on social media, parents have traded stories of fruitless searches for child vaccination appointments, driving long distances to snag the only appointment they could find for their child or lamenting having to cancel a hard-won appointment after a last-minute infection at school. They favour the hashtag #pasvitemadose ("Not quick my dose"), spoofing the popular vaccine reservation website ViteMaDose. Twitter has also seen its share of general practitioners inviting parents to bring their kids for a jab in this or that outpost of France lest they have to dispose of perishable leftover doses.

In vaccine-skittish France, authorities inserted extra hoops into the procedure for vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds, ostensibly to promote acceptance. Aside from unique restrictions on the types of health professionals who could inoculate children, vaccinators are required to propose a rapid blood test that involves piercing a child's finger to screen for previous infection. Kids found to have Covid-19 antibodies aren't offered a second dose.

The addition of fresh red tape hasn't helped, either. Suddenly on January 6, both parents needed to sign off on authorising their child's vaccination following a ruling by France's Council of State  a new challenge, particularly for divorced parents.

On Thursday, the French prime minister appeared to recognise one aspect of the logistics bogging the campaign down. "We must in particular make progress on the vaccination of children aged 5 to 11, which began gently," Castex said during Thursday's press conference. "Even though I know many parents are still hesitating, I want to tell them that the scientific authorities have been very clear on the benefits of that vaccine and we will facilitate it by authorising more locations and more professionals, including pharmacists and nurses, to provide the injections."

Some authorities slow to accept Covid-19 spread in children

And yet over the course of the pandemic in France, a vocal crowd of health and education professionals have consistently slammed the influential French Society of Paediatrics (SFP) and its professor president, Christele Gras-Le Guen. In breaking with the prevailing wisdom of its counterparts abroad and downplaying Covid-19 transmission in kids, the SFP has skewed the risk-benefit analysis in the public imagination, they suggest.

As recently as November, Gras-Le Guen told the regional daily Ouest-France, "We haven't stopped saying it for 18 months: Under-12s are little affected by Covid-19 infection and non-contagious." She added that "under 12s wearing a mask at school makes no sense. I'll say it again: the contagion doesn't happen at school".

To the dismay of experts, the SFP has openly had the ear of Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, who long echoed SFP doctrine that kids are primarily infected outside school and whom specialists charge with shirking his responsibility to mitigate viral spread in the classroom.

Just last week, teachers nationwide went on strike to demand high-quality face masks and the repeated relaxing of a school Covid-19 protocol singularly devised to keep schools open even as attendance is decimated by infection.

When the Scientific Council this week explicitly validated the role back-to-school played in the 460,000 positive cases registered nationally on Tuesday alone, some of the pandemic-wearied doctors couldn't hide their tongue-in-cheek glee.

"The rise appears to be explained by a resurgence of the epidemic in those under 15 and 30-44 year-olds, suggesting an important back-to-school effect: the virus is circulating intensely among the youngest and then spreads to the parents," the panel said.

To which Dr. Christian Lehmann, a member of the Du Cote de la Science (On the Side of Science) policy watchdog group tweeted, "Hello French Society of Paediatrics, you're going to laugh, but we have something to show you...."

Shaking hands, kissing babies (virtually, please)

Have we mentioned that 2022 is a presidential election year in France?

With 79 days to go until April's first round, the row over vaccinating kids has become the archetypal wedge issue  to be avoided by moderates or embraced by extremes, the louder the better.

As consensus builds against the Covid-19 school protocol, many candidates have gravitated to that separate, relatively safe topic to needle the incumbent Emmanuel Macron. When Greens candidate Yannick Jadot did go on the record in December sharing his "reservations" over vaccinating kids, he tamely concluded it should be up to parents to decide.

But on the far right  where a trio of hopefuls are polling around a combined 30 percent  its been open season on the airwaves over the 5- to 11-year-old jab.

Pundit-turned-politician Eric Zemmour has said he is "hostile", saying vaccinating kids against Covid-19 "beggars belief".

National Rally leader and 2017 presidential finalist Marine Le Pen told France Inter radio this week that she was opposed because "the risk-benefit for children is nil". She said, "They have almost no chance of being victims of a serious form, so vaccinating them is, in my opinion, a form of abuse."

Not to be outdone, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan has accused the government of putting kids in danger when, he contends, the risks outweigh the benefits. He made his opposition known on the lower-house National Assembly floor last week, calling the policy "horrifying".

In the glare of that election spotlight, France's bid to catch up on vaccinating kids may prove all but gentle.
Cervical screening, or the 'smear test', is a preventative measure (Getty Images)

The C word, or the double C word in this case, is scary. But why when 99.8% of cervical cancer cases in the UK are preventable, according to Cancer Research UK, does so much uncertainty surround this particular condition?

Is it the fault of the one in three who don't attend their first cervical screenings, found by Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust to be partly due to embarrassment (26.7%) and not thinking it reduces the risk of cervical cancer (70%), or the lack of education and reassurance for those with a cervix? Most likely the later.

Those who have had a cervical screening, also referred to as a smear test, or opened results, will remember the first time they received the invitation letter before turning 25, or the first time they got a result that panicked them, i.e. 'HPV found', and made them assume the worst.

Women and people with a cervix will first be invited for a cervical screening up to six months before they turn 25 (Getty Images)

Some 220,000 women and people with a cervix are told ever year they have cervical cell changes after a screening, with many more given a HPV diagnosis, which can mean more tests and treatments for some, causing much worry.

So, what are the things people most wish they knew about cervical screenings and results, before even beginning the process? Samantha Dixon, Chief Executive, Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, is here to tell us them.

1) "Screening is not a test for cancer, it's a test to help prevent cancer"

This might be obvious to some, but is still completely unknown to others  if more people knew this key difference, it's likely less would fear going for their smear.

The screening helps prevent cancer, Dixon explains, "by finding out who is at higher risk" and "by looking for human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus which can cause your cells to change".

During a smear test, a sample of cells are taken from the cervix, which is then checked for certain types of human HPV. This virus itself is not cancer, but if found, it has the potential to cause changes in the cells of the cervix, which can then turn into cervical cancer  but if found in time these can be treated before they even have the chance to do so. Dixon also says one in five people mistakenly believe cervical screening can detect ovarian cancer.

Story continues

Watch: Steph McGovern has cervical smear test live on TV in bid to raise awareness

2) "There is no difference between cervical screening and a smear test"

These are just two different names for the same test. "A smear test is the older name for the test. It was called that because of the way the test used to be done  cells were smeared on a glass slide, which was sent to the laboratory for testing," explains Dixon.

"The test is different now and most healthcare professionals call it cervical screening."

3) "Speculums come in different sizes. If you find the standard size too uncomfortable, you can ask to try another size"

A speculum is the instrument used during a screening, which is inserted into the vagina to open its walls up slightly so the cervix can be seen. A soft brush is then inserted, which is what is used to take the sample.

"Everyone is different, and for some people a smaller speculum size might feel better. Just ask your nurse," says Dixon.

If you feel like the speculum used at your cervical screening is too big, it's perfectly ok to ask for it to be changed for another (Getty Images)

Read more: We never thought it would happen': After cervical cancer, mum welcomes baby girl

4) "It is best not to book a cervical screening when you have your period"

This is because it can make it harder to get a clear result. "If the result is inadequate, which means it can't be properly examined, you will be invited back in three months' time for another test," she says  so it's best to save yourself the hassle and get an appointment accordingly.

Dixon also adds that you should try not to use spermicide or oil-based lubricant (lube) for 24 hours before the test, as this too can affect the results.

5) "If you have gone through or are going through the menopause, let your doctor or nurse know"

After menopause, the opening of the vagina and vaginal walls become less able to stretch, which can make the test more uncomfortable. You can ask your nurse to give (prescribe) you a vaginal oestrogen cream or pessary, which may help, she explains.

6) "Cervical screenings are not for people who have symptoms"

Dixon advises, If you have symptoms, contact your GP surgery about having an examination. As she points out, these are not what screenings are designed for, as they are a prevention tool. If youre worried about symptoms of cervical cancer, such as bleeding between periods, during or after sex, or after the menopause, or vaginal discharge, book an appointment with your GP as soon as possible, rather than waiting for your routine one.

Read more: Chrissy Teigen reminds women not to skip their smear test during coronavirus pandemic

99.8% of cervical cancer cases in the UK are preventable, so it's always worth attending your cervical screening  just speak to your doctor about any worries you may have (Getty Images)

7) "Everyone's experience of cervical screening is different"

While smear tests aren't anything to fear, Dixon points out that, "Some people don't find it uncomfortable, while for others it may be uncomfortable or hurt," so there is no defined normal. "There are lots of reasons, physical and psychological, for this," she continues. "It's important to tell your nurse or doctor if cervical screening is painful for you."

8) "The HPV vaccine does not protect you against all types of HPV"

Even if you remember getting that jab that made your arm hurt at school, or at your sexual health clinic, it doesnt offer full protection, which is why cervical screening is still important even if youve had the vaccine, she explains.

9) "All women and people with a cervix between age 25 and 64 can go for regular cervical cancer screenings, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity"

This includes lesbian and bisexual women. Trans men and nonbinary people who have a cervix should also attend regular screenings, but as they might not receive invitations through the national screening programme, they can ask their GP to send them invites directly.

Read more: Cervical cancer 'could be eliminated' in 78 countries worst affected by the disease, study finds

Watch: The benefits of DIY at-home smear test kits

10) "[False] HPV means you are unclean or to blame: [True] HPV is a common virus

While we might be hyper sensitised to virus at the moment, Dixon points out that as many as eight in 10 of us will have HPV at some point in our lives, so its really hard to avoid. Having HPV isnt a sign that someone has slept with a lot of people or been unfaithful to a partner, because you can get it during your first sexual intercourse  whether that is penetrative sex, oral sex, touching or sharing sex toys, she explains.

11) "There is no treatment for HPV itself"

HPV itself is usually harmless, and most HPV infections do not cause any problems, naturally going away within two years. Many HPV infections will be cleared by the immune system, and lots of cell changes will also go without the need for any treatment. So an unexpected cervical screening result doesnt mean you need to panic.

However, there are treatments for conditions caused by HPV, including genital warts, cervical cell changes and cancer. If treatment is needed, it is given to prevent cancer too.

Cervical screenings look for Human Papillomavirus (HPV), not cancer (Getty Images)

12) Being told you have HPV or cell changes caused by HPV does not mean you do have, or will develop cancer

Officially, these are how the results of cervical screenings work, as per the NHS.

HPV not found: Most people will have this result (HPV negative), which means the risk of getting cervical cancer is very low, and youll be invited for screening again when youre next automatically due one.

HPV found: Your results letter will explain what happens next if this is the outcome (HPV positive), but you might need another cervical screening test in one year, or a different test to look at your cervix (a colposcopy).

HPV found but no abnormal cells: With this branch of HPV positive, youll be invited for screening in one year and again in two years if you still have HPV. If you still have it after three years, you might need a colposcopy.

HPV found and abnormal cells: With this branch of HPV positive, youll be invited to a colposcopy.

Dixon summarises this with, Cervical screening tests for HPV and if present, cervical cell changes caused by HPV. If you have both you will be invited for colposcopy to take a closer look at the cells. If you just have HPV then you will be invited back to cervical screening in just one year to see if the immune system has cleared the infection.

She adds, Its slightly different in Northern Ireland as an older testing method is used. In Northern Ireland you are not tested for HPV, and instead will be told if you have any cell changes or not.

Watch: Leading cervical cancer nowhere to hide in underserved countries

Hopefully more information repeatedly given about HPV, cervical screenings, and results will help to improve the current lack of understanding out there  and now's a friendly reminder to book that smear test.

We want everyone to have the support and facts they need to access cervical screening and deal with an unexpected result. Cervical screening can help stop cervical cancer before it starts so its an incredibly important test. Help raise awareness by sharing your story this week and show others they arent alone, says Dixon.

You can join in with Cervical Cancer Prevention week on social media by using the hashtag #CervicalCancerPreventionWeek or for any help or questions, visit Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust at @JoTrust, jostrust.org.uk or call 0808 802 8000.
Photo credit: WPA Pool - Getty Images

Kate Middleton may have previously hinted that Prince William doesn't want anymore kids, but that hasn't stopped the duchess from seeming broody.

During her and the duke's visit to Clitheroe Community Hospital in Lancashire on Thursday, to understand the specific challenges faced by health staff during Covid-19, they chatted to a number of families. At one moment, Middleton posed sweetly with the baby girl of a couple named Trudi and Alastair Barrie.

Middleton, mum to Prince George, eight, Princess Charlotte, six, and Prince Louis, three, whom she shares with the duke, was seen looking adoringly at the couples' daughter, Anastasia, as she posed for a photograph with her, causing onlookers to ooh and aah in admiration.

And one person who noticed the exchange was Prince William himself.

After seeing Middleton with the baby, he quipped: 'Don't give my wife any more ideas,' per People.

Photo credit: WPA Pool - Getty Images

As Middleton handed the baby back to the couple, he added: 'Don't take her with you.'

Back in 2019, during the royal pair's Northern Ireland tour, Middleton held a fan's five-month-old baby named James Barr.

She said to the baby's dad, Alan Barr: 'Hes gorgeous. It makes me feel broody,' The Sun reported.

After James' father asked: 'Baby number four?' Middleton responded: 'I think William would be a little worried.'

What's more, in January 2020, Middleton, when addressing the subject of having more children, told a royal fan: 'I dont think William wants any more.'



This happened during a tour of Bradford, when the fan, Josh Macpalce, proudly told Middleton that he had sent her congratulatory cards after each of her children were born.

As for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's current family life, things are pretty wild, if the former's account of their morning activities is anything to go by.



Story continues

Last month, Prince William spoke about what family life is like with his and Middleton's children during an episode of Apple Fitness+'s audio podcast series Time to Walk.

He said that during breakfast time Princess Charlotte goes 'completely crazy' on the dance floor, and that there's a dispute amongst the young royal and her brother Prince George, as to what song gets played in the morning.



Of his children's dancing antics, he added: 'There's a lot of hip movements going along. There's a lot of dressing up.'

Photo credit: WPA Pool - Getty Images

As well as the royal couple's light-hearted revelations, Middleton has also opened up candidly about motherhood in the past.

Making an appearance on Giovanna Fletcher's Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, the Duchess of Cambridge addressed mum guilt.

Discussing whether she's dealt with it, she said: 'Yes absolutely, and anyone who doesn't as a mother is actually lying. Yes, all the time.'

The duchess, who celebrated her 40th birthday earlier in the month, continued: 'There's such a pull, but I am such a hands-on mum, and whatever you're doing you want to make sure you're doing the uttermost best job you can for your children.'



Photo credit: Getty Images

Discussing motherhood further, Middleton, who referred to it as 'a constant challenge' and has previously not shied away from opening up about feelings of isolation and loneliness, also said during the podcast, 'you're always sort of questioning your own decisions, and your own judgments, and things like that, and I think that starts from the moment you have a baby'.

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Andre Davis Brown is a member of multiple teams at the University of North Georgia (UNG), and he would not have it any other way.

Brown, a Social Circle, Georgia, native pursuing a degree in international affairs with an East Asian concentration, is a member of UNG's Corps of Cadets and serves as the president of the Black Student Union on UNG's Dahlonega Campus. He is also a member of Sigma Nu fraternity, for which he served as Delta Class president.

Brown also plans to take part in a UNG study abroad at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, a trip that will give him valuable experience for his goal of becoming a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Japan. He has studied both Arabic and Japanese during his time at UNG.

And for a student with various leadership roles, teamwork is his preferred method of leadership.

"I like to be an involved leader. I'm going to be there doing it with you," Brown said. "I don't hold people's hands, but I like being there experiencing it with them. We might as well be in it together."

Wade Manora Jr., assistant director of Multicultural Student Affairs at UNG, has mentored Brown in his work with the Black Student Union. Manora appreciates the team mentality that always guides Brown.

"Andre has this innate quality to invite others into his leadership while empowering them along the way. Leadership can be a very tricky thing," Manora said. "Some take on leadership to get their agenda and projects passed, while some invite others to co-create something even greater. The latter is the case for Andre. He always brings others in even if his agenda may have slight changes or alterations due to that invitation."
Honor Flight San Diego is hosting a surprise drive-by party for World War II Veteran Elizabeth Gena Fischle who is turning 98-years-young. Please join us on Sunday, Jan. 23 from 12 to 1 p.m. at 1704 Visalia Row in Coronado. Due to COVID precautions, please do not exit your vehicle to make physical contact with the veteran.
Candidates for McLennan County district attorney flexed their conservative muscles Thursday while trading jabs about District Attorney Barry Johnsons record in office and Josh Tetens work as a criminal defense attorney.

Johnson, who is completing his first, four-year term in office, and Tetens, his challenger in the March 1 Republican primary, squared off during a Republican Club lunch that also featured brief comments from McLennan County Court-at-Law No. 3 Judge Ryan Luna and his Republican primary challenger Kristi DeCluitt, a prosecutor in Johnsons office.

The winner in the DAs race will face Waco attorney Aubrey Robertson in the November general election.

Johnson started his remarks by touting the accomplishments of his office. However, his tone turned quickly as he attacked Tetens representation of criminal defendants. Tetens countered by saying Johnson spent 32 years practicing law in a civil practice and still has not tried a single criminal case in front of a jury.

Johnson told the crowd he has 30 lawyers and 34 staff members, including seven investigators, working in his office, and said he has saved taxpayers $924,000 in unspent budgeted funds in the three years he has been in office.

All of them do great work and we are so proud of our accomplishments, and we, in my opinion, have worked hard to get here and we now have the best district attorneys office in the state of Texas, and we are going to continue to get better every week, Johnson said.

Tetens has won endorsements from the Sheriffs Law Enforcement Association of McLennan County, the Waco Police Association and the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. He said Johnson has let law enforcement down as the chief law enforcement officer of the county.

That is in your title, and unfortunately, that is not what has been happening, Tetens said.

He said local crime statistics indicate murder has spiked in the last three years.

Waco saw a longtime low of four homicides in 2018, then 10 in 2019, 17 in 2020, and 16 last year, according to Waco Police statistics. Waco Police officials addressing the frequency of murders over the years have consistently said violent homicides generally occur because of factors beyond the control of law enforcement. Wacos recent increase in homicides also mirrored similar spikes nationwide, largely tied to the pandemic, officials have said.

We currently have 47 different individuals charged with murder here in McLennan County, Tetens said. That is absolutely and completely unacceptable. Thats murder on the high end. Just as important, on the other end, you have misdemeanor offenses. Working with law enforcement, making sure that people are held accountable is your job as district attorney.

That would be my entire focus: accountability and communicating with law enforcement. The criminal justice system is a chain. Youve got law enforcement on one end, youve got judges on the other and the district attorney in the middle. Right now that chain is broken. We need to repair that chain. Im the individual who is able to do that, with the help of law enforcement and the courts. Together we will hold people accountable.

Johnson called it disingenuous that Tetens or any DA candidate would say they will lower the crime rate. That is law enforcements job, Johnson said.

It is almost a joke for somebody who has worked their entire life since they got out of law school to say that we have not been doing what we need to do as district attorney when all he has been trying to do is let violent offenders, wife beaters and other dangerous people back on the streets. You cant walk into the district attorneys office and flip a switch and say, Im going to be a different person. Im going to be tough on crime. The fact of the matter is, we all know, that there is an element of the sheriffs department that would really like to have him in there so he can be their rubber stamp.

Tetens countered that new leadership is needed in the DAs office.

It is not a joke to think that the district attorneys office cant do something about crime rates, Tetens said. They absolutely can do something about crime rates through deterrence, punishment and rehabilitation. All of those work hand-in-hand, and that is part of justice in our community.

Johnson said he finds it incredible that anyone would vote for Tetens.

Politicians can say anything, Johnson said. He says I am soft on crime. My office indicts about 50 felons a week. We file right at 100 misdemeanors a week. We put dozens of people in jail weekly that need to go there so that justice is done. We are anything but soft on crime, and there are about 150 defense lawyers in here that will tell you, Oh, hell no, he is not soft on crime. In fact, he is not as reasonable as he said he was going to be. And then there are law enforcement officials. We have 30 law enforcement agencies in this county that will tell you, Yeah, he is soft on crime.

Johnson charged that Tetens has spent the past 15 years using his best efforts to put child molesters, wife beaters, perverts and violent criminals back on the streets of McLennan County, where they can continue to prey on you and your family.

Luckily, for our citizens, he is not too good at what he does and his efforts usually lead to failure and a jail cell for his clients, Johnson said.

Tetens touted his 15 years experience in criminal law and said Johnson had no experience at all in criminal matters when he became DA. He said he finds it more concerning to me than anything else that Johnson thinks its a joke for criminal defendants to be represented as the Constitution requires.

Tetens said he defended a man charged with stabbing another man in a fight in the countys first trial back after the long pandemic hiatus. Tetens client, who had spent 800 days in jail waiting for his day in court, was acquitted.

Mr. Johnson has referenced that my practice has solely been to put sex offenders and those who assault others out on the streets, Tetens said. Nothing could be further from the truth. Its in that 15 years that I have actually been watching, protecting, studying, learning and arguing zealously to defend our United States Constitution, and I will continue to do that as our district attorney. But unlike Mr. Johnson, my 15 years of legal experience, my law school concentration, was specifically in criminal law. Now, surprisingly, to this date, to my knowledge, Mr. Johnson has never tried a criminal case in a courtroom in front of a jury.

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OMAHA  BNSF railroad wants a federal judge to prevent two of its unions from going on strike next month over a new attendance policy that would penalize employees for missing work.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based railroad went to court after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation union both threatened to strike over the new policy that is set to go into effect on Feb. 1.

The unions said they are surveying their 17,000 members who work for BNSF to see if workers will support a strike.

The heads of the two unions, BLET National President Dennis Pierce and SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson, said in a joint statement that the new policy would violate their contracts with BNSF and could provide an incentive for workers to show up when they are sick in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

"This unprecedented BNSF policy repudiates direct and clear contract language, and in application, will attempt to force our members to report for duty without regard for their medical condition as we struggle to come out of a pandemic," Pierce and Ferguson said.

The railroad maintains that this issue is a minor dispute that the unions wouldn't be allowed to strike over under federal law, and a strike shouldn't be allowed because it would hurt the economy too much.

"Rail strikes  even if brief or localized  can cause devastating and irreparable harm to carriers, their customers, other railroads, and the general public. The threatened strike in this case would strain an already overburdened supply chain, potentially causing wide-ranging harm to the national economy," BNSF said in its lawsuit.

BNSF said it hasn't updated its attendance policy in 20 years, so it came up with the new system to give its employees an easier way to see where they stand under the rules.

A hearing will be held Monday to determine whether the judge will block the threatened strike.

BNSF, one of the nation's largest railroads, operates 32,500 miles of track in 28 western states.
The Hickory Aviation Museum at Hickory Regional Airport in Hickory, North Carolina had a busy 2021, with the arrival of several new airframes, including OV-1D Mohawk 62-5874, FM-2 Wildcat BuNo.16278 and A-6E Intruder BuNo.155629. The advent of 2022 finds their growing aviation collection of nearly two dozen aircraft will soon receive yet another historic addition, this being McDonnell F-101B-50-MC Voodoo 56-0243.

This particular aircraft is presently with the Carolinas Aviation Museum at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. That museum is presently undergoing transition, with the Voodoo being surplus to their requirements. On loan from the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, this F-101 is known to have received modifications from a B-model interceptor into a TF-101F dual-control trainer. While the aircrafts military history is presently unavailable it likely retired sometime during the late 1970s. Spared from scrapping, it eventually went on public display at the sadly moribund Florence Air & Missile Museum in Florence, South Carolina. When that organization folded in 1997, the Carolinas Aviation Museum gained the airframe on loan, placing it on display outside their facility during June, 1998. Presently, members of the Hickory Aviation Museum are in the process of disassembling the Cold War jet in Charlotte, and hope to move it the relatively short distance to its new home in Hickory over the next few months.

In further Hickory Aviation Museum news, organization volunteers have been re-assembling the Grumman A-6E Intruder which they trucked in from Quonset Point, Rhode Island late last year. In a recent Facebook post, the museum noted: Here are a few photos of the A-6E Intruder as work progresses in the re-attachment of the wings. Were getting closer to being able to re-attaching the outer sections where they fold. The vertical stabilizer is in place and then well do the horizontal stabilizers. Thanks to volunteers Jim and Larry for their hard work and beautiful craftsmanship as the Intruder becomes a complete aircraft again!

They will eventually refurbish the airframe, returning it into a magnificent exhibit in due course. To help fund this effort, the Hickory Aviation Museum has initiated a fund raiser HERE.

About the Museum: The Hickory Aviation Museum is located at the Hickory Regional Airport (HKY) in Hickory, North Carolina and is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit organization. The interior of the Hickory Aviation has artifacts and memorabilia ranging from WWII to the present day. Including an exhibit about famed North Carolinians Bill and George Preddy, provided by the Preddy Foundation. Models are on display which depict how aircraft designs changed over time from the Wright Flyer of 1903 to the present-day F/A-18 Hornet. The Naval Aviation Annex is located in the old baggage claim area. Various artifacts are on display including an F-14 Camera Pod, two 20mm Vulcan cannons, one carried in an F-14, the other in a F/A-18 Hornet. USN and USMC uniforms are on display along with models of a WWII-era aircraft carrier and a modern Nimitz Class Carrier.

For more information, please visit www.hickoryaviationmuseum.org
China's economic powerhouse Guangdong reports robust growth despite pandemic

Xinhua) 08:10, January 21, 2022

-- South China's Guangdong Province recorded 8-percent GDP growth in 2021, rising to 12.4 trillion yuan (about 1.95 trillion U.S. dollars).

-- The province's foreign trade surpassed 8 trillion yuan last year, a year-on-year increase of 16.7 percent.

-- Guangdong, a manufacturing heartland and leading foreign trade player in the country, has strengthened its strategy of science and technology and reinforced the foundation of high-quality economic development.

GUANGZHOU, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- South China's Guangdong Province recorded 8-percent GDP growth in 2021, rising to 12.4 trillion yuan (about 1.95 trillion U.S. dollars).

The province's foreign trade surpassed 8 trillion yuan last year, a year-on-year increase of 16.7 percent, according to a government work report delivered by Wang Weizhong, acting governor of the province, at the annual session of the provincial legislature on Thursday.

Guangdong, a manufacturing heartland and leading foreign trade player in the country, has strengthened its strategy of science and technology and reinforced the foundation of high-quality economic development, according to the government report.

The province is targeting economic growth of about 5.5 percent this year, according to Wang.

Italian designer Laura Minmini (L) talks with an exhibitor during the 130th session of the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, Oct. 15, 2021. (Xinhua/Liu Dawei)

BUCKING THE PANDEMIC

Guangdong's foreign trade performance has remained robust thanks to effective COVID-19 pandemic control in the country.

Jiangmen Foreign Trade Group Co., Ltd., established more than two decades ago, exports appliances, stainless steel and hardware to customers across the world.

"The company faced unprecedented challenges in the first half of 2020 due to the pandemic," said Xu Xiyan, board chairman of the company. "However, with China's effective curbing of the pandemic, many overseas orders have shifted to China, and our company has seen mounting orders."

Home appliance manufacturer Top Electric Appliances Industrial Ltd., which saw its revenue surge by over 30 percent in 2021, echoed the view.

"Thanks to the effective pandemic control, production and supply chains have remained relatively stable, creating a favorable environment for our company's development," said Li Weizhong, board chairman of the group.

People visit the Huaqiangbei Museum in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Jan. 7, 2021. Huaqiangbei is a renowned commercial area in Shenzhen for electronics markets. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

Statistics show that the value-added industrial output of enterprises with an annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan in the province was 3.75 trillion yuan in 2021, up 9 percent year on year, with a two-year average growth rate of 5.2 percent. The figures basically recovered to the pre-epidemic level.

The province's actual utilization of foreign investment amounted to 184 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 13.6 percent year on year.

In the city of Huizhou, ExxonMobil invested about 10 billion U.S. dollars in building an ethylene project. Construction of the plant started in November.

"Demand for performance polymers will continue to increase in China, and we are well positioned to meet the needs of that growing market," said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company.

PACKING POWER FORWARD

In its government work report, Guangdong noted that it will put its policy focus on further enhancing the core competitiveness of its manufacturing industry and modernizing its industrial chain.

In 2021, the province channeled over 380 billion yuan, or 3.14 percent of its GDP, to research and development expenditure.

The provincial capital Guangzhou, where over 2.96 million cars were produced in 2021, is China's top city in terms of cars manufactured.

Visitors view cars from XPeng Motors during China (Tianjin) Auto Show 2021 in north China's Tianjin, Sept. 29, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Ran)

XPeng Motors, based in Guangzhou, has become a major player in the new energy vehicle (NEV) market in the country, with over 98,000 cars sold in 2021, up 263 percent year on year.

"The open and inclusive policy and solid industry foundation has fueled the company's rapid growth," said Xia Heng, cofounder of XPeng Motors.

Statistics show that, in 2021, the NEV industry in the province grew by 155.6 percent year on year.

In addition to the NEV market, the province has also seen strong momentum in the growth of other strategically emerging industries, such as industrial robots and integrated circuits, which increased by 56.5 percent and 30.3 percent, respectively, year on year.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
WATERLOO  Police are investigating an overnight shooting that damaged a vehicle with people inside.

No serious injuries were reported, according to police.

Witnesses said two people approached the occupied vehicle in the 900 block of Cutler Street at about 5:25 p.m. Thursday and opened fire.

The vehicle took off, and the assailants ran away on foot.

Officers found the vehicle, riddled with bullet holes, in the area of Broadway and Conger streets, police said.

No arrests have been made in connection with the shooting.

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CEDAR FALLS  The city has restored $150,000 to the Cedar Falls capital improvements program (CIP) for fiscal year 2023 to implement a vision for future zoning in College Hill.

About 10 residents, many of them board members of the College Hill Partnership, spoke Tuesday night at the City Council meeting about the time spent creating the visioning document, saying they didnt want to risk delaying adoption of the update to the city code.

You are showing us that our neighborhood, our businesses, the place we call home are not a priority to you, said Hannah Crisman, board vice president of CHP. One year does make a difference. Another group of students will leave, more residents will seek out more attractive neighborhoods, and this area will continue to fall further and further down the list of priorities of improvements waiting to happen.

The College Hill faithful urged the council to restore funding removed by a majority because the zoning update had been on pause as changes were considered to the newly adopted code in downtown.

Councilor Simon Harding made the motion to amend the CIP. It passed 5-2.

We need the placeholder there for when were ready (to move forward); otherwise well get there and have no funding, and well just wait another year, said Harding. The placeholder is vital; I feel confident that were going to get through the downtown, and well be ready to tackle the College Hill.

Dissenting votes came from Councilors Susan deBuhr and Daryl Kruse.

DeBuhr contended leftover money earmarked for the initiative in FY22, or from the tax-increment financing district, could be used in order to avoid having to redo the entire CIP or eliminate other projects.

Kruse said the $150,000 could be added back into the citys budget at a later date, but Finance and Business Operations Director Jennifer Rodenbeck described that as difficult during the year when you want to add things because it could put another project at risk or require the city to pull from its cash reserves.

The item is described in the planning document as for comprehensive plan and zoning update. Staff clarified that while the recent focus has been the downtown and College Hill, the funds could eventually be used for zoning in additional areas.

Now $150,000 is earmarked for each year, 2023 through 2027. The new fiscal year begins July 1.

Kathryn Sogard, executive director of the College Hill Partnership, told council two weeks ago that its zoning update would foster improvements to the gateway of UNI and to Cedar Falls; offer a variety of housing options, including missing middle and affordable housing that Cedar Falls needs; and encourage stabilization of the neighborhood and allow unique opportunities for business and rentals close to campus of UNI.

A petition with close to 100 signatures also was submitted to the city by Ryan Kriener, a College Hill Partnership board member.

Theres already been a lot of time put into it. And Im just very worried that if we sweep it under the rug, it never comes back. It could be a scary moment for College Hill, he said.

The CIP ultimately was adopted in its entirety in a 6-1 vote. It consists of 202 projects costing $357.8 million.

Theres a lot of things in the CIP that I dont agree with. ... Theres a lot of things in here that could be cut or moved around, said Councilor Dave Sires, who was the lone vote against it.

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A roundup of campaign news items of interest from Thursday:

FAMILY LEADER ENDORSES: The Family Leader, a Christian conservative advocacy organization, has endorsed two Republicans for state legislative races: Reps. Steve Bradley and Dean Fisher.

Both could face fellow Republicans in a primary election. In the states decennial redistricting process, Bradley and fellow Republican Rep. Lee Hein were drawn into the same new district, just as Fisher was drawn into a new district with fellow Republican Rep. David Maxwell.

In its news release, Family Leader praised Bradley and Fisher for their support of anti-abortion legislation and parental choice in education.

GRASSLEY FUNDRAISING: Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassleys campaign announced it has raised $5.25 million this cycle and has more than $3.7 million in the campaign account.

The Senate majority is on the line, and I am working as hard as ever to ensure conservatives take control of Congress, Grassley said in a campaign news release.

The 88-year-old Grassley is running for an eighth six-year term in the U.S. Senate. Three Democrats are running for the right to challenge him.

GROUP ENDORSES GRASSLEY: The political arm of Susan B. Anthony List, which works to help anti-abortion candidates get elected, endorsed U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley for re-election.

(Grassley) has proven his pro-life bona fides time and time again, Marilyn Musgrave, the groups vice president of government affairs, said in a news release.

That news release pointed specifically to Grassleys previous stint as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which approved more than 200 federal judges, laying the groundwork to challenge Americas radical abortion laws that allow painful late-term abortions up to birth.

AUDITOR FUNDRAISING: Rob Sand, the Democratic state auditor, raised more than $892,000 in 2021 and has more than $906,000 in his campaign account, according to state campaign fundraising reports that were due this week.

Sand had been mulling a run for governor, but in early December announced he will instead run for re-election as auditor.

Mary Ann Hanusa, a Republican legislator who has announced her candidacy for auditor, did not report any fundraising in 2021.

ATTORNEY GENERAL FUNDRAISING: Tom Miller, the Democratic attorney general, raised nearly $190,000 in 2021 and finished the year with nearly $150,000 in the campaign account. Miller is the longest-serving state attorney general in U.S. history.

Thanks to our supporters, Tom Miller enters 2022 ready and able to speak to Iowans about his tenure and track record of success serving as the peoples lawyer, Millers campaign manager, Daniel Pereira, said in a news release.

Brenna Bird, a former legal counsel to Gov. Terry Branstad and a Republican candidate for attorney general, raised just more than $12,600 in 2021 and finished the year with almost $29,000 in her campaign account.

SECRETARY OF STATE FUNDRAISING: Paul Pate, the Republican secretary of state, raised $38,400 in 2021 and finished the year with roughly $31,600 in his account.

Joel Miller, the Linn County auditor and Democratic candidate for secretary of state, raised just more than $2,400 in 2021 and finished the year with just $791.98 in his campaign account.

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CEDAR RAPIDS  Gov. Kim Reynolds seemed to have made a sale even before she earlier this month pitched her tax reduction plans among the leadership at employee-owned Van Meter equipment.

Reynolds is touring Iowa to sell her proposal for a 4% flat-rate state income tax and also to phase out state taxes on retirement income.

That fits neatly with the come here, work here, retire here philosophy of Van Meter, a wholesale electrical distributor that has been 100 percent employee-owned since 2005, Chief Financial Officer Nate Jensema on Thursday afternoon told Reynolds as she toured the Cedar Rapids facility.

He and others Reynolds met with at Van Meter, which has more than 800 employees at 26 locations, did raise a concern that the governors proposal for retirement income might not apply to the employee-owners at Van Meter.

In her annual Condition of the State speech, Reynolds proposed that the elimination of taxes on retirement income would extend to employees who received stock in their company. Jensema wondered whether that would include members of an employee stock ownership plan, which is a qualified retirement account.

That was her intent, Reynolds assured him, adding that she will clarify that as her proposal goes through the legislative process.

Its not a major change, Reynolds said. I want to get it right so we we're looking at that the language to make sure it does what the intent was to do (because) really what were trying to do is not tax retirement income.

Employees who are part of an ESOP have invested in the company, it's been part of their employment, and we want to reward work, and not tax them once they retire, Reynolds said.

Iowa is losing too many retirees to states that dont tax their retirement income, Reynolds said.

Even Nebraska  and its not for the weather, she joked.

The governor, who earlier toured Little Knights Learning Center in Dysart, also discussed a variety of workforce issues, including her proposals for stacking state and federal funds to address a shortage of child care. Iowa created 4,000 child care slots over the past year through a variety of programs, Reynolds said, and shes proposing to expand that by 5,000.

Van Meter President and Chief Executive Officer Lura McBride thanked her for the states apprenticeship program and training programs at Kirkwood Community College that have helped meet the companys need for drivers and other positions. Van Meters customers  electrical contractors  also need the skilled employees trained here, she said.

These are great careers. We just need to expose them to kids in school, Reynolds said.

Friday, Reynolds is scheduled to meet with the Monticello Chamber of Commerce and then attend the North Scott Rotary meeting in Davenport.

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WATERLOO  A City Council member is calling for a new task force focused on solutions to gun violence after a young man was shot to death in a parking lot earlier this month.

Ward 2 Councilor Jonathan Grieder called the death of Courtney Harris, 18, a tragedy that he noted overwhelmingly affected young African Americans, particularly men.

We can all agree that no person in our community should die of gun violence, Grieder said during the council comments portion of Tuesdays City Council meeting. But that is happening, and something must be done.

Harris was sitting in his car in the parking lot of Prime Mart on Broadway Street shortly before 10 p.m. Jan. 8 when he was shot multiple times, according to Waterloo Police. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No arrests have been made.

It is the citys first homicide of 2022. Waterloo Police recorded four homicides in 2021.

The number of those killed each year tends to vary: There were nine homicides in 2020, two in 2019, seven in 2018, six in 2017, three in 2016, five in 2015 and six in 2014, according to Courier archives.

Many years, Waterloos rate is a bit higher than the U.S. homicide rate, which has bounced between four and six homicides per 100,000 people for the last couple of decades, according to the FBI. Waterloos population was 67,314 as of the 2020 census.

Some victims were specifically targeted, while others were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some were killed by members of rival groups or gangs. Others were victims of domestic abuse.

The paths that lead to the end of each of these lives is not simple, Grieder said.

He put such violence squarely on the shoulders of systemic failures like poverty, racism and a lack of opportunities.

This is a failure of many systems, including a failure of this city government to address the issue, he said.

Grieder said that in upcoming council sessions he would introduce a resolution outlining a new task force charged with finding solutions, both small and short-term and long and systemic, all aimed at the pernicious heart of despair that stalks our community.

He said the task force should consist of people like teachers, law enforcement, religious leaders and others with specialized knowledge on violence in our community.

There are no simple solutions, Grieder acknowledged. But by asking the best minds and hearts of our community for their input, we can begin laying the foundations for a better future for all who live in Waterloo, regardless of where they live.

Its not the first task force the city has implemented.

In December 2020, Waterloo Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald announced a task force made up of police officers, firefighters, code enforcement and even the health department to crack down on illegal after-hours private clubs in the city, three of which had been the scene of shootings that year.

In April 2015, after a 4-year-old was struck and injured by a stray bullet shot inside his home on Mulberry Street, thousands of people joined a new Facebook group called Taking Back Waterloo, organizing marches and community events to bring attention to gun violence. The group no longer appears to be active.

Ward 4 Councilor Jerome Amos indicated he would vote for such a task force.

I fully support what (Grieder) is attempting to do, and I will lend myself to whatever is necessary to bring his endeavor forward, Amos said.

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RIVERSIDE  A teacher at Highland High School in rural Riverside has been charged with sexual exploitation by a school employee, a Class D felony, after allegedly having sexually assaulted an underage student from the district.

Justin David Rapier, 41, of Marion, a language arts teacher with the Highland district, was arrested Thursday. According to a news release from the Washington County Sheriffs Office, a possible case of sexual abuse involving a child was reported Monday.

During the investigation, it was determined that the sexual abuse involved a minor female student at Highland High School, 1715 Vine Avenue, Riverside. Rapier was a teacher at the school and the complaint and affidavit state he sexually abused the student while she attended school there.

If convicted, Rapier could face up to five years in prison.

In July 2021, Rapier was featured on iowahealthieststate.com as part of the Make It OK campaign, where he discussed his experiences with borderline personality disorder. The feature can be seen at iowahealthieststate.com/blog/make-it-ok/justin-rapier-borderline-personality-disorder/.

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I am pleased to announce that Andrea Hugmeyer has been promoted to the Assistant Dean of Students for Community Care and Inclusion. This is a new position in the Division of Student Affairs aimed at assisting in the creation of environments and initiatives that support students holistic learning and wellbeing, and the development of equitable, inclusive communities that foster student success.

Hugmeyer currently serves as the Director of the Gender Resource and Advocacy Center and as a certified Confidential Advocate. In these roles, she has enhanced the outreach and confidential support for student victims of gender-based violence, sexual violence prevention efforts and trans advocacy.

She was instrumental in the procurement of a $400,000 federal grant from the Oregon Department of Justices Crime Victim and Survivor Services Division that supports advocacy efforts and the development of the "GRAC", an inclusive and accessible space that provides students access to an array of information, resources, and assistance on topics related to sexual misconduct, gender identity and equity.

Under the supervision of Oli Munoz, Dean of Students for Community Care and Inclusion, Hugmeyers primary roles will be to oversee the management of the Care Team and serve as a Deputy Title IX Coordinator. In this capacity, she will assist in supporting students well-being and managing complaints related to sexual and gender misconduct. She will also assist in the development of initiatives, workshops and programs to enhance intercultural understanding and bias reduction.

Hugmeyer is currently a member of the Campus Advocate Cohort led by the Oregon Attorney Generals Sexual Assault Task Force. She has previously worked as an instructor of Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University and as an instructor and Assistant Director of Abbys House Center for Equity and Gender Justice at Western Oregon University. Andrea received an Honors Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology and a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies: Womens Studies and Sociology from Oregon State University.

A search will soon be underway to hire a new Director of the Gender Resource Center/Confidential Advocate position. Until that time, Hugmeyer will continue with her current responsibilities and begin to transition to her new role as time allows until a new Director is in place.
It dawned on me that the real number of submarines that Russia has in the waters now equipped with nukes and other missiles has reached historic proportions. I have talked about this issue and now realize that there is three to four times what is allowed for us to know.as subs keep rolling off the assembly line, so to speak

MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. The Russian Navy received two nuclear-powered underwater cruisers to bolster the countrys seaborne nuclear deterrence forces and a large diesel-electric submarine in the last quarter of 2021, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexey Krivoruchko said on Thursday. Two new nuclear-powered submarines and a large diesel-electric sub were delivered to the Navy, Krivoruchko reported to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu during the single military output acceptance day.  Source: Russian Navy gets three advanced submarines  top brass  Military & Defense  TASS

As I have mentioned multiple times actually on this blog

The number of subs that have come off the line has exceeded what I tried to keep up with and as with China.the actual numbers of war type equipment is unknown now for both Russia and China, as they continue relentlessly to prepare for a war that the USA and its few Cronies are beating the drums for 24 hours a day and 365 days a year

WtR
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Apple

Mass-market smartwatches go all in on health

You may have bought an Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch or Fitbit (now owned by Google) as a motivator to get off your duff and crush your exercises. Or maybe you got a wearable device for features having little or nothing to do with health  such as to get notifications from your boss or to listen to music when youre not carrying a phone.

 But the smartwatches introduced in the past few years have gone all in on health, with a gaggle of potentially lifesaving medical improvements. Devices today include electrocardiogram features that can detect atrial fibrillation (A-fib), an irregular heart rhythm that is a common cause of stroke, as well as monitors for blood oxygen levels that can indicate early signs of circulatory, heart or lung function issues such as anemia, neurological problems or sleep disorders.

More than 18 million workouts, mainly consisting of people walking, running and cycling, have been logged with the Apple Watch and other data sources in the Apple Health app, as part of an ongoing, voluntary Apple Heart and Movement Study. Apple is conducting the study, launched in November 2019, along with Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston and the American Heart Association.

Older Americans are exercising

Preliminary data revealed that 54 percent of participants age 65 and older were most likely to complete more than 150 minutes of activity a week, the recommended amount for general health, according to Calum MacRae, M.D., principal investigator of the study and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

Whats more, 41 percent of participants 60 and older met criteria for an above average level of cardio fitness, or more than 200 minutes of activity each week; 27 percent of this group met high level criteria, or more than 300 minutes. People in the 65-and-older cohort had a much higher percentage of walks as their most common activity compared to younger folks.
U.S. President Joe Biden, seen here January 19 in Washington, DC, tries to chart a new path on the US-Mexico border, but similar roadblocks remain.
An A-10 Thunderbolt II from Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan prepares to land on a public highway in Alpena, Michigan, August 5, 2021. The highway landing is part of Exercise Northern Strike 21-2, an annual multinational, large scale military training event that tests the rapid insertion of an Air Expeditionary Wing into a bare-base environment. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Scott Thompson)
The superintendent of the district where four students were shot dead at a Michigan high school posted an open letter countering claims made in a lawsuit accusing the district of not doing enough to prevent the attack.


Market update

Sydney, Jan 21, 2022 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Aobo Environmental Technology Limited ( NSX:AB9 ) is pleased to provide an update on its business operation for 2021.As was reported to the market in September, the Company's revenue has increased significantly over last year despite of unprecedented challenges associated with COVID-19. Global shipping is restricted and the freight cost is rising sharply. Supply of raw materials and computer chips is tight and prices are rising significantly. The continued travel bans have prevented attendance at sales conferences and slowed international business development. The Company has taken various countermeasures and is pleased to report the continued positive revenue trends as earlier reported.The Company's air treatment business has achieved steady growth with its focus in the down-stream lithium-battery manufacturing industry. It recently signed a three-year Cooperation Framework Agreement with the world's largest lithium-battery manufacturer to supply dehumidifiers and NMP recovery units. Leveraged on its unique business model and its growing reputation to deliver in the lithium-battery manufacturing sector, the Company expects more orders in 2022 for its air treatment business.The Company's energy storage business has developed rapidly, and the scale of product delivery has continued to grow. Product application scenarios include household, small to medium commercial, and recently the recreational vehicle market. The Company has established stable sales channels in Australia and UK, increased its sales significantly in Italy and Spain, and achieved commercial sales in South Africa and the Middle East.The Company has been applying for UL certification for the USA and is communicating with potential distributors in that country. After UL certification is obtained, the Company will be able to sell directly to the U.S. market.The Company is now supplying to large photovoltaic companies or solar integrators in the Chinese market.The Company continues to invest in energy storage technology research and product development. It has developed household energy storage systems based on consumption habits in different markets and high voltage energy storage systems. It focuses on R&D in battery management system (BMS), energy management system (EMS) and the application of internet in energy management.The Company has established a joint venture for the development of electrochemical energy storage technology. The Company has achieved valuable connections with the world's mainstream inverters.At present, its products are compatible with more than 20 different inverters brands.To meet the rapid growth of customers' demand for energy storage products, the Company is carefully managing the pressure on its working capital through bank loans and equity financing.With the gradual recovery of the economies in major countries such as Europe and USA, the continued government subsidies for household energy storage in Europe, Australia and other countries, the global household energy storage market will continue to grow rapidly in 2022.Guided by China's strategic plans of "carbon neutralization in 2030" and "carbon peak in 2060", a series of favorable energy storage policies have been issued by relevant Chinese ministries and commissions in 2021, which will promote the rapid development of large-scale energy storage in China.It is expected that the global energy storage market will maintain rapid growth in the next few years.The Company will seize the unprecedented market opportunities, focus on household energy storage in key markets such as Australia, Europe, the United States and Africa, participate in large-scale energy storage in China, further expand production capacity, strengthen R & D and product development, and promote the sustainable and healthy development of energy storage business.About Aobo Environmental Technology Limited

Aobo Environmental Technology (NSX:AB9) provide energy efficient environmental air treatment and energy storage solutions for industrial and residential applications.
TUCSON, Ariz.  U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva has contracted COVID-19 for the second time.

The Arizona Democrat and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee said Thursday he has minor symptoms. He says he and his staff will follow Centers for Disease Control guidance for isolating and contact tracing.

Grijalva, 73, of Tucson, said hes vaccinated and has received a booster shot.

Grijalva said in August 2020 that he tested positive for the coronavirus days after he sat close to another member of the panel, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who also tested positive. While he said he couldnt know where he contracted the virus, he criticized Republicans who flouted health protocols.

We all have a role to play to protect our loved ones from COVID-19 and the risk of hospitalization, especially while Arizona is experiencing this surge, Grijalva said in a statement on Thursday.
WASHINGTON  The House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection is asking Ivanka Trump, daughter of former President Donald Trump, to voluntarily cooperate with its probe.

The committee sent a letter Thursday requesting a meeting in early February asking to discuss her fathers actions, including a telephone call they say she witnessed as he tried to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the 2020 election results, among other issues. Ivanka Trump was an adviser to her father in the White House.

Testimony obtained by the Committee indicates that members of the White House staff requested your assistance on multiple occasions to intervene in an attempt to persuade President Trump to address the ongoing lawlessness and violence on Capitol Hill, wrote the committee chairman, Bennie Thompson.

The committee issued subpoenas earlier this week to Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trumps legal team who filed bogus legal challenges to the 2020 election that fueled the lie that race had been stolen from the former president.
TUCSON, Ariz.  The National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday released its preliminary report on last months fatal crash of a small plane in southern Arizona, but it doesnt list a possible cause.

The pilot was the only person aboard the single-engine Mooney M20C and was killed in the Dec. 31 crash.

NTSB investigators say the plane took off from Marana Regional Airport on a 66-degree afternoon with 10 miles of visibility and was headed to French Valley Airport in Californias Riverside County.

The report says the plane went down in a desert area about 56 miles northwest of the Marana airport and left a wreckage debris path of some 960 feet that included all major structural components of the aircraft.

Fragments of the wings were found on one end of the debris field with the planes engine and propeller on the other end.

The pilots family notified French Valley Airport officials when the flight was 5 hours overdue, but the wreckage wasnt found until Jan. 4.
PHOENIX  A Phoenix woman reported missing Sunday was found dead Thursday in a remote area of western Arizona, authorities said.

Phoenix police said investigators discovered the remains of 37-year-old Irene Luevano along Interstate 10 about 30 miles south of Salome and 45 miles east of Quartzsite in La Paz County.

They said there was obvious trauma to the womans body.

Luevano was last seen at a Phoenix bar Sunday with her boyfriend, Jorge Quintero Lara.

Luevanos family reported her missing after she called them to say she had been stabbed in the neck, allegedly by Lara.

Luevanos car was found Tuesday in a restaurant parking lot in Avondale, west of Phoenix.

Police said Lara has been in the Maricopa County Jail on unrelated charges for the past several days and now faces additional charges, including murder.

It was unclear Thursday afternoon if Lara has a lawyer yet who can speak on his behalf.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

For the second day in a row, New Mexico set a record for new confirmed COVID-19 cases Thursday as the omicron variants surge continued.

New Mexico also saw an increase in COVID hospitalizations. There were 712 people hospitalized throughout the state on Thursday, up from 626 the day before. Thats almost a 14% increase in a single day.

The Department of Health reported 24 new deaths, bringing the statewide toll to 6,229 since the onset of the pandemic. Those who died ranged in age from a man in his 30s from Colfax County to a man in his 90s from Bernalillo County, according to a Health Department news release.

Of the 6,010 new cases reported Thursday, 1,549 were in Bernalillo County. On Wednesday, 5,735 new cases were reported.

The state case counts also were about double what they were during New Mexicos COVID peak in late 2020 before vaccines became widely available.

While case counts are at record highs, Dr. David Scrase, the acting health secretary, said this week that preliminary data indicates the omicron variant isnt as deadly as prior strains of the virus. He said hospitalizations and deaths havent increased at the same rate that cases have, and fewer people in hospitals are on ventilators compared with earlier in the pandemic.

Scrase said state health officials are optimistic the new variants surge in New Mexico may peak late this month or early next month.

The number of confirmed cases dont tell the whole story as at-home tests have become more commonplace and those results are often not included in confirmed case counts released by the state.

The seven-day positivity rate for COVID tests was 28.7% on Thursday, according to the Health Department.
Hartford native Cheryl A. Hickmon, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. national president and chair of its national board of directors, died on Thursday after battling a recent illness, according to a statement from the sorority.

President Hickmon was a devoted member of Delta Sigma Theta since 1982 and served in various capacities at the chapter, region, and national level before being elected National President. She is remembered not only for her role as a leader but for being a colleague, friend, and most of all, sister, the sorority said in a statement.

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The entire sisterhood of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated mourns the loss of President Hickmon. During this difficult time, we ask that you respect her familys privacy and keep them in your prayers.

It is with great sorrow that Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. shares the passing of our beloved National President and Chair of the National Board of Directors, Cheryl A. Hickmon. President Hickmon transitioned peacefully on January 20, 2022 after a recent illness. #DST1913 pic.twitter.com/ZDO40chFw8  dstinc1913 (@dstinc1913) January 20, 2022

Hickmon was elected to lead the Deltas, one of nine Black sororities and fraternities known as the Divine Nine, during their last national convention in November 2021 in Atlanta. The 1984 graduate of South Carolina State University was a member of the Hartford Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and was initiated through the Alpha Xi Chapter at South Carolina State University.

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For 39 years, Hickmon was an active member of Delta Sigma Theta and held numerous elected and appointed leadership positions at the national, regional and local levels.

Throughout her membership with the organization, she served in many capacities. From vice president to Atlantic regional representative, her dedication and commitment to seeing the legacy organization thrive were unmatched, the NAACP said in a statement.

Among her accolades, she received the 100 Most Influential African American in the State of Connecticut by the Connecticut Chapters of the NAACP and the Citizen of the Year Award from Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. (Tau Iota Chapter).

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont remembered Hickmon as a valued member of our big Connecticut family in a statement on Twitter.

As the National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and President of the Hartford Alumnae Chapter, her work to enlighten, educate, and elevate young Black women made a great impact on many lives, he said.

Cheryl Hickmon was a valued member of our big Connecticut family. As the National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and President of the Hartford Alumnae Chapter, her work to enlighten, educate, and elevate young Black women made a great impact on many lives. (1/2) https://t.co/RvHYtKeT1m  Governor Ned Lamont (@GovNedLamont) January 20, 2022

Connecticut Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz also offered her condolences to the family, friends and sorors of Hickmon.

Breaking News As it happens Get the latest updates on Coronavirus and other breaking news events happening across Connecticut >

I had the pleasure of meeting President Hickmon when she spoke at Hartford Alumnaes annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Breakfast. Her passionate remarks were both inspiring and uplifting and her service to the Connecticut community will not be forgotten, she said in a statement on Twitter.

My condolences are extended to the family, friends and Sorors of Cheryl A. Hickmon, National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and former President of its Hartford Alumnae Chapter. pic.twitter.com/0uulp9Xnuc  Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (@LGSusanB) January 20, 2022

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin also shared his thoughts on Hickmons passing.

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What a heartbreaking loss. Our prayers are with Cheryl Hickmons family and with all of the Deltas she led and loved here in Hartford and around the country and the world.

What a heartbreaking loss. Our prayers are with Cheryl Hickmons family and with all of the @dsthartford Deltas she led & loved here in Hartford  and around the country and the world. https://t.co/LBlRsi24no  Luke Bronin (@MayorBronin) January 20, 2022

Professionally, Hickmon supervised the In Vitro Fertilization Laboratories for Andrology and Endocrinology at Montefiores Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Health in Hartsdale, New York, a division of the Montefiore Medical Center and a teaching hospital of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She was a licensed clinical laboratory technologist and worked in the reproductive medical laboratory for more than 30 years.

Hickmon is the daughter of the late Dr. Ned Hickmon and the late Consuella Anderson Hickmon of Hartford. She has two older brothers, Ned and David Hickmon, both of Hartford.

According to her bio on the Delta Sigma Theta website, Hickmon lived her life by the motto, Dont measure life by the number of breaths you take but by the number of moments that take your breath away.

Saddened to learn of the passing of my fellow S.C. State University alumna & @dstinc1913s National President & Chair of the National Board of Directors Cheryl A. Hickmon. My thoughts are with her family, loved ones, & members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. during this time.  James E. Clyburn (@WhipClyburn) January 20, 2022

The NPHC Community sends our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. on the passing of the 27th National President, Cheryl A. Hickmon. pic.twitter.com/DDjbA5zk92  NPHC HQ (@NPHCHQ) January 20, 2022

As a member of @dstinc1913, I am devastated by the sad news of the passing of our beloved National President, Cheryl A. Hickmon. My prayers are with President Hickmons family, friends, and all members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. pic.twitter.com/EEO49Lk77h  Rep. Val Demings (@RepValDemings) January 20, 2022

I am sending my condolences and prayers to the family of Cheryl A. Hickmon and all the women of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.



Matthew 5:4 says, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. https://t.co/TrTuJdca1h  Bennie G. Thompson (@BennieGThompson) January 21, 2022

I am heartbroken to learn Cheryl A Hickmon, National President of @dstinc1913, passed this morning.



She was beloved by many, and her commitment to bettering the lives of women and girls was felt throughout the country.



May she Rest in Power . https://t.co/vxi61Isvmy  Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton (@LtGovStratton) January 20, 2022

This is so heartbreaking. Deepest condolences to Soror President Hickmans family and to the entire @dstinc1913 sisterhood.  https://t.co/IqFmns2cEi  Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid  (@JoyAnnReid) January 20, 2022

We are deeply saddened by the loss of @dstinc1913 National President and Chair of the National Board of Directors, Cheryl A. Hickmon. Our prayers and thoughts are with her family and loved ones. May her memory be a blessing. pic.twitter.com/aCTdviQJWj  The Black Caucus (@TheBlackCaucus) January 20, 2022

It is with deep sorrow that I share my condolences on the passing of The National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, Soror Cheryl A. Hickmon. A powerful leader, a force for social action, and a loving sister, we will uplift her legacy now and forever. pic.twitter.com/fFpzivLfII  Joyce Beatty (@RepBeatty) January 20, 2022

(1/2) I am deeply saddened by the passing of the beloved Cheryl A. Hickmon. She served as Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.s National President and Chair of their National Board of Directors, and was a member of the organization for 39 years. pic.twitter.com/KcaYmfJHnw  CT Treasurer Shawn T. Wooden (@TreasurerWooden) January 21, 2022

I'm devastated to hear of the passing of @dstinc1913 President Cheryl A. Hickmon. She transformed the lives of generations of Deltas throughout her years of service, and it was an honor to know her. I'm keeping her friends, family, and all the Deltas in my prayers tonight. pic.twitter.com/sZD5DEEkSU  Tom Perez (@TomPerez) January 20, 2022

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.'s National President Cheryl A. Hickmon Passes Away  EBONY https://t.co/u4Yz8FsyeJ  sheryl lee ralph (@thesherylralph) January 20, 2022

Cheryl A. Hickmon, beloved president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., passes away - TheGrio https://t.co/neQQMJok73  AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) January 20, 2022
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES  The Thunderbirds, the U.S. Air Forces aerial demonstration squadron, has begun a monthlong training trip to New Mexico and Arizona in preparation for its 2022 show season.

The unit based at Nellis Air Force Base in metro Las Vegas arrived last week at the New Mexico Spaceport near Truth or Consequences for two weeks of training, and will then shift to Fort Huachuca, an Army base in Sierra Vista, Arizona, for the trips second training leg.

The training is not open to the public, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.

These two locations are excellent training environments, each serving different purposes, said Lt. Col. Justin Elliott, the Thunderbirds commander and leader. The show season subjects the team to difficult and ever-changing environments, both in the air and on the ground. Training in new and different environments will allow the team to exercise the necessary muscles to ensure our demonstration is precise, despite changing conditions.

After training in New Mexico and Arizona, the team will continue on to train with the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, at Naval Air Facility El Centro in California.

The Thunderbirds show schedule begins March 19 at Luke Air Force Base in metro Phoenix and ends at Nellis on Nov. 5-6.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  A plan to exempt Social Security benefits from taxation in New Mexico could be picking up steam after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham threw her support behind the idea this week.

While similar proposals have stalled at the Roundhouse in recent years, at least five bills dealing with the taxation of Social Security retirement income have been filed already, by a mix of Democrats and Republicans, during the 30-day legislative session that started Tuesday.

And the Governors Office said Thursday it is specifically backing one of those bills  a measure sponsored by Sen. Michael Padilla of Albuquerque.

In an interview, Padilla said he feels confident lawmakers will end up approving the measure, Senate Bill 108, during this years session.

This is the perfect year to do it because of the revenue-generating capacity we have right now, said Padilla, a third-term Democrat who predicted much of the extra income retirees would have if the legislation is enacted would be pumped back into New Mexicos economy.

New Mexico is currently one of only 13 states that tax Social Security benefits, according to Think New Mexico, a Santa Fe-based think tank that has advocated for the tax to be fully or partially repealed.

The states personal income tax was not levied on Social Security benefits until 1990, when a provision buried in a tax bill triggered the change.

However, recent proposals to exempt Social Security income from taxation have stalled at the state Capitol, in part due to concerns such a change would carry a hefty revenue hit  the annual cost was estimated at $83 million last year  and could ultimately benefit high-income retirees the most.

Thats because New Mexicos personal income tax is currently only levied on income above $24,800 annually for a married couple filing jointly.

But Padilla, who has also pushed similar legislation in recent years, said eliminating the tax on Social Security benefits would ultimately help all New Mexicans and could make the state more attractive to retirees.

The bottom line is folks are living longer, he said. Their income has to be stretched not for five or 10 years but often for 30 years.

During her State of the State address, Lujan Grisham made a similar argument.

The Democratic governor, who signed 2019 legislation that raised personal income tax rates for high-income New Mexicans and expanded tax breaks for low-income residents, said tax relief for New Mexico families would bolster the states economy.

Specifically, she called for a reduction in the states gross receipts tax base rate and for Social Security retirement income to be exempted from taxation.

We must unburden the New Mexicans who rely on Social Security benefits by cutting their taxes, Lujan Grisham said. This is good government, serving the people who have asked us to serve them.

But there are different approaches even among supporters of removing the tax on Social Security retirement income.

One measure, Senate Bill 49, sponsored by Sen. Bill Tallman, D-Albuquerque, would increase the states tax rate on tobacco products to offset the revenue impact to the state caused by exempting such retirement benefits from taxation.

Other measures, including Padillas, call for straightforward exemptions regardless of income level, though at least one proposal would gradually implement the change over time.

Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett said Thursday the legislation supported by the governor does not include a revenue offset, though it could be amended as it advances through the Legislature.

Our focus as a starting point is exempting Social Security benefits from taxation, and with record state finances, this is the time to make that a reality for New Mexicans, Sackett said in a statement.

The issue of taxing Social Security benefits is also supported by most, if not all, Republican lawmakers.

Top Senate Republicans signed onto a bill filed Thursday, Senate Bill 121, that is similar to the bill introduced by Padilla.

There has never been a more important time to give our seniors some tax relief, especially those who are caregivers and those on a limited, fixed income, said Sen. David Gallegos, R-Eunice.

Fully eliminating the tax would keep nearly $700 a year in the pockets of the average senior, according to Think New Mexico.

Meanwhile, the number of senior citizens living in New Mexico has steadily increased in recent years, while the states overall population has grown at a slower rate.

New Mexicans age 65 or older were estimated to make up 18% of the states population as of last year  up from 13.2% in 2010 and 11.7% in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

At a glance

At least five bills dealing with Social Security taxation have been filed at the Roundhouse since a 30-day legislative session began Tuesday. Heres a brief description of each one:

House Bill 48  Exempt Social Security income from taxation.

House Bill 49  Phase-in tax exemption of Social Security benefits by 2026.

Senate Bill 49  Exempt Social Security income from taxation with certain income limits; increase tobacco tax rates to offset revenue impact.

Senate Bill 108  Exempt Social Security income from taxation.

Senate Bill 121  Exempt Social Security income from taxation.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

The Jicarilla Apache Nation will lease water to the state of New Mexico for endangered species and water deliveries, under an agreement announced Thursday with The Nature Conservancy.

The New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission will pay the tribe for up to 20,000 acre-feet of water a year, or about 6.5 billion gallons, for the next 10 years.

Jicarilla Apache Water Administrator Daryl Vigil said the deal will offset revenue losses that began when PNM no longer needed 8 billion gallons of the tribes water for operations at the soon-to-close San Juan Generating Station.

Jicarilla has unique challenges in terms of being able to develop its water rights, Vigil said. Our water rights are stored at two facilities off the reservation.

The tribes 1992 water rights adjudication settlement allows for leases or sales, a valuable tool for when Jicarilla Apache cant access or doesnt need the water for its own use.

(The government) tried to make us farmers and ranchers, but theres only one perennial river on the north side of the reservation, Vigil said.

Money for the lease  the result of two years of negotiations  comes from New Mexicos strategic water reserve fund.

The first release of water from Navajo Reservoir could happen as early as 2023, said ISC Director Rolf Schmidt-Petersen.

That will aid endangered species and habitat along the San Juan River, mainly for the razorback sucker and Colorado pikeminnow, he said, adding that the water deal between the state, a tribe and a non-governmental organization is a first for New Mexico.

The water could also help New Mexico meet Colorado River Compact requirements.

New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming must deliver a certain amount of water to the Lower Colorado River Basin states or face cutbacks.

Such restrictions could slash San Juan-Chama Project allocations for the Rio Grande Basin.

What we could do with this (Jicarilla) lease is deliver a good portion of that water to Lake Powell, Schmidt-Petersen said. But were about five or six steps away from that.

The Nature Conservancy assisted Jicarilla Apache with legal costs and expertise for the lease. The group may also help with future funding.

Celene Hawkins, The Nature Conservancys Colorado River tribal water project manager, said the regions tribes are key to finding lasting solutions to the pressing water scarcity and ecological challenges that face the millions of people who rely on this incredible river.

The ISC is asking the state Legislature for a total of $2.5 million over the next five years to fund the lease.

For Vigil, the agreement was built on the perspective of working as a tribal sovereign to a state sovereign.

That levels the playing field, and is absolutely essential to building a resilient water future for this region, he said.

Theresa Davis is a Report for America corps member covering water and the environment for the Albuquerque Journal.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

A new report by Legislative Finance Committee analysts found that low arrest, prosecution and conviction rates may have more to do with the crime problem in Bernalillo County than releasing defendants who are awaiting trial.

The report  a memo sent on Monday to lawmakers providing a status update on crime in Bernalillo County, law enforcement and bail reform  states that while making it easier to hold certain defendants in jail pending trial would prevent some crimes, it is unlikely to have much of an impact on overall crime rates.

Furthermore, it says, Albuquerque has an accountability gap for criminal behavior where there is little certainty that people will get arrested, prosecuted or convicted if they commit a crime.

Research shows the certainty of being caught is a more powerful deterrent to crime than severity of punishment, the report states. For the criminal justice system, this means it is important to prioritize solving crimes and securing convictions, particularly for serious offenses Neither arrests nor convictions have tracked fluctuations in felony crimes, and in 2020 when felonies began to rise, accountability for those crimes fell.

District Attorney Raul Torrezs office disputed the data analysts relied on for the report.

It is deeply troubling that LFC analysts would fail to account for this obvious flaw in the data and give policy makers false or incomplete information, a Torrez spokeswoman wrote in an email.

An Albuquerque Police Department spokesman said there are no simple solutions to the complex problem but noted that the report reinforces Mayor Tim Kellers decision to create the Metro Crime Initiative, bringing multiple parts of the criminal justice system together.

The criminal justice system is broken, and for the first time, representatives from throughout the system got together to find common ground, Gilbert Gallegos wrote in an email.

This is not a new issue. A 2018 evaluation by the LFC had a similar finding that as violent crime began rising in the 2010s and arrests and convictions declined or stayed constant.

As homicides skyrocketed last year in Albuquerque  and appear to have increased statewide as well  lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are vowing to get tough on crime.

One of the most prominent proposals put forth in the governors public safety package unveiled last week would create a rebuttable presumption for pretrial detention that would make it easier to hold defendants charged with certain violent crimes.

In response to questions about the reports finding that changing pretrial detention is unlikely to decrease crime rates, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams spokeswoman said that if a rebuttable presumption saves even one life, prevents one family from losing a loved one  and it will  then we will support it.

Spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett also reiterated that the governors budget proposal includes creating a $100 million fund to recruit, hire and retain public safety officers statewide.

The governors support for these kinds of reforms, and crime and criminal justice reform in general, is driven by her understanding of the importance of ensuring that murderers, rapists and gun criminals are brought to justice  and the reforms we will seek to undertake will be designed to support the systems we have in effectuating justice as well as public safety, Sackett wrote in a statement.

She also stressed the governor has made efforts to address the root causes of crime like poverty, lack of opportunity, addiction and substance abuse by raising the minimum wage, cutting taxes for working families, eliminating co-pays for behavioral health services, expanding child care assistance to thousands of families and more.

Bill filed

A bipartisan bill sponsored by Democratic Reps. Marian Matthews, Meredith Dixon and Wonda Johnson and Republican Rep. Bill Rehm, would establish which cases would qualify for a rebuttable presumption that a person is dangerous and no conditions will reasonably protect the community. The bill also confirms the prosecuting authoritys burden of proof in pretrial detention hearings.

House Bill 5 states that in the case of certain violent offenses the evidence that establishes probable cause for the crime should be considered proof that a defendant is dangerous unless proven otherwise.

This would apply when a person is charged with first-degree murder, human trafficking, abuse or sexual exploitation of a child, and other serious violent felonies. It also would apply when a defendant is accused of brandishing or discharging a firearm during a felony offense or inflicting great bodily harm or causing the death of another and where there is probable cause to believe a defendant committed a new felony while awaiting trial, on probation or parole or within five years of having been convicted of a crime listed above.

The LFCs program evaluators looked at the crime and arrest data over the past three years and found violent crimes committed by defendants who were released pending trial made up 5% of all violent crimes in which the Albuquerque Police Department has made an arrest.

They also referred to a study by the University of New Mexicos Institute for Social Research that found that of the people released pending trial, 81.9% did not pick up any new charges, 13.1% were arrested again on a non-violent charge, and 5% were arrested on a new violent charge. Nearly 80% of the defendants showed up to all of their court hearings.

However, Chief Public Defender Bennett Baur said he thinks the proposed bill is far too broad in terms of who it would apply to.

What the bill is proposing is rather than fixing the things that arent going right is broadening the number of people we are going to bring into a system that is already stressed, he said.

He said the Law Offices of the Public Defender would need to hire three times more attorneys than they already have in order to respond to the existing caseload. If the law changes, he said, they would need even more staff in order to respond within a few days to every one of these cases.

Significant legislation like this needs time for everyone to look at it and debate its merits, and we have not had that, Baur said.

Lagging arrests and convictions

The LFC report acknowledges that the causes and solutions to crime are complex, but it points out that arrests and convictions have lagged behind increasing crime rates.

Albuquerques violent crime rate rose by 85% from 2012 to 2017 and has since remained stuck at a persistently high level, the report states. Over the same time period, arrests for violent offenses rose by only 20%, resulting in a widening accountability gap for the most serious offenses. Closing this gap should be the key legal goal for APD and the 2nd Judicial District Attorneys Office.

The percentage of cases that ended with a conviction in 2011 was 80% compared to 59% in 2020, according to the report. However, it said, this could be partly explained by the implementation of case deadlines or bail reform, which resulted in fewer plea deals since people are not being held in jail and have less incentive to enter a plea in a case.

Low conviction rates compromise the certainty of justice and suggest law enforcement agencies and prosecutors need collaborative strategies to improve communication and to build better cases and bring them to swift resolution, the report states.

Gallegos, the APD spokesman, didnt address questions regarding what is being done to improve clearance rates or why arrests havent increased, although he did reference the court-mandated reform effort the police department is under and how it must balance its allocation of resources.

Regarding the data on people who were re-arrested while their case is pending, Gallegos said the data is limited since it doesnt take into account those who committed additional crimes without being caught.

Chief (Harold) Medina has highlighted the lack of accountability with GPS monitoring and the refusal of the courts to release data that could show whether suspects are committing additional crimes, Gallegos wrote in an email.

Lauren Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the DAs Office, said the report is not accurate and is based on a deeply flawed interpretation of the available data.

She pointed out that the DAs Office did not decline to prosecute over 50% of new violent crimes, as the report states, but they did have to close a number of cases in 2021 regarding the rape kit backlog because victims have died, evidence had disappeared or the statute of limitations had run out.

As for the conviction rate, Rodriguez said the LFC is using flawed data from the District Court. She said the DAs Offices data shows an increase in that offices conviction rate between 2017 and 2020.

She said the LFC report fails to account for the fact that many of our convictions arise from consolidated resolutions that often result in substantial prison time even if other felony cases are dismissed.

Editors note: This story has been updated. Chief Public Defender Bennett Baur says the Law Offices of the Public Defender needs three times more attorneys regardless of whether the bill passes.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

A grocery store workers strike similar to the one occurring in metro Denver may be brewing in New Mexico, as Smiths Food & Drug employees are seeking better pay and improved security, among other demands.

The most recent round of meetings between The Kroger Co., the parent company of Smiths, and the New Mexico chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents around 2,500 grocery store workers across Smiths New Mexico locations, ended Thursday without a new contract in place.

UFCW chapter President Greg Frazier characterized the two sides as remaining far apart in negotiations. He told the Journal on Thursday that a strike is a strong possibility if the two sides cannot reach a deal by Jan. 30, when the current agreement expires.

The workers are upset, Frazier said. Theyre expecting to be treated with a little bit more respect.

Workers are seeking an additional $2 per hour, which would match the hero bonus they received from Kroger during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. That benefit expired during the summer of 2020. Other demands include an armed police presence outside of stores and the removal of automated safes located at the front of stores, which Frazier said constitutes a security concern for employees.

Aubriana Martindale, corporate affairs manager for Smiths, declined to provide any specific demands from the company during bargaining, but said Smiths priorities included striking a balance between investing in its employees and keeping groceries affordable for shoppers.

I think both parties, including Smiths, want this to be genuinely in the best interests of our associates, Martindale said.

Negotiations began in December, but Frazier said conditions for a workers strike have been building for some time, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made working at the stores more challenging. He estimated that more than 3,500 current and former Kroger employees have contracted the virus since 2020.

These folks are here to help and assist people, so some of them will encounter a  couple hundred people a day, Frazier said.

Additionally, Frazier said employee wages havent kept up with company profits, which reached record-highs at points during the pandemic. Martindale said Smiths employees in New Mexico have an average hourly wage of $14.05.

The pandemic has been very good for the corporation, but its been very bad for the employees, Frazier said.

Frazier added that employee safety has also become more of an issue during the pandemic, saying armed robberies and shoplifting have increased at stores since the pandemic began. He said most stores currently lack a dedicated security or police presence.

Additionally, enforcement of the state mask mandate often falls to employees. As a result, Frazier said employees encounter abuse both from customers who arent wearing masks and those who want the mask mandate enforced.

The other customers apply pressure on the workers to enforce the mandate, he said.

Frazier characterized the workers demands as similar to those from grocery store workers at King Soopers, another Kroger subsidiary based in Colorado. Workers at King Soopers locations across metro Denver have been on strike for more than a week after their union contract expired Jan. 9.

The strike has generated local and national headlines, and prompted politicians like former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to weigh in.

Frazier added that the two sides are expected to meet two more times next week prior to the contract expiration. If no deal is reached, he said Smiths workers will vote on whether to strike.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico-based companies could be at a bigger advantage when seeking government contracts under legislation filed Thursday that has the support of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The proposal, Senate Bill 39, would also grant in-state preference to Native American businesses on tribal land  something not currently done under state procurement laws.

Under the legislation, sponsored by Sen. Benny Shendo, D-Jemez Pueblo, and Rep. Harry Garcia, D-Grants, the bidding preference for New Mexico-based businesses would increase from 5% to 8%.

In addition:

 Native American-owned businesses on tribal land in New Mexico would receive the same bidding preference as New Mexico-based companies.

 A 10% bidding preference given to New Mexico resident veteran-owned businesses would be extended and a prohibition on veteran-owned businesses with more than $3 million in annual revenue from getting the veteran preference would be lifted.

Smart policies like these are what makes our state a great place to be in business, and Im encouraging the Legislature to join me in lifting up our New Mexico-grown businesses, Lujan Grisham said in a Thursday statement.

Lujan Grisham has previously backed policies aimed at increasing the number of New Mexico businesses eligible to bid on government contracts, such as the Buy New Mexico initiative started in 2019 that upped the quantity of businesses registered to get notifications on upcoming contract awards.

General Services Department spokesman Thom Cole said that 1,795 businesses are certified as New Mexican-resident businesses and are eligible to receive the bidding preference.

Though its unclear how much more money might flow to New Mexico-based businesses under the proposed legislation, Cole said it could be a significant amount since the state spends billions of dollars each year.

Similarly, Cole said there have been increased business development on tribal land in the past several decades and the change in the procurement code to allow businesses on tribal land to receive the in-state bidding preference could net significant money for those establishments.

New Mexico Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rob Black said the chamber is in support of the bill.

Were very supportive of efforts to promote more contracting opportunities and business opportunities for New Mexico businesses, New Mexico small businesses in particular, so we do think that its very much needed, Black said. Theres a lot of work to be done in this space and this is a good first step in that direction.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba  A Florida man has been charged with human smuggling after the bodies of four people, including a baby and a teen, were found in Canada near the U.S. border in what authorities believe was a failed crossing attempt during a freezing blizzard.

Steve Shand, 47, was charged Thursday with human smuggling after seven Indian nationals were found in the U.S. and the discovery of the bodies, said the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Minnesota.

Court documents filed Wednesday in support of Shands arrest allege one of the people spent a significant amount of money to come to Canada with a fraudulent student visa.

The investigation into the death of the four individuals in Canada is ongoing along with an investigation into a larger human smuggling operation of which Shand is suspected of being a part, John Stanley, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, said in court documents.

Shand could not be immediately reached for comment. His attorney, Doug Micko, declined to comment.

This is absolutely a mind blowing incident, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during an appearance Friday in Ottawa. Traffickers took advantage of their desire to build a better life, he said.

This is why we are doing everything we can do discourage people from trying to cross the border in irregularly or illegal ways, the prime minister said.

According to documents, the U.S. Border Patrol in North Dakota stopped a 15-passenger van just south of the Canadian border on Wednesday. Shand was driving and court documents allege he was with two Indian nationals.

Around the same time, court documents said five other people were spotted by law enforcement in the snow nearby. The group, who were also Indian nationals, told officers theyd been walking for more than 11 hours outside in frigid conditions.

A woman stopped breathing several times as she was transported to a hospital. Court documents said she will require partial amputation of her hand. A man was also hospitalized for frostbite but was later released.

One of the men in the group was carrying a backpack that had baby supplies in it. Court documents said he told officers it belonged to a family who had become separated from the group overnight.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy told a news conference in Winnipeg Thursday that once Mounties were notified the family may still be in Manitoba officers immediately began to search the area.

After a difficult search in nearly impassible terrain, she said officers found three bodies together  a man, a woman and a baby  just 10 meters (33 feet) from the border near Emerson, Manitoba. The search continued and a teen boy was found a short distance away. It is believed they died from exposure.

It is an absolute and heartbreaking tragedy, MacLatchy said.

They were wearing winter clothing, she said, but it would not have been enough to save them with the freezing conditions.

These victims faced not only the cold weather but also endless fields, large snowdrifts and complete darkness, MacLatchy added.

Shand was arrested Wednesday and remains in custody. American authorities allege in court documents that Shand has likely been involved in other border crossings, including two recent incidents in December.

Officials in both countries said it is more common to see crossings north from the U.S. into Canada. Border crossings into Canada on foot increased in 2016 following the election of former U.S. president Donald Trump.

That December, two men lost their fingers to severe frostbite after getting caught in a blizzard while walking from the U.S. into Manitoba. A few months later, a woman died of hypothermia near the border on the American side.

In 2019, a pregnant woman who walked across the border was rescued after she became trapped in a snowbank and went into labor.

Emerson-Franklin Reeve Dave Carlson said illegal crossings there have dropped significantly in recent years. He was surprised to learn of the four deaths.

If you look at the political climate on both sides of the border, its just mind-boggling to me that anyone had that sense of desperation to try and cross in extreme conditions.

Deputy Patrick Klegstad with the Kittson County Sheriffs Office in Minnesota said his department is supporting the American side of the investigation. Its officers patrol the desolate open fields near the border every day, he said, and the area where people crossed is treacherous, especially in the cold.

Why they picked that spot to travel would be the million-dollar question.

Klegstad, echoing Canadian officials, said its uncommon to have people make the harrowing journey from Canada into the U.S.

Its not very often we do have southbounders.
GENEVA  Top U.S. and Russian diplomats agreed Friday to keep talking in the standoff over Ukraine, even though their meeting produced no movement in the crisis that has seen Moscow mass tens of thousands of troops at the border and the West ramp up supplies of weapons to Kyiv.

With fears of an invasion of Ukraine running high and seemingly intractable demands, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met for about 90 minutes in Geneva at what the American said was a critical moment.

Expectations were low going in, and there was no breakthrough.

Blinken told Lavrov the U.S. would give Russia written responses to Moscows proposals next week and suggested the two would likely meet again shortly after that  offering some hope that any invasion would be delayed for at least a few more days.

Blinken said the U.S. and its allies remain resolute in rejecting Russias most important demands, which were reiterated Friday. Moscow wants NATO to promise that Ukraine will never be added as a member, that no alliance weapons will be deployed near Russian borders, and that it pull back its forces from Central and Eastern Europe.

Despite that, there was no indication the U.S. responses would be any different from the flat-out rejections already expressed by Washington and its allies, clouding future diplomatic efforts.

We didnt expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clearer path to understanding each others positions, Blinken said after the meeting.

Blinken said he also wanted to use the opportunity to share directly with Lavrov some concrete ideas to address some of the concerns that you have raised, as well as the deep concerns that many of us have about Russias actions.

Blinken said Lavrov repeated Russias insistence that it has no plans to invade Ukraine, but the U.S. and its allies were not convinced.

Were looking at what is visible to all, and it is deeds and actions and not words that make all the difference, he said, adding that Russia should remove its troops from the Ukrainian border if it wanted to prove its point.

Lavrov, meanwhile, called the talks constructive and useful but declined to characterize the U.S. pledge.

I cant say whether we are on the right track or not, he told reporters. We will understand that when we receive the U.S. written response to all of our proposals.

Blinken suggested there was no leeway on Russias demands, saying firmly: There is no trade space there: None.

The U.S. and its allies say Russian President Vladimir Putin knows the demands are nonstarters, adding that theyre open to less-dramatic moves.

Blinken said the U.S. would be open to a meeting between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, if it would be useful and productive. The two have met once in person in Geneva and have had several virtual conversations on Ukraine that have proven largely inconclusive.

An estimated 100,000 Russian troops have been sent to areas near Ukraine, and more were moving into the neighborhood for training exercises with neighboring Belarus.

Late Friday, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv tweeted photos of a shipment it said had just arrived from the U.S., with close to 200,000 pounds of lethal aid, including ammunition for the front line defenders of Ukraine.

Western allies were also supplying weaponry and equipment to Ukraine. Britain sent anti-tank missiles earlier this week, while the defense ministers of the Baltic nations issued a statement saying they received U.S. approval to send Stinger air defense missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles to strengthen Kyivs defenses.

Today Ukraine is at the forefront of separating Europe from the military conflict with Russia, said Estonian Defense Minister Kalle Laanet. Lets face it  the war in Ukraine is ongoing and it is important to support Ukraine in every way we can so that they can resist the aggressor.

The Pentagon said the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier and its strike group will participate in a NATO maritime exercise in the Mediterranean, which will continue through Feb. 4  something that has been planned since 2020, said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby. He said officials considered whether to go ahead with the exercise, because of the ongoing tensions, and decided to move ahead.

Kirby said the exercise wasnt planned anticipating a Russian move on Ukraine and is not designed against any of the kinds of scenarios that might happen with respect to Ukraine.

On Thursday, Russia had announced sweeping naval maneuvers through February, some apparently in the Black Sea.

The U.S. and its allies scrambled to present a united front. Washington and its allies have repeatedly promised consequences such as biting economic sanctions against Russia  though not military action  if it invades.

Blinken repeated that Friday, saying the U.S. and its allies were committed to diplomacy but also committed if that proves impossible, and Russia decides to pursue aggression against Ukraine, to a united, swift and severe response.

After the meeting, Blinken spoke by phone with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to brief him on his talks this week and reaffirm U.S. support for Kyivs sovereignty and stress that no decisions would be made without his countrys input, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. He also will brief the foreign ministers of Washingtons European allies.

Biden plans to spend the weekend huddling with his national security team at Camp David, press secretary Jen Psaki said.

In other diplomatic moves, President Sauli Niinisto of Finland said he spoke with Putin by phone on European security and Ukraine, saying it was imperative to preserve peace in Europe, according to his office.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of NATO member Turkey, which touted its strong ties with Russia and Ukraine, renewed an offer to mediate between the two countries. Erdogan said he plans to visit Kyiv next month, adding that he would also hold talks with Putin.

Ukraine is already beset by conflict. Russia seized control of Ukraines Crimea Peninsula in 2014 and backed a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, part of a simmering but largely stalemated conflict that has killed 14,000. Putin faced limited international consequences for those moves, but the West says a new invasion would be different.

Blinken met Ukraines president in Kyiv and top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany in Berlin this week.

Blinkens effort to stress U.S. unity with its allies took an apparent hit Wednesday when Biden drew widespread criticism for saying retaliation for Russian aggression in Ukraine would depend on the details and that a minor incursion could prompt discord among Western allies.

On Thursday, Biden sought to clarify his comments by cautioning that any Russian troop movements across Ukraines border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would pay a heavy price for such an action.

Ive been absolutely clear with President Putin, Biden said. He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.

Adding to its warnings, Washington stepped up sanctions Thursday by slapping new measures on four Ukrainian officials who Blinken said were at the center of a Kremlin effort begun in 2020 to damage Kyivs ability to independently function.

The United States and allies say countries like Ukraine are entitled to their own alliances as part of sovereign security measures, but Lavrov countered that Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have also agreed that no nation can ensure its security by undermining security of others.

In eastern Ukraine, a soldier stationed near the front line with Russia-backed separatists called Blinkens visit to Kyiv very important for our country. The soldier, who identified himself only by his first name, Serhiy, in line with official rules, voiced hope that if Russia attacked, we can count on our forces and our allies power.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Ellen Knickmeyer and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed.
WASHINGTON  President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday used their first formal meeting to discuss concerns about Chinas growing military assertiveness thats causing increasing disquiet in the Pacific.

Kishida said the two leaders spent a significant amount of their 80-minute call on issues surrounding China, including shared concerns about Chinas increasing aggression toward Taiwan. China claims self-governing Taiwan as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. In recent months, China has stepped up military exercises near Taiwan, frequently sending warplanes near the islands airspace.

Biden and Kishida also discussed the situations in Hong Kong and Chinas Xinjiang province. Biden has repeatedly called out Beijing over its crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong and forced labor practices targeting Chinas Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

President Biden and I were able to exchange views frankly, in a very calm and quiet manner, about how Japan and the United States together cooperate and lead the international society, which I believe will lead to further strengthening of the Japan-U.S. alliance, Kishida said after the meeting.

The White House said the leaders also spoke about opportunities to enhance economic ties between the two nations, launching a new 2 plus 2 dialogue focused on addressing economic issues, ranging from supply chain challenges and investment in key technologies to further cooperation on trade issues. Japan also expressed support for the Biden administrations proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and pledged to work to build support for the initiative in the region.

Biden accepted Kishidas invitation to visit Japan later this spring for an official visit and to attend this years Quad Summit, the meeting held between the leaders of Japan, the United States, Australia and India.

Japan remains concerned about Chinas intentions in the South China Sea, where it has stepped up its military presence in recent years, and the East China Sea, where there is a long-running dispute about a group of uninhabited islets administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.

Kishida said after the meeting that he expressed his determination to drastically strengthen Japans defense power while Biden spoke of the U.S. commitment to abiding by the 1960 Japan-U.S. security treaty and made it clear it covers the Japanese-controlled disputed islands of Senkaku, which China refers to as Diaoyu.

Later, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said Kishida explained his commitment to strengthening Japans military capability, saying the prime minister would consider all options including acquiring preemptive strike capability.

The virtual meeting came after North Korea this week suggested it might resume nuclear and long-range missile testing, which has been paused for more than three years.

North Koreas Kim Jong Un on Thursday presided over a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers Party at which officials set policy goals for immediately bolstering military capabilities to counter what were described as the Americans hostile moves, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

The White House said Biden made clear to Kishida that the U.S. would work closely with South Korea and Japan on next steps to discourage North Korea from further provocation. The Biden administration expects to announce further steps to address North Korea in the coming days, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The two leaders discussed ongoing efforts in the COVID-19 pandemic and the brewing crisis in eastern Europe, where Russia has massed some 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine. Biden earlier this week said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to order a further invasion of Ukrainian territory but he did not think Putin wanted an all-out war.

Kishida, who is from Hiroshima, on which the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb at the end of the World War II, said he raised to Biden concerns about nuclear security and the idea of achieving a world without nuclear weapons.

Biden and top aides have sought to rally the support of NATO partners and other allies to respond with harsh sanctions against Russia if it moves forward with military action. Kishida expressed support for Bidens efforts to deter Russia, and made clear that Japan would be fully behind the U.S. and continue to coordinate with other allies on taking strong action should Russia attack, according to the Biden administration official.

On Thursday, in preparation for the leaders call, Bidens national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his Japanese counterpart, Takeo Akiba, held their own call to discuss North Korea, China and the importance of solidarity in signaling to Moscow the strong, united response that would result from any attack on Ukraine, according to the White House.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also held virtual talks earlier this month with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, where Chinas military maneuvering and North Koreas nuclear program were discussed.

Fridays virtual meeting was the first substantial exchange between the leaders since Kishida took office in October. They had a brief conversation on the sidelines of a climate summit in Glasgow in November. Biden was the first leader to call Kishida, on the morning of his first full day in office.

Biden, who has sought to put greater focus on the Indo-Pacific amid Chinas rise as a world power, had built a warm relationship with Japans last prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, and is hoping to build a similar rapport with Kishida.

___

Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo. AP writer Alexandra Jaffe contributed reporting from Washington.
WENN/Avalon Celebrity

In a new episode of 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show', the Martha and Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party host reveals that that they split because she was creeped out by one thing related to the actor.

Jan 21, 2022

AceShowbiz - Martha Stewart used to date Anthony Hopkins, but their relationship didn't last long. As for why they decided to split, the celebrity chef revealed on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" that she was creeped out by one thing related to the actor.

In the Thursday, January 20 episode of the talk show, Martha revealed to Ellen DeGeneres that they called it quits after he starred in the 1991 thriller "The Silence of the Lambs." The movie featured the Oscar-winning actor playing creepy convicted cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter and apparently Martha was struggling to separate him from the character.

"I have a big, scary house in Maine that's way by itself on 100 acres in the forest, and I could't even imagine taking Anthony Hopkins there," Martha said with a chuckle. "I couldn't - all I could think of was him eating, you know."

After learning of the confession, the host asked, "And you stopped because of that?" To that, the lifestyle guru replied, "Yeah."

Martha, however, didn't say exactly when she dated the "Thor". The "Martha & Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party" host previously married Andrew Stewart from 1961 until 1990. As for Anthony, the 84-year-old wed his third wife, Stella Arroyave, in 2003.

Also during the episode, Martha shared that she doesn't have any tattoos. "I have no tattoos. I wouldn't think of having a tattoo," she said. That surprised Ellen, who shared, "I wouldn't either, but I just thought, you're tough."

"It's not about being tough," Martha explained. "It's about, you know, growing old with tattoos that get stretched out and ugly. Let other people get tattoos."
A Norwalk city official faces a murder charge after she fatally shot her neighbor Thursday, police said.

Ellen Wink, 61, of 18 Nelson Ave., was arrested at the scene and remained in custody early Friday on $1 million bail, they said. She was expected to be arraigned in Superior Court in Stamford later in the day.

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Police identified the victim as Kurt Lametta, 54, of 16 Nelson Ave.  the house where the homicide took place, which is owned by Wink.

Wink is a familiar face in city hall, where she is a deputy registrar of voters. She is active politically as well and has run for state representative.

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According to police, officers were called to Lamettas home about 11:50 a.m. for a disturbance that involved him and Wink. When police arrived, they found that Lametta had been shot multiple times. He was pronounced dead at the scene by medics.

Patrol division officers located Wink at the scene and immediately detained her, Lt. Terrence Blake said. Norwalk detectives immediately began their investigation, which ultimately led to Winks arrest.

She was arrested about 1 p.m. The circumstances of the deadly shooting werent clear Friday.

Winks job title with the city is listed as Election Administrator, Republican Deputy Registrar. She also is a justice of the peace.

In addition to running elections, her political endorsements have cited her experience in redevelopment, business and with city youth and the elderly. She has been called pro-police.

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This isnt her first arrest.

Norwalk Sgt. Sofia Gulino said Wink was arrested Sept. 18 after she threw out a tenants personal items and locked him out of his home. The man told police Wink was upset that he was nearly a month behind on rent.

Wink was charged with first-degree criminal mischief; fourth-degree larceny and criminal lockout, she said.

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State judicial records show a 2021 arrest, but the case has been sealed. It is scheduled to be resolved in Superior Court in Norwalk April 22.

Gulino would not release the name of the man who complained to police about Wink, nor would she say if the man who died is the same person.

Lametta was described on Facebook as super nice and a simple good guy with the biggest heart.

Christine Dempsey may be reached at cdempsey@courant.com.
Celebrity

In new court documents, the 'Counting On' alum and his lawyers blame his ex-worker, Caleb Williams, who allegedly had access to the computer on which the explicit videos and photos were downloaded.

Jan 21, 2022

AceShowbiz - Josh Duggar and his legal team are demanding a new trial. The disgraced reality star has insisted that there's "no evidence" he "personally viewed" the explicit contents as he requested for acquittal.

On Thursday, January 20, The Sun reported that the former star of "19 Kids and Counting" and his lawyers filed a motion for an acquittal of his guilty verdict, asking to dismiss the possession charge, which is the lesser offense. In the new court documents obtained by the outlet, it's said that the prosecutors "failed to adduce any evidence that Duggar 'knew that the visual depictions were of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct' -- a necessary element for conviction of each count."

"The evidence at trial established that certain files allegedly found on the HP desktop computer were never viewed by any user of the computer and that all the files at issue had been deleted shortly after being downloaded," his lawyers further stated. The attorneys went on to note that "the jury had no evidence that Duggar personally viewed any specific portion of any of the files allegedly found on the computer."

Additionally, Josh's legal team claimed they were unable to call ex-worker Caleb Williams, who they believe had access to the car lot and desktop computer, on which the content was downloaded, at "relevant time periods." The "Counting On" alum's attorneys also said that the law enforcement "failed to meaningfully investigate the possibility that anyone other than Duggar may have committed the crimes charged."

His team insisted that Caleb used the computer in the weeks leading up to when the child sex abuse content was downloaded and that prosecutors "disregarded" this alleged evidence. The lawyers also believed James Fottrell, one of the expert witnesses, was "unqualified" to testify. On the reason why, they stressed that James has "no knowledge about how geolocation, EXIF data, or GPS coordinates work."

Back in December after Josh was found guilty of possessing and receiving child pornography, his team said in a press conference that they planned to "appeal." They stated at the time, "We respect the jury's verdict and we look forward to continuing this on appeal. We plan to appeal at the appropriate time."
Instagram Celebrity

The newly-engaged couple is accused of 'normalizing' abuse after the 'Bloody Valentine' rapper revealed that the ring he gave to the 'Transformers' actress has thorns so it hurts when she takes it off.

Jan 21, 2022

AceShowbiz - Machine Gun Kelly's romantic gesture to Megan Fox has led to a debate among social media users. The couple, who has been proudly displaying their dark and grungy romance, has sparked concern after the rapper revealed the engagement ring he gave to her has thorns so that it would "hurt" when it's taken off.

Many have since weighed in on Twitter about a potentially harmful message that could be sent with the thorned ring design. For example, one saw it as "possessive and controlling." Another accused the couple of "normalizing abuse for attention."

Writer and producer Kim Caramele told her followers, "Just a friendly reminder that love is NOT pain." She elaborated, "That's a damaging message that allows abuse & toxicity to be misinterpreted for love. Love is wanting each other to be happy & to feel good  Pain is never the barometer. I promise."

Someone explained how unpractical the ring design is for day-to-day life. "I take my wedding ring off to protect it, like when I wash my hands or work with chemicals. So Megan can't take it off for basic things like that without being stabbed? How romantic," that person pointed out.

Another agreed as saying, "Like, even if you're into that, this is just impractical. You need to take your ring(s) off all the time to do basic tasks. Plus I imagine she can't be wearing it while acting? Like consenting adults can do what they like, but they don't really need to tell everyone and there should be at least a little thought behind it."

MGK proposed to Megan on January 11. The couple announced the news on social media "to control the narrative." Speaking to Vogue, the rapper described the ring, "It's a thoroughbred Colombian emerald, with no treatment. It was just carved into the teardrop, straight out of the mine. And the diamond was directly from Stephen (Webster)."

"The concept is that the ring can come apart to make two rings," he continued explaining. "When it's together, it's held in place by a magnet. So you see how it snaps together? And then it forms an obscure heart. And you see this right here? The bands are actually thorns. So if she tries to take it off, it hurts"

"Love is pain!" he jested.
Instagram Celebrity

When revealing the sweet story behind her first child's moniker, the co-host of 'The Real' admits that she initially thought that Baby J's name would be a J name.

Jan 21, 2022

AceShowbiz - Jeannie Mai has revealed her newborn baby's name. Just days after giving birth to her first child, whom she shares with her husband Jeezy (Young Jeezy), the co-host of "The Real" took to her social media account to share the story behind the baby's moniker.

In the Thursday, January 20 episode of her YouTube series, the first-time mom gave her fans an extensive tour of her firstborn's nursery. Then at one point, she revealed her baby's name, Monaco Mai Jenkins, while showing the wall decoration.

"I thought Baby J's name should be a J name because obviously Jeannie and Jeezy make sense, but that wasn't the name that came to us," Jeannie explained in the 13-minute video. "What really came to us was how baby J came to fruition for us when we were dating."

Jeannie further recalled a pivotal trip to Monaco, where they discussed their goals for the future and "established what was going on for us." The 43-year-old TV personality added, "That's really the theme of the nursery, what Monaco is about. Family, moments, traveling, discussions, important key points in my life and Jeezy's life, that brought Monaco here."

Jeannie's "The Real" co-host Adrienne Bailon also revealed the newborn's name on the daytime talk show in Thursday's episode. Adrienne told the audience, "Three years ago, Jeezy and Jeannie were talking on a bridge in France, talking about what it meant to do life together."

"Here they decided to grow and raise a family together," Adrienne continued. The 38-year-old host went on saying, "Hence, they named their child after the city that changed their lives forever, Monaco Mai Jenkins."

Jeannie announced the birth of her first child on January 11 via Instagram. When announcing the exciting news, she wrote alongside a photo of a baby hospital crib, "I asked God for a life of love and happiness. He sent me my family. Baby Jenkins is here [red heart emoji]."

Jeannie began trying to start a family with her 44-year-old husband ahead of their March 2021 wedding in Georgia. After suffering a pregnancy loss, the "Dancing with the Stars" alum considered in vitro fertilization but ended up conceiving naturally.

Jeannie often shared her pregnancy journey on social media. Days after announcing that she's expecting her first child, she shared a sweet video of Jeezy listening to the baby's heartbeat. A month later, she showed the first sonogram of the baby. Then in November, the happy couple threw a travel-themed baby shower.
Instagram Celebrity

Taking to her Twitter account, Meredith writes one word that many believe is her response to her 'The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City' co-star's offensive Facebook posts.

Jan 21, 2022

AceShowbiz - Meredith Marks appeared to address the scandal surrounding her "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City"co-star Jennie Nguyen. Taking to her Twitter account, the reality TV star wrote one word that many believed was her response to Jennie's offensive Facebook posts.

"Vile," so Meredith wrote on Wednesday night, January 19. The tweet arrived Jennie's 2020 posts criticizing Black Lives Matter movement resurfaced earlier in the day.

Meredith Marks appeared to shade Jennie Nguyen

A fan asked to offer more explanation of her tweet, but Meredith claimed that she simply cannot. "Not allowed rn (right now) but yes I have a lot more to say about many things. And I will," the Bravo personality told the fan.

Earlier this week, Jennie faced huge backlash for her offensive posts which she made on her Facebook page back in 2020. One of them saw the Vietnamese-American reality TV star criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement, using phrases like "BLM Thugs" and "Violent Gangs."

She also posted about a theory, which has been debunked, that George Floyd assaulted a student in Spain. Another post was a cartoon which seemingly made light of the rash of protesters who were rammed by cars during the protests.

In response to the criticism, Jennie issued an apology. "I want to acknowledge and apologize for my deleted Facebook posts from 2020 that resurfaced today," Jennie began her statement on Wednesday. "At the time, I thought I was speaking out against violence, but I have since learned how offensive and hurtful my words were."

She went on to note that she "deactivated that account more than a year ago" and wanted to "continue to try to learn about perspectives different from my own." The mom of three added, "I regret those posts and am sincerely sorry for the pain they caused."
WENN/Lia Toby Movie

When talking about the future of the franchise post-Daniel Craig's last appearance in 'No Time to Die', Barbara Broccoli says they're in no rush to announce the replacement.

Jan 21, 2022

AceShowbiz - Idris Elba is still in contention to be the next James Bond. Having been long touted to be the first black 007, the "Luther" actor is confirmed to be "part of the conversation" for the new iteration of the famous British spy.

It's Bond producer Barbara Broccoli herself who spilled about the possibility of Elba joining the franchise. "Well, we know Idris, we're friends with him, and he's a magnificent actor," she told Deadline. "And, you know, it's been part of the conversation, but it's always difficult to have the conversation when you have someone in the seat."

Broccoli, however, noted that they're in no rush to name Daniel Craig's replacement. She shared, "I think we have decided that until 'No Time to Die' has had its run and Daniel has been able to -- well, we've all been able to savor, reap the benefits of Daniel's wonderful tenure, we're not gonna think about, or talk about anybody else."

"No Time to Die", which is billed as Craig's swan song in his role as 007, went on to become the second-highest grossing movie of the pandemic with $774 million worldwide after long delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the apparent struggle of the movie industry to convince audience to return to theaters, Broccoli said she other studio execs kept their faith on the irreplaceable attraction of cinemas.

"We believe in the power of the theatrical release and the cinema, and that's what we've always done, and that's what 'Bond' has always done, and we cannot agree to go PVOD, not only just for the health of our brand and our movie but we can't do that to the cinema industry," Broccoli said of having "No Time to Die" stick to its theatrical release, "We can't do it to the exhibitors."
MGM Movie

In addition to starring in the upcoming film, which will premiere on HBO Max, the actor portraying Ralphie in the 1983 holiday classic reportedly serves as producer.

Jan 21, 2022

AceShowbiz - Legendary and Warner Bros. have good news for "A Christmas Story" fans. It was reported that the two companies are gearing up to make a sequel of the 1983 holiday classic with its original star Peter Billingsley reprising his role as Ralphie.

In addition to starring in the upcoming film, which will premiere on HBO Max, Peter reportedly serves as producer along with his partner Vince Vaughn through their Wild West Picture Show Productions. As for the script, it was written by Nick Schenk.

Nick, who is behind "The Mule" and "Cry Macho", will also executive produce. "The Christmas Chronicles" director Clay Kaytis, meanwhile, will helm the project. Deadline reported that its production is set to begin at the end of February in Bulgaria.

The publication also noted that Julie Hagerty, who appeared in the "Airplane" film series and "What About Bob?", will star as Peter's mother. However, the actress has yet to confirm the report.

The original movie, which is set in 1940, tells how much nine-year-old Ralphie wants a Red Ryder BB rifle as his Christmas gift. "The sequel will follow an adult version of the character in the 1970s, who returns to the house on Cleveland Street to deliver his kids a magical Christmas like the one he had growing up," according to Deadline.

"With the same attention to real-life tone as the original, Ralphie reconnects with childhood friends, reconciles the passing of his Old Man and sews the seeds for the origins of the beloved holiday classic," the publication added.

Following his breakout role as Ralphie, Peter pursued his career behind the camera. He directed movies such as "Couples Retreat", producing the three-time Tony-nominated Broadway musical "A Christmas Story the Musical", as well as producing Jon Favreau's culinary-themed acting talk show "Dinner for Five", which received an Emmy nomination.
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In this Jan. 2021 file photo, Chief Reginald Freeman of the Hartford Fire Department holds up two thumbs after receiving his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford. (Kassi Jackson/Kassi Jackson)

In a continuation of recent trends, Connecticuts weekly COVID-19 test positivity rate and the number of hospitalizations due to the virus fell again Friday.

We are well into our downslope of our rollercoaster, Dr. Ulysses Wu, chief epidemiologist at Hartford HealthCare, said of the states COVID-19 metrics.

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Calling them "Incredibly intelligent and mature kids who know that this is the right thing to do. Not just to protect yourselves, but to protect your loved ones and those around you," Dr. Ulysses Wu talks with a group of area teens before they received a COVID-19 vaccine booster at Hartford Hospital earlier this month. (Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant)

Connecticuts weekly test positivity rate now stands at 16%, the lowest it has been since late December and a one-third reduction from where it was just over a week ago. Hospitalizations also declined significantly Friday, dropping below 1,700 patients for the first time in two weeks.

Im happy the numbers are going down, Wu said. Were all very tired, were all weary. But were certainly not letting up the fight.

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Hartford HealthCare also announced on Friday priority no-appointment COVID-19 testing for first responders  including law enforcement officers, paramedics, EMTs and firefighters at its eight COVID-19 testing sites, from 8 to 9 a.m.

For those that are on the frontlines, our first responders, our dispatchers, our EMTs, paramedics, we need to make sure that we are as much as possible, were getting the testing to them, said Kevin Ferrarotti, Hartford HealthCares senior director of EMS network development.

Cases and positivity rate

Connecticut reported on Friday 4,444 new COVID-19 cases out of 32,459 tests administered, for a daily positivity rate of 13.69%.

After averaging more than 10,000 COVID-19 cases per day in mid-January, Connecticut is now seeing half that volume of new cases. As of Friday, the state had averaged fewer than 5,000 new cases per day over the past week.

All eight Connecticut counties are still recording high levels of COVID-19 transmission as defined by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With this level of transmission, the CDC advises people to wear a mask in public indoor settings.

Hospitalizations

As of Thursday, Connecticut reported 1,695 people hospitalized with COVID-19, a decrease of 38 people since Thursday and the lowest hospitalizations have been since Jan. 5.

Hospital officials say some of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were admitted for reasons other than the virus before testing positive upon arrival, but emphasize that a majority have significant COVID-19 symptoms.

Breaking News As it happens Get the latest updates on Coronavirus and other breaking news events happening across Connecticut >

According to the state, 56.9% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are not fully vaccinated. Hospital officials say the rate is significantly higher when considering only patients with severe symptoms.

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Deaths

Connecticut reports weekly COVID-19 deaths once a week. The state reported 241 additional COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, bringing its total during the pandemic to 9,683.

The United States has now recorded 860,386 COVID-19 deaths, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Vaccinations

As of Friday, 91.7% of all Connecticut residents and 95% of those 12 and older had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, while 76% of all residents and 84.5% of those 12 and older were fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Additionally, about 49.1% of fully vaccinated Connecticut residents 18 or older have received a booster dose.

The CDC warns that booster shots are sometimes misclassified as first doses, likely inflating the reported number of first-dose coverage and understating the true number of people who have received boosters.

Eliza Fawcett can be reached at elfawcett@courant.com.
Federal Office of Public Health

Bern, 21.01.2022 - The Federal Office of Public Health FOPH and the Federal Commission for Vaccination (FCV) recommend the booster for all 12- to 15-year-olds, and for those who have previously received a first dose of the Janssen vaccine.

The vaccine recommendation for mRNA boosters has been updated for the 12 to 15 age group. Everyone will now be offered a booster vaccination after four months. The recommendation was also amended to include a booster vaccination with a second dose of the Janssen vaccine.

The intention is to increase individual protection against infection and severe disease and to slow the transmission and spread of the virus in the current epidemiological situation. More than 3 million people have so far received a booster with an mRNA vaccine in Switzerland.

Pfizer vaccine for booster jabs for 12- to 15-year-olds

The Pfizer mRNA vaccine is recommended for adolescents aged between 12 and 15 in the current epidemiological situation to increase their protection against mild disease and against the additional negative impacts of coronavirus (quarantine, isolation) and to reduce the risk of transmission among close contacts (household members); this includes in particular people who are severely immunocompromised and are not as well protected despite having been vaccinated.

For this age group, the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer (Comirnaty) is recommended for the booster vaccination. The booster vaccination is recommended at least four months after completing the initial immunisation, provided no confirmed infection occurred during this that period. This is outside the scope of the authorisation by Swissmedic (off-label use). The recommendation is based on the efficacy data for the booster vaccination in young adults and on the safety data underpinning the FDA authorisation. The data situation is being closely monitored.

Second dose of the Janssen vaccine

Since late December 2021, a second dose of the Janssen vaccine has been authorised by Swissmedic as a booster. Based on evidence and the epidemiological situation, the FOPH and FCV recommend the second dose of this vaccine at least two months after completion of the initial immunisation exclusively for

 Those aged 18 or over who have received a dose of the Janssen vaccine and who cannot receive an mRNA vaccine for medical reasons, or who are unwilling to receive an mRNA vaccine.

 Those aged 18 or over who received an mRNA vaccine as initial immunisation and who for medical reasons can no longer receive an mRNA booster, or who are unwilling to receive an mRNA vaccine.

In the event of a confirmed infection at least four weeks after receiving the first dose of Janssen vaccine, the second dose of Janssen vaccine or a booster with an mRNA vaccine is recommended.

Booster shot with an mRNA vaccine rather than Janssen vaccine

Evidence suggests that an mRNA booster vaccination provides stronger protection against a symptomatic Omicron infection than a second dose of the Janssen vaccine. The FCV and the FOPH therefore recommend booster jabs with an mRNA vaccine as the preferred option, including for those who received a first dose of the Janssen vaccine. People aged 18 or over, who received a dose of the Janssen vaccine more than four months ago, are in principle eligible to receive a booster jab with a dose of an mRNA vaccine (off label), provided no infection has occurred in the meantime.

People aged 18 or over who received a dose of the Janssen vaccine less than four months ago are advised to supplement their initial immunisation with a dose of an mRNA vaccine at least 28 days after the first vaccination dose was received (off label). The recommended booster shall subsequently be administered at least four months after the supplement to the initial immunisation (off label), provided no infection has occurred in the meantime.

Booster vaccination with Janssen after primary vaccination series with mRNA vaccines

Within the scope of the authorisation, people aged 18 or over who cannot receive a third dose of an mRNA vaccine for medical reasons, or who are unwilling to receive a third dose of an mRNA vaccine, may receive a dose of the Janssen vaccine as a heterologous booster vaccination at least four months after completing the initial immunisation with an mRNA vaccine, provided no infection has occurred in the meantime.

Address for enquiries

Federal Office of Public Health, Communication, media@bag.admin.ch

Coronavirus infoline +41 058 463 00 00

COVID-19 vaccination infoline +41 58 377 88 92

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Federal Office of Public Health

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Alton, IL (62002)

Today

Cloudy. High 67F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early with showers later at night. Low near 55F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
The new year hasnt started exactly the way the nations wheat producers had hoped. Since early November, when prices were in double figures for hard red spring wheat, producers have seen a gradual slippage to a point of nearly $2 a bushel.

January has not been kind to the overall wheat markets. We continue to fall lower as weve hit into the middle part of the month, said Jim Peterson, market director for the North Dakota Wheat Commission. Weve probably lost over $1 a bushel in the futures in about eight sessions during January.

Theres really been no significant shift in fundamentals. Its largely been technical sell-offs, he explained. And once we break through 50-day moving averages and pretty good support levels, the market just continues to fall until it breaches the next layer of support, and if theres no significant buying that comes in the market, it just continues to drift lower.

We are approaching some long-term support levels, along with oversold levels, so hopefully that brings some stability back in the market, at least on the futures side, he added. It has also brought U.S. wheat values closer to world values, which should encourage greater buying from traditional customers, who had been largely hand-to-mouth.

On the cash basis side, Peterson noted the market is starting to see some more positive signs there after some pretty weak basis the end of December and early January due to a combination of a lack of export demand and some pretty significant increases in rail freight.

Looking at the overall situation, Peterson hoped the market could start to rebound following the Martin Luther King holiday.

Fundamentally, there were not a lot of significant changes. Were still looking at expanding dryness in the hard red winter wheat regions, and relatively tight hard red spring supplies, he said. And on the world scene, Russia is going to impose an export quota. Obviously, with the larger than expected pull back in prices, the U.S. should certainly be much more competitive to capture any nearby demand.

Looking at current prices, in North Dakota prices were down as low as $8.10 per bushel in some areas with the high point of $8.40, giving an average of $8.25. Comparing that to early January, prices are down almost $1 a bushel, from early December theyre down about $1.50, and from early November prices reflect almost a $2 loss in cash prices to producers.

In USDAs Jan. 12 supply and demand report, the stocks report indicates theres less on-farm inventory as a percent of total stocks.

Hopefully that indicates producers were able to take advantage of some of the price run-up. But I know theres a lot of producers still holding on to old crop stocks and looking for even further price gains, he said. Well see what happens if we can strike higher as we go through the rest of the month.

The one big factor that's been a drag on the overall U.S. wheat market the first six months of this marketing year has been the struggle to compete in the export market, according to Peterson.

Its not that we didn't have the quality. Our prices to the customers were as much as $2-$3 a bushel higher than the world market, he said. Thats kind of come out with USDA lowering export projections each consecutive month. Hopefully that will change in the first six months of this (calendar) year where they will reverse that trend and maybe start raising our export projection and as were able to capture more export demand.

In the Jan. 12 updated supply and demand report on the overall wheat picture, USDA lowered export projections again, going from 840 million bushels (MB) to 825 MB. All of that 15 MB reduction came out of hard red winter wheat. USDA also lowered feed use, which meant ending stocks increased slightly.

Stocks are still down almost 30 percent from a year ago, but nonetheless, indicating less consumption than anticipated, he said.

On a positive note for hard red spring wheat, USDA didnt change demand numbers, keeping export demand and domestic use the same and lowering projected imports by 5 MB.

Canada is facing the same situation as we are, so they lowered U.S. hard red spring wheat imports slightly, which is certainly positive, he said.

On the world scene in the supply and demand updates, there was nothing too significant as production is pretty well known in all the major producing countries. What USDA did do was lower feed use of wheat in the European Union and Ukraine, and they also lowered world trade slightly, lowering Russian export projections a little, though nothing significant.

Although the market went through a tough two-week period, Peterson was asked what will be the factors to help drive a rebound.

One, obviously, with the drop in prices weve seen producer selling dry up, and fortunately weve seen rail freight premiums back off significantly, so I think we will start to see some improvement in local basis, he said. As far as the wheat futures, I think a lot of that is going to shift to more of a new crop environment. What will be the acreage next year; weather conditions for the 2022 crop?

Also in the January report, there was a survey of Dec. 1 stocks which gives an idea of how much is still on-farm and how much consumption has taken place in the September through November time frame. Overall wheat stocks were down 18 percent from the previous year across the U.S. and there is less on-farm. Only 20 percent of stocks were still available on Dec. 1 on-farm compared to 30 percent that was on-farm a year ago.

In North Dakota, stocks were down 25 percent. As of Dec. 1, 2021, the state had 190 MB of wheat on hand on Dec. 1 compared to 252 MB the year before, and about 50 percent of North Dakotas stocks were on-farm vs. a year ago when there was 70 percent on-farm.

With higher prices, all producers were making more deliveries and, hopefully, some sales. And, obviously, with our production theres just less wheat available, he said.

In Montana, stocks were down almost 50 percent from a year ago, so the situation in Montana is more acute than in North Dakota.

To follow-up on the lower import projections for HRS from USDA, it is driven by the fact that Canadian wheat shipments from August through November are running 37 percent behind a year ago. Like the U.S., Canada is seeing similar declines in a lot of their major markets. Their shipments to Japan are down 20 percent, Indonesia down 40 percent, and Mexico is down 50 percent.

Canadian shipments into the U.S. are equal to a year ago, thus confirming what USDA did in lowering its import projection to 45 MB, versus 47 MB last year, and the lowest in 10 years.

Another note of interest, Peterson pointed out, is that in Canada feed wheat prices are on par or maybe even slightly higher than top milling bids.

Looking at U.S. export sales through the first week of January 2022, the U.S. has about 600 MB of sales on the books, which is down 23 percent from a year ago. Hard red winter wheat sales total 234 MB, down about 12 percent. Hard red spring wheat sales stand at 160 MB, down 29 percent from a year ago.

If we look at where we are compared to USDAs goal for the year, hard red spring wheat is close to 80 percent of that goal. If we see some improved sales going forward, we may see an uptick in our export projections, maybe not in the February numbers, but in March or April, which would be a positive, he said. Hard red winter wheat is running a little further behind. Hopefully they can also capture some sales to provide some additional support.

U.S. spring wheat sales are 10-20 percent behind on average in north Asia and 40-80 percent behind to south Asia. Central America and the Caribbean region are just slightly behind to even higher in some markets.

Hopefully it will be that south Asian region where were able to capture some extra sales with this recent decline in prices, he said.

In another January report, USDA came out with its survey of winter wheat plantings in the U.S. in the fall of 2021. In somewhat of a surprise to the market, hard red winter wheat plantings were only up 2 percent. A lot of the private estimates were projecting closer to a 4-5 percent increase. Hard red winter wheat was only up 1 percent versus soft red winter, which was up 6 percent. In the main hard red winter wheat states, Kansas was up 3 percent, Texas up 2 percent, and South Dakota up 4 percent. In somewhat of a surprise, Montana and Oklahoma were unchanged in plantings from a year ago.

Dryness is the key word in a lot of the hard red winter wheat region, Peterson said. In the extended forecast, dont look for a big improvement in moisture patterns. I think that will be a variable that could certainly help support the market going forward, especially as the crop breaks dormancy.

Anecdotally, in North Dakota, because its not a significant player in hard red winter wheat, plantings were up 22 percent from last year with 110,000 acres planted last fall. That compares to 90,000 the year before and only 40,000 in the fall of 2019.

Looking ahead to spring planting, the drop in prices may impact producers planting decisions.

Obviously, the market has been a disappointment from the producers perspective with some still having old crop stocks to sell. But also, I think buyers will be having to watch the market closely because weve lost our push to buy back significant acres this next spring, he said. When you have $5.50 corn and oil seed prices where they are, in some areas we will probably struggle to hold wheat acres similar to a year ago versus last fall when a lot of people were thinking maybe we could see a 5 to maybe even a 10 percent gain in acres for spring wheat.

But with the recent market sell-off, I think that story has shifted. So were going to need to see some comeback in the market to paint a better picture if buyers are looking to buy some acres for next spring, he concluded.

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A growing number of farmers are trading the face-to-face meeting in the bankers office with the click of a mouse.

Online ag lending is becoming more and more popular, as it offers ease of access and other benefits.

It is a growing thing, said Joe Springer, managing director of core markets at Compeer Financial. I dont have any statistics to back that up, but there are a plethora of opportunities out there for people to transact and borrow money, whether for input financing, equipment financing or real estate. All that is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the ag space.

Online borrowing is more common with basic purchases, though more sophisticated deals are increasingly being consummated online. The basic ones often include equipment.

It seems that the more transactional the nature of the loan, the more its likely to go online, said Matt Hardecke, senior vice president of agriculture and commercial lending at Enterprise Bank and Trust in St. Louis. Borrowers can go on johndeere.com and set up a loan. That kind of thing is mostly whats going online.

As with everything, there are pros and cons to online lending. Convenience may be at the top of the pro list.

Applicants can do it whenever they want, 24 hours a day, Springer said. If theyre on their tractor working ground or something, they have that opportunity.

The internet can also make it easier for farmers to compare various offers.

They can try to get the terms they want and find different opportunities online by searching different sites, Springer said.

The downside may be lack of specifics.

Many times they want advice, Springer said. For instance, when youre borrowing money to purchase a farm or to refinance, theres collateral with that. They dont have that opportunity online. Terms another thing. Should you purchase real estate for 15 years, 20 or 30? That piece of helping them understand whats the best term is one of the cons to the opportunity to finance online.

Hardecke agrees that farmers may feel more comfortable with so-called transactional purchases.

Theres no relationship there; youre just buying a tractor, he said. That requires very limited information  just a credit score most of the time.

Farmers with large spreads and more complex operations may be more interested in meeting in person with their lender.

Full-time farmers are planning finances for the year and putting together operating budgets, Hardecke said. If a borrower turns to transactional lending for that they could quickly get in trouble. I think that over time well see more equipment and input purchases financed this way. They typically require less discussion with the loan officers.

Other farm needs are increasingly being financed online.

Financing of inputs is probably the most popular right now  things such as seed, fertilizer and chemicals, Springer said. Equipment is starting to become more popular, though a lot of that is done at the dealership.

Land purchases are also finding their way onto computers and smart devices.

Real estate is a piece of online borrowing, Springer said. More companies are starting to post sales online with the opportunity finance in that one-stop shop. Its becoming a trend that is starting to increase, and I think it will continue to increase.

Despite the tendency for online financing, the connection between borrower and lender will also play a role.

The primary relationship isnt changing, but how that relationship is managed is, Hardecke said.

I communicate with some of my clients usually by text or email. They want to see me once a quarter or once a year and have a heart-to-heart discussion. Intermediate discussion is not going to be in person. But with things like expansion of their farm, they still want to sit across the table and look you in the eye.

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Abraham was revered by the Israelite nation from the time of Moses leading the twelve tribes out of Egypt through the time of Christ. Abraham was the grandfather of Jacob who was the father of the 12 tribes.

In Genesis 12 Abraham is given a promise from God. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This promise is about Jesus Christ and includes all the families of the earth, not just the Israelites.

The Israelites were Gods chosen people. I will be your God and you will be My people....
The financial services industry has evolved on the topic of equality over the last five years. Five years ago, firms were encouraged to bring greater diversity and equality to the workplace. Over time the message became increasingly urgent and instead of encouraging, industry writers started to guilt firms to speed up the process of back-office employees and advisors hired reflecting greater diversity and equality. More recently the tone of articles has shifted to shaming firms that havent made enough "progress" in equality/diversity advances. The shaming has been primarily focused on broker/dealers that are small and midsized vs. larger broker/dealers that these anointed ones believe progressed at a fast enough pace to not be shamed. The largest wirehouse firms like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley are the most enmeshed in woke dogma and the push for equity.

Small and midsized broker/dealers tend to be proponents of equal opportunity where a group of candidates for a particular job opening is considered, with the decision-making process ultimately to hire the best-qualified candidate but not to taint that decision with bias against the candidate on the basis of age, race, gender, religion, sexuality, or nationality. Indeed, this has long been the norm in hiring practices. Firms tell us, We are always looking for the best candidates in the marketplace, so if you find someone that is a standout, even if we dont have an opening at the time, well make room just so we can have the best. Unfortunately, equal opportunity is being pushed aside by equity, which has numerous unintended consequences.

Equity is another term for equality of outcome or forced equality. Instead of hiring the best, the focus switches to filling back-office job openings by color, chromosomes, and a host of new categories established by the academic ideology of intersectionality which is part of progressive theories making up Critical Race Theory. Intersectionality divides groups into two columns: those that are oppressors and privileged and those that are oppressed victims.

Intersectionality perpetuates victimhood as virtuous, with the workplace needing to have more of the victim categories represented and fewer of the privileged oppressors, with a heightened focus on fewer white males. People who see themselves as oppressed have no reason to get unoppressed and solve their problem. Their problem becomes their ticket that brings them a payoff or power. Equal opportunity seeks not to see people as segments of oppressor or oppressed categories but is rather focused on a persons character, culture, and abilities. To quote Martin Luther Kings I have a dream 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.

Equity in hiring practices is all about judging skin color and a host of other outward categories while ignoring deeper truths like character. Small and midsized broker/dealers do most of their hiring via the operations manager and perhaps a small Human Resources department with a focus on equal opportunity and hiring the best unless otherwise driven by management. Large broker/dealers tend to have large HR departments that often times have agendas that are biased toward social equity and woke politics in general.

College majors entering Human Resources departments have been concentrated in the social sciences (Humanities, Psychology, Communications, Public Relations) which have been heavily dominated by biased left-leaning professors since the 1960s. A major in humanities is a prime example of a major tailored to working in HR. In the book American Psychosis. How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System, Chris Hedges points out that the Humanities has been at war with critical thinking. The Humanities at their best are about teaching people how to think rather than what to think. They are about challenging structures, teaching people to add assumptions. The Humanities are subversive and meant to be subversive, says Hedges. HR departments, left to their own devices, frequently push equity in hiring along with the other two spokes of the CRT trinity, inclusivity, and intersectionality. The irony of larger broker/dealers being the furthest along in pushing social equity is that they are the least able to afford pushing equity long term.

As I stated in an article for Financial Advisor, Prices law states that as a company grows, its incompetence grows exponentially while competence grows linearly. As an example, a company of 10 has 30% of employees doing half the work, a company of 100 has 10% doing half the work and a company of 10,000 has 1% doing half the work. To counter increasing incompetence, it is especially important for large broker/dealers to hire the best-qualified candidates they can, yet theres the conundrum. The larger firms pushing equality of outcome in hiring practices are actually making the firm less competent because their focus is no longer hiring the best but rather hiring candidates to fill positions with intersectionality-labeled victims and weed out oppressors.

The intersectionality victim category is easily discredited. What about poor white people being considered privileged? Or Asian Americans? Kenny Xu, author of the book An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy states that Critical Race Theory denigrates merit: CRT cant cope with Asian Americans because they are minorities, theyve been discriminated against, yet they are extremely successful overtaking whites in terms of education and economics. Culture is the reason, for Asian Americans study twice as many hours as the average American. They also have a strong two-parent family structure, strong value on education, a love for hard work and meritocracy (anyone with skill and imagination may aspire to reach the highest level).

Industry articles have repeatedly stated in their push for equal outcomes that a diverse group of people is better at problem-solving or more creative than a group that isnt. Jordan Peterson, best-selling author of the book, 12 Rules for Life. An Antidote to Chaos explains there is not a shred of evidence to support that idea. It brings you back to racial essentialism. Peterson emphatically states that equality of outcome needs to be fully rejected. It is a pathological idea, there is nothing about it that is good, its impossible to implement, its fundamentally motivated by resentment and its a lie.

Forced equality is unfair to the people you displace that may be better qualified. It is also unfair to the people you are trying to help since it stigmatizes them by creating an impression that they were put into a particular job position because they are a particular color, sex, or sexuality, and not for their ability. Filling chairs with a specific race for that sake of race is racist. Nurture workplace peace by not playing the identity politics game. American author Lionel Shriver states, Identity politics is a rigid social structure that pits people against each other because the boxes are all in competition with each other. Its an ugly way to think about the world and to behave toward other people.

Forcing anything on anyone, be it equality or vaccines is tyranny. Economist and Nobel prize winner Milton Friedman left sage advice when he said, The Society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.

Image: Pixabay
Herman Cain was fond of saying that you need to ask the Right Questions. His point was simple. If you saw a car slammed into a tree, you didnt worry about what color it was. You needed to be sure that the occupant(s) of the car had been extricated. Then you would go on to check for leaking gasoline and other ongoing hazards. After that, you could figure out why the crash happened. In short, you had to consider what was most important at the moment, and then proceed to other questions only as the more important ones were answered.

A classic example of failure to do this was Vice President Harriss assertion that we had migrants crossing our southern border illegally because of climate change at home. If we assume that climate change is real and has bad effects, she might be right about it having some minor effect, but there wont be any migrants who agree with her. They all risked their lives to find a better life in a freer country than they had at home. The Chief Cackler flunked the first rule by never asking any questions, much less the right ones.

A January 18 New York Times morning newsletter commits that same error. German Lopezs article explores why murders surged in the U.S. He opens by reciting a statistic to set his premise: Murders in the U.S. in 2020 were up 27% over 2019. (Data for 2021 is incomplete as of this writing.) This is the largest percentage increase in at least six decades. Thats Yuuuge! in the wrong direction...and its getting worse. Whats a mother to do?

The obvious question must be, What changed in 2020? If were listening to the drive-by media, the answer is simple: COVID. But what does COVID have to do with murder? Indeed!

COVID has clearly increased suicides but thats not the same as murders. And the lockdowns in response to it have increased poverty by putting lower-paid people out of work. So that poverty must be the cause of the murders. Not!

One basic principle of scientific inquiry is to compare otherwise equal groups. If we see similar populations with different outcomes, we must ask what made the difference. With poor people in inner cities, for example, why did Oklahoma City see murders fall by 20.7% while Minneapolis saw a 72.3% rise?

Murders have not spiked everywhere. As Lopez notes, they are felt unequally across the country. But was the spike due to poverty in black communities? After all, blacks are victims more often than any other group.

But if being in a poor minority community leads to more murders, why isnt this true in all poor minority communities? It must be racism! That must be why COVID caused major murder spikes only in black communities in the U.S. Similar murder spikes arent seen in other countries equally affected by the bug, so racism must be isolated to the US.

Lopez then glances across changes in policing. He accurately notes that murder spikes in 2015, 2016, and 2020 all coincided with anti-police protests. But the spikes in 2020 are dramatically larger, and the protests cant account for that. After all, we didnt see a lot of murders during the actual protests. But after them, the Ferguson Effect kept cops off some streets. But it only keeps them off the streets in locales with local governments that dont actively support peace officers. Hmmm.

Then Lopez segues to the standard Leftist boogeyman: guns. He grabs an Atlantic article that claims that gun sales are responsible. This article digs deep into some gun trace data but misses the forest for the trees.

It cites 400,000 FBI gun traces in 2020, forgetting that 23 million guns were sold that year. Thats a total trace rate of 1.7%, assuming only newly purchased guns were used in crime. But there are over 400 million firearms in private hands in the US. That means the FBI was asked to trace 0.1% of all guns. But trace requests dont tell you what effect purchases may have had on crime since most crime guns are stolen. So, Lopez moves to Harvard studies that supposedly prove an increase in guns means an increase in crime.

Image: Crime scene by kjpargeter. Freepik license.

Had Lopez bothered to do his basic research task, he would have discovered that, as Americans buy more guns, they use them less in crime. In fact, gun crime decreased by 28% from 2019 to 2020. This has been true for a number of years as detailed by John Lott. That means that the spike in murders has nothing to do with lawful gun ownership.

Lopez failed to ask the right questions. He started to get close with his comments about anti-police sentiment. In jurisdictions where the police remain on the street and are backed up by District Attorneys who will prosecute criminals, we dont see growing piles of pine boxes. Theres more blood on the sidewalk in cities where we have Soros-backed DAs who refuse to prosecute crimes. You didnt steal over $950, so you get a pass. You committed your third felony in a week? No bail! See you in Court in a year. And so on. Is it any mystery why we have so many murders?

The major murder centers are all Democrat-run cities that have been Democrat-run for decades. They are so woke that criminals are somehow victims. DAs will happily prosecute the men in blue for using any form of physical force to make an arrest but ignore violent career criminals. This is all done in the name of social justice, a term that makes a mockery of real justice.

Rudy Giuliani proved that broken windows policing works. When you vigorously prosecute small crimes, those criminals dont do bigger crimes. Under his leadership, New York became a safe city. But when Comrade de Blasio did the opposite, he got a predictable 39.2% increase in murders in 2020.

Its no surprise that there are long lines for U-Haul trucks in New York and California. People universally want two things: Safety and Opportunity. Those dont exist in Woke-Topia.

The hundreds of thousands who have left just those two states dont need to do research. They dont even need to ask the right questions because its spread out right in front of them. Leftists think they arent getting their message out, but were actually getting it loud and clear. Their messengers carry guns, knives, and bludgeons, but they arent wearing blue.

Americans are tired of being victims. Were voting with our feet, our money and, in November, with our in-person ballots. Maybe then the Left will get our message.

Ted Noel MD is a retired Anesthesiologist/Intensivist who podcasts and posts on social media as DoctorTed and @vidzette. His DoctorTed podcasts are available on iHeart, Stitcher, Pandora and other channels.
This is the year of the Platinum Jubilee, to celebrate the 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II on the throne and her renowned custodianship of the position. In the twilight of her reign, she has had to make difficult, agonizing decisions. The most poignant has been to deprive her second son Prince Andrew of his title as His Royal Highness and to strip him of almost all of his remaining military and charitable affiliations. Dynastic preservation won over flesh and blood. The title of HRH, denoting the higher ranking of some members of the Royal Family, had been previously stripped from the Duke of Windsor, Princess Diana, the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, and the Sussex duo, Harry and Meghan.

Queen Elizabeth has remained popular in Britain, and so has opinion about the British hereditary monarchial system. She had been reluctant to wield the ax in dealing with Andrew but finally acted to preserve the institution of the monarchy itself, which today rests on its performance as a unifying factor in British life. A hereditary monarchy is a lottery, sometimes generating competent and fitting people, like Elizabeth II herself, but sometimes leading to less gifted or appropriate individuals. Three may be briefly mentioned. Peter Philips, son of Princess Anne, daughter of the queen, who received large sums from a Chinese company, Bright Dairies, to appear in a milk ad in which he is described as a member of the British Royal Family. California resident Prince Harry has stepped back from royal service and feels trapped by the Royal Family about whom he has spoken in dubious inside stories, but who is comfortable in his nine-bedroom and 16-bathroom mansion, and is still sixth on line to the throne; and there is Prince Andrew, who is ninth in line to the throne.

Andrew will face his sex case in a U.S. civil court as a private citizen. Andrew failed to persuade New York court Judge Lewis Kaplan to dismiss the civil suit in which he is accused of having sex with an underage person, and his lawsuit was dismissed on technical grounds, thus leaving him to face trial in the fall.

Andrew, with his controversial activities, friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, -- sentenced for soliciting a minor for prostitution -- his combining pleasure, often sexual, with business on official overseas trips, and his poor judgment as in meeting with the son of Colonel Gaddafi, has been a major source of unhappiness at Buckingham Palace. Not surprisingly, Andrew was dubbed Air Miles Andy because of his lavish spending. There is still a mystery about all the sources of his wealth.

Can the Royal Family be happy as well as useful? There is a general feeling in Britain that, after the reign of Elizabeth, the monarchy will be safeguarded and the reputation of the Royal Family saved from the recent scandals by Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, and future Princess of Wales and then Queen, and future global star. Now aged 40, she entered the Royal Family, marrying Prince William, second in line to the throne, in 2011.

In contrast to Prince Harry and Prince Andrew, Kate showed her caring and sensitive behavior in hugging Holocaust survivors she had photographed. In January 2020, on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Duchess announced she had taken photos of two of the last survivors in Britain of Nazi concentration camps. The photos were displayed, and she physically hugged the survivors, at the Imperial War Museum in London which was featuring contemporary portraits of Holocaust survivors and their families. Kate remarked it is vital that the memories of the survivors are preserved and passed on to future generations so that what they went through will never be forgotten. She spoke of the harrowing atrocities of the Holocaust which were caused by the most unthinkable evil which will forever lay heavy in our hearts.

Kates father-in-law Prince Charles has followed in her footsteps and showed similar and equal sensitivity. He recently commissioned portraits by seven British artists of seven Holocaust survivors, the last survivors still alive in Britain. The portraits will go on display at Buckingham Palace where they will appear in the Queens Gallery and become part of the Royal Collection.

Charles, who is a patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, explained that this special collection will be a guiding light for our society, reminding us not only of historys darkest days but also of humanitys interconnections as we strive to create a better world one where hope is victorious over despair and love triumphs over hate. The lessons of the Holocaust, Charles said, are still searingly relevant. These Holocaust survivors endured concentration camps and were enslaved as forced laborers. On another occasion, Charles said, The task of bearing witness falls to us. This is our time when we can, each in our own way, be the light that ensures the darkness can never return.

This concern for the fate of Jews is not new in the Royal Family. Prince Charless grandmother, Princess Alice, mother of the late Prince Philip, was born deaf in Windsor Castle and was British though she married a Greek prince. She had an unhappy life, suffering from mental and physical illnesses, and was for a time schizophrenic and a patient of Sigmund Freud. Moreover, in World War II she was in a difficult position, with one son, Philip, future husband of Elizabeth, fighting in the British Royal Navy, while two sons-in-law were fighting for Germany.

The Talmud is right -- whoever saves one life is as if they had saved the entire world. Princess Alices notable achievement was to shelter a Jewish woman, Rachel Cohen in her own home in Athens during the Nazi occupation of Greece. Belatedly in 1993, Alice was given the title of Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. At a ceremony there where a tree was planted in her honor, Prince Philip said, I suspect it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. But it was special. Alices action is not only remarkable but exceptional in view of the fate of Jews in Greece. Of the estimated 72,000 Jews in Greece, about 60,000 died, 83-87%, during the Nazi occupation. Of the 43,000 Jews in Salonika, over 40,000 were murdered.

It remains to be seen if 2022 will be a happy Platinum Year. Certainly, Queen Elizabeth acted wisely in stripping Andrew of his HRH title for fear that not doing so would harm, even destroy the Firm, the Royal Family.

Image: Carfax2
Islamic triumphalism has a lamentable history of demolishing the holy sites of other religions and replacing them with mosques.

On January 10, 2022, Arye Savir reported in World Israel News:

Unknown individuals from the Palestinian Authority (PA) have again caused damage to the Biblical-era site of the Prophet Joshuas altar on Mount Ebal.... The latest damage was discovered by volunteers of Shomrim Al Hanetzach, (Preserving the Eternal), a project dedicated to the preservation of the archaeological treasures situated throughout Judea and Samaria. They reported damage to the altars walls and the falling of stones on its eastern side.... The PA has paved a road that passes near the site of the altar.... Part of the ancient fence that borders the site was dismantled and its stones were crushed using a gravel crusher to serve as a substrate for the paving of the road. The sites location in Area B, under PA administration, enables it to operate unhindered.

Below is a list of other Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist holy sites desecrated or converted into mosques. Sadly, the destruction has triggered revenge destruction of the replacement mosques in some cases.

Temple Mount in Jerusalem

The Temple Mount is to Judaism as Mecca is to Islam; Jews around the world face Temple Mount when they pray, Muslims face Mecca even when on or around Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is the holiest site for Judaism. It is the site of the two Jewish Temples. Muslim conquerors built two mosques there. Despite having their holiest site safe and secure in Mecca, Muslims desecrated Jewish archaeology in Temple Mount and built their Mosques there. Simon Sebag Montefiore describes, in his book Jerusalem, the Arab Conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire (Chapter 16, page 166) that Arabs built the Al Aqsa Mosque in Temple Mount to make Muslims the legitimate heirs of Jewish sanctity. Today, Arabs do not allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. During the Jordanian occupation of Jerusalem (1948-1967) Jews were not allowed to pray at the Western Wall either.

Al Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem

While Israel preserves Al Aqsa, Muslims destroy Jewish holy sites when given a chance. The Jewish Temple was not only destroyed by the Romans 2000 years ago, it continues to be destroyed by the Arabs today. If the Palestinians assume responsibility over the site, they will have the freedom to destroy much more.

Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron

The Jewish Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are undeniably buried there. Muslims built a mosque there.

A surge in church-mosque conversion followed the 1974 Turkish Invasion of Cyprus.

Many of the Orthodox churches in Northern Cyprus have been converted to mosques. Turkey has been steadily destroying the Christian artistic and cultural heritage of Northern Cyprus.

Hundreds of Greek Orthodox churches in Turkey were converted into mosques to make a statement of the supremacy of Islam over other religions.

Hagia Sophia, the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, was converted into a mosque. (President Erdogan has resumed Muslim prayers at the site).

Columbus reached America in 1492 shortly after Muslims conquered Constantinople (in 1453). Muslims have the same claim to Hagia Sophia that Columbus had of the Mayan Pyramids.

Sita Ram Goel wrote a book describing the destruction of multiple Hindu Temples and their replacement with Mosques in India.

The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya (North India) was built on the site of a Hindu Temple. In 1992 a mob of 150,000 Hindus razed the mosque. Nobel Laureate writer V. S. Naipaul has praised the act for reclaiming Indias Hindu heritage.

The Great Temple of Keshava Rai at Mathura was one of the most magnificent Hindu Temples ever built in India. The Temple was demolished in 1670 and, on its site, a mosque was built.

The Somnath Temple in India was destroyed by Muslim invaders and converted into a mosque. In AD 1025, Mahmud destroyed and looted the temple, killing over 50,000 people who tried to defend it. After independence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel pledged on November 13, 1947, that the temple would be reconstructed. The mosque was not destroyed but carefully relocated. In 1951 Dr. Rajendra Prasad performed the consecration ceremony. The temple construction was completed on December 1, 1995. The then-President of India, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, dedicated it to the nation.

Kashi or Varanasi is the most sacred site in Hinduism and the worship of Lord Shiva as Vishveshvara goes back to ancient times. The temple was demolished several times by Muslim invaders and was reconstructed again and again by Hindu kings. A mosque was built which still stands.

The Grand Mosque of Damascus, also known as the Umayyad Mosque, was converted from a church dedicated to John the Baptist in 705

Ezekiels tomb in Iraq.

Ariel Arkham reported on these pages: The Jerusalem Post and various watchdog groups have reported that the Iraqi Cultural and Antiquities Authority are implementing plans to erect a mosque on top of Ezekiel's Tomb. Last month, the process began as the ancient Hebrew inscriptions adorning the inside of the Tomb were defaced, perhaps irrevocably, and covered over by plaster

The Tomb of the Prophet Jonah in Mosul (Iraq), an ancient Jewish Holy Site was destroyed.

Daniels tomb. Another Jewish Holy Site was destroyed in Iraq.

Ezras tomb in Iraq. The Complete Pilgrim reported Ezra...personally led five thousand Jews back to Judea, after which he read the entire Torah to the populace of Jerusalem in an effort to inspire and reinvigorate them spiritually. Later, he established the precursor to the council of the Sanhedrin which would later become the supreme religious authority of the Jewish people.... In later years he spent much time traveling back and forth between Judea and Mesopotamia, inspiring his fellow Jews to return. He died in Mesopotamia sometime in the late 5th century BC. His shrine was one of the most venerated sites in Iraq until the 20th century, when most of the local Jews emigrated to Israel.

On February 15, 2015, Israel Today reported

Arab media last week reported that Islamist forces operating in the south of the country had seized control of an ancient shrine revered as the tomb of the biblical scribe and priest Ezra. Pan-Arab news website Al-Araby reported that the militants had destroyed large portions of the shrine...According to Al-Araby, the terrorists had cut off all access to the Tomb of Ezra to prevent journalists from reporting on their conquest and destruction of the holy site.

Tomb of Samuel near Jerusalem.

Turkish tourists have begun holding regular visits to a Jewish prayer space at a holy site outside of Jerusalem, intentionally interfering in the locals prayer services in what some say is a bid to push Jews out of the space. According to a report by Makor Rishon Sunday, Muslim tourists have begun holding regular pilgrimages to Samuels Tomb just outside of Jerusalem. The compound, which is located entirely in Area C, under full Israeli control, and located between Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood and the Givat Ze'ev suburb' is considered sacred by both Jews and Muslims. The site has been informally divided between the two, with a functioning mosque on the premises and a space designated for Jewish prayer next to the tomb itself.

Rachels Tomb near Jerusalem.

UNESCO has declared that Rachels Tomb near Jerusalem is the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque  endorsing a Palestinian claim that first surfaced only in 1996 and which ignores centuries of Muslim tradition. As opposed to the Temple Mount and the Cave of the Patriarchs which also serve as the location of mosques, Rachels Tomb never served as a mosque for the Muslims. The Muslim connection to the site derives from its relation to Rachel and has no connection to Bilal ibn Rabah, Mohammeds first muezzin.

Destruction of the Buddhist library of Nalanda University in India.

Destruction of the World's two largest standing Buddhas (Afghanistan).

Destruction of Joseph's tomb. In 2000 the Palestinians destroyed Josephs tomb. Sidney Brounstein wrote for the Los Angeles Times:

Where is the outrage? Imagine what would have happened if Jewish police stood by and allowed a Jewish mob to destroy a Muslim holy place! Does the destruction of a Jewish holy place by an Arab mob while Palestinian police stand by (after promising to protect it) deserve no more than inclusion in a list of other damage done by rioters? Is this an acceptance of attacks on Jews and things Jewish as a normal part of life? It makes a mockery of any thought of giving Arabs any control of Jewish holy places. The destruction of dozens of such places in the Old City of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, along with the exclusion of Jews entirely from their most holy site, the Western Wall, was clearly of a piece with the current destruction.

Photo credit: Rosewoman CC BY 2.0 license

Ezequiel Doiny is author of Obama's assault on Jerusalem's Western Wall
Nikole Hannah-Jones' essay "The Idea of America" ignores the many Americans who worked together and sacrificed to abolish slavery. She even belittles their success. "In 1865, Congress passed the 13th Amendment, making the United States one of the last nations in the Americas to outlaw slavery."

A few facts about America should cheer her readers. Congress was preoccupied with the Civil War. During 18601861, the 11 slave states of the then 33 states had seceded. The abolitionist movement had been so successful that these states knew that slavery was finished in the United States. Think of how desperate they were to take the risky and costly step of secession.

Frederick Douglass was born in 1818 and taught himself to read and write. In 1838, he escaped to the North. He would speak about his experiences as a slave and became an agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

Abolitionists were active in all parts of the country. Jeff M. Lewis documented abolitionist activities in Pennsylvania in "The Inherent Fraud of 'The 1619 Project.'"

In Boston, Massachusetts, between 1805 and 1840, five black churches were organized on Beacon Hill. These churches were the spiritual centers of Boston's 19th-century African-American community and were also central to the political and social lives of black Bostonians.

The New England Freedom Association, dedicated to assisting freedom-seekers on the Underground Railroad, would meet at the African Meeting House. Officially constituted on August 8, 1805, with twenty-four members, including fifteen women, the African Baptist Church soon began to construct this new meeting house. Now the African Meeting House is owned and operated by the Museum of African American History. It shares the authentic stories of New Englanders of African descent, and those who found common cause with them, in their quest for freedom and justice. It is a National Historic Landmark and is located steps away from the Massachusetts State House.

Most of the Northern states had outlawed slavery, and local jails were not allowed to house fugitive slaves. Slave-owners had to send their agents to the North to find, capture, and transport their runaway slaves back to their home state.

The slave-owners were aided by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The over-the-top wording of the act provided powerful ammunition for abolitionist speakers and writers. Frederick Douglass, now an experienced, talented anti-slavery orator, used this wording to create many more active opponents to slavery than the law recovered fugitive slaves.

In the 1860 Census, the U.S. population increased by eight million to over 31 million. The slave states failed to attract many people. People seeking new opportunities chose the free states and moved west. The slave states knew that this growth in population in the free states would cut their influence in Congress.

With the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, the slave states felt that their only hope was secession. As states seceded, the rebels started claiming federal property in their states. President James Buchanan failed to respond effectively. After seven states had seceded, the rebels attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

Virginia seceded on April 17, 1861, thereby establishing a new border. The Potomac River was the only barrier protecting Washington, and new president Abraham Lincoln called on the states for 75,000 Volunteers to defend the capital. The 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Militia Regiment left within 48 hours and had to cross Baltimore by foot to get from one railroad to the other. On April 19, 1861, they were attacked by a mob, and four Volunteers and 12 locals were killed. The Civil War had begun in earnest.

After the war, Congress did not "outlaw" slavery. On January 31, 1865, Congress passed an amendment to the United States Constitution to abolish slavery. The amendment was ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865. The abolition of slavery in the United States was proclaimed on December 18, 1865.

The Civil War is a tragic example of how divisive words set things in motion that get out of hand. The things that the divisive words of Nikole Hannah-Jones's essay set in motion may also bear bitter fruit.

Kevin James is a pen name.

Image: Henry Louis Stephens.
Mary Fay, a popular Republican councilwoman in heavily Democratic West Hartford, is running for comptroller saying Connecticut finances need more transparency and discipline.

After weathering a tough challenge in November against the largest field of opponents in recent memory, Fay said this week that shes ready to start a different campaign this year.

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The comptrollers job is undervalued  its the chief financial officer of the state responsible for billions of dollars and a payroll of 65,000, Fay told The Courant on Thursday.

My training is in accounting and finance. I have the skill set, she said. The comptroller makes sure all the accounting rules are applied correctly, and the reporting is transparent. I dont think thats being done. Its why we go from a budget shortfall all of a sudden to a gigantic surplus. Connecticut has too many accounting games.

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Republican Mary Fay, minority leader of West Hartford's town council. (Jane Shauck/IRIS Photography)

Fay so far is the only declared candidate for the comptrollers job. Democrat Kevin Lembo resigned in December after 12 years because of a worsening health condition. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont appointed Natalie Braswell to finish the last year of Lembos term, but shes not running.

This week, state Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, said he was creating an exploratory campaign but has not committed to the race.

Fay acknowledged that municipal politicians seeking statewide office face a similar challenge: Despite being popular in their hometown and perhaps a couple of neighboring communities, theyre largely unknown in the rest of the state.

But I grew up in East Hartford, I spent a lot of my childhood in the Norwalk and Darien area and still know many people there. I know many people around New London, too, she said. In the Northeast Corner? Theres a lot of work to do. Im going to be out campaigning a lot  its going to be whirlwind.

State GOP Chairman Ben Proto called her announcement another indicator that its going to be a great year for Republicans in 2022.

A 20-year resident of West Hartford, Fay has been building a political base there since first winning a council seat in 2017. She was the second-highest vote-getter among Republican council candidates that year and again in 2019.

Two previous attempts to reach beyond the municipal level failed: She lost a 2018 bid for a state House seat, and in 2020 became the latest in a long series of Republican challengers to lose challenging U.S. Rep. John Larson.

But Fay focuses on the upside of the Larson race: She got more votes than any other Republican challenger in at least the past decade.

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Many thought her political career was in trouble last year because of a split in the West Hartford GOP, yet she came out stronger than ever.

Local voters had resoundingly rejected former President Trump by a stronger than 3-to-1 ratio in the 2020 election, and several West Hartford GOP leaders and town officials abandoned the party in 2021, saying it had drifted too far to the right.

The top-polling Republican, Lee Gold, led a breakaway group of moderate Republicans under the A Connecticut Party banner.

So in November, the council ballot was unusually full. The six Democrats were assured of winning, leaving just three seats available to the other nine candidates: Fay; two GOP first-timers; Gold, accompanied by three other ACP candidates; a Libertarian; and a petitioning candidate.

Five Things You Need To Know Daily We're providing the latest coronavirus coverage in Connecticut each weekday morning. >

Many local politicians predicted the GOP might come away with only one or two seats, or perhaps even get shut out. Instead, Fay was the top voter-getter among the field of nine, leading her slate to victory.

Several Democrats on the council have labeled her as too far right wing, but Fay calls herself a moderate.

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My signs are purple, the best of red and blue. Im not an obstructionist. Ive voted with the Democrats plenty of times when it made sense, she said. But I speak truth to power, politely.

Fay criticized former Gov. Dannel Malloys financial incentives for creating jobs, saying that auditors later concluded his administration awarded millions of dollars of aid for two businesses that didnt meet their employment benchmarks.

Where was the cost benefit analysis and simple business analysis on this? Fay asked.

Fay holds an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic and has worked in senior executive positions for Hartford HealthCare, American International Group, ING and Sun Life Financial.

Don Stacom can be reached at dstacom@courant.com.
This is a well researched article in the U.K. Daily Mail that the American media have essentially ignored. They have always ignored the truth about the Clintons to protect them while campaigning for them.

EXCLUSIVE: Revealed: The remarkable lengths taken to whitewash Bill Clinton's cosy links to pervert Jeffrey Epstein when Hillary ran for President  Epstein's lawyer Darren Indyke tried to get workers to declare they had not seen former president Bill Clinton visiting the disgraced financier's 'Paedo Island'  Miles and Cathy Alexander received the email during ill-fated Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run which she lost to Donald Trump 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.



(c) Willaim J. Clinton President / MEGA via UKDM

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. 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. 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. 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.

Hillary and the DNC didn't have much to worry about. The American media were willing to kill the story for them as they campaigned for Hillary. They didn't worry about all the crimes Hillary committed or kickbacks the Clintons took, either.

ABC News Anchor Had Jeffrey Epstein Story More Than 3 Years Ago, So Why Did Her Bosses Kill It? In 2015, [Amy] Robach of ABC apparently had an extensively-documented story on Epstein's elite global pedophilia and sex-trafficking organizationincluding information that appeared to implicate a former U.S. president.

How many women and young girls were physically and mentally destroyed by the Clintons, Epstein, and Weinstein because the media, entertainers, and other Democrats were busy campaigning for the Clintons?

In 2015, the NYT was willing to report on the corruption of the Bidens because they were supporting Hillary.

Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. traveled to Kiev , Ukraine, on Sunday for a series of meetings with the country's leaders, one of the issues on his agenda was to encourage a more aggressive fight against Ukraine's rampant corruption and stronger efforts to rein in the power of its oligarchs. But the credibility of the vice president's anticorruption message may have been undermined by the association of his son, Hunter Biden, with one of Ukraine's largest natural gas companies, Burisma Holdings, and with its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

In the 1988 election, the media were willing to report how dishonest Biden was when they chased him from the presidential campaign. Left-leaning Snopes affirmed:

ThenU.S. Sen. Joe Biden withdrew from the 1988 presidential race after admitting to plagiarism and exaggeration of his academic record.

Yet in 2020, as they campaigned for Biden and sought to destroy Trump, they buried a story they knew was true about the Biden family corruption. They faked that it was Russian disinformation to justify burying the story.

It is no wonder we have so much corruption by politicians like the Clintons and Bidens when the media and others are so willing to bury the truth from the public.

While the media were burying the story of the Biden and Clinton corruption, they were running endless false stories about Trump and Russia.

More than a year after the 2020 election, the media and other Democrats are still targeting Trump. When they aren't targeting Trump, they are targeting DeSantis with garbage stories.

While they are ignoring the border, crime, and disastrous energy policies, and burying other stories like Afghanistan, they are still targeting Trump.

This story seems to be repeated endlessly and always is presented as if it were breaking news. It is as if it is in rotation when they want to divert attention from Biden's disastrous policies.

NY AG alleges evidence of fraud at Trump business In a statement, [Letitia] James said, "thus far in our investigation, we have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit."

It's as if journalists don't understand that when people submit a loan application to a bank, they don't have to submit appraisals to justify their requests. In fact, it is the bank's obligation to order its own appraisal to make sure that they aren't getting a biased appraisal.

The IRS also requires appraisals when you take donations for land values. We can't just make up values and the IRS says OK.

If justice officials went after everyone who exaggerated his wealth, they wouldn't have time for anything else.

Maybe the N.Y. A.G. should focus on dangerous criminals and actual fraud, instead of having Trump Derangement Syndrome like most of the media.

Now that the unconstitutional federal takeover of elections has failed, for the next ten months, most of the media and other Democrats will spend a great deal of time and money intentionally lying to the public that Republicans are against the right to vote. They all know that Delaware, New York, and other states are more restrictive than Georgia and other Republican states, but the truth hasn't mattered for a long time.

Then when the Democrats get clobbered in November, the media and other Democrats will claim that the election was illegitimate because of the sensible voter integrity laws.

It is no wonder that so few trust the media since most are essentially an appendage of the Democrat party.

Americans Remain Distrustful of Mass Media 9% in U.S. trust mass media "a great deal" and 31% "a fair amount"

Here is an example of the abject dishonesty that prevails in most of the media today and why the public doesn't trust them:

Despite statement issued by Chief Justice John Roberts, NPR stands behind report that Roberts 'in some form asked the other justices to mask up' NPR is standing squarely behind its report claiming that Chief Justice John Roberts "in some form" requested that Supreme Court justices wear face masks, despite a statement in which Roberts unequivocally declared that he had never asked his colleagues to use masks while on the bench. Sotomayor and Gorsuch released a joint statement on Wednesday in which they said that Sotomayor had never asked Gorsuch to wear a mask.

Taxpayer-funded NPR can't stand Judge Gorsuch and his decisions. Therefore, they ran a fake hit piece saying Judge Sotomayor won't sit beside him because he won't wear a mask.

Roberts, Sotomayor, and Gorsuch all denied the fake story, but the partisan hacks at NPR are standing by it.

It is most of the media, who are essentially campaign workers pushing leftist policies, who are the greatest existential threat to our prosperity, freedom, democracy, and fair elections. It is not climate change, the protesters on January 6, the Russians, or voter integrity laws.
So many things the Democrats organized have turned out to be false flag operations (Whitmer kidnapping, January 6) that it would be safe to assume that everything they do is a false flag operation until proven otherwise. This brings us to the strange case of the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. We are supposed to believe that the modern Machiavelli, Vladimir Putin, has had 100,000 Russian troops camped out in the snow for months on end, poised to invade Ukraine. No complaints from the Russian troops have been heard, so these must be really hard men, capable of enduring enormous suffering, sitting patiently in the snowdrifts while waiting for their leader's order to advance. And they would all be men with not one pregnancy flight suit east of the Dnieper.

This is doubly strange because relations between the Bidens and the Russians are so cordial. One Russian lady, Elena Baturina, gave Hunter Biden $3.5 million, seemingly out of the kindness of her heart, because no reciprocal service was provided by Mr. Biden.

Another strange thing about the Russian invasion threat is that it is exactly the wrong thing to do if your major threat is China. China has territorial ambitions on all its neighbors and is the greatest threat to world peace. Russia understands that Chinese territorial ambitions, for example over Vladivostok, not being actively pursued are merely in abeyance. China's long-term ambition is to subsume all Russian territory east of the Urals.

Edward Luttwak has called China an autistic power. That is being too charitable  it is more of a psychopath. It feels the need to be constantly attacking other countries. At the moment, it is building up forces on its border with India for a summer offensive.

To put this into context, the same people who kept the United States in Afghanistan for twenty years are still in charge. The same people whose strategy to justify that was "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" need a new chew toy to play with. Ukraine is the new Afghanistan.

The standard strategy on the Eurasian landmass is to ally with the No. 2 power to thwart the No. 1 power. This means making an ally of Russia to thwart China. Going all out to antagonize Russia means more U.S. dead in the war of China's choosing. If the State Department were run by Chinese agents, they couldn't have achieved a better result for China than what the State Department is currently doing.

Whatever reason the Biden regime has ginned up the Russian threat, and we shouldn't discount simple stupidity, there is one very good reason why Russia won't attack Ukraine. It would make the average Russian much poorer.

Forty years ago, the countries of the Soviet Bloc had similar standards of living  they were equally very poor. After the collapse of communism in 1990, they were free to go their own way. Ukraine has stayed poor. It is the Bolivia of Europe due to corruption. Russia's economy expands and contracts with the oil price. Poland, by comparison, pulled itself up by its bootstraps. This is illustrated by the following graphic:

Fully one-third of Russia's GDP is from its oil and gas production. Polish and Ukrainian natural resource extraction is minuscule. If the 144 million Russians had to share their oil and gas income with the 44 million Ukrainians, their GDP per capita would fall near 20% from $11,000 to close to $9,000. By comparison, U.S. GDP per capita was $63,544 in 2020.

The Russians don't have the spare funds to invade Ukraine and fix up Ukrainian roads and pay their pensions. The Russian Army developed a nice new tank, the T-14, but can't afford to build more than a handful. The Russian Air Force developed a new fighter, the Su-57, but can pay for only a token number of them. Russian irredentism, if there is any, has to wait for a much, much higher oil price. Meanwhile, the adults in the room should be conferring on the China threat.

David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare.

Image via Good Free Photos.
Things don't happen in a vacuum. World events don't just spring up for no good reason. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung didn't just appear on the world stage out of thin air. As bewildering as some events appear, even nonsensical tragedies such as JFK's assassination and 9/11 had surrounding circumstances and rationales.

Such is the case with the election and rejection of President Donald Trump and the subsequent appearance of President Joe Biden.

These men didn't just happen. President Trump was elected on the heels of eight disappointing years of President Barack Obama  a presidency that saw America embarrassed and diminished on the world stage, a sinking economy, and many Americans' dismal outlook of the future.

Trump was seen as the antidote to the self-serving establishment. Always a threat as a true outsider, he became the establishments' kryptonite when he started to fight back, something Republicans had little stomach for.

Power is an intoxicating drug. Once ingested, it courses through a person's body and soul, rendering many incapable of clear sight or thought. He was such a great guy until that promotion went to his head. She was a wonderful person until she won the sweepstakes. Stories like these are all too familiar, and the reasons are simple.

Political power is nothing unique or different. Trump challenged and threatened the power perpetually held by the Washington, D.C. establishment  a system of interconnected desires and needed outcomes.

Apart from Trump, what other president, Democrat or Republican, acted upon closing the southern border? None. What other president promised and delivered moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? None. And what other president stood up to the one-sided trade practices of China? None.

The reasons are unmistakable; all three of the above events remained in place for years because all three events maintained the power of the Washington, D.C. establishment.

Biden was the best chance that the institution had at keeping its power secure, but unfortunately, he was already afflicted with a declining mental capacity.

The Washington elites, assisted by propagandized and unscrupulous media, hid Biden's failing cognitive condition and family corruption away from the American people. And so here we are with the bleak prospects of three more years of pain.

Make no mistake: the establishment or swamp, call it what you want, is well aware of Biden's and Harris's dismal approval ratings. Their insatiable quest to maintain power, along with the reality of a Republican wave, will most likely cause them to act in imprudent ways dangerous to the Republic. With this in mind, in the weeks and months to come, all Americans must be extra-vigilant regarding voting rights legislation as well as any proposed changes to the structure of the Supreme Court.

Rick Hayes is an award-winning New York Citybased writer with 20 years' experience regarding political and social topics.

Image: Public Domain.
Late last year, I got into a discussion with a fellow who was quite sold on the idea that man's activities were warming the Earth. While not a hardcore ideologue, it was apparent the gentleman had accepted the climate change narrative presented by mainstream media and believed we truly were imperiling the planet. I didn't say much to him initially, as we were engaged in some recreation, but later on, I resurrected the topic and told him I just wanted to pose one question.

"What is the ideal average temperature of the Earth?" I asked.

It was clear he was without an answer, so I explained my rationale. "If we don't know what the Earth's ideal average temperature is," I stated, "how can we know if a given type of climate change  whether naturally occurring or induced by man  is good or bad? After all, we can't then know whether it's bringing us closer to or moving us further away from that ideal temperature."

It was as if a little light bulb had lit up in his head, and he said, "You know, that's a good question!"

I haven't seen the man since, as we were just two ships passing in the night, and I don't know how his thinking has evolved (or regressed) between then and now. I do know, however, that someone who'd seemed so confident and perhaps even unbending in his position had his mind opened with one simple question and a 20-second explanation.

Part of the question's beauty is that no one can answer it. There is no "ideal" average Earth temperature, only a range within which it must remain for life as we know it to exist. At the spectrum's lower end, polar creatures proliferate; at its higher end, tropical animals do (though warmer temperatures do breed more life, which is why the tropics boast ten times as many species as does the Arctic. Moreover, crop yields increase when CO2 levels are higher).

This brings us to another important point: Apocalyptic warmist dogma is buttressed by the virtually unchallenged assumption that if man changes something "natural," it is by definition bad. But this is prejudice. Most of us certainly don't believe this, for instance, when humans cure disease and use science to preserve and extend human life (or that of our pets).

As for climate, there have been at least five major ice ages, and "the most recent one began approximately 3 million years ago and continues today (yes, we live in an ice age!)," informs the Utah Geological Survey. Then there was the Cryogenian period, during which the Earth was completely, or almost completely, covered with snow and ice. If man had existed during that time, would it have been bad if his activities had raised the temperature a couple of degrees?

Within ice ages are shorter-term cycles known as glacials (colder periods) and interglacials (warmer ones); glacials last approximately 100,000 years, while interglacials last about 10,000 to 30,000 years. We're currently in an interglacial called the Holocene Epoch, which began 11,500 to 12,000 years ago. This means that we could, conceivably, be poised to soon enter another more frigid glacial period.

Now, again, were this mitigated by a couple of degrees via man's activities, would this be a bad thing?

In point of fact, warmists suggest this is the case. For example, citing research, science news magazine Eos wrote in 2016 that our Holocene Epoch "may last much longer because of the increased levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases resulting from human activity."

Once more, would this be bad? Why? What's that ideal average Earth temperature that this climate change would supposedly be moving us farther away from? If you're a member of one of the vast majority of Earth's species, those prospering in (relative) warmth, it sounds like good news.

The question in question won't cut any ice (pun intended) with those emotionally invested in the doom-and-gloom global warming thesis. After all, "You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into," to paraphrase Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift. But with the more open-minded majority, the question can turn down the heat on the fear.

Graphic credit: Max Pixel, public domain.
Liberal bias among prominent news outlets has been well-known for decades. As a consequence, there has been a mass exodus of conservatives away from "legacy media" outlets such as the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post to right-leaning news sources including Fox News, the Daily Wire, and the Federalist. Unsurprisingly, this mass migration has also led to a partisan split as to how trustworthy the public views mainstream media: a summer 2021 poll by Pew Research indicates that 78% of Democrats trust the national news media, compared to just 35% of Republicans. Meanwhile, growth among right-leaning news outlets has skyrocketed. While this cataclysmic shift in the way in which the American public consumes media may be common knowledge, a recent job posting by the New York Times seeking a politics reporter on "right-wing media" provides a telling look at just how openly biased the mainstream media have become.

The job posting opens with a somewhat chilling mission statement, noting that the media empire seeks to "help people understand the world." The wording indicates that the newspaper does not simply report factual news, but also interprets that news, almost always through a leftist lens. The advertisement goes on to list the specifics of the position, seeking a reporter to "cover the news outlets, online communities and influential personalities making up the right-wing media ecosystem that now serves many conservative Americans who no longer rely on the mainstream media to inform themselves"  a tacit acknowledgment that conservatives no longer read the New York Times.

The job description notes that applicants should be "prepared to inhabit corners of the internet that popularize far-right or extremist ideas, providing our readers with a critical listening post on those ideas before they achieve wider circulation." In other words, the sole job of the reporter is to spy on conservative outlets and attempt to discredit and censor any new ideas coming from the political right before they can gain traction. The New York Times implies that ideas arising from conservative media are "extremist" and "far-right," perhaps deliberately forgetting that right-wing media outlets are often among the first to break important national stories  a few recent examples including a sexual assault cover-up in the Loudoun County school district, the possibility of COVID-19 emerging from a Wuhan laboratory, and corruption within the Biden family.

In addition, the New York Times seeks an applicant who "can successfully research and report on the people behind [right-wing] ideas, shedding light on their motivations and sources of funding, mapping the connections and networks and analyzing how these ideas are being received and acted upon." The language implies that conservative ideas are not developed through logical or sincere means, but rather are the result of manipulation by some wealthy, maleficent organization  which is interesting, considering that George Soros has been doing exactly that, but for the benefit of the political left. Of course, the newspaper may have more nefarious intentions for collecting information on individuals or businesses who fund right-wing causes, given its history of doxxing conservative voices and publicly listing companies that dont fully embrace leftist orthodoxy.

"You should be able to build and maintain source relationships even in adversarial situations and collaborate with colleagues covering politics, disinformation, technology, religion, national news and other subjects," the job description continues, again emphasizing that coverage of right-wing media must inevitably involve disinformation. The mention of "religion" here also has derogatory implications, as it is brought up in the context of far-right extremism. Technology, too, is likely listed here due to the leftists goal of Big Tech censorship of conservative voices under the guise of "fighting disinformation."

The political motivations of the position are stated in even stronger terms when the advertisement ends by stating that "experience covering right-wing media, disinformation or political extremism would be ideal, and a robust list of reporting targets would be highly attractive[.] ... Prerequisites include the backbone to withstand aggressive blowback, impeccable journalistic ethics and the ability to report accurately, critically and fairly on people with extremist views." This statement strongly implies equivalencies between "right-wing media," "disinformation," and "political extremism." Right-wing media figures are smeared as "people with extremist views." Stunningly, the job posting suggests that prospective applicants must be able to "withstand aggressive blowback" for reporting on conservative media, an ironic assertion, given the lefts history of physically attacking reporters.

In a few paragraphs, the New York Times ad for a politics reporter succinctly captures not only the left-wing bias infesting our mainstream media sources, but also how the left views conservatives (e.g., as extremists) and their game plan for destroying them (e.g., through censorship). Perhaps a sister position may be created to target the spread of far-left ideology in the U.S. and the organizations that fund such ideas? Given the current state of the mainstream media, I won't hold my breath.

J. Allen Cartwright is a chemical researcher in the energy sector. His interest is in the interplay of politics with cultural and scientific institutions, and he can be followed on Parler at @jallencartwright.

Image: Adam Jones via Flickr (cropped).
Most Americans are simply unaware of how weak and haphazard our voter ID and absentee ballot laws are compared to those in other countries. I want to do a quick overview of U.S. laws and then compare them to those in Europe, Canada, and Mexico.

According to Ballotpedia, 15 states do not require voter ID for in-person voting. Republicans control the state legislatures in three of the states (NE, NC & PA), there is split legislative control in Minnesota, and the remaining 11 states (OR, CA, NV, NM, IL, MD, NJ, NY, MA, VT & ME) all have Democrat control.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are 20 states that have photo ID requirements for in-person voting. Two states have Democrat-controlled legislatures (WA & RI), while all the remaining 18 (ID, MT, WY, SD, KS, TX, AR, LA, TN, MS, AL, GA, SC, FL, MI, NH, IN & WI) have Republican-controlled legislatures. The remaining 15 states (AZ, UT, CO, ND, OK, IA, MO, KY, OH, WV, VA, DE, CT, AK & HI) have non-photo ID document requirements.

For absentee voting, Ballotpedia notes that there are three U.S. models: (1) automatically mail ballots to every registered voter, (2) provide absentee ballots upon request if a statutory excuse has been established by the qualified voter, and (3) provide absentee ballots to any registered voter who requests one.

There are eight states who automatically mail absentee ballots to all registered voters without request. Seven have Democrat-controlled state legislatures (HI, WA, OR, CA, NV, CO & VT), and one (UT) has Republican control. There are 16 states that provide absentee ballots if a statutory excuse has been proven. Four have Democrat-controlled state legislatures (DE, NY, CT & MA), and the remaining 12 (TX, LA, AR, MO, IN, KY, WV, TN, AL, MS, SC & NH) have Republican control. The remaining 26 states provide absentee ballots to any registered voter who requests one. I am not aware of any U.S. state that prohibits providing an absentee ballot to an in-state or in-country resident.

Only seven states (AL, KS, ND, OH, PA, SD & WI) require any proof of identity when applying for an absentee ballot. Republicans hold a majority in both state legislative chambers in each of these states.

How do our voter ID and absentee ballot laws compare to those in Europe, Canada, and Mexico? Be prepared for a shock.

John Lott, Jr., Ph.D. has done the heavy lifting in compiling voting laws in other countries. Here is what his research has found.

Of the 47 countries in Europe, a staggering 46 require government-issued photo IDs for in-person voting. The only exception is the United Kingdom, where a photo ID is required for national elections in Northern Ireland but not for Scotland, Wales, and England. Both Canada and Mexico require a government-issued photo ID. Mexico goes a step farther by making its ID biometric with both photo and fingerprints.

European, Canadian, and Mexican absentee ballot laws are much more restrictive than ours. None automatically sends absentee ballots to all registered voters.

Of the 27 nations in the European Union, only five give absentee ballots to any qualified voter who requests one. In 18 of the countries (67%), absentee ballots are only provided to citizens living abroad. A photo ID is required to obtain an absentee ballot in 11 of the countries (47%). A whopping 25 of the 27 (93%) either do not permit people living in the country to vote absentee or require a photo ID to get an absentee ballot.

In the 16 European countries that are not members of the E.U., absentee ballot rules are equally tough if not tougher. Only two provide absentee ballots to any qualified voter who requests one. Fourteen of the 16 countries (88%) provide absentee ballots only to citizens living abroad. In five of the countries, a photo ID is required to obtain an absentee ballot. All (100%) of the countries either do not allow absentee voting for people living in the country or require a photo ID to get an absentee ballot.

In Canada, any eligible voter can request an absentee ballot, but a government-issued picture ID is necessary to obtain it. In Mexico, absentee ballots are only provided to citizens living abroad, and a photo ID must be shown to get it.

Our democracy will be imperiled if we lose confidence that our elections, and we will lose confidence in our elections if we believe that vote counts are fraudulent.

Joseph Goebbels once said: "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly  it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." This has been the Democrat party's playbook to convince Americans that it is racist to require in-person or absentee voters to prove who they are.

So what should we do with this information? We should challenge the Democrat narrative that demanding government-approved photo IDs is racist. Here are some suggestions:

1. Download Dr. Lott's full reports and study them.

2. Whenever you see a local TV news or local newspaper report parroting the Democrat line that demanding a picture ID to vote is racist, email copies of Dr. Lott's report and ask the question: "If Mexico, Canada, and 46 of 47 countries in Europe demand a photo ID to vote, why is it racist to demand a photo ID to vote in the U.S.?"

3. In Mexico and the majority of countries in Europe, absentee ballots are given only to qualified voters living abroad. In other words, there is a great preference to have in-person voting for in-country residents. Why do you think that is?

4. If there is no photo ID for in-person or absentee voting, how can we be certain that the vote is not fraudulent?

5. Send letters to the editor and write guest op-ed articles for your local paper challenging the official Democrat party narrative.

6. Challenge corrupt politicians to explain why requiring a government to issue a photo ID to vote is racist.

You get the idea. Fight back.

Photo credit: GPA Photo Archive CC BY-NC 2.0 license.
Once again, Russian troop movements around Ukraine have Western strategists warning that an all-out invasion by Russia is imminent. There are about 100,000 troops close to the Ukraine border, but the Russian leadership says it is not getting ready for an invasion.

President Biden indicated that Putin would pay a serious price for invading and stressed that any Russian military incursion would lead to a swift, severe response from the West. For its part, the Kremlin stated that continuing such comments could only further destabilize the situation.

This is problematic. President Biden's low polling numbers and multiple policy failures make preventing Russia from invading Ukraine one of the few topics that generate bipartisan support from the American people. Launching a war is a great way to bring up those flagging poll numbers. Some would argue that a hot war is a sure way to deal with a recession and even improve re-election odds. Let's hope, though, that it doesn't come to this.

The West is the only real source for weapons capable of defeating modern Russian military forces and equipment, so the West's response could simply be to ship military aid to Ukraine. The U.S. has done so in the past. Or, as some people fear, it could lead to a larger scale war with U.S. and NATO troops in direct conflict with Russian forces  a potential WW3. This is all the scarier since the major belligerents are nuclear powers.

Significantly, neither the U.S. nor the Eastern and Western Europeans have anything to gain from such a conflict even if it is limited to a conventional fight.

Ukraine is strategically valuable mainly to Russia, which sees it as a buffer state between Russia and the potentially hostile West. Furthermore, the mix of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine since the Stalin years makes it attractive as part of the current Russian Empire. There is no real strategic value in Ukraine for the U.S. There has been substantial discussion about bringing Ukraine into NATO, but this is likely folly because Ukraine is a weakened state that does not add to NATO's strength. Rather, it creates a high-risk liability.



Image: Satellite images of Russian troops near the Ukraine border. YouTube screen grab.

This does not mean that strong U.S. diplomatic pressure on Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty isn't called for. It should mean that there is no need for a U.S./NATO military response should the Russians move in.

The best thing for Europe is an independent Ukraine established via political compromise. This is called diplomacy, not appeasement. Using military movements and threats of military action is the last diplomatic response.

Ukraine is not a U.S. ally, nor is it part of NATO, and as such, it does not enjoy any guarantee of support from NATO. Furthermore, the strategic balance does not change much for NATO if the Russians occupy Ukraine. The reverse is certainly true for Russia.

Many pundits suggest that if Ukraine were to fall to Russia, then Putin would target Poland. Poland is already a NATO member, and if Russia invaded it, that would require a swift response from its NATO allies  and the Russians well know this.

Poland has been a strong NATO ally since 1999 and is considered vital to NATO's eastern flank security. The U.S. has the forward headquarters of the U.S. Army V Corps in the Polish city of Poznan, and some 5,500 U.S. troops in the country. Furthermore, despite the Soviet Union's decades of post-WWII dominance over it, Poland is not as mixed with ethnic Russians as are parts of Ukraine. In other words, the Poles see themselves as much more Western and ethnically very separate from Russia and their nation as a military power in its own right.

So the threats Russia poses to Ukraine and Poland are very different. Poland has strategic value to NATO, and Ukraine does not  at least not as much as its value to Russia  and that is the key decision point for any U.S. or NATO response to a Russian invasion. Is it valuable enough to fight for?

The best course of action with Russia is to contain it within its own reasonably identifiable sphere of influence, which includes Ukraine. Should it be allowed to invade Ukraine without a Western response? Absolutely not but that response should not be a war. It should be diplomatic and economic and driven by the E.U. A free and independent Ukraine is actually a benefit to both East and West.
Veteran newsman Ted Koppel, during an interview with Dan Abrams for the News Nation, expressed concern about the state of the U.S. mainstream media.

Koppel said he is stunned at opinion pieces that run on the front page of newspapers that would have never received such positioning in decades past.

The following is an excerpt of what Koppel said:

I think opinion belongs on the opinion page; that's why they call it the Op-Ed section. And that's where the opinion pieces and the columns, that's where the editorials are, and that's where it belongs. I don't like seeing opinions being expressed on the front page of a great newspaper. It bothers me when I see them losing some of the criteria that always used to keep a wall between opinion and newspapers.

Back in 2019, Koppel excoriated the news media for its bias in a piece for the Washington Post:

I'm terribly concerned that when you talk about the New York Times these days when you talk about the Washington Post these days, we're not talking about the New York Times of 50 years ago. We're not talking about the Washington Post of 50 years ago. We're talking about organizations that, I believe, have, in fact, decided as organizations that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.

The news outlets in question such as The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, and CNN fired back at Koppel, calling him naive.

And therein lies the problem.

The overt bias is not a result of honest mistakes or oversight or a few journalists going rogue. These propagandists are proud and remorseless. They have an almost anarchist-like fervor for propaganda.

Over a period of time, they have convinced themselves and their associates that they are at war with anyone who doesn't share their liberal worldview.

They have also persuaded themselves that they are the sole custodians of virtues, morals, and ethics while their opponents are pitiless, bigoted, immoral, and corrupt.

With their opponents dehumanized and designated as enemies, they excuse themselves from adhering to any journalistic practices, standards, and objectivity.

For them, everything is fair since they are at war. They can never go too far  they can invent stories out of thin air, they can use pejorative epithets, they can overstate and make outrageous comparisons with the darkest chapters in human history.

Over the decades, the problem has become systemic.

How could they resolve this if they intended to?

Firstly, total objectivity is impossible.

Every human being has a unique perspective, which causes subjectivity and eventually bias. Irrespective of journalistic ethics and organizational policies, standards, and practices, the bias will always seep through.

The only solution to mitigate this bias is to have a diverse group of people in a newsroom.

If you ask the H.R. divisions of these Democrat propaganda outfits, they will boast about their commitment to diversity of race, sex, nationalities, LGBT, and religion. However, the most crucial among the diversity  i.e., the variety of opinions, perspectives, ideologies, and political affiliations  is not welcomed or permitted.

The people working at the Washington Post or NYT or CNN or NBC news may have different skin colors, sexual orientations, cultural backgrounds, religions, and sexes, but their opinions are identical.

If you interview this "diverse" group, you will find that all worship Barack Obama and love Hillary Clinton. They consider Hillary's loss their personal failure and Biden's "victory" their personal triumph. They despise President Trump and his supporters with a psychopathic passion.

They probably do not know any Republicans personally. They have distanced themselves from family members and childhood friends who are Trump-supporters living in middle America, whom they regard as an inferior species.

The only slight diversity is that some are far-left Democrats while others are establishment Democrats.

They have given up the spirit of free inquiry. They prefer the chimes of their Democrat echo chambers to the challenges of opposing views.

There is no difference between Democrats in the media and Democrats in active politics. At times, politicians lead and the media follow; on other occasions, the converse occurs.

Bari Weiss, a liberal, was compelled to resign from the NYT for daring to deviate from the groupthink. In her resignation letter, Weiss described how the NYT had devolved into an intolerant self-righteous echo chamber where personnel with the "wrong" opinion are tormented by the woke mob while editors and management look the other way.

When an anti-Trump news story breaks, they are so overcome by a desire for it to be true that they abandon all skepticism and journalistic practice and get before a screen or feverishly begin writing their hit jobs. The piece receives blandishments at every editorial stage and is published.

A Trump-supporting fact-checker or editor would have easily caught their lies and the bias, but they are no longer in the business of factual reportage and editorials.

There are seldom any apologies or retractions for blatant falsehoods.

They have also developed a subscriber base who tune in to have their biases confirmed. The news outfit toils not to report facts, but to appease their subscriber base led the Democrat Washington Establishment. These subscribers are almost like drug addicts looking to get high from their latest dose of propaganda. With every passing day, these propagandists have to strive to be more outrageous and toxic.

If the NYT even dares to change course and cover the likes of President Trump fairly, the subscribers will rebel and cancel their subscriptions.

A few years ago, the NYT was compelled to alter the headline of an already anti-Trump story after its subscriber base and media-based Trump haters were outraged that the headline wasn't distasteful enough.

What Koppel missed in his critique of the media was the poor quality, almost pedestrian quality of op-ed pieces.

If you want an unhinged rant, you can get it among the inebriated in your local pub. Op-ed pieces are supposed to be intellectually compelling. They are supposed to have unique perspectives and are thought-provoking.

In fact, it has reached a point where propagandists are not even attempting to conceal their motives.

When Biden was declared president-elect, CNN's Don Lemon was so overcome by emotion that he went on an unhinged rant, referring to the Democrats as "we." CNN didn't even perfunctorily reprimand him for his behavior.

In a recent column, Maureen Dowd wrote, "We can't give up on the president [Biden] because he's all that stands between us and the apocalypse at the hands of Trump, DeSantis, etc." Notice the usage of "us." Yes, it is an op-ed column, but an editor at the NYT should have compelled her to change "us" to "Democrats" or "liberals."

But they no longer care about appearances.

Dr. Ted Koppel may have diagnosed the chronic ailment and prescribed medication, but the patient refuses to acknowledge his affliction, hence the quest for a cure is out of the question.

The news consumer has no option but to presume every news story to be false until proven true. We have to be skeptical about every word that emanates from propagandists.

Image: Screen shot from Dan Abrams Live, News Nation, via YouTube.
Google Labs is building a brand new group focused solely on blockchain technology. Thats according to widespread reports citing an email said to have been viewed by Bloomberg.

For clarity, Google Labs is a subdivision and incubator at Google for upcoming technology. Specifically, a division that puts its focus onhigh-potential, long-term projects. And the executive leading the new project, engineering vice president Shivakumar Venkataraman, is no stranger to taking on heavy projects. Having worked on advertising and payment systems with Google, including Search, for more than a decade.

So what is the new Google Labs project built on blockchain?

As of this writing, the Google Labs group responsible for examining blockchain technology is still being formed. And, according to reports, is relatively small. At least compared to teams working on other product areas at Google. But the project is still very much a mystery.

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According to reports, Google has tasked Mr. Venkataraman with focusing on blockchain and other next-gen distributed computing and data storage technologies.

That could mean any number of technologies, built around the same ledger-like system for recording transactions used for technologies such as Bitcoin. Namely, a technology that centers around cryptography and secure transactions. More importantly, those are difficult  or sometimes impossible  to change, to hack, or to cheat. With each transaction on the blockchain recorded to every participants ledger. But with less of a focus on the financial.

In fact, all thats known for now is that the focus will be on distributed computing and data storage. The latter is self-explanatory and the former potentially relates to cloud services or cloud-based computations. And, since Google Labs primarily focuses on technologies that support or undergird existing Google products and services, there is a huge range of possibilities there. With no clear direction that Google might ultimately take with its research in the group.
Samsungs upcoming mid-ranger, the Galaxy A53 5G, has leaked on multiple occasions over the past few months. Were now getting our best look at the device yet, confirming a few key hardware aspects, particularly the rear camera layout. These images of the rear panel match accurately with the renders that leaked in November.

The leaked images come courtesy of 91Mobiles, showing us the rear panel of the Galaxy A53 5G in great detail. It also gives us a decent idea of the smartphones overall design. Unfortunately, these are the only images available now, but we expect more to follow in the days and weeks ahead.

A report last month claimed that Samsung has already started producing the Galaxy A53 5G in India. Meanwhile, other reports have shed light on some of the hardware specs of the device.

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We already know based on the renders and this new leak that the smartphone will feature four rear cameras and a single LED flash. Samsung could stick with the 64-megapixel f/1.8 primary sensor that we saw with the Galaxy A52 5G last year. Hopefully, future leaks will give us a better idea about the rear camera arrangement.

Samsung could unveil the Galaxy A53 5G by March

The smartphone should also include a 6.46-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen with a 120Hz display refresh rate. Leaks suggest the device could be available in 6GB and 8GB RAM options, complemented by 128GB and 256GB of storage variants.

A benchmark listing showed the Galaxy A53 5G running on a chipset codenamed s5e8825, otherwise known as the Samsung Exynos 1200. On the other hand, older reports have suggested that the phone could be launched with the MediaTek Dimensity 900. While theres no confirmation on this aspect, Samsung may end up launching both models for specific markets.

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Android 12 should be the default operating system with One UI 4.0 on top. Samsung will probably retain the large 5,000mAh battery from the predecessor. As per a recent 3C listing, the company will only offer a 15W charging adapter with the Galaxy A53 5G.

Given that the Galaxy A52 5G broke cover in March 2021, the successor could arrive around the same time this year. This aligns pretty well with the influx of leaks over the last few weeks.
Mark Jenkins, of the Greater Hartford Harm Reduction Coalition sorts fentanyl bags retrieved from the streets in this July 2021 file photo. Jenkins fears police warnings and a lengthy decontamination of the Sports and Medical Sciences Academy after a boy overdosed on fentanyl there spreads stigma around opioids and makes intervention less likely in the future. Photograph by Mark Mirko | mmirko@courant.com (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

On Jan. 14, Hartford police issued a warning stating they recently recovered fentanyl 50 times more potent than the kind typically tested across New England.

Police did not specify where they recovered the drugs, but the issue of fentanyl was close to mind. A 13-year-old student at Sport and Medical Sciences Academy overdosed on the drug while at school Jan. 13, and later died. The following day, police said a subsequent search of the school revealed nearly 40 small bags of fentanyl packed for street-level sale.

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In the warning released Jan. 14, police repeated a claim that has since been widely scrutinized: The strength and potency of this product can be deadly to anyone coming in contact with it, including absorption through the skin, they wrote.

The latter part of the claim is untrue, according to medical and addiction experts, who fear the circulation of these claims could spread unnecessary fear and negatively impact harm reduction efforts in the future.

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Proving a negative, as in, this could never be a problem, is potentially difficult. But in this situation, it really isnt so difficult, said Dr. Charles McKay, former president of the American College of Medical Toxicology and associate medical director of the Connecticut Poison Control Center.

I am unaware  of a legitimate, scientifically reviewed, published case report of dermal powder fentanyl exposure resulting in severe toxicity and death, said Dr. Suzanne Doyon, medical director of the Connecticut Poison Control Center.

Its simply not how the drug works, the doctors said.

What is fentanyl?

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and typically administered intravenously to treat severe pain, such as for cancer patients or post-surgical patients.

It is cheaper to produce than other opioids, which are usually derived from the opium poppy. Though considered safe in a medical environment, the drug has begun to infiltrate the illicit opioid market, and its potency poses a fatal risk to users.

Its also a larger substance and doesnt absorb well through the skin, McKay said. It is physically impossible that one could develop symptoms just minutes after coming into contact with the drug, he added.

Pharmaceutical companies have more recently produced dermal fentanyl patches  but only after more than 10 years of development, Doyon said.

These highly technical patches often contain large quantities of fentanyl in a membrane, and are applied with adhesive and occlusive dressing.

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Theres a huge difference between that and someone who gets a little bit of white powder on the hands, Doyon said.

Lt. Aaron Boisvert, the Hartford police spokesperson who wrote the warning, clarified the claim with The Courant on Thursday and reiterated the dangers posed by the highly potent opioid.

[ Connecticut marks Overdose Awareness Day with remembrance of lost loved ones and tales of recovery ]

Weve always had training bulletins and things that [said] youre not supposed to touch this stuff because it can be absorbed through the skin. Apparently that is no longer the case, Boisvert said.

However, if you touch it and touch your eye later, your nose later, then it can potentially kill you. Im not going to say you can touch fentanyl. This is dangerous stuff.

Ocular ingestion is thought to pose more of a risk than dermal absorption, but medical experts said the dangers are mitigated with basic safety precautions, like handwashing.

If people come in casual contact with fentanyl, they should wash their hands and avoid touching their face, mouth or nose, until they wash their hands, said Dr. Matt Griswold, chief of the Division of Toxicology at Hartford Hospital.

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Decontamination

Experts also questioned the rigorous decontamination process at the Sport and Medical Sciences Academy, which kept the school closed until Wednesday.

School administrators placed the school under a Code Yellow alert after learning of the overdose, meaning students and staff had to stay put, and did not distribute lunches to students.

Jason Thody, Hartford police chief, said at a press conference Jan. 13 that students were required to walk through a solution of bleach and OxyClean before leaving the school.

A certified state contractor continued the decontamination process over the weekend in the areas where bags of the drug were found. The direction to treat the school as a Hazmat situation came from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Boisvert said.

McKay said the process was completely unnecessary and benefits nobody. While these chemicals would succeed in degrading the fentanyl, the likelihood of significant quantities of fentanyl-laced powder being tracked out of school on the shoes of the students is slim.

[ Hartford school where student suffered fatal OD reopens ]

I suppose if [students] licked their shoes or something, they might get a dose, but that doesnt seem very likely, McKay said. It would be better to focus people on the problem that does exist, which is the widespread availability and use of very potent opioids with no idea what is in them.

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The Sport and Medical Sciences Academy reopened Wednesday with a two-hour delay, with extra support staff on site and resources for students and staff.

Whatever the rationale for closing the school for decontamination, it would have nothing to do with preventing subsequent exposures, McKay said.

Mark Jenkins, executive director of the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance, said he was concerned with the optics of the response. The message that sends to the community is hysteria, he told The Courant.

Jenkins and other harm reduction advocates worry that spreading claims that fentanyl can kill you just by touching it, or that hazmat suits are needed to decontaminate, spreads stigma around opioids and makes intervention less likely in the future. People who witness an overdose, or first responders, may be hesitant to treat a victim with Narcan, for example.

The decontamination process at the school is not replicated at other scenes where overdoses occur, according to Peter Canning, EMS coordinator at UConn John Dempsey Hospital.

If you treated every [overdose] scene the way they treat some of these hazmat scenes, you would need to put tape around the city of Hartford, Canning said.

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Where did these claims begin?

The mistaken belief that fentanyl can be lethal to touch has been particularly pervasive among law enforcement officials as police and other emergency personnel started to respond to more fatal overdoses over the last decade.

In 2016, the DEA released a training video for officers called Fentanyl: A Real Threat to Law Enforcement that said dermal contact with the drug could be fatal.

Videos and testimonies of officers claiming to experience overdoses soon began to circulate widely, in part thanks to a plethora of misleading news reports.

Several medical organizations have attempted to counter these claims in the years since.

In 2017, the American College of Medical Toxicology and the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology released a joint position statement saying incidental dermal absorption is unlikely to cause opioid toxicity.

Five Things You Need To Know Daily We're providing the latest coronavirus coverage in Connecticut each weekday morning. >

Despite fentanyls potency, the risk of clinically significant exposure to emergency responders is extremely low, the statement reads.

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[ Fentanyl-laced pot confirmed in Connecticut for first time, caused OD in Plymouth ]

As for the testimonies, McKay noted that the symptoms described by first responders are generally not what youd expect to see with opioid exposure.

Symptoms like dizziness or an elevated heart rate are more akin to stress or panic attacks, experts said.

Still, these incorrect beliefs have stuck around, and guidance from medical institutions is not always clear.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, in 2020 updated its guidance for first responders when handling fentanyl, but still warns of the dangers of skin absorption on its general fentanyl page online.

It can be hard to correct misinformation once it gets out the first time, Canning said, and deferred to a favored quote from Jonathan Swift: Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.

Seamus McAvoy may be reached at smcavoy@courant.com.
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(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 21 - Pietro Curzio, the head of the supreme Court of Cassation, said Friday that 295 murders took place in Italy last year and in 118 of those cases women were the victims.

He said that 102 of those women were killed "in the family-relationship sphere" at the inauguration of the judicial year in the presence of President Sergio Mattarella.

Curzio said 70 were femicides in which the victim was killed by her current or former partner.

He also said that 1,000 people died in workplace accidents in the first 10 months of 2021, describing the figure as "unacceptable". (ANSA).


(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 21 - Mustafa al-Nazzal, the five-year-old boy who was born without limbs because of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, landed in Rome on flight from Istanbul on Friday after Italy decided to grant him and his family asylum.

Mustafa became a symbol of the conflict after of an award-winning photo of him smiling with his father, who had to have a leg amputated because of the war, went viral.

The photo, entitled 'Hardship of Life,' was taken by Turkish photographer Mehmat Aslan and won the Siena International Photography Competition. (ANSA).


TUNIS - An Italian-Tunisian training programme combining cinema and environmental awareness has started in Tunisia with the cycle "Young film directors, writing, environment": The programme, titled "Green scenarios - strengthening the skills of young people in the audiovisual field for ecological awareness", was created by Association Kaif (Tunisia), Federation tunisienne des cineastes amateurs (FTCA, Tunisia) and the Centre for Creation and Culture (formerly Fabrica Europa Association).

Valeria Meneghelli of Association Kaif told ANSAmed that the first of the two training sessions was led by Lorenzo Ci on January 15.

She said the programme consists of six master classes led by Italian and Tunisian experts for a group of twelve FTCA members who have already had experience making films.

The second training session, aimed at a group of FTCA members with less experience in the field of cinema, will start in February and continue in parallel with the master classes.

The members of the two groups will also be part of a tandem creation process through summer 2022 where they will work in pairs to produce short films on contemporary environmental issues.

The project is part of the J-Med program, supported by the government of the Principality of Monaco for the youth of the Mediterranean countries and the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, with the support of Illis.
ROME - Harvard University and the University of Athens held an online signing event on Wednesday, January 19, to officially launch their memorandum of cooperation for a new Refugee and Migration Studies Hub in Greece.

A research collaboration on migration/refugee issues will take place this summer with a three-week course in Greece for Harvard graduate students.

The interdisciplinary course on migration and refugee studies will be held July 11-31 in Athens, Nafplio and on the island of Lesvos.

It will be offered by Harvard's FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, in collaboration with University of Athens' Refugee and Migration Studies Hub, and will include lectures, seminars, interactive class sessions and fieldwork.

US Deputy Ambassador to Greece David Burger welcomed the launch.

"I would like to congratulate both institutions for joining forces to launch the Refugee and Migration Studies Hub," Burger said.

"The need for immediate support and integration of refugees and migrants is an important part of the social justice agenda of the Biden administration," he said

" We will be looking forward to learning from our colleagues in Greece, the faculty, staff, and students, who will join the projects and the initiatives of the Hub. And, importantly, we need to learn from the refugees and migrants themselves. Their voices must be part of this process," he said.

Greece has been on the frontline of Europe's migration crisis since it erupted in 2015, when nearly a million people fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan landed on its islands in the Aegean Sea, as well as its northern land borders with Turkey.

Harvard University and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens are the oldest universities in the United States and Greece, respectively, and both are leading academic and research institutions.

Greek Education Minister Niki Kerameus also lauded the initiative.

"Despite the pandemic, we are promoting the international collaborations of our universities with a firm commitment to consolidating their extroversion, and claiming the position they deserve in the International Academic Charter," Kerameus said.

"We are deeply convinced that our universities have a lot to offer the global academic community as well as to gain from it, through synergies, exchanges of students, teachers, researchers and joint study programs".
Migrants: Tunisian Navy rescues 23 people Including five women and one child

(ANSAmed) - ROME, 21 GEN - The Tunisian Navy rescued 23 migrants, including five women and one child, aboard a boat in distress off the coast of Tunisia on January 19, said the Tunisian Defence Ministry in a statement.



It said the boat, carrying 13 people from Mali and 10 from the Ivory Coast, had departed from the coast of Sfax the previous night.



According to the statement, those rescued were taken to the fishing port of Sfax, where they were handed over to the National Guard, which will handle their case. (ANSAmed).




Syria: NGO says at least 48 dead in ISIS prison clashes US military helicopters surveying area of ongoing clashes

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, 21 GEN - The provisional death toll has risen to at least 48 in ongoing armed clashes in northeastern Syria around a prison run by Kurdish-Syrian forces, where thousands of ISIS fighters are being held, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).



It said the clashes are still underway near Ghweiran prison in the northeastern region of Hasake.



US military helicopters are flying over the area in search of approximately 80 escaped prisoners, says the Observatory, which uses a dense network of local sources.



About 20 victims are from the ranks of the Kurdish-Syrian security forces, while there have been about the same number of victims among the ISIS fighters.



The ISIS fighters started the prison attack during the night, but clashes have continued into Friday.



The fighters have positioned themselves in an area of Hasake near the prison and are using civilians as human shields, local sources said.



The information cannot be independently verified on the ground. (ANSAmed).




Yemen: Red Cross reports many victims in Yemen prison attack Doctors Without Borders also confirms attack

(ANSAmed) - ROME, 21 GEN - The International Red Cross (IRC) in Yemen confirmed that attacks by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen hit a prison in Sadaa, in the country's north, and caused "several deaths and injuries".



"We are verifying the number of victims with our teams on the ground," said Basheer Omar, IRC Yemen spokesperson.



The Houthi rebels denounced the attack.



Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also confirmed the attack in a statement.



"Last night, around 2:30 a.m., a prison in the city of Sa'ada was hit by what appears to have been an airstrike launched by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition, said Ahmed Mahat, head of MSF in Yemen.



"Al-Gumhourriyeh hospital in the city has so far received about 200 injured and said it was unable to take in new patients," Mahat said.



"Colleagues in Sa'ada told us there are many bodies still at the scene of the attack and many people are still missing. It is impossible to know the number of people who lost their lives. It seems to have been a terrible act of violence," Mahat said.



(ANSAmed).




Rockin Chicken owner Kate Colan has organized a fundraiser to help chef Luis Bernal, who displays a phone image of his Hartford apartment that was destroyed by fire. (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

The Rockin Chicken, a Peruvian rotisserie chicken restaurant at 476 Franklin Ave. in Hartford, will host a fundraiser on Jan. 24 to raise money for its chef, who lost his home and all his belongings in a Jan. 12 apartment fire.

The restaurant usually is closed on Mondays, but it will open that day from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., serving a limited menu. Owner Kate Colan said 100% of the proceeds will be given to Luis Bernal.

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On the morning of Jan. 12, Bernal drove his 11-year-old son to school, then went back to his 105 Preston St. apartment in the South End to catch up on some sleep. He was woken by a fire alarm, jumped out of bed and opened the door of his bedroom.

The dining room was black and orange, Bernal said.

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The flames blasted toward him when he opened that door. He ran through the blaze in his bare feet and out the door of his first-floor home.

I didnt see anything. I just ran, he said.

He made it out safely and stood in the cold air in his bare feet watching his home burn with everything he owned inside: furniture, TV, kitchenware, clothes, even his Christmas tree. His car keys burned, too, which means he cant drive his car.

[ Eight injured in Hartford fire; 36 people displaced ]

The Red Cross gave Bernal and his son, Lionel, a place to stay for a night and a $500 gift card to be used for clothes and food only. Lionel relocated to his mothers home. Bernal now lives with his brother and is looking for a new apartment with the help of city social services.

Eight people were injured in the fire: Seven were treated for smoke inhalation and one woman broke her ankle when she jumped from a window. Twenty families were displaced. The cause of the fire is still being investigated.

Colan saw the news reports of the fire.

Rockin Chicken employee Luis Bernal's apartment at 105 Preston St. in the South end of Hartford is now boarded up after it was destroyed earlier this month by fire. (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

The address didnt register in my mind until he called me, she said. I was so sad. A person can lose everything in a minute. This could happen to any of us.

Five Things You Need To Know Daily We're providing the latest coronavirus coverage in Connecticut each weekday morning. >

In Peru, Bernals native country, a pollada is held when someone has a financial crisis.

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People cook food in their homes and get together and sell it and make money and give it all to the person so he can start over, Colan said.

She liked the idea of a pollada better than a Gofundme.

Its winter and theres COVID going on. People have so many struggles at the moment. I didnt want to ask people to just give money, she said. This way everyone can get a good meal while doing something for someone.

Colan kept the offerings on Jan. 24 limited and affordable. For $15, the choices are a quarter-chicken with two sides and two sauces; chaufa de pollo a la brasa; seco de carne; or pasta verde. For $10, the offerings are a choice of pork chicharron sandwich, a mostrito burrito, salchipapas or a large soup of the day (aguadito, chicken or beef). Donations also will be accepted through Jan. 31 and can be made at therockinchicken.com through the online ordering system.

Hopefully we will get a good turnout, Colan said. We have got some donations already.

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.
ROME - The Saudi air force carried out intense airstrikes Thursday night on Yemeni cities controlled by pro-Iranian Houthi insurgents, and the country's internet connection in the country was cut off, pan-Arab media said, citing international organizations that monitor the worldwide functioning of the internet in real time.

According to reports from the NetBlocks organization, Saudi bombings Thursday night on Hudaydah, a Yemeni port on the Red Sea, caused a total internet blackout throughout the country.

Sources said transmission stations inside a building of the Houthi-controlled national broadcaster TeleYemen were particularly hit.

The sources, with the exception of Al Masira TV, said "several people" were killed in the airstrike against the TeleYemen building in Hudaydah, without however providing a precise victim count.

"Digging through the rubble," reported Al Masira.



The Saudi government has neither confirmed nor denied the reports.



However, on Thursday Riyadh announced the start of a vast military operation against the Houthis, who in recent days claimed responsibility for the unprecedented airstrikes against oil installations in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.



(ANSAmed).


ANSAmed - Weekly diary from January 24 to January 30

(ANSAmed) - ROME, JAN 21 -The following are the main events scheduled in the EuroMediterranean area from January 17 to January 23: MONDAY JANUARY 24 GENEVA - Meeting of the World Health Organization Executive Board (until 29/1).



BELGRADE - First edition of CinemaItaliaOggi Balkans kicks off, an annual event with the best of new Italian film production (until 29/1).



PARIS - Informal meeting of EU ministers responsible for higher education, research and innovation (until 25/1).



TUESDAY JANUARY 25 IMOLA - The exhibition 'Zaki and the Other Prisoners of Conscience' continues (until February 10).



WEDNESDAY JANUARY 26 BEIRUT - Jordanian delegation visit for the signing of an accord on electricity.



STRASBOURG - Informal meeting of EU ministers responsible for education and youth (until 27/1).



THURSDAY JANUARY 27 CASABLANCA - Trial resumes against journalist Omar Radi, accused of rape and espionage.



TUNIS - Court ruling on Rached Ghannouchi, accused of electoral crimes.



FRIDAY JANUARY 28 No major events scheduled SATURDAY JANUARY 29 No major events scheduled SUNDAY JANUARY 30 No major events scheduled (ANSAmed).




Dr Matthew Wilson

A British doctor has been shot dead while lying in his bed in Georgia in the United States, according to reports.

Dr Matthew Wilson, 31, was found dead at 2am local time in his bed in an apartment block in Clairmont Road, Buford Highway, Georgia, the BBC has reported.

The Surrey native was in Georgia with his girlfriend when the incident occurred.

Police had been called out to the area over reports of gunshots when they received another call that a person had been shot.

Sgt Jake Kissel, from Brookhaven Police, told BBC Radio Surrey that officers arrived at the scene to find Mr Wilsons girlfriend giving him first aid.

However, Mr Wilson died at the scene.

The Foreign Office confirmed to the PA news agency that it was supporting the family of a British man following his death in the US.

We are supporting the family of a British man following his death in the USA, and are in contact with US authorities, a spokesperson for the Foreign Office said.
Gwyneth Paltrow has announced a new limited edition candle to mark the anniversary of a landmark US supreme court decision on abortion rights.

The actress said the Hands Off My Vagina candle would honour the historic Roe v Wade case on January 22.

She said 25 dollars (18) from each sale of the candle would be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundations Reproductive Freedom Project.

Following the Roe v Wade case in 1973 it was ruled the US Constitution protects a pregnant womans right to choose to have an abortion.

In a post on social media, Paltrow said the campaign was to support the critical right to protect rights and basic freedoms.

The word vagina holds a lot of power, she wrote.

And yet, there is a recurring need to say: Hands off. Hands off our vaginas in any context where theyre not invited.

Your reproductive organs; your choice.

The candles, which cost 75 dollars each, will be sold on the website goop.com and donations from the proceeds will be made until July 1.
A senior Metropolitan Police officer who used hidden spy cameras to film naked women has been jailed for three years.

Detective Inspector Neil Corbel, 40, posed as an airline pilot to book models for photoshoots before planting the gadgets in hotel rooms, flats and Airbnbs.

The cameras were hidden in everyday items, including tissue boxes, phone chargers, air fresheners, glasses, keys and headphones, to video his unsuspecting victims for up to four hours.

Married father-of-two Corbel, a former counter-terrorism officer, was caught after a model, who had agreed to pose naked for a photo shoot, became suspicious of a digital clock.

Corbel resigned from the Met Police (Victoria Jones/PA)

An internet search of the brand name revealed the device was a high-end spyware video-recording device which could be controlled from a smartphone.

When he was arrested, Corbel told police he was addicted to pornography and officers found images of 51 women on his hard drive, with 19 victims, including 16 models and three escorts, agreeing to make statements against him.

Corbel, who resigned after being suspended by the Met, where he was attached to the Continuous Policing Improvement Command, pleaded guilty to 19 voyeurism offences at Westminster Magistrates Court in September.

Judge Martin Edmunds QC jailed Corbel for a total of three years at Isleworth Crown Court on Friday for the offences across the London, Manchester and Brighton areas between January 2017 and February 2020.

You used a range of deceptions to induce women to take off their clothes in your presence so you could record videos for your sexual gratification, he told Corbel.

You did so using multiple strategically placed covert cameras, sometimes as many as nine.

The judge said the victims were entitled to have the personal autonomy and each had set clear boundaries.

It is clear that you derived satisfaction from breaching those boundaries by committing these offences rather than seeking out persons who might have offered the opportunity to video them without deception, he continued.

You did not exploit your police role either to locate or intimidate your victims  rather it was something concealed from them.

Further, the covert recording devices you used appear to have been readily available to purchase on the internet.

There is no evidence you used police equipment or specialist police knowledge.

However, it is clear that the revelation to your victims that you were a serving police officer has for many of them seriously undermined their trust in the police, something for those individuals, given their various lines of work, is a particularly serious matter, just as the revelation of your offending must impact on public trust.

Three of Corbels victims watched on as he was jailed, having faced him in court to read their victim impact statements.

One model, who agreed to pose for a fashion and artistic nude shoot, was visibly angry as she told Corbel his crimes had affected every aspect of my life.

I have pulled so much of my hair out with stress I have bald spots and have had to turn down work, she said, showing her scalp to the court.

Other victims, who were not in court, mentioned the case of 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, who was snatched off the street before being raped and murdered by Met Pc Wayne Couzens, 48.

Corbel said he was addicted to pornography (Victoria Jones/PA)

The fact that he is policeman is a huge deal, said one. These people are meant to protect us. Following the murder of Sarah Everard this feels like a very frightening time to be a woman.

Opening the case, prosecutor Babatunde Alabi said Corbel, from Hertfordshire, contacted victims online using the name Harrison.

He claimed to be an airline pilot who had an interest in photography, he said.

He recorded the victims using cameras disguised as everyday items, including phone chargers, tissue boxes, digital clocks, air fresheners and headphones.

In addition, he also recorded the victims using a mobile phone and DSLR camera with which he was taking still photographs.

Edward Henry QC, defending, said Corbel felt genuine remorse for the deplorable activity but is voluntarily seeking to combat his sex addiction.

He said Corbel, who had put people away who would have done terrible harm and caused much bloodshed during his 13-year career, did not spend police money or commit the offences on police time.

He crossed the line from addiction that may harm himself to an addiction that caused these criminal offences at a time when he was under acute stress at work, said Mr Henry.

It is not an abuse of trust in the actual commission of the offence but obviously his victims found out about it, it would have, in the discovery he was a police officer, naturally undermined their trust and confidence.
The Business Secretary has said households will need to wait until March to find out if a scheme reportedly under consideration to hand out 500 one-off payments to help with energy bills will go ahead.

It has been reported that the Chancellor Rishi Sunak is considering making direct payments of up to 500 to struggling families as the cost of energy bills are set to soar.

But Kwasi Kwarteng said the Government is trying to work out the best way to deal with what is a really, really serious problem.

Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of Energy UK, the trade body for suppliers, has said bills could increase again in October after a predicted 50% jump for millions of households in the spring.

The Social Market Foundation think tank has proposed cash payments of up to 500 would be the best answer to the cost-of-living crisis.

Kwasi Kwarteng (Aaron Chown/PA)

Dr Aveek Bhattacharya, the organisations chief economist, said households where no-one is a higher-rate taxpayer should get a payment of 300, with an extra 200 for those on Universal Credit or legacy benefits.

And he said the scheme, modelled on the US stimulus packages seen during the pandemic, could even be dubbed Rishis Cola (Cost of Living Assistance) and bear the Chancellors signature.

Mr Kwarteng told ITVs Good Morning Britain that billpayers will have to wait until the Spring Statement in March to find out what extra support might be available.

Lots and lots of things have been discussed, and Im sure thats one of the things that weve been talking about, he said.

My officials in the department speak to Treasury officials, and ministers speak to each other all the time.

But he added: I think weve got to wait and see what the actual announcement is.

Households are set to face soaring energy bills (Danny Lawson/PA)

Downing Street has said work is ongoing to determine measures to ease the strain of high energy bills.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: I understand there will be a lot of speculation on proposals due to the pressures people are facing on their household bills.

Work is ongoing across Government to look at what we can do mitigating the impact of substantially higher bills. Im obviously not going to pre-empt that work but it remains the case that we are committed to supporting the most vulnerable in society.

He added: We will always look to try and support those who are the most vulnerable in society. Thats why we continued the energy price cap, for example, thats why we changed the Universal Credit taper, and we increased the living wage to ensure that we can support the most vulnerable in society.
A mother who stabbed to death her boyfriend at a New Years Eve party while six children were in the flat has been jailed for life for his murder.

Hannah Sindrey, 24, was convicted of the murder of 31-year-old Paul Fletcher at her flat in Worcester Drive, Rayleigh, following a trial at Basildon Crown Court, Essex Police said.

She was sentenced at the same court on Friday and must serve at least 14 years and five months before she can be considered for parole, the force said.

Prosecutor Christine Agnew QC told the trial that Mr Fletcher took Sindreys phone, and one belonging to her friend Kelly Blackwell, after taking cocaine and becoming paranoid that Sindrey may have been cheating on him.

Police said Mr Fletcher, known as Dod, was stabbed in the chest in the fracas that broke out in the early hours of New Years Day in 2021.

Sindreys two children and 26-year-old Miss Blackwells four children were in the flat at the time.

The force said Miss Blackwell, of Retort Close, Southend, was cleared of murder.

In a statement released through police, Mr Fletchers family said they were heartbroken by his death.

Senior investigating officer Julie Gowen, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: This has been a challenging and intensive investigation as my team tirelessly pieced together the hours and minutes which led up to the death of Mr Fletcher in the early hours of New Years Day.

Sindreys actions have not only destroyed the lives of Pauls family and friends, but also her own family.
A passenger has been flown to hospital after a car fell from a bridge and landed in the middle of a busy motorway.

Durham Police said the crash happened at the Bowburn interchange on the A1(M) at 10.35am on Friday.

The force said a vehicle which was driving on the A177 flyover left the carriageway and landed on its roof in the central reservation below.



The driver of the car freed themselves from the wreckage but the passenger had to be cut free.

Bad one in bowburn Durham avoid A1 pic.twitter.com/4G0JNDyVIz  Lee C (@CivvyWAFU) January 21, 2022

No other injuries have been reported, police said.

The North East Ambulance Service said it requested help from the Great North Air Ambulance.

A spokeswoman said: Two patients were taken to hospital for further treatment; the first patient was taken by road to the University Hospital North Durham (UHND), and the second patient was flown to the Royal Victoria Infirmary Major Trauma Centre (RVI MTC).

The A1(M) and the A177 were closed in both directions.

The site was close to the scene of a horrific fireball crash which killed three people in July and saw lorry driver Ion Onut, 41, from Galashiels, Scotland, jailed earlier this month for three counts of causing death by dangerous driving.
Health care in Connecticut is too expensive. One prescription: the public option

This past legislative session, the Connecticut General Assembly shelved consideration of a public option insurance plan after Gov. Ned Lamont threatened to veto the bill. In fact, 2021 marked the third consecutive legislative session where the proposed insurance plan did not receive a vote. But as a physician caring for Connecticuts most vulnerable residents in the emergency department, we know that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the shameful unmet public need for more support -- and the evidence in support of the public option is clear. Now, more than ever, the Connecticut General Assembly should pass a public option for Connecticut.

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A doctors hand on stethoscope. (David Sacks/Getty)

The public option (Senate Bill 842) proposed to allow small businesses and nonprofits to buy the same health plan coverage offered to state employees. Most importantly, the bill utilizes federally available money to permanently eliminate premiums for families making less than 200% of the federal poverty limit. This public option wont fix the health care system in Connecticut. But it would make Connecticut residents healthier and will make health care more affordable for every person  not just people who dont have health insurance now. Many nonpartisan experts have detailed how this is possible. New gold standard research evidence shows that increasing the number of insured people reduces mortality  that is, fewer people die when they have health insurance coverage. If the public option increases the number of insured Nutmeggers, it might also drive down insurance prices across the board.

But this is not just expert opinion; its the publics opinion, too. According to the nonpartisan nonprofit United States of Care, 71% of Connecticut residents support the public option, including 72% of small business owners, 82% of Black, Indigenous, and people of color, and 79% of people with a high school education or less. People instinctively know that health care in the United States provided without oversight does not work. Health care needs a push from local government to better serve the public.

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Some lobbying groups  including insurance companies with offices here in Connecticut  have argued that the public option will increase costs and cause hospitals or doctors practices to close up shop. Others have stated that temporary pandemic funding already closed the uninsured gap in Connecticut. In a consulting report funded by political dark money, insurance companies argue that vulnerable populations like rural Connecticut towns will lose: When providers struggle, so do patients. But I am from rural Delaware and worked in search and rescue in rural New Hampshire. I am used to special interests appropriating our story to make a point  or to make some money.

In reality, the most recent evidence from other states suggests that the public option can reduce costs and provide a durable framework for future innovation. This current thinking also suggests that the Connecticut legislatures public option design might avoid doctor and insurance participation issues with other state public options. And unlike temporary pandemic funding, the public option is built to reduce costs in the long term with a permanent solution.

Its not possible to address the prices of the US health care system with one fix. The foremost experts and advocates agree that we need many smaller changes  at all sizes of government and practice  to keep Americans safe from rising prices. By chipping away one percent at a time, or even 1/10th of one percent, we build momentum and leave a better future for those behind us.

As a physician in the emergency department, I see the consequences of unaffordable health care every day. Its always the most psychologically challenging to care for patients who do not have the money or time to take care of their chronic medical conditions. One of the most common refrains in the electronic medical record? Patient lost to follow-up. We know that 41% of Americans have foregone health insurance because they cannot afford it. We dont want to lose patients to follow-up anymore.

Connecticuts public option is a proud state contribution to the publics health. If the General Assembly has the will to act, peers and future legislators will view their actions as a defining legacy  a new chapter in American health care. What is more, momentum might build for other states to develop contributing alternative payment models to support the publics health. This has already happened in Colorado, Washington and Arizona.

The COVID pandemic laid bare all that we have ignored in the U.S. health care system for a century  including care that many cannot afford. The only thing left is for us to decide what we will do with the time left to fix it. The Connecticut public option is a perfect place to start.

Ryan Koski-Vacirca is a resident physician in the department of emergency medicine at Yale University.
A fifth member of a gang that tried to smuggle 69 people into the UK on a converted fishing boat has been jailed, after his sentencing was delayed as he isolated with Covid-19 symptoms.

Latvian national Aleksandrs Gulpe, 44, was jailed for eight years at Chelmsford Crown Court, the National Crime Agency said.

His four co-defendants were jailed at the same court in December.

A single trip stood to make more than 1 million for the criminals involved, and trips were planned to happen at least weekly, the court was told.

But the crew caught the attention of authorities, first off the coast of Sweden where the boat ran aground, and later in the UK, where it was intercepted with 69 Albanian migrants on board, including two pregnant women.

Latvian national Aleksandrs Gulpe was jailed for eight years (National Crime Agency/PA)

Charlene Sumnall, prosecuting, said the near 30m-long trawler was sourced from Latvia and had been chosen for the very reason that she was cheap.

She said the venture was far more sophisticated than small boat crossings, dinghies and the like and that criminals were using the squalid and dangerous conditions on board the Svanic to line their own pockets.

There were 20 lifejackets on board for 72 people, an earlier trial was told.

Five men were convicted of conspiring to assist unlawful immigration, with 35-year-old Arturas Jusas, of Wandsworth Road, Lambeth, admitting the offence, and four others found guilty after a trial.

Jusas, 39-year-old Kfir Ivgi, of Corrigan Close, Finchley, and Sergejs Kuliss, 32, of Albert Basin Way, Newham, were described by prosecutors as UK-based organisers.

Jusas was jailed for nine years and nine months, Ivgi for 10 years and Kuliss for nine years.

Latvian national Aleksandrs Gulpe, 44, and 57-year-old Ukrainian national Igor Kosyi, both described by prosecutors as crew members, were arrested when the boat reached land in the early hours of November 18.

Kosyi was jailed for seven years and Gulpe, who was sentenced on Friday, was jailed for eight years.

In mitigation, it was said that none of the migrants were injured and the vessel was fundamentally seaworthy but there were some mishaps that were the fault of the clumsy crew.

A sixth defendant, Ukrainian national Volodymyr Mykhailov, 49, who the court heard was arrested when the boat reached land, was cleared of the charge.
Its hard to imagine much bipartisan cooperation coming in 2022.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday the strategy of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is to do anything to prevent Biden from being a success.

And speaking to Yahoo Finance the next day, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) shot back by saying, We haven't had a single invitation to sit down, from this president or Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi.

Despite the gridlock, Brady mentioned four areas he believes both parties could agree on in 2022: trade; retirement legislation; medical supply chains with China; and making America more internationally competitive.

Retirement security

Retirement has long been a key priority for Brady, the House Ways & Means Committee ranking member; it's also important to his Democratic counterpart on that committee, Chairman Richard Neal of Massachusetts.

But efforts to pass retirement legislation flamed out in 2021. One bipartisan effort informally called SECURE 2.0 seemed to be on track for passage before Congress's other efforts crowded them out.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) speaks with Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) prior to a House Ways and Means Committee. (REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein)

The retirement legislation has been sponsored by both Neal and Brady in the past and has provisions such as raising the age people must start taking mandatory distributions from their private retirement plans (both 401(k) plans and IRAs). It would also push employers to automatically enroll new employees into the company retirement plan if they offer one.

Brady isn't alone in his optimism that retirement legislation could pass this year. I think our chance for success in the upcoming year to get the SECURE 2.0 on the books is pretty positive, Rep. Fred Keller (R-PA), who's also on the Ways & Means committee, said in a recent webinar co-hosted by Yahoo Finance and the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Trade

Brady fiercely opposes Biden on most issues, but they both advocate for fewer trade restrictions in the years ahead. I want to see less of both managed and tariffed trade, Brady has said.

A deal with the European Union to ease tariffs on steel and aluminum last year garnered support of select Republicans like Brady and Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai - who previously served as the chief trade counsel for the United States House Committee on Ways and Means - greets Kevin Brady before the start of a hearing in May. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump imposed the tariffs on EU steel and aluminum. Claiming the foreign products threatened U.S. national security, Trump used the Article 232 section of U.S. trade law to justify the tariffs.

The Biden administration has been conducting discussions on more steel and aluminum tariffs this month to further unwind Trump-era trade policies, Politico noted on Wednesday.

Other issues both parties might agree on

Brady also mentioned making America medically independent from China in a number of areas  an issue that rose to the fore with shortages of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

One bipartisan effort introduced in October would create a voluntary list of domestic manufacturers to produce medical supplies during severe shortages. Another bill aims to shore up the nations Strategic National Stockpile, which provides medical supplies to states, tribal nations, territories, and big cities in the event of a public health emergency.

And being prepared for the next emergency is clearly a priority for Brady. Asked about the Republican message in 2022, Brady said, We have to have a country that doesn't lurch from crisis to crisis.

Ben Werschkul is a writer and producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC.

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After two years of closures, reopenings and curfews, Irish pubs are daring to dream of busy bars once again.

The Irish Government has announced a major reopening of the country after weeks of tough restrictions introduced amid fears over the Omicron variant.

Covid limitations on the hospitality trade, including the 8pm curfew, will lift on Saturday.

In Dublins pubs and nightclubs on Friday, there was a sense of hope but also some apprehension at the latest twist in Irelands struggle with Covid-19.

A barman at Mulligans in Poolbeg Street, Dublin, pours a pint of Guinness (Damien Eagers/PA)

Gary Cusack, owner of the Mulligans pub in Dublin city centre, said: Its a funny one, how quick it has changed from restrictions to all of a sudden a free-for-all.

He said the pub could adapt relatively quickly despite, as Mr Cusack admits, being a bit tight for staff.

While restrictions on hospitality end on Saturday, he said he believes that it will take longer for people to embrace a return to normality.

Mr Cusack said: It will take a while. People are used to table service. In a full pub, there will be certain people who will be wary about that. It will be different. Were two-and-a-half years doing it this way.

All of a sudden, to go back to the old way  not checking at the door, coming up to the counter to get your drinks, sitting at the bar  it will be all new.

Mr Cusack, who had Covid-19 over the Christmas period as Ireland reported record-breaking case numbers, said he was worried for his customers and his family.

Its not so much me, its my family around me that Im more worried about. My wifes parents are a good age, so you have to be cautious about that, he said.

Ian Redmond, the owner of the Tramline nightclub, had only enjoyed several weeks of trading before concerns over Omicron shuttered the venue once again late last year.

Im feeling a sense of nervousness and trepidation that finally we might be at the end of this after 23 long months of being closed, he said.

We did get to open for a 47-day period, we traded 44 nights. It was absolutely fantastic to see the trepidation on these 18, 19-year-old faces who had never been to a nightclub before.

They walked in the doors here to get hit by the sound from the DJs playing on the stage. It was just fantastic.

Ian Redmond, owner of Tramline on DOlier Street in Dublins city centre (Brian Lawless/PA)

There will be even more new 18-year-olds over the last couple of months that will be coming to Tramline for the very first time, he predicted.

The nightclub on Friday was in the middle of a minor renovation.

Mr Redmond said: Weve decided that we could open tomorrow night, but were going to wait until next week.

He was optimistic about the weeks ahead.

This has been a really tough time on DJs as well as live musicians, he said.

Theyve been virtually out of work for the last two years. It has been horrendous for them.

With a bit of luck and a bit of good fortune, Covid and Omicron are all behind us and we can just look forward to the summer and getting out of this.

On the other side of the city at The Swan Bar, owner Ronan Lynch welcomed the moves to lift restrictions.

He said: I think everybody was a bit surprised by the way things moved so quickly.

From a business perspective, its like getting your Leaving Certificate results  really, really apprehensive.

For the last two years, it has been a rollercoaster all the way.

Hopefully this is the end of it now and we can concentrate on what we do best.

Mr Lynch said that he and his staff have been ready to get back to full opening with a moments notice.

Over the last two years, we nearly have a masters degree at juggling the balls, he said.
At least 17 dead after explosion in Ghana mining region

By Cooper Inveen and Christian Akorlie

ACCRA, Jan 21 (Reuters) - At least 17 people were killed and scores injured when a truck carrying explosives to a gold mine in western Ghana collided with a motorcycle, setting off an explosion that flattened a rural community, the government said on Friday.

As rescuers combed the site for survivors, videos posted on local media showed hundreds of buildings reduced to piles of wood, rubble and twisted metal, and dead bodies crumpled on the ground surrounded by debris.

A photo shared by a local politician showed a yawning crater at the epicentre of the blast, onlookers peering down from its rim.

Seji Saji Amedonu, deputy director general of the National Disaster Management Organisation said around 500 buildings were destroyed and that rescue efforts were still under way.

The blast occurred on Thursday in Apiate, a settlement between the towns of Bogoso and Bawdie, when a motorcycle fell under a truck owned by a company called Maxam that was transporting explosives to the Chirano gold mine, run by Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corporation, police said.

Kinross confirmed the incident and said it was monitoring the situation and rescue efforts. Maxam could not be reached for comment.

The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is investigating the cause of the blast and whether the companies involved followed regulations covering transportation of explosives, it said in a statement.

Survivors in critical condition are being evacuated to medical facilities in the capital Accra, the government said.

(Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen Writing by Nellie Peyton Editing by David Goodman, Frank Jack Daniel and John Stonestreet)
NEW YORK (AP)  Three studies released Friday offered more evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are standing up to the omicron variant, at least among people who received booster shots.

They are the first large U.S. studies to look at vaccine protection against omicron, health officials said.

The papers echo previous research  including studies in Germany, South Africa and the U.K.  indicating available vaccines are less effective against omicron than earlier versions of the coronavirus, but also that boosters significantly improve protection.

The first study looked at hospitalizations and emergency room and urgent care center visits in 10 states, from August to this month.

It found vaccine effectiveness was best after three doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines in preventing COVID-19-associated emergency department and urgent care visits. Protection dropped from 94% during the delta wave to 82% during the omicron wave. Protection from just two doses was lower, especially if six months had passed since the second dose.

The second study focused on COVID-19 case and death rates in 25 states from the beginning of April through Christmas. People who were boosted had the highest protection against coronavirus infection, both during the time delta was dominant and also when omicron was taking over.

Those two articles were published online by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Journal of the American Medical Association published the third study, also led by CDC researchers. It looked at people who tested positive for COVID-19 from Dec. 10 to Jan. 1 at more than 4,600 testing sites across the U.S.

Three shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were about 67% effective against omicron-related symptomatic disease compared with unvaccinated people. Two doses, however, offered no significant protection against omicron, the researchers found.

It really shows the importance of getting a booster dose, said the CDCs Emma Accorsi, one of the studys authors.

___

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A Sir Francis Drake hotel doorman greets a cable car as it travels past the hotel in 2017. When will the hotel reopen? We're all waiting. (Gabrielle Lurie / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Can we agree that California isnt going back to normal anytime soon? Omicron won't let us.

But plenty of us continue to visit the Bay Area, while the rest of the world mostly has been shying away. Here are a few ideas, tips and updates for anyone headed to San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley.

Before you go, though: Check individual destinations for updates on masking and vaccination requirements, and bear in mind that everything is subject to change as the pandemic evolves.

San Francisco

1. Dress to dine outdoors

A lot of us have wondered about the outdoor dining options that have multiplied during the pandemic, including "parklets," those improvised eating areas in spots that once were parking places, perfect for those not yet comfortable with eating in enclosed spaces. Have any been made permanent? In San Francisco the answer is yes.

The county Board of Supervisors voted in July 2021 to make the parklet program permanent. Of course, there are plenty of strings attached (not to mention the fluctuating anxieties of the pandemic), but this changes the dining picture dramatically. Since San Francisco began its parklet program in March 2020, more than 2,100 permits have been issued for in-street dining, sidewalk tables and similar outdoor arrangements.

Outdoor diners at Tony's Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood in March 2021. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

2. There's a new show in town

For more than four decades, San Francisco's goofiest, most tourist-friendly live show was "Beach Blanket Babylon," a silly, song-heavy, fancy-hat-intensive romp that reliably filled Club Fugazi in North Beach until closing in 2019.

Now comes a potential successor in the same space: Dear San Francisco: A High-Flying Love Story, which opened in October. It was put together by a modern circus collective known as the 7 Fingers, which calls the production "an acrobatic love letter" to the city. It dips into local history with video projections, shadow play, juggling, hoop diving, hand balancing and Korean plank (also known as teeterboard).

The co-artistic directors of the show (and the 7 Fingers) are Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider, both of whom grew up in the Bay Area. The show, about 90 minutes without intermission, is set to run through at least March 31. Seats are $35 to $99, depending on night and location.

3. Don't miss this free art exhibit

Doug Aiken, Olafur Eliasson and 25 other artists are part of a For-Site Foundation immersive art exhibition called "Lands End" that will be up through March 27. The show, staged at the historic seaside Cliff House building (the restaurant is idle) at 1090 Point Lobos Ave., explores climate change and the health of the planet. Admission is free but advance, time-specific reservations are required. (Also required: proof of vaccination.) Only 49 people are allowed in the building at a time.

By the way, the National Park Service is looking for a new restaurateur to take over the Cliff House (which closed in 2020) and the cafe at the Lands End Lookout Visitor Center, raising hopes that food service (fancy at Cliff House, casual at the cafe) might return before the end of 2022.

4. Where to breakfast

In San Francisco, Ive long relied on Cafe de la Presse, between Union Square and Chinatown, for a solid breakfast and pleasant people-watching. (The Chinatown gate is across the street.) But for months, Cafe de la Presse cut back its schedule and was serving only lunch and dinner. Now  as of Jan. 18  breakfast is back, offered Tuesday through Sunday, 8 a.m.-11 a.m. There's also brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Or consider the alternative I adopted while Cafe de la Presse was unavailable: the unfussy Roxanne Cafe on Powell, which has indoor and outdoor tables and does breakfast all day. Also, youll see cable cars rumbling past outside.

Customers dine at Cafe de la Presse earlier this month. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

5. Check before you go

Many San Francisco lodgings are still closed, including two in handy locations that I've used often. One of the still-closed spots is the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, half a block from Union Square. It was sold early in 2021. The landmark will reopen soon, its website has been saying for months. Well see.

The other temporarily closed favorite lodging of mine is the San Remo Hotel, a European-style pension (shared bathrooms down the hall) in North Beach thats been a budget travelers haven for decades. One alternative with similarly low prices: the Green Tortoise Hostel, also in North Beach, which reopened in August requiring proof of vaccination for dorm guests and masks in all public areas.

The boarded entrance to the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in 2020. (Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)

Oakland

6. History on tap

In Oakland, you can explore Jack London Squares outdoor Sunday farmers market (9 a.m.-2 p.m.) and makers market (11 a.m.-4 p.m.). And Heinolds First and Last Chance Saloon (which goes back to 1884) continues to offer drinks and history. (Yes, Jack London tippled there.)

Berkeley

7. Check on Chez Panisse

In Berkeley, there may be better eating soon. But you cant eat in Chez Panisse until the restaurant and cafes dining rooms reopen, probably in the last week of January or first week in February, "barring any prohibitive circumstances." You also cant order takeout in January because the famed restaurant is shut to prepare the building and make necessary repairs to the kitchen.

Kitchen activity at Chez Panisse in 2019. (Liz Hafalia / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

8. A worthy substitute

In the same neighborhood, you might browse the Cheese Board Collective across the street (open Tuesday through Saturday), where there are outdoor tables and sometimes an accordion player near the door. The Cheese Boards Pizzeria is open for dinner Thursday through Saturday.

9. Lodgings in Berkeley

If youre considering an overnight stay in Berkeley and haven't been there lately, the French Hotel changed names a few years ago. It's now the SenS Hotel and Vanne Bistro, with 18 guest rooms on three levels, a short walk from the Cal campus.

10. And where to dine

The city boosters at Visit Berkeley have come up with a list of more than 75 Berkeley restaurants with outdoor seating.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Ana Chaglasian is an ambassador with Teens for Vaccines, a group that helps teens whose parents are anti-vaccine or vaccine hesitant by providing them with a guide of how to convince their parents. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Ani Chaglasian spent much of last year trying to convince her parents that she should be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The 17-year-old said she laid out research showing it would safety protect her from being infected or passing the virus to others. She pleaded. She reasoned. She created a slideshow presentation. But, the teen said, her parents remained hesitant and she remained unvaccinated.

Under a bill introduced Thursday by a California lawmaker, Chaglasian and other children in the state would be allowed to make their own vaccination decisions. Senate Bill 866 by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would permit children 12 and older to be vaccinated, including against COVID-19, without their parents' consent or knowledge.

The bill is the first to be proposed this year by a group of Democratic lawmakers that has pledged to strengthen vaccination laws and target misinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There are a lot of students who would utilize this bill," said Chaglasian, who lives in Glendale and is an ambassador with Teens for Vaccines, an organization that offers advice to teenagers with parents who are anti-vaccine or skeptical of inoculations. "There are vaccine pop-ups at our school and they could do this without having to deal with backlash in their families.

The bill is certain to set off a feverish debate all too familiar in Sacramento, overlapping with contentious issues surrounding a parent's right to make medical decisions for their children and a long-inflamed battle over vaccine laws.

Changes to vaccine laws in schools have previously led to intense deliberations, prolonged protests and arrests. Last year, lawmakers said they planned to look at the broad exemptions in COVID-19 school vaccine mandates that would allow parents to opt their children out of inoculation based on personal beliefs.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in October that the state would require students at all public and private schools to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, with the mandate taking effect for grades seven through 12 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fully approves the shot for children ages 12 and older. Currently, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is fully approved for ages 16 and older, and there is an emergency authorization in place for ages 5 to 15.

Once the vaccine is fully approved, however, parents could cite personal beliefs to opt their children out of being inoculated. For all other shots required to attend school in California, state law requires a medical exemption to skip some or all of those vaccines for in-person attendance at K-12 schools.

Lawmakers have also mulled new workplace vaccine requirements for adults, although a bill ultimately failed to materialize last year.

Wiener's bill is the first to come out of a legislative Vaccine Work Group announced Wednesday that is determining what steps the Legislature should take to improve vaccination rates and reduce misinformation.

"This won't be the only bill," Wiener said.

SB 866 would allow a child 12 or older to consent to any vaccine approved by the FDA and recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That list includes the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer, as well as immunizations for influenza, measles, chickenpox and others.

Wiener said the bill falls in line with current state law that gives minors 12 and older the ability to make reproductive healthcare decisions, such as obtaining the human papillomavirus and hepatitis B vaccines.

"This is about empowering teenagers to make decisions on their own health and their own safety," Wiener said. "Almost a million California teenagers are unvaccinated, and for a lot of those teens it's because their parents either refuse to get them vaccinated or they have not yet gotten around to it."

Vaccine consent laws vary across the country, with Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia allowing children 11 and older to be inoculated without parental approval. If SB 866 is passed by the Legislature and signed by Newsom, the bill would go into effect Jan. 1, 2023.

Wiener said he anticipates the bill will be attacked by vocal anti-vaccine groups, who have protested outside the Capitol and targeted lawmakers who push inoculation-related bills. Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), who is behind many of the state's most recent vaccine laws, has received death threats and was assaulted by an anti-vaccine activist in 2019. That same year, a vaccine protester was charged with two felonies after she threw a menstrual cup filled with blood onto California state senators.

"There is a very organized group of anti-vaxxers who are a very small minority in California," Wiener said. "They dont even come close to a majority view, but they are very organized, loud and abusive, and I am sure they will be organized, loud and abusive about this bill. My eyes are wide open that there will be a personal cost to me as there has been to Sen. Pan, but this is about saving lives."

Chaglasian's efforts have recently paid off. She said she convinced her parents to allow her to be vaccinated, which means she can return to work as a scribe at a local hospital, attend extracurricular events and visit guilt-free with her grandmother, who has lung cancer. Chaglasian said her parents also recently decided to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

"I feel really relieved," she said. "It was a matter of constant persuasion."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
"It's painful here. The pain is very, very bad. It's unbearable," said Stephanie Ramirez standing inside her fire-damaged bakery, Spigas, in Orange. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Dec. 7 started as a typical, ideal workday for Omar Lopez. He got up at 3:30 in the morning to shower. He nudged awake his wife, Stephanie Ramirez. He checked on their sleeping 12-year-old daughter, Ahtziri. He then left home and drove five minutes away to the family business, Spigas Bakery.

The Mexican panaderia had earned a loyal following almost from the moment the small space debuted in 2011. Disneyland-area hotels and restaurants signed up for wholesale accounts; police officers and construction workers would be waiting every morning when Stephanie showed up at 5 a.m. Everyone clamored for Omars creations: silky flan, flaky chicken empanadas, powdery pan dulce and a small menu of Mexican breakfast staples like chilaquiles and memelas.

Stephanie  the quiet one  ran the register; Omar  the wisecracker  chatted up customers between rounds of baking, which he did for 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Spigas was the culmination of a promise the two Mexican immigrants had made to each other 25 years earlier, when they met at another panaderia in Santa Ana: Lets open one on our own, and lets get our American Dream.

That dream had nearly derailed over the last two years.

Stephanie Ramirez cleans seats inside Spigas. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

The pandemic erased Spigas' corporate accounts and the life savings of Omar and Stephanie. Regulars couldnt afford to buy even coffee anymore. Revenue was already down 60% when Omar, Stephanie, and Ahtziri contracted COVID-19 in November 2020 and had to shut down Spigas until they recovered. When it reopened a few weeks later, only Stephanie returned: Omar was in the hospital, intubated and near death.

Spigas turned into a ghost of its former self  Stephanie was terrified of serving anyone at first, because I thought everyone had COVID. When Omar finally returned to work last June, he was 60 pounds lighter and looked like a grandfather, she said.

Display cases, once groaning with goodies, were now nearly empty. All the employees had left. Omar needed help to do tasks that were once as simple to him as blinking, like taking trays out of ovens or using a rolling pin for more than a few minutes.

But there was never any question of shutting down permanently. Baking is like therapy for Omar, Stephanie said.

He and his wife had weathered a double gauntlet of COVID-19 devastation that has slammed Latinos. The group has been overrepresented in COVID cases and deaths in California since the start of the pandemic  currently, they make up about 39% of the states population but 49% of cases and 45.2% of deaths. A survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 60% of Latino households nationwide have seen pay cuts or lost jobs since the pandemic began, compared with 44% of the overall U.S. population.

Stephanie Ramirez sits in a booth at Spigas. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Through sheer ganas  willpower  Omar and Stephanie brought back their bakery to a sense of normalcy. Debts were paid down; clients returned. Omar bought cornhusks by the bagsful for tamales to prepare for the holidays.

In fact, the 42-year-old initially thought that the lights he saw from a distance, as he approached Spigas on that Dec. 7 day, were a new Christmas display in the shopping plaza Spigas calls home.

They came from firetrucks that blocked off the parking lot.

Omar got out of his car and approached the commander, whom he recognized as a regular. The back of Spigas had burned. When Stephanie showed up soon after, her husband remained inconsolable.

We were starting to get back up, Omar told me. We spoke over the phone last week because he couldnt meet me at their bakery. Though it was almost a month and a half since the fire, smoke still permeated its walls and made it hard for Omar to breathe. Besides, he admitted, he couldnt stay there for more than a couple of minutes if he went because he would break down in tears.

We were getting our restaurants back, he said. The customers were starting to order again 

He stayed quiet. Now? Nothing  nothing.

I met Stephanie at Spigas because I wanted to see the damage for myself  not just as a reporter, but also as a regular. I had enjoyed their food and smoothies nearly every Saturday morning for years, every time I picked up bagels and croissants so my wife could use them for sandwiches at her restaurant.

The bakery looked fine from a distance when I drove up. The front window still displayed a painted-on "Happy Holidays" and a list of daily specials. But it wasn't until I walked up that I noticed red caution tape wrapped around the handles of Spigas' front door, and a heavy chain with a padlock on the other side.

I went around the building to the back, where Stephanie was waiting to show me the damage. There was a torched toilet in the restroom, where firefighters told Omar the blaze started. Water stains dirtied the walls. The booths, which I remembered always packed with people, were eerily quiet.

The smoke's stench was still so bad that I could only stay inside for a couple of minutes before stepping back outside, even with my N95 mask. The fire had ruined the water, gas, and electrical lines. While the landlord has frozen rent for the foreseeable future, Stephanie estimates itll take at least $50,000 to just get to a point where they can decide on whether to continue.

And then we need to see if any of this works, she added, waving toward walk-in refrigerators now used as closets and ovens the size of a closet that cost $4,000 for just a regular tune-up.

Spigas had no fire insurance because she couldnt afford monthly payments after Omars hospital stay. They didnt win any state or federal emergency grants, and didnt qualify for pandemic loans. And the bills havent stopped, Stephanie added.

Friends have set up a GoFundMe account to help. But Omar and Stephanie are slowly preparing themselves for the possibility that Spigas may never reopen.

It makes me want to cry, said Omar. That was our future, our life of 25 years working in the United States.

To get up for 10 years every day at 4 a.m., and to see this, Stephanie said as we stood in the parking lot. Tears welled in her eyes.

Now you wake up and say, What is there to do? What do we do? 

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The marine science community is buzzing with excitement after the discovery of a rare stretch of coral reef in pristine condition off the coast of Tahiti and the answers it could hold to save other dying species around the world.

The 2-mile stretch of reef was recently spotted in deep waters in the South Pacific in French Polynesia, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which supported the dive mission. It is one of the largest coral reefs in the world, with reefs shaped like "giant roses," according to the Paris-based agency.

The reef system is "remarkable" and "highly unusual" due to the deep depths in which it was found and the clean and seemingly untouched ecosystem in which the reefs are thriving, according to UNESCO.

Coral reefs around the world have been affected by climate change and other environmental conditions, which has led to widespread bleaching -- when corals turn white as a result of water temperature rising -- and ocean acidification, which occurs when water's pH levels are lowered as a result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

PHOTO: Corals shaped like roses in the waters off the coast of Tahiti of the French Polynesia in December 2021. (Alexis Rosenfeld/AP)

Scientists will use the newly discovered reef as a model to help conserve other reefs around the world in shallower waters, Renee Carlton, a marine ecologist with the Living Oceans Foundation, a nonprofit research organization, told ABC News. Most of the current research focuses on shallow reefs, she added.

"There's so many questions that we can ask and can be answered with this type of discovery that we may not have been able to before," Carlton said. "Especially with the rate of change that we're seeing with coral reefs around the world, having something this beautiful and pristine be discovered is a really exciting and encouraging discovery."

MORE: This is how climate change may alter 10 of the world's natural wonders

When Carlton participated in a global research expedition to map coral reefs, the systems in some of the most remote part of the world still had evidence of deterioration. The new reefs remain unscathed after a mass bleaching event in 2019, making its pristine condition that much more remarkable.

Researchers will study the biodiversity surrounding the coral reefs, since they provide habitat and food to so many other species, Carlton said. Researchers will then attempt to replicate the conditions to other reefs in more shallow conditions to see if their chances of survival will improve, Carlton said.

PHOTO: A researcher for the French National Centre for Scientific Research studies corals in the waters off the coast of Tahiti of the French Polynesia in December 2021. (Alexis Rosenfeld/AP)

The organisms that live on reefs can be important for medicinal research and reefs can also provide protection from coastal erosion and tsunamis, according to UNESCO.

"There's an opportunity for us to look and see, why are these corals able to survive so much better than, say, the shallower coral reef species that we're seeing?" she said. "And what can we learn from them to then try and help conserve the coral reefs that are already existing?"

MORE: Coral reefs could stop growing in 10 years unless greenhouse gases are significantly reduced, new study says

Only 20% of the sea floor has been mapped, which makes more discoveries like this one in the future highly likely, said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay.

"To date, we know the surface of the moon better than the deep ocean," Azoulay said in a statement. "...This remarkable discovery in Tahiti demonstrates the incredible work of scientists who, with the support of UNESCO, further the extent of our knowledge about what lies beneath."

A scientific research mission supported by @UNESCO has discovered one of the world's largest coral reefs off the coast of Tahiti. This highly unusual discovery is a great leap forward for #science! Read more about @AlexisRosenfeld's #1Ocean project: https://t.co/l3RBzo9QRRpic.twitter.com/XuW9CpXTDc  UNESCO  #Education #Sciences #Culture  (@UNESCO) January 20, 2022

Laetitia Hedouin, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Moorea, French Polynesia, first saw the corals months earlier during a recreational dive with a local diving club, she told the Associated Press. She immediately knew there was "something special about that reef" and that she needed to go back to study it.

Hedouin was especially struck that the corals looked so healthy and that they were affected by the 2019 bleaching event, she said.

PHOTO: Researchers for the French National Centre for Scientific Research study corals in the waters off the coast of Tahiti of the French Polynesia in December 2021. (Alexis Rosenfeld/AP)

Few scientists have been able to locate, investigate and study coral reefs at depths of more than 100 feet because of the challenges posed to divers and the length of time they can stay under, according to UNESCO.

The reef was found between 115 feet to 230 feet deep after the team was equipped with special tanks. They logged 200 hours of diving to study the reef, which included taking photographs, measurements and samples of the coral, AP reported. The rose-shaped corals measure more than 6 feet in diameter, according to UNESCO.

MORE: Great Barrier Reef has deteriorated to 'critical' level due to climate change

"It was magical to witness giant, beautiful rose corals which stretch for as far as the eye can see. It was like a work of art," Alexis Rosenfeld, French photographer and founder of the 1 Ocean campaign, which led the diving expedition, said in a statement.

PHOTO: A researcher for the French National Centre for Scientific Research studies corals in the waters off the coast of Tahiti of the French Polynesia in December 2021. (Alexis Rosenfeld/AP)

Coral reefs around the world are currently under duress, Carlton said. While they are being impacted in many ways, climate change is "the most prevalent" stressor, she said.

Up to 14% of the coral reefs in the world were killed between 2009 and 2018, according to a 2020 report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Project.

PHOTO: A newly-discovered reef of giant rose-shaped corals off Tahiti. (Alexis Rosenfeld/AFP via Getty Images)

Coastal fishing, coastal runoff and the outbreak of disease are also causing widespread damage to the health of coral reef systems, Carlton said.

"This type of discovery is really exciting because it might help shed light and might be able to help these corals recover after we have reduced some of these other stressors as well," she said.

Discovery of 'pristine' coral reef near Tahiti could help save dying coral reefs around the world, scientist says originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock said that the Trump presidential campaign directed Republicans in Michigan to seat fake GOP Electoral College delegates, according to audio obtained by CNN.

"We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that. I'm under a lot of scrutiny for that today," Maddock is heard saying in the audio reportedly recorded at a conservative gathering last week, according to CNN. In the audio, Maddock does not say whether she personally communicated with officials from the Trump campaign.

Maddock did not immediately provide a comment to the Free Press. The Michigan Republican Party also did not immediately respond to emails.

Michigan GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock claps as members of the Kalamazoo County Republicans meet at Traveler's Cafe and Pub in Portage during a luncheon on June 10, 2021. The keynote speaker of the event was Maddock.

More: Nessel: Fake GOP electors committed crimes, hopes feds prosecute 'conspiracy'

More: GOP attempt to award Mich. Electoral College votes to Trump referred to feds, Nessel says

The plan was part of a quixotic effort to overturn the election in Michigan to hand the state to Trump. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and her team investigated the acts for possible election fraud charges, recently referring the matter to federal prosecutors.

On the day in 2020 that Michigan's presidential electors met to award the state's 16 Electoral College votes to Joe Biden  who won the state by more than 154,000 votes  Republicans, including Maddock, tried to enter the state Capitol to convene a false slate of GOP electors. Maddock's husband, state Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, also was present.

Video: How new laws could affect voters

Law enforcement blocked the group from entering. But that did not stop the overall effort. Meshawn Maddock and 15 other Republicans signed a document falsely claiming Trump's victory in the state.

That document was sent to the the office of Vice President Mike Pence, the Michigan Secretary of State, the National Archivist and the chief judge of the western district of Michigan, Nessel said earlier this week.

More: 'My guess is he will move in': Biden predicts Russia will invade Ukraine in two-hour news conference

The document indicates that all but two Republicans nominated to cast Michigans Electoral College votes had Trump won the state signed their names. Terri Lynn Land and Gerald Wall  two Republican nominees  did not sign. Instead the document includes the signatures of James Renner and Ken Thompson.

The archivist rejected the document, notifying Nessel and others in the process. The documents also are part of the U.S. House's broad January 6 commission inquiry.

Nessel's office said her office has been investigating the signatories' actions and that she "absolutely" had enough evidence to bring state charges, but referred the matter to federal prosecutors because she said the effort in Michigan appears to have been part of a multistate conspiracy to overturn the election.

"...Our hope is that the federal authorities and the Department of Justice and United States Attorney General Merrick Garland will take this in coordination with all the other information theyve received and make an evaluation as to what charges these individuals might (face)," Nessel said.

Recently, the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol broadly cited efforts by Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani to influence legislators in Michigan and elsewhere. The committee references his attempts in Michigan and other states; he appeared in Lansing in 2020 during a lengthy hearing where he and others presented a litany of false statements about the election.

In the Maddock audio recording, she references her husband and says he "fought for a team of people to come and testify in front of the committee." She doesn't reference which committee, but is likely referring to the hearing with Giuliani and others.

The Maddocks' efforts to meddle in the election didn't end in Michigan.

Rep. Maddock was among the 15 Republican state lawmakers in the House who sought to join the U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit to overturn the election in Michigan and other battleground states. And Meshawn Maddock helped organize buses from the state to head to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election.

A video from the Right Side Broadcasting network shows the Maddocks speaking at a rally in the nations capital the day before the deadly insurrection. "We never stop fighting," Meshawn Maddock said. She did not expressly advocate entering the Capitol by force.

Clara Hendrickson fact-checks Michigan issues and politics as a corps member with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support her work at bit.ly/freepRFA. Contact her at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan GOP co-chair: Trump camp directed fake electors, per CNN audio
Iran to boost ties with Russia amid West's policy of expansion: president

Xinhua) 08:12, January 21, 2022

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addresses a plenary session of Russia's State Duma in Moscow on Jan. 20, 2022. (State Duma press release)

Iran and Russia have reached fundamental agreements, which will bring about a leap in bilateral trade.

MOSCOW, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday commended Iran-Russia relations and expressed readiness to boost their ties as the West continues with its policy of expansion.

"Strengthening Iranian-Russian relations in bilateral and multilateral formats will lead to economic development of the two countries, as well as peace and security in the region," Raisi said in an address to a plenary session of the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.

He said that Western countries will continue to pursue a policy of expansion and weaken "independent countries" via economic sanctions and destabilization of their internal situation.

"The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is engaged in penetration into the geographical spaces of different countries under various pretexts and covers," Raisi told the Russian lawmakers.

Iran is ready to develop relations with Russia on a solid basis to jointly safeguard their interests and prevent the interference of a third force in the affairs of the two countries, Raisi said.

The two countries, according to Raisi, have reached fundamental agreements, which will bring about a leap in bilateral trade.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
A Connecticut congressional map recommended Tuesday by a court-appointed special master makes minimal changes in the racial, political and geographic features of districts that have produced only Democratic victories since 2008.

The map drawn by Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford political scientist and law professor, was not unexpected, given the state Supreme Courts directive that he make only the changes necessary to equalize the population of the five districts.

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The Special Masters Plan complies with the applicable provisions of federal law and the additional requirements as ordered by this Court, Persily wrote. It moves the minimum number of people necessary in order to achieve population equality. It does so while also not splitting or moving any additional towns.

If the revisions are adopted by the court, the political balance of power would seem to be little changed, with the 1st, 3rd and 4th districts being solidly Democratic and the 2nd and 5th leaning Democratic but competitive.

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House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, co-chair of the Reapportionment Commission, said that the new lines did nothing to weaken the bases of the Democratic incumbents in the most competitive districts, U.S. Reps. Joe Courtney of the 2nd and Jahana Hayes of the 5th. One measure of their competitiveness: Republicans carried both districts in the 2018 gubernatorial election.

The court will hold a public hearing on the map on Jan. 27. Persilys report and other maps highlighting the changes can be read at jud.ct.gov/supremecourt.

The court assumed control over congressional reapportionment once the legislatures bipartisan Reapportionment Commission missed a constitutional deadline of Nov. 30 and then deadlocked when given an extension to Dec. 21.

The proposed new map is slightly more compact than the existing one, but the notorious lobster claw from the 5th into the 1st survives.

The claw is the result of a bipartisan gerrymander 20 years ago when Connecticut lost one of its six seats and the map was drawn to meet the political needs of two incumbents placed in the redrawn 5th District: Democrat James Maloney of Danbury and Republican Nancy Johnson of New Britain.

Republicans won three of the five seats in 2002 and 2004, one in 2006 and none in the years since.

The congressional map drawn after the 2000 Census was the last one on which a legislative Reapportionment Commission could agree. Ten years later, the commission deadlocked, and Persily was hired by the court to make only minimal revisions necessary to equalize the districts  the same charge given him now.

House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, a commission member, expressed frustration at the commission once again yielding responsibility to a court unwilling to direct a more ambitious overhaul.

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I wish that the commission could have drawn a map that would have taken other factors into consideration, Candelora said. Were not better off having a special master draw it regardless of what the political outcomes may be after these races.

Republicans had pressed the court to be more ambitious and order Persily to make geographic compactness a criteria. The GOP urged reuniting Torrington, now split between the 5th and 1st, and placing all of it the 5th, bringing it more Republican voters.

The decision on whether or how to unite Torrington has significant ripple effects throughout the rest of the plan, Persily wrote. As also became quite clear in the back-and-forth in the briefs and testimony, the parties believe the decision in Torrington  whether to unite and if so, where to place it  has significant electoral implications.

The other changes rippled to three other divided communities: Glastonbury, Middletown and Shelton.

Persily said the questions of whether to make the districts more compact or more competitive were perfectly legitimate considerations for the legislature and its Reapportionment Commission.

However, the Court expressly prohibited the Special Master from consideration of political consequences or even evaluation of political data, Persily wrote. Moreover, from the testimony received, it became clear that the parties disagree as to where Torrington belongs and that deciding one way or the other would require appeal to some principle not present in the Courts order.

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The final plans of the Republicans and Democrats were not dissimilar, with the differences focused mainly on the fate of Torrington, split between the 1st and 5th, and Glastonbury, split between the 1st and 2nd. But the Republican version would have moved about 125,000 from one district to another, while the versions offered by the special master affected 87,000, similar to the Democratic plan.

Last week, Persily gave the legislative commission one last chance to come up with a plan. The commission took no action.

To be equal, each district needed a population of 721,189.

The 2020 Census found that growth in Fairfield County required the 4th and, to a lesser degree the 5th, to lose population, while the already sprawling 2nd of eastern Connecticut needed to pick up 21,288 people. Persily moved more of Glastonbury from the 1st to the 2nd.

The revised 1st would move more of divided Middletown from the 3rd represented by Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro into the 1st represented by Rep. John B. Larson. With the gain of Shelton voters and loss of Middletowns, DeLauros district appears to become slightly less Democratic.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov move to their seats before their 90-minute meeting Friday in Geneva. (Alex Brandon / Pool Photo)

The top diplomats from Russia and the United States held "frank" talks Friday but failed to resolve deep differences over Ukraine, as the U.S. races to avert what it believes could be a new war in Europe.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he told his Russian counterpart that the movement of any of Moscow's troops into Ukraine would be met with a "swift, severe and united" retribution from the U.S. and NATO.

"We will continue to prepare, resolutely, to both paths that we have laid out for Russia: the path of diplomacy and dialogue, or the path of renewed aggression, confrontation and consequences," Blinken told reporters after a 90-minute session with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva, wrapping up a whirlwind week of diplomacy that also took him to Berlin and the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Lavrov continued his country's denial of plans to invade the former Soviet republic and said Russia's troops along its border with Ukraine  estimated at more than 100,000  are there for military exercises. Moscow is calling up reserves in Russia and has dispatched troops to ally Belarus, on Ukraine's northern border.

The U.S. has warned that Russia is planning an attack similar to its 2014 invasion of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, which Moscow then "annexed." U.S. officials have accused Russia of planning a "false flag" operation as a pretext for invading.

Blinken and Lavrov, both of whom downplayed expectations before Friday's meeting, said their countries would hold further talks after the U.S. responds in writing to Russian demands. Moscow's proposals aim to limit the West's influence in Eastern Europe, a region that Russian President Vladimir Putin feels he should dominate.

But Blinken warned that the written responses will be no different from what the Biden administration has said publicly. Moscow's demands  that Ukraine be excluded from joining NATO and that the transatlantic body pull back from former eastern-bloc countries such as Poland  are dead on arrival, Blinken said.

"There is no trade space there," he said. "None."

Later, at a separate Geneva news conference, Lavrov said Blinken had "agreed that we need to have a reasonable dialogue, and I hope emotions will decrease." Lavrov added, "I cannot say whether or not we are on the right track. We will know when we get" the written answers.

Moscow has said Ukraine is jeopardizing Russia's security with its ambitions to join NATO and its receipt of foreign weapons. The U.S. has sent millions of dollars in "defensive" weaponry to Ukraine, and Lavrov accused the U.S. of "anti-Russia hysteria" over its accusations. Some analysts have warned that Russian diplomacy may be a ruse to buy time until weather conditions in wintry Ukraine are more favorable for moving heavy tanks and weaponry.

Blinken's mission was complicated when President Biden on Wednesday alluded to divisions within the European and NATO communities on how and when to punish Russia, suggesting a "minor incursion" might generate extensive debate rather than swift action. The White House quickly attempted to clarify those comments.

The Biden administration has threatened to hit Russia with additional economic and financial sanctions if its forces move into Ukraine, possibly targeting Putin's oligarch cronies. Ukraine is urging that sanctions be imposed sooner rather later.

Asked what the Kremlin ultimately wants in the current standoff, Blinken told a reporter to "ask President Putin."

On the margins of the Geneva news conferences, Russia's deputy foreign minister was asked how the massive nuclear-armed country of Russia could be so afraid of Ukraine. "We are not afraid of anyone," Sergei Ryabkov said, "even not of the U.S."

Russia is "shaping the narrative" to appear to be pursuing diplomacy, in part to sow division in the West, said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who directs the transatlantic security program at the Center for a New American Security think tank.

"It makes the Europeans more squeamish," Kendall-Taylor said in an interview. "The United States will have to be front and center [in imposing sanctions or other punishments] because European Union consensus is hard to establish." Many countries, like Germany, have extensive financial and trade ties with Russia and could also be hurt by efforts to cripple its economy.

As it has done in past international negotiations, such as the 1975 Helsinki Accords that recognized the sanctity of nations' post-World War II borders or the 2010 New START nuclear arms treaty, Moscow may be pushing a seemingly intractable "maximalist" position to exact concessions before ceding at the last minute, Kendall-Taylor said.

In the meantime, diplomacy has so far not budged Russian forces from Ukraine's border, and Moscow continues to support Ukrainian separatists battling Kyiv's troops in two eastern regions.

"What we see on the ground overshadows any hope of a diplomatic settlement," Kendall-Taylor said. "That tells the real story of where the conflict is headed."

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow now at Stanford University, was also downbeat.

"Not good," he tweeted Friday. "Meetings that only go for 90 minutes as planned when both sides got on airplanes to be there is usually not a good sign."

Blinken said he and Lavrov also discussed talks in Vienna aimed at reviving U.S. and Iranian participation in the international nuclear deal that former President Trump abandoned in2018.

Though it is an area on which the U.S. and Russia can largely agree, Blinken pronounced his most dire assessment to date on those efforts.

'If a deal is not reached in the next few weeks, Iran's ongoing nuclear advances will make it impossible to return" to what was hailed as a landmark agreement, Blinken said. "But right now, there's still a window, a brief one, to bring those talks to a successful conclusion and address the remaining concerns of all sides."





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, center, announced efforts to temporarily employ National Guard troops and state bureaucrats as substitute teachers and preschool caregivers, during a news conference at Sante Fe High School in Santa Fe, N.M., on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2022. New Mexico is is struggling to keep classrooms open amid surging COVID-19 infections. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)  New Mexico is the first state in the nation to ask National Guard troops to serve as substitute teachers as preschools and K-12 public schools struggle to keep classrooms open amid surging COVID-19 infections.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday the unprecedented effort to reopen classrooms in the capital city of Santa Fe and shore up staffing across the state.

New Mexico has been struggling for years to recruit and retain educators, leaving teaching routinely to long-term substitutes who do not have full teaching credentials.

Her administration says school districts and preschools are seeking at least 800 substitute teachers and day care workers for shifts ranging from one classroom period to the entire day. They're also asking state bureaucrats to volunteer to serve.

Other states have worked to mobilize state workers and National Guard soldiers to support schools. Last year Massachusetts mobilized its National Guard, first to support COVID-19 testing on school campuses, then to drive school buses. On Tuesday, Oklahoma allowed state workers to volunteer as school substitutes while continuing to receive their salaries.

But New Mexico is the first state to report recruiting troops into the classroom in response to COVID-19 staffing shortages.

Members of the Guard will serve on active duty, drawing their usual pay. State workers who teach in classrooms will get marked as paid leave that doesnt subtract from individual vacation allotments.

The governor said state workers are encouraged to participate in a spirit of public service and that no one is being drafted. The state hopes to quickly deploy 500 new substitute teachers and day care workers.

We've determined that we have enough state employees, with the volunteer support with the Guard, to get to that 500 fairly readily, and that's just looking at key departments like the education department and veterans department, Lujan Grisham said at a news conference on the steps of a vacant high school in Santa Fe.

A surge in infections linked to the omicron variant among school staff and teachers prompted a weeklong switch to remote classes at Santa Fe Public Schools that could end as soon as Monday.

State public education officials say volunteers from the National Guard and state agencies can qualify for substitute teaching with as little as two hours of training and a two-step background check. School districts will decide whether military personnel appear in uniform or casual dress.

The recruiting program seeks volunteers from a pool of 16,000 state workers and 4,000 troops.

Republican House Minority Leader Jim Townsend of Artesia said the governor is calling in the wrong people to resolve a crisis of her own making.

She wants to be a hero when her administration does something unusual ... just to cover up her failure to put together a plan that works," Townsend said. They're not teachers. That's not what they were trained to do.

Amid longstanding teacher shortages, the Democrat-led Legislature is weighing proposals to recruit and retain teachers with a minimum 7% pay increase for all public school staff, increased minimum teacher salaries at various career stages and spending to pay off teachers' student debts.

Even before COVID, I had a big need for substitute teachers," said state Public Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus, formerly a school district superintendent at Los Alamos. "Now weve got the omicron variant."

___

Cedar Attanasio contributed reporting from Santa Fe. Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.
Ahead of a key meeting on Friday between the U.S. and Russia, the Biden administration on Thursday pushed a full-scale campaign to pressure Moscow as Russian leader Vladimir Putin weighs a possible attack on its neighbor Ukraine.

The U.S. approved its NATO allies in the Baltics to provide additional arms to Ukraine, including critical anti-aircraft missiles that escalate U.S. support. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned four Ukrainian officials it accused of working with Russian intelligence, including to form a new government backed by Russian occupying forces. The State Department blasted a Russian disinformation campaign it said was part of its "pretext" to invade Ukraine and "divide the international reaction to its actions."

One day before his sit-down with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to push back on Russia's narrative and make clear just how high the stakes are in the standoff.

MORE: Inside the diplomatic dash to stop a Russian attack on Ukraine

"It's bigger than a conflict between two countries. It's bigger than Russia and NATO. It's a crisis with global consequences, and it requires global attention and action," the top U.S. diplomat said in Berlin, hours after meeting his German, French, and British counterparts to coordinate a response.

That coordination has had tremendous doubt cast on it after President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the NATO alliance was not united about how to respond to aggression from Russia that fell short of an all-out attack on Ukraine -- an uncomfortable truth that U.S. and NATO officials have tried to paper over for weeks.

PHOTO: A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, Jan. 18, 2022. (AP)

After the White House scrambled to clean that up, Biden himself clarified on Thursday, "If any -- any -- assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion. But -- and it will be met with severe and coordinated economic response that I've discussed in detail with our allies."

But the challenge remains of what the U.S. and its allies will do if Russia attacks Ukraine with the same gray-zone tactics it has used for the last eight years, as it annexed Crimea, launched a war in eastern Ukraine, and began a slow-motion annexation of those provinces.

That war, which has killed approximately 14,000 people, rages on in fits and starts on the frontlines -- and in cyberspace. Ukrainian government websites were hacked in ""the largest cyberattack on Ukraine in the last four years," a Ukrainian cyber official said Wednesday, and Moscow has launched a "disinformation storm" portraying Ukraine as the aggressor and trying to "build public support for a further Russian invasion," a senior State Department official said Thursday.

MORE: After talks make no progress, is Russian attack on Ukraine more likely?: Analysis

The Kremlin's campaign to destabilize its smaller, democratic neighbor allegedly includes spies on the ground, collecting information and even plotting to form a new Ukrainian government.

"Russia has directed its intelligence services to recruit current and former Ukrainian government officials to prepare to take over the government of Ukraine and to control Ukraines critical infrastructure with an occupying Russian force," the U.S. Treasury said in a statement.

The U.S. has sanctioned two sitting members of Ukrainian parliament, Taras Kozak and Oleh Voloshyn, who it accused of furthering a plot by the FSB, Russia's main security agency and the successor of the KGB. The agency, which Biden said Wednesday has forces on the ground in Ukraine, is "destabilizing the political situation in Ukraine and laying the groundwork for creating a new, Russian-controlled government in Ukraine," Treasury added.

PHOTO: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock opens a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Britain's Minister of State James Cleverly and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the German Foreign Office in Berlin, Jan. 20, 2022. (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

In the face of that effort, the U.S. is hoping that transparency can undercut any pretext Russian operatives or their Ukrainian colleagues may create -- just as the White House last week accused the Kremlin of positioning operatives trained in urban warfare and explosives and planning a possible "false-flag" operation.

Russia has denied that, calling it "complete disinformation." It has said repeatedly it does not plan to attack the former Soviet state, even as Putin warned that his demands, including barring Ukraine from joining NATO, be met or Russia will take "military technical" measures.

The U.S. is taking its own military measures, approving the transfer of more weaponry to Ukraine -- this time from Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, a State Department spokesperson confirmed, while declining to say what weapons exactly.

MORE: What are Javelin missiles and why theyre being mentioned repeatedly during the impeachment hearings

But a Lithuanian Ministry of Defense source told ABC News the country was given the green light to transfer to Ukraine Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger portable surface-to-air missiles. The Baltic state wanted to send the weapons even earlier, but because they were originally U.S. provided, it needed American approval, which only came during consultations Wednesday, the source said.

Stingers are a kind of man-portable air-defense system, or MANPAD, where an individual soldier can carry the weapon and use it to down fighter aircraft. Javelins, which the Trump administration provided after the Obama administration had refused, have become an important weapon for Ukraine to pierce Russian-made tanks, which could come rolling across the border in an invasion .

Ukraine's military capacity still pales in comparison to Russia's overwhelming military superiority, and it's unclear how many missiles are being provided. Lithuania has only 54 of the missiles in its inventory and only eight launchers from which to fire them from, meaning the amount provided to Ukraine will likely be even lower.

Still, Stinger missiles in particular represent a symbolic threshold that previous administrations had not crossed. While some lawmakers have called for providing them and even more advanced weapons like a missile defense system, others have warned going too far could provoke Putin.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who was in Kyiv earlier this week as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation, said Thursday that in this "very fragile time... it would not be helpful to give Putin an excuse to invade Ukraine, so I think we've got to be very thoughtful about how we address some of these issues like a missile system," like the advanced Patriot missile system.

Russia has already warned that it sees any Western weapons provided to Ukraine as a threat, especially after the U.S. announced $200 million in new military aid ($650 million total over the last year) and the United Kingdom announced it provided anti-tank missiles.

PHOTO: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock opens a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Britain's Minister of State James Cleverly and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the German Foreign Office in Berlin, Jan. 20, 2022. (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Russia, however, has warned that it sees any Western weapons provided to Ukraine as a threat.

"We underline the necessity of ceasing boosting the war-like Ukrainian regime with arms deliveries ... and a lot else that represents a direct threat for us," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday.

But Blinken pushed back on that Thursday in a major speech, disputing the Russian narrative and making clear Moscow is the aggressor.

MORE: In 'extremely dangerous' moment, Blinken travels to Ukraine, to meet Russian counterpart

"On its face, thats absurd. NATO didn't invade Georgia, NATO didn't invade Ukraine - Russia did," he said, adding NATO neighbors account for six percent of Russia's borders and have 5,000 allied troops in those countries, while Russia has massed 20 times that around Ukraine.

There has been tense speculation about whether Putin will attack Ukraine, with Biden saying Wednesday he believes the strongman leader will "move in." But Blinken said Thursday the U.S. still believes he has not made up his mind yet, but added his animus towards Ukraine has long been known.

"He's told us repeatedly - he's laying the groundwork for an invasion because he doesn't believe that Ukraine is a sovereign nation," Blinken said.

PHOTO: In this image taken from footage provided by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service, a Ukrainian soldiers use a launcher with US Javelin missiles during military exercises in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Jan. 12, 2022. (Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

That argument has been a key part of Russia's disinformation ecosystem, which has been in overdrive in recent weeks, according to senior State Department officials.

Russia's military and intelligence entities have deployed 3,500 posts per day in December -- an increase of 200 percent from November -- as they seek to "create conditions conducive to success of attempted aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere and to divide the international reaction to its actions," a senior State Department official told reporters.

"These are not just public statements from Russia's MFA accounts ... These are broader campaigns using shell companies, false names, and layers to conceal the real backers and their intentions," a second senior State Department official said, calling it "a war on truth."

MORE: US accuses Russia of 'fabricating a pretext' to invade Ukraine

Russia must pull back its propaganda campaign in addition to its troops on Ukraine's borders, the official added, echoing previous U.S. calls for de-escalation to give diplomacy a shot.

Whether or not diplomacy has a shot will be tested again Friday in Geneva, where Blinken and Lavrov will meet. A senior State Department official said earlier in the week that the meeting itself is a sign the door to diplomacy remains open, but the two sides continue to talk past each other.

MORE: NATO rejects Russian demands for security guarantees in latest round of talks

The two diplomats will "discuss draft agreements on security guarantees," Russia's embassy in Washington tweeted Thursday - a reference to its demands that NATO bar Ukraine from joining and pull back forces from Eastern European member states. But U.S. officials have repeatedly called those "nonstarters," and Blinken said Wednesday in Kyiv he would not be "presenting a paper" to Lavrov in response.

That has raised fears that Moscow is simply using diplomatic talks to see them fail - yet another pretext before an attack. But regardless of whether there's a full-born assault, Russia has now effectively shaken Ukraine once again. Its president Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to reassure the nation late Wednesday, even pushing back on the U.S. warnings that the threat is more urgent.

"These risks have been there for more than one day, and they haven't grown nowadays - there is just more buzz around them," he said in a televised address.

ABC's Dada Jovanovic contributed to this report from Belgrade, Serbia, Patrick Reevell from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Luis Martinez from the Pentagon.

US escalates pressure on Russia, approving new arms and accusing it of plot against Ukraine originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Russia will be punished if the country pushes ahead with any destabilising action in Ukraine, Downing Street has warned.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is holding last-ditch talks with Russian diplomats in Switzerland on Friday in a bid to avert a conflict on Ukraines border, where Moscow has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops.

Number 10 said if Russian President Vladimir Putin launches an offensive, there will be a package of sweeping measures launched by the UK and its allies against the Kremlin.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned Mr Putin he must desist and step back from war in Ukraine or risk being dragged into a prolonged conflict like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Speaking at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, she said: If there is an incursion by Russia into Ukraine, it would come at a massive cost.

We are prepared to put very severe sanctions in place, we are also working to support Ukraine in terms of defensive capability.

A spokesman for Boris Johnson said: I think the Prime Minister has been clear that any destabilising action by Russia in Ukraine would be a strategic mistake and would have significant consequences.

Ive talked about the fact that were working closely with our partners, including the US, to draw up a package of sweeping measures to make sure that the Russian government is punished if it crosses the line.

Earlier, former British ambassador to the US Lord Kim Darroch said Mr Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union.

Liz Truss is currently in Sydney for talks with Australian leaders (Rick Rycroft/AP)

Lord Darroch said Mr Putin does not like the direction of the Ukrainian government.

He is trying to bully them and intimidate them, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

Ms Truss said as well as dealing with the immediate threat, the free world also needs to dial down its economic dependence on Russia.

She said this will mean that in the future it becomes harder for those aggressive regimes to use economic dependence as a way of getting what they want.

She added: We are very ready to act in the immediate term.

In the longer term, this is why its so important that we are investing in developing countries  its so important that we are trading widely across the world using strong rules-based agreements like the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership).

Thats the Wests way to protect ourselves from aggressors  from a position of economic and defensive strength.
CORUNNA  Shiawassee County Judge Matthew Stewart denied requests by a Livingston County man for funds for his defense and to have the Livings
On Jan. 3, four hours before South Windsor was to begin distributing its limited supply of at-home COVID-19 test kits, police notified Town Manager Michael Maniscalco that cars were already lining up outside Rye Park.

Maniscalco wondered how the state ended up in such a precarious position.

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Hourslong waits for COVID-19 tests had become common as people flooded the states scattered testing sites  many waiting in vain, anger building. At a testing site in Bristol, someone threatened to pull a gun.

We are almost two years into this pandemic, and you would have thought wed have figured it out by now, Maniscalco said. They should have known, with winter coming, that cases would rise again and be better prepared. Omicron has just made it much worse.

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People react as they wait outside their vehicles to be tested at the state COVID-19 testing site at the city hall parking lot in Bristol on Dec. 28. (Jessica Hill / Special to the Courant)

While Maniscalco has publicly criticized the states recent response to the omicron surge, other town officials in Connecticut have chosen to voice their anger and displeasure on private calls between Gov. Ned Lamonts team and local officials, sources said.

Many are asking how state officials  who trumpeted how quickly they were able to set up COVID-19 testing back in 2020  seemed so unprepared and surprised at the surge of testing demand that was needed between Thanksgiving and the early weeks of 2022.

Lamont said Wednesday he hoped the omicron variant would be the last big surge of the virus in Connecticut, but he agreed that the state should maintain significant testing capacity in case another wave comes.

It behooves us to keep these tests available, Lamont said. We want to be able to respond quickly if there is another flare-up.

Lamont also acknowledged that having testing available at hospitals or through primary care providers is not the same as free, community-based testing opportunities, especially when the spread of the virus is so rapid and widespread.

So can we do better? Absolutely, Lamont said. But thats been the effort from the very beginning, to make sure that nobody is left behind. If somebody is left behind when it comes to vaccination or tests, that is bad for you, and thats bad for the community.

People wait outside an empty shipping container for a COVID-19 test at the New Haven Green on Dec. 29. The testing for the day was canceled, but people continued to line up and wait without knowing. (Jessica Hill / Special to the Courant)

Health providers acknowledged that the speed at which omicron spread through Connecticut and the rest of the country was overwhelming, but they said the state should not have been caught flat-footed by the sudden demand for testing.

Ken Lalime, the CEO of the Community Health Center Association of Connecticut, recognized that planning for a once-in-a-century pandemic is difficult to do. Running complicated logistics networks in any industry is hard, he said. But there is even more pressure to get it right when it comes to health care, he said.

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Its tough to manage for a spike, to such a large testing need, said Lalime, whose group represents the 16 federally qualified health centers in the state. But thats the job of the Department of Health  to make sure that their patients in the state, that their citizens, are cared for.

Not enough providers

The long lines for testing in December can be traced back to last summer, when many of the states contracts with testing providers expired.

At one point, the state had testing contracts with 11 groups, ranging from the states two largest hospital chains, Yale New Haven and Hartford HealthCare, to several laboratories across the state. But those contracts  signed in the spring of 2020 when testing was ramped up  expired at the end of June 2021, according to state records.

By that time, the state had decided to cut back on testing and focus resources on mass vaccination clinics. Hospitals transformed mass testing sites into mass vaccination clinics or just closed them. Jabs replaced swabs as the key metric state officials followed and publicized.

In July 2021, the state signed only four new testing contracts, with Sema4 being the largest contractor, in charge of 15 of the 23 state-sponsored testing sites that would remain open.

The other contractors were Wren Laboratories, a small Meriden-based company that had developed a saliva test; Genesys Diagnostics, another smaller lab based in Montville; and Quest Diagnostics, whose experience was more tailored to processing tests than collecting them.

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None of the new contractors, except Sema4, had much experience operating testing sites. Absent were many of the hospitals and the community health centers that had done the bulk of the COVID-19 testing earlier in the pandemic.

When the state went out for its procurement of a network of providers, I dont know that they got enough providers, said Lalime, who has advocated for the state to increase its testing capacity. It may have been enough for the middle of the summer. Obviously, it was not enough to handle the surge that is out there right now.

The surge

The numbers for just the state testing sites show that when they came on line in August, they were doing only about 1,200-1,700 tests weekly from all 23 sites combined.

Those numbers started to increase as the state and many private employers set parameters for people to return to work. Many who were not vaccinated needed to provide a weekly negative PCR test result to their employer.

The mandate created a whole new category of people who needed to be tested, regardless of whether they felt they had COVID-19 or had been exposed to someone who had the virus.

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From the middle of September through the week before Thanksgiving, the state-run sites averaged about 7,800 tests a week, according to DPH data.

But from there, the numbers started to climb, jumping up to more than 13,000 during the Thanksgiving holiday week and climbing to nearly 30,000 just before Christmas, as omicron arrived.

During the late fall, some health directors noticed residents in their towns and districts were seeking more testing.

There are many other places where people can get tested in addition the state-run sites, including urgent cares, pharmacies or federally qualified health centers. Most tests are done by appointment only, or health insurance was required, unlike at the state-run drive-thru sites.

In the Ledge Light Health District, which covers the southeast corner of the state, Health Director Stephen Mansfield made separate deals with Sema4 to run two testing sites in Groton and New London.

Mansfield said the most recent surge in COVID-19 cases was one of the most difficult times in the pandemic for people to find testing.

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A line of cars snakes around a parking lot in the Long Wharf section of New Haven, as residents wait for saliva COVID-19 testing. (Eliza Fawcett)

At a drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at Stonington Human Services on Jan. 13, 400 test kits were available, and only about 200 were used that day.

During earlier spikes, Mansfield said, the community-based testing sites in his area were limited by the number of hours the testing staff could work and the number of samples they could take in a given day.

But this time around, he said, the testing sites were limited by the number of samples the laboratories could process.

Some days, the testing sites in the New London area were told they could test 300 people. Other days, it was capped at 250, Mansfield said. It was dependent on what Sema4 could handle in its lab.

At the height of the omicron wave, that meant Mansfield and his team were often turning people away.

Generally, we reached capacity before we even opened up the line, he said. And the last thing we wanted was residents sitting in line for a couple of hours and being told a test is not available to them.

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The state hasnt picked up Ledge Lights testing sites, and with Sema4 shutting down testing soon, he isnt sure the two sites will remain open much longer.

Expanding testing options in some places

Vernon officials also restarted their testing program in the fall, on Sundays and Tuesday afternoons. They made a separate deal with Sema4 because, Town Administrator Michael Purcaro said, They realized there was a high demand for testing, and people were having a hard time finding it.

The site has been so successful that the state has taken over running the site and is increasing the number of days it will be open.

On Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Department of Public Health Deputy Commissioner Heather Aaron and Jackson Laboratories President Charles Lee held a press conference to announce the Vernon site would be expanded to five days a week and would be operated by Griffin Hospital and Jackson Laboratories.

Bysiewicz said with COVID-19 positivity rates coming down but still high, We need to keep ourselves and our community safe. We can do that by getting tested, and the town of Vernon and the state of Connecticut have made it easy for people in this area to just come on in and get tested.

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The Vernon site is one of at least six new testing sites that the state is setting up by the end of the month, even as the post-holiday demand starts to taper off.

Besides Vernon, there will be new state-run test sites in Darien, New Haven, Old Saybrook, Putnam and Waterbury. The state also will be expanding the sites operations to 40 hours a week.

The state hasnt said which company will be replacing Sema4, which has told state officials it will no longer do testing as of Jan. 31. Sema4 is operating 15 of the states 23 sites. Aaron said that DPH has a contract with Jackson Labs to take over at least some of Sema4s testing duties. The state is searching for partners for Jackson Laboratories that would collect the samples at the sites, as Griffin will be doing in Vernon.

North Central Health District Director Patricia Sulik said the expansion of the testing at the Vernon site is needed for the entire area.

We have the publics attention. People want to be tested, and then we found there werent enough testing resources, Sulik said. Everyone working together has brought together this new site today.

DPH officials also have reached out to several hospitals and to federally qualified health centers that did testing in 2020 to see if they could add more testing now. Hartford HealthCare is opening up to five new sites where they have hospitals, including Torrington, Meriden and Norwich, that will offer an additional 150 tests or so a day by appointment only.

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Not something you do overnight

Recently, the demands for testing at one of the four testing sites in the Ledge Light Health District finally started to show some signs of slowing.

The testing site was allotted 400 tests on Jan. 14, but only 100 or so people were lined up in cars at the start of the event. Even so, Mansfield expected that the demand for testing was likely still outpacing the supply, especially at free community-based sites.

There is still a dearth of testing in Connecticut, Mansfield said.

If Connecticut is going to continue to have standby testing available to handle future surges, Mansfield said, the state will likely need to set up more permanent sites to deal with those demands.

Lalime said it will be important to either maintain the testing sites or have an expansion plan ready to go more quickly than this time to avoid the testing hysteria when the next variant surfaces. Community health centers, emergency rooms and primary care practices cant serve as a backup for testing when cases surge, Lalime said.

I dont think theyre backing away from the fact that its their responsibility, Lalime said. I think right now they are trying a lot of different mechanisms to try and build up capacity. Its just not something you do overnight.

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Aaron said it takes the state seven to eight days working with the different testing sites to get everything set up and running.

Our plan is to continue to expand and to hold the sites even if this thing starts slowing down, Aaron said. If it slows down, then we will slow down a bit, too, cut hours if necessary, but we will continue to build and keep open sites as long as possible wherever they are needed.

Dave Altimari and Andrew Brown are reporters for The Connecticut Mirror (ctmirror.org). Copyright 2021  The Connecticut Mirror.
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YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. The specialists of the new nuclear power plant in Armenia will be trained in Russia, the Director-General of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (Metsamor) Eduard Martirosyan told TASS news agency.

In Russia, he said when asked where the future staff of the new plant will be trained.

The lifecycle of the current Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant was extended to 2026, and it will further be extended for another 10 years.

Meanwhile, the construction of the new nuclear power plant will take somewhere between 10 or 12 years, Martirosyan said.

Martirosyan said that the specialists of the current nuclear power plant have also studied in Russia.

Additionally, Martirosyan said theyve considered the option of constructing small plants. He said there is a probability of building such a plant for the Geopromining Armenia company in Syunik Province.

In September 2021, Geopromining donated 25% of its shares in the Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine to the Armenian government.

The new nuclear power plant must have at least the same capacity as the active one  500-600 MW.

At the same time, he didnt rule out the possibility of building a more powerful plant  2 power units with 1200 MW capacity. This will depend on the level of energy consumption of that time, and the possibility of expanding energy supplies to neighboring countries.

On the sidelines of Expo 2020 in Dubai, ROSATOM and the management of the Armenian nuclear power plant signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the development of the project.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian gave an interview to Sky News Arabia during his visit in the United Arab Emirates, touching upon the regional developments and Armenias relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, the Presidential Office reports.

The President said that negotiations are the way leading to sustainable future and stated: I hope this time Armenia and Azerbaijan will be able to create a sustainable peace through compromise. But thats difficult.

As for the relations with Turkey, the Armenian President said pragmatism and sustainability suppose normal relations with the neighbors, and there is no other way rather than talking. At the same time, the President emphasized that its impossible to ignore the historical facts, move on without the support of the Armenian Diaspora which has been formed as a result of the Genocide. Armenia is a small state, but much bigger nation worldwide, he said.

I hope one day Armenia and Turkey will succeed, but in order to succeed we cannot ignore the historic facts, and in order to succeed we have to be pragmatic to build sustainable, stable relations between Armenia and Turkey, and in the region, the Armenian President said.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan received today the delegation of the European Unions Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar and representative of the French presidency at the Council of the EU Isabelle Dumont, the foreign ministry reports.

FM Mirzoyan congratulated France on assuming the presidency of the Council of the EU, expressing confidence that it will be effective and will contribute to the establishment of security and stability in the South Caucasus. The further development of the Armenia-EU partnership was also emphasized.

The meeting also touched upon the humanitarian problems caused by the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh War. In this context the immediate repatriation of Armenian prisoners of war and civilian captives, held in Azerbaijan, was emphasized.

The sides discussed also taking actions to raise the level of security and stability on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. In this respect the minister highlighted the implementation of the agreements reached by the Sochi trilateral statement and the Brussels meeting mediated by the President of the European Council. The necessity of observing the ceasefire, refusing the militaristic rhetoric by the top leadership of Azerbaijan was stressed.

The Armenian FM attached importance to the full resumption of negotiations for the lasting and comprehensive settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict under the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship.
YEREVAN, 21 JANUARY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 21 January, USD exchange rate up by 0.46 drams to 482.12 drams. EUR exchange rate up by 0.14 drams to 546.68 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.01 drams to 6.30 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 2.07 drams to 654.24 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 312.23 drams to 28603.88 drams. Silver price up by 7.33 drams to 375.5 drams. Platinum price up by 650.51 drams to 16353.04 drams.
Senate Republican leader Kevin Kelly of Stratford takes questions during a Capitol press conference held by Connecticut Senate Republicans demanding more transparency and oversight of billions of federal dollars, including the infrastructure money. (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

HARTFORD  Connecticut Senate Republicans called Thursday for quarterly reports and public hearings by the legislature to have better oversight concerning billions of dollars in federal funds flowing to Connecticut.

The senators said there is insufficient oversight and transparency, as shown by the alleged loss of more than $600,000 in federal funds in West Haven in an FBI case that is still pending. Lawmakers have sought audits of all 169 towns that have received federal funds following the arrest of then-state Rep. Michael DiMassa, a West Haven Democrat who was accused of stealing more than $600,000 in federal money by billing the city of West Haven for consulting services that federal officials said he never performed.

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Now, Republicans said they will submit legislation to require quarterly reports and then quarterly public hearings in front of the key committees on specific issues, including transportation, environment, appropriations, finance, and government administration and elections.

Connecticut can and must do better when it comes to accountability,' said Senate Republican leader Kevin Kelly of Stratford.

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Noting that West Haven and its residents have struggled financially for years, Kelly said, It is infuriating that these relief funds meant to help those who are truly in need  the sick, the hungry, and those in most need during the pandemic  were misdirected.'

The Republican bill was not available Thursday, but Kelly said it will be ready when the 2022 regular session of the General Assembly begins on Feb. 9.

Gov. Ned Lamont and his chief of staff, Paul Mounds, both said Thursday that they support transparency and have been disclosing financial information.

Im 100 percent there,' Lamont told reporters on a Zoom call. Weve got to earn the trust of the taxpayers every day.'

The governors budget office delivers a monthly report to the state comptroller that includes federal spending, and the budget office also reports spending on its website. The bipartisan state auditors also will go over every dollar expended,' Lamont said.

The legislature has already been pushing for oversight on various pots of money. Last year, lawmakers passed a bill ensuring that the legislature will play a vital role in deciding how $2.7 billion in direct federal funding over the next three years is spent.

The measure covered the federal money that will be coming to the state over three years  not federal money going directly to cities and towns for education and other expenses. The money for the state needs to be allocated and will be distributed in the traditional manner as the state budget  meaning scrutiny by the legislatures Appropriations Committee and then votes in the House and Senate with collaboration from Lamont before any money is spent.

The state is also expected to receive $5.4 billion over the next five years in federal infrastructure funds, which are also counted separately.

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The money sent to the towns is overseen separately by the governors budget office - not the legislature. The budget office has sent a detailed letter to mayors, first selectmen, and town finance officers that said the inspector general of the U.S. Department of the Treasury will be conducting an audit of the federal spending.

The reports for the towns are highly detailed with multiple, separate categories that include cleaning supplies, equipment, food programs, hazard pay, legal fees, overtime, testing, vaccinations, and personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves, among others. Spending information is already available on the web site of the governors budget office, but lawmakers said they want more transparency.

The Republicans are calling for oversight of an opioid settlement of $300 million that will go to cities and towns over the next 18 years. They said that money must go to opioid recovery and treatment of addiction, unlike the tobacco settlement funds that were spent on a wide variety of unrelated programs and not enough on programs to quit smoking.

We cannot allow these funds to be squandered, as we saw with the tobacco settlement funds,' said deputy Senate Republican leader Paul Formica of East Lyme.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities announced in recent days that 168 of the 169 municipalities had opted in to receive opioid money. Only Salem did not sign up, but officials are working to see if they would be included.

The exact breakdown of payments has not been finalized, but the combined total could be $16.7 million per year for 18 years, officials said. The towns will receive the money as part of a broader settlement involving 14 states, including Connecticut.

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Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com
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Data from the IRDA of India shows the death claims from both individual and group policies combined rose by 41 per cent to Rs 41,451 crore

While a large number of death claims continued to be reported during the first two quarters of 2021-22, the potential claims from the current omicron third wave has shown reduced severity of the disease.  By arrangement

Mumbai: Saddled with a large number of death claims in the last two Covid waves, life insurance companies are increasing the prices of term plans, introducing tighter medical underwriting and longer waiting periods, besides increasing their reserves to combat the impact of the ongoing pandemic.

Data from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India shows the death claims from both individual and group policies combined rose by 41 per cent to Rs 41,451 crore compared to a claims payout of Rs 29,793 crore during 2019-2020.

While a large number of death claims continued to be reported during the first two quarters of 2021-22, the potential claims from the current omicron third wave has shown reduced severity of the disease.

R.M. Vishakha, managing director and chief executive officer at India First Life Insurance, told Financial Chronicle, The second wave of the Covid- 19 pandemic, especially April, May and June this year, was very brutal with a high number of death claims and its impact will be there on the books, but the ongoing third wave that began in December 2021 is more benign and we have not seen a substantial increase in the reporting of death claims. So, the claims outlook is cautiously optimistic.

We dont see a need to increase our reserves as the third wave is not that severe. However, we have introduced a 30-day waiting period for those who are infected with Covid and want to buy a term plan. The waiting period could be up to six months for those suffering from major co-morbidities. We are also taking a lot of preventive action. For instance, with our bank promoters, we are ensuring that more and more people get vaccinated, added Vishakha.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance that announced its earnings this week had Covid-19 claims (net of reinsurance) of Rs 982 crore in the nine months ended December 31, 2021. This was Rs 862 crore for the first six months (H1FY22) of the fiscal. The company was carrying a provision (net of reinsurance) of Rs 203 crore for Covid claims as of Q3FY22 compared to Rs 412 crore in Q2FY22 this was towards future claims, including IBNR claims (incurred but not reported). The management cited that it may receive comfort on potential claims from the current omicron wave given the reduced severity of the disease.

While most life insurance companies filed for a steep increase of 65-70 per cent in term premium rates, they have been forced to moderate the hikes to not more than 25 per cent under regulatory pressure.

Says an actuary, If the mortality experience turns worse in the long run, it will reflect in the pricing. Already life insurers have launched new products with a substantial increase in term rates.

Besides risk measures will change, for instance, whether a health insurance policy will pay for multiple Covid claims during a year?

Insurers have started to look at these aspects. While these are early days, companies will have to make some initial adjustments, sources said.
The challenge on the economic front now seems to be to place India as a strategic part of the global supply chain, a position China occupies

Global business leaders attending the virtual meeting of the Davos-based World Economic Forum on January 17 must have heard Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping with curiosity, if not with rapt attention. The two Asian biggies hold great interest for the world, and the West in particular. They tend to see democratic India as an ideological ally against Communist China. Mr Modi, in his opening remarks on Monday, emphasised the virtues of Indian democracy. While the critics of Mr Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at home consider the Prime Minister and his party as undermining the democratic institutions and processes in the country, the Prime Minister often flaunts Indian democracy as a trophy to the West.

Perhaps he realises that the preferential treatment for India will depend largely on the democracy label. Mr Modi is keen about attracting foreign investments to India, something that he has been assiduously canvassing in Davos ever since he became Prime Minister, and he has done the job diligently. He said the temperament of Indias youth is entrepreneurial, and as proof he cited the fact that there are now over 7,000 start-ups, of which 70 are unicorns, with 40 of them emerging in 2021. He said these young Indian entrepreneurs are waiting to work with global investors. He also said key sectors have been thrown open to private investment, including defence, aerospace and telecom. There seems to be the nagging feeling that FDI inflows are not enough, and that foreign manufacturing must base itself in India. He said that the Atma Nirbhar Bharat policy was to make in India for the world. He cited the improved ease of doing business index of India. It is not clear, though, whether it would help. Mr Modi struck a sober, and even a modest note, compared to his expansive speech at Davos in 2018.

In contrast, President Xi Xinping of China expounded the philosophy of contradiction, taking a leaf from Mao Zedongs celebrated thesis. He said: The world is always developing through the movement of contradictions; without contradictions, nothing would exist. He criticised the Cold War mentality and the moves to erect protectionist walls, and decried hegemony and bullying, the two things that China has no hesitation in using! He declared: China will stay committed to reforms and opening up. And he went on to add that China welcomes foreign investments if they comply with national laws. Speaking of the tussle between economic growth and ecological preservation, he said: We should never grow the economy at the cost of resource depletion and environmental degradation, which is like draining a pond to get fish; nor should we sacrifice growth to protect the environment, which is like climbing a tree to catch fish. There is little doubt that Mr Xi is imitating Mao and Deng Xiaoping and hopes to get into the canon with his homilies!

The India-China duel, which spans the political, economic and strategic spheres, is not something that will be settled in a single forum, whether it be at the United Nations or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Despite the strained relations, Brics (the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) seems to be surviving, and the New Development Bank (NDB) is making quiet progress. Egypt has been admitted as a member in December 2021. At the same time, there is attrition in Ladakh and along other segments of the undemarcated 3,500-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC), with the June 15, 2020, flareup resulting in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and many more on the Chinese side, and the continuing rounds of talks between the military commanders in the field. Unsurprisingly, Mr Modi and his party are remaining quiet about the India-China stalemate because they realise that it is a tough situation.

Despite the glimmer of hope about the economy turning around quickly, the momentum has not yet picked up. That should be a matter of real worry for the Prime Minister and the government. The challenge on the economic front now seems to be to place India as a strategic part of the global supply chain, a position China now occupies. Though Mr Modi has declared India as the pharmacy of the world, it is evident that even while India dominates the generic drugs and vaccine market in the developing economies, it is not yet the leader in terms of research and development. That position is still occupied by the multinational pharmaceutical giants with their cutting-edge research. The Indian government is still looking for shortcuts and quick fixes to make the economy strong. It seems that the Narendra Modi government hasnt realised that there are no short-cuts to the top.

Global businesses still look to India with a lot of expectation, but they may have to continue to transact with China more than ever. The hope that the Modi government entertained after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 that foreign businesses would shift out of China and that India will be the natural alternative has not played out according to this script.

What Indian economic strategists will have to review now is the reason for the lukewarm attitude of global businesses to rush towards India. Infrastructure is a key hurdle, and so is the issue of a skilled and cheap workforce. India has neither. Mr Modi must be aware that after seven and more years in power, it would not help to blame the Congress for the countrys economic sloth. At home too, the private sector is also not too enthusiastic about investing and spending. The start-ups and unicorns are good signs, but they are too weak to revitalise the economy.

The rasping chorus of right-wing Hindutva groups are harming Indias image more than many in the government may imagine, and sending out negative signals. This seriously impacts Indias economic prospects. The idea that vigilantism can have free play and the market will operate in its own sphere is simply not working. A Hindutva-dominated polity cannot be a market-friendly place. This is the inconvenient fact staring Mr Modi, Yogi Adityanath and Union home minister Amit Shah in the face.

Hindutva majoritarianism blocks economic growth. Hate speeches and acts deter economic prospects. It is not enough for Mr Modi to play lip service to the countrys social diversity. He has to acknowledge the fact that India is a multi-religious society, and not just a multi-cultural and multi-lingual one.
In his words: "I am just a professional writer, which means I don't do blogs and try and get money for whatever I write."

The defection comes as BoJos participation in the decadent culture of the cabal of politicians and civil servants he runs from 10 Downing

Leaves of grass,

Fragrant petals,

Twigs and branches

No two the same.

We are surrounded by infinities

We take them for granted

--- And yet eternities are scary!

From Om Sweet Om, by Bachchoo

The old adage says troubles come in threes. Not for Britains Prime Minster, the hitherto irrepressible BoJo. For him they come in thirteens  or more. The latest kick to his prolific and yet vulnerable crotch comes from a Conservative MP who on Wednesday this week, minutes before BoJo was to appear in Parliament for Prime Ministers Question Time, announced that he was defecting and crossing the floor to join the Labour Party, the countrys main Opposition.

In his destructively-timed announcement, Bury South MP Christian Wakeford said the country needs a government that upholds the highest standards of integrity and probity, but told Boris Johnson: Both you and the Conservative Party as a whole have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves.

The defection comes as BoJos participation in the decadent culture of the cabal of politicians and civil servants he runs from 10 Downing Street is under investigation for holding eleven jolly, even drunken parties for themselves when the government had decreed a lockdown which had severely prohibited just such gatherings.

The severest verdict of this investigation  chaired, incidentally, by Sue Gray, a civil servant who reports to her boss who reports directly to BoJo  will be that BoJo lied to Parliament.

That would amount to a breach of the ministerial code and no amount of subterfuge and humbug would save the poor boy from an ignominious resignation.

Very many people, including his former mistresses and Dominic Cummings, the Svengalic adviser he had dismissed from that role and service, call BoJo a chronic liar. Is that a truth about lies?

Gentle reader, I cant say, but I do have evidence that he doesnt tell, or perhaps doesnt remember, in the case of one incident, the truth. Heres the story:

I have been in my short and happy life acquainted with the convicted serial killer Charles Sobhraj. In the six or so years he lived in Paris after being released from Tihar Jail in New Delhi and then being incarcerated with a life sentence in Kathmandu, he was often in touch with me.

He would ask me sometimes absurd things: did I have any contacts in the CIA? Would I lend my citizenship credentials to help set up a front for laundering money from dodgy arms deals? And Faook, what is Red Mercury/  many more. I can confidently say that I did know a writer who had written the history of the CIA and introduced them. I didnt consent to having anything to do with money laundering and I found out that Sobhraj was trying to sell red mercury  a nuclear trigger  to some Arabs in Bahrain. I asked if they could have been Iraqis. He said they could. This was before the invasion of Iraq by Blair and Bush. If what Sobhraj said was true then, however much I regretted confirming it, Saddam may have been looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction. A huge international story.

I told Sobhraj he should come to London and bring his evidence. Id introduce him to newspaper people. I was acquainted with a writer on The Spectator, whose editor at the time was one Boris Johnson. I called my writer-contact and he convened a meeting between Boris, myself and Charles Sobhraj.

At the meeting, after Sobhraj said he had evidence on his computer and recorded evidence of the meeting, BoJo said it was too big a story for his weekly and he would call a correspondent from The Telegraph.

In the end, Sobhraj decided that the money they were offering for his sensational scoop was not enough, and so nothing came of it, as he went to Kathmandu soon after and was arrested and jailed there. The entire account of my acquaintance with Charles Sobhraj is the substance of a book called Hawk and Hyena, published in India this month! (Havent we told you before not to use this space which we generously give you to advertise your rubbish?  Ed Sirji, maaf keejeeyay  lekin koochh tho peyt ki pooja hone do  fd)

To continue  last year a series called The Serpent featured the crimes of Sobhraj in Thailand. After it was transmitted, a journalist on a national daily got in touch with Sobhraj who told him to verify some of what hed told him by speaking to me. The journalist did so, and I told him that we had met with BoJo. Obviously, the journalist thought it a good angle and he asked BoJo, now the PM, for his comments. Did he meet the serial killer Charles Sobhraj with Farrukh Dhondy? BoJo told him that he met with me but never met Charles Sobhraj. A lie, but alas not to Parliament, so I cant say I had a hand in his downfall!

Thats if truth prevails and hes forced to resign. And then? The race to the top has already begun.

Foreign secretary Lizard Truss  known for several taxpayer-funded-few-thousand-pound lunches and also for hosting a party under the lockdown. Tch tch! Or Pritti Clueless? Oh no! If some diligent research aide reads these columns, I shall certainly spend time as Her Majestys guest. Or Hedgy Sunak? Hurrah! Free ports and tides of drugs
Irreverent, provocative, opinionated... Shobhaa De has been challenging status quo for four decades... and is at her best when she punctures inflated egoes. Readers can send feedback to www.shobhaade.blogspot.com

Why is Didis tableau rejected? And Stalins and Pinarayi Vijayans? Isnt this a bit too blatant and obvious?

Listen up, you mysterious, anonymous members of the selection committee that grandly and arbitrarily decides which state tableaux are worthy enough to glide down Rajpath on Indias 73rd Republic Day  speak now or hold your peace forever! Whats all this? Why is Didis tableau rejected? And Stalins and Pinarayi Vijayans? Isnt this a bit too blatant and obvious? You have an issue with the three CMs whove refused to toe the line and asserted themselves through their wins  thats your problem. As citizens, we want to see as many tableaux representing diverse narratives as time allows. Dont make the shortage of time an excuse! Get your act together and make sure every single state gets a slot. But clearly, your mandate is different. At least, have the decency to explain why these tableaux were rejected. On what basis? Aesthetics or politics?

Mamata says no reasons or justifications were assigned by the Centre. But hello! West Bengal did want to celebrate the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. And Tamil Nadu had the temerity to present freedom fighters, as its theme. Kerala, in a shocking move, wanted its tableau to showcase anti-caste crusader and reformer Narayana Guru! Relax, citizens its just a coincidence these tableaux were rejected! Theek hai?

The Republic Day Parade is  or at least, used to be  a matter of Indian pride. Our hearts would swell just watching the splendor, grandeur and immense cultural diversity that so beautifully defines our nation. Of course, some of those early 1960s tableaux were ghastly, and in terms of design, also very cringe-making. So what? Each participating tableau made a sincere, if clumsy, attempt to showcase the states unique strengths and identity. The floats provided easy-to-figure patriotic messages, particularly to school kids who would pick up an instant history lesson or feel curious about a geographical detail they may have been unaware of. As a schoolgirl growing up in Delhi, I would wait impatiently for the tableaux and thrill to their visual variety.

Some would feature live dances -- from Kathakali to Bhangra. Others would go back to the states history and have actors playing well-known icons, reciting poetry, singing songs, making speeches. The costumes would have us gasping at the vivid colours, mirrors, feathers, beads, and other amazing embellishments. The tableaux were the highlights of the parade, till wed hear the purr of the jets approaching from a distance and stare skywards, cheering wildly for the tricolour plumes signalling the end of the parade.

To see this inspiring spectacle that made our spirits soar reduced to a tawdry political game of one-upmanship is insulting and downright petty.

Which is why I decided to design my own tableau this year -- just to make a point! Of course, it is all inside my mind but at least its there! And I feel good that I am able to assert my right as a citizen of India, to present whatever I believe is fair and right, in the manner I choose to. Wouldnt it be amazing if in future we could organise neighbourhood tableaux on Republic Day without State interference?

This year, for example, I would have liked to focus on Uttar Pradesh Uncut  and create a tableau that presents the real story of Yogi minus fictitious flourishes. Or Id have liked to take a crack at a tableau about our countrys obsession with statues, especially since our beloved and great Prime Minister has announced his latest statue project  the Statue of Equality, a Rs 1,000-crore endeavour outside Hyderabad to mark the 1,000th birth anniversary of Bhakti Saint Sri Ramanujacharya. Arrey Baba first strive for equality in reality. Then build the statue, na? Whats the point of a statue that reminds us, in a harsh and cruel way, that the country is anything but equal. By spending so much on a statue, will equality automatically follow? If the genuine objective is to generate such a sentiment, start by demonstrating it through policies and actions.

This tableaux discrimination only displays insecurity. Regardless of which chief minister wants to project what narrative through the tableau, surely its up to the CMs discretion? Perhaps, the subject of the tableau doesnt sit well with the mood of the ruling party so what? A lot of things dont sit well about the ruling party for a large number of citizens but does that inhibit our leaders? Vehicles of propaganda, as tableaux generally are, cant be the monopoly of the ruling party. Assuming some of the rejected tableaux featured themes that go against the ruling partys image machine, they should still have got clearance  let citizens decide! I am all for the democratisation of tableaux after all, Stalin is not a brigand and Mamata is not Phoolan Devi. Nor is Pinarayi Vijayan an unpadh. It seems churlish to reject their tableaux and pass the buck to some unidentified selection committee, without providing valid grounds for dumping the tableaux and citing hollow time constraint claims.

A state tableau need not be self-consciously non-political. On the contrary, the Republic Day parade provides a terrific opportunity to get a message across, provided the message is in the public interest and not something that could lead to rioting or unrest on the streets.

Grand-standing is the prerogative of all leaders but in India, its reserved for the Prime Minister and his team. A confident leader is not afraid of mirrors. Tableaux are those mirrors in public that encourage citizens to look, think, decide. And thats the problem! With key elections coming up, its easier to dazzle citizens with drones! Great idea, btw, but also a shrewd distraction.

I still have a few days to put the final touches on my personal tableau. Dressing up like Yogi is pretty easy no elaborate fancy dress required.

Speaking his lingo is harder, but not impossible. I dont wish to stick on a grey beard and pretend I am Namo, but I do have several colour coordinated bundis, angavastrams and sandals. I look good in safaas and turbans so thats not a problem. Since the parade in Delhi is without a chief guest this year, I would like to invite the Djoker! I believe he doesnt need a visa to come to India and his aggression is a quality everybody gets. Of course, I will persuade him to get vaxxed on camera after placing him on the podium. There cant be a better endorsement for Indias vaccination programme than Novak Djokovic flying in and getting a Namo drone to jab him as the world cheers.

What a shot in the arm that will be for our monumental and genuine achievement of having vaccinated over a billion people. Now to hunt for sponsors
Today's headlines: Beijing imports four million barrels of Iranian oil; India and Pakistan tested 26 missiles last year, Pyongyang six; a human rights award goes to Vietnamese activist Pham Doan Trang; Japan bulls US soldiers 'trojan horse' for Covid entry; Isis assaults a prison in Syria.

BHUTAN

For the first time since 1960 and after two years of intensive renovation, Bhutan has reopened the historic and sacred Trans Bhutan Trail. The 403km route, which runs the length of the Buddhist country, will be officially inaugurated by the king in March with international visitors allowed to travel the trail from April. G Adventures will be the first tour operator to manage bookings.

CHINA - IRAN

Beijing has imported four million barrels of Iranian oil into state reserves at the southern port of Zhanjiang in recent weeks. In the past, Chinese imports were not publicised amid fears of US sanctions for buyers and middlemen. According to Vortexa Analytics, China imported 261,000 tonnes (1.9 million barrels) of the ayatollahs' crude oil in December.

INDIA - PAKISTAN

India and Pakistan, two historic rivals in South Asia, conducted 26 missile tests in 2021, a year of intense armed rivalry. Delhi tested 16 ballistic and cruise missiles; Islamabad 10 missiles with almost identical capabilities in a kind of frontal response, for an equivalent of two tests per month. In the same period the dreaded North Korea conducted 'only' six tests.

VIETNAM

Vietnamese activist Pham Doan Trang, who is serving nine years in prison for 'propaganda against the state', was awarded the 2022 Martin Ennals Human Rights Award. She had already received numerous awards for her work in the past. During the trial, last December, the judge imposed a sentence higher than that imposed by the authorities.

JAPAN

The recent increase in Covid-19 cases, now in its sixth wave, encouraged by the arrival of the new and more contagious Omicron variant, is (also) to be blamed on the US army. According to some experts, US soldiers on Japanese bases are acting as unwitting 'trojan horses' and encouraging the entry of the virus into the country. One of the reasons is the failure to respect quarantine and health regulations.

SYRIA

The Islamic State attacked a Kurdish-controlled prison in north-eastern Syria yesterday afternoon. The assault led to the release of several jihadists, although the number is currently "unspecified". The ilitiamen detonated a bomb at the entrance of the prison of Ghwayran, then a second bomb which followed the attack.

RUSSIA

The supporters of Aleksej Naval'nyj celebrated the first anniversary of the publication of the investigation into the "Putin palace" in Gelendzik, on the Black Sea, with a photograph taken by a drone showing the interior. The footage has been seen by more than 100 million people; some had doubted the authenticity of some of the 3-D reconstructions, now confirmed by the photograph.

TURKMENISTAN

The year 2022 has been declared the "Epoch of the People with Arkadag", President Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov has been given the title of "father" and the authorities of the Lebap region have established the "elevation in rank" of praises to the leader. The authorities have also decided to 'raise the level' of praise for the leader and are studying the most suitable forms of worship for the presidential personality, recommending that his portrait be displayed in the most honourable corners of houses.
by Arundathie Abeysinghe

In 1987, an agreement was signed between India and Sri Lanka providing for the devolution of powers to the Tamil communities. In a letter to the Indian government, some legislators underline the promises not kept so far and ask for external intervention to resolve the issue.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - Prominent Tamil MPs from the country's northern province have written to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for his government's intervention to ensure the implementation of the controversial 13th amendment.

Led by R. Sampanthan, a long-time politician and leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the legislators met with the Indian Ambassador in Colombo, Gopal Baglay, on 18 January and handed over a seven-page letter focusing on the implementation of the 13th Amendment regarding devolution of powers. The letter highlights the many commitments not kept by the various Sri Lankan governments, starting with the Colombo-Delhi agreement of 29 July 1987, which provided for a constitutional solution to the problem.

The seven parties signing the document are the TNA, Itak, Telo, Plote, Eprlf, Tmp and Tnp. The missive, which includes an attachment on key issues faced by the Tamil-speaking people of Sri Lanka, will be sent to PM Modi through the Indian embassy in Colombo.

The letter cites interventions by the Indian political leadership during different periods, including PM Modi's firm belief in 'cooperative federalism' during his address to the Sri Lankan Parliament in 2015. It also highlights what some Tamils see as the limitations of the 13th Amendment: the creation of a system of provincial councils on the basis of devolution of powers under the legislation.

According to Tamil MPs, the 13th Amendment was "introduced in a unitary Constitution, making decentralisation rather than devolution central. It is in this context that every effort made thereafter has been in the direction of moving beyond the 13th Amendment towards the creation of a federal structure."

The document states that 'the Government of India has been actively engaged in this direction for the past 40 years, and we are grateful for the firm commitment expressed by India to find a just and lasting solution'.

The Tamil legislators also called for Indian cooperation to ensure the implementation of 'the clear commitments made by all sectors of the government since 1987 and to enable the Tamil-speaking peoples to live with dignity, self-respect, peace and security in the areas of their historic home, exercising their right to self-determination in the context of a united and undivided country'.

India has often reiterated its commitment to preserving the rights of Sri Lanka's Tamil community through the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, including the early holding of provincial council elections and attempts at reconciliation, although hardliners in the ruling Sri Lanka People's Party (Slpp) have been pressing for the provincial government system to be abolished altogether.

The TNA has been joined by two other warring groups, including the former prime minister of the Tamil-majority northern province, C.V. Wigneswaran.

Speaking to AsiaNews, TNA spokesperson, MP M.A. Sumanthiran, said, "We remain committed to a political solution based on a federal structure that recognises our right to self-determination in the areas of our historical presence, for which we have repeatedly obtained a mandate from the Tamil people in the north and east, where they have always been the majority."

He added that the Tamils have repeatedly set this as their own proposal for constitutional reform: 'On the Tamil national question, many promises have been made from time to time. Our demand is to implement them now. We have written to Prime Minister Modi because the Sri Lankan government has signed this agreement not with us, but with the Indian government".
Lithuanian exports to China dropped by more than 90 per cent in December following the opening of a Taiwanese diplomatic office in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius under the name of Taiwan. The Chinese deny they are engaged in a trade boycott, but the dispute is affecting companies from other EU countries that use components made in Lithuania.

Beijing (AsiaNews)  China has almost ended the import of Lithuanian products in retaliation for the decision by the Baltic Republic to allow Taiwan to open a representative office under its name.

According to the Chinese government, the failure to use the name Taipei is a violation of the one China policy. For the Communist Party of China, the island is a rebel province to be reunited by force, if necessary, with the motherland.

In addition to downgrading diplomatic relations with Lithuania, Beijing has taken coercive economic measures against Vilnius.

Data published yesterday by the Chinese Customs Office shows that Lithuanian exports to China fell by 91.4 per cent in one year in December, 91.1 per cent in November.

Last month, goods from Lithuania worth US$ 3.85 million entered China compared to US$ 43 million the year before and US$ 42.8 million in November.

In fact, China has cut Lithuanian suppliers out of its market completely.

Officially, Chinese authorities continue to claim that they have not taken such a measure, but that the trade blockade is done spontaneously by Chinese companies, ready to boycott any country that threatens Chinese sovereignty with its policies.

Recently, the President of Lithuania, Gitanas Nauseda, said it was a mistake to allow the Taiwanese mission to be opened with the name challenged by Beijing.

A poll shows that the Lithuanian governments approach to China has little support in the Baltic nation. However, representatives of the ruling coalition in Vilnius told AsiaNews that the line on relations with Taiwan will not change.

The European Union officially backs Lithuania, but in practice it has not taken any measures against China. The EU and many member countries do not want to endanger trade relations with the China.

German, French and Swedish companies are concerned because Chinese customs authorities are rejecting their products that contain components made in Lithuania.

Reuters reports that German entrepreneurs and investors are asking Lithuanians to find a compromise with the Chinese.

Meanwhile, the EU is bidding for time. It has launched an investigation to ascertain any violations by China to be submitted to the World Trade Organisation.

As the South China Morning Post reveals, European companies hit by the Chinese retaliation are reluctant to cooperate, fearing that they will have to face a further squeeze from Beijing.

France, the current president of the Union, has promised to speed up the approval process of an EU anti-coercion instrument to be used against trade intimidation like Chinas towards Lithuania.

However, it will take a long time before the directive is implemented, and, as often is the case with the EU, its application by individual states will need to be assessed.

Still, the group of EU member states seeking greater cooperation with Taiwan is expanding.

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa recently announced that his country and Taiwan will open representative offices in their respective countries. It remains to be seen which name will be used.

For its part, the new Czech government, which is very critical of China, seems ready to follow the path of Lithuania by strengthening ties with Taipei.
by Marta Ottaviani

The first round of talks took place in Moscow, and a second will probably be held in Turkey. Peace would help Armenia break the economic isolation that made it the poorest former Soviet republic in the Caucasus. Erdogan needs a success to counter the collapse of the Turkish lira. The Kremlin would boost its diplomatic standing. The Armenian Genocide remains the main stumbling block.

Milan (AsiaNews)  Will Turkey and Armenia make peace? This could be the right time. If the thorniest obstacles were removed, everyone could get something.

The first round of negotiations that took place in Moscow in mid-January could soon be followed by a second, this despite controversies and difficulties surrounding the process, especially in Ankara, which would have preferred a diplomatic solution with Yerevan without Moscow.

The Kremlin is directly involved and is not going to miss a golden opportunity to boost its international standing and diplomatic footprint in the Caucasus.

Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey were frozen in 1993, when Ankara closed its border following the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region with an Armenian majority, but in Azerbaijani territory.

Tensions have flared up periodically over the years. In 2020 Turkish support for Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia proved decisive for Azerbaijani victory. However, since then, the Caucasus has become even more unstable.

Although Moscow risks losing its inherent pre-eminence, it is aware at this time, for different reasons, that a successful mediation would be convenient for everyone.

Armenia would gain by breaking the economic and trade isolation that has made it the poorest former Soviet republic in the South Caucasus.

Turkey would be internationally rehabilitated and could gain interesting opportunities, especially in infrastructure, in a country that is still backward in many respects.

One issue remains, namely the recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 by the Ottoman Empire with at least one million deaths, which Turkey refuses to acknowledge, perhaps above all, for economic reasons.

On paper, Moscow would gain the most. In fact, in the Russian capital, the talk is all about victory. The Kremlin would see its diplomatic standing greatly increased and achieve a hegemonic position in the trade routes that will automatically open in the region.

For Ankara, this is not an appealing prospect. Nonetheless, Turkey sent to Moscow a high-profile diplomat, Serdar Kilic, a former ambassador to the United States and a trusted man of Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

This is a sign that the Turkish government believes in the possibility of a positive outcome and that it is ready to invest as much as necessary in achieving it. Within government circles though, the role played by Moscow is still hard to swallow, and the preference is for bilateral talks.

While the inaugural meeting of these negotiations was held in the Russian capital, the next will be in one of the two countries, preferably Turkey, where President Erdogan needs a boost after facing declining support as a result of the devaluation of the Turkish lira.

This seems all right on paper; however, some believe that Moscows mediation could backfire.

Ali Askerov, associate professor and head of the Department of Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, believes that mediation between Turkey and Armenia is possible, but the two sides could follow their own path, far from Moscow's control, thus taking a different turn from the one the Kremlin has in mind.

In terms of real politik, Prof Askerov told AsiaNews, If Turkey and Armenia find a compromise from which both sides can gain in a more or less balanced way, Russia could eventually lose the most. It will be able to develop new synergies, but without dominating the process of normalisation [of relations] and the opportunities that follow from it.

In short, Moscow is probably overplaying its cards. Tensions have marred its relationship with Turkey, an ally of convenience, and new stresses cannot be excluded; it all depends on how the situation evolves in the Caucasus.
by Shafique Khokhar

The dead include a nine-year-old girl. Some of the wounded are in critical condition. The explosion hit the Anarkali Bazaar, one of the most crowded places in the metropolis. The government suspends the ceasefire with the TTP, maximum alert in at least five cities for new attacks.

Lahore (AsiaNews) - At least three people were killed and 25 wounded - but the toll is still provisional - in the huge explosion that yesterday afternoon hit the Anarkali Bazaar in Lahore, Punjab province. At first, the police assumed that the explosion was caused by a gas cylinder, but as the hours passed, it emerged that a homemade device planted in the area was behind the incident.

In the explosion, which occurred at 1.40 p.m., a nine-year-old girl also died. The blast shattered the windows and glass of several buildings and shops in the area. According to the first information leaked out by the investigators, the improvised explosive device (IED) was placed in a motorbike parked near an lcoal bank: it weighed about 1.5 kg and caused a crater of almost half a metre.

Hospital sources said that at least four of the injured have undergone surgery and are in a critical condition.

Anarkali is one of the most characteristic and busiest places in the Pakistani metropolis, with many shops, markets and business centres. Yasmin Rashid, Punjab Health Minister, reports that at least 28 people were taken to the Mayo Hospital for medical treatment, one of whom has died. The nine-year-old girl who died in the explosion also passed away as doctors tried, in vain, to treat her.

Police and security departments have started investigations in search of those responsible. Deputy Commissioner Umer Sher Chattha says that the images from the security cameras in the area will be analysed in order to find any clues to the investigation. Meanwhile, Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed has announced the suspension of the ceasefire between the government and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan). In these hours the alert is high in five major cities of the country, in fear of new attacks. Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the explosion and called on the health authorities to make every effort to ensure medical care for the injured.

On 17 January, a policeman and two people were injured in an attack by a group of armed men at a checkpoint in Islamabad. Speaking to AsiaNews, human rights activist Zahid Farooq asked the Pakistani Christian community to pray for peace in Pakistan, for those who have lost their lives and for the wounded who need treatment and medicine. Finally, he reiterates his call to the population not to leave their homes without urgent reasons, as long as the red alert issued by the government remains in force.
Athens, TX (75751)

Today

Mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Variably cloudy with scattered thunderstorms. Low 69F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Browsing through the current listings on Iconic Motorbike Auctions will reveal a 2000 MY Suzuki TL1000R thats been ridden for less than 17k miles (27,000 km). This sexy beast carries Michelin Pilot Power 2CT tires with 2021 date codes, as well as a tasty selection of aftermarket accessories fitted by the current owner.Up front, we find a Zero Gravity windshield, flush-mounted turn signals, and adjustable control levers, while a shiny Yoshimura RS-3 exhaust can be spotted at the rear end. As for its powertrain specifications, the TL1000R is brought to life by a brutal 996cc V-twin leviathan thats paired with a six-speed transmission.The liquid-cooled mill packs an electronic fuel injection setup, four valves per cylinder, and a beefy 11.7:1 compression ratio. When the tachometer shows 9,500 revs, this unforgiving predator will go about producing 135 feral ponies at the crankshaft. On the other hand, a peak torque output of 78 pound-feet (106 Nm) is what youll be experiencing lower down the rpm range.Before reaching a top speed of 165 mph (265 kph), Suzukis spartan will finish the quarter-mile sprint in no more than 11.2 numbing seconds. At the front wheel, braking duties are taken good care of thanks to dual 320 mm (12.6 inches) discs and six-piston Tokico calipers, while the rear chain-driven hoop is brought to a halt by a single 220 mm (8.7 inches) rotor and a twin-piston caliper.If you were to drain its fluids, the TL1000R would tip the scales at 434 pounds (197 kg), and 4.5 gallons (17 liters) of fossil syrup will then be required to fill its fuel chamber to the brim. The Japanese wonder is waiting to meet its future owner on the IMA platform, with a top bid of 4,000 freedom bucks. Should you be feeling more generous, then you ought to check this thing out before January 26, as thats when the auction will end.
Many decades ago, after the hard lessons of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military launched the Aggressor program, enabling U.S. Air Force pilots to train at the best level, flying and fighting against representations of their most technologically-advanced enemies. This is how the famous American F-16 was born and how it built its prestige as one of the most widespread military aircraft in the world.It was now time for an even more fierce version of the Aggressor Fighter to take to the sky. Top Aces, an expert in advanced adversary training and the first company ever to acquire the F-16 , conducted the first test flights of the new F-16 Advanced Aggressor Fighter (F-16 AAF), boasting the companys state-of-the-art all-new mission system.After four years of research and development, the new deadly beast took off successfully during its initial demonstrations. Top Aces worked with another technology expert, Coherent Technical Services, to develop the Advanced Aggressor Mission System (AAMS), and San Antonio-based M7 Aerospace was the one who installed it on the F-16s. As a result, this powerful aircraft is able to replicate the most advanced capabilities of the enemy next-gen fighters , giving USAF pilots a chance to train at the best possible level.AAMS includes cutting-edge air-to-air radars, tactical data link communications, infrared Search &Track systems, plus advanced electronic war capabilities  to name a few. Thanks to these technologies, AAMS not only offers incredibly-realistic adversary effects but can also be further upgraded with any future sensors and functions. Its open system architecture was specifically designed to allow rapid upgrades for years to come.After this successful initial demonstration, Top Aces is gearing up to turn its entire F-16 fleet into Advanced Aggressors by the end of next year.
Punch Group is known as a supplier for BMW and ZF but its ambitions are way higher, especially as they bought GMs engine facility in Italy two years ago. They want to monetize on electric vehicles being less suitable for heavy-duty operations by converting a well-proven diesel engine to run on hydrogen. The converted engine will be exempted from their contract terms to only sell outside the U.S., so expect heavy-duty machinery and vehicles powered by hydrogen to appear in the U.S. as soon as 2024.In an interview with Automotive News, Punch Groups CEO Guido Dumarey details their plans to offer several hydrogen-powered engines based on their research done on the Duramax engine . The smaller offering will start at 110 horsepower, but the big Duramax engine will offer up to 544 horsepower. Hydrogen may not have a future in passenger cars, due to the size of the hydrogen tanks, but is a good solution for commercial vehicles and trucks hauling goods on the interstate.Besides working on the Duramax hydrogen-powered engine, Punch Group will develop a 500 cc combustion chamber that will become the base for many displacements, starting from a 2.0-liter L4 engine and going up to a 3.0-liter V6. The company targets diesel engines since these are manufactured to be more enduring than their gasoline counterparts.Punch Group is not the only one trying to convert combustion engines to run on hydrogen. The most prominent company is Toyota, which demonstrated hydrogen-powered combustion engines cars in Japanese motorsport. Toyota also wants to bring hybrid cars with combustion engines fueled with hydrogen instead of gasoline.Although the hydrogen seems promising , having zero CO2 emissions, burning any fuel will still produce deadly NOx since the air is 78 percent nitrogen. Besides that, producing hydrogen is costly and polluting at the moment, and the infrastructure needed to fill the hydrogen tanks is non-existent outside of California (in the U.S.) and parts of Europe.
EHang recently announced that Japan-based helicopter service provider AirX has placed a pre-order for 50 units of its EH216 AAV, which is the companys dual-seat autonomous air taxi. AirXs reservation platforms allow clients to book trips for over 100 helicopter sightseeing routes and private charters in Japan. So far, it boasts of having served more than 15,000 chartered flight customers.According to Tezuka Kiwamu, AirX CEO, the EH216 autonomous aerial vehicle can provide tourists with cost-effective aerial sightseeing services in a safe and convenient way, which is why EHang has been chosen as a partner for its business.On the market since 2016, EHang first revealed its 184 autonomous passenger drone and has continued to grow and develop better models since then. At least in theory... The EH216 is designed as a short-range AAV with a two-passenger capacity and a maximum payload of 220 kg (485 lb). With the maximum payload onboard, it can fly for up to 35 km (21.7 miles), being able to reach speeds of over 80 mph (130 kph) and an altitude of 3,000 m (over 9,800 ft).It uses 16 electric motors, comes with two gull-wing doors, and its battery requires two hours to fully recharge.With vertical take-off and landing ( VTOL ) capabilities, the AAV is a space saver that doesnt require large runways or airports to operate, which makes it a more convenient and effective solution for urban air mobility.EHangs 216 autonomous air taxi completed its maiden, no-pilot test flight in Japan last summer.In addition to the EH216, the Chinese manufacturer is also working on a long-range electric two-seater called the VT-30 , which claims that can cover distances of up to 186 miles (300 km) on a charge.EHang hopes that the large AirX pre-order will facilitate several UAM (urban air mobility) projects in Japan and may provide air taxi services for the 2025 World Expo in Osaka.You can watch one of the EH216's latest test flights in the video below, at the Fukushima Robot Test Field in Japan.
ICE

EV

The British start-up also announced its getting more backing from other investors like Abrdn, an asset management company, and Tritax, a majority-owned property investment arm unlocking about 1.7 billion in private funding. Tritax will fund a sale and leaseback deal for the building house at the Gigafactory.According to Britishvolts executive chairman, Peter Rolton, UKs automotive industry needs to secure a local source of batteries, and China or other Asian imports would not be an option. He added that they were keen to maintain the industry and support new jobs.Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said that the backing was reindustrialization. He added the Gigafactory would bring back industrialization in an underinvested area. The opportunities it offers will have an economic impact on the locals.The start-up is looking to develop a plant rapidly to sustain a large part of the UKs car industry as it transitions fromto fully electric. The plant is also looking to employ about 3,000 workers when operating in total capacity in 2028. It projects it will begin producing its first batteries in 2024, taking full advantage of the 2030 UK ban on cars with internal combustion engines.The full capacity site aims to produce enough battery cells for more than 300,000battery packs in a year.Lotus has already signed a preliminary agreement that seeks to explore teaming up the development of battery manufacturing, research, and development. Both these companies plan to share details of the deal next week.This deal marks Britishvolts first official tie-up with an automaker and a positive step for the start-up to bolster its credibility with potential investors.SMMT, UKs auto industry trade group, warned that its automakers have little time to scale up its battery-making sector before the Brexit deal subjects them to stricter requirements.
Whether the current health crisis was a factor or not, it looks like people are hungry for travel and for amazing experiences. As a result, the famous Four Seasons is launching seven private jet trips in 2023, the most it has ever offered in a single year. Part of them was announced in late 2021 and included fascinating itineraries in some of the worlds most beautiful places.For example, the brands longest-running Private Jet journey is a 24-day journey that includes visits to places such as Bali, Dubai, the Taj Mahal, and a final stop in London.These lavish explorations are taking place on an equally-luxurious vehicle. The Four Seasons Private Jet is a fully customized Airbus A321neo-LR thats meant to take the flight experience to the top level. First of all, the aircraft itself boasts the widest and tallest cabin in its class, which is a great start for comfort. Next, inside the Four Seasons jet, there are only 48 custom handcrafted seats made with premium Italian leather. Additional elegant ottomans at each seat enable comfortable face-to-face connections.Speaking of connecting, this is the type of jet where youd enjoy socializing with the other passengers, thanks to a dedicated spacious lounge area, which is also the perfect stage for various interactive workshops. Of course, luxury travel also means gourmet delights, and the Executive Chef will have an extended galley area at his disposal.In addition to the Executive Chef, passengers will also be pampered by a dedicated concierge, a Director of Guest Experience, and even a Journey Physician. From the high-end custom design to the exquisite services, everything is meant to create an ultra-luxurious experience. Of course, this kind of experience doesnt come cheap, but at least youll find out what the private jet hype is all about.
Back in the beginning of the month, the Japanese island of Okinawa witnessed something called flight of the flock. That would be a formation of military aircraft, in this case, MC-130J Commando IIs , flying in sync for whatever purposes.The Commandos seen here are deployed with the 1st Special Operations Squadron (1st SOS), which uses them to conduct infiltration, exfiltration and resupply for allied forces in austere environments.The MC-130J Commando is part of the C-130 family of military transport airplanes and was first flown back in 2011. The plane is still in the process of being delivered to the military, with the date of full deployment set for 2025.The Lockheed Martin aircraft is powered by four Rolls-Royce turboprop engines, delivering 4,591 shaft horsepower and helping the bird reach speeds of 362 knots (417 mph/671 kph). It can lift 164,000 lbs and fly for distances of up to 3,000 miles (4,828 km, but aerial refueling is available if need be), and at altitudes of up to 28,000 feet (8,534 meters).Generally, it was designed for clandestine, or low visibility, single or multiship, low-level infiltration, exfiltration and resupply of special operations forces, and it can deliver its cargo by airdrop or airland.When the full rollout of the family is complete, the Air Force will have a total of 57 Commandos in its fleet. Weve seen the existing ones in action before, but witnessing almost ten percent of the entire flock in the sky at the same time is not something that happens every day.
And whats even worse is that carmakers around the globe are now struggling to deal with another wave of the shortage, as the chip inventory remains incredibly constrained worldwide. Mitsubishi , for example, has recently confirmed that it expects the impact caused by the chip shortage to continue for at least six months. In case youre wondering whats with the quotes, they are there to emphasize that the chip nightmare could last even longer, simply because nobody knows exactly when the whole thing is supposed to come back to normal.Mitsubishi Motors de Mexico President and Chief Executive Officer Jorge Vallejo say the local production of cars is likely to be slower than anticipated due to an awful mix of the global health problem and the lack of semiconductors.When the two are combined, carmakers out there have no other option than to close certain factories temporarily, therefore affecting their expected output.Unfortunately, this doesnt happen only in Mexico but pretty much all over the world. Ford has recently confirmed that its suspending the production of the 2022 Mustang due to the same reason, with others very likely to follow in its footsteps rather sooner than later.Analysts originally projected a more solid recovery in terms of chip supply in the second half of 2022, but on the other hand, few actually took into account another wave of the health crisis in the first place.Depending on what happens when this new wave comes to an end, the global chip inventory may or may not be improved. But until this happens, however, carmakers have no other option than to work non-stop on minimizing the disruptions in their daily operations.
Renault and Geely announced on January 21 that the French automaker would produce vehicles based on the CMA (Compact Modular Architecture). Thats the same platform that underpins the Volvo XC40, C40, Polestar 2, some Geely models, and all current Lynk & Co vehicles. This brand is what hinted at how the deal was going to develop well in advance.If all cars made by Lynk & Co are based on the CMA  and the partnership announced back in August 2021 already stated it would make vehicles based on Lynk & Cos energy-efficient vehicle platforms  it was evident that the new RSM (Renault Samsung Motors) products would use this architecture.We suspected they would also use the SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture) to make pure electric cars. However, the only vehicle to present it so far is the Zeekr 01, a vehicle that was supposed to be a Lynk & Co and even shares its design with those from other models from this brand. Regardless, the CMA also allows pure electric vehicles to be made, as the XC40 Recharge, C40, and Polestar 2 already demonstrate.With this move, the vehicles Renault eventually develops over the CMA may also be produced in China. That will help the French carmaker expand its presence in the biggest car market in the world. For Geely, RSM could manufacture Lynk & Co vehicles in South Korea that may be exported to the U.S. without taxes, thanks to a trade deal between these two countries.However, Bloomberg reminded us that the Geely deal made Renault abandon the leader-follower strategy that was the base of its alliance with Nissan. The Japanese carmaker was not consulted about the agreement and was not included in it. In other words, Renault partnering with Geely shows that Nissan and Renault may increasingly follow different paths.In China, that will be especially true in a matter of two to three years, which is the time automakers usually take to develop a new vehicle. With the CMA, Renault may even cut that time to start fighting for a better share of the Chinese market. Nissan already does well there and has the best-selling car in China: the Sylphy, which you know better as Sentra.
Of these 7,055 EVs, 5,143 are Model 3 units that present the design flaw that may break the coaxial cables that transmit rear camera images to the ICU (Teslas most recent infotainment computer). The other 1,912 cars are Model Ss that present the assembly problem of misaligned frunk lid latches that may make them open when the cars are in motion.That makes the number of recalled units reach 682,114 cars worldwide: 475,318 units in the U.S., 199,741 EVs in China, and 7,055 cars now in Australia. Of these vehicles, 541,496 are Model 3s, and 140,618 are Model Ss.According to VehicleRecalls  the Australian government website about them  all the affected Model 3 units sold in Australia were made in Fremont. That raises the number of Model 3s made in the U.S. to 397,288 EVs. The number of Model 3 cars made in China with the problem remains at 144,208 units, but it should grow significantly with the numbers from Europe.Apart from the Model 3 and Model S official recalls, Tesla is also facing problems with its heat pump. Elon Musk recently promised to fix the problem with an OTA (over-the-air) update, but there are signs that the situation is more severe than just an earlier update that was not adequately tested.If this other recall is confirmed in the near future, Tesla should have a significant part of all the cars it ever produced involved with quality issues. As a matter of fact, it already does.
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kWh

Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge will probably send more vehicles to the Covered Drive, as it is already calling the event. These two making their way by themselves instead of in a car carrier trailer are probably just a marketing effort to bring attention to the new MEB product. Depending on how many journalists are heading to Barcelona next week, there will be plenty more ID. BUZZ units on Spanish soil.We were not invited to it (yet), so we will ask our readers in the countries that these prototypes will cross to pay careful attention to the roads. Google Maps shows three different routes the two covered electric vans can take. All of them cross Germany, France, Andorra, and Spain. Switzerland is the only other country that may see the ID. BUZZ prototypes if Volkswagen decides to travel there as well.That said, we would like to ask our readers that can take pictures of the prototypes heading to Barcelona to do so and share them with us. Please only do so with the help of a passenger if you happen to be driving. It will probably be easier to take pictures when they stop to charge. We bet they will do so at Ionity stations along the way. That will be a way to show howroad trips are perfectly feasible nowadays.Apart from the appearance of the ID. BUZZ  which is pretty close to that of the concept car  we have very little information about the new MEB product. Despite that, the fact that it is made over a known architecture gives us some tips that may be confirmed by next weeks event.Expect the ID. BUZZ to present the largest battery pack offered in MEB vehicles. It is the 77-unit, which actually has an 82-kWh total capacity. Volkswagen preferred to play safe with these battery packs and gave them a 5 kWh buffering to preserve them as much as possible. Even with that precaution, an ID.3 caught fire on August 14, 2021, in Groningen, in the Netherlands. Volkswagen is still investigating the reasons for that. MEB products use LG Energy Solution batteries, the same supplier for the Chevrolet Bolt EV and the Hyundai Kona Electric.
The fifth-generation Ford Mondeo is finally here, with the executive saloon set to be sold exclusively to Chinese customers only. Ford made the grand reveal at the company's China Design Center in Shanghai, showcasing the vehicle as its new design language in the country.

The Mondeo's final styling was not a complete surprise, given that a series of images were leaked regarding its design last year. The Mondeo has long been a popular vehicle in China, first sold in the country back in 2002. That was nearly a decade after Ford first launched the said vehicle in Europe.

Tocco proud of Mondeo's new design

Head designer Maurizio Tocco was proud of the new Mondeo, saying that it was a privilege and challenge for his team to reinvent the said model. Tocco said, "We wanted to respect and acknowledge the history which had come before us while elevating the customers' experience to the next level." Tocco added that the starting point of Mondeo's new design is always the customer and that his team looked for innovative ways to incorporate what they need and want into it.

The new Mondeo is a historic one for Ford as this was the first model that was designed based on the company's new Progressive Energy in Strength' philosophy. With that line of thinking, Ford blended the company's "rich heritage" and "icon designs" with the Chinese buyers' main preferences. Ford's new ethos has three defining characteristics, "commanding, agile and responsive."

Ford believes the new Mondeo has delivered on that promise. Its new design draws heavily from the Evos crossover, the Mondeo's sibling model in the Chinese market. Some of Mondeo's key design elements include an A-shaped graphic for the air duct located within the lower part of the front bumper, separate daytime running lights, an octagonal-shaped grille, and slim LED headlights connected by a light band placed within the leading edge of the bonnet.

Related Article: Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo Sets Guinness World Record With Mine to Mountain Vertical Climb

Ford to begin Mondeo deliveries in second quarter of 2022

Mondeo's rear has taillights that draw inspiration from the Mustang, with its bumper also featuring an integrated diffuser. The car also has large wheelhouses capable of housing wheels with a diameter of up to 19 inches. The new rival of the Volkswagen Passat stands at 1500m tall and has a length of 4935 mm and a width of 1875 mm. That is 19mm higher, 63mm longer, and 23mm wider than the soon-to-be phased-out Mk4 Mondeo.

The Mondeo's interior is reportedly set to receive the same basic cabin architecture found in the Evos with a dashboard featuring a 1.1-meter wide display. Ford is set to begin deliveries for the 2022 Mondeo in China during the second quarter of this year. The sleek four-door saloon will be produced in the region of Chongqing via a joint venture between Chinese firm Changan and Ford.

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President Biden plans to nominate election law attorney Dara Lindenbaum to the Federal Election Commission, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The nomination gives Biden an opportunity to try to shape some U.S. election rules in the wake of Congress' failure to advance sweeping election reform.

Lindenbaum's pick comes on the 12th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which struck down a ban on corporate political spending.

What's happening: If confirmed, Lindenbaum, a Democrat, will replace FEC vice-chair Steven Walther, who has served on the commission since 2006.

Walther is an independent, but is generally seen as part of the FEC's Democratic bloc.

As a result, Lindenbaum likely will not alter the commission's 3-3 partisan split.

In a statement, Walther said he will continue serving until his replacement is confirmed.

Lindenbaum is a seasoned compliance attorney who works with political groups as well as nonprofits, according to her bio at the firm Sandler Reiff.

She previously worked on the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law's voting rights project.

Lindenbaum was also the general counsel for Stacey Abrams' 2018 gubernatorial campaign in Georgia.

What they're saying: "I have enjoyed working with my fellow Commissioners and despite numerous diverse points of view regarding the issues in front of us, it has been a pleasure to work together to find common ground whenever possible," Walther said in his statement.

The big picture: The FEC regulates federal campaign finance laws, which have received extensive attention since Citizens United and adjacent court rulings expanded the influence of high-dollar political donors.

The commission is notoriously fractious, and its 3-3 split  along with a four-vote requirement for most enforcement actions  has resulted in deadlock on many high-profile matters.

This week, the Senate blocked sweeping election reform legislation that would have significantly boosted the FEC's mandate and enforcement powers.

What we're watching: Walther is one of three FEC commissioners serving on expired terms, meaning Biden could continue to reshape the FEC before a potential Republican Senate takeover next year.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson could be ousted from power within the week, after a longtime ally compared him to Neville Chamberlain in a stunning rebuke in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Driving the news: Johnson is under immense pressure from the public and his own Conservative Party over allegations that he lied about lockdown-breaking parties in his Downing Street home.

His position is growing more tenuous by the hour; dozens of Conservative MPs have called for him to resign, creeping close to the 15% minimum needed to trigger a vote of no confidence.

Moments before Johnson entered Parliament to face the debate on Wednesday, a Conservative MP elected in 2019 dramatically crossed the floor to join the opposition Labour Party.

Then came the intervention from David Davis, who served as Brexit Secretary from 2016 to 2018.

What they're saying: "I expect my leaders to shoulder the responsibility for the actions they take. Yesterday he did the opposite of that. So, I will remind him of a quotation which may be familiar to his ear: Leopold Amery to Neville Chamberlain," Davis teed off from the back-benches:

"You have sat there too long for all the good that you have done. In the name of God, go."

Why it matters: If Johnson is forced to resign in the coming days, Davis's speech will likely be viewed as the catalyst for his downfall.

He is the most senior Conservative member of Parliament (MP) to demand Johnson step down, intensifying a rebellion initially sparked by lawmakers elected during the 2019 election that swept Johnson into Downing Street.

Davis was first elected to Parliament in 1987, when Margaret Thatcher was still prime minister, and ardently supported Johnson throughout his campaign to deliver Brexit  Johnson's signature achievement, and the main reason he had commanded the support of his party throughout multiple scandals.

Flashback: Leopold Amery's use of the quote  which was invoked for the first time by Oliver Cromwell in 1653  came during the Norway Debate in 1940, when the then-pro-appeasement Prime Minister Chamberlain was under fire for the trajectory of Britain's war against Hitler.

Chamberlain resigned days later, paving the way for Winston Churchill to become prime minister.

Johnson, who wrote a biography of Churchill, responded implausibly to Davis's broadside: "I must say to him, I dont know what he is talking about."

What to watch: Johnson has deferred all questions on the parties to an ongoing independent investigation by a civil servant, the results of which could be published any day now. If the findings are as damaging as many expect, it could unleash a flood of new calls for his resignation.
Latinos in the fight against climate change will gather this week during a virtual summit highlighting the communitys growing environmental activism.

The big picture: Climate change and pollution have outsized impacts on communities of color in the U.S.

Unsafe water is more common and studies show people of color are more vulnerable to wildfires and environmental disasters fueled by climate change.

A newly released Harvard study found majority Hispanic, Black and Asian neighborhoods across the country are consistently exposed to higher levels of pollution particles.

Climate change and pollutant exposure also cause greater displacement, wealth loss and long term health issues for people of color.

By the numbers: 81% of Latinos in the U.S. consider addressing global climate change a priority, compared to 67% of non-Hispanics, according to a Pew Research Center poll.

Environmental groups like Climate Power are making greater efforts to engage Latinos.

Between the lines: The climate crisis is hitting Latinos wallets as well.

They are overrepresented as workers in industries impacted by extreme weather, like agriculture and construction, according to an EPA study.

Theyre also 43% more likely to live in areas that will see the most reduction in work hours because of extreme temperatures.

What they're saying: When we surveyed and polled Latinos, we found that Latinos are very concerned about their children, their childrens health, the future of their children. And climate change is going to be the biggest disrupter of their childrens lives and their grandchildrens lives, GreenLatinos founding president and CEO Mark Magana told Axios.

GreenLatinos is the host of this weeks summit, which includes Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as speakers.

Dont forget: The consequences of global warming have driven migration from Latin America and the Caribbean to the U.S.

People have lost their livelihoods and been forced to leave home after hurricanes, heat waves and drought.

The UN warned last year that climate change will deepen socio-economic inequalities in Latin America, which are already among the worst in the world.

Go deeper: Climate change is at the forefront for Latinos

Get more news that matters about Latinos in the hemisphere, delivered right to your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sign up for the Axios Latino newsletter.
A federal judge in Texas blocked the Biden administration from enforcing its coronavirus vaccine mandate for federal workers on Friday, citing the outcome of last week's Supreme Court ruling that nullified the administration's vaccine-or-test requirement for large employers.

Why it matters: It's a blow to President Biden's efforts to increase the U.S.' vaccination rates, though much of the federal workforce has already been vaccinated against the virus.

The latest: The DOJ formally appealed Judge Jeffrey Brown's ruling shortly after it was released.

By the numbers: White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a press briefing Friday that around 98% of federal workers have been vaccinated against the virus.

"I would point to the Department of Justice on any next steps as this news, it sounds like just broke. But obviously we are confident in our legal authority here," Psaki added.

The big picture: Brown wrote in a 20-page injunction that the executive order, which was issued in September, amounts to a presidential mandate that all federal employees consent to vaccination against COVID-19 or lose their jobs.

Because the Presidents authority is not that broad, the court will enjoin the second orders enforcement."

Though Brown cited the Supreme Court's decision for the purpose of the order, the high court also ruled last week that the administration has the authority to issue a vaccine mandate for health care workers at facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid funds.

Go deeper ... Scoop: White House eyes vaccine mandate for migrants
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been widely criticized for comments he made this week about Black American voters.

Driving the news: When asked by a reporter Wednesday about concerns among voters of color, McConnell said "the concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, Black American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans."

McConnell's comment came after Congress failed to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

A McConnell spokesperson said McConnell meant to say "other Americans" not just "Americans," according to CNN.

What they're saying: Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), who is Black, wrote to McConnell on Thursday, saying that his "inability to recognize us as Americans is appalling and deeply disturbing."
In a petition submitted on Thursday to the judge presiding over the trial, Kristine Poghosian and Vilen Gabrielian said they guarantee that Tonoyans will not obstruct justice if set free. The petition as also signed by Aram Sarkisian, the leader of the pro-government Hanrapetutyun party not represented in the National Assembly.

Tonoyan, the chief of the Armenian armys General Staff, Lieutenant-General Artak Davtian, two other generals and an arms dealer went on trial on Wednesday, accused of supplying the armed forces with faulty ammunition. They all deny the accusations.

Unlike the other defendants, Davtian has not been arrested or fired. He has not publicly commented on the case so far.

The presiding judge, Manvel Shahverdian, accepted prosecutors demand that the trial be held behind the closed door because of state secrets involved. Defense lawyers strongly objected to the decision. They also demanded that Shahverdian free all detained suspects.

The judge began considering the demands, including the petition or Tonoyan, on Friday. It was not immediately clear when he will announce his decision.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian appointed Tonoyan as defense minister just days after coming to power in May 2018. The latter was sacked in November 2020 less than two weeks after a Russian-brokered agreement stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In a statement released early this month, Tonoyan warned that he must not be made a scapegoat for Armenias defeat in the six-week war. He pledged to make surprise revelations in that regard.
Toivo Klaar, the European Unions special representative to the South Caucasus, and French envoy Isabelle Dumont met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Thursday before proceeding to Yerevan for talks with Armenian leaders held on Friday.

Klaar described the meetings as excellent. The EU is firmly committed to peaceful and prosperous South Caucasus, he tweeted at the end of what he called a successful visit.

In a separate tweet, the EU envoy said he and Dumont wanted to follow up on December meetings in Brussels held by Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

The two leaders met in the Belgian capital twice in the space of two days on the sidelines of the EUs Eastern Partnership summit with five former Soviet republics. The talks were hosted by European Council President Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Michel said on December 15 that Aliyev and Pashinian agreed to take further tangible steps that would create a conducive atmosphere for planned negotiations on the demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The EU is ready to provide technical assistance to the demarcation process, he said.

Aliyev and Pashinian pledged to set up a joint commission on border delimitation and demarcation when they held a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on November 26.

Armenian officials said earlier this week that the commission should start its work after a set of confidence-building measures, notably the withdrawal of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops from their border posts. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov rejected the Armenian preconditions, saying that Baku stands for an immediate and unconditional start of the demarcation process.

Armenias Foreign Ministry insisted on Thursday that the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders agreed on the mutual troop withdrawal during the Brussels talks.

A spokesman for Josep Borrell, the EUs foreign and security policy chief, called for a distancing of forces and confidence-building measures when he reacted to fresh deadly fighting that erupted on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border last week.

Official Armenian and Azerbaijani sources gave few details of the visiting European envoys talks in the two capitals. Pashinians press office said the prime minister discussed with them steps aimed at de-escalating the situation and ensuring stability on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Bluefield, WV (24701)

Today

Light rain early. A mix of sun and clouds in the afternoon. High near 70F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low around 50F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
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.
"It starts with me" was the theme of Beaumont councilman Albert "A.J." Turner's address to those gathered for a Martin Luther King, Jr., commemoration atop the John and Mary Gray Library at Lamar University.

"It takes all of us together to make this community grow," he said.

Making good choices in friends and in life while striving to do your best is key to becoming a successful member of your community.

"You need to learn how to hold yourself accountable and how to sit at a table with people who are different from yourself," he added. He referred to one of his favorite quotes from Dr. King - that you should strive not to be "a maker of consensus but a model of consensus."

"It starts with me," Turner reiterated, adding, "Do what you say you're gonna do, and take pride in everything you do."

Turner wasn't the only one sharing the compelling words of Dr. King that sparked the Civil Rights Movement.

Students from the Pietzsch - MacArthur Pre K - 8 Center offered a presentation, each taking the microphone to share the message of Dr. King's dream.

Thursday's event was presented by the Lamar student chapter of the NAACP and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion in commemoration of Monday's MLK holiday.

kbrent@beaumontenterprise.com
"The Price is Right Live" is coming to the Sandler Center for the Arts in Virginia Beach on April 16. (/ HANDOUT)

Virginia Beach  The Price is Right Live, a traveling version of the popular game show, is coming to the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts April 16.

Tickets go on sale today.

Advertisement

A lot of what is seen on TV will be familiar on stage: a well-known game show personality as host, interactive games such as Cliff Hanger and Plinko, and the possibility of winning appliances, vacations and a new ride.

Contestants dont have to buy a ticket to be on the show, but they must register.

Advertisement

Registration takes place three hours before showtime. People fill out cards with their name and their numerical day of birth. Contestants will be randomly selected. Whether you buy a ticket or not, youll have to return to the venue at showtime to find out if youre selected. If you are selected but hadnt bought a ticket, you will be given one.

The Price is Right is marking its 50th anniversary this year, making it televisions longest-running game show.

___

If you go

When: 8 p.m. April 16

Where: Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, 201 Market St., Virginia Beach

Tickets: Start at $46.50.

Details: 757-385-2787; sandlercenter.org
Bedford, PA (15522)

Today

Showers in the morning, then partly cloudy in the afternoon. High around 70F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy late. Low near 50F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
Members of Bangladeshs Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) stand guard during a raid on suspected drug dealers at Mohammadpur Geneva Camp in Dhaka, May 26, 2018.

Updated at 4:58 p.m. ET on 2022-01-21

A dozen international human rights groups, in a letter made public Thursday, called on the United Nations to ban Bangladeshs Rapid Action Battalion from U.N. peacekeeping operations, citing allegations that it commits torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Human Rights Watch and 11 other organizations sent a joint letter privately to the head of the U.N.s peacekeeping department about the issue on Nov. 8 last year but, in a statement on Thursday, HRW said they had not yet received a formal response.

In the meantime, citing concerns about serious human rights abuses, the United States last month announced sanctions on RAB and six of its current and former senior officers, including the ex-RAB chief who is now Bangladeshs police chief.

We strongly urge that the U.N. Department of Peace Operations ban all personnel with a history of RAB-affiliation from U.N. deployment, said a joint letter publicized by New York-based HRW on Thursday.

The deployment of members of the RAB in peacekeeping operations reinforces a message that grave human rights abuses will not preclude one from service under the U.N. flag, presenting a serious reputational risk for the U.N. Even more importantly, it increases the probabilities of human rights abuses being committed in the context of U.N. missions, the groups also said.

According to the joint letter signed by HRW, Amnesty International and other organizations, Bangladesh was the biggest contributor to U.N. peacekeeping operations in 2020, deploying 6,731 uniformed personnel on various missions.

We are concerned, however, that those committing grave human rights violations within Bangladesh are being rewarded by the government with deployment to U.N. missions abroad, the groups said in their letter addressed to Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the under-secretary-general in charge of U.N. peace operations.

In particular, we are concerned that individuals who have served with the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) are being sent on U.N. missions, despite consistent and credible evidence of abuses including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances by members of this unit since its creation in 2004.

During a daily press briefing at U.N. headquarters on Thursday, a reporter asked Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the Secretary-General, about the letter from the 12 human rights groups and whether the United Nations was considering action against the Bangladeshi paramilitary unit.

[W]e just received the news of this, Dujarric replied, according to a transcript. We will obviously be taking a look at it. I would remind you that we do have a pretty stringent human rights screening policy that applies to individual units from every country. But, we, obviously, have been taking very seriously what is being done.

Later, another U.N. spokesman told BenarNews that the world body was aware of recent reports about RAB in light of the U.S. sanctions, and that all allegations of human rights violations should be investigated by the relevant national authorities.

The Department of Peace Operations is in the process of providing a response to the letter, U.N. spokesman Farhan Aziz Haq said, referring to the joint letter from the human rights groups. [T]he Rapid Action Battalion is not deployed in U.N. Missions as a unit.

The Secretariat is committed to deploying personnel who meet the highest standards of efficiency and integrity, including respect for and commitment to human rights, he said.

A U.N. screening policy places primary responsibility on Member States to ensure that the personnel they nominate for deployment have not been involved in past violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, Haq added.

In particular, all candidates for senior appointments undergo a suitability review, which includes a screening for human rights and conduct and discipline as per U.N. policy.

Elite force

RAB which comprises members of Bangladeshs police, army, navy, air force, and border guard, stands accused of more than 600 enforced disappearances in the past 12 years, a similar number of extrajudicial killings, and use of torture, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement in early December, when it announced sanctions on RAB.

The elite unit was founded in 2004, and charged with internal security, intelligence gathering related to criminal activities, and government-directed investigations, according to U.S. treasury officials.

In its action last month, the U.S. Treasury imposed financial sanctions on RAB and six of its current and former officers, saying they were responsible for serious human rights abuses.

In addition, Benazir Ahmed, a former director general of the force who is now Bangladeshs police chief, was barred from entering the United States due to his involvement in gross violations of human rights.

Since the sanctions were announced, the Bangladesh government has responded with denials and retaliation against human rights defenders and victims families, according to Human Rights Watch.

Families of victims of enforced disappearance report that officers are showing up at their homes, threatening them, and forcing them to sign false statements that their family member was not forcibly disappeared and that they had intentionally misled the police, HRW said Thursday.

The police denied this claim in a statement later on Thursday. The Dhaka Metropolitan Police claimed the reports contained exaggerated and fabricated information, and that it was an attempt to tarnish the image of the police force.

It is the polices responsibility to keep in touch with the families during an investigation, the police department said.

When asked about the demand of the rights group, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan praised RAB.

RAB is doing many good works, like containing extremism . But it becomes a victim of propaganda and injustice, he said on Thursday when a reporter asked him about the letter.

Separately, A. K. M. Mozammel Haque, chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Law and Order, told BenarNews: The government is investigating every allegation of rights violation by any forces as the government of Bangladesh is honoring [the] rights of people.

But a noted Bangladeshi rights defender, Sultana Kamal, begged to differ. She said that the authorities had accused local rights groups of hurting the countrys image when they raised questions about the rights violations committed by RAB and other security forces.

They accused us [rights groups] of tarnishing the countrys image, and always deny allegations against the law enforcers she told BenarNews.

Thats why [the law enforcers] continue rights violation with impunity.

Imran Vittachi in Washington contributed to this report.

This report has been updated to include fresh comments from U.N. spokesman Farhan Aziz Haq.
Soldiers carry coffins of comrades after four soldiers were killed and two others wounded in an ambush by guerrillas at a military outpost, in Sorong in Indonesias Papua, Sep. 3, 2021.

For the second time in four months, the Indonesian military blamed a pro-independence group for a deadly attack in West Papua, although separatist rebels claimed responsibility for the incidents in September and on Thursday.

The military accused the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), which is seen as an activist group, of carrying out Thursdays attack that killed a government soldier and wounded four others in Maybrat regency. But a Papuan guerrilla group, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), said its forces were behind the attack.

We strongly suspect that [Thursdays attack] was the work of the KNPB group in Maybrat, Col. Hendra Pesireron, spokesman for the Indonesian military in West Papua, said in a statement Friday.

A gunfight erupted between soldiers from the combat engineering division and people who attacked them at around 7 a.m. in East Aifat, a district of Maybrat, he said. The slain soldier was identified as Second Sgt. Miskel Rumbiak.

Meanwhile, TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambom told BenarNews that its fighters carried out the Thursday morning attack.

TPNPB attacked soldiers and police who were repairing the Aifuf River bridge and killed one of the soldiers, Sebby told BenarNews.

Members of TPNPBs Sorong Raya division, under the command of Denny Moos and his deputy Zakarias Fatem, were involved in the operation, Sebby said.

KNPB denies involvement

However, authorities blamed the KNPB group for this latest attack as well as one on a Maybrat military post that left four government soldiers dead in early September.

The military said the six suspects who were arrested for the September incident were from the KNPB. The suspects, who were flown to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, in December to be tried there, could face the death penalty if found guilty of premeditated murder.

But KNPB said it had nothing to do with either incident.

Its spokesman, Ones Suhuniap, told BenarNews that the group eschews violence and is unarmed. KNPB is known for holding pro-independence rallies demanding a referendum in Papua, Indonesias easternmost region that comprises the provinces of Papua and West Papua.

KNPB as the voice of the Papuan people will continue to call on Jakarta and all parties to pursue a peaceful solution, Suhuniap told BenarNews.

Suhuniap said armed violence would only harm all parties. He called for a referendum on independence as a peaceful solution to the Papua conflict.

We urge the TNI [the military], police and TPNPB to stop armed violence that can have fatal consequences for civilians, Suhuniap said.

The insurgency has simmered in Papua for decades. Papua, on the western side of New Guinea Island, is rich in natural resources and minerals, including copper and gold, but it remains among Indonesias poorest and underdeveloped regions.

In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded Papua and annexed the region. Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia after a United Nations-sponsored ballot called the Act of Free Choice in 1969.

Locals and activists said the vote was a sham because only about 1,000 people took part. However, the U.N. accepted the result, which essentially endorsed Jakartas rule.

In 2003, the Indonesian-ruled western half of the New Guinea island was divided into two provinces  Papua and West Papua.

Deadly violence has intensified since late 2018 when rebels killed 19 people constructing a bridge as part of a government highway project in Nduga regency, claiming that the workers were government soldiers.

High levels of human rights violations

KNPBs Suhuniap blamed the ongoing violence in Papua partly on what he described as the excessive presence of government troops.

Meanwhile, Peter Prove, director of international affairs at the World Council of Churches, said that increased militarization had worsened the conflict, despite governmental promises of dialogue with indigenous Papuans. He also said the government had failed to address and improve the humanitarian situation in Papua.

What we have seen for decades are high levels of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, denial of freedom of expression and assembly and many other violations, Prove said in the video released by the council.

People displaced by violence are not receiving the assistance they need from the authorities, while international humanitarian agencies are given little or no access to the region, he added.

The Indonesian authorities certainly need to address the longstanding, ongoing and worsening human rights crisis in the region, Prove said.

Last month, Mohammad Mahfud MD, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, said the attorney generals office had appointed 22 senior prosecutors to handle four past cases of alleged human rights violations.

These include the killing of four student protesters by security forces in Paniai regency in December 2014, he said.
Cambodian Prime Minister and ASEAN chair Hun Sen, in a phone call with Indonesias president on Friday, lashed out at Malaysias foreign minister for being arrogant by criticizing Phnom Penhs strategy to deal with Myanmar.

Malaysias top diplomat, Saifuddin Abdullah, told reporters last week that Hun Sen should have consulted with other leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations before going to Myanmar on Jan. 7-8 to meet with Burmese junta leader Min Aung Hlaing in an attempt to solve that countrys post-coup crisis.

Hun Sen told President Joko Jokowi Widodo that Saifuddin had disrespected the role of the ASEAN chair, which rotates every year among the regional blocs 10 members.

Jakartas top diplomat should convey this message to Saifuddin, Hun Sen told Jokowi.

The intended message: Hun Sen asked Malaysian Foreign Minister not to be arrogant with inappropriate statements, and disrespect the ASEAN Chair by using undiplomatic language and [showing] a lack of courtesy, Hun Sen said on Facebook about the phone call.

Saifuddins comments were not right in the ASEAN context and Indonesias foreign minister should tell Saifuddin to not be rude, the Cambodian PM said.

Hun Sen said he went to Myanmar to plant trees, not to cut down trees.

Those who didnt support him, they only wanted a quick result, he added.

During a dinner with reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Jan. 13, Saifuddin acknowledged that some in ASEAN felt that Hun Sen has the liberty to visit Myanmar for what is seen as normal bilateral visit.

Malaysia is of the opinion that [Hun Sen] has the right to visit Myanmar as head of government of Cambodia, Saifuddin said.

However we also feel that because he has already assumed the chair of ASEAN, he could have probably consulted if not all, a few other ASEAN leaders and seek their views as what he should do if he were to go to Myanmar, he added.

When reporters asked whether Hun Sens trip to Myanmar had achieved anything, Saifuddin replied no.

In fact, even Indonesia had criticized Hun Sens trip, stating that he needed to stick to what the regional bloc had agreed to in meetings, including a five-point consensus to put Myanmar on the path to democracy.

PM Hun Sen did ask for a phone call and the purpose of the call was to convey the results of his recent visit to Myanmar, Teuku Faizasyah, spokesman for Indonesias foreign ministry confirmed to BenarNews on Friday, when asked about Fridays telephone call between the Cambodian and Indonesian leaders.

Faizasyah did not elaborate.

ASEAN fissures

Commenting on Huns Sens statements about Saifuddin, Southeast Asia expert Michael Vatikiotis said on Twitter that he saw an ASEAN spat in the making.

Remarkable and regrettable that Cambodian PM Hun Sen attacks Malaysia FM in a conversation with Indonesian President Jokowi. This is becoming unseemly and needs fixing, Vatikiotos tweeted.

Another analyst echoed these comments.

ASEAN fissures getting increasingly uncomfortable over the Myanmar crisis, Huong Le Thu, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said via Twitter.

Even before Hun Sen went to Myanmar, analysts were warning that Cambodias strategy would divide ASEAN, a grouping where countries are bound by geography rather than ideology or political systems.

For instance, of the blocs member-states, Brunei is an absolutist monarchy; Laos and Vietnam are Communist-ruled; Cambodia is nominally a democracy but one where the ruling party holds all the parliamentary seats; the Thai government has its roots in a military coup; and Singapore has been dominated by a single party since independence.

So there would be states that would be divided over the wisdom of Hun Sens trip, analysts said.

During his visit to Naypyidaw, Hun Sen met with the military coup leader who toppled the elected National League for Democracy government on Feb. 1 last year. The Cambodian PM did not meet with any democracy leaders, and the Burmese junta spokesman said Hun Sen had not asked to meet them either.

Regional analysts and parliamentarians had criticized Hun Sen before and after the trip for not insisting on a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders who were thrown in prison. They said his trip  the first by a foreign leader after the coup  would be seen as legitimizing the Burmese junta.

Hun Sen has said that he achieved three successes during his trip to Myanmar, an assertion he repeated to Indonesias Jokowi on Friday.

These successes, according to the Cambodian PM, were  a ceasefire between the military armed ethnic groups in the countrys border regions, allowing the ASEAN envoy to join these ceasefire talks, and an agreement with the junta to provide humanitarian assistance to the Burmese people.

Tria Dianti in Jakarta and Muzliza Mustafa in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report. The Khmer Service of Radio Free Asia contributed to this report. BenarNews is a unit of RFA.
Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Navy troops patrol at Woody Island, in the Paracel Archipelago, which is known in China as the Xisha Islands, Jan. 29, 2016.

New units of Peoples Liberation Army have been established and existing ones upgraded over the past decade to man outposts in the South China Sea, leaving Chinas military better positioned to project power in the region, according to a new report.

The report, The Peoples Liberation Army in the South China Sea: An Organizational Guide, released by Recorded Future, a private cybersecurity company, sheds light on the organizational structure of the PLA units on the Paracel and Spratly Islands.

It identifies and analyzes nine specific PLA units, mostly in the Paracel Islands that China calls Xisha, giving details of their duties, facilities and assets.

China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea and has been engaged in territorial disputes with several neighboring countries.

Military duties

The Chinese military occupies the entire Paracels archipelago and at least seven features in the Spratlys, with the number of troops stationed there estimated at more than 10,000, according to the report.

The PLA units are responsible for defending Chinas outposts in the Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands, it says, listing duties such as operating radar installations, ensuring airfield support for aviation forces, training and commanding maritime militia forces, implementing engineering projects, supporting the launch and orbital management of spacecraft, and providing air defense.

These army units also actively participate in military-civil fusion programs, including engaging in joint operations and exercises with civilian forces, drafting regulations with civilian authorities, and coordinating the construction and use of physical infrastructure with civilian entities.

With the main focus on the protection of Chinas maritime and territorial claims, the units have received sizable funding and grown rapidly over the past decade.

In recent years, the PLA has generally played a background role in Chinas strategy to consolidate control over the South China Sea, providing a deterrent cover for frontline maritime law enforcement and maritime militia operations, the report says.

But thanks to the development efforts, it is now much better situated to defend Chinas maritime and territorial claims  project power within and beyond the first island chain, control access to vital sea lines of communication  or engage the United States in a conflict over the status of Taiwan.

The 33-page report provides up-to-date and comprehensive research on Chinas solid military presence on the islands and features in the South China Sea.

Zachary Haver, China defense analyst at Recorded Future and the author of the report, said it took him almost four months of dedicated research using a diverse set of open-source materials to complete the report.

The biggest difficulty was identifying the PLA units, he said, as the Chinese authorities are usually very careful about protecting their identities, especially in sensitive areas like the South China Sea.

China began fundamentally reorganizing the PLA around 2015, according to Haver, and deployed a significant number of new forces to the South China Sea over the past decade.

Moving forward, the PLA will likely continue building its capacity to carry out combat operations in the South China Sea, surveil foreign ships and aircraft operating in the region, and perform joint rights defense and rescue operations with Chinas maritime law enforcement and maritime militia forces, the report concludes.
Twitter has suspended more than 300 accounts linked to Philippine presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for allegedly violating its policy on manipulation and spam, local media and a newswire service reported Friday.

The Philippine news website Rappler had reported on the accounts linked to Marcos, the son and namesake of the countrys late dictator, as part of a recent investigation.

Twitter said the majority of the suspended accounts were already taken down as part of [its] routine actions. The move is part of the platforms actions to tackle complex challenges to free and open elections, Rappler said on its website.

Twitter did not immediately respond to BenarNews request for comment, but in an email to Rappler, the social media giant noted that manipulation, spam and other attempts to undermine the public conversation were clear violations of its rules.

Twitter said it had conducted a review of the accounts and hashtags included in Rapplers investigation and has suspended more than 300 accounts for violating our platform manipulation and spam policy, according to the Rappler email seen by BenarNews. Twitter said most of the accounts were taken down as part of its routine actions.

The platforms policy on manipulation and spam cover accounts that have inauthentic engagements or those that make accounts or content appear more popular or active than they are.

Marcos chief of staff, Vic Rodriguez, issued a statement on Friday stressing that it was not known if all of the accounts belonged to supporters of the candidate, Reuters news agency reported.



We commend Twitter for keeping a close watch against platform manipulation, spam and other attempts to undermine the public conversation, he said in the statement.

Recent polls have Marcos, who is seeking the presidency with Sara Duterte-Carpio, the daughter of the current president, as his running mate, leading the race.

The Rappler report came out days after Twitter announced it was expanding a test feature on its platform to include the Philippines, Brazil and Spain as a part of its effort to reduce misinformation in real-time. The feature allows users to flag potentially misleading information.

Launched in August 2021 in the United States, Australia and South Korea, the feature received more than 3 million reports of possible violations, Twitter said on Monday.

Emerging network

Rappler reported finding an emerging Marcos network composed mainly of newly created and revived Twitter accounts. The accounts often engaged in Twitter parties to make different hashtags trend, throwing their support behind the dictators son.

The hashtags include #LabanMarcos. Many Filipinos said they found this ironic because laban, which means fight, is the battle cry of the Aquino family, who led the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship in the 1980s.

Corazon Aquino became president when Marcos Sr., who had ruled the country for two decades, fled in 1986 following a democratic uprising. Her son, Benigno Aquino III, who died last year, served as president from 2010 to 2016.

The Twitter report follows a decision by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to allow Marcos Jr. to stay on the ballot even as five petitions to have his name removed have not been settled, the state-run Philippine News Agency reported. The commission rejected two other petitions.

On Friday, Twitter said it was planning to engage civil society stakeholders, including Comelec, as part of its move to ensure clean elections in May, according to Rappler. Comelec spokesman James Jimenez has said it would need help from tech giants in monitoring candidates who have shifted to online campaigning.
Jason Miyares is sworn in as Virginia Attorney General during the inauguration ceremony for Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Saturday. Administering the oath of office is Miyares' longtime friend, Virginia Beach Circuit Court Judge Kevin Duffan. Looking on are Miyares' wife, Page, and the couple's three daughters. (Julio Cortez/AP)

On the campaign trail, Jason Miyares promised swift change if elected Virginias attorney general. A week into the job, hes announced several significant changes  opening an investigation of the states parole board, pulling Virginia from a multi-state climate lawsuit and firing more than two dozen employees.

The Virginia Beach Republican and former state delegate also managed to garner national media attention, including an interview Monday with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, in which he declared theres a new sheriff in town.

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The changes started Jan. 14  the day before Miyares took the oath of office  when he notified about 30 employees whod served under outgoing Attorney General Mark Herring that they were out of a job. About 17 were attorneys and many were not considered political employees.

Just hours after he was sworn in, Miyares announced Saturday he was opening investigations into two incidents he said had greatly disturbed him: the Virginia Parole Boards decision to release several violent criminals last year without notifying victims families, and the controversial handling of a student sex assault case in Loudoun County.

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His busy first week continued. On Wednesday, the new attorney general announced Virginia would no longer take part in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case concerning the Environmental Protection Agencys ability to regulate carbon dioxide emissions related to climate change. Miyares said in a statement he believed the case could devastate the coal industry and cause thousands of people in Southwest Virginia to lose their jobs.

Virginia is no longer anti-coal, he said in his statement.

On Thursday, Miyares announced Virginia would join a coalition of 27 attorneys general from across the country in asking the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to withdraw its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for large employers.

And hes not done yet. In an interview with The Virginian-Pilot before his swearing in, Miyares said he also plans to seek legislative authority that would allow his office to prosecute cases that local prosecutors fail to pursue in their jurisdictions, or when they offer what he considers an overly lenient plea deal. Del. Rob Bell, a Republican and attorney from Charlottesville, plans to sponsor the legislation, Miyares said.

Some of them have refused to prosecute certain crimes and, not surprisingly, those crimes tend to go up, he told The Pilot. If youre not going to do your job, fine, Ill do it for you.

Miyares said it was too early to say whether he would continue to pursue all the cases started by Herrings office, including a lawsuit recently filed against the town of Windsor that alleges its police department has operated in a discriminatory way against Black people and repeatedly violated their constitutional rights.

We will review all the active cases, and if they have merit, we will pursue them, he said.

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Early life and career

Miyares, 45, is the first Latino attorney general and first Hispanic to win a statewide election in Virginia. He was born in North Carolina and grew up in Virginia Beach. He and his two brothers were raised by their mother, Miriam, who had fled communist Cuba in 1965 when she was just 19. She eventually became an American citizen and made sure her sons knew how blessed they were to grow up in the United States, he said.

Miyares graduated from Salem High School in Virginia Beach. He earned his bachelors degree in business administration from James Madison University and his law degree from William & Mary Law School.

He and his wife, Page, married in 2004 and have three daughters: Gabriella, 14, Elaina, 13, and Sophia, 10. Page Miyares is the daughter of Virginia Beachs longtime former treasurer John Atkinson and co-owns Atkinson Realty in Virginia Beach with her mother and brothers.

Miyares first job out of law school was at a private law firm, but he left in 2007 to become a prosecutor with the Virginia Beach Commonwealths Attorneys Office. The move meant a pay cut, he said, but he felt it was worth it.

I learned so much in that job, Miyares said of his days as a prosecutor. I was in court every day, working with law enforcement, and I loved it.

He also enjoyed working with crime victims, and doing all that he could to help them, he said.

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Miyares planned to stay with the Commonwealths Attorneys office longer, but just two years into the job, he was asked by friend Scott Rigell to serve as campaign manager and advisor in his bid to represent Virginias 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The two are members of Galilee Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach, and had become friends through a couples Bible study group that Rigell and his wife hosted at their home. Miyares was still in law school at the time and attended the meetings with Page.

Rigell said he was immediately impressed by Miyares, whom he described as highly intelligent and hard-working. When Miyares learned Rigell was considering a run for office, he encouraged him and offered to help.

I dont think he could have been more surprised, Rigell said of offering Miyares the top role in his campaign. Rigell was elected to Congress in 2010 and continued to serve until 2016, when he decided not to seek another term.

In 2015, Rigell said it was his turn to support Miyares in his bid for elected office. Thats when Miyares had decided to run for Virginias House of Delegates.

He said, Im thinking about running, and asked me what I thought, Rigell said. I said, Run Jason, Run.

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Miyares won, becoming the first Cuban American to be elected to the Virginia General Assembly.

___

The run for attorney general

In 2019, Democrats won the majority of seats in the General Assembly and pushed for legislation that would make sweeping changes to criminal justice laws. In the two years Democrats controlled the legislature, lawmakers passed stricter gun laws, ended the states use of the death penalty, and sought unsuccessfully to make it easier to sue police officers for wrongdoing.

Efforts like those played a major role in Miyares decision to run for attorney general, he said.

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There was a real criminal-first, victim-last mindset in Richmond, he said. As a longtime victims rights advocate, that really, really bothered me.

Miyares announced his decision to run in September 2020.

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Two events in 2021 made him even more determined to win. The first came in the spring, when the Virginia Parole Board released dozens of inmates, including many who had been convicted of violent crimes, without giving proper notice. Prosecutors and victims families hadnt been allowed to weigh in, or even been notified, in multiple cases, which the law requires.

The other came later that year, when parents accused the Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent of covering up two sexual assaults committed months apart by a teenage student on school grounds.

Both of those incidents became major issues of Miyares campaign. And theyre among the ones he believes helped him in his narrow win over Herring last November.

I dont see Virginia as a left or right state, Miyares said. I think Virginia is a common-sense state. And we ran on a lot of common sense issues and I think thats why we won.

Jane Harper, 757-222-5097, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
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'THE 20TH CENTURY QUINTET'

Eugene Christy fought fascists in Northern Ireland and played Pink Floyd on the radio in Libya
ADAMS  A proposal for a cannabis business would be a good shot in the arm for the Spring Street area.

That was the assessment from Town Administrator Jay Green on Wednesday following a presentation about the proposal before the Select Board.

Eric Cromwell, of Longmeadow, and Sacha Wing, of Wilbraham, introduced their plans to establish a retail, cultivation and manufacturing operation at 44 Spring St. The business, to be called Berks Greens, would include a sun-assisted indoor grow operation with around 40,000 square feet of canopy, they said.

Noting the town often receives outreach about starting cannabis businesses, Green said he was encouraged that Cromwell and Wing are from the nearby Pioneer Valley, and that they already have been through the state licensing process for a cultivation and manufacturing business in Palmer.

We had a great meeting with them, Green said. Theyre working with a local contractor, a local property owner, so the future is bright.

Under Adams host community agreement, cannabis businesses would pay a 3 percent excise tax and a 3 percent community impact fee in addition to commercial property taxes, although several businesses are challenging the legality of community impact fees.

Wing Well LLC, which Cromwell and Wing co-own, is rehabilitating a vacant former Thorndike Mills property in Palmer and hope to begin operations there by the end of the year, they said.

Cromwell said his family business background is in managing KFC and Burger King restaurants, and Wing has spent 18 years in building design and construction.

They said the 44 Spring St. landlord is open to development, and they want to make sure that existing businesses are not displaced, Cromwell said.

The indoor cultivation space would be blocked off by tall vertical walls so that it is not visible from the street, and police will have 24/7 access to cameras for security, Cromwell said. A domed glass ceiling would allow light to enter for the plants, and the pair plan to explore possibilities for using solar panels as well.

Cromwell noted that odor is a common concern with cannabis businesses, although he said that they do not plan to open the facility to the outside air. If need be, he said he expects an ambient air ozone generator to be able to take care of any odors.

We are very confident that we can manage that odor issue for the town because, again, were neighbors, he said. We have no interest in interrupting peoples lives for profit  thats not our agenda.

Wing estimated that Berks Greens would employ around 40 people, although many retail employees would be part-time. As the cannabis market gets more crowded, Cromwell said he wants the business to be a little bit of a destination rather than just another shop.

The pair said they hope to get up and running within 12 to 14 months. The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission requires them to participate in a community outreach meeting, and they must apply for retail, cultivation and manufacturing licenses. On the town side, they need to go before the Planning Board to receive approval.

Really the next step for them is to decide when theyre ready to do their public outreach and all the requirements driven by CCC, Green said. As weve said frequently, with the proposed operators that come into town, it really isnt the Adams regulations that are burdensome; It is CCC.

There are no cannabis retailers in Adams, but several businesses have opened in other Berkshire County communities. While those businesses have generated millions in tax revenue for municipal governments, some residents in those communities have opposed and voted to ban new cannabis businesses.

A proposed growing facility at 173 Howland Ave. in Adams is moving ahead, as is a retail operation at 127 Columbia St., which was formerly the Woodstock South shop.

Applicants withdrew from a proposal to start a retail and cultivation operation at 6 Renfrew St. following a neighbors objection.
South Africa: Matric class of 2021 commended for perseverance

The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education has commended the Matric Class of 2021 for their perseverance through very difficult times in South Africas education system to complete the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations.

Committee chairperson, Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba, said the Class of 2021 has had to endure two years of blended or rotational learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This class did not have a full Grade 11 year in 2020, which meant that the educators had to complete the curriculum that was not covered in that year in Grade 12, and that was an added pressure on our learners, Mbinqo-Gigaba said.

This follows the announcement of the NSC matric results by Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, on Thursday. The matric class of 2021 obtained an overall pass rate of 76.4%, an increase of 0.2% from 2020.

Mbinqo-Gigaba said despite the curriculum challenge that the learners faced, many also faced social challenges that included dealing with COVID-19-related illnesses and deaths in their families.

This excludes the other common challenges of poverty, unemployment, gangsterism and drugs that our learners face on a daily basis. The committee notes these challenges and feels that under the circumstances, this cohort of learners made us extremely proud.

We would like to congratulate them, their parents, caregivers, educators and the basic education sector as a whole, Mbinqo-Gigaba said.

Free State is the leading province with 85.7%, an improvement of 0.6% from 2020, followed by Gauteng with 82.8%, and Western Cape with 81.2%. North West obtained 78.2%, KwaZulu-Natal 76.8%, Mpumalanga 73.6%, Eastern Cape 73%, Northern Cape 71.4%, and Limpopo 66.7%.

The number of candidates qualifying for admission to bachelor studies at universities is 256 031, an improvement of 21.4% from 2020.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2022-01-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Chinese lunar rover's 2-year travelogue on moon's far side reported

Xinhua) 08:15, January 21, 2022

Photo provided by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Jan. 4, 2019 shows image of Yutu-2, China's lunar rover, at preset location A on the surface of the far side of the moon. (Xinhua/CNSA)

BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists published the country's lunar rover travelogue of its first two years of service that depicted the unique and untrodden moonscape on the moon's far side, revealing its notable differences with the near side with in situ evidence.

The study published on Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal, Science Robotics, described cloddy soil, gel-like rocks, and fresh small craters inside the Von Karman crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin.

Researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology and Beijing Aerospace Control Center analyzed the locomotive data and images collected by Yutu-2, offering detailed geological knowledge at the landing site that can help deepen people's understanding of the moon's formation and evolution.

Chang'e-4 probe and the rover landed on the Von Karman crater on Jan. 3, 2019. The rover has already worked for three years, surviving its initial three-month designed lifetime.

BUMPY ROAD

During its journey, Yutu-2 slipped and skidded, indicating the terrain it landed on is scattered with local gentle slopes, although relatively flat at large scales.

The rover, a six-wheeled off-road robot equipped with four steering motors on the corner wheels with a meshed surface, is capable of climbing up 20-degree slopes and surmounting obstacles up to 200-mm high.

The paper revealed that, during the rover's drive to a point for mutual shooting with Chang'e-4 probe, its wheels were almost bolstered by wheel lugs, but sometimes sank slightly into the terrain and experienced moderate seepage into the wire mesh screen.

CLODDY SOIL

The researchers used the rover wheel as a trenching device to estimate the properties of the lunar soil.

They found that the bearing property of the regolith is similar to that of dry sand and sandy loam on Earth, stronger than the typical lunar soil of Apollo missions.

But they estimated, based on the cloddy soil observed in Yutu-2's wheels, that the soil there is stickier than the landing site of its predecessor Chang'e-3 which soft-landed on the moon's Bay of Rainbows in Dec. 2013, according to the study.

The researchers attributed the increased soil cohesion to the higher percentage of agglutinates in the regolith, which make the soil particles more likely to hold together when ground by the wheels.

Since the blocky soil has adhered onto the rover's wheel lugs instead of its meshed surface, they suggested that the lug's surface could be coated with a special anti-adhesion material in future missions to improve the machine's ability of traction.

FRESH CRATERS

On its eighth lunar day, Yutu-2 risked exploring a two-meter crater and detected an unexpected gel-like material at the crater base.

The dark greenish, glistening material is likely to be an impact melt rock, or impact-generated glass-coated breccia, a kind of rock composed of sharp fragments embedded in a fine-grained matrix, according to the study.

Then, Yutu-2 halted, rather than driving down along the steep crater wall, for fear that the wheels' dwindling drawbar pull was not strong enough to get the rover back, the researchers said.

Despite this, the rover has "punched cards" along multiple fresh craters in its first 25 lunar days. Its cameras captured images of a broad variety of craters, according to the study.

Among them are heavily degraded craters with gentle slopes and flat edges, and craters with grain-size ejecta, varying from particles to clods.

The craters with ejecta were observed to have coarse walls and bottoms, with those throw-outs either evenly or unevenly distributed, the findings revealed.

The researchers said that those ejecta craters are not primary but secondary ones that were formed by a bigger crater located to the west of the landing site, since all of them oriented to the northwest in line with the horizontal component of the impact force.

Ding Liang, the paper's first author with Harbin Institute of Technology, said that the findings established a foundation for in-depth studies in China's subsequent lunar missions.

"Legged robots and hybrid wheel-legged robots to tethered rovers can be considered for future lunar crater or cave exploration," said Ding.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
Documents filed in U.S. District Court in Newport News say Marcus Dewayne Smith, 39, of Ahoskie, North Carolina, distributed narcotics mixed with fentanyl, heroin and tramadol while in possession of two loaded semi-automatic handguns. (Peter Dujardin / Daily Press)

A North Carolina man was sentenced to 18 years in prison Wednesday for possessing a firearm while distributing narcotics throughout Hampton Roads from multiple hotels in Newport News.

Documents filed in federal court in Newport News say Marcus Dewayne Smith, 39, of Ahoskie, distributed narcotics mixed with fentanyl, heroin and tramadol while in possession of two loaded semi-automatic handguns, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

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Newport News police learned of one of Smiths hotel rooms in July 2020 and found 82 prepackaged glassine packets containing the narcotic mixture, two firearms, cocaine, tools and packaging materials for drug distribution along with $8,000 in cash.

Smith is prohibited from possessing firearms because of a prior felony conviction and has a lengthy and violent criminal history over the past two decades the district attorneys office said.

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Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginia.media.com
PITTSFIELD  The former owner of the Olde Heritage Tavern in Lenox is poised to become the next proprietor of Patricks Pub on Bank Row.

John McNinch, the executive director of McNinch Restaurant Group of Lenox, told The Eagle on Thursday that his group is in negotiations to buy the popular pub, which has been a mainstay of downtown Pittsfield since 1985.

Thats the plan, said McNinch, who recently opened a restaurant in the Holiday Inn & Suites on West Street. Were trying to do it. Were working through some hoops... . Were moving forward.

The Pittsfield Licensing Board has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 31 to consider the transfer of the pubs all-alcohol seven-day restaurant license to McNinch Restaurant Group, according to a legal notice that was published Thursday in The Eagle. The board will also consider a change of manager, change of hours, and the transfer of Patricks sidewalk cafe license, according to the application.

The Powell family, which owns Patricks, and the McNinch group reached an agreement on the sale in November, according to Shana Powell, the pubs business manager. Powell said the sale is contingent on the outcome of the Licensing Boards hearing and the states approval of the boards decision. In Massachusetts, liquor license transfers at the local level also have to be approved by the states Alcohol Beverages Control Commission.

McNinchs group is waiting on the outcome of the Licensing Board hearing before going any further. The pub, which remains open for business, is currently listed at $289,000 by Stone House Properties.

Were just sitting on the liquor license, he said. We dont see any hiccups in the road there.

Like many Berkshire restaurants, Patricks struggled after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Berkshires in March 2020. In April, Shana Powell told The Eagle that revenue had declined 50 percent over the preceding 12 months.

Patrick's Pub on the market as pandemic staffing challenges mount The owners of Patrick's Pub in Pittsfield have decided to sell the popular eatery on Bank Row where they have been part of the ownership group for 20 years.

The pubs owners, brothers David and Micah Powell, and their father, Bruce, who have been involved in the ownership of the restaurant for 20 years, put Patricks on the market in October. Back then, Shana Powell, who is Micah Powells wife, said a lot of factors went into the familys decision, and that those reasons were probably accelerated by the fallout from the pandemic.

John McNinch said he had initially approached Shana Powell about purchasing Patricks before the family put the restaurant on the market, but that the two groups only came to an agreement after it was officially up for sale.

Powell said she believed a friend of a friend had reached out to McNinch to alert him that the pub was going to be put up for sale. McNinch then told Patricks owners that he and his son, Tucker, who is the restaurant groups manager, were interested in buying the pub because they were looking to expand their restaurant group.

Once we officially listed the business, John reached out again and we were able to broker a deal, Powell said via email

We are thrilled we were able to reach an agreement back in November with John and Tucker, she said. They are local people with experience as restaurateurs and the desire to grow a local business. We feel they are a perfect fit to carry on the traditions of Patricks Pub while adding their own personal flair and expertise.

We truly feel that the restaurant and our Patricks Pub community will be in good hands! she said.

McNinch, who owned the Olde Heritage Tavern for 21 years before selling it to Lenox restaurant entrepreneur Ryan Salame last April, said there were a number of reasons that made Patricks attractive. [Its] a great downtown location, it does great business, and it has a great following.

Its certainly in our ballpark in the things that were comfortable with, McNinch said, having had the Heritage.

Its also close to 101 Restaurant & Bar on West Street, the McNinch groups new eatery on the second floor of the Holiday Inn, formerly the Crowne Plaza.

We also think its going to complement the 101 as well, he said.

McNinch Restaurant Group LLC incorporated in July, according to documents filed with the Secretary of States office, shortly before plans for the 101 Restaurant & Bar were announced.

Patricks Pub originally opened in February 1985 after then-owner/manager Dan Keegan spent $75,000 to renovate what had previously served as a dress shop. Keegan told The Eagle in 1985 that he named the restaurant Patricks Pub because that was the name of one of the best Irish pubs in New York City.

McNinch said his group doesnt have any special changes in mind for Patricks Pub.

We want Patricks to remain Patricks, he said. Were not going to go in there and change the model thats worked for so long. Well bring more of the Irish stuff that we had at the Heritage, but Patricks is a mainstay and we dont want to rock that boat.
Investigations editor

Larry Parnass joined The Eagle in 2016 from the Daily Hampshire Gazette, where he was editor in chief. His freelance work has appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, CommonWealth Magazine and with the Reuters news service.
When it comes to the prospect of rail projects that could better connect the commonwealth, we are optimistic. We have to be. For underserved regions desperate for growth like the Berkshires, bolstering the passenger train links between our county and other metro areas offers once-in-a-generation economic development opportunities we cant afford to let slip.

East-West rail plans represent just such an opportunity. Proposals that stand to undersell the regions ridership potential, however, risk sacrificing the benefits that larger, more transformative projects could offer down the line. We worry that putting outsize focus on the Berkshire Flyer could have just such an effect.

On its face, the Flyers connection to New York City offers some positives. Its another channel through which tourism dollars can flow, as could those who own homes in both NYC and the Berkshires or those with family split between the areas. But the Flyers relatively rigid weekend schedule would likely prove inconvenient to many potential riders. There might exist some travelers for whom departing Friday afternoon, arriving later that evening and then returning Sunday works, but that will be far from be everyone.

It only gets less convenient for those whose home or Berkshire destination is not in Pittsfield. For those heading to or from South County, the journey looks quite impractical: Go North to Pittsfield to catch a train that would head west to the Albany-Rensselaer Station and then double back south to New York City. Meanwhile, for those in the Northern Berkshire region, traveling down to Pittsfield (while securing either a ride or parking) to catch the rain does not look all that more practical than simply traveling to Albany-Rensselaer and taking the train from there.

To be sure, trying to increase passenger rail access in the region is a worthy endeavor, and we know regional leaders pushing for the Berkshire Flyer are working in good faith to that end. Those proponents that may chastise us for being too pessimistic on the Flyer might also suggest that its not mutually exclusive with other rail projects, such as East-West plans to better connect both ends of the Bay State. All things being equal, we would be happy to let a thousand flowers bloom in attempts to up the regions passenger rail game.

In reality, though, there are some serious downsides to consider here. We do not have the benefit of infinite will and capital while seeking to transform public transit opportunities in the Berkshires, and lackluster Berkshire Flyer ridership could have downstream consequences for the prospects of other, more important projects. It might not stop East-West rail in its tracks, but pushing an impractical Pittsfield-to-NYC connecting line could wind up playing against area advocates pleas for regional parity in the states transportation system.

Were already swimming against this tide as is. A key state study looking at potential East-West rail ridership seemingly shortchanged Western Massachusetts by leaving out key pools of potential riders, to the chagrin of some in the Berkshire legislative delegation. A common refrain has been the need for trains all the way to Pittsfield, and not just trains to Springfield with a bus line to our county seat. We dont need to give leaders on the other end of the state any more excuses to discount our regions very real need and appetite for passenger rail service, but the Berkshire Flyer underperforming on ridership would unnecessarily risk that.

Getting big infrastructure projects done is never easy, and thats especially true when talking about ambitious passenger rail proposals in America. Nevertheless, the need for growth in the Berkshires, regional parity in Massachusetts and serious efforts to curb climate change all demand that we give these critical projects the best push we can. That means carefully picking our spots  and the Berkshire Flyer is not one we would pick.
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The husky puppies stolen from a Hampton pet salon with their mom. (Courtesy of Libby Howard)

Hampton  Six newborn husky puppies were stolen early Friday from a Hampton pet salon, according to police.

The burglary happened overnight Thursday at Critter Cleaners in the 5100 block of West Mercury Boulevard. Officers from the Hampton Police Division were called to the scene at 7:36 a.m. Friday. The suspect entered the salon through a window and stole the six puppies and money, police said.

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The burglar broke in around 1:30 a.m. and took money from tip jars and the cash register before leaving with the puppies in a tote, said Libby Howard, a groomer at the business. She said the man also took a shower in the dog bath and ate staff members food  which they believe he used to lure the puppies  before leaving.

Critter Cleaners owner breeds the huskies and keeps the puppies and their mother at the salon, as the owner and staff spend most of their time there, Howard said.

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Howard has no idea why someone would take the litter  especially when the puppies are so young.

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Weve been asking each other all day  like why would you even do that? Howard said. We can understand breaking in to steal the money ... but to steal puppies, 3-week-old puppies?

The puppies  five females and one male  are 13 days old, Howard wrote in a Facebook post. Their mother was howling in distress Friday, Howard said.

One of the Husky puppies that was stolen from Critter Cleaners in Hampton. (Courtesy of Libby Howard)

Howard said police brought a dog from their K-9 unit to check for the puppies scent trail, but it went cold.

The suspect was caught on surveillance video, which Howard provided to The Virginian-Pilot. The video clearly shows the face of a male as he rummages through the shop.

Staff at Critter Cleaners said the suspect was caught on surveillance video. (Courtesy of Libby Howard)

Howard said there will be a reward for anyone who returns the puppies  no questions asked.

Authorities are urging anyone with information to call 757-737-6111 or leave a tip at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.

Ali Sullivan, 757-677-1974, ali.sullivan@virginiamedia.com
Spearfish, SD (57783)

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On Thursday Bill spoke with former Kansas AG Phill Kline, who is investigating how billionaires like Jeff Zuckerberg essentially bought the 2020 election.

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Mortality and late-stage cancer rates did not decline, yet 5-year survival rate more than doubled

A new study based on data from a national cancer registry in Taiwan found evidence that lung cancer screening may be leading to overdiagnosis at the population level.

Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) has been promoted in Taiwan to people, especially young women, who do not have a history of smoking. Investigators from Brigham and Womens Hospital and collaborators at Taipei Medical University have found that over the last 15 years there has been a 6-fold increase in early-stage cancer diagnoses among women, but there has been no change in incidence of late-stage lung cancer or death from lung cancer, suggesting that screening is leading to overdiagnosis.

The United States Preventive Service Task Force recommends lung cancer screening only for individuals who have smoked an average of one pack of cigarettes per day for 20 years and are between the ages of 50 and 80. But in other countries, including Taiwan, lung cancer screening for nonsmokers has become popular, even though it is not covered by Taiwans national health insurance programme.
Indian biopharma industry HITS Rs 33K Cr WITH 13% GROWTH in 2020-21

Amidst the pandemic, the Indian Biopharma Industry, with over 300 companies, has witnessed a good growth of 13 percent, 2 percent less than the previous years 15 percent growth rate. This growth was largely driven by the performance of the Indian biopharma companies which have done very well as against multinational companies. As a result, the Indian Biopharma Industry has crossed the Rs 33,000 crore mark for the year 2020-21 over the previous years figure of Rs 29,176 crore. The Indian Biopharma industry, comprising hormones, insulin, blood products, and vaccines recorded a sales revenue of Rs 33,067 crore for the year 2020-21.
The World Photography Organisation has announced that South Africa's Aidan Murgatroyd, from Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography, is one of the shortlisted photographers for the Student competition of the Sony World Photography Awards 2022.

Image: Aidan Murgatroyd

Student competition shortlist

The Identity of Holland by Ezra Bohm (Nederlandse Acedemie voor Beeldcreatie) which focuses on the inhabitants of the Dutch village of Urk, the last people in the Netherlands to still wear traditional dress

Becoming South African by Aidan Murgatroyd (Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography) follows the photographer's journey in search of a greater understanding and sense of connection to his home country after prolonged absences

Theologians by Sergey Pronin (Docdocdoc School of Modern Photography) captures participants seeking a spiritual connection in the summer camp of St. Tikhon's Orthodox University's Theological faculty

The Butcher by Dennis Mubanga Kabwe (Open Window University Zambia) spotlights a local butcher at work in the heart of the market-place

Carino by Chris Rosas Vargas (Parsons), a series of sentimental portraits of public spaces in the Bronx and Harlem.

Tiramisu by Alexander Komenda (Aalto University) which depicts Komenda's playful collaborations with fellow students to help pass the time during the lockdowns

Disconnected by Oriel Naxhielly Martins (ENFO Escuela De Fotografia), where the photographer focuses on moments of physical intimacy and the struggle of coping with isolation during the pandemic.

Connections by Sachi Deshmukh (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti), which juxtaposes past and present through old photographs of her then newly married parents held by their now aged hands and linked together with red thread

Memories of Family by Xu Han (Nanjing University of the Arts) uses close-up abstract images of paint droplets and patterns to explore the photographer's relationship with family

Even When We're Breathing, We're Moving by Angela Stoll (University of Wollongong) examines the idea of movement as a passage of time through long-exposure black and white images of a dancer within an abandoned space.

Youth competition shortlist

Winner of the June competition, Elijah Baptiste (15, Composition and Design) photographed his subject blindfolded and shot from below in black and white, emphasising the grace of his pose. Zinuo Shi (17, Street Photography) captures two women in conversation in a marketplace, while in the foreground the upside-down poster of a model gives a surreal edge to the picture.

Emery Sanderson (19, Landscape) depicts a serene snowy scene, interrupted only by a solitary figure and the tracks they have left behind.

Cameron Borg (17, Culture & Travel) shows a lone human set against nature, this time a surfer photographed from above in the turbulent swell.

Rayhan Mundra's (15, Wildlife and Nature) image displays a brown bear in the split-second moment of catching a salmon from a stream.

Tri Nguyen (18, Portraiture) uses a street mirror to create a portrait from two angles, in the glow of the moonlight.

Benjamin Joel (17, Open Call) captured the strength and determination of a national fencing champion.

Youth Photographer of the Year is judged by Hideko Kataoka, Director of Photography at Newsweek Japan. The winner will receive a range of Sony digital imaging equipment to nurture their vision.

Murgatroyd joins 16 other photographers who have been shortlisted in the Student and Youth competitions of the 2022 awards.Winners of Student Photographer of the Year and Youth Photographer of the Year will be announced on 12 April and will go on display as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2022 exhibition at Somerset House, London from 13 April to 2 May, 2022.The Student shortlist showcases a series of works by 10 students at leading international higher education institutions. For the 2022 competition, students were invited to submit a series of five to 10 images interpreting the brief Connections. Over the past two years, we have had to think differently about how we connect in more ways than we could have imagined. The shortlisted entries have each been chosen for their nuanced and intelligent responses to this brief.Connections to cultural identity and community are examined by several of the projects:Elsewhere the series explore connections through representations of togetherness:Connections to the past, and to family history were also central to several of the projects:The winner of Student Photographer of the Year 2022 will be selected from the ten students and announced on 12 April. Together with their university, the winner will be awarded Sony digital imaging equipment amounting to a combined total of 30,000.This year's Student shortlist was judged by Colin Czerwinski, Founder of Noice Magazine.The Youth competition shortlist features seven category winners from June to December 2021, who each responded to a different monthly theme.The overall winners in the Student, Youth, Open and Professional competition of the Sony World Photography Awards 2022 will be announced on 12 April 2022.For more information about upcoming announcements and winners, go here
A color image of the Negro Building, 1907 Jamestown Exposition, owned by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, is an item in this years Top 10 Endangered Artifacts Program sponsored by the Virginia Association of Museums.

An online voting competition is being conducted through Jan. 27 on the VAM website with the public determining by the largest number of responses. The winner will receive a $2,000 grant toward the artifacts conservation.

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We have the ability through this program to conserve this artifact and the funding will be critical to that endeavor, explained Jane Hohensee, curatorial registrar for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.

Get out there and vote for our artifact.

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The JYF artifact is a photograph on glass produced in 1907 by African American artist and photographer Arthur L. Macbeth, then of Charleston, South Carolina. Its image, within a 5-by-7-inch original aluminum frame, is smaller in size, Hohensee said. The artifact came to the foundation in 2013 as part of a donation of exposition items.

Negro Building, Jamestown Exposition 1907. Courtesy of Arthur L. Macbeth/Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation (HANDOUT)

It was probably mass produced as a souvenir of the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition, celebrating the 300th anniversary of the Jamestown colonys establishment in 1607, held on a 367-acre site at Norfolks Sewells Point, now the home of U.S. Naval Station Norfolk.

Among Macbeths accomplishments is a patent for a picture project theater concept to show stereopticon and moving pictures and a 1907 Jamestown Exposition award for photography.

Hohensee emphasized, artifacts are living things and live after their makers. This particular piece of art is in a state of deterioration and needs to be conserved to continue to tell stories of photographer and the history of the building and all the related history and to be available to generations that come after us.

Photographer Macbeth may have used the Autochrome color photography method that was in its infancy, having been introduced in earlier 1907, Hohensee said. The gelatin glass negative or dry plate process for color photographs had gone into general manufacture in 1878 and was available to be used at that time.

How the photograph was produced is one of the questions we hope a specialist conservator can identify, she said. We also want the conservator to assess its condition and recommend to us what interventions can be made to prevent further deterioration.

The other significant element of the photograph is The Negro Building itself. The buildings history is a significant part of the legacy of the exposition, which was a financial disaster and not complete for its scheduled spring 1907 opening.

Norfolk author and historian Amy Waters Yarsinske, in her book, Jamestown Exposition: American Imperialism on Parade Vol. 2, said it was no surprise that African Americans were not included in the plans laid out by the commissioners of the Jamestown Exposition Company  with Jim Crow laws in full force and segregation they produced in the southern states.

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African Americans were forced to finance and build their own contribution to the Jamestown exposition.

The Negro Development and Exposition Company of the U.S.A., headquartered in Richmond and founded by Blacks, was the moving force behind the Negro Building at the exposition. Black leaders across the nation, however, were divided over whether there should be a Negro Building at the celebration.

Those African Americans who argued for participating in the Jim Crow segregated exposition were led by Booker T. Washington (Virginia native and then president of Tuskegee Institute), and those against were led by W.E.B. Du Bois, the Black northern activist who felt more active action should be undertaken against white supremacy, Cynthia Hawkins wrote in her University of Buffalo, State University of New York, doctoral dissertation, 2019, African American Agency and the Art Objects, 1868 to 1917.

Virginias African American elites forged ahead with plans for the Negro Building using the opportunity to demonstrate their accomplishments, and intimated how much more expansive their contribution to the country could be if white racism relented.

Richmond lawyer and entrepreneur Giles B. Jackson secured a state charter of the Negro Development and Exposition Co. with the support of the state-supported Jamestown Exposition Co., headed by Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Jackson was respected by white Virginians because he had been General Lees body servant during the Civil War, Hawkins wrote, and began soliciting money to build a pavilion to house the Negro exhibit.

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Ultimately, with the endorsement of the Virginia General assembly, Jackson was able to secure addition funds  $100,000  from the U.S. Congress.

The building was constructed by Black laborers, supervised by Black contractors, Bolling and Everett of Lynchburg.

(Library of Congress)

Architect W. Sidney Pittman of Washington, D.C., and son-in-law of Washington, was selected by the Negro Development and Exposition Company, to design the structure, which was 213 feet long by 139 feet wide, two stories high and built of wood and pebble dash or plaster walls.

Pittman, considered one of the most accomplished Black architects in America, was initially recognized for his design of churches, but later broaden the scope of his work to civil structures, manufacturing plants, schools and fraternal projects.

In planning for the building, Jackson wanted the exhibits inside to provide evidence of African American advancement and ability, Hawkins wrote. Objects for the exhibits were collected from all over the country and included fine arts, paintings and sculpture.

John Thomas Wilkes in his 2003 University of Richmond masters thesis, Enough Glory for Us All: The Negro Exhibit at the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, wrote:

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The technical skills and innovative qualities of African Americans burst forth in a 1,200 square foot collection of inventions, manufactures and mechanical devices. He said that the New York Age, a weekly newspaper, proclaimed, The Negro exhibit is a marvel and reflects great credit upon the race, considering the adverse circumstances under which it was gotten up.

Wilkes wrote, after its closing, the Negro exhibit had silenced most critics. It had overcome countless obstacles in its quest for a showing of the highest order.

The Negro Building at the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition in Norfolk in the late spring of 1907 when the grounds were still under construction. From New York at the Jamestown Exposition, 1909 (HANDOUT)

President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Negro Building on June 10, 1907, and spoke briefly at the site before an estimated 6,000 persons. Later, Aug. 3 was designated Negro Day at the exposition and Washington gave the principal address before about 10,000 persons standing in front of the building.

As part of the expositions report, an estimated 750,000 people visited the Negro Building during the commemoration.

Jackson hoped that after the exposition ended, the building and its contents could be saved. However, support for moving the building to Richmond to serve as a permanent national museum died for a lack of funding, Wilkes explained.

Within a year, the Negro Building, as well as most of the other structures at the site, was demolished and exhibit artifacts returned to their owners.

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Other artifacts in this years Top 10 Virginia endangered items include a 1944 honor board at Bridgewater College recognizing those alumni men and women serving in World War II; an 1889 Gelatin glass negative of Natural Bridge with Thomas Jeffersons family cabin in the photograph, Camera Heritage Museum in Staunton; and a late 1800s painting of Lewis Nusbaum, one of the major Jewish leaders of Norfolk, currently in the Ohef Sholom Temple archives.

The Fredericksburg Area Museum, Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum, Loudoun Museum, Patrick Henrys Red Hill Home, Virginia Museum of Natural History and the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets Museum also have endangered items in the Top 10 list.
According to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's head archaeologist Jack Gary, inclement weather brings its own set of challenges to dig sites. (Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg Archaeology) (Colonial Williamsburg Archaeology)

Williamsburg  Ask any archaeologist if they prefer hot, grueling summers or blistering, cold winters and youd probably get a different response every time. At least thats the case for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundations archaeology team which spends several months battling Virginias temperate weather.

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According to the foundations Director of Archeology Jack Gary, there are numerous things that archaeologists have to contend with every day. But things get a little more complicated when the snowstorms begin to roll in.

As the winter season approaches, they know they will soon trade in their troughs for snow shovels and instead of uncovering artifacts, they will be removing ice sheets from their dig site.

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The big thing is just staying warm in the winter, Gary said. Its lots of layers of clothes, hand warmers and hot beverages. Its never easy but they do a fantastic job in all weather conditions.

Archaeologists get snow days too

When the meteorologists call for snow, archaeologists prepare for days inside. But before that, they make sure to secure the dig sites with tarps to keep as much snow, ice and moisture as possible from getting into the pits.

Once the snow comes, the team waits out the storm inside, catching up on paperwork, ensuring their notes are clear and concise and their findings are then digitized.

With most of their field notes recorded on paper and their work relying heavily on visibility, Gary said it is virtually impossible for them to do their jobs when its actively snowing.

Often, there are days spent helping the curation team as they clean and label artifacts. According to Gary, the snow itself is not the problem, its the aftermath.

Clean up

The days that follow several inches of snow can really slow the team down. If there is a particularly rainy or snowy year, Gary said it can affect how long they will be at a dig site.

Last year, it was an incredibly wet winter and it really slowed us down, Gary said. We had a couple of really deep units that kept filling up with water.

When it rains or snows, the team has to deal with water from above as well as below. As the water settles, it begins to leach through the ground and fill into spots the team has already dug up.

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So, the team gets their buckets and periodically scoops up the water.

Anytime freezing rain is in the forecast, the team is stuck removing sheets of ice from the tarps that cover the dig sites. According to Gary, if they arent careful, they can lose some of their tarps as the ice rips through them.

Once the tarps have been successfully removed, archaeologists then have to contend with muddy dig sites.

When the snow melts and it gets underneath your tarps, it all turns to mud, which is tricky, Gary said. Its harder to see and you have to take time to clean in order to see the features again.

But the snow and inclement weather arent always that bad. Sometimes, it works in their favor.

When the snow has fallen and it hasnt yet begun to melt, Gary said it can be a good tool for them to use.

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As the snow settles, it makes it easier to see smaller depressions in the ground that typically cannot be seen with the naked eye. Often, it gives way to more archaeological discoveries as these depressions in the ground indicate different features.

Snow can create a uniform surface across areas and itll settle differently if there are minor depressions on the ground, Gary said. So, spots you may not have been able to see if youre looking at it, suddenly become noticeable.

While the Historic Triangle has seen its fair share of cold, snowy winters, Gary said he is thankful that Virginias climate doesnt allow for the grounds to freeze.

If the grounds were to freeze, like they do in Northern states, the team would have to stop their work and wait for the hard ground to thaw out.

Were at an advantage here, even though its cold, it doesnt get cold enough, regularly, that the ground is frozen solid, Gary said. On occasion, itll freeze and we have to pause but its only for a day or two. Otherwise, we would not be able to work.

Em Holter, emily.holter@virginiamedia.com, 757-256-6657, @EmHolterNews
Snow begins to cling to sidewalks as people walk along West Queens Way in Hampton Friday evening January 21, 2022. (Jonathon Gruenke/Daily Press)

There really wasnt enough snow to make a good snowman on Thursday night, but Dillan Harper-Smith decided to try anyway - thats the kind of thing you do for your 4-year-old.

He started after dark and soon enough Frosty was born. He didnt look quite right, a few too many leaves and a funny-looking stick for an arm, but still it was mission accomplished.

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His daughter didnt have much memory of a good snow, Harper-Smith said. Last year the snow just didnt come to their home in western York County, and the year before, she was too young to remember the wintry weather that did arrive. But when she opened the door to leave for pre-school Friday morning, she was greeted by a snowman crookedly smiling at her.

She was definitely excited, Harper-Smith said.

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If she liked the first Frosty, shes going to love the second one.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 45 Keith Graves uses a sign as a shovel to clear snow from the lot of the RipTide Car Wash in Hampton Saturday morning January 22, 2022. (Jonathon Gruenke/Daily Press)

The winter storm that has forecast for days finally arrived Friday evening, the first major snowfall across Hampton Roads since 2018. The last of the puffy flakes were expected to fall Saturday morning.

The flakes will taper off around sunrise Saturday, said Mike Montefusco, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield. For the most part, it will be over and done with by the time we get to sunrise.

The second punch of the arctic blast, which oozed into Hampton Roads via Texas, began with light flurries Friday afternoon before turning into heavier snowfall after sunset.

Between 4 and 6 inches of snow was expected in Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake with lower accumulations further west, according to a Friday afternoon briefing from the weather service. Around 3 to 4 inches of snow was predicted to hit the southern Peninsula with around 1 to 3 inches on the northern Peninsula.

And almost every bit of it was expected to stick, given that the temperature hovered around freezing all day.

The weather service issued a winter storm warning Thursday afternoon, which prompted school delays, closures and emergency declarations from the governor and Norfolk city manager.

Though freezing rain and flurries Thursday night didnt cause significant snow accumulation, the frigid temperatures created icy road conditions in some areas  particularly secondary roads, bridges and overpasses, Montefusco said. The Virginia Department of Transportation said road temperatures are below freezing, creating potential for slick spots, black ice and slushy conditions.

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Road temps are below freezing on all roads in the area, which means high potential for slick spots, black ice and slushy conditions. Stay home where it's safe and warm, unless travel is unavoidable. If you must go out, reduce speeds and increase space between you and others. pic.twitter.com/0m1CdYbdTt  VDOT Hampton Roads (@VaDOTHR) January 21, 2022

The department urged drivers to avoid nonessential travel during the winter weather. If you must drive, make sure to bring an emergency supply kit  including a flashlight, batteries, jumper cables, warm clothes and boots, a phone charger, ice scraper, snacks and water, according to Readygov.

Ahead of the snowstorm, Hampton Roads braced for the storm by treating bridges, overpasses and major intersections with salt, mixed abrasives and brine.

VDOT has prepared 169 plows and spreaders to deploy once snow accumulation reaches 2 inches. The department also has six tree-cutting crews on hand to assist with downed trees, branches and debris that may fall across roads as a result of wind or heavy snow.

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Crews plow routes where accumulations exceed 2 inches and will continue treating slick spots with salt to break down ice and sand to enhance traction for vehicles, said Holly Christopher, VDOT communications manager.

Hampton Roads cities have also mobilized their own crews to treat roadways.

Local governments also announced closures and began outreach to homeless encampments in the region to distribute supplies and encourage people to seek shelter.

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Norfolk suspended street parking on major thoroughfares to make room for plows.

Correspondent Ben Swenson contributed to this story.

Ali Sullivan, 757-677-1974, ali.sullivan@virginiamedia.com

Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com
The broader market resisted the sell off as the BSE Mid-Cap closed flat down 0.07 per cent and the Smallcap Index was up 0.05 per cent.  Twitter

Mumbai: The market has erased most of its new year gains on fears over a US Fed rate hike and the Covid third wave.The Sensex lost more than a per cent for the third consecutive session to close below the 60000-mark at 59464, down 634 points.

The Sensex has shed close to 2000 points from its January 17 peak of 61308.91. The Nifty-50 fell 181.40 points or 1.01 points to close at 17757.

Foreign portfolio investors have turned net sellers, and on Thursday offloaded shares worth Rs 4,679.884 crore, which led to panic in the market. The Sensex was down 1030 points intraday before a pull back.

The broader market resisted the sell off as the BSE Mid-Cap closed flat down 0.07 per cent and the Smallcap Index was up 0.05 per cent.

"Sentiments were driven negatively by the rising US Treasury yields that has soared to a two-year high of 1.90 per cent. On the backdrop remains the narrative of aggressive US Feds tightening of its monetary policy. The street fears the Federal Reserve will have to accelerate further its tightening pace," said Prashant Tapse, vice president-research, Mehta Equities.

"Rising bond yields are pressuring foreign investors to pull out funds from highly valued markets like India, said Vinod Nair, head of research, Geojit Financial Services.
The real motivation for a state issued digital currency is the desire to link it to a social credit system. Look at China. If the U.S. does a digital dollar, and it becomes required, that would be the final nail in the coffin.

Via: ABC:

The Federal Reserve on Thursday released a highly anticipated report on central bank digital currencies that suggested it is leaning toward having banks and other financial firms, rather than the Fed itself, manage digital accounts for customers.

A central bank digital currency would differ in some key ways from the online and digital payments that millions of Americans already conduct. Those transactions are funneled through banks, which wouldnt be necessary with a digital dollar.

The Feds paper stressed that no final decisions about a digital currency have been reached. But it suggested that a digital currency that would best serve the needs of the nation would follow an intermediated model under which banks or payment firms would create accounts or digital wallets.

The Fed characterized the potential introduction of a digital currency as a step that could have far-reaching consequences for banks and other financial firms as well as for the central bank itself.

The introduction of a (central bank digital currency) would represent a highly significant innovation in American money, the study said. The Fed said it could fundamentally change the structure of the U.S. financial system, altering the roles and responsibilities of the private sector and the central bank.
At least 25 federal agencies have implemented a system to track religious exemption requests for mandated vaccines, according to a review of Federal Register notices by The Epoch Times.

The agencies include the departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, the Treasury, the Social Security Administration, the Federal Election Commission.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, earlier this week found that 19 agencies were either considering or have already implemented the tracking system. The group warned that the system may be a test pilot plan to monitor all federal workers.

An Epoch Time review of Federal Register notices identified six additional agencies and confirmed that a total of 25 are actively tracking religious exemption requests from employees of federal agencies along with any contractors, consultants, interns, and volunteers associated with them.

Due to the Biden administrations choice of the little-known Pretrial Services Agency to implement the database, The Heritage Foundation called the system a test run for a nationwide database of all religious exemption requests made by federal workers. The Pretrial Services Agency gathers information and makes recommendations about newly arrested defendants in the federal criminal system.

It is likely the Biden administration is using these agencies to stealth test a policy it intends to roll out across the whole government, attorneys for the foundation wrote in an analysis of the tracking system.

Notices of the new tracking system were only made public in the Federal Register, the daily journal of the federal government. News of the system drew criticism from conservative officials.

The Biden Administration must immediately dismantle the Orwellian Database, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt wrote in a public comment he posted on regulations.gov. There is no freedom under our Constitution more sacred than the freedom of religious expression and practice.

He called the move alarming and said it had a chilling effect on a citizens exercise of religion. The attorney general directed his comments specifically to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

Rather than give the public ample time to weigh in on the advisability or legality of collecting such personal information, the Department of Transportations database, in particular, became effective on the day it was published, Schmitt said.

Agencies announcing the implementation of the tracking system didnt return requests for comment.

None of the notices published in the Federal Register announcing the tracking systems state why the religious exemptions were being tracked or what the Biden administration plans to do with the information collected.

Descriptions of the religious exemption tracking system dont specifically name the COVID-19 vaccination as one of the mandates. However, the notices do state that the new system is in response to guidelines issued by the newly created Safer Federal Workforce Task Force under Bidens executive order that established the nationwide COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

This system of records maintains personal religious information collected in response to religious accommodation requests for religious exception from the federally mandated vaccination requirement in the context of a public health emergency or similar health and safety incident, such as a pandemic, epidemic, natural disaster or national or regional, one of the notices reads.

The tracking system will include names and personal religious information, according to the notices.

As the nations largest employer, with over four million civilian and military employees, the federal government has received tens of thousands of religious exemption requests, The Heritage Foundation wrote in its updated report.

It now appears that an increasing number of federal agencies are keeping and preserving those individuals names, religious information, personally-identifying information, and other data stored in lists across multiple government agencies.

Last week, the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Bidens executive order that mandated a COVID-19 vaccine or weekly testing workers at private businesses with more than 100 employees.

The court didnt overturn the vaccination mandate for health care workers or military members. Those employees can only avoid the COVID-19 vaccine by applying for a religious exemption.

Correction: a previous version of this article incorrectly described the scope of the Supreme Court decision concerning President Bidens vaccine mandate.
"The bottom line is that our training mission in Ukraine is ongoing," said Lt. Col. Juan Martinez, a spokesman for SOCEUR. "We continue to view our mission in Ukraine as part of an ongoing effort in enhancing Special Operations Forces capabilities as a keystone for regional stability."

There is a renewed focus on the presence of US military personnel in Ukraine as the White House is claiming Russia is preparing to invade the country. Besides the special operations, there are also about 100 US National Guard troops in Ukraine.

US training and support for Ukraines military is a major point of tensions between the US and Russia, and the cooperation goes far beyond the special operators mission. Since the 2014 US-backed coup in Kyiv, the US has provided about $2.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

"The Stuttgart-based SOCEUR has quietly operated out of a training center outside of Kyiv for the past several years," Stars and Stripes notes. "The missions focus is assisting Ukrainian forces to defend more effectively against Russian aggression."

Last week, Yahoo News reported that the CIA has been training Ukrainian paramilitaries at a base inside the United States since 2015. The New York Times reported that the Biden administration is considering backing an insurgency in Ukraine if Russia invades.
That headline provides an instructive lesson in what passes for breaking news today at mainstream media outlets when it comes to Wall Streets megabanks. The majority of Americans arent outraged and demanding that Congress reform Wall Street because mainstream media has overtly decided to keep the public in the dark.

The real breaking news is that despite JPMorgan Chase admitting to five criminal felony counts brought by the U.S. Department of Justice over the past 7 years for rigging markets and laundering money for Bernie Madoff, the financial criminal of the century, the Board of JPMorgan Chase has not sacked Dimon, the man who sat at the helm during this unprecedented crime spree. Instead of sacking Dimon, the Board of the largest federally-insured, taxpayer-backstopped bank in the United States has made Dimon a billionaire.

The Board of JPMorgan Chase seems to have adopted a compensation model based on the more felony counts, the bigger the paycheck. Consider the following: On September 29, 2020, the Justice Department charged JPMorgan Chase with two felony counts, to which it admitted, and fined the bank $920 million of shareholders money to settle its fourth and fifth felony counts since 2014. One felony count was for rigging the precious metals markets while the other was for rigging the U.S. Treasury market  the market that allows the federal government to pay its bills.

Rigging the U.S. Treasury market used to be a big deal with splashy headlines. But on September 29, 2020 the Justice Department didnt even hold its usual press conference to announce the charges against JPMorgan Chase and not one newspaper thought to mention that these were the fourth and fifth felony counts during the tenure of Dimon. Nor did any newspaper mention that the bank had admitted to all five criminal counts while being repeatedly put on probation by the Justice Department but continuing its crime spree. (See JPMorgan Chases unprecedented rap sheet under Dimon here.)

Now heres where you need to pay close attention. Just 10 months after the bank admitted to its fourth and fifth felony counts, the Board of JPMorgan Chase gave Dimon a bonus of 1.5 million stock options, which had a value of $50 million on paper, according to a specialist cited at Bloomberg News. In its filing with the SEC announcing the stock award, the Board wrote this:

This special award reflects the Boards desire for Mr. Dimon to continue to lead the Firm for a further significant number of years. In making the special award, the Board considered the importance of Mr. Dimons continuing, long-term stewardship of the Firm, leadership continuity, and management succession planning amidst a highly competitive landscape for executive leadership talent.

If JPMorgan Chase had a properly functioning Board, and the Justice Department had a properly functioning criminal division, Dimon would have been forced out in 2013 when the U.S. Senates Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 300-page report detailing how the bank had lied to its regulators as it used depositors money from its federally-insured bank to gamble in derivatives in London and lose $6.2 billion. The FBI investigated that matter and yet the Justice Department brought no criminal charges.

The JPMorgan Board had its second opportunity to fire Dimon when the bank admitted to its first two felony counts in 2014 for its outrageous handling of the business bank account of Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff.

The Board had its third chance to fire Dimon the very next year when the bank pleaded guilty to its role in a bank cartel (actually called The Cartel) that rigged the foreign currency market.

Based on the banks fourth and fifth felony counts in 2020 and the $50 million bonus to Dimon from the Board 10 months later to keep Dimon at the helm for a significant number of years, its pretty clear that criminal activity is perceived by the Board of JPMorgan Chase as an accepted business model as long as the stock price keeps going up. (The outside Board members at JPMorgan Chase receive an annual stock award of $250,000 on top of other fees. In 2020, five members of JPMorgan Chases Board received over $400,000 in total annual compensation.)

The words independent director appears 73 times in the most recent proxy statement that JPMorgan Chase filed with the SEC. The bank calls all non-management members of its Board of Directors independent, writing in its proxy statement year after year that they had only immaterial relationships with JPMorgan Chase and accordingly were independent directors.

In October of 2020, we took a close look at those immaterial relationships some of the Board members had with the Bank. You can decide for yourself if this is a Board that you would feel comfortable calling independent.


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The study found that Sputnik V vaccine demonstrates more than 2 times higher levels of virus neutralising antibodies to Omicron variant than two doses of Pfizer vaccine. (Photo: PTI/File)

Moscow: The levels of Omicron-neutralising antibodies of people vaccinated with two doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine did not decline as much as of those who had Pfizer shots, according to a small study.

The joint Russian-Italian study -- funded by the Russian Direct Investment Fund which markets Sputnik V -- compared the blood serum samples of people taken three to six months after the second dose of the two vaccines.

The yet-to-be peer-reviewed study, posted on the preprint repository MedRxiv on January 19, was conducted by scientists from the Spallanzani Institute in Italy and Gamaleya Institute in Russia, the developer of the vaccine.

The study found that Sputnik V vaccine demonstrates more than 2 times higher levels of virus neutralising antibodies to Omicron variant than two doses of Pfizer vaccine.

The research was conducted on comparable blood samples from 51 people vaccinated with Sputnik V and 17 with the Pfizer preventive with a similar level of neutralising antibodies against the original Wuhan variant.

"Sputnik V shows significantly smaller (2.6 times) reduction of virus neutralising activity against Omicron as compared to reference Wuhan variant," the authors of the study noted.

"The vaccine showed an 8.1-fold reduction of virus neutralising activity against Omicron as against 21.4-fold reduction for Pfizer vaccine," they said.

The study demonstrates that Sputnik V neutralises the Omicron variant by inducing robust antibody response associated with high levels of protection.

"Among the top quartile of individuals with high receptor-binding domain (RBD)-specific IgG antibodies, 100 per cent of those vaccinated with Sputnik V were able to neutralise Omicron variant in comparison to 83.3 per cent of individuals vaccinated with Pfizer," the researchers said.

RBD is a key part of a virus located on its 'spike' protein that allows it to enter and infect the human cells.

"Among all samples, 74.2 per cent of Sputnik V-vaccinated sera were able to neutralise Omicron vs 56.9 per cent for Pfizer-vaccinated," they said.

An earlier study by the Gamaleya Institute, also posted on MedRxiv, showed that a booster shot of Sputnik Light vaccine provided a stronger antibody response against Omicron than the two-dose Sputnik V vaccine alone.

"Today the necessity of third booster vaccination is obvious. And the most effective approach, already shown in several studies, is the use of heterologous booster vaccination pioneered in COVID-19 vaccines by Sputnik V," the authors of the study added.
Madurai: Police have arrested a man for attacking bulls with a stick in Palamedu Jallikattu in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu, said V Baskaran, Madurai Superintendent of Police (SP) on Thursday.

A case has been registered under the 'Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act' for attacking bulls on January 15.

"A case has been registered under 'Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act' against a person for attacking bulls with a stick in Palamedu Jallikattu. Following this, Madurai Police conducted an investigation and arrested him, said the SP.

Jallikattu is a traditional bull-taming sport in Tamil Nadu played as part of the harvest festival, Pongal, in several parts of the state. In the sport, a bull is released into a crowd and multiple human participants try to grab the bull's hump in order to tame it.
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Puducherry: The opposition DMK on Friday slammed the AINRC headed NDA government here for 'ignoring' the woes of farmers in the Union Territory.

DMK opposition Leader in the territorial Assembly R Siva said in a release that farmers were now facing hardship in storing paddy and the six procurement centres the government had promises were yet be opened.

"Middlemen are trying to exploit the situation and purchase the paddy at an exceptionally low price," he claimed.

While the government had fixed Rs 20.51 as the price per kilo of paddy, middlemen were pestering the farmers to dispose the paddy harvested during the current samba season at Rs 16 a kilo.

"The procurement centres should be opened without delay," Siva said.

He also said that although the government had promised waiver of loans, farmers have borrowed from cooperative societies. The societies' managements state that there was no official order to them to write off the loans.

The banks were also not extending fresh crop loans, the DMK leader alleged.

Siva expressed dismay over the government's continued negligence of the farmers.
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Police are searching for 25-year-old Jesse James Chambers.

On Monday, police received a complaint of a 2021 domestic assault involving Chambers. Officers couldnt find him, so a warrant has been issued for his arrest.

SUBMITTED Jesse James Chambers

If you have information about this or any other crime you are asked to contact Brandon Crime Stoppers at 204-727-TIPS (8477), brandoncrimestoppers.com or by texting BCSTIP+your message to CRIMES (274637). Crime Stoppers does not subscribe to call display. Your call is not recorded and your identity will remain anonymous. Crime Stoppers will pay up to $2,000 cash for information that leads to the solution of a crime.

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The new agriculture minister is returning to his farming roots as he looks to foster business growth in the province, the recovery of feed and herds to farmers, and preparing for drought ahead of the growing season.

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ALEX LUPUL/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS (FILE) Derek Johnson is the new minister of agriculture.

The new agriculture minister is returning to his farming roots as he looks to foster business growth in the province, the recovery of feed and herds to farmers, and preparing for drought ahead of the growing season.

Following the provincial governments cabinet shuffle on Tuesday, Derek Johnson shared his outlook for Manitoba farmers this year.

"First of all, I want to thank the premier for entrusting me with a very important position like agriculture, and Im proud to serve under the first female premier of Manitoba," Johnson told the Sun.

"I would be remiss if I didnt mention how hard [former] minister [Ralph] Eichler and his department have been a champion for agriculture in Manitoba and quite frankly his ripple effect felt across the country."

Johnson, the MLA for Interlake-Gimli, previously served as the minister of municipal relations. Now, he is excited to take on a new portfolio and recognized this is a critical time for the agriculture sector.

"I have very large connections with the beef producers in my area, and bringing their voice forward has always been something that I was proud of," Johnson said.

"Its one of the main parts of the GDP flowing out of the Interlake. This last year, I believe, agriculture represented 11.5 per cent of our GDP, and thats a huge portion of our provincial jobs at 7.5 per cent and almost 50,000 jobs that are directly in farming. Its a huge part of Manitobas economy, and we need to make sure that it not only survives but thrives."

Johnson wants to begin his new position by helping the province attract more ag businesses to Manitoba.

"These businesses, of course, include farmers, but also attracting businesses like Roquette and Merit or dozens more that create the value added right here in Manitoba," Johnson said.

"When you can use our products locally and put [out] a final product in Manitoba, youre not paying the shipping to haul that out of the province to have that value added there. Small things like having those [production] plants here prevent the farmers from having to haul their final product so far."

Johnson said the increase in demand for local processing plants has helped with farm cash receipts across the province and has found both animal and plant protein are key to a sustainable industry going forward. He said recognizing how climate change will affect where businesses want to set up in Canada can bode well for the province based on its energy rates.

"If we make the environment for businesses to come to Manitoba, we have the cheapest power probably across Canada with low hydro costs and access to all the trucking industries. All those added up, to keep the product in Manitoba and have a final product that we sell is very important. When the farmers have a good year, the provincial government has a good year."

Going into 2022, the minister addressed the readiness to help producers in need, should the province face drought conditions similar to last year. The challenges of both overland flooding in 2011 and droughts struck a chord with Johnson, as he explained how it got him interested in serving the public.

"I grew up on the farm in the Interlake, on the shores of Lake Manitoba, and in 2010 and 2014, I served as a municipal councillor," Johnson said.

"For all the farmers there that went underwater, it took years for that land to recover, so we do have issues with excess water but also drought. In the last couple of years, I personally toured many farms and I was pleased to attend with the Honourable [federal agriculture] Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau to make her aware of the dire situation. My commitment to my constituents is to bring their voice forward and continue to work on programming that helps them get through this."

One such program that will be a key focus for this year is the rebuilding the herd program under the AgriRecovery framework. Johnson explained how the program is adding to feed and trade assistance with more than $150 million committed thus far and is in place to help livestock farmers who struggled to maintain and purchase enough feed for their entire herds.

"The final piece of the puzzle is were offering a unique herd management program to support producers who had to make those tough decisions on breeding stock and were going to help them rebuild their herd after they have the capabilities to feed them at home.

"If there was a farmer that had to sell half of their herd because they only had enough feed for the other half of that herd  say they had 400 and they had to sell 200 of them  this will help them rebuild their herd, whether its cattle, bison, elk, sheep, goats, its not just straight beef."

The program will continue through Dec. 31 as of now, and Johnson is encouraging farmers to use the program that many might not be aware of after they seek assistance in feeding their herds.

"You also have to understand that its very emotional for a farmer to sell their herd because that is their breeding stock and they have selected genetics over the years to build what they feel is the nicest animal available for sale. Selling their calves is one thing cause thats income, but selling a herd is hard because its a part of them and their family."

Across Manitoba, the government has started the process of eliminating education tax on farmland over 10 years. After removing 25 per cent in the most recent property tax year in the plan, Johnson said the province will consider options when discussing how much will be removed in 2022.

"We removed 25 per cent in the first year, but with COVID and a lot of the spending we have now, we will have to revisit whether we will do another 25 or 10 per cent this year. I understand how important that is to farmers where their profits are eroded by local taxation."

Additionally, Johnson said he will meet with Bibeau in the coming weeks to discuss making changes to the federal restrictions in regards to truck drivers crossing the American border and the current vaccine requirement. He said he is aware of the potential supply chain issues should policies stay in place.

"Our province supports mandatory testing, and mandatory vaccines are putting some restrictions on drivers crossing. Its not something that we can change provincially, but I am attempting to have a call this coming week with Minister Bibeau, and this will be a part of our conversation."

In a study published by the provincial government, entitled "Manitoba Agricultural Labour Forecast to 2025," the province has found since 2011, nearly 61 per cent of the Manitoba agricultural workforce has remained in the age bracket of 45 and older. The same study finds by the year 2025, 30 per cent of those people will have retired. Going into the next few years, the minister would like to see the younger generation recognize the importance of contributing to this sector of the economy.

"To encourage younger farmers to get into agriculture, we do have some incentives for them; we have a special loans program for them through Manitoba Agriculture Services Corporation which allows them to purchase land even from family members that are looking to retire," Johnson said.

"I do feel that a lot of my constituents are definitely in the majority of being older than myself. I just turned 51 the other day. It is a concern as we still have a planet to feed. We need to make sure our ag sector is profitable enough to justify somebody borrowing those large sums of money to get into farming."

Johnson said it is his goal to keep the province in consultation with both grain and beef producers in the new year and will tour the province in the coming months to help keep agriculture sustainable for everyone in Manitoba.

 jbernacki@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @JosephBernacki
Australian miner Rio Tintos plans to build a new lithium project have been thrown into disarray after Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic revoked the companys permits.

Rio Tinto is seeking to develop the $US2.4 billion ($3.3 billion) Jadar mine in western Serbia as part of its foray into lithium, a sought-after battery raw material that will be needed in increasingly vast quantities as carmakers roll out millions of electric vehicles in coming years.

A man holds a banner that reads: Rio Tinto go away! during a protest against the companys plans to build a lithium mine in the Jadar Valley. Credit:AP/Darko Vojinovic

However, the project has been facing intensifying local opposition in Serbia and large-scale protests in recent months, with campaigners calling on the government to cancel the project amid concerns about the potentially harmful environmental impact of mining in the agricultural region.

The decision to revoke Rio Tintos licences comes with the Serbian government under significant public pressure ahead of a general election in April. Relations between Serbia and Australia have also deteriorated since the deportation of unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic.
Book reviewers Lucy Sussex and Steven Carroll consider a mix of fiction and non-fiction releases. Here are their picks from the bunch.

Credit:

FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK

Lily: A Tale of Revenge, Rose Tremain, Chatto & Windus, $32.99

Rose Tremain is a novelist who knows what she is doing, in structure and prose. Her Lily is neo-Victoriana, Tremain nailing the abused-child trope beloved of Dickens. Lily is a baby abandoned to the London Foundling Hospital.

Its charity is cruel, and Lily grows up merciless. Her aim is revenge on her unknown mother, but should that fail, she will find another outlet for her rage. The book is written as a mystery, though not a whodunnit, despite a policeman as a central character. It is full of acute observations: the joys of closely observed nature; seedy London, and lost crafts. A horrific tale of child abuse is told, with sins that even Dickens would not name. And yet, for all the virtues of the work, something indefinable seems lacking.
After a spate of violent relationships, Kallista Mutten thought shed found true love.

The mother gushed to a friend that she was engaged, happy and loving life in the Blue Mountains. Her fiance Justin Stein  the privately-educated son of two prominent Sydney antique dealers  was the man of her dreams, she said in a series of Facebook messages obtained by the Herald.

Kallista Mutten and Justin Stein.

Hes amazing and treats me so good. Hes completely loyal and I have no worries, I know his heart is with me, she told her friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of her safety after Ms Muttens daughter Charlise was allegedly murdered and dumped in a barrel by Mr Stein on a Blue Mountains river last week.

The couple had met while Ms Mutten was in prison, where she served a three-year sentence for causing a car crash that killed her passenger while high on ice in 2017.
Sydney doctors are giving children coronavirus vaccines three weeks apart so students are double-dosed for the start of school with the Premier acknowledging some parents and teachers are anxious about returning to the classroom.

Most clinics, including state-run hubs, vaccinate children aged five to 11 with two doses delivered eight weeks apart, in line with recommendations by the national vaccine advisory group ATAGI.

One Sydney clinic has reduced its vaccination interval for children, ahead of the return of schools later this month. Credit:AP

Staff at OConnell Street Clinic in Sydneys CBD decided to opt for a shorter interval, practice manager Michelle Horswood said. This is in line with ATAGIs advice it could be shortened to three weeks when necessary, such as in an outbreak response or for immunocompromised children.

I would think that we are in the middle of an outbreak, and the federal government has told us that the vaccine supply is adequate, so we are going to do it at this interval, she said.
We offer our sincere condolences to the family [whom] we remain in contact with and continue to support. Its believed the babys death is the youngest COVID-19 fatality recorded in NSW. It comes after a three-year-old with a rare genetic condition died with COVID-19 earlier in the month. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said at a media briefing on Friday that the slight decline in the number of people with COVID-19 in the states hospitals provides some reassurance that the strain on the healthcare system would be less than the best-case scenario modelled.

Modelling released by NSW Health two weeks ago presented three possible peaks for the states hospitalisation and intensive care numbers. In the best-case scenario  modelled on outbreaks in London and Gauteng province in South Africa  a peak of 270 intensive care beds and 3158 ward beds would be needed for COVID-positive patients. There were also encouraging signs regarding staff furloughs  with the number of health staff unable to work due to COVID-19 exposure dropping from about 6000 to 5000 over the past week, he said. NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant added, It is pleasing to see that a variety of indicators demonstrate that the spread of COVID is slowing in the community. She noted this was indicated by hospitalisations, staff furloughs, testing data and the case positivity rate. Dr Chant said high numbers of deaths from COVID-19 were likely to be recorded over the coming weeks, due to the lag between diagnosis and death. Of the deaths reported on Friday, seven were recorded prior to this week and had been determined to be COVID-19 deaths following coronial investigations.

Loading Unfortunately, the death numbers will likely to remain high but my message is that we can turn that around by ... getting that booster with a real sense of urgency, she said. Federal police have launched investigations into rapid antigen test price gouging, warning that individuals and businesses reselling COVID-19 tests for 20 per cent more than the original retail purchase price face up to five years prison. Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan said there would be zero tolerance for those who were found to be profiteering from the at-home test kits. He said two investigations, in Queensland and NSW, into inflated pricing of rapid antigen tests had begun after referrals from the Australias consumer watchdog.

The AFP will use its full powers to crack down on RAT price gouging. Not only is price gouging of RATs unethical but it is illegal, and the AFP will use its significant resources to ensure it protects the public from the unlawful greed of others, he said. Commonwealth and state agencies are working together on this issue and, under Taskforce LOTUS, the AFP makes no apologies for upholding the law to help keep Australians safe. Those who breach the law face penalties of up to five years jail or a $66,000 fine. My message is clear: do not risk jail time or a significant fine for a few extra dollars. The federal police have the power to investigate claims of price gouging when a retailer or individual buys rapid antigen tests from another retailer and sells them with a mark-up of more than 20 per cent. It does not apply to retailers who buy from a wholesaler.

Loading The investigations come after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission received more than 2000 reports of rapid tests being sold for as much as $100 a test, despite costing between $3.95 and $11.45 at a wholesale level. Competition watchdog chairman Rod Sims has warned retailers selling rapid antigen tests for more than $20 that they must urgently explain the inflated price tag as part of the ACCCs crackdown on operators seeking to take advantage of the shortage of tests. Meanwhile, Western Australia has moved to scrap its planned February 5 date for the dismantling of its hard border. Premier Mark McGowan said the delay was due to the new threat of Omicron, which has changed everything.
A teenager has been charged with murder after a 16-year-old boy was stabbed outside a Sunshine Coast home overnight.

Emergency services were called to the Buddina home about 11.20pm on Thursday. Paramedics found the victim with a severe wound on his torso and, despite their efforts, he died at the scene.

Police arrested a 17-year-old male, who was charged with murder on Friday morning. His case was heard in the Maroochydore Childrens Court on Friday where he was remanded in custody until March.

Police have recovered a knife believed to have been used in the incident. The victim and the accused, who remained at the scene, were known to each other.

Detective Senior Sergeant Phil Hurst said the pair met outside the victims house before a fight erupted over interpersonal dispute around relationships.
A Brisbane handyman replying to an Airtasker ad used a wrecking bar to remove asbestos from a home, throwing dangerous asbestos particles into the air.

Joseph Wolf Owais was sentenced in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to breaches of Queenslands work health and safety laws.

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland confirmed the owner of the Paddington home was not prosecuted.

Mr Owais - who has trade qualifications but is not licensed to remove asbestos - responded to an Airtasker advertisement in July 2019 for asbestos removal at a Paddington house.

Over three days, Mr Owais and his assistant removed almost 37 square metres of asbestos-containing material and disposed of it in what the court ruled was an uncontained and unlabelled manner.
In a race to get to a hospital in time with his pregnant wife, a Brisbane father delivered his baby son in the front seat while stopped in the car park.

Brisbane couple Madhavi Leuke Bandara and Shyam Kottegoda will never forget the remarkable birth.

Madhavi Leuke Bandara and Shyam Kottegoda were waiting for the day their baby, overdue by almost one week, would arrive.

But they were not expecting he would be born in the car park at the Mater Mothers Hospital.

Ms Leuke Bandaras water broke on Thursday morning and the couple had to race to drop their daughter Buvi off to daycare before rushing to the hospital.
Restaurant and Catering Industry Australia chief executive Wes Lambert said vaccine mandates in Victoria had previously coincided with restrictions on businesses, such as capacity limits. Its very important that if the definition of fully vaccinated changes to three doses that it is not done in a way that puts more pressure onto the hospitality industry, he said. As we have clearly seen, having a high vaccination rate doesnt necessarily mean that Victoria is living with COVID given the current restrictions on business in the Omicron wave. He said he appreciated the pre-announcement consultation.

Earlier this week, Premier Daniel Andrews foreshadowed changes to the definition of who is fully vaccinated, saying the booster was set to be upgraded from an optional extra to a requirement of being fully immunised. This is not an option, not an add-on, not a good thing to have, Mr Andrews said. I think were close to a change in policy that will simply reflect the fact that in order to be fully protected, you need three doses. Mary Aldred, the chief executive of the Franchise Council of Australia, which represents small businesses in the retail, hospitality, services and fitness sector, said the government needed to clarify which industries and consumers would be required to have a third dose. Theres a lot of detail yet to be worked through, both for workers and consumers in particular industry sectors, she said.

She questioned how the Services Victoria app would be updated to denote that a person has received a third dose. University of Melbourne epidemiologist Tony Blakely said the app needed to be updated in the next month or so to show who had received a booster. We need to change the architecture of that vaccine passport so we can deploy it if we need in the future, he said. If we need to dampen the brakes in the future, you use it then. The change comes as the West Australian Premier, Mark McGowan, made an 80 or 90 per cent rate of booster shots a condition of reopening his state. But there are concerns Victorians could be becoming complacent about booster shots, with Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton warning that the messaging about Omicron had been oversimplified.

It is less severe than Delta, thats for sure, but it is not a mild virus, he said. Weve got record numbers of deaths in NSW. Weve got deaths in Victoria that are reaching the kind of levels that we had when we had an entirely unvaccinated population. Australians received a record number of COVID-19 vaccinations on Thursday, as the country passed 6 million booster shots and more children received their first vaccine dose. There were 353,190 doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered at state-run clinics, GPs and pharmacies across the country. More than 2.4 million Victorians are eligible for their third vaccine, on the basis of the federal government definition that they had their second dose at least four months ago. As of Wednesday this week, about 59 per cent of this cohort, or more than 1.4 million, had received their booster shot. The proportion of the total Australian population over 12 who have received a booster is 26.5 per cent. Dr Anita Munoz, the Victorian chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, would like the proportion of eligible Victorians whod received their booster to be higher, but said lack of enthusiasm from the public wasnt to blame. At her Melbourne clinic, the next available vaccination appointment is more than a month away. Dr Munoz said the majority of GPs she had spoken were also booked out days or weeks in advance and she called on the federal government to send clinics more vaccines in each delivery.

If we get more supply we will do more vaccinations, she said. Loading University of South Australia epidemiologist Adrian Esterman said it was important that the government continued requiring people to check in to venues using QR codes. He said theyd become useful again if a new variant arrived and would help contact tracers when case numbers returned to a more manageable level. It is another public health measure that is not a huge imposition, he said. A Department of Health spokesman said checking into venues helped health officials manage outbreaks and superspreader events and allowed Victorians to show their vaccination status.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has taken a battering from voters over his handling of the pandemic during a time of heightened anxiety over the Omicron strain and fury over the home testing kit shortage.

Voters used to say Morrison and the Coalition were listening to them and focused on the right issues. He led on this measure by 13 percentage points last May when case numbers were down and budget spending was up.

Now Anthony Albanese and Labor hold the upper hand on the same question.

Today on Please Explain, chief political correspondent David Crowe joins Tory Maguire to explain the political climate with data from the Resolve Political Monitor, a national sample collected monthly by Resolve Strategic on behalf of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Australia will spend more than half a billion dollars upgrading ports in Papua New Guinea in a bid to strengthen trade ties and ward off investment from other nations, including China.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and PNG Prime Minister James Marape met virtually on Friday to sign agreements for $580 million in upgrades and refurbishments to several priority ports, through a series of loans and grants.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has signed a deal to upgrade Papua New Guineas ports. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The funding comes as Australia has committed to spending more in the Pacific to counter the influence of China, which has been accused of using debt trap diplomacy to saddle poorer nations with expensive projects they cannot afford.

This is about enabling, supporting the sovereignty and the independence and the self-sufficiency of Papua New Guinea, and that has always been our absolute goal with all of our support interventions and assistance, Mr Morrison said.
China, Iran, Russia hold second joint naval exercise

Xinhua) 08:28, January 21, 2022

BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- China, Iran and Russia held a second maritime exercise from Tuesday to Thursday at the waters of the Gulf of Oman, according to China's Ministry of National Defense.

The Chinese side sent a missile destroyer, a supply ship and helicopters, as well as 40 members of the Chinese navy marine corps, to participate in the exercise, the ministry said.

The joint exercise aimed to deepen practical cooperation among the three navies, and show the willingness and capabilities of the three countries to jointly safeguard maritime security and build a maritime community with a shared future, the ministry said.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
George Christensen will pursue a post-parliamentary career in journalism, he told an online forum featuring a whos who of right-wing provocateurs on Friday.

Disgraced former Hillsong and C3 Churches pastor Pat Mesiti moderated the Prayer and Pushback forum, which also featured government senators Alex Antic and Matt Canavan, Liberal-turned-United Australia Party MP Craig Kelly and One Nations Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts, among other activists and evangelists.

Former Hillsong pastor Pat Mesiti interviews Dawson LNP MP George Christensen in the Prayer and Pushback online event. Credit:Screenshot

The longest speaking slot  more than 30 minutes  was given to vaccine sceptic Robert Kennedy jnr, the nephew of assassinated US president John F Kennedy and son of JFKs brother, Robert F Kennedy, who was also murdered.

Mr Christensen, who will not seek re-election in the central Queensland seat of Dawson at this years election, told the forum he planned to return to his journalistic roots.
The Queensland government will provide additional information to Australias competition watchdog over claims rapid antigen tests have been diverted from suppliers who had existing contracts in place.

Queensland Rail was expecting to receive 34,000 RATs in two batches for its train crew to help keep train services running until those orders went unfilled.

The setback fuelled recent claims  all denied by the federal government  that RATs have been quietly commandeered by the commonwealth under emergency stockpiling legislation.

Thousands of rapid antigen tests arrived in Melbourne this week. Credit:Health Department

On Thursday, the federal government issued a statement saying it would refer such claims, from the private sector and the Queensland government, to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate.
Not ready to go on an overseas holiday? The best spots to holiday at home have been ranked, and buyers can snap up a bolthole for as little as $240,000.

The Gold Coast took out fourth place on TripAdvisors 2022 Travellers Choice Awards for the South Pacific, a ranking based on reviews by travellers.

The Gold Coast was the highest-ranked Australian city on a new list of top holiday destinations.

It was followed by Hobart (5), Sydney (6), Port Douglas (7), Cairns (8) and Melbourne (9).

Queenstown in New Zealand took the top spot, and other international destinations included Bora Bora (2), Auckland (3) and Rotorua (10).
API Holdings RetailIO, the digital platform, which connects pharmacies and wholesalers, said it has successfully conducted drone deliveries in Karnatakas Gauribidanur in collaboration with healthcare autonomous drone logistics company Redwing Labs.

The pilot was focused on delivering critical lifesaving medicines to hospitals in under 10 minutes, maintaining the cold chain and all the norms. The team conducted four trips with different product mixes. The pilot took place between Gauribidanur and Hossur Primary Healthcare centre (PHC) in Chickkaballapur district using a Hybrid VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) drone with a Payload capacity of up to 2 kgs. With an average speed of 90 kmph the drone covered an aerial distance of about 10 km under 8 minutes.

We believe autonomous drone systems are the future and will help the ecosystem get better. This is the future and we will continue to focus on such kinds of innovations, said Harsh Parekh, co-founder, API Holdings. The VTOL drone was used in the demonstration and is 100 per cent electric. Drone-based delivery networks could result in over 90 per cent reduction in carbon emissions compared to using vans and cars

Mithil Jain, CEO, RetailIO 1P said the vision to integrate drones in the healthcare ecosystem is a critical step towards efficient medicine delivery. We feel autonomous drones at scale would bring in a lot of disruption in healthcare delivery, said Jain. With an exceptional response time, life-saving medicines can be delivered at lightning speeds. The success of the pilot opens up tremendous opportunities to provide exceptional service and healthcare supplies to the remotest part of the country.

This trial opens up a plethora of opportunities in improving healthcare delivery for multiple stakeholders. This together with numerous such applications has tremendous potential to augment the entire ecosystem. Limited access is one of the most serious concerns in Indian healthcare. For every 10,000 people, India has only about 9 doctors, compared to 26 and 20 doctors per 10,000 people in the US and China respectively. In rural areas, only four doctors are available for every 10,000 people. As a result, only 11 out of 29 states in India meet the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation of 1:1000 doctor to population ratio and 10 Indian states face a shortage of doctors at a primary care level.
Elon Musk-run brain-machine interface company Neuralink is preparing to launch clinical trials that will implant brain chips in humans.

According to dailymail.co.uk, the firm is hiring a clinical trial director, which says the right candidate will "work closely with some of the most innovative doctors and top engineers, as well as working with Neuralink's first Clinical Trial participants".

"As the clinical trial director, you will work closely with some of the most innovative doctors and top engineers, as well as working with Neuralink's first clinical trial participants," the advert for the role in Fremont, California, says.

"You will lead and help build the team responsible for enabling Neuralink's clinical research activities and developing the regulatory interactions that come with a fast-paced and ever-evolving environment."

Since launching publicly in 2017, Neuralink has demoed its brain implant in pigs and monkeys.

The main aim of the project is to provide a direct connection between a brain and a computer to overcome the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI), using a "sewing machine-like" device to stitch threads to an implanted brain chip.

Musk recently said that Neuralink's brain chip technology would allow people to stream music into their brains effortlessly.

Musk confirmed the feature recently over an exchange with a Twitter user who asked: "If we implement Neuralink - can we listen to music directly from our chips? Great feature."

Musk replied with a simple, "yes".

He has also confirmed that the chip would be able to control hormone levels, which would have the potential to help with anxiety relief, among other things.

Musk has often criticized the over-reliance on AI and the potential danger it poses. He recently claimed that AI will be "vastly smarter" than any human and would overtake us by 2025

--IANS

wh/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.)
Independent directors of Future Retail Ltd (FRL) have asked to confirm by Saturday that it will infuse Rs 3,500 crore into the cash-strapped retailer in order to repay FRL's lenders by January 29, 2022, according to sources.

Responding to Amazon's letter, the independent directors of FRL said while they are willing to assess proposals that are comprehensive and provide a solution for banks, employees, vendors, and other stakeholders, and that any assessment of proposals will be subject to FRL's legal obligations.

On January 19, had written to the independent directors of FRL reiterating its willingness to assist the Mumbai-based company in addressing its financial concerns.

The independent directors, in their letter to on Friday, said FRL is in need for cash infusion urgently, and is required to pay Rs 3,500 crore by January 29, 2022, failing which it will be classified as an NPA (non-performing asset).

"Since you are objecting to the sale of small-format sales, the proceeds of which were to be used to repay lenders and thereby avoid NPA classification, please confirm that you are willing to fund this amount by Monday (January 24) through an unsecured, long-term loan, subordinated to FRL's existing lenders or any other mutually suitable and legally acceptable structure.

"If you do so, FRL will use such funds in order to repay FRL's existing lenders," the letter, a copy of which was seen by PTI, said.

They added that Amazon is also free to engage with the lenders, so that FRL does not "fall foul of our OTR process or obligations".

They further asked Amazon to provide the confirmations sought by tomorrow January 22, 2022, following which they are open to assessing a detailed proposal.

E-mails sent to Amazon and Future group seeking comments on the matter did not elicit a response.

Earlier this month, Future Retail had said it had missed the due date for the payment of Rs 3,494.56 crore to banks and lenders as it could not sell assets due to its ongoing litigation with Amazon, impacting its monetisation plans.

In its January 19 letter, Amazon had said it has become aware from certain media sources that FRL is proposing to sell its small-format stores, comprising the 'Easyday' and 'Heritage Fresh' brands. It had emphasised that any sale of small-format stores by the company without the consent of the US e-commerce giant would be in violation of injunctions.

It had also reiterated its willingness to assist the cash-strapped retailer in addressing its financial concerns, and said: "We reiterate our willingness and ability to assist FRL in addressing any financial concerns of FRL, within the framework of the agreements, including the solution proposed in the term sheet between Samara Capital, and FRL, which contemplated an infusion of Rs 7,000 crore in FRL."



On this, the independent directors asked Amazon to confirm if it can act on behalf of Samara Capital and has the authority to negotiate and finalise such a transaction on its behalf.

"Amazon's transaction in Future Coupons has resulted in regulatory scrutiny, including by the Competition Commission of India, as well as enquiries by the Enforcement Directorate.

"It is therefore critical that any investment being proposed is in compliance with all applicable laws, including FDI laws, CCI regulations and Sebi regulations, and that any such transaction should not raise further regulatory scrutiny," the independent directors said.

FRL has always acted in compliance with applicable laws in letter and spirit and will continue to do so, they added.

Future and Amazon have been locked in a bitter legal tussle after the US e-commerce giant dragged Future Group to arbitration at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) in October 2020. Amazon argued that FRL had violated their contract by entering into a deal for the sale of its assets to billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail on a slump sale basis for Rs 24,713 crore.

Earlier this month, Future Retail had said it had missed the due date for the payment of Rs 3,494.56 crore to banks and lenders as it could not sell assets due to its ongoing litigation with Amazon, impacting its monetisation plans.

In December, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) had suspended the 2019 approval for Amazon's deal to acquire a 49 per cent stake in Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL), FRL's promoter, while slapping a penalty of Rs 202 crore on the e-commerce major.

The CCI order has been challenged by Amazon before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, which has issued a notice to the fair trade regulator and FCPL.

The NCLAT has directed to list the matter on February 2 for the next hearing.

(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.)
With an aim to be a player in the open innovation space, IncubateHub has announced its plan to launch 9 Thematic Demand-Led Accelerators with the Strategic backing of Venture Catalysts (VCats) and 9Unicorns. The company will launch specific solutions for the growing CVC market in Asia, to assist corporates in that are strategic to the company's 10-year plan.

The platform has witnessed a 4x growth in the number of corporates, startups, and investors participating on its platform in 2021. Over one lakh corporate professionals, startups, and other ecosystem players used IncubateHub for various services, from using white-labelled portals for open innovation management to getting a group of dedicated analysts, community managers, and program managers to drive corporate accelerator programs.

Founded in 2016 by industry veterans and startup evangelists Rajiv Mukherjee, Uday Vipra, and Pradeep, IncubateHub is akin to US-based innovation platform Plug and Play Tech Centre. The Bangalore-based firm provides open innovation and corporate venturing management-as-a-Service for corporate professionals, investors, and ecosystem players. It connects large corporates with a curated community of deep tech to help them create a proof of concept, accelerate solution development, drive digital transformation and build capacity.

With just three corporate programs in 2016, IncubateHub has achieved to carry out over 480 open innovation programs with over 76 and conducted over 986 paid pilot projects. In 2021, the platform onboarded 86 startup partners and helped them secure Rs 280 million of paid pilot projects, among which six have progressed to be long-term vendor contracts.

Last year was phenomenal for IncubateHub as it achieved some key milestones, including launching Asia's first Enterprise SaaS platform for managing open innovation programs, managing global corporate programs for some marquee logos like Mondelez, P&G, Telstra in Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Egypt, Eastern Europe, LATAM, and North America.

Rajiv Mukherjee, Co-founder, IncubateHub, said, "As its name suggests, open innovation refers to a process where an organization does not solely rely on its internal knowledge, sources, and resources for innovation of products, services, business models, etc. It promotes innovation outside of the company to achieve new products, new verticals, or to innovate. We are helping the ecosystem stakeholders to work on ideas, test, pivot, and launch products and services that are globally scalable. We want to be the largest such platform in the world."

The corporate innovation market is estimated at a little over $200 million and is expected to reach ~$750 million by 2023, growing at 27% CAGR. IncubateHub is well-positioned to capitalize on the immense potential in this sector, Mukherjee said.

David Jakubovic, Director R&D Open Innovation Asia at P&G, said, "While global P&G teams were already working with IncubateHub on digital innovation, we wanted to conduct a pilot program on sustainable packaging. The quick turnaround time & a highly responsive support team ensured success throughout the engagement."

Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, cofounder of Venture Catalysts and Managing Director of 9Unicorns, said As a company we have seen a rise of CVCs especially in the Asian market which is a huge boost. IncubateHub will further establish and strengthen the position of start-ups, accelerate product development, expand its footprint with existing customers, and scale its go-to-market organisation

IncubateHub launched four solutions for Corporates last year for specific needs of Corporate Innovation Teams to accelerate their Build/co-create, Rent/license, Buy/invest decisions.
Sajjan Jindal-led reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 4,357 crore in the December quarter, up 63 per cent from corresponding period last year on the back of strong revenues mainly from India operations.

The net sales of the company in the period under review stood at Rs 37,462 crore, up 74 percent from the same period last year because of increased domestic sales in automotive, solar and appliance segments.

Overall exports were moderated to 15 percent of sales during the quarter as against 30 percent of sales in Q2 FY2022.

As per Bloomberg estimates, the companys topline was expected to be at Rs 36,529 crore, while the bottomline was seen at Rs 4,689 crore.

The Mumbai-based steel producer registered quarterly operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and ammortisation (EBITDA) of Rs 9,132 crore, with an EBITDA margin of 24 percent.

Alongside, a total tax expense of Rs 1,745 crore ate into the companys earnings in turn lowering the net profit.

The companys consolidated net debt/equity (post consolidation of BPSL) stood at 1.02x at the end of the quarter as against 0.92x at the end of Q2 FY2022 and net debt/EBITDA stood at 1.73x as against 1.58x at the end of Q2 FY2022, said release.

With regard to capex spent during the December quarter, said the companys capex stood at Rs 4,026 crore and Rs 10,353 crores for Apr-Dec FY22, against a total planned capex spend of Rs 18,240 crore for FY2022. During Q3 FY2022, BPSL incurred a capex of Rs 180 crore.

The five million tonne brownfield expansion at Vijayanagar is progressing well, with civil works underway at the site, said the company. "Long lead-time items have been ordered, and Letters of Credit established. The project is expected to be completed by FY2024," it said.

The downstream expansion projects at Vijayanagar, Vasind and Tarapur are in advanced stages of implementation, with several lines having been commissioned in 9M FY2022, it added.

Alongside, the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) revised upward the already published average selling price of iron ore for the month of September and October 2021.

Based on a legal opinion obtained, the company believes that the methodology used by IBM for arriving at such revised average selling price by excluding certain bona fide sale transactions of iron ore by the company is not in accordance with the provisions of the Mineral Conservation and Development Rules, 2017.

Accordingly, JSW Steel has contested the same before the Honourable High Court of Odisha and the matter is sub-judice.

However, the company, as a matter of prudence, has recognized the provision towards Mining Premium and Royalties payable based on such revised average selling prices published by IBM, and the impact on profit and loss for the quarter ended 31 December 2021 is Rs 1,056 crore.

In the domestic market, during the quarter, BPSL became a subsidiary with effect from 1st October 2021, as JSW Steel increased its stake in BPSL to 83.28 percent from 49 percent earlier on conversion of Optionally Fully Convertible Debentures (OFCDs).
The charges levelled against (PFS) of alleged lapses in corporate governance by its former three independent directors was an attempt to malign the company, said Rajib K Mishra, CMD In-charge of PTC India Ltd.

PTC India, which holds 64.99 per cent stake in PFS as promoter, has already formed an internal panel consisting of executive directors and chief financial officer to probe changes. It was also open to engaging external agency to ensure impartial probe. It is engaged with regulators including Reserve Bank of India and would also submit report to RBI, he said.

Mishra, who is non-executive chairman of PFS, hit out at three directors -- Kamlesh Shivji Vikamsey, Thomas Mathew T and Santosh B Nayar. These directors were involved in taking decisions while in the board of PFS.

"It was their moral responsibility to have pointed out shortcomings there and then and help to improve compliance. Prima facie it looks like they raised the issues  corporate governance and operational issues  as afterthought while on the way out," said Mishra said in media briefing.

On January 19, 2022 directors of PFS had resigned from the board citing instances of alleged serious lapses in corporate governance and compliance.

Mishra said the business practice & model of PTC & PFS have a proven operational track record with strong financials. There are difference of opinion at operation & Board level of PFS on few issues.

These issues are being looked into by a senior level committee of the company. The company has taken initiatives to address the governance issues.

PTC shares closed six per cent down at Rs 94.45 per share and the stock of was down five per cent at Rs 19.9 per share on BSE.

Meanwhile, the board of PFS meeting tomorrow. However, Mishra declined to elaborate on agenda for meeting.

Three new independent directors will be inducted on board of to fill in vacancies due to resignation by three directors. It could also rope in experts on board at a later date.
Mukesh Ambani-led Ltd (RIL) on Friday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 18,549 crore in the quarter ended December 2021 (Q3), up 42 per cent over the corresponding period in the previous year on increased revenues and one-time gains due to divesting shale gas assets in North America.

At the reported level, Indias most valuable companys net profit in the period under review was at a quarterly record high of Rs 20,539 crore, up 37.9 per cent year-on-year.

The companys consolidated revenues (net of taxes) in Q3 of 2021-22 stood at Rs 1,85,027 crore, up 57 per cent from the same period last year, with the highest contribution from the oil-to-chemicals business, followed by the retail segment.

The reported top line of Rs 2,09,832 crore was the companys highest ever quarterly revenue, said the management in an earnings concall.

The performance was better that the street expectations on all key parameters.

According to Bloomberg estimates, the companys net sales were seen at Rs 1,77,700 crore; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) at Rs 28,380 crore; and net profit (before exceptional items) at Rs 15,264 crore.





ALSO READ: Reliance Retail sees 23.4% rise in net profit; revenues up 53.4%

During the quarter, Reliance Eagleford Upstream Holding, a wholly owned step-down subsidiary of RIL, signed agreements with Ensign Operating Ill, LLC, a Delaware-based limited liability company, to divest its interest in certain upstream assets in the Eagleford shale play of Texas, US, said the company.

With this transaction, has divested all its shale gas assets and exited from the business in North America. This transaction resulted in an exceptional gain on sales of assets amounting to Rs 2,872 crore (part of the oil and gas segment). This has lent support to the companys consolidated bottom line. Even after excluding this exception item, net profit was Rs 17,703 crore, ahead of analysts estimates.

The companys finance cost declined 11.9 per cent on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, further strengthening the net profit in the December quarter.



ALSO READ: Jio Platforms' net profit up 8.8% to Rs 3,795 crore in third quarter

Within the business segments, oil-to-chemicals (O2C) revenues jumped 57 per cent to Rs 1,31,427 crore, followed by retail revenues at Rs 50,654 crore, up 53 per cent. Digital services revenues saw a relatively small jump of 5.8 per cent to Rs 20,597 crore. However, the digital gross revenues (including GST) of Rs 24,176 crore were at a quarterly record-high level, said the management.

Revenues of O2C were driven by higher volumes and improved price realisation on the back of an 80 per cent y-o-y increase in crude oil prices.

Exports (including deemed exports) from RILs India operations increased 105.3 per cent to Rs 64,781 crore ($8.7 billion) against Rs 31,559 crore a year ago mainly due to both higher price realisations and higher volumes, said the company.





I am happy to announce that Reliance has posted best-ever quarterly performance in 3Q FY22 with strong contribution from all our businesses. Both our consumer businesses, retail and digital services have recorded highest ever revenues and EBITDA. During this quarter, we continued to focus on strategic investments and partnerships across our businesses to drive future growth, Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director at Reliance Industries, said in a statement.

The companys consolidated Ebitda was at a record quarterly high of Rs 33,886 crore in Q3, up 30 per cent y-o-y, driven by robust operating performance across businesses.

RIL's outstanding debt as on December 31, 2021, was Rs 2,44,708 crore ($32.9 billion) with cash and cash equivalents as on December 31, 2021 at Rs 2,41,846 crore ($32.5 billion), said the company.

Capital expenditure (including exchange rate difference) for Q3 was Rs 27,582 crore ($3.7 billion) and for nine months ended December 31, 2021, was Rs 69,303 crore ($9.3 billion). Additionally, Rs 43,589 crore ($5.9 billion) were incurred towards acquiring spectrum by Reliance Jio, it said.

We are making steady progress towards achieving our vision of Net Carbon Zero by 2035. Our recent partnerships and investments in technology leaders in the solar and green energy space is illustrative of our commitment to partner India and the World in the transition to clean and green energy, said Ambani.

Sequentially too, the companys top line was up 10.4 per cent, the bottom line 35.6 per cent, and Ebitda 12 per cent in the December quarter.
Leaves of grass,

Fragrant petals,

Twigs and branches

No two the same.

We are surrounded by infinities

We take them for granted

--- And yet eternities are scary!

From Om Sweet Om, by Bachchoo

The old adage says troubles come in threes. Not for Britains Prime Minster, the hitherto irrepressible BoJo. For him they come in thirteens  or more. The latest kick to his prolific and yet vulnerable crotch comes from a Conservative MP who on Wednesday this week, minutes before BoJo was to appear in Parliament for Prime Ministers Question Time, announced that he was defecting and crossing the floor to join the Labour Party, the countrys main Opposition.

In his destructively-timed announcement, Bury South MP Christian Wakeford said the country needs a government that upholds the highest standards of integrity and probity, but told Boris Johnson: Both you and the Conservative Party as a whole have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves.

The defection comes as BoJos participation in the decadent culture of the cabal of politicians and civil servants he runs from 10 Downing Street is under investigation for holding eleven jolly, even drunken parties for themselves when the government had decreed a lockdown which had severely prohibited just such gatherings.

The severest verdict of this investigation  chaired, incidentally, by Sue Gray, a civil servant who reports to her boss who reports directly to BoJo  will be that BoJo lied to Parliament.

That would amount to a breach of the ministerial code and no amount of subterfuge and humbug would save the poor boy from an ignominious resignation.

Very many people, including his former mistresses and Dominic Cummings, the Svengalic adviser he had dismissed from that role and service, call BoJo a chronic liar. Is that a truth about lies?

Gentle reader, I cant say, but I do have evidence that he doesnt tell, or perhaps doesnt remember, in the case of one incident, the truth. Heres the story:

I have been in my short and happy life acquainted with the convicted serial killer Charles Sobhraj. In the six or so years he lived in Paris after being released from Tihar Jail in New Delhi and then being incarcerated with a life sentence in Kathmandu, he was often in touch with me.

He would ask me sometimes absurd things: did I have any contacts in the CIA? Would I lend my citizenship credentials to help set up a front for laundering money from dodgy arms deals? And Faook, what is Red Mercury/  many more. I can confidently say that I did know a writer who had written the history of the CIA and introduced them. I didnt consent to having anything to do with money laundering and I found out that Sobhraj was trying to sell red mercury  a nuclear trigger  to some Arabs in Bahrain. I asked if they could have been Iraqis. He said they could. This was before the invasion of Iraq by Blair and Bush. If what Sobhraj said was true then, however much I regretted confirming it, Saddam may have been looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction. A huge international story.

I told Sobhraj he should come to London and bring his evidence. Id introduce him to newspaper people. I was acquainted with a writer on The Spectator, whose editor at the time was one Boris Johnson. I called my writer-contact and he convened a meeting between Boris, myself and Charles Sobhraj.

At the meeting, after Sobhraj said he had evidence on his computer and recorded evidence of the meeting, BoJo said it was too big a story for his weekly and he would call a correspondent from The Telegraph.

In the end, Sobhraj decided that the money they were offering for his sensational scoop was not enough, and so nothing came of it, as he went to Kathmandu soon after and was arrested and jailed there. The entire account of my acquaintance with Charles Sobhraj is the substance of a book called Hawk and Hyena, published in India this month! (Havent we told you before not to use this space which we generously give you to advertise your rubbish?  Ed Sirji, maaf keejeeyay  lekin koochh tho peyt ki pooja hone do  fd)

To continue  last year a series called The Serpent featured the crimes of Sobhraj in Thailand. After it was transmitted, a journalist on a national daily got in touch with Sobhraj who told him to verify some of what hed told him by speaking to me. The journalist did so, and I told him that we had met with BoJo. Obviously, the journalist thought it a good angle and he asked BoJo, now the PM, for his comments. Did he meet the serial killer Charles Sobhraj with Farrukh Dhondy? BoJo told him that he met with me but never met Charles Sobhraj. A lie, but alas not to Parliament, so I cant say I had a hand in his downfall!

Thats if truth prevails and hes forced to resign. And then? The race to the top has already begun.

Foreign secretary Lizard Truss  known for several taxpayer-funded-few-thousand-pound lunches and also for hosting a party under the lockdown. Tch tch! Or Pritti Clueless? Oh no! If some diligent research aide reads these columns, I shall certainly spend time as Her Majestys guest. Or Hedgy Sunak? Hurrah! Free ports and tides of drugs
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Telecom service provider on Friday reported widening of consolidated net loss to Rs 7,231 crore for the quarter ending December 31, 2021. The telco reported net loss of Rs 4,532 crore in the year-ago period.

However, ARPU improved to Rs 115, up 5.2%, as against Rs 109 in Q2FY22.

Ravinder Takkar, MD & CEO, Limited, said We are pleased to announce second consecutive quarter

of revenue growth driven by several tariff interventions taken in last few months. While the overall subscriber base has declined as a result of the tariff interventions, the 4G subscriber base remained resilient on the back of superior data and voice experience offered by Vi GIGAnet. We remain focused on executing our strategy to improve our competitive position and win in the marketplace. Separately, we have opted for upfront conversion of interest arising from deferment of spectrum and AGR dues into equity.

The company said its net debt stands at Rs 1.97 trillion as of December-end. Its subscriber base declined to 247.2 million from 269.8 million in the year-ago period because of increase in services rate by the company.

"The 4G subscriber base continued to grow and with 0.8 million customers added in Q3, 4G base now stands at 117.0 million. Subscriber churn increased to 3.4% in Q3FY22 vs 2.9% in Q2FY22. Data usage per 4G subscriber is now at 14 GB/month vs 12 GB/month a year ago," the telco said in a stock exchange filing.



On Friday, Vodafone Idea's scrip on BSE closed trading 1.2% lower at Rs 11.90.
Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Friday announced a complete lockdown on January 23 (Sunday) to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in the state, officials said.

The Chief Minister in a statement on Friday said the decision was taken considering the increasing caseload in the state, and in the interest of the welfare of the general public.

Restrictions and relaxations that were in place during the earlier lockdown on January 16 would continue during the lockdown of January 23.

Auto-rickshaws, call taxis and other vehicles can conduct service for plying people who arrive at railway stations and bus stations. However, for this service, mobile apps have to be downloaded and reserve the time and destination from where the passenger is to be picked up.

The Chief Minister also appealed to the people of to abide by the directives of the government on the 'lockdown day', and avoid unnecessary travel.

--IANS

aal/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.)
The Congress on Friday accused the BJP-led state government of failing to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and hiding figures of casualties and testing in the state.

The opposition party demanded imposition of strict control measures such as closure of activities for five days till January 26 to break the chain of the COVID-19 "tsunami" that has struck .

The Congress further demanded that the state government collect the real figures of casualties from villages, hospitals and crematoriums and provide Rs 4 compensation to the kin of deceased persons.

Speaking at a press conference, former Congress president Siddharth Patel said the state government was taking the "COVID-19 tsunami" lightly.

"If strict control is imposed by declaring a five-day closure, including Saturday, Sunday and on January 26, it may help break the chain of the COVID-19 spread," he said.

"However, due to the BJP government's lack of willpower, the citizens of Gujarat are suffering. The BJP government has completely failed in managing the COVID-19 pandemic and is resorting to hiding death and testing figures," Patel said.

State Congress president Jagdish Thakor said, "People's hope of getting proper health care, treatment and other facilities during the global pandemic has been dashed. The government has been taking efforts to hide the figures related to testing, deaths, infected people, etc."



More than three lakh people have lost their lives to COVID-19 so far in Gujarat because of clumsy administration and criminal negligence of the state government, he alleged.

"Though over three lakh people in the state have lost their lives due to lack of healthcare facilities including hospital beds, oxygen, and medicines, the BJP government has only given out the figure of around 10,000, Thakor claimed.

The state government has admitted before the Supreme Court that out of 91,810 applications for Rs 50,000 government compensation to the kin of people who died of COVID-19, 58,840 applications have been accepted, around 11,000 are under process and 15,000 pending, he said.

This death figure was revealed only after repeated admonition by the Supreme Court in the face of the state government's reluctance to pay compensation to the families of the deceased, the Congress leader said.

If the BJP government had been determined to compensate families of the deceased, it could have collected the real figures at the village-level from gram sabhas and hospitals and crematoriums, he added.

Meanwhile, the ruling BJP rejected the opposition's claims, terming it as a cheap publicity attempt.

The government and ruling party are working in sync to ensure that the public do not have to suffer due to the pandemic by strengthening the health care system and covering maximum eligible beneficiaries for vaccination, BJP leader Rutvij Patel said.

Both the chief minister and the state president have stood firmly with the people during the COVID-19 crisis, he said.

"Members of the party have been working with the people to support them, while the Congress is making allegations without facts for cheap publicity, said Patel, who is co-spokesperson of BJP Gujarat.

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on Friday reported 4,416 new COVID-19 cases and pushed the tally to 7,26,819 while two fatalities took the death toll to 4,069.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most cases with 1,670 followed by the districts of Medchal Malkajgiri (417) and Ranga Reddy (301), said a bulletin providing details as of 5.30 PM today.

It said 1,920 people recovered from the infection during the day. The cumulative number of recoveries till date was 6,93,623.

The number of active cases was 29,127, the bulletin said.

It said 1,20,243 samples were tested today and the total number of samples tested till date was 3,11,69,198.

The samples tested per million population was 8,37,431.

The case fatality rate was 0.56 per cent and the recovery rate 95.43 per cent.

(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.)
European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer connected live to a session at the Davos Agenda 2022 from the International Space Station (ISS), somewhere high above the Pacific, to discuss how space research can improve life on the earth.

While in orbit on a six-month mission with the ESA, Maurer will support a wide range of science experiments and technological research, including those that address transmissions of disease, the reduction of carbon emissions and human health-related activities.

Knowledge gained through his mission will contribute to development that benefits life on the earth.

"We have worked hard in the past few weeks and months to send back cargo that we harvested for scientists to analyse all these samples that we produced in space, and to produce science and knowledge for humanity out of it," he said in his address on Thursday.

Maurer added that the cross-country and international collaboration aboard the space station should also be a model for how the world tackles major challenges, such as .

From his view, the astronaut described the beauty of the planet, but also pointed out that he could see the impact of from space.

"When we fly around the earth (16 times a day), we cross over areas that are very arid and dry and I can see scars on the planet where people are digging deep to extract resources. So we are actively reshaping the planet. We are cutting down trees and burning down rainforests. I see the flames. I also see the flooding."

Back on the earth, Al Gore, Chairman and Co-Founder, Generation Investment Management, explained how space technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help address climate action.

The former US Vice President highlighted the work of Climate TRACE, a global coalition created to make meaningful climate action faster and easier by independently tracking greenhouse gas emissions with unprecedented detail and speed.

"Some things you can see directly from space, like methane, but the difficulty of measuring CO2 emissions against a highly varied CO2 background on the earth make it necessary to use AI to get precision we need," he said.

He added that if you consider something like GPS, it is clear how quickly the opportunities offered by space tech and space exploration can become integrated into our lives.

But the data and knowledge that is gained from space should not be limited to those who own satellites, said Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology, Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology of the United Arab Emirates.

"If only countries with access to satellites get access to the data, we deny other countries the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge," she said.

According to the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2022, space is increasingly crowded and commercialised.

While the diversification of actors is for many an exciting development, dated space governance frameworks are coming under considerable pressure, exposing fault lines between the ambitions of different players and the acceptability of their actions.

Echoing this message, Josef Aschbacher, Director-General of the ESA, noted that the volume of satellites indicates that regulation is important.

However, it will have to keep up with a fast-changing industry, which, according to Chris Kemp, the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Astra, is currently seeing a revolution of sorts.

"Access is increasing all the time thanks to significant falls in the cost of putting satellites into space and this has enabled a new generation of entrepreneurs to build companies, to take these companies public and provide new capabilities."

--IANS

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Germany's seven-day Covid-19 incidence rate exceeded 600 for the first time as 638.8 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants were recorded, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases has said.

Due to the more contagious Omicron variant that is spreading across Europe, daily infections in Germany also climbed to a new record as 133,536 cases were registered within 24 hours, around 52,000 more than a week ago, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the RKI.

Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach warned that the peak of the Omicron wave in Germany was not reached yet. "The wave will roughly peak in mid-February," Lauterbach told broadcaster ZDF on Wednesday, expecting "several 100,000 cases per day."

As laboratory polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were in short supply, Lauterbach wants to prioritise employees in the healthcare sector and is planning to present a corresponding proposal this weekend.

"We will get such high case numbers that we will have to distribute PCR tests, prioritize."

The number of PCR tests in Germany conducted within a week just reached an all-time high of almost 2 million, of which one in four had a positive result, according to latest figures by the Association of Accredited Laboratories in Medicine (ALM).

--IANS

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Meghalaya on Friday recorded 331 new COVID-19 cases, two more than the previous day, with the tally rising to 87,735, a health department official said.

The death toll rose to 1,495 as one more person succumbed to the disease during the day, Health Services Director Dr Aman War said.

Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma was among the new patients, the official said.

Sangma tested positive for COVID-19, a day after meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in Delhi



The Meghalaya CM urged those who have come in contact with him to isolate themselves and get tested if necessary.

Of the fresh cases, 239 were reported from East Khasi Hills, 44 from West Garo Hills and 21 from Ri Bhoi, War said, adding that the remaining infections were detected in nine other districts.

At least 177 people recuperated from the disease during the day, taking the total number of recoveries to 84,458.

Meghalaya now has 1,782 active cases, the official said.

The state has conducted over 12.94 lakh sample tests for COVID-19 so far, he said.

More than 22.52 lakh people have been inoculated in the state with 9,23,550 of them having received both doses of vaccines, War added.

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Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Friday asserted that the COVID-19 situation in the national capital is in control, and said the virus was the primary cause of death in only three of the 43 fatalities recorded the previous day.

The national capital is expected to record 10,500 cases on Friday with a positivity rate of 17 to 18 per cent, he said.

Asserting that the situation is in control, he said that the government has written to LG Anil Baijal on withdrawing of weekend curfew and lifting the odd even rule for opening of shops.

"Experts had warned that can record one lakh cases daily during this wave but that danger has been averted. We will take a call on lifting of more restrictions within three-four days," he told reporters here.

on Thursday reported 12,306 fresh COVID-19 cases and 43 more fatalities due to the viral disease, while the positivity rate dipped to 21.48 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department.

"Of the 43 fatalities recorded on Thursday, was the primary cause in only three, " he added.

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Former Citizen photographer shares her story in new book on mental illness
In a respite to citizens and businesses, the government on Friday decided to lift week-end curfew that was in place aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 infections.

However, the night curfew between 10PM to 5AM everyday, and all other COVID curbs including 50 per cent capacity in restaurants and other places will continue.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai today held a meeting with experts, and senior Ministers and officials of his government to assess the COVID-19 situation in the state and curbs that were put in place to control its spread.

"The week-end curfew on Saturday and Sunday is being lifted. This decision has been taken based on the experts' report and it is subject to conditions. Now the rate of hospitalization is about 5 per cent, in case it increases we will re-impose week-end curfew," Revenue Minister R Ashoka said.

Speaking to reporters after over a two-hour-long meeting, he appealed to people to follow COVID guidelines and precautionary measures.

"There has been demand from people, various organisations and political leaders from across party lines to lift week-end curfew, but we have taken this decision based on experts' reports. However, the night curfew between 10PM to 5AM every day will continue, along with a 50 per cent occupancy rule among others," he said.

The Minister also said that the restrictions on protests, rallies, fairs and events will also continue.

Justifying the decision on continuing the night curfew, Ashoka in response to a question said, "There is a need to restrict night activities like partying...COVID is still around."



With a surge in cases, the government had last week decided to extend the existing COVID curbs such as night curfew and the weekend curfew till the end of January.

The government was under tremendous pressure from citizens, businesses, organizations and political leaders across party lines including the ruling BJP, to end the weekend curfew.

Primary and Secondary Education Minister B C Nagesh, who was also part of the meeting, said as the positivity rate is high in Bengaluru, the government will decide on reopening schools and colleges in the city on January 29, while in other places they will continue to operate as they are doing now.

Except Bengaluru the decision to close schools will be taken by Deputy Commissioners of the district in consultation with Assistant Commissioner, Tahsildar, Taluk Health Officer and Block Education Officer, by taking into account school as a unit and not en masse. In case of high positivity at any school, it will shut for about seven days, and three days in case of less positivity.

"Luckily, as there is less positivity rate among children of 6-15 years, we will continue to operate schools as it is going on now (other than in Bengaluru). In four to five districts there were district specific restrictions, the Deputy Commissioners will review and take steps to reopen schools according to local situation," he added.

Noting that the COVID cases in the state are expected to increase further, in response to a question Ashoka said, "we have based our decision to withdraw week-end curfew on experts' report, what they (experts) are saying is, though the number of cases are increasing, the rate of hospitalization is in and around 5 per cent, for us rate of hospitalization is the yardstick."



He said, the government has taken the decision, scientifically, considering the whole state as one unit, and taking into account measures taken in the neighbouring states.

Ashoka noted that until January 20 there were a total of 2,93,231 active cases in the state, of which 2,86,000 are in home isolation. A total of 5,344 persons are in hospital, of which 340 are in ICU and 127 under ventilator support.

While the overall positivity rate is 19.94 per cent, the positivity rate among children is about 8 per cent and among adults is 16.57 per cent, he said, adding that the CM has directed special attention towards hospitalized children.

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Delhi Transport Minister Gahlot has said that the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) will soon deploy 1,500 electric buses, making the national capital the first state to adopt e-buses on such a huge scale.

Gahlot on Thursday night tweeted, "Under Hon'ble CM Arvind Kejriwal's vision, we're committed to achieve 100% electrification of buses. DTC will soon be deploying 1500 e-buses as part of TheGrandChallenge. Convergence CESL has announced RFP. Delhi will be the 1st state to adopt e-buses at such scale."

On Thursday, the Kejriwal-led government launched a dedicated one-stop website for the promotion and adoption of electric vehicles in the city to encourage commuters to switch to EVs.

"The website is developed as a distinctive modern website to provide all the required information to the potential EV consumer and make it interactive to suit the needs and aspirations of the consumer by being responsive for mobile devices and intuitive to easily find information to visitors," the said in a statement.

The website will impart information on charging stations like its location, type of charger needed and charging points.

"As the charging stations are growing each day in Delhi, the website will provide real-time updated numbers to the users," it said.

On Wednesday, the signed an agreement with Convergence Energy Services Ltd (CESL) for installation of charging and battery swapping stations for electric two, three and four-wheelers at cluster bus depots of its Transport Department.

The on Monday had launched its first .

Last week, the Transport Minister had told the media that almost 50 e-buses will be inducted in the DTC's fleet by the second week of February and the target of 300 buses will be achieved by April.

--IANS

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The on Friday accused the BJP government of "removing history" by extinguishing the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate here and merging it with the immortal flame at the National War Memorial.

Former chief Rahul Gandhi hit out, saying some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice, and added that the will light the Amar Jawan Jyoti once again.

"It is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today.Some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice - never mind...We will once again light the 'Amar Jawan Jyoti' for our soldiers," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

Government sources maintained there is a lot of misinformation on the matter, and said the flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti is not being extinguished, but is being merged with the flame at the National War Memorial.

BJP leader Sambit Patra also echoed the government view in a tweet.

Congress leader Manish Tewari alleged that extinguishing the flame tantamounts to removing history.

"Extinguishing Amar Jawan Jyoti tantamounts to extinguishing history. For it commentates sacrifice of those 3,483 brave soldiers who cleaved Pakistan into two parts and redrew map of South Asia post partition," he said on Twitter.

Tewari said it is ironical that in the 50th year of liberation of Bangladesh Government seems to be working overtime to erase India's finest hour in post independent history.

"Amar Jawan Jyoti is imbued in the national consciousness. A billion people have grown up venerating it. Why can't India have two eternal flames? Amar Jawan Jyoti and National War Memorial.

"Redeveloping the Central Vista was hubris enough but extinguishing the eternal flame at India Gate is nothing short of a crime. I am surprised that the nation is silent as a national icon would be snuffed out in the project to re-write history," the former union minister said.

Government sources said it was an odd thing to see that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid homage to the martyrs of the 1971 and other wars but none of their names are present there.

The names inscribed on the India Gate are of only some martyrs who fought for the British in the World War 1 and the Anglo Afghan War and thus is a symbol of our colonial past, the government sources said.

They said the names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial.

Hence it is a true homage to have the flame paying tribute to martyrs there, they added.

Patra said, "It is ironic that people who did not make a National War Memorial for seven decades are now making a hue and cry when a permanent and fitting tribute is being made to our martyrs".

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The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has ordered the blocking of 35 news channels operated from along with two websites for their involvement in spreading anti-India fake news in a coordinated manner on digital media platforms.

In a statement, the ministry said that the accounts blocked by the Ministry had a total subscriber base of over 12 million and their videos had garnered over 1.3 billion views.

Additionally, two Twitter accounts, two Instagram accounts and one Facebook account have also been blocked by the government for being involved in spreading coordinated anti-India disinformation over the internet.

The ministry vide five separate orders issued under Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 has ordered to block these Pakistan-based social media accounts and websites.

"Indian intelligence agencies were closely monitoring these social media accounts and websites, and flagged them to the ministry for immediate action," it said.

The 35 accounts blocked by the ministry were all being operated from Pakistan, and were identified to be part of four coordinated disinformation networks. These include the Apni Duniya Network operating 14 YouTube channels, and and Talha Films Network operating 13 YouTube channels.

A set of four channels, and a set of two other channels, were also found to be acting in synchronisation with each other.

According to the ministry, all these networks appeared to be operated with a single goal of spreading fake news oriented towards the Indian audience. The channels which were part of a network used common hashtags and editing styles, and were being operated by common persons who cross promoted each other's content.

The YouTube channels, websites, and other social media accounts blocked by the ministry were used by for spreading anti-India fake news about sensitive subjects related to India.

These include topics such as the Indian Army, Jammu and Kashmir, and India's relations with other countries.

It was observed that rampant fake news was spread through the YouTube channels regarding the demise of the Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat. These YouTube channels had also started posting content to undermine the democratic process of the upcoming elections in five states.

The channels propagated content to encourage separatism, divide India on the lines of religion, and create animosity among the various sections of the Indian society, the ministry said.

Such information was feared to have the potential to incite the audience into commission of crimes adversely affecting public order in the country.

The action taken by the government follows the blocking of 20 YouTube channels and two websites in December last year when the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021 were first utilised to act against anti-India fake news networks.

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The Kejriwal government is conducting various surveys to zero in on measures to boost the capital's economy and increase job opportunities during COVID-19 times, Deputy Chief Minister said on Friday.

Sisodia, who is also the minister of the finance department, reviewed the preparation of the Budget 2022-23 during a meeting and said it will address the needs of all residents.

" Budget 2022-23 will bring back derailed economy of the city on track and foster economic growth," he said.

Sisodia said the government is mulling over innovative ways that can be introduced to boost Delhi's economy and increase job opportunities, based on the findings of various studies being conducted by the planning department.

The economy has suffered great losses in the past couple of years due to the pandemic. We will give special attention to bringing the capital's economy back on track. Budget 2022-23 will also be very important for industrial development and developing Delhi as a hub for business and services, he said.

Various public welfare schemes, including education, health, electricity, and clean drinking water among other basic facilities will also be focussed on in the budget, he added.

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Foreign Secretary and German Navy chief Kay-Achim Schnbach on Thursday discussed maritime cooperation in the context of greater engagement by in the .

Shringla welcomed the German Chief of Naval Staff here, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.

"Talks focused on maritime cooperation in context of greater engagement by in the in line with its recent Guidelines," he tweeted.

German Navy Chief Schnbach also met Indian Navy Chief R Hari Kumar here and discussed avenues to strengthen defence cooperation between the two countries.

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Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday accused the government of not providing any information related to his previous queries on a host of issues including a probe into purchase of kits and medical equipment to fight Covid-19 and alleged that it is an "unprecedented constitutional transgression".

In a letter to Banerjee, which he shared on Twitter, Dhankhar claimed that "for two years" the state government has provided no information sought by him.

The ruling Trinamool Congress alleged that the governor is trying to boost the morale of the state unit of the BJP which facing an internal feud.

"In disregard of constitutional 'duty' under Article 167 @MamataOfficial there is failure to provide any information to Guv including: Pandemic Purchase Enquiry, BGBS, Bengal Aerotropolis Project, GTA, MAA Canteen, & Pegasus Notification. Unprecedented constitutional transgression," Dhankhar tweeted.

Dhankhar had earlier flagged the hosting of the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) by the state government and sought to know how much had been invested in previous editions of the Summit and details about investment proposals.

He had also sought information on some other matters such as Maa Canteen and the Pegasus spyware probe panel set up by the state government.

"Enormity of the situation is that for now, for over two years no information sought has been provided. Such failure to perform constitutional duty under article 167 is unprecedented and Ill augurs for governance as per law," he said in the letter he wrote to the chief minister on January 19, a copy of which was attached to the Twitter post.

Article 167 of the Constitution lays down the duties of the chief minister to furnish information to the governor.

"Such transgressions contrary to constitutional essence and spirit are serious and concerning," Dhankhar's letter read.

Turning his gun on the state bureaucracy, Dhankhar said it is worrisome that officials "blatantly" violate constitutional norms and IAS (Conduct) Rules.

He was apparently annoyed over top state officials not responding to his directive to visit him at Raj Bhavan and explain several issues that included why the police prevented Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari from going to Netai village, where CPI(M) activists allegedly fired on villagers killing nine people in 2011 during the Left Front rule, to pay tribute to the victims.

Calling upon the CM "to vindicate her oath to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India & act," Dhankhar said, "Upcoming Republic day is a reminder to earnestly carry out our constitutional obligations and duty."



Reacting to Dhankhar's tweets, Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh claimed that he is acting like an emissary of the BJP.

"The governor is continuously picking up one issue after another at the behest of Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari. As the BJP is disintegrating in and the TMC's popularity keeps swelling, Dhankhar is working to boost the sagging morale of the BJP by his tweets," Ghosh said.

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The number of Covid cases in Delhi has come down after registering a record surge a week ago, but the daily fatalities trend needs to be watched for the next few days to tell if the death count has reached its peak, according to medical experts.

Senior doctors at leading Covid facilities, both state-run and private, have emphasised that the peak in death cases happen generally a week or two after the peak in the daily cases tally.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Thursday had said that it seems the peak of the third Covid wave in the national capital has gone past, even as he cautioned that the city was not out of the danger zone yet.

Delhi saw a record surge in daily cases recently with over 28,000 cases registered in a day on January 13, and the positivity rate too had gone beyond 30 per cent on January 14.

The daily case count has come down in the last few days, and the city logged 12,306 cases on Thursday. It also recorded 43 deaths on that day, the highest since June 10.

Experts on Friday said this is a general epidemiological trend and death count peak is generally seen 7-14 days after the peak in daily cases as patients' condition deteriorate later after testing positive.

A senior doctor at the Delhi government-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) said, "Very few hospital admissions are being seen in this wave, compared to the previous ones.

But any patient who has got admitted after testing positive, generally dies after his or her condition deteriorates in the next one week or so, and hence, death tally will peak later than the cases tally," the doctor said.

In this wave, led largely by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, even if one family member is getting infected, almost the entire family is contracting the infection, the doctor said.

Because of this, everybody is getting isolated quickly, so the recovery is also taking place simultaneously and hence, quick rise will also be followed by quick fall in cases", the senior doctor said.

Nearly 400 deaths have been reported in the month of January so far, according to official data.

Eight of these deaths were registered on January 5, when the city had witnessed a massive surge in Covid cases amid a growing scare of the Omicron variant. The number of fatalities kept showing an upward trend since then.

The health bulletin issued on Thursday said the death toll due to Covid in Delhi stood at 25,503. The death tally on December 31 was 25,107.

The daily cases count on Thursday was 12,306 at a positivity rate of 21.48 per cent, the bulletin stated.

Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, a senior consultant at Apollo Hospitals here, said it will be early to say, if the death peak has crossed. He said that after that record surge a week ago, which is being seen as a peak, cases have come down. Even the number of calls I was getting for medical consultations from patients have come down a lot in the past few days, indicating situation is improving.

However, more deaths are being reported now, as death cases peak a week or two later, Chatterjee said.

He, however, argued that the number of tests have been reduced, as per new guidelines, and though the number of cases is on the wane, the trend needs to be watched.

"We need to watch the daily fatalities trend, and see how the figures go, only then can any assessment be made on whether death case have peaked or we are past it," Chatterjee said.

He also said that the government must share details about fatalities that have happened in Delhi in the third wave, as to whether these were due to Omicron or some other variant, otherwise, "we doctors would also remain in the dark, when it comes to formulating a strategy to combat the pandemic".

The national capital on January 13 had reported 28,867 COVID-19 cases, the sharpest single-day spike here since the beginning of the pandemic, with a positivity rate of 29.21 per cent. The city had recorded 31 deaths on that day.

Dr Richa Sareen, consultant, pulmonology at Fortis hospital here, echoed Chatterjee, and said, the number of death cases will have to be assessed over the next few days, before coming to any conclusion on whether it has peaked or not.

"I was comparing data of January 2022 with those from May 2021, and the situation is almost similar, in terms of number of cases and positivity rate, but number of deaths are far less," she said.

Over 28,000 cases and 277 deaths were recorded on April 20 last year, rising to 306 fatalities on April 22. On May 3, the city had registered a record 448 deaths, as per the official data.

Sareen said, the number of admission to hospitals is negligible this year compared to the harrowing situation last year during the brutal second wave of the pandemic, adding even lesser number of patients going to ICU.

"Multiple factors can be attributed to it, one is that Omicron variant is largely milder compared to the Delta one we saw last year. Secondly, people are vaccinated so there is some level of protection, especially those who got both the shots, and those who got infected in the past, also have some in-built immunity," the doctor said.

The number of cumulative cases in Delhi on Thursday stood at 17,60,272. Over 16.66 lakh patients have recovered from the infection, as per official data.

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Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar moved a privilege motion before the Privilege Committee of Lok Sabha chaired by Jharkhand MP Sunil Singh, alleging that he was forcefully arrested by Karimnagar Commissioner of Police V Satyanarayana and three other police officials on January 3.

The notice of the meeting sent by the Committee read, the subject of discussion as "Notice/Complaint/Email dated 3 January, 2022 given by him against Satyanarayana, Commissioner of Police and three other Police officials of Karimnagar District, Telangana, for forcefully arresting him in an illegal manner and for attempting to produce him before the Court for 'remand' in connection with the filing of alleged false cases against him".

According to the information, Sanjay Kumar, who is the chief, will appear before the panel on Friday to give verbal representation on what happened with him in Telangana, leading him to move a notice of privilege.

The chief was arrested by the Karimnagar Police during a protest on charges of violating COVID-19 protocols.

The BJP chief was planning to hold an overnight Dharna on the intervening night of January 2 and 3 in his Constituency in Karimnagar following which the state police arrested him for violating COVID-19 norms. He was arrested that night and then the Karimnagar District Court sent him to 14-days of judicial custody.

On January 4, BJP national president JP Nadda went to Hyderabad and participated in a candlelight march in support of Sanjay in lashing out at the K Chandrasekhar Rao government and calling it as 'murder of democracy'. On January 6, he was released from jail after being granted bail by the High Court.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also said to have called up Sanjay lauding his fighting spirit against the KCR rule and a week or so ago, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also held a meeting in Hyderabad in support of Sanjay Kumar.

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The India Meteorological Department (IMD), as part of its extended range forecast issued for the period January 20 to February 2, on Thursday predicted in the run up to January 26 but not on that Republic Day itself.

A Western Disturbance as a cyclonic circulation lies over north Pakistan and neighbourhood, an induced cyclonic circulation lies over central parts of Rajasthan, a fresh active Western Disturbance is likely to affect northwest India from January 21 onwards while an induced cyclonic circulation is very likely to form over southwest Rajasthan on January 22, it said.

Under the influence of above systems, the said: "Isolated to scattered rainfall/ snowfall is very likely over Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan, Muzaffarabad, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand during next two days and it will increase thereafter with fairly widespread to widespread rainfall/snowfall on January 22 and 23 and reduce thereafter."

Isolated to scattered is very likely over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, west Uttar Pradesh and east Rajasthan on January 20 and 21 and increasing thereafter with fairly widespread to widespread on January 22 and 23. Isolated to scattered rainfall is predicted over east Rajasthan during January 20 to 23, east Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh during January 22 to 24 and Madhya Pradesh on January 22 and 23.

Isolated heavy rainfall likely over Punjab on January 22, the said.

Scattered to fairly widespread rainfall is very likely over Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Sikkim during January 22-24 while isolated thunderstorm with lightning and hail is very likely over west Madhya Pradesh on January 21 and 22, over Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, west Uttar Pradesh, north Rajasthan, east Madhya Pradesh, and Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim on January 22, over Bihar on January 22 and 23, and over Jharkhand and Gangetic West Bengal on January 23.

The has also predicted strong surface winds (20-30 kmph) over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Rajasthan, and west Uttar Pradesh on January 21 and 22.

It also said fairly widespread to widespread rainfall very likely over northeast India during January 23-25.

Isolated thunderstorms with lightning and hail is very likely over Assam and Meghalaya on January 20 while isolated heavy rainfall is likely over there on January 24.

Under the influence of a cyclonic circulation over Southwest Bay of Bengal and another over south Tamil Nadu in lower tropospheric levels, isolated light rainfall/ thundershower over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal, Kerala, and Mahe is expected during next 4-5 days.

Minimum temperatures are likely to rise by 2-4 degrees Celsius over northwest India during next 2-3 days and fall by 3-5 degree Celsius thereafter.

Very dense fog is very likely in isolated pockets over Uttar Pradesh and dense fog in isolated pockets over Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, west Rajasthan, north Madhya Pradesh, and sub-Himalayan West Bengal & Sikkim on January 21 morning. It is likely to persist over east Uttar Pradesh and Bihar during subsequent 24 hours i.e. till January 22 morning.

Cold Day to Severe Cold Day conditions is very likely to prevail in isolated pockets of Madhya Pradesh and Cold Day conditions in isolated pockets over Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh likely during next 24 hours and over Bihar during next two days.

After the passage of the Western Disturbances on January 24 from north-western parts of India, conditions are likely to be favourable for another fresh spell of dense fog/ low clouds conditions and Cold Day conditions over plains of northwest and adjoining central India during January 25-27. The new spell is likely to be shorter in view of the stronger lower-level westerly winds likely thereafter over these areas, the IMD said.

--IANS

niv/vd

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The on Thursday granted interim protection from arrest to S.K. Supiyan, who was the election agent of West Bengal Chief Minister in Nandigram, in connection with a murder case under the CBI's investigation.

A bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and B.R. Gavai said: "Learned counsel for the state is directed to file statement(s) recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C. Learned counsel for the petitioner and the complainant are permitted to file additional documents, if any, before the next date of hearing. List on January 31. There shall be stay of arrest of the petitioner in the meanwhile."

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta contended before the bench that on November 29 last year, the high court passed the order rejecting his anticipatory bail, and for two months, he managed not to be arrested.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the petitioner, contended that supplementary charge sheet has been filed, where his client has not been named.

The top court order came on an appeal filed by Supiyan against the Calcutta High Court order, which rejected his anticipatory bail plea. "No adjournment shall be granted and the special leave petition shall be heard finally on that date," added the top court.

As Mehta emphasised that the petitioner is quite powerful and the offence is very serious, the top court asked hims to not get politics into the matter.

Following a high court order, the CBI is probing the death of BJP worker Debabrata Maity, who was allegedly attacked in Nandigram. The high court had directed the investigating agency to investigate cases connected with violence, which occurred in the state after the elections.

--IANS

ss/vd

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A was discovered early Friday morning inside the chamber of a judge of the .

The 4.5 to 5 feet long, non-venomous was found by the court staff at around 9.30am when Justice N R Borkar was not present in his chamber, which is on the ground floor of the three-storey High Court building.

Officials said police was alerted, who in turn called 'Sarpmitra', which specializes in rescuing reptiles and reintroducing them into their natural habitat.

The has been rescued and will be released into its appropriate surrounding, one of the officials said.

The HC is holding hearings virtually at present due to the surge in COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra, which has also led to reduced footfalls in the premises.

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Even as the has put its protest march in on hold, farmer groups and organisations have lodged strong protests against the party conducting a padayatra against the state and Central governments for the construction of a dam across Cauvery river at Mekedatu.

Tamizhaga Cauvery Vivasaigal Sangam General Secretary P.R. Pandian came out strongly against the leadership on its silence regarding the matter. He urged Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to issue strong statement against the Congress' unit.

"We had conducted protest marches on the issue but were stopped by the police at Zuzuvadi town close to the border of . The DMK should question the of as to why that party is silent on a burning issue of Tamil farmers and people of the state. Chief Minister Stalin must act and not remain a mute spectator given the DMK's alliance with the Congress. We will conduct strong protests across the state against this," Pandian told IANS.

Desiya Thennindhiya Nadhigal Inaippu Vivasayigal Sangam President P. Ayyakkannu told IANS that his organisation would conduct a protest in New Delhi against the moves to construct a new dam at Mekedatu.

"We will conduct a protest march at New Delhi with 500 farmers participating. We will not allow a dam at Mekedatu across the Cauvery to affect the lives of Tamil people. The date of our march will be known only after the state executive meeting scheduled on January 21."

Rumblings are brewing in Tamil Nadu over the Mekedatu dam and the silence of the state Congress against the move of its counterpart in Karnataka.

--IANS

aal/svn

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The has paved the way for settlement of pre-goods and services tax (pre-GST) disputes between companies and tax authorities under an amnesty scheme of the government. This is even for cases where investigations are on.

It quashed rejection of one such application by a committee of officers for settlement of under Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme (SVLDRS), 2019. The scheme had provided taxpayers relief in payment of disputed tax amounts ranging from 40 per cent (of the tax amount) to 70 per cent. It also provided for full waiver of interest and penalty.

The court gave the order in a case related to Thane-based real estate company Nabeel Construction. However, many companies such as JSW Steel have applied for the scheme but their applications were rejected by the committee.

Nabeel wanted to settle its pre- disputes related to the tax dues under SVLDRS, 2019, which came into force from September 1, 2019. However, for availing the scheme, the tax liabilities must have been quantified by June 30, 2019. In the case of Nabeel Construction, it had already admitted its dues during an investigation before the cutoff date cited above, Abhishek Rastogi, counsel for the company and partner at Khaitan & Co, said. However, the committee of officers rejected the application of the company for settling the dispute on the ground that no show-cause notice was served till June 30, 2019. And hence, the tax dues were not quantified.

However, Rastogi argued that the amount of duty involved had been quantified in this case during the investigation before June 30, 2019.

The court held that the view taken by the committee is not only contrary to various principles of law but also to the objects and reasons and the intent of the government in introducing the scheme for the benefit of the assessee. The view taken by the respondents thus deserves to be quashed and set aside with the order of remand, the court held.

It remanded the matter back to the committee to consider the declaration by the company as a valid declaration and grant consequential reliefs to it. In February 2019, an investigation against the company was ordered by the Directorate General of Intelligence, Mumbai.

During the course of the investigation, the petitioner admitted the total tax liability of Rs 1.28 crore. A portion of the amount was subsequently confirmed at Rs 1.26 crore in the show-cause notice given on September 20, 2020.


Aviation security regulator, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), has asked to strictly enforce the one hand bag per passenger rule to ease congestion at airports.

In a memo, BCAS said: It has been seen that an average passenger carries 2-3 hand bags to the screening point. This has led to increased clearance time as well as delays, congestion and inconvenience to passengers. It is, therefore, felt that enforcement of the aforesaid circulars must be ensured by all stakeholders, it added.

All and operators may be instructed to take steps to implement One Hand Bag rule meticulously on ground to ease out the congestion and other security concerns. may be made responsible and depute staff to guide passengers and check and verify their hand bag status before allowing the passenger for pre-embarkation security checks,  the memo added.

However, airline executives said the regulators own rules allows passengers to carry multiple other items along with one hand bag making the rule virtually impossible to implement.

Besides one hand baggage, the rules permit a passenger to carry one laptop bag, one ladies hand bag, and one blanket, gift item purchased from duty free shop, umbrella, and a reasonable amount of reading material on board an aircraft.

How is it possible to enforce this rule when the governments own rule permits multiple other things? The regulator should be clear in its instruction and not create confusion for frontline staff of airlines, an executive of a private airline said.

People aware of the development said a few parliamentarians had complained to Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia regarding congestion at security checks. Following that, the regulator was asked to implement steps to ease congestion.

We had a meeting with the representatives of airlines and have told them to impose the rule. It takes more time to clear multiple bags, the security agency said.

The official said passengers have a tendency of carrying multiple bags. BCAS found that the average number of bags carried in flight is 1.8 per passenger, excluding laptop or purse.

Besides, airlines were also asked to change flight timings so that too many flights dont arrive or depart around the same time to prevent overcrowding at airports. However, the idea was dropped after airlines opposed this saying changing flight timings in between an ongoing schedule will not leave flexibility and force them to cancel flights, leading to chaos.

The winter schedule is ongoing, I cannot change my flight timings especially at smaller airports where there is a limitation of watch hours. I can only cancel them. We pointed out that tinkering with schedule integrity in between will have a huge impact on operational freedom of airlines. This should be thought of while a new schedule is being made, the private airline executive quoted above said.

The best possible solution to ease congestion is to develop the infrastructure  build more check-in kiosks, make more security check and boarding gates.

As flights are increasing in numbers at smaller airports, the infrastructure available there is often found wanting. You want to ease congestion; you have to build more infrastructure, he said.
Multiplex chain operator Ltd on Friday reported narrowing of its consolidated net loss at Rs 1.32 crore for the third quarter ended December 2021 as the film exhibition business witnessed recovery from Covid restrictions during the period.

The company had posted a net loss of Rs 102.50 crore in the October-December quarter a year ago, said in a BSE filing.

Its revenue from operations was up at Rs 296.47 crore, up to several folds during the quarter under review as against Rs 14.88 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal, when the screening business was almost closed last fiscal.

The company reduces gap with pre-COVID levels on key business metrics, said in a post earning statement.

Inox Leisure, which operates 667 screens in 70 cities, has reported the highest ever quarterly average ticket price at Rs 226 along with a highest ever quarterly spends per head at Rs 97.

"With major business metrics showing a significant reduction in gap with pre-COVID levels, the third Quarter signalled a sharp recovery, largely due to great content and reduced apprehensions due to widespread vaccination," said Inox Leisure.

Moreover, during the quarter, it has added three new properties with 13 screens at - Guwahati, Dhanbad and Gurugram.

Inox Leisure's total expenses were at Rs 302.96 crore, up 91.41 per cent in Q3/FY 2021-22, as against Rs 158.28 crore.

The October-December quarter saw the Inox Leisure receiving a promising response, reminiscent to pre-COVID times for movies including Sooryavanshi, Spider-man: No Way Home, Annaatthe and Pushpa.

"The Rise and 83, with 2 movies garnering box-office collections in excess of Rs 200 crore and three movies in excess of Rs 100 crore," it said.

INOX Group Director Siddharth Jain said: "Besides being resilient, we maintained an optimistic outlook during the adverse phase over the past eight Quarters. Thanks to our strong fundamentals, the spectacular content flow and above all, the infinite passion for cinema prevailing in our country, we have proudly witnessed the recovery happening."



In the calendar year 2021, Inox Leisure had added 41 new screens, which was the highest in the industry, it added.

"The company had plans to add a total of 41 screens in FY'22, out of which, 24 have been launched, while project work of 17 screens are 80 per cent completed," it said.

However, over the current COVID-19 pandemic situation, Inox said various state governments have now imposed fresh restrictions which continue to "adversely impact" the cinema exhibition industry and consequently the business activities of the Group.

"The group has continued to take effective steps for reducing its operational costs in all areas. In developing the assumptions relating to possible future uncertainties, the group has considered all relevant internal and external information available up to the date of approval of these financial results and the Group has used the principles of prudence in applying judgement, estimates and assumptions," it said.

Shares of Inox Leisure Ltd on Friday settled at Rs 379.45 apiece on the BSE, down 1.33 per cent, from the previous close.

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After joining the BJP in New Delhi, Aparna Bisht Yadav returned to Lucknow and took blessings of her father-in-law and SP patriarch .

She shared a picture touching the feet of on her Twitter account.

"After taking the membership of Bharatiya Janata Party, on coming to Lucknow, took blessings from father/ netaji," she said in a tweet.

In another tweet, she wrote "On reaching Lucknow Amausi Airport from Delhi by taking membership of BJP was given a grand welcome by supporters and workers, I thank all of you that by coming in such a large numbers, you all have encouraged me."



Aparna, the younger daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, had joined the BJP on Wednesday at the party headquarters in New Delhi.

Congratulating her on joining the Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party chief and former Chief Minister of the state Akhilesh Yadav had told reporters that Netaji had tried a lot to convince her.

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The on Friday fielded Aditi Singh, who left the Congress to join it, and Asim Arun, who recently quit the IPS, in the assembly polls as it released a list of 85 more candidates.

The list also includes incumbent MLA Hariom Yadav, a distant relative of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. Hariom Yadav quit the opposition party recently.

The has named both Singh and Yadav from their current seats of Rae Bareli and Sirsaganj respectively, while Arun, a Dalit, will contest from Kannauj, a reserved seat.

The Rae Bareli assembly seat is part of the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency which is represented by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Assembly Deputy Speaker Nitin Aggarwal, who had also left the SP to join the BJP, will fight from Hardoi.

With the fresh list of candidates, which include 15 women, the total number of names announced by the party for the seven-phase election to the 403-member assembly has reached 195.

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Denied ticket from Panaji, his late father's constituency, former chief minister Manohar Parrikar's son Utpal Parrikar on Friday quit the BJP.

He would contest the February 14 Assembly elections in the state from Panaji as independent, he announced here.

The day before, the ruling BJP nominated from Panaji -- which Manohar Parrikar had represented for over two decades -- its sitting MLA Atanasio Monserrate, one of ten legislators who had joined the saffron party in July 2019 after quitting Congress.

I was left with no other choice. I have resigned from the party and I would be contesting as an independent from Panaji," Utpal Parrikar told reporters.

He also said that resignation was a formality but the BJP will "always remain in my heart.

It is a difficult choice for me, I am doing it for the people of . No one should be worried about my political future, people of will do it, he said.

The BJP had offered him "other options" (constituencies other than Panaji), Parrikar said.

I am fighting for the values which I believe in. Let people of Panaji decide. I cannot negotiate with my party, he added.

Asked whether he would seek support of other political parties, he said the only platform for him was the BJP.

If not BJP, then I would go for (contesting as) independent. I will not go for any other political party, Parrikar said.

On Thursday, the BJP's Goa in-charge Devendra Fadnavis had said while releasing its first list of candidates that the party offered some other seats to Utpal, but he was not willing to contest from any of them.

Earlier in the day, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said his party, which had formed a tie-up with the NCP for Goa elections, would support Parrikar if he promised not to back the BJP post elections.

On Thursday, Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had slammed the BJP for adopting "use and throw" policy regarding the Parrikar family, and invited Utpal to join his party.

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Congress general secretary Vadra on Friday virtually pitched herself as the party's face in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections but did not confirm whether she would contest the polls or not.

"Do you see any other face from the Congress party," she said when asked who would be the party's chief ministerial face in UP polls.

"You are seeing my face everywhere," the Congress leader added while addressing a press conference to release the party's 'youth manifesto' along with her brother and former president Rahul Gandhi.

Asked whether she would herself contest the assembly polls, said, "We have not yet decided." She said it would be known once that is decided.

Priyanka Gandhi, who is the general secretary in-charge for Congress in Uttar Pradesh, said the party would certainly look into supporting other parties if the situation were to arise after the elections.

#WATCH Do you see anyone else's face from the Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh? You can see my face everywhere: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on being asked about the chief ministerial face of Congress in the upcoming UP Assembly elections pic.twitter.com/NOt1uZKBU6  ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) January 21, 2022

She, however, said that the Congress would have implementing its vision for youth, especially women, in Uttar Pradesh as a priority while extending any such support for government formation.

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The on Thursday released another list of five candidates for the February 14 Assembly elections.

With this, the party has so far declared 36 candidates.

While Ekvis Gomes will contest from Panaji, Tukaram Borkar will be the nominee from Siroda and Jose Luis Carlos Almeida will contest from the Vasco-da-Gama seat.

Anthony Dias will be the party candidate from the Benaulim Assembly seat and Amit Patkar will contest from the Curchorem seat for the Party.

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Utpal Parrikar, the son of former Goa chief minister late Manohar Parrikar, on Friday quit the BJP.

He would contest the coming Assembly elections in the state from Panaji as an independent candidate, he announced.

The ruling party has fielded incumbent MLA Atanasio Monserrate from the Panaji seat, which Manohar Parrikar had represented for a long time.

I was left with no other choice. I have resigned from the party and I would be contesting as an independent from Panaji," Utpal Parrikar told reporters.

He also said that resignation was a formality but the BJP will "always remain in my heart.

It is a difficult choice for me, I am doing it for the people of Goa. No one should be worried about my political future, people of Goa will do it, he said.

The BJP had offered him "other options" (constituencies other than Panaji), Parrikar said.

I am fighting for the values which I believe in. Let people of Panaji decide. I cannot negotiate with my party, he added.

Asked whether he would seek support of other political parties, he said the only platform for him was the BJP.

If not BJP, then I would go for (contesting as) independent. I will not go for any other political party, Parrikar said.

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AAP leader on Friday said Punjab Chief Minister will face defeat from his Chamkaur Sahib seat in the next month state assembly polls as he cited some survey to corroborate his claim.

The Delhi Chief Minister further said that "people are shocked" to see the seizure of crores of rupees from Channi's nephew during the recent Enforcement Directorate raids.

Our survey is showing that Channi ji is losing from Chamkaur Sahib. People are shocked to see on TV the ED officers counting bundles of notes, said Kejriwal in a tweet.

Channi will fight the February 20 state assembly polls from the Chamkaur Sahib seat.

The Aam Aadmi Party has been attacking Channi ever since the ED carried out raids at many places including at the premises of Channi's nephew.

Kejriwal had on Wednesday said Channi is not a common man but a "dishonest man" as he sought to corner the Congress leader over the ED raids.

The AAP convenor through his comment had sought to target the common man image, which Channi has tried to cultivate following his elevation as the chief minister last year.

"Channi aam aadmi nahi, baiman aadmi hai (Channi is not a common man, he is a dishonest man)," Kejriwal had tweeted in Hindi attacking the CM on Wednesday.

AAP leader Raghav Chadha on Thursday had asked Channi to explain the recovery of huge sums of cash seized during the ED raids from the premises linked to his relative.

The ED on Wednesday had said it seized cash amounting to over Rs 10 crore, including about Rs 8 crore from a relative of Channi, during raids conducted in connection with an anti-money laundering investigation against illegal sand-mining operations in the poll-bound state.

In a statement, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had said "incriminating" documents related to "illegal" sand mining and property transactions, mobile phones, gold worth more than Rs 21 lakh and a Rolex watch worth Rs 12 lakh were also seized during the searches that ended on Wednesday.

Notably, Channi on Wednesday had accused the BJP-led central government of hatching a conspiracy to trap him in the case in which raids were conducted by the ED at many places in Punjab.

The Congress on Thursday had complained to the Election Commission of India (ECI), seeking stern action against the ED officials for carrying out illegal and malafide raids to defame Channi and the incumbent state government.

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Multilateral bank Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), will invest $150 million in the development of data centers that mostly serve emerging Asia.

Beijing-based AIIB, where India is a key founding member, will channelise funds through the Keppel Data Centre Fund II (KDCF II), a private equity vehicle managed by Alpha Investment Partners Limited (Alpha).

This is AIIBs first data center project. Multilateral development have been investing in digital infrastructure in the past. Now, such investments are becoming more essential nowadays with the acceleration of 5G technology and other high-speed/supercomputing digital infrastructure due to the pandemic.

AIIBs investment of $100 million through a parallel fund structure and $50 million through co-investments marks the final close of KDCF II. The fund is focussed on strategic investments in the fast-growing data center sector with a focus on Asia Pacific.

Many low- and mid-income countries lack their own domestic data infrastructure, and the disparities in data center penetration among countries with different income levels are wide. This reflects shortcomings in the investment climate where major global investors have largely shunned investing in emerging and frontier economies. This project will enhance capital mobilisation to develop data centers serving emerging Asia.

Dongik Lee, director general, Banking Department (Region 1), said the digitalisation mega trend is re-shaping global markets and business operations. This trend has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. AIIBs Digital Infrastructure Sector Strategy has identified data centers as essential components of the digital ecosystem and attractive investment targets.

will conduct a prior review of investments presenting significant environmental and social (ES) risks like involuntary resettlement, adverse impacts on Indigenous Peoples, environment, community health and safety.
US President will hold a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida virtually on Friday, a senior official said amid increasing tension with over Ukraine.

The meeting will highlight the strength of the US-Japan alliance, which is the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world, the official said.

"Biden and Kishida will discuss ways to advance our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific and a strong rules-based order," according to the official.

"The two leaders are also expected to discuss a strong, united response that would result from further Russian aggression against Ukraine."



They will discuss ways to deepen the bilateral alliance to address common threats and to expand close cooperation on critical issues like COVID-19, climate crisis and partnering on new and emerging technologies and cybersecurity, including through the Quad.

Officials noted that Japan is a vital partner and for the Biden administration, the US-Japan alliance is a top priority.

From its earliest days, the administration has focused on strengthening this relationship through engagement at every level of the US government, the official said.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga was the first foreign-leader visit the White House after Biden became president.

After the elections Japanese elections, Biden was the first leader to call Prime Minister Kishida on the morning of his first full day in office.

For their first trip abroad, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin travelled to Japan. Other cabinet ranking members recently visited Japan for economic consultations over the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

"With Japan, we have made history marking the first time that the Quad met in person at the leader level. We are bolstering deterrence in the Indo-Pacific including through trilateral security cooperation with the ROK and Japan.

"We have enhanced collaboration in technology, economic security, and climate through a new Competitiveness and Resilience partnership announced last year, said the official.

The official added, "We are committed to further deepening ties between our governments, economies and our people with this meeting and beyond.

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The Chinese embassy in France on Thursday opposed a resolution that the French Parliament adopted over human rights issues in China's Xinjiang province, and expressed concerns over the "damage" it could cause to bilateral relations.

The Chinese embassy in a statement stated the resolution deliberately smeared and grossly interfered in its internal affairs, state media tabloid Global Times reported.

" has held a strong dialogue with France on this issue on many occasions and at multiple levels, and made it clear and serious that Xinjiang-related issues are not ethnic, religious or human rights issues, but anti-terrorism, de-radicalization and anti-separatism issues, which bear on China's sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security," said the statement.

It added that the genocide in Xinjiang is a "big lie" fabricated on the basis of prejudice and hostility toward .

Earlier on Thursday, French Parliament slammed China's "genocide" of its Uyghur Muslims.

A resolution that could sour relations between Paris and Beijing, urges the French government to protect the ethnic minority in the Xinjiang region and take "the necessary measures within the community and in its foreign policy towards the People's Republic of China".

The non-binding resolution, adopted with 169 votes in favour and just one against, was proposed by the opposition Socialists in the Lower House of Parliament.

As per the adopted resolution, the National Assembly "officially recognises the violence perpetrated by the People's Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide".

"China is a great power. We love the Chinese people. But we refuse to submit to propaganda from a regime that is banking on our cowardice and our avarice to perpetrate genocide in plain sight," Socialist party chief Olivier Faure said.

He told lawmakers of conditions within internment camps where men and women were unable to lie down in cells, were exposed to rape and torture, and were forced to undergo organ transplants, reported the newspaper.

Similar resolutions were passed by parliaments in Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands last year, and the US government has also condemned what it deems genocide in Xinjiang.

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The World Health Organisation says that vaccine boosters should now now be offered to people, starting with the most vulnerable, in a move away from its previous insistence that boosters were unnecessary for healthy adults and an acknowledgment that the vaccine supply is improving globally.

At a press briefing on Friday, the UN health agency said it was now recommending booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, beginning in the highest-priority groups, about four to six months after receiving the first two doses, in line with guidance from dozens of countries that embarked upon booster programs months ago.

Last year, pleaded with rich countries to declare a moratorium on offering booster doses until the end of 2021, an appeal that went almost entirely ignored.

The agency said its expert vaccine group assessed the increasing data about booster doses and noted the waning of immune protection over time. Numerous studies have shown in recent months that booster doses restore antibody levels and offer strong protection against severe disease, including against COVID-19 variants like delta and omicron.

Boosters are part of the vaccination program, but it doesn't mean unfettered use to all ages, said WHO's Dr Kate O'Brien, director of immunisation, vaccines and biologicals. We continue to have highest focus on vaccination of highest priority groups, she said.

also endorsed the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children as young as 5, at a reduced dose. Countries including the US and Canada gave the green light to Pfizer's shot for young children last fall.

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French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Thursday evening that the government will proceed to ease certain COVID-19 related restrictions in February.

During a press conference, Castex stressed that the Omicron variant "is absolutely not just a flu."

He once again recalled the importance of being vaccinated, saying that a fully vaccinated person is 4.5 times more unlikely to be infected than a non-vaccinated, and has 25 times less chance to turn into severe cases.Castex announced that the vaccine pass, replacing the current pass, will be effective on Jan. 24, subject to the decision of the Constitutional Council on Friday.

The vaccine pass enables people to gain access to public venues without the need to present a negative COVID-19 test.

As for access to nursing homes and hospitals, the vaccine pass won't be mandatory. Children between the ages of 12 to 15 can present a pass and not a vaccine pass, the Prime Minister added.

He reminded that, effective from Feb. 15, all persons that haven't received the booster shot four month following the second dose will not be considered as having a complete vaccination cycle.

However, Castex announced that starting from February, certain restriction measures will be eased.

From Feb. 2, caps on the number of people allowed in indoor and outdoor events will be lifted. Masks will no longer be required outdoors.

Teleworking will also no longer be mandatory, but still encouraged, he added.

Starting from Feb. 16, eating and drinking in stadiums, cinemas, public transports will again be allowed, as well as standing in bars, concerts and the opening of nightclubs.

The Scientific Council announced in a statement on Thursday that "the fifth wave with the Omicron variant is not over and its impact on the healthcare system will remain high but partially manageable until mid-March."

In the evening, the French Public Agency reported 425,183 new COVID-19 cases detected in the past 24 hours.

More than 52 million people have had a complete vaccination cycle, representing 77.7 percent of the French population.

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President Arif Alvi on Friday gave his approval to the elevation of Lahore High Court Justice Ayesha Malik as the country's first-ever woman judge of the Supreme Court, a watershed moment in the judicial history of the conservative Muslim country.

According to a notification issued by the Ministry of Law, Malik's appointment has been approved by President Alvi and will come into effect as soon as she takes the oath of office.

"In exercise of powers conferred by clause (1) of Article 177 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the President is pleased to appoint Mrs. Ayesha A. Malik, a judge of the Lahore High Court, [...] as a judge of the Supreme Court of with effect from the date she takes the oath of her office, reads the notification.

The historic development came just two days after the bipartisan Parliamentary Committee on the Appointment of Superior Judiciary approved the 55-year-old justice's nomination as the Supreme Court judge. The nomination was sent by the Judicial Commission of (JCP) earlier this month.

The Parliamentary Committee headed by Senator Farooq H Naek of Pakistan Peoples Party, while approving her nomination, set aside the seniority principle. Justice Malik is on the fourth position on the seniority list of the judges of the Lahore High Court.

"We have approved Justice Ayesha's name in the national interest," he said.

Normally, the seniority of high courts judges is considered while approving their elevation to the Supreme Court and it was precisely the reason her name was rejected by the JCP last year.

Even the latest JCP meeting held on January 6 hotly contested the issue before finally granting approval of Malik's nomination by a marginal difference of five members supporting Malik while four opposing her nomination.

Justice Malik was appointed as a judge of the Lahore High Court in March 2012. She will now work as a Supreme Court judge until her superannuation in June 2031. She would be in the line to become the chief justice also in January 2030 on the basis of her seniority.

The chief justice of the Supreme Court is appointed on the basis of seniority of service in the apex court.

Born in 1966, Malik completed her basic education from schools in Paris, New York, and Karachi, according to the Lahore High Court's website.

She studied law at Pakistan College of Law, Lahore and did her LLM from Harvard Law School, according to the Lahore High Court website.

She gave her landmark judgment back in June 2021 when she had declared virginity tests for examination of sexual assault survivors illegal and against the Constitution of Pakistan.

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Lebanon's M1 Group will partner with a firm to take over Norwegian telco Telenor's business in the Southeast Asian country after its military junta sought a local buyer, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Telenor, one of the biggest foreign investors in Myanmar, said in July it was selling its operations there to M1 Group for $105 million, retreating from a country that has slid into chaos after a military coup in February last year.



Its exit has been mired in difficulties as the junta piles pressure on telecom and internet to install surveillance technology and bars senior executives from leaving the country.

Military leaders late last year rejected the sale solely to M1.

Instead, they privately approved a partnership between M1 Group and Myanmar's Shwe Byain Phyu Group, the three sources said. Two of the sources said Shwe Byain Phyu would be the majority shareholder. They declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.



Shwe Byain Phyu is a group of with interests in gem mining and petrol stations. Its chairman, Thein Win Zaw, is a director of Mahar Yoma Public Company, part of a consortium that has a stake in the military-owned telco Mytel, corporate records show. He did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment on the sale and his links to the military.

An October order from the office of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing seen by Reuters instructed officials at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the regulatory body, to reject the sale to M1 Group, which is owned by the family of Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

The order did not state a reason but the sources familiar with the matter said the junta favoured a local buyer.



Representatives of M1 Group, which is based in Beirut, did not immediately answer phone calls from Reuters seeking comment.

A junta representative did not respond to requests for comment.

The decision was not made public and one person briefed on the matter said it was not conveyed to .

A spokesperson for said it was waiting for a response to its application for regulatory approval of the sale and declined to comment further.

In November, Reuters reported that several firms had expressed an interest in buying Myanmaras operations and that M1 had held talks with Shwe Byain Phyu about a partnership.



The two firms made a joint proposal to take over the Telenor unit that was accepted by the junta leadership a month later, the industry sources said.

Two of the sources said the new venture would be named Atom.

SURVEILLANCE CONCERNS

Activists have expressed concerns that Telenor's exit could deepen the junta's surveillance of the population. It is one of four telecom operators in Myanmar, alongside Qatar's Ooredoo, state-backed MPT and Mytel, which is part-owned by a military-linked company.



Activist group Justice for called on Telenor on Friday to suspend the sale.

"The fact that Shwe Byain Phyu is a buyer, a conglomerate with known links to the Myanmar military, deepens the risk to Myanmar people, whose personal data is exposed through the sale," spokesperson Yadanar Maung told Reuters.

Telenor has said its handover to a new buyer would include all assets, including call data records, in accordance with licence

obligations.

Reuters found last year telecom and internet service providers had been secretly ordered in the months before the coup to install intercept technology that would allow the army to eavesdrop on the communications of citizens.



Telenor said in September it was pulling out of the country to avoid European Union sanctions after acontinued pressurea from the junta to activate the technology.

Since the Feb. 1 coup, Myanmar security forces have killed more than 1,400 people and arrested thousands to try to crush opposition, the non-governmental organisation Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said.

The junta disputes the casualty figures.

The military seized power alleging widespread fraud in a November 2020 election won by a landslide by the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. and local monitoring groups said there were no major irregularities with the vote.

The junta has imposed nationwide and regional shutdowns of mobile data, making it harder for democracy activists to organise protests. It also issued a confidential order in July restricting senior foreign telecom executives from leaving the country without permission.

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will hold three-tier elections within a year, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba announced on Friday, urging the country's electoral body to start preparing for the polls.

Addressing the nation for the first time after he assumed the top executive post six months ago, Deuba said the tasks performed by the coalition government within a short period had created a strong foundation for political stability, good governance and prosperity for the country.

"We have a responsibility to conduct the three-tier elections. I urge all concerned to initiate all the necessary works concerning the elections," he said, without specifying a date.

The tenure of the existing Parliament, as well as local bodies and provinces, is expiring by next year.

"We cannot remain satisfied at the current pace of development, as there is a need to move forward in the journey of development and prosperity in this age of competition," Deuba, also president of the ruling Nepali Congress, said.

After I took charge of the government, initiatives have been taken to attain high and equitable economic development, promote productive economy, improve supply situation, control price hike, check corruption and promote export business by increasing exportable goods based on domestically available raw materials, he said.

The prime minister also urged the people to cooperate with the government and strictly abide by the health protocols to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the country recently hit by a third wave of coronavirus infection.

He also reiterated the government's commitment to vaccinate the entire eligible population against coronavirus before mid-April.

Deuba took the oath of office and secrecy on July 13 for a record fifth time, a day after a five-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana reinstated the dissolved House of Representatives for the second time in five months.

The lower house was unconstitutionally dissolved by President Bidya Devi Bhandari for the second time in five months on May 22 at the recommendation of then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. Deuba won the vote of confidence on the first day of the restored House session.

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Access to COVID-19 vaccines continues to pose a serious problem for with less than 10 per cent population vaccinated in most countries, Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on Friday and called for waivers to allow African nations to manufacture jabs locally.

Addressing the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda 2022 summit on its last day, Osinbajo complimented COVAX, the UN-backed programme tasked with delivery of vaccines to poor countries, and other global vaccine alliances for their contribution but noted that the price tag for vaccinating the entire world is just USD 50 billion, as per the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

"This is affordable, but we should not allow this opportunity to slip through the cracks," he said. "Now is a good time to test global will in building cooperation to prepare for new, possibly worse pandemics to come."



The Nigerian leader also called for natural gas -- which has in abundance -- to be accepted as a transitional fuel.

is the continent that contributes least to climate change yet has been most negatively affected by it and this situation cannot be compounded by rules that hamper Africa from adapting, he added.

"For many gas-rich African countries, one of the biggest shocks is the notion that fossil fuels including gas should be defunded, especially by financial institutions.

"We think that gas as a transition fuel is absolutely crucial, not just for an effective transition but also for our economies," he said.

Osinbajo made it clear that gas is without doubt is the only pathway for Africa to transition out of more hazardous fuels such as coal and heavy oil.

He said is probably the first country in Africa to develop an energy transition plan and this initiative, to be launched in the next couple of weeks, includes connecting five million homes to solar power, requiring more foreign investment in manufacturing panels and components.

He said there is a unique opportunity for companies to invest in Nigerian renewable energy and that the government is providing debt to those who wish to do business in the sector.

He also called on developed economies to honour their long-standing pledge to provide USD 100 billion annually in climate finance to developing countries.

Peace and security on the continent are seriously threatened by global terrorist franchises from the Sahel to the Horn to Southern Africa, Osinbajo said.

As with coronavirus, "terrorism anywhere is a threat to peace everywhere," he said, and warned global partners not to sit by and allow Africa to be overrun by such extremists.

"It is imperative for the community to make more robust interventions to clear terrorists from Africa just as it did in the Middle East," he noted.

Despite the challenges of tackling COVID-19, climate change and terrorism, Osinbajo sounded upbeat about economic prospects for Africa and .

The sub-Saharan economy grew by 3.7 per cent in 2021 and is projected to continue this trajectory into 2022.

Nigeria's own National Development Plan 2021-2025 envisages investments totalling USD 840 billion, of which 86 per cent is expected to come from the private sector.

In the next three decades, the global population will swell by 2 billion people and 1 billion of those will come from Africa, which now has the world's fastest-growing working age population.

"Africa has the potential to become the factory of the world," he said.

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The Taliban-led government in has said that reopening schools for girls across the country was their responsibility and not due to world pressure.

The remarks were made by Acting Minister Maulaee Noorullah Muneer during his meeting with Deborah Lyons, the UN General-Secretary's special representative to Afghanistan, here on Thursday, Khaama Press reported.

Muneer said that getting an education is the right of girls and the government has the responsibility to provide it.

officials have announced that higher schools for girls and public universities for boys and girls will be reopened in the next educational year that begins in March.

At least 150 public universities for boys and girls and all public higher schools for girls have remained closed since the country's takeover by the in August 2021.

Earlier this month, the Taliban's Minister of Higher Education Abdul Baqi Haqqani had announced that universities across the country for both male and female students will reopenin, but classes will be separate for boys and girls.

He however, did not mention a date of the reopning.

--IANS

ksk/

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Russia and China have blocked the UN Security Council from imposing sanctions on five North Korean officials in response to Pyongyang's recent ballistic missile tests, a decision criticized by the United States which sought to impose penalties over their roles in the country's missile program.

At an emergency council meeting on Thursday on the North's four ballistic missile launches in the last two weeks, the US called on the 15 council members to approve a brief press statement recalling that such launches violate council resolutions and strongly urging Pyongyang to comply with its council obligations "and to engage in dialogue towards denuclearization".

Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the council meeting was closed, said China, a neighbou and ally of North Korea, opposed any statement.

Before the meeting started, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield read a statement to reporters from eight countries calling North Korea's "unlawful behaviour... a threat to peace and security."



"These launches demonstrate the regime's determination to pursue weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs at all costs, including at the expense of its own people," the eight nations said.

The US, Albania, Brazil, France, Ireland, Japan, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom called on the Security Council to be unified in condemning North Korea's violations of its resolutions.

And they called on the council committee monitoring UN sanctions against Pyongyang to support sanctions against the five North Koreans proposed by the Biden administration last week, after the US imposed its own sanctions against them.

In the past, the council has been united on North Korea, but there was no council unity on Thursday.

Asked about Russia and China blocking sanctions against the five North Koreans, Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador, said any country opposing sanctions gives "a blank check".

The UN Security Council initially imposed sanctions on after its first nuclear test in 2006 and made them tougher in response to further nuclear tests and an increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile program.

In 2018, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the sanctions had cut off all North Korean exports and 90% of its trade and disbanded the pool of workers which sent abroad to earn hard currency but Pyongyang has managed to evade some measures.

China and Russia circulated a draft resolution in November urging the Security Council to end a host of sanctions against North Korea including a ban on exports of seafood and textiles, a cap on imports of refined petroleum products and a prohibition on its citizens working overseas and sending home their earnings.

It stressed the economic difficulties in North Korea and said these and other sanctions should be lifted "with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population".

The North's Foreign Ministry warned of stronger action after the U.S. imposed new sanctions last week and on Thursday the official Korean Central News Agency said the country will consider restarting "all temporally-suspended activities" it had paused during its diplomacy with the Trump administration. This appeared to be a threat to resume testing of nuclear explosives and long-range missiles.

The news agency said North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un presided over a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party where officials set policy goals for "immediately bolstering" military capabilities to counter the Americans' "hostile moves".

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US President has said that Russia will have to "pay a heavy price" if its military units move across the Ukrainian border which will be considered an "invasion".

On Thursday, the Treasury Department announced sanctions on individuals who engaged in influencing activities directed by the Russian government.

"This action was part of our ongoing, longstanding efforts to counter Russia's network of influence efforts and to expose its dangerous, threatening, and ongoing campaign to destabilize Ukraine," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.

In response to a question, she said, "These individuals are at the heart of Russia's destabilizing campaign in and we stand united with the Ukrainian government."



Psaki stressed the US is not waiting to take action to counter Russia.

"We see what they're doing and we are disrupting it. These actions are separate and distinct from the broad range of high-impact, severe measures we and our allies are prepared to impose in order to inflict significant costs should they invade," she said.

Later, Biden told reporters, "I've been absolutely clear with President Putin... If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion and would be met with a severe and coordinated economic response that I've discussed in detail with our allies and laid out very clearly for President Putin."



"Let there be no doubt at all that if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price," the US president warned.

Biden stressed being prepared about cyberattacks, "grey-zone" attacks, and actions by Russian soldiers not wearing their own uniforms. He alleged that Russia has a long history of using measures other than overt military action to carry out aggression.

"Remember when they moved into the Donbas with 'Little Green Men'? They were dealing with those who were Russian sympathizers and said that Russia had nobody in there," he said.

Soldiers in unmarked uniforms, dubbed "little green men" by some, had swept Crimea in 2014 laying the ground for annexation by Russia.

"We have to be ready to respond to these in a united way with a range of tools at our disposal," Biden said.

Later in the day, when asked why is he waiting for Putin to make the first move, Biden replied, "What a stupid question."



White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration is making decisions based on decades of experience of the president and that of his foreign policy team and through consultation with its partners.

"President Putin is going to make the choice he's going to make. Either he is going to decide to invade and suffer severe economic consequences or he is going to decide to engage in diplomatic discussions," she said.

"The aggressor is Russia and Putin. They are building up military troops and also pushing out misinformation in . That's who we need to keep our focus on and make sure we are educating the public about their actions," Psaki added.

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unveiled a 14 trillion won ($11.75 billion) supplementary budget on Friday to support the self-employed and small businesses that have taken a heavy hit from extended COVID-19 curbs.

Some 11.5 trillion won will be used to help small business owners and compensate their losses caused by the extension of virus-related measures, the finance ministry said. Another 1.5 trillion won is earmarked to secure COVID-19 treatment pills for 400,000 people and 25,000 hospital beds.

The other 1 trillion won will be used as contingency reserves should the Omicron variant spread further and require more support. To finance the extra stimulus, the government will issue 11.3 trillion won worth of treasury bonds and utilise 2.7 trillion won from public fund reserves.

The extra budget, which will be submitted to parliament on Monday, comes at a time when the ruling Democratic Party is struggling to recover public support just weeks ahead of the country's 2022 presidential election.

With the latest supplementary budget, the total government spending would increase to a record 621.7 trillion won this year, adding to the already approved 607.7 trillion won budget.

That would be an 11.4% increase from the 2021 original budget, while it is also expected to bring the ratio of government debt to gross domestic product to a record 50.1%.

extended its tougher social distancing rules for three more weeks, including 9 p.m. curfew for restaurants, cafes and bars and limited size of private gatherings, amid concerns over a looming wave of the highly contagious Omicron variant especially ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays.

(Reporting by Joori Roh; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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Refiners globally are reaping the highest profits from gasoil production in years on stronger than expected demand and tight supplies despite concerns about the Omicron coronavirus variant's impact on the world economy.

Demand for the fuel used to power trucks, generators and machines remained strong even as COVID-19 cases surge across the world as measures taken by governments to curb the spread were less severe than in 2020, traders and analysts said.

Strong jet fuel prices have also reduced the availability of the middle distillate for blending into the diesel pool, they added.



Stronger that expected demand has led to a drawdown on stocks in key trading hubs such as Singapore, Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA), and the United Arab Emirates to the lowest in years, supporting prices and refining margins globally.

Asian refining margins for the benchmark gasoil grade with 10 ppm sulphur content have hit more than two-year highs, notching a profit of nearly 24% this month from December.

"Asian diesel demand has been robust, particularly from Australia, India and Southeast Asia, but supply has not been able to keep pace," Serena Huang, analyst at Vortexa said.



China's diesel exports remained curtailed by tight export quotas, while exports from India in the first two weeks of January were also low compared with previous quarters, Huang added.

Analysts expect less exports from within the East of Suez region as key suppliers are facing strong domestic consumption, leaving them with almost no cargoes to ship.

"A 140,000 barrels per day uptick in Indian demand month-on-month, now almost equalling 2019 levels, is keeping a lid on the



overall volumes available for export," consultancy JBC Energy said in a note.

South Korean and Japanese diesel exports have also been ticking up since late December amid rising runs, but cumulatively flows remain below what the consultancy has observed in previous years, it added.

Singapore's middle distillate inventories edged up in January but remain near December levels which were hovering at their lowest since May 2018, Refinitiv data showed.



LESS ARBITRAGE SUPPLIES

Lower shipments from Asia and the United States have tightened supplies in Europe, pushing European benchmark diesel cracks well above the five-year average.

European gasoil margins are trading at their highest in five years, also partly because of very strong jet fuel prices which have meant refiners are blending less into the diesel pool, traders said.

Gasoil stocks held in independent storage in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage area fell 8% to 1,686 million tonnes in the week to Thursday, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed, well below their 5-year average for this time of the year of around 2.475 million tonnes.

Adding to the tightness, Shell's 400,000-bpd Pernis refinery in the Netherlands, Europeas largest, will go into maintenance

until June.

However, traders expect the arbitrage from Asia to Europe to open very soon which could lead to a large flow of diesel.

In the United States, distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 1.4 million barrels last week to 128 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.



"We would see the underlying support for gasoil being relatively healthy demand and a still cautious approach by refiners when it comes to increasing refinery runs largely due to the uncertainty over Omicron, although that now seems like less of a threat," Richard Gorry, managing director at JBC Energy Asia said.

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The top diplomats of and the were to meet in Switzerland on Friday to discuss soaring tensions over after a flurry of meetings between officials on both sides in the last week produced no breakthroughs.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Geneva for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov following a swing through Europe to shore up U.S. allies commitments to hit with sanctions if it goes ahead with an invasion of .

Washington's hopes of building a united front of opposition to Moscow were complicated by U.S. President Joe Biden's comments at a news conference on Wednesday in which he predicted would "move in" on and said Moscow would pay dearly.

Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops on its borders with Ukraine, and Western states fear Moscow is planning a new assault on a country it invaded in 2014 to annex the Crimean peninsula. Russia denies it is planning an attack, but says it could take unspecified military action if a list of demands are not met, including a promise from NATO never to admit Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked about Biden's comments, said Russia had been receiving similar warnings for at least a month.

"We believe that they in no way contribute to defusing the tension that has now arisen in Europe and, moreover, can contribute to the destabilization of the situation," Peskov said.

In Kyiv on Wednesday Blinken sought to reassure Ukraine of U.S. support. Blinken, before meeting with German, French and British officials in Berlin on Thursday, said Russian President Vladimir Putin could order an invasion imminently.

Blinken's deputy, Wendy Sherman, and Lavrov's deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, also met in Geneva last week, where both sides set out seemingly irreconcilable positions.

Russia wants NATO to promise not to admit Ukraine as a member and halt its eastward expansion. The U.S.-led alliance has rejected that.

U.S. officials have played down hopes of concrete results from Friday's meeting.

Blinken, repeatedly calling out what he called Russian adisinformationa aimed at destabilizing Ukraine, said on Thursday the diplomatic efforts this week meant he could represent a shared view of Western nations to Russia on Friday and press Moscow to step back.

"That unity gives us strength - a strength I might add that Russia does not and cannot match,a Blinken said. And it's why I'll be able to represent a shared view, a shared preference, on the part of the and our European allies and partners for finding a diplomatic path forward to de-escalate this conflict.a

'NO MINOR INCURSIONS'

But that unity appeared to be undermined by comments by Biden, who said on Wednesday that the West's response may not be unified if Russia only makes a minor incursion into Ukraine. The comments forced administration officials to issue clarifications, but they raised doubts among U.S. allies that Washington was willing to give Putin some leeway to avert a full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted an apparent rebuke on Thursday, reminding the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones." Orysia Lutsevych, a Ukraine analyst at the Chatham House think-tank in London, said the Geneva meeting would give the the chance to clarify Biden's comments.

"Hopefully Blinken will be able to straighten out some of this ambiguity, if he has the mandate," she said. There was a "certain irritation" on the Ukrainian side that the West was not turning rhetorical support into more concrete action.

But in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, residents interviewed by Reuters said they were confident of Russia's backing.

"I believe in Putin, he must help us, he mustn't abandon us. We all hope so. I don't know this Biden and I don't want to know him, but I believe in Russia," said a pensioner who gave her name as Tatyana.

Another resident, a 28-year-old named Alexander, said there was a small chance of a peaceful outcome.

"For the future of our younger brothers, sisters and children. I hope that in their negotiations they will reach the point that all of us and them need, and we will finally return to peace and harmony," he said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Additional reporting by Alexander Ermochenko in Donetsk and Mark Trevelyan in London; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

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The UN General Assembly approved an Israeli-sponsored resolution Thursday condemning any denial of the Holocaust and urging all nations and social media companies to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion.

The 193-member world body approved the resolution by consensus -- without a vote -- and with a bang of a gavel by Assembly President Abdulla Shahid. Israel's No. 1 enemy, Iran, disassociated itself from the resolution.

The ambassadors of and Germany, which strongly supported the resolution, stressed the significance of the resolution's adoption on Jan. 20: It is the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference where Nazi leaders coordinated plans for the so-called Final Solution of the Jewish Question at a villa on the shores of Berlin's Wannsee Lake in 1942 during World War II.

The result was the establishment of Nazi death camps and the murder of nearly 6 million Jews, comprising one-third of the Jewish people. In addition, millions of people from other nationalities, minorities and targeted groups were killed, according to the draft resolution.

We now live in an era in which fiction is becoming fact and the Holocaust is becoming a distant memory, Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan told the assembly in urging support for the resolution. And as this happens following the greatest crime in human history, now comes the greatest cover-up in human history.

Erdan, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, said the resolution is a commitment to make sure that Holocaust distortion and denial will be tolerated no more.

He said social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and You Tube are spreading the pandemic of distortions and lies about the Holocaust.

Social media giants can no longer remain complacent to the hate spread on their platforms and must take action now, the Israeli ambassador said.

The resolution commends countries that have preserved Nazi death camps and other sites from the Holocaust and urges the 193 U.N. member states to develop educational programs that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide.

It requests the U.N. and its agencies to continue developing and implementing programs aimed at countering Holocaust denial and distortions and to mobilize civil society and to provide truthful facts about the Holocaust.

Currently, the U.N. has an outreach program on the Holocaust and the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has a program on Holocaust education and combatting anti-Semitism.

Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but do reflect global opinion.

The General Assembly designated Jan. 27 the day the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Soviet army as the annual Day of Commemoration in memory of victims of the Holocaust in 2005. The resolution underlines that remembrance is a key component to the prevention of further acts of genocide.

It says Holocaust denial refers to discourse and propaganda that deny the historical reality and the extent of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis and their accomplices during World War II and any attempt to claim that the Holocaust did not take place or call into doubt that gas chambers, mass shooting, starvation, and intentional genocide were used against the Jewish people.

The resolution says distorting or denying the Holocaust also refers to intentional efforts to excuse or minimize the role of Nazi collaborators and allies, gross minimization of the number of victims, attempts to blame the Jews for causing their own genocide, statements casting the Holocaust as a positive event, and attempt to blur the responsibility for establishing concentration and death camps by putting blame on other nations or ethnic groups.

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Da Bank (DAB), the central bank of the country, has announced that the UN has sent $32 million in cash to the war-torn nation as part of the world body's humanitarian aid assistance, the media reported.

In a statement, the DAB said that the money was delivered to Bank (AIB) on Thursday, reports Khaama Press.

Welcoming the UN aid, the DAB said the money is part of a process based on which the UN will provide $20 million weekly until March to the country.

"This will definitely help the fragile economic and banking systems of that are feared to be collapsing," it added.

On the other hand, economic analysts have said that unless the injection of dollars to Afghanistan's market, the country's local currency, Afghani, will further depreciate.

--IANS

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The age-old alliance between the US and Japan is the cornerstone of peace and security in the strategic Indo-Pacific region and across the world, US President said in his virtual meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday.

In his meeting with Prime Minister Kishida, President Biden accepted an invitation to visit Japan later this year to attend the second in-person Quad summit, which would also be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"It was an honor to meet with Prime Minister Kishida to further strengthen the US-Japan alliance the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world, Biden said in a tweet after the meeting.

As Indo-Pacific powers, the United States and Japan are united in a shared purpose to sustain and enhance their commitment to the region, the White House said in a readout of the meeting.

India, the US and several other world powers have been talking about the need to ensure a free, open and thriving Indo-Pacific in the backdrop of China's rising military manoeuvring in the region.

The two leaders resolved to push back against China's attempts to change the status quo in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, underscoring the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues, the statement said.

The Chinese military is actively eying the strategic Indian Ocean region to step up Beijing's influence. China claims nearly all of the disputed South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it.

Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea. China also has territorial disputes with Japan in the East China Sea. The US maintains it will support its regional allies in the defence of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

The two leaders also shared concerns about China's practices in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

The two leaders remain committed to working closely with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Biden and Kishida reaffirmed their support for ASEAN centrality and resolved to strengthen our cooperation in Southeast Asia, the White House said.

The two leaders highlighted the importance of the Quad Australia, Japan, India, and the United States as a critical forum for promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and resolved to ensure the Quad delivers practical results in areas such as COVID-19 response, climate and clean energy, and infrastructure, it said.

In 2017, India, Australia, Japan and the US gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the "Quad" or the Quadrilateral coalition to counter China's aggressive behaviour in the strategically-vital Indo-Pacific region.

Biden welcomed Kishida's invitation to visit Japan for the next Quad Leaders Meeting in the first half of 2022, the White House said.

The two leaders resolved to enhance economic ties between the US and Japan. Noting the progress made under the Competitiveness and Resilience (CoRe) Partnership announced in April 2021, Biden and Kishida established a new ministerial-level Economic Policy Consultative Committee (the Economic 2+2), to track and drive economic cooperation and to strengthen the rules-based economic order in the Indo-Pacific region and the world, it said.

The two leaders affirmed the importance of US economic leadership in the Indo-Pacific, which President Biden committed to intensify. To that end, Prime Minister Kishida expressed strong support for President Biden's proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and pledged to work closely with the United States to build support for the initiative in the region, the White House said.

The President and Prime Minister Kishida agreed on the importance of economic policies that are sustainable and inclusive, and benefit the middle class. The two leaders also expressed their desire for the swift resolution of trade issues, it said.

Biden and Kishida condemned the recent ballistic missile launches by North Korea which are in violation of United Nations



Security Council resolutions, the White House said. The leaders committed to work closely together to deter Russian aggression against Ukraine, and Kishida pledged to continue close coordination with the US, other allies and partners, and the community on taking strong action in response to any attack, the statement said.

Biden and Kishida affirmed the importance of close cooperation among the United States, Japan, and South Korea in addressing common challenges, and underscored the imperative of a strong trilateral relationship on security and more broadly, it said.

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Washington, Jan 21 (IANs) The Senate Judiciary Committee in the US has approved a key antitrust reform that would ban Big Tech from favouring their own services and products over those of their rivals.

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act is a bipartisan bill spearheaded by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

"I want to stress that this bill is not meant to break up Big Tech or destroy the products and services they offer. Rather, the goal of the bill is to prevent conduct that stifles competition, while ensuring that pro-consumer innovations and offerings are still available," said Grassley.

The House Judiciary Committee had passed a similar bill last year but that bill has yet to receive a vote on the House floor and must be approved by both chambers of Congress before it heads to US President Joe Biden's desk, reports The Verge.

The White House did not issue any statement on the bill.

However, the White House officials met leaders of companies that have criticised Big Tech in the past.

"Several participants described issues with large platforms both operating a marketplace and selling products on the marketplace, including concerns that the dominant platforms rank their own products and services above those of the independent sellers that rely on them to reach customers,' the White House said in a statement late on Thursday.

"One company elaborated that this deprives consumers of the ability to find the products and services that best match their needs," it added.

Earlier media reports this week claimed that tech giants are worried about the new antitrust legislation as Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai have been personally "calling and meeting with Senators," urging them to oppose the mooted legislation.

It applies only to the biggest tech companies -- Apple, Amazon, Facebook-owner Meta and Alphabet's Google.

These platforms would be barred from behaviour like biasing search results in their favour, limiting rivals' access to platform data, and using non-public data from customers to compete against them.

--IANS

na/dpb

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Top American lawmakers have urged the Joe Biden administration to initiate a litigation process at the against subsidising its farmers over half of the value of production for .

US Associates, which has been aggressively pushing for such a move by the administration, has welcomed the letters by members of the Congress and Senate.

A group of 28 members of the US Congress, in a letter, said, "American commodity producers are operating at a clear disadvantage to their competitors, primarily from India, where the government is subsidizing more than half of the value of production for rice and wheat, instead of the 10 per cent allowable under (WTO) rules."



"We ask that you swiftly take action to reverse the trend of non-compliance by with domestic support requirements by initiating a dispute settlement case," stated the letter to US Trade Representatives Katherine Tai and Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The Congress members wrote the US has continually pressed at the to reform its price support programme but to no avail.

"Considering India's activity, we encourage you to initiate the litigation process through a request for consultations," they said.

The letter by the members of the Congressmen on January 13 comes nearly a month after 18 Senators sent a similar letter to Vilsack and Tai requesting the Biden administration pursue WTO case against India's domestic support for rice and production.

The US has previously highlighted India's non-compliance through counter-notifications at the WTO Committee on Agriculture.

Reacting to the move by the lawmakers, US Wheat Associates, in a statement, said it was "pleased that several members of Congress have asked Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai to pursue a WTO case against India's trade-distorting domestic wheat and rice support."



National Association of Wheat Growers CEO Chandler Goule said it is important that as a WTO member, India must adhere to commitments and not continue to create unfair advantages for its domestic production and distort world trade.

"We appreciate these Senators bringing the issue to the attention of the administration and will continue to work with the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Trade Representative (USTR) in enhancing the competitiveness of US wheat in the world," he said.

USDA estimates Indian wheat exports for the marketing year ending June 30, 2022, will be 5 million metric tons (MMT).

"This leaves almost 28 MMT of wheat stocks remaining. The distortion of wheat and rice trade from these policies is severe, costing US wheat farmers more than USD 500 million per year in lost income according to a 2020 Texas A&M University study commissioned by USW and USA Rice," according to a media release.

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The US Treasury Department levied new sanctions Thursday against four Ukrainian officials, including two current members of parliament who administration officials say are part of a Russian influence effort to set the pretext for further invasion of .

The sanctions name parliamentarians Taras Kozak and Oleh Voloshyn and two former government officials. According to Treasury, all four have been intimately involved in disinformation efforts by Russia's federal security service, known as the FSB.

The new sanctions were announced less than 24 hours after President Joe Biden said he thinks Moscow will newly invade . He warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country would pay a dear price in lives lost and a possible restrictions in access to the global banking system if it does.

Biden faced criticism from Republicans and Ukrainian officials that he invited a limited Russian invasion by suggesting in comments to reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. would react with a measured response if there was only a minor incursion of Ukrainian territory. Administration officials sought to clarify his remarks late Wednesday and Thursday.

The White House last week warned that has stationed operatives in and around possibly to create pretext for an invasion. U.S. and Ukrainian officials have also been concerned about the Russian weaponising of disinformation.

The is taking action to expose and counter Russia's dangerous and threatening campaign of influence and disinformation in Ukraine, said Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. We are committed to taking steps to hold accountable for their destabilizing actions.

Kozak, who controls several news channels in Ukraine, is accused of amplifying false narratives about Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's inner circle and the 2020 elections. Voloshyn has worked with Russia's FSB to undermine Ukrainian government officials, Treasury says.

Treasury officials say Voloshyn also worked with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national who was previously sanctioned for allegedly attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election and passing on information to Russian intelligence.

Treasury also sanctioned Ukraine's former deputy secretary for national security and defense councils, Vladimir Sivkovich. The administration says Sivkovich worked last year with a network of Russian intelligence activists to carry out influence operations that attempted to build support for Ukraine to officially cede Crimea to in exchange for a drawdown of Russian backed forces. Russian troops seized Crimea in 2014 and continues to occupy the Black Sea peninsula.

The other former official cited is Volodymyr Oliynyk, who Treasury says worked at the direction of the FSB to gather information about Ukrainian critical infrastructure. Oliynk is currently living in Russia, according to Treasury.

After Biden speculated about a minor incursion by Russia, top administration officials underscored that any invasion would be seen as violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and would result in severe consequences for Russia.

Nevertheless, the comments have rattled Kyiv and hinted at Biden's challenge of keeping the and its NATO allies united in their response to Russia.

We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations, Zelenskyy tweeted Thursday shortly before the new sanctions were announced. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones.

Some 100,000 Russian troops have massed near the Ukraine border. Russian officials are demanding written guarantees that NATO will not expand westward. Members of the alliance refuse to give such a pledge.

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Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC (ABSLAMC) was granted approval by IFSCA on 20 January 2022 to carry out Portfolio Management Services (PMS) through a branch office in International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in India.

Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC (ABSLAMC) will set up a new unit at the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City, Gandhinagar) to grow its international business to expand its reach and service global clients, including NRIs for investing in India.

ABSLAMC is the fourth largest asset manager in the country with presence in over 280 locations pan-India and already has a presence in international markets such as Dubai, Singapore and Mauritius.

Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC (ABSL AMC)'s consolidated net profit jumped 38% to Rs 173.07 crore on a 27.9% surge in total income to Rs 372.19 crore in Q2 September 2021 over Q2 September 2020.

ABSL AMC is the fourth largest asset management companies (AMCs) in India by quarterly average asset under management (QAAUM) since September 2011 and its also the largest non-bank affiliated AMC in India since March 2018. The focus of the company is on consistent investment performance, extensive distribution network, brand, and superior customer service.

ABSLAMC has a pan India presence across 280 plus locations and a total AUM of over Rs 3,12,000 crore under its suite of mutual fund (excluding our domestic FoFs), portfolio management services, offshore and real estate offerings and 7.3 million investor folios for the quarter ending 30 September 2021.

Shares of Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC (ABSLAMC) lost 0.50% to Rs 547.60 on BSE.

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Bharat Forge Ltd is quoting at Rs 745.65, down 0.61% on the day as on 13:24 IST on the NSE. The stock jumped 18.47% in last one year as compared to a 22.8% rally in NIFTY and a 10.8% spurt in the Nifty Auto index.

Bharat Forge Ltd dropped for a fifth straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 745.65, down 0.61% on the day as on 13:24 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is down around 0.61% on the day, quoting at 17648.05. The Sensex is at 59124.85, down 0.57%.Bharat Forge Ltd has gained around 8.96% in last one month.Meanwhile, Nifty Auto index of which Bharat Forge Ltd is a constituent, has increased around 9.38% in last one month and is currently quoting at 11583.2, up 0.59% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 7.53 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 11.72 lakh shares in last one month.

The benchmark January futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 747.5, down 0.79% on the day. Bharat Forge Ltd jumped 18.47% in last one year as compared to a 22.8% rally in NIFTY and a 10.8% spurt in the Nifty Auto index.

The PE of the stock is 42.28 based on TTM earnings ending September 21.

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Data Patterns (India) rose 0.89% to Rs 790.75 after the company announced that it has received a development order of Rs 27 crore from Defence Research and Development Organisation for wide band RF front end units for electronic warfare receivers.

Data Patterns said that the new program allows wide band EW receivers to be configured for naval, land and aerial platforms. The wide band RF front ends allow faster scanning of enemy emitters to enable better electronic intelligence with enhanced detection and avoidance. The specifications not only allow faster scan rate but also better dynamic range providing better detection, the company said in a press release.

Data Patterns further said that the contract enhances its leadership in home grown EW market with EW products comparable to international specifications.

Data Patterns (India) is a vertically integrated defence and aerospace electronics solutions provider catering to the indigenously developed defence products industry.

The stock entered bourses on 24 December 2021. The scrip was listed at Rs 864, representing a premium of 47.69% to the issue price of Rs 585 per share. The initial public offer (IPO) of Data Patterns (India) received bids for 84,89,85,725 shares as against 70,97,285 shares on offer. The issue was subscribed 119.62 times.

The company reported a net profit of Rs 23.21 crore and sales of Rs 96.45 crore for the six months ended September 2021.

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Hindustan Unilever (HUL): The FMCG major posted 16.76% rise in standalone net profit to Rs 2,243 crore on 10.43% increase in revenue from operations to Rs 12,900 crore in Q3 FY22 over Q3 FY21.

Bajaj Holdings and Investment: The company reported consolidated net profit of Rs 1,040.16 crore in Q3FY22 as against net profit of Rs 1,149.58 crore in Q3FY21. Total income fell to Rs 110.13 crore from Rs 113.66 crore YoY.

Reliance Industries (RIL), HDFC Life Insurance Company, SBI Life Insurance Company, JSW Steel, Bandhan Bank, CSB Bank, among others will release their quarterly earnings today, 21 January 2022.

Adani Enterprises: Adani Enterprises said that IPO of Adani Wilmar, a 50:50 joint venture company between the Adani group and the Wilmar group, will be open for subscription during January 27-31, 2022, which comprises a fresh issue of Rs 3,600 crore.

Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC: The company has received approval from International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) to carry out Portfolio Management Services from GIFT City, Gandhinagar.

Havells India: The company registered a 12% decline in standalone net profit to Rs 306 crore in Q3 FY22 from Rs 349 crore posted in Q3 FY21. Net revenue increased by 15% to Rs 3,652 crore in Q3 FY22 from Rs 3,166 crore posted in Q3 FY21.

Surya Roshni: The company received orders of Rs 123.17 crore for ERW line pipe (API 5L GRADE) and MS bare pipe 3LPE coated.

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SBI Cards and Payment Services fell 1.24% to Rs 850.35, extending its losing streak to sixth consecutive trading session.

Shares of the credit card company have declined 5% in six trading sessions from its previous closing low of Rs 895.85 posted on 13 January 2022. The counter hit a 52- week low of Rs 849.65 in intraday today. The stock is down 27% from its 52-week high of Rs 1164.65 posted on 21 January 2021.

In last one month, the stock declined 4.5% as compared to a 5% rise in Nifty 50 index.

The counter witnessed selling pressure after after a foreign brokerage on 10 January reportedly initiated coverage on the scrip with a 'Sell' rating and a price target of Rs 654. According to the media reports, the brokerage is among the first institutional brokers to initiate a 'Sell' call on the stock and believes rich valuations of the company have made risk-reward ratio unfavorable.

On the technical front, the stock's RSI (relative strength index) stood at 27.860. The RSI oscillates between zero and 100. Traditionally the RSI is considered overbought when above 70 and oversold when below 30.

The stock is trading above its 50 and 100 days simple moving average placed at 941.77 and 1016.26 respectively. These levels will act as crucial support zones in near term.

SBI Card is a non-banking financial company that offers extensive credit card portfolio to individual cardholders and corporate clients.

On a consolidated basis, SBI Cards and Payment Services' net profit surged 67.31% to Rs 344.90 crore on 7.39% increase in total income to Rs 2,695.46 crore in Q2 FY22 over Q2 FY21.

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SBI Life Insurance Company's standalone net profit surged 56.34% to Rs 364.06 crore on a 81.02% drop in income from investments (net) to Rs 2,424.12 crore in Q3 December 2021 over Q3 December 2020.

Net premium income jumped 30.93% to Rs 18,025.34 crore in Q3 FY22 as compared to Rs 13,766.49 crore in Q3 FY21.

For the nine-month ending, SBI Life Insurance Company's net profit dropped 10% to Rs 830 crore on a 19% rise in gross written premium (GWP) to Rs 41,250 crore in 9M FY2022 over 9M FY2021.

SBI Life Insurance Company achieved private market leadership in Individual Rated Premium of Rs 9,070 crore with 24.8% private market share in 9M FY22. Individual New Business Premium grew 43% Y-o-Y (year-on-year) to Rs 1,16,100 crore in 9M FY22. New Business Premium (NBP) jumped 30% to Rs 1,87,900 crore in 9M FY 22 driven by strong growth in regular premium business by 36%.

Protection of New Business Premium has increased by 26% Y-o-Y to Rs 2,040 billion in 9M FY22 from Rs 1,620 crore in 9M FY21 due to 27% Y-o-Y growth in individual protection business to Rs 620 crore and 26% Y-o-Y growth in group protection business to Rs 1,420 crore in 9M FY22.

Total cost ratio for 9M FY22 stood at 8.7% as against 8.5% for 9M FY21. Commission ratio for 9M FY22 was at 3.5% from 3.4% for 9M FY21. Operating Expense for 9M FY22 stood at 5.1% from 5.1% in 9M FY21.

Value of New Business (VoNB) increased by 54% Y-o-Y to Rs 2,230 crore in 9M FY22. The VoNB margin increased by 260 bps to 21.9% in 9M FY22 from 19.3% in 9M FY21. VoNB (on effective tax rate) increased by 66% Y-o-Y to Rs 2,590 crore in 9M FY22. VoNB margin (on effective tax rate) increased by 470 bps to 25.5% in 9M FY22. Meanwhile, an additional reserve of Rs 270 crore towards COVID-19 pandemic has been kept by the company as of 31 December 2021.

The 13th month persistency (based on premium considering Single Premium and Fully Paid-up policies & group business where persistency is measurable) was at 87.17% in 9M FY22 as against 86.17% in 9M FY21. The improvement in 13th month persistency (based on premium considering Regular Premium/ Limited Premium payment under individual category) was by 49 bps to 83.87% for 9M FY22 as compared to 83.38% in 9M FY21 due to its focus on improving the quality of business and customer retention.

Asset under Management (AuM) grew 23% Y-o-Y to Rs 2,56,870 crore as on 31 December 2021 from Rs 2,09,500 crore as on 31 December 2020 with a debt-equity mix of 71:29. Over 96% of the debt investments are in AAA and Sovereign instruments, the company's press statement highlighted.

The company's net worth jumped 11% to Rs 11,200 crore as on 31 December 2021 from Rs 10,130 billion as on 31 December 2020. A strong solvency ratio as on 31 December 2021 of 2.09 as against the regulatory requirement of 1.50.

SBI Life Insurance Company is one of the leading life Insurance companies in India. SBI Life Insurance Company has a strong distribution network of 1,94,177 trained insurance professionals consisting of agents, CIFs and SPs along with widespread operations with 947 offices across country. The company has diversified distribution network comprising of strong bancassurance channel, agency channel and others comprising of corporate agents, brokers, micro agents, common service centers, insurance marketing firms, web aggregators and direct business.

Shares of SBI Life Insurance Company lost 0.09% to end at Rs 1,237.75 on BSE.

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New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI): After the Arunachal Pradesh incident of abduction of an Indian youth by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Party is taking on the Modi government and demanding that an all-party delegation of the MPs should visit the Line of Actual Control (LAC) under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Speaking to the reporters, MP and spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said, "The party has always put the interest of the country above the interest of the party. We have never tried to derive political gains but have worked for the benefit of the nation. Be it the security of the nation, whether it is our brave army, whether it is issues of terrorism. Whether there were attacks on things like Raghunath Temple or Parliament, we never did on it. Even on top of that we never did our vote-bank about the brave army. It is the responsibility of all of us to see that the borders of our nation are safe. No one should enter our borders even a little bit."

Gohil further said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had warned long ago that China is intruding into Indian territory but the Central Government did not do anything.

"Rahul Gandhi warned long ago that look, China is coming to our border, Modi ji, do something. But that matter was not taken seriously at that time. What I am putting in front of you, Rahul Gandhi is the leader of Congress, Modi ji does not listen to him. Some opposition party says in Parliament, he is not allowed to speak. You do not listen to him. But your state president, who is the president of Arunachal Pradesh, member of your executive, which is considered to be the strongest decision-making committee in BJP, a member of that committee and a senior member of parliament of BJP is saying this. Modi ji, you will believe his words, will you not?" he added.

"I congratulate that MP, Tapir Gao ji. I know he must have been under pressure to delete the tweet but he hasn't deleted it. That is why I thank him. We have put his tweet on the screen in front of all of you, in which he has written, 'Chinese #PLA has abducted Sh Miram Taron, 17 years of Zido vill. yesterday 18th Jan 2022 from inside Indian territory, Lungta Jor area (China-built 3-4 kms road inside India in 2018) under Siyungla area (Bising village) of Upper Siang dist, Arunachal Pradesh'. His friend escaped from the PLA and reported to the authorities. All the agencies of the Government of India requested to step up for his early release," said Congress leader.

"This BJP's Arunachal Pradesh president, BJP Executive member, senior MP Tapir Gao had said that a 17-year-old boy has been taken to China from inside our border in Arunachal. He had a friend with him who escaped by somehow saving his life. It has also been said that in 2018, China has built 3 to 4 km road in our territory. There is no one else to say this. Modi ji this is BJP MP, Modi ji this is Arunachal Pradesh BJP president," he said.

He further asked the Prime Minister to say something on China.

"Modi ji, Gao is a member of the executive. Will you ignore him now too? If you do this, then what Chanakya ji had said that when despite having a strong army, the ruler of the country who has neither courage nor spirit, that nation comes in trouble, their citizens and their borders. Here our citizens are taken away, a road is built inside our border, they enter and why are you silent on this? Your Twitter speaks like Kapalbhati. If you are not able to gather the crowd, such an atmosphere comes, then every day you keep on giving two-three speeches to the people for hours. Let's say something on China too," said Gohil.

Gohil further said, "I want to say this seriously and I also ask my journalist colleagues to take this seriously. A very senior officer of our army said that we have many such points where we are face to face with China and we also used to go patrolling till there. We used to do this patrolling for years, but there are many such points, where the government has forbidden the army to go on patrolling within its limits and these points which they told me from their territory were - PT 17, which is in Gogra. It is also said that Hot Spring has become a point. The second happened in Galwan Valley, where there was face-to-face situation. The third was Pangong, wherever the army of China and our country was face to face and the fourth was Kailash. The senior army officers who were saying on these four points were only talking about their territory that we used to go to these four places in my territory."

"The government has forbidden us from patrolling--we should not do patrolling there and China is sitting there piling up and I don't know what it would be doing in that territory of ours. It is not known because we have been forbidden from patrolling," he said.

"I demand from Modi ji, my information may be wrong. Perhaps even one of your MPs can lie, so you can say that their information was also wrong. I demand to come to Modi ji. You will fight for the interest of the nation. Rahul Gandhi has said these are the values of the Congress party. We are with you shoulder to shoulder. Let us form a team of MPs of all political parties. The four places that I have said, where your MP has said that China had made a road, let's go with the MPs of all political parties under your leadership. Doodh ka doodh pani ka pani hoga. If you say that no, everyone is safe here, show that to all political party people. Is it your 56-inch chest that you are sitting silently saying that it is a question of the interest of the nation, not a political issue?" he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, Arunachal East MP Tapir Gao claimed that a 17-year-old youth has been abducted from inside Indian territory.

Gao claimed that the youth was 'abducted' on Tuesday from Arunachal Pradesh's Upper Siang district.

(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 has urged Union Finance Minister to allocate funds in the union budget 2022-23 for various works taken up under the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department in the state.

Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister K.T. Rama Rao wrote a letter to Sitharaman on Thursday, seeking assistance of nearly Rs 8,000 crore for various projects in Hyderabad.

KTR, as the state minister is popularly known, requested for allocation of funds for Mass Rapid Transit systems (MRTS) along the KPHB-Kokapet-Narsingi corridor.

While the preliminary estimates of the MRTS is Rs 3,050 crore, he requested the Centre to sanction 15 per cent of the project cost (Rs 450 crore).

This will be about 30 Kms long with an expected ridership of 5 lakh by 2030 and will have connectivity with the proposed Airport express at Narsingi and with the existing Metro network at the Financial District.

KTR also requested for sanction of funds for Warangal Metro-Neo project, amounting to Rs 184 crore, as the project would be a major milestone in public transport in a Tier II city, and requested that the Centre sanction of 20 per cent of the project cost.

KTR also brought to the notice of the Union Finance Minister that the state government has embarked on several initiatives like Strategic Road Development Programme (SRDP), Model Corridors Development and Hyderabad Road Development to improve the transport network not only in Hyderabad, but in Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration (HUA).

He mentioned that a total of 22 missing link roads were taken up and completed, while another 17 such link roads are at various stages of completion.

Further, to extend the missing link connectivity/improvement and comprehensive development up to Outer Ring Road including the surrounding urban local bodies, a total of 104 additional corridors are identified to take up with an estimated amount of Rs 2,400 crore. These connecting roads are proving to be the lifeline of urban mobility, he said in the letter.

He requested the Union government to support the government by extending a contribution of Rs 800 crore, that is one-third of the project cost.

As per the DPRs for Phase II of SRDP, the estimated cost of various works is Rs 14,000 crore. These include improvement of important roads, construction of flyovers and underpasses for smooth connectivity and widening of important roads and he requested her to provide 10 per cent of the project cost.

Highlighting the need for a stronger sewerage network in Hyderabad, KTR cited about the ambitious Comprehensive Sewerage Master Plan (CSMP) taken up by the state government.

The plan includes construction of 62 Sewage Treatment Plants at a total estimated cost of Rs 8,684.54 crore and urged the Central government to sanction one-third of the project cost.

--IANS

ms/vd

(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 US rolled out services on Wednesday, notwithstanding the US Federal Aviation Administrations warning and fears that it may interfere with crucial on-board instruments. And, amid this fear, several countries either rescheduled or cancelled flights to American cities. But the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said that there was no immediate safety concern in their region where the latest technology is also being introduced. India, meanwhile, will also launch this service in the next few months. So will the new technology come in the way of flight safety here, our next report tries to find some answers After the clash of two technologies, let us move on to man's brush with nature. According to an estimate, earths temperature has risen by 0.14 F (0.08 C) per decade since 1880. And the last decade was the warmest in recorded history.

To know more about the -- which is also leading to erratic distribution of rainfall and increased probability of flash floods -- Business Standards Sanjeeb Mukherjee spoke to Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Director General of Meteorology, India Meteorological Department. has also started influencing investment decisions, a recent report has said. Meanwhile, equity have been on a downtrend for the better part of this week. The Sensex has fallen over 1,800 points in 3 days while the Nifty50 is testing 17,750 level. Given this, analysts suggest inventors accumulate quality names from the sectors which can benefit from Budget announcements. Watch our next report to know which are the stocks and sectors that analysts are most bullish on It is not just the markets, but the country too is keenly waiting for the which will be tabled on February 1. But what are its major components? Why does the government conduct this annual exercise? Budget is not always populist, it also upsets many. While referring to some tough measures that he had taken in the 2012 budget, the then Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had said while quoting Hamlet, I must be cruel only to be kind. Know about the and more in this episode of the podcast.
HCL Technologies (HCL), a leading global technology company, has been named a Top Employer in 17 countries by Top Employers Institute, a global authority in recognizing excellence in people practices. HCL emerged as a Top Employer, among some of the worlds largest and best-known enterprises, based on its dedication to fostering employee growth while continuing to drive value for clients around the globe.

HCL has been awarded this status in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Guatemala, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Recognized for the sixteenth time in a row in the United Kingdom, HCL is also ranked first in Poland, Sweden and the Philippines.

Each year, Top Employers Institute certifies organizations that are focused on putting their people first through their exceptional HR policies. The Top Employers Institute program certifies organizations based on the participation and results of its HR Best Practices Survey. This survey covers six HR domains consisting of 20 topics such as People Strategy, Work Environment, Talent Acquisition, Learning, Well-being, Diversity & Inclusion and more.

Reflecting on the demanding year that has, like the year before it, impacted organizations across the world, HCL has continued to show that it prioritizes maintaining excellent people practices in their workplace, said David Plink, CEO, Top Employers Institute. In the past year they continued to meet the challenges of the wider world of work while working determinedly to positively impact the lives of their workforce. We are pleased to celebrate and applaud the organizations that have been certified as Top Employers this year.

We are proud to be recognized by Top Employers Institute once again, particularly given the global workplace challenges of the past two years, said Apparao VV, Chief Human Resources Officer, HCL Technologies. This ranking demonstrates our deep commitment to fostering a work environment that is collaborative, flexible and compassionate for our employees. We remain focused on continuously improving the policies and practices that empower our colleagues to think innovatively about the challenges of tomorrow. Ultimately, this has enabled us to build a workplace in which our teams can fuel their career and personal development, while delivering cutting-edge solutions for our clients.

The program has certified and recognized more than 1857 Top Employers in 123 countries/regions across five continents.

About Top Employers Institute

Top Employers Institute is the global authority on recognising excellence in People Practices. We help accelerate these practices to enrich the world of work. Through the Top Employers Institute Certification Programme, participating companies can be validated, certified and recognised as an employer of choice. Established over 30 years ago, Top Employers Institute has certified over 1857 organisations in 123 countries/regions. These certified Top Employers positively impact the lives of over 8 million employees globally.

Top Employers Institute. For a better world of work.

About HCL Technologies

HCL Technologies (HCL) empowers global enterprises with technology for the next decade, today. HCLs Mode 1- 2-3 strategy, based on its deep-domain industry expertise, customer-centricity and entrepreneurial culture of Ideapreneurship, enables businesses to transform into next-gen enterprises.

HCL offers its services and products through three business units: IT and Business Services (ITBS), Engineering and R&D Services (ERS) and Products & Platforms (P&P). ITBS enables global enterprises to transform their businesses through offerings in the areas of applications, infrastructure, digital process operations and next generational digital transformation solutions. ERS offers engineering services and solutions in all aspects of product development and platform engineering. P&P provides modernized software products to global clients for their technology and industry specific requirements. Through its cutting-edge co-innovation labs, global delivery capabilities and broad global network, HCL delivers holistic services in various industry verticals, categorized as Financial Services, Manufacturing, Technology & Services, Telecom & Media, Retail & CPG, Life Sciences & Healthcare and Public Services.

As a leading global technology company, HCL takes pride in its diversity, social responsibility, sustainability and education initiatives. For the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2021, HCL had consolidated revenue of US$11.18 billion. Its nearly 198,000 ideapreneurs operate out of 52 countries.

For more information, visit www.hcltech.com.

Forwardlooking Statement

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward looking statements, including but not limited to the statements containing the words 'planned', 'expects', 'believes', 'strategy', 'opportunity', 'anticipates', 'hopes' or other similar words. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding impact of pending regulatory proceedings, fluctuations in earnings, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services, Business Process Outsourcing and consulting services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, customer acceptances of our services, products and fee structures, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, our ability to integrate acquired assets in a cost effective and timely manner, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, the success of our brand development efforts, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies / entities in which we have made strategic investments, withdrawal of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property, other risks, uncertainties and general economic conditions affecting our industry. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements made herein will prove to be accurate, and issuance of such forward looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by the Company or any other person that the objective and plans of the Company will be achieved. All forward-looking statements made herein are based on information presently available to the management of the Company and the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220120005909/en/
Irish employers are beginning to notice how competitive the talent market is and companies are moving quickly to put the necessary internal resources in place to support and advance their recruitment and retention ambitions in 2022. This is according to the latest IrishJobs.ie Jobs Index, a dataset comprising of all corporate jobs advertised on IrishJobs.ie and Jobs.ie for 2021.

Overall, job vacancies in Ireland were +86% higher in the final quarter of 2021 than the same period in 2020 and 43% higher than pre-pandemic levels (Q4 2019 data). Of the 30 sectors analysed by the IrishJobs.ie, 25 posted quarterly increases in vacancy generation and 22 surpassed their pre-Covid rate. Some of the most pronounced growth is in the recruitment, retention and HR space, with job vacancies across Talent Acquisition and Human Resources (HR) showing 420% year-on-year increase in the final quarter of 2021.

In addition to the accelerated demand for talent acquisition and HR professionals, some of the sectors most negatively impacted by Covid-19 rebounded strongly in the fourth quarter, including Tourism, Travel and Airlines and Construction, Architecture and Property. Other sectors to experience strong growth include Sales, Environment, Health, and Safety, Legal Profession, Accountancy and Finance, and Medical Professionals & Healthcare.

All 26 counties in the Republic of Ireland recorded year-on-year growth in the final quarter, with Dublin (+97% YoY), Galway (+93%), Cork (+57%) and Limerick (+20%) all seeing strong double-digit growth, compared to the final quarter of 2021. Notably, Limerick was the only county with a large urban population to see quarter-on-quarter growth, increasing by 13% versus the third quarter of 2021.

Fully remote work vacancies increased by a modest +4% year-on-year. The plateau in the growth of remote working roles suggests that employers believe the traditional office environment still has an important role to play in the workplace ecosystem.

Commenting on the trends for the year ahead, General Manager of IrishJobs.ie, Orla Moran said, "As we look towards 2022, the recruitment landscape is shaping up to be a strong, candidate led market; a trend that will continue to dominate the recruitment space in line with the continued lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and the progressive reopening of the economy. Underlying these new challenges and ways of working is the constant goal of maintaining organisational performance and keeping your best people. The increase in HR and talent acquisition roles that weve seen in recent months is a clear reflection of the strategic priorities shared by many Irish-based employers as we enter the New Year. In other words, there is a clear recognition on the part of employers that candidates are sitting firmly in the driving seat for 2022."

She added, "The war on talent is only set to intensify. For employers who are looking to maintain a competitive edge in the market for the year ahead, they must therefore ensure that they are meeting the evolving needs of existing employees and prospective candidates within their field."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Emporia, KS (66801)

Today

Rain showers in the morning will evolve into a more steady rain in the afternoon. High 59F. Winds E at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

A steady rain early. Showers with perhaps a rumble of thunder developing late. Low 53F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Aid from China arrives in disaster-hit Tonga

Xinhua) 08:41, January 21, 2022

BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Aid from China, which included cash assistance and emergency supplies, has arrived in tsunami-hit Tonga to help the South Pacific island country out of crisis.

"The Chinese side pays close attention to the situation in Tonga, and has taken urgent action to help Tonga in disaster relief to the best of its ability," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a press briefing on Thursday.

The Red Cross Society of China has provided emergency humanitarian cash assistance of 100,000 U.S. dollars to Tonga, Zhao said, adding that the Chinese government, through the Chinese Embassy in Tonga, has managed to put together in the shortest time possible some emergency supplies including drinking water and food and delivered them to Tonga on Wednesday.

Tonga has been battered by the worst natural disasters in history resulting from a massive volcano eruption which occurred on Saturday and its ensuing tsunami and volcanic ash.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday sent a message of sympathy to King of Tonga Tupou VI and Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni respectively.

According to Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Chinese government will continue to assist the Tongan side with a batch of emergency supplies such as drinking water, food, personal protective equipments, and disaster relief equipments, which will arrive as soon as the flight conditions permit.

During the crisis in Tonga, President Xi sent a message of sympathy and the Chinese government immediately extended a helping hand, said Tupou VI, adding that the Tongan government and people were moved by China's act of kindness and are deeply grateful.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices.
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Our first question:

What is the hardest thing about telling a story in a short runtime, and how did you resolve that challenge with this film?

Joanna Quinn and Les Mills (Affairs of the Art):

The key thing is getting the structure and framework right, initially establishing a very simple synopsis, followed by a tight script, storyboard, and timed animatic. The previous three Beryl films were single-event films with simple structures, and they ran from five to ten minutes each. But the timeframe of Affairs of the Art is vast because we are exploring the backstories of the Beryl family and how their lives developed from childhood to middle age, and delving into the familial obsessions and personal eccentricities. Affairs of the Art is a multi-event film and could easily have been much longer than 16 minutes, but we prefer the short-form format.

Zacharias Kunuk (Angakusajaujuq: The Shamans Apprentice):

In our culture, we dont talk much of how things are made  we watch and learn. So to make this film, we had the right people who worked on this. Lots of attention had to be paid to make sure the set props and clothing and all the actions were accurate.

Claude Cloutier (Bad Seeds):

The short format determines the kind of story you can tell. The time limitation doesnt allow viewers to deeply identify with the characters, nor does it allow an overly complex script. I think that despite those constraints, you can still address any subject in an animated short. You simply have to adapt the narration accordingly. This is why animation filmmakers tend to use archetypes or symbolic language and rely on graphic expression to compensate for the short runtimes of their works. In that sense, short-form animation is closer to poetry than to the novel.

Hugo Covarrubias (Bestia):

I think the most difficult thing was trying to condense a timeline that takes place over several years without losing the essence of the premise, and maintaining the intention of exposing the evil that reigned in Chile in one of the darkest decades of our history. Add to that the psychological component of the protagonist. We tried to solve this difficult task through symbolic elements in the scenes, in the actions, in the materiality, and in the scenography. All these elements ended up joining pieces of the story as if they were pieces of porcelain. Not having dialogue imposed a difficulty that we had to face through the gesture in the performances, the actions, the rhythm of the structure of the script, the editing, and the sensations given by the music.

Anton Dyakov (Boxballet):

The challenge isnt telling a story in a short runtime. Rather, its finding the right proportion, the right amount of story to fit that runtime. My criterion for knowing whether weve hit that mark is emotional resonance when the curtain lifts. What makes things so difficult is the subjectivity of it all. What resonates with you might not resonate with someone else. Hoping for that miracle, of a visceral response by the viewer to what youve created, is at the core of my work and what motivates me.

Sandra Desmazieres (Flowing Home):

The most difficult thing is to convey a story with all its issues, to communicate the characters states of mind  like listening to a song, immersed in a specific atmosphere. In the span of 15 minutes, Flowing Home recounts the aftermath of the Vietnam War through the eyes of two sisters who are separated for 20 years. Through flashbacks, ellipses, and music, we pick up the sisters journeys at various times during the 1970s and through to the 1990s. I provided just enough information to guide the audience and let them be carried along by private moments that the sisters experience and that are etched in their memories, showing the living as well as the dead.

Hugo de Faucompret (Mum Is Pouring Rain):

For me, it is to be able to find the best path to tell it the best way, according to the format we chose. Most of the time, I have more ideas than I could ever put in one single movie. Choosing which idea fits best is a hard thing to do. I often stick with one idea, thinking it must be the one, before realizing sometimes, and after talking with my producers at Laidak Films or the crew, that it should be the opposite for the sake of the story. I feel that trying to think first in a narrative way always helps a lot to choose what to keep or what to let go. Even if it means that you must give up a wonderful visual shot you really like.

Reza Riahi (The Musician):

My film is very character-driven. I want the audience to connect with the old musician and his beloved. In short films, you dont have the luxury of time to set up characters and their circumstances, so I had to be very precise: every shot and frame counted in building up this key emotional connection with the audience. I decided to choose an important moment in their lives when, after being separated for 50 years, the musician and his beloved are unexpectedly reunited. The audience sees the story unfold from her perspective.

Erick Oh (Namoo):

Making a short film is like writing a poem, while a feature film is a novel. You just need to connect the right idea to the right medium. Once you understand this and comprehend the strength and weakness of the medium of short films, youll know how to fully take advantage of it, rather than being challenged by it. I think its more successful when its more visual and less dialogue, more poetic and implicit than a clear narrative.

Simone Giampaolo (Only a Child):

Even though we trimmed and re-edited Severn Cullis-Suzukis words to make them flow better with the visuals, the overall runtime was mostly dictated by the original speechs length  circa six minutes  which was easy to respect and control over the production period. [Note: Only a Child sets animation to a speech Cullis-Suzuki delivered at the U.N. Summit in 1992.] The real challenge was making sure that each of the 20 segments, each around 1015 seconds long, would successfully tell a complete mini-story in a few seconds, and also work in context (next to the surrounding segments).

Mikey Please (Robin Robin):

With so little time to play with, every frame counts. [Co-director Dan Ojari], editor Chris Morrell, producer Danny Gallagher, and I would be trading frames and fiercely arguing our case for each 24th of a second. Our struggle centered on the balance between packing in what was a fairly complex plot for a short, whilst allowing space for comedy and thinking moments for characters. We needed the audience to be with Robin on her internal journey and that requires space. But when ten other action-packed sequences are jostling for that space, it was hard to justify the quiet moments when seemingly nothing is happening. But Dan was fantastic at fighting that corner.

Bastien Dubois (Souvenir Souvenir):

Im quite impatient, and Im always worried about wasting my audiences time. So I tend to move quickly, tell my story quickly, edit quickly. A bit too much. With Souvenir Souvenir, I had an issue: the narrative I was drawing inspiration from  my life and relationship with my grandfather  kept going during development and production. So the film almost doubled in length [over time]. Also, I had to cut almost one minute to bring it under 15 minutes, which is the upper limit for some festivals. My edit was already to tight; I really had to force myself.

Weijia Ma (Step Into the River):

At the beginning, I had a longer version of the story with more characters. When I started the scriptwriting, I tried to show every detail. Then I showed it to my producers and my friends, and they got lost sometimes. So I cut things down to focus on the two main characters. I think its always good to show it to new people, because I got numb sticking with it for too long. Although I think to prepare more is a good thing. Its a way to think through the world I built, and make it real.

Zach Parrish (Us Again):

Because the intention of storytelling doesnt necessarily change depending on the length of the film, the significance of every frame of a short film becomes proportionally more important. For Us Again, every shot had to communicate layers of story and emotional detail. We tried to boil every shot down to its emotional intent and then challenge our choreographers and animators to communicate that intention with only the characters bodies. In a way it is about simplification, but hopefully within that process we have allowed the audience to deeply experience something.

Alberto Mielgo (The Windshield Wiper):

Someone said that if you master short storytelling, you will be able to handle any format. But I dont agree with that. Short storytelling is really challenging because of condensation and synthesis. The audience must feel satisfied with little and that is indeed hard. Here I could bring up the shortest story probably ever, by (or attributed to) Ernest Hemingway, as an example of how a short story with very little information can open so many emotions: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. The end.

Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Photo: The Canadian Press

There are no Conservative MPs among the newly named slate of parliamentarians to oversee the security and intelligence community following the party's decision to boycott the body.

Liberal MPs Patricia Lattanzio and James Maloney are joining the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, known as NSICOP, while Liberals Brenda Shanahan and Peter Fragiskatos  as well as Conservatives Leona Alleslev and Rob Morrison  have left.

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole pulled his party's MPs from the committee last spring to protest the Liberal government's refusal to hand over unredacted documents related to the firing of two scientists from Canada's highest-security laboratory.

In a Dec. 17 letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, O'Toole said the Conservative boycott of the all-party committee would continue in the new session of Parliament until the wraps are taken off those documents.

Opposition parties banded together last spring to order the Public Health Agency of Canada to hand over the documents to the now-defunct special committee on Canada-China relations.

The Liberal government gave them to NSICOP instead, arguing that it was the more appropriate body to review sensitive material that could jeopardize national security.

That committee, created in 2017 specifically to review sensitive matters, submits classified reports to the prime minister, which are later tabled in Parliament in edited form. Its members must have top security clearance and are bound to secrecy.

House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota ruled last year that NSICOP is not a committee of Parliament and, therefore, not an acceptable alternative to having a Commons committee examine the documents concerning the fired scientists.

In his December letter, O'Toole said NSICOP "has become a committee of the Prime Minister's Office" and has been used by Trudeau's government "to avoid accountability and that is diminishing its credibility."

He said changes are required to the legislation creating the committee to establish it as a standing Commons committee that reports to Parliament, not the prime minister.

The Prime Minister's Office said Thursday that all recognized party leaders in the House of Commons and all leaders and facilitators in the Senate were consulted ahead of the latest appointments to NSICOP. It added that O'Toole "chose not to recommend the participation of any Conservative members of Parliament."

The two newcomers to the committee join Liberal MP David McGuinty, who is the chairman, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, New Democrat MP Don Davies, Bloc Quebecois MP Stephane Bergeron, and senators Vern White, Frances Lankin and Dennis Dawson.
Photo: YouTube Fred Sharp

A tentative trial date has been set for several British Columbians facing civil charges from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission for an alleged fraud scheme involving over $1 billion in stock transactions.

U.S. District Judge William G. Young of the District of Massachusetts is aiming for a January 2023 start date. The Canadians will then have a jury trial hear allegations of a scheme that netted an estimated $770 million in profits for company insiders and other co-conspirators such as lawyers, stock touts and financial agents.

Young held a hearing on Jan. 20 to iron out details of motions to dismiss brought forth by alleged co-conspirators Jackson Friesen, Graham Taylor, Paul Sexton, Zhiying Yvonne Gasarch, Courtney Kelln and Mike Veldhuis  all of whom are believed to be residing in the Metro Vancouver region.

Not submitting motions are two co-respondents, including offshore shell facilitator and ex-Vancouver lawyer Fred Sharp and former B.C. cannabis company director Avtar Dhillon  who both face criminal charges connected to the alleged scheme.

The SEC is now demanding US$52.9 million from Sharp to finalize a default judgment against him for reportedly ignoring the allegations and failing to be served charging documents.

The whereabouts of Sharp, who would otherwise reside in his West Vancouver home, remains an apparent mystery to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Meanwhile, Dhillon has pleaded the Fifth Amendment  his right not to speak and self-incriminate  to the civil charges; he remains under house arrest in his $12 million waterfront home in Long Beach, California with a GPS ankle monitor.

Sharp is considered to have masterminded the scheme between 2010 and 2019 by setting up offshore shell companies to facilitate illegal insider trading for his so-called Sharp Group clients, such as Dhillon.

Sharps work facilitating offshore shell companies was made public in the Panama Papers leak in 2016.

It is a significant case for the SEC; one it describes as "a sophisticated, multi-year, multi-national attack on the United States financial markets and retail United States investors by foreign and domestic actors."

There are already 24 defence attorneys assigned to the case, per court filings.

Via individual submissions, some defendants claim the SECs case against them is unconstitutional as it violates a five-year statute of limitations. The group, outside of Sharp and Dhillon, also claims the SECs submissions lack detailed allegations and should be tossed.

Young tentatively denied the motions to dismiss but has given the commission an option to submit more evidence in two weeks before he makes a final decision on the motions. He indicated hed be reviewing the statute of limitation claims, specifically.

Youngs decision to proceed with the securities fraud charges relies on back-and-forth submissions between the parties since the case was opened last August.

Stephen Topetzes, the lawyer for Sexton, briefly summarized the SECs case against Sexton as one painted with a very large brush and absent of particular allegations.

Surrey resident Courtney Kelln, who was Sharps administrative assistant from 2011 to 2019, asserts she had no knowledge of the alleged scheme. In fact, she only earned $100,000 annually, on average, according to SEC filings.

Kellns lawyer Kevin Muhlendorf submitted that she earned less than one-half of the annual salary of an SEC attorney and the case was a shotgun approach at ensnaring her in this wide-ranging fraud scheme.

And, he said, the SEC fails to plausibly allege how those amounts are causally connected to any individual wrongdoing as opposed to her annual salary for her job as Sharps administrative assistant.

Some evidence shows Kelln communicating with U.S.-based Canadian lawyer Scott Lawler, who was barred from penny stock offerings after being charged with securities violations for engaging in schemes to fraudulently transfer control over the shares of two publicly-traded shell companies to a client. He was barred from practicing before the SEC and fined $186,594 in August 2021.

Muhlendorf argued Kellns limited engagement with Lawler does not plausibly connect Kelln to fraudulent activity directed to the United States.

Muhlendorf concluded, The SECs prayers for disgorgement, a permanent injunction, civil monetary penalties, and collateral bars should all be dismissed, or stricken.

Similar to Kellns argument is that of Gasarch, whose codename among the Sharp Group was Wires, according to SEC affidavits showing intercepted encrypted cell phone messages between defendants.

The Richmond womans lawyer Michelle Pascucci argues in submissions the SEC brought an untimely, thinly-pleaded case against Ms. Gasarch as the factual allegations in the Complaint, even when viewed as a whole, show that Ms. Gasarch played, at most, an administrative role in the alleged scheme.

Pascucci summarizes that any claim that Gasarch was the money mover or acted as a corporate nominee, is nevertheless still insufficient to state a claim for securities laws violations.

The SEC has to allege something beyond a defendants presence or mechanical participation, argued Pascucci.

A key disagreement between the sides is whether the SEC has a right to bring charges against these Canadians more than five years after the alleged infractions, in order to seek trading injunctions and to collect fraudulent profits from them. At the root is the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides the SEC with statutory authority to do so.

The SEC says first and foremost the law only applies to people in the United States. However, if it were to apply to the foreign nationals, it still has 10 years since the Act was amended in January 2021 to double the limitation period. But defence attorneys have argued for a five-year statute. Taylor, for instance, argues any alleged infractions occurred more than five years ago. And Kelln notes shes been in the U.S. for purposes other than work and thats when the statute would be imposed if it were even relevant.

Young is also wading through other immediate matters including asset freezes.

Taylor, for example, has fought a preliminary injunction against him, which froze many assets, including stocks. Young ordered assets to be frozen in Taylors 16 Canadian brokerage accounts at PI Financial Corp. or Haywood Securities. However, the judge allowed Taylor to sell some penny stocks (all listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange or TSXV) so long as the proceeds remained frozen.

The case against the group is also connected to five other Sharp-connected respondents from B.C. who are also facing civil charges brought by the SEC in related cases, thus making it 13 defendants in total.

Sharp and Dhillon are also charged with criminal securities fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud along with Veldhuis, Kelln and stock promoter Luis Carrillo of Mexico. They are all presumed innocent until a court rules on the allegations.
Beijing has fined the retail chain 7-Eleven for recognising Taiwan as an independent nation on its website.

According to reports, Tokyo-based Seven & i Holdings owned convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, has been fined 150,000 yuan (USD 23,500) by the Chinese authorities, Just Earth News reported.

Beijing claims full sovereignty over Taiwan, a democracy of almost 24 million people located off the southeastern coast of mainland China, despite the fact that the two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades.

Many popular corporations operating in China have on previous occasions removed any mention of Taiwan as a separate nation state from their websites, and on certain occasions even tendered official apologies after depicting the Chinese map without featuring Taiwan as part of Chinese territory, Just Earth News reported.

It further reported that companies including Gap, Daimler AG, United Continental Holdings, ANA Holdings have backed down after depicting Taiwan as a separate nation.

According to Just Earth News, in May 2018, Gap Inc. had to officially apologise after selling a T-shirt on their retail outlets which depicted an incorrect map of China after social media users in China pointed out how certain Chinese-claimed territories, including south Tibet, the island of Taiwan and the South China Sea were omitted.

The fine and warning to Seven&i Holdings was issued in December last year as per a government-linked credit information website.

The report on the website highlighted how the company further failed to describe certain South China Sea islands by their Chinese names as well as the disputed Diaoyu islands, known as Senkaku in Japan, Just Earth News reported.

It further stated that the report also alleged that the map shared by the company contained errors in labeling borders along the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibet Autonomous Region.

Taiwan and its legitimacy is a highly sensitive territorial issue in China as Beijing considers the province as a self-ruled democratic island which has been governed separately since 1949.

China also objects to any references of Hong Kong and Macau being separately governed independent states, even though they are special administrative regions with greater autonomy, Just Earth News reported.

(ANI)
The Butcher of Lyon 'Klaus Barbie' was in charge of torturing and killing prisoners, mostly Jews and members of the French resistance. On January 19, 1983, he was arrested in Bolivia for his heinous atrocities, including the death of almost 14,000 victims and the repatriation of 7,500 others, thus branding the wicked Nazi commander as a butcher.

At the age of 22, he enlisted the SS and started working in its security division, which functioned as the Nazi Party's intelligence collection branch.

Kalus Barbie escaped under American protection

Around 1942, he was dispatched to Lyon as that of the head of the Gestapo after the German conquest of France.

He captured and skinned a French resistance leader alive and drenched his head with ammonia and cold water, causing severe burns that stopped him from sitting or standing for three days, which led to his death.

Adolf Hitler awarded him the Iron Cross (First Class) for his operations against the French Resistance during 1943. He captured Jean Moulin, a high-ranking member of the French Resistance and his most prominent captive, reported the Daily Star.

Barbie also authorized the deportation of a set of 44 Jewish children out of an orphanage to the horrific Auschwitz death camp around 1944.

He was able to escape persecution for his crimes following the fall of Nazi Germany and was used by the Americans to further anti-communist efforts in Europe.

Notwithstanding French demands for his repatriation in an attempt to implement the death penalty for the Butcher of Lyon, the US allegedly was reluctant to hand him over and assisted him in escaping to Bolivia in South America in early 1951.

Read Also: Hitler's Nazi Death Squads Massacred About 3,500 Women and Children As Discovered in a Russian Mass Grave

Historian Robert Wolfe, the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), did not want to hand him up to Paris because they were afraid of communist influence inside the French government, considering that Barbie knew too much about the CIC's network of German spies embedded in European Marxist organizations, cited Techno Trendz.

He also argues that they may have sheltered Barbie in place to evade humiliation over having recruited him in the first instance.

Using an alias of Klaus Altmann, he maintained a comfortable life in the South American country for thirty years, cooperating with General Barrientos' regime in their state persecution of leftist groups, noted the New Zealand Times.

Throughout 1972, Barbie aided in the unlawful detention, coerced confessions, and murders of the opposition and progressive groups. They, including journalists and activists that wrote or spoke out against the government's human rights violations, were favorite victims.

Butcher of Lyon arrested, sentenced

In the late 1970s, the butcher met with notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar and promised to guarantee the protection of Escobar's raw coca supply from planting to processing in Colombia.

Even after being identified and interviewed by a French journalist in 1972, the Bolivian government has refused to surrender him to France. He had multiple times been sentenced to death in absentia.

Claims that the nation did not have an extradition concordat with Paris; and that the limitation period on his crimes had expired.

Barbie was detained on January 19, 1983, by the newly elected democratic government mostly on the pretext of owing the government $10,000 for things he was supposed to have delivered but did not. He was handed over to the French to stand trial a few days later.

He was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment two months after the trial started after the death penalty was banned in France in 1981.

The Butcher of Lyon did not escape justice as his fortunes turned, murdering his way from World War 2 to the present, as he killed with no compunction.

Related Article: Historians Reveal Letters Penned by Hitler in His Final Days in the Bunker After Getting Lost For More Than 70 Years

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The tensions on the Russian-Ukraine border are splitting Brussels, as the US believes Vladimir Putin is ready to strike the West.

US President Joe Biden says that Russia will invade despite not having solid proof without citing any specifics. He added invasion would cost Russia dearly, but it will be lower if a minor incursion occurs.

Biden predicts Russian invasion

White House news conference expressed concern on how well the West might react if Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized an invasion of Ukraine, prompting them to seek clarification of Biden's remarks afterward, reported the Express UK.

He predicted that Moscow would move in, and something had to happen, making it unclear what the US leader is trying to point out, as he's been proven impotent as an effective leader.

Claims that Russia will face sanctions if it invades, many times, experts doubt that is the goal. The US is too fixated on anything else.

Russian leaders repeatedly denied invasion plans. However, the Kremlin has amassed 100,000 troops around Ukraine's borders, a deployment that the West believes is a forerunner to a conflict to keep Ukraine out of NATO, cited BBC.

Both Washington and the EU are squirming at what Putin is doing, and Joe Biden is clueless about what to do. Biden lacks the statesmanship to pool resources together in the Ukraine border problem, which is why Brussels cannot achieve a concerted effort.

Read Also: US Warns the Press Not Report on Proceedings Until Verified; Russian Media Reports May Be Unbelievable, Part of Putin's Propaganda

On the one hand, Germany remarked Politico has been opposing efforts to cut Russia off from the SWIFT international payments system, noted Reuters.

French President Emmanuel Macron recommended on Wednesday that the EU should not always follow the United States' lead when it comes to responding to prospective Russian attacks. Europe must participate in their dialogue.

Macron believes that a new EU approach is needed to "build a new order of security and stability" to establish this among Europeans and share it with our NATO members. Now bring it up for a conversation with Russia.

Russian advancement shall be met with sanctions

The White House emphasized that any Russian military movement towards Ukraine would immediately be met with a harsh response following President Biden's two-hour press briefing.

A statement from the press secretary said any Russian military forces breaching the Ukrainian border would be deemed fresh aggression, and the US and its allies will move and handle, harshly and unitedly.

Three sources familiar with the decision, the US State Department has cleared Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to transfer US-made missiles and other weaponry to Ukraine.

A third-party transfer agreement will enable Estonia to deliver Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and Lithuania to deploy Stinger missiles.

Putin demands Kyiv never joins NATO, or nukes will not be placed on Ukraine soil. Limiting NATO membership is a non-starter for US officials. However, Biden highlighted that Ukraine is doubtful to join the alliance anytime shortly, and he suggested that a deal might be agreed on in which the West just wouldn't post-nuclear forces in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said hostilities around Ukraine are rising, and it's still waiting for a written response from the US to its comprehensive security demands.

Still, Brussels is getting divided on acting on the Ukraine border, though Emmanuel Macron says they don't need Washington involved because it's a bloc concern.

Related Article: Russian Politicians Taunts the West, Threatens To Rain Nuclear Missiles on New York and London

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
COCMAG calls on Ghana's government to cancel imported clinker Fumigation Levy

21 January 2022

The Chamber of Cement Manufacturers, Ghana (COCMAG) said the Fumigation Levy charged on imported clinker is having serious financial toll on cement production companies in the country and pushing cement production costs up.

The Executive Secretary of COCMAG, Reverend Dr George Dawson-Ahmoah, who expressed the concern in an interaction with the media, said the local cement manufacturers were working frantically to avert the high cost of production to help reduce or maintain the price of cement, but the continuous existence of the Fumigation Levy on imported raw materials was hindering such efforts.

The Executive Secretary said the Fumigation Levy was not necessary for dry cargo such as clinker, limestone and other cement raw materials which most often do not exit through the Port gate.

"This levy yields to over millions of dollars, an amount the cement manufacturers could have used to enhance its productivity to create more employment, he said.

"We are therefore calling on government to, as a matter of urgency, call the Ministry of Health to order to salvage the situation and avert any future adverse implication on the cement industry," said Rev Dr Dawson.

Published under
Belarusian plant increases production by 10.5 per cent YoY

21 January 2022

The OAO Krichevcementnoshifer Cement plant in Kirchev, Mogilev Oblast, Belarus increased its cement production by 10.5 per cent YoY in 2021 to 2.001Mt, the company administration told PrimePress.

Shipments of cement to domestic and foreign markets in January-December 2021 increased by 11.5 per cent to 2.029Mt.

The plant has been operating since September 1996. In January 2012 it was reorganised into an open joint-stock company. The state's share in the company's authorised capital is 99.0249 per cent.

Published under
Buena Vista, CO (81211)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun early, then becoming cloudy later in the day. High near 50F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. Low 29F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.
A man, 42, has died from injuries sustained in an accident on Jan. 3, on Highway 153.

The accident occurred around 9:56 a.m., when the man was traveling north, lost control of his car for unknown reasons, and struck the center concrete dividing wall.

He was transported to a local hospital, where he later died.

Chattanooga Police ask anyone with information regarding this incident to call 423 698-2525 or submit a tip via the CPD Mobile App. You can remain anonymous.
Jan. 25, [online] East Brainerd Council Meeting

noon-1 p.m.

Join us for a mid-year update from East Brainerd Elementary. We will also discuss plans to move back to in-person meetings and things to look forward to in 2022. Join us at noon on Zoom.

Register here.

No cost.

Jan. 27, [in-person] Enterprise/Gateway Council Meeting

8-9:30 a.m.

Chattanooga State CETAS #107: 4501 Amnicola Hwy.

Our guest speaker will be Principal LaFredrick Thirkill of the Hamilton County Department of Education. During the event, you will get a chance to network with other members and your business neighbors of the Enterprise Gateway Council, along with meeting our exciting guest speaker. Masks are mandatory at Chattanooga State and we ask that social distancing is observed. Thank you for your understanding to keep the staff and community safe and healthy.

Register here.

No cost.

Jan. 27, [online] Red Bank/Signal Mountain Council Meeting

noon-1 p.m.

Join the Red Bank/Signal Mountain Council as they host a meeting to engage with their community and offer a time of networking.

Register here.

No cost.

Jan. 27, [online] 2022 LCAA Virtual Annual Meeting

4:30-5 p.m.

Leadership Chattanooga Alumni are invited to attend the 2022 LCAA Virtual Annual Meeting celebrating this past year's accomplishments and hear from the 2022 Board President about the upcoming year.

Register here.

No cost.
The Chattanooga Mocs set an aggressive goal in 2021. The Mocs Club looked to reach 1,500 members by the end of the year. BREAKING NEWSit was exceeded.Im very proud of Ryan Jones and Neil Farrells efforts to not only hit their number, but top it, Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Mark Wharton stated. Our community, our alumni, our families all stepped up to make this a reality. It shows me more and more how very special a place Chattanooga is.Its imperative moving forward to build on this momentum and grow on this great accomplishment.The initiative launched in March of 2021 with a full-fledged effort to increase Mocs Club membership to 1,500 by 2022.The group started 2021 with 467 members. They ended with 1,517, a 221 percent increaseJones, Associate Athletics Director for Development, came on board midway through the campaign. He echoed Whartons sentiments.It was a very bold, ambitious plan, and its humbling to be a part of such a successful initiative, he noted. Give credit to Neil Farrell for his leadership and diligent efforts in executing it. From day one, our team understood the importance of exceeding this accomplishment and what it meant for our student-athletes. Our donors, old and new, really led the way for us.The 1,517 Mocs Club total marks the most annual fund members in the history of Chattanooga athletics. The organization plans to unveil its 5-year plan and strategic vision for operations moving forward in the coming months.The Mocs Club is the annual fundraising arm for Chattanooga Mocs Athletics. Support from each member benefits more than 300 UTC student-athletes. The financial support generated by the Mocs Club alleviated the costs of scholarships as well as providing a positive impact on our student-athletes in the classroom, on the field of play and beyond.
Two employees of Waffle House at 4919 Brainerd Road told police a man became disorderly and yelled at the employees when an order was wrong. They just wanted the man to be removed and trespassed from the property. Police told the man that he was no longer welcome on the property and not to come back. He left the area on foot.

* * *

While working an extra job at Walmart, an officer was notified by a Walmart employee that they witnessed an older white male conceal merchandise and pass all points of sale without paying for it. The officer assisted in detaining the suspect and identified him. The stolen merchandise was recovered and valued at $51.39. Walmart decided not to prosecute but wished to have this documented. The man was released.

* * *

An officer was blocking traffic for an EMS unit on Carl White Place when a dark gray Nissan sedan with extremely dark tinted windows passed, heading west on 37th Street towards Broad Street and the St. Elmo area. The tag on the vehicle came back to a silver BMW 380i, the registration of which expired in 2013. The officer was unable to leave her post at that moment but BOLO'd the vehicle to other units.





* * *

The manager of ALDI at 5706 Lee Hwy. told police an older blonde lady came into the store with a black purse and shoplifted. On cameras the woman was seen concealing items in her purse. The security guard started to follow her and then she ran out the door passing all points of sale. She got into a Honda van.

* * *

A woman on East 51st Street told police she had received some third-party information that another woman was making comments about her on social media. The woman does not really know the other woman, but said she is her current boyfriends ex-girlfriend. The woman uses SETHRA for transportation and the other woman works there. The officer told her to speak with SETHRA about the other woman. She said she would call back in if anything else was needed.

* * *

An officer found a stolen Jeep on Wilkesview Drive. It was backed into a parking space tucked in the back of the lot. It was unoccupied and there were no keys recovered with the vehicle. The officer contacted the owner to notify her that police had found her Jeep, due to the updates she provided from the GPS tracker in the vehicle. She came down to Wilkesview Drive to try and see if she could use the Uconnect application on her phone to unlock the Jeep. While doing that, the woman and police walked around the outside of the vehicle to try and see if the stolen items were still in the vehicle. They didnt see the items, but did notice a fingerprint on the drivers side door handle of the Jeep. The officer walked the Jeep a second time to try and locate other liftable prints but that was the only one that was seen. The officer lifted the print and it was turned into evidence. The woman could not figure out the phone application to unlock the vehicle and said to just go ahead and start a tow for it. The Jeep was towed by Reliable Towing and taken to their lot until the woman could come and collect it.

* * *

An officer was dispatched to an apartment on Mountain Creek Road on a disorder. A woman and her boyfriend both said they had been in a verbal disorder and now it was over. The boyfriend said he would be leaving the residence.

* * *

A man was trespassed from Patton Towers at 1 East 11th St. by security and police for causing disorders. The man is homeless and does not know anyone at the location.

* * *

The owner of Art Printing at 2819 Cummings Hwy. told police he found several pieces of trash that had been dumped on his property, along with three pill bottles containing unknown medication. There was a partial name on one of the prescription bottles but no other information. All three bottles were logged into property.

* * *

A man on South Orchard Knob Avenue said he was in a verbal altercation with his girlfriend. He explained that his girlfriend was 20 weeks pregnant, and they were arguing because both of them did not sleep much last night and were on edge. The man said the argument was only verbal and never became physical. The officer spoke with the girlfriend as well and she corroborated the mans story, explaining that neither had become physical. The man said he was about to leave for work so they could separate for a while.

* * *

Police saw a man and a woman on Snow Hill Road with a sign asking for money at the busy intersection in front of Publix. Police identified the two people who said they were from Texas and did not know the local laws. Police explained they could not ask for money at a busy intersection. Police explained to the people that this was their warning and if they continued their actions they would be arrested. They thanked police and left the area.

* * *

A man on 15th Avenue said the catalytic converter on his 2006 Toyota Tundra had been stolen. He wasnt sure of the time frame, but most likely within the last three days.

* * *

The manager of AutoZone at 4818 Highway 58 asked that a man be trespassed from the property. He was told not to return and left the scene.

* * *



A woman on Ocoee Street told police she has received several phone calls from a woman who is currently dating her ex-boyfriend. The woman said the other woman calls several times in a row and she does not have the ability to block her phone number. The woman said the other woman calls from a blocked phone number. She believes the other woman has come to her residence and left pictures on her porch. She has not seen the other woman at her residence.
Twenty Lee University students departed for the annual United Kingdom Semester Study Abroad program. During the 12-week program, students will spend time in class at the University of Cambridge and travel throughout the U.K.

This years trip directors are Dr. Jerome Hammond, associate professor of human development, and Vanessa Hammond, director of grants and foundation relations.

The semester in the U.K. is one of Lees crown jewels, said Dr. Hammond. For 30 years this program has been carefully developed with the singular goal of preparing students to live in a complex world. Vanessa and I feel the weight of that responsibility, and also the excitement of leading students on this life changing experience.

While overseas, students will take 15 hours of courses, taught by Lee professors through a specifically-designed online program. This year, the courses will include The World of C.S. Lewis, led by Dr. Matthew Melton; For King, Queen, and Country: The Monarchy in British History, taught by Dr. Randy Wood; From Papyrus to iPad: The History of Shared Information, taught by Dr. Louis Morgan; Religion in Britain, led by Dr. Hammond, and Cross Cultural Experience, taught by Mrs. Hammond.

Outside of class, the students will travel throughout the U.K. Highlights will include visits to Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, the Lake District, and Hadrians Wall. The students will spend several days in the town of Bath, where they will be officially received by the mayor.

During a long weekend in London, the students will visit the Globe Theatre, the Houses of Parliament, and attend worship at Westminster Abbey. While in Edinburgh, Scotland, students will have the chance to explore castles and museums. During their March spring break, the students will travel to Ireland, where they will visit Galway and Dublin.

The semester will conclude with two weeks of independently-arranged travel before the students meet in London on April 9 for their return to the U.S. During the two weeks, students will arrange their own itineraries and accommodations in the countries that interest them most. In the past, students have traveled to Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Poland, Spain, and many others.

I know firsthand the lifelong impact of this trip, having been part of the universitys first U.K. semester abroad as a student in 1990, so I am eager to get back to Cambridge and share this experience with students, said Mrs. Hammond.

The students on this years trip include Parker Benton, Rebecca Campbell, Zachary Constantinescu, Emily Courtney, Grace Cox, Shayli Daves, Jordan Deshler, Janey Hall, Andrew Hendry, Emma Holbrook, Elliott Lay, Addison McGinniss, Hannah Murry, Macy O'Fallon, Annie Ogle, Sophie Pace, Hannah Roberts, Anne Stockton, Jessica Uhls, and Olivia Wright. The Hammonds daughters, Ella and Lia, joined them on the trip.

For more information about Lees Global Perspectives program, call 614-8357 or visit globalperspectives.leeuniversity.edu.
Charlotte E. Gibney, 94, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 at NHC Healthcare of Chattanooga.

Charlotte was born on Dec. 13, 1927, to the late Leonard and Helen Funk of Edgewood, Iowa.

Charlotte leaves her memories to daughter, Sharon Hutsell; sons Steven Gibney (Pam) and John Sheldon Gibney; Grandchildren Heather Hershberger, Sarah Gibney and Holly Hutsell; three great-grandchildren, Maxwell, Phoenix and Fox Hershberger.

Charlotte graduated from nursing school in Dubuque, Iowa, and started her career as a registered nurse. She was a nurse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, until moving to El Paso, Texas, in 1976 where she continued her nursing career until retiring at age 65. Charlotte then moved to Chattanooga. She even asked her daughter for permission to move here. Did she actually think she would say no?!! Looking after Charlotte for the last 29 years was Sharons greatest joy.

In her retirement years, Charlotte lived for traveling, volunteering at Ladies of Charity, and attending numerous events with her loyal friends. She was always a woman on the move.

After moving to The Terrace at Mountain Creek, she took up playing bingo and poker. She so enjoyed poker that one day she had injured her hand, and I had to beg her to stop playing, so I could take her to the medical facility for treatment. She was fiercely independent to say the least.

Charlotte continued her love for bingo after moving to Morning Pointe of Hixson in August 2021. A special thanks to all the employees there who made Charlottes stay pleasant.

Charlotte always took extreme pride in her appearance. She was the ultimate fashion plate, and God forbid that she would ever be seen without her lipstick!! :)

Appreciative thanks to Dr. Jack McCallie. Dr. Sharon Farber, Dr. Lisa Wamack, Dr. William Warren, and Dr. Lynn Floyd for their outstanding care.

Thanks also to her longtime hairdresser Jimmy Pickett at JJ and Friends in Red Bank and to the audiologists at Johnson Audiology in Hixson.

A huge thanks to the entire staff at the Terrace at Mountain Creek for all the terrific care during her five-year stay there. So many wonderful memories were made.

Mrs. Gibney has been taken to Leonard  Muller Funeral Home in Edgewood, Iowa.

A graveside service will be held at Saint Marks Catholic Cemetery in Edgewood, Iowa, at a later date when the weather cooperates.

Local arrangements are by Hamilton Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 4506 Hixson Pike, 423 531-3975.
The Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commissions first 2022 meeting included a preview of the 2022-23 Tennessee migratory bird hunting, a report by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Fisheries Division on specific projects and a pair of guest presentations. The two-day meeting concluded Friday at the Lannom Center.



The TWRAs recommendations for the migratory game bird hunting seasons. were for the statewide season dates and bag limits to fall within federal frameworks. There have been no changes to the federal frameworks and will reflect only calendar changes.



The commission did discuss the possibly of having one statewide season. Currently, there is a Reelfoot Zone which is held for two days prior to the start of the statewide season.



TWRA Fisheries Division Chief Frank Fiss provided an update describing the work that TWRA Fisheries staff has done since 2020 to improve fishing at many of the Bill Dance Signature Lakes locations. Fisheries staff have been surveying fish populations, improving habitat, stocking fish, and installing fish feeders.



The Bill Dance Signature Lakes project was unveiled at the final TFWC meeting of 2021. TWRA and the State of Tennessee will invest $15 million in improvements both above and below the water at 18 lakes which bear fishing legend Dances stamp of approval.



The commission approved a request for $2.5 million to make major renovations at Herb Parsons Lake. The 177-acre, TWRA lake in Fayette County has been selected as a Bill Dance Signature Lake. TWRA plans to improve all buildings, grounds, and fishing amenities at this 70-year-old facility to provide excellent fishing opportunities.



Dr. Brad Cohen provided a report on waterfowl study tracking the movement of ducks and how hunting pressure and other variable impact waterfowl. More than 450 mallards were tagged and included 66 percent adults, 58 percent males, and 42 percent females.



The study includes assessments to find abundance, quality, and real-time assessment of habitat availability. The study confirms that the mallards stay in the West Tennessee area throughout the winter. In the summer, the mallards travel to a wide-range from the outskirts of Chicago to northern Alberta.



David Blackwood, from the West Tennessee River Basin Authority, reported to the commission about White Oak WMA restoration. Goals for the restoration work include restore nature habitat, increase accessibility, and protect the existing wetland. White Oak WMA consists of bottomland hardwood forests, permanently flooded wetlands, upland hardwood, and mixed pine forests.
The military transport planes carrying clean water and other relief supplies had finally arrived in Tonga on Thursday when the island nation's airport was cleared of ashes from a massive volcanic eruption.

Two military planes from New Zealand and Australia were loaded with water containers, water purifiers, kits for temporary shelters, generators, hygiene supplies, and communication equipment, as per Reuters.

According to BBC, the Australian plane had a sweeper to help the runway clear. Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton confirmed the plane's arrival in Tonga on Twitter.

The first of Australian humanitarian assistance and disaster relief supplies have landed in Tonga. Tonga is a very important member of our Pacific family and we have committed to supporting them however we can. pic.twitter.com/egmD9nD3eo  Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) January 20, 2022

Rear Admiral James Gilmour, the Joint Forces of New Zealand commander, commended Tongan soldiers for their "mammoth effort" to clear the runway "by hand."

To prevent a COVID-19 outbreak in Tonga, military personnel observed physical distancing while dropping off the humanitarian supplies.

Japan's Defense Ministry announced that it would send aid to Tonga that includes drinking water and ash-cleaning equipment via two c-130 Hercules aircraft and a transport vessel carrying two CH-47 Chinook helicopters. The ministry said the transports are scheduled to depart on Thursday.

Read Also: Tsunami-Hit Tonga Faces Water Crisis; Underwater Cables May Take Weeks To Repair

Wrath Of Volcano Impacts Thousands

The United Nations estimate around 84,000 people have been affected by the massive eruption of the undersea Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano on Saturday; three persons were killed, hundreds of houses were demolished by the tsunami also polluted water sources, as per AP News.

NASA reported that the force of the eruption, which was seen from space, was calculated to be five to 10 megatons of TNT or more than 500 times that of the nuclear bomb the US had dropped on Hiroshima in Japan at the end of World War II.

The UN determined the top humanitarian need for Tonga are safe drinking water, food, and non-food goods and restoration of communication services, particularly international calls and the internet.

Satellite Communication Improves

Meantime, satellite communication service in the Pacific island country had improved on Wednesday as ash clouds cleared. Thus, reviving international calls from some locations via satellite links, according to telecommunication company Digicel.

However, the service is limited in the meantime due to high demand and the limited capacity of the satellite link that people may need to attempt multiple times to connect. Such was experienced by the Deputy President of the Tonga Australia Chamber of Commerce, Koniseti Liutai.

The volcanic eruption had seriously damaged Tonga's underwater fiber-optic communication cable resulting in the downing of the internet and other communication with the rest of the world.

As Tonga went offline, residents' families and friends outside the nation were anxious. Tongan officials' counterparts were also clueless on the magnitude of the destruction after the eruption.

But on Thursday, some of the families abroad were finally able to connect with their loved ones in Tonga. With the resumption of some transmissions, more and more photos have begun to emerge, showing the great devastation. The once-verdant islands turned charcoal black brought by thick coatings of volcanic dust.

In the meantime, a repair ship from Papua New Guinea was sent to fix the damaged undersea cable. Digicel advised customers to be more patient, for it will take more than four weeks to restore communication services in Tonga fully.

Related Article: Submarine Volcano Eruption With 7.4 Magnitude Earthquake Devastated the Capital of Tonga; Status of the Island Remains Unknown as Communication Lines Are Down

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Two quick marts that were cited to the beer board on Thursday for selling beer to a minor, blamed new employees, who the owners said made mistakes. Discount Mart, 4300 Norcross Road sold beer to an underage buyer on Dec. 15 during a compliance check of 11 stores in the Hixson and North Chattanooga area. That sale was made without asking to see an ID to verify age. The clerk who made the sale also claimed he could not tell the difference in the packaging of a beer and thought he was selling an energy drink.

Board Member Brooke King said she had a problem about the statement claiming that beer and energy drinks look alike The cash register required a scan and it, too, failed to recognize the beverage was alcoholic, said the owner of the business. Board Member Monica Kinsey suggested making it a policy to check IDs of all sales. The motion passed for a 15-day suspension of the beer license starting on Jan. 27. within the next 30 days. All owners will also have to go through mandatory training in beer sales.

The same compliance check found that Harrys #23, 305 Frazier Road, also sold beer to a minor on Dec. 15 without asking to see an ID. The representative from the HDP Corporation, Nick Milne said the company has polices for checking age but the clerk was not paying attention and just made a mistake. This clerk was not let go and is undergoing more training and still working with more supervision. The license was suspended for three days beginning on Jan. 27.

A hearing for multiple violations from Mystik Food Mart, 2413 4th Ave., was postponed again. Thursday was the third time the violations had been on the agenda beginning in December. The business has been charged with serious infractions of the citys beer code.

The first was a failure to have a permit for the sale of beer. This occurred from Jan. 1, 2021 until Nov. 11, 2021. Attorney John Wolfe, representing the owners, Tennessee Avenue Inc., told the board the $100 yearly privilege tax had been paid when it was realized they were in violation. The board issued a letter of reprimand to be put in the businesss file.

The failure to report all fights and disorders took place has been ongoing and include an assault in the parking lot that left a man bleeding with cuts on his face. A disorder with a weapon (aggravated assault) between two sisters one who pulled a gun on the other and a girlfriend. Another incident was a drive-by shooting that wounded on man on his ankle and left bullet holes in doors of the surrounding buildings and cars that were parked in front of the Mystic Mart. There have also been robberies and dealing and using narcotics at the business. The hearings were postponed until the next beer board meeting on Feb. 3 in order to get access for viewing surveillance videos.
The Chattanooga Wrecker Board under the direction of Chairman Bill Glascock has been in the process of updating the citys wrecker ordinance. The goal is to find solutions to the problems that will satisfy both the wrecker company owners and the city. The wrecker board needs to establish a fair rate that will allow the wreckers make money without letting that price get out of hand, he said. The city since 2003 has only allowed the companies to charge $125 per wrecker tow for cars, while if a car is towed by the state, the charge is $300 and if by Hamilton County it is $285. The wrecker board members recognize the need for a rate increase in Chattanooga, it was stated.

The biggest point of contention is that there is conversation about Chattanooga establishing its own impound lot where all the companies would store towed vehicles, rather than taking them to lots individually owned by their company. Most of the surrounding cities in Tennessee own their own central lot making it easy for owners to find their cars in a safe location and with known storage charges. Another issue is that most of the storage lots in Chattanooga require a cash payment to retrieve their cars. The board would like for them to accept credit cards.

The towing companies are assigned to different districts in the city and each district chose one speaker to represent their service areas at the Tuesday morning meeting of the Wrecker Board that was held to discuss the issues from both sides. Rick Rutherford from R&D Towing in District 1 told the board that most companies get 40 percent of their income from their storage lots. And Les Cantrell, owner of S&L Towing, said that half of the towing businesses will not be in business if they dont have that income.

Mark Shackleford from Shackleford Towing and Recovery in District 2 created a packet for each board member highlighting recent increases in costs that the industry has had. The increased expenses include the cost of their trucks, insurance, registration costs and online services that provide information about cars that are towed and their owners. He listed the costs associated to send letters related to liens, and the expenses that companies have when an unclaimed vehicle has to be auctioned. Additionally, quality tow truck drivers need to be compensated fairly for the dangerous work they do, sometimes in the middle of the night.

Communication is another problem, starting with tow sheets completed by police officers. The tow sheets include pertinent information about the vehicles that are being towed. In Chattanooga, they are written with two carbon copies. Only the top page is legible, said multiple speakers, the third or last copy that the tow truck drivers get, is such bad quality that it cannot be read for the most part. They are pretty useless, said Chris Perry from District 4. And often by the time the tow truck arrives, the owner of the vehicle has left, so no information is available. This leaves people unable to know where their cars are so they call 911 for help.

A new challenge, is that most towing companies do not know how to store a wrecked electric vehicle. With the increase of EVs expected, a policy is needed for how to handle them. Shannon Yates with Yates Wreckers said there are so many unknowns now that no decisions should be made yet.

Curtis Wilson with United Wrecker told the board he hopes that the working group of representatives from the wrecker companies, along with Bill Glascock, Ron Smith and Vince Butler from the Wrecker Board, will be able to communicate and they can come to a good understanding about how to bring about changes. He told the board that the wrecker representatives appreciate having the opportunity to speak in order to determine where to go from here.

Mr. Butler said that the board agrees a rate increase is needed but the wrecker board can only make suggestions to the Chattanooga City Council who will be the ones to make the final decision. He urged the towing industry to contact the council members that represents them. Mr. Glascock said it would be beneficial if the board and the wrecker business can come to a mutually beneficial agreement before taking it to the City Council.
The Bradley County Sheriffs Office Criminal Investigations Division is investigating a dog shooting that occurred during the day on Tuesday, around the area of Tri Circle/Bartlett Circle NE.

During a preliminary investigation, it was discovered that the dog was shot with a pellet gun and later passed away due to its injuries.

The Criminal Investigations Division is offering a $500 reward for any information that assists with identifying a suspect in this case.

The public should direct tips to the Criminal Investigations Division at 423 728-7336 or send a private message via the Bradley County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.

This continues to be an ongoing investigation and more details will be provided as they become available.
Mark Daniel Allen, 64, of Venice, Fl., on Friday was sentenced to 168 months in prison and $700 in special assessments, followed by three years of supervised released, by Judge Travis R. McDonough, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

According to court documents, Allen was found guilty of six counts of unlawfully distributing controlled substances and one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises after a three-day trial, which began on Sept. 1, 2021. Evidence presented at trial showed that Allen unlawfully prescribed approximately 15,000 opioid pills to three women with whom he had sexual relationships, and to a male patient who later passed away.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Departments Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III for the Eastern District of Tennessee; Special Agent in Charge Joseph Carrico of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Knoxville Field Office; Special Agent in Charge Tamala Miles of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG); and Director David Rausch of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation made the announcement.

The FBI, HHS-OIG, TBI, Manchester Police Department, and Coffee County Sheriff's Office investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Brooks of the Eastern District of Tennessee and Trial Attorney Emily Petro of the Criminal Divisions Fraud Section and prosecuted the case.






In his decades-long film career, Michael Caine has portrayed countless different characters. The Oscar-winning actor demonstrates his skill in all of his roles, though he said theres one particular scene that was a mess to film. He explained how a kiss with actor Christopher Reeve turned disastrous.

Michael Caine | George Pimentel/WireImage

Michael Caine said he has several career regrets

Caine has won multiple awards in his storied acting career. Despite his success and prestige, he says that there are several roles that he regrets. He said that he never regrets passing over a part.

I never made that kind of mistake, he told Rolling Stone. I only made the ones in the opposite direction  what I didnt say no to.

He can name one film in particular: 1978s The Swarm.

I said, Ill do it. One day we were all having a conversation with live bees above us, and suddenly we noticed all these little black dots on our shirts, he said. The bees were s******* on us. And so the first review was in, but we didnt know it at the time.

He said one onscreen kiss was a mess

In the late 70s and early 80s, Caine acted in California Suite and Deathtrap, two films in which he portrayed gay characters. He explained that he never had a problem playing a gay character, despite the stigma at the time.

It was a bit dicey to do  people said it could be a career killer and what are the girls going to think of you? A couple of people said, Do you really want to do it, Michael? People will think youre gay. I said, No, they wont. They know Im an actor, he said. I loved doing that. Many of my friends were gay, so Id studied them and their movements and speech, so I basically knew what I was doing. And the parts were so very good.

Despite his comfort in the roles, he explained that he had never kissed another man before.

Chris Reeve and I had to do a romantic scene [in Deathtrap], he explained. Neither of us had ever kissed another man before, so we drank a couple of brandies.

Instead of emboldening them, the alcohol served to erase the script from their memories.

Then when it came time for the dialogue, we couldnt remember it, he said. So the kiss was a bit of a disaster.

Michael Caine has said that he wont appear in a movie again

Years after this role, Caine made a comment that hinted at his retirement. After appearing in the film Best Sellers, he said he doesnt know if hell act in another movie.

I cant walk, let alone run. And Im more or less done with movies now, he told The Guardian, adding, Ive done 150 movies. I think Ive done enough.

Still, he followed this up with a statement denying his retirement.

Regarding retirement, Ive spent over 50 years getting up at 6 a.m. to make movies, and Im not getting rid of my alarm clock! Caine told Variety.

While he may slow down his film work, he continues to work on his writing career.

RELATED: The Dark Knight: Heath Ledgers Joker Was So Stunning Michael Caine Forgot His Lines
Disney+ and JTBCs Korean drama Snowdrop is coming to an end. The K-drama has still developed a fan base that has become enamored with its storyline, despite its initial controversy. Snowdrop is a total of 16-episodes, but JTBC confirmed its finale schedule has changed. As Lunar New Year approaches, the TV network made a few tweaks in accordance with the holiday.

Actors Jung Hae-in and Jisoo in Snowdrop K-drama | via JTBC

Snowdrop stars actor Jung Hae-in and BLACKPINKs Jisoo in her first K-drama

It is not uncommon for K-Pop idols to venture into the world of acting. Fans were excited to hear BLACKPINKs Jisoo would star in her first K-drama, Snowdrop. Her first on-screen role has proven her acting abilities while also raising scrutiny. Most of the controversy the K-drama has received is over its storyline based on Korean historical events.

Jisoo stars alongside rising and popular actor Jung Hae-in. Since his debut as an actor in 2014, in Bride of Century, Jung has become a fan favorite. In 2021, Jung rose to immense notoriety in the short K-drama D.P. by Netflix. Using his own military experience, Jung starred as an army soldier tasked with bringing back deserters.

In Snowdrop, Jung and Jisoo star as Im Soo-ho and Eun Young-ro. Tagged as a drama and romance, the two characters find themselves in turmoil amid political upheaval between North and South Korea. All the while, they try to understand their emotions in a North-South romance story.

JTBC announced schedule change for the Snowdrop finale

RELATED: Snowdrop: Jung Hae-in Got Two Hours of Sleep to Prepare for His K-Drama Role

The 16-episode K-drama was scheduled to end its run on Feb. 5. According to Soompi, JTBC made a public announcement on Jan.21 regarding Snowdrops finale. The final two episodes will air on the same night instead of Saturday and Sunday.

Snowdrop will air episodes 15 and 16 on January 30 starting at 10 p.m., said JTBC. The reason for Snowdrops finale schedule change is due to the Lunar New Year. The holiday is on Feb.1. According to Soompi, many TV networks change the air dates of their programs in consideration of the festivities.

The K-drama has aired 11 episodes, but fans are not ready to let go. According to Soompis Twitter post, fans have enjoyed the effortless chemistry between Jisoo and Jung on and off-screen. Despite Snowdrops many hurdles, fans have come to enjoy its complex story.

Whats next for the main cast after the Snowdrop finale?

RELATED: Snowdrop: Kim Mi-soos Most Profound K-Drama Roles Amid Her Death at Age 29

As a global idol in BLACKPINK, Jisoo will continue her career in the K-Pop industry. After the Snowdrop finale, she has not revealed any upcoming projects as an actor. But her co-star Jung is already filming his new K-drama. According to Soompi, Jung stars in Takashi Miikes first K-drama Connect.

On Jan. 21, Jung posted photos on his Instagram thanking his Snowdrop co-stars for their gift on the set of Connect. Jisoo, Kim Hye-yoon, Jung Shin-hye, Jung Yi-seo, and the rest of the Snowdrop cast surprised Jung with his own personalized coffee truck. Jisoo and the female actors personally delivered the truck to the set so that Jung and the staff could enjoy churros and a hot coffee.

Jung captioned the post saying, Our Snowdrop actors, who made the time to cheer me on with a surprise visit in this cold weather thanks to you guys, who gave me lots of strength with this gift that I wont be able to forget for the rest of my life through Mi Soos idea, Ill find strength to continue filming up until the last shoot! Hye Yoon, Hee Jin, Ji Soo, Shin Hye, Yi Seo, Nam Joon, Dong Gu, thank you.

Fans can look foward to more great content by Jung and hopefully more from Jisoo after making her acting debut.
As viewers the Jay-Z and Will Smith produced limited series, Women of the Movement on ABC, they want to know more about Carolyn Bryant Donham (portrayed by Julia McDermott). Although she admitted the truth to a journalist in 2007, the now 87-year-old woman was never charged. The 6-part historical drama tells the true story of Emmett Tills brutal murder and the trial that found J. W. Milam (Chris Coy) and Roy Bryant (Carter Jenkins) not guilty by an all-white jury. The Women of the Movement cast stars Adrienne Warren as Emmetts mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. Although the series is a drama, it is devastatingly accurate to the real-life events in Money, Mississippi, in 1955.

Women of the Movement: Julia McDermott | ABC/James Van Evers

Emmett Till Legacy Foundation asks Women of the Movement viewers to sign the petition against Carolyn Bryant Donham

In January 2021, the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation began a petition to charge Carolyn Bryant Donham as an accomplice in the 66-year-old murder case. The nonprofit organization was created in 2005 to preserve the memory and legacy of Emmett Louis Till.

As you watch #WomenOfTheMovement tonight and #LetTheWorldSee at 9 pm CST, you can make a difference! the Foundation tweeted. Please sign the #JusticeForEmmettTill petition to Charge the last living accomplice #CarolynBryantDonham with the kidnapping and murder of #EmmettTill.

As you watch #WomenOfTheMovement tonight and #LetTheWorldSee at 9pm cst,

You can make a difference!

Please sign the #JusticeForEmmettTill petition to Charge the last living accomplice #CarolynBryantDonham with the kidnapping and murder of #EmmettTill https://t.co/hSc9qvHUTm  EmmettTillLegacyFdn (@EmmettTill) January 7, 2022

RELATED: Women of the Movement Glynn Turman Talks Race  The Bullet Holes Say Nothings Changed (Exclusive)

As of Jan. 20, 2022, the petition has 112,230 signatures and it continues to grow. Actor Taye Diggs tweeted news about Till and the foundation on Jan. 14 that helped the foundation gain more signatures and followers.

Women of the Movement: Carolyn Bryant Donhams testimony swayed the jurors

In ABCs Women of the Movement, viewers watch Emmett Till innocently talk to Carolyn Bryant in a local store in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. His friends dare Emmett to ask her out on a date in the dramatization. A few days later, Carolyns husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, kidnap, torture, and kill Emmett Till. The 14-year-old boys mother insists on an open casket, and the NAACP helps to broadcast the awful news across the country.

Later in Women of the Movement Episode 5, while on the stand, Carolyn testifies that Emmett grabbed her hand and wouldnt let go. She added that he chased her down, blocked her path, and clutched her waist tightly. Although the judge in the case does not allow the jury to hear the testimony, it gets back to the jurors. In the final episode of Women of the Movement, an all-white jury finds the defendants not guilty, despite witness testimonies that place the men at the scene of the crime.

RELATED: Women of the Movement: How Accurate is the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Series to Real Life?

Carolyn Bryant Donham told the truth in 2007

Timothy B. Tysons 2017 book, The Blood of Emmett Till, details his interview with Carolyn Bryant Donham in 2007 (long before Women of the Movement was created). She invited him to her home to deliver the manuscript and her unpublished memoir to the correct archive for future scholars.

Theyre all dead now anyway, Tyson recalls Bryant Donham saying somewhat to herself before beginning the interview. Her ex-husband, Roy Bryant, died on Sept. 1, 1994. J. W. Milam died on Dec. 31, 1980. They spoke about her 1955 testimony during the interview that Till had grabbed her around the waist and uttered obscenities.

That parts not true, Bryant Donham told Tyson.

However, when he asked her to elaborate, the woman could not recall what had happened.

Tyson secured the hand-written notes of what Bryant said to her attorney the day after the arrest in 1955. Bryant admitted that Till had insulted her but not grabbed her or attempted to rape her in this earlier version.

I want to tell you, she said. Honestly, I just dont remember. It was fifty years ago. You tell these stories for so long that they seem true, but that part is not true.

Justice Department closed the cold case on Emmett Till

According to the New York Times, on Dec. 6, 2021, the Department of Justice announced that there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham. The DOJ reopened the case after the 2017 book release; however, Donham denied changing her story. Because of the denial and the statute of limitations, the DOJ reported not pursuing charges.

All six of ABCs Women of the Movement episodes are available for streaming on Hulu on Jan. 21, 2022.

RELATED: Women of the Movement: Will There Be a Season 2 After the Emmett Till Story Closes? (Exclusive)
After watching the Jay-Z and Will Smith produced limited series, Women of the Movement on ABC, many viewers want to know where the Civil Rights Memorial is. The historical drama depicts the lynching of Emmett Till (portrayed by Cedric Joe) which spawned the civil rights movement. The drama tells the true story from his mother, Mamie Till-Mobleys perspective  performed by Women of the Movement cast member Adrienne Warren. In the last few minutes of the drama, viewers see her, in 1989, at the dedication of the Civil Rights Memorial where Emmetts name remains forever inscribed.

Women of the Movement: Gloria Bankston | ABC/James Van Evers

Women of the Movement: Medgar Evers

In the last few minutes of Women of the Movement, an older Mamie Till-Mobley (Gloria Bankston) runs her fingers across Medgar Evers name, which is inscribed on the Civil Rights Memorial. He was a civil rights leader, portrayed in the ABC series by Tongayi Chirisa, and assassinated on June 12, 1963. Evers became Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP in 1954. He also worked as a salesman for T.R.M. Howards Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company.

After the 1954 ruling by the Supreme Court to desegregate schools, Evers worked on numerous cases to integrate school systems and universities. He rose to prominence after his involvement in investigating Emmett Tills murder. Evers and his wife lived in the same town as T. R. M. Howard (portrayed by Alex Desert in Women of the Movement)  Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

On June 21, 1963, Byron De La Beckwith assassinated Evers. He was rushed to a local hospital in Jackson but initially refused entry because he was Black. When his family explained who he was, they finally admitted Evers, but he died 50 minutes later.

Women of the Movement: Tongayi Chirisa | ABC/James Van Evers

RELATED: Women of the Movement: Carolyn Bryant Shared the Truth with 1 Journalist; Theyre All Dead Now Anyway

Where Is the Civil Rights Memorial Shown in Women of the Movement?

On Nov. 5, 1989, the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated the Civil Rights Memorial. It is located at 400 Washington Avenue in the city of Alabama. The names of 40 men, women, and children, including Emmett Till, are inscribed on the granite fountain as martyrs killed in the civil rights movement. Maya Lin created the monument, taking inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have a Dream speech. The memorial honors those who died in the movement while inspiring visitors to continue to march for racial equity and social justice.

Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream, the monument reads while water flows over the inscriptions.

RELATED: Women of the Movement: Will There Be a Season 2 After the Emmett Till Story Closes? (Exclusive)

The memorial is located very close to the church where King was pastor during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Its also near the Alabama Capitol steps where King spoke after the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

The 40 names listed show a timeline of the significant events during the civil rights movement. The memorial is open to visitors 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What other names are included on the Civil Rights Memorial?

A complete list of the inscriptions on the Civil Rights Memorial shown in Women of the Movement was published in the New York Times.

LEE, the Rev. George, killed May 7, 1955, for leading a voter registration drive in Belzoni, Miss. the monument reads. SMITH, Lamar, 63 years old, slain Aug. 13, 1955, for organizing black voters in Brookhaven, Miss. TILL, Emmett Louis, 14, slain Aug. 28, 1955, for speaking to a white woman in Money, Miss. REESE, John Earl, 16, slain Oct. 22, 1955, by nightriders opposed to black school improvements in Mayflower, Tex.

KING, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Jr., 39, assassinated April 4, 1968, in Memphis, is the last name on the monument.

All six of ABCs Women of the Movement episodes are available for streaming on Hulu on Jan. 21, 2022.

RELATED: Women of the Movement Glynn Turman Talks Race  The Bullet Holes Say Nothings Changed (Exclusive)
The kickoff to Cheshires budget season came, as it traditionally does, with a presentation from Superintendent of Schools Jeff Solan.

In asking for approximately $4 million in additional funds, Solan is presenting an ambitious proposal, especially given the Town Councils penchant for keeping the spending belt tight in recent years. Solan will first make his case to the Board of Education and, eventually, to the Council for why these funds are necessary.

Theres a lot that goes into such a budget, and Solan and his staff spend months working on the details before the big reveal to the public. Yet, while the spending proposal deals with the immediate needs of the community, one couldnt help but feel the specter of school modernization hovering over everything.

Yes, Solan is looking to replenish the Districts medical benefits fund, which takes up a large percentage of his current ask, but enrollment is playing a central role in this years proposal, as the additional positions being requested are in direct response to the larger-than-expected student population seen over the course of the last 12 months.

And, as Solan explained, those trends arent likely to reverse anytime soon.

In The Heralds conversation with Solan this week, the majority of the focus was on COVID-19-related issues, as one would expect. The pandemic continues to impact the student experience, and the arrival of the omicron strain of COVID just heightened concerns. Yet, Solan touched on the issue of school modernization and laid out, in stark terms, what the community will likely face in the not-too-distant future if capacity concerns are not addressed.

Either Cheshire moves forward with its renovation/construction plans for school modernization, or it can expect to see trailers outside some school buildings for the foreseeable future.

As Solan sees it, the question is whether the town wants to spend for new or to keep spending to accommodate the old and outdated. Towards the end of this year, its expected that Cheshire residents will finally have a say in answering such questions.

Enrollment isnt likely to go down anytime soon. As Andrew Martelli, BOE member and the Towns Economic Development Coordinator, explained last week during a Planning Committee meeting, new developments are popping up all around Cheshire, with more, specifically in the north end, planned for the near future. Couple that with the recent trend of new families moving to Connecticut from places like New York and local homeowners taking advantage of high real estate prices and increased demand, the likelihood of even more students calling Cheshire home in the coming years just continues to increase.

Those projections are already becoming a reality, and Solans budget looks to address the immediate concerns. But its obvious that any delay in moving forward with school modernization will only exacerbate the situation.

As it stands, the District will be looking to accommodate a larger student body in the near future as, even if plans for new schools and increased capacity are approved by voters at referendum in November, the finished products will not be ready immediately. Theres a lot that will have to get done in between the projects approval and the doors opening, and even if all construction were to go according to plan, it will likely be more than a year before students would be welcomed into their new homes.

So, as Cheshire begins to look at its budget, and as deliberations extend over the next several months, the elephant in the room will continue to be school modernization. And if voters ultimately decide to pass on the sweeping, expensive proposal put before them by local leaders, the result will have to be understood.

For now, however, the question becomes, how much of the requested $4 million will the BOE approve and ultimately get from the Council, and if cuts are made, where will they be made?
In a statement released on Thursday, President Joe Biden tried to clarify his words from the previous day, in which he appeared to discriminate between a Russian invasion of Ukraine and a modest incursion.

Biden's remarks were his first since a news conference on Wednesday sparked outrage and had White House staffers rushing to clean up his remarks regarding the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

Biden warns Russia will "pay a heavy price"

White House aides have spent hours since Biden's comments trying to dispel concerns that he was giving Putin the green light for some sort of lesser action against Ukraine, despite the president later in the press conference trying to clarify that he was suggesting any response would require unity among NATO allies.

Biden was distinguishing between military and nonmilitary acts, such as cyberattacks that would be faced with a reciprocal reaction, according to Emily Horne, a spokesman for the National Security Council, in a tweet on Wednesday. Biden's statements during the news conference were met with skepticism and criticism from experts, as well as Republican opposition. With Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to meet with his Russian colleague in Geneva later this week, the uncertainty occurred at an unfavorable moment for the Biden administration, according to The Hill.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, has reacted angrily to statements made by Vice President Joe Biden regarding Russia's "little invasion" into his nation. "There are no little intrusions, just as there are no minor losses and minimal sadness from the death of loved ones," Zelensky said on Twitter.

Russian forces are stationed along the border, but they deny any invasion plans. Moscow has issued a series of demands to the West, including that Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO and that the defense alliance ceases all military operations in eastern Europe.

As the US president predicted, Putin's move-in to Ukraine may have been an honest confession from the president of the United States. In fact, it hindered Blinken's efforts on this trip to portray the current crisis as a stark option for Russia between diplomacy and confrontation, with little room for negotiation or compromise in between.

Blinken raised the stakes even higher during his speech on Thursday afternoon, apparently to assuage the anxieties of the US allies gathered in Berlin. Rather than a "distant regional disagreement," he added, this posed a threat to world sovereignty and self-determination ideas.

The United States and its allies were ready for a new Cold War. On Friday, as Blinken travels to Geneva for a meeting with his colleague in Russia, their comments - and Biden's - will linger in the air, as per BBC News.

Read Also: Voting Rights Bill Fails in Senate After a Day of Debate; Why Failure Is a Setback for Democrats?

Images reveal the huge military build-up in Ukraine

Hours after US President Joe Biden claimed Russia's Vladimir Putin now had to do something, new evidence of a massive military build-up within striking distance of Ukraine in preparation for a nine-month war has surfaced.

A battlegroup is deployed at Voronezh base, roughly 200 miles (330 kilometers) from the Ukraine border, with rows of tank artillery and support equipment massed at Yelnya, 77 miles (125 kilometers) from Russia's border with Belarus, according to satellite pictures from January 19.

A second set of photographs shows military equipment being assembled on a couple of facilities in the region: Klintsky and Klimovo, which are barely 18 miles (30 kilometers) from the Belarusian border and 31 miles (50 kilometers) from Russia's Ukraine border.

Since Moscow moved up to 100,000 troops, as well as tanks and missiles, close to the border at the end of last year, the region has been on edge, but tensions have risen in recent days as a surge in equipment and troop movements, including military police, from the country's extreme east has increased tensions.

Families of military personnel have been informed that their loved ones might be separated from their families for up to nine months after being relocated hundreds of miles to the west and that they could expect to be involved in a fight in Ukraine.

Multiple rocket launchers, battle vehicles, communication trucks, and general transportation trucks were seen crossing the Russian border to Belarusian outposts in Gomel and Rechitsa, all of which are within striking distance of Ukraine at less than 37 miles (60 kilometers) from the border.

Although Russia and Belarus have stated that the deployment of troops and equipment is tied to hurriedly organized joint military exercises between the two nations, many analysts have criticized the explanation as a prelude to the West's coming invasion of Ukraine, Daily Mail reported.

Related Article: Russia Blames Washington Wars for Kazakhstan Crisis as US, NATO Take Firm Line Ahead of Talks About Ukraine Tensions

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While studying the Book of Hosea, I felt nudged to write another novel, but one that would show the difference between what the world considers love and the unconditional, sacrificial, all-consuming love of God, Christian romance author Francine Rivers wrote for CT in 2016. The result was Redeeming Love. The writing process kept me close to the Lord.

The book was her first after becoming a Christian and was wildly successful among evangelical readership, selling more than three million copies. Along with a loyal fan base, it has garnered criticism for being a gateway to soft pornography for its steamier scenes and as an endorsement of unequal power dynamics between men and vulnerable women. Thirty years later, the historical romance has been brought to the screen with Rivers as executive producer.

The Gold Rushera retelling of the Book of Hosea follows Angel (Abigail Cowen), a woman trapped in prostitution, and Michael (Tom Lewis), the man God calls to rescue her by marriage. Angel struggles to believe in Michaels love or in his God, but slowly becomes convinced. But in the screenplay, Angels conversion experience mellows Rivers original distinction that the titular redeeming love is ultimately Gods, not Michaels.

Dorothy Bennett talked with Rivers, who cowrote the screenplay with director D. J. Caruso, to discuss the films purpose in Christian culture today.

Redeeming Love addresses traumatic sexual experiences and celebrates sex between a husband and wife. The book was released at the beginning of the purity culture movement (1990s2000s). How does Redeeming Love address how Christians talk (or dont talk) about sex?

Well, thats a good question. Thinking from Angels point of view, shes sold into prostitution at the age of eight. For her, sex is degrading. It is disgusting, and it represents being captured and being in bondage. So when she meets Michael, she has no concept of love at all. Hes gently wooing her. And in the movieand it might kind of raise the brows of somehe has married her, and hes waited, and hes wooed her, and hes gently courted her, until he knows she loves him. Then he consummates the marriage.

We tend not to talk about sex, but the Song of Solomon is in the Bible. That was what I wanted reflected in this. Its a gift from God when its in the right frame, within a marriage. And unfortunately, in our culture, its like anything goes. Were seeing so many different things on TV that are explicit, shockingly so. I think there is a place for a tastefully done love scene to try to show the difference between what the world says love is and what God says it is.

Among other sex scenes, there is a scene in the brothel when Michael and Angel first meet, where the camera lingers on Angel. But there is only a short, comedic scene where Michael takes a dip in the river. There seems to be an inequality in how they are depicted on screen.

Were not trying to titillate people. Theres a point to the scenes and a reason for them to be in there. And its such a gritty story. Its coming from a hard place. Im thinking about the letters that Ive gotten and people talking about how it impacted them as survivors, coming out of that kind of life, and them wanting to know Michael. And Im able to say, Well, this is really about Christ and the way Christ loves you and how he defines you. Theres the line in the movie where Michaels saying, You didnt choose the life you had, but you can choose the life you want. We all have to make that choice. And thats the primary message in this too: the love of God and letting him make you a new creation.

Article continues below

There is a triangular relationship structure of Michael, Angel, and God in a marital relationship. Do you feel like that was adequately portrayed in the film?

I would hope so. Thats the primary thing we were trying to do, and we wanted to reach unsaved people. Its a Universal Studios release. Its going into theaters all across the country and in Canada, and hopefully itll reach people that dont know anything about Jesus. We try to make sure that faith message is right there, from the beginning to the end, because he goes into that church and hes asking God to give him somebody to share his life.

There were things that we had to leave out because you want the faith message to get through and not have people distracted. You want the passion of God to show. You want to uphold the sanctity of marriage and the beauty of sex within the marriage thats the gift of God. But its been a journey, and weve tried to be very careful and do it in a very tasteful way.

When Angel leaves Michael for the final time, she begins to experience God on a personal level. Because we didnt have that audible voice of God like in the book, there may be confusion about it being Gods redeeming love that brings her back (versus Michaels).

In some of the earlier scripts, [the writers/producers] wanted Michael to go after [Angel] and save her at the end. The point of the story is Gods heart. God wants our hearts, our souls, and hes the ultimate decision we have to make.

You write in the romance genre, which follows a narrative arc between two people. In Redeeming Love, you break the mold in the sense that you introduce Angel to a wider community, including female friends. Why was that important for you to include?

Oh, I think its very necessary, and thats what were supposed to be in the church. Were supposed to come around and help people and come alongside them. Galatians 6:12walk alongside people that are struggling and share your own victory in Christ. Michaels also got that community around him. They are mirroring Christs love in front of Angel. And it takes. Sometimes it takes more than one. You dont know how many seeds are planted in a persons life before they ever really understand that God is chasing them and trying to bring them home to him, where they belong.

Even though some elements of the story are sensational, you seem to be attempting to depict something realistic.

Yes. It is a gritty story, and the thing that I feel is a blessing out of it is people that are survivors connect with the story and it gives them a sense of hope. They can watch this, and they can realize, God loves me and there is a plan for my life,and I dont have to live in my past. My past does not have to define my future. We all have to make a choice. So for me, it was about my coming to Christ and looking to other things. But then for other people who have been through tremendous trauma, that means something different. Holly Caruso, [director] D. J. Caruso's wife, and I created a foundation for sex trafficking survivors. That's something that has come out of the proceeds of the movie.

Is the bottom line of the movie about choosing a relationship with God more than choosing a pleasant life with Michael on the farm?

Absolutely. I want people to walk out of the movie hopeful. I really hope that Christians will use it. That they can bring unsaved friends and say, Lets watch this movie together, and then lets talk about faith issues. And really, fiction is always meant to go back to the real thing. Its meant to draw people to Christ. The movie is meant to bring people to Christ, and its to offer a tool for us to share our faith with people who dont know Jesus at all.
Last Saturday, Bob Roberts Jr. had just sat down at a restaurant with his wife when he heard about the hostage standoff at nearby Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three others were being held at gunpoint.

A local pastor and cofounder of Multi-Faith Neighbors Network, Roberts felt the responsibility to step in and help. He ended up hunkered with fellow clergy and the rabbis family at a church near Beth Israel for the duration of the crisis. The standoff extended for 11 hours before all hostages escaped safely; the hostage taker was killed in a SWAT team assault.

Afterward, the group of clergy made for an apt photo opan evangelical pastor, Catholic priest, Muslim imam, and Jewish rabbi all standing together for the sake of their community. But behind that picture were years of relationship building to create the kind of network that runs to help in times of disaster.

A lot of times, when these situations come, theres really nothing anybody can do because they have no relationships. So the only thing you can say is, Well, lets pray, and Isnt it sad? said Roberts, who leads Northwood Church in Keller, Texas. We have to do better.

In an interview with CT, Roberts shared his prayers during the crisis, his work that allowed him access, and an encouragement to evangelicals in an increasingly fractured religious landscape.

How did you find out about the hostage situation?

As we were sitting there, my phone began to blow up with texts from people telling me something was going on. Then somebody else sent me some pictures of the situation. I looked at my wife, and we didnt know how serious it was or what to make of it. In the meantime, a friend of mine who is a Muslim leader reached out to me, and I told him that weve got to get Omar Suleiman over there, because at that time, wed heard the [hostage taker] was Palestinian. Omar is a Palestinian, and hes an imam, and we thought maybe he could somehow or another defuse the situation.

What circumstances led you to be near the crisis with other clergy during the standoff?

To get Omar in, Im friends with the Keller police chief, and hes friends with the Colleyville police chief, and they were working together. I wanted to validate Omar Suleiman, to stand for his credibility so that he could go in and work.  It was me and him; one other rabbi [Andrew Paley]; Azhar Azeez, who is another Muslim leader; and the chairman of the board of the synagogue, along with the rabbis wife and daughter.

After wed been there for several hours, I was looking around, praying quietly to myself, and I saw Omar a time or two and felt like he was praying. I know that it may have made them all feel awkward, but I just told them, You know, all of us believe in God. I used to think only God heard my prayers as a Christian. But I discovered in reading the Hebrew Scriptures, and even the New Testament, that God heard the prayers of people who were not necessarily even his followers, from Cornelius to even how the temple was built for Gentiles to come and pray and seek God. And Id like for us to just pray if yall would be okay with it.

A man looked at me and said, Great, Bob, lead us in prayer. So I did and just basically asked God to be with us in the situation, to give us wisdom and discernment, to give wise counsel, to give comfort. To allow the hostages to be released and for the gunman to be subdued, but to also be with him, because he must have some kind of mental torment.

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What was going through your head during that time?

Please, Jesus, protect that man. I was thinking I wanted him released. I wanted him free. I didnt want to have to comfort people from a death, and I was grateful for that. There was a sense of heaviness. It was very intense for me. It was for real. A guy had a gun, claimed he had bombs. Four people are in another building just within walking distance down the street from us. No guarantee its going to come out good. As a matter of fact, it didnt look good.

I was running all kinds of scenarios in my mind. How do we do this? What can Omar do? What can I do? How do we do it together? How do we use our faith to challenge this whole situation? How do we keep it from disintegrating in the community so that Islamophobes will not use it as an excuse to attack Muslims and Christians wont get more negative toward Muslims than they already are? There were a thousand things going through my head. But the biggest thing was, Please, God, spare the lives of those people. And the hostage taker included.

How worried were you and the other clergy?

We were very worried. My gosh, I mean, a guy had a gun and, for all we knew, explosives. Four lives were on the line. But worried is not the right word. It was more of a heaviness and a seriousness. It was like, what do we need to do? What can we do? A lot of times, all we could do was just be presentwhether we were coming up with different scenarios to try to defuse the situation or being present to comfort the people.

What encouragement would you want to give evangelicals as a result of this?

We have a massive open door to live out the gospel with people of other faiths. And we have a moral responsibility as followers of Jesus and as the majority in America to watch out for the rights of the minority faiths. If we really love religious freedom around the world, we will model it most right here at home.

The tragedy is, though its a wide-open door with a massive opportunity and a moral responsibility, its one that very few people walk through. Yet when you read the Book of Acts, thats exactly how the gospel spread. So while we do our church stuff with Christians, weve got to start asking, What are we doing to bring value to our communities?

We talk a lot as Christians about feeling Gods presence in the midst of difficult circumstances. What was it like to be in such close proximity to a life-or-death situation?

I didnt think about it in those terms. I was praying the whole time. And what I heard Jesus saying to me was Bob, be present. Just be present; be alert. We sat there for many hours, and there would be all kinds of things that happened throughout the day, and I needed to be present. Whether it was comforting someone, giving counsel to someone, working on a scenariojust be present.

One of the biggest lessons Ive learned in my life is to follow the Holy Spirit. And a lot of times, as American evangelicals and pastors, weve got our mission, vision, values, and action plan. But the most important thing is to listen to the voice of God, and as the Spirit moves, stay in the flow. And be that salt and light in the moment you find yourself in. The greatest things Ive been a part of were the small things I did that seemed insignificant in moments when somebody needed something and I was present.

Has this experience changed the way you think about prayer or intercession?

No, because sadly, this isnt the first time Ive been involved in something like this. Ive worked with pastors and imams and rabbis around the world in very sensitive places. And Ive been involved in other very sensitive situations. It just keeps me on my knees and helps me to remember this stuff is real. And weve got to take it serious. Sometimes our church life can unintentionally take us away from real life. Experiences like thisthey bring us back to reality and whats at stake and whats going on and what really matters.

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How has your interfaith and bridge-building work prepared you to play a role in something like this?

Well, I wouldnt have been there if I hadnt done it. I think the great tragedy is, as evangelicals, we have made [interfaith] a specialty of ministry instead of our context of life. I dont view it as a specialty; I view it as our context. And were either present or were not. But all the work that Ive done is why I was there. Its why I was texted and called and brought into the whole situation. Its why I knew to call an imam.

Its amazing to me how we evangelicals want to win the world for Jesus, but were so segregated from it and isolated from the very people that we would win. We dont even know how to talk to them, other than to give them a tract or tell them why were right and theyre wrong. Were not in relationships with them.

Roberts encourages Christians interested in making interfaith connections to visit the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network website, where they can sign up for retreats with local imams and rabbis or start their own chapters of the network.
"MacGyver" was a television show from several years back that featured Angus MacGyver, a special agent in some obscure government agency who hunted bad guys around the world. The plot was always the same. MacGyver would find the bad guys but wouldn't have enough evidence to close the case. So, he would break into some area where he wasn't supposed to be, and he would be captured by the bad guys. (He was always being captured! You'd think he would have been sent back to headquarters for more training, but I digress...).

Anyway, once captured, the bad guys would lock him up in a garage or some other room with a lot of stuff stacked around the walls. MacGyver was part genius, part engineer, and part scientist who could make anything he needed out of what he found around him. Using old tractor parts and a box fan, MacGyver would make a plane that would fly him to the bad guy's secret hideout. Every episode was ingenious, but the plot was always the same:

MacGyver would identify the bad guy who was doing bad things. MacGyver would try to find the bad guy. MacGyver would get captured spying on the bad guy. The bad guy would lock MacGyver in a garage or storage room. MacGyver would use the material around him to forge whatever he needed to overcome the bad guy. Just in the nick of time, MacGyver would figure it out and we'd have to wait another week to see how MacGyver would save the day once again.

Every week it was the same show, but it was exciting just the same. Now, why am I bringing up MacGyver? Because I think MacGyver episodes should be required study for church planters and pastors. The new opportunities and challenges facing churches in North America mean leaders of local congregations are going to have to be a new breed of leader -- part theologian, part entrepreneur, part counselor, and community activist. More and more, local church leaders will find themselves in situations where major problems have to be solved with only those things at hand.

Here are the hard facts. One in three churches will close in the next five years. Most church plants don't make it past three to five years. For all our emphasis on church planting, we still haven't found a sustainable model to plant enough churches to replace those churches that are closing.

So, if we watched an episode of MacGyver? What could we learn?

First, we'd learn to take a look around and realize the hard truth of the situation. MacGyver would always have that moment when he realized that if he didn't figure something out he was going to die. Most pastors need to stop spiritualizing the challenges around them and see the hard reality they're facing. For instance, declining membership isn't God pruning the vine. It's a sign we're no longer meeting needs. Until the congregation is honest, brutally honest, the church has no chance of survival.

Second, take a hard look at what you have. MacGyver was a master at assessing his resources to determine what he could use. Remember, Jesus never asks for what you don't have. All of us are guilty of wishful thinking. If we only had a million dollars, then we could do this. If we only had a better preacher, then more people would come. The list could go on and on. The reality is we don't have those things. So, what do we have?

Does the church have a gym that could be converted to a childcare space? Are there unused offices that could house local community services? Could counselors provide financial counseling to the local community? Could you set up a jobs program? What old things could we see in a new way?

From these community engagements, could we begin gospel conversations? Could our Monday through Saturday ministry be the focus of the church instead of Sunday morning? Sure, we'll always have worship, but what if Sunday becomes the day we pray for and praise God for what's going on in the building Monday through Saturday?

Go outside and look around. Who is around your church? Have the demographics changed around your church? Who's there now? Who's moved out? Does the makeup of your leadership team match the community around the church?

With every challenge there is opportunity. Within each church are the skills, gifts, and abilities needed to respond to the new challenges. Some have to be called out. Some have to be refined, but God will not leave His church empty in the face of so much need.

No, it probably won't look like the church you've always dreamed about, but it will be the church the community needs. In the ways it needs to, the church will look like Jesus to the community around it.

Now, look around. Figure it out. MacGyver would. With God's help, we can too.
11 children among 29 killed by stampede at Liberian worship crusade

At least 29 people, including 11 children, have been pronounced dead after a stampede at a church gathering in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, Wednesday night.

Hundreds were in attendance at an all-night Christian crusade, which took place at an open-air Pentecostal church on the outskirts of the capital in the New Kru Town neighborhood when the incident happened, Deputy Information Minister Jalawah Tonpo told state radio Thursday.

"The doctors said 29 persons died and some are on the critical list," Tonpo said while visiting a local hospital. "This is a sad day for the country."

According to police officials who spoke with BBC, the stampede occurred after a street gang entered the revival area after a monetary collection was taken at the end of the event.

The worship event was organized by a well-known pastor known as Apostle Abraham Kromah, a radio host who pastors the World of Life Outreach International, the news outlet reports.

Kromah is believed by his followers to have the ability to heal people through prayers.

An attendee named Exodus Morias told Reuters that the stampede began after a group of armed men tried to stage the robbery.

"We saw a group of men with cutlasses and other weapons coming toward the crowd," Morias said. "While running, some people dropped and others fell on the ground and walked over them."

Gang violence is not uncommon in the Liberian streets.

Armed gangs known as Zogos commit robberies armed with small weapons.

National police spokesman Moses Carter told AFP that the death toll could rise, as 29 is a provisional count. Many in attendance were in critical condition. Children also died, he said. Carter had told BBC that Kromah was questioned to assist in the investigation.

Carter said the dead bodies were taken to Redemption Hospital.

A three-day period of mourning was declared nationally by President George Weah, according to his office.

The Liberian Red Cross and Disaster Management Agency has been called to assist victims of the tragedy.

This is not the first time that a deadly stampede has resulted in the loss of lives in Liberia. The Associated Press reports that a stampede at a similar event last November resulted in the deaths of two infants while several others were hospitalized.
March for Life speaker recalls hemorrhaging in school after abortion, feeling deceived by clinic

For Black Lives Matter to be true, it must start in the womb, an African American pro-life activist speaking at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., said Friday as she recalled her abortion when she was in high school.

Toni McFadden, an author and founder of the organization Relationships Matter, spoke to the thousands gathered at the National Mall about her decision to have an abortion when she was a teenager.

There was a time in my life that I believed my life was more valuable than my unborn baby, she said. My senior year of high school, I selfishly ended the life of my child.

I believed the lie that if I aborted my child, my boyfriend would stay with me, my parents would never find out about my secret, and my life would go along as planned, she added. And the abortion facility led me to believe the same.

Instead, she was given pills that caused her to experience severe hemorrhaging while at school, and her boyfriend left her soon after the abortion.

I believe all lives matter, McFadden stated, receiving loud cheers from the crowd during the rally before the march that is typically held each year during the same week as the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion a national right.

Those who advocate for black lives to matter and demand equal rights for black men and women, that needs to start in the womb.

McFadden, who founded Relationships Matter to educate the children on the degradation of sex in our culture and equip them to live out healthy relationships, contends that the very act of abortion is wiping us out.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, it is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people, and not in favor for justice for all people, she said. And that includes preborn babies.

McFadden said she is thankful that we have a God who redeems and said that the boyfriend returned nine years later to apologize. The two are now married with children.

We are on the right side of history in this battle, she added. I needed all of you then, and these babies still need you now.

The 2022 March for Life included speakers like actor Kirk Cameron, Duck Dynasty star Lisa Robertson, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Kristen Waggoner and Down syndrome advocate Katie Shaw.

Father Mike Schmitz, the host of the popular Bible in a Year podcast, was the keynote speaker for this years March for Life Rose Dinner. He also spoke at the rally.

Schmitz spoke about his pro-life roots and stressed the importance of every life, including those who had previously chosen abortion.

Every person matters. Every life matters, said Schmitz. I know that were surrounded by men and women who have chosen abortion. Listen, you need to know [that] youre supposed to be here. You matter.

You belong here. No matter what your past is, you are still loved, he said. You need to know this: you are still loved and you still matter.

Billy Grahams granddaughter Cissie Graham Lynch conducted a closing prayer and contemporary Christian star Matthew West performed music.

Lord, we know that You are the author and Creator of all life, that Youve created us in Your image, Graham Lynch prayed. We know as a nation that we have sinned. We humble ourselves before you asking for forgiveness. We know that You are a God who loves. You are a God who forgives, and You see us right where we are.

The theme for this years March for Life was Equality Begins in the Womb, which was unveiled last October at an event at the Heritage Foundation headquarters in Washington.

While nearly everyone seems to agree that the topic of equality is important, theres little agreement on what the definition of [what] equality is, and who it applies to and how that should be applied to important policy questions, March for Life Education and Defense Fund President Jeanne Mancini said at the October event.

We want to expand this debate, this rigorous debate, about equality to include unborn children who are often overlooked because they cannot speak for themselves.

The March comes at a time when many Supreme Court watchers believe that the high court will finally overturn Roe v. Wade as it considers whether to strike down or uphold a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks into a pregnancy.

Last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the March for Life held a virtual event, with a small number of pro-life leaders gathering in D.C. and performing the march in person.
Most millennials, Gen Z adults support bans on abortions when baby's heartbeat is detected: poll

A new poll released ahead of the annual March for Life reveals that most young Americans support efforts to ban abortions after a baby's heartbeat can be detected.

The poll, conducted on behalf of the pro-life organization Students for Life of America from Jan. 511, asked 834 young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 for their views on abortion and the United States Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide. The polls release comes as pro-lifers are set to gather in Washington, D.C., Friday for the annual March for Life that's held in the nation's capital around the anniversary of the Roe decision.

The survey informed respondents that the human fetal heart begins to beat 21 days after conception, at 3 weeks gestation before asking if they supported banning abortions after a heartbeat is detected. Fifty-two percent of those surveyed said they supported banning abortions after a heartbeat can be detected compared to 48% who opposed.

Denise Harle, an attorney with the religious liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, reacted to the polls findings in an interview with The Christian Post. I think that is fantastic news, she said.

Harle told CP that she was so encouraged because it means that  our younger generation understands what medical science shows us and what biology teaches us, which is that  life begins at conception, its a human right and it should be protected.

Some of the young Americans who participated in the poll changed their views on abortion once they received more details about Roe v. Wade. Initially, 60% of respondents expressed some level of support for Roe, with 21% saying that they very strongly supported the decision, 26% reporting that they strongly supported the decision, and 12% telling the pollster that they did not strongly support it.

The share of respondents who expressed some level of support for Roe decreased after they learned that Roe allows abortions to take place throughout all nine months of pregnancy, right up until the moment of birth and allows women to abort their children if they do not like the sex of their baby, fear it has an abnormality like Down syndrome or believe that the baby might be same-sex attracted or one day identify as transgender.

Additionally, the poll informed respondents that Roe has been used to justify sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to perform abortions or off-set other expenses of abortion vendors/providers, allows women to use abortion as contraception and ends a disproportionate number of minority lives. At the end of the poll, support for Roe had dropped to 50% among those surveyed.

The share of participants who very strongly support Roe dipped slightly from 21% to 20%, the percentage who strongly support Roe dropped from 26% to 21%, while 9% indicated that they did not very strongly support it. Harle described this finding in the poll as consistent with previous polling revealing that when you ask people about what Roe v. Wade really held, they dont agree with it.

When asked for their views about abortion in general, 25% agreed with the statement asserting that I support an abortion at any time without exception. Twenty percent expressed support for abortion after a heartbeat is detected, up until the fetus can feel pain. Twenty-eight percent opposed abortions after a heartbeat can be detected, while supporting exceptions to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.

Seventeen percent opposed abortions at all times after a heartbeat can be detected, except to save the life of the mother. The remaining 9% opposed abortion in all circumstances.

While 80% of respondents supported allowing Americans to vote on the abortion policies of their respective states, only 47% said they would support a ban on abortion in their state, compared to 53% who would oppose a ban. A majority (55%) of respondents disagreed with the idea that all Americans, regardless of their beliefs on abortion, should pay for abortions worldwide with tax dollars.

However, 54% contended that all Americans, regardless of their views on abortion, should have to pay for abortions in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mothers life. Respondents were split on whether or not healthcare personnel should have to perform abortions if doing so violates their conscience. Fifty-one percent disagreed with forcing healthcare personnel to perform abortions, while 49% agreed.

The Students for Life of America survey, as well as this years March for Life, come as the Supreme Court weighs whether or not to uphold a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi. A ruling in favor of the state of Mississippi, which is seeking to uphold the ban, would significantly weaken the precedent set by Roe v. Wade.

Harle finds herself very optimistic about the future of abortion policy in the U.S. based on the oral arguments in the case surrounding the Mississippi abortion law, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which took place last month: Its quite possible that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, which would mean that this issue would be returned to the states so that Americans can decide and enact policies consistent with their values, policies that protect life, that protect womens health.

For almost 50 years, states have been imprisoned by this one Supreme Court decision, in which seven of those nine justices decided that the American people no longer had a say in protecting life as a human right. And so theres a very real possibility that in a matter of months, thats going to be undone. And its going to free us up to go back to Americas foundational respect for life and embrace a culture that celebrates life.

Harle emphasized that an end to Roe would not mean the end of the pro-life movement. The battleground will shift, she predicted. If Roe v. Wade is overturned and the issue goes back to the states, that means every state will have the ability to decide its own policies. And so, thats going to be so important to make sure that states immediately put good measures in place that protect the humanity of unborn children.

There will be states like New York and California that want to continue sanctioning abortion up until the moment of birth and we have a lot of work there to do to continue to show them the humanity of the unborn child and the dangers and harms to women who go through abortion and  how demeaning it is for us to tell women that they need abortion to succeed in our nation, which is a lie, she proclaimed.
The House Select Committee, which is responsible for investigating the events leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot, has requested the voluntary cooperation of Ivanka Trump, the daughter of former United States President Donald Trump and former senior White House adviser.

The request is a major step in the panel's efforts to close in on the former president's inner circle regarding their involvement in the insurrection. In a letter dated Thursday that was addressed to the Republican businessman's daughter, the committee sought Ivanka's "voluntary cooperation with our investigation."

Ivanka's Voluntary Cooperation

The letter detailed the panel's explosive new information regarding the former president's actions in the days prior to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. The document included new testimony about Trump's attempts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to follow his orders on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.

The document also detailed new text messages from Fox host Sean Hannity, which were during the aftermath of the attack, that urged the White House to have Trump stop talking about the election being a fraud. It also showed how officials wanted to distance the former president from certain "crazy people," CNN reported.

The situation comes as the former president defended his "perfect" phone call with Georgia officials where he talked about election fraud in the state. On Thursday, the district attorney of Fulton County requested a special grand jury as part of the investigation of Trump's interference in the 2020 election results.

Read Also: Sen. Bernie Sanders Accuses Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema of Undermining Joe Biden, Says Both Senators Wasted Democrats' Time

But the House Select Committee's request for voluntary cooperation from Ivanka includes asking for answers regarding the former president's daughter about her knowledge of various White House conversations relating to the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. The panel's chair, Bennie Thompson, also said that they wanted to question Ivanka on her father's state of mind.

Previously, the former president's ex-press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the committee about "off-the-books" secret meetings that were held before January 2021. She also provided the names of aides who may have insider information about the details of the discussions, Independent reported.

Investigation of Jan. 6 Riot

The panel's request of Ivanka suggests the House Select Committee was already delving deeper into the question of what Trump's involvement in the riot was. A retired lieutenant general, Keith Kellogg, who was Pence's national security adviser, testified that Trump had rejected entreaties by him as well as Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, and Kayleigh McEnany, the former White House press secretary.

Kellogg then turned his attention over to Ivanka to intervene with his father's inaction amid the Capitol Hill riot. The former official testified that the former president's daughter went back inside and noted she could be very "tenacious."

The former national security adviser also told investigators that he had previously recommended "very strongly" against the former president speaking on live television. He defended his proposal by saying that Trump's "press conferences tend to get out of control."

The House Select Committee also revealed that Kellogg had testified that he and Ivanka witnessed a telephone call in the Oval Office on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021. The call was where the former president pressured Pence to follow his orders, the New York Times reported.



Related Article: Biden Continues Call for Build Back Better, Says Bill Could be Passed in 'Pieces'

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New York district attorney calls for end to prosecuting serious crimes. Its every criminals lucky day in Gotham

All criminals are welcome appears to be the policy of the New York district attorney.

With the departure of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the election of Eric Adams, a Democrat who at least rhetorically voiced support for the police and law and order, some hoped that worrying crime trends in New York City would be reversed.

The early signs arent promising.

Newly-elected Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg released a day 1 memo highlighting how various crimes  some quite serious  will no longer be prosecuted under his leadership.

One of the crimes his office wont prosecute is armed robberies of businesses. Suspects in those cases who make off with less than $1,000 in stolen goods will now be charged with the lesser crime of petty larceny, a misdemeanor.

Among the other crimes his office will no longer prosecute are resisting arrest, fare beating, prostitution and trespassing. Basically, the only criminals who will now face serious jail time are murderers.

It gets worse.

Even when Bragg does intend to seek jail sentences, the penalties will not be stiff, wrote Seth Barron at City Journal. Bragg says that the maximum sentence sought for any offense will be 20 years, and that his office will never seek life without parole. If 20 years is the maximum sentence for the worst offenses, expect a severe discount on sentences for other offenses across the board.

If these policies seem familiar, thats because they mirror a path charted by other radical, left-wing district attorneys across the country, like Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia.

These district attorneys have made policing nearly impossible, as even in the cases when an already stretched thin and beleaguered police force is able to arrest criminals, they are very soon put back out on the street.

Things arent working out well in those cities. Violent crime is soaring, and other types of crime  like mass retail looting  are also on the upswing.

The situation is so terrible in San Francisco that Mayor London Breed, who defunded the police, recently called for an end to the reign of criminals and the city, and announced that the city would pursue more aggressive policing.

Well see if they follow through.

The problem remains that whatever the mayor and police department do to clean up criminality, those measures can be easily undermined by an out-of-control district attorney who simply refuses to bring criminals to justice in the name of social justice.

Thats what may soon happen in New York.

Like many big, blue metropolitan areas, New York has been hit with a massive surge in violent crime since the summer of 2020. Yet, despite the trend, New York has generally been safer than other cities, thanks to the crime-fighting policies of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others who cleaned up Gotham in the 1990s.

It seems many have forgotten the lessons of the very recent past.

The New York district attorney said that his policies were meant to marry fairness and safety. But given the details of his memo, its clear this marriage is a sham.

Some prominent New York leaders expressed concern with Braggs memo.

The New York Police Departments newly appointed police commissioner Keechant Sewell said she thought they could put public safety at risk.

I have studied these policies and I am very concerned about the implications to your safety as police officers, the safety of the public and justice for the victims, she wrote in an email to police officers.

Should anyone be surprised though? Bragg ran on an explicitly progressive message. He is just carrying progressive ideas about defunding the police and restorative justice through to their logical conclusions.

The evidence is already coming in that criminals are learning that they have the keys to the city, and theres little the justice system will now do about it.

A New York Post report on Wednesday highlighted a case in which Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Jay Weiner told an ex-convict being charged with misdemeanor petit larceny that his case two weeks ago would have been charged as a robbery, and that he was lucky that he wouldnt face a long prison sentence.

The man, who had a lengthy criminal record, threatened a drug store owner with a knife and allegedly stole thousands of dollars in items.

Naturally, he didnt show up to his follow-up court appearance after being released without having to post cash bail. New York abolished bail for minor crimes in 2019. Not great when almost all crimes are now considered minor crimes.

As a recent Wall Street Journal editorials headline noted, the new district attorneys policies will make New York a sanctuary city for crime.

Its not exactly a wild prediction to say that other hardened criminals in the city will likely realize that today can be their lucky day, too.

Unfortunately, this is not just a problem for New Yorkers or people living in cities with other radical district attorneys and irresponsible political leaders. Our cities becoming hives of violence and criminality will affect everyone. Like an infected wound, the lawlessness will allow criminality to spread as more dangerous people are let out on the street to act with impunity.

The progress this country made on crime in the last few decades will very soon evaporate and we will have to go through the arduous process of setting things right.

We all pay when progressive fantasies about restorative justice and crime become reality, and reality comes back to slug us all in the face.

Originally published at The Daily Signal.
Christian romance film Redeeming Love to show what real love looks like': Author Francine Rivers

The bestselling book Redeeming Love has been adapted into a film and Francine Rivers, the creator of the popular romance novel, said she hopes it will show the world what real love looks like.

Redeeming Love has remained on multiple fiction bestseller lists for over 15 years, sold over 3 million copies, and has been published in more than 30 languages. Bringing her classic book to life on the big screen has been a long journey! Rivers told The Christian Post in a recent interview. Despite several offers to adapt Redeeming Love into a movie, the author felt the scripts were never reflective of the primary message.

They didnt capture Michaels Christlike character, and I couldnt give approval, she said of the main character in her book, who is supposed to serve as an example of the pursuing love that God shows to His people. Thats always been the most important thing for me: to make sure the movie shows what Gods love is like  passionate, patient, persistent  ever-lasting.

Not finding any script to be quite right, Rivers decided to start reading books on scriptwriting and write her own sample script depicting what she wanted to see on screen.

The film is now being directed by DJ Caruso and produced by Roma Downey (The Bible) and Cindy Bond (I Can Only Imagine).

I didnt expect them to want my effort, but they did, Rivers said of her script. When D.J. Caruso came onboard as director, he restructured the script and worked with me to strengthen scenes. The collaboration is what makes the film different from, but true to the book.

The novel is based on the Old Testament book Hosea and is filled with scripture verses from beginning to end. Like the novel, the film is set in the backdrop of the California Gold Rush of 1850. Although referenced throughout the movie, the religious elements are not seen as much in the cinematic feature.

I want people to see that no matter whats been done to us or the sins we commit, God loves us and offers us new life through Jesus," Rivers told CP, reflecting on what she wants viewers to learn from the film.

"Michaels obedience to God and patient courtship of his wife softens her heart. She falls in love with him, but its really God who will free her. We all have to make a choice. Surrendering to Jesus is the one decision that changes us from the inside out and sets us free to love as God loves us. I wanted viewers to see the difference between what the world says love is and what real love looks like. Hopefully, they will want to experience that kind of love for themselves, available only through Jesus Christ, The New York Times bestselling author added.

The story centers on Angel (Abigail Cowen of 'I Still Believe') who was sold into prostitution as a child. She has survived through hatred and self-loathing until she meets Michael Hosea (Tom Lewis of 'Gentlemen Jack') and discovers there is no brokenness that love cant heal. The story reflects the redemptive power of unconditional and sacrificial love with characters and circumstances relevant to the contemporary world, the film synopsis reads.

In the Hollywood telling of the romance novel, both of the main characters tap into prayer at different points in the film.

Prayer is communication with God," Rivers continued. "The inner thoughts of the two characters cant fully be seen on screen, but are clear in the book. Angel hears and believes Satans lies. Michael listens to God. He knows he is in the middle of a spiritual battle over Angel. Watching his obedience as he lives a life of faith is what begins to change Angel from the inside out.

"But the ultimate step to freedom involves her making a choice. When she cries out to God in prayer, He hears and answers, and her life is changed forever. The same is true for all of us. Every human being on the planet has a choice to make. Choosing to believe Jesus Christ brings freedom and a right and everlasting love relationship with our Creator.

Although not overly preachy, the movie made an impact on some people on set.

I remember one young woman on the crew who said she had never been religious or a believer, but seeing the story come to life made her want to believe, Rivers told CP. Thats what Im hoping will happen. The story of Michael and Angel will create a hunger and thirst for Gods love. Its available to all.

Also, one of the stars said the set had a very different (peaceful, communal) feel from all others hed been on. So many involved in the film had one goal: to glorify God, she added.

The harrowing story exposes the evil of human trafficking and child exploitation. When Rivers wrote the novel over 30 years ago, she had no idea people worldwide were still being bought, sold and trafficked into all forms of slavery.

The story is based on the book of Hosea in the Bible, a book that had a tremendous impact on my own faith journey, she continued. It was letters from readers who shared their devastating stories of abuse and shame and how Redeeming Love gave them hope that opened my eyes to Gods love for them. Its important to see the harsh reality of life. We cant stop trafficking unless we acknowledge it is happening. Then we can stand with survivors and fight to stop it.

An unexpected blessing that has come out of adapting Redeeming Love into a movie is the formation of the Redeeming Love Sanctuary Foundation, headed by Holly Caruso, wife of D.J. Caruso.

She and I talked at length, and I shared with her how Rick and I have always seen Redeeming Love as my first fruits as a Christian writer. It has always belonged to God, including the proceeds (minus taxes) which have gone to charity work. Whatever Rick and I make from the movie will go into this foundation, Rivers explained. Our mission is to aid in preventing sex trafficking and abuse by funding survivor support services, education and recovery programs in the United States and abroad.

After all the books success, Rivers shared what she is most thankful to God for doing.

I am most thankful for how God can use anything, even a work of fiction, to reach into the hearts of His beloved children, River testified.

When someone is deeply touched by the story of Michael and Angel, its God holding out His arms to that person. He loves us so much. All He wants is for us to love Him back, she added.

Rivers ended the interview by saying that her big dream for the film is that people would leave the theaters understanding how long-suffering, passionate and wonderful Gods love is for each of us.

Redeeming Love hits theaters on Jan 21.
Candace Cameron Bure releases shirt encouraging people to love like Jesus, hug like Bob Saget

Hollywood actress and devout Christian Candace Cameron Bure is mourning the loss of her TV dad, Bob Saget, who died suddenly this month. She has designed a sweater that both shares the hope of her faith in Jesus and honors the late actor.

"Love Like Jesus, Hug Like Bob Saget," the sweatshirt reads.

The actress shared a photo on Instagram of herself wearing the sweater while out for a walk with her Full House co-star Dave Coulier. Bure, Saget and Coulier shared the screen on the popular family show for most of Bures young life, when she played the role of "D.J. Tanner." Saget, who played the role of "Danny Tanner," was in Bures life for over three decades.

"This has been one of the hardest weeks of my life and yet, incredibly beautiful because of family and close friends," Bure captioned the photo. "Yesterday was a better day. We walked, we laughed, we reminisced."

Saget was found dead in a Florida hotel room on Jan. 9 at the age of 65.

"I had this sweatshirt made. Thanks @erinnoella for the design and help. I think it sums everything up just right. Love like Jesus, hug like Bob Saget," Bure added.

After getting permission from Saget's widow, Kelly Rizzo, and his daughters, Bure is selling the sweatshirt and T-shirt model of the design on HugLikeBob.com.

All of the proceeds of the sales will go to Scleroderma Research Foundation, a foundation that was dear to Sagets heart. Sagets sister, Gay Saget, died of the autoimmune disease in 1994.

The foundations website says it aims to "develop a foundation that would deliver life-changing results by bringing the brightest minds in science together, and harnessing the power of technology to accelerate the progress of scleroderma research."

Saget was a board member of the Scleroderma Research Foundation and used his influence to raise millions of dollars to support the research of the disease.

Bures design is fitting for the actress, who uses her platform often to share her faith in Jesus Christ.

"My relationship with God is my guiding light. I'm a Christian and I love the Lord with all my heart. I don't leave that at the doorstep when I work or if I'm on my social media; it is who I am! Bure told The Christian Post in a past interview. I love being able to use that platform of social media to share Scripture and hope that God gives each and every one of us because He loves us all so much.

Along with highlighting the love of Jesus, Bure wants to remember Sagets hugs, which were often caught on camera. Following his death, the actress posted a collage of photos throughout the years of the comedian hugging her.

After Bure posted a photo of the shirt, other celebrities shared their support for the endeavor on social media.

Country star Leanne Rimes wrote, Love the shirt. Massive hug sent your way."

BJ Novak, star of The Office, asked, "Can I order one?"

Bures Hallmark co-star, Nikki DeLoach, wrote, "Beautiful. Been sending up prayers everyday."
John Piper issues blistering condemnation of the lottery, says gambling destructive to peoples lives

John Piper, the founder of DesiringGod.org, has issued a blistering condemnation of the lottery, stating that he believes that gambling endeavors are destructive to peoples lives.

On an episode of his podcast posted Monday, Piper, an author and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was asked to elaborate on earlier comments he made in which he concluded that the lottery involves preying on the less fortunate.

The Don't Waste Your Life author said he believes the lottery deceives the poor into "get rich quick" efforts. He revealed that the less fortunate often sacrifice at least 6% of their annual income on the lottery.

The noted Bible teacher also claimed that the main draw for lower-income individuals when it comes to gambling games is pull-tabs and scratch games.

These kinds of games are less attractive to middle-class people and upper-class people because adding $10, or $100 dollars even, to your bank account really doesnt make that much difference to a middle-class person, said Piper.

But to a poor person  $10, $100, or $500  thats like a windfall. And therefore, the more frequent payout and the greater the likelihood of winning draws in disproportionately more poor people for these kinds of games than for, say, the big Powerball payout," he said.

The theologian went on to note that the lottery did not become a million-dollar industry due to its large output of winners and that, while lotteries are theoretically aimed at funding social services, there are ironies.

Most states allocate some of the lottery income to providing services for gambling addiction, and some try to provide a good kind of education, which creates, supposedly, habits of mind and heart which are the opposite of the habits they exploit by the lottery itself, he continued.

Addictive behaviors are more common among the poor, and living by immediate rather than deferred gratification is more common among the poor. Publicly funded gambling feeds these kinds of habits, which are destructive to peoples lives.

The podcast episode came as a follow-up to a 2016 opinion column in which Piper listed seven reasons why it was wrong to play the lottery. He said the lottery is spiritually suicidal, a kind of embezzlement, a fools errand, built on the necessity of most people losing," and it preys on the poor.

So, if you win, dont give from your lottery winnings to our ministry. Christ does not build his church on the backs of the poor, he wrote at the time.

Pray that Christs people will be so satisfied in him that they will be freed from the greed that makes us crave to get rich.

In an op-ed published by The Christian Post in 2019, Chuck Bentley of Crown Financial Ministries expressed opposition to lotteries, writing that the Lord does not want us relying on random chance to see our needs met.

For most people, the return on investing in lottery tickets is nothing more than the paper on which its printed. Christians should never take the money God entrusts to them and waste it on gambling, wrote Bentley at the time.

God is more than able to meet our needs. When we put more trust in chance than in Him, we need to reevaluate our priorities. Faith that is put in luck and random chance ignores Gods Word.
8 Dead, 28 Injured in Stampede After Church Advertises Free Food at Prayer Meeting in Zambia

At least eight people were left dead and another 28 injured when a stampede for free food being distributed by the Church of Christ in poverty-stricken Zambia erupted at a prayer meeting that attracted some 35,000 people Sunday.

Zambia police told local media that the stampede occurred in the nation's capital, Lusaka, at an outreach program at the Church of Christ's Olympic Youth Development Center.

Police spokesperson Esther Mwaata Katongo said among the dead were six females, an adult male and a young boy. Five of the victims are said to have died on the spot while the remainder died at local hospitals.

Katongo said the prayer meeting was organized by a group affiliated with the Church of Christ called Lesedi Seven.

"The victims are among the 35,000 which the group called Lesedi Seven, had invited for prayers at OYDC. The group had also organized food hampers to distribute to people. This Lesedi Seven is a grouping under Church of Christ," said Katongo.

A representative of Lesedi Seven, which is a marketing firm based in South Africa, told The Christian Post Monday that they were not an arm of the Church of Christ but did work for them. The individual noted, however, that no one was available to comment on the stampede.

An official at the Olympic Youth Development Centre in Zambia, where the event was held, and asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to make public statements, said the number of casualties being reported by local media was a safe estimate but they were still gathering information and it would be hours before they had an exact count.

"There was a stampede but we are still trying to gather information as to the number of casualties...Our officers went out to the field to visit the hospitals so that we ascertain exactly how many people have been injured," he said.

He debunked a report that speculated that as many as 100 people may have died.

A ticket to the tragic event posted on Facebook advertised "Free Entrance & Free Food Parcels." And many people blamed the church for the deaths.

"It was a noble idea but maybe the food parcels should not have been advertised but instead announced it when people had already taken their seat........sad development though," wrote Sylvester Besto Mangani.

"A responsible Church should have known that you don't bribe people to come to a meeting. The result is always bad. Either this, or those who were not to manage to get the food were going to insult God. You don't do this," noted Derick Chekwe.

Local activist Mwansa chama said he heard that a number of the people died still clutching to food they grabbed after arriving more than three hours early for the event.

He noted that people had begun arriving at the venue for the prayer meeting from the "ghettoes" around the stadium as early as three hours before it was scheduled to begin.

"Sources report that, even in their death two (of the dead) were discovered holding on to a bag of mealie meal while the other one with a bottle of 'OLE' cooking oil logged-in his pocket," said Chama.

"I feel sorry for these innocent souls they have left wives and children behind and in a proper destitution. The authority should not just end on instituting an enquiry of what transpired and who should be brought to book, I know they are good at doing that, but they should go beyond the rationale as to why people came as early as 03 hours," he said.

"It's not a bad thing for the church of Christ to give free food to the deserving 35,000, even scripture says so. But what has left me shocked is that, is our country at war or are we in a crisis of food for the body of Christ to take up the duty of the [DMMU].Because for someone to die for food then it could be something very serious 'I mean very serious,'" he further noted.

The Church of Christ in Lusaka was not available for comment Monday.

According to the World Food Programme, Zambia, a landlocked country in Southern Africa faces numerous challenges including food insecurity, undernutrition, chronic poverty and natural disasters.

Unpredictable weather patterns have affected communities over the last decade. Farmers rely heavily on seasonal rains and subsistence-style farming is common in the country.
Jewish couple sue Tenn. over alleged rejection as foster trainees at Christian home due to religion

A married Jewish couple are suing Tennessee in response to reportedly being rejected by a government-supported Christian childrens home when they tried to foster a child.

Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram filed a complaint against the Tennessee Department of Childrens Services and DCS Commissioner Jenifer Nichols on Wednesday in the Chancery Court for the state of Tennessee, 20th Judicial District, Davidson County.

According to the lawsuit, Rutan-Ram planned to foster a boy living in Florida, but in order to do so had to fulfill a state requirement to complete a program in foster-parent-training and earn a certification in home-study.

When the Rutan-Rams sought to complete these programs through the state-supported Holston United Methodist Home for Children, according to the complaint, the home said they could only provide such services to families that shared their Christian beliefs.

In January 2020, the Tennessee General Assembly expressly approved religious discrimination like Holstons, by enacting House Bill 836, claimed the lawsuit.

This statute authorizes child-placing agencies to deny child-placement services, based on the agencies religious policies, even if state tax dollars fund the services.

The Rutan-Rams are being represented by The Kramer Law Center and attorneys with the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Alex J. Luchenitser, associate vice president and associate legal director at Americans United who is involved in the litigation, told The Christian Post in an emailed statement on Thursday that we believe that people should never be denied publicly-funded services because of their religious beliefs.

Taxpayer funds should benefit everyone equally regardless of what their faith or belief system is. Religious discrimination should never be a reason to keep apart children who need a loving home and parents who want to provide one, Luchenitser added.

CP reached out to the Tennessee DCS for this story, with spokesperson Rob Johnson responding on Thursday that the department cannot comment on pending litigation.

Bradley Williams, president and CEO of Holston, emailed CP a statement on Thursday saying that they "view the caregivers we partner with as extensions of our ministry team serving children."

"So from the very beginning, we seek to find alignment with them, and if we cannot do so, we try to help them find an agency that may be a better fit," stated Williams. "Finding other agencies is not hard to do. In Tennessee, for example, there are six other agencies for each one faith-based provider."

Williams added that he believes "forcing Holston Home to violate our beliefs and place children in homes that do not share our faith is wrong and contrary to a free society."

Founded in 1895 and having reportedly helped more than 8,000 children, Holston receives reimbursement for its services through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Title IV-E.

Last month, Holston filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over a rule requiring the organization to place kids in the homes of same-sex married couples or cohabitating couples.

The regulation was enacted in 2016 during by the Obama administration. Although the Trump administration issued exemptions to the rule for faith-based organizations, they were recently rescinded by the Biden administration.

It would substantially burden Holston Homes exercise of its religious beliefs to knowingly engage in child-placing activities in connection with couples who may be romantically cohabitating but not married, or who are couples of the same biological sex, read the Holston lawsuit.

If Holston Home were to knowingly engage in child-placing activities concerning placements of children in connection with couples who may be romantically cohabitating but are not married, or who are couples of the same biological sex, it would need to engage in speech with which Holston Home disagrees and which violate Holston Homes religious beliefs.
Josh Duggar files motion for acquittal or new trial after child pornography convictions

Josh Duggars lead defense attorney, Justin Gelfand, has filed a motion to request that his client be acquitted of two child pornography convictions or be granted a new trial.

The former reality TV stars defense team filed a motion over 75 pages long on Wednesday asking for an acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29, according to the Arkansas-based KNWA-TV.

If the acquittal is denied, then the motion requests a new trial.

Images of child pornography were found in a computer at a cardealership owned by the eldest child of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, whose family was featured on the reality television shows 19 Kids & Counting and Counting On. The Duggars are a large ultra-conservative Christian family that lives in Arkansas.

Josh Duggar, a 33-year-old father of seven, had pled not guilty to the charges. His defense claimed someone else was responsible for the illegal files on the computer, a claim investigators found that to be unlikely. In December, he was found guilty by a federal jury of receiving and possessing child pornography and could face up to 20 years in prison. He has not yet been sentenced.

Gelfand maintained that the evidence presented was not enough to convict the former 19 Kids and Counting reality star.

The evidence elicited at trial does not support a conviction on either count  even in the light most favorable to the Government, the motion claims. The Government failed to adduce any evidence that Duggar 'knew that the visual depictions were of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

The request explained that the video files used as evidence in the initial trial gave the jury no evidence that Duggar personally viewed any specific portion of any of the files allegedly found on the computer.

The Courts broad discretion empowers it to grant relief based not only on the sufficiency of the evidence at trial but on any other circumstance that might render the trial essentially unfair, including trial errors, the statement continued.

The prosecution failing to timely disclose exculpatory evidence is what the defense claims.

Duggars team is accusing the government of violating multiple rules of procedure and evidence. The argument is that the prosecution delayed turning over exhibits created by James Fottrell, director of the Department of Justices High Technology Investigative Unit, ahead of the trial.

According to the defense, a former employee at Duggars car dealership, Caleb Williams, was an individual who had access to the car lot and the HP desktop computer during certain relevant time periods. The motion claims that law enforcement had failed to meaningfully investigate the possibility that anyone other than Duggar may have committed the crimes charged.

The motion also included a screenshot of an email from Caleb Williams.

Gelfand brought up this possibility during the trial and argued that investigators were star-struck by Duggar. As a result, the defense claims that the investigators did not thoroughly investigate the possibility that someone else could be responsible for the files found on the computer. The prosecution interviewed Williams before the trial began, but he was not called as a witness, KNWA-TV reports.

Williams sent an email to a member of the prosecutions team from the Department of Justice stating the following:

I was completely mistaken about not being at the Wholesale Motorcars lot during the time I was in Arkansas (AR) between May 8, 2019  May 11, 2019. I do not know if I was on the lot computer or even if I ended up going there. It looks like during my time there, I did odd work for the guys and maybe even Josh Duggar. In the messages between Josh Duggar and I, while I was in AR, as attached in one of these screenshots I am providing, I tell Josh I was planning to come to the lot a couple of days. I apologize for the mistake; I had no intention to mislead you all. - Caleb Williams

But during the trial, the prosecution maintained that forensic evidence and testimonies determined that Duggar was the only person at his dealership during the dates in question when the illegal material was downloaded to the computer.

Duggars defense contends that Williams made the prosecution aware that he had to turn back to the dealership to sell cars. The defense says the government hid the ball from the defense during nearly its entire case-in-chief.

This deprived the defense of the ability to impeach these witnesses with evidence that yet another person had access to passwords, the motion detailed. Had the defense possessed this information when it became available, it would have meaningfully affected trial strategy and provided additional fodder for cross-examination of Government witnesses.

The defense motion concludes that Duggar was deprived of the opportunity to present relevant, material favorable evidence in his favor and this ruling was disproportionate to any legitimate or evidentiary purpose.

As such, it violated Duggars Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights and this Court should grant him a new trial, the motion states.

Duggar had previously admitted to molesting his sisters when he was younger. His history of abuse resulted in the cancelation of the familys reality show.
'Redeeming Love' movie review: Big screen adaptation of beloved Christian romance falls flat

In the 90s and early 2000s, Francine Rivers novel Redeeming Love took the Christian world by storm. Her modern retelling of the biblical account of the Hosea and his wayward wife, Gomer, sold 3 million copies and garnered hoards of loyal fans, not coincidentally at the height of purity culture.

Now, the book is hitting the big screen in a Universal Pictures film adaptation starring Abigail Cowen, Nina Dobrev, Tom Lewis and Eric Dane. The film is directed by DJ Caruso and produced by Roma Downey (The Bible) and Cindy Bond (I Can Only Imagine).

Redeeming Love opens in gold rush-era California, where disheveled men scrounge for gold in murky water before heading to Pair-o-Dice, where a cold woman known as the Duchess runs a brothel. There, the most sought-after prostitute is a young woman named Angel. Beautiful and flaxen-haired, Angel draws crowds of swarming men eager to receive her services.

One particular man who spots Angel as she walks down the street, flanked by her towering bodyguard, is Michael Hosea. A soft-spoken, doe-eyed farmer, Michael is confident that God has appointed Angel to be his bride, the one he has waited for and prayed over. Though confused by Gods choice for him, Michael nevertheless decides to act in obedience and pursues Angel despite her reputation.

Through a series of flashbacks, viewers learn Angels heartbreaking story.

Named Sarah, she was born out of wedlock in New England to her mother, Mae (Dobrev), and a married businessman, Alex (Josh Taylor). Afraid his reputation would be ruined should news of his infidelity come out, Alex rejects Sarah and cuts Mae off financially, forcing her to engage in a life of prostitution at the docks to make ends meet.

Its not long before Mae dies. And an orphaned Sarah symbolically throws her mothers cross necklace into the ocean, rejecting the faith her mother claimed.

What follows is nothing short of a nightmare.

With nowhere to go, she finds herself trafficked by an Irish nobleman, the Duke, who sexually abuses her from a young age. Now known as Angel, she escapes the Dukes clutches with the help of an older prostitute  who pays dearly for her efforts.

But after heading West, Angel once again finds herself in prostitution after being robbed of her earthly goods. But this time, a savior is waiting in the wings.

Michael pays top-dollar to see Angel, using his hard-earned gold to spend 30 minutes simply talking to her. Though she parades in front of him naked, Michael refuses her advances, repeatedly telling her that shes going to marry him.

We cant do this yet, he tells her as she attempts to seduce him. We should wait until it means something to you.

Michael continues to visit her until she becomes frustrated.

I feel nothing for you, she tells him. Youre a dirt farmer.

Defeated, Michael returns home. But after Angel is brutally beaten by the brothels bodyguard, Michael travels to Pair-o-Dice and purchases the bloodied woman from the Duchess. He brings her home to his farm in an emotionally-charged scene.

Michael tends to Angel as she recovers, and she agrees, begrudgingly, to marry him. But despite her new environment, Angel cant shake her past  and abandons Michael on three occasions, leaving her wedding ring on the dresser. Though hurt, Michael continues to pursue Angel and offers her the choice to either stay with him or run away again.

Ultimately, Michaels persistence and unfaltering faithfulness soften Angels heart. Although it was a grueling process, she eventually finds her self-worth, prompting her to forgive herself and champion other women involved in sex work.

While the film is light on Scripture references, Redeeming Love is a clear retelling of Hosea 1-3.

In those passages, God instructs the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer. God tells Hosea that Gomer will continue to return to prostitution, yet hes to forgive and love her, regardless of what she does.

Hoseas story is beautiful, serving as a reminder of Gods unconditional love for His children and pursuit of them despite their disobedience.

But the story  and the nuances of the biblical account of Hosea  dont easily translate to the big screen.

Rated PG-13, Redeeming Love tries hard to deal gently with tough topics, but theres no way to sugarcoat prostitution, sex trafficking, murder and incest. The film is rife with themes of redemption, forgiveness, unconditional love and mercy, but viewers will want to proceed with caution.

The sexual content in Redeeming Love is explicit.

Angel appears partially naked on several occasions, covered only by her hair and drapery. There are several sex scenes in the film, two between Michael and Angel, and others are referenced. Euphemisms for sex are littered throughout the movie, while prostitutes wear revealing outfits. Its implied that the Duke repeatedly rapes Angel as a child  and disturbingly, shes not his only young victim.

The film also contains violence. In one instance, Angel watches as her caregiver is strangled, and she is also physically harmed by men on several occasions. Angels estranged father dies by suicide after discovering hes had sex with her, and two men are shown hanging from the gallows. Vulgar language is also littered throughout the film.

Rivers was heavily involved in the film adaptation of her book, and she previously spoke to The Christian Post about her heart for the film. I want people to see that no matter whats been done to us or the sins we commit, God loves us and offers us new life through Jesus, she said.

The films redemptive and biblical themes are evident, but they are all too often overshadowed by explicit, sometimes unnecessary content that may not sit well with some Christian viewers. Though fans of Rivers novel will likely find the film nostalgic, conscientious viewers would do well to pass.

Redeeming Love hit theaters on Jan 21.
Federal appeals court keeps Texas abortion ban in place, sends case to state supreme court

A federal appeals court has kept Texas heartbeat abortion ban in place and sent the lawsuit against the legislation to the Republican-controlled state supreme court, a move celebrated by pro-life activists and opposed by abortion-rights proponents.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled 2-1 on Monday to send abortion clinics challenge against the Texas Heartbeat Act passed last year to the Texas Supreme Court, which will likely allow the law to remain in effect for months before a ruling is handed down.

Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones, a Reagan appointee, authored the majority opinion stating that the federal courts are bound by an authoritative determination of state law by the states highest court.

Here, there is a possibility that federal courts could declare S.B. 8 constitutionally infirm even though our conclusions might be based entirely on a faulty understanding of Texas law, continued Jones.

To avert creating needless friction with a coequal sovereign in our federal system, this court reasonably seeks the Texas Supreme Courts final word on the matter.

Circuit Judge Stephen A. Higginson, an Obama appointee, dissented. He believes that by sending the case to the state supreme court, the panel is going against an order by the U.S. Supreme Court.

S. B. 8 and its defenders have challenged Supreme Court authority, first by deliberately nullifying a constitutional right expounded by the Court and now, when checked by that Court, by convincing us, an inferior federal court duty-bound to apply a Supreme Court holding, instead to question that holding, argued Higginson.

Senate Bill 8 was signed into law last May by Gov. Greg Abbott. The law, which went into effect last September, prohibits most abortions once a babys heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks into a pregnancy.

The law is unique because it allows private citizens to take civil action against abortion providers or anyone else who helps procure an illegal abortion, with a financial reward for successful suits.

The 5th Circuits decision presents concerns for abortion clinics and supporters since the Texas Supreme Court comprises nine Republican justices.

The pro-life group Texas Right to Life, which supports the law, celebrated Mondays panel decision, calling the decision great news.

This is great news for Texas because such action is more likely to ensure a just and favorable ruling, compared to that which could be expected from a pro-abortion federal district judge, to whom the abortion industry asked to send the case, stated the group.

Beyond this, sending the lawsuit to the Supreme Court of Texas is appropriate because the only defendants left in the case are state agencies. Most exciting of all is that the Texas Heartbeat Act has withstood another court decision and is continuing to save an estimated 100 preborn lives every day.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a pro-choice advocacy organization, said in a statement that the panel had defied a Supreme Court ruling and delayed a reckoning on S.B. 8.

As a result, Texans will continue to have to travel hundreds of miles to access abortion care, and those without means to do so will be forced to continue their pregnancies, said Northup. There is now no end in sight for this injustice that has been allowed to go on for almost five months.

S.B. 8 has been the subject of extensive litigation, with pro-choice groups and the Biden administration wanting the law struck down as unconstitutional.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Texas law to take effect. Last December, the nations high court allowed some lawsuits against the ban to continue but refused to block the law.

The justices also rejected an appeal by the Biden administration against the law, labeling it improvidently granted, or a request that shouldnt have been brought before the court.
California drops Aztec prayers from ethnic studies curriculum after parents file suit

The California Department of Education said it's removing two religious chants to Aztec gods from its ethnic studies curriculum in response to a lawsuit filed by parents.

As part of a settlement in the lawsuit, the California Department of Education and the State Board of Education have voluntarily agreed to officially remove the prayers from the state-approved Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, according to the conservative legal firm Thomas More Society.

The curriculum included a section of Affirmation, Chants, and Energizers, including the In Lak Ech Affirmation, which invoked five Aztec deities. Although labeled as an affirmation, it addressed the deities both by name and by their traditional titles, recognized them as sources of power and knowledge, invoked their assistance, and gave thanks to them.

The Aztec prayers at issue  which seek blessings from and the intercession of these demonic forces  were not being taught as poetry or history, said Paul Jonna, partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP and Thomas More Society Special Counsel, in a statement shared with The Christian Post.

Rather, the 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.

Jonna explained in a statement after filing the lawsuit that the Aztecs regularly performed gruesome and horrific acts for the sole purpose of pacifying and appeasing the very beings that the prayers from the curriculum invoke.

He added: The human sacrifice, cutting out of human hearts, flaying of victims and wearing their skin, are a matter of historical record, along with sacrifices of war prisoners, and other repulsive acts and ceremonies the Aztecs conducted to honor their deities. Any form of prayer and glorification of these bloodthirsty beings in whose name horrible atrocities were performed is repulsive to any reasonably informed observer.

While the state has now officially removed the prayers, it continues to dispute any and all liability, says the Thomas More Society, which filed the lawsuit last September on behalf of the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, individual taxpayers and parents of current and former students.

The ESMC was adopted last May, making California the first state in the nation to offer a statewide ethnic studies model for educators, the board said at the time, according to The Epoch Times.

Even after the removal of the Aztec prayers, the curriculum remains deeply rooted in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and critical pedagogy, with a race-based lens and an oppressor-victim dichotomy, Thomas More Society said.

The legal firm said earlier that the curriculum also includes the Ashe Prayer from the Yoruba religion  an ancient philosophical concept that is the root of many pagan religions, including Santeria and Haitian Vodou or voodoo.

The co-chair of the curriculum, R. Tolteka Cuauhtin, developed much of the material cited throughout the lessons, in which Christians, specifically those of European ancestry, are viewed as the source of evil to be resisted and overthrown.

White Christians are guilty of theocide against indigenous tribes, the killing of their deities and replacing them with the Christian faith, Cuauhtin argues in a chart.

The ultimate goal, according to Cuauhtin, is to engineer a countergenocide against whites, investigative journalist Christopher Rufo wrote about the issue in City-Journal last March.

Frank Xu, president of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, said the settlement still 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 added, 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!
According to authorities, an 11-month-old child was shot in the face in a parked car in the Bronx area of New York on Wednesday while she was with her mother.

The incident took place just before 7 p.m. Deputy Chief Timothy McCormack of the New York Police Department stated during a news conference that an armed guy followed another man down the street and fired two rounds.

Baby girl shot in the face by a stray bullet

When the rounds were fired, the mother and kid were parked on a corner while the child's father was at a neighboring grocery store when the girl was injured in her left cheek. According to McCormack, police were on the site interviewing witnesses and searching the neighborhood for footage of the event.

New York Mayor Eric Adams declared Wednesday night, "This is not the place our children should grow up in, and we need help." Adams asked the legislators and district attorneys to confront the issue of gun violence in the city after the massacre; he said it was a "wake-up call."

Vanessa Gibson, the president of the Bronx Borough, mirrored the mayor's statements. The massacre in the Bronx illustrates the impact of gun violence on youngsters in the United States this year on a national scale.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, which aggregates statistics from shooting occurrences, forty children aged 11 and younger were injured by gunshot in the first three weeks of 2022. So far this year, 15 youngsters in that age bracket have been killed in shootings. As stated in GVA data, 163 youths aged 12 to 17 have been injured and 65 have been murdered, CNN reported.

Two males were seen racing around the corner outside a Bronx deli near East 198th Street and Valentine Avenue, according to surveillance video provided to Fox News Digital by a police source. A firearm was being carried by the one who is on the prowl. They got out of the way of the camera's vision. One man emerged on the other way a few seconds later.

On Wednesday evening, a heavy police presence can be seen in a video submitted to Citizen.com at the junction of 198th Street and Valentine Avenue. The event comes at a time when gun violence and murder rates are on the rise in New York City and other major cities throughout the country, as per Fox News.

Read Also: Deadly Paradise: Psycho Indonesian Girlfriend Allegedly Stabs To Death Married British Boyfriend in Plotted Murder

The incident comes as New York faces a surge in crimes

According to FBI statistics studied by data analyst Jeff Asher and given by the New York Times, the murder rate in 2021 was expected to be 6.9 per 100,000 people - just 0.5 lower than the murder rate of 7.4 in 1996. It's the closest to the early 1990s' high-crime era. In 1996, the FBI calculated that 19,645 persons had been assassinated. Several cities, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, to mention a few, had an increase in murders in the year 2021.

Last year, former Commissioner Howard Safir of the New York Cops Department blamed the high murder rates to a variety of causes, including "cancel culture and a woke attitude that feels police are racist and harsh," as well as "soft-on-crime laws" and a lack of support for police. In conjunction with high-profile slayings in Wisconsin and Los Angeles, such practices as cheap or no cash bail and progressive prosecutors refusing to press charges in specific circumstances have been implicated.

In November, six people were killed and others were injured when Darrell Brooks Jr., reportedly plowed through a Christmas procession. Despite a 50-page rap record and an open warrant, he had been released from a Milwaukee jail days before when a prosecutor requested only $1,000 bond.

Shawn Laval Smith, 24, is being held in prison in Los Angeles after reportedly stabbing a 24-year-old UCLA graduate student at her employment at a high-end furniture store last week for no apparent reason. His criminal record included at least three violent convictions in at least three states, as well as an active warrant out of San Mateo and a criminal case in South Carolina.

Related Article: Police Search for New York Woman Who Spits to 8-Year-Old Child After Making Antisemitic Slurs

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Wisconsin high court to hear parents challenge to school district's gender transition policy

Parents suing a Wisconsin school district over a policy that allows officials to withhold knowledge of students efforts to change their gender identity from their families will have their case brought before the state supreme court.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed last Friday to grant a motion for review in the case of Doe v. Madison Metropolitan School District. The case centers on the school districts policy guidance related to trans-identified students.

The unnamed parents suing the school district are represented by the conservative legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.

We are pleased the Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to hear this important case, WILL Deputy Counsel Luke Berg said in a statement. The Madison Metropolitan School District cannot make decisions reserved for parents.

ADF and WILL filed the lawsuit against Madison Metropolitan School District in February 2020 over its 2018 directive Guidance & Policies to Support Transgender, Non-binary & Gender Expansive Students.

The policy seeks to make the school district more inclusive of trans-identified students.

In MMSD, we will strive to model gender-inclusive language that affirms the gender diversity of our MMSD students, staff, and families and disrupts the gender binary, page 26 of the document states.

The document says that school officials will help guide students through their gender transition. The policy allows the student to decide if their parents should be informed of these changes.

Additionally, the guidance says that children will be called by their affirmed name and pronouns regardless of parent/guardian permission to change their name and gender in MMSD systems.

Transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive students are disproportionately targeted for teasing, bullying, harassment, and physical violence. MMSD staff must consistently confront and report suspected bullying or other behaviors that contribute to an unsafe school community, added the guidance.

This may include name calling, misgendering, microaggressions, and bullying based on gender stereotypes, gender identity, and/or gender expression.

The parents contend that the policy violates parental rights and ignores state law on school confidentiality.

In September 2020, Dane County Court Judge Frank Remington issued a temporary injunction against parts of the school district guidance, namely the refusal to disclose a gender transition to parents.

Remington also concluded in his temporary injunction that he believes that the parents, by remaining anonymous, failed to provide evidence that the guidance harmed them specifically.

[A]nonymous plaintiffs effectively deny the Defendants and the Intervenors the ability to engage in discovery or to otherwise respond to the facts presented by the Plaintiffs in their motion as to the Plaintiffs themselves, Remington wrote.

By remaining anonymous and by asking this court to make evidentiary findings regarding irreparable harm or an adequate remedy unfairly deprives the Defendants a meaningful opportunity to challenge Plaintiffs factual assertions.

An MMSD spokesperson has maintained that the school district cant comment on pending litigation.
11 years later: Can we still turn the tide?

The last chapter to my 700-page, 2011 book A Queer Thing Happened to America: And What a Long Strange Trip Its Been was titled, GLBT and Beyond: Reflections On Our Current Trajectory. (In those days, it was customary to put the G before the L.) In that chapter, I laid out where LGBT activism was heading, describing just where the trajectory would take us.

Yet, as disturbing as that trajectory was  and has proven to be  the last paragraphs of the book issued a word of hope coupled with a call to action, beginning with these words: Its Not Too Late to Turn the Tide.

Since then, weve witnessed the society continuing to lurch left, with the Supreme Court outrageously redefining marriage in 2015 and with transgender rights becoming a dominant theme of the day.

At the same time, the pushback against LGBTQ extremism has continued, as millions of Americans have awakened to the realities of this radical agenda while, at the same time, showing compassion to the individuals who identify as LGBTQ.

Here is how I ended A Queer Thing Happened to America, which, to repeat, came out in 2011. Do these words still ring true today? Is it still not too late to turn the tide?

Heres what I wrote:

A queer thing, indeed, has happened to America, but there is a way forward (not backward), a better way, a straighter way. It is not too late to turn the tide, no matter how daunting the task might appear in light of the massive societal shifts that have taken place in the last generation. In times like these, when it is easy to be discouraged, we do well to recall the words of Mahatma Gandhi: When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won.

Without a doubt, those of us who oppose the current trajectory of GLBT and beyond will be told that we are on the wrong side of history. They will say we have branded ourselves as intolerant bigots and have marginalized ourselves to the point of no return.

So be it.

It is better to stand up for what is right than to have the approval of the masses. It is better to swim against the tide when it is going in the wrong direction than to be carried along with the (always fickle) whims of current public opinion.

Do we really have a choice? Can we simply sit back and let gender anarchy rule the day? What will we say to our children and grandchildren? How will we explain to them that it was on our watch that Mother and Father became Parent A and Parent B? That North American courts ruled that the public use of certain verses in the Bible was a hate crime punishable by law? How will we explain that businesses were penalized because they would not support gay activism? That college professors were fired and university students dismissed because they took issue with homosexual practices? How will we justify our silence and inaction?

To be sure, our work is cut out for us. Some of us need to get involved in our schools, from pre-school to high school, while others need to make an impact on the colleges and universities. Still, others need to help reshape the media and make our voices heard in the political realm and the business world. And all of us need to be a positive influence in society, giving attention to our own lives and marriages and families if they are out of order. (Fixing heterosexual marriage and sexuality is at the top of the list!)

As for those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus, we should understand the import of his words, You are the salt of the earth . . . . You are the light of the world (see Matthew 5:13-16). Put another way by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. Now is the time to put this into practice.

We need to recover scriptural truth in our houses of worship and win the battle of semantics  which is indeed, the battle for sanity  in the marketplace of ideas. And we need to do all this while walking in genuine love towards GLBT individuals, who will certainly view us as villains out to destroy their lives and steal their rights. Let us persevere through the inevitable vilification and misunderstanding that will be heaped upon us, and let us stand tall and unashamed.

History is awaiting our move.
In abortion controversy, 2 worldviews collide

I remember standing in my kitchen fighting with my mom over the issue of abortion. She was pro-life. While a nurse in New York City, she once served a doctor who performed an abortion. She promptly quit after seeing an abortion take place on a young teenage girl. It was clearly murder in her eyes.

I, on the other hand, was pro-choice. Abortion allowed for equality for women. A man doesnt have to carry around a child during an unplanned pregnancy. Why should a woman? What about her career? What about her future? This was the coming age of feminism and pro-life, religious radicals stood in the way.

After I came to know Christ when I was 16, everything in my life changed, including how I understood the sanctity of life and the role of the family. All human beings are knitted together by God for his glory. We are image-bearers of God, and we exist within a family for a reason.

Thousands of mostly young people will head to Washington, D.C., to participate in the March for Life  the worlds largest human rights rally. The March has been taking place since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. This is a historic year. The Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization case gives the best challenge to Roe v. Wade in a generation. It is probable that the precedent of Roe v. Wade will be overturned, and decisions regarding pre-viability abortion law will return to the states.

Whats really taking place in America is conflicting worldviews when it comes to sexuality, freedom, and family. On the one hand, the rejection of traditional family morals has led to a false notion of freedom. Without a child, Im free to explore the heights of my career. I can travel the world. I can have multiple sexual partners. No strings, no responsibility, all freedom.

But its an empty freedom.

Religious conservatives look at life differently. Sex exists for pleasure, but its so much more than that. Within the confines of marriage, it is the consummation of a lifelong commitment together. It creates life, and that life builds something greater than what existed before. The family is a vehicle for love, joy, celebration, sacrifice, and responsibility. It is designed to make everyone involved in the family better. Family is not just 1+1+1=3. Its 1+1+1= a lifetime of commitment, dedication, growth, and perseverance. Building a family is one of the greatest legacies you can create with your life.

As a young man, I spent a lot of time around Roman Catholics in Washington, D.C. I worked for Catholic U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. I promoted the film "Bella," written, produced, and starred in by prominent Catholics. I also worked for Mormon Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney and staffed all of his children when they campaigned in Colorado for him. I came to appreciate the Catholic and Mormon worldviews about family.

At first, its hard to miss the size of their families. They love children, the more the merrier, it seems. I still get a Christmas card from the Romney family, the same Christmas card that Keith Olbermann mocked. Olbermann felt the Romneys had too many children. Hang around these big families, and you quickly see they are full of life, love, and joy. Why would you want to limit that?

We also live next door to Mormon neighbors. Another big family. Any holiday celebration and their driveway is full of cars. If we ever need anything, they are happy to help us out. Thats the second thing I notice about big families: they are marked by hearts of service.

I saw a sad statistic recently that 4 in 10 young people are hesitant to have children because of climate change  another example of a worldview where children are a burden.

This is the America we live in today. Children are either a burden until we choose they arent, or children are a vehicle to building something greater than we are alone. In one America, children interrupt our lives and threaten the planet. In another America, children enhance our lives and make the world a better place.

On display at the March for Life will be a worldview celebrating life, children, service, and family. Our country will be better off the more people embrace this worldview.
This March for Life, were marching Roe right out the door

At this years March for Life, pro-life advocates have many reasons to be hopeful. More than 500 new pro-life bills were introduced in the U.S. in 2021, and 61 of those bills became law. Now this year, the Supreme Court has the chance to overturn 50 years of unconstitutional abortion precedent with their ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization later this year.

This ruling will determine the future of legal abortions in America. And based on the cases oral arguments back in December, things are looking up for the pro-life cause. Weve known since 1973 that Roe v. Wade needs to go, and arguments to the contrary from the justices at the Supreme Court hearing just dont hold up.

Take Justice Sonia Sotomayor  she said that Roe v. Wade was an important legal precedent to keep because it had created an entrenched set of expectations in America: federally-protected access to abortions.

But heres the thing: Entrenched expectations do not justify unconstitutional legal precedent, and they never have. The Supreme Court was never intended to be a direct expression of the will of the people. And whats more, the Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey even admitted there will always be disagreement over legal abortion. Tens of thousands of Americans will attend the March for Life this year, refuting the idea that Roe v. Wade is an ironclad legal precedent in the eyes of Americans.

Its time we put behind us the judicial regime established 50 years ago, no matter how long it has held sway over abortion law, no matter how entrenched expectations may be.

The court has clear guidelines for deciding when a previous law or ruling is subject to change or review; a poorly-reasoned decision is not worth defending just because it is precedent. Both Roe and Casey holdings rely on manifestly shoddy logic to manufacture non-existent rights. And not only are they poorly-constructed decisions, but theyre also blatantly unconstitutional.

Stare decisis refers to courts deference to previous rulings; it helps prevent arbitrary changes to existing law. But it never was an inexorable command. It should not be used to prop up egregious rulings. And both Roe and Casey established a set of legal precedents to which stare decisis simply should not apply.

Moreover, both Roe and Casey are indefensible instances of legislation from the bench. The Roe decision fabricated the constitutional right to abortion using the Fourteenth Amendment, asserting that a right to privacy was implied. The Casey decision claimed to support the essential holdings of Roe nearly 20 years later, but in fact, created an entirely new shoddy framework for determining the constitutionality of state abortion laws.

This is not jurisprudence, its activism. The Supreme Court has generated a series of confusing and nonsensical precedents that cooked up new rights and legal assumptions under the pretense of constitutional law.

States need a clear roadmap to craft abortion laws, but their efforts to do so are repeatedly struck down by justices under the Casey legal framework. The court must recognize states authority to legislate as they see fit. If they choose to protect the unborn, as Mississippi has done, they should be allowed to do so.

The court has an essential function as interpreter and upholder of constitutional and common law, and it has repeatedly corrected grave legal errors in the past. For instance, in Loving v. Virginia, the court overturned existing law barring interracial marriage. In Brown v. Board of Education, the court established racial segregation as unconstitutional. In none of these cases would it have been morally correct to consider the expectations of the time.

With Roe and Casey, the Supreme Court must once again reverse a bad legal precedent. The Dobbs case is a perfect opportunity for our sitting justices to critically re-examine both Roe and Casey, as well as the unconstitutional network of restrictions and rights these decisions established.

Expectations arent whats at stake here. The Courts function as an interpreter and upholder of constitutional and common law is whats at stake.

It doesnt matter that the Roe and Casey decisions have been the law of the land for half a century. They were poorly decided and resulted in a vast, confusing complex of unconstitutional law. Its time for them to go.

Despite Justice Sotomayors comments, many Americans refuse to believe Roe should be settled law. Theyve marched by the tens of thousands in the dead of winter every year for 48 years, and they will be back in Washington this week this year with renewed hope.
We didnt collect artworks but a new way of thinking: the unique vision of Anton Herbert

The Belgian collector and his wife Annick cultivated friendships with a radical generation of Minimalist and Conceptual artists, and established the Herbert Foundation in Ghent to house works by the likes of Judd, Andre, Kippenberger and LeWitt

When it comes to art from the second half of the 20th century, few collections match the excellence of that built up by the Belgian couple Anton and Annick Herbert. Anton sadly passed away on 7 December 2021, aged 83. The Herberts were renowned collectors of Minimalist and Conceptual art, as well as work from what might be called affiliate movements, such as Arte Povera, and a 1980s generation that included Jan Vercruysse, Thomas Schutte and others. John Baldessari, Marcel Broodthaers, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Luciano Fabro and Mario Merz were among the artists that the couple collected  and, crucially, knew. One of the things that made the Herberts special was the personal contact they had with artists, says Laura Hanssens, art director of the Herbert Foundation. In their focus on contemporary work, they liked to get to know artists and find out what made them tick, before purchasing any of their art. The result was a longstanding commitment to a core group of figures.

Open a larger version of this image A view of the exhibition Distance Extended / 1979-1997, Part I at the Herbert Foundation in 2019, with four works by Jan Vercruysse: Tombeaux, 1988, Tombeaux, 1988, Tombeaux, 1988, and Tombeaux, 1988. Artworks:  DACS 2022. Photo: Yuri van der Hoeven

The Herberts restricted their collection to 45 artists, but tended to have in-depth holdings by each one, with the majority of the works made between 1968 and 1989 (a period when Conceptualism and Minimalism thrived). The fact that almost all 45 are considered big names today confirms how sharp the Herberts collecting instincts were  and how much they helped shape artistic trends. Antons father, Tony, had also been a keen collector, specialising in Flemish Expressionism. On his death in 1959, however, Anton had little interest in following his footsteps. It wasnt until a decade or so later that the young man and his wife Annick set out on their own collecting journey. By attending major exhibitions such as Documenta, and conversing with cutting-edge dealers such as Konrad Fischer and Fernand Spillemaeckers, they came to know  and love  art of a radical new type.

Open a larger version of this image Anton and Annick Herbert at the Herbert Foundation in Ghent in 2015. Photo: Yuri van der Hoeven

In three or four months, we completely changed our way of seeing, which until then had been fairly bourgeois and local, Anton recalled in later life. In 1973 the Herberts purchased their first works  among them 64 Lead Square by Carl Andre, which they acquired via Fischer. Anton said that he and Annick had been prepared by the spirit of 1968, and its no coincidence that their collections earliest works date from that year, which was one of political protest and countercultural resistance among the worlds youth. This was matched artistically by an ethos that was anti-object, anti-commodity and anti-material, and wholly in favour of the creative idea or act. The aim of this new, conceptual approach was  as the American artist Robert Smithson put it  to escape the cultural confinement of the past and redirect artistic attention away from the object and out into the world.

[This] was not about possession of works, but a way of participating in a social structure  Anton Herbert

A close-knit group of avant-garde artists, writers, critics and gallerists participated in this venture  as did a handful of collectors, the Herberts being the most notable among them. [This] was not about possession of works, Anton explained, but a way of participating in a social structure We didnt collect artworks but a new way of thinking. The works were an expression of what was happening. Very quickly, collecting took over the couples lives. Their home in Ghent had to be arranged according to the size of their purchases  to the point where, in the 1980s, they moved into an old industrial building in order to continue living with their art. The collection is marked by cerebral pieces whose minimal form often prompts the viewer to envisage the extension of the work into the surrounding space. It includes a number of sculptures from Sol LeWitts Incomplete Open Cubes series, for example, in which the artist produced only part of each implied cubic structure, leaving the viewer to complete it in his or her mind.

Open a larger version of this image Works by Gerhard Richter, Gilbert & George, Richard Long, Luciano Fabro and Sol LeWitt in the exhibition Time Extended / 1979-1997, Part III at the Herbert Foundation in 2018. Artworks:  Silvia Fabro (Archivio Luciano e Carla Fabro).  Gilbert & George. Sol LeWitt  ARS, NY and DACS, London 2022.  Richard Long. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2022. Photo: Yuri van der Hoeven

As the years passed, the Herberts followed the evolution of this type of art, even as its conceptual nature came to be subverted by younger artists, such as Martin Kippenberger. The collection includes the puckish Germans Documenta Laterne, one of his sculptures of street lamps bent so out of shape that the lantern almost touches the floor. In the late 1990s, however, the Herberts took the decision that 1989 would make an apt end-date for their collection. In part this was because the fall of the Berlin Wall that year seemed to mark the end of an era. It was also because the couple wished to focus as far as possible on their own epoch  and, in their view, this didnt extend beyond the generation of artists that flourished in the late 1980s (when Anton turned 50). We were preoccupied with our own generation, said Anton. Nothing else mattered. The Herberts purchased their final work in 2006. Five years later, they offered 35 pieces from their collection at Christies, using the proceeds to help set up the Herbert Foundation in Ghent. This opened its doors to the public in 2013 and today serves as an exhibition space, archive and research centre for the collection.

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Chicago, IL  January 21, 2022  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: ExxonMobil XOM, Chevron CVX and ConocoPhillps COP.

Here are highlights from Thursdays Analyst Blog:

Permian Production to Reach Yet Another High as Oil Zooms

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administrations (EIA) latest Drilling Productivity Report, oil output in the Permian Basin will surpass 5 million barrels per day in February. The agency forecasts that crude volumes from the western part of Texas and the south-eastern part of New Mexico will go up from a record 4,996 thousand barrels per day (Mbbl/d) in January to 5,076 Mbbl/d next month.

The projected production figure for February would be a new high for Americas biggest oil field and reflects the steady addition of rigs. As proof of improvement in activity, the rig count in the Permian Basin has risen to 293 from an all-time low of 116 in August 2020.

As far as combined U.S. oil supplies from seven major shale formations (Anadarko, Appalachia, Bakken, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Niobrara and Permian) is concerned, EIA expects it to increase from 8,436 thousand barrels per day (Mbbl/d) in January to 8,540 Mbbl/d in February. As crude prices hover around the $85-barrel level, production is expected to increase in five of the seven unconventional plays, with the largest gain of 80,000 barrels per day happening in the Permian Basin.

The effects of strong oil prices can also be seen in the number of wells that are being drilled but not completed, or wells that could be turned on at short notice. The EIA said that the number of such wells declined by 214 over the past month, with 91 of those in the Permian.

Experts say that its cheaper to drill and complete oil wells in the Permian Basin as compared to most other major fields. Moreover, there are certain parts of the shale play whose well-returns are the best in the U.S. Permians attractive economics. This means that producers can make money and sustain growth there at the current price. According to estimates, the average breakeven prices in most of the Permian well locations is below $50 per barrel  the lowest in the United States.

Its not surprising that the United States top energy moguls have renewed their focus on the largest U.S. shale play. The likes of ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillps are placing long-term bets on the Permian Basin to take full advantage of the commodity upcycle.

ExxonMobil continues to invest heavily in the low-cost play. The company recently unveiled its plans to spend between $20 billion and $25 billion each year out to 2027. Along with offshore Guyana developments, XOM will allocate the lions share of the budget toward Permian.

At the third-quarter end, to Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) ExxonMobil produced 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the Permian Basin, which comprised more than 40% of its total production in the United States. XOM has a strong presence in the prolific area, where it continues to lower its fracking & drilling costs.

You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Chevron, meanwhile, announced that for 2022, it intends to spend $4.5 billion on shale, with the largest part (or $3 billion) going to the lucrative Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico alone. In fact, CVXs existing project pipeline is among the best in the industry, thanks to its premier position in the lucrative play.

Driven by robust output in the showpiece region, Chevron's U.S. volumes during the first three quarters of 2021 increased some 10% from the year-earlier level to 1,113 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day. CVX currently holds approximately 2.2 million net acres in the Permian  primarily in the prolific Midland and Delaware basins.

Another big U.S. company ConocoPhillips' Permian footprint has expanded significantly over the past year, culminating with the recent purchase of 225,000 net acres in the core of the oilfield. The acquisition added 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production to COPs portfolio, putting it just behind ExxonMobil to become the second-largest hydrocarbon producer in the Lower 48.

To further frame the Permian's importance for ConocoPhillips, COP expects a company-wide capital expenditure of $7.2 billion in 2022, including $700 million associated with the Permian asset acquisition.

In conclusion, crude production in the Permian Basin  the lowest-cost shale region  seems to have taken off with commodity prices stabilizing within the range of $75 to $85 a barrel. As major operators hit the accelerator on drilling activity, the region is set to experience significant gains in oil production next year, taking it past the pre-pandemic levels.

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Joe Holley/Houston Chronicle

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has removed hundreds of invasive fish from the San Marcos River over the past several weeks, according to its Instagram page. The population surge was likely caused by aquarium fish released into the wild.

Researchers from Texas Rivers & Streams removed 406 suckermouth armored catfish from the river at Rio Vista Park in San Marcos, according to the Express-News. The removal will help researchers better understand how to control invasive populations.
Eviction filings in several Texas cities are among the highest in the nation  even as millions of federal dollars aimed at helping struggling renters have sat unspent so long in some counties that the federal government is taking the money back.

Landlords in the Houston area filed more than 2,000 eviction cases last week, according to Eviction Lab, a research center based at Princeton University that tracks eviction filings  the highest number there since the pandemic began. Among the 31 cities that Eviction Lab tracks, Houston had the most eviction filings in the country for the week, with Dallas and Fort Worth also in the top five along with Phoenix and Las Vegas.

As the omicron surge is again forcing many workers to choose between a paycheck and the risk of COVID-19 exposure, the U.S. Treasury Department seized $1.9 million in unspent rent relief from five Texas counties  Jefferson, Brazoria, Hays, El Paso and Nueces  as well as the city of Laredo because local officials didnt spend the money fast enough, the agency said earlier this month.

The money is instead being sent to other parts of the state or the country where local governments have distributed rental assistance more quickly.

The seizure of those funds comes as the reserve of rent relief dollars in Texas has emptied and eviction filings in the states major metropolitan areas have steadily neared pre-pandemic levels  all while state and federal bans on evictions have expired.

We're reaching a critical moment for low-income people who may be struggling to stay in their homes while many of the safeguards are collapsing at the same moment, said Ben Martin, a senior research analyst for the nonprofit advocacy group Texas Housers.

The amount of federal rent relief dollars clawed back by the Treasury is a small fraction of the nearly $1 billion in federal dollars sent to local governments in Texas to help keep tenants in their homes. That money, meant to help struggling renters, is already becoming scarce in Texas.

The state agency in charge of Texas separate $1.9 billion rent relief and eviction diversion program stopped taking new applications in November, citing overwhelming demand.

Locally run rent relief programs also are tightening their purse strings. Houston and Harris Countys joint $283 million rent and utility assistance program  paid for with federal dollars  is soon expected to get a $13 million injection from the federal government. The program had $7.6 million left as of Wednesday  and only applicants who have an active eviction case have a shot at getting help.

The surge of evictions and the growing scarcity of emergency rental assistance funds for renters are directly related, said Dana Karni, an attorney for Lone Star Legal Aid, which provides free legal services to low-income Texans.

I think what motivates landlords is the fact that the hope for rental assistance funds to basically fill the void is gone, Karni said. And so they really have the choice of having to decide whether they want to become charitable and let someone stay there for free or a significantly reduced rent or evict them so they could bring in a new tenant.

Many landlords have good relationships with their tenants and try to avoid evicting renters if they can, said David Mintz, vice president of government affairs for the Texas Apartment Association. But for many who have long gone without rent, its no longer possible to hold off.

There aren't other remedies available, Mintz said. So if I am, as a landlord, owed back rent and the person is not paying that obligation, I don't have any other choices.

Rent relief slow-going

Some counties that received federal dollars to help renters simply didnt have the technological know-how to build programs from the ground up that could put that money in renters hands in a timely fashion, observers said.

It hasn't been moving in many of these areas as quickly as we would hope, said Jay Malone, political director for Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation, a coalition of Houston-area labor unions that has worked to connect struggling tenants with rent relief.

In Jefferson County in the states southeast corner  where Beaumont and Port Arthur are the biggest cities  officials received $10 million in federal rent relief funds but only spent about $1.3 million. As a result, the Treasury department pulled back about $315,000.

Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick blamed that outcome, in part, on the fact that officials had a hard time finding people to set up and administer their rent relief program, he said in an email.

In Montgomery County north of Houston, county officials voluntarily returned $7.1 million in rent relief dollars to the U.S. Treasury, reportedly citing a lack of demand for the county program.

But the states rental assistance program has helped more than 5,000 households there to the tune of $29 million  an indicator of demand.

For Malone, its a frustrating time. He said hes seen public sentiment shift toward blaming tenants if they get evicted, despite a lack of affordable housing and a legal system that in Texas heavily favors landlords. He said its a far cry from earlier in the pandemic.

During the pandemic, we had this kind of moment of empathy, where we were thinking about people that were suffering, and that's gone, Malone said. It's really sad to see.

Disclosure: The Texas Apartment Association has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Chinese authorities have accused a United States navy ship of intruding into its territorial waters as the warship challenged Beijing's claims in the South China Sea amid rising tensions over the area.

On Thursday, the U.S. ship sailed past the disputed South China Sea islands, in waters that Washington said that Beijing had no right to claim. A spokesperson for the People's Liberation Army Southern Theater Command, Col. Tian Junli, said that Chinese forces "tracked, monitored, and expelled" USS Benfold after the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer operated near the Paracel Islands.

South China Sea

The Chinese official said that the United States conducted the action without the "approval of the Chinese government." In a statement, Junli said that the American government's actions seriously "violated" China's sovereignty and security. He added that the Asian giant demanded that the U.S. immediately stop such provocative actions, threatening them with serious consequences of any unforeseen event resulting from the incidents.

The United States Seventh Fleet, which was based in Japan, said that USS Benfold asserted navigational rights "in the vicinity of the Paracel Islands, consistent with international law." The incident is the year's first freedom-of-navigation operation (FONOP) in the highly disputed area, Newsweek reported.

The USS Benfold conducted the operation, challenging restrictions on innocent passage and excessive territorial claims by claimant states, particularly China. The United States government responded to Beijing's criticism by saying that nothing "PRC says otherwise will deter us."

Read Also: Joe Biden Predicts Russia Will Attack Ukraine Anytime But Vladimir Putin Will Face Stiff Price; Volodymyr Zelensky Rebukes Gaffe

In an official statement released by the U.S. Navy, officials said that "unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea" posed a serious threat to the freedom of the seas. They argued that this included the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of economic opportunity for the South China Sea littoral nations.

Despite the U.S. Navy conducting FONOPs regularly and around the world, not just in the South China Sea, Beijing has claimed sovereignty over large areas of the region. Chinese officials object publicly whenever such operations occur in the vicinity, Business Insider reported.

Highly Contested Territorial Waters

The Paracels Islands are a collection of 130 small coral islands and reefs that are located in the northwestern part of the South China Sea. The islands have no indigenous population and only house Chinese military garrisons that amount to roughly 1,400 people, based on CIA Factbook.

Additionally, Vietnam and self-ruled Taiwan claim the islands despite being controlled by China for more than 46 years. The islands have already been fortified with People's Liberation Army (PLA) military installations to ward off any potential "intruder."

The U.S. Navy's statement added that all three claimants required either permission or advance notification before a military vessel engages in "innocent passage" through the territorial sea. However, they noted that under international law, ships of all states, including warships, had the right to make innocent passage through the area.

A ship's assertion of freedom of navigation rights includes sailing within the 12-mile territorial limit from a country's coastline recognized by international law. However, the U.S. Navy singled out China for making what it called "straight baselines" that encompassed all the waters within the island chain, CNN reported.



Related Article: Donald Trump's Records Pertaining to Jan. 6 Capitol Riot To Be Released After Supreme Court Rejected His Request To Keep Them Private

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Russia, China, and Iran will conduct naval drills scheduled this Friday to signify solidarity against the west and show NATO its hope the US is weak.

These exercises were announced as the 2022 Marine Security Belt will be held north of the Indian Ocean, where the triumvirate will do joint maritime drills.

These three nations, according to analysts, consider the leader of the free world, Joe Biden, an ineffective leader after the fall of Afghanistan, and his allies are scrambling to put up a decent response without a strong US component.

Russia, China, and Iran to conduct maritime drills

This triumvirate of nations is throwing the gauntlet on Friday after Iran's ISNA News proclaimed it on Thursday, cited Wion.

Iranian representative Mostafa Tajoldin told Reuters the "2022 Marine Security Belt" training would begin in earnest in the northern Indian Ocean. It is the third combined naval practice involving the three countries since 2019, noted Reuters.

Military vessels from these three powers are anticipated to engage in various maneuvers, notably rescuing a burning ship, releasing a hijacked ship, and firing down air targets at night as its main tasks, reported the Express UK.

An Iranian official spoke to an outlet, The goal of these Naval drills is to enhance regional security and also its foundations with Russia, China, Iran, and to expand joint efforts between the three nations to help world peace, maritime security, and the development of a maritime sector with a shared future.

Read Also: Russian Politicians Taunts the West, Threatens To Rain Nuclear Missiles on New York and London

Since Ebrahim Raisi, Iran's new hardline president, came into office in August, these three countries have been moving closer together. In the face of mounting political and economic pressure from the United States and other western countries, Raisi has undertaken a "look east" policy to strengthen cooperation between China and Russia.

According to Iranian state media, Iran's president talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Wednesday to forge "durable and thorough partnerships."

Triumvirate of nations strengthen ties

President Raisi called the trip a crucial "turning point" in relations with Russia as the west is trying to pressure his country. He added that the goal is to be stronger and prevent American hegemony.

Putin has previously boasted of a potential military alliance between Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran, stoking concerns of a potentially deadly power alliance amongst western countries.

Stronger ties involving Beijing and Moscow would be unsurprising, remarked Tobias Ellwood, Chair of the UK Defense Select Committee, and Tehran's inclusion into the group may form a devastating bloc.

Russia and China are not true allies, but they cooperate because they share a similar enemy. Their troops are now exercising together, understanding each other's protocols, and interacting with one another.

Ellwood mentioned that Russia could stay afloat even with its economy affected due to its military expenses. Only by falling in behind China in the next few years will Moscow be able to sustain this standing.

Last September, Iran entered the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a central Asian security body headed by China and Russia, another sign of the three countries' expanding ties.

Tehran has utilized its admission to the organization to plead to its fellow members, including India and Pakistan, to help it avoid Western sanctions.

These naval drills with Russia, China, and Iran are a rise of another bloc opposed to the west, which has not recognized the east as a rising bloc, they want to put down.

Related Article: Russian President Vladimir Putin Orders Ships of the Russian Navy to Ukraine as NATO, US Is Pressured

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After the U.S. Senate was unable to push through voting legislation Wednesday night, Republican leader Mitch McConnell is receiving his share of criticism for remarks he made about African American voters.

McConnell has been trending on social media since the comment he made Wednesday night after Democrats were unable to move the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to the Senate floor. Democrats in the Senate fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill over the Republican filibuster.

And while Democrats made their own headlines about not being able to change Senate rules to get the voting legislation passed, many are denouncing McConnell for his words that suggested African Americans are not Americans.

"Well, the concern is misplaced. Because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans," McConnell said.

U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker, a former Kentucky lawmaker who is looking to unseat Republican Rand Paul, shared the video on Twitter with a direct criticism of McConnell. The video on his post was viewed more than 1 million times.

"I need you to understand that this is who Mitch McConnell is," Booker said on Twitter.

The tweet included this: "Being Black doesn't make you less of an American, no matter what this craven man thinks."

Others on social have also come out against McConnell for his comment. That includes Mary Trump, the daughter of Fred Trump and former President Donald Trump's niece. Various other figures and publications have also shared the video.

Sister station WLKY reached out to McConnell for a statement, but did not hear back.

In follow-up remarks Thursday, McConnell said: I have consistently pointed to the record-high turnout for all voters in the 2020 election, including African Americans.

McConnell's supporters called it an unfair attack, saying he simply left out a word and meant to say that Black people vote at similar rates to all Americans. Black voters do cast ballots at about the same rate as all voters, falling in between Latinos, who are less likely to go to the polls than African Americans, and whites, who are more likely to go to the polls.

In 2016 and 2020, white voters turned out at higher rates than Black voters, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The census shows that 71% of eligible white voters cast a ballot in 2020, compared with 63% of eligible African Americans. In 2016, 65% of white voters cast a ballot, versus 60% of Black voters.

Scott Jennings, a former adviser to President George W. Bush who has close ties to McConnell, said attacks on the senators remarks were ridiculous.

McConnell was clearly stating that African American voting rates are similar to the entire electorate as a whole, to point out how easy and fair our system of voting is for everyone, he said.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is Black, also came to the senators defense, saying the faux outrage over McConnells remarks was absurd. Cameron, a Republican, is McConnells former legal counsel. Cameron also said that McConnell was making a point that Black voting rates are similar to the entire electorate as a whole.

Two Democratic senators joined all 50 Republicans in refusing to change Senate rules to overcome the GOP filibuster on Wednesday. Democrats could not persuade holdout Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia to change Senate procedures on that bill and allow a simple majority to advance it.

Sadiqa Reynolds, president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League in Kentucky, said McConnells comments were particularly frustrating to hear after the voting legislation failed in the Senate.

Reynolds, who is Black, said the lack of support for the legislation from McConnell and other lawmakers showed African Americans that they are still not seen as Americans worthy of having our voice heard at the ballot box.

Our patriotism, our citizens status, should never be questioned, Reynolds said. "... And we are owed an apology, not just for Freudian slips, but for failures to honor the role that we have played in building this great country.

The comment from McConnell and the failure to pass the legislation Wednesday comes as voting rights advocates have been warning that Republican-led states nationwide are passing laws making it more difficult for Black Americans and others to vote by consolidating polling locations, requiring certain types of identification and ordering other changes.

In Texas, it's now a crime for election workers to send absentee ballot applications to voters who didn't request them. In Georgia, most voters who show up at the wrong polling places on Election Day will be turned away  instead of permitted to cast provisional ballots.

And in Florida, a new law makes it harder for voters to continue receiving ballots by mail and limits the availability of drop boxes.

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The Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act would have made Election Day a national holiday, ensure access to early voting and mail-in ballots  which have become especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic  and enable the Justice Department to intervene in states with a history of voter interference, among other changes. It has passed the House.

The chief goal, supporters say: Make it easier for all Americans  regardless of which states they live in  to vote.

"I am profoundly disappointed that the Senate has failed to stand up for our democracy. I am disappointed  but I am not deterred," President Joe Biden said in a tweet minutes after the vote.
U.S. should not attempt to defeat China: former Israeli FM

Xinhua) 08:42, January 21, 2022

CAIRO, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The United States should not be attempting to "defeat" China, and must abandon jingoistic rhetoric and replace megaphone diplomacy with wise and creative statesmanship, former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami has said.

In his signed article published on the Project Syndicate, Ben-Ami said that the narrative that U.S. rivalry with China was a battle between democracy and autocracy was inaccurate and precluded resolution.

"Whereas demands related to tangible assets and security concerns can be accommodated, ideological struggles typically end one way: with the unconditional defeat of one of the parties," he wrote.

"The United States should not be attempting to 'defeat' China, as it did the Soviet Union, because, first and foremost, China is not on a quest to spread 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' around the world," read the article.

The United States is an exhausted power, and it is now being challenged by a rising one, Ben-Ami said.

"To ensure that this well-known geopolitical dynamic does not end in war, the United States must abandon jingoistic rhetoric and replace megaphone diplomacy with wise and creative statesmanship," he added.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
President Biden has admitted something that has been clear for at least a month now for the first time. It's likely that he won't be able to persuade Congress to extend the monthly child tax credit stimulus checks since he doesn't have the votes to do so. During a news conference on Wednesday, he spoke about the current discussions.

Everything from stimulus checks to basic income schemes is being tested from California to Vermont, including places like Chicago. For the remainder of the year, it will unfurl in phases. We've included all of the information you need to know about a few of the projects listed below. Let's start with the second round of Golden State Stimulus checks, which were given on January 11th. This was the second round of stimulus payments made to the state's taxpayers during the pandemic.

In the meantime, Chicago is starting on one of the greatest basic-income initiatives in the history of the United States. $500 payments will be made to 5,000 low-income families in the city who earn less than $35,000 per year. In the same vein, as part of a financial literacy initiative in New Orleans, free money is being distributed to teens and young people. For the next ten months, those 16-24 year olds who are either unemployed or not in school will get $350 a month.

Workers from all across the United States who migrate to Vermont are eligible for reimbursement awards of up to $7,500. The state's Tourist Worker Recovery Fund is providing free money to thousands of tourism workers in New York State in the form of a $2,750 one-time stimulus payment. These payments will be made to a total of 36,000 employees.

A UBI initiative in Newark, New Jersey, has been expanded to 400 residents. Over the course of two years, each member will receive a total of $12,000. The participants are low-income and must show proof that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused them some sort of hardship, BGR reported.

Fourth stimulus check update

Millions of Americans are waiting for the federal government to send them a fourth stimulus check, as part of President Joe Biden's administration's efforts to aid the population affected by a fresh round of COVID-19 infections.

After three rounds of stimulus checks and amidst the effects of the Omicron variant, the country will be able to qualify for additional economic help in January 2022 despite the effects of the Omicron variant. Many families will benefit from another stimulus payment in January to help them with their living expenses. When you think about it, this stimulus check may help prevent a slew of economic disasters at home.

To offer the essential precautions to people afflicted by the current pandemic, the US government is anticipated to deploy additional stimulus checks. In January, the federal government is expected to continue to give out stimulus checks to a limited group of employees, and some states have used some of the money they received from the federal government to give out bonuses to teachers. Some even give stimulus checks to state citizens who satisfy the income requirements, mainly frontline employees.

Babies born in 2021 are another cohort that is eligible. They could get a check payment of up to $1,400 from the third, and perhaps last, wave of checks in March. Your household must fulfill the income standards in order to be qualified for the entire amount. Keep in mind that married couples who file jointly should pay $150,000 while singles should pay $75,000, according to Marca.

Read Also: Social Security Beneficiaries To Receive $1,657 Stimulus Check, Another SSI Boost Worth $821; Here's When Your Money Will Arrive!

What if there's no more stimulus aid this year?

It may be upsetting not to receive another stimulus check, especially at a time when everything appears to be growing more expensive. You may, however, take actions to increase your income.

To begin, look at pay data to check if you're getting a fair income at your current job. If not, you have two options: battle for a raise or dust off your resume and look for a new job. You may also take advantage of the gig economy if you're seeking for extra employment, which means you have an opportunity to earn more money by working as a side hustle.

If you're trying to make ends meet, you may also place yourself on a tighter budget. This might involve temporarily cutting back on certain spending until the cost of living falls back to a more reasonable level. A follow-up stimulus package might, of course, be in the cards if the economic situation deteriorates significantly. But it isn't a scenario that anyone should be hoping for, as per USA Today.

Related Article: Fourth Stimulus Check: Who Will Receive Payments Worth $1,000- $5,000 This Year?

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In his first year of foreign policy, United States President Joe Biden has garnered mixed reactions from local and international officials, with House conservatives criticizing him and ambassadors somewhat applauding some of his decisions.

On Thursday, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) issued a report card that gave the Democratic leader straight "F's" for his foreign policy during his first year in office. The committee graded Biden on China, Russia, Iran, and Afghanistan, all of which have been issues the U.S. president has struggled to address.

Biden's First Year

The RSC awarded Biden with failing grades on all fronts and one F- for his decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan that resulted in the nation quickly becoming overwhelmed by the Taliban insurrection group. In the report, the committee said that the world was left in a far more chaotic and dangerous situation compared to a year ago when former United States President Donald Trump was in charge.

The committee's report is the latest effort of Republicans to focus criticism on Biden's one-year anniversary in office and to scrutinize what they claim are a series of foreign policy blunders. They argued that the decisions have empowered adversaries and abandoned U.S. interests and security, Fox News reported.

On the other hand, America's allies were deeply critical of former President Trump's administration's foreign policies. The biggest advantage they had was the freewheeling White House giving them wide-ranging access to top officials.

Read Also: Joe Biden Predicts Russia Will Attack Ukraine Anytime But Vladimir Putin Will Face Stiff Price; Volodymyr Zelensky Rebukes Gaffe

After a year in office, Biden's leadership has received praise from some friendly nations that said they were now much happier with U.S. foreign policy. However, they shared disappointment with the lack of high-level access and plodding decision-making.

International officials especially feel shut out of the national security policy process but expressed hopes that efforts to deter Russia's alleged planned invasion of Ukraine could be a changing point. In nearly unanimous fashion, 19 ambassadors and senior embassy staff serving in Washington, D.C., described Biden's administration as being more organized and process-driven compared to Trump's time, Politico reported.

America's Foreign Policy

The international officials hailed from Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Pacific. While there are fewer diplomats now who have tweet notifications set for White House accounts, they have expressed their feelings that they were being left out by an administration that claims it is deliberate and consultative.

One ambassador from a European Union country said that at the end of the day, they only wanted around 10 minutes of Biden's administration's time. The official added that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be traveling to his country and will talk with officials for about an hour to an hour and a half.

While the ambassador said that they were not believing everything that Lavrov was going to say, the fact he was willing to give an hour of his time made officials willing to listen. Many large European countries have seen a noticeable improvement in the Biden administration's engagement since the Afghanistan issue. They said that the U.S. now coordinated quite closely and that it has been quite successful, Politico reported.



Related Article: Donald Trump's Records Pertaining to Jan. 6 Capitol Riot To Be Released After Supreme Court Rejected His Request To Keep Them Private

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Through hurricanes and flooding, Jerry Mohn has waited a long time for the federal government to build the kind of protective barrier that could shield Galvestons coastline from devastating storm surges triggered by massive weather events.

In 2008, Hurricane Ike devastated the island town with head-high floodwaters and 110-mile-per-hour winds that caused billions of dollars of damage and killed dozens of people.

Look what happened with Ike  the same thing could happen again, said Mohn, a longtime Galveston resident and beach preservation advocate. It devastated Galveston Island completely, the downtown flooded, all the beaches were destroyed  it was just really bad.

Protecting Galveston isnt the only goal of a massive series of infrastructure projects meant to limit the devastation from extreme weather. Scientists have modeled worst-case scenario storms that also make clear the potential for devastation in nearby Houston.

Given that the states largest city is home to millions of people and the nations largest petrochemical complex  and that climate change is expected to make extreme weather more severe and more frequent  the regions vulnerability to deadly storm surges is seen as both a national security and economic issue.

Even though Hurricane Harvey made landfall much farther down the coast in 2017, its torrential rains put large swaths of Houston underwater and drove home the widespread damage a hurricane could inflict on the nations fourth-largest city.

If you think about it, 42% of the specialty chemical feedstocks for the entire United States is produced here, said Bob Mitchell, president at Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. Twenty seven percent of the gas, 60% of the jet aviation fuel, 80% of the military-grade aviation fuel is all produced right in this region that the coastal spine will protect. Not including the 5.5 million people that live in this area.

The recent signing of President Joe Bidens $1 trillion dollar infrastructure plan renewed hopes that Texas would finally have federal funding for a coastal storm barrier. That new federal law is part of a piecemeal system of approvals and an appropriations process that the project would need to clear before being built. But it is not the primary funding vehicle for a coastal barrier  and little, if any, funds in the bill are likely to go toward the project.

The $29 billion needed to build it will require several stages to raise. And once funding is secured, the project could take up to 15 years of building. In that time frame, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says Houston could get hit by another major storm.

A project like this, if the Army Corps of Engineers picks it up, will be the largest project that the Army Corps has ever started in the United States, Houston Mayor Pro Tem David Martin told The Texas Tribune. It fits hand in glove with what weve been working on for literally the past 10 years here.

Inspired by a Dutch concept

A coastal storm barrier has been a topic of discussion  and debate  for over a decade. Bill Merrell, a marine sciences professor at the Texas A&M University at Galveston, began preaching the storm barrier gospel after Ike. He introduced a concept dubbed the Ike Dike, which mirrored a Dutch concept of stopping storm surges right at the coast. The Netherlands is a low-lying country that has become the world leader in flood control.

The Army Corps of Engineers and the Texas General Land Office eventually put forth their own, similar proposal to Congress. Called the Texas Coastal Spine Project, it requires at least $29 billion to extend the Galveston Island seawall and build two 650-foot-by-22-foot storm surge gates between the Bolivar Peninsula, Galveston Bay and the island itself.

Get the data and visuals that accompany this story 

The project includes a ring barrier encompassing Galveston Island made up of a series of floodwalls and surge gates. It would build a beach and dune system on the west end of the island and the Bolivar Peninsula and renourish existing beaches and dunes on South Padre Island. The project also includes restoration of coastal marshes, oyster bays, beaches and waterway salinity.

NOAA says that a storm surge  the abnormal rise in seawater levels during a storm  is often the greatest threat to life and property from a hurricane and can extend many miles inland from coastal areas.

According to the National Weather Service, because the continental shelf east of the Texas coast is shallow, a storm surge from a tropical storm or hurricane will be much higher than one striking the steep shelf of the Atlantic coast.

Renewed discussion for storm mitigation measures comes after Texans are still reeling from the impact of 2021s devastating winter storm and catastrophic weather events are hitting the state with increasing frequency.

For years, researchers and climate scientists have quarreled over the cost and effectiveness of both Merrells original plan and the Army Corps of Engineers proposal.

Arguing the Ike Dike doesnt do enough to protect Houston, scientists with Rice University have advocated for alternative projects. In 2015, Rice environmental law professor Jim Blackburn developed a storm levee plan that creates new islands in the Galveston Bay from dredged materials from the Houston Ship Channel.

But the Army Corps of Engineers and Texas GLO ultimately chose to pursue and expand on Merrells original plan.

Despite the apparent need for storm mitigation infrastructure, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said that securing the funding for the project will be a long-term task in Congress.

If we can provide a coastal barrier, like the one that the Army Corps of Engineers has recommended, we could avoid a lot of property damage loss and even potential loss of human life, the Texas Republican said. So thats why Im committed to the project, but its not as easy as I think some people think.

'These ideas take time'

The Corps of Engineers proposal must first be put forth and approved by Congress before being considered for any funding from an appropriations bill.

According to members of the Texas congressional delegation, the primary funding route for the project would most likely be the Water Resources and Development Act of 2022  a biennial funding bill to strengthen national flood mitigation efforts.

However, there are still no guarantees that WRDA will even be considered, let alone include the project.

WRDA technically happens every two years, but there are times it doesnt happen, said Byron Williams, a deputy district engineer with the Corps of Engineers.

Still, Williams said funding is likely years away. Even in a best-case scenario, the appropriations wouldnt be approved until 2023.

In 2021, Houston-area congressional members signed a letter urging funding for a coastal barrier to be included in a previous iteration of the infrastructure bill that was called the American Jobs Plan.

It aligns with the goals of this Committee and the American Jobs Plan by taking seriously the need to protect against increasingly frequent and intense weather events, the members wrote. The unique conditions present on the Texas Gulf Coast also make this transformative plan a national priority.

People discuss a map of the coastal spine at an Army Corp of Engineers meeting about the Texas Coastal Study in Galveston in 2018. Credit: Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune

Despite those efforts, the final version of the hotly debated infrastructure bill did not commit funds specifically for any state projects. It simply funds grants for which specific projects must compete. And it is unlikely that any of the $17.1 billion marked for the Corps of Engineers in the infrastructure bill will go toward the Gulf Coast proposal.

The Corps of Engineers has an approximate $109-billion backlog of projects across the country that will be competing for the funding.

U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, said while the infrastructure bill that did pass may not fund the project, it may help clear the backlog for the Corps of Engineers, which could indirectly free up other funds for the coastal spine in the future.

These ideas take time, particularly a huge project like this, Garcia said.

Cornyn said Texans should manage their expectations regarding the many hurdles the proposal faces.

Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time and effort and persuasion to try to get enough people on board to get something this big and this expensive passed, he said.

But lifelong Houstonian Evan Mintz criticized Texas officials for not doing more to fast-track funding for the project, noting how the Louisiana congressional delegation successfully secured recovery dollars for existing storm mitigation projects following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

They were just kind of sitting on the shelf, some proposals that were all ready to go but never funded or half-completed, said Mintz. But nevertheless, you had people willing to go to the mat for it, and we havent really had that in Texas for this.

A starting point

While 65% of the projects estimated $29 billion price tag would be funded federally, the remaining 35% would be up to the state to raise.

During the 2021 legislative session, Texas state lawmakers approved a bill creating a special tax district called the Gulf Coast Protection District with the intention to help Texas secure its own portion of the funding, which is roughly $10 billion.

Mitchell, the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership president, is also the vice president of the Gulf Coast Protection Districts board.

He said that while the completed project could take up to 10 to 15 years to construct, once funding is secured, the initial stages of construction could begin in the next two to three years  beginning with a gate system in the Jefferson County area.

Were working with Sen. Cornyn on the WRDA bill to make sure that we get that one construction site in. And what that will enable us to do is we get this one small construction piece in, which is like in the $20 million range, Mitchell said. So that really is the first big step in making this happen.

Mitchell said the next piece would likely be building the dunes, then the Galveston ring barrier and then pumping stations in the Dickinson Bayou.

Mitchell said that if the Corps or the protection district secures supplementary funding through the infrastructure bill, it could mean a faster construction process  at least for some early phases of the project.

If we get funded under some supplemental act  or through this infrastructure bill, then it could take two years for the planning phase, and then we can actually start some type of construction on our environmental restoration features. Not the actual gate. The gate construction is going to take a little bit longer to do with all the design.

Though members of the Texas congressional delegation and local officials are hopeful the new federal law could give their effort greater momentum, theres still a long process ahead for Texans to see the project become a reality.

All we can do is express our capability, said Williams. And were definitely open to receive funding as soon as possible. But we cant make that yes. We cant say its a 70% chance or a 30% chance because we really dont know.

Mintz says that the Texas congressional delegations lack of unity on the issue is fueling a worrying delay.

You have opportunities to come up with tricks, come up with shortcuts, and our delegation just hasnt successfully done that, he said. Theyre going through the normal order of things as if this were a normal project. And I dont think its normal, and I think that its critical.

Cornyn, who has twice tried unsuccessfully to get federal funding for the project, said he wants to see it come to fruition  but is working within the realities of trying to get a major infrastructure project funded by federal lawmakers.

Im committed to doing everything within my power to do it. I just want to make sure that peoples expectations are reasonable based on whats possible, Cornyn said.

Though disappointed with that time frame, Mohn, the Galveston homeowner and advocate is optimistic that the Corps of Engineers finally has a proposal in front of Congress.

Its been frustrating, but, you know, we finally got it, they finally finished it, and were just delighted with that, but wish it would go faster than what we did, Mohn said.

Disclosure: Rice University and Texas General Land Office have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribunes journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Looking at the daily caseload numbers since the beginning, over 80,000 people in San Antonio have tested positive in the span of over two weeks. It's safe to say that a considerable amount of those people will have to return to work soon.

The CDC cut the isolation and quarantine period for people in December down to five days. Those who don't have the option to work from home will return to the workplace, and some of those people may still have COVID-19 present in their body.

Metro Health Assistant Director Dr. Anita Kurian says people can still test positive up to 90 days but that does not mean you're infectious.

How long are you infectious?

Kurian says most people who have tested positive with the omicron variant of COVID-19 are most infectious one to two days prior to symptoms and three days after a positive test result and the onset of symptoms.

Still some people might be free of any symptoms. But if people are still testing positive after five days, Kurian says they should watch for improvement in their symptoms like remaining fever-free after 24 hours without the use of medication.

I still have a cough

Kurian notes that some symptoms may still persist for weeks after the first 10 days following the onset of symptoms or testing positive.

She says most people are safe to return to a work after five days but should wear a tight-fitting mask for an additional five days.

"Most people are good to come back provided you have shown symptom improvement," Kurian says.

Metro Health generally recommends that businesses use the symptom-based strategy instead of the test-based strategy when it comes making a decision on when someone can return to work.

However, test-based strategies should still be used for employees who are immunocompromised since they tend to shed the virus much longer.

Kin Man Hui /Staff photographer

Why are so many people testing positive?

Omicron. The latest variant accounts for over 90 percent of positive cases. Kurian says this new variant is highly contagious because the virus tends to double more quickly  in one-and-a-half to two days. The delta variant, for comparison, doubled in about 8 to 10 days.

This has led to San Antonio's fourth surge in the COVID-19 era.

Fortunately, symptoms for most cases have been less severe than the delta variant for individuals who are fully vaccinated and boosted.

Will it slow down soon?

"The crystal ball is as murky as it can be mighty," Kurian says.

At the moment it's hard to make a definitive call as to where we are in this surge. The first surge in 2020 was eight weeks long. The second surge was 17 to 20 weeks long. The third surge was also about 17 weeks.

Looking at the trends, Kurian says this surge could last about 8 to 20 weeks. We are currently in the third week.

"I would hesitate to say it's coming to an end," says Dr. Junda Woo, medical director for Metro Health during Friday's press conference.

Kurian reminds people that the virus is still changing so predictions like this should be taken as just that, a prediction.

Steven Santana | MySA

What do the numbers look like now?

San Antonio's positivity rate currently sits at 38.3, a 7 percentage point increase from earlier this week, as new daily caseloads stay in the thousands. But even as four out of five of the city's indicators hit "critical" risk levels, San Antonio is hanging in the "severe" range.

There were 5,841 new cases and 10 new deaths as of Friday.

San Antonio's overall risk level also still sits in "severe," which is a stark contrast to some of Texas' other major cities like Austin and Houston. Both cities are in their highest risk stages despite some of their numbers being lower in Austin.

Why is that?

Kurian says every city bases their risk levels off of varying metrics.

Austin just breached the 3,000 mark in new cases on Tuesday, according to Austin Public Health. But the Capital City currently in a Stage 5 risk level, which recommends vaccinated people wear masks every where and unvaccinated people avoid public gatherings, travel and dining in restaurants.

Austin's hospitalizations are much lower than San Antonio at 682 as of Wednesday.

Houston and Harris County are in a similar situation in terms of new case numbers. On January 9, Harris County Public Health and the Houston Health Department reported over 8,000 new cases. It's most recent new daily caseload dropped to 1,600 new cases for January 20. Houston is currently sitting at a 34.3 percent positivity rate and is also at Level 1 threat level.

Level 1 threat level signifies a severe and uncontrolled spread. The threat level recommends minimizing contact with others wherever possible and staying home except for the most essential needs.

Kurian says that San Antonio hasn't hit its highest risk level because it factors in the stress hospitals are under, while some cities in Texas might not. Hospital stress levels look at the number of patients with COVID and available resources to treat them (staff, beds, ventilators). Eric Epley, executive director of the South Texas Regional Advisory Council, said at a press conference on Friday, January 21, that area hospitals have received 521 additional contract staff through the state.

The number of COVID patients jumped to 1,263 with 277 people in the intensive care unit as of Friday.

What can we do?

On top of getting the vaccine and wearing masks while in public spaces, Kurian encourages San Antonians to get tested. Knowing you have to take the proper isolation procedures will help mitigate the spread.

San Antonio has 33 free testing sites on its website, including a new FEMA mass drive-through testing site at the Alamodome. The sites collectively tested upwards of 11,600 people on Wednesday. (I didn't have the best experience with a testing site.)

Of course the increase in testing means a longer wait for results. People should expect to receive their results anywhere between 48 to 96 hours.

Kurian is also encouraging individuals to sign up for the at-home testing kits that are being sent out by the government at COVIDTests.gov. Households can sign up to receive four free at-home testing kits through the mail.

Kurian says that people can sign up for reimbursement through their health care provider for purchasing at-home test kits. Be sure to check with your insurance provider before, as some users have reported that the process was more complicated than expected.
Texas leaders are reacting to the major defeat Senate Democrats suffered after trying to advance a voting rights bill on Wednesday evening. The vote ended 52-48, with every Republican and two Democrats voting against moving the bill to the Senate floor.

A separate vote took place hours later to change the filibuster rules to help the voting rights bill pass with 51 votes, but it also failed.

The new legislation combined two previously blocked bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and John R. Lewis Act. Among the provisions was an expansion of early and mail-in voting and making Election Day a national holiday, according to the New York Times.

It was also an attempt from Democrats to try to push back on GOP-sponsored state laws that will likely suppress turnout by minority voters, including bills that passed last year in Texas. Senate Bill 1 in Texas limits voting hours and empowers partisan poll watchers. Texas Democrats tried to halt the bill from being passed and fled the state to temporarily block it. Enough political leaders returned in August, which allowed the bill to eventually reach Gov. Greg Abbott.

After the vote ended, Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX 18th District) tweeted "we will not give up," writing the Senate must do its job and get voting rights passed. She stated everyone deserves equal access to "our most sacred right and that is the right to vote."

San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX 20th District) also tweeted he will not give up on protecting every American's right to vote. He wrote, "In Texas, Gov. Abbott and Republicans are actively making it harder to vote  particularly for Latino, Black, and other minority communities." His brother and former mayor of San Antonio Julian Castro also tweeted it was a "disappointing loss."

Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX 2nd District)) tweeted there is "zero threat" to the right to vote. He wrote the Democrats have false heroism by trying to protect the right to vote. "This is a fake crusade meant to justify the Democrats' plan to undermine elections," he wrote.

Senator John Cornyn also tweeted the Democrats tried to pass the measure for political gain by effectively eliminating the filibuster. He stated, "This important rule was designed to help Senators from both parties do something that doesn't always come naturally: work together."

President Joe Biden said in a statement following the defeat that he's "profoundly disappointed that the Senate has failed to stand up for our democracy."

"I am disappointed, but I am not deterred," he said. "We will continue to advance necessary legislation and push for Senate procedural changes that will protect the fundamental right to vote."
On Jan. 15, the American Jewish community and many others around this nation were glued to their TV sets as a gunman entered a synagogue in a small Texas town during Sabbath prayers and held four worshippers hostage. For more than 10 hours, he demanded the release of a woman, Aafia Siddiqui, from a nearby federal prison who had been convicted of terrorist acts against Americans in Afghanistan. Often referred to as Ms. Al-Qaida, she is presently serving an 86-year sentence.

While the woman had expressed strong anti-semitic feelings during her trial, Siddiqis attorney was critical of the Texas attacker during the standoff. His actions also were condemned by CAIR and other Islamic relations organizations locally and nationally. For some, this made it less clear as to why a synagogue had been chosen.

But to members of the Jewish community, it was not so surprising.

Over the last number of years, in places like Pittsburgh, Poway, Calif., New York, New Jersey and Delaware, synagogues have been the target of political and religious animus. Some ended in the tragic murder of Jews.

The fact that both terrorists were identified as Islamists suggest modern and religious roots, having to do with the situation in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But this would not explain the Holocaust a decade before the founding of the Jewish State or, for that matter, the persecution of Jews in the pre-Christian pagan Roman period, the expulsion of Jews from Spain during the Middle Ages, or the pogroms of Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As one historian wrote, anti-semitism is the longest running tragedy in human history.

I learned of the synagogue attack that recent Saturday morning. The evening before, I had spent in the synagogue I served for 32 years. It was the annual observance of MLK weekend. For the past dozen years, a group of clergy had joined in an interfaith celebration of Dr. Kings life and legacy. We were religious leaders of the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Native American, Unitarian, Bahai and Buddhist communities  all joined in prayer. I could not avoid the juxtaposition of the events in Texas and Hamden. The first text I received Saturday morning was from a Presbyterian minister calling my attention to the events in Texas and expressing his love and concern. The next email was from the imam and Yale chaplain telling me that he and his community were praying for the synagogue that this should end peacefully.

In fact, such sentiments were sent to the Texas synagogue from all over the country, in fact from all over the world, according to the Texas rabbi.

And their prayers were answered. Through the good works of the local and Texas police as well as the FBI, as well as the quick and courageous captives themselves, they managed to escape. Sadly, the 44 year-old gunman was killed. Yes, I rejoice at the rescue but take no comfort with the loss of any persons life. Mostly, I feel great sadness  sadness that we live in a world where hate continues to separate us from our brothers and sisters. We have seen houses of worship desecrated over the years, the victims of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, S.C., the firebombing of the three Black churches in Texas, or the mosque here in New Haven to name a few. Indeed, we are reminded that hate does not discriminate!

Yet the message of MLK, in fact the message of the biblical prophets out of which Dr. King drew his message, is one of hope and courage and a rejection of fear and hate. There will be some who see only division in the events in Texas. They will see it as inevitable and use it to serve their own narrow purposes. We must not allow this to happen.

Hope comes from holding on to the broader vision of 19 clergy worshipping together, a Texas rabbi who not only knew when to run but to offer a drink to a stranger which enabled them to escape. We need better mental health services to deal with people in need. We do need to combat hate, bigotry and violence whenever they rear their ugly heads. Let the events of that recent weekend drive us even closer together in solidarity, in faith.

Rabbi Herbert Brockman is Rabbi Emeritus, Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden. Email cmirabbi@cmihamden.org.
According to reports, the Queen rejected an "inappropriate" proposal devised by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to improve their living situations.

After they were engaged, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were famously installed in Harry's residence at Kensington Palace. After they married, however, they realized they needed a bigger place to have a family and devised a shady ruse to boost their living standards.

Queen Elizabeth in great despair at Prince Harry, Prince Andrew

According to the Sunday Times, the couple asked the Queen about moving into Windsor Castle, but the Queen decided it was "inappropriate" and handed them Frogmore Cottage instead. According to a royal analyst, if Meghan Markle and Prince Harry don't make it to Prince Philip's memorial, the Royal Family would breathe a sigh of relief.

The absence of the Sussexes, according to Majesty Magazine's Editor in Chief Ingrid Seward, would prevent the spring homage from becoming the "Harry and Meghan show," as per The Sun. According to a veteran BBC royal journalist, Queen Elizabeth II "will be putting her hands up in despair" at Prince Harry and Prince Andrew.

After stripping Prince Andrew of his honorary military titles ahead of his Jeffrey Epstein case, Jenny Bond said, "Everyone feels for the Queen." The Home Office's decision to revoke his royal protection during trips to Britain has been challenged in a "judicial review" by Prince Harry.

For him, Meghan Markle, and their two children Archie and Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor, it is not safe for them to travel to Britain, according to the Duke of Sussex. In February 2021, just before their Oprah Winfrey appearance on March 7, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had their honorary titles and patronages revoked. Prince Andrew, on the other hand, kept his even after he retired from public life in November 2019.

After a New York judge ordered a trial in his legal complaint launched by Giuffre, Buckingham Palace declared that he would lose the jobs. The palace declined to say whether or not the prince was still being protected by the police, which was paid for by the government, according to Newsweek via MSN.

Read Also: Prince Andrew, Prince Harry Ineligible for Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee Medal After Being Stripped of Military Honors

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle may not let Prince Charles see grandchildren

According to the Queen's biographer, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are unlikely to remain with Prince Charles after he offered them his house. According to a source, the 73-year-old Prince of Wales offered to let his family stay with him in the UK in the hopes of seeing Lilibet for the first time.

According to the Mirror, the offer was made shortly before Christmas, and it would be the first time the family had entirely been together since Harry and Meghan came to the United States. It would be "extremely embarrassing," according to royal biographer Angela Levin, for the pair to remain with Prince Charles. It comes as the reunion is thought to be in jeopardy due to Harry's unwillingness to return without a significant degree of security from the Met Police.

His threat of legal action against Her Majesty's government sparked anger. It is too hazardous to travel without Scotland Yard bodyguards so he is seeking a court review of the decision to remove him from his UK police security squad. The monarch cannot pick and choose when it comes to visiting the UK and receiving protection, according to a former director of royal protection.

Princess Anne was almost abducted and her guardian was shot, but she does not have full-time security, according to Dai Davies. The Queen would not assist her grandson's request for security troops when he arrives in the United Kingdom. According to the sources, the Monarch has no intention of "giving in" to the Met and Home Office's demands for protection, Mail Online reported.

Related Article: Prince Charles Reportedly Invites Sussexes To Visit UK in Desperation To See Grandchildren But Prince Harry's Security Demand Hinders

@YouTube

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Education advocates are sounding off against a "Parent Bill of Rights" Gov. Greg Abbott plans to pass if he is re-elected. The bill, which Texas governor signed after shortly after unveiling it during a campaign event at a charter school in Lewisville Thursday, would amend the state constitution to "make clear that parents are the primary decision makers in all matters involving their children."

The proposed bill that would allow parents to decide if their children have to repeat failed courses and potentially place teachers on a "do not hire" list for providing students with materials deemed 'obscene' by the state. However, education advocates argue that the legislation is not necessary since the Texas Education Code already contains a chapter that outlines parental rights and responsibilities and such a bill will only lead to further censorship in schools.

Shannon Holmes, executive director of The Association of Texas Professional Educators issued a statement Thursday following Abbott's announcement, saying "The so-called 'Parental Bill of Rights' wouldn't give Texas parents any new rights. Every 'issue' is already addressed in existing state law and local policies. Instead, Gov. Abbott's pledge to 'bolster' parent rights would only serve to place additional governmental mandates on school districts and teachers already stretched to their limits due to staffing shortages."

Holmes continued, stating that the legislation will do nothing to improve public schools or enhance parents' rights and urged voters to compare their personal experience to the governor's rhetoric in order to make their own judgments.

"Parents and educators are partners in a child's learning which is already reflected in our state's education code and the daily practices of school districts across the state," Holmes said. "This proposal reeks of grandstanding and only serves to further make our students and teachers political pawns."

Chapter 26 of the Texas Education Code called "Parental Rights and Responsibilities" outlines rights parents are entitled with, including access to student records, teaching materials, state assessments and school board meetings. "Parents are partners with educators, administrators, and school district boards of trustees in their children's education," the code states. "Parents shall be encouraged to actively participate in creating and implementing educational programs for their children."

The #FReadom Fighters, a grassroots effort led by Texas librarians fighting book challenges in the state, took to Twitter to warn educators about a potential chilling effect from the bill. "This is not law - this is @GovAbbott proposal as a candidate for governor, using school libraries as a trigger to garner votes," the group said. "We protest against this disrespect to dedicated professionals and we support student #FReadom as does the Supreme Court."

The Intercultural Development Research Association, which has previously denounced Abbott's critical race theory bills, called the proposed legislation an effort to try to censor students and teachers from learning the countrys hard truths as well as using parents as political instruments. The IDRA also outlined ways for parents to authentically engage with schools.

"For students to feel a connection and affinity for this country they must be taught to grapple with its painful history, see the beauty and value in the diversity of its people, and recognize all the work there is still left to do to make our democracy better," said a statement issued by the IDRA Thursday. "Students, their families, and their communities benefit from schools that provide truthful and culturally-sustaining curricula."
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday evening plans to amend the Texas Constitution with a Parent Bill of Rights if he is re-elected. The proposal follows Abbott's introduction of a Taxpayer Bill of Rights this week.

Abbott publicly signed the bill at an event hosted by the Founders Classical Academy of Lewisville, where he criticized schools shutting down during the pandemic and issuing mask mandates. He said the bill will help restore parents as the primary decision-makers of their child's education and healthcare decisions.

"No government program can replace the role that parents play in the education of their children," Abbott told the audience. "Our focal point is to ensure that parents are put at the forefront, both of education of their children as well as the decision-making for their child's healthcare."

Abbott continued to impart that the government often intrudes on parental decision-making and threatens the role guardians have in their child's wellbeing. "Many parents are growing increasingly powerless about what to do to regain that control," Abbott said. "That must end."

Under the bill, Abbott said the state's constitution will be amended to "make clear that parents are the primary decision makers in all matters involving their children." The bill will expand parents access to school curriculum and ensure material is available online or in other easily accessible ways, he said.

"We will make sure parents concerns about school curriculum or policies will be heard quickly and respectfully,' Abbott said, adding that under his plan the state will give parents the option if their child will repeat a course or grade level instead of leaving the decision solely to the school district.

To protect children's privacy in schools, the state will also prohibit the selling or the sharing of students' personal data outside of the Texas public education system, Abbott said.

Abbott, who is running for reelection, has made it a point to target inappropriate content in schools. In November, he directed the Texas Education Agency to develop statewide standards preventing obscene content in Texas public schools. Shortly after he told the agency to investigate criminal activity related to the availability of pornography in public schools, saying the agency should refer to such instances for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.

Under the Parent Bill of Rights, Abbott said any educator convicted of providing minors with "obscene" content will lose their educational credentials and state licensing, forfeit their retirement benefits and will be placed on a "do not hire" list. The state will also require schools to post the bill online for parents to access.

"Also school districts will be required to provide parents with information and options for charter schools, magnet schools and other public schools as alternatives for their children," Abbott said.

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett, who served under President Ronald Reagan, congratulated Abbott on the bill and reiterated the importance of parents involvement in classroom issues. He said the bill will likely be imitated in other states. "Not every teacher is a parent but every parent is a teacher," Bennett said. "We know that the parents influence on the child is the greatest influence of any adult...We need to restore the priority of the parent to the classroom and to the child's education which is what you are doing."

Bennett also advised parents to not be "intimidated by the cult of expertise." "When it comes to education of children, if you don't understand what they're talking about, you're probably right and they're probably wrong," he said. "It's not complicated what to teach children and what parents want schools to do is teach children how to read, write, count and think and develop reliable standards of right and wrong."

Abbott's action follows the lead of other Republican leaders across the U.S. who have issued similar bills. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a Parents Bill of Rights in June of 2021. The Intercultural Development Research Association, which has voiced opposition to Abbotts "critical race theory" bill that went into effect in December, issued a statement Thursday denouncing the governor's bill, calling it another coordinated attack on the rights of students, parents and teachers in public schools.

"All families must be part of building excellent and equitable schools regardless of their racial or ethnic background or socio-economic status," the statement said. "Unfortunately, many schools have not prioritized or invested in developing authentic relationships with families, particularly those of color, those with limited incomes, and immigrant families."

The IDRA also called out groups attempting to pit families and schools against each other with the goal of passing legislation that "whitewashes and simplifies" history.

These groups, who purport to represent values such as equality and transparency are feeding some families inaccurate information about their schools and encouraging them to make harmful demands and violent interventions in school policymaking to advance policies that actually widen inequalities and exclusion," the statement said. "They are pushing their economic, social, and political agendas under the name of parent engagement.' This is dangerous.
Local

Doctors' Free Clinic eyes building as new home; needs financial help

Doctors Free Clinic continues to make progress towards getting its own facility in order to expand medical services to the poor and continues to court the Citrus County Hospital Board for funding.

fredhiers / Fred Hiers / Chronicle Reporter Wallis

Late last year the Doctors Free Clinic president, Dr. Jeffrey Wallis, proposed building a medical clinic for the Citrus County poor on donated land. But hospital board members asked that Wallis look at existing properties for sale. Wallis had told the hospital board the clinic would need its financial help to either build a facility or buy an existing structure.

This week Wallis returned to the hospital board during its regularly scheduled meeting with a report on four potential buildings for sale. But given that three out of the four needed extensive repairs, or lacked sufficient parking, or needed extensive redesign work, Wallis cited one that matched his nonprofits needs.

Wallis proposed buying an existing doctors clinic at 790 SE Fifth Terrace, Crystal River. It has eight examination rooms and a second, separate building leased to a martial arts studio.

The nearly 8,000 square-foot facility is priced at $825,000 and sits on 0.88 acres. The current owner, Dr. Denis Grillo is still currently using one of the offices in the facility.

Wallis and other doctors currently provide medical care through the organization one Saturday a month at the Department of Health clinic in Lecanto.

Wallis is also a hospital board trustee but does not vote on Doctors Free Clinic issues.

He told the board there is no shortage of poor needing medical care.

There are poor people coming out of the woodwork (to get care), he said.

Karla Poulos, the executive director of the program, said she had four doctors as volunteers, but only three exam rooms at the DOH clinic.

Asked by Hospital Board Chairwoman Debbie Ressler how soon would the group be ready after buying the building, Wallis replied four to six weeks.

The plan is to add an additional day of service every three to six months.

Trustee Rick Harper asked if something could be built to connect the two buildings. He also asked about potential revenue if the clinic leased space to the martial arts studio and Dr. Grillo.

Wallis said he would return next month with more answers, but said that thus far the hospital board was his only potential financial help. But once the clinic buys the building, he thinks the move would generate more donations and volunteer help.
Florida, US (34429)

Today

Mostly sunny early followed by increasing clouds and a few showers later in the day. Thunder possible. High 89F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

A few clouds. Low 66F. Winds light and variable.
Rep. Lauren Boebert recently claimed that the discriminatory remarks she made at a Jewish group touring the US Capitol were in response to the comments she received from Democrats two years ago.

According to reports, a group of Jews was at the US Capitol to meet with Rep. Tom Suozzi. They were waiting outside the elevator in their yarmulkes when Boebert stepped out and saw them.

Rep. Lauren Boebert targeted Jewish people

The Colorado rep reportedly looked at the group from head to toe asking if they were there for a reconnaissance. The term typically refers to military forces scouting an area in an attempt to gather information about enemy forces, according to the Huffington Post.

Those that heard her remarks couldn't believe what just happened. And one of them told reporters that Jewish people are very sensitive to anti-semitic remarks especially following the hostage crisis at a Texas synagogue last week.

Rep. Lauren Boebert claims her remarks were a joke

Boebert later explained that she didn't mean any harm with her comment. In fact, the rep said that there's no way for her to see the Jewish people's yarmulkes because she's too short.

"I saw a large group and made a joke. Sadly, when Democrats see the same they demonize my family for a year straight. I'm too short to see anyone's yarmulkes," she said via the Daily Beast.

Read Also: Rep. Lauren Boebert Accused of Weaponizing Anti-Muslim Bigotry, Targeting Fellow Rep. Ilhan Omar; House Democrats Demand Accountability

Rep. Tom Suozzi slams Lauren Boebert

However, Suozzi doesn't think that Boebert should have made the comments in the first place. After all, as members of Congress, they should be very careful with the words that come out of their mouths.

"Because when you're a member of Congress, you have an important role to play in society. You can't be cavalier in the comments you make especially if they could be perceived as being antisemitic, or discriminatory," Suozzi told BuzzFeed News.

Lauren Boebert discriminates Ilhan Omar

This isn't the first time that Boebert made headlines following her antisemitic and discriminatory comments. The Colorado rep previously attacked fellow Congress member, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who happens to be a Muslim.

Boebert alleged that Omar is a member of the jihad squad, and she also likened her to an Islamic terrorist.

Last month, Boebert was also accused of repeatedly weaponizing dangerous anti-Muslim bigotry toward Omar.

The latter previously claimed that Boebert made fun of her backpack when they crossed paths in the elevator of the US Capitol. Weeks later, Boebert phoned Omar to defend herself and not to apologize.

Omar decided to hang up the phone after realizing that Boebert wasn't ready to make a public apology. But what made things worse was the fact that her fellow Republicans sided with Boebert.

Democrats, on the other hand, have been urging Congress to do something about Boebert. They also want the Republican to be stripped of all her committee assignments.

Days later, there were also reports suggesting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could remove Boebert from her post. But this hasn't happened as of press writing. Boebert continues to work in Congress.

Related Article: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Could Remove Rep. Lauren Boebert From Her Committees This Week Following Her Racist Remarks

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Compare todays IT landscape to that of a decade ago, and you can see that traditional enterprise IT has been turned inside out. Workers are at home or in other remote locations. Once concentrated in internally managed data centers, applications and data are now distributed across multiple public and private clouds.

In this article, we examine how the inside-out model breaks many of the tools and processes that enterprise IT organizations have relied on for decades and the two challenges related to managing clients:

Asset inventory, vulnerability assessment and patch management

Help desk responses and employee productivity

Asset discovery, vulnerability assessment, and patch management

Before you can manage employee endpoints, you need to know how many there are and where they are. You also need to be able to catalog their hardware and software configurations so you can manage software deployments, updates, and patches.

In the traditional enterprise, collecting this information wasnt difficult  theoretically. Almost all endpoints were on the internal network. You could run software that scanned the network and discovered them. You wouldnt expect a great deal of variety in endpoints since the IT department had selected and provisioned all the endpoints.

Unfortunately, even in this controlled environment, asset discovery often fell short. Traditional asset discovery tools often overlooked as many as 10-20% of endpoints. Those undiscovered endpoints would then be left out of software updates and patch routines. They became more vulnerable to attack and more likely to jeopardize employee performance and experience.

Today, in a WFH world, all bets are off when it comes to the location, configuration, and status of endpoints. Employees use laptops and desktops provided by IT, but they probably use other portable devices, too, including their personal laptops, tablets, and smartphones. They use all these devices on home networks and public Wi-Fi hotspots like those in cafes. These devices arent on the local corporate network. Most of the time, theyre not connected to a virtual private network (VPN) either.

If an IT organization wants to ensure that these devices can be cataloged, accounted for, and adequately managed, they must rely on technology that works over ordinary internet connections and doesnt require a VPN.

They need to improve the accuracy of their asset discovery tools, so they can discover and track all devices, not just 80% of them. And since the inside-out enterprise is here to stay, they need to make sure theyve got tools for discovering and managing remote endpoints on an ongoing basis, not just once as part of a special, in-depth project.

Help desk support and employee productivity

Another IT function thats been disrupted by the inside-out enterprise is the help desk.

Previously, if an employee had a problem, they could call or email the help desk or service desk. To solve the problem, a help desk agent could talk to the employee, asking questions and offering advice.

If a problem was difficult, the agent could use remote access software to connect to the employees endpoint. And if the problem proved especially difficult, the agent could walk down the hall, find the employees office or cubicle, and work with them directly to resolve the problem.

Most of these approaches are now infeasible. Heres why:

Remote access software usually requires a connection over a local network or a VPN, neither of which is available with todays remote workforces.

Help desk agents cant walk to employees desks, since employees work remotely.

Phone access is still possible but troubleshooting over the phone is difficult. The help desk agent cant tell how the system is configured or see what processes on it are currently running.

There are two solutions to this problem.

Enterprises should find client management solutions that allow help desk agents to connect and inspect remote endpoints without requiring a VPN connection. These solutions need to be able to connect securely over standard internet connections, so that even without a VPN, a help desk agent can explore and troubleshoot an endpoint in real time securely.

Enterprises should look into self-service options for remote troubleshooting and patching. For example, suppose a help desk agent works with a remote employee and discovers that by upgrading an application, the employees endpoint performance problem can be solved. If theres a secure self-service portal for application upgrades set up, the help desk agent can simply direct the employee to that portal. The employee can perform the update when its most convenient, and the help desk agent can return to the ticket queue and begin helping another employee whos asking for assistance.

A self-service model benefits everyone involved. Employees get a speedy resolution to their problems and help desk agents can spend less time on the mechanics of upgrading and patching. Employees are used to installing updates on their personal mobile devices. This model simply takes that practice and applies it to corporate computing, too.

New opportunities

The inside-out enterprise has forever transformed daily life for employees and the IT organizations that support them. This transformation brings challenges, but it brings opportunities, too. Specifically, it gives IT organizations the opportunity to:

Finally, implement comprehensive asset inventory tools, so that IT organizations can find, manage, and secure the 10-20% of endpoints overlooked by traditional tools.

Gain more accurate and timely information about the status of endpoints, so that they can be patched and updated more quickly and effectively.

Improve help desk efficiency by enabling agents to connect in real time to endpoints in any location and by empowering employees to solve their own problems quickly and easily through self-service operations.

Learn how Taniums client management solution can help your organization overcome these challenges in todays inside-out enterprise.
Oracle has announced the launch of its new Oracle Johannesburg cloud region, the companys 37th worldwide and its first on the continent, signalling growing confidence in the future growth of cloud services in Africa, and its long-term faith in Gauteng as the premier regional hub.

Demand for public cloud data centres has been growing rapidly on the continent, and Oracle has been serving business partners all over the region for some time. Customers include Airports Company South Africa, the Government Pensions Administrative Agency, and Telkom. But this further investment in a cloud region holds the promise of reducing latency and speeding cloud application performance in general.

The Johannesburg region is built using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), and supports all Oracle services and features, including Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes, Oracle Cloud VMware solution, and Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite.

In South Africa and the wider African continent, we see similar urgency to drive transformation, need for more business agility, cost reduction and data security, as in other global markets, Cherian Varghese, regional managing director of Oracle Middle East, and Africa, told CIO Africa. Therefore, we have built a data region in South Africa with the exact same characteristics as any other data region that we build around the world, as we are trying to address similar problems.

IDC estimates that public cloud services adoption is accelerating at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 25% year on year between 2020 and 2025 in sub-Saharan Africa.

CIOs say in-country data centres are important

Cloud-based technologies have helped organizations weather the COVID-19 crisis and cloud services are now helping them build resilient organizations that can withstand uncertainties. IDCs survey of CIOs in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria highlights that an in-country data centre is an important factor for 60% of organizations that are planning to adopt cloud technology over the next 12-18 months.

Its no secret that South Africa has been bedevilled with electricity and infrastructure problems in recent years, and these fundamental infrastructure issues have the potential to undercut the promise of cloud providers for always-on computing services. But Oracle points out that each Oracle Cloud region contains at least three fault domains, which are groupings of hardware that form logical data centres for high availability and resilience to hardware and network failures.

OCIs next-generation architecture provides a high-performing, resilient foundation for cloud services, says Varghese. Our data centre sites undergo a risk evaluation that considers environmental threats, power availability and stability, vendor reputation and history, neighbouring facility functions (for example, high-risk manufacturing or high-threat targets), and geopolitical considerations, among other criteria.

There are a number of unique requirements for doing business in South Africa, particularly with regard to financial services and privacy laws and Oracle has spelled out its commitment to be compliant in both regards. Guidelines published by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) must be considered when evaluating a cloud service provider that accommodates South African financial institutions.

Oracle says its cloud contract structure supports financial institutions in meeting these SARB guidelines. Oracle also offers the Oracle Financial Services Addendum (FSA) as an add-on to its cloud service agreement, which covers various topics typically required for financial institutions, such as audit rights for customers and their regulators, termination rights, exit provisions and transition services, business continuity, and sub-outsourcing obligations.

Another important requirement in South Africa is compliance with POPIA, the Protection of Personal Information Act, which sets general conditions for public and private entities to lawfully process South African data subjects personal information.

A proactive response to the climate emergency is part and parcel of any new launch this size in 2022, and Oracle has pledged to power all of their Cloud regions worldwide with 100% renewable energy by 2025. Oracle Cloud regions already use energy management and cooling technologies to minimize their impact on the environment.
34852

The exports in the Middle East will rise nearly 7 percent and in Saudi Arabia exports will increase in the first four to five months of 2022.

FREMONT, CA: LPG exports from major Middle Eastern producers are expected to rise 6.6 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, as competition for expanding Asian markets intensifies amid expanding supply from other producers, led by the US, according to traders, producers, and analysts. As per the sources, the total increase of exports is expected to reach up to 38.9 million mt in 2022 up from 36.5 million last year, from Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran. They added that the majority of these are committed under term contracts, though Qatar occasionally offers spot LPG.

Qatar's 2022 exports are expected to remain stable at around 10 million mt; the UAE at 9.9 million mt, up from 9.4 million mt in 2021; and Saudi Arabia at around 8.6 million mt, up from 7 million mt. According to a source familiar with the matter, Kuwait's LPG exports are expected to reach 5 million mt in 2022 and this would be an increase from around 4.6 million mt in 2021.

Kuwaiti production is expected to be between 5.2 million and 5.3 million mt in 2022. Exports will be around 5 million mt, with local demand ranging from 250,000 mt to 300,000 mt. This year's term volumes are significantly higher, accounting for nearly all of the production. Unlike in 2021, there will be few spot offers and exports this year and only a few may be seen in the second half of this year. Kuwait Petroleum Corp. sold three 44,000 mt mixed propane/butane cargoes for July-September loadings via a semi-term tender in June.

This came after KPC had awarded five-spot export tenders in a row. As per the sources, this could be due to the arrival of Kuwait's fifth gas train, which will add 440,000 mt yearly, or nine to ten cargoes yearly, in Q2 2021. An industry analyst predicted that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman would increase their exports by 1.5 million mt this year, with Saudi Arabia expected to export highly in the beginning four to five months.
Wilkes Barre, PA (18701)

Today

Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. High around 70F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy later at night. Low 51F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has released an interim report where it announced that its assessments have suggested the mysterious Havana syndrome is unlikely to have been deliberately caused by a foreign actor.

The Havana syndrome is a series of mysterious cases that have affected U.S. officials around the globe with no clear medical explanations. The CIA said that the medical conditions were not representative of a "sustained worldwide campaign" by Russia or other foreign nations that allegedly sought to harm U.S. personnel.

Mysterious Havana Syndrome

However, the intelligence agency has not ruled out that a small portion of the incidents could have been attacked by foreign parties. The CIA said that it continues to investigate whether or not there were any devices or mechanisms used that may have caused the symptoms reported by the U.S. officials.

But the intelligence agency has yet to find any evidence that a nation-state was actually behind any of the nearly 1,000 reported episodes from around the globe. The interim findings of the CIA were delivered to United States President Joe Biden and briefed to Congress in recent weeks, CNN reported.

The mysterious cases have caused confusion among U.S. officials for more than five years now since the first report of the illness. The initial cases were reported by personnel at the U.S. embassy in Cuba. Since then, more and more cases have been reported on almost every single continent in more than a dozen countries worldwide.

Read Also: House Select Committee Requests Ivanka Trump's Cooperation in Jan. 6 Investigation

The cases have surged even more after the CIA and State Department urged employees to come forward if they experienced similar symptoms like the ones in the reported cases. However, it remains unclear how many of the reports were later confirmed as medically diagnosed cases.

CIA Director Bill Burns also issued a rare statement where he said that the symptoms that the affected individuals experienced were "real." The official's remarks come as the agency grows committed to providing care for officers and continues to investigate the incident, ABC News reported.

Investigating the Illness

The intelligence agency is still reviewing roughly two dozen cases that have yet to be explained scientifically. A U.S. official briefed on the findings said that these cases offered the greatest chance of providing clues to whether or not a foreign power was actually responsible for some of the unexplained health incidents that have spread among U.S. officials worldwide.

Despite foreign interference not being proven in the mysterious illness, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Pentagon, and other agencies have continued to investigate the possibility. Some of the cases that are being focused on include those from 2016 in Havana and some in Vienna in 2021.

Many of the victims of the mysterious illness were left unsatisfied by the CIA's interim findings, particularly current and former officials who have been fighting against chronic ailments for years without having a clear explanation for the condition they were in. A group of victims issued a statement saying that the CIA's report "cannot and must not be the final word on the matter," the New York Times reported.



Related Article: 11-Month-Old Baby Girl Shot in Face While with Mother on a Car Parked at a Neighborhood in Bronx, New York

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Charles Darley, former interim CEO of Cats Protection

Charles Darley has quit as interim CEO of Cats Protection after a breakdown of trust with trustees, just three months into a year-long contract.

Darley said he handed in his resignation after raising concerns about governance relating to the charity's chair, Linda Upson, housing 18 cats in her three-bedroom house.

Darley said he was worried that this goes against the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) cat welfare code of conduct. Darley also claims this might not comply with the Animal Welfare Act guidance either, which states cats require sufficient space to be alone.

DEFRA guidance states: A cat may suffer if they cannot avoid other cats they do not like or has to undertake activities such as sharing food bowls or litter trays [] keeping too many cats together can result in a stressful and unhealthy environment, which may make it difficult for you to meet the individual needs of your animals.

Cats Protection's website tells cat owners that they have a legal duty of care to provide for your cat's needs, which includes their need to be housed with or apart from other animals.

Impossible to change the culture

Darley said that when he raised the matter it was only partially investigated by a subcommittee, led by the deputy chair.

In early January, Darley said he set out governance reforms, which were not welcomed by trustees. He concluded that it was impossible to change the culture or deliver the charity's new strategy under these circumstances.

In addition, Darley said trustees had rejected proposals for a trustees code of conduct.



Darley said: It is ironic that the chair and deputy chair of the UK's leading cat rehoming charity would rather lose a veteran CEO than rehome some of their own cats to meet agreed DEFRA welfare standards.

Process to recruit a new CEO 'shortly'

A Cats Protection spokesperson told Civil Society News: We can confirm that Charles is departing the charity and the process to recruit a new CEO will be getting underway shortly.

When asked to comment on these allegations, the spokesperson said: Im afraid were unable to comment further at this time.

According to the charity's website, Upson has been a member of Cats Protection for 30 years and chair since 2017. It describes her as living with a large family of cats, all of whom have been adopted from Cats Protection.

The charity's annual income is around 70m and it employs about 1,000 people. It operates through a network of around 250 branches.

sign up to receive the Civil Society News daily bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector,
In recent weeks, a number of journalists at major outlets have voiced their alarm about the economic catastrophe thats unfolding in Afghanistan in the wake of the US withdrawal from the country and its takeover by the Taliban. Last month, Christina Goldbaum, a Kabul-based correspondent for the New York Times, went on the papers Daily podcast and outlined how banks are running out of cash and severely malnourished children are overwhelming healthcare facilities. Ive covered severe droughts, Ive covered countries on the brink of famine, Goldbaum said. But I had never seen a crisis like this. Reporting from Afghanistan for The New Yorker, Jane Ferguson described the situation as the worlds largest humanitarian crisis; Saeed Shah reported for the Wall Street Journal that some parents are selling their children to survive. CBS, PBS, The Guardian, and the Washington Post have all also run dispatches from the ground. In the US, The Intercepts Lee Fang has filed several stories on the role crippling US sanctions have played in exacerbating the crisis, including a video in which he cornered several uninterested-looking senators. On his prime-time MSNBC show last week, Chris Hayes decried the Biden administrations current stance on sanctions as an indefensible moral scandal.

This is far from an exhaustive summary of such coverage. But heres what you wont have seen (or, at least, what I havent seen). You wont have seen cable anchors lining up night after night to collectively excoriate Biden for helping to starve Afghan children. (Even Hayess segment on the matter was relatively brief.) You wont have seen veteran foreign correspondents speechifying endlessly on air as to how Bidens inaction has diminished the trust that overseas capitals place in Americas word on the world stage. You wont have seen many political pundits describing Bidens callous disregard for Afghan lives as the sort of thing Trump would have done. You wont have seen retired four-star generals and former Defense and State department staffersmany of them with undisclosed, ongoing financial ties to the military-industrial complextouring TV studios to bemoan Bidens poor judgment. You wont have seen a single reporter ask Biden a question about Afghanistans humanitarian crisis at his rare press conference this week, even though he took questions for a hundred and eleven minutes.

ICYMI: Whats the metaverse? Whatever companies want it to be.

All of this, of course, is in stark contrast to last summer, when the pullout from Afghanistan sparked a weeks-long media feeding frenzy and rampant condemnation of Biden among the pundit class. The consequences of American occupation and withdrawal have since only intensified. The same cannot be said of the attention American media is paying to them.

Media critics are wont to say that an important storyespecially when its a humanitarian crisis abroadisnt being covered by Western media. This is rarely literally true; it certainly isnt true of this humanitarian crisis. Such critics generally mean, rather, to highlight a storys lack of prominence relative to its importance; to say that something deserves to be a really big deal across the news cycle. Defining what this might look like can be tricky. This time, the withdrawal coverage over the summer gives us a direct and immediate point of comparison. Back then, critics of the frenzied coverage (myself included) argued that it seemed to reflect a pervasive media bias in favor of US intervention overseasa long-term trend of playing up storylines that cast it as a stabilizing force while playing down stories of its destructiveness. The purveyors of the frenzied coverage often hit back that they were genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of the Afghan people. You can make your own mind up, now, as to who was telling the truth.

Making his mind up, Ryan Cooper, of The Week, wrote in November that the disparity between the coverage of the withdrawal and the coverage of the humanitarian crisis overwhelmingly suggests all the maudlin weeping about Afghan civilians was a sham; since then, a number of other commentatorsincluding Adam Johnson, Jacobins Branko Marcetic, and The Intercepts Murtaza Hussainhave made similar observations. Cooper looked at Google trends in the US and found that searches for Afghanistan had massively collapsed from their August peak; search for the prominence of the topic on cable news, and youll see a strikingly similar loss of interest. According to the Tyndall Report, between October and December of last year, the nightly newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC collectively devoted just twenty-one minutes to coverage of Afghanistan, down from 427 minutes in August and September. Julie Hollar, of the media watchdog FAIR, found that when US networks did mention the humanitarian crisis, they rarely assessed Americas responsibility for it. (Biden has applied sanctions exemptions for aid and donated funds directly, but neither is enough to quell the suffering. As well as the sanctions, Taliban-enforced population displacement and severe drought have been important drivers of the crisis. Its fair to say that US culpability for climate change, which is making Afghanistans droughts worse, has largely been missing from the American media conversation, too.)

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Who is to blame for the disparity between the summer and now? Not the reporters who are still on the ground in Afghanistan, clearly, nor the critics back home who are paying attention to the crisis. Fault lies, rather, with the nebulous blob of news leaders who collectively decide which stories drive the day in agenda-setting morning newsletters or snag the top spot on the evening news; which stories are not just worthy of an article, but of real focus and consistent amplification. It lies, too, with politicians who could help make this a bigger story, but (as Fang showed) often seem not to want to. Taken together, the fault is with an information ecosystem that too rarely follows through with proper accountability for consequential political failures; that sees accountability more in terms of short-term gaffes than sustained, morally-sharp scrutiny of the messes America leaves behind. As Johnson put it, the relevant moral criteria in Afghanistan coverage apparently is not whats good for the Afghan people. Its, whats good for US strategic interests.

In the wake of the withdrawal, the worsening Taliban crackdown on press freedom in Afghanistan was among a number of storylines to spark concern in US media, including in this newsletter. In the months since then, that situation, too, has only gotten worse: last month, Reporters Without Borders and the Afghan Independent Journalists Association calculated that more than forty percent of news outlets have closed since August, with more than six thousand journalists losing their jobs as a result, including the vast majority of women reporters working in the country. Afghan media workers continue to face the threat of physical violence. They have also, inevitably, been hammered by the economic crisis. Struggling businesses cant afford to pay for media advertising; foreign aid funding for newsrooms has run short. Stories have filtered out of journalists having to sell bread or their own clothes on the street to survive.

As the Taliban took over, an Afghan journalist based in Kabul reached out to tell me about his situation: the newspaper where he worked had shut down and he felt too afraid to leave his house. (Im not naming him for security reasons.) This week, I reached out to him again to check in. He told me that he is still unemployed and trying to stay mostly at home, and that he is struggling to pay rent and other expenses. The economic collapse is affecting the life of every ordinary person in Afghanistan and I am one of them, he told me. This crisis is bigger than what is reflected in the international media and than what the politicians are saying and doing.

Below, more on Afghanistan, humanitarian crises, and international press freedom:



Other notable stories:

ICYMI: Houston will get a $20m startup newsroom

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Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop.
Navigators Insurance, part of The Hartford, does not have to cover most medical and injury claims from 2,000 workers who cleaned beaches after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a federal appeals court decided Wednesday.

In a case that centered on a new type of legal claim for latent injuries, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that BP was, in fact, an additional insured that could be covered by policies held by a cleanup company. But two insurance policies could not be combined to satisfy the minimum amount specified in a contract between BP and OBriens Response Management, the court said.

That means that Navigators may have to cover only about $2 million, not the $100 million that BP had demanded.

Also, the cleanup subcontractor is not required to fully indemnify BP because BP materially breached its indemnification provision on what the courts have called back-end litigation option claims. The 5th Circuit noted that BP had broken its contract with OBriens by creating the BELO claims without its consent as part of a 2012 settlement after the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling accident.

The appeals courts three-judge panel also affirmed the dismissal of a subset of BPs claims against OBriens, and remanded others to the lower court, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans, for further proceedings.

After BPs Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in 2010, millions of barrels of crude oil gushed into the Gulf. Much of it ended up on beaches and waterways across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Cleanup workers who were hired to clean the gunk from coastal areas months later reported a variety of chronic and acute illnesses. Some workers said that they were not given adequate safety gear or warnings about the toxicity of the oil.

The BELO procedure was created for the cleanup workers whose injuries were diagnosed after the initial BP settlement, and who chose not to pursue workers compensation claims, or for which the statutes of limitations had expired.

Another Crude Awakening: Oil Spill Caused by Massive Waves From Tonga Is Ecological Disaster for Peru

Attorneys for Navigators in the case referred calls to The Hartford. Officials there could not be reached Thursday morning.

The majority opinion was written by U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones. Judge James Graves dissented.

In my view, OBriens is not required to indemnify BP on any claims because BP failed to give reasonably practicable prompt notice to OBriens, Graves wrote. I would therefore affirm the district court on this issue as well.

Top photo: Florida beaches were soiled after the accident.
Gail Marsha Malitz, age 83, of Beachwood, was born June 11, 1938, in Cleveland, and passed away on May 2, 2022.

Arrangements under the direction of Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz Memorial Chapel.
An American Airlines flight bound for London from Miami was canceled after one passenger refused to wear a mask while onboard the plane.

According to reports, the flight had already been on the air for almost two hours when the pilot decided to make a return for Miami.

Following their arrival, the passenger that refused to wear a mask was escorted out of the plane and was taken into custody. Her identity has not yet been revealed.

American Airlines releases statement

American Airlines spokeswoman Laura Masvidal later revealed that they added the woman to their internal refuse list pending further investigation.

"American Airlines flight 38 with service from Miami (MIA) to London (LHR) returned to MIA due to a disruptive customer refusing to comply with the federal mask requirement. The flight landed safely at MIA where local law enforcement met the aircraft. We thank our crew for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience," the airline said in a statement via People.

American Airlines passengers disappointed, upset

Reports also revealed that there were 129 passengers on board the flight. And no one informed them why they had to make a return until after they arrived in Miami.

Another passenger revealed that even the flight attendants didn't know what was happening. After all, they just told the passengers that an extreme incident had just taken place, that's why they needed to turn around.

Read Also: United Airlines Cancels Flights to 11 Small Cities, Says It's No Longer Sustainable During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Number of unruly passengers increased during the pandemic

According to CNN, there have already been 151 unruly passenger reports logged from Jan. 1 to 21, 2022 alone. Of those, 92 incidents were mask-related.

Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a zero-tolerance policy for unruly passenger behavior. Those that will be proven guilty could face hefty fines and even jail time.

The Transportation Security Administration also announced last year that they would penalize travelers who refuse to wear masks. However, it's still unclear if the unnamed female passenger will be fined.

Joe Biden's federal maks mandates, face mask distribution

Joe Biden also announced that the federal mask mandates during flights will be extended until March 2022. The POTUS also confirmed this week that his administration would be distributing millions of free face masks across the United States. The goal is to help combat the spread of COVID-19.

According to USA Today, the masks can be picked up at one of the pharmacies across the country. Community centers and other locations will also be distributing the free N95 face masks in the coming days.

However, each individual will only be allowed to get three masks so that others can also have access to them.

In the coming months, the White House will also employ a similar strategy to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to pharmacies and community centers. This means that most Americans will be able to go to the same location where they received their vaccinations to get their free masks.

The 400 million masks that will be distributed in the coming weeks are on top of the 30 million masks that the Biden administration already distributed to food banks and community health centers.

Related Article: Michigan Woman Tests Positive for COVID-19 While on Plane to Switzerland; Forced To Quarantine in the Bathroom

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz proposed direct payments ranging from $175 and up to $350 that would be distributed to more than 2.7 million households in the region from the state under a spending plan that the official unveiled on Thursday.

The money would also be distributed to frontline workers and caregivers who were risking their lives in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Walz added that he wanted to repay the state's unemployment insurance debt.

Minnesota's Direct Payments

The decision to pay the unemployment date is a move that has received widespread bipartisan support and may be able to prevent a possible large jump in payroll taxes for employers. In a statement during a news conference at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, Walz said that Minnesota residents wanted to see results and not just words.

The official added that Minnesotans wanted to see things that made sense and wanted the surplus to come into their pockets which would help in making their lives easier and reduce their spending while giving them sufficient funds to invest moving forward. Walz highlighted the first of several pieces of a supplemental budget plan that he plans to announce over the next week, Star Tribune reported.

Walz's proposal aims to expand economic opportunity through the distribution of what he called "Walz Checks." Single tax filers who are earning up to $164,400 will be able to receive a payment of $175 while married couples filing jointly and are earning up to $273,470 will be able to get $350.

Read Also: House Select Committee Requests Ivanka Trump's Cooperation in Jan. 6 Investigation

Under the governor's proposal, more than 2.7 million households in Minnesota will be able to receive the "Walz Checks." In a statement, Gov. Walz said that the plan will help build the region's economy by putting people, which he considered to be the state's strongest assets, at the center of the program.

Walz Checks

Walz added that, currently, Minnesota had a remarkable opportunity to give money back to middle-class residents, working families, and small businesses. In the governor's package, frontline workers with children who are earning up to $70,000 per year can get back roughly $2,000, KSTP reported.

Additionally, Gov. Walz said that the package he announced on Thursday was only going to be one of three packages that he will detail soon. The official said that the future programs will prioritize supporting children and families as well as protect the health and safety of all Minnesotans.

The Minnesota governor called the direct payments Walz Checks as a reference to "Jesse Checks" that were distributed to residents during the tenure of then-Gov. Jesse Ventura. Walz said that no one really cared about what the payments were called. He noted that as people wanted to get them as soon as they can, that was his administration's plan.

The Minnesota governor also proposed a $1 billion fund that will be focused on hero pay awards for frontline workers and other groups who have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic. A separate fund that was about a quarter of the size was set aside when lawmakers approved the state budget last summer. However, a special panel deadlocked over who should qualify for the payments, MPR News reported.



Related Article: Biden's First Year Draws Mixed Reactions From Local, International Officials Amid a Myriad of Regional, Global Controversies

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Members of President Joe Bidens administration offered reassurance and information about resources to help the Jewish community secure its synagogues, train members and share information in order to prevent and respond to future threats.

The pre-Shabbat briefing Jan. 21 was attended by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and came just days after he and three congregants were held hostage inside his synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, in Colleyville, Texas, about 30 miles from Dallas.

Attended by 5,000 people, the virtual briefing was hosted by Chanan Weissman, Bidens liaison to the Jewish community.

Weissman said the administration considers protecting Jewish institutions and Jews of any persuasion as a sacrosanct mission, just as we do all individuals.

Liz Sherwood-Randall, assistant to the president for Homeland Security, called the hostage crisis Jan. 15 sobering for all of us.

Four people were held by a gunman for more than 10 hours before they escaped. The hostage taker, Malik Faisal Akram, was shot and killed by the FBI.

The Dallas Morning News reported Jan. 26 that an arrest was made of the man who sold the hostage taker the gun he carried. British media also reported that two men in Manchester, England, were detained Jan. 26 for questioning.

Like so many others, I was appalled and disturbed by what was happening in that house of worship, Sherwood-Randall said. At the same time, as the presidents Homeland Security adviser, I also had a job to do from the moment I got word of this and that was to ensure that the president of the United States had up-to-the-minute information about exactly what was happening on the ground.

She said she had confidence the administration was doing everything possible to resolve the situation.

Like many of you, my ancestors escaped antisemitism overseas to come to this promised land so they could practice their faith in a safe and secure place, she said. So seeing something like this, this threat to our fundamental freedoms as a democracy, is terrifying. And at the same time, we can take action to stop it. So President Biden from day one made it a priority to combat hate crimes, to combat terrorism both abroad and at home, regardless of their motivating ideology.

She referred to the hate crimes law that Biden signed in May 2021 and the national strategy to counter domestic terrorism, which she is leading.

In addition, she said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas called on Congress to increase funding for security training at synagogues and other nonprofit organizations, that enabled Rabbi Cytron-Walker and the other members of the congregation with whom he was being held hostage to take the actions necessary to save their lives.

Jill Sanborn, executive assistant director of the national security branch of the FBI, reiterated statements made by FBI Director Christopher Wray at a Jan. 20 ADL webinar regarding the bureaus response and characterization of the event as an act of terrorism specifically targeting the Jewish community.

We are committed to protecting the communities we serve, Sanborn said. And we are grateful for your support in this effort. But more importantly, we actually depend on it. I know when I was (special agent in charge in) Minneapolis, I was constantly grateful for my relationship with ... the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota. And quite frankly, I couldnt have done my job without them.

Sanborn said in addition to the work of the FBI domestically to find out what took place prior to the hostage crisis, Our international operations division continues to work with our international partners to gain insight into the hostage takers activities before coming to the U.S.

Sanborn also referred to the lone actor as a rising threat.

In recent years, we have seen the transition mostly to lone actors or small cells, who radicalized online, use easily accessible weapons to often attack soft targets, she said. Just as we saw last weekend, many of these individuals are inspired by personal and individualized blend of beliefs and grievances.

And while they are often insular and radicalized alone online, we have found many instances where bystanders saw or heard something suspicious.

This is where you and others can actually really help us, she said. Please report any suspicious activity to the FBI or your local police department.

In addition, she said the FBI needs the communitys insight.

Referring to publicly available resources, she said the FBIs mobilization indicators booklet is meant to provide all people a window into some observable behaviors that may indicate an individual is actually preparing to mobilize to violence.

A new one coming out very soon  will also include indicators for domestic violent extremism.

Sanborn stressed the need for partnerships, training, awareness and preparation on the part of synagogue members.

Saturdays hostages demonstrated incredible bravery amidst events that most civilians never ever imagined encountering, she said. But Rabbi Charlies recent statements spreading the security training he and his congregation receive underscore the critical importance of continuing the work we are doing together to ensure we are best positioned to counter the threats we face and that you not only feel safe, but are safe in your synagogues.

Vanita Gupta, U.S. associate attorney general, spoke of the laws and the resources the Justice Department has at its disposal.

The fight against hate is a top, top priority for the Justice Department, Gupta said. The attorney general was tracking all developments all day, in real time on Saturday and briefed the president last weekend, and our investigation remains very much ongoing.

She decried antisemitism, referring to federal laws the Justice Department has used to combat hate crimes and acts of violence against people in houses of worship or against houses of worship.

But enforcement we know is not enough, she said, referring to grants used to bolster security. Were also working to increase hate crimes reporting. We know we still have a lot to do on that front. And were working with local law enforcement partners on trainings for the prevention, investigation and prosecution of these crimes.

The Justice Departments community relations service regularly works with faith leaders to provide facilitation, mediation, training and consultation services, she said.

Samantha Vinograd, acting assistant secretary for counterterrorism threat prevention at Homeland Security, said that as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, her father taught her how quickly false narratives and conspiracy theories can lead to acts of violence. She said he taught her about the power of speaking up in the face of hate, the power of just one voice.

She said at the Department of Homeland Security, I remain deeply aware of the ongoing threats to the Jewish community.

We are in a heightened threat environment, particularly from lone actors in small groups, and domestic violent extremism is the most significant terrorism threat facing our country today, she said. That includes racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism. Amid this heightened threat environment, I want to assure you, we are committed to addressing antisemitism and terrorism in all of its forms, whether it be foreign or domestic.

Domestic terrorism branch

Vinograd then spoke of the new domestic terrorism branch.

We will use it to continue to strengthen our information sharing with our faith-based partners, she said. Our intelligence division regularly provides threat updates to members of the faith-based community. And if your security personnel are not yet participating in those briefings, I want to be sure that they start doing so.

She said security personnel in the Jewish community can receive Homeland Securitys intelligence products as well, and, echoing Sanborn, said her department benefits from two-way information sharing.

Vinograd said, We want to hear about the threats you are facing, and we want to understand the threat information that youre experiencing in your communities.

She said experts from Homeland Securitys critical infrastructure and security agency provides training, exercise material to enhance mitigation capabilities.

Mayorkas, she said, has established the Center for Programs and Prevention to expand the departments ability to prevent terrorism and targeted violence through the development of local prevention frameworks.

Cytron-Walker grateful for law enforcement

Cytron-Walker expressed his gratitude for the support from law enforcement at the federal level.

I greatly appreciate the idea that there could be more funding and even more support, all of these resources, so many of which I had no idea about, Cytron-Walker said, adding, The support has been overwhelming.

He said, Im also, you know, a little bit sad that it takes something like this in our world to bring people together.

If we can do a better job to remember that, as I would put it, that were all created in Gods image, are all created, btzelem Elohim, he said. If we could all do a little bit more to maybe tone down the rhetoric, in politics, on all of the talk shows that exist, to remember that we can debate ideas. We dont have to agree. We also dont have to attack one another personally in order to get our point across.

Cytron-Walker also spoke of Shabbat.

With everything that weve been through, collectively, not just me and the other hostages, not just my congregation, but we collectively have been through, if we can just stop for a moment to focus on that which is most important in our lives, Cytron Walker said. If we can find a way to find joy. And maybe we start with finding gratitude.  Shabbat hasnt changed, but maybe we have a little bit.

Weissman closed with a reference to Shabbat.

You know where Im going to be this weekend, he said. Im going to be in shul. Im going to continue to live my life fully as a Jewish American and as an American Jew. And Im going to do so with the knowledge and comfort that this administration and this government and individuals across the faith-based community are deeply committed to working with the Jewish community today, tomorrow and deep into the future.  It doesnt require an act of courage to do what weve been doing for thousands of years.
Christopher Wray, FBI director, said the hostage crisis in Colleyville, Texas, is part of a larger trend in which single individuals perpetrate acts of terrorism  and that it was an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community.

Wray spoke at an ADL webinar, Fighting Hate from Home: Lessons from a Hostage Crisis, Jan. 20, at which Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville was also a featured speaker.

The Associated Press reported that British police arrested two people and held them for questioning without charges Jan. 20.

The threat we as Americans face today is more and more of these lone actors plotting essentially fairly simple and unsophisticated but just as deadly attacks, Wray said, adding that means there are fewer warning signs.

There are a lot fewer dots, if you will, to connect, and a lot less time in which to connect them, he said, adding that people need to recognize threats and to be willing to report them.

So the eyes and ears part is huge, he said.

In addition, he said, training is paramount to preventing loss of life.

The training and the preparation  which Rabbi Cytron-Walker has already spoken about a little bit so eloquently in some of the interviews hes done  is hugely important to making sure that we dont have a tragedy.

Cytron-Walker is set to leave at the end of his contract in June after the board of his synagogue planned to recommend against renewal in November 2021, the Forward reported Jan. 19.

Wray said he has set the expectation that leadership at all 56 of the FBIs field offices work with leaders of local faith communities to build trusted relationships, to maintain open dialogue and share information with the folks who need it the most. And its imperative that we establish and build those relationships before a crisis strikes.

He said the hostage crisis in Texas showed, Its those partnerships, training, awareness and preparation that can make all the difference.

Wray was unequivocal in his view of the event as an act of terrorism directed at Jews.

This was not some random occurrence, he said. It was intentional. It was symbolic. And were not going to tolerate antisemitism in this country. We recognize that the Jewish community in particular has suffered violence and faces very real threats from really across the hate spectrum: homegrown violent extremists radicalized by jihadist movements online, foreign terrorist organizations like ISIS and Hezbollah, state-sponsored groups like the IRGC from Iran, and of course domestic, violent extremists, especially racially and ethnically motivated extremists. All of them have expressed an intent and acted to do harm to the Jewish community, both here at home and abroad. And its because of that, that we consider the enduring threats to the Jewish community to be among our very highest priorities.

Speaking more broadly, he said, No member of a faith-based community should have to worry about acts of violence at their services. To be targeted at your place of worship, a space meant to be a sanctuary in every sense of the word is, in my view, one of the most heinous acts of violence that can be committed. And unfortunately, weve seen these types of attacks play out far, far too often at synagogues and other houses of worship across the country.

Cytron-Walker said he opened the door just a small ways to speak with Malik Faisal Akram, who appeared to him to be homeless and asked whether the synagogue had a night shelter.

It was really cold in North Texas, Cytron-Walker said. I encouraged him to be let in.

Cytron-Walker said Akram talked about how he had been walking. He did have a couple of bags, and I did an initial look at him. He looked like he was telling the truth. There were no initial red flags. So we opened the door. We do keep the doors locked. I opened the door for him.

Cytron-Walker served him a cup of tea.

He was calm, Cytron-Walker said. He was appreciative. He was able to talk with me all the way throughout, look me in the eye.  I didnt have a lot of suspicions.

When Akram demanded to speak with Rabbi Angela Buchdal in New York because he thought she was the most influential rabbi in America, I was thinking this guy really thinks Jews control the world, said Cytron-Walker, adding that as he learned more about Akrams demands, I thought we were in trouble.

Cytron-Walker said he tried to explain to Akram to the best of my ability that it doesnt work that way.

He said Akram believed the notion that Jews were more important in his mind than everyone else, and that America would do more to save Jews than it would for anyone else. And thats why he specifically targeted a synagogue, right? That Protocols of the Elders of Zion type of antisemitism. Thats why he focused on us.  And thats why we were put through that terrible, terrible ordeal.

Cytron-Walker said he reached out to the Colleyville police chief during the crisis literally texting and emailing in small moments  because I had his cell phone.

Cytron-Walker credited his training with Secure Community Network, with the ADL and with local police, along with amazing relationships Congregation Beth Israel has with the local interfaith community, including Muslims and atheists.

All of it was helpful, he said. No matter how good the plans, no matter how good the security is  these kinds of things can still happen. And we were unfortunate to have it happened at Congregation Beth Israel, and we are so fortunate, I am so grateful that Im able to be here.

Looking ahead, Cytron-Walker said Shabbat services would take place that weekend and that religious school would be held.

One of those pieces that were going to have to get past is that sense of fear, right? Cytron-Walker said. There was something traumatic that happened within the congregation. And we know that its not just our congregation that feels that sense of fear.

He said Jews need to do all the prep work that we can, but at the same time, we want to be able to go to services and pray and be together. Because one of the most important things is to be with one another within that sense of community. Thats needed right now more than anything else.

Wray, meanwhile, said he is committed to finding answers about the hostage crisis.

He said the FBI lab is processing evidence related to the events, that its operational technology division is analyzing and reviewing phones and other electronic devices and media.

And theres a lot more work to be done, he said. We are committed to seeing this all the way through.

In the meantime, were going to keep digging to get more answers for congregation, Beth Israel, for the Colleyville community and for the Jewish community as a whole, Wray said. I know it is disheartening to see that these kinds of attacks continue to happen. And that there are people out there who target members of the Jewish faith, but you can be confident that we in the FBI stand with you.
Alice Stuedemann, 89 of Camanche, formerly of Clinton, passed away April 30th at Mercy One Hospital. Visitation and services are being planned for Monday, May 9th at St. John Lutheran Church. Pape Funeral Home is assisting the family.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 20)  After signing a P142-billion contract package for the Philippine National Railways (PNR) Bicol Project early this week, the countrys Transportation department said that work for what is touted as the longest PNR line will start within this first quarter of the year.

In a group forum on Thursday, DOTr officials said the China-funded project was sealed after the joint venture of China Railway Group Ltd., China Railway No. 3 Engineering Group Co., Ltd., and China Railway Engineering Consulting Group Co., Ltd. (CREC JV).

Nabanggit po ni Secretary (Arthur) Tugade ang kanyang matagal nang direction at instruction, kung saan nabanggit niya po na bagamat nasa pandemya tayo at patuloy na tumataas ang COVID cases, sana po siguraduhin ng DOTr at PNR at tiyakin na magpatuloy ipatupad ang mga proyekto lalo na ang mga pang-riles at wag na maantala. Sabi po ni Sec. Art Tugade na walang halong pulitika ang serbisyong publiko and we owe this to the Filipino people, DOTr Undersecretary Giovanni Lopez said.

[Translation: Secretary Tugade mentioned his direction and instruction. He said that while we may be in a pandemic and COVID cases continue to rise, he is hopeful the DOTr and PNR will make sure to continue the projects especially those for railways. He said there will be no politics, just public service, and we owe this to the Filipino people.]

The first phase of the 565-kilometer project will cover the design and construction of the 380-kilometer stretch from Banlic in Calamba City, Laguna to Southern Luzon provinces of Sorsogon and Batangas, covering 39 cities and municipalities.

The railway construction project will have 23 stations, 230 bridges, 10 passenger tunnels, and a 70-hectare depot in San Pablo City, Laguna.

The department also said that once fully operational, travel time between Metro Manila and Bicol will be cut from the current 12 hours by road to as short as four hours.

PNR Bicol passenger trains will run at a speed of 100-160 km per hour, while freight trains at a speed of up to 80-100 km per hour. Both are faster compared to current regular trains, which run at an average of 60 kilometers per hour only.

In addition, the department said train fares would be the same as the current regular train fares of P1.70 per kilometer trip.

Wala pong nagbago so far sa kautusan ng Department of Transportation para sa pasahe ng tren po, PNR GM Junn Magno said.

[Translation: Nothing has changed so far with the Department of Transportation orders on train fares.]

The project is expected to generate more than 5,000 direct jobs per year during construction, and over 25,000 indirect jobs including office and other managerial jobs.

China is the third-largest source of official development assistance for railway projects of the Philippines, after Japan and the Asian Development Bank.

Meanwhile, the DOTr also explained China requires governments to seal agreements with contractors first before loan negotiations begin. The terms and agreements on the interests of the loan project for the contract are under negotiation between the Department of Finance and China. There are no collaterals for the said project.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 20)  An expert urged the United States to up its economic game in Southeast Asia a year after President Joe Biden took office.

Speaking to CNN Philippines' The Final Word, Curtis Chin - Milken Institute of Asia fellow and former US ambassador to the Asian Development Bank - said the Biden administration now needs a "business pivot" to the region.

According to Chin, the US - a long-time ally of the Philippines - has been focusing more on addressing its domestic challenges since 2021. That meant not enough attention to Southeast Asia, he added.

Chin said "Southeast Asia is such an important region, but when we look at the US-China rivalry...China has upped its game," specifically in terms of trade deals, and economic and regional cooperation it forged with different countries.

"There is so much that the United State can do more in Southeast Asia," he emphasized.

The Western superpower should "rethink opportunities to engage in the area of trade, whether its digital trade, services," Chin said.

He also recommended that the US nominates new ambassadors in Southeast Asian countries since they will be drivers of American policy in the region.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  Rising COVID-19 cases in provincial areas are "offsetting" the declining infections in Metro Manila and nearby provinces as the Omicron variant continues to spread in the country, OCTA Research said Friday.

"Although the cases are starting to decrease in NCR and in parts of Calabarzon, cases are now increasing rapidly in many parts of the country and that is offsetting the number," OCTA Fellow Guido David told CNN Philippines' The Source.

The UP Professor said that Metro Manila's cases will continue to decline by the end of the month to about 3,000 to 2000, and might even reach around 1,000 come Valentine's Day.

"As numbers go down in NCR, numbers are increasing outside NCR Plus," he assessed.

READ: OCTA: NCR cases down to 1,000 by Valentine's Day

He noted in a tweet that cases outside NCR Plus have been increasing from less than 4,000 on January 12 to almost 12,000 by January 20, a 200% spike in just eight days.

"Its happening now all over the country, in Northern Luzon, in Bicol Region, in Central Visayas, in Eastern and Western Visayas, and in many parts of Mindanao," he added, citing poor vaccine coverage and the Omicron spread in these areas.

The country reported over 31,000 new infections on Thursday, with 9,455 cases coming from Metro Manila. Far fewer and nearly having the same count are those from Laguna and Cavite, which followed suit with 2,294 and 2,262 new cases, respectively. Next in line are Cebu and Rizal, both with 1,470, and Bulacan with 1,170.

Infectious diseases expert Dr. Rontgene Solante told CNN Philippines New Day that the latest figures indicate that the country is not yet out of the woods.

"This is a sign that we're not yet off the hook in terms of community transmission....then there's still a possibility of exponential growth or partial decrease. We need to observe and we need to look at the trend in the next five to seven days," Solante said.

David projected that the COVID-19 tally will still fall somewhere around 31,000 on Friday and Saturday.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis recently requested the formation of a special grand jury that would investigate whether Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia could result in criminal charges.

According to reports, Trump called Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on the phone on Jan. 2, 2021, and asked the latter to find an additional 11,780 votes that could declare him the winner of the 2020 election.

Raffensperger's office recorded his conversation with Trump, and the audio was later released.

In the recording, Trump repeatedly claimed that the people of Georgia, which happens to be a swing state, are angry. As such, the ex-POTUS urged Raffensperger to recount the votes in the state.

The secretary of state argued with Trump by saying that there was no data to support his claims. But the ex-POTUS insisted that there should be a recount because he believes that he won in Georgia, according to Business Insider.

Donald Trump believes he didn't do anything wrong

On Thursday, Trump released a statement in response to reports that he is under criminal investigation in Georgia for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"My phone call to the Secretary of State of Georgia was perfect, perhaps even more so than my call with the Ukrainian President, if that's possible. Although I assumed the call may have been inappropriately, and perhaps illegally, recorded, I was not informed of that, I didn't say anything wrong in the call, made while I was President on behalf of the United States of America," he said via the Huffington Post.

Read Also: MAGA Conspiracy Theorists Convinced Joe Biden Will Impose Martial Law

Donald Trump accuses Georgia of engaging in political witch hunt

Trump added that what Georgia should look into is not his phone call with Raffensperger but the large scale of election fraud that took place in the state. Doing so would put an end to political witch hunts.

But despite Trump's persistent allegations of election fraud, both bipartisan and non-bipartisan election and cybersecurity officials confirmed that last year's election was the safest and most secure in US history.

According to USA Today, Willis launched her investigation into Trump's allegations in February 2021. And the grand jury that was formed could subpoena witnesses and demand access to documents pertaining to the ex-POTUS's election fraud claims in Georgia.

However, the grand jury doesn't have the power to issue an indictment, but they could make recommendations about criminal prosecution.

Fulton County DA wants to charge Donald Trump

Earlier this month, Willis also said that criminal charges are highly likely to be brought forward during the first half of the year. After all, an entire team of lawyers, investigators, and legal assistants focuses on the matter.

But Trump's spokesperson insisted that the Democrats are doing political warfare. He said this is also their last-ditch effort to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against the ex-POTUS.

Trump is also being investigated with regards to his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Related Article: Donald Trump's Records Pertaining to Jan. 6 Capitol Riot To Be Released After Supreme Court Rejected His Request To Keep Them Private

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21) Almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the government is ramping up preparations for the vaccination of children aged 5-11.

Officials are aiming to inoculate 14.7 million kids under this age group, and they will get two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Guidelines are being prepared by the country's immunization task group and the National Vaccination Operations Center as they plan to start rolling out shots for these children by February.

CNN Philippines breaks down some tips given by health experts on how to prepare children for their coronavirus shots, as discussed during a webinar held by the University of the Philippines Manila - NIH National Telehealth Center, the Philippine General Hospital, and the Department of Health (DOH).

Assure them that vaccines are safe and effective

Epidemiologist Dr. Eric Tayag, head of the DOH Knowledge Management and Information Technology Unit, said it is very important for parents to tell their children why vaccination is important.

"Kailangan maintindihan ng mga bata na ito ay proteksyon para sa kanila at sa mga kasama nila sa bahay. Kasama na rin yung mga kalaro nila kung balang araw mababalik ang paglalaro sa ibang bata," Dr. Tayag said.

[Translation: Children should understand that vaccines will protect them and those they are living with - as well as their playmates, when one day playing with other children would once again be allowed.]

Tayag cited two reports proving the efficacy of Messenger RNA or mRNA vaccines, the type of vaccine that will be administered to children. In October 2021, the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety concluded that in all age groups, the benefits of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in reducing hospitalizations and deaths outweigh the risks.

He also cited a study in the New England Journal of Medicine dated November 9, 2021, showing two 10-microgram doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine administered 21 days apart "was found to be safe, immunogenic, and efficacious" in children aged 5-11.

The Philippines' Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer's emergency use authorization last December 2021, saying the vaccine had a "robust" antibody response in the age group. It is the only authorized brand so far for use in the 5-to-11 age range.

Take your time and be creative in explaining to kids what to expect

Parents should take their time and use the wait for vaccination day to be able to convince their children that the benefits of a shot outweigh the risks.

"Hindi talaga tayo dapat nagmamadali. Talagang bibigyan natin ng sapat na panahon na maipaliwanag yung mga pag-aalala, takot, agam-agam," Tayag said.

[Translation: We should not hurry. It's important to give enough time to explain these fears, suspicions, and worries.]

Tayag suggested the use of visual explainers - photos and videos of vaccination activities of children - so they can get a grasp of what to expect when their turn comes.

He also advised using alternatives to words commonly used for vaccination. One such example would be the use of the word pisil (pinch) instead of turok (inject) to allay the child's fears.

Prepare important documents before vaccination day

The DOH advises parents to prepare identification documents for their children so it will be ready come vaccination day, and to prevent any inconvenience.

Dr. Razel Nikka Hao, head of the agency's Disease Control and Prevention Bureau, said a birth certificate is a good document to bring, whether it's an original or a certified true copy.

Valid ID cards or documents with photo of the parent or guardian and the vaccine recipient may also be brought in lieu of a birth certificate. Informed consent forms, assent forms, and health declaration forms will also be made available on site.

The DOH also said children with underlying illnesses should secure clearance from their doctors first before getting vaccinated.

Give children support and praise for getting vaccinated

Tayag said one of the most important tasks of parents or guardians is to watch over their children during vaccination day.

He said finding ways to distract the child when they are about to be pinched is a good idea, such as asking them to close their eyes. However, he said children may also cry during the procedure, so he advises parents to be ready and patient in dealing with their child's experience.

Tayag also suggested having an ice pack ready to ease any pain the child might experience after the shot.

Once through, Tayag said it's important to give the child a small gift or token to bring comfort and joy after their vaccination experience.

"Hindi ito suhol ha. Talagang bibigyan natin sila ng bagay na maari pong ikatuwa nila (This is not a bribe. We should give them something to make them happy)," Tayag said.

He also noted that once the child experiences something distressing during the first shot, the child may hesitate to go back for another dose. In such case, it is important for parents to be patient and find creative ways in making children understand that completing their doses is essential to reduce the chances of them being hospitalized for COVID-19.

As with any trip outdoors - make sure the child wears a mask.

Monitor, monitor, monitor

Once home, Tayag said parents should monitor their children's condition.

He listed down guidelines set by the US Center for Disease Control, which states that people should contact their healthcare provider if the redness or tenderness where one gets the shot, or if the child's side effects are not going away after a few days.

Dr. Hao also reiterated that government help may be given in case of adverse events following immunization, or hospitalization packages through state health insurer PhilHealth. Experts also urged parents to teach children to follow minimum public health standards at all times, and to also follow up on immunization schedules for other illnesses.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  The country's vaccine expert panel head cautions the public against voluntarily exposing themselves to COVID-19 to get natural immunity.

In an interview Friday, Dr. Nina Gloriani affirmed any individual who contracted the virus will gain natural immunity once they recover.

But she stressed deliberately exposing oneself to the coronavirus is not recommended as infections could lead to a severe form of the disease  or even death.

"Mabuti kung ang breakthrough infection ninyo ay mild hanggang moderate siguro; magkakaroon kayo ng boosting immunity. Pero kung magiging severe 'yun, hindi 'yun maganda," Gloriani said.

[Translation: It would be fine if your breakthrough infection is only mild to moderate; you will have a boosted immunity. But if it is severe, it won't be good.]

"That natural immunity will happen naturally; hindi tayo magpapa-expose (we should not deliberately expose ourselves)," she added.

Gloriani also acknowledged that having hybrid immunity  or both natural and vaccine immunities  will help provide stronger protection against COVID-19. However, she said this was no reason for vaccinated individuals to be complacent.

"I don't think the doctors will say na magpa-expose kayo para magkaroon kayo ng natural immunity. Hindi po gano'n... kasi hindi natin alam ang magiging resulta sa inyo," Gloriani said.

[Translation: I don't think doctors will tell you to expose yourselves to the virus to get natural immunity. That's not how it should work because we don't know how it will affect you.]

"'Wag nating pabayaan 'yung complacency... Hindi tama 'yung exposure na pinilit. It will not work po," she added.

[Translation: We should not be complacent. Forced exposure to the virus is not right. It will not work.]

Gloriani made the warning after a study from the United States showed during the Delta surge last year, people who survived a previous infection had lower case rates than those who were vaccinated alone.

The research, however, was conducted before the emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant and the rollout of booster shots. It did not factor the time from vaccination and potential waning immunity into the analysis  and the possible effect of additional doses. It also pointed out that vaccination was still the safest way to be protected.

Gloriani reminded the public not to pick specific COVID-19 vaccine brands and delay their vaccination  especially with the possible emergence of more infectious variants.

The Philippines has so far detected 535 Omicron cases, including two fatalities.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21) Members of the Makabayan bloc are seeking a House probe into the alleged rights violations and effects of government restrictions against those who have yet to get their COVID-19 shots.

House Resolution No. 2460 filed on Thursday highlighted the urgent need for Congress to look into the policies against the unvaccinated, particularly those that tend to discriminate and burden sectors.

While vaccinating the people could be important in the fight against the pandemic, Congress should take the side of the people against policies that curtail constitutional rights, [are] discriminatory, and unnecessar[ily] burden the workers and other poor people especially at this time of pandemic and severe hardship, read the document signed by Reps. Ferdinand Gaite, Carlos Zarate, Eufemia Cullamat, France Castro, Arlene Brosas, and Sarah Elago.

They specifically pointed out the following: President Rodrigo Dutertes order for barangay captains to arrest unvaccinated individuals who would refuse to stay home, the Department of Transportations controversial no vaccine, no ride policy, as well as ordinances of some local government units regulating the movement of unvaccinated residents.

RELATED: 'Unconstitutional' to arrest unvaccinated who refuse to stay home, says lawyer

The group noted this was not the first time that the government issued threats against the public amid the health crisis, citing that the President earlier sought the arrest of COVID-19 protocol violators, among others.

Such militaristic approach to the pandemic failed to alleviate the suffering of the ordinary people or improve the situation of the health workers and the capacity of the health care system amid the repeated surge in COVID-19 cases, the resolution said.

Several officials earlier defended the no vax, no ride rule, dismissing criticisms that the directive is discriminatory and anti-poor. Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior and Local Government also assured that the arrest of uncooperative unvaccinated individuals would be a last resort.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  Some businesses in Metro Manila do not expect any serious impact from the controversial no vaccination, no ride policy of the Department of Transportation (DOTr), the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) said Friday.

"For those in Metro Manila, the findings that we have in a quick survey we did, our members do not anticipate a major impact as compared to the adverse impact they suffered in very strict lockdowns early on in the pandemic," MAP President Alfredo Pascual told CNN Philippines' The Exchange.

Pascual said more than 60% of MAP's member companies have embraced the work-from-home scheme.

However, if the policy would still be implemented in the coming weeks or months, the overall economy may face a major blow, the MAP official warned.

"Overall economy, yes, definitely because the service-oriented companies will be adversely affected because people will not be able to reach service operations," he said.

Pascual described the policy as "quite unfair," given the country's vaccination rate.

The DOTr started the implementation of the policy last Jan. 17. While it sparked an uproar, the agency stood behind the move to bar unvaccinated commuters from taking public transportation.

RELATED: 'No discrimination': DOTr defends 'no vaccination, no ride' policy amid backlash

"We do not discriminate against the unvaccinated, but we are protecting them," the DOTr earlier said.

Two days after the implementation, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello apologized to the public for the confusion, saying workers are exempted.

READ: Bello sorry for confusion in no vax, no ride policy
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  Dozens of unvaccinated Badjao passengers are waiting to go back home after being stranded for days at the Manila North Harbor in light of the implementation of the government's no vaccine, no ride policy.

Philippine Ports Authority General Manager Jay Santiago on Friday told CNN Phillippines' The Source that over 59 families equivalent to more than 90 Badjao passengers are being assisted by the government as they await their next scheduled voyage back home to Zamboanga City on Monday.

"This happened sometime this Monday during the first day of the 'no vaccination card, no boarding, no entry' policy being implemented by the Philippine Ports Authority," Santiago said, noting that the passengers were unable to present proof of their vaccination and travel documentation prior to their entry.

Passengers laying mats, makeshift blankets and tents were seen outside the terminal earlier this week. Santiago said they were eventually taken to a safer and a more comfortable spot in the facility.

He said Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade ordered to transport the passengers regardless of their vaccination status, noting that the policy should be "patient and tolerant...but firm." The passengers were also provided food packs and financial aid while waiting to travel.

Santiago said the government will still have to coordinate with the local government of Zamboanga City, which requires a negative RT-PCR test result upon entry of returning travelers regardless of vaccination status.

DOTr: Returning home counts as essential travel

In a statement on Thursday, Tugade said unvaccinated or partially vaccinated home-bound travelers are also exempted from the 'no vax, no ride' policy, noting that "after all, returning home is essential travel."

Santiago said Tugade's directive "is consistent with IATF guidelines," but he admitted that the PPA feels "tenuous" about the different or conflicting guidelines that some local governments have to implement. He said they will try their best to coordinate with the Zamboanga LGU.

"Insofar as the DOTr and PPA is concerned, we will comply with the IATF guidelines which considers going back to the residence as a form of essential travel," he said.

"Whatever the local government unit of Zamboanga is requiring insofar as entry is concerned, that is within their discretionand we will respect that," Santiago also said. "We will allow them to travel, we will just contend with whatever requirement the city of Zamboanga will require upon their arrival."

Earlier this week, critics of the "no vaccination, no ride" policy expressed their frustration about the late clarification that workers from industries under Alert Level 3 or higher are exempted from the rule.

Transportation officials also said those who are medically incapable to get their vaccine or have a scheduled passport or license renewal may still take public transport.

Lawmakers appealed to the government to review the policy that was enforced on Monday, following claims that it is discriminatory and anti-poor.

Government officials admitted to lapses in information dissemination, but argued that the policy only aims to reduce COVID-19 transmission and protect the unvaccinated.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21) The Philippines on Friday welcomed a recent report by the US State Department which dismissed Beijing's sweeping claims in the South China Sea.

"We welcome the affirmation of the 2016 arbitral award by the US State Department's Limits in the Seas No. 150," the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement.

"This is consistent with the Philippines-US Joint Vision Statement, which states that the People's Republic of China's expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea are inconsistent with the international law of the sea," it added.

The study published earlier this month said there was no legal basis for China to assert "historic rights" in the disputed waters, citing the Hague ruling which also invalidated them.

READ: A look back at PH-China relations, maritime row in 2021

The report added that the East Asian giant's maritime claims "gravely undermine the rule of law in the oceans."

Manila's former top diplomat, Albert del Rosario, had also backed the US State Department's study  highlighting how a "small country like the Philippines" can make such impact in the world.

China, for its part, vowed to work with the Philippines in properly handling issues concerning South China Sea. It stressed it would not bully smaller nations to resolve disputes.
The Coastal Point is a local newspaper published each Friday and distributed in the Bethany Beach, South Bethany, Fenwick Island, Ocean View, Millville, Dagsboro, Frankford, Selbyville, Millsboro, Long Neck and Georgetown, Delaware areas.
Columbia, SC (29201)

Today

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy in the afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 90F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 65F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
Kamala Harris recently showed her support for Joe Biden on matters relating to the Russia-Ukraine tensions, as well as the voting rights legislation.

During this week's interview, Harris said that she's standing by what Biden said about engaging in aggressive action if Russia decides to invade Ukraine.

Biden believes that it's only a matter of time before Russian President Vladimir Putin gives his people instructions to invade the neighboring country. But Putin insisted that they have zero plans to do so.

"On the subject of Ukraine, I will tell you that the president has been very clear, and we as the United States have been very clear, if Putin takes aggressive action, we are prepared to levy serious and severe costs, period," Harris told TODAY.

Kamala Harris confident that Joe Biden did his part

The vice president also confirmed that Biden's administration already had countless conversations with Putin and Russia through various levels of democracy.

Their goal has always been to settle the matter diplomatically. But if this isn't achieved, Harris said that the United States doesn't have any other choice but to take aggressive action.

Harris also talked about the two voting rights legislation that failed to pass in the Senate this week after Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema sided with the Republicans.

The vice president said that the country could not allow the blatant erosion of the country's democracy, particularly the right of all Americans to vote and have access to ballots.

Harris said that it's essential for all Americans to have options when it comes to voting, whether it be in person or via mail.

Read Also: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris To Address the Nation During Capitol Riot's First Anniversary; House Won't Be in Session

Kamala Harris says they won't stop until voting rights are passed

During another interview this week, the vice president was also asked to share what she thinks Biden's next steps regarding the voting rights legislation.

She said that the Biden administration would continue to fight to get the legislation passed because it is necessary. They also vowed to continue to do the work of executive orders and the Department of Justice, according to the New York Post.

Joe Biden says Kamala Harris will be his running mate

Earlier this week, Biden also announced that Harris will still be his running mate in the 2024 election. The POTUS also praised Harris for the work that she has done on voting rights policies.

Biden made the surprise revelation during his first press conference of the year this week. A reporter asked if Harris would be on his ticket and Biden said yes.

But when the POTUS was asked to elaborate on his response, he refused to do so, saying that there's no need to do so. After all, Harris is simply his number one choice, according to Politico.

Biden's surprise announcement came in the heels of previous claims that Biden and Harris were at odds with each other.

In November, The Sun claimed that there was a bitter feud between the two leaders that stemmed from the fact that Harris felt forgotten inside the White House.

There were also claims that the vice president doesn't like how she's being prevented from leading. However, the White House immediately dismissed the rumors.

Related Article: Voting Rights Advocates Plan To Boycott Joe Biden, Kamala Harris' Speech, Say They Need Federal Legislation Not Talks

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Kristen L. Mix likens the duties of federal magistrate judges to a restaurant menu, in which someone can experience a little bit of everything or a whole lot of one thing, depending on where they work.
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As the Cubs were beating the Braves 6-3 Wednesday night Steve left to see the game with his mom and dad, Reva and Harold, brother Ron and baby niece Elizabeth Henney. He left behind to run the store his wife Kathleen (Knight), Amelia (27), Nathan (24) and his beloved cat Lewis Black. His sis
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For years, it seemed, Google lived up to its old motto, Dont be evil. It also seemed to do no wrong in terms of product superiority.

Google built its reputation as an ethical company that outperformed competitors. But is that reputation still deserved?

One thing is true: Its been a bad year for Googles reputation.

Does Google engage in unethical business practices?

An antitrust lawsuit brought by a coalition of US states in 2020 and published in unredacted form last week alleges that Google suppressed competition by manipulating advertising auctions.

Google used what are called second price auctions, where the highest bidder wins the auction, but pays the publisher an amount equal to the second-highest bid. If one company bids $10 per click, another bids $8 and another $6. The $10 bidder wins  but pays $8 per click to the publisher.

Google is accused of lying about its second price auction and of running a scam in which it pays the publisher the third-highest bid, charges the advertiser the second highest bid and diverts the difference to raise the bids so that bids on Googles platform would be lower than those on competing platforms.

Google switched to a first-price system in 2019, but the lawsuit alleges that Google continues some version of the scheme under the internal code name Bulbasaur.

Google says the lawsuit is inaccurate, lacks legal merit and as of September 2019, we have been running a first price auction. [But] at the time to which AG Paxton is referring, AdX absolutely was a second price auction.

Another part of the lawsuit claims that Google conspired with Facebook to divide the online ad market and exclude competitors.

That alleged scheme involved Google giving Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook) preferential rates and treatment in exchange for Facebook avoiding direct competition against Google.

Both Google and Meta say their arrangement actually improved competition and was not illegal.

The trial will take place no earlier than 2023.

While this allegation was already public, the legal documents filed with the lawsuit allege that Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai personally signed off on the terms of the deal (as did Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, though Meta is not a defendant in the case).

The agreement was referred internally at Google as Jedi Blue, a reference to the color of Facebooks logo.

The lawsuit is one of many government-filed antitrust lawsuits Google now faces in the US and around the world, most of which focus on allegations of it abused its dominant position to favor its own business and exclude competitors.

A class-action lawsuit filed this month alleges that Google illegally pays Apple a share of search profits to stay out of the search business and give Google Search preferential treatment over other search apps. The suit alleges a secret noncompete and profit-sharing arrangement between the two Silicon Valley giants.

These suits allege collusion with other big tech giants to exclude competitors. But Google had ethical lapses that didnt involve collusion. For example, it pulled a shameless bait-and-switch on millions of Google Photos users last year.

When Google spun the photos feature out of Google+ in 2015, it offered an unprecedented deal: Free unlimited photos storage!

The free-storage option encouraged millions of users to upload a huge number of photos to the service. And the Google Photos app encouraged users to delete local copies to save space on local storage, meaning that for most users Google Photos holds the only copy of the photos people use to capture moments in their lives  their children, deceased loved ones  irreplaceable memories.

But as of June 1 (after users uploaded more photos than they could ever reasonably download) Google reneged on that deal, establishing a new quota limit for free storage of 15GB. (Google offered a confusing range of exceptions for owners of different Pixel phones.)

The free storage bait came with a catch: You had to let Google compress and degrade your pictures. Most users selected this option because they didnt want to pay for storage. After allowing Google to permanently degrade the photo quality of everyones photos, many customers in the end will have to pay anyway.

(Note that the fine print in Googles Terms of Service did not promise to keep the free unlimited storage deal forever. But users were led to believe that was the case.)

Has Google lost its product-quality mojo?

One trend has become clear with Google, which is the squandering of early leads to the detriment of customers. For example, when the pandemic struck and organizations sent millions of employees to work from home, the group video chat platform Zoom surged to dominance.

Why didnt Google own this space?

Google Hangouts launched as a feature of the now-defunct Google+ social network in 2011 (the same year Zoom Video Communications was founded), and got spun out as a stand-alone app in 2013 (the same year Zoom launched as a product). Google had a massive advantage in both product quality and market share. But Hangouts changed its focus and purpose and target audience until being killed off by Google in 2019, just before the pandemic struck and turned Zoom into the indispensable business tool of 2020, 2021, and 2022.

This is, and should be considered, a fiasco. But its only a small part of Googles total failure to dominate the larger world of person-to-person communication.

This fact was highlighted by Googles own criticism of Apple recently. The official Google Android account on Twitter this month complained that iMessage should not benefit from bullying. Texting should bring us together, and the solution exists. Lets fix this as one industry.

The tweet was amplifying a link to a Wall Street Journal piece complaining that Apples iMessage interface, which displays non-iMessage users as green, rather than blue, stigmatizes teenagers who own Android phones, and constitutes bullying and the leveraging of peer pressure to compel iPhone sales among teens.

By Lets fix this as one industry, Google is implicitly calling on Apple to embrace Rich Communication Services (RCS), which is better than SMS but lags a decade behind modern messaging services like iMessage.

The irony is that only Google has been in a position to fix the incompatible message platform fiasco we all grapple with. As Ars Technica recently detailed, since Apple launched iMessage in 2011, Google has launched 13 messaging products  and killed five of them.

Google Hangouts, which also launched as a Google+ feature the same year iMessage arrived (and as a stand-alone product two years later), was the perfect iMessage competitor. Google could have focused on that one app, pushed its use on all platforms, and the world would have no need for iMessage and its stigmatizing green speech bubbles. It would have no need for WhatsApp, either.

Google slams Apple for noncompatibility but cant even manage to build messaging apps that work with its own messaging apps.

Google has also pooched its smartphone business, from the HTC, Nexus, and Moto X lines to the current lineup branded with the Pixel label. The Pixel phone line launched in 2016, and the company shipped version 6 last Oct. 28.

Google is one of the many Android phone makers that compete in both business and consumer markets against Apple, which constantly ships very high-quality phones in astonishingly high numbers.

And yet, after all those revisions, Google is still struggling to make a trouble-free product. The Pixel 6 shipped with annoying issues (and a December update that introduced additional bugs), inspiring smartphone influencer Marques Brownlee to tweet: My Pixel 6 Pro has slowly gotten so buggy since launch in October that I can no longer recommend it at $900. Combined with the latest botched update, it's just been a bad experience.

Some users are complaining about sluggish and unreliable fingerprint scanning, problems with the phone disconnecting randomly from Android Auto, Wi-Fi unreliability, and poor battery performance. Most of the problems appear to be unready software, rather than problematic hardware.

One headline said it out loud: Googles Pixel 6 issues are causing a crisis of trust.

When ethical and product failures collide

One recent event suggests both ethical transgressions and product failure.

Last week, the International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that Google infringed on five Sonos patents, threatening to restrict importation and sale of Nest smart speakers. But instead of apologizing for stealing intellectual property and paying royalties for the infringed patents, Google chose instead to disable the infringing features, on which Googles customers based their purchases.

The Google product serial killer problem

And, of course, one of the biggest sources of Google mistrust is the companys habit of launching new services with great fanfare, convincing its most passionate users to embrace those platforms, then shutting them down. Sites like KilledByGoogle.com list the services Google has shuttered. Even if it had good reasons for terminating these products, their frequency makes users hesitate to trust or invest time in any specific Google product or service.

The next major product to be shut down will be the old version of Google Voice (next month), and with that closure, Google is terminating some of Voices most appealing features, such as carrier call forwarding, ring scheduling, the Do Not Disturb timer and other features. (A new Voice app will retain some of the functionality of the old Voice app.)

The shutdown does not affect Google Workspace Voice accounts.

So, can we trust Google?

To me, the most interesting fact about all these allegations and complaints is that none of them affect Googles business and enterprise products or customers.

Advertisers, competitors, and consumers have concerns. But theres no major new reason for enterprises and other large organizations to mistrust Google products in that space. In fact, it looks to me that were seeing the collateral damage from a company doing a slow pivot from consumers to businesses.

The courts will sort out the legal ethical lapses. Consumer demand will punish Google for consumer product failures. But for business customers, Google is still an ethical and reliable provider that isnt any less trustworthy than it was in the past.

Hows that for a ringing endorsement?
Spain's foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares assures that European countries are united in their stance regarding the border tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Russia has moved tens of thousands of its military forces on its borders with Ukraine. The Western nations see a possibility of Moscow launching an invasion of Kyiv. However, Russia dies such an allegation but insists that it could make unspecified military action if the US and its European allies deny its demands.

On Thursday, Defense Minister Margarita Robles announced that Spain had sent warships to join NATO naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea as tensions in the region continue to rise, as per Reuters.

According to Albares, the country is still pushing to solve the issue with diplomacy as much as possible. Thus, he calls on concerned nations to "give dialogue a chance,"

"If dialogue does not bear fruit, of course, Spain will stand with its European partners and its NATO allies united in deterrence," Albares said on Friday.

Read Also: Blinken To Visit Ukraine This Week Amid US-Russia Tensions; Moscow Denies Reported Withdrawal of Diplomats in Kyiv

Russia Demands NATO Forces to Leave Bulgaria and Romania

Meanwhile, according to a report published by US News, Russia seeks to remove NATO forces in the European nations of Romania and Bulgaria.

On Friday, the Russian foreign ministry made the statement as Moscow demanded valid and enforceable assurances from NATO that the alliance will cease its expansion and revert to its 1997 borders.

The ministry also said that Russia demands all foreign military forces, weapons, and hardware to be pulled out from the two countries.

In a previous security talk in Geneva, Russia told NATO to guarantee to reject Ukraine's desire to join the alliance and halt its eastward expansion. But the U.S. and its Western allies turned down Russia's demands. The said talks, according to observers, resulted in no breakthroughs.

Top Officials of US and Russia Engage in Talks

On Friday, senior officials of the United States and Russia meet in Switzerland in the hope of de-escalating tensions over Ukraine.

Following a trip across Europe to solidify US allies' commitments to impose heavy sanctions on Russia if it goes ahead with an invasion of Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Geneva to discuss with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

On Wednesday, Blinken visited Kyiv to reassure Ukraine of US backing. Talks with German, French followed the meeting, and senior British officials in Berlin on Thursday,

Blinken has accused Russia of spreading disinformation in order to destabilize Ukraine. He also stated that this week's diplomatic endeavors enabled him to represent a common goal of Western countries to Russia and urge Moscow to back down.

Earlier, the US government accused Russia of planning a false-flag operation in which operatives are dispatched to rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to perpetrate acts of sabotage and afterward blame Kyiv. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, on the other hand, denied the US allegations.

Related Article: Biden Admin Gives Additional $200 Million Military Aid to Ukraine Amid Russian Invasion Fears

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
01/21/2022

Photo (c) da-kuk - Getty Images Coronavirus (COVID-19) tally as compiled by Johns Hopkins University. (Previous numbers in parentheses.)

Total U.S. confirmed cases: 69,366,460 (68,578,066)

Total U.S. deaths: 860,564 (857,781)

Total global cases: 343,385,893 (338,375,610)

Total global deaths: 5,577,111 (5,567,534)

Analysis suggests COVID-19 cases are declining

After a month-long surge, new cases of COVID-19 are in decline over wide stretches of the U.S. that were hardest hit by the highly-transmissible Omicron variant. An analysis conducted by Reuters suggests that the virus, at least for now, could be fading out.

The analysis shows that new cases of COVID-19 have fallen in 15 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. In Northeastern states, new cases are down 36% compared to last week. For the first time in weeks, health professionals are expressing some optimism.

"Certainly it bodes well for us in terms of the trajectory of Omicron," said Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University in New York City.

Getting reimbursed for COVID-19 tests not easy, some consumers say

The federal government is requiring private health insurance providers to reimburse policyholders for the purchase of COVID-19 tests. Some policyholders say its a complicated process.

According to a report by Vox, which analyzed social media comments, many Americans are baffled by the process, especially if they are required to print a piece of paper that resembles an IRS form, fill it out, and then either send it to their insurer through the mail or by fax.

Our health care system is mind-numbingly complex, Larry Levitt, executive vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Vox. That complexity takes its toll on patients in terms of time, access, and affordability.

Drug company ramping up Omicron treatment

GlaxoSmithKline, working with its partner Vir Biotechnology, is working overtime to meet the increasing demand for a COVID-19 antibody drug. The reason? The drug, sotrovimab, appears to be in a class by itself. Its the only approved U.S. drug that works against the Omicron variant.

The two drug firms say they have taken steps to ramp up the production of sotrovimab. They hope to double the number of doses they can deliver in the first three months of the year to 600,000.

Even before they are produced, those doses have already been allotted. The U.S. government has agreed to purchase all 600,000 doses and distribute them to state health agencies based on need.

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Website gizmodo.fr uses latest and advanced technologies. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 237942 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of .

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China, Germany pledge to deepen cooperation in various fields

Xinhua) 08:44, January 21, 2022

BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks on Thursday with his new German counterpart Annalena Baerbock via video link, with the two sides vowing to deepen cooperation in various fields.

Wang said that China and Germany, as all-round strategic partners, should adhere to being a model of win-win cooperation, leaders in China-EU relations, promoters of a new type of international relations, and collaborators that transcend the differences in social systems.

Last year, the bilateral trade reached a record high despite the impact of the epidemic, which fully demonstrates the complementarity of the two economies and the resilience of economic and trade relations between the two countries, Wang said.

China and Germany should jointly create new highlights of cooperation in the fields of digital technology, communications, service trade, agricultural science and technology, as well as green development, Wang said, adding that China welcomes German companies to expand their investment in China.

Baerbock said the German side is committed to developing a stable partnership with China, and will continue to pursue the one-China policy.

Taking the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations as an opportunity to deepen exchanges and cooperation between the two countries in various fields, Germany is willing to treat foreign companies in Germany, including Chinese companies, equally, Baerbock said.

The two sides agreed to hold proper celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, prepare for the seventh round of intergovernmental consultations and give full play to the role of dialogue mechanisms at all levels.

On the basis of mutual respect, the two sides agreed to conduct equal dialogue on issues such as human rights and democracy, in order to enhance mutual understanding, further strengthen education, non-governmental and local exchanges, and carry out exchanges between more than 100 pairs of sister provinces, states and cities of the two countries through various means. They also agreed to enhance green development cooperation and deepen exchanges on addressing climate change and green governance.

The two sides exchanged views on strengthening cooperation on multilateral affairs and on the Iranian nuclear issue.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
Hamster owners are up in arms as the planned cull of their pets is not desired. They cannot stand to think the government would kill the cute rodents viciously.

To many of them, killing as many as 2000 hamsters is like genocide. Others dare to kill them first before allowing the cute pets to die. No one thought the outrage of killing the house pets that might not be conclusively infected with COVID-19.

Hong Kong to cull 2,000 hamsters in fear of COVID-19

A response from countless people living in Hong Kong who would adopt the cute rodents that their owners would abandon, reported the Mirror.

According to authorities who informed 2000 small animals from many pet shops and storage facilities were killed last Tuesday. The reason for the slaughter is a coronavirus outbreak in the Little Boss pet shop, with 11 of the hamsters catching the virus.

One hamster owner was adamant that her pet would not be killed and said let her be killed. The animal was bought last January 1, but they took the pet away when tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, cited France 24.

Speaking to The Standard in its local office, if the tests are negative, one has the right to take her hamster only if anyone kills her.

Furious over how the government treats pets as animals, the unidentified woman asked if they would slay all infected COVID patients and contacts.

Study says hamsters cannot transfer virus to humans

Many scientists abroad with Hong Kong health and veterinary authorities have doubts about what the administration claims as a viral infection in small animals. Neither do they significantly impact its transmission to hamster owners nor is the cull of their pets seen as necessary.

Read Also: Use of Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 Cure Lessened As Evidence Show Drug Does Not Work

Health Secretary Sophia Chan has mandated a Covid zero-tolerance approach, which does not allow any off-chance that the hamsters would spread the disease. No changes will be allowed to pass.

Like something out of a movie, Hazmat-wearing workers were seen in the several pet shops in the city proper. They were carrying red-colored plastic bags in the vans they rode. About 150 pet shop customers were forced into quarantine.

One outlet said that a few owners were bringing their hamsters to a government facility in the New Territories. On Facebook, a page was made to reach out to possible adopters of ownerless pets. Some owners were afraid, so they gave up on the cute animals.

A hamster owner and administrator of "Hong Kong the Cute Hamster Group," Ocean, 29, wrote on Telegram. About 3,000 people would be willing to care for the pets in the meantime. An effort among the netizens to save the cute pets was in progress.

Ocean added that the family forced three owners to abandon their beloved pets, some more than a year old. They don't know what can happen to their pets if they follow the government.

Bowie, 27, now has two hamsters in his care after contacting the group. He added it was silly about the culling, saying it could be cats, dogs, or even rabbits!

Local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) told owners not to abandon their pets and observe protocols.

Many hamster owners fear the cull of their pets as the government has given zero tolerance to any chance of starting an outbreak. There are doubts is the threat is valid as the local SPCA.

Related Article: Does Hydroxychloroquine Possess Effectiveness Against the Omicron? Drug's Potential Interests Study at the University of Glasgow

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The life of a movie star isn't as sweet as you might imagine. Occasionally someone will offer you a role you don't want, and it'll be, like, super awkward. You have to figure out how to let them down in such a way that they'll still be willing to pay you millions of dollars in the future. It's a tough gig, really. But every once in a while, instead of sending back the Hollywood equivalent of "I'm washing my hair that night," an actor will abandon diplomacy and reveal the true, totally insane reasons they don't want a part. Look at how ...

5 Russell Crowe Turned Down Wolverine Because He Didn't Want To Be "Mr. Wolf"

It's easy to forget these days, but for a brief spell during the early '00s, Russell Crowe was the world's biggest movie star -- so much so that noted cinephile Osama bin Laden plotted to kidnap him in order to, no shit, destabilize America. (He eventually backed down, figuring Crowe was doing a good enough job on his own.)

The thing is, Crowe could have ended up being an even bigger deal for nerds everywhere ... if it wasn't for some weird hang-up about wolves. In an interview, Crowe revealed that he was offered first dibs on a role for a movie his pal Bryan Singer was putting together: some guy called "Wolverine," who had forks for hands or something. So why did Crowe decline? Because, as he explained, he'd recently finished filming Gladiator, in which he played a character who had a pet wolf and wolf-themed armor, and he didn't want to be typecast as "Mr. Wolf."
Sue B. Donnelly, 87, of Crossville, passed away at her home on April 26, 2022. She was born on May 18, 1934, in Crossville, Tennessee, daughter of the late James T. Brandon and Clara (Hamby) Brandon. Sue was the owner of Boats and Harbors and of the Baptist Faith. She is survived by her chil
F-35 stealth fighter is becoming one of the significant components of the US forces on its naval ships, as seen by its deployment.

The jet exceeds conventional planes with Short Take-off and Landing (STOL) function that allows it to vertically land and take-off like rotorcraft.

Plus, its use on the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship, where the Marines armed with it can mount a varied response.

The F-35 Stealth Fighter

The F-35B Lightning II stationed with the Marine Strike Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 122 landed with no mishap on the Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship. This 5th generation fighter features a chockfull of classified tech, with stealth as its prime asset, as per 19FortyFive.

According to the US Navy (USN), this is what the ship was designed for, all the crew and supporting organizations who worked to allow the recovery of these planes. They have responded to all the challenges that were placed before them.

Captain Joel Lang, the ship's commanding officer, said the crew on board had been away from their loved ones, getting the Lightning II onboard the vessel shows their time not squandered, according to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

An emphasis on the operations like recovering aircraft depicts the US Navy as a capable force. Other than aircraft carriers, Tripoli shows the navy can maximize its potential and opportunities in a war.

USS Tripoli Carrier

Amphibious assault ship development is vastly different compared to a nuclear aircraft carrier. Amphibs have fewer planes onboard with some limitations on the kind of plane they can operate. But these ships add to the number of planes that would confuse adversaries using the F-35 Stealth Fighter, cites Yahoo News.

Read Also: Lost RAF F-35 Fighter Starts Frantic Search for Wreckage in Mediterranean Before China or Russia Snatch Top Secret Tech

More planes could be deployed to confuse the enemy, making their reaction off-key to the USN's strategy.

One of the ship's landing signal officers, Major Randy Brazile (VMFA-225), remarked that it was honored to support Tripoli in its initial fixed-wing flight certification. Marines and pilots of the ship have been part of the ship's trials.

USS Tripoli is an America-class amphibious assault ship that is part of the operations of the Expeditionary Strike Group 3. Another personnel, 1st Class Paul Salame, remarked about recovering the F-35. He added that everything went fine and well in launching the first jet off the ship.

F-35 versions varied features

There are three variants of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter used by several branches of the military and used by several air forces in the world.

For the larger aircraft carriers not used on the amphibious ship, the F-35C is the one deployed on it that is assisted for take-off by mechanical steam catapults. The land-based version of the fighter, the A variant for conventional landing and take-off, is also available. One of the most versatile is the B-variant with the Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL), used by marine corps like the Italian and UK forces.

Depending on the versions, these variants land and take off, and they don't come cheap. But, they are versatile combat strike craft. The F-35 Stealth Fighter has impacted how commanders utilize their planes from land airbases to the USS Tripoli and the supercarriers.

Related Article: Israeli Warplanes Practice Bombing Iranian Facilities in Coordination with the US if Deadly Force is Needed

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Researchers uncovered a stealthy UEFI rootkit that's being used in highly targeted campaigns by a notorious Chinese cyberespionage group with suspected government ties. The group is known for using software supply-chain attacks in the past. Dubbed MoonBounce by researchers from Kaspersky Lab, the implant's goal is to inject a malicious driver into the Windows kernel during the booting stages, providing attackers with a high level of persistence and stealthiness.

While MoonBounce is not the first UEFI rootkit found in the wild -- LoJax, MosaicRegressor are two examples-- these types of implants are not common because they require knowledge of low-level firmware programming. They are typically found in the arsenal of well-resourced and sophisticated attacker groups.

What is an UEFI rootkit?

The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is the modern replacement for the BIOS. In fact, the terms are still used interchangeably in many cases since most modern BIOSes follow the UEFI standard and specification. The firmware is stored on a memory chip called the SPI flash that's soldered on the motherboard and contains the code necessary to initialize all the other hardware components and configure them before execution is passed to the bootloader code that starts the main operating system and its kernel.

The UEFI contains various drivers that are used to talk to the other chips on the motherboard as well as the CPU and other peripherals. Getting malicious code to execute into such an early initialization phase of a device is extremely powerful because there is no antivirus or intrusion detection solution that runs at that level. Also, the operating system's security features such as digital signature verification for drivers has not yet been initialized and can be disabled or bypassed.

UEFI rootkits essentially get a head start to and a privileged position over most other defenses found on a typical computer. They can be hard to detect and can even prevent normal UEFI updates. Researchers have recently found a similar low-level implant that infects the baseband management controller (BMC) firmware of HPE servers and works on similar principles.

Boot-level rootkits are the reason why the PC industry has added firmware security features over the past 10 years. For example, UEFI has SecureBoot, which relies on public key cryptography to verify that all code loaded during the boot process -- from UEFI drivers and applications to the OS bootloader and the OS kernel -- have been digitally signed by a trusted party. Various regions of the UEFI memory need to remain read-only or non-executable.

However, while UEFI is a standard, PC manufacturers maintain their own implementations customized for their devices. This means the UEFI firmware of a computer from one vendor will be slightly different then the UEFI firmware from a computer from another manufacturer. Vulnerabilities have been identified over the years in the UEFI firmware implementations of various vendors that could allow attackers to bypass UEFI security features. That's why it's also important to maintain the ability to easily deploy UEFI updates from inside the OS and to keep the firmware up to date.

How does MoonBounce work?

MoonBounce was found in an UEFI component called CORE_DXE, DXE standing for Core Execution Environment. This component initializes data structures and function interfaces that are then called by other DXE drivers. The attackers appended malicious shellcode top the CORE_DXE image and then made modifications to the code to hook certain legitimate function calls and divert their execution to their shellcode.

"Note that at the time of writing we lack sufficient evidence to retrace how the UEFI firmware was infected in the first place," the Kaspersky researchers said in their report. "The infection itself, however, is assumed to have occurred remotely. While previous UEFI firmware compromises (i.e., LoJax and MosaicRegressor) manifested as additions of DXE drivers to the overall firmware image on the SPI flash, the current case exhibits a much more subtle and stealthy technique where an existing firmware component is modified to alter its behavior."

This type of modification implies the attackers had access to the original firmware image. This can be achieved if attackers had remote access to the machine and administrative privileges to extract and flash the firmware.

Once executed, the malicious UEFI shellcode injects a malicious driver in the early execution stages of the Windows kernel and this driver then injects a user-mode malware program into the svchost.exe process once the operating system is up and running. The user mode piece of malware is a loader that reaches out to a hardcoded command-and-control server to download and execute additional payloads, which the researchers were not yet able to recover.

The Kaspersky researchers said they've identified MoonBounce on a single victim machine so far, so it's hard to say how widespread its use is. However, it's likely part of a highly targeted cyberespionage campaign.

The researchers found additional malware on other machines that were located on the same network, including one called ScrambleCross or SideWalk that has been documented in the past and attributed to a Chinese cyberespionage group known under various names including APT41, Barium or Winnti.

Who is APT41?

APT41 is believed to be a cyberespionage group that has ties to the Chinese government. It has been operating since at least 2012 and has targeted organizations across many sectors with the goal of intelligence collection. However, the group is also known for launching financially motivated attacks against the online gaming industry which do not seem to match a state-related interest, so it could be acting as a contractor rather than a team within an intelligence agency.

In September 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed indictments against three Chinese and two Malaysian nationals in connection with APT41 attacks. Three of them were involved in the management of a company called Chengdu 404 Network Technology that was allegedly serving as a front company for the group's activities.

APT41 uses an arsenal of over 46 different malware families and tools as well as sophisticated techniques such as software supply-chain attacks. One example is the 2017 attack against CCleaner that resulted in poisoned copies of the popular utility being distributed to 2.2 million users. The group is also believed to be responsible for ShadowPad, a software supply-chain attack that resulted in the distribution of malicious versions of a commercial enterprise server management tool called Xmanager.

"As a safety measure against this attack and similar ones, it is recommended to update the UEFI firmware regularly and verify that BootGuard, where applicable, is enabled," the Kaspersky researchers said. "Likewise, enabling Trust Platform Modules, in case a corresponding hardware is supported on the machine, is also advisable. On top of all, a security product that has visibility into the firmware images should add an extra layer of security, alerting the user on a potential compromise if such occurs."
Trellix, a new company formed from the merger of cybersecurity giants McAfee Enterprise and FireEye, is intent on becoming the leader in XDR (extended detection and response) technology by combining applications from both of the formerly separate companies into an interoperable suite of products for threat prevention, detection and response.

The strategy and the new company name were revealed this week by corporate parent Symphony Technology Group (STG), which acquired and merged McAfee Enterprise and FireEye last year. The new suite of products will cover endpoint and network infrastructure security, offer programs tailored for SOCs (security operations centers) and increasingly incorporate machine learning and automation, company officials said.

STG also said it expects to launch the McAfee Enterprise Secure Service Edge (SSE) portfolio as a separate business later this quarter, inclusive of its Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Secure Web Gateway (SWG) and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) applications.

Machine learning, automation drive Trellix's XDR

As for Trellix, the name is meant to evoke the structure of a trellis, designed to support the structured growth of plants, and complement a concept that Trellix calls "living security"  security technology that learns and adapts, utilizing machine learning and automation capabilities, to protect operations from evolving and advanced threat actors.

The company will compete with XDR vendors in a rapidly growing field including Cisco, Microsoft, Check Point Software, VMware, CrowdStrike, and Palo Alto Networks.

Trellix's threat labs arm, which gathers security telemetry from sensors embedded in IT infrastructure globally, will play an important role.

Trellix has a differentiated ability to secure the digital experience against cyberthreats using threat intelligence capabilities developed through the scale and diversity of our sensor network, according to Adam Philpott, CRO (chief revenue officer) at Trellix. We are continuously offering new solutions leveraging AI, machine learning, and advanced telemetry based on threat intelligence from more than one billion sensors across our enterprise and government customer bases.

"Living security" will offer organizations threat resiliency through this wide network of interconnected threat sensors and capabilities, enabling customers to safely manage a "living" IT ecosystem that is configured optimally for their organization, according to Philpott.

The products making up Trellix's XDR platform generate and manage security data from native tools and also have the capability applying analytics to data from third-party applications, Philpott says.

New security product releases expected this year

The components of Trellix's XDR platform will be made available to customers in the form of successive product releases, Philpott says.

Merging and upgrading products on such a scale, and bringing customers along, is expected to take a while. This attempt to combine what were once two security behemoths is no small exercise, says Allie Mellen, an analyst at Forrester. Depending on the offering, it will likely take years to transition all customers to the new or rebranded products and services.

Nevertheless, some new offerings are expected to be out relatively soon, with company officials confirming that Trellix plans to roll out separate EPP (endpoint protection platform) and EDR (endpoint detection and response) products this year. Both McAfee and Fire Eye have endpoint security products, with McAfee focusing on its well-known antivirus software, which falls into the EPP category, and Fire Eye on intrusion detection and response, generally considered to be EDR.

Otherwise, Trellix also plans to bring its SIEM (security information and event management), SOAR (security orchestration, automation and response) and UEBA (user entity behavior analytics) products into an offering for SOCs. While FireEye Helix, a SaaS-based security operations platform for risk detection and response, will be a key component of this offering, McAfee's Enterprise Security Manager SIEM application will continue to be offered, company officials confirmed.

Although Trellix promises a speedy and smooth transition, customers will have to prepare for growing pains as Trellix internalizes its brand identity, according to Mellen.

But while corporate mergers have often shown that it is difficult to meld products from different companies, McAfee and Fire Eye applications have evolved over time and have been in customer hands for a while, so there may not be too much turmoil," according to Liz Miller, an analyst at Constellation Research.

Users who want to roll into the XDR solution shouldnt have any problem and at this stage in their maturity; Id expect to see some sweet incentives to advance onto the expanded solution, Miller says. But, for the next six-12 months, customers should be proactively assessing performance and even ramping up those calls into [their vendor] client success and support teams to ensure seamless service continuation.

McAfees repeated attempts at rebranding

This is not the first time McAfee has tried to reinvent itself. The global security company was acquired back in 2010 by chipmaker Intel to make it a part of its Intel Security Division. However, in 2016, Intel decided to reduce its stake in the company by selling off a controlling 51% to TPG Capital, which then saw the brand McAfee returned and retained until October 2020, when McAfee returned to public markets with an IPO. Shortly after that in March 2021, McAfee agreed to sell off its enterprise security business for $4 billion to STG, a private equity firm.

Company officials says the McAfee and Fire Eye will be retired as company names, and that the McAfee Enterprise Secure Service Edge (SSE) portfolio will eventually be sold under a different corporate name.

Industry insiders have speculated that a main reason for the rebranding is an attempt to distance the company from its founder, cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee, who last year was found dead in a Spanish jail, apparently from suicide, after a series of US government criminal charges and multiple lawsuits were filed against him.

This is a really smart branding decision on the part of Symphony Technology Group, shedding any scandal and focusing on providing a solid security foundation (like a trellis), says Miller. It gives this newly bonded team a new focal point that doesnt come with any scandal or justification."
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A Connecticut woman has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Snapchat and Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, claiming the social media giants did not do enough to protect her daughter from harmful and exploitative content before her suicide.

The 11-year-old died last July after struggling for two years with extreme addiction to Instagram and Snapchat, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco. The mothers suit was brought by the Social Media Victims Law Center, a group founded last year seeking to hold social media companies accountable.

Hearst Connecticut Media Group is withholding the familys name because girl was a minor.

This isnt a question of opinion. Internal documents and testimony before Congress by a former employee reveal that Meta Platforms was fully aware of the flaws and addictive properties of its social media platforms and failed to adequately design their products to protect minor users from harm, Matthew Bergman, the centers founder and an attorney representing the mother in the suit, said in a statement.

In his statement, Bergman said no safeguards are in place on Snapchat, and the girls death is a direct result of the inaction and deliberate addictive design of these social media platforms to prey on vulnerable children.

Meta did not immediately respond Friday to a message seeking comment.

A spokesperson for Snapchat said in a statement the company was devastated by the news of the girls death, and our hearts go out to her family.

While we cant comment on the specifics of active litigation, nothing is more important to us than the wellbeing of our community, the companys statement said. The spokesperson also highlighted that the app does not include some of the public pressure and social comparison features of traditional social media platforms, and intentionally makes it harder for strangers to connect with young users.

We work closely with many mental health organizations to provide in-app tools and resources for Snapchatters as part of our ongoing work to keep our community safe, the spokesperson said.

The suit comes as social media companies have faced renewed scrutiny into their practices by lawmakers, after internal documents from Facebook were leaked by a former employee and reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The Connecticut mothers complaint asks for damages to be specified in a jury trial. It also requests a court order against the two social media companies to stop the harmful conduct alleged herein, and remedy the unreasonably dangerous algorithms in their social media products.

The lawsuit also asks for the courts to order the companies to provide warnings to minor users and their parents that defendants social media products are addictive and pose a clear and present danger to unsuspecting minors.

The suit also claims the apps do not permit parental controls, limiting the mothers ability to monitor her daughters social media use and causing her to physically confiscate the girls devices. According to the lawsuit, this caused the girl to run away in order to access her social media accounts on other devices.

In the months leading up to her death, the girl was experiencing severe sleep deprivation that was caused and aggravated by her addiction to Instagram and Snapchat, and the constant 24-hour stream of notifications and alerts defendants sent, the lawsuit stated.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.
In an effort to reduce the number of uninsured residents in three of Connecticuts largest cities, officials Wednesday announced plans to train up to 100 licensed health insurance brokers to enroll people in coverage through the states health insurance marketplace.

The initiative, called Broker Academy, was announced by Gov. Ned Lamont and officials with Access Health CT, the states health insurance marketplace, during a virtual news conference Wednesday.

The academy will begin classes June 1 with classes of students from Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford, officials said.

Weve learned the hard way, I think these last couple of years, what disparities mean and what it means when you dont have health insurance, Lamont said. What it means if you dont get access to a test or a vaccine in this period of COVID, and that not just puts you at risk, it puts your community at risk.

Connecticut has one of the highest rates of health care coverage in the nation, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The nonprofits 2020 report found that 4.8 percent of Connecticut residents lacked health insurance, the 10th lowest of any state.

The cities targeted by the Broker Academy, however, have trailed the rest of the state when it comes to health care coverage, according to James Michel, the CEO of Access Health CT. Residents in those cities are more likely to have lower incomes, he said, with less access to health care through employer-sponsored insurance.

The goal of the Broker Academy, Michel said, was to increase the number of licensed insurance brokers working in those cities to enroll people through the public health care exchange.

Despite Connecticuts high ranking in wealth, there are substantial disparities in the health status and in the health care delivery to lower-income Connecticut residents, especially in communities of color, Michel said. By activating members of this community to become brokers, Access Health Connecticut can build trust by meeting members of the community where they are, and at the same time create an economic benefit in those areas.

The cost of the training program is estimated to be in the range of $230,000, Michel said, which will be paid for by Access Health CT with the help of outside grants. Applicants who are accepted into the Broker Academy will not have to pay for their training.

The first class of students is expected to be licensed by the end of July before taking part in a three-month apprenticeship program with an experienced broker, according to Tammy Hendricks, the director of health equity and outreach for Access Health CT.

Training will fully conclude by the start of the next open-enrollment period on Nov. 1, Hendricks said. The brokers will be paid by commission for every person they enroll through the exchange.

Currently, 400 are brokers licensed to sell insurance through the states health insurance marketplace.

Two insurance companies  Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and ConnectiCare  offer plans through the exchange. However, Michel said that once the brokers are licensed to sell insurance through the marketplace, they have to offer plans through both insurers.

The advice they give will be what is in the best interest of their customers, Michel said. That is their fiduciary responsibility and that is part of their training.

Residents who earn below a certain income are eligible for subsidies through Access Health CTs marketplace.

That amount was originally set at 400 percent of the federal poverty level, but was adjusted as part of the American Rescue Plan signed by President Joe Biden.
Two Connecticut businesses were among those to receive a notice in the recent round of cease-and-desist letters, ordering companies to stop making claims regarding treatment, prevention, or financial benefits related to COVID-19, a federal commission announced Wednesday.

The Federal Trade Commission sent its 11th set of warning letters to more than 20 companies across the United States, warning them to stop making these claims within 48 hours of receiving the letters. The commission also sent its third round of letters to multi-level marketing companies telling them to remove and address claims about the treatment, prevention, or about the earnings people who recently lost income can make.

Violators could face fines of up to $43,792 per infraction, according to a news release sent Wednesday.

The two Connecticut businesses are Sava Holistic Health in East Hampton and Family First Life in Uncasville.

Overall, the federal commission has sent warnings to more than 400 companies. Last year, Congress passed the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act that makes it illegal for any businesses to engage in deceptive practices regarding products related to the treatment, cure, prevention, mitigation, or diagnosis of COVID-19.

Some companies have claimed that imprinted filtered water, nasal irrigation, and seaweed extract can help fight the coronavirus, the release says.

However, currently there is no scientific evidence that any of these products can prevent or treat COVID-19 generally or any specific variant, the commissions press release says.

Family Firsts letter went out Dec. 27. The federal commission says the company made misleading claims on social media regarding potential earnings.

We have determined that Family First Life is unlawfully misrepresenting that consumers who become Family First Life business opportunity participants are likely to earn substantial income, the letter reads.

The posts include claims that people who were financially impacted by the pandemic began earning upwards of $40,000 per month through Family First, the letter alleges.

Sava Holistic Healths website and social media posts were unlawfully advertising, that certain supplements and tinctures could help treat or prevent COVID-19, according to the letter. A set of four tinctures labeled Coronavirus: Complete Set of 4 Tinctures was listed for $500, and the website advertised they should only be used if you have this virus, the Sept. 22 letter says.

The link to the tinctures included in the letter was not functional Wednesday.

Sava Holistic also posted on social media, with references to the coronavirus, about supplements to take to prepare for Viral season, the letter alleges.

Neither Connecticut company responded to requests for comment.

Americans are still suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, and scammers are still taking advantage of them by making false claims about cures and treatments, said Samuel Levine, director of the FTCs Bureau of Consumer Protection. Our efforts to stamp out those claims will continue in 2022, and any marketers not heeding our cease-and-desist demands can expect to face consequences, including civil penalties
As Thursday mornings rain turned to light snow, school districts across Connecticut weighed the decision whether to cancel classes or start late.

Some opted for a two-hour delay, while others  including Norwalk, Fairfield, Danbury, Greenwich, Stamford and four districts in the Naugatuck River Valley  decided to cancel.

School superintendents said the decision was prompted by concerns around the timing of the weather event and dropping temperatures that could cause freezing rain and slick roads. It comes on the heels of an ice storm this month that led to numerous accidents across the state and prompted widespread criticism on how officials prepared and responded.

It was just too risky with the ice, Seymour Superintendent of Schools Susan Compton said about Thursdays storm, explaining the district didnt want to send buses out and have them stuck in a situation like the ice storm.

Ahead of the Thursdays storm, the National Weather Services New York office issued a winter weather advisory for southern Connecticut throughout the morning and early afternoon. The advisory said up to 2 inches of snowfall is expected for southern parts of Connecticuts shoreline counties, but drivers should plan on slippery road conditions during the morning commute.

Seymour schools, along with the Ansonia, Derby and Oxford districts, originally agreed they would have a two-hour delayed opening, she said. The superintendents had been up since 5 a.m. discussing the weather and talking with public works personnel. She said the Valley superintendents then made a joint decision to cancel school.

Part of Seymours decision was because a two-hour delay would have seen students at the high school arriving around 9:20 a.m., when district officials were unsure of what the weather conditions would be, Compton said.

Norwalk schools also cited the potential for freezing rain and ice in their decision to close.

While the storm is not expected to bring a lot of snow, this weather system is complicated, the district spokesperson said in a statement. Along with other school districts in our area, we consulted early this morning with our weather service. The meteorologist reported on the expected morning timing of snow and freezing rain, as well as the potential for flash freezing conditions during travel times.

The ice storm earlier this month led to widespread crashes throughout the state and hundreds of police calls  including one fatality. In the wake of that weather event, Norwalks superintendent issued an apology to parents for not delaying schools that day.

Mike Cummings, Fairfield schools superintendent, said his district shared similar concerns as Norwalk on Thursday. He said the district had predictions of freezing road conditions during both normal and delayed arrival times, so they decided to cancel school for the day.

Compton said she understood there would be parents upset by the decision, but said it was a really tough call made in the interest of student and staff safety.

Our students and staff are our most precious assets and we never want to endanger lives, with not being able to totally predict the weather, she said.
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GUILFORD  Cake artist Elisabeth Palatiello is a sculptor, only her medium includes fondant, sugar gum paste, rich buttercream and flavorful, moist cake.

Owner of But a Dream Custom Cakes, Palatiello turns icing into the stuff dreams are made of  at least her customers dreams.

From delicate, detailed sugar flowers that look surprisingly real down to the stamens, to the universal cardboard Amazon box with its familiar markings  customers often are afraid to cut into her masterpieces, she noted.

People are literally  I cant cut it, I cant cut it. Thats your dessert, you need to cut it and it tastes delicious, she said.

And then there fantasy cakes, like her ironic Tiger King cake she whipped up in the heart of COVID in early 2020 because she was bored being stuck in the house and all her cake orders were canceled. She and her two sons had binge-watched the megahit Netflix series.

Of course I had to make the Tiger King, Palatiello said with a wide grin.

She ended up with a fully-rendered bust of the Tiger King himself, entirely made of sugar and cake. Her teen boys eagerly video recorded the ceremonial cutting of the confection while a soundtrack played in the background.

During the shutdown, she also crafted a cake that looked like a roll of toilet paper, a nod to the scarcity of the household necessity  the cutting and serving of which also made it to video. Further inspired by the pandemic, Palatiello even baked a spiky COVID ball cake as well.

This year, her themes are more cheery, seasonal and bridal.

A recent creation was a cake that looks like a blue, hand-knitted winter hat with two ceramic mugs of cocoa on a tray, all lit up with fairy lights. The tableaux looked so realistic that some partygoers were a bit puzzled.

Her friend and client Antonia Kellner, the cakes recipient, noted a couple of guests couldnt seem to resist poking the holiday dessert.

A couple of people went to grab the [cups] handles and I had to put a sign on it, Kellner said. It was hilarious. It was the centerpiece that day.

With visions of cakes in her head, Palatiello often is working out engineering problems when designing something tricky. Thats partly why her business is named But a Dream Custom Cakes.

Its just part of the lyric in the song Row, Row, Row Your Boat. She explained, Life is but a dream.

And mostly, It also rhymes with buttercream. So thats where I came up with that, said Palatiello.

I make all kinds of cakes, she said, Its the ones that look like something else entirely that really grab everyones attention  whether its the snow hat or an Hermes bag, a stack of pancakes  these things always blow peoples minds.

Theyre super-fun to make and get peoples attention, she said.

Palatiello even has a special category called gravity defying cakes. One such cake is of a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs, with a plastic fork suspended mid-air with fondant pasta trailing from it.

While unusual cakes can be a fun problem-solving exercise for her, Palatiello said she loves the romance of making a wedding cake.

But I think my heart is really in the wedding cakes, she said.

I love to make somebodys big, beautiful, towering wedding cake. Its the cake of a lifetime, she added.

Its just likely the most expensive cake theyll ever buy and the one that will be most photographed. And definitely the one with all the meaning, she said.

Palatiello noted that after the big day, the sugar flowers can be saved and turned into a keepsake for the couple.

They can last forever, Palatiello said. The bride can take them and put them in her china cabinet and keep them forever.

People cant believe theyre not real  thats sugar art, said former bride Gretchen Coup.

Coup had real flowers on her wedding cake by Palatiello, a special almond cake frosted with almond buttercream that she said her guests still were talking about six years later.

Ive never had a cake taste like that before, she said.

Coup was so impressed with Palatiellos craftsmanship that she chose to have Palatiellos signature sugar floral embellishments on the cake at her gender-reveal party when she was pregnant over a year ago. She now is working with the cake artist for a first birthday cake with an Alice in Wonderland theme.

Coup added, You usually see pictures of very fancy cakes and you think, Oh, they cant taste that good, they must taste awful. But her cakes are incredible.

Palatiellos cake business isnt all about making show-stopping cakes.

In her gleaming commercial kitchen built on the side of her home on Tanner Marsh Road, Palatiello is offering cake design classes, what she calls Sugar School. These are aimed at aspiring cake artists, folks in the business looking to bring their skills up to the next level, and basic courses for the home baker.

Palatiello said she loves to connect with other cake people and enjoys mentoring other cake-makers.

At Sugar School, she plans to offer instruction in how to work with sugar flowers, an advanced level course. Shes also had home bakers reach out to her for buttercream basics.

There is a pretty big learning curve for working with fondant, she admitted, so it would not be a beginner course.

Baking was something in Palatiellos DNA. As one of four girls in her family, she practically grew up with a mixing bowl in her hands.

She went to school for fashion design and later worked for a sportswear company in New York. She uses her fashion sense in cake design  relying on her knowledge of proportion, color and texture, she said.

And then there are the obvious riffs  high-end designer shoe cakes and Tiffany & Co. blue boxes.

After 9/11, Palatiello moved to Connecticut and started dabbling in cake baking for her two growing boys, Michael and Vincent, who now are 17 and 15, respectively.

I started making their birthday cakes. My oldest, when he was little, had many food allergies. Michael was allergic to eggs and nuts.

I started making his cakes egg-free, allergy-free so he could have them, she said.

It became my creative outlet, she said. I started offering them to my friends, and made their childs birthday cake so that my son could go to the party and have some  instead of bringing double Rice Krispies treats, she said with a laugh.

I loved the challenge of making fun cakes for kids. It just kind of grew where people I didnt even know were asking me to make their childs birthday cake.

I decided I could turn it into a business  seven years ago I made the leap, she recalled.

Theres lots of different substitutions you can use for eggs in baking, she said. Gluten-free has been a big mover too, There is such a big demand for it.

Although she would not advise making a large gluten-free wedding cake. Instead, she would make a much smaller cake that was made with no wheat flour to cater to guests who are gluten intolerant.

Palatiellos baking for her own children gave her the expertise and confidence with gluten and egg-free baking.

If I didnt have that experience, I would probably shy away from them, she said.

Dairy-free cakes, meanwhile, are more difficult to make: Its the hardest to fake, she said.

Gluten-free baking has come a long way, and she said she can definitely bake a delicious, moist cake.

Palatiello was largely self-taught on gluten- and egg-free baking. I joke that I went to the University of YouTube, she said. We had a lot of trial and error.

But wedding cakes are the real challenge for her. Although they can take two or more days to make, the most demanding aspect is protecting her creations during the delivery.

My largest cake was a seven-tier wedding cake, which I had to drive to Litchfield County to set up, she said. Theyre just too heavy, I had to bring it in three pieces - its not even a two-man lift.

Her cakes can easily be 25 pounds a tier. So delivery and set-up takes some muscle  and much planning.

Using insulated cake carriers, she must deliver the cakes as though they are as fragile as eggs  no accidents allowed.

Controlling the temperature of her vehicle is vital, as well, otherwise the masterpiece will melt en route.

When traveling long distances, Ive had the AC blasting in my car with the cake packed in ice. In the middle of the summer, she can be seen wearing a heavy coat. On a steamy July day, she said, because its as cold as it can possibly be, Im wearing a winter coat.

Delivery is definitely the most stressful part of what I do.

Ive driven them all the way to Boston, to Manhattan, she said. Ive never had a mishap - knock on wood.

I have a saying  only two people should ever touch the cake: the person who made it and the person who paid for it. Nobody else should be involved in the transporting of the cake.

Next group classes for the Sugar School are Feb. 19-20 and March 12-13. For more information about Sugar School go to www.ButADreamCakes.com or call 203-675-5998. For more information on But a Dream Custom Cakes, visit www.ButADreamCakes.com; on Facebook, But a Dream Custom Cakes.
Non-US essential workers, such as nurses, truck drivers, and researchers, who are crossing land borders are now required by the United States government to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as infections continue to surge.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Thursday after the country had recorded more than 748,000 new infections a day before.

Essential Workers Required To Be Fully Vaccinated

In October, the Biden administration announced that starting November 8, it would allow non-essential foreign visitors from Canada and Mexico to travel into the US across land borders if they have received anti-COVID-19 shots.

The Department of Homeland Security said those requirements would be extended to essential workers who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, as per Reuters.

According to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the department will require "non-U.S. individuals entering the United States via land ports of entry or ferry terminals along our Northern and Southern borders be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and prepared to show related proof of vaccination."

However, people crossing land borders are not required to show test results indicating that they are negative from COVID-19, unlike those who are traveling by air.

Canada has imposed a vaccine mandate for US truck drivers crossing the Canadian border that started on January 15.

Truckers are considered essential workers since more than two-thirds of the C$650 billion ($521 billion) in products exchanged yearly between Canada, and the United States are transported by road. Truck drivers were allowed to travel even while the Canadian border was closed for 20 months in an effort to manage the virus outbreak.

On Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported the mandate as standing in line with US policies since the two countries are top trading partners.

Read Also: CDC Puts Canada, the Caribbean Island of Curacao on its Highest-Risk for Travel Category Amid Sudden Spikes in COVID-19 Cases

Hospitalization Numbers Surge

The DHS announcement came after the pandemic high number of more than 160,000 COVID-19 infected Americans are presently confined in hospitals based on federal records. Though it is unclear how many people were admitted due to COVID-19 and how many later tested positive for the virus after being admitted for other health conditions.

The federal data also indicate that an average of 760,000 get infected with COVID-19 per day, as per ABC.

Despite the high infection numbers in the country, the COVID-19 surge, fueled by the highly transmissible omicron variant, is going down in some states.

Daily infections in New York have fallen by 33% in the last week, while new cases in New Jersey have declined by 43.7 percent.

Currently, Wisconsin has the highest rate of new cases per capita in the US, followed by Rhode Island, Utah, and South Carolina.

Free Masks for the Public

To boost the protection of Americans against COVID-19, the Biden administration will be giving away 400 million highly protective masks to the public. People can avail high-quality N95 masks at pharmacies and community health centers for free starting next week, as per CNBC.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that N95 masks are more effective than cloth and surgical masks in preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus. However, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky advised that wearing any mask is better than no mask.

Related Article: European Countries Plans To Live With COVID-19; US Not Yet Done With the Pandemic

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As the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched on longer than any of us originally anticipated, the secondary effects of this global crisis continue to play out in communities and homes around the world, and here in Connecticut.

Much attention has rightfully been paid to the impact of the pandemic on various social and economic fronts including mental health, the education achievement gap, workforce problems and more. However, there is another widespread and dire area of concern that has gotten less attention. A shadow pandemic which plays out within our broader public health crisis that is having a particular impact on Connecticut children: domestic violence.

In the early waves of the pandemic, the very measures put in place to combat the virus were also fueling a nightmare for victims of domestic violence. As families were asked to isolate at home, victims of domestic violence were given more exposure to domestic abusers. Early estimates and studies showed more than an 8 percent increase in domestic violence incidents in the United States, as well as a dramatic surge in gun sales. And as the pandemic has dragged on, external factors such as income loss have made domestic situations more volatile, compounding the problem.

The impact is especially acute for children. For one, remote learning meant more time at home, often with adult family members either working from home or experiencing unemployment. Beyond that, the pandemic has caused fewer children to interact with a variety of systems intended to offer safety and support. When children are not in school, it prevents the ability of teachers and other professionals to notice irregularities in behavior that could be attributable to experiencing or witnessing abuse at home; in fact, the Connecticut Department of Children and Families has reported substantially fewer referrals from educators over the past year. Many social services that help children have also been moved to virtual rather than in-person contact, limiting access to some children who otherwise may have had access to those services.

Unfortunately, here in Connecticut there is currently zero state funding for the social service workers whose primary job function is helping children impacted by domestic violence: Connecticuts child and family advocates. These advocates work at our states 18 domestic violence organizations, and utilize a number of trauma-informed, evidence-based and resiliency-driven approaches to their work. They support both children and nonoffending parents with critical services including counseling, coordinating basic needs, school or child care enrollment, scheduling transportation, and advocating for the child and nonoffending parent/survivor within the courts and our child welfare system.

Throughout the pandemic, advocates have gone above and beyond for the children they serve, often stepping in to manage remote learning and stepping up to provide child care when parents need to get to a job interview, or a job and other care hasnt worked out.

Currently, federal pass-through funds pay for only about a quarter of the cost of a full-time advocate at each domestic violence organization, or $11,500 per position. This results in local providers having to either raise funds privately to fully fund a position or have a staff member split their time across various functions, leaving less time for these child-focused purposes. Looking at the number of cases these advocates handle in Connecticut makes the problem starkly clear: over a five-year period from 2017 to 2021, there was an average of 4,313 children served annually by advocates. However, given that each member receives funding for a maximum of 26 percent of their time, that means that federal funding is only supporting advocates for 2.26 hours of service to each child, per year.

Thankfully, state leaders are recognizing that this isnt a sustainable situation for Connecticut, or its children. Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz recently made a strong and clear call for state action to fund these positions, and to do it this year. Along with the lieutenant governor and key partners in the General Assembly, the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence will seek a total of $1,440,000 in new state funding to cover the cost of 18 full-time child and family advocates. This number is less than .01 percent of Connecticuts state budget, but it would be a lifeline to thousands of children who experience or witness violence in their homes, including those who have experienced increased exposure during the pandemic.

Providing evidence- and strengths-based resiliency services for children is paramount to the overall safety and stability of Connecticut families, but currently there is simply not a sustainable way to meet those needs. Connecticut can and should do more  it should start with fully funding child and family advocates.

Meghan Scanlon is the president and CEO of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
The Simpsons has more writers from Connecticut than any other state  11 of us in all. When I ask people why they think that is, they all have the same answer: Who cares?

Well, I care deeply. Im proud that my tiny home state has produced so many amazing writers. Hartford had two on one block: Mark Twain and his next-door neighbor Harriet Beecher Stowe. Not far away lived Wallace Stevens, who scribbled great modernist poetry as he walked to his job at a Hartford insurance company.

In modern times, Hartford gave us Stephenie Meyer, who wrote Twilight, the epic horror trilogy for young women. Theres no one quite like Meyer. Except for Suzanne Collins, who also comes from Hartford and wrote an epic horror trilogy for young women. Hers is called The Hunger Games.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, whom we associate with such glittering cities as New York and Hollywood, had a home in Westport. So did Edna Ferber and Helen Keller. Jason Bournes creator, Robert Ludlum, went to college at Wesleyan in Middletown and lived for a short while in Southport.

But for sheer writers per capita, no place can touch Roxbury, population 2,262. Playwright Arthur Miller brought his new bride Marilyn Monroe to live there. More recently, its been home to best-selling authors Candace Bushnell (Sex and the City), William Styron (Sophies Choice), Gay Talese (Frank Sinatra Has a Cold) and Frank McCourt (Angelas Ashes). One can imagine them all fighting to get a good table at Roxbury Pizza Station.

Ann Petry, the first Black woman to sell more than a million copies of a novel, The Street, lived in Old Saybrook. Childrens author Maurice Sendak lived in Connecticut, and so did Hugh Lofting, the creator of the Doctor Doolittle stories. That very British writer cranked out most of those very British books in Killingworth.

But lets get back to the original question: Why? Why has the third smallest state in America produced great authors in every genre? My theory is that most writers spend their day sitting in their offices, staring out the window. And Connecticut is a great place to stare out the window. Its green, its pretty, its not too dramatic. Theres no mountain to climb or desert to cross  nothing worth getting out of your chair for. It looks nice, but its cold in the winter and buggy in the summer. You might as well stay indoors and write your book. Plus, its a quick hop to New York if you need a decent bagel.

Whatever the reason, Connecticut should take pride in all the writers who call it home. Even Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones lives here. Although he may not know it.

Mike Reiss, who grew up in Bristol, is the author of Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons.
People love connections. This is partly due to our basic emotional need for belonging and identity. But how can a community stay connected in light of the pandemic? This is a big challenge for credit unions, whose very foundation is built on a sense of community and local connections. In the credit union industry, initiating a positive experience for members requires empathy and listening to their needs. However, before a successful experience can be created, the organization must first understand how member behavior changes and what is most valuable to them.

Enter Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing at its core is a strategy that engages consumers using branded moments or activities. By allowing members to become familiar with the brand through immersive, personalized experiences, a credit union can communicate essential brand messaging and capture member attention through memorable and unique touchpoints. This can ultimately lead to the member having a better understanding of the impact of credit union services on their lives. To accomplish this recognition, the organization can leverage its full power through experiential activations, defined as consumer-facing, promotional branded experiences.

Successful experiential activations should strive to:
Japan widens its COVID-19 restrictions on Friday due to the surge of COVID-19 infections, especially in metropolitan areas, brought by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, prompting restaurants and bars to close early.

The restriction, as per NPR, is scheduled to take place until February 13, and it will cover 15 areas of the country. Most restaurants must close by 8 or 9 p.m. under the new rule. However, major gatherings observing anti-COVID-19 protocols will be allowed to be conducted in full capacity.

Tokyo-certified restaurants that stop serving alcoholic beverages are permitted to stay open until 9 p.m., while those offering alcohol, on the other hand, must close an hour sooner.

The Japanese government offers compensation of 30,000 yen ($263) per day to restaurants that close at 9 p.m. The ones that close at 8 p.m. can get 25,000 yen ($220) per day.

Japan Impose Restrictions Instead of Lockdown

Japan has resisted the imposition of lockdowns in managing the outbreak of COVID-19. The country has focused on policies that require restaurants to shorten their business hours and limit the offering of alcoholic beverages.

The government also urged the public to wear masks and practice social distancing as economic activities continue to minimize the impact of the pandemic on the economy.

However, the government's measures make little sense and are unfair for critics as they focus more on bars and restaurants.

Among them is Mitsuru Saga, who manages a restaurant in downtown Tokyo. He claims that he decided to serve alcohol and close at 8 p.m. though he receives less compensation from the government.

"We cannot make a business without serving alcohol," Saga said.

On Thursday, Tokyo logged 8,638 new cases of COVID-19 infection. It had exceeded the previous record of 7,377 cases registered the day before. The fast-rising numbers alarmed Tokyo officials.

Norio Ohmagari, Director of the Disease Control and Prevention Center of National Center for Global Health, predicted that the daily cases in Tokyo might even go beyond 18,000 in the span of one week if the numbers continue to rise at the current pace.

While many Japanese adults are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, only a small percentage have received a booster dose, which improves protection against the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Read Also: COVID-19 Around the World: How Different Countries Are Dealing With Omicron Surge in January 2022

Daily COVID-19 cases surge in Japan

According to Cabinet official Makoto Shimoaraiso, who is involved in Japan's COVID-19 crisis management, the vaccine rollout in the country was hampered by delays in regulatory approvals and reopening of inoculation sites.

In 2021, the national vaccination program started slowly before hitting 1.7 million doses per day. The Cabinet official noted that "the same rapid increase" was also seen with booster shots, as per Reuters.

He added that the government also urged the people to refrain from risky behaviors instead of restricting activities.

On Friday, officials said that the hospital bed occupancy rate for COVID-19 patients surged to 31.5%, which is an increase to 50% that may lead to calls for a full state of emergency.

Japan has recorded just over 2 million infections and 18,461 deaths during the pandemic in almost two years.

Despite the rising number of infected individuals, Japan calls to treat COVID-19 as endemic like flu. The death rate remains low, vaccines are available, and many people are already tired of restrictions, as per Al Jazeera.

Prominent personalities, including former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have expressed their support for the downgrading of the COVID-19 virus, which is believed to boost access to health care for patients. But medical experts from the WHO warned that it's too early and too risky to make drastic changes in dealing with the pandemic.

Related Article: Hamster Owners Do Not Want the Hong Kong Government To Cull Their Pets in Fear of COVID-19 Infection

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United States President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held their first formal meeting on Friday that touched fresh concerns on North Korea's nuclear and missile development, China's growing military assertiveness, and Russia's escalating conflict with Ukraine and NATO.

The virtual meeting was the first substantial talk between the two leaders since Kishida took office in October. The talk, which lasted around 80 minutes, happened as North Korea suggested earlier that it may resume its development of nuclear weapons and long-range, sophisticated missiles.

Japan earlier slammed North Korea's recent launching of alleged ballistic missiles as it violates policies of the United Nations Security Council and poses a threat to the region.

Read Also: China Warns Biden To Stop Meddling in Taiwan Affairs To Avoid Consequences

US-Japan Working Together To Address Various Threats

China's rising hostility towards Taiwan is also a concern for both the US and Japan. China claims Taiwan as its own territory, and it intends to take over by force if necessary.

In recent months, Beijing has increased military exercises near the independent island country, routinely sending airplanes near Taiwan's airspace.

Japan is concerned about China's increased military presence in South China and the East China Sea, where Beijing claims a group of unoccupied islets under Tokyo's governance.

According to Al Jazeera, the US and Japan are re-evaluating their security strategies, with Japan significantly increasing its defense spending in 2022.

Kishida also indicated this week that Japan would beef up its defenses on islands near Taiwan, following a commitment in October to revamp its security strategy to explore every possibility, including the development of enemy-strike capabilities, according to Al Jazeera.

Before the talks, as per AP News, White House officials announced that the Biden- Kishida meeting is expected to discuss the efforts in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising tensions in eastern Europe, where Russia had positioned around 100,000 troops near Ukraine's border. The US and Western allies see it as a prelude to an invasion. Though Russia denied such allegations, it threatens to take unspecified military actions if its demands are not met.

It was an honor to meet with Prime Minister Kishida to further strengthen the U.S.-Japan Alliance  the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world. pic.twitter.com/ZItwL1fvY0  President Biden (@POTUS) January 21, 2022

Productive Meeting Between Biden, Kishida

After the meeting, Kishida said the meeting with Biden had established cooperation between their nations to campaign for a "free and open" Indo-Pacific, to work closely on the issues of China's military aggression and the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

"We agreed to work together to advance cooperation among like-minded countries to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific," Kishida told members of the media.

Japan's Prime Minister said they also agreed to organize an economical version of a "two plus two" meeting to promote Japan-U.S. economic cooperation, as per Reuters.

Kishida also said Japan would cooperate with the US to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine and keep close contact with other allies on the point that any attack will be met with strong action.

Biden expressed on social media his appreciation for meeting Kishida, which he considers as a key step in pursuing stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

"It was an honor to meet with Prime Minister Kishida to further strengthen the U.S.-Japan Alliance - the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world," Biden posted on Twitter.

Related Article: North Korea Launches 2nd Possible Ballistic Missile In 6 Days Amid International Objection

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Of all the great political virtues, the most underestimated is sheer resilience. Getting to the top is one thing.

To stay there, however, you need to keep going when fate has turned against you, to clamber to your feet when the crowd are baying for blood, to drag yourself back into the arena when survival seems impossible. You need, in short, to be a fighter.

At his hangdog nadir last week  that interview with Sky News' Beth Rigby  Boris Johnson didn't look like anybody's idea of a fighter.

Boris Johnson pictured in 2019. In the past weeks, the Prime Minister has been embroiled in the 'Partygate' scandal

He was more of his rumbustious old self at PMQs the next day. And for now he remains in the ring: bruised, battered but somehow still alive.

As bleak as things appear, I suspect it's far too premature to be writing his political obituary.

Not only is Mr Johnson's career littered with astonishing comebacks, but history is full of prime ministers who seemed doomed beyond recovery, only to fight their way to a stunning victory.

Indeed, you have only to look at the recent past to be reminded how quickly things can change.

A decade ago, David Cameron's Conservatives were becalmed on just 29 per cent of the vote, 12 per cent behind Ed Miliband's Labour.

For the Tories, victory seemed impossible. And yet by the summer of 2015, Mr Cameron was strolling back into Downing Street, a nonchalant winner once again.

The most striking example, though, is the astonishing comeback staged by Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s.

Today we remember the Iron Lady as a three-time election winner. But in the final months of 1981 nothing could have seemed less likely.

With the economy in meltdown and unemployment soaring, the Tories had sunk to third in the polls, behind Labour and the new SDP-Liberal Alliance.

The most striking example is the astonishing comeback staged by Margaret Thatcher (pictured) in the early 1980s

Just one in four people said they were satisfied with Mrs Thatcher's performance, the worst figure for any prime minister in history.

The Government's approval rating was only 18 per cent, and when Gallup asked which party people expected to win the next election, just 13 per cent named the Tories.

Yet even as Mrs Thatcher's backbenchers plotted to oust her, she kept going. And we all know what happened next: an economic recovery, victory in the Falklands War and a crushing electoral landslide in the summer of 1983.

As political personalities, Boris and Maggie could hardly be more different. But what lessons can he take from her comeback 40 years ago?

The most obvious is that he really does need to start telling the truth. (Yes, I know this is probably very unrealistic, but there's always hope.)

Whatever else her critics said about her, they never accused Mrs Thatcher of being dishonest. Everybody knew she meant what she said.

They also knew exactly where they stood with her, which is not something people often say of Boris.

So if he wants to stay in Downing Street, he needs to lance the boil of these accursed lockdown parties, once and for all.

He should tell us the whole story, leaving nothing out. He should apologise properly, heaping himself with sackcloth and ashes.

Second, it's now blindingly obvious Mr Johnson's No 10 operation is a complete shambles.

If the leaked photographs of the parties are any guide, the country is being run by a well-lubricated gaggle of chinless wonders scarcely out of their teens, like a cross between the cast of Brideshead Revisited and the gang from Scooby-Doo.

If he is serious about survival, he needs to get rid of the lot of them and bring in the kind of seasoned, hardened operators who ran Downing Street under Mrs Thatcher.

Above all, he needs a really tough, experienced chief of staff who knows exactly how Westminster and Whitehall work.

Third, he needs to sort out his Cabinet. It is frankly absurd that despite the challenges of Brexit, the pandemic and the economic recovery, ministers are still being rewarded for their loyalty to Mr Johnson rather than their record of achievement.

Why is Jeremy Hunt, a senior minister for a decade and the longest serving health secretary in history, still on the backbenches?

Why is Penny Mordaunt, a former defence secretary long regarded as one of the Tories' brightest talents, not sitting in the Cabinet?

The obvious answer is that Mr Johnson is frightened of them. Well, that's no good. Was Mrs Thatcher frightened of Michael Heseltine, Douglas Hurd or Ken Clarke  all of whom often disagreed with her?

Of course not. Believe it or not, there are plenty of talented, effective people on the Tory benches.

Winston Churchill gives his V for Victory sign in April 1945 outside 10 Downing Street

Yes, they might challenge the PM now and again. But that's how you get a decent government, not by cowering in a sycophantic echo chamber.

Now to my fourth lesson. One key reason Mrs Thatcher turned things around was that she had a positive, plausible story to tell.

As she explained, she was unswervingly dedicated to the task of rebuilding the national economy after the travails of the 1970s, and soon voters would see the benefits.

What's Boris's equivalent? The answer is obvious. We are emerging from the pandemic earlier than almost any other country in the world, with a stellar record on vaccinations and an economy growing at breakneck speed. He needs to get out there and sell that message.

Give people a reason to be cheerful, and eventually they'll forget about a scandal that's already almost two years old.

Merely telling a story, however, isn't enough. So  fifth  he desperately needs to show tangible, concrete, everyday results.

Don't just talk about building houses. We need to see bricks and mortar. Don't just promise lower taxes in the far future. Start bringing them down tomorrow.

The next election won't be decided by an email chain from the summer of 2020. It'll be decided by bread-and-butter concerns in the next two years: the prices of goods in the shops, the size of people's wage packets, the impact of their energy bills, even the potholes in their local streets.

'Delivery, delivery, delivery.' That must be the mantra. And there's one more thing  in some ways, the most important of all. To put it simply, don't panic.

What often dooms governments is a sense of spiralling hysteria. As events run out of control, the carrion crows gather and leadership rivals sharpen their knives, it's only too easy to lose your bearings.

But even in their darkest hours  Churchill in 1940, Thatcher in 1981  our greatest leaders kept calm. They knew, as Mr Johnson should know, that fortunes can change very rapidly.

Remember that the Tories won a thumping majority after the humiliation at Suez. Mrs Thatcher won despite the recession of the early 1980s. Tony Blair even won after the debacle of Iraq.

So should we write Boris Johnson off? Surely not. With a bit of honesty and humility, a Downing Street clear-out, a reshuffled Cabinet, a new sense of optimism and a disciplined agenda focusing on the living standards of ordinary families, there's every chance he can turn it around.

Easier said than done, of course. And I can already hear the incredulity from here. Honesty? Discipline? Is this still Boris we're talking about?

Still, miracles do happen. And if there's one man in Westminster who can defy political gravity, it's that battered, bloodied figure, clinging desperately to his place in history.
Nicholas Jubber is the author of The Fairy Tellers: A Journey into the Secret History of Fairy Tales, published on 20 January 2022 by John Murray Press, priced at 20 and available online and from all good bookshops.

'A witch lives in a hut on chicken legs, surrounded by a fence of human skulls.

A young mother has her babies taken away and is accused of eating them.

A mermaid's tongue is cut out by a sea-witch.

When we say 'fairy tale', we may think of happy-ever-afters, princesses in pointy hats and fairy godmothers.

But under the gentle covers of our traditional fairy tales are sharp fangs dripping with blood, like the wolf waiting to gobble up Little Red Riding Hood.

We find this darkness in all the classics, from the tales of the Brothers Grimm to Hans Christian Andersen, with body-counts to rival any modern horror franchise.

On a journey around the history of fairy tales, I found myself asking this question: what makes the old fairy tales so dark? Not the watered-down versions dished up by Disney, but the traditional early versions.

Scholars have tangled them up in a thousand and one theories, but there's a simple reason for the darkness: the tales are dark because the lives of the original tellers were.

The Brothers Grimm and Dortchen Wild

The Brothers Grimm (pictured) lived in a world at war. The region where they lived, Hesse, in Germany, was occupied by the army of Napoleon and the dictator's brother, a dissolute bigamist, seized the throne

Amongst the storytellers who narrated tales to the brothers - stories such as 'Rumpelstiltskin' and 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' - was Dortchen Wild (pictured) an apothecary's daughter who lived across the street. Dortchen's family was so fed up with the French soldiers, her sister once declared 'I want to kill that swine!' But when the Napoleonic troops were booted out, matters didn't improve. Cossack troops from Russia arrived, bunking down on straw mattresses in Dortchen's house, demanding hospitality. To make matters worse, Dortchen lived in the shadow of a very stern father, who disapproved of her friendship with the story-gathering brothers across the road.

The Brothers Grimm lived in a world at war.

The region where they lived, Hesse, in Germany, was occupied by the army of Napoleon and the dictator's brother, a dissolute bigamist, seized the throne.

Amongst the storytellers who narrated tales to the brothers - stories such as 'Rumpelstiltskin' and 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' - was Dortchen Wild, an apothecary's daughter who lived across the street.

Dortchen's family was so fed up with the French soldiers, her sister once declared 'I want to kill that swine!' But when the Napoleonic troops were booted out, matters didn't improve.

Cossack troops from Russia arrived, bunking down on straw mattresses in Dortchen's house, demanding hospitality.

To make matters worse, Dortchen lived in the shadow of a very stern father, who disapproved of her friendship with the story-gathering brothers across the road.

No wonder darkness pervades her tales. In one of the stories she told, 'Sweetheart Roland', a girl is murdered in her sleep and her blood betrays the whereabouts of the escaping lovers.

In the popular tale of 'The Six Swans', a young mother's newborn babies are taken away from her, her lips are smeared with blood and she is accused of eating them.

She can't even protest her innocence, because she has taken a vow of silence.

Even the much-loved 'Hansel and Gretel', another tale narrated by Dortchen, is hardly as sweet as the gingerbread house for which it's known.

The witch intends to eat her two child captives, and they are only in her clutches because their parents have abandoned them in the woods (and in the original version, it's the children's mother - not their stepmother - who insists on throwing them out!).

Ivan Khudiakov

Author Nick Jubber is pictured

These stories have been sanitised over the centuries, so we can see them now as cheerful tales to share with our children.

But it's hard to sanitise the Russian fairy tales - it's the darkness that makes them so engrossing!

At their heart is Baba Yaga, a fearsome witch with iron teeth who lives in a hut that moves about on a pair of giant chicken legs, with a bathhouse full of frogs and eels.

In one of the tales, a girl turns up at Baba Yaga's house and has to carry out various chores in order to be spared.

Her housework is exemplary, so she is given a chest full of money. But her step-sister turns up, eager for rewards of her own. She performs her tasks badly, so instead of being given money she is burned to death.

This story was written down by a Russian folklorist called Ivan Khudiakov, after hearing it narrated in a village near Moscow.

Almost completely unknown in the English-speaking world, Khudiakov was an extraordinary character.

He roamed the villages of the Ryazan region, wrote down the stories he heard and published his first collection of tales at the age of just eighteen.

But he recognised the connection between these tales and the brutal lives of the serfs who narrated them.

Keen to improve their conditions, he worked on reading and writing projects and joined a radical outfit seeking to flatten the Russian class system.

Not a wise move if you want an easy life - embroiled in a failed plot to assassinate the Tsar, he was arrested and sent to the coldest town on earth.

He wasted away in Siberia, ending up in a psychiatric ward.

According to one of his last visitors, 'Everything black, gloomy, flooded his once bright thoughts.'

A few weeks later, his body was tipped into a grave reserved for criminals and vagrants.

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen started life in dire poverty, his mother working as a washerwoman, whilst his father was a cobbler who died after an ill-fated stint in the army, his grandfather was an inmate at the local asylum and his aunt ran a brothel

Happy ever after was out of reach for many of these old tellers of tales.

But one figure who bucked the trend was Hans Christian Andersen.

'My life is a fairy tale,' he declared.

He started life in dire poverty, his mother working as a washerwoman, whilst his father was a cobbler who died after an ill-fated stint in the army, his grandfather was an inmate at the local asylum and his aunt ran a brothel.

He left his hometown of Odense for Copenhagen, where he was mocked for his provincial accent and gangly figure, but over time his relentless determination won people over, and the popularity of his stories led him to enjoy the hospitality of the Duke of Weimar and Charles Dickens, amongst others.

As he put it towards the end of his life: 'I have drunk my chocolate with the Queen, sitting opposite her and the King at the table'.

The misery of his early life, however, haunted his tales.

The sea-witch's extraction of the Little Mermaid's tongue echoed Andersen's feeling of voicelessness when he emigrated from provincial Odense to Copenhagen.

The Little Match Girl, dying of the cold, could have been Andersen himself in his early days in Copenhagen; and he compared his experience of other people's contempt to his tale of 'The Ugly Duckling'.

Loss pervades many of Andersen's tales.

One of my personal favourites is 'The Wood Nymph', in which a forest sprite yearns for the city lights and achieves her dream, dancing the can-can and visiting the Paris Exhibition, before dissolving to a single drop of water.

Sacrifices are made, and happiness rarely comes without a cost.

Redemptive as many fairy tales are, promising a way out of the dark, on a deeper level they warn us of the loss and pain likely to assail us on the difficult path to happily-ever-after.'
A thrifting fan who found a woman's 1940 diploma in a vintage store uncovered how the heroic war nurse died of hypoglycemia at the tender age of 28 after saving dozens of lives during World War II

Chelsey Brown, 28, from New York City, was at a thrift shop in Washington, D.C., when she came upon the diploma for Grace Elizabeth Trout, who graduated from the Union Memorial Hospital training school for nurses in 1940 at the age of 22.

Chelsey decided to learn all she could about Grace and after doing research, she was able to find Grace's obituary online.

Upon further digging, she even tracked down the woman's ancestors so she could return the document.

Thrifting expert Chelsey Brown (pictured) uncovered the tragic story of a war nurse hero after finding her diploma in a thrift shop

The diploma belonged to Grace Elizabeth Trout (pictured), who graduated from the Union Memorial Hospital training school for nurses in 1940 at the age of 22

Chelsey discovered that the nurse had sadly died at 28 years old in 1946 of idiopathic hypoglycemia - but not before an incredible stint working throughout the second world war

Chelsey couldn't explain why she was so intrigued by the decades-old diploma for someone she didn't know, but she felt compelled to take it home.

'At first I just thought it was a regular diploma, but something just drew me to it,' Chelsey told Jam Press.

But when she took it home, she did some research into the woman's past and discovered an incredible history.

She found that during her service as a nurse,

heroic Grace garnered awards including the Bronze Star Medal for extraordinary service as a combat nurse during the invasion of Sicily, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign medal with seven battle stars, and a Bronze Arrowhead in recognition of her participation in four amphibious assault landings.

She spent 30 months overseas in combat service, including work in General Clarks Fifth Army and General Pattons Third Army.

Grace spent 30 months overseas in combat service where she garnered many awards. She is pictured in a newspaper clipping about her achievements

After being discharged in 1946, Grace entered the University of Louisville School of Medicine, but she passed away 11 months later. Pictured is a newspaper clipping about her death

Using MyHeritage.com, Chelsey tracked down the closest family member to the late nurse - an in-law who had married into the Trout family. Pictured is Grace's grave

General Mark Clark was the youngest four-star general in the U.S. Army during World War II, and is most-known for leading in the capture of Rome in 1944.

General George Patton is considered one of the most successful combat generals in U.S. history. During WWII, he helped lead the invasion of Sicily, and was instrumental to the liberation of Germany from the Nazis.

The young nurse was discharged on January 27, 1946, and entered pre-medical school at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky.

Sadly, she soon developed idiopathic hypoglycemia, a rare condition that causes the blood's glucose to drop to dangerously low levels. She passed away just 11 months later on December 12, 1946 at age 28.

'I felt a connection with this item and possibly the person behind it. This woman accomplished so much in her life, but sadly, it was cut short,' Chelsey said.

Using MyHeritage.com, Chelsey tracked down the closest family member to the late nurse - an in-law who had married into the Trout family - and she was able to reunite them with the diploma, a nod to Graces incredible achievements.

She returned the document to them, and Chelsey - who has reconnected countless heirlooms with lost family members - said it 'made their day'

Chelsey said she found it especially poignant to find the diploma at the same age Grace was when she died

What is hypoglycemia? Hypoglycemia is where the level of sugar (glucose) in your blood drops too low

It mainly affects people with diabetes, especially if they take insulin

A low blood sugar level can be dangerous if it's not treated quickly, but you can usually treat it easily yourself

Symptoms include: sweating, feeling tired, dizziness, feeling hungry, tingling lips, feeling shaky or trembling, a fast or pounding heartbeat, becoming easily irritated, tearful, anxious or moody, and turning pale

You can treat it by having a sugary drink or snack

Source: NHS Advertisement

After getting in contact with Graces family, Chelsey said they were thrilled to see the diploma.

She continued: 'When I got in contact [Grace's family member] said, "You have made my day, I had always hoped to be so lucky and never was until I read your message!"

'[Grace's family member] said, "This is my husband's family and she was extraordinary, the way I feel is a mix of proud and sad all that the same time.'

Chelsey found it especially poignant to find the diploma at the same age Grace was when she died.

She said: 'I think, in a way, thats why I connected with the diploma. I know it sounds weird but I knew I needed to pick it up.

'I am 28 years old and it just puts so much into perspective, Grace and I relate in that she was very driven by her work, as well as I am.

'But unfortunately, she didnt see past the age of 28. Its just a strange parallel.'

Chelsey also found Graces death highlighted in a newspaper article announcing her passing and commemorating her achievements.

It read, 'Miss Grace Trout, Glen Rock, found dead in apartment at Louisville, Kentucky, where she was taking pre medical course.

'Awarded Bronze Star medal and Seven Battle Stars in 30 months' service overseas.'

Chelsey regularly trawls thrift stores and street markers and has reconnected countless heirlooms with lost family members.
Historian Lucy Worsley, 48, recalls the stories of a woman who was paid to care for babies but instead strangled '400' to death during a 30-year spree and a serial killer who poisoned 11 out of 13 of her children and three of her four husbands for their insurance policies. The BBC radio series, Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley, also includes a look at Scottish socialite, Madeleine Smith, whose family was caught in a scandal after she was accused of poisoning her older French lover. Elsewhere, American Lizzie Borden became notorious after being tried and acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother - and her innocence is questioned even today, with some suggesting she was after her wealthy father's inheritance. Here, FEMAIL takes a look at the Victorian women included in the podcast and the disturbing murder cases surrounding them...
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If you need an extra push with your New Year's fitness resolutions, then it's well-worth hot-footing it over to Lululemon, where you can currently get 20 per cent off all full-priced items.

While Lululemon's We Made Too Much sale section is a brilliant place to find some hidden gems at low prices (think relaxed tank tops from just 19), the site has secretly dropped a discount code for 20 per cent off full-priced items, so you can get your favourites for less.

From 21-23 January, shoppers can score 20 per cent off full-priced items with the code GIFT20 at the checkout. This means you can get your hands on the bestselling Lululemon Align Pants for 86.40, down from 108 - a handy saving of 21.69.

Lululemon is offering 20 per cent off full-priced items, including their bestsellers, with the code GIFT20 at checkout

Lululemon is giving you the chance to upgrade your gym kit at the very best prices with 20 per cent off full-priced items, including their bestsellers.

While many colours and sizes are naturally flying off the shelves, there's plenty to get excited about with savings on the popular Align, Wunder Train and super soft InStill leggings.

A favourite with gym-goers, yogis and for making the softest leggings around, Lululemon rarely offers discounts, so this is a sale not to miss.

If you're wondering what to add to your shopping basket, then the Lululemon Align Leggings are famously the brand's bestsellers and a fan-favourite for a good reason.

Made with buttery-soft Nulu fabric, it feels weightless on the skin, allowing you to lunge, squat and jump with unparalleled comfort. While super breathable and sweat-wicking, the Align leggings are really best for low impact workouts and as the foundation for your off-duty weekend looks.

If yoga is your workout weapon of choice, then the InStill yoga collection provides smoothing support and softness you can feel in every breath, stretch, and pose. Whilst usually 108, you can now grab a pair for 86.40.

For sweatier, high impact workouts like running, the Wunder Train Leggings should be your go-to. Highly breathable, the souped-up leggings quickly wicks sweat, so you feel less sweaty during (and after) your workout. And they could be yours for 70.40 (was 88).

The Lululemon 20 per cent off sale starts today and ends on Sunday January 23, so be sure to move quickly to take advantage of these savings

If you're looking for something to wear to and from the gym and that looks effortlessly cool on any weekend walks, then the Lululemon Wunder Puff Long Jacket offers more than just style.

Water-repellent and windproof it will keep you cocooned in warmth, plus the cinchable waist lets you customise the shape and keep out cold drafts. Now 182.40 (was 228).

And something to keep you cosy on those chiller runs? The Lululemon Define Jacket ticks all the boxes; super soft cotton feel, four-way stretch, sweat-wicking and thumb holes to keep you comfortable. And it can be your for 78.40 (was 98).

There are plenty of workout bras to keep you going, too, alongside accessories like the bestselling Reversible Mat 5mm in a cool marble pattern that will surely inspire you to work up a sweat.

The Lululemon 20 per cent off sale starts today and ends on Sunday January 23, so be sure to move quickly to take advantage of these savings. Just enter the code GIFT20 at the checkout.
Everyone knows apologies can be difficult, and some people find them trickier than others.

Speaking to FEMAIL, an expert with etiquette bible Debrett's has revealed the dos and don'ts to make your next 'I'm sorry' come across as sincere - and the phrases you absolutely should avoid.

Many people fall into the trap of trying to shift the blame, even unknowingly, by slipping the word 'if' into their apologies.

Saying 'I'm sorry if I upset you' does not carry as much weight as 'I'm sorry I upset you'.

Speaking to FEMAIL, an expert with etiquette bible Debrett's has revealed the dos and don'ts to make your next 'I'm sorry' come across as sincere - and the phrases you absolutely should avoid. Stock image

She also explained apologies must never be given with conditions about what the other person should or shouldn't do - it should all be about the person apologising taking full responsibility for their actions.

As for the written note of apology, that should only be sent in cases where an individual has done something seriously wrong. And only after a verbal apology.

Here, everything you need to know.

Fully accept you are in the wrong

In most cases, it is a personal relationship at the heart of an apology. In order to take steps to repair this, the individual must first fully accept he or she has wronged.

This is the case even if you do not understand fully what you have done. The other person's reaction should be enough to signal the need for an apology.

The case of Boris Johnson's 'partygate' apology Apologies have been in the news this week with Boris Johnson trying to navigate the 'partygate' scandal, without fully admitting he was completely in the wrong. Liz explained in these exceptional cases, when there are massive legal or professional ramifications, apologies often come across as insincere because the individual is unwilling to fully accept they have been in the wrong, for fear of implicating themselves. She said: 'In the era of the skillful, legally watertight apology, even a supposedly heartfelt "sorry" can sound hollow. 'Conditional wording or a lack of sincerity may risk inflaming, rather than resolving, a tricky situation.' Advertisement

She added: 'A sincere apology should always be offered when your actions have had a negative impact on other people.

'Even if you do not fully understand why someone is so upset, respect their feelings, and accept that your actions are the root of the problem.'

Never shift the blame

The number one mistake people make is shifting the blame, making excuses or bringing the other person's reaction under scrutiny, Liz explained.

'Don't pass the buck, or use your apology as a way of blaming someone else.

'Don't plead mitigating or extenuating circumstances, or engage in retrospective regrets: "With hindsight, I should have"

'Don't argue that your misdeeds were essentially based on a misunderstanding of salient circumstances.'

Explaining an apology should never include the word 'if', she continued: 'Take full responsibility for your actions.

'Never ever use the phrase "I'm sorry if I offended/disappointed/enraged you." You must fully own the fault  no ifs, not buts.'

Instead, simply say: 'I am sorry I offended/disappointed/enraged you'.

This validates the other person's feelings and makes clear you understand you were the one responsible.

Explain why you are sorry

Rather than giving a blunt 'sorry', Liz explained that you sound more sincere and as though you have learned from your actions if you repeat the reason for your apology.

Liz explained: An apology will be much more persuasive if you acknowledge, and even reiterate, the nature of the fault: "I'm sorry I was so irritable last night" is more specific than a simple "I'm sorry", and actually recognises the other person's grievance.'

Debrett's advisor Liz Wyse revealed that you should always take responsibility for your actions and accept your part of the blame, and never use the opportunity to make excuses or think in retrospect. Stock image

Never accuse

An apology is pointless if it comes with conditions, Liz said, or if it heaps criticism on the person you are apologising to.

'Never temper your apologies with accusations or insinuations', she continued.

'It will negate the impact if an apology is immediately followed by self-justification or further criticism.'

If you've really wronged, send a note

To take your apology a step further, or if you've really upset somebody, Debrett's suggests sending a note - but only after you've apologised in person.

Liz said: 'If you have committed a real faux-pas consider sending a handwritten note  but only after you have offered a verbal apology, otherwise it will look like cowardice.'

Don't apologise willy-nilly

Finally, in a case of the boy who cried wolf, Liz warns against using apologies lightly, explaining that they will lose their weight.

She said: 'The British urge to apologise for other people's actions is famous. If someone barges into you, a muttered 'sorry' is misplaced.

'Constant, needless apologising, when you are not the actual offender, devalues the currency, and will lessen the impact of a genuine, heartfelt mea culpa.

'It is important that you recognise when an apology is called for and that you sincerely acknowledge the magnitude of the offence.'
The life and work of the artist who created the modern image of The Queen will be celebrated with a London exhibition as part of the Platinum Jubilee.

British sculptor Mary Gillick, who died in 1965, shot to fame in her 70s after creating the first portrait of Her Majesty to be issued on UK coinage following her Coronation in 1953.

The portrait, which was used on the coinage of many Commonwealth countries, was used up until decimalisation in 1971, however a new portrait had entered circulation by 1968.

From her training at the Royal College of Art to finding fame with the royal family, Gillicks career will be honoured with a display of her work and personal artifacts at the British Museum in June.

British sculptor Mary Gillick shot to fame in her 70s after creating the first portrait of Her Majesty to be issued on UK coinage following her Coronation in 1953

The portrait (pictured), which was used on the coinage of many Commonwealth countries, was used up until decimalisation in 1971, however a new portrait had entered circulation by 1968

Mary was born in 1898 in Nottingham and was educated at the Nottingham School of Art before attending the Royal College of Art for two years in 1902, where she studied under French-born sculptor Edouard Lanteri.

While studying she met fellow sculptor Ernest George Gillick and they married in 1905, forming a working partnership from their based at their home studio in Chelsea.

Mary's first exhibition featured medals and large sculptures in stone and bronze at the Royal Academy in 1911, where she continued to display art regularly throughout her career.

In 1952, when Mary was 71, her design was selected from seventeen to be used on general-circulation coinage for the new Queen and was notable for portraying Her Majesty without a crown.

Located in the Asahi Shimbun Displays, the exhibit will run until July 31st as part of Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee celebrations

The sculptor worked on the portrait between March and October 1952 and in one session was closely supervised by the Duke of Edinburgh.

The coin was remastered by Cecil Thomas, an experienced medallist who had been turned down to create the portrait of Her Majesty in favour of Mary.

A cameo of the portrait of the Queen has been used on British commemorative stamps since 1966 and the original still appears on the Maundy money given out by the Queen each Easter.

Mary was appointed OBE in the 1953 Coronation Honours and the coin was used up until 1971, after a second portrait by Arnold Machin was introduced into circulation in 1968.

Struck bronze uniface medal by Mary Gillick, 1941. Left, Bust of John Cadman,First Baron Cadman of Silverdale. Right, Nude female figure kneeling holding up oil-lamp

Struck bronze medal by Gillick in 1945. Left, Bust of Charles Chree, l. Right, Nude cherub standing to front, wearing laurel wreath and holding up scroll with graph

The exhibition in honour of Mary will feature items presented to the British Museum by the artists family in 2005 including medals created by Gillick from the 1910s to the 1950s.

History of the Royal Mint: The five portraits of Her Majesty since her accession to the throne in 1952 Mary Gillick 1953 Portrait Following the death of George VI Queen Elizabeth was modelled aged 25 by 71-year-old artist Mary Gillick. The artist beat 16 other artists in a competition conducted by The Royal Mint Advisory Committee. In the wake of the Second World War the coin was designed to make the Queen appear youthful and optimistic. 1968 Arnold Machin RA Portrait While Britain did not switch to decimalisation until 1971, decimal coins entered circulation in 1968. Five and ten pence coins were introduced to replace shillings and florins with a portrait by Arnold Machin. The new portrait showed The Queen wearing a tiara instead of a wreath. 1985 Raphael Maklouf Portrait A royal portrait by the sculptor Raphael Maklouf circulated from 1985 to 1997. The design showed Her Majesty wearing the royal diadem often worn on the State Opening of Parliament. The artists' initials RDM can be seen at the bottom of The Queens neck. 1998 Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS Portrait Her Majesty's fourth portrait was created by sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley. The coin, released in early 1998, was designed to show the Queen in a more realistic light. 2015 Jody Clark Portrait English engraver Jody Clark created he latest portrait of The Queen, unveiled in 2015. Clark is the first Royal Mint designer to create a definitive royal coinage portrait in over 100 years. Clark was younger than any of the other four designers to have created portraits of Elizabeth II for British coinage at the time their design was chosen Advertisement

The exhibit will also include related dies, punches and plaster models, a set of large-scale plaster models of her portrait of the Queen, and documents relating to the new coins.

Located in the Asahi Shimbun Displays, the exhibit will run until July 31st as part of Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

Various other celebrations including a spectacular pageant featuring street theatre and dance will be taking place throughout the extended Bank Holiday weekend to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee this summer.

Organisers, including Pageant Master Adrian Evans said the event, with a budget of between 10 and 15 million and involving participants from across the UK and parts of the Commonwealth, is expected to be one of the biggest celebratory events held on home soil for decades.

Throughout the year, the Queen and members of the royal family will travel around the country attending a range of events to mark the milestone, culminating with the Platinum Jubilee Weekend.

Buckingham Palace said 2022's extended break will run from Thursday, June 2 to Sunday, June 5 after the May bank holiday - which would have been on Monday, May 30 - was pushed back.

The four-day weekend will begin on the Thursday with Trooping the Colour, which will be staged in full for the first time since the pandemic, and a service of thanksgiving for the Queen's reign will be held at St Paul's Cathedral on the Saturday.

Sunday's pageant will comprise of three acts, with the first seeing both serving troops and veterans take part in a march along The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace.

The second act, entitled Celebration, will feature a puppet dragon larger than a double-decker bus with a wingspan the width of The Mall.

Others taking part will include a trapeze artist suspended underneath a huge balloon printed with an image of the Queen, as well as acrobats and other performers.

The specially-written fairy story There Once Is A Queen by renowned author Sir Michael Morpurgo will be brought to life through artists on the day.

The pageant will have a nod to every decade of the Queen's reign, and feature horses and corgis to reflect her passions.

Nicholas Coleridge, co-chairman of the pageant, said: 'The Platinum Jubilee weekend is an opportunity for the country to emerge re-energised and renewed, expressing optimism and confidence.

'It will be something of a reopening ceremony for the United Kingdom, following a period of uncertainty and hardship, a catalysing moment of unity and fun.

'Through the fusion of ceremonial and pageantry with razzmatazz and festival, we intend to create a spectacle that is at once energising and memorable and a fitting tribute to the Queen.'

The pageant will be privately funded, organisers said, through a mix of corporate partners, business and individuals.
A New Jersey mother of four died from COVID-19 just three weeks after giving birth, without ever getting to hold her newborn son.

Michelle Stani, 37, of Bridgewater, passed away at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick on January 12 after suffering coronavirus complications linked to pneumonia. It's unclear if she was vaccinated.

The single mom had given birth to her fourth child, Jayden, at the hospital via cesarean section on December 24, but she was never able to hold her baby boy, her aunt Tina Stani told the New York Post.

'Her partner [Frank Allen] had taken a picture of the baby and showed it to her, but thats all she got,' she said. 'It tore her up. She literally texted me that she was heartbroken, that she wished she could hold her baby. Thats all she wanted.'

Michelle Stani, 37, of Bridgewater, New Jersey died of COVID-19 complications on January 12, three weeks after she gave birth to her fourth child

The mother of four was unable to hold her newborn son, Jayden, before she died at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick

Michelle, whose funeral was held Wednesday in her hometown of Somerset, leaves behind four children: Samantha, 19, Noah, 4, Jordan, 11 months, and Jayden, 3 weeks.

Tina said she didn't know if her niece had been vaccinated against COVID-19.

'I dont know, she was pregnant for almost two years,' she explained. 'I would love to say one way or the other, but I dont know.'

Michelle's brother Jack Stani told NJ.com that he had initially assumed she was vaccinated but then wasn't sure after she got sick. He said their family won't talk about her vaccine status.

'I never knew my sister to be an anti-vaxxer,' he added. 'She never talked about it. We never talked about the vaccine. It was just something that never came up. It never dawned on me until she got really sick. Then I thought, "Was she vaccinated?"'

The mom died of COVID-19 complications linked to pneumonia, but her aunt Tina Stani and brother Jack Stani said they aren't sure if she was vaccinated

Michelle, who worked as the director of a daycare center in central New Jersey, contracted COVID-19 in December and gave birth to her baby boy Jayden (not pictured) on December 24

Michelle, whose funeral was held Wednesday in Somerset, leaves behind four children: Samantha, 19, Noah, 4, Jordan, 11 months, and Jayden, 3 weeks (not pictured)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about 41 percent of pregnant women are vaccinated, despite data that shows the shot can prevent severe disease during pregnancy.

Michelle worked as the director of a daycare center in central New Jersey. In September, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy mandated that childcare workers in the state had to be vaccinated by November 1 or face weekly testing.

She was struck down with COVID-19 in December and was hospitalized because she was having difficulties breathing.

'When she would try to sleep she would wake up having trouble breathing,' her brother Jack said. 'She got intubated pretty quick.'

He recalled how devastated she was that she was only able to see her immediate family through a glass barrier.

Michelle announced her fourth pregnancy on Facebook in October, saying she was having another boy

Michelle's partner Frank Allen shared that she gave birth to Jayden on Christmas Eve

Michelle was pregnant for almost two years, first with her daughter Jordan and then with her son Jayden

'She couldnt see the baby. She was all alone,' he said. 'They only allowed my mother, my father, and Samantha to see her. And they were only able to see her through glass after she had been intubated.'

The family was asked to come into the hospital on January 10 to say their final goodbyes, according to Jack. Michelle was alone when she died two days later.

'She was the most genuine, authentic person Ive ever met in my life,' he said of his sister. 'She never held back what she thought about anybody. She didnt care who you were. She let you know exactly how she felt about you.'

Michelle got her masters degree in education from Rutgers University last fall while pregnant with her daughter Jordan and working full-time.

'She wanted to own her own daycare, that was the end goal for her,' Jack said. 'She was active, she was independent and she wanted to do it all on her own. I dont know how the hell she did it.'

Michelle was 17 when she welcomed her first child, Samantha (pictured)

For years, it was just Michelle and Samantha, but then she met her partner Frank and had three more children

Michelle got her masters degree in education from Rutgers University last fall while pregnant with her daughter Jordan and working full-time. She dreamed of starting her own daycare

Michelle was 17 when she welcomed her first child, Samantha. For years, it was just the two of them, but then she met her partner Frank and had three more children.

Samantha, who spoke at her mother's funeral, posted a heart-wrenching tribute on Facebook last week.

'My angel. My rock, my soulmate. I am eternally grateful for the life you gave me, the time I shared with you, for the mother that you were to me. No one will ever understand our bond and connection,' she wrote.

'I need to see you again and I know one day I will and I promise I will give you the longest hug ever. You have impacted so many people, you are an inspiration. Noah, Jordan, Jayden, and I will always live through you and make you proud. I will cherish our amazing memories forever and I will continue to miss you every single day,' she continued.

'I keep thinking this is a dream I never thought I would lose you. My heart is so broken and life will never be the same without you but I will always carry you in my heart. I learned so much from you and I am so proud of all your accomplishments. There is truly no one like you, you are the best. I love you so much my mommy please watch over me.'

Michelle is survived by her parents John and Susan Stani, her partner Frank, her brothers Sean and Jack, and her four children, according to her obituary

Samantha, who spoke at her mother's funeral, posted a heart-wrenching tribute on Facebook last week, saying she was her 'soulmate'

Frank also opened up about his grief on Facebook this week following Michelle's funeral

Michelle is survived by her parents John and Susan Stani, her partner Frank, her brothers Sean and Jack, and her four children, according to her obituary.

She was described as being a music lover and a Dave Matthews Band fan who 'attended many of their concerts throughout her life.'

'She was a fun person, who loved to dance and if you brought her any place with music, she would be on the dance floor the whole evening getting others to join in,' the obituary said.

A GoFundMe account started by Michelle's family has raised more than $38,000 to cover the cost of childcare and education for her four kids.

On Thursday, New Jersey reported 10,072 new cases of COVID-19 and 161 deaths. The state has had a total of 1.75 million cases and over 27,000 deaths from the virus.
Aldi Australia is set to launch an electric lunchbox that allows shoppers to heat up their leftovers and cook meals on the go.

The $34.99 portable electric lunchbox will go on sale in stores and online this Saturday, January 22.

The nifty gadget has an in-built heating element and comes with two stainless steel trays that stack on top of each other so you can carry and warm up two different meals.

Aldi Australia is set to launch a $34.99 portable electric lunchbox in stores and online this Saturday, January 22, that allows shoppers to heat up their leftovers and cook meals on the go

You can also make hard boiled eggs on the go as it comes with an egg rack and measuring cup.

Available in two different colours, grey and turquoise blue, the lunchbox features a detachable power cord, a handle and anti-slip feet.

It also comes with a recipe booklet to give you a different meal idea each day.

The nifty gadget has an in-built heating element and comes with two stainless steel trays that stack on top of each other so you can carry and warm up two different meals

Available in two different colours, grey and turquoise blue, the lunchbox features a detachable power cord, a handle and anti-slip feet and comes with an egg rack and measuring cup

The lunchbox will be available as part of Aldi's Special Buy sales for a limited time - so you'll have to be quick.

Aldi will also be offering their mega-popular portable blender in their Special Buys this Saturday.

With a USB charger, the $19.99 blender allows shoppers to make smoothies on the go.

Aldi is bringing back its hugely popular $19.99 portable blender this month that allows users to make delicious smoothies on the go

The sell-out gadget has a 400ml drinking glass blender and can be used around 20 times after a full charge.

It has stainless steel blades, drink lid with a strainer, a flat base and a stopper for extra convenience.

The rechargeable gadget features a built-in battery and USB charging cable that can be easily charged via a power bank, laptop, computer or other devices with USB.

With a USB charger, the blender allows shoppers to make smoothies on the go and will be available in stores and online from Wednesday, January 22

The portable blender comes in five different colours including blue, green, purple, pink and yellow.

Shoppers were sent into a frenzy the last time the blender was available with some reports of the gadget selling out within one day of going on sale.
A stylish new range of cookware allows you to cook entire meals in the microwave - saving you hours in the kitchen each week.

Australian company Anyday Cookware, founded by Steph Chen, is described as 'party-ready glass dishware' and is designed to turn raw ingredients into home-cooked meals in just four easy steps.

To use you simply prep fresh ingredients and place into the dishware, microwave and transfer the finished result straight to the table.

To store you push down the silicone handle to stack.

Australian company Anyday Cookware , founded by Steph Chen, is described as 'party-ready glass dishware' and is designed to turn raw ingredients into home-cooked meals in just four easy steps

According to the founder Steph, Anyday started as an 'accident'.

'We were hungry, we wanted roast chicken, but we had a million things to do before dinnertime. To save time, we tried microwaving the chicken before finishing it in the oven,' she said.

'When it came out perfectly juicy, no oven needed, we realized we'd stumbled upon the unexpected magic of the microwave.

'As someone who feels like she's winning life when making meals that are both very high on the delicious scale and very low on the effort scale, I was thrilled to discover that even some of the best chefs in the world have championed cooking fresh food from scratch in the microwave.'

Recipe: Arash Hashemi's Salmon with Saffron Cauliflower Mash Serves: 1-2 Microwave Wattage: 1000w Ingredients 2 cups (190g) cauliflower florets (frozen or fresh) salt, to taste 1 pinch saffron threads  cup (30g) grated parmesan cheese 2 (4-6 oz each) salmon fillets , skin on  teaspoon sumac 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon chile lime seasoning  teaspoon Aleppo pepper, optional 2 teaspoons olive oil Method 1. Place the cauliflower florets, salt, and saffron in the Deep Anyday dish and toss to combine. Cover with the lid (knob lifted). Cook in the microwave for 4-5 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender when pierced with a fork. 2. Mash the cauliflower with a fork or potato masher until a chunky mash is formed. Season the cauliflower mash with parmesan cheese and salt to your liking. Cover the mashed cauliflower and set aside while you cook the salmon. 3. Pat dry the salmon on both sides and season with salt. Place the filets in the Shallow Anyday dish skin side down. Sprinkle the sumac, garlic powder, chile lime seasoning and Aleppo pepper evenly over each salmon filet. Drizzle olive oil on top. 4. Cover and cook in the microwave for 4-5 minutes or until your desired doneness. (Keep in mind that thinner fillets will cook faster and thicker fillets will need more time.) AServing tips: * Serve the salmon alongside some of the cauliflower mash and enjoy it warm. Top with Confit Tomatoes. * If salmon is not available, you may substitute it with halibut, Chilean sea bass, mahi mahi or even cod. * Swap out spices for paprika, chili powder or fish seasoning. * Microwave ovens vary, even with the same wattages. Adjust cooking times as needed. Advertisement

Steph said her glassware delivers green veggies in two minutes, succulent medium-rare salmon in three minutes and creamy no-stir polenta in 20 minutes.

'We create products that unleash this microwave magic: turning raw ingredients into delicious and nutritious home-cooked meals in record time,' she said.

'Anyday makes it easier to enjoy the flavors and recipes you love. No tradeoffs, any meal and any day of the week.

'It's about time you put your microwave to work. Because at the end of the day, we all need more free time to feed and connect with the people we care about.'

'We create products that unleash this microwave magic: turning raw ingredients into delicious and nutritious home-cooked meals in record time,' founder Steph said

The Everyday set costs $229.95 and includes a large deep dish (great for heart soups), large shallow dish (great for juicy meat and flaky fish), medium deep dish (great for chunky veggies and stews) and medium shallow dish (great for dips and tender-crisp veggies).

Each one is dishwasher-safe, eco-friendly and non-toxic, oven-safe, freezer-safe and airtight and leakproof.

Since launching Anyday Cookware has received countless five-star reviews from thrilled customers.

Each one is dishwasher-safe, eco-friendly and non-toxic, oven-safe, freezer-safe and airtight and leakproof

'This cookware is some of my most used kitchen equipment. I just love my Anyday set, would recommend to all home cooks of any skill level,' one wrote.

'Super easy to use, great recipes on the website and if you've got left overs they are all ready to go. They store really well stacked and Don't take up a bunch off space,' another added.

'Love these bowls. They make cooking in the microwave easy and fun. The food also tastes great and love the recipes.'
The latest NASA Mars Rover picture showed the drill hole Curiosity created on the red planet. From this drill and powdered rock, scientists discovered carbon signature on Mars.

However, it does not mean that there's life in ancient Mars.

NASA Mars Rover

The Mars Science Laboratory mission, which includes the Curiosity rover, is part of NASA's Mars Investigation Program using robotic research.

Curiosity was built to see if Mars has an appropriate environment for microscopic living forms known as microorganisms. To simplify, NASA Mars Curiosity Rover aims to determine the planet's "habitability."

To accomplish this, the rover is equipped with the largest and most advanced set of scientific instruments launched to the surface of Mars. Samples collected from the dirt and drilled from rocks will be analyzed by the rover.

The climate and geology of the world are basically "written in the rocks and soil," as evidenced by their creation, structure and chemical content. The onboard laboratory of the rover will examine rocks, soils and the surrounding geologic context to find chemical building blocks of life, such as carbon forms, on Mars.

Aside from this, it also intends to determine what the Martian environment was like in its previous years.

Read Also: Linux Malware Rise Can Expose You to Hackers; 3 Top Threats to Watch Out For

In relation to this, scientists recently discovered that some of the rock samples collected by the rover "are rich in a type of carbon that on Earth is associated with biological processes."

After analyzing powdered rock samples collected by @MarsCuriosity, scientists found that some are rich in a type of carbon that on Earth is associated with biological processes. It's not proof of life on Mars, but it's "tantalizingly interesting." Details: https://t.co/lhz6JLENys pic.twitter.com/6NhHyqlEEo  NASA Mars (@NASAMars) January 18, 2022

Upon posting this, numerous people expressed their opinions about images provided by the NASA Mars Rover.

Twitter user @KevClayton2 theorized that "if it's the same as we get here on Earth, and Mars was once like earth I'd say the odds are very high that life formed on mars at least once in its long history and actually if mars is a first generation planet and is alot older than earth then we could all be from mars."

Meanwhile, another Twitter user shared the publicized photos from Mars.

Beautiful The discovery of life on Mars, either in the form of ancient fossils or subterranean reservoirs, would be one of the most momentous breakthroughs in human history. flourished in the past, implying that, at the very least, life can strike twice in the universe. pic.twitter.com/KhZtRBzYKO  Adrian Li (@AdrianL16882023) January 18, 2022

NASA Mars Curiosity Picture Shows Drill Hole on Red Planet

While the discovery is captivating, NASA clarified that it does not necessarily guarantee that ancient life existed on Mars.

This only means that scientists have yet to discover solid proof of ancient or current biology on the planet, including sedimentary rock formations created by ancient bacteria or a wide variety of different compounds formed by life.

Additionally, principal investigator of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) chemistry lab aboard Curiosity Paul Mahaffy said that they are "finding things on Mars that are tantalizingly interesting, but we would really need more evidence to say we've identified life," per NASA.

Mahaffy also clarified that they are looking for the root cause of the carbon signature that they have discovered.

Moreover, Curiosity scientists provided potential theories for the carbon signals that they have discovered.

To further emphasize, the mentioned possible theories are based on carbon fingerprints on Earth. However, scientists emphasized that the two planets are different, which means they cannot base the samples collected from Earth.

Goddard astrobiologist Jennifer Eigenbrode added that "The hardest thing is letting go of Earth and letting go of that bias that we have and really trying to get into the fundamentals of the chemistry, physics and environmental processes on Mars."

Meanwhile, the other two reasons for this discovery were caused by UV light interacting with carbon dioxide gas in the Martian atmosphere, and the carbon might have been left behind after a rare situation hundreds of millions of years ago.

Related Article: NASA Asteroid Warning: Earth Blind Spot, Slow Motion Can Let Asteroid Sneak In!
ONE night last week, as I sat in bed reading a book on my iPad, a message from my sister, Philippa, popped up on my screen.

'Hey darling!' it said. 'How are you doing? How's it going? I love you so so much my beautiful sister! I miss you so much! Thinking of you and miss and love you to infinity!'

As ever with Philly, the message was followed by about 50 kisses and heart emojis. I didn't reply, not wanting to get drawn into a long exchange  my sister was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her 30s and would sometimes stay up into the small hours firing off rather manic missives only to forget about them the next morning.

Now, though, I so wish I had.

Because when I did message back the next day, unusually Philly didn't reply. And that evening, as I ate dinner with my husband, Erik, 50, I had a call from one of Philly's sons.

My nephew told me his mother had gone to bed the night before, tired after a recent bout of Covid but otherwise seemingly fine  but when her partner of 12 years, Mike, joined her later, he'd found her cold and unresponsive.

She'd slipped away in her sleep, aged just 53.

My grief and shock have been almost unbearable. All the more so because Philly had only very recently come back into my life after years of us being estranged. We couldn't have led more contrasting and divided lives.

I often wonder how two sisters  raised the same, who looked so similar and were so close as children  could have had such varying degrees of luck, success and happiness.

Tess Stimson pictured alongside 'incredibly warm and forgiving' sister Philly, who has died aged 53

I got good grades at school, went to Oxford University, had a successful TV career, became a bestselling novelist and am happily married.

Philly, meanwhile, left school at 16, gave birth to three boys and had difficult times, financially and emotionally.

For many years, I longed to have a sister I could be proud of, someone 'ordinary' I could go for gossipy lunches with, or trade horror stories about our terrible teenagers.

Today, though, I feel very differently. I'd give anything to have her back, on any terms at all.

When we eventually reunited in 2019 after several years of not speaking, it was as if I'd rediscovered a piece of myself.

Philly always thought she didn't matter, but she taught me what real compassion looked like. In the early years some might say she was a deeply flawed and imperfect mother, but her frailties gave her huge empathy for other people's failings.

Thankfully, before she died, she and her sons were getting on well, something which gave her great joy.

Incredibly warm and forgiving, my mother nicknamed her Philly 'Fagin' because she was forever collecting 'lame ducks'.

Her home was a sanctuary for the human flotsam and jetsam most of us would cross the road to avoid: vulnerable young drug addicts and alcoholics no one else cared about.

She was generous to a fault; she'd give you her last bean. Her love for me was unconditional.

I realise now there's no one left who will love me quite like that. No one alive who even knew me when I was a child.

No one who remembers my mother's laugh, or the time Daddy taught us to waterski.

Tess, who attended Oxford University, pictured with sister Phillu

Losing Philly has reminded me how precious siblings are, those irreplaceable witnesses and companions during your years of growing up. Once they're gone, there's nothing you can do to fill the hole they've left.

This feeling is all the more acute for me, because when I heard of Philly's death, as well as being poleaxed by sorrow, I was struck with a dizzying sense of deja vu.

In July 2015, I received a shattering call from a doctor at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to say my baby brother Charles  known to the family as Bug  had suffered a cardiac arrest aged just 40 and was in a coma.

As his next of kin  our parents had died years before  I had to fly to England from our home in Vermont, U.S., and make the toughest decision to turn off his life support.

But while I crossed an ocean to be at his bedside, Philly refused to make the two-hour journey from her home in Brighton because she said it'd be too 'upsetting'.

I then went through the whole ordeal alone, from the switching off of his life support, to making the decision to donate his organs and arranging the funeral.

Bitterly angry, I cut all contact with Philly. It's an awful thing to admit now, but at the time I was raging that it was my brother, not my sister who'd died. Imagine how I feel now?

I was two when Philly was born in June 1968, and our mother, Jane, was plunged into terrible post-natal depression.

It was so bad my father, Michael, a contract manager for an engineering firm, would leave our home in Caterham, Surrey, in the morning with Mummy sitting on the bed, and return home at night to find she hadn't moved.

Meanwhile my sister and I were hungry and dirty.

Eventually, Mummy was admitted for outpatient electric shock treatment, and slowly she recovered.

When Daddy got a job on the Greek island of Corfu in 1972, the four of us moved there and enjoyed an idyllic sunshine lifestyle.

But my sister, a sickly baby, couldn't cope with the damp, albeit mild, Greek winter.

After getting pneumonia 13 times in the space of 18 months, Mummy had to move back to London with us while my father finished his two-year contract.

Tess Stimson (pictured in the purple dress) with her sister Philippa when the pair were children

Philly was in and out of hospital for months, and my mother was so focused on keeping her alive there wasn't much time for me.

I took refuge in books, reading voraciously and losing myself in other people's stories.

Later, I found the same solace in writing them.

With hindsight, I can see the trauma of my mother and sister's illnesses  both were later diagnosed as bipolar  led me to shut down emotionally, making me seem tougher than I really am.

Regardless, I adored Philly and felt fiercely protective of her. When we were Brownies and went on camping trips, we'd be put in separate tents, but I'd always creep out at night and go and find her, tucking her into her sleeping bag and wishing her 'Sweet dreams, Silly Philly'.

But as we entered our teens, we took divergent paths. I got a place at Oxford while my sister, never academic, left school at 16 and took a secretarial job.

At first, she did well, but when she was 18 her much-older married boss seduced her and broke her heart. She was never the same afterwards.

She rebounded into marriage with a boy she barely knew at 21. By 30, she had been divorced three times and was a single mum of three boys.

Meanwhile, I pursued a career as a television news producer, travelling all over the world, before finally settling in the U.S. with my second husband, Erik, our daughter Lily, 19, and my sons from my first marriage, Henry, 27, and Matt, 24.

Philly had various health problems  exacerbated by her drinking and smoking. As a mother myself, I found it very hard to sympathise with my sister, though I did try. It often seemed we had nothing left in common any more.

Always short of money, she constantly asked for handouts. Sometimes, she'd forget our rambling conversations in minutes.

Eventually, doctors told her she'd kill herself if she didn't change her lifestyle. So infuriated was I by this, that I once publicly said I wouldn't give her my kidney if she destroyed hers  only for her to agree with me!

Bug's death was the last straw. But as I came to terms with my grief, I realised how much I missed Philly. I loved her just as much as I loved Bug yet I'd let us become estranged.

If something happened to her too, I realised I'd never forgive myself. So, in December 2018, I wrote her a long letter, telling her how much I loved and missed her, and how desperate I was to have her back in my life.

When she got in touch out of the blue just as Covid hit, it was one of the happiest days of my life. We both sobbed down the phone as we shared precious stories, about Bug, our parents and our childhoods.

Philly had an extraordinary memory for tiny details, from the secret societies we created to the sand forts we built on holidays.

But I was still very wary  we'd been down this road before. In the past, we'd arrange to meet when I was in England, and she'd leave me standing at the train station. Or I'd pay for a flight to the U.S., and she simply wouldn't get on it.

This time I told myself not to expect too much and resigned myself to being disappointed again. But I'm so glad to say that over the past two years, Philly proved me wrong.

Our conversations were lucid, sensible and often hilarious  she knew exactly how to make me laugh. Earthy, rude, and kind, she knew just how to loosen up her uptight sister.

I started to understand her for the first time in my life. What I'd never known was that, years ago, she'd been prescribed morphine for agonising joint pain in her hip.

Whenever she complained to doctors about the pain, she was just given more drugs  until she was hooked.

Together with medication for her bipolar disorder, it meant she could hardly string a sentence together.

After seven years of this confusion, she'd finally  and very bravely  weaned herself off the morphine, going cold turkey for two weeks, suffering horrific sweats and chills.

Without the drugs, she was like a different person. I'd finally got my sister back. We spoke every week and exchanged messages on Facebook all the time. I dedicated my recent novel, Stolen, to Philly, 'my memory-keeper and best friend'. She was tickled pink when she saw it.

Because of Covid restrictions, we only managed to physically see each other once, when I flew to see her last September, but it's a memory I'll always treasure.

Then we finally discussed Bug's death. She explained how she just couldn't watch someone she loved die again. She begged for my forgiveness, but I was the one who owed her the apology.

She was a beautiful person inside and out; a broken butterfly. I've kept all of her messages, and what strikes me now is how many times she said she was proud of me, how much she loved me, how happy she was to have me in her life.

Philly was my last close relative from the family I was born into. It's an eerie feeling to be the last one in your family left. The wind of my own mortality whistles around my shoulders.

I know someone has to be the last one, but my mother was just 59, my sister 53, and my brother 40 when they died. It's too much, too soon. Despite her hard life, Philly still had so much living left to do.

She'd become very close to all her sons again over the past few years. They'd kept in touch with each other and with her, and to her delight, they gave her four grandchildren, with another on the way.

Her future promised so much. She and her partner had made plans to move to British Columbia in Canada this summer.

Despite everything, I never really expected her to actually die before me. But in the end, there was nothing left that I needed to say to her, because thankfully, she already knew just how much I loved her.

Sweet dreams, Silly Philly.
'Australia's oldest surrogate' has given birth to her own grandson at 54 years old after carrying for her daughter who was born without a uterus

At 17, Meagan White, from Lilydale, Tasmania, was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome (MRKH), a disorder that meant she could never carry a child.

The now 28-year-old, who has a background in nursing, feared her dream becoming a mother would never come true after their baby girl, carried by a Canadian surrogate, sadly passed away at 21 weeks.

But after doing research, Meagan's mum Maree Arnold discovered she could be a surrogate for her daughter - and gave birth to her own healthy grandchild Winston lon via C-section on January 13.

Australia's oldest surrogate has given birth to her own grandson at 54 years old after carrying for her daughter who was born without a uterus

At 17, Meagan White (right), from Lilydale, Tasmania, was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome (MRKH), a disorder that meant she could never carry a child

The C-section was planned months ahead and the birth went entirely to plan; the group arrived at hospital at 7am and by 9am they had little Winston in their arms.

'It was and is a dream come true. When we first saw him, it was love at first sight. He has filled out hearts in a way we never knew possible,' Meagan said.

'We were both present for the birth. Not nervous but just excited, our doctor was fantastic, informative, and calming.'

Maree, who is a mother-of-five and works on her own farm, said the birth was 'perfect' and she was thrilled to be able to carry her grandson.

The C-section was planned months ahead and the birth went entirely to plan; the group arrived at hospital at 7am and by 9am they had little Winston in their arms

'I always just assumed I'd be too old to do something like this, but it just goes to show you always need to ask questions. It is such a special experience for me and I'm over the moon to be able to help my daughter,' she said.

With Maree already having gone through menopause, she was given medications to reverse the process and thicken her uterus lining to prepare for pregnancy.

After three failed embryo transfers, Meagan and Maree said they both began to feel a bit defeated and thought perhaps the process was not going to work.

But thankfully, the fourth transfer was a success.

'I know that I was obviously older with this pregnancy, and I did get a bit more tired than when I was last pregnant 22 years ago,' Maree said.

'But I was still up and about, mowing the lawns and doing this around the house. I felt great. Now that it's all over I think I'm relieved it all went so well and just amazed at this little human we have made.

'I know that I was obviously older with this pregnancy, and I did get a bit more tired than when I was last pregnant 22 years ago,' Maree said

'My first cuddle was super special and one I will never forget.'

Maree said little Winston is everything they could ask for and more and loves seeing Meagan and her husband Clyde so happy.

'I just hope our story will encourage someone else to take the same journey as we did - I would definitely do it all again.'

Meagan knew something was not quite right years ago when all the girls at school had started their periods, except her.

'Mum and I went to see a doctor and discovered I had MRKH, which means I was born without a uterus and therefore would never have a period,' she said.

'I just hope our story will encourage someone else to take the same journey as we did - I would definitely do it all again,' Maree said

'It also meant I could never carry a child; however I did have working ovaries so I could have a biological child with the help of a surrogate.

'Of course, as I was just a teenager at the time, I didn't think about it much. But after meeting my now-husband Clayde, 28, in 2015, I knew I wanted to start a family and be a mother.'

The pair looked into surrogacy and found a volunteer overseas in Canada through an agency named Allison in January 2019.

'We got to know her virtually for nine months, before flying over there in September 2019 to meet her in person. Shortly after returning home to Australia, we went ahead with the first transfer which failed, but the second was successful and Allison got pregnant in December 2019,' Meagan said.

Mum and daughter both agreed that this experience has made them closer than ever

'In March 2020 doctors told us our baby girl had not developed kidneys and would not be viable with life.

'Everyone was heartbroken, and after that I just felt like giving up. Then once the pandemic began, overseas travel was prohibited, so everything felt impossible.'

Maree said she was heartbroken watching her daughter suffer but never imagined she could volunteer to be a surrogate, as she believed she would be deemed 'too old' to be allowed to carry a child - thankfully that wasn't the case.

Maree could possibly be Australia's oldest surrogate to date, with Antonietta Di Maggio, from Sydney, making headlines back in 2015 for giving birth to her grandson for daughter Claudia Luca at the age of 53.

Mum and daughter both agreed that this experience has made them closer than ever.

'Mum and I are so close; we talk every day. I can't even put it into words how grateful I am for her,' Meagan said.

'Our relationship is so special. There is nobody else I'd rather have gone through this with.'
A brave teenager has shared the moment she found out she had blood cancer after noticing a small, painless lump in her neck.

Megan Reid, from Brisbane, was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin's Lymphoma in November 2019 at 16 while preparing heading into her final two years of high school.

In mid-2019 Megan thought she was unwell with a common cold until she noticed a lump the size of a cherry tomato on her neck and visited a doctor a few months later.

'It didn't hurt, didn't grow and wasn't the most obvious thing, but you could see it,' she told FEMAIL.

Megan, now 18, has been in remission since December 2021 after relapsing due to stem cell transplant complications.

Megan Reid, from Brisbane, was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin's Lymphoma in November 2019 at the ripe age of 16 while looking forward to her final few years of high school

In mid-2019 Megan thought she was unwell with a common cold until she noticed a lump the size of a cherry tomato on her neck and visited a doctor a few months later

'I kept getting sick all through winter and did some searching on Dr Google which really freaked me out,' she said. 'You would never expect a 16-year-old to have cancer.'

Despite the unlikely odds, the physician sent Megan to get a blood test, ultra sound and a biopsy on the lump, which came back as 'inconclusive'.

'My hands were shaking after the first appointment; I was very scared and afraid and never thought this would happen to me,' she said.

That same month she was referred to an oncologist and had a surgical biopsy which detected the cancer.

'I kept getting sick all through winter and did some searching on Dr Google which really freaked my out,' she said

From December 2, she started one of five cycles of chemotherapy but no radiotherapy.

'The treatment was awful and I felt nauseous all the time,' she said.

For six months Megan was in remission but relapsed in October 2020, which she described as just 'bad luck'.

'There was a point where we were considering doing radiation as part of my original treatment but we decided against it, and we initially thought that's why I relapsed,' Megan explained.

'But my oncologist thinks I would've relapsed whether I had radiation or not.'

From December 2, Megan started one of five cycles of chemotherapy but no radiotherapy, which made her feel constantly nauseous

What is Hodgkin's Lymphoma? Hodgkin lymphoma is a rare form of cancer that starts in a type of white blood cells called lymphocytes. The disease begins in a lymph node, usually in the neck, then spreads through the lymphatic system from one group of lymph nodes to another. Hodgkin lymphoma represents roughly 0.5 percent of all cancers diagnosed in Australia. About 11 percent of all lymphomas are types of Hodgkin lymphoma, while the remainder are non-Hodgkin. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma may arise in lymph nodes anywhere in the body, whereas Hodgkin lymphoma typically begins in the upper body, such as the neck, chest or armpits. Hodgkin lymphoma is often diagnosed at an early stage and is therefore considered one of the most treatable cancers. Approximately 600 people in Australia are diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma every year, most commonly younger people aged 15  29 and older people over the age of 65. It is more common in men than women. The causes of Hodgkin lymphoma remain largely unclear, but risk factors include family history - with those who have a parent or sibling who has had Hodgkin's slightly likelier to develop the disease - certain viruses, including glandular fever and HIV, and a generally weakened immune system which can occur because of autoimmune conditions or lengthy periods taking immunosuppressant drugs. Source: Lymphoma Australia Advertisement

Despite being so young, doctors performed an egg retrieval prior to continuing further treatment.

'We knew the next treatment was most likely going to make me infertile,' she said, adding: 'And we also did another biopsy just to make sure it was the same cancer, which it was.'

'It was a crazy thing to be going through at 17, but I had family and friends who were really supportive.'

Due to the relapse Megan started another two rounds of chemotherapy followed by an additional three cycles of a different protocol drug, as the first failed to work successfully.

'Next we decided to go ahead with my stem cell transplant in April 2021 even though I wasn't in remission,' she said.

'It was a crazy thing to be going through at 17, but I had family and friends who were really supportive,' she said

But from stem cell complications Megan was admitted into hospital for two months until June.

'Full body scans showed I still wasn't in remission yet, so the stem cell transplant did not help as much as we had hoped - which was very disappointing,' she said.

Doctors then attempted a 'graft-versus-lymphoma' effect in attempt to rid of the tumour cells, but instead the opposite happened.

'I basically ended up with the graft-versus-host disease,' she said - a condition that occurs when the stem cells attack the recipient.

Thinking she was bound to have some good luck, Megan unfortunately had an infected colon after radiotherapy and was incubated for 24 hours as her lungs all of a sudden 'stopped working'.

'I lost all my strength and couldn't walk - even just by sitting up straight I would get out of breath,' she said.

Despite the ongoing treatment Megan was able to graduate from high school alongside her classmates and best friends in November

Throughout her journey Megan has been sharing her story with thousands on social media to spread awareness about the disease more than 600 people in Australia are diagnosed with each year

Both Megan and her doctors were shocked that after all the complications with the stem cell transplant, a PET scan showed she was cancer free.

'Doctors didn't expect it to happen so quickly because the radiotherapy takes at least three months to fully work,' she said.

'I was able to go home mid-December last year and I've been recovering since then.'

Despite the ongoing treatment Megan was able to graduate from high school alongside her classmates and best friends in November.

Throughout her journey Megan has been sharing her story with thousands on social media to spread awareness about the disease more than 600 people in Australia are diagnosed with each year.

'My motto is: "Just keep swimming" - meaning you need to get through the bad times before reaching the good times,' she said.

For more information on Hodgkin's lymphoma and other types of blood cancer, please visit Lymphoma Australia or the Australian Cancer Council.
Dragons' Den viewers were divided over a brand of vegan handbags with a secret erotic story chapter sewn into the lining.

Friends Natalie and Rebecca, who met in Manchester, were seeking investment for their independent accessories label, Frida Rome, which offers bags costing between 65 and 295 - with an X-rated twist.

Inside each bag is a hidden erotic story, written by Natalie, which the friends believed was a 'unique selling point' that set them apart from other mid-price labels.

The idea divided the Dragons with crafting millionaire Sara Davies slamming the idea as 'self-indulgent' and Deborah Meaden unsure there was enough of a market for the products, despite being impressed by the quality.

But Dragon Steven Bartlett saw the brand's potential selling power on social media and agreed to invest 50,000 for 20 per cent of the business.

Friends Natalie and Rebecca were seeking investment for their independent accessories label, Frida Rome, which offers bags costing between 65 and 295 - with an X-rated twist

Inside each bag (pictured) is a hidden erotic story, written by Natalie, which the friends believed was a 'unique selling point' that set them apart from other mid-price labels

The erotic story chapter is stitched into the inside lining of the vegan handbag (pictured)

Viewers were divided over the idea, with some saying it was 'cringe' and wouldn't sell

Viewers were equally conflicted. One tweeted: 'Who would you buy this luxury erotic bag for? Not your mum. Not your daughter. Your wife? Maybe. Its just cringe, just make a nice bag. Meh. #dragonsden.'

Another posted: 'Erotic story in a bag? Don't get it #dragonsden.'

A third added: 'I do not want my bag to be erotic!!!! I want it to carry my belongings . No #dragonsden.'

However others hailed the 'brilliant' idea, with one writing: 'The girls and their bags are very unique, they have a good story behind it. #dragonsden.'

Another agreed: 'I would buy one of them bags #DragonsDen.'

Opening the pitch, Natalie and Rebecca explained their bags were made from cactus and hand-produced in the UK.

'We are the brand for bad girls who do good things,' Natalie told the Dragons.

At one point Peter Jones read out part of the erotic story chapter to the rest of the group

The moment was enough to make his colleague Touker Suleyman roll his eyes (above)

Dragon Steven Bartlett saw the brand's potential selling power on social media and agreed to invest 50,000 for 20 per cent of the business

Some critics joked you could just put an X-rated magazine in a supermarket carrier bag

She added of the erotic story chapter: 'It's a conversation starter and a little reminder of the rebel side of the woman who wears it.'

The friends were seeking 50,000 in exchange for a 10 per cent share of their business.

Peter Jones took it upon himself to read a section of one of the chapters, saying: 'She looked up, beckoning him to take her. Still holding onto his neck, she gripped him tighter. He came face to face with her and paused for the last time.'

It was enough to leave colleague Touker Suleyman wide-eyed in shock.

'It's very different,' Peter said, apparently impressed.

Deborah loved the quality of the bag but admitted she was 'slightly puzzled' by the erotic novel chapter.

There were also plenty of fans of Frida Rome on Twitter, although some were put off by the cost

Declining the deal, she said: 'It's difficult for me because I love the bag - the design, the feel of it, that's lovely. But the erotic story, for a big section, I think that's going to put them off.

'A lot of vegans want to say "I'm a stylish vegan". They don't want to shout "I love 50 Shades of Grey". I actually agree with a story but that is too much of a story for me and that's put me off.'

Sara was more forthright in her opinion. 'This whole business feels very, very self-indulgent,' she told the entrepreneurs. 'My worry is, you can go and be self-indulgent with your money, but with my 50,000? No chance.'

Rebecca and Natalie, pictured, impressed Deborah, Peter and Steven with their product

Deborah Meaden said she loved the bag but questioned if the erotic story would put people off

Touker was torn. 'Ladies, I think you guys would be great to work with. Unfortunately the bag market is difficult to work with... especially when you're targeting a specific type of person. I'm looking for a return on my investment and I can't see one here.'

Peter liked the product but feared it would cost too much to grow the business and also ruled himself out.

'I have to say I disagree,' Steven said. 'Having some kind of compelling, provocative edge is going to be key.'

The social media CEO offered the entrepreneurs the full 50,000 in exchange for 20 per cent of the business.

The business partners wasted no time in accepting the offer.

Steven added: 'I think we can build a really, really cool culturally relevant brand over a long period of time.'
The Royal Family will 'be relieved if the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stay in the US for Prince Philip's memorial as their presence would turn it into the Harry and Meghan show,' a royal expert has claimed.

The couple, who live in a $14million mansion in Montecito, California, were expected to come to the UK for the Duke of Edinburgh's memorial service, however, a recent row over the Metropolitan Police providing their security has called their return into doubt.

Now Ingrid Seward, Editor in Chief of Majesty Magazine, has said the Sussexes' absence may be welcomed by senior members of The Firm.

The Royal Family will 'be relieved if the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stay in the US for Prince Philip's memorial as their presence would turn it into the Harry and Meghan show,' a royal expert has claimed. Harry and Meghan are pictured in New York in Septemebr

She told the Sun: 'I think if they choose not to come then everyone will breathe a sigh of relief.

'It is thanks-giving for Prince Philip and we don't want it turning into the Harry and Meghan show.'

Prince Philip, who died last April aged 99, is expected to be celebrated in a Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey in the spring.

While Harry, 37, returned to the UK for Philip's funeral, its understood he isn't prepared to return with Meghan, 40, Archie, two, and seven-month-old Lilibet without armed guards

Prince Charles, 73, reportedly offered to have his family to stay with him in the UK in the hope of meeting Lilibet for the first time, a source claimed this week.

The offer, which would be the first time the family have fully come together since Harry and Meghan moved to the US, was made just before Christmas, according to the Mirror.

But Harry's refusal to return without a substantial level of security from the Met Police is said to have put the reunion in doubt.

The couple, who live in a $14million mansion in Montecito, California , were expected to come to the UK for the Duke of Edinburgh's memorial service, however, a recent row over the Metropolitan Police providing their security has called their return into doubt. Pictured, from left: Queen Elizabeth II, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge watch the RAF flypast on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in 2018

Prince Harry faced outrage over his threat of legal action against Her Majesty's Government.

He is seeking a judicial review of the decision to strip him of his UK police protection team, claiming it is too dangerous to visit without Scotland Yard bodyguards.

A former head of royal protection warned the royal 'cannot pick and choose' when he wants to visit the UK and receive protection.

Dai Davies pointed out Princess Anne was nearly kidnapped and her protection officer was shot - but she does not get full time protection.

His comments came as sources suggested the Queen will not help her grandson in his demand for security personnel when he comes to Britain.

While Harry, 37, returned to the UK for Philip's funeral, its understood he isn't prepared to return with Meghan, 40, Archie, two, and seven-month-old Lilibet without armed guards. The family are pictured on their Christmas card

The insiders claimed the Monarch has no intentions of 'caving into his demands' for protection from the Met and Home Office.

Meghan and Charles were previously close and are said to have shared a bond of love of culture, art and history.

Charles is also said to be 'desperate to see his grandchildren'.

A source told the Mirror last week: 'The Prince of Wales has been saddened that he hasn't had the opportunity to spend time with his grandchildren, which he really does miss.

'He is a fantastic grandfather and loves playing the role immensely and it's certainly fair to say he feels there is something missing from his life without the ability to get to know Harry's children.

'This is something he is hoping to remedy which is why he made the gesture for Harry, Meghan and the children to stay with him if they wanted to, whenever they may come home for a period of time.
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Grab a tissue because this photographer who takes bittersweet photos of pets at the end of their lives has shared some of the heart wrenching snaps.

Lauren Smith Kennedy, 28, who lives in Portland, Maine, will meet up with the owners to take poignant final photos with their pets, who are having to be put down, usually due to illness.

The snapper, who takes the photos for free, said she gets hundreds of messages every week asking for help and offers to be flown all over the world.

Lauren Smith Kennedy, 28, who lives in Portland, Maine, will meet up with the owners to take poignant final photos with their pets, who are having to be put down, usually due to illness. Oscar, a 12-year-old blind chihuahua, gets a special nose rub from his owner Hannah who says he is her 'best friend, my first love, my little stink'

Sadie and her devoted owner Christina play around in the leaves as they share a special kiss in an autumnal photoshoot. Sadie, who has passed away since this moment, came to Christina when she was just a pup. She said: 'Im blessed to have known Sadie since the day she was born. I decided she needed me and it took a long time for me to realise that I had it backwards - I was the one who needed her'

Smith-Kennedy said she is always overcome by the lengths owners go to for their pets  especially 11-year-old Baxter, a white Swiss Shepard, who needs a special wagon to move around due to a degenerative disease. Lauren said one of the many things she took away from meeting Baxter was when during this shoot she kept hearing his owner Nina repeat as she held his head close to her chest, 'thank you, Baxter'

Although Smith-Kennedy thinks every shoot she does is special, there are some that stay with her more than others.

She said: One that really stands out was with a dog named Baxter, who had a degenerative disease.

We did the shoot, and his owner had got a wagon to move him around, and that really stood out to me.

It seemed like a symbol of how far an owner will go to help their animal and how dedicated they are.

Although Baxter the dog gets very tired, he is no pain and his health is monitored closely by his veterinarian. His family often use the wagon to take him outside to feel the warmth of the sun and smell the fresh air. They also take him to hydrotherapy, acupuncture and vet visits to ensure his quality of life

Oscar's owner Hannah told Lauren that he has lost his sight within the last two years and even though he walks slower than he used to and he sleeps more, he still gives unconditional love and strength

Lauren said there were many wonderful things about 18-year-old Staffy the cat, one of which was to see how fancy she is and enjoys the finer things in life like drinking water from martini glasses, being brushed and having her ears rubbed

Although Lauren does a lot of photos outside, this one of Cheddar with his family was taken at her home just a few hours before she crossed the rainbow bridge. Cheddar's owner Carolyn told Lauren: 'The vet came to our house and it all happened pretty quickly and peacefully right in my arms'

Baxter's owners Nina and Robert enjoying some precious time together cuddling and kissing

Capturing such emotional moments have proved difficult for the animal-lover, who admits she often breaks down while looking back at the photos.

She said: 'It's the profound heartbreak you feel knowing the life you have shared with that animal and anyone who has had a pet can relate to that.'

'When I'm there, I'm doing my job and if I let my own feelings become a distraction it would take away from giving the family the gift of remembrance.'

'But when I'm driving home and when I sit and look at the pictures, that's when my emotions catch up on me.'

Best of friends: Owner Tiffany kisses her 13-year-old pit bull Duchess as the two snuggle up together for their photoshoot

Duchess is happy to return the favour and give her owner a smooch on the lips in poignant final photographs that Tiffany will be able to treasure

Smith-Kennedys main job is raising money and overseeing social media for Saco River Wildlife Center in Limington, Maine, which includes taking photos of injured animals while they are treated at the base.

It was after losing her own precious cat Tilly in a freak accident that she decided to start doing end of life photography.

She said: A friend of a friend had to put their dog down, and they reached out to me actually asking about getting an urn for him.

Owner Denyse cradles her cat Staffy in her hands for the heartbreaking photoshoot. Lauren Smith-Kennedy takes photos of all types of pets including cats and rats

Beautiful dog Indy, a 6-year-old Australian Shepard/Border Collie mix, has passed away since his photoshoot but his owners told Lauren that they made sure he got to do lots of things like paddling with his owner, Jake, eating lots of cheese, resting his head in his familys hand, and protecting his small squeaky toy lion whom he cared for as if it were a puppy

I helped them out with that, and said if they were interested I would be happy to do a free photoshoot with them.

So I did the shoot and obviously with their permission I shared it on social media, and it just went from there.

Smith-Kennedy goes to great lengths to capture the essence of the relationship between the pets and their owners.

She said: I usually prompt people rather than asking them to do poses.

Poignant pet portrait: Indy was diagnosed with lymphoma and although he had aggressive chemo and put up a tough fight, his family decided to enjoy their time together making him as comfortable as possible and having as many adventures as they can

Smith-Kennedy said: 'It really is a truly heartbreaking time for any family on their own journey of grief' pictured: Staffy the cat being groomed by her owner Denyse

The photographer says she contains her own emotions during a shoot but can be in tears when looking back at the images. Pictured: owners Nina and Robert with Baxter

So I'll say something like, why don't you sit down and give your pet some love, instead of saying to cuddle or pat them or whatever.

That way they can do whatever that feels like to them.

Since she began, Lauren has launched the Tilly Project, named after her beloved cat, which is a network of photographers all over the world who can offer free end of life pet photography.

She said: I started the Tilly Project to help connect people with photographers local to them who would do these shoots as well.

I was getting people offering to fly me across the country to do a shoot, and I wasn't able to do that.

It's so amazing to have been able to start something like this.
The filmmaker son of 'the world's greatest rockclimber' who was swept to death in an avalanche has revealed the trauma of his father's climbing partner marrying his mother in a new documentary.

Alex Lowe, 40, known jokingly as Lungs With Legs for his incredible strength and stamina, was regarded as the world's greatest mountain climber in the 1990s.

He and his friend David Bridges, 29, were swept to their death by a Himalayan avalanche in October 1999 while a third climber, Conrad Anker, survived.

Alex's widow Jenni, who lives in Bozeman, Montana, grew closer to marry Conrad, with her young son Max walking in on them kissing just three months after his death.

Two years later, the couple married and Conrad adopted their three sons, Max, Isaac, and Sam - though Max never changed his name to include Conrad's name Anker.

In Torn, a documentary set to be released today, Max details how his family recovered from the trauma of the accident and the marriage of Jenni and Conrad.

Speaking to The Sun, Max explained how he questioned how quickly his mother had moved on with Conrad, while also questioning why his father's best friend remained in their life, saying: 'Was he maybe stuck with us because of his survivor's guilt?'

Max Lowe, son of 'the world's greatest rockclimber' Alex Lowe who was swept to death in an avalanche, has revealed the trauma of his father's climbing partner marrying his mother in a new documentary (pictured, Alex, Jennifer and their sons Max, Sam and Isaac stand for a family photo the year before Alex's death)

Three months after Alex's death, and Jenni and Conrad's relationship blossomed and they were married in 2001

In Torn, a moving documentary set to be released today, Max details how his family recovered from the trauma of the accident and the marriage of Lexi and Conrad (pictured together, Conrad with Max, Sam and Isaac)

Artist Jenni explained how she thought Alex was a 'wild thing' upon their first meeting, and didn't expect the relationship to last,

But when he proposed, she immediately said yes.

At the time, Alex was considered one of the world's best rockclimbers.

He had made difficult climbs all over the world, including Nepal's Kwangde and Kusum Kanguru, and twice reached the summit of Mount Everest. In Peru, he climbed the southwest buttress of Taulliraju.

He was credited with rescuing several climbers in Alaska in 1995, a year when six climbers died on Mount McKinley.

Lowe (pictured), known jokingly as Lungs With Legs for his incredible strength and stamina, was regarded as the world's greatest mountain climber at the time of his death

David and Conrad were close friends in the 1990s, taking on expeditions across the world together (pictured on peak of Mt Evans, Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica Austrat)

And when he signed a contract with outdoor apparel brand North Face, he became one of the first to make a living as an adrenaline athlete.

David, of Aspen, Colorado was an accomplished high-altitude climber and cinematographer as well as a two-time US paragliding champion.

However the group's adventures across the world meant there was little time left for family time.

While Alex always carried a photograph of his family, he was like a 'caged animal' if he spent too long at home.

In October 1999, David, Conrad and Alex and six others were on an expedition to climb Shishapangma, the 14th highest mountain in the world.

The group hoped to be the first American team to ski down a 26,000-foot peak, Rock And Ice magazine wrote.

Alex had made difficult climbs all over the world, including Nepal's Kwangde and Kusum Kanguru, and twice reached the summit of Mount Everest. In Peru, he climbed the southwest buttress of Taulliraju

While Alex always carried a photograph of his family during expeditions, he was like a 'caged animal' if he spent too long at home

When Alex signed a contract with outdoor apparel brand North Face, he became one of the first to make a living as an adrenaline athlete (pictured in Antarctica in 1998)

They were scouting out routes at about 19,000 feet when they saw a slab of snow break free 6,000 feet above them.

At the time, Alex had wished he was taking his three young sons to Disneyland rather than completing the expedition.

David and Alex ran to the left, Outside magazine wrote, and were trapped under the snow.

Conrad ran to the right downhill was thrown away and came out with a broken rib and injuries to the head, but was still able to walk.

'From my perspective there was just this big white cloud, and then it settled and there was nothing there,' he told Outside. 'And it was just so massive and so big. There wasn't that sense of closure.'

Max, then 10, during his climb of the Grand Teton that he did with his father the summer before his father's death

In October 1999, David, Conrad and Alex and six others were on an expedition to climb Shishapangma, the 14th highest mountain in the world (pictured months before his death in 1999)

Rescuers looked for Alex and David for 20 hours without success.

Meanwhile Conrad - the only survivor of the avalanche - was forced to phone Jenni to and tell her what had happened.

Conrad, who was engaged at the time, grew closer to the family, taking the three children to Disneyland in Alex's place.

Three months on, and Jenni and Conrad's relationship blossomed. They were wed two years later in 2001.

Speaking to The Times, he explained how their relationship was met with criticism by some in the rock climbing community.

He said: 'People have their views one way or another. But our love was forged under duress and loss, and we were both in the grieving process.'

And while Conrad adopted the three boys, and Isaac and Sam embraced him into their family, Max found their relationship the hardest to accept (pictured, Sam with Conrad)

The couple lived in Bozeman, Montana, and ran the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation together.

And while Conrad adopted the three boys, Max found their relationship the hardest to accept.

He said the accident 'broke his trust', adding: 'In my child's mind I held that belief that everything would turn out alright in the end.

'That Dad would come home from his adventures, which I looked up to him for living.

'When he died I didn't know how to extend that trust in all my relationships.'

Their bodies were found in May 2016 when two climbers attempting to ascend the 26,291-foot Shishapangma in Tibet discovered the remains of two people partially melting out of a glacier.

Anker (left) survived the 1999 avalanche and came out with a broken rib and injuries to the head. He later married Lowe's widow Jennifer (right) and adopted the couple's three sons

Ueli Steck (left), from Switzerland, and David Goettler (right), from Germany, called Conrad after finding the remains in 2016 and described their clothing and backpacks

The intimate new film from eldest son Max, captures the family's intense personal journey toward understanding as they finally lay him to rest (pictured, hiking Alex Lowe Peak in Montana)

The climbers, David Goettler, from Germany, and Ueli Steck, from Switzerland, described the clothing and backpacks seen on the bodies to Anker, who concluded that the two were Bridges and Lowe, the statement said.

At the time, Jenni said: 'Alex and David vanished, were captured and frozen in time.

'Sixteen years of life has been lived and now they are found. We are thankful.'

The couple were in Kathmandu, Nepal, when Goettler and Steck called him from Tibet to tell him about the remains.

The bodies were still encased in blue ice and had begun to emerge from the glacier when Goettler and Steck spotted them.

Conrad said the discovery has brought him closure and relief.

Conrad ice climbing up Hyalite outside of Bozeman, Montana. Speaking about the discovery of his friend's bodies in 2016, he said it brought him closure and relief

The couple, along with their three sons, travelled to Tibet to recover the bodies. There is now a memorial site for Alex and David (pictured)

He told Outside magazine that although he hasn't seen photos of the remains, he's convinced they are those of Alex and David.

'They were close to each other. Blue and red North Face backpacks. Yellow Koflach boots. It was all that gear from that time period. They were pretty much the only two climbers who were there,' Conrad said.

Jenni wrote in the last paragraph of her 2008 memoir, Forget Me Not: 'Alex will melt out of the glacier one day... And I do not look forward to it.'

She told Outside magazine after the bodies were found: 'I kind of never realized how quickly it would be that he'd melt out. I thought it might not be in my lifetime.'

The couple, along with their three sons, travelled to Tibet to recover the bodies.

'It's never something you look forward to,' Jenni told Outside. 'To see the body of somebody you loved and cared about.

'But there is a sense that we can put him to rest, and he's not just disappeared now.'
With a Broadway musical, The Crown and a glitzy indie film about Princess Diana all released in recent months, it might be hoped that pop culture had finally reached its Di-mania saturation point.

But last night, at the Sundance Film Festival, critics and industry insiders sat down to watch the premiere of yet another film - this one a documentary - about the late Princess of Wales.

The Princess, directed by Ed Perkins, uses archival footage to tell Diana's story from her 1981 engagement to Prince Charles to her death 16 years later.

It explores the media's - and the public's - obsession with the royal and how that impacted the events of her life.

The Princess, directed by Ed Perkins, uses archival footage to tell Diana's story from her 1981 engagement to Prince Charles to her death 16 years later. Above, Diana in London in 1996

The director claims to offer an 'immersive and experimental' take on the tragic demise of the people's princess, saying the film 'tried to live in the contemporaneous archive from the time, and allow it to unfold in a "present-tense" unfolding'.

He added: 'It is a kind of Shakespearean tragedy, but it's one that lots of us lived through, and actually actively participated in.'

Some American critics praised the 'watchable' documentary, which will be released on HBO later this year, for offering fresh take on the life of the princess.

But The Times' Kevin Maher noted the footage used will be extremely familiar to any British viewers - or anyone who has even a passing interest in the Royal Family.

He writes that after a gripping opening that shows Diana being spotted - and chased - by Australian tourists in Paris, the film returns to the same well-trodden path as other Diana releases.

'We jump back to 1980, and to the famous so-called engagement rumours footage of Diana being chased into her mini metro by over-excited journalists,' Maher writes.

One critic noted the footage used will be extremely familiar to any British viewers - or anyone who has even a passing interest in the Royal Family. Pictured, Diana in Paris in 1992

'And then off she goes, and off we go, year by year, beat by beat, through that same achingly familiar Diana story via a clip selection that you will not have seen many many times before if youre either very young (and I mean pre-teen young) or are only recently arrived on planet earth.'

Producer Simon Chinn explained the film had been prompted by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's decision to quit the Royal Family - and the shockwaves it sent through the British monarchy.

He said: 'Part of the intention of this film -- or the reason why it felt like the timing was right to make it -- was perhaps, among other things, because of their story.

'Our instinct was... to go back in a sense of what we've always thought of as the "origin story", and see what we could learn about what has happened subsequently through the story of Diana.'

The film comes weeks after the release of Spencer, which stars Kristen Stewart as the people's princess

Variety was among the publications that praised the film, saying it is a 'perfectly timed, compulsively watchable once-over-lightly documentary. Its a chronicle of Princess Diana culled entirely from television news footage and other public records...

'It's galvanizing to see the real story laid out exactly as it happened  or, more precisely, as it happened and as it was presented to the public, those being, quite often, two very different things.'

The Daily Beast agreed, writing: 'You dont leave The Princess with a brand new viewpoint, per se. Diana comes off well, while the palace and the media are villainized, as is the common and accepted modern take on what happened during that time.

'But to reconsider all of that through how we consumed it and, not only that, how we were fed it, is a fascinating exerciseeven if its one made possible by the excessive lenses and attention that were placed on her that we now feel we should condemn but maybe never will.'

The film comes weeks after the release of Spencer, which stars Kristen Stewart as the people's princess, and as The Crown series 5 continues to film, with Elizabeth Debicki in the role.
Prince William will visit Dubai next month, Kensington Palace has announced.

The Duke of Cambridge will visit Dubai on February 10, with his trip coming as the United Arab Emirates marks its 50th year and coinciding with UK National Day being held at Expo 2020 Dubai, his office said.

This brief visit is at the request of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and will be William's first official trip to the UAE. It will be his first major overseas visit since a 2019 tour of the Middle East.

Prince William (pictured this week) will visit Dubai next month, Kensington Palace has announced

Williams visit will follow his fathers, the Prince of Wales, and Camillas official trip to Dubai in 2016 (pictured)

'The bond between the UK and the UAE is deep and strong and Prince William's visit will highlight and build upon these links as he has the opportunity to engage with young Emiratis, leaders from government and committed conservationists,' Kensington Palace said in a statement.

UK talent will be featured during National Day at the Expo 2020 Dubai which will also showcase the Commonwealth Games 2022 baton relay, launched by the Queen from Buckingham Palace last October, as it parades through the site to visit Commonwealth national pavilions.

Britain has been looking to the Gulf countries for trade deals as part of its post-Brexit strategy to build new ties around the world.

In September, the oil-rich Gulf state pledged to invest 10billion in British clean energy, infrastructure, technology and life sciences, expanding its 'sovereign investment partnership' with the UK government.

Williams visit will follow his fathers, the Prince of Wales, and Camillas official trip to Dubai in 2016.

Kate and William, pictured with schoolboy Deacon Glover, 11, visited Lancashire charity Church on the Street yesterday. William comforted Deacon, who lost his mother last year

The UAE was created in 1971 by the Trucial States which had gained their independence from the UK.

It is formed of seven states - Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al Qaiwain - which are governed by a supreme council of rulers made up of the seven emirs, who appoint the prime minister and the cabinet.

During the visit the duke will learn more about initiatives protecting areas of unique flora and fauna in the region.

He will also have the opportunity to highlight his environmental award, the Earthshot Prize, and his United for Wildlife initiative tackling the illegal wildlife trade.

The news comes after William, 39, sympathised with a grieving schoolboy during a visit to a centre helping vulnerable people, telling him things will get 'easier'.

Prince William, 39, who lost his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, when he was 15, told Deacon Glover, 11, 'I know how you feel', after learning his mother, Grace Taylor, died last year aged 28.

Putting a hand on Deacon's shoulder, William said: 'It gets easier.'

The royal couple spent about 15 minutes talking to the schoolboy and his great-grandmother, Carole Ellis, during a visit to Church on the Street in Burnley, Lancashire, a centre that helps people struggling with poverty, homelessness, addiction or other problems.

The royal couple had asked to visit the centre, housed in a former gym, after watching a BBC television report in December about its work with Burnley's most vulnerable people during the coronavirus pandemic and finding it 'very moving'.
Lorraine Kelly has addressed her 2019 tax tribunal case, saying: 'I don't want people to think I would do anything to get out of paying what I should be paying.'

The Scottish TV host made headlines when she won a 1.2million battle with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

A judge said the Scottish star was a 'theatrical artist' who 'presents a persona of herself', agreeing she was not an ITV employee and instead was hired to perform 'the role of a friendly, chatty and fun personality'.

Kelly, 62, told The Guardian she was happy to address the case 'because I've never got my chance to put my side of the story across'.

Lorraine Kelly (pictured) has addressed her 2019 tax tribunal case, saying: 'I don't want people to think I would do anything to get out of paying what I should be paying.'

She added: 'I'm a firm believer in the NHS, a firm believer in better education and housing and looking after people who can't help themselves.

'I was brought up in a very working-class background where you pay your dues.'

Kelly's on-screen break came in 1984 when she joined TV-am, and since then, she has become a familiar face on the small screen and has presented her hugely popular daily talk show Lorraine since 2010.

She told the paper she could 'live with' the mirth prompted by the ruling, which suggested she was essentially playing the role of Lorraine Kelly.

The HMRC had argued that Kelly is effectively an ITV employee and should be subject to income tax and National Insurance payments.

But the judge ruled she was hired for her services as an entertainer and was in control of both her working day and her show.

The Scottish TV host (pictured in 2021) made headlines when she won a 1.2million battle with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)

'We were satisfied that Ms Kelly presents a persona of herself, she presents herself as a brand and that is the brand ITV sought when engaging her,' the judge said.

'All parts of the show are a performance, the act being to perform the role of a friendly, chatty and fun personality.'

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Kelly told The Guardian: 'Now that I can laugh at. It was, sadly, a bit of a misinterpretation but I knew what (the judge) meant. Obviously, it's given people great hilarity and I can live with that.'

The dispute hinged on a contract the Scottish star signed with ITV Breakfast in 2012 to present the 'Daybreak' and 'Lorraine' shows.

She did the deal through her services company, Albatel Limited, but HMRC insisted she in reality became an ITV employee.

At the time, Kelly told Judge Dean she was 'baffled' by HMRC's attitude and denied that tax and national insurance should have been deducted from her income under the PAYE system.

She said she had been 'freelance' since 1992 and had since then worked for the BBC, Channel 4, Scottish TV, Sky and ITV, also writing weekly columns for the Sun newspaper.

She considered it an 'honour and a responsibility' that she is one of the handful of TV stars whose names are in the titles of their shows.

She can endorse commercial products however she likes, launching a clothing range for JD Williams, acting as a brand ambassador for Avon and appearing in an online advert for furniture company, Wayfair.

Giving an example of her independence, she said she had refused to interview Elton John on a live link from Australia at 4am as she was filming with the BBC later in the day.

Explaining the 'give and take' in her relationship with ITV, she said she had been absent from the broadcaster's morning schedule for four weeks in 2017 when she went on an expedition to Antarctica.
The personal data of 515,000 "highly vulnerable" groups of people were found compromised this week by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as they faced the week with a threatening breach of their systems.

The organization said it discovered an alarming cybersecurity attack this week that targeted servers hosting the information of people who have been separated from their families due to conflict, migration, and disasters, as well as missing people, their families, and people in detention, in a statement released.

Unfortunately, the Red Cross has been forced to shut down IT systems due to the vulnerability.

The Red Cross Cyberattack

The data that was breached collectively includes at least 60 Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies around the world that contributed data, according to ZDNet.

The ICRC's most compelling problem in the aftermath of this incident is the potential risks that this poses to people who the Red Cross and Red Crescent Network aims to protect and help, as well as their families with particularly confidential information being released publicly.

Director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Robert Mardini stated that the misery and suffering of families who have lost family members are exacerbated by the cybersecurity attacks on their personal data.

This cyberattack puts vulnerable people at risk, including those who are already in need of humanitarian assistance.

He then added that everyone in the organization is outraged and perplexed that this humanitarian information would be targeted and compromised.

Read Also: SysJoker Malware Can Damage Your Windows, Mac PC: Warning Signs, How to Remove If You're Attacked

Red Cross Cybersecurity Resolution

Red Cross spokesperson Elizabeth Shaw told CNN in an email that as a resolution to this attack, the first step the organization will do is to inform the families and individuals whose personal data were compromised by the attack.

They stated that they will work together with most concerned ICRC delegations and Red Cross and Red Crescent societies on the ground on what measures are being taken to protect their data and the risks they may possibly face.

Furthermore, the intrusion did not involve ransomware, according to Shaw, and the Red Cross is working with very skilled cybersecurity organizations to respond to the breach.

The event "looks to be the greatest and most sensitive breach in the history of ICRC and, arguably, considering the sensitivity, of all humanitarian organizations to date," according to Lukasz Olejnik, a former cyber warfare consultant at Red Cross headquarters in Geneva, via CNN.

According to Olejnik, the Red Cross could consider asking nations that are parties to the Geneva Conventions for assistance in recovering from the hack.

Who Was Behind The Attacks

Relief Web reported that the attack targeted a third-party company in Switzerland with whom the ICRC has a data-storage agreement.

Unfortunately, the ICRC has no initial indicators as to who was behind the cyber-attack.

As of writing, the compromised data that has been breached still has no evidence of being shared with the public.

The institution clarified again that they do not know the actors behind this attack. Furthermore, the institution pleads not to share, leak, or sell the data that has been stolen.

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BBC podcast host Deborah James, who has incurable bowel cancer, has said she feels 'smashed to pieces' as she continues her battle in hospital a week after nearly dying during 'acute medical emergency'.

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 picture shared on Instagram yesterday, the mother-of-two could be seen sitting on her hospital bed surrounded by medical equipment.

She penned there had been 'a lot of tears' for days, saying: 'Today has been one of those days where I feel like we are going round in circles. Its the small things that break you sometimes when you are in hospital for too long.'

BBC podcast host Deborah James, who has incurable bowel cancer, has said she feels 'smashed to pieces' as she continues her battle in hospital a week after nearly dying during 'acute medical emergency'

She continued: 'Its the failed canulars, being unable to move freely, not feeling like you are making progress, the daily worry about each test, the daily analytics of every bodyily function.

'Wondering if you will ever get a break. Or that golden window for me to get treatment.

'Im just in a place where Ive been able to get the big cracks together (just), but I realised as I started my day off sobbing at our lack of being able to get blood from me, that underneath Im still smashed to pieces.

'Tomorrow will be a new day, and with that we will find strength to carry on.'

The podcaster said she hoped to find 'strength to carry on' as she continued her stay in hospital (pictured)

Posting a photograph of various canulas and wires, she said there had been 'a lot' of tears over the last few days

However earlier today she updated fans to say that she had been told her bloods had 'finally' improved.

It comes after Deborah said she was 'on the cancer rollercoaster' earlier this week, writing: 'A small bleed meant I ended up being rushed back into theatre having a colonoscopy and endocsopy within the hour to check for the source.'

'Its amazing how quickly crash teams work, and as much as I just want to be home (its now getting on to two weeks in hospital), its also nice to feel in a safe place when my body isnt playing ball.'

She posted: 'Yesterday was the classic ride high and fall flat at the last bend! Started with positive blood results, drains all out (unlike in this picture) and I was more fussed about my make up stash in hospital than anything else! Dry shampoo and Lippy for the win!

'Was feeling good (its all relative!) and my liver number were FINALLY improving (go liver!!). My oncologist even talked about getting me home in a few days.'

However she said things had gone down hill yesterday afternoon, adding: 'Praying today will be un-eventual and stable! Thank you for your love.

'Either me or mum will update - its nice to have another source for updating you lovley lot.

Earlier this week she revealed she had an 'awful night' in hospital after she was 'rushed back into theatre'

Deborah, who has incurable bowel cancer, revealed how she 'nearly died' last week in an 'acute medical emergency'. She shared this photo from hospital

'Have to say that teaching mum how to use Instagram from my hospital bed has put a massive smile on my face! Its certainly giving my family some well needed laughs!'

She added: 'We keep going. One step at a time. As a late friend said I havent come this far to only go this far.'

It comes after Deborah's mother shared an update on her daughter's health yesterday on Instagram.

She explained: 'How she does it time and time again blows me away. Its early hours, but it went to plan. The aim was to internalised her bile stent if it was working which so far it seems to be.

The mother of BBC podcast star Deborah told fans she has had five operations in 10 days following a medical emergency during which she almost died (pictured together)

'Obviously now shes kept under close monitoring but shes really happy (and emotional) because she has no drains for the first time in weeks.

'We just have to pray she remains stable for the foreseeable future now. Due to the operation today, I was allowed to see her briefly as her nominated visitor - which Im grateful for.'

It comes days after Deborah 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.

The mother-of-two was told early on that she might not live beyond five years - a milestone that passed in the autumn (pictured)

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.

'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.

Days ago, Deborah shared a video as she took her first steps through hospital after her difficult week

Sharing the video on Instagram, Deborah wrote: 'Today I walked - its the first time in nine days Ive been able to try.'

The podcaster shared she is making progress on her Instagram and updated her followers on her condition

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, Deborah 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'
A New York woman reunited with her dog five years after the animal went missing during her cancer treatment - and was stunned when she discovered that the pup made it all the way to Tennessee.

Jen Costa was devastated when her English Bulldog, named Azzurra Diamante, disappeared from her car at a gas station in Nassau County, Long Island, in 2017 - while she was in the midst of getting treated for cancer.

Somehow, the dog traveled halfway around the country - to Henderson, Tennessee - where it was eventually found by a woman named Abbie Bayless.

After Abbie got in contact with a local shelter, they used Azzurra's microchip to find out where she came from and contacted Jen - who drove 1,000 miles to reunite with her long lost pet in what felt like a 'movie' scene.

'It's like she took up right where she left off. She stood up on the front seat and was ready to go, just like she used to,' she told Newsweek.

A New York woman reunited with her dog five years after she went missing - and was stunned when she discovered that the pup made it all the way to Tennessee

Jen Costa was devastated when her English Bulldog, named Azzurra Diamante (pictured left as a puppy), disappeared from her car at a gas station in Nassau County, Long Island, in 2017

Somehow, the dog (pictured right as a puppy) traveled halfway around the country - to Henderson, Tennessee - where it was eventually found by a woman named Abbie Bayless

'This has just been crazy,' Abbie, who found Azzurra, told the Jackson Sun. 'I had just moved in with my roommate - literally days before - when Azzurra showed up at our front door.

'We opened the front door and she just walked right in like she lived there.'

The dog, who had been living on the streets for five years, wasn't in the best condition, and Abbie wanted to help it.

'My entire life Ive rescued animals - if I see an animal I feel like I have to take care of it, at least until I can find it a good place to go,' she said.

'She wasnt in the best condition, but we tried to nurse her back to health and got her some medicine and stuff.'

Based off of the dog's sweet demeanor, Abbie could tell right away that the animal had previously belonged to someone, and she was determined to reunite Azzurra with her owner.

She continued: 'Its crazy, now knowing everything shes been through, and how well travelled she is; because she was so gentle and mild mannered, and just the sweetest girl ever.

After Abbie got in contact with a local shelter, they used Azzurra's microchip to find Jen - who drove 1,000 miles to reunite with her long lost pet. They are pictured after the reunion

She said their reunion felt like it was out of a 'movie' scene, and that their relationship picked right back up right where it left off

'And we could definitely tell that somebody was missing her - we just didnt realize that that somebody was in New York!'

After Abby took Azzurra in, she involved the Henderson Animal Control, which noticed that the dog had been microchipped. That's house they discovered that Azzurra had miraculously made her way to Tennessee all the way from New York.

Henderson Animal Control sent an email to Jen, who was 'dumbfounded' when she heard the news.

'I was sitting the other day and got an email that said, "Your pet has been found." I thought I was seeing things, honestly,' she recalled.

'I figured it was a mistake. It was a confusing emotion - I was just dumbfounded.'

Jen then called Henderson Animal Control, who confirmed that they did indeed have her beloved pet in their custody.

'At first it sounded like they were confused. I thought maybe it was a mistake,' she continued.

'And then they were like, "Yeah, we have a dog here," and that was when they confirmed it was really happening.

Jen became bedridden after she was hit by a bus at 19 years old. After the accident, she struggled with depression and drug addiction, and grew to weigh almost 700 pounds

In 2016, she was told that she had stage four oral cancer that began in her tongue and had spread to her neck. They surgically removed her tongue, and she was cured

She then decided to turn her life around and lost 500 pounds. She is pictured before (left) and after (right) her weight loss

'I was like, "Are you kidding me?" I was so happy. And I didnt even realize it was in Tennessee, until I called them, and they asked where I was located.

'I was like, "New York?" And theyre like, "Were in Tennessee" I was so confused. Id never even heard of this town before.'

Jen made the 16-hour drive from New York to Tennessee to pick up the dog, and she said their relationship picked right back up right where it left off.

She told Newsweek: 'When she turned around, I think she realized who I was, because she kept giving me her paw and kissing my face.

'I had thought I would never see her again, so it was like I was dreaming. It felt like something out of a movie.'

Jen became bedridden after she was hit by a bus at 19 years old. After the accident, she struggled with depression and drug addiction, and grew to weigh almost 700 pounds.

Jen adopted Azzurra when she was just an eight-week-old puppy - right before her cancer diagnosis

In 2016, she was told that she had stage four oral cancer that began in her tongue and had spread to her neck.

They surgically removed her tongue, and after she was cured, she decided to turn her life around.

'I ended up losing over 500 pounds over the next few years,' she said.

'Sometimes I realize that God allows your heart to be broken so new light shines in and drives out the darkness.

'And I feel like thats what happened with me. I could be miserable right now but Im not. Im so grateful that Im still here.'

Jen adopted Azzurra when she was just an eight-week-old puppy - right before her cancer diagnosis.

After she went missing, she said she put up flyers and called the police, animal shelters, and vets - but everything was a 'dead end.'

'We drove around looking for weeks, but I had a tracheotomy tube in my neck at the time from my cancer surgery, so I couldn't even talk,' she shared.

After Azzurra went missing, Jen said she put up flyers and called the police, animal shelters, and vets - but everything was a 'dead end.' She is pictured as a child with her family dog

Now that they are together again, Jen - who lives with her elderly grandmother - is staying in Tennessee with Azzurra while she tries to raise enough money to buy her own place

'My friend had to ask people if they had seen Azzurra and show them a picture of her, but nobody knew anything, not even the people at the gas station. So that was it.

'It's not that I stopped thinking about it, but at that point I felt that if someone found her and wanted to return her they would, and if they didn't, there was nothing I could do.'

Now that they are together again, Jen is staying in Tennessee with Azzurra while she tries to get enough money to buy her own place.

She recently started a GoFundMe page, and has raised nearly $2,000 so far.

'I'm also trying to raise money so that I can get my own place as I cannot bring Azzurra back home to Queens,' she told Patch.

'I live with my elderly grandma and it's just too much for her to have two dogs in the house.

'So unfortunately that's another reason why I haven't come back home yet, [I'm] trying to figure things out.'
Eleven-month-old conjoined twins who shared a diaphragm and were connected by the liver have now been separated after undergoing a 10-hour surgery.

When Maggie Altobelli, 33, from Chicago, Illinois, was 20 weeks pregnant, she went to the doctor for a routine checkup and was excited to see her baby for the first time via sonogram.

She was stunned when she discovered that not only was she was having twins, but their stomachs were actually connected.

She and her husband, Dom Altobelli, 34, were told by doctors that the babies were not going to have an easy journey ahead of them, but they were determined to give their children a happy and healthy life.

Now, 11 months after they were born and despite many complications, the little girls - named Addy and Lily - have successfully been separated via surgery, and are living on their own.

Eleven-month-old conjoined twins who shared a diaphragm and were connected by the liver are now separated after undergoing a 10-hour surgery

Maggie Altobelli, 33, and her husband, Dom Altobelli, 34, learned that their twins were conjoined during the pregnancy but were determined to give their children a happy life

Fighters: Now, 11 months after they were born and despite many complications, the girls - Addy and Lily - have successfully been separated via surgery, and are living on their own

We gave it to God, and weve done that throughout this whole journey.



Were checking in with Maggie and Dom Altobelli, who are sharing the incredible story of their conjoined twins Addy and Lily. pic.twitter.com/lgYU1UBxjY  TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 21, 2022

Recalling the moment she found out she was having twins, Maggie told Today Parents, 'I was like, "Oh my gosh, are there two of them?"'

But the technician looked shocked, removed the wand, and went to fetch the doctor - who told Maggie that she had never seen anything like that during her entire career.

Maggie continued: 'I said, "Oh finding out youre having multiples?" And shes like, "No we get that. Their little stomachs are connected."

Maggie said that finding out that her babies were conjoined was like an 'out of body experience' for her.

'I was trying to find out the gender of one baby I thought we were having and then it turn out to be a little more complicated,' she explained.

'It was an out of body experience. Its like, "What do you mean their stomachs are connected? Is this even a thing?'

When Maggie was 20 weeks pregnant, she went to the doctor for a routine checkup and was excited to see her baby for the first time via sonogram

Shocking: She was stunned when she discovered that not only was she was having twins, but their stomachs were actually connected

Maggie said that finding out that her babies were conjoined was like an 'out of body experience' for her

Maggie and Dom met with many specialists and were told that if the twins shared a heart, separating them would not be possible.

Thankfully, they soon discovered that the girls each had their own hearts - however, they did share a diaphragm and were connected by the liver.

'[Doctors] said, "Yes, this is a favorable situation. But its still a very high-risk delivery and surgery,"' Maggie shared.

'It was a surprise and it was very shocking. But, we just thought that God gave us these girls for a reason.'

The couple decided to move to Pennsylvania to work with the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia on the birth and separation, and Dom admitted that they were 'scared as Hell.'

'It was quite a ride early on because me and Maggie were scared as hell and had no clue what was going to happen,' he revealed. 'We had to just take it one step at a time.'

The couple decided to move to Pennsylvania to work with the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia on the birth and separation, and Dom admitted that they were 'scared as Hell'

On November 18, 2020, Maggie delivered Addison (Addy) and Lilianna (Lily) via Cesarian-section, and right away, they were taken into the neonatal intensive care unit

The twins faced complications immediately. Since they shared a chest, breathing was difficult for them. They are pictured at two months (left), four months (center), and six months (right)

On November 18, 2020, when Maggie was 34 weeks pregnant, she delivered Addison (Addy) and Lilianna (Lily) via Cesarean-section, and they were imemdaitely taken into the neonatal intensive care unit.

Soon after their birth, the girls underwent their first procedure.

'They underwent tissue expansion, which was to help them grow some skin because they shared their chest wall from below the collarbones all the way down to their bellybuttons,' their doctor, Holly Hedrick, said.

The twins faced complications immediately. Because they shared a chest, breathing became difficult for them - especially since Lily was larger than Addy.

'If Lily got upset  she would [control] the breathing,' Maggie explained. 'There were times where Addy had coded because she couldnt breathe because Lily would get upset.'

But Addy and Lily made it through, and they underwent their separation surgery on October 13, 2021 - and Maggie said it was a 'very emotional' day for them.

'It was very surreal, just very emotional. The whole day was very peaceful and we kind of just gave it to God - and weve done that throughout this whole journey,' she recalled.

Addy and Lily underwent their separation surgery on October 13, 2021 - and Maggie said it was a 'very emotional' day for them. In the end, it was successful

Thriving: Just under two months later, on December 1, the couple moved back to Chicago with their babies

Now, the girls still use a breathing tube, but doctors feel hopeful that theyll be able to breathe on their own soon. They also use a feeding tube but have been practicing eating

Happier than ever: 'They smile every single day. That has really made it easier,' their dad gushed. 'They sit up and look at each other and smile and play'

'Were just so lucky to have surgeons who know what theyre doing and really worked hard and cared for our girls like they were their own.'

The surgery was successful and just under two months later, on December 1, the couple moved back to Chicago with their babies.

Now, the girls still use a breathing tube, but doctors feel hopeful that theyll be able to breathe on their own soon.

They also use a feeding tube but have been practicing eating, and they undergo physical, occupation, and speech therapy.

'They smile every single day. That has really made it easier,' their dad gushed.

'They sit up and look at each other and smile and play. Anytime theyre close theyre reaching for each others hands and faces and breathing tubes.'

Maggie added: 'This is our journey. Its a very special one in many ways. These girls are going to live long, healthy lives. Its pretty miraculous and unbelievable that were living this life.'
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Covid deaths are continuing to rise in the U.S., even as cases have begun to fall. The nation recorded 3,564 new deaths on Friday - the fourth consecutive day where over 2,000 Covid deaths were added to the ledger, the first time that has happened since Christmas, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Friday's grim toll was the highest single-day total since 3,864 died from COVID on January 28, 2021, barely a month after the first vaccines were rolled out in the U.S. The all-time single-day mark of 4,422 was set on January 20, 2021, according to Johns Hopkins.

Deaths have lagged behind cases during the pandemic, with trends in mortality often trailing a few weeks behind cases. The U.S. logged 879,877 new infections on Friday, dropping the seven-day average to 734,302 - down six percent over the past week.

While deaths may eventually reverse course, just as cases have over the past week, some projections believe there is potential for even more Americans to succumb to the virus in the near future.

Projected totals match figures cited by the White House earlier this week that somewhere between 58,000 and 305,000 Americans will die from the virus between now and mid-March - or 1,000 to 5,000 deaths per day on average over the next two months. In these projections, health officials are expecting daily deaths to potentially half over the next 60 days, but leave open the potential that deaths could triple.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also released projections on Wednesday, projecting that 9,600 to 36,900 Covid hospitalizations will be reported during the week that ends of February 11 - or between 1,371 to 5,271 hospitalizations per day. While the U.S. is technically recording a pandemic-high number of hospitalizations at the moment - averaging 158,638 Americans receiving care while Covid positive every day - the figure is unreliable as many people receiving treatment for another condition at a hospital are testing positive while present and being added to the total.

Higher ends of these projections, while scary, seem outlandish when considering the current state of the pandemic. The highly infectious Omicron variant is a more mild strain, with CDC data revealed last week finding that the variant is 91 percent less likely to cause death that the Delta strain. Omicron accounts for 99.5 percent of active cases in the U.S. as well, and CDC director Rochelle Walensky even said last week that recent upticks in Covid deaths are more the responsibility of the more severe Delta variant.

Daily cases are no longer included in these projections by the CDC. It represents a shift away from using daily case counts as a barometer for the current state of the pandemic in the U.S., as the rampant spread of a more mild variant has made daily case counts often appear much more worrying than they truly are. Some media organizations, like the Associated Press, have even abandoned reporting on new daily case records in U.S. states.

A record 159,341 Americans are in the hospital for Covid every day, the highest rate in the nation. This figure is not reliable, though, as many people who arrive for treatment for another condition and test positive while present are added to the total.

In Massachusetts, where 3,100 people are in the hospital with Covid every day, health officials revealed that only around half of those people were actually receiving treatment for a severe case of the virus.

According to official figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 80 percent of U.S. hospital beds are currently occupied, with 20 percent filled by a Covid-positive patient.

Dr Scott Gottlieb, former director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and current board member at Pfizer, told CNBC's The Squawk Box on Friday that he believes over 20 percent of the nation's population has been infected by Omicron.

This has infected about 4.5 percent of the population. 15 million people have been diagnosed with Omicron, if you assume that we are only diagnosing one in five cases probably upwards of 23 to 25 percent of Americans have been infected,' he said.

There is no modern precedent for that,' he added.

While America's current Covid situation sits at a knifes edge, with cases declining and deaths increasing, looking to European countries could give the U.S. signs of hope for the future.

In the UK, which the U.S. has followed closely behind for much of the pandemic, recent falls in cases have led to Prime Minister Boris Johnson dropping all Covid-related mandates and restrictions. Daily cases have dropped to 107,364 per day, down from the peak of over 180,000 cases per day earlier this month. Hospitalizations and deaths have also steadied after sharp increases at the start of the Omicron Covid surge, and are even showing very slight declines.

French officials are hopeful that the country's Covid situation will soon reverse as well. Prime Minister Jean Castex said Friday that restrictions on capacity for sporting and music events will be lifted on February 2. Other restrictions will slowly be lifted throughout the month as well. The move comes days after the nation logged a record 464,769 new cases on Tuesday - showing the officials are hopeful the variant will soon burn out in the nation.

South Africa was the first nation to suffer a massive surge of cases as a result of the Omicron variant. The nation saw cases spike in December, getting as high as 23,000 per day in mid-December. The daily case average as cratered since, though, down to around 3,700 per day in late-January - another sign of how quickly Covid could burn out.

The Omicron Covid variant is starting to move out west. Eleven states along the east coast, and Illinois, are recording decreasing Covid cases, while states in the Midwest and Great Plains are now seeing cases begin to rocket

The CDC projects that anywhere between 9,800 to 35,700 deaths from Covid will occur in the U.S. during the week that ends on February 12. This means deaths could drop by up to 25% over the next three weeks

"15 million people have been diagnosed with #omicron. If you assume that we are only diagnosing 1 in 5 cases probably upwards of 23-25% of Americans have been infected," says @ScottGottliebMD. "We may get 40-50% of Americans infected with this by mid-February." pic.twitter.com/9pbyn2bahs  Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) January 21, 2022

The virus has slowly moved across the U.S. leaving some of the more populated regions along the east coast and causing cases to rise in the Midwest and Great Plains. It has been a trend for more than a week now, as case growth slows in the east while states west of the Mississippi start to suffer.

'The trajectory is kinda baked in right now,' Gottlieb said.

'You are seeing cases rapidly decline in the East Coast and Florida. You are also seeing cases come down in California and seeing hospitalizations fall. But the infection is spreading to the Midwest.'

States like New Jersey, New York and Maryland, that were hit hard and fast by the Omicron variant at the end of 2021 and now seeing cases begin to rocket upwards.

New Jersey is leading the nation in case decline, with daily infections dropping 54 percent over the past two weeks - now recording 159 cases per every 100,000 residents. Just behind is its neighbor New York, which has seen cases fall by 49 percent over the last 14 days.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Friday morning on Twitter that the state's test positivity rate has dropped below ten percent for the first time since December 20.

'Were in the single digits, New York! For the first time since December 20, our COVID positivity rate is under 10 percent,' she wrote.

Maryland has experienced a 43 percent decrease in cases, over the past two weeks as well.

"You are seeing cases rapidly decline in the East Coast and Florida. You are also seeing cases come down in California and seeing hospitalizations fall. But the infection is spreading to the Midwest," says @ScottGottliebMD. pic.twitter.com/gKIZCINY3R  Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) January 21, 2022

Dr Scott Gottlieb (pictured), former FDA chief, said the trajectory of the Omicron variant leaving the east coast and heading out west in 'baked in'

In total, 12 U.S. states are recording declining cases over the past two weeks. All of them, sans Illinois, are along the east coast. While Illinois is squarely in the mid-West, its case trajectory often matches that of east coast states due to its massive population center in Chicago.

Its spreading to the heartland with has a small population, but the heartland will be hit,' Gottlieb added.

South Carolina is still recording a 14 day increase, up 69 percent over the past two weeks. The Palmetto state was recording nearly 900 percent case increases at some points last week, though, another example of case growth drastically falling along the east coast.

The 18 states that have recorded the biggest jumps in new daily Covid cases over the past two weeks are west of the Mississippi river.

Alaska is now the leader in case growthy by a large margin, as the Omicron variant has finally found its way to the remote state 1,600 miles from the U.S. mainland. The state has experienced a 355 percent increase in cases over the past two weeks, with 305 of every 100,000 residents testing positive daily.

No other state has recorded an increase in cases of more than 210 percent. The only other state that has had cases triple over the past two weeks in Oklahoma, where cases have jumped 208 percent.

Why is the UK scrapping its Covid rules just as Biden doubles down on masks drive and vaccine mandates? White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has refused to speculate when Americans might follow the UK and finally get back to normal by ditching masks and COVID passports, despite a slowdown in cases. Asked on Fox News's America's Newsroom on Thursday whether the US could expect to follow the UK's example by scrapping COVID restrictions, Psaki said 'we want to get back to a point where were not wearing masks' but went on to describe the current situation in the US as 'the height of a pandemic'. A day after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that England will scrap all restrictions, including mandatory isolation - she refused to be drawn on a timeline for when Americans might expect to experience the same hope of normalcy. Emphasizing the importance of vaccination, Psaki went on to say: 'We dont want to live like this. You heard the president say we dont want to live like this forever. 'We want to get back to a point where were not wearing masks, of course. Where we are not worried about our kids being in school Thats where we want to get to, and what were trying to do is continue to fight at the height of a pandemic to get to that point.' The U.S. is also seeing a slowdown in cases that spiked when the mild, but highly transmissible Omicron variant caught on in December. The US has nearly twice as many weekly infections for each million residents as the UK, with a reported 2,233 cases, but Omicron is already burning out and deaths, mostly attributed to the older Delta variant, have remained steady. States that were once leaders in case growth last month are recording the largest drops. While the English being told by their leaders that they no longer need wear masks and by the end of March will no longer be forced to isolate in the event of a positive COVID test, the US government is about to start dishing out free N95 masks to its citizens and finally launched its long-promised program to distribute millions of free test kits - a tardy move that critics have said should have come before the peak of the Omicron wave. Advertisement

Less populated states in the Great Plains are starting to see cases surge at an alarming rate as well. North Dakota (163 percent increase over past two weeks), Idaho (152 percent), Wyoming (146 percent) and Montana (142 percent) are all recording large jumps in cases over the past two weeks.

Overall, America's case growth is slowing, though. Only 12 states have had Covid cases double over the past two weeks, after all 50 states were recording over 100 percent increases last week. While cases are still rising in 38 states, the growth is slowing almost everywhere.

East coast states that once led the nation in infection rates are starting to drop down leaderboards as well. Rhode Island led the U.S. in infection rate for much of the past few weeks, far outpacing the rest of the country with well over 500 per every 100,000 residents testing positive every day at some points.

The Ocean state has relinquished that lead, though, dropping to 377 infections per 100,000 residents, falling to second in America with the figure expected to drop even further based on current trends.

Wisconsin is the U.S. leader in infection rate and the only state where more than 400 of every 100,000 residents are testing positive for the virus daily. The Badger state is averaging 401 infections per every 100,000 residents daily.

Despite the slowing of case growth over the past week, South Carolina finds itself among the leaders in infection rate as well, with 324 of every 100,000 residents recording an infection every day. Like Rhode Island, though, current trends show that figure likely decreasing soon.

Other leaders among infection rate include Hawaii (336 infections per 100,000 residents), Utah (335) and Alaska 305.

Nine states are now recording more than one Covid death per every 100,000 residents every day, a figure that has increased recently despite nearly every other state-by-state metric dropping throughout the week.

Alaska is the leader in mortality rate, with 1.29 deaths per every 100,000 residents, as the situation in the remote state continues to deteriorate.

Michigan led in this metric for much of December, but Covid deaths in the state started to decrease in early January. The figure is starting to rise once again, though, with the Great Lakes state now logging 1.23 daily deaths per 100,000 residents.

Also a previous leader, Indiana is among the states recording a high Covid mortality rate. The Hoosier state is recording 1.09 deaths every day per 100,000 residents.

While cases might be falling in Maryland (1.08 per 100,000 residents dying daily), New York (1.06), Illinois (1.04), Delaware (1.03) and New Jersey (1) find themselves among the leaders as well. Tennessee (1.21) is among the group as well.

Across the pond, Covid cases are continuing to decline in the UK. The nation is averaging 107,364 cases per day, a far fall from 180,000 infections the nation was recording per day at the peak of its Omicron surge in early January. Cases are down 1.6 percent over the past week.

The nation is also recording 330 cases per day, a 1.5 percent drop over the past week. Because of the relatively minor nature of the Omicron variant, deaths never really kept pace with infections in the UK, like the U.S. and many other countries.

Some top experts in the nation are predicting that the pandemic will largely subside this year, and the variant will enter an endemic, flu-like, state at some point late this year. Scientists in the nation are even asking for officials to stop reporting daily hospitalization figures.

Like the U.S., the UK's hospitalization figures can be misleading since, many of the people included in the totals are those that are coming in for other treatment, and testing positive while there. They are then added to the tally without any sort of differentiation.

'Normal' is also just around the corner in the UK as well. Almost every restriction Britons face related to the virus will be gone by next week, as health officials are confident a corner has been turned in the pandemic.

'The central decision that he made which was to absolutely focus on boosters has been vindicated ... that is the main reason that we are where we are today because the Prime Minister made those decisions,' Health Minister Sajid Javid said of the dropped restrictions.

'The way we are going to do this is we're going to have to find a way to remove almost all of these restrictions and get life completely back to normal but with one or two really big things that I think will be there for a while.

'That is I think probably the need to vaccinate, I can't tell you how often that will be, but I think vaccinations will remain hugely important just as we have to have annual vaccinations protecting older people against flu.

'I think antivirals and treatments will continue to play a big role, especially for those that might be more exposed, and I think testing, it's great where we are today with testing and I think it will improve over time.

'These pharmaceutical defenses of the vaccines, antivirals, monoclonal antibodies, and testing, I think they will be the cornerstone of our future defenses.'

For comparison, the U.S. does not have these types of national mandates that Britain has. While many Americans are living under some sort of restriction, whether mask mandates, vaccine requirements or more, some citizens do not face any. States will largely make decision for themselves in Omicron continues to decline in the coming weeks, with red states likely to drop mandates quicker than their blue counterparts.

Life has returned to its pre-Omicron state in South Africa as well, as cases have declined so sharply that many are no longer fearful of the mutant strain. Hospitals are starting to empty in the nation as well - with weekly hospitalizations halving from 9,624 in mid-December to 4,772 last week nationwide. Cases have dropped by 80 percent during that period as well.

Denmark was one of the first countries to suffer an Omicron-fueled Covid outbreak. The nation saw cases rapidly increase, and officials in the state instituted partial lockdown measures to counter the spread of the virus. Over the weekend, restrictions were lifted, signaling the nation is more comfortable with Omicron at the moment.

The country is averaging 30,925 new cases per day as of Wednesday, a record for the Nordic nation. Denmark has never suffered a massive surge of Covid cases, with its record being around 35 per day last winter. Currently, the nation is recording 14 deaths from the virus daily.
Almost half of 'Covid hospitalizations' in Massachusetts are among people who were admitted for a non-virus related reason. The revelation by state health officials Thursday makes the state the first to differentiate between hospitalizations 'with' Covid versus hospitalizations 'because of' Covid.

This failure to differentiate nationwide has led to record hospitalization figures being recorded nation wide despite the relative mildness of the now-dominant Omicron variant.

On Tuesday, January 18, official figures reported 3,187 Bay Staters hospitalized with Covid. The figure included both sets of Covid infected people.

The state's Department of Public Health (DPH) revealed Thursday afternoon that after analyzing and differentiating patient data, only 49 percent - or around 1,561 - were admitted because of a severe case of the virus.

Massachusetts became the first state to release data differentiating Covid positive patients in hospitals by their reason for being admitted. The data revealed that only 49% of 'Covid patients' in the hospital are actually receiving treatment for Covid, while the others are being treated for another condition and just testing positive while present. Pictured: A Covid patient in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, receives treatment from a health care worker on January 11

'I think it's really important to understand vaccine effectiveness because we are calling these patients COVID hospitalizations,' Dr Shira Doron, an epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, told Boston 25.

'At Tufts Medical Center, half of them are vaccinated, and you don't want to be calling them a vaccine breakthrough hospitalization when they aren't.'

According to official data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Friday, 87 percent of Massachusetts' 18,250 hospital beds are currently occupied, with just over 3,000 by people infected by Covid.

On average, 159,000 Americans are hospitalized with Covid every day, per the HHS, a pandemic record.

The HHS data does not differentiate between Covid hospitalizations, though, and the figure is inflated.

Not only does that make the figure misleading, but it could also hurt the public's perception of the Covid vaccine, boosters, and the Omicron variant itself.

Health officials are adamant that the Omicron variant is by far the most mild Covid strain yet.

Data revealed last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds that a person infected with the Omicron variant is 50 percent less likely to be hospitalized and 91 percent less likely to die of Covid that if they caught the Delta strain.

The agency also reports that the Omicron variant accounts for 99.5 percent of active cases in the U.S.

Experts have also determine that being fully vaccinated may not provide adequate protection against infection, it can still prevent the most severe of the virus's symptoms.

Receiving a booster shot also re-establishes protection against infection that people had against other strains with just the original vaccine regimen.

Omicron is spreading rapidly, though, causing cases to reach record levels as well. At some points this month, the nation was averaging around 800,000 new cases a day - nearly quadruple the peak case count during summer's surge of the Delta variant.

With so many people walking around with the virus - and some experts projecting that only one-third of cases are actually being included in the reported virus totals - many people coming in for routine treatment or for emergency situations are arriving while positive.

Massachusetts is now the first state to make this type of differentiation. Doron says it can help officials get a better look at the current situation in hospitals around the state.

'When the wave is behind us and COVID cases are low, all those patients admitted for reasons other than COVID, those types of cases aren't going away,' Doron said.

'So, if 50 percent are not due to COVID, we have to know that we're not getting that capacity back when COVID cases go down.'

Calls for hospitals to do a better job differentiating Covid patients have been loudening in recent weeks.

The current record figure is near useless, and does not at all give Americans an accurate snapshot of the current state of the pandemic.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, whose state is among the national leaders is Covid hospitalization rate, called for hospitals to be more detailed in their reporting earlier this month.

'When we're looking at the hospitalizations of people testing positive in a hospital, is that person in the hospital because of COVID, or did they show up there and are routinely tested and showing positive, and they may have been asymptomatic or even just had the sniffles?' she said during a news briefing on January 4.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has lowered its minimum recommended age for the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine from 12 to five years old. The organization now recommends worldwide governments to extend authorization for the Pfizer jab to match its guidance.

The recommendation comes after the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on immunization held a meeting on Wednesday to evaluate the vaccine. They added that this age group is of the lowest priority to get the shot.

Pfizer's shot is already approved for children as young as five years old in America. It is the most popularly used in much of the world, including the U.S.

The WHO's recommendation comes despite the little risk young children face from the virus, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting last week that minors made up less than 0.1 percent of deaths from the virus in the U.S.

The World Health Organization has dropped its recommended age to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine down to five, from 12. The change comes despite data that children face little risk when they are infected. (Pictured): A young child in Miami, Florida, receives a shot of a COVID-19 vaccine

'This age group (5-11) is in the lowest priority use group for vaccination except, for children who have co-morbidities,' SAGE chairman Alejandro Cravioto said at a briefing.

The WHO's vaccine director, Kate O'Brien, said no safety concerns were raised for application of Pfizer's vaccine in 5 to 11 years old in clinical trials.

The panel also recommended that booster doses of Pfizer's vaccine should be administered 4 months to 6 months after the completion of the primary series, in high-priority groups like older adults and health workers.

'Increase in booster dose coverage for high risk priority groups will usually yield greater reduction in severe disease and deaths than use of equivalent vaccine to increase primary vaccination coverage,' Cravioto added.

Cravioto said the revised roadmap for prioritization for COVID vaccines took into account the increasing availability of vaccines, current coverage and the circulation of variants of concern.

The panel said the recommendation for use of Pfizer's booster dose was only for certain priority groups and that it was not endorsing 'unfettered' use in all ages.

The WHO has previously opposed the use of Covid boosters around the world. Earlier this week, its Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that she did not see it as necessary for healthy children to receive Covid boosters.

'The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, to protect those at highest risk of severe disease and dying, those are our elderly population, immunocompromised with underlying conditions and also health care workers,' she said during a briefing Tuesday.

Swaminathan lead's the WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization. The agency has long been critical of the rollout of Covid booster shots, believing that risk of infection for a fully vaccinated person is already low enough - and that nations should instead donate doses overseas.

Pfizer's shot for children younger than five is a smaller dose than the one given to older children an adults. The standard size dose is 30 micrograms, while the one for young children is only ten micrograms.

The company is also trialing a three microgram, three dose, vaccine for kids under the age of five and hopes to receive authorization in the U.S. soon.

Many American parents are also split on whether they plan to vaccinate their children.

Children aged five to 11 are by far the least vaccinated group in the U.S. only 28 percent have received their first dose of the vaccine, and 19 percent are fully vaccinated, per CDC data.

For comparison, nearly every American over the age of 65 has received at least one shot, and at least 74 percent of every adult age group has received the jab.

A study published by researchers from the University of Utah in October found that 50 percent of children who contract Covid have an asymptomatic case.

A study published in October found that half of children who contracted COVID-19 did not experience symptoms of the virus compared to only 12% of adults. The study was conducted before the more mild Omicron variant become America's dominant strain

The study was also performed during the Delta variant wave, before Omicron stormed the world and took over as America's dominant strain.

Omicron is much more mild than Delta and other previous strains of the virus, making it likely the risk children face has only decreased.

A CDC study published last week found that people of all ages are half as likely to require hospitalization as a result of Omicron infection and 91 percent less likely to die.

The little risk children face has made some concerned about vaccinations, as the small risk a kid faces of developing myocarditis may not be worth receiving the shot.
Doctors operating on a father-of-three's 'hernia' were shocked to discover the bulge actually contained a testicle and female genitalia.

The 67-year-old, who was born with only one descended testicle, went to hospital in Kosovo complaining of swelling in his groin that had lasted a decade.

Surgeons inspected the 15cm by 10cm mass, only to detect uterus, cervix, fallopian tube and ovary, as well as his missing testicle.

Doctors diagnosed the married man, who otherwise had normal male genitalia, with Persistent Mullerian duct syndrome (PMDS)  an extremely rare condition that occurs when men also have female reproductive organs alongside their penis and scrotum.

It is unclear how common the condition is, but only 200 cases have been reported in medical literature.

All foetuses develop the beginnings of a womb, known as the Mullerian duct, which breaks down in the early development of males. But in very rare cases this does not happen, leading to some boys to be born with both sets of reproductive organs.

Symptoms of the condition include undescended testicles and hernias in the groin, but female organs are not usually discovered unless surgery is performed to treat the mass.

Persistent Mullerian duct syndrome is a genetic condition which means that both sets of genitals will form. Symptoms include one or both testicles failing to descend and fleshy hernias in the lower abdomen

The case was revealed in the journal Urology Case Reports by medics working at the University of Prishtina in Kosovo.

The patient had been suffering from a lump for 10 years that would get bigger when he stood up or coughed, but flattened when lying flat. However, it is not clear if he had had the lump since birth.

WHAT IS PERSISTENT MULLERIAN DUCT SYNDROME? All foetuses develop with the beginnings of a womb, known as the Mullerian duct. In the male foetus hormones will be produced causing this to shrink and eventually disappear. But in those with PMDS these hormones will not be produced, or the body will not react to them. This means the Mullerian duct will develop into female sexual organs, including cervix, ovaries and uterus. Because different hormones are responsible for growing a penis, the male reproductive organs will also develop. Symptoms include one or both testicles failing to descend, and fleshy hernias in the lower abdomen. Advertisement

Doctors diagnosed him with an inguinal hernia  when tissue pokes through into the groin at the top of the inner thigh.

It is the most common type of hernia and it mainly affects men.

But during the operation to repair it  which usually involves doctors making a cut through which they push the lump back into the abdomen  doctors found a 'pear like structure' that they discovered was a uterus.

They also found a 'scrotal sac' that contained a fallopian tube and a testicle, which had an ovary attached to it.

They diagnosed him with PMDS, which has the main symptom of an inguinal hernia.

This usually occurs when the descended testicle pulls the fallopian tube and uterus into the tract through which it descended.

People with PMDS are at higher risk of being infertile, but doctors noted the condition never affected the patients reproductive abilities, as he had three children and a well developed penis with a urethral opening in the correct place.

Doctors estimate between 30 and 80 per cent of PMDS patients suffer from an inguinal hernia, infertility or pseudohermaphroditism  when they have both genders genitals or female genitals on the outside.

In these cases, parents have to decide which sex their child will be, with surgery and sex hormones often required.

The case comes seven years after businessman Duane Walters became the first British male to have a hysterectomy  when the uterus is surgically removed  after doctors discovered he had PMDS.

His condition was discovered when doctors tested him for bladder cancer after he had suffered repeatedly from blood in his urine.

He had been suffering from period pains and pre-menstrual tension since he was a teenager.
MRS ENGLAND by Stacey Halls (Manilla Press 8.99, 400 pp)

MRS ENGLAND

by Stacey Halls (Manilla Press 8.99, 400 pp)

When Ruby May wins a scholarship to train as a nanny at the prestigious Norland Institute, it offers her a chance to escape her troubled upbringing.

A placement with a delightful London family, the Radletts, seems to confirm Rubys improved fortunes. But when Mr Radletts job takes the family to Chicago, Ruby is unable, for reasons she cannot bring herself to explain, to go with them.

Instead, she accepts a job looking after the four young children of Mr and Mrs England, members of a dynasty of Yorkshire textile manufacturers.

The atmosphere in Hardcastle House, the Englands isolated home, is unsettling. While Mr England is effusively friendly, Mrs England seems detached, even from her children, and the servants are hostile.

Bestselling author Stacey Halls conjures a chilling sense of foreboding amid the satanic mills of Edwardian Yorkshire, where family secrets emerge from the darkness.

RABBIT HOLE by Mark Billingham (Sphere 8.99, 464 pp)

RABBIT HOLE

by Mark Billingham (Sphere 8.99, 464 pp)

A single murder has many victims. From an individuals killing, waves of pain spread out to their family, friends and colleagues. In Alices case, witnessing the fatal stabbing of her fellow police officer, Johnno, has led to post-traumatic stress disorder and sectioning on an acute psychiatric ward.

But old habits die hard, and Alice keeps a sharp eye on the foibles of both her fellow patients and the medical staff, little suspecting that her former professional skills will be called upon when a body is discovered on the ward.

It is not long before Alice has solved the case, but her former colleagues in the Met are frustratingly slow to accept her conclusions, while the medical staff actively hamper her investigations. And then another person dies.

Mark Billinghams tough, compassionate and fiercely funny novel combines a shockingly twisty plot with a scathing critique of our mental health services.

THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH by Eddie Jaku (Pan Books 8.99, 208 pp)

THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH

by Eddie Jaku (Pan Books 8.99, 208 pp)

Eddie Jaku, who died last year aged 101, described himself as the happiest man on Earth, a description that he used as the title of his memoir, published when he was 100 years old.

It is an extraordinary statement for a man who suffered brutal Nazi persecution when he was scarcely more than a child, and spent years in concentration camps, where his parents and almost his entire family were murdered.

I lost my dignity, my freedom and my faith in humanity, he writes. Somehow he survived, thanks to his training as an engineer, his gift for friendship and his own indomitable spirit.

Initially reluctant to revisit the horrors of the past, he eventually concluded that he must tell his story for future generations.

Resilience, generosity of spirit and a belief, despite everything, in the fundamental goodness of humanity shine through this outstanding memoir.
The number of public charge points for electric vehicles grew 37 per cent last year, though a North-South divide is expanding in terms of which areas have the worst and best access to devices, according to fresh data published by the Department for Transport.

An additional 7,600 new charger installations have been added to the country's network in the last 12 months, taking the total to 28,375 publicly-accessible plug-in points.

However, the data shows that London has benefitted from a much faster expansion of its charging infrastructure than any other region, with 102 devices per 100,000 of its population, while areas like the North West have just 24 per 100,000 people.

There are also growing concerns that infrastructure is failing to keep pace with the number of electric cars entering the road, with one new public device added for every 24 zero-emission vehicle registered last year.

The UK's public charging network for electric cars is growing, but more so in some regions than others, with an expanding divide between the North and South

The data shows that of the 7,600 new devices added in 2021, some 1,276 were 'rapid' chargers, which offer the fastest charging speeds and therefore shortest sessions.

This was a growth of a third compared to the start of the previous year and takes the rapid network to 5,156 charge points - around 18 per cent of the UK's total public charging infrastructure.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps celebrated the news in a Twitter post, stating: 'As we head towards a cleaner transport future, we're boosting green jobs & making the switch to EVs easier than ever before!'

This chart shows the growth in the UK's public charging infrastructure in the last 7 years. An additional 7,600 new charger installations have been added to the country's network

This second graph shows the growth in 'rapid' devices, which offer the fastest charging speeds. Some 18% of the UK's total public network is these faster chargepoints, the DfT says

However, the official data shows there is growing disparity between the areas of the country with the best and worst access to public chargers.

Availability of devices in London grew significantly in 2021, up from 69 devices per 100,000 of population at the end of 2020 to 102 by the start of this year.

It means the capital now has double the availability of public devices per inhabitants than the next best region, which is Scotland with 52 charge points per 100,000 of population.

Scotland has the most rapid chargers, gulfing even London with 12.9 devices per 100,000 of population compared to the capital's eight.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Northern Ireland has seen a far slower rate of expansion of its network, with public charge point numbers rising from 17 to just 18 per every 100,000 people in the previous 12 months.

In terms of rapid devices, it has a mere 1.2 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The DfT paper says the 'uneven geographical distribution of charging devices' is due to some UK local authorities bidding for government funding towards the installation of new charging devices and others failing to do so.

It also added: 'Most of the provision of this infrastructure has been market-led, with individual charging networks and other businesses (such as hotels) choosing where to install devices.'

Availability of devices in London grew significantly in 2021, up from 69 devices per 100,000 of population at the end of 2020 to 102 by the start of this year

This data shows the number of total public charging devices in each region per 100k people. It shows that London is miles ahead of the rest of the country in terms of availability

This chart shows only rapid device availability in each region, which shows that EV owners in Scotland have the best access to the fastest chargepoints. Northern Ireland lags far behind for both total and rapid device availability

With over 190,000 battery electric vehicles registered in 2021, it means there was one new public chargepoint added for every 24 electric cars last year

Concerns grow for a lagging charging infrastructure

The report comes after industry bosses this month warned MPs that there was a growing North-South divide in terms of electric vehicle uptake - with wealthier southern postcodes dominating where EVs are purchased - but also in terms of public charger availability.

In the last year alone, 190,728 battery electric vehicles were registered in the UK. With 7,600 public chargers installed in the same 12 months, it means there is one charger per 25 electric models entering the road. In terms of rapid chargers, it is one new device for ever 150 EVs registered in 2021.

If you also include plug-in hybrid cars, the total of new vehicles registered that can access public chargers was 305,281 - that's a public chargepoint for every 40 vehicles.

There is an uneven geographical distribution of charging devices within the UK. Some local authorities have bid for Government funding for charging devices, and others have not Department for Transport

Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said the government would need to address these issues in the 'medium term', else it could risk Boris Johnson's 'levelling up' efforts.

Ben Foulser, head of future mobility at analyst firm KPMG UK, said: 'As electric vehicle adoption rises, it's encouraging to see more public charging points installed.

'But there's no doubt that the pace of delivery will have to increase in order to both cope with the demand of the coming years, and to convince others to transition to EVs.

'It's also vital that any use of public funding to de-risk investment by the private sector is targeted and successful.

'This includes development of commercially attractive portfolios that incorporate rural and smaller sites, enabling a just transition to zero-emission mobility across the UK.'

Best and worst public charging networks ranked

Electric car owners have been casting their verdicts on public charging infrastructure in Zap-Map's annual survey for the last four years, with the latest edition released in December 2021 taking feedback from 3,000 EV drivers.

The latest edition produced by the UK's leading EV mapping service has, for the first time, awarded a 'Best EV Charging Network' accreditation to the top scorer, and 'EV Driver Recommended' badge given to the top three providers.

Each rating is an aggregated score given by EV drivers for the overall satisfaction for the networks they use regularly, which is then used to rank each network out of a maximum of five stars.

They also rated their level of satisfaction with the networks in four key areas: reliability, ease of use, cost and facilities.

In first place overall this year is InstaVolt  the rapid charging network scored particularly highly for reliability and ease of use, securing its 'Best EV Charging Network' badge.

It took second spot in last year's survey, having been outscored by Tesla's Supercharger network.

However, Tesla's service has been omitted from the results in 2021 as Zap-Map now only ranks networks that are available to all EV drivers and not specific customers, which is currently the case for the US brand.

That said, Elon Musk did state earlier this year that it will open its 'super chargers' to all EV owners soon.

InstaVolt, which has around 650 chargers up and down the country, was rated the best network in the UK in a survey of 3,000 EV drivers

InstaVolt provides devices at popular public sites, such as McDonald's and Costa car parks as well as at motorway services

InstaVolt's network currently consists of more than 650 chargers across Britain, with many available as part of partnership with the likes of McDonald's, Costa Coffee and motorway service.

It has pledged to install 10,000 chargers over the next 10 years.

Alex Earl, of Zap-Map said: 'With the increasing competition in the charge point operator market, effectively holding onto the top spot is an impressive result which the team at InstaVolt should be very proud of.

'It's a real testament to their laser focus on both customer experience and reliability, and in so doing they continue to set the bar for others to follow.'

Adrian Keen, chief executive at InstaVolt, said: 'To claim top spot as the Best EV Charging Network is testament to our company ethos which is to make charging simple and reliable for all EV drivers.

'We won't be resting on our laurels as we move into 2022. EV adoption is at an all-time high, and we plan to install even more rapid chargers, deliver exciting new partnerships and invest in even smarter technology.'

MFG EV Power - a newcomer in 2021 - took second spot in the standings and shared Zap-Map's 'EV Driver Recommended' network award with Osprey

Taking the 'EV Driver Recommended' second and third places respectively are two other rapid charging networks, MFG EV Power and Osprey.

MFG EV Power is a new network that has installed charging hubs at its network of petrol stations, and has entered the list for the first time.

Also new in the standing for 2021 is Gridserve, which has rolled out its pioneering electric forecourt in Braintree and announced last year that it is building a dedicated EV charging hub at Gatwick - the first at any international airport around the world.

Gridserve late last year announced it is creating a bespoke EV charging hub at Gatwick Airport

Gridserve is currently in the process of updating every Electric Highway charge point at motorway services having bought it from Ecotricity in 2021

The British company also bought - and is in the process of upgrading - Ecotricity's network of motorway chargers, rebranding it as the Gridserve Electric Highway.

Its network was ranked fifth overall, while Ecotricity's 'legacy' charge points - around 100 devices at motorway service stations that have yet to be replaced by Gridserve - came bottom of the standings with a two-star rating.

ChargePlace Scotland  which came in 13th place overall  took first place for cost, thanks to many of its extensive network of rapid charge points being free to use.

Melanie Shufflebotham, co-founder of Zap-Map, said: 'EV drivers are clear about the factors that make for a good charging experience, namely reliability and ease of use  and these should be key priorities for the UK's public charging networks.

'The Zap-Map survey shows that while this is being delivered by some, others are falling short and there needs to be improvement.

'As we move from the early adopters towards mass EV adoption, making public charging simple becomes more important than ever.'
Two of the City's biggest companies have thrown their weight behind a groundbreaking British electric battery 'gigafactory' with 1.7billion of funding.

Financial giant Abrdn and warehouse group Tritax backed the Britishvolt project, which is expected to open in 2024, after it clinched a Government grant of 100million.

Britishvolt's facility is set to be constructed in Blyth, Northumberland, on the expansive 235-acre (95 hectare) grounds of the former power station and will create 3,000 UK jobs at the site and a total of around 8,000 in the supply chain.

It will produce the fuel cells needed for 300,000 electric vehicle batteries when it hits peak capacity and is seen as a key driving force for the supply of new EVs ahead of the 2030 ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars.

Britishvolt's 3.8billion plant (pictured: impression picture of the plant) will create 8,000 jobs in the North East in a boost for Government pledges to 'level up' the regions

The site will be one of the biggest 'gigafactories' in Europe and - once completed - the fourth largest building in the whole of the UK.

Politicians and manufacturers hope the project will make the UK less dependent on foreign imports and breathe fresh life into Britain's car industry.

Its success, along with that of the new 1billion Nissan-Envision battery gigafactory at the Japanese car maker's Sunderland plant, will also be utilised to instill confidence in manufacturers to shift production hubs to the UK.

The site will be one of the biggest 'gigafactories' in Europe and - once completed - the fourth largest building in the whole of the UK

The Blyth gigafactory, along with the new 1billion Nissan-Envision battery production site, will be utilised to instill confidence in manufacturers to shift production hubs to the UK

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng (left) pictured during a visit to the 235-acre (95 hectare) Blyth gigafactory site, which was formerly the grounds of the power station

It will also play a key role in the Government's 'levelling up' agenda to boost high-skilled employment in the regions.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: 'Britishvolt's planned gigafactory will not only enable the UK to fully capture the benefits of a booming electric vehicle market, but will bring thousands of highly skilled, well-paid jobs to the North East.'

Britishvolt's funding comes two months after Johnson Matthey, which makes an estimated one-in-three car catalytic converters worldwide, ditched its own electric battery division. Johnson Matthey developed a successful technology, but said it would not be profitable to continue because it faced too much foreign competition.

The electric battery market is concentrated in Asia, including in China and Korea.

Britishvolt's 3.8billion project has already received around half the funding it needs to take it to completion. Private investors and companies including Glencore stumped up 100m in the early stages.

Ministers have invested 100million in the pioneering electric car battery factory in Blyth, Northumberland

The site (impression shot pictured) will be one of the biggest 'gigafactories' in Europe

It is due to open by early 2024, having gained planning permission last year

The Government's grant  from the Automotive Transformation Fund  is thought to have been worth another 100million.

Abrdn and Tritax's investment was conditional on the company receiving this state funding.

Britishvolt has indicated there will be a number of announcements in the coming weeks that will include agreements with future customers.

It is also keen to supply European car makers, as well as those in Britain.

James Dunlop, chief executive of Tritax, said they and Abrdn 'are proud to be working alongside Britishvolt, the Government and a world-class professional team to unlock a greener future for UK plc'.

Daniel Clarke, analyst on the Thematic Research Team at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, said the Britishvolt announcement on Friday was a case of 'one down but several more needed'.

'As an electrified world becomes more inevitable by the day, Western governments are working around the clock to fund and scale-up domestic battery supply chains,' he explained.

'This new gigafactory has the capacity to produce 300,000 batteries per year. This is clearly a step in the right direction for the UK. But further work lies ahead.

'The number of EVs sold is expected to exponentially increase. In 2025, the United Kingdom hybrid and electric cars market is forecast to have a volume of 656,850 units, an increase of 100.4 per cent since 2020.

'The UK government must further incentivize and fund several more of these gigafactories to meet demandespecially if it wants to avoid being reliant on battery makers in other countries such as China.'

Q&A with Isobel Sheldon, Britishvolt's Chief Strategy Officer

by Rob Hull, Motoring Editor for Mail Online & ThisisMoney

Isobel Sheldon, chief strategy officer at Britishvolt

A year ago, This is Money sat down with Isobel Sheldon from Britishvolt to find out more about the nation's first gigaplant and the decisions that drove the company to the North East...

This is Money: What was the driving decision behind choosing Blyth as the site for the gigaplant?

Isobel Sheldon: 'The former power station is a brownfield site, on flat land and the renewable resource is already there. But Blyth also provides us with enough space - and we need lots of it.

'We require around 95 hectares for the plant alone. This is going to be the fourth largest building in the UK, the sixteenth largest in the world and the second largest gigaplant in existence, only behind the Tesla Nevada gigafactory.

'However, were also looking to integrate the supply chains for materials and components at the site, so we need access to around 120 hectares to make that feasible. The location we've committed to purchasing provides up to 135 hectares.'

TiM: Is bringing the supply chain to the site simply a matter of keeping costs down and avoiding import and export charges?

IS: 'There is a huge importance to bringing the supply chain onboard because most of the material production processes are currently taking place in countries with high carbon content on their grids because they are very coal reliant. That is where a significant carbon output on the supply chain lies.

'By bringing them on site, we can run the processes off renewable energy so that we can cut the carbon content of the supply chain and have direct access to the materials at the cell-manufacturing site.

'This will also help us to control costs, as these materials currently move through a number of companies in several countries, acquiring a margin each time they do so.'

Blyth Port, which has its own integrated wind turbine - is in such close proximity to the gigaplant that the company says it could use electric drayage trucks to take materials to the facility to also make that element of production low carbon

TiM: Were there any other benefits of choosing to set up manufacturing in the North East?

IS: 'There's an existing rail line in place, which previously had a branch into the power station when it was operational. This has been closed but can be reinstated, so products can be transported by rail.

'The deep water port is also just 1.5km (0.9 miles) from the facility, so we could even use electric drayage trucks to take materials to the facility so that element of production is low carbon also.'

TiM: Do you foresee any battery-making competition coming to the UK?

IS: 'Were not aware of any other applicants for gigaplant status, but that isnt to say there arent any potential rivals.

'However, considering weve just turned down the only other location in the country suitable for a plant due to timescale - and already secured the only other UK site viable - we think we're in a strong position.'

A view of the Tesla Gigafactory construction site in Gruenheide near Berlin, Germany, earlier this week

A German court has ruled that automaker Tesla has to stop clearing trees on the site where it's building its first electric car factory in Europe

TiM: China unquestionably has a stronghold on the electric battery market. How do you combat that?

IS: 'We see our competition in Europe, not China. Thats because shipping batteries half way across the world isnt sustainable.

'As demand for EVs rises, you will soon have 750,000 vehicles being manufactured in Europe. If they're all using batteries imported from China, you have around a $1billion-worth of batteries on the water at any given time. That simply isnt viable. So we have to localise manufacturing of batteries in Europe and the UK.

'You also have to consider that Chinas electricity grid is around 80 per cent reliant on coal and  as a result  the local air quality there is atrocious. If we continue to import products made in China for a green industry, all were doing is exporting our carbon problem elsewhere.'

The Britishvolt gigaplant will be located at the former grounds of Blyth Power Stations, which were demolished between 2001 and 2003. One worker was killed during the demolition work, in May 2001, crushed underneath an electrical connection box which fell from a wall

TiM: How will the cells for EV batteries compare to those already in the market?

IS: 'All our competitors  LG Chem, Samsung, Northvolt  do the same. They pitch their cells to manufacturers based on how much they cost and the technical data. Its a very off-the-shelf solution.

'That's fine for small, relatively inexpensive, cars because you want the lowest cost possible and youre not so worried about range or performance targets.

'But around 30 per cent of European-made vehicles are premium models - in the UK it's around 70 per cent. When you have luxury vehicles that weighs around two tonnes, you cant use the same battery as you'd put in a Renault Zoe, for instance.

'This is a big issue in the market that is growing. This is because the premium brands need more technology in order to be compete with Tesla  and they cant do that now.

'Were targeting a capacity increase that will allow the premium sector to compete with  if not beat  Tesla, so rival car brands will finally be able to marry quality with performance, while also keeping costs competitive. This gives us market appeal across Europe.

'If we can increase battery performance by up to 30 per cent, suddenly a five per cent tariff for European makers doesnt appear as too much of a problem. But of course we all want there to be a deal at the end of the day to give us free access to the European Union.'

TiM: Will there be capacity to recycle older car batteries at the new gigaplant?

IS: 'Another element of having the co-located supply chain is that we can introduce the facility to recycle and recover battery materials that can be put straight back into the active manufacturing process.

'There's been a longer-than-expected delay for EV batteries to come back from market. This is simply because they are lasting longer than many people originally thought they would.

'For this reason, if you setup a recycling centre now to receive up to 30,000 tonnes of waste batteries, it wouldnt be viable for another ten years because there isnt enough feed stock coming back, as the batteries are still being used in vehicles on the road.

'You also have to consider the second-life applications of batteries, such as using them in storage units or back-up generators. In these cases, the batteries aren't going to come back for 16 or 17 years.

'By the time we have enough feed stock to make the recycling process viable from a business perspective, we will have a dedicated centre in place on site. This will be around 2027 and 2029, depending on what the feedstock situation looks like.'

Britishvolt said its plans include a recycling centre, where batteries taken from end-of-cycle electric cars can be broken down and 30% of their materials reused in cell manufacturing

TiM: How do you recycle batteries? And how much of an old battery can be reused?

IS: 'The current process used for recycling is to heat the battery up to an extremely high temperature so that you end up with a black mass of alloy metals.

'However, the much more eco-friendly method is to use a lower temperature to separate and recover the materials. Around 30 per cent of the materials are recoverable and able to go back into the manufacturing process of new cells.'

TiM: Will the UK gigaplant only produce cells for passenger car batteries?

IS: 'No.

'Passenger EVs spend most of the time sat in a driveway or an office car park and arent driven all the time. On average, owners use around just 25 to 30 per cent of the available battery capacity a day.

'However, buses and trucks spend around 80 per cent of the time in use, which causes a particular problem as the battery pack wont last for six or seven years with that level of operation.

'At Britishvolt, as well as a passenger-car specific cells, weve looked at the aggregate of all the heavy-duty vehicle applications and identified that theres enough market demand to make it economically viable to produce a cell specifically targeted for these types of vehicles, with the cycle life they need to make their business models viable.'
The Chinese lunar rover Yutu-2 update includes new and unique discoveries in the moon as it continues to traverse the celestial body.

Until now, researchers and studies haven't been able to get a close look at the moon's far side, and the discoveries revealed by the Yutu-2 rover could be crucial for future expeditions.

Even after several crewed and uncrewed expeditions to the moon, the moon's far side has remained unexplored due to communication challenges with Earth from there.

However, China's Chang'e 4 mission landed the Yutu-2 rover on the far side's surface in 2019.

With that, it has recently been discovered that on the far side of the moon has some sticky dirt.

China Yutu-2

Investigatigating the composition of basalt rocks on the Moon's far side is part of the Yutu-2 mission's objectives, and the evidence gathered from the far side will be used to compare them to rocks on the Moon's near side.

According to Gizmodo, the rover has gone 3,300 feet since landing, studyinh the geology of out nearest cosmic neighbor.

Yutu-2 Update

China's Yutu-2, the first rover to visit the far side of the moon, discovered significant variations between it and the near side.

On the far side, there is a larger number of small pebbles and impact craters, as well as stickier, more supporting soil.

New Scientist reported that based on the way Yutu-2 trundled around and the observations it made using radar and spectrometer, Liang Ding of the Harbin Institute of Technology in China and his colleagues have surmised more about the make-up and properties of the far-side soil.

The moon's far side has been discovered to be rather flat as well.

As stated by the researchers, analyzing the data that was given by the rover, Yutu-2 didn't slip and skid as much as it would have on the moon's near side.

In that narrative, the soil also seems to stick to the rover's six wheels easily, indicating that it is more cemented and supportive.

Read Also: Elon Musk Facing Major Starlink Satellite Problem in India: How to Cancel Pre-Order, Get Refund

Small Strewn Craters

Within 50 meters of Yutu-2's passage across the Moon, there are 88 craters with an average diameter of about 12 meters, while 57 were less than 10 meters.

The vast majority have a diameter of fewer than 10 meters.

The craters are thought to be secondary impact craters generated by ejecta thrown from the impact that created the Zhinyu crater west of the rover's landing location, according to planetary experts.

In addition, a dark greenish, glistening material was discovered by Yutu-2, which is another intriguing enigma in the bottom of a 2-meter wide crater.

It was originally described as gel-like and could be rock melted together by the heat of an impact.

China Lunar Rover Discovering Sticky Soil

As reported by Inverse, the researchers were able to quantify the consistency and load-bearing qualities of lunar regolith by monitoring how it clung to the Yutu-2 rover's wire mesh wheels and noting how the wheels slipped in the regolith on occasion.

They added that it is indicating greater bearing strength than that identified during the Apollo missions, the regolith mimics dry sand and sandy loam on Earth.

Furthermore, in indicating that it is a regional rather than a site-specific property of a patch of regolith, the slightly sticky property of lunar regolith was observed over several lunar days,

According to the researchers, it is theorized that it may be due to greater and longer exposure to space weathering than lunar near-side regions.

Related Article: SpaceX Elon Musk: Population Decline Will Negatively Affect Mars Colonization, Provides Mass Extinction 'Solution'
Terry Smith has taken a second pop at Unilever in as many weeks, accusing its bosses of playing 'gin rummy management'.

The stockpicker, who looks after more than 33billion of savers' money through his firm Fundsmith, said he was 'thankful' that the company's 50billion bid for the consumer arm of GSK was now 'dead'.

The fund manager said the whole sorry saga, which entailed the consumer goods giant being repeatedly rebuffed by GSK, was a 'near-death' experience, raising serious questions over the quality of the Marmite-maker's management, including chief executive Alan Jope.

In the ring: Fund manager Terry Smith (pictured) said he was 'thankful' that Unilever's 50bn bid for the consumer arm of GSK was now 'dead'

In a devastating analysis, which Smith titled a 'post-mortem' into the flopped deal, he said bosses should consider whether they  rather than the business  were the problem.

Borrowing a phrase from the legendary US investor, he said: 'The management seems to be playing what Warren Buffett lampoons as 'gin rummy' management.' He added that they should consider whether the problem was not with the hand of cards but with the player, in a dig at Unilever's bosses.

His criticism came after the business made three separate bids to acquire GSK's consumer arm, which makes Aquafresh toothpaste and Panadol painkillers.

Unilever said the move was part of its plan to move into selling more beauty products, while potentially selling its food and refreshment business which includes brands such as Marmite and Hellmann's mayonnaise.

GSK had been pushing for more money, but on Wednesday Unilever said it was drawing the line at 50billion, effectively abandoning the bid.

Smith, however, suggested the deal should never have got that far. The 68-year-old, who is one of the best-known names in Britain's investment industry, criticised Unilever for failing to show any analysis of how it intended to make a strong return on its 50billion investment.

On Smith's estimates, the company would have needed to significantly improve the performance of GSK Consumer to avoid destroying the value of the cash it pumped in.

And getting Unilever to disclose its calculations 'was like a dentist pulling a back tooth', he added, claiming the firm had a 'penchant for corporate gobbledegook'.

Smith, who is based in Mauritius, also raised concerns that Unilever's decision to switch its focus to beauty was misplaced.

Under fire: Unilever chief executive Alan Jope (pictured). The firm has made three separate bids to acquire GSK's consumer arm

Few conglomerates had achieved success in the sector, he said, pointing to Proctor & Gamble's move to assemble a bunch of beauty brands before selling them to US giant, Coty.

His comments come as Bruno Monteyne, a Bernstein analyst, questioned whether there would have to be management changes at company after the failed bid.

Monteyne said investors had expressed disbelief over the bid adding that it wreaked of desperation and he believes there will be changes at board level over the next few months.

He added: 'Given the performance of the business over recent years; given this sudden change in strategy and the shareholder refusal to back one of the key pieces of the plan, we think management has lost credibility.

We would expect management and board change to be the key topics for the next three to months.'

But Smith's issues with Unilever go back much further than its recent failed attempt to buy GSK, as he pointed out it had performed much more poorly than its rivals over the past decade.

Lashing out at the company's communications, he said: 'Against the background of this miserable performance the company did not even attempt to contact us for the first eight years we were shareholders.'

It was the second outburst from Smith in as many weeks.

Last week he blasted the company for being 'obsessed' with its sustainability credentials  to the detriment of its financial performance. The stock-picker said Unilever had 'lost the plot' over trying to define some of its brands like Hellmann's mayonnaise.

In his annual letter to investors in his Fundsmith Equity fund, Smith said: 'A company which feels it has to define the purpose of Hellmann's mayonnaise has clearly lost the plot.

'The brand has existed since 1913 so we would guess that by now consumers have figured out its purpose (spoiler alert  salads and sandwiches).'

He also blasted its refusal to supply Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the West Bank, as sales 'in the Occupied Palestinian Territory' were 'inconsistent with our values'.

Smith said: 'Unilever seems to be labouring under the weight of a management obsessed with publicly displaying sustainability credentials at the expense of focusing on the fundamentals of the business.'

But rival fund managers disagreed with Smith's criticism.

John William Olsen, a portfolio manager at M&G Investments, said the firm was 'focused on running the business sustainability and explaining its strategy  something that should be demanded from any company'.

And one City investor suggested that Smith may have been using Unilever's focus on sustainability to excuse its poor performance, when actually there were other reasons why the company was not a very canny investment.

These included features such as its lack of investment in ecommerce and direct-to-consumer businesses, the investor said.
Shell's boss has lashed out at a landmark climate change ruling from a Dutch court that he said felt like a 'body blow'.

Ben van Beurden said it was 'deeply troubling' that the oil giant was being singled out for the way the world uses energy.

His comments in an interview on Shell's website are likely to anger environmental campaigners, who claim Shell has fallen behind its competitors in the fight against climate change.

Shell chief exec Ben van Beurden said it was 'deeply troubling' that the oil giant was being singled out for the way the world uses energy

The ruling last year forced Shell to speed up how quickly it meets ambitious climate targets to reach net zero by 2050.

He said: 'I was listening at home as the judge gave her verdict.

It felt like a body blow, I found it deeply troubling that Shell as a single business should be held accountable for how the world produces and uses energy.

That goes against everything I believe in when it comes to climate change, namely that this is a societal problem, not a problem for a single company to solve.'

The 63-year-old added: 'When people attack Shell for not going fast enough that feels deeply personal.

'But I cannot walk away from it or hide under my desk.'
Ex-Formula One team boss Eddie Jordan has pulled out of a bidding war to buy gambling software firm Playtech.

The 73-year-old Irish businessmans consortium JKO Play had been planning to offer 750p per share for the FTSE 250 group, valuing it at around 3billion.

However, JKO is set to issue a statement pulling out of the process today, according to reports.

Backing down: Eddie Jordan's consortium JKO Play is pulling out of the race for gambling software firm Playtech

The decision to scrap the firms pursuit of Playtech stems from concerns that a block of Asian investors, who recently bought 27 per cent of the company, could block any deal that fails to meet their requirements.

An offer would also have put Jordan in competition with Australian gambling firm Aristocrat Leisure, whose 2.7billion, or 680p per share, offer for Playtech was recommended by the firms board in October.

The business, which develops software for online casinos and betting websites, was founded in 1999 by Israeli tech and property billionaire Teddy Sagi.

It is considered by some to be a hidden gem inside the UKs gambling sector, with giants including William Hill and Bet365 among its customer base.
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A revolutionary trial for self-driving cars that could reshape the future of public transport in the UK has launched - and MailOnline were among the first to test the autonomous AutoPod during its live trial.

Milton Keynes, the notorious New Town with a reputation for roundabouts, concrete cows and seemingly little else, has turned into an unlikely haven for innovative projects and tech entrepreneurs in recent years.

With an open-minded local authority, burgeoning 5G network and a healthy dose of Government grants, autonomous vehicle developers have set up shop here in the hope that they will be the first to crack the code and open the floodgates more widely for driverless cars worldwide.

The Aurrigo AutoPod is currently in its public trial phase, with ordinary punters offered to chance to take a trip in the battery-powered four-seater shuttle that may one day revolutionise public transport across the country.

But after years of testing, how will this driverless vehicle get on in its first major public trial? How would the AutoPod fare when it encountered pedestrians? And will it actually make our day-day trips any quicker?

We weren't able to take the autonomous vehicle on any of MK's famed roundabouts, but during our short journey we did encounter several bumps in the proverbial road when it came to a trio of inanimate objects.

This week, MailOnline briefly stepped into the world of tomorrow to find out how it got on during a real-world test when reporter Jacob Thorburn took the Aurrigo AutoPod out for a 15-minute test drive in his hometown.

MailOnline journeyed into the world of tomorrow after taking the four-seater, fully electric Aurrigo AutoPod (pictured) out for a 15-minute test drive in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire

Engineers from Coventry-based Aurrigo have spent the last eight years developing the vehicle and software for their AutoPod - a self-driving, battery-powered vehicle with a top speed of 15mph and a 60 mile range

Through a combination of its 5G connection, 360 degree cameras dotted around the outside of the vehicle and its LiDAR - the same technology used by the military to map out a battlefield - the AutoPod is a fully autonomous vehicle capable of reacting to its surroundings in real-time

People are returning to the road enmasse after the Covid-19 pandemic. Figures from navigation app Waze showed drives for leisure, travel and errands exceeded pre-Covid levels and were up by an average of 130% this year.

But might our carriageways look different than before the pandemic?

One British company is busy working away in the hopes that they will, as the public trials for their fully autonomous AutoPod get underway in Milton Keynes.

Engineers from Coventry-based Aurrigo have spent the last eight years developing the vehicle and software for their AutoPod - a self-driving, battery-powered vehicle with a top speed of 15mph and a 60 mile range.

Partners include Amazon, Thales and Vodafone and they're growing rapidly with their sales operation already seeing business in Australia, Canada and the USA.

But how does the space shuttle-esque AutoPod work? And why should we trust its driving capabilities?

Through a combination of its 5G connection, six 360 cameras dotted around the outside of the vehicle and its LiDAR - the same technology used by the military to map out a battlefield - the AutoPod is a fully autonomous vehicle capable of reacting to its surroundings in real-time.

But at present each vehicle must have a human safety operator on board whenever the car is moving.

Standing at around 6.5ft tall, the AutoPod's exterior is a large, white bubble shape resembling a gondola lift that might be found in the Alps

Step inside the AutoPod and it feels like you're sat in the back of a black cab in London - it's surprisingly spacious, seats up to four people and has conventional seatbelts that must be worn on each journey

Schematics of Aurrigo's four seater AutoPod. The AutoPod's dimensions are 7.2ft x 6.5ft x 6.2ft

Engineers have already constructed a map of the area and programmed the course which the AutoPod will follow including anticipated places to stop, such as crossing a junction. We took a simple route starting at the Stadium MK's ticket office, (marked as 1 on the map above) looping around the back of the arena and stopping at the Marco Pierre White restaurant which is roughly parallel to the start point, before turning back.

From the outside, the aluminum-constructed AutoPod certainly looks futuristic and part of me expects it to start hovering as I approach.

Standing at around 6.5ft tall, the exterior boasts a large, white bubble shape resembling a gondola lift that one might find in the Swiss Alps.

The side of the vehicle slides open like cabin doors on a plane, and I'm not sure what to expect when I see a keyboard, small monitor and live feed showing the external cameras outside the AutoPod.

But once sat inside it feels like you're sat in the back of a black cab in London - it's surprisingly spacious, seats up to four people and has conventional seatbelts that must be worn on each journey.

I buckle up, sit back and relax as the vehicle hums along at a meandering pace towards the rear side of Stadium MK on my 15-minute return loop.

Engineers have already constructed a map of the area and programmed the course which the AutoPod will follow, including anticipated places to stop, such as crossing a junction.

We'll be taking a simple route starting at the Stadium MK's ticket office, looping around the back of the arena and stopping at the Marco Pierre White restaurant which is roughly parallel to the start point.

Inside the cab, the operator can use real-time tracking to monitor his surrounding, as well as check our progress on the pre-plotted route. But the end goal for all autonomous car developers is to see that safety operator removed, once UK legislation and insurance catch up to the technology.

If I had any lingering fears about the AutoPod's ability to stop at the drop of a hat I was quickly reassured at the start of our journey when the vehicle stopped on a six pence when it neared a pedestrian crossing outside the Marshall Arena.

Crucially, the car itself is also capable of reacting to moving objects around it, including pedestrians which very clearly show up as animated dots on the 3D map during our journey.

That's a helpful function because although we don't have any near-misses on my 15-minute trip, two dogwalkers stop to heckle us as we slowly trudge along the footpath - Aurrigo's trial currently doesn't extend to use on main roads.

If anyone - or anything - steps out in front of the AutoPod's sensors, it will automatically slam on the brakes, hence the need for the seatbelt. Thankfully, we don't need to test this feature out today as the area isn't busy at all.

But during my journey, I am left to question how such a trial would get on if it were being conducted on much tighter and traditional streets, or on a hectic footpath in central London during rush hour.

A further complication rears its head when I'm told the longer, and ultimately more practical, trip that takes everyday punters from the Asda supermarket - about 500 yards from the stadium - to the top of a hill to a larger set of retailers dubbed the MK1 Shopping Park can't run at the moment.

The reason is a large HGV has been parked in the car park almost directly halfway between the two routes for several days - meaning the AutoPod's live map feature can't currently navigate around such a large obstacle.

A minor inconvenience for myself, but for those who are less able to walk or drive, this could serve as a real hinderance.

Again, I wonder how conducive this is to modern-day driving, where hazards can appear both on or off the road at any moment, but I'm told engineers could quickly stitch together a new map should an area or road be re-developed or experience significant change.

Another pedestrian gawks at the vehicle as it turns the corner up towards the Marco Pierre White restaurant at the stadium. 'That happens a lot', the operator tells me.

'Can you imagine four drunken lads on a night out seeing one of these? They could do some serious damage to it', he warns.

'We need the public to get on board with the idea of self-driving cars. That's another reason why this trial is so important.'

Residents in Milton Keynes already have plenty of experience when it comes to understanding the benefits of self-driving vehicles.

The town has grown accustomed to watching autonomous six-wheeled Starship Robots trundling along the town's winding pedestrian footpaths, known as redways because of their distinctive colour.

The fleet of tiny white robots, which deliver shopping and food deliveries across the town's estates, has now grown to more than 200 and many residents admit they can't picture life without them.

2022 appears to be a particularly pertinent time for manufacturers to get into autonomous vehicle industry, as the global market for driverless cars is expected to reach more than 407billion by the end of 2026.

In the future, users will be able to load up the Aurrigo app, hail their autonomous ride and then continue on their journey. The company already has a fully electric 10-seater shuttle that it hopes will be eligible for use on road in the near future.

Residents in Milton Keynes already have plenty of experience when it comes to understanding the benefits of self-driving vehicles. A fleet of more than 200 six-wheeled Starship Robots are often seen trundling along the town's winding footpaths

The Starship Robots are loaded up with shopping before taking it to a member of the public's home, and saw a boom in popularity throughout the Covid pandemic [File picture]

Back to my journey around Stadium MK, and the pod has come to an abrupt stop. The reason? Two seemingly inconspicuous bollards are in our path mere yards away.

Another potential headache that could turn the public off from the 'benefits' of autonomous driving, I think to myself.

The operator explains the pod is capable of maneuvering past them itself. But rather than wait an age, he decides to take over manual control and switches off the LiDAR systems.

To my surprise, he's not using a wheel or even a joystick to control the pod. No, he's holding an Xbox 360 controller, which he explains serves as a cost-effective 'dead man's switch' in case of emergencies.

Eventually, the physical safety operator will be removed from the vehicle entirely and replaced with a more general overview from a control centre.

But current Government legislation, insurance requirements and public confidence are preventing that from happening.

Miles Garner, marketing director for Aurrigo, explains the Milton Keynes trials are still testing the technology and the end goal for his company is to see the safety operator removed from the vehicle.

'Obviously, there's not much point in having this self-driving vehicle when there's someone sitting in the front seat,' he explains.

'But, we need to have a safety operator for a number of reasons. The law currently states you must have a safety operator on board when in an autonomous vehicle.

'And in insurance too. We've worked closely with Axa for a number of years, but as you can imagine it's quite challenging to get insurance on an autonomous vehicle.'

The idea is to use the sprawling area surrounding Stadium MK, which features the 30,000 seater arena, a temporary vaccine centre, shopping court, fast food outlets and an enormous Asda supermarket, as the perfect petri dish before rolling out into more densely populated areas of the town

At present each vehicle must have a human safety operator (pictured) on board whenever the car is moving. He is capable of controlling the AutoPod with an Xbox 360 controller serving as a 'dead man's switch' in case of emergencies

The Xbox 360 controller (pictured) may be technology that was first released in 2005, but Aurrigo insist its a cost-effective failsafe for use during the public trials. Pictured: The safety operator shows how the Xbox 360 controller can be used

The AutoPod's military-grade technology that creates a live 3D map inside the car The Aurrigo AutoPod employs LiDAR (Light detection and ranging) technology to create a sensory field around the vehicle that will see it slam on the brakes if anything were to jump out in front of it. The vehicle uses four remote sensing lasers to measure the variable distances between the AutoPod and any surrounding objects, whether they be static or moving. The LiDAR sensor will emit an infrared light, measuring the time it takes for the light to reflect off the object and back into the sensor. That then creates a variable 3D map, telling the car the distance between it and anything in the near vicinity. Those distances, combined with scanning system and live-tracking GPS receiver, can determine where the AutoPod is positioned in relation to a potential hazard. Therefore, if a child were to run out in front of the AutoPod, the vehicle's equipped LiDAR system would, in theory, detect the change in the light, and slam on the brakes. Currently, LiDAR technology is used for adaptive cruise control functions in cars, in helicopters and planes to map out its progress on a flight and for surveyance projects examining the sea or the Earth's core. It's also the same technology used by the military when mapping out 3D battlefields and terrain, and can be used to pinpoint the exact position of potential obstacles and enemies in the theatre of war. Aurrigo's AutoPod also comes equipped with external cameras that provide a 360 degree view of its surroundings for passengers. Inside, a human safety operator is capable of controlling the vehicle using a 'dead man's switch' in case of emergencies. Advertisement

Public confidence is likely to be the biggest hurdle Aurrigo, and other autonomous vehicle companies, will face in the future.

Many of us will have heard the horror stories about the links between fatal crashes and driverless cars coming out of the United States in recent years.

Elaine Herzberg, 49, became the first recorded case of a pedestrian dying after being hit by a self-driving Uber SUV in Tempe, Arizona in 2018.

Dash camera footage showed the last moments of Herzberg's life as she crossed a four-lane road with her bicycle in near pitch-black conditions. Suddenly, the Uber's headlights illuminated Herzberg in front of the vehicle.

On Tuesday, prosecutors in California filed two counts of vehicular manslaughter against 27-year-old limousine driver Kevin George Aziz Riad, who is accused of being behind the wheel of a Tesla driving on autopilot that ran a red light and slammed into a car, killing two people in 2019. Mr Riad has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Crashes largely remain rare, with 36 self-driving car incidents being investigated by America's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration between June 2016 and May 2021, reports Business Insider.

Despite this, questions still surround the liability, and insurance requirements, when crashes involve a driverless vehicle.

I pose these concerns to Miles, who explains that public tests and trials, such as this very one seen in Milton Keynes, are helping to convince the public that self-driving cars are in fact a safe option.

'The AutoPod is for off-road [footpath] use, low speed and in really controlled environment so it's a lot safer than going on road at the moment', he says.

'This is part of the trial, building confidence within the public.

'We want people to feel comfortable taking a ride in the AutoPod, and we're also learning about how pedestrians interact with self-driving vehicles. It's a two-way street.'

Aurrigo's AutoPod trials form part of MK:5G, a 4m project that serves as a testbed for innovative trials using the town's existing 5G infrastructure and overseen by Milton Keynes Council.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has already given the green light for such ambitious plans to go ahead - having awarded 2.3million for projects that test out advanced mobility pilots that use automation in Milton Keynes.

The idea is to use the sprawling area surrounding Stadium MK, which features the 30,000 seater arena, shopping court, fast food outlets and an enormous Asda supermarket, as the petri dish before a wider rollout into more densely populated areas of the town.

Often derided as a 'soulless' New Town with a reputation of roundabouts, concrete cows (left) and little else, Milton Keynes has become an unlikely haven for innovative projects and tech entrepreneurs. It is also home to Bletchley Park (right), where the codebreakers helped turn the tide of World War II

Other driverless taxi schemes are operating in Milton Keynes. Imperium Drive has launched a similar trial for its Fetch scheme, in which a remote driver operates the vehicle from a call centre in Estonia (pictured above)

The horror stories linking driverless cars and crashes that keep coming out of the United States Many of us will have heard the horror stories about the links between fatal crashes and driverless cars coming out of the United States in recent years. Elaine Herzberg, 49, became the first recorded case of a pedestrian dying after being hit by a self-driving Uber SUV in Tempe, Arizona in 2018. Dash camera footage showed the last moments of Herzberg's life as she crossed a four-lane road with her bicycle in near pitch-black conditions. Suddenly, the Uber's headlights illuminated Herzberg in front of the vehicle. 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg (pictured) became the first recorded case of a pedestrian dying after being hit by a self-driving Uber SUV in Tempe, Arizona in 2018 The misuse of Tesla's Autopilot function is currently at the centre of a California investigation after two people died in 2019 On Tuesday, prosecutors in California filed two counts of vehicular manslaughter against 27-year-old limousine driver Kevin George Aziz Riad, who is accused of being behind the wheel of a Tesla driving on autopilot that ran a red light and slammed into a car, killing two people in 2019. Mr Riad has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Crashes largely remain rare, with 36 self-driving car incidents being investigated by America's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration between June 2016 and May 2021, reports Business Insider. And according to statistics shared on Gov.uk, 'human error' contributes to more than 85 per cent of all accidents on Britain's roads. Advertisement

Speaking on the MK:5G experiment, Digital Infrastructure Minister Julia Lopez told MailOnline: 'This pioneering 2 million trial will see how 5G-powered tech can improve stadium experiences.

'Driverless shuttles will help people and goods travel around the site, robots will help hotel guests with their luggage and deliver room service, and autonomous surveillance vehicles and drones will improve security.

'The scheme is all part of our 200 million programme across the UK to demonstrate and test how we can seize the opportunities of 5G to turbocharge our economy and help businesses bounce back from the pandemic.'

Miles explains that Milton Keynes has become an attractive destination for tech companies such as Aurrigo.

The town's grid road infrastructure, which 1970s architects drew from California's urban theorist Melvin Webber and weaving footpaths that run parallel to its dual carriageways, ensures traffic flows freely and is accessible for all.

'The council are ever so open to innovation and as a company that makes the area a really attractive destination', he adds.

That's a view shared by Milton Keynes Council's leader Pete Marland, who has been in charge of the coalition-run local authority since May.

Mr Marland points to the history of innovation seen in Milton Keynes, which was home to the Bletchley Park codebreakers, and the fact automotive giants Volkswagen, Mercedes and Formula One team Red Bull Racing set up their headquarters in the town.

'Milton Keynes is the home of thinking differently, and these self-driving trials help to prove that. It's all helping us determine the sort of city we want to build in the future and that's an important thing for the UK as a whole,' he said.

'The AutoPods carry on a history of transport innovation seen in the Milton Keynes area. We had the canals, Wolverton's as the first railway town, Bletchley Park of course. We were built on the car in the 1960s and 70s, and we will continue to do so in the future.'

Mr Marland is also quick to point out that getting behind the wheel of a car isn't always 100 per cent safe, and is urging members of the public to try out the autonomous vehicles before passing judgement on them.

'Humans driving cars aren't perfectly safe. The AI has shown to be safer than human driving in semi and fully autonomous vehicles like this, it's just a matter of people catching up with that technology.

'Features like auto park and lane change assist are already built-in to many modern vehicles and this is just that next logical step.'

According to statistics shared on Gov.uk, 'human error' contributes to more than 85 per cent of all accidents on Britain's roads.

Brian Matthews, the Council's transport officer, anticipates the trial being expanded to other areas in the town, namely the busy railway station and the shopping centre, by the end of the year.

'It's so important that we use technology to help the city grow in a sustainable way that supports the quality of life for our citizens. We have a culture, I think, in Milton Keynes that sees innovation as a way forward and stretching the boundaries.

'Exploring driverless technology is something we want to do because there are huge potential advantages, and we need to understand what those are before we invest in them fully.

'Are they safer? Do they increase productivity? Reduce congestion? Most importantly for the city, do they increase mobility options for those who can't drive? These are all very important factors that we are trying to consider'.

I'm keen to hear Brian's views on how he thinks the future of autonomous vehicles will play out, both in Milton Keynes and further afield.

'I don't think autonomous vehicles will be our sole future, rather it will play a part in our future', he explains.

'I think we already realise that it's not a one-size fits all situation and it will be a mix, and self-driving vehicles will be a part of that mix'.

Others have a much more optimistic view. Miles makes clear he thinks we are witnessing the start of an exciting new future for transport as a whole.

'Everyone in the world is currently working on autonomous vehicles. They are the future, and they will be on our roads. There's absolutely no doubt about that.'

As my morning in the AutoPod wraps up I'm filled with many questions. How will driverless vehicles work on many of the UK's roads that were not meticulously designed for motorists? Will the public be receptive to such huge change?

Most pressingly, was my trip around the stadium actually any faster than walking? A quick search on Google suggests not - their Maps function predicts my trip would have taken less than 10 minutes on foot.

I have little doubt that this slow-moving start marks a tentative first step forward into something that could one day be a feasible option for public transport seen in both Milton Keynes and wider afield.

So although my 15-minute journey in the driverless AutoPod may have been one short drive for man, only time will tell if it was yet another a giant leap for all of mankind.
A Los Angeles judge sentenced an 'evil personified' man to life in prison without parole after he committed a string of carjackings, armed robberies and shootings.

Artyom Gasparyan, 38, was sentenced on Tuesday in the Los Angeles County Superior Court by Judge Eleanor Hunter after he was convicted on more than 30 charges by a jury in August.

Between 2015 and January 2016, prosecutors said Gasparyan went on a crime spree around LA and in suburbs such as Long Beach and West Hollywood where he committed carjackings, armed robberies and shootings that left several wounded and one dead.

One of the charges Gasparyan faced was for the first-degree murder of Adan Corea, 32, after he shot and killed him in his vehicle during a road rage incident.

Prosecutors also said Gasparyan shot two people crossing a street, a parking valet during a holdup, and people in parked cars, along with stabbing a woman several times.

He and another man also robbed gas stations and shot a food delivery driver, prosecutors said.

The spree ended when he was shot by LA police during a three-hour standoff in January 2016 as he was wanted on multiple charges.

His charges included attempted murder, robbery, carjacking, shooting at an unoccupied vehicle, fleeing a pursuing peace officer's motor vehicle while driving recklessly, hit-and-run driving, assault with a firearm on a peace officer and possession of a firearm by a felon.

'You are just evil personified,' Hunter told Gasparyan as he noted it was a 'miracle that more people weren't killed' because of his actions.

Arytom Gasparyan, 38, appeared in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday where he was sentenced to life without parole after he committed a string of carjackings, armed robberies and shootings

Gasparyan was called 'evil personified' by Judge Eleanor Hunter before his sentence was handed down

During the sentencing, Deputy District Attorney John McKinney said that the case was one of 'extreme violence' and that Gasparyan 'did everything he could to kill well over a dozen people.'

McKinney and the other prosecutors told jurors in an opening statement that Gasparyan had been linked to the crimes based on GPS evidence from a silver 2011 Volkswagen Jetta that was registered to his mother and was regularly used by him, according to Patch.

'All of the crimes in this case were committed with this vehicle being on scene', McKinney said as he noted the car's movement at the crime scenes based on the GPS analysis.

Gasparyan's attorney Felipe de la Torre who argued that his client was 'wrongfully convicted' and added that the vehicle used in the crime spree also was used by other people.

'Giving access to someone else doesn't make you guilty of the crimes they committed,' de la Torre told the jurors.

The defense attorney requested that his client's charges, including felony possession of a firearm and hit-and-run driving, be dropped as he claimed Gasparyan did not reach for a gun during his freeway standoff with the police, despite two of them witnessing it.

'He is not a murderer ... (he) does not go around shooting people,' de la Torre said.

Gasparyan, pictured in 2016, faced charges such as attempted murder, robbery, carjacking, shooting at an unoccupied vehicle, fleeing a pursuing peace officer's motor vehicle while driving recklessly, hit-and-run driving, assault with a firearm on a peace officer and possession of a firearm by a felon

One of Gasparyan's crimes involved the death of Adan Corea, 32, who was shot and killed while sitting in his vehicle

Prosecution noted Gasparyan's string of violent crimes, which also were committed with his crime partner Daniel Ramirez. Ramirez shot and killed himself in his Long Beach home in 2016 after police closed in following his involvement in two carjackings.

Following his death, police searched for Gasparyan who was spotted by undercover police officers at a nearby gas station prior to the chase near Sun Valley, California. Gasparyan sped away and sparked a high-speed chase going in the wrong direction on the highway.

He then collided into two cars, one of which had a mother and her two children inside, before he jumped out and ran along the road in a bid to evade police.

LAPD officers surrounded Gasparyan and during a three-hour standoff, shot him in front of horrified motorists. Gasparyan was taken to hospital in a critical condition where he was held under heavy guard.

Gasparyan was later found and arrested on January 5, 2016 after police spotted him at a gas station near Sun Valley which prompted a high speed chase

Gasparyan had been driving in the opposite direction on the 5 Freeway to evade the police
With the more contagious Omicron now the dominant Covid-19 strain, what mask to wear and how to wear it has become a contentious issue.

Professor Catherine Bennett of Melbourne's Deakin University told Daily Mail Australia in many situations how you wear the mask and how it fits can be just as important as what mask you wear.

ABC health presenter Dr Norman Swan sparked debate earlier this week by saying Australians should ditch cloth face coverings and switch to surgical or N95 masks to reduce the strain on hospitals.

'A minimum is the surgical mask and if you can get an N95 well fitting, that's the key, if it fits well around the face,' he said.

'A poorly fitting N95 wouldn't be as good as a surgical mask.'

Pictured left to right: a woman wearing an N95 mask, a woman wearing a surgical mask and a woman wearing a cloth mask

ABC health presenter Dr Norman Swan says the strain on hospitals could be helped if people wore better masks

International experts agree that N95 or P2 respirator masks are better than cloth or surgical masks as they have a higher degree of filtration and don't let airborne particles escape or be breathed in because they fit the face better.

'People might be getting messages now, as we've certainly seen in other countries where they're saying "N95 masks, everyone must have one",' Professor Bennett, chair in epidemiology at Deakin University, said.

'But the important thing is, there are certain situations where that is good advice, but equally, if we have the masks we already have and we wear them well, we turn over our reusable masks, we fit them to our face better than we probably are now, all of that will help as well.'

Dr Bennett said that in the two years of the pandemic, we've learnt a lot more about masks and how people wear them and also how poorly people wear them.

'A mask is really only as good as the way people manage their mask - how regularly they change them, how well they fit them to their face when they're wearing them and how they store them if it's a reusable mask,' she said.

Dr Bennett also has a message for those who refuse to pull their mask over their nose.

'Anything that you're wearing on your face that's hanging down below your nose is not going to work, it doesn't matter what (type of mask) it is.'

HOW DIFFERENT MASK TYPES WORK N95, KF94, KN95, FFP2, P2 Filters at least 94 per cent of airborne particles at 0.3 microns. Not made to be reused, but can be. Unless it's N95 or P2 it may not have been made to Australian standards. SURGICAL MASK Gaps allow the virus to bypass mask. Not considered respiratory protection. CLOTH MASK Better than not wearing a mask. No electrostatic charge to trap virus particles. Additional layers improve protection but not enough to offer a reliable level of protection from infection. Advertisement

She said that if masks get pulled up and down too often it stretches the ear loops and it will no longer fit properly.

'Even with the high end masks with better filtration, you lose the benefit if the air can get around the edges, certainly if your nose is hanging over the top.

'The first and foremost thing is get your mask onto your face and over your nose and mouth and fitting as well as it can, no matter what mask you're wearing.'

Dr Bennett said people need to think about the circumstances in which they need to wear a mask and that those using public transport would probably come to the conclusion that wearing an N95 mask is worth it.

'But if you're just going to an outdoor cafe with friends and you're taking it on and off, then a surgical or cloth mask is probably enough.

She cautions that people with underlying health conditions need to be very careful.

'If you're someone who is very high risk, you don't want to get an infection, because you really can't afford it.

'(if) you are at a much higher risk than the next person in terms of having a more serious illness, then you need to invest in a good mask and know how to wear them properly.'

On the vexed issue of whether or not you can use high end masks more than once, Dr Bennett said you can.

'They're not designed to be multi-use, but you can in fact ... because we don't tend to wear them for long periods now that we don't have to wear them all the time outdoors.

'As long as you keep them dry and you dry them out between use by laying them out in the sun to really dry them out and to sterilise them a bit, then you can use them (again). And if you've got two of them you can alternate, have a different one for each day.

An N95 mask (pictured) meets strict Australian health standards and are designed to filters 95 per cent of airborne particles at 0.3 microns

A woman (pictured) wearing an N95 face mask while seated in an airport waiting area

When buying a mask, be careful to look closely at the name. If it says KN95 it probably hasn't been manufactured to strict Australian standards, unlike the similarly named N95 and P2.

'Different countries are producing (the KN95 masks) and they have different regulatory requirements,' said Dr Bennett.

'Those produced locally meet the Australian standard and you're probably more sure of the product you're getting if you know it's an N95 produced in Australia and sold from a reputable source.'

Ultimately, the most important thing about whatever mask you are wearing to counter Covid is to wear it properly.

If it is not covering your nose, you are not wearing it properly. If it keeps coming loose, you are not wearing it properly.

And if it's around your chin, the it serves no function at all.
Police who recovered the remains of nine-year-old Charlise Mutten were confronted with a scene so horrific some were expected to need time off work and to seek counselling.

Charlise's body was found on Tuesday afternoon inside a barrel near the Colo River, north-west of Sydney, about a week after she was allegedly murdered in the Blue Mountains.

The girl's stepfather, Justin Stein, had allegedly filled the barrel with sand and abandoned it in scrub because it proved too heavy to get down to the river.

Few details surrounding the recovery of little Charlise's remains have been publicly disclosed.

A police source told Daily Mail Australia that officers who attended the scene were horrified by what they encountered when the contents of the barrel were revealed.

'There will be people that won't be coming back to work for a while,' the source said.

Police who recovered the remains of nine-year-old Charlise Mutten were confronted with a scene so horrific some are expected to need time off work. Charlise's body was found on Tuesday afternoon inside a barrel near the Colo River, north-west of Sydney

Charlise's stepfather, Justin Stein, allegedly put her body in a barrel and filled it with sand but abandoned it in scrub because it proved too heavy to get down to the river (pictured)

A police source told Daily Mail Australia that officers who attended the scene were horrified by what they encountered when the contents of the barrel was revealed. Police attended the Colo River site on Tuesday afternoon (pictured)

A NSW Police spokeswoman said any affected officers would be reminded of the extensive psychological services available to them but could not provide further comment.

Stein has asked to be kept away from other prisoners while he is in custody after being charged with his stepdaughter's murder.

It is understood his in the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre at Silverwater in Sydney's west.

The 31-year-old appeared via video link in Central Local Court on Wednesday morning when he did not apply for bail and it was formally refused.

Stein's barrister told magistrate Robert Williams his client needed medication for mental health issues while in custody, adding he had been on 'high dosages' for many years.

He also expressed Stein's concerns for his safety.

Charlise's mother Kallista Mutten's fiance Justin Stein (pictured) has been charged with his stepdaughter's murder. Stein has asked to be kept away from other prisoners while he is in custody at the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre at Silverwater

Justin Stein's barrister told magistrate Robert Williams his client needed medication for mental health issues while in custody, adding he had been on 'high dosages' for many years. Charlise Mutten is pictured

'The other matter I'm instructed to raise relates to his concerns for personal safety in custody,' the barrister said.

'He has asked the court to recommend a no association classification.'

Mr Williams said only Corrective Services had the power to separate the accused from other prisoners.

How NSW cops deal with traumatic events The NSW Police Force is committed to providing a safe working environment for officers and staff and has made significant investments in programs focused on supporting officers. Trauma Response is available 24 hours a day and provides on-site consultation with a psychologist who has expertise dealing with trauma. An Employee Assistance Program is available 24 hours a day on a confidential basis to all staff and their families. A statewide Peer Support Officer Program utilises more than 1,200 trained police who identify distressed officers, referring them to the appropriate support services. The WellCheck Program is a preventative program which targets units at psychological risk from repeated exposure to traumatic incidents. This program also offers coping strategies to assist with the management of job-related stressors. The Command Support Program provides psychological support for senior staff. Source: Assistant Commissioner Dean Smith of the People & Capability Command Advertisement

Stein's lawyer also asked the court for a 12-week adjournment to seek a mental health assessment, noting his 'long term medication'.

It comes after police alleged Stein drove around Sydney for hours with his fiance's daughter's body in the back of a boat while he tried to figure out where to dump her remains.

It is understood detectives believe Charlise's mother Kallista Mutten had left her daughter in the care of Stein at a Mount Wilson property on Tuesday night last week.

Police will allege she was killed between 7pm on Tuesday, January 11 and 10am on Wednesday, January 12.

The schoolgirl, who was under the fulltime care of her grandparents in Queensland, was spending the holidays with her mother and stepfather at the wedding venue when she was reported missing on Friday, January 13.

Police will allege Stein killed Charlise's, put her body in the barrel and loaded the barrel onto a boat under a blue tarpaulin.

He allegedly towed the boat behind his Holden Colorado from Mount Wilson to Sydney on Thursday, January 12, the day before she was reported missing.

Stein allegedly travelled to a Bunnings store at Marsden Park in Sydney's north west and bought five 20kg bags of sand then spent five hours driving around the city.

Homicide detectives used CCTV to retrace Stein's steps, which allegedly included unsuccessful attempts to launch the boat at Five Dock and Windsor.

Accepting the boat was inoperable, Stein allegedly set out to dump the barrel in the Colo River but it was too heavy with the sand to get into the water.

He instead allegedly left the barrel in bushland where it was discovered late on Tuesday afternoon.

Police revealed in a press conference on Wednesday they will allege Stein discussed buying the sand and boat fuel before later travelling to the river.

Stein appeared in Central Local Court on Wednesday from Surry Hills police station via video link. He did not apply for bail and it was formally refused

'[There were] a number of telephone conversations, to purchase a number of sand bags,' Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said.

Footage of Stein's arrest showed him being led from a car to a holding cell at Surry Hills Police Station with his hands cuffed in front of him on Tuesday evening.

He wore a grey Everlast jumper and shorts which he was still dressed in when he fronted court on Wednesday morning.

A charge sheet tendered in court on Wednesday indicated police believed Charlise might have been killed up to three days before she was reported missing.

There has been a significant delay in speaking with the girl's mother Kallista Mutten (pictured) because she remains in hospital under guard. 'The mother is currently under healthcare and is difficult to approach,' Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said

Police have seized Stein's Holden Colorado (pictured) as part of their investigation into Charlise's alleged murder. Stein allegedly towed a boat behind the vehicle from Mount Wilson to Sydney on Thursday, January 12, the day before Charlise was reported missing

Detectives are still waiting to speak to Ms Mutten because she remains under guard at hospital and is 'hard to approach'.

'The mother is currently under healthcare and is difficult to approach,' Deputy Police Commissioner David Hudson said.

'She's under medical supervision, but when doctors allow, we will be talking to her.'

Mr Hudson said it was too early to speculate as to whether Stein had an accomplice.

'At this stage, we have no evidence to support whether the accused acted alone... However it is still early days,' he said.

The 31-year-old man was arrested at an apartment in Surry Hills on Tuesday night and he briefly faced court on Wednesday

Police were investigating a number of 'anomalies' in Stein's story, which included allegedly giving two separate versions of events in the lead up to Charlise's disappearance.

A witness also told Daily Mail Australia they had seen a car leaving the Mount Wilson property in the early hours of last Friday morning, the day Charlise was reported missing.

Charlise's 'shattered' father shared an emotional tribute on Wednesday morning, hours after learning of his daughter's death.

'Goodbye beautiful girl... We will get answers for you baby, and we will honour you properly,' he wrote.

'You have captured the hearts of the nation and the world, and now those hearts are breaking with mine.'

Her father vowed this 'would not be the end of [her] or [her] story' in his statement.

'This doesn't happen. Kids need to be safe. What is wrong with people?'
Ministers have been accused of leaving thousands of schoolchildren to shiver through a second Covid winter in freezing classrooms by being slow to act over ventilation.

Labour today lashed out at a delay of almost a year between scientists first warning the Government of the importance of good airflow in school spaces and the launch of a pilot scheme to work out how to improve it.

The pilot, being carried out in a school in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was put out to tender in April last year and is not due to be completed until the end of the 2021-2022 school year.

But the opposition has pointed to advice from Sage experts in May 2020 - 11 months before the tender went out - that ventilation and other measures would be vital in order to keep schools open safely.

Both the winter of 2020/21 and 21/22 have seen complaints that schoolchildren have been forced to learn in freezing classrooms due to guidance to leave windows open to allow air to circulate.

And the majority of Covid restrictions will already have been lifted by the end of the school year.

Stephen Morgan, the shadow schools minister, said: 'These revelations expose further dither and delay from the government on basic classroom protections, while schools faced wave after wave of Covid chaos.

'Now, 20 months on from scientists' first warnings, children are still being forced to learn in cold classrooms. Ministers are treating our children as an afterthought and it cannot continue.

'The Education Secretary must urgently get a grip of this situation and get a practical ventilation plan in place that keeps children learning together in class.'

Labour today lashed out at a delay of almost a year between scientists first warning the Government of the importance of good airflow in school spaces and the launch of a pilot scheme to work out how to improve it.

Stephen Morgan, the shadow schools minister, said: 'Now, 20 months on from scientists' first warnings, children are still being forced to learn in cold classrooms'

In an answer to a written parliamentary question by shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson about the pilot scheme, the Vaccines and Public Health Minister Maggie Throup said: 'The tender was published 28 April 2021, with contracts awarded to the successful bidders in July 2021. The trial is ongoing and will continue to the end of the school year 2021/2022.'

Unions lash out at 'micro-management' in mask row Furious teaching unions today accused Whitehall of trying to 'micromanage' schools after Cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi emailed MPs saying he will personally vet any plans to bring back masks in classrooms. The Education Secretary last night said that local officials would seek to persuade individual schools to abandon masks. He insisted that 'face-to-face education for all students has consistently been my priority', adding: 'National guidance to wear face coverings in communal areas will also be removed in line with the national move out of Plan B. This applies to all schools'. But in a letter to MPs, he admitted that masks could be reintroduced in the event of an 'extraordinary' local Covid outbreak. The NEU's Dr Mary Bousted today raged that ministers seeking to 'micromanage such decisions seems utterly unnecessary, if not bizarre'. It came as schools across England were in open rebellion against the Government over masks after more than 100 head teachers wrote to parents warning that children must continue wearing face coverings in classrooms. Union bosses stoked the fires of revolt this week after accusing Boris Johnson of flouting his 'duty of care' to teachers over the new guidance on masks. The Prime Minister this week announced an easing of Covid curbs, from WFH guidance to face coverings and Covid isolation, as the Omicron wave subsides. But critics have claimed that Mr Johnson is axing virus restrictions to appease his Tory backbench and save his own skin as he fights for his political career amid the dramatic fallout from 'Partygate'. Schools are defying the Government's anti-mask guidance and telling parents that pupils must continue to wear face coverings. Advertisement

Minutes of a Sage meeting on May 19, 2020, when schools had already been closed by then education secretary Gavin Williamson, show that they advised that 'opening schools  safely would require a significant effort to ensure that environments are appropriate to minimise transmission (for example distancing, hygiene measures, and ventilation). Systems to evaluate this, and, potentially, enforcements mechanisms will be required'.

Two months later, in July 2020, in a paper on the airborne spread of Covid indoors, the advisory group warned: 'Particular attention should be paid to planning for winter to ensure that spaces can be effectively ventilated without significantly compromising the thermal comfort of occupants.'

But in an answer to a written parliamentary question by shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson about the pilot scheme, the Vaccines and Public Health Minister Maggie Throup said: 'The tender was published 28 April 2021, with contracts awarded to the successful bidders in July 2021. The trial is ongoing and will continue to the end of the school year 2021/2022.'

Thirty schools in Bradford are testing air purifiers and UV lights in classrooms as part of a 1.75 Covid-fighting trial run by the UK Heath Security Agency (UKHSA).

It will assess whether they curb the spread of the coronavirus and other respiratory diseases and hopes to gauge how feasible it is to implement the technologies in primary schools.

The randomised trial sees 10 schools equipped with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, 10 with UV purifiers and 10 without any equipment to serve as a control group.

Guidance from the Health and Safety Executive says fog, mist, vapour and ultraviolet treatments 'may be suitable options to help control the spread of coronavirus and disinfecting a larger space or room'.

At the time the pilot was launched, then schools minister Nick Gibb was asked if it would be rolled out more widely, telling the BBC: 'Ventilation has been a key part of the guidance we provided to schools about how to keep schools safe and to minimise the risk of transmission, as well as hygiene and all the staggered starts and so on in schools.

'Ventilation, right from the beginning, was an important part of that process and it remains actually part of our guidance to schools.

'We are looking at air purifiers - that's what the pilot in Bradford is about. We are also looking at CO2 monitors, to see whether that's an effective way of helping schools to monitor the quality of the air.'

The Department of Health and UKHSA have been approached for comment.

It came as Boris Johnson urged teachers who insist masks are still worn in lessons to follow the rules that no longer require their use in classrooms.

Head teachers in England are set to ignore the Prime Minister's bonfire of Plan B restrictions by compelling pupils to wear face coverings in classrooms.

Britain's big teaching unions have accused the embattled Tory leader of making the decision to save his own political career as he handles the fallout from 'Partygate', rather than basing it on 'sound public health and scientific advice'.

The National Education Union warned against lifting Omicron measures 'too quickly', claiming it could lead to 'more disruption' for schools.

Today a No10 spokesman said: 'Children have been one of the hardest hit as a result of the disruption throughout the pandemic and we recognise the impact it has had on their education.

'The Prime Minister believes it is vital that children are receiving face-to-face education and can enjoy a normal experience in the classroom and the Prime Minister also thinks that the schools should follow the latest guidance.

'We've been clear that we removed the requirement for face masks to be worn in classrooms and we will remove advice for face masks to be worn in communal areas from January 27.'

Covid infections are rising among primary school children in England, official data shows in what could be a sign of the back-to-school effect.

Statisticians at the Office for National Statistics estimated eight per cent of youngsters aged two to 11 had Covid on any given day in the week to January 15, the equivalent of one in 13, up slightly from 7 per cent the week prior.

The rate, based on swabs taken from 160,000 people across the country, is the highest of all other age groups, with 20 to 34-year-olds having the next highest rate (one in 17).

While rates are falling or flatlining in every other age group they are still climbing in children. Just five per cent of under-12s were thought to have the virus a month earlier.

It comes after children returned to classrooms on January 4 after a two-week break over the festive period.

Despite the rising infections in primary school and nursery-aged children, the ONS found that infections fell across England for the first time since Omicron took off last week. It estimated around 2.9million people were infected on any given day in the week to January 15, a 'welcome decrease' from the record 3.7m the previous week.

The ONS survey is regarded as the most reliable indicator of the UK's outbreak because it uses random sampling of around 100,000 people, rather than relying on people coming forward to be tested.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: 'Face to face learning continues to be our top priority, and it's thanks to the hard work of staff and teachers that over 99.9% of schools are open and millions of children are benefiting from time in classrooms.

'Air cleaning units are not needed in the vast majority of classrooms  and feedback from settings suggests that the 350,000 carbon dioxide monitors that have been delivered are acting as a helpful tool to manage ventilation.

'Feedback from schools also suggests there are only a small number of cases where good ventilation is not possible, and we are supplying up to 8,000 air cleaning units to support those settings.'
Chandler Halderson has been found guilty of killing and dismembering both his parents.

The 23-year-old from Wisconsin killed his father Bart, 50, and mother Krista, 53, at their home in Windsor, Wisconsin, last summer.

Chandler was convicted on two counts each of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, hiding a corpse and falsifying information about a missing person.

Chandler Halderson (pictured hearing the verdict) has been found guilty of killing and dismembering both his parents

The 23-year-old from Wisconsin killed his father Bart, 50, and mother Krista, 53, at their home in Windsor, Wisconsin, last summer

Halderson appeared to show no reaction when the verdict was read.

A first-degree intentional homicide conviction carries a mandatory life sentence.

Defense attorneys for Halderson rested their case Thursday without calling witnesses or testimony from the defendant.

Evidence shown during the trial included human bone fragments found in the family fireplace, cutting tools with traces of DNA matching the parents, and phone data that placed Halderson near where the remains were found.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told reporters: 'I hope that it brings some satisfaction. We know that we cannot bring Bart and Krista back, but this is the first step to hopefully some finality.'

Over seven days, prosecutors laid out their case that Halderson killed his parents. They contend he first tried to dispose of the bodies by burning them in the family fireplace, then he scattered their dismembered body parts across Dane County.

Investigators said Halderson killed his parents after his father discovered he had been lying about attending Madison Area Technical College.

It was one in a web of lies the 27-year-old told about work, school and being on a police scuba dive team, according to prosecutors.

Investigators said Halderson killed his parents after his father discovered he had been lying about attending Madison Area Technical College

Halderson was arrested July 8 after telling police a day earlier that his parents had gone missing following a Fourth of July trip to northern Wisconsin.

Investigators said it was soon clear his story didn't add up.

Dane County Assistant District Attorney Andrea Raymond told the jury during closing arguments that solving a criminal case is liking putting a puzzle together and that Halderson 'had eight days to spread pieces of that puzzle all over Wisconsin, at least southern Wisconsin,' the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

Defense attorney Crystal Vera said Halderson went to extreme lengths to cover up his lies, but she argued that prosecutors never demonstrated he had a motive to kill his parents.

Their focus on his lies was more about tainting his credibility and making it harder for him to take the stand, Vera said.

'You were never told that they were going to kick him out of the house. You were never told that they were going to disown him. You were never told anything about why it matters,' Vera said.

'If this is going to be motive, if this is the reason you're intentionally killing someone, it better matter.'
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has refused to speculate when Americans might follow the UK and finally get back to normal by ditching masks and COVID passports, despite a slowdown in cases.

Asked on Fox News's America's Newsroom on Thursday whether the US could expect to follow the UK's example by scrapping COVID restrictions, Psaki said 'we want to get back to a point where were not wearing masks' but went on to describe the current situation in the US as 'the height of a pandemic'.



A day after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that England will scrap all restrictions, including mandatory isolation - she refused to be drawn on a timeline for when Americans might expect to experience the same hope of normalcy.

Emphasizing the importance of vaccination, Psaki went on to say: 'We dont want to live like this. You heard the president say we dont want to live like this forever.

'We want to get back to a point where were not wearing masks, of course. Where we are not worried about our kids being in school Thats where we want to get to, and what were trying to do is continue to fight at the height of a pandemic to get to that point.'

According to data derived from global scientific online publication Our World in Data, for every million residents, the UK has seen an average of approximately 1,400 positive COVID cases per week as of January 19 - .1 percent.

The U.S. is also seeing a slowdown in cases that spiked when the mild, but highly transmissible Omicron variant caught on in December. The US has nearly twice as many weekly infections for each million residents as the UK, with a reported 2,233 cases, but Omicron is already burning out and deaths, mostly attributed to the older Delta variant, have remained steady. States that were once leaders in case growth last month are recording the largest drops.

While the English being told by their leaders that they no longer need wear masks and by the end of March will no longer be forced to isolate in the event of a positive COVID test, the US government is about to start dishing out free N95 masks to its citizens and finally launched its long-promised program to distribute millions of free test kits - a tardy move that critics have said should have come before the peak of the Omicron wave.

Jen Psaki appeared on America's Newsroom Thursday. She told hosts Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer: 'We want to get back to a point where were not wearing masks, of course. Where we are not worried about our kids being in school Thats where we want to get to' but refused to be drawn on a timeframe for a return to normalcy

The UK is no longer asking people to work from home. Across the Atlantic, however, companies are doing the opposite and are actively telling staff to remain remote.

From today, secondary school pupils in the U.K. will not have to wear face coverings in classrooms. The requirement to wear masks in corridors and other communal areas will end next Thursday, January 27.

In the U.S., children are required to wear masks in classrooms across the country, and the nation's premiere health agency has urged citizens to double-mask and don the more effective N-95 mask as opposed to other, less effective cloth masks.

In the U.S., mask and social distancing rules have been mandated on a state-by-state basis while the Biden administration's efforts to take sweeping nationals actions are bogged down in the courts.

The US, meanwhile, boasts nearly twice as many weekly infections for each million residents, with a reported 2,233 cases, despite stricter guidelines from the government

According to data derived from global scientific online publication Our World in Data, for every million residents, the UK has seen an average of approximately 1,400 positive COVID cases per week as of January 19, suggesting the Omicron surge may be starting to level off

From next Thursday, the U.K. Government will no longer legally mandate the wearing of face coverings in shops and on public transport. But they will continue to suggest masks should be worn in enclosed and crowded places where people could come into contact with those they do not normally meet. The Prime Minister said this meant the Government will 'trust the judgment of the British people and no longer criminalize anyone who chooses not to wear one'.

In the U.S., the White House has pledged that it will soon ship 400 million N95 masks to U.S. pharmacies and community health centers to be given away - a move that was blasted by scientists who believe it comes too late to be effective against the recent Omicron surge.

In the U.K., proof of vaccination or a recent negative test will no longer be needed to enter nightclubs and large venues from next Thursday. But businesses will still be free to use the NHS Covid Pass if they want.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., most restaurants and large venues across the nation require proof of vaccination.

The U.K. has allowed residents to order up to seven tests delivered to their door daily, but free Covid lateral flow tests look set to be scrapped by July. People will be pointed towards an online ordering system to purchase the tests, which cost 30 for a pack of seven.

The U.S. response to COVID has reportedly been defined as slow on mandating tests and masks from many in the scientific community. Officials only recently ruled that it would send four take-home tests to every domicile across the country, amid a national shortage and as scared citizen line up in droves to see if they are positive.

Critics have blasted the Biden administration's response as being far behind that of European nations, many of which are rolling back guidance and mandates as the world approaches the two-year mark of living with the virus.

'By the time the masks and tests get there, the surge will probably be over,' said Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of California San Francisco.

In October, as the Delta variant began its rampage, the White House reportedly rejected a plan to manufacture and distribute at-home rapid tests for the winter holidays.

A tale of two countries: The UK announced their roadmap to ending COVID restrictions which will see an end to WFH, masks in public spaces and COVID passes by the end of next week. The US government is finally sending masks and tests to citizens.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Wednesday that the U.K. will scrap virtually all national COVID restrictions in March, just as U.S. President Joe Biden has announced plans to ramp up efforts with masking and vaccination to contain the Omicron variant in America

Experts cited three key elements in the U.S. government's slow response to the Omicron - which was first identified in South Africa late last year and was reported in the the US in December - including an over-reliance on vaccines, a failure to develop other plans and American experts battling on what the appropriate response should be.

'I think the Biden transition team saw the first, highly promising vaccine efficacy results from Pfizer in fall 2020 and decided against making serious investments in so-called ''non-pharmaceutical interventions'' from the beginning,' Harvard social epidemiologist Justin Feldman told Vox.

'This vaccine-only strategy was never a good idea, but there were wake-up calls that were missed.'

While most experts agree vaccines are still the best weapon against the virus, many believe the Biden administration's slow move to take more proactive steps has put America behind the eight ball when trying to catch up with Omicron.

'When it comes to public health overall, I think there is a relentless tendency to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good,' Harvard epidemiologist Hanage told Vox.

'When you are facing an exponentially growing wave of infections, we do not have the time to identify and demonstrate which policies are optimal, and that means we are caught out over and over again.'

The U.S. is currently logging an average of 739,234 new cases every day - a six percent drop for the 787,887 deaths being averaged this time last week. On Wednesday, the nation recorded 979,920 cases. While it is a higher total than some previous Wednesdays, some lagging cases from the holiday weekend are still trickling in.

Daily deaths are up eight percent over the past week, from 1,717 deaths last week to 1,867 as of Wednesday.

A potential decrease in cases and deaths in the coming weeks has been on the cards as U.S. experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, have predicted that daily cases in the country would eventually recede as the rapidly spreading Omicron variant would eventually run out of people to infect.

Data from the UK and South Africa shows that the Omicron surge will likely rapidly decline after reaching its peak. Cases in the UK have slashed since reaching their peak in early January - down from around 180,000 cases per day to 100,000.

In the US, mask and social distancing rules have been mandated on a state-by-state basis while the Biden administration's efforts to take sweeping nationals actions are bogged down in the courts
Toyota Tundra 2022 design flaws have started coming out as the buzz and prominence around Toyota's new car release is still gaining much attention.

The 2022 Toyota Tundra is arguably the most popular full-size pickup truck vehicle in the United States of America as of now.

Unfortunately, users are starting to observe a few serious quality-related problems when using the pickup car.

The V6-powered truck is suffering first-year hiccups that will be ironed out in due time, from a door lock with a mind of its own to a gap between the right and middle area of the rear bumper.

2022 Toyota Tundra Experiences Door Lock Issue

It was reported by AutoEvolution that some owners all of a sudden experienced the driver-side door lock began acting strangely for no obvious reason with 1,770 kilometers (1,100 miles) in.

Following the incident, Toyota responded immediately and dispatched five engineers from Scottsbluff Toyota in Nebraska to further examine the root cause of the problem.

The vehicle owner expressed their dismay since before the truck arrived at the dealership, it already needs fixing.

However, quickly addressing the damage just means the business simply wished to put a stop to the situation spreading false claims that may affect their brand and products, which can result in decreased sales if not responded to quickly.

After the company made an effort to send a group of engineers, it turned out that a piece of trim was interfering with the operation of the door.

Fortunately, after working late into the night, the experts sent were able to duplicate the situation successfully and submit the data back to the automaker.

The engineers then diagnosed the problem and stated that the Toyota Tundra 2022 design flaws are due to a quality issue most likely caused by an out-of-spec plastic component or molding machine.

Read Also: 2022 Toyota Tundra vs. 2021 Tundra Power Test, Speed Comparison: Which Is Better?

Toyota Tundra 2022 Waste Gate Issues

Unfortunately, the Toyota Tundra 2022 design flaws don't just include door lock issues; it also has a wastegate problem.

The literal 3.4-liter engine that was promoted as having 3.5 liters, is dubbed as the most serious error.

The V35A-FTS, a force-fed sixer with a faulty turbo wastegate actuator, is dubbed V35A-FTS.

There have been numerous reports of malfunctioning wastegates, but it is unclear if the problem is mechanical or software-related.

MG, a moderator at Toyota Headquarters, just submitted a few photos of a cab disassembled from the chassis in order to repair the wastegates, which is a massive operation for such a little issue.

Just recently, Keith from Trigger Happy recently released two YouTube videos of his broken Tundra, which had only 335 miles (539 kilometers) on the clock.

Check engine, limp mode, as well as parking support brake malfunction, are the three warning messages the TFT display in the instrument cluster display.

The well-equipped pickup Toyota vehicle is currently sitting in the dealership's parking lot is described by the owner as basically a $60,000 brick.

Furthermore, the dealership claims that the parts required to repair the wastegates are on backorder for 30 days, posing another issue.

The Lemon Law may apply if the car has been in the shop for more than a month for any faults covered by the automaker's warranty.

Related Article: Neuralink vs. Metaverse: Elon Musk Not Convinced About the Future of Metaverse, Thinks Neuralink Is Better
Hate crimes surged a shocking 96 percent in the Big Apple throughout 2021, new data from the NYPD has revealed, as Manhattan's woke DA announced on Friday that he'll be expanding the hate crimes unit to address radically motivated attacks.

Asian hate crimes skyrocketed 343 percent from 2020 to 2021 as the pandemic rattled on, with 133 Asian Americans experiencing terrifying and dangerous experiences of discrimination, according to the new data, which was first reported by Fox News.

Hispanic hate crimes were also up a staggering 700 percent last year with a total of eight people being harassed or harmed in 2021, up from one in 2020.

Overall, the City That Never Sleeps city saw a 96 percent increase in bias crimes throughout 2021, as more and more New Yorkers are being attacked in the streets, pushed onto subway tracks, and harassed for their gender, race and religion.

A total of 538 hate crimes occurred throughout 2021, compared to 275 in 2020.

Asian Americans have experienced a 343 percent increase in hate crimes in 2021 with 133 attacks. Hispanics are also seeing a rise in attacks with eight attacks happening in 2021, compared to one in 2020. A total of 538 hate crimes took place in the Big Apple, compared to 275 in 2020

Only three categories declined in the number of attacks: African Americans, generalized religion and other, the data show. It is not clear what is considered 'other.'

Despite 'religious' hate crimes decreasing overall, Muslims and Jews did see an increase of 180 and 54 percent from 2020 to 2021, respectively.

African Americans saw an 11 percent decrease in bias crimes against them, with the NYPD reporting 33 attacks, down from 37. Caucasian Americans saw a 100 percent increase, but the total number of attacks remains one of the lowest, with only 20 attacks.

Manhattan's DA Alvin Bragg, 48, (pictured at Yao Pan Ma's vigil) said he was will be partnering with local communities and expand resources to address the increase in hate crimes

Two recent Asian hate crimes have gripped the heartstrings of New Yorkers. Yao Pan Ma, 61, a Chinese immigrant, (left) was recently taken off life support after he was attacked eight months ago while collecting cans in East Harlem. Michelle Alyssa Go, 40, (right) was thrown to her death on subway tracks in a Times Square station January 16

A 65-year-old Asian woman was brutally beaten on her way to church in March

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, 48 - who recently found himself in hot water after downgrading many crimes and claiming that 'prison is a last resort' - is now saying his office will expand the hate crimes unit, created in 2018, to help address the increase in radically motivated attacks.

'Our [Asian American and Pacific Islander] brothers and sisters have been spit upon, coughed at, told to go back home. In my office we are deepening our capacity,' he said on Friday.

'We're expanding our hate crimes unit so that we can give these cases the resources that they deserve.'

Bragg, the first black man to hold his position, said on Friday that he would be expanding resources by partnering with local communities to 'strengthen our community ties,' but commended the existing 'small' hate crimes team for having 'great leadership.'

'What I've heard as I've traveled throughout Manhattan is that there's a reluctance to come forward to law enforcement from some communities, and some people are more willing to go forward through a community group,' Bragg said on Friday.

'We are both focusing on building cases and prosecuting cases and [are] also mindful that we might not be hearing about everything that we want to be, so strengthening our community ties as well.'

He also said on Friday that he would be cracking down on gun violence - something he promised on the campaign trail - and street crime will be a top priority in his office.

'We have a real crisis going on with guns, particularly in the upper part of Manhattan, that is really destabilizing communities,' he told Bloomberg's David Westin.

He also recently attended a vigil for Yao Pan Ma - a 61-year-old Chinese immigrant who was attacked while collecting cans in East Harlem eight months ago and was recently taken off life support - but other attendees demanded the DA up the charges from attempted murder to murder.

Overall crime has surged 35 percent in the Big Apple, with transit and robberies rising the most, at 65 and 25 percent, respectively

'Here at 125th [Street] to remember #YaoPanMa. We do not tolerate hate or violence in Manhattan, and those who commit hate crimes targeting our AAPI community members or any community will be held accountable. Hate crimes tear at the very fabric of society,' he wrote on Twitter on Friday.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, 61, and New York AG Letitia James, 63, also attended the event.

On January 16, another Asian American hate crime shook the cores of New Yorkers as Michelle Alyssa Go, 40, was violently pushed to her death onto subway tracks in a Times Squares station.

Police, who are still investigating the attack, said her alleged attacker Simon Martial, 61, was inside the subway for nine minutes before he shoved Go.

Many New Yorkers traveled to Times Square to honor her life, where a photo of her was displayed across a giant billboard, which Adams - who also started his term in office on New Years, alongside Bragg - attended.

One of the most shocking hate crimes in 2021 occurred in March, where a 65-year-old Asian woman was brutally assaulted in Hell's Kitchen on her way to church.

The victim was pushed to floor and kicked in the head by an unidentified passer-by during the vicious daylight attack. He reportedly told her: 'F*** you, you don't belong here.'

Out of the 436 hate crimes that occurred throughout the first three quarters of last year, only 185 assailants were arrested, according to NYPD data.

Not only has hate crimes soared in the Empire City, but overall crimes have drastically increased 35 percent, with transit, robberies, and felony assaults dramatically shifting 65, 25, and almost 8 percent, respectively.
for host Leigh Sales to be dumped from the ABC's 7.30 program

Laura Tingle, the fill-in host for the ABC's 7.30 program, has dismissed supporters calls for her to get the job on a full-time basis and said she is 'in awe' of regular presenter Leigh Sales.

'We need to campaign to make Laura Tingle the permanent host of 7.30,' a message on Twitter said last night, receiving more than 5,000 likes.

Responding to the message Tingle, 60, instead declared her admiration for Sales, a highly respected political reporter and author.

'Thanks, but no you dont. My day job is funner,' Tingle tweeted in response.

'And I am in awe of what Leigh Sales does day after day amongst quite a horrible environment of social media sh*t.'

Tingle's public declaration that she didn't want to replace Sales in the hot seat won her plenty of fans on social media.

Calls are growing on social media for veteran host Leigh Sales (pictured) to be dumped from the ABC's 7.30 program

Colleague Laura Tingle (pictured middle) has been touted online as Leigh Sales' replacement - but the ABC journalist doesn't covet the anchor role on 7.30

Laura Tingle (pictured in Canberra) defended Leigh Sales on Twitter, before declaring she wasn't interested in the hosting role on ABC's 7.30

'Thanks for responding, Laura. This divisive campaign by many on Twitter has been quite nasty. You and Leigh Sales are both awesome journalists and the ABC is lucky to have such a range of talent,' one wrote.

Another tweeted many members of the public would soon turn on Tingle if she was at the helm for the popular ABC program.

'And then when she does something people disagree with, Twitter will turn on her. I love Laura Tingle, but I think some peoples obsession with Leigh Sales is over the top.'

A third said the ABC was lucky to have both talented women on their payroll.

'Why do we always seek to compare, and form tribalistic, adversarial, all or nothing positions? We have two extraordinary public interest journalists serving us in complimentary roles at our national broadcaster,' the man tweeted.

'Lets just appreciate that.'

Sales, 48, is a polarising - but generally respected - figure in the eyes of many viewers.

She is a veteran with ABC, and was the network's political correspondent in Washington from 2001 to 2005.

From 2008-2010, Sales, a three-time Walkley winner for her investigative journalism, was a co-host of Lateline on the ABC, a late-night national current affairs show that discussed federal politics and international affairs.

In 2011, Sales was appointed anchor of the ABC's current affairs program 7.30, and has forged a reputation for her no-nonsense style of questioning with numerous Prime Ministers and world leaders.
A man accused of faking his own death to avoid jailtime once flew into a rage over a crying child and on another occasion forced a woman to repay him for dinner after she refused his sexual advances, according to a report.

Nicholas Alahverdian, 34, gained international notoriety after it was revealed last month that he faked his own death in 2020 to evade sex and fraud charges. He assumed a false identity in Scotland, but his cover was blown after he was hospitalized with a life-threatening case of Covid and he was arrested by Interpol, only to be released on bail weeks later.

He was arrested again Thursday for missing an extradition hearing as new allegations about his disturbing personal life came to light.

One woman told Pawtucket police that Alahverdian became 'enraged' after she rebuked his advances after a dinner date, according to police reports obtained by the Providence Journal.

While they were convening in his apartment later that night, he became 'enraged' after she rejected his advances and demanded to be compensated for the meal they shared.

After taking away her phone, he drove her to a nearby ATM and instructed her to withdraw $200. She acquiesced because 'she felt she had no choice but to give him the money, in fear of further violence,' the report said.

The night got stranger for the woman when Alahverdian ordered her to sign an agreement - while he videotaped - that said 'she could not pursue legal action and that the money she gave him was for therapy for him due to her violent actions and her sexual addiction.'

Nicholas Alahverdian, pictured in 2011, has been arrested for a suspected sex attack after faking his death from cancer and fleeing from the US to Scotland

Another accuser told police in July 2010 that Alahverdian lured her to his apartment under the guise that she'd be visiting his art studio. Instead, she told cops, he took away her phone and pressed her for sex.

When she refused his advances, he said 'if she left, he would kill himself by stabbing himself in the chest with a knife,' the Journal reported. Alahverdian was taken to hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

Police returned to his apartment that November on a tip, and said they encountered an 'extremely upset' woman with injuries to both eyes.

Suspected conman Nicholas Alahverdian, who also goes by Nicholas Rossi, is a registered sex offender. He was convicted of two sex-related crimes in 2008. His mugshot from the sex offenders' registry is pictured

The woman told cops that Alahverdian became angry after their dinner guests' child began crying earlier that night, which led to a violent argument.

Alahverdian 'grabbed her and knocked her to the ground and held her down' and 'slapped her on the facial area,' the outlet reported.

He resisted arrest, prompting police to physically carry him out of the apartment and into the cruiser, where he repeatedly smashed his head against the metal bars while screaming 'very loudly'.

He was pepper sprayed by the arresting officers in an effort to get him to stop self-harming.

An arrest warrant was issued for Alahverdian in 2011 for violating a restraining order obtained by his then-wife.

DailyMail.com has requested copies of the arrest reports from the Pawtucket police. It's not clear whether Alahverdian was convicted or served jail time for the allegations.

He went on the run in 2020 after police began closing in on him over other fraud and sex crime allegations. In an attempt to turn down the heat, he wrote and published his own obituary that said he died of cancer and his ashes were scattered at sea.

One accuser told police that Alahverdian picked up the dinner tab during a date, but demanded to be repaid $200 after she refused his advances

He faked his own death in 2000 and fled the country to evade sex and fraud allegations, and went as far as to pen and publish his own obituary

He's in the process of being extradited to the US to face a rape charge in Utah after allegedly assaulting an ex-girlfriend in 2008.

Police believe he could be responsible for similar attacks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Utah and Ohio.

Also in 2008, he was convicted in Dayton, Ohio of public indecency and sexual imposition; Alahverdian claimed in a 2013 civil lawsuit that the charges stemmed from accusations he masturbated in a hallway of Sinclair Community College.

That saw him end up on the Ohio sex offenders' registry, where his mugshot remains to this day.

This map shows the trail of havoc and alleged criminal behavior carried out by Nicholas Alahverdian across the US

He is suspected of carrying out multiple other sex attacks, and was also accused of a $200,000 fraud after taking out credit cards and loans in his foster mother's husband's name in Ohio, it is alleged.

Alahverdian divorced his second wife in 2017 after less than two years of marriage, and is also said to owe her $52,000. Both of his former spouses took out restraining orders against him after their marriage ended.

Years before the made-for-Hollywood story unfolded, Alahverdian was a Rhode Island political activist who claimed to be victimized by the foster system as child, and who called for changes to state law.

His tale of a man with a haunted past - who overcame adversity to become a Harvard-educated political scientist - amazed the circles he frequented, with multiple lawmakers taking pity on him.

Alahverdian is suspected of carrying out multiple sex attacks, and was accused of a $200,000 fraud after taking out credit cards and loans in his foster mother's husband's name in Ohio, it is alleged

He was so cunning that, as a young teenage, he nearly convinced a state representative to adopt him.

Former state representative Brian Coogan, 51, previously told DailyMail.com that he met and was charmed by Alahverdian in 2000, while he was working as a politician and Alahverdian was volunteering as an errand boy at the state house.

Coogan told DailyMail.com that he was initially enamored by the troubled teen - who claimed to be sexually and physically victimized in foster care - and moved to give him a permanent family after Alahverdian 'begged me to adopt him' shortly after they met.

On the day he was in court to begin adoption proceedings, Coogan said he overheard Alahverdian threatening a social worker, saying: 'I'll tell them you abused me, that you hit me.'

A judge later talked Coogan and his wife out of it, warning that he was 'manipulative' and prone to stealing peoples' identities.

The charge Alahverdian is awaiting extradition for relates to the rape of a woman in Orem, Utah who he befriended on MySpace in 2008 and later attacked, Utah County District Attorney David Leavitt told DailyMail.com.
New book by veteran Mexico crime reporter Anabel Hernandez, Emma y Las Otras Senoras del Narco (Emma and The Other Narco Ladies), reveals jailed drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman had three wives

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman was not only one of the world's biggest drug traffickers before landing in prison, he was also a bigamist, according to a new book.

The book by veteran Mexico crime reporter Anabel Hernandez, Emma y Las Otras Senoras del Narco (Emma and The Other Narco Ladies), reveals the jailed drug kingpin had three wives.

Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in Colorado's SuperMax prison, was still married to his first wife when he wed Emma Coronel, the beauty queen mother of his 10-year-old twin daughters - who is serving a three-year prison sentence for helping to operate his Sinaloa Cartel - according to the book, due out January 25.

Hernandez was able to confirm that El Chapo is still legally married to Alejandrina Salazar. The couple tied the knot in 1977 and have five children, including Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo, both of whom are wanted by the U.S. on drug trafficking charges.

Chapo is said to have wed Griselda Lopez in the 1980s before exchanging vows with Coronel in 2007. The California-born Coronel was just 17 years old and had a boyfriend when she first met El Chapo, who was 49 at the time, after being crowned in a Sinaloa beauty pageant in 2006.

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman is still legally married to his first wife, Alejandrina Salazar, according to 'Emma y Las Otras Senoras del Narco' ('Emma and The Other Narco Ladies'), a book authored by veteran crime reporter Anabel Hernandez

Alejandrina Salazar (left) is still married to Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman according to the new book, which also reveals that he married Griselda Lopez (right) in the 1980s

Emma Coronel became wife No. 3 when the two wed under the 'law of the divine' in 2007

El Chapo was dancing with another girl and spotted Coronel on the dance floor with her boyfriend. El Chapo had someone approach her and asked if she would dance with him.

Coronel obliged and the two exchanged vows the following year on her 18th birthday.

According to the book, they held a religious ceremony in Sinaloa and bribed a priest to officiate the wedding, which was attended by military members, politicians and the state governor.

Coronel, now 32, said they wed under the 'law of the divine,' Hernandez writes.

The pair chatted for Hernandez's book after Coronel texted her via WhatsApp on September 23, 2018.

She admitted being oblivious to El Chapo's business dealings in the early stages of their relationship as security forces were poised to arrest him while he was on the run after escaping from prison in 2001.

Coronel described El Chapo as someone who did not 'distinguish himself from' the common folk.

'He is like anyone. Of course they treat him with respect, but he he he acts like any normal person,' she told Hernandez. 'He is friendly, he goes around greeting everyone and talking. He sits wherever he is, eats whatever, drinks whatever, he is a human being like any other.'

Coronel described her marriage to El Chapo as 'very normal' and claimed never to have witnessed the dark side of her kingpin husband who was known for having his rivals kidnapped, tortured and killed.

'He is a man like any other. He is not violent, he is not rude' she said in the book. 'I have never heard him say a bad word, I have never seen him get excited or be angry with anyone.'

The book reveals that the San Francisco-born Coronel was primarily raised in Mexico, but moved back to the Bay Area at the age of 11 while her father Ines Coronel - a former lieutenant of El Chapo - her mother stood back in Mexico.

Joaquin Guzman-Lopez (left) and Ovidio Guzman-Lopez (right) are two of El Chapo's five children from his first marriage with Alejandrina Salazar. Both men now hold hight-ranking positions in the Sinaloa Cartel while their father serves a life sentence in the United States

The second oldest of four siblings - and the only American citizen - she lasted just one year in San Francisco with her relatives before she returned to her hometown of Canelas.

'I did like it, but I wanted to go back because I missed them so much,' she said. 'I didn't get used to being away from where I'm from, and I missed my family a lot.'

Hernandez's book also includes interviews with Diana Espinoza, the wife of fugitive drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero - who is featured in the Netflix series, Narcos: Mexico, and Alicia Machado, who was crowned Miss Universe in 1996 and was involved in a relationship with Gerardo 'El Indio' Alvarez Vazquez, a lieutenant of the Beltran-Leyva Cartel.

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman wed Griselda Lopez in the 1980s and had four sons, including Ivan Archivaldo Guzman (left) and Jesus Guzman (right). Both are wanted by the U.S. for trafficking drugs

Emma Coronel was only 18 years old when she married El Chapo, who was 49, in 2007

Coronel was sentenced last November after pleading guilty in June to drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

She was looking at a lengthy jail sentence before her legal team sought the safety valve exception, which required Coronel to meet a series of guidelines that would reduce her sentence.

Under the exception, Coronel would have had to prove she was not the 'leader, organizer, or supervisor in the commission of the offense' and that she can show she did not use 'violence in the commission of the offense, and the offense must not have resulted in serious injury.'

The safety valve exception also required Coronel to 'tell the government all that he knows of the offense and any related misconduct.'

She certainly met the guideline's criteria.

Anabel Hernandez's bookm Emma y Las Otras Senoras del Narco also includes interviews with Diana Espinoza, the wife of fugitive drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero - who is featured in the Netflix series, Narcos: Mexico, and Alicia Machado (left), who was crowned Miss Universe in 1996 and was involved in a relationship with Gerardo 'El Indio' Alvarez (right), a member of the Beltran-Leyva Cartel who is now jailed

Coronel, whose father Ines Coronel held a high-ranking position in El Chapo's criminal organization, begged the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Rudolph Contreras for mercy at her December sentencing hearing.

'Maybe that's why you feel the obligation to be a little harder on me. But I beg you not to,' Coronel said. 'Today the suffering that I have caused my family when facing this situation hurts me a lot. My parents instilled in me respect, gratitude and honesty but they also taught me to accept my mistakes and ask for forgiveness for them.'

Her sentencing also includes four years of supervision following her release.

It's unknown if there are any legal documents registered in Mexico that would validate the wedding between Coronel and one of the world's most notorious drug lords.

According to Mexican law, bigamy can be punished with a prison term ranging from two to five years.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' newest anti-woke legislation would bar schools and private businesses from making students or employees feel 'guilt' or 'any form of psychological stress' because of their national origin, sex or race.

Specifically, the bill would outlaw teachings that assert certain individuals are 'inherently racist [or] sexist] - or 'morally superior' - or that characterize individuals' status as 'privileged' or 'oppressed' based on their race, sex or national origin.

'No individual is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by the virtue of his or her race or sex. No race is inherently superior to another race,' said Republican Sen. Manny Diaz, the bill's sponsor.

It is not about ignoring the 'dark' parts of American history, but rather ensuring that people are not blamed for sins of the past, Diaz said.

'Senator Diaz's bill makes clear that no Floridianstudent, worker, or anyone elseshould be made to feel inferior on the basis of race, color, sex, or national origin,' said DeSantis' press secretary, Christina Pushaw Newsweek. 'These immutable characteristics have no bearing on an individual's character. It is frankly disturbing that anyone would find these ideas controversial in the year 2022.'

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (pictured) is pushing a bill that would bar schools and private businesses from making their students or employees feel 'guilt' due to their race

'No individual is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by the virtue of his or her race or sex. No race is inherently superior to another race,' said Republican Sen. Manny Diaz (pictured), the bill's sponsor

DeSantis held a news conference in December in which he called critical race theory 'state-sanctions racism' and 'cr**,' and said he would seek legislation that would allow parents to sue schools and employees to sue employers if they were subject to its teachings.

Critical race theory was developed during the 1970s and 1980s and centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nations institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.

Conservatives typically have rejected it, saying it is a world view derived from Marxism that divides society by defining people as oppressors and oppressed based on their race.

The Senate Education Committee approved the bill, titled 'Individual Freedom.' It doesn't mention critical race theory directly, although it is mentioned in the bill's analysis that was given to senators. The committee split along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.

But critics, like state Senator Shevrin Jones, said the bill was 'directed to make whites not feel bad about what happened years ago,' and that critical race theory is not taught in Florida schools to begin with.



The Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union denounced the legislation as 'a blatant attempt to suppress speech DeSantis and certain legislators do not like.'

'This was directed to make whites not feel bad about what happened years ago,' said state Senator Shevrin Jones, pictured, of the legislation

'Students and employees deserve to have a free and open exchange about our history and its impact on our communities,' the ACLU said in a statement.

'Legislators should not interfere with a student or employees right to receive an inclusive education just because certain aspects of our history make some people uncomfortable.'

Democrats argued the bill isnt needed, would lead to frivolous lawsuits and said it would amount to censorship in schools.

'We know for a fact what this is. This is Governor DeSantis' move to try to stop the teaching of true American black history. Our history is a part of American history, and also my white counterparts are a part of that very history,' said Jones, who is the only Black member of the state's Senate Education Committee that approved the bill.

'At no point did anyone say white people should be held responsible for what happened, but what I would ask my white counterparts is, are you an enabler of what happened or are you going to say we must talk about history?'

The Florida Board of Education has already banned CRT in its schools, along with nine other states.

'Governor DeSantis and his administration know full well that CRT isn't taught in our K-12 schools,' Jones said in an interview with CNN.

'Instead of running on forward-thinking ideas and the kitchen table issues that Floridians need right now, the governor is pushing a national agenda currently within the state of Florida.'

Specifically, the bill would outlaw teachings that assert certain individuals are 'inherently racist [or] sexist] - or 'morally superior' - or that characterize individuals' status as 'privileged' or 'oppressed' based on their race, sex or national origin

The bill reads in part, 'An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex. An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.'

The bill also includes provisions for employees to protect themselves against 'corporate wokeness,' or training in critical race theory. It would give employees a private cause of action against discrimination in the workplace.

The anti-CRT bill would 'prohibit classroom instruction and curricula from being used to indoctrinate or persuade students.'

Some Twitter users took to the platform to mock the bill

Ben Crump, the famed civil rights attorney who has represented the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, took to Twitter to slam the bill.

'WOW! The Individual Freedom bill would prohibit public schools & private businesses from making white people feel "discomfort" about discrimination at school or during job training. FL Gov. Ron DeSantis' harmful policies are unacceptable!' he wrote on Thursday.

Ben Crump, the famed civil rights attorney who has represented the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, took to Twitter to slam the bill

Asked for comment, Pushaw reiterated DeSantis' reference at a news conference last month to the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

He said at the time, 'You think about what MLK stood for, he said he didnt want people judged on the color of their skin but on the content of their character. You listen to some of these people nowadays, they dont talk about that.

Last month, DeSantis unveiled the separate Stop WOKE Act, which would allow parents to file lawsuits against school districts accused of teaching critical race theory, where attorney fees will be recovered 'when they prevail,' the governor said in a press conference.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) blasted Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas' announcement of a new climate change program  saying he was pushing 'woke' policies rather than tending to the border crisis.

Hawley, who sits on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, ripped the idea in a letter to Mayorkas about a week after he announced the program.

'Unfortunately, instead of focusing on the crisis at the southern border, you are prioritizing the creation of woke partisan government programs,' he wrote.

He pointed to a press release where Mayorkas announced the program to 'develop the next generation of climate experts, improve climate literacy throughout the Department, and help us execute our Climate Action Plan to remain mission-resilient while reducing our own impacts on the environment.'

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., accused the Homeland Security Department of pursuing 'woke' climate change policies at the expense of the border

Members of the Climate Change Action Group could get full-time DHS positions.

According to Hawley, that was a far cry from the agency's main mission of protecting the border amid a surge of border crossings  and he asked Mayorkas to specify the legal authority he had to create the program.

'Meanwhile, the southern border is experiencing a surge in drug trafficking and illegal border crossings. For example, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) announced this month that southern Texas had experienced a 1,066% increase in fentanyl seizures in the past year,' he wrote.

He also pointed to the spike in border crossings, with 1.7 million encounters with migrants for the 2021 fiscal year, according to Customs and Border Protection.

The Washington Free Beacon first reported the letter.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced the policies this month

A U.S. Border Patrol agent speaks with mothers-to-be from Haiti and their spouses after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 10, 2021, in Yuma, Arizona

Mayorkas says climate change impacts are driving immigration. People embrace as tornado damage is seen after extreme weather hit the region December 12, 2021, in Mayfield, Kentucky

Mayorkas (c) announced the program by pointing to the impacts climate changes has 'on our national security and our collective global security.'

Hawley penned a blistering letter to Mayorkas

The letter comes after President Biden held a press conference for an hour and fifty minutes without fielding a question on immigration.

Hawley asked such questions as: 'What is the Departments statutory authority for the Climate Change Professionals Program?' and 'How does creating the Climate Change Professionals Program fit into the mission and timeliness of the current priorities of the Department of Homeland Security?'

Mayorkas announced the program by pointing to the impacts climate changes has 'on our national security and our collective global security.'

'At the Department, we must and will do more to address the climate crisis.'

He said the negative effects of climate change on 'vulnerable populations' creates 'additional migrant and refugee populations.'

The effort comes as many of Biden's multi-billion programs to address climate change are stalled with the president unable to find 50 votes for his $1.8 trillion Build Back Better plan.
Four Indian nationals - including a baby and a teen boy - were found frozen to death near the US-Canada border after walking more than 11 hours in waist-high snow in a -40F blizzard to illegally cross into the U.S.

The bodies were found following the arrest of a Florida man who is suspected of smuggling in seven Indians.

Steve Shand, 47, was charged with human smuggling on Thursday, which led to the discovery of the bodies which were found in Canada near the US border in what authorities call a failed crossing attempt during the freezing blizzard.

It got down to -40 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday night, with blowing snow and poor visibility advisories having been issued on the night of the four's ill-fated trek to the US border.

After a difficult search in nearly impassible terrain, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy said officers found three bodies together - a man, a woman and a baby - 33 feet from the border near Emerson, Manitoba.

The search continued and a teen boy was found a short distance away. It is believed they died from exposure.

RCMP officers in Canada with the Integrated Border Enforcement Team found the bodies after receiving concerning information from their counterparts in the US regarding possible human remains near the border town of Emerson, Manitoba.

Steve Shand, 47, who was arrested for human smuggling after being found with seven Indian nationals in North Dakota, led to the discovery of four bodies by the Canada-US border

Shand was arrested in North Dakota at a border patrol stop, just feet away from where the bodies of four Indian nationals were found

The United States Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota said Shand had been charged with human smuggling after seven Indian nationals were found in the US, leading to the discovery of the bodies.

Court documents filed Wednesday in support of Shand's arrest alleged one of the people spent a significant amount of money to come to Canada with a fraudulent student visa.

'The investigation into the death of the four individuals in Canada is ongoing along with an investigation into a larger human smuggling operation of which Shand is suspected of being a part,' John Stanley, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, said in court documents.

According to documents, a US Border Patrol in North Dakota stopped a 15-passenger van just south of the Canadian border on Wednesday.

Shand was driving and court documents alleged he was with two undocumented Indian nationals.

Around the same time, court documents said five other people were spotted by law enforcement in the snow nearby. The group, who were also Indian nationals, told officers they'd been walking for more than 11 hours outside in frigid conditions.

RCMP officers with the Integrated Border Enforcement Team (pictured) found the bodies after receiving concerning information from their counterparts in the US

A border marker between the US and Canada outside of Manitoba on Thursday, where a Florida man was arrested for human smuggling after the bodies of four people were found nearby

Road signage is posted just outside of Emerson, Manitoba, on Thursday, where the bodies were found on Wednesday in the province of Manitoba just 33 feet from the US border

A woman stopped breathing several times as she was transported to the hospital. Court documents said she will require partial amputation of her hand. A man was also hospitalized for frostbite but was later released.

One of the men in the group was carrying a backpack that had baby supplies in it. Court documents said he told officers it belonged to a family who had become separated from the group overnight.

MacLatchy told a news conference in Winnipeg on Thursday that once Mounties were notified the family may still be in Manitoba officers immediately began to search the area, however, the likelihood of several that night was low.

'It is an absolute and heartbreaking tragedy,' MacLatchy said.

They were wearing winter clothing, she said, but it would not have been enough to save them with the freezing conditions.

'These victims faced not only the cold weather but also endless fields, large snowdrifts and complete darkness,' MacLatchy added.

Manitoba RCMP Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy holds a news conference in Winnipeg on Thursday after Mounties found the bodies of four people near the US border

Dave Carlson, pictured, the reeve of Emerson-Franklin, speaks to media in his office in Emerson, Manitoba, on Thursday

Shand was arrested Wednesday and remains in custody. American authorities allege in court documents that Shand has likely been involved in other border crossings, including two recent incidents in December.

Shand could not be immediately reached for comment.

Officials in both countries said it is more common to see crossings north from the US into Canada. Border crossings into Canada on foot increased in 2016 following the election of former US President Donald Trump.

That December, two men lost their fingers to severe frostbite after getting caught in a blizzard while walking from the US into Manitoba. A few months later, a woman died of hypothermia near the border on the American side.

In 2019, a pregnant woman who walked across the border was rescued after she became trapped in a snowbank and went into labor.

Emerson-Franklin Reeve Dave Carlson said illegal crossings there have dropped significantly in recent years. He was surprised to learn of the four deaths.

'If you look at the political climate on both sides of the border, it's just mind-boggling to me that anyone had that sense of desperation to try and cross in extreme conditions.'

Deputy Patrick Klegstad with the Kittson County Sheriff's Office in Minnesota said his department is supporting the American side of the investigation. Its officers patrol the 'desolate' open fields near the border every day, he said, and the area where people crossed is treacherous, especially in the cold.

'Why they picked that spot to travel would be the million-dollar question.'

Klegstad, echoing Canadian officials, said it's uncommon to have people make the harrowing journey from Canada into the US.

'It's not very often we do have south-bounders.'
A former maid at Buckingham Palace has spoken out about working for Prince Andrew, calling the Duke of York 'demanding and entitled'.

Charlotte Briggs claimed on Thursday that she was 'left in tears' by Andrew's foul-mouth rants, and on one occasion faced his wrath over a tiny gap in his curtains.

Speaking to The Sun, Ms Briggs said the prince yelled at her: 'Can't you f***ing do anything right?' as she ran up and down the stairs to fix the curtains, some of which he was sitting a matter of yards away from.

'This man fought for his country in the Falklands but couldn't stand up to close his own curtains,' the 47-year-old mother of two told the newspaper.

'It was utterly ridiculous but spoke volumes about him,' she added.

A former maid at Buckingham Palace has spoken out about working for Prince Andrew, calling the Duke of York (pictured right in 2019 with The Queen) 'demanding and entitled'

By comparison, Ms Briggs said that the Duke's brothers Charles and Edward, as well as other royals she encountered during her time at the palace, were 'wonderful'.

She began working at Buckingham Palace in 1996 when she was 21, but within six months was tasked with being Andrew's maid; a job that 'nobody wanted,' she said.

At the time, Andrew was 36 and had recently divorced from Sarah Ferguson. He would frequently fly off the handle and expected everything to be done for him.

Ms Briggs, from Halifax, broke her silence to The Sun after Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles amid a sex assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre in the United States.

Ms Giuffre claims she was trafficked by convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to have sex with the prince three times when she was a teenager. The Duke of York vehemently denies the allegations.

Ms Briggs spoke about how Andrew's pillows were embroidered with the Royal Crest, that they had to be right in the centre of his four-poster bed, and that his pyjamas and his teddy bears had to be precisely laid out.

Having moved down from Yorkshire to London, her first six months working at the palace involved cleaning offices.

Charlotte Briggs began working at Buckingham Palace in 1996 when she was 21, but within six months was tasked with being Andrew's maid; a job that 'nobody wanted,' she said. Pictured: Andrew in 1996

On her first day, Ms Briggs said Prince Edward held the door for her as the took the bins out, but otherwise she didn't encounter many of the royals early on.

That changed when she was asked to be Andrew's maid. No one else wanted to, she said, because of his reputation for tantrums.

Having moved back to the palace after his divorce, the Duke had taken up residence on the 'nursery floor' where he, Prince Charles, Prince Edward and Princess Anne used to play when they were children.

But despite being a grown man who served in the military, he refused to do anything himself, Ms Briggs told the newspaper.

'We'd turn down his bed, remove his teddies, do the curtains and lay out his pyjamas. But he was a bad apple and behaved like a spoiled brat,' she said.

On one occasion, she said he called down from his office for a maid to be sent up to close the curtains in his office, she recalled.

For Ms Briggs, this meant putting on her evening dress, going up four flights of stairs to close the curtains Andrew was sitting a matter of feet away from.

As she left the rooms, Ms Briggs said Andrew screamed at her over the fact she had left a small gap at the top, despite the curtains running floor to ceiling.

During her time at Buckingham Palace, she said the other royals treated her well. Prince Edward was kind, she said, and she was even hugged by Nelson Mandela.

Ms Briggs, from Halifax, broke her silence to The Sun after Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles amid a sex assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre in the United States. The Duke of York vehemently denies the allegations

At the time, she was paid 600 a month and in 1996, she was even pictured on the royal balcony ahead of the Trooping the Colour ceremony, according to The Sun.

But Andrew, Ms Briggs said, ruined her time at the palace.

She also claimed to The Sun that the prince kept Sarah Ferguson's wedding dress in his wardrobe after they divorced in 1992. The royal couple married at Westminster Abbey in July 1986.

The former palace maid also claimed that her makeup was still laid out on his dressing table, suggesting he still held a flame for her, she said.

The revelations about the Duke's outbursts will likely cause him even more embarrassment as he prepares testify against the claims made by Ms Giuffre.

It also comes after The Queen - his mother - stripped him of his royal titles, and as he is facing calls to be evicted from the Royal Lodge in Windsor where he currently lives with his ex-wife Ferguson.

MailOnline has approached Buckingham Palace for comment from Prince Andrew regarding Ms Briggs's comments in The Sun. As of Thursday night, no response has been received.

Ms Briggs' account of Prince Andrews teddy bears is not the first time they have been mentioned.

Earlier this week, former palace guard Paul Page 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.

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.

His comments came in an ITV documentary: 'Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile' that aired on Monday.

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.
Mark McGowan has abandoned Western Australia's February 5 re-opening date - claiming it would be reckless and irresponsible to let the rest of the country in now

Mark McGowan's decision to shut Western Australia off from the rest of the country is backed by a silent majority who want the state to remain a Covid-safe haven.

The WA Premier on Thursday night announced he would be abandoning plans to re-open his state's border on February 5 as Omicron cases surge in the eastern states.

McGowan has repeatedly highlighted the Covid situation in the eastern states in stark terms - warning during a dramatic night-time press conference that his state's 88 per cent double-dose vaccination rate would do little to stop the transmission of Covid.

State-wide polling has consistently showed strong support for keeping the border shut - with 82 per cent of its residents backing a hard closure as of last October, with locals begging Mr McGowan not to open the border. McGowan himself claimed he had been inundated with supportive messages on Friday.

The state reported just five new cases of Covid on Thursday - compared to 21,966 in Victoria and 30,825 in NSW - and many of the state's residents thanked McGowan for the move overnight, even as usually compliant state media, businesses who do commerce outside of WA and even some doctors erupted over the backflip.

Ex-Federal Labor MP Emma Husar is among the premier's most high-profile cheerleaders and cheered the move on Friday morning.

'I'm sorry - everyone lecturing WA right now can sit down,' she said. 'That's a lot of families and friends not "living with the virus".'

Pictured is a masked pedestrian in Perth. Mr McGowan warned his state's 88 per cent double-dose vaccination rate would do little to stop Covid infections

Ex-Labor MP Emma Husar is among the Western Australian premier's most high-profile advocates

'I'm sorry - everyone lecturing WA right now can sit down,' Ms Husar wrote on Twitter on Friday morning

She was joined by thousands of McGowan supporters who took to social media to celebrate the late-night revelation that their state would stay closed.

'So relieved to hear our state is staying safe,' one resident commented on the premier's announcement on Facebook.

'Now our healthcare workers can breathe better. Thank you Mark,' another said.

Poll DO YOU AGREE WITH MCGOWAN'S DECISION? Yes No DO YOU AGREE WITH MCGOWAN'S DECISION? Yes 1279 votes

No 3561 votes Now share your opinion





Mr McGowan has previously warned hundreds of the state's residents will die if he 'invited' the virus into WA too soon.

'By knowingly letting the virus in, it would mean we'd have hundreds of people die, have to wind back our local freedoms, introduce restrictions and shut down large parts of our economy,' he said.

In September, he mocked politicians in the eastern states for suggesting WA would want to 'deliberately infect ourselves' with the virus.

'We have plans in place but I'm not going to deliberately allow for Covid to come in before such time as we have very high levels,' he said at the time.

'I know some people over in the eastern states are demanding we do it, I don't really get that, I don't understand why we would deliberately infect ourselves with Covid before we get to very high levels of vaccine.'

Then last night he claimed the state's double-vaccination rates were insufficient to handle the Omicron strain.

'So far, the science shows that people with only two doses of a Covid vaccine have only a four per cent protection against being infected by the Omicron variant,' he said on Friday.

'With a third dose it can provide a 64 per cent protection against infection.'

However these figures contradict official figures released by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation last month.

ATAGI said Omicron only reduced the chance of being infected by the virus from 80 per cent to 36.7 per cent among fully-vaccinated people. A third booster dose raised protection to 86.2 per cent.

Ms Husar was joined by thousands of McGowan supporters who took to social media to celebrate their state staying closed

Those federal government figures are similar to, or appear to be based on, a South African study which found Omicron reduced a double-vaccinated person's risk of infection to about 30 per cent.

The Department of Health has also stressed that while the risk of infection may have risen with the new strain, Australia's approved vaccines had higher protection against severe illness, hospital admissions and death.

Mr McGowan said he wanted at least 80 per cent of WA's eligible population to be triple-vaccinated before he would consider opening the state border.

He added only 35 to 38 per cent of WA would have received their third dose by February 5.

Instead of the planned February 5 re-opening, Western Australia will continue using a hard border - but with an expanded exemption criteria.

'It would be reckless and irresponsible to open up now. I can't do it,' he said.

The state will instead open in stages with a expanded list of exemption criteria (pictured)

Why WA needs to re-open NOW amid dire warning Mark McGowan's decision to keep borders shut is bad news for ALL Aussies and will impact everything from travel to beer prices - as top doctor predicts Covid-19 will STILL spread One of Australia's top doctors has led the outpouring of widespread outrage over Mark McGowan's decision to keep Western Australia's Covid-19 borders shut as it's feared the whole country will suffer due to the stunning backflip. On Thursday night the Premier abandoned his original plans to reopen on February 5, amid surging Omicron cases elsewhere in Australia and the state's low booster shot rates. He offered no timeline for when Australians and the rest of the world can finally travel freely to the state and reunite with loved ones, but will expand the exemption criteria for arrivals, especially for compassionate visits. Thursday night's decision has sparked a furious backlash over the broken promise to reopen, led by health and business experts, along with the state's top-selling newspaper. Western Australia will remain cut off from the rest of the country following Mark McGowan's stunning decision to not reopen the border on February 5, as originally planned (pictured, a woman in Perth) Perth-based Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid accused McGowan of being a 'one-trick pony' and said the state will still suffer an outbreak of the virus despite the restrictions. 'Gutted.....seems WA Premier Mark McGowan is a one-trick pony when it comes to Covid-19. Hard border with the rest of the country and world remains despite almost 90% vaxxed,' he tweeted. 'Was hoping for more courage from a Premier with an unprecedented parliamentary majority. This decision should be acknowledged as a failure by the WA govt to prepare and a broken promise. 'Don't pretend that the more "compassionate" border arrangements are a major move.. they're long overdue but the hard border continues to harm many people and needs to come down as soon as we are ready.' Advertisement

The border will instead reopen in stages with quarantine requirements to remain indefinitely in Western Australia.

Approved travellers will soon be able to enter to receive medical treatment, for compassionate reasons as well as those with genuine family links or returning residents.

The hard border settings will be upgraded to allow interstate travellers new exemptions, which will include those who have 'specialist skills'.

Arrivals will have to abide by strict testing and isolation criteria with those flying internationally required to isolate for seven days of hotel and home quarantine.

Six weeks ago it was declared WA would restart quarantine-free international and domestic travel on February 5, when 90 per cent of the state is fully vaccinated.

It was expected about 80,000 interstate and international arrivals would land in Perth Airport in the first two weeks of the reopening.

About 6,000 travellers were expected on the first day the borders were due to reopen.

Mr McGowan did not announce a new reopening date, instead stating his government would review the border rules throughout February.

Mark McGowan said there was insufficient data to predict when Covid cases and hospitalisations would peak across the state (pictured, staff at a pub in Perth)

As of Thursday, 88.9 per cent of the state's population over the age of 12 had received two doses while 25.8 aged 16 and over had received a third dose.

Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanders announced a series of changes would be enforced if and when cases were widespread across the state.

Elective surgeries will reduce to category one and two for eight weeks, however this policy will not be introduced on February 5.

'We will hold off on implementing this policy until we really need to in order to allow elective surgeries to continue for as long as possible,' Ms Sanderson said.

From February 5, health workers returning to the state will be required to isolate at home for seven days and permitted to work from days eight to fourteen.
Rudy Giuliani led Trump campaign officials in a plot to install 'alternate' electors in seven states won by President Joe Biden as a way to tamper with the Electoral College results on January 6.

CNN reported Thursday that members of Trump's campaign were far more involved in this scheme than had been previously reported.

Giuliani, a lawyer for Trump's campaign and the former New York City mayor, coordinated the process state-by-state, appearing on at least one planning call, sources told the network.

Rudy Giuliani led a Trump campaign effort to install 'alternate' slates of electors in seven states President Joe Biden won in an effort to meddle with the Electoral College results. CNN reported Thursday that Giuliani and the campaign were more involved than previously thought

President Donald Trump addresses supporters on the morning of January 6. The day of the Capitol attack, Giuliani and other officials hoped Vice President Mike Pence would ignore legitimate electors and instead count the votes of the alternate, pro-Trump ones

The campaign found supporters to join the 'alternate' slates of electors, while securing meeting rooms for them to meet in statehouses on December 14, the day of the official Electoral College meeting.

Afterward, fake certificates naming the pro-Trump slates of electors were sent to the National Archives.

Trump administration officials previewed the plan on the morning of December 14.

'As we speak, today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we're going to send those results up to Congress,' Trump's top immigration adviser Stephen Miller said on Fox & Friends that morning.

'This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open,' Miller continued. 'That means if we win these cases in the courts, we can direct that these alternate electors be certified.'

However, only the documents from Pennsylvania and New Mexico contained language that said the slates of electors were stand-ins if the court overturned Biden's wins.

The documents from Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada falsely stated that the electors were legitimate.

Sam DeMarco, one of the pro-Trump faux electors from Pennsylvania, who is the chairman of the Allegheny County Republican Committee, representing the Pittsburgh area, told CNN that he and several other electors asked the campaign to change the language to make clear they were not contesting the will of the voters.

The language DeMarco and others demanded was added at the last minute with the Trump campaign relenting.

The debate showed that even top Trump allies had misgivings about trying to tamper with the election results.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who is running for governor, told CNN that his office looked into the matter but decided the fake certificate of electors was not an illegal forgery.

'There "fake ballots" included a conditional clause that they were only to be used if a court overturned the results in Pennsylvania, which did not happen,' Shapiro told CNN in a statement. 'Though their rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy, based on our initial review, our office does not believe this meets the legal standards for forgery.'

In Michigan, where there wasn't conditional language on the documents, the state's Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel said on MSNBC last week that it could be a crime.

'Under state law, I think clearly you have forgery of a public record, which is a 14-year offense, and election law forgery, which is a five-year offense,' Nessel said.

The next step after lining up the groups of fake electors was hoping that Vice President Mike Pence would choose these 'alternate' electors on January 6 when he was chairing the joint session of Congress to finalize the election result.

Pence, worried about the scheme, had his team carefully word what he would say during the certification process to only recognize the legitimate members of the Electoral College.
Feature: A long-awaited call from Tonga after volcanic eruptions

Xinhua) 08:46, January 21, 2022

GUANGZHOU, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Four days after the volcanic eruptions in Tonga, Li Manni (not her real name) finally received a call from the South Pacific island country, telling her that her husband, Zhu Jianxiong, was safe and sound.

Li and Zhu met in 2007. Zhu shipped Chinese products, such as daily necessities, electrical appliances, and toys, to Tonga and sold them to locals.

Zhu's most recent trip to Tonga was in November 2019, and he planned to fly back to China in January 2020. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 postponed his flight to March, then April, and then June.

"With the pandemic intensifying globally, Tonga implemented strict border control measures. My husband has not returned to China ever since. It's more than two years now," she said.

Zhu's business was unable to continue because of transportation disruptions. Instead, he earned his living by repairing computers and mobile phones for local Chinese.

Despite the time difference between China and Tonga, whenever she sent a message, her husband responded instantly. Sometimes even at 2 or 3 a.m., Zhu was still found working.

Li later learned that Zhu had to work more than 10 hours a day so that he could earn more money for the family. Her husband sent money home every two to three months.

In early January, Zhu sent Li three short videos, showing three small volcanoes erupting across the sea.

On Jan. 15, Li received a voice message from her husband: "Volcano erupts, tsunami is coming, I am going to the airport right now." And followed by a money transfer of 3,355 yuan (about 527 U.S. dollars).

"I think this is all the money in his WeChat wallet. What he cares about most is whether I have enough money to spend in China," Li said.

Li lost contact with her husband afterward. She was so anxious that she kept watching the news, praying that Zhu could get to the airport before the tsunami came.

She said most buildings are two-story bungalows, and the airport is the highest place there to escape the tsunami. She was worried that there would be no chance of survival if the whole island was submerged.

"I was heartbroken. I didn't know how to express it. I was shaking all over," she said.

She called again and again, hoping that she would get through, that some miracle would happen, but there was no answer.

A foreigner answered her eighth call, but just kept saying "Yes." Another foreigner answered her 19th call. She wondered if her husband had died, or if the signal was connected to the wrong line.

For two days and nights, she wept while taking care of their children and doing housework.

"My heart hurt because I was not with him when he was in the most difficult time. If I was there, the two of us would be together. Even if a tsunami came, I would hold his hand, and both of us would face it together."

Just when she was desperate, she received calls from the foreign affairs office of Guangdong Province and Guangzhou City. The staff told her that they would help find Zhu's whereabouts and ask for Zhu's personal information.

Within two hours after she submitted the information, Li received an overseas phone call. At first, Li thought it was a harassing call. The same number called again, and she answered. It was from the Chinese embassy in Tonga.

She was at first suspicious because the whole of Tonga was out of signal. The other end of the line told her that it was a satellite phone and the signal could be interrupted at any time.

In the call, the embassy confirmed that her husband was safe and sound.

"And I was like, really? I didn't believe it at first, but I came to accept the good news soon after. I cried and laughed, and I cried again," she said.

She was told that it was the first satellite call out, and the staffers there didn't even have the chance to call their own families.

"In such a short period of time, it could go from getting information about someone from our home country to finding that person in another country where communications were down, and confirming that he was safe. I was very much touched," Li said.

"I personally feel that China always puts its people's lives and interests first. With my home country's strong backing, I feel protected," she said.

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
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The family of late actor Bill Paxton - who died in 2017, days after undergoing heart surgery - can sue Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for punitive damages, a California judge ruled.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Steven J. Kleifield on Wednesday rejected a motion by the defense that sought to dismiss the case, claiming it did not meet the necessary burden of proof.

Paxton, known for his roles in Apollo 13, Titanic and Twister, died of a stroke 11 days after renowned Dr. Ali Khoynezhad performed heart surgery at Cedars.

The actor's wife and children are contending in the lawsuit that 'Khoynezhad performed an overly aggressive and invasive surgery, and that Cedars knew he was performing these types of surgery, surgeries he was not trained for.'

The plaintiffs also claim that the hospital tried to cover its tracks by lying about plans to perform an autopsy before Paxton was cremated.

Bill Paxton, pictured with wife Louise, died of a stroke in 2017 just days after a renowned Cedars-Sinai performed heart surgery

According to the lawsuit, Cedars and Khoynezhad 'made a promise' to Paxton's family on February 25, 2017 that they would conduct a post-mortem exam of the movie star.

However, it alleges the hospital 'made such a promise with no intention to perform an autopsy on William Paxton so they could conceal their role in causing the death of Mr. Paxton.'

The hospital also lied to Forest Lawn funeral home when it falsely told directors there that 'the Paxton family had changed its mind about having an autopsy,' the legal filing said.

His family has previously said that it was unaware of the dangers of the February 14, 2017 surgery, which they later learned was unnecessary.

Khoynezhad resigned from Cedars following his patient's death.

Paxton's family said it learned after his heart surgery that the procedure at Cedars-Sinai was unnecessary

Paxton is pictured with wife Louise and children James and Lydia during the premiere of HBO's Big Love on January 12, 2011

Paxton at the time of his surgery was diagnosed with two heart-related ailments  bicuspid aortic valve, a congenital condition, and aortic aneurysm.

This birth defect leaves the aortic valve - the main artery from the heart that distributes oxygen-rich blood to the body - operating with just two small leaflets that help regulate blood flow as opposed to three in a healthy heart, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Paxton at the time was diagnosed with two specific heart-related ailments  bicuspid aortic valve, a congenital condition, and aortic aneurysm.

This birth defect leaves the aortic valve - the main artery from the heart that distributes oxygen-rich blood to the body - operating with just two small leaflets that help regulate blood flow as opposed to three in a healthy heart, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

The lawsuit says the doctor 'performed an overly aggressive and invasive surgery, and that Cedars knew he was performing these types of surgery, surgeries he was not trained for'

It also said the hospital lied about planning to perform an autopsy on the late actor

Paxton was best-known for his roles as astronaut Fred Haise in Apollo 13 (left) and storm chaser Bill Harding in Twister (right)

Dr Ali Khoynezhad, the heart surgeon who operated on actor Bill Paxton days before he died

According to the Paxton family, Khoynezhad and Cedars-Sinai failed to 'disclose that performing the procedure as a minimally invasive surgery was novel, unconventional, and not the standard of care.'

The lawsuit also alleges that the surgeon lacked experience and/or expertise' performing the procedure as a minimally invasive surgery.'

It said Khoynezhad and Cedars-Sinai acted 'beyond the scope' of Paxton's 'consent' in performing a 'high-risk and unconventional' surgery on the late actor.

It also said that Khoynezhad and the hospital allowed the unconventional operation to go forward in order to enhance their 'personal and reputational benefit.'

Had Paxton or his family been aware of the nature of the operation, they likely would have declined 'a dangerous and risky' surgery, it claimed.

The lawsuit alleges that Khoynezhad may have had a financial incentive to go through with the procedure that he chose, which in turn 'affected [his] professional judgment'.

Paxton, who appeared in more than 90 films or television shows over four decades, most recently starred in the HBO television series Big Love about a polygamous Mormon family, and acted alongside Tom Cruise in the 2014 film Edge of Tomorrow.

For his role in Apollo 13, Paxton won a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture in 1996.
Queenslander Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced a drop in Covid cases to 16,031 new infections in the state but with 13 deaths, as changes to eligibility for booster shots were confirmed.

Ms Palaszczuk said from next Monday, Queenslanders will be able to come forward for booster jabs three months after a second shot of a Covid vaccine, rather than four months.

She said 91.76 per cent of Queenslanders had now received a first dose of vaccine and 89 per cent were now double dosed.

Ms Palaszczuk said Queenslander's QR code check-in system would not be dropped, despite calls from local mayors for it to be retired.

'We are going through a wave at the moment, it will peak in the next two weeks, and I need people to continue to check in,' she said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said from next Monday, Queenslanders will be able to come forward for booster jabs three months after a second shot of a Covid vaccine, rather than four months

Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard said of the 13 deaths, two people were in their 60s, five were in the 70s, five in their 80s, and one in their 90s.

One person was unvaccinated, one had received a single dose of vaccine, eight had received two doses and one had received three jabs.

'Were it not for widescale vaccination in Queensland today, we would not be talking about 855 people in hospital, we would be talking about thousands of people in hospital and almost certainly, our hospital system would be overwhelmed by now,' Dr Gerrard said.

He said 855 people were currently in hospital with Covid, up from 805 yesterday, with 54 people in ICU. and 22 on ventilation.

Ms Palaszczuk said the state had increased its order of rapid antigen tests from 18 million units to 23 million units.

She said one million RATs had just arrived in the state and two million more would be available in the next couple of weeks.

Ms Palaszczuk thanked Prime Minister Scott Morrison for supporting the Therapeutic Goods Administration in working with the Queensland government to make it easier for local manufacturers of RATs such as Ellume and AnteoGen to achieve accreditation of their tests.

Ms Palaszczuk urged parents to ensure their 5 to 11-year-old children get vaccinated in the next two weeks before Queensland schools resume on February 7. Pictured: A child is vaccinated at a Brisbane clinic

The Premier urged parents to ensure their 5 to 11-year-old children get vaccinated in the next two weeks before Queensland schools resume on February 7.

'We've got two weeks to continue to get our children vaccinated,' she said.

Ms Palaszczuk said a 'back-to-schools' plan will be released after a cabinet meeting next Monday but that surveillance testing of school children would not be required at this stage.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said 40 per cent of Queenslanders currently eligible for a booster had yet to come forward, and that this figure will increase as the eligibility window is reduced to three months after a second dose from Monday.

Meanwhile, Queensland doctors working on the front line of the state's COVID-19 outbreak say they're in the dark about government plans to protect them during the upcoming peak.

Another nine virus deaths were recorded on Thursday, taking Queensland's pandemic death toll to 72.

The state announced 16,812 cases yesterday, with 850 people being treated in hospital and 48 in ICU.

Chief Health Officer John Gerrard expects hospitalisations to peak in the 'low thousands' in coming weeks, but a union representing doctors in public hospitals say they haven't seen any COVID-safe workforce plans yet.

The Queensland branch of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers' Federation says the state's Industrial Relations Commission has ordered the government to share data on how many doctors have had P95 masks fit-tested, its plans for staff testing and for managing health workers during the surge.

But AMSOFQ president Dr Hau Tan says doctors are being kept in the dark about the government's plans to protect them.

Ms Palaszczuk said Queensland had increased its order of rapid antigen tests from 18 million units to 23 million units, and that two million more units would arrive in the state in the coming weeks

'Queensland Health had not complied with another QIRC recommendation to provide ...the Covid-19 workforce surge plans or Covid-19 safe workplace plans for all Hospital and Health Services,' he said in a statement.

'We also demanded that Queensland Health provide easily accessible and up-to-date information regarding Covid testing for staff ...across the state.

'Public hospital doctors have gone above and beyond for the past two years, and are already pushed to the limit.

'As doctors put themselves in harm's way to care for patients during this current Omicron wave, we need to see more from Queensland Health to protect their health and safety.'

The complaint comes as it was revealed up to 5,000 workers at the Queensland Government's headquarters in William Street, Brisbane, were told they must prove they had received a first dose of a Covid vaccine by this Sunday and a second by February 20.
The Pork Pie plotters working to oust Boris Johnson are considering publishing messages they received from party whips which they believe will prove the Tory leadership attempted to blackmail and intimidate them into submission.

The Tory rebels, who met secretly this week to plot the PM's political demise, were branded 'attention-seeking schoolchildren' by cabinet ministers after they failed - at least so far - to gather enough letters of no confidence to trigger a vote on the future of Mr Johnson's premiership.

But since the gathering, dubbed the Pork Pie Putsch - as it took place in the office of Alice Kearns MP for Melton Mowbray, the home of the pork pie - the group claim they have been the victims of political threats.

Party whips are accused of threatening to withdraw funding from their constituencies, while government aides allegedly smeared them by releasing unsubstantiated claims about their drinking habits and personal lives in the press. The claims have been denied by No 10.

It comes ahead of a crucial weekend for Mr Johnson as he 'rips up his diary' for one on one and small group sessions with 'wavering MPs' in a bid to deter leadership challenges.

Meanwhile, according to the Times, the group of Tory rebels met on Thursday to discuss their next move.

'They were comparing notes and discussing whether or not to make public texts and other evidence they have from the whips,' a source close to the group said.

The Pork Pie plotters working to oust Boris Johnson are considering publishing messages they received from party whips which they believe will prove the Tory leadership attempted to blackmail and intimidate them into submission. Pictured: PM Boris out jogging this morning

The Tory rebels, who met secretly this week to plot the PM's political demise, were branded 'attention-seeking schoolchildren' by cabinet ministers after they failed - at least so far - to gather enough letters of no confidence to trigger a vote on the future of Mr Johnson's premiership (Pictured: Alleged ringleader Dehenna Davison)

William Wragg, chair of the Commons Public Administration Committee, said he had been told of 'pressures and intimidation' being used on politicians, including party whips allegedly threatening to withdraw funding from their constituencies

The blackmail claims were supported by Tory defector Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South who sensationally crossed the aisle to Labour yesterday

Chief whip Mark Spencer (pictured) is accused of intimidating rebel MPs into supporting the PM

Partygate investigator Sue Gray 'uncovers email warning Boris Johnson's private secretary against holding drinks party at No 10 on May 20 2020 because it broke lockdown rules' Partygate investigator Sue Gray has reportedly uncovered an email warning Boris Johnson's private secretary against holding a drinks party at No 10 on May 20, 2020 because it broke lockdown rules. Ms Gray, the senior official leading an inquiry into claims of rule-busting gatherings across Government, is said to have found the email warning Mr Johnson's principal private secretary Martin Reynolds against holding the garden soiree. The message, sent by a senior official, told Mr Reynolds that the gathering 'should be cancelled because it broke the rules', according to ITV News . Mr Johnson has admitted attending the gathering in question for 25 minutes, but insisted he believed it was a work event, and that he was not warned it would be against the rules of England's first lockdown. ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston, who reported that Ms Gray had found the email, said the discovery leaves a 'huge question' hanging over Mr Johnson's claim that he was not warned the party was against the rules. Mr Peston said the senior official who sent the email told him that he 'probably' personally warned the Prime Minister against the party, 'but I honestly can't remember.' Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson's former top aide, was the first to claim that the party went ahead with the prime minister and his wife in attendance. The initial reports were confirmed when ITV news released a leaked email from Mr Reynolds inviting more than 100 staff to 'make the most of lovely weather' by attending 'socially distanced drinks' in the Downing Street garden. In a blog post, Mr Cumming wrote that Mr Reynolds 'checked with the PM whether the party should go ahead. The PM agreed it should'. Advertisement

'One member has recorded a heated conversation that they had with the chief whip.'

The material could be released to the press or the public in a move that could humiliate the PM after he denied that any of the rebels had been 'blackmailed' into supporting him.

One rebel told the Telegraph: 'We want the Chief Whip's head on a spike.'

However, a source involved in the whipping operation told the same paper that claims of threats and blackmail were 'complete bull****'.

The source added: 'Ask them for a single shred of evidence.'

It comes after the rebels were urged to report the blackmail claims to the authorities by William Wragg, chairman of the public administration committee and one of seven Tory MPs who submitted a letter of no confidence in the PM.

'The intimidation of an MP is a serious matter,' he said Thursday.

'Moreover the reports of which I'm aware would seem to constitute blackmail.

'As such it would be my general advice to colleagues to report these matters to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.'

Recalling a heated moment with a party whip after voting against the Government last year, another rebel alleged: 'They pulled me over and I told them I was voting against them.

'They got right up in my face. They told me that if you think you're getting a single f***ing penny, forget it.

'If you think a minister is coming to your patch forget it. You're done.'

The Tory plotters, who included Bishop Auckland MP Dehenna Davison, West Dorset MP Chris Loder and Totnes MP Anthony Mangnall, were said to have concluded that the Partygate row was 'terminal' for the PM and discussed sending in their letters en masse to force a contest.

But news of the plot quickly reached the ears of Tory whips who have been on red alert for signs of disloyalty.

Wavering MPs were summoned for meetings with senior party figures, with some even ushered in to see the PM.

No 10 denied claims that the PM was in tears as he pleaded with them not to finish him off.

But sources acknowledged he was in listening mode, asking potential rebels to tell him 'what I can do' to win them over.

At the same time, individual plotters were singled out for special treatment, with chief whip Mark Spencer making doorstep visits.

The Prime Minister was spotted out jogging in Westminster this morning with his dog Dilyn

The material could be released to the press or the public in a move that could humiliate the PM after he denied that any of the rebels had been 'blackmailed' into supporting him

A poll this week found that the Tories are 11 points behind Labour in crucial Red Wall seats - a dramatic turnaround from the nine-point advantage they had at the 2019 election

The dramatic intervention came as a poll suggested Mr Johnson's popularity ratings have sunk to a similar level as Jeremy Corbyn before the 2019 general election, while Rishi Sunak is being seen more favourably

William Wragg's statement on government pressure tactics against Tory MPs In recent days a number of members of parliament have faced pressures and intimidation from members of the government because of their declared or assumed desire for a vote of confidence in the party leadership of the Prime Minister. It is of course the duty of the government whips' office to secure the government's business in the House of Commons. However it is not their function to breach the ministerial code in threatening to withdraw investments from members of parliament's constituencies which are funded from the public purse. Additionally, reports to me and others of members of staff at No 10 Downing Street, special advisers, government ministers and others encouraging the publication of stories in the press seeking to embarrass those who they suspect of lacking confidence in the Prime Minister is similarly unacceptable. The intimidation of a member of parliament is a serious matter. Moreover, the reports of which I'm aware would seem to constitute blackmail. As such, it would be my general advice to colleagues to report these matters to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and they're also welcome to contact me at any time. Advertisement

MP for Bury South Christian Wakeford, a drinking pal of Miss Davison, was one of several MPs said to have been warned by whips that boundary changes to their constituencies could see them squeezed out at the next election unless they backed down.

Other blackmail claims have since been made by Mr Wakeford after he sensationally crossed the aisle yesterday.

He told BBC North West that when he previously planned to vote against the Government, he was told a new high school would not be built in his constituency.

'I was threatened that I would not get the school for Radcliffe if I did not vote in one particular way,' he said.

'This is a town that's not had a high school for the best part of ten years. How would you feel when holding back regeneration of a town for a vote? It didn't sit comfortably.'

There have been suggestions Mr Wakeford was pushed 'over the edge' to defect when he was hauled in and threatened with having the boundaries of his seat redrawn if he went against the PM.

But Mr Johnson told reporters on a visit to Taunton: 'I've seen no evidence to support any of those allegations.

'What I am focused on is what we're doing to deal with the number one priority of the British people, which is coming through Covid.'

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said Mr Wragg - who has been heavily critical of Mr Johnson and previously called for him to quit - had highlighted 'grave and shocking accusations of bullying, blackmail, and misuse of public money' that 'must be investigated thoroughly'.

Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said in the Commons chamber that he was not aware of any details, but his 'general observation' was that government members were not 'above the criminal law' and attempting to 'intimidate' an MP would be a contempt of Parliament.

A No 10 spokesman said: 'We are not aware of any evidence to support what are clearly serious allegations.

'If there is any evidence to support these claims we would look at it very carefully.'

Dehenna Davison with rescued puppy 'Carter' pictured next to Carrie Johnson with dog Dilyn and Rishi Sunak, canvasing in Bishop Auckland. She is thought to be one of the ringleaders

Some of the backbench Tory plotters include Alicia Kearns (left), who represents Melton Mowbray, and Gary Sambrook (right) from Birmingham Northfield

Mr Wakeford was welcomed by his new party leader Sir Keir Starmer in his parliamentary office last night

How could Boris Johnson be ousted by Tory MPs? Boris Johnson is under huge pressure over Partygate, with speculation that he might even opt to walk away. But barring resignation, the Tories have rules on how to oust and replace the leader. What is the mechanism for removing the Tory leader? Tory Party rules allow the MPs to force a vote of no confidence in their leader. How is that triggered? A vote is in the hands of the chairman of the Tory Party's backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady. A vote of no confidence must be held if 15 per cent of Tory MPs write to the chairman. Currently that threshold is 54 MPs. Letters are confidential unless the MP sending it makes it public. This means only Sir Graham knows how many letters there are. What happens when the threshold is reached? A secret ballot is held, with the leader technically only needing to win support from a simple majority of MPs But in reality, a solid victory is essential for them to stay in post. What happens if the leader loses? The leader is sacked if they do not win a majority of votes from MPs, and a leadership contest begins in which they cannot stand. However, when the party is in power the outgoing leader typically stay on as Prime Minister until a replacement is elected. There is no requirement for a general election to be held, unless the new PM wants to call one. Advertisement

Heavy tactics by government whips are notorious at Westminster, and allegations have surfaced during the latest furore about the behaviour of supposed rebels.

The dramatic intervention by Mr Wragg came as a poll suggested Mr Johnson's popularity ratings have sunk to a similar level as Jeremy Corbyn before the 2019 general election, while Rishi Sunak is being seen more favourably.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid conceded today that Mr Johnson has been 'damaged', despite the immediate threat receding after the defection and extraordinary attack from veteran David Davis at PMQs yesterday.

Steve Baker, one of the leading rebels against Theresa May, insisted today that he would not be 'organising' against Mr Johnson - but said he thought it looks like 'checkmate'.

He told the BBC's Political Thinking podcast: 'Honestly, at the moment, I'm looking to the cabinet for leadership.

'At the moment, I'm afraid it does look like checkmate - but whether he can save himself, we'll see'.

It comes as it was revealed Boris Johnson will hold a series of intensive meetings with Tory MPs this weekend in an attempt to head off the threat of a leadership challenge.

Whitehall sources said the Prime Minister had torn up his diary to talk with wobbling MPs ahead of the expected publication next week of the official inquiry into the 'Partygate' row by Whitehall ethics chief Sue Gray.

Some MPs will be seen one to one while others will be asked to discuss their concerns with the PM in small groups.

Sources believe similar meetings earlier this week helped to defuse the threat of the 'Pork Pie Plot' coup by Red Wall MPs.

Mr Johnson will urge MPs to 'look at the bigger picture', most notably the success of his strategy for dealing with the emergence of the Omicron strain, which is seeing the UK emerge from Covid restrictions faster than other European countries.

But one senior Tory said the earlier sessions were not a complete success, with the PM unwilling to guarantee no more damaging revelations will come out.

The source said Mr Johnson had pleaded with Lee Anderson, MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, to retract a letter of no confidence sent to Tory shop steward Sir Graham Brady, only for Mr Anderson to refuse.

Whitehall sources said the Prime Minister had torn up his diary to talk with wobbling MPs ahead of the expected publication next week of the official inquiry into the 'Partygate' row by Whitehall ethics chief Sue Gray (Pictured: The PM at PMQs on Wednesday)

The source added that the PM became 'very emotional' during the meeting  a version of events denied by No 10.

Mr Anderson, a former Labour councillor, declined to say yesterday whether he had submitted a letter or turned down a request from the PM.

But another Tory MP said reports claiming rebels were withdrawing their letters were 'bull****'.

Bishop Auckland MP Dehenna Davison, identified by Tory whips as a ringleader of the Pork Pie Plot, denied this yesterday  but did not voice support for Mr Johnson.

She told the Northern Echo newspaper: 'I am incredibly angry about the Downing Street parties and the Prime Minister's response.

'It will be for the Prime Minister himself, or the Conservative Party collectively, to decide the Prime Minister's future.

'Of course, I have had a number of conversations with colleagues about this, as is the case with every political development, be it policy-based or otherwise, but to suggest I'm leading a coup is bonkers.'

Mr Johnson refused to comment on the plotting against him yesterday during a brief question and answer session with journalists while on a visit to a health centre in Taunton, Somerset.

The official inquiry into Partygate, led by Whitehall ethics chief Sue Gray (pictured) is expected to be published next week

He said his 'No 1 priority' was 'looking at the state of our country as we come out of Covid', adding: 'We hope that we're now on a route map back to complete normality.'

Mr Johnson's former adviser Dominic Cummings claimed yesterday that Miss Gray was already uncovering emails showing he was telling the truth about the parties and No 10 was 'lying'.

But Health Secretary Sajid Javid urged MPs and the public to wait for the publication of the report.

He said people were 'right to be angry' over the allegations of lockdown-busting events at No 10, but added that he believed the PM was safe in his job.

However, Brexiteer Steve Baker, who helped engineer Theresa May's downfall, said the situation 'does look like checkmate' for Mr Johnson.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak, a frontrunner for Mr Johnson's job should the PM be forced out, refused to be drawn on the subject during a visit to Stoke, insisting he and the Government were focused on delivering their 'levelling-up' agenda.
A man and woman are in custody following chaotic scenes outside a shopping centre in Melbourne's north-west.

Shocking footage captured the moment an alleged stolen car smashed into two police vehicles and broke a detective's leg in the car park of the centre on Louis Street in Airport West on Thursday.

Police were initially called to the scene after reports of a suspicious vehicle.

The situation quickly escalated, with vision showing the vehicle reversing away from a group of officers.

The alleged offenders, who had been deliberately boxed in by a third patrol car, then drove down a ramp before repeatedly ramming the police vehicles in a desperate bid to escape.

Police were initially called to the scene in Melbourne's north-west on Thursday after reports of a suspicious vehicle (pictured, an injured officer at the scene with a broken leg)

Seconds later, police smashed in the windows of the car in front of shocked onlookers and arrested the pair, who are also suspected of recent smash-grab burglaries in Melbourne suburbs Glenroy, Fawkner and Altona North.

'I saw the drama and went running across,' one witness told 7 News.

The man also felt the incident was similar to the Bourke St massacre in Melbourne's CBD in January of 2017, where James Gargasoulas killed six people and injured 27 others.

'Kids and mothers were walking out and to see this scene,' he added.

'It's pretty scary for everyone.'

In terrifying scenes, the alleged offenders drove down a ramp (pictured) before repeatedly ramming two police vehicles in a desperate bid to escape

Police arrested a man and woman at the scene, with the pair also believed to be involved in a number of recent burglaries in Melbourne

Another witness said the incident 'felt like a movie.'

An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman confirmed paramedics were called to the incident about 11.50am on Thursday.

'Paramedics treated two people and they have both been taken to hospital in a stable condition,' she said.
The chief executive of the UKs largest cat charity has stepped down after it emerged its chairman was allegedly keeping 18 cats in her three-bedroom house.

The number of cats Linda Upson was looking after had reportedly left other staff despairing, fearful about how the charity might be viewed and nervous about using her as a spokesperson.

Interim chief executive Charles Darley, who has left just three months into a 12-month contract, claimed Miss Upson had said she didnt think it was a problem when confronted with the concerns.

Miss Upson had said she didnt think it was a problem when confronted with the concerns

The charity  Cats Protection  had itself done research into multi-cat households contained in too-little space in the past, finding the confinement could cause the animals considerable stress.

Mr Darley said he decided to step down after an internal investigation concluded Miss Upson should keep her position  only asking her to assure them she would not house any more of the pets.

Cats Protection  which has its national adoption centre in Haywards Heath, West Sussex  reportedly consulted five other animal welfare charities and a cats home charity to ascertain whether she was in breach of official guidance from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

These guidelines advise that cats must have enough space so that they can get away from one another if they want to.

All those consulted said they would be unable to defend keeping such a large number of cats in a three-bedroom house but the investigations decision to let Miss Upson retain her role was made before the responses were received, according to Mr Darley.

Interim chief executive Charles Darley has left just three months into a 12-month contract

Ive been in and out of more than a dozen charities, and Ive never encountered a position like this before, he told The Daily Telegraph.

Many of the [trustees] are passionate cat lovers, so they may see this behaviour through a different lens from people who love cats but dont love them in quite the same way.

A spokesman for Cats Protection said the chairman of trustees was a volunteer fosterer for the charity and had undergone regular training.

They said all six foster cats in her care were kept in a clean and separate area from her pets and there were no welfare issues of concern.

All were happy, healthy and had sufficient resources for them to express their natural behaviour, they added.
A 17-year-old boy has been charged with murder after another teenager died during a street fight on Queensland's Sunshine Coast last night.

Emergency services were called to a house in Iluka Avenue, Buddina at around 11.20pm on Thursday night to find a 16-year-old boy with a life-threatening-wound.

Despite the efforts of emergency services, the boy - now identified as Balin Stewart - died at the scene.

A 17-year-old boy was immediately taken into custody by police for questioning.

It's believed the father of the victim witnessed the attack.

Balin Stewart, 16-year-old, sustained a stab wound that was 'not survivable' at Buddina on Queensland's Sunshine Coast last night, police said

On Friday morning Detective Senior Sergeant Phil Hurst of Maroochydore police said the 16-year-old had sustained knife injuries that 'were not survivable'.

'The weapon is alleged to be a knife, and it caused a wound to the torso of the victim,' Det Snr Sgt Hurst said.

'The family is obviously traumatised because they became aware of the incident shortly after,' he said.

'Family members and members of the public [were] trying to revive and perform CPR on the victim.

'When police arrived, they took over and then ambulance officers arrived and started doing CPR but unfortunately, they were unable to revive him.'

Police have appealed for any witnesses to the fight, or anyone with CCTV footage of the area, to get in contact.

A close friend of the 16-year-old, Ashah Brown, told reporters at the scene of the incident on Friday morning that a dispute about an ex-girlfriend may have been the cause of the fight.

'Ive known him for years, hes such a nice kid. He was so nice and everyone loved him and no one had no reason not to like him, Ms Brown told media.

'He was just that good of a person.'

'Loved you Balin, rest easy brother,' a friend wrote on Mr Stewart's Instagram page, among other tributes to the teenager.

The 17-year-old boy was charged this morning.

His matter was mentioned in Maroochydore Magistrates Court on Friday and adjourned for a committal mention on March 30.
Advertisement

Britain has bought a fleet of fifty top-of-the-range Apache attack helicopters worth hundreds of millions from America in a move that will bolster the UK's military strength.

The Apache AH-64E Version 6 aircraft, that cost 412million, replaced the Apache Mk.1, which entered service in 2001.

The British Army has been using the Apache capability since 2005, with the attack helicopters used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. They were also flown by Prince Harry on training missions when he served in the Army.

Boasting a Rolls Royce engine, the new Apache attack helicopters have a top speed of 186mph and can detect 256 potential targets at once up to 10 miles away and prioritise threats in seconds.

It carries a mix of weapons including a 30mm chain gun, 70mm rockets and Hellfire missiles to provide choice for the commander and flexibility during the mission.

They were built by Boeing and feature new rotor blades and drivetrain to improve flying performance as well as improved sights, sensors and communications systems to share data with other helicopters.

Fourteen of the AH-64E Apache aircraft were delivered to Wattisham Flying Station, Suffolk, in the last three months from November, with 36 more due to arrive by summer 2024.

One of the army's fifty new Apache AH-64E attack helicopters at Wattisham Flying Station in Suffolk on January 20

Communications specialist Lance Corporal Dylan Jones programmes aircraft's computer systems with information needed to carry out missions

One of the most advanced attack helicopters anywhere in the world, the Apache AH-64E has improved weaponry, communications and threat-detection and a top speed of 300kmh

Apache AH-64E Attack Helicopters being off-loaded from Boeing C17 Globemaster at RAF Brize Norton after flying in from Kansas City

The total cost of the full fleet of Apache helicopters, a purchase from the United States, was $560million (412million)

The Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Sir Chris Tickell in the back seat of the army's new Apache AH-64E attack helicopter at Wattisham Flying Station, Suffolk

Each attack helicopter has a chain gun that holds 1,200 rounds of 30mm ammunition for maximum destructive capability

Hellfire missiles, rockets and a Rolls Royce engine: The Apache AH-64E attack specifications Apache AH-64E specifications Max speed 186mph Missiles 16 x Hellfire missiles Rockets 76 x Hydra 70 Rockets Chain gun 1,200 x 30mm cannon rounds Engine 2 x 850 SHP Rolls Royce RTM-322 Max weight 7,746kg Radius of action 160NM (nautical miles) Height 4.9 metres Length 17.57 metres Main rotor diameter 14.63 metres In service date 2022 Crew 2 Source: British Army Advertisement

Lieutenant Colonel Simon Wilsey is the Commanding Officer of 3 Regiment Army Air Corps, the first unit to field the AH-64E.

He said: 'The AH-64E Apache is a 21st Century attack helicopter that is more lethal, agile, survivable and integrated and will enhance the way the Army fights.

'It is a central part of the British Army's warfighting capability.

'What is key to the AH-64E's improved capabilities is its ability to integrate with other ground and air assets, allowing us to share information so that we can find and strike the enemy before our forces are targeted themselves.

'Everyone in the regiment  aircrew, engineers and groundcrew - is proud and excited to be at the forefront of bringing AH-64E into service.

'We have invested in the training of our people to maximise what we can do with such an advanced aircraft.'

Warrant Officer Class 2 'O', an experienced pilot who is his squadron's flying instructor, said: 'I'm very excited about flying the AH-64E. It is more agile, faster, more powerful and it is going to allow us to support ground forces and other air assets much better.

'The interoperability of this Apache is vastly improved. We have better communications systems, better sensors, the fire control radar has been enhanced, we've got lots more radios and Link 16, which allows us to share data quicker and with higher fidelity to ground forces, manned or unmanned aircraft.'

Communications specialist Lance Corporal Dylan Jones programmes aircraft's computer systems with information needed to carry out missions.

'The new mission planning software on the AH-64E is far superior,' he said. 'It gives us a lot more accuracy in mission planning and gives the aircraft a lot more information, which makes it easier for aircrew to fly and fight the aircraft.

Meanwhile, defence procurement minister Jeremy Quin said the 'impressive' fleet would create hundreds of jobs as well as sustain the Army's 'battle-winning capabilities'.

A 20-year agreement was signed with Boeing Defence UK to maintain and support the new fleet.

The first period of the contract, to July 2025 with 287 million confirmed, will create more than 200 jobs in the UK, including 165 for the Army Aviation Centre at Middle Wallop, Hampshire, and 45 at Wattisham Flying Station.

Prince Harry served as an Apache Helicopter Pilot/Gunner with 662 Sqd Army Air Corps, from September 2012 for four months until January 2013. He flew the Apache Mk.1, which entered service in 2001. (Pictured at Camp Bastion, southern Afghanistan, in 2012 where Prince Harry served)

Prince Harry examines the 30mm cannon of an Apache helicopter with a member of his squadron at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, in 2012

They were built by Boeing and feature new rotor blades and drivetrain to improve flying performance as well as improved sights, sensors and communications systems to share data with other helicopters

The Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Sir Chris Tickell (left) viewing the army's new Apache AH-64E attack helicopter at Wattisham Flying Station, Suffolk

Minister for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quinn MP arrives to view the army's new Apache AH-64E attack helicopter at Wattisham Flying Station, Suffolk

What are the capabilities of the Apache AH-64E attack helicopter? The first period of the contract, to July 2025 with 287 million confirmed, will create more than 200 jobs in the UK, including 165 for the Army Aviation Centre at Middle Wallop, Hampshire, and 45 at Wattisham Flying Station The Apache AH-64E attack helicopter is designed to find and destroy air defence units, tanks and armoured vehicles. However, it is also capable of a wide range of battlefield tasks that include Intelligence, Surveillance Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR), Escort/Force Protection and Command and Control (C2). It can operate in all weathers, day or night and has significantly enhanced the Army's Air Manoeuvre capability. Using the distinctive Longbow radar located above the main rotor blades, the Apache can detect and classify up to 256 potential targets, display 128 of these to the crew and prioritise the top 16 threats, all in a matter of seconds. It carries a mix of weapons that include a 30mm chain gun, 70mm rockets and Hellfire missiles to provide choice for the commander and flexibility during the mission. In addition to the Longbow radar, the aircraft is equipped with optical and thermal imaging sights that are used to visually identify potential targets and pilot the aircraft at night and in low visibility conditions. Range and endurance can be increased using wing-mounted fuel tanks to provide a more persistent presence across a wider area. To increase its survivability, the Apache is fitted with a state of the art, fully integrated Defensive Aid Suite to protect the aircraft and crew. Source: British Army Advertisement

The first two new AH-64Es were delivered to the British Army from the US Government and arrived at Wattisham Flying Station on 26 Nov 20

Aviation Technicians from 7 Aviation Support Battalion and the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (7 Avn Spt Bn REME) will maintain and service the new aircraft

Flown by the Army Air Corps and forming a crucial component of the 1st Aviation Brigade, the twin-engine Apache is a tandem-seat aerial weapons platform designed to accomplish a variety of missions

Two new British Army Apache AH-64E Attack Helicopters being off-loaded from Boeing C17 Globemaster at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, after flying in from Kansas City, America
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has thrown his support behind Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan's decision to indefinitely enforce hardline border measures.

Mr McGowan sensationally backed down on his promise to reopen the state to the rest of the country on February 5, with no date set on when free travel to WA would resume.

In a late-night press conference on Thursday, Mr McGowan said WA reopening as planned on February 5 would be 'reckless and irresponsible' given the large amount of Covid-19 cases in the eastern states.

Mr Albanese said while some may have been disappointed by the border decision, the WA premier made the right call.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese pictured with his partner Jodie Haynon. He has thrown his support behind Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan's move to keep his state border shut indefinitely

'I told (Mark McGowan on Thursday night) I respected and supported the decision,' Mr Albanese said in Sydney.

'People were keen to visit loved ones, but the first priority of Mark McGowan has been to keep WA safe. People in WA enjoy life almost as normal, certainly compared with NSW.'

Mr McGowan said the border delay would allow for more people to receive booster doses and for children to get fully vaccinated against Covid.

He initially said the state would reopen the border at 90 per cent fully vaccinated. WA is now at 89 per cent.

Mr Albanese said the booster rollout would be critical to providing COVID protection.

'Mark McGowan has done the right thing by WA which is keeping their health ok, which is a precondition for keeping their economy ok,' he said.

Mr McGowan sensationally backed down on his promise to reopen the state to the rest of the country on February 5

The border decision has meant neither the opposition leader or Prime Minister Scott Morrison would be able to get into WA for campaigning ahead of the federal election, due to be held by May 21 at the latest.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said while he could understand the decision made by the west, more certainty was needed for residents going forward.

'(West Australians) would be asking, 'If not now, when?'' Mr Frydenberg told the Seven Network on Friday.

Poll DO YOU AGREE WITH MCGOWAN'S DECISION? Yes No DO YOU AGREE WITH MCGOWAN'S DECISION? Yes 1279 votes

No 3561 votes Now share your opinion





'This is a decision that the Western Australian government themselves have taken, and one for them to explain, but obviously people in WA would be disappointed with the decision.'

Defence Minister Peter Dutton said the federal government would provide support to WA in the wake of the state's decision to hold off on reopening its border.

'We'll provide whatever support required to WA, we want to see Australia get through this,' Mr Dutton told the Nine Network.

'At the moment, the most important thing is to see WA through to the other side because people are separated from their families.'

The decision to hold off reopening has been slammed by the president of the Australian Medical Association Dr Omar Khorshid.

'Gutted ... seems Mark McGowan is a one-trick pony when it comes to COVID-19,' he said on Twitter.

'This decision should be acknowledged as a failure by the WA government to prepare and a broken promise.'

Dr Khorshid said WA could not stick its head in the sand, with an outbreak in the state inevitable.

The state will instead open in stages with a expanded list of exemption criteria (pictured)

It comes after another deadly day of the pandemic across the country, with NSW recording their highest daily death toll since the pandemic began.

There were 46 deaths reported in NSW, which included seven deaths that were historical cases.

Victoria had 20 fatalities on Friday, while Tasmania also recorded a new death, the state's first since April 2020.

Across the country, there were 25,168 cases in NSW, 18167 in Victoria and 866 in Tasmania.
A man who shot a father-of-six in the head with a single barrel shotgun in a dispute over dodgy DJ gear sold on Gumtree has been sentenced to a non-parole period of just six years.

With time already served, Tony Panagiotou, 59, will likely be back on the streets in a little over three years.

The killer had sobbed to police, 'I don't deserve to live ... ... I took a man's life' in the hours after he shot his victim dead.

Duane Hutchings (above), a father of six, was shot in the head and when he lay dying on his friend's floor, George Panagiotou refused the woman permission to call an ambulance

Police outside the southeastern Melbourne home where Tony Panagiotou armed with a shotgun up his jumper and young men with batons stormed the premises

Johnny Panagiotou pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and intentionally cause injury but got off with a three-year community correction order

Panagiotou had loaded and cocked a sawn-off shotgun and hidden it under his jumper before following his two sons and four other young men armed with batons into a home at 5am on February 9, 2019.

Panagiotou and his sons George and Johnny had entered the Oakleigh East home in southeastern Melbourne to retrieve sound gear belonging to a business run by the brothers.

The mobile DJ equipment had been hired by a woman living at the address who was a friend of 46-year-old Duane Hutchings.

Described as 'a gentle and adoring' father, Mr Hutchings had been to his grandfather's funeral the day before and was visiting the woman at Oakleigh East at the time of the armed home invasion by the Panagiotous.

The woman had hired the sound equipment twice, using fake identification, and then allegedly advertised the gear for sale on Gumtree.

When the seven males stormed the home, the young men began beating Mr Hutchings with batons.

Supreme Court of Victoria Justice Lex Lasry heard Tony Panagiotou watched his sons and the four other men attack before raising his shotgun and discharging the weapon just 20cm from Mr Hutchings' head.

The court was told the woman begged George Panagiotou, then aged 22, to be able to call an ambulance for her dying friend, but he denied her plea while his brother Johnny and the armed men unplugged the DJ equipment and fled.

Panagiotou Snr was originally charged with murder, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Tony Panagiotou (pink shirt, above left) hid a cocked sawn-off shotgun up his jumper as he followed his two sons and four men armed with batons into the house where he shot Duane Hutchings (above, right)

On Friday, Justice Lasry sentenced him to a maximum of nine years behind bars.

In handing down the sentence, Justice Lasry accepted the killer was otherwise a person of good character, who was sorry for what he had done.

Justice Lasry further accepted that Panagiotou Snr had good prospects of rehabilitation and that he had learnt his lesson.

'Surely this incident will underline to you the tragic stupidity of what you have done and that it is not to be repeated,' he said.

Justice Lasry warned Panagiotou Snr that it was a 'very bad time' to be in prison due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Panagiotou Snr's barrister had argued his client had not intended to shoot Mr Hutchings and it was an 'accidental' shooting.

At a pre-sentence hearing last month, Mr Hutchings' family members described their pain and loss since his 'nonsensical' death.

The dead man's aunt, Tina Hutchings, said the actions of Panagiotou Snr had demonstrated to his sons that 'vigilantism is valiant'.

She said she was filled with 'overwhelming sadness' that her nephew had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

'For almost three years I have wondered about the man who shot my nephew in the back of the head,' Tina Hutchings said.

'What kind of life lessons did he give his sons to result in such a callous act?'

Duane Hutchings (above) who had six children was a 'gentle and adoring' father who was innocently visiting a friend when a violent home invasion turned fatal

Forensic police at Oakleigh East in Melbourne after three members of the Panagiotou family stormed the home and Duane Hutchings was shot dead at point blank range

'That he died over some mobile DJ equipment he had nothing to do with is nonsensical.'

Mr Hutchings' mother, Christine, said Duane had been a devoted son who left behind three sons and three daughters he adored and she had 'truly felt what agony is' when police knocked on her door in 2019.

'I felt my life's blood draining away. Since that moment, the world has never been the same,' she said.

The court heard Tony, George and Johnny Panagiotou men had reported the stolen DJ equipment to police, who told them not to attend the Oakleigh East address.

Panagiotou Snr's barrister Malcolm Thomas said his client had only obtained the shotgun three weeks earlier and had himself been the victim of a home invasion years earlier.

Mr Thomas said Panagiotou had experienced shame and 'absolute self-loathing' since the fatal shooting.

In an interview with police recorded after his arrest, he said, 'I'm not a good person. Look what I've done.'

George Panagiotou has been jailed for a maximum two years and three months' jail, with a non-parole period of 12 months.

Johnny Panagiotou, aged 18 at the time of the attack, was sentenced to a three-year community correction order after pleading guilty to aggravated burglary and intentionally cause injury.
Sage scientists have admitted their dire predictions of soaring Covid hospitalisations have 'not been seen'  as it was revealed that almost two-thirds of London patients with the virus were admitted for another reason.

The Government's scientific advisers revealed that the high levels of Omicron hospitalisations modelled last month have not emerged.

It came as one university professor warned of Britons becoming unhealthily 'obsessed' with case numbers.

Among 2,962 people in hospital beds in the capital who were confirmed to have Covid on January 18, 60 per cent were primarily admitted for a separate, unrelated problem.

As recently as December 23, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned that, based on modelling, hospitalisations could peak at between 3,000 and 10,000 a day

In the East Midlands, just 533 (29 per cent) of the 1,817 people included in coronavirus hospital data were being treated primarily for the virus.

Across England as a whole, almost 48 per cent of those in hospital with coronavirus were taken there to get treatment for something else.

The figures show large numbers of people are entering hospital only with Covid  and not because of it.

As recently as December 23, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned that, based on modelling, hospitalisations could peak at between 3,000 and 10,000 a day. But the highest number of daily hospitalisations was 2,605 on December 29  and the latest figures reveal they have dropped to 1,905.

At Sage's most recent meeting last week, the group acknowledged the anticipated surge in admissions 'has not been seen so far'.

Among 2,962 people in hospital beds in the capital who were confirmed to have Covid on January 18, 60 per cent were primarily admitted for a separate, unrelated problem

There were 107,364 new Covid cases reported across the UK yesterday, which is down from a 218,724 high on January 4

The panel said this may be due to higher vaccine levels of protection against hospitalisation, slower waning of vaccine protection than expected, and 'precautionary behaviours' in vulnerable people. However, advisers added that there was still 'uncertainty about what may happen to hospital admissions over the coming weeks', with case rates still high.

There were 107,364 new Covid cases reported across the UK yesterday, which is down from a 218,724 high on January 4.

A further 1,794 have been admitted to hospitals in England with Covid, taking the total number of Covid patients in hospital to 15,302.

This is down from 15,742 a day earlier. There are now 573 Covid patients on ventilators in England, which is down from 797 on January 4. Another 330 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test.

However the rate of new cases among young schoolchildren in England has jumped sharply to a record high, figures show.

A total of 1,935 cases per 100,000 five to nine-year-olds was recorded in the seven days to January 16  up week-on-week from 1,372.

Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology at University College London, told The Daily Telegraph: 'Part of the transition out of the pandemic is stopping people feeling so obsessed by case numbers and hospitalisations, because it's not entirely healthy. We're all a bit addicted to it.'
The growing rise of e-commerce and package delivery worldwide necessitates the development of new solutions to meet customers' demands for more and faster deliveries. Fresh driverless air and ground vehicles are being developed and tested to deliver goods and services in retail, grocery, and healthcare.

Most importantly, setting clear sustainability targets that incorporate a more environmentally-friendly last mile is a vital step in combating climate change. Companies like Smartroutes promote sustainability through their delivery management software.

Last-mile is the ugliest part of the supply chain

Customer expectations regarding their delivery experiences have transformed the way firms approach their delivery and fulfillment operations. Customers want full visibility on their orders as they make their way to them, they want super-fast delivery and they want it for free.

While meeting these expanding expectations is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses, improving route optimization and driving long-term, sustainable growth is critical.

What exactly is the last mile problem?

The primary concern in the final mile is the expense. Because the last mile accounts for 50% of overall transportation expenses, shipping companies must impose surcharges. Simultaneously, shippers must pass on some of the delivery costs to customers, a strategy that may jeopardize their appeal in the massive and competitive retail and eCommerce marketplaces.

Challenges faced by last-mile logistics:

Increasing supply chain visibility and data

This critical component of any delivery operation is current data on the exact location of orders and related inventory. It is also the number of open orders from each eCommerce site, the corresponding internal processes, and the internal or external fleets available to make the deliveries.

Businesses will get critical insights into optimizing delivery operations by having data on the delivery flow and consumer data. These advancements will allow organizations to provide the speed, flexibility, and convenience that their customers expect.

Multi-fleet management and crowdsourced fleet management

Businesses that rely on fleets other than their own confront a distinct set of issues that must be addressed. This is especially important given that external delivery employees are the ones that make the vital final mile contact with customers.

Businesses that use several crowdsourced fleets must discover ways to keep complete control over the entire delivery process to meet their business objectives for branding and quality of service. Only by maintaining this level of control will they meet and surpass their customers' delivery expectations.

Creating and maintaining numerous delivery models while keeping costs under control

While delivery companies must improve their customers' delivery experiences, they must also cut related expenses to retain a good ROI. While scaling and expanding to offer a range of delivery models (scheduled, on-demand, etc.) causes a slew of issues throughout the delivery ecosystem.

Taking delivery management seriously

To enable cost-effective same-day delivery, one option is Continuous Delivery, that is the capacity to constantly add parcel collections and deliveries to a driver's route throughout the day. For example, a driver might begin their day by picking up 16 packages at a local fashion store, then deliver 10 parcels to local clients before picking up an extra 8 packages at a local general retail store.

This continuous strategy will increase route density, improve fleet utilization, and lower delivery costs. Carriers must utilize four critical characteristics to allow Continuous Delivery and meet consumer demand for faster, more flexible delivery:

Advance Forecasting:

Intelligent algorithms are utilized to anticipate collection and delivery locations and order time. These projected orders are fed into the route optimization engine, which uses them to enhance driver response times, boost collections and deliveries on each route, and lower transportation costs.

Delivery Optimization:

Dynamic route optimization is used to optimize and re-optimize routes throughout the day to respond to and arrange incoming collections and deliveries across the network promptly and efficiently. This keeps drivers on a more efficient path while also allowing them to adapt quickly to changes during the day by exploiting real-time data.

Insightful observations:

Machine learning and sophisticated analytics skills will be used to assess delivery performance and suggest possibilities to improve route density and delivery efficiency. These can include extra features that provide merchants with enhanced transparency over the end-to-end delivery process, allowing them to monitor carrier performance and choose the best delivery choice among their possibilities.

Real-Time Tracking:

Customers have gained visibility and control over the end-to-end delivery experience by using real-time tracking GPS breadcrumbs and scan events. This includes real-time tracking and tracing, delivery notifications, adjustable delivery windows, and direct connection with the delivery driver or customer service representative. These real-time customer updates, along with all real-time data updates, are then pushed back into the route optimization engine.

Autonomous Vehicles and Drone Deliveries:

Last-mile delivery and logistics solutions can be extremely useful in enabling future-ready and revolutionary technology. Smart firms have already begun testing self-driving vehicles by delivering food on college campuses.

Also, fast-food companies use drone technology to provide food to customers through their balconies and windows. It won't be long before robot experiments are launched as well.

Improving Delivery Management:

Delivery management is all about process optimization, whether you're a tiny business just getting started or a multinational conglomerate. Delivery operations continuously attempt to reduce costs by completing more deliveries with fewer resources (person-hours, cars, fuel) while still providing excellent customer service. Delivery managers use various tools and tactics to improve their KPIs and scale up their operations.

1. Improve your route planning:

Route optimization is an essential aspect of delivery management. You can send items quickly and affordably if you have the correct technology in place to find the most efficient route. With the help of delivery management software you can plan your journeys fast and effortlessly.

2. Automated dispatch:

Running a large-scale, on-demand delivery service necessitates some degree of automation of the dispatching process. Unlike planned deliveries, which can benefit from forward-thinking route optimization, on-demand firms must be prepared to dispatch fresh orders on the fly.

Automating dispatch frees up a delivery manager's valuable time, allowing them to focus on addressing exceptions and assuring customer satisfaction.

3. Use Route Management Software:

The most incredible method to improve the efficiency of your delivery operations is to employ route management software. This program includes the capabilities you need to streamline your deliveries and optimize the delivery path. This technique ensures that deliveries are completed on time and allows you to plan the route to save fuel and time.

You no longer have to go back and forth to accomplish your deliveries by coordinating the delivery depending on a specified area. You can get real-time information on route optimization software of traffic statistics and road incidents, allowing you to plan an alternate route while you drive.

4. Reducing liability expenses:

By tracking the parameters of your fleet and the conduct of your drivers, businesses may typically cut insurance prices by sending this data to their brokers.

5. Communication within the team and with customers:

The dispatchers would assign jobs to the drivers, who would then complete them. However, in the real world, it is vital to foster fluid communication among team members. When a driver is having trouble finding a dropoff location or contacting a customer, the first call they normally make is to their dispatcher for assistance. This instruction is an essential aspect of the delivery management process.

Key Takeaways:

In this article, we have discussed the last mile problem and the challenges faced by last-mile logistics. Then we saw why we should take delivery management seriously and improve the delivery management system.
Ministers have invested 100million in a pioneering electric car battery factory that will turbocharge Britain's push to go green.

Britishvolt's 3.8billion plant in Blyth, Northumberland, will create 8,000 jobs in the North East in a boost for Government pledges to 'level up' the regions and kick off an industrial revolution.

The site will be one of the biggest 'gigafactories' in Europe, and will make enough cells annually for more than 300,000 electric vehicle battery packs.

Britishvolt's 3.8billion plant (pictured: impression picture of the plant) will create 8,000 jobs in the North East in a boost for Government pledges to 'level up' the regions

Ministers have invested 100million in the pioneering electric car battery factory (pictured: artist's impression of the plant) in Blyth, Northumberland

The site (impression shot pictured) will be one of the biggest 'gigafactories' in Europe, and will make enough cells annually for more than 300,000 electric vehicle battery packs

It is due to open by early 2024, having gained planning permission last year. Once completed, the site will be the fourth biggest building in the UK. Pictured: Artist impression of the plant

It is due to open by early 2024, having gained planning permission last year. Once completed, the site will be the fourth biggest building in the UK.

The project promises to revitalise the country's struggling car industry as companies rush to design and build electric vehicles ahead of a 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel motors.

In addition to Government funding  thought to total 100million through a grant from the Automotive Transformation Fund  Britishvolt, launched in 2019, has clinched a further 1.7billion from two of the UK's biggest companies, warehouse group Tritax and financial giant Abrdn.
Western Australia is the only state where unemployment has halved since the pre-Covid era thanks to China's strong demand for iron ore.

As other states stack on debt, Premier Mark McGowan's government is forecasting a string of budget surpluses.

Adding to that, iron ore prices are recovering again, as China builds more transport infrastructure, guaranteeing strong demand for the steel-making commodity from WA's Pilbara region.

Hours before Mr McGowan reneged on the promise of a February 5 border reopening, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed Western Australia had the nation's lowest unemployment rate of 3.4 per cent in December, down from an already-low very low 3.8 per cent in November.

Western Australia is the only state where unemployment has halved since the pre-Covid era thanks to China's strong demand for iron ore. The jobless rate was 3.4 per cent in December - half the 6.8 per cent level of January 2019

The jobless level is now only half the 6.8 per cent rate of January 2019, a year before the first case of Covid came to Australia.

WA's unemployment well below the national average of 4.2 per cent - itself the lowest since August 2008.

Unlike the federal government and other states, Western Australia is also forecasting a string of budget surpluses out to 2025.

The state is forecasting a general government surplus of $5.6billion for 2020-21, up from $3.1billion predicted before the March 2021 election that saw Labor win 53 out of 59 lower house seats for Australia's biggest-ever landslide.

A surplus of $2.8billion is forecast for 2021-22.

The healthy government revenue is based on historically strong iron ore prices.

While iron ore prices have retreated since July, from a record high of $US224 a tonne, they have recovered since sinking to $US83 a tonne in November, now being worth $US129 a tonne.

China in late 2021 cut back on steel production to meet climate change targets but it is now ramping up the building of transport infrastructure projects, to the tune of 3trillion yuan ($A655billion).

As other states stack on debt, Premier Mark McGowan's government is forecasting a string of budget surpluses

This would offset the effects of apartment building giant Evergrande's collapse.

In 2020-21, WA received $11.3billion in iron ore royalties but this is expected to decline to $9.2billion in 2021-22.

Nonetheless, the state's budget forecasts are based on iron ore price of $US121.30 a tonne this financial year, which was predicted to fall back to the long-run average of $US66 a tonne in coming years.

With a health set of unemployment and iron ore royalty figures, Mr McGowan suggested a surge in Omicron cases would jeoparise the economy.

Adding to that, iron ore prices are recovering again, as China builds more transport infrastructure, guaranteeing strong demand for the steel-making commodity from WA's Pilbara region (pictured is subway station entrance in a field at Hangzhou)

'It would cause a surge in cases, a surge in hospitalisations and result in thousands of people not being able to work or go to school,' he said.

'And we know that bad health outcomes lead to economic pain.'

Being more reliant on mining than tourism for its revenue, the WA government is particularly concerned about Covid spreading in remote Indigenous communities.

There are also concerns the health system may not be able to cope with a surge in cases should the hard border be dismantled.

Broome Hospital, in the state's Kimberley region, has apparently run out of essential medical supplies, with The Australian highlighting the case an an example of a health system that is not ready - even two years into the pandemic.
Business giants began calling staff back to offices yesterday after Boris Johnson scrapped work-from-home guidance.

Large banks, advertising firms and insurers announced plans to return to the office  although most said flexible working arrangements would remain in place.

Big Four accountancy firm KPMG said it welcomed the end of the Government guidance and told staff in England to come into the office at least two days a week.

Investment bank Citi sent a note to staff highlighting the benefits of office working, including that they are better able to generate the energy and collaborative spirit it thrives on.

It told workers to return to their desks for at least three days a week while taking regular tests.

HSBC told the Daily Mail that its staff have begun returning to the office as of yesterday

HSBC said its staff started returning to the office yesterday, while Standard Chartered asked employees to come in from Monday. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs said they also plan to resume office working.

Havas, a French advertising agency with 11,500 staff worldwide, told the BBC it would fully reopen its London HQ from Monday. Chris Hirst, of Havas, told Radio 4s Today programme: Many of our employees really do want to come back, but there are some people who are nervous. We will be talking to those people individually and finding solutions that work for them.

Insurance firm Zurich said it was excited to welcome staff back but most would continue on a hybrid basis.

The announcements came as hospitality bosses highlighted the devastating impact working from home had on city centre pubs, restaurants, cafes and shops.

Greater Manchesters night-time economy adviser Sacha Lord said high streets have severely lacked much-needed footfall.

And UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said the sector needs the support of communities more than ever.

The removal of working from home guidance in England is a huge boost for hospitality operators, as they started 2022 low on cash after a second cancelled Christmas, deep in debt after two years of restricted trading, and facing soaring costs on so many fronts, she added.
Shocking video captured the moment an Oklahoma driver stood in a crowded intersection and fired his gun six times at another car as the other driver fled for his life after an argument.

Brian Chintharsy, 30, was arrested Sunday after video of last Friday's disturbing road rage incident in south Tulsa went viral.

Chintharsy can be seen on video whipping out a gun and holding it with both hands at 11th Street and Sheridan Road at around 5 pm before firing six shots at the fleeing vehicle.

A couple of other cars were hit by the gunfire, but no one was injured, according to a police report.

Video from several different angles shows Chintharsy menacing the driver of a Sportage and punching the SUV's window before the unidentified driver pulls away.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Pictured: Brian Chintharsy, 30, who was arrested after firing a gun six times at another vehicle during a road rage incident in south Tulsa last week

Video of several different angles shows Chintharsy, pictured, standing at the window of a car, punching it before the unidentified driver pulls away

Chintharsy, pictured, pulled a gun from his person and fired multiple shots at the fleeing car before getting back into his own and driving away

Chintharsy as he drew a handgun before firing six times at another driver following a road rage incident on January 14

Summer Craft, a witness, said when Chintharsy started attacking the other driver's vehicle, the driver drove through the light to flee the assault.

Another witness, Julea Wilson, said the light changed to green moments after the feud, with the sound of gunshots prompting other drivers at the busy intersection to speed away from the scene.

Chintharsy eventually got back into his own car and left the scene, as the stunned witnesses filming the incident shouted for someone to call the police.

Officers found multiple shell casings and a white Buick SUV, pictured, with multiple bullet holes. There were two people inside the Buick when it was hit

Second video shows different POV from road rage shooting in Tulsa



*News & Information release ONLY



Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Second video shows a different POV from a road rage incident, that lead to shots fired in the middle of traffic. pic.twitter.com/VCFDcUOYcq  PPV_TAHOE (@newschannelppv) January 18, 2022

Tulsa Police responded to the shooting found multiple shell casings and a white Buick SUV with multiple bullet holes. Two people who were inside the Buick when it was struck by gunfire were unhurt.

Chintharsy's face could be clearly seen in one angle of the video, with his tag number also visible from another angle.

He was arrested on Sunday after his sister convinced him to turn himself in, according to News on 6.

He reportedly told an officer that he was connected to an incident that has since gone viral on social media, garnering nearly 21,000 views.

Chintharsy was charged with assault and battery with a deadly weapon.
A former rugby league international once regarded as one of the toughest men on the footy field has broken down live on-air over the death of schoolgirl Charlise Mutten.

The nine-year-old girl's remains were found in a barrel near the Colo River north-west of Sydney on Tuesday night, bringing an end to an extensive five day search.

The schoolgirl had travelled to Sydney from Queensland where she lived with her grandmother to spend time with her mum Kallista Mutten.

Her mother's fiance, Justin Stein, 31, has since been charged with Charlise's alleged murder.

Former rugby league hardman turned radio breakfast co-host Mark Geyer fought back tears the while discussing the girl's death on Triple M on Friday.

The remains of Charlise Mutten (pictured) were found in a barrel near a river on Tuesday night, five days after she was reported missing to police

Geyer became choked up with tears while speaking to Channel Seven newsreader Michael Usher on his radio show.

'This little girl should have been having a fantastic time  having a brilliant catch up with mum and all that and absolute harm has come her way, it's awful,' Usher said.

An emotional Geyer, a father-of-five himself, agreed.

'Sometimes there are crimes committed that are absolutely devastating,' his voice wavered.

'I can't believe it  it brings me to tears, I mean this little girl, you know, it's just, it's unfair, it's just you know '

The death of Charlise brought Triple M breakfast host Mark Geyer (pictured) to tears

The death of Charlise Mutten (pictured) has sparked an outpouring of grief across Australia

Usher added: 'It punches you in the gut and rips your heart out when you hear these stories'.

Program co-host Chris Page said there was nothing good about the story but pointed out Charlise's alleged killer was yet to face court.

'For people who do these sort of things to little kids there's not there's not a punishment in the world that's good enough,' he said.

An overwhelmed Geyer added: 'As fathers we think straight away of your own kids '

'It's horrific.'

Geyer returned to breakfast radio this month after departing from the morning gig in 2017 to spend more time with his family.

The outpouring of grief over Charlise's death continues, following revelations that police who recovered her remains were confronted with a scene so horrific some were expected to need time off work and to seek counselling.

'There will be people that won't be coming back to work for a while,' the source told Daily Mail Australia.

Stein has been charged with Charlise's murder and remains behind bars until his next court appearance on March 18.
E-scooters are turning pavements into a jungle and urgent action is needed before more lives are lost, a Tory peer said yesterday.

Their widespread use generates fear, Baroness Neville-Rolfe told a House of Lords debate.

Lady Neville-Rolfe, who has previously described motorised scooters as fuelling a Wild West of lawlessness, said they should either be banned or strictly regulated.

She added: Its a pity that these problems have been allowed to develop without the Government making any attempt to set limits and boundaries. The pavements have become a jungle, and this has become an urgent matter.

A man is seen riding an e-scooter in central London in 2019. E-scooters are turning pavements into a jungle and urgent action is needed before more lives are lost, a Tory peer said yesterday

The Government is considering whether to legalise e-scooters to help cut traffic congestion and pollution. Privately owned e-scooters are currently banned from public roads, pavements and cycle paths, but rental trials have taken place in cities across the country.

In the year to June 2021, there were 882 accidents involving e-scooters, leading to 931 casualties and three deaths.

The problem is worst in London, where the first six months of 2021 saw 258 crashes, dwarfing the nine recorded during the whole of 2018. The Metropolitan Police last year seized more than 3,600 e-scooters that had been used illegally.

Lady Neville-Rolfe, who called the short Lords debate, said its purpose was to ask the Government what plans they have for further regulating use of e-scooters given safety concerns about their use.

The Metropolitan Police last year seized more than 3,600 e-scooters that had been used illegally

She added: I have two possible approaches  the first would be radical and prohibit the sale of e-scooters in the UK.

This is a case of stopping e-scooters on public roads before more damage is done and more lives are lost. E-scooters generate fear for the citizen  both about being injured and the fear of e-scooter-based mugging.

But she added: There is a second approach  to regulate, to provide appropriate powers and penalties and to give authorities the means to enforce the law. It would need to cover speed limits, mandatory helmet wearing, a simple driving test and compulsory insurance.

Lady Neville-Rolfe warned that as scooter numbers mushroom it will become more difficult to control them. She said: We are drifting into a bad place and failing to act.
Hundreds of combat ready British troops could be sent to Ukraine's NATO neighbours to bolster their security forces amid the threat of a Russian invasion.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland could all see an increase in NATO personnel after its member states held talks over expanding their presence in the region.

Britain already has 830 troops, tanks armoured military vehicles, self-propelled artillery, air-defence, intelligence assets and engineers in Estonia, where it is leading a battle group of 1,200. More than 300 French troops are set to join them.

Poland is also playing host to 140 British troops as part of NATO's enhanced Forward Presence mission, while around 100 British troops are currently in Ukraine.

And British presence in the region could be set to increase further under plans being discussed by the Ministry of Defence, according to The Times.

Pictured: Soldiers from the British Army's Royal Welsh Regiment stand in front of their Warrior armoured fighting vehicle near a base in Tapa, Estonia last year

Citing a defence source, the newspaper reported today that the UK is looking at bolstering the existing missions with 'hundreds' of combat-ready soldiers that would be able to deploy at short notice.

'They [Nato] have asked the question around boosting those [enhanced Forward Presence missions] and the Nato mission in the Baltics. Countries are thinking about what they could do,' the source told The Times.

With regard to when the deployment could happen, the source added: If there was a NATO ally about to have Russian troops knocking on their doorstep then they [the force] would be there quickly.'

Russia has demanded an end to NATO deployments on its borders, and has said such moves are a provocation.

Discussions over the deployments come amid mounting fears a major conflict could break out in Europe, as many as 127,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine's border and the West trading threats over the increasingly tense situation.

Western intelligence officials fear that the Kremlin is plotting a 'multi-axis' invasion that could come from the land, air and sea, with Russian troops believed to have set up in Belarus at a base some 25 miles from the Ukrainian border.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed to CNN on Thursday that NATO was looking at Russia-related sanctions and 'considering to increase deployments of NATO troops in the eastern part of the alliance.'

He added that Russia has been invited to a series of meetings to find a political solution.

Russia presented the West with a list of security demands at talks last week that produced no breakthrough. Russian officials have denied planning to invade, but the Kremlin has massed some 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would 'pay a heavy price' for such an action.

Pictured: Ukraine soldiers conducts tactical exercises at one of the all-military training grounds of the southern Ukraine's Kherson region, just north of annexed Crimea

Soldiers of assault engineer and recovery-and-salvage units of the Russian Army 1st Guards Engineer Brigade are seen during tactical and special training in the city of Murom, some 260 km east of Moscow

It was the latest White House effort to clear up comments Biden made a day earlier when he suggested that a 'minor incursion' by Russia into Ukrainian territory could result in a more measured response by the United States and allies.

Mr Stoltenberg said on Thursday that U.S. President Joe Biden's 'minor incursion' comment was not a green light to a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

'Not at all,' Stoltenberg told CNN in an interview when asked if Biden's remarks gave a green light to Russian aggression.

Biden's comments came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to meet Friday in Geneva with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a high-stakes bid to ease tensions that appears likely to fail.

Before traveling to Geneva, Blinken warned in Berlin that there would be a 'swift, severe' response from the United States and its allies if Russia sent any military forces into Ukraine.

'If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border and commit new acts of aggression against Ukraine, that will be met with a swift, severe, united response from the United States and our allies and partners,' Blinken told a news conference with his German counterpart.

Later, Blinken accused Russia of threatening the foundations of world order with its buildup of an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is expected today to urge the West's allies to 'step up' in solidarity with Ukraine in the face of perceived Russian aggression, in a speech in Sydney.

The UK's top diplomat, on an official visit to Australia alongside Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, is set to urge Russia to 'de-escalate and engage in meaningful discussions' following its troop build-up on the Ukrainian border.

'We need everyone to step up,' Truss will say in a wide-ranging foreign policy speech at the Lowy Institute in Australia's biggest city, according to excerpts released by her office in advance.

'Together with our allies, we will continue to stand with Ukraine and urge Russia to de-escalate and engage in meaningful discussions.'

Adding 'what happens in Eastern Europe matters for the world,' she will note that 'invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life'.

Truss, who took the helm at Britain's foreign ministry last September, is hoping to use the visit to forge closer defence and security ties with Canberra, as London looks to reposition itself after leaving the European Union.

Rebranding itself 'Global Britain' and eyeing new opportunities beyond the EU, it announced a new defence alliance with Australia and the United States - AUKUS - last September.

It will see Canberra acquire nuclear-powered submarines using US technology.

In her speech, Truss will argue like-minded democracies - including Israel, India, Japan and Indonesia - must 'respond together' as global aggressors become 'emboldened in a way we haven't seen since the Cold War'.

'They seek to export dictatorship as a service around the world,' Truss is set to say, noting the close ties between countries like Belarus, North Korea and Myanmar with Moscow and Beijing.

'Threats to freedom, democracy and the rule of law are not just regional - they're global.

'Building closer ties with our friends and drawing other countries closer to the orbit of free-market democracies will ultimately make us all safer and freer in the years to come,' Truss will add.

'It is time for the free world to stand its ground.'
A Tory tycoon and a senior Conservative adviser were yesterday accused of trying to 'bully' former MP Charlotte Leslie.

The comments came during an explosive Commons debate regarding her treatment.

MPs across the parliamentary divide criticised prominent Conservative adviser Carl Hunter and multi-millionaire Tory donor Mohamed Amersi.

Ex-Bristol North West Tory MP Miss Leslie fell out with Mr Amersi last year after she claimed he tried to use his wealth to take over a Tory group run by her which aims to boost UK-Middle East relations.

Mr Amersi, who then launched his own Tory Middle East group, Comena, to rival Miss Leslie's Conservative Middle East Council, fiercely denies any wrongdoing.

Conservative adviser Carl Hunter and multi-millionaire Tory donor Mohamed Amersi (pictured) were yesterday accused of trying to 'bully' former MP Charlotte Leslie

It follows Wednesday's disclosure by the Daily Mail of shocking leaked phone calls between Mr Hunter and Miss Leslie.

In the calls, Mr Hunter told her she needed to 'consider being able to walk the dog at night' if she refused to apologise to Mr Amersi. Miss Leslie complained to the police about the 'sinister' calls.

There is no suggestion Mr Amersi was aware of the nature of Mr Hunter's conversations with Miss Leslie or instructed him to speak to her in the way he did. During yesterday's debate, ex-Tory Cabinet minister David Davis said Mr Hunter 'engaged in bullying and egregious behaviour' towards Miss Leslie when he 'tried to broker peace' between her and Mr Amersi.

And Labour MP Liam Byrne said: 'What on earth is going on in this country when people like this are able to issue threats to anyone  never mind former MPs?'

Last night Mr Amersi denied trying to 'intimidate' Miss Leslie and accused her of 'trying to portray herself as the victim when the reverse is true'.

He claimed Mr Davis and Mr Byrne had 'hidden behind Parliamentary privilege to recycle false allegations' against him in a dossier compiled by Miss Leslie.

He hoped to meet the two MPs to 'explain the truth' about his 'business dealings and relationships in Russia so they can retract their remarks'. Mr Hunter declined to comment.

Ex-Bristol North West Tory MP Miss Leslie (pictured) fell out with Mr Amersi last year after she claimed he tried to use his wealth to take over a Tory group run by her which aims to boost UK-Middle East relations

Mr Davis told MPs that Mr Amersi 'tried to force his way to becoming CMEC chair  'because he saw it as his route to a knighthood' and had 'used his wealth and influence to try to bully Miss Leslie into silence.'

He continued: 'Mr Amersi is used to getting his way. He throws money at a problem in an attempt to make it go away. Ms Leslie has been subject to this legal harassment for a year now.'

Sir Bob Neill, chairman of the Commons Justice Committee, told the debate she had been subjected to 'utterly disgraceful intimidation.'

Labour MP Liam Byrne said Mr Hunter told Miss Leslie that if she did not apologise to Mr Amersi her legal dispute with him had 'all possibility of going further to a really gruesome stage.'

Mr Byrne said: 'What on earth is going on in this country when people like this are able to issue threats to anyone - never mind former MPs?'

There is no suggestion Mr Amersi was aware of the nature of Mr Hunter's conversations with Miss Leslie or instructed him to speak to her in the way he did. Pictured: Mr Amersi pictured with Prince Charles.

The remarks by the MPs were made under Parliamentary privilege in a debate on so called 'lawfare'  whereby wealthy foreign businessmen are accused of using British courts to pursue their critics and undermine press freedom.

The debate saw a clash between Justice Minister James Cartlidge and Conservative MP Julian Lewis, chairman of the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee.

Accusing Mr Cartlidge of failing to offer enough support to Miss Leslie, Mr Lewis told him bluntly: 'She was trying to see whether or not the money that was being offered by someone who wanted to take over a political organisation within the Conservative Party was clean or dirty.

'As a result of her doing her duty, she is threatened with financial ruin. If you my cannot see the relevance of my asking for protection for such people to this debate, you need to go back and restudy your brief.'

Watch Tory MP Julian Lewis demand more action from Justice Minister James Cartlidge for Miss Leslie here.
The FBI raid on the Texas home and campaign headquarters of Rep. Henry Cuellar is reportedly related to a criminal probe into ties between several US businessmen and the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan.

On Friday, federal agents were seen at Cuellar's home in Laredo, photographing trucks parked outside and removing boxes, bins, bags and a computer from the house.

The FBI would only confirm that it is conducting an 'ongoing investigation', but a source told ABC News that the raid was related to a federal grand jury investigation into possible crimes related to Azerbaijan.

It's still not clear whether Cuellar himself is a subject or target of the probe, and he has vowed to cooperate with any investigation.

The nine-term Democrat is co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, an obscure group dedicated to furthering relations with the oil-rich nation on the Caspian Sea.

In that role, Cuellar is known to have met repeatedly with Azerbaijan officials, including the country's ambassador to the US, Elin Suleymanov.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (right) is seen meeting with Azerbaijan's ambassador to the US in 2013. The FBI raid on Cuellar's home is reportedly related to a probe into Azerbaijani activities in the US

Cuellar is co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, an obscure group dedicated to furthering relations with the oil-rich nation. He is seen right with Suleymanov in 2013

FBI agents have been spotted conducting a 'court-authorized' investigation at the Texas home of United States Representative Henry Cuellar, who has vowed to cooperate fully

Azerbaijan has been harshly criticized in the past for bribing foreign officials and diplomats to secure its foreign policy aims and legitimize dubious election results.

The practice is so common in the country that it is known there as 'caviar diplomacy,' but it is unclear whether the FBI is investigating any similar allegations in relation to Cuellar.

In a statement, the FBI remained tight-lipped about the reason for Friday's raid, but confirmed that it was part of an 'ongoing investigation.'

'The FBI was present in the vicinity of Windridge Drive and Estate Drive in Laredo conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity,' a Bureau spokesperson said.

'The FBI cannot provide further comment on an ongoing investigation.'

Cuellar, who has harshly criticized the Biden administration over its border policies in the past, vowed in a statement to cooperate with any probe.

FBI agents load boxes, bins, bags and a computer from the home of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar into their vehicles in Laredo, Texas, on Wednesday

FBI agents load items including a computer from the home of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, into their vehicles on Wednesday

FBI agents have been spotted conducting a 'court-authorized' investigation at the Texas home of United States Representative Henry Cuellar

'Congressman Cuellar will fully cooperate in any investigation. He is committed to ensuring that justice and the law are upheld,' Cuellar's office said.

Since 2004, Cuellar has represented a district that extends from the U.S. border with Mexico near McAllen to Laredo, and north to San Antonio's eastern outskirts.

The moderate Democrat has a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Public records show that Cuellar purchased his luxurious Laredo home in 2010.

The 6,000-square-foot, five-bedroom home in a gated community is valued at $825,000 currently by Realtor.com.

Cuellar, who represents much of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, has been a vocal critic of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for their handling of a surge of illegal crossings at the border.

Cuellar said last month that he's done trying to work with 'border czar' Harris on migration issues, as Border Patrol agents continue to record a surge in encounters with people crossing the border illegally.

Federal agents were seen inside and around Cuellar's mansion in Laredo (above in a file photo) on Wednesday, where they took photos of trucks parked in the circular drive out front

Cuellar said last month that he's done trying to work with 'border czar' Harris on migration issues, after she allegedly snubbed him on her border visit (above) last year

Cuellar, who represents much of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, has been a vocal critic of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on their handling of border issues

'I say this very respectfully to her: I moved on,' Cuellar told The New York Times earlier in the week.

'She was tasked with that job, it doesn't look like she's very interested in this, so we are going to move on to other folks that work on this issue.'

Cuellar's gripes originated when Harris said she'd be visiting the border in June and a phone call from his office to hers went unreturned, he said.

Cuellar was also among the bloc of moderate House Democrats who sided against Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year to insist on passage of Biden's infrastructure bill, which progressive hoped to hold back to force passage of a broader $3 trillion social spending package.

The infrastructure bill succeeded with bipartisan support, but the broader package remains stuck in Congress due to the objections of moderate Democrats.

Cuellar, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives, represents a Texas district that hugs the banks of the Rio Grande River, just opposite Mexico.
A woman's complaint about a pair of Australia Post delivery drivers has sensationally backfired after she copped backlash for her scathing online post.

The Queensland woman uploaded a video showing the drivers sorting through packages on a patch of grass to the Australia Post Complaints Facebook group on Thursday.

Alongside the footage she wrote: 'I am disgusted with the lack of care these guys plus four other vans treated people's parcels.'

A disgruntled Australia Post customer's complaint over two workers sorting parcels on a lawn (pictured) has sensationally backfired on social media

'They drove up, stood in the vans and threw all the packages from inside the van onto the grass, then scanned them and jammed them up to the roof of a couple of vans, couldn't even see out of the back window at all,' she continued.

'No regards for people's property. I don't think sorting parcels by throwing them onto the grass in a park is quite what we expect to be Aust Post/or their couriers who act on their behalf standards. Totally substandard.'

The woman added she had sent the footage to Australia Post, and was also unimpressed that she was still waiting on a package from December.

But her grievance against Australia Post backfired when social media users told the woman to 'get a grip'.

'I think we have different definitions of "throwing". Would you rather them gently chuck them on the grass or on the cement in the warehouse? Get a grip,' wrote one person.

'There's nothing wrong here, they're not chucking parcels. The guys are organising their runs. Stop finding things to complain about,' commented another.

The woman was slammed by Facebook users who defended the workers saying they did nothing wrong

Australia Post reminded customers to treat drivers with respect as staff are working extra hard during the pandemic to deliver packages to customers.

'Our team members continue to work hard under difficult circumstances to get mail and parcels to their destination as quickly and safely as possible,' the company told Daily Mail Australia.

'We kindly ask customers to treat them with respect and to contact us if they have concerns so we can provide help and support.'

Australia Post has been plagued with delivery delays after it recorded its busiest month in August with Aussies making thousands of purchases while in lockdown.

In September it was forced to suspend all Parcel Post collections from online retailers in NSW, the ACT and Victoria for up to four days to clear backlogged orders.

The postal giant saw no relief when major sales events like Click Frenzy, Black Friday and Cyber Monday spurred sales into the Christmas period.
After over a decade, Toyota will be releasing the 2023 Toyota Sequoia next week. In addition to this surprise, some of its specs will be borrowed from the 2022 Toyota Tundra.

2023 Toyota Sequoia Release Date

According to Car and Driver, the classic full-size SUV of the Japanese automaker Toyota is expected to get its first new generation in over ten years, as the firm released its first teaser picture of the new 2023 Toyota Sequoia's right rear section.

The huge SUV will be closely related to the Tundra pickup, just like the previous two versions. The said full-sized SUV aims to replace the Land Cruiser in the Toyota US product line.

In terms of the 2023 Toyota Sequoia release date, the truck is expected to debut on Tuesday, January 25 at 9:30 p.m. E.T.

2023 Toyota Sequoia Specs: Similarities With 2022 Toyota Tundra?

The 2023 Toyota Sequoia specs will be based on Toyota's new TNGA-F body-on-frame platform, which also serves as the foundation for both the Tundra and the global Land Cruiser.

Currently, Tundra is equipped with rear coil springs, but the Sequoia, like the Chevy Tahoe and Ford Expedition, will have an independent rear suspension. Aside from this, the teaser image also showed a slim taillight, chrome window frame, door handles and wheels.

When it comes to Tundra similarities, Sequoia also contains a big 14.0-inch touchscreen, a digital gauge cluster, and numerous TRD options, including an off-road-oriented TRD Pro model.

The Tundra's 381-hp V8 will most likely be replaced by a twin-turbocharged V6 that produces either 348 horsepower and 405 pound-feet of torque or 389 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque. The SUV is also anticipated to equip with Toyota's latest iForce MAX twin-turbo V6 hybrid, which produces 437 horsepower.

Read Also: Crypto Warning 2022: $150 Malware Steals Cryptocurrencies, More Cheap Cryptojacking Hacks on the Rise!

Toyota Sequoia Over The Years

To look back on the previous Toyota Sequoia variants, from 2000 to 2007, Sequoia--which was based on the same platform as the Tundra--was the largest Toyota truck on the market, per Auto Evolution.

Auto Evolution added that the Japanese automaker waited a long time to compete against the Ford Expedition, GMC Yukon and Chevrolet Tahoe, but it could not beat the Excursion or Suburban. After the full-size Tundra, Toyota released Sequoia only a few months later.

While from 2007 to 2017, the second generation adapted to Tundra's counterpart version and even matched several parts with it. For instance, the interior featured a Tundra dashboard but was altered with many features such as a DVD navigation system, seat coolers and sun sensors, which was a significant difference from the previous version.

A new 5.7-liter engine with 381 horsepower has also been installed by Toyota for the second generation Sequoia.

Toyota Sequoia has been around since 2008 with the same style, making it appear slightly outdated. The huge SUV also lacked almost all of the latest technology, such as lane departure warning and forward collision prevention, though it is still one of the most cost-effective SUVs in the market.

Meanwhile, the 2019 Sequoia TRD Pro was a class-leading mid-size truck with a stylish look and proven off-road capability. Toyota incorporated some of the successful race car's features into the TRD Pro.

The pick-up was equipped with a 3.5-liter V6 engine that produced 278 horsepower.

Despite the fact that it was not a new engine, it proved to be dependable over time. The engine was connected to either a 6-speed automatic or 6-speed manual transmission.

Related Article: 2022 Toyota Tundra Review Reveals Shocking Issues: Interior Problems, Scary Auto-Breaking System Major Turnoffs
An irritated Annastacia Palaszczuk has shut down a reporter after the Queenslander Premier was asked whether she had regrets about re-opening the state's border during the Omicron outbreak.

Ms Palaszczuk was giving the Queensland Covid update at a warehouse at Inala, south-west of Brisbane, when the testy exchange occurred.

'Most of the 85 people who have died from Covid since the border opened hadn't had a booster shot - do you have any regrets about deciding to open the border when you knew Omicron was there...' the reporter asked.

Ms Palaszczuk snippily replied: 'You were screaming at me to open the border, I find it a bit ironic you would ask me that question now.

'Do you have any regrets?' the reporter persisted.

'No I don't, the Federal government had all the information about the Omicron variant and they said it was safe to do so,' the premier replied.

'Now what I'm concerned about, is I want our children to get vaccinated, and I want the booster shots done.'

The exchange with the reporter came as Ms Palaszczuk announced a drop in Covid cases to 16,031 new infections in the state but with 13 deaths on Friday, as changes to eligibility for booster shots were confirmed.

Ms Palaszczuk said from next Monday, Queenslanders will be able to come forward for booster jabs three months after a second shot of a Covid vaccine, rather than four months.

She said 91.76 per cent of Queenslanders had now received a first dose of vaccine and 89 per cent were now double dosed.

Ms Palaszczuk said Queenslander's QR code check-in system would not be dropped, despite calls from local mayors for it to be retired.

'We are going through a wave at the moment, it will peak in the next two weeks, and I need people to continue to check in,' she said.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said from next Monday, Queenslanders will be able to come forward for booster jabs three months after a second shot of a Covid vaccine, rather than four months

Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard said of the 13 deaths, two people were in their 60s, five were in the 70s, five in their 80s, and one in their 90s.

One person was unvaccinated, one had received a single dose of vaccine, eight had received two doses and one had received three jabs.

'Were it not for widescale vaccination in Queensland today, we would not be talking about 855 people in hospital, we would be talking about thousands of people in hospital and almost certainly, our hospital system would be overwhelmed by now,' Dr Gerrard said.

He said 855 people were currently in hospital with Covid, up from 805 yesterday, with 54 people in ICU. and 22 on ventilation.

Ms Palaszczuk said the state had increased its order of rapid antigen tests from 18 million units to 23 million units.

She said one million RATs had just arrived in the state and two million more would be available in the next couple of weeks.

Ms Palaszczuk thanked Prime Minister Scott Morrison for supporting the Therapeutic Goods Administration in working with the Queensland government to make it easier for local manufacturers of RATs such as Ellume and AnteoGen to achieve accreditation of their tests.

Ms Palaszczuk urged parents to ensure their 5 to 11-year-old children get vaccinated in the next two weeks before Queensland schools resume on February 7. Pictured: A child is vaccinated at a Brisbane clinic

The Premier urged parents to ensure their 5 to 11-year-old children get vaccinated in the next two weeks before Queensland schools resume on February 7.

'We've got two weeks to continue to get our children vaccinated,' she said.

Ms Palaszczuk said a 'back-to-schools' plan will be released after a cabinet meeting next Monday but that surveillance testing of school children would not be required at this stage.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath said 40 per cent of Queenslanders currently eligible for a booster had yet to come forward, and that this figure will increase as the eligibility window is reduced to three months after a second dose from Monday.

Meanwhile, Queensland doctors working on the front line of the state's COVID-19 outbreak say they're in the dark about government plans to protect them during the upcoming peak.

Another nine virus deaths were recorded on Thursday, taking Queensland's pandemic death toll to 72.

The state announced 16,812 cases yesterday, with 850 people being treated in hospital and 48 in ICU.

Chief Health Officer John Gerrard expects hospitalisations to peak in the 'low thousands' in coming weeks, but a union representing doctors in public hospitals say they haven't seen any COVID-safe workforce plans yet.

The Queensland branch of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers' Federation says the state's Industrial Relations Commission has ordered the government to share data on how many doctors have had P95 masks fit-tested, its plans for staff testing and for managing health workers during the surge.

But AMSOFQ president Dr Hau Tan says doctors are being kept in the dark about the government's plans to protect them.

Ms Palaszczuk said Queensland had increased its order of rapid antigen tests from 18 million units to 23 million units, and that two million more units would arrive in the state in the coming weeks

'Queensland Health had not complied with another QIRC recommendation to provide ...the Covid-19 workforce surge plans or Covid-19 safe workplace plans for all Hospital and Health Services,' he said in a statement.

'We also demanded that Queensland Health provide easily accessible and up-to-date information regarding Covid testing for staff ...across the state.

'Public hospital doctors have gone above and beyond for the past two years, and are already pushed to the limit.

'As doctors put themselves in harm's way to care for patients during this current Omicron wave, we need to see more from Queensland Health to protect their health and safety.'

The complaint comes as it was revealed up to 5,000 workers at the Queensland Government's headquarters in William Street, Brisbane, were told they must prove they had received a first dose of a Covid vaccine by this Sunday and a second by February 20.
The heads of American Airlines and United have both claimed that the drama around 5G technology was over - despite the head of Emirates warning that a 'long-term resolution' is now needed and that the government failed to act in time.

AT&T and Verizon launched their 5G network across America on Wednesday morning, switching on 4,500 towers to bring faster wireless to their customers. They had to hold back on ten percent of the towers - around 500 - that are near airports because the frequencies the towers emit could interfere with the signal on some planes.

Eighty-eight airports now have buffers to protect against it but some major airports like Boston and Memphis do not. In the most recent FAA announcement on Wednesday afternoon, the government said 62 percent of flights could operate safely - leaving nearly half to reschedule.

On Wednesday, some airline passengers who were unaware of the fiasco showed up at airports ready to board their flights but were told they had been canceled.

On Thursday, the CEOs of the U.S. airlines insisted that the situation was under control, and that the Biden administration had largely resolved the issue.

Both airlines are among eight to have $1.1 billion in contracts with the federal government to provide transport for officials.

Doug Parker (left), CEO of American Airlines, and Scott Kirby (right), head of United, both said they think the worst of the 5G drama is over

"Because the telecoms have agreed to not to fully turn on antennas within a certain radius of airports, we're fully comfortable now," says @AmericanAir CEO Doug Parker on the impact of #5G on air travel. "We were able to avoid what would have been a really disruptive process." pic.twitter.com/Yz1GGlfizy  Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) January 20, 2022

A cellular tower stands as a United Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplane lands at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

'It's taken a while to get to the right spot, but I feel like we're in the right spot,' said Doug Parker, the CEO of American Airlines, in a call with investors on Thursday morning.

'I don't think you're going to see any material disruption going forward because of this.'

The CEO of United, Scott Kirby, agreed.

'While I wish it happened earlier, the good news is we now have everyone engaged, the FAA and DOT at the highest levels, the aircraft manufacturers, airlines and the telecoms,' said Kirby.

'While we don't have a final resolution quite yet, I'm confident we'll get there.'

Yet the president of Emirates said the 5G fiasco was the 'most delinquent, irresponsible' mess he has seen in his 50-year aviation career and blamed it on Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who he says knew about the impending chaos but failed to warn anyone in time to stop it.

Sir Tim Clark, the president of Dubai-based Emirates, appeared on CNN Wednesday and said that U.S. airlines knew about the risks of 5G on the Boeing 777 before the rest of the world's airlines.

He said it forced Emirates and other international airlines to scramble to cancel flights - before bringing them back once FAA gave approval for more types of planes to land in low visibility near 5G signals, including the Boeing 777.

'Let the truth be known, we were not aware of this until yesterday morning to the extent that it was going to compromise the safety of operation of our aircraft and just about every other 777 operator to and from the United States and within the United States. It came to a head, it was known by the US operators probably a little bit more than we knew.

'We have evidence of letters being written to the Secretary of Transport in the US government alerting that group to what was likely to happen and its consequences,' Clark said.

Although its not yet clear when Buttigieg and the Biden administration were warned of the possible dangers of 5G, the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics published a report in October 2020 detailing the risks and outlining mitigation efforts.

Clark added: 'I need to be as candid as I normally am and say this is one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible issues, I've seen in my aviation career because it involves organs of government, manufacturers, science.'

Airlines are concerned that the use of that technology near airports could interfere with aircraft radar altimeters - an instrument that tells pilots how high their plane is off the ground. Altimeters are crucial for landing airplanes in low-visibility conditions.

As a result, the federal government has shut down some of the communications towers near the airports which do not have 'buffers' preventing the impact of 5G, to avoid any potential interference.

Aviation officials fear that 5G signals near airports could interfere with certain airplane instruments, including the radio altimeter used to gauge altitude

Parker, speaking to CNBC on Thursday morning, said he was optimistic

This graphic shows how the wireless spectrum used by 5G networks could interfere with altimeters, which measure a plane's altitude and is especially important for low-visibility operations. The CEOs of the airlines have asked officials that the 5G be implemented everywhere in the country except within the approximate 2 miles of airport runways at some key airports

'The technical experts that are working on it tell us it's really not that complicated once they all are able to share information and work on it,' Parker said Thursday.

'So they seem encouraged that we'll be able to address this in a way that allows for full deployment of 5G, including near airports.

'I don't expect until we get to the point that everyone is really comfortable that you'll see anything turned on near airports, because no one wants to go through this again.'

Communications companies have been infuriated that the system was not resolved in advance.

'We are frustrated by the FAA's inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it do so in a timely manner,' AT&T spokesperson Megan Ketterer.

Republicans have blamed Buttigieg and the administration for the botched rollout of 5G, with GOP members of transportation and technology-related congressional panels releasing a joint statement on Wednesday claiming the Biden administration 'sleepwalked' the process.

'The Biden administration has failed to provide any leadership to find a solution to this spectrum issue,' the statement reads.

'The U.S. government has hardworking experts who can address any outstanding technical issues, but instead of leading, the White House has sleepwalked through this botched process.

'By lurching from one arbitrary deadline to the next with no clear plan or strategy for resolution, this Administration's negligence continues to delay finding a lasting solution that improves our everyday wireless communication while protecting aviation safety.'

The chaos comes as all airlines are posting sombre financial updates amid the pandemic.

American, United and Delta alone have reported combined losses of $36.5 billion, excluding special items since the start of 2020. Southwest, which had gone 47 years without posting an annual loss, is about to report its second straight annual loss next week.

American said Thursday that small and medium business travel was roughly 80 percent of where it stood pre-pandemic, and travel by large corporate customers was still down 60 percent.

Yet the airlines say bookings are up for this year's spring break period and they remain hopeful for a strong summer.

Most are projecting a return to profitability in 2022.

Leisure domestic travel is almost back to pre-pandemic levels, even though business travel is still down from where it was before the pandemic.
Slain schoolgirl Charlise Mutten's mother spent about four weeks in an exclusive Sydney private drug rehab clinic where she boasted to fellow patients of having sex with her daughter's accused killer during an access visit.

Kallista Mutten stayed at the $20,000 a month Sydney Clinic at Bronte Beach last November just two months before her nine-year-old daughter's alleged murder on January 11 or 12.

Police allege her fiance Justin Stein, 31, murdered Charlise at his family's Wildenstein estate in the Blue Mountains and then dumped the child's remains, encased in a barrel, in bushland by the Colo River where they were found on Tuesday.

A former ice addict, Ms Mutten became engaged to Stein last year after being released from prison.

Former ice addict Kallista Mutten spent weeks in a ritzy Sydney drug rehab clinic two months before her daughter Charlise was allegedly murdered by her fiance Justin Stein

At the Sydney Clinic, which treats celebrities, Kallista Mutten boasted of her 'very wealthy' fiance Stein and proudly described how they would be getting married this year

Kallista also excitedly related to fellow patients how she had sex with Stein in the back of his ute (above) on an access visit when he drove down from the mountains to see her in rehab

Kallista Mutten (above kissing Stein) boasted how the couple had a tryst in his car near the Bronte clinic after which she returned 'excited and high' after the encounter

Late last year, she was housed in the Clinic's level two substance abuse unit and was visited by Stein, a fellow patient revealed exclusively to Daily Mail Australia.

The patient said Kallista was 'over the top' and 'very attention seeking' and repeatedly mentioned she had a 'rich fiance' who was 'very wealthy'.

She talked about her forthcoming wedding to Stein in 2022, which Ms Mutten has previously said could take place at the Mount Wilson Anglican Church, just minutes from where Charlise was allegedly murdered.

Inpatients at the Sydney Clinic - which has treated TV reality star Suzi Taylor, actress Jessica Marais, game show host Andrew O'Keefe and AFL player Ben Cousins - are allowed up to four hours of daily leave outside for walks or visits.

The fellow patient said Ms Mutten animatedly chattered about Stein visiting her, and after one visit she claimed 'they had sex in the back of the ute' and seemed 'excited and high' after the encounter.

She related that her fiance had driven 'a long distance... from the mountains to visit her' and was 'hyper' about the visit.

Kallista Mutten may have mentioned her daughter Charlise once 'in passing' but chatted often with other patients about marrying her rich fiance Justin Stein in Mt Wilson this year

A patient room inside the $20,000 a month Sydney Clinic where Kallista Mutten stayed and was visited by Justin Stein who has now been charged with Charlise Mutten's alleged murder

Kallista Mutten was housed on level two of the Sydney Clinic where inpatients are treated for substance abuse and was visited by Justin Stein her 'wealthy' fiance

Ms Mutten would chat with other patients on permitted 10-minute cigarette breaks in the clinic grounds and would be 'talking too loudly, over-talking and laughing loudly' as she rolled her own cigarettes and smoked them.

She traded 'rollie' cigarettes for cans of Coke other patients bought from the drinks machine.

While Ms Mutten talked at length about Stein, she 'may have mentioned once in passing' that she had a young daughter.

In the clinic, which has comfortable well-furnished rooms and 'amazing food', Ms Mutten sometimes 'gave the impression she was nuts' to doctors and nurses.

In rehab last November, Kallista Mutten had the same pink streaked hair she is seen wearing (above) after she was pictured while having a medical episode after calling police to report Charlise missing

She was very curious about how one other patient, who had attention deficit disorder, obtained a prescription of Dexamphetamine or 'Dexies' and engaged in intense discussions about urine tests.

Patients at the 50-bed Sydney Clinic are breath-tested on return from a visit and if clinicians or nurses believe a patient may have engaged in drug-taking while outside the premises, they can be subjected to urine tests.

Sydney Clinic's inpatient substance dependence program holds three-step group therapy sessions, but the fellow patients said Ms Mutten seemed uninterested in participating.

Justin Stein drove from the mountains to visit his fiancee Kallista Mutten at the Sydney Clinic and after one visit she boasted they'd had sex in the back of his ute

Kallista discussed with other patients her forthcoming wedding to Justin Stein possibly in the Mt Wilson St George Anglican Church above, just minutes from where Charlise vanished

SES volunteers (above during search efforts for Charlise Mutten) rested last week in the graveyard of the same church where the girl's mother had planned marrying the man now accused of the schoolgirl's murder

Admission to the clinic's addictions program requires current private health insurance and a GP's referral letter.

Ms Mutten has been in drug rehab previously for treatment for a methamphetamine addiction.

She served more than two years in prison for killing her 53-year-old friend Karen 'Kaz' Bunch after driving off road and into the Tweed River while high on ice.

She was convicted at Lismore Court on November 24, 2017 of dangerous driving occasioning death and driving with an illicit substance in her system.

A convoy of police vehicles on the driveway down to the luxury Wildenstein family estate of accused murderer Justin Stein whose stepdaughter Charlise Mutten died while holidaying there

Charlise Mutten, 9, vanished on January 11 or 12 and her remains were found inside a barrel dumped on a river bank in bushland near the Colo River, 65km away

Wildenstein estate in Mount Wilson (above) is still the focus of investigators into the alleged murder of Tweed Heads schoolgirl, Charlise Mutten, whose remains were found in a barrel

The court heard despite checking into a rehabilitation clinic after the crash, Ms Mutten relapsed into ice use and was also expelled from a clinic at Logan in Queensland after she threatened a fellow resident with violence.

Daily Mail Australia does not suggest Ms Mutten is currently using drugs.

Stein is currently in custody after being arrested and charged with murder on Wednesday and bail refused until his next appearance in Penrith Local Court in March.
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Woke California Governor Gavin Newsom likened the site of LA freight train package thefts to a shanty town during a photo-op Thursday.

Attending a clean-up at the ravaged rail depot, the Democrat lawmaker exclaimed: 'It looked like a third world country, these images, the drone images that were on the nightly news.

'I took off the suit and tie and said I'm coming because I couldn't take it,' he added. 'I can't turn on the news anymore. What the hell is going on?'

Newsom's uncharacteristic plain-speaking comes amid growing outrage at crime across Californian cities, with the plundered freight trains making headlines across the US.

Thieves are targeting the cars as they leave a packing depot, nabbing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods - including COVID tests - many of which are quickly discarded by the side of the tracks.

Newsom is promising statewide coordination as law enforcement and prosecutors go after the scoundrels who've been targeting near downtown Los Angeles for months, leaving the tracks blanketed with the litter.

The governor on Thursday, dressed in a T-shirt, baseball cap and coronavirus mask, joined a crew from the state Department of Transportation filling dozens of trash bags with crushed cardboard from packages stolen on their way from retailers to people across the U.S.

Last week TV news stations aired overhead video showing thousands of boxes strewn by thieves along a Union Pacific rail line northeast of downtown in the Lincoln Park area. Footage from NBC4 showed two men, one holding what looked like bolt cutters, walking along the tracks.

California Governor Gavin Newsom visits a Union Pacific railroad site on Thursday. Newsom promised statewide coordination in going after thieves who have been raiding cargo containers aboard trains nearing downtown Los Angeles for months, leaving the tracks blanketed with discarded boxes

Stolen and discarded packages litter the tracks close to a freight rail depot in Downtown LA. California Highway Patrol said it was expanding its own retail theft task force that will allow it to beef up patrols and better coordinate with police, the sheriff's department and Union Pacific's security force to prevent further thefts and littering

Workers bag cardboard and other discarded items at a Union Pacific railroad site on Thursday

Newsom wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty in front of the cameras

Men look over a railing at a Union Pacific railroad site on Thursday in Los Angeles. Stolen packages can be seen discarded between the rails

Newsom and officials from the California Department of Transportation toured the site in addition to cleaning up

Caltrans workers were helping the effort to clear the tracks before Newsom arrived

The governor said his new budget proposal includes funds to expand the Organized Retail Theft Task Force created last year when Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities saw organized groups of roving thieves carrying out smash-and-grab robberies at retail stores.

The train thieves are equally organized and need to be prosecuted as such, Newsom said.

'These folks are arrested as if they are individuals that are not going connected to the whole, and we need to change that,' he said.

'How do we make sure we don't have to keep coming back?' Newsom asked. 'How do we secure this site? How do we do a better job in making sure that this doesn't have to continue to happen? This is the supply chain. I know all of us are focused down on the water, it's so damn beautiful, and everybody's just focused on containers at the ports, the supply chain.'

Newsom said that much of the garbage represented Christmas gifts that were never delivered to their intended recipients because of thefts.

At least 280 arrests have been made in connection with the train thefts, he added. But he didn't know over what period the arrests occurred or where they are in the prosecution process.

Union Pacific, in charge of security along its tracks, has made cuts to its private police force. They would not say how many agents they have, but acknowledged thefts have jumped 160 percent since December 2020.

The soft-on-crime policies of Newsom and Los Angeles DA George Gascon have come under fire and been blamed for the mess.

In December, Union Pacific sent a letter to Gascon urging more aggressive prosecutions for cargo thieves and calling for an end to a no-bail policy for some defendants aimed at reducing overcrowding at jails during the coronavirus pandemic.

'These individuals are generally caught and released back onto the streets in less than twenty-four hours. Criminals boast to our officers that charges will be pled down to simple trespassing - which bears no serious consequence,' the letter said.

The tracks Newsom surveyed and cleaned up were transporting FedEx, Amazon and UPS parcels

A California Highway Patrolman watches over the cleanup effort from Newsom and the other workers

California Governor Gavin Newsom, center, speaks to reporters wile visiting the site

Newsom has been involved in several cleanup projects recently, including this homeless encampment in San Diego on January 12

A statewide policy of imposing $0 bail for misdemeanors and lower-level felonies ended in 2020, but it was kept in place within the LA County Superior Court system. Republicans have repeatedly called for an end to zero-bail.

'Criminals know how to exploit California's policies for their gain,' said state Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk, whose district includes northern LA County.

Gascon's office said it was 'committed to working with law enforcement to ensure collective safety across Los Angeles Countys sprawling infrastructure, whether its at our ports or on railroad tracks.'

'Some cases presented to our office by Union Pacific have been filed, such as burglary and grand theft, while others have been declined due to insufficient evidence. We make charging decisions based on the evidence. Our office takes Union Pacifics concerns seriously and hopes to discuss this issue more in the coming weeks,' said Alex Bastian, Special Advisor to Gascon.

A group of Republican U.S. Representatives on Thursday sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for federal assistance in cracking down on thefts that have disrupted the supply chain.

Newsom took time out to take a selfie with a California transit worker while on site

Newsom believes many of the packages are from stolen Christmas presents that never made their destination

Men look over a railing at the site, which is loaded with cardboard boxes and other decay along the tracks

Newsom, center, removes cardboard and other discarded items from the site

'It looked like a third world country, these images, the drone images that were on the nightly news,' Newsom told reporters gathered Thursday along the cleaned up tracks

Even heavy machinery was needed to help the Caltrans workers clean things up

Republicans have criticized the soft-on-crime policies of Newsom and Los Angeles DA George Gascon (pictured) for the mess

The California Highway Patrol said it was expanding its own retail theft task force that will allow it to beef up patrols and better coordinate with police, the sheriff's department and Union Pacific's security force. Union Pacific and other railroad firms employ their own police forces accredited by the state to protect its rail lines.

CHP Captain Charlie Sampson said the task force's expansion will allow for more patrol officers and investigators.

'We've already assigned the personnel for it, and the commander that's going to oversee it,' Sampson said. 'And it's going to be a full time effort.'

On Wednesday, LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said a specialized unit within his department that focused on cargo thefts was eliminated because of funding cuts.

He said his office, along with Union Pacific and federal agencies, are working on a plan to add more security and patrols along the tracks.
A Minnesota sheriff who overturned his state-owned SUV was driving drunk at more than 120 mph and claimed someone else was the driver after he was found lying on the shoulder next to his wrecked car, according to new details and video released by authorities this week.

Hennepin County Sheriff David Hutchinson, 41, was driving his official work vehicle, without wearing his seatbelt, on Interstate 94 near Alexandria on December 8 when he crashed around 2:30 am, the investigative file released Thursday by the State Patrol read.

The video released along with the report shows troopers approaching Hutchinson as he lay on the side of the road after being thrown from his vehicle. He told them someone else was driving the car despite there being no other person at the scene, according to the report.

The 41-year-old's blood alcohol content was more than 0.13 percent around three hours after the crash, and he was seen reaching for his holster that held a loaded handgun at one point moments after the wreck, according to The Star Tribune.

Hutchinson, who had three guns and an open bottle of liquor in his vehicle at the time of the crash, could be heard telling responding officers and witnesses that someone else had been driving in a video released by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Pictured: Hennepin County Sheriff David Hutchinson, 41

PICTURED: wreckage of Hennepin County Sheriff David Hutchinson's state-issued SUV, which he crashed while drunk and speeding in October

Hutchinson was driving his official work vehicle, pictured after the crash, without wearing his seatbelt, on Interstate 94 near Alexandria back on December 8

Pictured: the aftermath of Hutchinson's crash, which he was found to have been drunk and speeding at the time of wreck

The sheriff suffered broken ribs in the crash but has since returned to work and entered an outpatient alcohol-dependency program.

He was sentenced on December 20, receiving two years of probation for a misdemeanor drunken driving charge. A 90-day jail sentence for Hutchinson was 'stayed, meaning he won't have to serve the time unless he violates his probation.

The news of Hutchinson's drunken driving crash released Thursday was met by growing calls for Hutchinson's resignation from the likes of Governor Tim Walz and Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan.

'I would say it is time for him to resign,' Flanagan told the outlet.

'I'm not a resident of Hennepin County, and I'm speaking as an individual on this, but I think most Minnesotans know and most Minnesotans understand that there's consequences for decisions like that,' Walz said Thursday in response to news media questioning.

'I just wish that he gets the help that he needs to move on with his life.'

Walz added Hutchinson's actions were 'a breach of trust.'

Hutchinson, pictured, suffered broken ribs in the crash but has since returned to work and entered an outpatient alcohol-dependency program

Hutchinson, pictured above in the back of a police car after crashing his own sheriff's state-issued SUV while drunk and speeding last month

Douglas County Attorney Chad Larson accepted Hutchinson's guilty plea to fourth-degree drunken driving on December 16.

Just four days prior, an investigation of Hutchinson's vehicle revealed that he topped out at 126.2 mph before he crashed, the Tribune reported.

Drivers caught travelling more than 100 mph are subject to harsh penalties, including an automatic six-month license revocation under Minnesota law,.

Col. Matt Langer had revealed Hutchinson's speed on Thursday, nearly six weeks after the DUI crash.

'There is no minimizing or defending the driving conduct and decisions involved in this situation,' Langer said in a statement Thursday.

Hutchinson's work vehicle was completely totaled, and suffered a broken windshield among the damage

Pictured: one of three firearms Hutchinson had on him or in his vehicle on the night of the drunken driving crash

'Mr. Hutchinson's decision[s] to drive impaired, at speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour while not wearing a seat belt are the exact opposite of what we know helps to keep people safe on our roads.'

While body camera footage of the incident has yet to be released, Minnesota state law requires Hutchinson to consent to the release of any body-cam video he or responding sheriff's deputies may have worn on the night of the crash.

The Sheriff's Office said Hutchinson has yet to consent to such requests.

However, dashcam footage from the first deputy arriving at the crash did show Hutchinson's SUV, which was totaled and completely damaged.

The video also showed the sheriff as he lay down on his side on the shoulder of the highway while a 911 caller sat nearby.

Although there was no audio, the dashcam footage showed an unsteady Hutchinson as he spoke to responding officers, one of which eventually took the sheriff's firearm.
Hallelujah! At long last, the Prime Minister has fired the starting gun on Britain returning to work normally  and the economy firing on all cylinders.

With Covid on the run and work from home rules axed, Boris Johnson has made it plain he wants our towns and cities abuzz again. Quite justifiably, he has told Secretaries of State to get staff back to their desks.

After all, civil servants keep the wheels of national life properly oiled. It's vital they shift a string of bureaucratic backlogs  from processing HGV licences to renewing passports  which risk paralysing Britain.

But with depressing predictability, the intransigent public-sector unions are digging in their heels, branding Mr Johnson 'reckless' with Covid still rife.

Boris Johnson has fired the starting gun on Britain returning to work normally

With breathtaking arrogance, they declare old working practices are gone for good.

They must be faced down!

The truth is, working from home suits many civil servants, for whom lockdown has been overwhelmingly positive.

Many have been on full pay for a fraction of their normal work  with the added advantage of not paying for commuting.

Perhaps they should emulate the delivery drivers, NHS staff and indeed Downing Street, who have toiled in workplaces throughout the entire crisis.

Remaining in suspended animation also torpedoes prosperity and destroys businesses that rely on footfall.

Whitehall must set an example to white-collar Britain. There are no excuses for it to be a ghost town a day longer.

Punctured pygmies

The plot to unseat Boris Johnson is deflating faster than a punctured balloon.

Red Wall defector Christian Wakeford has become a pariah. The local Labour party in Bury South don't want him, his erstwhile Tory chums in the absurd Pork Pie Plot have shunned him and the Labour leadership will drop him like a hot brick once he's no longer of any propaganda value. A return to obscurity beckons.

Meanwhile, focus groups suggest Sir Keir Starmer has made little headway with voters despite Mr Johnson's travails.

And many of the 2019 intake of MPs who wrote letters expressing no confidence in the PM have reportedly withdrawn them.

For those more interested in the smooth running of the country than Partygate, the omens are looking far better.

Once Sue Gray has finished her inquiry, perhaps Boris can focus on the future  rather than being dragged into the past.

Channel cover-up

No one could accuse ministers of lacking imagination when alighting on ideas to tackle the Channel migrants crisis.

Unfortunately, not one wheeze  from armoured jet skis turning back illegal dinghies to disabling traffickers' boats with netting  has actually succeeded. Record numbers are reaching our shores.

So ministers have found another way to make the problem disappear: Scrapping daily migrant figures. Such a ruse to avoid bad headlines will be an own goal.

An information vacuum risks stoking fears the Government has given up on border control. Channel migrants are fed and housed at taxpayers' expense, so aren't we entitled to know how many arrive?

This cover-up undermines trust in the immigration system. It must be reversed.
A female first-class passenger whose refusal to wear a mask saw an American Airlines Miami to London flight return to its departure airport was with a pal who did the same thing, it has been revealed.

The unnamed woman, who forced Wednesday night's return to Miami airport ninety minutes into the nine hour journey, was not a solo troublemaker, it was revealed on Thursday.

Both the woman and her companion, whose gender has not been revealed, were drunk and refused to wear masks, sources said. Neither passengers' nationality has been disclosed.

CBS Miami reported that one of the two - believed to be the woman whose behavior was previously reported on - was 'more of a problem,' with her aggression reportedly leading the plane to turn around.

Crew are said to have decided that it would be too disruptive to try and contain the bad behavior for the remaining seven-and-a-half hours of the transatlantic trip, which had 129 passengers and 14 crew members on board.

One person was dealt with by police 'administratively' - but not arrested, and has subsequently been banned from flying American for life.

Steve (right) and Teresa Freeman (left) were shocked police did not arrest the first-class American Airlines passenger whose apparently drunken actions caused a London-bound flight to return to Miami. The unruly passenger, a woman in her 40s, is accused of refusing to wear a face covering and being 'extremely abusive' towards the flight crew

Passengers on the London-bound American flight 38 that returned to Miami previously only mentioned the woman, saying she was abusive to flight crew who pleaded with the high-paying customer to follow federal protocols.

'There was a lot of drinking involved and I was nervous,' Steve Freeman, who was a front-row witness to the incident, told WPLG Thursday.

'She sat behind us in first class  she was a first-class passenger and was extremely abusive to the stewards.'

The flight attendant offered the unidentified passenger different types of masks, but to no avail. On Thursday night, it emerged that the female troublemaker was part of a couple, but further details about her travel companion, or their nationalities, have not been shared.

'She tried loads of different masks, complained about each mask,' Freeman said

The standoff forced Flight 38, which had been in the air for about an hour, to turn back due to a 'disruptive customer refusing to comply with the federal mask requirement,' the FAA said.

Freeman, who was traveling with his wife to their home in London, insisted the decision to turn the flight around was not just about the mask, but more about how the female passenger previously named as the troublemaker treated the cabin crew.

He said the stewards made several attempts at getting the woman to follow protocols.

'We almost felt something was going to happen. I could see the writing on the wall  they gave her a lot of warnings, so we were kind of ready for it,' he recalled.

'It wasn't just about the mask. It was the abusive behavior.'

He was stunned the woman was not taken into custody, saying: 'I can't see what more would constitute grounds for arrest.'

The London-bound American Airlines flight turned back about 500 miles into its 4,400-mile journey from Miami

Miami-Dade police boarded the plane after it returned to the airport and took her away, but the unruly passenger was not arrested - unlike hundreds of other passengers who have been handcuffed since federal laws on face coverings were implemented.

A police spokesperson said American Airlines staff dealt 'administratively' with the first-class passenger, which involved her being placed on the airline's no-fly list pending further investigation. First-class fares on American range from $5,000 to $9,000.

The Transportation Safety Administration confirmed to DailyMail.com that it has launched an investigation into the incident. The federal agency has the authorities to impose penalties on passengers ranging from $500 to $3,000.

Her actions caused logistical headaches for the Freemans and the other 127 passengers aboard the flight, many of whom were stranded in Miami after the transatlantic flight was canceled.

Many passengers had to stay overnight to catch a re-booked flight on Thursday.

'I saw a mother with a small child. There was an elderly lady. There was a young girl traveling on her own,' said Teresa Freeman, Steven's wife.

'There was just so many people distressed last night.'

American Airlines said there were 129 passengers and 14 crew members on the plane. Teresa Freeman (not pictured) said many people felt 'distressed' by the turnaround: 'I saw a mother with a small child. There was an elderly lady. There was a young girl traveling on her own'

Despite the high stress and chaos, passenger Theresa Green lauded American for taking care of her and her fellow travelers.

'They looked after us. They put us up in nice hotels,' Green said. 'I've had a good day. So I'm good. I got to see Miami, so it's all good.'

A spokesperson for American Airlines told DailyMail.com that all customers were booked onto other flights.

However, many were left angry by the lack of information they were given on why the flight returned to Miami.

'On the tracker, I was watching the flight and I saw the flight turn and I said to [Steve] "I think the flight's going back,"' Teresa Freeman recalled on Thursday.

'It was about maybe 15 minutes later the announcement came.'

A police spokesperson said the woman was not arrested, as she did not break local law, and that American Airlines staff dealt 'administratively' with the passenger, which involved her being placed on the airline's no-fly list pending further investigation

Many passengers had to stay overnight in Miami to catch a re-booked flight on Thursday. A spokesperson for American Airlines told DailyMail.com customers were re-accommodated onto other flight

Another passenger told CBS4: 'We weren't given any instructions, just told that we had to go back and now we can't get our luggage.'

'They wouldn't really say anything and I don't think they told the flight attendants anything because all they would say is there was an extreme incident and they had to turn around,' said another passenger.

Airlines reported nearly 6,000 incidents involving unruly passengers last year and 151 in the first two weeks of this year, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Most of them involved passengers who refused to wear masks.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced the federal mask mandate  which requires travelers to wear masks inside airports and on airplanes to reduce the spread of the coronavirus  in January 2021.

Last August, TSA extended the mandate until March 18, 2022. The mask mandate has been extended numerous times already.

In September, President Joe Biden increased the federal penalty for people refusing to mask up on planes to $500.
A Victorian police officer has been charged with assault after horrifying footage showed a man allegedly being slammed head-first into the ground.

The viral clip showed the victim speaking with a group of officers at Melbourne's Flinders Street Station amid anti-lockdown protests on September 22 last year.

Suddenly another officer approaches the man from behind, and allegedly grabs him by his shoulders and throws him against the hard tile floor, sending his headphones flying across the concourse.

A Victorian police officer has been charged with assault after horrifying footage showed a man allegedly being slammed head-first into the ground at Melbourne's Flinders Street Station last September

Victoria Police confirmed a 36-year-old senior constable from the southern metropolitan region has been charged with recklessly causing injury, unlawful assault and common law assault.

An internal investigation was launched into the incident and the constable has been charged on summons. He will face court at a later date.

The woman who posted the footage online said it had gained global attention and that she had been contacted by people around the world who wanted to know if the man was OK.

She claimed the man allegedly assaulted called for his mum after he woke up 'with his own blood and urine everywhere'.

The witness said police then handcuffed the man, who was unconscious 'for a while' before being treated by paramedics.
The Federal Reserve has released a long-awaited paper weighing the pros and cons of creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a digital form of cash in your pocket.

The paper released on Thursday cautiously weighed the pros and cons of a digital dollar, and did not take a position on whether the central bank should pursue such a project.

A CBDC would differ in some key ways from the online and digital payments that millions of Americans already conduct. Those transactions are funneled through and between banks, which wouldn't be necessary with a digital dollar.

Essentially, a CBDC would be a digital token with a direct claim on the central bank, in the same way that physical dollars are all 'Federal Reserve Notes' held by the bearer.

Last year, China began testing its own CBDC, known as the digital RMB and e-CNY, which aims to be cheaper and faster than other forms of payment, and allows transactions to take place between two offline devices.

It raised concerns that the US needs to consider similar moves in order to remain the world's reserve currency.

The Federal Reserve has released a long-awaited paper weighing the pros and cons of creating a central bank digital currency. Fed Chair Jerome Powell is seen above

Today, Federal Reserve notes (cash) are the only type of central bank money available to the general public. A CBDC would be a digital call on the central bank available to the public

Though the concept of CBDCs was inspired by cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, there are key differences, and it is unlikely that a digital dollar would use distributed ledger technology such as blockchain.

The Fed paper tiptoes around a subject that has sparked hot debate inside the Fed's top ranks, even as other central banks across the globe are exploring the adoption of digital currencies.

The Feds paper stressed that no final decisions about a US digital currency have been reached.

But it suggested that a digital currency that 'would best serve the needs' of the nation would follow an 'intermediated model' under which banks or payment firms would create accounts or digital wallets.

The Fed said it would not proceed with creating a CBDC 'without clear support from the executive branch and from Congress, ideally in the form of a specific authorizing law.'

'While a CBDC could provide a safe, digital payment option for households and businesses as the payments system continues to evolve, and may result in faster payment options between countries, there may also be downsides,' Fed officials wrote.

Challenges include maintaining financial stability and making sure the digital dollar would 'complement existing means of payment,' the Fed said.

The central bank also needs to tackle major policy questions such as ensuring a CBDC does not violate Americans' privacy and that the government maintains its 'ability to combat illicit finance.'

Currently, electronic payments flow only through commercial banks and are ultimately settled by those banks through the Federal Reserve. CBDC would allow for direct clearing

Unlike cryptocurrencies, which are typically run by private actors, a CBDC would be issued and backed by the central bank.

It would differ from electronic transactions that happen through large commercial banks in that it could give consumers a direct claim to the central bank, similar to physical cash.

About 90 countries are exploring or launching their own CBDCs, according to the Atlantic Council. A widely used digital euro, yuan or dollar may still be years away, but the projects could dramatically disrupt the global financial system.

Despite steering clear of policy recommendations, the Fed did shed some light on how a digital dollar might function.

Critically, it said a digital dollar would 'best suit' U.S. needs if it were intermediated through the current financial system.

That means individuals would not have CBDC accounts directly with the Fed, an approach backed by some Democrats who say a digital currency could help the unbanked. Banks worried that such an approach would eat into their deposit base.

Still, Fed officials said they are not ruling anything out.

The central bank will collect comments on the issue via an online form for 120 days.

About 90 countries are exploring or launching their own CBDCs, according to the Atlantic Council. A widely used digital euro, yuan or dollar may still be years away

Thursday's paper is separate from research the Boston Fed has been working on with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to explore the technological aspects of a CBDC.

That research, including coding that could be used for a potential U.S. CBDC, will be released as early as next month.

The paper partially echoed the views of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who has said such a project must have broad support and ideally be mandated by Congress.

Fed Governor Lael Brainard, meanwhile, has said it is not 'sustainable' for the United States to hold off on pursuing a digital dollar at time when competing economies are moving ahead.

Others, including Fed Governor Christopher Waller, are more skeptical and point out that many dollar transactions are already digital.

Jonathan McCollum, chair of federal government relations for Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, said some in Washington worry the United States could weaken its position as the holder of the global reserve currency if it does not move ahead.

'The U.S. has the opportunity to set the rules for how digital currencies function in the international financial system, but it is critical we start now,' he said.
A man has been charged by West Australian police with allegedly detonating a homemade bomb on a busy street in Perth's inner-north.

Police say the improvised explosive device was ignited in an area between two restaurants on Newcastle Street in Leederville about 1.30pm on Thursday.

'The explosion caused shrapnel and debris to cover a distance of about 10m,' WA Police said in a statement on Friday.

'No one was injured in the incident and the item appeared to be a homemade, makeshift device that had been ignited. The remnants of the device were seized by police for forensic examination.'

Police were then called on Thursday night to Perth's city centre where a person reported they were in possession of a similar device.

A man has been charged by West Australian police with allegedly detonating a homemade bomb on a busy street in Perth's inner-north (stock image)

They said they had taken the device from a vehicle belonging to a person they knew.

Tactical response group officers attended and confirmed it was a homemade bomb similar to the one that had been detonated earlier in the day.

Detectives on Friday raided a home in Queens Park and took a 29-year-old man into custody.

He has since been charged with unlawfully causing an explosion and possessing explosives under suspicious circumstances.

The man has been refused bail and is due to face Perth Magistrates Court on Friday.

'Perth Detectives would like to speak to a member of the public who they believe was in the vicinity of the incident in Leederville,' WA Police said.

'It is believed a woman was in that area between 1.30pm and 1.45pm yesterday and may have information that could assist with the investigation.'
Earlier this month, researchers revealed an iPhone bug on devices running with iOS 15. Hackers used this iPhone Safari bug to spy on a victim's browser history and steal their Google ID. Fortunately, Apple fixed this issue in the iOS 15.3 RC.

Although iPhone malware is rare, there are codes capable of prying open Apple security. One of these is a bug found in IndexedDB.

What Is iPhone Safari Bug: Apple Exploit

Researchers from FingerprintJS first discovered this exploit. They even developed a demo website to show Apple users how the bug works.

When active, the bug violates the "same-origin" policy and cross reads codes from third-party browsers. This strategy will reveal a victim's web history. On a scarier note, the bug could also read details about a victim's Google account. If a victim signs in with their Google account, their unique Google ID will be visible on the bug.

FingerprintJS shared a YouTube video explaining this exploit.



iPhone Malware: Bug Fix Resolved

As noted in an earlier reports, FingerprintJS researchers said that they notified Apple about the issue last year. Since the bug is on the backend of the browser, there isn't anything end users can do to protect themselves.

It took a few months, but Apple finally came through with a fix. According to 9to5Mac, the issue is finally resolved in iOS 15.3, but there is a catch.

Read Also: Red Cross Cyberattack Compromises Data of Over 500k 'Highly Vulnerable' Individuals; Organizations Begs Not to Leak Them

How to Fix iPhone Bug

9to5Mac experts tested the iOS 15.3 against the demo website, and the results showed that "the user is not logged into a Google Account." The results imply that the bug has been fixed, and a few encryption codes have been added for account security.

Note, however, that Apple only rolled out iOS 15.3 release candidate (RC) builds for testing. This means only developers and beta testers have the privilege of getting their bugs fixed. At the time of writing, the update is yet to be available to the general public.

For now, Apple users are recommended to wait for the update, which might drop any time in the coming days. They are also advised to immediately download the update when it is available to maximize their account privacy and security.

SysJoker Malware on Apple Macs

On a different topic, Apple users should also watch out for the newly discovered SysJoker malware. This is a multi-platform threat that attacks the victim's operating system.

SysJoker is one of the few malware that can infect Apple devices. It uses a universal binary with arm64 builds, making it compatible with any Apple silicone Mac. Be warned that SysJoker is difficult to detect and remove once it is installed. Apple users are recommended to install security tools to address this threat.

Cybersecurity researcher Wardle suggested three open-sourced apps that can help Apple users. Full details for these tools are available in this article.

Related Article: Cryptocurrency Price Boom 2022: Crypto Billionaire Names 2 Ethereum Killers to Invest In
An Australian father's 'dream tree change' was humiliatingly destroyed when he was sacked over his weight after moving his family 3,000km - despite his new boss seeing him before hiring him.

Hamish Griffin posted to social media about the 'heartbreak and embarrassment' of his termination just 'two hours' into a new role at the Big4 holiday park at Strahan, Tasmania, which left his family 'homeless'.

Mr Griffin claimed he had only been in the role two hours when his employer, the park owner, asked him to help move a sofa, then 'ripped' into him saying he wasn't 'physically' capable before dismissing him.

A overweight Australian father's 'dream tree change' was humiliatingly destroyed when he was sacked over of his weight after moving his family 3,000km - despite his new boss seeing him before hiring him

Hamish Griffin posted to social media about the 'heartbreak and embarrassment' of his termination just 'two hours' into a new role at the Big4 holiday park at Strahan, Tasmania, which left his family 'homeless'

'I know there are people in much worse financial positions than us, but essentially we are now homeless, unemployed, with a devastated little boy with no school to go to this year,' Mr Griffin said.

He claimed his new employer, the owner of Big4 Strahan Holiday Retreat, justified the decision by speculating that he wouldn't be able to mow a lawn or climb a ladder, and that any 'reasonable' person' would agree.

Mr Griffin also claimed the park owner 'insulted' him by claiming he'd hidden his 'medical condition', which he explained was being 'obese'.

The park's owners confirmed in a statement provided to the ABC that they believed Mr Griffin had withheld a medical issue.

Mr Griffin later received legal advice that the perception of a medical issue without evidence could be grounds for a discrimination case.

Mr Griffin, his wife Hazel and young son Freddie, had just arrived in Tasmania after selling most of their possessions to make the journey from Cloncurry, in north-west Queensland where he managed holiday parks for eight years.

He claimed he had been physically capable of performing all tasks required to do his job over that time.

'Carrying a few extra kilos, in my mind, is not going to inhibit me and hasn't inhibited me for the last eight years to carry out my duties as a manager of a park,' Mr Griffin said.

He claimed he had not been given a fair chance 'to prove I'm capable'.

Instead, his new employer terminated him 'because he thought I couldn't do these things, and might cause him liability through injury as I'm too fat'.

His initial post to 'family and friends' told them he had 'bad news'.

'It is with a great deal of heartbreak and considerable embarrassment that I have to advise that the dream tree change to the Apple Isle for the Griffin's has turned into a nightmare ... before it's even begun.'

Mr Griffin claimed he had only been in the role two days when his employer, the park owner, asked him to help move a sofa, then 'ripped' into him, saying he wasn't 'physically' capable before dismissing him

Mr Griffin claimed he had been physically capable of performing all tasks required to do his previous job in the same industry

'I still think this is just a bad dream I'll wake up from, but the reality and sadness have really set in.'

Mr Griffin suggested he was investigating legal action over his 'outrageous' sacking.

'I had completed an interview via video for the job, and had sent him links to [an online] photo, to which he replied "what a lovely photo of you all",' he said.

Big4 Holiday Parks at Strahan confirmed the sacking.

The park owners told the ABC that Mr Griffin's sacking was due to a workplace health issue based on concerns Mr Griffin would harm himself at work.

They also claimed he had withheld a health condition from employers.

Daily Mail Australia approached Big4 Strahan Holiday Retreat for additional comment.
President Joe Biden mocked a reporter Thursday after she questioned remarks he made during a press conference Wednesday that critics claim gave Russia's President Vladimir Putin the 'green light' to invade Ukraine.

Ahead of an infrastructure meeting at the White House on Thursday, Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asked the president: 'Why are you waiting on Putin to make the first move, sir?'

'What a stupid question,' Biden replied after lightly chuckling.

The president has been known for lashing out at the press when he doesn't like their questions.

The exchange came as Biden faces widespread criticism for claiming US retaliation for Russian aggression in Ukraine would depend on the details.

President Joe Biden (pictured Thursday) lashed out at a reporter who questioned the potentially catastrophic remarks he made during a press conference Wednesday that critics claim gave Russian President Vladimir Putin the 'green light' to invade Ukraine

During his rambling two-hour press conference on Wednesday, Biden said: 'Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does.'

'It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera,' he continued. 'But if they actually do what they're capable of doing with the forces amassed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine.'

The president and top administration officials worked Thursday to clarify his seeming waffling on Russia's aggression.

Biden reiterated that if 'any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion' and it would be met with a 'severe and coordinated economic response.'

However, American politicians and world leaders are still finding the 'minor incursion' remark unsettling.

'We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted.

'Deeply troubling and dangerous,' echoed Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican.

'A green light for Putin,' said Republican Rep. Mike Garcia of California, who is one of many to use that phrase.

Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich (pictured) asked the president on Thursday: 'Why are you waiting on Putin to make the first move, sir?' Biden replied: 'What a stupid question'

The testy exchange comes as the president faces widespread criticism for remarks he made during a press conference Wednesday (pictured). Biden said that Russia will be held accountable if it invades Ukraine, but then added that it depends on what it does

The president's latest comments came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to meet Friday in Geneva with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a high-stakes bid to ease tensions that appears likely to fail.

Biden said the US was preparing for Russia to take action that fell outside the parameters of conventional warfare.

'Russia has a long history of using measures other than overt military action to carry out aggression - paramilitary tactics, so-called gray zone attacks and actions by Russian soldiers not wearing Russian uniforms,' he said.

Russian officials have said they have no intention of invading Ukraine, but the deployment of a large combat force along its borders, estimated at 100,000 troops, has created fear of war.

Moscow in turn, has accused the West of plotting 'provocations' in Ukraine, citing the delivery of weapons to the country by British military transports in recent days.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova alleged Ukrainian and Western talk of an imminent Russian attack was a 'cover for staging large-scale provocations of their own, including those of military character.'

Russia wants binding security guarantees, including a permanent prohibition on Ukrainian membership in NATO, to which Kyiv aspires, and the removal of most of the US and allied military presence in eastern Europe.

On Thursday, Biden tried to clarify his remarks by saying if 'any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion' and it would be met with a 'severe and coordinated economic response' (Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday)

A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, Tuesday

The US and its European partners have said they are willing to consider certain less-dramatic gestures but that the Russian demands are out of the question and that Putin knows they are nonstarters, something Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims if proof of Putin's ulterior motive.

'So far, our good-faith gestures have been rebuffed -- because, in truth, this crisis is not primarily about weapons or military bases,' Blinken said. Thursday 'It's about the sovereignty and self-determination of Ukraine and other post-Soviet states. And at its core, it's about Russia's rejection of a post-Cold War Europe that is whole and free.'

Russia on Thursday announced sweeping naval maneuvers through February, some apparently in the Black Sea, involving over 140 warships and more than 60 aircraft. Separately, Spain's defense minister said the country was sending two warships to the Black Sea with NATO approval.

Amid concerns that Putin may not be moved by threats of sanctions, Blinken made a direct appeal to the Russian people to oppose any intervention.

'You deserve to live with security and dignity, like all people everywhere, and no one - not Ukraine, not the United States, not the countries of NATO - is seeking to jeopardize that. But what really risks your security is a pointless war with your neighbors in Ukraine, with all the costs that come with it - most of all, for the young people who will risk or even give their lives to it,' he said.
South Australia has reported a fall in new COVID-19 infections with Premier Steven Marshall saying the drop is further evidence the state may have reached the peak in the current Omicron-fuelled outbreak.

Mr Marshall said there were 3023 new infections on Friday, down from 3777 on Thursday.

'These numbers do bob around a bit but this is very significantly under our (3569) seven-day average,' the premier said.

'I'm increasingly hopeful we have got on top of this very dangerous Omicron wave.'

Premier Steven Marshall said the drop is further evidence the state may have reached the peak in the current Omicron-fuelled outbreak

SA also reported six more deaths of people with COVID-19 and an increase in the number of people in hospital to 298 with 33 in intensive care and seven on ventilators.

The state's active cases were reported at 31,582, a fall of 6906 in the past 24 hours.

SA Health said genome sampling indicated 95 per cent of SA's new infections were now the Omicron variant.

The premier revealed the latest preliminary modelling on SA's outbreak suggested there would be no significant jump in cases once school returned early next month.

Under the proposed 'hybrid' model, reception students along with those in years 1, 7, 8 and 12 will return to classrooms on February 2.

Teachers and staff will be provided with seven rapid antigen tests to use if they come in close contact with a positive case

Other years will learn online for two weeks before heading back to school on February 14.

Mr Marshall said officials had decided to introduce surveillance rapid antigen testing for teachers and other staff, but only in pre-schools and the childcare centres.

They will be tested on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Other teachers and staff will be provided with seven rapid antigen tests to use if they come in close contact with a positive case.

If they test negative on those daily checks, they will be allowed to continue teaching.

There will be no widespread RAT testing for students.

Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said while the return to school would result in more infections among children, It was not expected to result in a large wave of new cases.

'We're not in an elimination phase. What we're trying to do in public health is reduce the transmission,' she said.

'I'm really, really pleased to see those case numbers plateauing

'I'm hoping that we have come off our peak and I'm going to be very happy to see some decay in that pandemic curve.

'But we just have to take it a step at a time.'

From January 27, the state's blanket work from home advice will also be revised with workplaces asked to restrict attendance to 25 per cent of the usual capacity or about one person to every four square metres.

They will also be asked to wear masks while indoors and take their lunch breaks outdoors where possible.

There will be no immediate change to other local restrictions including density limits at most venues, caps on family gatherings and mask mandates in most indoor settings, including shopping centres.
Police in California have released the audio of the 911 call that led to the arrest of the career criminal charged with the murder of 24-year-old Brianna Kupfer, who was stabbed to death inside the furniture store where she worked in what is believed to have been a random attack.

Kupfer was killed on January 13 at Croft House, an upscale furniture store on North La Brea Avenue in central Los Angeles.

Police announced on Tuesday that their main suspect was Shawn Laval Smith, 31, a homeless South Carolina native known for attacking police officers and strangers, who had a rap sheet of at least 11 arrests in his home state and two in California.

On Wednesday, a man recognized Smith near a bus stop in Pasadena and called the police, saying he was wearing the same distinctive backpack as that seen when he bought a vape pen in a 7-Eleven store - just 30 minutes after Kupfer's murder.

'Hello, I am calling because I see a gentleman who looks very similar to the suspect in the Kupfer stabbing in L.A.,' the caller states.

'I'm in Pasadena. He just walked past the corner of Green and Terrace, in Pasadena.'

Brianna Kupfer, 24, was murdered on January 13 in a central Los Angeles furniture boutique

Brianna Kupfer, 24, was stabbed to death in a random attack on January 13 while she was working alone in a luxury furniture store in Los Angeles. She had texted a friend to say someone in the shop was 'giving her a bad vibe'. Smith is pictured right in an undated mugshot

A still photo from surveillance video shows a suspect in UCLA student Brianna Kupfer's murder buying a vape pen at a 7-Eleven just 30 minutes after the January 13 stabbing

The suspect dressed in all black walked into a store located about four miles from the crime scene where Kupfer was found dead

The suspect was last seen carrying a backpack and wearing mirrored glasses

Surveillance video released by the police captured the man identified as Smith strolling into a 7-Eleven located at Beverly Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard - about four miles from the crime scene - and handing a sales clerk cash to buy a vape pen.

The man in the video, wearing all black, except for a white dust mask commonly worn by house painters, does not appear in a hurry as he places a bill on the counter and counts a handful of coins.

At one point, he briefly lowers his mask.

The store worker hands him the vape pen and the suspect walks away, but he immediately returns and apparently asks to exchange the vaping device for another one.

Fox News captured the moment Shawn Smith was arrested for the brutal, unprovoked stabbing of a 24-year-old student

Shawn Laval Smith, 31, was taken into custody by Pasadena, police Wednesday in connection with the murder of Brianna Kupfer in nearby Los Angeles. He has a lengthy rap sheet

He's pictured being led away in handcuffs in Pasadena on January 19; police said he was arrested peacefully and did not struggle with officers

Smith has a prolific criminal record, with dozens of prior charges in North Carolina and South Carolina

The Los Angeles Police Department announced that Smith was arrested at around 11:50am on Wednesday.

The caller said he saw Smith in a black hoodie, dark sweatpants and the eye-catching backpack.

Smith initially gave a fake name, and the LAPD sent its fugitive unit with a fingerprint reader to Pasadena to confirm Smith's identity with the device.

The LAPD received more than 1,000 tips since the senseless killing, the source said.

Smith was taken into custody about 15 miles from the high-end furniture store where Kupfer was killed.

Brianna was not supposed to be working last Thursday, but she ended up at the store alone. Her father said no one could have predicted that she would be attacked, but lashed out at leaders for failing to protect the community

Prior to last week's murder, Smith was arrested and charged with violent crimes in at least three states.

At the time of Kupfer's murder, he was free on a $50,000 bond after allegedly firing a weapon toward an occupied vehicle in Charleston, South Carolina, in November 2019.

An indictment in that case was handed down on March 16, 2020, just before COVID-19 paralyzed the courts, and the docket shows no further action on the case.

He was free on a second $1,000 bond from a misdemeanor arrest in Los Angeles County in October 2020, sheriff's records show.

DailyMail.com learned Smith was arrested in Covina, California, on October 27, 2020, and charged for allegedly stealing items from a local Home Depot. He was cited and released, police said.

He was convicted by San Diego prosecutors in 2017 for carrying a concealed dagger and brandishing a deadly weapon in a fight. He was given three years probation and ordered to pay a $400 fine, according to court records.

Smith suffered from mental health issues and had a history of violence, Velma Washington - who claimed to be his aunt - told Fox Digital.

She said she was not familiar with his diagnoses but 'he was a good boy'.

Smith was arrested by Pasadena cops one day after the Los Angeles Police Department put out a call for help finding the 'armed and dangerous' man

He will be transferred to the Los Angeles Police Department for questioning related to Kupfer's murder

The LAPD shared its gratitude to the Pasadena Police Department, but have not yet disclosed whether Smith has been charged

Smith was booked into a Los Angeles jail Wednesday afternoon and is currently being held on a $2million bond

Smith is seen in Charleston, South Carolina mugshots (left to right) in June 2013 for possession of marijuana, in July 2013 for littering on the highways, and in September 2013 for disorderly conduct

Smith is seen in Charleston mugshots (left to right) in July 2015 on charges of driving without a license, expired registration, and careless driving; March 1, 2016 on charges of trespassing; March 5, 2016 on charges of trespassing and resisting arrest

Smith is seen in Charleston mugshots (left to right) in November 2018 on charge of contempt of court; March 2019 on charges of entering a premises after warning; June 2019 on charges of entering a premises after warning; and November 2019 for firing into an occupied vehicle, a charge for which he is still free on a $50,000 bail more than two years later

In 2016, Charlotte police issued a public appeal with this DMV photo saying Smith was wanted on '14 active warrants for his arrest for Bicycle thefts' in the area

In 2016, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department issued a public appeal for information about Smith, saying he was wanted on '14 active warrants for his arrest for bicycle thefts he has committed in the Charlotte area.'

More recently, in California, Smith has charges in San Francisco and San Mateo, where he was accused of assaulting a police officer, a law enforcement source told Fox News.

His most recent arrest appears to be for shoplifting, the source said.

The murder comes amid a huge crime surge in Los Angeles, with homicides in Los Angeles rising 52 percent last year, from 2019, and shooting incidents were up 59 percent, according to LAPD data.

LA crime is on the upswing, according to police statistics. Shooting victims have increased 10.6 percent year-to-year and 53 percent from the same point in 2019

A memorial for Kupfer has formed outside the Croft House in the days following the deadly attack

A heartfelt note posted to the store's window this week talks about how Kupfer was beloved by her coworkers

Riley Rea, co-owner of Croft House, told the LA Times that Brianna was beloved by her coworkers at the store where she had worked for a year.

She added: 'She was mature beyond her years.'

A heartfelt note was posted to the store's window this week that reads: 'The entire Croft House family is deeply saddened by the devastating loss of our beloved team member on January 13, 2022. Our La Brea Avenue showroom will be closed until further notice to allow our team members to grieve and process this unthinkable tragedy and in order for law enforcement to complete their investigation.

'Please keep the family, friends, and colleagues in close thought during this difficult time as we mourn, cherish, miss, and honor someone we care for so much. The entire Croft House family sends our love to our team member's family and friends. Please direct all questions related to this tragic event to the LAPD.'

At the bottom of the page is a handwritten note that reads: 'We love you so much.'
President Joe Biden has made international headlines for his car crash press conference where he seemingly gave Russian strongman Vladimir Putin the 'green light' to invade Ukraine.

Biden was blasted on all fronts after telling reporters during a rambling - and rare - press conference that a 'minor incursion' into Ukraine by Moscow might elicit a lesser response than a full-scale one.

Hubert Wetzel, a Washington correspondent for Munich's Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper wrote, 'At the end of this press conference, you no longer know exactly who is actually the one who gets on Joe Biden's nerves more.'

'Is it Russian President Vladimir Putin who is threatening to invade Ukraine? Or is it this cheeky journalist from the right-wing broadcaster Newsmax who seriously asks the president why, according to a poll, half of Americans believe he has dementia?'

French newspaper Le Figaro also featured the president on their front page saying he left his people 'disappointed' after his first year in office. The news outlet alleged Biden was an 'unfortunate idealistic but clumsy Democratic president' who has 'overestimated his political capacities'

The Times' Gerard Baker wrote a more broad critique of Biden's first year in office coming off the two-hour debacle Wednesday entitled, 'Failing Biden blames everyone but himself.'

'There are bad years, there are very bad years and then there is Joe Biden's inaugural year as president,' he wrote for the UK outfit.

Baker put blame on the president and his progressive allies for using the COVID-19 pandemic to create a 'new American social compact.'

'Meanwhile, Americans just wanted someone focused on returning their disrupted lives to normal, stopping their shopping bill from rising every week and trying to heal - as Biden had promised - the nations wounds,' he wrote.

In the Telegraph, conservative columnist Nile Gardiner called Biden's first year in office 'catastrophic.' Gardiner wrote that he had spoken to 'dozens of parliamentarians, officials and diplomats across Europe who have simply lost faith in American leadership.'

'One very senior British MP told me last week that Biden's foreign policy was "appalling" and "completely useless,"' Gardiner said.

President Joe Biden is making headlines worldwide over his potentially catastrophic press conference on Wednesday where, as some critics allege, he gave Russia the 'green light' to invade Ukraine (Translation: Joe Biden bogged down)

The Kyiv Post accused Biden of 'fraying raw nerves' with his comments that suggested a Russian invasion was not only likely but 'a fait accompli' after the Kremlin spent recent months massing more than 100,000 troops on the border

The West Australian newspaper called the president's Wednesday press conference a 'gaffe' that required 'damage control' from Ukraine's allies, who remain unified in responding to an invasion from Moscow

Welt, a TV station based in Munich, noted that he had not had a press conference in 78 days, then note he stumbled several times.

'He shows poor concentration. He closes his eyes several times, stares at the ceiling to be able to concentrate. After more than an hour of questioning, he looks at the clock and asks the reporters, "How long did you want to do this?", Daniel Friedrich Sturm wrote.

Australian media branded the president's comments a 'gaffe' that left officials scrambling to clarify their stance; British papers warned 'failing Biden' was 'blaming everyone but himself,' Moscow media branded the US as 'sick'; and French papers claimed Biden had 'overestimated his capabilities.'

The Kyiv Post accused Biden of 'fraying raw nerves' with his comments that suggested a Russian invasion was not only likely but 'a fait accompli' after the Kremlin spent recent months massing more than 100,000 troops on the border.

The West Australia branded the president's comments a 'gaffe' that sent the White House scrambling to do 'damage control' - and forced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to reassure citizens not to panic on national television.

The world press also accused Biden of being 'fragile' because of his small majority in Congress and blasted the president for getting 'bogged down' as he marked the end to his first year in office.

French newspaper Le Figaro featured the president on its front page saying he had left people 'disappointed' and that he had 'overestimated his political capabilities' - citing the 'calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan' in late August.

Chinese outlet Beijing Daily claimed Biden 'has not done better than Donald Trump' and said the president has left everyone saying 'the United States is sick'.

While in an article bizarrely titled 'All is well, beautiful Kamala,' Russian site Kommersent described the press conference as Biden spending 'two hours convincing the press that the first year of his president "exceeded expectations."'

The world press hadn't been this up in arms about the American president since the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer.

Biden's comments on Ukraine sparked much of the backlash in the international press amid rising fears of a Russian invasion which Western intelligence has said is expected 'imminently'.

Beijing Daily slammed Biden's presidency claiming his first year in office has everyone saying 'the United States is sick'

Another Russian outlet, Kommersent, claimed reporters who attended the presser 'experienced an attack of deja vu' when they heard Biden's remarks

The president on Wednesday said: 'Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does.

'It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera,

'But if they actually do what they're capable of doing with the forces amassed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine.'

Top officials scrambled to clarify the White House position on Thursday, reiterating if 'any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion' and it would be met with a 'severe and coordinated economic response.'

But Biden was slammed in papers the world over for the bumbling remarks with the Japan Times accusing the president of 'flustering his European partners' and 'triggering alarm in European capitals with his suggestion of divisions among allies'.

The Moscow Times, which touts itself as being 'independent news from Russia', seemingly mocked the president over the press conference, saying he 'warns of disaster for Russia if they invade Ukraine'.

The Los Angeles Times ran the headline 'Biden's "minor incursion" comment roils diplomatic efforts to half Russian invasion of Ukraine

Politico ran the headline 'No "minor" blowback to Biden's Ukraine gaffe' in reference to the president's comments about a potential Russian invasion of its neighbour state

Japanese journalists echoed the claim, accusing Biden of 'flustering his European partners' and 'triggering alarm in European capitals with his suggestion of divisions among allies'

The Moscow Times, which touts itself as being 'independent news from Russia,' seemingly mocked the president over the press conference, saying he 'warns of disaster for Russia if they invade Ukraine'

French outlet La Croix ran a front page picture of Biden accusing him of getting 'bogged down' in the his first year and said the president was 'fragile' because of his 'small majority in Congress'.

French newspaper Le Figaro also featured the president on their front page saying he left his people 'disappointed' after his first year in office.

The news outlet alleged Biden was an 'unfortunate idealistic but clumsy Democratic president' who has 'overestimated his political capacities'.

The author cited his 'calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan' and Biden's 'vagueness in the management of the Ukrainian file'.

Meanwhile Kommersent, suggested that although Biden answered questions 'in high spirits' he refused to take responsibility for his failures, blaming them on his 'predecessor, media bias, unreliable public opinion polls and the pandemic'.

The outlet also claimed reporters who attended the presser 'experienced an attack of deja vu' when they heard Biden's remarks.

Beijing Daily slammed Biden's presidency claiming his first year in office has everyone saying 'the United States is sick'.

'Joe Biden has not done better than Donald Trump,' the newspaper asserted.

The outlet claims he failed to 'heal a divided society,' as he promised following last year's riot at the US Capitol and noted how Biden blasted Trump for his 'failure' 16 times during his keynote speech.

Others global outlets mirrored the sentiment, saying Biden enters his second year in office 'with unmet priorities' and that the 'next three years are likely to be even harder'.

The Sydney Morning Herald alleged that Biden's commentary on Russia left the White House on damage control, needing to scramble to clarify what he meant

The Beijing News warned that Biden's next three years in office will likely be even harder than his first
Schools across England are in open rebellion against the Government over masks after more than 100 head teachers wrote to parents warning that children must continue wearing face coverings in classrooms.

Union bosses stoked the fires of revolt this week after accusing Boris Johnson of flouting his duty of care to teachers over the new guidance on masks.

The Prime Minister this week announced an easing of Covid curbs, from WFH guidance to face coverings and Covid isolation, as the Omicron wave subsides.

But critics have claimed that Mr Johnson is axing virus restrictions to appease his Tory backbench and save his own skin as he fights for his political career amid the dramatic fallout from Partygate.

Schools are defying the Governments anti-mask guidance and telling parents that pupils must continue to wear face coverings.

And it has now emerged that ministers will not stop schools from forcing children to wear face coverings.

Has your child been sent home for refusing to wear a mask? Email: jack.wright@mailonline.co.uk Advertisement

Head teachers across the country say that they are struggling either with staff shortages or high rates of Covid in the local community  and argue that masks in classrooms will stem the spread of the virus.

New data from the UK Health Security Agency shows that the rate of new Covid cases among primary schoolchildren in England rose 41 per cent in the week to January 16 to 1,936 cases per 100,000 five to nine-year-olds.

Schools North East, a network in the North East of England, said 80 per cent of schools in the region planned to retain some Covid-related measures, with many secondary schools retaining face masks in classrooms and communal areas.

Head teacher Andy Byers, who runs Framwellgate school in Durham, also said masks were still needed because Covid rates in the region remained high.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi last night said that local officials would seek to persuade individual schools to abandon masks.

He insisted that face-to-face education for all students has consistently been my priority, adding: National guidance to wear face coverings in communal areas will also be removed in line with the national move out of Plan B. This applies to all schools.

But in a letter to MPs, he admitted that masks could be reintroduced in the event of an extraordinary local Covid outbreak.

A DfE insider told MailOnline that the Government does not have a legal mechanism to force schools to follow the new guidance on dropping masks.

The guidance that weve got on dropping face masks in line with Plan B is exactly that: guidance, they claimed.

Schools across England are in open rebellion against the Government over masks as more than 100 head teachers have written to parents warning that children must continue wearing face coverings in classrooms (file image)

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi last night said that local officials would seek to persuade individual schools to abandon masks. But in a letter to MPs, he admitted that masks could be reintroduced in the event of an extraordinary local Covid outbreak

Parents have launched a campaign to prevent overzealous schools from imposing masks

Parent group UsForThem has urged its supporters to bombard Mr Zahawi with letters to stop overzealous local public health authorities from unilaterally implementing face masks in schools (pictured, campaigner Molly Kingsley)

The Prime Minister this week announced a dramatic easing of Covid curbs, from WFH guidance to face coverings and Covid isolation, as the Omicron wave subsides

So what is changing... and when will it happen? Your guide to the post-curb rules as Boris Johnson announces the end of Covid Plan B restrictions IMMEDIATELY WORKING FROM HOME The Prime Minister said the Government is no longer asking people to work from home. He called on people to speak to their employers about arrangements for returning to the office. FROM YESTERDAY MASKS IN SCHOOLS From yesterday, secondary school pupils will not have to wear face coverings in classrooms. The requirement to wear masks in corridors and other communal areas will end next Thursday, January 27. FROM NEXT THURSDAY MASKS IN PUBLIC PLACES From next Thursday, the Government will no longer legally mandate the wearing of face coverings in shops and on public transport. But they will continue to suggest masks should be worn in enclosed and crowded places where people could come into contact with those they do not normally meet. The Prime Minister said this meant the Government will 'trust the judgment of the British people and no longer criminalise anyone who chooses not to wear one'. COVID PASSPORTS Proof of vaccination or a recent negative test will no longer be needed to enter nightclubs and large venues from next Thursday. But businesses will still be free to use the NHS Covid Pass if they want. BY THE END OF THE MONTH TRAVEL An announcement is expected soon on scrapping the requirement for fully vaccinated travellers to take a Covid test on returning to England. No 10 said the rules will be reviewed by the end of January. CARE HOMES Plans to ease restrictions on care home visits will be announced in the next few days. At present, care homes must impose severe restrictions on visitors for up to 28 days if there has been a Covid outbreak affecting two or more residents. BY MARCH AT THE LATEST SELF-ISOLATION Boris Johnson said he 'very much expects' not to renew the legal requirement to self-isolate with Covid when the rules lapse on March 24. He said this could happen even earlier, if the data allows. The legal requirement will be replaced with guidance that urges people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others. BY JULY FREE TESTS Free Covid lateral flow tests look set to be scrapped by July. People will be pointed towards an online ordering system to purchase the tests, which cost 30 for a pack of seven. Advertisement

We do expect schools to follow it, but we do not have a legal mechanism to coerce schools into doing so. We do, however, expect that if schools do want to keep face masks, there would be a good reason for doing so.

We want to work with and support schools, and not take punitive action against them.

In a round of interviews this morning, Cabinet minister Kwasi Kwarteng said schools should follow the official guidance on mask-wearing.

The Business Secretary told Sky News: The guidance from the Prime Minister is very clear: that we won't need to be wearing masks.

Chris Zarraga, the director of Schools North East, told The Guardian: Schools are still facing real challenges in getting staff cover, increasing staff workload and stress and impacting negatively on wellbeing.

There are serious concerns for schools, with local pictures often radically different from the national picture.

Shuttleworth College in Burnley told parents it would not be removing any of our measures in school at this time, citing high Covid cases.

Uckfield College in East Sussex said it was keeping masks in force for now on the basis that the last thing students want at the moment is more staff absence.

The Commonweal School in Swindon told parents to ensure that your child brings a suitable mask to school each day.

Others, including Oxted School in Surrey and Droylesden Academy in Manchester, said they wanted to wait until they had been sent official guidance from the DfE  despite this being published on Wednesday.

And St Peters Church of England Aided School in Exeter told parents masks must still be worn in lessons as Covid has not gone away. They added that wearing face coverings is a kind and thoughtful way to support the community.

But the National Deaf Childrens Society has warned that schools which choose to impose masks risk flouting the Equality Act.

Mike Hobday, the societys director of campaigns, told MailOnline: Government guidance in England does not recommend masks are used by teachers or pupils in class.

If schools choose to go against this recommendation, they would need to be confident that they have taken all the action needed to ensure they are complying with the Equality Act so that disabled children can access teaching and learning.

Unless these reasonable adjustments are made, there may be little point in deaf children even going to school.

And Arabella Skinner, a director of parent campaign group UsForThem, told The Telegraph: As we have seen throughout the pandemic, schools often go far beyond the recommendations and beyond what the rest of society is required to do.

In the case of masks being removed from class, we had over 100 schools raised with us who are choosing  against government guidance  to keep masks in class.

Teaching unions yesterday accused the Prime Minister of scrapping masks for political reasons, not scientific ones.

The National Education Union claimed that lifting Omicron curbs too quickly could lead to more disruption for schools.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL, warned: There is a danger that we are heading once again for a situation in which the Government gives the impression that the crisis is over when in actual fact there is huge disruption continuing to take place in education.

The NEUs Dr Mary Bousted called the removal of masks premature, adding: Rather than announcements aimed at saving Boris Johnsons job, (the) Government should be exercising a duty of care to the nations pupils and the staff who educated them.

In a draft letter for parents to send their local MPs and the Education Secretary, the UsForThem group warned: To reverse the damage, the new guidance you issue must be extremely strongly worded indeed.

You should certainly forbid local authorities from unilaterally implementing face masks in schools.

In some US states where governors have banned mask mandates, they have protected children by making legal provision for parental opt-out.

It comes as a recent poll by parent voice charity Parentkind found that nearly two thirds of parents of secondary school children are not in favour of masks in the classroom. There was less opposition among parents to coverings in communal school areas.

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In a statement to the Commons on Wednesday, Mr Johnson announced WFH guidance would be dropped immediately and rules on masks in schools would also be scrapped as of Thursday. Other restrictions including compulsory face coverings on public transport and in shops, and Covid passes for entry to nightclubs and large events will end next Thursday.

And the legal requirement for people with Covid to isolate will also be allowed to lapse when the regulations expire on March 24.

Mr Byers told parents the PMs Plan B U-turn creates some difficulty for us.

Case rates in the northeast are still relatively high. We currently have 60+ students and ten staff absent, having tested positive. A small proportion of those people have been quite poorly, he said.

Other local secondary schools are all in a similar position: high levels of absence with some students missing important face-to-face teaching, and a reliance on supply teachers covering lessons.

For this reason I would like to encourage students to continue wearing face coverings for the next two or three weeks until (hopefully) case numbers fall.

A spokeswoman for school leaderss union NAHT admitted that there is some concern about the easing of Plan B measures.

Its general secretary Paul Whiteman said: The Prime Ministers statement about lifting plan B measures will feel, to many school leaders, at odds with the current situation on the ground.

Mass disruption is ongoing, with high numbers of staff and pupils absent. School leaders are telling us they still feel very much in the eye of the Covid storm.

Quarter of small businesses will stick with WFH until at least APRIL 2023, new report says, despite change in Government guidance, because of substantial savings of not having to pay for office space A quarter of small businesses will stick with working from home until at least April 2023 despite a change in Government guidance, a new report has said, because of the substantial savings of not having to pay for office space. Firms with fewer than 50 employees are saving an average of nearly 4,000 a month by not having to pay for an office, according to research from Hitachi Capital Business Finance, and are likely to stick to working from home well into next year. It comes after Boris Johnson ordered Government departments to get their civil servants back into the office 'as soon as possible' as he demanded they set an example to the country after lifting working from home restrictions. However, a survey of more than 1,000 small business owners has found that one in four had plans to continue working entirely from home until at least April next year, while a similar number were planning hybrid working. Joanna Morris of Hitachi Capital Business Finance said: 'As the worst of the pandemic hopefully begins to fade, and the option of returning to a fixed workplace is put back on the table once again, we might expect to see most taking up this option and returning to normal. 'However, this research reminds us that it may not be the perfect solution for everyone. 'As with every business decision that owners make, particularly over the past 18 months, a range of factors need to be taken into consideration first, with the bottom line understandably often given a heavier weighting. 'The one positive that has come from this particularly challenging period has been the requirement to be far more flexible and open minded than ever before, with changes to the business that will reap benefits in the long term.' Advertisement

Willingdon Community School in Eastbourne, East Sussex, also wants its pupils to continue wearing masks.

Head teacher Emily May said: Our students have been fantastic wearing masks since October 2021 and understand that this small act of kindness is helping to keep our community safe.

We still have significant Covid infections within the school community and a 10 per cent rise of Covid cases in this local area.

It is not sensible to relax this measure yet. However, we do appreciate that each school needs to be able to make their own decision based on their school context and it needs to be reviewed regularly.

Children at Hanley Castle High School, Worcestershire, have also been told to keep wearing face coverings.

Lindsey Cooke, the head teacher, said: I do think this was a very rushed announcement.

Our year 11 and year 13 exam groups have missed so much school already; what we do not want to do is to rush into taking masks off and then get another outbreak in those year groups.

But other teachers welcomed the end of masks in schools. Joseph Sparks, an assistant principal at Stationers Crown Woods Academy in Greenwich, London, today called face coverings a barrier to learning.

He told Sky News: We welcome the change here at the academy and ultimately we will follow the advice and guidance given to us by the DfE. And as you can see from the students in this particular class, theyve opted not to wear one this morning.

But well leave that choice to them, and for us at the academy, its about making them safe and making sure their learning experience is a seamless one and can continue as normal as possible.

Pressed on why masks can be a barrier to learning, he explained: I had an example yesterday where I was teaching a class, and I didnt know who had answered the question.

Sometimes it can be a bit of a barrier like that to that social interaction that takes place, and knowing which students might need help. Ultimately weve left that choice to the students from this point.

Mr Sparks added: Our job is to keep the students as safe as possible. Weve taken lots of measures over the course of the various lockdowns to ensure that our students remain safe.

Weve been really fortunate our students have continued to come to the academy every day, weve had really had attendance.

Britains top medics have also insisted that scrapping Covid curbs at such pace risks creating a false sense of security with the NHS still under pressure.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association council, said: This decision clearly is not guided by the data. When Plan B was introduced in December, there were 7,373 patients in hospital in the UK. The latest data this week shows there are 18,9791.

He warned that ending mandates on mask-wearing would inevitably increase transmission and place the most vulnerable at a higher risk.

And Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation representing health bodies, said now is not the time for complacency about this virus.

Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers Saffron Cordery said that some trusts had reported they were expecting their peak later this week despite a fall in case numbers nationally due to regional variations in the number of hospital admissions.

That's why it's important that there is recognition that this surge isn't over, and that the health service is still operating under extremely challenging circumstances, she added.

It comes after Covid cases fell in most parts of the UK for the first time since early December, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Has your child been sent home for refusing to wear a mask? Email: jack.wright@mailonline.co.uk.
The shocking moment a motorcyclist died in a head-on collision while fleeing police has been inadvertently broadcast live on television in Los Angeles.

The crash occurred on Thursday afternoon in West Hills as a news chopper from KCBS-TV was broadcasting live footage of the suspect's wild 130mph flight from a traffic stop.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the motorcycle was reported stolen, and police were 'tracking' it after the rider fled from a stop, but officers were not involved in a pursuit.

'Oh my gosh,' a news anchor said, clasping her hands to her mouth as the rider collided head-on with a car. 'We have just seen - sorry, we just saw that motorcycle crash into a car there at the intersection.'

A rider fleeing police on an allegedly stolen motorcycle died in a collision on Thursday

The motorcycle collided with a car head-on as the car was turning through an intersection

LAPD Captain Andy Neiman told the CBS affiliate: 'It's a very sad day here. Just another example of how reckless driving  regardless of who it is  causes death.'

Neiman insisted that despite earlier reports to the contrary, officers were not pursuing the motorcycle at the time of the crash.

Many police departments have policies discouraging pursuits of motorcycles, depending on the circumstances, because of the extreme danger to the rider and others.

'There were some statements made that we were in pursuit of this motorcycle. I just want to make it very clear, at no time were we in pursuit,' said Neiman.

'Oh my gosh,' a news anchor said, clasping her hands to her mouth as the rider collided head-on with a car

According to the LAPD, the motorcycle was reported stolen, and police were 'tracking' it after the rider fled from a stop, but officers were not involved in a pursuit

Nieman said that something unusual about the rider or motorcycle made undercover officers suspicious, and when they ran the bike's plates the vehicle came back as stolen.

He said that when the officers tried to pull the motorcycle over in a parking lot, the rider fled at speeds of more than 100mph.

KCBS said their footage confirmed that the motorcycle approached 130mph in the moments leading up to the crash.

The motorcyclist's identity was not immediately available from the Los Angeles Coroners Office.
Far-Right activist Tommy Robinson is being pursued by creditors for an estimated 2million after he was ordered to compensate a Syrian schoolboy he wrongly accused of attacking a girl.

The English Defence League founder declared bankruptcy during a High Court libel case brought against him by Jamal Hijazi.

Campaigners now claim that Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, is hiding millions to avoid paying the teenager.

It emerged last night that creditors including HMRC, a former business partner and Barrow-In-Furness Borough Council, have asked an independent insolvency expert to investigate whether Robinsons claim is genuine or whether he is hiding assets to avoid paying his debts.

Campaign group Hope Not Hate allege that Robinson has access to assets worth up to about 3million through property acquisitions, investments, donations and book sales.

Robinson was sued by Jamal after he made false allegations against the Syrian schoolboy on Facebook in November 2018.

After a video showing the teenager being attacked at school went viral, the far-Right activist wrongly claimed that Jamal was not innocent and he violently attacks young English girls in his school.

Tommy Robinson (pictured) is being pursued by creditors for an estimated 2million after he was ordered to compensate a Syrian schoolboy he wrongly accused of attacking a girl

The English Defence League founder declared bankruptcy during a High Court libel case brought against him by Jamal Hijazi (pictured)

He also wrongly claimed that Jamal had beat a girl black and blue and threatened to stab another boy at his school.

Jamal denied the claims and told the High Court that the slurs had had a devastating effect on the lives of him and his family, who had come to the UK as refugees from Homs in Syria.

The judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, said the consequences of Robinsons falsehoods had been particularly severe for Jamal and the scars would likely last for many years, if not a lifetime.

Robinson was ordered to pay Jamal 100,000 in libel damages plus an estimated 1.5million in legal costs, but the teenager has not yet seen a penny due to the activists bankruptcy claim.

Hope Not Hate have launched a crowdfunder to pay insolvency expert Heath Sinclair, of Richard Long & Co.

The expert has until March 3 to try to find any assets or money that Robinson could be hiding, otherwise he will come out of bankruptcy and it may then become harder to recover the money he owes.

Bankruptcies are usually for 12 months, but the independent expert can apply to court to have the discharge from bankruptcy suspended.

A video showing Jamal being pushed to the ground and 'waterboarded' on the field at his secondary school in Huddersfield was shared nationwide in November 2018

Mr Justice Nicklin ruled in Jamal's favour and granted him 100,000 in damages

Until now the work has been done by the official receiver, but the creditors hope the expert will uncover more assets.

He has the power to look at Robinsons bank records, to interview people under oath and apply for search warrants if necessary.

Campaigners claim a Bedfordshire mansion worth 1.2million is owned by Robinsons ex-wife Jenna Lennon, but that Robinson is often seen at the property chatting to builders.

Hope Not Hates chief executive Nick Lowles said: Jamal Hijazi is a victim of Tommy Robinsons vitriol, and it is important that Robinson is held to account.

It is wholly unjust that while his victims life has been turned upside down, Tommy Robinson carries on his life as before.

Tommy Robinson has to understand that there are real consequences to his hate. It is time to make him pay up and ensure that his victims get proper justice.

MailOnline has approached Robinson for comment.

During his years as an activist, Robinson used crowdfunding techniques and advertising on his social media channels to earn money, but this dried up when he was banned by Facebook and other big tech companies.

His main outlet is now on Gettr, a platform set up by Jason Miller, a former aide to Donald Trump.

In November 2013, Robinson pleaded guilty to fraud and was jailed for 18 months. He also has convictions for stalking, assault, using someone elses passport, using threatening behaviour, and contempt of court.
Australia has announced huge changes to international border restrictions that will make it easier and cheaper for fully vaccinated travellers to enter the country.

Health Minister Greg Hunt and Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews announced the changes to testing and quarantine in a statement on Friday night.

From 1am AEDT on Sunday, fully vaccinated international travellers will have the option to take a RAT test instead of a PCR upon arrival.

Australia has announced huge changes to international border restrictions that will make it easier and cheaper for fully vaccinated travellers to enter

'While PCR tests remain the gold standard test, a RAT within 24 hours is an acceptable indicator of whether a traveller has Covid-19 before flying to Australia,' the statement read.

'This is consistent with moves within Australia to accept RATs for diagnostic purposes.'

Mandatory quarantine times for travellers entering the country who have tested positive to Covid have also been reduced.

Travellers who have contracted Covid will be able to enter Australia just after seven days of testing positive instead of the previous 14 days.

Health Minister Greg Hunt and Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews announced the changes to testing and quarantine in a statement on Friday night

Mr Hunt and Ms Andrews said the move was to reduce wait times for people looking to enter the country.

'This will reduce wait times for travellers who contract Covid-19 overseas to return to Australia in line with the new domestic isolation requirements,' the statement said.

However Mr Hunt explained that many rules will remain the same, such as the requirement to wear masks in-flight.

'Travellers to Australia must still wear a mask during their flight and follow the directions of state and territory governments regarding quarantine and on-arrival testing,' he said.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has admitted there have been 'no breakthroughs' in crunch talks with Russia in a bid to prevent an imminent war with Ukraine.

Meetings will continue next week, with the US warning Russia must choose between the 'path of diplomacy' or the 'path of conflict and condemnation' as the threat of invasion grows with 100,000 troops stationed on the Ukraine border.

Blinken has promised a written response to Russian security demands and is not ruling out a presidential meeting, although he appeared to reject Moscow's request to ban Ukraine from joining NATO at today's 90-minute discussion with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva.

He insisted the US and Europe 'stand ready to meet Russia on either path' of war and said it is now up to Vladimir Putin to prove he does not intend to invade Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fears Russia may try to occupy the industrial city of Kharkiv if it takes military action in Ukraine, and this would be the start of a 'large-scale war'.

Blinken described today's high-stakes talks as 'frank' and not 'polemical', with Lavrov also voicing hope for a lowering of the temperature between the former Cold War foes, despite saying NATO is 'working against' Russia and stirring up 'hysteria'.

The Secretary of State told reporters: 'We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clear path in terms of understanding each other's concerns and each other's positions.

'We anticipate that we will be able to share with Russia our concerns and ideas in more detail in writing next week and we agreed to further discussions after that,' he added.

Lavrov added: 'Antony Blinken agreed that we need to have a reasonable dialogue, and I hope emotions will decrease. I cannot say whether or not we are on the right track. We will know when we get an answer.'

He said another meeting could be held between the two, but that it was 'premature' to start talking about another summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Putin, who met in Geneva last June.

Blinken, however, did not rule out fresh talks between the presidents after Biden twice warned Putin by telephone of consequences for any Ukraine invasion.

'If we conclude (and) the Russians conclude that the best way to resolve things is through a further conversation between them, we're certainly prepared to do that,' Blinken said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken today met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for talks in Geneva as the men try to avert a war in Ukraine after Putin massed troops on the border

Blinken told Lavrov that the US remains committed to diplomacy but is ready with a 'severe' response should Moscow invade

Mr Blinken speaks at a press conference held after the talks, saying Russia must now choose between 'path of diplomacy' or 'path of conflict' - and that the US 'stands ready to meet them on either path'

Mr Lavrov speaks at a press conference after the talks, saying that America has agreed to respond to Moscow's security demands in writing and that more talks are planned after that

Lavrov (right) opened the talks by demanding 'concrete' responses to Moscow's security demands, including that Ukraine is banned from joining NATO (Blinken pictured left)

Ukrainian troops are pictured manning their posts in a trench close to frontlines where they have been fighting a years-long war with Russian separatists

Ukraine blames Russia for bomb hoax campaign Ukraine says it has been targeted by a campaign of fake bomb threats in recent days, which it blamed on Russia. Kiev said the Kremlin's security services had been phoning in fake bomb alerts 'targeting society' in an attempt to sow chaos and panic. 'The obvious goal of the special services of the aggressor country is to put additional pressure on Ukraine, to sow alarm and panic in society,' Kiev's own security services said. It comes after the US warned that Russia might launch sabotage operations against rebels forces it supports in the east of the country in order to justify an invasion. Putin currently has 100,000 troops on Ukraine's border, and has been seeking security guarantees from the US - including that Ukraine be banned from NATO. The US has called most of the demands 'non-starters', but has agreed to press ahead with negotiations in the hopes of avoiding a conflict. Advertisement

Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, is the former Soviet republic's second biggest city with a population of about 1.4 million, and Zelenskiy believes it is a 'feasible' target for Putin.

He told the Washington Post: 'I will say realistically if Russia decides to enhance their escalation, of course they are going to do this on those territories where historically there are people who used to have family links to Russia.

'Kharkiv, which is under Ukraine government control, could be occupied. Russia needs a pretext: They will say that they are protecting the Russian-speaking population.'

Blinken said earlier today: 'If Russia wants to begin to convince the world that it has no aggressive intent toward Ukraine, a very good place to start would be by de-escalating, by removing those forces on Ukraine's border.'

He seemed to reject at least one of Moscow's demands today - that Ukraine should be banned from joining NATO - by insisting that there is 'no room' to negotiate over the country's right to decide its own future.

But he said Washington will respond to Russia in writing next week, and that more talks will take place once Moscow has reviewed the response.

Meanwhile Lavrov, speaking at a separate press conference, firmly denied that Russia is intending to attack Ukraine, instead accusing NATO of whipping up 'hysteria' aimed at 'sabotaging' the peace process.

He said the Kremlin is concerned about the eastward expansion of NATO, which he said is 'working against' Russia. Moscow also has 'concerns' about weapons and military experts sent into Ukraine in recent days and EU plans to build a new training base there, he added.

Despite the concerns, Lavrov described the talks as 'productive' but said it is too early to tell whether they are on the right path - that will only become clear after America's written response is delivered next week, he said.

Ahead of the talks, the US had warned of a 'united, swift and severe' response if Putin attacks Ukraine amid fears that Putin is massing an invasion force on the border.

Blinken, arriving at the Geneva hotel where the crunch talks took, said Washington is 'committed to a path of diplomacy' for resolving border tensions between Russian and its ex-Soviet neighbour.

But he added that America stands ready with a 'united, swift and severe' response if Moscow invades. 'This is a critical moment,' he said.

Lavrov stressed ahead of the talks that Moscow is expecting a 'concrete' response to its security demands, including that Ukraine be banned from joining NATO.

Moscow also wants the 'withdrawal of foreign forces, hardware and arms' from countries that were not NATO members before 1997, including Bulgaria and Romania.

'(Our) proposals are extremely concrete and we await equally concrete answers,' Lavrov said.

Russian sappers are pictured taking part in mine-clearing exercises in the Voronezh region, which is close to the border with Ukraine

Speaking afterwards, Mr Blinken said: 'We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clear path in terms of understanding each other's concerns and each other's positions.'

He called the 90-minute conversation 'frank and substantive', saying that 'by and large, the conversation was not polemical'. 'This was not a negotiation, but a candid exchange of concerns and ideas,' he added.

During the talks, Mr Blinken also raised the case of two US citizens - Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed - who are detained in Russia on charges of spying and endangering the lives of police, asking that they be freed.

Lavrov responded that the Kremlin does not interfere in criminal cases.

The Geneva talks came a day after Blinken was in Berlin to meet with NATO allies Germany, Britain and France to drum up support for pressuring Russia, particularly from Germany which has until now taken a softer line.

Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, said after the talks that her country is willing to harm its economic interests to retaliate against Russian aggression - seemingly a reference to the not-yet-operational Nord Stream 2 gas pipe that Moscow wants to open.

But in Germany today, it was revealed that Chancellor Olaf Scholz - whose SPD party has historically been close to Russia - refused to take a last-minute meeting with Joe Biden to discuss the situation in eastern Europe.

Scholz did not accept the invitation due to a full schedule, including a trip to Madrid, Der Spiegel reported.

Elsewhere today, it was reported that the US is considering whether to pull the families of diplomats out of the country - underlining concerns that conflict is imminent.

Blinken's insistence on a 'severe' response came a day after Biden drew widespread criticism for saying retaliation would depend on the details - and that a 'minor incursion' could prompt discord among Western allies.

On Thursday, Mr Biden cautioned that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would 'pay a heavy price' for such an action.

Russia sappers take part in drills to practice mine-clearing in Voronezh, close to Ukraine

A Russian rocket artillery vehicle takes part in live-fire drills in the Voronezh region

Rockets explode during live-fire drills in the Voronezh region, near the border with Ukraine

Moscow has for weeks been massing tens of thousands of troops, tanks and artillery pieces along its eastern flank, sparking fears of an invasion, though the Kremlin has insisted it is merely a defence force (pictured, Russian forces currently massed in border regions)

'I've been absolutely clear with President Putin,' Mr Biden said. 'He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.'

Asked whether Russia was intimidated by Ukraine, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on arriving for the talks on a cold and blustery day in Geneva: 'We're not afraid of anyone, even not of the U.S.'

In Moscow, the Kremlin reacted coolly to a parliament initiative to recognise two pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent states, saying it was important to avoid steps that could increase tensions.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it was important not to try and score political points in such a fragile situation.

Scholz and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson shared a phone call on Thursday evening, putting out a statement today that warned Russia would pay a 'considerable and serious price' if it invades Ukraine.

The two leaders agreed that 'further military aggression by Russia against Ukraine must be averted' and there would be consequences if the situation were to escalate, the German chancellery said.

Even while rejecting the core Russian demands, the Biden administration has said it is willing to speak to Moscow about its security concerns.

One proposal by the United States is to revive restrictions on missiles in Europe that had been set by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War deal trashed by former president Donald Trump's administration as it accused Moscow of violations.

The Biden administration has also offered more transparency on military exercises. Russia has not rejected the proposals but says that its core concern is Ukraine.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, speaking in Australia amid talks on the new AUKUS submarine pact, today warned Putin to 'desist and step back' from Ukraine before making 'a massive strategic mistake'.

'Invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and conflict in Chechnya,' she said.

'We need everyone to step up. Together with our allies, we will continue to stand with and urge Russia to de-escalate and engage in meaningful discussions. What happens in eastern Europe matters for the world.'

Moscow insists it has no plans to invade but has at the same time laid down a series of demands - including a ban on Ukraine joining NATO - in exchange for de-escalation.

Washington has rejected Moscow's demands as 'non-starters' and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg this week insisted that the alliance 'will not compromise on core principles such as the right for each nation to choose its own path'.

Upping the ante, Russia announced new naval drills that will see it deploy to the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and Mediterranean 'more than 140 warships and support vessels, more than 60 aircraft, 1,000 pieces of military equipment, and about 10,000 servicemen'.

The announcement followed an angry condemnation from the Kremlin of what it described as 'destabilising' remarks from US President Joe Biden, after the American leader vowed a 'severe' response to any invasion of Ukraine.

Russia already held joint military drills Wednesday with forces of ex-Soviet republic Belarus, which also neighbours Ukraine.

A US official said the exercises could presage a permanent Russian military presence involving both conventional and nuclear forces in Belarus.

The West has repeatedly warned Russia it would pay a 'high price' of economic and political sanctions should it invade Ukraine.

Hours before Blinken arrived in Berlin to coordinate the possible response to Russia, Biden sparked controversy as he appeared to indicate that a 'minor incursion' might prompt a smaller reaction from NATO allies.

A Ukrainian soldier sits inside a trench along the frontline where government forces have been fighting against Russian-backed rebels for years

Ukrainian troops move through a trench network close to the frontlines with Russian-backed rebel forces in the east of the country

Russian S-400 anti-aircraft batteries are moved to the frontlines with Ukraine as Putin continues to mass his troops

S-400 anti-aircraft batteries are loaded on to transports to be taken to the frontlines

'It's one thing if it's a minor incursion, and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera,' he said.

Blinken in Berlin clarified the comments, saying that 'if any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border and commit new acts of aggression against Ukraine, that will be met with a swift, severe response from the United States and our allies and partners.'

Speaking to the German television channel ZDF on Thursday, Blinken added that any crossing of the border into Ukraine by Russian soldiers would constitute a very clear aggression, irrespective of whether it was a single soldier of a thousand, according to a German translation of his remarks.

Biden also took pains to calm frazzled nerves, saying that any entry of Russian troops into Ukraine will be treated by the West as 'an invasion'.

But smarting from Biden's Wednesday remark, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit back that there was no such thing as 'minor incursions'.

'We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,' Zelensky wrote on Twitter.

The West's diplomatic machine has been running on full power over recent weeks to defuse tensions, but with positions entrenched on both sides, a series of talks between Western and Russian officials in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna has failed to yield any breakthrough.

NATO allies have signalled their willingness to keep talking but Moscow has demanded a written response on its proposals for security guarantees.

On the Russian wish list are measures that would limit military activities in the former Warsaw Pact and ex-Soviet countries that joined NATO after the Cold War.

But in Kyiv on Wednesday, Blinken said he would not present such a formal response at Friday's talks with Lavrov in Geneva. Rather it was on Russia to dispel fears of any expansionist intentions.

Ukraine has been fighting Moscow-backed forces in two breakaway eastern regions since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

More than 13,000 people have been killed, and the latest Russian troop build-up has also greatly rattled neighbours in the Baltics.

Washington said Thursday it has approved requests from the Baltic nations to ship US-made weapons to Ukraine.

Britain has also said it would send defensive weapons to Ukraine as part of a package to help the country secure its borders.

In a speech in Sydney Friday, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will warn Russian President Vladimir Putin against making a strategic blunder and becoming embroiled in a 'terrible quagmire' if Russia invades Ukraine, according to prepared remarks.
The American Meteoroids Society reported that over 130 people witnessed a meteor coming from the sky. The said fireball was observed in the skies of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and more.

Meteor Sighting 2022

In the Facebook post of the American Meteor Society, they mentioned that a fireball was sighted over Wisconsin, which was also seen from Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan and Nebraska. Additionally, the post continued that there have been over 100 sightings so far.

The American Meteor Society (AMS) saidthey received over 130 reports on Thursday at around 12:47 a.m. Universal Time.

To further emphasize, AMS provided a map that contains all the reports gathered. The meteor society explained that "The trajectory displayed on the map and the KML file has been automatically computed based on all the witness reports and may not be the most optimized."

Fox11 News added that a security camera owned by a Manitowoc County resident captured the said meteor sighting.

"About 6:45 a.m., we were getting ready for school and my daughter Molly, she's looking out the window and she says, 'dad, I think I just saw a bright light go from the sky to the ground,'" the resident explained on Fox11 News, saying that the meteor was seen by his daughter first.

Experts believed that the meteor sighting was a fireball, which is another name for a brilliant meteor.

An associate professor of physics at Lawrence University Megan Pickett explained to Fox11 News that "Most of the time these little bits of leftover solar system burn up in the atmosphere."

The professor added that when meteors are an inch or a couple of inches wide, they can plow through the sky so quickly that they start blazing. In terms of the size of the meteor sighting, Picket said that the fireball observed was about the size of a softball.

Read Also: 2023 Toyota Sequoia Release Date, Specs, More: Here's What It Will Borrow From 2022 Toyota Tundra

Meteoroid And Fireball

Meteoroids, like planets, asteroids and comets, are pieces of rock or iron that revolve around the sun, per National Geographic. Meteoroids can even be discovered at the solar system's border, in places like the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud.

NASA added that Meteors "are the visible paths of meteoroids that have entered the Earth's atmosphere at high velocities."

Meanwhile, fireballs are extraordinarily brilliant meteors that achieve a visual brightness of negative three or brighter. Objects that cause fireballs can be up to one meter in diameter.

For those curious to know how often it occurs, AMS stated that every day, thousands of fireball meteors strike the Earth's atmosphere. However, the majority of these occur over oceans and deserted areas, and many are covered by a daylight.

Those that take place at night have a limited possibility of getting noticed due to the number of people out to observe them.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that the brighter the fireball, the rarer the occurrence.

On the other hand, AMS advised people who might have witnessed a fireball to report it on this website.

Related Article: NASA Warns 2 'Potentially Hazardous' Massive Asteroids to Get Close to Earth This January 2022; Will It Hit?
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The war over WFH turned sour today after Cabinet minister Kwasi Kwarteng ordered civil servants who are avoiding their offices in Whitehall to get back to work.

In a round of interviews this morning, the Business Secretary took aim at trenchant union bosses who are insisting that remote working is saving British taxpayers millions as they wage an all-out rebellion against Boris Johnsons scrapping of Covid curbs.

Around 740,000 commuters packed onto Tube trains and buses in London during todays rush hour  an increase of 5 per cent from last Friday  after big banks and city firms told staff to come back to the office.

TfL figures indicate that the number of workers travelling to offices has increased since the Prime Minister axed Omicron restrictions this week. Yesterday, the number of Tube journeys increased by 10 per cent on last Thursday to 2.1million, while the number of bus journeys rose by 4 per cent in the past seven days to 4.4million, according to TfL data.

Yesterday Mr Johnson ordered his Cabinet ministers to ensure their Whitehall staff resumed normal working patterns as soon as possible.

Speaking to LBC Radio today, Mr Kwarteng said: I speak to union leaders frequently and I think we should get back to work. I have said that to the department that I run. We have got to get back to some degree of normality.

Writing on Twitter, the FDA unions general secretary Dave Penman furiously shot back: Once again a minister fails to recognise their civil servants have been at work the whole time. More than just a slip of the tongue, clearly a mindset.

In an interview with LBCs Nick Ferrari, Mr Penman added: Flexible working was already there before the pandemic, its accelerated.

Theyre saving millions of pounds of taxpayers money by reducing the office space that is required, and its having no impact on the effectiveness of the organisation. Now, thats good for the taxpayer. Wheres the problem?

The Public and Commercial Services union, which represents civil servants and other public sector workers, warned against a headlong rush back to the workplace. The FDA union also reacted angrily, saying the world of work had changed for good.

Last night, they called the PMs demands insulting and claimed the move to get workers back in the office was reckless.

The war over WFH turned sour today after Kwasi Kwarteng (left) ordered civil servants who are avoiding their offices in Whitehall to get back to work. The FDA unions general secretary Dave Penman (right) shot back: Once again a minister fails to recognise their civil servants have been at work the whole time. More than just a slip of the tongue, clearly a mindset

In a round of interviews this morning, the Business Secretary took aim at trenchant union bosses who are insisting that remote working is saving British taxpayers millions as they wage an all-out rebellion against Boris Johnsons scrapping of Covid curbs (pictured, stock image of an empty Whitehall)

London commuters riding the Tube at around 7.50am this morning as Boris Johnson tries to get Britain back to work

The roads around Euston Station in central London were packed at around 8.30am this morning

Commuters travel on the Piccadilly line through Holborn station in Central London at about 7am this morning

Commuters wait for a Piccadilly line train at King's Cross St Pancras station on the London Underground at about 7am today

Commuters travel on the Piccadilly line through Central London during the morning rush hour at about 7am today

Commuters walk along a passageway at King's Cross St Pancras station on the London Underground at about 7am today

Commuters travel on the Piccadilly line through Holborn station in Central London at about 7am this morning

Commuters sit on the Piccadilly line this morning as they travel through Central London on their way to work at about 7am

Data published by Transport for London shows commuter traffic over the past two years (January 2020 to 2022). It reveals the number of workers travelling by bus or Tube, and commuter footfall across the capital, remains way down on pre-Covid

So what is changing... and when will it happen? Your guide to the post-curb rules as Boris Johnson announces the end of Covid Plan B rules FROM NOW WORKING FROM HOME: The Prime Minister said on Wednesday that the Government is no longer asking people to work from home. He called on people to speak to their employers about arrangements for returning to the office. MASKS IN SCHOOLS: From yesterday, secondary school pupils will not have to wear face coverings in classrooms. The requirement to wear masks in corridors and other communal areas will end next Thursday, January 27. FROM NEXT THURSDAY MASKS IN PUBLIC PLACES: From next Thursday, the Government will no longer legally mandate the wearing of face coverings in shops and on public transport. But they will continue to suggest masks should be worn in enclosed and crowded places where people could come into contact with those they do not normally meet. The Prime Minister said this meant the Government will 'trust the judgment of the British people and no longer criminalise anyone who chooses not to wear one'. COVID PASSPORTS: Proof of vaccination or a recent negative test will no longer be needed to enter nightclubs and large venues from next Thursday. But businesses will still be free to use the NHS Covid Pass if they want. BY THE END OF THE MONTH TRAVEL: An announcement is expected soon on scrapping the requirement for fully vaccinated travellers to take a Covid test on returning to England. No 10 said the rules will be reviewed by the end of January. CARE HOMES: Plans to ease restrictions on care home visits will be announced in the next few days. At present, care homes must impose severe restrictions on visitors for up to 28 days if there has been a Covid outbreak affecting two or more residents. BY MARCH AT THE LATEST SELF-ISOLATION: Boris Johnson said he 'very much expects' not to renew the legal requirement to self-isolate with Covid when the rules lapse on March 24. He said this could happen even earlier, if the data allows. The legal requirement will be replaced with guidance that urges people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others. BY JULY FREE TESTS: Free Covid lateral flow tests look set to be scrapped by July. People will be pointed towards an online ordering system to purchase the tests, which cost 30 for a pack of seven. Advertisement

The Tory leaders critics have claimed that the change to Covid rules is one of a series of populist policies to divert public attention from Partygate and appease mutinous backbenchers as he fights for his political life.

Conservative MPs and business leaders demanded that Mr Johnson face down the unions  saying failure to act would be disastrous for the economy.

Tory backbencher Sir Iain Duncan Smith called unions bosses selfish for backing continued home working as the threat of Covid wanes.

When they eventually go back to their office there won't be anywhere to get a sandwich from or sit down in a pub  they'll all close, he warned. It's selfish and self-centred just to stay with hybrid working. If unions had their way you'd get paid for doing no work, but the reality is that we should be back at our offices.

The Cabinet Office has refused to put a target date on when ministers want to see a full return of Whitehall staff  leading to fears that many could stay working from home for weeks.

One source at the Ministry of Justice suggested workers would return only in phases rather than en masse.

Mr Johnson continued to face claims over the Partygate row, as a Tory MP made extraordinary allegations of blackmail by Conservative whips.

Tory former minister David Jones added: It's time to return to a more normal way of living. That includes returning to the office, which is significantly healthier than being holed up at home.

People benefit hugely from interaction with colleagues. It's better for mental health and also helps professional development. We also need to restore vibrancy to our urban centres, thereby helping our economy to grow.

Lord Rose, former chairman of Marks & Spencer, told LBC Radio he had been calling for a return to the office for months.

He added: I cannot believe that we've got a nation sitting at home now cowed by this Government, because they're fearful of this virus  which has been unpleasant, it has killed a lot of people  but it is something we now have to live with.

Last night, Mr Johnsons official spokesman said ministers had been told to get their offices ready for the full return of staff.

However, when contacted by the Mail, individual departments refused to say when all staff would be expected to return to the office. They also refused to say what proportion of officials were working in the office at the moment.

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, said it was insulting to force officials back to the office.

The idea that forcing civil servants back into the office will somehow show a lead to the rest of the economy is frankly insulting to all those businesses who have made decisions that enhance their efficiency and profitability.

The PCS union said: There should not be a reckless, headlong rush to increase numbers at workplaces. Instead, there needs to be a properly planned approach, which allows the employer and the union to negotiate safe arrangements.

An aide to one minister said: There are still not as many officials in the office as there should be.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid admitted his department could not get all the staff in because there was not enough space.

It comes as business giants began calling staff back to offices yesterday after Mr Johnson scrapped work-from-home guidance.

Large banks, advertising firms and insurers announced plans to return to the office  although most said flexible working arrangements would remain in place.

Big Four accountancy firm KPMG said it 'welcomed' the end of the Government guidance and told staff in England to come into the office at least two days a week.

Investment bank Citi sent a note to staff highlighting the benefits of office working, including that they are 'better able to generate the energy and collaborative spirit' it thrives on.

It told workers to return to their desks for at least three days a week while taking regular tests.

HSBC said its staff started returning to the office yesterday, while Standard Chartered asked employees to come in from Monday.

Commuters make their way down an escalator on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Commuters sit on the Piccadilly line this morning as they travel through Central London on their way to work at about 7am

Citigroup and Goldman Sachs said they also plan to resume office working.

Havas, a French advertising agency with 11,500 staff worldwide, told the BBC it would 'fully reopen' its London HQ from Monday.

Chris Hirst, of Havas, told Radio 4's Today programme: 'Many of our employees really do want to come back, but there are some people who are nervous.

'We will be talking to those people individually and finding solutions that work for them.' Insurance firm Zurich said it was 'excited' to welcome staff back but most would continue on a hybrid basis.

The announcements came as hospitality bosses highlighted the devastating impact working from home had on city centre pubs, restaurants, cafes and shops.

Greater Manchester's night-time economy adviser Sacha Lord said high streets have 'severely lacked' much-needed footfall.

And UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said the sector needs the support of communities 'more than ever'.

'The removal of working from home guidance in England is a huge boost for hospitality operators, as they started 2022 low on cash after a second cancelled Christmas, deep in debt after two years of restricted trading, and facing soaring costs on so many fronts,' she added.

No more shutdowns of economy, says Sajid Javid Britain should not shut down the economy again, even if Covid continues to claim thousands of lives a year, Sajid Javid said yesterday. The Health Secretary said the UK had to 'learn to live with Covid', while high jab rates and improved medical treatment meant the risk to life was much lower than when it first emerged. Mr Javid said: 'In a bad flu year you can sadly lose about 20,000 lives, but we don't shut down our entire country. Covid is not going away ... I think we are leading Europe in the transition from pandemic to endemic.' Clive Dix, former chairman of the Vaccines Taskforce, backed the call, saying Covid was now a 'mild disease' for most  if they have been jabbed. Government sources said ministers were still working on a plan for 'living with Covid' in the long term. Self-isolation rules for those with the virus are due to expire on March 24, but the Prime Minister said this week he hopes to bring the date forward. Advertisement

Schools in open revolt over masks: More than 100 headteachers write to parents saying face coverings MUST stay as they blame staff shortages or Covid cases  but government CAN'T do anything to stop them

Schools across England are in open rebellion against the Government over masks as more than 100 head teachers write to parents warning that children must continue wearing face coverings in classrooms.

Union bosses stoked the fires of revolt this week after accusing Boris Johnson of flouting his duty of care to teachers over the new guidance on masks.

The Prime Minister this week announced an easing of Covid curbs, from WFH guidance to face coverings and Covid isolation, as the Omicron wave subsides.

But critics have claimed that Mr Johnson is axing virus restrictions to appease his Tory backbench and save his own skin as he fights for his political career amid the dramatic fallout from Partygate.

Schools are defying the Governments anti-mask guidance and telling parents that pupils must continue to wear face coverings.

Has your child been sent home for refusing to wear a mask? Email: jack.wright@mailonline.co.uk Advertisement

And it has now emerged that ministers will not stop schools from forcing children to wear face coverings.

Head teachers across the country say that they are struggling either with staff shortages or high rates of Covid in the local community  and argue that masks in classrooms will stem the spread of the virus.

New data from the UK Health Security Agency shows that the rate of new Covid cases among primary schoolchildren in England rose 41 per cent in the week to January 16 to 1,936 cases per 100,000 five to nine-year-olds.

Schools North East, a network in the North East of England, said 80 per cent of schools in the region planned to retain some Covid-related measures, with many secondary schools retaining face masks in classrooms and communal areas.

Head teacher Andy Byers, who runs Framwellgate school in Durham, also said masks were still needed because Covid rates in the region remained high.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi last night said that local officials would seek to persuade individual schools to abandon masks.

He insisted that face-to-face education for all students has consistently been my priority, adding: National guidance to wear face coverings in communal areas will also be removed in line with the national move out of Plan B. This applies to all schools.

But in a letter to MPs, he admitted that masks could be reintroduced in the event of an extraordinary local Covid outbreak.

A DfE insider told MailOnline that the Government does not have a legal mechanism to force schools to follow the new guidance on dropping masks.

The guidance that weve got on dropping face masks in line with Plan B is exactly that: guidance, they claimed.

Schools across England are in open rebellion against the Government over masks as more than 100 head teachers have written to parents warning that children must continue wearing face coverings in classrooms (file image)

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi last night said that local officials would seek to persuade individual schools to abandon masks. But in a letter to MPs, he admitted that masks could be reintroduced in the event of an extraordinary local Covid outbreak

Parents have launched a campaign to prevent overzealous schools from imposing masks

Parent group UsForThem has urged its supporters to bombard Mr Zahawi with letters to stop overzealous local public health authorities from unilaterally implementing face masks in schools (pictured, campaigner Molly Kingsley)

The Prime Minister this week announced a dramatic easing of Covid curbs, from WFH guidance to face coverings and Covid isolation, as the Omicron wave subsides

So what is changing... and when will it happen? Your guide to the post-curb rules as Boris Johnson announces the end of Covid Plan B restrictions IMMEDIATELY WORKING FROM HOME The Prime Minister said the Government is no longer asking people to work from home. He called on people to speak to their employers about arrangements for returning to the office. FROM YESTERDAY MASKS IN SCHOOLS From yesterday, secondary school pupils will not have to wear face coverings in classrooms. The requirement to wear masks in corridors and other communal areas will end next Thursday, January 27. FROM NEXT THURSDAY MASKS IN PUBLIC PLACES From next Thursday, the Government will no longer legally mandate the wearing of face coverings in shops and on public transport. But they will continue to suggest masks should be worn in enclosed and crowded places where people could come into contact with those they do not normally meet. The Prime Minister said this meant the Government will 'trust the judgment of the British people and no longer criminalise anyone who chooses not to wear one'. COVID PASSPORTS Proof of vaccination or a recent negative test will no longer be needed to enter nightclubs and large venues from next Thursday. But businesses will still be free to use the NHS Covid Pass if they want. BY THE END OF THE MONTH TRAVEL An announcement is expected soon on scrapping the requirement for fully vaccinated travellers to take a Covid test on returning to England. No 10 said the rules will be reviewed by the end of January. CARE HOMES Plans to ease restrictions on care home visits will be announced in the next few days. At present, care homes must impose severe restrictions on visitors for up to 28 days if there has been a Covid outbreak affecting two or more residents. BY MARCH AT THE LATEST SELF-ISOLATION Boris Johnson said he 'very much expects' not to renew the legal requirement to self-isolate with Covid when the rules lapse on March 24. He said this could happen even earlier, if the data allows. The legal requirement will be replaced with guidance that urges people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others. BY JULY FREE TESTS Free Covid lateral flow tests look set to be scrapped by July. People will be pointed towards an online ordering system to purchase the tests, which cost 30 for a pack of seven. Advertisement

We do expect schools to follow it, but we do not have a legal mechanism to coerce schools into doing so. We do, however, expect that if schools do want to keep face masks, there would be a good reason for doing so.

We want to work with and support schools, and not take punitive action against them.

In a round of interviews this morning, Cabinet minister Kwasi Kwarteng said schools should follow the official guidance on mask-wearing.

The Business Secretary told Sky News: The guidance from the Prime Minister is very clear: that we won't need to be wearing masks.

Chris Zarraga, the director of Schools North East, told The Guardian: Schools are still facing real challenges in getting staff cover, increasing staff workload and stress and impacting negatively on wellbeing.

There are serious concerns for schools, with local pictures often radically different from the national picture.

Shuttleworth College in Burnley told parents it would not be removing any of our measures in school at this time, citing high Covid cases.

Uckfield College in East Sussex said it was keeping masks in force for now on the basis that the last thing students want at the moment is more staff absence.

The Commonweal School in Swindon told parents to ensure that your child brings a suitable mask to school each day.

Others, including Oxted School in Surrey and Droylesden Academy in Manchester, said they wanted to wait until they had been sent official guidance from the DfE  despite this being published on Wednesday.

And St Peters Church of England Aided School in Exeter told parents masks must still be worn in lessons as Covid has not gone away. They added that wearing face coverings is a kind and thoughtful way to support the community.

But the National Deaf Childrens Society has warned that schools which choose to impose masks risk flouting the Equality Act.

Mike Hobday, the societys director of campaigns, told MailOnline: Government guidance in England does not recommend masks are used by teachers or pupils in class.

If schools choose to go against this recommendation, they would need to be confident that they have taken all the action needed to ensure they are complying with the Equality Act so that disabled children can access teaching and learning.

Unless these reasonable adjustments are made, there may be little point in deaf children even going to school.

And Arabella Skinner, a director of parent campaign group UsForThem, told The Telegraph: As we have seen throughout the pandemic, schools often go far beyond the recommendations and beyond what the rest of society is required to do.

In the case of masks being removed from class, we had over 100 schools raised with us who are choosing  against government guidance  to keep masks in class.

Teaching unions yesterday accused the Prime Minister of scrapping masks for political reasons, not scientific ones.

The National Education Union claimed that lifting Omicron curbs too quickly could lead to more disruption for schools.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL, warned: There is a danger that we are heading once again for a situation in which the Government gives the impression that the crisis is over when in actual fact there is huge disruption continuing to take place in education.

The NEUs Dr Mary Bousted called the removal of masks premature, adding: Rather than announcements aimed at saving Boris Johnsons job, (the) Government should be exercising a duty of care to the nations pupils and the staff who educated them.

In a draft letter for parents to send their local MPs and the Education Secretary, the UsForThem group warned: To reverse the damage, the new guidance you issue must be extremely strongly worded indeed.

You should certainly forbid local authorities from unilaterally implementing face masks in schools.

In some US states where governors have banned mask mandates, they have protected children by making legal provision for parental opt-out.

It comes as a recent poll by parent voice charity Parentkind found that nearly two thirds of parents of secondary school children are not in favour of masks in the classroom. There was less opposition among parents to coverings in communal school areas.

In a statement to the Commons on Wednesday, Mr Johnson announced WFH guidance would be dropped immediately and rules on masks in schools would also be scrapped as of Thursday. Other restrictions including compulsory face coverings on public transport and in shops, and Covid passes for entry to nightclubs and large events will end next Thursday.

And the legal requirement for people with Covid to isolate will also be allowed to lapse when the regulations expire on March 24.

Mr Byers told parents the PMs Plan B U-turn creates some difficulty for us.

Case rates in the northeast are still relatively high. We currently have 60+ students and ten staff absent, having tested positive. A small proportion of those people have been quite poorly, he said.

Other local secondary schools are all in a similar position: high levels of absence with some students missing important face-to-face teaching, and a reliance on supply teachers covering lessons.

Quarter of small businesses will stick with WFH until at least APRIL 2023, new report says, despite change in Government guidance, because of substantial savings of not having to pay for office space A quarter of small businesses will stick with working from home until at least April 2023 despite a change in Government guidance, a new report has said, because of the substantial savings of not having to pay for office space. Firms with fewer than 50 employees are saving an average of nearly 4,000 a month by not having to pay for an office, according to research from Hitachi Capital Business Finance, and are likely to stick to working from home well into next year. It comes after Boris Johnson ordered Government departments to get their civil servants back into the office 'as soon as possible' as he demanded they set an example to the country after lifting working from home restrictions. However, a survey of more than 1,000 small business owners has found that one in four had plans to continue working entirely from home until at least April next year, while a similar number were planning hybrid working. Joanna Morris of Hitachi Capital Business Finance said: 'As the worst of the pandemic hopefully begins to fade, and the option of returning to a fixed workplace is put back on the table once again, we might expect to see most taking up this option and returning to normal. 'However, this research reminds us that it may not be the perfect solution for everyone. 'As with every business decision that owners make, particularly over the past 18 months, a range of factors need to be taken into consideration first, with the bottom line understandably often given a heavier weighting. 'The one positive that has come from this particularly challenging period has been the requirement to be far more flexible and open minded than ever before, with changes to the business that will reap benefits in the long term.' Advertisement

For this reason I would like to encourage students to continue wearing face coverings for the next two or three weeks until (hopefully) case numbers fall.

A spokeswoman for school leaderss union NAHT admitted that there is some concern about the easing of Plan B measures.

Its general secretary Paul Whiteman said: The Prime Ministers statement about lifting plan B measures will feel, to many school leaders, at odds with the current situation on the ground.

Mass disruption is ongoing, with high numbers of staff and pupils absent. School leaders are telling us they still feel very much in the eye of the Covid storm.

Willingdon Community School in Eastbourne, East Sussex, also wants its pupils to continue wearing masks.

Head teacher Emily May said: Our students have been fantastic wearing masks since October 2021 and understand that this small act of kindness is helping to keep our community safe.

We still have significant Covid infections within the school community and a 10 per cent rise of Covid cases in this local area.

It is not sensible to relax this measure yet. However, we do appreciate that each school needs to be able to make their own decision based on their school context and it needs to be reviewed regularly.

Children at Hanley Castle High School, Worcestershire, have also been told to keep wearing face coverings.

Lindsey Cooke, the head teacher, said: I do think this was a very rushed announcement.

Our year 11 and year 13 exam groups have missed so much school already; what we do not want to do is to rush into taking masks off and then get another outbreak in those year groups.

But other teachers welcomed the end of masks in schools. Joseph Sparks, an assistant principal at Stationers Crown Woods Academy in Greenwich, London, today called face coverings a barrier to learning.

He told Sky News: We welcome the change here at the academy and ultimately we will follow the advice and guidance given to us by the DfE. And as you can see from the students in this particular class, theyve opted not to wear one this morning.

But well leave that choice to them, and for us at the academy, its about making them safe and making sure their learning experience is a seamless one and can continue as normal as possible.

Pressed on why masks can be a barrier to learning, he explained: I had an example yesterday where I was teaching a class, and I didnt know who had answered the question.

Sometimes it can be a bit of a barrier like that to that social interaction that takes place, and knowing which students might need help. Ultimately weve left that choice to the students from this point.

Mr Sparks added: Our job is to keep the students as safe as possible. Weve taken lots of measures over the course of the various lockdowns to ensure that our students remain safe.

Weve been really fortunate our students have continued to come to the academy every day, weve had really had attendance.

Britains top medics have also insisted that scrapping Covid curbs at such pace risks creating a false sense of security with the NHS still under pressure.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association council, said: This decision clearly is not guided by the data. When Plan B was introduced in December, there were 7,373 patients in hospital in the UK. The latest data this week shows there are 18,9791.

He warned that ending mandates on mask-wearing would inevitably increase transmission and place the most vulnerable at a higher risk.

And Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation representing health bodies, said now is not the time for complacency about this virus.

Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers Saffron Cordery said that some trusts had reported they were expecting their peak later this week despite a fall in case numbers nationally due to regional variations in the number of hospital admissions.

That's why it's important that there is recognition that this surge isn't over, and that the health service is still operating under extremely challenging circumstances, she added.

It comes after Covid cases fell in most parts of the UK for the first time since early December, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Has your child been sent home for refusing to wear a mask? Email: jack.wright@mailonline.co.uk.

WFH forever? Whitehall will only have office space for HALF of civil servants based there under government plans - as ministers urge staff to come back to HQs that are costing taxpayer nearly 10,000 a year per person

By James Tapsfield, Political Editor For Mailonline

Whitehall will only have office space for half of the civil servants based there in future - as ministers urge staff to set an example after work from home guidance was ended.

Under a strategy to rationalise the government estate in London, there will only be capacity for 50 per cent of staff to be at their desks from 2030.

The proposals were branded 'bonkers' by Tories, although the Cabinet Office insisted not all those away from Whitehall would be working from home - arguing some would be visiting other offices around the country.

The shift is highlighted in an official report that also reveals the Whitehall 'campus' and other buildings in the capital are costing 621million a year to run.

They currently house around 68,000 full-time equivalent staff, giving a cost per head of 9,132.

Boris Johnson has urged civil servants to set an example and return to 'normal' patterns after Covid work from home guidance was lifted.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng admitted this morning that he does not know what proportion are in at his department, suggesting it might be less than half.

The State of the Estate report published by the Government Property Agency last month highlights the drive to move staff out of London and cut running costs.

But it also reveals that the remaining 'Whitehall Campus' - made up of the HQs of departments and agencies - will only have space for around half of the staff who are based there.

Boris Johnson has urged civil servants to set an example and return to 'normal' patterns after Covid work from home guidance was lifted

Under a strategy to rationalise the government estate in London, there will only be capacity for 50 per cent of staff to be at their desks from 2030

The State of the Estate report published by the Government Property Agency last month highlights the drive to move staff out of London and cut running costs. But it also reveals that the remaining 'Whitehall Campus' will only have space for around half of the staff who are based there

'The Whitehall Campus Strategy aims to deliver a campus with a 50 per cent reduced footprint compared to a 2019 baseline, comprised of c. 20 'core' buildings housing c.40,000 FTEs at a 50 per cent Attendance Rate (i.e. will have a capacity of no more than 20,000 individuals at any one time) by 2030,' the report said.

It added that a 'refreshed, updated' strategy for managing the government property portfolio up to 2030 will be published this year.

Some staff are likely to be out of the office on any given day due to rota patterns and holidays, as well as working from home.

A Government source insisted the proportion working from home would be significantly lower than 50 per cent, with a push for people to spend more time out of London even if they are based there.

They said the 'attendance rate' in Whitehall before the pandemic was 65-70 per cent - although it is not clear what proportion were working from home then - and argued that no businesses have enough desks for all staff to be in at once.

Officials insist that rationalising the estate and offering staff more flexibility will unlock big savings for the taxpayer.

But senior Tory Iain Duncan Smith told MailOnline: 'Another bonkers idea brought to you by a bunch of civil servants on their Peletons.

'It is all nonsense. The truth is that you need civil servants in their offices because things happen politics in politics quickly, sharply that you sometimes were not anticipating.

'Politics demands that the civil service are there. Government is not like running a business. There are so many things going on that can go on and change.

'The idea you have 50 per cent of the workforce in their homes is ridiculous when loads of the people who service them  delivering food, getting their books sold to them, working in warehouses  they can't work from home.'

Mr Kwarteng struggled when he was grilled on LBC radio about the number of staff still working from home.

Asked what percentage were back at the Business Department, Mr Kwarteng initially insisted: 'Well, we're trying to increase the number and I'm hopeful that certainly in a few weeks, we will get people largely very much back to the office.'

When presenter Nick Ferrari pointed out that he had not given a figure, Mr Kwarteng admited 'I don't know the exact percentage as of today'.

He said the figure had 'definitely' lifted from around 25 per cent at the nadir of lockdown but could only give a 'rough' estimate.

'I would say it's about, nearly 50 per cent, but it's going to increase over the next few days and weeks.'

It is understood the permanent secretary at the Department for Business wrote to all officials yesterday encouraging them to come back to the office.

In a fortnight staff will be expected to be in at least three days a week.

Figures indicate that the number of workers travelling to offices has increased since the Prime Minister dropped official WFH guidance.

Yesterday, the number of Tube journeys increased by 10 per cent on last Thursday to 2.1million, while the number of bus journeys rose by 4 per cent in the past seven days to 4.4million, according to TfL data.

Kwasi Kwarteng struggled when he was grilled on LBC today about the number of staff still working from home

This chart shows the floor area in square metres of government offices around the country

But civil service unions have hit back at the embattled PM's bid to get Britain back to work as the Omicron wave fades.

Mr Johnson has demanded civil servants set an example by returning to their desks, and yesterday ordered Cabinet ministers to ensure their Whitehall staff resumed 'normal working patterns' as soon as possible.

But union bosses branded the PM's demands 'insulting' and claimed the move to get workers back in the office was 'reckless'.

The Public and Commercial Services union, which represents civil servants and other public sector workers, warned against a 'headlong rush' back to the workplace. The FDA union also reacted angrily, saying the world of work had 'changed for good'.

Tory MPs and business leaders have demanded that Mr Johnson face down the unions  saying failure to act would be disastrous for the economy.

Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called unions bosses 'selfish' for backing continued home working as the threat of Covid wanes.

'When they eventually go back to their office there won't be anywhere to get a sandwich from or sit down in a pub  they'll all close,' he warned.
A furious backlash in India has forced Nestle to discontinue a range of KitKat bars covered by wrappers with Hindu gods on them.

The range has sparked worries that the chocolate bars adorned with the images of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Mata Subhadra would inevitably be thrown away in bins and on the streets.

It is only recently that the KitKat wrapper with a picture of Lord Jagannath came into the spotlight, sparking reactions on social media.

'Kindly remove the pictures...they might even get stepped on unintentionally,' one Twitter user stated on social media.

Nestle India remade the wrapper of their latest KitKat range and added pictures of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Mata Subhadra in 2021, sparking reactions on social media

Another Twitter user commented that it is an honour to have 'Odisha culture and Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra on Kitkat, but throwing the wrappers in dustbin or stepping on them accidentally would be an insult to the deities.'

The bars were introduced to 'celebrate the culture', according to Nestle. The company has since issued an apology however, and withdrawn the bar range.

A Nestle spokesperson said: 'We do understand the sensitivity of the matter and regret if we have inadvertently hurt anyone's sentiment. We had already withdrawn these packs from the market last year. We thank you for your understanding and support.

'We wanted to encourage people to know about the art and its artisans. We do understand the sensitivity of the matter and regret if we have inadvertently hurt people's sentiments.'

The Jagannatha Trio in the shrine at Puri, 1931 or 1932

The Kitkats that proved offensive to the Hindu population were originally circulated in Odisha, an Eastern province of India where Hindu nationalist sentiment has been growing recently.

Nestle eventually issued a longer statment saying: 'KitKat travel break packs are meant to celebrate beautiful local destinations and last year we wanted to celebrate the culture of Odisha with designs on packs representing Pattachitra, an art form uniquely identifiable by its vivid imagery.

'We wanted to encourage people to know about the art and its artisans. We do understand the sensitivity of the matter and regret if we have inadvertently hurt people's sentiments.'

The Pattachitra tradition is an art form known for its colourful and vivid adornments and imagery and often depicts Hindu Gods and Goddesses

Images like the ones used on the wrapper is part of the Pattachitra tradition, an art form known for its colourful and vivid adornments and imagery.

Nestle is the latest in a string of companies that have had to apologise to the Hindu community amid growing religious and nationalst sentiment.

Indian jewellery brand Tanishq issued an apology in 2020 and withdraw its campaign featuring what appears to be a Hindu daughter-in-law of a Muslim family.

Companies including Zomato, Unilever and Manyavar have also sparked similar controversy in recent years.



As India is seeing some of the fastest economic growth in the world, the countrys ruling party BJP seems to become increasingly wary of freedom of expression, commentators have pointed out.
China's Covid vaccine may offer virtually zero protection against Omicron, scientists have warned.

Two doses of the CoronaVac jab was found to trigger 'undetectable' antibody levels in lab studies by Yale University.

A Pfizer booster increased antibody levels among those double-vaccinated with the Chinese-made jab - but only to levels comparable among people given two Pfizer or Moderna injections, the team said.

The finding suggests the billions of people given the jab have no protection against infection.

CoronaVac, manufactured by the Chinese pharma giant Sinovac, is authorised in 50 countries around the world.

Professor Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiologist at Yale and senior study author, warned 'an additional booster shot  and possibly two' may be needed in these countries.

It will come as a warning signal for China which has solely relied on its homegrown jabs, which also include Sinopharm.

China  which only reported 0.09 cases per million people yesterday, compared to the UK's 1,357 per million  has reverted to draconian local lockdowns over the last month.

CoronaVac uses an inactivated version of the virus to stimulate the body's immune response.

Vaccine sceptics in the West had held up the Chinese jab as a better and safer alternative to new mRNA jabs because they use traditional technology.

Researchers at Yale University, who studied blood samples from 100 people double-jabbed with Sinovac, did not produce any antibody response to Sinovac (red bar). Blood samples taken from the same group 28 days after a Pfizer booster jab (orange bar), showed antibody levels jumped compared to those who received two Sinovac jabs alone. However, this response was the same as that seen in people only doubled-jabbed with Pfizer or Moderna (blue bar), the researchers said. The test used to measure the antibody levels (shown on vertical axis) does not equate to how many antibodies each jab triggered

Sinovac (pictured) uses an inactivated version of the virus to stimulate the body's immune response. The vaccine  which can be stored at refrigerator temperature, making it easy to distribute to the developing world  has been authorised in around 50 countries

China  which only reported 0.09 cases per million people yesterday  has reverted to draconian local lockdowns over the last month (green line). It is following a zero Covid plan. For comparison, the UK yesterday recorded 1,357 cases per million people (purple line).

Chile  the most boosted nation in the world, where 63 per cent of the population has been triple-jabbed  has relied on CoronaVac after striking a deal with China for 1.8million doses in 2020. Denmark and the UK and the next most booster countries, with 59 and 54 per cent of their populations tripe-jabbed, respectively

The Yale University study examined blood samples taken from more than 100 people who were double-jabbed with CoronaVac.

It didn't look at the effect of the vaccine as a booster, with third doses being dished out in China from October.

But even giving a dose of Moderna or Pfizer to people given two CoronaVac jabs only brought their antibody levels in line with two injections of the mRNA jabs.

Professor Iwasaki said: 'An additional booster shot  and possibly two  are clearly needed in areas of the globe where the Sinovac shot has been the chief source of vaccination.

'Booster shots are clearly needed in this population because we know that even two doses of mRNA vaccines do not offer sufficient protection against infection with Omicron.'

Despite not offering much protection against getting Covid, two jabs of Pfizer do still cut the risk of severe illness.

Chile  the most boosted nation in the world, where 63 per cent of the population has been triple-jabbed  has relied on CoronaVac after striking a deal with China for 1.8million doses in 2020.

But it is now using AstraZeneca and Pfizer for booster jabs after a series of studies suggested the Chinese jab offered lower protection.

Countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe are also using CoronaVac. Roughly 60million doses have been dished out in Europe alone, according to Oxford University platform Our World in Data.

Two doses of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson's jabs were found to produce a low antibody response against Omicron in studies, but real-world data often differs from trial data, because antibodies are only a narrow measurement of the complex immune response.

For example, Pfizer's vaccine, seen as the gold-standard, was found to trigger 40-times fewer antibodies against Omicron compared to older variants.

But the UK Health Security Agency claims it still offers up to 40 per cent protection against Omicron, while a booster brings the figure up to around 80 per cent.

Yale researchers, who worked with scientists at the Health Ministry of the Dominican Republic for the latest study.

HOW DOES SINOVAC WORK? Sinovac uses an inactivated version of the virus to stimulate the body's immune response. The vaccine  which can be stored at refrigerator temperature, making it easy to distribute to the developing world  has been authorised in around 50 countries. It is given as two doses, two to four weeks apart. Researchers at the Brazilian Butantan biomedical centre last January found Sinovac was 78.4 per cent effective against 'mild to severe' cases which required treatment. However, real-world data from Peru, which has used the jab, shows two doses only cut the risk of infection by 50.4 per cent. However, their data also showed the jab was still in the region of 94 per cent effective at cutting the risk of death. And Yale University researchers said the jab offers 85 per cent protection against being hospitalised with the virus and reduces the risk of dying from Covid by 80 per cent. Last April, the head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, admitted the jabs 'don't have very high protection rates' against coronavirus symptoms. Advertisement

They took blood samples from 101 people in the Dominican Republic who were double-jabbed with Sinovac.

Participants also gave a second blood sample seven and 28 days after they had a Pfizer booster, which was injected at least four weeks after their second jab.

The scientists exposed these samples to Omicron, as well as the previously dominant Delta and the first version of the virus, which was spotted in Wuhan.

The results, published in Nature Medicine, show that people double-jabbed with Sinovac did not produce any neutralising antibodies against super-mutant Omicron, which was first detected by South Africa in November.

But 28-days after a Pfizer booster jab, their antibody protection against Omicron jumped compared to those who received two Sinovac jabs alone.

However, this response was the same as that seen in people only doubled-jabbed with Pfizer or Moderna, the researchers said.

Separate blood analysis revealed those who had two Sinovac injections and a Pfizer booster produced 10.1-times fewer antibodies against Omicron compared to the original Covid strain and 6.3-times fewer against Omicron than Delta, the researchers said.

The researchers also found that people who had been infected with Covid earlier in the pandemic had little immune protection against Omicron.

Scientists have warned the immune response triggered by two doses does not provide sufficient protection against Omicron, a finding that triggered the UK's winter booster campaign.

Omicron's extensive mutations  most of which are on the spike protein which the virus uses to infect the body's cells  make protection elicited by previous infection or vaccination less effective.

This is because existing vaccines were designed to trigger an antibody response against recognised spike proteins.

The team warned their findings will likely complicate efforts to combat the milder but more transmissible Omicron strain.

However, Professor Iwasaki noted that the vaccines and prior infection trigger other parts of the immune system on top of antibodies, such as T cells that can attack and kill infected cells and prevent severe disease.

'But we need antibodies to prevent infection and slow transmission of the virus,' she warned.
Iran, China and Russia have launched a joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean, with the aim of boosting marine security, state media reported.

Iran's state TV said 11 of its vessels were joined by three Russian ships including a destroyer, and two Chinese vessels.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard will also participate with smaller ships and helicopters.

The military exercise comes at a time of heightened tensions between Russia and the West over Moscow's build-up of some 100,000 troops on their border with Ukraine.

Russia is also being joined by China and Iran - two nations which are at loggerheads with the West, with Beijing recently accused of sending a spy to the heart of the UK Parliament.

Iran, China and Russia have launched a joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean, with the aim of boosting marine security

An Iranian army member fires a weapon during a joint naval drill of Iran, Russia and China in the Indian Ocean on Friday

The joint naval exercise will cover some 6,560 square miles (17,000 square kilometres), in the Indian Ocean's north, and include night fighting, rescue operations and firefighting drills.

'The purpose of this drill is to strengthen security and its foundations in the region, and to expand multilateral cooperation between the three countries to jointly support world peace, maritime security and create a maritime community with a common future,' Iran's Rear Admiral Mostafa Tajoldini, spokesman for the drills, told state TV.

This is the third joint naval drill between the countries since 2019. It coincided with a recent visit by Iran's hardline President Ebrahim Raisi to Russia.

'Improving bilateral relations between Tehran and Moscow will enhance security for the region and the international arena,' Mr Raisi said upon returning from Russia on Friday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Warships and a helicopter attend a joint naval drill of Iran, Russia and China in the Indian Ocean

Since coming to office last June, Iran's hardline President Ebrahim Raisi has pursued a 'look east' policy to deepen ties with China and Russia.

Tehran has sought to step up military cooperation with Beijing and Moscow amid regional tensions with the United States. Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also increased in recent years.

Tehran also joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in September, a central Asian security body led by Beijing and Moscow.

Iran has been holding regular military drills in recent months, as attempts to revive its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers founder.

Russian, Chinese and Iranian warships attend a joint naval drill of Iran, Russia and China in the Indian Ocean on Friday

Meanwhile, tensions have deepened between China and the West, with Britain accusing Beijing of sending alleged spy Christine Lee into the heart of the UK parliament.

The Chinese lawyer consorted in plain sight with Prime Ministers, peers and senior MPs, pumping hundreds of thousands of pounds into both Labour and Tory coffers as, according to MI5, she sought to extend Beijings influence.

China dismissed the warning from MI5 to MPs that Lee had been trying to 'covertly interfere in British politics for years, accusing Britain of being 'too obsessed with James Bond movies'.

Tensions between China and the West have worsened over their human rights record and their claim to owning Taiwan.

The South China Sea has become one of many flashpoints in the testy relationship between China and the United States, with Washington rejecting what it calls unlawful territorial claims by Beijing.

A satellite image shows equipment deployed at Klimovo Railyard in Klimovo, Russia, on Wednesday

Moscow has for weeks been massing tens of thousands of troops, tanks and artillery pieces along its eastern flank, sparking fears of an invasion, though the Kremlin has insisted it is merely a defence force (pictured, Russian forces currently massed in border regions)

Russia is also at loggerheads with the US and the West over its neighbour Ukraine, where it has sent some 100,000 troops that Washington, Kyiv and their allies fear will be used to invade the country.

The United States and its allies today warned Moscow of grave consequences if 'any' of the tens of thousands of troops massed on the border were to enter Ukraine.

Following talks in Berlin with Germany, France and Britain, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted that Russia 'cannot match' Western powers' resoluteness.

If Russia invades Ukraine it would 'drag us all back to a much more dangerous and unstable time, when this continent, and this city, were divided in two... with the threat of all-out war hanging over everyone's heads,' he said.

In a show of unity that has been lacking in recent days, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock added that the West would not shy away from taking action even if that included measures that 'could have economic consequences for ourselves'.

Having drummed up support among his allies, Blinken will today travel from Berlin to Geneva where he will hold talks with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned Russia of 'grave consequences' if any troops cross into Ukraine, after meeting NATO allies in Berlin (pictured)

Blinken then flew to Geneva (pictured) where he is due to meet Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov today in an attempt to deescalate the tensions with Ukraine

Fears are mounting that a major conflict could break out in Europe, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cautioned that Russia marching on Ukraine would have repercussions beyond the continent. 'It would be a disaster for the world,' he said.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, speaking in Australia amid talks on the new AUKUS submarine pact, today warned Putin to 'desist and step back' from Ukraine before making 'a massive strategic mistake'.

'Invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and conflict in Chechnya,' she said.

'We need everyone to step up. Together with our allies, we will continue to stand with and urge Russia to de-escalate and engage in meaningful discussions. What happens in eastern Europe matters for the world.'

And Russia on Thursday announced sweeping naval manoeuvres in multiple areas involving the bulk of its naval potential - around 140 warships and more than 60 aircraft - to last through to February.

The exercises will be held in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the north-eastern Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, in addition to the joint exercise with Iran in the Indian Ocean.

They will draw on 140 warships and support vessels, 60 planes, 1,000 units of military hardware and around 10,000 servicemen, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

Russian military moves are being closely scrutinised as a troop build-up near Ukraine and a volley of hawkish rhetoric have rattled the West and sparked fears of a looming war. Moscow vehemently denies any plan to invade Ukraine.

In a video posted on Facebook, the ministry showed its Pacific Fleet's newest diesel-electric submarine test-firing a Kalibr cruise missile at a land-based target from an underwater position in the Sea of Japan.

The missile struck a coastal target in Russia's far eastern Khabarovsk region from a range of more than 1,000 km (620 miles), it said.
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Scientists today called on the Government to stop publicising its daily Covid figures because they are becoming 'misleading' and fuelling an 'unhealthy addiction' to the stats.

Until recently the UK had to be 'extremely vigilant' about rising cases, which signalled a coming surge in hospital admissions and the possibility of more restrictions. But experts say now the link between infections and severe illness has been severed it has 'changed the nature of the beast'.

Yesterday, the official coronavirus statistics dashboard showed there had been 330 deaths and 1,905 admissions to hospitals, with a total of 19,000 infected patients occupying beds on NHS wards.

But the majority of inpatients are not primarily being treated for the virus in parts of the country, a symptom of the extreme infectiousness but mildness of Omicron. The number of Covid patients needing mechanical ventilation has barely changed since the wave began to spiral.

And despite daily deaths creeping up in recent weeks, a rising proportion are now 'coincidental' with the virus not the underlying cause. Last week it was as high as a quarter of deaths.

Professor Yoon Loke, a medicine expert at Norwich Medical School, said it was time to abandon the daily Covid updates because the data was becoming 'incredibly problematic'.

He told MailOnline: 'We are in a very different position now compared to two years ago, or even 12 months ago, where we were facing the need to be extremely vigilant to the exponentially rising tide of life-threatening illness. The nature of the beast (has now) changed very substantially.'

Professor Loke, backed by other experts, said the figures should now be exclusively released every other day and then every week  as is already done for flu in the UK.

'Part of the transition out of the pandemic is stopping people feeling so obsessed by case numbers and hospitalisations, because it's not entirely healthy,' Professor Francis Balloux, a geneticist at University College London. He added: 'We're all a bit addicted to it.'

Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King's College London, said at the very least the numbers should be published alongside admissions and death rates for other conditions, and compared to previous winters to put them in context.

He also warned the data was becoming 'increasingly unreliable', saying many people who get a positive lateral flow test are now failing to register it with the authorities.

But critics say the country is still recording 100,000 cases a day, which is still very high and above the point where people can begin to put Covid out of their minds.

Ministers have already put in motion plans to 'live with' the virus, with the remaining 'Plan B' measures set to be scrapped next week.

Face masks in schools and work from home guidance were officially ditched yesterday, and Boris Johnson says he now plans to drop all Covid curbs by the spring  including the legal requirement to self-isolate after catching the virus.

The above graph shows the proportion of Covid patients in England's hospitals that are not primarily being treated for the virus. Data is from NHS England

The above graph shows the proportion of Covid patients in hospitals that were not primarily being treated for the virus since Omicron took hold, and is based on figures from NHS England. They showed that in London just four in ten Covid patients are now actually being treated for the disease

Covid fell to become the fourth biggest killer in England last month as Omicron engulfed the country, official data shows

Professor Yoon Loke (left), a medicine expert at Norwich Medical School, said it was time to abandon the daily Covid updates because the data was becoming 'incredibly problematic'. And Professor Tim Spector, a top epidemiologist at King's College London, said the figures needed to be put 'into context' by comparing them to last year

The above figure shows the proportion of Covid deaths are people who have died from the disease (red) to those who have died with the disease (blue). It shows the proportion dying with the disease is now rising

Professor Loke, who is also a consultant physician at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals, said that ministers should stop publishing the figures every day because they were now 'misleading'.

He told MailOnline: 'Those of us who work front-line at the hospital now recognise that there are far fewer (Covid) patients who require oxygen treatment or management in intensive care units.

Even SAGE admits doom-laden daily figures are becoming difficult to read Even SAGE has admitted that the doom-laden daily Covid figures are becoming difficult to interpret. In documents released on Thursday the advisory group  which uses the data in its modelling  called its reliability into question. They said: 'There is uncertainty about current trends in the numbers of new infections, particularly as a result of changes to testing policy and behaviours. 'An increasing proportion of these reported admissions are positive tests among people admitted primarily for other than Covid, reflecting the very high community prevalence.' Figures already show that up to a quarter of Covid deaths are now people who died with the virus rather than from it. And in some parts of the country only four in ten Covid patients are actually being treated for the disease, with the rest admitted for another condition such as a sprained ankle. It suggests that the daily figures are over-stating the size of the current outbreak or the level of concern. Experts have criticised ministers for continuing to use scare tactics on the British public. Some say it is now time to consider moving the daily publication of figures to every other day, and then weekly, as the country begins to return to normal. Advertisement

'We have seen that patients who attend hospital for non-Covid related problems happen incidentally to test positive.

'Equally, there are patients in older age groups who have serious medical problems and require admission to hospital where they then test positive for Covid, even though that is not their main reason for being in hospital.

'Unfortunately, some of the older patients may succumb to their other serious medical problems but happened to be recorded as a Covid-related death because they died within 28 days of a positive test.'

He said the 'nature of the beast' had changed, meaning daily figures on Covid hospitalisations and deaths were now 'incredibly problematic' and 'potentially misleading'.

Professor Loke added: 'I personally don't feel the current daily figures can tell us much about serious or life threatening major illness.'

When asked if the daily numbers should be scrapped, he told MailOnline: 'I would favour scaling down to something like Monday, Wednesday, Friday reporting to start with, and then to once a week if we reach an endemic plateau.'

Professor Anthony Brookes, a health data scientist at Leicester University, warned the Government should start publishing the daily Covid figures 'in context' with other illnesses.

He told MailOnline: 'The numbers are only reliable once they are put into context (by including figures for other diseases). But if you don't know what's behind them, or what's in those numbers, then they are misleading.

'If they are going to put figures out those should be in context: Telling us how many people are in hospital with Covid, telling us how many went in with a Covid infection, and then compare that to how many who would go in with flu or pneumonia infection in a normal year.

'You've got to put these numbers in context and explain them rather than put out the most scary figure.'

Professor Brookes said the numbers made him concerned for his elderly mother, who has little experience with dealing with statistics but sees them on TV every night. He said they were terrifying her to keep wearing a face mask because of Covid, when really 'it's about as dangerous as the flu now'.

NHS England's most up to date figures showed less than half of all Covid 'patients' are now being treated primarily for the disease in London (40.7 per cent) and the East of England (44.9 per cent).

In England, just over half of Covid 'patients' (52.1 per cent) are currently in hospital primarily because of the virus. For comparison, in October before Omicron took hold three-quarters (25.2 per cent) were primarily ill with the virus.

NHS bosses do not currently give a daily breakdown on the number of Covid 'admissions' which are for patients who are mainly ill with the virus.

But the health service warns incidental cases still put a strain on hospital resources because they have to be isolated from non-infected patients. And medics warn Covid can exacerbate other conditions that people are admitted for, even if it is not the primary illness they are receiving care for.

The trend is also emerging in Covid death statistics, with the share of 'coincidental' fatalities rising over the last few weeks with more and more people now dying with the virus rather than from it.

The Office for National Statistics' monthly report showed Covid fell to the fourth biggest killer in England and Wales last month despite an unprecedented wave of Omicron infections. It is behind dementia, heart disease and chronic lung disease.

And in its weekly report on Tuesday the ONS said a quarter of Covid deaths recorded over the week to January 7 were people who had died with rather than from the virus.

Of the 922 deaths in England and Wales where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate, the virus was not ruled to be the primary reason for the death in 210 cases  or 23 per cent  although it may have been a contributory factor.

Professor Spector, who runs the ZOE Covid Symptom study which publishes its findings weekly, said the current daily numbers were 'almost impossible' for people to understand because they are published without context.

He told MailOnline: 'We need to be putting data in context with hospitalisations and deaths, and also comparing what we are seeing today with previous years.'

Professor Spector also warned that the Government's case(s) data was becoming 'increasingly unreliable' because people are no longer logging positive lateral flow tests.

He said: 'Over the past few weeks we've seen a widening gap between the ZOE data and the government data.

'It's been jumping around from day to day, so I would like to see people stop using this data as the daily gold standard, as it's no longer reliable and potentially misleading.'

Professor Balloux said that the figures were now becoming less reliable because more people were dying with Covid rather than from it.

He told the Daily Telegraph: 'At the moment, the numbers look horrible and worse than they should.

'The upside is they will soon look fantastic. I think we're in a better situation than we have ever been since March 2020, and especially in the UK, I am pretty optimistic that we can soon call a day and then we're finished.'

He added: 'I'm not in favour of scrapping the dashboard right now because cases are pretty high and it might spark panic... but maybe soon we could start doing it every other day, then weekly.'

Some scientists support the Government continuing to publish its daily updates, but must ensure they are not 'frightening' people with the numbers.

Dr Al Edwards, a biomedical technology expert at Reading University, said a 'much better option' than removing the data from the public domain would be to keep publishing it but alongside other figures.

He told MailOnline: 'The current dashboard really needs a bit of analysis and context to fully understand the numbers.

'We should celebrate our open and transparent data sharing, but make sure people don't get frightened by the data, by explaining what it means more clearly.'

The UK Health Security Agency already publishes a weekly report on Covid cases across the country alongside the figures for other diseases such as flu and RSV.

Plateauing hospital admission rates and the growing disconnect between infections and deaths has given the Prime Minister the confidence to lift Plan B restrictions next week.

Mr Johnson has also revealed he intends to ditch all Covid laws by the spring, including compulsory isolation for positive Covid cases. WFH guidance and masks in schools were the first measures to be officially ditched today.

Doubling down on the Government's decision to scrap the curbs, Sajid Javid signalled that ministers are prepared to tolerate more than 20,000 Covid deaths a year without reimposing measures.

Mr Javid, the Health Secretary, told Sky News yesterday: 'We need to learn to live with it. Sadly people die of flu as well. In a bad flu year, you can sadly lose about 20,000 lives.

'But we don't shut down our entire country and put in place lots of restrictions to deal with it. We need to continue with our lives with sensible, appropriate and proportionate measures.'

He added: 'Covid is not going away. It's going to be with us for many many years, perhaps forever, and we have to learn to live with it.'
Cyril Evans, who manned the telegraph equipment on the SS Californian

When the Titanic sank, the wireless operator aboard the only nearby ship dozed through its distress calls.

But Cyril Evans, who manned the telegraph equipment on the SS Californian, could not have saved the victims of the sinking, expert analysis has concluded.

Evans, who has been condemned by history, went to bed at 11.30pm on April 14, 1912  only minutes before the Titanic hit an iceberg.

A US inquiry later ruled that had he 'remained a few minutes longer at his post' the Californian 'might have had the proud distinction of rescuing the lives of the passengers and crew'.

Instead, the Californian sat idle only a few miles from the sinking, leaving the Carpathia to come to the Titanic's rescue from some 60 miles away.

Ultimately, more than 1,500 passengers and crew drowned in the freezing Atlantic ocean when the Titanic sank, with only 705 people surviving after being rescued by the Carpathia.

But now an expert reappraisal from Parks Stephenson, who has co-authored a book with film director James Cameron, said that although Evans was found to have 'acted unprofessionally' and 'failed in his duty that night, he could not have lessened the death toll.

Mr Stephenson is a historian specialising in the role played by telegraph operators in the sinking.

Cameron famously directed 1997 film Titanic, which told the story of the sinking and focused on the love story between fictional characters portrayed by Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio.

The book he co-authored with Mr Stephenson - titled Exploring the Deep - detailed his numerous dives to the Titanic wreck both prior to and after the production of his film.

When the Titanic sank, the wireless operator aboard the only nearby ship dozed through its distress calls. Above: The Titanic departing Southampton for its doomed maiden voyage in 1912

Cyril Evans manned the telegraph equipment on the SS Californian (pictured), which sat idle only a few miles from the sinking

He said: 'Before the Titanic disaster, there was no requirement for marine telegraph stations to be manned 24 hours a day.

'I don't believe that Evans routinely shut down his station at night, but he certainly stood down every night to catch his sleep.

'It appears that Evans shut down his station entirely that night because the Californian was not going anywhere during the night.

'This was nothing unusual, given the time period.'

Furthermore, 11pm was the normal sign-off time for Marconi operators who ran a station alone.

Mr Stephenson continued: 'If Evans had remained at his station and received Titanic's distress call, could the Californian  arguably the closest ship  have come to the rescue before Carpathia?

'Could Californian have averted the heavy loss of life? I would say no.

'In daylight, it took her over two hours to work her way slowly out of the ice into clear water and reach the scene of the disaster. At night, it would have taken much longer.

'In short, had Evans received Titanic's distress call, it would have already foundered and most of the people in the water would have died from cold shock and exposure before Californian arrived.

Now an expert reappraisal from Parks Stephenson, who has co-authored a book with film director James Cameron (pictured left with Mr Stephenson), said that although Evans was found to have 'acted unprofessionally' and 'failed in his duty that night, he could not have lessened the death toll

'At best, Californian would have recovered Titanic's lifeboats sooner than the Carpathia, and probably would have had to transfer some survivors to Carpathia in order to have room for all.'

Some have also speculated about the impact of a rebuke given to Evans by Jack Phillips, his counterpart on the Titanic, earlier that night.

Evans had tried to send an ice warning to Phillips, but was told to 'shut up' because he was interrupting another message.

The blame here lays with Evans, said Mr Stephenson, who should have prefixed his message with the letters MSG  indicating that it was a message for the captain concerning navigation.

'Here is where I accuse Evans of negligence,' the historian said.

'Evans did not properly format the message and was rebuffed by Phillips, who assumed that Evans was just looking for idle chit-chat.

'Phillips was right to tell Evans to shut up.

'At that point, Evans should have tried again, this time prefixing his message with MSG as per regulations.

Some have also speculated about the impact of a rebuke given to Evans by Jack Phillips (pictured), his counterpart on the Titanic, earlier that night

'If he had, previous actions indicate that Phillips would have treated the navigation message appropriately.

'Instead, he went to bed, essentially failing to carry out his order to notify Titanic that Californian was stopped in the ice.

'This is one instance where I believe that a telegraphist aboard any of the ships that night acted unprofessionally and subsequently failed in their duty.'

Nor was there any evidence of Evans identifying himself in his message, said Mr Stephenson, rendering it useless.

'It was, simply put, not a professional action on Evans' part,' he said.

However, the historian believes that the course of history was not affected by the Titanic failing to receive Evans' ice warning.

The Titanic had already received several ice warnings that day, including an earlier one sent by Evans  on that occasion, properly formatted.

Phillips' junior colleague, Harold Bride, had intercepted the earlier message and passed it to Captain Edward Smith, who acknowledged it.

Furthermore, Mr Stephenson said that it was common practice for ships to steam full-speed into a known ice region if the weather was clear, which it was.

He said: 'As a military man, I can blame Evans for not being professional but beyond that, I cannot be too hard on him.

The Titanic had already received several ice warnings that day, including an earlier one sent by Evans  on that occasion, properly formatted. Phillips' junior colleague, Harold Bride, had intercepted the earlier message and passed it to Captain Edward Smith, who acknowledged it

'He was not the first telegraphist to call another of his peers informally at night. How could he know that this time would be so important?

'But it is a good lesson in the value of always being professional in your duties, because one never knows what might happen.'

Mr Evans, who was only 20 when the Titanic went down, later served at sea in both world wars, before dying of a heart attack in 1959.

Phillips died in the sinking, though his colleague Bride survived and later became a salesman in Glasgow, Scotland, where he died of lung cancer in 1956. He was 66.

The 1912 US Senate inquiry into the sinking which censured Evans also slammed his captain, Stanley Lord, for the inaction of the Californian.

The 705 people who ultimately survived the Titanic's sinking were rescued from their lifeboats by the RMS Carpathia. Pictured: Some of the survivors in their lifeboat

Passengers on the Carpathia sewing items of clothing for survivors after they had come onboard

Their report said: 'Such conduct, whether arising from indifference or gross carelessness, is most reprehensible, and places upon the commander [of] the Californian a grave responsibility.'

A contemporary British enquiry into the disaster did not criticise Evans personally, but said the Californian would have been able to mount a rescue.

It concluded: 'Had she done so she might have saved many if not all of the lives that were lost.'

Mr Stephenson worked with James Cameron on his 2003 Titanic documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss, and co-wrote the 2017 book Exploring the Deep with him.

Mr Cameron's 1997 film, Titanic, won 11 Academy Awards and held the title of highest-grossing film of all time for over a decade.

The book that Cameron co-authored with Mr Stephenson - titled Exploring the Deep - detailed his numerous dives to the Titanic wreck both prior to and after the production of his film
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An Arctic blast will see temperatures in Britain plunge to sub-zero levels today as the country braces itself for the coldest winter night of the year so far.

Motorists have been warned of possible travel chaos over the weekend as the mercury falls as low as -7C, bringing with it severe frost and icy conditions as a deep freeze settles across large parts of England and Wales.

The mercury dipped to -7.6C in Oxfordshire overnight and -5C in London early today, while patches of mist and fog were slow to lift and clear. Forecasters have warned it will be so cold tonight that overnight frosts will last all day tomorrow in some parts of the country.

Snow could even fall in northern Scotland as early as next week, and in other parts of the UK in early February, according to the Met Office.

The UK Health and Security Agency has alerted people in central and southern England to look out for vulnerable neighbours during the big freeze.

The BBCs Chris Fawkes said: We have got clear skies for many areas and it is a cold one for sure. Temperatures at their lowest about -6C, -7C in southern Wales, central and southern England in the coldest spots.

It may be very cold and frosty but it should be bright and plenty of sunshine to start the day for most of us. Even this cloudier zone in the west will be prone to a few breaks in the morning so you could see a few glimpses of sunshine for a time.

Large waves crashing into Tynemouth Piers in South Shields in the North East of England this morning

Motorists have been warned of possible travel chaos over the weekend as the mercury fall as low as -7C, bringing with it severe frost and icy conditions as a deep freeze settles across large parts of England and Wales. The mercury dipped to around -5C in London early this morning, while patches of mist and fog were slow to lift and clear. Forecasters have warned that it will be so cold tonight and overnight frosts will last all day tomorrow in some parts of the country

A walker out with their dog by the woods on a cold morning in Dunsden, Oxfordshire today

An Arctic blast will see temperatures in Britain plunge to sub-zero levels today as the country braces itself for the coldest winter night of the year so far

The Met Offices Aidan McGivern added: On Friday morning, there'll be a widespread frost. It'll be perhaps the coldest night of the winter for some southern parts of the country.

In its long-range forecast, the Met Office predicted snow could fall towards the end of January into early February.

From January 31 to February 14, it warns that some colder interludes remain possible, bringing a risk of occasional snow, this most likely over northern hills.

This period is likely to see a gradual transition to more unsettled conditions, the Met Office said.

Heaviest precipitation is likely to occur across the northwest, particularly later in the period, whilst drier than average conditions are more likely to prevail in the southeast, particularly earlier in the period.

Spells of strong winds are likely, mainly in the north.

Temperatures likely to be slightly above average overall. Some colder interludes are still expected though, bringing a risk of occasional snow, most likely over northern hills.

Agostinho Sousa, consultant in public health medicine at the UK Health and Security Agency, said the cold could be deadly for some.

Members of Brighton Swimming Club taking to the icy waters this morning after sunrise on a cold start to the day

The DFDS Princess seaways heading into the River Tyne in rough conditions this morning

A horse grazing in a frosty field at sunrise this morning in Dunsden, Oxfordshire ahead of a big freeze

People walking on the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire during sunrise this morning as temperatures plunge

Cold weather can have a serious impact on health, particularly for older people and those with heart and lung problems, as it increases the risks of heart attacks, strokes and chest infections, she said.

Remind vulnerable relatives and neighbours to heat their home to at least 18C  particularly if they have reduced mobility, are 65 or older, or have a health condition.

Should they need to go outside, it's important for them to wear shoes with a good grip.

The Met Offices chief meteorologist Steve Ramsdale said earlier this week: A change in conditions brings cold air to the UK.

Itll spread from the north later on Wednesday then lingering over England and Wales for the rest of the week and into the weekend.

With easing winds and good clear spells, a widespread frost is likely on Thursday and Friday morning with temperatures recovering somewhat by day.

Jim Dale, a senior meteorologist at British Weather Services, told the Express: As we get towards the end of the month  the coldest on average parts of the year  what we're seeing is the high pressure pulling away south and west, allowing a north-easterly air stream to come in.

That may well start to bring some snow events towards the latter stages of the month  so that last week of January. I'm talking now about January 25-28.
A party-loving British businesswoman has died in mysterious circumstances while on holiday in Jamaica.

Eshe Symonds, who has a seven-year-old daughter, passed away on January 13.

The 31-year-old from Tipton, West Midlands, ran a security company in Birmingham and was 'perfectly healthy', her family said.

They are now waiting on the results of a post-mortem examination to find out how she died.

Eshe Symonds, who has a seven-year-old daughter, passed away on January 13

The 31-year-old from Tipton, West Midlands, ran a security company in Birmingham and was 'perfectly healthy', her family said

His sister Shannon Gordon, 26, said: 'The whole family is just in shock at the moment. We are all devastated.

'She has a little girl. Our dad Michael has cancer at the moment so this had dealt him another huge blow.

'She has lots of sisters and a brother and a stepmum. We are all heartbroken. Eshe had flown out for a holiday with one of her friends.

'Her friend is still over there. We aren't really in contact with her so we have few details.

'We are in contact with the Jamaican police who are investigating her death but everything is moving so slowly.

The family are now waiting on the results of a post-mortem examination to find out how she died

Ms Symonds is survived by her daughter, her father Michael Gordon, stepmother Veronica, her sisters Kimesha, Ms Gordon and Jade, and her brother Jamie

'We have little information about how she died but we know she had complained of a headache, stomach pains and vomiting.

'She died in hospital around 9pm on January 13. It is a shock as she was just perfectly healthy when she flew out.'

Ms Gordon said Ms Symonds lived 'like every day was the last'.

She said: 'She was quite wild, she loved to party. She was so outgoing and everybody loved her. She lived life to the full, like every day was the last.

'She was very caring and a great mum. We are all going to miss her so much.'

Ms Symonds is survived by her daughter, her father Michael Gordon, stepmother Veronica, her sisters Kimesha, Ms Gordon and Jade, and her brother Jamie.

Mr Gordon has set up a GoFundMe page to help bring his daughter's body back to the UK.

The family also want to raise funds to pay for their own post-mortem examination and for her funeral.
A 91-year-old man has died in an accident while trying to escape his care home in Italy by lowering himself out of a window with a bedsheet tied around his waist.

Mario Finotti was a resident at the Opera Pia Francesco Bottoni retirement home in Papozze, a town in the Italian region of Veneto.

He had tried to leave his room on the first floor by lowering himself from the window with a sheet he had tied around his waist.

Finotti had been living in the carehome (pictured) for around a year at the time of his escape

Local Italian newspapers reported a slip may have caused a fatal compression of the lungs, killing him as he swung down.

Shift workers found his body dangling from the window at around 6.30am on Tuesday, according to local newspaper Corriere del Veneto.

Finotti was born in the small town and lived there all his life.

He had no children and remained unmarried, refusing caretakers in his later years.

Retirement home director Luca Avanzi told Corriere della Sera: 'We are shocked by what has happened.

The body of Mario Finotti was found dangling from the window of his carehome at around 6.30am on Tuesday after he tried to escape his by tying a bedsheet around his waist

'Mario Finotti was well, he was not suffering from any degenerative pathologies. It is not known what was going through his head because, from a psychological point of view, he was peaceful.

'Also, last week, his niece had spoken to the psychologist via video call and a good psychological picture of the elderly man had emerged.'

Prosecutor Francesco D'Abrosca has since said no third party is criminally liable for the incident.

As such, it is not clear if the authorities are investigating.

The emergency services have since removed the body and handed it over to family members so a funeral can take place.

Finotti had been in the retirement home for around a year.

Papozze Mayor Pierluigi Mosca, who knew Finotti, told the local paper that the elderly man was passionate about politics, often making excuses to visit him in his office

He said loneliness was a likely motive for Finotti's escape, as Covid-19 restrictions had meant he was no longer able to make visits.

The area were he lived had become depopulated since the pandemic, added the Mayor, adding that Finotti had never expressed any desire to go into a retirement home.

Italy has the oldest population in Europe, with Statista data showing 22.8% of its inhabitants as older than 65.

The country suffered worse under Covid-19 compared with its neighbors, reporting over 140,000 confirmed deaths compared with over 120,000 in France and 90,000 in Spain, according to Our World in Data.
Fears were raised today that the Partygate row is fuelling Nicola Sturgeon's push to split up the UK.

A poll found more than half of Scots believe the saga threatening to engulf Boris Johnson has hurt the case for the Union.

Some 78 per cent believe the PM should resign over the allegations of lockdown breaches in Downing Street.

And support for independence has crept up to 50 per cent, although the nation is still divided down the middle on whether to go it alone.

Ms Sturgeon has pledged to do 'everything in my power' to hold a referendum next year, although Mr Johnson insists he will not agree to one.

The Savanta ComRes research for the Scotsman makes grim reading for No10, as Mr Johnson tries to quell a coup attempt form his own benches.

Asked how they would vote if a referendum on Scottish independence was held tomorrow, 50 per cent said they would vote yes  two points higher than in October

Scots Tory leader Douglas Ross is among those who have demanded the PM's resignation after he admitted attending a 'BYOB' bash at the height of lockdown in May 2020 - although he insists he thought it was a 'work event'.

The survey found 54 per cent said the furore had hurt the case for the union to some extent.

Just over a third thought there was no real impact, while 11 per cent did not know.

Asked how they would vote if a referendum on Scottish independence was held tomorrow, 50 per cent said they would vote yes  two points higher than in October.

Including don't knows, support for both Yes and No was at 46 per cent with 8 per cent undecided.

Chris Hopkins, political research director at Savanta ComRes, said: 'A 50/50 split on the independence voting intention does represent a bit of shift towards Yes since our last poll in October, but ultimately, given the disaster the UK Government in Westminster is currently experiencing, one would perhaps expect support for independence to be higher.'

:: Savanta Comres surveyed 1,004 Scots aged 16 and over between January 14 and 18
The hit South Korean drama series "Squid Game" will officially be back for Season 2, and it might might just be the next installation of what could be a long franchise series.

"Squid Game" Season 2 has long been rumored, even before the confirmation by Director Hwang Dong-hyuk las November 2021. However, Netflix itself has given the green light to continue the popular show.

'Squid Game' Season 2 Confirmed

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who is also the Chief Content Officer of the streaming giant, highlighted their commitment to bring "Squid Game" Season 2 to life. He made the confirmation during the fourh quarter earnings interview with the press.

When asked about it, he told Variety: "Absolutely. The 'Squid Game' universe has just begun."

That is certainly music to the ears of fans who have been waiting for a legitimate statement from the top brass that will really make it happen. While it is long expected to get a second season given the massive profit Netflix earned from Season 1--which is reportedly near a billion dollar from its $21 million budget--it is hard to assume considering the number of shows being canceled here and there.

For what it's worth, director Hwang Dong-hyuk admitted previously, amid the roaring success of his creation, that "there's been so much pressure, so much demand and so much love for a second season" that he felt like he was left with no other choice.

He then proceeded to say that "there will indeed be a second season."

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'Squid Game' Season 2 Release Date

Unfortunately, Sarandos did not specify further details regarding the "Squid Game" Season 2 release date. It is even unknown if filming is underway.

However, as ITechPost highlighted in a previous report, the production could take up to two years. With that said, it is possible that the new season might be release in 2023 at the earliest.

However, it should be noted that these are only speculations as of the moment and no official details have been provided by Netflix. It is possible that it could be released earlier or later, depending on the situation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

More details is expected to be provided soon, and we will update this article as needed.

'Squid Game' Season 2 Cast, Storyline

Of course given its popularity, theories abound on what could happen in "Squid Game" Season 2.

There are several routes Director Hwang Dong-hyuk can take, one of which is game winner Seong Gi-hun (acted by Lee Jung-jae) getting his revenge on the organizers of the dealdly "Squid Game" and doing his best to put a stop on it.

To recall, in the last episode of Season 1, Gi-hun decided to stay in South Korea instead of going to the United States after he saw the salesman and realizing that the "Squid Game" continues.

However, there are also talks about Season 2 tackling the Front man (Lee Byun-hyn).

Unfortunately, nothing is confirmed yet and fans will just have to wait and see on what the director and Netflix will decide. But by the looks of it, it is appearing more likely that "Squid Game" won't end in just two seasons.

Related Article: 'Squid Game' in Real Life: 456 People Compete for $456,000 in MrBeast's Viral Video
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A British doctor visiting the US has been killed in his sleep by a stray bullet fired 'recklessly' from a neighbouring apartment complex around 800ft away that blasted through a forest and a wall, hitting him in the head as he lay next to his girlfriend in bed.

Matthew Willson, 31, from Surrey, was staying in an upmarket suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, having flown to America last week to visit his California-born partner Kate Shepard, a physicist and honor roll athlete.

The postdoctoral scientific researcher, from leafy Chertsey just west of London, had only been in the US for two days when he died in the freak incident, which is still being treated as homicide.

Police said they were called by Miss Shepard who was 'rendering aid' to her boyfriend after he was shot in the head.

It is not known if Miss Shepard lives in Atlanta, but Dr Willson is known to have studied at the city's Georgia State University and also has relatives in the area.

Police said they were called at 2am on Sunday to reports of the 'reckless discharge of a firearm' in an apartment block on Buford Highway. As they attended the scene they got a 911 call from another block of flats, where Dr Willson was staying, saying he had sustained a gunshot injury to the head. The Briton was taken to the local trauma centre but could not be saved.

MailOnline understands that the group responsible were playing with one or more guns and began firing. A bullet was discharged and left Dr Willson with a single bullet wound after it came through the wall as he slept in bed. In a freak and tragic incident, the bullet appears to have flown a distance of at least 800ft (260yds) through a small forest and into the apartment through the bedroom wall.

Sergeant Jacob Kissel told WSB-TV: 'This was a senseless act - this was an innocent victim. She and her boyfriend were laying in bed. He was here visiting from England. He was visiting a loved one. He had just flown in to the Atlanta area.

'We lean on the public to understand that this is a tragic event, and we hope that they may come forward with any information they may have.'

He also told BBC Radio Surrey: 'These two roadways parallel each other and are separated by a woodline.' He added: 'They (police officers) immediately responded to the priority call, the person being shot. That's where they met with a female caller who was rendering aid to her boyfriend who had been shot in the head.'

Today his heartbroken sister Kate Easingwood, who is a molecular biology PhD student based in Sweden, posted a tribute to him on Instagram today, saying: 'The world is so unfair.' His heartbroken mother Pauline Willson declined to comment and said: 'We just need some peace.'

The tragedy happened in the Atlanta suburb of Brookhaven, widely regarded as one of the nicest places to live in Georgia. It also came just months after another fatal shooting in same apartment block close to where the bullet was fired from.

Doctor Matthew Willson (left, with his girlfriend Kate Shepard) was killed by a stray bullet in Atlanta as he lay in bed

In a 'senseless' tragedy the gun was fired at least 800ft away, passing through a forest and then into a neighbouring apartment via a wall, killing Dr Willson

Dr Willson's sister Kate Easingwood posted on Instagram today, saying: 'The world is so unfair'

The bullet flew through this forest and into the apartment where Dr Willson was staying, leaving him with a fatal gunshot wound to the head

Dr Willson was shot inside a flat in the 3100 block on Clairmont Road in Brookhaven, Atlanta

Shots were heard from the nearly 3600 apartment complex on Buford Highway in Brookhaven

And it will further intensify calls to bring the US' rabid gun culture under control, amid fears of rising firearms violence.

Sergeant Jacob Kissel (pictured) told WSB-TV: 'This was a senseless act - this was an innocent victim. She and her boyfriend were laying in bed.

Detectives in the US believe the gun was fired 'recklessly' from a nearby apartment block and do not believe Dr Willson was the target. Detectives are however investigating the incident as a homicide but have not made any arrests, with a cash reward now on offer.

A police spokesman said: 'This incident appears to be a random act involving individuals participating in the reckless discharge of firearm(s) which led to the tragic death of Dr. Willson. Dr. Willson was in town from England visiting loved ones his when the incident occurred'.

Dr Willson had worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Georgia State University for two years, having also worked at the University of Liege in Belgium.

However he had recently been living back in Britain. Today his family requested privacy in the aftermath of their son's tragic death, adding: 'We just need some peace'.

Multiple people phoned 911 in the early hours of Sunday morning at about 2am after hearing gunshots in the 3600 apartment complex on Buford Highway in Brookhaven.

After officers had arrived on the scene, another person called 911 to report that a man had been shot inside an apartment in the nearby 3100 block on Clairmont Road.

Officers moved to the 3100 block and found Dr Willson with a gunshot wound to the head, according to Sergeant Jake Kissel of the Brookhaven Police Department.

Dr Willson was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead. Police have not yet arrested anyone but said officers were investigating the death as a homicide.

Dr Willson is understood to have been a postdoctoral researcher at Georgia State University and was previously a student at Exeter University in Devon.

Detectives believe the deadly shot was fired into the apartment from the neighbouring complex and described it as a 'reckless discharge of firearm(s)'.

They also do not believe Dr Willson was an intended target of the shooter and are working on the premise that the fatal shot was a 'random act'.

A Brookhaven Police Department spokesman said: 'This incident appears to be a random act involving individuals participating in the reckless discharge of firearm(s) which led to the tragic death of Dr Willson.

'Dr Willson was in town from England visiting loved ones when the incident occurred.'

Dr Willson, 31, had been staying with relatives in a flat in a suburb of Atlanta in Georgia

His girlfriend called police and said she was giving him medical aid and needed urgent help

Police said they were called to the area due to reports of multiple gunshots. They then got a 911 call from Dr Willson's block saying he had been hit

A UK Foreign Office spokesman said today: 'We are supporting family of British man following his death in the USA, and are in contact with US authorities.'

Brookhaven is widely regarded as one of the nicest places to live in the US state of Georgia.

The leafy suburb, which is popular with young professionals, is on the outskirts Buckhead, a northern area of the state-capital Atlanta.

Buckhead is described by the Washington Examiner as a wealthy white 'enclave' or Atlanta, a city where more than 50 per cent of the population are African American.

Buckhead leaders are in the process of attempting to take the area out of Atlanta to become its own city.

Supporters say the streets of Buckhead have become a playground for lawless behaviour.

However opponents claim Buckhead's true motivations are race-based. They also argue stripping Atlanta of the tax revenue generated by Buckhead would bring Georgia's largest city to its knees.

As of figures released in July last year, murders in Atlanta were up 46 percent, rape up 83 percent and shootings were up 40 percent.

Atlanta Police Department (APD) statistics in July recorded 368 shootings this year where, over the same period last year, that number was 263.

Conversely the number of guns seized by law enforcement has dropped by 22 percent.

While the figure is for the whole Atlanta, due to what Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms described as a 'Covid crime wave,' the figures spiked in Buckhead more than anywhere else.

Aggravated assaults were up 52 percent in Buckhead compared to 26 percent citywide.

Robberies were up 20 percent elsewhere but 39 percent in Buckhead and larceny from vehicles had risen by 40 percent in Buckhead but 27 percent in the rest of Atlanta.

Anyone with information is asked to call Brookhaven Police at 404-637-0636 or submit anonymous tips to Crime Stoppers by calling 404-577-TIPS (8477).
Four Belarusian officials have been charged with piracy for diverting a Ryanair jet to arrest a dissident journalist on board, US prosecutors have announced.

Officials include the head of Belarus's air navigation service Leonid Churo, his deputy Oleg Kazyuchits, and two other Belarusian state security agents who were not named in the charges.

The four are accused of phoning in a fake bomb threat to Ryanair Flight 4978 as it crossed Belarusian airspace in May last year, and then dispatching a fighter jet to escort the Boeing 737 to Minsk airport.

Upon landing, passengers were hauled off the jet and two of them - dissident journalist Roman Protasevich, and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega - were arrested.

Dissident journalist Roman Protasevich (left) and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega (right) were arrested when their Ryanair flight was forced to land in Minsk on May 23

Mr Protasevich, who had been central to reporting protests against dictator Alexander Lukashenko's regime a year earlier, was then dragged off to detention where it is believed he was tortured before appearing in confessional videos.

The pair remain in Belarus, where Mr Protasevich is under house arrest on charges of inciting unrest for which he faces up to 15 years in jail.

Miss Sapega, a Russian citizen, is facing up to six years in jail on similar charges. It was reported last month that she is due to be freed from house arrest.

The piracy charges, announced Friday by federal prosecutors in New York, recounted how the flight was diverted as it travelled between Greece - where Mr Protasevich had been attending a conference - to his home-in-exile in Lithuania.

'Since the dawn of powered flight, countries around the world have cooperated to keep passenger airplanes safe,' U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said.

'The defendants shattered those standards by diverting an airplane to further the improper purpose of repressing dissent and free speech.'

Ryanair said Belarusian flight controllers told the pilots there was a bomb threat against the jetliner and ordered it to land in Minsk.

The Belarusian military scrambled a MiG-29 fighter jet in an apparent attempt to encourage the crew to comply with the flight controllers' orders.

In August, U.S. President Joe Biden levied new sanctions against Belarus on the one-year anniversary of Lukashenko's election to a sixth term leading the Eastern European nation - a vote the U.S. and international community said was fraught with irregularities.

Widespread belief that the 2020 vote was stolen triggered mass protests in Belarus that led to increased repressions by Lukashenko's government on protesters, dissidents and independent media.

More than 35,000 people were arrested and thousands were beaten and jailed. The protests lasted for months, petering out only when winter set in.

Those charged in court papers Thursday were identified as Leonid Mikalaevich Churo, director general of Belaeronavigatsia Republican Unitary Air Navigation Services Enterprise, the Belarusian state air navigation authority.

Also charged was Oleg Kazyuchits, deputy director general of Belaeronavigatsia; and two Belarusian state security agents whose full identities aren't known.

Ryanair Flight 4978 is searched by dog handlers at Minsk airport after it was diverted using a fake bomb threat so a journalist on board could be arrested

Ryanair flight FR4978 was flying from Athens in Greece to Vilnius in Lithuania when it was escorted by a Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jet to Belarus amid fake reports of an IED on board

U.S. prosecutors described the defendants as fugitives and said they were facing charges of conspiring to commit aircraft piracy, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Messages seeking comment were sent to the Belarusian embassy in Washington and the country's U.N. mission in New York; their phones rang unanswered Thursday.

U.S. officials say they have jurisdiction in the case because American citizens were aboard the flight.

After the episode last year, the European Union swiftly banned Belarusian airlines from using airspace and airports in the 27-nation bloc, urged EU-based carriers to avoid flying over Belarus and imposed sanctions on some Belarusian officials.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the plane incident amounted to a 'hijacking.'

Lithuania told all incoming and outgoing flights to avoid neighboring Belarus, while Ukraine's leader moved to ban Ukrainian flights via the neighbor's airspace.

But Belarus' key ally Russia offered support, arguing that Belarus acted in line with international procedures for bomb threats and saying the West reacted rashly.

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Lukashenko for talks days after the incident and nodded in sympathy as Lukashenko fulminated about the EU sanctions, saying the bloc was trying to destabilize his country.
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At least 17 people were killed and scores injured when a truck carrying explosives to a gold mine in western Ghana collided with a motorcycle, setting off an explosion that flattened a rural community, the government said on Friday.

As rescuers combed the site for survivors, videos posted on local media showed hundreds of buildings reduced to piles of wood, rubble and twisted metal, and dead bodies crumpled on the ground surrounded by debris.

A photo shared by a local politician showed a yawning crater at the epicentre of the blast, onlookers peering down from its rim.

One video posted on social media shows the blast in real time - as local residents rush to the scene of the car crash to see what happened, a loud and massive explosion suddenly appears in the distance and the people in the footage run for cover to a nearby field in Apiate.

Another video shows the massive devastation caused by the accident.

The drone footage of the aftermath of the explosion in Apiate-Bogoso, in the Western region of Ghana, hovers over the giant crater in the dirt road, as well as two large, demolished buildings. Rescue vehicles and onlookers mill around the scene.

At least 17 people were killed in a blast in western Ghana yesterday after a motorcycle collided with a vehicle carrying explosive material

An additional 59 people were injured in the massive explosion on Thursday, said AFP

Seji Saji Amedonu, deputy director general of the National Disaster Management Organisation said around 500 buildings were destroyed and that rescue efforts were still under way.

The blast occurred on Thursday in Apiate, a settlement between the towns of Bogoso and Bawdie, when a motorcycle fell under a truck owned by a company called Maxam that was transporting explosives to the Chirano gold mine, run by Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corporation, police said.

Kinross confirmed the incident and said it was monitoring the situation and rescue efforts. Maxam could not be reached for comment.

The blast appeared to have completely leveled Apiate, a small town in western Ghana

Police said most of the victims have been rescued and admitted to various hospitals and clinics (Pictured: the large crater in the ground created by the explosion)

Survivors of the accident are in a critical condition after being evacuated to medical facilities in the capital Accra, the government said

The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is investigating the cause of the blast and whether the companies involved followed regulations covering transportation of explosives, it said in a statement.

Survivors in critical condition are being evacuated to medical facilities in the capital Accra, the government said.

Ghana has experienced a number of gas explosions recently. One of the countrys worst explosions lately killed more than 150 people in Accra in 2015.

The tradegy occurred as hundreds of residents took refuge at a gas station from heavy rainfall.

The rubble at the scene following the explosion in Apiate on Thursday was substantial

Drone footage from the scene shows the devastation caused by the crash - here a demolished building at the site

The blast left a huge crater and reduced dozens of buildings to dust-covered piles of wood and metal in Apiate

The governemtn said a team of police and army explosion experts were deployed to avoid a second explosion" and put in place security measures following the accident

Drone images shows crowds and rescue workers wading through the rubble for survivors caught in the devastation

Ghanas president President Nana Akufo-Addohas called the event a "truly sad, unfortunate and tragic incident"
A bright schoolboy who cares for his disabled mother in their council flat is now going to Eton after winning an 80,000 scholarship.

Ilyan Benamor, 15, will rub shoulders with the elite at the world's most famous school in Windsor, Berkshire, which counts Princes William and Harry and Prime Minister Boris Johnson among its many illustrious alumni.

To win the coveted place, Ilyan, who lives in a small two-bed flat in Stratford, east London, went through a gruelling three-day assessment, which included three entrance exams and multiple interviews.

While his peers at the public school will have enjoyed lives of immense privilege and luxury, Ilyan has been caring for his wheelchair-bound mother Lalia Amal Chikhaoui, 49, since he was 11, spending his spare time cooking, cleaning and shopping.

Lalia had fled Algeria just before the boy was born, leaving behind his father - who was left in a vegetative state by a hit-and-run in the country.

She has suffered ill health throughout her life and was diagnosed with cancer when Ilyan was nine, and now suffers from a debilitating condition called Functioning Neurological Disorder (FND), limiting her mobility.

After winning the scholarship Ilyan, who wants to be a politician, said: 'It is an incredible story. Maybe I will write a book one day. It is certainly triumph over adversity because it has been very difficult at times.'

Ilyan Benamor, 15, has been caring for his wheelchair-bound mother Lalia Amal Chikhaoui, 49, (both pictured yesterday) since he was 11, spending his spare time cooking, cleaning and shopping

Ilyan pictured at hospital where his mother Lalia was having treatment for cancer in 2015

He added: 'I am so proud of my mum. Everything she has been through. If it was not for her fighting to get us to the UK then I would never have got this chance. I love her so much and am so happy at how proud she is.

'It is hard to put into words how grateful I am to my school as well. They have helped me and my mum so much. They even bought me a printer so could print out my work at home. They have gone above and beyond for me so many times.'

Ilyan was born in France and moved briefly to Spain before his mother eventually got a visa to the UK when he was three years old.

Ilyan and his mother do not have any family in the UK but his uncle plans to move over so that he can take on the responsibility of caring for Lalia while Ilyan studies at Eton.

Lalia also has a carer provided by Newham Council, who comes every day for three hours.

Lalia said: 'I am so happy and relieved. Living in East London you worry when they get to teenage years something may happened, because of gangs and knife crime

'But Eton is not a place where you have to worry about these things. He can have a new life. It is like a gift from God, all my prayers have been answered.

To win the coveted place, Ilyan, who lives in a small two-bed flat in Stratford, east London, went through a gruelling three-day assessment, which included three entrance exams and multiple interviews (pictured: Ilyan and his mother at Eton)

Lalia had fled Algeria just before the boy was born, leaving behind his father - who was seriously injured in a hit-and-run

'This gives me peace because I know if anything happens to me, he is on the right path in life, he is in the right place.

'I don't want him to worry about me, he has already worried to much. He has already done too much for such a young person.

'He is the kindest, most gentle and loving son any mother could ask for. It is now his time to focus on his life and fulfil his potential.'

In 2017, Ilyan won the Newham young carers award. He said at the time: 'I do have worries because one day if I want to go to university and it is far away from Newham, I would have to leave my mum. It makes me anxious.

'It is really good to have someone to talk to because sometimes things are hard. Having the support of my school makes life a little easier, I am grateful for that.'

Ilyan is yet another graduate of the Community School Trusts (CST) prestigious colleges programme which helps disadvantaged pupils win places at top fee-paying schools.

In 2017, Ilyan won the Newham young carers award

Students are assigned a mentor who supports with applications, entrance exams and interview preparation, as well as paying all administration fees.

The scholarships are funded by the private schools.

The multi academy trust runs four schools including Cumberland Community School, also in Newham, which last year helped students win scholarships worth in excess of 1m.

Ilyan is the fifth student from either Forest Gate Community or Cumberland to win a place at Eton.

Other top fee-paying schools who support the programme include Wellington College, Winchester College and Kings College, Wimbledon.

Ilyan added: 'Eton is incredible, it is the number one school in the world. I am so excited to be a part of it. It feels almost like a dream that I will be going there.

'I want to be a politician so I can make a difference [to] my homeland and help them fix the problems that still plague the country today.'

CEO Of the Community Schools Trust Simon Elliott said: 'Ilyan is exceptional not just in his intellect but also in his character.

'He has faced great challenges, struggles and heartaches in his short life but remains warm, generous and ambitious for his future.

'He is truly a role model not just to his peers but to all of us for the great maturity, kindness and resilience he has shown from such a young age.

'The Community Schools Trust was set up following the success of Forest Gate Community specifically to support bright young boys and girls from underprivileged backgrounds.

'To be able to offer these young people the type of world class opportunities is why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place and is what still drives me as a leader today.'
Babes In The Wood killer Russell Bishop should 'rot in hell for all eternity', the mother of one of his victims said today after news emerged of his death.

The murderer, who was 55, passed away in hospital last night after being rushed there from the top security HMP Frankland, in County Durham.

He murdered best friends Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, both nine, in 1986 before dumping their bodies in woodland near their homes in Brighton.

Bishop always denied the killings, despite calls from the girls' families for him to confess and explain why he had committed the crimes.

Reacting to the murderer's death, Michelle Johnson, Karen's mother, said: 'May you rot in hell for all eternity you evil wicked monster and I hope your family suffer in the same way as you made me and my family suffer for so long when you took the life of my beautiful nine-year-old daughter, Karen, and her friend Nicky.'

She added: 'He put us through decades of pain and grief due to his evil actions. The suffering we have had to endure has been unimaginable.'

'He has gone. It was a bad day when that b***ard was born. I don't know whether this brings any closure for me but at least he is gone, that's all I can say.'

In 2020, it was reported he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer, but this later spread to his brain.

According to The Sun, the killer died in hospital last night while being watched over by a pair of prison officers.

Bishop lured the two best friends Nicola and Karen to a secluded den in Brighton's Wild Park where he sexually assaulted and strangled them.

The tragic discovery was made just half a mile from both of the girl's family homes.

Bishop was cleared of the Babes in the Wood murders in 1987 after a series of blunders by police, forensic experts and prosecutors.

Within three years he went on to kidnap, molest and throttle a seven-year-old girl at Devil's Dyke.

While serving life for that crime, Bishop was ordered to face a fresh trial for Nicola and Karen's murders in light of a DNA breakthrough.

He was finally convicted of Nicola and Karen's murders in 2018 after his acquittals were quashed in 2017.

Babes in the Wood killer Russell Bishop has died from brain cancer. The murderer, 55, passed away in hospital last night after being rushed there from the top security HMP Frankland, in County Durham

Bishop brutally killed Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in 1986 when they were both just nine

A source told The Sun last night: 'Bishop spent his last weeks in relative peace - a world away from the torment he has caused the girls' families.

'There will be few tears shed for his passing.'

The killer was reportedly taken to hospital yesterday after his health deteriorated rapidly in prison and he began suffering from breathing difficulties.

He passed away shortly before 9pm last night.

Ms Johnson added today: 'He was an evil, evil man - a monster. He killed my daughter and ruined the lives of so many people.'

She said she was told Bishop had terminal cancer last year and the two families reached out to give him a chance to explain why he had murdered the two girls in 1987.

Reacting to the monster's death, Karen's mother Michelle Johnson (pictured left in 2018 with Nicola's mother Susan Eismann), said: 'May you rot in hell for all eternity you evil wicked monster and I hope your family suffer in the same way as you made me and my family suffer for so long when you took the life of my beautiful nine-year-old daughter'

She added: 'He put us through decades of pain and grief due to his evil actions. The suffering we have had to endure has been unimaginable'. Above: Ms Johnson (left) with Karen's mother Ms Eismann and father Barrie Fellowes

'We reached out. It might have given him peace of mind to tell us but he didn't say a thing - not a thing.

'I still can't believe that his family stood by him all those years - a child murderer - and I have absolutely no sympathy for them whatsoever. His mother, his brothers - the whole lot of them.

'How could they do that? His brothers and relatives were allowed to bring up their children and live their lives while we had to mourn our Karen.'

She said she felt 'numb' when she received the call to tell him the double killer had died.

'I got a call earlier today from Victim Support who told me he had died in hospital and I thought to myself: 'Good. At least he can't bring suffering to anyone else now.'

'He is past tense now. He is finally out of our lives and I don't think anyone I know will shed a tear for him.'

During his 2018 trial, prosecutor Brian Altman QC described him as 'an abusive, aggressive, controlling man' who was capable of 'extreme sexual violence'.

But when called to account for his crimes, the predator hid behind 'cowardly' lies and even cast himself as the victim before refusing to carry on.

In October last year, the killer was urged by Nicola and Karen's families to finally come clean and confess to his horrific crimes after decades of denials.

Bishop pictured after his initial arrest for the 1986 Babes in the Wood murders

They told The Mirror: 'Russell Bishop has a chance to come clean before he dies unless he is a bigger coward than he has always seemed.

'And if he doesn't have the guts to confess his crimes and admit his guilt, he will be the loser, so our message to him is simple.

The lies and blunders that let killer go free Bishop's first trial in 1987 saw a series of blunders which led to his acquittal. Bishop's sweatshirt, which was central to the case, was initially treated as lost property.

It was put in a brown paper bag as 'no one thought it was important' during the search for the girls.

Forensic science only allowed experts to say the jumper and the girls 'could' have been in contact with each other.

Human hairs and fibres found on Nicola's body were not tested.

The 'Pinto' jumper was widely available in shops across the country, so may not have been Bishops.

Bishop's partner Jennifer Johnson initially identified the jumper as his, but then denied it when she took the witness stand. Advertisement

'We don't need your admission of what you did to our beautiful girls. Your refusal doesn't matter to us... but your admission would show you have finally had the courage to take responsibility for your despicable crimes.'

Nicola's parents Barrie Fellows and Susan Eismann and Karen's mother Ms Johnson issued the statement with the help of Nicola's cousin Lorna Heffron.

Last summer, Bishop's girlfriend Jennifer Johnson, 55, who had two children with the killer, was convicted for perverting the course of justice for lying in his first trial.

Johnson stunned police in the dock after suddenly claiming a blue jumper that linked him to the crime scene and killings was not his. She had previously told investigators it had been his garment.

Johnson had admitted lying, but had pleaded not guilty to perjury and perverting the course of justice, on the basis that she was acting under duress.

But the jury at Lewes Crown Court decided she was lying again and had been 'part of Team Bishop', desperate to get him cleared of murder.

Love letters sent from Johnson to him during the Devils Dyke case and shown to these jurors, had laid bare the lengths she would go to for him.

They trilled: 'I'm not going to leave you so don't worry because I won't. cos I love you very much and I will write every day because you're special to me and you mean all the world too.

'Don't get worried when I'm not up with your mum as I can't get a babysitter all the time but I'm still thinking of you love.

The girls were found dead in this 'den' in undergrowth in Wild Park, Brighton

'Can we get married quite soon and I will book the church OK? It is wonderful that you want to marry me. It's not prison talk is it love? I haven't got a lot to say so bye for now.'

New DNA techniques linked the killer to the double murders through the blue sweatshirt.

The case was also brought to public attention last year when Karen's mother accused journalist Martin Bashir of losing her daughter's clothes.

Ms Hadaway said the former BBC religion editor obtained the clothes for DNA testing for BBC Two's Public Eye programme 30 years ago, but the investigation did not air and her calls to the broadcaster were ignored, she claimed.

Ms Hadaway previously said Mr Bashir approached her in 1991 and asked to have her daughter's clothing DNA tested, saying that science had advanced in the five years since the murders, but never returned the clothes.

She called him a 'dishonest rogue' and called for a criminal investigation after she claimed he delayed the killer's capture.

In December, it was revealed that Bashir admitted in a handwritten letter to Ms Hadaway to having taken the clothes.

In his letter, Bashir said he was 'deeply sorry' that the clothing in which Karen was murdered  which he revealed he took 'to the BBC'  went missing.

Karen's parents Michelle and Lee Hadaway moved to Surrey after the murder of their daughter and divorced six years later, blaming the tragedy.

Lee moved back in Brighton where he was homeless and addicted to tranquillisers.

He died from a heart attack in 1998 without seeing Bishop convicted of killing his daughter.

Pictured: A blue Pinto sweatshirt, allegedly worn by Bishop and said to contain vital DNA evidence, which was found beside a path behind Moulsecoomb railway station

Jennifer Johnson, Russell Bishop's girlfriend, pictured leaving Brighton Magistrates Court on left and after the first trial on the right

The letter from Johnson to Bishop showed she only cared for him, not his victims

Nicola's dad Barrie Fellows was dogged for years by entirely false claims by Johnson and Bishop implicating him in the murder of his own daughter.

His brother Kevin spent 18 months conducting his own investigation into the blue sweatshirt before he died of cancer without seeing justice for Nicola.

After his initial acquittal at Lewes Crown Court in 1987, there were shouts and scuffles among those in the courtroom and two female jurors burst into tears.

Extra police had to be drafted in to restore calm.

How journalist Martin Bashir lost Karen Hadaway's clothes The Babes in the Woods case was brought to public attention last year when Karen's mother accused journalist Martin Bashir of losing her daughter's clothes. Michelle Hadaway said the former BBC religion editor obtained the clothes for DNA testing for BBC Two's Public Eye programme 30 years ago, but the investigation did not air and her calls to the broadcaster were ignored, she claimed. Ms Hadaway previously said Mr Bashir approached her in 1991 and asked to have her daughter's clothing DNA tested, saying that science had advanced in the five years since the murders, but never returned the clothes. Advertisement

The Daily Mail reported at the time that Bishop's brother and his father rushed forward, fighting with police and shrieking their delight.

As the family were led out by police, Bishop's mother, Sylvia, is reported to have shouted: 'Don't you touch my son, we love you darling.'

Outside the court, she added: 'I always knew he was innocent. I always believed it.'

Soon after the verdict, Sussex police officially announced: 'The investigation is closed. We're not looking for anyone else. Unless we receive new information, which at this stage is unlikely, that is it. Closed. No more inquiries.'

A distraught Barry Fellowes, Nicola's father, said: 'If he didn't do it, then who killed my Nicola? It means a killer is still at large.'

He added: 'We have been trying as best we can to rebuild our lives, but you can never get over something like this.

'You can never forget the good times, the smiling face or the joy and happiness she brought.'

Mrs Bishop, described in court as a 'domineering' matriarch, was a successful international dog trainer and wrote a training manual.

She and her husband Roy raised Bishop and his four brothers in Brighton.

Bishop's roofer father, Roy, was wrongly suspected in 1978 of being the 'Beast of Stanmer Park'.

He had been arrested but never charged over the unsolved rape and murder of Brighton woman Margaret Frame, who went missing in the park and was later found buried in a shallow grave.

Fearful of history repeating itself, he even warned his son not to get involved in the search for the missing girls in 1986, the court was told.

As a child, Bishop struggled with dyslexia and told jurors he had difficulty reading and writing and with 'problem solving'.

At 5ft 5in and weighing just over 10 stone, in 1986 Bishop sported a moustache and was said to be charming.

He lived with his partner Jennie Johnson and their infant son Victor in Stephens Road, Brighton, while also carrying on a relationship with 16-year-old Marion Stevenson, who was 'besotted' with him.

Bishop and Ms Johnson were said to be keen CB radio users, going under the handles 'Silver Bullet' and 'Panda Bear'.

While Ms Johnson worked as a cleaner at American Express, Bishop variously held down jobs as a roofer and turned to petty theft and motoring crime.

In her evidence, Ms Stevenson suggested he had attacked Ms Johnson several times, knowing she was pregnant with their second baby.

He was said to be 'motoring mad' and would spray-paint cars in his spare time, as well as play football in the park, go night fishing and smoke cannabis.

Bishop was rounded up by police investigating the IRA Grand Hotel bombing in 1984 but was soon discounted as a serious suspect, the Old Bailey heard.

He knew both Nicola and Karen's families and the girls were befriended by Ms Stevenson.

Bishop, who went on to have three children, was just 20 when he crossed the line from petty thief to violent paedophile.

Even before the murders, his behaviour towards young girls was a cause for concern.

The court heard how he had lusted after girls doing handstands in the park, saying 'wait until she is 13 or 14'.

He also got to know an 11-year-old girl in 1985, whom he went on to groom for sex in a series of letters while he was in prison awaiting trial two years later.

The Daily Mail's original news report after Bishop's 1987 acquittal detailed how there was uproar at the verdict

In childish handwriting, he peppered his love letters with hearts and kisses, while bragging about his sexual prowess, telling the girl he was 'a man not a boy'.

On his release, Bishop faced a barrage of animosity in the community, with windows smashed and petrol put through his letter box.

He claimed he became mentally ill as a result and even considered taking his own life.

In 1990, he decided he 'might as well' do what he had been accused of, and snatched a seven-year-old girl, he told jurors.

Bishop denied he was a paedophile, and claimed he acted out of vengeful rage and wanted to 'belittle and shame her' when he attacked her at Devil's Dyke, on the South Downs in Sussex.

But Detective Superintendent Jeff Riley, who led the cold case investigation, said his evidence summed up his 'wicked' nature, describing him as arrogant and 'massively dishonest'.

During his incarceration, Bishop was left in a time warp as a category A prisoner with little or no experience of the world.

He piled on the pounds and pumped iron as he first launched an appeal, then applied for release from the Parole Board, all without success, before being ordered to face a retrial for double murder.

Before killing Nicola and Karen, Bishop had in 1984 been convicted of burglary and fined 200, while a year later he was ordered to do 150 hours community service for a further five burglaries.

He also had motoring convictions.

The seven-year-old girl Bishop attacked after he was acquitted was snatched off the street and thrown in a car boot.

She was spotted on the roadside, naked, freezing and terrified.

The girl was able to identify Bishop and he was jailed for life.
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Contractors have today finally started tearing down Londons disastrous Marble Arch Mound after the pile was widely panned.

The controversial eyesore, which has been scathingly nicknamed S**t Hill by pundits, is being dismantled after it was branded the capitals worst tourist attraction and a waste of money following six months of relentless mockery and ridicule.

It was built for a staggering 6million  triple the 2million initially set aside for the project  next to Marble Arch in July last year in a bid to lure shoppers back to Oxford Street to help give Londons economy a boost after the Covid shutdown.

But reviews for the 82ft mound of scaffolding, wooden boards and turf were so bad that Westminster City Council scrapped the 8 entrance fee out of embarrassment.

Much of the view into neighbouring Hyde Park was obstructed by trees, while many visitors found the vantage point bland and obstructed by metal safety wires. Refunds were offered just days after it opened, following what the authority called teething problems.

One council chief even quit after Labours Adam Hug claimed the slag heap had brought shame on Westminster across the world.

Contractors have today started tearing down Londons controversial Marble Arch Mound after the eyesore was widely panned

The 6million pile, nicknamed S**t Hill, is being dismantled after it was branded the capitals worst tourist attraction and a waste of money following six months of mockery and ridicule

It was erected next to Marble Arch in July last year as a way of luring shoppers back to Oxford Street following the Covid lockdowns

But reviews for the 82ft mound of scaffolding, wooden boards and turf were so bad that Westminster City Council scrapped the 8 entrance fee

Visitors queueing outside the Marble Arch Mound in central London on January 9, 2022

Mountains of money: Westminster council official in charge of the Marble Arch mound fiasco was paid more than the authority's Chief Executive with a 220,000 salary making him the authority's highest-paid employee Elad Eisenstein was in charge of the Marble Arch Mound The Westminster City Council official who oversaw the controversial Marble Arch Mound project was the local authority's highest paid employee during his tenure - surpassing even the chief executive. Elad Eisenstein was appointed as Oxford Street district improvement director with a salary of 220,000 in October 2020. His role placed him charge of a 150million regeneration programme, including the eye-popping tourist attraction. Mr Eisentstein earned even more than the 217,545 paid to the local authority's chief executive Stuart Love. Advertisement

MailOnline understand that Marble Arch Mound has been visited more than 250,000 times since it opened.

It was designed by world-renowned Dutch architect MVRDV, and built by construction firms NRP and FM Conway.

MVRDV have built a series of high-profile structures, including the futuristic Market Hall in Rotterdam, which has become one of the citys main attractions.

It also designed an infamous pair of apartment towers in South Korea that were unbelievably reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, with a pair of towers joined by a pixelate cloud. The project prompted an outcry and was eventually cancelled.

Winy Maas, founding partner at MVRDV, had helped stoke the anticipation for the Marble Arch Mound prior to its opening.

He told Architects Journal prior to the opening: It's a location full of contradictions, and our design highlights that.

By adding this landscape element, we make a comment on the urban layout of the Marble Arch, and by looking to the site's history, we make a comment on the areas future.

Marble Arch Hill strengthens the connection between Oxford Street and the park via the Marble Arch. Can this temporary addition help inspire the city to undo the mistakes of the 1960s, and repair that connection?.

Westminster Council were similarly enthused by the design and seemed eager to see the results.

In the days leading up to the opening Mr Maas seemed to accept that the real hill was not quite up to the standards of the designs.

He told the Guardian: Its not enough, we are all fully aware that it needs more substance. The initial calculation was for a stair, and then there are all the extras.

But I think it still opens people's eyes and prompts an intense discussion. Its OK for it to be vulnerable.

Imagine if you lifted up Hyde Park at each of its corners. Speakers Corner could be transformed into a kind of tribune, with a perfect view across an endless landscape.

The mound cost the job of Melvyn Caplan, the deputy leader of Westminster City Council, who resigned after the total costs of the project ballooned.

The councils leader, Rachael Robathan, said in a statement in August that Cllr Caplan had resigned with immediate effect after a totally unacceptable rise in costs.

Much of the view into neighbouring Hyde Park was obstructed by trees and surrounding buildings, while many visitors found the vantage point bland and obstructed by safety wires

Refunds were offered to members of the public days after it opened, following what the authority called teething problems

It was designed by world-renowned Dutch architect MVRDV, and built by construction firms NRP and FM Conway

It was revealed earlier this month that that the Westminster City Council official who oversaw the project was the local authoritys highest paid employee during his tenure  surpassing even the chief executive.

Elad Eisenstein was appointed as Oxford Street district improvement director with a salary of 220,000 in October 2020.

His role placed him charge of a 150million regeneration programme, including the eye-popping tourist attraction.

Mr Eisentstein earned even more than the 217,545 paid to the local authoritys chief executive Stuart Love.

Their salaries were revealed in a document outlining the pay of all 179 Westminster City Council workers earning above 68,000 a year.
A serving British soldier has been arrested and charged with kidnap and robbery after allegedly tying up an Italian couple and holding them at knifepoint on the paradise island of Bali.

Greg Simpson, 36, an army reservist who toured Afghanistan as a member of the London Regiment, was said to have been part of a four-strong gang who stole 5.8 billion Indonesian Rupiahs in the raid, the equivalent of 300,000.

A former colleague said he went to Bali after being disciplined by his unit for making racist remarks during the army's 2020 Operation Rescript, their domestic response to the Covid 19 pandemic.

'He had become obsessed with conspiracy theories and extreme right-wing politics,' said the former colleague. 'I knew he was likely to get himself into trouble but being accused of a pre-meditated robbery is quite a surprise.'

Indonesian authorities arrested Simpson and alleged accomplice Nicola Disanto, 34, shortly after the robbery last November, but are still searching for the other two gang members.

Greg Simpson, 36, an army reservist who toured Afghanistan as a member of the London Regiment, was said to have been part of a four-strong gang who stole 5.8 billion Indonesian Rupiahs in the raid, the equivalent of 300,000

It is alleged that they broke into a holiday home on the Villa Seminyak Estate and Spa complex in Seminyak which was being rented by Italian couple Principe Nerini, 40, and his wife Camilla Guadagnuolo, 30.

According to a local police chief, the four men dressed entirely in black, covered their faces with scarves and wore gloves to hide their identities during the 3am attack on November 11 last year.

It is claimed that Mr Nerini was held at knifepoint and had his hands and feet bound before being beaten and locked in a bedroom.

The head of the Denpasar Police Resort, Commissioner Jansen Avitus Panjaitan told a press conference that the assailants then took six mobile phones and forced Mr Nerini to hand over passwords for his bitcoin accounts.

During the robbery, Ms Guadagnuolo returned to the villa and was subsequently detained and threatened by the robbers.

Once the robbery was completed, the four perpetrators fled the scene.

Indonesian authorities arrested Simpson (centre right) and alleged accomplice Nicola Disanto, 34, (centre left) shortly after the robbery last November, but are still searching for the other two gang members

After freeing themselves, the couple checked their bitcoin account balance to discover 5.8 billion IDR (300,000) had been transferred in three transactions to an account owned by one of the alleged assailants, Disanto.

Commissioner Jansen, who said that all four suspects were foreign nationals, also revealed that Disanto, was a former employee of an export company operated by the victims.

Simpson and Disanto were both arrested less than 24 hours after the incident.

Police said that during the arrest, they seized two knives, a jacket, a pair of trousers, and cash as evidence.

If convicted of the charges that include robbery, confinement and threats, the men face up to nine years in prison.

According to a local police chief, the four men dressed entirely in black, covered their faces with scarves and wore gloves to hide their identities during the 3am attack on November 11 last year. Pictured: Simpson

One of Simpson's former army colleagues said he had gone to Bali last year, after being disciplined by his unit for making racist remarks in London as the army helped set up Covid testing sites.

'In the last 10 years or so he has got deeper and deeper into conspiracy theories and extreme right-wing politics,' said the former colleague.

'He was overheard on a minibus talking about his belief that certain ethnic groups have lower levels of intelligence.

'For that he was formally disciplined and had his pay and rank reduced.

'He wasn't always like this but around 2010 there was a marked change in him. He started spending too much time on the internet.

'He became obsessed with bizarre conspiracy theories and David Icke and then became increasingly anti-Semitic, talking a lot about Jewish freemasons and Jewish control.'

A spokesperson for the Army said: 'We are aware of an incident in Bali that occurred on 12th November 2021. As the matter is currently the subject of an ongoing investigation it would be inappropriate to comment further.'

They said they were unable to release any information about the disciplinary hearing as it was an administrative matter covered by the Data Protection Act.

According to a former collleague, Simpson toured Afghanistan in 2007 and was part of a UN deployment to Cyprus in 2014.

His Facebook page carries a picture of himself wearing a belt with a 'Black Sun' buckle, a symbol beloved by neo-Nazis and part of the paraphernalia of Christchurch mosque murderer Brenton Tarrant who killed 51 worshippers in 2019.

Other pictures show him on an armed patrol in Afghanistan and under a khaki pith helmet. His likes include a page called 'British Nationalism'.

It is understood that his family are spread out between the UK, USA and South Africa.

'His mother died,' said the former colleague, 'and his father lives in the States. I know he has a brother and two sisters and at least one of them still lives in Britain.'
Ash Barty has continued her red-hot start to the summer, thumping seeded opponent Camila Giorgi to cruise into the Australian Open fourth round.

After blitzing a pair of qualifiers in the early rounds, world No.1 Barty made light work of Giorgi in a 6-2 6-3 victory on Friday night.

The result extended Barty's unbeaten run in 2022 to seven matches as she eyes a third career grand slam title and first on home soil.

Ash Barty has continued her red-hot start to the summer, thumping seeded opponent Camila Giorgi to cruise into the Australian Open fourth round

After blitzing a pair of qualifiers in the early rounds, world No.1 Barty made light work of Giorgi in a 6-2 6-3 victory on Friday night

The local favourite will meet either two-time champion Naomi Osaka or American Amanda Anisimova in the round of 32.

Free-hitting No.30 seed Giorgi was never likely to be the cannon fodder that vanquished qualifiers Lesia Tsurenko and Lucia Bronzetti proved for the top-ranked Australian.

But by the same token, Giorgi didn't seriously challenge Barty, who is now unbeaten in four career meetings with the Italian.

Barty again banked on her biggest weapon - her accurate serve - and is yet to be broken in 23 service games through the opening three rounds of her home slam this year.

She has won 57 consecutive service games stretching back to her first match of the year at the Adelaide International and is winning 84 per cent of points after landing her first delivery.

The 25-year-old held her nerve to save all four break points against Giorgi, keeping her perfect tournament record intact.
The biographies of over 200 SS women serving at Auschwitz death camp and their 'after work parties' have been published online in an effort to show the world that it wasn't just men involved.

Entitled 'Women working for the SS', the project from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum documents the women's lives from birth and how they ended up serving Adolf Hitler.

One of the women was Maria Mandl, a senior SS guard in Auschwitz from October 1942 to October 1944 who was nicknamed 'The Beast' by prisoners.

Born in 1912 the daughter of a shoemaker, she first started work in a Nazi concentration camp in Lichtenburg Germany in 1938 before being transferred to the camp for women in Ravensbruk, also in Germany.

In 1942 she was sent to Auschwitz where she became infamous for her sadism and sending 'an estimated half a million women and children to their deaths in the gas chambers.'

SS women arrive at an SS holiday camp in the town of Porabka in what was then German-occupied Poland

One of the women was Maria Mandl, a senior SS guard in Auschwitz from October 1942 to October 1944 who was nicknamed 'The Beast' by prisoners

According to the project by the Auschwitz Museum's education department: 'In May 1944, Mandl organised a party for senior members of the camp's staff.

'One of the guests was an Austrian architect Walter Dejaco, the head of the project department of the Central Construction Management of Waffen SS and Police in Auschwitz.

'He drafted the plans for the crematorium and gas chambers in Birkenau. As a sign of his gratitude for being invited to the party and for Maria Mandl's hospitality, he left an inscription in her guest book.'

After Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945, Mandl fled into the mountains of southern Bavaria.

Mandl was later caught and arrested by the US military in August 1945 and held at Dachau Prison.

She was then handed over to Poland in November 1946 and later sentenced by a Kracow courtroom, as part of the Auschwitz trial, to death by hanging. Mandl was hanged on 24 January 1948, aged 36.

Other pictures published on the website show SS women arriving at an SS holiday camp in the town of Porabka in what was then German-occupied Poland.

Female guards at the SS holiday camp in the town of Porabka

SS women arriving at an SS holiday camp in the town of Porabka in what was then German occupied Poland

Dr Sylwia Wysinska from the Auschwitz Museum's education department said: 'Some female SS guards working in the camp spent their free time meeting SS men after work.

'The night visits of SS officers must have been quite loud as in March 1943, the Commandant prohibited them from entering the female quarters.

'It did not prevent female SS guards from engaging in close relations with SS men.

'As a result, dozens of couples formed in Auschwitz and some of them ended in marriage.'

One of them was Luise Viktoria Rust. Born on January 14, 1915 in Varel in Lower Saxony in November 1940 she started to work as a female SS guard in Ravensbruck concentration camp for women.

The website says: 'She worked in Auschwitz from April 1942 to January 1945.

'In this period, she met SS Rottenfuhrer Heinz Schulz, whom she married in July 1943.

'During the preparations for her wedding, she ordered her wedding dress to be tailored in the tailor workshop of the camp.'

Born on January 14, 1915 in Varel in Lower Saxony in November 1940 Luise Viktoria Rust started to work as a female SS guard in Ravensbruck concentration camp for women

Another was Herta Martha Tack, born in the village Dechtow in Brandenburg.

From May 1941 to October 1942, Tack worked in Ravensbruck concentration camp for women, where she guarded the prisoners working in road construction.

According to the website: 'In the autumn of 1942 she was transferred to Auschwitz where she met SS officer Friedrich Stiwitz, who was a report leader in the male section of the camp.

'In May 1944, during a short holiday the couple got married.'

Herta Martha Tack (left) and SS officer Friedrich Stiwitz (right) married in May 1944 during a short holiday

Among the women featured in the project is Emma Zimmer, who worked as a female SS guard at three concentration camps and was later awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class without Swords for her long-time service for the SS.

Born on August 14, 1888, in Hamersheim, she started work as a guard from December 1937, initially in Lichtenberg concentration camp and from May 1939 in Ravensbruck concentration camp for women.

At the beginning of October 1942, she was delegated to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she stayed until December 1943.

In September 1943, she was awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class without Swords for her long-time service for the SS.

But later that year, due to her age, health problems and alcohol abuse at work she terminated her career as a female SS guard in concentration camps.

She was later detained by US military forced in the spring of 1945 and deported to internment camp number 77 in Ludwigsburg.

Subsequently, she was handed over to British authorities. She was sentenced to death by hanging by the British military tribunal in the 6th Ravensbruck Trial. The sentence was carried out in September 1948.

Another female SS guard who was sentenced to death was Therese Brandl, who worked at three concentration camps between 1940 and 1945.

Among the women featured in the project is Emma Zimmer (left), who worked as a female SS guard at three concentration camps. She was later sentenced to death by hanging by the British military tribunal. Another female SS guard who was sentenced to death was Therese Brandl (right), who worked at three concentration camps between 1940 and 1945

Brandl, born on February 1, 1909 in the Bavarian town Staudach, worked at Ravensbruck concentration camp for women from September 1940 to March 1942.

Later she was delegated to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she stayed until the end of 1944 working as SS Report Leader and supervised the prisoners working in the Rajsko subcamp.

In December 1944, she was delegated at her own request to work in the subcamp Muhldorf.

After the war, she was sentenced to death by hanging in the trial against 40 former members of the staff of Auschwitz concentration camp. The sentence was carried out in January 1948.

Another senior female SS officer who was sentenced to death was Elisabeth Lupka after she worked at Auschwitz for two years between 1943 and 1945. It was there that she supervised the prisoners working at Birkenau concentration camp.

After the evacuation of the camp, she was appointed to work in Ravensbruck.

In June 1945, she was arrested by the British Army in Schwerin. Because of her activities in Auschwitz, she was extradited to Poland in December 1946. On July 6, 1948 she was sentenced to death by hanging.

Luise Helene Elisabeth Danz (left) worked in Auschwitz from September 1944, where she was a report leader in section BIIb in Birkenau. Meanwhile, Elisabeth Lupka (right) was sentenced to death after she worked at Auschwitz for two years between 1943 and 1945

Meanwhile, Luise Helene Elisabeth Danz, born on December 11, 1917 in the small town of Walldorf near Meiningen in Thuringia, also worked at Ravensbruck concentration camp.

In February 1943, she trained there at a female SS guard before being sent to Lublin concentration camp.

After the evacuation of the camp in spring 1944, she was appointed to Plaszow concentration camp and in September 1944 to Auschwitz, where she was a report leader in section BIIb in Birkenau.

After the camp was evacuated in January 1945, Danz moved again and was delegated to Malchow subcamp, which was under the command of Ravensbruck concentration camp.

In 1947, she was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment, but ten years later in 1957, she was granted amnesty.

SS women arriving at an SS holiday camp in what was then German occupied Poland

Dr Wysinska said: 'Although the number of women compared to men was small, it does not change the fact that not just men, but also women actively supported the functioning of the concentration camps and had their share in the crimes committed there.

'Most women working in Auschwitz were single and had only completed primary school. While a small percentage of guards completed secondary education, none had an academic background.'

Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka, head of E-learning at the museum added: 'It is astonishing how the perpetrators were able to create and believe in a world view that some people can and should be isolated, treated cruelly and finally put to death while they live in the separate world of their families, friends and communities.

She continued: 'Under the influence of peer pressure, the behaviour of many of them became increasingly brutal.

'Serving in a concentration camp contributed to the development of exultant feelings of absolute power, which they would not have had under normal circumstances.'

The website continued: 'For many years after the war, issues concerning women working in concentration camps had not been the focus of historians as they analysed mostly men.

'Scientific research regarding war crimes both in terms of military actions and concentration camps presented mostly SS men, Wehrmacht soldiers, SS physicians and Gestapo functionaries as the main perpetrators.

Monika Miklas, who worked at Auschwitz concentration camp as a female SS guard from April 1943

'This is mostly due to the fact that women working in the camps constituted a small fraction of the entire staff.

'The roughly 200 SS female auxiliaries working in Auschwitz as nurses, guards or stenography specialists represented a small number compared with a couple of thousands of SS men who served in the camp between 1940 and 1945.

'Nevertheless, it does not change the fact that not just men, but also women actively supported the functioning of concentration camps and had their share in the crimes committed there.'

One of these women was Monika Miklas, who worked at Auschwitz concentration camp as a female SS guard from April 1943.

One of her functions included being a block leader and monitoring the camps packaging station.

After the evacuation of Auschwitz, she was delegated to work in Ravensbruck, where she remained until spring 1945. She was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Other female SS guards who were sentenced to imprisonment included Emilia Macha, Gertrud Weniger and Gertrud Anna Zlotos.

Macha, born in 1905 in Makoschau, Poland, was sentenced by the Highest National Tribunal in Cracow to twelve years of imprisonment after she worked as a female SS guard in the female camp in Birkenau from December 1942 to mid-February 1942.

Emilia Macha (left), born in 1905 in Makoschau, Poland, was sentenced by the Highest National Tribunal in Cracow to twelve years of imprisonment after she worked as a female SS guard in the female camp in Birkenau from December 1942 to mid-February 1942. Meanwhile, Gertrud Anna Zlotos (right) was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for her work as a female SS guard after the war

Gertrud Weniger was appointed as the head supervisor of female guards in the Oederan subcamp

Weniger, who was appointed as the head supervisor of female guards in the Oederan subcamp, which belonged to Flossenburg concentration camp, was arrested by Soviet authorities after the war.

As a former female SS guard, Weniger was sent to NKWD special camp number 4 in Bautzen. Her fate remains unknown.

Meanwhile, Zlotos was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for her work as a female SS guard after the war.

Born on March 9, 1917, in Hindnburg into a German working-class family, Zlotus later worked as a SS guard in Auschwitz concentration camp between November 1942 and January 1945.

During her two-years employment in the camp, she also worked as a report leader. After the evacuation of the camp, she was appointed to work in Ravensbruck concentration camp, where she stayed until April 1945.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has admitted the government has made errors in its handling of the Covid pandemic - but insisted the nation has now bounced back.

'I don't pretend we haven't made mistakes. What country or government could?' he said on Friday.

But despite the errors along the way, he said the crisis had catapulted Australia into the future, with tech leading the way in a digital explosion down under.

And surprisingly Newcastle and Perth were the two cities which have bounced back the strongest from the pandemic, compared with Melbourne which continues to struggle from the extended lockdown in 2021.

Scott Morrison has praised the government's economic response to the coronavirus outbreak after a year-on-year increase was reported in December 2021

In an address to the Davos World Economic Forum on Friday night, the prime minister took a thinly-veiled swipe at China, after the Communist nation boycotted Australian products and raised tariffs on others.

'In recent times Australia has experienced the effects of economic protectionism and coercive measures,' he said.

'The world cannot afford to march in this direction ... it's hard to see how anyone wins.'

The PM lauded the country's high vaccination and low unemployment rates while setting out an economic pathway focused on driving innovation and ensuring an open and free market.

The PM hailed how Covid had accelerated the digital economy, the demand for skilled workers and closer collaboration between business and researchers.

'When Covid hit, the digital economy went boom,' Mr Morrison said. 'Adaptation and innovation was immediate.

'Australia jumped five years ahead in digital adoption in almost the blink of an eye.

'In Australia, we estimate that increased digitalisation could add some $90 billion to our economy - as well as create some 250,000 jobs in the near future.'

Mr Morrison said there had been no 'map' for the economic stresses of Covid.

'No magic GPS system for avoiding the enormous stresses and strains it continues to place on all nations  governments, businesses, communities, families and individuals,' he said.

'Yet amid this fog of radical uncertainty, Australia has charted a clear path  our own unique path  what we call the Australian way.

'From the outset, our Government was very clear that we were backing a business-led recovery.'

The second greatest month-on-month increase was for the arts and recreation services industry with 14.1 per cent

Despite the PM's optimism though credit reporting agency CreditorWatch has warned the economy is likely to slide in the first half of 2022 due to the impact of Omicron.

Business activity in December was also much weaker than hoped, driven by staff shortages, supply chain disruptions and weakened consumer confidence.

CreditorWatch's business risk index report for December said Christmas trade activity was the lowest on record, down 45 per cent from December 2020.

'Everyone was expecting that the rapid spread of Omicron would have a significant adverse impact on Christmas trade, but few would have predicted it to be this extreme,' CreditorWatch CEO Patrick Coghlan said.

'You can't blame people for wanting to stay at home. We can only hope that the peak arrives soon, and the business community can get back on its feet.'

However, its business risk index - which gauges the probability of default over the next 12 months - was down slightly in December at 5.7 per cent compared with 5.79 per cent in November.

The index covers 300 regions across the country.

More broadly, defaults, external administrations and court actions all dipped in December after sharp rises in November.

Although economic activity was below what was expected for December several sectors reported increases with the accommodation and food industry up 15.9 per cent

'The Australian economy undoubtedly bounced back in the December 2021 quarter and carries some momentum into 2022 but it is enduring a bumpy ride as Omicron bites,' the report says.

'With such high vaccination rates we will push through, but many SMEs have been hit hard.'

Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported business turnover in 12 out of 13 industries increased in November, on the back of restrictions easing in the biggest states.

Accommodation and food services recorded the largest increase (15.9 per cent) in monthly turnover compared to October 2021, the figures released on Friday showed.

The second greatest month-on-month increase was for the arts and recreation services industry (14.1 per cent).

All industries had year-on-year increases.

Construction rose nine per cent following a fall in October, and was up 15.1 per cent over the year to November, while mining turnover was up 29.5 per cent over the year.
A footage of Kim Dae-jung delivering a speech in the documentary film "President" / Courtesy of Blue Film Works



By Kwak Yeon-soo



With only seven weeks before the 20th presidential election, political films are flooding the market in an effort to keep voters engaged and enraged.



Most prominent is Byun Sung-hyun's star-studded "Kingmaker," inspired by a mysterious political strategist in the 1960-70s named Eom Chang-rok who worked for former President Kim Dae-jung, serving under him from 1998 to 2003.



A string of political documentaries aim to take advantage of the heightened political climate. "President" traces Kim's meteoric rise through footage of his impassioned speeches calling for democracy and an end to the military dictatorship, punctuated with current-day interviews given by his close aides.



It follows the timeline of Kim's first presidential race from 1971 to becoming the first opposition to win the presidential election in 1997 on his fourth run. He won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his reconciliation efforts with North Korea.



"Kim became the people's president, surviving a death sentence and an assassination attempt by military dictators. Thirteen years have passed since he passed away, but he is still remembered as the president who devoted his life to build peace on the Korean Peninsula," director Kim Jin-hong said.



"This film leaves us with more questions as the deep ideological divide, social polarization and economic inequality is getting worse. I hope this film gives courage to people to restore humanity and overcome injustice," he added. "President" will be coming to theaters on Jan. 27.





Yoon Seok-yeol, the presidential candidate for main opposition People Power Party, in a scene from the documentary film "Candlelight Revolution" / Courtesy of Little Big Pictures
Whitehall will only have office space for half of the civil servants based there in future - as ministers urge staff to set an example after work from home guidance was ended.

Under a strategy to rationalise the government estate in London, there will only be capacity for 50 per cent of staff to be at their desks from 2030.

The proposals were branded 'bonkers' by Tories, although the Cabinet Office insisted not all those away from Whitehall would be working from home - arguing some would be visiting other offices around the country.

The shift is highlighted in an official report that also reveals the Whitehall 'campus' and other buildings in the capital are costing 621million a year to run.

They currently house around 68,000 full-time equivalent staff, giving a cost per head of 9,132.

Boris Johnson has urged civil servants to set an example and return to 'normal' patterns after Covid work from home guidance was lifted.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng admitted this morning that he does not know what proportion are in at his department, suggesting it might be less than half.

The State of the Estate report published by the Government Property Agency last month highlights the drive to move staff out of London and cut running costs.

But it also reveals that the remaining 'Whitehall Campus' - made up of the HQs of departments and agencies - will only have space for around half of the staff who are based there.

Boris Johnson has urged civil servants to set an example and return to 'normal' patterns after Covid work from home guidance was lifted

Under a strategy to rationalise the government estate in London, there will only be capacity for 50 per cent of staff to be at their desks from 2030

The State of the Estate report published by the Government Property Agency last month highlights the drive to move staff out of London and cut running costs. But it also reveals that the remaining 'Whitehall Campus' will only have space for around half of the staff who are based there

'The Whitehall Campus Strategy aims to deliver a campus with a 50 per cent reduced footprint compared to a 2019 baseline, comprised of c. 20 'core' buildings housing c.40,000 FTEs at a 50 per cent Attendance Rate (i.e. will have a capacity of no more than 20,000 individuals at any one time) by 2030,' the report said.

It added that a 'refreshed, updated' strategy for managing the government property portfolio up to 2030 will be published this year.

Some staff are likely to be out of the office on any given day due to rota patterns and holidays, as well as working from home.

A Government source insisted the proportion working from home would be significantly lower than 50 per cent, with a push for people to spend more time out of London even if they are based there.

They said the 'attendance rate' in Whitehall before the pandemic was 65-70 per cent - although it is not clear what proportion were working from home then - and argued that no businesses have enough desks for all staff to be in at once.

Officials insist that rationalising the estate and offering staff more flexibility will unlock big savings for the taxpayer.

But senior Tory Iain Duncan Smith told MailOnline: 'Another bonkers idea brought to you by a bunch of civil servants on their Peletons.

'It is all nonsense. The truth is that you need civil servants in their offices because things happen politics in politics quickly, sharply that you sometimes were not anticipating.

'Politics demands that the civil service are there. Government is not like running a business. There are so many things going on that can go on and change.

'The idea you have 50 per cent of the workforce in their homes is ridiculous when loads of the people who service them  delivering food, getting their books sold to them, working in warehouses  they can't work from home.'

Mr Kwarteng struggled when he was grilled on LBC radio about the number of staff still working from home.

Asked what percentage were back at the Business Department, Mr Kwarteng initially insisted: 'Well, we're trying to increase the number and I'm hopeful that certainly in a few weeks, we will get people largely very much back to the office.'

When presenter Nick Ferrari pointed out that he had not given a figure, Mr Kwarteng admited 'I don't know the exact percentage as of today'.

He said the figure had 'definitely' lifted from around 25 per cent at the nadir of lockdown but could only give a 'rough' estimate.

'I would say it's about, nearly 50 per cent, but it's going to increase over the next few days and weeks.'

It is understood the permanent secretary at the Department for Business wrote to all officials yesterday encouraging them to come back to the office.

In a fortnight staff will be expected to be in at least three days a week.

Figures indicate that the number of workers travelling to offices has increased since the Prime Minister dropped official WFH guidance.

Yesterday, the number of Tube journeys increased by 10 per cent on last Thursday to 2.1million, while the number of bus journeys rose by 4 per cent in the past seven days to 4.4million, according to TfL data.

Kwasi Kwarteng struggled when he was grilled on LBC today about the number of staff still working from home

This chart shows the floor area in square metres of government offices around the country

But civil service unions have hit back at the embattled PM's bid to get Britain back to work as the Omicron wave fades.

Mr Johnson has demanded civil servants set an example by returning to their desks, and yesterday ordered Cabinet ministers to ensure their Whitehall staff resumed 'normal working patterns' as soon as possible.

But union bosses branded the PM's demands 'insulting' and claimed the move to get workers back in the office was 'reckless'.

The Public and Commercial Services union, which represents civil servants and other public sector workers, warned against a 'headlong rush' back to the workplace. The FDA union also reacted angrily, saying the world of work had 'changed for good'.

Tory MPs and business leaders have demanded that Mr Johnson face down the unions  saying failure to act would be disastrous for the economy.

Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called unions bosses 'selfish' for backing continued home working as the threat of Covid wanes.

'When they eventually go back to their office there won't be anywhere to get a sandwich from or sit down in a pub  they'll all close,' he warned.

A government spokesman said: 'These claims are misleading and taken out of context.

'As part of the Government's Levelling Up strategy, we are recruiting more people from outside London to locations across the UK in order to make the Civil Service more representative of the people it serves.'
A coroner has called on CPS to 're-assess' the decision not to charge a mother who allegedly took cocaine after giving birth and squashed her newborn baby to death after falling asleep, an inquest has heard.

Keira-Mae Jones was born 5lb 5oz in the early hours of May 14, 2020 at Barnsley Hospital after being induced, and was set to be taken into immediate foster care, Sheffield Coroners Court was told yesterday.

On May 16, just two days after being born, the child suffered catastrophic brain damage and was found face down on her mother Aimee Jones's bed in the hospital's neonatal ward, an inquest heard.

Following desperate attempts to resuscitate Keira-Mae, she was placed on life support - but this was switched off four months later.

Blood and urine tests taken from Aimee, who could face charges for manslaughter, a few hours after the child was found unresponsive showed she had taken cocaine recently, the inquest heard. She denied she was on drugs hours before her daughter died.

Aimee, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was arrested on suspicion of 'criminal overlay' for taking the little girl to bed while under the influence of substances at the time.

But senior coroner David Urpeth said he was 'surprised' charges hadn't been brought against Aimee, 32, and called on the CPS to 're-assess' their decision.

Mr Urpeth ruled yesterday that the little girl had died due to 'the unlawful act of the mother', the inquest heard.

He said: 'I find the death of Keira-Mae Jones was due to the unlawful act of the mother.

'I am satisfied that the finding of cause of death in this case on the balance of probability is unlawful killing.

'I am surprised the CPS did not authorise charges in this tragic case. I would ask this case be referred back to the CPS to reassess their decision.'

Aimee Jones, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was arrested on suspicion of 'criminal overlay' for taking the little girl to bed while under the influence of substances at the time. She had denied she was on drugs hours before her daughter died, but said someone on cocaine could care for a baby as it 'makes you more alert'

Aimee had been taking opioid-based painkillers while expecting Keira-Mae, so the child had to be kept in the hospital for up to five days to watch if she was suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

On May 16, the child suffered catastrophic brain damage and was found face down on her mother's bed in the hospital's neonatal ward.

The inquest was told Aimee went on to hold up to nine house parties and drinking with friends in the days following the child's death - and during the height of the pandemic.

Blood and urine tests taken from Aimee a few hours after the child was found unresponsive revealed she had taken cocaine recently, the inquest heard.

When asked to pinpoint an exact day when the mother might have taken the drug, toxicologist Dr Dianna Garside said evidence suggested a three-day window between May 14 - the day Keira-Mae was born - and May 16 - the day she was found unresponsive, Yorkshire Live reports.

She had denied she was on drugs hours before her daughter died, but said someone on cocaine could care for a baby because it 'makes you more alert'.

Keira-Mae's father and Aimee's husband Alex Jones, 38, also from Barnsley, was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, but the pair were both later released without any further action.

A neighbour claimed she saw Aimee throwing as many as nine house parties and drinking with friends in the days following the child's death - and during the height of the pandemic.

Keira-Mae had been set to be subject to an interim care order, where a child is removed from their parents' care and fostered.

The inquest heard from the mother's next door neighbour, who said that she approached Aimee in the days after Keira-Mae was put on life support.

Keira-Mae Jones was born 5lb 5oz in the early hours of May 14, 2020 at Barnsley Hospital after being induced, but was set to be subject to an interim care order, where a child is removed from their parents' care and fostered, Sheffield Coroners Court was told yesterday

The neighbour told the court she was 'mortified' when Aimee told her 'I've suffocated her, I did it'.

The court was told that Aimee and Alex would often throw house parties, which were reported to police in the days following Keira-Mae's death.

The neighbour said: 'I think the actions after Keira's death states everything. These were house parties, Mrs Jones had friends round.'

She added: 'This was during a pandemic too, so it was illegal. It's just not what you expect.'

During the inquest, Jones was asked why blood samples taken from her less than two hours after the incident returned evidence of cocaine use.

This followed testimony from forensic toxicologist Dr Diane Garside that confirmed the drugs were most likely used on the day of the incident.

Mr Urpeth specifically asked Jones if she'd taken cocaine and if her partner had provided her with urine to avoid a positive drugs test, to which she replied 'no'.

But when he asked her if someone could look after a child while on cocaine, Jones said: 'Yes. Cocaine makes you more alert.'

Senior coroner David Urpeth (pictured) said he was 'surprised' charges hadn't been brought against Aimee, 32, and called on the CPS to 're-assess' their decision

She later added: 'I'm not saying it's right, [but] yes, you can.'

A senior midwife who cared for Aimee Jones, Joanne Posket, told the court Aimee seemed positive and talkative on the day after Keira-Mae's birth.

However, she said she was negative and irritable on the day of the incident after arguing with her partner about her 16 dogs potentially being taken away from her.

This behaviour change was described as 'erratic' in several witness statements from staff on the ward.

In his finding, Mr Urpeth said he believed this mood swing was caused by substance abuse, but Jones denied this.

At around 6pm on May 16, 2020, Aimee claims she took Keira-Mae to bed to feed her.

She said her 'next memory' was waking up at 8pm, where she found Keira-Mae face down on the bed.

Medics rushed to save Keira-Mae's life and were initially able to resuscitate her.

Meanwhile, Aimee Jones reportedly gathered her belongings in a carrier bag, wrote a note apologising to Keira-Mae that she was 'better off without me'.

She then met up with Alex in the car park of the hospital, who convinced her to go back inside.

By this time, Keira-Mae was being prepared for transfer to the another ward, where she would spend the rest of her short life on life support with 'catastrophic' brain damage.

A blood sample taken from Aimee less than two hours after the incident showed by-products of cocaine use. A urine sample was also taken.

South Yorkshire Police DS Julie Thorpe said the decision to arrest Aimee and Alex Jones came eight hours after the incident when officers reviewed bodycam footage of her demeanour.

Pictured: Police in Athersley South, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, on 16 September 2020 in relation to the death of baby Keira-Mae Jones

DS Thorpe said: 'My immediate thought when I saw the footage was this female is clearly under the influence of substances and we need to locate her and arrest her.'

Alex was also arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice on May 16, 2020, and during initial police enquiries, a urine sample pot from the hospital was found in his car.

The coroner asked DS Thorpe why Alex had claimed to have the urine pot.

DS Thorpe replied: 'He claimed he wanted it because he wanted to take it for screening at a sexual health clinic.'

The coroner added: 'What did you think of that as an explanation?'

DS Thorpe said: 'Nonsense.'

In subsequent police interviews, Aimee denied using cocaine in hospital. She believed she had fallen asleep and squashed her baby and she hadn't taken any drugs.

The couple were bailed on May 20, 2020, and outside of further interviews, no action was taken.

In his ruling, Mr Urpeth said: 'It's the finding of the experienced officer Thorpe that the mother was 'obviously intoxicated'.

'I find as a fact there were material, dramatic changes in her behaviour on May 16 and these indicate intoxication.

'Therefore, taking both of these into account, I find on balance of probability the most likely time the cocaine was taken was in hospital on May 16.

'I find on balance of probability that Aimee was not fit to care for a baby due to her drug intoxication.

'The unlawful act of the mother directly led to Keira's death.

'That is someone who could and should have provided protection and care for Keira-Mae. It is a tragedy that she didn't.

'Therefore I have to reach a conclusion and I am satisfied on balance of probability the appropriate conclusion to record in this case is unlawful killing.'

Aimee, who was present to give evidence, left before the ruling was complete.
It has been repeatedly vandalised following revelations of his prolific sex abuse

Plans to demolish a Highland cottage once owned by Jimmy Savile have faced objections from a group representing thousands of climbers because the new building doesn't blend with the landscape.

Mountaineering Scotland, who have more than 15,000 members, said new designs for a luxury home in Glencoe did not fit in with the scenic surrounds.

The group also said claims the new build would restore memories of mountaineering legend Hamish MacInnes who once owned it were not 'substantiated'.

They want to stop the demolition of the property at Allt-na-Reigh, which disgraced DJ Savile lived in from 1998 until his death in 2011.

Mountaineering Scotland have objected to the demolition of a cottage once owned by paedophile DJ Jimmy Savile because the new building doesn't blend with landscape. Pictured: Designs for the property at Allt-na-Reigh in Glencoe

Following revelations of his prolific sex offences, the cottages has been repeatedly vandalised and had slogans sprayed on its walls.

It is believed the paedophile used the remote cottage to abuse up to 20 people.

The cottage was bought for a reported 335,000 by the family of retail tycoon, Harris Aslam, who decided they would let locals have their say on its future.

After an online consultation they said they would flatten the current cottage and replace it with a contemporary home.

Detailed plans have been submitted to Highland Council which show how the completed three-bedroomed property will look.

Following revelations of late owner Savile's prolific sex offences, the cottages has been repeatedly vandalised and had slogans sprayed on its walls.

It is believed the paedophile used the remote cottage to abuse up to 20 people

Documents acknowledge Savile's historic links but highlight it also had a more positive association to MacInnes.

But Mountaineering Scotland said the project 'does not blend in with the landscape or with the style of other buildings seen along the Glen'.

The group raised further issues over claims the new plans would recognise the achievements of MacInnes.

They said: 'The design statement merely says that there is an intention to restore the outbuilding which is of historical importance, further adding that the intent is for 'retaining and converting the outbuilding into habitable associated accommodation'.

'The associated elevation plans look little like the existing outbuilding making it difficlut to see how the claim of reinforcing the heritage of Hamish MacInnes is substantiated.'

They added: 'We urge the Highland Council to refuse planning permission on grounds that the siting and design of this particular development at this specific location is inappropriate and would detract from the quality and character of the landscape in Glencoe.'

Mountaineer, writer and broadcaster Cameron McNeish previously challenged calls to bulldoze the property because of its connection to mountaineer MacInnes, saying its history should not be allowed to be overshadowed by the paedophile

Others have also previously protested the cottage's demolition since it was first mooted in 2012.

Mountaineer, writer and broadcaster Cameron McNeish challenged the calls because of its connection to mountaineer MacInnes, saying its history should not be allowed to be overshadowed by the paedophile.

MacInnes called the property home during the 1960s and 1970s.

'For me that house will always have associations with Hamish MacInnes, not only because Hamish is probably our greatest Scottish mountaineer,' Mr McNeish told BBC Radio Scotland.

'That will always be Hamish MacInnes' house and will always have that mountaineering historical significance.

'It would be a shame if those mountaineering memories were swept up along with the tarnished memories of Jimmy Savile.'

Mr McNeish argued the property should be retained and put to use for the local community's benefit as a museum, mountaineering club hut or as a home.

The cottage had been repeatedly vandalised with slogans including 'Glen Savile' since his death aged 84.

The depraved paedophile is believed to have abused up to 20 people inside his remote lair.

The cottage sits beside the A82 Fort William to Glasgow road.

Following his death in 2011, the two-bedroom bungalow was put up for auction and bought for 212,000 by a Glasgow-based builder.

A report has already revealed asbestos was found in two pipes in an outbuilding of the cottage.

It will have to be removed before the property is knocked down.

Planners are expected to issue a decision in due course.
An infamous French cannibal who murdered a farmer before cooking his heart and tongue with white beans has briefly escaped from custody and attacked a woman.

Jeremy Rimbaud, a 34-year-old who served as a soldier in Afghanistan, grabbed his latest unnamed victim in Toulouse on Wednesday.

She was absolutely terrified, said an investigating source.

Jeremy Rimbaud (pictured being led out of a van in 2013) is known as the The Cannibal of the Pyrenees to the French press. He escaped custody and attacked a woman walking her dog

The lady was out walking her dog close to the center of the city when Rimbaud struck.

He punched her in the back of the head and then hit here with a stick, before passers-by intervened, and chased him off.

It was only later that she was told that she had been attacked by a known cannibal.

The attack, which happened at around 10pm, was stopped, and Rimbaud was returned to the secure psychiatric unit where he has been held since 2011.

It was in June of that year that the corporal returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, where he had been fighting the Taliban.

On November 14, he murdered a 90-year-old farmer called Leopold Pedebidau in Nouilhan, west of Toulouse, and then chopped up his body.

Prosecution papers later described how Rimbaud cut out his victims tongue and a piece of his heart, to cook them with white beans.

He told detectives he heard 'voices and messages' telling him to kill the elderly man.

Rimbaud, pictured arrivng for trial at the Pau courthouse in 2013, is a former Afghanistan soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was convicted of having eaten in November the heart and tongue of an eighty-year-old man

The former solider had left the army only two weeks earlier, according to The Local.

Rimbaud was later caught as he tried to kill a second farmer with an iron bar after pushing him against a tractor before he was arrested

He later became known as The Cannibal of the Pyrenees after being sentenced to life in prison for murder.

Rimbaud was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was suffering from post-traumatic shock linked to his fighting in Afghanistan.

He took ketamine while out on the front to give himself courage, along with many other French soldiers.

After spent five years in a marine infantry tank regiment based in Poitiers, he stayed in Cyprus for a psychological evaluation

His lawyer, Maitre Francoise Seles, called Rimbaud a victim of the Afghanistan war.

A local police spokesman said on Friday: The convicted killer has been returned to custody.

He said an inquiry was underway to try and find out how he escaped.
An American fugitive who faked his death and fled to Scotland - only to be foiled due to Covid - attempted to hide his true identity by pretending to be an eccentric Panama hat-wearing university professor from Bristol, neighbours have claimed.

Nicholas Alahverdian reportedly told neighbours that his name was 'Arthur Knight' - an affable 'academic' with a penchant for a three-piece suit with a pocket square and an upper class British accent.

The 34-year-old was a regular at local bars, where he would be seen drinking expensive drams of single-malt whisky and bemoaning Brexit, according to The Times.

Alahverdian gained international notoriety last month after it was revealed that he faked his own death in 2020 to evade the FBI over sex and fraud charges.

He travelled to Scotland where he assumed his false identity as a University of Glasgow professor.

But his cover was blown after he was taken to hospital with a life-threatening case of Covid and he was arrested by Interpol.

He was released on bail weeks later, but was arrested again on Thursday for missing an extradition hearing - as new allegations about his disturbing personal life came to light.

He is appearing in court in Scotland today, under the name Nicholas Rossi. An ambulance, believed to be transporting the fugitive, arrived outside Edinburgh Sheriff's court this afternoon.

Nicholas Alahverdian, pictured in 2011, has been arrested for a suspected sex attack after faking his death from cancer and fleeing from the US to Scotland

Today he is due to appear in court, under the name Nicholas Rossi, in Scotland. It is believed the 34-year-old was brought to court in an ambulance (pictured)

Nicholas Alahverdian reportedly told neighbours that his name was 'Arthur Knight' - an affable 'academic' at Glasgow University (pictured) with a penchant for a three-piece suit with a pocket square and an upper class British accent

One person who knew Alahverdian, Michael, a man who lives near the flat occupied by the fugitive until yesterday said 'Arthur' was an unmistakable figure.

He told the Times: 'He came across as a slightly eccentric and posh guy from the south of England.

'Arthur often used to wear a panama hat and pinstriped shirts. He had dyed, highlighted blonde hair and a matching blonde moustache. He had obviously put a bit of work into disguising his appearance.'

Another neighbour said he had told them he was working at Glasgow University and was creating a religious education textbook to be used in schools.

Suspected conman Nicholas Alahverdian, who also goes by Nicholas Rossi, is a registered sex offender. He was convicted of two sex-related crimes in 2008. His mugshot from the sex offenders' registry is pictured

'He fooled everybody and we were all shocked and horrified when we learnt who he really was.'

In a statement to MailOnline, Police Scotland said: 'Officers arrested a 34-year-old man in the Woodlands area of Glasgow on Thursday, January 20, 2022 in connection with an arrest warrant.

'He is due to appear at Edinburgh sheriff court today.'

It comes as one woman told police in the US that Alahverdian became 'enraged' after she rebuked his advances after a dinner date, according to police reports obtained by the Providence Journal.

While they were convening in his apartment later that night, he became 'enraged' after she rejected his advances and demanded to be compensated for the meal they shared.

After taking away her phone, he drove her to a nearby ATM and instructed her to withdraw $200. She acquiesced because 'she felt she had no choice but to give him the money, in fear of further violence,' the report said.

The night got stranger for the woman when Alahverdian ordered her to sign an agreement - while he videotaped - that said 'she could not pursue legal action and that the money she gave him was for therapy for him due to her violent actions and her sexual addiction.'

Another accuser told police in July 2010 that Alahverdian lured her to his apartment under the guise that she'd be visiting his art studio. Instead, she told cops, he took away her phone and pressed her for sex.

When she refused his advances, he said 'if she left, he would kill himself by stabbing himself in the chest with a knife,' the Journal reported. Alahverdian was taken to hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

One person who knew Alahverdian (pictured), Michael, a man who lives near the flat occupied by the fugitive until yesterday said 'Arthur' was an unmistakable figure

Police returned to his apartment that November on a tip, and said they encountered an 'extremely upset' woman with injuries to both eyes.

The woman told cops that Alahverdian became angry after their dinner guests' child began crying earlier that night, which led to a violent argument.

Alahverdian 'grabbed her and knocked her to the ground and held her down' and 'slapped her on the facial area,' the outlet reported.

He resisted arrest, prompting police to physically carry him out of the apartment and into the cruiser, where he repeatedly smashed his head against the metal bars while screaming 'very loudly'.

He was pepper sprayed by the arresting officers in an effort to get him to stop self-harming.

An arrest warrant was issued for Alahverdian in 2011 for violating a restraining order obtained by his then-wife.

DailyMail.com has requested copies of the arrest reports from the Pawtucket police. It's not clear whether Alahverdian was convicted or served jail time for the allegations.

He went on the run in 2020 after police began closing in on him over other fraud and sex crime allegations. In an attempt to turn down the heat, he wrote and published his own obituary that said he died of cancer and his ashes were scattered at sea.

One accuser told police that Alahverdian picked up the dinner tab during a date, but demanded to be repaid $200 after she refused his advances

He faked his own death in 2000 and fled the country to evade sex and fraud allegations, and went as far as to pen and publish his own obituary

This map shows the trail of havoc and alleged criminal behavior carried out by Nicholas Alahverdian across the US

He's in the process of being extradited to the US to face a rape charge in Utah after allegedly assaulting an ex-girlfriend in 2008.

Police believe he could be responsible for similar attacks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Utah and Ohio.

Also in 2008, he was convicted in Dayton, Ohio of public indecency and sexual imposition; Alahverdian claimed in a 2013 civil lawsuit that the charges stemmed from accusations he masturbated in a hallway of Sinclair Community College.

That saw him end up on the Ohio sex offenders' registry, where his mugshot remains to this day.

He is suspected of carrying out multiple other sex attacks, and was also accused of a $200,000 fraud after taking out credit cards and loans in his foster mother's husband's name in Ohio, it is alleged.

Alahverdian divorced his second wife in 2017 after less than two years of marriage, and is also said to owe her $52,000. Both of his former spouses took out restraining orders against him after their marriage ended.

Alahverdian is suspected of carrying out multiple sex attacks, and was accused of a $200,000 fraud after taking out credit cards and loans in his foster mother's husband's name in Ohio, it is alleged

Years before the made-for-Hollywood story unfolded, Alahverdian was a Rhode Island political activist who claimed to be victimized by the foster system as child, and who called for changes to state law.

His tale of a man with a haunted past - who overcame adversity to become a Harvard-educated political scientist - amazed the circles he frequented, with multiple lawmakers taking pity on him.

He was so cunning that, as a young teenage, he nearly convinced a state representative to adopt him.

Former state representative Brian Coogan, 51, previously told DailyMail.com that he met and was charmed by Alahverdian in 2000, while he was working as a politician and Alahverdian was volunteering as an errand boy at the state house.

Coogan told DailyMail.com that he was initially enamored by the troubled teen - who claimed to be sexually and physically victimized in foster care - and moved to give him a permanent family after Alahverdian 'begged me to adopt him' shortly after they met.

On the day he was in court to begin adoption proceedings, Coogan said he overheard Alahverdian threatening a social worker, saying: 'I'll tell them you abused me, that you hit me.'

A judge later talked Coogan and his wife out of it, warning that he was 'manipulative' and prone to stealing peoples' identities.

The charge Alahverdian is awaiting extradition for relates to the rape of a woman in Orem, Utah who he befriended on MySpace in 2008 and later attacked, Utah County District Attorney David Leavitt told DailyMail.com.
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When 38-year-old mother-of-three Jerrie Mock piloted her Cessna 180 light aircraft down the runway in March 1964 for her planned round-the-world trip, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream.

Twenty-nine days and 22,860 miles later, the woman who was dubbed America's 'Flying Housewife' by the world's media landed back in Columbus, Ohio, to rapturous crowds.

She had become the first woman in history to fly solo around the world  beating her younger rival Joan Merriman Smith, who had opted to fly the longer route planned by aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart on her ultimately doomed attempt.

When she returned, Jerrie  who had worn a skirt and blouse while flying and put on high heels after landing - was honoured with an award at the White House by the then President Lyndon Johnson.

Her feat was echoed yesterday by 19-year-old British-Belgian teenager Zara Rutherford, who became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.

The flight, which she completed in her Shark UL ultralight microlight, took 155 days after she became stranded in Russia for 41 days.

Jerrie, who had studied aeronautical engineering at Ohio State University passed away on October 1, 2014, aged 88.

When 38-year-old mother-of-three Jerrie Mock piloted her Cessna 180 light aircraft down the runway in March 1964 for her planned round-the-world trip, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream. Twenty-nine days and 22,860 miles later, the woman who was dubbed America's 'Flying Housewife' by the world's media landed back in Columbus, Ohio, to rapturous crowds

Jerrie completed the feat in her 11-year-old Cessna 180. It is now on display at the Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center, Virginia

The housewife decided to embark on her flight after discovering with her husband Russell that no other woman had yet done it.

The first man to fly solo around the world, Wiley Post, had done so in 1933.

Keen to get the recognition for her feat, Joan filed the paperwork so that she would be able to claim the world record if she was successful.

A few weeks later, Joan Merriam Smith  who had thousands of hours of flying under her belt, rather than Jerrie's 750  filed her own paperwork.

Because she had been the first to file the papers, it meant that Jerrie only needed to successfully complete her flight for her to be able to claim the record.

When she returned, Jerrie  who had worn a skirt and blouse while flying and put on high heels after landing - was honoured with an award at the White House by the then President Lyndon Johnson

Her feat was echoed yesterday by 19-year-old British-Belgian teenager Zara Rutherford, who became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world

Her feat was echoed yesterday by 19-year-old British-Belgian teenager Zara Rutherford, who became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world

Jerrie took off from Ohio's Por Columbus airport two weeks earlier than expected on March 19 in her 11-year-old Cessna plane, which she named Charlie.

Key moments in female aviation history 1906 E. Lillian Todd is the first woman to design and build an airplane, although it never flew 1908 Madame Therese Peltier is the first woman to fly an airplane solo 1910 Raymonde de Laroche becomes the first woman in the world to earn a pilot's licence 1912 Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to pilot her own aircraft across the English Channel 1921 Adrienne Bolland is the first woman to fly over the Andes 1928 Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly across the Atlantic 1932 Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic 1938 Hanna Reitsch is the first woman to fly a helicopter and get a helicopter licence 1953 Jacqueline (Jackie) Cochran becomes first woman to break the sound barrier 1964 Geraldine Mock is the first woman to pilot a plane solo around the world 1980 Lynn Rippelmeyer becomes the first woman to pilot a Boeing 747 Advertisement

She had had new radio equipment fitted to the plane and any unnecessary fixtures had to be removed so that the additional fuel tanks  needed so the aircraft could fly over the open ocean  would fit.

Ahead of her, she had 21 stops, with her first leg being to Bermuda.

Writing in 2020, Jerrie's granddaughter Rita Mock-Pike revealed that her grandmother heard the air traffic controller say as she left Columbus, 'well, I guess that's the last we'll see of her.'

Jerrie is said to have remarked to Ms Mock-Pike: 'I wasn't entirely sure he was wrong.

'I had never flown over open water before. And I was going to fly all the way around the world. But hey, I accomplished two out of three lifelong dreams. That's pretty good for 'just' a woman.

After successfully reaching Bermuda, Jerrie made a 2,000-mile leap to the Azores in the North Atlantic.

There, the first problem arose: ice on her wings.

She later said: 'When I was a student, I was told never to get into icing conditions if you don't have a de-icer. There I was and there was not much I could do about it.'

Fortunately, the ice melted after Jerrie flew above the clouds.

Later, a blunder could have left her in very serious trouble. After arriving in Egypt, she thought had landed at Cairo's airport but had in fact touched down at a military base and armed soldiers had surrounded the plane.

Thankfully, the men just directed her to the right airport.

After landing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, soldiers appeared once again and this time searched the plane.

Jerrie recalled: 'They thought I had a man hidden behind the gas tank.' When they did no find a man, the soldiers applauded her.

The most serious issue Jerrie encountered was a burning wire she spotted while flying. In a cockpit filled with extra fuel, this could have had deadly consequences. Luckily she was able to put it out.

The housewife decided to embark on her flight after discovering with her husband Russell that no other woman had yet done it. Above: Jerrie stands outside her plane

Keen to get the recognition for her feat, Joan filed the paperwork so that she would be able to claim the world record if she was successful. A few weeks later, Joan Merriam Smith (pictured)  who had thousands of hours of flying under her belt, rather than Jerrie's 750  filed her own paperwork

Jerrie took off from Ohio's Por Columbus airport two weeks earlier than expected on March 19 in her 11-year-old Cessna plane, which was named Charlie

She had had new radio equipment fitted to the plane and any unnecessary fixtures had to be removed so that the additional fuel tanks  needed so the aircraft could fly over the open ocean  would fit

Writing in 2020, Jerrie's granddaughter Rita Mock-Pike revealed that her grandmother heard the air traffic controller say as she left Columbus, 'well, I guess that's the last we'll see of her'

Jerrie is seen enjoying a glass of champagne with her father after completing the flight. Jerrie looks rightly delighted

When Jerrie landed back home to her grand reception, she had beaten her rival, who had mechanical problems.

After being invited to the White House, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Jerrie with the Federal Aviation Administration's Exceptional Service decoration.

She went on to set several speed records but eventually gave up flying because of the expense of keeping a plane.

Jerrie died in her sleep at her home in Quincy, Florida, after being in failing health for months, her family said.

On the 50th anniversary of the completion of her flight just months before her death, a life-sized bronze statue depicting Jerrie holding a globe was unveiled at Port Columbus airport.

Ms Rutherford's flight in her Shark microlight had been supposed to take three months but relentless bad weather and visa issues kept her grounded for sometimes weeks on end.

On Thursday, rain, drizzle, sunshine and even a rainbow over Kortrijk airport exemplified the changing, often bad weather she had been facing all too often.

After she was escorted by a four-plane formation in a huge V across much of Belgium, she did a flyby of the airport before finally landing.

When Jerrie landed back home to her grand reception, she had beaten her rival, who had mechanical problems. Above: Jerrie at the airport being welcomed by citizens

The first woman to fly around the world, Jerrie Mock, stands surrounded by reporters next to her plane, 'The Spirit of Columbus,' upon landing in Cairo, Egypt

After waving to the jubilant crowds, she embraced her parents and draped herself both in the Union Jack and Belgian tricolor flag.

'Winter in Europe poses a lot of challenges,' she said as she was held back for days on the last few legs of the trip. Then again, she had had to deal with -31 F in Siberia and 90 F in Indonesia. Fog, smoke from wildfires and even typhoons also held her back.

She stopped over in five continents and visited 52 countries in a journey which covered over 32,000 miles of land.

'The people were incredible, everywhere,' she said.

Rutherford's flight saw her steer clear of wildfires in California, deal with biting cold over Russia and narrowly avoid North Korean airspace.

She flew by Visual Flight Rules, basically going on sight only, often slowing down progress when more sophisticated systems could have led her through clouds and fog.

'It's very strange being back here,' she told a media conference, adding that, after an epic journey with stops in nearly 30 countries, she was looking forward to putting her feet up for a while in just one place.

'I'd like to do nothing next week,' she laughed. 'It was harder than I imagined.'
President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio vowed on Friday to work with South Korea to 'discourage' North Korean nuclear activity.

Pyongyang, which fired tactical guided missiles this week in its latest of a series of tests, suggested it might resume nuclear and long-range missile testing that has been paused for more than three years.

'The President made clear that we would be working closely with South Korea and Japan on next on next steps to discourage possible provocations that might follow,' a senior administration official told reporters after the call.

Biden also told Kishida he 'was going to continue to step up our game in the Indo Pacific across the board on issues ranging from diplomacy to military security,' the official said.

During the call, Biden accepted Kishida's invitation to make an official visit to Japan in the late Spring. First lady Jill Biden is also invited.

Details of that visit are still be worked out, a senior administration official said.

'And we have to see how COVID plays out,' the official noted. It will tied to the annual Quad meeting, when leaders of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India meet.

The virtual conversation lasted nearly 90 minutes, according to the White House. Biden, who spoke to Kishida from the White House Situation Room, was joined by U.S. Ambassdor to Japan Rahm Emanuel, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

'It was an honor to meet with Prime Minister Kishida to further strengthen the U.S.-Japan Alliance  the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world,' Biden tweeting, including a photo of the meeting, which was closed to the press.

The White House also released a 15-second video clip. It begins with President Biden saying: 'Prime Minister, can you hear me?' while Prime Minister Kishida waves and says hi. President Biden says, 'it's good to see you again' and 'I enjoyed our brief meeting in Glasgow.'

President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio held their first formal talks on Friday morning - the virtual meeting lasted nearly 90 minutes

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a virtual meeting with the President Joe Biden at his official residence in Tokyo

Biden also asked Kishida for support for a common response if Russia attacks the Ukraine as the two leaders held their first formal talks on Friday morning.

The two men vowed that 'each side would be in close consultations' about the situation there, the senior administration official told reporters after the call.

Biden said earlier this week he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to order a further invasion of Ukrainian territory and has been pressuring allies to join him in giving him a 'strong economic' response.

The situation in the Indo-Pacific region was a main part of the conversation. Both nations are worked about China's aggressive military action toward Tawain and about North Korea's nuclear moves.

A native of Hiroshima, on which the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb at the end of the World War II, Kishida opposes the use of nuclear weapons.

North Korea's Kim Jong Un on Thursday presided over a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party where officials set policy goals for 'immediately bolstering' military capabilities to counter what were described as the Americans 'hostile moves,' according to the Korean Central News Agency.

Kishida said that the two leaders spent a 'significant amount' of their call on issues surrounding China, including shared concerns about China's increasing aggression toward Taiwan.

China has stepped up military and diplomatic pressure to assert its sovereignty over Taiwan, which it claims as its own, to be annexed by force if necessary.

'President Biden and I were able to exchange views frankly, in a very calm and quiet manner, about how Japan and the United States together cooperate and lead the international society, which I believe will lead to further strengthening of the Japan-U.S. alliance,' Kishida said after the meeting.

Messaging on China becomes all the more important as Biden and Kishida both face elections this year, for Japan's upper house of parliament in July and U.S. midterm congressional elections in November.

In recent months, China has stepped up military exercises near the island, frequently sending warplanes near Taiwan's airspace.

Japan remains concerned about China intentions in the South China Sea, where it has stepped up its military presence in recent years, and the East China Sea, where there is a long-running dispute about a group of uninhabited islets administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.

President Biden will ask Japan for support if Russia attacks the Ukraine - above a service member of the Ukrainian armed forces is seen at combat positions near the line of separation from Russian-backed rebel

North Korea's Kim Jong Un on Thursday presided over a Politburo meeting after the country suggested it might resume nuclear and long-range missile testing that has been paused for more than three years

Both U.S. and Japan are also concerned about China aggression toward Taiwan - above Taiwanese military personnel demonstrate combat readiness

On Thursday, in preparation for the leaders' call, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his Japanese counterpart, Takeo Akiba, held their own call to discuss North Korea, China and 'the importance of solidarity in signaling to Moscow the strong, united response that would result from any attack' on Ukraine, according to the White House.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also held virtual talks earlier this month with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, where China's military maneuvering and North Korea's nuclear program were discussed.

The White House has said the leaders also will discuss economic matters, the COVID pandemic, emerging technology, cybersecurity, climate change and other bilateral issues.

Biden and Kishida have had brief exchanges but this is their first formal sit down: Biden was the first world leader to call Kishida when he was first elected prime minister last October and they spoke briefly on the sidelines of COP26 in Glasglow, Scotland.

The Japanese had pushed for an in-person meeting - despite concerns about the rising cases of COVID due to the Omicron variant - but agreed to hold the summit by video due to the 'significance of having an early meeting to enable the leaders to deepen trust,' Chief Cabinet Secretary Matsuno Hirokazu said this week.

Biden, who has sought to put greater focus on the Indo-Pacific amid China's rise as a world power, had built a warm relationship with Japan's last prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, and is hoping to build a similar rapport with Kishida.

Biden has made restoring the importance of the US-Japanese relationship a priority since taking office exactly a year ago, following Donald Trump's questioning of the benefit of US relationships with several major allies in both Asia and Europe.
Furious teaching unions today accused Whitehall of trying to micromanage schools after Cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi emailed MPs saying he will personally vet any plans to bring back masks in classrooms.

The Education Secretary last night said that local officials would seek to persuade individual schools to abandon masks.

He insisted that face-to-face education for all students has consistently been my priority, adding: National guidance to wear face coverings in communal areas will also be removed in line with the national move out of Plan B. This applies to all schools.

Has your child been sent home for refusing to wear a mask? Email: jack.wright@mailonline.co.uk Advertisement

But in a letter to MPs, he admitted that masks could be reintroduced in the event of an extraordinary local Covid outbreak.

The NEUs Dr Mary Bousted today raged that ministers seeking to micromanage such decisions seems utterly unnecessary, if not bizarre.

It came as schools across England were in open rebellion against the Government over masks after more than 100 head teachers wrote to parents warning that children must continue wearing face coverings in classrooms.

Union bosses stoked the fires of revolt this week after accusing Boris Johnson of flouting his duty of care to teachers over the new guidance on masks.

The Prime Minister this week announced an easing of Covid curbs, from WFH guidance to face coverings and Covid isolation, as the Omicron wave subsides.

But critics have claimed that Mr Johnson is axing virus restrictions to appease his Tory backbench and save his own skin as he fights for his political career amid the dramatic fallout from Partygate.

Schools are defying the Governments anti-mask guidance and telling parents that pupils must continue to wear face coverings.

Year 10 and 11 students at Hailsham Community College in East Sussex wearing masks in the classroom

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told MPs he will personally vet any plans to bring back masks in classrooms

So what is changing... and when will it happen? The post-curb rules after Boris Johnson announced the end of Covid Plan B restrictions IMMEDIATELY WORKING FROM HOME The Prime Minister said the Government is no longer asking people to work from home. He called on people to speak to their employers about arrangements for returning to the office. FROM YESTERDAY MASKS IN SCHOOLS From yesterday, secondary school pupils will not have to wear face coverings in classrooms. The requirement to wear masks in corridors and other communal areas will end next Thursday, January 27. FROM NEXT THURSDAY MASKS IN PUBLIC PLACES From next Thursday, the Government will no longer legally mandate the wearing of face coverings in shops and on public transport. But they will continue to suggest masks should be worn in enclosed and crowded places where people could come into contact with those they do not normally meet. The Prime Minister said this meant the Government will 'trust the judgment of the British people and no longer criminalise anyone who chooses not to wear one'. COVID PASSPORTS Proof of vaccination or a recent negative test will no longer be needed to enter nightclubs and large venues from next Thursday. But businesses will still be free to use the NHS Covid Pass if they want. BY THE END OF THE MONTH TRAVEL An announcement is expected soon on scrapping the requirement for fully vaccinated travellers to take a Covid test on returning to England. No 10 said the rules will be reviewed by the end of January. CARE HOMES Plans to ease restrictions on care home visits will be announced in the next few days. At present, care homes must impose severe restrictions on visitors for up to 28 days if there has been a Covid outbreak affecting two or more residents. BY MARCH AT THE LATEST SELF-ISOLATION Boris Johnson said he 'very much expects' not to renew the legal requirement to self-isolate with Covid when the rules lapse on March 24. He said this could happen even earlier, if the data allows. The legal requirement will be replaced with guidance that urges people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others. BY JULY FREE TESTS Free Covid lateral flow tests look set to be scrapped by July. People will be pointed towards an online ordering system to purchase the tests, which cost 30 for a pack of seven. Advertisement

She said: 'Schools and colleges who take the decision to keep face coverings as a requirement in classrooms will have done so following a risk assessment, and with the head using his or her professional judgement and knowledge about what's best for the school to protect face-to-face education.

'This is a sensible precaution, particularly given we are now in the run-up to national examinations and the issues to education caused by staff and pupil absences.'

Geoff Barton, chief of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said schools were 'put in a potentially difficult position' following Prime Minister Boris Johnson's announcement on Wednesday that face masks would no longer be needed in classrooms from Thursday.

'The Government's own guidance says that directors of public health may advise that face masks are needed in classrooms in response to local circumstances,' Mr Barton said.

'But schools are unlikely to have had any time in which to consult them, or in which to communicate the changes with parents and staff.

'It is therefore not surprising if some schools have continued to use face masks for the time being while they resolve these issues.'

Pepe Di'Iasio, a former ASCL president and headteacher at Wales High School in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, said new safety measures for schools need to be carefully communicated with pupils.

He said his school will tell pupils they should no longer wear masks in classrooms, while it will no longer be compulsory for them to be worn in corridors from next week.

On the Prime Minister's announcement, he said: 'I was disappointed that we were suddenly working to dates and not data - all the way through this we've been talking about looking at data and all of a sudden now we're working to a date.'

He said his school is not seeing high Covid case rates but he added the timing of the announcement made communicating changes with pupils more difficult.

'We were all anticipating an announcement on the 26th and what we've now got is a difficulty with our students, because they will have heard the announcement at the same time as us, and so some of them will be saying, 'I no longer need to wear my mask anymore, do I?' It's about just having the clarity of those boundaries,' he said.

'Students are quite straightforward so some of them will think that if they don't have to wear them there anymore, does that mean I don't have to wear them anywhere anymore, and that isn't necessarily what the guidance is saying.'

He said the school will need to communicate with pupils that they might still need to wear masks on the private buses that take them to and from school, for instance.

Head teachers across the country say that they are struggling either with staff shortages or high rates of Covid in the local community  and argue that masks in classrooms will stem the spread of the virus.

New data from the UK Health Security Agency shows that the rate of new Covid cases among primary schoolchildren in England rose 41 per cent in the week to January 16 to 1,936 cases per 100,000 five to nine-year-olds.

Schools North East, a network in the North East of England, said 80 per cent of schools in the region planned to retain some Covid-related measures, with many secondary schools retaining face masks in classrooms and communal areas.

Head teacher Andy Byers, who runs Framwellgate school in Durham, also said masks were still needed because Covid rates in the region remained high.

A DfE insider told MailOnline that the Government does not have a legal mechanism to force schools to follow the new guidance on dropping masks.

'The guidance that we've got on dropping face masks in line with Plan B is exactly that: guidance,' they claimed.

'We do expect schools to follow it, but we do not have a legal mechanism to coerce schools into doing so. We do, however, expect that if schools do want to keep face masks, there would be a good reason for doing so.

'We want to work with and support schools, and not take punitive action against them.'

In a round of interviews this morning, Cabinet minister Kwasi Kwarteng said schools should follow the official guidance on mask-wearing.

The Business Secretary told Sky News: 'The guidance from the Prime Minister is very clear: that we won't need to be wearing masks.'

Chris Zarraga, the director of Schools North East, told The Guardian: 'Schools are still facing real challenges in getting staff cover, increasing staff workload and stress and impacting negatively on wellbeing.

'There are serious concerns for schools, with local pictures often radically different from the national picture.'

Shuttleworth College in Burnley told parents it would 'not be removing any of our measures in school at this time', citing high Covid cases.

Teaching unions hit back at Mr Zahawi, accusing Whitehall of 'micro-management' in an 'utterly unnecessary, if not bizarre' way

Parents have launched a campaign to prevent 'overzealous' schools from imposing masks

Rush hour resumes: 740,000 Commuters packed onto Tube trains today - up 5% on last week - as big banks and city firms reveal plans to get workers back to their desks - but civil service unions dig in their heels and accuse PM of 'reckless, headlong' return Commuters packed onto busy London Tube trains during todays rush hour while civil service unions went to war with Boris Johnson as Covid curbs are scrapped. Photos at around 7am showed a busy Piccadilly Line, with many forced to stand because no seats were left. But traffic data from TomTom at 8am showed similar numbers of people in London, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool and Newcastle are driving to work compared to last week. Transport for London said there were around 740,000 Tube journeys up to 9am this morning  up 5 per cent compared to last Friday. TfL figures indicate that the number of workers travelling to offices has increased since the Prime Minister dropped official WFH guidance. Yesterday, the number of Tube journeys increased by 10 per cent on last Thursday to 2.1million, while the number of bus journeys rose by 4 per cent in the past seven days to 4.4million, according to TfL data. But civil service unions have launched an all-out rebellion against the embattled Tory leaders bid to get Britain back to work as the Omicron wave fades. Mr Johnson has demanded civil servants set an example by returning to their desks, and yesterday ordered Cabinet ministers to ensure their Whitehall staff resumed normal working patterns as soon as possible. But union bosses branded the PMs demands insulting and claimed the move to get workers back in the office was reckless. Mr Johnsons critics have claimed that the change to Covid rules is one of a series of crowd-pleasing policies to divert public attention from the lockdown party scandal and appease mutinous backbenchers as he fights for his political life. The Public and Commercial Services union, which represents civil servants and other public sector workers, warned against a headlong rush back to the workplace. The FDA union also reacted angrily, saying the world of work had changed for good. Advertisement

Uckfield College in East Sussex said it was keeping masks in force 'for now' on the basis that the 'last thing students want at the moment is more staff absence'.

The Commonweal School in Swindon told parents to 'ensure that your child brings a suitable mask to school each day'.

Others, including Oxted School in Surrey and Droylesden Academy in Manchester, said they wanted to wait until they had been sent official guidance from the DfE  despite this being published on Wednesday.

And St Peter's Church of England Aided School in Exeter told parents masks must still be worn in lessons as 'Covid has not gone away'. They added that wearing face coverings is a 'kind and thoughtful' way to support the community.

But the National Deaf Children's Society has warned that schools which choose to impose masks risk flouting the Equality Act.

Mike Hobday, the society's director of campaigns, told MailOnline: 'Government guidance in England does not recommend masks are used by teachers or pupils in class.

'If schools choose to go against this recommendation, they would need to be confident that they have taken all the action needed to ensure they are complying with the Equality Act so that disabled children can access teaching and learning.

'Unless these reasonable adjustments are made, there may be little point in deaf children even going to school.'

And Arabella Skinner, a director of parent campaign group UsForThem, told The Telegraph: 'As we have seen throughout the pandemic, schools often go far beyond the recommendations and beyond what the rest of society is required to do.

'In the case of masks being removed from class, we had over 100 schools raised with us who are choosing  against government guidance  to keep masks in class.'

Mr Byers told parents the PM's Plan B U-turn 'creates some difficulty for us'.

'Case rates in the northeast are still relatively high. We currently have 60+ students and ten staff absent, having tested positive. A small proportion of those people have been quite poorly,' he said.

'Other local secondary schools are all in a similar position: high levels of absence with some students missing important face-to-face teaching, and a reliance on supply teachers covering lessons.

'For this reason I would like to encourage students to continue wearing face coverings for the next two or three weeks until (hopefully) case numbers fall.'

A spokeswoman for school leaders's union NAHT admitted that there is 'some concern' about the easing of Plan B measures.

Its general secretary Paul Whiteman said: 'The Prime Minister's statement about lifting plan B measures will feel, to many school leaders, at odds with the current situation on the ground.

'Mass disruption is ongoing, with high numbers of staff and pupils absent. School leaders are telling us they still feel very much in the eye of the Covid storm.'

Willingdon Community School in Eastbourne, East Sussex, also wants its pupils to continue wearing masks.

Head teacher Emily May said: 'Our students have been fantastic wearing masks since October 2021 and understand that this small act of kindness is helping to keep our community safe.

'We still have significant Covid infections within the school community and a 10 per cent rise of Covid cases in this local area.

'It is not sensible to relax this measure yet. However, we do appreciate that each school needs to be able to make their own decision based on their school context and it needs to be reviewed regularly.'

The Prime Minister this week announced a dramatic easing of Covid curbs, from WFH guidance to face coverings and Covid isolation, as the Omicron wave subsides

Quarter of small businesses will stick with WFH until at least APRIL 2023, new report says, despite change in Government guidance, because of substantial savings of not having to pay for office space A quarter of small businesses will stick with working from home until at least April 2023 despite a change in Government guidance, a new report has said, because of the substantial savings of not having to pay for office space. Firms with fewer than 50 employees are saving an average of nearly 4,000 a month by not having to pay for an office, according to research from Hitachi Capital Business Finance, and are likely to stick to working from home well into next year. It comes after Boris Johnson ordered Government departments to get their civil servants back into the office 'as soon as possible' as he demanded they set an example to the country after lifting working from home restrictions. However, a survey of more than 1,000 small business owners has found that one in four had plans to continue working entirely from home until at least April next year, while a similar number were planning hybrid working. Joanna Morris of Hitachi Capital Business Finance said: 'As the worst of the pandemic hopefully begins to fade, and the option of returning to a fixed workplace is put back on the table once again, we might expect to see most taking up this option and returning to 'normal'. 'However, this research reminds us that it may not be the perfect solution for everyone. 'As with every business decision that owners make, particularly over the past 18 months, a range of factors need to be taken into consideration first, with the bottom line understandably often given a heavier weighting. 'The one positive that has come from this particularly challenging period has been the requirement to be far more flexible and open minded than ever before, with changes to the business that will reap benefits in the long term.' Advertisement

Children at Hanley Castle High School, Worcestershire, have also been told to keep wearing face coverings.

Lindsey Cooke, the head teacher, said: 'I do think this was a very rushed announcement.

'Our year 11 and year 13 exam groups have missed so much school already; what we do not want to do is to rush into taking masks off and then get another outbreak in those year groups.'

But other teachers welcomed the end of masks in schools. Joseph Sparks, an assistant principal at Stationers' Crown Woods Academy in Greenwich, London, today called face coverings a 'barrier to learning'.

He told Sky News: 'We welcome the change here at the academy and ultimately we will follow the advice and guidance given to us by the DfE. And as you can see from the students in this particular class, they've opted not to wear one this morning.

'But we'll leave that choice to them, and for us at the academy, it's about making them safe and making sure their learning experience is a seamless one and can continue as normal as possible.'

Pressed on why masks can be a 'barrier to learning', he explained: 'I had an example yesterday where I was teaching a class, and I didn't know who had answered the question.

'Sometimes it can be a bit of a barrier like that to that social interaction that takes place, and knowing which students might need help. Ultimately we've left that choice to the students from this point.'

Mr Sparks added: 'Our job is to keep the students as safe as possible. We've taken lots of measures over the course of the various lockdowns to ensure that our students remain safe.

'We've been really fortunate our students have continued to come to the academy every day, we've had really had attendance.'

Britain's top medics have also insisted that scrapping Covid curbs at such pace 'risks creating a false sense of security' with the NHS still under pressure.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association council, said: 'This decision clearly is not guided by the data. When Plan B was introduced in December, there were 7,373 patients in hospital in the UK. The latest data this week shows there are 18,9791.'

He warned that ending mandates on mask-wearing would 'inevitably increase transmission' and place the most vulnerable at a higher risk.

And Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation representing health bodies, said now 'is not the time for complacency about this virus'.

Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers Saffron Cordery said that some trusts had reported they were expecting their peak later this week despite a fall in case numbers nationally due to regional variations in the number of hospital admissions.

'That's why it's important that there is recognition that this surge isn't over, and that the health service is still operating under extremely challenging circumstances,' she added.

It comes after Covid cases fell in most parts of the UK for the first time since early December, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Has your child been sent home for refusing to wear a mask? Email: jack.wright@mailonline.co.uk.
It comes after children returned to classrooms on January 4 after a two-week break over the festive period

ONS data shows the rate is trending upwards, with just 5% of the group thought to be infected a month earlier

One in 13 two to 11-year-olds had Covid on any given day last week, the highest of any age group, figures show

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Covid infections are rising among primary school children in England, official data shows in what could be a sign of the back-to-school effect.

Statisticians at the Office for National Statistics estimated eight per cent of youngsters aged two to 11 had Covid on any given day in the week to January 15, the equivalent of one in 13, up slightly from 7 per cent the week prior.

The rate, based on swabs taken from 160,000 people across the country, is the highest of all other age groups, with 20 to 34-year-olds having the next highest rate (one in 17).

While rates are falling or flatlining in every other age group they are still climbing in children. Just five per cent of under-12s were thought to have the virus a month earlier.

It comes after children returned to classrooms on January 4 after a two-week break over the festive period.

Despite the rising infections in primary school and nursery-aged children, the ONS found that infections fell across England for the first time since Omicron took off last week. It estimated around 2.9million people were infected on any given day in the week to January 15, a 'welcome decrease' from the record 3.7m the previous week.

The ONS survey is regarded as the most reliable indicator of the UK's outbreak because it uses random sampling of around 100,000 people, rather than relying on people coming forward to be tested.

The graph shows the proportion of people in England testing positive for Covid per age group. Infection rates were trending down in all age groups in the week to January 15, according to ONS estimates, apart from among two to 11-year-olds, with one in 13 (eight per cent) thought to be infected

The ONS said Covid infections fell in all regions of England except the North East and South West, where the trends were uncertain. In North East England, around one in 10 people were likely to test positive in the week to January 15  the highest estimate for any region. The South West had the lowest rate, at around one in 25

The ONS data shows the virus was most prevalent among children from two-years-olds to pupils in year six.

Eight per cent of the group were estimated to have the virus on any given day in the week to January 15, compared to three per cent in the over-70s, the least-infectious group.

And cases appear to still be rising, with seven per cent estimated to be carrying the virus on January 8, compared to 9.2 per cent on January 15.

Daily Covid cases fall just 1.6% in a week as Omicron curve shows signs of levelling off Britain's daily Covid cases fell by a single percent in a week today in an early hint that the recent dramatic plunge in Omicron might be starting to level off. Government dashboard data shows there were another 107,364 positive tests across the country in the past 24 hours, down only slightly on the 109,133 last week. It is technically the 15th day in a row that cases have fallen week-on-week but today's weekly drop is the smallest in that time. The new figure brings average daily cases to around 92,000, which is half the number a fortnight ago. SAGE warned today there could be a 'long tail' of infections as the UK comes out of the fourth wave that will 'still need managing'. But plateauing hospital admission rates and the growing disconnect between infections and deaths has given the Prime Minister the confidence to lift Plan B restrictions next week. Boris Johnson has also revealed he intends to ditch all Covid laws by the spring, including compulsory isolation for positive Covid cases. WFH guidance and masks in schools were the first measures to be officially ditched today. Doubling down on the Government's decision to scrap the curbs, Sajid Javid signalled that ministers are prepared to tolerate more than 20,000 Covid deaths a year without reimposing measures. There were another 330 Covid fatalities registered today in a 1.5 per cent fall compared to last Thursday. Latest hospital data shows there were 1,905 Covid admissions on January 16, down 13 per cent on the week prior. Mr Javid, the Health Secretary, told Sky News earlier: 'We need to learn to live with it. Sadly people die of flu as well. In a bad flu year, you can sadly lose about 20,000 lives. 'But we don't shut down our entire country and put in place lots of restrictions to deal with it. We need to continue with our lives with sensible, appropriate and proportionate measures.' He added: 'Covid is not going away. It's going to be with us for many many years, perhaps forever, and we have to learn to live with it.' Advertisement

Primary school children have been exempt from wearing masks throughout the pandemic, but ministers this week lifted the requirement for secondary school children to wear masks in classrooms.

And they won't be required to wear masks in corridors or any other spaces in schools from January 27.

Boris Johnson said the lifting of Plan B restrictions is due to the success of the booster campaign and the fall in Omicron cases.

But Andy Byers, a head teacher at Framwellgate School in County Durham, has written to pupils and their parents asking youngsters to keep wearing masks in classrooms because cases are still high, leading to absences among staff and students.

In a letter to MPs, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said local health chiefs will have to run any plans to reintroduce face coverings in schools in their area by him to 'ensure the right response to local outbreaks'.

He said the decision to reimpose face mask rules in secondary schools amid the spiralling Omicron cases was not taken 'lightly' but it was 'worth it to ensure we maximised face-to-face learning'.

Mr Zahawi wrote that in the 'event of extraordinary outbreaks' public health directors will share any plans to reintroduce face coverings in 'tightly-focused geographical zones, 'so that we can assess evidence and data to ensure any extra measures are proportionate'.

Meanwhile, last week marked the first time that the ONS has recorded a fall in infections since Omicron first took off in late November and the downward trend now matches the Government's daily statistics.

One in 19 children aged 12 to 16 were infected on any given day in the week to January 15, while just 5.7 per cent of 17 to 24-year-olds had Covid after the figure reached nearly 10 per cent at the Omicron peak, according to the ONS.

And 6.1 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds were infected, 4.9 per cent of 35 to 49 had Covid, while 4.1 per cent of people aged 50 to 69 had the virus.

The ONS said Covid infections fell in all regions of England except the North East and South West, where the trends were uncertain.

In North East England, around one in 10 people were likely to test positive in the week to January 15  the highest estimate for any region. The South West had the lowest rate, at around one in 25.

Elsewhere in the UK, one in 25 people in Wales were estimated to have had coronavirus last week, where the outbreak was found to have shrunk. The rate was also one in 20 in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Sarah Crofts, head of analytical outputs for the Covid Infection Survey, said: 'Our latest figures show a welcome decrease in infections across most parts of the UK and among all age groups apart from younger children.

'We will continue to closely monitor the data to see if this week's decrease carries forward.'

Professor James Naismith, a structural biologist at the University of Oxford, said the Covid rates 'will start to fall rapidly' across the country based on what was seen in Omicron epicentre South Africa, as well as trends in London and the North West, where cases have fallen sharply.

However, he warned Omicron 'remains a potentially serious disease' among the unvaccinated and vulnerable.

The ONS data shows the proportion of people testing positive for Covid in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Infection rates fell in all nations apart from Northern Ireland, where the trend was uncertain, the ONS said

Professor Naismith said: 'Omicron as expected was less severe in the vaccinated or those with previous infection, it was even less severe for the triple boosted.

'By the time South African data clearly showed that Omicron was intrinsically less severe than Delta, Omicron had hit the UK.

'The triple boost campaign has saved lives and lowered the pressure on the NHS. I believe vaccination is the best way to keep Covid at bay.'

It comes as daily Covid cases yesterday fell just 1.6 per cent in a week, suggesting the Omicron curve is levelling off.

UK Health Security Agency data shows there were another 107,364 positive tests across the country, down only slightly on the 109,133 last week.

It is technically the 15th day in a row that cases have fallen week-on-week but today's weekly drop is the smallest in that time. The new figure brings average daily cases to around 92,000, which is half the number a fortnight ago.

SAGE scientists yesterday warned there could be a 'long tail' of infections as the UK comes out of the fourth wave that will 'still need managing'.

But plateauing hospital admission rates and the growing disconnect between infections and deaths has given the Prime Minister the confidence to lift Plan B restrictions next week.

Boris Johnson has revealed he intends to ditch all Covid laws by the spring, including compulsory isolation for positive Covid cases. WFH guidance and masks in schools were the first measures to be officially ditched yesterday.

Doubling down on the Government's decision to scrap the curbs, Sajid Javid signalled that ministers are prepared to tolerate more than 20,000 Covid deaths a year without reimposing measures.

There were another 330 Covid fatalities registered yesterday in a 1.5 per cent fall compared to last Thursday. Latest hospital data shows there were 1,905 Covid admissions on January 16, down 13 per cent on the week prior.
Farmers are auctioning their cattle to raise vital funds for a Victorian female truck driver who lost both her legs in an horrific road accident last week.

Michelle Pillar, 25, had been building a career in livestock transport when her animal carrier truck rolled and got trapped between a tree and a bridge.

It took emergency services 11 hours and the amputation of one of her legs to free her from the vehicle at the scene of the crash in the Otways on Victoria's south coast.

Once she was transported to hospital, surgeons were then forced to perform another life-saving amputation on her remaining leg.

Michelle Pillar, 25, had been building a career in livestock transport when she was involved in a horrific accident last week that saw her lose both her legs

She was brought out of her induced coma earlier this week.

Michelle's community have gathered around her in a coordinated effort to raise as much money for her recovery as possible.

Leader of fundraising efforts Dion Symons at the Mortlake Roadhouse said that support has been local, national, and international.

A donation tin at her roadhouse, a GoFundMe page, and donations of auction items - including cattle - have raised over $100,000 so far.

Mr Symons told the ABC that while he doesn't personally know Michelle he is sure that she will fight her way through recovery.

Local, national, and international fundraising has raised over $100,000 for Michelle's recovery through a donation tin, GoFundMe page, and the donation of auction items

'It's so touching, I don't personally know Michelle but right now I feel like I know her brilliantly because I've heard so much about her,' he said.

'By all accounts, people tell me she's one tough cookie and will fight like all hell.'

Michelle's boss boss, Anthony Boyle from Boyle's Livestock Transport said she is doing her best to recover.

'Her body is recovering well  and it is just a matter of rest from all of those operations at the moment and in time she will be able to rebuild and get back to some form of a normal life,' he said.
NH Financial Group Chairman Son Byung-hwan, fifth from left, poses for a photo with CEOs of the group's affiliates, after holding a strategic management meeting at group headquarters in Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of NH Financial Group





By Anna J. Park







NH Financial Group has set its business priorities for this year to be ESG, digital transformation, wealth management, global business and risk management. 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the group's operations, a decade after the financial group was officially restructured, centering on a holding company.







The priorities were announced at the group's online strategic management meeting held last Thursday afternoon, aiming to lay a solid foundation for growth over the next 10 years.







The financial group plans to strengthen its competitiveness in ESG-principled management in order to realize the group's vision of "ESG Transformation 2025," announced last year. The group also aims to come up with a specific plan to manage carbon emissions within this year.







Digital transformation is another key axis of the group's business strategy for this year, as it plans to strengthen competitiveness by establishing a comprehensive financial platform.







The group plans to announce a set of new visions and development strategies for the next decade sometime in March.







The group chairman also stressed the importance of loyalty to the group's initial existential core purpose of serving the interests of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation.







"The core rationale of NH Financial Group is to facilitate profits for the country's agricultural sector. NH Financial Group will be leading the efforts to overcome the agricultural industry's new challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic era," Chairman Son Byung-hwan said during the meeting.


Las Vegas police who botched an arrest and put the wrong Shane Brown behind bars now face a costly lawsuit for their embarrassing mix-up of a young black man and a middle-aged white man.

Shane Lee Brown, a black man, now 25, spent six days in Henderson and Clark County jails in 2020 after being mistaken for Shane Neal Brown, a then-49-year-old white man, because they have the same first and last names, and a warrant was out for Shane Neal for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

The younger Brown is now suing the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) for $550,000 for the mix-up, seeking $500,000 under federal law and $50,000 under state law. The Atlanta Black Star reported that he filed the suit on January 7.

'Had any of the LVMPD police or corrections officers performed any due diligence, such as comparing Shane Lee Brown's booking photo against the existing mug shot belonging to the world, white ''Shane Brown'' named in the warrant, they would have easily determined that Shane Lee Brown has been misidentified as the subject of the warrant,' the lawsuit states.

Shane Lee Brown (left), a black man, 25, was wrongfully arrested after being mistaken for then-49-year-old white man, Shane Neal Brown (right) on January 8, 2020. The young man told multiple officers that he was not the right man, but authorities failed to review reports, keeping him in jail for six days

A public defender (left) showed the court at the bench warrant hearing the two mug shots of the man and the judge immediately released Shane Lee Brown on January 14, 2020

Where were the Shanes during the mix-up January 8, 2020: Shane Lee Brown is arrested in Henderson, Nevada, after authorities ran his name and found a bench warrant under 'Shane Brown.' The warrant actually belonged to Shane Neal Brown January 8-10: Shane Lee Brown was housed in Henderson Detention Center January 10-14: Shane Lee Brown was transferred to Clark County January 14: His public defender showed a judge the two men's mug shots at a bench warrant hearing. Shane Lee Brown was immediately released January 22: Las Vegas authorities found out that Shane Neal Brown was being housed at San Bernardino County in California Advertisement

Not only did police mix up Shanes, but they failed to realize that the man they were actually looking for, Shane Neal Brown, was already being held in custody in San Bernardino County, California, authorities discovered on January 22.

At the time of his arrest on January 8, 2020, Shane Lee Brown did not have any identification on him and was only carrying his Social Security card.

He told Henderson, Nevada, police his name and gave them his Social Security number and card - which can include a person's middle name. When officers ran the name Shane Brown, a bench warrant popped up for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

Shane Neal Brown was busted for a gun charge in 2019, but failed to appear in court in November of that year. A judge put out a bench warrant for his arrest at the time, ordering no bail if he was found.

Shane Neal Brown's rap sheet dates back to a felony in 1994 and he was charged fives times in 2019 alone. He's described as being an older white man with brown hair and blue eyes, has a beard and stands at 5-feet-11-inches tall. Shane Lee Brown, who was 23 at the time, is a 5-foot-7 black man and has no criminal record.

Despite telling 'numerous unknown Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officers and supervisors' that he was not the same Shane Brown they were looking for, officers failed to properly verify their suspect and filed paperwork on January 10, 2020, saying they had 'Shane Neal Brown' in custody.

Authorities didn't 'bother to review its own records to determine whether Shane Lee Brown was the subject of the warrant,' court documents said.

But officers should have been able to easily discover that they had the wrong man in custody, as Shane Neal Brown's numerous other booking photos were available in the custody records system.

After being arrested on January 8, Shane Lee Brown was taken to Henderson Detention Center, where he spent two days. On January 10, authorities transferred the young man to the Clark County Detention Center, where he stayed until he was released four days later.

Shane Lee Brown would not get out of jail until January 14, 2020, when he attended a bench warrant hearing and his public defender told the court they had the wrong guy. He was immediately released by Judge Joe Hardy after an unidentified public defender showed a side-by-side photo comparison of the two men.

Shane Neal Brown would appear in court later that month and accepted a plea deal.

DailyMail.com reached out to the LVMPD and Shane Lee Brown's attorney, Brent Bryson.
A model who was secretly filmed by a 'depraved' senior Metropolitan Police detective who posed as a fake glamour photographer has said she was left 'disgusted' by his sick actions.

Kirsty Lee, 29, from Brighton, posed for a luxury hotel photoshoot in April 2017 with a 'pilot' called 'Harrison' who claimed to have a side-job in photography.

Three years later, she received a shock call from police, who told her they had found naked videos of her changing in the luxury Westminster hotel bathroom taken that day.

Ms Lee then discovered 'Harrison' was in fact Detective Inspector Neil Corbel, 40, a former Metropolitan police officer who specialised in anti-terrorism at the time.

Corbel posed as an airline pilot to book multiple women for photoshoots before planting the gadgets in hotel rooms, flats and Airbnbs across the London, Manchester and Brighton areas.

Police found images of 51 women on Corbel's hard drive in all, with 19 victims, including 16 models and three escorts, agreeing to make statements against him.

Corbel, a former counter-terrorism officer, has pleaded guilty to 19 counts of voyeurism. Today, he was sentenced to three years in prison.

Kirsty Lee, 29, from Brighton, posed for a luxury hotel photoshoot in April 2017 with a 'pilot' called 'Harrison' who claimed to have a side-job in photography. Three years later, she received a shock call from the Metropolitan Police, who told her they had found naked videos of her changing in the Westminster hotel bathroom taken that day

Detective Inspector Neil Corbel, 40, posed as an airline pilot to book women for photoshoots before planting the gadgets in hotel rooms, flats and Airbnbs across the London, Manchester and Brighton areas

The cameras were hidden in everyday items, including tissue boxes, phone chargers, air fresheners, glasses, keys and headphones, to video his unsuspecting victims.

Ms Lee has waived her right to anonymity to share the horrifying consequences she has suffered following the 'depravity' of Corbel's acts.

The model revealed the 'shock and humiliation' she felt after discovering the truth and slammed the former high flying officer's 'disgusting' deeds.

She has also explained how she no longer 'trusts' photographers in her own profession, and is now insisting she conducts all her shoots from the safety of her own home.

In April 2017, Kirsty was invited to an amateur photoshoot in a five-star Westminster hotel by a man called 'Harrison' who had reached out to her private modelling page.

'Harrison', real name Corbel, offered the model cheap flights if the shoot went well, Ms Lee explained.

'As soon as we got to the room, Harrison was really professional and talked through his ideas,' she explained.

'While he set up the cameras and equipment, I grabbed a heap of clothes and headed into the bathroom to change.

'Then for the next few hours, I went in and out of the bathroom to change into different outfits. It went really well.'

But, Kirsty wouldn't hear back from Corbel and continued modelling as normal until she received a call from the Met out of the blue three years later in June 2020.

Officers asked her to identify herself in a series of videos they had obtained. She was then asked if she knew a man by the name of 'Harrison', and immediately remembered the so-called pilot.

In April 2017, Kirsty (pictured) was invited to an amateur photoshoot in a five-star Westminster hotel by a man called 'Harrison' who had reached out to her private modelling page

'They then showed me a video of me naked, changing in the hotel bathroom'. she said.

'He had hidden cameras on the ceiling and had secretly filmed me changing. I felt so violated and told them I hadn't consented.'

Reflecting on her experience, Kirsty added: 'He seemed friendly and professional. Now I know the truth, I feel disgusted knowing a high-end police officer was capable of such depravity.

'It has made me lose faith in the police force, as well as my own profession. I hope he gets a long time in prison.

'How could someone with so much power do this to innocent women? Now, I'm terrified of photographers and have lost trust in my profession.

'I refuse to go to any photoshoots and I only work from home. I believe those photographer websites should've vetted 'Harrison' properly.

'If you're a model, please be wary and overcautious when you're booking shoots to stay safe.'

It comes as another model who was secretly filmed by Neil Corbel's spy cameras revealed she has been left with bald spots after pulling out her hair, a court heard.

He has been suspended by the Met, where he was attached to the Continuous Policing Improvement Command.

Judge Martin Edmunds QC will sentence him at Isleworth Crown Court later today for the offences - which took place between January 2017 and February 2020.

Three of the women, who cannot be identified because they are victims of sexual offences, attended court to face the former counter-terrorism officer as they read their victim impact statements.

One model, who agreed to pose for a 'fashion and artistic nude shoot', was visibly angry as she told Corbel his crimes had 'affected every aspect of my life'.

'I have pulled so much of my hair out with stress I have bald spots and have had to turn down work,' she said, showing her scalp to the court.

'Women, especially models and sex workers, tend to struggle to report sex crimes to police.

'He knew we were potentially easy, quiet prey. So, how can I tell women to trust police when this man has shaken my beliefs?'

Another model said: 'The fact the defendant is a police officer has scared me and shocked me. He's supposed to enforce the law, not break it.

Detective Inspector Neil Corbel, 40, leaving Westminster Magistrates' Court, London on November 2

'I expect he knows how to deal with people, and he's used his knowledge, experience and training to manipulate me.

'He was so charming and believable in his role. I just ask myself what else was he capable of?'

A third woman, who went on a date with Corbel, said he came across as 'genuine and charming'.

'The way Neil lied and completely made up a different life still sticks in my mind a lot,' she said.

'A man with his intelligence would've known he could reach out for help rather than manipulate women for his own kicks.'

Other victims, who were not in court, mentioned the case of 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, who was snatched off the street before being raped and murdered by Met Pc Wayne Couzens, 48.

'The fact that he is a policeman is a huge deal,' said one.

'These people are meant to protect us. Following the murder of Sarah Everard this feels like a very frightening time to be a woman.

'Sex work can be dangerous, though I'm lucky in this is the first form of violence I have experienced at work.

'If you can't trust police officers, then what are we supposed to do?'

Another said: 'Finding out about this was a total shock to the system. I don't want to point the finger at all police officers, but they are meant to be there to protect you.

'Especially with the Sarah Everard case, it is difficult to know who to trust. I don't feel protected right now.

'I was oblivious to his wrongdoing and I imagine the other victims were.'
An innocent New Jersey 18-year-old was tragically killed Wednesday when he was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight while bringing groceries to his grandma in a city that recently broke its murder record.

Police in Paterson found Robert Cuadra - a young man described as having a promising future despite a tough upbringing - lying on the sidewalk with a bullet to the head Wednesday evening, following a heavy shootout between two men in which they fired a total of 16 shots.

Cuadra was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

No arrests have been made, as police and prosecutors in Passaic County are still investigating.

Paterson, like many cities in 2021, set a record for shootings. In fact, the last two years the city has set a homicide record.

Robert Cuadra, 18, was tragically killed by a stray bullet during a gunfight between two men in Paterson, New Jersey Wednesday

Cuadra was beloved by his family and just months away from escaping a tough upbringing to earn a full scholarship to Montclair State University

At least 28 people were fatally shot in 2021, topping 2020's 27. Prior to that, the deadliest year on record had been 2014 with 25, though city officials do not have records before 1990.

'We are experiencing a volatile and violent time in our country, and in Paterson we are doing our best to protect residents both from a deadly virus and combat crime,' Mayor Andre Sayegh said at the time. 'Sadly, a number of the murders were domestic in nature and involved children.

Despite a tough upbringing rife with poverty, Cuadra was known as a hard worker and had earned a full scholarship to nearby Montclair State University for the fall of 2022.

Tuition for New Jersey residents at Montclair State runs about $13,000.

The teen balanced attending Patersons HARP Academy of Health Science with a full-time job.

Robert's mother, Ivernis Santiago, is heartbroken over losing her son and believed he had a bright future

Robert's friends went to the scene of the killing Thursday to write condolences for Cuadra and his family

His mother, Ivernis Santiago, is heartbroken over losing both her son and the man she saw him becoming.

'He was a good kid, he was humble, he didn't bother anyone, he didn't go outside,' she told ABC7 through tears. 'No matter what he went through he was always laughing, playing around, goofing around, he could go through something right now and then be playing around like nothing happened, he was just such a good spirit.'

'He just turned 18, all he wanted was to go to Montclair University,' Robert's aunt Kiera Jimenez added.

Another one of his aunts, Angelica Campos, has started a GoFundMe to help Robert's parents buy a headstone, one 'as beautiful as him.'

Robert's friends went to the scene of the killing Thursday to write condolences for Cuadra and his family.

Robert's aunt, Angelica Campos, started a GoFundMe to help raise money for his parents to buy a headstone

'He wasn't a street kid, he wasn't a violent kid, he was a natural, good, innocent kid,' cousin Carlos Traverso, Jr. said.

Sayegh addressed the needless loss of life in a Facebook post Thursday.

'My heart is still hurting,' he wrote. 'Yesterday we lost an 18 year-old with a very promising future. Tragically, he was caught in the crossfire of senseless gun violence. I spoke with his mother last night and assured her that my office is here to support her as she grieves the loss of her son. Please pray for her.'

Cuadra was killed in the city's 4th Ward, where four of the city's fatal shootings happened in 2021.

The area has seen a violent start to 2022, however, with five of the city's six shootings so far this year having happened in the 4th Ward. It's the ward's second homicide this year after a man was hit in the head with a rock.

A man had suffered several gunshot wounds in the same block Cuadra was found lying unconscious on just weeks earlier.

Notably, the city was still under remote learning this week due to an increase of COVID cases, despite Paterson touting a 100 percent vaccination rate.

A 58-year-old man named Sean who lives in the area shared his disgust.

'I stay in my house,' Sean said. 'I don't want to see anyone get killed. I've lived here for 25 years, and things are getting worse. It seems like there is a shooting on Godwin every other day.

'I stay inside. If they want to hurt each other, go ahead,' he added.

It comes as many American cities continue to grapple with sickening violence.

Earlier this week, just 20 miles away from Paterson in the Bronx, an 11-month-old baby from The Bronx was shot in the face by a stray bullet while sitting in her parents' car overnight.

The shooting of the child, identified by her family as Catherine Ortiz, shocked the city, which is grappling with rising crime rates of its own and mounting public safety concerns.

Just this Sunday, A British doctor visiting the US has been killed in his sleep by a stray bullet fired 'recklessly' from a nearby apartment complex.

Matthew Willson, 31, was visiting his girlfriend in a desirable upmarket suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, when he was killed in the freak incident.
Furious parents are calling for a Pennsylvania middle school teacher to be fired after she was photographed taping a mask to a student's face.

On Monday, a Facebook group called 'North Penn Stronger Together' shared a picture of a teacher at Pennfield Middle School in Hatfield taping a mask onto male student's face. The student's age or grade are not known.

'Pro-mask or anti-mask, I hope we can all agree that taping masks to children's faces crosses the LINE. This was not a joke for the child or the parents,' the post said. Pennfield, which covers grades seven through nine for kids aged 12 to 15, requires students, teachers and visitors to wear masks.

One person commented that the teacher placed masking tape on the child's face without asking for consent, leaving him 'mortified' and resulted in him being made fun of for the rest of the day.

Outraged parents in the comment section demanded North Penn School District to respond, even calling on the district to fire the teacher in the photo. The teacher has not been publicly identified.

'This is unprofessional behavior by the teacher and assault,' someone wrote. 'She has no right to touch his person in any context. Shame on the school for excusing this behavior.'

The district had put out a statement on Wednesday in response to the post, which has garnered more than 500 comments and nearly 300 shares in just the last week, calling the teacher's actions 'unacceptable' and saying an investigation found that this was an 'isolated' incident and 'no malice' was intended.

On Thursday, the mother of the child in the photo, who chose to remain anonymous, said the national attention the photo has garnered is 'like a scene from my worst nightmare' and that she only intended to share the photo with the local private group ahead of an upcoming board meeting.

A Facebook group called 'North Penn Stronger Together' shared a picture of a teacher at Pennfield Middle School taping a mask onto male student's face

The North Penn School District responded to the post, which has garnered over 500 comments in the last week, calling the teacher's actions 'unacceptable'

The district said in a statement: 'An image taken in one of our classrooms last week and circulating on social media does not represent the universal values that the North Penn School District strives to instill in both our students and staff.

'After an immediate investigation, it was determined that while the incident was isolated and no malice was intended, the actions of the teacher were entirely inappropriate and unacceptable, no matter the context.'

The district added that 'the matter is serious and it is being addressed with the employee' but did not elaborate on whether the teacher would face any disciplinary action.

'Certain individuals felt compelled to take matters into their own hands, including contacting local authorities and disseminating this image of my son to various media outlets,' the mother exclusively told NorthPennNow.com, which said it vetted her identity.

She said she never gave anyone permission to share the photo and while she understands the good intentions the parents may have, the situation has 'evolved into exactly what I wanted to avoid.'

'If I had any idea that this would evolve to such a level, I would never have permitted it to be shared with that private group,' she said.

Classrooms across America are struggling to keep up with in-person learning because of COVID outbreaks and mask mandates, with many school districts requiring students and teachers now wear N95 or KN95 masks. Some districts are even returning to remote learning.

Masking children has become a hot button issue in recent months. Vaccines are only available for children aged five and up, with many states encouraging children younger than that to don the face coverings, even though they are at very low risk of a serious or fatal COVID infection.

The recent spike in COVID cases has led to short staffing in schools across the nation, leading New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham to ask National Guard members and state employees to volunteer to become licensed substitute teachers or child care workers in order to keep schools and day care centers open.

The desperate search for substitute teachers comes as the latest Omicron surge has caused a huge number of Americans to miss work.

The Washington Post reported that between December 29 and January 10 approximately 8.8 million workers reported not working because they were sick with the coronavirus or caring for someone who was, according to data from the Census Bureau.

That figure is nearly triple the levels from the first two weeks of December, before Omicron cases began to peak and were also the highest numbers since the Census Bureau began tracking in April 2020.

Meanwhile, in the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this week that secondary school students no longer need to wear masks in classrooms. The requirement to wear masks in corridors and other communal areas will end on January 27.

Parents expressed anger over the incident, which took place at Pennfield Middle School, (pictured) calling on the teacher to be fired

The incident comes off the heels of a California Christian preschool director being barred from ever working with children again after she 'failed to encourage' two-year-olds to wear face masks in class.

Tiffany McHugh, the director of Foothills Christian Church Preschool in San Diego, had her license stripped after the Department of Social Services shut down the preschool because McHugh couldn't get students to keep their masks on.

'We were coming up against a lot of parents who didn't want their children to be masked that young,' McHugh told CBS 8.

'There were a lot of children who were just too young to wear masks, they pull them off. It's really difficult.'

Social Services began visiting the school in September following a parent complaint about the mask policy. In November, the school was cleared of the violation, but a couple of weeks later, the department came back for a routine check-in and found students not wearing masks again.

The department cited that the preschool failed to make sure employees were wearing a mask, in addition to 'not encouraging' students to do so.

It also reportedly said that McHugh stopped state workers from inspecting the building to give employees and students time to put on a mask.

The department alleged that the school failed to 'regularly and frequently prompt and encourage students two years and older to wear face coverings at all times.'

In addition, the department took away her license forever and she will no longer be allowed to work with children again.

Across the pond in the U.K., schools are in an open rebellion against the government over masks after more than 100 head teachers wrote to parents warning that children must continue wearing face coverings in classrooms.

Union bosses have accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of flouting his 'duty of care' to teachers after he announced an easing of COVID curbs, from work-from-home guidance to face coverings and COVID isolation, as the Omicron wave subsides.

Schools are defying the government's anti-mask guidance and telling parents that pupils must continue to wear face coverings.

And it has now emerged that ministers will not stop schools from forcing children to wear face coverings.

Head teachers across the U.K. say that they are struggling either with staff shortages or high rates of COVID in the local community, and argue that masks in classrooms will stem the spread of the virus.
A judge has demanded an investigation after two members of an organised crime gang were able to successfully apply for 145,000 in Covid 'bounce back' loans.

Asif Hussain, the ringleader of an international 'chop shop' ring which exported stolen Range Rovers and other expensive cars to Dubai, was able to secure 50,000 in funding offered by the Government to help businesses struggling during the pandemic.

Another gang member, Ibraaz Shafique, was able to receive two huge loans, firstly for 50,000 and then for 45,000. The maximum loan available was 50,000.

Both men had previous criminal convictions, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Judge Anthony Cross QC said 'the most basic of checks' would have revealed the fraud as he demanded an explanation from the authorities within two weeks.

Left to right: Asif Hussain (who received 50,000 in Covid bounce back loans) and Ibraaz Shafique (who got two separate loans, together worth 95,000)

The judge said it 'defies belief' that Hussain, who has 48 previous offences on his record and was previously jailed for four years for drug dealing, was given funding.

A drugs gang was able to obtain a 25,000 coronavirus recovery loan from the government, using a once-legitimate business to apply.

Judge Cross said of Hussain and Shafique's case: 'Here the most basic of checks would have revealed the fraud.

'The public are entitled to an explanation as to how these loans were obtained.

The gang, who called themselves 'The Company', stole more than 95 cars, including Range Rovers, Porsches and Mercedes, worth 3 million

The gang would send stolen luxury vehicles to be stripped for parts at 'chop shops' in Bury, Oldham and Wigan

'That explanation must made public. I require an explanation from the relevant body within 14 days.'

He added that abuse of the system by Hussain and Shafique demonstrated 'moral depravity of the highest order'.

Judge Cross said: 'At a time when genuine businesses were being devastated by the pandemic, you that are concerned with that aspect of this case, showed your utter contempt for others.'

The gang exported stolen cars to the Middle East, or stripped them down for parts.

More than 95 cars were stolen, including Range Rovers, Porsches and Mercedes, worth 3 million.

Hussain claimed the bounce back loan for a firm called German Automotive 365 Ltd, a business selling and buying cars and offering maintenance. Despite never having submitted a tax return or registered for VAT, the 50,000 loan was extended to the firm

The gang, who called themselves 'The Company', sent stolen cars in 11 shipping containers during a 12 month period to contacts in the Middle East.

Officers recovered three of the 11 shipping containers, all of which contained stolen Range Rovers and stolen parts, according to Manchester Evening News.

The gang would send stolen luxury vehicles to be stripped for parts at 'chop shops' in Bury, Oldham and Wigan.

The vehicles were in some cases stolen in the dead of night while their owners slept, and in others wrenched from them by masked assailants in broad daylight.

Hussain was the director of a firm called German Automotive 365 Ltd, a business selling and buying cars and offering maintenance.

How fraudsters stole 5bn from bounce back loan scheme A report found last month that anti-fraud measures were 'too little too late' in Chancellor Rishi Sunak's Covid Bounce Back Loan scheme - resulting in eye-watering losses for taxpayers. The National Audit Office said that by the time the Government implemented any anti-fraud measures in June last year  a month after the scheme was launched  more than 28billion had already been paid out. Other measures did not begin until September 2020 as Ministers focused on getting the loans out to support businesses that were struggling during the pandemic, the watchdog said. In its report, the NAO also said that around 17billion may never be paid back, with 5billion lost to fraud and error. Under Mr Sunak's scheme, firms could borrow up to 50,000 interest-free for 12 months, with the loan guaranteed by the Government. It was a lifeline for small firms, but has also provided rich pickings for fraudsters who disappear, leaving the taxpayer to reimburse banks. Advertisement

Prosecutors said the firm never submitted a tax return and there was no record of it being registered for VAT.

The company received a 50,000 payment a week after making an application.

Shafique set up a Lloyds bank account a month after being made a director of Merc Car Breakers Ltd. He also received a 50,000 loan.

A few months later, Shafique received a second loan, this time for 45,000, after opening a another bank account for his work as a sole trader in computing.

Just five days after opening the bank account, he received the loan.

He then transferred the sum to his Merc Car Breakers Ltd bank account, and then sent the majority to his personal account.

The Government introduced the 'bounce back' loan scheme in April 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

It was set up to help small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between 2,000 and up to 25 per cent of their turnover.

The government guaranteed 100 per cent of the loan, and there were no fees or interest to pay for the first year. The scheme closed on March 31 last year.

A third-party review of the scheme revealed that while some risks can be mitigated, there remained a 'very high' level of fraud risk.

The risk was caused by self-certification, multiple applications, lack of legitimate business and impersonation as well organised crime.

Originally the scheme was expected to cost about 18 billion to 26 billion, but that later increased to between 38 to 48 billion.

Hussain, 44, of Tonge Moor Road, Bolton, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal; conspiracy to handle stolen goods; conspiracy to export; and fraud.

Shafique, 23, of Camberwell Street, Oldham, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to handle stolen goods; conspiracy to export; and fraud.

Yesterday [Jan 20], Hussain was jailed for 15 years for his role in the gang, while Shafique was locked up for five years.
Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham says former President Donald Trump held secret meetings in the White House residence in the days before the Capitol riot  and that former first lady Melania Trump sometimes would join them.

Grisham, who served as Melania's chief of staff before quitting her job Jan. 6th, 2020, revealed that the former first lady was known for 'popping in' to meetings  in a comment that suggests she might have information about who her husband was meeting with amid his election overturn effort. The House committee investigating January 6 on Thursday reached out to Ivanka Trump seeking an interview.

'She may or may not have been sitting in on  she knew she was known for popping into meetings. So she probably knew what was going on as well,' Grisham told CNN Friday.

Grisham said Trump held the meetings amid 'paranoia' about leaks from his own White House staff in the final days of his administration.

Former first lady Melania Trump was known for 'popping in' to meetings the president held in the White House residence, her former chief of staff Stephanie Grisham said. She confirmed a report of secret meetings before Jan. 6th. 'So she probably knew what was going on as well,' she said

She described the secret meetings after testifying earlier this month before the House January 6 committee. She did not say what she told the panel during her interview. But she said a report about the meetings in the Guardian  which she said she did not participate in  was accurate.

'There were meetings taking place up there,' she said.

Among those coming to the meetings  where White House staffers might be frozen out from knowing who the president was talking to in the part of the White House where the first family lived  where the architects of Trump's election overturn effort, which Grisham termed 'bonkers little plans.'

'Well, that was the beauty of having meetings in the residence like that. And the president, the former president, did that often. He did that quite a bit because there was a lot of paranoia about leaks in the White House and so hed just have people up to the residence,' Grisham told the network.

Grisham also described how she would obtain the information.

She says at first she was informed as to participants in meetings that took place in the residence when she served as Melania Trump's chief of staff. But she said she would later be frozen out by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Sometimes, a White House usher  a former Trump Organization employee  would tip her off about who was coming.

She told the network Friday that even when she didn't learn through the typical channels, 'Mrs. Trump would let me know, because maybe she wasnt happy that people were in her home without her knowledge.'

The House panel has revealed an increasing interest in Trump's 'state of mind' on and leading up to Jan. 6th as it seeks to reconstruct the events around the Capitol riot.

Grisham, a longtime Trump aide who was part of his 2016 presidential campaign, served as White House press secretary and later transitioned to become chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump.

The panel's interview with Grisham was more productive than expected, sources told the Guardian, which reported Grisham said Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows scheduled the meetings, and former chief usher Timothy Harleth would waive guests into the meetings.

Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham spoke to the House Jan. 6th committee. She told the panel Trump held secret meetings leading up to Jan. 6th

She told the panel about meetings Trump held in the White House residence.

She also told the panel that Secret Service documents contained information about whether Trump ever intended to march to the Capitol following a rally near the White House, according to the report.

Grisham met with the panel Jan. 5th, telling reporters she 'cooperated fully' with the select committee.

Grisham quit her post on Jan. 6th, 2020, then wrote a tell-all book about her time with Trump.

The White House never released visitor logs for meetings that Trump or other officials held at the White House, making all meetings outside of those publicly announced  or foiled by spotters or leakers, in effect secret.

Investigators have long been interested in who Trump met with during that time. The panel last year asked the National Archives to hand over visitors' logs. The Archives for the first time started handing over information Wednesday night, following a Supreme Court ruling yesterday.

Reporters sometimes had to rely on lucky or chance sightings to find out what Trump was up to in the days after the election. Members of the media spotted 'Kraken' lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted Trump's election overturn effort in the courts, was spotted at the White House in December 2020.

Grisham quit her post on Jan. 6th, 2020, the day Trump addressed a crowd at the White House before the riot, then wrote a tell-all book about her time with Trump

FILE - Sidney Powell, right, speaks next to former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, as members of President Donald Trump's legal team, during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters on Nov. 19, 2020, in Washington. Powell was spotted at the White House after the election, as she pushed 'Kraken' lawsuits in court

The panel is probing Trump's state of mind on Jan. 6th, the day of the Capitol riot

My Pillow CEO Michael Lindell is seen outside the door of the West Wing at the White House on Friday, Jan 15, 2021 in Washington, DC

'My Pillow' CEO Mike Lindell was spotted at the White House Jan. 15th, after Grisham had left.

Trump was surrounding himself with ultra-loyalists in the days after the networks called the election for Biden, as a series of courts ruled against his allies' claims of fraud.

Attorney General Bill Barr resigned before Christmas, and Trump maneuvered new officials into key agencies in the final weeks of his administration.

On Thursday, the Jan. 6th Committee requested information from former first daughter Ivanka Trump. The panel quotes Fox News host Sean Hannity in a text exchange with former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany beginning Jan. 7th, 2020.

He recommended the White House keep Trump away from 'certain people.'

'Key now. No more crazy people,' he wrote. McEnany responded: 'Yes 100%,' he said.
A Pacific island which managed to remain Covid-free throughout the pandemic has reopened its borders - only to be hit by the disease after the first international flight landed, with two thirds of the passengers testing positive.

The island of Kiribati is now set to impose a lockdown from Saturday in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid, after four further cases emerged outside the quarantined group.

A Fiji Airways flight from Fiji to Kiribati's capital of South Tarawa was the first flight to land on the island in 10 months after the government reopened its borders.

But of the 54 passengers on board the flight last Friday, 36 were diagnosed with Covid, prompting government authorities to quickly set up a quarantine facility for all of the travellers.

The government has now announced a island-wide lockdown from Saturday after officials confirmed that there are four positive Covid cases outside the group of quarantined passengers.

The island of Kiribati is now set to impose a lockdown from Saturday in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid, after four further cases emerged outside the quarantined group (file image)

The government announced a island-wide lockdown from Saturday after officials confirmed that there are four positive Covid cases outside the group of quarantined passengers. Pictured: A map showing where the Pacific island of Kiribati is

Officials had earlier confirmed that a security guard at the quarantine centre had tested positive on Tuesday and two of his close contacts found in Bouta village had been quarantined. A further two positive cases were detected in the community on Thursday.

But the government confirmed today in a statement that a fourth Covid case has emerged.

From Saturday, Kiribati will be under a curfew and a lockdown, with people unable to leave their homes unless it is for essential work or to access the emergency services. Schools will also be closed.

All of the arrivals on the flight from Fiji had been in quarantine for two weeks before their departure and undergone Covid tests, the government of Kiribati said in a statement, prompting questions about how they contracted the virus. All of the passengers had been vaccinated.

Locals in Kiribati said they are worried that the virus has now hit the island.

'As parents, we are worried about our children because unlike us, they are unvaccinated and have no access to one [a vaccine] on the island,' Kareaua Nawaia, 32, a school teacher and father-of-three, told The Guardian.

Dr Tabutoa Eria, expressed his concern about the delay in imposing the lockdown, writing on Facebook: 'It might [be] too late if you [the lockdown] come next week. Our beloved n beautiful people please avoid unnecessary movements. Virus won't move if we don't.'

The government of Kiribati said last month that 93.4 per cent of the population aged 18 and over has had one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine but only 53.1 per cent were double-jabbed.

The government today urged the public to get vaccinated.

'During this difficult and challenging situation, the Government appeals to elders, church, island councils, community and youth leaders for their support and cooperation in order to protect and safeguard our health and nation.

'The only way that we could fight this virus is to through complete vaccination and therefore, the public is urged to complete their vaccination doses in order to protect themselves and families. It is critical that all work together and trust each other to do our part in combating this pandemic.'

A number of remote island - including Kiribati - have been adopting 'zero Covid' policies by imposing travel bans.

But Andrew Preston, a professor of microbial pathogenesis at the University of Bath, said that zero-Covid strategies are unsustainable.

'The scenario under which zero Covid had the greatest credibility was maintaining it while very high levels of immunity were built with vaccination,' he told CNBC.

'However, for most countries, it has proved very difficult to get a level of vaccination high enough to prevent any spread of an imported case, and now with the ability of omicron to reinfect and infect those vaccinated it appears to be a non-starter as a long-term policy.'
Nearly 3,000 residents at a Hong Kong housing estate will be confined to their homes for five days, authorities announced Friday, as they struggle to halt an outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

The lengthy lockdown order - reminiscent of those used on the Chinese mainland - comes as Hong Kong tacks harder to Beijing's "zero-Covid" policy.

At least 20 confirmed or preliminary positive cases were found in a public housing block in the Kwai Chung neighbourhood, said health chief Sophia Chan.

3,000 residents at a Hong Kong housing estate will be confined to their homes for five days, authorities said Friday

Hong Kong authorities will impose a five-day lockdown on 2,700 residents of a public housing block

"Clearly there is a community outbreak and the situation is worrying," Chan told reporters.

A security guard, cleaner and multiple residents living in non-adjacent flats have been infected, with the source thought to be a man who visited the building on January 13.

"These infection clusters involve superspreading and are of extremely high risk," Chan added.

Edwin Tsui, who heads the Centre for Health Protection, said the virus might have been spread by a cleaner who had to work floor by floor.

Some 2,700 residents will need to stay home until January 26 and be tested daily.

Like China, Hong Kong stamps out even the slightest trace of the virus with largely closed borders, contact tracing, targeted lockdowns and long quarantines.

Residents of Yat Kwai House on Kwai Chung Estate must be home quarantined for five days until Wednesday

The five-day "snap lockdown" is the longest ordered yet in the city. Previous building lockdowns have tended to be overnight with residents allowed to leave once they show a negative test.

Those who test positive are taken to isolation wards, while close contacts go to a government quarantine camp.

The Hong Kong government has said it will provide food and anti-epidemic supplies for affected residents.

But some people were spotted buying groceries in bulk on Friday afternoon, according to local media reports.

Hong Kong's strict rules have kept the city largely virus-free but internationally isolated.

Already strict social-distancing rules were ramped up after an Omicron outbreak began last month.

As residents of Yat Kwai House at Kwai Chung Estate will need to be home quarantined for five days, locals are stockpiling toilet paper and essential goods
A hotel with a room looking out on to an enclosed tiger in eastern China has been ordered by government officials to close off the view over fears for the animal's welfare.

The white tiger, which can be seen from the hotel room roaming the grassy enclosure, is separated by glass from a room at the Sendi Tribe Treehouse Hotel in Nantong.

The hotel is connected to the Nantong Forest safari park, one of the large-scale zoos in the region with nearly 20,000 wild animals.

State media said tigers and other animals can be easily alarmed when so close to the glass, according to the Times.

The hotel offers a view into the tiger's enclosure (pictured), but Chinese state media said the animal could be easily alarmed if the glass is not soundproof enough

An aerial view of the the Nantong Forest safari park where the hotel is located

While guests are protected from the tiger by blast-proof glass, The Beijing News said the design lacked consideration for the tiger.

The Chinese-government owned newspaper said there needed to be further evaluation on whether the design was soundproof enough to ensure the animal's welfare.

One-way glass may reduce disturbances to the animals, added the news outlet.

The hotel already offers rooms with views looking out on to giraffes, lions and zebras.

Resident are set to celebrate Chinese New Year on February 1, ushering in 2022 as the year of the Tiger.

China National Radio suggested the hotel was using the Chinese Year of the Tiger as a marketing gimmick, promoting the tiger room ahead of the celebrations.

Another white tiger (pictured) licks a block of ice in the Nantong Forest safari park

Sendi Tribe Treehouse is not the first hotel to advertise a room with an exotic view.

Last year saw Harbin in northeastern China unveil the world's first polar bear hotel.

Guests can view polar bears 24 hours a day through windows facing on to the bears enclosure.

'These bears appear to have no fresh air, no space to roam, no privacy, no peace, no view and just artificial stimulation,' said Simon Marsh, the acting director of UK-based animal welfare group Wild Welfare.

Zoos and other captive facilities should prioritize the individual needs of their animals, not the public, added Marsh in 2021 when the zoo opened.
The first image of the F35 that toppled into the Mediterranean Sea during a failed takeoff from HMS Queen Elizabeth has emerged online.

The jet suffered a malfunction while accelerating up the ramp of the flight deck before the pilot ejected when the plane reached the top.

The incident triggered a frantic underwater race to find the wreckage of the stealth jet and secure the crash site a mile below the surface before Russian divers could get there first.

The first image of the F35 that toppled into the Mediterranean Sea during a failed takeoff from HMS Queen Elizabeth has emerged (pictured)

The jet suffered a malfunction while accelerating up the ramp of the flight deck before the pilot ejected when the plane reached the top

A month later, the 100million warplane was retrieved in a secret salvage operation carried out by British, American and Italian crews, to prevent its sophisticated radar and sensors falling into the wrong hands.

An image of the reclaimed F35 lying on the deck of a boat has now been widely shared online.

The wreckage was then said to have been taken to a naval base in the Mediterranean after its recovery.

The Ministry of Defence have not verified the image but did not deny its legitimacy to MailOnline.

They said in a statement: 'Recovery efforts of the ditched F35 successfully concluded in December 2021.

'The Defence Accident Investigation Branch are currently conducting an investigation into the causes of the incident and will report their findings in due course.

'We cannot comment further while the investigation is ongoing.'

The jet is seen disappearing over the edge of the aircraft carrier and the pilot's parachute floats into view in leaked footage of the crash

While the cause of the crash is still under investigation, but it is thought that a red plastic rain cover for the jet was accidentally left on and sucked into an engine.

Leaked footage of the incident was also spread online, prompting an internal investigation with a sailor ending up arrested for sharing the confidential material.

While it did not reveal any operationally sensitive material, the video is said to have angered naval chiefs who flew the arrested sailor back to the UK.

Lockheed Martin says the F-35 'is the most lethal, survivable and connected fighter aircraft in the world, giving pilots an advantage against any adversary and enabling them to execute their mission and come home safe.'

But the stealth fighter has been involved in a series of high-profile crashes and incidents in recent years.

Earlier this month, a South Korean pilot was forced to make an emergency 'belly landing' in an F-35A after suffering a malfunction in the air.

A pilot was forced to make an emergency 'belly landing' in a South Korean F-35A fighter jet after suffering a malfunction in the air. Pictured: A South Korean fighter jet lands in Chungju in 2019

Landing gear on the jet failed to extend but instead of ejecting, the pilot decided to land the US-made craft at an airbase on its belly.

The equipment failed due to electronic issues, a South Korean Air Force spokesman said, forcing the pilot to take the unprecedented action.

A military official refused to confirm if the jet suffered any damage in the incident but the pilot walked away uninjured.

South Korea ordered 40 F-35A variants from its American maker Lockheed Martin in 2014, receiving the first batch five years later.

The jet has been involved in seven other incidents including a pilot who was forced to eject after a crash on landing at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

The US Air Force said the pilot and plane systems were at fault for the crash.

A Japanese F-35 also crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Japan, which killed its pilot in 2019. Officials blamed the crash on spatial disorientation.








Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, right, speaks during an extraordinary Cabinet meeting at the Government Complex in Seoul, Jan. 21, to endorse a supplementary budget plan aimed at helping small businesses hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Next to him is Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki. Yonhap





The government proposed an additional extra budget of 14 trillion won ($11.8 billion) Friday to support small merchants hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic amid extended virus curbs.







This year's first extra budget will be financed with a bond sale of 11.3 trillion won, according to the finance ministry, and marks the seventh round of supplementary spending aimed at coping with the fallout of the pandemic.







The government plans to submit the extra budget proposal to the National Assembly for approval Monday.







The ruling Democratic Party of Korea ramped up the call for another extra budget to aid affected merchants despite criticism that it was vote-buying with cash handouts ahead of the March presidential election.







The size of the extra budget could increase during an Assembly review as the ruling and main opposition parties voiced the need for larger support.







Of the proposed budget, 11.5 trillion won will be set aside to support merchants and small businesses hit by the extended antivirus measures caused by the protracted pandemic.







The government plans to spend 9.6 trillion won to additionally provide 3 million won each to 3.2 million merchants in a bid to ease the burden of paying rent and other costs. The amount was raised from the 1 million won in similar support given in December.







The administration will also use 1.9 trillion won to shore up the state program to compensate merchants for their losses caused by state orders to shut down or suspend their businesses due to COVID-19. The move will raise the related budget to 5.1 trillion won from the current 3.2 trillion won.







To contain the upsurge in virus cases, the health authorities imposed tighter antivirus measures, including a four-person cap on private gatherings and a 9 p.m. business hour curfew on cafes and restaurants, from Dec. 18 through Sunday.







The government partially eased virus curbs Monday by raising the private gathering limit to six while keeping the curfew until Feb. 6. The number of virus cases stayed in the 6,000s after it soared to nearly 8,000 in late December.







Of the extra budget, the administration plans to spend 1.5 trillion won to increase the number of hospital beds for critically ill virus patients and buy COVID-19 treatment pills and shots. The remaining 1 trillion won will be set aside as reserve funds to brace for quarantine demand amid the spread of the Omicron variant.







The extra budget proposal comes as the country logged an additional excess in tax revenue in 2021 amid rises in asset prices and the economic recovery.







The government is estimated to have posted an additional 10 trillion won in excess tax revenue last year on top of the previously created 50.6 trillion won in such surpluses.







The proposed supplementary budget will be first financed with the debt sale as the excess tax revenue can only be used after the government settles last year's state accounts in April.







Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki earlier opposed drawing up an extra budget in January, saying the government's priority is to implement a record high national budget of 607.7 trillion won for 2022.







With the extra budget, the national debt is forecast to reach 1,075.7 trillion won this year, up from the previous estimate of 1,064.4 trillion won, according to the ministry. The sovereign debt will exceed the 1,000 trillion-won mark for the first time this year.







The debt-to-GDP ratio is also expected to rise to a record high of 50.1 percent from 50 percent. The fiscal deficit is forecast to reach 68.1 trillion won this year.







Korea has enough room to carry out an expansionary fiscal policy, but economic policymakers sounded the alarm over the pace of growth of the debt.







Political uncertainty in an election year will also add risks to the implementation of the economic policy.







The successor to President Moon Jae-in may want to draw up another extra budget to carry out their election pledges after the March 9 election.







Korea drew up two supplementary budgets totaling 50 trillion won last year to provide tailored support to small merchants and cash handouts to people in the bottom 88 percent income bracket.







In 2020, the country drew up four extra budgets totaling around 67 trillion won to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. In May that year, the government doled out 14.3 trillion won in stimulus checks to all households. (Yonhap)


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There was no 'breakthough' in U.S. talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart on Ukraine, but Blinken said both sides will return to the negotiating table next week - and he did not rule out a meeting with the Russian president.

'We didn't anticipate there would be any breakthroughs but what we were doing was testing whether there's still a path forward for diplomacy, for dialogue to resolve a crisis that Russia has created by massing 100,000 forces on Ukraine's border and threatening to renew its aggression against Ukraine,' Blinken said Friday on ABC's Good Morning America.

He didn't rule out another meeting between Biden and Putin, saying 'if it proves productive, useful to try to resolve things through direct conversation between the presidents, that's certainly something we're prepared to do.'

White House press secretary Jen Psaki also did not rule out a leader-to-leader meeting when asked about it on her daily press briefing.

'The president always values leader to leader engagement, but we'll determine if that's the appropriate next step,' she said.

She also outlined the assistance the U.S. has given to the Ukraine, including $650 million in security assistance and 17 military helicopters.

Asked on GMA if the situation was further or closer to war, Blinken responded: 'You have to ask President Putin. It's ultimately going to be President Putin who decides what Russia will do.'

He also said he was clear in his conversations with Moscow's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that there are 'two paths ahead, diplomacy and dialogue, and the other is Russian aggression that will have serious consequences.'

Blinken was in Geneva Friday to speak with Lavrov after the secretary of state visited Ukraine to reitierate U.S. support in the wake of a massive blunder by President Biden, who seemed to indicate earlier this week he would accept a 'minor incursion' of Ukraine by Russia. Biden had to clarify his remarks, reading a statement that no military incursion would be acceptable.

Biden also indicated he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to order a further invasion of Ukrainian territory although Moscow denies that is its intention.

Talks will continue next week when the U.S. gives a written response to Russian security demands and expresses their concerns about Russian actions to the Ukraine. Russia's demands include a halt to NATO's eastward expansion and a pledge that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the Western military alliance.

'We anticipate that we'll get together again across the table and see if we continue to advance this through diplomacy,' Blinken said.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said there were no 'breakthroughs' in talks with Russia

.@ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: @GStephanopoulos: Bottom line, are we further or closer away from war?@SecBlinken: You have to ask President Putin. It's ultimately going to be President Putin who decides what Russia will do. https://t.co/ZLbsHnnWGx pic.twitter.com/A36iPcbTFE  Good Morning America (@GMA) January 21, 2022

As fears grow that Russian could invade the Ukraine, Blinken and Lavrov sat down for 90 minutes in Geneva.

Lavrov, speaking at a press conference after his meeting with Blinken, firmly denied that Russia is intending to attack Ukraine, instead accusing NATO of whipping up 'hysteria' aimed at 'sabotaging' the peace process.

Lavrov described the talks as 'productive', but said it is too early to tell whether they are on the right path - that will only become clear after America's written response is delivered.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for talks in Geneva as the men try to avert a war in Ukraine after Putin massed troops on the border

Talks between the two sides will continue next week

Lavrov speaks at a press conference after the talks, saying that America has agreed to respond to Moscow's security demands in writing and that more talks are planned after that

Lavrov (right) opened the talks by demanding 'concrete' responses to Moscow's security demands, including that Ukraine is banned from joining NATO (Blinken pictured left)

Ukrainian troops are pictured manning their posts in a trench close to frontlines where they have been fighting a years-long war with Russian separatists

Ahead of the talks, the US had warned of a 'united, swift and severe' response if Putin attacks Ukraine amid fears that Putin is massing an invasion force on the border.

Blinken, arriving at the Geneva hotel where the crunch talks are now taking place, said Washington is 'committed to a path of diplomacy' for resolving border tensions between Russian and its ex-Soviet neighbor.

But he added that America stands ready with a 'united, swift and severe' response if Moscow invades. 'This is a critical moment,' he said.

There are fears that a complete failure of diplomacy could spark a Russian attack and the most-serious East-West confrontation since the Cold War.

Lavrov stressed ahead of the talks that Moscow is expecting a 'concrete' response to its security demands, including that Ukraine be banned from joining NATO.

Moscow also wants the 'withdrawal of foreign forces, hardware and arms' from countries that were not NATO members before 1997, including Bulgaria and Romania.

'(Our) proposals are extremely concrete and we await equally concrete answers,' Lavrov said.

Blinken responded that he is ready to share some 'concrete ideas to address some of the concerns that you have raised, as well as the deep concerns that many of us have about Russia's actions'.

'We don't expect to resolve our differences here today,' he added. 'But I do hope and expect that we can test whether the path of diplomacy, of dialogue remains open.

'We're committed to walking that path, to resolving our differences peacefully and I hope to test that proposition.'

He added that he will also be discussing the case of two US citizens - Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed - who are detained in Russia on charges of spying and endangering the lives of police, asking that they be freed.

Russia convicted Whelan - who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports - of spying in June 2020 and sentenced him to 16 years in jail. He denied the charge and said he was set up in a sting operation.

Reed was sentenced to nine years in jail after being found guilty of endangering the lives of two policemen in Moscow while drunk on a visit in 2019. He denied the charges.

The Geneva talks come a day after Blinken was in Berlin to meet with NATO allies Germany, Britain and France to drum up support for pressuring Russia, particularly from Germany which has until now taken a softer line.

Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, said after the talks that her country is willing to harm its economic interests to retaliate against Russian aggression - seemingly a reference to the not-yet-operational Nord Stream 2 gas pipe that Moscow wants to open.

But in Germany Friday, it was revealed that Chancellor Olaf Scholz - whose SPD party has historically been close to Russia - refused to take a last-minute meeting with Joe Biden to discuss the situation in eastern Europe.

Scholz did not accept the invitation due to a full schedule, including a trip to Madrid, Der Spiegel reported.

Blinken's insistence on a 'severe' response came a day after Biden drew widespread criticism for saying retaliation would depend on the details - and that a 'minor incursion' could prompt discord among Western allies.

On Thursday, Biden cautioned that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would 'pay a heavy price' for such an action.

'I've been absolutely clear with President Putin,' Biden said. 'He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.'

Asked whether Russia was intimidated by Ukraine, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on arriving for the talks on a cold and blustery day in Geneva: 'We're not afraid of anyone, even not of the U.S.'

In Moscow, the Kremlin reacted coolly to a parliament initiative to recognize two pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent states, saying it was important to avoid steps that could increase tensions.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it was important not to try and score political points in such a fragile situation.

Russian sappers are pictured taking part in mine-clearing exercises in the Voronezh region, which is close to the border with Ukraine

Russia sappers take part in drills to practice mine-clearing in Voronezh, close to Ukraine

A Russian rocket artillery vehicle takes part in live-fire drills in the Voronezh region

Rockets explode during live-fire drills in the Voronezh region, near the border with Ukraine

Moscow has for weeks been massing tens of thousands of troops, tanks and artillery pieces along its eastern flank, sparking fears of an invasion, though the Kremlin has insisted it is merely a defence force (pictured, Russian forces currently massed in border regions)

Scholz and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson shared a phone call on Thursday evening, putting out a statement today that warned Russia would pay a 'considerable and serious price' if it invades Ukraine.

The two leaders agreed that 'further military aggression by Russia against Ukraine must be averted' and there would be consequences if the situation were to escalate, the German chancellery said.

Even while rejecting the core Russian demands, the Biden administration has said it is willing to speak to Moscow about its security concerns.

One proposal by the United States is to revive restrictions on missiles in Europe that had been set by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War deal trashed by former president Donald Trump's administration as it accused Moscow of violations.

The Biden administration has also offered more transparency on military exercises. Russia has not rejected the proposals but says that its core concern is Ukraine.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, speaking in Australia amid talks on the new AUKUS submarine pact, today warned Putin to 'desist and step back' from Ukraine before making 'a massive strategic mistake'.

'Invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and conflict in Chechnya,' she said.

'We need everyone to step up. Together with our allies, we will continue to stand with and urge Russia to de-escalate and engage in meaningful discussions. What happens in eastern Europe matters for the world.'

Moscow insists it has no plans to invade but has at the same time laid down a series of demands - including a ban on Ukraine joining NATO - in exchange for de-escalation.

Washington has rejected Moscow's demands as 'non-starters' and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg this week insisted that the alliance 'will not compromise on core principles such as the right for each nation to choose its own path'.

Upping the ante, Russia announced new naval drills that will see it deploy to the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and Mediterranean 'more than 140 warships and support vessels, more than 60 aircraft, 1,000 pieces of military equipment, and about 10,000 servicemen'.

The announcement followed an angry condemnation from the Kremlin of what it described as 'destabilising' remarks from US President Joe Biden, after the American leader vowed a 'severe' response to any invasion of Ukraine.

Russia already held joint military drills Wednesday with forces of ex-Soviet republic Belarus, which also neighbours Ukraine.

A US official said the exercises could presage a permanent Russian military presence involving both conventional and nuclear forces in Belarus.

The West has repeatedly warned Russia it would pay a 'high price' of economic and political sanctions should it invade Ukraine.

Hours before Blinken arrived in Berlin to coordinate the possible response to Russia, Biden sparked controversy as he appeared to indicate that a 'minor incursion' might prompt a smaller reaction from NATO allies.

'It's one thing if it's a minor incursion, and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera,' he said.

Blinken in Berlin clarified the comments, saying that 'if any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border and commit new acts of aggression against Ukraine, that will be met with a swift, severe response from the United States and our allies and partners.'

A Ukrainian soldier sits inside a trench along the frontline where government forces have been fighting against Russian-backed rebels for years

Ukrainian troops move through a trench network close to the frontlines with Russian-backed rebel forces in the east of the country

Russian S-400 anti-aircraft batteries are moved to the frontlines with Ukraine as Putin continues to mass his troops

S-400 anti-aircraft batteries are loaded on to transports to be taken to the frontlines

Speaking to the German television channel ZDF on Thursday, Blinken added that any crossing of the border into Ukraine by Russian soldiers would constitute a very clear aggression, irrespective of whether it was a single soldier of a thousand, according to a German translation of his remarks.

Biden also took pains to calm frazzled nerves, saying that any entry of Russian troops into Ukraine will be treated by the West as 'an invasion'.

But smarting from Biden's Wednesday remark, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit back that there was no such thing as 'minor incursions'.

'We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,' Zelensky wrote on Twitter.

The West's diplomatic machine has been running on full power over recent weeks to defuse tensions, but with positions entrenched on both sides, a series of talks between Western and Russian officials in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna has failed to yield any breakthrough.

NATO allies have signaled their willingness to keep talking but Moscow has demanded a written response on its proposals for security guarantees.

On the Russian wish list are measures that would limit military activities in the former Warsaw Pact and ex-Soviet countries that joined NATO after the Cold War.

But in Kyiv on Wednesday, Blinken said he would not present such a formal response at Friday's talks with Lavrov in Geneva. Rather it was on Russia to dispel fears of any expansionist intentions.

Ukraine has been fighting Moscow-backed forces in two breakaway eastern regions since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

More than 13,000 people have been killed, and the latest Russian troop build-up has also greatly rattled neighbours in the Baltics.

Washington said Thursday it has approved requests from the Baltic nations to ship US-made weapons to Ukraine.

Britain has also said it would send defensive weapons to Ukraine as part of a package to help the country secure its borders.

In a speech in Sydney Friday, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will warn Russian President Vladimir Putin against making a strategic blunder and becoming embroiled in a 'terrible quagmire' if Russia invades Ukraine, according to prepared remarks.
A bilingual volunteer police officer who was sacked for using the word 'pikey' in a WhatsApp message to a colleague lost an appeal against his dismissal today.

Former chief special officer Tom Haye was dismissed by Hampshire Constabulary in February 2021 after he was found guilty of gross misconduct after sending the message.

The Hampshire Constabulary officer had been chatting to a colleague who was house-sitting for him in May 2018 whilst he was in America when he sent a WhatsApp reading: 'Keep the pikeys out'.

Mr Haye, who was the most senior Special officer in the force and in charge of more than 100 Specials, also claimed he was rushed at the time.

The veteran officer was fired for gross misconduct after he used the term, which is considered derogatory towards Romany Gypsies and members of the Irish Traveller community.

He said because he is a bilingual national of the Netherlands he had tried to use an English version of the word 'pikken', meaning steal in Dutch, and meant no offence.

Chief Special Officer Tom Haye (pictured) was fired for gross misconduct after he used the slur 'pikeys', which is considered derogatory towards Romany Gypsies and members of the Irish Traveller community

Origins of the word 'pikey' - which may have been used as early as the 1500s The word 'pikey' is believed to have been used as early as the 16th century. But it was not seen in print until 1837, when The Times used it to describe strangers who visited the Isle of Sheppey. The actual origins of the word are unclear. It could be connected to the word 'turnpike'. These were toll roads, which had rotating barriers made of sharp poles called pikes - and vagrants were known to gather in these areas in the 18th century. An alternative version of the word is 'piker', which is said to have come from the verb 'to pike' - which once meant to run away. Now, the word is used as an insulting term towards gipsies and the travelling community - who have claimed in recent years that it is the equivalent of calling a black person the n-word. It is also used in the modern day as a term to insult someone of apparent low class. Advertisement

Mr Haye, who also works in IT, had blamed his use of the word on the fact he was bilingual and 'didn't properly think' about the word's context in English. He argued that he meant to refer to 'thieves as pikeys, not travellers'.

Edmund Gritt, representing Mr Haye, said he had given 'thousands of hours' of unpaid work by volunteering as a special officer for some 30 years.

Rachel Crasnow QC, chairwoman of the Police Appeals Tribunal, told the remote hearing that Mr Haye had sent the message in 2018 after 'he and others had been victims of rural crimes'.

She said: 'The appellant accepted he sent the message but argued it amounted to misconduct only.'

He had launched an appeal against the decision today and argued he should not have been sacked as he 'does not have a racist mindset' and was in a rush when he sent the message.

Announcing her decision, Ms Crasnow said: 'The appeal will fail. We have reached the view that we are not entitled to interfere with the chief constable's decision.

'This is because the chief constable reached a reasonable decision taking into account that this was a single incident.

'She didn't hear evidence from the appellant that his use of language was a slip or accident nor did she hear submissions about whether the appellant had a racist mindset.'

Charles Apthorp, representing the force, said: 'The use of this type of language is utterly inappropriate and casts a very long shadow over the reputation of Hampshire Constabulary.'

He added that to allow Mr Haye to continue in his role would 'send a message that it's acceptable in a senior level of management to use racist language in Hampshire Constabulary'.

Edmund Gritt, representing Mr Haye, argued that his client should not have been dismissed unless it had been proven that the use of the word was not just an 'aberration' and that he actually had a 'racist mindset'.

Chief Special Officer Tom Haye (right) with the then Home Secretary Theresa May when she visited the University in Portsmouth in 2016

Mr Gritt said that Mr Haye's use of the word had not been 'deliberate', but had been 'reckless and unconscious'.

He said: 'If he has a racist mindset the public would demand dismissal whether he was a chief officer or a special constable.

'But if they know the fact that this is only a one-off aberration of a man who doesn't have a racist mindset, a single use of the word and there is nothing concerning about his mindset, then the public would not expect dismissal and they must be concerned that dismissal is an unnecessary and harsh outcome.'

He added: 'He is not looking to overturn dismissal for paid office, that is not why he is here, he is seeking to overturn dismissal to retain the privilege he has of serving the people of Hampshire and nationally as well, to do so as a volunteer, to give his own free time.'

The hearing was told that Mr Haye had argued that he accepted that the use of the word could be interpreted as 'discriminatory but not racist'.

Mr Haye's lawyer, Edmund Gritt, argued the previous misconduct hearing took the 'wrong approach' to the case.

Mr Gritt said the dismissal of Hampshire Police's most senior special officer for a 'one-off slip' was 'unnecessary' because there is no evidence he has racist views.

The senior Hampshire Constabulary officer had been in a WhatsApp conversation with a colleague who was housesitting for him (File image)

He said: 'This is a man who has had 30 years of voluntary service for the police and there has been a slip on a single occasion. He used a word he should not have used, but that slip is not one that so damages his position that dismissal is a reasonable outcome.

'In speech, we can all make mistakes and slips and use a word we would not customarily use. Does that shine a light to suggest that there are concerns that particular groups would be treated any less fairly by that officer? That is the question.

Who are special constables and what do they do? Special constables are volunteer police who have the same police powers and equipment as regular Police Officers. The special officers take on the role on a voluntary basis and will often have other day jobs which they fit around their police duties. Officers will not get paid for their work but are reimbursed for any expenses. In order to become a special constable you must be a British, Commonwealth, European Economic Area (EEA) citizen, not have a criminal record and have resided in the UK for a continuous period of three years. You are also required to reach certain medical and fitness standards. Advertisement

'If [Mr Haye] has a racist mindset he should be dismissed.

'But if [the public] know that this is a one-off from a man who does not have a racist mindset or racist views, then the public would not expect dismissal and might be concerned that dismissal is an unnecessary outcome.'

Haye, who was the most senior Special officer in the force and in charge of more than 100 Specials, also claimed he was rushed at the time of sending the message.

Mr Gritt explained Mr Haye was in the American capital of Washington DC when he sent the WhatsApp message, and was frantically 'packing' a hire car in preparation of a four-hour journey to North Carolina.

Mr Gritt added: 'He [Mr Haye] was picking up a rental car at the airport for a four-hour trip to North Carolina.

'Speaking in the previous tribunal hearing, Mr Haye said: 'I was chucking bags in the car and wanted to get the text out that it was ok for [my colleague] to stay at my house. It was very quick'.

'We will be aware of the instant, rapid speed at which messages are sent - it is not quite the spoken word but it is getting closer to that.'

Mr Haye said: 'I would like to apologise for any offence given by this term.

'I am a bilingual Dutch national and, in haste, I used the term as a direct substitute for the Dutch word to steal  'pikken'  without properly thinking through its derogatory meaning in English. I refute I meant it in any pejorative manner.

'At the time, there had been burglaries near where I lived. My friend was housesitting while I was away to deter any thieves and this was the context for the conversation.

'[The decision to dismiss me] is disproportionate to what I did, especially in relation to other much more serious recent offences in Hampshire where police officers were not dismissed.

'Finally, I take comfort in the fact my friends and family know I am in no way prejudiced against anyone.'
Of the worst affected areas, 18 were in London because of Covid absences at 38 delivery office

Service is suffering staffing crisis with up to 15,00

Service is suffering staffing crisis with up to 15,00

Royal Mail deliveries to more than 250,000 homes have been disrupted

A staff sickness crisis at the Royal Mail has hit deliveries for more than 250,000 homes across the country.

During one week in January it was reported that up to 15,000 employees - nine per cent of the workforce - were off sick, severely impacting on the postal service.

There are around 56 worst-hit areas, 18 of which are in London. This is due to 38 delivery offices struggling to cope with what Royal Mail said were Covid-related absences and 'other local factors'.

The delays to deliveries of letters and parcels could see the Royal Mail face a fine of more than 1million from regulator Ofcom over failing to meet delivery targets.

Staff absence related to Covid at dozens of Royal Mail delivery offices across the country has resulted in delays to post for more than 250,000 homes

It comes as 1,300 people in Dulwich, south-east London signed a petition over what they called 'a failing postal service'.

'For years, residents of SE22; East Dulwich, Dulwich Village and parts of Peckham Rye have suffered with a failing postal service,' the petition reads.

'This has led to many suffering with lost prescriptions, lost documentation, lost banking details, fraud and stress.

'Royal Mail has been failing to provide even a basic level of service in beleaguered SE22 and the surrounding areas.

'We just want to get our mail on time without waiting weeks between deliveries.'

The Royal Mail addressed the delay on its website, confirming signficant issues as South Midlands Mail Centre and detailing postcodes in Swindon, Muswell Hill and Manchester among others where customers were worst affected.

Undelivered letters have been piling up due to Covid staff shortages at the Royal Mail  which has affected more than 34 postcode areas.

Undelivered letters have been piling up due to Covid staff shortages at the Royal Mail  which has affected more than 34 postcode areas

Delays in postal services over the New Year's and Christmas period have carried over into early January as the Royal Mail updated customers on impacted offices on Wednesday.

'I'm still waiting for a letter from my dad which he posted two weeks ago,' said one south-east London resident, according to the Standard.

'I spoke to the postman today who said that letters are piled up in the depot but they just haven't been able to deliver them.'

Susan Oakey in Eccles, Greater Manchester, told ITV News she was left waiting for an important medical letter for more than three weeks.

'It was horrendous - a lot of documents we knew were supposed to be coming didnt come. The post has been delayed - delayed for a long time...'

Royal Mail has been under increasing pressure in recent years as customers switch from posting letters to sending parcels as online orders soared while shops were forced to close or people stayed off high streets.

Undelivered letters have been piling up due to Covid staff shortages at the Royal Mail  which has affected more than 34 postcode areas. Pictured: A postie in Balham, south London

In 2020, the company delivered 496m parcels during the last three months of the year, 30 per cent higher than the same period in 2019.

Staffing sickness are also stretching the company's ability to fulfil its universal service obligation, which requires Royal Mail to deliver letters six days a week and parcels five days a week to every address in the UK, at a standard price.

Postal services regulator Ofcom is 'closely monitoring' Royal Mail's performance to ensure targets are met, otherwise it could face hefty fines.

'We know how important a reliable postal service is to customers, and we can take action if Royal Mail fails to meet the annual targets we set for its performance,' an Ofcom spokesperson said.

'As the regulator for Royal Mail, were concerned about these delays and have made it clear to Royal Mail that it must take steps to improve its performance as the effects of the pandemic subside.'

Royal Mail must deliver at least 93 per cent of first-class post across the UK within one working day of collection, and 98.5 per cent of second-class post within three working days across the year.

In 2020, the company was fined 1.5milllion for missing its 2018/19 delivery target.

A Royal Mail spokesperson told the BBC: 'We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week.

'In a small number of local offices this may temporarily not be possible due to local issues such as Covid-related self-isolation, higher-than-usual levels of sickness absence, resourcing or other local factors.

'We are providing targeted support to the local offices affected by these issues.'
A prominent member of the Austrian royal family said she is 'saddened' that she feels she has no option but to demand her ex-Labour party fundraising husband be sent to jail for breaching court orders.

Princess Marie-Therese Elizabeth von Hohenberg Bailey claims her ex-husband Anthony Bailey, 52, has committed contempt of court.

Solicitor Julian Ribet, who represents 49-year-old Ms Hohenberg Bailey, said litigation began five years ago.

He explained: 'She is saddened that it has been necessary to bring these proceedings but has been left with no option.'

Ms Hohenberg is the great granddaughter of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination triggered World War I.

The 49-year-old applied for an in-person hearing which will be heard at the Family Division of the High Court in London later this month. Mr Bailey's lawyers argue he should not have to attend in person.

Judges have already heard how the pair are embroiled in a bitter battle over their shared millions.

London's Central Family Court previously ruled Ms Bailey was eligible to walk away with more than 2million after the couple's split.

A High Court judge ruled on Thursday that Mr Bailey, a former PR consultant who raised millions for Tony Blair's Labour Party, must return to London to physically attend the committal hearing.

Anthony Bailey (left) has been embroiled in a fight over money with his ex-wife Austrian princess Marie-Therese Hohenberg Bailey (right) who has accused him of being in contempt of court and said he should be committed to prison

The couple married in 2007 during a grand ceremony in front of 600 guests at the Abbey of St Peter's in Salzburg, followed by a reception at Salzburg Festival Hall, in a wedding (pictured) which reportedly cost 1million

Ms Hohenberg Bailey has accused her ex-husband Mr Bailey of breached orders made as a result of their prior litigation. Mr Bailey disputes all of the allegations made against him.

The pair had one son together, who was named after Ms Hohenberg's grandfather Maximilian, the son of Franz Ferdinand.

Mr Bailey, who said he is now living abroad, told Mr Justice Cohen that he is suffering from ill-health and asked if he could attend via video-link.

Mr Justice Cohen, who oversaw a preliminary hearing in London, ruled against him.

The couple married in 2007 during a grand ceremony in front of 600 guests at the Abbey of St Peter's in Salzburg, followed by a reception at Salzburg Festival Hall, in a wedding which reportedly cost 1million.

Austrian Royalty: The House of Hohenberg The Ducal House of Hohenberg is an Austrian noble family, descended from Countess Sophie Chotek who in 1900 married Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The House of Hohenberg was established by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria when upon the couple's marriage in 1900, he made Franz Ferdinand's wife Princess of Hohenberg with the style of Serene Highness, and the specification that this name and title should also be borne by her descendants. In the event, which is widely accepted to have sparked the outbreak of World War One, Archduke Franz Ferdinand - the nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire - was shot dead along with his Serbian wife, Sophie, on June 28, 1914. The couple had three children - Sophie, Maximillian and Ernst. Advertisement

The Ducal House of Hohenberg is an Austrian noble family, descended from Countess Sophie Chotek who in 1900 married Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Lawyers representing Mr Bailey on Thursday told Mr Justice Cohen that he was in Portugal and should not have to physically attend that hearing.

They told Mr Justice Cohen, who was overseeing a preliminary hearing in London, that Mr Bailey could attend via remote link.

Ms Hohenberg Bailey says Mr Bailey should attend.

Detail of the case emerged at a hearing last year.

The maximum punishment for being found to have committed contempt of court is a prison sentence for up to two years, a fine of 2,500, or both.

A one-time Tory supporter, Mr Bailey helped raise funds for both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and donated 50,000 to David Miliband's run for the Labour leadership.

Ms Hohenberg Bailey had run up around 800,000 in legal bills, Justice Holman was told at an earlier hearing.

Mr Justice Holman added: 'I am very sympathetic to the situation of the wife here. She has got her order from the court and all she wants is her money.'

Lawyers representing Mr Bailey asked Mr Justice Holman to bar reporters from naming him in reports of the hearing, but Mr Justice Holman refused their application.

He said the hearing was being staged in public, in line with rules governing contempt applications, and Mr Bailey and his ex-wife could be named in reports of the case.

Mr Bailey, a former pizza parlour worker turned PR guru, was a one-time Tory supporter before he helped raise funds for both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and donated 50,000 to David Miliband's run for the Labour leadership

Ms Hohenberg Bailey is the great granddaughter of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination sparked the First World War. With Mr Bailey she had a son who was named after her grandfather Maximilian, the son of Franz Ferdinand

Mr Bailey, a former pizza parlour worker turned public relations guru, donated 50,000 to Mr Miliband in 2010, five years after Labour's then treasurer, Lord Levy, rejected Mr Bailey's money over fears he was acting on behalf of businessmen from abroad.

Mr Bailey went on to start his own firm, Eligo International, which counts foreign banks and international statesmen on its books, offering them a 'discreet' service.

He has also worked with BAE, the arms manufacturer, which had its relationship with Saudi Arabia scrutinised by the Serious Fraud Office.

Mr Bailey was given an OBE for his 'interfaith' services in 2008 and counts Prince Charles as a friend. He was also close to the late Pope, John Paul II and is a devout Catholic.
A mother-of-one died from complications of 3,000 gastric bypass surgery she had in Turkey, a coroner has ruled.

Khelisyah Ashamu, 26, was a Romford IT professional who died in Ekol Hospital, Izmir, on February 9 2019, East London Coroner's court heard. The mother-of-one decided to have the surgery less than one year after giving birth to her son Cairo and he was just 11 months old when she died, the inquest heard.

Ms Ashamu had two surgeries-the first was for a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass on February 2, 2019, which separates the upper part from the lower part of the stomach. The upper part is then attached to the small intestine, bypassing the lower part of the stomach, decreasing the appetite of the patient.

Her second surgery on February 3 was to make adjustments to her gastric bypass after a routine scan of her abdomen. Thirty minutes after Ms Ashamu's second operation, she suffered a cardiac arrest, the court heard.

She was placed into a medically induced coma on February 3. Ms Ashamu was pronounced dead on February 9, after she was taken off life support.

The surgery was performed by Dr Ismail Aman, after Ms Ashamu booked the operation through Get Slim, a Turkish-based weight-loss surgery booking service which is owned by two British nationals.

The 26-year-old, who wanted to lose weight after having her son, had chosen to get surgery in Turkey as it was cheap. Patients are sometimes left waiting for weight-loss surgery for up to seven years on the NHS or have to pay 12,000 for private operations.

Khelisyah Ashamu, 26, (pictured) was a Romford IT professional who died in Ekol Hospital, Izmir, on February 9 2019

Ms Ashamu's father Oyebanji Ashamu told the inquest in a statement that he had tried to warn her about having the procedure so soon after birth. Mr Ashamu said: 'I was against her having the surgery. Her baby was not yet one-year-old.'

But she told her father that the weight-loss surgery was cheap and lots of people were going to Turkey to have the procedure done.

Her father said: 'I asked her to look after her son. I was not comfortable with it at all. She told me not to worry and that all of her friends were going.

'All of her friends came back, she was the only one who did not come back.'

Tracey Ozdemir, Get Slim co-owner, addressed the inquest, saying she set up the company after she had weight-loss surgery herself.

She told the court that Get Slim is a booking service which connects British and Irish travellers with surgeons that are willing to perform weight loss operations in Turkey.

The majority of Ms Ozdemir and her co-owner's customers opt for gastric sleeves but Ms Ashamu chose to have a gastric bypass operation instead. Addressing the inquest, she said that a gastric bypass has a life-changing impact on the patient.

Get Slim does not require patients to share their medical records from their GPs, the inquest heard.

Ms Ozdemir said that instead those having weight-loss procedures in Turkey are required to have full medical consultations there.

She said in Turkey the surgeon goes through their full medical history with them but this relies on patients telling the truth.

The 26-year-old's surgeon, Dr Aman, addressed the court via video link from Turkey.

Dr Aman said he had performed 4,000 bariatric surgeries in the past five years but only one in 100 of them were gastric bypasses. The doctor had advised Ms Ashamu to have a gastric sleeve operation as the surgery was quicker and safer but she refused.

Instead she asked Dr Aman for a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. When asked why Ms Ashamu wanted the bypass surgery instead of a gastric sleeve, he said: 'She told us that she had done the research and with a bypass she will not gain weight.'

The 26-year-old (pictured) who wanted to lose weight after having her son, had chosen to get surgery in Turkey as it was cheaper

The surgery, which can lead to long-term side effects such as B12 and iron defiencies, had a mortality risk of between one to two-and-a-half in a thousand.

He said: 'The usual complications are bleeding, pulmonary embolism, and anaesthetic complications.'

In her conclusion, coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said the cause of the cardiac arrest suffered by Ms Ashamu remained unclear. However, she concluded that she died as a result of complications arising from a surgical procedure.

In a statement after the inquest, Ms Ashamu's parents said: 'We never imagined when we saw Khelisyah travel to Turkey, for what we thought was a routine operation, that we would never see her alive again.

'She was an amazing young woman, with a great career, a young son and everything to live for. Three years on, it's still hard to accept she will never walk through the door or her son who she loved so much will not have a chance to know his wonderful mum.

'Our grandson is a living reminder of his mum, which brings us so much comfort, but it's devastating that he will not remember his mum because he was only 11 months old when she left and never came back. We have to tell him how much his mum loved him. She would be so proud to see how he has changed from a small baby to a fine young boy.

'Having to go through the inquest was awful, but necessary to investigate what happened. We will continue to work with our lawyers to try and get to the truth of how our beautiful daughter died.

'It's hard not to think things could have been so different and we can only hope that others will think twice before booking surgical procedures abroad.'
Former MLB pitcher Sergio Mitre was sentenced on Thursday to 50 years in prison by a Mexican court after he raped and murdered his 19 year-old girlfriend's toddler daughter.

A court in the northeastern state of Coahuila found Mitre guilty Wednesday for the July 12, 2020 femicide of the 22 month-old child, who is only identified as Ines by authorities. He was also ordered to pay $66,429 in restitution damages.

An autopsy previously presented by the Coahuila State Office of the Attorney General showed that Ines' had been sexually assaulted, and that her death was the result of hypovolemic shock that caused her renal artery to bleed out.

According to prosecutors, Mitre, who was born in LA, assaulted the daughter of his then 19-year-old girlfriend, Liliana Ines, at his home in the Coahuila municipality of Saltillo the day before the child tragically passed away.

The beating and sex attack on Ines was allegedly sparked by Mitre's unwillingness support Liliana Ines wishes to proceed with her pregnancy. Liliana Ines told the court during the trial that the former major leaguer 'wanted to force me to abort when I was four months pregnant.' It's unknown if she carried the child she was pregnant with to full-term.

Prosecutors say Mitre proceeded to punch a defenseless Ines in her lower back on July 11 after an argument between him and the toddler's mother.

A Coahuila, Mexico, court sentenced former major leaguer Sergio Mitre to 50 years Thursday for the July 2020 murder of his girlfriend's one-year-old daughter

Liliana Ines (right) with daughter Ines (left), who died July 7, 2020, a day after she was beaten by former MLB pitcher, Sergio Mitre, who as the time of the crime was her boyfriend

Liliana Ines rushed Ines to the Saltillo Children's Hospital after the child started vomiting and fainting, but doctors declared her dead several hours after she had been admitted.

Mitre, who spent much of his youth in Tijuana, was taken into custody the day after Ines' death, and attempted to cover up the crime by telling investigators that Ines had fallen down a flight of stairs. He was charged with femicide and the improper abuse of a minor a week after his arrest.

Liliana Ines was arrested August 26 and charged with femicide, but she was cleared of any wrongdoing October 8, 2021.

During the trial, Miltre sought to clear himself from the murder charges during the closing arguments Wedneday by telling the court that Liliana Ines was responsible for her daughter's death by bringing up her domestic violence past.

'I had the confidence to open my door to protect her from the violence she was already suffering,' Mitre said. 'I am disappointed because throughout this week it has not been shown that I hit the girl and on the other hand they did not take into account that the girl had Liliana's fist marked and it is me they are judging.'

The Los Angeles native was also arrested September 2019 in connection to a domestic dispute with a woman identified as Jazmin at a hotel in Saltillo, but charges were later dropped after he paid a fine.

Surveillance footage of the incident showed a naked Jazmin running out of room towards the elevator area before Mitre chased her down as a man looked on. Mitre escorted Jazmin down the hallway and pushed her back into their room.

Mitre played eight season in the majors with the Chicago Cubs, Florida Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and New York Yankees, for whom he last pitched in 2011.
Liz Truss blasted China over its 'economic coercion' of Australia today as she said Beijing's bullying was a 'wake-up call' to other countries.

The Foreign Secretary used a visit Down Under to lash out at the communist state over its actions towards the Commonwealth country.

China - which had been Australia's top trading partner - introduced tariffs and other trade actions against the country on barley, wine, beef, seafood and coal exports when the relationship between the two nations soured in 2020.

Speaking in Sydney today, Ms Truss said the UK and Australia were determined to act together in 'calling out China' when it blocks products from Lithuania or imposes 'punitive tariffs on Australian barley and wine'.

'The situation with Australia - the economic coercion we saw - was one of the wake-up calls as to exactly what China was doing and the way it was using its economic might to try to exert control over over other countries,' she said.

The Foreign Secretary used a visit Down Under to lash out at the communist state over its actions towards the Commonwealth country.

China - which had been Australia's top trading partner - introduced tariffs and other trade actions against the country on barley, wine, beef, seafood and coal exports when the relationship between the two nations soured in 2020.

Ms Truss with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne at Admiralty House in Sydney

'I think there was a belief in the past that as China got wealthier, it was headed on a path towards becoming a freer, more democratic society. The reality is that hasn't happened.

'In the late 90s, the Chinese economy was a 10th the size of the United States economy. We're now in a situation with a China with a much bigger economy (that's) much more able to coerce other nations.

'And as I've said, we've looked to Australia as we formulate some of our policies around how we deal with these issues.'

She added: 'It is estimated that 44 low-to-middle income countries have debts to Beijing in excess of 10 per cent of their GDP. We're responding on all of these fronts, and we're strengthening our supply chains by taking our economic ties with like-minded nations to new heights.

'We took a huge step forward by signing our free trade agreement with Australia in December. This is a world-class deal that will remove all of the tariffs on goods, both ways.

'It's going to be easier for our people to live and work in each other's countries, particularly those under 35. And we're building on this by working with Australia to join the Trans Pacific Partnership, reinforcing reliability of supply through one of the largest free trade areas on Earth.

'We're also working together to provide low and middle-income countries with honest and reliable alternative sources of investment.'

Ms Truss also said Vladimir Putin must 'desist and step back' from war in Ukraine or risk being dragged into a prolonged conflict like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In a message to the Russian president, the Foreign Secretary said say the UK and its allies 'continue to stand with Ukraine'.

She urged Mr Putin to engage in 'meaningful discussions' about the crisis following the build-up of Russian forces near the border with Ukraine.

Her comments came after US President Joe Biden said he believes Mr Putin does not want a full-scale war and warned the Russian leader would pay a 'dear price' if he launches a military incursion.

Ms Truss predicted that an invasion could lead to Russia being drawn into a prolonged and bloody conflict.
Earlier this month, others gathered in Badr Governorate, southwest of the city of Medina, to experience snow

Saudi Arabians flocked to Jabal al-Lawz, otherwise known as Almond Mountain, in the northwestern region of Tabuk, as snow covered the area

now and ice covered the dunes after temperatures dropped below freezing, prompting locals to enjoy the weather and have snowball fights

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Deserts in Saudi Arabia have been blanketed in snow and ice following an extremely rare 'historical hailstorm'.

Snow and ice covered the dunes after temperatures dropped below freezing, prompting locals to enjoy the weather and have snowball fights.

Saudi Arabians flocked to Jabal al-Lawz, otherwise known as Almond Mountain, in the northwestern region of Tabuk, as snow covered the area.

Each year, people head to the 8464ft (2580 metre) mountain when snow falls and set up tents and picnics to experience the cold weather.

Deserts in Saudi Arabia have been blanketed in snow and ice following an extremely rare 'historical hailstorm'. Pictured: People gather in Badr Governorate, southwest of the city of Medina on January 11

People gather in Badr Governorate, southwest of the city of Medina on January 11. Long queues of cars could be seen (right)

Saudi Arabians flocked to Jabal al-Lawz, otherwise known as Almond Mountain, in the northwestern region of Tabuk, as snow covered the area on January 17

Recent snowfall and hailstorms in the region has meant the the usually golden coloured dunes are now covered with white snow.

Saudi Arabians gathered in Jabal al-Lawz on Monday, with some melting snow to make coffee as they enjoyed their picnics, while others had snowball fights.

Earlier this month, Saudi photographer Osama Al-Habri captured aerial footage of people gathering in Badr Governorate, southwest of the city of Medina on January 11, to experience the unusual sight.

Cars could be seen queueing along the roads, as hundreds gathered in the region.

Al-Harbi told CNN that a 'historic hailstorm' has prompted the desert to be blanketed in thick snow and ice.

The photographer told the news outlet that the area was filled with visitors who had travelled for miles to see the icy landscape.

Saudis melt snow for coffee in Jabal al-Lawz (Mountain of Almonds), west of the Saudi city of Tabuk on January 17

Saudis play in the snow in Jabal al-Lawz (Mountain of Almonds), west of the Saudi city of Tabuk on January 17

Earlier this month, Saudi photographer Osama Al-Habri captured aerial footage of people gathering in Badr Governorate, southwest of the city of Medina on January 11, to experience the unusual sight. Al-Harbi told CNN that a 'historic hailstorm' has prompted the desert to be blanketed in thick snow and ice

Saudis visit the snow covered Jabal al-Lawz (Mountain of Almonds), west of the Saudi city of Tabuk on January 17

Last year in January, locals and foreigners alike flocked to the desert in the Aseer region of Saudi Arabia to enjoy the snowfall.

While snowfall in the desert is rare, it is not impossible. High pressure systems of cold air can move over land to the deserts, causing lower temperatures.

Such anticyclones tend to reach Saudi Arabia by moving clockwise out from Central Asia, picking up moisture en route which cools to form snow.

SNOW falls in the SAHARA: Ice blankets the dunes in rare desert phenomenon after temperatures plummeted overnight

By Jack Newman for MailOnline

Snow has settled on the sand of the Sahara Desert after temperatures dropped below freezing.

Ice blanketed the dune in the rare phenomenon in the largest desert in the world, where temperatures of 136.4F (58C) have been recorded.

Photographer Karim Bouchetata captured stunning images of the snow and ice in the town of Ain Sefra in northwestern Algeria yesterday.

Snow has fallen on the sand in the Sahara Desert after temperatures dropped below freezing overnight, creating stunning landscapes

Ice blanketed the dune in the unusual phenomenon in the largest hot desert in the world, where temperatures of 58C have been recorded

Photographer Karim Bouchetata took pictures of the snow and ice in the town of Ain Sefra in northwestern Algeria yesterday

Overnight, the mercury in the Algerian town is currently plummeting to -2C (28F).

The ice created stunning patterns in the sand after the area saw a sprinkling of snow fall unexpectedly.

The dusting of snow is the fifth time in 42 years that the town has seen snow, with previous occurrences in 1979, 2016, 2018 and 2021.

Ain Sefra - known as The Gateway to the Desert - is around 3,000ft above sea level and surrounded by the Atlas Mountains.

Overnight, the mercury in the Algerian town is currently plummeting to -2C (28F) as snow continues to be dumped on the dunes

The ice created stunning patterns in the sand after the area saw a sprinkling of snow fall unexpectedly

The dusting of snow is the fifth time in 42 years that the town has seen snow, with previous occurrences in 1979, 2016, 2018 and 2021

Ain Sefra - known as The Gateway to the Desert - is around 3,000ft above sea level and surrounded by the Atlas Mountains

The Sahara Desert covers most of Northern Africa and it has gone through shifts in temperature and moisture over the past few hundred thousand years.

Although the Sahara is very dry today, it is expected to become green again in about 15,000 years.

Last year, camels were seen surrounded by snow as North Africa was gripped by extreme temperatures in the summer and winter months.

Last January also saw snow blanket the Saharan dunes (pictured) in the region which has only seen snow five times in 42 years

Sheep were seen standing on the ice-covered dunes in the Algerian Sahara in January 2021 as temperatures dipped below zero

Residents of Saudi Arabia expressed joy and excitement over the rare snowfall in the country's Aseer region last year
The Government is seeking advice on tightening controls on a deadly opioid that is 500 times stronger than morphine.

Isotonitazene, a synthetic opioid that is used instead of or in addition to heroin, has been linked to 25 deaths and seven overdoses up to September 2021, the Home Office said.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) for advice on the appropriate classification of Isotonitazene under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) for advice on the appropriate classification of Isotonitazene

She also wants advice on two other substances - CUMYL-PeGACLONE, a synthetic cannabinoid, and Diphenidine, which can have ketamine-like effects.

The three substances are currently covered by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, which means that supply, but not possession, is unlawful.

She said: 'Reports of fatal overdoses linked to this dangerous substance have been deeply disturbing, and I want to act now to ensure no further lives are lost or families torn apart.

Isotonitazene, a synthetic opioid that is used instead of or in addition to heroin, has been linked to 25 deaths and seven overdoses up to September 2021

'I'm determined to end the misery and destruction caused by the misuse of drugs and will consider the ACMD's expert advice on tightening restrictions on this dangerous substance.'

In October last year, the National Crime Agency said it was targeting drug networks that mix Isotonitazene into batches of heroin brought to Britain from Afghanistan.

It came after Public Health England issued a patient safety alert in August, warning of an 'unprecedented' number of overdoses potentially caused by heroin mixed with Isotonitazene.
A pensioner has died after swallowing his set of false teeth during a mugging.

The bizarre incident has been linked to a blow the OAP suffered after he was hit in the face outside a library in the Colombian city of Medellin.

After punching him, the mugger demanded a phone 71-year-old Gabriel de Jesus Pulgarin Bolivar had just bought.

Local reports said the pensioner was seen raising his hands to his throat as he sat on a bench before being given a glass of water to drink by a Good Samaritan who saw he was in difficulties.

Incidents where someone swallows their dentures are very rare and has been linked to injuries, impacts, falls and food

Police were alerted and the victim managed to explain what had happened before his condition worsened.

He was rushed to a health centre in the neighbourhood known as Doce de Octubre - October 12 in English - but medics there were unable to save his life.

Police chief Jose Galindo confirmed to local press a suspect was in custody over the assault around 9am local time on Tuesday.

The results of an autopsy have yet to be made public but are thought to have confirmed the OAP died after his false teeth obstructed his airway.

Incidents where someone swallows their dentures are said to be very rare. The swallowing of false teeth has been linked to injuries, impacts, falls and food.

RCN Radio, one of the main radio networks in Colombia was among national media which reported on the death.

The bizarre incident took place in the city of Medellin, Colombia, capital of the Antioquia department and the only city in Colombia with a metro system

It said: An elderly man choked to death after swallowing his dentures from the shock of being mugged for his phone in one of the streets of the October 12 neighbourhood in north-west Medellin."

Another local newspaper said the mugger had dislodged the OAP's dentures when he hit him in the face.








North Korea launches what it claims to be a hypersonic missile, Jan. 11, in this photo provided by the North Korean government. AP-Yonhap





The United States and Japan reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula Thursday, urging North Korea to quickly return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).







The countries also urged all U.N. member countries to fully implement U.N. Security Council sanctions on the North.







"We are strongly committed to the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of all of North Korea's nuclear weapons, other weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles of all ranges, as well as related programs and facilities, in accordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs)," the countries said in a joint statement.







"We urge North Korea to abide by all relevant UNSCRs and return at an early date to and fully comply with the NPT and IAEA safeguards. We call on the entire international community to fully implement these relevant UNSCRs," they added.







The joint statement comes after Pyongyang hinted at the resumption of its nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missile testing.







The North said Thursday (KST) it was considering resuming "temporarily-suspended activities" that it noted were suspended as part of efforts to build trust with the U.S.







North Korea maintained a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear weapons and long-range missile testing since November 2017. However, the country has staged more than 10 short-range missiles launches since Joe Biden took office in 2021, including four this year.







On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council was set to discuss additional sanctions on North Korea proposed by the U.S. for its latest missile tests, but reports said the move was delayed by China, one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council.







The reports said the delay could last up to six months and can also be extended by another three months, which could permanently remove the U.S. proposal for additional sanctions from U.N. Security Council deliberations.







The U.S. and Japan reiterated the importance of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, from which North Korea withdrew in 2003.







"Japan and the United States wholly reaffirm their commitment to the NPT, which has been the cornerstone of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament for 51 years since coming into force," the countries said, adding the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki serve as "stark reminders that the 76-year record of non-use of nuclear weapons must be maintained."







The joint statement also came a day before Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will hold a virtual summit, the first of its kind since Kishida took office in October.







North Korea has remained unresponsive to U.S. overtures since Biden took office. It has also stayed away from denuclearization talks with the U.S. since late 2019. (Yonhap)


A California senator late yesterday proposed a bill that would allow children aged 12 and up to get vaccinated without parental consent.

San Francisco Democrat Scott Wiener argued for the change because the state of California already allows teens over 12 to consent to the Hepatitis B and HPV vaccines, and to treatment for sexually transmitted infections, substance abuse and mental health disorders.

But Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher hit out at Weiner's 'flawed policy' arguing that 'parents are vital' in child immunisation decisions.

'This to me seems to be another example of Democrats wanting to remove parents from the equation,' Gallagher said, adding that thinks Wiener may have difficulty even in a Legislature overwhelmingly controlled by his own party.

Alabama allows such decisions at age 14, Oregon at 15, Rhode Island and South Carolina at 16, according to Wiener. Only Washington, D.C., has a lower limit, at age 11.

Wiener's bill would lift the parental requirement for that age group for any vaccine that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - including Covid-19 vaccines.

Children age 5 and up are currently eligible for coronavirus vaccines, but 28.6 per cent of those in California ages 12-17 remain unvaccinated  more than 900,000 of an eligible population of more than 3 million, or more than one in four, Wiener said.

A California senator late yesterday proposed a bill that would allow children aged 12 and up to get vaccinated without parental consent (pictured, a nurse gives a Covid vaccine in Los Angeles on January 19, 2022)

The state of California already allows teens over 12 to consent to the Hepatitis B and HPV vaccines, and to treatment for sexually transmitted infections, substance abuse and mental health disorders

Democrat Scott Wiener (left) argued for the change because the state of California already allows teens over 12 to consent to the Hepatitis B and HPV vaccines, among other treatments. But Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher (right) hit out at Weiner's 'flawed policy' arguing that 'parents are vital' in child immunisation decisions

Speaking late yesterday, Weiner said: 'Giving young people the autonomy to receive life-saving vaccines, regardless of their parents' beliefs or work schedules, is essential for their physical and mental health,

'It's unconscionable for teens to be blocked from the vaccine because a parent either refuses or cannot take their child to a vaccination site.'

Wiener said vaccine hesitancy and misinformation has also deterred vaccinations against measles and other contagious diseases that can then spread among youths whose parents won't agree to have them vaccinated.

California Governor Gavin Newsom in October announced the nation's first coronavirus vaccine mandate for schoolchildren.

But it likely won't take effect until later this year and allows exemptions for medical reasons, religious and personal beliefs  though lawmakers may try to limit non-medical reasons.

Wiener's legislation is permissive, not a mandate, but any vaccination legislation has been hugely controversial in California and elsewhere.

Even before the pandemic, busloads of opponents filled the Capital and lined up for hours to protest bills lifting religious and personal beliefs for the 10 vaccines already required of school children.

And in September, more than a thousand people rallied outside the state Capitol to oppose vaccine mandates, even though lawmakers had postponed their consideration of legislation requiring that workers either be vaccinated or get weekly coronavirus testing to keep their jobs.



'This to me seems to be another example of Democrats wanting to remove parents from the equation,' said Republican Assemblyman James Gallagher. 'I think that's flawed policy. I think parents are vital to these decisions.'

However, he thinks Wiener may have difficulty even in a Legislature overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats.

'I think there will be bipartisan support for the proposition that parents should be involved in their kids' health care decisions, in deciding what types of medical care and drugs they should be taking,' Gallagher said.

On Wednesday, Wiener and other Democratic lawmakers announced that they have formed a 'work group' to examine ways to promote vaccines and fight misinformation.

Members include Sen. Richard Pan, a pediatrician who authored previous vaccine legislation; Sen. Josh Newman; and Assembly members Dr. Akilah Weber, Buffy Wicks, Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, and Evan Low.

Wiener, joined by Pan, planned a news conference about his SB866 Friday alongside San Francisco's public health director, Dr. Grant Colfax, and several school children.

Wiener held out the examples of children who may want to get vaccinated because they currently are barred from participating in sports, band or other activities because their parents either won't or can't get them vaccinated.

He said those 12 and up can also consent to abortions in California, though in that case lawmakers in 1987 passed a law that would have required minors to get their parents' consent absent a medical emergency or a judge's permission. But that law was overturned by the state Supreme Court.
A 24-year-old mother was found bludgeoned to death in her bathtub, and her daughter, 4, beaten unconscious in her bed nearly 12 hours after a 911 call was placed from her phone last Saturday - and the boyfriend of a friend who used her as a fake 'cover story' so she could go on a night out has been arrested.

The body of Mackenzie Hopkins was found submerged in a bathtub at her home in Kansas City, Missouri, just before 6pm on January 15 with blunt force trauma injuries to her face and head.

Her father found her body after requesting a welfare check, according to a press release from Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.

Hopkins' daughter, whose name was withheld, was found lying on her own bed suffering from severe head trauma. She remains hospitalized in critical condition.

Jose Escalante-Corchado, 28 - the boyfriend of a friend who used her as a cover story so that she could go on a night out the evening before - has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond.

Police said that a 911 call was placed from Hopkins' phone around 6am that morning where the operator could hear people arguing, although no one spoke. It's not clear whether police were dispatched to her home.

Bloody shoe prints found throughout the home were traced to a specific brand of cowboy boots owned by Escalante-Corchado and his van was seen in on surveillance footage near Hopkins' home around the time of her murder.

Mackenzie Hopkins, 24, was found bludgeoned to death in the bathtub at her Kanas City, Missouri home, and her daughter, 4, was found beaten unconscious in her bed nearly 12 hours after a 911 call was placed from the mom's phone last week. A friend's boyfriend has been arrested in her murder

Jose Escalante-Corchado, 28 - the boyfriend of a friend who used her as a cover story so that she could go on a night out the evening before - has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond

DailyMail.com obtained a police report that states that around 6am on Saturday morning, a 911 call - referred to as a disturbance in the documents - was placed from Hopkins' phone where the operator heard 'parties fighting.' Police would not confirm whether or not officers responded to the early morning call.

When officers arrived for the welfare check 12 hours later, Hopkins' father attempted to use a key to open the front door, and it swung open to a grisly scene.

'There were several spots on the floor inside the main floor of the residence where large amounts of blood had pooled and there were apparent drag marks in blood where it appeared the victim had been moved,' the police affidavit stated. 'In different locations there were shoe impressions in blood.'

Bloody shoe prints throughout the house were later determined by police to be the print of a specific brand and style of cowboy boot made by 'ARIAT.'

The next day, detectives met with one of the victim's friends and while there, they saw a pair of cowboy boots which which matched the brand and style of the bloody prints at Hopkins home, according to the affidavit.

When detectives asked the friend about the boots, the friend stated that the boots belonged to her boyfriend, Escalante-Corchado. The friend's name is redacted from the affidavit.

The friend also told police that she had told Escalante-Corchado that she was visiting Hopkins the night before her murder, but said that it was a cover story so that she could go out.

Police responded to a 911 call for a welfare check at Hopkins home in Kansas City where they found a grisly scene. Pictured: A police cordon outside the home

A day after Hopkins' body was found, her friend told police that she had told her boyfriend, Escalante-Corchado, that she was visiting Hopkins (pictured) the night before her murder, but said that it was a cover story so that she could go out

Hopkins' 4-year-old daughter (pictured with her mom) was found lying on her own bed suffering from severe head trauma. She remains hospitalized in critical condition

Detectives also discovered Escalante-Corchado's truck was in the area of the crime scene on the day of the murder. Witnesses told detectives that a person matching his description was seen coming and going from the home and spent about two hours in the area.

Surveillance video obtained by police showed a man matching his description running from the victim's home, then getting into a white truck that is seen pulling into a gas station moments later.

He told detectives that it was him at the gas station. He also acknowledged that he knew Hopkins and her daughter.

Escalante-Corchado has denied any involvement in the murder of Hopkins and the assault of her daughter, but has no reasonable explanation for being in the area of the victim's house in his truck for over two hours, according to the affidavit.

Hopkins' family is devastated by the tragedy, her aunt says, 'I don't think anybody wants to believe these things can happen, especially to somebody and affecting somebody you know'

Hopkins' sister-in-law, Shawna Hopkins, has set up a GoFundMe to help with funeral and medical expenses and says, 'all we can hope is we get to hold and love on her daughter for her and on her behalf to the best of our ability'

Hopkins' devastated family said they are shocked by the tragedy.

'It's just shocking to everybody. I don't think anybody wants to believe these things can happen, especially to somebody and affecting somebody you know,' Michelle Bishop, Hopkins' aunt, told FOX4.

Her sister-in-law, Shawna Hopkins has set up a GoFundMe to help with funeral and medical expenses.

'It's something I could never imagine. It hurts as her sister. It hurts as her friend. She was one of the most positive forces in my life,' Shawna Hopkins told FOX4. 'Nothing can make this right, but justice must be served.'

Escalante-Corchado is charged with first-degree murder, assault, two counts of armed criminal action and endangering the welfare of a child. He is currently being held at the Wyandotte County Jail on no bond.

'Nothing makes this right,' Shawn Hopkins said. 'All we can hope is we get to hold and love on her daughter for her and on her behalf to the best of our ability.'
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert asked a group of Jewish tourists visiting a congressman at the Capitol on Thursday if they were there to do 'reconnaissance.'

A rabbi in the group told BuzzFeed News that Boebert, of Colorado, looked at the group 'from head to toe' before making the remark, as he noted that some of them were wearing yarmulkes and had traditional Orthodox beards.

'When I heard that, I actually turned to the person standing next to me and asked, ''Did you just hear that,''' the rabbi said.

Boebert, who is no stranger to making controversial remarks, told BuzzFeed that she was joking and referencing the accusations she faced over leading late-night tours of the Capitol weeks before the January 6 riot.

'I saw a large group and made a joke,' she said, adding: 'Sadly when Democrats see the same they demonize my family for a year straight.'

'I'm too short to see anyone's yarmulkes.'

The rabbi and other Jewish visitors came to the Capitol as part of a meeting with Rep. Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, to commemorate the 41st anniversary of the end of the Iran hostage crisis.

US Rep. Lauren Boebert asked Jewish tourists at the Capitol on Thursday if they were there for 'reconnaissance.'

Boebert claimed she was just joking about the accusations Democrats made of her holding late night tours at the Capitol weeks before the January 6 riot. Here, Boebert's son and mother are pictured with a Capitol Police officer on December 12, 2020

Suozzi, who is proposing to recognize the hostages of the incident with a Congressional Gold Medal, condemned Boebert for her comments.

'The bottom line is that everyone, especially members of Congress, have to be very, very thoughtful in the language they use,' he said in a statement about the incident.

'Because when you're a member of Congress, you have an important role to play in society. You can't be cavalier in the comments you make especially if they could be perceived as being anti-Semitic, or discriminatory.'

The rabbi added that the Jewish community is on alert following the events last week in Texas where an armed British terrorist held four people hostage at a synagogue as he demanded the US free the anti-Semitic terrorist known as Lady Al Qaeda.

'You know, I'm not sure to be offended or not,' the rabbi told BuzzFeed. 'I was very confused.'

Boebert had been accused of holding after-hours tours of Capitol on December 12, 2020, after pictures of her family at tour sites surfaced.

Boebert's son, Tyler, then 15, posted a photo of himself in the Brumidi Corridors on a Saturday night, when the Capitol complex is closed. The tour included the staircase in the Senate's empty Brumidi Corridors, Senate Room S-127 and the Senate briefing room.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal requested the Ethics Committee investigate Boebert along with Republican Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Paul Gosar of Arizona, who he accused of 'instigating and aiding' the deadly Capitol riot.

The Ethics Committee declined to investigate the claims, and Boebert called the story 'false.'

Boebert's son, pictured here in the Brumidi Corridors in a December 12, 2020 Instagram post, received the tour the tour three weeks before Jan. 6 on a Saturday night, when the Capitol complex is closed

The tour included the staircase in the Senates empty Brumidi Corridors, Senate Room S-127 and the Senate briefing room, where Boebert's son is pictured above

In November, Boebert also stirred up controversy by calling Rep. Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, a member of the 'jihad squad,' likening her to an Islamic terrorist.

Boebert made suicide bomber jokes about the Muslim Democrat and asked if Omar should register as a 'foreign agent.'

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said in December that he wouldn't take any action against Boebert.

'I think when somebody does something that is wrong they apologize. Lauren Boebert apologized publicly and then picked up the phone - it took a lot of effort, she wanted to meet personally, denied the ability to meet personally - she picked up the phone and she called Congresswoman Omar, she said I want to personally apologize, and that's what she did,' McCarthy said.

McCarthy claimed that Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar (left) was apologized to by Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert. Boebert initially put out an apologetic tweet, but then took back her apology while on the phone with Omar

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday that she was disappointed Democratic leadership didn't schedule a vote to remove Rep. Lauren Boebert from her committees, after the Colorado Republican made several Islamophobic jokes at the expense of Rep. Ilhan Omar

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, had called on her own leadership to go after Boebert, with the Republicans refusing to do anything to punish the Colorado Republican.

'It's embarrassing that there is any hesitation on this. How can we have different consequences for different kinds of bigotry or incitement?' the New York Democrat asked. 'This should be treated equally and consistently. Incite against a member and you're stripped. End of story.'

She continued, 'It's a pretty simple question: does the House accept violent Islamophobia or not?'

Ocasio-Cortez also accused Boebert of tweeting out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's location during the January 6 Capitol attack.
CBD  the trendy cannabis-derived supplement  may help fight off a Covid infection, a lab study suggests.

A team of researchers from the University of Chicago found it was able to neutralise the virus and prevent it from multiplying.

The study was done in mice and in human lung cells  so the scientists say there are no guarantees it will work in the real world.

But they are calling for human clinical trials to explore cannabidiol's potential anti-Covid properties.

Throughout the pandemic, a number of medications have showed promise in lab studies but have had mixed success in real world trials, including malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

The Chicago team also used medical-grade CBD and warned people against self-medicating with off-the-shelf products, which are often low purity.

They found exposing human lung cells to CBD for two hours before Covid greatly inhibited the virus's ability to replicate for up to six hours.

A team of researchers found CBD. a compound found in cannabis, was able to slash the ability of Covid to replicate in human cells. In this chart the effectiveness of various compounds found in cannabis is plotted by the percentage of Covid spike proteins found in sampled cells. The further right on the graph the point is the higher the concentration, and the lower, the less virus spike proteins were found in the cells. Of particular note is a combination of CBD and THC, which is the psychoactive part of cannabis, actually reduced the effectiveness compared to pure CBD

The researchers also tested CBD's effectiveness against a number of Covid variants and proved to work against all those tested. Variants tested included the original strain (black), the Beta variant (orange), Alpha (blue), and gamma (green)

CBD oil is a trendy cannabis-derived supplement that may have anti-Covid properties according to a new study but the researchers have high-street CBD products are unlikely to have any affect

What is CBD oil? Cannabidiol (CBD) is a chemical found in cannabis that has medical benefits. It can be prescribed by the NHS for a small list of conditions, including severe epilepsy, vomiting caused by chemotherapy and multiple sclerosis. The NHS version cannot get you high, because it doesn't contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the chemical in cannabis that has that effect. But the health service warns that most of the cannabis-based products that can be bought online will be illegal and may contain THC. And health shops selling CBD products only contain very small amounts of the chemical, so it is unclear what effect it has. The risks of using cannabis products containing THC include psychosis and drug dependency. Its side effects include reduced appetite, diarrhoea and feeling sick. Advertisement

The team then replicated their findings in two other types of human cells and tested the original Wuhan version of the virus, as well as the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Covid variants.

The new Omicron variant, which has been responsible for a surge in Covid cases in both the UK and the US, was not tested in the study. Neither was the Delta version of the virus.

Lead author of the study, Professor Marsha Rosner, said the result was completely unexpected.

'We just wanted to know if CBD would affect the immune system,' she said.'

'No one in their right mind would have ever thought that it blocked viral replication, but thats what it did.'

The researchers, who published their findings in Science Advances, originally set out to explore if CBD's anti-inflammatory properties could help people recover from the aftermath of Covid infection before they found the surprising result.

Further tests on mice found pretreating the rodents with CBD one week prior to exposure to Covid suppressed infection in both the lungs and nasal passages of the animals.

Professor Rosner said: 'These results provide major support for a clinical trial of CBD in humans.'

She added that, if proven effective, she would envision CBD forming a prophylactic treatment for Covid, something a person would take if they had been exposed to the virus in an attempt to reduce the chances of becoming ill.

Inspired to explore further, the team also found that people taking CBD medication designed to help prevent epilepsy had less chance of catching Covid than the rest of population.

Analysing real-word data taken from a national US survey, they found a cohort of 1,200 patients taking an oral CBD medication for epilepsy had less chance of catching Covid compared to their non-medicated equivalents.

However the authors have insisted that CBD does not take the replace vaccination as the 'first line of defence' against Covid and have urged the public to keep following the advice of public health authorities.



Lead author of the study Professor Marsha Rosner, said the team now want to conduct human trials to test CBD effectiveness against Covid in the real world

Professor Rosner added that the observed effect in the studies was only for high purity CBD, generally only available as a prescribed medication.

'Going to your corner bakery and buying some CBD muffins or gummy bears probably wont do anything,' she said.

In a further blow to anyone thinking of smoking marijuana in an attempt to fight off Covid, the team also found THC, the part of the cannabis plant which has psychoactive properties, actually reduced CBD's effectiveness against the virus.

Professor Rosner said the team was excited about the potential of CBD to help against the Covid pandemic, but added more research needed to be done.

CBD is product which has been championed by the health conscious and studies have shown it can help reduce anxiety and relieve pain.

However, CBD product some manufacturers have come under fire for claiming the cannabis compound is a panacea that can help cure diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.
Disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh now faces 74 criminal charges after being hit with four new indictments accusing him of stealing another $2.6 million, bringing the total amount he's accused of swindling to nearly $8.8 million.

Murdaugh, 53, has been slapped with 23 new charges issued by the state grand jury from four new victims who were reportedly swindled by the wealthy scion in similar schemes, including the family of a deaf quadriplegic.

The new indictments extend Murdaugh's crimes back more than a decade to 2011, about four years before he was accused of opening two fraudulent accounts with Bank of America in 2015.

As part of his plan, Murdaugh would negotiate settlement money for his clients without telling them what they earned and then deposit the checks meant to pay for their pain and suffering, or the anguish of the death of a loved one, into his own personal accounts to pay off loans or debts in ways prosecutors have not yet fully detailed.

Prosecutors say Murdaugh used money orders given to an unnamed family member to get his hands on the cash.

Murdaugh has been in jail since October for the ever-growing list of breach of trust, forgery, money laundering and computer crime charges.

A judge set his bail at $7 million and refused to reduce it, even as Murdaugh's lawyer argued his bank accounts were seized in civil lawsuits and he could barely afford to buy underwear at the Richland County jail.

Friday's indictments include charges for Murdaugh's handling of the aftermath of a wreck that caused a deaf man to end up quadriplegic.

Alex Murdaugh, 53, is facing 23 new criminal charges after being hit with four new indictments from clients who claimed they swindled him out of $2.6 million

Murdaugh began grabbing national attention after his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, were killed at a shooting in the family's home in June 2021

In one of the indictments, the family of deaf quadriplegic Hakeem Pinckney, pictured, was defrauded of $398,714.90 that Murdaugh allegedly used for his own personal benefit

Murdaugh took a $309,000 check he was supposed to give to Hakeem Pinckney's family and instead bought money orders that went to cover money he took from the accounts of other clients, to pay down a loan and get cash for himself and an unnamed family member, according to the indictment.

Then when Pinckney died in a nursing home from the lingering effects of his injuries, Murdaugh got an additional $89,000 settlement on Pinckney's behalf, but deposited that check in his account without ever telling the man's family, prosecutors said.

The lawyer for the Pinckney family said the transactions are complex and hard to follow and even more money may have been stolen. Prosecutors have suggested at Murdaugh's bond hearing that they still haven't gotten to the bottom of his shady practices.

Pinckney was black, and most of the people Murdaugh stole from were like him - minorities and not well off, family attorney Justin Bamberg said.

'Alex gave them just enough money so they would drop on their knees and say "thank you, Jesus" and took the rest,' Bamberg said.

Alex Murdaugh, 53, now faces 74 charges

Bamberg said Murdaugh's longtime law firm - which fired him after learning he was stealing money, his banker friends and other professionals who Murdaugh used as personal representatives for hurt victims and grieving families or who played other roles in helping his schemes go on for so long should face consequences, too, because even if they aren't criminally responsible. They should have asked questions, he said.

'We are coming for your pockets. We're going to get all the money these people were supposed to get,' Bamberg said.

Another new indictment from Natasha Thomas states that Murdaugh allegedly made an effort to defraud her of $350,245.08 starting in 2011 and used the funds for a money order payable to a family member and the Palmetto State Bank in Hampton.

Thomas was Pinckney's cousin and was in the passenger seat of his vehicle at the time of the crash that had left him paralyzed. Murdaugh had previously represented them both in a 2010 lawsuit against the tire company.

The third indictment details how starting in 2013, Murdaugh allegedly collected 14 settlement checks totaling more than $1.3 million for Arthur Badger whose wife died in a wreck and stole all the money for himself.

Murdaugh allegedly used the money and make it payable to one of his family members, a business associate, and 'into a conservator's account for a different person from which Murdaugh had previously been allowed to borrow money.'

A fourth indictment from Deon Martin detailed how Murdaugh allegedly defrauded him of $200,000 in addition to the $338,056.14 investment that was meant to be used for his injuries as well as an additional $45,000 for his settlement.

Murdaugh deposited the checks into the fake bank account which he used for personal reasons, prosecutors say.

Maggie and Alex Murdaugh with their son Paul (center) and surviving son Buster (left)

Alex Murdaugh was shot in the head and injured on September 4, 2021, while he had car trouble on a road in Hampton County, South Carolina

Murdaugh's professional career began to unravel after his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, were killed in a shooting at the family's home in June.

Murdaugh's lawyers have adamantly said he had nothing to do with it and repeatedly said they hope investigators are working as hard to find their killers as they are untangling Alex Murdaugh's finances.

He also faces accusations of attempting to arrange his own death after he allegedly ordered his former client Curtis Smith to shoot him in the head so his son could collect a $10 million life insurance policy.

Murdaugh is the fourth generation of a prominent legal family in tiny Hampton County. His great-grandfather, grandfather and father were all elected prosecutors and his family helped run the biggest law firm in the county for a century.

His other victims have ranged from family friends and a state trooper, to an immigrant living in the country illegally and a person injured in a car crash, prosecutors have said.

In June 2016, prosecutors allege that 'while relying on his prestige and reputation as a lawyer,' Murdaugh reportedly told one of his clients, Johnny Bush, that he allocated $100,00 of his settlement money on 'accident reconstruction' for his case.

However, an indictment obtained by DailyMail.com shows that Murdaugh transferred $95,000 to his fraudulent bank account for his personal gain.

'Murdaugh had created this bank account for the purpose of misappropriating funds belonging to others with the illusion that the money was being paid 'to a legitimate business, the indictment read, noting the lawyer used the money stolen from his clients to pay for his own credit card bills, cash, and checks to associates.

Two months later, Murdaugh allegedly rerouted a $90,000 trust account check that 'was supposed to be compensated to Jamian Risher for his injuries' into his secret bank account.

Another indictment reads that Murdaugh had another of his clients, Randy Drawdy, 'sign a settlement disbursement form which reflected the withholding of $8,819.30 for medical bills and $750.00 for private investigator services' in November 2017.

But instead of using Drawdy's settlement fees to pay the other clients he had stolen from, Murdaugh allegedly put the $9,569.30 into his fake bank account.

Nine months later, in August 2018, prosecutors allegedly found records of Murdaugh stealing $85,000 from Jordan Jinks, portrayed as a 'longtime friend of the family who had come to Murdaugh for help.'

Murdaugh allegedly told Jinks he needed to hold the settlement proceeds to 'satisfy a medical insurance lien', according to the Daily Beast. The indictment reads that two months later, Murdaugh then sent a $65,000 check to his personal, hidden bank account.

Prosecutors further allege Murdaugh stealing $112,500 in April 2019 from the personal representative for the estate of Blondell Gary for his own gain.

Nine months later, between February and July 2020, Murdaugh scammed another client who came to him for help. In time, Murdaugh moved a $750,000 check meant for the client and his injuries to his fraudulent account, according to the indictment.

Between November and December 2020, prosecutors claim Murdaugh assured a client representing the estate of Sandra Taylor that 'the total wrongful death recovery would only be $30,000' and that he was not even going to charge a fee because the recovery was so 'low.'

However, the indictment alleges, Murdaugh managed to recoup 'over $180,000' in the wrongful death settlementbefore eventually wiring more than $150,000 to his fraudulent bank account.

Murdaugh's lawyers have tried several times to get his bail reduced. An attempt to get the state Supreme Court involved earlier this month also failed.

Murdaugh previously told Judge Lee he was in 'the throes of withdrawal' from an opioid addiction when he arranged to have himself shot on September 4, and also apologized for swindling $4.3 million from the relatives of his housekeeper.

'I understand there may be concern I may be a danger to myself,' Murdaugh told the court at the bail hearing.

'I made a terrible decision that I regret and frankly I'm embarrassed about. I'm not in that place now.'

Through his lawyers, Murdaugh gave a statement to the court in which he confessed to taking $4.3 million from the family of his housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, which was meant as settlement funds in a wrongful death case.

The disgraced lawyer diverted millions of dollars to a fake bank account from a wrongful-death settlement meant for the sons of the back-then family housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield

Murdaugh said he tried to arrange his own death while he was in 'the throes of withdrawal' from a 20-year opioid addiction.

He added that he was grieving over the loss of his murdered wife and son.

Murdaugh said that while in treatment for his addiction he had realized the severity of his actions and now suffered 'crushing' humiliation.

He said he was 98 days free of drug addiction and wants to take responsibility for what he has done.

'I want to deal with these charges appropriately and head-on,' he added, according to Count on 2.

'I want to repair the damage I have done. I want to repeat as many relationships as I can.'

Murdaugh also faces several lawsuits, all related to allegations concerning his plans to influence an investigation in a 2019 boat incident, when his now-deceased son Paul murdered 19-year-old Mallory Beach.

He faces further claims of stealing millions from his former law firm PMPED, which fired him earlier this year when the scandal began to snowball.

His law license has been suspended since his arrest in September after state agents said he tried to arrange his own death so his surviving son could collect a $10 million life insurance policy.
A university student who described himself as a 'sex god' was convicted today of raping two other under-graduates and sexually assaulting another one.

Charles Goodwin, a mixed martial arts fighter, who told the court he was a 'a hopeless romantic' was told by a judge to expect 'a lengthy period of imprisonment'.

The 21-year-old business management student was found guilty of three charges of rape and one charge of assault by penetration against one student in Manchester and one charge of raping a student in Liverpool.

The jury also convicted him of two offences of sexually assaulting a third student in Liverpool but cleared him of a sexual assault on a fourth student, also in Liverpool.

The attack on the first victim involved him holding her down by the throat and he was found guilty of attempting to choke her and assaulting her.

Charles Goodwin (pictured), a mixed martial arts fighter, who described himself in the trial as 'a hopeless romantic' was told by a judge to expect 'a lengthy period of imprisonment'.

The court heard that he had told her she deserved to be 'treated like a princess' and picked her and carried her - before going on to violently attack her in her own home.

He had faced three charges of rape against the second victim - to whom he had said he was 'a sex god' when she complained he had hurt her - but was cleared of two of those charges.

Goodwin, of Hilbre Street, Liverpool city centre but formerly of Salford, showed no reaction when the jury returned their unanimous verdicts after just over six hours deliberations.

But his father and grandfather, who stood in the public gallery as the verdicts were returned, afterwards shouted out at the seven men and five women jurors.

'Shame on this court, disgusting,' said his dad.

Goodwin's granddad shouted, 'A young man's life has been totally scotched and ruined.

'How can you believe someones lies to the court? It is really no way to deal with these offences.'

The 21-year-old business management student was found guilty of seven different charges in total, including rape, assault by penetration and sexually assault

During his 13 day trial Liverpool Crown Court heard how he had been on police bail after the first attack but went on to commit the other attacks.

Judge David Swinnerton told Goodwin, 'I am going to order a pre-sentence report to be prepared by probation to include the extent to which you present a danger to women and the outcome of that may affect sentence.

'Please prepare yourself for a lengthy period of imprisonment,' he added. He further remanded him in custody to await sentence next month.

The offences of which he was convicted took place between January 15 and September 30, 2020.

Matthew Curtis, prosecuting, had told the jury, 'The prosecution say the defendant did not care whether the complainants consented or not. In short, he got what he wanted with no care for them or the immediate consequences of his actions.'

Goodwin, who had a girlfriend at the time, admitted having sexual activity with all four women but maintained they had all consented and denied all 12 charges.

He said the choking of the first victim, aged 19, had also been consensual and admitted calling her offensive mysogonistic names as it 'turned him on.'

During his evidence he described himself as a combination of 'a hopeless romantic and Charlie big bollocks. It is the way my personality worked.'
A caravan of about 800 migrants was intercepted en route to the United States border shortly after leaving a southern Mexican city.

Migrants from Central America, Haiti, Venezuela, and other countries walked closed to 10 miles through the darkness in the southern city of Tapachula in the state of Chiapas and were intercepted around 5 am local time by the National Guard and agents with the National Institute of Migration.

The immigration agency said that its agents and the National Guard first encountered 281 migrants on a stretch of a highway between Tapachula and the village of Alvaro Obregon.

Authorities then stopped a second group of 38 people transiting through the same area before more migrants were stopped from advancing north, with the total number apprehended in the region of 800.

The migrants were loaded into buses and taken to an immigration facility.

Migrants protested on Thursday in the streets of Tapachula, a city in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas, and denounced the government's attempts to contain then in the south, across from Guatemala but far away from U.S. southwestern border region

A Mexican immigration agent holds a migrant child early Friday in the southern city of Tapachula where security forces stopped a caravan of 800 people from advancing north to the United States border

As many as 800 migrants were stopped from advancing from Tapachula, Mexico, to the U.S. border early Friday

The large group formed following a day of demonstrations Thursday over what migrants perceive as the Mexican governments attempts to contain then in the south, across from Guatemala but far away from U.S. southwestern border region.

Hundreds of migrants protested outside the local offices of immigration and asylum authorities, complaining that the process of gaining temporary legal status was too slow.

Migrants have long said that there isn't sufficient work or housing for the thousands who wait for months in Tapachula for some resolution of their status.

Immigration agents in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas instruct migrants to board vans on Friday after nearly 800 people bound for the U.S. were stopped on a highway

The majority incur debts to migrate and anything that delays them in getting paying work stresses their situation as they still have to pay rent and buy food.

Mexico has been overwhelmed with asylum requests in recent years. The Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees received 131,488 refugee petitions  including more than 51,000 from Haitians - in all of 2021.

Security forces have intercepted more than 252,000 migrants between January 2021 and November 2021. The government deported more than 100,000 individuals during the same period.

Migrants wait on line along a road in Chiapas, Mexico, after they were stopped from advancing to the U.S. border

Mexico has been overwhelmed with asylum requests in recent years. The Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees received 131,488 refugee petitions  including more than 51,000 from Haitians - in all of 2021

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol agents reported 1.7 million encounters with migrants along the southwestern border in fiscal year 2021, which spanned from October 2020 to September 2021. A total of 338,373 interdictions were registered in the first two months of the current fiscal year.

Some migrants see remaining in Mexico as a viable option while others see it just as a way to get papers that allow them to transit Mexico freely and make their way to the U.S. border.

Tapachula is also home to the largest migrant detention center in Latin America. There was no official word on how many of the migrants had been detained Friday morning.

Luis Garcia Villagran, a migrant advocate in the city, accused the immigration agency of provoking the exodus by not resolving their cases.
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A version of this piece first appeared on Michael Shellenberger

San Francisco Mayor London Breed generated national news media coverage last December when she announced a sweeping crackdown on open air drug use and drug dealing in the downtown Tenderloin neighborhood.

Shortly after, she announced a 'linkage center' aimed at connecting homeless street addicts with drug rehab facilities.

Breed's announcement came in the midst of a local, state, and national debate over whether the city should open a 'supervised drug consumption' site as a tactic for reducing drug overdose deaths.

In fact, the illicit drug consumption site has been up and running since Tuesday inside the linkage center, which is located at 1172 Market Street.

The linkage center is located in the United Nations Plaza, the city's largest open air drug market. The supervised drug consumption area is an outdoor fenced section of the linkage center.

There is an on-going national debate over the efficacy of supervised drug consumption sites, which are prohibited by state and federal laws, and a continuing local debate over whether and where to open one in San Francisco.

Mayor Breed and members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have advocated a supervised drug consumption site, and purchased two properties in the Tenderloin to serve people suffering from addiction.

But the city never approved the creation of a supervised consumption site at the linkage center and the site is in violation of state and federal laws.

We are the first to report on the operation of the illegal supervised drug consumption site at the linkage center.

The two of us witnessed a half-dozen people smoking fentanyl in an outdoor area on the site, and two people passed out at a table.

An employee of a city contractor at the linkage center told us that two people had overdosed and been revived since the site opened on Tuesday.

When confronted with evidence that the linkage center housed a drug consumption site, spokespersons for Urban Alchemy and for Mayor London Breed declined to comment.

The illicit drug consumption site (above) has been up and running since Tuesday inside the linkage center, which is located at 1172 Market Street.

The linkage center is located in the United Nations Plaza, the city's largest open air drug market. The supervised drug consumption area is an outdoor fenced section of the linkage center (shown above).

Gary McCoy (left), the Director of Public Policy and Public Affairs with city drug treatment service provider HealthRIGHT 360 and Paul Harkin (right), also of HealthRIGHT 360, were at the site.

But the linkage site, and the supervised drug site within it, are operating under the supervision of city employees and city contractors, including HealthRIGHT 360 and Urban Alchemy.

An employee of Urban Alchemy repeatedly confirmed to us that the outdoor area was a supervised 'consumption site,' but a public relations official on site denied to another reporter, Erica Sandberg, that there was a consumption site at the linkage center.

Sandberg first learned of the supervised consumption site when she visited on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 18. She visited again two days later, shortly after we arrived on site.

Sandberg said that after Dr. Deborah Borne, a Senior Physician Specialist with the Department of Public Health, discovered that Sandberg was interviewing Ronald Ahart from Urban Alchemy about the site, Borne interrupted the conversation and called over a public relations person with the city's Department of Housing and Homelessness Services.

According to Sandberg, the public relations official denied that there was a supervised consumption site at the linkage center.

'The PR people said, "No, we do not do that because it's illegal," reported Sandberg.

The Urban Alchemy employee who gave us a tour did not ask our names or if we were reporters and seemed accustomed to giving tours.

The city supervisor who represents the Tenderloin neighborhood, Matt Haney, toured the facility on Tuesday and tweeted a photo of the site saying 'They've already connected a number of people to needed services.'

The Urban Alchemy employee was about to show us a room where he said there were bunk beds and cages for pets when Kim Bowman, Assistant Deputy Director of San Francisco's Division of Emergency Services, abruptly ended our tour, explaining that they were 'limiting visits' because they couldn't spare staff, and that we could arrange a tour at a later date.

A recovering addict who lives in the Tenderloin and asked that we withhold her name told us her friend went into the linkage center to smoke crack and that when she asked an official if there was a drug consumption site inside she was told there was not.

The two of us witnessed a half-dozen people smoking fentanyl (including those pictured above) in an outdoor area on the site, and two people passed out at a table.

The consumption site is directly inside a sprawling open air drug market in the United Nations Plaza on Market Street (shown above).

When we visited on Thursday afternoon, there were hundreds of people openly dealing, smoking and injecting drugs on the plaza. A San Francisco police cruiser rolled past but did nothing.

'Well, that's just bullshit because the girl just walked up to me and she said, "You can smoke right there." She showed me through the mesh. She said, '"You see that area right there."'

We identified two senior employees of city contractors on site.

Gary McCoy, the Director of Public Policy and Public Affairs with city drug treatment service provider HealthRIGHT 360, and a recovering homeless addict himself, was at the consumption site and watched as people smoked fentanyl in front of him.

Also supervising open drug use inside the consumption site was Paul Harkin, also of HealthRIGHT 360.

McCoy is an outspoken advocate for supervised consumption sites.

On December 11 he tweeted, 'Your friendly reminder that bars are supervised consumption sites for alcohol use.'

The next day he tweeted, 'Sign our petition here to be involved in ongoing efforts in San Francisco to immediately open supervised consumption sites to save lives and connect folks to care.'

There were other officials with badges present in the consumption site while people were using drugs.

There is a large tent and tables directly in the outdoor consumption center that appear to be staffed by city employees or contractors.

The linkage center is divided from the street by a chain link fence covered with semi-transparent mesh.

The consumption site is directly inside a sprawling open air drug market in the United Nations Plaza on Market Street.

When we visited on Thursday afternoon, there were hundreds of people openly dealing, smoking and injecting drugs on the plaza. A San Francisco police cruiser rolled past but did nothing.

We witnessed multiple drug sales directly in front of the linkage center, and many people smoking fentanyl, meth, and injecting drugs.

There were at least a dozen young men within a two block radius of the linkage center who appeared to be selling drugs.

Sandberg had a similar experience to us on Tuesday.

'They were very warm and welcoming,' she said. 'I didn't even ask about drugs. The Urban Alchemy practitioner [employee] told me. He was very enthusiastic. He said, "Here's the room for the Department of Public Health, here's the room for housing."'

'Then he shows me the outside where people get their water and he said, "There is for people to use."'

'I said, "What do you mean people to use?"'

'He said, "It's a consumption site. A place for people to do drugs safely."'

Sandberg asked if there were nurses on staff and said the man said there were not.

She said she asked how to determine if someone is sleeping or has overdosed, 'Because there was a guy sleeping on the table, and he said, "Well, we try and wake them up. And if we can't wake them up, then we'll administer Narcan [which reverses overdoses]." I was shocked.'

We witnessed multiple drug sales directly in front of the linkage center, and many people smoking fentanyl, meth, and injecting drugs.

There were at least a dozen young men within a two block radius of the linkage center who appeared to be selling drugs.

On Tuesday, Mayor London Breed (above) issued a list on her web site of the services available at the linkage center; they did not include a supervised consumption site.

On Tuesday McCoy tweeted that he was, 'Having conversations with folks all day today here at the Linkage Center, talking about resources and providing basic needs, has been amazing. The rewarding part  having folks go out of their way to thank us as they leave, and saying theyll be back tomorrow for other services.

The Urban Alchemy employee told us that they took the locks off of bathroom doors to prevent addicts from barricading themselves inside.

Last November, Mayor Breed introduced legislation to allow safe drug consumption sites in San Francisco, a goal she has pursued for years.

State Supervisor Scott Weiner introduced a bill in the state legislature to legalize such sites for San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles.

New York City recently established two safe consumption sites, in East Harlem and Washington Heights. The sites are illegal under federal law, but to date the Biden administration has taken no action against them.

On Tuesday, Mayor Breed issued a list on her web site of the services available at the linkage center; they did not include a supervised consumption site.

Mary Ellen Carroll, the Executive Director of San Franciscos Department of Emergency Management, which is operating the site, did not mention the supervised consumption site in her description of the linkage centers services on Tuesday.

Carroll told the San Francisco Chronicle this week, 'We are absolutely trying to send a message that open-air drug use is not something that is going to be acceptable in the Tenderloin moving forward.'

Michael Shellenberger is the best-selling author of San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities (HarperCollins 2021), and Apocalypse Never (HarperCollins 2020)
The body of a father-of-one, which was found in woodland by two teenage girls who spotted toes sticking out of the ground as they ate a picnic, had both hands severed at the wrist, a murder trial has heard.

The remains of Tomasz Dembler, 39, were found near Flatts Lane Country Park in Normanby, North Yorkshire, on April 12 last year.

Five fellow Polish nationals - four men and one woman - are on trial at Teesside Crown Court accused of Mr Dembler's murder.

Zbigniew Pawlowski, 41, of Newport, Middlesbrough; Rafal Chmielewski, 37, of Grangetown; Tomasz Reczycki, 37, of Grove Hill, Middlesbrough; Adam Czerwinski, 45, of North Ormesby; and Monika Solerska, 37, of Grangetown, all deny murder.

The body of father-of-one Tomasz Dembler (above), which was found in woodland by two teenage girls who spotted toes sticking out of the ground as they ate a picnic, had both hands severed at the wrist, a murder trial has heard

The remains of Mr Dembler, 39, were found near Flatts Lane Country Park in Normanby, North Yorkshire, on April 12 last year. (Above, police at the scene)

Peter Makepeace QC, prosecuting, gave details of the grisly discovery as he opened the case this morning.

He said two teenage girls were playing on woodland that borders the country park when they chanced upon Mr Dembler's dead body.

As the girls sat in the woodland eating a picnic, they noticed toes sticking out of the ground and called for the police at around 3.25pm.

Mr Makepeace told the court that the body was missing both hands and claimed each hand had been severed at the wrist using a sharp instrument.

Further examination found the body had been subjected to repeated blunt force trauma.

The court heard Mr Dembler, a father-of-one, had lived in the UK for some years and had been reported as missing by friends and relatives.

Mr Makepeace said in about 2019, Mr Dembler moved to Darlington, then to Middlesbrough, and in the months prior to death his lifestyle had deteriorated.

Pictured, police at the country park. Five fellow Polish nationals - four men and one woman - are on trial at Teesside Crown Court accused of Mr Dembler's murder. Zbigniew Pawlowski, 41, of Newport, Middlesbrough; Rafal Chmielewski, 37, of Grangetown; Tomasz Reczycki, 37, of Grove Hill, Middlesbrough; Adam Czerwinski, 45, of North Ormesby; and Monika Solerska, 37, of Grangetown, all deny murder

The court heard there is evidence that he had begun drinking to excess and taking illicit drugs.

The prosecution said on or around March 14 last year, Mr Dembler moved to Mr Czerwinski's home on Edward Street, North Ormesby.

At that address, Mr Dembler met his death shortly after moving in, the prosecution claim.

The court heard that, despite his alienation from his family, Mr Dembler was active on social media sites.

Although the relationship was strained, he kept in contact with his mother in Poland several times a week.

His last message, sent at 3.18am on March 20 - just hours before his last known movements - read: 'Leave me alone.'

Mr Makepeace told how Mr Dembler was 'sofa surfing' around the time of his death and using drink and drugs. He had no settled employment or address, the court heard.

The trial was told he was friends with Mr Chmielewski and became acquainted with some of the other defendants.

The jury was also shown CCTV footage of Mr Dembler's last known movements in North Ormesby at around 9.30pm on March 21.

The trial continues.
The former accountant for Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's godson was extradited to the United States from Mexico to face drug trafficking charges.

Nahum Abraham Sicairos Montalvo was turned over by the Mexican government to U.S. federal agents at Adolfo Lopez Mateos International Airport in Toluca on Thursday.

He is accused of trafficking cocaine, heroin and crystal meth worth at least $28 million over an 11 year period, between May 2005 and August 2016.

DailyMail.com reached out to United States District Court for the Southern District of California for comment.

Sicairos Montalvo had been in custody of Mexican authorities since June 17, 2017, when he was arrested by security forces who were serving a warrant for the extradition request.

Nahum Abraham Sicairos Montalvo was turned over to the U.S., Mexico's Office of the Attorney General announced Thursday. According to U.S. prosecutors, Sicairos Montalvo administered the Sinaloa Cartel finances for a cell led by Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's godson, Damaso 'Mini Lic' Lopez-Serrano

Damaso 'Mini Lic' Lopez-Serrano is said to be the highest-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel to self-surrender to the U.S. government. He turned himself in to the DEA in July 27, 2017 on the heels of an internal power feud within the cartel following El Chapo's arrest and extradition to the U.S. He had fears that El Chapo's sons were going to murder him

His apprehension took place once after El Chapo's godson, Damaso 'Mini Lic' Lopez-Serrano turned himself over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing in Calexico on July 27 of the same year due to fears that El Chapo's son were going to murder him.

El Chapo's arrest in January 2016 triggered an internal war for control of the Sinaloa cartel, pitting two of his sons against another faction led by Mini Lic's father and 'El Chapo' lieutenant, Damaso 'El Licenciado' Lopez Nunez.

Both Lopez-Serrano and Sicairos Montalvo were initially indicted by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California by a grand jury in 2015 and accused conspiring to distribute and import methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin, and laundering money between May 2005 and August 2016.

The U.S. government zeroed in on their drug trafficking activities while federal agents were looking into a cell that distributed a 'small-scale' of narcotics in the cities of National City and Chula Vista outside San Diego.

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman is serving a life sentence in a U.S. super maximum security jail

Nahum Abraham Sicairos Montalvo is escorted by security forces in Mexico after his arrest in July 2017. The U.S. accuses him of conspiring to distribute and import methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin from May 2005 to August 2016

Over the course of the investigation, authorities were able to learn that they were not dealing with a local drug dealing network by tracing $27.8 million in proceeds, 1,397 kilos of methamphetamine, 2,214 kilograms of cocaine, 17.2 tons of marijuana and 95.84 kilograms of heroin back to the Sinaloa Cartel.

Sicairos Montalvo's first court appearance in unknown.

Lopez-Serrano, considered the highest-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel to ever self-surrender to the U.S., was convicted on January 10, 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Mexico's Office of the Attorney General's formally accused Lopez-Serrano of the murder of journalist Javier Valdez in May 2017.

Valdez, a crime reporter who co-founded Mexican weekly newspaper Rio Doce, was gunned down May 15, 2017, as he was leaving the weekly publication's office in the northwestern city of Culiacan.

Three other members of the Sinaloa cartel, identified the authorities as Juan Francisco, Heriberto and Luis Idelfonso, have been implicated in the killing.
Products from Xinjiang become hot sellers as consumers show support amid Western attacks

(Global Times) 08:56, January 21, 2022

Farmers pick megranates in Pishan County of Hotan, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Oct. 8, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)

Products from Xinjiang become hot sellers as consumers show support amid Western attacksRed socks made of cotton from China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with images of a tiger (the zodiac for 2022), delicious apples and walnuts from Aksu Prefecture, Chinese dates from Hotan Prefecture, raisins from Turpan City... Chinese people are enthusiastic about adding these products from Xinjiang to their shopping lists for the upcoming Spring Festival this year, not only to support the region's economic development but also to respond to the rampant hyping of disinformation on Xinjiang by the US and West.

The Global Times has learned from some retail groups in China and some online shops that products from China's Xinjiang have been hot sellers, especially for the Spring Festival - a traditional shopping gala for Chinese people.

Starting on December 24, 2021, supermarket chain Carrefour organized an online and on-site promotion activity for products from the Xinjiang region. With sufficient stock, products like nuts, fruits, liquor and cotton products from the region have been hot sellers, Carrefour said in response to an interview request from the Global Times.

It said that a gift box of apples from Aksu Prefecture is especially popular among consumers, with sales increasing 86 percent and sales of walnuts increasing 324 percent quarter-on-quarter.

Xinjiang is also the second-largest base for direct purchases in China, accounting for 15 percent of the total direct purchases of Carrefour, the company said.

A response from Chinese retailer Suning.com also showed the popularity of Xinjiang products. From January 1-18 and for the Spring Festival gala, the products from the Xinjiang region, including pears from Korla county of Aksu Prefecture, towels and bedding made of Xinjiang cotton have been selling fast.

For example, sales of cotton products increased 315 percent and sales of Chinese dates increased 437 percent quarter-on-quarter.

Retailers based in the Xinjiang region are also embracing a busier season this year.

Turgun, a resident from Urumqi who owns a booth inside the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar, was busy sending packages of products to many cities across China in recent days.

"Chinese dates, raisins and snacks from my booth are very popular. See the Chinese dates here in the box? I gave discounts to one of my regular consumers in Shanghai - 71 yuan ($11.2) for a kilogram. The package will depart today," Turgun said, showing packages piled up besides his booth to the Global Times during a virtual interview on Thursday.

There were also visitors to the Grand Bazaar who came to Turgun's booth and asked about the price of raisins. Turgun happily invited them to take a taste for free.

Turgun said that his business, which has not been affected by COVID-19, has improved in recent years as more people learn about Xinjiang and thanks to the convenient delivery service.

He thought that discussions centered on Xinjiang cotton in recent years and the latest controversy of Sam's Club, which was found to be removing products from Xinjiang, may help promote the popularity of Xinjiang products.

Many cities in China, including Xiamen, Hangzhou and Ningbo, have witnessed a wave of membership cancellationsof US supermarket brand Sam's Club, as Chinese consumers criticized the brand for removing products from Xinjiang following the US government's action to ban imports of all products from the region, citing "forced labor" concerns.

Similar moves have been taken by Chinese consumers in recent years as the US and the West ramped up efforts to spread disinformation about China's Xinjiang and used so-called concerns on human rights to impose sanctions.

For example, in March 2021, Chinese netizens said they will not buy from H&M after the company announced it was avoiding Xinjiang cotton. Its sales in China plummeted 28 percent in Swedish krona terms in the second quarter from the year before, per the quarterly results.

"We always do festival shopping, so why not Xinjiang products? We buy products from the Xinjiang region to show our support to the region - it's more like a message to the US and those who are hyping Xinjiang topics to attack China, that we Chinese do not fear them.

"Moreover, these Xinjiang products, especially the cotton, offer really good quality!" a netizen commented on Sina Weibo, posting pictures of apples and pears she bought from Xinjiang.

"Buy, Buy, Buy" seems to be one way for many Chinese to show their support for the Xinjiang region's development.

"In March 2021, Li Jiaqi, a top livestreamer in China, helped make 600,000 deals for Xinjiang products worth 6.54 million yuan over one night, and consumers swarmed into the livestreaming room to show their support for Xinjiang.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)




U.S. President Joe Biden holds an Infrastructure Implementation Task Force meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., Thursday. UPI-Yonhap









By Jung Da-min







The U.S. is facing major challenges in its pursuit of additional sanctions against North Korea for conducting a series of missile launches this year, as China and Russia have been vetoing the move amid growing doubts over the effectiveness of the punitive measures. According to media reports citing diplomats, Thursday (local time), China and Russia placed a "hold" on the U.S. proposal for additional U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang, ahead of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting held later that day.







China told other member countries that it needed more time to study the U.S.' proposal for such additional sanctions, while Russia said more evidence was needed to back Washington's request, diplomats said.







The U.S. had imposed unilateral sanctions over the missile launches by blacklisting six North Koreans, one Russian and a Russian firm, Jan. 12, accusing them of procuring goods from Russia and China for the North's weapons development programs.







The U.S. then sought to put five of the North Korean individuals under a U.N. travel ban and freeze their assets, which China and Russia have virtually rejected.







International relations experts said the veto from China and Russia was much anticipated considering that the two countries have been in conflict with the U.S. on many other regional issues.







But they said the U.S. does not have many other options in terms of its North Korea policy but to place additional sanctions on the North, considering that Pyongyang has not made any conciliatory gestures toward Washington, instead only heightening tensions by conducting four missile launches during the first few weeks of the new year.











Experts have also expressed mixed opinions over the effectiveness of the sanctions themselves.







Some said that the effectiveness of sanctions is questionable in terms of pushing North Korea to return to the negotiating table, when the country has long been at an intense level of economic self-isolation.







But others said the purpose of the sanctions is rather to show the international community's disapproval of the North's weapons development, having more meaning as punishments rather than as measures to actually prevent further weapons development, which many people often misunderstand.







"People misunderstand the purpose of sanctions. There is no evidence that sanctions have prevented the development of any nuclear or missile programs," said Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.







"What sanctions are intended to do is create pressure on the leadership to change its policies. Such an approach is obviously doomed with a country like North Korea, which values autarky."







The United Nations headquarters building in New York is pictured though a window with the U.N. logo in the foreground, in this Aug. 15, 2014, file photo. Reuters-Yonhap





Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, said the sanctions might not prevent North Korea from developing missiles, but they punish the North for its defiance of the U.N.







Bennett, however, said he favors the selective lifting of sanctions if North Korea begins to recognize the authority of the U.N. and follows the UNSC resolutions.







He has acknowledged the limitations of the current sanctions on North Korea when China, which can impose the most serious sanctions on the North, vetoes additional UNSC sanctions on it.







"With North Korea, we have to remember that the most severe sanction that has been implemented was the closing of the North Korean border with China, something that Kim did to his country (rather than being a sanction imposed from outside)," Bennett said.







Eric Gomez, the director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, said that imposing secondary sanctions seems to be the only effective option, when the reclusive country already went into a period of very intense economic self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.







"North Korea went into a period of very intense economic self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent virus spread. This put the economy under significant strain, plus sanctions were in effect, yet North Korea did not come to the negotiating table, which damages the theory that sanctions will force North Korea to the negotiating table via economic pressure," Gomez said.







"At this point, the only real place sanctions could go next is secondary sanctions against entities outside of North Korea."







However, Gomez pointed out that secondary sanctions are unlikely to be authorized, given the Chinese and Russian vetoes of additional U.N. sanctions at the UNSC.







He also said such secondary sanctions often involve Chinese banks related to North Korean individuals or entities, and that implementing them, accordingly, could escalate tensions between the U.S. and China, while they might not serve their original purpose of getting the North back to the negotiating table.







"The United States could sanction Chinese banks directly and cut off parts of China's economy from the U.S. banking system. This would be a big gamble to take, as it would likely make any U.S.-China cooperation on North Korea impossible, while also having a questionable chance of success, given the failure of sanctions to get Kim to the table during the period of economic self-isolation I described."







Meanwhile, the prospects of regional security are getting more complicated, following North Korea's message that it is considering resuming "all temporally-suspended activities," suggesting the possible resumption of nuclear or inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) testing.







The North's message came two days after it fired two presumed KN-24 missiles, Jan. 17, marking the country's fourth missile testing since the start of the new year. It also came just a day before the UNSC's closed-door meeting held Thursday.







In this photo provided by the North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency, Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends a meeting of the Central Committee of the country's ruling Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, a day before. Yonhap





Political watchers have said that North Korea is expected to conduct more testing of its weapons this year. But they have said that it is yet to be seen what kind of weapons will be included, as it will depend on the U.S.' responses to the North's messages.







Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University, said that Kim Jong-un's message at the political bureau meeting has left room for many different options on the North Korean side, as seen in the report of the meeting carried by the country's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Thursday.







"The KCNA report said that the members of the political bureau of the party central committee recognized the need to prepare for long-term confrontation with the U.S., but it did not say that any further decision has been made regarding the matter," Park said.







Park also said that North Korea is expected to adjust the level of its provocation in accordance with the U.S.' reactions.







"We can draw different scenarios at this moment, including one with the two sides confronting each other with hardline policies, or another where they make conciliatory gestures by toning down their messages to each other. . . . In my opinion, the two sides are likely to exchange verbal messages rather than taking any real action."







Park also said that Pyongyang's continued missile tests and Kim's message suggesting a possible resumption of nuclear or ICBM testing are aimed at both Seoul and Washington, as both countries are at important political junctures.







"For South Korea, whoever becomes the next president after the March 9 election, North Korea is likely to conduct many missile tests in an attempt to tame the new administration and create a favorable situation for their side in future inter-Korean negotiations," Park said.







"For the United States, the Biden administration is preparing for a midterm election in November. As its foreign policies, especially those regarding North Korea, are already unpopular, the Biden administration will not want to risk provoking the North to conduct a nuclear or ICBM testing."










A Maryland father has been discovered dead inside his suburban home lined with cages containing more than 125 snakes, including the highly venomous and illegal spitting cobras and black mambas.

David Riston, 49, was found dead at his home in Pomfret on Wednesday evening, surrounded by his caged pets - some of which are so dangerous they're illegal to keep as pets in the United States.

It's still unclear how he died, and investigators have yet to say whether one of the snakes may have killed Riston.

Charles County Sheriff's deputies were called to a home in the 5500 block of Rafael Drive in Pomfret at around 6pm on Wednesday night after receiving a 911 call from a neighbor, who said that he went to check on the homeowner, whom he had not seen since the day before, and saw him through a window lying unresponsive on the floor.

David Riston, 49, was found dead inside his suburban Maryland home, surrounded by 125 venomous and non-venomous snakes

Officers were called to Riston's home on Rafael Drive in Pomfret, Maryland, on Wednesday after getting a 911 call from his neighbor

Inside the house, deputies found tanks on racks housing snakes, including venomous species that are illegal in Maryland

An official is seen loading a plastic bin containing a massive yellow Burmese python into a vehicle to transport the critter to Virginia

According to the sheriff's office, there were no obvious signs of foul play and Riston was transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore for an autopsy.

Inside Ristons residence, more than 125 venomous and non-venomous snakes of different species were discovered in meticulously kept tanks on racks.

Riston was pronounced dead at the scene, but no obvious signs of foul play were found

Jennifer Harris, a spokesperson for Charles County Animal Control, told the station WRC-TV that the breeds included rattlesnakes, spitting cobras, black mambas - the most venomous snakes in Africa - and a 14-foot-long Burmese python.

Riston, who reportedly lived alone, had a valid permit allowing him to keep snakes and reptiles, but under Maryland law, it is illegal to possess any venomous snakes, according to WJLA.

Just two drops of a black mambas fast-acting venom can kill a human by shutting down the nervous system and inflicting paralysis.

A spitting cobra can spray venom from its fangs into its victim's eyes from 10 feet away, causing blindness. Both breeds are illegal to keep as pets in the US.

All the snakes in Ristons home were said to have been well-cared for by their owner. Terrified neighbors have been reassured that if any of the other snakes have escaped, the cold winter weather will kill them before they get very far.

Charles County Animal Control Chief Ed Tucker said this is the largest private collection of snakes he has ever encountered in his 30-year career.

Animal control officials contacted reptile experts in Virginia and North Carolina to assist them with the safe removal of the snakes, which were seen being loaded into vehicles in plastic bins.

The non-venomous snakes were transported to Virginia, while the venomous ones headed to North Carolina. Handlers had to warm up their vehicles to make it safe for the reptiles to travel, reported WRC.

Among Riston's slithering pets animal control officials identified black mambas, which are extremely venomous (stock image)

Riston also had spitting cobras in his possession, which can spray venom from 10 feet away (stock image)

Neighbors said they had no idea that Riston had turned his home into a snake terrarium.

Ristons daughter, Emily Lopez-Lahocki, confirmed her fathers death in a Facebook tribute.

The man, the myth, the legend. My dad David Riston, left the earth January 19th, 2022 at the age of 49 years old, she wrote. Still in shock. He is genuinely our best friend always making us laugh and keeping the peace. My family deeply mourns a loss today.
A big cat showdown was caught on camera.

California residents woke up to a frightening scene as two aggressive mountain lions fought to the death on a suburban street in the early morning.

Residents of Belmont, just 20 miles outside of San Francisco, were startled to find the creatures going at it in the middle of Hastings Drive around 2 a.m. on Wednesday.

A doorbell camera picked up part of the wild encounter, as the two big cats can be heard duking it out with intense growls, before the sole winner calmly stalks through the suburban area after reportedly dragging the its dead foe down the street.

The California Department Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) said the surviving mountain lion is not a threat to humans; it's unknown where the creature went, as it didn't leave tracks and hasn't reappeared that residents can tell.

Neighbors are still on high alert and have been advising each other not to let their kids or dogs out alone.

Scroll down for video

Two mountain lions brawled it out on Hastings Drive in Belmont, California, roughly 20 miles from San Francisco. The lone mountain lion (pictured) killed the other before wandering around the community

The mountain lion even entered a backyard before taking off. Many neighbors have said they will be staying on high alert and not letting their children and pets outside alone, despite the California Department of Wildlife Services saying it does not think the remaining mountain lion is a threat to the community

'Makes me nervous, very nervous,' Lisa Weidanz, who lives in the neighborhood, told Fox 2. 'A mountain lion, dragging another mountain lion. Oh my goodness.'

Weidanz also said she would be 'warning her whole family' to be aware of lions coming into the neighborhood.

Another neighbor told Fox 2 that he would be 'more careful' during his evening walks and keep an eye out for the lone lion.

Tiffany Yap, a wildlife expert, told Fox 2 that the scary event was just 'mountain lions being mountain lions.'

'It is a common occurrence for mountain lions to kill each other over territory. I think sometimes it becomes a greater occurrence when they are boxed in and their habitat is limited, and so with a lot of habitat loss and fragmentation we might see it a little bit more,' she said.

More importantly, the animal is actually a huge part of the California biodiversity.

'They are important for a lot of other species and a lot of biodiversity throughout California,' Yap said.

Despite their necessary existence in the ecosystem, neighborhood watchman Kevin Stanford said he would still be paroling for mountain lions to make others feel safe.

'I haven't picked up any tracks yet to see what kind of direction it took off in or what direction in came in, so that's kind of the puzzle to put together now,' he told Fox 2. 'Just keep your head on a swivel.'

Some neighbors, however, were excited about the recent wild encounter.

Ming Bong Lee said: 'It's pretty cool actually. I mean, it's not just one, it's two and they were fighting. So that's not that common.'

In 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said there's only been 16 verified accounts of mountain lion attacks on Californians since 1890, and six of them were fatal.

The department also estimated that there are between 4,000 to 6,000 mountain lions statewide.

Mountain lions usually leave humans alone, but the CDFW receives hundreds of calls a year about pets and livestock being killed by these creatures.
A married cab driver was caught in a police sting when he answered a classified advert offering 'real young girls' and arranged to pay 100 for sex with a child.

Mohammed Miah responded by phone to an online advert on Vivastreet, that had been covertly placed by undercover police, in January last year.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the 61-year-old dad said he 'wanted a girl who was British' and arranged to pay 100 for sex with a 14-year-old.

Mohammed Miah responded by phone to an online advert on Vivastreet, that had been covertly placed by undercover police, in January last year

Prosecutor Michael Bunch said the advert had been placed by police as part of a 'sting operation' and was headed 'Real young girls in Newcastle now'.

Mr Bunch said Miah was told during the conversation: 'We have our Amber who is 14, she's available for full sex, are you happy with that?'

The court heard Miah agreed that he was happy and confirmed he wanted to make the 'booking'.

Mr Bunch added: 'Later on in the conversation the defendant again confirmed he understood that the girl he was talking about was only 14.

'The arrangement was that the defendant would attend a location at 4.30 that afternoon.'

The court heard a text message was sent to Miah's phone around half an hour before the meeting, which contained a post code for him to attend.

The court heard Miah agreed that he was happy and confirmed he wanted to make the 'booking' (above)

Once he had travelled to the area, he was given further directions by phone to a location in Newcastle city centre, where the police were waiting for him.

Miah, of Hadrian Road, Fenham, Newcastle, admitted arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

Judge Edward Bindloss sentenced him to 18 months behind bars with a sexual harm prevention order and sex offender registration requirements for ten years.

The judge told him: 'You engaged in a discussion with another person and agreed to pay 100 for sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old British girl.

'It was made clear to you that this girl was 14. 'You must have known this 14-year-old was likely to be controlled or emotionally vulnerable.

'This was a sting operation. There was no 14-year-old girl.'

Judge Bindloss said he accepted Miah was remorseful.

Gavin Doig, defending, said Miah and people close to him are in poor health and added: 'It is a source of concern to him that a custodial sentence, a prison sentence, will result in not only punishment for him but difficulties for others.'
Former Buckingham Palace maid Charlotte Briggs today defended her Prince Andrew revelations and attacked him for being a 'horrible man.'

Ms Briggs, 47, said she had no regrets about speaking out over the Duke's 'demanding and entitled' foul-mouthed rants, which she claimed left her in tears.

Speaking to MailOnline in her hometown of Halifax, West Yorkshire, she said: 'I don't give a toss what Prince Andrew feels he is a horrible, nasty man.'

She added: 'It has been more than 26 years and I did sign (a privacy agreement) under the official secrets act.

'But my husband and I saw the TV programme during the week when his teddy bears were mentioned and he said it was a good time for me to speak about what happened to me too.'

The mother of two said she had been criticised in her hometown today after her revelations made front page news.

Charlotte Briggs (pictured), 47, said she had no regrets about speaking out over his 'demanding and entitled' foul-mouthed rants

Ms Briggs began working at Buckingham Palace in 1996 when she was 21, but within six months was tasked with being Andrew's maid; a job that 'nobody wanted,' she said

Former maid to Prince Andrew speaking from her home in Halifax, West Yorkshire today

Ms Briggs called the Duke of York (pictured right in 2019 with The Queen) 'demanding and entitled'

'When I was in the supermarket someone accused me of cashing in on him, but I'm entitled to speak about what happened to me even though it was so long ago.

'I am not sorry at all. But I have been hurt by some of the remarks against me.'

She said despite the Duke of York's arrogant attitude towards her, she never witnessed or heard of any improper behaviour by him

The Prince faces a sex abuse trial and details of his angry outbursts are likely to cause him further embarrassment as he prepares to give sworn testimony against claims by Virginia Giuffre.

She has accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17  which he vehemently denies.

Ms Briggs added: 'I just don't care about Prince Andrew after his bad behaviour towards me.'

It comes after she claimed on Thursday that she was 'left in tears' by Andrew's foul-mouth rants, and on one occasion faced his wrath over a tiny gap in his curtains.

Speaking to MailOnline in her hometown of Halifax, West Yorkshire, Ms Briggs said: 'I don't give a toss what Prince Andrew feels he is a horrible, nasty man.' (Pictured: Andrew delivering a speech in Tokyo in 2013)

Ms Briggs speaks to a journalist outside her home after claiming Prince Andrew was a 'nasty man' when she worked as a maid in Buckingham Palace

By comparison, Ms Briggs previously said that the Duke's brothers Charles and Edward, as well as other royals she encountered during her time at the palace, were 'wonderful'

Speaking to The Sun, Ms Briggs said the prince yelled at her: 'Can't you f***ing do anything right?' as she ran up and down the stairs to fix the curtains, some of which he was sitting a matter of yards away from.

'This man fought for his country in the Falklands but couldn't stand up to close his own curtains,' she told the newspaper.

'It was utterly ridiculous but spoke volumes about him,' she added.

By comparison, Ms Briggs said that the Duke's brothers Charles and Edward, as well as other royals she encountered during her time at the palace, were 'wonderful'.

She began working at Buckingham Palace in 1996 when she was 21, but within six months was tasked with being Andrew's maid; a job that 'nobody wanted,' she said.

At the time, Andrew was 36 and had recently divorced from Sarah Ferguson. He would frequently fly off the handle and expected everything to be done for him.

Ms Briggs, from Halifax, broke her silence to The Sun after Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles amid a sex assault lawsuit brought by Ms Giuffre in the United States.

Ms Giuffre claims she was trafficked by convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to have sex with the prince three times when she was a teenager. The Duke of York vehemently denies the allegations.

Ms Briggs spoke about how Andrew's pillows were embroidered with the Royal Crest, that they had to be right in the centre of his four-poster bed, and that his pyjamas and his teddy bears had to be precisely laid out.

Having moved down from Yorkshire to London, her first six months working at the palace involved cleaning offices.

Charlotte Briggs began working at Buckingham Palace in 1996 when she was 21, but within six months was tasked with being Andrew's maid; a job that 'nobody wanted,' she said. Pictured: Andrew in 1996

On her first day, Ms Briggs said Prince Edward held the door for her as the took the bins out, but otherwise she didn't encounter many of the royals early on.

That changed when she was asked to be Andrew's maid. No one else wanted to, she said, because of his reputation for tantrums.

Having moved back to the palace after his divorce, the Duke had taken up residence on the 'nursery floor' where he, Prince Charles, Prince Edward and Princess Anne used to play when they were children.

But despite being a grown man who served in the military, he refused to do anything himself, Ms Briggs told the newspaper.

'We'd turn down his bed, remove his teddies, do the curtains and lay out his pyjamas. But he was a bad apple and behaved like a spoiled brat,' she said.

On one occasion, she said he called down from his office for a maid to be sent up to close the curtains in his office, she recalled.

For Ms Briggs, this meant putting on her evening dress, going up four flights of stairs to close the curtains Andrew was sitting a matter of feet away from.

As she left the rooms, Ms Briggs said Andrew screamed at her over the fact she had left a small gap at the top, despite the curtains running floor to ceiling.

During her time at Buckingham Palace, she said the other royals treated her well. Prince Edward was kind, she said, and she was even hugged by Nelson Mandela.

Ms Briggs, from Halifax, broke her silence to The Sun after Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles amid a sex assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre in the United States. The Duke of York vehemently denies the allegations

At the time, she was paid 600 a month and in 1996, she was even pictured on the royal balcony ahead of the Trooping the Colour ceremony, according to The Sun.

But Andrew, Ms Briggs said, ruined her time at the palace.

She also claimed to The Sun that the prince kept Sarah Ferguson's wedding dress in his wardrobe after they divorced in 1992. The royal couple married at Westminster Abbey in July 1986.

The former palace maid also claimed that her makeup was still laid out on his dressing table, suggesting he still held a flame for her, she said.

The revelations about the Duke's outbursts will likely cause him even more embarrassment as he prepares testify against the claims made by Ms Giuffre.

It also comes after The Queen - his mother - stripped him of his royal titles, and as he is facing calls to be evicted from the Royal Lodge in Windsor where he currently lives with his ex-wife Ferguson.

MailOnline has approached Buckingham Palace for comment from Prince Andrew regarding Ms Briggs's comments in The Sun.

Ms Briggs' account of Prince Andrews teddy bears is not the first time they have been mentioned.

Earlier this week, former palace guard Paul Page 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.

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.

His comments came in an ITV documentary: 'Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile' that aired on Monday.

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 Andrew's '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.

A spokesperson for Prince Andrew has refused to comment on Ms Brigg's remarks.
The Prince Andrew High School in Canada has announced it is changing its name of more than 60 years to create a 'safe and inclusive' space for its students.

Principal Craig Campbell told parents in a letter that the school was 'ready and excited' for the re-brand which will 'uphold its values.'

The education centre in Nova Scotia took the Duke of York's name in 1960, to honour him shortly after he was born.

But following pressure from the local community after sexual assault allegations were made against the royal, the school said it will be giving itself a new name which matches its 'supportive and respectful' ethos.

The Queen's youngest son is facing a civil lawsuit in New York over claims he sexually assaulted Virginia Giuffre when she was 17 - after his recent bid to have the case thrown out was rejected by a US judge. Andrew vehemently denies the claims.

The 61-year-old has since been stripped of his royal titles and patronages, and was further humiliated this week by bombshell claims from a former Buckingham Palace maid who branded him a 'horrible, nasty man' and alleged his 'foul-mouthed' tantrums left her in tears.

The education centre in Nova Scotia took the Duke of York's name in 1960, to honour him shortly after he was born.

Following pressure from the local community after sexual assault allegations were made against the royal, the school said it will be giving itself a new name which matches its 'supportive and respectful' ethos

Principal Craig Campbell told parents in a letter that the school was 'ready and excited' for the re-brand which will 'uphold its values.' (Letter pictured)

Announcing it plans to drop its link to Prince Andrew by the end of year or early 2023 at the latest, the school said it wanted its new name to be 'reflective of [its] community'.

In a letter to parents, shared by local newspaper The Coast, principal Mr Campbell wrote: 'The name of a school should be reflective of our school community and uphold our values as a safe and inclusive learning space for all.

'Our hope is to continue to build our identity as a positive, supportive and respectful community, with a name to match.

'We have heard from many of you who feel the same way... we're ready and excited to take this next step.'

Locals will be invited to submit their suggestions for the new name, with the decision being made by a school committee made of six students and staff.

Charlotte Briggs (pictured), 47, said she had no regrets about speaking out over his 'demanding and entitled' foul-mouthed rants

Ms Briggs called the Duke of York (pictured right in 2019 with The Queen) 'demanding and entitled'

Mr Campbell added: 'The committee will review and evaluate the submissions and will then hold a student vote.

'We'll then forward the top three recommendations to the Halifax Regional Centre for Education for final approval.'

It has been a humiliating week for Andrew after his former maid Charlotte Briggs broke her silence 26 years after working for him in Buckingham Palace.

The 47-year-old accused Andrew of throwing tantrums over curtains and reducing her to tears during her time at the royal household.

Speaking to MailOnline in her hometown of Halifax, West Yorkshire, she said: 'I don't give a toss what Prince Andrew feels he is a horrible, nasty man.'

She added: 'It has been more than 26 years and I did sign (a privacy agreement) under the official secrets act.

'But my husband and I saw the TV programme during the week when his teddy bears were mentioned and he said it was a good time for me to speak about what happened to me too.'

The mother of two said she had been criticised in her hometown today after her revelations made front page news.

Speaking to The Sun, Ms Briggs said the prince yelled at her: 'Can't you f***ing do anything right?' as she ran up and down the stairs to fix the curtains, some of which he was sitting a matter of yards away from.

'This man fought for his country in the Falklands but couldn't stand up to close his own curtains,' she told the newspaper.

'It was utterly ridiculous but spoke volumes about him,' she added.

By comparison, Ms Briggs said that the Duke's brothers Charles and Edward, as well as other royals she encountered during her time at the palace, were 'wonderful'.

She began working at Buckingham Palace in 1996 when she was 21, but within six months was tasked with being Andrew's maid; a job that 'nobody wanted,' she said.

At the time, Andrew was 36 and had recently divorced from Sarah Ferguson. He would frequently fly off the handle and expected everything to be done for him, Ms Briggs claimed.

A spokesperson for Prince Andrew has refused to comment on Ms Brigg's remarks.
William Chinyanga (pictured), 51, is accused of encouraging bombings in Zimbabwe in four speeches on social media

A Zimbabwean activist accused of telling his followers to carry out terrorist attacks against his country's regime has told the court that he is 'afraid to kill a fly'.

William Chinyanga, 51, is accused of encouraging bombings in the south-east African country in four speeches to 7,000 followers on social media over two days in December 2019.

On December 1, 2019, Chinyanga, of Archway, north London, allegedly told his followers to 'open gunfire on a gathering of people' and use 'gorrila [sic] warfare'.

He is understood to be a campaigner for MDC-alliance, a multi-party political bloc that opposes Emmerson Mnangagwa's ruling Zanu-PF government in Zimbabwe.

The Old Bailey was told he has been charged with four counts of encouraging terrorism, which he denies.

Chinyanga told the jury that his father was beaten by Zanu PF militants, and he fled Zimbabwe for the UK in 2000 after being threatened by police officers.

On Friday, Chinyanga told the court that he is 'against guns' and said he is 'scared to kill a fly', insisting that his comments were just a 'dark joke'.

Assisted by a Shona interpreter, he quoted Mohatma Gandhi and cited George Orwell's novella Animal Farm as an example of how Zimbabwean politics worked under Mugabe.

He said: 'These are corrupt people, they are criminals. It made me feel this needed to change.'

When asked what he meant by 'Put on a hood at night, go and bomb, go and do whatever you want to do', Chinyanga claimed it was 'a dark joke'.

He added: 'I'm an attention seeker, I want the British government to hear my voice, to hear my cry. There is nothing there.

'I'm against guns, I'm against soldiers, what is the point of a government with soldiers, what is the point of fighting in the 21st century?

'It is about ideas, which are real and direct. I'm scared to kill a fly, even a spider in my home! Would I kill a human, never!

'I'm not a person who wants people to be killed.'

To which Clare Wade QC asked him: 'What about the part where you say "If you see where a policeman lives, beat him up?'

Chinyanga, of Archway, north London, allegedly told his followers to 'open gunfire on a gathering of people' and use 'gorrila [sic] warfare', The Old Bailey (pictured) heard

And he responded: 'If police are attacking you, if the rioters are attacking you, then you can do that to defend yourself.

'They love to kill, they are monsters.'

When asked about his comments on bombing, Chinyanga claimed he was jut 'looking for attention.

He said: 'How, how, how? It would be so expensive, the rockets. It was just a dark joke. I'm just looking for attention.'

The teacher had been involved in political organising in the Zimbabwean capital Harare after graduating from the University of Havana in the mid-1990s.

The activist continued to be involved in politics after arriving in the UK, but was asked to leave the Zimbabwe African People's Union political party in 2009 after he formed a government-in-exile with himself as president.

Prosecutor Sean Larkin QC had earlier told the court: 'He is 51 years old, born in Zimbabwe, sought asylum in 2009 and was granted indefinite leave to remain.

'There is no dispute he is an opponent of the Zimbabwean government.

'He had a Facebook account and over a two-day period, the 1st and 2nd December 2019 he livestreamed four speeches to his Facebook followers, over 7000 followers.

'He speaks in a mixture of English and Shona and he speaks against the Zimbabwean government.

'The prosecution case is that he went far legitimate complaint or protest against the government and committed the offences with which which he is charged.'

Jurors were told that Chinyanga was a 'long-standing opponent of the Zimbabwean regime', although only four of the speeches he posted were the subject of charges.

Mr Larkin added: 'In the course of these speeches he encouraged his followers to bomb the headquarters of Zanu-PF, bomb the motorcade of the leader of the Zanu-PF, bomb petrol stations, it seems with a view to disrupt the economy and bring revolution, attack police officers in their cars, attack soldiers.

'He encouraged his followers to share the speeches with others.'

Chinyanga is understood to be a campaigner for MDC-alliance, a multi-party political bloc that opposes Emmerson Mnangagwa's (pictured in 2019) ruling Zanu-PF government in Zimbabwe

After police became aware of a speech he posted titled 'The strategy to remove zanu.pf. Announcement', Chinyanga was interviewed in February 2020.

He admitted posting the speech and wanting to overthrow his country's government and was released under investigation, during the course of which officers found his other speeches.

In a speech called 'Anyone in his right mind to open gunfire on a gathering of people its terrorism' he called what happened in Zimbabwe 'a disgrace', the court was told.

Mr Larkin said: 'What appears to have happened is that he would describe seeing some footage of police in Zimbabwe shooting a protesters, apparently in a tree planting matter.

'That is what triggered is speeches.'

Jurors were told that the Zanu-PF party had been ruling the Southeast African country since its independence in 1980, for most of that time under Robert Mugabe.

In 2017 he was ousted in a coup by his own party and replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Chinyanga denies four counts of encouraging terrorism.

The trial continues.
A branch manager for a decorating supplies firm fleeced the company out of 40,000, flogging paint for cash and then pocketing the money for himself.

George Smith, 33, a married father, from Northwich, Cheshire, spent the money on drugs, alcohol and prostitutes, a court heard.

Smith, a 27,000-a-year manager at the Trafford Park branch of Bromborough Paints, sold paint and wallpaper to decorators for cash and then fiddled the books to cover up his crime.

He joined the firm in September 2016 and was 'in a senior position with a high degree of trust', prosecutor Rachel Widdicombe told Manchester Crown Court on Friday afternoon.

George Smith, 33, a branch manager for a decorating supplies firm, fleeced the company out of 40,000, flogging paint for cash and then pocketing the money for himself. He spent it on drugs, alcohol and prostitutes, a court heard. (He is pictured outside Manchester Crown Court on Friday)

'He was also expected to set a positive example to other members of the team,' she said.

But his thieving came to light when the firm's finance director and his friend, Giuseppe Alfonso, spotted a discrepancy of 5,000 during an audit in May 2019.

He realised it had been created by an individual accounts log-in attributed to Smith.

The 'adjustment' was dated January 2018 - some 18 months after Smith had started working for Bromborough, now known as PaintWell.

Smith was suspended and an investigation by the firm concluded he was behind the theft, mostly of paint but also some wallpaper, worth 61,184, said Ms Widdicombe.

He had started off stealing goods worth 348 in January 2018 but gradually the value of his crimes increased, to 5,729.

In a meeting with Mr Alfonso, Smith at first blamed company training but when told the crime would be reported to police, he 'accepted his responsibility', according to the prosecutor.

He told his employer he had 'got himself in a rut' and had developed addictions to drink, drugs and prostitutes. He admitted he would sell paint to decorators for cash and just pocket the money for himself before making adjustments in the accounts to hide his thieving.

Smith's bank statements showed he had made 'numerous cash withdrawals' and money was spent on hotels, restaurants and takeaways while they were 'no obvious outgoings' such as rent or a mortgage.

Despite his admissions during the meeting, when he was interviewed by police in February 2020, he declined to make any comment. And when he appeared charged with theft at the magistrates' court, he denied the offence, said the prosecutor.

Mr Alfonso told investigators Smith had come with good references and that he 'placed a significant degree of trust' in him.

In a victim impact statement read out to the court, Mr Alfonso said staff bonuses had to be slashed while the number of branch managers with permission to work in their accounts system was also cut 'due to the actions of one individual'.

He said he broke down and was left in tears when he realised the scale of the theft during the meeting with Smith.

Mr Alfonso said he had been to charitable events with Smith and had to 'break the news' to the defendant's mother and brother that he had been caught stealing and that the police had been called.

He recalled how 'distressed' Smith's mother was and that decorators would come into the Trafford Park branch and asked for 'the same deal' Smith had offered them.

Smith - a 27,000-a-year manager at the Trafford Park branch of Bromborough Paints (above, now known as PaintWell) - sold paint and wallpaper to decorators for cash and then fiddled the books to cover up his crime. He has been handed a 21-month jail sentence

Mr Alfonso said customers were 'made to feel like thieves'.

'We took a lot of users' rights away from branch managers which has left a mark on those who are hard-working and honest,' he said.

'I personally regarded him as a friend and not just a work colleague. I cannot fathom the level of dishonestly he showed in his actions,' he added.

The crime, he said, had had a 'ripple effect' on staff as 'trust has well and truly been broken'.

'As a finance director, I have found myself working as an ad hoc detective which has caused me undue distress,' he added.

Simeon Evans, defending, said his client believed other staff had access to his work account without his knowledge although Smith 'did not seek to minimise' his crime.

Smith submitted a 'basis of plea', accepted by the prosecution, stating he was only responsible for theft worth 40,000.

The defendant had 'doubled sales' in his time at the firm and 'in every other regard he was a good employee', said Mr Evans.

Urging the judge to suspend any prison sentence, he stressed his client had no previous convictions and that the nature of crime meant 'it was bound to come back to him eventually'.

He 'never envisaged' the impact on colleagues who remain at the company, said the barrister.

Mr Evans said 'fear' had made his client 'resile' from admissions he had made to his bosses when he eventually appeared in court and denied the offence.

Smith, he said, was 'thoroughly ashamed' but he pointed to the 'break-up of his marriage' around the time of the theft which the barrister said applied pressure to a 'fault line in his character'.

The defendant had 'invested' in his wife and children and felt 'abandoned' when 'that was taken away from him'.

As Smith's mother and brother watched from the public gallery, Mr Evans said: 'This came as an enormous shock to the family. It's not what they expected of him and they have been struggling to deal with this but they continue to support him.'

One of the defendant's sons had been diagnosed with autism and would find it 'particularly hard' if his father was sent to prison, said Mr Evans.

Sentencing, Judge Hilary Manley told Smith: 'You stole over a 16-month period 40,000 from your employers. You were in a position of significant trust, employed as a branch manager on around 27,000 a year which is considerably more than many people around the UK.'

She added: 'You squandered the money on meals in restaurants, nightclubs and prostitution services. It's all gone.'

Judge Manley went on that 'trust has been broken' for the staff who remain at the firm because of changes introduced to prevent a repeat of such a crime, while staff bonuses have also been slashed.

She noted the defendant had had a 'loving' upbringing and that his marriage break-up had 'caused anguish and distress'.

'It's no excuse,' she said, repeating that Smith had spent the money on drink, drugs and prostitution. His remorse, said the judge, was 'limited'.

Smith had spent the money on a 'selfish lifestyle', said the judge, concluding only a custodial sentence was justified.

Smith showed no reaction as he was handed a 21-month jail sentence. He waved to his mother and brother as he was taken away to begin his sentence.

The defendant, of Violet Grove, Northwich, admitted one offence of theft at a previous hearing.
A painter and decorator who branded Muslims 's**t-stinking paedos' before calling for all mosques to be burned and for 'bacon to be cooked on the ashes' has been jailed for 20 months.

Paul Shelton, 51, of High Peak, Derbyshire, used an anonymous social media account to post the 'utterly vile' rants on a public Facebook group, Derby Crown Court heard.

Using the alias Pedro Smokey, Shelton regularly spewed his abhorrent views, describing Muslims as 'dirty' and 'twisted'.

His defence counsel said he has since discovered he has a half Iraqi grandson who he 'spoils rotten' - which his lawyer said was an 'ironic silver lining', reported Derbyshire Live.

Shelton pleaded guilty to two counts of publishing material that would incite religious hatred.

Jailing him for 20 months, Judge Shaun Smith QC said: 'What you posted was utterly vile, grossly offensive and appalling.

'No right-thinking person would think this is anything other than abhorrent.

Paul Shelton (pictured), 51, of High Peak, Derbyshire, used an anonymous social media account to post 'utterly vile' rants on a public Facebook group, Derby Crown Court heard

'The internet is a wonderful thing which has brought many benefits for all of our society.

'The problem, however, is that it is a medium which allows individual groups to peddle hate against sections of our society.

'Your views demonstrated hostility towards Muslims which does not allow me to accept the submission these were merely drunken rants.

'You posted anonymously and included you talking about an EDL (English Defence League) protest 'outside Didsbury paedo cult hall' in which you said people should 'burn it down and cook our bacon on its ashes'.

'You called for Islam to be 'completely outlawed in our country' and said 'we need to burn all mosques in our country.'

Jennifer Joseph, prosecuting, said police became aware of anti-Muslim postings made by a Facebook profile called 'Pedro Smokey,' which following an investigation in late 2018, turned out to be Shelton.

Ms Joseph said the vile diatribes were posted on an open public group dubbed The Realist People Movement.

Shelton's first post read: 'We need to burn all mosques in our country, what say you?' which received messages of support from other online users.

Ms Joseph said a second posting branded Muslims 'dirty, twisted, s***-stinking, paedos' and contained a racially offensive term towards Asian people.

She said: '(The prosecution) say it would not be right to suggest the messages are completely out of character and just a drunken mistake.

'He was interviewed and he was not particularly co-operative.

'He would not tell the police what his Facebook password was and when asked 'are you Pedro Smokey?' he replied 'I can't answer that question'.'

Using the alias Pedro Smokey, Shelton regularly spewed his abhorrent views, describing Muslims as 'dirty' and 'twisted' (Pictured: Derby Crown Court)

Shelton, of no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to two counts of publishing material that would incite religious hatred.

Richard Orme, mitigating, said since being arrested Shelton has reunited with his estranged daughter who now has an Iraqi partner. They also share a child, making him a grandfather.

Mr Orme said: 'It's a beautiful and ironic silver lining that he adores his half-Iraqi grandson and, in his own words, spoils him rotten.

'There has been a lot of water under the bridge, this is three-and-a-half years old and he is a new man who now does not share those views.

'He bears no ill-will towards Muslims.'

Shelton was also given a five-year criminal behaviour order limiting his use of the internet.

It means he must handover the details and passwords of all his social media accounts to police if and when required.
An unemployed Wisconsin man has been found guilty of murdering and dismembering his parents after they caught him lying about being a police scuba diver.

It took two hours Wednesday for a jury to convict Chandler Halderson, 23, of killing father Bart and mother Krista Halderson in the summer of 2021. Chandler was also found guilty of providing false information on a kidnapping, as well as mutilating and hiding their corpses.

Prosecutors say Halderson killed his parents July 1, 2021 after his father discovered he'd been lying about attending Madison Area Technical College - one of a series of lies prosecutors say he'd long been telling everyone, including that he worked for aerospace company SpaceX, as a police scuba diver and for the American Family Insurance company.

In reality, they say, Halderson was unemployed and had dropped out of school.

The 23-year-old now faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison for first degree intentional homicide, as per state law. Chandler Halderson is tentatively scheduled for sentencing on either March 17 or 18. The court revoked his bail.

Chandler Halderson sits in Dane County Circuit Court in Wisconsin. He was found guilty of several charges, including first-degree murder

Chandler Halderson was found guilty of murdering his parents, Bart and Krista Halderson

Halderson will likely face sentencing in March. Wisconsin mandates that first degree homicide requires a life sentence

Authorities accused the younger Halderson of shooting his father in the back of the head just hours before the two were scheduled to meet with Madison College officials to talk about the son's status at the school, after Bart found out that Chandler had not attended classes for more than a semester.

Nearly a week later, Halderson reported his parents missing, claiming they had failed to return from a weekend trip to their cabin.

Bart Haldersons remains were found in rural Dane County on July 8, the day Chandler Halderson was arrested. Authorities said he was shot once before his body was dismembered. Six days later, investigators found Krista Haldersons remains along the Wisconsin River in Sauk County.

Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett extended sympathies to the family of Bart, 53, and Krista, 50, following the reading of the verdict.

'Throughout this investigation and trial, they have been in the forefront of our thoughts,' Barrett said. 'This is one of the most extensive investigations the Dane County Sheriff's Office has faced. Our detectives, deputies and civilian staff worked tirelessly to determine what really happened to Bart and Krista. I could not be more proud of their work.'

Prosecutors used remains found in a fireplace of the Haldersons as evidence their son murdered them

Detectives found several tools believed to be used in the murder, including scissors and a shotgun

Deputy District Attorney William Brown called the investigation both 'complex' and 'very unique.'

Chandler told police his parents planned to spend the Fourth of July weekend at their cabin in Langlade County with an unknown couple, but never returned home.

However, during interviews with investigators, the couple's family, friends and neighbors placed Chandler at the rural property where Bart's remains were found, Law & Crime reports.

Witnesses told police they saw Chandler park his vehicle on the property, saying he was seen entering and exiting the nearby woods.

Brown told jurors that ashes collected from the fireplace at the couple's home in Dane County were found to contain human remains, including facial and knee bones, as well as fragments of human skulls.

Dane County Assistant District Attorney William Brown represented the county

Defense attorney Catherine Dorl speaks on behalf of her client, Chandler Halderson. They maintained his innocence but called no witnesses

'He had burned his parents' heads in the fireplace,' Brown said.

The prosecution's detailed hour-long opening statement, which included photos and slides, was followed by the defense's 10-minute presentation, the main thrust of which was that the prosecution would not be able to prove Halderson's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which would be necessary to convict him.

Halderson was arrested on July 8 and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in September

'Chandler Halderson did not murder his parents,' said attorney Catherine Dorl.

She described the 23-year-old college dropout as a 'normal kid' who liked to play video games and spend time with his girlfriend, and who 'lived peacefully' at his parents' home until their deaths.

However, the defense never called any witnesses.

Halderson was initially charged with lying to the authorities, after police found discrepancies in his story, including a claim that his parents had planned to attend a parade in White Lake when no parade had been scheduled.

Detectives reviewed Chandler Halderson's Google queries from June 30 through July 8 and found that he had searched for multiple phrases, including 'Wisconsin dismembered body found,' 'Woman's body found in Wisconsin,' and 'Body found Wisconsin,' the complaint states.

At that point, authorities hadn't yet found either of his parents' remains.

Halderson's charges were later upgraded to counts of murder and mutilation of a corpse. He pleaded not guilty to all charges in September.
A man died after a shipment of carrots fell on top of him and buried him alive while he was working at an agricultural warehouse in Spain.

The 34-year-old, who has not been named, became trapped under the vegetables in the early hours of Thursday at the facility in Vallelado, a municipality in the province of Segovia, Castilla and Leon.

Emergency services received a call just after 3am that the victim was unconscious on the premises at an industrial estate, near the CL-602 regional road, according to MSN.

A man died after a shipment of carrots (file image) fell on top of him and buried him alive while he was working at an agricultural warehouse in Spain

The 34-year-old, who has not been named, became trapped under the vegetables in the early hours of Thursday at the facility in Vallelado (file image), a municipality in the province of Segovia, Castilla and Leon

An ambulance attended, along with the fire brigade and officers from the Civil Guard of Segovia.

Despite their efforts, the man - who worked for a 'family business', according to Spanish TV channel Telecinco - died at the scene.

He has not yet been formally identified.

A police investigation has been launched into the incident.
Children of Afghan evacuees who had worked with the Korean government in Afghanistan participate in physical activities on a playing field at the Leadership Campus of the National Human Resources Development Institute in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, Sept. 13, 2021. Joint Press Corps





By Lee Hae-rin







Undocumented children of foreign nationality who reside in Korea will have temporarily eased requirements to obtain stay permits from next month.







The Ministry of Justice announced that it will ease the regulations on stay permit requirements for such children here to cover their rights to education more comprehensively, starting next month and carrying through until March 2025, Thursday.







The policy will take effect temporarily, considering the possibility that it could be abused for the purpose of illegal immigration, the ministry said.







Before the policy change, only high school graduates, middle and high school students who were born here and lived here for more than 15 years were qualified to apply for a permit to stay here long-term.







However, with the temporary measure, the government will allow children who were born here, high school graduates, and elementary, middle and high school students who entered the country while under the age of six, and lived here for more than six years, to apply for a long-term visa.







Also, children who entered the country while over the age of six and lived here for more than seven years, who attend elementary, middle and high schools, or have graduated from high school, will be eligible to apply.







The government will grant D-4 visas to children attending schools to support their studies. After graduating from high school, they will be granted other visas that enable them to continue their education or pursue careers.







A significant portion of the 3,000 undocumented minors attending elementary, middle and high school here will benefit from the changed policy, the ministry said.







Details, including the required documents and application procedure, are available at the Korea Immigration Service website and Hi Korea website.


A U.S. judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction on Friday barring the federal government from enforcing President Joe Biden's requirement that federal workers without qualifying medical or religious exemptions be vaccinated for COVID-19.

Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas by then-President Donald Trump, ruled that opponents of Biden's vaccination mandate for federal employees were likely to succeed at trial and blocked the government from enforcing the requirement.

Biden announced in September that more than 3.5 million federal workers were required to undergo vaccination, with no option to get regularly tested instead, unless they secured approved medical or religious exemptions.

A U.S. judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction on Friday barring the federal government from enforcing President Joe Biden's requirement that federal workers without qualifying medical or religious exemptions be vaccinated for COVID-19

President Joe Biden announced in September that more than 3.5 million federal workers were required to undergo vaccination, with no option to get regularly tested instead

Judge Jeffrey Brown (pictured), who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said the opponents of the mandate were likely to succeed at trial

The requirement kicked in this past November, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that 98% of federal workers are vaccinated.

'We are confident in our legal authority here,' she added.

Those out of compliance with the policy were referred to counseling and could be terminated under an executive order signed by Biden.

Brown wrote that at issue was whether the president 'can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment.'

He added, 'That, under the current state of the law as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.'

In mid-January, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the president's COVID-19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses, a policy conservative justices deemed an improper imposition on the lives and health of many Americans.

The court allowed a separate federal vaccine requirement for healthcare facilities.

A third major vaccine requirement aimed at employees of federal contractors was blocked by a federal judge in December.

In the latest decision, Brown said the government could protect public health with less invasive measures, such as masking and social distancing.

The judge said it was his understanding that the government was going to be begin disciplining non-compliant employees imminently.

The Justice Department said it would appeal the ruling.

The suit was brought by the group Feds for Medical Freedom.

COVID-19 has killed more than 800,000 people in the United States in the two-year long pandemic and weighed heavily on the economy.

Many large employers such as United Airlines and Tyson Foods Inc have touted their success in using mandates to get nearly all staff vaccinated.

The Supreme Court ruling that blocked the mandate for larger businesses prompted some employers, including Starbucks, to abandon vaccine requirements for staff.
This is the moment a convicted drug trafficker is arrested and handcuffed a day after being named as one of the 12 most-wanted British fugitives on the run in Spain.

Joshua Hendry was held yesterday in San Pedro de Alcantara near the Costa del Sol resort of Marbella after being recognised by an off-duty officer.

Spanish police on Friday night released footage of him being escorted through an underground car park by a single police officer, wearing a mustard green tracksuit top and bottoms.

Joshua Hendry was held yesterday in San Pedro de Alcantara near the Costa del Sol resort of Marbella after being recognised by an off-duty officer

The 30-year-old is now facing extradition back to the UK. The National Crime Agency said when they named Hendry on Wednesday: 'He is accused of being a member of a Liverpool organised crime gang and conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

'It is alleged he trafficked heroin and crack cocaine from Liverpool to Grimsby for onward distribution and controlled the phone line used for this. '

His mother and brother were convicted as part of the conspiracy.

'Hendry is also wanted over a separate drugs conspiracy to supply cocaine in May 2018 for which he was sentenced in his absence to 10 years' imprisonment in March 2019.'

He was the first of the 12 men named in Wednesday's appeal to be held. Prior to his arrest he had been linked to the town of Estepona which is a 20-minute drive west of San Pedro.

Confirming the detention, a Spanish National Police spokesman in Malaga said: 'One of the 12 fugitives on the UK's Most Wanted list of criminals in Spain has been held.

'The detention took place less than 24 hours since the start of a new edition of the Most Wanted operation. Tom Dowdall, NCA Deputy Director of International, said:

'This is a rapid result and it's testimony to the power these appeals can have as well as the NCA's international reach. 'Whether it's using tip-offs from the public, sharing intelligence or deploying specialist capabilities, UK law enforcement and our Spanish partners are working as one to trace and arrest the other 11 fugitives.

'Those men will know now that we're after them. They can live their lives anxiously looking over their shoulders and wondering if today's the day they get caught or they can do the right thing and hand themselves in.'

Chief Inspector Rhodri Troake of Humberside Police said: 'We'd like to thank the National Crime Agency for their assistance in locating and arresting Hendry as a part of an efficient and fast-moving operation.

'Hendry is alleged to have trafficked heroin and crack cocaine from Liverpool to Grimsby for onward distribution within our local communities.

'This type of criminality can cause significant disruption to our local communities and we will continue to do everything we can to continue to bring those responsible to justice.'

As well as drug kingpins, the British fugitives believed to be on the run in Spain who were named on Wednesday include two suspects wanted for murder and underworld armourers.

The hit list was released at a launch in Madrid as part of a joint initiative between the National Crime Agency, Crimestoppers and Spanish police.
A psychology student has been arrested for a hate crime after allegedly hurling anti-Semitic slurs at three Jewish children before spitting on one in Brooklyn last week.

Christina Darling, 21, was arrested on Friday and has been charged with aggravated harassment as a hate crime, endangering the welfare of a child and menacing, the NYPD Hate Crimes unit tweeted.

Disturbing video captured the vile incident that occurred around 12:30pm last week Friday on a Marine Park street lined with private homes.

In the video, the St Francis College student can be seen stomping up to an eight-year-old boy playing with two of his younger siblings - aged seven and two - and launched into an anti-Semitic tirade before spitting on him.

'Hitler should have killed you all. I'll kill you and know where you live,' she yelled, according to the NYPD.

No injuries were reported to police.

Christina Darling is in custody after allegedly hurling anti-Semitic slurs at three Jewish children before spitting on them in a disturbing incident that took place on a Brooklyn Street last week

The woman was caught on camera as she approached the children in Marine Park

A petition on Change.org identified Christina Darling as a St. Francis College student, where she is listed as studying psychology as well as education and English. The petition is calling for her expulsion

'This woman passed by them, yelled at them. Something along the lines of Hitler should have killed you all,' explained the children's father, Aryah Fried, to CBS2.

Fried said his son replied to the suspect that he would save his little sister.

'I have to teach him not to engage. But he engaged. And she came running back. Spat in his face. And told him we will kill you all. I know where you live. And we'll make sure to get you all next time,' Fried said.

A petition on Change.org identified Darling as a St. Francis College student, where she is listed as studying psychology as well as education and English. The petition is calling for her expulsion.

'I urge President Miguel Martinez-Saenz to stand by his promises and denounce this horrifying act of racism, bigotry, and harassment against the Jewish people,' the petition reads. 'If appropriate disciplinary action isn't taken, an egregious precedent will be set.'

 UPDATE in anti-Jewish Hate Crime involving 8YO child. Thanks to help from the public, HCTF Detectives, assisted by Bklyn South Warrants,

arrested:

Darling, Christina 21

Brooklyn



Charges:

Aggravated Harassment/Hate Crime

Act in Manner Injurious to Child<17 x3

Menacing/HC https://t.co/ZGC4AVvAwG pic.twitter.com/iKeAKuHi65  NYPD Hate Crimes (@NYPDHateCrimes) January 21, 2022

After approaching the kids, aged seven and two and spitting on them, she turned back and walked off

The woman was seen standing over the children for several seconds while she insulted them

The woman continues to spew insults at the children as she walked down the street in Marine Park, Brooklyn

'I would hope that she understands the severity of what she did,' Fried said. 'To do it to anybody is obviously problematic but for an adult to do it to a child is beyond crazy.'

'We also teach our kids to look out for people that look like moms when they feel unsafe. And this woman looks like a person that might have been a safe looking person for the kids. So, what do we tell them now?' one person said to CBS.

The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.

The woman turned around and walked off as if nothing had happened after her verbal assault

The suspect was completely unawares her actions were all caught on crystal clear video

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.
This weekend will see fresh strikes from London Underground drivers following a deadlocked row over the Night Tube.

Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union on the Central and Victoria lines will walk out for eight hours from Friday and Saturday evenings.

Unless there is a breakthrough in the row over the new rosters, the weekend strikes are planned to continue until June.

The Piccadilly line completely closed during the 32-hour London tube strike last month. This weekend will see fresh strikes from drivers following a deadlocked row over the Night Tube

The union has written to London mayor Sadiq Khan seeking clarification on whether night shifts will be compulsory.

The letter from RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: 'In his comments to the Confirmation Hearing on Monday, Deputy Mayor Dance stated quite clearly that "It is not the case that drivers will have to work a night shift and it is not the case that any jobs will be lost."

'I would like you to confirm that this is the position and as your Deputy has said "it is not the case that drivers will have to work a night shift."

'Previously, TfL have briefed the press that drivers will be able to swap shifts if possible but have not gone so far as to claim that that drivers will not have to work a night shift.

'Mr Dances answer clearly states that drivers will not have to work night shifts and therefore it follows that night shifts should not be compulsory and drivers will have the ultimate right not to work them.

The union has written to London mayor Sadiq Khan (pictured) seeking clarification on whether night shifts will be compulsory

'As you know, this is the core principle underpinning RMTs position. If you or London Underground can confirm the above that would be a significant step in the right direction and I believe would serve as the basis for positive discussions.'

A Mayor of London spokesperson said: 'TfL has been clear that there will be no job cuts as a result of the changes made to the new rosters.

'Staff who are rostered for night Tube duties will be able to swap with colleagues to other times of the day if preferred.'

Last week the union accused London Underground of blocking an attempt to make progress in resolving the row, during talks at the conciliation service Acas.

The RMT said it had offered to recommend suspension of the action if LU agreed a new set of 'reasonable and realistic' proposals.

Passengers on the Jubilee line. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union on the Central and Victoria lines will walk out for eight hours from Friday and Saturday evenings

Mr Lynch had said: 'We are angry and frustrated that, once again, a proposal from our negotiators that would pave the way to lifting the current action has been knocked back by Tube chiefs.

'Our proposal would deal with the central issue at the heart of this dispute - work-life balance.

'We are not backing down; the action goes ahead and, with the Government on the point of lifting some Covid restrictions, it's down to LU to start negotiating seriously.'

LU had attacked the strikes as unnecessary, and advised passengers to check services before travelling.
Activists have sparked fury after putting up 'safety at sea' posters in a Dunkirk migrant camp for people attempting to cross the English Channel.

The posters, written in a variety of languages, advised migrants to 'stay seated' in crossing boats and 'point' to anyone who falls in the water.

They are thought to have been put up by activists working for the Watch The Channel group. A QR code on the poster links to the group's website.

Critics have condemned the posters for 'encouraging' migrants to make the dangerous crossing to England from France.

'This is dangerous and irresponsible communication being given out in the camps by social media and internet-based enablers,' Dover MP Natalie Elphicke said.

'The Channel crossings are incredibly dangerous and this puts lives at risk. The best advice for people is to stay safe on land in France.'

Activists have sparked fury after putting up 'safety at sea' posters (pictured) in a Dunkirk migrant camp for people attempting to cross the English Channel

Written in English, Kurdish, Farsi, French, Kurmanci, Pashto and Sorani, one of the documents was found stuck to a food truck in a camp near Dunkirk.

Among the poster's advice, it tells migrants to 'bring emergency foil blankets, food and water for one day' and provided France's 112 emergency number.

It also gives migrants advice on how to restart an engine.

'Be safe, always wear a life-vest, always stay seated and calm and watch out,' the poster says. In the event that someone falls into the water, 'immediately point and keep pointing to the person so you don't lose them in the waves,' it adds.

The document also features a QR code, which takes those that scan it to the Watch The Channel group's website, which features a map of the channel.

There, the group describes itself as: 'A group of activists dedicated to supporting people who are forced to cross the Channel by irregular means.

A small boat carrying people thought to be migrants is intercepted by Border Force vessels near the entrance to The Port of Dover Dover in Kent. Picture date: Tuesday January 18, 2022

'We believe that the right to move around the world is a fundamental tenet of human freedom. We are committed to doing what we can to support people in exercising that right,' the group says.

'We monitor the behaviour and misbehaviour of the French and UK border control regime. We work to ensure that the coastguards fulfil their duties under international maritime law to rescue people in distress.'

When opened on a smart phone, the website also shows more advice, telling those crossing the channel to 'be safe'.

It warns that when crossing from France, the UK will look closer than it is, and that it takes many hours to reach shore by sea.

It also tells migrants to stay away from 'big ships' as they cause large waves in the water and do not see smaller boats, to not try to cross in choppy conditions (with waves more than half a meter high), and to tell someone before crossing.

The website also explains how people crossing the channel can share their GPS location over WhatsApp if they are calling for help, and to practice how to find their coordinates on Google maps before making the trip.

After a long list of advice on how to test a boat's on-board motor, including not testing it out of water and what to do if it over-heats, the website says - in bold font: 'Do not try (crossing) without an engine.'

Alp Mehmet, chair of Migration Watch UK, told The Express: 'Not only is travelling across the Channel by small boat illegal, this poster omits all the dangers and overlooks the life threatening risks that they are effectively encouraging people to take.

Pictured: A young child amongst a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, after being rescued by the RNLI following a small boat incident in the Channel on Tuesday January 18, 2022

Pictured: A migrant woman carrying a child walks through a makeshift migrant camp in Dunkirk near Calais, France, January 13, 2022

'I am horrified there are people that are so misguided, wrapped up in their own self-righteousness, that they are going to this extent to encourage people to climb on to these small boats.'

According to Migration Watch UK, 946 people have crossed the channel to England illegally this years as of January 18. Last year, the total was 28,401 - over three times the number who made the dangerous crossing in 2021 (8,461).

On January 14, it was reported that a migrant had died in the Channel, while French crews rescued another 30 people after they ran into difficulties.

The man, believed to be in his 20s and from Sudan, died after falling into the water while making the perilous crossing. He was found and unconscious and taken back to shore for treatment, but was later declared dead.

Twenty-five people were found still on board the boat and were picked up by rescue teams while five others were found on a nearby sandbank, French authorities said.

The latest death in the Channel, believed to be the first this year, came after 27 migrants drowned in November after their dinghy capsized near Calais. Five women and a young girl were among the victims.

At least 39 people are believed to have died attempting the Channel crossing last year, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.
The baby who was shot in the head by a stray bullet while sitting with her mother in a parked car in The Bronx was pictured for the first time on Friday, as her aunt revealed that the child was spending her first birthday in the hospital undergoing brain surgery.

Marta Orellana wrote in the description of an online fundraiser that her niece, Catherine Rose Ortiz, was recovering from brain surgery after suffering 'a horrific trauma.'

'I would like to help Catherine and her family with some financial assistance,' Orellana wrote on her GoFundMe page. 'They have to deal with so much already and the last thing they need to worry about are all the financial issues that arise from medical treatment, especially with having to take time away from work and still having to cover their childs essentials while she recovers.'

The aunt shared a sweet photo of her smiling niece, dressed in a floral shirt, a bib and a pink knit hat.

The fundraiser so far has drawn nearly $10,000 in donations from well-wishers.

Catherine Rose Ortiz survived being shot in the head and celebrated her first birthday in the hospital on Friday after undergoing brain surgery

Miraida Gomez, 32, Catherine's mom, said her daughter is expected to survive

The shooting of the child on Wednesday night shocked the city, which is grappling with rising crime rates and mounting public safety concerns.

Miraida Gomez, 32, Catherine's mother, previously told New York Post that her daughter was stable at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan on Thursday.

'Shes going to be OK,' the mom told the outlet outside her apartment in The Bronx. 'God willing. Its in Gods hands.'

Gomez and her husband, Louis Ortiz, also have two older daughters, ages 8 and 9.

Family member Nancy Ortiz said Catherine is just learning to walk.

Earlier on Thursday, police released heart-stopping video footage showing the moment a gunman shot baby Catherine in the face while chasing a rival through The Bronx.

In the recording, the suspect - dressed in dark clothing, including a black Nike hoodie - races around a corner in Bedford Park with a gun in his hand.

He can be seen opening fire, while a rival dashes away, and disappears from the camera shot. The gunman, who has not been named or arrested, can be seen pausing and firing shots close to two pale cars.

It is unclear which vehicle Catherine was in, but she was struck while sitting next to her mom, who mistook the bullet for a rock hitting their parked car.

Moments later, the gunman can be seen running back down the street and out of sight. His tiny victim was rushed to hospital in a critical but stable condition. Her blood-stained pink coat was photographed lying on the ground afterwards.

Screenshots from surveillance video released by the NYPD shows a man pulling out a gun and firing while pursuing another person in Bedford Park, The Bronx, on Wednesday, leaving an 11-month-old baby gravely wounded

Cones mark evidence from the scene of Wednesday night's shooting, with the 11-month-old victim's pink coat stained red with blood

The child is the latest victim of a surging wave of violence that has overwhelmed New York City, with shootings, assaults and rapes all skyrocketing, and which the new mayor, Eric Adams, is determined to curtail, despite lenient state bail reform laws that have seen repeat offenders released back into the community.

The mother's husband was at a nearby store at the time of the shooting and ran outside when he heard his wife's screams. During a press conference near the scene, Mayor Adams described how the dad cradled his wounded daughter, dressed in a pink coat stained red with her blood.

One of the gunmen is caught on camera fleeing on foot, back past the deli, and they both remain at large.

The little girl, who turns one on Friday, was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital in critical but stable condition, before being intubated and transferred to Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. No further updates on her condition have been given.

Adams visited the child and her mother on Wednesday night in the hospital, the mayor told reporters.

One of the two sought gunmen is seen on the left running back past a corner deli after spraying the area with bullets

One of two gunmen who opened fire in the Bronx on Wednesday night, injuring a baby, is seen with his gun

A man can be seen running from the shooting after the baby was shot. Both gunmen remain at large

Police are seen on the corner of East 198th street in the Bronx following the 6:45pm Wednesday shooting

A heavy police presence is seen in the Bronx on Wednesday night after the shooting

The street is seen taped off on Wednesday night, as locals gathered to observe

Police patrol cars block the street after the 6:45pm shooting on Wednesday in the Bronx

Adams said that 'the first thing the mother did when she walked in the room, she grabbed our hands and she prayed.' The woman and her husband have two other children.

'When I hear people say that we should not incarcerate those who are discharging bullets of death through our community, they need to talk to this mother,' Adams said.

The 52nd Precinct tweeted: 'Due to Police activity, please avoid the vicinity of East 198 Street between Bainbridge and Grand Concourse.

'Expect Emergency vehicles and delays in the area.'

The shooting came as the newly-minted mayor struggles to get a grip on violence in the city.

Adams, a former NYPD officer, was elected on a campaign promise to reduce soaring crime, but in the first two weeks of his term shootings have continued to rise.

There have been 52 shootings in the week to January 16, with 57 victims - an increase of 15.6 percent on 2021.

Total crime is up 35 percent, year on year, according to CompStat.

Adams is seen on Wednesday night at the scene of the shooting, after visiting the family in hospital

Adams, a former NYPD officer, tweeted that the violence was unacceptable and must stop

At the scene on Wednesday night, Adams described the shooting as a 'wake up call' and said: 'I refuse to surrender New York City to violence.'

The 61-year-old tweeted: 'An 11-month-old baby shot in the Bronx.

'If that's not a wake up call, I don't know what is.

'It should be unimaginable that this would happen in our city. But it did.

'Leaders at every level have abandoned city streets. I won't. I refuse to surrender New York City to violence.'

Adams added: 'We will not give up the fight to keep babies like her safe.'

He appealed for anyone with information to get in touch.

On Tuesday night, Adams addressed a Times Square vigil for a 40-year-old Deloitte executive who died on Saturday when a mentally ill homeless man pushed her into the path of an oncoming train.

Adams said the violence has to stop.

'Right here in Times Square, I served as a police officer, and spent many days in the early '80s wearing a blue uniform as a police officer - a transit police officer, watching where we were,' he told the crowd.

'Swearing and committed that we would never go back.'

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, is seen on Tuesday night at a vigil for Michelle Alyssa Go, who was pushed under a subway train on Saturday by a mentally ill homeless man

Go, 40, is beamed on to the side of Times Square during Tuesday night's vigil

Go's friends and colleagues and hundreds of well-wishers gathered in Times Square to pay their respects

Tributes to the 40-year-old 'fearless' Deloitte executive, who grew up in San Francisco, were on display on Tuesday night

The vigil was organized by Asians Fighting Injustice, and founder Eric Wei told the New York Post the group is demanding that City Hall set up an Asian-American task force to address ongoing concerns over anti-Asian violence.

Anti-Asian crime was up 361 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, with 129 anti-Asian crimes, according to the NYPD - and 183 anti-Semitic crimes.

Simon Martial, 61, who was well known to police, has been arrested for shoving Go.

It is unknown if her racial background was a factor in the 9:40am attack on Saturday, but police suggested it was random.

Martial - who admitted to killing her - ranted publicly after his arrest that he was God, and was allowed to do it.

Adams on Sunday sparked widespread anger by seeming to downplay the concerns of subway riders.

'New Yorkers are safe on the subway system,' he said.

'I think it's about 1.7 percent of the crimes in New York City that occur on the subway system.

'Think about that for a moment. What we must do is remove the perception of fear.'

On Tuesday, before the vigil, he backtracked and admitted there was a problem - reversing his previous stance.

Adams is seen on Tuesday holding a press conference in City Hall, in which he admitted he does not feel safe on the subway

'Day One, January 1, when I took the train, I saw the homelessness, the yelling, the screaming early in the morning, crimes right outside the platform,' he said, during an in-person City Hall press briefing.

'We know we have a job to do  and we're going to do both.

'We're going to drive down crime, and we're going to make sure New Yorkers feel safe in our subway system.

'And they don't feel that way now. I don't feel that way when I take the train every day, or when I'm moving throughout our transportation system.'
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The first woman to ever take command of the USS Constitution - the US Navy's 'flagship' vessel which went undefeated in battle - was cheered as she assumed duties of Old Ironsides on Friday in a groundbreaking moment for female sailors.

Commander Billie J. Farrell, 39, officially became the 77th commanding officer of the 224-year-old warship, which earned its legendary nickname when it famously defeated the British warship HMS Guerrier during the War of 1812.

The British man-of-war's 18-pound cannonballs bounced off the oak hull of the Constitution, leading an officer aboard the soon-to-be de-masted Guerrier to exclaim, 'Huzza, her sides are made of iron!'

Farrell celebrated the ship's history as she took the helm of the three-masted frigate during the ceremony at Boston's Charlestown Navy Yard.

'Any person that walks on the decks of the ship is immediately standing on the page of history itself,' said the native of Paducah, Kentucky, and 2004 graduate of the US Naval Academy.

'She also serves as a somber reminder of those that gave the ultimate sacrifice on her decks to create the nation that we know today.'

Farrell's appointment is an inspiration to other women, said Rear Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, president of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

'Of course, in our modern Navy, women have already commanded at all levels, but not this ship, the public's most accessible commissioned vessel, America's naval heritage,' Chatfield said.

Commander Billie J. Farrell salutes as the new the 77th commanding officer of USS Constitution at the ship's change of command ceremony. USS Constitution, is the world's oldest commissioned warship afloat, and played a crucial role in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812, actively defending sea lanes from 1797 to 1855

Commander Billie Farrell salutes after becoming the commanding officer of the USS Constitution, the first woman to hold that position in the ship's 224-year history, in Boston, Massachusetts

Commander Billie Farrell stands on deck after becoming the commanding officer of the USS Constitution,

Commander Billie Farrell speaks as she becomes the commanding officer of the USS Constitution. She said: 'Any person that walks on the decks of the ship is immediately standing on the page of history itself'

Commander Billie Farrell and crew members salute as she arrives for a ceremony to become the commanding officer of Old Ironsides

'I can only hope that a new generation of people are inspired by seeing a woman as the captain of our ship of state, recognizing that for them too, there is no limit to what they can accomplish,' Chatfield said.

The vessel got its famed nickname of Old Ironsides from the fact that British cannonballs bounced off its hull during the War of 1812.

The Constitution, which is the world's oldest commissioned warship still afloat, also played a crucial role in the Barbary Wars and defended sea lanes from 1797 until 1855.

The 44-gun American naval frigate was undefeated in battle and destroyed or captured 33 opposing vessels.

Three United States Navy sailors stand in shallow water near the warship USS Constitution in 1905

The USS Constitution - captained by Isaac Hull - sinks the British warship 'HBMS Guerriere' off the coast of Newfoundland on August 19, 1812 during the War of 1812

Pictured: a painting by Antonio Jacobsen shows the USS Constitution in rough seas, circa the 19th century

Billie J. Farrell pictured in Charlestown, MA on January 6, 2022. On January 21, Farrell will took over as the 77th Commander of the USS Constitution and become the first woman in that role

This undated photo released by the U.S. Navy shows U.S. Navy Cmdr. Billie J. Farrell who took over command of the 224-year-old USS Constitution on Friday in a ceremony that started on land and ended on board

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said during the ceremony that Farrell, who most recently served as the executive officer aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Vicksburg, is 'the perfect leader to take command of this historic ship at this historic time.'

The significance of the command was not lost on Farrell, who was a teenager in 1998 when her family visited the ship, which is one of Boston's most popular attractions with about 500,000 tourists annually.

'Her name carries the weight of the document to which we are all familiar, and to which all members of the armed services swear an oath to support and defend.'

Farrell relieved Commander John Benda, who had led the ship's crew since February 2020.

Nowadays, active-duty sailors stationed aboard USS Constitution provide free tours and offer public visitation to more than 600,000 people a year as they support the ship's mission of promoting the Navy's history and maritime heritage and raising awareness of the importance of a sustained naval presence.

It is crewed by about 80 active-duty sailors, about a third of whom are women.

The first woman to serve on the Constitution's crew was Rosemarie Lanam in 1986.

The first woman to serve as a commissioned officer on the ship was Lt. Commander Claire Bloom, who served as executive officer and led the 1997 sail, the first time Old Ironsides had sailed under her own power since 1881.
Two people were knifed and hospitalised following a fight inside a central London store on Friday night as police launched an appeal for witnesses.

The Metropolitan Police said two people were arrested over the skirmish, which occurred in front of horrified shoppers inside the flagship Selfridges on Oxford Street.

It is not known what caused the fight but footage from the scene recorded by a bystander shows at least two police cars stationed outside the store.

Two ambulances can also be seen parked on the busy street - a mecca for tourist and shoppers - with their lights flashing.

The two people stabbed are not thought to have sustained life-threatening injuries.

Metropolitan Police Westminster tweeted: The incident at Selfridges was at 6.25pm.

'Both men at hospital are aged in their 20s. One was arrested, along with a third man who has been taken into custody.

'Nobody is thought to have life-threatening injuries.

Police said two people were arrested over the skirmish, which occurred in front of horrified shoppers inside the flagship Selfridges on Oxford Street (pictured)

Any witnesses have been urged to call 101 or Crimestoppers referencing CAD 5667/21jan.

Met police previously tweeted: 'Police have been called to a fight in Selfridges, W1 which has resulted in 2 males being treated with stab wounds.

'The males have been taken to a Central London Hospital for treatment, the injuries are not life threatening. 2 arrests have been made.'

It is not the first time the Selfridges store has witnessed violent scenes, after a man was stabbed in the Burberry aisle last May.

The shocking moment was caught in video footage, which showed a youth holding a knife whilst knocking down a mannequin.

The presumed culprit - wearing a face mask, is pushed back by a couple of other men whilst one shouts at him: 'no, no' and 'take it in'.

One man, aged 20, was stabbed in the leg and taken to hospital and was one of seven arrested, including a woman.

Footage from a previous stabbing in Selfridges last May shows a man holding a knife as he knocks down a mannequin before another man steps in and tries to calm him in the midst of the chaotic scene

Several men can be seen running into the camera shot in an aggressive manner and scuffling between each other.

All the men, wearing tracksuits and some with hoods pulled right up, then run down the aisle, presumably in pursuit of their victim.

A female store worker and a security guard can be seen hurriedly walking beside the crowd and trying to usher them out but was too outnumbered to be effective.

A Met Police spokesman confirmed that one man had been taken to hospital for a stab wound and was just one of many arrested.
He was nine when he beat 300 hopefuls to play a fictionalised version of a young Sir Kenneth Branagh in the directors semi-autobiographical film, Belfast.

Now Jude Hills stellar performance has seen him tipped to become the youngest actor to receive a best actor Oscar nomination since 1931.

The movie, about a boy growing up in a working class family during the Troubles in the late 1960s, is largely shot in black and white.

It opened yesterday and has been garlanded with praise  in his five-star review, the Daily Mails critic Brian Viner called it a small masterpiece.

Jude, now 11, has been hailed as a natural by Sir Kenneth, while co-star Dame Judi Dench said he was completely like an actor who had had 25 years worth of experience.

Jude Hills stellar performance in Belfast has seen him tipped to become the youngest actor to receive a best actor Oscar nomination since 1931

The schoolboy from the village of Gilford, about 25 miles from Belfast, has been named best newcomer by the Hollywood Critics Association for his role as Buddy alongside Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe as his parents and Dame Judi and Ciaran Hinds as his grandparents.

Jude, who trained at the Shelley Lowry School for speech and drama, secured the part after sending in a tape of his work and having a series of virtual interviews and auditions.

The first audition I ever did was a self-tape, he said. I go to speech and drama lessons and I do poems and extracts from books and my teacher sent through this self-tape and I filmed it and I got called back like five or six times.

The self-tape was a scene from a film chosen by his mother. He used a scene from Belfast for future auditions before the final hurdle: A call with Sir Kenneth.

When the email came through I ran around my house screaming for about five minutes, Jude said of winning the role.

I didnt even get half way through and I read it all and I found out who would be in it and I was amazed... It was just crazy.

Jude Hill and his mother Shauneen Hill arrive the 24th British Independent Film Awards at Old Billingsgate on December 5, 2021 in London. It seems that his newfound fame is not going to his head. His mother said: Hes very humble and hes such a good boy about it'

Jude Hill (centre)with actors Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds, his co stars in the film 'Belfast'

Jude, who lives with his parents Daryl and Shauneen and has a younger sister and brother, has now been signed up by Los Angeles talent agencies.

But it seems that his newfound fame is not going to his head. His mother said: Hes very humble and hes such a good boy about it.

Even when he went back to school after [filming], his teachers were asking him lots of questions and he didnt really talk about it.

'Hes just a normal boy and thats how we and him want to stay.

She said that she spotted her sons talent when he was only four, after he recited the poem Roger Was A Razor Fish at school.

Director Kenneth Branagh (left) and actor Jude Hill (right) on the set of Belfast

He was actually unreal just in terms of the delivery and his expression, she told the Hollywood Reporter.

American star Jackie Cooper was nine when he was nominated for the best actor Oscar for his role in comedy Skippy in 1931.

The youngest best actor Oscar winner was Adrien Brody, who was 29 when he took home the Academy Award for his role in The Pianist in 2002.
Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra became parents for the first time Sunday after welcoming a daughter 12 weeks early, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The baby girl, who was born via surrogate, arrived at 27 weeks at a Southern California hospital outside LA, where she'll remain until she is healthy enough to return home with her parents, a source close to the couple said.

Nick, 29, and Priyanka, 39, who tied the knot in 2018, surprised fans with news of their growing family in a statement shared on social media on Friday.

'We are overjoyed to confirm that we have welcomed a baby via surrogate. We respectfully ask for privacy during this special time as we focus on our family. Thank you so much (heart emoji),' the pair wrote.

They did not reveal further details about the sex or name of the child.

Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra became parents for the first time Sunday after welcoming a daughter 12 weeks early, DailyMail.com can reveal

'We are overjoyed': The happy new parents announced the big news on Instagram

According to the insider, the A-list couple had been wanting to have a baby together for 'quite sometime,' but their schedules had gotten in the way of their family planning.

They eventually contacted an agency to explore their options and were connected them with a woman in SoCal who they believed was a good match.

'Priyanka doesn't have any fertility issues preventing her from having a baby, but she is 39 now so it's not getting any easier,' the source said.

'Their busy work schedules also mean that it's difficult for them to physically be together to conceive when she is ovulating, so some time ago they went down the surrogacy route.

'This is the woman's fifth surrogacy. They met her and really liked her.

'The baby had been due in April but the surrogate ended up giving birth on Sunday, so she was very premature,' the insider added.

The baby girl and the surrogate are currently in hospital and Nick and Priyanka are waiting for the baby to be healthy enough to move to a hospital in Los Angeles.

The source continued: 'Priyanka had been trying to get her filming all done before the baby was due in April - but obviously this has completely thrown her plans.

'There were rumors and speculation that the marriage was in trouble and that they might divorce, but that's total nonsense. Nick and Priyanka are very happy together.'

Earlier this month Priyanka revealed children were definitely in their 'future.'

Nick Jonas and his wife Priyanka Chopra have welcomed their first child together via surrogate

The Quantico star - who tied the knot with the Jonas Brothers star in 2018 - has insisted starting a family with her other half will happen when the time is right, but when they do become parents, she plans to 'slow down'

The Quantico star - who tied the knot with the Jonas Brothers star in 2018 - has insisted starting a family with her other half will happen when the time is right, but when they do become parents, she plans to 'slow down'.

Speaking in the February issue of Vanity Fair magazine - of which she is the cover star - Priyanka said: 'They're a big part of our desire for the future. By God's grace, when it happens, it happens.'

When the interviewer mentioned the couple's hectic work schedules, Priyanka quipped: 'No, we're not too busy to practice.'

The couple both agreed it's best to focus entirely on their future child when they do become parents.

She added: 'I'm okay with that. We're both okay with that.'

While the Baywatch star has always been all about the 'next job', these days she is 'craving family life'.

She explained: 'My priority has always been the next job. I'm a very, very ambitious person. But I think the woman in me is craving balance.

'I'm craving my family life. I'm craving being able to do things for the soul that I didn't do because I was just 'blinders on' and working.'

Nick and Priyanka tied the knot in traditional Hindu and Christian ceremonies in 2018.
An artist's impression of Jeonju Financial Center / Korea Times file





By Kim Bo-eun







Korea has often been criticized for a populist approach to policies in key industries. Previous administrations claimed the relocation of state-run institutions, once concentrated in Seoul, to across the country was a means to drive the growth of provincial areas.







But this has led to questionable outcomes such as having the state pension fund moving to Jeonju, 240 kilometers south of Seoul, which has little related infrastructure. This in turn has resulted in a brain drain at the world's third-largest pension fund.







Following the National Pension Service's (NPS) relocation in February 2017, then-presidential candidate Moon Jae-in pledged to designate Jeonju as Korea's third financial center after Seoul and Busan. But government feasibility studies conducted in 2019 after Moon's election concluded the city lacked the infrastructure needed for the plan.







The plan appeared to have derailed, but discussions have re-emerged ahead of the presidential election in March.







Presidential candidates of the ruling and opposition parties, however, have refrained from clarifying their stance on the plan, given they need the votes from regional voters, but view the Jeonju financial center plan as being unrealistic.







The ruling Democratic Party of Korea's candidate Lee Jae-myung said last month, "It is difficult to understand why the NPS relocated to Jeonju."







The main opposition People Power Party's Yoon Suk-yeul, in the meantime, said studies would take place "for Jeonju to become a center for investments that can contribute to the economy of North Jeolla Province."







Regional authorities have sought to bring key state-run institutions such as the Korea Investment Corporation, the Export-Import Bank of Korea and Korea Development Bank (KDB) to Jeonju.







But the greatest barrier is a lack of interest from financial firms in setting up operations there, due to the lack of accessibility and infrastructure. Foreign companies' presence is regarded as being essential for a global financial center, but the regional government has found it difficult to attract even local firms.







Other views are that it doesn't help to disperse financial centers across the country, when Korea's cities lag in competitiveness as financial hubs. Seoul ranked 16th in the Global Financial Centers Index published by the London-based think tank Z/Yen last year. Busan ranked 36th.







The government in 2009 designated Busan as the second financial center and relocated a number of state-run financial institutions, including the Korea Exchange, to the southern port city.







But Busan has struggled to attain competitiveness as a global financial city, and has opted for a focus on maritime finance.


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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has predicted a 'large-scale' war with Russia if the superpower attempts to occupy the industrial city of Kharkiv - which he believes is a target due to its large Russian-speaking population.

The stark warning came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted there have been 'no breakthroughs' in crunch talks with his country's former Cold War rival in a bid to prevent an imminent war with Ukraine.

Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, is the former Soviet republic's second biggest city with a population of about 1.4 million, and Zelenskiy believes it is a 'feasible' target for Putin.

He told the Washington Post: 'I will say realistically if Russia decides to enhance their escalation, of course they are going to do this on those territories where historically there are people who used to have family links to Russia.

'Kharkiv, which is under Ukraine government control, could be occupied. Russia needs a pretext: They will say that they are protecting the Russian-speaking population.'

Meetings will continue between the US and Russia next week, with the former warning the latter that it must choose between the 'path of diplomacy' or the 'path of conflict and condemnation' as the threat of invasion grows with 100,000 troops stationed on the Ukraine border.

Blinken has promised a written response to Russian security demands and is not ruling out a presidential meeting, although he appeared to reject Moscow's request to ban Ukraine from joining NATO at today's 90-minute discussion with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva.

He insisted the US and Europe 'stand ready to meet Russia on either path' of war and said it is now up to Vladimir Putin to prove he does not intend to invade Ukraine.

Blinken described today's high-stakes talks as 'frank' and not 'polemical', with Lavrov also voicing hope for a lowering of the temperature between the former Cold War foes, despite saying NATO is 'working against' Russia and stirring up 'hysteria'.

The Secretary of State told reporters: 'We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clear path in terms of understanding each other's concerns and each other's positions.

'We anticipate that we will be able to share with Russia our concerns and ideas in more detail in writing next week and we agreed to further discussions after that,' he added.

Lavrov added: 'Antony Blinken agreed that we need to have a reasonable dialogue, and I hope emotions will decrease. I cannot say whether or not we are on the right track. We will know when we get an answer.'

He said another meeting could be held between the two, but that it was 'premature' to start talking about another summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Putin, who met in Geneva last June.

Blinken, however, did not rule out fresh talks between the presidents after Biden twice warned Putin by telephone of consequences for any Ukraine invasion.

'If we conclude (and) the Russians conclude that the best way to resolve things is through a further conversation between them, we're certainly prepared to do that,' Blinken said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken today met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for talks in Geneva as the men try to avert a war in Ukraine after Putin massed troops on the border

Blinken told Lavrov that the US remains committed to diplomacy but is ready with a 'severe' response should Moscow invade

Mr Blinken speaks at a press conference held after the talks, saying Russia must now choose between 'path of diplomacy' or 'path of conflict' - and that the US 'stands ready to meet them on either path'

Mr Lavrov speaks at a press conference after the talks, saying that America has agreed to respond to Moscow's security demands in writing and that more talks are planned after that

Lavrov (right) opened the talks by demanding 'concrete' responses to Moscow's security demands, including that Ukraine is banned from joining NATO (Blinken pictured left)

Ukrainian troops are pictured manning their posts in a trench close to frontlines where they have been fighting a years-long war with Russian separatists

Ukraine blames Russia for bomb hoax campaign Ukraine says it has been targeted by a campaign of fake bomb threats in recent days, which it blamed on Russia. Kiev said the Kremlin's security services had been phoning in fake bomb alerts 'targeting society' in an attempt to sow chaos and panic. 'The obvious goal of the special services of the aggressor country is to put additional pressure on Ukraine, to sow alarm and panic in society,' Kiev's own security services said. It comes after the US warned that Russia might launch sabotage operations against rebels forces it supports in the east of the country in order to justify an invasion. Putin currently has 100,000 troops on Ukraine's border, and has been seeking security guarantees from the US - including that Ukraine be banned from NATO. The US has called most of the demands 'non-starters', but has agreed to press ahead with negotiations in the hopes of avoiding a conflict. Advertisement

Blinken said earlier today: 'If Russia wants to begin to convince the world that it has no aggressive intent toward Ukraine, a very good place to start would be by de-escalating, by removing those forces on Ukraine's border.'

He seemed to reject at least one of Moscow's demands today - that Ukraine should be banned from joining NATO - by insisting that there is 'no room' to negotiate over the country's right to decide its own future.

But he said Washington will respond to Russia in writing next week, and that more talks will take place once Moscow has reviewed the response.

Meanwhile Lavrov, speaking at a separate press conference, firmly denied that Russia is intending to attack Ukraine, instead accusing NATO of whipping up 'hysteria' aimed at 'sabotaging' the peace process.

He said the Kremlin is concerned about the eastward expansion of NATO, which he said is 'working against' Russia. Moscow also has 'concerns' about weapons and military experts sent into Ukraine in recent days and EU plans to build a new training base there, he added.

Despite the concerns, Lavrov described the talks as 'productive' but said it is too early to tell whether they are on the right path - that will only become clear after America's written response is delivered next week, he said.

Ahead of the talks, the US had warned of a 'united, swift and severe' response if Putin attacks Ukraine amid fears that Putin is massing an invasion force on the border.

Blinken, arriving at the Geneva hotel where the crunch talks took, said Washington is 'committed to a path of diplomacy' for resolving border tensions between Russian and its ex-Soviet neighbour.

But he added that America stands ready with a 'united, swift and severe' response if Moscow invades. 'This is a critical moment,' he said.

Lavrov stressed ahead of the talks that Moscow is expecting a 'concrete' response to its security demands, including that Ukraine be banned from joining NATO.

Moscow also wants the 'withdrawal of foreign forces, hardware and arms' from countries that were not NATO members before 1997, including Bulgaria and Romania.

'(Our) proposals are extremely concrete and we await equally concrete answers,' Lavrov said.

Russian sappers are pictured taking part in mine-clearing exercises in the Voronezh region, which is close to the border with Ukraine

Speaking afterwards, Mr Blinken said: 'We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clear path in terms of understanding each other's concerns and each other's positions.'

He called the 90-minute conversation 'frank and substantive', saying that 'by and large, the conversation was not polemical'. 'This was not a negotiation, but a candid exchange of concerns and ideas,' he added.

During the talks, Mr Blinken also raised the case of two US citizens - Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed - who are detained in Russia on charges of spying and endangering the lives of police, asking that they be freed.

Lavrov responded that the Kremlin does not interfere in criminal cases.

The Geneva talks came a day after Blinken was in Berlin to meet with NATO allies Germany, Britain and France to drum up support for pressuring Russia, particularly from Germany which has until now taken a softer line.

Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, said after the talks that her country is willing to harm its economic interests to retaliate against Russian aggression - seemingly a reference to the not-yet-operational Nord Stream 2 gas pipe that Moscow wants to open.

But in Germany today, it was revealed that Chancellor Olaf Scholz - whose SPD party has historically been close to Russia - refused to take a last-minute meeting with Joe Biden to discuss the situation in eastern Europe.

Scholz did not accept the invitation due to a full schedule, including a trip to Madrid, Der Spiegel reported.

Elsewhere today, it was reported that the US is considering whether to pull the families of diplomats out of the country - underlining concerns that conflict is imminent.

Blinken's insistence on a 'severe' response came a day after Biden drew widespread criticism for saying retaliation would depend on the details - and that a 'minor incursion' could prompt discord among Western allies.

On Thursday, Mr Biden cautioned that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would 'pay a heavy price' for such an action.

Russia sappers take part in drills to practice mine-clearing in Voronezh, close to Ukraine

A Russian rocket artillery vehicle takes part in live-fire drills in the Voronezh region

Rockets explode during live-fire drills in the Voronezh region, near the border with Ukraine

Moscow has for weeks been massing tens of thousands of troops, tanks and artillery pieces along its eastern flank, sparking fears of an invasion, though the Kremlin has insisted it is merely a defence force (pictured, Russian forces currently massed in border regions)

'I've been absolutely clear with President Putin,' Mr Biden said. 'He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.'

Asked whether Russia was intimidated by Ukraine, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on arriving for the talks on a cold and blustery day in Geneva: 'We're not afraid of anyone, even not of the U.S.'

In Moscow, the Kremlin reacted coolly to a parliament initiative to recognise two pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent states, saying it was important to avoid steps that could increase tensions.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it was important not to try and score political points in such a fragile situation.

Scholz and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson shared a phone call on Thursday evening, putting out a statement today that warned Russia would pay a 'considerable and serious price' if it invades Ukraine.

The two leaders agreed that 'further military aggression by Russia against Ukraine must be averted' and there would be consequences if the situation were to escalate, the German chancellery said.

Even while rejecting the core Russian demands, the Biden administration has said it is willing to speak to Moscow about its security concerns.

One proposal by the United States is to revive restrictions on missiles in Europe that had been set by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War deal trashed by former president Donald Trump's administration as it accused Moscow of violations.

The Biden administration has also offered more transparency on military exercises. Russia has not rejected the proposals but says that its core concern is Ukraine.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, speaking in Australia amid talks on the new AUKUS submarine pact, today warned Putin to 'desist and step back' from Ukraine before making 'a massive strategic mistake'.

'Invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and conflict in Chechnya,' she said.

'We need everyone to step up. Together with our allies, we will continue to stand with and urge Russia to de-escalate and engage in meaningful discussions. What happens in eastern Europe matters for the world.'

Moscow insists it has no plans to invade but has at the same time laid down a series of demands - including a ban on Ukraine joining NATO - in exchange for de-escalation.

Washington has rejected Moscow's demands as 'non-starters' and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg this week insisted that the alliance 'will not compromise on core principles such as the right for each nation to choose its own path'.

Upping the ante, Russia announced new naval drills that will see it deploy to the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and Mediterranean 'more than 140 warships and support vessels, more than 60 aircraft, 1,000 pieces of military equipment, and about 10,000 servicemen'.

The announcement followed an angry condemnation from the Kremlin of what it described as 'destabilising' remarks from US President Joe Biden, after the American leader vowed a 'severe' response to any invasion of Ukraine.

Russia already held joint military drills Wednesday with forces of ex-Soviet republic Belarus, which also neighbours Ukraine.

A US official said the exercises could presage a permanent Russian military presence involving both conventional and nuclear forces in Belarus.

The West has repeatedly warned Russia it would pay a 'high price' of economic and political sanctions should it invade Ukraine.

Hours before Blinken arrived in Berlin to coordinate the possible response to Russia, Biden sparked controversy as he appeared to indicate that a 'minor incursion' might prompt a smaller reaction from NATO allies.

A Ukrainian soldier sits inside a trench along the frontline where government forces have been fighting against Russian-backed rebels for years

Ukrainian troops move through a trench network close to the frontlines with Russian-backed rebel forces in the east of the country

Russian S-400 anti-aircraft batteries are moved to the frontlines with Ukraine as Putin continues to mass his troops

S-400 anti-aircraft batteries are loaded on to transports to be taken to the frontlines

'It's one thing if it's a minor incursion, and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera,' he said.

Blinken in Berlin clarified the comments, saying that 'if any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border and commit new acts of aggression against Ukraine, that will be met with a swift, severe response from the United States and our allies and partners.'

Speaking to the German television channel ZDF on Thursday, Blinken added that any crossing of the border into Ukraine by Russian soldiers would constitute a very clear aggression, irrespective of whether it was a single soldier of a thousand, according to a German translation of his remarks.

Biden also took pains to calm frazzled nerves, saying that any entry of Russian troops into Ukraine will be treated by the West as 'an invasion'.

But smarting from Biden's Wednesday remark, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit back that there was no such thing as 'minor incursions'.

'We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,' Zelensky wrote on Twitter.

The West's diplomatic machine has been running on full power over recent weeks to defuse tensions, but with positions entrenched on both sides, a series of talks between Western and Russian officials in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna has failed to yield any breakthrough.

NATO allies have signalled their willingness to keep talking but Moscow has demanded a written response on its proposals for security guarantees.

On the Russian wish list are measures that would limit military activities in the former Warsaw Pact and ex-Soviet countries that joined NATO after the Cold War.

But in Kyiv on Wednesday, Blinken said he would not present such a formal response at Friday's talks with Lavrov in Geneva. Rather it was on Russia to dispel fears of any expansionist intentions.

Ukraine has been fighting Moscow-backed forces in two breakaway eastern regions since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

More than 13,000 people have been killed, and the latest Russian troop build-up has also greatly rattled neighbours in the Baltics.

Washington said Thursday it has approved requests from the Baltic nations to ship US-made weapons to Ukraine.

Britain has also said it would send defensive weapons to Ukraine as part of a package to help the country secure its borders.

In a speech in Sydney Friday, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will warn Russian President Vladimir Putin against making a strategic blunder and becoming embroiled in a 'terrible quagmire' if Russia invades Ukraine, according to prepared remarks.
A Florida man who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information against Joe Biden in Ukraine was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $10,000 Friday in an unrelated campaign finance case.

Igor Fruman was told to report to prison March 14.

He pleaded guilty in September to a single charge of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national.

As part of the plea, he admitted soliciting a million dollars from a Russian entrepreneur, Andrey Muraviev, to donate to Republicans in Nevada, Florida and other states as part of an effort to launch a recreational marijuana business.

Igor Fruman, a Florida-based businessman, was utilized by former President Donald Trump's ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani to seek damaging information about now President Joe Biden in advance of the 2020 election

Igor Fruman (left) who assisted Rudy Giuliani in his Ukrainian political efforts on behalf of President Donald Trump was sentenced to a year and a day in prison Friday

Igor Fruman (left) pleaded guilty in September to a single charge of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national

Federal prosecutors in New York had urged Judge J. Paul Oetken to sentence Fruman to between three and four years in prison.

Defense lawyers argued he should face no incarceration because he has otherwise led a law-abiding life.

Oetken said the crime of soliciting foreign money for U.S. political campaigns was serious and deserved incarceration. 'It undermines the integrity of elections in our country,' he said during the sentencing. 'It undermines democracy.'

Fruman, 55, the father of four children, told the judge he had reflected on his crime.

'It's a shame that will live with me forever,' he said through a white face mask as several family members watched from wooden benches in an area for spectators.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten argued that the crime had caused 'incalculable damage' because it harms the trust the public has in U.S. elections.

'That all the things they fear are happening with politicians are happening,' he said.

Scotten said the crime does 'grave damage to the integrity of the electoral system.'

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche said his client had suffered from eight days in jail after his arrest and two years and four months of home incarceration.

'That's punishment enough, your honor,' he said.

Fruman was charged in the case along with Lev Parnas, another Florida businessman who helped Giuliani's attempt to spoil Biden's quest for the presidency on the Democratic ticket.

The pair served as liaisons between Giuliani, and Ukrainian officials and business tycoons as the former New York City mayor tried to persuade prosecutors in that country to investigate Biden's son, Hunter, over his work for an energy company.

U.S. prosecutors haven't brought any charges in connection with the Ukrainian influence campaign, which was the subject of one of former President Donald Trump's impeachment trials. They focused instead on donations that Fruman and Parnas made to U.S. politicians as they sought to build influence in Republican political circles.

Parnas was convicted in October of campaign finance crimes and awaits sentencing.

Politicians who got the illegal donations, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, have said they were unaware the money secretly came from a foreign source.

Giuliani (pictured), who worked for Trump as a personal attorney, faces a continuing investigation into whether he was required to register as an agent of a foreign government during his dealings with Ukraine authorities

Muraviev was not charged in the case.

Giuliani, who worked for Trump as a personal attorney, faces a continuing investigation into whether he was required to register as an agent of a foreign government during his dealings with Ukraine authorities.

The inquiry partly involves an examination of whether Giuliani offered to lobby or influence the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian figures.

Giuliani has said everything he did in Ukraine was done on Trump's behalf and there is no reason he would have had to register as a foreign agent.

Following raids on Giuliani's home and business last year, former federal judge Barbara Jones was appointed by a judge to determine what materials on electronic devices seized in the raid can be turned over to criminal prosecutors.

In a four-page report issued Friday, Jones said only a few dozen items among tens of thousands of communications on seven of his electronic devices have been prevented from being turned over to prosecutors because they contain privileged communications.

She said she was awaiting further assignments.
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Brian Laundrie took responsibility for killing Gabby Petito in the notebook that was found near his remains more than a month after he went missing, the FBI has revealed.

The notebook was found next to his body in the Cartlon Reserve swamp near his parents home in North Port, Florida on October 20. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head, and along with the notebook, officers also found a backpack and a revolver. It's not clear when he died.

He had been on the run since September 13 after strangling Petito in Wyoming during their cross-country RV trip earlier this summer. His remains were found more than a month later after an extensive search of the swamp.

In an announcement on Friday, the FBI said it was closing its investigation into Petito's death after concluding that Laundrie did admit to it.

The bureau did not say what specifically he wrote in the notebook claiming responsibility for Petito's murder.

The FBI opened its investigation into Petito's disappearance after she was reported missing by her parents on September 12. At the time, she and Laundrie has been on a cross-country road trip in her white van.

A massive manhunt ensued, and Petito's remains were found on September 19 at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming near where she and Laundrie had last been seen together - and three weeks after she had last spoken to her parents.

She died of blunt-force injuries to the head and neck and manual strangulation, according to the Teton County Coroner. She had been dead for three or four weeks before her body was discovered.

Brian Laundrie took responsibility for killing Gabby Petito in the notebook that was found near his remains, the FBI has revealed. Petito last spoke to her parents in August, and her remains were found in September. Laundrie's remains were found in North Port, Florida two week in October - a month after he disappeared. The young couple had been on a cross-country van trip but it turned sour and in August, just a few weeks before she died

In an announcement on Friday, the FBI said it was closing its investigation into Petito's death after concluding that Laundrie did admit to it. The bureau did not say what specifically he wrote in the notebook claiming responsibility for Petito's murder. Pictured: Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito during their cross country road trip

The notebook was found next to his body in the Cartlon Reserve swamp near his parents home in North Port, Florida. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head, and along with the notebook, officers also found a backpack and a revolver. Fox News obtained images of police carrying an evidence bag containing the notebook

An evidence tent is set up in the Carlton Reserve park where Laundrie's remains were discovered on October 20

Brian Laundrie took responsibility for killing Gabby Petito in the notebook that was found near his body, the FBI has revealed

The search for Laundrie took more than a month, with a large group of police officials scouring the Carlton Reserve.

His remains were found on October 20 after water had receded from the search area and the park was reopened. On that day, his parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, then informed law enforcement that they intended to return to the park to search for him. Images from Fox News show the Laundrie's at the reserve ahead of the search as well as the notebook found by law enformcement.

In a statement on Friday, the FBI said: 'Law enforcement officers were present when Mr. Laundrie's parents located an item in the park later determined to belong to Mr. Laundrie.

'Upon further search of the area, investigators found human remains later confirmed to be Mr. Laundrie, along with a backpack, notebook, and a revolver.

'A review of the notebook revealed written statements by Mr. Laundrie claiming responsibility for Ms. Petito's death.'

On Thursday, Petitos parents met with FBI officials at the Tampa Field Office for a private meeting where they were informed that the investigation into her death will be closed.

'All logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case,' said FBI Denver Division Special Agent in Charge Michael Schneider.

'The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito. The FBI's primary focus throughout the investigation was to bring justice to Gabby and her family.'

His remains were found on October 20 after water had receded from the area and the park was reopened. On that day, his parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, then informed law enforcement that they intended to return to the park to search for him

Gabby Petito died of blunt-force injuries to the head and neck and manual strangulation, according to the Teton County Coroner. She had been dead for three or four weeks before her body was discovered

Petito seen here with Brian Laundrie, her boyfriend and the main suspect in her disappearance, whose own death was ruled a suicide after remains were discovered October 20

Petito's remains were found four weeks after she last spoke to her parents. She had been dead three or four weeks before her body was discovered near the Spread Creek Campground in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming

The search for Petito began after Laundrie had returned to his parent's Florida home from their trip without her on September 1.

On September 11, Gabby's family reported her missing and two days later, her boyfriend Brian Laundrie vanished from his parents' home.

The young couple had been on a cross-country van trip but it turned sour and in August, just a few weeks before she died.

Chris and Roberta Laundrie, Brian's parents, have been widely condemned for not talking with Petito's family or turning their son in to police when he returned home from his trip, especially after she was reported missing.

He left their home on September 13, two days after her family on Long Island, New York, reported her disappearance.

Petito's family criticized the Laundries for not helping them.

Before Petito's disappearance, she and Laundrie were pulled over by Utah police officer in Moab on August 12, 2021 after they responded to a call from a witness who saw the couple involved in a domestic fight.

Last week, an independent investigator has said that the officers who pulled them over should have been suspended for not citing Petito following the violent encounter where she admitted to being the aggressor.

Officers Eric Pratt and Daniel Robbins had pulled the couple over after they responded to a call from a witness who saw the couple involved in a domestic fight.

Bodycam footage showed a visibly shaken Petito admitting to being the aggressor in the public argument. During the conversation, Pratt had noted that Petito should have been arrested for her actions as stated in the Utah state law.

The cops who pulled Petito and Laundrie in Moab, Utah were also recommended for probation for not pressing charges in the incident

An independent investigator revealed that Gabby Petito should have been cited for being the aggressor in a domestic dispute with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie (pictured left). Moab City PD Eric Pratt (right) is seen speaking with Laundrie

The couple, however, managed to dispute the allegations and the officers let them go following a 75-minute conversation on the promise that they spend the night away from one another.

After the bodycam footage emerged, the Price City Police Department launched its own independent investigation and said Wednesday that the officers should have pressed charges in the incident.

'I believe the officers responded to a domestic violence call and had probable cause an act of domestic violence had been committed,' Price Police Capt. Brandon Ratcliffe.

'This should have meant an arrest was made, either by citation or custody.'

Despite evidence pointing towards Petito as the aggressor, Ratcliffe noted that she had probably been the victim of violence in the relationship.

As a result of the investigation, Ratcliffe recommended that Pratt and Robbins be put on probation for how they handled the incident.

He also concluded that he couldn't be certain that the officers could have changed the outcome of Petito's fate if they acted accordingly.

'Would Gabby be alive today if this case was handled differently?,' the report said, according to CNN. That is an impossible question to answer despite it being the answer many people want to know.

'Nobody knows and nobody will ever know the answer to that question.'

The city of Moab has not revealed any form of future disciplinary action for the officers but they intend to implement new measures such as legal and domestic violence training.

They noted, however, that the officers should have cited Petito made 'several unintentional mistakes' during the incident.

'Based on the report's findings, the City of Moab believes our officers showed kindness, respect and empathy in their handling of this incident,' a statement from the city read.

'The City of Moab sends our sincere condolences to the Petito family. Our hearts go out to them as they continue to deal with the tragic loss of their daughter.'
Kathy Griffin has claimed that CNN president Jeff Zucker 'got very offended' when she asked for a raise just days before the network's New Year's Eve special in 2016 and fired her - but then turned around and rehired her with a slashed salary.

Griffin, 61, told the The New York Times that she contacted Zucker 10 days before the New Year's Eve special and explained that she was 'carrying more of the prep work' than CNN co-host Anderson Cooper and deserved more than her $80,000 contract.

Zucker 'got very offended,' she said.

'He started yelling at me and he literally said something like, 'Who do you think you are calling here demanding a raise?' And then something came over me. And I just lost it. I just started screaming. I'm Kathy [beep!] Griffin, Jeff, that's who I am,' Griffin told the Times.

Griffin's response was perceived by Zucker as a threat to bail on the show, and in a call to Griffin's lawyer, she was fired.

Griffin told the Times she called Zucker again, this time begging him to take her back. She was rehired, but her pay had been slashed by 20 percent.

Kathy Griffin told the Times that she contacted CNN boss Jeff Zucker 10 days before the New Year's Eve special and explained that she was 'carrying more of the prep work' than CNN co-host Anderson Cooper and deserved more than her $80,000 contract

Zucker told the Times this month that he has long supported Griffin's career, but called her demand for a raise so close to New Year's Eve 'completely out of line.'

Griffin said Zucker 'got very offended' when she asked for a raise just days before the network's New Year's Eve special in 2016 and fired her -- but then turned around and rehired her with a slashed salary

Zucker told the Times this month that he has long supported Griffin's career, but called her demand for a raise so close to New Year's Eve 'completely out of line.'

'It sounds like she is acknowledging that, insofar as Kathy Griffin acknowledges she has ever done anything wrong,' he told the Times.

CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.

Griffin, who began hosting CNN's New Year's Eve special in 2009, was ultimately fired by the network in 2017 after she posed expressionless with a prop depicting then-President Trump's severed head, which is slathered in fake blood.

The controversial image, which was taken by photographer Tyler Shields and posted by Griffin on social media in 2017, faced condemnation from across the political spectrum.

'I caption this 'there was blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of his...wherever,'' she said of the shoot from photographer Tyler Shields.

Within 30 minutes of the image being posted on social media, it appeared on TMZ with the headline, 'Kathy Griffin Beheads President Trump.'

Griffin was fired from CNN the next day and hundreds of her upcoming shows were canceled.

Comedian Kathy Griffin lamented during ABC's The View on Thursday what she called "a double standard" because she had been canned by CNN after her infamous 2017 picture of her holding a fake decapitated head of then-President Donald Trump, yet the network kept its chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, following his masturbation scandal last year

Griffin said she even received death threats from Trump supporters in its aftermath, saying she was approached by a man with a knife, leading to her having metal detectors installed at her home.

'I wasn't canceled,' Griffin told the Times a few days after she 'hate-watched' Cooper and Andy Cohen, the new co-host of the New Year's Eve show the following year. 'I was erased.'

Even though she began touring as a comedian last year after losing several gigs as a result of the controversy, Griffin now says that she was still suffering on the inside.

Griffin, who is not hurting for money with a net worth of $50 million, said she just wants to get back to her work - and making people laugh.

'I just want to get back to making people laugh,' she told the Times. 'More than anything else, that's what has been robbed from me.'
Lindsay Boylan, 36

Former aide Lindsay Boylan, 36, was the first woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment in a Medium post on February 24. She claimed that the governor asked her to play strip poker and kissed her on the lips without her permission when she worked for him in 2017.

Lindsay Boylan, 36

Charlotte Bennett, 25

Charlotte Bennett, 25, came forward a few days after Boylan and claimed that Cuomo sexually harassed her last June while she was working as a health policy adviser in his administration at the height of the COVID-19 crisis.

Bennett accused Cuomo of 'grooming' her and asking inappropriate questions about her sex life.

She also claimed that he told her he was open to dating women in their 20s.

BENNETT said the governor asked her about her love life - including whether she ever had sex with older men - and talked about his own, saying that age differences didn't matter in relationships and he was open to dating women over 22.

During a meeting alone in his office, the governor said he was lonely and talked about wanting to hug someone, Bennett said.

She said she swiftly complained to Cuomo's chief of staff and was transferred to another job.

She said she spoke to a lawyer for the governor, but didnt insist on further action because she liked her new post and wanted to move on.

Charlotte Bennett, 25

Anna Ruch, 33

Anna Ruch was the third woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment and the only one thus far who did not work with him in a professional capacity. She claimed that Cuomo put his hands on her face and asked if he could kiss her just moments after they met at a September 2019 wedding in Manhattan.

Anna Ruch, 33

Ana Liss, 35

Ana Liss, 35, a former aide, said Cuomo asked her whether she had a boyfriend, once kissed her hand at her desk and called her by patronizing names, including 'blondie,' 'sweetheart' and 'honey.'

At a reception, the governor hugged her then put his arm around her lower back and waist as they posed for photo, Liss said.

She said she eventually asked for a job transfer. In an interview, Liss said she was 'not claiming sexual harassment per se,' but felt the administration 'wasn't a safe space for young women to work.'

Liss, who previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015, told the Wall Street Journal that during her time in his administration, the governor had subjected her to unsolicited advances, including touching her lower back, kissing her hand and quizzing her about her love life.

Ana Liss, 35

Karen Hinton, 62

The oldest allegations against Cuomo came from Karen Hinton, who served as a press aide for him when he led the US Department of Housing and Urban Development two decades ago and she was a consultant for the agency. Hinton told the Washington Post about a 2000 incident when she said Cuomo summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event. She said she tried to pull away from Cuomo when he pulled her back and held her before she managed to escape the room.

Karen Hinton, 62

Unnamed sixth accuser

The most damning allegations leveled against Cuomo to date came from a sixth accuser, whose name has not been released.

The accuser, who is a member of Cuomo's staff, alleged that he closed a door, reached under her blouse and fondled her after summoning her to the governor's mansion in Albany for help with his cellphone, according to the Times Union of Albany.

It first reported on her accusation last month; she then gave more detail in her first interview on the matter.

The woman spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her privacy, although her identity is known within the governors circle, the Times Union reported.

The woman, an executive assistant, told the Times Union the governor gave her kisses on the cheek and inappropriately tight hugs for years and made remarks including, 'If you were single, the things that I would do to you' and 'I'm single and ready to mingle.'

Then, one day in November, she was summoned to his Executive Mansion office to help him with a cellphone problem, she said.

He got up from his desk, started groping her and told her 'I don't care' after she tried to deflect him by saying he was going to get them into trouble, and then he slammed the door, she said.

Then he reached under her blouse and clutched one of her breasts over her bra, she told the newspaper.

The woman told a colleague this winter about the alleged encounter, and the co-worker told a supervisor in early March, according to the newspaper.

Cuomo called the report 'gut-wrenching' in a March statement and said: 'I have never done anything like this.'

Another female aide, who has remained anonymous, claimed he called her to his Executive Mansion last year, reached under her blouse and fondled her

Jessica Bakeman

Jessica Bakeman claimed in a first-person article for New York Magazine that she was sexually harassed by Cuomo on several occasions since the start of her journalism career in 2012.

Bakeman added her voice as the seventh accuser as she detailed inappropriate touching by the governor as he continued to deny all of the claims.

'He took my hand, as if to shake it, then refused to let go,' Bakeman wrote of an interaction with Cuomo as she said goodnight at a holiday party in 2014 when she was only 25 years old.

'He put his other arm around my back, his hand on my waist, and held me firmly in place while indicating to a photographer he wanted us to pose for a picture.'

At the time Bakeman had been working for what is now Politico New York and claimed that red flags went up as her 'job was to analyze and scrutinize him'.

'I didn't want a photo of him with his hands on my body and a smile on my face,' she wrote.

Jessica Bakeman, a reporter who once covered the Cuomo administration, was the seventh woman to come forward with claims of harassment

'But I made the reflexive assessment that most women and marginalized people know instinctively, the calculation about risk and power and self-preservation. I knew it would be far easier to smile for the brief moment it takes to snap a picture than to challenge one of the most powerful men in the country.'

In an earlier 2012 incident while she was working for USA Today, Bakeman also claims that Cuomo kept her pinned to his side as he told a story to her male colleagues.

'He left it there, and kept me pinned next to him, for several minutes as he finished telling his story,' she said. 'I stood there, my cheeks hot, giggling nervously as my male colleagues did the same. We all knew it was wrong, but we did nothing.'

The reporter, who now works in Florida, claimed that Cuomo 'never let me forget I was a woman' as she also alleged that he made frequent attempts to humiliate her, including calling out her purple phone instead of answering her question during a press gaggle.

Alyssa McGrath, 33

McGrath, a current administrative assistant in Cuomo's office, told The New York Times that he looked down her shirt, quizzed her about her marital status, and told her she was beautiful, using an Italian phrase she had to ask her parents to interpret.

McGrath didn't say the governor made sexual contact with her but thought his behavior was sexual harassment.

She recalled Cuomo kissing her on the forehead and gripping her firmly around the sides while posing for a photo at a 2019 office Christmas party.

Alyssa McGrath (pictured) is one of two aides who have come forward to accuse the governor of harassment

Sherry Vill, 55

Sherry Vill, 55, accused Cuomo of sexual misconduct during a press conference with her attorney Gloria Allred on Monday.

She alleges Cuomo grabbed her face and kissed her 'aggressively and in a sexual manner' on both cheeks in May 2017 while he was touring her home in Greece, near Rochester, as he inspected local flood damage.

Vill, who said she felt uncomfortable at the time, shared an image her daughter took on the day that showed Cuomo holding her face as he kissed her cheek and her attorney held up multiple photos showing the Governor inside her home.

The same photos appear on Cuomo's Flickr account, as well as multiple others that show him kissing and greeting residents as he toured the town.

None of the women in the other photos have accused the governor of inappropriate behavior or wrongdoing.
A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman's body was found in a Birmingham home.

Police forced entry to the property in Aston at 10.15am on Friday after concerns were raised for the occupant of the property.

The body of a 64-year-old woman was found inside the property, West Midlands Police confirmed.

Police forced entry to the property in Aston, Birmingham, at 10.15am on Friday after concerns were raised for the occupant of the property. Pictured: Forensic officers at the scene

The body of a 64-year-old woman was found inside the property, West Midlands Police confirmed. Pictured: Emergency services at the scene in Birmingham on Friday

According to police, a 52-year-old man was arrested on the scene on suspicion of murder and remains in police custody. Pictured: Forensic officers at the home in Aston

A 52-year-old man was arrested on the scene on suspicion of murder and remains in police custody.

Investigations are ongoing and a post-mortem examination will take place on Saturday.

Detective Inspector Hannah Whitehouse from Force CID, said: 'We're carrying out house-to-house enquiries and I'd appeal to anyone who heard or saw anything suspicious there or had recent contact with the occupant to get in touch.'

Anyone with information is urged to contact police quoting log number 1043 of 21 January or call the charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.
A Tennessee judge who 'used unconstitutional detention' and arrest policies to jail children on truancy charges is retiring, she announced just one day after state legislators voted to remove her from the bench.

Judge Donna Scott Davenport, 69, with the Rutherford County Juvenile Court said she will step down from the bench a day after the vote was placed, following a 22-year career.

'After prayerful thought and talking with my family, I have decided not to run for re-election after serving more than twenty-two years on the bench,' she said in a statement.

'I will always look back at my time as Judge as one of the greatest honors of my life, and I am so proud of what this Court has accomplished in the last two decades and how it has positively affected the lives of young people and families in Rutherford County.'

'I wish my successor the best and hope that this job provides them the same fulfillment it has provided me over the years.'

Her term will end in September, and she has said that she does not plan to run for re-election in the near future.

Davenport has been considered to be a controversial figure after she created a system to lock juveniles up at will in which she falsely imprisoned and arrested thousands of children who were revealed to be as young as seven.

Rutherford County Juvenile Court Judge Donna Scott Davenport has announced her retirement only a day after she was voted for removal by state legislators

Davenport received controversy during her time in court as she created a jail system in 2003 for juveniles who committed any kind of delinquent defense and falsely arrested as well as imprisoned over a thousand children

In March 2003, Rutherford County Juvenile Judge Donna Scott Davenport established the 'de facto policy', referred to later in 2013 as the 'filter system', according to court documents reviewed by DailyMail.com.

The detention policy was designed to 'incarcerate children pretrial whenever (a) there was probable cause that the child had committed any delinquent offense, and (b) staff deemed incarceration to be in the childs best interests."'

But the meaning of 'best interests' was never defined and was left up to the jail's discretion. The charges were as minute as truancy, and the ages of children arrested and jailed were as young as seven to nine years old.

During a radio appearance in 2012, Davenport said, 'Ive locked up one 7-year-old in 13 years, and that was a heartbreak. But 8- and 9-year-olds, and older, are very common now,' according to a news report.

Under Davenports watch, in 2014, 48 percent of cases resulted in kids being jailed. The statewide average at the time was 5 percent, the report found.

The policy sparked a class action lawsuit filed in 2017, which was amended two years later, then ultimately settled for $11million in June 2020.

Payouts for the settlement were divided into two classes - wrongfully arrested and wrongfully detained. Wrongfully arrested got about $1,000 each and wrongfully detained received about $5,000.

In exchange, the policy was banned and the county 'denies any wrongdoing in any of the lawsuits filed against it.'

Rutherford is now retiring from her career on the bench after 22 years

In October 2021, WPLN and ProPublica published an in-depth, investigative report that has gained nationwide notoriety.

The report renewed scrutiny on Davenport and the county's juvenile detention system, and spotlighted specific anecdotes of juveniles who were arrested and imprisoned on overzealous - and allegedly made-up - charges.

In one case, children were arrested and thrown in jail on a little-known Tennessee law of 'criminal responsibility for conduct of another' because they didn't break up a fight between a five- and a six-year-old, WPLN and ProPublica reported.

'There has to be something done to everyone who was involved in this,' state Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) told WSAV on Wednesday. 'Its my understanding that they created a law that wasnt even on the books in order to make that happen.'

'That is horrible abuse of power. We have the Administrative Office of the Courts, I believe they should take action and investigate.'

Davenport, now 69, grew up in Mt. Juliet, a Nashville suburb and graduated from Middle Tennessee State University, in Murfreesboro with a degree in criminal justice.

She's run the juvenile county justice system since its inception in 2000, appointing its magistrates and setting its rules. While other elected officials have shuffled in and out of county office, Davenport has remained and is expected to run again after her eight-year term ends next year.

It's unknown if the settlement and news reports have altered her plans.

The investigative report showed how Davenport believes her calling is to instill moral values and restore family traditions.

'Im here on a mission. Its not a job. Its Gods mission,' she told a local newspaper, according to the news report.

On Wednesday, Middle Tennessee State announced that it cut ties with Davenport, who delivered a commencement speech in 2015.

The school said in a statement: 'To the university community, adjunct instructor Judge Donna Scott Davenport, whose actions overseeing Rutherford County Juvenile Court have recently drawn attention in national media reports, is no longer affiliated with the University.'

Neither Rutherford County Mayor Bill Ketron nor Davenport have responded to DailyMail.com's request for comments.

County officials and Davenport declined to speak to WPLN and ProPublica for their report.

Davenport has referred to herself as 'The Mother of the County. 'The children in her courtroom arent hers, but she calls them hers', the report says.

'Im seeing a lot of aggression in my 9- and 10-year-olds,' she said in one radio segment, according to WPLN and ProPublica.

James McCarroll Jr. is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Murfreesboro, which held the first community meeting on the subject, following the 2016 arrest that led to the 2017 lawsuit. 'You cant make up the law,' he told WSAV.
A 17-year-old boy from California killed himself four months after his dad died of COVID after blaming himself for the fatal infection by asking his family to attend his high school pep rally.

In August 2021, the Reyes family of five - mom Stephanie, dad Anthony Sr, 46, and their three teenage kids - were brimming with hope for a bright future as they prepared to move into their new home in Whittier.

But the Los Angeles family have been struck by two terrible tragedies in the four month interim, after Anthony Sr succumbed to the virus shortly after being diagnosed in September. Tragically, his son Anthony Jr, 17, took his own life earlier this month, with his grieving mom Stephanie Reyes devastated by the double loss.

He blamed himself for his dad's death, with his mom saying Anthony Jr had been further traumatized by being the last person to see his ailing dad in hospital before his death.

Reyes, 37, has been left raising her two surviving daughters, Reyna and Marissa, on her own.

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Anthony Reyes Sr, 46 (left), a married dad-of-four, died of COVID on September 11, 2021, and his son, Anthony Jr, 17 (right), died by suicide four months later

Stephanie Reyes, 37, says her son was blaming himself for his father's death because he had invited his family to a pep rally, where they all likely contracted COVID

The grieving mom said the 17-year-old considered himself responsible for his father's COVID diagnosis because he had invited his family to a pep rally at school, where they all likely contracted the illness, reported Los Angeles Times.

Anthony Jr struggled with depression, and in August 2020 described in a school essay how the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on his mental state because he was unable to see his friends and girlfriend because of quarantine.

The Reyes family were unvaccinated against COVID because they were concerned about their various medical conditions and possible side effects from the jab.

Anthony Reyes Sr was 46 and working at a power plant when he came down with the virus in late August, along with his wife and children.

Within a week of his diagnosis, the father-of-three, who had a pre-existing heart condition, was in a hospital on a ventilator.

Anthony Jr, known as 'Papi,' struggled with depression during the pandemic. He wrote about his mental health issues in a school essay in 2020

The Reyeses, pictured when the children were younger, were unvaccinated against COVID because they had concerns about medical conditions and side effects

Stephanie said before her husband succumbed to the virus on September 11, she made a fateful decision to allow their son to see him one last time so he could bid farewell.

'My son wanted to go see his dad [and] against my better judgment, I let him go. It was the worst mistake I did,' she told Fox 11.

Anthony Jr was said to have been haunted by the image of his dying father in his hospital bed, with blood pooled in the corner of his eye.

'He felt guilty,' Stephanie said of her son's mindset in the weeks and months after his father's death. 'He felt like he was the one who got us sick. He felt like he was the reason why his dad was gone and we talked to him all the time, and told him "It wasn't your fault."'

The widowed mom said she desperately tried to get professional help for her son as he buckled under worsening depression, but all the therapists she contacted were completely booked up.

At 4am on December 28, Stephanie woke up to see light in her son's bedroom.

Stephanie (2nd R) said she tried to get help for her struggling son after her husband's death but could not find an available therapist

'I knock on the door to his room and I'm like, 'Hey, kid, it's 4 in the morning, what are you doing?"' Stephanie recounted.

The mom then realized that Anthony Jr, whom she affectionally called 'Papi,' had taken his own life.

'He was gone. I couldn't believe my babys gone,' she raid.

As she prepares to lay her son to rest on Saturday, Stephanie is speaking out publicly about her loss to raise awareness among parents about the dangers of depression in children, and how to recognize the first signs of trouble before it is too late.

A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help the single mother with funeral expenses.
A police sergeant in Florida filmed throttling a female colleague while on duty now faces a criminal probe thanks to an internal investigation into the throat grab.

Christopher Pullease, 46, faces the allegation after he was suspended by Sunrise Police in Florida earlier this week over the disturbing bodycam footage. No further details have emerged on the crime he is suspected of committing.

'This is a result of criminal allegations that have been uncovered due to the internal affairs investigation,' said Officer Justin Yarborough.

Authorities shared body camera footage Sunday of an incident that took place November 19. Everyone in the video had their face blurred except for Pullease, a 21-year veteran of the force.

Sunrise police were detaining a suspect who was 'verbally and physically resistive' when Pullease came on the scene and got aggressive, Chief Anthony Rosa said in a statement.

Pullease then got into a verbal altercation with the suspect, who was already sitting inside a police car.

Pullease has been serving with the Sunrise Police Department for the past 21 years and has two investigations for excessive force, though he was cleared both times

Sergeant Christopher Pullease (pictured right) has been put on desk duty and removed of his supervisory responsibilities after he was filmed grabbing an officer by her throat

The situation began when Pullease approached a detained suspect with pepper spray. His supervisor, Police Chief Anthony Rosa, said that Pullease unnecessarily escalated the situation

The other officer approaches Pullease from behind and pulled him by the back of his duty belt, in line with the department's policies according to Rosa

Video shows Pullease turn around while backpedaling as he was pulled, then momentarily putting his hand at the other officer's throat and pushing her backward until she hits a nearby police car. Pullease then walks away

Body camera footage shows Pullease ducking his head inside the car to talk to the suspect while holding a can of pepper spray.

Rosa said that Pullease was 'inappropriate and unprofessional' in the situation and added that he 'unnecessarily elevated the demeanor of the suspect.'

A fellow officer - who has not been identified but has been on the force two and a half years - ran toward Pullease and pulled him by the back of his duty belt.

Video shows Pullease turn around while backpedaling as he was pulled, then momentarily putting his hand at the other officer's throat and pushing her backward until she hits a nearby police car. Pullease then walks away.

According to Rosa, the second officer was following Sunrise police's own policies and procedures for a situation where there's 'imminent fear of engagements escalating' between officers and suspects.

Police Chief Anthony Rosa (pictured) said that Pullease was 'inappropriate and unprofessional' in the situation and added that he 'unnecessarily elevated the demeanor of the suspect'

Chief Anthony Rosa (right) with Sgt. Christopher Pullease when he was receiving an award in 2019

Police in Sunrise say they're 'working in conjunction with the Broward State Attorney's Office during this criminal investigation,' Yarborough said.

The union that represents officers in Sunrise - The FOP Lodge 80 - is demanding Rosa recuse himself from the investigation and is furious about the interview, claiming Pullease is being stitched-up.

'It is apparent that he has prematurely arrived at a conclusion without attaining all the facts,' the union said in a statement.

Rosa responded in a written statement Tuesday that he would not recuse himself from the investigation.

'I want to emphasize that it is one of my highest responsibilities to ensure safe working conditions for all employees and I will not waiver from that obligation no matter who is involved,' Rosa said.

Pullease could not be reached for comment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has cited a need for new police officers, even saying that he will pay unvaccinated police officers from other states $5,000 if they relocate to the Sunshine State to work, as cops across the U.S. continue to leave their posts in droves over COVID vaccine mandates.

'We're actually actively working to recruit out-of-state law enforcement, because we do have needs in our police and our sheriff's departments,' the governor told Fox News in October.

'In the next legislative session, I'm going to hopefully sign legislation that gives a $5,000 bonus to any out-of-state law enforcement that relocates in Florida,' he told the network's Sunday Morning Futures program.

Pullease has been taken off his supervisory duties since the incident. Internal affairs is investigating, with Rosa calling his behavior 'disgusting.'

He has no contact or supervision over subordinate personnel, according to Rosa.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has cited a need for new police officers, even saying that he will pay unvaccinated police officers from other states $5,000 if they relocate to the Sunshine State to work

'I am very proud of the officer involved in this incident and believe that the actions taken were definitive and demonstrative of good leadership during a tense situation,' Rosa said.

He noted that Sunrise officers are told to 'de-escalate emotionally charged situations' and intervene if one of their own appears to lose control or display inappropriate conduct in interacting with the public.

In an interview with local TV station, Rosa was asked why Pullease hasn't already been charged in the three months since the incident, with a reporter pointing out that any civilian who put their hands on an officer's throat would face charges.

'So there's some details of the investigation that I've not disclosed, that I'm unable to disclose right now, and if any of the information that comes up during the investigation rises to a level of criminal behavior or criminal conduct, then we'll address it appropriately,' Rosa responded.

A WSVN investigation into Pullease said that he had been investigated twice for excessive use of force in his two decades on the job, but had been cleared both times.
Victorians who have not received their booster shot could soon be banned from dining in cafes and restaurants.

The Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions met with hospitality and retail groups on Friday to discuss bringing in several changes to protect staff and customers.

Booster shots could soon be required meaning that unvaccinated and double-jabbed residents would no longer be allowed to visit a pub, restaurant or cafe.

QR code check-ins could also be ditched with health authorities using the app less as they scale back on contact tracing and shift their focus to high risk close contacts.

The discussions come after Victoria recorded 16,016 new cases and 20 deaths on Saturday.

Victorians who have not received their booster shot could soon be banned from dining in cafes and restaurants (pictured, residents visiting a cafe at Prahran)

Booster shots could soon be required meaning that unvaccinated and double-jabbed residents would no longer be allowed to visit a pub, restaurant or cafe (pictured, cafe worker in Prahran)

National Retail Association chief executive Dominique Lamb feared the new vaccine mandate would only lead to more customers lashing out at staff.

'It's a very polarising topic,' she told The Age. 'When this was in place last time we had members who were having human excrement smeared on their windows, they were hiring their own security and people were being attacked. We have great concerns about having to go through that again.'

Restaurant and Catering Industry Australia chief executive Wes Lambert said the mandate would add more strain on the already exhausted hospitality industry.

'It's very important that if the definition of fully vaccinated changes to three doses that it is not done in a way that puts more pressure onto the hospitality industry,' he said.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, premier Daniel Andrews warned the definition of being 'fully vaccinated' against Covid will soon change to involving three doses.

The Victorian premier, known for his tough Covid rules, noted that his government had already mandated workers in several industries to get boosters.

'This is not an option, not an add-on, not a "good thing to have", he said.

'I think we're close to a change in policy that will simply reflect the fact that in order to be fully protected you need three doses, not two plus an optional extra.'

It comes as the premier announced the interval between the second and third vaccine doses would be reduced to three months.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, premier Daniel Andrews warned the definition of being 'fully vaccinated' against Covid will soon change to involving three doses (pictured, a woman is vaccinated in Melbourne)

The premier said the number of people coming forward for a third jab needed to increase every single day as a 'common sense' response to the virus (pictured, a health worker outside a testing site in Melbourne)

The premier said the number of people coming forward for a third jab needed to increase every single day as a 'common sense' response to the virus.

Mr Andrews said the definition of 'fully-vaccinated' would soon come to mean those who had received three doses and said he wouldn't rule out mandating the third jab for workers other than healthcare staff.

He said his government was looking to ramp up booster rates by extending testing clinic opening hours and adding more cubicles and walk-in capacity.

Eligible residents with a 'spare 20 minutes' were urged to book an appointment for a third dose to ensure they were protected amid surging Omicron cases.

'We want it to be as easy as possible for the maximum number of people to get their third dose. That's the most important thing,' he told reporters.

His announcement on dose intervals means millions of Victorians who had their second dose three months ago are now eligible for their third.

'That interval has been reduced down to three months effective immediately,' the premier said on Wednesday.

'That's on the advice of our public health team, consistent with ATAGI's broader statement. It's safe. It's effective.'
Roh Tae-moon, president and head of MX Business at Samsung Electronics / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics





By Baek Byung-yeul







Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Note series, which skipped release in 2021, is returning to the market next month with the Galaxy S22 Ultra. With the merging of features from both the S series and the Note series, Galaxy S smartphones are expected to appeal to consumers in the first half of this year with a variety of models ranging from a large-screen device with an S Pen stylus to a small but high-performance smartphone.















Roh Tae-moon, president and head of Samsung's MX (mobile) Business, hinted Friday that the company will release the Galaxy S22 Ultra equipped with the S Pen, at Unpacked, scheduled in February.







"We know many of you were surprised when Samsung didn't release a new Galaxy Note last year," Roh wrote about the product on its website. "You loved the unparalleled creativity and efficiency of the Galaxy Note series, which enabled you to switch from gaming nirvana to high-octane productivity in the blink of an eye," he added.







He also wrote, "At Unpacked in February 2022, we'll introduce you to the most noteworthy S series device we've ever created. The next generation of Galaxy S is here, bringing together the greatest experiences of our Samsung Galaxy into one ultimate device," adding "Get ready for the ultimate ultra experience."







His article is interpreted as a message that Samsung has all but confirmed that it will include the S Pen in the Ultra model, in response to demand for a new Galaxy Note.







In 2021, Koh Dong-jin, then head of Samsung's IT and Mobile Communications division, said it wouldn't release a new product in the Note line that year saying, "It is not that we do not release new products. The timing may vary, but next year we are preparing to continue to do so."







Instead of the Note series, which was historically launched in the second half of the year, Samsung came out with new foldable phones: the Galaxy Z Fold3 and the Galaxy Z Flip3. Although the S Pen was supported for the S21 Ultra and the Z Fold3, it was only available when purchasing a separate case, not embedded in the device's body. For that reason, there had been calls for a new Note series.







Roh also revealed that the new S22 series will be able to deliver improved features such as a camera that can take bright and clear photos and videos in low light, a longer-lasting battery and a processor with high-speed data processing.


For two years, Boris Johnson had avoided the BBC's current affairs flagship, Radio 4's Today programme.

But last October, during the Conservative Party conference, he agreed to be interviewed  and it was Nick Robinson, lead presenter on Today, who was his interlocutor.

Johnson and Robinson locked eyes across the microphones and 6.5 million listeners waited in anticipation for a forensic grilling of the Prime Minister.

Instead, the interview soon descended into farce, with the two men increasingly talking over each other.

'I haven't had the chance to make this point on your show in two years,' Johnson protested.

'That was your choice, not ours,' shot back Robinson.

Then came a moment which has been much discussed since.

'Prime Minister, you are going to pause!' demanded Robinson. 'Prime Minister. Stop. Talking.'

'Very kind of you to let me talk,' said Johnson sarcastically, as he exited the studio. 'What was the point in inviting me on your show?'

The fact is, the pair have history  stretching back almost 40 years to when they were students at Oxford University and members of the hallowed debating society, the Oxford Union

Robinson acknowledged afterwards that some listeners 'may have just been slightly offended by me telling the Prime Minister to 'stop talking' . . . the truth is he's a great communicator [but] he's not a man who [always] loves the cut and thrust of a question-and-answer . . . is he?'

Listeners were left feeling that this was not a routine 'cut-and-thrust' encounter between politician and journalist but perhaps rather more personal.

The fact is, the pair have history  stretching back almost 40 years to when they were students at Oxford University and members of the hallowed debating society, the Oxford Union.

These past few weeks, amid Partygate allegations, the chemistry between Johnson and the state broadcaster's most high-profile political interrogator has become a hot issue, with many questioning both the BBC's political impartiality and the Government's announcement that it will freeze the Corporation's licence fee for two years.

Indeed, Robinson has only added to the febrile mood by questioning whether Johnson's mea culpa in the Commons over Partygate 'really was an apology' and suggesting that 'most people' thought the PM was only saying sorry because he had been caught.

Many are wondering if the bitter exchanges and pointed comments are rooted in rivalry between two ferociously bright and ambitious Oxford students

In short, many are wondering if the bitter exchanges and pointed comments are rooted in rivalry between two ferociously bright and ambitious Oxford students.

For his part, Robinson rubbishes any such suggestion, saying: 'I think that Boris Johnson would be as baffled by this as I am. We were not rivals or enemies at university. We were just two student debaters . . .'

There are, however, intriguing elements to the claim that are worthy of note.

Both men began their university careers in 1983, a brash, 'loadsamoney' era under a Thatcher government  and both were Tories. Johnson read classics at Balliol, while Robinson studied politics, philosophy and economics  the 'PPE' degree so beloved of political wonks  at University College.

Photographer Dafydd Jones, who worked for Tatler magazine, recalls being drawn to Johnson, a strikingly blond young man whom he had noticed at parties in the distinctive dress of the notorious Bullingdon Club.

He says the Old Etonian was 'quiet and polite', adding: 'He didn't have this loud, jokey, boisterous persona back then. He was charming  but less confident.'

Meanwhile, Robinson, who came from Macclesfield and attended Cheadle Hulme Grammar School, had confidence by the bucketload and was awarded the title 'Pushy Fresher of the Year', a contest started by then fellow student Michael Crick (now Mail Plus political correspondent).

Robinson, who came from Macclesfield and attended Cheadle Hulme Grammar School, had confidence by the bucketload and was awarded the title Pushy Fresher of the Year, a contest started by then fellow student Michael Crick

Crick recalls: 'Every autumn there were always a few first-year undergraduates who loudly declared their ambition to take over every student institution.

'Our contest was designed to bring these obnoxious, arrogant upstarts down a peg or two.'

Robinson was photographed in a group shot at Oxford with Johnson in the summer of 1985.

Alongside them was the Oxford Union's then president, Neil Sherlock, who had fought off Johnson's bid for the post the previous year and who went on to become special adviser to Nick Clegg when he was made deputy prime minister.

Sherlock says: 'During one debate, the three of us all spoke on the same side against the motion 'This house calls for a non-nuclear defence policy for Britain'.'

Johnson and Robinson were both considered so formidable that David Cameron, who was two years below them, later recalled: 'I visited the Oxford Union a few times, and saw stars like Boris Johnson, already a very funny speaker, and masters of debate like Nick Robinson.'

The Oxford Union has long been renowned for its eclectic mix of VIP guest speakers  including Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama . . . and model Katie Price.

It has also traditionally been a training ground for students determined on a career at Westminster or in Whitehall.

Johnson read classics at Balliol, while Robinson studied politics, philosophy and economics  the PPE degree so beloved of political wonks  at University College

Toby Young, the journalist and social commentator, was a contemporary of Johnson and Robinson.

He says: 'There was a lot of what was called 'hacking'  jockeying for position and votes.

'It was a playground version of the House of Commons tearoom  a lot of socialising which appeared friendly and convivial was actually all about winning political battles.'

Johnson understood this more than anyone. After his first failed bid to be elected Oxford Union president, he ran again in 1985.

Denouncing his previous Conservative alliances, he aligned himself with the recently founded and popular Social Democratic Party (SDP) to appeal to the liberal student base. It was a precursor of the later political shape-shifting that has marked his career.

'I had not the faintest clue that Boris was a Conservative,' Robinson told Johnson's biographer Sonia Purnell in 2011.

'Indeed, I would have told you, if you had asked me at the time, that he was a supporter of the SDP/Liberal Alliance.

'I think he must have taken the decision not to be seen as a Tory because he knew to do so would be to lose'.

The Oxford Union has long been renowned for its eclectic mix of VIP guest speakers  including Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama . . . and model Katie Price

Johnson's tactics paid off and he became Oxford Union president. With his girlfriend (and later first wife) Allegra Mostyn-Owen a Tatler cover girl and the 'most beautiful girl on campus'  Johnson was soon a 'Big Deal' at Oxford.

Georgia Coleridge, who was friends with his sister Rachel, says: 'As Oxford Union president, Boris had to invite guest speakers such as Cabinet ministers and famous writers, and entertain them when they arrived.'

So with all eyes in the student debating chamber on Johnson as he entered with his starry guests, where was Nick Robinson?

Former union president Neil Sherlock is adamant that there was no rivalry because Robinson always had his sights firmly set on running the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA), of which he did become president.

'Nick overwhelmingly was fighting for OUCA and Boris for the union,' he said.

Oh the irony! While our current Tory Prime Minister was, as a student, aligned with the SDP, the future BBC presenter was a staunch Conservative.

Last night a friend told the Mail: 'Nick was never a Union officer of any sort or a committee member and never ran nor thought of running to be president.'

Robinson was a member of the Tory Reform Group (TRG) and known as a Tory 'Wet', unlike Thatcherite members who referred to him as 'Red Robbo' or 'Wet Nickers'.

Toby Young says: 'Within the Oxford University Conservative Association, there were factions. The TRG was one and Nick was a leading light of that faction.

'It was on that basis that he became president of OUCA.'

Georgia Coleridge, who was friends with his sister Rachel, says: As Oxford Union president, Boris had to invite guest speakers such as Cabinet ministers and famous writers, and entertain them when they arrived.

Famously, Johnson was five when he said he wanted to grow up to be 'world king'. In contrast, as a precocious eight-year-old, Nick Robinson had already decided he wanted to be a journalist, thanks to the influence of his best friend's father, the legendary Today presenter Brian Redhead.

But many of their contemporaries reckoned their careers would be the other way around.

'I always thought at university that Nick Robinson would be the big political star and Boris Johnson would be a journalist,' said Neil Sherlock.

'If, in 1984-85, you told me that Boris Johnson was going to be PM, I would have been very surprised . . . I would have said Nick.'

Andrew Gimson, Johnson's biographer, agrees: 'People in those days actually thought Nick would be Prime Minister.'

The final word goes to Frank Luntz, the leading U.S. political pundit and pollster who was at Oxford with the pair.

'I always thought Boris would be prime minister,' he told the Mail yesterday. 'But both of them are the most talented debaters I ever saw. Boris gave the best speech; Nick gave the best intervention.'

His recollection is that the two men's relationship depended 'on the day of the week'.

'Sometimes they were friends. Sometimes they were rivals. But they both respected each other's talents,' Luntz says.

'As an American, I never heard or saw anything like them.

'They were far superior to what our students could do.'

And perhaps that is all there is to it. A political Big Beast  Boris Johnson  and his journalistic equivalent  Nick Robinson  simply reliving their glory days at the Oxford Union. Then again, maybe not . . .
Near midnight and, as music pounded through Annabel's nightclub, a group of laughing friends were making their way back to their table on the edge of the crowded dance floor.

It was one of those intimate moments so familiar to regulars at the exclusive venue in London's Mayfair when, after hours of food and dancing, a few people break away from the melee to catch their breath and talk over a quiet drink.

This particular group was rather special  it included Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah Ferguson. And the date was significant, too. It was late February 1992  three weeks before the couple would announce their separation.

For another member of the party, the events of that night would stick with him down the decades.

This was American Allan Starkie's first encounter with the Duke and Duchess of York, whose private lives would become inextricably linked with his over the following four years.

It was also his first experience of royalty and he was struck by the way other revellers would part to let the couple pass  and how everyone turned to stare at them.

But that was not his only memory. The other concerned the appearance of Andrew, who had just turned 32 and was a Royal Navy officer. Starkie noticed that the prince didn't sweat.

'It was extremely warm at Annabel's that night and Andrew was wearing a blue suit of heavy wool,' Starkie recalled this week.

'The evening featured almost constant dancing, and I watched with amazement as he returned from each dance, escorting rather moist partners, yet always bone dry himself.

Former US intelligence officer Allan Starkie (pictured with Fergie in 1996) recalled a night full of dancing in London in which he claims the Duke of York did not sweat a drop

Prince Andrew leaving Annabel's nightclub in Mayfair, London in 2009

'It was extraordinary. The rest of us were perspiring madly, but he didn't seem to have a bead of sweat on him.'

The events of that night have taken on a special meaning for Starkie, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, as he has watched the prince's reputation systematically shredded over allegations of sexual assault, not least because central to Andrew's alibi is his claim that he is incapable of sweating.

Stunned by the brutal manner in which the prince's royal life and its privileges have been stripped away, Starkie says he feels compelled to speak out now in support of the man he once considered a friend.

He is also the first person to provide an independent view of the main plank of Prince Andrew's defence  a defence which, it has to be said, has looked increasingly threadbare at every twist and turn of this sordid case.

Andrew's accuser, Virginia Roberts (now Giuffre), who claims she was trafficked by convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to have sex three times with the prince when she was a teenager, has said that prior to the first sexual encounter, she had danced with Andrew at Tramp, another London nightclub, where he had been 'profusely sweating'.

In his Newsnight interview, Andrew, who vehemently denies Roberts's allegations, claimed that he was unable to sweat at the time.

'There's a slight problem with the sweating,' he told BBC presenter Emily Maitlis. 'I have a peculiar medical condition.'

He went on to claim that he suffered from an overdose of adrenaline after being shot at as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War, meaning it 'was almost impossible for me to sweat'.

He was ridiculed for the explanation and the vagueness about the so-called condition at the time, and Roberts's lawyers are now demanding that the prince hand over medical records and paperwork relating to it.

His legal team have rejected the request on the grounds that it was 'harassing and seeks confidential and private information and documents that are irrelevant'.

Starkie, however, believes there is something to Andrew's mitigation.

Recalling a night filled with dancing during a particularly warm evening at nightclub Annabel's, American Allan Starkie noticed that Prince Andrew did not sweat. 'It was extraordinary,' he said (Pictured: Andrew leaving Chinawhite nightclub)

He says that at their first meeting at Annabel's nightclub, 'and through various subsequent encounters of over half a decade', he 'noticed the strange phenomenon that, regardless of how rigorously he exerts himself, he simply does not perspire'.

It has to be said that Starkie, who now runs a successful recruitment company in New York, is an unlikely ally of the Duke of York.

He was introduced to the Yorks in the dying days of their marriage by his then business partner John Bryan, the self-styled American 'financial adviser' to the duchess, who, in reality, was her lover.

Starkie was engaged by Bryan to give Fergie commercial advice as she attempted to establish a new life after separating from Andrew. The two became inseparable. They rode together and he accompanied her on countless official and private overseas trips.

Starkie established business enterprises for her, and when she was commissioned to write a book about Queen Victoria, he agreed to help with research, travelling with her as her friend.

He was at the centre of the duchess's life as it spiralled out of control over mounting debts, sex and an increasingly wayward existence. And, to start with at least, he was a shoulder for her to cry on.

Allan, she once proclaimed, was 'my best friend'.

Then, in 1996, after a string of financial setbacks when his and Bryan's construction business collapsed with debts of 10 million, which saw him held for months in a German prison on fraud charges  for which he was later exonerated  Starkie wrote an eye-opening and unsparing account of Fergie's chaotic world.

The book, which she tried and failed to get banned by the courts, was the most revealing study of a royal in crisis. It chronicled, though not unsympathetically, her intimate relationships, including her affair with Bryan, her spendthrift habits and her Prozac-taking despair.

He claimed that but for her two daughters, Fergie  anguished over Andrew and Bryan, and overwhelmed by the scale of her overdraft  had contemplated suicide.

The book destroyed his relationship with Fergie, but it did not end his affection for the duchess and, more importantly, the duke, whom he admired and respected.

His memoir was based on copiously kept diaries of his years at Fergie's side. And he has returned to those journals again to remind himself of Prince Andrew's condition. If Starkie's recollections are correct, then the prince's inability to sweat pre-dates his alleged encounter with the then 17-year-old Ms Roberts by at least nine years.

Starkie still recalls how Bryan had called him up at the last minute to join a party of friends who were heading for Annabel's, the club where Prince Charles had taken a certain Camilla Shand (later Parker Bowles) in his arms for the first time.

Bryan had hoped to introduce two influential German bankers to the Yorks, but they had pulled out. Enter Starkie.

The party was made up by Bryan's younger sister, Pamela, known as Baby, a married couple who were members of the Yorks' circle, and a blonde female friend of Fergie's, who was single.

Later Starkie made an account of the evening for his diary in which he claimed that the duchess hoped the blonde would distract Andrew from her and Bryan, with whom she had begun an affair.

The events of that night have taken on a special meaning for Starkie as he has watched the prince's reputation systematically shredded over allegations of sexual assault, not least because central to Andrew's alibi is his claim that he is incapable of sweating (Pictured: Prince Andrew with the Queen in 2019)

Between courses, the group made their way on to the dance floor.

'The duchess took turns dancing with Prince Andrew, as did the blonde and Baby,' says Starkie, who also danced with the three women.

The American also learned that night that the prince did not drink alcohol, and it got him wondering about why he didn't have a bead of perspiration on his head when everyone else was dripping wet.

There were to be more expeditions to nightclubs over the years and every time he marvelled at the same spectacle  a sweat-free Andrew.

The oddest example by far was two years later in the spring of 1994 when Andrew had command of his first ship, the minesweeper HMS Cottesmore, in which he decorated his cabin with a large picture of Windsor Castle.

As part of a goodwill mission, the 625-ton vessel docked in the Pool of London and the duke invited Fergie, from whom he was by now separated, and Starkie to drop in.

'There was a bagpipes ceremony which we watched, then a junior officer asked me to follow him below decks,' he remembers. 'I was escorted into a large cabin and Prince Andrew sprang on me from behind a door and wrestled me to the ground.

'It was playful and hilarious and, not wanting to seem overly obsequious, I wrestled back before letting him win.'

A graduate of the elite West Point military academy, whose service record included espionage operations in the Middle East and Africa, Starkie could certainly handle himself. 'It was a warm May day and a cramped room and I recall my collar felt like a wet rag when I got off the floor.'

And the prince? 'He was bone dry, laughing and unflappable.'

After changing out of his naval uniform  he was by then a lieutenant commander  Andrew, Fergie and Starkie headed once again for Annabel's.

Starkie said he felt compelled to speak up about Andrew amid a sex assault lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre in the United States (the pair allegedly pictured together, with Ghislaine Maxwell smiling in the background). The Duke of York vehemently denies the allegations

This time there was no Bryan present, but a businessman whom Fergie was keen to impress, and having Andrew there was key. She had just embarked on one of her most madcap schemes  hunting for a horse with which she could compete as an eventer in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

She and Starkie had found the horse, Heather Blaze, in Ireland; the only problem was that she needed someone to buy it for her. Clive Garrad, an apparently wealthy property developer, was the man she had alighted upon.

Garrad, a roughly spoken wheeler dealer, who had plans to put the duchess's name behind a string of nursing homes that he was hoping to set up, was charmed by Andrew's attention.

But the collaboration ended in scandal. Garrad was bankrupt and was jailed for evading VAT. Fergie never rode in the Olympics and although she did come to own a share of the horse, Heather Blaze had to be destroyed after breaking a leg.

But that night at Annabel's things looked very different. Between conversation and dinner, there was more dancing, and once again Starkie was struck by how cool  and dry  Prince Andrew remained.

He noticed it again and again, at parties at the duchess's rented homes of Romenda Lodge and Kingsborn, and at Sunninghill, the Yorks' former marital home where Andrew was still living.

Often the prince would bring his Jack Russell, Bendicks, a much-loved family pet, and there would be rough-and-tumble games.

'Every time Andrew was animated, participated in dancing and party games and never had a bead of perspiration on him,' says Starkie.

A curious man, he pondered what lay behind it. He knew, for example, that his balding friend, Bryan, used an injectable hormone treatment to stimulate hair growth, and wondered whether Andrew used it, too, and the absence of sweat was a side-effect.

But while he was certainly thinning, Andrew was not suffering from hair loss. 'I didn't know at the time about Andrew's metabolism and how he says it was affected by his Falklands experience,' he says.

'I thought the lack of sweating could be the result of medicinal side-effect, but I never found out. For a long time, I thought it might be a result of him being teetotal.'

Although he has not spoken to the prince for around 25 years, Starkie says that he would be prepared to swear on oath about Andrew's sweating.

'What has happened to him is a tragedy,' he says. 'He was a war hero who has devoted his life to serving his country, and he is being dragged down by innuendo.'

From his memory of the time he spent with Andrew, Starkie says: 'I recall a man who was guarded and selective in social events and there was one common theme: he was still in love with his ex-wife.

'As far as I can see, nothing much has changed. He did not chase women and I could never in a thousand years imagine him escorting a young girl like Virginia Roberts.'
Maksym Bilyk is a young man who thinks carefully before speaking, works with computers and has never fired a gun in his life after avoiding national service in the military due to a stomach ulcer.

But the 26-year-old, who lives in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, responds instantly when I ask how he might act if there is an invasion of his country by the huge numbers of Russian tanks and troops massing over the border less than 30 miles away.

'I would take up arms and go to the battlefield without slightest hesitation,' he said. 'No one wants to fight but if there is aggression against us, we must fight back.'

Bilyk admitted being scared living so close to the border. 'The idea of taking up firearms and going into a battle is unsettling. I want to live in peace. But this is our land. We have nowhere else to go. So there is no other option but to fight for it.'

Serafim Sabaronsky, 28, bar manager pictured with his most essential belongings packed for survival

Such conversations feel incongruous in a cafe filled with people chatting over coffee, eating cakes or tapping away at computer screens in a bustling city centre.

As we talked, skaters slid by on an ice rink in the snow-covered city centre square where a huge statue of Lenin  the biggest in Ukraine  stood until it was toppled eight years ago.

That statue was at the centre of clashes after pro-democracy protests sprung up in Ukraine. Kremlin stooges stormed official buildings and burned flags  but they were defeated, unlike in two eastern cities now under Russian control.

But now, Ukraine's second city is living in fear of a fresh assault as diplomatic efforts try to prevent Vladimir Putin from invading  an illegal move that would unleash chilling new conflict with Kharkiv among possible targets.

Indeed, yesterday, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said Russia may try to occupy Kharkiv and that it would be the start of a 'large-scale war'.

Once, the massive city square was named after the founder of the Soviet secret police. But when Ukraine shook off the shackles of Communism three decades ago, it was renamed Freedom Square.

Bilyk told me how this democratic ideal inspired him as a teenager to join the 2014 protests. 'The first ones were against the government but they became about freedom,' he said. 'When I saw people with foreign flags on our land, it was unacceptable.'

Born shortly after the Soviet Union's collapse, he regards freedom as 'the most important value in life'. Yet now it is being threatened by Putin, a former KGB operative, seeking to rebuild the Russian empire and stifle democracy.

Countless people are wondering what to do in the event of an attack. Some are stocking up on food or contemplating flight  but others are preparing to confront one of the world's most powerful combat machines.

They range from idealists such as Bilyk to battle-hardened veterans of the eight-year conflict that has dragged on in eastern Ukraine.

It was stirred up by Putin in response to the protests next door to Russia, leading to two breakaway republics, about 14,000 deaths and two million displaced people.

One Kharkiv city councillor told me he was planning to move his wife and two sons to Lithuania if Russia invades, then head to the frontlines with a rifle for which he has a hunting permit.

'If I buy a sniper rifle, it must be for hunting. But what you hunt, well, that's another question,' said Oleg Abramychev, 35, an events organiser.

It is impossible to predict events in war, especially in an area such as this with such deep commercial, cultural, family, historic and linguistic ties to Russia and which straddles the border.

Abramychev personifies the complexities of this region: born in Siberia on the other side of Russia, he moved to Ukraine with his parents as a boy and yet now feels passionately Ukrainian.

Though he admits feeling scared, he speaks of 'svoboda' (freedom) before talking about the right of nations to determine their own course.

For his part, Putin egregiously describes Ukraine as an artificial country wrested from Moscow's control by its enemies and feels it should be part of a 'New Russia'  a vision stretching from Kharkiv in the east to the Crimea in the south (which he illegally seized in 2014).

Yet despite the hostile build-up of troops, Putin denies any plans to invade and says he wants the West to stop supporting Ukraine's armed forces and withdraw a pledge to accept Ukraine as a Nato member.

Housewife: Marina Polyakova M has done military training

This is a Russian-speaking region  yet even one man who described himself as Russian and admires Putin told me that Kharkiv must remain Ukrainian.

Another Russian emigre said she hated the way citizens such as herself were being used by an aggressive Putin while he also claims to be protecting them.

Most analysts believe the Ukrainian armed forces are little match for Putin's formidable firepower, although Kiev's military has been strengthened in recent years by battlefield experience, better training and boosted supplies.

'Putin will not get it all his own way,' said Glen Grant, a defence expert and British Army veteran who advises the Ukrainian government. 'This is now a serious army filled with people willing to put their lives on the line.'

Meanwhile, the American government has said it will back armed resistance. 'If Russia invades, this will be all-out war since a lot of people will never give in,' said Grant.

'The retaliation will be personal and unpredictable  and Putin will not be expecting it.'

Among the 900,000 army reservists is one middle-aged IT worker in Kharkiv who keeps his gun and combat gear beside his office desk, ready for action within five minutes.

Ukraine's military is also hastily creating 150 battalions with 130,000 people in an upgraded Territorial Defence System.

For this is a society with a recent tradition of civilians coming to the aid of their nation when under attack from the bully next door.

In 2014, the Ukrainian armed forces, corroded by corruption, struggled against the pro-Russian insurgents until reinforced by volunteer groups.

Among them was graphic designer Jenni Shpak, 47, a mother of two. She grew up in the Soviet Union, remembers the deprivations of those dark days and supported pro-democracy protests to protect her children's future.

'I remember the poverty, the lack of food, the lies,' she said. 'For me, the protests were all about taking us as far away as possible from our Communist past, which did such terrible things to Ukraine that it brings tears to my eyes when I think of them.'

Her determination to support the fight against Putin and his Ukrainian cronies led to divorce from her pro-Russian husband. 'He said you must choose me or the war,' said Shpak.

She helped the fighters by taking food and clothing to the frontline, then assisting public relations efforts to combat the onslaught of Russian propaganda along the border areas  something seen again in recent weeks.

Now remarried, to a fellow volunteer, Shpak is preparing to return to the battlefield. 'I want to protect my land and fight for Ukraine,' she said.

Non-government bodies such as the Ukrainian Legion provide basic training for those wanting to fight  and claim to have seen a sharp rise in the number of civilians wanting to learn military and first aid skills on one-month courses.

'The training is adequate for someone who's never seen a weapon or held one,' said Alexander Gorbatenko, head of the Kharkiv office.

'People come knowing nothing but at the end they can move as a group, can shoot, provide first aid and defend themselves in case of military escalation.'

Among those to have done a military training course is Marina Polyakova, a housewife in her late-fifties.

'I have a backpack with all the necessities packed. My flak jacket is ready. I'll join the resistance and will do whatever is needed,' she said.

Polyakova, who runs a charity helping families of dead soldiers, is tired of living afraid in Russia's shadow after seeing the 'horror' of her city nearly taken over by Putin's troops in 2014 and her son badly beaten during the protests.

She says the deaths of so many Ukrainians at the hands of the Russians in their eight-year war 'must not be in vain,' adding: 'I want Ukraine to be a just, democratic country.'

After Britain last week sent anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, she looked up online how to use one.

'There is no sense in running,' she said. 'If we run, the war will follow, so we need to stop the enemy and stop this war.'

Polyakova says many others in Kharkiv feel the same way. Who knows if she is right, let alone precisely what Putin is planning?

Abramychev, the local politician, thinks that, at most, 10 per cent of people might join a revolt against Russian invasion.

Yet Artem Litovchenko, a sociologist at Karazin Kharkiv University, believes any resistance would be minor given the region's traditional sympathies and ties. 'If it happens, the majority will simply wait to see how it ends,' he said.

Another man  a fan of nationalistic Russian hip-hop music  insisted talk of war is over-hyped. He told me their problems lay with hopeless politicians in Kiev responsible for all their economic struggles as the cost of living rises and Ukraine's currency falls.

Graphic designer: Jenni Shpak is preparing to return to the battlefield

Yet it seems the mood against Russia has solidified to some extent over the past eight years, with a poll last month suggesting that a quarter of people in this region traditionally sympathetic to Russia might take up arms if invaded.

Among them is Serafim Sabaronsky, 28, a bar manager from a town near Kharkiv who, like so many I met, has mixed Russian-Ukrainian parentage but no doubts over his allegiance. 'I see myself as Ukrainian, so that is my motherland.'

He told me of two neighbours, a father and son, who were killed in the previous conflict and whose bodies are buried in the town's graveyard.

Like others, he said he wants to live what he calls a normal, 'boring' European life without 'people pointing a gun at us and telling us what to do.'

Before I left his house, Sabaronsky showed me the backpack he was preparing to use to live 'off grid' when he joins an insurgency.

It contains a cooking stove, first aid kit, sharp knife, sleeping bag, torch, wet weather matches and sleeping bag.

Others, too, accept they might soon need to flee their homes.

'I have poor eyesight, no physical qualifications, no fighting qualifications and I've never held a gun so I fear I'd be perfect cannon fodder,' one musician told me ruefully.

Amid intense discussions over the future, a refugee from the Donbas region shared on social media her tips for surviving sudden flight, such as storing key documents online, packing medicines and memorising important phone numbers.

'If you have a small child, put a note in their pocket with your phone number,' she wrote.

What sad advice for residents of this city famed for its culture and stunning architecture  living again under the disturbing shadow of war and wondering if they might soon be fighting, fleeing for their lives or forced into Putin's cruel dictatorship.

Additional reporting by Kate Baklitskaya

Glimmer of hope for Ukraine after crisis talks between the United States and Russia

By Mark Nicol, Diplomatic Editor for the Daily Mail

Hopes of a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine crisis were raised last night after talks between the United States and Russia forged a 'clearer' path.

In the first encouraging signs for many weeks, US secretary of state Antony Blinken suggested Russia and the US could ensure each other's 'mutual security', thereby averting a major conflict in Ukraine.

However, Russia has insisted its 100,000 troops will remain on Ukraine's border until its security demands have been met.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (right) in Geneva, Switzerland yesterday

After a week of heightened tensions between Russia and the West, Mr Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov sounded optimistic that war could be averted.

They met for 90 minutes in Geneva yesterday and have agreed to further talks in the weeks ahead. Experts said last night the likelihood of conflict in Ukraine was '50:50'.

In another positive step, Britain's Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is likely to meet his Kremlin equivalent Sergei Shoigu for crisis talks, possibly in Moscow.

Speaking last night, Mr Blinken said: 'We anticipate that we'll get together again across the table and see if we continue to advance this through diplomacy.

'But that's contingent on Russia stopping its aggression toward Ukraine. That's the choice Russia faces.

It can choose the path of diplomacy that can lead to peace and security or the path that will lead only to conflict, severe consequences, and international condemnation.

'Right now there's still a window, a brief one, to bring those talks to a successful conclusion and address the remaining concerns of all sides.

'We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clearer path in terms of understanding each other's concerns, each other's positions.'

Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. Since then fighting has continued in the country's eastern regions, known as the Donbas, where 14,000 have been killed in clashes between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia separatists.

In recent months Russia has amassed more than enough troops to invade Ukraine again but this time could take control of the majority of the country, not just its eastern regions.

In recent weeks a conflict has seemed inevitable and Britain announced it was sending 2,000 tank-busting weapons to Ukraine in a bid to thwart an advance by Russian forces  a sign that ministers were convinced Russia intended to invade.

Mr Blinken said Mr Lavrov had repeated Russia's assertion that it had no intention of invading Ukraine.

He added: 'I suggested that if Russia wants to begin to convince the world it has no aggressive intent towards Ukraine, a good place to start would be removing its forces as well as engaging in diplomacy and dialogue, which is what we did today and what we plan to do in the days and weeks ahead.'

Mr Blinken said Mr Lavrov (pictured) had repeated Russia's assertion that it had no intention of invading Ukraine

For the first time, the US also promised to provide a written response to Russian security demands, such as the removal of Western troops from former Soviet republics and a veto on states joining Nato.

Until now, the US has simply dismissed these demands as 'non-starters'.

Neither side ruled out a possible meeting between US President Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin to resolve the situation.

Mr Lavrov described the talks as 'constructive' but insisted Ukraine could not be permitted to join Nato.

It is possible the US provided Russia with an assurance on this issue but not a written guarantee.

Former Finnish prime minister Alexander Stubb, who has been involved in similar negotiations, said: 'Russia will have to think twice whether to go in [to Ukraine] or not, not only in terms of economic sanctions but the reaction of the international community.

'I think we are in a 50:50 situation right now and the next few weeks will decide what happens.'
Senior Cambridge academics are messaging undergraduates as young as 18 on dating app Tinder, it was claimed yesterday.

A dozen profiles of men who purport to be employed by the university are approaching students on the app.

One don is reportedly a former college vice-master, while another who contacted two young undergraduates is a professor and visiting fellow.

The disturbing online behaviour has been exposed in an investigation by Cambridge University student newspaper, Varsity.

It says it has seen 'overwhelming evidence' that profiles presenting themselves as Cambridge academics are attempting to initiate relationships with undergraduates.

Senior Cambridge academics are messaging undergraduates as young as 18 on dating app Tinder, it was claimed yesterday

One Tinder profile by 'Sam' states that he is an 'Entrepreneur, Professor and Designer at Cambridge'.

He adds: 'I'm the guy your mother warned you about.'

Others claiming to be staff state explicit sexual preferences, including 'kinky'. The undergraduates they 'matched' with had their age and student status clearly visible in their profiles.

One anonymous Cambridge student, who has received contact from staff, said: 'As a young female undergraduate, these men appear powerful and influential, a fact which they are clearly using to their advantage on dating apps. There is already a power imbalance  and they are exploiting it.'

Users of the dating app must specify a preferred age range when creating a profile. Some professors' ages are hidden on their Tinder profiles, meaning they pay for one of the app's premium subscriptions.

To 'match' with another person, both parties must 'like' the other's profile, which is only visible to them if they fall within a desired age range. After matching, both parties can exchange messages and 'unmatch' if they wish.

Varsity stresses that although the accounts they investigated may be impersonating staff members, their profiles passed photo vetting procedures designed to stop 'catfishing'.

A dozen profiles of men who purport to be employed by the university are approaching students on the app

Cambridge Student Union welfare officer Ben Dalitz told Varsity it was 'deeply inappropriate for academic staff to interact with undergraduates on dating apps'.

He said: 'We would like to see reforms to the student complaint procedure such that cases are dealt with promptly and seriously, with real consequences for staff who have abused their power and position, and those who have experienced misconduct from staff are supported, not silenced.'

Cambridge policy does not explicitly forbid relationships between students and staff as long as they have no 'professional connection'. Cambridge was contacted for comment.
Ben Roberts-Smith has lost a legal bid to have his ex-wife questioned under oath about confidential information he suspected she had accessed from his private email account.

The Victoria Cross recipient, who has been accused of war crimes by Nine newspapers, had sought to show Ms Roberts hacked into his emails herself or provided access to her lifelong friend Danielle Scott.

Mr Roberts-Smith's lawyers had alleged in the Federal Court that Ms Roberts logged into his private RS Group email account more than 100 times.

Telstra records showed Ms Scott or her husband Darren Pill were the users of a BigPond email account allegedly used to access Mr Roberts-Smith's correspondence.

Ben Roberts-Smith sued ex-wife Emma Roberts over claims she illegally accessed his emails. She denied hacking into his account or giving a password to her best friend. The former couple is pictured together at Buckingham Palace in 2011

Justice Robert Bromwich said on Friday that Mr Roberts-Smith had claimed his ex-wife Emma Roberts accessed his RS Group email account, then passed on information for use in his war crimes defamation case against Nine newspapers

Mr Roberts-Smith has given evidence he separated from his wife in September 2017 and began a six-month affair. Ms Roberts is expected to deny there was a separation or having knowledge of the affair until it was over. She is pictured near her Brisbane home

Mr Roberts-Smith took legal action against Ms Roberts on the eve of his defamation trial against Nine newspapers in June last year and the case was determined on Friday.

The former Special Air Service corporal is suing Nine for accusing him of complicity in six murders while serving with the Special Air Service in Afghanistan.

His lawyers alleged Ms Roberts accessed an email account he used for confidential correspondence about his defamation case and a war crimes inquiry by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force.

Justice Robert Bromwich found against Mr Roberts-Smith on Friday.

Danielle Scott is Emma Roberts's best friend and is set to give evidence against Ben Roberts-Smith. The Federal Court heard an account used by Ms Scott and husband Darren Pill (both pictured) had accessed Mr Roberts-Smith's email account 101 times

The judge said Mr Roberts-Smith failed to prove a 'sufficient basis' to examine Ms Roberts over her delivery to the court of any information obtained from the RS Group email account.

Justice Bromwich said there were also insufficient grounds to join Ms Scott and her husband Darren Pill to the action.

Ms Scott, like Ms Roberts, is set to testify for the newspapers against Mr Roberts-Smith in the defamation trial.

The judge said, in his view, Mr Roberts-Smith's case failed to go beyond 'bare possibilities and suspicions, with many such assertions in relation to Ms Roberts being shown to be ill-founded.'

The claims against Ms Scott were 'equally ill-founded'.

'Both Mr Roberts-Smith's interlocutory application for the examination of Ms Roberts, and his interlocutory application to join Ms Scott and her husband must be dismissed,' Justice Bromwich ruled.

Mr Roberts-Smith is pictured being greeted by the Queen during an audience at Buckingham Palace in 2011. The soldier was awarded the Victoria Cross for actions in Afghanistan in 2006

The emails contained potentially privileged material, and Mr Roberts-Smith's lawyers claimed Ms Roberts might have shared some of that information with Nine.

Arthur Moses SC, for Mr Roberts-Smith, had told the court such action could 'contaminate' the defamation hearing.

He further alleged Ms Roberts lied in affidavits sworn in response to evidence she hacked into her ex-husband's private account.

Ms Scott or Mr Pill's digital identity had been used to access the RS Group's password-protected account at least 101 times between January 20, 2020 and May 7, 2021, Mr Moses said.

The barrister had applied to have Ms Scott and Mr Pill joined as parties to the lawsuit.

Mr Moses wanted to establish how Ms Scott or Mr Pill were allegedly able to access the password to his client's account, whether they accessed his emails and for what purpose, and whether they passed on any emails to a third party.

Mr Roberts-Smith took legal action against his ex-wife on the eve of his defamation 'trial of the century' against Nine newspapers in June last year. The former couple is pictured with their twin daughters

While no criminal wrongdoing had been identified, Mr Moses said 'nothing would be more calculated to bring the administration of justice into disrepute' than for an outside party to have accessed Mr Roberts-Smith's private email account.

Ms Roberts was ordered to tell the court how she had allegedly obtained information from Mr Roberts-Smith's emails and whether it was by herself or 'agents' including Ms Scott.

She initially claimed she had never accessed Mr Roberts-Smith's emails but changed her evidence in a third affidavit and still denies she provided a password to Ms Scott.

'[Ms Roberts] has been caught out lying on the objective evidence,' Mr Moses told the court on September 8.

The barrister said Telstra records showed Ms Scott had logged on and accessed the email account at least 101 times.

Ben Roberts-Smith has taken leave from his job as general manager of Network Seven in Queensland. He is pictured with girlfriend Sarah Matulin on the Gold Coast in January last year

Ms Roberts swore in a third affidavit she accessed her ex-husband's RS Group email on April 5, 2020 but Mr Moses said Telstra records showed she had not.

'The only person who had access to the RS Group email account on the fifth of April was an email address which is associated with Ms Danielle Scott or her husband,' Mr Moses said.

Ms Roberts did not provide any affidavit from herself or Ms Scott to explain how or why the email account had been accessed more than 100 times since last year.

Mr Moses had said in August there was 'clear, albeit circumstantial evidence' Ms Roberts had not been 'full and frank in her disclosure'.

He had also referred to WhatsApp messages in which Ms Roberts and Ms Scott talked about a book Mr Roberts-Smith had been writing which was stored on the RS Group email account.

'I have the first four chapters of the book, the one that doesn't exist,' Ms Roberts texted Ms Scott. 'He's a dumb lying c*** and when Jason tables this he's going to look like a dumb c***.'

Arthur Moses SC, for Mr Roberts-Smith, has said there was 'clear, albeit circumstantial evidence' Ms Roberts had not been 'full and frank in her disclosure' to the Federal Court

Lawyer Jason Murakami, for Ms Roberts, insisted his client had 'completely complied' with all questions about the email account and 'appropriately and truthfully answered all allegations to the court'.

In September he said it was 'pure speculation' that Ms Roberts had given Ms Scott a password to access the email account.

Mr Roberts-Smith left Ms Roberts in January 2020 and the former couple sold their home on Queensland's Sunshine Coast for more than $2million in December that year.

They settled their divorce in February last year and she gave a statement to Nine a month later outlining the evidence she would give against him.

The couple had rocky periods before they parted, with Mr Roberts-Smith admitting having an affair with a woman known in the defamation trial as Person 17 from October 2017 until April the following year.

Mr Roberts-Smith has given evidence he separated from his wife in September 2017 but they eventually reconciled. Ms Roberts is expected to deny there was a separation or having knowledge of the affair until it was over.

The defamation trial is due to resume on February 2 but may be delayed again due to the closure of Western Australia's border.
Space debris from a Russian anti-satellite missile test came within 47 feet (14.5 metres) of knocking out China's Tsinghua science satellite this week, Beijing claims.

The near-miss between Tsinghua and the piece of debris, called 49863, occurred at 02:49 GMT on Tuesday (January 18), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has said, based on tracking data.

The two objects passed each other at a relative speed of more than 11,700 miles per hour, according to CNSA.

Russia's debris came from its 4,410-pound Cosmos 1408 satellite, which the country obliterated in November during its 'anti-satellite missile test'.

Cosmos 1408 launched in 1982 and was deliberately destroyed by the Russians because it was no longer operational.

According to experts, the space debris from the collision over the Atlantic Ocean  which included 'some 1,500 pieces of trackable size'  will cause havoc for spacecraft for years, if not decades.

Spacefaring nations now need to engage in serious action to clear Earth's orbit of this so-called 'space junk' to prevent collisions, which could prove fatal if they involve manned space stations.

Russia blew up one of its own satellites on Monday, November 15, using a missile. Cosmos 1408, a defunct spy satellite launched in 1982, was the destroyed target, which resulted in a field of 1,500 pieces of debris endangering the crew of the ISS

Pictured is the debris field created by the Russian anti-satellite test against Cosmos 1408 in LEO (low Earth orbit)

COSMOS 1408 Cosmos 1408, also spelt Kosmos 1408, was a Soviet ELINT (Electronic and Signals Intelligence) satellite launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome on September 16, 1982. It was designed to determine the precise location, activity, and other details of radio emitters. On November 15, 2021, Cosmos 1408, no longer operational, was destroyed in a Russian kinetic anti-satellite test, generating a cloud of debris including some 1,500 pieces of trackable size. Cosmos 1408 was orbiting around 300 miles from Earth's surface at the time, and created a debris field between 270 miles and 320 miles from the surface. Source: NASA Advertisement

Tsinghua is China's university-built research payload, launched into orbit in August 2020 aboard a Long March 2D rocket.

Liu Jing, a space debris expert and deputy director of CNSA's Space Debris Monitoring and Application Center, told Global Times that actual collisions between the pair are likely in future.

Government branches and private companies track space debris using Earth-based radar, which can help satellite operators and government agencies avoid collisions.

'Currently, they keep a safe distance but the chance for these two getting close in the future cannot be excluded,' Jing said.

'If there is we need to quickly notify our satellites and make some evasive manoeuvres in advance to avoid these debris. This is the most feasible method at present.'

According to CNSA, the distance between the two objects leading up to Tuesday was getting closer each time they complete an orbit of Earth.

On Tuesday, the possibility of collision between the two became 'very high', which is 'alarmingly dangerous', according to Global Times, when they came within 47 feet of each other at a relative speed of 3.27 miles per second (11,788 miles per hour).

The latest data show that the distance between Cosmos 1408 debris and Tsinghua is increasing, but Liu said 'we cannot exclude the possibility that these two get closer in the future again'.

The Long March 2D carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center successfully put the Tsinghua Science Satellite and the Gaofen-9 04 satellite into orbit

Space debris from the collision over the Atlantic Ocean  which included 'some 1,500 pieces of trackable size'  will cause havoc for spacecraft for years, if not decades (concept image)

SCIENTISTS REVEAL PLANS TO TRANSFORM SPACE JUNK INTO ROCKET FUEL Scientists have revealed plans to transform space junk - debris in Earth's orbit - into rocket fuel and set up a 'gas station in space'. It would involve satellites capturing bits of space junk, which whizzes around at speeds of up to 17,000mph, before it is stored and then cut up using advanced robotics. A space foundry that is currently being developed would then melt the debris into metal rods, which would in turn be used as rocket fuel for an 'in-space electric propulsion system'. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), there is approximately 9,200 tonnes of space debris now floating aimlessly above the Earth, which can pose a danger to astronauts. Just last week, crew members on the International Space Station (ISS) were forced to take emergency action after a 'reckless and irresponsible' Russian weapons test created more than 1,500 pieces of debris. Read more: Scientists reveal plans to transform space junk into ROCKET FUEL Advertisement

Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, expressed doubt that China's estimations could be so accurate.

'While publicly available US tracking data confirm that debris object 49863 did pass very close to the Tsinghua Science Satellite on January 18, the claim that the distance was only 14.5 meters is meaningless since they don't quote any error bar, or the level of uncertainty,' McDowell told SpaceNews.

'It is very unlikely China's tracking can determine this distance to an accuracy of better than 100 meters or more, so 'within a few hundred meters' is probably all they can reliably say.'

Because of Russia's anti-satellite missile impact in November, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting 260 miles from Earth, were at the time told by ordered by Houston Mission Control to get to safety inside the ship's escape pods.

US space firm LeoLabs slammed Russia for endangering the crew of the ISS, calling it an 'irresponsible act that harms all spacefaring nations', and warning that a hit could have proved fatal.

LeoLabs said there will be a potential collision risk to most satellites in low-Earth orbit due to the fragmentation of Cosmos 1408 'over the next few years to decades'.

'A significant breakup occurred in space, and was intentionally performed by Russia via direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missile strike against one of their own defunct satellites,' the company said.

'LeoLabs unequivocally condemns this irresponsible act that now harms all spacefaring nations and the entire space economy for years to come.'

LeoLabs said in October that Cosmos 1408 and the dead Chinese Chang Zheng 4C rocket had a 10 per cent chance of colliding, although the two ended up narrowly avoid collision by just 36 feet.

Aerospace expert Huang Zhicheng has also said space debris is having an increasingly frequent impact on human spaceflights, and so removing from orbit is a priority.

'It is not only necessary to conduct research on experimental devices or spacecraft to remove space debris, but also to formulate corresponding international laws and regulations on the generation of space debris under the framework of the UN,' he said.

Debris can also be caused by an explosion in space or when countries conduct missile tests to deliberately destroy their own satellites using missiles.

Simulation of the initial dispersion of the fragments resulting from the reported anti-satellite weapon test on Monday, November 15

CHINESE CITIZENS SLAM ELON MUSK OVER SATELLITES Chinese citizens have lashed out with fury against billionaire SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk after China said its space station was forced to take evasive action to avoid collision with SpaceX's Starlink satellites. In a post on China's Twitter-like Weibo microblogging platform on Monday, one user said Starlink's satellites were 'just a pile of space junk', while another described them as 'American space warfare weapons'. Although Musk is widely admired in China, the reputation of Tesla  which sells tens of thousands of vehicles in the country each month  has faltered this year following a spate of crashes, scandals and data storage concerns. Tesla is still hugely popular, selling around one out of every four of its cars in China, and has built a rare wholly-owned factory in Shanghai. Read more: Chinese citizens slam Musk over threat to space station Advertisement

Apart from Russia, China, the US and India have shot down satellites, creating a massive trail of space debris that circles our planet.

The EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) confirmed the break-up of Cosmos 1408, based on sensor readings, in the 'already congested' low Earth orbit (LEO).

'Kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) tests are usually carried out against objects in orbit for strategic purposes or with the aim of demonstrating or testing technological capabilities,' it said in a statement.

'Those tests leading to the creation of space debris put our space infrastructure, including human lives on board the International Space Station (ISS), and the long-term sustainability of space activities at risk.'

According to the European Space Agency, swirling fragments of past human-made space vehicles are trapped in orbit around Earth.

Over time, the number, mass and area of these debris objects grow steadily, boosting the risk to functioning satellites and even the wellbeing of astronauts.

According to Hugh Lewis, a professor of engineering at the University of Southampton, each piece of space debris from the collision is moving at a different speed depending on the height of its orbit.

Professor Lewis has created a visualisation showing a stream of debris shooting up away from Earth before dispersing.

'Even though they start all together, what's happening is that the ones in the bigger orbits take longer to go around the Earth, and the ones in the smaller orbits take less time to go around the Earth,' Professor Lewis told the Verge.

'So the ones that are lower seem to move ahead of the ones that are in the higher orbits. And that's what stretches it out.'

Debris from Cosmos 1408 simply adds to a cloud of junk that leads to an ever-increasing risk of collision.

LeoLabs said in October that Cosmos 1408 and the dead Chinese Chang Zheng 4C rocket had a 10 per cent chance of colliding , although the two ended up narrowly avoid collision by just 36 feet

Fragments of space debris as small as a centimetre have the potential to completely destroy satellites because of the speed at which they travel.

According to NASA, there are about 23,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball orbiting the Earth.

There are half a million pieces of debris the size of a marble (up to 0.4 inches) or larger, and approximately 100 million pieces of debris about 0.04 inches and larger.

There is even more smaller micrometer-sized (0.000039 of an inch in diameter) debris, NASA claims.

ESA, meanwhile, estimates the total mass of all space objects in Earth orbit is more than 9,600 tonnes.

It estimates there have been more than 560 break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events resulting in fragmentation.

In 2021, an expert at the European Commission warned that unwanted debris left by humans in low-Earth orbit have become the equivalent of a 'new drifting island of plastic'.
Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa is back online after a two-hour outage across Europe left users unable to wake or access their smart devices this morning.

According to Down Detector, a website that monitors such issues, there were more than 8,000 reports of problems with the smart devices.

Issues first began to surface at around 07:00 GMT but were resolved by about 09:00 GMT.

Amazon has so far not confirmed the cause of the problem.

When issuing voice commands to Alexa devices, users were either met with silence or received messages saying 'something went wrong'.

Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa is back online after a two-hour outage across Europe left users unable wake or access their smart devices this morning (stock image)

Others saw a ring of red lights and a message to try again later.

The issue affected Amazon's range of Echo speakers as well as the retail giant's Fire TV Stick and Amazon Alexa app for smartphones.

People across the UK complained about the problems, while there were also reports of customers in Germany and Italy being affected.

Angry Alexa users took to social media to complain about their devices.

Tony Sibley tweeted: 'Trying to find my light switches this morning. #AlexaDown'.

Another user, Chloe Hardman, wrote: 'Alexa is down and won't turn our alarm off.'

Some said their Echo Dot did not work properly even after a hard reset.

The virtual assistant is built into millions of devices available in the UK, including smart speakers and home hubs, which can be used to control appliances around the home.

An Amazon spokesperson said: 'This morning we had an issue that impacted some Alexa customers' ability to interact with the service.

'The Alexa service is now operating normally.'

Angry Alexa users took to social media to complain about their devices (pictured)

Tony Sibley tweeted: 'Trying to find my light switches this morning. #AlexaDown' (pictured)

In the UK, issues with the Amazon Alexa devices were mostly reported in London (pictured)

Jake Moore, global cyber security adviser at ESET, said: 'Although it is difficult to predict whether or not this is a cyber attack on Amazons servers, it does pose the question of whether or not we are putting too much emphasis on smart technology in our homes.

'Cyber attacks are still possible despite the increasingly sophisticated anti-malware technology that exists, and therefore we must never become complacent against the possibility of such a hack which can dramatically effect large numbers of people.

'Once we put all our eggs into one technological basket, there becomes one simple point of failure that can have a huge impact in a smart home and therefore our daily lives.

'Using smart devices to control lights, heating and other areas of a home is extremely tempting but it is advised to always know if the backup old fashioned switches are still applicable.'
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A forensic reconstruction of the face of a female mummy who died about 2,600 years ago reveals a 'beautiful young lady' with deep brown eyes and slightly protruding upper teeth.

Scientists have spent months creating the reconstruction of what they call the most famous Egyptian mummy in Switzerland known as Shep-en-Isis, or Schepenese, using CT scans and morphological data from her skeleton.

Shep-en-Isis was found in 1819 at Deir el-Bahari, a famous complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile River in Egypt, before being transported to Switzerland in 1820.

The remains are currently kept in the Sao Galo Abbey Library, in the Swiss city of St Gallen.

Inscriptions on her sarcophagus suggest she belonged to a wealthy upper-class family and would have had some degree of formal education during her existence in the 7th century BC.

She was the daughter of a priest in the city of Thebes, according to experts, and lived in the late period, the early 26th Dynasty  the last heyday of Ancient Egypt  prior to her death by 610 BC.

However, it's not possible to identify the name or profession of Shep-en-Isis's husband or whether or not she gave birth to children.

Scientists have reconstructed the face of a female mummy who died 6,200 years ago, revealing a beautiful young lady despite having a set of protruding teeth

Scientists have spent months creating the reconstruction of what they call the most famous Egyptian mummy in Switzerland known as Shep-en-Isis, or Schepenese, using CT scans and morphological data from her skeleton. The mummy of the young woman arrived in Switzerland as early as 1820 and has been the star among mummies in Switzerland ever since

Reconstructed tissue looking up towards the upper thoracic cavity. Very similar packages have also been found in the mummy of Shep-en-Isis's father in Berlin

WHO WAS SHEP-EN-ISIS? Shep-en-Isis, or Schepenese, was a woman who lived in Egypt during the 7th century BC. In 1819, her remains were found in 1819 at Deir el-Bahari, a famous complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile River in Egypt. Shep-en-Isis was found in a 'family tomb' located within the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut along with her father Pa-es-tjenfi, whose mummy is Berlin. Inscriptions on her sarcophagus suggest she belonged to a wealthy upper-class family and would have had some degree of formal education during her existence in the 7th century BC. She was the daughter of a priest in the city of Thebes, according to experts, and lived in the late period, the early 26th Dynasty - the last heyday of Ancient Egypt. Advertisement

The reconstruction project was conducted by FAPAB Research Center in Sicily and Flinders University in Australia in collaboration with Cicero Moraes, a 3D designer from Brazil.

Moraes has previously created a series of facial reconstructions of historical figures such as Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ.

It was commissioned by the Abbey Library of Saint Gall, which had owned the CT, (computerised tomography) scans of the mummy for years.

'The harmonious and well-proportioned skull suggests that Schepenese was probably a beautiful lady during her lifetime,' the experts say.

Mentioned in the first reports from 1820 after her discovery 'is the good and complete preservation of the teeth', the team say, which is one of her most notable physical features in the reconstruction.

The team built up the living layers bit by bit, adding tissue, eyes and skin before fine details such as hair and tiny freckles around the nose to complement the effect.

Shep-en-Isis was found in a 'family tomb' located within the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari temple, along with her father Pa-es-tjenfi, whose mummy is Berlin.

'Based on Shep-en-Isis' anatomical age and the style of her inner coffin, she must have been born by around 650 BC and died between 620 and 610 BC,' Dr Michael Habicht from Flinders University told Aventuras na Historia.

Due to her mummified ear, the shape of the ear could be reconstructed quite accurately, in contrast to pure skeletons where ears are reconstructed with a generic ear.

The final reconstruction in high resolution: Unlike many other facial reconstructions, jewellery, clothing and wigs were not used, as these are hypothetical assumptions

Researchers built up the living layers bit by bit, adding tissue, eyes and skin before fine details such as hair and tiny freckles around the nose to complement the effect

The reconstruction of the soft tissues is carried out using anatomical measuring points and the empirical mean values determined from forensic studies

Mentioned in the first reports from 1820 is the good and complete preservation of the teeth. The harmonious and well-proportioned skull suggests that Schepenese was probably a beautiful lady during her lifetime

Certain details may also not have been recorded for Shep-en-Isis, for example, the team do not know the exact eye colour or the exact skin complexion.

Due to her Egyptian ancestry, brown eyes and a somewhat more olive skin colour were assumed.

Unlike many other facial reconstructions, jewellery, clothing and wigs were not used, as these are hypothetical assumptions, according to the team.

'Our reconstruction focuses exclusively on the forensically reconstructed appearance and the anatomical evidence,' they say.

The results of their efforts have been published in the form of a monograph entitled 'The Forensic Facial Reconstruction of Shep-en-Isis', listed on Amazon.
For many adults, the childlike ability to be spooked in a haunted house is no more than a fond memory.

But according to a new scientific study, the trick to being scared by this classic theme park attraction is visiting with friends.

Researchers have found that adult visitors to haunted houses are more likely to experience fear responses including dilated pupils, sweating and rapid heartbeats when attending in a group.

It's thought that among a group, fear may spread like wildfire to a threat, like a herd of wildebeests being preyed upon by a lion in the wild.

The visitors were tested to their limits at 17th Door Haunted House, an extreme attraction that tests 'fight-or-flight' responses in Fullerton, California.

Haunted house visitors are more likely to experience dilated pupils, sweating, and a rapid heartbeat when attending in a group, the study reveals. Pictured are visitors at The 17th Door, a haunted house in California

THE FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT RESPONSE Fight-or-flight is evolution's way of preparing the body to defend itself or flee from a real or perceived threat, like a lion in the tall grass. This combination of reactions to stress is also known 'fight-or-flight because it evolved as a survival mechanism, enabling people and other mammals to react quickly to life-threatening situations. The carefully orchestrated yet near-instantaneous sequence of hormonal changes and physiological responses helps someone to fight the threat off or flee to safety. Source: Harvard Medical School Advertisement

The new research was led by Sarah M. Tashjian at the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

'There are a lot of factors that influence how human bodies respond to threat,' said Tashjian. 'We found that friend-related emotional contagion, threat predictability and subjective feelings of fear were all relevant for the body mounting a response.'

Haunted houses often involve a series of sudden visual and audial shocks to the system that trigger our innate 'fight-or-flight' response.

Fight-or-flight is evolution's way of preparing the body to defend itself or flee from a real or perceived threat, like a lion in the tall grass.

'Physiological threat responses help coordinate defensive responses to promote safety,' the experts say. 'Arousal of the sympathetic nervous system supports "fight or flight" reactions.'

Scientists have struggled to study the effects of genuine threats on people's mental and physical state because of ethical and practical constraints of human lab experiments.

Previous studies used scary images, mild electric shocks, or loud noises, but to go a step further, the Caltech team placed volunteers in 17th Door Haunted House, which is not suited to the average fairground visitor and requires every guest to sign a waiver.

As the name suggests, the house consists of 17 rooms with various threats that form an uninterrupted experience, linked to a theme about a dangerous prisoner in a fictitious prison.

The Caltech team placed volunteers in 17th Door Haunted House, an attraction in Fullerton, California (pictured)

17TH DOOR HAUNTED HOUSE REVIEWS - 'There is a reason they give you the code word "mercy" to opt out of a room at the very beginning when you enter.' - 'It gets very scary at the end, and they literally convinced my fiance that she was going to die.' - 'If you aren't ready to be truly scared to your core, there are other haunted houses which will be a better fit.' - 'Definitely tests your fight or flight instincts.' - 'I always wanted to know what it would be like to be in a Saw movie minus the losing of my limbs, and the 17th Door Haunt Experience fulfilled that dream.' - 'You will be thrown, you will be shot at, you will get wet, you will be shocked.' - 'Nothing but awful and traumatising!' - 'This was NOT scary, but painful.' Source: Yelp Advertisement

During the 30-minute experience, visitors encounter situations that mimic the threat of suffocation, the inability to escape an oncoming speeding car and being shot by a volley pellets from a firing squad while blindfolded.

One YouTuber describes it as an 'extremely graphic and painful haunted house', while another called it 'the most intense haunted house I've ever been to'.

Another reviewer on Yelp said: 'If you aren't ready to be truly scared to your core, there are other haunted houses which will be a better fit.'

The researchers themselves admit: 'Many threats were more threatening and/or pain-inducing than is ethically allowed in campus laboratory experiences in the US.'



For the study, 156 adult participants went through the haunted house in small groups so researchers could measure their responses to perceived threats.

The team examined how their bodies responded to threats differently depending on the social context (whether friends were around), features of the threats (whether they were expected) and emotions (whether individuals felt afraid).

Participants wore real-time physiological-monitoring wristbands to measure their electrodermal activity  in other words, changes in the resistance of the skin to a small electrical current based on sweat gland activity.

Electrodermal activity was examined in relation to four factors. Two of these were external factors of how many people were in the group and whether a threat was imminent.

The other two factors related to one's own mind  subjective fear and 'baseline orienting response', a measure of sensitivity to threat.

At 17th Door Haunted House, visitors encounter situations that mimic the threat of suffocation, the inability to escape an oncoming speeding car and being shot by a volley pellets from a firing squad while blindfolded

Before visiting the haunted house, participants rated their expected fear on a scale from one to 10. Afterwards, the participants rated their experienced fear level on the same scale.

Results showed a positive association between the number of friends in a group and something called 'tonic arousal', which reflects the body's overall physical response to stress or emotion.

On average, the more friends that participants had with them while touring the haunted house, the higher their physical response.

'We interpreted this to reflect fear contagion  if your friends are around, your body picks up on their signals and has a higher level of arousal even in the absence of specific scares or startles,' Tashjian said.

The researchers also noted positive associations between unexpected attacks, subjective fear and the frequency of 'phasic effects'  rapid changes that the body experiences as it responds to an event.

Haunted house visitors are more likely to experience dilated pupils, sweating, and a rapid heartbeat when attending in a group, the study reveals. Pictured is a haunted house ride at the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland in London, England, in 2017

Individuals who felt the most afraid during the haunted house had more peaks in these responses.

'If your body is more cued-in to the threatening event, you also psychologically feel more fear,' Tashjian said.

Interestingly, participants with an initially strong response to the first room of the haunted house showed increased responses as they visited other rooms.

And participants with more frequent responses in the first room showed decreased responses over time.

'From a results perspective, this study is distinct because we measure multiple aspects of skin conductance, including slow responding, rapid responding, frequency of responses, and level of responses,' Tashjian said.

'Most studies use just one of these measures, which limits our understanding of how dynamic the sympathetic nervous system is and how different factors exert different influences on biology.'

The new study has been published in the journal Psychological Science.
A species of branching worm  only the third ever discovered  has been named after King Ghidorah, a three-headed, two-tailed kaiju from the Godzilla franchise.

Found on Japan's Sado Island, Ramisyllis kingghidorahi was described by an international team of researchers led from the University of Gottingen.

Branching worms are bizarre marine beasties that  unlike King Ghidorah  have just one head, but a body that branches over and over into multiple posteriors.

They can be found living inside the internal canals of certain sea sponges.

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A species of branching worm (pictured)  only the third ever discovered  has been named after King Ghidorah, a three-headed, two-tailed monster from the Godzilla franchise

Found on Japan's Sado Island, Ramisyllis kingghidorahi was described by an international team of researchers led from the University of Gottingen. Pictured: King Ghidorah, left, with Godzilla, right, on a poster for the 2019 film 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters'

Branching worms are bizarre marine beasties that have just one head, but sport a body that branches into multiple posteriors. They can be found living inside the internal canals of certain sea sponges. Pictured, with the posterior end of the worm seen on the surface of the sponge

The new worm was originally discovered by researchers in Japan, who approached biodiversity expert Maria Teresa Aguado of the University of Gottingen, Germany, and her colleagues to help study it.

'King Ghidorah is a branching fictitious animal that can regenerate its lost ends, so we thought this was an appropriate name for the new species of branching worm,' Professor Aguado said.

There are now three known species of branching worm. Both R. kingghidorahi and 'R. multicaudata', which was identified in 2012 off the north Australian coast, live in stony sponges that can be found in shallow waters.

In contrast, 'Syllis ramosa'  which was found in the Philippines back in 1879  lives within deep-sea glass sponges.

For a long time, Professor Aguado noted, 'the first worm was thought to be unique.'

'We were astonished to find another of these bizarre creatures with only one head and a body formed from multiple branching.'

'This discovery reveals a higher diversity of these tree-like animals than anyone expected,' the biologist added.

Molecular comparisons of the three worms reveal that the two shallow-water species share a common ancestor  one the team believe originated the asymmetrical, branching body pattern and was probably already adapted to live in corals.

At the same time, however, they also exhibit a high degree of genetic divergence and have significant difference in the shapes of certain body segments.

The team added that the ability to grow new rear segments throughout their lives  a feat typical of many worms  along with the ability to regenerate and produce new segments during reproduction may have facilitate the evolution of branching.

'King Ghidorah is a branching fictitious animal that can regenerate its lost ends, so we thought this was an appropriate name for the new species of branching worm,' Professor Aguado said

There are now three known species of branching worm. Both R. kingghidorahi (pictured) and 'R. multicaudata', which was identified in 2012 off the north Australian coast, live in stony sponges that can be found in shallow waters. In contrast, 'Syllis ramosa'  which was found in the Philippines back in 1879  lives within deep-sea glass sponges

Despite having been known for more than a hundred years, branching worms still harbour many mysteries yet to be unravelled.

'Scientists dont yet understand the nature of the relationship between the branching worm and its host sponge,' explained Professor Aguado.

'Is it a symbiotic relationship where both creatures somehow benefit?' she asked.

'And how do the worms manage to feed to maintain their huge bodies having just one tiny mouth in their single head?'

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Organisms Diversity & Evolution.








Protesters from the French Uyghur Community shout slogans and hold flags of East Turkestan (Uighur) during a demonstration over China's human rights record, near the Eiffel Tower on the Trocadero Esplanade in Paris during a state visit of the Chinese president in this March 25, 2019, file photo. AFP-Yonhap





France's parliament denounced a "genocide" by China against its Uyghur Muslim population, Thursday, in a resolution that risks straining ties between Paris and Beijing two weeks before the Winter Olympics.







The non-binding resolution, adopted with 169 votes in favor and just one against, was proposed by the opposition Socialists in the lower house of parliament but also backed by President Emmanuel Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) party.







It says the National Assembly "officially recognizes the violence perpetrated by the People's Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide."







It also calls on the French government to undertake "the necessary measures within the international community and in its foreign policy towards the People's Republic of China" to protect the minority group in the Xinjiang region.







"China is a great power. We love the Chinese people. But we refuse to submit to propaganda from a regime that is banking on our cowardice and our avarice to perpetrate a genocide in plain sight," Socialist party chief Olivier Faure said.







He recounted testimony to parliament from Uyghur survivors who told of conditions inside internment camps where men and women were unable to lie down in cells, subjected to rape and torture, as well as forced organ transplants.







French MPs were also called to applaud Uyghur refugees who had been invited to observe the parliamentary session.







The resolution follows similar moves last year from parliaments in Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, while the US government has also condemned what it considers genocide in Xinjiang.







China denies genocide or the existence of forced labour camps in Xinjiang and has accused Uyghurs testifying overseas about conditions inside the northwestern region of being paid liars.







The Chinese Embassy in Paris called the resolution a "slander and a deliberate stigmatisation of China and a brutal interference in domestic Chinese affairs", according to a statement on Twitter.







"We are firmly opposed to it and condemn it wholeheartedly." The French resolution comes as the European Union weighs how to respond to a Chinese blockade of Lithuania's exports, as well as Beijing's crushing of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.











Antoine Bondaz, a China specialist at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research think-tank, told AFP that "in terms of the public debate, the French resolution could encourage other parliaments to start discussing this issue."







He said it might also "increase pressure" on the French government to speak out more, and continue its work behind the scenes to raise the issue at UN and elsewhere.







The French government has declined to term China's treatment of the Uyghur minority a "genocide," arguing that it is a legal term that can only be proven with a judicial investigation.







Beijing has turned down repeated requests from the UN High Commission for Human Rights to visit the region to investigate.







President Emmanuel Macron, who has sought to avoid being dragged into increasingly confrontational ties between China and the United States, was asked about the Uyghurs during an appearance before the European parliament on Wednesday.







"France raises this in a very clear fashion in all of our bilateral talks (with Beijing)," he told campaigning MEP Raphael Glucksmann.







He said he was in favor of an EU regulation that would "ban the import of goods that result from forced labor" and supported increasing requirements on European companies operating in China to check supply chains.







Human rights groups say they have found evidence of mass detentions, forced labour, political indoctrination, torture and forced sterilization in Xinjiang.







After initially denying the existence of the Xinjiang camps, China later defended them as vocational training centres aimed at reducing the appeal of Islamic extremism.







The United States has slapped sanctions on a growing list of Chinese politicians and companies over the treatment of the Uyghurs, leading to tit-for-tat measures from Beijing.







China has also sanctioned European, British and US lawmakers, as well as academics who study Xinjiang and a London law firm.







The only French MP to vote against Thursday's resolution was Buon Tan from Macron's LREM, the chairman of a Franco-Chinese "friendship group." (AFP)






An enormous robotic yak, strong enough to carry up to 352 pounds, and able to sprint along at up to 6 miles per hour, has been developed by Chinese scientists.

The robot can deal with all sorts of road and weather conditions, according to the Chinese state run People's Daily, which shared a video of the yak on a road.

When deployed, it will join soldiers from the Chinese army on logistics and reconnaissance missions across complex environments including snowfields, deserts and mountains.

The missions will include working in remote border regions, as well as in high risk combat zones, according to reports by Chinese state media.

The robot comes with multiple sensors, giving it a high degree of situational awareness that analysts say can be fed into commanders in a battlefield environment.

An enormous robotic yak, strong enough to carry up to 352 pounds, and able to sprint along at up to 6 miles per hour, has been developed by Chinese scientists

The robot can deal with all sorts of road and weather conditions, according to the Chinese state run People's Daily, that shared a video of the yak on a road

It comes equipped with a range of sensors that make it aware of its surrounding terrain and environment, as well as a high level of adaptability

ROBOT YAK: HOW IT WORKS The full details of the Chinese robot yak haven't been revealed, but it can carry up to 352lb of goods. The robot can sprint at up to six miles per hour and move in multiple directions thanks to 12 joints. It can even walk diagonally, jump and sprint as required. Analysts say it will be ideal for crossing dangerous and complex terrain, including forests, snowfields, deserts and mountains. It comes with a suit of sensors to give it full situational awareness, and operates similar to a reconnaissance drone, but on the ground. Advertisement

The Chinese robot walks on four legs and has a 'yak-like appearance', and according to China Central Television, it is the world's largest, heaviest and most off-road capable device of its kind in the world.

It is about half the height of an average adult male, and about twice as long as it is high, according to reports.

It comes equipped with a range of sensors that make it aware of its surrounding terrain and environment, as well as a high level of adaptability.

This includes being able to walk up steps, climb through trenches, as well as walk across cliffs, muddy roads, deserts and snow fields.

There are 12 sets of joint modules on the robot, allowing it to move forward and backwards, as well as turn to walk diagonally and sprint while remaining stable.

The joints mean that despite its size, it can also jump, run and turn, while making use of advanced sensors to be aware of its surroundings and incoming threats.

The awareness is more than just of obstacles in the terrain, it also collects tactical information on a battlefield and feeds it back to mission commanders.

Reports suggest it will be used to deliver supplies, such as munitions and food, across environments too hazardous for humans.

There are 12 sets of joint modules on the robot, allowing it to move forward and backwards, as well as turn to walk diagonally and sprint - while remaining stable

The joints mean that despite its size, it can also jump, run and turn, while making use of advanced sensors to be aware of its surroundings and incoming threats

The awareness is more than just of obstacles in the terrain, it also collects tactical information on a battlefield and feeds it back to mission commanders

These are expected to include mountains, forests, deserts and plateaus, proven too challenging for humans and traditional vehicles, CCTV reported.

Experts familiar with the development say it could also be equipped with weapons, to make it usable in armed reconnaissance missions.

One expert, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the Global Times it was an excellent choice for missions to distant border regions where 'regular surveillance is required but conditions do not allow for a permanent human presence.'

China has also developed a mechanical dog named Geda, that is the size of a real dog and can carry a full 88lb load on its back.

It will join soldiers from the Chinese army on logistics and reconnaissance missions in complex environments hat are too challenging for humans

These will include working in remote border regions, as well as in high risk combat zones, according to reports by Chinese state media

The Chinese robot walks on four legs and has a 'yak-like appearance', and according to China Central Television, it is the world's largest, heaviest and most off-road capable device of its kind in the world

According to CCTV, Geda has been programmed to understand simple voice commands, and even use facial recognition to assess requirements.

This is part of a five year push by the Chinese government to become a robotics powerhouse, with 20 per cent annual growth and world class innovation.

The Chinese robotic yak is similar to the Legged Squad Support System robot developed by DARPA, in collaboration with Boston Dynamics for the US Army.

It is designed to act as a packhorse for a squad of soldiers across hot, cold, wet and dirty environments, while carrying 400lb of equipment.

The 'Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle' (SPUR, pictured) is the brainchild of Philadelphia-based Ghost Robotics and arms manufacturer SWORD International of Sparks, Nevada

It was put into storage in 2015 due to issues with noise levels, problems repairing the device, and difficulties incorporating the device into patrols.

However, the use of robotics in warfare continues on, with the latest coming in the form of a robot dog designed with a 6.5mm sniper rifle.

The 'Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle' (SPUR) was unvieled at a US Army trade show by Ghost Robotics and arms manufacturer SWORD International.

Placed on top of one of Ghost Robotics' existing 'quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicle' designs, SPUR can be remotely instructed to load, unload and fire its rifle.

Placed on top of one of Ghost Robotics' existing 'quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicle' designs, SPUR can be remotely instructed to load, unload and fire its rifle

The US Air Force has reportedly expressed an interest in the possibility of operating robot dogs remotely from central command facilities.

Officers are looking to use the machines for perimeter security, scouting and urban warfare operations  as well as opening up access to spaces that might be too small, tight or dangerous for a human soldier to safely navigate into.

'These dogs will be an extra set of eyes and ears while computing large amounts of data at strategic locations throughout Tyndall Air Force Base,' Air Force Major Jordan Criss said in a statement last year after a test involving the robots.
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A pair of giant limestone sphinxes have been unearthed by archaeologists excavating the temple of Amenhotep III, who ruled ancient Egypt about 3,300 years ago and was the grandfather of Tutankhamun.

The statues depict the pharaoh wearing a mongoose-shaped headdress, a royal beard and a wide necklace.

After a further analysis, the team found the script 'the beloved of Amun-Re' across one of the sphinx's chest.

The Egyptian-German archaeological team, led by Horig Sorosian, found the colossal statues submerged in water at the funerary building, known as the 'Temple of Millions of Years,' according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The temple is in Luxor, Egypt, which is famously known for the oldest and most ancient Egyptian sites, along with being home to the Valley of Kings.

A pair of giant limestone sphinxes have been unearthed by archaeologists excavating the temple of Amenhotep III, who ruled ancient Egypt about 3,300 years ago and was the grandfather of Tutankhamun. The statues depict the pharaoh wearing a mongoose-shaped headdress, a royal beard and a wide necklace

Along with the 26-foot-long sphinxes, the team also uncovered three nearly intact statues of the goddess Sekhmet, the lion-like defender of the Sun god Ra and the remains of a great pillared hall.

And the walls throughout the hall are decorated with ceremonial and ritual scenes.

Horosian emphasized the importance of this discovery, as the two sphinxes confirm the presence of the beginning of the procession road where the celebrations of the Beautiful Valley Festival were held every year.

This yearly event was a time when people could visit their deceased loved ones and bring them gifts - and it was only celebrated in the ancient city of Thebes.

After a further analysis, the team found the script 'the beloved of Amun-Re' across one of the sphinx's chest. Pictured is a second sphinx that appears to have been weathered over thousands of years

Along with the 26-foot-long sphinxes, the team also uncovered three nearly intact statues of the goddess Sekhmet, the lion-like defender of the Sun god Ra and the remains of a great pillared hall

King Amenhotep III was the grandfather of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun and ruled in the 14th century BC at the height of Egypt's New Kingdom and presided over a vast empire stretching from Nubia in the south to Syria in the north.

The 18th dynasty ruler became king aged around 12, with his mother as regent and is believed to have ruled Egypt between 1386 and 1349 BC.

Amenhotep III chose the daughter of a provincial official as his royal wife, and throughout his reign Queen Tiy featured alongside the king.

Amenhotep III died in around 1354 BC and was succeeded by his son Amenhotep IV, widely known as Akhenaten, who was King Tut's father.

Tut began his reign at the age of eight or nine and ruled for about nine years.

However, the young king was plagued with health issues due to his parents being brother and sister - and experts believe the issues led to his death.

Archaeologists emphasized the importance of this discovery, as the two sphinxes confirm the presence of the beginning of the procession road where the celebrations of the Beautiful Valley Festival were held every year. Pictured is another statue of the goddess Sekhmet.

King Amenhotep III (left) was the grandfather of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun (right) and ruled in the 14th century BC at the height of Egypt's New Kingdom and presided over a vast empire stretching from Nubia in the south to Syria in the north.

The Egyptian-German archaeological team, led by Horig Sorosian, found the colossal statues submerged in water at the funerary building, known as the 'Temple of Millions of Years

Amenhotep III may have left the Earth thousands of years ago, but archaeologists are still uncovering remnants of his past, with the most lavish being the 'lost golden city.'

In April 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 3,500-year-old city in Luxor, which they said is the largest ancient city ever to be discovered in Egypt.

It was built by Amenhotep III and later used by King Tutankhamun.

Luxor, a city of some 500,000 people on the banks of the Nile in southern Egypt, is an open-air museum of intricate temples and pharaonic tombs.

Excavations at the site uncovered bakeries, workshops and burials of animals and humans, along with jewelry, pots and mud bricks bearing seals of Amenhotep III.

The team initially set out to discover Tutankhamun's Mortuary Temple, where the young king was mummified and received status rites, but they stumbled upon something far greater.

Betsy Brian, Professor of Egyptology at John Hopkins University in Baltimore USA, said 'The discovery of this lost city is the second most important archeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun'.

Amenhotep III may have left the Earth thousands of years ago, but archaeologists are still uncovering remnants of his past, with the most lavish being the 'lost golden city.' In April 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 3,500-year-old city in Luxor, which they said is the largest ancient city ever to be discovered in Egypt.

Luxor is famously known for its oldest and most ancient Egyptian sites, along with being home to the Valley of Kings. This area was once called the 'Great Necropolis of Millions of Years of Pharaoh,' as a number of mummies and massive structures have been discovered in Luxor

'The discovery of the Lost City, not only will give us a rare glimpse into the life of the Ancient Egyptians at the time where the Empire was at his wealthiest but will help us shed light on one of history's greatest mystery: why did Akhenaten & Nefertiti decide to move to Amarna.'

The city sits between Rameses III's temple at Medinet Habu and Amenhotep III's temple at Memnon.

Excavations began September 2020 and within weeks, archaeologists uncovered formations made of mud bricks.

After more digging, archaeologists unearthed the site of the large, well-preserved city with almost complete walls, and rooms filled with tools once used by the city's inhabitants.
Ash sent spewing into the air from the massive underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga has been photographed by astronauts on the International Space Station.

NASA shared the remarkable pictures taken out of the ISS Cupola windows, showing a blanket of ash from plumes spewing thousands of feet into the atmosphere.

The massive volcano erupted on January 15, creating a 'massive explosion' that happens once in every thousand years, and is large enough to be visible from space.

It triggered a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, sending tsunami waves crashing into the island, leaving it covered in ash and cut off from outside help.

The event was so striking that satellites captured the moment of the eruption, with astronauts on the ISS taking images of plumes and blankets of ash over the region.

The pictures were taken by NASA astronaut Kayla Barron as the station made a pass over New Zealand, 1,200 miles from the site of the volcano, which isn't visible in the frame, while looking down from 253 miles above the Earth.

Ash sent spewing into the air from the massive underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga has been photographed by astronauts on the International Space Station

NASA shared the remarkable pictures taken out of the ISS Cupola windows, showing a blanket of ash from plumes spewing thousands of feet into the atmosphere

The massive volcano erupted on January 15, creating a 'massive explosion' that happens once in every thousand years, and is large enough to be visible from space

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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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.

Astronaut Barron 'opened the window' to the Cupola on Sunday and saw the effects of the eruption, pulling out her camera to capture the effects.

'Ash from Saturdays underwater volcanic eruption in the remote Pacific nation of Tonga made its way thousands of feet into the atmosphere & was visible from @Space_Station,' the NASA_Astronauts account tweeted.

There are four images shared by the NASA team , each showing the area around New Zealand, showing a sky filled with ash and dust.

One of the images makes it look like the sky is completely covered in a thick, white cloud, another showing strands of cloud appearing to cover half the planet.

Images from space played a major part in the detection, details and sharing of this eruption, with satellite images showing the moment it exploded.

It triggered a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, sending tsunami waves crashing into the island, leaving it covered in ash and cut off from outside help

The event was so striking that satellites captured the moment of the eruption, with astronauts on the ISS taking images of plumes and blankets of ash over the region

A number of weather satellites captured the eruption as it happened, revealing a massive 'mushroom-like' cloud engulfing the entire Pacific Island of Tonga.

Ash stirred up from the blast was sent as much as 24 miles above the Earth's surface, easily visible from space, including from the International Space Station.

Astronaut Barron's images were taken over New Zealand, about 1,200 miles south of the volcano itself, on the day after the eruption.

Rather than actually show the volcano, they show a darkened sky blanketed by ash clouds, revealing the incredible extent of its impact.

The eruption was so strong it destroyed the uninhabited Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai island, and the tsunami it triggered caused extensive damage to nearby inhabited islands belonging to the Tonga kingdom.

The pictures were taken by NASA astronaut Kayla Barron as the station made a pass over New Zealand, looking down from 253 miles above the Earth

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

Astronaut Barron 'opened the window' to the Cupola on Sunday and saw the effects of the eruption, pulling out her camera to capture the effects

This kingdom straddles a boundary of tectonic activity between the Pacific and Australian plates.

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.'

The massive ash cloud covering the tiny island nation of Tonga is prevented surveillance flights from New Zealand to assess the extent of damage.
NASA on Friday released stunning footage of a powerful flare shooting out from Earths sun.

The burst of energy appears like a bright flash of light in the upper right region of the massive star, which the American space agency classified as a M5.5-level flare - or moderately strong.

The flare was released around 1:01am EST and was captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which observes the sun constantly.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory monitors the sun with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from its atmosphere to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts, NASA shared in a statement.

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NASA on Friday released stunning footage of a powerful flare shooting out from Earths sun

M-class flares are the second-highest type behind X-class flares, which can go all the way up to X20, representing an extreme solar flare event.

Extreme space weather, or solar storms, occur when the sun shoots out boiling-hot plasma in the form of solar flares and winds.

Although the most solar storms are usually harmless, a large enough one hitting Earth could have catastrophic effects.

Friday's solar flare, however, was not as intense as others emitted from our sun in the past - one observed in 1582 was referred to as a 'great fire.'

The burst of energy appears like a bright flash of light in the upper right region of the massive star, which the American space agency classified as a M5.5-level flare - or moderately strong

The flare was actually seen over dozens of cities across Europe and Asia, and eye-witness accounts of the event were just uncovered in April 2021.

Scientists at Cornell University found a report of a fiery red display in the sky that lasted three days, while another said fire rays arose above the castle which were dreadful and fearful.'

People of this time were unaware of that the event was a massive solar storm, but modern-day astronomers are using the storms to help predict future solar activity.

The solar storm that hit the Earth on March 8, 1582 is comparable to those in 1909 and 1989, which suggest they are a a once-in-a-century occurrence and one or two can be expected in the 21st century, experts say.

If a similar intense solar storm were to hit our modern world, it would cause billions of dollars in damages and knock out power grids worldwide.

Pero Ruiz Soares, an eyewitness of the 1582 solar storm, wrote: All that part of the sky appeared burning in fiery flames; it seemed that the sky was burning.

Nobody remembered having seen something like thatAt midnight, great fire rays arose above the castle which were dreadful and fearful.

Scientists at Cornell University found eye-witness observations who report a fiery red display in the sky that lasted three days, while another said fire rays arose above the castle which were dreadful and fearful. Pictured accounts reported over the three day event

The solar storm that hit in 1909 is said to be one of the most intense of the 20th century. According to Japanese auroral records, bluish color started to appear first, followed by reddish color

The following day, it happened the same at the same hour but it was not so great and terrifying. Everybody went to the countryside to see this great sign.

The solar storm that hit in 1909 is said to be one of the most intense of the 20th century, as first reported on by Universe Today.

It exhibited violent levels of geomagnetic disturbance, caused widespread interference to telegraph systems, and brought spectacular aurorae to the nighttime sky.

Historical records show it impact Earth on September 9, which came in as a shock wave from the solar wind that was later linked to the ejection of plasma from an active sunspot.

According to Japanese auroral records, bluish color started to appear first, followed by reddish color. And it disrupted telegraph communications in mid to low latitudes.
A giraffe calf born at the San Diego Zoo on Tuesday was euthanized at just two days old because its health had quickly deteriorated.

The male, named Masai, was born on January 17 to mom Zindzhi, but shortly after birth the calf was neither standing nor feeding.

He was taken to the Safari Park's Harter Veterinary Medical Center where the wildlife health and wildlife care teams provided around-the-clock care.

'Unfortunately, despite all efforts, his condition continued to worsen, and the team made the compassionate decision to euthanize the calf,' the San Diego Zoo shared in a statement on Thursday.

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A giraffe calf born at the San Diego Zoo on Tuesday was euthanized two days because its health had quickly deteriorated

On January 17, the park shared a lovely birth announcement on its social media accounts.

'On what would have been Betty White's 100th birthday, we celebrated a new life coming into the world,' reads the posts.

'A giraffe calf was born this morning to mom Zindzhi and we're thrilled to be able to honor her life and legacy in this special way.'

The mother and other giraffes in the herd are being monitored closely for any unusual behavior after the calf's passing.

The male, named Masai, was born on January 17 to mom Zindzhi, but shortly after birth the calf was neither standing nor feeding

In a comment on the Facebook post, the park said that so far, the rest of the giraffe herd is 'doing well.'

The San Diego Zoo, however, shared some uplifting news on Friday following the birth of an endangered Sumatran orangutan.

A healthy two-week-old male was born on January 4 and has been named Kaja.

He was named after an island in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, that houses rehabilitated orangutans prior to release in the wild.

Kaja is also the first orangutan born at the San Diego Zoo in more than seven years.

Erika Kohler, interim executive director of the San Diego Zoo, said in a statement: 'To witness the birth of such a majestic critically endangered animal is a remarkable experience and brings us hope for the future.

'His birth increases the population by one and that is a necessary step in our ongoing efforts to gain a deeper understanding of orangutans so we can conserve the species where they live.'

The San Diego Zoo, however, shared some uplifting news on Friday following the birth of an endangered Sumatran orangutan

A healthy two-week-old male was born on January 4 and has been named Kaja. He was named after an island in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, that houses rehabilitated orangutans prior to release in the wild

Although the infant orangutan was deemed healthy, Indah experienced some complications following the birth.

She is now recovering, and will be on the zoo's habitat area intermittently.

Both her and the infant are being monitored closely by wildlife health and wildlife care specialists.

Meg Sutherland-Smith, director of veterinary services at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, said: 'It was extremely rewarding to see the understanding and collaboration put forth by our talented team and community consultants to provide the necessary care for Indah and her infant.

'We will continue to stay vigilant; and at the same time, remain hopeful.'
Romelu Lukaku is a 'timebomb' in the Chelsea dressing room and no different to the player who left Manchester United despite his success at Inter Milan, says Jamie Carragher.

The Blues forked out a club-record 97.5million fee to re-sign Lukaku last summer, and when he marked his first four appearances with as many goals their investment appeared justified.

However, the Belgium striker has only scored another four in his next 19 outings; with two spells on the sidelines through injury and Covid, an explosive interview with Sky Italy and a string of underwhelming performances derailing his second stint at Stamford Bridge.

Jamie Carragher believes Romelu Lukaku is no different to the player who left Man United

After netting 64 goals in 95 games for Inter Milan and helping them clinch the Serie A title, Lukaku was supposed to be arriving back in west London as a mature, seasoned centre-forward at the peak of his powers.

But Carragher doesn't think he is any different to the player who departed United on a sour note back in 2019.

'When Romelu Lukaku signed for Chelsea, the consensus was that he was a different player to that which left Manchester United,' the Liverpool legend wrote in his column for The Telegraph.

Lukaku has generally failed to impress since heading back to Chelsea in the summer

Carragher doesn't think the Belgian has improved despite his recent success at Inter Milan

'Six months later, there is only one valid observation to make about his return to Stamford Bridge. He isnt.

'All the talk about how a couple of years working with this weekends opponent, Antonio Conte, have elevated Lukakus game tactically has proven premature. Thomas Tuchel is managing the same striker who prompted Manchester United to run out of patience and sell him to Inter Milan.

'Thats why I cant help but think there is a timebomb in the Chelsea dressing room, with the player and club already losing patience with each other. The recent furore over the interview Lukaku gave to Italian media was a hint of what might follow.

Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has singled out Lukaku for criticism over the past month

'There has been a period of calm since, but if performances continue to underwhelm and Tuchel starts to give the impression his first choice XI does not have Lukakus name on it, it is likely the alarm bells have been paused, not deactivated.'

In their recent 1-0 defeat away at Manchester City and Tuesday's 1-1 draw at Brighton, Tuchel made a damning statement on both occasions by hooking Lukaku when Chelsea were chasing a late goal.

And Carragher believes they look much more threatening without him in the side, adding: 'On paper, Chelsea look a more balanced side with Lukaku. The reality is they have been at their most fluid and dangerous without him.

Carragher believes Tuchel's team look more threatening without him in the starting XI

'Lets not forget before Lukaku signed they won the Champions League final using the matchwinner, Kai Havertz, as a false nine.

'Look at Chelseas most complete performances this season - the 4-0 Champions League win over Juventus, the best example. Lukaku was not in the starting line-up due to injury.'

He then concluded: 'It is too soon to say paying 97.5 million to re-sign Lukaku was a mistake. If there is no radical upturn in form and Tuchel loses trust in the striker ahead of the biggest Premier League and Champions League games, it could become one.'
Ian Wright claims Cristiano Ronaldo's strop after Manchester United boss Ralf Rangnick took the Portuguese forward off at Brentford is 'not a good sign' for the club.

Ronaldo was hauled off when United were 2-0 up and cruising against the west Londoners and the 36-year-old was visibly upset at coming off and Rangnick had to publicly talk United's No 7 down.

Rangnick confirmed that his star striker was annoyed at not being kept on so he could try and increase his goal tally, but the German interim boss wanted to bring another defensive player to shore up the result.

Ian Wright believes Cristiano Ronaldo's (second left) strop at Brentford is 'not a good sign'

Ronaldo (second right) was visibly annoyed he came off when Man United were 2-0 up

And Wright claims Ronaldo's unwillingness to sit with his fellow substitutes on the bench after coming off is not a good look and compared those antics to that of a young player.

The former Arsenal striker told Premier League Productions: 'You see Ronaldo come off and act like that. You would have thought that's the last thing he would be doing, that kind of reaction.

'It's Cristiano Ronaldo and that goes worldwide, just seeing sitting there, he didn't even want to sit on the bench  he sat on the stairs.

Wright (above) says he would expect that sort of behaviour from a youngster, not a 36-year-old

'I understand if you're a youngster and you've made your debut, played brilliantly and then come off and do that, I understand that. The manager can say: 'Listen, just calm down to him.'

'But he's saying this to Cristiano Ronaldo, you're having to plicate him on the bench, in front of the world. That's not a good sign.'

Ronaldo has scored 14 goals in 23 matches since making the move back to United last summer, but only eight of them have come in the Premier League.

However, the Portuguese forward has continued his excellent Champions League record by scoring in every single group stage match for United this season, as they progressed out of a tricky group with Spanish side Villarreal and Serie A's Atalanta.

Ronaldo has scored just eight Premier League goals since returning to United last summer

Wright acknowledges that Ronaldo has brought some goalscoring expertise to Old Trafford but hints that United may be regretting the move - as they only wanted to sign him to stop him moving to their arch-rivals Man City.

'I believe the signing was about him not going to Manchester City,' Wright added. 'It wouldn't have stopped City doing what they are doing  but I guess it would have helped.

'They signed him so late in the window, after signing Jadon Sancho and convincing Edison Cavani to stay, and you look at those two players and they haven't had much chance to play because of Ronaldo being in there.

'Yes, he's scored the goals, but at the same time it's totally unbalanced.'
Sheridan Smith's idyllic summer break in Turkey is ruined as she becomes locked in a legal battle in gritty new drama No Return.

The actress, 40, stars as Kathy in the new four-part series which follows her, husband Martin (Michael Jibson) and 16-year-old son Noah (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) who all get caught in a living nightmare while on vacation.

Their holiday is a chance to unwind and for Kathy and Martin to spend some much needed time together.

Drama: Sheridan Smith's idyllic summer break in Turkey is ruined as she becomes locked in a legal battle in gritty new drama No Return

Until unsuspecting Noah accepts a seemingly innocent invitation to a beach party from a fellow holidaymaker, Rosie (Jodie Campbell), who is staying at the same hotel.

Kathy and Martin's world falls apart when they are left desperately fighting for their son's freedom against extremely challenging circumstances.

An arrest, an expensive and alien legal system, looming media coverage and resistance from fellow holidaymakers to come to their aid leaves the distraught parents fighting for Noah's freedom.

Completing the cast are Sian Brooke (Stephen, Good Omens, Sherlock) who plays Kathy's sister Megan and David Mumeni (Sliced, Dead Pixels) who plays Megan's husband Steve.

Tension: The actress, 40, stars as Kathy in the new four-part series which follows her, husband Martin (Michael Jibson) and 16-year-old son Noah (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) who all get caught in a living nightmare while on vacation

Plot: Their holiday is a chance to unwind and for Kathy and Martin to spend some much needed time together

Also featured is Philip Arditti (House of Saddam, Black Earth Rising) as Noah's legal representative Rico Karvalci.

Meanwhile, Murat Seven (SOKO Stuttgart) portrays hotel worker Ismail and Rufus Hound (Trollied) plays Private Investigator Al Milner.

Speaking about her role, Sheridan said: 'I hope people will relate to this family who go on holiday to Turkey. I love watching things that transport the audience to a different place. But this ends up as the holiday from hell. I think many parents will say, "Thank God I'm not in their shoes."'

She added: '[The characters] all go through something and come back changed people. They are not going back to how it was before.

Invitation: Until unsuspecting Noah accepts a seemingly innocent invitation to a beach party from a fellow holidaymaker, Rosie (Jodie Campbell), who is staying at the same hotel

Arrest: Kathy and Martin's world spectacularly falls apart when they are left desperately fighting for their son's freedom against extremely challenging circumstances

Nightmare: An arrest, an expensive and alien legal system, looming media coverage and resistance from fellow holidaymakers to come to their aid leaves the distraught parents fighting for Noah's freedom

Sheridan said: '[The characters] all go through something and come back changed people. They are not going back to how it was before'

'Each person has gone on their own massive journey throughout those four episodes. Which is reflected in the title.'

Executive Producer, Nicola Shinder, said: 'I am delighted to be working with Danny again on these fantastic scripts.

'He makes the audience ask, "what if that were my holiday, my child?'' in a thrilling way. And we are so lucky to have Sheridan and the rest of this very talented cast to bring this story to life.'

No Return has been commissioned for ITV by Head of Drama Polly Hill and will be internationally distributed by STUDIOCANAL.

The series' transmission date will be confirmed on Wednesday, January 26.
Belfast (12A, 98 minutes)

Verdict: A small masterpiece

Rating:

Nightmare Alley (15, 150 mins)

Verdict: Overlong, but hugely stylish

Rating:

Sir Kenneth Branagh has never made a secret of his early life, growing up in Northern Ireland as the Troubles erupted, then leaving at the age of nine when his working-class Protestant parents made the decision to move the family to England to escape the turmoil.

But it has always seemed like a footnote to his story. With his largely autobiographical drama Belfast, for which he won a richly deserved Best Screenplay award at the Golden Globes earlier this month, he shines a spotlight on it for the first time.

The result is a bewitchingly intimate, warm-hearted, wholly captivating film, firmly rooted in a particular time and place yet in a way telling a generic tale, that of refugees through the ages.

Sir Kenneth Branagh has never made a secret of his early life, growing up in Northern Ireland as the Troubles erupted

He left at the age of nine when his working-class Protestant parents made the decision to move the family to England to escape the turmoil

From start to finish, it is enchantingly done. It opens with colour shots of modern-day Belfast, accompanied, as the film is throughout, by the music of Van Morrison. Then it morphs into black and white to show a contented urban scene in August 1969: children playing, neighbours chatting, a happy community at one with itself and a young boy, Buddy (engagingly played by newcomer Jude Hill), slowly making his way home.

Suddenly, everything changes. Rioters appear, hardline Loyalists bent on driving Catholics from the mostly Protestant neighbourhood. Branagh effects a powerful 360-degree shot around the bewildered Buddy as nasty, violent tumult invades his innocent, carefree boyhood.

Soon there are tanks rolling up Mountcollyer Street, where Buddy lives with his parents (Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan), and older brother, Will (Lewis McAskie), with his paternal grandparents Granny (Dame Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds) nearby.

Not giving actual names to the grown-ups seems to be another nod to the storys universality, and more specifically, in the case of Ma and Pa (as Balfe and Dornan are credited), to the importance of Westerns in Buddys imagination.

Meanwhile, the ceiling appears to have fallen in on his world except, significantly, it hasn't. What has actually descended is a state of being especially resonant in our own pandemic-blighted times: a new normal. Family and community life go on as before. Even poisonous sectarianism finds its way into everyday dialogue: 'Daddy, are you not going to be a vigilante on our barricade?'

With his largely autobiographical drama Belfast, for which he won a richly deserved Best Screenplay award at the Golden Globes earlier this month, he shines a spotlight on it for the first time

The essence of Belfast, a little like John Boorman's charming Hope And Glory (1987), is this transition from peace to war in the context of a little boy's life, and that of his family.

In fact, Buddy has more pressing concerns than men with guns, such as a crush on a girl in his class and a minor shoplifting rap. The bitter strife in the streets isn't even the biggest headache for his parents; there's an onerous tax bill to pay and growing evidence that Pop's lungs are giving out.

The relationship between Buddy and Pop is depicted with irresistible tenderness and humour. 'There's nothing wrong with an outside toilet,' says the old man, 'except on an aeroplane.'

From start to finish, it is enchantingly done. It opens with colour shots of modern-day Belfast, accompanied, as the film is throughout, by the music of Van Morrison

Hinds plays Pop beautifully, but it might be Dench's performance that moves you to tears, as Granny comes to terms with Ma and Pa's painfully conflicted decision to uproot themselves.

Dornan is terrific, too; and Balfe, beguilingly bonny even when her character is in despair, will surely lift a statuette or two before awards season is done.

For some people, perhaps, the seam of sentimentality that runs through the picture might be too much. But it will take a stony heart not to embrace it, or to balk at the occasional whimsical flourishes, such as a High Noon-style stand-off between Pa and the Loyalist thugs trying to recruit him.

Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley, a neo-noir 1940s thriller based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham, is almost an hour longer.

I loved every minute of it. Van Morrison's mostly original score is wonderful (Branagh contrives a nice homage by having Pa back a horse called Moondance) and the decision to shoot in monochrome is a masterstroke, not least because when the family go to the pictures, for instance to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the screen is fleetingly suffused in colour.

It's a charming and effective way to show how the cinema enriches lives lived, especially back then, in shades of grey.

Another joy of Belfast is its brevity: a little over an hour and a half.

Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley, a neo-noir 1940s thriller based on a novel by William Lindsay Gresham, is almost an hour longer. Yet it's not as if the story can't be told with a lot more economy, as it was in the 1947 version with Tyrone Power.

A splendid cast also includes Willem Dafoe, Tim Blake Nelson and Mary Steenburgen

That aside, it's a hugely stylish, highly atmospheric psychological drama, following the fluctuating fortunes of the enigmatic, itinerant Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), who finds a job with a travelling carnival and learns a mind-reading act from the resident psychic (Toni Collette).

Really, the story is divided in two, because a couple of years later, after Stan has fallen for another act, Molly (Rooney Mara), the pair have left the carnival and he has reinvented himself as 'The Great Stanton', entertaining New York's high society.

The film, dark enough throughout, then takes a decidedly sinister turn as Stan plots, in alliance with a creepy psychiatrist played by Cate Blanchett, to swindle an ageing tycoon (Richard Jenkins).

A splendid cast also includes Willem Dafoe, Tim Blake Nelson and Mary Steenburgen, and despite the film's excessive length, and an ending that plunges into melodrama, it's marvellously acted and gorgeous on the eye.

but Denzel steps behind the camera and loses his way

A Journal for Jordan (12A, 131 mins)

Verdict: Nowt to write home about

Rating:

Denzel Washington doesn't do much wrong professionally, but in directing A Journal For Jordan he takes a poignant true story, one you'd think could be told succinctly and movingly, and makes it laborious in the extreme. There is simply no valid artistic reason for it to last well over two hours.

Charles King (Michael B Jordan) was a U.S. army sergeant killed in Iraq, who, in case he didn't make it home, wrote a journal for his infant son Jordan to read as he grew up, including life advice ranging from how to deal with racists to how to treat women.

His fiancee was a New York Times journalist, Dana Canedy (Chante Adams), who after his death used his journal as the basis of a best-selling memoir.

Charles King (Michael B Jordan) was a U.S. army sergeant killed in Iraq, who, in case he didn't make it home, wrote a journal for his infant son Jordan to read as he grew up, including life advice ranging from how to deal with racists to how to treat women

It's easy enough to understand why her book has been adapted for the screen, but Washington, and screenwriter Virgil Williams, waste their material by dwelling for an absurd amount of time on the burgeoning relationship between Charles and Dana, almost as if they're trying to force a fully formed romcom into the story.

It makes the narrative top-heavy, unwieldy and unforgivably boring.

Both charismatic leads do a fine job in the circumstances, but as the film flits back and forth in time, some of the dialogue is laughably feeble.

Denzel Washington doesn't do much wrong professionally, but in directing A Journal For Jordan he takes a poignant true story, one you'd think could be told succinctly and movingly, and makes it laborious in the extreme

For example, given that the real Canedy is a writer good enough to have won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize (though the film doesn't tell us this), the script is oddly clueless about how journalism works.

I actually laughed out loud at one point when, as both watch the horrifying TV pictures of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers, Charles phones Dana in the office and tells her to get herself home straight away. Solemnly, she agrees.

As if, with the biggest story of their lives unfolding down the street, the impulse of even a half-decent New York Times journalist would be to hide under the bed.
A South Melbourne terrace that once housed music icons The Beatles has sold just before Christmas.

The 262 Albert Road home was previously owned by music promoter Kenn 'Mr Showbiz' Brodziak, who hosted the Fab Four during their world tour in the 1960s.

The vendors, who are unrelated to Mr Brodziak, put the 1891-built property and a separate, neighbouring title on the market late last year with a price guide of between $5.4million and $5.65million, reports realestate.com.au.

House with history: A legendary music promoter's South Melbourne home that once hosted The Beatles in the '60s has sold for an undisclosed sum

Marshall White Port Phillip director and auctioneer Oliver Bruce said many parties were interested in the home, with its musical claim to fame being a driving point for buyers, but eventually a Melbourne family who were downsizing took the keys.

'There were a couple of parties interested when it came down to it at the end, but they [the buyers] were interested right from when it was to be sold as one block,' Mr Bruce said.

He added that The Beatles' small role in the history of the home was a 'point of interest' during the campaign.

Graced by music royalty: The 262 Albert Road home was previously owned by music promoter Kenn 'Mr Showbiz' Brodziak, who hosted the Fab Four during their world tour in the 1960s

Sale: Marshall White Port Phillip director and auctioneer Oliver Bruce said many parties were interested in the home, with its musical claim to fame being a driving point for buyers, but eventually a Melbourne family who were downsizing took the keys

'It was definitely a talking print, particularly at the moment with the new Beatles documentary coming out [in late 2021],' Mr Bruce said.

It was the first time in 20 years the property had been sold to a new buyer.

The residence has four bedrooms, including a main bedroom with a marble gas fire, walk-in wardrobe and balcony, plus two bathrooms and a private carport with space for four vehicles.

It also has Baltic pine floors, ornate vaulted ceilings, a modish formal dining room, a gourmet kitchen with quality appliances, a private courtyard and a backyard pool.

The home is directly across from Albert Park Lake and has stunning views of the water.

Inclusions: The residence has four bedrooms, including a main with a marble gas fire, walk-in wardrobe and balcony, plus two bathrooms and a private carport with space for four vehicles

Extras: It also has Baltic pine floors, ornate vaulted ceilings, a modish formal dining room, a gourmet kitchen with quality appliances, a private courtyard and a backyard pool (pictured)

Mr Brodziak entertained The Beatles - comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr - at his former home in 1964 during the band's world tour.

The promoter had secured a deal to fly the famous quartet Down Under before they had reached the peak of their fame.

The contract was widely regarded a 'coup' for the music industry guru.

Brodziak also notably brought Bob Dylan to Australia in 1966.






U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves from the door of an aircraft after arriving at Geneva Airport, in Switzerland, Jan. 20. AFP-Yonhap
Netflix has ordered up a reboot of the classic food format of Iron Chef.

The new series - Iron Chef: Quest For An Iron Legend - will be based on Fuji Television Network's Iron Chef format, and consist of eight episodes.

Previous adaptions made for viewers in the U.S. have included Food Network's Iron Chef America competition that featured high-profile celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, Alton Brown and Cat Cora, among others, according to Deadline.

Reboot: Netflix has ordered up the new series - Iron Chef: Quest For An Iron Legend - that will be based on Fuji Television Network's Iron Chef format and consist of eight episodes

According to the official description for the new show, 'The legendary Iron Chef series is reborn with a supersized approach to the ground-breaking culinary competition that started it all. It's been called the toughest culinary challenge a chef will ever experience. This is where world-class cuisine meets high-octane sports.'

The details also include, 'Five new trailblazing Iron Chefs who will welcome brave Challenger Chefs to the reimagined Kitchen Stadium, where they'll face off and be pushed to the limits of endurance and creativity, as they cook up extraordinary culinary creations.'

In the end, 'The competition's most successful Challenger will return to battle in a grand finale for the chance to be named the first ever Iron Legend.'

Iron Chef America, which ran from 2005 to 2018, was the first of several shows to strike gold with audiences in the U.S.

Star Power: Some of the high-profile celebrity chefs to serve as Iron Chefs on Iron Chef America included Bobby Flay (pictured), Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali, among many others

So far, the names of the Iron Chefs have not been announced, but it's likely that they will feature some culinary legends.

The series comes from Keller Productions in association with 3 Ball Productions.

Daniel Calin, a veteran of the culinary competition reality series format, who has worked on MasterChef, Top Chef and Nailed It, will serve as showrunner and executive producer alongside Eytan Keller and 3 Ball's Ross Weintraub.

The original Iron Chef, which premiered in Japan in 1993, was a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident Iron Chefs in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredient. It aired 309 episodes during its run that went through until September 1999, although there were occasional specials produced until 2002.

Old format: The new series comes on the heels of several high-profile cooking competition shows produced for the U.S. like Iron Chef USA, which failed to score big with viewers in 2001

The new series comes on the heels of several high-profile cooking competition shows produced for U.S. audiences.

Iron Chef USA aired in 2001 with William Shatner as the Chairman, but it didn't fare very well.

But Food Network served up its version, Iron Chef America, that went on to become a glowing success upon its debut in 2005. It went on to air 205 episodes across 13 seasons until it ended in 2018, following a one-season return after a four year hiatus.

Along with big celebrity chef stars like Flay, Puck, Cora, and Mario Batali, those who served as Iron Chefs also included Michael Symon, Jose Garces, Marc Forgione, Masaharu Morimoto, Geoffrey Zakarian, Alex Guarnaschelli and Stephanie Izard, while Alton Brown played the role of commentator and host.

Spinoff series over the years included Iron Chef Showdown and Iron Chef Gauntlet.

Iron Chef: Quest For An Iron Legend is slated to debut later this year.
The latest season of I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! almost featured the likes of Kyle Sandilands in the jungle.

The KIIS radio host revealed that he almost took part in the hit Channel 10 reality series during a discussion with his co-host Jackie O' Henderson and NRL star and I'm a Celeb contestant Beau Ryan on Friday.

Ryan, who quit the show on Thursday night's episode after telling his campmates that he missed his family, asked Sandilands if he had been asked to appear on the program.

Big money: Kyle Sandilands has revealed he was offered $1million to do I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

'I've been asked and knocked it back every year,' the radio shock jock said.

Beau then followed up the question by asking Sandilands how much the producers offered him to star.

'One million dollars,' Kyle answered. 'They didn't start off at a million, they like really wanted me. This was a while ago. I said no.'

Temptation: Ryan, who quit the show on Thursday night's episode after telling his campmates that he missed his family, asked Sandilands if he had been asked to appear on the program

Sandilands threw the question back to Ryan about offers he had received from I'm a Celeb.

The former NRL player-turned-TV host said at one point he was offered $600,000 to be on the second season of the show, but initially refused offers to appear on previous seasons due to his aversion to travelling and staying in Africa.

'The second season I got offered 600 to do it,' he revealed.

Beau admitted to the radio hosts that he was offered less to be in the current series and was 'talked into' starring.

Pressure: The former NRL player-turned-TV host admitted to the radio hosts that he was offered less to be in the current series and was 'talked into' starring

Beau abruptly quit the show during a late-night discussion with his campmates on Thursday, saying he missed his family and needed to leave.

He said: 'As you know the last couple of days I've been struggling, and today I was a bit broken. It's been really hard for me.

'The reason I did this show is to test myself, which I have. I've shown Australia the good, bad and ugly of me.

'I've had some moments where I regret, some moments I don't and I'm proud of everything that's happened.

Family: Beau quit the show during a late-night discussion with his campmates, saying he missed his family and needed to leave. Pictured with wife Kara and their two children

He said he 'can't explain' how it feels to have met such a wonderful group of people, but needed to be with his wife Kara and their children, Remi, eight, and Jesse, three.

'I remember growing up and a guy two houses down from me - the dad was always away for work. I don't want to be that dad,' he added.

'My kids need their dad. My wife needs a husband, and I need to find myself back.

'I came in here to prove myself. I can't gain anything else from this show. My journey here is over, and I love you guys.'

He then uttered the famous words: 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here.'

Not impressed: By leaving the show, he missed out on the chance to win $100,000 for his chosen charity, the Mark Hughes Foundation for brain cancer research

While his co-stars were sympathetic, fans watching at home were divided over Beau's decision to call it quits.

Several viewers supported his decision to prioritise his family, but others were shocked and disappointed by his exit.

By leaving the show, he missed out on the chance to win $100,000 for his chosen charity, the Mark Hughes Foundation for brain cancer research.

Confused: Others pointed out that Beau spends several months of the year away from his family to film The Amazing Race, so a few weeks in the jungle shouldn't be an issue

'You are also leaving your charity, which is why you are there, Beau. Zero respect from me,' one critic tweeted.

Others pointed out that Beau spends several months of the year away from his family to film The Amazing Race, so a few weeks in the jungle shouldn't be an issue.

'Okay then. Wonder what that means for The Amazing Race... away from family for that?' one fan commented.

'If he doesn't want to be a parent who's always travelling I wonder if he won't host Amazing Race anymore?' another added.

Farewell: He said goodbye to his campmates in emotional scenes. Here with Nathan Buckley

'Given the amount of time Beau is away from home for his work, I'm not sure I accept the reasoning. But sure. Bye,' a third wrote.

However, many viewers supported his decision to leave for his family, with one fan writing: 'Awww what a good family man.'

'This might be the most honourable thing he's done. Good for you,' another added.

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! continues Sunday at 7.30pm on Channel 10
Kyle Richards treated her fans to a slew of wedding throwbacks Thursday as she celebrated 26 years of being Mrs. Mauricio Umansky.

The 53-year-old former child star, who is now most famous as a Real Housewife Of Beverly Hills, gushed over Mauricio in an Instagram caption.

Alongside her flashback photos she wrote: 'Happy 26th anniversary @mumansky18,' and expressed her warmest feelings of gratitude.

What a day: Kyle Richards treated her fans to a slew of wedding throwbacks Thursday as she celebrated 26 years of being Mrs. Mauricio Umansky

'Thank you for always having my back, for being my biggest cheerleader, best friend, the Yang to my Ying, father to our babies , partner in life,' she spilled.

'I am so grateful to have you by my side through this incredible life we have built. I love & appreciate you more than ever.'

Kyle, who has Paris Hilton for a niece, called him 'The most patient & loving father and husband thank you for all that you do. I love you forever.'

Along with her wedding pics, she sprinkled her Instagram album with a few glamour shots she and Mauricio posed for in The Knot last year.

Togetherness: The 53-year-old former child star, who is now most famous as a Real Housewife Of Beverly Hills, gushed over Mauricio in an Instagram caption

Kyle was decked out in a series of floor-length white frocks reminiscent of bridal gowns, one of which included a cape in an Old Hollywood flourish.

Meanwhile Mauricio was classically stylish in a series of dapper suits, including a black and white number and another ensemble done in navy.

Mauricio and Kyle have been married since 1996 and share three daughters - Alexia, 25, Sophia, 22, and Portia, 14.

Kyle, who converted to Judaism for Mauricio, also has a 33-year-old daughter called Farrah Aldjufrie by her first husband Guraish Aldjufrie, a real estate developer.

Family matters: Mauricio and Kyle have been married since 1996 and share three daughters - Alexia, 25, Sophia, 22, and Portia, 14

During her Knot interview last year Kyle revealed that she changed her wedding date in order to accommodate her pregnancy with Alexia.

'The wedding was originally going to be I believe in April, and then we moved it up to January so my dress would still fit, because I was pregnant,' Kyle spilled.

During the same interview Mauricio referred to Farrah as 'our daughter' and Kyle revealed a welcoming gesture he had made to his stepchild.

'When my husband asked me to marry him, he also gave Farrah a little "engagement ring" that was a heart with two hands holding it,' said Kyle.

Trio: Kyle, who was pregnant with Alexia at the wedding, included a picture of herself and Mauricio with her eldest daughter Farrah from a previous marriage

Kyle noted that when she met Mauricio her daughter was five years old 'so she was seven by the wedding date' and 'so in love with' her new father.

The mother of four shared: 'Every night we would all lay in bed and she would suck her thumb and rub his ear with her other little hand like he was her blankie!'

In the anniversary album she posted this Thursday, Kyle made sure to include a picture of herself and Mauricio with Farrah at the wedding.

She closed out the post with a heartwarming snapshot taken more recently of the happy couple with all four daughters.

Party of six: She closed out the post with a heartwarming snapshot taken more recently of the happy couple with all four daughters

Last year Kyle revealed that before her wedding she had been 'so worried about people lifting me up on a chair while I'm pregnant and doing the hora.'

However in retrospect she 'would not change one thing' about her nuptials. 'It was just filled with fun and love and it was just amazing.'

Mauricio allowed that if they had 'a vow renewal, I would do it a lot smaller' but Kyle said: 'But here's the thing, I don't believe in getting married again or a vow renewal because we got it right the first time and I just don't want to mess with what works.'
Tom Burgess is set to marry his fiancee Tahlia Giumelli on Friday after months of pandemic postponements.

But before saying 'I do', the NRL star enjoyed a final family breakfast with his mother Julie, brother Sam Burgess, his daughters and other guests.

The nervous 29-year-old held his daughters Sophie, three, and Elodie, one, as he had a meal with his family at Dunbar House in Watsons Bay.

Wedding bells! NRL star Tom Burgess enjoyed a family breakfast on the morning of his wedding to Tahlia Giumelli with his brother Sam Burgess, their mother Julie and his daughters

Tom dressed casually in a navy T-shirt, white shorts and black sandals as he enjoyed his final meal as an unmarried man.

Tom's brother Sam was seen arriving to the breakfast alongside several guests.

Their mother Julie was also spotted greeting and embracing family members as they entered the establishment.

Proud dad: The nervous 29-year-old held his daughters Sophie, three, and Elodie, one, as he posed for a photo

Family time: Tom dressed casually in a navy T-shirt, white shorts and black sandals as he enjoyed his final meal as an unmarried man

Supportive: Tom's brothers was seen arriving to the breakfast alongside several other guests

Daily Mail Australia confirmed last week that Tom and Tahlia will tie the knot in a waterfront park ceremony with friends and family.

Sources close to the pair confirmed the service will finally go ahead and that all of the Burgess brothers - including SAS winner Sam - will have roles to play in the proceedings.

It's understood lifelong Souths fan and close family friend Russell Crowe has also RSVP'd to the event along with a large Souths contingent both past and present.

Big day: Their mother Julie was also spotted greeting and embracing family members as they entered the establishment

Family reunion: Luke Burgess and his girlfriend Tori May also joined other family members at the breakfast

Stylish: Tori looked stylish in a comfortable black dress as she walked alongside her beau

Helping hand: Sam held his grandmother's hand as he walked her to the car

The confirmation follows several major setbacks for the young parents.

The couple were forced to postpone their nuptials on several occasions and were forced to ditch their most recent set of wedding plans in December after Tom contracted Covid-19 during a holiday to Byron Bay.

Model Tahlia, 29, recently revealed on Instagram that the wedding would 'definitely go ahead' in early 2022 after recently celebrating her Barbie-themed Hen's party.

Tahlia shared a video and several photos of herself and a girlfriend making name cards for wedding guests adding the caption; 'Progress'.

It's time! Daily Mail Australia confirmed last week that Tom and Tahlia will tie the knot in a waterfront park ceremony with friends and family

Family affair: Sources close to the pair confirmed the service will finally go ahead and that all of the Burgess brothers - including SAS winner Sam - will have roles to play in the proceedings

Star-studded guest list: It's understood lifelong Souths fan and close family friend Russell Crowe has also RSVP'd to the event along with a large Souths contingent both past and present

Delays: Tom and Tahlia were forced to postpone their nuptials on several occasions and were forced to ditch their most recent set of wedding plans in December after Tom contracted Covid-19 during a holiday to Byron Bay

Sources have told Daily Mail Australia the intimate ceremony will take place in a 'picturesque waterfront park' and that the couple's children may also play a role in proceedings.

Additional guests will then be welcomed at a nearby hotel for an evening of 'socially distanced' celebrations to be attended by a who's who of the sport and fashion world.

Tom and Tahlia, meanwhile, first announced their postponement of their original wedding plans back in July following two years of intricate planning.

Confirmed: Model Tahlia recently revealed on Instagram that the wedding would 'definitely go ahead' in early 2022 after recently celebrating her Barbie-themed Hen's party

Intimate: Sources have told Daily Mail Australia the intimate ceremony will take place in a 'picturesque waterfront park' and the couple's children may also play a role in proceedings

Celebrations: Additional guests will then be welcomed at a nearby hotel for an evening of 'socially distanced' celebrations to be attended by a who's who of the sport and fashion world

'With another wave of Covid hitting NSW our priority is and always will be the safety of our family and friends,' Tahlia wrote on social media.

'I have no doubt when it happens it will be just as amazing. Really feel for all the brides who have had to do the same. But right now a wedding didn't seem like a number one priority'.

The couple announced their engagement on New Year's Eve in 2019, after three years of dating.

Postponed: Tom and Tahlia, meanwhile, first announced their postponement of their original wedding plans back in July following two years of intricate planning

'With another wave of Covid hitting NSW our priority is and always will be the safety of our family and friends,' Tahlia wrote on social media

'I have no doubt when it happens it will be just as amazing. Really feel for all the brides who have had to do the same. But right now a wedding didn't seem like a number one priority'
Beau Ryan has launched an extraordinary attack on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! after throwing in the towel on Thursday's episode.

The former NRL player-turned-TV host, 36, told Fitzy and Wippa on Friday morning the show was 'torture' and he 'hated' every minute of it.

He said he found life in the jungle so unbearable, he quit knowing there were just a few more days to go before the finale.

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'Hated it': Beau Ryan (pictured) has launched an extraordinary attack on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! after throwing in the towel on Thursday's episode

'I left at midnight on a Monday and then the last day was on the Friday,' he told radio hosts Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli and Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald.

'And the final six would have had a Saturday together and flew back, so it was four or five days.

'It was torture... hated it.'

Beau said the worst part of the experience was the hunger, but his breaking point came when producers told the cast they were taking a day off from filming.

Bed experience: The former NRL player-turned-TV host, 36, told Fitzy and Wippa on Friday morning the show was 'torture' and he 'hated' every minute of it

'They came down and said today is a no-filming day so we're not actually using today... and that broke me. It really broke me,' he said.

'I felt really bad on myself. I was really upset with myself. At the end of the day, man, I couldnt get through it.'

Despite being a contracted Channel 10 presenter, Beau admitted he was concerned about how he would be portrayed on the show.

He confessed he'd spent the past month feeling 'really anxious' about his edit.

Quit before the last hurdle: He found life in the jungle so unbearable, he quit knowing there were just a few more days to go before the finale

Beau abruptly quit the show during a late-night discussion with his campmates on Thursday, saying he missed his family and needed to leave.

He said: 'As you know the last couple of days I've been struggling, and today I was a bit broken. It's been really hard for me.

'The reason I did this show is to test myself, which I have. I've shown Australia the good, bad and ugly of me.

'I've had some moments where I regret, some moments I don't and I'm proud of everything that's happened.'

Family: Beau quit the show during a late-night discussion with his campmates, saying he missed his family and needed to leave. Pictured with wife Kara and their two children

He said he 'can't explain' how it feels to have met such a wonderful group of people, but needed to be with his wife Kara and their children, Remi, eight, and Jesse, three.

'I remember growing up and a guy two houses down from me - the dad was always away for work. I don't want to be that dad,' he added.

'My kids need their dad. My wife needs a husband, and I need to find myself back.

'I came in here to prove myself. I can't gain anything else from this show. My journey here is over, and I love you guys.'

He then uttered the famous words: 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here.'

Not impressed: By leaving the show, he missed out on the chance to win $100,000 for his chosen charity, the Mark Hughes Foundation for brain cancer research

While his co-stars were sympathetic, fans watching at home were divided over Beau's decision to call it quits.

Several viewers supported his decision to prioritise his family, but others were shocked and disappointed by his exit.

By leaving the show, he missed out on the chance to win $100,000 for his chosen charity, the Mark Hughes Foundation for brain cancer research.

Confused: Others pointed out that Beau spends several months of the year away from his family to film The Amazing Race, so a few weeks in the jungle shouldn't be an issue

'You are also leaving your charity, which is why you are there, Beau. Zero respect from me,' one critic tweeted.

Others pointed out that Beau spends several months of the year away from his family to film The Amazing Race, so a few weeks in the jungle shouldn't be an issue.

'Okay then. Wonder what that means for The Amazing Race... away from family for that?' one fan commented.

'If he doesn't want to be a parent who's always travelling I wonder if he won't host Amazing Race anymore?' another added.

Farewell: He said goodbye to his campmates in emotional scenes. Here with Nathan Buckley

'Given the amount of time Beau is away from home for his work, I'm not sure I accept the reasoning. But sure. Bye,' a third wrote.

However, many viewers supported his decision to leave for his family, with one fan writing: 'Awww what a good family man.'

'This might be the most honourable thing he's done. Good for you,' another added.

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! continues Sunday at 7.30pm on Channel 10
Bethenny Frankel put her impressively taut abs on full display as she gave her 2.4 million Instagram viewers a peek at her underwear on Thursday.

The 51-year-old Real Housewives Of New York City alum took to her Instagram Story to flash her underwear, which was made by her brand SkinnyGirl.

'Nothing gets between me and my @skinnygirlbrand,' Bethenny captioned the photo in a cheeky play on the famous Calvin Klein slogan.

Baring some skin: Bethenny Frankel put her impressively taut abs on full display as she gave her 2.4 million Instagram viewers a peek at her underwear

The top of the entrepreneur's toned thigh was visible in the image, in which she modeled a white pair of bikini underwear with 'Skinnygirl' stamped in black across the band.

Bethenny also seen modeling additional Skinnygirl shapewear, including a tank top which she said had received a lot of comments.

She said people love the top because it's 'a classic' and a 'good layering piece'.

Brand endorsement: On Thursday, the 51-year-old Real Housewives of New York City alum took to her Instagram Story to flash her underwear, which was by her own brand SkinnyGirl

Shapely: Bethenny also seen modeling Skinnygirl shapewear, including a tank top which she said had received a lot of comments

Easy access: She flashed her dusty mauve bra as she pulled down her top to demonstrate its accessibility

Bethenny added that the top provides easy access for 'people who are breastfeeding' or 'who have had surgery.'

She flashed her dusty mauve bra as she pulled down her top to demonstrate its accessibility.

'This is a solution tank,' Bethenny said in the videos, adding an GIF of a lightbulb with the wording, 'Be the solution.'

'I'm just good at these silently sexy moments': The reality star lifted the tank to show off the maroon underwear that she had on underneath it

The reality star then lifted the tank to show off the maroon underwear that she had on underneath it.

She described the underwear as 'sexy boy shorts that pop the booty a little bit' and said they 'Do smooth' and 'do look great under skirts or jeans.'

'But I have to say, I'm just good at these silently sexy moments,' Bethenny concluded in the video which had a 'No tricks, just treats' GIF.

Sexy: She described the underwear as 'sexy boy shorts that pop the booty a little bit' and said they 'Do smooth' and 'do look great under skirts or jeans'

Earlier, the television personality also showed off the skimpy ensemble that she wore to present an award at the iHeart Podcast Awards.

She donned a low-cut black bodysuit that featured sheer panels under a sharp black blazer embellished with gold buttons on the sleeves.

The brunette beauty wore her long locks down in loose waves and accessorized with gold statement jewelry including large earrings and a long necklace.

Sultry: Earlier, the television personality also showed off the skimpy ensemble that she wore to present an award at the iHeart Podcast Awards

Bethenny sported fuzzy white slippers as she posed in the mirror of her closet and turned to give her viewers a full look at her outfit.

'I just had to present an award at the iHeart Podcast Awards and I wanted to show you what I wore head to toe,' she said in the video.

'Head to toe,' Bethenny said as she panned the camera down to her feet before showing off a few dance moves and singing, 'You've better work!'

Head to toe: Bethenny sported fuzzy white slippers as she posed in the mirror of her closet and turned to give her viewers a full look at her outfit

Turning to face the camera, she said, 'This is what I wore. What do you think, red carpet?'

The New York native advised her fans, saying, 'Its important to buy well. I have had this bodysuit for years. I wore this actually for the Skinnygirl Jeans launch.'

She continued, 'And this jacket I've had since I had a talk show. Got it at H&M. Im a savvy buyer. I rewear. I havent worn this for years but Ill keep this for the rest of my life. I may be buried in a box in this thing!'
Steven McBee of Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer said that he was spoon-fed by his mother through the age of 11 on Thursday's edition of the show.

McBee, 27, was seen in a discussion with Annie Jorgensen, who quizzed him about it in a clip posted on TMZ in advance of Thursday's episode.

'So there's been a rumor going around the house that you were spoon-fed until you were 11?' Jorgensen asked McBee, who replied, 'It's not a rumor, it's true.'

The latest: Steven McBee of Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer said that he was spoon fed by his mother through the age of 11, on Thursday's edition of the show

McBee explained details of the practice, as he said, 'It was before school, I was tired, I was watching TV, so my mom would literally spoon-feed me before I went to school.'

McBee said he was 'a little bit' spoiled, to which Jorgensen replied, 'As long as you're self-aware that it's weird.'

The premise of the rebooted series sees 20 single women and two bachelors both claiming to be millionaires, but only one of whom is. McBee, who has a farm and ranch, is joined by Kurt Sowers, a contractor.

In a trailer for the series, McBee, a Gallatin, Missouri native, said he was 'most excited about stripping everything down to just who [he is] as a person' on the series.

McBee made the reveal in a discussion with Annie Jorgensen

McBee, who has a farm and ranch, is joined by Kurt Sowers (L), a contractor, on the rebooted series

'Its all about the sweet gestures, you really put how theyre doing and how they feel before yourself,' McBee said.

Fox in November revealed it was rebooting the show, with one of the bachelors said to be worth more than $10 million.

The first Joe Millionaire series hit the air in 2003 with Evan Marriott in the titular role, and returned later that year with The Next Joe Millionaire, featuring David Smith.

McBee told US Weekly earlier this month that he and Sowers 'had no idea what the original show was' when they got involved in the reboot.

'Whenever we got down there on set and they dropped the whole, "This is the reincarnation of Joe Millionaire,"' he told the outlet. 'I was like, "Great, whos Joe? What is Joe Millionaire?" I had no idea.'

McBee vouched for the authenticity of the series, as he said he 'thought everything was always fake' on reality TV.

'I can tell you from being there, experiencing it - the chemistry and the emotions that are seen onscreen are 100 percent real,' he said.

Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer airs on FOX Thursdays at 8/7c.
She has achieved international fame as a supermodel.

And Karlie Kloss demonstrated her fashionista credentials when she stepped out for a stroll in New York City this Thursday.

The 29-year-old, who recently debuted a new dark hairdo with a tinge of her former blonde, let her luxurious locks fly free in the breeze.

Stepping out: Karlie Kloss demonstrated her fashionista credentials when she stepped out for a stroll in New York City this Thursday

Blonde ambition: Kloss is seen with her lighter locks in November as she attended the 2021 CFDA Fashion Awards in New York

Karlie, who is married to Jared Kushner's brother Joshua, warded off the wintertime chill with a long, sleek olive coat.

She draped her enviably svelte frame in a black turtleneck, which matched her loafers and clashed fashionably against her jeans.

The Kode With Klossy impresaria accessorized with a pair of cat-eye tortoiseshell sunglasses and an unobtrusive pair of earrings.

A little less three weeks earlier she had been enjoying rather warmer weather while posing up a storm in a bikini for her Instagram page.

Off she goes: The 29-year-old, who recently debuted a new dark hairdo with a tinge of her former blonde, let her luxurious locks fly free in the breeze

She posted a swimsuit snap of herself poring over a notebook on a boat in an undisclosed location, captioned: 'Set an intention for 2022 in one word.'

Her family grew when Karlie became a mother on March 11 of last year, welcoming her firstborn son Levi Joseph with Joshua.

She reportedly announced that he was called Levi Joseph after a yeshiva in Israel accidentally leaked the name and sex.

Legging it: She draped her enviably svelte frame in a black turtleneck, which matched her loafers and clashed fashionably against her jeans

Yeshiva Reishit in Bet Shemesh published the name while congratulating the parents in the 'Mazel Tov' portion of their email newsletter, Page Six reported.

Joshua, whose brother and sister-in-law are Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, is said in the email to have gone to the yeshiva in 2003.

His blonde bombshell wife has publicly expressed her political disagreements with her in-laws on multiple occasions.

New mother: Her family grew when Karlie became a mother on March 11 of last year, welcoming her firstborn son Levi Joseph with Joshua

A couple of months after the baby was born Karlie told Paper that 'everything in my life has changed' since she became a mother.

'My whole world really revolves around my son now, and it's so cliche, but it's so true. I never knew I could feel such a deep love and adoration for anything,' she spilled.

'It's so inspiring, but also humbling. I have so much respect for every woman on this planet. It's truly the most rewarding, but also challenging, job. I'm enjoying every second of it,' added the Chicago native.
Months after taking the world by storm and leaving fans clamoring for more, Netflix's Squid Game has finally been confirmed for a Season 2 renewal.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos was on a fourth-quarter earnings conference call with investors when he was asked whether or not there will be a second season.

'Absolutely. The Squid Game universe has just begun,' Sarandos revealed, indicating fans could see much more than just a new season.

Renewed: Months after taking the world by storm and leaving fans clamoring for more, Netflix's Squid Game has finally been confirmed for a Season 2 renewal

Earnings: Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos was on a fourth-quarter earnings conference call with investors when he was asked whether or not there will be a second season

Begun: 'Absolutely. The Squid Game universe has just begun,' Sarandos revealed, indicating fans could see much more than just a new season

He put Squid game into the same category as shows he sees with the potential for growth outside of the flagship series.

He added that there could be potential for live experiences along with games and other merchandise.

He also singled out other hits like Bridgerton, which will debut its second season in March and Stranger Things, which has its fourth season debuting this summer, also in this rarified air with Squid Game.

Growth: He put Squid game into the same category as shows he sees with the potential for growth outside of the flagship series

Sarandos didn't offer any other details about a second season of Squid Game, such as returning cast members or if the creative team will still be intact.

While Sarandos' statement is the first indication from Netflix that a second season is happening, series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk did indicate there are plans in the works.

'Theres been so much pressure, so much demand and so much love for a second season. So I almost feel like you leave us no choice!' Hwang told the AP.

Creator: While Sarandos' statement is the first indication from Netflix that a second season is happening, series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk did indicate there are plans in the works

'But I will say there will indeed be a second season. Its in my head right now. Im in the planning process currently,' he added.

Hwang added that breakout star Lee Jung-jae will be back as the main character Seong Gi-hun.

The show follows a group of 456 people chosen to partake in a series of bizarre and deadly games for a chance at winning billions.

Breakout: Hwang added that breakout star Lee Jung-jae (center) will be back as the main character Seong Gi-hun.

Games: The show follows a group of 456 people chosen to partake in a series of bizarre and deadly games for a chance at winning billions

The show's first season ended with quite the natural lead-in for a second season, with Gi-hun going on a quest to figure out who's running this sadistic game, instead of seeing his daughter in Los Angeles.

Squid Game set a new record as Netflix's most-watched show in history, with over 1.65 billion hours viewed by subscribers in the first 28 days of release.

The show also made history by becoming the first non-English-language TV series to be nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, with four nominations in total.

End: The show's first season ended with quite the natural lead-in for a second season, with Gi-hun going on a quest to figure out who's running this sadistic game, instead of seeing his daughter in Los Angeles
Heidi Klum hit a new milestone this Thursday.

The 48-year-old German supermodel fired up her Instagram page that day to celebrate reaching 9 million followers.

She was clearly prepared for the occasion as she could be seen posing up in front of a makeup trailer with themed decorations.

Reaching a new milestone: Heidi Klum fired up her Instagram page that day to celebrate reaching 9 million followers

Massive gold balloons on either side of her spelled '9M,' striking a pose in a Boomerang she uploaded to the platform.

Heidi modeled an attractive summery white ensemble including a slightly sheer blouse that matched her flared trousers.

She also took the show to her Insta Stories, where she held up the balloons and pranced around in front of the camera.

'I love doing all my posts because I know all of you all watch it!' she gushed to her millions of followers and said: 'Whoo!'

There she is: She was clearly prepared for the occasion as she could be seen posing up in front of a makeup trailer with themed decorations

Swanking about: She also took the show to her Insta Stories, where she held up the balloons and pranced around in front of the camera

Lately Heidi has been filming her fashion competition show Making The Cut which she hosts along with Tim Gunn.

She and Tim, who previously became beloved hosting Project Runway together, have been leading Making The Cut on Amazon Prime in 2020.

During a recent appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she revealed that she has a $2 million insurance policy on her legs.

Having a ball: 'I love doing all my posts because I know all of you all watch it!' she gushed to her millions of followers and said: 'Whoo!'

She dished that one of her legs 'was more expensive than the other one' and vamped that 'its weird the things that some people do.'

Heidi explained: 'When I was young I fell into a glass and I have, like, a big scar,' noting: 'Obviously I put so much spray tan on right now you cant see it right now.'

As far as her personal life is concerned, Heidi is married to her third husband Tom Kaulitz, 32, who is famous as part of the band Tokio Hotel.
In this photograph taken on December 12, 2021, a member of the Taliban forces stands guard at the provincial intelligence compound in Jalalabad. AFP-Yonhap



A Taliban delegation will travel to Norway for talks with the Norwegian government, meeting with representatives of the Norwegian authorities and several allied countries as well as civil society activists and human rights defenders from Afghanistan.



The Norwegian Foreign Ministry said Friday that it has invited representatives of the Taliban to Oslo from Jan. 23 to Jan. 25. Norwegian newspaper VG said that special representatives from the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and the European Union would take part. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry declined to comment.



It would be the first time since the Taliban took over the country last August, that they have met in Europe. Earlier they traveled to Russia, Iran, Qatar and Pakistan. It was not immediately clear who will lead the Taliban delegation to the Norwegian capital.



Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said that ''we are extremely concerned about the serious situation in Afghanistan.'' She said there is ''a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe for millions of people'' in the country.



She stressed that the meeting was ''not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban. But we must talk to those who in practice govern the country today.''



''We cannot let the political situation lead to an even worse humanitarian catastrophe,'' she said.



The Foreign Ministry said that the Taliban delegation meetings also will include Afghans with backgrounds ''from various fields and include women leaders, journalists, and people who work with, among other things, human rights and humanitarian, economic, social and political issues.''



It said that earlier this week, a Norwegian delegation visited Kabul for talks on the precarious humanitarian situation in the country.



Norwegian news agency NTB said that Taliban earlier had taken part in secret talks in Norway when the current prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, was foreign minister, which was from 2005 to 2012.



The VG daily said that the single most important issue in the talks that are to take place next week is the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.



The Foreign Ministry in Oslo said that Afghanistan is experiencing drought, pandemics, economic collapse and the effects of years of conflict. According to them, some 24 million people experience acute food insecurity and are unsure of how to obtain enough food. It is reported that 1 million children may die of starvation.



It added that the U.N. estimates that famine will affect more than half of the population this winter and that 97% of the population may fall below the poverty line this year.



''Norway continues to engage in dialogue with the Taliban to promote human rights, women's participation in society, and to strengthen humanitarian and economic efforts in Afghanistan in support of the Afghan people,'' the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.



According to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, the Scandinavian country that is home to the Nobel Peace Prize has in the past been involved in peace efforts in a number of countries, including Mozambique, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Colombia, the Philippines, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Syria, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka and South Sudan. (AP)


Sam Burgess is one of the groomsmen at his brother Tom's wedding to model Tahlia Giumelli on Friday.

But the retired NRL star, 33, appears to be attending the event without his two children he shares with ex-wife Phoebe: son Billy, three, and daughter Poppy, four.

On Thursday, the day before the nuptials, Phoebe shared a series of photos to Instagram of her kids swimming at her parents' home in Bowral, in the Southern Highlands, while Sam spent time with his brothers in Sydney.

A family divided: Sam Burgess is one of the groomsmen at his brother Tom's wedding to model Tahlia Giumelli on Friday, but it appears his two children from his marriage to ex-wife Phoebe, son Billy, three, and daughter Poppy, four, are not attending

In one image, Phoebe is seen relaxing in the pool with her two children.

The journalist and former WAG also posted another image of Billy and Poppy jumping on a trampoline in the rain.

Meanwhile, Sam is in Sydney to attend Tom's wedding to fiancee Tahlia after months of pandemic postponements.

Separated: On Thursday, Phoebe shared a series of photos to Instagram of her kids swimming at her parent's home in Bowral, while Sam spent time with his brother in Sydney

Daily Mail Australia confirmed last week that Tom and Tahlia will tie the knot in a waterfront park ceremony with friends and family.

Sources close to the pair confirmed the service will finally go ahead and that all the Burgess brothers - including SAS Australia winner Sam - will have roles to play in the proceedings.

It's understood lifelong Souths fan and close family friend Russell Crowe has also RSVP'd to the event along with a large Souths contingent both past and present.

Post: In one image, Phoebe is pictured relaxing in the pool with her two children

Fun in the rain! The former WAG also posted another image of son Billy and daughter Poppy jumping on a trampoline in the rain

The confirmation follows several major setbacks for the young parents.

The couple were forced to postpone their nuptials on several occasions and were forced to ditch their most recent set of wedding plans in December after Tom contracted Covid-19 during a holiday to Byron Bay.

Tom and Tahlia first announced their postponement of their original wedding plans back in July following two years of intricate planning.

Over: The pair separated in September 2019, and legally divorced in December last year
Jodie Sweetin celebrated her 40th birthday this Wednesday and regaled her fans with pictures of the festivities.

She uploaded an Instagram album on Thursday that included a snap of herself grinning as she bent over the cake.

Her new milestone, which came a day after she got engaged and less than two weeks after the death of her Full House co-star Bob Saget, led her to reflect: 'The past two weeks have a been a reminder of just how fleeting it all is.'

Light the candles: Jodie Sweetin celebrated her 40th birthday this Wednesday and regaled her fans with pictures of the festivities

She began her caption: Heres what 40 looks like,' adding that 'It was full of family, love, wonderful messages, thoughtful gifts, flowers, Mexican food, cake and lots of other goodies, and so much more.'

Jodie looked back: 'I remember thinking that 40 was such an official age when I was younger. Now? I realize 40 is just STARTING to feel like an adult.'

The former child star dished: 'Its old enough to have learned from lots of mistakes, but young enough to still go for the adventure. Its finally feeling great in my own skin. Its self-acceptance. Its hustle. Its knowing how to take care of my self and when to be totally selfless.'

She went on: 'Its remembering that youve made it through ALL the bad days up until now. Its finding joy in small things and not needing life to be big and grand all the time. Its realizing your time on this planet is very limited, so you better fucking enjoy it. Its about focusing on the "we", not the "me."'

Adoptive parents: Her birthday album included her aunt and uncle Janice and Sam, who raised her as her mother was an addict and her father was murdered in a prison riot

Jodie added: 'Its about looking inward and figuring out what the rest of it all is gonna look like. The past two weeks have a been a reminder of just how fleeting it all is. The deep heartbreak of losing someone you love, to the joy of getting engaged, and the deep self reflection of those big round decade birthdays.'

Said she: 'Life comes at you fast. The wonderful, the painful, the joyous and the uncertain. The most important thing Ive learned along the way is that if I can just hold on a little longer sometimes, the joy returns. I hope you remember that too Turning 40 has been a gift. Im ready for what comes next'

Her birthday album included her aunt and uncle Janice and Sam, who raised her as her mother was an addict and her father was murdered in a prison riot.

Jodie could also be seen on her Instagram cuddling up to her new fiance Mescal Wasilewski, whom she announced her engagement to this week.

Man in her life: Jodie could also be seen on her Instagram cuddling up to her new fiance Mescal Wasilewski, whom she announced her engagement to this week

Jodie, who has two children and has been divorced three times, broke the news by sharing an Instagram picture of them nuzzling up together as she flashed her ring.

'Heres to us, @ghostfacelito and our life of adventures. Together,' she wrote, adding: 'I think Im really gonna like turning 40.'

Jodie was just five years old when she was hired on Full House, the sitcom that became her greatest claim to fame.

Bride to be: Jodie, who has two children and has been divorced three times, broke the news by sharing an Instagram picture of them nuzzling up together as she flashed her ring

One of her co-stars was the late Bob Saget, who went onto act with her on the recent Netflix sequel series Fuller House.

Bob died shockingly at the age of 65 the weekend before last and was discovered in his hotel bed in Orlando, sources close to the investigation told TMZ.

Although it will take until 10 to 12 weeks after the event for his official cause of death to be made public, police saw no sign of drugs or foul play and it is suspected that he succumbed to either a stroke or a heart attack.

Throwback: Jodie recently mourned the death of her Full House co-star Bob Saget whom she is pictured with on the show along with their castmate Candace Cameron Bure (center)

'There arent enough words to express what Im feeling today,' Jodie wrote in a heartfelt Instagram tribute after his death was announced. 'Nor are they big enough to capture even a slice of who he was.'

She recalled: One thing I do know, is that we never missed a chance to tell each other: "I love you." Every time we talked, there were at least 3 or 4 exchanged at the end of a conversation, whether it was text, phone call or in person. And he usually had to have the last word: "I love you more"'

Jodie was also part of the star-studded guest list who were pictured arriving at his funeral when it was held last week in Los Angeles.
Peter Billingsley, who starred as Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story when he was only 12, will be returning to lead a sequel to the perennial holiday favorite.

The 50-year-old child starturnedfilmmaker will be reprising his role in the new film, which is expected to take place when Ralphie is an adult in the 1970s, The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Thursday.

In addition to starring in the sequel to the 1983 classic  titled A Christmas Story Christmas  Billingsley will produce for its production companies Legendary and Warner Bros.

It's a Christmas miracle! Peter Billingsley, 50, who starred in 1983's holiday classic A Christmas Story, will reprise his role in a new sequel that will be released 40 years after the original, The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Thursday

The Christmas Chronicles director Clay Kaytis is attached to direct the film, which will be released on Warner's HBO Max streaming service.

Billingsley will be joined by his longtime friend Vince Vaughn to produce A Christmas Story Christmas for their company Wild West Picture Show Productions.

The original Christmas Story was an episodic period piece set sometime in the late 1930s to early 1940s that follows nine-year-old Ralphie as he navigates school and family relationships in a fictional Indiana town while dreaming of getting a Red Ryder BB rifle for Christmas.

In the '70s-set sequel, Ralphie will return home to his old house on Cleveland Street to give his own children the same kind of 'magical Christmas' he experienced as a child.

The original Christmas Story was a period piece set sometime in the late 1930s to early 1940s that follows Ralphie, nine, as he navigates school and family relationships in a fictional Indiana town while dreaming of getting a Red Ryder BB rifle for Christmas; still from A Christmas Story

All grown up: In the '70s-set sequel, Ralphie will return home to his old house on Cleveland Street to give his own children the same kind of 'magical Christmas' he experienced as a child, while also moving on from the death of his father; seen in 2018 in Beverly Hills

The original film was lauded for its realistic production design, which impeccably matched the time period and the Midwestern setting, and the publication writes that the new film will try to adopt a similar style.

Adult Ralphie will reunite with some of his childhood friends featured in the original movie while also trying to move on from the death of his father, often referred to as The Old Man in the original and played by Darren McGavin.

Although the original was filmed in Cleveland, Ohio, with some additional scenes shot in Ontario, Canada, the new production won't even be filming in the United States. Instead, Hungary will be filling in for Hammond, Indiana, when production begins in February.

There are expected to be plenty of references to the original film, which annually plays for 24 hours on TBS and TNT from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day.

Rise in standing: A Christmas Story was initially only modestly successful and received mixed reviews upon its 1983 release, but it became a perennial favorite over the years thanks to repeated TV broadcasts

A Christmas Story, which also starred Melinda Dillon as Ralphie's mother, was initially only modestly successful and received mixed reviews upon its 1983 release.

But over the years the film grew in estimation, and home video releases and television broadcasts elevated its stature year by year, until it came to be regarded as one of the best and most popular Christmas films of all time.

Following his acclaimed performance in A Christmas Story, Billingsley continued to act more sporadically as he grew older, before focusing on behind the camera work as a director and producer.

He directed the comedy Couple Retreat, starring his friends Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, and he executive produced the animated comedy series F For Family with Vaughn.

In 2008, he played a small role as a scientist in Iron Man, which was directed by Favreau, and both actors were later featured in Spider-Man: Far From Home.
The big day has finally arrived for NRL star Tom Burgess as he prepares to marry his long-time love, model Tahlia Giumelli.

And ahead of the nuptials on Friday, his older brothers Sam, 33, and Luke, 34, were seen enjoying the festivities while getting ready for the ceremony.

The pair looked dapper in matching beige suit jackets as Luke sipped on a beer.

It's party time! NRL stars Sam and brother Luke Burgess looked dapper in suits as they cracked open beers ahead of celebrating brother Tom's wedding to model Tahlia Giumelli in Sydney on Friday

Sam and Luke, who are believed to be serving as groomsmen in the ceremony alongside Tom's twin brother George, wore matching jackets with light blue shirts underneath.

Luke looked particularly happy, holding up his Corona beer and cheering at photographers below.

Tahlia and Tom, both 29, will tie the knot in a stunning star-studded ceremony at a waterfront park in Sydney's Watsons Bay on Friday.

Thrilled: Luke looked particularly happy, holding up his Corona beer and cheering at photographers below

Newlyweds: Tahlia and Tom, both 29, will tie the knot in a stunning star-studded ceremony at a waterfront park in Sydney's Watsons Bay on Friday

Sources close to the pair confirmed the service was finally going ahead and that all the Burgess brothers - including SAS Australia winner Sam - will have roles to play in the proceedings.

It's understood lifelong Souths fan and close family friend Russell Crowe has also RSVP'd to the event, along with a large Souths contingent both past and present.

A big day: Sources close to the pair confirmed the service will finally go ahead and that all the Burgess brothers - including SAS Australia winner Sam - will have roles to play in the proceedings

The confirmation follows several major setbacks for the young parents.

The couple were forced to postpone their nuptials on several occasions and were forced to ditch their most recent set of wedding plans in December after Tom contracted Covid-19 during a holiday to Byron Bay.

Tom and Tahlia first announced their postponement of their original wedding plans back in July following two years of intricate planning.

The couple announced their engagement on New Year's Eve in 2019, after three years of dating.
Australian influencer Jade Tuncdoruk has been forced to apologise for a racially insensitive Facebook post.

In the resurfaced post from 2017, the 26-year-old complained to Uber Eats about their 'annoying non-English speaking delivery drivers'.

'I order off you guys all the time and I'm starting to find it really annoying that you have so many non English speaking delivery people who can't follow basic delivery instructions,' Jade wrote.

Apology: Model Jade Tuncdoruk (pictured) has apologised for a racially insensitive Facebook post complaining to Uber Eats about their 'annoying non-English speaking delivery drivers'

'I got a notification today saying my food was arriving and it took the person a further 20 mins to get to my door because he didn't read my delivery instructions properly and when I called him to explain he didn't understand a word I was saying.'

She continued: 'Your GPS is consistently sending drivers to the wrong address which I've explained in my instructions which most people read and have no problem with but when foreigners are delivering it takes twice as long for me to receive my then cold food. Sort it out.'

On Friday, Jade apologised for her 'hurtful comments' after her post was uploaded by the Celeb Spellcheck Instagram page.

Post: In the resurfaced post from 2017, the 26-year-old complained to Uber Eats about their 'annoying non-English speaking delivery drivers'

'I'm sorry to anyone I've hurt with my comments. I hold myself accountable for my actions,' she wrote.

'It doesn't excuse anything but know that I have grown immensely in the past several years. I always do my best to be someone others can look up to and I know I've let people down and for that I'm truly sorry.'

It comes after Jade was slammed for 'demanding' that a small business give her a refund for a deposit on her honeymoon - after she ignored the company's terms and conditions.

She raised eyebrows this week by whingeing to her online fans about the financial woes of cancelling her lavish Hunter Valley honeymoon with fiance Lachie Brycki due to Covid.

Apology: Jade apologised for her 'hurtful comments' on Friday after her post was uploaded by the Celeb Spellcheck Instagram page

Cash clash: It comes after Jade was slammed for 'demanding' that a small business give her a refund for a deposit on her honeymoon - after she ignored the company's terms and conditions

In her now-deleted post, Jade, who is frequently gifted with luxury designer handbags and clothing, explained that she'd booked her stay with premium holiday rental company Weekenda last year, putting down a $2,000 deposit.

She however decided to cancel her booking with the company Weekenda in August, after postponing her wedding due to Covid.

It's unclear why Jade opted to cancel altogether rather than simply postponing the trip, just like her wedding.

She demanded that the company refund her deposit - even though Weekenda's terms and conditions clearly states that customers aren't entitled to a refund of their deposit if they cancel.

'Incredibly poor form': In her now-deleted post, Jade star explained that she'd booked her stay with premium holiday rental company Weekenda last year, putting down a $2,000 deposit. After cancelling the booking due to Covid, she demanded that the company refund her deposit. Weekenda denied their request

'We requested a refund due to the pandemic, but they said the best they could do was put it back up on line to be booked by someone else,' Jade explained.

'Six weeks out of [sic] the booking and we've asked again for a refund which they've denied. They've had months to refund us for a booking that we don't need. They're taking our money just because they can,' she raged.

She added: 'It's just incredibly poor form and so disappointing that businesses are taking advantage of people in the middle of a pandemic.'

Refund request: Jade included a link to Weekenda's Instagram page, and it didn't take long for her supporters to lash out at the company

In black and white: Weekenda's terms and conditions (pictured) clearly states that customers aren't entitled to a refund of their deposit if they cancel

Jade included a link to Weekenda's Instagram page, and it didn't take long for her supporters to lash out at the company.

She later claimed she was surprised that her followers had begun contacting the company directly and demanding they refund her money.

'Not y'all following them,' she wrote, rolling her eyes.

Not long after, a smug-looking Jade shared another post announcing that Weekenda had agreed to refund her deposit.
Disney is set to commence on a live-action adaptation of its 1970 movie The Aristocats.

Will Gluck and Keith Bunin will write the script to the film, insiders told Deadline on Thursday, with Gluck also producing the movie.

Disney's live-action team is working on the movie, which insiders told the outlet would have a comparable look to the 2019 Disney+ adaptation of Lady And The Tramp.

The latest: Disney is set to commence on a live-action adaptation of its 1970 movie The Aristocats

The storyline of the animated movie is centered around a family of cats in Paris - Duchess the mother and three kittens Berlioz, Marie and Toulouse - who are in line to grab a large inheritance from their owner.

The owner's butler subsequently kidnaps the cats and takes them to the country, where they join forces with a tomcat named Thomas O'Malley in an effort to return home.

It was not immediately clear if the adaptation would be produced for a theatrical or streaming release, according to the outlet.

Gluck has a track record of success with family films, having directed 2018's Peter Rabbit and its 2021 sequel Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway. Bunin wrote the 2020 Pixar movie Onward.

The storyline of the animated movie is centered around a family of cats in Paris who are in line to grab a large inheritance from their owner

The 1970 movie had filmmaker Wolfgang Reitherman at the helm

It was not immediately clear if the adaptation would be produced for a theatrical or streaming release, according to the outlet

The 1970 movie had filmmaker Wolfgang Reitherman at the helm.

Among the cast members who provided vocals on the movie included Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Hermione Baddeley, Dean Clark, Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers and Paul Winchell.

The film spawned songs such as Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat, The Aristocats, Scales and Arpeggios and She Never Felt Alone.
Angelina Pivarnick decided to make up a rumor about Vinny Guadagnino in retaliation on Thursday's episode of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation on MTV.

'Word on the street is Vinny got a girl pregnant,' Angelina, 35, blurted out while the group was having dinner.

'Oh, damn,' said Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino, 38. 'Angelina, are you serious or are you joking?

False rumor: Angelina Pivarnick decided to make up a rumor about Vinny Guadagnino to see what would happen on Thursday's episode of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation on MTV

Paul 'DJ Pauly D' DelVecchio didn't believe it.

'Hold on, hold on, my side piece didn't get anyone pregnant,' Pauly, 41, said.

'I would have heard this. The investigations would have known such. So I'm thinking to myself, this may be a besmudgery,' Mike said in a confessional.

Pauly FaceTimed Vinny to get answers. Vinny, 34, picked up and then Angelina's husband Chris Larangeira, 42, said to him 'congratulations by the way, I heard you got somebody pregnant.'

Not happy: Vinny later confronted Angelina about saying the rumor while the camera was rolling

Jenni 'JWoww' Farley, 35, said in a confessional that she couldn't believe what was happening.

'You are spreading a rumor like Corona was spread around the world,' JWoww said.

'Obviously, it's not true,' Vinny said in a confessional.

Obviously false: 'Obviously, it's not true,' Vinny said in a confessional that the rumor was false

Angelina admitted in a confessional that she made up the rumor so Vinny could see what it's like.

'All the roomies have said rumors about me. So, Vinny like how does it feel?' she said.

Deena Cortese Buckner, 34, said to the camera that what Angelina did was a 'real low blow' and that it was going to make things worse between her and Vinny.

Made up: Angelina admitted in a confessional that she made up the rumor so Vinny could see what it's like

Mike's wife Lauren, 37, confessed that she was surprised that Angelina made the remark considering she doesn't want people involved in her relationships.

At the dinner, Mike said to the others that he thought Vinny missed them. Pauly agreed and said he had been calling him a lot. They discussed going to Los Angeles to visit Vinny.

'Jersey Shore takes on Hollywood,' said Pauly in the episode titled Hollywood Shore.

Hollywood bound: 'Jersey Shore takes on Hollywood,' said Pauly in the episode titled Hollywood Shore

After dinner, the group went back to their individual houses.

Deena spoke to her husband Christopher Buckner, 32, about how she was surprised that Angelina stirred up the drama.

'Isn't she tired of it?' said Deena.

Catching up: Deena spoke to her husband Christopher Buckner, 32, about how she was surprised that Angelina stirred up the drama

'You would think,' said Christopher.

Angelina went home, but then went out to the Headliners club to watch Pauly D's show.

The next day Jennifer 'JWoww' Farley, 35, talked with her fiance Zack Carpinello, 26, about what Angelina did. She asked him if he would be mad if someone said that about him and he said that he would.

Hot topic: The next day Jennifer 'JWoww' Farley, 35, talked with her fiance Zack Carpinello, 26, about what Angelina did.

'I'm sure he is,' said Zack.

At Vinny's house in LA, his mother called while he was working out. She asked him if made any friends yet and whether it was time to come home. He told her that he liked it in LA, but that if being out on the West Coast kept him from seeing his family and friends then maybe it wasn't where he wanted to be.

Vinny said in a confessional that every time he goes back to the East Coast that he feels like he doesn't want to leave.

Working out: At Vinny's house in LA, his mother called while he was working out

'I don't want to be one of those uncles that just sees his niece a couple times a year,' he said.

Back in New Jersey, Deena and Jenni went over to visit Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi, 34, at her house. Deena told them that Vinny was mad about what Angelina said.

'Yeah, that's a crazy rumor to spread around,' Nicole said.

Jenni wondered if she could cancel her flight to LA to miss the drama. Angelina arrived and told them that people talk 's***' about her all the time. She said Vinny was just being dramatic. Deena said she really wanted them to take a trip to LA and make a 'wellness check' on Vinny. She asked if they could put the drama aside.

Wellness check: Deena said she really wanted them to take a trip to LA and make a 'wellness check' on Vinny

'I feel he is homesick and sad over there,' Deena said.

Nicole told them that she couldn't go because of her son Lorenzo's 9th birthday party. Jenni said you can't miss that. Angelina said that Vinny loves her and that he would put what she did aside.

Pauly called Vinny to see how he was doing. Vinny told him that people make up rumors about them all the time, but 'it's not cool when it's coming from your inner circle.'

Checking in: Pauly called Vinny to see how he was doing

'Spreading a fake lie about me is crossing a line and that's like a snake move,' said Vinny in a confessional.

Pauly told Vinny that he wouldn't be surprised that Angelina and Chris made this up to 'get the attention off their messy life, or something.'

'I think they are thirsty for attention,' Vinny said.

Vinny then met his realtor Feroz who sold him his house seven months ago. He told him that he was starting to think about moving back. He said in a confessional that moving and buying a house was a lonely experience. His realtor said he would try to find one buyer that would pay a premium for his house.

Together again: Vinny then met his realtor Feroz who sold him his house seven months ago

Over at Mike's house, he was sitting down with Lauren eating when she said, 'I want you to enjoy your meal because I have someone on the way and is going to encapsulate my placenta.'

'Just a quick question, who eats the placenta? Me, you or Mosey. Do you put some olive oil on it?,' Mike asked.

Lauren said in a confessional that placenta encapsulation was really great for postpartum.

Placenta encapsulated: Over at Mike's house, he was sitting down with Lauren eating when she said, 'I want you to enjoy your meal because I have someone on the way and is going to encapsulate my placenta'

After putting on scrubs, the woman assisting them showed Mike the placenta that was in a plastic container.

'Oh s***,' Mike said when he saw it. He poked at it and said that it looked like jumbo shrimp and the assisant said, 'That's the cord.'

Mike put the placenta in the microwave to defrost it. He then helped cut it up in pieces and put it in a blender with a little fruit, honey and coconut milk.

Microwave master: Mike put the placenta in the microwave to defrost it

'Bon appetit, b****es,' said Mike.

He made Lauren a shake and said it had strawberries, banana, placenta and blueberries.

'It's surprisingly sweet,' she said after she drank some.

Surprisingly sweet: 'It's surprisingly sweet,' Lauren said after she drank some

In LA, Vinny got a call from his realtor that his house was sold. He called his mother to tell her the news. He told her he was coming back to the East Coast and she said 'yay!'. Vinny said to the camera that LA might be the right place for his career but that he didn't want to be away from his family all the time.

Vinny then had his house packed up. He said that he hadn't told anyone that he was moving because it was kind of embarrassing. He said that deep down he knew that he was doing the right thing.

'I'm happy about it,' said Vinny.

House sold: In LA, Vinny got a call from his realtor that his house was sold

As he was packing, Deena called and said that they were planning to come to see him this weekend. She said they missed him and that he seemed a little off. Vinny told her that he wanted them to come out, but he was a little busy.

'I've got a lot of things in the works,' Vinny told her. 'I'm making power moves.'

Deena told her husband that they were still going to go out there and surprise Vinny.

Angelina and Deena got in a van to fly out to LA. Meanwhile, Vinny packed up his whole house and got in his car and said goodbye to LA. He checked into the London Hotel where he called his mother Paula and told her he was coming home on Sunday. She told him that she already bought all the stuff to make his favorite dishes like fettuccini Alfredo.

Favorite dishes: Vinny's mother Paula told him that she already bought all the stuff to make his favorite dishes like fettuccini Alfredo

'When I get home to the East Coast, I am having a feast,' Vinny said to the camera. 'I will be full blown Cheeto guido eating all my mom's best.'

Angelina and Deena landed in LA. Deena said she was excited to see Vinny and to see his new house. They called Vinny from their car and told him that they were in LA and he told them to meet him at the London Hotel.

'What are you doing there?' asked Deena.

Surprise visit: Deena went ahead with her surprise trip to Los Angeles

Angelina told Deena that Vinny was acting very weird. They got to the hotel and went up to Vinny's room bringing their suitcases with them. They told him that Jenni was coming later but that her flight had been delayed.

Vinny said in a confessional that he was nervous to tell them that he sold his house.

Deena asked him why he was at the hotel. Vinny asked Angelina if she took the fillers out of her lips saying she looked like her old self.

Feeling nervous: Vinny said in a confessional that he was nervous to tell them that he sold his house

'That's not really a compliment, Vinny,' she said.

Deena asked him to cut to the chase and tell them why he was at a hotel. He told them that something big in his life has happened.

'Surprise guys, I'm leaving tomorrow to go back to the East Cost,' he said.

'You sold that house?' said Deena.

'I'm going to kill you,' said Angelina. 'I'm going to choke you out.'

Strong reaction: 'I'm going to kill you,' said Angelina. 'I'm going to choke you out'

Vinny told them that he had been lonely at the house all alone.

'Sometimes you have to know what's not right in order to figure out what's right,' he said.

On the East Coast, Mike had a date night with Lauren. At the start of dinner, he asked if they were 'having relations this evening', but she didn't answer.

Moving back: 'Sometimes you have to know what's not right in order to figure out what's right,' he said

They spoke about the girls trip to LA and Lauren said the girls trip she took when he was 'away on sabbatical' was fun.

'I was in prison,' Mike said.

'But we're not going to say that in front of the baby?' Lauren asked.

Prison stint: Mike was open about spending time in prison

He said at some point he would have to sit his child down and tell him about 'prison Mike.' Mike said he had to tell him.

Mike said in a confessional that he knew there was going to be tons of drama on the West Coast and he was glad that he wasn't involved.

At the hotel, Angelina and Deena gave Vinny their housewarming gifts. Deena gave him a toaster and Vinny said 'even though I don't eat bread.' Angelina gave him a fake plant and Vinny said 'fake and plastic just like you.'

Some point: He said at some point he would have to sit his child down and tell him about 'prison Mike'

Deena said they had 24 hours in LA and that he should make it worth it. Vinny said there was tons of stuff for them to do in LA and that there were tons of 'sick restaurants.'

'The other night I sat right next to Elton John,' said Vinny.

'Is he hot?' asked Angelina.

Good question: 'Is he hot?' asked Angelina about Elton John

'No, he's like 80 years old,' said Vinny.

Angelina said in a confessional 'I don't know who the f*** that is.'

Vinny took them to the lobby of the hotel to eat dinner. He asked them if Jenni would make it and Deena said with the delays that her five hour flight became a seven and half hour flight.

Flight delayed: JWoww was late after her flight was delayed

Jenni was still stranded at Newark Airport. She said she was still waiting for a plane. Deanna said to Vinny that wait until Jenni arrives and she finds out that he was leaving LA.

'Good luck to you,' said Angelina.

Vinny said he needed a place to stay and asked Angelina if he could stay with her but she said no.

No way: Vinny said he needed a place to stay and asked Angelina if he could stay with her but she said no

'If I kick Chris out then you can stay,' said Angelina.

Vinny asked her if there was anything she wanted to ask him. She said that it was actually Chris who heard. She said none of this was her problem and that was just what she heard.

'It's not right for you and Chris to be on camera and make up such a crazy lie about me,' said Vinny. 'That's a real rumor.'

Angelina said it wasn't her problem and that he should take it up with Chris. Vinny said that both of them said it and asked her why they did it. He said if she wanted to say things that she should first make sure first that it was true.

Dinner drama: Angelina said it wasn't her problem and that he should take it up with Chris

'You can't shoot the messenger,' said Angelina.

Deena said in a confessional that this was not how she was picturing the trip with them just arguing over dinner and wasting 'their 24 hours.'

Vinny and Angelina kept arguing. Angelina said everyone makes up stuff about them and Vinny said, 'So we are going to do it to each other?'

Still going: Vinny and Angelina kept arguing

Deena sat by herself in the lobby and had a glass of wine. Angelina chased Vinny around the table. He told her to sit down.

Vinny in a confessional said that Angelina and Chris had lost him as a friend.

He told her that he wasn't mad but that he did have to worry 'about a snake in the grass.' Just then Deena walked back to the table carrying two desserts with candles on top and singing happy birthday. Vinny started laughing and said that was actually really fun.

'Who wants to make a wish,' asked Deena. 'I do. I wish you would both stop I left my two kids to come here and deal with two kids enough.'

Deena said they still have 21 and a half hours left so they should go to sleep and start off fresh and new.

Clock ticking: Deena said they still have 21 and a half hours left so they should go to sleep and start off fresh and new

Vinny said to Angelina that they were cool but that he didn't like her.

'I'm going to slap you up,' said Angelina.

'No, no hitting,' said Deena.

Jersey Shore: Family Vacation will return next Thursday on MTV.
Camila Cabello looked cheerful this week as she stepped out in West Hollywood to go on a coffee run.

The 24-year-old pop act, who rose to fame as part of the girl group Fifth Harmony, wore a smile on her face as she headed along on her way.

She wrapped up in a gleaming black jacket that she allowed to slide down her shoulders during the sunlit day.

Out and about: Camila Cabello looked cheerful this week as she stepped out in West Hollywood to go on a coffee run

Camila wore a colorful sleeveless top, pulling on a high-waisted pair of black trousers as well as matching boots.

Letting her luxurious hair fly free, the Cinderella actress accentuated the look with a gleaming pair of hoop earrings.

Recently she drew attention for a comment she left under her ex-boyfriend Shawn Mendes' Instagram ad for his music video.

Shawn posted a couple of clips and asked his fans: 'Y'all dig this ?' - and down in the comments Camilla chimed in: 'Ur crazy wildcat.'

Legging it: The 24-year-old pop act, who rose to fame as part of the girl group Fifth Harmony, wore a smile on her face as she headed along on her way

Camila and Shawn announced their split in November but assured fans in an Instagram statement that they were still 'best friends.'

An insider alleged to E! News that Shawn 'initiated' the breakup talk, leaving Camila initially 'very upset over the split' until she 'agreed' they ought to separate.

Meanwhile a People source said the romance 'fizzled' after the coronavirus lockdowns when their busy work schedules resumed.

'Ur crazy wildcat': Recently she drew attention for a comment she left under her ex-boyfriend Shawn Mendes' Instagram ad for his music video

'They had this intense relationship last year and spent months together during the lockdown in Miami. They both seemed very happy and looked like they enjoyed having a break from working,' dished the insider.

However the dynamic is said to have become 'different' with the return of 'normal life,' according to the source who spoke to the magazine.

'They have careers that are taking them in different directions. They went from spending every day together to now not really spending any time together.'
Kristin Davis clarified that she's not dating Nathen Garson during a remote appearance on Thursday on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.

The 56-year-old actress recently attended the premiere of the Sex And The City sequel Just Like That with Willie Garson's 20-year-old son Nathen.

Kristin, who plays Charlotte on the show, said she really wanted Nathen to come and was hoping it would be alright.

Remote appearance: Kristin Davis clarified that she's not dating Nathen Garson during a remote appearance on Thursday on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen

Bond: The Late Willie Garson is seen with his son Nathen in February 2019

Nathen's father Willie Garson died last September at age 57 in Los Angeles of pancreatic cancer while Just Like That was still in production.

'It made me so happy that he was able to come,' said Kristin.

She said Nathen's girlfriend was going to attend the premiere, but she couldn't make it.

'I am not dating him, I just want to make that clear,' Kristin clarified.

Not dating: 'I am not dating him, I just want to make that clear,' Kristin clarified about Nathen

Andy, 53, asked if people thought she was dating him and she said she didn't think so. Andy said it was very sweet seeing the two of them together.

'It warmed my heart just to see him and to see his face, and make sure he was doing okay' she said. 'We text but you just never know until you can actually be with somebody. To have him be there to celebrate Willie was just so important.'

Andy asked Kristin if in the most recent episode released of the sequel if they used a prosthetic penis when Harry, played by Evan Handler, asked her character Charlotte for oral sex and flashed his penis when he unzipped his pants. She laughed and said yes.

Prosthetic question: Andy Cohen asked Kristin if in the most recent episode released of the sequel if they used a prosthetic penis when Harry, played by Evan Handler, asked her character Charlotte for oral sex

Andy asked her if she had ever worked with a prosthetic penis on film before and she laughed and said no.

'I have not worked with a prosthetic penis on film and let me tell you it was impressive,' Kristin said.

'Oh good,' said Andy.

Recent episode: 'I have not worked with a prosthetic penis on film and let me tell you it was impressive,' Kristin said

Andy played a game with her he dubbed 'Parker/Nixon' where she had to pick one of her co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker or Cynthia Nixon over the other.

The first question was who she would trust to set her up on a blind date. Kristin said Sarah. Andy asked her who gave better advice and Kristin said it depended on the subject matter. He asked her who's wardrobe from the show would she rather own and she said 'Sarah, come on.'

He asked her who's more likely to make her laugh during a scene and she said Sarah. He then asked her who was more likely to have a fun snack in her purse and she said, 'Cynthia, definitely.'

Game time: Andy played a game with her he dubbed 'Parker/Nixon' where she had to pick one of her co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker or Cynthia Nixon over the other

Andy said he remembered that Sarah told him once that Cynthia used to carry Tupperware containers in her purse and Kristin said she still does. He then asked her who was more like their character in real life and Kristin said that was a hard one.

Andy then played a Never Have I Ever-type game with Kristin and fellow guest Laura Linney, 57, in which they had to drink from a cocktail with questions about men they've dated.

Kristin, who was drinking a mocktail, drank when Andy asked if she had ever dated a man who had to shower immediately after sex. The next question was 'never have I ever dated a sloppy kisser' and both Andy and Kristin drank. When Andy asked 'never have I ever dated someone with premature ejaculation,' and 'never have I ever dated a bartender' Kristin and Andy both drank.

Game time: Andy then played a Never Have I Ever-type game with Kristin and fellow guest Laura Linney, 57, in which they had to drink from a cocktail with questions about men they've dated

Andy asked Kristin if she thought Che Diaz [Sara Ramirez] who plays Carrie Bradshaw's boss on the SATC sequel comedy was funny.

'Andy, don't put me on the spot you're going to get me in trouble with Michael Patrick' she said refencing the show's producer Michael Patrick King, 67. 'I think it's meant to be more like ''hmm type'' comedy.'

Andy laughed and said, 'Good answer.'

Character question: 'Andy, don't put me on the spot you're going to get me in trouble with Michael Patrick' she said refencing the show's producer Michael Patrick King, 67. 'I think it's meant to be more like ''hmm type'' comedy'

Josh, a fan, asked Kristin whether the rumors are true back in the day that she and Steve Martin were dating or were those completely made up.

'No, okay, they were completely made up,' said Kristin. 'It's been so frustrating that people still seem to think that this was true. He was dating who was now his wife.'

She said his wife also has big brown hair and that they were on a vacation. She said someone took a picture of her from the back and said it was her.

Made up: Josh, a fan, asked Kristin whether the rumors are true back in the day that she and Steve Martin were dating or were those completely made up

Andy said they were clearing up rumors here. Another fan asked her if she thought in an alternative universe whether Charlotte and her character Brooke from Melrose Place would be friends.

'No, no I do not,' she said. 'Maybe Charlotte might want to take care of Brooke because Brooke is kind of broken and needs some mothering.'

Another fan told Kristin that she was surprised that she originally read for the part of Carrie and asked her if there were other roles that they would be surprised she went out for.

Good times: Kristin smiled while interacting on the Bravo show

'I actually didn't read for Carrie because they sent me the script and I was like there is definitely no way that I can pull this off so I appreciate it but I need to be this other girl so I didn't even go in,' she said. 'Because you kind of know yourself. Carrie was originally much like the person Candace Bushnell smoking and swearing and really kind of rough. Sarah kind of shifted her away from that a little bit.'

She also admitted, 'I auditioned for Monica on Friends.'

Andy asked her how far she got and she said, 'Nowhere. It was not meant for me.'

Another fan asked her to share her fondest memories from playing Jerry Seinfeld's girlfriend in an episode in which she was known as the Tooth Brush Girl.

Friends audition: 'I auditioned for Monica on Friends,' Kristin revealed

Kristin said she was nervous because 35 million people watched the show.

'He knew this so he would whisper in my ear right before action ''35 million people'',' said Kristin. 'He was having fun but whatever I can do to provide some fun.'

Andy said 'that's funny.'

He then counted down the most iconic Charlotte's - Betty White, Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island, Pam Beesly from The Office, Melanie from Gone With The Wind, and Gayle King. Andy asked her if she co-signed with their list and she said she did and that she was just with Jenna Fisher.
Ricky Gervais said he wouldn't watch the Golden Globes anyway when asked if he was surprised about the downfall of the awards show moving online on Thursday night's Late Night With Seth Meyers on NBC.

The 60-year-old English comedian said the only time he ever watched an awards show was when he was there in person either winning or losing an award or presenting.

Ricky noted that he hosted the Golden Globes five times over a 10-year period. He said the first time he did it he felt the Hollywood press questioning this 'fat annoying Brit, how dare he make fun of the most important people in the world.'

Former host: Ricky Gervais said he wouldn't watch the Golden Globes anyway when asked if he was surprised about the downfall of the awards show moving online on Thursday night's Late Night With Seth Meyers on NBC

He kept doing the same things, but Ricky said the world changed.

'By the last one, the public were going ''give it to them we are sick of celebrities, we hate them'',' said Ricky, who appeared virtually on the show sitting in his study in England in front of a bookcase lined with awards.

'Ordinary people sort of turned a little bit and were sick of being told what to do by rich people,' he added.

Ricky admitted that he loved hosting the Globes and Seth said that he hosted it once compared to Ricky's five times.

Avoids watching: The 60-year-old English comedian said the only time he ever watched an awards show was when he was there in person either winning or losing an award or presenting

'You are basically blaming me aren't you,' said Ricky laughing.

Seth asked him if he had been able to make it through these last two years without becoming sick.

'I wouldn't say I'm healthy but I haven't caught COVID,' he said. 'I'm 20 pounds overweight. I'm 60. I'm losing my hair. I'm fat. I've got a bunion. I've got bad knees. I've got a bad back that goes every now and again. I'm a slob. It's because I eat and drink too much.'

Also hosted: Seth said that he hosted it once compared to Ricky's five times

He held up his glass and said, 'I'm drunk now because I'm in England and I don't mean because of the time zone, I mean because it is compulsory if you are in England you have got to be drunk. It's one of the rules. But yeah, I haven't caught COVID, no.'

Ricky said that then again that maybe he did have it because he always wakes up sweaty and anxious. He laughed and said, 'I wouldn't know.'

'All the way through the first year, every time I woke up I thought I had COVID,' said Ricky. 'Apart from that I'm well.'

Getting drunk: He held up his glass and said, 'I'm drunk now because I'm in England and I don't mean because of the time zone, I mean because it is compulsory if you are in England you have got to be drunk. It's one of the rules. But yeah, I haven't caught COVID, no'

Seth asked him if all the awards that he was sitting in front of created a natural immunity to COVID. Ricky said 'maybe.'

'It plays havoc with the wifi,' he said, pointing to the bookshelf lined with awards behind him. 'I'm in Meryl Streep's house'

He said he didn't place them there because he was going on the show, but that the awards are there all the time because it was his study.

Multiple awards: Seth asked him if all the awards that he was sitting in front of created a natural immunity to COVID

Seth told him that he really loved the characters in his show After Life, which has returned to Netflix for its third and final season, and asked him about the casting process. Ricky said because he has been around for a while that he can cast before he even writes it.

'As I thought of a character, I knew who could play it and I was calling them,' said Ricky.

He recalled when he called Kerry Godliman, who played his late wife Lisa on the show.

Netflix show: Seth told him that he really loved the characters in his show After Life, which has returned to Netflix for its third and final season

'I said, 'Oh I've got an idea. You play my dead wife'' and she went ''What do you mean I'm a corpse?',' Ricky laughed and said he told her she wasn't going to be playing a corpse.

He said it's 'nearly cheating because they are there from the beginning.' He said it helps make the show seem so real and natural looking.

Seth asked him why he did a show that was centered on a death. Ricky said it just became a study in grief. He said that many people came up to him after the first season and shared with him their stories of loss.

Grief study: Ricky said that many people came up to him after the first season and shared with him their stories of loss

'You suddenly realize that everyone is grieving,' said Ricky. 'People like seeing a bit of themselves on TV even if it's the bad stuff. Especially if it's the bit that people don't usually see on TV or if it's a taboo subject Particularly if they see the funny side of it because what comedy is for is getting us over bad stuff.'

Ricky said his show just asked the big question, 'if you lose everything is life still worth living.'

'You need to find something to make it worthwhile,' he said.

Big question: The comedian said his show just asked the big question, 'if you lose everything is life still worth living'

Seth asked him while he was writing what he was most concerned with making it funny or the emotional part.

Ricky said he concentrates on whether it is real, honest, original, and frightening. He said when you think of a great idea the answer is usually yes that you can make it funny. He said in his stand-up routine he talks about taboo subjects because he wants to take the audience to a place where they have never been.

'There is nothing you shouldn't joke about,' said Ricky. 'It depends on the joke.'

Taboo subjects: 'There is nothing you shouldn't joke about,' said Ricky. 'It depends on the joke'

'We are all going to die so let's joke about it. Let's have a laugh,' he said.

Seth asked him about his new stand up on Netflix. He said he was doing gigs before the pandemic but it just stopped. Ricky said he managed to finish it and now really appreciates his audience even more.

'It really hit me on an emotional level,' said Ricky.

Getting emotional: 'It really hit me on an emotional level,' said Ricky of filming his Netflix special

He said stand-up was his favorite thing and he can't wait to get back out there. He said his special will be out in the spring.

Seth asked him if he worried his stand up would get dated. He joked that no because his themes of AIDS, famine and Hitler are evergreen. He said he does worry about things like if Boris Johnson isn't around that it would ruin the one joke that he does about him.
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Sarah Jessica Parker came over nostalgic after the latest episode of SATC reboot And Just Like That... hit screens on Thursday.

The actress, 56, who is famed for playing Carrie Bradshaw in the series, dug into the writer's outfit archives in the eighth episode of the show - including the incredible $80k Versace Couture she wore in the penultimate episode of the original show.

In 2004, when Carrie moved to Paris in Season Six, Episode 19, An American Girl in Paris, Part Une she was seen in the 'Mille Feuille' gown and after its appearance on Thursday's show, SJP took to Instagram to pay tribute to the dress.

Wow: Sarah Jessica Parker came over nostalgic after the latest episode of SATC reboot And Just Like That... hit screens on Thursday as she shared snaps from the show and from the penultimate episode of Sex And The City in honour of an $80k dress from the show

Amazing: In 2004, when Carrie moved to Paris in Season Six, Episode 19, An American Girl in Paris, Part Une she was seen in the 'Mille Feuille' gown and after its appearance on Thursday's show, SJP took to Instagram to pay tribute to the dress

On the photo-sharing site, Sarah shared a duo of snaps with her 7.7million - including a still from the final scene of And Just Like That... Episode Eight, named Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered, and a still from An American Girl in Paris, Part Une.

She added a caption alongside reading: 'We found her. Slithered in. Caught up. It's been so long. She had much to share. Brief and hard to say goodbye again. Episode 8 of @justlikethatmax, available to stream now on @hbomax. X, SJ'.

In the episode, Carrie reveals to her real estate agent pal Seema Patel, played by Sarita Choudhury, into her home, that she has been 'sitting in her 20s, 30s and 40s' all week, while sorting through her clothes.

She then tells Seema to hold tight to see 'her pride and joy', and unveils the Versace Couture Mille Feuille gown worn when she was in Paris.

Slithered in: She added a caption alongside reading: 'We found her. Slithered in. Caught up. It's been so long. She had much to share. Brief and hard to say goodbye again. Episode 8 of @justlikethatmax, available to stream now on @hbomax. X, SJ'

Woah! It was later revealed that the dress cost an eye-popping $80k

Amazing: When Carrie moves to Paris to be with Aleksandr Petrovsky, she naturally brings a series of sensational ensembles, with the most breathtaking undoubtedly being the dreamy Versace gown

When Carrie moves to Paris to be with Aleksandr Petrovsky, she naturally brings a series of sensational ensembles, with the most breathtaking undoubtedly being the dreamy Versace gown.

While she adjusts to her new European life, she is due to go for dinner with the artists yet her leaves her on her bed and she winds up only sleeping in the dress.

She explains to Seema that she has worn the dress twice, once in Paris and once in her apartment. She said of the gown: 'Versace...

Amazing: While Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbes, Charlotte York and Samantha Jones are the lead characters throughout Sex And The City - the fifth main star of the show is undoubtedly Carrie's iconic wardrobe, and this week's episode of And Just Like That... takes a look at some of her old looks

The big move: She headed to Paris at the end of the series in 2004

'I've only worn her twice, once in Paris and once in here just for fun. I sat in here at that window and ate a whole thing of Jiffy Puffs.'

The episode wraps with Carrie sitting in her window, wearing the gown and eating treats.

It was later revealed that the gown cost an eye-popping $80k.

Speaking about the dress when the original series wrapped, costume designer Patricia Field said: 'Some people make these crocheted doily gowns that they put on dolls and it goes over a toilet-paper roll.

'They crochet this gown for a doll and the gown is really big, and then you just put the doll over the toilet-paper roll and it sits in their bathroom...

Wow! Speaking about the dress when the original series wrapped, Patricia said: 'Some people make these crocheted doily gowns that they put on dolls and it goes over a toilet-paper roll

Amazing: The gown is named after the many-layered dessert, and is near-identical to one worn by Natalia Vodianova in an iconic 2003 Alice in Wonderland-themed shot for Vogue by Annie Leibovitz and styled by Grace Coddington

Hmm... She also gave a glimpse of the dirndl she wore in Season Two

'I always found that hysterical. That's what that gown meant to me. When we shot [the next-to-last episode], Carrie was waiting for Aleksandr to come to her hotel room in Paris, and in the end he showed up very late...

'That gown is huge. I set that gown over the bed, and it literally covered the bed. It was the perfect princess moment.'

The gown is named after the many-layered dessert, and is near-identical to one worn by Natalia Vodianova in an iconic 2003 Alice in Wonderland-themed shot for Vogue by Annie Leibovitz and styled by Grace Coddington
Adele Roberts has spoken out about her 'shock' cancer diagnosis and detailed the effects of her surgery to remove the tumour.

The Radio 1 DJ, 42, revealed that she had been diagnosed with bowel cancer in an emotional post on October 24, sharing the news a month after learning she had the disease.

In her first live interview since the announcement, the I'm A Celebrity star appeared on Good Morning Britain to discuss her diagnosis.

Brave: Adele Roberts has spoken out about her 'shock' cancer diagnosis and detailed the effects of her surgery to remove the tumour

Speaking to hosts Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard, she explained: 'It was a shock. I didn't realise I could get cancer which I know sounds silly because I know now it can happen to anyone at any age.

'I'm vegetarian. I'm healthy. I exercise.'

Describing the first warning signs, she said: 'My digestion started to get a bit funny - after what we ate in the jungle I wasn't surprised.

'I noticed when I went to the toilet things like mucus and then blood. I didn't know whether to call the doctor because of Covid I didn't want to bother anyone. But it got so consistent that I thought I'd better call up just in case.'

Diagnosis: The Radio 1 DJ, 42, revealed that she had been diagnosed with bowel cancer in an emotional post on October 24th, a month after learning she had the disease

Despite all she's been through, Adele remains positive and hopeful she'll be back to her 'normal self' by the summer.

She said: 'I feel like I've not really taken it on board. I'm just trying to get through each day. The NHS have been awesome.

'I've been able to get back on Radio One and I'm on chemotherapy. Hopefully by the middle of this year I'll be back to my normal self.'

Opening up: In her first live interview since the announcement, the I'm A Celebrity star appeared on Good Morning Britain to discuss her diagnosis alongside her girlfriend Kate

Adele's girlfriend Kate Holderness was by her side throughout the interview, and voiced her support for her brave partner.

She praised: 'She's been amazing. It's been just 16 weeks since that diagnosis. What she's been through - Surgery, a stoma, chemo - she's been amazing.'

Adele underwent surgery to remove the tumour at the end of last year, and she revealed: 'So far I believe they've managed to remove the tumour.

Supportive: Adele's girlfriend Kate Holderness was by her side throughout the interview, and voiced her support for her brave partner

'It was in a really awkward place but they managed to save my bottom. My stoma is named Audrey. Once I've finished the chemo I should be well again.'

Concluding the interview, Adele gave a message of advice to her viewers, saying: 'I wanna say to people please get checked. Don't be shy. The doctors are awesome and they will look after you.'

Adele has been keeping her fans updated on social media with her journey to recovery.

Health: Describing the first warning signs, she said: 'My digestion started to get a bit funny - after what we ate in the jungle I wasn't surprised'

She told her followers last month that 'this little stoma bag helped save my life' although she admitted it had been difficult to get used to, saying: 'I feel like I need a trainer to help me tame it. Its wild! Haha. It does what it wants when it wants but Im sure Ill get there.'

The star has been inundated with support since she announced her illness.

Following the operation, Adele told her concerned followers: 'Just a quick note to say thank you to everyone. You've been absolutely incredible! So kind, sending good wishes and looking after my family.'

Famous face: Adele is known for her work on Radio 1 and also found a new legion of fans after appearing on I'm A Celebrity in 2019 (pictured leaving camp)

Adele added: 'You are the greatest! You've kept me going. I've had my ups and downs this week but today I really feel like I'm starting to turn a corner and hopefully I'll be well enough to go home soon.'

Adele first found fame when she took part in the third series of Big Brother in 2002 alongside fellow housemates Jade Goody, Alison Hammond and winner Kate Lawler.

The presenter, from Southport, Merseyside, finished in seventh place after lasting 43 days in the house.

She spoke about being bisexual on the series, though she had not revealed her sexuality to her parents at the time.

Taking part in a panel hosted by charity RU Coming Out as reported by Gay Star News, she explained: 'I had gone to university and had a girlfriend and everyone was cool about it but I hadn't had that talk with my mum and dad.

'Never underestimate the power of positivity and well wishes': Adele was grateful to her followers for being by her side
She rose to fame with her lingerie campaigns in the Nineties.

And Sophie Anderton proved she's still got it as she flaunted her washboard abs in a white bikini while frolicking on a beach during her sun-soaked break to Oman.

The model, 44, looked sensational in the skimpy two-piece as she pulled off a number of playful poses in the sizzling Instagram snaps shared on Friday.

Wow: Sophie Anderton proved she's still got it as she flaunted her washboard abs in a white bikini while frolicking on a beach during her sun-soaked break to Oman

Sophie's halterneck bikini featured pom pom detailing on the top and bottoms, with the swimwear perfectly highlighting her toned and bronzed physique.

The beauty sported slicked back locks and donned minimal make-up for the jaw-dropping images which saw her joyfully run across the sand on a desert island on the Gulf of Makran.

Captioning her post, she penned: 'On a small desert island, cool wind in my hair. Warm smell of sea salt, Rising up through the air.'

The stunning snaps come months after Sophie married Count Kaz Balinski-Jundzill, 53, in August, describing the wedding as 'the happiest day of my life'.

Work it: The model, 44, looked sensational in the skimpy two-piece as she pulled off a number of playful poses in the sizzling Instagram snaps shared on Friday

Sophie who found fame as the face of Gossard bras in the 1990s, tied the knot in Ireland on August 5 after the couple postponed their wedding three times due to the pandemic.

However the star admitted she 'never thought marriage was on the cards' and had been nicknamed 'the runway bride' but added: 'Love comes into your life when you're not looking for it.'

Sophie, who wore an ivory lace wedding gown designed by Irish couturier Helen Cody, told HELLO! magazine: 'I've waited all my life to meet the person I wanted to marry. Although I've loved, I've never been in love until now.'

Stunner: Sophie's halterneck bikini featured pom pom detailing on the top and bottoms, with the swimwear perfectly highlighting her toned and bronzed physique

Wow: The beauty sported slicked back locks and donned minimal make-up for the jaw-dropping images which saw her joyfully run across the sand on a desert island on the Gulf of Makran

She added: 'Kaz kept telling me it [marriage] would suit me, and he was right.'

The couple had a civil ceremony in the village of Laragh, with Balinski-Jundzill's daughter, Charlie's Angels star Ella Balinska, acting as ring bearer.

The ceremony was followed by a wedding reception at their family home, Glendalough House.

Balinski-Jundzill - who works in the extractive oil industry - told the magazine he was 'in awe' of Sophie on their special day and even had to 'look away' to prevent himself from crying.

Speaking with The Daily Mail's Richard Eden after her wedding, Sophie said: 'Yesterday, I married my best friend, soulmate and lifetime partner in crime.

Marriage bliss: The model tied the knot with Count Kaz Balinski-Jundzill in Ireland on August 5 after the couple postponed their wedding three times due to the pandemic

'I cannot believe after so many obstacles and date changes, I am officially Mrs Kaz Balinksi.'

Sophie and Kaz had to postpone their nuptials twice last year due to Covid  and then again at the end of July when one of Kaz's four children fell ill.

One of Kaz's children is actress Ella Balinska, 24, who he shares with TV chef ex-wife, Lorraine Pascale. Ella starred in the 2019 Charlie's Angels film.

The happy newlyweds have been together for more than four years, with Sophie often gushing about their relationship.
She keeps viewers up and down the country in-the-know about what they'll face when they venture outside.

And on Friday's Good Morning Britain, Laura Tobin was left red-faced as she made an hilarious blunder live on air while presenting the latest weather update.

The meteorologist, 40, thought she'd gotten away with her slip-of-the-tongue, but was called out over it by hosts Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway.

Whoops! On Friday's Good Morning Britain, Laura Tobin, 40, was left red-faced as she made an hilarious blunder live on air while presenting the latest weather update

Laura was detailing the chilly conditions across the country, and intended to say: 'Frosty start,' but accidentally said: 'Frosty fart.'

Ever-the-professional, the presenter continued the segment and hoped the on-air hiccup had gone unnoticed.

But later, Ben and Kate were joined down-the-line by Andi Peters from Phuket, Thailand, as they discussed the freezing weather across the UK while he enjoyed the sunshine.

Host Ben quipped: 'You need to be careful when saying Phuket, don't you, Andi?' before noting Laura's earlier slip-up.

We heard you! The meteorologist thought she'd gotten away with her slip-of-the-tongue, but was called out over it by hosts Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway

Hilarious! Laura was detailing the chilly conditions across the country, and intended to say: 'Frosty start,' but accidentally said: 'Frosty fart'

'Laura Tobin, earlier, promised us a frosty - what did you say, Laura?' quizzed Ben, as she put her head in her hands and was left red-faced.

Laura admitted she had accidentally said a 'frosty fart' instead of a 'frosty start' and laughed off the mistake as Ben and Kate replayed a clip of the error for viewers.

As the clip played out in the background, with Laura saying: 'There's going to be a froty fart - a frosty start - this morning,' she admitted: 'I thought I covered it up!'

Oh no! The presenter continued the segment and hoped the on-air hiccup had gone unnoticed but later, Ben and Kate replayed a clip of the moment much to her embarrassment

Back in November, Laura was caught up in another awkward on-air moment when she jokingly insulted host Charlotte Hawkins, 46.

During an episode of Good Morning Britain, the meteorologist quipped she would buy Charlotte 'something to improve her face' as she presented the weather outside a shopping centre in London.

She said: 'You know, I've spoken to so many people who have already done their Christmas shopping, and I haven't done any yet, I refuse to! But I'm close enough here.'

Shocked at her confession, Charlotte asked her: 'Bring me back something nice! to which Laura replied: 'OK I shall. I shall work on something to improve your face.'

Her co-star let out a huge gasp at the retort and shook her head as she jokingly snapped: 'You're in so much trouble!'
She is never shy showing off her phenomenal figure.

And Lottie Moss wowed once again in a sultry tropical shoot in a plunging multi-coloured dress from PrettyLittleThing in Antigua on Friday.

The model, 23, posed up a storm on the beach shoreline at Galley Bay Resort & Spa while flaunting every inch of her frame and pulling her best pout.

Stunning: Lottie Moss wowed once again in a sultry tropical shoot in a plunging multi-coloured dress from PrettyLittleThing in Antigua on Friday

Soaking up the sun, Lottie, who set tongues wagging last year when she started an OnlyFans account, worked her best angles as she gave a sultry stare to the camera.

The figure-hugging ensemble highlighted her model physique, while also showing off the slew of tattoos on her arms.

Her blonde locks were styled in loose beachy waves and her glam make-up enhanced her gorgeous complexion.

Lottie accessorised with stylish hoop earrings as she posed in the luxury surroundings and clear blue skies.

Work it! The model, 23, posed up a storm on the beach shoreline at Galley Bay Resort & Spa

Pose: Soaking up the sun, the beauty worked her best angles as she gave a sultry stare to the camera

Lottie has been sharing a slew of photos from her travels on social media and her OnlyFans account since returning to her London home.

On Tuesday she revealed to her Instagram fans that she had dyed her hair pink on a whim.

Meanwhile, Lottie is said to have fallen for another of her tattooed pals, with reports last week claiming she is dating tattooed Valentino model Teddy Corsica.

The model shared a sultry black and white picture of her fellow catwalk star feeding her a lollipop on Instagram earlier this month.

Beauty: The figure hugging ensemble highlighted her model physique, while also showing off the slew of tattoos on her arms

Pretty in pink: On Tuesday she revealed to her Instagram fans that she had dyed her hair pink on a whim

New man: Pals close to Basingstoke-born pin-up Teddy, real name Edward Groucher, claimed the pair started dating following Lottie's split from The Vamps drummer Tristan Evans in November

Pals close to Basingstoke-born pin-up Teddy, real name Edward Groucher, claimed the pair started dating following Lottie's split from The Vamps drummer Tristan Evans in November.

A source told MailOnline: 'Lottie and Teddy have been dating for a number of weeks having met on the London fashion scene.

'They hang out around in the same circles and clicked immediately, despite the fact Lottie called him out on social media early on.

'Teddy is a bit of a sofa surfer in London and has a bad boy image within that clique but that doesn't seem to put off Lottie.

They added: 'He can smooth talk anyone and it clearly worked with her.'
Kathryn Prescott has given her first update to fans on Instagram after being hit by a cement truck in September.

The 30-year-old performer wrote a lengthy message that was shared to her Instagram account on Thursday to let her fans know that she was doing well after being hospitalized for just under a month.

The Skins actress also shared a picture of a rock to her account and explained to her fans that it was given to her on the day that she was injured.

She is fine: Kathryn Prescott has given her first update to fans on Instagram after being hit by a cement truck in September; she is seen in 2019

Prescott was hit by a cement truck while walking across a street in Brooklyn, New York, on September 7 of last year.

The actress suffered breaks in two places in her pelvis, as well as her legs, a foot and her left hand, according to E! News.

She also was in danger of becoming permanently paralyzed due to her injuries, although the intervention of her health care professionals prevented her from the condition. Her sister Megan revealed that the star had been released from the hospital and was allowed to recover at home on October 1.

Prescott's last Instagram post prior to being injured was shared to her account on August 31st.

Making a statement: The 30-year-old performer wrote a lengthy message that was shared to her Instagram account on Thursday to let her fans know that she was doing well after being hospitalized for just under a month; she is seen in 2017

Lucky charm: The Skins actress also shared a picture of a rock to her account and explained to her fans that it was given to her on the day that she was injured

Her note began by thanking a woman for giving her a rock after she was hit.

'An anonymous woman, whose face I never saw, put this rock into my hand as I was being lifted onto a stretcher. She whispered into my ear that it was for good luck,' she recalled.

Prescott then expressed that she had inadvertently kept the rock with her while she was being checked into a hospital for treatment.

'When I finally got to the operating room and was being prepped for my first surgery, one of the assistants asked me what was in my fist. I realized I had been holding onto it since then without realizing,' she wrote.

Sending her thanks: Prescott made a point of thanking her sister, Megan, who previously went public about her ordeal with being allowed to enter the United States in order to care for her sibling after the incident; Megan is seen in 2011

The A Dog's Journey actress went on to express her gratitude for the anonymous individual's kindness and for the work of her physicians.

'Thank you to that woman (if anyone knows who she is, please tell me) and to all of my amazing nurses, doctors, physical/occupational therapists and surgeons at NYP and Mount Sinai,' she wrote.

Prescott made a point of thanking her sister, Megan, who previously went public about her ordeal with being allowed to enter the United States in order to care for her sibling after the incident.

Her movie career: Prescott as CJ in A Dog's Journey in 2019 about a canine that finds the meaning of his own existence through the lives of the humans he meets

The 30-year-old actress, who is a native of the United Kingdom, was previously barred from traveling to the country due to coronavirus-related restrictions, although she was approved after making her situation widely known.

'Thank you to my sister for moving heaven and earth to get to me during a global pandemic and travel ban. Thank you to all of my friends for being there, without hesitation, and for sending your mums, friends and sisters when you couldn't,' she said.

Prescott also made a point of expressing her gratitude for the optimism of her roommate while she recovered from her injuries.

'Thank you to my hospital room mate for being who you are and for making me laugh, even when there wasn't much to laugh about,' she wrote.

The actress concluded her message by thanking all of the people who assisted with her recovery process.

'Thank you to everyone who has reached out and helped in every and any way they could. From the bottom of my heart, thank you,' she expressed.
Fearne Cotton has detailed her vow to 'get ride of negative self-limiting beliefs' ahead of her 40th birthday, as she discussed her new book Bigger Than Us during an interview with Lorraine Kelly on Friday.

The 40-year-old detailed how she decided to look back over the last 10 years of her life, saying: 'It was around the time that I'd just turned or was turning 40 and I wanted to look back.

'Undo some of the little knots that I'd made and do some self-inventory and learn some more, and get rid of some of the negative self limiting beliefs I'd had.'

Important: Fearne Cotton has detailed her vow to 'get ride of negative self-limiting beliefs' ahead of her 40th birthday, after sharing her struggles with mental health

Fearne explained that the research she conducted whilst writing 'really really helped'.

She continued by talking about the ways in which the book helped, she said: 'If we want to feel good, grounded, happy and feel contentment we have to have an experience of connections with obviously other people but also nature the planet and just life itself.

'So this was my way of exploring that.'

The outfit: Fearne wore a fitted pink jumpsuit with red suede pointed boots for the daytime TV appearance

Smiles: Lorraine (above) and Fearne both discussed how the book is easy to understand and isn't full of 'mumbo jumbo' when speaking about spirituality

Interview: The mother of two summed up the book by saying it is about slowing down and noticing everything that is going on around you

Lorraine and Fearne both discussed how the book is easy to understand and isn't full of 'mumbo jumbo' when speaking about spirituality.

Fearne added: 'It doesn't have to be!'

The mother of two summed up the book by saying it is about slowing down and noticing everything that is going on around you.

For the TV appearance Fearne wore a smart-casual fitted pink jumpsuit from Finery London with LK Bennett red suede pointed boots.

She had her blonde hair shining in gentle curls and accessorised with chunky silver necklaces.

The official publication day was Thursday triggering many people to post about their new bookshop buy, including TV presenter Rylan Clark-Neal.

Support: Fearne officially released her new book on Thursday, sparking many of her celebrity pals to share their praise, including TV presenter Rylan Clark (pictured)

Fearne has previously discussed her struggles with depression, and in January 2021 admitted that it is part of her everyday life and that it knocked her 'work confidence' partly leading her to leave her roles on Celebrity Juice and BBC Radio.

'[Depression] is a chapter that I often in my work talk around, but not really about it because there's so much of it that I'm still processing and still have a bit of a hangover with,' the mother-of-two explained.

'A lot of my work has come from that area of my life where I fell into a pretty big hole of depression and not much around me seemed to make sense.

'I felt very isolated and very alone in my experience. It was long before I even dared use the word depression...

Honest: Fearne has previously discussed her struggles with depression, and in January 2021 admitted that it is part of her everyday life and that it knocked her 'work confidence'

'Now, it's an everyday part of my life, whether it's friends who know that I'll open up about it or mostly in my work. Before this point, I would never have dared talk about my mental health. I don't think I even knew what that was.

'Obviously, by default, I felt very alone in that due to the fact that I hadn't had those conversations. There are a few things I'm still working on from that time. One of them is confidence, because I totally lost it when I didn't have any at all, which has really hindered me in my work life and somewhat in my personal life...

'My working life, I really lost confidence... I literally couldn't put myself out there in the way that I used to.'

Fearne hosted a mid-morning show on BBC Radio 1 from 2009-2015, after which she sat in for Zoe Ball on Radio 2, before quitting. She was a team captain on Celebrity Juice from 2008-2018.

'I still have this weird hangover,' she went on. 'I willingly went onto Sunday Brunch at the weekend, which is always the most joyful experience, they feed you, they give you alcohol at 10AM, it's a very nice experience...

Open: She cited her mental health as the reason for leaving Celebrity Juice and BBC Radio, and only has glowing things to say about the experience of being on them otherwise

'[Before] I wouldn't even think about it. I would feel completely calm, enjoy it, excited about going on. But I think the lack of confidence that I lost during this period of depression, I still find it really hard to summon that in those very exposing live TV ways where anyone could ask me anything at any point.

'And it's like anybody could say anything, do anything. I used to love it, get a kick out of it, and now I feel like a soft peach, like I'm too exposed and I find it really scary.'

Fearne cites her mental health as the reason for leaving these shows, and only has glowing things to say about the experience of being on them otherwise.

'Honestly, when I did my Radio 1 show, it was just a joy. Towards the end of it, there was perhaps some stuff going on for me but, really, for the majority of my Radio 1 career, it did feel easier, I guess,' she said.

She added: ' I left Radio 1 and I was about to have my daughter, Honey, my second child. I had no work at all. None. Zero jobs. I had no safety net. I think I was sort of busy dealing with that. And then all of the other stuff sort of came later, really.

'But it was worth the jump. I think having a bit of a break or a bit of stillness is no bad thing. And it's where you start to potentially have ideas and to just think of life in a new way.'

Lorraine airs weekdays from 9am on ITV.
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She arrived in Paris earlier the week to attend the Fall/Winter catwalks in the French capital.

And on Friday, Naomi Campbell flashed her bra and a glimpse of her abs in a sheer sparkling blouse and longline trouser suit as she led the stars at the Dior Homme Paris Fashion Week show.

The iconic model, 51, oozed confidence in her sleek ensemble as she posed for photographs on arrival at the designer's show alongside Olivier Rousteing, Dave Chapelle and actor Lucien Laviscount.

Wow! On Friday, Naomi Campbell, 51, flashed a glimpse of her abs in a sheer sparkling blouse and longline trouser suit as she led the stars at the Dior Homme Paris Fashion Week show

Naomi rocked a pair of baggy black trousers in the new balloon style shape trend, and ensured the overall look was tailored with a sleek long blazer jacket.

Adding an edgy twist to her chic attire, she slung the long chunky strap of a heavily embellished handbag across her body.

Naomi boosted her model height with a pointed pair of classic black stiletto heels, and posed with a pair of sunglasses on once inside the venue.

The stunner styled her raven tresses sleek with a centre parting and enhanced her natural beauty with a flawless make-up application.

Gorgeous: The stunner styled her raven tresses sleek with a centre parting and enhanced her natural beauty with a flawless make-up application

Fabulous: Naomi boosted her model height with a pointed pair of classic black stiletto heels

Edgy: Adding an edgy twist to her chic attire, she slung the long chunky strap of a heavily embellished handbag across her body

Famous friends: Naomi enjoyed the designer's show alongside Olivier Rousteing (right)

Balmain Creative Director Olivier Rousteing attended the fashion show wearing a double breasted leather blazer.

The Frenchman teamed his statement jacket with a wide-leg pair of trousers and plain white tee.

Completing his look, Oliver wore fingerless gloves and shiney gold knuckle rings, while carrying his belongings in a signature Dior handbag.

Sexy: Olivier Rousteing (left) attended the fashion show wearing a double breasted leather blazer while Lucien Laviscount (right) rocked an oversized white shirt with baggy trousers

Wow! Lucien oozed sex appeal as he posed with a toothpick for photographs

Edgy: Completing his look, Oliver wore fingerless gloves and shiney gold knuckle rings while Dave Chapelle, 48, (right) was casual in an off-white hoodie and branded facemask

Happy days: The comedian flashed a smile while shielding his eyes with tortoiseshell shades

Fashion: The Frenchman teamed his statement jacket with a wide-leg pair of trousers and plain white tee

Star-studded: Dave slipped on a taupe coloured leather blazer once inside as he posed for a snap with wife Elaine and Naomi Campbell

The fashionable outing came after supermodel Naomi celebrated her first Christmas as a mother sharing a sweet snap of her family.

Naomi became a parent in May, taking to Instagram to share the news with a photo of her daughter's tiny feet.

'A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother,' she wrote on Instagram.

'So honoured to have this gentle soul in my life there are no words to describe the lifelong bond that I now share with you, my angel. There is no greater love.'

Representing: Balmain Creative Director Oliver carried his belongings in a signature Dior bag while Lucien (right) took his place on the front row next to Farida Khelfa, 61,

Snap snap: Naomi and Dave posed for a photo with Mohammed Al Turki, 35 (right)

Work it: Mohammed wore an eye-catching hip-length jacket and posed with Naomi

Walking in style: Naomi looked fashionable in her black outfit as she arrived at the venue, waving at onlookers as she headed inside

All eyes on her: Naomi caught the attention of onlookers as she arrived, while keeping her eyes on her path from behind her dark sunglasses

Catwalk: The models strutted down the catwalk in a range of stylish ensembles

Elegant: Filmmaker Farida defied her years as she stepped out in cropped indigo jeans and a sparkling gunmental shirt while Alex Lawther, 26, opted for a double denim ensemble (right)

Cool: She posed with Olivier Rousteing and Haider Ackermann

Stars: They looked great together

Beauty: She showed off her stunning complexion with a natural makeup look

Shades: She covered her eyes with dark shades

Chatting: Dave Chappelle and his wife Elaine were seen speaking to supermodel Naomi

Cool: Dave looked suave in his white coat

In September, she discussed her child for the first time during an interview with BBC HardTalk, where she described her as being 'independent and smart.'

Naomi told listeners: 'I'm really lucky I think have a dream child', as she detailed the first few months of being a mother on Thursday.

She said: 'She's wonderful. She's very independent already, very smart, alert, sleeps 12 hours. She's a good girl'

When asked if she planned to instill the values in her to be a strong independent woman, Naomi said: 'Absolutely. Right down to the hygiene part.'

Divine: The beauty added a sexy splash of red with her bold lipstick colour while Alex wore a pin adorned with trinkets while adding extra elements with his patterned tie

Rockstar: Mick Jagger's look-alike-son Lucas, 22, put on an edgy display in an all-black ensemble with a pop of red nail polish

Fabulous: Drag Queen Miss Fame also opted for wide-leg trousers and a sleek blazer

Casual: French actor Sandor Funtek, 31, kept things casual in beige chinos and a grey polo shirt

Style: American hip-hop star IDK, 29, followed the wide trousers and sleek blazer which dominated the fash pack, while blogger Bryanboy, 40, (centre) wore a textured coat
Jeff Lowe of the hit Netflix show Tiger King is relocating to Mexico with his wife Lauren Lowe.

Lowe told TMZ he secured a contract to construct a zoo on 35 acres of property between Tulum and Playa del Carmen. He will do so with the help of a longtime friend who already has a small zoo in there.

The plans to leave the US come after 68 of the couple's animals were seized in Oklahoma in May.

New location: Jeff Lowe of the hit Netflix show Tiger King is relocating to Mexico with his wife Lauren Lowe

The Tiger King personality has been actively posting photos from Mexico in recent days.

On Thursday he shared images with Playa del Carmen tagged as his location as he posed with Lauren, their daughter, and his friend Felix.

He captioned the post, 'Thanks to Felix for welcoming us into his life. Huge things are on the horizon. It feels so good to be us again.'

The timeline for the new zoo to open is within 12-16 months, per TMZ.

Starting over: The Tiger King personality has been actively posting photos from Mexico in recent days

The new location will be situated along an exuberant jungle with natural water, and Jeff has taken care to secure the required permits, avoiding trouble with the law again.

The Lowes are not permitted to ever exhibit animals in the United States again following their violation of the Endangered Species Act by delivering, carrying and exhibiting animals without a license.

Visitors of the new zoo can expect to see large cats, lemurs, sloths, giraffes and two elephants.

Jeff's friend who he's partnering with will move is existing large animals into the novel space.

Social media activity: Jeff captioned a recent post, 'Thanks to Felix for welcoming us into his life. Huge things are on the horizon. It feels so good to be us again'

There's no name for the forthcoming exhibition just yet, but it will be an extension of the Tiger King brand.

Jeff and Lauren seem to be enjoying the process of building their new life in Latin America.

Among plenty of posts in which the couple has stopped to enjoy a frozen drink or the beach, Jeff noted that they were 'house hunting.'
Sir Kenneth Branagh has revealed the hilarious - and red-face inducing - moment his grandmother came to see him play in the theatre.

The esteemed actor and writer, 61, appeared on Friday night's Graham Norton Show to discuss Belfast, his semi-autobiographical movie, during which he regaled the tale of his family matriarch, who is played by Judi Dench.

He explained that while he was playing St Francis of Assisi at the Greenwich Theatre in London in the early 1980s, one scene required him to be naked, and when his manhood was mocked by a heckler, his granny jumped to his defence.

Starring role: Sir Kenneth Branagh has revealed the hilarious - and red-face inducing - moment his grandmother came to see him play in the theatre, during his appearance on Friday night's The Graham Norton Show

Sir Kenneth wrote and directed the forthcoming movie, which stars Jamie Dornan and follows the life of a working class family and their young son's childhood during the turmoil of the late Sixties in the Northern Ireland capital.

Speaking about his grandmother - Judi's character - he spoke about the only time she ever saw him perform due to her reluctance to travel.

He said: 'It took a lot to get her to leave Ireland, but we finally persuaded her...

'I was playing St Francis of Assisi and had to be 'reborn' naked. My granny was in the front row with opera glasses, but I really went for it...

Acting role: The esteemed actor and writer, 61, appeared on Friday night's Graham Norton Show to discuss Belfast, his semi-autobiographical movie, during which he regaled the tale of his family matriarch, who is played by Judi Dench (pictured as Granny with Jude Hill as Buddy)

Ahem! He explained that while he was playing St Francis of Assisi at the Greenwich Theatre in London in the early 1980s, one scene required him to be naked, and when his manhood was mocked by a heckler, his granny jumped to his defence (the star pictured in 2003)

'When someone at the back shouted, "I've seen more meat on a dirty fork"' my grandmother stood up, turned around and said to him, "Use the binoculars  it's like a hot dog!" she was always protecting me!'

While she is playing his grandmother in this movie, Judi and Kenneth have starred in a slew of roles opposite one another on both stage and screen.

In his 2017 All Is True, Kenneth played William Shakespeare and she played his wife Anne Hathaway, Murder On The Orient Express in the same year, while they also starred in 1989 TV drama Look Back in Anger among a host of other roles.

On working with Judi, he said: 'We have worked together 12 times now. We've practically done everything; we've been married, I've been her son, she's now my grandmother in this film  it's like the incest theatre company!..

Hard work: The Graham Norton Show, BBC One, Friday 21st January BBC One 10.35pm and available on BBC iPlayer

'I did a complete read through for her before she agreed to do the part and about halfway through, I got very emotional and got choked up. She held the pause while I composed myself and then said, "I would be delighted to do it".'

On creating the movie, he said: 'During lockdown everything became about re-establishing human connection...

'That sent me right back to my childhood at a very uncertain time in Northern Ireland and the need for human contact, for laughter and dance, and all the daftness we could grab at a dark time, and I tried to write it as truthfully as I could.'

The Graham Norton Show, BBC One, Friday 21st January BBC One 10.35pm and available on BBC iPlayer
Eddie Izzard showcased her eye-catching sense of style in a fuchsia pink coat and stiletto heeled boots as she headed out for a stroll in London's Chinatown on Friday.

The trans comedian, 59, appeared to be engrossed in the music playing from her AirPods as she embarked on the outing.

Eddie recently starred in the Netflix crime drama Stay Close opposite James Nesbitt, in the series based on Harlan Coben's bestselling crime novels.

Out and about: Eddie Izzard, 59, showcased her eye-catching sense of style in a fuchsia pink coat and stiletto heeled boots as she headed out for a stroll in London's Chinatown on Friday

Eddie wrapped up against the chilly weather in the pink coat, which she teamed with the high-heeled boots for the outing.

The star carried a simple black cross-body bag as she headed into the capital.

Last month, fans got a glimpse of Eddie's transformation into a town lawyer for Netflix's drama Stay Close, ahead of its release on New Year's Eve.

She stared down the camera as she posed in her office in a two-piece black suit and burgundy tie as she got into character for the eight-part series.

Low-key: The trans comedian appeared to be engrossed in the music playing from her AirPods as she embarked on the outing

New role: Eddie recently transformed into a town lawyer in a two-piece black suit and burgundy tie in Netflix's new crime drama Stay Close

She was joined on screen by James Nesbitt who plays a detective in the thrilling adaptation of Harlan Coben's bestselling crime novels.

Stay Close follows four key characters living comfortable lives that are keeping a troubling secret.

The crime drama promised to make viewers question how much you really know someone as they watch the turbulant plot.

When one of the group's old friend's tells them some shocking news, their lives are turned upside down as the events of their past come to haunt them.

Fighting his own demons, James' character is unable to forget a missing person whose case he was unable to solve.

Co-star: She is joined on screen by James Nesbitt who plays a detective in the thrilling adaptation of Harlan Coben's bestselling crime novels

Also gracing the screen for the thrilling drama were Sarah Parish and former EastEnders star Jo Joyner.

Elsewhere, Deadwater Fell star Cush Jumbo joined the stars as a struggling mother who is balancing caring for her children with work.

Meanwhile, leading man Richard Armitage starred as photographer Ray, who is stuck in a job that fails to satisfy him.

Netflix previously adapted Harlen Coben's novel The Stranger, which also starred Richard, and hoped to re-create the same explosive format.

Cast: Also gracing the screen for the thrilling drama is Sarah Parish and former EastEnders star Jo Joyner, (pictured)

Eddie's latest project came after she stated her gender is 'elastic' in an interview with Radio Times.

The media personality explained: 'I go in girl mode or boy mode, which I see as a superhero thing.'

While discussing the use of pronouns, the activist also insisted: 'It's no big deal' as she detailed in which circumstances she would be in different 'modes.'

Protagonist: Meanwhile, leading man Richard Armitage stars as photographer Ray, who is stuck in a job that fails to satisfy him

Eddie revealed she was a transvestite nearly four decades ago, before considering herself as trans.

Appearing on Sky's Portrait Artist of the Year last year, the writer was referred to as 'she' and 'her' and has now clarified that she is gender 'elastic.'

The A Day in the Death of Joe Egg star added: 'I go in girl mode or boy mode, which I see as a superhero thing.

'On that show [Sky's Portrait Artist of the Year], they asked what pronouns I preferred, and I said: "Well, I'm here in girl mode and if you're asking, she and her would be great."

'It's no big deal. It's elastic, not hard and fast. I'm still gender-fluid. I'm still performing male roles in dramas, in boring mode.

'But stand-up, activism and endurance running are all girl mode.'
He's the son of the Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger.

And Lucas Jagger, 22, proved that the apple doesn't fall to far from the tree as he looked every inch the rockstar at the Dior Homme Fall/Winter 2022/2023 show for Paris Fashion Week, on Friday.

The model rocked a suave all-black ensemble with a pop of red nail polish as he arrived at the event.

Suave: Mick Jagger's son Lucas, 22, channels his dad's edgy look with messy curled hair and an all-black ensemble at the Dior Homme Paris Fashion Week show

He donned a smart bomber jacket with silver metal ware and layered a lilac turtleneck underneath.

Lucas added a pair of straight legged trousers and glossy boots with white edge detailing.

His signature curly mop of brunette hair mirrored that of his rockstar dad's as she completed his look with a slick of red nail polish.

Smart: He donned a smart bomber jacket with silver metal ware and layered a lilac turtleneck underneath

Slick: Lucas added a pair of straight legged trousers and glossy boots with white edge detailing

Family image: He proved that the apple doesn't fall to far from the tree as he looked every inch the rockstar at the Dior Homme Fall/Winter 2022/2023 show

Love child: Lucas' mother is Brazilian model and TV host Luciana Gimenez Morad, whom Mick had an affair with behind then partner Jerry Hall's back, resulting in Lucas' famous birth in 1999

All smiles: The young model appear to be in his element as she turned up to watch the show

Busy: Lucas arrived in Paris earlier in the week to attend the Fall/Winter catwalks in the French capital

Lucas arrived in Paris earlier in the week to attend the Fall/Winter catwalks in the French capital.

He previously oozed confidence as he paired his navy suit with a Louis Vuitton turtleneck for the Louis Vuitton's Fall/Winter 2022 menswear show held at the Le Carreau Temple, on Thursday.

Lucas is the second youngest child of Rolling Stones frontman Mick, 77.

His mother is Brazilian model and TV host Luciana, 50, whom Mick had an affair with behind then partner Jerry Hall's back - resulting in Lucas' famous birth in 1999.

Out and about: He previously oozed confidence as he paired his navy suit with a Louis Vuitton turtleneck for the Louis Vuitton's Fall/Winter 2022 menswear show

Famous father: Lucas is the second youngest child of Rolling Stones frontman Mick, 77

Edgy: His signature curly mop of brunette hair mirrored that of his dad's as she completed his look with a slick of red nail polish

Luciana discovered that she was pregnant with Mick's child in 1998 after an eight-month affair, which resulted in Jerry and Mick's 22-year relationship breakdown.

In 1999 Luciana was described as 'the straw that broke the camels back' by Jerry during her split from Mick.

Luciana previously said of model Jerry: 'I don't know how she feels about me, but I understand that I probably hurt her.'

Mick, who's currently in a relationship with ballerina Melanie, 33, has seven other children from different relationships.

Upcoming: The model has been working on his own career as he fronted his first magazine in 2020
Johnny Depp has been cast as the controversial French King Louis XV, his first major film role since being cancelled following accusations he abused his ex-wife Amber Heard.

The film will be directed by French filmmaker Maiwenn and is set to begin filming this summer, according to Variety.

Depp, 58, has been embroiled in controversy ever since he was accused of domestic violence by Heard. The actor was fired from the latest Fantastic Beasts film after losing his defamation suit against The Sun, which he had sued for referring to him as a 'wife-beater' in regards to his relationship with Heard.

Johnny Depp is set to play the controversial French King Louis XV, his first major film role since being cancelled following accusations he abused his ex-wife Amber Heard; Depp pictured L in 2021

The last time Depp appeared on big screens was in the 2020 film Minamata, which saw him play photojournalist W. Eugene Smith. He is currently filming the animated mini series Puffins.

No details about the plot of Depp's newest film are known, however director Maiwenn will be playing the monarch's last mistress, Jeanne du Barry, according to Variety.

The movie is set to be filmed over the course of three months at various landmarks in Paris, with most being shot at Versailles Palace.

Depp, who resided in France for many years with his now ex-partner Vanessa Paradis, will have to work on his French in the likely event the film is shot in that language. Variety notes his American accent is noticeable.

Depp, 58, has been embroiled in controversy ever since being accused of domestic violence by Heard, and was fired from the latest Fantastic Beasts film after losing his defamation suit against The Sun, which the actor had sued for referring to him as a 'wife-beater' in regards to his relationship with Heard; pictured 2016

Louis XV reigned for 59 years, the second longest reigning French monarch in history.

He gained popularity among his constituents during the War Of Austrian Succession, where he 'took to the battlefield himself and seemed to take charge of the country's leadership,' according to Biography.com.

He was nicknamed by his constituents 'Le Bien-Aime' or 'The Well-Loved' after recovering from an illness in 1744.

But he was unpopular at the time of his death in May 10, 1774, after being accused of debauchery and corruption, according to Variety.

New role: Depp will be playing the second longest reigning French monarch in history in his new film

Depp has been enshrouded in controversy after being accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife Heard.

In July 2020 he lost a high-profile case at the High Court in London, after The Sun newspaper described him as a 'wife beater' and he sued. Heard filed for divorce in 2016, accusing him of verbal and physical abuse, and she testified in London.

Depp lost his lucrative role in the Fantastic Beasts franchise in the aftermath of the case and was ultimately replaced by Mads Mikkelsen.

However last year Depp won the right to proceed with a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in the U.S.

In July 2020 he lost a high-profile case at the High Court in London, after The Sun newspaper described him as a 'wife beater' and he sued. Heard filed for divorce in 2016, accusing him of verbal and physical abuse, and she testified in London

Back in September Depp claimed he had become a victim of cancel culture, warning that 'no one is safe' and urging those affected to 'stand up' for themselves.

Speaking in the Spanish city of San Sebastian, before accepting an honorary award at the film festival, Depp said the situation had become 'so out of hand.'

Depp told the audience in Spain that he saw himself as a victim, and was concerned about the wider implications for society.

Ahead of taking to the stage to accept his award, Depp offered his thoughts on cancel culture, and called on people to 'stand up' for those facing 'injustice.'

Back in September Depp claimed he had become a victim of cancel culture, warning that 'no one is safe' and urging those affected to 'stand up' for themselves; pictured 2020

'It can be seen as an event in history that lasted for however long it lasted, this cancel culture, this instant rush to judgement based on what essentially amounts to polluted air,' he said, according to Deadline.

'It's so far out of hand now that I can promise you that no one is safe. Not one of you. No one out that door. No one is safe.

'It takes one sentence and there's no more ground, the carpet has been pulled.'

Depp said that his concern was not just for himself.

'It's not just me that this has happened to, it's happened to a lot of people,' he said.

'This type of thing has happened to women, men.'

Depp lost his lucrative role in the Fantastic Beasts franchise in the aftermath of the case and was ultimately replaced by Mads Mikkelsen; pictured in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

He said: 'It doesn't matter if a judgement, per se, has taken some artistic license.

'When there's an injustice, whether it's against you or someone you love, or someone you believe in  stand up, don't sit down. Cause they need you.'

Depp was reported by Deadline to be happy to answer questions about the recent state of his career, amid his ongoing lawsuit against Heard.

But when a reporter asked about Spain's Association of Female Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media, which released a statement saying the award 'transmits a terrible message to the public', a festival organizer stepped in and prevented him replying, insisting he would only speak about his career.

Depp later said that he was 'worried' that his presence at the festival would 'offend people,' and insisted he 'didn't want to offend anyone.'

He praised the event, its director Jose Luis Rebordinos, and the mayor of San Sebastian for their 'undying support'.

He thanked them for 'not buying what has been, for far too long, some notion of me that doesn't exist'.

However last year Depp won the right to proceed with a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in the U.S.

Depp added: 'I haven't done anything, I just make movies.'

Depp said that he was dismayed by the current state of the film industry, in particular how streaming had taken off.

He said many people - him included - realized they were disposable.

'Hollywood is certainly not what it was,' he responded.

'The studio system, the grudge matches, the pandemonium and chaos of cinematic releases to streaming it is a case of, 'no matter what, I'm going to get mine'.

'That's where these people are coming from.

'They realize they're just a disposable as I am. Some more so.

'Large, large corporations take control of these things. As someone who takes part in the creation of cinema, how much more formula do we need from the likes of studios? How much more condescension do we need as audiences?

'I think that Hollywood has grotesquely underestimated the audience.'

Depp was asked about the future of his Pirates of the Caribbean role of Captain Jack Sparrow, and said that the character would never leave him, and that no one could ever take the character away from him.

He then delighted the crowd with an impromptu Captain Jack impression, Deadline reported.

His appearance in Spain came a month after he was cleared by a court to proceed with the $50 million defamation suit against Heard.

In August, a Virginia judge ruled that he can proceed with the litigation, based on a 2018 Washington Post op-ed she wrote saying she was a domestic violence survivor.

She did not mention Depp in the story, though she publicly accused him of abusing her in their 2016 split.
The eternal flame at the Amar Jawan Jyoti War Memorial in Indias capital Delhi, has been merged with the flame at The National War Memorial. This National War Memorial will now serve as the ultimate memorial for all martyrs of the armed forces as it will continue the legacy of all martyred Indian soldiers.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE:

THE HISTORY BEHIND TWO MEMORIALS

Delhi had two flame memorials dedicated to the martyrs of the armed forces one is the Amar Jawan Jyoti, which has been burning for more than five decades and the other is the National War Memorial, which was inaugurated in 2019.

Amar Jawan Jyoti isNational war memorial and the Pride OF COUNTRY at India gate it's GOING TO flames ? out  #AmarJawanJyoti pic.twitter.com/ECFrW9rUxE  Er,UTTAM CHAND MIG FIGHTER (@UTTAMCHANDYKT) January 21, 2022

The Amar Jawan Jyoti was created in 1972, to mark Indias victory over Pakistan in the 1971 War, which also created Bangladesh. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had inaugurated it on the Republic Day in 1972. The flame at the Amar Jawan Jyoti was beneath the India Gate in Delhi and was an iconic symbol for the nation. It reflected the nation's tribute to the soldiers who died for the country in countless wars and conflicts. You might remember seeing the Amar Jawan Jyoti visuals at the start of every Republic day and Independence day live TV coverage.

The flame of Amar Jawan Jyoti was established to pay tributes to the soldiers who had died in the 1971 war. It was inaugurated by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on Republic Day 1972.#NationalWarMemorial #AmarJawanJyoti #RepublicDay#IndiaGate " " pic.twitter.com/LwKWYY6Rx8  Prabhakar Acharya (@Prabhak41657341) January 21, 2022

The National War Memorial was inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi in 2019 and was built to commemorate ALL soldiers who have laid down their lives in the various battles, wars, operations at a national level for Independent India.

WHY WAS IT UNDER INDIA GATE?

The India Gate was built by the British in 1921 as a memorial for around 90,000 Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army, who had died in several wars and campaigns. As it was a memorial for the Indian soldiers killed in wars, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was established underneath it by the government in 1972.

WHY & HOW WAS IT THE ETERNAL FLAME?

The Amar Jawan Jyoti was made of a black marble plinth, and a cenotaph, which acted as a tomb of the unknown soldier. The plinth had an inverted self-loading rifle with a bayonet, on top of which was a soldiers war helmet. The installation had four urns with four burners on it. On normal days one of the four burners were kept alive, but on important days all four burners were lit which is why it was called the eternal flame. The flame that was never allowed to be extinguished was kept alive with the help of cylinders of liquified petroleum gas (LPG) till 2006, after which the LPG was changed to Piped Natural Gas (PNG).

The Eternal Flame. Photo:Twitter

For 50 years, the flame had been burning beneath the India Gate, but was merged with another eternal flame at the National War Memorial on 21st Jan 22.

WHY ARE THE TWO MERGING

As per the government, the flame is not extinguished but moved to be merged with the one at the National War Memorial. As the National War Memorial houses all the names of all Indian martyrs (including those from the 1971 war and the other wars before and after 1971) , this is the place where a proper tribute is possible. Also political leaders, foreign dignitaries and military leaders have been paying their respects at the National War Memorial instead of the Amar Jawan Jyoti since 2019. Thus the two flames were merged to be one. This brings all attention to the National War Memorial. The India Gate, The War Memorial and Amar Jawan Jyoti are also a part of government's redevelopment of the entire Central Vista.

WHAT NEXT?

When this year's Republic Day coverage is broadcasted live, for the first time ever, the country will miss seeing the Amar Jawan Jyoti visuals on TV. But soon, the country will witness the statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at India Gate. Till the actual statue is installed, a hologram will be projected at the site.

Great news!Honable PM Modiji has ordered the creation of a 28 feet tall statue of Netaji under the canopy where king George V s Statue.Netaji statue on Raj Path behind India Gate and in front of the national war memorial Finally MAINSTREAMS Netaji.We Graetefully thankPM Modiji pic.twitter.com/2bV71EKQ9g  Maj Gen (Dr)GD Bakshi SM,VSM(retd) (@GeneralBakshi) January 21, 2022

What do you think of this merging of two flames?
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Though the traffic authorities generated an online chargesheet for violating the traffic norms, the authorities are yet to clear the pending challans. (Representational image: DC)

Hyderabad: Rash driving, wrong side driving and crossing zebra lines have become common for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) bureaucrats and officials. Most of the top brass in the corporation have an average pending challans of Rs.10,000 over at least 10 violations. Though the traffic authorities generated an online chargesheet for violating the traffic norms, the authorities are yet to clear the pending challans.

While the municipal administration and urban development minister cleared the pending fines after two Hyderabad traffic policemen issued challans as the minister's vehicle was going in the wrong direction on October 2. The bureaucrats working in the civic body are allegedly tarnishing the department's image.

The vehicle bearing registration number TS 09 FA 9295 used by the enforcement, vigilance and disaster management (EVDM) director and additional commissioner Vishwajit Kampati has 14 pending challans amounting to Rs.13,790. Of them, 10 are for over-speeding and dangerous driving, two for wrong side driving and crossing the stop line or zebra crossing. Another additional commissioner Vijaya Lakshmi's vehicle bearing registration number TS 09 FA 9746 has 20 challans amounting to Rs 16,300, of them 16 are for over-speeding or dangerous driving. Sanitation additional commissioner Badavath Santosh who uses a vehicle bearing registration number TS 09 FA 9291 has 14 pending challans to the tune of Rs 7290. Surprisingly, most of his traffic violations took place outside the GHMC limits.

Similarly, the GHMC vehicles bearing registration numbers AP 11 AA 8190 has 35 pending challans to the tune of Rs. 9890, vehicle number 29 DC 9763 has penal amount of Rs. 9,770 with 22 pending challans, vehicle number AP 11 AA 8283 has 18 pending challans to the tune of Rs. 3,100 and vehicle number AP 11 AA 8188 has 15 pending challans amounting to Rs. 2,4250.

Though legal notices were sent to these registration numbers, the official did not care a hoot.

Highly placed sources in the corporation said these bureaucrats had been using the vehicles according to their will and moving out of town even during the lockdown time wasting time and money. However, the MA&UD minister K. T. Rama Rao cleared the pending challans after two Hyderabad traffic policemen issued them as the minister's vehicle was going in the wrong direction on October 2.

He was penalised for Rs.1100 for wrong side driving. The policemen noticed Rama Raos vehicle being driven in the wrong direction near Bapu Ghat under the limits of the Langar Houz police station. This happened when the minister was about to leave Bapu Ghat after paying tributes to Mahatma Gandhi along with Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya and home minister Muhammed Mahmood Ali. As the road was blocked due to the movement of the Governors' convoy, the driver of Rama Raos vehicle took the wrong route to reach Bapu Ghat. The policemen stopped the vehicle and this reportedly led to an argument between them and some Telangana Rashtra Samiti leaders and party workers. Some police officers reportedly clarified that cops who stopped the vehicle did not know that it belonged to the minister.

When tried to reach the GHMC officials, they were unavailable for comment.
The ceremony would be presided over by the Integrated Defence Staff chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna who would merge the two flames, officials said. (ANI Photo)

New Delhi: Several political leaders including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi have questioned the Central Government's intent in shutting the Eternal Flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate in the national capital and instead of putting a permanent one at the National War Memorial.

The Government sources on Friday said that a lot of misinformation is being spread with regards to the same and it clarified that the flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti is not being extinguished. It is being merged with the flame at the National War Memorial, the sources said.

It said that the flame at Amar jawan Jyoti paid tributes to the martyrs of 1971 and other wars however none of the names who made that supreme sacrifice for the country were present there.

"It was an odd thing to see that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid homage to the martyrs of the 1971 and other war heroes but none of their names are present there but now the names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial. This would be a true tribute to our fallen heroes," the sources added.

The Central Government lashed out at the Congress party which was in power for close to 7 decades, however, did not even think of making the iconic National War Memorial (NWM), something that present-day Prime Minister Narendra Modi did in his very first term in office in January 2019. NWM was inaugurated in February 2019.

Earlier, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had slammed the Central Government over its decision to extinguish the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate.

Taking to Twitter, the Congress MP said, "It is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame that used to burn for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today. Some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice - never mind. We will once again light the Amar Jawan Jyoti for our soldiers."

The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at the India Gate would be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial today.

"The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at India Gate will be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday in a ceremony," said an Indian Army official to ANI on Thursday.

The ceremony would be presided over by the Integrated Defence Staff chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna who would merge the two flames, officials said.

The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914-1921.

However, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was included in the memorial structure in the 1970s after the massive victory of India over Pakistan in which 93,000 troops of the enemy country surrendered.

After a long wait and multiple considerations, the National War Memorial was built in the India Gate complex by the Narendra Modi government and was inaugurated in 2019.

After the inauguration of the building in War memorial, all military ceremonial events were shifted to it from the India Gate memorial.

The National War Memorial has the names of all the Indian defence personnel who have lost their lives in different operations from the 1947-48 war with Pakistan to the Galwan valley clash with Chinese troops.

The names of troops who lost lives in the counter-terrorist operations are also included on the walls of the memorial.
The state government has sanctioned Rs 250 crore for the construction of one rail overbridge (ROB) each in four districts. (Representational Photo:DC)

Hyderabad: The state government has sanctioned Rs 250 crore for the construction of one rail overbridge (ROB) each in four districts. Of the total project cost of Rs 404 crore, Indian Railways will bear Rs 154 crore.

The finance department on Friday issued orders to this effect following the directions of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao.

The four ROBs will be constructed at Chatanpally, Shadnagar at a cost of Rs 95 crore, Adilabad market yard Rs 97.20 crore, Peddapalli town Rs 119.50 crore and Madhavanagar, Nizamabad, Rs 93.12 crore. This will bring respite to the locals, who are facing problems following the frequent closure of railway gates.

Moreover, the demand for ROBs to ease the problems has been long-pending. However, works could not be grounded due to delay in release of funds. Minister for roads and buildings Vemula Prashanth Reddy took the issue to the notice of Rao, who instructed the finance department to release funds to four ROBs in one go.

There are nearly 450 rail crossings in Telangana. Of them, the state government has decided to take up the construction of 52 ROBs in the first phase at an overall cost of Rs 2,700 crore.
Agricultural products with geographical indications win favor with Chinese consumers

09:09, January 21, 2022 By Yang Xiangyu ( People's Daily

Boasting high quality, high brand awareness, and good reputation, agricultural products with geographical indications (GIs) ride the wave of consumption upgrading in China and satisfy the needs of Chinese consumers who desire a high-quality life.

Photo shows volunteers helping orange farmers harvest Nanfeng mandarin orange, a local specialty and national geographical indication product, in an orange orchard in Baofang village, Shishan township, Nanfeng county, Fuzhou city, east Chinas Jiangxi province, Nov. 11, 2021. (Peoples Daily Online/Yuan Zhi)

Cao Junzhe, a resident in Fengtai district of Beijing, has bought Nanfeng mandarin orange, a local specialty and national GI product of Nanfeng county, Fuzhou city, east Chinas Jiangxi province, many times. Besides enjoying it himself, he also sent the fruit to his parents who live in another city.

Although the prices of GI products are higher than those of ordinary agricultural products, he thinks they are worth buying, according to Cao, who said he has always preferred GI agricultural products since he realized the unique advantages of such products.

In fact, GI products in China, such as Zhangqiu green onion, Yantai apple, Anji white tea, and Nanfeng mandarin orange, have become the choices for many consumers in China today.

The name of a GI product is often the combination of the name of the region where the product is produced and the common name of the product. The names of GI products indicate their places of origin and superior quality.

Photo taken on Sept. 11, 2021 shows livestreamers promoting fragrant pears from Bayingolin Mongolian autonomous prefecture, northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Fragrant pear is a local specialty of Korla city, Bayingolin Mongolian autonomous prefecture, and a national geographical indication product in China. (Peoples Daily Online/Xu Xinghan)

In recent years, China has continuously enhanced the protection of GI agricultural products. Data showed that since the country implemented programs to protect GI agricultural products, more than 3,000 kinds of GI agricultural products have been cultivated and registered across the country.

These products have been accepted and recognized by more and more consumers and have relatively stable consumer groups in the market.

GI products are the part of characteristic agriculture that has the most brand value and represent the direction in which agricultural products can develop toward the goal of becoming high-end goods, said Li Xuelin, head of Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The rapid development of e-commerce in Chinas rural areas has created a broader market space for GI agricultural products.

Data from Chinas Ministry of Commerce (MOC) revealed that the online retail sales in rural areas of China hit 1.79 trillion yuan (about $282 billion) in 2020, which was 5.1 times that in 2015 and signaled a growth rate far higher than that of the countrys e-commerce on the whole.

A fruit grower displays harvested apples in an orchard in Daxindian township, Yantai city, east Chinas Shandong province, Oct. 19, 2021. (Peoples Daily Online/Yu Liangyi)

In 2020, Chinas online retail sales of agricultural products reached 415.89 billion yuan, accounting for 10 percent of the countrys total retail sales of agricultural products.

E-commerce in rural areas has smoothened the sales channels for GI agricultural products, shortened the buyer decision process, and improved the popularity of such products.

GI agricultural products are not only goods, but also drivers of the development of regional industrial chain. Inspired by the development model of GI agricultural products, many regions in China have created the model of GI + cultural tourism, aiming to promote the integration and complementarity of GI, cultural and creative industries, as well as other related industries.

Meizhou city in south Chinas Guangdong province, Qingchuan county in Guangyuan city of southwest Chinas Sichuan province, and Chishui city in southwest Chinas Guizhou province have deeply integrated GI agricultural products into rural tourism. By boosting the business of B&Bs, rolling out tourism products, building agricultural brands, and developing characteristic agriculture and leisure agriculture, they ensure tourists not only enjoy delicious food but also have fun.

Tea farmers pluck tea leaves on a farm of Anji white tea in Huzhou city, east Chinas Zhejiang province, March 22, 2021. Anji white tea is a local specialty of Anji county in Huzhou city and a national geographical indication product in China. (Peoples Daily Online/Pan Xuekang)

The advantages of GI agricultural products, namely unique resources and cultural appeal, have stimulated the vitality of rural development.

Experts believe that besides fruits and vegetables, the range of GI agricultural products will be further expanded to various links of the entire industrial chain, including highly processed products.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
AP JAC Amaravati leader Bopparaju Venkateswarlu (second from right) addressing the media conference at NGO home in Vijayawada on Thursday. (DC photo)

VIJAYAWADA: The government employees, adhering to their demand for better PRC and benefits, decided on Friday to give a strike notice to the AP government on January 24 and start the strike from February 7.

The AP government employees association, the AP secretariat employees association, the APJAC and the APJAC Amaravati joined hands under the umbrella of a PRC Sadhana Samithi and held a meeting.

The leaders announced their action plan from January 23.

AP government employees association president KR Suryanarayana, APJAC Amaravati president Bopparaju Venkateswarlu, APJAC and APNGOs association president Bandi Srinivas and AP secretariat employees association president Venkatrami Reddy addressed a press meet.

We have formed PRC Sadhana Samithi to conduct phase-wise protests and agitations. We have submitted a combined memorandum to chief secretary Sameer Sharma and explained to his about the losses the employees would incur through 11th PRC and other government decisions."

The leaders said they would give strike notice to the CS on January 24. Round table meetings will be held on January 23, while rallies and dharnas on January 25. We will submit petitions to Ambedkar statues in all taluk centres on January 26 and hold relay hunger strikes at district centres from May 27 to 30."

We will carry out our protests and agitations in a peaceful manner, the leaders said.

The leaders said that they have asked the government to continue giving old salaries by stopping the implementation of the 11th PRC. We have formed a steering committee with 12 leaders for the PRC Sadhana Samithi. We object to the proposal for our continuation of consultations with higher officials and instead seek consultations directly with the CM to resolve the issues.

They urged the government to stop all GOs issued for the implementation of decisions that are harmful to the government employees with immediate effect, consider the Asuthosh Misra committee report and revise pay scales according to old PRC.

We are seeking a direct meeting with CM Jagan and if this does not happen, we will launch a strike on February 7, they said.
The surge is so sharp now, as the continents share in global numbers going from eight per cent to 18 per cent in the last four weeks. (Representational Image/ PTI)

The good news as India enters the third wave of the pandemic Covid-19 is that hospitalisation and the number of deaths have been significantly lower when compared with the second. Director-general of Indian Council for Medical Research Balram Bhargava attributes this to high vaccination uptake.

The bad news, however, is that the virus sweep continues across the nation and abroad. India reported more than three lakh new cases on Thursday, the first time in the third wave, and close to 500 deaths. The Union government has marked 10 states  Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Delhi and Rajasthan as states of concern. Delhi, for a change, looks like having gone past the peak, according to its health minister.

The global scene is no better, but what causes concern is that Asia has been caught in this wave more than the last time. The surge is so sharp now, as the continents share in global numbers going from eight per cent to 18 per cent in the last four weeks.

India as of now has fully vaccinated 72 per cent of its eligible population. This feat has helped India avoid a situation where its healthcare infrastructure is overwhelmed. It may be remembered that the government played hide-and-seek with the vaccination programme in-between, and handed over the responsibility to the state governments. Its a determined stand taken by the Supreme Court that brought the Union government back in action. Now it has paid dividends. The government may well speed up the vaccination programme further to protect its people. The Prime Minister has called for a house-to-house vaccination campaign. This must now be taken up on a war-footing.

The government may consider favourably the recommendation of the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on Covid-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO granting regular market approval to Covid-19 vaccines Covishield and Covaxin, which are now authorised only for emergency use in India. It could result in the vaccine becoming available freely in the market which could help the vaccination programme, especially that of the booster dose.

The government has told the Supreme Court earlier this week it has no plans to make vaccination mandatory for anyone in the country. It is a fair stance when it comes to the larger picture but a public emergency may force governments hands, which could result in the curtailment of certain fundamental rights. An unvaccinated person carries a larger risk of contracting the infection and spreading it. In the bargain, the governments who battle the virus on the ground may be forced to come up with measures that will restrict access of unvaccinated people to public places. The Assam government has already introduced such a measure, banning such people in places except hospitals. More states will be forced to take this route as a section of people, very well educated included, refuse to go for the jab for reasons best known to themselves. They have the freedom to refuse the vaccine but the government has the responsibility to protect public health. Governments will be justified in plumbing for every possible way for vaccinating people as it has proved to be the best insurance against hospitalisation and death due to the pandemic.
The Congress sought the Election Commission's (EC) intervention on Thursday on the ED raids on a relative of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and alleged that the action was politically motivated to malign and defame the chief minister and the party-led state government.
Airbus has cancelled an order of 50 A321neo aircraft from Qatar Airways, the company said Friday, in an escalating dispute over Doha grounding the plane maker's bigger A350.

"We confirm that we have terminated the contract for 50 A321s with Qatar Airways, in accordance with our rights," an Airbus spokesman told AFP following a Bloomberg report on the decision.

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Amazon has written to the independent directors of Future Retail Ltd (FRL) saying any sale of small-format stores by the company without the consent of the US e-commerce giant would be in violation of injunctions and reiterated its willingness to assist the cash-strapped retailer in addressing financial concerns.

In its latest letter on January 19, 2022, Amazon said it has become aware from certain media sources that FRL is proposing to sell its small-format stores, comprising the 'Easyday' and 'Heritage Fresh' brands.

"Please note that any sale of small-format stores without obtaining the consent of Amazon would be in violation of the injunctions which continue to operate and are binding on FRL and directors of FRL, including the independent directors of FRL," the letter, a copy of which was seen by PTI, said.

Amazon emphasised that it is "more than willing" to explore effective solutions to assist FRL.

"Amazon reiterates that FRL is bound by valid and subsisting injunctions issued by the Arbitral Tribunal, and enforced by Indian Courts. Amongst others, FRL is prohibited from directly or indirectly taking any steps to transfer/dispose/alienate/encumber FRL's Retail Assets without Amazon's consent," it said.

Amazon and FRL did not respond to queries seeking comments.

Future and Amazon have been locked in a bitter legal tussle after the US e-commerce giant dragged Future Group to arbitration at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) in October 2020, arguing that FRL had violated their contract by entering into a deal for the sale of its assets to billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail on a slump sale basis for Rs 24,713 crore.

Earlier this month, FRL had said it had missed the due date for payment of Rs 3,494.56 crore to banks and lenders as it could not sell assets due to its ongoing litigation with Amazon, impacting its monetisation plans.

Notably, in December, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) had suspended the 2019 approval for Amazon's deal to acquire a 49 per cent stake in Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL), FRL's promoter and also slapped a penalty of Rs 202 crore on the e-commerce major.

The CCI order has been challenged by Amazon before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), which has issued notice to the fair trade regulator and FCPL.

The NCLAT has directed the matter to be listed on February 2 for the next hearing.

In the past too, Amazon has written to the independent directors of FRL on the ongoing issue on a number of occasions.

Amazon, in the latest letter, said it has consistently emphasised its willingness to assist FRL before the Arbitral Tribunal and Indian Courts.

"We reiterate our willingness and ability to assist FRL in addressing any financial concerns of FRL, within the framework of the agreements, including the solution proposed in the term sheet between Samara Capital, and FRL, which contemplated an infusion of Rs 7,000 crore in FRL," it added.

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With the Centre is aggressively pushing to improve infrastructure, the budgetary allocation for the highways sector is likely to be enhanced by 35 per cent to Rs 1.8 lakh crore for fiscal 2022-23 in the coming Union Budget.

By making a higher budgetary allocation, the Road Transport and Highway Ministry is hoping to build 50 km of highways per day against the present pace of 37 km per day, said an official in the Ministry.

The Centre is also hoping to boost the capital expenditure by allocating more funds to the road sector. Through this, the government aims to generate more jobs and create demand for steel and cement which was severely hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The revised estimate for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways allocation in the current fiscal will be Rs 1.35 lakh crore.

Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari had recently announced that he was aiming to build 60,000 km of world-class highways across the nation by 2024. In the coming fiscal, the Ministry plans to expedite the construction of the Mumbai-Delhi and Bengaluru-Chennai expressways.

The highway network has grown from 91,287 km in April 2014 to 141,000 km at present since the NDA government came to power.

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Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Friday said that he agrees to the view expressed by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) that the Congress should be held responsible if the BJP wins the next month's Goa Assembly elections and continues to occupy power in the state.

He said that although the Sena had presented a proposal to the Congress to form a pre-poll alliance along with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Goa Forward Party (GFP), the grand old party did not respond to its plan.

Raut was talking to reporters after announcing the party's first list of nine candidates for the February 14 assembly elections, which it will be jointly contesting with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP. Goa has a total of 40 assembly seats.

TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee had on Thursday said that if the Congress fails to dislodge the BJP from power in Goa, the Congress' state in-charge P Chidambaram should take the responsibility and resign. He said the TMC had approached Chidambaram with a formal offer for pre-poll alliance, but nothing happened in that direction.

"I agree with the comments of Abhishek Banerjee. We had also tried to hold talks with Congress. We had held a meeting with (Congress leaders) Dinesh Gundu Rao, Digambar Kamat and Girish Chodankar with the proposal that Congress, NCP, GFP and Sena should form an alliance," he said.

Raut, however, said that Chidambaram should not be held responsible as he was only executing the decisions taken by his party's high command. "Shiv Sena had presented the proposal before Congress as per which the Sonia Gandhi-led party would contest 30 seats, while the rest of the 10 seats could be distributed amongst the alliance partners, including NCP, Sena and GFP.

These are the 10 seats in Goa, where Congress has never won," he said. But the Congress did not respond to that proposal, he said, adding that the party should introspect.

The Sena's list of first nine candidates includes its state unit chief Jitesh Kamat, who will contest from Mapusa constituency.

"Our party has a clean image. It will create a history in Goa in this election," the Sena's Rajya Sabha member said. The Sena will create an "unblemished" history as it will not offer tickets to any tainted persons like land mafia or terrorists, he said.

Another prominent candidate of the Sena is Shailendra Velingkar, son of former Goa RSS chief Subhash Velingkar, who will fight from the Panaji assembly constituency.

Raut said that his party was ready to support Utpal Parrikar, son of former Goa chief minister late Manohar Parrikar, if he contests as an independent. Utpal Parrikar was denied a ticket by the BJP from the Panaji seat, although he had expressed a desire to contest as its candidate from that constituency. "If we support Utpal, we will also take an assurance from him that he would not support the BJP if it is voted to power," he said.

The electoral battle for Goa has become multi-cornered with the entry of Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and aggressive campaigning by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). So far, poll tie-ups were forged between the regional Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and TMC, and between the Congress and the GFP.

In the 2017 elections, the Congress had emerged as the single-largest party in Goa by winning 17 seats in the 40-member House, but could not come to power as the BJP, which bagged 13, allied with some independents and regional parties to form the government.

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Former Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh said that he regretted having helped Charanjit Singh Channi, the incumbent CM, resolve the '#MeToo' complaint against him, saying that the then minister had fallen on his feet and pledged loyalty to him for life.

"Now he has changed colours and is claiming he had been trying to get rid of me for the past two years!" Capt said.

Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) supremo Captain Amarinder Singh also castigated Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi saying his government had clearly stage-managed the blockade that had led to the serious security lapse on the Prime Ministers route.

Also Read | Hung assembly may whip up a curious post-poll scenario in Punjab

Amarinder said that he had earlier passed the bridge, where the Prime Minister had been stuck for a long duration, and there was no blockade there. "Clearly, the Channi government

had instructed the police not to remove the farmers who were stopping BJP buses from reaching the spot".

Describing the incident as a major security lapse and a threat to the Prime Ministers life given the proximity to the international border, the former chief minister said instead of taking a defiant stand, Channi should have issued an unequivocal apology. "We are a sensitive border state and Pak ISI is always looking to create trouble here," he said.

Dubbing Channi as an unreliable and untrustworthy person who had made transfers and postings an industry in Punjab in the past three months, Amarinder said the incumbent government had been exposed as a 'suitcase di sarkar' after the recent ED raids that had unearthed crores of rupees from the chief ministers kin.

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Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi on Friday launched Uttar Pradesh's Youth Manifesto at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in Delhi.

Priyanka said that if the Congress comes to power they will create a job calender for youths that will have details about exams and interviews. "The biggest problem in UP is that of recruitment, youths are disappointed. We have given a vision of how their problems will be solved," Priyanka added.

A single-window scholarship portal will also be launched to improve transparency and smoothen the process, Priyanka said, adding that the party will aslo upgrade libraries and other infrastructure in higher education institutions, provide free WiFi and safe hostels.

"We will try to stop the scams related to reservation, qualification exams. The UP government has cut down on education spending, as well. We will increase spending again if elected to power," Priyanka Gandhi said.

Rahul Gandhi said that the Congress consulted youth of Uttar Pradesh and their views are reflected in party's youth manifesto. He further said that these were "not empty words".

"Youth in Uttar Pradesh need a new vision, only Congress can give that vision to the state," Rahul said.

More to follow...

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In an unexpected turn of events, Subhavati Shukla, wife of late Upendra Dutt Shukla, who was BJP's state vice-president, quietly joined the Samajwadi Party on Thursday evening.

Sources said that she was likely to be pitted against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur, to win the support of Brahmins.

Subhavati Devi's husband Upendra Dutt Shukla, a well-known Brahmin face, had lost the by-election in Gorakhpur in 2018 on the seat vacated by Yogi Adityanath. Pravin Nishad of Samajwadi Party had won the bypoll.

The buzz was that he lost because of his strained relations with Yogi Adityanath and this heightened the thakur-Brahmin tension in the area.

Shukla passed away in May 2020.

Also Read | Uttar Pradesh polls: Rahul, Priyanka to release youth manifesto on January 21

The Gorakhpur seat, despite being a saffron party stronghold, has already made headlines after Azad Samaj Party (ASP) founder and Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar Azad was finalised to contest against incumbent Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

While the election on this seat is not likely to spring any surprises, the choice of candidate could increase the Thakur-Brahmin divide that has been the hallmark of Purvanchal politics.

Interestingly, it is said that Vinay Tiwari, son of Hari Shankar Tiwari was instrumental in convincing Subhavati Devi to join SP and contest against Yogi Adityanath. The rivalry between Yogi Adityanath and the Tiwari family is well known in the region.

The Gorakhpur seat will vote in the sixth phase on March 3.

Gorakhpur is the political capital of Purvanchal which accounts for 160 Assembly seats.

In 2017, the BJP won 115 out of those 160 seats, the Samajwadi Party 17, the Bahujan Samaj Party 14 and the Congress two and other parties/ independents 12.

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Congress on Friday opened its door for a post-poll Opposition coalition if such a scenario arises in Uttar Pradesh but with a condition that its agenda on youth and women should be fulfilled even as Priyanka Gandhi virtually projected herself as the party's face for the Assembly elections.

The party position was articulated by General Secretary and UP in-charge Priyanka after she released the Youth Manifesto for the state polls along with top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The manifesto spoke about providing 20 lakh jobs with eight lakh reserved for women, streamlining the recruitment system and filling vacancies among others.

To a question on who will be the CM face of Congress in Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka shot back a question, "do you see any other face in UP from the Congress's side? Then?" Asked again, she said, you are seeing my face everywhere, isn't it?"

Both Rahul and Priyanka targeted the BJP regime for the problems of the youth at the press conference and said only Congress could provide a vision to people in the state as well as the country.

Also Read | In Youth Manifesto, Congress vows to crack UP's unemployment problem

"The vision given by Narendra Modi in 2014 has failed. The vision proposed by the BJP has completely failed, it is a disaster. It is turning our demographic dividend into a demographic disaster. BJP's vision is not the country's vision...We don't spread hatred. We are for uniting people," Rahul said, adding demonetisation, faulty GST and actions during the Covid-19 has led to 16 lakh job loss in Uttar Pradesh alone.

"Even people in BJP will agree something has gone very wrong. If you're proposing a new vision you have to start from afresh. Every state is important but UP weighs down on all," he said.

Priyanka was asked whether Congress would consider supporting other Opposition parties to fulfil its agenda if such a situation arose.

"The question is whether we will be part of a government post-poll or whether we will support. My answer to this question is that if such circumstances arise, and in the event that they do, we are open to considering that. I would say that if such a situation arises, then we would certainly want our agenda for youth and women to be fulfilled, if we were part of any such dispensation," she said.

Congress is going alone in the UP polls and its focus is on women and youth. It has already announced that it would give 40% seats to women while launching a campaign 'Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakti Hoon' (I am girl, I can fight).

Targeting the Yogi Adityanath-led UP government, he said UP and India needed a new vision and only Congress can give it.

Asked about why more women candidates are not being given candidature in other states like in UP, Rahul said the Congress does not impose its diktat from the top. "We do not impose from the top. That is not Congress style," he said.

He said the thought behind the 'Youth Manifesto' was that Congress has a strategy for the youth. "It is not hollow words...We want to use the energy of youth to make a better Uttar Pradesh," he said.

Priyanka said the biggest problem in UP is irregularities in job recruitment and the youth are disappointed.

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Four Indians, including a baby and a teen, died in a freezing blizzard at a border town in Canada while illegally crossing over to the United States.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar asked Indias diplomatic and consular missions in Canada and the United States to respond to the situation after reports reached New Delhi that the mortal remains of four Indians  a man, a woman, a baby and a teen-aged boy  were found at Emerson, a border village in Manitoba in Canada. The bodies were found just about 9-12 metres away from the Canada-US border.

Shocked by the report that 4 (four) Indian nationals, including an infant, have lost their lives at the Canada-US border. Have asked our Ambassadors in the US and Canada to urgently respond to the situation, Jaishankar posted on Twitter on Friday.

This is a grave tragedy, Ajay Bisaria, New Delhis envoy to Ottawa, tweeted. Indias ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, too called it an unfortunate and tragic incident.

They were apparently members of a group of Indians, who were trying to sneak into the US from Canada with the help of a human trafficking racket. Seven other members of the group were detained by the US Customs and Border Protection officers after crossing over to the US from Canada. Two of them were detained in North Dakota in the US, when they were being driven away in a van by Steve Shand, who was later arrested for human smuggling. Five were spotted and detained when they were still trekking on snow after crossing over to the US from Canada.

Some of the detained Indians had to be taken to a hospital for emergency medical care as they were exhausted and suffered frostbites after trekking through driving snow and biting chilly winds for almost 11 hours. At least one of them would require partial amputation of her hand.

One of the detainees had items meant for infants in his backpack, although the group intercepted by the US Customs and Border Protection officers included no baby. Questioning of the detainees revealed that a family with an infant had been left behind on Canadas side of the US-Canada border as they could not keep pace with others.

After receiving the information from the US Customs and Border Protection agents, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers launched a search and recovered the bodies of the four Indians  an adult male, an adult female, an infant and a boy in his mid-teens.

We are very concerned that this may have been facilitated in some way and that these individuals, including an infant, were left in the middle of a blizzard when the weather hovered around minus 35 degree Celsius when factoring the wind, the RCMPs Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy said in a statement. These victims faced not only the cold weather but also endless fields, large snowdrifts, and complete darkness.

The High Commission of India in Ottawa swung into action. A team of officials from the Consulate General of India in Toronto already started for Manitoba to coordinate with local authorities. We will work with Canadian authorities to investigate these disturbing events. Bisaria, High Commissioner of India in the capital of Canada, posted on Twitter.

We are in touch with (the) US authorities on their ongoing investigation, Sandhu, Indias ambassador to the US, tweeted. A team of officials from the Consulate General of India in Chicago started for Minnesota to coordinate and provide any assistance required, he said.

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A 57-year-old Tongan man being hailed a real-life Aquaman for surviving 27 hours at sea after Saturday's devastating tsunami struck his island said he went under nine times before latching onto a log and making it to safety.

"On the eighth time I thought, the next time I go underwater that's it, because my arms were the only things that were keeping me above water," said Lisala Folau, who is disabled and cannot walk properly, speaking to Reuters from Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa.

"So the ninth time I went under and came up and grabbed a log. And that's what kept me going."

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano killed at least three people and sent tsunami waves rolling across the Tongan archipelago, damaging villages and resorts and knocking out communications for the nation's 105,000 people.

Folau, who lived on the isolated island of Atata, with a population of about 60 people, was swept out to sea at around 7 pm (0600 GMT) on Saturday.

He had climbed a tree to escape a first wave but when he got down, another big wave swept him out.

Also read: First aid flight leaves for Tonga after big volcano eruption

"I could hear my son calling from land but I didn't want to answer my son because I didn't want him to swim out to find me," said Folau.

"The waves kept twirling around here and there... What came to mind is, at sea there is life and death. Until you reach the shore, then you know if you are alive or dead."

Folau said he slowly managed to swim 7.5 km (4.7 miles) to the main island of Tongatapu, reaching the shore 27 hours later at about 10 p.m. on Sunday.

His heroics have gone viral on social media, with one Facebook post calling him a "real life Aquaman", referring to the comic book and film character.

When asked if he knew who Aquaman was, Flolau said he didn't yet.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the events.

Atata, about 8km northwest of Nuku'alofa, or a 30-minute boat ride, has been almost entirely destroyed in the tsunami that hit the islands.
The World Health Organization's advisory panel on Friday recommended extending the use of a reduced dosage of Pfizer and German partner BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine to children aged 5 to 11 years old.

The recommendation comes after the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on immunisation held a meeting on Wednesday to evaluate the companies' vaccine. The vaccine is currently recommended for use in people aged 12 years and above.

Also Read | In Pics| These countries are still waiting for COVAX

The recommended dosage for the younger population is 10 micrograms instead of 30 micrograms offered to those 12 years and older.

"This age group (5-11) is in the lowest priority use group for vaccination except for children who have co-morbidities," SAGE chairman Alejandro Cravioto said.

The panel also recommended that booster doses of the Covid-19 vaccine should be administered 4 to 6 months after the completion of the primary series, in high-priority groups like older adults and health workers.

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Eleven Iraqi soldiers were killed in an overnight attack by the Islamic State group against their base in the eastern province of Diyala, authorities said Friday, in the jihadists' deadliest operation this year.

The IS group took over large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, declaring itself a new "caliphate" for Muslims before Baghdad declared victory after a grinding campaign in late 2017.

But a low-level insurgency by the extremist Sunni group has persisted, flaring up at various points, especially in rural areas north of Baghdad around the city of Kirkuk, and in the eastern provinces of Diyala and Salaheddin.

"Eleven soldiers... have been killed during an attack carried out by the Islamic State... targeting a base of the army" in Diyala province, a senior military official based there said, on condition of anonymity.

The attack took place "around 2:30 am (2330 GMT) against a base in the Hawi al-Azim area," the source added.

Diyala province governor Muthanna al-Tamimi confirmed the death toll, according to the Iraqi News Agency.

But he also hit out at the Iraqi army, alleging they were caught unprepared.

"The base is fortified. There is a thermal camera, night-vision goggles and a concrete watch-tower," he said.

"The terrorists exploited the cold and the negligence of the soldiers," he alleged, adding that the attackers then escaped to the neighbouring province of Salaheddin.

Since the Iraqi government declared victory four years ago, the jihadists have waged an insurgency that has seen them hit military and civilian targets.

On December 3, at least nine Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters and three brothers were killed in attacks claimed by IS in the northern Iraqi village of Khidir Jija, just south of the Kurdish capital Arbil.

Four more Peshmerga fighters were killed in another attack blamed on IS on December 6.

At the end of November, five peshmergas were killed in a roadside bombing claimed by the jihadist group.

IS also claimed a bombing against a market in Sadr city, a Shiite suburb of the capital Baghdad, that killed dozens of people in July last year.

IS also maintain a presence in Syria, especially in desert hideouts in the east of the country, where the Kurds maintain a semi-autonomous administration and the jihadists continue to carry out attacks.

A UN report last year estimated that around 10,000 IS fighters remained active across Iraq and Syria.

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The Taliban's religious police have threatened to shoot women NGO workers in a northwestern province of Afghanistan if they do not wear the all-covering burqa, two staff members told AFP.

The rights of Afghans -- particularly women and girls -- have been increasingly curtailed since the Taliban returned to power in August after ousting the US-backed government.

Women are being squeezed from public life and largely barred from government jobs, while most secondary schools for girls are shut.

Two international NGO workers in rural Badghis province told AFP that the local branch of the feared Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice met with aid groups on Sunday.

Also Read | Taliban kills eight Afghan resistance fighters in firefight

"They told us... if women staff come to the office without wearing the burqa, they will shoot them," one said, asking not to be named for safety reasons.

Women must also be accompanied to work by a male guardian, he added.

A second NGO source confirmed the warnings.

"They also said they will come to every office without prior notice to check the rules are being followed," he told AFP.

Also Read | Reopening schools for girls our responsibility, not world pressure: Taliban

A notice to NGOs seen by AFP did not mention the threat of shooting but did order women to cover up.

Women in deeply conservative Afghanistan generally cover their hair with scarves anyway, while the burqa -- mandatory under the Taliban's first regime, from 1996 to 2001 -- is still widely worn, particularly outside the capital Kabul.

Desperate for international recognition to unlock frozen assets, the Taliban have largely refrained from issuing national policies that provoke outrage abroad.

Provincial officials, however, have issued various guidelines and edicts based on local interpretations of Islamic law and Afghan custom.

In Kabul earlier this month, posters were slapped on cafes and shops ordering Afghan women to cover up, illustrated with an image of the burqa.

Also Read | Afghan acting PM calls for official recognition of Taliban administration

Women are banned from appearing in television dramas and must be accompanied by a male guardian on journeys between towns and cities.

Small and scattered protests have broken out demanding women's rights, which had improved slightly over the past 20 years in the patriarchal Muslim nation.

However, several activists told AFP they had gone into hiding in the capital this week after a series of raids led to the arrests of three women.

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The Taliban killed eight resistance fighters from a national opposition group in a firefight in the north of Afghanistan, police said on Friday.

Since storming back to power in August the Taliban have flatly denied facing organised resistance, but the gun battle on Thursday night may demonstrate that armed opposition is building against their hardline rule.

Fighters from the National Resistance Front (NRF), a group led by the son of legendary late anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, fought Taliban forces in Balkh province.

Eight NRF fighters were killed in a "direct clash" with the Taliban, provincial police spokesman Asif Waziri told reporters in an audio message.

Also Read | Reopening schools for girls our responsibility, not world pressure: Taliban

Waziri said Taliban forces also seized ammunition and machine guns from the NRF fighters.

An NRF spokesman was yet to respond to a request for comment from AFP.

The fighting comes less than two weeks after Taliban foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi held talks with Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, in Tehran.

After that summit, an official for the resistance faction said the NRF and Taliban remained on "separate pages" with no prospect of reconciliation.

Massoud's NRF forces were the last to hold out against the Taliban takeover last year, retreating to the Panjshir Valley which fell in September, weeks after government troops capitulated.

Also Read | Afghan acting PM calls for official recognition of Taliban administration

The Panjshir Valley is famed as the site of resistance to Soviet forces in the 1980s and the Taliban in the late 1990s, during their first stint in power.

Its most revered figure is Ahmad Shah Massoud, known as the "Lion of Panjshir", who was assassinated by Al-Qaeda in 2001, two days before the 9/11 attacks.

His son has since picked up the mantle and there have been reports of his efforts to organise resistance with other exiled Afghan leaders, which Taliban authorities had so far denied.

The Taliban have also faced resistance from the regional chapter of Islamic State, IS-Khorasan, an extremist group that aims to create a global caliphate.

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Tonga's volcanic eruption felt like an "atomic bomb" that shook "the whole island", an aid worker told AFP on Friday, as the Pacific nation raced to address a drinking water shortage.

Almost a week after the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano exploded, unleashing a tsunami and cutting Tonga off from the rest of the world, witnesses are recounting the disaster.

On Tongatapu, Tonga's main island, "we felt a big... it was like an atomic bomb," said Sione Taumoefolau, the secretary general for the Tonga Red Cross.

"The whole island shake because of the noise of the eruption."

Also Read | 'Life and death' at sea: Log keeps Tonga's 'Aquaman' from going under

The situation remains difficult, with only limited supplies of aid getting in and residents facing a massive clean up effort.

"The worst part, for us, is the ash. Everywhere we are being covered by the ashes from the volcano," Taumoefolau said.

UN crisis coordinator Jonathan Veitch told AFP from Fiji the key concern now for Tongans is drinking water, with water supplies for tens of thousands feared contaminated by ash or saltwater.

"Prior to the eruption, the majority of Tongans relied on rainwater," Veitch said. "If it's all basically made toxic by the by the ash, then they have a problem, unless they have access to groundwater sources."

Determining the location of and access to groundwater sources is now vital, he said.

Also Read | First aid flight leaves for Tonga after big volcano eruption

Water testing has begun, but after last Saturday's eruption "the entire country is covered in ash", Veitch said.

The relief effort got under way in earnest on Thursday after Tonga's main runway was cleared of ash, allowing the arrival of military aid flights from Australia and New Zealand.

But the sheer distance, crippled communications, and the bid to keep Covid out of the kingdom of 170 islands are hampering the recovery.

Tonga has been virtually cut off from the outside world since the volcanic blast broke an undersea communications cable, which may remain severed for weeks.

"It's not an easy one. It's far from anywhere, as you know. So there are access constraints. And then the Covid issue, obviously. And then comms collapsed," Veitch said.

"So I mean, it's like, almost a triple whammy."

As foreign aid deliveries ramp up, the UN is "massively concerned" about the Covid risk posed to the island nation, Veitch said.

He pointed to current outbreaks of the virus across the Pacific, including in the Solomons and Kiribati.

"Omicron is getting out there very fast," he said.

The Tongan government is currently investigating whether there is any safe way to bring aid workers into the country.

"If there are Covid safe protocols that could be adjusted to allow safe travel into Tonga sooner rather than later we will encourage the government to do that," Veitch said.

The Tongan government has now completed its full assessment of the situation after the disaster, including the impact on the outer islands that were particularly hard-hit by the tsunami.

Three people have been confirmed killed, while the extent of the damage has yet to be calculated.

"They didn't have evidence that there were more casualties, but there's plenty of destruction," Veitch said.

Many people whose homes on Tonga's outer islands were destroyed have been evacuated to the larger island of Nomuka.

New Zealand's HMNZS Aotearoa berthed in Tonga on Friday, carrying a supply of fresh drinking water.

"(The ship) also the capacity to desalinate, 70-75,000 litres of water a day, which would make a difference for the population, at least on Tongatapu," Veitch said.

UNICEF has sent a large number of water and sanitation hygiene kits on the Australian aid ship HMAS Adelaide, which departed Brisbane on Thursday night.

"We are also sending a lot of equipment into treat water," Veitch said.

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US President Joe Biden has issued a fresh warning to Russia that it will have to "pay a heavy price" if its military move across the Ukrainian border which will be considered an "invasion".

The US has warned that Russia, which has amassed tens of thousands of troops near the Ukrainian borders, could launch an invasion at any point.

Biden on Thursday told reporters that he has been absolutely clear with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion and would be met with a severe and coordinated economic response that I've discussed in detail with our allies and laid out very clearly for President Putin, he said.

"Let there be no doubt at all that if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price," the US president warned, a day after he predicted that Russia "will move in" on Ukraine and warned of a "disaster for Russia".

Also read: 'Minor incursion' by Russia could complicate West's response

Biden stressed on being prepared about cyber attacks, "gray-zone" attacks, and actions by Russian soldiers not wearing their own uniforms.

He alleged that Russia has a long history of using measures other than overt military action to carry out aggression.

"Remember when they moved into the Donbas with 'Little Green Men'? They were dealing with those who were Russian sympathisers and said that Russia had nobody in there," he said.

Soldiers in unmarked uniforms, dubbed "little green men" by some, had swept Crimea in 2014 laying the ground for annexation by Russia.

"We have to be ready to respond to these in a united way with a range of tools at our disposal," Biden said.

Russia is reported to have 100,000 troops at the border, but denies planning to invade Ukraine.

Separately, the Treasury Department has announced sanctions on individuals engaged in influencing activities directed by the Russian government.

"This action was part of our ongoing, longstanding efforts to counter Russia's network of influence efforts and to expose its dangerous, threatening, and ongoing campaign to destabilize Ukraine," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.

In response to a question, she said, "These individuals are at the heart of Russia's destabilising campaign in Ukraine and we stand united with the Ukrainian government."

Psaki stressed that the US is not waiting to take action to counter Russia.

"We see what they're doing and we are disrupting it. These actions are separate and distinct from the broad range of high-impact, severe measures we and our allies are prepared to impose in order to inflict significant costs should they invade," Psaki said.

The White House Press Secretary said the Biden administration is making decisions based on decades of experience of the president and that of his foreign policy team and through consultation with its partners.

"President Putin is going to make the choice he's going to make. Either he is going to decide to invade Ukraine and suffer severe economic consequences or he is going to decide to engage in diplomatic discussions.

"The aggressor is Russia and Putin. They are building up military troops and also pushing out misinformation in Ukraine. That's who we need to keep our focus on and make sure we are educating the public about their actions," Psaki added.
A state-of-the-art liquid hydrogen tanker readied for loading in Australia Friday ahead of shipment to Japan, in what Canberra described as a "world first" trial of the technology.

The Suiso Frontier is docked near Melbourne and is being loaded with super-cooled hydrogen, a source of fuel that supporters hope could one day rival LNG.

The ship is part of the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC), a joint Japanese-Australian project intended to produce plentiful, affordable fuel for Japan.

"This is a historic day, this is the beginning of an industry that will shape the future of global energy," said Australian energy minister Angus Taylor.

Hydrogen produces only steam and no carbon dioxide when burnt, making it an attractive possible alternative to dirtier fossil fuels.

It can be made from renewable sources like water  but in Australia is extracted from brown coal or lignite, significantly reducing its green credentials.

Australia hopes to win over increasingly environmentally conscious investors by capturing the carbon emitted in production.

Australia's pro-coal government has thrown its weight behind the new industry, while trying to reassure supporters it is not the end of locally produced fossil fuels.

"We will continue to support our traditional industries, our traditional exports, but we'll also grow areas like hydrogen," said resources minister Keith Pitt.

"Today's shipment comes from brown coal. It is available, it's affordable, it's local and delivers jobs into regional areas," Pitt said.

Australian government advisor Alan Finkel said the shipment was "the beginning of an international hydrogen shipping industry that might one-day rival the global LNG industry".

The ship is expected to set sail for Kobe, western Japan, in around a week.

If the tests are successful the project will be extended and will enter a commercial phase after 2030 and a new terminus in Japan will then be built, along with larger ships.

And the process is complicated, expensive and energy demanding: to be transported by sea as a liquid, hydrogen needs to be cooled to -253 degrees Celsius (-423.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

When liquified hydrogen is 800 times less than its gaseous volume, according to HESC.

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Attorney General K K Venugopal on Friday granted consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Yati Narsinghanand, over his recent derogatory remarks against the Supreme Court.

Narsinghanand, head priest of Dasna temple at Ghaziabad, has been under judicial custody after his arrest in Haridwar Dharm Sansad case related to alleged hate speech.

In response to a letter by a Mumbai-based activist, Shachi Nelli seeking contempt proceeding against Narsinghanand, Venugopal said, I have gone through your letter and watched the video of the statements made by Yati Narsinghanand. I find that the statement made by Yati Narsinghanand, that 'those who believed in this system, in these politicians, in the Supreme Court, and in the army will all die the death of a dog', is a direct attempt to lower the authority of the Supreme Court in the minds of the general public.

He added that this would certainly amount to contempt of the Supreme Court.

Also Read  Yati Narsinghanand, organiser of Dharma Sansad, sent to 14-day judicial custody

I accordingly grant consent to initiate proceedings for criminal contempt of the Supreme Court of India in terms of section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 read with rule 3A of the Rules 3 (a) of the Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of the Supreme Court of India, 1975, the AG said.

A consent by the Attorney General or the Solicitor General is a statutory requirement under Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 and under the Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of the Supreme Court of India, 1975 for initiation of such proceedings in the top court.

Following an interview by Narsinghanand, which went viral on social media platform Twitter, Nelli, in the letter to the AG, said the comments made by him tried to undermine the majesty of the institution and the authority vested in the Supreme Court.

Narsinghanand had made those statements in response to questions in connection with the court proceedings in the Haridwar hate speech cases.

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In second such action in a month, the government on Friday said it has blocked 35 YouTube channels, two websites, two Instagram and Twitter accounts as well as one Facebook account operating from Pakistan for waging a "war of misinformation" by spreading "totally toxic fake news" in a coordinated manner.

Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra told a press conference that the action was taken by invoking the emergency provisions of the law after receiving inputs from the intelligence agencies on Friday about the channels and social media accounts. The blocked YouTube channels cumulatively had a subscriber base of 1.2 crore and video views running into 130 crore.

The Ministry issued orders under Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Also read: Covid-19 related data of thousands of Indians leaked online

In December, 20 YouTube channels and two websites were similarly blocked when the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021 were first used to act against such networks.

Last time, Chandra said, the intermediaries had blocked access to these platforms worldwide and they do expect the same this time too, though the Ministry's order is specific to India.

Information and Broadcasting Joint Secretary Vikram Sahai said the 35 accounts blocked by the Ministry were identified to be part of four coordinated disinformation networks, which included Apni Duniya Network operating 14 YouTube channels, and Talha Films Network operating 13 YouTube channels. A set of four channels, and a set of two other channels were also found to be acting in synchronisation with each other.

All these networks appeared to be operated with a "single goal of spreading fake news oriented towards the Indian audience" and used common hashtags and editing styles, were being operated by common persons, and cross promoted each others content. "Some of the YouTube channels were being operated by anchors of Pakistani TV news channels," he said.

Sahay said the topics handled by the blocked channels were on Indian Army, Jammu and Kashmir and Indias foreign relations with other countries.

At the press conference, some of the content used by the blocked channels were shown, which included accusations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval for the death of Gen Bipin Rawat in a chopper crash and North Korean army reaching Ladakh to help the Chinese army among others.

"The channels propagated content to encourage separatism, divide India on the lines of religion, and create animosity among the various sections of the Indian society. Such information were feared to have the potential to incite the audience into commission of crimes adversely affecting public order in the country," Chandra said.

He said it should also be the responsibility of intermediaries like YouTube to take into account these "totally toxic" content and should have a system to flag such content.

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Personal data of thousands of people in India has been leaked from a government server which includes their name, mobile number, address and Covid test result, and these information can be accessed through online search.

The leaked data has been put on sale on Raid Forums website where a cyber criminal claims to have personal data of over 20,000 people.

The data put on Raid Forums shows name, age, gender, mobile number, address, date and result of Covid-19 report of these people.

Cyber Security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia also tweeted that personally identifiable information (PII) including name and Covid-19 results are made public through a content delivery network (CDN).

He said that Google has indexed lakhs of data from the affected system.

"PII including Name, MOB, PAN, Address etc of #Covid19 #RTPCR results & #Cowin data getting public through a Govt CDN. #Google indexed almost 9 Lac public/private #GovtDocuments in search engines. Patient's data is now listed on #DarkWeb. Need fast deindex," Rajaharia said in his tweet.

An email query sent to the Ministry of Electronics and IT did not elicit any reply.

The sample document shared on Raid Forums shows that the leaked data was meant for upload on Co-WIN portal.

The government has heavily relied on digital technologies in terms of controlling and creating awareness about the Covid-19 pandemic as also its vaccination programme. Several government departments mandate people to use Aarogya Setu app for Covid-19 related services and information.

Rajaharia in a follow-up tweet on January 20 said that he is not reporting any vulnerability in this incidence but cautioning people to remain alert from fraud calls, offers related to Covid-19, etc that they may get as their data is being sold in the dark web.

Data sold in the dark web is often exploited by cyber criminals and fraudsters for various kind of frauds.

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States are not sparing a sufficient number of IAS officers for deputation which is affecting the functioning of the central government, the Centre said on Friday, defending its proposed changes in the service rules which gives it the power to overrule states on such matters.

Sources in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said a trend of decreasing representation of IAS officers, up to the Joint Secretary-level at the Centre, has been noticed as most of the states are not meeting their Central Deputation Reserve (CDR) obligations and the number of officers, sponsored by them to serve at the Centre is much lesser.

The DoPT has recently proposed changes in the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, that will take away the power of states to override New Delhis request for seeking officers on central deputation.

Also Read | Explained: IAS Cadre rules and the old 'Centre vs states' row on central deputation

The move has evoked sharp criticism from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to roll back the proposal claiming it will affect the states' administration.

According to DoPT sources, the number of IAS officers on CDR has gone down from 309 in 2011 to 223 as of date.

The percentage of CDR utilisation has gone down from 25 per cent in 2011 to 18 per cent as of date, they said.

In spite of the increase of IAS officers at the deputy secretary/director level in IAS from 621 in 2014 to 1,130 in 2021, the number of such officers on central deputation has gone down from 117 to 114 during the period, sources said.

Hence, the number of officers available under the central deputation is not sufficient to meet the requirement of the Centre, they said.

The non-availability of a sufficient number of officers at the Centre is affecting the functioning of the central government since the Centre needs the services of these officers to obtain fresh inputs in policy formulation and programme implementation, sources said.

Also Read | Mamata Banerjee expresses concern over amending IAS (Cadre) Rules, writes to PM

The Centre also needs them to utilise their vast field experience by way of providing vital inputs for policy planning and formulation.

Further, the movement of officers from state to Centre and vice versa is mutually beneficial to both as it enables the professional growth of officers besides contributing towards better coordination with the states for effective programme implementation, they said.

The sources further said the reason quoted by most of the state cadres for not sponsoring the number of officers as per prescribed CDR is the shortage of officers in the cadre.

Considering the same and the fact that shortage of officers in the cadres, if any, has to be shared mutually between the Centre and the states, they said.

According to DoPTs proposal, sent to chief secretaries of all state governments on January 12, in specific situations where services of cadre officer(s) are required by the central government in the public interest, the central government may seek the services of such officer(s) for posting under the central governmentand the state government concerned shall give effect to the decision of the central government within the specified time.

It further states that wherever the state government concerned does not give effect to the decision of the central government within the specified time, the officer(s) shall stand relieved from cadre from the date as may be specified by the central government.

Existing rules allowed mutual consultation for officers central deputation.

The DoPT had written to chief secretaries of all state governments on December 20, 2021, after which reminders were sent on December 27, 2021, and January 6 and January 12.

The January 12 letter to states mentions the Centres power to override the states disagreement on sending the officers on deputation.

The state governments have been asked to furnish their comments on the proposed changes by January 25, 2022.

The Centre had in June last year asked all state governments to nominate more officers for central deputation at the level of deputy secretary, director and joint secretary, citing their shortage.

Officers of the level of deputy secretary/director and above are usually appointed in central government ministries/departments (i.e. on central deputation) under the Central Staffing Scheme (CSS).

Every cadre  a state/states or states and Union territories -- is allowed a central deputation reserve to ensure that officers have the opportunity to work on deputation, including that under the CSS, which adds to their experience.

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The mortal remains of the two Indian nationals who were killed in a drone attack in Abu Dhabi on Monday will reach Punjab on Friday, Indias Ambassador in the UAE has said.

On January 17, two Indians and a Pakistani national, all staff of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), were killed and six others injured in the suspected drone attacks near the Abu Dhabi airport that sparked multiple explosions in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

The attacks were claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels.

Indias Ambassador to the UAE Sunjay Sudhir said that the Indian mission in the UAEs capital has completed all formalities for repatriation of mortal remains of the two Indians.

Remains reach Amritsar tomorrow morning. Highly appreciate the fullest support extended by Govt of UAE & @AdnocGroup. Tied up with Punjab Govt for local support, Sudhir said in a tweet.

Also Read | Jaishankar calls attack in Abu Dhabi 'unacceptable'

The identities of the deceased were not revealed.

On Wednesday, Indias Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti, speaking at a Security Council open debate on the Middle East, expressed strong condemnation of the terror attack in Abu Dhabi.

Such an attack on innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure is completely unacceptable. It is a blatant violation of international law. It is also against all civilised norms, he said.

Emphasising that India stands in solidarity with the UAE, Tirumurti said New Delhi extends its full support for an unequivocal condemnation by the Council of this terrorist attack.

It is important that the Council stands united in sending a clear signal against such heinous acts of terror, he said.

The terrorist attacks sparked global condemnation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to affirm Americas condemnation and denunciation of the terrorist attack of the terrorist Houthi militia on civil areas and facilities in the UAE.

A statement from the UAEs Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said that the UAE reserves the right to respond to these terrorist attacks and criminal escalation.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed said that the drone attacks, which struck ADNOC fuel facilities and the airport, will not go unpunished.

The UAE has been part of a Saudi-led military campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2015.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday released its first list of 34 candidates for the upcoming Punjab Assembly polls.

Union Minister and BJP state election co in-charge Hardeep Singh Puri, general secretaries Tarun Chugh and Dushyant Gautam released the first list for the polls to be held on February 20. Chugh said that names include 12 candidates from farmers' families, eight from the Scheduled Caste (SC) community and 13 Sikhs.

"We have given tickets to doctors, lawyers, people related to religious organisations, sportspersons and all other sections of society," Chugh said.

The list includes two women candidates, Renu Kashyup from Dina Nagar and Nimisha Mehta from Garhshankar. Kabbadi player Ranjit Singh Khojewala has been fielded from Kapurthala assembly seat. Retired IAS officer SR Laddhar has been fielded from the Gill assembly constituency.

Gautam hit out at the Congress government in Punjab over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's security breach and said, "The Punjab government did not even care about the dignity of the post of Prime Minister of the country. January 5 incident in Ferozepur shows that the security arrangements of the Prime Minister are not important for Congress government in Punjab."

Also Read  Channi to file defamation case against Kejriwal over 'dishonest man' comment

Gautam also slammed the Punjab government for corruption, misgovernance and the problem of drug addiction, and said no progress has been made in Punjab. Referring to the recent raid by the ED, Gautam said: "It must be investigated how Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi managed to amass such wealth in just three months."

The BJP is jointly contesting the Punjab Assembly election with former chief minister Amarinder Singh's Punjab Lok Congress and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa's Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt). The three parties have formed a six-member committee, two each from three parties to decide the seat-sharing formula.

The three parties will also make a common manifesto. Polling for 117 seats of Punjab assembly will be held on February 20 and counting of votes will take place on March 10.

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After the exit of several key OBC leaders, including Swami Prasad Maurya, Dara Singh Chauhan and Om Prakash Rajbhar, days ahead of the forthcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is now dependent almost completely on the Apna Dal and the Nishad Party for the votes of the community in the state, especially in the 'Poorvanchal' (eastern) region.

Apna Dal (AD) claims to have a support base among the 'Kurmi' community, and the Nishad Party (NP) claims to wield considerable influence over the 'Nishad' (fishermen, boatmen) community.

However, the AD's claim of a complete hold over the 'Kurmi' community has been challenged by the party national president Anupriya Patel's mother Krishna Patel, who has formed her own outfit, Apna Dal (Kameravadi), and allied with the Samajwadi Party (SP), BJP's main rival in the assembly polls in the state.

Also Read  Mayawati queers SP's pitch in western UP

The mother and daughter have been fighting for the legacy of Sonelal Patel, Krishna Patel's husband, who had formed the AD in 1985 after leaving the BSP.

As both Anurpirya and Krishna Patel would be vying for the 'Kurmi' votes, there is every possibility that there might be a division in their votes, which could hit the BJP's electoral prospects in the region.

The NP, which was the other OBC ally of the BJP, too was not alone in claiming the support of the 'Nishad' community. In fact, there were several local leaders from the community in different parts of the state, who also made similar claims. And to add to the BJP's discomfort, the Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP), which was an NDA ally in Bihar and represented the community, had also decided to field its candidate in the forthcoming polls on the seats where 'Nishads' were in sizable strength.

VIP president Mukesh Sahni, who was a minister in the NDA government in Bihar, calls himself 'son of mallah' (son of boatman) could queer the pitch for NP, with whom the BJP was currently holding talks for seat sharing.

Also Read  Congress's 'ladki hoon' campaign face Priyanka Maurya joins BJP

Besides, the NP found itself on a sticky wicket as its demand for the inclusion of the community in the list of the scheduled caste (SC) and giving them reservation in government jobs was yet to be fulfilled by the BJP government. NP president Sanjay Nishad had to face the anger of the community members during a rally of the party in the state capital, where Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah also spoke.

Irked over not getting assurance on the reservation issue by Shah, the community members created a ruckus at the meeting and went on a rampage, damaging chairs and disrupting the speeches by their leaders.

It remains to be seen if these OBC allies of the saffron party are able to offset the loss of the likes of Maurya and Rajbhar in the forthcoming polls.

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Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's indication on Friday that she was the party's chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh enthused the party workers but her rivals rejected assertions that she would be able to revive the electoral fortunes of the grand old party in the forthcoming assembly polls in the state.

UP Congress leaders said that they had been urging the party leadership for several months to declare Priyanka as its CM face in UP. "The declaration, though not official, has come at the right moment," said a senior Congress leader.

The leader said that Priyanka, who was also the in-charge of the state unit of the party, had been able to "galvanise" the party workers in the state and give them a ''new hope''.

UP Congress president Ajai Kumar Lallu also echoed a similar sentiment and said that Priyanka was a "fit" candidate for the post of the CM. "She has all the qualities to become the chief minister of the state," he said.

Also Read  You can see my face everywhere, says Priyanka Gandhi on Cong's UP CM face

Senior Congress leader and party MLA Aradhana Mishra also said that Priyanka had been taking up the issues concerning the common people and under her leadership, the party had launched several agitational programmes in the state against the misrule of the BJP government.

The rival BJP, Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BSP, however, said that Priyanka would not be able to revive the party in the state. "Congress is a fringe player in the state... it has no presence...it even struggles to find candidates,'' a senior BJP leader said.

UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya had earlier termed Priyanka a "Twitter Politician" while many of his party colleagues had called her a "political tourist", who would 'disappear' once the elections were over.

SP president Akhilesh Yadav had also remarked recently that Congress would not be able to open its account in the forthcoming assembly elections.

Political analysts here opined that Priyanka had been able to boost the morale of her party workers to some extent but they remained sceptical about the grand old party's revival in the state. "Congress does not have any organisation in the state...it also lacks good leaders....the caste equation in the state also does not favour the party," said J P Shukla, a Lucknow-based political analyst.
Party-hopper Harak Singh Rawat, who never lost an election since the creation of Uttarakhand in 2000, on Friday joined the Congress, a party which had left along with nine other MLAs in 2016 months ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls, which saw the BJP winning hill state hands down.

Harak Singh's demand for a ticket to his daughter-in-law, which was rejected by the BJP and ultimately led to his suspension from the saffron party, will be met by the Congress, which plans to field her from the known tourist spot Lansdowne. She will be pitted against BJP's Dileep Singh Rawat.

Both Harak Singh and his daughter-in-law Anukriti Gusain joined the Congress in Delhi even as the party's Chief Minister face Harish Rawat had aired reservations about the coming back of Harak Singh into the Congress. However, Harish Rawat was on the dais when Harak Singh joined the Congress in presence of AICC in-charge for the state Devendra Yadav and others.

Also Read | After UP, BJP sets eyes on Goa, U'khand: Parrikar's son denied ticket from family pocket borough

Harak Singh, a sitting MLA from Kotdwar could be fielded by Congress from Hindu pilgrimage seat Kedarnath. Congress' sitting MLA from Kedarnath Manoj Rawat had earlier voiced his reservations against the re-entry of Harak Singh of entry into the Congress saying "common Congressmen had not forgotten how Harak Singh along with nine MLAs had caused the fall of the Congress government.

"Now he wants to come back to Congress after having enjoyed the fruits of power for five years in the BJP government but Congressmen are not keen for it," he had said, raising serious allegations against Harak Singh. He had said the top leaders in the party, who back his re-entry should guarantee about his character

"I will always consider him the murderer of democracy. He has no political commitment," Manoj Rawat had alleged. Harak Singh's entry into the Congress could be possible only after five days of tug war between those backing his entry into the party and those (led by Harish Rawat) opposing his entry.

The majority of the Congress' 10 MLAs, who had rebelled against Harish Rawat and reduced his government to a minority in 2016, however, stayed back with the BJP. This time the BJP fielded former Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna's son Saurabh Bahuguna.

By coming back to Congress, Harak Singh has moved a full cycle. In the undivided Uttar Pradesh, he started his career with BSP in 1996 but moved to Congress two years later, where he remained for 18 years till 2016. A four-time minister, Harak Singhs' comeback to the Congress could give a boost to detractors of Harish Rawat within the party. Even last month Harish Rawat had posted a cryptic tweet, suggesting that his hands are tied even as he being the campaign committee chairman of the party is the undeclared CM face.

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Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Friday rejected Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's proposal to lift weekend curfew and fully open markets in the national capital.

However, private offices have now been allowed to function with 50% attendance. The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) issued a fresh order making it clear that night curfew and weekend curfew will continue as per the existing guidelines.

While it did not comment on refusal to lift weekend curfew, the Delhi government issued a statement describing as unfortunate the rejection of the proposal to open markets.

It is unfortunate that LG has rejected the strong demand of traders and the business community. LG has rejected the proposal of the elected government despite the fact that corona cases are reducing at a very fast pace. When all markets of Gurugram and Noida are open, why should the business community of Delhi be made to suffer by BJPs Central government, it said.

Kejriwal has earlier sent a proposal to lift the weekend curfew and reduce other Covid-19 related curbs. The proposal also included ending the system of odd-even in the opening of shops in markets and allowing all shops to open as well as allowing private offices to run with 50% capacity.

Also Read | Seems peak of Covid 3rd wave in Delhi has gone past: Health Minister

Explaining the rationale of the proposals, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the peak of Covid-19 cases has passed and the cases were declining considerably.

He said that the curbs were initially put in place after the cases started rising in the capital earlier this month.

"On January 12, the capital reported the highest number of cases of this Covid season, which was nearly 28,000. About 8-10 days back, the positivity rate was around 31%, but now it has come down to 17%. Seeing the current graph of cases, we are currently in the situation to relax restrictions. On Friday, Delhi reported around 10,500 cases," he said.

"Now that the cases are coming down, it would be wrong to restrict people from moving out to earn for their survival. We are in a position where we can relax Covid-19 restrictions now. Businesses across the city have already suffered huge losses due to previous waves. We have started getting good news about declining positivity rates and Covid-19 cases," he said earlier in the day.

Also Read | L-G Baijal allows private offices in Delhi to run with 50% staff

He said the weekend curfew and odd-even system in markets, as well as private offices to run fully on work from home mode, have helped in curbing the spread and there were reasons to ease curbs.

Delhi recorded around 3.23 lakh Covid-19 cases this month so far.

On January 13, there were 98,832 tests and the positivity rate was 29.21% while on January 14 and 15, the positivity rate was at 30.64% but the cases had come down to 24,383 and 20,718 cases respectively. The cases and positivity rate have decreased since then.

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A court in Assam's Lakhimpur district on Friday remanded renowned innovator and Padma Shri awardee Uddhab Kumar Bharali to judicial custody in connection with a case of alleged sexual abuse of a minor girl he was fostering.

A day after his interim anticipatory bail was cancelled by the Gauhati High Court, Bharali surrendered before District Special Judge Rasmita Das at North Lakhimpur town.

The court sent Bharali to 14 days' judicial custody, following which he was taken to the district jail, North Lakhimpur.

Bharali, who was awarded Padma Shri in 2019 for contributions to the field of science and engineering, claimed he is a victim of a conspiracy, which he will fight legally.

On Thursday, the Gauhati High Court had cancelled the interim anticipatory bail granted to Bharali for alleged sexual abuse of a minor girl he was fostering, noting that his custodial interrogation was "essential".

After hearing the arguments of the counsel for the petitioner and the state, Justice Hitesh Kumar Sarma of the high court noted that custodial interrogation of Bharali is "essential" for the purpose of investigation of the case in view of the allegations made in the FIR as well as the statements by the victim and witnesses.

Justice Sarma, while delivering the order, relied on the case diary and statements of the minor victim as well as two other minor witnesses, who "categorically stated that the petitioner had committed sexual intercourse not only with the victim girl but also with some others, who were also under the foster care of the petitioner".

The anticipatory bail plea was filed by Bharali, credited with nearly 150 innovations, on December 23 last year against the FIR at North Lakhimpur police station under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The pre-arrest bail was granted to the innovator on December 28 by a vacation bench.

"I am a victim of a conspiracy. As my bail plea was rejected, I have no other option but to surrender. I will go and present myself in front of the CJM today," Bharali told reporters at his North Lakhimpur residence before going to the district court.

While cancelling his anticipatory bail, the high court said the victim has not only stated "commission of sexual intercourse" on her by Bharali, but also "very specifically and chronologically" narrated the sequence of events and the manner in which the offence was committed by the accused petitioner.

Bharali's counsel A M Bora, assisted by D K Baidya, claimed in the high court that Anil Kumar Bora, the Chairman of Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Lakhimpur, had a grudge against the petitioner and he had manipulated the facts, leading to the filing of the FIR.

Advocate Bora also stated that one of the girls in the foster care was operated upon for some ailments and Bharali had sought reimbursement of the medical expenses from the CWC which had "anguished the chairman of the C.W.C. Shri Anil K Bora".

The high court order said, "Learned senior counsel for the petitioner has also referred to various achievements of the petitioner to suggest that a person of his standing and repute would not commit an offence as alleged in the instant case.

The petitioner's counsel also projected the "humanitarian approach" of Bharali and argued that he has been running a home for destitute women, 'Seneh', in Lakhimpur using his own personal resources in spite of not receiving any grant from the government.

According to the FIR, the victim was given in the custody of the petitioner and his wife Iva Das Bharali under foster care for a period of one year from August 31, 2020, on the condition that on expiry of the said period, the foster care has to be renewed or the child was to be placed before the CWC.

"However, the petitioner neither renewed the foster care nor produced the girl before the CWC even after expiry of the foster period, due to which, CWC issued letter requesting him to produce the child i.e. the victim and another girl.... before the CWC on or before 14.09.2021," the order said.

Ultimately, the petitioner had produced the victim and another girl before the CWC on October 28 last year, it added.

"It has further been alleged in the FIR that apart from engaging the victim in some household works the petitioner had done some bad acts with her in spite of initial objection by her.

"She remained silent on the assurance of her foster father, i.e. the petitioner that nothing will happen to her. She was asked to remain silent by the foster father, i.e. the petitioner," Justice Sarma wrote in his order.

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The Kerala police seems to be tightening the grip on actor Dileep by invoking charges of conspiracy to murder police officers.

The move came at a time when Dileep's anticipatory bail plea in the case is pending before the Kerala High Court. The High Court posted the case for hearing on Saturday.

The Crime Branch registered a fresh case against Dileep earlier this month, accusing him of hatching conspiracy to threaten and harm the investigation officer of the woman actor assault case, in which Dileep is an accused. Recent revelations by filmmaker Balachandra Kumar that he was privy to the conspiracy and certain audio clips in this regard formed the basis of the case.

Raids were also conducted at the house and firms of Dileep and other accused, including his brother, brother-in-law and a Kochi-based businessman.

Also Read  Kerala HC defers actor Dileep's anticipatory bail hearing to Saturday

On Thursday the Crime Branch had strongly opposed the anticipatory bail plea of Dileep, maintaining that it was for the first time that such a case of accused in a criminal case launching conspiracy to attack police officer being reported in the state.

In a report submitted before the judicial first class magistrate court in Aluva in Ernakulam on Friday, the Crime Branch said that on further investigation, it was found that the accused in the conspiracy case was found to have hatched a conspiracy to murder the investigation officer and hence the relevant sections of IPC was also being involved against the accused.

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The Andhra Pradesh government employees and teachers on Friday announced they would launch an indefinite strike from February 7 protesting against the new pay revision orders issued by the state government on January 17 and demanded that the orders be withdrawn forthwith.

Briefing reporters after a cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, Information and Public Relations Minister Perni Venkataramaiah (Nani) said the three Government Orders have been ratified.

The various employees associations came together on a single platform and formed a joint PRC (Pay Revision Commission) Struggle Committee to step up their 'fight for justice'. The strike notice would be served on the Chief Secretary on Monday, the Committee leaders told reporters after two rounds of meetings here on Friday.

The Committee also announced an intensified agitation programme under which round-table conferences would be conducted in all district headquarters on January 23, followed by rallies and dharnas on the 25th.

On January 26, memorandums would be submitted at the statues of B R Ambedkar demanding immediate withdrawal of the GOs and implementation of the 11th PRC recommendations as such. Relay fasts would be organised in all district headquarters from January 27 to 30 and a 'Chalo Vijayawada' programme conducted on February 3.

The employees would begin a non-cooperation movement from February 5 in the run-up to the indefinite strike from the 7th, Committee leaders Bopparaju Venkateswarlu, Bandi Srinivasa Rao, K Suryanarayana and K Venkatarami Reddy said. They said, among other things, they would fight for scrapping of the Contributory Pension Scheme as well.

The leaders said they would invite staff of the AP State Road Transport Corporation, now under the Public Transport Department, to join the indefinite strike. "The government should immediately withdraw the GOs or at least keep them in abeyance. Otherwise, we will not even go for talks," the leaders asserted.

The Committee leaders later met Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma and denounced the pressure being exerted on the treasuries department staff to prepare salary bills for January in accordance with the new GOs. "We have requested the CS to withhold the Finance Departments memo to treasuries officials on new salary bills," the leaders said.

They said no political party would be involved in their agitation, though members of the Legislative Council, belonging to the Progressive Democratic Front, and teachers and trade unions would be permitted to take part in the struggle.

Meanwhile, the Chief Ministers own media house spread a "leak" on Friday that the Cabinet decided to constitute a committee of ministers to engage the agitating employees in talks to resolve the issue.

When questioned about this, Minister Perni Venkataramaiah pleaded ignorance but said such a committee, comprising three ministers, the government advisor (public affairs) and the Chief Secretary, might have been constituted to "cajole" the employees.

"The governments wish is to see the employees did not take to the streets. Nothing could be achieved by badmouthing or cursing the Chief Minister," Nani maintained at the post-Cabinet briefing.

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The Kerala High Court posted for Saturday the hearing of an anticipatory bail plea by Malayalam film actor Dileep, in a woman actor abduction case.

This is for the fourth time that the hearing in the case has been postponed. Deferring the case on Friday, the court told both sides that since there is a need for a detailed hearing, a special sitting will be held on Saturday despite it being a holiday.

Several twists surfaced early this month after film director Balachandra Kumar made fresh revelations related to the case.

Also Read  Actor assault case: Will Kerala govt act on panel report?

The trial, which was progressing smoothly for the accused, turned topsy turvy when Kumar made an appearance and claimed that Dileep, soon after being released on bail, had seen the visuals of the woman actor being assaulted by her abductors. Until then, only the trial court had seen it.

Besides, Kumar made more disclosures and testified before the police and a magistrate. Based on the disclosures, the police probe team registered a fresh case and Dileep sensing that he might be arrested sought anticipatory bail.

Dileep was arrested in 2017 and lodged in prison in a case related to a gang sexually assaulting a frontline heroine of South Indian movies and filming it. After two months in jail, he was released on bail.

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Kerala's active case tally crossed the two lakh mark on Friday as the state reported 41,668 more fresh cases during the day.

Test positivity rate on Friday further increased to 43.7 per cent. State capital Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi had the highest number of cases.

Health department sources said that of the 2.23 lakh active cases, only three per cent required hospitalisation.

Meanwhile, 54 more Omicron cases were detected, taking the total infections confirmed so far to 761.

Health Minister Veena George said that a total lockdown would be considered only as a last resort measure.

The minister also said that all people above the age of 18 had received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Around 83 per cent or 2.67 crore have gotten the second dose. In the 15-17 age group, 53 per cent of the target population of 15.17 lakh have so been given the first dose.

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The rejection of the Kerala tableau for the Republic Day parade by the Centre is assuming much political significance this time as the proposed tableau featured known renaissance leader Sree Narayana Guru.

Sree Narayana Guru was from the Hindu Ezhava community that constitutes over 20 per cent of the Kerala population and is also the largest among the Hindu community. It comes in the OBC category.

For these reasons the rejection of the tableau featuring Sree Narayana Guru is triggering many protests in Kerala. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday seeking intervention to include Kerala tableau in the Republic Day parade. Vijayan had highlighted the significance of the tableau featuring Sree Narayana Guru in the present social scenario.

Also Read | Kerala CM urges PM Modi to include Kerala's tableau in Republic Day parade

Congress had also flayed the decision to reject the tableau featuring the Guru.

The centre maintained that the tableau of all states could not be included in the Republic Parade every year and it was for this reason that Kerala's tableau could not be included.

Meanwhile, the CPM was also using the issue against the BJP leadership in Kerala. Education Minister V Sivankutty asked BJP leaders in Kerala to respond on the matter.

The Sree Narayana Dharmaparipalana Yogam and Sivagiri Mutt founded by the Guru had also flayed the rejection of the tableau featuring the leader of the renaissance movement.

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Amid allegations of irregularities in procurement and distribution of Pongal gift hampers, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday directed action against officials concerned and firms that supplied poor quality products.

Stalin also asked officials to ensure that only quality products are distributed to people at fair price shops and asserted that he will not stay silent to the attempts being made to discredit the government.

The Chief Ministers remarks came at a meeting he chaired to take note of the complaints on the poor quality of products distributed as part of the Pongal gift hampers to over 2 crore ration cardholders in the state.

During the meeting which was attended by Food Minister R Sakkarapani and senior officials, Stalin asked officials in districts to ensure that the products sold or distributed at ration shops are of good quality and that they should not hesitate to act against those who commit wrongdoings.

After a detailed review, the Chief Minister advised that action should be taken against officials responsible for complaints to arise in the Pongal gift hampers. He also said actions like blacklisting should be taken against firms that supplied products that are of poor quality, an official statement from the government said.

The action by Stalin came after Opposition parties like the AIADMK, and BJP alleged irregularities in procuring 21 grocery items that were part of the Pongal gift hampers. Several people had taken to social media to complain about the poor quality of the products which were provided free of cost to the people.

Pongal, the harvest festival, was celebrated on January 14 this year and the government decided to provide a gift hamper with 21 grocery items, including 100 gm of ghee produced by state-owned Aavin, to 2.15 crore ration cardholders.

The AIADMK government had in 2019 and 2021 added a cash gift along with the hampers distributed for Pongal. However, the DMK government decided to drop the cash part from the hamper.

The grocery items were packed inside a cloth bag that says Tamizhar Thirunaal Vaazthukkal (Tamil festival greetings) and does not contain the name Pongal. Many scholars describe Pongal as the festival of Tamils.

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Telangana's IT and industries minister KT Rama Rao has sought the Centre's early approval for the countrys largest textile park the TRS government has planned in Warangal.

In his letters to Union ministers Nirmala Sitaraman and Piyush Goel, Rao has requested for sanction of Rs 898 crore for taking up the infrastructure works of the Kakatiya Mega Textile Park (KMTP) in an expanse of 1200 acres.

Kerala based apparel maker Kitex Group had earlier announced an investment of Rs 1000 crore under its Phase-1 investment in KMTP.

Warangal is a tier-2 city located about 150 kms northeast of Hyderabad, which the state wants to develop as an alternative to Hyderabad in the IT and other sectors.

KMTP, the countrys largest Textile Park, is expected to house state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities with a development strategy based on the Fiber to Fashion concept, Rao said.

In his letters to the union finance and textiles ministers on Friday, Rao has asked the centre for finalization of a policy for Development of Manufacturing Regions for Textile and Apparel Sector (MRTA) so that projects of such scale-like KMTP can be suitably benefitted.

The minister has also urged the Union government to establish an Indian Institute of Handloom Technology (IIHT) in Telangana.

After the bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh, the existing IIHT located at Venkatagiri went to the residuary state. At present, there is no such Institute in Telangana to offer courses like Diploma in Handloom Technology.

Rao added that sufficient land with constructed building facilities is available at the handloom park at Pochampally for the establishment of IIHT.

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Goa's power and personality-based carousel politics, which has whittled down the significance of a political party, ideology and policy commitments, has afflicted all political parties in the state.

Facing unpopularity and anti-incumbency from a ten year power run, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which announced it will contest all 40 assembly segments solo for the first time, is half scared of its own bravado. Senior leaders were tweeting until the eleventh hour, hoping by some miracle that its former regional party partner would change its mind, ditch the new entrant Trinamool Congress (TMC) and rejoin a saffron alliance that yielded high dividends from consolidated Hindutva votes, rather than splitting them along caste lines.

Hindutva split and advantage turncoats

Deeply insulted over the BJP's repeated tardy dismissals of its ministers and engineering defections in its ranks, including poaching two of its probable 2022 candidates and nominating them on January 20 - the regional Maharasthrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) has once again snubbed the BJP's overtures.

Anti-incumbency factors and a split in Hindutva votes were the same twin factors that had reduced the BJP from its 2012 high of 21 seats to 13 in 2017. Taking no chances after the MGP's snub and its embrace of the TMC, the BJP battened down the hatches to offset its disadvantages, opting for an aggressive winnability-above-all factor as sole criteria for candidate selection. As the BJP went seat by seat, choosing winnability over ideology, integrity or loyalty, this has spelt out advantage Congress imports and turncoats, even at the cost of angering loyal hardcore supporters, alienating and scattering its cadres across several segments. The party could well see a bigger rebellion in its ranks after its repeatedly postponed candidate announcement.

Also read: BJP's first list for Goa polls stirs controversy over family raj, tickets to tainted candidates

In several seats, loyal leaders have lost out. Former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar lost out again when the party nominated Congress defector Dayanand Sopte on January 20. Across 17-20 seats, the BJP will be opting for Congress, independent or MGP imports. But the perception drama of a party with no difference is far more dismal for the party in its Panaji seat, represented for over 25 years by former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, credited with building the BJP's legislative and ruling presence in Goa.

BJP Goa election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis has repeatedly rebuffed Panjim seat aspirant and Parrikar's son, Utpal Parrikar, as he plugged obviously for another Congress defector, the winnable Atanasio Monserrate, who was finally nominated on January 20. The irony for Utpal Parrikar is that his father crafted the BJP's winnability above all formula for its 2012 win, and his rival in Panjim was heralded into the BJP-led government on an earlier occasion by his late father as well.

. The big question for the BJP will be how it deals with the situation, in case Utpal Parrikar decides to contest as an independent.

Monserrate and his wife, Jennifer, have both been given tickets and were on the long list of couples seeking a BJP ticket, which had stalled its process. The other is ex-Congress MLA Vishwajit Rane, whose wife will now contest the seat his Congressman father Pratapsing Rane held for eleven consecutive terms. Another Congress import, the ailing Pandurang Madkaikar, wants his wife Janita to get the ticket in his stead, pitting her against the son of Union Minister Sripad Naik. This seat has not been called yet.

Congress troubles

However, the BJP's woes are nothing compared to the Congress party's, which is fighting off aggressive and resource-rich entrants, namely the TMC and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Being resource-rich is an obvious advantage in Goa's paid news ecosystems, where major newspapers and channels pass off political plugs as front-page news.

The TMC has gone on a rampage against the Congress for the past four months, and the BJP and AAP have gained from that ugly contest, say some analysts. The latest salvo from the TMC was its smoke and mirror offering of an alliance-via-Twitter. The Congress also rebuffed that via Twitter. Congress election observer for the Goa polls, former Union finance minister, P Chidambaram, told national TV the TMC made no concrete offer.

"I suspect the TMC's Twitter alliance offer, which seems to me as posturing, because they have been on a consistent rampage against the Congress in Goa, is more aimed at engineering a national narrative and painting a particular picture of the Congress for its 2024 leadership tussle. That narrative may fly at the national level but will not have any traction in Goa. Here their actions seem to have belied their words. They have said less against the BJP, not much on Goan issues, but have gone all out to weaken the Congress," says columnist and analyst Manoj Kamat.

TMC failing to connect

There's a belief that the TMC may be attempting to protect itself from blame if the BJP gains, having skidded the anti-BJP plank in Goa off-kilter. There's a growing sense the TMC has failed to connect with the electorate in Goa, as leaders have begun to exit that party and return to the Congress.

A month after he ditched the Congress for the TMC, MLA Alexio Reginald Lourenco left the TMC, saying he had faced a "tremendous backlash" from his constituents for joining the TMC. He sought re-entry into the Congress but will now contest as an independent. The TMC's surprise announcement that it wanted its Rajya Sabha MP, Luizinho Faleiro, to contest an assembly segment in Goa does not seem to have gone down well with the senior leader, in a move that could potentially see the BJP pick up one more seat due to a split in votes.

Cluttered opposition space

The opposition space is already levelling up for multi-cornered contests with the AAP, TMC-MGP alliance, Goa Su-Raj Party, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-Shiv Sena (SS) crowding the opposition space with the main opposition party - the Congress-Goa Forward Party (GFP) alliance.

The NCP and Sena arrived on the scene in the past week and mopped up candidates that lost out in the Congress nominations. The NCP lost its leverage in the Goa space when its lone MLA Churchill Alemao defected to the TMC weeks ago, after spending his term unofficially allying with the ruling BJP, a move that went unchecked by the NCP. Despite its insignificant presence in Goa, the NCP-SS were also feeding into the national narrative that the Congress had failed to form an alliance with it in Goa, a la Maharashtra. Chidambaram said talks held until recently with the NCP-SS yielded no meeting ground.

Making an early start with its nominations, the Congress will contest 37 seats, leaving three for alliance partner GFP, which had sought five seats. Sticking to its no re-entry to defectors, the party, however, faces the loss of several of its winnable MLAs, who are now with the BJP.

With Goa having witnessed 27 defections this term, public irritation with this phenomenon is high, but, thus far, there is little sign of this translating into electoral rejection by the voting public. One compromise that the party made was inducting BJP minister Michael Lobo into the Congress and allocating his wife and an associate three seats in North Goa's Bardez taluka. Faced with a resurgent BJP making winnability its end-all and armed with a significant cache of its former party leaders, the Congress has been forced into reverting to some smart politics instead of sticking with its initial losing gamble of all new faces.

(The writer is a journalist based in Goa)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.
One does not know what should shake us more - the murder of Sameer by a violent Hindu mob or the forcible ouster of eight Muslim students from their classes by the authorities of a government college in Udupi for wearing hijab and disallowing them to speak in Urdu or use 'salam' to greet others.

The two images are from Karnataka and tell you that Karnataka is competing with states like Uttar Pradesh and Assam to be known as the most dangerous, unsafe and insecure for Muslims and Christians. Sadly that is a race various state units and chief ministers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are involved in: Who can be the most vicious, the most uncouth hatemonger?

The two incidents mentioned above also tell you about the ecology of Islamophobia spread by the BJP, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and other extremist Hindu organisations like the Ram Sene in Karnataka, which affects nearly all aspects of the lives of Muslims and Christians.

Sameer was murdered by a mob instigated to attack and beat up Muslims by a Bajrang Dal leader. Sameer died while his friend Shamsher suffered grave injuries. A video has gone viral in which a Bajrang Dal leader openly calls for violence against Muslims and challenges the police to do whatever it wants. The police officers can be seen watching his violent call. Soon after, the attacks took place, and Sameer was murdered.

Also Read -- No solution in sight to Hijab row in Udupi govt college

The lives of Muslims and Christians are being made difficult by law, violence, and vicious propaganda demonising them in the eyes of Hindus. Laws to hit the practices of these two religious groups are enacted. Street thugs attack Muslims and Christians without any fear of law. The leaders of the RSS network and sections of Kannada media keep spewing hatred against them.

Laws against conversion and so-called 'Love Jihad' have been talked about. The bogey of forced conversions of Hindu women has been used to justify these proposed laws. Christian groups have objected strongly, but the Karnataka government is adamant. The propaganda of the threat of the increasing Muslim population never ceases.

Muslims are also portrayed as people fracturing the universal and uniform Kannadiga identity. The decision of the Udupi government college to not allow some hijab-wearing Muslim students to attend their classes is the most recent example. The chairman of the managing committee of the college, a BJP MLA, defended the decision claiming that it is being done to ensure uniformity.

The students rightly say that hijab does not violate any law. The Constitution of India sanctions them to observe their religious beliefs. If Muslim students say that hijab is part of their religious practice, college authorities cannot deny that. Moreover, there is no rule prescribed by the college or made a condition for enrolment which prevents the students from wearing a hijab.

The students are on record claiming that the college authorities and some faculty members also took offence to their use of Urdu and 'salam' as a form of greeting. If true, it should shock us. But we know it does not.

In an article in Scroll, Umang Poddar has cited the judgments of the Kerala High Court, which hold that the right to wear hijab flows from Article 25(1) of the Constitution, which ensures the "freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion". It can, of course, be regulated keeping in mind the demands of public order, morality and public health. But the orders of the Kerala High Court leave no room for ambiguity in the matter of wearing the hijab.

In 2016, the court held that the hijab forms an essential part of the Islamic religion. It does not offend public order, morality or health, nor hampers other fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The article quotes from an earlier judgment of the Kerala High Court stating clearly, "It cannot be insisted that a particular dress code be followed failing which a student would be prohibited from sitting for the examinations." In the matter of wearing of hijab as a religious right, the orders of the Kerala High Court remain the law of the land. No authority can violate that.

The authorities of the government college are violating the law of the land by denying the students entry into their classes for wearing hijab. The debate should end here. Is the insistence of the students for hijab is internalised patriarchy, or is it a method of subjugating women using religion are not the questions to be discussed at this stage.

The allegation of the college authorities that some organisations have instigated these students to wear hijab is irrelevant. It is also immaterial that other Muslim students do not wear hijab. It only shows that there is diversity in the ways of living of Muslims. Even if they are only eight, all that matters is that they want to wear hijab and have the Constitution's sanction to do so. The insistence of the college authorities that they can access their classes only after removing the hijab is a violation of constitutional law and practice.

The students have rightly asked, "We are practising Muslims, and the hijab is a part of our faith. Along with that, we are also students with aspirations for a career and a good life. Why are we suddenly expected to choose between our identity and our education? That isn't fair at all."

It must disturb us that the college authorities have turned a non-issue into a major controversy. The secularism of India is unique in the sense that it takes a relaxed view of the public presence and demonstration of religious symbols. Unlike Laicite, the model of French secularism which seeks to outlaw any public display of religion, Indian secularism makes room for them. It has helped Indians get initiated into the modern practice of secularism without feeling any violent break from their traditions.

But recently, the Hindu mode of living is being presented as the only universal Indian way of living and other ways as sinister ploys to distort it. Urdu has been a language of Karnataka for long, and 'salam' isn't unfamiliar to the ears of the Kannadigas. But now, the RSS and its affiliates are promoting an aggressive Hinduisation of all social and public spaces. It is alienating Muslims and Christians from all kinds of publicness. The refusal of the college authorities to allow the students education and the reluctance of political parties to stand for their rights must disturb us. It is this which emboldens open calls for violence against Muslims. The erasure of identity markers ultimately leads to physical elimination.

(The writer teaches at Delhi University)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.
On Thursday 20th January 2022, the Embassy of Japan in Mauritius and the NonGovernmental Organization Link to Life signed the grant contract on The Project for Introducing Ultrasound Machine for Breast Cancer Screening Caravan which formalizes the amount of 40,349 euros, or approximately 2 million rupees through Japans official development assistance program, Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP, or KUSANONE).



The fund will allow Link to Life to acquire two mobile ultrasound machines to equip their caravan. Link to Life will thus provide free breast screening to women from vulnerable regions in Mauritius.

The documents were signed by His Excellency KAWAGUCHI Shuichiro, the Ambassador of Japan to Mauritius and Mr. Rajendra Prasad GANGOOSINGH, president of the board of Link to Life at the main office of the NGO in Gymkhana, Vacoas.

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Ticket distribution is always a tricky time for parties in a fiercely contested election such as that in Uttar Pradesh, which votes in seven phases starting February 10 to March 7. The tickets for the seats that vote in the first phase have been announced, and various eruptions have taken place. Some problems have been articulated in what is called the Jat belt of West UP, and there have been loud fights and complaints and sulking hopefuls in the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD)-Samajwadi Party (SP) combine.

In one seat, the RLD candidate has also filed his nomination, although the joint leadership has decided that the seat would go to the SP. In another seat, a wealthy Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defector, who got a ticket from RLD, mysteriously announced he could not contest the election, giving rise to speculation about income tax and enforcement threats forcing him to withdraw.

Things have been smoother for the BJP in ticket distribution as the party is not structured in a manner in which candidates would loudly protest against the leadership. Some may leave, but since many had no real standing and won on a Modi wave -- that extended from the 2014 Lok Sabha to the 2017 assembly polls and again in the 2019 national elections -- they are inclined to accept the party diktat.

Also Read  Akhilesh to contest from family bastion of Mainpuri

Yet things are challenging for the national party on the ground, as visible in the viral video clip of BJP MLA and candidate Vikram Saini, shared on January 20, from Khatauli in West UP being chased away by villagers of his constituency. He represents the Saini OBC group. In another instance, there were reports of the Gujjar OBCs driving out a BJP candidate.

Yet, it is the Jat community that played an epic role in the growth and consolidation of the BJP in UP in recent times, just as they now could be the catalyst to an anti-BJP sentiment palpable in parts of West UP. Flashback to the year 20132014: anti-incumbency was rising against the ruling UPA at Delhi, completing its second term, and the Anna Hazare movement of 2011 had by then created an electric mood for change. Against this backdrop, the Muzaffarnagar riots broke out in August-September 2013 between Jats and Muslims and actually laid the ground for a certain momentum that the BJP rode on.

This was the era when rumours about "Romeo squads" allegedly of Muslim youth were spread, and Hindu-Muslim relations ruptured. The worst othering of minorities since Partition reached a pitch on the grounds of West UP. In 2014, Narendra Modi shifted to national politics, promising "Ache Din" (Good Days) even as the soil was fertilised with communal propaganda. (It must be noted that although the Ram Janmabhoomi movement had catapulted the BJP to national prominence, it is only in the post-Modi era that the BJP made a thorough conquest of the nation's most populous state.)

Also Read  Bhim Army president Chandrashekhar alias Ravan to contest against Yogi Adityanath

Against the backdrop of the damaged social relations with Muslims, present in large numbers in UP's Jat belt, the Jat community voted vigorously for the BJP in 2014, 2017 and 2019. According to the Lokniti-CSDS data, in 2014, 77 per cent of UP Jats voted for the BJP, while in 2019, due to the Pulwama-Balakot cycle of events in the run-up to the general election, as many as 91 per cent of Jats voted for the BJP.

The 2013 riots had also ruptured the traditional vote bank of the RLD, which is now led by Jayant Chaudhary, the grandson of Charan Singh, a former PM and arguably the tallest UP Jat peasant leader. A vocal community with high representation in the armed and police forces, Jats are spread across Punjab (Jat Sikhs), Haryana, parts of Rajasthan and the sugarcane belt of UP.

But the mood would again dramatically change after the Modi government brought in the farm laws. The Jats of Punjab and UP were at the forefront of the year-long agitation, in the course of which many decided, along with other farming communities, that the BJP is an anti-farmer force. This was clearly the main reason why Prime Minister Modi abruptly withdrew the farm laws on November 20, 2021, just before election season began.

The farm movement also repaired some of the social fissures. The Jat-Muslim combine, the traditional RLD, and Charan Singh social base can, if it works perfectly, be a deciding factor in many assembly seats that vote in phase one of the election. One rough estimate is that Muslims make up nearly 29 per cent of the population and Jats about 7 per cent. Combine the two, and it's a formidable grouping. There are challenges, such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) putting forth several Muslim candidates and the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM also pursuing the Muslim vote. However, most minority voters would still be opting for the 'front' more likely to challenge the BJP in the state.

Also Read  UP polls: SP-RLD alliance battles to get the caste equations right in 'Jatland'

Simultaneously, it would be prudent to note that this anti-BJP sentiment is more absolute in Punjab than in UP, where a small section of Jats will still vote for the BJP if they do not like the candidate put up by the RLD-SP alliance. And after the current round of seat distribution, they are unhappy about candidates in a few seats. In one instance, a Muslim candidate has been put up on a seat named Siwalkhas that currently falls in district Meerut. The Jats believe the RLD should have fielded a candidate from their community. The joint candidate, Ghulam Mohammad, an old SP hand, will contest on the RLD symbol.

Indeed, that seems to be the rub of the problem, with many Jats complaining that the RLD symbol has in some seats been given to candidates that the SP has selected. Yet, it would be incorrect to see this through the prism of a Jat-Muslim divide, although the BJP on the ground is projecting it as such. This emanates from the intense competition for tickets and the Jat belief that they shifted the narrative for this election with the farm agitation and should, therefore, have a larger chunk of seats and representation. Besides, farmers' leader, and Jat figure, Rakesh Tikait is again expected to go to Lakhimpur-Kheri, where a minister's son ran over protesting farmers. That can keep the anti-farmer pitch of the opposition alive.

Meanwhile, unity between Jats and Muslims in the first phase of voting is more than just an arithmetical composition. If it holds, it sends a signal against the communal polarisation that was so much part of the architecture of the house that the BJP built for itself in Uttar Pradesh.

(Saba Naqvi is a journalist and an author)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.

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By Matthew Wills for The Conversation,

Sex is an expensive business, biologically speaking. Finding a suitable mate takes time and energy. Offspring are also a huge investment of resources. But sex does offer a rewarding possibility: children who are fitter than their parents thanks to new and better combinations of genes. Darwin realised that many animal species therefore carefully select their mates.

There is an innate biological inequality, however. Eggs are relatively few in number  a large and costly investment  while sperm are small and vastly more abundant. And embryos often need further investment in the body or outside. Since the greater investment tends to fall on females, they are often the more selective sex (while males compete to be chosen).

But according to a new paper, published in Science, Charles Darwins patriarchal worldview led him to dismiss female agency and mate choice in humans.

He also downplayed the role of female variation in other animal species, assuming they were rather uniform, and always made similar decisions. And he thought there was enormous variation among the males who battled for female attention by showing off stunning ranges of skills and beauty. This maintained the focus on the dynamics of male dominance hierarchies, sexual ornamentation and variation as drivers of sexual selection, even if females sometimes did the choosing.

But do Darwins ideas on sexual selection hold up today?

Complex choices

When animals choose a partner, their appearance, sound and smell can all be accurate guides to the survival ability of the prospective mate. For example, large antlers in deer are a good indicator of fighting ability, dominance and overall fitness. But many other traits can be chosen because they are otherwise conspicuous and attractive yet may be a poor guide to overall genetic quality, or even misleading.

Females may evolve to choose mates with whom their offspring are less likely to survive, provided there are more such offspring as a trade off. In some species of poecilid fish, for example, male attractiveness is linked to genes that can reduce their survival. Females therefore face a dilemma: mate with a more attractive male and produce some highly attractive but otherwise less vigorous sons, or mate with a less attractive male to maximise the survival of those sons. Which strategy will produce most grandchildren?

Females may therefore select for traits in males that apparently have no other bearing upon their ability to survive. The peacocks tail is a handicap in most other aspects of its life  an impediment to flight and evading predators  save for the attraction of a female. However, it may also be true that the ability of a male to manage such a burden is itself a marker of overall genetic quality and rigour.

It isnt always females who choose. In pipefishes, the males invest heavily by carrying the fertilised eggs until they hatch, and it is the females who compete with each other in order to secure the attentions of males.

Optimal mate choice is not the same for all individuals, or at all times in their development. For example, younger satin bowerbirds are frightened by the most vigorous male displays, while older females typically find these most attractive. And many fishes are sequential hermaphrodites, changing sex  and therefore mate choices  as they age.

Research since Darwin, therefore, reveals that mate choice is a far more complex process than he may have supposed, and is governed by variation in both sexes.

Was Darwin a sexist?

So, is the accusation of sexism levelled at Darwin really valid, and did this cloud his science? There is certainly some evidence that Darwin underestimated the importance of variation, strategy and even promiscuity in most female animals.

For example, Darwin - possibly as a result of a prevailing prudishness - placed little emphasis on mechanisms of sexual selection that operate after mating. Female birds and mammals may choose to mate with multiple males, and their sperm can compete to fertilise one or more eggs within the reproductive tract.

Cats, dogs and other animals can have litters with multiple fathers (the gloriously named heteropaternal superfecundation - even though the sound of it is really quite atrocious!).

There is even some suggestion that the human penis  being thicker than our nearest primate relatives  is an adaptation for physically displacing the sperm of competing males. Such earthy speculations were anathema to Darwins sensibilities.

Female blue tits often mate with multiple males in order to ensure their protection and support - a somewhat manipulative strategy when paternity for the prospective fathers is uncertain. All this challenges Darwins assumption that females are relatively passive and non-strategic.

Where males make a greater investment, they become more active in mate choice. Male (rather than female) poison dart frogs (Dendrobates auratus) protect the young, and therefore attract multiple females who compete to lay eggs for them to fertilise. Many bird species have biparental care, and therefore a richer diversity of mating systems.

Inevitably, Darwins world view was shaped by the culture of his time, and his personal writings make it difficult to mount a particularly robust defence. In a letter from 1882, he wrote I certainly think that women, though generally superior to men to [sic] moral qualities are inferior intellectually; & there seems to me to be a great difficulty from the laws of inheritance  in their becoming the intellectual equals of man.

He also deliberated over the relative merits of marriage, famously noting: Home, & someone to take care of house  Charms of music & female chit-chat.  These things good for ones health.  but terrible loss of time.

Unsurprisingly there is much that Darwin did not fully understand. Darwin  like Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe  married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood. Ironically, he knew nothing of genetics and the mechanisms by which close relatives are more likely to have offspring with certain genetic diseases. Intriguingly, our closest relatives in the tree of life, the chimpanzees, naturally circumvent this problem, since females select mates that are more distantly related to them than the average male in the available pool.

Despite its omissions, however, Darwins understanding was radically more advanced than anything that preceded it. When combined with the subsequent understanding of genetics and inheritance, Darwins writings are still the bedrock of all modern evolutionary biology.

(The author works at the University of Bath)
At a time when the pandemic has pushed children from vulnerable communities out of the formal education system, this school has come up with unique ways to retain students.

Sri Padmashree High School in Binnypet caters to students from deprived sections, many of them first-generation learners.

The pandemic-imposed financial crisis and technological barriers for online classes would have forced several of these children out of school, if not for timely intervention.

Many students did not have a mobile phone or tab. Not only did the school provide them tabs, but it also reached out to students neighbours. "We called up the neighbours and asked them to lend their phones for online classes, principal Rajeshwari, who started the school in 2005, says. If the house is not conducive for learning, children could access online classes from the school.

Finance was another challenge. Shakti Priya, a parent whose daughters study here, said, In other schools, children werent allowed for online classes unless they paid the fee. Our kids continued school as we were excused from fees for the most part of the pandemic. Even now, we have the option of paying fees in EMIs.

The school made wellness calls to students, at least twice a week to check on them, a practice that continues during the third wave. The school also tied up with a stationery shop for notebooks where students can buy books and the school pays for it later.

The school raised funds for 40 children in the neighbourhood who had dropped out of schools during Covid and ensured they returned to classes.

Factoring in mental health during the pandemic, the school lightened up academics with activities that did not require buying anything. While other parents struggled to engage kids, our children never faced boredom during the lockdown, said Jamuna, a parent.

Where does the money come from? Money pooled by parents and staff is used, says Rajeshwari, a first-generation learner herself.

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In a respite for citizens and businesses, Karnataka decided Friday to lift the stay-at-home order on weekends, while retaining all other curbs such as the daily night curfew and 50 per cent capacity in restaurants.

Schools and colleges in Bengaluru Urban, where the positivity rate among children is high, will remain closed for in-person classes for students of classes 10, 11 and 12 (pre-university). They continue as per the directions currently in place.

The decision to withdraw the weekend curfew was taken in a two-hour-odd meeting chaired by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and attended by senior ministers, officials and the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).

We have decided to cancel the weekend curfew based on the report by experts. But, this is conditional, Revenue Minister R Ashoka said. If the rate of hospitalisation crosses 5 per cent, then we will impose the weekend curfew again. So, we request people to be careful and follow guidelines.

Ashoka said that the hospitalisation rate is the yardstick the government is following. There are 2.93 lakh active cases. Of them, 2.86 lakh are isolated at home. Totally, there are 5,343 people in hospital, with 340 in ICU and 127 on ventilator (support), he said.

Also Read  Bengaluru hits pandemic record with 30,000 Covid cases

The government was under tremendous pressure to end the weekend curfew. One opinion that emerged in the meeting was that the state should be considered as one unit. Some argued that Bengaluru needs curbs as there are more cases here. But, we decided against having different rules for different places, Ashoka said.

He justified the continuation of the night curfew every day from 10 pm to 5 am. Theres a need to restrict night activities like partying. Also, people should be aware that Covid is still around.

Primary & Secondary Education Minister BC Nagesh said that except in Bengaluru Urban, schools and colleges will continue. School will be considered as one unit. Local officials will decide on closing a school for three days if, say, 3-5 kids test positive. If 25-30 kids test positive, then the school will be closed for seven days, he said.

The overall positivity rate of Covid-19 is 19.94 per cent, whereas it is 8 per cent for children.

Out of 5.33 lakh tests, the positivity rate among children aged 6-15 is 5.94 per cent, Nagesh said. There are six districts where the positivity rate in this age group is 9 per cent whereas it is less than 5 per cent in all other districts.

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The state-run Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Ltd (KRIDL) has formed a nine-member committee to oversee the construction of a 111-feet statue of spiritual leader Shivakumara Swami, the late pontiff of the Siddaganga Mutt.

The committee will be headed by retired High Court Justice G Patri Basavana Goud, according to an order by KRIDL.

The influential Lingayat pontiff, who was known as Walking God, died in January 2019 aged 111, following which the government said his native village Veerapura in Magadi, Ramanagara will be developed as a cultural centre.

His 111-feet statue standing atop a two-storey base will come up in Veerapura.

The project has been awarded to PSAP Architects whereas Galagali Associates will be the project management consultancy.

The government has approved 25 crore for the works.

The committee that will oversee construction of the statue includes former DGP Shankar Bidari, former IAS officer MB Dyaberi, senior Congress leader Eshwar Khandre, former Bengaluru Mayor BS Puttaraju, former professor K Basavaraju, Chitrakala Parishat principal Tejendra Singh Baoni, Rudresh and the KRIDL superintending engineer of the BBMP zone.

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A new mural to the Derry nun killed in an earthquake in South America almost six years ago will be officially unveiled in the city at the end of this month.

Sister Clare Crockett died when a tremor with a magnitude 7.8 struck the school where she was teaching in Playa Prieta in Ecuador on April 16, 2016. In total, over 700 people were killed.

Two weeks after her death, her remains were flown back to her home town from Ecuador for Requiem Mass in St Columba's Church, Long Tower.

She was laid to rest in the new section of the City Cemetery which has become a place of pilgrimage since healings and fertility 'miracles' were attributed to her after people prayed for her intercession. As a result, there have been calls for her to be made a saint.

A house-size mural was unveiled on a gable wall on Deanery Street close to her family home in the Brandywell area of the city in August 2020. The artwork includes her motto 'All or Nothing' as well as a copy of her signature.

The new mural, on the gable wall of the MediCare pharmacy on Racecourse Road in the Shantallow area of the city, will be blessed by the Bishop of Derry, Most Rev Dr Donal McKeown at 5.30pm on Saturday, January 29.

Sister Clare's family said everyone was welcome to attend and asked those attending to adhere to social distancing and wear face coverings.
Steve Bradley is chairperson of the Derry-based lobby group, Into the West, which is campaigning for a better rail network in the North West. Here, he explains why people should contribubte to the All-Island Rail Review consultation.

There was a time when Derry sat at the centre of an intricate regional network of rail  with four railway stations in the city, and lines branching out in all directions.

Whether you wanted to get to Belfast, Dublin, Strabane, Limavady or Letterkenny, there was a train waiting to take you there from the centre of our city.

All that had changed by 1965, however, as the culmination of two decades of cuts to the Irish rail network saw our infrastructure reduced to just one station and a line to Belfast. Since then, two whole generations have been born and raised in Donegal, Tyrone and Limavady for whom rail exists only in hazy memories and black and white photographs.

Cutting our city off from these hinterland areas has affected us economically, socially and in terms of tourism.

The demise of rail in the North-West is inextricably linked to the economic under-performance of our region over the last 60 years.

The good news is that an opportunity has now arisen to undo those mistakes of the past. Rail is having a major renaissance across Europe, with the EU even declaring 2021 as its Year of Rail.' In Ireland - a place with one of the highest car - dependency rates in Europe - rail is no longer being viewed as an outdated relic.

It is instead increasingly seen as a key part of this islands transport future - with an essential contribution to make in tackling climate change, road congestion and rebalancing population and economic activity away from Belfast and Dublin.

The Republic, in particular, has reflected this change of attitude in its new Project Ireland 2040 National Development Plan, which makes Sustainable Mobility a key national objective.

Whilst Northern Ireland is often slow at responding to the winds of change, even here there has been a palpable change in public and political attitudes towards rail. And now the first ever All-Island Rail Strategy is being developed to map out a new role and future for rail across Ireland.

The All-Island Rail Review Strategy was jointly announced last year by NI Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon and southern Transport Minister Eamon Ryan. The strategy will look at ways to improve the rail network across the island as a whole, with a particular focus upon 'better connections to the North West.'

The Review is due to be completed and published by Summer 2022 - and as part of that process a public consultation has begun to secure views on how and where the network should be improved.

Into The West is the campaign group for rail in Counties Derry, Donegal, Tyrone and Fermanagh. It was established in 2004 to successfully oppose Stormonts then-plan to shut the existing Belfast to Derry rail line west of Coleraine.

That proposal would have removed the last remaining piece of rail infrastructure anywhere in West Ulster, and left NIs second city (and the fourth biggest on the island) without access to rail. It would also have made returning rail to Donegal and Tyrone at any point in the future even less likely to happen.

Into The West won the battle to save that crucial rail line, and followed it up by successfully campaigning for a new fit-for-purpose rail station to be created in Derry. In recent years we have also begun campaigning for seven major improvements that would revolutionise transport across the North West of the island.

We have been making the case for extending rail provision throughout the North West to the transport ministers North and South, MPs, MLA, councils and TDs, chambers of commerce and ordinary members of the public.

And weve witnessed a fundamental shift in public opinion on this topic in recent years. Where once the idea of bringing rail back to places like Letterkenny or Strabane was dismissed as fantasy, it is now considered essential by many people across the North West.

The absence of even basic infrastructure in counties like Donegal and Tyrone (connecting directly to Derry) is no longer being tolerated, and people are being increasingly outspoken in demanding it be changed. The North West is awake!

If you want to see Derry return to its rightful role as a major regional transport hub for the North West, the All-Island Rail Review consultation is the perfect opportunity to get your voice heard on this. It is essential that as many people as possible from Derry use it to demand the expansion and improvement of rail throughout the North-West.

There will be a lot of voices contributing from elsewhere across the island, to demand that rail be restored or improved in their area too.

So, if we dont take advantage of this opportunity there is a danger the places which shout louder could become the main focus of this new strategy.

Rail will only expand across the North West if people here believe it is possible and demand that it happens. So, we need to ensure that Derry shouts the loudest  and with a united and clear voice  on this key issue for our regions future.

The deadline to make submissions to the All-Island Rail Review Strategy consultation is this Friday, 21st January 2022.

If you want to see Derry return to its former glory as a regional transport centre, and 60 years of transport isolation come to an end for Donegal and Tyrone, then please ensure you make a submission today to say so.

And please also ask for the seven Requests for the North-West listed above.

The consultation webpage is : www.StrategicRailReview.com/

Feedback . You can also submit comments by email to: strategicrailreview@arup.com
SDLP councillor Brian Tierney has welcomed the end of the public consultation on the All Island Strategic Rail Review.

Cllr Tierney, who represents the Ballyarnett ward, said he hoped the breadth of responses received would help inform plans to transform connectivity and rail provision across the island.

He stated that improved rail connectivity in the North West had long been a priority for the SDLP and welcomed Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallons commitment to delivering on the project.

The All-Island Strategic Rail Review is one of the most exciting projects for our city in quite some time, said Cllr Tierney.

The lack of adequate transport links connecting Derry with the rest of this island has been an issue for decades, limiting investment opportunities and cutting us off from other major cities.

Since taking office, SDLP Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon has committed to addressing these long-standing issues and an expansive rail network is part of that.

Ireland once had a rail network that passed through our major towns and cities and a return to this kind of provision would be transformative.

I also welcome Minister Mallons determination to work in a cross-border capacity to maximise the potential of this initiative right across our island.

We are at our best when we work together and this kind of approach is all too lacking in other Executive departments.

Minister Mallon has continually shown she is determined to delivering for people in Derry and right across the North.

While essential infrastructure projects for this area were stalled by previous ministers, Minister Mallon has announced number of projects that will make a real difference to the lives of local people.

From a study to introduce a half hourly train service between Derry and Belfast, funding to progress the Phase Three upgrade between the two cities, the completion of work on the North West Transport Hub, a 66m investment in new train carriages, a commitment to delivering the A5 and expanding plans for high speed rail to now include Derry and connect Belfast to Dublin and Cork to Limerick, Minister Mallon is delivering for our city and leading where others have failed.
Foyle MP, Colum Eastwood, has presented the Bloody Sunday families with a copy of the Parliamentary Hansard record where he named Soldier F in the House of Commons.

Under the terms of an anonymity court, the identify of Soldier F, who is accused of murdering two people on Bloody Sunday in Derry and the attempted murder of a several other people on that day, is not allowed to be made public.

However, in a Parliament debate on the North of Ireland on July 13 last year, the SDLP leader, Mr Eastwood, named him.

He did so under parliamentary privilege which is a legal immunity enjoyed by MPs.

It means that they are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for statements made in the course of their legislative duties.

In a ceremony to mark the beginning of a week of events commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Mr Eastwood met with the Bloody Sunday families and the Museum of Free Derry, handed over the copy of Hansard that details the debate where he named Soldier F to Parliament.

Colum Eastwood said: Every anniversary of Bloody Sunday is a very raw and emotional time in Derry.

Even after fifty years, the collective grief of that time that we all share still shapes our city.

Everyone in Derry knows what happened on Bloody Sunday. Men and boys were murdered in their own town by the British Army as they marched for civil rights.

Every year, we honour their memory and support their families fight for truth and justice. A struggle that we must never stop.

I was honoured to present the Museum of Free Derry with a copy of the Official Hansard which named 'Soldier F'.

I hope that it can serve to educate, inform and play a part in the history of the struggle for truth and justice.

I want to congratulate the Bloody Sunday Trust for their tremendous effort in this years events.

It is an important moment for our city and they have again stepped up for people in Derry.
Irish people have higher levels of interest in news compared to other countries, including the UK, research has found.

It also found that the disparity between Irish men and Irish womens net interest in news is closing.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) published research examining the role of gender and diversity in media consumption in Ireland and internationally.

The research was led by assistant Professor Dr Dawn Wheatley at Dublin City University.

Today we publish additional analysis of the Reuters Digital News Reports. The research looks at the impact of gender & diversity in news consumption in Ireland. It is presented in factsheet form here: https://t.co/hLE9nOoWul. This additional analysis was carried out by @FuJoMedia pic.twitter.com/dI1844EICb  BAI (@BAItweets) January 20, 2022

It found that while high-income earners continued to be extremely or very interested in news in 2021, the gap with low earners is closing.

In 2020, there was a 25% difference, compared with 14% in 2021.

Research found that education levels also played a role in trust in news material on social media.

Those who had low education levels, did not finish secondary school, are more likely to trust news material they see on social media, compared with those with high or medium education, who appeared to be more sceptical.

Low income earners in Ireland also seem to have higher trust in news on social media than medium and high income earners, it found.

Most people said they tend to disagree that they can trust news on social media in Ireland, but levels of trust appear to have increased in Ireland compared to 2020.

Ireland and the UK have the highest levels of concern for what is real and what is fake on the Internet.

More than two-thirds of women, and almost as many men, in Ireland have concerns around the accuracy of the content theyre seeing online.

Women in Ireland, compared to women in the UK, Denmark, Austria and Greece, have the highest level (25%) of accessing the news only once a day.

Ireland has a higher percentage of people who said they were extremely or very interested in news at 70%, compared with countries of a similar size including Denmark and Austria as well as the UK.

Of these four countries, Irish women had the lowest levels of not very or not at all interested in news at 5%, while the UK had the highest with 12%.

Irish women are more likely than Irish men to share news, however Irish men are more likely to share their opinions and comment on news stories.

Assistant Professor Dr Dawn Wheatley said: The findings from this project were hugely interesting.

We hope that this project will help to create awareness amongst news providers about how news and current affairs are consumed differently by men and women, and by people from different backgrounds, and that it will help them to tailor their news offerings to widen interest.

This in turn will facilitate democratic debate and active citizenship.
Lauren and Juan Vargas aren't just husband and wife, now they're business partners as well. Both of them left corporate jobs in the Lehigh Valley during the pandemic, and will be opening Nowhere Coffee Co. at 3127 Tilghman St. in Allentown by the end of the month. They give a tour of the location Friday, Jan. 14, 2022. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call )

Should you quit your job?

The Morning Call recently interviewed many people who did just that, as part of a trend thats been called the Great Resignation.

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You might be tempted to join them, and more than ready to make a change.

If youre assessing whether its time to move on  into a role in the same line of work or something totally new  heres some advice from those who made the move.

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[ Untold numbers of Lehigh Valley workers have joined the Great Resignation. Here are their stories ]

We asked, What would you tell people right now who are thinking about new opportunities?

Here are their responses:

Go for what makes you happy. Dont go for the money. I originally went for the money and I had no choice. I had bills to pay ... but I cant say enough how happy I am at this [new] job. It may end tomorrow, who knows. But I dont regret it.  Andrea Kiskeravage, who left her nursing job at LVHN to become a traveling nurse working with Afghan refugees

Part of me says always remember that you work to live, not live to work. Ive said that to myself many times. You just have to do what make you happier and healthier. I can say this because I have a little kid at home again, but our kids grow up in the blink of an eye. You only have those years and youll never get them back.  Sarah Dandridge, who left a job in banking for a work-from-home position

Talk to your coworkers and then, after that, talk to your closest friends and family, closest loved ones about your situation, because theyre going to encourage you and offer assistance ... the job search, for me, is the tough part.  Jonas Bloomfield, former lightning technician for ArtsQuest

Business Buzz Daily The daily update for the Lehigh Valley business person. >

It has to be something that you like, that you enjoy, that you can see yourself doing for a long time. Once your income from your side hustle equals to income from your regular job, thats probably the time to take the leap.  Tom Young, who quit his familys business in Bethlehem to pivot to selling on Amazon fulltime

If you have the people in your life that support you and you know that you can count on them, and they believe in you - their belief in you is everything. If they believe in you and they got your back, make the move.  Don Andreas, who quit his job of two decades as a credit manager to make wine

I just want to kind of caution people - just make sure that you really love your hobby, and you really want to do that, like 80 hours a week or more. Check your passion. You got to check, Am I in this for the right reasons? Because if youre not, youre going to quit.  Scott Carey, who went from corporate marketing to opening a butcher shop

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The biggest lesson is to think long term and dont shoot from the hip. Dont leave a job just because another person is going to pay you another dollar an hour. The right opportunities are out there ... just do your homework and take your time and dont rush anything, and really get to know the people youre going to be working for and working with, including their reputation and how they treat employees.  Justin Beaver, who left a job in Nashville to become a chef at Saucon Valley County Club

Get your financial house in order. You dont want to go into business with your financial house in disorder and then start off on the wrong foot in a new venture. Thats a lesson learned that was passed on to me from a lot of business owners in our family. And thats helped us a lot, just to not be stressed about everything we really need to be focused on.

My advice is do it and surround yourself with the very best people you can find to help you succeed. Thats it. I am a huge proponent for change, always have been. So without doubt, my suggestion is to dont wait until you are broken. To make the right changes for your work.

 Juan and Lauren Vargas, who both left corporate jobs to open Nowhere Coffee Co. in Allentown
Google is working on an AR/VR headset set for a 2024 launch, according to a recent report

In the past, weve talked about AR/VR headsets from Apple, Microsoft and Meta. Google was the one major player missing from that conversation but thats about to change. After months of sitting on the bench, Google is apparently ready to throw its hat in the Virtual Reality race.

According to a recent report, Google has established a brand new lab for the development of its upcoming AR/VR headset called Project Iris. The report also suggests that the first prototype AR/VR glasses are almost ready.

Google AR/VR Headset Details Revealed

The upcoming AR/VR headset leaked details reveal that it will probably be a wireless unit. Meaning the user wont have to deal with pesky wires while wearing the upcoming Google VR headset. In terms of look at the design, the Google AR/VR headset will look similar to a pair of Ski-Goggles.

Google is also developing a custom OS based on Android to use on its AR headset. The tech giant is also working on a custom chip, similar to the tensor chip found in the latest Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, to power its upcoming AR headset. None of us will get to see the finished product until 2024. The report also seemingly confirms this aspect as the Pixel team is suggested to be working on Project Iris.

However, it is hard to get excited for any brand new Google IP. We already know the status of Stadia and hearing about a Google AR/VR headset and not immediately turning skeptical thinking about a poorly supported product lifecycle with inconsistent updates and support is kind of difficult for me.
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BELLINGHAM (AP)  Gov. Jay Inslee has issued an emergency order to address the exponential population growth of the invasive European green crab within the Lummi Nation's Sea Pond, Makah Bay, Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay.

The emergency order was issued Wednesday in an effort toward eradicating the invasive species and preventing permanent establishment, which would particularly harm endangered species, impact resources that are part of the cultural identity of Washington tribes and Native peoples, affect small businesses and low-income communities, The Bellingham Herald reported.





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The Seattle Symphony will be joined by Kishi Bashi to mark the 80th anniversary of the beginning of Japanese internment in America.





SEATTLE  The Seattle Symphony will mark the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which saw the incarceration of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans during the Second World War, indelibly changing their lives and our region, with a concert and accompanying photography exhibit. The event, titled EO9066, will be held at Benaroya Hall on Jan. 27 at 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. Doors will open 90 minutes before the performance. Tickets range from $24-$134.





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BELLEVUE  The Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle at 15749 N.E. Fourth St. recently sold for $18.5 million, according to King County records.

The seller was the school, which acquired the property in 1986 from Bellevue School District No. 405.





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India's annual export target of $650 billion within reach: Piyush Goyal

Indias merchandise exports is set to achieve the target of$400 billion and with service sector striving for exports of $250 billion, the countrys total exports could reach the $650 billion figure, minister of commerce and industry, consumer affairs, food and public distribution and textiles, Piyush Goyal has said.

Chairing a review meeting of all major Export Promotion Councils (EPCs), Goyal said the $400 billion target of merchandise exports is within sight and the service sector should strive for $250 billion exports, adding, that the country can set a much higher goods exports target in the last quarter of this FY.

In December alone we touched $37 billion goods exports despite the Omicron fear factor weighing high," Goyal pointed out.

Expressing satisfaction that India achieved $300 billion merchandise exports in the first nine months of the current financial year (April-December 2022), Goyal assured the EPCs that his ministry will do whatever it takes in handholding the EPCs and resolving their issues to attain even higher export targets in the next fiscal.

Goyal said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the pace by setting transformational results and not incremental growth.

The commerce and industry minister urged the EPCs and entrepreneurs to avail of the governments initiatives towards Ease of Doing Business such as obtaining clearances through the National Single Window System. He assured the industry representatives to pursue their demands during the various FTA negotiations.

Speaking of the governments efforts to improve the ease of living and the ease of doing business, Goyal said that more than 25,000 compliances have been done away with.

The minister assured that the government is willing to listen to new ideas, engage with industry at every level and work as an enabler, facilitator and partner.
New AEPC chairman Narendra Goenka sees apparel exports gaining further momentum in 2022

Apparel exports from the country is expected to pick up further in the coming financial year despite several disruptions in the global supply chain and demand, Narendra Kumar Goenka who took over charge as the new chairman of Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) has said.

We are witnessing a robust growth in apparel exports. Going by the export orders in hand, this positive trend will further accelerate in the last quarter, Goenka, who took over charge as the new chairman of APEC from A Sakthivel at the councils executive committee meeting on Monday, said.

Apparel exports were 22% up at $1.46 billion in December 2021 from $1.20 billion in December 2020. The same in the first nine months of this fiscal stood at $11.13 billion, 35% more than $8.22 billion in April-December 2020. The trend is getting stronger, he further said.

Goenka said that this major turnaround in apparel exports was possible due to the highly efficient management by the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Indian apparel exporters. Despite several disruptions in the global supply chain and demand, the Indian apparel industry demonstrated its resilience by gradually inching back to the pre pandemic growth path. By the end of this financial year, we will be looking at new targets, he said.

With global demand picking up gradually and industry reporting handsome orders in hand, apparel exports are likely to pick up in 2022. We need to strongly focus on efforts for promoting Brand India taking suitable measures to ensure sustainability and other social compliances, he added.

Goenka has been associated with the council for more than two decades. He was the vice chairman of the apex body of Indian apparel exporters before taking charge as chairman, AEPC.

AEPC, the official body of apparel exporters in India, under the aegis of the ministry of textiles, provides invaluable assistance to Indian exporters as well as importers/international buyers.
Scott Carey, co-owner of Slate Belt Butchery, shows off some cuts of meat Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022, in his Saylorsburg butcher shop. Carey quit his marketing job to become a butcher. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call )

The path from working in corporate marketing to running a butcher shop is more direct than youd imagine.

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Scott Carey followed it, trading his business suit for an apron as he became part of the pandemic phenomenon called the Great Resignation, a workforce migration that saw millions leave their job in pursuit of something more meaningful than a paycheck.

Its been a crazy ride, said Carey, an Easton resident who turned his hobby of smoking meats in his backyard into a business, Slate Belt Butchery in Saylorsburg. Its grown robustly across the two years of COVID-19  Carey just hired his first full-time employee  and its one study in how the pandemic made people keenly aware of what they loved and what they loathed about the world of work.

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Some, like Carey, werent necessarily unhappy at their jobs but were eager to see if they could make a living at what they loved. Others sized up their workplaces and found them lacking in fundamental ways.

The Lehigh Valley was no exception. Workers left their jobs after feeling unsafe, overworked, disrespected and underappreciated. Among the dozens of online comments, emails, messages and phone calls from those invited to tell their stories to The Morning Call, many spoke of a constant state of discontent in these extraordinary times.

[ Thinking about quitting your job? Some advice from those who did, and what you should consider ]

Some workers described how the continued waves of coronavirus infection left them scrambling with health concerns, child care issues and constant fatigue. Others say companies who spoke of employees as family treated them as anything but, constantly pushing work beyond normal business hours. Others forced remote workers back to offices where masks and vaccines were optional.

After 22 years in banking, Sarah Dandridge of Pennsburg, Montgomery County, quit her job after a lot of eye-opening experiences and a major health scare in July 2020. At the time, she had a 7-month-old daughter at home and started seeing things in a whole different light.

Dandridge said she did a lot of soul searching and put feelers out to leave her job in the spring of 2021. A new role emerged, albeit with less vacation time and a smaller paycheck. She doesnt regret it.

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My new job pays significantly less, but it offers the flexibility to work from home and no more long days, no more Saturdays, no more corporate America. No more stress. Its amazing you dont realize what stress at work can do to you, Dandridge said.

Hers is one of many stories where remote work, flexible hours, autonomy and trust outweighed wages and benefits, and workers started thinking more about what they really want.

Quits hit historic levels

Its accurate to say that many workers had enough of their jobs in 2021, but the numbers were shocking to economists as they evolved in real time.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said quits hit a high in September, with over 4.4 million people leaving their jobs. That was followed by a modest dip in October before surging to historic levels of 4.5 million in November. It was the highest number reported by the bureau since it began keeping track December 2000.

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Its an interesting economy, said Ahmed S. Rahman, associate professor of economics at Lehigh University. The labor market, in some respects, looks very healthy. But also, theres a lot of churn, its like a lot of just flow. People are leaving and joining positions at a very, very rapid clip.

Andrea Kiskeravage of Allentown worked in the thick of COVID as a nurse care manager at one of the areas largest health networks, but said her experience during the pandemic shifted her priorities.

I left there and took a travel assignment, and now I work with Afghan refugees at Fort Dix, Kiskeravage said. Ive never felt more fulfilled in my career and Im taking care of kind, respectful people who are grateful to be here. ... This brings me joy and this [job] found me.

[ Public displays of resignation: People arent just leaving their jobs. They are broadcasting it. ]

Similarly, Jonas Bloomfield of Bethlehem decided the stress of his part-time job as a lighting technician for ArtsQuest wasnt worth it.

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I just realized that, due to conditions in the economy right now with that perceived labor shortage and there being work available out there, I felt that its a good opportunity to remove myself to save myself some stress, Bloomfield said, explaining that he had asked for a raise. [Not getting] that put a sour taste in my mouth, which also was another factor that led me into the decision to resign  wage was a big part of the decision.

Nicole Harrell, director of communications for ArtsQuest, declined to comment.

The wave of resignations in the wake of a robust economy with record low unemployment only a couple of years ago also show that probably a lot of those people werent very happy in their jobs, Rahman said.

For Kiskeravage, feeling like a commodity to her hospital and dealing with a lack of support made the day-to-day frustrations worse. She struggled to reconcile why she became a nurse with the current realities of the health care industry, and said moving to a travel nursing stint saved her career.

This could end in a week or a month, but its been a long time since Ive had joy in my career. Im willing to take that risk, she said.

Searching for flexibility

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Tom Young of Saylorsburg chose to quit his familys business in Bethlehem so he could spend more time with his wife and three children. Hes selling groceries and apparel on Amazon full time, and teaching others to do the same through his website and YouTube pages, Residual Hustler. He not only gets more family time, but makes more money.

I think probably about half of what I learned in my familys business has moved over to the Amazon business, Young said, explaining he started selling on Amazon in 2015.

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But it wasnt easy telling his parents he was leaving the family business, he said.

[My father] said to me a couple of times throughout the years, You know, instead, if you were to dedicate that much time to the family business, we could be making a lot more money. And I said, Thats true, but I wouldnt be home. I wouldnt be with my kids. I would be here in a store, having to deal with customers, which is not always fun. 

Turning passion into paychecks

Workers arent just leaving their jobs for better wages or culture; theyre also leaving to pursue their passions or hobbies, taking the opportunity to see if they can make money doing what they love.

Carey, the butcher, took time off to learn the trade, then went back to work in an office to make money before starting his business.

With the meat industry, during COVID, a lot of people struggled to find processing, he said. Theres already a high demand for meat processing going into COVID and the pandemic really just kind of amplified that whole situation.

He and a friend opened Slate Belt Butchery in August 2020 in Saylorsburg, processing for one farm. But demand soon made it apparent he could take on more customers.

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I think by the time March rolled around, we had to be at about 15 customers, Carey said, prompting him to hire two butchers. Theyve been with me all year and we grew. We have just over 40 farm customers that we process for, and then in December, I hired my first full-time employee.

Scott Carey, left, co-owner of Slate Belt Butchery and the team including co-owner Mike Schnalzer, right, in their Saylorsburg butcher shop. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call )

Its been a crazy ride, he said.

Don Andreas quit his job of two decades as a credit manager for a manufacturing company to make wine.

Andreas, of Bangor, picked up winemaking as a hobby in 2018, when his daughter went to college, he said. Then, after his boss retired that year, he was told he wasnt going to be promoted.

I dont remember the rest of what we talked about at that review, because in my head all I was saying is You are not going to retire from this company. Weve got to figure out what is Plan B and come up with a new path. 

He started taking winemaking classes the next year, and eventually decided to pull $50,000 from his 401K to try out winemaking full time.

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It would stink to lose that much money, but I would still have enough, and I would survive, he said. And I thought I would rather be able to say I tried then to just roll with the punches where I was.

He opened Clever Girl Winery on Labor Day Weekend 2020, and said the job lets him be creative  something he couldnt do previously.

In the winemaking process, were all trying to figure out like whats going to be the new, neat thing that really captures the publics attention in the wine industry, Andreas said, adding that he was a musician for 30 years. It was definitely a great creative outlet for me to go in such a direction that I didnt have at a previous job.

He started rolling back his hours at his full-time job in March, and by September was showing up only one day a month.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 10 Lauren and Juan Vargas aren't just husband and wife, now they're business partners as well. Both of them left corporate jobs in the Lehigh Valley during the pandemic, and will be opening Nowhere Coffee Co. at 3127 Tilghman St. in Allentown by the end of the month. They give a tour of the location Friday, Jan. 14, 2022. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call )

Personal and professional

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Allentown residents Juan and Lauren Vargas both left director-level corporate jobs last year, at a time when they were just under 40 and with three kids in elementary and middle school.

Juan was an assistant treasurer at Victaulic and Lauren developed and lead company-wide training for leaders at B. Braun at the beginning of the pandemic.

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We watched our leaders not change. We watched systems not adapt, they said in their initial outreach to The Morning Call. We couldnt make the difference we wanted to for ourselves, let alone our employees. We decided it was time to build something of our own.

Now, theyre co-owners of Nowhere Coffee Co., which will soon open its doors at 3127 Tilghman St. in Allentown. Both say it will feature, among other things, progressive pay systems and management styles.

Were offering a really good base pay, and I think one of the things that sets us apart is that were offering a volume bonus, Lauren said, while Juan noted their objective is treating future employees like they have a family to go home to, rather than promising to just treat them like family.

Both hope their big quit in the corporate world will lead to a moment of reflection for everyone on why workers are so burnt out and what employers need to do to retain them.

The site of Nowhere Coffee Co. at 3127 Tilghman St. in Allentown. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call )

While we acknowledge the challenging labor market, Victaulic is very proud of our ability to attract and retain employees, said Carlos Valdes, director of HR at Victaulic.

Business Buzz Daily The daily update for the Lehigh Valley business person. >

Alli Longenhagen, associate director of corporate communications at B. Braun, said the company has not been immune to the changing dynamics of the U.S. workforce, but its employees are committed to the purpose of protecting and improving the lives of patients in the Lehigh Valley and across the country.

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Their dedication to the work we do is evident in that fact that 21% of our employees here in the Lehigh Valley have stayed with the company for more than 20 years. We are also evolving our culture to meet employees where they are, with initiatives like flexible work arrangements and 8 new employee resource groups, Longenhagen said.

Rahman, the Lehigh University professor, described the waves of resignations as a reinvention, reassessment and realignment in the labor market.

Jobs and your career, its part of your life, but its not your whole life, he said. And I think now, what COVID has done is sort of forced us to think about that  how we calibrate our own existence.

Morning Call reporter Molly Bilinski can be reached at mbilinski@mcall.com.

Morning Call content editor Stephanie Sigafoos can be reached at 610-820-6612 or ssigafoos@mcall.com.
Twelve apply for superintendents office

CHEYENNE (WNE)  The Wyoming Republican Party accepted applications from those who wish to be considered to fill the vacancy left by former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow.

The deadline to submit application materials expired at noon Thursday, and the following people have indicated their interest in filling the vacancy: Michelle Aldrich, Megan Degenfelder, Reagan Kaufman, Angela Raber, Thomas Kelly, Jayme Lien, David Northrup, Joseph Heywood, Joshua Volk, Marti Halverson, Brian Schroeder Sr. and Keith Goodenough.

Interested applicants who missed the deadline may bring 75 copies of their application materials to the State Central Committee meeting at the Douglas Inn in Douglas on Saturday. Members of the committee will hear presentations from applicants at 3:15 p.m., then vote to choose three names to forward to Gov. Mark Gordon.

Interviews with the governor for the successful candidates will be scheduled for Tuesday morning, Jan. 25, at times to be determined.

This story was published on Jan. 21.



Man who climbed up to church roof charged

LARAMIE (WNE)  A transient who spent about two hours on the roof of St. Matthews Cathedral on Wednesday afternoon suspected felony property destruction and misdemeanor use of a controlled substance, which was methamphetamine.

The man, identified as Gary Powers, 46, was taken to the hospital for an evaluation before being transported to the Albany County Detention Center, according to a press release from the Laramie Police Department.

Police responded to the incident after receiving a 911 call reporting someone was climbing the outside of the church. Upon arrival, officers initially trained weapons on the man while commanding him to get down from the roof. The man refused despite negotiation and de-escalation tactics, the press release said.

He didnt want to talk to anybody at all, said the Rev. Brian Gross, who made multiple attempts to talk to the man throughout the standoff. There were a lot of folks trying to figure out how to keep everybody safe. The roof was slanted and slick, (so we were) trying to keep him away from the edge so he didnt fall off.

For much of the time prior to deciding to come down, the man, who did not appear to be armed, did not follow the instructions of law enforcement and wrapped what appeared to be a rope or cable around his waist.

He also pushed away a ladder that was placed against the church to reach him multiple times. At another point, he threw phones off the roof that responders had placed there and smashed one of them.

This story was published on Jan. 21.



Man leaves fish sticks in thefts

GILLETTE (WNE)  Workers at two bars thought something fishy was going on Wednesday when a 55-year-old man went into their establishments that morning.

At 9:54 a.m. Wednesday, East Side Liquor staff said the man came in, handed the bartender a bag of fish sticks, ordered a beer, and went to play on the gambling machines, said Police Cpl. Dan Stroup. He then broke into one of the machines and took money out of the cash box, then left.

At 11:44 a.m., Center Bar staff reported the exact same events happened at their establishment. The 55-year-old gave the bartender a bag of fish sticks, ordered a beer, then went to play on the machines. He also stole money from this bar.

The purpose of the fish sticks remains unclear, Stroup said.

Police spoke with the suspect, who denied any involvement. It is not known how much money is missing right now, Stroup said, and the investigation continues.

This story was published on Jan. 20.



Woman accused of driving into deputys car pleads not guilty

PINEDALE (WNE)  Mariah Culwell, of Pinedale, pleaded not guilty on Jan. 20 to felony charges that she intentionally fled and collided with a patrol vehicle on Dec. 8 and caused injuries to a deputy as well as heavy damages to the vehicle.

Culwell, who remains in custody, appeared via videoconference from jail to face those charges before 9th District Judge Marv Tyler plus an aggravated assault and battery felony that she caused a deputys injuries with a deadly weapon, her own car.

Culwell also pleaded not guilty to felony interference with a peace officer and driving under the influence of controlled substances at her arraignment.

She requested a jury trial that Judge Tyler will schedule within several days.

The new charges resulted from a Dec. 8 incident when deputies responded to a report that Culwell had run into a truck parked at a local hotel.

When deputies responded to the hotel parking lot, Culwell allegedly said she could not get out of her car, then drove through the parking lot and turned east onto Pine Street.

She also did not stop when Deputy Danielle Cooper followed her with lights and sirens, and when Deputy Krystal Mansur parked her own patrol vehicle across the road to stop Culwell, she intentionally collided with it, injuring the deputy and causing more than $10,000 damages to the patrol vehicle, according to the charging document.

Culwells vehicle then struck a boulder and came to rest in Ridleys parking lot, it says.

This story was published on Jan. 21.
Duncan, OK (73533)

Today

Strong thunderstorms likely. Damaging winds, large hail and possibly a tornado with some storms. High 74F. Winds E at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 62F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
In this photo provided by the Australian Defence Force the Prime Minister of Tonga, Siaosi Sovaleni, right, joins the Australian High Commissioner to Tonga, Rachael Moore, to watch the arrival of the first Royal Australian Air Force C-17A Globemaster III aircraft at Fuaamotu International Airport near Nukualofa, Tonga, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022.
Head to the Christmas City for delectable dishes at tantalizing prices during Historic Bethlehem Winter Restaurant Week, Sunday through Jan. 29.

The event, presented by the Downtown Bethlehem Association, features fixed-price, multi-course menus and other dining deals at 14 downtown Bethlehem restaurants  from Broad Street favorites such as Billys Downtown Diner and Coal Winery & Kitchen to Main Street hot spots like Casa Del Mofongo and Mama Nina Foccacheria.

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Tapas on Main is one of 14 restaurants participating in Historic Bethlehem Winter Restaurant Week, kicking off Sunday. (MORNING CALL FILE PHOTO)

Possible three-course lunch combinations, $15 each, include beet citrus salad, shrimp tostada and caramel tres leches at Urbano Mexican Kitchen & Bar; Caesar salad, poblano black bean burger and toasted coconut amaretto tart at Twisted Olive; and mini beef empanada, crispy fish sandwich with fries and blueberry cream cheese tart at Tapas on Main.

In the evening, find more dining deals such as Prince Edward Island mussels, pan-seared salmon and lemon mascarpone tart ($35.22) at Apollo Grill; duck confit tacos, half rack of ribs and warm apple crisp ($39) at Edge; and mushroom ravioli, boneless braised beef short ribs and creme brulee ($35) at Historic Hotel Bethlehem.

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Historic Hotel Bethlehem will participate in Historic Bethlehem Winter Restaurant Week, Sunday through Jan. 29. (APRIL BARTHOLOMEW / THE MORNING CALL)

For interactive dining with a fondue twist, try The Melting Pot, which will offer a $45, four-course dinner. A sample combination includes a bourbon bacon cheddar cheese fondue, strawberry pecan salad, Main Street entree (filt mignon, teriyaki sirloin, chicken breast and wild mushroom sacchetti) and chocolate fondue blended with caramel and garnished with shredded coconut.

Other highlights include a $12.95, two-course breakfast, with second-course options of a burger omelet, crab cake Benedict or banana bread French toast at The Flying Egg; $15, two-course lunch, with second-course choices of roasted lamb French dip, winter grains salad or BBB Burger (topped with blueberry compote, smoked bacon, blue cheese crumbles, arugula and red onion) at McCarthys Red Stag Pub & Whiskey Bar; and $30, three-course dinner, with entree choices of salmon, Roses chicken pot pie, filet medallions and portobello pasta at Tavern at the Sun Inn.

The Flying Egg will participate in Historic Bethlehem Winter Restaurant Week, Sunday through Jan. 29. (Ryan Kneller/The Morning Call)

Diners are encouraged to take a photo of their plates, tag the restaurant, and upload the pictures to social media using the hashtag #postyourplate for a chance to win a gift card to every restaurant participating in Historic Bethlehem Winter Restaurant Week. Two winners will be selected at random.

Reservations should be made directly with the restaurants. Info: getdowntownbethlehem.com.
EBRD invests US$ 90 million in new Coca-Cola Icecek A.S. sustainability-linked Eurobond

Bond proceeds to refinance debt, support capex and meet working-capital needs

Coca-Cola Icecek is a long-standing EBRD client

In a move to help improve access to debt capital markets by Turkish companies, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is investing US$ 90 million (18%) in a US$ 500 million sustainability-linked Eurobond issued by Turkeys Coca-Cola Icecek A.S..

An EBRD partner since 2008, Coca-Cola Icecek is one of the largest independent bottlers in the Coca-Cola system, operating in Turkey, Central Asia, Pakistan and the Middle East, and listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange.

The proceeds from the bond issuance will be used to refinance the companys debt, support capex investments and meet working capital needs.

As part of its sustainability-linked issuance, Coca-Cola Icecek will have a key performance indicator tied to a 13 per cent increase in water efficiency by 2027 from a baseline of 2020. The company has further ambitions in water and energy efficiency usage reduction, and has committed to reporting and externally verifying its performance on an annual basis.

The EBRD will further support Coca-Cola Icecek in improving policies and practices to foster gender equality in recruitment, career progression and training.

The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Turkey and has invested more than 15 billion in 367 projects in the country since 2009. Sustainability is at the heart its investment and policy engagement.
Sinn Fein TD for Cork South Central Donnchadh O Laoghaire has said sixth-year students deserve a decision regarding the State examinations as the Department of Education has announced further stakeholder discussions are to take place in the coming days.

The Minister for Education Norma Foley, Department officials and the State Examinations Commission today hosted an online meeting of the advisory group of stakeholders on planning for the 2022 State Examinations.

The group includes students, parents, teachers, school leadership and management bodies, the State Examinations Commission (SEC), the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Education, including the National Educational Psychological Service.

In a statement issued tonight by the Department of Education, it said a number of updates were received from advisory group members, including reports of results from surveys of members which were conducted by certain bodies.

The statement said there was positive and collaborative engagement at the meeting today and that the Minister is very aware of the disruption experienced by students who are due to sit State examinations this year.

The Department has committed to continued engagement with all education stakeholders in the short period ahead.

It was agreed that the members of the group would reflect on the contributions made at todays meeting, and engagement will continue between the Minster and the stakeholders on a bilateral basis over the coming days.

A date for the next advisory group meeting will be set in the coming days, the statement added.

Leaving Cert students are waiting to find out what is happening. They deserve clarity but they havent got that today.



Sinn Fein will keep supporting the student voice, and will keep up the pressure to ensure choice between accredited grades & written exams. - @Donnchadhol pic.twitter.com/tGxvZlwRwt  Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) January 20, 2022

Sinn Fein spokesperson for Education, Donnchadh O Laoghaire expressed disappointment following the outcome of todays meeting.

Leaving Cert students deserve clarity. Theyve already endured so much uncertainty.

It now looks as if Minister Foley is delaying yet again for another week.

That isnt good enough. Students deserve a choice.

They deserve a choice between accredited grades and a written exam and they deserve a decision," he said.

A recently published survey by the Irish Second-Level Students Union (ISSU) found that 68 percent of sixth-year students would like to see a hybrid model for State examinations in 2022.

The Ombudsman for Children earlier this week voiced his support for students unhappy with current plans for the exams.

Dr Niall Muldoon said current small adaptations to the traditional format were insufficient for children who had experienced two years of disrupted education due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

I am fully supportive of the ISSU (Irish Second-level Students' Union) and the students who are saying that they are not happy with the current plans for Leaving Certificate 2022, he said.

The students are telling us that the proposed accommodations do not fully address the disruption to education that students have experienced over the past two years. We must listen to what they are saying."

Dr Muldoon said it is imperative that students are given certainty as soon as possible on the plans for this years exam.

He said the ISSUs call for a hybrid model has to be investigated.
People can look forward to an earlier-than-planned lifting of Covid restrictions.

Current public health restrictions were due to stay in place until the end of the month, but it is now expected that the Government will begin lifting them sooner.

Nphet met today and it is understood they have recommended the end of early closing for hospitality and the 2m social distancing rule.

Caps on event attendance and the need for Covid passes to gain entry to indoor hospitality could also be scrapped.

Government ministers will meet tomorrow to assess the advice before the Taoiseach makes an announcement.

Owner of the Castle Inn on South Main St, Michael ODonovan, welcomed the news.

He said:

Weve been on life support for 22 months really, and the news, while its come suddenly, its great to hear it because its been just so tough.

Now as a society, I think we have to move on from Covid and for us in hospitality, in our pubs, weve been in a very difficult position, asking people for their certs, doing social distancing etc.

Mr ODonovan, who is the Cork City chairman of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, continued: When we turn people away from our doors, its heartbreaking, and to see that stopping, and hopefully as soon as possible, and to be able to use our bar counters in the coming period, itll give everybody such a lift.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said he will give a clear and comprehensive statement about the plans for the weeks and months ahead this evening.

The situation is positive. We have come through Omicron better than we might have expected prior to Christmas, the Taoiseach told RTE Radios Morning Ireland today.

The combination of the booster campaign and vaccination and the fact that Omicron does not seem to be as virulent as Delta and previous waves, has meant that the impact on people, in terms of severe illness and death and ICUs, has been much less. So, therefore, I think people can be positive, we can be positive.

He said that Ireland is entering a new phase, and that changes are expected to happen next week, but said measures including the wearing of masks will continue for some time.

Mr Martin also confirmed an inquiry into how the Government handled the pandemic will be carried out.

I would prefer to call it an evaluation of how the country managed Covid-19, the Fianna Fail leader added.

I think we do have to learn lessons  principally learn lessons for the future that other pandemics could happen.

This pandemic isnt over, by the way, I just have to stress that point.

He confirmed that the inquiry will be held in public.

Today, a further 5,523 cases of Covid-19 were notified in Ireland.

In addition, 5,048 people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal.

As of 8am on Thursday, there were 896 Covid-positive patients in hospital, of whom 90 were in intensive care.
THERE has been an increase of 9,904 people on outpatient waiting lists across Cork hospitals in the last year, according to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF).

There was a total of 65,745 adults and 8,034 children on outpatient waiting lists across Cork hospitals in December 2021.

There was a total of 63,875 people on outpatient waiting lists across Cork hospitals in 2020.

It comes as the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) warned that the Government must not let another year pass by without addressing the twin deficits of a shortage of consultants and a lack of sufficient public hospital capacity, resulting in continued record waiting lists.

The NTPF figures show that, nationally, 879,277 people are now on some form of NTPF waiting list, including 96,094 children, an increase of more than 40,600 in the past year.

Waiting lists in Cork

Cork University Hospital recorded 31,394 adults on outpatient waiting lists, of whom 9,248 were waiting over 18 months. A further 5,489 children were on outpatient waiting lists at the hospital.

At the same time in 2020, there were 29,812 people on outpatient waiting lists at the hospital.

The numbers reflect an increase of 7,071 people on waiting lists at the hospital in the last year.

There were 2,053 adults and 41 children on outpatient waiting lists at Cork University Maternity Hospital in December 2021.

In December 2020, there were 1,043 people on outpatient waiting lists.

Mercy University Hospital recorded 7,015 adults and 448 children on outpatient waiting lists last year, a total of 7,463 compared to the 6,871 people the hospital had on outpatient waiting lists in December 2020.

South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital had 21,159 adults and 1,937 children on waiting lists in December 2021, giving a total of 23,096.

In 2020, the hospital recorded 22,156 people on outpatient waiting lists.

Mallow General Hospital had 2,792 adults and 119 children on outpatient waiting lists in December 2021, a total of 2,911.

The hospital had 2,460 people on outpatient waiting lists in 2020.

At Bantry General Hospital, there were 1,332 adults on the outpatient waiting list, of whom 226 were waiting 18 months or more.

In December 2020, there were 1,533 adults on outpatient waiting lists at the hospital.

IHCA president Alan Irvine said that more people were waiting for hospital treatment at the end of 2021 than at the start of the year, despite a four-month action plan from the Government to address the issue.

These waiting lists are not being brought under control quick enough and the lack of progress in the past year is really damning, said Prof Irvine.
A teenager who was identified after assistance from the public has paid compensation following criminal damage to an automated external defibrillator at a business premises in Blarney.

Gardai have confirmed that a suspect was identified following assistance from the public and that compensation has been paid for the damage to the AED device on December 18, 2021.

A spokeswoman said:

"Gardai in Blarney investigating the criminal damage that occurred to an AED device at a business premises in Blarney, Co. Cork on December 18 2021 have identified the suspect.

The male adult in his late teens, was identified as a result of the support and assistance of the public and this man has been made amenable. Compensation has been paid for the damage to the device.

"An Garda Siochana would like to thank the media and the public for all their assistance in the matter, the spokeswoman added.

The criminal damage to the automated external defibrillator caused outrage in the Blarney community after it occurred in December.

It led to Blarney Community First Responders advising the public that, not for the first time, its publicly accessible AED outside the main entrance to Blarney Woollen Mills had been vandalised and being withdrawn.

The automated external defibrillator (AED) is subsequently back in service after the damaged thermostatic-controlled storage cabinet was repaired.

Speaking in the aftermath of the incident local Fine Gael councillor Damian Boylan condemned the vandalism as destruction for the sake of it.

He likened the act to someone throwing a lifebuoy into a river and the consequences that might have in the event of an emergency.

Fianna Fail councillor Tony Fitzgerald also blasted the vandalism.

Blarney Community First Responders provide crucial and critical services not only to the local community but also to many visitors every day of the year."

This defibrillator saves lives and is a vital piece of life-saving equipment, he added.

On January 3 this year, Community First Responders Ireland (CFR Ireland) called for cross-party support for a bill that would see those convicted of interfering with a defibrillator fined or imprisoned.

The Life Saving Equipment Bill 2018 would impose a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment, a 50,000 fine, or both for those convicted of interfering with a defibrillator or lifebuoy.

They made the call following damage to public access defibrillators across the State in recent weeks, including the incident in Blarney.

CFR Ireland medical director Dr David Menzies said:

Damage to, or theft of, a defibrillator installed for public use could be a death sentence for a patient if it were not available for a patient in cardiac arrest as a result. It is that serious.

CFR Ireland chair John Fitzgerald said the group believed that strict penalties should apply to those guilty of theft of or damage to life-saving devices such as defibrillators.

The issue of defibrillator theft and damage is not new, it is time for action, he said.
CORK County Council is to adopt a county-wide focus on derelict sites this year, members of the Carrigaline Municipal District were told at a recent meeting.

Responding to a query from councillor Audrey Buckley, Cork County Council senior executive officer, Nicola Radley, said there will be a strong focus from the council to tackle dereliction.

There is a county-wide focus. The chief executive is putting a very strong focus, along with the director of services in municipal districts, on derelict sites for this year. It is a key area of focus for ourselves, for the engineers office, and for the property activation and regeneration unit. We will be working hand in hand with them. They will be taking on some of the more difficult sites to progress, she said.

Ms Radley said a soft approach will be applied initially with property owners, but said the levy will be applied if required.

Through municipal districts, we will also be working with the solicitors department very closely. Our immediate intent is to identify the property owners and contact them in an informal way. Depending on the outcome of that, we will be contacting them in a formal way.

"We will be intending to levy the properties, but we will take a softer approach first. We will give property owners the chance to work with us. We are not averse to applying the levy if we have to.

Fianna Fail councillor Seamus McGrath greeted the focus on derelict sites.

I welcome the focus on dereliction this year. It is a huge issue within towns and villages. I would suggest we shouldnt be too soft on the levy, as some buildings are lying there for a long time. It is well known to everyone that the levy exists and I think there should not be too much slack cut at all.

The most powerful tool available to the council is the compulsory purchase order. That has to be part of our weaponry. We need to set some high-profile examples. We have to show the firepower is there and CPO has to be part of that process, he added.

Carrigaline Municipal District officer Carol Conway said four sites were recently removed from the Carrigaline MD municipal sites land register. An exercise has been carried out on the Carrigaline MD municipal sites land register and, as a result, four sites have been removed over the last couple of weeks. A walk-through of Carrigaline and Ringaskiddy was carried out late last year by an area engineer and the executive engineer of the Carrigaline Roads Office.

Ms Conway said that several additional properties were also identified as consideration for derelict sites.

She added: It is intended to engage with the owners where this can be established.

It is hoped to start the process with informal communication, followed up by a more formal process should we get nowhere with the informal process. We would like to go all the way, if necessary, to a CPO with these properties.
Ali Houpt and son Lincoln, 7, support the Hellertown Library on Wednesday during a Lower Saucon Township Council meeting. Some residents are concerned the township will stop paying for access to the Hellertown Area Library and they will lose its services. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call )

In Hellertown and Lower Saucon Township, everything, it seems, is done in tandem.

The borough and township share a pool, compost center, community day, restaurant week. The communities comprise Saucon Valley School District, where the annual Halloween parade typically steps off from the high school at the border of the two municipalities.

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We have always partnered with Lower Saucon Township, borough Manager Cathy Hartranft said Thursday.

So its puzzling to Lower Saucon residents, and many in Hellertown, too, why Lower Saucon Council on Wednesday night approved earmarking $50,000 to fund the Hellertown Area Library  about half of the amount it has normally funded.

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The figure, which includes Januarys donation of more than $8,000, is to cover the townships share of its operating $253,000 budget, but only through approximately the summer.

Council members said they plan to negotiate a new agreement with the library and borough. The communities have board members and liaisons involved in the library.

However, council also approved contributing $50,000 to neighboring Southern Lehigh Public Library, to provide residents with expanded services, they said. And in a third vote, the township directed its solicitor to pursue possible litigation against the library and Hellertown, in the event township residents are not allowed to use the Hellertown library.

I hope that it does not occur, council President Jason Banonis said, but at the same time, if it does occur, I dont want to have a lapse in library accessibility.

Council voted 4-1 on each proposal. Newly installed member Jennifer Zavacky, councils liaison to the library who introduced the motion for the Hellertown library donation, was joined in both yes votes by Banonis, Thomas Carocci and Sandra Yerger. Priscilla deLeon dissented both times, and argued the township should continue its usual arrangement with the Hellertown library. Banonis presented the Southern Lehigh and solicitor motion.

Hellertown Council President Thomas J. Rieger issued a statement Thursday decrying Lower Saucons action, calling the possibility of a lawsuit unprecedented.

This is a very unfortunate situation that will have serious and long-lasting ramifications on the once close relationship between Hellertown Borough and Lower Saucon Township, Rieger said.

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He said there would be no further comment until after council and the library review options.

Nearly everybody agrees the Constitution Avenue library is a gem and important to both communities. During public comment, parents with small children, and young and old residents spoke glowingly of the librarys inventory, services and programs.

They called it a community resource as they argued to keep the same level of funding.

Its a hub, township resident Margaret Segaline said, because everyone knows they can go there.

[ Lower Saucon Township residents worry they could be axed from Hellertown library system ]

Lower Saucon, Hellertown and the library extended a five-year agreement slated to expire at the end of 2020 to continue to fund the library during the pandemic, officials said. But township residents such as Judy Malitsch argue Lower Saucon should not be hanging the future of the joint library on the balance  at least not during the pandemic. Many fear Lower Saucons moves would prevent them from using the library.

I find it very sad that you are putting the needs of children at the bottom of the list, Malitsch said. We need to put their needs first, after all the children have endured in the last two years.

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Zavacky and other council members said several times there were financial issues, without providing specifics.

When it is taxpayer money, Zavacky said, I am worried about where that taxpayer money is going.

The township solicitor, B. Lincoln Treadwell Jr. said Wednesday he asked library officials for more details concerning its revenues and expenditures.

By detail, he said, I mean sometimes you have a category, say fundraising expenses. What are they? What is the [money] used for? Who are you writing checks to?

Also at issue, according to Lower Saucon officials, is a lack of communication over the proposed 2022 agreement that Hellertown and library board officials approved in November but drew questions that township representatives said had gone unanswered.

Hartranft said officials met at least four times last year and it was never determined what the problem was.

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We were shocked, she said of Lower Saucons decision about the library. We had no idea where this is coming from.

During Wednesdays meeting, Zavacky said several people from both communities met Monday, calling it a good first step in understanding everyones views. Plans call for continuing that conversation, she said.

Both communities pay a per capita fee of $9.66 per resident to fund the library. That according to library, would amount to $107,168 from Lower Saucon and $59,174 from Hellertown.

Because Lower Saucon had already earmarked more than $100,000 in its budget for library services, council members said they were comfortable with distributing it to two libraries. They also said they could find additional money in the township budget, if necessary, to finish funding the Hellertown library.

Wednesdays meeting grew heated at times. Banonis, who gave a 25-minute presentation with background about the library since its inception last decade, had to use his gavel several times to keep residents in order.

No one from Hellertowns library staff or board spoke during the three-hour meeting, which drew a standing-room-only crowd of about 150.

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Jessica King, vice president of the Friends of the Hellertown Area Library, said she understood Zavacky and some on council are looking at the library critically.

However, she just made a motion to take away $56,000 from our library with no promise that she will replace it, King said. She added that she would have liked to have heard council provide a timeline on reevaulating its funding to the library.

The Southern Lehigh library serves Coopersburg and Lower Milford and Upper Saucon townships, according to its website. Hellertown serves the borough and Lower Saucon, but Zavacky said Southern Lehigh could potentially provide more services and a first step toward regionalization and collaboration among libraries. Council did not say what additional services the Southern Lehigh library would provide.

A phone message to Lynnette Saeger, the Southern Lehigh library director, was not returned.

Lower Saucon Township was formerly a part of the Bethlehem Area Public Library system, but left it to join the Hellertown library about eight years ago, following debate among residents, some who wanted the convenience of a library closer to home, and others who felt the Bethlehem library system provided better value.

Like many community libraries, Hellertown operates as a nonprofit, charitable organization and depends on a combination of municipal, state and private support.

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Morning Call journalist Anthony Salamone can be reached at asalamone@mcall.com.
If youve followed the music of Cork multi-instrumentalist Emmet ORiabhaigh over the years, Gudge, his debut album under the solo banner of Mamety (more on that shortly) will at once make perfect sense, and feel like a departure.



From his roots in genre-splicing eejits Plinth, to contributing to prog-rockers Lamp, and his involvement in the space-age R&B of the recently-disbanded Shookrah, theres a broadness and depth of sounds and influences that make themselves immediately apparent.



In other parts of the album, the liberation of being able to act and operate solo takes on its own dimension, veering anywhere from Thundercat-inspired foolishness to the stridence of peak-era Peter Gabriel, an eclecticism that comes from having no real starting point, by ORiabhaighs own admission.

As Mamety Emmet ORiabhaigh brings us 'Gudge'.

There wasn't really a plan, it just sort-of happened, and I suppose the lockdowns and coronavirus probably had a big part to play as well, because I just had so much time on my hands.

I could either, y'know, spend all my spare time, you know, playing Gran Turismo online, or I could pick up the guitar or keyboard or whatever again, and start writing stuff. I just got sitting down in front of (digital audio workstation) Logic and just started making weird ideas and beats, and I ended up recording the bones of a lot of songs.

It's probably 50 or 60 songs that I started, and maybe three-quarters finished. The ones that made the album are just the ones that I stuck with, and didn't hate after a few listens and attempts at writing and rewriting.

On questions of ideas and concepts, the obvious one is that of the projects moniker, which latter-day Cork music nerds will also recognise as the musicians long-running personal online handle.

It transpires that the truth is a bit more of a study in miscommunication and its consequences, than any notions of writerly whimsy.

There's a funny story. During college, I was going to get Four Star Pizza with a friend of mine. Going up to the counter, the lady asked me for my name. So I said, it's E-m-m-e-t, and she was like, 'okay, grand'. So we got the pizza, and she called me and my friend's name, and then she gave us both our boxes. I looked at the label on the box where my name was written, and Mr. Mamety was written down. I love the fact that you got that from a clearly spelt name, but it's a catchy name that stuck.

Mamety is, by sound and circumstance, a latter-stage Covid-19 project, written and recorded at a time of ongoing and profound social change in Ireland and abroad.

Its a theme that nearly permeates the album despite ORiabhaighs intentions, as he responds to the alienation that the current world creates, amid the stresses of Brexit, the trauma of the Covid crisis, and the looming twin menaces of late-stage capitalism and climate change.

With that being said, the jumps between musical frames of reference do a lot of heavy lifting in that regard.

Then I'd be like, 'oh, God, I f**king love that kind of music, that's what I want to do

It was always going to be a mix of genres, because I just find it very difficult to, to stick with one thing. I just... I get bored. Or maybe I don't so much get bored, as I listen to some other types of music, and then I'd be like, 'oh, God, I f**king love that kind of music'. That's what I want to do.

So I could be, y'know, finishing up a song that's kind-of like, a slow ballad or something, or even like elements of Americana, or country or something. And then I'll hear something that's, y'know, prog-metal, and then I'll go, 'no, I really want to, like, get down and dirty with some weird riffs', or, 'so here's some Peter Gabriel or something', and I'll really want to do like a eighties pop ballad.

Because I never set out to do anything, and make a real goal at creating a new band, I just wanted to make a big aul' weird stew of different genres and just explore them. I know it's probably not the most marketable way of putting it out. It's quite bizarre. But I don't really care, because that's what I like to do.

One particularly keen example is Why Dont You Friends Call You Out?, a melting pot of the aforementioned musical broadness, ORiabhaighs penchant for setting lyrical scenery, and the growing need for questioning of poisonous and outdated attitudes among men in particular.

It stands as an early watchpoint on a relatively long and winding sonic road - with its roots firmly in creative indecisiveness and collaboration.

I wasn't, like, hit with a sudden pang of inspiration that came from like, anger, or frustration thinking about society. What that song deals with, in general, comes from talking to Mini (Cork heavy-music mainstay Ian O'Callaghan).

I was just saying that because he's great at just coming up with something to write about, and then just writing really kind of interesting, funny, but cynical lyrics, and he always has something in his head to write about.

Just think of some typical character that annoys you, or think of someone in your real life, that annoys the sh*t out of you

My problem was always, I have loads of musical ideas, but the initial ideas just doesn't come easily to me. So I just asked, 'what, what do you do?' He said, 'just think of some typical character that annoys you, or think of someone in your real life, that annoys the sh*t out of you', as if I was getting advice from Jerry Seinfeld, the observational kind of thing.

So I found that that person just came into my head: a really obnoxious, toxic person that isn't in your friend group or anything, and, y'know, you'd be glad that he isn't, but you would come across, and they're just a pretty repugnant person, especially when they're drunk. Only kind of cares about themselves, and everyone else is a toy to play around with.

So I just created this character in my head, and it's kind of talking directly to that person, but then it's also talking to that group of friends, that passively lets them behave like that, lets it happen all the time. It just kind of grew from there, just kind of images of like, like, say, like in the chipper and stuff and their attitude in general, it just kind of came from that. You can blame Mini for that, but he's not the person in the song (laughs).

As the Covid crisis has played itself out in the past two years, ORiabhaigh has also kept busy doing a bit of mixing and mastering for others - including OCallaghans own solo project, Auld Blue Eyes.

But when it comes to working for himself, there had to be lines drawn regarding getting things done and out into the world.

I guess it's just slow and incremental. I just wanted to have songs done, and when I got to the mixing stage, I decided which songs I was going to go with, and then I started mixing them properly. When you make something yourself, it can take as long as you need, and sometimes that's a bad thing, because you can just keep revisiting stuff and listening to in the car, listening it to somewhere else... I tried to avoid that a bit.

Emmet ORiabhaigh: Releases debut album Gudge soon, but has new single out.

Now, I had the advantage of having recorded real drums with Brendan Fennessy (O Emperor). So we went up to the studio that he runs, and that Shookrah used to practice in as well. We took two days, and just recorded all the drums for the tunes, he was recording me.

That was a nice kick in the teeth, if I could put it that way, because the songs felt a lot more 'real', that they didn't really just exist in my spare room anymore, on my computer. That's probably when I decided 'I'm going to actually do a real album here, and not just p*ss around infinitely in my room', y'know?

Gudge experienced something of an impromptu early debut on newly-created Irish streaming service Minm, before being withdrawn prior to its intended release this year.

The service offers an alternative to Spotify for users and listeners alike, promising a more manageable take on the streaming model, focusing on homegrown artists and offering users things like editorial content, while paying artists fairly, as a percentage of individual subscription fees measured by listens.

The service has been a real talking point in the last few weeks and seems to be garnering momentum. ORiabhaigh offers his thoughts.

To be honest, I put it up thinking it wouldn't be public yet. But it was, and I got an email from them saying, 'did you definitely mean to put this up, straight away?'. 'No, I definitely didn't, thanks for telling me.' I heard of it from Mini again, he clearly has his ear to the ground for these things.

But I think it's a great idea: anything that can take some share away from Spotify is a good thing, in my opinion. Whether it be Bandcamp and obviously, you know, I have put 'You Know Yourself' up on Spotify, and the album will go up there as well. I do it a bit begrudgingly.

I just know that people, if they're at a house party or something, and they think, 'oh, I'll put on Emmet's album', they'll probably go to Spotify, so it kind of has to be there. But it's just unfortunate that that's the case.

And y'know, if Minm are going to take their fair share of the market on behalf of Irish musicians, I think that's a great thing, and I wish them all the best.

Mametys debut album, Gudge, releases this year; debut single You Know Yourself is available for streaming and download on Bandcamp, and across all digital services.
On the heels of congressional Democrats calling the heads of fossil fuel companies and industry lobbying groups to testify about their role in spreading climate disinformation, campaigners published a report Tuesday exposing the contributions of major advertising and public relations firms.

The aim of Clean Creatives report, as its introduction explains, was to document the many known relationships between PR, advertising, and other creative agencies and fossil fuel companies that are responsible for climate change, and compare holding company pledges for climate action with their work for polluting clients.

Unveiled last year by the nonprofit Fossil Free Media, the Clean Creatives campaign pressures ad and PR agencies to ditch clients fueling the climate emergency.

Fossil fuel companies are the biggest polluters, the biggest greenwashers, and the biggest opponents of life-saving climate action. There is no room for ad and PR professionals to continue promoting companies that are doing so much damage to our future, said Clean Creatives director Duncan Meisel in a statement about the report, entitled The F-List 2021The F-List 2021.

The most important step any agency can take to address the climate crisis is to rule out working with fossil fuel companies, Meisel added. We need creatives and communications experts to bring their full energy towards ending this crisis, not extending it.

The report focuses on the work of 90 agencies across three different regionsAustralia, Europe, and North Americaand notes that fossil fuel industry clients include the full range of corporations involved in the business of extracting, transporting, refining, and selling fossil fuels, their trade associations, and front groups representing their interests.

In the United States, the fossil fuel companies have expanded their efforts to oppose and water down major climate legislation under the Biden administration, the report says. In Europe, they face a stricter regulatory environment targeting their products, and a tightening space for their advertisements, but these measures have not stopped fossil interestsboth in the business of extraction, and power generationfrom attacking major proposals for climate action.

In Australia, one of the worlds top exporters of gas and coal, the influence of fossil fuel companies goes all the way to the top, the report points out, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison famously brandishing a lump of coal in parliament and holidaying in Hawaii as the country faced catastrophic bushfires.

Belinda Noble, founder of Comms Declare, which co-authored the report, explained that Australia is unique because three prime ministers have lost their jobs for trying to limit greenhouse gases.

With corporate giants continuing to pump tens of millions into sponsorships, PR, lobbying, and marketing every year, she added, its no wonder Australia has no net-zero commitment and is playing a wrecking role in international climate negotiations.

Let's start with @WPP.



They just released a new sustainability plan to cut their own emissions to net zero by 2030, but their agencies hold dozens of contracts with major polluters that plan to increase their emissions in that same timeframe.  Clean Creatives (@cleancreatives) September 21, 2021

The concept of net-zero emissions has rapidly proliferated through corporate communications since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, and the term has taken on even greater importance going into this years COP 26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, the report notes.

Defining what net-zero is and isnt will need to be a central focus of advertising and PR trade associations, regulators, and internal ethics watchdogs for agencies with fossil fuel clients, the report says, warning of how it could be used for a growing number of fossil fuel PR and ad campaigns, in a large and widespread greenwashing effort towards the end of 2021.

The report features a chart showing which firms serve which fossil fuel clients, noting when an ad or PR agency is tied to a holding company. It also highlights conflicts between the polluter clients and sustainability pledges of major holding companiesWPP, Interpublic, Dentsu, Publicis, and Omnicom.

There are also three case studies, detailing:

Edelmans work for ExxonMobils Exxchange platform;

Project Cesar, an operation created by the firm Crosby Textor to astroturf support for coal projects, and oppose measures to address climate change in Australia, revealed by The Guardian in 2019; and

the European Unions greenwash of blue hydrogen.

Exxon has become one of the top spenders on climate issues on Facebook, frequently sharing misleading statistics about proposed climate action, and encouraging users to take action to stop them on their website Exxon Exxchange, the report says, highlighting the key role of social media giants in the dissemination of climate disinformation.

ExxonMobil has faced heightened scrutiny for its efforts to influence U.S. politics in the wake of an expose published earlier this summer. CEO Darren Woods is among those invited to appear before the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee next month for a hearing reminiscent of the 1990s congressional investigations into Big Tobacco.

If Woodsalong with BP America CEO David Lawler, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth, Shell president Gretchen Watkins, American Petroleum Institute (API) president Mike Sommers, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Suzanne Clarkrefuse to testify or turn over materials to the House panel, Democrats may issue subpoenas.

Reposted with permission from Common Dreams.
An international group of scientists released a report today detailing how the fossil fuel industry actively campaigned to sow doubt about the climate crisis and what steps need to be taken to undo the damage, as the Los Angeles Times reported.

The report may be particularly damaging for oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, which will head to court on Wednesday to defend itself against New York States allegations that it defrauded shareholders by downplaying the expected risks of climate change to its business.

Scientist from Harvard, George Mason University and the University of Bristol in the UK collaborated on the paper, America Misled: How the fossil fuel industry deliberately misled Americans about climate change. The researchers looked at more than a decade of peer-reviewed research to reach their findings. They issued the paper to inform policymakers, journalists and the public about what the fossil fuel industry knew versus what they did, the arguments they used to seed doubt in the public, the techniques they used to create those arguments, and some strategies for combating them, according to a University of Bristol statement. ExxonMobil has previously dismissed similar research as the work of anti-oil activists, but the academic validity of this paper will be tougher to refute. It will also present a challenge for Exxon when it goes on trial on Wednesday in Manhattan, as the Los Angeles Times reported. One of the examples that the study pins on ExxonMobil is a 2004 New York Times advertisement that read like an editorial. In the advertisement, the company used disinformation techniques, including questioning scientific consensus and calling for a balanced scientific approach to climate change, which gives undeserved credibility to skeptics of scientific consensus, according to the Los Angeles Times. For 60 years, the fossil fuel industry has known about the potential global warming dangers of their products, said Geoffrey Supran, Research Associate in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University and a study author in a statement. But instead of warning the public or doing something about it, they turned around and orchestrated a massive campaign of denial and delay designed to protect profits. The evidence is incontrovertible: Exxon misled the public. Like all bad actors, they should be held accountable. The study finds several ways that fossil fuel companies managed a disinformation campaign, including championing conspiracy theories, promoting fake experts and cherry-picking scientific evidence, according to the Los Angeles Times. Disinformation about climate change has a straightforward purposeto block action on climate change. In America, it has largely succeeded, with policies to mitigate climate change blocked or delayed for decades, said Professor Stephan Lewandowsky at the University of Bristol, who is an author on the study, in a press release.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found per- and polyfluoroalykyl substances, or PFAS, in foods including grocery store meat, fish and chocolate cake, The Associated Press reported Monday.

The findings were first obtained by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and published by the Environmental Working Group, then confirmed by the FDA Monday, CNN reported.

The FDA tests found PFAS in chocolate cake at levels more than 250 times the only federal safety guidelines that exist, for some types of PFAS in drinking water, according to The Associated Press.

Wait! Before you bite into that chocolate cake, there's something that the @US_FDA hasn't told you, and you definitely want to know. https://t.co/gjoftOYFZB  EWG (@ewg) June 3, 2019

What this calls for is additional research to determine how widespread this contamination is and how high the levels are, Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Linda Birnbaum told The Associated Press. We have to look at total human exposure  not just whats in the water or whats in the food  or not just dust. We need to look at the sum totals of what the exposures are.

CNN explained why PFAS contamination is so concerning:

PFAS is a family of nearly 5,000 synthetic chemicals that are extremely persistent in the environment and in our bodies. PFAS is short for perfluoroalky and polyfluoroalkyl substances and includes chemicals known as PFOS, PFOA and GenX, sometimes called forever chemicals. These chemicals all share signature elemental bonds of fluorine and carbon, which are extremely strong and difficult to break down in the environment or in our bodies. These chemicals can easily migrate into the air, dust, food, soil and water and can accumulate in the body. Theyve been linked to adverse health impacts including liver damage, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, high cholesterol, obesity, hormone suppression and cancer.

They were invented by DuPont in 1938, initially for non-stick cookware. But they are now used by a variety of industries to repel grease and water in items from packaging to carpets to outdoor gear, and they are also an important ingredient in firefighting foam, which is often used by the Defense Department to fight jet fires, The Associated Press reported.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gives the safe level for certain PFAS in drinking water at 70 parts per trillion (ppt).

The FDAs most recent PFAS findings were presented at the 29th annual European meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Helsinki, Finland last month, and photos of the presentation were obtained by EDF, according to CNN. The findings contained three related investigations into PFAS in food, as EDF summarized:

1. The FDA found most of 16 PFAS tested for in food sold at a farmers market downstream of a PFAS facility. One produce sample contained 1,200 ppt.

2. In an investigation of a dairy farm near an air force base in New Mexico, the agency found the PFAS perfluoroctanesulfonate (PFOS) at levels of more than 5,000 ppt in milk samples. It also found lower levels of various types of PFAS in cheese.

3. A sampling of food from grocery stores in three mid-Atlantic cities in October 2017 turned up 17,640 ppt of PFAS in chocolate cake, and detectable levels of PFOS in 10 of 21 meat samples, from 134 ppt in a frankfurter to 865 ppt in tilapia.

FDA spokeswoman Tara Rabin told The Associated Press that the levels found by the agency were not likely to be a human health concern.

However, East Carolina University toxicologist Jamie DeWitt said the important question was the impact of contamination over time.

Drinking one glass of contaminated water is unlikely to be associated with health risks, as is eating one slice of contaminated chocolate cake, DeWitt told The Associated Press. Individually, each item is unlikely to be a huge problem, but collectively and over a lifetime, that may be a different story.
The EU General Court (EGC) has today held a hearing on the appeal lodged by MEPs Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comin against the decision of the European Parliament, under then-president Antonio Tajani, to prevent the exiled Catalan politicians from taking possession of their seats after being elected in the 2019 European elections. The European Parliament argued that the situation was difficult, while the Spanish state solicitor at the EU gave the view that the damage has already been rectified, and asked for the case to be dismissed. On the other hand, lawyer Gonzalo Boye, representing the pro-independence politicians, denounced that Tajani's decision was based on political interests and therefore demands reparation. Puigdemont and Comin were not present at the hearing.

Boye, who commented that the questions raised during the hearing show that the judges know the case in great detail, warned that there is no legal explanation for the decision taken by Tajani, whose party, Forza Italia, is part of the same European Parliament group as Spain's Popular Party. "When there is no legal explanation, there can only be politics, and the interconnection between Tajani and his associates and comrades in Spain was clear," he said.

Asked if the EGC's ratification of the Puigdemont and Comin seats could have any effect on the remaining issues of the two Catalan politicians before the Luxembourg courts, outstanding among them, the resolution on their immunity, Boye's two-word reply was : "Domino effect".

Six months until they could take office

In May 2019, Tajani refused to recognize the MEP status of the two exiled pro-independence politicians and did not allow them to enter the Parliament building like the rest of the elected deputies. As the Luxembourg court did not accept the interim measures that the politicians requested at that time, they were also unable to attend the constituent session of the house at its Strasbourg chamber on 2nd July, although they had announced that they would attend and the Catalan independence movement had organized a major rally to support them outside the chamber. Eventually, however, Puigdemont and Comin did not cross the border into France to avoid arrest and remained eight kilometres from Strasbourg, on German territory.

The two pro-independence politicians failed to obtain their status as deputies until the European Court of Justice ruled on December 19th that Oriol Junqueras, who led the ERC candidacy in the EU elections, had been protected by parliamentary immunity from the moment that he was declared elected to the European Parliament and should have been released from prison - where he was being held on remand while the Supreme Court reached its verdict on the rebellion charge against him - to go to Brussels and take possession of his seat. The day after that ruling, Puigdemont and Comin appeared at the Parliament in Brussels to collect their provisional credentials. On 13th January 2020, the two MEPs took office in the full session of the European Parliament.

Cancelling Tajani's instructions

In their appeal, the Catalan MEPs called for an annulment of the instructions that prevented them from taking office and of Tajani's decision to refuse to acknowledge the election results, as well as the statement in which he left their seats vacant, and the refusal to allow them to take possession of the seats, among others.

During the hearing this Friday morning, the European Parliament's legal representative admitted that the Parliament was in a "difficult situation" with regard to Puigdemont and Comin's claim to their seats. Lawyer Niklas Goerlitz reiterated that their names were not on the list sent by Spain's Central Electoral Commission giving the names of Spanish MEPs who had completed the formalities.

Beyond the ruling which the General Court will deliver on this case, European justice has yet to set a date for the other pending hearings: the appeal of the Junts MEPs against the chamber's March 2021 decision to withdraw their parliamentary immunity as well as the preliminary questions presented by Spanish investigating judge Pablo Llarena aimed at clarifying the valid reasons which an EU country can argue to reject a European Arrest Warrant.
Mask requirement dropped from tomorrow

Additional measures put in place last month to reduce the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 will end tomorrow.

It follows a significant reduction in the number of coronavirus cases on the Island, allowing a return to level one of the Governments COVID-19 Winter Framework.

The changes, which come into effect at 00:01 tomorrow (Saturday 22 January), mean an end to the legal requirement to wear face coverings on public transport and in health and social care settings.

The wearing of face coverings is no longer expected but is still strongly recommended when mixing with others, especially where other mitigations such as distancing or ventilation are more difficult.

Manx Cares policy requires anyone visiting its health and social care facilities  such as Nobles Hospital  to wear a medical-grade face mask, which is provided on arrival.

The wearing of face coverings is strongly recommended within educational settings and when using school transport, but this is a personal choice for all staff, students and visitors.
Athens, AL (35611)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy later in the day. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 80F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph..

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Partly to mostly cloudy. Low 59F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
A Connecticut mother has brought a lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, as well as Snap, claiming the platforms to cause the sort of addiction her late daughter suffered prior to taking her own life at age 11 last July.

Social media companies have been the target of various lawsuits over the years related to alleged harm to minors  oftentimes for failing to adequately prevent that harm, as in the case of teen who was bullied via an anonymous messaging app within Snapchat, leading to his eventual suicide. Tammy Rodriguez is instead making the case that the sort of "stickiness" these platforms are built to engender is inherently harmful, especially to young users like her late daughter Selena.

Selena "struggled for more than two years with an extreme addiction to Instagram and Snapchat," the suit notes, a claim apparently backed by an outpatient therapist who had "never seen a patient as addicted to social media" during their evaluation. Although technically too young to be on either platform per their terms of service  Instagram and Snapchat state their minimum age for account creation is 13  the mother points to the absence of parental controls, as well as the lack of strong age verification checks, which made policing her daughter's access to the services nearly impossible. "The only way for Tammy Rodriguez to effectively limit access to Defendants products would be to physically confiscate Selenas internet-enabled devices," the suit claims, "which simply caused Selena to run away in order to access her social media accounts on other devices."

Use of the services, Rodriguez alleges, caused her daughter to suffer from depression, sleep deprivation, school absences, eating disorders, self-harm and led to her eventual suicide.

Rodriguez argues that Snapchat's "unknown and changing rewards" are "akin to a slot machine but marketed toward teenage users who are even more susceptible than gambling addicts." Similarly, Instagram's design decisions "seek to exploit users susceptibility to persuasive design and unlimited accumulation of unpredictable and uncertain rewards," in the form of likes and followers. These features, it's argued, are highly detrimental to teen and pre-teen users whose brains are still not fully developed, particularly in the realms of "impulse control and risk evaluation."

The claim mirrors, as well as quotes from, some of the concerns voiced by whistleblower Francis Haugen. Among the tranche of documents released to news organizations by Haugen was internal research showing that Instagram might be harmful to the well-being of users, especially young girls, as well as internal documents describing the loss of of this user cohort as an existential threat to the business. The effects of Instagram on children's well-being is also the subject of a current investigation by a bipartisan coalition of Attorneys General.

We've reached out to Snap and Meta for comment and will update if we hear back.

Update 1/21/22 5:17pm ET: "We are devastated to hear of Selenas passing and our hearts go out to her family," a Snap spokesperson told Engadget. "While we cant comment on the specifics of active litigation, nothing is more important to us than the wellbeing of our community."

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting HOME to 741741 (US), 686868 (Canada), or 85258 (UK). Wikipedia maintains a list of crisis lines for people outside of those countries.
HARRISBURG  With a new report detailing the ongoing shortage of primary care doctors, Rep. Paul Schemel said failure to fix the problem in Pennsylvania means we are going to increasingly find we are not going to see a doctor when desired.

The Medical School Impact on the Primary Care Physician Shortage report calls for better collection of data, more incentives at medical schools for studying primary care, and investing in a pipeline of primary care doctors.

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Schemel, a Franklin County Republican, was prime sponsor of the 2019 resolution that led to the report from the Joint State Government Commission.

The Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians pushed for it. Academy President Dr. Tiffany Leonard said she hoped lawmakers would realize the difficulties the shortage is causing.

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People frequently go to emergency rooms with sore throats, ear pain or headaches when they should be seeing primary care doctors, according to Leonard.

Dr. Mary Stock Keister, an Allentown physician, said, The inability of people to get care in the time frame they need? It is making them look for it in other places.

The report drew drew data from many sources. It said the U.S. could be short between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034, including a shortage of 17,800 to 48,000 primary care physicians.

One projection indicated Pennsylvania would be short 1,039 primary care physicians by 2030. Another estimated the shortfall at 1,000 by 2025.

Other data and observations in the report included:

The U.S. in 2020 spent 5% to 7% of health care dollars on primary care services, while the same spending in a group of other countries averaged 14%. In a study of 29 states, Pennsylvania had the second or fourth lowest primary care spending percentage from 2011 to 2016, depending on how primary care was defined.

In 2021, the average annual salary of a primary care physician ranged from $221,000 to $248,000, while specialists in fields like cardiology made more than double that amount.

The overall process of education and training for a doctor, beyond high school, can take more than 10 years. The average debt of medical graduates from some of Pennsylvanias medical schools in 2021 were Drexel University School of Medicine, $233,943; Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple, $218,632; Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, $209,643; Sidney Kimmel School of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, $208,110; University of Pittsburgh, $190,964; and Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania $130,583.

Burnout among health care physicians is a growing problem, and especially among primary care doctors. The report said burnout is generally defined as a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of low personal accomplishment that results in decreased effectiveness at work.

The report identified the implementation of electronic health records as a leading source of doctor burnout.

Many physicians claim they spend more time connected to [our] computer screens than connected directly to our patients, the report said.

Keister, the Allentown doctor, said public and private insurance organizations reimburse primary care doctors at a lower level than specialists.

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That, she said, means primary care doctors cannot create office budgets for the kind of staff that would allow our patients to be healthier and for us to offer a greater variety of services.

Among its recommendations, the report said the states nine medical schools have little reason to prioritize primary care physicians. And, it said Pennsylvanias loan forgiveness program for primary care physicians isnt as attractive as those in other states or one run by the federal government.

Schemel, a member of the House Health Committee, said the shortage is more acute in rural areas than urban.

A former board member at a Franklin County-based health system, Schemel said he learned doctors often choose to settle close to where they went to medical school  and most medical schools are in or near cities.

And, he said, doctors tend to marry other professionals who have job opportunities that are more plentiful in urban areas than in rural ones.

Schemel said the next step for the Legislature would be to seek input from medical organizations and medical schools on how to attack the problem.

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Morning Call Capitol correspondent Ford Turner can be reached at fturner@mcall.com
Were still quite a ways away from wielding proper Power Loaders but advances in exosuit technology are rapidly changing how people perform physical tasks in their daily lives  some designed to help rehabilitate spinal injury patients, others created to improve a Marines warfighting capabilities, and many built simply to make physically repetitive vocations less stressful for the people performing them. But German Bionic claims only one of them is intelligent enough to learn from its users mistaken movements: its 5th-generation Cray X.

The Cray X fits on workers like a 7kg backpack with hip-mounted actuators that move carbon fiber linkages strapped to the upper legs, allowing a person to easily lift and walk with up to 30kg (66 lbs) with both their legs and backs fully supported. Though it doesnt actively assist the persons shoulders and arms with the task, the Cray X does offer a Smart Safety Companion system to help mitigate common lifting injuries.

It's a real time software application that runs in the background and can warn the worker when the ergonomic risk is getting too high, Norma Steller, German Bionics Head of IoT, told Engadget. For example, recommending a break because we know that the repetition and the overall stress can lead to fatigue, and fatigue can lead to injuries. This is something we want to prevent.

The SSC not only collects granular telemetry information  what load is being lifted, ergonomic risks such as twisting while lifting, and potential environmental factors  it uses a machine learning algorithm to analyze that data to adapt the exoskeleton to the worker wearing it via OTA software updates. Not only is this data displayed to the workers themselves on an attached monitor, the Cray X also transmits that data up the supervisory chain allowing managers to monitor the movements of their employees to ensure that they are not overexerting themselves.

Since we are collecting every single step and every single lift, the data that we provide is much more accurate, Steller noted. The data the Cray collects is gathered from real-world use, not lab tests or supervised trials where workers are on their best ergonomic behavior. Especially in logistics, every single step, every single lift, every single trend is usually planned. But sometimes in the real world, not every plan comes to fulfillment and then we suddenly see workplace performance drop very, very quickly. And with the data we provide, you can actually do an investigation and figure out why [that drop off is occurring].

German Bionic

Steller sees the Cray X as a "preventative device" designed to ensure workers don't overextend or overexert themselves. We are a preventative device, so we are preventing injury, Steller added. We're not considered a medical [device manufacturer]. We consider ourselves an exoskeleton for industrial use. As such, the Cray X is IP54 rated for dust and moisture so it can work in all but the dingiest of warehouse environments.

And though the Cray X is designed to be put on and taken off in under a minute, it can be worn for up to a full work shift without being removed thanks to the 5th generations new hot-swappable 40V battery system.

We implemented the hot swapping function so that you can just drop it on the spot without having to turn off the device, Marius Kiss, Head of Mechanical R&D at German Bionic, told Engadget. You can pull out the [spent battery] for a new one, place the old one on the charger  we use the Makita fast charging stations which charge the battery in like 30 to 40 minutes  and then you can just move on. You could potentially work like eight hours without having to take off the exoskeleton.

For as useful as the current generation of exoskeletal technologies are today, the German Bionic team sees them becoming even more capable, and widespread, in the years ahead. My feeling is that we will see much more specialized exoskeletons in the future because the technology is more available. Steller said. I think they will enter our world, not only in the B2B industrial sectors. We will see them basically everywhere because we have the chance to augment our body and usually humans take the chance to do that. We will see them everywhere, without any real limitation but very specialized to the use case.

I really see everyone on the street wearing an exoskeleton in one form or another, Eric Eitel, German Bionics Head of Communications, added. But I think that the exoskeletons that we are looking for in the future are the active ones. I see them being a lot slimmer, smarter and connected.

And even as the technology expands to consumer uses, Eitel believes exoskeletons will likely remain a common sight in industrial settings. There are still a lot of workspaces that cannot be automated and I think that's going to stay like that for a long time. You still have to rely on people so we don't want to replace all the humans. I really see that technology is going alongside [automation].

We see robots more as companions, our product is actually a companion, added Kiss. I think this can be just another possibility, I mean, there's still situations where automation still makes a lot of sense. When you go into dangerous environments, you should actually automate that. But why should we automate everything?
A group of surgeons from the University of Alabama at Birmingham has proven that it's possible to genetically alter a pig so that its kidneys can be used on human transplant patients. The doctors have transplanted kidneys from a genetically altered pig into the abdomen of a brain-dead man, and as The New York Times has reported, the procedure was described in a paper published in the American Journal of Transplantation.

According to the doctors, the kidneys from the pig started producing urine as soon as 23 minutes after the procedure and continued to do so for three days. The patient's kidneys were fully removed, and his body didn't show signs of rejecting the transplanted organs. This is the latest in a series of developments wherein organs from genetically altered pigs were successfully transplanted into humans. In late 2021, NYU Langone Health doctors attached a pig kidney onto the blood vessels of a brain-dead patient's upper leg. And, just a few days ago, doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine transplanted a pig's heart into a live patient as part of an experimental procedure.

The UAB surgeons performed the procedure with consent from the family of the recipient, James Parsons, who wanted to be an organ donor. They're now naming this type of study after him. While the recipient was brain dead in this case, it's a big step toward a clinical trial involving live patients that they're hoping would start later this year. Dr. Jayme Locke, the team's lead surgeon, said this wasn't a one-off experiment, and that the hope is to "advance the field to help... patients." The doctor who serves as director to UAB's Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program added: "What a wonderful day it will be when I can walk into clinic and know I have a kidney for everyone waiting to see me."

Based on data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, there are currently 90,272 people on the waiting list for kidney transplant. In addition, around 3,000 new patients are added to the waiting list for the organ each month. Dr. Locke said "kidney failure is refractory, severe and impactful" and that "it needs a radical solution." She hopes to be able to offer life-saving pig kidney transplants to patients within the next five years.
Enid, OK (73701)

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Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High 62F. Winds E at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

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 The News & Eagle Editorial Board meets weekly to form the newspaper's stances on mostly local and state and occasionally national issues.

 Submit your opinion for publication to editor@enidnews.com. Find out more about submitting letters to the editor at https://www.enidnews.com/opinion/.

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'Historic' greenium for debut Denmark green bond

The maiden DKK5 billion ($762 million) sovereign green bond issued by Denmark was more than four-times oversubscribed by investors,...

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China makes world's most space launches in 2021

09:15, January 21, 2022 By Yu Jianbin ( People's Daily

China became the country that has carried out the most space launch missions in the world over the past year.

The combination of the Shenzhou-13 manned spaceship and a Long March-2F carrier rocket is transferred to the launching area of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, Oct. 7, 2021. (Peoples Daily Online/Liu Huaiyu)

The countrys Long March series carrier rockets, Kuaizhou series carrier rockets, as well as those developed by private space firms have made 55 launches and sent over 100 spacecraft into space.

Among the missions, 48 launches were made by the Long March series carrier rockets, all successful. It was the first time in history that the Long March series completed more than 40 launch missions within a year. The 400th launch of the series also came last year.

The Long March-5B, Long March-2F and Long March-7 completed the missions for Chinas space station construction in five launches, carrying the Tianhe core module of the space station, two batches of astronauts, and two cargo spacecraft into space.

The Long March-3A rocket family, also known as the "gold medal rocket" family, completed 12 launches last year, and all of the launches were successful.

In 2021, the in-orbit construction of Chinas space station commenced. Two batches of Chinese astronauts entered the space station, and some of them are expected to have a record-setting six-month stay in orbit.

Chinas Tianwen-1 Mars probe, launched by the Long March-5 carrier rocket in 2020, landed on the red planet last year, too, and successfully orbited the planet.

On Oct. 14, 2021, Chinas first solar observation satellite Xihe entered its planned orbit, which marked that the country has officially entered the era of solar exploration.

China, making high frequency of space launches regularly, still maintains a high success rate.

In 2018, 109 of the 114 space launches recorded in the world were successful, while China scored a 38 for 39 success rate. A year later, a total of 103 launches were made around the world and 95 succeeded. China, in the same year, made success in 31 of its 34 launches.

Chinas Long March-2F Y13 carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-13 manned spacecraft, blasts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, Oct. 16. (Peoples Daily Online/Cheng Lin)

In 2020, 114 space launches were conducted in the world, and 39 were from China. The 39 launches sent 89 spacecraft into space, making China rank second in the world in terms of both the number of launches and weight of payloads. Last year, China made a record of conducting 55 space launches.

The Long March series is the backbone supporting Chinas space launches. It has shouldered 92 percent of Chinas launch missions since a Long March rocket placed the Dongfanghong-1 satellite in orbit 51 years ago. In the past half century and more, the series has sent over 700 spacecraft into space, with a success rate of 96 percent.

According to a plan of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the developer of the Long March series, China will see more than 40 launch missions this year, including six manned space flights that are expected to send two cargo craft, two Shenzhou spaceships and two laboratory modules of China's space station into space.

Chinas Long March-7 Y4 carrier rocket, carrying the Tianzhou-3 cargo craft, blasts off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan province, Sept. 20, 2021. (Peoples Daily Online/Wang Chenglong)

This year, Chinas space station will be fully completed, and a number of major rockets will also make their maiden flights, including the Long March-6A carrier rocket.

After the space station enters operation stage, the Long March-2F and Long March-7 rockets will both be launched twice a year. Besides, a series of major projects is expected to start in the near future, including the fourth phase of the lunar exploration program, asteroid exploration, Jupiter explorations, manned lunar landing and the first Mars sampling returns.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
This article is part of a yearlong reporting project focused on redistricting and gerrymandering in Pennsylvania. It is made possible by the support of Spotlight PA members and Votebeat, a project focused on election integrity and voting access.

HARRISBURG  The panel charged with drawing Pennsylvanias new legislative districts must now weigh over 6,000 comments from a monthlong public feedback period before voting on final versions of the maps.

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The Legislative Reapportionment Commission  a five-person panel composed of top party leaders and chaired by an independent member  has until mid-February to make changes to its proposed House and Senate maps, according to the state constitution.

Once the panel approves its final versions, any aggrieved person then has 30 days to bring challenges against one or both maps to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

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That timeline clashes with the Jan. 24 deadline for final maps set by the states top election official in order to keep this years spring primary on schedule. So far, Republicans who control the Legislature have not been open to moving the May election.

It remains my hope that we will be able to approve a final plan without using the full 30-day period that the state constitution allows, though that will be challenging, Mark Nordenberg, chair of the commission, told Spotlight PA.

The Legislative Reapportionment Commission is tasked with redrawing the state House and Senate maps every 10 years to account for population changes. The panel began meeting last spring and released initial maps in mid-December, kicking off the public comment period.

The state House map has drawn heated criticism from GOP lawmakers who call the proposal a Democratic gerrymander, as it could significantly shift the balance of power within the Republican-controlled chamber.

However, redistricting reform advocates say the creation of more seats that could be won by Democrats is the result of unwinding decades of partisan gerrymandering against the minority party and population changes over the past decade that favor Democrat-heavy areas in the southeast. Nonpartisan analyses show the proposed map improves on fairness metrics mandated by the Pennsylvania Constitution in comparison with the current map, and still has a partisan bias toward Republicans.

The state Senate map has faced less criticism, but advocates have scrutinized its deference to incumbency. In its current form, the state House map pits 24 incumbents against one another while the state Senate map creates two similar matchups. Redistricting advocates say this practice, known as buddymandering, often maintains incumbency at the cost of other good mapmaking criteria such as compactness or equal population.

During several hearings, private citizens, state lawmakers, county commissioners and former public officials voiced concerns about how their communities were divided and a lack of Hispanic representation. The Latino population in Pennsylvania grew by 43% over the past decade, and advocates told the commissioners that the maps did not do enough to create districts where Hispanic voters could select the candidates of their choice.

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Staff members of the Legislative Reapportionment Commission have already read through all of the submitted comments and organized them for the panels members to utilize when making final changes to the maps. The state senators on the commission have worked collaboratively on their chambers map in the past, while the state House representatives used Nordenberg as an intermediary.

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Nordenberg has previously stated he would like to pass the state House and Senate maps with a unanimous vote. The initial state Senate map met that bar, but the state House map was rejected by both Republican leaders on the panel.

After the panel approves the final maps, any person can bring a challenge directly to the state Supreme Court within 30 days. Redistricting observers expect that to occur.

The past two legislative redistricting processes resulted in court cases. The 2011 cycle ended with the state Supreme Court forcing the Legislative Reapportionment Commission to redraw both maps after it concluded counties had been unnecessarily divided to benefit incumbents.

A spokesperson for House Republicans declined to get into hypotheticals when asked if the caucus would bring a lawsuit against the chambers map but affirmed its commitment to pushing for changes.

Were going to challenge this on behalf of the public to whatever extent we have to because its not right, House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, a Centre County Republican who serves on the panel, told PennLive. This is a 10-year verdict.

WHILE YOURE HERE... If you learned something from this story, pay it forward and become a member of Spotlight PA so someone else can in the future at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.
The first world war became inevitable once mobilisation orders had been issued in Berlin, argued A.J.P. Taylor, a British historian. The complexities of early-20th-century railway timetables, upon which troop movements then depended, made any alteration virtually impossible. Modern armies do not suffer the same constraints. But as Russia sends more and more units to Ukraines borders, a grim momentum is building.

Last weeks diplomacy yielded nothing. Some of Vladimir Putins demands are impossible for nato to accept, as he well knew. (Essentially, he wants nato never to admit new members, and to remove its forces from any country Russia threatens.) On January 19th President Joe Biden said that he expects Russia to move in on Ukraine.

On January 14th hackers sabotaged Ukrainian government websites, getting them to display a poster of the Ukrainian flag and map crossed out, and warning Ukrainians to be afraid and expect worse. Over 100,000 Russian troops are massed on Ukraines eastern border, with field hospitals and fuel dumps. Battalion tactical groups have arrived in Belarus, a Kremlin client state north of Ukraine, in apparent preparation for a two-front attack that would divide Ukrainian forces and menace the capital, Kyiv. Only a trigger is lacking, and America says it has evidence that a false flag operation is planned to allow Russia to claim its men had been attacked by Ukraine. The odds of war seem perilously high.

Yet it is not inevitable. The view from a satellite looking down on Russias tanks and guns is certainly alarming; the view presented to Russians on their television screens is anything but. The possibility of war is barely mentioned. This matters, because if Mr Putin is determined to invade Ukraine again, you would expect him to prepare the Russian public with a blaze of propaganda, as he did before annexing Crimea in 2014. That he has not suggests, perhaps, that he has yet to make up his mind.

No one knows how Mr Putin assesses the risks and possible rewards of making war. But here are some things he should consider. First, if he invades Ukraine, it will hurt Russia economically. America and the eu have prepared a long list of financial and trade sanctions. Russian living standards will fall further, despite the governments hefty reserves to cushion the blow.

Second, Ukraines forces are more than capable of giving Mr Putin a bloody nose. They cannot stop Russias vastly superior forces from seizing a large portion of their territory, but they can make it a nightmare to hold it. Third, there is no support in Russia for a deadly war in Ukraine. For years, pollsters have found that most Russians prefer that their country and Ukraine would be friendly neighbours. Mr Putins popularity rating has been declining, like the rouble. A quixotic quest to restore the Russian empire will not revive it, especially if lots of Russians are killed. Even autocrats have to worry about the public turning against them. (Not to mention the elite, whose lives could be made uncomfortable by more sanctions.) A war that goes wrong could cost Mr Putin his grip on powerand all that goes with it. It would be a reckless gamble.

The West has no foolproof way to deter him from taking it. But it should try. Americas secretary of state is due to meet his Russian counterpart on January 21st. He should offer to continue talks on topics where agreement is possible, such as missile deployments and limits on military exercises. He should rally the eu and nato to present a united front against Russian aggression. And he should search for a face-saving way for Mr Putin to back down (while no doubt claiming victory on Russian news bulletins). War can yet be avoided, but time is running out.

: economist.com
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States government will continue to investigate the possible cause of anomalous health incidents, so-called Havana Syndrome, that have affected American diplomats around the world for years.
Katherine Court residents have sued the city of Alamo Heights and its Board of Adjustment as they continue to push back against a proposed apartment complex on their street.

Four residents filed suit last week, calling for Board of Adjustment decisions dismissing certain items in a recent appeal filed by residents to be reversed.

City Manager Buddy Kuhn said it is too early to know what the next steps are in the lawsuit since it was filed so recently.

Ridgemont Properties, which operates several multifamily complexes in the area through a company called Alamo Heights Apartments, wants to build a three-story, 35-unit complex with 51 off-street parking spaces on Katherine Court. Earlier this month the company asked the Board of Adjustment to approve five zoning variances that would allow the project to move ahead as planned, but a decision on those variances was tabled until Feb. 2. Ridgemont Properties is listed in the lawsuit as an interested person.

At the same meeting, the board considered an appeal from Katherine Court resident James Loyd on behalf of nearby property owners saying that he thinks additional variances are needed. Some of the variances in the appeal were tabled or didnt get a vote because the board said it did not have the authority to weigh in. Others were dismissed without being added to the list of variances that Ridgemont Properties would need.

The board should reverse its decisions regarding three variances, according to the lawsuit. They concern drive width as well as the need for a landscape buffer on the east side of the development and the need for more canopy trees.

We thought wed found some variances that the project needed, said John Feitshans, a Katherine Court resident on the lawsuit. Once the Board of Adjustment rejected them, the only way that we could keep those issues on the table was to file a suit.  Hopefully it gets us to the table with the developer and we get to negotiate something.

On ExpressNews.com: Neighbors unhappy with Alamo Heights apartment project

Feitshans, 35, lives with his family across the street from the site of the proposed apartment complex. His wife Elizabeth Yust is also one of the plaintiffs.

C. Trebes Sasser Jr., vice president of Ridgemont Properties, said Ridgemont is moving forward as it had planned prior to the suit. Sasser said he would not comment on the lawsuit itself as it is between the city and Katherine Court residents.

The proposed complex has caused a stir among Katherine Court residents, many of whom vocally oppose it. They cite the planned appearance, parking and number of units outlined in Ridgemonts plans. But neighbors also have said they dont oppose redevelopment in general; they take issue with some of the plans that Ridgemont Properties has outlined.

We all support redeveloping the site, Feitshans said. Were all 100 percent in agreement that something better can go in there. But we just want them to follow the rules, and to just follow the Alamo Heights codes and procedures.

On ExpressNews.com: Alamo Heights council OKs demolition to clear way for apartments

With her past experience looking at variances and interpreting city code thanks to her time serving on the Olmos Park City Council a few years ago, Katherine Court resident Deb Bolner Prost said she thinks that residents who are named in the lawsuit have valid reasons about why they think the three items in the lawsuit should need a variance.

Prost, 67, has lived in Katherine Court for about two years. She was not named in the lawsuit since she is more than 200 feet from the proposed development, but she has been involved with neighbors as they band together to make their voices heard regarding the apartment complex.

Plaintiff Joan Cunningham lives next to the proposed development so the lack of a landscape buffer on the eastern side of the project site is particularly concerning to her. Cunningham, 69, said that without the buffer she worries about the noise and fumes nearby since the parking lot of the development would be next to her home.

Its not the legalities. Its not the technicalities, Cunningham said as she explained the motivating factor behind the lawsuit. Its the fact that our concerns are just being totally dismissed, and that they are legitimate.

megan.rodriguez@express-news.net
Manny Pelaez pulled a slick one during City Councils debate over CPS Energys rate hike.

The District 8 councilman zeroed in on this scenario: If council voted down CPS 3.85 percent increase, the major bond-rating agencies would pounce, downgrading the utilitys debt. That, in turn, would push up its interest expenses by millions of dollars per year, a cost that ultimately would land on CPS customers.

We cant afford to be demoted by the credit-rating agencies, Pelaez said during that Jan. 13 session. If we allow that to happen, we will be responsible for sending more San Antonians money to fund managers and billionaires so they can go off and buy another Rolex or another bottle of Opus One or Pappy Van Winkle, or whatever it is these guys buy.

In other words, jacking up CPS customers monthly bills was a way to assert ourselves against our greedy, drunken Wall Street overlords.

Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer

Thatll show em?

Pelaez is a pragmatic, business-friendly politician. Hes funny, with a finely-tuned sense of the absurd. Hes also lawyerly (because hes a lawyer) and has little patience for dogma. He was on the winning side in this particular debate, which ended with an 8-3 vote to approve the rate increase.

Earlier in his remarks, the North Side councilman bemoaned the many straw men and false choices that had punctuated the months-long public discussion about a rate hike. That included the notion that rejecting the increase would punish the city-owned utility for its missteps during the winter storm nearly a year ago.

Then Pelaez made a straw man out of the uber-rich.

Why?

Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer

Needling the liberals

Apart from making a valid point about heftier interest payments, maybe at least a small part of him wanted to needle City Councils two most outspoken liberals  District 2s Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 5s Teri Castillo, both of whom joined District 10 Councilman Clayton Perry in voting against the rate increase.

McKee-Rodriguez and Castillo stood out that Thursday. They were trenchant, angry and unwilling to bow to the business case for a rate increase, which San Antonios major chambers of commerce endorsed. Part of that case centered on maintaining strong bond ratings.

Early in councils three-hour session, CPS interim CEO Rudy Garza outlined why the utility needed to raise rates immediately, its first increase in eight years.

Waiting will cost our community later in terms of higher rate increase requests, Garza said. And if our credit rating is downgraded, that means higher costs and less investment in our system.

A no vote does not punish CPS Energy for Winter Storm Uri. It hurts our customers and makes it more difficult to make the investments needed to make sure this does not happen again.

McKee-Rodriguez, who represents the East Side, wasnt putting up with it  from Garza or council members, such as Pelaez, who sided with him.

Thats a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of our options and what our goals are as council members, he said. Theres no shortage of people on this dais who are going to represent the chambers of commerce, who are going to represent business interests and lobbyists. There is a shortage of people who are listening to constituents and saying, Im going to echo what theyre saying.

Im going to vote on behalf of people making $18,000 a year.

But, the rate structure ...

Castillo, the West Sides council representative, was more targeted  and much more dogmatic. She dug into CPS rate structure, specifically the discounts granted to heavy industrial users that arent available to residential customers and smaller businesses.

Several council members talked that day about the need to overhaul how CPS charges both its business and residential customers, to make it fairer to families. But Castillo was the only bulldog.

The time for the rate increase is when weve restructured the inequitable rate structure, she said. Instead of making residents and small businesses bear the brunt, why not take a first look at restructuring rates so that higher volume users are paying for using more power?

Large companies (think Toyota or H-E-B) gobble up more than half of the electricity CPS provides but kick in less than 40 percent of the utilitys total revenue, she said. Small and micro-businesses do not enjoy the sweetheart deals that large industrial users do, she added.

Castillo then channeled the labor left of the early to mid-20th century.

I can already hear the counter-argument: Big Business creates jobs, she said. Well, Big Business exists on the backs and the work and the tears of the working class.

Both Castillo and McKee-Rodriguez represent parts of San Antonio that struggle with outsized poverty. They both won office in June runoffs. They are obviously fighters. And the go-along-to-get-along mindset that usually dominates City Council is anathema to them.

Democratic socialists

Castillo and McKee-Rodriguez had the backing of the local Democratic Socialists of America in their races. And both have embraced Austins Greg Casar, a self-avowed democratic socialist, in the upcoming Democratic primary in the 35th Congressional District.

For some idea of what this growing political movement  whose swaggering star is New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  is about, read the Democratic Socialists of Americas mission statement:

We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation. We want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear. We want to win radical reforms like single-payer Medicare for All, defunding the police/refunding communities, the Green New Deal, and more as a transition to a freer, more just life.

The movement must have warm feelings for San Antonio, where taxpayers collectively own its electric and water utilities. But its adherents most likely would agree with Castillo about the unfairness of CPS rate structure.

Interim CEO Garza promised council members the utility would produce a plan by years end for changing the way it charges residential and business customers. You probably can take that pledge to the bank.

After all, Garza has said the utility will ask City Council to OK additional rate hikes in 2024 and 2026. Blowing off rate reform, thereby ticking off council reps, would be a politically disastrous move for the utility.

The next fight

However, as reassuring as Garzas vow was to some council members, this will be the next CPS fight. And it promises to be a big one.

For generations, San Antonio officials have used cheap power and water as one of their lures for large outside companies such as Toyota and Microsoft, which operates several data centers here. A proposal to make industrial customers pay more will galvanize chambers of commerce, the San Antonio Manufacturers Association and other business leaders.

The same will be true of the grassroots Texas Organizing Project and a bevy of other environmental and social justice groups.

City Council chambers will be one of the main battlegrounds.

Id expect Castillo and McKee-Rodriguez to push for sweeping, structural changes on behalf of low-income San Antonians. Without the cartoonish take-downs of Big Business and shadowy, slivery business interests? Thats too much to hope for.

But thats months away. Pelaez has plenty of time to work on his material.

greg.jefferson@express-news.net
Many questions in finance and politics are murky. We the people disagree because issues are multifaceted and complex. In a democracy, we get to duke it out to determine which of the many sides gains enough allies to win the day.

Undisclosed stock trading by members of Congress is not one of these clouded issues. It is what in my household we call a PMC  a position of moral clarity. There is no plausible reason for members of Congress  or their relatives or their staffers  to get to trade on nonpublic information without consequences.

Members of every other profession  think professors, lawyers, bankers, journalists  have strict disclosure rules, ethical restrictions and legal limitations on the trading of nonpublic information, for themselves and family members. The fact that Congress does not has been a scandal in plain sight for a long time.

A Federal Reserve vice chair resigned in mid-January because of previously undisclosed stock trading (good!). But violations by U.S. senators and representative continue to go unpunished (bad!).

Think about members of a congressional health care committee trading pharmaceutical stocks. Or members of the armed services committee trading defense-industry stocks. Or members of an environmental oversight committee trading energy stocks.

The opportunity for corruption is obvious. And yet, as recent reports from Business Insider have shown, corruption is precisely whats been happening. Even if any individual trade is innocent, the whole enterprise stinks and undermines faith in both fair politics and fair markets.

Stock trading by members of Congress is one of those unique situations in which insiders ultimately make the rules for themselves  but they shouldnt because of the obvious conflicts of interest.

Congressional pay raises fit this category, in a minor way. Gerrymandering voting districts fits this category in a major way. Undisclosed stock trading on nonpublic information falls in between these. But its still very, very bad.

To be clear, ethically speaking, it isnt entirely the Wild West when it comes to stock trades. A 2012 rule known as the STOCK Act requires disclosure of stock trades by members of Congress within a 30- to 45-day window. The disclosure was meant to deter unethical behavior by exposing the timing of trades.

One problem, however, is that the practice of disclosure has been  as Hamlet would say  more honored in the breach than the observance. Violations abound.

The second problem has been the lack of consequences for breaking the STOCK Act. Violations have either been ignored or punished with fines in the hundreds of dollars.

An online report released this month by a trading platform called Unusual Whales has a stunning compilation of congressional stock trading since 2020, complete with data visualizations, the most active trading members of Congress, average holding periods, rates of return and clear conflicts of interest. This is amazing citizen journalism and deserves our attention. Rest assured the bad practices and sketchy trades are bipartisan.

If you go to the report (and you should really go to the report!) search for unusual trades and enjoy the things that make you go hmmmmm.

In June 2020, U.S. Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and San Antonios Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced bipartisan legislation in the House requiring blind trusts for members holding stocks. There was a lot going on at the time (COVID and Black Lives Matter protests), and the effort did not get far.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is believed to be an opponent of further restrictions on trading by representatives and their families. On stock trading by members of Congress, she said in December, We are a free market economy. They should be able to participate in that. Pelosis husband has a large, actively traded portfolio, and critics rightfully point out her conflict of interest.

Yet despite the depressing status quo, something has possibly shifted recently.

Last week, Sens. Jon Osoff, D-Ga., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., introduced the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, which would require members of Congress and their families to place stock investments in a blind trust.

Not to be outdone by Democrats, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., announced that he plans to introduce a competing bill to ban congressional stock trading.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who has been catastrophically wrong on basic democracy issues such as the Jan. 6 commission and voting rights, is correct on this issue. He already had voluntarily eschewed owning individual stocks for himself. He also said he would seek a ban on congressional stock trading when (or if) he becomes House speaker following the November elections.

This past week, Pelosi shifted her stance a bit, calling for an investigation into violations of the 2012 STOCK Act and increasing penalties for violations. Its not enough, but it is something.

Better, clearer solutions exist. One clearly would be for wealthier members of Congress who already have individual stock portfolios to put them into a blind trust, in which decisions to buy or sell are removed from the representatives or senators hands. A simple, multisector equity index fund also would serve the purpose.

(Careful readers of this column will notice that diversified, low-cost equity index funds continue to be the answer to every single problem around here.)

A much more complicated solution  probably what we are going to get  would entail additional disclosure rules and penalties for violating disclosures.

I dont think Im naive on this topic. It honestly baffles me why members of Congress do not either choose the blind trust or index fund route, because buying and selling individual stocks so obviously opens them up to criticism and attacks from opponents and journalists. It requires a combination of investigative journalism and an alert public to make this risk clear to every senator and representative.

Michael Taylor is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, author of The Financial Rules for New College Graduates and host of the podcast No Hill For A Climber.

michael@michaelthesmart

money.com | twitter.com/michael_taylor
Philanthropist oil and gas billionaires Rich Kinder and John Arnold, for-profit news outlet Axios, and a dozen other organizations say they want to save local journalism, but their chosen methods of competing with existing organizations might make matters worse.

Axios, based in Washington D.C., has announced a local team will begin publishing a Houston newsletter later this year. The nonprofit Houston Endowment, Kinder Foundation, Arnold Ventures and the American Journalism Project said they would spend $20 million on a new Houston-focused news outlet.

No one doubts we need more journalism everywhere, and Americans consume more journalism than ever before. The problem is how many people are willing to pay for it, either through subscriptions or donations, and whether another newsroom will dilute the income of existing outlets already facing financial pressures.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Facebook puts profits over people because federal law protects it

Ann Stern, CEO of the Houston Endowment, says the foundations decided to back their Local News Initiative because too many things go unreported and places like the Chronicle charge for news.

The specific strategy will be developed by the management team, but the vision is that we put more high quality, independent non-partisan journalism on the street, and that we make that information free to everyone and that we collaborate with anyone that makes sense, she told me.

Ask the CEO of any news organization, though, and they will tell you only a fraction of news consumers is willing to pay for journalism because most are accustomed to advertising covering the costs. Advertisers, however, are switching to social media, hurting television as much as print these days.

The Chronicle is addressing the collapse of advertising revenue by using a paywall to grow the number of digital-only subscribers, and we hope they will finance our newsgathering in the future. Existing nonprofits, such as Houston Public Media, rely on donations.

Stern said the foundations are supplying only seed money, and eventually, the Local News Initiative will need other donors and sources of income. When I pressed her on whether the limited number of paying Houston news consumers might reallocate their spending away from existing organizations, she said she hopes not.

John Thornton, a co-founder of the American Journalism Project and the Texas Tribune, has long argued that journalism should be free and supplied by donor-backed nonprofits.

The maintenance of an informed public is the responsibility of the public itself, not the incidental byproduct of a series of commercial transactions, Thornton proclaims in a prominent quote on the projects website.

We dont yet know much about what the Local News Initiative will look like, and thats by design, Stern said. The founders want the new chief executive and editor-in-chief to determine the best strategy for adding to Houstons journalism ecosystem rather than competing with existing groups.

Its not just finding somebody who understands the business; its somebody who understands the approach that is going to make sense here, because if this organization comes and doesnt gain the trust of the other organizations in this space, as well as all the different communities its going to serve, then it wont be successful, Stern explained.

My experience working in Africa and with arts organizations, though, has left me suspicious of new nonprofits created by people who believe accumulating massive wealth makes them smarter than everyone else in every industry. Ive seen smart people make big mistakes.

In Tanzania, I met farmers who could not sell their locally-grown maize for a profit because the U.S. government gave American corn away for free. I toured Kenyan textile factories shuttered because Goodwill undercut the local market with used clothing. Free stuff from good-hearted people can devastate industries.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Facebook could learn better manners from newspapers

Yet, journalism does need help. More than 2,200 local newspapers have closed since 2005, and half of journalism jobs have disappeared. Sixty percent of Texas and the United States has no news coverage at all, and bad things are happening in these news deserts every day because no one is watching.

I know Axios and other for-profit entrants to the Houston market rely on newsletter or online advertising need a big city to make money. I believe in free markets, and if they want to compete, then bring it on.

What I find difficult to grasp is why donors are financing a new nonprofit that will compete for funding in a city with a healthy daily newspaper, four television news outlets, a significant public media operation, multiple talk radio stations and dozens of websites.

The answer is simple: Like for-profits, nonprofits go where they can generate revenue. I dont doubt the founders good intentions; Ive simply seen too many roads paved with them.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and politics.

twitter.com/cltomlinson

chris.tomlinson@chron.com
With COVID-19 cases in San Antonio and Bexar County on the rise, officials are taking measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. These measures include supplementing nursing staff at local hospitals, opening additional testing sites and encouraging residents to take advantage of the federal governments offer to mail every household four rapid tests for free.

As of Thursday, 1,263 Bexar County residents were hospitalized for COVID-19, according to Metropolitan Health District. Of those, 36 were pediatric patients. About a third of all patients in local hospitals have COVID, and 68 percent of them are unvaccinated.

To address staffing shortages resulting from the influx of new admissions, the state recently sent over 140 contract nurses, responding to Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolffs request for auxiliary support.

We hope these additional 140 nurses will help ease the burden on our local hospitals, Wolff said, according to a city news release Wednesday.

On ExpressNews.com: Nirenberg, Wolff send dire plea to Gov. Abbott for more staffing help at San Antonio hospitals

Metro Health reported 5,841 new COVID cases Thursday and a seven-day average of 5,970  up from 4,841 a week ago. Ten deaths were reported. There are 116 hospital patients on ventilators, compared with 73 a week ago, and 277 in intensive care units, compared with 206 last week.

Both the city and the county have independently partnered with the nonprofit organization Community Labs to increase their testing capacity. The two are now capable of administering a combined 12,000 tests a day.

Two new county-funded Community Labs testing sites have opened at Converse Old City Hall and Wonderland Mall of the Americas. The sites offer PCR testing Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

On ExpressNews.com: New San Antonio COVID testing site will screen 2,000 patients per day

Meanwhile, six new city-funded Community Labs testing sites have opened at local community centers and college campuses. The sites also offer PCR testing Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

All eight sites are intended to help alleviate citizens challenges with finding COVID-19 tests during this post-holiday Omicron surge, said Mary Japhet, a representative for Community Labs. She added PCR tests are far more sensitive than rapid antigen tests.

In addition, another testing site opened in Parking Lot C of the Alamodome on Tuesday morning with funding from the Texas Division of Emergency Management. The site offers PCR testing seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

All of these testing sites would not be possible without the key partnerships and logistical support from Bexar County, Community Labs, Curative and the Texas Division of Emergency Management, as well as our San Antonio Fire Department, City Manager Erik Walsh said in a news release.

In the wake of President Bidens announcement that his administration would begin distributing free at-home rapid tests Jan. 19, officials are also urging residents to visit https://www.covidtests.gov/ to place an order.

caroline.tien@hearst.com
After almost two years closed to the public due to the pandemic, Centro de Artes Gallery in Historic Market Square is reopening next week with an exhibition that showcases dozens of local artists.

The exhibition includes work from 34 San Antonio-based first generation and immigrant artists whose lineages represent a dozen countries including Argentina, Czechoslovakia and Japan. The gallery opens Wednesday and the exhibition will run through July 3.

Krystal Jones, interim executive director of San Antonios Department of Arts & Culture, said that she hopes people who visit the gallery will see how talented San Antonio artists are and how resilient they are to have persisted throughout the pandemic.

And then also, Im hoping that people take away the different experiences that people have as a first-generation (artist) or identifying as an immigrant artist, she said. I think that there are so many stories to be told about what that means.

This upcoming exhibit is inspired by the New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, which pairs emerging foreign-born or first-generation artists with established artists to learn about skills like how to build a portfolio, understand contracts and market ones work. For this exhibition, mentors and guest curators who organized the exhibit mentored the participating artists as they worked through the contract process and other details that accompany having ones work in an exhibit.

The exhibit is titled New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program Exhibition - Round 2. Jones said that it is essentially an extension of an exhibition that San Antonio artists hosted in 2019 at Centro de Artists after participating in the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio looking for ways to fund public art as $1.2 billion bond moves forward

Jones said that the Centro de Artes Gallery remained closed since March 2020 largely because of funding challenges. The gallery receives money based on hotel occupancy taxes, which took a hit  especially at the start of the pandemic. In September the City Council approved a budget that provided funds that could reinstate the gallery. When the fiscal year started in October, Jones said officials hit the ground running to get the gallery reopened and the exhibition ready to go in a short timeframe.

Its truly a community effort to bring this gallery back, and thats the beauty of it all, Jones said.

Though the upcoming exhibit ends in July, Jones said there is an exhibition schedule for the Centro de Artes Gallery lined up through 2024.

Starting next week the gallery will be open from 10:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and then from noon until 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

There will be a grand reopening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Feb. 22 where people can meet the exhibits participating artists. A performance night with films and performances by exhibition artists will be from 6 to 8 p.m. April 26.

As the exhibition nears its closing date, a panel discussion with exhibition artists will be from 6 to 8 p.m. June 7.

megan.rodriguez@express-news.net
Divers enlisted by a Texas sheriff to help search a lake for the remains of a man who has been missing since 2009 recently made a different kind of eye-opening discovery, the authorities said  more than a dozen sunken vehicles.

The discovery came after a three-day search of Lake Whitney, a flood-control reservoir and popular fishing spot about halfway between Fort Worth and Waco, the Bosque County sheriff said in a Facebook post Monday.

But the missing man, John Creech, who was last seen near his home in Meridian, Texas, still has not been accounted for by county and state investigators.

The Bosque County Sheriffs Office reopened a missing person case in November in the disappearance of Creech, who would now be 53. As part of the cold case investigation, the Texas Rangers, the states elite law enforcement unit, were also enlisted.

The sheriff, Trace Hendricks, said in the Facebook post that investigators, working on a tip that Creechs remains might be located in the lake, had discovered more than a dozen sunken vehicles during the three-day search, which began Friday.

Hendricks was out of the office this week because of coronavirus protocols and not immediately available to answer additional questions, an aide said Thursday.

The sheriff had contacted Adventures With Purpose, a team of divers that got its start searching for old cars as a way of cleaning up the environment in 2019, to help with the search about two months ago, Jared Leisek, the groups founder, said Thursday.

Leisek, 46, declined to provide details of the cars or items that they found, but shared that officials suspect foul play.

Using three different types of monitors on their boat, Leiseks divers found a total of 13 vehicles: seven on the southwest side of Lake Whitneys dam; five submerged in the reservoir at depths of 30 to 65 feet; and one on the opposite, Hill County side of the dam.

Bosque County Sheriffs Office

Diving into the reservoirs murky water, the team was able to examine the seven cars on the southwest side of the dam and pull two of them out, Leisek said. The other five vehicles in Bosque County waters could not be searched because the divers didnt have enough oxygen to reach those depths.

The vehicles that we did dive on and locate were all 30 to 40 years or older, he said, The vehicle in question that we were looking for needed to be underwater for 13 years, more or less.

Cars that have been in the water for more than three decades look like Swiss cheese, he explained, making it hard to examine them, let alone remove them from the water.

But the fact that the dam-adjacent cars were not at the bottom of Lake Whitney, where sediment and debris accumulate, made it easier to investigate them, he explained.

If the divers dont find what they are looking for on the first try, Leisek said, they often find answers after uploading their search footage to YouTube. Viewers then help play web-sleuth detectives with us, Leisek added. He explained that viewers can provide more details about where to search, which he said he hoped would be the case this time.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, which includes the Rangers, referred questions about the case to the Bosque County sheriff Wednesday.

Creech disappeared around April 2009, according to KXXV-TV, a local ABC station. Creechs family said he was last seen at his home just outside Meridian, a city approximately 20 miles southwest of Lake Whitney.

Creechs car, Leisek said, was found at a Walmart in Hillsboro, Texas, shortly after he was reported missing.

There is still very little known about the events that led to Creechs disappearance. Efforts to reach his relatives were not immediately successful.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
A Philadelphia man accused of bringing a pipe bomb into St. Lukes Hospital in Fountain Hill, causing a two-hour evacuation of the emergency department, has been indicted on explosives charges.

Brian James Kunsman, 44, was charged with one count of possessing an unregistered destructive device and one count of being a felon in possession of an explosive, U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said in a statement Friday.

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The indictment alleges that on Oct. 16, a nurse discovered Kunsman  who had come in as a patient after a single-vehicle car crash in Lower Saucon Township  had the homemade device in his backpack.

Fountain Hill police contacted the Allentown police bomb squad, which took possession of the explosive device.

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At the time, Fountain Hill police said they believed Kunsman forgot he had the device in his backpack and did not intend to cause harm at the hospital. He told police he had built it for self-defense.

Kunsman is scheduled to appear in federal court Monday before United States Magistrate Pamela Carlos in Allentown. If convicted, the he faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a $260,000 fine.

Homemade explosive devices pose a grave threat to the general public when in the wrong hands, and bringing one into the emergency department of a hospital  an enclosed space where people are receiving acute medical care  is especially dangerous, Williams said. We are grateful to our law enforcement partners for working quickly and efficiently to mitigate the threat posed by this defendants alleged actions.

Matthew Varisco, special agent in charge of Philadelphia field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the bomb posed a substantial threat to hundreds of citizens.

ATF is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to keep our communities safe from violence, said Matthew Varisco, Special Agent in charge of ATFs Philadelphia Field Division. As alleged, this defendant possessed a device which posed a substantial threat to hundreds of citizens.

I would like to thank the Fountain Hill Police Department, the Allentown Bomb Squad, and the U.S. Attorneys Office for their assistance in this investigation.
Out where Wurzbach Parkway runs through the Hills of Park North, Frank Ramirez isnt too worried about the coming cold.

His homemade tent  a hodgepodge of tarps, cardboard pieces and netting  is deep within a wooden area and barely visible to passing traffic. Inside, a small fire is lit in a metal grill, warming Ramirez and his partner, Cassandra, who are among the citys homeless.

Earlier, Ramirez, 44, spent nearly an hour grabbing fallen tree limbs and twigs, which he lined up neatly against the side of the tent  ready for the cold night ahead.

Its a good spot, Ramirez said. At least well be warm tonight.

As freezing temperatures hit San Antonio this week, a significant number of homeless people prepared to remain outside rather than seek warmth in shelters throughout the city. Some, like Ramirez, have thick tents and tiny fires to keep warm, but others are less fortunate. Many with fewer resources  some have only tattered tarps and thin jackets  risk injuries from the cold or even freezing to death.

In response, outreach workers from shelters, churches and the city are doing what they can to convince homeless people to seek a safe place to stay for the next few days.

Jessica Phelps /San Antonio Express-News

On ExpressNews.com: Organizations prepare now to protect homeless during next winter storm

While options vary, Trevor Baker, a homeless outreach clinical coordinator for the Department of Human Services, urges the use of warm-up sites around San Antonio.

They offer a warm place to rest for a while, Baker said. And some  such as Church under the Bridge, Harpers Chapel Baptist Church and Haven for Hope  offer overnight shelter with beds from about 6 to 7 p.m. to early the next morning. Other warming stations are just for the day, such as those provided by the city.

Today, I just want to check in on people to make sure theyre OK, and they dont want a ride to a warm-up shelter, Baker said. I cant force anyone to go anywhere, but I want that option open for anyone who needs it.

Baker is the outreach coordinator for District 10 on the far North Side, where there arent many warm-up stations or any shelters. One challenge that Baker faces is that homeless people in his area might decline to go to warm shelters that they consider to be too far from their encampments, such that theyd worry about losing their possessions. While he doesnt expect many people to go, he said its important to make the rounds.

Jay Dolan, who is homeless on the Northeast Side, said he wont seek a warm-up shelter because hes already tried it and didnt like it. Instead, hes erecting a tent on top of a mattress, wearing two jackets, a sweater and a long-sleeved shirt, which he has pulled up over his head. He also makes space for a tin can the size of a book, in which hell light a fire.

Baker is concerned about fires like Dolans.

Are you sure? Baker asked him. Theres always a warm spot for you at one of these sites.

A couple weeks ago, two homeless people lit a fire in or around their tent at their spot behind Better Angels Senior Center to stay warm and ended up burning everything they owned. A scorch mark the size of a door remains on the wall.

Jessica Phelps /San Antonio Express-News

On ExpressNews.com: Preparing for the storm: Some San Antonio homeless must find new shelter

Those who dont get shelter are prone to bodily harm caused by extreme cold temperatures. During the February 2021 freeze, people on the streets got frostbite on their faces, hands and toes. Baker said that one man who had frostbite on three toes and three fingers rejected Bakers insistence that he find a warmer place.

This year, Baker is especially worried about people who got frostbite last year, saying their damaged skin is more susceptible now.

Nevertheless, shelter doesnt appeal to everyone, despite the extreme cold. Although people in the encampments that Baker visits regularly  typically three to four a day  know him, many dont trust the shelters theyre taken to and often get rides back to their spots after they warm up.

On Thursday, amid nearly freezing temperatures, no one accepted a ride from Baker. Most seem settled in or getting settled in for the night, under blankets, tarps and jackets. He gave his card to several people in case they change their mind. Baker would be riding late during the night.

Stay warm, stay safe, he said. Im just a call away.

Elena Bruess writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. elena.bruess@express-news.net
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A Leon Valley man arrested in November on allegations that he killed his brother over a woman has been indicted on a murder charge.

Leon Valley police arrested Darren Doze, 36, and charged him with murder after being called May 2 to the Vista Del Rey apartments on Evers Road and finding his brother, Ronald Doze, 39, bleeding on the kitchen floor from a gunshot wound to his upper leg. EMS took him to University Hospital where he later died.

The case was among the 178 felony indictments handed down this week by two Bexar County grand juries, the District Attorneys Office said Friday in a statement.

An affidavit supporting his arrest stated that before he was taken to the hospital, Ronald Doze told police that his brother shot him.

The document said a woman who lived in the apartment told police that Darren Doze spoke after the shooting about his brother making unwanted passes earlier in the evening at another woman Darren Doze had brought to the apartment.

On ExpressNews.com: Man accused of killing older brother over unwanted passes at a woman

The witness told authorities that Darren Doze said, I told him not to f with her, the affidavit stated.

Ronald Doze had been staying in the witnesss apartment for three months after he was evicted from his previous residence, the affidavit stated. The night of the shooting, the witness said Darren Doze and the other woman, whom authorities did not identify, came to the apartment to drink beer with his brother.

The witness said she went to bed around 3 a.m. and was awakened around 7 a.m. to Ronald Doze shouting at her to call police. Then, she heard a gunshot and ran out of her bedroom.

She told police she saw Darren Doze running out of the apartment with what appeared to be a rifle, according to the affidavit. The witness said she followed him to ask what he had done, and said he apologized for the shooting and left with the unidentified woman.

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If convicted of murder, Doze faces up to life in prison. His case is being prosecuted by the Family Violence Division in the 187th District Court.

Christopher Lee Powell, of Killeen, also was indicted on a murder charge this week.

The indictment alleges that Powell intentionally and knowingly caused the death of Ibrahim Suarez, who was fatally shot April 9.

Powells case is being prosecuted by the Criminal Trial Division in the 399th District Court.

If convicted, Powell, 34, faces up to life in prison.

ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863
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Caroline Skretas is in the process of moving into a new home in New Braunfels.

The recently married 28-year-old said the cost of moving has left her with little extra cash for lawn care, so she turned to a community social media group for help.

The "New Braunfels Local" Facebook group was set up in 2017 by Sara Howard, 48, to provide community news, but in November began sharing monthly posts asking neighbors to donate goods and services to other neighbors in need.

On ExpressNews.com: 'It's total chaos': Rush of customers flood San Antonio H-E-B locations ahead of cold front

Earlier this month, Skretas received a free lawn mower from a neighbor the day after expressing her need for one in the Facebook group.

"Its nice to know there are neighbors and community members out there who are happy and willing to help others," Skretas said.

She also received a free line trimmer and said she hopes to pay the kindness forward in the future.

In November, the Facebook group's administrators asked the 16,000 members if they can help a local mother with groceries. Howard, one of the group's administrators, said the outpouring of support was overwhelming, and the group decided to keep it going.

Screenshot of New Braunfels Local Facebook group

Members ask for furniture like cribs, couches and beds. Some inquire about clothes, kitchen appliances and services like car repairs and moving furniture.

Howard said the monthly post reflects the "power of community" and fulfills the Facebook page's purpose of serving New Braunfels residents.

"Something as simple as a post has the ability to fulfill a need, gas for someone's car (or) a Christmas tree for a family that didn't have one," Howard said. "It's pretty amazing."

Kaitlin Silvio, 34, is another group administrator and said members are not allowed to sell items or request money. She also monitors the comments and removes inappropriate or negative content in order to foster a "safe space" for those asking for help during a time of need without being judged.

Malak.Silmi@express-news.net
A San Antonio woman was arrested Thursday for her alleged involvement in the fatal shooting of a homeless man, which police describe as a possible retaliatory killing, court documents said.

Debra Ann Guerra, 48, was charged with murder in connection with the death of 34-year-old Aldo Rafael Uribe. She is being held on $150,000 bail.

Two men who have not been identified by police are also suspected to be involved in the crime, but no information regarding arrest warrants for them has been made available.

On Jan. 15, police were called to the 14100 block of Nacogdoches Road, where they found Uribe dead in an open field. Uribe had been assaulted and shot in the head, according to an affidavit supporting Guerras arrest.

On ExpressNews.com: Late-night report of shots fired on Nacogdoches Road leads to discovery of body in a field

Guerra called police three days after the killing to report that her pickup truck, but not she, was involved. She was arrested after police found inconsistencies between her account and other evidence, including surveillance video and witness statements.

Guerra initially told police that she drove her boyfriend and her roommates boyfriend in her Dodge Ram to a homeless camp near the shooting  shortly before it occurred  because the men wanted to buy marijuana, according to the arrest affidavit. When they arrived, she told police, the men went to the camp while she stayed behind and spoke with a homeless man.

According to Guerra, she heard arguing and a gunshot before the men came running back, got into the Dodge and left her at the scene. She said that when she got home, her roommates boyfriend threatened to kill her and told her that he shot Uribe in the head.

On the day that Guerra contacted police, her boyfriend was arrested on unrelated warrants and interviewed by a homicide detective. He denied being at the murder and said that Guerra was being controlled by other people to blame him, the affidavit said.

Multiple witnesses, however, told police that they saw two men and a woman arguing with Uribe before the two men assaulted him and he was shot.

Investigators obtained surveillance video that showed three people get out of a Dodge, enter and exit the homeless camp, and flee together in the Dodge.

Similarly, one witness told police that he saw a woman and two men get out of the Dodge and that the woman asked him where they could find Uribe. The witness pointed toward Uribes tent and later heard Uribe yell I didnt know before the gunshot.

An anonymous tipster told police that Guerra shot Uribe after the two men assaulted him.

According to the arrest affidavit, investigators learned from witnesses that the killing may have been retaliation for an attack that occurred three days prior. Witnesses in that incident said two people went to Guerras residence and assaulted her and two of her friends, including an elderly woman who lost three teeth in the attack.

The witnesses said the assault on Guerra was over $30 that one of the friends owed.

A witness told police that around the time of the shooting, Uribe was living with a drug dealer to take care of the dealers father. The people allegedly involved in the assault were said to be enforcers for the dealer.

Guerras boyfriend later told police he has had issues with the enforcers in the past.

taylor.pettaway@express-news.net
Courtesy of the San Antonio Police Department

San Antonio police are searching for a missing 15-year-old who was last seen on the Northwest Side Tuesday night.

Corina Bianca Flores was last seen in the 9700 block of Broadripple Street, just west of Castle Hills.
After San Antonios official Martin Luther King Jr. Day march was canceled for the second year in a row, churches and community leaders banded together to host their own event  raising the question of whether San Antonio may see multiple MLK Day marches in the future and what role politics will play.

This is the first annual conservative MLK march, said Otis Thompson, an East Side precinct chairman for the Bexar County Republican Party, as dozens of people gathered at Lincoln Park last week for the MLK Freedom Walk.

Organized by the religious group San Antonio in Black, White and Brown, the Freedom Walk also was sponsored by Thompson, Cornerstone Church and La Nuestra, a Christian radio station.

After the citys MLK march was canceled in light of surging COVID-19 cases, San Antonios MLK Commission instead offered virtual materials that highlighted voting rights and the need to stop the spread of the virus.

Renee Watson, the citys MLK Commission chair, said she wasnt aware of any other official group that marched in San Antonio, but she knows some people decided to walk still.

Everyone has a constitutional right to walk wherever they want to, Watson said. We focus on the business of uniting the city and the true values of Dr. King, not just the I Have a Dream speech.

For several years, Thompsons also pushed for the march to be reversed  to end the procession at Martin Luther King Park rather than begin it there. He likes the symbolism of walking toward freedom rather than away from it.

The Freedom Walk did just that.

But Watson said the goal is to take Kings message with them throughout the city by marching away from MLK Park.

If youre walking toward Dr. King, youre not walking with him, Watson said.

Dr. King didnt get distracted

Watson said when marchers first took to the streets on MLK Day in San Antonio, they pushed for better infrastructure, like streets and drainage, in the citys five-year bond program. That highlights the commissions focus on issues impacting the East Side, Watson said.

San Antonios march isnt a celebration, she said.

We dont do a parade. We dont do motorcades, Watson said. Were trying to focus on getting our community safe.

She credited that focus with growing the citys march up to 100,000 people at times. And its why she said she wouldnt entertain a discussion about split marches with different values in San Antonio.

We focus on the issues. Were not getting involved in the other stuff, Watson said. Dr. King didnt get distracted.

Thompson said having two MLK marches in San Antonio means more freedom for residents. He said Kings values were well-aligned with the Republican party.

He and others felt the Democratic Party had taken over the annual march. He pointed to the elected officials who speak at the event  usually Democrats in a heavily liberal Bexar County.

He hopes that ending the march at Martin Luther King Park makes it a tourist destination, attracting people from across the world to celebrate King and bring more economic development to San Antonios East Side.

Dr. King was first and foremost a child of God, a messenger of God, Thompson said. He certainly would not support abortion rights. He certainly would not support the LGBTQ community. And I can go on and on.

Watson said thats not what King was about, but she didnt want to engage in that conversation.

Charles Flowers, a leader with San Antonio in Black, White and Brown and pastor with Faith Outreach Center, said the new event isnt a Republican opposition march.

The regular march was taken over by Democrats, Flowers said. We took the opportunity to focus on MLKs message.

Thompson thinks the MLK march should be a celebration. But he also wants the focus on MLK Park to bring some of the citys tourism dollars to the East Side.

At the end of the day, you have all of these liberal speakers over the decades, and the East Side remains in economic squalor, Thompson said.

The future is hybrid

San Antonios MLK Commission will plan for future marches to take place in a hybrid format  they hope to march the streets again, but Watson said theyve also embraced the role technology can play in involving more people and sharing educational materials on Kings life.

We have found the march has turned into a million people and maybe 300,000 on the streets, Watson said.

She encouraged people to visit sanantonio.gov/mlk and offer feedback on the march.

Last year, Watson said she got calls from grandparents thanking them that they could stay home safely and still remember King by watching a video with their grandchildren, having a conversation across multiple generations.

We have worked too hard in this community, Watson said. Other folks have a right to do what they want to do. But were focusing on the issues of our community.

megan.stringer@express-news.net
The State Commission on Judicial Conduct reversed its position Thursday and suspended a Medina County justice of the peace who had been arrested over the weekend on election-related charges that already had been dismissed in Bandera County.

Tomas Tommy Ramirez III was arrested Saturday and was released on personal recognizance bonds, based on a 35-county indictment issued Jan. 7 by a Medina County grand jury at the request of the Texas Attorney Generals Office, according to court documents.

The charges, alleging an election fraud conspiracy in 2018, were identical to the ones obtained by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in Bandera County in February 2021.

On ExpressNews.com: Ken Paxton refiles election fraud charges against Medina County JP after they were dismissed

The commission had suspended Ramirez pending the Bandera County charges, which a judge there dismissed in December. Three days later the commission said Ramirez could return to his JP position. The state, meanwhile, filed charges in Medina County on Dec. 20, according to the latest indictment.

Paxtons case appears to be centered around Ramirezs 2018 run in the Republican primary election, which he won. He faced no Democratic opponent.

Paxtons office said in a news release at the time of the first indictment that Ramirez and three women ran a vote harvesting operation that worked out of assisted living centers.

The charges include engaging in organized election fraud, illegal voting, unlawful possession of a ballot or ballot envelope and enhanced election fraud for multiple offenses in the same election.

Ramirez has previously said Paxtons case was politically motivated.

On Thursday, the commission released its new order of suspension, indicating that Ramirez would be suspended without pay until the charges set forth in the indictment are dismissed, Judge Ramirez is acquitted of all charges in the indictment, or upon further orders of the Commission.

ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863
Will McLeod ostensibly went before the VIA Metropolitan Transit and Advanced Transportation District boards to talk about a bus stop at Milam Park. But that wasnt his true purpose.

McLeod, a right-wing gadfly who has twice run for San Antonio mayor, was looking to provoke. So he began his three-minute statement on Tuesday afternoon with an ode to an insurrectionist.

Id like to start off with taking a moment of reflection, he said, a moment of silence to honor Ashli Babbitt, a patriot that was murdered by Capitol Police Officer Brown.

McLeod misidentified the name of the Capitol Police lieutenant who shot Babbitt during the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by conspiracy mongers who insisted that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump. The officers name is Michael Byrd.

That, however, was the most minor of McLeods verbal offenses.

Babbitt had been part of an unruly, seditious mob that pushed against a barricaded door leading to the Speakers Lobby of the Capitol in a deranged bid to intimidate members of Congress out of certifying the results of the 2020 election.

Members of the mob smashed the glass panels of the door with flagpoles and helmets while Lt. Byrd repeatedly shouted for them to step back. Despite those warnings, despite the obvious danger of the situation she and her fellow insurrectionists had created, Babbitt clambered through a shattered glass panel of the barricaded door. Byrd fired his pistol and fatally shot Babbitt.

In McLeods telling of the story, Babbitts action made her a patriot and Byrds desperate attempt to preserve order constituted murder.

VIA trustee David Marne refused to let McLeods narrative stand.

Marne, the former mayor of Shavano Park, is a retired Air Force technical sergeant. He joined the Air Force when he was 17 and gave 20 years of service to his country, most of it spent with aeromedical evacuation teams that rescued the wounded from war zones.

Marnes grandfather was a World War II veteran who lost his life fighting the Nazis in Italy and is buried in the American Cemetery in Florence.

Marnes son is a West Point graduate and Army officer who recently returned from deployment in Syria.

When your family makes those kinds of sacrifices to your country, its not easy to sit silently while someone makes a hero of an individual who tried to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

Marne asked VIA board Chairman Fernando Reyes for a chance to speak.

McLeod shot back: I have a moment of silence. Please be respectful of that.

Marne said, I have no respect for Miss Babbitt.

After Marne said Babbitt was shot for trying to overthrow the government, McLeod called him disgraceful and suggested that Babbitts parents should sue the VIA trustee.

I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America against enemies foreign and domestic, Marne said. And I wont stand here and listen to this.

Marnes statement could barely be heard over McLeod incessantly shouting at him, Honor your oath!

In a way, this heated exchange was a microcosm of the schisms in this country at a time when millions of Americans view sedition as patriotism; when people customize their own facts and look to media less for information than for the confirmation of their own political biases.

On Wednesday, Marne explained his response to McLeods attempt to honor Babbitt.

If Im sitting on a panel and someone comes before me and wants me to give a moment of silence to someone who tried to attack the government that I swore to protect and defend, that aint happening. Ever.

After Tuesdays meeting, McLeod took to Facebook and branded Marne disrespectful and unfit to serve on the VIA board of trustees.

McLeod also alleged that Marne violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by discussing a topic not listed on the meetings agenda. Of course, McLeod left out the fact that he  not Marne  introduced the topic at the meeting.

Under the Open Meetings Act, youre allowed to give factual statements, Marne said. And everything I said was a fact.

Im not going to impugn Mr. McLeod. He can have any opinion he wants. But he cannot force a governing body to give a moment of silence to someone who in my opinion is a criminal, who was shot while attacking our government. I was in Bizarro World (on Tuesday).

Bizarro World comes with its own set of dilemmas.

If you take the bait of the conspiracy mongers and insurrection sympathizers, you give their twisted notions some oxygen. If you ignore them, you confer a sense of legitimacy to them, a sense that their ideas fall within the realm of rational discourse and should be accepted without protest.

Marne understands that we cant do that.

ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
A phenomenon is something unusual and interesting that can be seen and felt. How it came to be and what or who it is cant be completely understood. The impact can be lasting  think about the influence and enduring power of the Beatles  or it can be as ephemeral as a boy band that was the worlds biggest act 15 months ago but whose name few now recall.

Any phenomenon will be the target of outsize love and disdain, even hate, by detractors.

Within the past 20 years, the four biggest political phenoms in American politics have been Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes and former U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke.

ORourke lost his bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz by 2.6 points. But in his race, ORourke did something that hadnt been done since Abraham Lincoln in 1858. He became a national figure solely through a run for the U.S. Senate. (Obama in 2004 was different, because it was his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention that propelled him.)

Lincoln lost his Senate race but was elected president two years later. ORourke embarked on a run for president that wasnt as much ill-considered as he was ill-prepared.

ORourke has now taken his name ID, fundraising ability, organizational prowess and large network of volunteers into a run for the Democratic nomination for governor and what likely will be a race against Gov. Greg Abbott.

Wednesday, he met with the Express-News Editorial Board and spoke of wanting to be a governor who leads the state toward a common cause with common purpose.

ORourke said hed focus on three things that will bring us together. Those three things are well-paying jobs, public education and Medicaid expansion, which, as he pointed out, is gaining bipartisan support in the Texas Legislature.

None of them radical. None of them on the fringe. None of them divisive, ORourke said. All of which have both Democrats and Republicans supporting them that would clearly make Texas a better state.

While critical of Abbotts photo ops and border policy, ORourke also criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough at the border.

In a debate in September 2019, a few weeks after a gunman murdered 23 people in a Walmart in ORourkes hometown of El Paso, he famously declared, Hell, yes, were going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.

Asked about it during the Editorial Board meeting, he said, I spoke with the passion that I felt in that moment.

ORourke got emotional as he recounted flying home and going directly to the hospital to meet with the families of victims and not having an answer for the woman who, as her husband was being operated on, asked, Why does anyone need a gun like that?

ORourke told the Editorial Board, It was a great question, and I didnt have an answer for her.

He said he knows an assault weapon ban or mandatory buyback program isnt realistic but believes a universal background check would work.

When asked what hed learned from his presidential run, ORourke smiled and asked, Beyond, dont run for president?

He talked about the experience and said, I was not a good candidate. I did not run a good campaign, and that was not a good outcome, and the only thing that was good about it was the people who supported me and volunteered for me.

Over the course of the 90-minute meeting, ORourke was thoughtful, passionate and pragmatic, reminding me less of the caricature of him as a perspiring liberal firebrand on the stump than of the three-term congressman with a moderate voting record.

In 2018, the journalist Matthew Yglesias wrote of ORourke, Indeed, if you blocked all thoughts of the 2020 presidential primary and asked yourself what kind of House Democrat would have a chance of winning a state-wide election in Texas, youd say it would take a guy with a lot of charisma and probably a record thats somewhat more conservative than your average House Democrats.

If that guy, showing up in Lubbock, Midland and Sweetwater, can reach across party line, the impact of the phenomenon of 2018 will be felt beyond next Novembers gubernatorial election.

cary.clack@express-news.net
Why have working class voters been abandoning the Democratic Party?Because the Democratic Party has been abandoning them.

Exhibit A: The single largest item in the Democrats Build Back Better bill is a massive tax cut for the rich. What?

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Yep. The bill proposes spending $275 billion to cut the federal income taxes of high-income people by increasing their ability to deduct state and local taxes.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that 94% of the tax cut will be received by the top 20% of households. The top 1% will receive an average tax cut of $13,810 per year, while the bottom 40% will receive zero, and the middle 20% will receive an average of $20.

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As my father liked to say, Dont spend it all in one place.

Traditionally, you could deduct all the taxes you paid to state and local governments from your federal income taxes. Obviously that provision meant more to somebody with a $1 million income living in a multi-million-dollar home than it did to the average person.

In 2017, Congress and President Trump passed legislation to cap the SALT deduction at $10,000. Build Back Better will raise the cap to $80,000.

Do you know anybody who pays $80,000 in state and local taxes? Me either.

Anthony O'Brien (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

President Joe Biden shakes hands with Tammy Flower, team manager, as he tours the Lehigh Valley operations facility for Mack Trucks in Macungie, July 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (Susan Walsh/AP)

How many people in the Lehigh Valley take the SALT deduction? Data at that level of geographic detail arent available, but according to the census, the average household income in the Lehigh Valley is about $71,000. So most people here will receive little or nothing from the $275 billion spent on raising the SALT cap.

Why have Democratic members of Congress backed this proposal when most, like Lehigh Valley Rep. Susan Wild, have few constituents who will benefit? The key is shifts in voting patterns.

Democrats used to routinely win among working class voters of all races while losing among college grads. In 2020, Biden won among college grads while losing two-to-one among white noncollege grads.

The trend spans races. In 2020, Trump won 41% of Hispanic voters without a college degree. While only 10% of all Black voters supported Trump, 26% of Black men without a college degree did.

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Democratic pollster David Schor notes: If you look inside the Democratic Party, there are three times more moderate or conservative nonwhite people than very liberal white people, but very liberal white people are infinitely more represented.

The clout of high-income whites within the Democratic Party is magnified by their campaign contributions, often made to candidates far from where they live.

Susan Wild receives 80% of her campaign contributions from outside the Lehigh Valley, including $380,000 in just the past two years from donors in California, New York and Massachusetts.

Wealthy white people living in high-tax states will receive a windfall from raising the SALT cap, and their campaign contributions reflect that fact. But their influence on policy extends beyond taxes.

White liberals are more likely than working class people to support raising energy prices to fight climate change, relaxing law enforcement, closing public schools during COVID, increasing government control over day care centers, and enforcing woke speech codes in schools and corporations.

Discussing these divisions of opinion between working class people and the white liberals who dominate the Democratic Party would take more space than Ive got. But consider just the two issues of crime and schools.

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Heres former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutters reaction to white liberal District Attorney Larry Krasners blase attitude toward rising crime rates: I have to wonder what kind of messed up world of white wokeness Krasner is living in to have so little regard for human lives lost, many of them Black and brown.

Closing schools during COVID has had a disastrous effect on learning in low-income and minority neighborhoods.

A report by the McKinsey consulting firm found that during the 2020-2021 school year, students in these neighborhoods fell six to seven months behind in math, and five to six months behind in reading  in a school year that lasts only nine months.

One million school-age children, again mostly in low-income and minority neighborhoods, failed to enroll at all in the fall of 2020. Higher-income households have more time and resources to monitor their kids online learning and, if necessary, to hire private tutors.

Lower-income households often lack a fast internet connection or even a computer, and are less able to take time off from work to monitor whether their kids are actually logging on to remote schooling.

Teachers unions  whose members are 80% white  are a key constituency of the Democratic Party and continue even now to push for remote learning.

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Because the Democratic Party increasingly caters to white liberal elites, its unsurprising that its support among working class people is evaporating.

Anthony OBrien is a professor emeritus of economics at Lehigh University. Views expressed are of the author, not the university.
Lets pause a beat and consider the Defense Departments comments last week on how the Russians are poised to stage a fake attack to ignite war with Ukraine.

The statement is a bombshell piece of intelligence, and if Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirbys words are any indication, the situation is perilous.

With a touch of Hollywood production, the footage could be part of a Tom Clancy thriller. With luck, a conflict between Ukraine and Russia will remain in the fictional realm.

The topic came up in DODs press conference when Kirby said, Without getting into too much detail, we do have information that indicates that Russia is already working actively to create a pretext for a  for a potential invasion, for  you know, a move on Ukraine.

On ExpressNews.com: Lingle: In purging archive, DOD transparency takes a step back

Translation: What Im about to tell you is or was extremely classified, but Ill strip out the super-secret specifics; the when, where, who, how and, importantly, how we got the info.

In fact, we have information that they (the Russians) 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  or Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, again, as an excuse to go in (to Ukraine), Kirby continued.

Heres a story about a vague and ominous threat of violence in a region thats been flashing red warnings about its stability and security for years.

And we already have, in addition, indications that Russian influence actors are already starting, he said. Theyre already starting to fabricate Ukrainian provocations that  in both state and social media to, again, try to justify in advance some sort of pretext for incursion.

Interestingly, Kirbys words came the day of widespread cyberattacks against Ukrainian government systems and servers. What a coincidence.

On ExpressNews.com: Lingle: How DOD shaped Americans view of war in Afghanistan

Im not at liberty to go into a whole lot more detail than that, he said.

Yes, Kirby invoked a cliche in another nod toward the topics sensitivity.

He continued, But I  I hope that, by the fact that we can say this as confidently as we can, you  you can take away that theres a fidelity here to the information that we have that we believe is  is very credible.

Red flag words  fact, confidently, fidelity and credible  stand out like exclamation points. They point to DODs confidence in the information.

Then Kirby grounds the DOD assessment in Russias past behavior.

On ExpressNews.com: Lingle: Public was indifferent to a war made abstract

And again, weve seen this kind of thing before out of Russia, he said. When there isnt an actual crisis to suit their needs, theyll make one up.

Moments later, after a reporter paraphrased Kirbys characterization of the intelligence as so good, the spokesman responded, What I said was that we are able to share with you this finding and this belief.

He continued, I would hope you would take away from the fact that there is enough supporting evidence underneath that that we would not be willing and able to talk to publicly. Thats what I meant. I  I dont think I said its so good. I just want to make sure I make that clear.

Tyler Hicks /New York Times

Imagine the diplomatic calculus that went into the decision to declassify and discuss this clandestine Russian operation thats potentially underway.

But dont consider this DOD candor a new era in transparency. There are likely very specific reasons this information is coming out now.

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Consider the countless intelligence analysts, experts, military leaders and politicians who were likely part of the conversation. More than a few might be in San Antonio with the 16th Air Force, the services cyber and information warfare headquarters, and the National Security Agencys Texas Cryptologic Center.

Its worth asking: Why tell everyone what we know? Think about the risks of letting your adversaries know that you know about one of their most classified projects.

Then consider timing. Why now? Whats the risk of not saying anything now? The risks must be worse than the risks of divulging the information.

One of the simplest and best explanations of information warfare says to work backward from your desired end state. Identify the behavior you want from your adversaries and partners, and use information to influence them to do what you want.

Lets hope DODs revelations are giving the Kremlin pause as Russia continues to mobilize on Ukraines borders.

brandon.lingle@express-news.net
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Under a gray sky Wednesday morning, about 100 people gathered at Fort Sam Houston National Cemeterys assembly area to honor 46 veterans whod died over the last two years.

The dead had no family, friends or loved ones to claim their remains, arrange or attend services, let alone offer words of remembrance.

The official term is unaccompanied veterans, and for years, the Bexar County Military and Veterans Services Center, with Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, invited the public to graveside services with military honors.

But COVID-19 changed that, and since March 2020, the cemetery directly interred the unaccompanied vets with no spectators or military honors.

On ExpressNews.com: Lingle: Trail honoring fallen soldier offers path to peace

Thats why Wednesdays ceremony honored those who died since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. The pandemic robbed them of kind words and military honors at their grave site, but the ceremony offered an important gesture of respect and gratitude.

During the brief ceremony, and forever after, those in attendance became the deads family, friends and loved ones  a tangible extension of loyalty and camaraderie among those who signed up to sacrifice themselves for their country.

The 46 Army James Kycek, Howard W. Ybarbo, Johnny Wechsler Jr., Aaron C. Williams Jr., Rudolfo Martinez, William B. Lee II, John E. Bowersox, Roger Harlon, Nathaniel Cooke, George A. Prairie, Oklon Woodard, Gary L. Watters, Tommy H. Davis, Russell A. Dale, William L. Wallace, Diana M. Fair, Benjamin F. Kelly Jr., Gary L. Guilloray, Leroy E. Masur, Johnnie S. Dominguez, Anthony G. Fernandez Navy Gene E. Helmle, Dustan C. Moore, Charles J. Zajicek, Alfred L. Brady Jr., Richard D. Wilson, Billy M. Duncan, Belton Johnson Jr., James H. Farmer, Allen F. Heiner, Martin V. Ybarra Air Force Jon D. Roland, Samuel M. Purifoy Jr., Jimmie Bennett, Franz J. Koehling, John J. Seiler, Carroll A. Sims, Larry A. Quammen, James B. Covington, David W. Klaus, Joseph A. Pfitscher Marine Corps Noa Spears, Ruben Rodriguez, Thomas D. Hager, Ronald G. Johnson Coast Guard Allen L. Byram See More Collapse

Its not about religion. Its not about politics. Its about respect, said Kim Herrington, a VA cemetery representative. Respect for what these veterans did for you and me.

Patriot Guard Riders  volunteers who support military and first responder funerals  stood behind the podium holding U.S. and service branch flags.

On ExpressNews.com: Lingle: As Afghanistan falls, memories haunt

Attendees sat on benches or stood in the aisles, but no currently serving generals or military leaders graced the crowd. Fort Sam Houstons Memorial Services Detachment provided military honors. Without flag-draped coffins, we didnt have the visual cues of loss, but the rifle volleys punctuated the air with finality. The echoes of taps reminded us of our mortality.

Two detachment members folded an American flag and presented it to Joe Bray, the South Texas civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army.

Theres no words to describe it, said Bray, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam. Youre actually taking them into your heart. Unbelievable the emotions  you cant describe it.

On ExpressNews.com: Lingle: Public was indifferent to a war made abstract

After a prayer, John Rodriguez, a Marine Corps and Vietnam veteran, read the 46 names.

We are their family. We are their band of brothers and sisters, said the San Antonio native. I cannot think of a more humble act of love than to be present for military honors rendered for our homeless or unaccompanied veterans.

Rodriguez and his wife have attended such ceremonies since 2006, and sometimes, he said, they were the only ones. Once his wife received the flag and he served as a pallbearer because no one else was there.

The one woman and 45 men came from all the services  21 Army, 10 Air Force, 10 Navy, 4 Marine Corps and 1 Coast Guard. They ranged in age from 50 to 92, with an average age of 71. According to VA listings, 27 served during Vietnam, three served during Korea and two had Persian Gulf service.

Tony and Irene ONeal, Marine Corps vets and community volunteers, have attended 40 to 50 such ceremonies since 2015.

Views & Voices: Editorials, columns and commentary, delivered to your inbox

Its a great honor and privilege to come out here to show your respect to them because they kind of paved the way of life we live right now, Tony said. Irene added, They would do it for you.

While few, if any, had obituaries, their lives encompassed more than the military. They had families and people who loved them. They probably still do.

Think about their lives before and after their military stints  families, loves, friends, losses, wins, jobs, hobbies. Imagine the things they saw from around the world. Consider all those they impacted over the years. Their memory still reverberates.

For some, the draft forever altered their lifes course. What could society have done to help them on their life journeys? How could we have met them where they were?

These veterans remind us that theres work to do in supporting those who serve our nation. Homelessness, addiction, and physical and mental health problems haunt many vets. With so many resources in our community, no veteran should feel alone.

Sadly, were still a long way from that, and the unaccompanied veteran memorials will resume their monthly schedule in February.

brandon.lingle@express-news.net
When I was a student, we had fire drills.

Now, students are faced with active shooter drills and repeated outbreaks of COVID-19 in their schools. Many students dont feel safe. Not only are they afraid of exposure, they are dealing with extraordinary interruptions in education.

On ExpressNews.com: Wish the numbers were lower  Omicron cases still rising in San Antonio schools

On ExpressNews.com: Battered by virus absences, San Antonios public schools are hanging on

The education experience hasnt been normal in nearly two years. As schools grapple with the omicron variant, many are running out of teachers and bus drivers, who are calling in sick. Students are tired. But some are speaking up. The students in Texas and across our country who are staging walkouts are promising examples of youth civic engagement and leadership. They are demanding their voices and needs be heard.

Walkouts are a historic tool of last resort for students, and they speak to a level of mistrust of the establishment and desperation many young people are feeling. Assuming that each students intentions were pure in skipping class, consider how afraid they must feel to call for a return to virtual school, which they know doesnt work for education or mental health.

In the nearly two years since COVID-19 made its unwelcome debut, most districts still havent figured out a way to make students generally feel safe. Friday, small groups of students walked out at Round Rock ISD, an Austin suburb district of 56 schools and 48,421 students. It was a much lower turnout than expected. More than 1,800 students and more than 490 parents and faculty signed online petitions requesting the district offer remote learning amid the omicron surge, according to the student groups petition and tweet.

The students of Round Rock ISD no longer feel comfortable going to school as cases of COVID-19 soar, the students wrote. If the district cant create a safe learning environment, we must shift to remote learning until cases go down again.

Round Rock ISDs COVID-19 dashboard shows positive case counts went from 75 for the week of Dec. 17 to 1,587 for the week of Jan. 7 (which included the entire winter break), to 2,226 the week of Jan. 14 and 1,886 the week of Jan. 21. Tests have been difficult to find during this time, and some people are asymptomatic, so the numbers are likely much higher.

Maybe the cold front is to blame for the walkouts low turnout. But a more plausible culprit could be this harsh reality: The fight is unwinnable because the students enemy is the insidious virus, not the school district.

Regarding their concerns  we share them, said Round Rock ISD spokesperson Maritza Gallaga.

Round Rock ISD is a model. It employs prevention efforts that are safer than those of many Texas districts. Its mask requirement is based on risk-based threshold phases set by Austin Public Health, Travis County, and the Williamson County and Cities Health District, which Thursday was at Red/Stage 5, masks required with health/developmental exemption available.

Round Rock students are calling for more robust contact tracing, a better-enforced mask mandate, access to quality masks and testing. They also want substitutes for their teachers who are sick, so they dont have to gather with multiple classes in a space to be watched by teachers filling in during their conference periods.

Hundreds of students in Boston, Chicago, New York, Washington, Minnesota and other places have walked out of schools in protest, demanding safety changes or remote learning during the latest omicron variant surge.

Their walkouts demand change, but are their ideas for changes possible? And would they make students feel safer? No. There is no way to make any school 100 percent free of the virus. And in-person school is still best, even now.

But schools across Texas must be as safe as possible  and clearly, thats not always happening. Schools need a statewide plan to be established by a new, nonpartisan state task force as our Editorial Board called for last week.

On ExpressNews.com: Editorial: Wanted: A state task force to keep schools safe and open

Our Editorial Board recommended that education and health experts be part of that task force  one that takes politics out of this issue  but students must also be included. Their voices must be heard, and it shouldnt take walkouts for that to happen.

Nancy.Preyor-Johnson@express-news.net
Back in the late 1970s and into the 80s, not many bookstores owned by Chicanos existed in San Antonio. But one, Paperbacks y Mas, on the corner of Lynwood and Blanco Road, stands out in memory. It was a well-stocked bookstore with choice selections of first editions and a wide array of Latino literature.

Few remember that the bookstore was stocked, owned and maintained by Ricardo Sanchez, a boisterous and iconoclastic poet of protest literature. His groundbreaking Canto y Grito mi Liberacion was published in 1971. His signature poetry also reflected the cadence and beat of his close friends, who included Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder.

Paperbacks y Mas bookstore, on 1819 Blanco Road, should have been preserved by the Conservation Society of San Antonio since the place was not only iconic for San Antonio but influential for Latinos taking up the pen. Sadly, not even a historical marker documents its existence.

Sanchez was a towering individual who had enormous gravitas and was a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News from 1985 to 1990 and the El Paso Herald-Post from 1988 to 1991. His bookstore attracted a coterie of poets, artists and writers who influenced other Chicanos during his Sunday afternoon readings of established poets and up-and-coming authors.

One Sunday afternoon, I went there with my compadre, John Carranco, even though he was skittish about going inside the store. I wanted to expose him to the cultural and intellectual development of Chicanos in Texas and California. A clerk greeted us but not before the pungent scent of patchouli mingled with a hint of garlic arrived before him.

Peace, bro. May I offer you some suggested readings?

He was wearing bell-bottoms and a psychedelic shirt.

Nah, were good, John said smiling.

The bookstore had stacks of books, on every subject, crammed in bookcases. Pamphlets, monographs and huge posters of Emiliano Zapata and other 1910 Mexican revolutionaries were displayed as guardians of Paperbacks y Mas. And, of course, the looming pictures of the frazzled-bearded Ricardo Sanchez as de rigueur.

As we walked around, John turned and whispered.

I dont read Spanish, and I havent read much poetry.

Dont worry. Most Chicano poetry is bilingual. Enjoy the moment, I quipped.

John had a passion for books on Aztecs and the history of colonial Mexico. He was fiercely independent in his readings, and he judged books on their first page. Hed scan the pages waiting to feel inspired by sentences or paragraphs, like a cold splash of ice water on a hot day.

That Sunday, Jesus Cardona, a friend and English teacher at Kennedy High School, was scheduled to read some of his poetry to a large gathering. We were impressed with his palabras and a voice that clearly enunciated the beauty of Spanish mixed with English.

John was so impressed with the reading that he bought an armload of books on anything written about Chicanos by Chicanos. Back then, minority literature was not represented within the hegemony of American literature. And John was on the path toward enlightenment and re-educating himself about the world.

We sat upstairs in an area reserved for poetry reading with wine and cheese available to guests and participants. Sanchez usually served as master of ceremonies. After the reading, we were introduced to Sanchez, and John gave him a strong abrazo.

Leaving impressed, we got into Johns blue Malibu and turned on the radio. Wars greatest funk hit, The Cisco Kid, blasted away.

Paperbacks y Mas is gone, but Chicano literature has evolved and secured a place in the canon of American literature. Across the Atlantic, Oxford University Press established a website listing its historical beginnings and contributors. My friend and I visited Paperbacks y Mas one last time during its End of Store clearance.

As for Sanchez, a New York Times obituary on Sept. 9, 1995, truly celebrated his achievements.

Julian S. Garcia is a former writer of ViAztlan, an international journal of arts and ideas. He is the author of La Fantastica Curandera.
Why is Vladimir Putin threatening to take another bite out of Ukraine, after devouring Crimea in 2014? That is not an easy question to answer because Putin is a one-man psychodrama, with a giant inferiority complex toward America that leaves him always stalking the world with a chip on his shoulder so big its amazing he can fit through any door.

Lets see: Putin is a modern-day Peter the Great out to restore the glory of Mother Russia. Hes a retired KGB agent who simply refuses to come in from the cold and still sees the CIA under every rock and behind every opponent. Hes Americas ex-boyfriend-from-hell, who refuses to let us ignore him and date other countries, like China  because he always measures his status in the world in relation to us. And hes a politician trying to make sure he wins (or rigs) Russias 2024 election  and becomes president for life  because when youve siphoned off as many rubles as Putin has, you can never be sure that your successor wont lock you up and take them all. For him, its rule or die.

Somewhere in the balance of all of those identities and neuroses is the answer to what Putin intends to do with Ukraine.

If I were a cynic, Id just tell him to go ahead and take Kyiv because it would become his Kabul, his Afghanistan  but the human costs would be intolerable. Short of that, Id be very clear: If he wants to come down from the tree in which hes lodged himself, hes going to have to jump or build his own ladder. He has completely contrived this crisis, so there should be no give on our part. China is watching  and Taiwan is sweating  everything we do in reaction to Vlad right now.

Which brings us back to the central question: Vlad, why are you in that tree?

For starters, dont look for the answer in Ukraine. If Putin decides indeed to take another bite out of Ukraine, it will be first and foremost because Putin thinks it will strengthen his chance of staying in power in Russia, which for him is always paramount.

To understand how invading Ukraine again could serve that end, one has to go back to the shift Putin made in the last decade: He went from selling himself to the Russian people as the leader who would enable them to overcome their poverty of wealth in the post-Cold War era to the leader who would enable them to overcome their poverty of dignity in the post-Cold War era.

I learned this from Leon Aron, a Russia expert at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life, who is now writing a book about the future of Putins Russia. The way Aron put it, when Putin came to power at the end of 1999, he was able to benefit from the restructuring of the Russian economy by Boris Yeltsin; from significant foreign investment; from rising oil, gas and mineral prices; and from improved political stability.

Russians associated Putins first two terms  2000 to 2008  with unprecedented wealth accumulation in modern Russian history, said Aron.

But beginning in 2011 and stretching all the way to 2019, Russias economy stagnated because of lower energy prices and, most of all, institutional impediments to growth: Putins preference to tap Russias natural resources, not its human resources. No Silicon Valleys for him  except cyberhackers. That would require real rule of law, secure property rights and the unleashing of talented people, who ask too many questions like, Vlad, where did your money come from?

Putins response to this economic stagnation and the political peril it represented was to shift the basis of his regimes legitimacy from economic progress, which made Putin so popular in his first two terms in office, to Putin as the defender of a motherland besieged by the West, Aron told me. Putin concluded that if he was going to be a president for life, he had to be a wartime president for life.

Writing in the Hill, Aron quoted Russian opposition columnist Sergei Medvedev as recently observing: Putin has forged a nation of war that has battened the hatches and looks at the world through a lookout slit of a tank.  The degree of military-patriotic hysteria (in) Russia today brings to mind the USSR of the 1930s, the era of athletes parades, tank mock-ups and dirigibles.

This is classic wag-the-dog politics. Putin is a thug, but hes a thug with an authentic Russian cultural soul that resonates with his people. His obsession with the Soviet Union and his nostalgia for the power, glory and dignity it gave him and his generation of Russians run deep. He was not exaggerating when he declared in 2005 that the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.

And because Ukraine, and its capital, Kyiv, played a central role long ago in Russian history, and because Ukraine was a bulwark and breadbasket of the Soviet Union in its heyday, and because perhaps 8 million ethnic Russians still live in Ukraine (out of 43 million), Putin claims that it is his duty to reunite Russia and Ukraine. He blithely ignores the fact that Ukraine has its own language, history and post-Soviet generation that believes its duty is to be independent.

For Putin, losing Ukraine is like an amputation, remarked political scientist Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria. Putin looks at Ukraine and Belarus as part of Russias civilizational and cultural space. He thinks the Ukrainian state is totally artificial and that Ukrainian nationalism is not authentic.

The reason Putin has accelerated his Ukraine threat  which I would call marry me or I will kill you  is that he knows that under Ukraines current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the process of Ukrainization has accelerated and the Russian language is being pushed out of schools and Russian television out of the media space.

Said Krastev: Putin knows that in 10 years the young generation in Ukraine will not be speaking Russian at all, and it will have no identification with Russian culture. Maybe best to act now, thinks Putin, before the Ukrainian army gets bigger, better trained and better armed  and while Europe and America are in disarray over COVID and in no mood for war.

And then there are just the raw geopolitical motives. In creating the crisis around Ukraine, said Krastev, Putin is inviting the West to a funeral for the post-Cold War order.

For Putin, the post-Cold War order was something imposed on Russia and Boris Yeltsin when Russia was weak. It involved not only pushing NATO into Eastern European countries that were once part of the Soviet NATO  the Warsaw Pact  but also pushing NATO and European Union influence into the former Soviet empire itself, in places like Ukraine and Georgia.

Putins troop buildup says to the West: Either we negotiate a new post-Cold War order or I will start a post-post-Cold War confrontation.

As longtime readers of this column know, I was a vigorous opponent of NATO expansion after the Cold War. It is one of the stupidest things we ever did  focusing on NATOizing Poland and Hungary rather than building on an amazing, largely nonviolent, democratic revolution in Russia and locking it into the West. Nurturing that Russian revolution to fruition would not have been simple, but by pressing ahead with NATO expansion we made it easy for an autocratic nationalist like Putin to lock himself in power by telling the Russian people that only he could keep NATO and the West from destroying Russia  militarily, culturally and religiously.

That said, I dont weep for Putin. He is the human embodiment of one of the oldest Russian fables: A Russian peasant pleads to God for aid after he sees that his better-off neighbor has just obtained a cow. When God asks the peasant how he can help, the peasant says, Kill my neighbors cow.

The last thing that Putin wants is a thriving Ukraine that joins the European Union and develops its people and economy beyond Putins underperforming, autocratic Russia. He wants Ukraine to fail, the EU to fracture and America to have Donald Trump as president for life so well be in permanent chaos.

Putin would rather see our cow die than do what it takes to raise a healthy cow of his own. Hes always looking for dignity in all the wrong places. Hes rather pathetic  but also armed and dangerous.
Indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton is responsible for enforcing the states open records laws. But last week, the Travis County district attorney informed Paxton he had violated the very laws he is sworn to protect.

This is specific to Paxtons failure to maintain or release communications tied to his presence at the Save America Rally on Jan. 6 that led to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Weve long argued these records are important because they might inform the public about Paxtons communications as the insurrection unfolded, whom he was in contact with about speaking at the rally and any taxpayer expenses for this trip. Paxton is a public servant.

On ExpressNews.com: Editorial: In yet another slap to voters, Paxton blocks rally records

Some background:

Early last year, journalists with the Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News made several requests for Paxtons work-related emails and text messages during the time around the insurrection, but Paxtons office refused to release these communications.

In March, a coalition of Texas media outlets began working together to obtain the documents and review Paxtons open records practices. They published a story that month raising questions about the failure to release public information.

This month, top editors at the Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News filed a complaint asking the district attorney to investigate the alleged violations.

Jackie Wood, the director of public integrity and complex crimes with the Travis County District Attorneys Office., informed Paxton via letter Jan. 13 that he broke Texas law by not properly responding to the public information requests.

So, here we are.

Paxton is an embattled politician, and the insurrection is a stain on our nation. Paxton sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election with a lawsuit calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate results from swing states that Democrat Joe Biden won. The case went nowhere. But that did not stop him from touting the lawsuit  aptly described as garbage by one elections law expert  at the Jan. 6 rally.

What we have in President Trump is a fighter, Paxton told the crowd. And I think thats why were all here. We will not quit fighting. Were Texans, were Americans, and the fight will go on.

Paxtons words are clear, and his actions to veil his communications from that trip speak loudly. The public deserves to know what he said in his other communications.

We look at this saga through two lenses.

First, these are big, national concerns. The Big Lie of voter fraud looms over the 2022 midterms, and Paxton has played a consequential role in pushing this falsehood.

But more narrowly, this also needs to be viewed in the simple terms of open government: Paxton is a public official. Public records dont belong to him. They belong to the public. To withhold or not properly maintain public records is to have disdain for those one serves.

Bravo to the coalition of editors and the Travis County district attorney for shining a light to help the public better understand Jan. 6 and Paxtons role in that tragic day.
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AUSTIN  State Sen. John Whitmire is turning down a big pay raise that was slipped into an overhaul of the state employee retirement system in the final hours of the last regular legislative session.

The Houston Democrat, who wants to be the citys next mayor, is one of at least three Texas legislators made eligible for a dramatic boost in take-home pay, courtesy of an 11th-hour amendment last May by Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood. Bonnens office did not respond to requests for an interview to discuss the measure.

I didnt vote for it. Wont vote for it. And will not accept it, Whitmire told the Houston Chronicle

The other two who qualify for the lucrative perk are longtime state representatives Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston and Tom Craddick, R- Midland, who served six years as House speaker before his own GOP colleagues overthrew him in 2009. Thompsons office did not respond to phone and email messages.

Whitmire pointed to Craddick, currently the longest serving state legislator in Texas history, as the mastermind of the amendment that allows them to collect a $140,000 annual pension without ever leaving office.

They call it the Craddick amendment in the House, Whitmire told the Chronicle.

Craddicks office did not respond to messages left via phone and email.

The amendment currently allows just 46 state employees around Texas, including the three state legislators, to draw their salaries and pensions simultaneously. The Legislature years ago shut down a loophole that famously let former Gov. Rick Perry double dip his salary and pension. Bonnens amendment effectively opens up a new loophole.

To qualify for the accelerated pension benefit, a state employee or legislator needs 43.5 years worth of credit. Whitmire and Thompson were first elected to the Legislature 50 years ago, in 1972; Craddick was first elected in 1968.

In the state employee system, credits can be bought or transferred from certain other retirement plans, so even more career Texas politicians could be eligible now or soon. A blanket of secrecy over individual retirement records makes it impossible to know whos getting what.

The double-dipping amendment was quietly attached to a major reform of the state retirement system. Sponsored by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, Senate Bill 321 was aimed at addressing a $15 billion unfunded liability in the Employee Retirement System, or ERS. It creates a hybrid retirement benefit that has elements of both a traditional pension and 401-K plan.

This less costly retirement program, known as a cash balance benefit plan, applies to new employees starting in September of this year, while the double-dipping amendment already took effect last September, according to an ERS spokeswoman. ERS members made eligible for the benefit were notified in writing last September.

Whitmire said the agency contacted him earlier this month about signing up for his new pension benefit.

The senator said he told ERS not only no but hell no. 

Tyler Sheldon, legislative director for the Texas State Employees Union  which opposed the broader overhaul  said lawmakers proved they were more interested in padding their own retirements than protecting pensions for rank-and-file employees at a time when turnover rates have soared among state workers.

Its something that really clearly shows that theres different classes of state employees, and that your regular state employee that has provided service doesnt get treated the same, Sheldon said. And then rewarding those that have been in office for a certain amount of time, being able to retire and still collect a check.

The Texas House inserted the double-dipping loophole into the pension overhaul on May 26 with no debate after a 1:17 minute explanation from Bonnen on the House floor.

They can continue to work and serve the state of Texas, Bonnen said. And they can begin drawing on that annuity.

No legislator of either major political party objected to the amendment before it passed in the House on a voice vote, a procedure used for non-controversial items that generally have broad support.

Bill sponsor Huffman had a signed agreement to remove the double dipping provision benefitting Craddick and others, but by the time it reached the Senate floor, the Democrats had staged a walk-out in the House over restrictive new voting legislation. That shut down action in the chamber just as the 2021 regular session was about to end.

Huffman was left with two possibilities: kill her hard-fought state pension overhaul for the session or accept the double-dipping amendment with a few minutes remaining on the legislative clock. She went with the latter. Now she is vowing to sponsor legislation stripping out the provision, retroactively if possible, in the next regular session that starts a year from now.

I do intend next session to file legislation to remove that provision, Huffman said. Even if someone has had a year of it then it would stop.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott quietly signed the pension bill on June 18, with no public discussion of the double-dipping loophole benefiting veteran politicians. Nor did he ever exercise the power  which is his alone  to put the removal of the loophole on the agenda of any of the three 30-day special sessions he called last year.

Abbotts office didnt answer questions about the provision benefitting career politicians or whether he objects to it, though spokeswoman Nan Tolson said in a written statement that he is always willing to consider modifications to provisions in this bill if the Legislature chooses to address it next session.

Governor Abbott was proud to sign SB 321, which ensured that current and future retirees continue to have a dedicated pension with a lifetime annuity, Tolson said. SB 321 strengthened the financial health of our state and put the pension fund on the path to being 100% funded by FY 2054 and actuarially sound within 3-5 years.

jay.root@chron.com
Defense attorneys have asked a Travis County judge to toss the misdemeanor trespassing cases of nearly 450 migrants arrested near the southern border, the most sweeping legal challenge yet to Gov. Greg Abbotts Operation Lone Star initiative.

The case is modeled after a recent lawsuit, also filed in Travis County, that led to the dismissal of state charges last week against an asylum-seeker from Ecuador who had argued Abbotts border program runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution.

The latest court filing, using the same argument, asks state District Judge Lora Livingston, a Democrat, to throw out the cases of 444 migrants arrested on criminal trespassing charges in Kinney County, a conservative rural community southeast of Del Rio that is the epicenter of Operation Lone Star.

Kristin Etter, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid who is representing the migrants, said after last weeks ruling that she viewed the case as a blueprint for handling other trespassing charges.

The Texas government is restraining the liberty of thousands of individuals under the guise of criminal trespass prosecutions in an attempt to usurp federal immigration legislation and strong arm the federal government into enacting policies that Governor Abbott would prefer, Etter and co-attorney Robert Doggett wrote in an application for a writ of habeas corpus.

LAST WEEK: Austin judge tosses migrants trespassing charge, as blow to Gov. Abbotts border enforcement plan

The attorneys, as in the case last week, argue that Abbotts migrant arrest plan violates a clause of the Constitution that forbids states from enacting policies that conflict with federal laws or otherwise interfere with the federal governments work. Immigration law is the responsibility of the federal government.

Abbott has said Operation Lone Star is necessary to handle the surge in border crossings under President Joe Biden, who the governor has slammed for rolling back some of the immigration policies enacted under former president Donald Trump. Both Abbott and Paxton have said they expect last weeks ruling to be overturned, with Paxton tweeting that Texas officials have the right to defend our border if the feds refuse.

All but 54 of the 444 migrants in the latest filing had been released on bond as of last week, according to court records. The rest have all been jailed for more than three months, some since early September.

One of the cases involves a migrant who was jailed on state trespassing charges on July 31, shortly after Abbott ordered state police to begin making the arrests.

While all of the migrants were arrested in Kinney County, Etter and Doggett argue the case should be taken up in Travis County due to a backlog that has ensued in the overburdened court system of Kinney County, home to roughly 3,700 residents. They wrote that habeas corpus applications are taking a minimum of six weeks to be heard there.

During last weeks hearing, David Schulman, an attorney representing Kinney County, pushed unsuccessfully to relocate the case of the Ecuadorian man, Jesus Alberto Guzman Curipoma, back to the small border county.

Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith, the local misdemeanor prosecutor, said in a court filing earlier this week he would appeal the ruling on the behalf of the state. It was unclear how the case would proceed, however, as the state was represented in the case by Travis County Attorney Jose Garza, a Democrat who sided with Guzman Curipoma.

The dismissal of Guzman Curipomas case is the latest in a series of setbacks faced by Abbotts border crackdown since state authorities began making trespassing arrests in July.

The arrests, centered for months in Kinney and Val Verde counties, are now occurring almost exclusively in GOP-controlled Kinney County, after the local prosecutor in neighboring Val Verde County dismissed dozens of cases over concerns about probable cause, or because the case involved someone who was expected to seek asylum.

Early in the operation, Kinney County officials also came under scrutiny for jailing migrants without appointing attorneys to represent them. A state district judge in September ordered the release of more than 240 migrants on cashless personal bonds after local prosecutors, overwhelmed by the influx of arrests, failed to bring charges for weeks in an apparent violation of state law.

The operation has more recently begun drawing scrutiny from Abbotts Republican primary opponents, who bashed the governor after reports emerged of suicides, pay issues and low morale among members of the Texas National Guard who had been deployed to the border under Operation Lone Star. Abbott dismissed the criticism last week, saying the pay issues had been resolved.

Additionally, defense attorneys have said the trespassing arrests are inadvertently shielding migrants from Trump-era immigration policies that could have otherwise been used to expel them from the country before they could submit asylum claims, or forced them to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings in the U.S.

jasper.scherer@chron.com
Air Serbia will further expand its network out of Belgrade after unveiling its initial set of new destinations for the summer of 2022, which include Valencia, Bari, Palma de Mallorca and Rijeka. The carrier has announced it will commence operations from Belgrade to Trieste and Bologna in Italy, bringing its total number of destinations in the country to six. Services to Trieste will be inaugurated on June 2, while Bologna will follow on June 6. Both will be maintained three times per week with the ATR72 aircraft. In 2019, Air Serbia operated flights between Nis and Bologna two times per week, while its predecessor Jat Airways maintained operations between Belgrade and Trieste, three times per week, until May 2011.





Destination Launch date Valencia APR 21 Trieste JUN 02 Bari JUN 05 Bologna JUN 06 Palma de Mallorca JUN 11 Rijeka JUN 15

Click on link for flight details

Commenting on the latest additions to its network, Air Serbias Head of Network Planning and Scheduling, Bojan Arandjelovic, said, The decision to introduce new destinations in Italy is the result of the strategic importance of renewing and strengthening our presence in one of the most visited countries in the world. Italy represents an extremely important market, both for our airline and for Serbia, due to close economic ties between our two countries. We are especially glad to commence direct flights to Trieste, the city with the biggest Serbian diaspora in Italy, while services to Bologna will furthermore contribute to strengthen our cultural and economic relations with Italy.





Air Serbia's new routes in summer 2022





Air Serbia is expected to announce additional new destinations to its network over the coming weeks, complementing the abovementioned routes, as well as the carriers new seasonal services from Nis to Athens, and from Kraljevo to Tivat, which are to be launched this June. In the following period, we will continue to develop in that direction, and we look forward to introducing more new routes, Air Serbias Head of Sales, Bosko Rupic, said this week. In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, Lisbon was Belgrade Airports busiest unserved route on the continent, followed by Cologne, Manchester, Bologna, Trieste, Malaga, Krakow, Valencia, Dublin, Luxembourg, Catania, and Vilnius. Since then, services to Luxembourg have been introduced by Luxair and are codeshared by its Serbian counterpart, while services to Valencia, Trieste and Bologna will be launched by Air Serbia in April and June respectively. The Serbian carrier has also outlined it will resume operations from Belgrade to Madrid, Venice and Nice, which have been suspended since the start of the pandemic, as well as increase its frequencies to Rome and Milan to pre-pandemic levels. In addition, it plans to restore seasonal services to Rostov-on-Don introduced last year.
Sterling, VA (20165)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 80F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Generally fair. Low around 55F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
The most recent update of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education has risen Fairfield University to the doctoral classification category.

The new category distinguishes Fairfield University in the U.S., and reflects the academic strength, and growth of Fairfield Universitys graduate, and professional programs.

Fairfield is one of 73 new doctoral and professional institutions to be added to the category. It was formerly classified among graduate degree institutions.

The Carnegie Classification Update Public Review period began, Dec. 15, when the public review version was released.

The public review is six weeks. The classification will be announced as official by the end of January.

The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education developed a classification of colleges, and universities to support its programs of research, and policy analysis, beginning in 1970.

Members of Fairfields National Charity League win award

Twenty-two members of the Fairfield chapter of the National Charity League, Inc., have been awarded the 2021 Presidential Volunteer Award.

Four bronze, five silver and 13 gold medals were awarded. The awardees range from eighth through twelfth grade. The 22 awardees served a combined 2,813 volunteer hours supporting the leagues Fairfield Chapters 18 local, and national philanthropies, including Operation Hope, Save the Sound, The Pilot House, Special Olympics and the Norma Pfriem Breast Center.

The award honors outstanding volunteers whose service have a positive impact on their community.

The gold medal recipients include Isabella Baptista, Ava Beatty, Grace Beccaria, Audrey Compare, Natalie Compare, Adriana D'Elia, Giana D'Elia, Madeline DePiano, Sofia Dillabough, Delaney Dwyer, Sidney Ferrone, Anna Gedacht and Karina McMahon.

The silver medal recipients are Erica Bender, Caitlin Benson, Lila Greenberg, Dina Lacugna and Daphne Pardo.

The bronze medal recipients are Amanda Dillabough, Claire Fuchs, Mia Nishiyama and Kayla Thomson.

The National Charity League is a mother and daughter volunteer organization.

Fairfield announces keynote speaker for MLK convocation

Author and educator, Robin D.G. Kelley, Ph.D., is the keynote speaker for the 2022 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Convocation event at the Fairfield University Quick Center for the Arts, at 1073 North Benson Road.

The event is at 7 p.m. on Feb. 2.

The theme for the event is The Wrong Side of the World Revolution: Kings Internationalism and the Lessons for Today.

The event is free, and open to the public.

Visit quickcenter.fairfield.edu for more information.

Fairfield University is also having a week of programming to celebrate the life, and the influence of Dr. King, in February. It includes a civic reflection, a Black History 101 Mobile Museum, live discussions, and a Youth Leadership Summit.

Visit fairfield.edu/mlk for more information and to register.

Color Play art show opening

The public is invited to a reception for the art show, Color Play, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Feb. 10, in the Bruce S. Kershner Gallery of the Fairfield Library.

The exhibition will also have the art of its artists in, Earl Grenville Killeen, Dionne Pia, and Emily Teall.

The library is located at 1080 Old Post Road in Fairfield.

The show begins Feb. 5, and will then continue after the reception, through April 2.

Fairfield annual awards dinner honorees announced

Fairfield University is going to host its 2022 Fairfield annual Awards Dinner to benefit student scholarships.

The dinner is an opportunity for the university to recognize some of the individuals, who have made significant contributions to the vitality of the University community. It will also honor five individuals in the community, who exemplify the Jesuit tradition of professional excellence, and service in the community.

The event is taking place at the Cipriani 42nd Street venue in New York, N.Y., at 6 p.m. on April 20.

The event benefits the Fairfield Universitys Alumni Multicultural Scholarship Fund, and other scholarships. The annual awards dinner has raised nearly $20 million in scholarship money over the years, for deserving students.

, according to information from Fairfield Univeristy Vice President for University Advancement Wally Halas.

The honorees and awards are:

- Michael Archbold, Class of 1982, professional achievement award

- Maureen Errity Bujno, Class of 1990, alumni service award,

- Rev. Gerry Blaszczak, S.J., the universitys alumni chaplain and special assistant to Fairfield University President Marc E. Nemec, distinguished faculty/administrator award

- John and Lori Berisford, parents from the Classes of 2020 and 2021, parent leadership award

The co-chairs of the the 2022 Fairfield annual Awards Dinner, are: Trish Comey Preston from the universitys Class of 1980, and Adrienne A. Johnson, from the universitys Class of 1991.

Visit fairfield.edu/awardsdinner, or contact the Director of the Fairfield Awards Dinner, Jennifer Kane, at jkane1@fairfield.edu, or 203-254-4000, extension 2464, for additional information.
While the number of patients hospitalized with COVID in Connecticut declined again on Friday, nearly half of them have been vaccinated, the state data shows.

As of Friday, 1,695 people are hospitalized with COVID-19, according to state figures, a decrease of 38 from the previous day. Of those, around 43 percent are fully vaccinated, the data shows.

However, health officials have said many of the vaccinated patients who have been hospitalized with COVID have been incidental cases, meaning they were being treated for another condition and also tested positive, or they have not received a booster.

Dr. Syed Hussain, chief clinical officer of Trinity Health of New England, said a majority of the hospital systems COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated.

Among those that are vaccinated, but ended up in the hospital, they have medical comorbidities, they tend to be older in age, and may have not been boosted yet, he said.

He said the vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. remain safe and highly effective against severe disease.

The governors office said unvaccinated people are still 3.2 times more likely to test positive for the virus, and nearly 14 times more likely to die from it compared to someone who is vaccinated.

On Friday, Connecticut recorded 4,444 new cases of COVID-19 from 32,459 tests, a daily positivity rate of 13.69 percent.

But while positivity rates and the seven-day rolling average of new cases have declined since earlier this month, the number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 remains higher now than at any point since the spring of 2020.
More than 9,000 farmers in some of Scotlands most remote areas will start to receive payments through the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) 2021 next week.

NFU Scotland has welcomed the Scottish government's announcement, calling the scheme a 'lifeline' for farmers and crofters in marginalised areas.

Accounting for 86% of Scotlands agricultural land, 90% of its sheep and 83% of its beef herd, hill farming is seen as the backbone of Scotlands red meat industry.

Yet there had been concerns over future funding levels for farmers and crofters in less favoured areas post-Brexit.

A lobbying priority for the union, the Scottish government confirmed in its December 2021 budget that the LFASS fund would return to its 2018 level of 65m.

It also guaranteed the post-Brexit retention of the scheme from 2021 to 2024.

NFU Scotlands LFA committee chair Robert Macdonald said: A concerted lobbying effort by NFU Scotland to see the budget for the Less Favoured Areas Support Scheme restored to 65m has paid dividends.

"We welcome the boost that LFASS funding will commence to Scottish LFA farms and crofts next week."

He added: All farmers face significant cost challenges for feed, fertiliser and fuel this spring and this support will ensure that those in our Less Favoured Areas will continue to deliver.

NFU Scotland securing the reinstatement of LFASS support levels to 100% of funds available in 2018 and the guaranteed retention of LFASS from 2021 to 2024 delivers stability to LFA businesses in the coming years.

"That certainty around post-Brexit funding ensures that those farmers and crofters operating in some of the most challenging parts of the country can plan and invest.
The UK and India has launched negotiations on a free trade agreement, with trade analysts expecting a boost in UK exports of dairy, sheepmeat and whisky to the country.

International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan met with her Indian counterpart to formally start talks on a post-Brexit trade deal.

India, one of the worlds biggest and fastest-growing economies, has a growing middle class, forecast to increase to a quarter of a billion consumers by 2050.

The country is also set to become the worlds third biggest economy by 2050, with a bigger population than the US and EU combined.

According to the UK government, an FTA with India has the potential to almost double UK exports and boost total trade by as much as 28bn a year by 2035.

The UK wants an agreement that slashes barriers to doing business with Indias 2 trillion economy and market of 1.4 billion consumers, including cutting tariffs on exports, such as whisky.

Currently, metals and machinery are main UK goods that are exported to India, with refined oil and clothing the main UK imports from India.

Agriculture accounted for 16% of Indias economy in 2019, after the industrial sector which makes the highest contribution to Indias GDP at almost 25%.

In contrast, agriculture comprises just 0.6% of the UK economy, with the services sector the main contributor at over 70%.

Analysing the deal's potential benefits, the AHDB says, as things stand, there is hardly any agricultural trade between the UK and India.

"The current tariff rates will be a key factor here with Indias average tariff rates on most products, including food, higher than those for the UK," AHDB's senior analyst, Amandeep Kaur Purewal said.

"India also has a higher number of non-tariff measures, such as sanitary and phytosanitary conditions (SPS), quantitative restrictions and safeguards compared to the UK.

"And so an FTA between the UK and India could provide beneficial for the UK if there is some relaxation on this front from India."

Sanitary and phytosanitary standards are complex and challenging for agri-food firms wishing to export to India, according to AHDB's analysis.

The FTA will seek to enhance access for agri-food by increasing transparency of SPS standards in order to help UK firms trade more easily.

From a UK perspective, the levy group says there is potential in the Indian market for value added dairy products such as cheese.

Although fresh dairy products are more widely consumed in India, there has been growth in demand for value added dairy products.

While demand for higher value dairy products is at a relatively low base, the growing middle class and huge population in India provides opportunities.

There may also be some potential for UK sheepmeat exports to India. "At the end of 2018, India gave access to British sheep meat imports for the first time," Amandeep Kaur Purewal said.

"As with value added dairy products, although Indian sheep meat consumption is relatively low, there is opportunity for this market to grow."
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Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2022 shows a beach resort hit by tsunami on the outskirts of Nuku'alofa, capital of Tonga. (Ha'atafu Beach Resort/Handout via Xinhua)

The most pressing needs in Tonga are the availability of safe water, OCHA said. Some 50,000 people need clean water. It might also take weeks to complete the repair work of the underwater communication cable.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The first relief flights arrived at Tonga's just re-opened international airport on Thursday, carrying much-needed water, sanitation and shelter supplies, communications gear and power generators, UN humanitarians said Thursday.

The arrivals came as assessment teams reached most parts of the remote southwest Pacific nation, including far-flung and isolated islands, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Once workers shoveled ashfall from the runway, the office said aircraft from Australia and New Zealand landed.

"The government of Tonga has asked us for urgent assistance," said Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "The resident coordinator, Sanaka Samarasinha, has responded and remains in close contact with the Tongan authorities."

Dujarric said that 23 resident UN staff in Tonga support the government's assessment and response efforts and are helping to distribute aid.

Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2022 shows a beach resort hit by tsunami on the outskirts of Nuku'alofa, capital of Tonga. (Ha'atafu Beach Resort/Handout via Xinhua)

The most pressing needs are the availability of safe water, not only on the main island of Tongatapu, but also on smaller islands in the country, particularly in the Ha'apai island group, OCHA said. Some 50,000 people need clean water. While water testing proceeds, residents rely on bottled water.

The office said water, water purification units and desalination equipment are being shipped to Tonga. Oxfam is operating a water treatment unit.

The humanitarian office said volcanic ash damage to crops, livestock and fisheries, saltwater intrusion and acid rain potentially affects about 60,000 people. There are reports of a fuel shortage. But supplies are expected shortly as part of a regular shipment and support from Australia.

Saturday's eruption of an undersea volcano just 65 km from the main island of Tongatapu cut regular communication between Tonga and the rest of the world through a submarine cable. Communication among the country's 169 islands -- only 36 inhabited -- also was cut.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying aid supplies prepares to leave for Tonga from Base Auckland Whenuapai in Auckland, New Zealand, Jan. 20, 2022. (NZDF/Handout via Xinhua)

A UN telecommunications cluster coordinates with local, regional and global partners on the deployment of critical equipment to ensure that the government and responders have access to communication tools to coordinate the response and allow affected people to contact family, OCHA said.

The office said there is still limited international connectivity, although the situation is gradually improving. There are various initiatives from the government through the UN International Telecommunication Union, phone capability from New Zealand and other donor partners, and Digicel.

Although OCHA said a ship from Papua New Guinea would repair the underwater communication cable, it might take weeks to complete. Communication with outer islands remains very limited. 
Malaika Arora has always received praise and recognition for her way of dressing up and styling. She always steals the limelight with her different and glamorous fashion. But do you know that Malaikas closet is as big as an average persons bedroom?

Columnist Namrata Zakaria conducted a podcast with Malaika Arora, which was recorded in the actors closet because it was the quietest room. Namrata shared a picture of Malaika on Instagram. In the picture, Malaika can be seen sitting on the floor of her closet with a wardrobe apparently on one side and a shoe rack on the other.

Sharing the picture, Namrata wrote, "Why am I posting a picture of Malaika Arora sitting in her shoe closet? 1. Because its as big as an average persons bedroom. 2. This is the quietest room in her house where she sat and recorded for my podcast with me. 3. Whats a girl without her shoes? she asks. 4. All of the above." Malaika also reposted the post on her Instagram Story with a red heart and wrote, My closet.




View this post on Instagram A post shared by Priyanka (@priyankachopra)







Actors Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas have welcomed their first baby together. The happy couple posted about the news on their respective social media handles and tagged each other on the same. "We are overjoyed to confirm that we have welcomed a baby via surrogate. We respectfully ask for privacy during this special time as we focus on our family. Thank you so much," they wrote in identical statements posted on Instagram.Priyanka Chopra has always been pretty vocal about wanting children. In an interview with a leading international magazine, the actress had spoken about how her mother, Madhu Chopra, hopes for a grandchild someday. "By Gods grace, when it happens, it happens," Priyanka told the magazine and also said that having children was a "big part" of her life and that they also desired for the same. Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas got married to each other in 2018 in a lavish ceremony following a whirlwind romance.Two years ago, when rumours of Priyanka Chopra being pregnant had surfaced, Madhu Chopra had said: It was a bad angle. The outfit was nice She looked like that only in some pictures, the rest were fine. Blame it on the camera angle! When I spoke to Priyanka on the phone, she told me that she was tired and hence, had a slumped posture. I told her what people were saying, and she simply said: 'Mamma, give me a break!' For her grand wedding, Priyanka wore a classic red Sabyasachi lehenga. The custom made lehenga had sequins all over with hand-cut organza flowers French knots in silk floss, delicate Siam-red crystals and threadwork embroidery. It took 3720 hours with 110 embroiderers to create the gorgeous ensemble. Priyanka paired her look with a multi-strand polki raani haar with uncut diamonds and emeralds, a maang tikka, waist band and a nath.
Latest in long list of global accolades for Kia's first dedicated EV

EV6 also named 'Electric SUV of the Year' by What Car?

Only the second fully electric vehicle ever to win the 'Car of the Year' award - after the Kia Niro EV in 2019

Kia Sorento wins 2022 'Tow Car Award'

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kia EV6 has won the overall 'Car of the Year' award at the prestigious 2022 What Car? Awards, alongside being named 'Electric SUV of the Year'. This historic win for Kia's first dedicated electric vehicle marks only the second time that an EV has won the What Car? 'Car of the Year' crown after the Kia Niro EV in 2019.

The latest 'Car of the Year' trophy for the Kia EV6 follows a record number of awards and accolades from experts at opinion-leading international media titles in the 10 months since the car was first introduced globally in March last year.

"The EV6 combines a huge real-world range with the ability to charge at speeds that no rival can keep up with, addressing two of the biggest concerns that people still have about electric cars. What's more, by using bespoke electric underpinnings rather than a set that's shared by petrol and diesel models, Kia has been able to take advantage of the compact size of electric motors and produce a car that's hugely spacious and practical," said Steve Huntingford, Editor of What Car? magazine. "Add in effortless performance, outstanding refinement, competitive pricing and one of the best warranties around, and the striking EV6 doesn't just look like the future - it feels like it too."

"It's a great honor for Kia to win 'Car of the Year' at this year's What Car? Awards, and demonstrates once again how our strategic commitment to electrifying the Kia product range is truly paying off. The EV6 is an exceptional car, and demonstrates our unwavering focus in becoming a leading global provider of sustainable mobility solutions," said Ho Sung Song, President and CEO at Kia Corporation. "Our plan to electrify our range is gaining momentum and includes 11 new BEV models by 2026 as part of our Plan S strategy, where, in time, electric vehicles will make up the majority of our global sales."

The EV6 brings long-range, zero-emissions power, 800V ultra-fast charging and distinctive styling to the crossover SUV market. The EV6 enables the vehicle to achieve up to 528 kilometers of driving range from a single charge on the WLTP combined cycle, while advanced 800V charging technology means drivers can charge from 10 to 80 percent in just 18 minutes.

For more information about Kia EV6, please visit: www.kianewscenter.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1730436/Kia_EV6_wins_Car_of_the_Year_at_2022_WhatCar_Awards.jpg
Students who have identified a career path for themselves feel twice as prepared for their futures as those who are unsure of their path.

DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / January 20, 2022 / Uplift is hosting its second annual career week from January 24-28, 2022. This event, coordinated by the Uplift Career Services Team, will allow high school students to listen to speakers and presentations and learn about various career options. The event will also feature workshops and activities to help students discover their passions and interests.

Video Here: https://youtu.be/BxDtcPWCSJk

Uplift Education was built on a promise that 100% of our graduates get accepted to college. Beyond that, Uplift is committed to doing whatever it takes to help alumni matriculate, persist, and graduate from college, if that is the path they choose. This has been Uplift's promise from the start. Uplift Education has always wanted students to have the freedom, choices, and security, that a college degree can uniquely provide. Exposing students to a wide variety of career options in high school is a key factor in Uplift's Road To College & Career program.

During this time, students will have the opportunity to explore career trends and pathways to help them make informed career and educational connections. The goal is to create meaningful opportunities for students to explore career options and understand how to achieve their long-term personal goals. Uplift helps them discover their strengths and passions and how those might translate into a college major and future career.

Young people can be very ambitious and motivated and are capable of great achievements very early on. Sometimes for many students, o assurances are not enough. They want to know the connection between their academic work and their potential lifelong career work. It is their human instinct to pursue achievement in this way that has them wondering, "What exactly IS a promising, fulfilling future? What is it that grownups do all day in their various professions, and which road was made for me? Where will I make my mark? How will school help me, and why should I commit to it to achieve my lifelong goals?" These questions connect our students' experiences in school to their future, which enhances academic motivation and provides meaning to and purpose for the work they are doing now.

Increasing college opportunity is not just an economic imperative but a reflection of our values. We need to reach, inspire, and empower every student, regardless of skin color or socio-economic situation, to ensure that opportunities to excel and advance exist for individuals of all backgrounds.

Because of this work, Uplift students, 88% of whom are African American or Latino, are already earning college degrees at a rate of 4X the national average for their peers. 78% of our students are the first in their families to attend college, so earning a bachelor's degree means blazing a trail and affecting generational change for their families. These are remarkable accomplishments! We know that a child's circumstance does not have to determine their destiny. With the right resources and support, Uplift students can and do finish college, earning themselves access to greater career choices and opportunities.

If we want more of our students to stay committed to pursuing a promising future, we need to give them the tools them experience tomorrow today.

Uplift Education is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the lives of teachers, families, and, most importantly, students. With a network of 45 college preparatory, public charter schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Uplift offers students of any background the powerful chance to study within a multidisciplinary curriculum and prepare for the college career they deserve. Uplift is the largest International Baccalaureate district in Texas and the #2 IB district in the nation because of the number of holistic extracurricular and educational programs. The incredible educators in the Uplift network guide and teach over 21,000 students in Pre-K- 12th?grades, with the majority being low-income and minority students who will be the first in their family to attend college. For more information Uplift's mission and their blind lottery selection system, visit?uplifteducation.org?or?facebook.com/uplifteducation.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Deekay Fox

Senior Marketing and Communications Director

dfox@uplifteducation.org

661-378-2353

SOURCE: Uplift Education

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/684882/The-Uplift-Education-360-Purpose-Passion-and-Plan-Take-Center-Stage-During-Career-Week
Melbourne, Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 20, 2022) - Newcrest Mining Limited (ASX: NCM) (TSX: NCM) (PNGX: NCM) (Newcrest) is pleased to announce that Pretium Resources Inc. (TSX: PVG) (NYSE: PVG) (Pretivm) shareholders and optionholders (Securityholders) have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the special resolution to approve the plan of arrangement under which Newcrest will acquire Pretivm, including the Brucejack mine (the Transaction).

The special resolution was approved by 95.48% of the votes cast by Pretivm Securityholders at the special meeting held today.

Pretivm shareholders that did not elect cash or Newcrest shares will receive the default consideration of 50% cash and 50% Newcrest shares, being C$9.25 in cash and 0.4042 Newcrest shares per Pretivm share. For other shareholders, after proration and by operation of the aggregate cap of 50% cash and 50% Newcrest share consideration:

Pretivm shareholders electing to receive maximum cash consideration will receive approximately C$10.81 in cash and 0.3357 Newcrest shares per Pretivm share; and

Pretivm shareholders electing to receive maximum share consideration will receive 0.8084 Newcrest shares per Pretivm share.

Completion of the Transaction remains subject to final approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange, the granting of the final order by the Supreme Court of British Columbia at a hearing which is scheduled for 25 January 2022, and approval under the Investment Canada Act. Completion of the Transaction is currently expected to occur in the March quarter 2022.

Newcrest's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Sandeep Biswas, said, "It's pleasing to see the overwhelmingly positive support for the Transaction from Pretivm shareholders. This acquisition positions Newcrest as the leading gold miner in British Columbia's Golden Triangle, operating both the Brucejack and Red Chris mines. This is an exciting time for Newcrest and we look forward to building on Pretivm's success to unlock further value in and around the Brucejack operation."

Authorised by the Newcrest Disclosure Committee

For further information please contact

Investor Enquiries:

Tom Dixon

+61 3 9522 5570

+61 450 541 389

Tom.Dixon@newcrest.com.au

North American Investor Enquiries

Ryan Skaleskog

+1 866 396 0242

+61 403 435 222

Ryan.Skaleskog@newcrest.com.au

Media Enquiries

Tim Salathiel

+61 3 9522 4263

+61 407 885 272

Tim.Salathiel@newcrest.com.au

This information is available on our website at www.newcrest.com

Forward Looking Statements

This document includes forward looking statements and forward looking information within the meaning of securities laws of applicable jurisdictions. Forward looking statements can generally be identified by the use of words such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "plan", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "objectives", "targets", "outlook" and "guidance", or other similar words and may include, without limitation, statements regarding certain plans, strategies, aspirations and objectives of management, and the expected completion of the Transaction. Newcrest continues to distinguish between outlook and guidance. Guidance statements relate to the current financial year. Outlook statements relate to years subsequent to the current financial year.

These forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Newcrest's expectation of completion of the Transaction and the expected benefits of the transaction with Pretium Resources Inc. to differ materially from that expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Relevant factors may include, but are not limited to, regulatory risk, changes in commodity prices, foreign exchange fluctuations and general economic conditions, increased costs and demand for production inputs, the speculative nature of exploration and project development, including the risks of obtaining necessary licences and permits and diminishing quantities or grades of reserves, political and social risks, changes to the regulatory framework within which Newcrest operates or may in the future operate, environmental conditions including extreme weather conditions, recruitment and retention of personnel, industrial relations issues and litigation. For further information as to the risks which may impact on Newcrest's results and performance, please see the risk factors included in the Appendix 4E and Financial Report for the year ended 30 June 2021 and the Annual Information Form dated 6 December 2021 which are available to view at www.asx.com.au under the code "NCM" and on Newcrest's SEDAR profile. Newcrest does not undertake to update any of the forward looking statements other than as required by relevant securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111073
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 20, 2022 / Sceptre Ventures Inc. ("Sceptre" and/or the "Company") (NEX:SVP.H) announces that further to its news release dated November 25, 2021, the NEX board of the TSX Venture Exchange has approved the consolidation of the common shares of the Company (each, a "Share") on the basis of four (4) pre-consolidation Shares for one (1) post-consolidation Share (the "Consolidation"). The Consolidation will become effective at the opening of the market on January 24, 2022. The Company's symbol will remain as "SVP.H".

Currently, a total of 20,808,344 Shares are issued and outstanding. Accordingly, upon the Consolidation becoming effective, a total of 5,202,085 Shares would be issued and outstanding, subject to adjustments for rounding. There is no maximum number of authorized Shares. Computershare Investor Services Inc. ("Computershare") will mail letters of transmittal to the shareholders providing instructions on exchanging pre-Consolidation share certificates for post-Consolidation share certificates. Shareholders are encouraged to send their share certificates, together with their letter of transmittal, to Computershare in accordance with the instructions in the letter of transmittal.

About Sceptre Ventures Inc.

Sceptre Ventures Inc. is a Capital Pool Company ("CPC") within the meaning of the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange and has not commenced commercial operations and has no assets other than cash. Sceptre is currently engaged in identifying and evaluating businesses and assets with a view to completing a Qualifying Transaction under the TSXV's CPC policy.

For Further Information:

Suite 1450-789 West Pender Street

Vancouver, BC, V6C 1H2, Canada

Tel: 604-688-4219

Email: mitchell@sceptreventures.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

SOURCE: Sceptre Ventures Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/684904/Sceptre-Ventures-Announces-Effective-Date-of-Share-Consolidation
Regulatory News:

Tikehau Capital (Paris:TKO), the global alternative asset management group, today announced that Pegasus Asia, its third sponsored SPAC globally and its first SPAC to be listed in Singapore has successfully raised S$170 million (equivalent to c. 111.2 million2) in its initial public offering.

Similar to Pegasus Europe and Pegasus Entrepreneurs launched in 2021, Pegasus Asia was launched by Tikehau Capital alongside co-sponsors Financiere Agache, Jean-Pierre Mustier and Diego De Giorgi. The sponsors collectively have an extensive proprietary network and resources to search and evaluate targets.

Tikehau Capital and its co-sponsors were the only European sponsors to successfully launch two European SPACs in 2021. Pegasus Europe, which raised approximately 483.6 million in April, is among the largest European SPACs to date. In December 2021, Pegasus Entrepreneurs raised 210 million including an upsize of 10 million resulting from strong investor demand.

Pegasus Asia plans to focus on businesses in technology-enabled sectors, including but not limited to consumer-technology, financial technology, property-technology, insurance-technology, healthcare and medical technology, and digital services, primarily, but not exclusively, in Asia Pacific.

The gross proceeds of S$170 million raised from the initial public offering includes a S$22 million total investment from the Sponsors showing a strong alignment of interests with all shareholders. Pegasus Asia will start trading on the Main Board of the SGX-ST today.

Neil Parekh, head of Asia, Australia and New Zealand for Tikehau Capital will act as CEO of Pegasus Asia.

Antoine Flamarion and Mathieu Chabran, co-founders of Tikehau Capital said: "We are delighted with the resounding success of Pegasus Asia's IPO and the strong response from investors. Tikehau Capital invests its own capital in each of its SPACs and as such, we believe that our investors interests are closely aligned with our own. SPACs are an efficient investment tool that align well with our core strategy. They provide an effective way of raising capital and investing in selected companies to finance their growth objectives. The Asian market has great potential; together with Financiere Agache, we will leverage our global network and expertise in investing, diligence and capital raising in order to best identify Pegasus Asia's target business in the technology-enabled sector and ensure its success. We would also like to thank the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Singapore Exchange for welcoming our first SPAC in Asia. We expect to have more exciting projects to come in the region."

ABOUT TIKEHAU CAPITAL

Tikehau Capital is a global alternative asset management group with 31.8 billion of assets under management (as of 30 September 2021). Tikehau Capital has developed a wide range of expertise across four asset classes (private debt, real assets, private equity and capital markets strategies) as well as multi-asset and special opportunities strategies.

Tikehau Capital is a founder led team with a differentiated business model, a strong balance sheet, proprietary global deal flow and a track record of backing high quality companies and executives.

Deeply rooted in the real economy, Tikehau Capital provides bespoke and innovative alternative financing solutions to companies it invests in and seeks to create long-term value for its investors, while generating positive impacts on society. Leveraging its strong equity base (2.9 billion of shareholders' equity as of 30 June 2021), the firm invests its own capital alongside its investor-clients within each of its strategies.

Controlled by its managers alongside leading institutional partners, Tikehau Capital is guided by a strong entrepreneurial spirit and DNA, shared by its 672 employees (as of 30 September 2021) across its 12 offices in Europe, Asia and North America. Tikehau Capital is listed in compartment A of the regulated Euronext Paris market (ISIN code: FR0013230612; Ticker: TKO.FP).

For more information, please visit: www.tikehaucapital.com

DISCLAIMER:

This document does not constitute an offer of securities, fund units or any financial instruments for sale or investment advisory services. It contains general information only and is not intended to provide general or specific investment advice. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future earnings and profit, and targets are not guaranteed.

Certain statements and forecasted data are based on current forecasts, prevailing market and economic conditions, estimates, projections and opinions of Tikehau Capital and/or its affiliates. Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those reflected or expected in such forward-looking statements or in any of the case studies or forecasts. In particular, an investment in a fund is speculative and presents risks, including a risk of loss of capital. All references to Tikehau Capital's advisory activities in the US or with respect to US persons relate to Tikehau Capital North America.

This document is not for release, distribution or publication, whether directly or indirectly and whether in whole or in part, in or into the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan or any other jurisdiction where to do so would constitute a violation of the relevant laws of such jurisdiction. This document is for information purposes only and is not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy any securities of PEACE in the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan or in any other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

This media release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States or elsewhere. The securities in Pegasus Asia are not being registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act) and may not be offered or sold in the United States unless registered under the Securities Act or pursuant to an exemption from such registration. There will be no public offering of the securities in Pegasus Asia in the United States. No money, securities or other consideration is being solicited by this communicated or the information contained herein and, if sent in response to this communication or the information contained herein, will not be accepted.

________________________________

1 Special Purpose Acquisition Company

2 Based on a S$  exchange rate of 0.66 as at 20 January 2022.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220120006060/en/

Contacts:

PRESS CONTACTS:

Tikehau Capital: Valerie Sueur +33 1 40 06 39 30

UK Prosek Partners: Henrietta Dehn +44 7717 281 665

USA Prosek Partners: Trevor Gibbons +1 646 818 9238

press@tikehaucapital.com



SHAREHOLDER AND INVESTOR CONTACT:

Louis Igonet +33 1 40 06 11 11

shareholders@tikehaucapital.com
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - At 2.00 am ET Friday, the Office for National Statistics releases UK retail sales data for December. Sales are forecast to fall 0.6 percent on month, in contrast to the 1.4 percent increase in November. Ahead of the data, the pound traded mixed against its major rivals. While it dropped franc and the euro, it held steady against the greenback and the yen. The pound was worth 154.70 against the yen, 1.2431 against the franc, 1.3592 against the greenback and 0.8336 against the euro as of 1:55 am ET. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
PRAGUE, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Top Employee Institute has certified Zentiva as a Top Employer. This prestigious award was received for Zentiva's exceptional standards across 6 Human Resources-domains in its home countries the Czech Republic and Romania. The assessment was covering 20 topics including People Strategy, Work Environment, Talent Acquisition, Learning, Well-being, Diversity & Inclusion, and many more.

"I am proud that we have received such great recognition for the work we do in our home markets, the Czech Republic and Romania, where we employ 3.000 people.Being awarded the Top Employer accolade is a strong signal of our commitment to the Zentiva team and the Great Medicine Company we are building together," said Ines Windisch, Head of HR, Communications & Sustainability.

Zentiva roots reach back to more than 530 years to the Black Eagle pharmacy in Prague. With its wholly-owned manufacturing sites and the partner network, Zentiva is ensuring medicines supply of prescription medicines and consumer brands for more than 100 million patients in Europe and beyond. The Czech Republic, the home country of Zentiva, is hosting not only the Commercial Unit and the Companies' Headquarters but as well its own Development Center. For more than 90 years the manufacturing site in Prague is serving the people in the Czech Republic and abroad. In Romania, Zentiva owns two manufacturing sites in Bucharest that celebrate 60 years of manufacturing in 2022.

"The Top Employer award is not only a recognition for our company, but it is also as well an award for every individual member of our team who energizes each other with passion and belief. Every one of us is unique but bonded together by our common mission to help people live well through the development and supply of high-quality, affordable medicines. The growth of our company offers opportunities for our talents to learn and grow while staying their true self."

About Zentiva

Zentiva is a producer of high-quality affordable medicines serving patients in Europe and beyond. With a dedicated team of more than 4,700 people and a network of production sites - including flagship sites in Prague, Bucharest, and Ankleshwar - Zentiva strives to be the champion of branded and generic medicines in Europe to better support people's daily healthcare needs. At Zentiva it is our aspiration that healthcare should be a right and not a privilege. More than ever, people need better access to high-quality affordable medicines and healthcare. We work in partnership with physicians, pharmacists, wholesalers, regulators, and governments to provide the everyday solutions that we all depend on. Visit us at www.zentiva.com.

About Top Employees Institute

Top Employers Institute is the global authority on recognizing excellence in People Practices. We help accelerate these practices to enrich the world of work. Through the Top Employers Institute Certification Programme, participating companies can be validated, certified and recognized as an employer of choice. Established over 30 years ago, Top Employers Institute has certified over 1857 organisations in 123 countries/regions. These certified Top Employers positively impact the lives of over 8 million employees globally.

Top Employers Institute. For a better world of work.

Media Contact

Mounira Lemoui

Head of Communications

ZENTIVA GROUP, a.s.

U kabelovny 529/16, Dolni Mecholupy, 102 00 Prague 10

Mobil: (+420) 727 873 159/ E-mail: mounira.lemoui@zentiva.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1730964/Zentiva.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/788903/Zentiva_Logo.jpg
At the end of an intense 2021 with 3 successful Ariane and 3 successful Vega missions in about 6 months, Avio announces the signature by Arianespace of several new launch service contracts for Vega C.

In particular, a contract was signed with the Italian Space Agency for the launch of Platino 1 and Platino 2 satellites between 2022 and 2024. Platino is a lightweight advanced satellite platform entirely developed and manufactured in Italy.

In addition, the Microcarb and NESS launch service contracts were signed with CNES, the French Space Agency, and ESA. Microcarb is a micro-satellite for measurement of CO2 absorption and release into the atmosphere. NESS is a Nanosat demonstrator mission to perform surveillance of the civilian radiofrequency spectrum against jamming.

Finally, the launch service contracts for the Flex and Altius satellites were signed with the European Space Agency for a launch by 2025. Flex will monitor carbon cycles and agriculture for food security, while Altius will monitor the status of the atmosphere ozone layer.

These contracts highlight the credibility of Avio's execution capability and Vega's restored track record of performance, and on one side the suitability of Vega C to meet an ample spectrum of customer requirements, and on the other side the commitment of Avio to support sustainability and improvement of life on earth through the most innovative space applications.

In addition, Avio signed with ESA in December 2021 a new development contract for Vega C for a total value of about 50 Euro million. Such program will enable further Vega C technological optimizations and industrial streamlining, to improve cost-competitiveness.

The Maiden Flights of Vega C and Ariane 6 are scheduled in May 2022 and in the second part of 2022 respectively, with the Avio team currently in French Guyana working on the final preparation steps.

"The contracts signed between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 confirm the intense work carried out by the Avio team, which has led to renewed market confidence in the Vega launchers. With the shipment of the Vega C items to French Guyana, the launch campaign is nearing kick off, for the launch scheduled in May 2022, while also Ariane 6 is now getting very close to launch in the second part of 2022" commented Giulio Ranzo, CEO Avio's CEO.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220121005133/en/

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Matteo Picconeri

Matteo.picconeri@avio.com
SANTIAGO, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chile registered the highest number of daily COVID-19 infections of the pandemic, after recording 12,500 cases in the last 24 hours and exceeding 10,000 in a day for the first time, to total 1,916,522 cases, the Ministry of Health said Thursday.

In its daily report, the ministry also detailed that in the same period, there were 25 deaths associated with COVID-19, bringing the death toll to 39,456.

The COVID-19 positivity rate in the past day was 11.69 percent at the national level and 12.21 percent in the Santiago Metropolitan Region.

Meanwhile, Undersecretary of Public Health Maria Teresa Valenzuela explained during a press conference on Thursday that authorities are focusing on a timely diagnosis since the Omicron variant of the virus has such a high rate of infection.

The South American country averaged 2,500 daily COVID-19 cases in December, but with the spread of the Omicron variant this month, it has surpassed 9,000 cases per day for a record high average. 








DUBAI, UAE, Jan 21, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - Under the patronage of YB Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Haji Annuar Bin Musa, Malaysian Minister of Communications and Multimedia, and with the participation of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on January 12th, 2022, between Capt. Koh Chen Tien, Chairman of Verofax Asia, and Mr.Haisam Jamal, CEO of Distichain. The event took place in the Address Hotel Dubai Marina, where attendees from around the world were present for the opening of Malaysia Digital Week, taking place at Expo 2020 in Dubai, UAE.The aim of the MoU is to create the first digital ASEAN B2B cross-border trade platform to facilitate a potential of RM 50 Billion Malaysian trade internationally with seamless digital transactions over the next 5 to 10 years. The collaboration between Distichain and Verofax Asia will offer a platform that delivers Digital B2B marketplaces as a service (MAAS) to enterprises by offering full marketplaces or through API integration.Using blockchain and AI as core technologies, the platform digitizes global trade with end-to-end transactions through its ecosystem of supply-chain, verification, and trade finance providers. The solution enables suppliers to readily plug their catalogs, update product data, manage routes and orders, verify documentation and access aggregate financing and logistics all in one place. This unique platform that simplifies, secures, and empowers every participant in a trade."The signing of this MoU is an important step for Distichain's ambition to continue the further development and expansion of its solution. We are especially pleased to be taking this step alongside our partner Verofax Asia, and impact the ASEAN trading industry with rapid digital transformation through our one-day marketplace activation approach," said Mr Haisam Jamal.Captain Koh added, "This platform will instantly digitalize the entire export and import process in governmental, non-governmental enterprises as well as SMEs. It will generate low-cost opportunity to digitize processes, introduce trade finance and automate supply-chain across all industries, accelerating economic growth in Malaysia and the ASEAN region. Through this partnership agreement signed today, we will further develop our technologies to meet the ongoing digitalization of international trade. Verofax Asia will have a massive impact on the performances of exports and imports with rapid digitalization, all the while building a resilient digital infrastructure and foster innovation for the recently signed Regional Comprehensive Economic Participation (RCEP) Trade Agreement, which came into effect on 1st January 2022."About Verofax:Verofax utilizes patented technology incorporating Blockchain, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence to provide 'Traceability as a Service', enabling brands to turn their offline products interactive, and manage their entire supply chain to trace goods, fend off counterfeit activities, and improve manufacturers' productivity. Brands can extend their reach directly to end-consumers, thereby increasing consumer intimacy with direct engagement, and leveraging the boom in NFTs and metaverse experiences. Visit: www.verofax.com, or Email: info@verofax.com.About Distichain:Distichain delivers B2B marketplaces as a service (MAAS) to customers using blockchain and AI, digitizing global trade with end-to-end transactions through its ecosystem of supply-chain, verification, and trade finance providers. SMEs and enterprises alike benefit from automated transactions governed by the system to deliver door-to-door border agnostic trading, with on-platform trade compliance present rules. Using smart contracts, Distichain ensures the highest levels of data privacy, and by connecting to innovative solutions within Fintech and Supply Chain, it facilitates transactions backed by instant trade finance with zero email trading. Distichain's objectives are to simplify cross-border trading, secure end-to-end transactions, and empower decision-makers with real-time AI analytics. Visit: www.distichain.com, or Email: info@distichain.com.Source: DistichainVerofax LtdCopyright 2022 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.




Duisburg, Jan 21, 2022 - (JCN Newswire) - Mitsubishi Power Europe has signed a contract with Stockholm Exergi, the largest local district heating, cooling and electricity provider, to modernise the combined heat and power (CHP) plant - Kraftvarmeverk 1 (KVV1) at Vartaverket, Stockholm.Although the plant was originally built in 1976 for fossil fuels, Mitsubishi Power Europe will modernize the boiler to handle sustainable recycled fuels like bio-oil. The large-scale renovation involves automating the plant's control system to a modern distributed control system (DCS) and installing new low NOx burners to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions. The project also includes repairing pressure parts, installing selected sub-systems, and upgrading critical components. The CHP plant will be fully commissioned during the heating period in 2023 following two scheduled outages during the summer months for retrofitting.Stockholm Exergi contributes to increasing resource efficiency by using renewable or recycled energy sources; 99 per cent of the district heating is generated from renewable or recycled fuels. In addition, increased urban migration and seasonal temperature variations with more intense cold spells led to a gap in the demand and supply of electricity early in the year.The renovation project will enable higher energy efficiency and local renewable electricity production. Both are key to achieving positive climate impact, while ensuring affordability and reliability of power. Since bio-oil generates considerably lower NOx, the boiler conversion along with low NOx burners will substantially reduce emissions. The integrated DCS will enhance plant efficiency and reliability, improve system availability and enable remote monitoring, control and reporting.Elvira Alberg, Project Manager at Stockholm Exergi says, "The modernisation of KVV1 resolves the challenges of reliability and availability through local capacity, use of biofuel and reduced emissions. The bio-oil used in KVV1 is obtained from the food and cosmetic industry residues. Retrofitting the existing firing system to handle bio-oil from heavy fuel oil will significantly extend the operational lifetime of the plant."Andreas Rupp, Head of Sales Business Unit Service, Mitsubishi Power Europe says, "We are proud to partner with Stockholm Exergi to realize the city's goal of becoming fossil-free and climate-positive. Mitsubishi Power has served customers for over 100 years as a trusted partner in clean energy solutions with our advanced engineering expertise and modernization technologies. Our cutting-edge technical capabilities, patented systems and proven record enable us to offer unique solutions to our customers. The KVV1 retrofit project will help ensure sustainable and reliable clean energy production for the citizens of Stockholm.""What makes this project unique is its complexity. The diverse combination of works, including installing a suitable biofuel firing system and modern automation systems, are addressed in a single project. As a trusted partner, Mitsubishi Power Europe has consistently come up with unique, wide-ranging solutions to address customer-specific requirements to move towards fossil-fuel-free goals. We look forward to delivering many more projects with our pioneering decarbonization technologies to our clients in the Scandinavian region," comments Carlos Gonzalez Peton, CEO of Mitsubishi Power Europe, Ltd.MHI Group declared its commitment to carbon neutrality and has set a goal of achieving Net Zero CO2 emissions by 2040 under "MISSION NET ZERO". By making use of the portfolio of innovative technologies and services developed across all of company's business areas, Mitsubishi Power Europe will respond to customer needs, including decarbonization of existing infrastructure, and thereby support the world to reduce CO2 emissions.For further information on Mitsubishi Power Europe's service, please visit https://power.mhi.com/regions/emea/services/boiler-serviceAbout Mitsubishi Power in Europe, Middle East and AfricaMitsubishi Power is a power solutions brand of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI). Today, there are more than 1,000 employees across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with centers of excellence in Germany, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to customer support capabilities in countries across the region. Mitsubishi Power designs, manufactures and maintains equipment and systems that drive decarbonization and ensures the delivery of reliable power. Among its solutions are a wide range of gas turbines, including hydrogen-fuelled gas turbines and solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), and an experienced services business with an extensive reach across the entire region. Committed to providing exemplary service and working with customers, Mitsubishi Power's TOMONI intelligent solutions leverages advanced analytics, adaptive control technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning to make power plants smarter, lowering emissions, increasing flexibility and supporting decarbonization.For more information, please visit: https://power.mhi.com/regions/emea/About Stockholm ExergiWe are Stockholm's energy company. All day, every day, we ensure that the fast-growing region of Stockholm has access to heating, cooling, electricity, and waste processing services. More than 800,000 people and over 400 hospitals, data centres, and businesses are connected to our district heating grid and our heat-and-power plants, ranging from Hogdalen south of Stockholm to Brista north of the city. By working together, we're powering the future of Stockholm - and have the potential of becoming the world's first climate-positive capital city.PRESS CONTACT:Claudia WedemannMitsubishi Power Europe GmbHTel.: +49 203 8038 1368Email: c_wedemann@eumhi.comSource: Mitsubishi Power, Ltd.Copyright 2022 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
GUANGZHOU, China, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- January 8-14, 2022 saw GAC MOTOR's first large event of the year: Riyadh AutoVille!

The event comes just before the third anniversary of the opening of GAC MOTOR's Riyadh showroom, which will be celebrated on January 27 with further events that acknowledge the vital importance of this key location for GAC MOTOR vehicle sales and face-to-face service.

This year, GAC MOTOR will open another Middle Eastern showroom, in Abu Dhabi in the UAE (April), and release the GS8, one of the brand's most impressive and advanced vehicles.

GAC MOTOR Models | On the World Stage

The Riyadh AutoVille 2022, boasting 300,000 visitors, is one of the most influential auto shows in the Middle East. GAC MOTOR shared the stage with many world-famous car brands, in a fantastic branding and sales opportunity that lays a strong foundation for the rest of 2022.

As well as gaining the attention of visitors and media, AutoVille was a fantastic chance for GAC MOTOR to have its models compete alongside those of world-famous automobile brands.

Many well-known auto industry opinion leaders and reporters were also in attendance, and GAC MOTOR, in partnership with our Saudi Arabian dealerships, received extensive attention, a great help in increasing brand reach.

GAC MOTOR's luxury lineup of display models included the GS8, GS5, All New GS4, GA8, All New GA6 and other popular models that have been introduced into the Middle East market, as well as the upcoming GN8 Master Edition and the stunning Shadow Leopard EMPOW.

The Shadow Leopard EMPOW was unveiled in the exhibition hall, accompanied by a host of on-site interactive activities for the present audience. Souvenir gifts were handed out, and viewers were invited to experience the amazing technology and quality intrinsic to a GAC MOTOR vehicle. Many shared photos on social media.

With core technology powered by independent R&D, GAC MOTOR models are taking their place on the world stage, demonstrating the growing power of Chinese brands.

Saudi Arabia has one of the highest per capita automobile consumption figures in the world, and is a crucial export market for GAC MOTOR. AutoVille 2022 is an important engine for growth and branding in the Middle East, and an event that builds a strong foundation for 2022.

Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1731230/video.mp4
LONDON, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TODAY, Johnnie Walker, the world's number one Scotch whisky1, launches an exclusive Johnnie Walker Blue Label Lunar New Year limited edition. The stunning 2022 limited edition design created by Chinese artist Shan Jiang celebrates the year of the Tiger.

The intricate illustrations by Shan Jiang are dedicated to the one who never walks alone to the one whose steps inspire yours. With imagery paying homage to the Tiger as a symbol of strength and progress, and the majestic animal depicted with golden wings, recalling the famous Chinese idiom.

The visuals are completed with the Tiger high amongst the mountain clouds, ascending towards the modern metropolis - a sign of prosperity and progress, signifying good fortune for all in the year to come.

Artist Shan Jiang said: "In the last two years we've triumphed over tremendous challenges. I used that thought to look to the year ahead with positivity and use Chinese mythology and the idea of progress, of always moving forward, to inspire my designs and discover ideas from my culture that resonate with Johnnie Walker.

"That is why I chose the Tiger with wings for Johnnie Walker Blue Label, it's a common Chinese saying. My mother and father immediately came to mind, they have always supported me as an artist no matter how things were going, they gave me great strength to achieve - like the winged Tiger ascending above the mountains to the sky. It gives me energy to think of this and to create something beautiful from this idea."

Shan Jiang's intricate illustration is matched by the rare whiskies and centuries of craft that creates the rich fruity flavours; perfectly balanced smoke found in every bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

He said: "I like to think that the thought and time that goes into my designs echo the craft of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Inside every bottle of Blue Label are rare, handpicked whiskies - each bringing distinctive character. I hope to bring that to my work."

Johnnie Walker Blue Label is a velvety smooth and vibrant Scotch whisky with layers of fruit, spice and long, lingering smokiness. Only 1 in 10,000 casks in our unparalleled reserves of over 10 million maturing Scotch whiskies has the richness and character required to intricately craft Johnnie Walker Blue Label, including some irreplaceable casks from long-closed "ghost" distilleries.

This limited edition design is available in selected markets globally. Johnnie Walker is also launching John Walker & Sons King George V Lunar New Year Limited Edition Design and a John Walker & Sons XR 21 Lunar New Year Limited Edition Design - both beautifully illustrated by Shan Jiang.

About Johnnie Walker:

Johnnie Walker is the world's number one Scotch Whisky brand (IWSR 2019), enjoyed by people in over 180 countries around the world. Since founder John Walker started in business 200 years ago, those who blend its whiskies have pursued flavour and quality above else.

Today's range of award-winning whiskies includes Johnnie Walker Red Label, Black Label, Double Black, Green Label, Gold Label Reserve, Aged 18 Years and Blue Label. Together they account for over 14 million cases sold annually (IWSR, 2020), making Johnnie Walker the most popular Scotch Whisky brand in the world.

About Diageo:

Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Buchanan's and Windsor whiskies, Smirnoff and Ciroc vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo is listed on both the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo's global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Celebrating life, every day, everywhere.

[1] IWSR 2020

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1730695/Johnnie_Walker_Lunar_New_Year.jpg
Former CEO of the London Metal Exchange will be instrumental in building on Komainu's continued success and driving convergence between worlds of traditional and decentralised finance

SAINT HELIER, Jersey, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Komainu ("the Company"), a regulated institutional-grade digital asset custody services provider safeguarding over US$5bn in assets, today announced the appointment of Matthew Chamberlain as its Chief Executive Officer. For the past five years, Chamberlain has served as CEO of the London Metal Exchange, the world centre for industrial metals trading, and brings to Komainu his strong track record of operating regulated and mission-critical financial market infrastructure.

Prior to serving as CEO of the London Metal Exchange, Chamberlain started his career in M&A (with a specific focus on exchanges and financial market infrastructure) at Citibank, Perella Weinberg Partners and UBS. In addition to his prior work experience, he holds an MA in Computer Science from Trinity College Cambridge.

Commenting on his appointment, Chamberlain said: "I have always been passionate about building safe and efficient solutions to ensure global markets function as effectively as possible. I am therefore hugely honoured to have the opportunity to join the Komainu team. With its regulated institutional custody platform for cryptocurrencies and broader digital assets, Komainu's hybrid servicing model combines the best of traditional and decentralised finance, and truly represents the natural evolution of our industry."

Chamberlain joins Komainu during a period of strong growth for the Company. In 2021, Komainu raised US$25m in its Series A funding round, and achieved key ISO and ISAE operational certifications. In his role as CEO, Chamberlain will be responsible for the continued growth of the Company, as it further develops its platform to offer a comprehensive range of services for institutions looking to expand and establish their digital asset footprint.

Komainu was founded in 2018 as a joint venture between global investment bank Nomura, digital asset security firm Ledger, and digital asset investment house CoinShares, to fill a gap in the marketplace and provide institutions with secure and compliant custody solutions for digital assets investments. The organisation draws on expertise from banking, fund management and cyber-security to provide best-in-class regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering and insurance solutions.

Chamberlain continued, "I believe strongly in the transformative capacity of a blockchain-empowered world - but such technologies will only deliver their true potential when robust infrastructure exists to make them easily and reliably available to all those who wish to participate in this unprecedented period of financial democratisation. I am particularly excited to be working with the incredibly talented people at Komainu. I would like to thank Henson Orser for his service as Acting CEO, and am very much looking forward to working closely with Henson going forward in his role as President of Komainu."

Quotes from Founding Partners

Jean-Marie Mognetti, CEO of CoinShares, remarked: "We welcome Matthew to Komainu. The digital asset industry is maturing and needs experienced professionals to support the institutionalization shift at work. Matthew's professional background is key for Komainu's development towards financial institutions. We look forward to the next phase of growth under his leadership."

Jezri Mohideen, Global Chief Digital Officer, Wholesale at Nomura, added: "Komainu is a custodian built by institutions for institutions, and we are confident that Matthew's experience will allow us to continue delivering on this vital mission."

Pascal Gauthier, CEO of Ledger, concluded: "The rapid growth of the crypto asset space will need to be underpinned by professional market infrastructure providers. Komainu is positioned in precisely this sweet spot, and we look forward to its continued growth and development."

About Komainu

Komainu is the first hybrid custodian for institutional digital asset investors created by the Japanese investment bank, Nomura, digital asset manager, CoinShares and digital asset security company, Ledger. Komainu is providing decentralized and secure digital asset custody services through a single application-based solution for institutions, offering multi-asset support and regulatory compliance. Headquartered in Jersey, Channel Islands, Komainu merges institutional financial services with leading security standards for the next generation of institutional custody.

For more information, please visit?https://www.komainu.com

Media Contact

Peter Padovano

M Group Strategic Communications (For Komainu)

646-859-5953

komainu@mgroupsc.com
CCH Tagetik implemented to fulfill both global common requirements and individual site requirements on a single platform

TOKYO, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Wolters Kluwer, a global leader in professional information, software solutions and services, today announced that Sekisui Medical Co., Ltd., has adopted CCH Tagetik expert solution as a consolidated solution for both budget and global management. Sekisui Medical, a member of the Sekisui Chemical Group, offers products and services in fields such as diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and drug development. CCH Tagetik has also been adopted by the North American branches of Sekisui Medical, where it is additionally used for sales management.

Prior to the introduction of CCH Tagetik, one of the main challenges of Sekisui Medical was that the status of the business represented an intensely manual activity, as it was monitored through regular data collection on Excel. In addition, the company selected CCH Tagetik with the aim of implementing a common platform for cost optimization and governance of data management rules.

As a unified platform, CCH Tagetik enables Sekisui Medical to obtain consistent and up-to-date data at any level of granularity, broken down by business segment, for example. In addition to company-wide budget and KPI management, they have achieved centralized management of data at a finely detailed level, including product-specific PL and management of fixed costs, R&D expenses and staffing. Reporting capabilities of the CCH Tagetik solution also make it easy to visualize information within the company. With the CCH Tagetik solution, it is now possible for Sekisui Medical to maintain and analyze detailed centralized data by their nearly 30,000 items, by geographic region, by commercial distribution such as B2C or B2B, and by account item such as consolidated or detailed, enabling more advanced business management. None of this was possible with their previous system.

Sekisui Medical's adoption of the CCH Tagetik expert solution targets both global common requirements and individual site requirements on a single platform. Being able to realize the consolidation of budget control and global management at the Japanese headquarters, and the required individual budget control and sales planning in North America, all on the same CCH Tagetik platform, Sekisui Medical can now benefit from a more seamless data management. Utilizing the workflow function of CCH Tagetik, it is also possible to grasp the progress of, and streamline, the collection of data.

"We are delighted that Sekisui Medical has selected CCH Tagetik. We believe that CCH Tagetik unified platform will be used to its' full potential by introducing it at each group company for companies that are active not only in Japan but also on a global level, such as Sekisui Medical," said Kumiko Minowa, General Manager, CCH Tagetik Japan. "By introducing a company-wide platform, we expect that Sekisui Medical will be able to further enhance management by making it possible to visualize comprehensive its indicators."

About Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer (WKL) is a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services for the healthcare; tax and accounting; governance, risk and compliance; and legal and regulatory sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with technology and services.

Wolters Kluwer reported 2020 annual revenues of 4.6 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 19,200 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands.

Wolters Kluwer shares are listed on Euronext Amsterdam (WKL) and are included in the AEX and Euronext 100 indices. Wolters Kluwer has a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program. The ADRs are traded on the over-the-counter market in the U.S. (WTKWY).

For more information about our solutions and organization, visit www.wolterskluwer.com, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Media Contacts:

Beatriz Santin

CCH Tagetik

+1 339 229 2447 office

Beatriz.santin@wolterskluwer.com

Greta Bartoli

CCH Tagetik

+39 058396811 office

greta.bartoli@wolterskluwer.com

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1441883/Wolters_Kluwer_Logo.jpg
RUEIL-MALMAISON (dpa-AFX) - Storengy, a unit of French natural gas and electricity supplier Engie SA (ENGQF.PK, ENGIY.PK), announced Friday a framework partnership agreement with French energy management firm Schneider Electric (SBGSF.PK) for an underground renewable hydrogen storage solution. The companies said they are working together to achieve the zero-carbon transition. The partnership is initiated by a first project named HyPSTER at the Etrez storage site in the department of Ain. The solution will be powered by local renewable energy, such as photovoltaic, hydraulic, to produce renewable hydrogen. The project aims to install a demonstrator for underground hydrogen storage in a salt cavern. It will also be a mean to validate the technical and economic reproducibility of the process at other sites in Europe. By signing the partnership, Storengy and Schneider Electric pool their fields of expertise at the service of the decarbonisation of businesses. To support the zero-carbon solution, Schneider Electric will provide its expertise in the fields of automation solutions, process instrumentation, gas analysis and energy distribution solutions to Storengy. Both companies will design a Power Systems and Process Automation solution for underground hydrogen storage. Schneider Electric shall design packages which will be reproducible to other facilities. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Thunder Bay, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 21, 2022) - Benton Resources Inc. (TSXV: BEX) ("Benton") and Sokoman Minerals Corp. (TSXV: SIC) (OTCQB: SICNF) ("Sokoman") together, (the "Alliance") are pleased to announce that the Alliance has commenced the Phase 1 diamond drilling program at the Kraken Lithium prospect on the Golden Hope JV project located in southwest Newfoundland near the village of Burgeo. The diamond drilling program is expected to consist of 1,000 to 2,000 metres of diamond drill core in 4-6 holes designed to test an extensive system of spodumene- bearing dykes which have been sampled over a strike length of two kilometres within a corridor measuring 1,000 metres in apparent width and open in all directions. The Alliance is also pleased to announce that the first hole, with planned drill depth of 350 m-400 m across stratigraphy, has intercepted several spodumene-bearing (an important source of lithium) dykes near surface and the hole continues. Pictures of the core will be posted on both Benton's and Sokoman's websites in order to keep shareholders engaged in its progress at the Kraken dyke swarm. The Alliance is very pleased with the progress thus far and is in the process of logging, cutting and sampling the core to be submitted for assay as soon as possible. Kraken is the first-ever high-grade lithium discovery in Newfoundland and Labrador, with surface grab samples returning grades from trace to 2.37% Li 2 O (see Alliance joint press release dated August 16, 2021). This is also the first Newfoundland drilling program designed to target lithium.

The Kraken Pegmatites are highly evolved, pegmatite swarms similar to the geological environment and setting of other large systems in the Appalachian belt, including the important deposits held by Piedmont Lithium Inc. in the Carolinas, eastern US, as well as in the geologically equivalent Avalonia Project being advanced by Ganfeng Lithium in the Caledonides of Ireland. All samples will be submitted to Actlabs in Ancaster, Ontario for analysis by Sodium Peroxide Fusion ICPOES + ICPMS.

Stephen Stares, President and CEO of Benton stated: "We were very excited to conduct the first-ever drill program targeting lithium in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada and are thrilled that we have intercepted spodumene in pegmatites in our maiden drill hole. This confirms that the dykes continue to depth. Collectively, our teams are confident that our Alliance has discovered something very special and we look forward to our initial drilling assay results."

Timothy Froude, President and CEO of Sokoman stated: "With the first hole we have confirmed a potentially significant lithium prospect on the Golden Hope Property. The presence of both fine-grained and coarse-grained spodumene identical in habit and mode of occurrence as our high-grade surface showings is very reassuring, and detailed core logging and core sampling is underway. The weather has been challenging and we appreciate the efforts of our drill contractor, Springdale Forest Resources. With spodumene-bearing pegmatite dykes now in drill core, we have no doubt the Kraken dyke swarm will be a significant development moving forward for shareholders of Sokoman and Benton."

QP

This news release has been reviewed and approved by Timothy Froude, P.Geo., President and CEO of Sokoman Minerals Corp., a 'Qualified Person' under National Instrument 43-101.

COVID-19 Protocols

To ensure a working environment that protects the health and safety of the staff and contractors, Benton and Sokoman are operating under federally and provincially mandated and recommended guidelines during the current COVID-19 alert level.

About Benton Resources Inc.

Benton Resources Inc. is a well-funded mineral exploration company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol BEX. Following a project generation business model, Benton has a diversified, highly-prospective property portfolio of Gold, Silver, Nickel, Copper, Platinum Group Elements and most-recently Lithium assets. In addition, it currently holds large equity positions in other mining companies that are advancing high-quality assets. Whenever possible, BEX retains Net Smelter Return (NSR) royalties with potential long-term cash flow value. Benton also recently entered into a 50/50 strategic alliance with Sokoman Minerals Corp. (TSXV: SIC) through three large-scale joint-venture properties including Grey River, Golden Hope, and Kepenkeck in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada that are now being explored.

About Sokoman Minerals Corp.

Sokoman Minerals Corp. is a discovery-oriented company with projects in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The company's primary focus is its portfolio of gold projects: flagship, 100%-owned Moosehead, Crippleback Lake (optioned to Trans Canada Gold Corp.) and East Alder (optioned to Canterra Minerals Corporation) along the Central Newfoundland Gold Belt, and the district-scale Fleur de Lys project in northwestern Newfoundland, which is targeting Dalradian-type orogenic gold mineralization similar to the Curraghinalt and Cavanacaw deposits in Northern Ireland, and Cononish in Scotland. The company also recently entered into a strategic alliance with Benton Resources Inc. through three large-scale joint-venture properties including Grey River , Golden Hope, and Kepenkeck in Newfoundland. Sokoman now controls independently and through the Benton alliance over 150,000 hectares (>6,000 claims - 1,500 sq. km), making it one of the largest landholders in Newfoundland, Canada's newest and rapidly-emerging gold districts. The company also retains an interest in an early-stage antimony/gold project (Startrek) in Newfoundland, optioned to White Metal Resources Inc., and in Labrador, the company has a 100% interest in the Iron Horse (Fe) project that has Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) potential.

Mineralization hosted on adjacent and/or nearby properties is not necessarily indicative of mineralization hosted on the company's property.

For further information, please contact:

CHF Capital Markets

Cathy Hume, CEO

Phone: 416-868-1079 x251

Email: cathy@chfir.com

Benton Resources Inc.

Stephen Stares, President & CEO

Phone: 807-475-7474

Email: sstares@bentonresources.ca

Sokoman Minerals Corp.

Timothy Froude, P.Geo., President & CEO

Phone: 709-765-1726

Email: tim@sokomanmineralscorp.com

Website: www.bentonresources.ca, www.sokomanmineralscorp.com

Twitter: @BentonResources, @SokomanMinerals

Facebook: @BentonResourcesBEX, @SokomanMinerals

LinkedIn: @BentonResources, @SokomanMinerals

THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

The information contained herein contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements relate to information that is based on assumptions of management, forecasts of future results, and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. Any statements that express predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements."

Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms; risks related to the outcome of legal proceedings; political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration; risks related to the maintenance of stock exchange listings; risks related to environmental regulation and liability; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies; the uncertainty of profitability; risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; risks related to the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; results of prefeasibility and feasibility studies, and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Alliance's expectations; risks related to gold price and other commodity price fluctuations; and other risks and uncertainties related to the Alliance's prospects, properties and business detailed elsewhere in the Alliance's disclosure record. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Alliance does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Alliance's expectations or projections.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111077
PARIS, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Armani beauty is pleased to announce American actress Tessa Thompson as the newest face. Thompson will feature in both the campaigns for the iconic LUMINOUS SILK FOUNDATION and the new LIP POWER, shot by Swedish photographer Mikael Jansson.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click:

https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/9006951-armani-beauty-announcing-tessa-thompson-as-the-newest-beauty-face/

LUMINOUS SILK FOUNDATION is known to be the first expression of Armani's philosophy of perfecting the complexion with the lightest touch, and comes with a range that spans 40 colors, to suit every skin tone. LIP POWER is a longwear satin lipstick formulated with protective, comfortable oils and high-intensity pigments to deliver vivid color with all-day wear, comfort and a lightweight feel. Its innovative drop-shaped bullet allows for ease of application and precise, defined lines.

"My idea of beauty applies to every woman as it enhances her personality and uniqueness. Tessa Thompson struck me with the radiant energy she exudes, the vibrant calmness of her way of being. I am delighted to be able to work with her and express a new facet of the feminine kaleidoscope of Armani beauty", said Giorgio Armani.

Tessa Thompson added: "Our ideas around what is beautiful, culturally, are shifting, and becoming more inclusive. What I love about Armani is the way in which it empowers any kind of woman to feel her best self."

Thompson, who was born in Los Angeles, started in theater then had small roles in television before establishing her name in film. Her first notable, breakout film role was "Dear White People" in 2014, then followed by Ava DuVernay's 2014 film "Selma". Thompson is also known for her role in the Emmy-nominated drama series "Westworld". In 2015, Thompson starred in "Creed" and reprised her role in "Creed II" in November 2018. Thompson is currently in production of Creed III. Thompson played Valkyrie in the Marvel film "Thor: Ragnarok" in 2017, followed by "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019, and will reprise the role in the forthcoming "Thor: Love and Thunder", set for release in 2022. In 2019, Thompson appeared on the cover of TIME magazine as the Leader of the Next Generation. In 2020, Thompson co-starred in "Sylvie's Love", which she executive produced as well. Thompson has most recently won acclaim for her role as Irene Redfield in Rebecca Hall's 1920s-set film "Passing," released in November 2021 on Netflix. The film is an adaptation of Nella Larsen's 1920s Harlem Renaissance novel that explores the practice of racial passing. Alongside her acting career, in 2021, Thompson launched her own production company, Viva Maude, for which she signed a first look deal with HBO/HBO Max, beginning with the book to screen adaptations of "The Secret Lives of Church Ladies" and "Who Fears Death." In addition, Thompson created and will exec produce the docu-series for Hulu entitled "Puzzle Talk," which is currently in development.

Tessa Thompson joins Armani beauty alongside actresses Cate Blanchett, Zhong Chuxi, Adria Arjona, Alice Pagani, and Greta Ferro; actors Ryan Reynolds, Jackson Yee, and Nicholas Hoult; and models Barbara Palvin, Madisin Rian and Valentina Sampaio. Each Armani beauty face, in their own unique way, incarnates Giorgio Armani's vision of beauty.

Armani beauty - simplicity, natural elegance, and authenticity

For over 20 years, Armani beauty has been delivering beautifully textured make-up, skincare formulated from the most pioneering science, as well as fragrances created with the rarest ingredients. Inspired by real people and their needs, the make-up line is created to enhance natural beauty, revealing rather than hiding, and is renowned for several iconic products: Luminous Silk and Power Fabric foundations as well as the Neo Nude makeup range, Eyes to Kill mascara and Eye Tint eyeshadow, and liquid lipstick Lip Maestro as well as the latest Lip Power lipstick. The skincare line includes the signature anti-aging range Crema Nera. The brand encompasses men's and women's fragrance collections, among which are the iconic Acqua Di Gio, Code, Si, and My Way, as well as the haute couture fragrances range Armani / Prive.

Contact: Cassandre.calleja@loreal.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1729774/Armani_beauty_Tessa_Thompson.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1677687/Armani_beauty_Logo.jpg
DGAP-News: Hot Chili Limited

Hot Chili Commences Port Negotiation



21.01.2022 / 14:01

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



Hot Chili Limited (ASX: HCH) (TSXV:HCH) (OTCQB: HHLKF) ('Hot Chili' or 'Company') is pleased to announce the commencement of negotiations for the final critical infrastructure item required for the development of the Company Costa Fuego copper development hub in Chile. The Company has executed a Letter of Intent with Puerto Las Losas SA (PLL) to negotiate a port access and port services agreement for PLL's facilities located at Huasco, approximately 50km west of Costa Fuego's proposed processing plant. Under the terms of the Letter of Intent, PLL will finance a study for port services using the existing Puerto Las Losas dock for the shipment of copper concentrates and other materials related to the future construction and operation of Costa Fuego. PLL have undertaken to present Hot Chili with a binding offer for port services, within the next 12 weeks or less. Should a binding port services agreement be executed, PLL have committed to commence any required upgrade at Las Losas, and both parties will work together on a best endeavours basis to start operations during the last quarter of 2025. Hot Chili's Country Manager and Chief Legal Counsel - Jose Ignacio Silva stated: 'Securing port services will be a major step forward for Costa Fuego. Leveraging off existing port infrastructure will materially reduce Costa Fuego's environmental footprint during construction and operations. As no new port or areas will be required for construction or subject to environmental permitting, we expect a positive impact to our construction capital requirements and overall permitting/construction timelines.' Hot Chili's Managing Director - Christian Easterday stated: 'Costa Fuego continues to benefit from its low altitude location and proximity to existing transport, power and port infrastructure, resulting in low capital intensity. Our Letter of Intent with PLL demonstrates our continued commitment to advancing Costa Fuego within an ESG framework that reduces the overall environmental impact and uses Chilean goods, services and businesses where possible.' The Company looks forward to providing further updates from its various workstreams including drilling results (three rigs in operation), development studies and corporate actions in the lead up to a planned major resource upgrade for Costa Fuego later this quarter. This announcement is authorised by the Board of Directors for release to ASX and TSX Venture Exchange Refer to ASX Announcement 'Costa Fuego Becomes a Leading Global Copper Project' (12th October 2020) for JORC Table 1 information related to the Cortadera JORC compliant Mineral Resource estimate by Wood and the Productora re-stated JORC compliant Mineral Resource estimate by AMC Consultants * Copper Equivalent (CuEq) reported for the resource were calculated using the following formula: CuEq% = ((Cu%  Cu price 1% per tonne  Cu_recovery)+(Mo ppm  Mo price per g/t  Mo_recovery)+(Au ppm  Au price per g/t  Au_recovery)+ (Ag ppm  Ag price per g/t  Ag_recovery)) / (Cu price 1% per tonne). The Metal Prices applied in the calculation were: Cu=3.00 USD/lb, Au=1,550 USD/oz, Mo=12 USD/lb, and Ag=18 USD/oz. For Cortadera (Inferred + Indicated), the average Metallurgical Recoveries were: Cu=83%, Au=56%, Mo=82%, and Ag=37%. For Productora (Inferred + Indicated), the average Metallurgical Recoveries were: Cu=83%, Au=43% and Mo=42%. For Costa Fuego (Inferred + Indicated), the average Metallurgical Recoveries were: Cu=83%, Au=51%, Mo=67% and Ag=23%. ** Reported on a 100% Basis - combining Cortadera and Productora Mineral Resources using a +0.25% CuEq reporting cut-off grade Qualifying Statements The Mineral Resource summary for the Costa Fuego Project is presented in the following tables. Productora Mineral Resource Summary - reported by classification (open pit, using +0.25% CuEq cut-off grade), 28 October 2021 Reported at or above 0.25% CuEq*. Figures in the above table are rounded, reported to appropriate significant figures, and reported in accordance with CIM and NI-101. Metal rounded to nearest thousand, or if less, to the nearest hundred. Copper Equivalent (CuEq) reported for the resource were calculated using the following formula:: CuEq% = ((Cu%  Cu price 1% per tonne  Cu_recovery)+(Mo ppm  Mo price per g/t  Mo_recovery)+(Au ppm  Au price per g/t  Au_recovery)+ (Ag ppm  Ag price per g/t  Ag_recovery)) / (Cu price 1 % per tonne). The Metal Prices applied in the calculation were: Cu=3.00 USD/lb, Au=1,550 USD/oz, Mo=12 USD/lb, and Ag=18 USD/oz. For Productora (Inferred + Indicated), the average Metallurgical Recoveries were: Cu=83%, Au=43% and Mo=42% Cortadera Mineral Resource Summary - reported by classification (using +0.25% CuEq cut-off grade) and by open pit (top), underground (middle) and total (bottom), 28th October 2021 Reported at or above 0.25% CuEq*. Figures in the above table are rounded, reported to appropriate significant figures, and reported in accordance with CIM and NI 43-101. Metal rounded to nearest thousand, or if less, to the nearest hundred. Copper Equivalent (CuEq) reported for the drill holes were calculated using the following formula: CuEq% = ((Cu%  Cu price 1% per tonne  Cu_recovery)+(Mo ppm  Mo price per g/t  Mo_recovery)+(Au ppm  Au price per g/t  Au_recovery)+ (Ag ppm  Ag price per g/t  Ag_recovery)) / (Cu price 1% per tonne). The Metal Prices applied in the calculation were: Cu=3.00 USD/lb, Au=1,550 USD/oz, Mo=12 USD/lb, and Ag=18 USD/oz. Average Metallurgical Recoveries used were: Cu=83%, Au=56%, Mo=82%, and Ag=37% ** Note: Silver (Ag) is only present within the Cortadera Mineral Resource estimate Competent Person's Statement- Exploration Results Exploration information in this Announcement is based upon work compiled by Mr Christian Easterday, the Managing Director and a full-time employee of Hot Chili Limited whom is a Member of the Australasian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG). Mr Easterday has sufficient experience that is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a 'Competent Person' as defined in the 2012 Edition of the 'Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves' (JORC Code). Mr Easterday consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears. Competent Person's Statement- Productora Mineral Resources The information in this Announcement that relates to the Productora Project Mineral Resources, is based on information compiled by Mr N Ingvar Kirchner. Mr Kirchner is employed by AMC Consultants (AMC). AMC has been engaged on a fee for service basis to provide independent technical advice and final audit for the Productora Project Mineral Resource estimates. Mr Kirchner is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG). Mr Kirchner has sufficient experience that is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the 'Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves' (the JORC Code 2012). Mr Kirchner consents to the inclusion in this report of the matters based on the source information in the form and context in which it appears. Competent Person's Statement- Cortadera and Costa Fuego Mineral Resources The information in this report that relates to Mineral Resources for the Cortadera and combined Costa Fuego Project is based on information compiled by Elizabeth Haren, a Competent Person who is a Member and Chartered Professional of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists. Elizabeth Haren is employed as an associate Principal Geologist of Wood, who was engaged by Hot Chili Limited. Elizabeth Haren has sufficient experience that is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the 'Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves'. Elizabeth Haren consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on her information in the form and context in which it appears. For further information on the Costa Fuego Project, refer to the technical report titled "Resource Report for the Costa Fuego Technical Report", dated December 13, 2021, which is available for review under Hot Chili's profile at www.sedar.com. Reporting of Copper Equivalent Copper Equivalent (CuEq) reported for the resource were calculated using the following formula: CuEq% = ((Cu%  Cu price 1% per tonne  Cu_recovery)+(Mo ppm  Mo price per g/t  Mo_recovery)+(Au ppm  Au price per g/t  Au_recovery)+ (Ag ppm  Ag price per g/t  Ag_recovery)) / (Cu price 1 % per tonne). The Metal Prices applied in the calculation were: Cu=3.00 USD/lb, Au=1,550 USD/oz, Mo=12 USD/lb, and Ag=18 USD/oz. For Cortadera (Inferred + Indicated), the average Metallurgical Recoveries were: Cu=83%, Au=56%, Mo=82%, and Ag=37%. For Productora (Inferred + Indicated), the average Metallurgical Recoveries were: Cu=83%, Au=43% and Mo=42%. For Costa Fuego (Inferred + Indicated), the average Metallurgical Recoveries were: Cu=83%, Au=51%, Mo=67% and Ag=23%. About Hot Chili Hot Chili Limited is a mineral exploration company with assets in Chile. The Company's flagship project, Costa Fuego, is the consolidation into a hub of the Cortadera porphyry copper-gold discovery and the Productora copper-gold deposit, set 14 km apart in an excellent location - low altitude, coastal range of Chile, infrastructure rich, low capital intensity.The Costa Fuego landholdings, contains an Indicated Resource of 391Mt grading 0.52% CuEq (copper equivalent), containing 1.7 Mt Cu, 1.5 Moz Au, 4.2 Moz Ag, and 37 kt Mo and an Inferred Resource of 334Mt grading 0.44% CuEq containing 1.2Mt Cu, 1.2 Moz Au, 5.6 Moz Ag and 27 kt Mo, at a cut-off grade of 0.25% CuEq.The Company is working to advance its Costa Fuego Project through a preliminary feasibility study (followed by a full FS and DTM), and test several high-priority exploration targets. Certain statements contained in this news release, including information as to the future financial or operating performance of Hot Chili and its projects may include statements that are "forward-looking statements" which may include, amongst other things, statements regarding targets, estimates and assumptions in respect of mineral reserves and mineral resources and anticipated grades and recovery rates, production and prices, recovery costs and results, and capital expenditures and are or may be based on assumptions and estimates related to future technical, economic, market, political, social and other conditions.These forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Hot Chili, are inherently subject to significant technical, business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from estimated or anticipated events or results reflected in such forward-looking statements. Hot Chili disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, circumstances or results or otherwise after the date of this news release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, other than as may be required by law. The words "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "indicate", "contemplate", "target", "plan", "intends", "continue", "budget", "estimate", "may", "will", "schedule" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Contact Details Investor Relations Graham Farrell +1 416-842-9003 Graham.Farrell@harboraccessllc.com Investor Relations Jonathan Paterson +1 475-477-9401 Jonathan.Paterson@harboraccessllc.com CEO Christian Easterday admin@hotchili.net.au Company Website https://www.hotchili.net.au/investors/

News Source: News Direct



21.01.2022 Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



The DGAP Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.

Archive at www.dgap.de


UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy to the United Nations on Thursday called for efforts to further promote peace in Colombia during a Security Council meeting.

China welcomes the positive progress achieved in the Colombian peace process and highly commends the efforts made by all parties to implement the peace agreement signed by the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 2016, according to Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

As Colombia will hold elections this year, relevant political parties and presidential candidates have included the further implementation of the peace agreement in their campaign platforms, he noted.

China supports Colombia's efforts to advance election preparations in an orderly manner and hopes that the elections will be held smoothly, he said, calling on all parties concerned to continue to consolidate the hard-won gains of peace, and jointly address the difficulties and challenges in the implementation of the peace agreement.

Noting "the frequent clashes between illegal armed groups vying for territory control," Geng said, "We welcome the Colombian government beefing up military deployment and security presence in remote areas that lack effective control and cracking down on illegal armed groups and organized criminal activities with a view to effectively protecting civilians and former combatants."

Additionally, he said, China appreciates the Colombian government and the National Reintegration Council providing support to former combatants in terms of housing, employment and land distribution.

The peace process in Colombia has made remarkable progress, he said, stressing the Colombian people still need robust assistance from the United Nations and the international community in their journey to peace.

China will as always support the work of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia and hopes that the mission will step up coordination and cooperation with the UN Country Team, sustain its vigorous support to the implementation of the peace agreement and make greater contributions to comprehensive peace, stability and development in Colombia, Geng added. 
Bermuda, 21 January 2022 - Avance Gas Holding Ltd ("AGAS" or the "Company") announce that we have entered into a Time Charter Agreement for a period of 2 years for our second dual fuel VLGC, Avance Capella, to LPG & Ethylene Shipowner and LPG trader, Petredec. The vessel will commence the time charter shortly after delivery ex-yard in South Korea end of February 2022 and the time charter hire has a mechanism which gives both parties exposure to the spot market rate.

This transaction is another step in executing on our strategy to increase our time charter portfolio while also maintaining access to the market upside.

For further queries, please contact:

Kristian Srensen, CEO

Tel: +47 22 00 48 00

Randi Navdal Bekkelund, CFO

Tel: +47 22 00 48 00

About Avance Gas: Avance Gas operates in the global market for transportation of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The Company is one of the world's leading owners and operators of very large gas carrier (VLGC) and operates a fleet of thirteen ships and six Dual Fuel LPG newbuildings due for delivery in Q1 2022, Q4 2022 and Q1-Q4 2023. For more information about Avance Gas, please visit www.avancegas.com.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act
BANGALORE, India, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Dimethyl Carbonate Market is segmented By Type - Industrial Grade, Battery Grade, Market By Application - Polycarbonate, Battery Solvent, Other Solvent, Pesticide, Others. Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast 2021 - 2028. It is published in Valuates Reports under the Software Category.

The global Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) market was valued at USD 849 million in 2020 and it is expected to reach USD 1348.6 million by the end of 2027, growing at a CAGR of 6.8% during 2021-2027.

Major Factors Driving The Growth Of The Dimethyl Carbonate (Dmc) Market Are

Increasing end-user applications such as Polycarbonate, Battery Solvent, Other Solvent, and Pesticides is expected to drive the growth of the Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) Market.

Get Your Sample Today: https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/QYRE-Auto-33E8643/Global_Dimethyl_Carbonate_DMC_Market

TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF DIMETHYL CARBONATE (DMC) MARKET

The use of Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) in the production of polycarbonate is expected to drive the Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) Market growth. Polycarbonate (PC) is an engineering plastic material with exceptional physical properties such as heat resistance, impact resistance, structural stability, and optical clarity and is employed in a range of sectors. There are no acids or phenols produced during the manufacturing of polycarbonate making it environmentally friendly. Furthermore, the increasing demand for polycarbonates from the automotive and electronics is, in turn, expected to increase the growth of the Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) market.

The electrolyte of lithium-ion batteries uses dimethyl carbonate as a solvent. It's a flammable, colorless liquid classified as a carbonate ester. The use of a high-quality battery-grade solvent with a very low water content (less than 50 ppm) is crucial for obtaining good lithium-ion battery electrochemical performance. Thus the increasing demand for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) is in turn expected to drive the growth of the dimethyl carbonate market.

Furthermore, Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) is also used in the production of other solvents such as coatings, adhesives, and cleaning agents. DMC is also employed as a starting material in chemical synthesis and in methylation, carbonylation, and carbomethoxylation processes. These factors are in turn expected to fuel the dimethyl carbonate market.

Browse The Table Of Contents And List Of Figures At https://reports.valuates.com/reports/QYRE-Auto-33E8643/global-dimethyl-carbonate-dmc

DIMETHYL CARBONATE (DMC) MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS

Based on application, the polycarbonate synthesis segment is expected to be the most lucrative. In the production of polycarbonates, dimethyl carbonate is utilized as an intermediary. Polycarbonate is an engineering plastic material with high physical features such as heat resistance, impact resistance, structural stability, and optical clarity that is used in end-use sectors such as automotive and electrical, and electronics.

Based on type, the industry-grade segment is expected to be the most lucrative. This is due to the wide application of Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) in the manufacturing of polycarbonates.

Based on region, Asia Pacific is expected to be the most lucrative during the forecast period. The rising usage of dimethyl carbonate in the synthesis of polycarbonate in countries such as China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia is driving demand in this region. Amongst these countries, China held the largest market share of about 55%.

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TOP COMPANIES IN THE DIMETHYL CARBONATE (DMC) MARKET

Sabic, LOTTE, Mitsubishi Chemical, UBE, and Shida Shenghua are the leaders of the Dimethyl Carbonate (DMC) market, with a cumulative market share of about 40%.

Market By Region

North America

Europe

Asia-Pacific

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

Dimethyl Carbonate Market By Company

Sabic

LOTTE

Mitsubishi Chemical

UBE

Shida Shenghua

Tongling Jintai Chemical

Shandong Wells Chemicals

Hi-tech Spring

Shandong Depu Chemical

CNSG Anhui Redsifang

Liaoning Oxiranchem

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SIMILAR REPORTS

- The global Ethyl Methyl Carbonate market size is estimated to be worth USD 404.9 million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 1308.9 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 21.6% during the review period.

- The global Propylene Carbonate (PC) market was valued at USD 714 million in 2020 and it is expected to reach USD 1047 million by the end of 2027, growing at a CAGR of 5.3% during 2021-2027.

- The global Polycarbonate Panel market size is estimated to be worth USD 1932.4 million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 2589.7 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 5.0% during the review period.

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Click Here To See Related Reports on Dimethyl Carbonate Market

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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations in many U.S. states should start to show signs of turning around and begin to come down by mid February, says Chief Medical Advisor to the President Dr. Anthony Fauci.



Addressing a Blue Star Families forum online, Dr. Fauci said, 'We're dealing, as we all know, with an unprecedented outbreak with COVID-19 that continually challenges us with new variants. We've gone from the original strain through alpha, beta and delta. And now we're dealing with omicron, which is very unusual, because of this extraordinary capability of spreading so efficiently from human to human.'



The United States still has a record number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, and about 2,000 deaths per day from the virus, he added.



The country on Thursday reported 644814 new Covid cases, raising the national total to 69,308,600.



With 2479 additional deaths, the total number of people who died of coronavirus infection in the U.S. has risen to 860,248, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.



Covid-related hospitalizations increased by 36 percent in two weeks, to 159,341.



Fauci called Covid-19 statistics stunning.



'The latest statistics are that an unvaccinated person has a 10-times greater chance of getting infected, a 17-times greater chance of getting hospitalized, and a 20-times chance of dying compared to a vaccinated person.'



He noted that when people who are infected with COVID-19 get vaccinated afterward, they have an extremely high level of protection. 'If someone gets vaccinated and boosted, and they get some breakthrough infection, the level of that subsequent protection is very, very high,' he added.



Speaking at the Forum, Maj. Gen. Paul A. Friedrichs, command surgeon of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Defense Department is deploying an additional 500 military personnel this week to help hospitals around the country. 'Another 500 military medics are also going out shortly behind that wave to help hospitals all over the country,' he told the military and veteran communities.



Meanwhile, CDC's latest MMWR study finds that during the Delta wave, both vaccination and surviving a prior infection provided protection against infection and hospitalization from Covid-19.



Scientists reviewed data from New York and California to determine the level of protection offered by Covid-19 vaccines, previous infection, and both. Between May and November 2021, people who were unvaccinated and did not have a prior Covid-19 infection remained at the highest risk of infection and hospitalization, while those who were previously infected, both with or without prior vaccination, had the greatest protection.







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Ireland's Company Reaches Over 200+ Million Households Via Fox Business Network & Bloomberg International Television-Plus Video Streams On All Major Social Media

KING OF PRUSSIA, PA / ACCESSWIRE / January 21, 2021 / Wearable Health Solutions Inc. (OTC:WHSI) (Wearable Health Solutions or the Company), a manufacturer of multiple lines of proprietary personal medical alarm and home security devices and provider of IOT mobile health (mHealth) products and services through its national distribution network of independent dealers previously announced on June 2, 2021 that it had entered into an agreement with Worldwide Business with kathy ireland, to create impactful video pieces in a credible 3rd party format for use in promos and social media, today announced that the production is scheduled to start on February 8, 2022.

COVID and resulting scheduling issues had delayed the start of production. The collaboration will include the production of video marketing vehicles designed to increase the Company's share of the Global Medical Alert System Market which is estimated to be $7.4 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $10.9 billion by 2026 with a healthy CAGR of 8.3%.[i] The marketing plan is designed to increase awareness of the company's new product , the iHelp Max, and drive sales.

Worldwide Business with kathy ireland is a weekly half-hour show featuring global executives sharing their business insights and framing the opportunities shaping their industries. Hosted by a business mogul, Kathy Ireland interviews some of the brightest minds in business today. The show broadcasts on Fox Business Network as part of their sponsored content line up and globally on Bloomberg Television. Worldwide Business with kathy ireland extends beyond the weekly on-air program with digital content delivered on various video platforms and across social media

The videos, including the interview with Kathy Ireland, will be deployed live on the Worldwide Business website wwbki.com supported by promotional content shared throughout their social platforms promoting our live stream event with call-to-actions for brand awareness and click-throughs to the Company's website.

It will receive U. S and International television exposure including:

US Television Exposure

Fox Business Network as branded content - 80 million potential US Cable Households including 20 million DirecTV subscribers.

Roku ( 43 Million Active Accounts ): Dedicated Worldwide Business Channel

Amazon Fire ( 40 Million Users ): Dedicated Worldwide Business Channel

International Television Exposure (198 million Cable Households):

Europe - Bloomberg International Television as branded content - Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Middle East/Africa

Asia - Bloomberg International Television as branded content - China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and more

Latin America- Bloomberg International Television as branded content - Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, the Caribbean

Harrysen Mittler, the Chairman & CEO of Wearable Health Solutions Inc. said: "Our marketing plan is designed to acquire new customers through the efforts of our distributors. This new initiative will create leads for our distributors giving them a qualified and interested pool of potential candidates for them to close. Our model is a continuity marketing plan, where we acquire new users, offering our services and technology for a minimal initial payment; The majority of revenue comes from the recurring monthly fees generated by satisfied users"

About Worldwide Business with kathy ireland :

Worldwide Business with kathy ireland is the premier source for the latest business stories, offering viewers a glimpse into the thoughts and insights of some of the brightest minds in the industry today. Hosted by business mogul Kathy Ireland, our award-winning television series of in-depth interviews takes a dedicated look at companies and organizations around the globe as we explore the multitude of business opportunities that modern business companies have before them.

By highlighting the perspectives and insights of leading global executives, we uniquely illustrate how they're adapting in their space to meet an ever-changing world. Worldwide Business with kathy ireland airs weekly on Fox Business Network as sponsored content and Bloomberg International and brings original branded business content to audiences in more than 50 countries across the globe.

Worldwide Business with kathy ireland Having aired more than 1,000 episodes and highlighting more than 6,000 companies for more than two decades, Worldwide Business with kathy ireland consistently brings you the latest, most exciting business, technology, and health stories. For viewers who want to know more about the topics covered, supplemental digital content is available on various video platforms and across social media. Worldwide Business with kathy ireland.

For more information go to: https://worldwidebusinesswithkathyireland.com/about-the-show/

About Wearable Health Solutions:

The Company manufacturers medical alarm devices that are used to summon help in the event of an emergency. Our products are designed and marketed primarily to the elderly, physically disabled and individuals living alone, through our vast dealer network.

We provide IOT mobile health (mHealth) products and services to dealers and distributors throughout the globe. As a leader in the rapidly growing medical alarm device and eHealth sector, we provide innovative wearable healthcare products, tracking services, and turn-key solutions that enable our users to be proactive with their health, as well as safe and protected at all times.

Our products and services are always state-of-the-art and cost effective. Our latest product, the iHelp MAX 4G, is a cellular medical alert system, both Bluetooth and WiFi-enabled, showcasing improved features and functions such as fall detection, geo-fencing, gps tracking, medication reminders, and voice commands utilizing Google assistant and Amazon Alexa.

Through our culture, our drive, and the expertise of each individual employee, we are uniquely positioned to build shareholder value by setting the highest standards in service, reliability, and safety in our rapidly growing industry.

Forward-Looking Statements

Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Any statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed forward-looking statements. Words such as "continue," "will," "may," "could," "should," "expect," "expected," "plans," "intend," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, many of which are generally outside the control of Wearable Health Solutions and are difficult to predict. Examples of such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to (i) Wearable Health Solutions ability (or inability) to obtain additional financing in sufficient amounts or on acceptable terms when needed; (ii) Wearable Health Solutions ability to maintain existing, and secure additional, contracts with users of its solutions; (iii) Wearable Health Solutions ability to successfully expand in existing markets and enter new markets; (iv) Wearable Health Solutions ability to successfully manage and integrate any acquisitions of businesses, solutions or technologies; (v) unanticipated operating costs, transaction costs and actual or contingent liabilities; (vi) the ability to attract and retain qualified employees and key personnel; (vii) adverse effects of increased competition on Wearable Health Solutions business; (viii) changes in government licensing and regulation that may adversely affect Wearable Health Solutions business; (ix) the risk that changes in consumer behavior could adversely affect Wearable Health Solutions business; (x) Wearable Health Solutions ability to protect its intellectual property; (xi) local, industry and general business and economic conditions. Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements can be found in the most recent quarterly report on filed by Wearable Health Solutions with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Wearable Health Solutions anticipates that subsequent events and developments may cause its plans, intentions and expectations to change. Wearable Health Solutions assumes no obligation, and it specifically disclaims any intention or obligation, to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by law.

CONTACT:

Wearable Health Solutions Inc.

2300 Yonge St. Suite 1600

Toronto, ONT M4P1E4

Canada

www.WearableHealthSolutions.com

855-226-4827

info@wearablehealthsolutions.com

Go to: www.WearableHealthSolutions.com

[i]https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5317179/global-medical-alert-system-market-2021-2026-by?utm_source=GNOM&utm_medium=PressRelease&utm_code=ct868v&utm_campaign=1492182+-+Global+%2410%2b+Billion+Medical+Alert+System+Markets+to+2025+-+Increasing+Adoption+of+Smart+%26+Mobile+Emergency+Response+System&utm_exec=chdo54prd

SOURCE: Wearable Health Solutions Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/684927/Wearable-Health-Solutions-Inc-Announces-Worldwide-Business-With-kathy-irelandR-Broadcast-Marketing-Campaign-Designed-To-Drive-Leads-For-Distributors-In-The-Wearable-Healthcare-Device-Market-Will-Begin-Production-On-February-8-2022
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - January 21, 2022) - Hemostemix Inc. (TSXV: HEM) (OTCQB: HMTXF) (FSE: 2VFO) ("Hemostemix" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has signed a Global Master Services Agreement with My Next Health ("MNH"), and has, subject to TSXV approval, obtained a subscription from My Next Health in the amount of USD $150,000 at CAD $0.25 per Unit.

My Next Health Inc. ("MNH") is the world's leading patient-based AI-functional genomic medical analysis company. MNH is improving human health and accelerating the world's transition to precision medicine. From completing more than 10,000 in-person patient assessments (hands-on functional medicine and genome-based patient assessments) and from its comparison of that database to 60 million patient records, MNH has created the world's first functional genomic AI-based tool that delivers precision medical care, significantly improving an individual's health recommendations and clinical trial outcomes. MNH algorithms significantly impact clinical trial subject selection.

Hemostemix will incorporate MNH's functional genomic assays to complete an assay report by individual. Such analyses will enable Hemostemix to recruit subjects into its clinical trials who are best suited to achieve both the safety and efficacy results desired from a randomized double blind placebo controlled clinical trial.

"We are pleased to partner with Hemostemix and contribute our proprietary AI-based genomic and phenotypic tools, to enhance their ground-breaking personalized stem cell therapeutics. This collaboration exemplifies the power and precision of personalized autologous medicine," stated Dr. Richard Heinzl, CEO, MNH.

"MNH's tools and analyses enables Hemostemix to explain when, how and why ACP works. These innovations improve the underpinnings of our therapeutics markets, and significantly de-risks our clinical trials going forward," stated Thomas Smeenk, CEO.

ABOUT MY NEXT HEALTH

My Next Health Inc. ("MNH") is the world's leading patient focused, AI-functional-medicine-based genomic medical analysis company. MNH is improving human health and accelerating the world's transition to precision medicine. From completing more than 10,000 in-person patient assessments (hands-on functional medicine and genome-based patient assessments) and from its comparison of that database to 60 million patient records, MNH has created the world's first functional genomic AI-based tool that delivers precision medical care, significantly improving an individual's health recommendations and clinical trial outcomes. MNH algorithms will significantly impact clinical trial subject selection.

ABOUT HEMOSTEMIX

Hemostemix is a publicly traded autologous stem cell therapy company, founded in 2003. A winner of the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Award, the Company developed and has published seven peer reviewed articles about the safety and efficacy of its lead product ACP-01 for the treatment of CLI, PAD, Angina, Ischemic Cardiomyopathy and Dilated Cardiomyopathy. ACP-01 has been used to treat over 300 patients. ACP-01 is the subject of a randomized, placebo-controlled, double blind trial of its safety and efficacy in patients with advanced critical limb ischemia who have exhausted all other options to save their limb from amputation.

On October 21, 2019, the Company announced the results from its Phase II CLI trial abstract presentation entitled "Autologous Stem Cell Treatment for CLI Patients with No Revascularization Options: An Update of the Hemostemix ACP-01 Trial With 4.5 Year Follow-up" which noted healing of ulcers and resolution of ischemic rest pain occurred in 83% of patients, with outcomes maintained for up to 4.5 years.

The Company owns 91 patents across five patent families titled: Regulating Stem Cells, In Vitro Techniques for use with Stem Cells, Production from Blood of Cells of Neural Lineage, and Automated Cell Therapy. For more information, please visit www.hemostemix.com.

For further information, please contact:

Contact: Thomas Smeenk, President, CEO & Co-Founder

TSmeenk@Hemostemix.com 905-580-4170

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined under the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward-looking information. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking information in relation to: the use of AI based genomic assays that may impact the commercialization of ACP-01, with or in combination with other analytics. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. This forward-looking information reflects Hemostemix's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to Hemostemix and on assumptions Hemostemix believes are reasonable. These assumptions include, but are not limited to: the underlying value of Hemostemix and its Common Shares; the successful resolution of the litigation that Hemostemix is pursuing or defending (the "Litigation"); the results of ACP-01 research, trials, studies and analyses, including the analysis being equivalent to or better than previous research, trials or studies as well as management's expectations of anticipated results; Hemostemix's general and administrative costs remaining constant; the receipt of all required regulatory approvals for research, trials or studies; the level of activity, market acceptance and market trends in the healthcare sector; the economy generally; consumer interest in Hemostemix's services and products; competition and Hemostemix's competitive advantages; and Hemostemix obtaining satisfactory financing to fund Hemostemix's operations including any research, trials or studies, and the Litigation. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Hemostemix to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: the ability of Hemostemix to complete its current CLI clinical trial, complete a satisfactory analyses and the results of such analyses and future clinical trials; litigation and potential litigation that Hemostemix may face; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; general capital market conditions and market prices for securities; delay or failure to receive board or regulatory approvals; the actual results of future operations including the actual results of future research, trials or studies; competition; changes in legislation affecting Hemostemix; the timing and availability of external financing on acceptable terms; long-term capital requirements and future developments in Hemostemix's markets and the markets in which it expects to compete; lack of qualified, skilled labour or loss of key individuals; and risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic including various recommendations, orders and measures of governmental authorities to try to limit the pandemic, including travel restrictions, border closures, non-essential business closures, service disruptions, quarantines, self-isolations, shelters-in-place and social distancing, disruptions to markets, disruptions to economic activity and financings, disruptions to supply chains and sales channels, and a deterioration of general economic conditions including a possible national or global recession or depression; the potential impact that the COVID-19 pandemic may have on Hemostemix which may include a decreased demand for the services that Hemostemix offers; and a deterioration of financial markets that could limit Hemostemix's ability to obtain external financing. A description of additional risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking information can be found in Hemostemix's disclosure documents on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. Although Hemostemix has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. Readers are further cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are placed will occur. Forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of Hemostemix as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, it is subject to change after such date. However, Hemostemix expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities law.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111105
XIAMEN, China, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Yealink (Stock Code: 300628), a global leading unified communications (UC) solution provider, has officially announced the release of its new BH7X Bluetooth Headsets to meet the demands of the predominant hybrid working population.

Following the launch of the company's WH6X DECT headsets, Yealink has solidified its position as the provider of top professional headsets for office use. Targeting workers of the "H Generation" - a Hybrid breed of professionals that have a pressing need for quality Headsets - the company understands the demand for a product that can fulfill work requirements competently, with portability at its core, and flexible enough for casual use. The new BH7X Bluetooth Headset is the solution.

Finding a workspace anywhere is easy with the help of the BH7X. The technology and components powering Yealink's latest product include:

Ole Wolff Diaphragm

Hi-Fi Level Audio Codec aptX

Intelligent dynamic Active Noise Cancellation (ANC)

Acoustic Shield Technology

Multiple noise-cancellation microphones

This allows for excellent voice quality and clarity for daily use, and no compromise whether it is for work, leisure, or general call experience wherever users may be. The BH7X also brings wireless charging and seamless UC compatibility to further enhance productivity in the workplace.

Engineered for the hybrid generation, the BH7X fits in seamlessly at the office or on the go with its contemporary design and a discrete, hidden boom arm that still guarantees exceptional, professional sound and enjoyment of all-day comfort.

In addition to the BH7X, the Yealink Headset family is bolstered by other effective products such as the Yealink UH38 Premium USB headset, which provides stable communication with Bluetooth & USB dual connection; for more personal collaboration usage, interested consumers can also consider the Yealink WH DECT series for all-in-one call control & cross devices usage.

All devices are designed to work flawlessly with the Yealink UC family, powering workers into a future of hybrid operations and communications needs.

Learn more about Yealink BH7X headsets from the launch event: https://www.yealink.com/bluetooth-headsets-new-product-launch?utm_source=pr_article&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=website

About Yealink Inc.

Yealink (Stock Code: 300628) is a global brand that specializes in video conferencing, voice communications and collaboration solutions with best-in-class quality, innovative technology and user-friendly experience. As one of the best providers in more than 140 countries and regions, Yealink ranks No.1 in the global market share of SIP phone shipments (Global IP Desktop Phone Growth Excellence Leadership Award Report, Frost & Sullivan, 2020). For more information, please visit: www.yealink.com

Media Contact

ucinfo@yealink.com

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HR Technology leaders recognized SHL as the best provider of HR and L&D services, AI recruiting tools, psychometric tests and more

SHANGHAI, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SHL, the global leader in talent innovation, continued to garner critical praises from leaders and think tanks in the Human Resources space, winning eleven awards across Asia throughout 2021. The awards recognized SHL for its leadership in the industry as the leading AI, Psychometric and L&D solutions provider.

From Talent Acquisition to Talent Management, SHL's solutions provide organizations with the power and scale to build their business with the skilled, motivated, and energized workforce they need to succeed.

China's leading HR management think tank, HR Flag, presented SHL with Excellent Talent Testing Service Provider Award in March 2021. HREC in China presented SHL with two honors: HR's pick-2021 China Recruitment Assessment Solution Providers and HR's pick 2021 China Leadership Development Solution Provider.

Later in 2021, Human Resource Online announced HR Vendors of the Year 2021 Awards in Singapore and Malaysia. SHL was honored as Best Psychometric Testing Provider (Gold Category in Malaysia and Silver in Singapore) and as the best AI recruiting Tool (Gold Category Award in both countries). HRise awarded SHL for Pioneering HR Technology in 2021.

In December, New Flag awarded SHL's solutions: Personalized Video Feedback was named- Best HR Product Award 2022 and SHL Mobilize is named- Best HR Solution Award 2022.

"2021 has really been a very successful year for us. We are humbled and honored by the recognition in multiple award categories this year," said Anthony Liu, SHL's Managing Director for Asia. "It reflects SHL's commitment to providing the best talent solutions to companies and helping their businesses thrive because their people thrive. We will continue to add value through more innovations in 2022."

Find the list of all the awards here.

About SHL

SHL, the global leader in HR technology and psychometric science, transforms businesses by leveraging the power of people, science, and technology.

Our unrivalled workforce data and highly validated talent solutions provide organizations with the workforce and scale to optimally leverage their people's potential that maximize business outcomes.

We equip recruiters and leaders with people insights at an organization, team, and individual level, accelerating growth, decision making, talent mobility, and inspiring an inclusive culture. To build a future where businesses thrive because their people thrive.

With 45 years of talent expertise, we are the trusted technology partner to more than 10,000 companies worldwide, across more than 150 countries, including 50% of the Fortune Global 500 and 80% of the FTSE 100. For more information, visit shl.com

Contact

Kristina Iniguez

PR@shl.com

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Hypertension Plus in the U.K., VitalSight in the U.S., Recognized as Outstanding Health Technology at World's Largest Innovation Show

OMRON Healthcare, Inc., the global leader in remote blood pressure monitoring and personal health technology, spotlighted its new remote patient monitoring services at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and won "Best of" honors for its offerings in the U.K. and U.S:

Hypertension Plus by OMRON in the U.K. was selected as a TWICE Picks Awards winner for the 2022 TWICE , Residential Systems and TechRadar Pro Picks Awards

Picks Awards winner for the 2022 , and Picks Awards VitalSight by OMRON in the U.S. was recognised as an INSIDER "Best of" CES selection

These remote patient monitoring services gained recognition at the world's largest innovation show as breakthrough health technology designed to foster greater active health condition management, strengthen the patient-physician connection, and guide behavior change to reduce health risks, while advancing the company's mission of Going for Zero heart attacks and strokes.

"OMRON developed Hypertension Plus as the first step toward transforming chronic care in the U.K., while VitalSight was designed to help the 37 million Americans who have uncontrolled Stage 2 hypertension and live every day with a higher risk of heart attack and stroke," said Andre Van Gils, senior general manager, global sales marketing and executive officer of OMRON Healthcare Corporation Ltd. Japan.

Hypertension Plus is designed to help NHS clinicians manage a patient's medication plan remotely, based on the patient's home blood pressure results submitted through its dedicated mobile app. The platform generates tailored medication plans for patients, which are then adjusted by clinicians as necessary. Patients are then informed immediately over the dedicated mobile app, connecting them directly to their physician. Automated reminders and scheduled condition management actions keep the patient engaged in treatment. Over time, Hypertension Plus collates the patient's blood pressure readings along with other key health parameters and informs clinicians when it's time for their patients to progress in their treatment plan or if there is any urgent action to be taken. All of these recommendations are underpinned by an exclusive algorithm founded on clinically proven medication titration techniques for hypertension, based on current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, and developed by Oxford university.

In addition to CES, Hypertension Plus has also been recognised by ORCHA (the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Applications) and Dorset Clinical Commission Group (CCG) on their leading UK-recognised health and care app review portal, with Hypertension Plus currently the highest rated application for hypertension.

In their annual rankings, TWICE, Residential Systems, and TechRadar Pro Picks Awards honor the best and most influential consumer technology. The TWICE Picks Awards Winners 2022 were chosen based on the impact that they are expected to have on the consumer electronic and retail Industries. To see the full list, visit TWICE, Residential Systems or TechRadar Pro

VitalSight is the first remote patient monitoring service from OMRON Healthcare, an easy-to-use service that a physician can offer to patients with high-risk levels of hypertension. Patients receive a kit delivered to their home that includes an OMRON connected blood pressure monitor and data hub that are pre-set to securely share measurements digitally with the patient's physician and care team. The VitalSight data hub, which can be used at home without Wi-Fi or cellular connection, received attention at CES for bridging health care gaps for patients in under-resourced communities.

Insider recognised VitalSight by OMRON on its list of 13 most exciting health, home and kitchen products of CES 2022The list brought together high-tech concepts and new products unveiled at CES 2022 that you can buy now or later in 2022. Insider cited VitalSight among the "Best of" CES as "life-saving technology" and "great technology for patients who can't see their doctor regularly because of location, finances, or mobility concerns." To see the full list, visit Insider.

"Our team, fully committed to our Going for Zero mission, worked diligently to create and launch our remote patient monitoring services around the world," said Van Gils. "We are fortunate to have such dedicated staff and employees who are passionate about empowering people to take charge of their heart health and saving lives. Congratulations to our team on this extraordinary effort."

To learn more about Remote Patient Monitoring services from OMRON, visit: https://healthcare.omron.com/ces2022

To learn more about OMRON Healthcare, the company's Going for Zero mission and its innovations, visit omron-healthcare.co.uk, and follow OMRON Healthcare on Twitter and LinkedIn

About OMRON Healthcare

Committed to helping people live more active and fulfilling lives with zero compromise, OMRON Healthcare is a global leader in the field of clinically proven, innovative medical equipment for health monitoring and therapy.

Throughout its 85-year history OMRON Healthcare has been striving to improve lives and contribute to a better society by developing innovations that help people prevent, treat and manage their medical conditions, both at home and in clinical practice in over 117 countries.

OMRON Healthcare is the Global No.1 brand in both blood pressure monitors, with over 200 million units sold, as well as nebulizers for respiratory treatment with over 30 million devices sold. The company's additional core product categories are low-frequency pain therapy equipment, body composition monitors and electronic thermometers.

OMRON Healthcare Group is headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. OMRON Healthcare Europe B.V. is the healthcare division for Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa and provides services to customers in more than 74 countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220121005268/en/

Contacts:

Liam Kirkham

Hotwire Global

omronhealthcare@hotwireglobal.com

+44 207 608 4636
Westinghouse Electric Company signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with ten companies in Poland. The MOUs, signed in both Gdansk and the Westinghouse office in Warsaw, cover cooperation on the potential deployment of six AP1000 plants for the Polish Nuclear Power Plant program and other potential AP1000 reactor projects in Central and Eastern Europe.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220121005306/en/

From top left: Jean-Christophe Descleves (WEC), Maciej Gebus (Mostostal Krakow), Miroslaw Kowalik (WEC), Sean Jones (WEC), Jean-Francois Bertagnolio (WEC); From bottom left: Pawel Smigla (Mostostal Krakow), Joel Ecker (WEC) (Photo: Business Wire)

"Westinghouse is well positioned to help Poland meet its energy goals through in-country investments in nuclear technologies, our global shared services center in Krakow where nearly 200 employees work to support the company's global operations, and to provide Poland with the best technology to support its climate change goals and secure the energy needs of its economy," said Miroslaw Kowalik, President of Westinghouse Poland.

To build on its long-term relationship with Poland, Westinghouse is establishing cooperation with the following companies:

Rafako is a key supplier of technological solutions for energy generation and environmental protection with more than 70 years of experience.

is a key supplier of technological solutions for energy generation and environmental protection with more than 70 years of experience. ZKS Ferrum is a trusted provider of iron components and metallurgical material.

is a trusted provider of iron components and metallurgical material. KB Pomorze is a specialist in engineering, procurement, and mechanical construction works on power generation plants, petrochemical plants, and more.

is a specialist in engineering, procurement, and mechanical construction works on power generation plants, petrochemical plants, and more. Mostostal Krakow provides services in fabrication and assembly of steel structures and equipment installation.

provides services in fabrication and assembly of steel structures and equipment installation. OMIS provides complex design services for investments, general contracting of industrial and power facilities and modernizations, extensions and repairs of power and industrial systems.

provides complex design services for investments, general contracting of industrial and power facilities and modernizations, extensions and repairs of power and industrial systems. GP Baltic is a manufacturer and supplier of fully equipped vessels for Polish and foreign shipowners in accordance with the adopted strategy.

is a manufacturer and supplier of fully equipped vessels for Polish and foreign shipowners in accordance with the adopted strategy. Polimex Mostostal S.A. provides a full range of services from energy facility design, completion of deliveries, construction and assembly works.

provides a full range of services from energy facility design, completion of deliveries, construction and assembly works. Fogo is a leading manufacturer of power generators.

is a leading manufacturer of power generators. Zarmen Group provides comprehensive execution of industrial investments in the region and brings together 13 companies.

provides comprehensive execution of industrial investments in the region and brings together 13 companies. Protea Group a proven supplier of overhead cranes, gantry cranes, pedestal cranes, davit cranes and other hoisting systems for industry.

Westinghouse Electric Company is shaping the future of carbon-free energy by providing safe, innovative nuclear technologies to utilities globally. Westinghouse supplied the world's first commercial pressurized water reactor in 1957 and the company's technology is the basis for nearly one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants. For over 130 years, innovation makes Westinghouse the preferred partner for technologies covering the complete nuclear energy life cycle. For more information, visit www.westinghousenuclear.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220121005306/en/

Contacts:

Cathy Mann

media@westinghouse.com
Allego to build a charging site along A355 Motorway

Project expands on robust series of contracts to build charging sites across Europe

Allego Holding B.V. ("Allego" or "the "Company"), a leading pan-European electric vehicle charging network that recently announced a business combination with Spartan Acquisition Corp. III ("Spartan") (NYSE: SPAQ), today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with ARCOS, a subsidiary of VINCI Autoroutes, to build a charging site along the A355 motorway in France.

The A355 Motorway is highly trafficked, with, on average, more than 28,000 individual vehicles using the road each day. Allego expects to continue to build additional sites along the highway in the coming years.

Allego's new charging site will be located at the Aire de la Bruche service area on the A355 motorway, at Strasbourg Metropole's east-west bypass. The project will install a total of 5 chargers including FC 50 kW (fast) chargers with two CCS, CHAdeMo and Type 2 sockets, and HPC 150-300 kW (ultra-fast) chargers full CCS sockets. The Aire de la Bruche charging site is expected to be operational in January 2022, and will also offer a restaurant and other facilities.

"We are pleased to expand our charging footprint alongside this well-trafficked motorway," said Mathieu Bonnet, CEO of Allego. "As the market for electric vehicles continues to rapidly grow, vehicle owners require proportional scaling of charging equipment, and we are very pleased to partner with ARCOS to expand charging infrastructure in France. We look forward to continuing to advance e-mobility across all of Europe."

About Allego

Allego delivers charging solutions for electric cars, motors, buses and trucks, for consumers, businesses and cities. Allego's end-to-end charging solutions make it easier for businesses and cities to deliver the infrastructure drivers need, while the scalability of our solutions makes us the partner of the future. Founded in 2013, Allego is a leader in charging solutions, with an international charging network comprised of more than 26,000 charge points operational throughout Europe and growing rapidly. Our charging solutions are connected to our proprietary platform, EV-Cloud, which gives us and our customers a full portfolio of features and services to meet and exceed market demands. We are committed to providing independent, reliable and safe charging solutions, agnostic of vehicle model or network affiliation. At Allego, we strive every day to make EV charging easier, more convenient and more enjoyable for all.

About Spartan Acquisition Corp. III

Spartan Acquisition Corp. III is a special purpose acquisition entity focused on the energy value-chain and was formed for the purpose of entering into a merger, amalgamation, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses. Spartan is sponsored by Spartan Acquisition Sponsor III LLC, which is owned by a private investment fund managed by an affiliate of Apollo Global Management, Inc. (NYSE: APO). For more information, please visit www.spartanspaciii.com.

Forward-Looking Statements.

All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release ("Press Release") are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may generally be identified by the use of words such as "believe," "may," "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "expect," "should," "would," "plan,", "project," "forecast," "predict," "potential," "seem," "seek," "future," "outlook," "target" or other similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions) that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding estimates and forecasts of other financial and performance metrics and projections of market opportunity and market share. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this Press Release, and on the current expectations of Allego's management and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on as a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and may differ from assumptions, and such differences may be material. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of Allego. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including (i) changes in domestic and foreign business, market, financial, political and legal conditions; (ii) risks related to the rollout of Allego's business strategy and the timing of expected business milestones; (iii) risks related to the consummation of the proposed business combination with Spartan being delayed or not occurring at all; (iv) risks related to political and macroeconomic uncertainty; (v) the risk that the installation of the new charging site is delayed or does not occur at all; (vi) the risk that the benefits to Allego of the new charging site are delayed, are less than anticipated or do not occur at all; and (vii) the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, including its impact on any of the foregoing risks. If any of these risks materialize or Allego's assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. There may be additional risks that Allego does not presently know or that Allego currently believes are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect Allego's expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this Press Release. Allego anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause Allego's assessments to change. However, while Allego may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, Allego specifically disclaims any obligation to do so, unless required by applicable law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Allego's assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this Press Release. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220121005333/en/

Contacts:

For Allego

Investors

investors@allego.eu

Media

allegoPR@icrinc.com

For Spartan Acquisition Corp. III

Investors

info@spartanspacIII.com

Media

Communications@apollo.com
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Jan. 18, 2022. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- While addressing the sixth plenary session of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection earlier this week, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, emphasized the need for full and strict Party governance, and underscored that there would be zero-tolerance on corruption.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the CPC Central Committee has improved Party conduct, upheld integrity, and addressed corruption with unprecedented courage and resolve, according to Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Over the years, "observing discipline and rules" has been a consistent requirement from Xi to all Party members and officials. Indeed, in this he leads by example.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Jan. 18, 2022. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

For Chen Chengmao, Xi's secretary during the 1990s, a yellowed receipt for TV repair, over which he had been seriously criticized by his otherwise amiable leader, reminds him of Xi's strict adherence to discipline.

In March 1995, when Xi served as the Party chief of the eastern city of Fuzhou, he once asked Chen to help him get his TV repaired. After the work was done, Chen did not pay the fee, taking it as a matter of course that the maintenance of items in public apartments should be covered by public spending.

Unexpectedly, his action was met with ire. "When the TV in my apartment needs repair, it ought to be charged to me," Xi told him, insisting on covering the bill himself. Xi paid 50 yuan, about a quarter of his monthly salary.

On another occasion, Xi warned Chen to "always observe discipline and rules, not seek privilege, and mind one's own behavior," a warning that has remained with Chen to this day.

Shortly after assuming the Party's top post in late 2012, Xi convened a Party leadership meeting at which an eight-point code on improving Party and government conduct was adopted.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Jan. 18, 2022. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

The code, centering on promoting thrift and curbing squander of public funds, had thereafter brought about profound changes to the Party as well as the country.

As of June, discipline inspection and supervision organs across the country have investigated and dealt with 626,000 cases of violating the eight-point code, and 322,000 people were punished.

"Improving Party conduct and fighting corruption remain high on our agenda. Our Party, a large political Party with a hundred-year history, should constantly improve its conduct, build a clean government and fight corruption, to always maintain its advanced and pure nature, vitality and vigor," Xi once said. 
Press Release Paris, January 21, 2022 - 6 PM

2022 FINANCIAL CALENDAR

Madvertise (Euronext Growth - FR0010812230 - ALMNG), the French AdTech company specializing in mobile centric digital advertising, announces its financial calendar for 2022.

2021 Revenue February 15, 2022 2021 Results April 28, 2022 2022 Half-year Revenue August 16, 2022 2022 Half-year Results October 27, 2022

Publications to be released after the Euronext Paris market closing.

About Madvertise (www.madvertise.com)

Madvertise is a European pioneer of AdTech founded in 2011 in the heart of Europe. Positioned as Europe's largest independent mobile advertising network in the premium segment in France, Germany and Italy, Madvertise has developed proprietary technology to maximize advertiser visibility and publisher revenues. By developing its technologies in-house, Madvertise offers a range of advertising solutions combining mobile display, Digital Out of Home and Social Media to provide advertisers with the best possible results. With an audience of 55 million unique visitors per month and more than 250 premium publishers to its credit, Madvertise is the best choice to ensure that advertisers in Europe are seen, heard and desired. With its goal to become CO2 neutral by the end of 2022, Madvertise is an environmentally friendly European AdTech player and equipped with an unrivalled SaaS solution Made in Europe.

Madvertise is listed on Euronext Growth Paris (FR0010812230 - ALMNG).

Contacts

AELIUM FINANCE - Investors

Valentine Boivin / Solene Kennis

+33 (0)1 75 77 54 65

madvertise@aelium.fr

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AM Best has assigned a Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A- (Excellent) and a Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (Long-Term ICR) of "a-" (Excellent) to Accelerant Re Ltd. (Accelerant Re) (Bermuda). The outlook assigned to these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. Concurrently, AM Best has affirmed the FSR of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term ICR of "a-" (Excellent) of Accelerant Insurance Europe SA (AIE) (Belgium), Accelerant Specialty Insurance Company (ASIC) (Little Rock, AR) and Accelerant National Insurance Company (ANIC) (Wilmington, DE). The companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of Accelerant Holdings (Cayman) Ltd. (Accelerant), the non-operating holding company of the Accelerant group. The outlook of these ratings is stable.

The ratings reflect the consolidated balance sheet strength of Accelerant, which AM Best assesses as very strong, as well as Accelerant's adequate operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management.

In AM Best's view, Accelerant Re, AIE, ASIC and ANIC are strategically important to and integrated within Accelerant. AIE, ASIC and ANIC play a key role in the group's strategy of providing insurance capacity to managing general agents (MGAs) in the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States. Accelerant Re is the group's internal reinsurer.

Accelerant's balance sheet strength is underpinned by risk-adjusted capitalisation, as measured by Best's Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), that is expected to be maintained at the strongest level as the group grows, taking into account AM Best's additional capital requirements for new company formations. In December 2021, the group raised USD 162 million from external investors, prefunding its growth plans and demonstrating financial flexibility. The group remains highly reliant on reinsurance, given its low retention, but has further diversified its reinsurance panel since launch, reducing dependence on any single reinsurance partner.

Accelerant reported a net loss after tax for 2020, largely due to non-recurring items; however, AM Best expects earnings to improve significantly in future periods. Whilst the group has exceeded its initial growth targets and demonstrated early indications of market acceptance, its business profile remains limited, reflecting the absence of an established market position and its small scale, at present.

The ratings of Accelerant Insurance Limited (AIL) (Malta) have been withdrawn following the surrender of the company's licence, with AIE becoming the group's primary carrier for business from the United Kingdom and the European Union.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Best's Credit Ratings, Best's Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best's Ratings Assessments.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright 2022 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220121005387/en/

Contacts:

Barnaby Unwin Hoskins

Financial Analyst

+44 20 7397 0327

barnaby.uwinhoskins@ambest.com

Christopher Sharkey

Manager, Public Relations

+1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159

christopher.sharkey@ambest.com

Tim Prince

Director, Analytics

+44 20 7397 0320

timothy.prince@ambest.com

Jim Peavy

Director, Communications

+1 908 439 2200, ext. 5644

james.peavy@ambest.com
Finsbury Growth & Income Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares

For immediate release

21 January 2022

FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC

(the "Company")

MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES

The Company announces that it has today purchased 28,729 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 885.16p per Ordinary Share. Such shares will be held in treasury by the Company.

The transaction was made pursuant to the authority granted at the Annual General Meeting of the Company held on 17 February 2021.

Following this transaction, the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury is 935,068; the total number of Ordinary Shares that the Company has in issue, less the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury following such purchase, and therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 224,056,235.

The figure of 224,056,235 may be used by shareholders as the denominator for calculations of interests in the Company's voting rights in accordance with the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

For and on behalf of

Frostrow Capital LLP

Company Secretary

For further information, please contact:

Victoria Hale

Frostrow Capital LLP

Tel: 020 3 170 8732
The company simplifies its debt structure, extends the maturities, and rebalances the currency mix.

Terms will be linked to environmental targets of Fluidra's Responsibility Blueprint, reinforcing the company's commitment to ESG.

Fluidra, the global leader in equipment and connected solutions in the pool and wellness sector, has successfully completed the refinancing of its debt structure, including a dual-currency senior secured term loan (TLB) and a senior secured revolving credit facility (RCF). The terms of the TLB and RCF are linked to two environmental targets defined in Fluidra's ESG "Responsibility Blueprint" plan.

The TLB will consist of a $750 million tranche at Term SOFR 200bps and a 450 million tranche at Euribor 225bps, with both tenures extended to 2029. As a result of the refinancing, Fluidra is upsizing the TLB, rebalancing the currency mix, and cancelling the AUD tranche. In addition, the RCF is upsized from 130 million to 450 million and its tenure is extended to 2027, while the asset-based lending facility (ABL) due in 2023 will be cancelled.

The refinancing does not increase net debt, with the proceeds used to amortize existing debt (existing TLB, drawn ABL and RCF, and other debt incl. promissory notes), and for general corporate purposes. Moody's and S&P have maintained current Fluidra's ratings, Ba2 and BB+ respectively.

With this transaction, Fluidra reinforces its commitment to sustainability linking the margin ratchet to the achievement of two targets of its Responsibility Blueprint 2020-2026: (i) to achieve climate neutrality in its own operations by 2027 (Scopes 1 2), and, (ii) to reach 100% of electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2027.

The financing has been established in accordance with the Sustainability Linked Loan Principles ("SLLP") published by the LMA and the assurance of the KPIs will be performed by an external independent auditor on an annual basis, as part of the verification of Fluidra's Integrated Report where those figures will be informed.

"This transaction simplifies our debt structure keeping only the EUR and USD tranches, while locking in current rates up to 2029. This new currency mix is more aligned with our profitability after the acquisitions in North America in 2021. And more importantly, it shows our strong commitment to sustainability and to our Responsibility Blueprint" states Xavier Tintore, CFTO of Fluidra.

The closing of the transaction is expected to take place before the end of this month and will be communicated to the market in due course.

About Fluidra

Fluidra S.A. (FDR:SM) is the global leader in pool and wellness equipment and connected solutions. It is included in the Ibex 35, the benchmark index of the Spanish stock market, and in the FTSE4Good Index Series, the benchmark sustainability index. Fluidra provides an extensive offer of innovative and connected products and services, operating in more than 45 countries. The company has a portfolio of some of the most recognized brands in the industry, including Jandy, AstralPool, Polaris, Cepex, Zodiac, CTX Professional and Gre.

To learn more about Fluidra, visit www.fluidra.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220121005432/en/

Contacts:

Press:

Sarah Estebanez, sestebanez@tinkle.es, +34 636 62 80 41

Xana Pena, xpena@tinkle.es, +34 674 73 47 82

Laura Gil, lgil@tinkle.es, +34 673 631 814

Carlos Jaramillo, cjaramillo@tinkle.es, +34 664 11 18 01
Vancouver British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 21, 2022) - Foremost Lithium Resource & Technology (CSE: FAT)(OTC Pink: FRRSF)(FSE: F0R0) (www.foremostlithium.com) ("Foremost" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it will be presenting virtually at the upcoming Sequire Metals & Mining Conference on Thursday, January 27th, at 4:30PM - 4:55PM ET.

Scott Taylor, President and CEO of Foremost Lithium will be presenting and taking 1x1 meetings.

Event: Foremost Lithium Presentation at the Sequire Metals & Mining Conference

Date: Thursday, January 27th, 2022

Time: at 4:30PM - 4:55PM EST

Register to watch the presentation HERE. Investors can also request 1x1 meetings with the Company on the event website where Scott Taylor will be joined by Dr. Mark Fedikow, VP of Exploration and Foremost Lithium's QP.

Summary of Sequire Metals & Mining Conference

With a massive uptick in the mining industry and electric vehicles on the rise, Sequire is spending the entire day with public mining companies and industry experts exploring possibilities, opportunities, and the latest news.

Scott Taylor comments "I look forward to engaging with the investment community and feel fortunate to have Dr. Fedikow available to join me in some of these 1x1 sessions to answer investor questions as his knowledge of lithium geology is invaluable, as he was integral in our recent land acquisition in Snow Lake Manitoba."

About Foremost Lithium

Foremost Lithium is an energy tech company driven to being one of the first North American Companies committed to produce high quality battery-grade lithium hydroxide domestically to fuel the electric vehicle battery market. Given the importance and global focus on increasing energy decarbonization, especially when it comes to vehicles, The Company is hyper-focused in continued exploration and growth on its four (4) lithium properties, Jean Lake, Grass River, and Zoro located in Snow Lake, Manitoba, and Hidden Lake in the Northwest Territories. Foremost Lithium also holds assets in precious commodities with its Winston Gold/Silver Project in New Mexico, USA.

Scott Taylor

President and CEO

Foremost Lithium Resource &Technology

scott.taylor@foremostlithium.com

1 604 330-8067

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof.

Forward-Looking Statements

All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Foremost within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Foremost provides forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to market conditions, exploration findings, results and recommendations, as well as those risks and uncertainties identified and reported in Foremost's public filings under Foremost's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Although Foremost has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Foremost disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise unless required by law.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111166
NOT FOR DISSEMINATION, DISTRIBUTION, RELEASE, OR PUBLICATION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / January 21, 2022 / Gratomic Inc. ("Gratomic", "GRAT" or the "Company") (TSX-V:GRAT) (OTCQX:CBULF) (Frankfurt:CB82) announces that, further to its Press Release of December 15, 2021, the previously announced non-brokered private placement offering of $27,020,000 is fully-subscribed. The offering consists of 19,300,000 working capital units ("WC Units") priced at $1.40 per WC Unit for gross proceeds of $27,020,000 (the "Offering"). The final closing of the Offering will be extended until February 8, 2022.

Each WC Unit consists of one (1) common share and one quarter (0.25) of a common share purchase warrant. Each full warrant (a "WC Warrant") entitles the holder to purchase one (1) common share (a "WC Warrant Share") at a price of $1.45 per WC Warrant Share until the date which is six (6) months following the Closing of the Offering. The closing of the offering will be extended until February 8, 2022. It is anticipated that a first closing will be effected on January 26, 2022 with a final closing scheduled for February 8, 2022.

Eligible Finders may receive 5% of the value of proceeds of the sale of WC Units in cash. The Company has agreed to pay First Republic Capital Corporation ("First Republic") a corporate finance fee equal to 2% of the gross proceeds of the Offering as consideration for waiving its right of first refusal in respect of the Offering. First Republic will have the right to place up to $5,000,000 of the Offering with its clients and will receive an additional cash fee of 3% in respect of any WC Units placed by First Republic.

Proceeds from the Offering will be used for operating capital for the Company's Aukam Project ($17 million), exploration for the Company's Capim Grosso Property ($6 million) and general working capital ($4 million). The Offering is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval. The securities issued will be subject to a four-month and one day hold period.

Arno Brand CEO & President commented, "It is a testament to the Company to receive this level of support from the market, clearly our goal to create value for our shareholders is well received. We will maintain our commitment to transparency and thank all of Gratomic's stakeholders for their continued support."

Insiders of the Company may subscribe for up to 10% of the WC Units under the Offering. The insider private placements are exempt from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101") by virtue of the exemptions contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1) (a) of MI 61-101 in that the fair market value of the consideration for the securities of the Company which will be issued to the insiders does not exceed 25% of its market capitalization.

The securities to be offered pursuant to the Offering have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, United States persons absent registration or any applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities in the United States, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About Gratomic

Gratomic is a multinational company with projects in Namibia, Brazil, and Canada. The Company is focused on becoming a leading global graphite supplier and aims to secure a strong position in the EV battery supply chain. With the continued development of its flagship Aukam project and further exploration on the Company's Capim Grosso property, Gratomic sets itself apart by seeking out unique top-quality assets around the world. True to its roots, the Company will continue to explore graphite opportunities displaying potential for development.

Large quantities of high-quality vein graphite have been shipped for testing to confirm its viability as an anode material. Gratomic is confident that the test results will provide a unique competitive advantage in its desired target markets. The Company will continue to update the public on the status of these tests and will provide results as soon as they become available.

The Company has formed a collaboration agreement with Forge Nano. With its patented ALD coating, this cooperation with Forge Nano is a key element to support Gratomic's strategies towards the value-added phases of production of graphite for anode applications, namely micronization, spheronization and coating, making Gratomic graphite a preferred choice for use in lithium-ion batteries.

For more information: visit the website at www.gratomic.ca or contact:

Arno Brand at abrand@gratomic.ca or (416) 561- 4095

Subscribe at gratomic.ca/contact/ to be added to our email list.

For Marketing and Media information, please email: info@gratomic.ca

"Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release."

Forward Looking Statements:

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Investors are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and by those made in our filings with SEDAR in Canada (available at www.sedar.com )

SOURCE: Gratomic Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/685013/Gratomic-Announces-Extension-of-Closing-of-27-Million-Non-Brokered-Private-Placement
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 21, 2022) - Quantum Battery Metals Corp. (CSE: QBAT) (OTC Pink: BRVVF) (FSE: 23B0) ("Quantum" or the "Company") The Company announces that it has commenced the preliminary review on a lithium project acquisition near the James Bay Area. The claims neighbour properties with several new lithium discoveries and existing outcrops indicating continuous lithium-bearing pegmatites during their drill programs for lithium. The property is located near existing infrastructure and is easily accessible by road.

With the surge of battery metals demand, companies within that area of James Bay have increased exploration and drilling for Lithium. The property lies in an area of active exploration which shows very favorable for further lithium discoveries to be made. Historical maps show extensive outcroppings on the property which should be properly investigated and assessed for pegmatite occurrences, as historically these were not assayed for lithium.

The Company intends to do the due diligence on the property and negotiations with the claims owner as the group of claims would be an valuable asset to Quantum's portfolio.

"Management is eager to have Quantum in full force for 2022 with our exploration programs being set and the Company potentially acquire more properties for our portfolio. By acquiring these new properties, we would broaden our choices for coming exploration programs and further increase our presence in well-known battery metal regions throughout Canada. Although we are very bullish on the idea of the acquisition we are not committed to the idea and still looking at many other possibilities," says Andrew Sostad, CEO.

QUANTUM BATTERY METALS CORP.

"Andrew Sostad"

_______________________

Andrew Sostad, CEO and Director

Contact Information:

400 - 837 West Hastings Street

Vancouver, British Columbia

V6C 3N6

Phone: 604.629.2936

Email: Info@quantumbatterymetals.com

Forward-Looking Information This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that Quantum Battery Metals Corp. (the "Company") expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111122
Desentum, an Espoo, Finland-based biopharmaceutical company advancing an allergy vaccine candidate, raised 8 M in funding.

The round was arranged by Springvest Oyj.

The company intends to use the funds for funding further clinical development, R&D of new hypoallergens and business development.

Led by Pekka Mattila, CEO, Desentum develops novel immunotherapeutic hypoallergens, so called allergy vaccines. The hypoallergens are biotechnologically produced, modified allergen proteins aimed for improving the efficiency of allergen immunotherapy while also reducing the time required for treatment. The lead product candidate, birch pollen hypoallergen DM-101, has passed a First-in-Human clinical study. In the study, DM-101 was found to be safe and well tolerated with the highest of the tested dosing regimens, and immunological marker results indicated a favourable change in the markers associated with a protective response.

Founded in 2011, Desentum is a spin-off company from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.

FinSMEs

21/01/2022
Honeycomb Team Photo

Honeycomb, a San Francisco, CA-, Denver, CO- and Tel Aviv, Israel-based insurtech strartup, raised $15.4m in Series A funding.

The round was led by Ibex Investors with participation from SiriusPoint Ltd, and existing investors Phoenix Insurance, Distributed Ventures (FKA NFP Ventures), IT-Farm, and Sure Ventures.

The company, which began writing U.S. policies in June of 2021, now operates in four states  Illinois, Arizona, Michigan, and Ohio  with plans this year to launch in ten more states covering 60% of the country. Honeycomb expects to insure more than $1B of real estate assets by the end of Q1 2022.

Led by co-founder and CEO Itai Ben-Zaken, Honeycomb is a reinsurance-backed MGA providing multi-family property insurance through its end-to-end digital platform. The company leverages proprietary user-generated data, advanced AI, and computer-vision to automate the underwriting process.

The company sells its policies directly via its own platform and through a hand-picked group of insurance brokers.

FinSMEs

21/01/2022
Sumant Ramachandra, MD, PhD, MBA, ImmPACT Bio president and CEO

ImmPACT Bio, a Camarillo CA-based clinical-stage company, raised $111M in Series B funding.

The round was led by venBio Partners, Foresite Capital and Decheng Capital, Surveyor Capital, OrbiMed, Novartis Venture Fund, RM Global Partners, and Bukwang Pharmaceutical. The company also announced the appointment of Sheila Gujrathi, M.D., as chair of its board of directors. Yvonne Yamanaka, Ph.D., of venBio Partners, Cindy Xiong, Ph.D., of Foresite Capital, and Min Cui, Ph.D., of Decheng Capital will join the board, as well.

The company intends to use the funds to expand the curative potential of cell therapies in certain cancers and to address challenges that have limited the efficacy of cell therapies in hard-to-treat tumor types.

Led by Sumant Ramachandra, MD, PhD, MBA, president and CEO, ImmPACT Bio is a clinical-stage company dedicated to the discovery of transformative chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies for cancer patients who have exhausted their treatment options. The companys logic-gate-based CAR T platforms address key biological challenges in treating cancer.

ImmPACT Bios technologies are specifically designed to prevent antigen escape, prevent on-target  off-tumor toxicities, and overcome the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment.

The companys technology is based on the work of pioneering scientists Yvonne Chen, Ph.D., and Antoni Ribas, M.D., Ph.D., both from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Gideon Gross, Ph.D., from the MIGAL-Galilee Research Institute.



FinSMEs

21/01/2022
TOKYO, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Japan logged 49,854 daily COVID-19 cases on Friday, setting a new record for the fourth consecutive day as the country plans to expand the quasi-state of emergency amid surging infections nationwide due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The capital city of Tokyo reported 9,699 cases on Friday, once again eclipsing the previous record high of 8,638 confirmed the previous day. The Osaka prefecture, meanwhile, also logged a fresh high of 6,254.

Many parts of the country have been struggling with what was considered the country's "sixth wave" of infections. The cumulative total of COVID-19 infections in Japan exceeded 2 million on Thursday.

The country plans to expand the enforcement of a quasi-state of emergency to a total of 29 of all 47 prefectures.

Osaka and seven other prefectures demanded on Friday that the central government declare a quasi-state of emergency for them too in an effort to curb the ongoing surging infections.

The central government has previously decided to widen the quasi-state of emergency to Tokyo and 12 other prefectures for three weeks beginning Friday, allowing local governments to ask restaurants and bars to end operation early and stop or limit the serving of alcohol. 
Oni, a San Diego, CA- and Oxford, UK-based biotechnology company democratizing the ability to observe single molecules in living cells with its desktop Nanoimager microscopy platform, closed a $75m Series B financing.

The round was led by ARCH Venture Partners and Casdin Capital, with participation from Section 32, ARTIS Ventures, Vertical Venture Partners, Axon Ventures and private investors, including Paul Conley, as well as existing investors, including Oxford Science Enterprises.

The company intends to use the funds to grow its commercial and R&D teams in the US and Asia,

driving technology adoption in those geographies, and

expanding its portfolio of consumables and cloud-based software apps.

Founded in 2016 as a spin-out of Oxford University and led by Bo Jing, CEO, Oni has developed the Nanoimager, a desktop, super-resolution, single-molecule imaging platform capable of visualizing and tracking individual molecules in complex systems such as nanoparticles, living cells and tissue with 20nm resolution. The first two applications are in the space of extracellular vesicles and cell therapy, especially chimeric antigen T-cell (CAR-T) therapy.

Together with founder & CEO, Bo Jing, the team now comprises:

 Tyler Ralston, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer  previously at Butterfly Network and Tesseract Health

 Christine Nishiyama, Vice President of Operations  previously at Berkeley Lights

 Don ONeil, MBA, Vice President of Commercial Operations  previously at Gemini Bio

 Ricardo Bastos, Ph.D., Director of Business Development  who started his career at ONI

 Sophia Mowla, Chief Growth Officer  previously at True Search

Keith Crandell, Co-founder and Managing Director at ARCH Venture Partners, and Shaun Rodriguez, Director of Life Science Research at Casdin Capital, have joined ONIs board of directors in addition to Patrick Finn, Chief Commercial Officer at Twist Bioscience who joined in 2021.

FinSMEs

21/01/2022
Tampa, FL (33646)

Today

Sunny skies during the morning hours will give way to occasional showers in the afternoon. Thunder possible. High 88F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low 68F. Winds light and variable.
After rumours, Samsung today confirmed that it will hold its Galaxy Unpacked event in February, and also said that it will introduce the most noteworthy S series device it has ever created.

The company said that the next generation of Galaxy S will bring together the greatest experiences of the Samsung Galaxy into one ultimate device, confirming that it will integrate the Galaxy Note features into the Galaxy S22 Ultra, as rumoured earlier.

Dr. TM Roh, President & Head of MX Business, Samsung Electronics, in a post said:

We know many of you were surprised when Samsung didnt release a new Galaxy Note last year. You loved the unparalleled creativity and efficiency of the Galaxy Note series, which enabled you to switch from gaming nirvana to high-octane productivity in the blink of an eye. You raved about the lifelike S Pen, which many say rivals putting ink to paper. And we havent forgotten about these experiences you love.

Based on earlier rumours, the phone will be the first in the Galaxy S series with a built-in S Pen slot. According to earlier rumours, this will feature a 6.8-inch curved Quad HD+ Adaptive 120Hz refresh rate screen. The phone should be powered by Exynos 2200 or Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoCs, depending on the market. We can expect 12GB + 256GB, 12GB + 512GB and 16GB RAM with 1TB versions for the first time.

The phone is said to feature a 108MP main camera, 12MP ultra-wide, 10MP 3X telephoto and a 10MP 10X telephoto camera, same as the predecessor. It could pack a 5000mAh battery with support for 45W fast charging, wireless charging and reverse wireless charging.

The Samsung Galaxy S22 series that includes the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22 Plus and the Galaxy S22 Ultra is expected to come in White, Black, Burgundy, Green and Rose colours. We should know the exact launched date in the coming days.

The company also released a video and says a new epic standard of smartphones is almost here, experience it soon.

Source
Last month, Google announced that Google Play Games will be coming to Windows PCs in 2022. Now it has opened registrations for Google Play Games for Windows as beta in Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

In the beta, users can play a catalog of Google Play games on their Windows PC via a standalone application built by Google, said the company. The first set of games include

Mobile Legends: Bang Ban

Summoners War

State of Survival: The Joker Collaboration

Three Kingdoms Tactics

With the new feature, users wont need an Android phone or Chromebook to play these games and can play them on laptops and desktops, and make use of larger screens with mouse and keyboard inputs. You wont lose the progress or achievements when switching between devices, since these are synced to your Google Play Games profile. Play Points can also be earned for Google Play Games activity on PCs.

Google said that it will add more countries in future beta releases soon.

Regarding this, Google said:

As part of our broader goal to make our products and services work better together, this product strives to meet players where they are and give them access to their games on as many devices as possible.

Source
Business people praise RCEP as huge New Year gift for regional, global economy

Xinhua) 09:16, January 21, 2022

A crane truck lifts a container at the Hong Leng Huor Dry Port on the western suburb of Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Jan. 13, 2022.(Photo by Phearum/Xinhua)

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free trade agreement, which entered into force on Jan. 1, is a huge New Year gift for the regional and global economy, business people in Cambodia said.

The RCEP is a mega trade agreement signed by 10 ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member states Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and its five free trade agreements partners, namely China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Paul Kim, deputy chief of Hong Leng Huor Transportation, said the RCEP would eventually eliminate up to 90 percent of regional trade tariff and non-tariff barriers, which will further promote the flows of goods and services, deepen regional economic integration and increase regional competitiveness.

"With preferential tariff rates under the RCEP, I believe that people in the member countries will enjoy buying products and other necessities at a competitive price during the Spring Festival season this year," Paul said.

He dubbed the RCEP "a huge New Year gift for businesses and peoples in the region and the world at large," saying that the agreement will "serve as a driving force for regional and global economic recovery in the post-COVID-19 pandemic."

Collectively covering about one-third of the world's population with 30 percent of the global gross domestic product, the RCEP will increase the member economies' incomes by 0.6 percent by 2030, adding 245 billion U.S. dollars annually to regional income and 2.8 million jobs to regional employment, according to an Asian Development Bank's study.

Focused on trade in goods and services, investment, intellectual property, e-commerce, competition and dispute settlement, Paul said the deal offers opportunities for regional countries to defend multilateralism, trade liberalization and promote economic cooperation.

Hong Leng Huor Transportation specializes in various services ranging from freight forwarding, dry port operations, customs clearance, road transportation, warehousing and distribution to e-commerce and last-mile delivery.

"RCEP will facilitate logistics, distribution and supply chain resilience as it simplifies customs processes, shipment clearances and other provisions," he said. "Despite the pandemic, trade has remained surprisingly strong during the past two years, and we're excited to witness how RCEP would further facilitate trade and, thus, regional economic growth, in the years to come."

He is confident that the RCEP will further boost cross-border trade and investment among the member countries in the long run.

"For Cambodia, with tariff concessions, the deal will definitely further boost goods traded between Cambodia and other RCEP member states, especially with China," he said.

Ly Eng, an assistant to the general manager of Hualong Investment Group (Cambodia) Co., Ltd, said her company had recently imported mandarin oranges to Cambodia from South China's Guangdong province for the first time under the RCEP.

She hopes that Cambodian consumers will have more options in buying vegetables and fruits with products from China such as mandarin oranges, apples and crown pears.

"It will make China and other RCEP member countries easy to exchange goods faster," Ly Eng said, adding that the prices would also be lower.

"We also hope that more and more Cambodian tropical fruits and other potential agricultural products will be exported to the Chinese market in the future," she said.

Ny Ratana, a 28-year-old vendor of Lunar New Year decorations at the Chbar Ampov Market in Phnom Penh, said 2022 is a special year for Cambodia and other 14 Asia-Pacific countries now that the RCEP took effect.

"I'm confident that this agreement will boost trade and investment and create new jobs as well as benefit consumers in all 15 participating countries due to preferential tariff rates," he told Xinhua.

"It will definitely facilitate regional economic integration, enhance regional trade flows and bring about economic prosperity for the region and the world," he added.

Photo taken on Jan. 13, 2022 shows containers at the Hong Leng Huor Dry Port on the western suburb of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo by Phearum/Xinhua)

(Web editor: Xia Peiyao, Liang Jun)
SYDNEY, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australia will remain a divided nation with the state of Western Australia (WA) postponing plans to reopen its borders amid a surge in COVID-19 cases across the rest of the country.

The state of New South Wales reported 46 COVID-19 deaths, its highest number of fatalities since the outbreak, while Victoria and Queensland reported 20 and 13 deaths respectively.

The daily number of new coronavirus cases remains high in these three worst-hit states, with 25,168 new cases and 2,743 hospitalizations reported in New South Wales, and 18,167 new cases and 1,096 hospitalizations in Victoria. Queensland recorded 16,031 new cases, as 855 patients are being treated for COVID-19 in hospitals.

Most Australian states have reopened their internal borders despite the increase in infections. Western Australia was scheduled to open on Feb. 5, but Premier Mark McGowan called a press conference Thursday night to announce the delay given the surge in Omicron cases across the rest of the country.

McGowan said the hard border will stay with new settings from Saturday, and he would not declare a new due date.

Under the new settings, new exemption criteria will be in place, including expanding the list of people exempt from the hard border, with a focus on those traveling into WA for compassionate reasons.

But all the approved travelers will still be required to isolate for 14 days.

"Omicron is a whole new ball game ... We can't just shut our eyes..." McGowan said.

He said a high third dose rate is necessary before the border could open.

"The aim is to get it up above at least 80 percent, perhaps 90 percent," he said.

WA currently has a third dose vaccination rate of 25.8 percent in the population aged 16 and older. 
Samsung introduced the Galaxy A22 4G and A22 5G smartphones back in June last year. Now the company is working on the Galaxy A23 series, and the camera details have surfaced. The Galaxy A22 4G featured a 48MP sensor with OIS, and the A23 series is expected to use a 50MP sensor from SK Hynix.

Samsung Galaxy A23 4G and Galaxy A23 5G rumoured camera specs

50MP main camera with OIS

5MP ultra-wide angle camera

2MP macro camera

2MP depth sensor

8MP front camera

Even though these are expected to share similar camera specs, other specifications are said to be different between the phones.

The Samsung Galaxy A23 4G is said to launch in the first quarter of 2022, which is sometime in February or March, while the 5G model is expected to launch in the second half of the year. The smartphones will launch in India and other emerging markets.

Source
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A woman wearing a face mask walks on a street in Manhattan of New York, the United States, Jan. 19, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

"American mask manufacturers are getting whiplash, having gone from sleepy sector to mission-critical industry overnight -- only to see sales collapse before now being suddenly in demand again," media reported, noting that the sector might not be able to meet the urgent need.

NEW YORK, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. manufacturing sector is under pressure to step up its mask production capacity, as the Joe Biden administration's Wednesday announcement to distribute 400 million American-made N95 respirator masks to the public will draw down more than half of the national stockpile.

"American mask manufacturers are getting whiplash, having gone from sleepy sector to mission-critical industry overnight -- only to see sales collapse before now being suddenly in demand again," reported major U.S. news portal Axios, noting that the sector might not be able to meet the urgent need.

U.S. production of effective face masks cratered after demand plunged in summer 2021, leaving the country dependent on Chinese imports at a time when authentic masks are desperately needed, the American Mask Manufacturer's Association (AMMA) was quoted as saying.

A man wearing a face mask walks on a street in Manhattan of New York, the United States, Jan. 19, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

The federal government's stockpile of N95 masks totaled about 737 million before the announcement. Replenishing it with American-made masks will take time because U.S. producers shut down most of their manufacturing capacity after the nation's vaccination campaign led to the suspension of mask mandates, temporarily sapping demand.

Annualized N95 production capacity among the members of the AMMA has fallen 47 percent from 1.1 billion in May to 584 million in January. About 20 of the group's 30-some members have ended production, AMMA founder Lloyd Armbrust told Axios. "We laid off about 70 percent of our team," said Armbrust, also CEO of Texas-based mask maker Armbrust.

Giant manufacturers like 3M and Honeywell produce many of the legitimately made N95 masks sold in the United States, but most N95 production is located offshore, according to the AMMA, exposing the product to shipping delays. Some offshore sites have begun flying masks to the United States to get around port backlogs, according to the Axios report.

A woman wearing a face mask waits in line outside a store in a shopping center in New Orleans, Louisiana, the United States, Jan. 11, 2022. (Photo by Lan Wei/Xinhua)

Meanwhile, "the nation is being flooded with counterfeit N95s and KN95s that don't provide sufficient protection," said the report. At the same time, cloth masks are readily available, but they provide less protection against omicron than previous variants, and most producers have exited the business.

The Biden administration is currently seeking vendors capable of making 141 million N95 masks monthly "at a surge capacity," Department of Health and Human Services official Dawn O'Connell told a Senate committee last week. Contracts are expected to be awarded in January or February, she testified.

"We already have supplied federal and state governments with hundreds of millions of N95s for stockpiles for this purpose, and we will replenish them as needed," 3M spokesperson Jennifer Ehrlich was quoted as saying in an email. 
Keep the conversation about local news & events going by joining us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Recent updates from The News-Post and also from News-Post staff members are compiled below.
Staff members are seen on a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers are ready to get in a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

A passenger accepts security check to get in a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers are seen on a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

A train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line departs in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers get in a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

A train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line departs in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Photo taken on Jan. 21, 2022 shows the information about a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line in Beijing, capital of China. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers show a painting about Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics before getting in a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Photo taken on Jan. 21, 2022 shows a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line in Beijing, capital of China. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers are ready to get in a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers take selfies before getting in a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers get in a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Passengers are ready to get in a train of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway line, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 21, 2022. The service of this railway line for Beijing 2022 started from Jan. 21, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)
Gainesville, TX (76240)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms in the morning, then mainly cloudy during the afternoon with thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High 81F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely in the evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms later on. A few storms may be severe. Low 64F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near an inch.
An Albany man who once was a registered nurse practiced nursing without a license in 2020 and 2021 and because of that, was denied when he tried to reactivate his license, according to the Oregon State Board of Nursing.

The state agency said in a news release issued Wednesday, Jan. 19, it imposed a civil penalty on Randi Monson for lying on the application and practicing nursing without a current Oregon license.

Monsons registered nurse license expired on Nov. 23, 2020, according to the Oregon State Board of Nursing public disciplinary documents. He first was issued a license on July 2, 1996. He applied for reactivation of his license on or around July 17.

On Oct. 18, the board issued a notice that it intended to deny Monsons application for a license. The notice alleged Monson practiced nursing in the state for 89 days without a current and active registered nurse license. He also allegedly lied on his reactivation application.

The board offered Monson a hearing at his request within 60 days of mailing the notice, but no request was made, according to the Oregon State Board of Nursing.

The disciplinary document alleges Monson practiced nursing without a license in Oregon for 89 days between Nov. 23, 2020 and July 15. In his application, Monson allegedly stated he had last practiced nursing on Nov. 23, 2020. However, the board found this to be false.

No other details about where Monson worked were available.

As a result of violating state laws and statutes, the board denied Monsons application for a registered nurse license and issued him a $4,450 civil penalty.

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Nicholas Kristof's campaign for governor has raised $2.54 million as of Friday, even as the Oregon Supreme Court considers whether he can run at all.

If the answer is no, Kristof will be able to keep the cash in his state campaign finance fund for use on a future race or to dole out to other candidates.

Kristof quit his job as a columnist for the New York Times to run for governor of Oregon. A native of Yamhill County, he now lives on a farm in the area.

He formed a campaign finance committee in October 2021, listing himself as a Yamhill County resident and his occupation as "Journalist, Author, Farmer."

The Oregon constitution says a candidate for governor must have lived in the state for three years prior to running. The definition of what constitutes residency is largely unspecified.

Kristof has argued that he has always considered himself an Oregon resident and offered hundreds of pages of comments, writings and other material to back up the claim.

But Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan announced Jan. 6 that a review of voting and tax documents led her to decide Kristof was a New York resident for much of the past three years and therefore did not qualify to run for governor.

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The rules are the rules and they apply equally to all candidates for office in Oregon, Fagan said in a statement.

Kristof appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, saying the Democratic establishment in the state was trying to keep voters from deciding if they wanted him in the state's top job.

Two top Democrats from Portland had already announced plans to run: House Speaker Tina Kotek and Treasurer Tobias Read. Fagan was a Democratic state senator from Portland prior to election as secretary of state in 2020.

A failing political establishment in Oregon has chosen to protect itself, rather than give voters a choice," Kristof said.

Fagan supported having the jurists make the final decision.

While the legal roadblock has stymied Kristof for the time being, he's continued to campaign and raise funds. The money will stay with his campaign operation, no matter what the court rules.

"At no point is he required to stop raising money nor is there a requirement to return any contributions," said Molly Woon, Fagan's spokeswoman. The Secretary of State Elections Division regulates state political contributions.

Kristof has declined to discuss the "what ifs" of losing his appeal, including what he would do with the campaign funds.

"Having presented a strong legal case, Nick is actively campaigning and expects to be on the ballot, as do the thousands of Oregonians in 35 of 36 counties who support him," said Melissa Navis, spokeswoman for the "Nick for Oregon" campaign committee.

There's relatively little to regulate. Oregon has one of the most liberal campaign finance laws in the nation, due to court rulings that determined limits are a violation of the freedom of speech guaranteed in the state constitution.

Any person, company, group or other entity can give an unlimited amount of money, as long as it is reported. Nike founder Phil Knight contributed over $2 million to the unsuccessful 2018 governor's campaign of former Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend.

While Kristof's legal limbo could stretch to the end of the month, his fundraising hasn't skipped a beat. He's logged 52 reported contributions since Jan. 1, totaling just over $134,000.

Kristof has touted receiving contributions from thousands of Oregon voters all over the state. The amounts are small enough that the individuals often do not have to be identified in state campaign finance reports.

But the biggest spenders on Kristof's effort continue to be from outside of Oregon.

Since the beginning of 2022, the campaign has received $50,000 from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman of Menlo Park, California, and former Disney Co. chair Robert A. Iger, who lives in Albany, New York.

Another $10,000 was given by New York investor Dennis Mehiel. Other contributions include $5,000 from Colorado philanthropist and environmental activist Jill Soffer.

Of the 14 contributions of $1,000 or more, only one came from an Oregon resident: $1,000 from Portland attorney Robert Schlachter

Kristof has been ramping up his campaign spending as well, with nearly $65,000 in reported expenditures since the beginning of the year, including $10,000 for Scottsdale, Arizona-based Brainstorm Consulting.

Berger Hirschberg Strategies consultants in Washington, D.C. received $19,300.86, while $6,250 was spent with Washington, D.C.-based advertising firm GMMB.

Bully Pulpit Interactive, a San Francisco communications company, received $10,000. Authentic Campaigns, a consultant firm based in Richmond, Virginia, received payments totaling $9,500.

Kristof still has $1.9 million in the bank, a campaign fund second only to the $2.9 million raised by former Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who is mounting an unaffiliated campaign for governor.

As an independent candidate, Johnson would skip the primary and plans to submit about 24,000 verified signatures to the secretary of state by the end of August. If she meets the number, she would go on the November ballot to face the winner of the Democratic and Republican primaries.

Woon said it would be up to Kristof whether he wanted to return any contributions. If he decides to close the campaign fund, he would have to disburse all the money before terminating the operation.

The campaign for governor is already starting to cause shifts in the race. Kotek had originally announced plans to hold on to her position as speaker, along with her seat in the House, until new lawmakers were seated in January 2023. But she announced after New Year's Day that she would leave as of Friday.

Casey Kulla, a Yamhill County supervisor who was mounting a underdog bid for the Democratic nomination for governor, announced Thursday afternoon that he would instead seek the non-partisan office of Bureau of Labor and Industries commissioner.

Val Hoyle, the current labor commissioner, dropped her re-election bid last month to run instead for the congressional seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield.

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Oregon released its graduation rates for the Class of 2021 on Thursday, Jan. 20, and depending on the district, mid-Willamette Valley high schools hover below and above the statewide average.

At 80.6%, Oregons high school graduation rate for the 2020-21 school year turned out to be the second highest in the states history, according to a news release from the state's Department of Education.

This is a slight increase from the pre-pandemic rate of 80% in 2019, but a 2% decrease from the 2020 rate of 83%, when grading requirements were loosened so more students could graduate during the pandemic.

Although Oregon typically ranks very low in statewide graduation rates, sitting at third-worst in the country in the most recent comparison in 2019  behind only Arizona and New Mexico  the states rate has been steadily improving. This years 80.6% graduation rate is three percentage points above rates achieved four years ago.

Here is the breakdown of the district graduation rates in Corvallis, Albany, Lebanon, Sweet Home and Philomath:

Corvallis' higher numbers

The Corvallis School District had an overall graduation rate of 88.2%, down from last years rate of 90%. Of 560 students, 494 graduated within four years.

This last school year continued to present unique challenges to our students, including spending a significant portion of the school year in distance learning, and transitioning to in-person learning in the spring, CSD Superintendent Ryan Noss said in a statement.

Its important to keep in mind that despite these challenges, this graduation rate represents a culmination of our students 13-year journey to cross the finish line, he said.

Corvallis High School had a 90.7% graduation rate, slightly higher than Crescent Valley High School, which saw 86.8% of students graduating in four years.

The graduation rate in Corvallis for students navigating poverty and students experiencing homelessness both had sharp decreases from the 2019-20 school year. Additionally, the four-year graduation rate for students with disabilities has remained flat for the past five years, right around 67%.

Albany's performance

Greater Albany Public Schools had a graduation rate just under the state average at 79.9%, which is a decrease from last years rate of 87%. Out of 736 students, 588 graduated in four years.

Any time that we have a student who comes to our school system and doesnt graduate four years later, we need to do better, GAPS interim Superintendent Rob Saxton said by phone. Its something we need to refocus on and make sure we improve upon going forward.

West Albany High School had a 93.1% graduation rate, which is significantly higher than South Albany High Schools rate of 81.5%. Albany Options School had a graduation rate of 45.3%, which was down from the 2019-20 rate of 53.3%.

I do think that there are some COVID-related implications and causation that comes with all that, Saxton said. I think our district maintained a very high standard over the course of COVID, and thats important, but also our standard may have caused some of our students to not graduate in four years.

Other communities

The Lebanon Community School District had a graduation rate of 77.3%, which is an increase from last years rate of 76.7%. Of 286 students, 221 graduated in four years.

The Sweet Home School District had a graduation rate of 82.4%, which is a decrease from last years rate of 87.8%. Of 159 students, 131 graduated in four years.

The Philomath School District had a graduation rate of 89.8%, which is a slight increase from last years rate of 89.7%. Of 147 students, 132 graduated in four years.

Oregon Department of Education Director Colt Gill said districts spent $24 million over the summer in funds allocated by Gov. Kate Brown and the Legislature to help thousands of high school students earn credits toward graduation.

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Districts are also using funds from the Student Success Act to improve access and opportunities for students who have been historically underserved in the education system, Gill said in a statement. Through unprecedented engagement with their communities, every district has its own plan to address student achievement.

The most significant statewide gains since 2014 were made among special education, American Indian/Alaska Native and Black students.

Detailed information about the graduation rates by district and school is available on the Oregon Department of Education website, www.oregon.gov/ode.

Joanna Mann covers education for Mid-Valley Media. She can be contacted at 541-812-6076 or Joanna.Mann@lee.net. Follow her on Twitter via @joanna_mann_.

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BERLIN, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- France and Germany would support four projects on 5G applications for private networks with a total of 17.7 million euros (20.1 million U.S. dollars), the countries' Ministries of Economic Affairs said on Friday.

The aim is to "deliver innovative solutions that will strengthen Europe's ecosystem for private networks in the field of 5G telecommunications," their statement noted.

"I am looking forward to an intensive collaboration between France and Germany," said Robert Habeck, Germany's federal minister for economic affairs and climate action. "This is an important step in order to drive the economy forward with the help of state-of-the-art technologies."

Back in 2020, France and Germany already agreed to strengthen cooperation in the field of 5G applications and subsequently launched a call for funding of innovation projects in early 2021.

The four projects involving 16 German and 14 French partners would show the benefits of 5G in various application scenarios, such as Industry 4.0 (the "fourth industrial revolution"), business parks and smart operating theaters, the statement said.

"The constitution of a Franco-German sovereign ecosystem on 5G and future telecommunications network technologies will play a key role to position Europe at the forefront of innovation in 5G and its evolutions," France's Minister for the Economy, Finance and Recovery Bruno Le Maire said. (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollar) 


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Gov. Doug Ducey gave his eighth and final State of the State address to local dignitaries, business leaders and community members at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale on Jan. 12.
A patient who has recovered from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 walks to an ambulance to leave Tianjin Haihe hospital in north China's Tianjin, Jan. 21, 2022.

Three patients infected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 were discharged from hospitals in Tianjin on Friday. This marked the first batch of local patients to recover from the Omicron coronavirus variant infection. (Xinhua/Zhao Zishuo)

An ambulance arrives at Tianjin First Central Hospital to transfer patients who have recovered from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in north China's Tianjin, Jan. 21, 2022.

Three patients infected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 were discharged from hospitals in Tianjin on Friday. This marked the first batch of local patients to recover from the Omicron coronavirus variant infection. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

A patient (2nd L) who has recovered from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 bows to medical workers when leaving Tianjin First Central Hospital in north China's Tianjin, Jan. 21, 2022.

Three patients infected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 were discharged from hospitals in Tianjin on Friday. This marked the first batch of local patients to recover from the Omicron coronavirus variant infection. (Xinhua/Sun Fanyue)

Patients who have recovered from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 pose for a photo with medical workers in Tianjin Haihe hospital in north China's Tianjin, Jan. 21, 2022.

Three patients infected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 were discharged from hospitals in Tianjin on Friday. This marked the first batch of local patients to recover from the Omicron coronavirus variant infection. (Xinhua/Zhao Zishuo)

Patients who have recovered from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 wave before getting on an ambulance to leave Tianjin Haihe Hospital in north China's Tianjin, Jan. 21, 2022.

Three patients infected with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 were discharged from hospitals in Tianjin on Friday. This marked the first batch of local patients to recover from the Omicron coronavirus variant infection. (Xinhua/Zhao Zishuo)
Pune, India, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global home automation market size was USD 64.58 billion in 2020. The market is projected to grow from USD 72.30 billion in 2021 to USD 163.24 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 12.3% in the 2021-2028 period.

This information is provided by Fortune Business Insights, in its report, titled, Home Automation Market Size, Share and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, 2021-2028.

As per the research conducted by our expert analysts, the rising adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) technology is anticipated bolster market growth. Likewise, surging home ownership by millennials and growing flexible income in established nations to navigate automated home demand.

Request a Sample Copy of Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/home-automation-market-100074

List of Key Players Mentioned in this Market Report:

ABB Ltd. (Zurich, Switzerland)

Johnson Controls International plc (Cork, Ireland)

Crestron Electronics (New Jersey, U.S.)

Siemens AG (Munich, Germany)

Control4 Corporation (Utah, U.S.)

Schneider Electronics (Rueil-Malmaison, France)

Koninklijke Philips N.V (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Legrand SA (Limoges, France)

Honeywell International Inc. (North Carolina, U.S.)

Savant Systems LLC (Massachusetts, U.S.)

Report Scope & Segmentation

Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 2021 to 2028 Forecast Period 2021 to 2028 CAGR 12.3% 2028 Value Projection USD 163.24 Billion Base Year 2020 Market Size in 2020 USD 64.58 Billion Historical Data for 2017 to 2019 No. of Pages 130 Segments covered Component, Network Technology and Geography Growth Drivers Complete Lockdown Limitations to Push Automation System Demand during COVID-19 Smart Home Technology to Fuel Market Growth North America to Hold Largest Market due to Integration of Advanced Technologies Innovative Product Unveiling by Vital Players to Drive Market Growth





COVID-19 Impacts:

Complete Lockdown Limitations to Push Automation System Demand during COVID-19

Momentary lockdown of production facilities and further restricted existence of staff affected the production quantity throughout industries. During the preliminary months of the year 2020, the home automation devices and products perceived a substantial drop in their production along with an unbalanced supply chain. Also, the expending share on smart devices was declined owing to the irregular financial disaster. This has adversely influenced the growth and year-on-year growth observed a deterioration during the year 2020.

To get to know more about the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this market, please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/home-automation-market-100074

Report Coverage:

We provide our reports which are conducted with an all-inclusive examination approach that majorly emphasizes on delivering precise material for the home automation sector. Our scholars have applied a data triangulation method which further assists us to offer trustworthy estimations and test the general market dynamics accurately. Further, our analysts have received admission to numerous international as well as regional funded registers for providing the up-to-date material so that the stakeholders and business professionals invest only in essential zones.

Segmentation:

On the basis of network technology, the market is classified into wired, wireless, and power line-based. Wireless network technology is set to attain maximum revenue share along with speedy growth during the forecast period.

Based on components, the market is branched into products and services.

Geographically, the market is categorized into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East & Africa, and Latin America.

Drivers and Restraints:

Smart Home Technology to Fuel Market Growth

Smart technology is increasing suddenly throughout industries. Smart home technology is considerably discovering and altering the home automation system. Previously, automation was implied as supervisory devices and appliances via internet networks. Nevertheless, with the presentation of smart home technology such as smart security, self-diagnosing devices, advanced self-health care, smart entertainment, and smart kitchen among other, automation system is being improved at every stage as the world is actively adopting advanced technology. This is anticipated to bolster the home automation market growth during the forecast period.

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Regional Insights:

North America to Hold Largest Market due to Integration of Advanced Technologies

North America held the majority of the home automation market share and is projected to emerge as a dominant region during the forecast period. The inclination of this region towards progressive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the internet of things coupled with bigger flexible income direct the demand for smart technologies.

Europe holds the second-largest share in the market and has lower market penetration as compared to North America. The region has perceived substantial growth in sturdy market players over the years.

Asia Pacific is projected to observe paced growth during the forecast period owing to rising investment in smart technologies.

Competitive Landscape:

Innovative Product Unveiling by Vital Players to Drive Market Growth

The chief players in the home automation industry employ various tactics to fortify their position in the market as leading companies. One such substantial tactic is procuring companies to motivate the brand value among users. Another fundamental strategy is intermittently launching inventive products with a detailed evaluation of the market and its target audience.

Industry Developments:

May 2020  Savant Systems LLC, procured GE Lighting to refine its smart home technology product portfolio. By adding automation offerings, the company focuses to offer a smart home solutions to the expanded customer base.

Major Table of Contents:

Introduction Definition, By Segment Research Methodology/Approach Data Sources

Key Takeaways

Market Dynamics Macro and Micro Economic Indicators Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities and Trends Impact of COVID-19 Short-term Impact Long-term Impact

Competition Landscape Business Strategies Adopted by Key Players Consolidated SWOT Analysis of Key Players

Global Home Automation Key Players Market Share Insights and Analysis, 2020

Key Market Insights and Strategic Recommendations

Companies Profiled (Covered for key 10 players only) Overview Key Management Headquarters etc. Offerings/Business Segments Key Details (Key details are subjected to data availability in public domain and/or on paid databases) Employee Size Key Financials Past and Current Revenue Gross Margin Geographical Share Business Segment Share Recent Developments

Annexure / Appendix Global Home Automation Market Size Estimates and Forecasts (Quantitative Data), By Segments, 2017-2028 By Component (Value) Product Security and Safety HVAC Wellness Monitoring Smart Appliances Smart Entertainment Smart Lighting Others (Energy Management, etc.) Services Consulting Installation or Implementation Support and Maintenance By Network Technology (Value) Wired Wireless Power Line-Based)



TOC Continued!

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Have a Look at Related Research Insights:

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About Us:

Fortune Business Insights delivers accurate data and innovative corporate analysis, helping organizations of all sizes make appropriate decisions. We tailor novel solutions for our clients, assisting them to address various challenges distinct to their businesses. Our aim is to empower them with holistic market intelligence, providing a granular overview of the market they are operating in.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Medaro Mining Corp. (CSE: MEDA) (OTC: MEDAF) (FWB: 1ZY) (Medaro or the Company), a multi-faceted venture aimed at developing innovative spodumene processing technology concurrent with its lithium focused mineral exploration efforts in Canada, is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Michael Mulberry as Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect.



Mr. Mulberry is currently the President and CEO of Roogold Inc. (formerly JNC Resources Inc.) a Canadian Securities Exchange-listed mining exploration company. Mr. Mulberry has been associated with the mineral exploration and public investment community since the mid-1990s. Previously, Mr. Mulberry has been a director and/or officer of a number of publicly listed companies, including Secova Metals Corp., Westkam Gold Corp. (formerly, Encore Renaissance Resources Corp.) and World Organics Inc.

Recently, he was a founder, Director and President of FenexOro Gold Corp. (formerly American Battery Metals Inc.) and founder, Director and Chief Financial Officer of Benjamin Hill Gold Corp. (formerly Zanzibar Gold Corp.) In addition, Mr. Mulberry has provided geotechnical services, project management, logistics and technical support to numerous mining exploration companies for over 20 years. Mr. Mulberry holds a Bachelor of Social Science from the University of Western Ontario.

Outgoing CEO, Mr. Hugh Maddin was instrumental in the formation and structure of Medaro to-date and has elected to step down as the Company advances towards increased reliance on the operational stages of development. The Medaro team thank him for his service, commitment and outstanding guidance. Mr. Maddin will remain a director of the Company.

Medaro President & Director Mr. Faizaan Lalani states, We are delighted to welcome Michael to our team and look forward to leveraging his wealth of experience and industry connections as we move into increasingly complex facets of growth. With multiple resource assets including two lithium properties located respectively in Ontario and Quebec, alongside our uranium property in Northern Saskatchewan, all combined with the teams ongoing efforts to commercialize our innovative and potentially game-changing lithium extraction technology process, its safe to say we are rapidly shifting into high gear. Michael is going to be a great asset at this critical juncture of growth, and on behalf of our entire team, stakeholders, partners, and shareholders alike we are excited to head into the new year with the common goal to build and extend our value creation strategy.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Faizaan Lalani

President & Director

About Medaro Mining Corp. (CSE: MEDA) (OTC: MEDAF) (FWB: 1ZY)

Medaro Mining is a lithium exploration company based in Vancouver, BC, which holds options on the Superb Lake lithium property located in Thunder Bay, Ontario, the Cyr South lithium property located in James Bay, Quebec and the Yurchison uranium property in Northern Saskatchewan. The Company is also involved in the development and commercialization of a new process to extract lithium from spodumene concentrate through its Global Lithium Extraction Technologies joint venture. Find out more at: https://medaromining.com/.

For detailed information, investors are invited to review the Companys filings available at www.sedar.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Investor Relations

Email: info@medaromining.com

Tel: +1 (604) 800.0203

Web: https://medaromining.com/

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements that are forward looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations or beliefs of future performance are forward-looking information. Such information may involve, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: (i) the Companys advancement towards increased reliance on the operational stages of development; (ii) the Company leveraging Mr. Mulberrys wealth of experience and industry connections as it moves into increasingly complex facets of growth; (iii) the Companys efforts to commercialize its lithium extraction technology process; (iv) the Company rapidly shifting into high gear; (v) Mr. Mulberry being a great asset at this critical juncture of growth; and (vi) the Companys goal to build and extend its value creation strategy. These forward-looking statements reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company based on information currently available to it. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those detailed from time to time in filings made by the Company with securities regulatory authorities, which may cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws.

The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy or contents of this news release.
NEWARK, NJ, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- : IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT), a global provider of fintech, cloud communications, and traditional communications services, announced today that it has acquired a majority stake in Sochitel , a global hub and digital distribution platform for mobile top-up, electronic vouchers, and other value transfer services.

Headquartered in London and Lagos, Sochitel has a deep footprint across Africa interconnecting Mobile Network Operators, banks, and financial service providers. Sochitels fintech platform empowers the continents leading banks to deliver digital, value-added services to over 60 million customers across Africa and supplies its services to corporate clients worldwide.

IDT and Sochitel will leverage their combined capabilities to expand the reach of IDTs current digital offerings, including mobile top-up and money transfers into Africa, and to support future offerings including bill payment and e-vouchers.

Emilio del Rio, Senior Vice President of Prepaid Services at IDT, said, Our combination with Sochitel significantly expands and streamlines our distribution network in key African markets, broadens our mobile top-up platform with new digital services, and provides access to a significant new base of partners and clients as we continue to grow our global value transfer businesses.

Jerry Ejikeme, CEO of Sochitel, said, We are delighted to join the IDT family. Africa is enjoying unprecedented growth while pacing the world in the adoption of digital fintech solutions. Combining our strength and depth in the African market with IDTs distribution capabilities positions us for significant expansion as we further integrate Africa with the global marketplace.

Africa, with a population of over 1.2 billion and some of the developing worlds most dynamic economies, represents a significant growth opportunity for the mobile financial service sector. According to the Global System for Mobile Communications ( GSMA ), Sub-Saharan Africa alone is home to half of the worlds mobile money services and generates two-thirds of global mobile money transactions value. Increasing mobile penetration, a scarcity of traditional transaction infrastructure, and the regions rapidly evolving mobile payments infrastructure are creating tremendous opportunities for financial service providers to unlock significant value.

Shmuel Jonas, CEO of IDT Corporation, added, We are already in advanced stages of our effort to fully integrate Sochitels platform. Looking ahead, we intend to provide a seamless financial and digital services hub for African consumers that will enable our commercial partners worldwide with powerful tools to serve diverse African markets.

About IDT Corporation:

IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT) is a global provider of fintech, cloud communications, and traditional communications services. We make it easy for families to communicate and support each other across international borders. We also enable businesses to transact and communicate with their customers with enhanced intelligence and insight.

Our BOSS Money international remittance and BOSS Revolution international calling services make sending money and speaking with friends and family around the world convenient and reliable. National Retail Solutions  (NRS) point-of-sale retail network enables independent retailers to operate and process transactions more effectively while providing advertisers and consumer marketers with unprecedented reach into underserved consumer markets. net2phone s unified communications as a service solution provides businesses with intelligently integrated cloud communications and collaboration tools across channels and devices. Our IDT Global and IDT Express wholesale offerings enable communications service enterprises to provision and manage international voice and SMS services.

About Sochitel:

Headquartered in London and Lagos, Sochitel has a strong pan-African footprint supplying digital products and services to major banks and Mobile Money Operators in over 20 countries, as well as corporate clients across the world. Its leading FinTech platform enables financial and corporate partners to offer an extensive and growing range of digital products that supports their customers daily activities.

In this press release, all statements above that are not purely about historical facts, including, but not limited to, those in which we use the words believe, anticipate, expect, plan, intend, estimate, target and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these forward-looking statements represent our current judgment of what may happen in the future, actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied by these statements due to numerous important factors. Our filings with the SEC provide detailed information on such statements and risks and should be consulted along with this release. To the extent permitted under applicable law, IDT assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

IDT Media and Investor Contact:

Bill Ulrey

IDT Investor Relations

Phone: (973) 438-3838

E-mail: invest@idt.net

Sochitel Media Contact:

Jon Stewart

Chief People & Brand

Phone: Tel: +44(0)207 183 5517 | Mobile: +447795 566708

E-mail: Jon@sochitel.com

# # #
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pretium Resources Inc. (TSX/NYSE: PVG) (Pretivm or the Company) today announced that the Companys Securityholders (as defined below) approved the previously announced acquisition of Pretivm by Newcrest Mining Limited (ASX/TSX/PNGX: NCM) (Newcrest) by way of a plan of arrangement (the Transaction) at a special meeting of Securityholders held earlier today (the Meeting).



The special resolution approving the Transaction was approved by 95.48% of the votes cast by Pretivms shareholders and holders of options to acquire shares of the Company (collectively, the Securityholders), present virtually or represented by proxy at the Meeting, voting together as a single class.

Transaction Details

Under the terms of the Transaction, Pretivm shareholders were able to elect, prior to 5:00 p.m. (Vancouver time) on January 18, 2022, to receive C$18.50 per Pretivm share in cash (the All Cash Consideration) or 0.8084 Newcrest shares per Pretivm share, representing share consideration of C$18.50 based on the Canadian dollar equivalent of the 5 day volume-weighted-average-price (VWAP) of Newcrest shares on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) ending on November 8, 2021 (the All Share Consideration), subject to proration to ensure aggregate cash and Newcrest share consideration each represent 50% of total transaction consideration. Pretivm shareholders who did not make an election will receive the default consideration of C$9.25 per Pretivm share in cash and 0.4042 Newcrest shares per Pretivm share (the Default Consideration and together with the All Cash Consideration and the All Share Consideration, the Consideration).

Based on the 187,937,059 Pretivm shares outstanding on January 18, 2022, valid elections representing approximately 50.51% of the outstanding Pretivm shares were received by the election deadline. As a result, all holders of Pretivm shares who made an election will be subject to the following proration:

Pretivm shareholders who elected to receive the All Cash Consideration will receive approximately C$ 10.81 in cash and 0.3357 Newcrest shares per Pretivm share; and

Pretivm shareholders who elected to receive the All Share Consideration will receive 0.8084 Newcrest shares per Pretivm share.

Information regarding the procedure for exchange of shares for Consideration is provided in the Companys management information circular dated December 16, 2021 related to the Meeting (the Circular). The Circular and accompanying letter of transmittal and election form (the Letter of Transmittal) are available under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, on EDGAR at www.sec.gov and on the Companys website at www.pretivm.com/investors/Newcrest-Transaction. Registered Pretivm shareholders who have not already done so must complete and sign the Letter of Transmittal and return it, together with the certificate(s)/DRS advice(s) representing their shares and any other required documents and instruments, in accordance with the procedures set out in the Letter of Transmittal. Non-registered Pretivm shareholders who hold their shares through a broker, investment dealer, bank, trust company, custodian, nominee or other intermediary or depository (each, an Intermediary) who have not already submitted a Letter of Transmittal should contact their Intermediary for instructions and assistance in receiving the Consideration.

Regulatory Approval

The Transaction remains subject to final approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the Supreme Court of British Columbia (the Court) and receipt of clearance under the Investment Canada Act and other customary conditions. As of the date hereof, the Transaction has received approval under the Competition Act (Canada), through the issuance of an advance ruling certificate by the Commissioner of Competition on December 2, 2021, and clearance from the State Administration for Market Regulation of the Peoples Republic of China on January 14, 2022. The Court hearing for the final order to approve the Transaction is currently scheduled to take place on January 25, 2022 and the Transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022. Following completion of the Transaction, Pretivms shares will be delisted from the TSX and the New York Stock Exchange. An application will also be made for the Company to cease to be a reporting issuer in the applicable jurisdictions upon closing of the Transaction.

Additional information regarding the terms of the Transaction are set out in the Circular which is available under Pretivms profile at www.sedar.com, on EDGAR at www.sec.gov and on the Companys website at www.pretivm.com/investors/Newcrest-Transaction.

About Pretivm

Pretivm is an intermediate gold producer with the 100%-owned, high-grade gold underground Brucejack Mine located in northwestern BC. We strive for operating excellence and our first priority is the health and safety of our employees, contractors and neighbouring communities. We are committed to the principles of sustainable development and conducting our activities in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

Pretivm Contact

Pretium Resources Inc.

Troy Shultz, Director, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

(604) 558-1784

invest@pretivm.com

Media Contact

Alan Bayless, Longview Communications and Public Affairs

604-417-9645

abayless@longviewcomms.ca

Pretium Resources Inc.

Suite 2300, Four Bentall Centre, 1055 Dunsmuir Street

PO Box 49334 Vancouver, BC V7X 1L4

(SEDAR filings: Pretium Resources Inc.)

Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information and forward looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation (collectively herein referred to as forward-looking information), including the safe harbour provisions of Canadian provincial securities legislation and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

Wherever possible, words such as plans, expects, guidance, projects, assumes, budget, strategy, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, anticipates, believes, intends, modeled, targets and similar expressions or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative forms of any of these terms and similar expressions, have been used to identify forward-looking information. Forward-looking information contained herein includes but is not limited to: the consummation and timing of the Transaction; the satisfaction of the conditions precedent to the Transaction; timing, receipt and anticipated effects of court and regulatory approvals; and discussion of future plans, projects, objectives, estimates and forecasts and the timing related thereto.

Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, actions, events, conditions, performance or achievements to materially differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, failure to receive the required court and outstanding regulatory approvals to effect the Transaction; changes in laws, regulations and government practices; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and outbreak, including on our operations and workforce and the operations and workforce of Newcrest; future price of gold and silver and other metal prices; market competition, the geopolitical, economic, permitted and legal climate that we operate in and such other risks as are identified in Pretivms public disclosure documents filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and in the United States through EDGAR at the Security and Exchange Commissions website at www.sec.gov (collectively, the Pretivm Disclosure Documents). This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of our forward-looking information. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, actions, events, conditions, performance or achievements to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results, actions, events, conditions, performance or achievements to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.

Our forward-looking information is based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management on the date the statements are made, many of which may be difficult to predict and beyond our control. In connection with the forward-looking information contained in this news release, we have made certain assumptions about, among other things: our business and operations and that no significant event will occur outside of our normal course of business and operations (other than as expressly set out herein and in the Pretivm Disclosure Documents); the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and outbreak, including on our operations and workforce; our ability to obtain the required court and regulatory approvals in a timely matter, if at all; our ability to satisfy the terms and conditions precedent of the Arrangement Agreement in order to consummate the Transaction; Newcrests ability to obtain all necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals for operations in a timely manner, if at all; the adequacy of our and Newcrests financial resources; sustained labour stability and availability of equipment; the maintenance of positive relations with local communities and First Nations groups; favourable equity and debt capital markets; and stability in financial capital markets. Although we believe that the assumptions inherent in forward-looking information are reasonable as of the date of this news release, these assumptions are subject to significant business, social, economic, political, regulatory, competitive and other risks and uncertainties, contingencies and other factors that could cause actual actions, events, conditions, results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those projected in the forward-looking information. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of assumptions is not exhaustive. Other events or circumstances could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated or projected and expressed in, or implied by, the forward-looking information contained in this news release.

Additional information about the risks and uncertainties concerning forward-looking information and material factors or assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based is provided in the Pretivm Disclosure Documents. Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Forward-looking information involves statements about the future and is inherently uncertain, and our actual achievements or other future events or conditions may differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking information due to a variety of risks, uncertainties and other factors, including, without limitation, those referred to in this news release and the Pretivm Disclosure Documents. For the reasons set forth above, readers and prospective investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

We do not assume any obligation to update forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by applicable law. Neither the TSX nor the NYSE has approved or disapproved of the information contained herein.
HOUSTON, TEXAS, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- iCRYO, the fast-growing recovery and wellness brand, has partnered with fitness industry leader 24 Hour Fitness to provide multiple health and wellness services in 24 Hour Fitness club locations. This partnership is part of a larger 24 Hour Fitness strategy to continue exploring and offering dynamic fitness and wellness experiences for club members. The new iCRYO dedicated space will be located within 24 Hour Fitness clubs with locations set to open in several phases beginning in 2022 in California and Colorado.

iCRYO will include a mix of lifestyle and medical services personalized to each 24 Hour Fitness club: Lifestyle services can include Whole Body Cryotherapy, Cryo Facial, Local Cryo, Compression Therapy, Infrared Sauna, Photobiomudulation Therapy, Zerobody Dry Float Bed. Medical services can include iV infusion, vitamin shots, and body sculpting.

We are excited to be partnering with 24 Hour Fitness. The company has built a strong and recognizable brand across the country that people always think of when it comes to fitness, stated iCRYO COO Kyle Jones. He

continued with, This partnership is a perfect match for iCRYO and aligns with the future of the 24 Hour Fitness brand. Together we will be able to bring the whole-body wellness experience to members and communities through fitness and recovery.

24 Hour Fitness has built a series of partnerships that offer club members and guests a variety of fitness and wellness experiences that can help support overall health. The company recently launched a partnership with Nutrishop and entered the boutique fitness space with a new HIIT+mindfulness brand, P.A.S.E. Factor.

iCRYO adds a new dimension to the 24 Hour Fitness experience in the recovery space, said Karl Sanft, CEO, 24 Hour Fitness. Mind and body health is a priority for most people and we know the impact that stress has on our livesparticularly since the pandemic began. From de-stressing after work or recovery from a workout or training session, were providing some of the best recovery options in a space that can help people relax and recuperate from daily pressures and improve fitness performance. We look forward to introducing iCRYO to our club members and guests.

About iCRYO

Headquartered in Houston, TX, iCRYO is setting the standard for health and wellness nationwide. As the

leading franchise in the industry, iCRYO is an affordable, convenient and professional franchise that offers

Cryotherapy, iV Infusions, and additional wellness services to the communities in which they are located. iCRYO offers a turnkey franchise system for business owners. Whether it be a retail location or an addition to a gym or existing business, we have the systems and comprehensive training in place to provide safe wellness services in your area. Their mission is to elevate the lifestyle of our team members and guests while raising the bar in the health and wellness market. To learn more, visit www.icryo.com .

Connect / Follow iCRYO: LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Franchise LinkedIn

About 24 Hour Fitness

Celebrating over 35 years as an industry leader, 24 Hour Fitness helps change lives every day through fitness. Clean and spacious clubs are furnished with a variety of strength and cardio equipment in a comfortable environment that conveys the feeling of community and inclusivity. Several club membership optionsSilver, Gold or Platinumoffer club amenities designed to kick off each individuals fitness journey. Among them are functional training equipment, GX24 group exercise studio and cycle classes where members can reserve a spot for their favorite instructor-led live class within a club community that supports and inspires every member to lead a healthier, happier life. Friendly and knowledgeable fitness professionals also stand ready to deliver dynamic personal and group training programs. At the Platinum membership level, 24GO Premium Digital offers an assortment of workouts accessible anytime and anywhere whether inside or outside the club. This diverse and meaningful combination of fitness options are designed to engage and motivate every 24 Hour Fitness member to explore and enjoy a lifelong relationship with mind and body health and wellness. To learn more and find a club near you, visit 24hourfitness.com
Not for distribution to U.S. news wire services or for dissemination in the United States.

CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bluewater Acquisition Corp. (BAQ) (TSXV: BAQ.P) is pleased to announce that it has received conditional acceptance from the TSX Venture Exchange (the TSXV) for the closing of its proposed qualifying transaction (the Qualifying Transaction) with VM Agritech Limited (VMA).

Further to its news release dated October 26, 2021, BAQ entered into a share exchange agreement (the Share Exchange Agreement) with VMA and its shareholders, with respect to the acquisition by BAQ of all the issued and outstanding share capital of VMA. Upon completion of the acquisition contemplated in the Share Exchange Agreement, VMA will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of BAQ, and it is anticipated that the resulting issuer will be listed on the TSXV as a Tier 2 Issuer in its Technology industry segment, and will engage in the existing business of VMA.

The completion of the Qualifying Transaction is subject to a number of conditions including, but not limited to, receipt of all required regulatory approvals, including final TSXV acceptance and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. Assuming all conditions for closing are satisfied, the closing of the Qualifying Transaction is expected to occur on or before January 31, 2022, or such other date as BAQ and VMA may determine.

For further information regarding the Qualifying Transaction, please refer to BAQs news releases dated October 26, 2021, which is available under BAQs profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. BAQ intends to file a CPC Filing Statement under BAQs profile on SEDAR at least seven business days prior to the completion of the Qualifying Transaction.

About BAQ

BAQ is a capital pool company (CPC) within the meaning of the policies of the TSXV, incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act (the CBCA). BAQ has not commenced operations and has no assets other than cash. BAQs principal business is the identification and evaluation of assets or businesses with a view to completing a Qualifying Transaction under Policy 2.4 - Capital Pool Companies of the TSXV.

About VMA

VMA is a private limited company existing under the laws of England and Wales, incorporated on May 27, 2014. VMA has developed and patented a solubilised copper-zinc phosphite complex that appears to kill pathogenic fungi in plants directly while also potentially triggering a plants immune system to defend itself against further fungal attack. VMA is currently engaged with Cornell Universitys College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) to further research and develop its technology with the end goal of commercialization applicable to the entire global plant-based agricultural industry. VMAs patented formulae are directed at controlling both fungal and bacterial plant pathogens in a novel safe, effective and organic way. The original efficacy research was conducted at the University of Exeter, England, and in 2016 and 2017, VMA, in collaboration with the research team at the University of Exeter, was granted two Industrial Partnership awards with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in the United Kingdom worth over 1.19 million (approximately CA$2.06 million), the results of which were delivered in 2019 and 2020.

Further Developments Since October 26, 2021 News Release

Since the news release dated October 26, 2021, further developments have occurred with respect to the Qualifying Transaction, specifically with regards to the Amending Agreement, the BAQ Private Placement, the Consulting Arrangements, the Resulting Issuer Board, and the Resulting Issuer Officers (all as defined below).

BAQ and VMA have entered into an agreement, effective as of November 30, 2021, amending the Share Exchange Agreement (the Amending Agreement). Pursuant to the Amending Agreement, the parties extended the deadline for the completion of the Qualifying Transaction from November 30, 2021, to January 31, 2022.

Prior to the completion of the Qualifying Transaction, BAQ intends to complete a private placement (the BAQ Private Placement), which involves the issuance by BAQ of BAQ common shares, at a purchase price of US$0.25 per BAQ common share, for minimum gross proceeds of US$5,500,000, and maximum gross proceeds of US$6,500,000. Assuming receipt of the minimum proceeds of the BAQ Private Placement, BAQ will issue 22,000,000 BAQ common shares at closing; and assuming receipt of the maximum proceeds of the BAQ Private Placement, BAQ will issue 26,000,000 BAQ common shares at closing.

In connection with the completion of the Qualifying Transaction, it is anticipated that BAQ will enter into consulting arrangements which will ultimately entitle Peter Karos and Mihalis Sapountzoglou to receive equity compensation in an aggregate amount equal to 3,730,000 BAQ common shares, at a deemed price of US$0.25 per BAQ common share, for aggregate deemed consideration of US$932,500 (the Consulting Arrangements).

Shortly after the completion of the Qualifying Transaction, the BAQ board is expected to be reconstituted to consist of Victoria Bradbury, Stuart Hensman, Peter Karos, Maurice Levesque, Mihalis Sapountzoglou, and Christopher Wightman (the Resulting Issuer Board). Officers of BAQ immediately after the completion of the Qualifying Transaction will consist of Mihalis Sapountzoglou as Chief Executive Officer, Brad Giblin as Chief Financial Officer, Christopher Wightman as Executive Vice President, Peter Karos as Executive Vice President, Investor Relations, Svetlana Panicheva as Chief Scientist, Glenn Warkentin as Corporate Secretary, and such other persons as may be appointed by the BAQ board or management (the Resulting Issuer Officers).

Victoria Bradbury, Director

Ms. Bradbury has over 35 years of experience both serving on and reporting to boards, ranging from university and school boards, to charitable organizations, to large federal government departments and multi-billion dollar private entities. Among the boards she has served on are the RCMP, Natural Resources Canada, and the Canada Lands Company. She is a long-standing member of the Institute of Corporate Directors and expects her ICD.D designation in 2022.

Ms. Bradbury began her career in 1989 as a chartered accountant at Cooper & Lybrand in the United Kingdom. In 1994, she moved to Ottawa as a senior manager for PwC, primarily working with Canadian government agencies to institute processes and controls. In addition to PwC, she has held controller positions at both Cadillac Fairview and the Mancal Corporation. Ms. Bradbury holds a BA degree in English Literature from McGill University in Montreal.

Stuart Hensman, Director

Mr. Hensman began his career at Sun Life Assurance Company in 1981 in Toronto as an analyst and portfolio manager. From 1987 to 1999, he was a Managing Director for Scotia Capital based in London, England. Mr. Hensman then was promoted to Chairman and CEO of Scotia Capital (USA) based in New York City where he served from 2000-2002. Since 2004, he has served on numerous boards including CI Funds, Prophecy DeFi and Creststreet Power & Income Fund. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Winnipeg and a Master of Science degree from Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.

Maurice Levesque, Director

Mr. Maurice Levesque is a founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Qwest Investment Management Corp. (QIM). Mr. Levesque is the Chairman, CEO and Chief Compliance Officer of Qwest Investment Fund Management Ltd., and Chairman, President and director of Heritage Bancorp Ltd., Chairman of Qwest Fund Advisory and Back Officer Services Ltd. (all three companies a subsidiary of QIM). Mr. Levesque has over 35 years of experience in the Canadian financial industry and is recognized for his broad knowledge, skills and experience in the venture capital industry, financial services industry and for his leadership skills in new business formation and development. Mr. Levesque is a founder and/or a director of several private and publicly traded companies which operate in a variety of industries. Mr. Levesque graduated from The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology with a diploma in Administration Management.

Further Information

All information contained in this news release with respect to BAQ and VMA was supplied by the respective party, for inclusion herein, without independent review by the other party, and each party and its directors and officers have relied on the other party for any information concerning the other party.

Completion of the Qualifying Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to final TSXV acceptance. The Qualifying Transaction cannot close until such approvals are obtained. There can be no assurance that the Qualifying Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all.

Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the filing statement of BAQ to be prepared in connection with the Qualifying Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Qualifying Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of BAQ should be considered highly speculative.

The TSXV has not in any way passed upon the merits of the proposed Qualifying Transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirement. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

For further information, please contact:

Peter Karos

peter@bluewateracquisition.com

(416) 414-9916

Mike Sapountzoglou

CEO, CFO and Director

mike@bluewateracquisition.com

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward-Looking Information Disclaimer

Certain statements and information herein, including all statements that are not historical facts, contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements or information include but are not limited to statements or information with respect to: the closing of the Qualifying Transaction. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements or information can be identified by the use of words such as anticipate, expect, may or will and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information.

With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, BAQ and VMA have made numerous assumptions including among other things, assumptions about general business and economic conditions of VMA and the market in which it operates. The foregoing list of assumptions is not exhaustive.

Although management of BAQ and VMA believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements or information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that forward-looking statements or information herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. These factors include, but are not limited to: risks relating to the Qualifying Transaction; risks relating to the receipt of all requisite approvals for the Qualifying Transaction, including the approval of the TSXV; changes in interest and currency exchange rates; risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of technology or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety matters); changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets; changes in laws; risks related to the direct and indirect impact of the COVID-19 pandemic including, but not limited to, its impact on general economic conditions; the ability to obtain financing as required; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time in other documents available under BAQs profile at www.SEDAR.com. BAQ and VMA do not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
Coffs Harbour, Australia, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

The Australian-based construction group has announced a new business opportunity for builders operating within the NSW Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, Orange and Albury regions, offering them the chance to become owners of a licensed home construction franchise.

More information is available at https://www.integrityfranchising.com.au

With its latest announcement, Integrity Franchising seeks to empower aspiring entrepreneurs to benefit from the continuing growth of Australias residential housing market and help them gain a strong competitive edge in their area. By joining the groups nationwide network of franchisee builders, businesses maintain their independence while benefiting from the know-how and resources of an experienced industry player.

Integrity Franchisings offer is suitable for anyone believing to be equipped with the skills to run a building franchise but lacking resources to prosper. Property developers, real estate agents, and tradesmen can now partner with a leading home building expert who will help them meet licensing requirements while providing them with business training and support.

Building professionals who join the franchise scheme will be given access to a catalogue of over 1,600 custom and project home designs, which they can offer to their clients.

From block homes, duplexes, homesteads and investor homes, all designs are available through Integrity Franchisings proprietary software. The projects can be viewed in 3D, enabling building professionals to present future homeowners with virtual walkthroughs of their properties and facilitate more engaging interactions.

The groups dedicated team also provides would-be business owners with ongoing support in sales and marketing processes, graphic design, accounting, contract preparation, and pre-contract estimation. Interested parties can learn more about the companys iProx rapid estimation program from founder Glenn Leet by visiting https://www.integrityfranchising.com.au/news/article/rapid-estimation-of-new-homes-made-easy-with-iprox

Franchisees can choose from two types of territories, namely regional ($30,000) and metro ($50,000), or translating into a payment plan of 12 monthly instalments of $3,000 and $5,000, respectively. Among the territories on offer are steep sites that many competitors avoid. By utilising Integrity Franchisings creative housing solutions, builders can take advantage of this untapped niche and expand their market share amid the declining supply of flat terrains across the country.

Further details can be found at Integrity Franchising Whats In It For You?

Source: Integrity Franchising News

Website: https://www.integrityfranchising.com.au/
REGINA, Saskatchewan, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Information Services Corporation (TSX:ISV) ("ISC" or the "Company") today announced that Ms. Karyn Brooks has stepped down from its Board of Directors (the Board), effective immediately. The Company thanks Ms. Brooks for her significant contributions to the Board and as a member of ISCs Audit Committee.



Joel Teal, Chair of ISC commented, On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to thank Karyn for her unwavering commitment to ISC since joining the Board in 2016. Her professionalism and wise counsel will be missed around the Board table.

Shawn Peters, President & CEO designate, added, As a member of the Audit Committee, Karyn was a valuable resource during my time as Executive Vice President & CFO. Her commitment to strong financial reporting and disclosure was always at the forefront. On behalf of management and the Finance team at ISC, we wish Karyn all the best.

ISC will not be seeking an immediate replacement for Ms. Brooks.

About ISC

Headquartered in Canada, ISC is the leading provider of registry and information management services for public data and records. Throughout our history, we have delivered value to our clients by providing solutions to manage, secure and administer information through our Registry Operations, Services and Technology Solutions segments. ISC is focused on sustaining its core business while pursuing new growth opportunities. The Class A Shares of ISC trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol ISV.

Investor Contact

Jonathan Hackshaw

Senior Director, Investor Relations & Capital Markets

Toll Free: 1-855-341-8363 in North America or 1-306-798-1137

investor.relations@isc.ca
North West, Singapore, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As a known fact, NFT has set off huge waves in the art world. And in music area, the hurricane effect of NFT is also as scheduled. As NFT become the focus of the music industry, Kolo, which has been incubated by Kuke, has also officially launched. The first trade opening time of the KOLO platform is GMT 7: 00, Jan. 20th, 2022. The first batch of released online works are representative recordings of contemporary top artists. Next, there is the introduction of these cherished artists for everyone:

What artists will be in the starting lineup?

One of the most outstanding pianists in the 20th century

The writer of the first lot is the Austrian pianist, composer Friedrich Gulda. Gulda is a unique genius in the history, who has achieved huge success in classical and jazz music. In the classical music field, the Beethoven Piano Sonata played by him is considered one of the best versions in the history. Since the 1950s, he got interested in Jazz and improvisation. So, he wrote several songs and instrumental pieces of his own, sometimes, he would also combine Jazz and classical music in his concert. It was this boundary-crossing unorthodox approach that earned him the nickname "Pianist of Terror", but Gulda is also widely recognized as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. His bold innovation of classical music is exactly in line with the core idea of Kuke -- "Sound of innovation" -- inheriting classics, embracing technology and innovating constantly.

The greatest cellist since the last century

The second item is from Pablo Casals' performance of Bach's six suites for Cello, which is described as the unsurpassed absolute classic of cello works. This legendary work is ill-fated. Until 1890, in a second-hand music shop in Barcelona, a teenager Casals stumbled upon the scores which was wrote by Bach in early 18th century. After 12 years of painstaking study and practice, he performed the first song (BWV 1007) for the first time in public at the age of 25, and immediately shocked the music world. After a long struggle for perfection, the complete album was finally recorded at his age of 60. His version remains unique for its powerful, impulsive and soulful conviction. Casals is now considered the greatest cellist since the last century. He greatly enhanced the status of cello as a solo instrument with his amazing performance and work development ability.

One of the most eminent violinists of the 20th century

Third up for sale was Ginette Neveu's Brahms: Violin Concerto in D major. Neveu's recordings are few and far between, but they remain in the catalog. The Brahms Concerto is one of her best recordings in 1946. Brahms' only violin concerto, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77, is wrote in 1878, which was dedicated to his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim. Joachim praised it as one of the top four German violin concertos. Despite the age of the recording material, Neveu is still one of the few geniuses in history to have recorded something truly infectious. In 1949, when she was at the peak of her career, Neveu was killed in a plane crash while on tour, and the music world had lost one of its greatest talents. People can only marvel at her electric live performances, track down her rare recordings and lament the untimely death of one of the biggest stars of the century. People can only marvel at the ups and downs of her live performances, pursue her rare wonderful recordings, sigh at the death of a century star.

The combination of NFT and the music industry has become a trend. KOLO's launch will serve as a starting point and demonstration for the NFT of the classical music industry. KOLO will cultivate people's consumption habit of paying for digital music, build a better music ecological environment, expand the global digital classical music works territory, and become the core competitiveness in the market.

Follow us:

Official website: https://www.kolonft.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KOLONFT

Telegram: https://t.me/Kolonft

Discord: https://discord.gg/58AcBS3TFW

Website: https://www.kolonft.com/
Pune, India, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global oil storage terminal market size is expected to reach USD 41.50 billion by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 4.7% during the forecast period. Increasing demand for effective crude oil storage facilities, increasing oil trade, and strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) investments to boost market development. Fortune Business Insights provides this information in its report titled Oil Storage Terminal Market, 2021-2028. The market size was USD 29.32 billion in 2020 and USD 30.16 billion in 2021.

Oil storage terminals are a very crucial component for the supply of gas and oil globally. It is an industrial facility that is used to store oil and gasses. The rising demand for effective crude oil storage facilities are expected to bolster market development. Crude oil facilities are developed for commercial and reserve purposes. Further, the rising investments in SPR are expected to compel several countries to expand crude oil storage facilities and satisfy oil demand in case of import issues. For example, every country under the European Union is expected to possess nearly 90 days petroleum reserve for domestic consumption. Moreover, oil trade between countries is likely to increase investments in the development of crude oil reserves. These factors are likely to boost the growth of the market in the upcoming years.

Request a Sample Copy of Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/oil-storage-terminal-market-100433

List of Key Companies in Oil Storage Terminal Market:

Belco Manufacturing (U.S.)

Royal Vopak (Netherlands)

Containment Solutions, Inc. (U.S.)

Vitol (Switzerland)

Oiltanking GmbH (Germany)

Koole Terminals (Netherlands)

Brooge Energy (UAE)

Shell (Netherlands)

LBC Tank Terminals (Belgium)

Ergon International (U.S.)

Olivia Petroleum, S.A.U. (Spain)

Odfjell SE (Norway)

Oman Tank Terminal Company (Oman)

Puma Energy (Singapore)

Impact of COVID-19

Fluctuating Raw Material Prices to Impede Market Growth

This market is expected to be negatively affected during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the halt on transport, manufacturing, and mining activities. The sudden spike in COVID-19 patients and the imposition of lockdown regulations led to the adoption of stringent lockdown regulations. This factor led to fluctuations in raw material and crude oil prices. However, post lockdown restrictions enabled companies to incorporate reduced capacities, part-time shifts, and production machinery to satisfy consumers demand and boost sales. This strategy enabled the companies to recover losses and satisfy demand. In addition, government investments for crude oil storage facilities are likely to bolster market development during the pandemic.

Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this market. Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/oil-storage-terminal-market-100433

Report Coverage

The report provides a detailed analysis of the top segments and the latest trends in the market. It comprehensively discusses the driving and restraining factors and the impact of COVID-19 on the market. Additionally, it examines the regional developments and the strategies undertaken by the market's key players.

Segments

Floating Roof Tanks to Dominate the Market

By type, the market is segmented into commercial reserve and strategic reserve. As per tank type, it is divided into spherical tank, bullet tank, floating roof, and fixed roof. Based on product type, it is classified into kerosene, crude oil, aviation fuel, petrol, diesel, and others. Geographically, it is clubbed into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa.

Drivers & Restraints

Rising Crude Oil Products and Energy Demand to Foster Industry Development

Oil storage terminal is used extensively to store crude oil for the production of crude oil-based products. Rising demand for petroleum and natural gas from the automotive industry may boost the products adoption. Further, rapid urbanization, rising energy demand, and rising population are likely to foster the products demand. As per the United Nations (UN) Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the global population is expected to increase by 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100. As a result, the construction of several oil storage terminals will grow positively. Moreover, the extraction of petrol, kerosene, petrol, and aviation fuel is expected to promote the construction of oil and gas storage facilities. In addition, rising air traffic and rapid development in the automobile industry are expected to boost storage facilities incorporation. These factors are likely to drive the oil storage terminal market growth.

However, the rising adoption of renewable energy may impede market growth during the upcoming years.

Speak to Our Analyst: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/oil-storage-terminal-market-100433

Regional Insights

Rising Petroleum and Energy Demand to Foster Progress in Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific is expected to dominate the oil storage terminal market share because of the rising demand for energy and petroleum from India and China. The market in Asia Pacific stood at USD 9.90 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow remarkably in the upcoming years. Crude oil is the major source of energy in these countries, which, in turn, may boost the demand for effective oil storage terminals. Singapore and South Korea are the major hubs for oil storage in the region. Several companies in the region undertake divestments to expand industrial outlook and magnify novel plans. For example, Brightoil Petroleum sold approximately 90% of its Hong Kong shares in December 2020. It includes the Zhoushan terminal and oil storage facilities for the Yantian Group. The Zhoushan facility is approximately 3.16 million m3. Its phase 1 facility possesses a capacity of 1.94 million m3, and its phase 2 facility possesses a capacity of 1.22 million m3. These factors are likely to fuel the market development.

In Europe, increasing production capacities is expected to boost oil storage facilities' construction activities and fulfill the energy demand of several countries dependent upon crude oil. The rising energy demand may lead to the expansion of storage facilities to fulfill oil and gas demand during a crisis. Additionally, rising initiatives by key players for the inorganic and organic expansions are likely to boost market development.

In North America, the rising export of oil products is expected to present several growth opportunities for the region. In addition, the adoption of mergers is expected to boost market development. For example, a US-based liquid storage provider BW Terminals merged with Contanda, known as BWX Terminals. These factors may propel market development.

Competitive Landscape

Prominent Companies Set Up Facilities to Expand Market Reach

The prominent companies operating in the market set up facilities to satisfy consumers and expand their market reach. For example, a branch of Brooge Energy named Brooge Petroleum and Gas Investment Company (BPGIC) set up its phase 2 storage facility in Port of Fujairah, in the UAE. The site completed the testing and commissioning approvals to store clean petroleum and crude oil. BPGIC is the second-largest storage facility and possesses a 1 million m3 (6.3 million bbl) capacity. This strategy may enable BPGIC to reach a wider consumer base and expand its market reach. Furthermore, the adoption of effective materials and effective production machinery may allow companies to improve their storage facilitys effectiveness, enhance safety and boost adoption.

Industry Development

August 2021: Harverstone Group announced the expansion of its marketing, logistics, and trading platform by acquiring Gateway Terminals LLC, a bulk liquid terminal complex. It is based on the banks of Mississippi, Illinois in the U.S. It included a 400 000 bbl tank capacity and was constructed in 2008. It consists of a truck, rail, and barge unloading and loading capabilities and provides Class I roads access.

Quick Buy - Oil Storage Terminal Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/100433





Part II: Oil and Gas Drill Bit Market





A rise in the exploration activities due to the stabilization of the gas and oil industry is expected to boost the global oil and gas drill bit market growth during the forecast period. This information is published in an upcoming report by Fortune Business Insights, titled, Oil and Gas Drill Bit Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Roller Cone Bits {Milled Tooth, Tungsten Carbide Inserts}, Fixed Cutter Bits {Polycrystalline Diamond Compact, Diamond Impregnated}), By Application (Onshore, Offshore), and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026. According to the report, the global oil and gas drill bit market is projected to reach USD 7.68 Billion by 2026, thereby exhibiting a CAGR of 10.04% during the forecast period. However, the global market was valued at USD 3.62 Billion in 2018.

The report forecasts and analyzes the global oil and gas drill bit market size. It examines various aspects of the global market, such as competitive landscape, key developments, growth opportunities, ongoing trends, hindrances, and future expansion. The report also provides mergers and acquisitions, new product launches, and expansions in the global oil and gas drill bit market.

Drivers & Restraints

Increasing Adoption of Polycrystalline Diamond Compact Drill Bits to Boost Growth

In terms of type, the global oil and gas drill bit market is grouped into fixed cutter bits and roller cone cutter bits. Under the fixed cutter bits segment, there are two types, namely, diamond-impregnated and polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC). Amongst these, PDC is projected to dominate the global oil and gas drill bit market in the forthcoming years. It is because a diamond is one of the hardest material that is found on the earth. It can be used against any rock formation to break through it and take out the required product. Due to this property, demand for PDC drilling bit is increasing day by day. Moreover, the tiny, inexpensive particles of diamond are easily transformed into masses of crystals which are further turned into shaped called diamond tablets. These diamond tablets are then brought into contact with the formation to carry out the cutting process.

Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this market. Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/oil-and-gas-drill-bit-market-101483

Competitive Landscape

Halliburton Unveils New In-bit Sensor Package Named Cerebro Featuring Advanced Technology

In November 2018, Halliburton, a leading oil field service company, headquartered in the U.S., announced the launch of its new Cerebro in-bit sensor package. It is infused with advanced technology that receives performance data directly from the drill bit and examines it to increase drilling efficiency, decrease the uncertainty, and optimize cutter engagement. The company stated that the new service would eventually improve drilling performance and overall data measurement. Cerebro offers a unique view of the entire run by persistently capturing motion data and downhole vibration. It further aids operators in pinpointing the damaged areas. Also, it notifies when the said performance is not gained due to operating parameters or fluctuant design. Cerebro helps in identifying numerous common drill bit factors, namely, whirl and stick-slip, torsional resistance, and lateral and axial vibration that can have a negative impact on the reliability and drilling speed.

Blackstone Group Successfully Acquires Ulterra Drilling Technologies for USD 700 Million

Blackstone Group, a multinational private equity, alternative asset management, and financial services firm, based in the U.S., announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Ulterra Drilling Technologies, a manufacturer of technology-focused PDC drill bits, based in Texas in October 2018. The entire deal was worth USD 700 Million. Blackstone bought Ulterra from a fellow private enterprise called American Securities. The acquisition was aided by a debt package that was being pre-marketed before the formal launch.

Fortune Business Insights profiles some of the most prominent market players operating in the global oil and gas drill bit market. They are:

Schlumberger

International Diamond Services, Inc.

Baker Hughes, a GE company

Atlas Copco

Tercel Oilfield Products

D-Drill (Master Drillers) Limited

Ulterra Drilling Technologies L.P.

National Oilwell Varco

Halliburton

Varel International Energy Services

Scientific Drilling

Palmer Bit Company

C&H Bit Company

Dongying Haixin Petroleum Equipment Co., Ltd.

Shanghai Sk Petroleum & Chemical Equipment

Speak to Our Analyst: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/oil-and-gas-drill-bit-market-101483

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Fortune Business Insights delivers accurate data and innovative corporate analysis, helping organizations of all sizes make appropriate decisions. We tailor novel solutions for our clients, assisting them to address various challenges distinct to their businesses. Our aim is to empower them with holistic market intelligence, providing a granular overview of the market they are operating in.

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GENEVA, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks over security issues on Friday morning in a hotel in Geneva.

Prior to the meeting, a source with the Russian Mission in Geneva said that Lavrov and Blinken will hold a detailed discussion on the drafts of two fundamental documents submitted by Russia last December on security guarantees.

The two sides are also expected to assess the results of the series of talks between Russia, the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) earlier this month.

The U.S. Department of State said earlier that during their Geneva meeting, Blinken will focus on areas of bilateral concern and urge Russia to take steps to de-escalate and remove its troops along Ukraine's border.

"I'll urge that Russia find its way back to the agreements it swore to over the decades and to working with the United States and our allies and partners in Europe to write a future that can ensure our mutual security but also make clear that that possibility will be extinguished by Russian aggression against Ukraine," Blinken said in a speech in Berlin on Thursday.

Blinken began his latest diplomatic trip in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Jan. 19.

He then traveled to Berlin and met with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, followed by a meeting of the Transatlantic Quad which groups the United States, Germany, France and Britain.

On the eve of the meeting, the Russian side accused Washington of keep blowing a bubble with baseless accusations.

"It looks like the United States in advance lays the ground for reducing the discussion on security guarantees in Europe to the notorious 'Russian aggression' against Ukraine," Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov was cited as saying.

A latest statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry also blamed the U.S. government's intention in peddling speculation on Russia's imminent "invasion" of Ukraine.

"We call on Western countries to stop the aggressive anti-Russia propaganda campaign, to stop fanning the flames of Ukrainian militarization by dragging it into NATO, and instead use their influence to encourage Kiev to comply with the Minsk agreements and other international obligations," the Russian statement said. 
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev., Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MetricNet is pleased to announce that Jeff Rumburg, Managing Partner of MetricNet, has been invited to present MetricNet's latest research on ITIL Maturity as well as Self-Service in IT Service and Support at the 2022 Support World Live Conference. Powered by HDI, the leading organization dedicated to elevating service and support across the enterprise, Support World Live will take place May 15-20 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mr. Rumburg will be presenting Session 302: "ITIL Hacks That Work! Fast-Track Your Way to ITIL Maturity" on Wednesday, May 18, at 3:45 p.m. and Session 602: "Tapping the Potential of Self-Service: Success Factors from the Overachievers!" on Thursday, May 19, at 4:15 p.m. Additionally, Mr. Rumburg will facilitate 'Succeeding with Metrics,' an interactive, consultative HDI Training Workshop on Monday, May 16, and Tuesday, May 17.

Case study-focused Session 302 will reveal how successful organizations are taking a very nontraditional approach to ITIL. Mr. Rumburg uses the phrase 'hacking ITIL' to describe how these organizations achieve the benefits of the framework at a fraction of the time and cost. And in Session 602, he will discuss the reasons why self-service often falls short of expectations, and what can be done about it. All those involved in the delivery and support of technical support services, and the fundamental concepts behind IT Service and Support management, are encouraged to attend.

"An emerging class of support organizations are enjoying great success with their ITIL initiatives, reporting reduced costs, lower ticket volumes, and greater customer satisfaction - all as a direct result of their ITIL deployments," said Jeff Rumburg. "But these successful organizations are taking a very nontraditional approach to ITIL. In fact, they're hacking ITIL to achieve the benefits of the framework at a fraction of the time and cost."

Mr. Rumburg is the winner of the Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award, was named to HDI's Top 25 Thought Leaders list for five years and has served on HDI's Strategic Advisory Board. He is co-founder and Managing Partner of MetricNet, LLC, where he is responsible for global strategy, product development, and client engagement delivery. As a leading expert in benchmarking and re-engineering, Mr. Rumburg authored a best-selling book on benchmarking and has been retained as a benchmarking expert by such iconic companies as American Express, USAA, Coca-Cola, and Emory Healthcare.

If you would like more information about benchmarking, please visit metricnet.com or e-mail MetricNet at info(at)metricnet(dot)com.

About MetricNet

MetricNet is the global leader in IT service and support benchmarking. More than half of the FORTUNE 500 rely on MetricNet benchmarks to improve and optimize their performance. MetricNet is the first, and still the only company to offer downloadable service desk and desktop support benchmarks from their website. With a global benchmarking database of nearly 4,000 IT service and support benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry.

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Dublin, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Self Regenerative Concrete Market Research Report by Form, by Application, by State - United States Forecast to 2027 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The United States Self Regenerative Concrete Market size was estimated at USD 109.17 million in 2020, is expected to reach USD 133.68 million in 2021, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 24.44% to reach USD 504.61 million by 2027.



This research report categorizes the Self Regenerative Concrete to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:

Based on Form, the market was studied across Capsule Based, Intrinsic, and Vascular.

Based on Application, the market was studied across Commercial, Industrial, Infrastructure, and Residential.

Based on State, the market was studied across California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas

Competitive Strategic Window:

The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period.



FPNV Positioning Matrix:

The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Self Regenerative Concrete Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.



Market Share Analysis:

The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits.



Competitive Scenario:

The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate. The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion. All the news collected help vendor to understand the gaps in the marketplace and competitor's strength and weakness thereby, providing insights to enhance product and service.



The report provides insights on the following:

Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players

Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets

Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments

Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players

Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments

The report answers questions such as:

What is the market size and forecast of the United States Self Regenerative Concrete Market?

What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the United States Self Regenerative Concrete Market during the forecast period?

Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the United States Self Regenerative Concrete Market?

What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the United States Self Regenerative Concrete Market?

What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the United States Self Regenerative Concrete Market?

What is the market share of the leading vendors in the United States Self Regenerative Concrete Market?

What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the United States Self Regenerative Concrete Market?

Companies Mentioned

AkzoNobel N.V.

BASF SE

Covestro AG

GCP Applied Technologies

NEI Corporation

Polycoat Products

RPM International

Sensor Coating Systems Ltd.

Sika AG

Wacker Chemie AG

Xypex Chemical Corporation

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/fx8qn8

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.
Sydney, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of BuddeComm report outlines the latest developments and key trends in the telecoms markets. - https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Uganda-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW





MTN in March 2020 renewed its National Telecom Operating licence for a further ten years, paying $100 million. Under the revised licensing regime, Airtel Uganda also fell under the NTO license regime on the grounds that it provided two-thirds geographic coverage. Given that Airtel at the time was paying only $100,000 to offer services under the cheaper PSP and PIP licences (to its obvious advantage), MYN and Uganda telecom complained. To level the playing field, Airtel was moved to a 20-year NTO licence in December 2020 (effective from the previous July). As part of the licence terms, the company must provide 90% geographic coverage by mid-2025.



Lycamobile Uganda, which had launched services in April 2020 after having acquired the local TD-LTE operator Tangerine in the previous January, was given an NTO licence in May 2021, making it the fourth operator in the country so licensed. Similar to Airtel, Lycamobile must extend geographic coverage and must also list 20% of its shares on the local exchange by mid-2022.



In line with these licensing requirements, MTN Group completed an IPO for its Uganda unit in October 2021, though it only managed to sell 60% of the 20% stake on offer, raising UGX535.9 billion. As a result of the IPO, the Groups interest in MTN Uganda fell to about 83%. In the following December, the Group proceeded with listing its 22.4 billion ordinary shares on the Uganda Securities Exchange.



While these events have been ongoing, the economic consequences of the pandemic contributed to the exit of Africell in October 2021.





Key developments





MTN Group completes IPO of its Uganda unit;

Lycamobile Uganda is awarded the countrys fourth National Telecommunications Operator (NTO) licence;

MTN Uganda trials standalone 5G, receives additional spectrum in the 1800MHz and 2100MHz bands;

Liquid Intelligence Technologies expands reach of FttP services;

Alphabet drops Project Loon;

Africell exits from Uganda market;

Report update includes the regulator's market data to June 2021, operator data to Q3 2021, updated Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of pandemic on the telecoms sector, recent market developments.



Companies mentioned in this report





Uganda Telecom (UTL, LAP Green), MTN Uganda, UMEME, SEACOM, Infocom (Altech, Liquid Telecom), Internet Solutions, MTN Uganda (Telia), Bharti Airtel (Zain, Celtel), Uganda Telecom (UTL, LAP Green, Telecel, Orascom, Deutsche Telekom), Warid Telecom (Essar), Orange Uganda (HiTS Telecom), i-Tel, Simba Telecoms, Standard Chartered Bank, Monitise, American Tower Corporation (ATC), Eaton Towers, Smile Telecom, Smart Telecom, Sure Telecom, K2 Telecom, Africell (Lintel), UTL Online (Uganda Telecom), Infocom (Altech), Africa Online, Spacenet, MTN, Wateen Telecoms (Warid), Smile Telecom, Foris Telecom, Talk Telecom, Mo Telecom, Goal Technology Solutions (GTS), UMEME, WBS Television, NTV Uganda, MultiChoice







Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Uganda-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW
Sydney, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of BuddeComm report outlines the latest developments and key trends in the telecoms markets. - https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Panama-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW

These two operated as a duopoly for many years, holding mobile concessions exclusively. In 2004, Telefonica took over BellSouths licence and operations, and the market then became a duopoly between Telefonica and C&WP until the exclusivity period ended in 2007. Soon afterwards, new licences were awarded to Digicel and America Movil.



Consolidation in the market started with the acquisition of C&WP by Liberty Global. This was followed in 2019 when Tigo Panama (which had started as a provider of fixed-line services) acquired Telefonicas business in Panama, and so branched into the mobile segment.



In late 2021, Liberty Latin America reached an agreement with America Movil to acquire Claro Panama for $200 million. The deal will significantly increase C&WPs presence and coverage in Panamas mobile market, and put it on a par with Tigo Panama in terms of market share.



Key developments:



Liberty Latin America reaches agreement with America Movil to acquire Claro Panama for $200 million.



Movistar and Cable Onda are rebranded as Tigo.



Panamas Digital Transformation and Inclusion Strategy Aid Program secures a $350 million loan.



Regulator extends temporary spectrum allocations in the AWS band.



Aurora cable system expected to be ready for service at the end of 2022.



Caribbean Express submarine cable system is launched.









Companies mentioned in this report:



America Movil, Cable and Wireless Panama, Claro, Cable Onda, FP Telecommunications, Google, Optynex Telecom, Digicel, Ericsson, Huawei, Liberty Latin America (LLA), Millicom International Cellular (MIC), Movistar, Ocean Networks, Tigo Panama.



Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Panama-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW
Sydney, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of BuddeComm report outlines the latest developments and key trends in the telecoms markets. - https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Chad-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW

Although both operators struggle to generate revenue in a market where customers have little disposable income, they are supported by being local business units of significant regional players.



Both operators have nevertheless seen their subscribers bases increase steadily in recent years. Moov Africa Chad reported a 14.2% increase in the number of mobile subscribers in the year to September 2021.



While Moov and Airtel focus investment in mobile network infrastructure to expand the reach of their 3G and LTE services, there is also tentative investment in fixed-line broadband. Given that the countrys copper network is very meagre, and is largely limited to the capital NDjamena, there is a business case to develop new fibre rather than bother with upgrading exiting copper. At the end of 2021, Moov announced plans to launch a limited FttP network in NDjamena during 2022.



This is only a start of a potential development in the fixed-line sector which will be supported by Chads increased connectivity to international fibre cables. Chad is participating in the 500km Trans-Saharan Backbone as well as the Central Africa Backbone and other cables. Since mid-2020 the government has funded several ICT projects, including a new national data centre and associated 1,200km fibre network, a 50km metro network in NDjamena, and an additional 200 mobile towers for Sotel Tchad.



Domestic internet capacity increased from 270Mb/s in 2017 to 5,479Mb/s in 2020. This increase was largely due to the Chad-Sudan link, which also reduced wholesale access costs. In turn the cost for retail access has fallen, which makes connectivity more viable for a greater proportion of the population.



Key developments:



International mobile roaming charges eliminated among Central African Economic and Monetary Community countries;



Moov Chad increases the number of mobile base stations, preps for FttP rollout;



Government approves three-part telecom infrastructure upgrade project as part of the Strategic Plan for Digital Development and Posts 2020-2030;



2021 Finance Law reduces spectrum fees;



NDjamena - Adre axis fibre link is opened;



Report update includes the regulators market updates to 2020, operator data to Q3 2021, updated Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of Covid-19 on the telecoms sector, recent market developments.






Sydney, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of BuddeComm report outlines the latest developments and key trends in the telecoms markets. - https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Hong-Kong-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW





The four MNOs and 24 MVNOs have been battered by the Covid-19 crisis and the accompanying travel restrictions, which has resulted in a substantial decline in the otherwise lucrative roaming revenue. Across the board, overall operator revenues are down. But the sector is putting all its energy into expanding its blossoming 5G market with the expectation of increasing its local service revenue as customers take advantage of the fast download speeds to consume more content (and hence bandwidth).



The telecom sector regulator, the Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA), has got in on the act as well, opening up to public consultation on reassigning spectrum from LTE to 5G use. This comes hot on the heels of yet another 5G spectrum auction, making a further 255MHz of spectrum available across multiple bands to supplement an already well-served market. With Hong Kong having one of the worlds highest mobile penetration rates at over 300%, the sector is banking on its sophisticated user base choosing to come along for the ride.



Key developments:



Google and Facebook abandon the Hong Kong leg of the Pacific Light Cable Network following objections by the US Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense.



OFCA auctions a further 255MHz of spectrum for 5G use while opening public consultations on reassigning 90MHz of spectrum in the 2.5GHz range from LTE to 5G.



Pay TV and fixed broadband operator i-Cable is taken over by New World Developments Chairman Henry Cheng Kar-shun.









Companies mentioned in this report:



Hong Kong Telecom (HKT), Hutchison Telecom (Hutchison 3), SmarTone, China Mobile Hong Kong (CMHK), Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN), i-Cable, HGC Global Communications.



Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Hong-Kong-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW
Sydney, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of BuddeComm report outlines the latest developments and key trends in the telecoms markets. - https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Somalia-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW





These have mainly been in response to the government, having been newly elected in 2017, being determined to promote ICTs and to bring the country into line with international developments.



This has been manifested in several ways, including the adoption of a National Telecoms Law, the creation of a regulator to oversee the sector, and the introduction of a licensing regime under which all operators must secure one of three types of operating licence. If policed effectively, this should end the free-for-all of former years wherein it was relatively easy for companies to set themselves up and offer services.



These efforts towards inclusion have also benefitted the countrys m-money providers. For many years, these services were unregulated and thus did not have the restrictions commonly applied by banks. In addition, the poor currency conversion rate made it easy for locals to make transactions which would otherwise involve large amounts of currency. The Central Bank of Somalia (CBS) awarded a countrys first m-money licence (to Hormuud Telecom) in February 2021, though such services had already been available for about a decade. The licensing regime has formalised transactions, and made it possible to integrate m-payments with the countrys own financial system and with international systems. The majority of adult Somalis use m-money services regularly.



Key developments:



Somtel launches LTE-A services;



DARE 1 cable serving East Africa comes into operation;



Deadline for telcos to secure licenses to operate is passed;



Government sets up an IXP in Mogadishu;



Liquid Telecom builds the countrys first fibre broadband link;



SEACOM cable lands in Somalia;



Three mobile operators agree to interconnect their networks;



Report includes Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of Covid-19 on the telecoms sector, recent market developments.









Companies mentioned in this report:



Dalkom, Golis Telecom, Hormuud Telecom, Nationlink, Netco, Somafone, Somtel, Telcom Somalia, Telesom, Thuraya.



Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Somalia-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW
Sydney, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of BuddeComm report outlines the latest developments and key trends in the telecoms markets. - https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Suriname-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW

The latter is part of the Digicel Group, which has had significant financial challenges in recent years. This encouraged the Group in mid-2021 to sell its operations in a number of Pacific island states, thus reducing Group debt.



The states revenue is largely dependent on the export of oil, and this dependence is set to grow in coming years following the discovery of new oil fields. To mitigate against this dependence, the government has undertaken a number of schemes to develop economic diversification. The Policy Development Plan 2017  2021 specifically refers to the ICT sectors role in social development, as also in the educational and administrative functions of the country. Access to affordable broadband services nationally is one of the governments priorities, aimed in part at encouraging social inclusion and in fostering economic growth. Post-pandemic tourism, the agricultural sector, and non-mining related small industries and outsourcing activities are also being encouraged.



To achieve this diversification, the government has acknowledged that the Electronic Communication Act will have to be amended to allow stakeholders in the ICT sector to exploit various opportunities.



Key developments:







Digicel restructures debt by some $1.6 billion;

Telesurs National Broadband Project is completed;

Telesur launches its 5G network in Paramaribo, markets triple-play offering and high-volume mobile data packages;

Suriname ranked 81st internationally for mobile network speeds and 158th for fixed broadband speeds;

Significant recent gold and offshore oil discoveries to boost economic growth;

Report update includes recent market developments, Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, ITU and regulator data to 2020.



Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Suriname-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW
Sydney, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just released, this edition of BuddeComm report outlines the latest developments and key trends in the telecoms markets. - https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Mozambique-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW





The market is dominated by older technologies, including 3G, though this in itself is still common among countries in the region where the immaturity of the data market has meant that there is little consumer demand for high-end and data-rich applications requiring fast transfers.



This explains the delay in operators providing LTE services. Vodacom Mozambique launched services in October 2018 following the award of its unified telecoms licence in July 2018. This was followed by Movitel in mid-2019, though Mozambique Telecom did not begin to trial LTE until May 2020. In June 2021, the company announced plans to expand the reach of its LTE infrastructure, aiming to provide national coverage.



The company at the same time began trialling 5G services in Maputo. Given the existing capacity within LTE networks, it is not expected that 5G will be launched commercially for some time yet, though the company is preparing itself in readiness.



Key developments:



Mozambique Telecom contracts Huawei to provide national LTE coverage, begins 5G trials;



Tmcel awards Ericsson a five-year contract to upgrade its network and develop m-money services;



Alphabet cancels Project Loon;



Mozambique completes migration from analogue to digital broadcasting;



Regulator completes multi-spectrum auction, imposes MTR cuts;



Vodacom Mozambique secures Unified Telecom License, launches LTE services;



Mozambique joins the Alliance for Affordable Internet, aiming to provide broadband at less than 5% of average monthly income;



Report update includes the regulators market data for 2019, operator data updates to Q3 2021, ITU market data updates, updated Telecom Maturity Index tables, charts, and analyses, assessment of the global impact of the pandemic on the telecoms sector, recent market developments.









Companies mentioned in this report:



Mozambique Telecom (Telecomunicacoes De Mocambique, mCel), Vodacom Mozambique, Movitel (Viettel), Teledata, TV Cabo, Intra, Tropical Web, SEACOM.



Read the full report: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Mozambique-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?utm_source=GNW
SHENZHEN, China, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The VAPORESSO TARGET 200 was recently named the Best High Wattage Mod for 2022 by world-renowned vape media outlet, Vaping360, winning over other renowned vaping brands and mods from around the world. The TARGET 200 beat out several high wattage mods for the award.

VAPORESSO TARGET 200 wins Best High Wattage Mod for 2022: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ce46787e-514d-4b68-af06-99f0b2da6d97

Were happy to hear the Target 200 has received the honor of Best High Wattage Mod. This acknowledges the TARGET 200's exceptional craftsmanship, innovation, and usability, said VAPORESSOs team. For us, the Target 200 is one of the top mods available in the market.

The TARGET 200 is built for adventure. With a max output of 220 Watts, its features include the new sub-ohm iTank, AXON 2.0 chipset with precise heating control, and GTi coils. Crafted for DTL vapers who crave the outdoors, the Target 200 comes in a rugged, yet visually pleasing design, featuring a braided water-resistant fabric for a sure grip.

VAPORESSOs iTank also won runner up for Best Sub Ohm Tanks for 2022. Featuring three GTi coil options, 8 mL capacity, and its patented Turbo Airflow System, the iTank delivers a long lasting and powerful, yet smooth vaping experience.

VAPORESSO iTank named Runner-Up for Best Sub Ohm Tank for 2022: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/57a5a226-5026-4d72-9a99-4834f1355a5d

VAPORESSO is a leading global brand dedicated to establishing a smoke-free world through innovative, reliable and stylish ENDS products. Powered by parent company SMOORE International, and with over 16-years expertise in the vaping industry, VAPORESSO has developed many well regarded products such as the LUXE, TARGET, GEN, XROS and ZERO, sold in over 20 thousand stores, to approximately 30 million users worldwide.

VAPORESSOs impact can be felt in several countries, including in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and Indonesia, among others. At VAPORESSO, we strive to "MOVE BEYOND ORDINARY".

Founded in 2014, Vaping360 is the world's largest vaping media website, receiving over 1.5 million monthly visitors from all over the world. Each year the website presents annual awards for the best vaping products across several categories. Vaping 360s Best Of awards informs their global audience of the best available products in the industry, making it one or the most prestigious awards in the vaping industry.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations on Thursday launched the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative (GDI).

Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations (UN) who hosted the event, said the GDI proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping calls for greater international synergy to speed up the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and achieve stronger, greener and healthier global development.

The initiative is undoubtedly highly relevant and has a far-reaching impact, he said, noting that ever since its introduction, the GDI has been warmly received by the international community, and nearly 100 countries and many international organizations, including the UN, have expressed their support.

China looks forward to working with all parties to implement the initiative in order to achieve the four goals of re-prioritizing development, renewing commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), revitalizing global partnerships, and reactivating development cooperation, said Zhang.

He pointed out that the establishment of the Group of Friends aims to seek greater complementarity between the GDI and the 2030 Agenda, support UN work in the field of development, and help developing countries fight the pandemic and implement the 2030 Agenda.

The group will focus its work on strengthening policy dialogue, sharing best practices and promoting practical cooperation, he said.

"China looks forward to working with all parties to continuously improve the group's mechanism and deepen cooperation in key areas, so that we can together build the group into an effective platform for exchanging experience, enhancing cooperation and seeking common development," Zhang said.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said in her remarks that the UN welcomes and supports the GDI, expressing confidence that this initiative will help the UN keep its promise of "leaving no one behind."

She said the GDI shows China's continued commitment to supporting the SDGs. She looked forward to working practically with the Group of Friends.

Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Liu Zhenmin, and heads of the UN Development Programme, UN Women, the UN Children's Fund, among other UN leaders, also expressed their strong wish to be aligned with China on the GDI and advance cooperation in priority areas.

Ambassadors from different countries agreed that the GDI is a clear demonstration of China's firm commitment to multilateralism and the 2030 Agenda, noting that it reflects China's leading role in international development cooperation as well as the general call by developing countries for common development.

The initiative is in line with the prevailing trend of global development and aims to address the pressing challenges facing all countries, especially developing ones, they said, stressing it will surely make significant contributions to supporting countries in accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

They looked forward to strengthening communication and cooperation with China in the priority areas of the GDI, in order to inject fresh political momentum into global efforts on pandemic response, post-pandemic recovery and realization of the SDGs.

Moving forward, China will deepen exchange and cooperation with the members of the Group of Friends, UN agencies and related parties, while strengthening policy dialogue, sharing best practices and undertaking practical projects, said Zhang.

China will strive to achieve concrete outcomes that help countries achieve common, transformative and green development, and to build a community with a shared future for mankind, he said.

The event attracted two dozens of leaders of UN agencies and representatives from over 100 countries, including more than 80 ambassadors. 
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Brixton Metals Corporation (TSX-V: BBB, OTCQB: BBBXF) (the Company or Brixton) is pleased to provide highlights of the results of its 2021 exploration activities and outlines its 2022 exploration plans to advance the district-scale Thorn Copper-Gold-Silver-Molybdenum Project. The Thorn Project is located 90km ENE from Juneau, Alaska and is situated within the traditional territory of the Tahltan and Taku River Tlingit First Nations.

Corporate Highlights from 2021

Brixton raised $12.2M including strategic investor Crescat Capital and is now fully funded for its 2022 exploration at the Thorn Project



Ivanhoe Electric Inc. consolidates shares-warrants held by Robert Friedland and the HPX USD$44.5M/11-year Earn-in Agreement on Brixtons Hog Heaven Copper-Gold-Silver Project



Expanded the technical team by the addition of Colin McGillivray, Senior Modeler and Susan Flasha, Corporate Development



Thorn Project Highlights from 2021

Confirmed a new discovery of a Cu-Au-Ag-Mo porphyry at the Camp Creek Target: THN21-184 yielded 821.25m of 0.40% CuEq including 318m of 0.69% CuEq including 14m of 1.04% CuEq. The target remains open at depth



Completed 5770.12m of drilling, consisting of 2662.78m at Camp Creek and 3107.34m at Trapper



Demonstrated gold endowment of the Trapper Target with drill hole THN21-186 yielding 139.00m of 2.14 g/t Au including 11.5m of 19.26 g/t Au including two highest grade intercepts to date of 0.46m of 276.0 g/t Au and 0.50m of 160 g/t Au. The target remains open along strike and at depth





Collected and analyzed 417 rock samples and 607 soil samples which identified several new areas of interest for copper and gold mineralization and extended the gold geochemical footprint of the Trapper anomaly to 4km in length



Completed 1072-line kilometers of Magnetic and Mobile MT geophysical surveys, structural mapping, geochronology and geochemistry supporting an emerging Triassic-Eocene porphyry Cu-Au-Ag-Mo belt with multiple porphyry centers



Expanded and upgraded the Thorn camp capacity to host more than 50 people



Planned 2022 Thorn Program

Drill up to 20,000 meters with a primary focus on the Camp Creek Cu-Au-Ag-Mo Porphyry Target and the Trapper Gold Target



Secondary targets include drilling at the Outlaw Gold-Silver Target and potentially drilling at the Metla Copper-Gold Porphyry Target



Conduct geophysical surveys over the Metla and Trapper Target areas



Collect 3000 to 5000 soil-rock samples and geochemical modeling on new targets



Collaboration with MDRU to improve our porphyry fertility understanding and porphyry vectoring techniques



Chairman and CEO Gary R. Thompson Stated, We are very excited about the new discoveries that were made at the Thorn Project in 2021. This season is shaping up to be transformative for Brixton as we continue to demonstrate the potential of this emerging copper-gold porphyry belt within the 2600 square kilometer, wholly owned Thorn Project. We plan to be drilling multiple large-scale targets with a minimum of 2 drills turning all season.

Camp Creek Copper Porphyry Target

Brixton Metals made significant progress in 2021 on the blind Camp Creek Copper Porphyry Target. A total of 2662.78m of core was drilled with THN21-183 being the deepest hole on the property. Drill holes 162, 181,183 and 184 show copper, gold, silver and molybdenum grades, as well as porphyry index values (MPIx), increasing with depth and ending in mineralization. The bottom of holes 183 and 184 are approximately 286m apart.

Click here for Figure 1. Camp Creek Copper Drilling 2021, CuEq (left) and MPIx Values (right), Looking East:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-1_21Jan2022-CC.jpg

Collaborators at UBCs Mineral Deposit Research Unit (MDRU) identified four geochemically distinct porphyry phases, with porphyry X being the primary mineralized unit. Porphyry X is a crowded plagioclase porphyry of Cretaceous age, characterized by well-defined stacked biotite, a feature typical of mineral-related porphyry phases. Mineralization is also hosted in Triassic Stuhini Group sedimentary rocks, which are intruded by the porphyry phases. Radiometric dating of these porphyries using the U-Pb zircon method showed they were emplaced approximately 85 million years ago, confirming an age similar to the Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in southwest Alaska. The reference to Pebble is important because pre-faulting architecture by Goldfarb et al. (2013) place Thorn inboard of Pebble during deposition and that about 1100km of dextral displacement has occurred post accretion, moving Pebble to where it is located today. MDRU conducted short-wave infrared (SWIR) analyses and interpretation. The SWIR analyses indicate higher temperatures towards the west-northwest, please see Figure 2 below.

Click here for Figure 2. Current Research in Collaboration with MDRU on SWIR Analysis, Camp Creek Target:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-2_21Jan2022-swir.jpg

The Camp Creek porphyry mineralization is thought to have a footprint of about 1km by 2km based on the surface expression of several different high-sulphidation mineralized zones including the Talisker and Glenfiddich Zones and the Oban Diatreme Breccia Zone.

The aim of the 2022 drilling at Camp Creek will be to test for the high-grade core of this copper dominant porphyry system with 4 to 6 deep holes with the aid of drill-wedges.

The Trapper Gold Target

The Trapper Gold Target was a major focus of the 2021 season. Following the 2020 acquisition of the Trapper claims and royalties, this was the first full exploration season conducted by Brixton which successfully highlighted the gold endowment of the target.

Brixton drilled 15 holes for a total of 3107.34m. Standout holes include THN21-186 that reported 139.00m of 2.14 g/t Au including 11.5m of 19.25 g/t Au and THN21-195 with 84.00m of 1.1 g/t Au. Table 1 below provides the 2021 Trapper drill results, including the balance of the 2021 Trapper drill results not previously released.

The Trapper Target consists of volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks of the Upper Triassic Stuhini group, which are intruded by Cretaceous quartz diorite, interpreted as part of the Thorn Magmatic Suite. The quartz diorite is associated with high-grade gold mineralization at Trapper, including a broad gold zoning that extends into the Stuhini volcanic rocks.

Table 1. Trapper Gold Target Select Assay Intervals from 2021.

Hole From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Au

(g/t) Au

(g*m) Date Released THN21-185 7.82 274.00 266.18 0.14 38.00 November 12th, 2021



Incl. 7.82 19.00 11.18 1.02 11.45 THN21-186 2.49 190.00 187.51 1.60 300.82 November 12th, 2021















Incl. 48.00 187.00 139.00 2.14 297.46 Incl. 49.50 61.00 11.50 19.26 221.54 Incl. 50.00 50.50 0.50 160.00 80.00 And 60.54 61.00 0.46 276.00 126.96 THN21-187 2.82 58.00 55.18 0.21 11.72 November 12th, 2021



Incl. 30.70 43.00 12.30 0.68 8.30 THN21-188 82.50 141.00 58.50 0.11 6.52 December 6th, 2021



Incl. 131.00 141.00 10.00 0.37 3.71 THN21-189 3.62 121.60 117.98 0.13 15.71 December 6th, 2021



Incl. 3.62 25.00 21.38 0.43 9.12 THN21-190 72.00 94.78 22.78 0.12 2.83 December 6th, 2021 THN21-191 168.82 188.50 19.68 0.64 12.54 December 6th, 2021



Incl. 172.30 180.00 7.70 1.34 10.31 THN21-192 13.94 33.67 19.73 0.93 18.41 December 6th, 2021



Incl. 13.94 14.44 0.50 20.50 10.25 THN21-193 101.45 118.00 16.55 0.29 4.88 This Release THN21-194 12.00 16.00 4.00 0.24 0.95 This Release THN21-195 52.00 198.00 146.00 0.74 108.42 December 6th, 2021







Incl. 114.00 198.00 84.00 1.10 92.53 Incl. 167.00 198.00 31.00 2.00 62.15 THN21-196 47.00 143.50 96.50 0.50 47.81 This Release



Incl. 49.00 54.50 5.50 3.47 19.07 THN21-197 35.00 40.00 5.00 2.19 10.94 This Release



And 108.00 111.53 3.53 1.94 6.84 THN21-198 258.00 264.00 6.00 0.60 3.57 This Release THN21-199 7.00 258.47 251.47 0.02 4.68 This Release

Core samples were cut in half and sampled predominantly at 1m intervals. All assay values are uncut weighted averages. Intervals reflect drilled intercept lengths as further drilling is required to determine the true widths of the mineralization.

Click here for Figure 3. Visible Gold Drill Core Intercepts from the Trapper Target:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-3_21Jan2022-VG.jpg

Geochronology was completed at Trapper yielding an age date from U-Pb Zircon method of 85.2  1.2 Ma for the quartz diorite, the primary lithology which hosts gold mineralization. This Cretaceous age date is contemporaneous with the porphyry host rocks at Camp Creek Porphyry Target. Terrane Geosciences was contracted to conduct a structural mapping in the area, please see Figure 3 below. At surface, soil and rock geochemistry outline a 4km north-northwest gold trend and up to 1.5km in width with 2021 rock grab samples assaying up to 135.5 g/t Au. Gold-in-soil values have a strong positive correlation to lead and zinc. Several new copper-gold-silver showings were discovered outside the Trapper Gold trend in 2021 with values up to 23.5 g/t Au and 5.2% Cu.

Click here for Figure 4. Trapper Gold Target, Geology, Drilling and Rock Geochemistry:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-4_21Jan2022-trapper.jpg

Trapper will be a primary drill target for the 2022 season including 10,000-15,000m of drilling, with additional mapping, geochemical and geophysical surveys.

Outlaw Gold Target

The Central Outlaw Target is located more than 3km to the southeast from the Camp Creek Target. Gold Mineralization is hosted with clastic sediments as Triassic Stuhini group interbedded siltstone-graywacke where a gold-in-soil anomaly is about 5km long in an east-west trend. Mineralization is stratiform and within structural controlled areas and is thought to be to related to Jurassic dacite dykes that intrude the sediments. The Central Outlaw Zone has seen most of the drilling to date providing a continuous strike of 600m with drill results up to 59m of 1.1 g/ Au. The highest surface rock grab sample was from the East Outlaw area returning 22.98 g/t Au. Please see Figure 4 below for the gold-in-soils and the Central and East Outlaw drilling and rock sample results.

The plan at the Outlaw Target in 2022 is to drill for continuity and extension of gold mineralization between the Central and East Zone through 4-6 widely spaced drill holes.

Click here for Figure 5. Outlaw Zone, Gold-in-soils and Central-East Outlaw Zone Drilling:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-5_21Jan2022-outlaw.jpg

Metla Copper-Gold Porphyry Target

Metla is a copper-gold porphyry anomaly within the Thorn Project and is located about 15km to the Southeast from the Trapper area. The Metla claims were acquired in 2020 from Stuhini Exploration. Major rock units at Metla include sedimentary and mafic- to ultramafic-intrusive rocks of the Stikine assemblage, volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks of the Stuhini Group, Late Cretaceous to Paleocene felsic intrusive rocks, and hydrothermal breccia dykes that crosscut all of the previous units. Recent U-Pb zircon age dating indicates that the Au-Cu bearing granodiorite is Triassic in age, 220 +/- 3.1 Ma. Several distinct styles of mineralization occur in the Metla area including potassic altered diorite unit with bornite, chalcopyrite and chalcocite that returned 4.7% Cu, 1.8 g/t Au, 31 g/t Ag. Showings of massive pyrite, chalcopyrite and sphalerite are hosted in the hydrothermal breccia where rock samples have returned up to 62.7 g/t Au and 4.54% Cu. A 1989 trench by Cominco returned 9m of 4.6 g/t Au.

The 2022 exploration program will include extensive geochemistry, geological mapping and airborne radiometric and electrical geophysical surveys over the Metla target and will be used to define drill targets.

Click here for Figure 6. Metla Target Area, Copper-Gold Geochemistry and Geology:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-6_21Jan2022r.jpg



Plum Copper Target

The Plum Target is located 8 km east of the Metla Target, immediately west of Tatsamenie Lake. The geology is dominated by Mississippian volcanic rocks of the Stikine assemblage, with local Lower Permian limestone. The aforementioned rocks are intruded by Triassic and Jurassic diorites and Eocene mafic dykes. Copper mineralization is vein-hosted with chalcopyrite and pyrite, including local chalcocite. This mineralization is found within broader zones of silica and pyrite alteration. Grab samples collected in 2020 found multiple occurrences with greater than 1% Cu, including one rock grab sample assay of 3.32% Cu.

Follow-up prospecting, mapping and soil-rock sampling is planned for 2022.

Click here for Figure 7. Plum Target Copper Geochemistry:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-7_21Jan2022r.jpg

East Copper Porphyry Target

The East Target is located 25km east of Metla and 17km north-northeast of the Golden Bear Mine. The geology is dominated by Middle to Late Triassic quartz diorite and granodiorite intrusive rocks, with windows of Stuhini Group volcanic rocks. There are two main copper showings on either side of the Samotua River. The Ant showing is to the west and includes a 2km x 0.8km gossan with associated copper soil anomaly. Copper values in rocks reach up to 3.62% Cu and have not yet been drill tested. The Bing showing is on the east side of the river and includes widespread copper +/- molybdenum mineralization as disseminations and within porphyry style veining stockworks. Limited historic drilling here did not target the area hosting the most anomalous samples. Surface rock grab samples have returned up to 5.15% copper and 145 g/t silver.

Follow up mapping and rock-soil sampling are planned for 2022.

Click here for Figure 8. East Copper Target, Copper Geochemistry:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-8_21Jan2022r.jpg

West Copper Porphyry Target

The West copper target is located 5km west-southwest of the Camp Creek Target. Geology at the West Target is comprised of Triassic volcanic rocks of the Stuhini Group, and Jurassic argillite and conglomerate of the Laberge Group. These Mesozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks are cut by an Eocene granite (54.2 +/- 0.8Ma) and alkali feldspar granite batholith of the Sloko-Hyder Plutonic suite, some of which has been locally metamorphosed. Mineralization is vein-hosted and disseminated, with porphyry-style quartz-pyrite-chalcopyrite veins in the Eocene intrusive and Stuhini volcanic rocks. A float sample collected in 2020 assayed 4.27% Copper.

Follow-up mapping and rock sampling are planned for 2022.

Click here for Figure 9. West Copper Target Geochemistry:

https://brixtonmetals.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Figure-9_21Jan2022r.jpg

South Gold-Copper Target

The South Target is located approximately 35 km south of the Trapper Target. Geology includes greenstones of the Whitewater Metamorphic Complex, coarse clastic sedimentary rocks of the Stikine Assemblage and Late Triassic quartz diorite intrusive rocks. Known mineralization includes vein-hosted chalcopyrite and disseminated pyrite and chalcopyrite, although only reconnaissance geochemistry surveys have been completed in the target area to date. The target includes one of the highest-grade gold samples in silts from the BC Regional Geochemical Survey, with 990.7 ppb Au and elevated Cu-Ag-As. This RGS sample is one of the highest in BC. For reference, the highest RGS value in the entire KSM-Brucejack-Treaty area is 618 ppb and the highest RGS value in the Golden Triangle is 1,087 ppb Au at Johnny Mountain.

Follow up soil-rock geochemical surveys, prospecting and recon-mapping are planned for 2022.

For a map of all of the Thorn Project Target Areas, please visit the websites Thorn Project page: https://brixtonmetals.com/thorn-gold-copper-silver-project/

Mr. Gary R. Thompson, P.Geo., is the Chairman and CEO for the Company who is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Thompson has verified the data disclosed in this press release, including the sampling, analytical and test data underlying the information and has approved the technical information in this press release.

About Brixton Metals Corporation

Brixton is a Canadian exploration and development company focused on the advancement of its mining projects toward feasibility. Brixton wholly owns four exploration projects, the Thorn copper-gold-silver Project, the Atlin Goldfields Projects located in NW BC, the Langis-Hudbay silver-cobalt Project in Ontario and the Hog Heaven silver-gold-copper Project in NW Montana, USA, under an Farmout Option Agreement to Ivanhoe Electric Inc. Brixton Metals Corporation shares trade on the TSX-V under the ticker symbol BBB, and on the OTCQB under the ticker symbol BBBXF. For more information about Brixton, please visit our website at www.brixtonmetals.com .

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Mr. Gary R. Thompson, Chairman and CEO

Tel: 604-630-9707 or email: info@brixtonmetals.com



For Investor Relations, please contact:

Mitchell Smith, VP Investor Relations

Tel: 604-630-9707 or email: mitchell.smith@brixtonmetals.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as anticipate, believe, plan, estimate, expect, and intend, statements that an action or event may, might, could, should, or will be taken or occur, including statements that address potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size and expansion of a mineralized zone, proposed timing of exploration and development plans, or other similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the use of proceeds. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mineral exploration; fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; and the additional risks identified in the annual information form of the Company or other reports and filings with the TSXV and applicable Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking statements are made based on managements beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:



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WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Since founded in 2014, the World Dog Alliance (WDA) has been campaigning for legislations banning dog and cat meat with stellar achievements:

April 11, 2017: Taiwan passed the revised Animal Protection Act to outlaw dog and cat meat.

December 12, 2018: The United States passed the 2018 Farm Bill to outlaw dog and cat meat (Sec. 12515).

March 31, 2020: Shenzhen, China passed the Shenzhen Special Economic Region Regulation on a Comprehensive Ban on the Consumption of Wild Animals to outlaw dog and cat meat.

In 2019, the WDA presented the Golden Dog Award, the highest honor of the WDA, to Representative Alcee Hastings, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and Senator Pat Roberts in recognition of their contributions to outlawing dog and cat meat in the United States.

To further encourage action, Genlin, founder of the WDA, proposed the International Agreement to Prohibit the Eating of Dogs and Cats in 2019, aiming to establish an international framework for all countries to sign on, participate and monitor each other's activities. The International Agreement will start a global wave of banning dog and cat meat, and will realize Genlin's vision of "change human society, save dogs and cats."

As of today, 177 members of legislatures from the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden have signed on letters to their heads of state, calling for the initiation of the International Agreement to Prohibit the Eating of Dogs and Cats.

The United States

February 7, 2020: 30 bipartisan Members of Congress sent a letter to former President Donald Trump.

October 29, 2021: 38 bipartisan Members of Congress sent a letter to President Joe Biden.

United Kingdom

March 2, 2020: 67 cross-party Members of Parliament sent a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Japan

December 2, 2020: 34 members of the Parliamentary League for Animal Welfare sent a letter to former Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide.

Norway

June 18, 2021: Four Members of Parliament sent a letter to former Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Sweden

October 28, 2021: Four Members of Parliament sent a letter to former Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.

To unite like-minded legislators to campaign for the International Agreement to Prohibit the Eating of Dogs and Cats, Genlin is creating the Inter-Parliamentary Peace Alliance for Dogs and Cats in January 2022. This alliance will be led by the United States and Japan, and will consist of current legislators from 28 countries, including:

North America: United States, Canada

South America: Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico

Europe: United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Czech Republic, Turkey, Malta

Asia: Japan, South Korea, China, India, Thailand

Africa: South Africa, Nigeria

Oceania: Australia, New Zealand

Members of the alliance believe that human should live in peace with dogs and cats by respecting their rights to live. To change the tragic fate of over 30 millions dogs and cats slaughtered for food every year, countries around the world should jointly initiate the International Agreement to Prohibit the Eating of Dogs and Cats, so that Genlin's philosophy of "Trinity of Sustainability: Human-Animal-Environment" can be realized.

"The practice of eating dog and cat meat is a war against animal, and to stop such atrocity is the peace desperately needed in our era," said Genlin. In the new year of 2022, the Inter-Parliamentary Peace Alliance for Dogs and Cats will bring a ray of hope to dogs and cats!

Him Lo

info@wdalliance.org

Related Images











Image 1: World Dog Alliance's New Year Resolution





World Dog Alliance's New Year Resolution









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BENGALURU, India, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pixis (formerly known as Pyxis One), a leading provider of contextual codeless AI infrastructure for complete marketing optimization, today announced it has secured US $100M in Series C funding. Pixis will leverage the fresh funds to help the company rapidly scale its AI platforms and plugins, as well as accelerate expansions across North America, Europe, and APAC.



The Series C round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from new investor General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm. Existing investors Celesta, Premji Invest, and Chiratae Ventures also participated in the round. With the close of its US $17M Series B round just four months prior, Pixis has raised a total of US $124M to date since its inception in 2018.

Founded by Shubham A. Mishra (Global CEO), Vrushali Prasade (CTO), and Harikrishna Valiyath (CBO), the Pixis AI infrastructure leverages self-evolving neural networks to empower over 100 customers worldwide with AI-powered decision-making. Having witnessed a 600% growth since its inception, today, Pixis is uniquely poised to disrupt marketing to make it more agile and data-backed, especially in a world that is speedily heading towards a cookieless web. The SoftBank Vision Fund 2 investment in Pixis confirms that in a cookieless world, Artificial Intelligence could be the big differentiating factor for brands.

Priya Saiprasad, Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers said, "Marketing is one of the largest spending categories for companies but many of its decisions are still driven by intuition rather than data. Pixis has developed an end-to-end codeless AI infrastructure, that equips teams with cutting-edge data science to automate and improve core processes, from budget allocation to real-time campaign optimization and reporting. We are excited to partner with Shubham and the team to support their mission to make marketing data-backed, intelligent, agile, and effortlessly scalable in the new cookie-less world."

Shubham Mishra continued, "The web going cookieless, in conjunction with decreasing access to the depth of data that was previously available, is a worrisome situation for marketers. In this environment, it is self-evolving neural networks that are proving to be invaluable assets in countering the disruptions to the marketing landscape. We're excited to partner with SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and General Atlantic to make codeless AI infrastructure accessible to every market in the world."

Customers using the Pixis AI infrastructure have witnessed a 20% decrease in acquisition costs on average, in addition to at least 300 hours of manual work saved per month. The alluring factor for customers, however, is definitely the prospect of activating AI in 8 seconds without having to write a single line of code.

"Pixis is on a rapid growth trajectory and the fresh funds will help us far exceed our timelines for that", said Neel Pandya, the company's APAC CEO. "Especially with the introduction of our unique AI plugin, we've recorded enormous growth and retention with our current customer base. The capital will also help us speed up our tech development and bring to market newer products more quickly."

Looking ahead, Pixis aims to add over 200 customizable self-evolving AI models to the infrastructure it offers and has already introduced close to four dozen AI models since its last funding. And now, with the US$100 million Series C funding, Pixis is all set to fast-track tech and AI development.

About Pixis (formerly Pyxis One)

Pixis is a California-based technology company that provides codeless AI infrastructure to enable customers to scale accurate data-driven marketing. The company's codeless AI infrastructure currently comprises over four-dozen proprietary AI models that are deployed across an ecosystem of products and plugins. Pixis is on a mission to provide marketers with robust plug-and-play AI products without them having to write a single line of code.

About General Atlantic

General Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm with more than four decades of experience providing capital and strategic support for over 445 growth companies throughout its history. Established in 1980 to partner with visionary entrepreneurs and deliver lasting impact, the firm combines a collaborative global approach, sector-specific expertise, a long-term investment horizon, and a deep understanding of growth drivers to partner with great entrepreneurs and management teams to scale innovative businesses around the world. General Atlantic currently has over $86 billion in assets under management inclusive of all products as of September 30, 2021, and more than 215 investment professionals based in New York, Amsterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Stamford. For more information on General Atlantic, please visit the website: www.generalatlantic.com.

Related link

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/softbank-investment-advisers_marketing-is-one-of-the-largest-spend-categories-activity-6889927122006106112-_7xh

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/18/softbank-ai-infrastructure-pyxis-one-pixis/

Media contacts

Brand: Pixis

Email: anjali@pixis.ai , rishabh@one2en.com

Website: https://pixis.ai/

SOURCE: Pixis
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sterling Organization ("Sterling"), a vertically integrated private equity real estate investment firm headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, is pleased to promote Steven Levine within its leadership team as Senior Vice President of Investments and Operations for its recently formed subsidiary Sterling Logistics Properties. Mr. Levine will be responsible for the execution of both the investment strategy and the day-to-day operational performance of the Sterling Consumer Logistics Properties series of Funds.

"We are pleased to have Steven join our Logistics Properties team," said Joe Dykstra, President of Sterling Logistics Properties. "Steven has been with Sterling Organization since late 2015 and has underwritten upwards of 200 properties during his tenure. He is highly respected amongst his peers and I personally look forward to working with Steven to grow our Logistics Properties team."

Most recently, Mr. Levine served as Senior Vice President, Transaction Management for Sterling Organization and its related entities. In such role, Mr. Levine managed the acquisition and disposition processes for the firm's retail investments, while leading teams tasked with the execution of said transactions. In addition, he negotiated purchase and sale agreements, reviewed financial underwriting, and presented due diligence findings to the firm's Investment Committees. Prior to joining Sterling, Mr. Levine worked for Ernst & Young in its Financial Services Office (FSO) Advisory group and PricewaterhouseCoopers in its Assurance practice in New York City.

"I am excited to help grow the recently formed Sterling Logistics Properties platform. Sterling has had a huge influence on my career growth, and I am thrilled for the opportunity to expand my strengths. I believe my experience and industry knowledge will provide a fresh perspective, assisting Sterling to further establish the company in LAST HOUR consumer focused distribution and micro-fulfillment real estate," said Steven Levine, Senior Vice President of Investments and Operations for Sterling Logistics Properties.

Mr. Levine graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Economics and Management and received a Master of Accounting from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

###

Sterling Organization is a vertically integrated private equity real estate firm whose national platform is focused on investing in LAST HOUR consumer fulfillment and distribution real estate assets across the risk spectrum in major markets within the United States. Sterling Organization, with offices across the nation, is headquartered in West Palm Beach, FL.

Media Contact: Dana Verhelst, dverhelst@sterlingorganization.com

www.sterlingorganization.com

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Image 1: Steven Levine





Steven Levine, Senior Vice President of Investments and Operations for Sterling Logistics Properties









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ROCHESTER, N.Y., Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Casana, a healthcare technology firm that is reinventing in-home health monitoring, announced today that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding, bringing the total capital raised to $46 million. This round of financing was led by Morningside with participation from Matrix Partners, a large vertically integrated healthcare provider, as well as Series A investors General Catalyst and Outsiders Fund.



Casana will use its Series B financing to accelerate the development and commercialization of the firms first product, The Heart Seat. Casana is currently pursuing FDA clearance for The Heart Seat. The Heart Seats first commercial offering is expected to be a cuffless blood pressure monitor built into the toilet seat, which is designed to support in-home health management, specifically to help people manage and control high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. Casana is also investing in several studies to investigate the potential value of The Heart Seat for health systems and risk-bearing organizations.

Casana CEO Austin McChord said, In a world overrun with push notifications, nudges, and reminders, our product needs none of that. The Heart Seat is different from virtually every other vitals monitoring product, in that it takes no time out of your day and works best when you forget its even there.

In-home health monitoring, better known as remote patient monitoring (RPM), has grown in relevance due to the advent of COVID-19, as well as the subsequent need for continuous monitoring solutions outside of the clinical setting. The global RPM market surged in value during 2020, reaching $23.2 billion and is expected to grow five times larger by 2025. The remote patient monitoring market in North America alone is expected to surpass $72.8 billion by 2025, according to a report released by MarketsandMarkets . The biggest challenge for most home health monitoring devices is poor patient compliance. Casanas Heart Seat aims to help mitigate this problem, and provides effortless daily monitoring and reporting of multiple health parameters for patients.

As healthcare moves from the doctors office into the home, convenient home monitoring is becoming increasingly important for patient care. Casanas Heart Seat holds the unique promise of reliably and conveniently measuring multiple health parameters including Blood Pressure, Heart Rate and Oxygen Saturation, all in the privacy of the patients home, said Dr Jeffrey M Leiden, Chairman of the Board of Casana, and former CEO and Chairman of Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

Casana differentiates itself from other companies trying to develop RPM solutions by creating an effortless experience for patients and a seamless experience for physicians. The Heart Seat is designed to enable patients to receive monitoring at home without the need for behavior changesaddressing the adherence issues that plague many other deviceswhile providing physicians and other caregivers with reliable and actionable trend data from the home.

Casanas Heart Seat has the potential to fundamentally change the way cardiovascular disease is monitored, by changing the venue of care from the clinic to the home and providing insights to the clinician, said Gerald Chan, Co-founder of Morningside. We invest in bold ideas backed by solid science, and are proud to partner with Casana in this endeavor.

This series B funding will allow Casana to accelerate FDA submission of the Heart Seat with the goal to obtain FDA approval and bring this important new device to patients in 2022.

About Casana

Casana is unlocking a new category in healthcare technologies that enable effortless, integrated, and consistent in-home health monitoring. Casanas first product, The Heart Seat is an IoT health monitoring toilet seat that captures clinically relevant measurements, including heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygenation. Casanas mission is to assist medical teams in their care management of patients with chronic conditions beyond the four walls of the hospital, starting with hypertension. Casana was founded in 2018 by Dr. Nicholas Conn, whose vision was to use passive, connected sensors to solve the challenges of managing health at home. He developed The Heart Seat during his Ph.D. work at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

For more information about Casana, please visit www.casanacare.com and follow us on our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Casana is actively hiring: casanacare.com/about/#careers

About Morningside

Morningside was founded in 1986 by the Chan family to make venture capital and private equity investments. The group is characterized by its long-term outlook in company-building and by its unwavering commitment to acting ethically. Solid and creative science is what drives Morningsides investments.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/66662d52-a755-417b-8ea9-cf870aa476ae
FAIR LAWN, N.J., Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Columbia Bank is pleased to welcome, Justin Jennings, the new Executive Vice President, Operations Officer, effective immediately. Jennings, who replaces Brian Murphy upon his retirement in April 2022, is responsible for the Operations division including Card Services, Deposit Operations, Loan Servicing and the Customer Service Center.



Mr. Jennings spent his entire career at JPMorgan Chase & Co., beginning in the Operations Management Development Program and progressed through various leadership roles, most recently serving as Executive Director, Head of Treasury Services for Community Development Banking. In the position, he focused on providing greater service nationally to underserved areas, including community development, financial institutions and multi-family affordable housing owners and operators.

Very active in the community, Mr. Jennings serves as a participant in school-wide operations of Harlem Link Charter School, and is a member of Link Unlimited, an organization that provides need-based scholarships and mentoring for African American students through high school and college with an expectation of 100% graduation rate. He is also a lifelong service member of the Historically Black Greek Letter Organization, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

Justin holds an MBA from the Mendoza School of Business, University of Notre Dame and a Bachelors degree in Sociology from The Ohio State University. He currently resides in South Orange, New Jersey with his wife and two children.

About Columbia Bank

Founded in 1927 and headquartered in Fair Lawn, NJ, Columbia Bank has 62 full-service branch networks spanning the state of New Jersey, an asset base of approximately $9.1 billion. Columbia Bank offers a full suite of consumer and commercial products, including online and mobile banking, localized lending centers as well as title, investment and wealth management services. For more information about Columbia Banks complete line of products and services, visit www.ColumbiaBankOnline.com. Follow Columbia Bank on: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube & Linked In.

CONTACT:

Tony Rose

First Senior Vice President

Marketing Director

(201) 794-5828

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/61e69da0-d5ea-484d-944b-e06213fa637c
Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. Department of Agricultures (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) today announced key achievements for 2021 that highlight progress in its mission to prevent foodborne illness and protect public health.

New Approach to Salmonella in Poultry

The hallmark of 2021 was the announcement of the agencys new approach to Salmonella in poultry. The initiative, launched in October, casts a wide and inclusive net in the pursuit of innovative approaches to pathogen control that is responsive to evolving food safety hazards and embraces the latest science and technology. The goal is to develop a stronger and more comprehensive framework to address Salmonella in poultry that will more effectively reduce human illness related to these products.

As a public health agency, we can and must find a more effective way to reduce foodborne illness, said Sandra Eskin, USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety. We've embarked on a collaborative effort to revise how we reduce Salmonella illnesses associated with poultry products.

In the span of three months, the agency initiated several conversations and events with stakeholders that would consider what a systems-based approach to Salmonella control with multiple, complementary control points, might look like for the agency. FSIS charged the National Advisory Committee for Microbiological Criteria in Foods (NACMCF) to advise on how FSIS can build on the latest science to improve its approach to Salmonella control. FSIS also held a series of stakeholder roundtables to generate open discussion on the topic. Meanwhile, the agency is inviting poultry slaughter and processing establishments to submit proposals for pilot projects that will evaluate different control strategies for Salmonella contamination in poultry products. The agency will be accepting proposals into the new year and will be holding its next set of roundtables in 2022.

Supporting Small and Very Small Establishments

Recognizing how critical small and very small plants are to the Nations food supply, USDA worked to strengthen and build fairer markets for these small businesses through critical infrastructure and business investments in 2021. The Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA), and the Egg Products Inspection Act (EPIA) provide that mandatory inspection costs be borne by the United States, except for the costs of overtime and holiday pay. To alleviate the financial burden this may put on small and very small plants, including those that have adapted to the pandemic by extending their hours of operation, FSIS has reduced overtime and holiday inspection fees for small establishments by 30 percent and very small establishments by 75 percent. FSIS has been implementing this provision of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) since July 2021. The ARP provided FSIS $100 million over 10 years to subsidize these fees for small and very small meat, poultry, and egg products establishments. By December, 2,421 small and very small establishments were receiving reduced rates with approximately $17.4 million in fee reductions. Throughout the year, FSIS holds monthly, interactive town hall calls for establishments where small and very small plants can ask questions and receive answers from FSIS leadership. Additional forms of outreach in 2021 included four roundtable discussions for small and very small plants in California, North Carolina, Georgia, and Wisconsin, as well as technical support through agency subject matter experts and promotion of tools such as the Small Plant Help Desk, askFSIS, and industry guidelines.

Labeling

As the public health regulatory agency responsible for ensuring that the U.S. commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged, FSIS must keep up with new challenges and opportunities presented by technology and globalization.

In December 2021, the public comment period closed on FSIS advance notice of proposed rulemaking pertaining to the labeling of meat and poultry products comprised of or containing cultured cells derived from animals subject to the FMIA or the PPIA. The notice, released in September, outlines issues and questions on the topic while also discussing how FSIS would generally evaluate labels for these products if they are submitted for FSIS evaluation before the agency completes rulemaking. As we enter 2022, FSIS will continue to review the comments, which will be used to inform regulatory requirements to ensure the accurate and truthful labeling of food made from cultured livestock and poultry cells.

Knowing that consumers depend upon accurate, transparent labels to obtain important information about food, USDA also initiated a top-to-bottom review of the Product of USA label. In July 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a final rule to strengthen its enforcement around the Made in USA claim. Secretary Vilsack issued a statement that day noting the Departments commitment to ensuring that the Product of USA label for meat products reflects what a plain understanding of those terms means to U.S. consumers. The comprehensive review of the Product of USA label has begun and will continue into 2022.

Response to COVID-19

Among its key achievements this year, the agency continued to adapt to challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritizing the health and safety of its employees while ensuring that it can continue to meet its food safety mission. While FSIS requires its employees to wear a mask in federal buildings, regulated establishments, and government owned or leased vehicles regardless of vaccination status, the agency also issued mask requirements for establishments where FSIS provides inspection services. Effective August 25, 2021, FSIS required all FSIS-regulated facilities to have their employees and/or contractors wear masks if FSIS inspection program personnel are present and when the criteria laid out in the CDCs guidance are applicable to the county where the establishment is located. The agency continued to hold monthly town hall calls to proactively provide guidance for employees and industry. The agency will continue to focus on employee safety as it navigates the impact of COVID-19 and its variants as we enter the new year. The agency is proud of the 33 FSIS employees, who in support of the federal COVID-19 vaccination campaign led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) earlier this year, vaccinated nearly 400,000 people across six clinics located in Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.

Fostering Diversity, Equity, and Opportunity

FSIS made strides in its efforts to foster an inclusive workplace where individuals are respected, trusted, valued, and work together collaboratively to achieve agency goals. FSIS is dedicated to recruiting and retaining excellent talent to carry out the agencys mission to protect public health. FSIS takes pride in its diverse workforce and is deeply committed to upholding and promoting the values of equity, inclusion, and equal opportunity among the workforce and those the agency serves. FSIS hosted a three-day virtual Diversity and Inclusion Conference, which offered training on diversity and inclusion, conflict management, health, and wellness to all employees.

In terms of recruitment, FSIS continued to leverage the use of the direct hire authority approved by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to hire Food Inspectors (FIs) and Consumer Safety Inspectors (CSIs), which will continue into 2022. In FY 2021, FSIS hired 538 FIs and CSIs, with an additional 777 FIs and CSIs in the pre-employment stages of hiring. During 2021, FSIS also took key steps to recruit and retain Public Health Veterinarians (PHVs), who are a vital part of the FSIS food safety mission. The agencys recruitment incentives provide $20,000 to participating PHVs divided over 4 years, continuation of a paid move to their first duty station, continuation of the Adel A. Malak Scholarship program, a Student Loan Repayment Program, and other retention incentive programs that provide additional biweekly or annual payments based on an employees years of service.

Collaboration with Public Health Partners

Much of the agencys efforts to ensure the safety of the nations food supply involves the continuous collaboration with public health partners, including the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Not only do these partnerships improve interagency coordination of federal food safety efforts, but they also help to address gaps and priorities regarding food safety data. In July 2021, USDA and FDA signed a Memorandum of Understanding to permit more efficient use of resources and contribute to improved public health protection. FSIS expects this to enhance the exchange of information related to dual jurisdiction establishments and operations, which are subject to the jurisdiction of both agencies. FSIS also hosted meetings of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection.

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming Americas food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy, and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.

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CITY OF QUEBEC, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Please note that there was an error in a press release issued by Robex Resources Inc. (TSXV: RBX) under the same headline on January 18, 2022, at 09:30 am EST. The corrected release follows:

Robex Resources Inc. (Robex, the Group or the Company) (TSXV: RBX)



Record December production

ROBEX Resources Inc. is pleased to announce a record production in December 2021 with a monthly tonnage of 192,024 tonnes at a grade of 0.94 g/t, producing 166 kg (5,337 oz of dore).

This production rate continues with 95,877 tonnes of ore processed during the first 15 days of January.

The new mining plan established this year enabled us to optimize the Nampala resources. The results confirm this strategys effectiveness:

Period Tonnage

(tonnes) Grade

(g/t) Stripping

(S/M) Production

(Oz) Q1 2021 472,410 0.75 5.70 10,642 Q2 2021 474,435 0.82 4.75 11,124 Q3 2021 481,690 0.79 2.77 11,317 Q4 2021 519,749 0.88 3.23 13,471 Annual 1,948,284 0.81 4.11 46,554

We have seen a continuous improvement throughout 2021:

Tonnage was up strongly, which is explained by the commissioning of multiple investments: first the cone crusher, then in December the new cyclone pumps that enabled us to achieve the December production record. Investment in a new crusher feeder planned for 2022 should enable us to further improve the plants efficiency.

Steady improvement in grade and stripping ratio with the new mining plan.

Improvement in production costs

The combined effect of tonnage increase, grade improvement and lower stripping ratio have significantly improved production costs.

External growth

In addition to these production improvements, Robex continues to actively pursue its ambitions for external growth. Accordingly, and as previously announced, management is currently examining various projects to implement the Companys business plan and achieve its new objectives.

Situation in Mali

Robex is closely monitoring developments in Mali and the possible consequences of international decisions on the mining sector.

For the moment, operations continue as usual with no particular impact.

For more information, the Robex management report and summary interim consolidated financial statements (unaudited) are available on the Companys website in the Investors section. These reports and other documents produced by the Company are also available at: sedar.com.

A word from the chairman, Mr. Georges Cohen:

Once again, I congratulate the team for the great work and the improvement in Nampalas results.

This press release allows me also to thank all our employees in Quebec and Mali for their accomplishments and wish them and our shareholders a great 2022.

About ROBEX:

Robex Resources Inc. is a TSX-V listed Canadian mining company with exploration properties in Mali and an operating mine. The group has a strong business model, which demonstrated great results with the Nampala mine. With this experience, Robex is now striving to grow in West Africa by acquiring and/or developing new mines.

For more information:

Benjamin Cohen, CEO

Aurelien Bonneviot, investors relations and corporate development

a.bonneviot@robexgold.com

Head office: +1-581-741-7421

This press release contains statements that may be considered forecast information or forecast statements in terms of security rights. These forecasts are subject to uncertainties and risks, some of which are beyond the control of Robex. Achievements and final results may differ significantly from implicit or explicit forecasts. These differences can be attributed to many factors, including market volatility, the impact of the exchange rate and interest rate fluctuations, mispricing, the environment (tighter regulations), unforeseen geological situations, unfavourable operating conditions, political risks inherent in mining in developing countries, changes in government politics or regulations (laws and policies), an inability to obtain necessary permits and approvals from government agencies, or any other risk associated with mining and development. There can be no assurance that the circumstances set out in these forecasts will occur, or even benefit Robex. The forecasts are based on the estimates and opinions of the Robex management team at the time of publication. Robex makes no commitment to make any updates or changes to these publicly available forecasts based on new information or events, or for any other reason, except as required by applicable security laws. The TSX Venture Exchange or the Regulation Services Provider (as defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) assumes no responsibility for the authenticity or accuracy of this press release.
Washington, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , announced $3 million in new funding for state governments to help emerging small businesses across America develop their cybersecurity infrastructure  a priority of the Biden-Harris Administration, outlined in the Presidents Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). As part of the Cybersecurity for Small Business Pilot Program, through the Office of Entrepreneurial Development, state governments are eligible to compete for grants that will help deliver cybersecurity assistance to nascent and start-up business owners. Applications will be accepted from January 26, 2022, through March 3, 2022.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, small businesses have adopted technology at high rates to survive, operate, and grow their businesses. As a result, cybersecurity has become increasingly important as now, more than ever before, small business owners face cyber risks and challenges that could disrupt their operations and competitive advantages. As we seek to build a stronger and more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem, we must innovate and provide resources to meet the evolving needs of the growing number of small businesses. With this new funding opportunity, the SBA intends on leveraging the strengths across our state governments, territories, and tribal governments to provide services to help small businesses get cyber ready and, in the process, fortify our nations supply chains, said SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman .

The bottom line is we must do more to help small businesses combat cybersecurity threats, which continue to increase, evolve and inhibit, said SBA Associate Administrator for the Office of Entrepreneurial Development Mark Madrid . This pilot program will empower state governments to expand existing services, innovate, adapt to current environments, develop new resources, and scale solutions to assist more small businesses. Additionally, expanding access to underserved and underrepresented small business ecosystems will be a critical marker of success.

About the Cybersecurity for Small Business Pilot Program

Eligible applicants are comprised of state governments that seek to provide training, counseling, remediation, and other tailored cybersecurity services for emerging small firms in multiple industries. Grantees will be awarded up to $1 million to assist small businesses.

Funding details and requirements are available at Grants.gov under Cybersecurity for Small Business Pilot (Funding Opportunity Number SB-OEDCS-22-001/CDFA 59.079) offered by the SBA. Applications must be submitted by the stated deadline on the official grant application portal as stated in the funding announcement.

To learn more about SBAs programs and services related to cybersecurity, visit www.sba.gov/cybersecurity .

To find additional SBA local resources, visit www.sba.gov/tools/local-assistance .

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About the U.S. Small Business Administration
Washington, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), delivered remarks to more than 200 mayors and business leaders at the Mayors and Business Leaders Plenary Breakfast Thursday as part of the three-day 90th Winter Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM). In her speech, Administrator Guzman highlighted how the SBA and local governments can work together to provide small businesses the assistance they need to survive and thrive amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Biden-Harris Administration and the SBA have focused this past year on meeting small businesses where they are and filling gaps in relief to ensure equitable recovery for all our hard-working entrepreneurs, said Administrator Guzman. Weve done all this working alongside you  together with local organizations in your own backyards with our expanded lending network empowering local community financial institutions. And we have made these connections stronger with the launch of the American Rescue Plan supported inclusive network of Community Navigators, who are powering over 450 new touchpoint organizations focused on underserved and highly entrepreneurial communities in your cities. We are committed to continuing to build on this work because Americas cities are defined by small businesses.

Administrator Guzman was introduced by Miami, FL Mayor Francis Suarez and followed remarks by Secretary Marcia Fudge of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last April, Administrator Guzman participated in a Zoom call with USCM leadership, including Mayor Suarez; Louisville, KY Mayor Greg Fischer; former Mayor of Dayton, OH Nan Whaley; former Columbia, SC Mayor Stephen Benjamin; Burnsville, MN Mayor Elizabeth Kautz; Westland, MI Mayor William Wild; Los Angeles, CA Mayor Eric Garcetti, and USCM CEO and Director Tom Cochran to discuss key small business initiatives.

That month, the SBA and USCM also signed a Strategic Alliance Memorandum (SAM) agreement to develop and foster mutual understanding and a working relationship between the SBA and the USCM to help start, maintain, strengthen, and expand small business development at the local level.

Administrator Guzman participated in a Small Business Task Force meeting following the breakfast. The meeting started with briefing opening remarks by USCM Small Business & Entrepreneurship Task Force Co-Chairs Mayors Kautz and Wild, and Administrator Guzman informed over 25 mayors about SBA programs. The meeting concluded with a Q&A session moderated by Mayor Kautz.

Bibi Hidalgo, Associate Administrator for the Office of Government Contracting & Business Development , attended the Small Business Task Force meeting with Administrator Guzman. There she answered questions from mayors regarding government contracting and the SBAs work supporting small business contractors interested in working with the Federal Government, including Woman-owned, Veteran-owned, Socially Disadvantaged, HUBZone, and 8(a) Minority Business Development Program small businesses.

Mark Madrid, Associate Administrator for the Office of Entrepreneurial Development , also joined Administrator Guzman in attending the USCM Winter Meeting Thursday, participating in a panel during a special session on inclusive prosperity through entrepreneurship and workforce readiness. Associate Administrator Madrid discussed SBA programs that support small business economic development, including the Community Navigator Pilot Program.

The essence of the Community Navigator Pilot Program is to connect in a hyperlocal way and meet small businesses where they are, said Associate Administrator Madrid. For this Navigator approach to be successful, it is essential that we connect community champions with local, peer-to-peer ecosystems. Our hope is that you as mayors and community leaders can rally behind this hub-and-spoke concept, nurture it and cultivate it.

The USCM Winter Meeting featured mayors from around the nation, Congressional officials and Biden-Harris administration officials discussing the priorities of Americas cities in 2022. In the meeting, the mayors discussed a wide range of topics, including the implementation of the American Rescue Plan Act, Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, public safety, climate change, affordable housing, small businesses, and economic mobility.

###

About the U.S. Small Business Administration

The U.S. Small Business Administration makes the American dream of business ownership a reality. As the only go-to resource and voice for small businesses backed by the strength of the federal government, the SBA empowers entrepreneurs and small business owners with the resources and support they need to start, grow or expand their businesses, or recover from a declared disaster. It delivers services through an extensive network of SBA field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations. To learn more, visit www.sba.gov .

Attachments
BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- While addressing the sixth plenary session of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection earlier this week, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, emphasized the need for full and strict Party governance, and underscored that there would be zero-tolerance on corruption.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the CPC Central Committee has improved Party conduct, upheld integrity, and addressed corruption with unprecedented courage and resolve, according to Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Over the years, "observing discipline and rules" has been a consistent requirement from Xi to all Party members and officials. Indeed, in this he leads by example.

For Chen Chengmao, Xi's secretary during the 1990s, a yellowed receipt for TV repair, over which he had been seriously criticized by his otherwise amiable leader, reminds him of Xi's strict adherence to discipline.

In March 1995, when Xi served as the Party chief of the eastern city of Fuzhou, he once asked Chen to help him get his TV repaired. After the work was done, Chen did not pay the fee, taking it as a matter of course that the maintenance of items in public apartments should be covered by public spending.

Unexpectedly, his action was met with ire. "When the TV in my apartment needs repair, it ought to be charged to me," Xi told him, insisting on covering the bill himself. Xi paid 50 yuan, about a quarter of his monthly salary.

On another occasion, Xi warned Chen to "always observe discipline and rules, not seek privilege, and mind one's own behavior," a warning that has remained with Chen to this day.

Shortly after assuming the Party's top post in late 2012, Xi convened a Party leadership meeting at which an eight-point code on improving Party and government conduct was adopted.

The code, centering on promoting thrift and curbing squander of public funds, had thereafter brought about profound changes to the Party as well as the country.

As of June, discipline inspection and supervision organs across the country have investigated and dealt with 626,000 cases of violating the eight-point code, and 322,000 people were punished.

"Improving Party conduct and fighting corruption remain high on our agenda. Our Party, a large political Party with a hundred-year history, should constantly improve its conduct, build a clean government and fight corruption, to always maintain its advanced and pure nature, vitality and vigor," Xi once said. 
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES



VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Thesis Gold Inc. (TSX-V: TAU) (Thesis or the Company) is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into an agreement with Clarus Securities Inc. as lead agent (the Lead Agent) and sole bookrunner (the Bookrunner), on behalf of a syndicate of agents (collectively, the Agents), in connection with a marketed best efforts private placement of up to approximately C$24.5 million (the Offering).

The Offering will consist of (i) up to 7,407,450 Premium Flow-through Shares (the Premium FT Shares) at a price of C$2.70 per Premium FT Share for gross proceeds of up to C$20,000,115; and (ii) up to 1,875,000 Flow-through Shares (the FT Shares) at a price of $2.40 per FT Share for gross proceeds of up to $4,500,000. The Premium FT Shares and FT Shares issued pursuant to the Offering will be subject to a four month hold period in accordance with the policies of the TSX venture Exchange and applicable securities laws. The Company does not expect that the Offering will result in the creation of any new control person of the Company.

The gross proceeds from the sale of Premium FT Shares and FT Shares will be used by the Company to incur eligible "Canadian exploration expenses" that will qualify as "flow-through mining expenditures" as such terms are defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Qualifying Expenditures") related to the Company's projects in Canada. All Qualifying Expenditures will be renounced in favour of the subscribers of the Flow-Through Shares effective December 31, 2022. The net proceeds from the sale of the shares will be used by the Company for working capital and general corporate purposes.

The Offering is scheduled to close on or about February 10, 2022, and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities to be issued under this Offering will be offered by way of private placement exemptions in all the provinces of Canada. The Units to be issued under this Offering will also be offered offshore, including in the United Kingdom pursuant to applicable exemptions and in the United States on a private placement basis pursuant to exemptions from the registration requirements of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

About Thesis Gold Inc.

Thesis Gold is a mineral exploration company focused on proving and developing the resource potential of the 17,832-hectare RanchGold Project located in the "Golden Horseshoe" area of northern British Columbia, approximately 300 km north of Smithers, B.C. For further details about the RanchGold Project and the 2021 drill program, please the videos on the project - https://howardgroupinc.com/thesisgoldvideos/

Thesis trades on the TSX.V under the symbol TAU.

For Additional Information Please Contact:

Dave Burwell

Vice President

The Howard Group Inc.

Email: dave@howardgroupinc.com

Tel: 403-410-7907

Toll Free: 1-888-221-0915



Nick Stajduhar

Director

Thesis Gold

Email: nicks@thesisgold.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the use of proceeds from the Company's recently completed financings, and the future plans or prospects of the Company. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to business, market and economic risks, uncertainties and contingencies that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Other factors which could materially affect such forward-looking information are described in the risk factors in the Company's most recent annual management's discussion and analysis which is available on the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
HOUSTON, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Superior Energy Services, Inc. (the Company) has announced Brian K. Moore, the Companys executive vice president, was appointed to serve as president and chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of the Company. Mr. Moore will also serve on the audit committee and compensation committee of the Companys board of directors. As a result of Mr. Moores appointment, Michael Y. McGovern, the Companys executive chairman of its board of directors, will no longer perform the functions of the Companys principal executive officer but will remain with the Company as executive chairman of the board of directors.



The appointment of Mr. Moore represents the conclusion of a rigorous selection process. Brian is the unquestionable best candidate, given the breadth of his experience, extensive oil field service background, tested and proven judgment, and history with the Company, said Mike McGovern.

Brian joined the Company as Senior Executive Vice President in 2012 and has served as Executive Vice President of Corporate Services since 2016. In 2021, he led the divestitures of the US Onshore hydraulic fracturing, well service, coiled tubing, fluid management, and accommodations businesses.

Mr. Moore stated, Im very appreciative for the support of our board and look forward to the opportunity to continue to work with Mike McGovern, who has led the Company with such distinction over the past nine months. Throughout this last year, we have undertaken the hard work and commitment towards transforming Superior into a more focused, competitive, and well-positioned Company. But most importantly, I am proud that Superior has remained committed to our Shared Core Values throughout these remarkable times, especially the safety and health of those with whom we work.

I look forward to working together with our excellent leadership team and employees toward Superiors future successes and thank them for their dedication and perseverance, Mr. Moore said.

About Superior Energy Services

Superior Energy Services serves the drilling, completion and production-related needs of oil and gas companies worldwide through a diversified portfolio of specialized oilfield services and equipment that are used throughout the economic life cycle of oil and gas wells. For more information, visit: www.superiorenergy.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains, and future oral or written statements or press releases by the Company and its management may contain, certain forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Generally, the words expects, anticipates, targets, goals, projects, intends, plans, believes, seeks and estimates, variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. All statements other than statements of historical fact regarding the Companys financial position, financial performance, liquidity, strategic alternatives, market outlook, future capital needs, capital allocation plans, business strategies and other plans and objectives of our management for future operations and activities are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by the Companys management in light of its experience and prevailing circumstances on the date such statements are made. Such forward-looking statements, and the assumptions on which they are based, are inherently speculative and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the Companys actual results to differ materially from such statements. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions concerning future events and are subject to a number of uncertainties and factors, many of which are outside the control of the Company, which could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements.

While the Company believes that the assumptions concerning future events are reasonable, it cautions that there are inherent difficulties in predicting certain important factors that could impact the future performance or results of its business.

These forward-looking statements are also affected by the risk factors, forward-looking statements and challenges and uncertainties described in the Companys Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 and Forms 10-Q filed on September 30, 2021, October 29, 2021 and December 2, 2021 and those set forth from time to time in the Companys other periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at www.superiorenergy.com. Except as required by law, the Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Wendell York, VP  IR, Corporate Development & Treasury

1001 Louisiana St., Suite 2900

Houston, TX 77002

Investor Relations, ir@superiorenegy.com, (713) 654-2200
Gloucester, MA (01930)

Today

Cloudy with periods of rain. High 51F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a half an inch..

Tonight

Becoming partly cloudy after some evening rain. Low 46F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
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
TEHRAN, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Western countries involved in the ongoing Vienna nuclear negotiations on Thursday continued to create a sense of urgency by highlighting again that it was now just a matter of weeks to revive the 2015 Iranian nuclear pact, despite Iran's repeated rejection of such "constructed deadlines."

The months-long diplomatic endeavors in the Austrian capital have yet to find a way to break the impasse between Washington and Tehran, which have negotiated indirectly through the mediation of the European Union.

Although there has been no deadline formally set for the end of the talks, it seems that unless the challenges are dealt with fairly, the negotiation may lead to a more complicated and trickier situation.

"DECISIVE MOMENT"

"There is real urgency and it's really now a matter of weeks, where we determine whether or not we can return to mutual compliance with the agreement," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a news conference on Thursday after meeting British, French and German ministers in Berlin.

"We are indeed at a decisive moment," he noted.

Also, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said earlier that the negotiations on the fate of the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), "are underway but from our point of view they are slow, too slow."

"There is a vital urgency on this issue because of Iran's own actions and the trajectory of its nuclear program," he told the French parliament last week.

Meanwhile, the eighth round of negotiations has entered "a critical and relatively decisive stage," the outcome of which can have a significant impact on the outcome of the negotiations, Nour News, a media outlet close to Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said recently.

An examination of the current process in the negotiations reveals the fact that in less complex issues of dispute, progress has accelerated, but disagreement on more difficult areas remains, according to Nour News, which suggested the parties involved "come to the talks with more initiative and authority to pass this stage."

"MEDIA GAMES"

Making media literature on "time constraints" and repeating the threat of "taking advantage of other options" if diplomacy fails is an "old and inefficient tool the Western side of negotiations still insists on using," Nour News said, in an apparent reference to the warning by the Western parties to the deal that "window for diplomacy is closing."

There is no need to repeat "fruitless media games," if the West, especially the United States, prefers "the need for wise decision-making over politicking and extravagance," it added.

"Iran has done everything in its power to constructively engage in the talks. It has actively contributed to the progress of the talks through drafting and presenting innovative proposals," Tehran Times said recently

"The slow pace of Vienna talks is due to Western obstinacy," it added.

In an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said negotiators in Vienna "are not advancing a lot" on the sanctions-lifting aspect of the deal, because "Americans are yet to make the needed political decisions in their capital."

"BEHAVIORAL CONTRADICTION"

Amir Ali Abolfath, an Iranian international affairs analyst, wrote in Arman Melli newspaper about the "behavioral contradiction of the Americans" in the ongoing nuclear talks in Vienna.

"On the one hand, the Americans are asking for the progress of negotiations, and on the other hand, they are not taking any practical steps to revive the agreement," he said.

If the current U.S. government is critical of the behavior of the previous government and considers leaving the JCPOA "a big mistake", it should take an effective step to solve the problem, Abolfath concluded.

Likewise, Soheil Sabet, a political expert, wrote in a note in Arman Melli that the time for the Western parties has arrived to show their real willingness to reach an agreement by taking "meaningful and action-oriented" steps.

According to the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Western diplomats have warned that the biggest obstacles to the Vienna talks on salvaging the JCPOA is Iran's request for a legal guarantee that the United States would not re-withdraw from a possible deal and re-impose sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Khatibzadeh told Xinhua that the Iranian side wants to ensure that "enough mechanisms are embedded in the new understanding that the United States can get to the deal when there is a reliable and stable new agreement."

Iran demands "objective guarantees that the United States is not going to mock international law" by violating the deal again, Khatibzadeh said, adding Iran wants to "verify that this time they are not going to cheat as previously they did their best to actually make enough obstacles for Iran's economic, trade, and business relations with other counties." 
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Maimunah Mohd Sharif of Malaysia was re-elected by the UN General Assembly as the executive director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) for a term of office of two years.

Her initial four-year term ended on Wednesday. Her new two-year term starts on Jan. 20, 2022, and ends on Jan. 19, 2024.

The General Assembly on Thursday acted on the recommendation of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sharif's re-election was approved without a vote.

Before becoming head of UN-Habitat, Sharif was mayor of Penang in Malaysia. She has over 30 years of experience in urban planning, urban regeneration and community-led development.

Since joining the United Nations in January 2018, Sharif has re-positioned UN-Habitat as a thought leader in sustainable urbanization. She is the co-chair of the Secretary-General's Task Force on the Future of Cities and co-chair of the Local 2030 Coalition. She is an advocate for local voluntary reviews and champions the urban perspective in the World Economic Forum, never forgetting her humble beginnings in the rubber plantations of Malaysia, said the press office of the UN secretary-general.

Sharif, 60, holds a Bachelor's degree in town planning studies from the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology and a Master's degree in planning studies from the Malaysia Science University.

She is married and has two daughters. 
South Africa: Presidency stands by statement on Sisulu

The Presidency says it stands by its statement on a discussion between President Cyril Ramaphosa and Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu this week, regarding an opinion column she penned in a national media publication about the South African judiciary.

This comes after Sisulu on Thursday distanced herself from a Presidency statement saying that she had apologised for her comments in the opinion piece titled Hi Mzansi, have we seen justice?.

The President and Sisulu met in Cape Town earlier this week, where President Ramaphosa admonished the Minister about the article.

Sisulu's comments in the opinion piece include that Africans in the judicial system have settled with the worldview and mindset of those who have dispossessed their ancestors. They are only too happy to lick the spittle of those who falsely claim superiority. The lack of confidence that permeates their rulings against their own speaks very loudly, while others, secure in their agenda, clap behind closed doors.

The Presidency's statement quoted the Minister as having retracted the hurtful comments.

I accept that my column has levelled against the judiciary and African judges in particular unsubstantiated, gratuitous and deeply hurtful comments.

I retract unequivocally my hurtful comments. I recognise that many women and men judges past and present have served their country in the judiciary with dedication and patriotism and some have made sterling sacrifices in the fight against apartheid and colonialism. I apologise for and regret the hurt I have caused the judiciary, the statement read.

Sisulu has subsequently released a statement in what she called a bid to clarify a deliberate misrepresentation regarding her meeting with the President.

We had a mature and sensible meeting, and we thus concluded on good terms. In fact, yesterday (Thursday) the President called me and read the specific sentence as redesigned that he had found offensive. We ended our discussion on an amicable base, she said.

The Ministers statement further highlighted that she respects the Office of the Presidency and the President.

However, [Minister Sisulu] wishes to record that she is troubled that the Presidents media team was deliberately mischievous in the statement issued, as the Minister at no point in the conversation was firstly admonished or secondly expressed regrets resulting in agreeing to withdraw or apologise for her article, but agreed to reconsider the particular line relating to the judiciary, which the President had raised issue with and was to share with her, the statement read.

The Presidency has said it has nothing to add to its original statement.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2022-01-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Xis calls on world to work together for better post-COVID world at virtual Davos meeting

09:25, January 21, 2022 By He Yin ( People's Daily

Chinese President Xi Jinping attended and addressed the 2022 World Economic Forum (WEF) virtual session in Beijing on Jan. 17, providing Chinas answers to the question of how to beat the pandemic and how to build the post-COVID world from the perspectives of history and philosophy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) Virtual Event of the Davos Agenda and delivers a special address via video link in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 25, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

He elaborated upon the right direction in which the international community can work jointly to defeat the pandemic, the ultimate solution to promoting steady recovery of the world economy, practical approach to bridging the development divide and suggestions for countries to get along with each other.

His remarks showed Chinas firm determination to work together with the rest of the world to survive the trying times and jointly create a better post-COVID world.

As a Chinese saying goes, The momentum of the world either flourishes or declines; the state of the world either progresses or regresses. The world is always developing through the movement of contradictions; without contradiction, nothing would exist. The history of humanity is a history of achieving growth by meeting various tests and of developing by overcoming various crises. We need to move forward by following the logic of historical progress, and develop by riding the tide of development of our times, said Xi at the virtual session.

Xis insightful remarks embody the scientific methodology of dialectical materialism, providing important guidance for grasping the trend of history and riding the waves of the times in the turbulent international situation.

Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF, believes that Xis speech pointed the way to a better future for China and the world.

In the face of profound and extensive changes of the times, countries can only see clearly the right direction for human society through the telescope of history.

Although the once-in-a-century pandemic has created many obstacles to the communication between peoples of different countries, facts have shown once again that countries are not riding separately in some 190 small boats, but are rather all in a giant ship on which their shared destiny hinges. Only through cooperation can they usher in a brighter future.

The recovery and development of the world economy are faced with many constraints, but economic globalization has never and will not veer off course. Only by building an open world economy can countries fully unleash the vitality of the world economy.

Although problems like a widening North-South gap, divergent recovery trajectories, development fault-lines and technology divisions become more prominent, mankinds beautiful dream of common development will never fade. Only by adhering to a people-centered philosophy of development can countries realize balanced development worldwide and revitalize global development.

Despite the resurgence of Cold War mentality, protectionism and unilateralism, peaceful development and win-win cooperation remain the right way forward for humanity. Different countries and civilizations can open up new space for global peaceful development only by prospering together on the basis of respect for each other, and seeking common ground and win-win outcomes by setting aside differences.

In the face of the profound and sweeping changes of the times, the international community must forge ahead with confidence and fortitude and push the wheel of history toward a brighter future with practical actions.

To take the initiative in the course of history, countries must pluck up the courage to overcome stubborn resistance and strong countercurrents along the way for a better future.

We need to learn from comparing long history cycles, and see the change in things through the subtle and minute. We need to foster new opportunities amidst crises, open up new horizons on a shifting landscape, and pool great strength to go through difficulties and challenges, Xi said at the event.

He encouraged the international community to face the issues of the times and create a better future with actions.

Crises and opportunities are interconnected and dialectically united. Only by figuring out the way forward, grasping the general trend, observing the situation through dialectical thinking, gaining a deep understand of opportunities and challenges and actively creating conditions can countries turn crises into opportunities.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, people from various countries have supported and helped each other, showing humankinds courage, resolve and compassion in front of a major crisis and kindling a flame in the dark hour.

To build a better post-COVID world, the international community also needs to join hands to surmount all kinds of obstacles on the way forward with courage and strong will.

Throughout the history of humanity, human society has managed to progress no matter what kinds of risks, disasters or countercurrents were along the way. Humanity shall and will continue to stride forward.

As long as various parties follow the trend of history, embrace cooperation to defeat the virus, resolve various risks, bridge the development divide, and discard Cold War mentality, the international community will certainly create a better post-COVID world.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
ULAN BATOR, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The China-Europe freight train service is crucial to Mongolia because it boosts foreign exchange inflows into its economy, a senior Mongolian railway official has said.

"The China-Europe freight train service via the territory of Mongolia is very important for the Mongolian economy, because all fees of the freight train service are paid in foreign currencies," which increases its foreign exchange reserves, said Amarbayasgalan Altanshagai, head of the container freight transportation division of Ulan Bator Railway company, Mongolia's official railway operator.

Noting that the number of freight trains via Mongolian territory for the China-Europe route is growing year by year, he said a total of 2,513 such trains travelled through Mongolia in 2021, an increase of about 200 from the previous year.

Last year, the China-Europe freight train service generated at least 166 billion Mongolian Tugriks (58.2 million U.S. dollars) for Mongolia's railway sector alone, he said, stressing that the service also created significant revenues for other sectors in the country, such as private transport.

Mongolia aims to become a transit state, offering the shortest route from Europe to Asia through its territory, Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh has said.

The "Transit Mongolia" goal proposed by the president can be fully achieved, Altanshagai said. "We believe that the China-Europe freight train service via the territory of Mongolia is part of the implementation of the goal."

In order to grow the number of freight trains in the future, capacity at border stations and the number of border exits or routes must be increased, Altanshagai said. 
Cummins and Isuzu Motors announced an agreement to create a prototype medium-duty, battery-electric truck to demonstrate in North America. This truck represents the first zero-emissions solution facilitated by the Isuzu Cummins Powertrain Partnership (ICPP) formed in May 2019. (Earlier post.).





Through this arrangement, Cummins will integrate the Cummins PowerDrive 6000 into Isuzus F-Series truck and will pilot the truck with prominent North American fleets beginning in 2022.

Cummins originally introduced its PowerDrive familyobtained via the acquisition of Efficient Drivetrains (earlier post)in 2018 as a solution for plug-in hybrid powertains. (Earlier post.)

Following a successful demonstration and pilot phase, Isuzu will explore opportunities to commercialize medium-duty, battery-electric trucks with Cummins-powered systems across North America.
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ISLAMABAD, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani officials said Thursday that the U.S. propaganda against China on Xinjiang is groundless.

Speaking at a webinar held by the Islamabad-based think-tank Pakistan-China Institute, Pakistan's Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari said that the United States is desperately forming military alliances to undermine China on one hand, and on the other hand, it is leveling baseless allegations against China.

"When the U.S. is seeking a new Cold War, the militarization of global politics and global economics, China has a totally different way of approaching the world ... through shared economic prosperity, opening up the world through trade routes, and building up infrastructure in African countries and in Pakistan among others, so that everybody can achieve greater prosperity through greater cooperation, through international trade," said the minister.

The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China aims to promote economic prosperity for all, she added.

Mushahid Hussain Syed, chairman of Pakistani Senate's Defense Committee, said at the event that the false allegations on Xinjiang are a part of the U.S. propaganda to counter China.

"Pakistan will continue to support China on its core national interests," he added. 
GREENWICH  A plan to alleviate flooding from the Byram River just got a major boost, with $40 million in federal funds allocated for the project this week  nearly $10 million more than was expected.

The money will come from the recently passed federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The initial request had been for $30 million, which had been the price tag for the project, said U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District.

As part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project, the two bridges will be replaced that carry Route 1 over the Byram River at the border of Greenwich and Port Chester, N.Y., and the water flow on the Byram River will be improved.

The project was presented to Greenwich residents last month at a meeting hosted by First Selectman Fred Camillo and Himes.

A town resident, Himes announced the amount awarded this week and said Thursday he was getting the details on what the extra money means for the project.

This is a good thing because the cost of labor and the cost of materials has gone up, he said of the federal funding.

If the funding had not come through from the infrastructure act, Himes said that finding another source could have added a year or more to the process.

Residents in the area, especially in Pemberwick, have dealt with repeated floods that damage homes and property, he said. After Hurricane Ida hit in September and caused further damage, many residents turned out at last months meeting to push for the project.

The reason I have been so focused on this problem is because while Greenwich has the reputation of being a very wealthy community, the residents of Pemberwick are middle-class folks having to deal with expensive tragedies with flooding happening year in and year out, Himes said.

When you walk the neighborhood, you see how important this is, he said. I will never forget walking through there after Ida and seeing house after house with furniture and clothes soaking out on the curb. This is not a community of $10 million homes, and another flood event could be devastating.

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, the configuration of the bridges creates a bottleneck and restricts the flow of the Byram River under it. The bridges also have abutments that catch debris and sediment, which end up restricting the flow of water.

The new bridges will be higher, allowing the river to flow more easily and easing the flooding problems, according to the project.

The cost of the project was expected to be split between the federal government and Greenwich. However, Port Chester is also expected to pay part of the cost, reducing Greenwichs portion, Himes said. Those talks are ongoing.

Even with the money coming in far above expectation, Himes said he believes Greenwich will still have to pay for part of the work. The Department of Public Works said it is also waiting for guidance on that.

DPW is excited to hear ... that the Byram River Project is going to be included in the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, DPWs Deputy Commissioner Jim Michel said Friday. We will await further guidance on the details of the funding and the next steps for the town and look to work cooperatively with all the various agencies necessary to move this project through the construction phase.

Himes said the project was part of a larger effort led by House Democrats to combat climate change and called it a huge win for Connecticut.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who also lives in Greenwich, applauded the project.

Last summers devastating floods demonstrate the critical need for this federal funding to protect communities along the Byram River, said Blumenthal, D-Conn. Real relief from flooding and other problems is well-deserved and overdue. This money makes a big difference in safety and quality of life.

Camillo applauded Himes effort to secure the funding for the project.

This has been a generational problem for our residents in the Pemberwick and Byram areas, and this project is a big part of our collective endeavors to bring relief to them, Camillo said. He also pledged to focus on the issue until it is resolved.

At last months public meeting, many residents called for dredging of both the Byram River and nearby ponds to alleviate flooding conditions.

Some dredging is expected as part of the bridge project, but the Army Corps of Engineers said last month that more dredging would not lower the water surface elevation enough to be worth the cost.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
Why all the pressure to pass the Freedom to Vote/John R. Lewis Act?

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 already removed barriers to Black disenfranchisement in the South: banning poll taxes, literacy tests, and other measures that effectively prevented African Americans from voting. It also permitted federal intervention when such practices were discovered. Were good, right?

But ...

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was challenged and weakened in a 2013 case decided, 5-4 by the U.S. Supreme Court, in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder when the court struck down Section 4a of the VRA as outdated and not grounded in current conditions.

There are no more poll taxes, voter literacy tests, or crazy how many marbles are in a jar" tests given to disqualify undesirable voters. Problem solved, right?

But

Since 2013, some state legislatures and election commissions have been busy creating much more subtle ways to make it hard or impossible for undesirable voters (minorities and the poor) to vote. Voter suppression most definitely lives on in our current conditions.

Because if you know where the undesirable people live  just close some of their polling places and make them vote farther away from home.

It will take them hours and maybe even an entire day to vote.

Not so for you and me, though.

It costs them money they cannot afford to lose - bus fares and lost wages.

Not so for you and me, though.

The days and times polling places are open could be expanded to allow for in-person voting. Voting by mail, allowing absentee ballots and adding more drop boxes (rather than abolishing them) are verifiable voting solutions.

None of them steal from food and rent money.

When voters show up at a polling place to find that their name has been, with no notification, purged from voter rolls or that their ID has a small difference from what the election board has for them  there is no way to register in person or to vote with a provisional ballot which would still allow them to vote while the election board works to resolve the problem after the polls close .

But ... in some states, there is no interest in making it easier and less costly for the poor to vote. Their votes are not wanted.

So, to legislators about to block the Freedom to Vote/John R. Lewis Act, we say  Stop Your Steal.

Submitted by Greenwich resident Cynthia Ritzler and co-signed by Greenwich or Stamford residents Barbara Glyn, Pam Sloane, Ann Penny, Rhonda Morley, Barbara Linton, Carole S. Lang, Kristine Stahly, Elen Sotzing, Susan Hanna, Margot Butler Sr., Anne Linehan, Elizabeth Roberts, Elizabeth Parker, Rose Nichols, Lorraine Sweillam, Kathleen Adele, Fieffe Jay and Christina Bartomioli, Janet Murphey and Karen Pacent.
Intel will build a large-scale chipset production plant in New Albany, Ohio which upon completion will be the largest semiconductor project in the world. The initial investment is valued at over $20 billion with construction expected to start later this year with plans to open in 2025.

The mega-site will span over 400 hectares and will initially house two chip factories with plans to expand up to eight fabs in the future. The complex will also support operations and other Intel partner ecosystems.



Land in New Albany where the plant will be built  Aerial render of the plant site upon completion

The new site will bring an initially estimated 3,000 Intel jobs and tens of thousands more construction jobs and long-term opportunities for the local economy. Intel is also devoting an additional $100 million to partner with local Ohio educational institutions to help mentor and develop local talent and bolster research programs throughout the Midwest region.

Two of Intels key competitors - TSMC and Samsung have also announced plans for chipset plants in the US set in Arizona and Texas.

Source
New year, new appetite. Its a new year and a great time for a health-saving, money-saving, time-saving way to eat.

CHamoru food fits into this incredible lifestyle with just a few tweaks. I dont mean using brown rice to make hineksa agaga, or red rice; or simmering quinoa in champuladu, though if you dance to the beat of that drum, keep on shaking.

While I do enjoy brown rice and quinoa in various recipes, I love CHamoru food too much to make such changes in our cultural dishes.

And I think Ive stumbled on the secret though its been around for thousands of years: intermittent fasting and multi-day fasting.

Most days, you alternate periods of eating and not eating. It really is that simple to get started.

Eat within a six to eight-hour period and refrain from eating for the other 16 to 18 hours. Fasting teaches your cells how to tap into the fat already stored on your body, especially around your belly and your organs, using that fat to fuel you when you are not putting food in your mouth.

You can still eat red rice, gollai appan, and all your CHamoru desserts throughout your life. Ive been doing this for one and a half years and I love it.

I wish I discovered this when I first started writing about Guam food in 2006 because I would have been healthier, wealthier and more productive.

To be fair, depending on your current health and activity status, once youve adjusted to eating within six to eight hours, youll have to make individual-specific adaptations.

Some folks shorten their eating window to four hours while others eat every other day. And you might have to eventually eat a cup of rice instead of 2 cups.

This is not a how-to-fast column so Ill leave that to the champions of fasting including Dr. Jason Fung. He has excellent videos on YouTube, and books on Amazon. Do your research and learn how you can eat your favorite Guam foods in a healthful way.

In the meantime, kaddo-style motsiyas is a CHamoru dish rich with coconut milk and veggies, and it is freezer-friendly too.

I mean, cook a large pot, freeze in 2-cup containers, thaw as needed to enjoy within your eating window for many months ahead.

You save time with large-batch-cooking CHamoru freezer food; you save time and money eating and cooking fewer meals per day; and you improve your health while eating CHamoru food within a few hours per day, most days of the week.

Of course, youre not eating motsiyas by itself. For me, one-meal-a-day with two cups of motsiyas would include a cup of white rice, half a large avocado, and two hard-boiled eggs, or a serving of seafood, beef, chicken. And dessert. Sometimes its motsiyas with red rice and steak.

Another typical one-meal-a-day in my house is a plate of CHamoru barbecue with red rice, barbecue ribs, gollai appan aga, pickled daigo, and a piece of latiya.

I eat this one meal within one to two hours and thats it. I dont eat anything else. I drink plain water, and a couple of half-cups of coffee with a teaspoon of sugar and a tablespoon of heavy cream until my next meal.

What is motsiyas anyways? Pronounced mowt-see-dzas, this is traditionally a mixture of chopped leafy greens, herbs, and donne or hot pepper; chopped chicken; seasonings and coconut milk all stuffed back into the chicken skin and simmered till cooked.

Its an adaptation of the Spanish blood sausage, morcilla. In modern CHamoru times, some folks wrap in foil and others cook like a soup. For either rendition, its a CHamorus dream dish of coconut milk and donne.

My mother-in-law, Dolores Jeannette Quintanilla Quinene, from Agat, taught me how to make motsiyas both by stuffing the chicken skin, and by making it as a kadu.

Mom is an excellent cook and my recipe below is an adaptation of her original teachings. There is also a link at the end of the recipe to my motsiyas video.

Again, if youre looking for a time-saving, money-saving, health-improving way to eat, take some time to learn about intermittent fasting. Listen to the videos in the playlist below.

Fasting is free because you dont have to buy special foods. You dont need more time to prepare extra meals because you just dont eat. You can fast anytime, anywhere.

My favorite was when I was traveling home to Guam last summer. I had no care in the world about what to eat on the plane or in the airports for over 24 hours  because I just didnt eat. I drank water and a little bit of coffee.

Its a beautiful thing when you dont have to worry about eating! Fasting isnt for everyone so do your research and check with your doctor.

Soup-Style Chicken Motsiyas

Ingredients

Set 1

Scant  cup coconut oil to replace the fat that would have come from the chicken skin

Set 2

10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, chopped fine

32 ounces frozen, chopped spinach, squeezed to drain water or 1  cups of thawed, squeezed spinach

2 cups diced yellow onions

 cup finely chopped mint, packed, or whole rectangular package of mint from the store

 cup finely chopped basil, packed, or whole rectangular package of basil from the store

1 tablespoon salt

4 teaspoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

Hot pepper, to taste, optional

 cup fresh lemon juice

1 cup chicken stock or water

5 cups thick coconut milk

Tools: large bowl, large pot, large rubber spatula or wooden spoon

Pour oil into a large pot and swirl it around. Set aside. Do not preheat this pot.

In a large bowl, combine the all the remaining ingredients. Mix till well incorporated with a rubber spatula or large wooden spoon.

Transfer the mixture to the pot then place the pot on the burner. Turn the heat to medium.

Stir mixture every now and then until you see more water in the pot  it gets released from the veggies and chicken as they cook.

Bring to a gentle boil then cover  youll see the liquid bubble up but it should not be boiling like soup. Simmer for 5 minutes, check and stir. Simmer another 5 minutes.

Taste then add more seasoning if needed.
Guam recorded 709 new cases of COVID-19 from 2,542 tests analyzed Jan. 20, the Department of Public Health and Social Services reported Friday.

Of those, 103 cases were reported by the Department of Defense, a news release from the Joint Information Center stated.

Guam has had 26,466 officially reported cases of COVID-19, with 276 deaths. There are 6,665 people in active isolation, the release stated.

Hospitalized

The release stated there were 27 people hospitalized for COVID-19:

15 patients at Guam Memorial Hospital, including one in intensive care and on a ventilator.

11 patients at Guam Regional Medical City, including one in intensive care.

One hospitalized at Naval Hospital Guam in intensive care.

Of those hospitalized, 20 were vaccinated, seven werent.

Support clinics

Public Health will hold a vaccination support clinic for families of children with disabilities 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday at the Barrigada Mayors Office

The clinic, in partnership with the University of Guam Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service, or CEDDERS, Guam Legal Services Corporation, the Guam Developmental Disabilities Council, Guam Regional Transit Authority, Department of Integrated Services for Individuals with Disabilities and the Office of the Governor, is the first of six.

The next two will be held next week:

Jan. 22: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Barrigada Mayors Office.

Jan. 29: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Dededo Mayors Office.

Requirements for minors to get the vaccine:
Legislation to hold Guams primary election earlier and move back voter registration deadlines advanced at the Legislature Friday.

But Bill 174 wont have an impact on this years election if signed into law.

The measure would push the primary election from the last Saturday of August to the first. It also would push the deadline for a candidate to file nomination papers from two months before the date of the primary to three months before. The deadline to register to vote would be 21 days before any election instead of 10.

The bill, introduced by Sens. Jim Moylan and Joe San Agustin, would have changed this years primary election date but was amended to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023.

Speaker Therese Terlaje argued it should go into effect immediately. Officials from the Guam Election Commission wanted the primary held earlier so Guam would comply with federal laws to make ballots available to overseas voters.

Thats really the main point is to allow (the Election Commission) more time to get the approved ballots out to those on active military duty and returned on time, she said.

Moylan said he was on board with changing the primary this year.

Too close

But it was too close to the election for the Legislature to make the change, Sen. Telo Taitague said, and would make it harder for new candidates who wanted to run for office.

Its a very, very difficult road to go down for an individual who wants to run for public office. You have to get petitions signed, you have to raise money  theres a lot of variables, Taitague said.

Sen. Tony Ada agreed the change would be more appropriate for upcoming elections.

Bill 174 was placed in the third reading file with no objections. It will be up for vote at the conclusion of the January session.

Canceling

Also on the session floor Friday evening was Bill 173, a measure that would cancel the primary election for the Legislature, governor, delegate, and mayors and vice mayors if there are fewer than the maximum number of candidates for both parties that can advance to the General Election.

Lawmakers were still questioning Maria Pangelinan, Election Commission director, about the possible effects of the bill as of 5:30 p.m. Friday.

The measure is sponsored by Moylan, who said it was intended to save the Election Commission from holding a primary if one wasnt needed.

Along with canceling an unneeded primary, the measure also would remove the requirement for the Election Commission to count write-in votes unless they would result in a change to who received the most votes for an office.

It also would call for a special election for Guams delegate to Congress if the seat becomes vacant more than eight months before the next General Election.

Bill 173 would go into effect immediately if signed into law.
Anthony Mark Gumataotao Jr. was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for stealing two cars last year.

Gumataotao appeared in the Superior Court of Guam on Friday, and his lawyer argued he should serve one year in prison, the lowest in the proposed range.

However, Judge Vernon Perez expressed concern about Gumataotao, who has been in the criminal justice system for the past decade.

Youre going to jail for a few years, theres no doubt about that, Perez said. Gumataotao has a record that includes multiple felony convictions.

In addition to Gumataotaos criminal history, Assistant Attorney General Sean Brown, who argued for a four-year sentence, detailed the victims trauma since their vehicles were stolen.

Brown said the victims, one of whom was Gumataotaos uncle, have had trouble finding transportation since the theft and have felt compelled to install security cameras around their homes for safety.

Arrest

In March 2021, Gumataotao was reported to have taken a Jeep from an uncle with whom he had been living. The uncle told police he was trying to help Gumataotao get back on his feet, but hadnt seen him or the Jeep since January, charging documents state.

Then in June, Gumataotao drove off the roadway with a stolen Toyota Yaris in Dededo.

At the time of his arrest, he was on probation after pleading guilty to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

According to PDN files, Gumataotaos history includes an accusation of stealing a bag from a tourists car at Fort Soledad in 2019.
by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A senior Bangladeshi official has hailed the special address of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2022 World Economic Forum (WEF) virtual session on Monday as a "historical one," which renewed China's commitment to multilateral cooperation.

President Xi's address put forward valuable proposals for the development of global cooperation, peace and prosperity, Hasanul Haq Inu, chairman of the Standing Committee for Ministry of Information and Broadcasting at the Bangladesh Parliament, told Xinhua in an interview on Wednesday.

Inu, also president of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, an ally of the ruling Grand Alliance, said Xi's address "has pinpointed the problems and prospects of the whole mankind at present and post-pandemic era vividly."

The Bangladesh politician appreciated Xi's proposals for overcoming the pandemic and its aftereffect with global cooperation.

He hoped that countries and regions will not step into the "trap of rivalry and go for peaceful coexistence and find a win-win way for mutual benefits."

Noting that China has achieved unprecedented social and economic development on the path of socialism, he said Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has been a powerful drive in the current world for ensuring peace and development.

He expressed the hope that under the leadership of Xi and the Communist Party of China, China will overcome the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, and continue to stand in solidarity with Bangladesh as well as the world to combat the pandemic. 
Unexpected findings from a 2021 study are giving a marine biologist and her team a better understanding of Guams reef manta rays, according to an article in the University of Guams Sea Grant Napu News.

Micronesian Conservation Coalition Executive Director Julie Hartup is a Sea Grant-funded manta ray biologist and project manager for The Manta Trust. Her team has made discoveries about manta ray dive patterns, tags, and reactions to accompanying sea life.

This is such an exciting time for this manta ray research, Hartup stated in the Napu News article. This study, combined (with) our current understanding of our Guam mantas, is really unlocking more about their cryptic lifestyle and movement.

Over the summer, researchers attached digital tracking tags to manta rays. The public was asked to avoid manta rays that were tagged, and the tags were removed at the end of the study.

Hartup found Guams juvenile manta rays have repeatedly dived to depths below 1,300 feet, which she said was unexpected for young manta rays. The animals swim out to other areas, likely to feed, but remain around Guam and return close to shore.

If our juveniles are repeatedly diving deep, we expect to see much deeper diving profiles for our adult manta rays, particularly our males, Hartup stated in the article.

The manta rays were also able to get their tags off more proficiently than manta rays in other areas.

Our manta rays are squirrelly, Hartup stated in the article.

Guam manta rays also get rid of suckerfish, which attach to the manta rays for protection, transportation, and food, as they feed off the rays leftovers.

Hartup said Guams manta ray population is extremely small and vulnerable, which can affect population growth.

She said manta rays are a chiasmatic species that attract a lot of attention. But not all sites or populations can be involved with interaction or eco-tourism.

When asked about Guam manta ray tourism, I would ask, Would you market and build eco-tourism around 63 koko birds? Hartup stated in the article.
Kindergarten teacher Sheila Perez, right, expresses to Guam Department of Education Superintendent Jon Fernandez some of the challenges she faced with balancing available space with social distancing requirements and how they were resolved in her classroom as the superintendent toured Ordot-Chalan Pago Elementary School May 4, 2021.
Robert Underwood is the former president of the University of Guam and Guams former delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives.
RABAT, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Morocco on Thursday reiterated its support to the stability of Mali, the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

During a telephone conversation with his Malian counterpart Abdoulaye Diop, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita urged the Malian forces to follow a sustainable path for peace and stability, the statement said.

Bourita also expressed Morocco's confidence in the ability of the Malian authorities and forces to take measures to strengthen national cohesion, it said.

He also highlighted the importance of Mali's cooperation with the competent international organizations.

On Jan. 9, the leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed tough sanctions on Mali, in response to Mali's inability to meet the transition deadline of February 2022 for holding elections.

The sanctions include the closure of land and air borders between ECOWAS countries and Mali, the suspension of all financial and economic transactions with Mali, with the exception of essential consumer goods. 




Haiti - FLASH USA : Criminal charges brought against Rodolphe Jaar





Thursday, January 20, the Haitian-Chilean businessman, Rodolphe Jaar (49) appeared in federal court in Miami before the American investigating judge Lauren Louisin of the Southern District of Florida. Jaar for this initial appearance (reading of the charges) was represented by the Federal Public Defender's Office, having stated that he could not afford an attorney. A new hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, January 26 and his arraignment is scheduled for February 3, 2022.



The Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs released the contents of the criminal charges brought against Jaar in his alleged involvement in the assassination of the former President of Haiti, 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



"Rodolphe Jaar (49), a Haitian-Chilean citizen was arrested on criminal charges (criminal complaint) related to his alleged involvement in the July 7 assassination of Haiti's former president, Jovenel Moise on July 7, 2021.



Rodolphe Jaar, is charged with conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and 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. Jaar is the second individual to be charged and arrested in the United States for his role in the assassination plot.



As alleged in the complaint, which was unsealed January, Thusrday 20, the defendant and others  including a group of approximately 20 Colombian citizens and a number of dual Haitian-American citizens  participated in a plot to kidnap or kill the Haitian President. In particular, as alleged, Jaar was present when another conspirator (Co-conspirator #1) secured the signature of a former Haitian judge on a written request for assistance to further the arrest and imprisonment of President Moise. According to the complaint, on June 28, 2021, Co-conspirator #1, a dual Haitian-American citizen traveled from Haiti to the United States in furtherance of the conspiracy and provided other individuals with the document, and flew from Florida back to Haiti on July 1, 2021, to participate in the operation against the president.



As alleged in the complaint, while the plot initially focused on conducting a kidnapping of the Haitian President as part of a purported arrest operation, it ultimately resulted in a plot to kill the president. The complaint alleges that on July 7, 2021, various co-conspirators entered President Moises residence in Haiti with the intent and purpose of killing him, and in fact the president was killed.



As alleged in the complaint, Jaar was responsible for providing weapons to the Colombian co-conspirators to facilitate carrying out the operation; several of the Colombian co-conspirators also stayed at a residence controlled by Jaar. After the assassination, Jaar allegedly communicated with Co-conspirator #1 and others to assist the Colombians and Co-conspirator #1 while they were in hiding from Haitian authorities.



[...]



If convicted of the charges in the complaint, Jaar faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.



[...]



The FBI and HSI are investigating the case with other law enforcement partners.



Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrea Goldbarg and Walter Norkin for the Southern District of Florida are prosecuting the case, with assistance from National Security Division Trial Attorneys Frank Russo, Jessica Fender and Emma Ellenrieder. The Justice Departments Office of International Affairs provided valuable assistance. Dominican authorities provided significant assistance in securing the return of Jaar to the United States.



A criminal complaint is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law."





See also :

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-35664-haiti-flash-lawyer-of-colombian-soldiers-detained-in-haiti-says-they-confessed-under-torture.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35640-haiti-flash-palacio-extradited-to-the-usa-first-official-indictment-in-the-assassination-of-president-moise.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-34210-haiti-flash-arrest-of-one-of-the-intellectual-authors-of-the-assassination-of-president-moise-and-an-attempted-coup.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34199-haiti-assassination-of-the-president-names-of-the-20-members-of-the-commando-arrested-5-others-still-on-the-run.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34162-haiti-flash-president-jovenel-moise-assassinated-by-mercenaries-official-updated-7am-+-video.html



SL/ HaitiLibre




























Haiti - Diaspora Covid-19 : Daily Bulletin #672





GLOBAL SITUATION 2019-2022:

Epidemiological situation:



Friday January 21, 2022 the number of people infected worldwide with the Covid-19 coronavirus and its variants since the start of the pandemic (March 11, 2020) amounts to 343,387,392 cases (+3,725,186 in 24 hours ), the day before (+4,149,376)



Number of countries infected: 221



*Healings: 276,462,621 people have been cured of Covid-19 worldwide (+3,216,506 in 24 hours), the day before (+2,095,051)

*Deaths: 5,593,935 people died of Covid-19 worldwide (+9.545 in 24 hours), the day before (+9.664)

*Active cases (minus deaths and recoveries) in the world is currently 61,330,836 cases (+499,135 in 24 hours), the day before (+2,035,661)



Average cure rate in the world: 80.51% (+)



Average mortality rate in the world: 1.62% (-)



World: Number of daily confirmed cases:





(Day-1)



Vaccination: 9.82 billion doses of vaccine injected (+20 million doses injected in 24 hours. Updated January 20, 2022 (latest data available).



HAITI:

Epidemiological situation:

According to the Ministry of Public Health, +87 new cases in 24 hours of Covid-19 and its variants were confirmed in Haiti on January 16, 2022 (latest partial data available ) for a total of 28,117 confirmed cases throughout the national territory (48.2% women and 51.8% men), since the first case (March 19, 2020 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30319-haiti-health-origin-of-the-first-2-cases-of-covid-19-in-haiti.html ). Previous update (+57 cases on January 15, 2022).



Healings: 24,217 (+53 in 24h)



Cure rate: 86.12% (-)



Deaths: 780 deaths +0 since January 7, 2022 (last data available)



Death rate: 2.77% (-)



5th Wave (Omicron Dominant):

Total of the 5th wave (beginning December 27, 2021) amounts to 2,122 confirmed cases and 14 deaths



Haiti: Active Cases Trend: (less recoveries and deaths)





(Day-1)



Screening since the start of the pandemic: 162,098 tests (+436 in 24 hours) since March 19, 2020, latest data available. Note that the very small number of people screened at the national level out of a population estimated at 11.6 million citizens, does not statistically allow us to make a representative estimate of the situation in Haiti, which translates into a number of cases confirmed daily largely undervalued. By way of comparison, the Dominican Republic has carried out more than 2.8 million tests on its population since the start of the epidemic with an average of the last 7 days close to 30,000 daily tests.



TOP 5 of the most affected municipalities in the West (2021-2022):

Delmas: 3.129 (+35); Petionville 2,443 (+21); Port au Prince 1,650 (+10); Tabarre 1.333 (+9); Croix-des-Bouquets 1,286 (+4)



Confirmed cases by department (2021-2022):

West: 11,291 (2020: 6,945 cases)

North: 787 cases (2020: 677 cases)

Center: 1,106 cases (2020: 508 cases)

Artibonitis: 902 cases (2020: 593 cases)

Northeast: 449 cases (2020: 314 cases)

Southeast: 860 cases (2020: 274 cases)

South: 1,001 cases (2020: 262 cases)

North West: 423 cases (2020: 229 cases)

Grand'Anse: 909 cases (2020: 176 cases)

Nippes: 262 cases (2020: 149 cases)



Cumulative deaths by department (2021-2022):

West: 270 deaths (2020: 104 deaths)

North: 53 deaths (2020: 34 deaths)

Center: 63 deaths (2020: 13 deaths)

Artibonite: 37 deaths (2020: 39 deaths)

North East: 6 deaths (2020: 6 deaths)

South: 49 deaths (2020: 6 deaths)

Southeast: 13 deaths (2020: 9 deaths)

North West: 15 deaths (2020: 12 deaths)

Grand'Anse: 7 deaths (2020: 13 deaths)

Nippes: 26 deaths (2020: 5 deaths)



Distribution of deaths by age (since the start of the epidemic):

0-9 years: 13 deaths

10-19 years: 10 deaths

20-29 years: 26 deaths

30-39 years: 48 deaths

40-49 years: 77 deaths

50-59 years: 125 deaths

60-69 years: 183 deaths

70-79 years: 171 deaths

80 years and over: 127 deaths



Vaccination:

125,492 Haitians (1.08% of the population) +221 in 24 hours have received a 1st dose of "Spikevax" vaccine from the MODERNA Laboratory since July 16, 2021, date of the first injection through 149 open vaccination centers https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35051-haiti-covid-19-list-of-149-vaccination-centers-open-in-the-country.html and 79,410 Haitians are fully vaccinated (2 doses, 0.68% of the population) + 270 Update January 14, 2022 latest information available (source MSPP).



List of the 149 Vaccination Centers open in Haiti (and hours) by department:

(updated October 20, 2021)

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35051-haiti-covid-19-list-of-149-vaccination-centers-open-in-the-country.html



DIASPORA:

Epidemic situation :



USA:

*Cases since the first case (February 29, 2020): 70,544,862 cases (+736,512 in 24 hours), the day before (+1,041,346)

*Healings: 44,047,799 healings (+155,522 in 24 hours), the day before (+364,167)

National Cure Rate: 62.43% (-)

*Deaths: 883,903 deaths (+2,927 in 24 hours), the day before (+3,736)

National mortality rate: 1.25% (-)

*Active cases (minus deaths and recoveries): 25,613,160 (+578,063 in 24 hours), the day before (+673,443)

Tests: 897,864,349 last data available.



USA: Number of daily confirmed cases





(Day-1)



Vaccination: 531.86 million doses of vaccine injected since December 14, 2020, date of the first injection in the United States (1.43 million doses injected in 24 hours. Updated January 20, 2022 ( latest data available).



DOMINICAN REPUBLIC:

Confirmed cases since March 1, 2020:524,635 cases (+7,024 in 24 hours) the day before (+7,153). First case (March 1, 2020)

Healings: 484,336 healings (+6,412), the day before (+6,299)

National Cure Rate: 92.31% (-)

Deaths: 4,274 deaths (+0 in 24 hours), the day before (+5)

Mortality rate: 0.81% (-)

Positivity rate over 4 epidemiological weeks: 30.5% (+)

Active cases: (excluding deaths and recoveries) 36,025 cases (+611) the day before (+850)





Dominican Republic: Trend of active cases: (minus recoveries and deaths)





(Day-1)



TOP 5 of the provinces with the most new cases in the last 24 hours:

National District: +2,580 cases (+574)

Santo Domingo: +1,190 cases (-174)

Espaillat: +674 ()

Santiago: +570 (-103)

San Juan: +196 ()



Tests (since the 1st case): 2,851,410 tests (+27,988 in 24 hours), the day before (+32,394)



Vaccination: 14.46 million doses of vaccine injected since February 16, 2021, date of the first injection in the Dominican Republic (+20,000 doses injected in 24 hours). Updated January 19, 2021 (latest data available).



QUEBEC:

Confirmed cases since the first case (February 27, 2020): 818,947 (+6,528 in 24 hours), previous (+6,123)

Healings: 753,641 people (+5,822 in 24 hours), preceded (+5,465)

Cure rate: 92.02% (-)

Deaths: 12,639 deaths (+98 in 24 hours), previous (+88)

Death rate: 1.54% (=)

Active cases: (excluding death and recovery) 52,667 cases (+608 in 24 hours), previous (-570)



Test: 15,784,129 people tested since the first case (+38,945)



Vaccination: 16,801,574 million doses of vaccine injected since December 14, 2020, date of the first injection (+104,205 doses in 24 hours, latest data available - MSSS as of January 20, 2022)



FRANCE:

*Confirmed cases since the first case (January 24, 2020): 15,600,647 cases (+425,183 cases in 24 hours), the day before (+ 436,167)

*Healings: 9,844,686 healings (+231,724 in 24h), previous (+206,243)

National Cure Rate: 61.61% (-)

Deaths: 128,114 deaths (+245), the day before (+231)

Death rate: 0.82% (-)

Active Cases: 5,627,847 (+193,214 in 24 hours), the day before (+229,693)

Test: 216,918,555 (last data available January 15, 2022)



France: Number of daily confirmed cases





(day-1)



Vaccination: 133.43 million doses of vaccine injected since December 27, 2020, date of the first injection in France (+390,000 doses injected in 24 hours). Update January 18, 2022 (latest data available)



Previous bulletin: https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35760-haiti-diaspora-covid-19-daily-bulletin-671.html



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30319-haiti-health-origin-of-the-first-2-cases-of-covid-19-in-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30165-haiti-flash-first-case-of-covid-19-in-the-dominican-republic.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















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Published on 2022/01/20 | Source

Actor Tang Jun-sang has been proposed to appear in "The Worst Boy in the World".

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An official from CLN Company said, "Tang Jun-sang was proposed to appear in "The Worst Boy in the World" and is currently under consideration".

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ISTANBUL, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkish authorities issued an extreme weather warning for most provinces since Friday, including heavy and constant snowfalls, icing, and strong winds.

As the weather conditions were expected to stick around for five days, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority urged people to stay updated and avoid unnecessary outdoor activities.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu tweeted that the governorships of all provinces, emergency call centers, rescue and search teams, police, and gendarmerie units are on full alert and priority will be given to the needs of orphans and the elderly.

Authorities also warned that Istanbul, a populous financial hub, would witness a long period of snowy weather as the low-pressure system lingers over the city.

Istanbul's Disaster Coordination Center said the system is expected to enter the region through the Balkans, bringing temperatures to below zero overnight.

Meanwhile, Iran has cut the natural gas piped to Turkey for at least 10 days over a technical failure, Turkey's Petroleum Pipeline Corporation said in a statement.

The company said gas flow to industrial and energy power plants would be restricted, but "every precaution" has been taken to ensure that citizens are not affected in the days of adverse weather. 
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Pisgah National Forest plan nears final adoption

The National Forests in North Carolina has released the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests revised forest plan and the revision process has entered the final phase, a 60-day objection period for parties who submitted substantive comments during development of the plan.

Once any objections have been resolved, the forest plan will be finalized, and implementation can begin.



The forest plan creates the framework for us to work with partners into the future to successfully address major challenges like climate resilience and sustainable recreation, said James Melonas, Forest Supervisor of the National Forests in North Carolina. Ultimately we are focused on the opportunities we have to keep these national forests healthy so they can continue to supply clean water to communities, contribute to the regions economy, and be a place of respite and recreation.



The revised plan reflects changes in economic, social, and ecological conditions, as well as changes in resource demands that have occurred since the previous forest plan was signed in 1987, and significantly amended in 1994. The new plan puts emphasis on the ways people use the forest and the places that are important to people.



In developing the plan, forest resource specialists worked with representatives of state and local government, Tribes, interest groups and the public to consider alternative approaches to managing the forests that offered different ways to make progress towards multiple goals and be sensitive to special places. The final plan balances the tradeoffs among the multiple uses of national forests including recreation, timber, water, wilderness, and wildlife habitat.



The revised plan takes a whole ecosystem focus, using a science-based approach to address shortages in young forest, old growth forest, and open forest conditions and the control of nonnative invasive species. It also emphasizes use of prescribed burns to restore fire-adapted ecosystems. For every ecological community in the forest, the plan has an identified set of desired conditions, a vision for what it will be once the goals are fully achieved.



By using ecological communities, we will consider the work that needs to be done across a broader landscape, improving restoration efforts for ecosystems and the wildlife that depend on them, said Michelle Aldridge, planning team lead.



The plan is built on significant public engagement and the best available science to guide forest management for the next 15-20 years. Public comments were used to improve the revised plan and are no longer being accepted. The revised forest plan, environmental impact statement, and the legal notice for the specific requirements for filing an objection are available at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/nfsnc/nprevision.



For more information, visit www.fs.usda.gov/nfsnc or follow the National Forests in North Carolina on Facebook (www.facebook.com/nfsnc) or Twitter (twitter.com/NFsNCarolina).
What's the best way to use at-home Covid test I just ordered?

At-home rapid COVID antigen tests are playing a larger role in the fight against disease variants. [ROSE HOBAN/North Carolina Health News]

With the launch of covidtests.gov, the federal government has made it easy for people to order a rapid test to see if theyre positive for Covid-19. Order on the website and 10 to 12 days later, they should arrive in the mail.

And earlier this month, federal rules recently put in place mean that insurance companies now have to reimburse plan members for up to eight over-the-counter rapid Covid-19 tests per month.

All this comes as the Biden administration is finally putting its weight behind scaling up the number of rapid tests being manufactured and released to the public  about a billion rapid tests should be online by the first week of February. That should make it easier for people to get their hands on the tests, which have flown off of pharmacy shelves since late December.

This late-to-the-dance emphasis on rapid tests is in stark contrast to whats happened in other countries. Former NC Health News intern Mona Dougani, whos studying in Spain, said tests are everywhere there.

You literally go to a pharmacy, you go to a pharm technician and you ask for a take-home test, a Covid antigen test, she said. Five to eight euros per rapid test,15 minutes super quick and easy to do at home.

But in the U.S. rapid test availability has lagged. And with the flood of Omicron cases, labs that run the PCR tests that have been used all through the pandemic have been completely swamped.

On top of that, the guidance on testing has been confusing and changing in recent weeks. We talked to several testing experts to ask some basic questions and get advice on the way to think about testing going forward.





First, the basics

Two years ago, few members of the general public had ever heard of a PCR test, much less had one. But now, its hard to find someone who hasnt had one  or multiple  PCR tests.

PCR tests, short for polymerase chain reaction, are tests used to detect genetic material of the virus.

PCR testing detects everything, said Laura Murray, the area medical director for Greensboro-based Cone Health. Everything that used to be Covid, or is Covid, or is infectious, isnt infectious anymore, is debris from prior infections.

She described PCR as extremely, exquisitely sensitive.

Its not always useful when were trying to decide if somebody is infectious, is a risk to others, Murray said.

Melissa Miller, a professor in the pathology department at the school of medicine at the UNC Chapel Hill, also runs the microbiology lab services for UNC Health.

She explained that PCRs can pick up the presence of an infection thats really new, maybe only a day or two old, before a person shows symptoms.

In contrast, she said, a rapid test that looks for antigens is actually looking for a protein that lives on the outside of the virus, so you can see it, and youre able to detect it in these tests.

Antigen tests help us know, with a high degree of likelihood, who is a contagious threat right now, Murray said. So, theyre quite useful right now.

PCRs became the gold standard for Covid testing early in the pandemic largely because of the fact that people carrying the original variant of the virus could take a week or more to develop symptoms, yet could still be infectious. Early detection was key. PCR also was preferred for a long time, because many physicians were leery of antigen tests, based on past experience, both women said.

Miller said that from the perspective of someone who runs a lab, she was one of those mistrustful of antigen tests for respiratory diseases, based on how poorly they performed in the past.

Weve been burned by the RSV rapid antigen test. Weve been burned by the influenza rapid antigen test, she said. We discontinued our influenza rapid antigen testing in 2009.

She said those influenza rapid tests were only accurate a small fraction of the time.

Those were not a test worth doing, Miller said.

With that lens, though, the Covid antigen tests have been designed, have been engineered to be quite a bit more sensitive, Murray explained. The range of variability from test to test to test is less and so the confidence in these tests is much, much better.

A recent study, conducted by a group of researchers in San Francisco earlier this month, compared readings on both PCR tests and antigen tests in the same patients. They found that about the point where PCR testing could tell that Covid was infectious, antigen tests were also positive, with a correlation that topped 95 percent. The paper has still to be peer-reviewed, but others have found similar results.

I would get an antigen test right now, because I think what were mostly worrying about is whos contagious, so we want to want to test thats likely to come back pretty quickly, Murray said.



OK, so I can get a test, what now?

Much of the advice from federal health officials has been complicated and has evolved over time as science provided more information. It hasnt been clear how long to stay home, versus how long to avoid others, versus how long to just mask up. Even the language has been confusing: many people have had difficulty distinguishing between isolation, which translates to staying home, and quarantine which translates to avoiding others while wearing a tight-fitting mask.

Murray said that at the end of December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out with its clearest guidance yet. Even still, its complicated.

For me, the important thing is  if you spend substantial time with somebody face to face without good masking, and they turn up positive, its a good idea to get a test in a few days even if you feel fine, she wrote in a follow-up email.



Why antigen tests now?

With labs that perform PCR testing overwhelmed with demand, the time it takes to get results back has stretched into days instead of hours or the minutes required for an antigen test. But since Omicron replicates quickly, it becomes infectious sooner and creates symptoms sooner.

We think its a faster incubation period for Omicron than it was for the other variants. We thought [earlier variants] were more in the five to seven day period, and this is maybe more in two to three day period, said Tom Denny, an immunologist and the chief operating officer at Dukes Human Vaccine Institute.

Around five days after exposure, the antigen test can start to detect an active Covid infection.

The good news is when youre using an antigen assay early on, if you dont get a positive test, and you just happen to be exposed and infected, you are most likely not infectious or able to transmit to someone else, Denny said.

Where the antigen test is very useful is at day five, he said.

For a person having symptoms, who still has a negative antigen test, its useful to do another rapid test a day or two later to see if theyve become antigen-positive, and infectious.

It took a long time  some say too long  for U.S. manufacturers to create antigen tests that were sensitive and specific enough for Covid. And it took U.S. regulators at the Food and Drug Administration a long time  some say too long  to give authorization for those antigen tests.

So, for now, Denny said the U.S. is under-resourced. This means that sometimes, someone whos been exposed to a person with Covid may be flying blind.

When it comes to schools, the recommendations are changing too. In Europe, schools have remained open and many practice a test to stay strategy, i.e. if a child has been exposed, they wear a mask and have serial antigen tests. If the test is negative, the child can stay in school. Positive tests send kids home.

In late December, the CDC endorsed these types of strategies for keeping students in school, and this month, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services followed suit. Some school districts are starting to use this method of continuing attendance in classrooms.

Nose or throat?

Theres been some evidence that Omicron reproduces more actively in the throat than in the nose, although the science is still not clear.

Nonetheless, some people have been using their rapid test swabs on their throats instead of the nose. Murray says thats a bad idea.

The technology that we have embraced as a nation and the antigen tests available right now, by and large, are nasal swab tests, she said. Murray explained that the tests are engineered to collect samples from nasal mucus, not from the cells and mucus of the throat, which are different.

You should not be YouTubing instructions on how to convert the nasal kits, the antigen kits to saliva, she said. I just dont think theres a lot of science for that.

But she said that the swab needs to go pretty far into the nose, not the brain biopsy that people complained about at the start of the pandemic, but a good ways in.

The important message that Im giving, at least this week, about throat swabs, is that people should not be using them off label in rapid antigen tests, Miller said. Its a very different environment, its actually more challenging to collect a good throat swab.

* * * * *

Rose Hoban is the founder and editor of NC Health News, as well as being the state government reporter. Hoban has been a registered nurse since 1992, but transitioned to journalism after earning degrees in public health policy and journalism. She's reported on science, health, policy and research in NC since 2005. Contact Hoban at editor@northcarolinahealthnews.org. North Carolina Health News is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina.
AN actor has called for a building which has been empty for 13 years to be used to house refugees.

Jeremy Irons says he would be prepared to help raise enough money to pay to make the property in Watlington habitable for a family of four and to underwrite some of the cost himself.

The 73-year-old Academy Award winner, who lives in the town, said the community could be proud of such an achievement.

The property at number 33 and the library next door are overseen by the Charlotte Coxe Trust.

Both properties were left to Oxfordshire County Council in 1949 by Charlotte Coxe, who founded the library for the benefit of the people of Watlington.

Number 33 has not been occupied since Age Concern moved out in 2009 and needs significant work to make it habitable again.

Since 2017, Watlington Parish Council has been negotiating the transfer of the ownership of No 33, which it wants to use to fulfil Mrs Coxes wishes.

Some residents have demanded the county council takes responsibility for the delay in the transfer and pays compensation for the loss of rent and the damage caused by poor maintenance of the building.

Irons, who is married to fellow actor Sinead Cusack, has approached the parish council with the proposal to make it habitable and use as emergency housing accommodation.

He said: As a country, we have a duty to house refugees. As a community, Watlington wants to be part of that process.

Housing is in short supply but 33 High Street, generously donated to the people of Watlington, has been empty for too many years.

I would ask those with the responsibility for running our community to do all in their power to free up this accommodation, to allow us to help with this humanitarian need.

I am prepared to spearhead the necessary fundraising to supply a refugee family of four with a roof over their heads and living expenses for 12 months to find their feet in their new country.

I am prepared to underwrite the costs of providing the necessary services to the house and all other expenses until such time as the fundraising can catch up.

I ask those of you in the relevant councils and other organisations to do all in your power to unravel the problems preventing this positive outcome.

I know that with our best endeavours it will be possible and that our community can succeed in an action of which it may be proud.

Matt Reid, who chairs the parish council, said: We are thinking this could be the shot in the arm that this issue needs.

We propose a bold first step in asking the county council as the current trustees to allow us to bring this building back to a state of habitability as emergency housing within the next 13 weeks.

Our intention is to sponsor a refugee family to live in Watlington in order to extend the charity of our community for one year.

Jeremy wants it to be a proper fundraising effort  we can raise the money ourselves and we should be able to make it a community effort. The county council has to think in the interest of the community and we are the voice of the community.

Councillor Ian Hill said: I think this will put the county council under pressure to do something.

Councillor Andrew McAuley said: It would be a very good scheme but we need to think about how we would help the family to integrate into the community and, if we can overcome that, how it would work.

Councillor Margaret Noon said: There are a lot of services to help us do that.

This would help us in a bigger project and help the family and we could also become a model for other communities. I think we will get the support we need.

Councillor Steve Bolingbroke said: We are not experts in housing refugees and we should really rely on people who are experts but I think we should make the offer and go ahead.

Councillor Alex Basden said: I think its a great idea and I hope the concerns we have can be overcome.

The parish council agreed to write to the county council detailing the proposal.
THIS highly inventive offering from Progress Theatre is by Michael Dennis, directed by Aidan Moran.

We see likeable, faded actress Marianne (Melanie Sherwood) looking back on her life and television career.

She has a close but spiky relationship with best friend Kate (Ali Carroll), who has recently partnered up with new love Suzanne (Stephanie Gunner-Lucas).

Aidan Morans cheery set design Mariannes flat  immediately draws the audience in. Clever use of lighting (Jon Churchill) and sound (Stuart McGubbin) turns the apartment into a convention, a pub, a park  and even the flight deck of a starship.

The ordinary mixes with the fantastic as naturalistic conversation scenes are interspersed with parodic clips from sci-fi television drama.

The wry and witty script is really funny. Dennis slickly combines the mundane with the fanciful. Deadpan delivery from the cast allows the humour to hit home.

Sherwood is arresting as the has-been television star, given a new lease of life when approached by geeky super-fan Oli, winningly portrayed by Dean Stephenson.

Olis earnest enthusiasm for the Seventies TV drama Dark Sublime gives Marianne an opportunity to reminisce about her heyday. An unlikely, symbiotic friendship develops between the two, showing that disappointment is a feeling shared by mature and young alike.

Act 2 opens with a Dark Sublime convention in Walsall. Stephenson does a magnificent comic job of welcoming the delegates to the event, where we meet former Dark Sublime actor, Bob. Gareth Saunders is very convincing as the sleazy Bob and masterful as his alter-ego Vykar.

We see Kate and Suzanne visiting Alexandra Palace, a nod to the cultural importance of TV.

Carroll and Gunner-Lucas are touching as the women in deeply reflective mood; we know this is a relationship likely to endure.

Themes explored in the play at large  searching for something, power struggles, jeopardy, letting go  are echoed in the parody TV sci-fi scenes.

For all the laughs, this is a play in praise of love. The plays title is taken from lines by W H Auden, who recommends being the more loving partner in any relationship.

Will Marianne learn to let go and allow the relationship between Kate and Suzanne to thrive?

Dark Sublime is a bittersweet, nostalgic examination of real life  and life as enacted on screen  engagingly staged by Progress.

Susan Creed
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A JOHANNE Marange Apostolic Church devotee, Evans Hatirarame Momberume (26), who is facing charges of murder and having a sexual relationship with a minor has been on the run ever since he absconded court late last year.

Momberume is accused of causing the death of 14-year-old Anna Machaya.

Machaya died while giving birth at the apostolic churchs Mafararikwa Shrine.

Momberume was scheduled to appear in court on December 7, 2001 but did not show up despite the presence of his lawyer, Mr Brian Majamanda of Khupe and Chijara Law Chambers in court on that day.

Earlier on, Mr Majamanda had successfully applied for his clients bail at the High Court where Momberume was granted $50 000 bail by Mutare High Court Judge, Justice Isaac Muzenda.

On Wednesday, Mr Majamanda said he is unaware of his clients whereabouts. National police spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said they are making frantic efforts to bring Momberume to book.

Repeated efforts to get a comment from Johanne Marange Apostolic Church spokesperson, Mr Nyasha Marange, were fruitless as he was not picking up calls.

Momberume is accused of causing the death of Machaya by impregnating her and failing to take her to a proper health institution to receive healthcare services.

It is alleged that instead of taking Machaya to a medical facility when she got into labour, Momberume took her to Johanne Marange Church midwives.

She delivered a baby boy but died due to labour complications.

Momberume allegedly secretly buried his victim without notifying authorities of her death.

On the other count, Momberume is said to have impregnated the juvenile and stayed with her as his wife.

Following Machayas death, the Zimbabwe Gender Commission heavily descended on the church as part of its investigations into matters surrounding harmful religious practices which perpetuate sexual exploitation and abuse of women.

In a recent interview, the Commissions chief executive officer, Ms Virginia Muwanigwa said: In terms of the Zimbabwe Gender Commission Act, we are mandated to investigate systematic barriers prejudicial to gender equality, gender equity or gender main-streaming.

A systemic barrier means any barrier, practice, custom, law or other impediments prejudicial to the achievement of gender equality, gender equity or gender main-streaming.

Institutionalisation of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and child marriages constitute a major barrier to the realisation of full gender equality. The harmful effects of child marriages inhibit their full potential and expose them to GBV and STIs as well as HIV.

The Commission has over the past years been seized with the matters surrounding harmful religious practices which perpetuate sexual exploitation and abuses of women. The investigation is, therefore, not limited to Marange as a church, nor the parties involved in the Machaya case only. Manica Post
POLICE yesterday denied charges of brutalising protesting teachers after the 16 educators who were arrested in the capital last week raised abuse and torture allegations.

The 16 Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (Artuz) members were arrested after protesting in Harare demanding United States-dollar salaries. They were released on Monday on $5 000 bail each.

The Artuz members, including their leader Obert Masaraure, said they were repeatedly assaulted in an inhumane manner by the police before they were taken to Harare Central Police Station.

This peaceful environment (during protest) was, however, rudely disrupted by the arrival of two police vehicles  a truck carrying up to 100 anti-riot police officers and a smaller truck with 20 more. As they jumped from the truck, the threat of violence was very apparent. We all scattered in different directions for safety, Masaraure said in a statement.

He said they sought refuge at the nearest police, where they suffered more police brutality.

As we approached the police post, we heard the blood-chilling sound of a gun being cocked. We turned around and we saw a police officer in uniform. He instructed us to lie on the ground.

We lied on our bellies and he used the radio to signal more police officers to come. Within minutes, we were tied together with a rope. They proceeded to assault us with truncheons.

We remained on our bellies enduring each stroke as it came. The beatings got worse as they kicked us all over our bodies, including our faces, he said.

After 20 minutes of unrelenting assault, we were ordered to get up. We were ordered to run around the park. Our bodies were on fire from the beatings, but in the face of armed police, we had no choice but to push ourselves to run.

National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said he was not aware of the alleged torture.

Police have often been accused of gross human rights violations. Newsday
Greenville, TX (75401)

Today

Cloudy early. Scattered thunderstorms developing later in the day. High around 85F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Scattered showers and thunderstorms. Low 66F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
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
A SOUTH AFRICAN Constitutional Court ruling late last year could provide some reprieve for Zimbabweans battling possible deportation after the expiry of their special exemption permits last month.

Nearly 200 000 Zimbabweans living in South Africa on a Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) have been given a 12-month grace period to regularise their papers or risk detention and deportation. This followed a cabinet resolution not to renew the permits when they expired last month.

The ConCourt ruling in a case of an Ethiopian national, Desta Abore, who was detained awaiting deportation, states that refugees and asylum seekers can apply for permits and stay in South Africa pending the outcome of their applications.

According to reports from South Africa, the ConCourt decision rescued Abore from unlawful detention and brought the much-needed clarity to the application of the new amendments to the Refugees Act in relation to asylum applications.

Various legal experts told the NewsDay Weekender that Zimbabweans in South Africa could take advantage of the ConCourt ruling to extend their stay in that country.

In an interview, a lawyer representing former special permit holders who are fighting for permanent residency in South Africa, Simba Chitando, hailed the ConCourt judgment.

The judgment sets a good precedent in support of the rights of migrants generally, even though it does not specifically deal with the rights of ZEP holders. It speaks to the position of the courts, which appears positive for migrants in the republic, he said

An attorney at Nonyane Inc in Pretoria, Thabang Nonyane, concurred, adding that the judgment gave some reprieve to Zimbabweans living in the neighbouring country.

In simple terms, the implication of the judgment is that once a foreigner has declared his or her intention to apply for an asylum or refugee status, he or she must be given an opportunity to do so by means of being issued a temporary permit.

The permit should be valid until the Department of Home Affairs has made a determination to the asylum or refugee application. Pending the determination by Department of Home Affairs, the foreigner may not be arrested, Nonyane said.

Khulekani Moyo of Wits University Law School said: Regulation 7 of the new regulations to the Refugees Act 130 of 1998 provides that a person must declare his or her intention to apply for asylum at a port of entry before entering the republic and must be issued with an asylum transit visa which is valid for five days.

An applicant for asylum must, in terms of Regulation 8, show good cause why he or she is not in possession of an asylum transit visa before he or she is allowed to make an application for asylum  good cause which is required to be shown refers to the reasons that must be given on why the applicant for asylum does not have an asylum transit visa, he said.

Moyo, however, said Regulation 7 did not assist asylum seekers who did not declare such an intention at a port of entry and before entering South Africa.

It also does not assist asylum seekers who do not enter the Republic through an official border post. Many do not, given their precarious position as illegal foreigners fleeing their home countries due to a well-founded fear of persecution, he said.

Abore reportedly entered South Africa illegally through Zimbabwe in December 2019, telling the court that he escaped persecution in his home country given his involvement in opposition politics.

He was arrested in July 2020 in Eshowe, northern KwaZulu-Natal, and was convicted and sentenced by the local magistrates court to 50 days imprisonment with an option to pay a fine of R1 500 for entering the country unlawfully. Despite paying the fine, Abore served his prison sentence and his detention, which was supposed to end on August 25 2020, continued beyond that date staying in prison for more than a year.

In February last year, the Department of Home Affairs applied for a warrant extending Abores detention for purposes of deporting him. Aggrieved by this, Abore approached the High Court to stay his deportation. Newsday
(JTA) - A team of researchers said they have identified the person who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis 80 years ago: a Jewish notary forced to work for the Nazis.

The man identified by a cold-case team that has been working for six years to identify the persons responsible for the discovery of the Franks by Nazi authorities in occupied Amsterdam was Arnold van den Bergh, a notary and a member of the Jewish Council, which the Nazis established to better control Dutch Jews.

The accusation is outlined in "The Betrayal of Anne Frank," a book published Monday by the Canadian auth...
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During a press call this morning, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra marked the one-year anniversary of the Biden-Harris Administration and  along with Health Resources Services Administration Administrator Carole Johnson  announced new funding to support health care workers who continue to work day in and day out on a shared priority: protecting the health of Americans, particularly as the pandemic persists. The following is an excerpt of the Secretary's opening remarks, and a downloadable snapshot of key achievements from the past year that have helped advance the HHS mission of building a healthier nation*.

Excerpt from Secretary Becerra's Press Call Remarks:

We meet on the one-year anniversary of President Biden's inauguration, and I am deeply proud of the work that the Biden-Harris Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have done this first year.

Today, some 210 million people have received two doses of an mRNa COVID-19 vaccine, or one dose of a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine. In March 2020, no one was fully vaccinated in this country. In fact, when President Biden took office a year ago, less than one percent of Americans had received any shots for vaccination against COVID-19.

We've invested some $7.3 billion dollars of COVID-19 relief funding specifically for community health centers, which have led the way in administering over 18 million vaccines. We've done that because we know that community health centers serve people in America who are either uninsured or underinsured.

In the year that President Biden has been in office, we have mobilized a network of 17,000+ volunteers, including 1,000 physicians, to boost vaccine confidence. And today, we have reached out in every possible way to Americans. Whether it's through media campaigns and ads or whether it's through the volunteers that we mobilize in this network, we are reaching out to all Americans in all corners of the country.

We know, of course, beating COVID-19 is just one part of our work to build back better and healthier. Today, nearly 5 million people in America have gained access to life-saving health care, thanks to President Biden and the American Rescue Plan.

Over the last year, we rolled out a new national strategy on overdose prevention, HIV/AIDS prevention, and prescription drug pricing. We are moving in areas that traditionally have been ignored or rejected by the federal government to try to help not just save lives but prevent harm.

We've worked hard to reduce health care costs, expand enrollment for millions of people, and we are in the process of implementing, as of January 1, prohibitions against surprise medical bills that Americans often face. And we recently rolled out nearly $300 million to help support implementation of a new three-digit dialing code  988  for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline [coming in July].

We do this because more Americans need better health care and we want to make sure, based on equity issues, that we reach everyone and not leave anyone behind.

So, we've come a long way since January 2020. And we know we still have work to do. We have work to do because there are people who are working, who are completely exhausted, fatigued. From Seattle to Atlanta and everywhere in between, I've seen first-hand the critical role that our health care workforce plays in serving communities.

I've visited health centers, I've met with doctors, nurses and staff and I've heard their stories and the challenges that they are facing as they help save lives and tackle this pandemic on the frontlines. Just yesterday, I participated in a virtual roundtable with leading health organizations to discuss the provider workforce and pipeline, with an emphasis on the shortages exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As one health care worker summed it up recently, "I am 27 years old and just praying I can get through every shift." And so, to help that 27-year-old health care worker and every other health care worker in America today, the Biden-Harris administration announced that we are awarding $103 million to strengthen long-term efforts to reduce burnout among our health care workforce and to promote mental health and wellness among all of our health care workers.

The fundscome from the American Rescue Planand will be dispersed to numerous organizations that oversee evidence-informed programs and practices and training. The focus will be on providers who do service in underserved and rural communities. Today's awards build on some $28.5 million, in again, American Rescue Plan funds, to create accredited primary care residency programs in rural and underserved communities.

This is an effort to be there when Americans need us, but it's also to be there when our health care heroes need us. They're the ones that are coming in every day. They are the first responders, and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that not just Americans are healthy, but our American health care workforce remains healthy and resilient.

*This content is in the process of Section 508 review. If you need immediate assistance accessing this content, please submit a request to digital@hhs.gov. Content will be updated pending the outcome of the Section 508 review.


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An article in the Indian Express from 8th January 2022 caught my attention. It was titled Your silence emboldens hate voices: Faculty, students of IIMs to PM.

16 Professors and 167 students of IIM Ahmedabad and Bangalore had signed a letter to the Prime Ministers Office. It urges PM Modi to steer the country away from forces that seek to divide us, and rued, Your silence, Honourable Prime Minister, emboldens the hate-filled voices and threatens the unity and integrity of our country.

Almost two years ago, I also had written a letter to the Prime Minister and had attached a draft for a petition to the United Nations with a similar request. I had focused on the contempt and resultant hatred which is inbuilt in the doctrines of Christianity and Islam for Hindus, which I know firsthand since I grew up in one of these religions. Hindus are seen as unbelievers, even though most Hindus are great believers in the Divine, because for those religions, unbelievers means those who dont believe in Christianity or Islam respectively.

Both these religions are divisive because they divide humanity into those who are right and saved by the Almighty, and those who are wrong and will be punished by the Almighty.

And both religions claim that Hindus belong to the second category. For them, Hindus are despicable, sinful idol-worshippers who will suffer for all eternity in hell.

I had argued in my draft that teaching children these divisive claims creates hatred and can lead to hate crimes if not genocide. This is not far-fetched. Genocide was committed in India by Muslim and Christian invaders over the last 1000 years and many millions of Hindus were brutally tortured and killed for being Hindus.

This petition draft, which is on my blog, contains for example the paragraph:

The unrelenting, unjust vilification of Hindus and Hindutva (Hindu-ness) by the leftist media in support of these two religions puts Hindus in a dangerous position. Hate speech against a group precedes hate crimes and genocide. It needs to be stopped urgently.

Hope disappointed

So when I saw this article in the Indian Express, I was happy that professors and students of the prestigious IIMs may finally have taken up the cause of the unacceptable contempt and hatred for Hindus, since there is no doubt that the two exclusive religions, each one of which claims that it alone is true, are divisive forces.

However, while reading the article, I soon realized that those professors and students seem to live in another world. A world which is upside down. Where the victims are the perpetrators and the perpetrators are the victims.

In short, the professors, who drafted the letter believe that Hindus are hate-filled and attack Muslims and Christians. They point to speeches by Sadhus and some lynching of Muslims by Hindus. Yes, these happened. For example, when Muslims steal cows and villagers go after them.

The speech by Sadhus at the Dharam Sansad in Haridwar, to which the signatories of the letter objected, can be seen as an alarmed reaction to equally or more terrible speeches which were made by Muslims and Christians in plenty and which show their intent to wipe out Hindus, but which strangely are not flagged by these professors and students as hateful.

Bias in the highly educated class

Dont those signatories remember for example the Muslim women at the CAA protest in Delhi saying on video that when they are in the majority, they will kill Hindus one by one? Or Waris Pathan, the spokesman for Owaisi, openly challenging Hindus that if the 15 crore Muslims take to the streets, it would be enough to bring the 100 crores of the country down to their knees? Dont they know that its the duty of good Muslims to do Jihad and leave only Muslims on earth and that its the duty of good Christians to wipe out belief in false gods.

There are umpteen hate-filled speeches against Hindus on the net, not only by Muslims but also by Christians. For example, a priest of the Pentecostal Church in Tamil Nadu asked all members to convert Hindus, so that in 3 years the whole of Tamil Nadu is converted. In the Blessings Magazine of the Baptist Church the youth is exhorted India must be converted in this generation.

Have the signatories forgotten the lynching of the sadhus and their driver in Palghar? Or the many pujaris murdered and their temples desecrated? The many rapes and murders of Hindu girls? Or Ramalingam, a youth from Tamil Nadu, who objected to conversion and many like him for example from RSS?

Do those signatories not know about the history of the last 1000 years? I cant even attempt to detail the cruelties by Muslims and Christians, as it would need the length of a book. Even in the last 100 years the list is terrible  the brutal Hindu genocide by Moplahs, the Direct Action Day, the partition, the unspeakable brutalities against Hindus in 1971 in Bangladesh, or in 1990 in Kashmir.

Dear students and professors of IIMs, please introspect.

Compare the above facts with what Hindus did to Muslims and Christians and have some integrity and honesty. Think of your ancestors who greatly suffered for holding on to their Dharma, and who may have had to open their mouth and humbly receive the spittle of Muslims who passed them on horseback (I read this and other barbaric methods to humiliate and hurt Hindus in Legacy of Jihad, by Andrew Bostom). Thanks to your ancestors, Hindu civilisation is still alive, though it has shrunk a lot. In fact, most Muslims in the world had Hindu ancestors, not only the Muslims of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh but also of Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan

Its really sad that you support those who attack Hindu Dharma and thereby risk to make Indian Hindus and possibly yourself in a few decades suffer in similar depraved circumstances, as the unfortunate few remaining Hindus in Pakistan or Bangladesh do. Afghanistan can pride itself that it has already fulfilled its religious duty and has fully wiped out Hindus from its soil.

Your letter says Our Constitution gives us the right to practice our religion with dignity  without fear, without shame. There is a sense of fear in our country now  places of worship, including churches in recent days, are being vandalised, and there have been calls to take arms against our Muslim brothers and sisters. All of this is carried out with impunity and without any fear of due process.

Please introspect who is victimising whom. You surely consider yourself highly educated, but there are gaps in your education. Read about the history and about the fundamentals of Hindu Dharma and the fundamentals of those religions which claim that they alone are true and all must follow them. And also read and listen to media with the required discernment.

Then you may come to a more realistic understanding.

Source : Maria Wirth

Link to the article : https://indianexpress.com/article/india/silence-hate-voices-iims-to-pm-7712317/
Being an entertainer or an entrepreneur in New York City is tough enough these days as the pandemic rages on for another long winter.

Tougher still if youre both.

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For Alex Carabano, 41, a standup comic who also co-owns and manages two city restaurants, COVID has been a crusher. Both of the Latino-style vegan eateries he runs with his older brother Danny Carabano and Steven Simicich, their best friend from college  V-Spot in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and V-Spot Express in the East Village  have closed at one point or another in the last two years.

Alex Carabano during a standup performance. (Courtesy of Alex Carabano)

Yet comedy has been a saving grace. Carabano, who started doing standup bits at his Brooklyn place, now runs  and often performs  at his St. Marks Comedy Club in a separate room at the Manhattan restaurant.

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The Colombian-American comedian, who recently starred in his own comedy special on HBO Latino and HBO Max, will host a Latino comedy festival on Feb. 26 at V-Spot Express.

VIVA: These must have been a rough couple of years, and yet youre still standing. Both of your places are still in business and youre an up-and-coming comic.

Its definitely been difficult. But in some ways because one [job] was so hard I was able to deal with the hardness of the other one, if that makes sense.

Alex Carabano's restaurant, V-Spot Express. (Courtesy of Alex Carabano)

How did you kickstart a comedy career late in life?

We opened V-Spot in 2006 in Brooklyn, and then a couple of years later, I had a breakup and I decided to try comedy. I did it more as a hobby. But it was pretty crazy because I actually started getting good at it. Nobody would book me and I was too busy to hustle it so I started just putting on a show in my restaurant. And I was pretty bad. But little by little I started improving.

Is it easy running a place at the same time youre a performer?

I always joke I have to make my customers laugh, but even while Im onstage Ive also got to worry about who needs their check, does that guy need more water? Does the cook remember that we havent paid him in a week?

I have a line where I go, Im a little different than these other comedians because I own a restaurant so I dont have to be here. It always makes the audience laugh.

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Alex Carabano performing a standup routine. (Courtesy of Alex Carabano)

How are things now with yet another coronavirus wave hitting the city?

We want to capitalize on the comedy shows even more now. Ive really got to get the shows popping. The restaurant itself is slower. So its comedy that will hopefully help us in the long run.
After more than five decades of beating back blazes on city streets and in city government, FDNY Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro has put in his retirement papers, the Daily News has learned.

Nigro, 73, filed for retirement earlier this week. He is expected to officially step down on Feb. 16, giving Mayor Adams ample time to name a replacement to lead the FDNYs 11,000 uniformed force of firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

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Ill still be around, but all good things come to an end, Nigro said humbly during an exclusive interview with The News. Leaving is certainly not easy. Its been such a part of my life after so many years.

FDNY Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

Top contenders for Nigros job include Terryl Brown, the departments current deputy fire commissioner for legal affairs who would be the first woman to lead the FDNY in its 157-year history, and Robert Tucker, a former FDNY dispatcher who is now a CEO of a security firm and on the board of the FDNY Foundation.

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The new FDNY commissioner will be taking over a department still reeling from allegations of discrimination against people of color and accusations of nepotism within the ranks.

Mayor Adams wished Nigro well in his retirement on Friday.

Dan and I have had an amazing relationship over our long careers in public service. Hes a tireless champion for New Yorkers, and a friend who Ive leaned on time and again, Adams said. New Yorkers, whether they know it or not, are all safer because of the work hes done and owe him their thanks. Dan defines public service and will be deeply missed by me and the entire department.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro at the site of the deadly Twin Parks fire in the Bronx on Jan. 9, 2022. (Scott Heins/Getty Images)

Nigro doesnt remember a moment when the FDNY wasnt a part of his life. He grew up going to his father FDNY Captain Daniel Nigro Sr.s firehouse until he signed up on Nov. 29, 1969.

His first assignment was Engine 21, behind the old Daily News building in Midtown. During his first shift, he was dispatched to put out a fire inside a Third Ave. tenement.

It was just as I thought it would be, he remembered. It was exciting and I was so proud to be one of those five men on that hose pushing to extinguish the fire.

Nigro quickly moved up the ranks and was a part of every significant event in the FDNY in the last five decades.

New York Fire Department Chief Daniel Nigro and his wife are received by Pope John Paul II during a ceremony at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2001. Nigro led a delegation of firefighters from New York who came to Rome to attend a pro-U.S.A rally championed by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservatives. (ARTURO MARI /AP)

In 1996, the Queens resident was named the first chief of the FDNY Emergency Medical Service after the department merged with the New York City Health + Hospitals Corporation  a shotgun wedding no one was happy about at the time.

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I think I enjoy taking on a challenge people shy away from, Nigro said. No one wanted to do it. The EMTs were not happy to be with the firefighters and the firefighters were not to happy to be with EMTs. But I was happy to have the challenge because I believed in (the merger).

Nigro saw the fruits of his labor when he responded to the fatal Twin Parks fire in the Bronx on Jan. 9. Seventeen people died in the blaze, but Nigro saw firefighters and EMS members helping scores more, many of whom survived.

FDNY Capt. Michael Dugan hangs an American flag from a light pole in front of what was left of the World Trade Center after 9/11. (Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News)

On 9/11 Nigro was given another unenvious promotion.

After his close friend, FDNY Chief of Department Peter Ganci, died in the terror attacks, he was named Gancis successor.

FDNY Chief of Department Peter Ganci, who was killed on Sept. 11, 2001. (Obtained by Daily News)

Overnight, he became the departments highest ranking uniformed officer and was praised for his leadership during the FDNYs darkest days  the department lost 343 members.

Its not the way anyone wants to be promoted, Nigro remembered. I see the portraits of all the chiefs outside my office every day. None had to take over as if a president had been assassinated.

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The 20th anniversary of the terror attacks last September were hard to get through, he said.

It was very emotional. I just kept thinking how privileged I am to survive this and see the birth of my grandchildren and the weddings of my daughters. You feel lucky. I do and I still do.

Nigro retired in 2002, but was brought back as fire commissioner in 2014. Three months into his first year, the de Blasio administration settled a historic federal lawsuit alleging discrimination within the FDNY. Nigro was tasked with improving diversity among the ranks.

We made great progress over the last eight years, making the department more diverse, with more women and people of color, said Nigro, recalling that when he first joined the FDNY, he was a fireman, not a firefighter. But you have to be a believer. Youre never doing something just for the sake of pleasing someone, you do it because its the right thing to do.

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (C) and Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen (L) congratulate Daniel Nigro (R) after he was promoted to chief of department during a ceremony near NYFD headquarters in Brooklyn, New York 16 September, 2001. (HENNY RAY ABRAMS/AFP via Getty Images)

During his stint as fire commissioner, we doubled our percentages of minority firefighters, EMTs and paramedics, Nigro said.

When he took the helm, the firefighting side of the department was 86% white, 9% Hispanic and 5% Black, The News previously reported.

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Now, the firefighting side of the agency is 74% white, 13% Hispanic, 8% Black and 2% Asian. EMS remains more diverse with a workforce thats 42% white, 26% Hispanic, 20% Black and 5% Asian, according to FDNY data.

Sometimes I wonder what took us so long, but I know that we can do even better, he said. Were no where where we should be, but we have given more people the opportunity to be the greatest job in the world. Why shouldnt everybody have this opportunity?

FDNY Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro at his swearing in ceremony at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn on Monday, June 9, 2014. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Nigro is also credited for expanding fire safety education efforts throughout the city and overseeing the department during the COVID-19 pandemic, where EMS answered the highest number of medical calls in city history.

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As he begins to pack up his office, Nigro hopes his replacement realizes one thing: Theyre the luckiest person in the city of New York, he said.

What they need to know is that the people that staff our firehouses and EMS stations, they dont need a lot of management, but they need a leader that has a goal, he said.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro talks to the press after fire that killed seven children on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn on Saturday, March 21, 2015. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

As for his legacy in the department, Nigro said the best accolade he could receive would be the simplest.

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We always say the ultimate compliment for a firefighter is that he was a good firefighter, Nigro said. He knew his job and he was brave. I hope they say that about me.

When it comes to being fire commissioner, I hope they say I was fair, I had a plan and a mission and I was a good leader. No one can say that I didnt love the department and didnt love the people and looked out for them every day.

And, just like every retired firefighter, hell always keep an eye out for passing fire engines.

Ill be listening for those calls, he joked. My two sons-in-law are active in the department, so Sunday dinners will be just like they were with my dad. The FDNY will always be at my dinner table.
Interview: China-Europe freight trains a boost for Mongolia's foreign exchange flows, says official

Xinhua) 14:16, January 21, 2022

ULAN BATOR, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The China-Europe freight train service is crucial to Mongolia because it boosts foreign exchange inflows into its economy, a senior Mongolian railway official has said.

"The China-Europe freight train service via the territory of Mongolia is very important for the Mongolian economy, because all fees of the freight train service are paid in foreign currencies," which increases its foreign exchange reserves, said Amarbayasgalan Altanshagai, head of the container freight transportation division of Ulan Bator Railway company, Mongolia's official railway operator.

Noting that the number of freight trains via Mongolian territory for the China-Europe route is growing year by year, he said a total of 2,513 such trains travelled through Mongolia in 2021, an increase of about 200 from the previous year.

Last year, the China-Europe freight train service generated at least 166 billion Mongolian Tugriks (58.2 million U.S. dollars) for Mongolia's railway sector alone, he said, stressing that the service also created significant revenues for other sectors in the country, such as private transport.

Mongolia aims to become a transit state, offering the shortest route from Europe to Asia through its territory, Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh has said.

The "Transit Mongolia" goal proposed by the president can be fully achieved, Altanshagai said. "We believe that the China-Europe freight train service via the territory of Mongolia is part of the implementation of the goal."

In order to grow the number of freight trains in the future, capacity at border stations and the number of border exits or routes must be increased, Altanshagai said.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
A Florida man who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information against Joe Biden in Ukraine was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $10,000 Friday in an unrelated campaign finance case.

Igor Fruman was told to report to prison March 14. He pleaded guilty in September to a single charge of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national.

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Igor Fruman leaves Federal court in Manhattan after being sentenced, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. Fruman, who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information against Joe Biden in Ukraine has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $10,000 in an unrelated campaign finance case. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

As part of the plea, he admitted soliciting a million dollars from a Russian entrepreneur, Andrey Muraviev, to donate to Republicans in Nevada, Florida and other states as part of an effort to launch a recreational marijuana business.

Federal prosecutors in New York had urged Manhattan Federal Judge Paul Oetken to sentence Fruman to between three and four years in prison. Defense lawyers had argued he should face no incarceration because he has otherwise led a law-abiding life.

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Oetken said the crime of soliciting foreign money for U.S. political campaigns was serious and deserved incarceration.

It undermines the integrity of elections in our country, he said as he announced the sentence. It undermines democracy.

Igor Fruman is seen leaving the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse on October 23, 2019 in New York. (Alec Tabak/for New York Daily News)

Fruman, 55, the father of four children, told the judge he had reflected on his crime.

Breaking News As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. >

Its a shame that will live with me forever, he said through a white face mask as several family members watched from wooden benches in an area for spectators.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten had urged a sentence of at least three years behind bars, saying the crime had caused incalculable damage because it harms the trust the public has in U.S. elections.

That all the things they fear are happening with politicians are happening, he said.

Igor Fruman arrives at Federal court in Manhattan, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

Scotten said the crime does grave damage to the integrity of the electoral system.

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche said his client had suffered from eight days in jail after his arrest and two years and four months of home incarceration.

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Thats punishment enough, your honor, he said.

From left, Vice President Mike Pence, Igor Fruman, Lev Parnas, President Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani are pictured in an undated photo. (Obtained by New York Daily News)

Fruman was charged in the case along with Lev Parnas, another Florida businessman who helped Giulianis attempt to spoil Bidens quest for the presidency on the Democratic ticket. Parnas was found guilty at trial in October.
February 1, 2022, marks the arrival of Christian Ojeda, taking the helm as executive chef of Lucia Restaurant & Bar. Ready to fire up the stoves, Ojeda was selected following an intensive nationwide search for the 73-room lodge's top toque. Set to deliver on expectation, he joins the Bernardus culinary team from Montage Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, where he held the post of executive chef.

Receiving a coveted 12 Forbes stars in 2021, Bernardus Lodge & Spa has long set the standard for luxury lodging along the California coastline. Ojeda's strong resume and 20+ years in the culinary industry are certain to add yet another layer of luxe. Born in Utah with Chilean roots, Ojeda has traversed key kitchens in Europe as well as sharpening his knives in Las Vegas at

Joel Robuchon and Hubert Keller's famed Fleur de Lys. He later transitioned to the Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado Santa Fe and then took the reins as executive chef at Auberge Resort Collection's Calistoga Ranch, overseeing all food & beverage operations for the

award-winning inn. Ojeda later served as executive chef at Sky Lodge, Utah before joining the Montage Deer Valley Resort in 2014 - Utah's only Five-Star, Five Diamond hotel property.

Rooted in classic European technique with an eye for contemporary flavors, Ojeda's style is progressive in approach, with a fresh take on classics and integration of local influences.

A graduate of the Art Institute of Denver with a Bachelor of Arts degree in hospitality management, Ojeda will relocate to Monterey County with his wife and two sons.
Corinthia Hotels has announced an exciting leadership change at their iconic Corinthia Palace in Malta: the appointment of Alexandra Pisani as the Hotel's new General Manager.

The luxury hospitality sector has formed a huge part of Alexandra Pisani's life. Having grown up around hotels and spent her early years at Corinthia Palace, she received an invaluable education in the quality-of-service that guests have come to expect from all Corinthia hotels.

Alexandra may have only recently returned to Malta , but is far from new to the Corinthia Group. As the daughter of founder Alfred Pisani, she has been immersed in the world of luxury hospitality and consistently exposed to the very best that the international industry has to offer from a young age. Her own career has taken her from senior roles at international five-star properties, to the Group's own flagship Corinthia London - where she was Quality and Standards Manager. Most recently, she had been Corinthia Palace's Hotel Manager, overseeing the property's operations, strategic planning and guiding its upcoming projects.

New developments have already begun, marking a time of change for the luxury hotel. Josephine's "specialty-coffee" concept recently opened in the hotel lobby. Moreover, it has been announced that in February, Michelin-starred Maltese restaurant Bahia will make the move from its Lija location to the Corinthia Palace.

Alexandra will take a proactive approach to the hotel's leadership, including being very hands-on and empathetic in its management. Additionally, she is keen to see the hotel improve its sustainable practices and to become ever-more committed to diversity and inclusion, both which Alexandra is passionate about.

Naturally, Alexandra's leadership style is also influenced by her father, Corinthia Group Founder & Chairman Alfred Pisani.
Vespera Resort on Pismo Beach has named Jaclyn Dawson - a sales industry leader most recently with Pacifica Hotels - as its new director of sales. In her new role, Dawson will take charge of developing, overseeing and coordinating all sales initiatives for Vespera, a boutique oceanfront resort in Pismo Beach, Calif.

With more than 10 years of industry experience, Dawson joins Vespera Resort with a strong background in hospitality sales. She was most recently a regional sales leader for San Luis Obispo-based Pacifica Hotels, where she was responsible for multiple properties along California's coastline - consistently exceeding sales goals. She was also director of sales for Springhill Suites by Marriott in Atascadero and launched her career as sales coordinator for the Embassy Suites in San Luis Obispo.
Outrigger Hospitality Group is pleased to announce SHARI FUJITA as vice president finance.

Fujita has 23 years of experience with Outrigger; most recently as vice president global accounting, before following a career path at Aqua-Aston Hospitality as chief financial officer and most recently at Pulama Lanai overseeing the financial group and financial systems area. Fujita also has experience in the KPMG Honolulu office audit group with clients in the hospitality, banking and transportation industries.

Fujita will oversee Outrigger financing opportunities, as well as maintain Outrigger's banking relationships in Hawai'i and with mainland U.S. and international lenders. Her responsibilities will include managing liquidity, being an active lead in development efforts and providing asset management oversight to Outrigger's Hawai'i and Asia-Pacific portfolio.

Fujita is a proud Indiana University Hoosier finance graduate.
auroHOTELS is pleased to announce the hiring of Jennifer (Jen) Stilwell as Vice President of Marketing.

Stilwell is an accomplished, energetic and versatile marketing professional with more than 25 years in the advertising and marketing realm. A high-level strategic thinker and key contributor to the creative process, Jen is arguably one of the travel and tourism industry's most knowledgeable and decorated brand strategists in destination brand marketing.

For the past decade, Jen has served VisitGreenvilleSC (VGSC), the official destination marketing organization for the City of Greenville, SC. Under Stilwell's leadership as Chief Marketing Officer and EVP/Chief Strategic Officer, she successfully directed and launched a new brand identity for the destination  "yeahTHATgreenville." The award-winning brand campaign was cited as a Best-In-Class example in tourism marketing, twice winning the prestigious Platinum Adrian Award from HSMAI. In total the brand was recognized with 67 distinguished awards. During Stilwell's tenure as lead brand architect, the organization's marketing efforts dramatically heightened visibility and awareness of Greenville, SC. Moreover, strong brand performance led to record-setting visitation, with destination Greenville welcoming 5.5 million visitors a year, and tourism economic success growing to a nearly $1.4 billion industry in 2019 (pre-covid).

Prior to VisitGreenvilleSC, Stilwell focused the majority of her career efforts leading tourism brand marketing for accounts such as the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism (SCPRT) while at Leslie Advertising and the bounce agency to such prominent brands as NYCVB, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, La Cabana in Aruba and Club Med while at New York ad agency Warren/Kremer.

Raised on the Jersey shore, Stilwell graduated from Rollins College. She is married to her husband, Ron, and has two four-legged children, Kai and Thor.
You booked your business trip but youre feeling about as experienced as a monolingual UN translator. After all, youve been on back-to-back video calls since the big bang. You can barely remember why its customary to wear shoes to a meeting, much less recall the speed-networking, client-schmoozing, international jet-setter you once were. This is where your trusty smartphone comes in.

There are loads of handy traveling apps you can use to jolt your muscle memory and ease you back into experienced traveler mode, with confidence.

Pack it up, Pack it in

While we have been traveling vast distances from bedroom to living room, the world of packing apps has progressed light years. Apps like OneBag, EasyPack and PackTeo allow you to calculate weight and make lists using built-in templates, adding details like which bag to pack it in. Packr has similar features like auto-generated packing lists and weather forecasting, while also allowing for multiple destinations.

Time after Time

Timeshifter synchronizes your circadian rhythm with your new time zone to create a custom travel plan. Just answer a few questions about your trip and your natural sleep cycle and the app presents you with an up-to-date timeline of when to sleep, when to get some sunlight, and when to avoid caffeine more than youre avoiding Dave in Accounts. Alerts help you stay on track. Similar apps include SleepCycle and Uplift.

Planning to dial in a colleague from Rio and another from Singapore? You cant please all the people all the time but you can try. TimeBuddy lets you enter multiple cities to show the corresponding times. Gone are the days of Googling What time is it in Paris? What next? Self-flying planes?

Theres a Map for That

Google Maps still reigns supreme for coverage, finding the closest available latte to street-view spying on your prospects new office (Wait, are people using it for directions too?). There are loads of other apps that help you compare routes and travel options in real time. These range from global platforms like Rome to Rio and local scope apps like Citymapper. If youre lucky enough to tack on a spot of leisure time, apps like AllTrails are great for hiking and biking, letting you measure air and light pollution and find nearby trails.

Living La Vida Local

Why eat a rubbery bowl of pasta in the place everyone knows is for tourists when you could sample a tasting menu from that up-and-coming chef you saw on Chefs Table?

Apps like Spotted by Locals and Bimble let you peruse curated lists by lifestyle writers and food bloggers and keep track of your own favourite haunts. Youll never again forget the name of that adorable cafe with the best croissants and ample plugs for your laptop.

Already been to the museum? Apps like MeetUp and Eventbrite let you find local groups and events to suit any passion from fashion pop-ups to classical music and festivals for adult Lego fans (you do you).

Host your own gathering with one of hundreds of diverse venues found on CWT Easy Meetings.

Finally, just like you wouldnt travel to a meeting without your shoes, dont forget to download the award-winning myCWTapp to manage your bookings, organise your travel plans and chat to your travel counselor.

About CWT

CWT is a Business-to-Business-for-Employees (B2B4E) travel management platform. Companies and governments rely on us to keep their people connected  anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Across six continents, we provide their employees with innovative technology and an efficient, safe and secure travel experience backed by our three core promises: to simplify corporate travel, to connect to unlock possibilities, and to move forward, together.

Engage with us via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and our Podcast.

Media Contact CWT

CWT

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Serial ADA litigants are continuing to face challenges in the courts as dozens of cases alleging a failure to include accessibility information on hotel websites are being dismissed. Martin Orlick, Chair of JMBMs ADA Compliance & Defense Group, describes one such case faced by a JMBM client below. This successful outcome is good news for hotels worried about Reservation Rules lawsuits.

In another blow to serial ADA litigation against hotels, a judge in the Northern District of California has issued an opinion dismissing the case against JMBM client OCI, which owns and operates a Comfort Inn & Suites near the San Francisco International Airport.

Brian Whitaker, who has filed nearly 2,000 ADA lawsuits in the last two years, claimed that OCI failed to include enough detail in its online description of accessible features, violating the ADAs Reservation Rule. JMBM filed a motion to dismiss on behalf of OCI, which was granted on January 6, 2022. This is the second Reservation Rule cases dismissed by this judge. The opinion is available here.

The Reservation Rule refers to ADA guidelines requiring that hotels include information about accessible rooms and features on their website, so that guests know before booking if they are able to safely and comfortably stay at the property. A hotel may be ADA compliant if it includes either a bathtub or roll-in shower, for example, but some guests may need to know which option is provided in order to determine if the room meets their needs.

The Court found that OCIs website included sufficient information because its states which rooms are ADA accessible, and identifies which features are available in each room. The features Whitaker claimed to need specific information about, such as sink accessibility and clearance around furniture and fixtures, are already required by the ADA and do not need additional description. If a picture tells a thousand words, then the hotels websites photographs of the accessible features could fill a novel.

Defense counsel have successfully defeated over 80 similar cases against hotels; nearly all of these Reservation Rule cases filed by this law firm have been dismissed. There are important drafting and website development takeaways from the Courts rulings, and the lessons for hotels so far are clear  as long as hotels take affirmative steps to bring their websites into compliance with the Reservation Rule, they are less likely to be the targets of litigants. If they are targeted, such cases are defensible.

See how JMBMs Global Hospitality Group can help you.

Click here for the latest articles on ADA Compliance and Defense.

Jim Butler

+1 310 201 3526

JMBM

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It's been a few months since French Montana unveiled his latest studio project, They Got Amnesia, and even longer since he claimed the summer of 2022 with "FWMGAB." The Shakira-sampling record arrived in June 2021, commandeering the months of sweltering heat as French continued to defy his naysayers.

Even though we're a few weeks into 2022, it seems that a deluxe edition of the album is coming soon. Today, French Montana unveiled the official remix of "FWMGAB" featuring Moneybagg Yo, whose sheer presence elevates the record. After such a successful year in 2021, Bagg reflects on the success of "Wockesha" and his growing rates for features and performance over the triumphant horns.

Though we're in the thick of the winter, Moneybagg Yo's assistance on the remix of French's hit record helps extends its lifespan into the new year.

Quotable Lyrics

N***as ain't straight, bitches ain't safe

Wockesha slow my pace, this a turtle race

Memphis on my back so my name holds weight

You might be gettin' money but it's still a low rate


David J. Phillip, STF / AP

After more than a dozen years of motions, objections, petitions and appeals, the multibillion-dollar civil fraud case against five banks that provided financial services to Ponzi scheme perpetrator R. Allen Stanford and his investment firm will finally go to trial later this year and the trial will take place in Houston.

A federal judge, who has overseen the massive litigation brought by thousands of investors who claim they were defrauded more than $5 billion in hard money by Stanford and the Stanford Financial Group between 1999 and 2008, said the biggest and final of all the lawsuits is ready to be sent back to Houston to be decided by a judge and jury in the town were the scheme took place.
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Andrew Bruces Houston company Data Gumbo has emerged as a leader in the new industrial blockchain category. More than $1 billion in transactions flow through its systems, and more than 100 companies provide the company with data about the work theyre performing.

Its seeking Series C investors, and in the past 12 months, its workforce has grown to 72 from 41.

The use of blockchain  like a virtual ledger of the online exchange of information  is still a relatively new phenomenon.

Data Gumbo began using the blockchain to make payments between oil companies and their subcontractors easier. Bruce described the system as like an Excel spreadsheet, helping to keep track of work being done.

Nonprofit news outlet to launch

Five foundations, including three local philanthropies, are investing more than $20 million to launch an independent nonprofit news outlet in Houston.

The Houston Endowment, the Kinder Foundation and Arnold Ventures said the yet-to-be-named news operation will be one of the largest of its kind nationally when it launches late this year or early next year on multiple platforms. The philanthropies, joined by journalism foundations the American Journalism Project and the Knight Foundation, said they seek to elevate the voices of Houstonians and answer the communitys calls for additional news coverage.

News organizations are increasingly expanding their footprint in Houston, ramping up competition for advertising dollars and journalism consumers in one of the nations largest media markets long served by the Houston Chronicle.

Montrose renters get solar panels

Some renters in Montrose soon will be able to plug in to an electrical grid powered by solar panels atop their apartment buildings  just like homeowners who pay for the pricey rooftop equipment.

PearlX, which specializes in virtual power grids and solar installations for multifamily housing, and rooftop solar company SolarEdge said their first virtual power plant system in Texas would be installed at the 2410 Waugh Apartments in Montrose before the end of March. Officials with the companies say they hope that the apartment residents will be the first of nearly 1,300 tenants in Texas who will be offered power through Project TexFlex.

Renters at the projects properties will have free access to the solar energy, cutting their power bills, and will let them tap into the power even if the states grid operator experiences blackouts like those seen during last years deadly winter storm.

New home market hot and holding

The average new home price in Houston was up slightly from $395,765 in November, but below the 2021 peak of $404,453 in October. The December price is about $41,000 more  or 12 percent higher  than December 2020.

In 2021, bidding wars and sales prices over asking price became the norm as buyers chased a limited supply of houses on the market.

Shortages plague Texas hospitals

Texas faces some of the most significant staffing ICU bed shortages in the country during the latest COVID surge, according to an analysis from LendingTree. The report used data from Health and Human Services and the Kaiser Family Foundation to look at each states number of intensive care unit beds, staffing shortages and number of physicians to see which states are least prepared for another surge in cases. Texas ranked number one.

Nationally, 78 percent of the ICU beds across the country were being used. In Texas, that number was 91 percent the morning when the study came out, but by that afternoon, it was up to 94 percent.

Companies stick to vaccination policies

Local companies say they will maintain their vaccination policies despite the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling this month that struck down the Biden administrations vaccination mandate for firms with more than 100 employees.

The courts conservative majority dealt a blow to one of the administrations key initiatives to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control. The ruling found that imposing the mandate reached beyond the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency charged with implementing the mandate.

The majority argued that the pandemic wasnt a workplace safety problem but a public health issue. The court let stand a mandate requiring health care workers to be vaccinated.

Legal experts and business leaders say the ruling isnt likely to change much because many employers have already had policies put in place before the mandate. Bob Harvey, CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, the regions leading business group, said he doesnt expect employers to change their policies because of the ruling.

Corporate vaccine requirements increased the rate of vaccination among employees by 20 percentage points, according to a recent survey by the National Safety Council. The survey found that 95 percent of workers at businesses with vaccine mandates were inoculated, compared with 75 percent among those at businesses without requirements.

Lessons on buying a pandemic home

The Chronicles Amanda Drane shares her first-person experience of buying a house during the pandemics housing frenzy writing: I knew when I took a job across the country in April 2020 that I was in for a wild ride, and the experience did not disappoint.

The pandemic stretched on, the housing market went through the roof and dont get me started on Houstons freeways. They dont make them like that in Massachusetts.

Through it all, I managed to sell my home in the Northeast and buy one here in Houston. I learned a lot along the way, both about my new city and this strange moment in housing history.

Low-fare airline expands in region

Low-fare Frontier Airlines announced it has added William P. Hobby Airport to its route map, including three nonstop routes to Las Vegas that start at $59, as well as flights to Orlando four times a week.

Frontier also expects to add Cancun to its destinations out of Hobby, pending approval from federal regulators.

Its the latest bit of good news for Hobby, the citys second-largest airport behind Bush Intercontinental.

Earlier this month, Hobby was given a five-star rating by the international air transport agency Skytrax  making it the first airport in North America to receive the agencys highest rating.

From staff reports.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pushed back Thursday against allegations that prosecution policies he outlined as he took office make him soft on violent crime.

The newly minted DA clarified his controversial day one memorandum, admitting parts of it were legalistic and confusing, but stressed that his office would be laser-focused on gun crimes in the borough.

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Bragg spoke about the memo during a virtual Q&A at NYU School of Law, describing it as a framework for line prosecutors while emphasizing that each case is fact specific.

We put a legalistic memo out that gave rise to questions of good faith for many folks, and weve been in the process of trying to clarify and respond to them, Bragg said.

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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at the National Action Network headquarters in Harlem Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022 in Manhattan. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Braggs memo was sent out to all prosecutors in his office on Jan. 3, and said that the office would not prosecute fare beating, resisting arrest and other nonviolent crimes.

The memo also said that the office would pursue petit larceny charges, a misdemeanor, against suspects initially charged with armed robbery in a commercial setting, provided they didnt create a genuine risk of physical harm.

Front page for Jan. 5, 2022: New DA's policy angers some cop unions. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg (left) says he won't seek jail for crimes like fare-beating and resisting arrest, but will target sex trafficking and other felonies. (New York Daily News)

But Bragg made clear on Thursday that anyone in a store waving a gun  loaded or unloaded  would be hit with felony charges.

If you got a gun and you display it, that is a very genuine risk of physical harm, the DA said while taking questions from the press.

Breaking News As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. >

Bragg admitted that one of the major issues with the memo was that dealt with the specifics of New Yorks penal code. Bragg said he wished he had written the memo in plain English.

Ive got a lot to learn about comms and messaging. Lesson learned, he said.

The memo was panned by law enforcement unions, and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said some of the policies would invite violence against police officers.

Front page for Jan. 9, 2022: Top cop hits leniency; union says prosecutor made rob just "shoplift." Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg speaks Saturday at Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, vowing to continue easier-on-crime policy criticized by NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell (inset) as a danger to cops and the public. (New York Daily News)

Bragg noted that his policy against pursuing some resisting arrest cases had more to do with instances in which officers brought the charge when the only resistance was a verbal dispute.

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Violence against police officers will not be tolerated, he said.

Despite the memo, Bragg said that morale at the office was good and that he addressed his prosecutors earlier Thursday. He also took issue with news reports about assistant district attorneys leaving the office.

I see the turnover as somewhat routine, he said.
Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

A $7 billion chemical plant owned jointly by Exxon Mobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp., or SABIC, has kicked off operations, the companies said Thursday.

The facility broke ground in 2019 and features the worlds largest unit for processing ethane, a component of natural gas, into ethylene, the primary building block of most plastics. The unit, known as a cracker, has the capacity to process 1.8 million metric tons of ethylene per year.
Mexicos state-owned oil company on Thursday closed the deal to acquire its first U.S. refinery, planting Petroleos Mexicanos flag firmly in Greater Houston as others back away from fossil fuels.

Shell Oil Co., the U.S. subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, had owned the refinery for more than 90 years. Now, Pemex  which owned half the company  bought Shells 50 percent ownership for $596 million in cash and debt. Pemex also paid Shell $325 million for inventory inside the facility.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Q&A: AMLOs game and the future of energy in Mexico

The refinery is one of many Shell is unloading as it positions itself for a global transition to clean energy and marches toward its net-zero emissions targets. Pemex and Mexico are doubling down on fossil fuels as they try to achieve President Andres Manuel Lopez Obradors nationalist goal of exploring, extracting  and refining  his own countrys oil.

The Deer Park purchase gives Pemex an avenue to process its heavy domestic crude and convert it into gasoline  its existing refineries are not capable of converting heavy crudes, said S&P Global Platts Analytics analyst Lenny Rodriguez. The Deer Park refinery has a coker unit, equipment that gives Pemex that capability. The refinery can process up the 340,000 barrels of crude per day.

Analysts have raised questions about the capacity of Pemex to operate the Deer Park refinery. The Mexican oil company, roughly $120 billion in debt, has six domestic refineries that are badly in need of investment, analysts said.

Obviously theyre not focused on the business sense of the deal. Theyre focused on energy sovereignty, said Tony Payan, director of Mexico Studies at Rice University's Baker Institute. (Obrador) thinks that Mexico should not be in the business of exporting oil; it should be in the business of refining instead.

Pemex did not reply to messages requesting comment.

Lopez Obrador took office in 2018 and has since walked back market reforms that ended Pemexs 75-year monopoly and aimed to attract foreign capital and competition to revive the nations flagging energy industry. His efforts to maintain Pemexs preeminence and stifle foreign competition in Mexico have spurred complaints from the U.S. energy industry.

U.S. critics have described Lopez Obradors policies as slow rolling expropriation. In one high-profile move, the Mexican government last year awarded control of an offshore oil field discovered by the Houston oil company Talos Energy to Pemex.

Deal delayed

The deal for Deer Park refinery was delayed as it awaited approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal panel that reviews deals involving foreign investment. U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, wrote a letter last month to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, asking them to stop the deal and arguing that Pemex lacks the resources and technical know-how necessary to run the plant.

The committee okayed the deal near the end of December, but it was further delayed by an antitrust lawsuit filed by a pair of laundromat owners from New York who alleged the sale would cause energy prices to increase and harm their business. Their request for a temporary restraining order was denied earlier this month, clearing the way for the deal to close. The suit remains active.

Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton said his city would maintain the close communications with Pemex that marked the relationship with Shell.

The Shell leadership has been a long-term partner of the City of Deer Park and we expect no changes in communication with the leadership at Pemex, he said in a statement. Public safety has always been our top priority for our residents, and it will remain top priority during the refinerys transition."

About 1,000 full-time workers at the refinery will be offered employment by Pemex, the companies said in May. Some 1,000 contractors who work at the refinery are not covered by the agreement and have no guarantee of keeping their jobs.

Shell is in the process of unloading its refineries  it will keep only one in the U.S., in Norco, La.  as it progresses toward its net-zero emissions goals, said Andrew Logan, senior director of oil and gas at the nonprofit Ceres, which advises on sustainable investing.

Theyve made clear that they see refining as a dying business, Logan said.

Back to the future?

Neil Carman, the Sierra Clubs clean air program director, said he fears a repeat of what happened when the Brazilian government's state-controlled oil producer, Petrobras, took over the Pasadena refinery in 2006. It racked up $3.5 million in civil penalties after attracting legal action from environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, and was ordered to reduce emissions at the refinery.

Mexico City is notoriously polluted, Carman said. I dont think this is good news.

amanda.drane@chron.com
A River Oaks doctor whom Houston Methodist Hospital suspended in November for spreading COVID-19 misinformation is turning to the legal system to obtain financial records from the medical institution, according to court records.

Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, who resigned her privileges to admit patients after the temporary suspension, announced Monday that she would seek legal action against the hospital. A petition  similar to a records request  was later filed on her behalf to obtain documents related to any revenue the hospital has made in connection to its COVID-19 vaccination program and treatment of patients with coronavirus complications.

The suspension stemmed from Bowden urging against COVID-19 vaccines for children and those with natural immunity. On her Twitter account, she has promoted the unproven benefits for ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug federal health officials have cautioned is not an approved treatment for the virus.

The doctor, an ear, nose and throat specialist, had never admitted a patient to the hospital prior to her suspension, medical officials have said.

At a news conference Monday outside Bowdens private practice, she said the request for information followed repeated attempts by her and consultant Wayne Dolcefino to obtain the documents from the hospital.

The petition filed in the 234th District Court cites the right to examine nonprofit records through the state Business Organization code  which requires a nonprofit corporation to keep records, books, and annual reports of the corporations financial activity for at least three years. The hospital and TMH Physician Organization are both nonprofits and named as defendants in the petition.

It also asks for the following documents: Records detailing revenues related the treatment of COVID-19 patients, contracts with pharmaceutical companies for COVID-19 related treatment, the pay of the hospitals top executives, recent tax returns and bonuses to Methodist employees.

The petition included requests Dolcefino and Bowden filed separately in November and December to review the documents. The hospital never responded, Bowdens lawyer, Steven Mitby, on Monday said.

Mitby likened the litigation to a records request within a petition. Bowden is not seeking damages, he said. The petition was filed in the Harris County District Clerks Office as an administrative appeal.

Dolcefino said the financial records and Bowdens suspension from the hospital are not related but will aid his own review into the hospital.

I am conducting an investigation into Methodist Hospital to look into how much COVID money theyve made, he said. Her interest is in finding out what the potential motive behind Methodists conduct may have been.

Houston Methodist Hospital declined to comment on the litigation following Bowdens news conference.

The hospital took exception to Bowdens social media use to express personal and political opinions about the COVID-19 vaccine and treatments, officials said. Bowden has also claimed to have treated more than 2,000 COVID-19 patients. Outside her office, she stood alongside a woman whom she purported as having treated with high doses of ivermectin. She identified the woman as Sylvia Anderson and said she treated her with steroids, vitamin C and ivermectin.

If she had taken the traditional route, she would be in the hospital or worse right now, Bowden said.

nicole.hensley@chron.com
Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

In spite of the spread of the omicron variant, national COVID-19 vaccination rates for children ages 5-11 remain low. The same is true for children in Harris County, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of CDC data.

Of Harris Countys children aged 5-11, only 18.2% of them are fully vaccinated; 22.2% have received one dose. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced the FDA authorization of their COVID-19 vaccine on October 29, 2021.
Britney Winters stands poised to welcome visitors in her Upgrade Boutique showroom on Almeda, just a few miles from her childhood home in Third Ward. Her luxury showroom is accented with plush pink sofas, dramatic lighting and ample space for stylists to set up shop with their own clientele.

Its a dream come true. Its also part of her plan to disrupt the hair industry.

For the past few years, shes been outfitting everyday women, as well as celebrities such as Mary J. Blige, Taraji P. Henson and Simone Biles, with hair extensions and wigs through her digital platform, which allows clients to purchase high-quality hair pieces and have them customized by her team of stylists across the nation without any in-person contact. No salon appointments needed.

I always thought I spent too much money and time on my hair services and knew there had to be a more efficient way to get the quality of product and services I expected, she said.

Winters is the owner and CEO of a company in the $6 billion global hair market, one in which Black women are huge consumers but rarely reap the financial gains.

Her story should inspire us all.

In many ways, Winters was born on the wrong side of life. She was shuttled between relatives in Cuney Homes, the same public housing complex where George Floyd grew up. She yearned for stability, but it was like a unicorn, never real, she said.

Winters felt in her core that her life as a Black girl growing up in Houston need not be defined by stereotypes. She was smart, a little rough around the edges, but she had big dreams.

Becoming an attorney or engineer, she thought, might be her path. So Winters attended Booker T. Washington High School for Engineering Professions. There, a teacher, Vicki Flanery, who happened to be white, encouraged her to look beyond Houston for college. Winters did, earning a full ride to Stanford University.

Coming from Cuney Homes, Stanford was a culture shock.

I knew I was different than everyone else. I was capable, and there were other Black students, but they were from a different background, Winters said. I was smart, but I was a little ghetto.

As much as we prepare our young children to go beyond their communities to get educated and make a life, there is that cultural component that often gets lost in the drive to compete. But Winters said she found her place with a tribe of friends and joining Alpha Kappa Alpha, the oldest Black sorority in the nation.

NEWSLETTERS Join the conversation with HouWeAre We want to foster conversation and highlight the intersection of race, identity and culture in one of America's most diverse cities. Sign up for the HouWeAre newsletter here.

She also became friends with Issa Rae, the creator, producer and actress of HBOs Insecure. The Stanford alums roomed together in New York, where they once got kicked out of Jay-Zs nightclub because Winters used a fake ID. Life seemed like an episode right out of Raes hit show.

After earning an engineering degree from Stanford, Winters went to work on Wall Street in real estate and private equity. She remained close with Flanery, who always reminded her of her greatness. Tragically, in 2016 the retired teacher was killed by her husband in a murder-suicide in their Oak Forest home. Winters dedicated a heartfelt social-media post to her former teacher.

Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Winters was only 22, living in New York, when her life quickly changed. She had to return to Houston to take custody of her 8-year-old sister, Farren Fontenette, who was experiencing the same instability that Winters had as a child.

I didnt want my sister to feel like she didnt have a place to call home. That was very important to me. Im a mother figure, but Im still her sister, said Winters, who also has a 3-year-old daughter, Callie.

While working at Shell in Houston, Winters took an educational leave to earn an MBA at Harvard University. She took her sister with her. They moved to Massachusetts during a winter storm, and Fontenette, then 14, enrolled in high school and eventually joined the debate team. Now 22, Fontenette works in Winters company.

I tell her Im grateful every day, Fontenette said. She inspires me, pushes me and challenges me to be my best. She believes in integrity and hard work and taught me the same.

At Harvard, Winters business idea  to revolutionize the way women buy hair extensions and wigs  took root. She made connections with other students and entrepreneurs, including a classmate who invested $50,000 into her idea. She used her connections to develop sources in China and in India for products. But she also understood the challenges; Black women often have a harder time raising capital for their businesses, since investors typically are white men. Since founding the business, Winters has raised nearly $2 million in venture capital funding.

While the business focused online during COVID, she has plans to open showrooms in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Winters realized another dream  to settle in Riverside Terrace, which has a history of being home to some of Houstons most noted Black professionals. Shes wanted to live in the neighborhood since she was a child and recalled driving through the area with her late grandmother.

I told my grandmother that I would someday buy her a house in Riverside Terrace, Winters said. I like to think shes proud of me.

To come from a place of few chances and build a business in the community that raised you is what dreams are made of. We need more dreamers like that.

joy.sewing@chron.com
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Investigators out of the Montgomery County Precinct 4 Constables Office traced a recent series of Houston-area auto part thefts to a man and woman now being charged in the crimes.

Dawn Rae Hays, 23, of Cleveland, is being charged with two Class B misdemeanor theft offenses, and Jordan Ryan McCrary, 28, of Splendora, is being charged with two state jail felony theft offenses, according to jail records. As of Friday morning, Hays and McCrary were being held with no bond at the Montgomery County Jail in Conroe, records show.

Theft of catalytic converters is a major inconvenience to the victims, as well as a financial burden, Pct. 4 Constable Kenneth Rowdy Hayden said in a statement.

Reports earlier this week came in from two people who suffered thefts of their vehicles catalytic converters along Northpark Drive in the Kingwood area under Precinct 4s jurisdiction. Detectives on Tuesday learned two individuals in possession of stolen catalytic converters inside their vehicle were stopped by Humble Police officers, according to Precinct 4.

Following interrogations of the pair, identified as Hays and McCrary by Precinct 4, and investigating local catalytic converter thefts, the agency reported its detectives confirmed the pair were responsible for the incidents on Northpark Drive.

Multiple other catalytic converters found in the possession of Hays and McCrary were stolen from vehicles in Harris County. Law enforcement agencies in those jurisdictions were notified, according to the constables office.

McCrary has multiple felony convictions in Montgomery County, according to district clerk records. These include engaging in organized criminal activity and theft. McCrary is also currently facing charges on ID fraud and evading arrest with a vehicle for incidents from last year, records show.

Hays has a felony theft conviction and two Class A misdemeanor theft convictions in Montgomery County, according to district clerk records.

Catalytic converters are designed to reduce pollutants in an automobiles exhaust system.

Metal prices during the pandemic surged, leading to the theft of these specific vehicle parts tripling in 2020, according to a Houston Chronicle report. Just as recently as Dec. 30, the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office arrested two juveniles on felony charges in relation to the theft of catalytic converters valued at more than $25,000.

Our CID (criminal investigation division) team will continue to hunt down these thieves and put them in jail, Haydens statement read.

jose.gonzalez@chron.com

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Chronicle file

The big story in this Jan. 21, 1927, edition of the Houston Post was the man who jumped out of a third-story window at police headquarters.

J.H. Van Sickle, alleged safecracker, was arrested and taken to HPD headquarters for processing. He was about to sign a statement when he shoved a chief detective and leapt from the window. The detective was severely cut by some broken glass in the process.
A man was shot and killed Thursday afternoon in the Westchase neighborhood while allegedly trying to rob a woman he had met online, according to Houston police.

The incident happened just before 1:45 p.m. at the 10900 block of Meadowglen Lane near Walnut Bend Lane where authorities said officers responded to sounds of gunfire in the area. After arriving to the scene, a 40-year-old man was found dead by officers along with another man who had a pistol.
The feds will get their hands on more than half of the messages on one of Rudy Giulianis cell phones, a retired judge wrote Friday, rejecting the former mayors claims the texts should be off-limits.

The ex-judge, Barbara Jones, is serving as court-appointed special master reviewing materials seized from Giulianis law office and Upper East Side apartment in April 2021.

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Rudy Giuliani speaks outside his residence in the Upper East Side in Manhattan on Aug. 20, 2021. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Giulianis defense team had marked 96 messages as privileged and/or highly personal on the mobile phone, arguing they should not be turned over to Manhattan federal prosecutors investigating Giuliani for possible violations of foreign lobbying laws in connection with his work in Ukraine. Giuliani played a key role in President Donald Trumps effort to dig up dirt on then-Democratic rival Joe Biden.

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The special master wrote that 56 of the messages were fair game for the feds. The other 40, Jones wrote, could remain confidential. Giuliani, who worked as Trumps personal attorney, claimed many of the messages were protected by attorney-client privilege.

The 96 messages at issue in Jones decision Friday make up a minuscule portion of the thousands of texts sent from Giulianis devices that are now in the hands of the FBI.

Jones also ruled that more than 3,000 items sent over a six-month span in 2018 and 2019 from other devices belonging to Giuliani had to be turned over to the feds. Giulianis team had not opposed any of those being released to prosecutors.

The FBI also seized cel lphones belonging to Washington lawyer Victoria Toensing, a former federal prosecutor and ally of Giuliani and Trump, in connection with the investigation. She also argued that much of her materials should be off-limits.

Giuliani and Toensing contend that their status as lawyers, including Giulianis status as a lawyer to the former President, makes these searches problematic, Manhattan Federal Judge Paul Oetken wrote after the raid. But lawyers are not immune from searches in criminal investigations.

Rudy Giuliani's apartment building on April 28, 2021 in Manhattan, after the FBI conducted an early morning raid at his residence and office. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Giuliani has been under investigation for about three years by Manhattan federal prosecutors. Jones, who was appointed in June, did not state how many materials were left to review.
A northwest Houston man, currently out on bond, was arrested Wednesday morning and charged Thursday afternoon in connection to an incident where he apparently shot his brother, according to Houston police.

Anderzon Giron, 32, is charged with aggravated assault with significant bodily injury after he shot 38-year-old Hector Giron around 3 a.m. in front of his residence at 8313 Varner Road, authorities said.

Police stated a witness said the Giron brothers were out drinking with a group at a bar early Wednesday morning before Anderzon became aggressive and belligerent causing the group to be asked to leave. The witness added they drove the victim back to to the residence and, when they arrived, Anderzon came out of the home with a rifle and shot his brother.

Witnesses were able to get the gun out of Anderzon's hands before he was taken into custody without incident, according to the release.

Hector Giron was taken to a local hospital Wednesday morning and remains in an unknown condition Thursday afternoon.

Before Wednesday's shooting, Anderzon was out on a $10,000 bail for a December 2020 assault of a family member by impeding breathing when he choked a woman he had a dating relationship with, according to court documents.

Dane Schiller, district attorney's office spokesman, said prosecutor's are petitioning the judge deny Anderzon's bail.

"He was already on bail for another felony for which he was been indicted, at the time of this crime," Schiller said. "If the accusations are true, this guy's inner circle is a very dangerous place to be."

Anderzon remains in custody Wednesday night and is expected again in court on Jan. 24.

Joel.Umanzor@chron.com
Friday is the last day for west Houston residents to vote early in the special election to decide their next representative on City Council.

The low-turnout race will decide who replaces Councilmember Greg Travis in the District G post. Travis resigned last year to run for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, though he will remain at City Hall until his successor is sworn in.

District G covers most of the territory between Interstate-10 and Westheimer Road, running from a small stretch of Shepherd Road to just outside State Highway 6. It includes River Oaks, Uptown, Tanglewood and the Briarforest area, among other neighborhoods.

The candidates are: Mary Nan Huffman, an attorney for the Houston Police Officers Union and former candidate for Harris County district attorney; Piper Madland, a community organizer and volunteer; Duke Millard, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor; Raul Roy Reyes Jr., a retired Houston Fire Department assistant chief; and Houshang Hank Taghizadeh  though only Taghi will appear on the ballot  who said he works in construction.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Early voting ends Friday in City Council District G special election. Heres who is running.

City elections officially are nonpartisan, but Huffman, Millard and Reyes are running as conservatives. Madland is progressive, and Taghi has not responded to Chronicle inquiries and does not appear to be actively campaigning.

The candidates have focused mostly on flooding and public safety as they campaign for the seat. Huffman has raised $50,000 for her bid and spent $35,600; Madland has raised $26,000 and spent $16,000; Millard has raised $2,600 and spent $9,400; and Reyes and Taghi do not appear to be raising money.

Just over 3,711 people had voted as ofThursday night in the off-year election. During the last general election in 2019, nearly 11,000 people voted early.

The polls on Thursday stayed open until 10 p.m.

The polls are open Friday at four locations from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They are: Nottingham Park Building, 926 Country Place Drive; Terrace Banquet Hall, 2424 South Voss Road; La Quinta Inn, Houston Galleria, 1625 West Loop South; and the Harris County Administration Building, 1001 Preston St., 4th floor.

The Nottingham Park site has accounted for roughly 60 percent of the early votes.

Election day is Tuesday, Jan. 25, and voters will be able to cast their ballots at 15 sites that day, also from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

dylan.mcguinness@chron.com
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Houston immigration attorney Elizabeth Mendoza said she has immigration cases that have yet to be resolved after being in courts for more than 10 years. Her hearings are getting scheduled for 2024, thanks to a historic backlog of 1.6 million cases.

The deluge of cases in U.S. immigration courts is growing at the fastest pace ever recorded, according to Syracuse University analysis of court data.

Nearly 140,000 new cases were added to the backlog between October and December 2021, more than any other three-month period.

It's not as if the core backlog is growing at a steady rate, it's actually accelerating, said Syracuse University researcher Austin Kocher, who said the crush of cases will likely reach 2 million by the end of 2022.

At the start of the Trump administration the backlog was at around half a million cases, which at the time already seemed alarmingly high, he said.

The immigration courts may actually be entering a new concerning era where it's not like, we can just hire some more judges and try to keep up with the incoming cases, it's almost like it's getting to a tipping point where there may be no simple or easy kind of solution in sight, Kocher said.

The long backlog has led to years-long delays for people with pending immigration cases.

Mendoza said this has led to justice being delayed for both people who should be removed from the country  and those who have a strong case to stay.

It cuts both ways, said Mendoza, When you have bad actors in the community, their cases should be expeditiously processed in the court system, so that they can be removed from our community, she said.

On the flip side, she said law-abiding individuals with a good chance of winning their case are then delayed their day in court for many years, while their future in the country is in limbo.

Against All Odds: Houston judges are denying up to 100% of asylum cases in immigration courts

In Houston, the Department of Justices Executive Office for Immigration Review has recently added the Gessner and Greenspoint courts along with several new judges to help deal with the backlog. But Mendoza said even though thats a help, more can be done, such as giving judges more discretion to move low-priority cases off their dockets.

A common case that would be ripe for an immigration judge to move off of an active docket would be the case of somebody who has a residency petition pending for them based on a family relationship to a U.S. citizen, Mendoza said, That petition is pending. If it's approved, then that person is going to have the opportunity to apply for permanent residency.

In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Immigration and Citizenship, immigration judge Mimi Tsankov, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said, It seems like no matter how hard we work, that backlog were facing keeps growing.

She attributed the inability to make it through backlogged cases to the influence of the executive branch on immigration courts. Judge Tsankov said because immigration courts are controlled by the Department of Justice, judges must answer to a political leader, the U.S. Attorney General.

The Department of Justices control over the courts has yielded extreme pendulum swings, Tsankov said, that ping pong between one administrations priorities and anothers, (and) reduces judicial effectiveness.

Judge Tsankov believes creating an independent court system, similar to the U.S. Tax Court, would give judges the authority and independence to deal with the backlog on their own.

Republicans on the Immigration and Citizenship committee pushed back, noting that creating an independent court fails to address the number of asylum seekers and migrants who are arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border  which is driving up the backlog. Though hundreds of thousands of migrants have been expelled by the Biden administration, some have been allowed to seek refuge in the United States in accordance with U.S. asylum law.

Border crossings is a big part of the recent growth, said Kocher, but he added that historically, most of the cases now in the queue accumulated under prior presidents, especially Trump, whose immigration policies exacerbated the backlog.

elizabeth.trovall@chron.com
Texas DPS/Google Earth

NEW: Austin Police on Friday said a missing 14-year-old from Buda has been located by the U.S. Marshals Lone Star Fugitive Task force.

Authorities have also taken into custody 28-year old Hector Avila on an outstanding warrant, police said.
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WASHINGTON  A federal criminal investigation involving U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar comes just as the South Texas Democrats reelection campaign is heating up, with early voting beginning in less than a month in his primary rematch with immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros, who narrowly lost to the longtime incumbent in 2020.

The FBI descended on Cuellars home and campaign headquarters in Laredo on Wednesday afternoon, conducting what the agency described as court-authorized law enforcement activity. Agents spent more than four hours at his home and loaded large bags, plastic bins and a computer into a federal vehicle before leaving around 11 p.m., the McAllen Monitor reported.

Its unclear what the FBI is investigating. Cuellar issued a statement Wednesday night saying he will fully cooperate.

He is committed to ensuring that justice and the law are upheld, the statement said.

Valerie Gonzalez, MBI / Associated Press

But the federal investigation comes at a trying time for Cuellar, a 17-year incumbent whose close call in the 2020 primary against the progressive Cisneros drew a flood of national money and attention. Tannya Benavides, a former teacher and political organizer based in Laredo, has joined this years primary race, as well, inspired in part by the success Cisneros saw in 2020.

BACKGROUND: FBI searches Texas Rep. Henry Cuellars home in Laredo

With early voting starting in a few weeks, this is obviously a big deal to do it now, said Ryan Patrick, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas during the Trump presidency.

Patrick said he was not aware of or involved in anything related to Cuellar during his tenure, but the timing of the search of his home makes it seem like this was a very high level decision to make this move at this time, with this type of timing. He said the default position for the Attorney General is to avoid taking actions that will influence the outcome of an election.

To run a public search warrant at this stage leads me to believe that  while every investigation is run differently and has different variables  the investigation has been going on for some time or it is moving very quickly with very serious allegations, he said.

Patrick said for a public search to be carried out at a congressmans home or office indicates a good portion of the evidence prosecutors need to build a case has been secured and a lot of higher-up officials have signed off. He said he would not be surprised if Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco was in on the decision to move on Cuellar this week.

To get the point where youre running search on a sitting congressman  thats a pretty big deal, said Patrick, who is a partner at Haynes and Boone LLP specializing in white collar and government defense. Based on the proximity to the election and the way I know decisions are made in the public integrity section of the DOJ (Department of Justice), it is safe to assume that agents and prosecutors are working very quickly on this or they believe they have very serious allegations.

People of South Texas deserve answers

Danny Zaragoza, Staff Photographer

The FBI searches were just a week after Cuellar, one of the most senior members of the Texas delegation, announced his campaign had raised $700,000 in the final quarter of 2021, a personal record for him.

Cuellars campaign on Wednesday touted an endorsement from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and in recent days posted videos and photos of the congressman knocking on doors in San Antonio and Laredo.

Cuellars campaign did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Cisneros issued a statement Thursday saying she was aware of news reports about the investigation.

We are closely watching as this develops, she said. In the meantime, we are focused on our campaign to deliver change to South Texas families.

DISTRICT REDRAWN: San Antonio to have more say in closely watched race between Rep. Cuellar, progressive challengers

Justice Democrats, a national progressive group that first recruited Cisneros to run, was less restrained, saying Cuellar has been part of the corrupt culture in Washington for far too long.

This FBI investigation into Congressman Cuellar is highly concerning, the statement said. The people of South Texas deserve answers, and the congressman should be transparent about the purpose of the investigation.

Three Texas incumbents face growing pile of cases

The district has also been targeted by congressional Republicans after the GOP made gains in South Texas in 2020. Seven Republicans are vying to challenge Cuellar, though the district was redrawn to be a bit bluer and he won by nearly 20 percentage points in the 2020 general election. They were calling attention to the FBI searches, as well.

The systemic corruption in South Texas must end, said Ed Cabrera, a businessman and rancher. When one of our highest rank officials home and office is raided by the FBI, it indicates the lack of respect for the rule of law in Democrat-led Districts.

Steven Fowler, a former Air Force pilot, predicted it would make it much harder for Cuellar to win his primary against Cisneros.

We simply cannot risk AOC 2.0 representing us in South Texas, Fowler said.

Cuellar is now one of at least three incumbents in Texas heading into competitive primary races under a cloud of legal and ethical questions.

Attorney General Ken Paxton has been under indictment for alleged felony securities fraud since 2015 and now faces three challengers in the Republican primary.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and his staff have been at the center of a handful of ethics complaints and two Texas Rangers investigations since he first ran for statewide office eight years ago, including a case that led to the indictment Tuesday of Millers campaign spokesman and political consultant on bribery and theft charges.

Its still an open question of how those cases might affect the incumbents in competitive primaries a state that has a history of reelecting them  Paxton and Miller included  during general elections, said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

Henson said that at the general election level, candidates can typically count on partisan allegiance to do a lot of work.

But the Cuellar case, he said, adds to the growing pile of cases we have in which were going to see whether the appearance of ethical issues  even if theyre unresolved  leads primary voters to give more consideration to an otherwise well-liked incumbent, Henson said. Were seeing the test of this now.

gabrielle.banks@chron.com

ben.wermund@chron.com
There was a time in this country, before the Voting Rights Act, when Southern states used intentionally confusing literacy tests to keep Black people from voting.

These days in Texas, its a memory test.

A new Texas law, passed under the auspices of election integrity in pursuit of the phantom myth of voter fraud, puts up extra obstacles for people applying for a mail-in ballot. A new form requires that would-be voters provide either a partial Social Security number or a Texas driver license number. Seems simple enough but heres the catch: the number provided has to be the same one the voter gave, possibly years or decades ago, when he or she registered to vote.

Try to use your Social Security number when you registered with your drivers license number and sorry, Texans, your perfectly legitimate attempt to access your constitutional voting rights is denied. We have the Texas Legislature to thank for this reform thats causing headaches for elections officials across Texas as it ensnares hundreds of voters of all stripes whose number recall is less than perfect.

Sometimes, saying I told you so can bring about immense satisfaction. This is not one of those times.

As Texas Republicans spent much of 2021 in special sessions working to pass another round of senseless, unneeded voting restrictions, everyone from civil rights attorneys to the Department of Justice to this editorial board warned over and over that Senate Bill 1 would lead to voter disenfranchisement and suppression, not just against people of color but also voters with disabilities, older voters and deployed members of the military.

Lawmakers did it anyway, even though widespread voter fraud in Texas is nonexistent despite millions spent by Attorney General Ken Paxton to find it. Even though Texas already had the toughest voting restrictions in the country, according to a group of political scientists in 2020.

The disenfranchisement has arrived on cue, just in time for the March 1 primaries.

As of Tuesday night, Harris County had received 4,061 mail ballot applications, and each day between 15 to 35 percent of them are being rejected  a rate many times higher than in previous years. Other big counties in Texas are seeing similarly high rejection rates. In Travis County officials told the Chronicle theyd rejected about half of the about 700 applications theyd received as of the end of last week - mostly due to new ID requirement.

We are seeing a 700 percent increase in the percentage of rejected mail-in ballot applications, which certainly raises a red flag for our office, Harris County elections administrator Isabel Longoria told the Chronicle. . What we're seeing here is a direct byproduct of SB1, which simply makes voting more difficult.

Although state election officials are directing voters to a new state ballot tracking website to fix an ID number or inquire about the status of an application, the site reportedly is missing some data.

As if that werent bad enough, some elections officials are fearful of trying to help voters cure applications since another reform in the new law threatens them with a state jail felony for attempting to solicit a person to complete an application for an early voting ballot by mail.

A state jail felony is nothing to thumb your nose at, said Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir told National Public Radio.

Still in need of one more outrage? Texas never disappoints. In the year 2022, in a state that put a man on the moon, most voters still cant register to vote online, as voters in neighboring states such as Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico and dozens of other states are allowed to do. And now were told this week that voters opportunity to register the cumbersome old-fashioned way  by paper  has been drastically reduced because the Texas secretary of states office, essentially, ran out of paper.

Officials claim the since the new law  that we didnt need anyway, mind you  has made voter registration fraud a Class A misdemeanor instead of a Class B misdemeanor, the registration forms need to be reprinted. But because paper is scarce this year, and printing is more expensive, the office is only printing a relatively tiny number of the forms to send out to groups such as the League of Women Voters.

How does any of this make our elections stronger? How does any of this give us more confidence in our governments ability to conduct an election?

It doesnt. But then, the actual goals of Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Dan Patrick and their partisan Republican minions in the Legislature who passed Senate Bill 1 appear right on target.

These problems are frustrating to all Texans who face them, but those with more resources, with more savvy around bureaucratic institutions, those with a home printer, will likely get around the obstacles.

Mary Cook of Houston was relieved to find that, having begun her voting preparations weeks ahead of the Feb. 18 deadline to register, she was able to get the help she needed from Harris County voting officials. But will others who are either more prone to procrastinate or simply less savvy navigators of the bureaucracy be so lucky? This is no way to promote democratic voting rights,: she told the board in one of many letters we received about these new hurdles.

Those who cant get around these needless hurdles to the ballot box will be weeded out, their voices in upcoming elections silenced.

We cant let that happen. Elections administrators here and elsewhere are encouraging voters to apply for their mail ballots now to give them plenty of time to reapply if their applications are rejected. Some voting groups are suggesting that, just to be safe, voters provide both their partial Social Security number and their driver license number on the application to reduce the chances of rejection.

Harris County officials are also contacting voters proactively to help them address their issues as they arise.

This mess was as predictable as it was premeditated  and so utterly discouraging. But there is still time to work through the obstacles that Texas has so maddeningly placed between its citizens and their voting booths. The last day to register for the primary is Jan. 31.

Its not too late to be heard.

Remember: the only way these poll tests, these blatant attacks on voter access, are successful is if they keep you from voting. Dont let them. Get help if you need it or share this information with others who do. To request assistance in Harris County, call 713-755-6965 or email voters@harrisvotes.com.
Regarding Study finds benefits of deep conversation, (Jan. 13): This opinion piece is so true. The authors didnt mention a few things about conversations, though. First, there needs to be an understanding that all opinions are to be respected (that means political correctness is off the table). Second, when you engage in a conversation, talk with your mouth and listen with your ears. Some overly opinionated people will listen with their mouth, trying to drown out things they dont agree with. We dont have to agree with someone in order to engage in a conversation about politics, religion or other significant topics. Although my views are conservative, I can read, and respect, the views of opinion columnists such as Leonard Pitts. We can also have good face-to-face conversations with people outside of our individual shells.

Alan Nicholson, Pasadena

COVID

Regarding Editorial: Clowns like Sen. Rand Paul should stop trolling the adults determined to get us through the pandemic. (Jan. 16): Your editorial demonizing Sen. Rand Paul for challenging Dr. Anthony Fauci was a petty complaint about a very serious problem concerning the credibility of medical leadership in this ongoing pandemic. It was Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins who wanted to undermine the Great Barrington Declaration of Oct. 4, 2020. Rather than debate the merits of the declaration, which emphasized the need to treat the most vulnerable and avoid any shutdowns of the economy and schools, Fauci and Collins published a devastating takedown of three fringe epidemiologists from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, who were instrumental in developing the declaration. The Chronicles editorial defended Fauci, who was far more culpable of malfeasance than the legitimate questions posed by Paul.

Jim Lloyd, Lakewood, Colo.

I appreciate your editorial for both its unfortunate need and accuracy. Sen. Rand Paul indeed showed himself to be overmatched and despicable in his poor face-off against Dr. Anthony Fauci. After noting that over 840,000 Americans have died from COVID, you ask the important questions: What happened to the greater good? What happened to common sense? Heck, what happened to personal responsibility?

I believe it is necessary to answer these questions before we can hope to overcome this slow-motion train wreck. The answers are self-evident but we must name the beast. Politics. More precisely, the politicization of issues that are simply not political. This pandemic is not right or left. The malaise, harm and destruction wrought by the virus are not Democrat or Republican. It is a virus plain and simple. Its creation was not political nor will be its control.

Tanner Garth, Houston

Excellent editorial. My wife is a teacher and definitely suffering the professional burnout you describe. Youre right on target about the never ending question, Will this be the day COVID catches up to us?

David Kelly, Spring

Corruption

Regarding She pleaded guilty to corruption in government job, then worked for Harris County for 2 more months, (Jan. 13): It would seem that the Harris County judge and commissioners should take a closer look at the standards to which they hold their employees. Rhonda Skillern-Jones pleaded guilty in a federal public corruption case on Oct. 28, 2021 yet was not fired until Dec. 16, 2021, nearly two months later when the guilty pleas were announced. While Commissioners Court recently decided to not require applicants for employment to indicate whether or not they had a criminal record on the first step in the job application process for a county position, they might want to consider requiring current county employees to immediately inform their employer if they have pleaded guilty in a public corruption case.

Jim Robertson, Houston

Filibuster

Regarding Editorial: Dont kill the filibuster. Do it like a Texan, (Jan. 9): Common sense says if it isnt broken, dont fix it. In this case the corollary applies, if it clearly is broken then fix it. The filibuster is broken. I was born in 1960, during the 86th (1959-1960) Congress when there was one motion filed to end a filibuster. In the 116th (2019-2020) Congress, there were 328 motions filed to end a filibuster. That is not a count of the number of filibusters, just the number of times that someone tried to end one!

The American people are not well served by more than 300 filibusters per year. Changes over the years have broken the process and we need to fix it. You can see the historical trend at: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/cloture/clotureCounts.htm.

Michael Dougherty, Houston

As former President Barack Obama said, the filibuster is a Jim Crow relic. The filibuster has a sordid history of protecting racist laws and obstructing anti-racist legislation beginning in the early days of America. Early filibusters delayed legislation over statehood for California and Kansas and, after the Civil War, protecting Southern Black peoples voting rights. Its been used to stop measures to authorize federal investigation and prosecution of lynchings, to ban the imposition of poll taxes and to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race in housing sales and rentals. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was delayed and obstructed until filibusters by segregationist senators were defeated.

Now the entire Republican Party, and two Democratic senators, use the filibuster to again block legislation to support civil rights of people of color and voting rights of all people.

Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema need to clear their heads out of the coal mines and disorienting desert heat to support a minor change in the Senate filibuster rule to save American democracy from the GOPs big lie and hyper-focus on passing state laws to stop voters from voting.

Doug Peterson, Clear Lake
Omicron is really good at infecting people and doing it fast. So fast, in fact, that by the time you read this, chances are that cases may have already reached a peak in your neighborhood.

While some countries are experiencing a rapid plunge in cases, its unclear how smooth the descent from the omicron surge will be in others. Some places may continue to experience spikes in cases even after initial peaks or plateaus.

That said, omicrons extraordinary spread is likely to have important consequences for the future of the pandemic. By infecting large numbers of people quickly, its also generating immunity quickly. And that counts toward making COVID-19 a more manageable illness, since the layers of immunity may provide protection against future waves and variants. That will be scant comfort for people who suffer severe illness or worse this winter, but it does mean that after the omicron wave, things will be different.

Omicron has spread at a record pace and the consequences have been grave for an exhausted health care system. As older age groups are infected things may deteriorate further, but the situation is still vastly better than if people hadnt already accumulated some immunity against COVID.

Data from scientists in Britain and South Africa suggest that the more experience peoples immune systems have in handling the coronavirus, the better protected they are.

Every exposure, whether to the virus or a vaccine, reduces the likelihood of severe illness on subsequent ones. Thats because each time our immune systems see the spike proteins on the outside of the coronavirus, which is the target for all the vaccines in use, they get better at responding to them. Infections get less severe, on average, over time not just because the virus is changing, but because our bodies are getting better at handling it.

Theres no guarantee that this pattern will continue. Immunity can wane and the virus can evolve to sidestep protection. But all the evidence scientists have seen to date indicates that the protection against severe illness is continuing to hold up. If that does continue, the next round with the virus (and there will be a next round) could be blunted, meaning the impact will be less significant for health care.

Some of this effect is already in play. You might have heard that omicron is less severe than delta. That looks to be correct, but once the role of immunity in preventing severe illness is accounted for, it is not that big a difference. The gap between cases and deaths during the omicron surge in the United States and elsewhere is likely because of protection from prior immunity. People in South Africa, for example, likely experienced less severe illness from omicron because so many had been infected with Delta.

Not everyone is equally protected. While immunity gained from prior infection is beneficial for preventing future illness, it is not as beneficial as when combined with vaccination. For unvaccinated people with no immunity to the virus, omicron can still cause severe disease. Too many people in the United States are unvaccinated. The number of Americans who have received booster shots is also far smaller than it should be, especially for older vulnerable people. This may be in part why the situation in the United States appears worse than in countries like Britain.

To get a sense of this, compare Britains recent mortality data with that of Massachusetts. The population of Britain is about 10 times that of the state. Britain is reporting an average of about 260 deaths a day from COVID-19 and going up. Massachusetts is reporting about 50 deaths a day, which means the state has about twice as many deaths per capita as Britain. Not coincidentally, people in Massachusetts are less likely to have received booster shots than people in Britain.

The immunity omicron will leave behind might well be a major step toward making COVID a manageable illness by providing more protection against future surges and variants.

But the immunity generated by omicron is not going to lead to the extinction of the virus. Pandemics do not end with the virus vanquished, a ticker-tape parade and a banner proclaiming mission accomplished. Instead of the virus going away, the nature of the disease it causes changes to a point where people consider it a tolerable risk, and people will disagree over what that means. Right now in many states, the number of hospitalizations has exceeded the peak of last winter, and there are about 2,000 deaths every day. Is that acceptable?

No one should confidently assert that omicron signals the end of the pandemic, but we should be confident that future surges of infections, whether with omicron or whatever variant comes next, will make fewer of us seriously ill than they would have before. Thats not to say that the rate of serious illness is the only measure that matters. There hasnt been enough time to determine omicrons contribution to long COVID, for example. And the havoc that omicron has sown is not trivial  we are seeing the effects in overwhelmed hospitals and closed schools.

Much better days may be ahead. But as the world has learned over the past two years, only fools with short memories make promises in a pandemic.

William Hanage is an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-director of its Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics.
During Shabbat morning prayer services at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker let in a man who was asking for help. The man soon turned a gun on the rabbi, holding him and three other congregants hostage in a harrowing 11-hour ordeal. He ordered the rabbi to call the leader of Central Synagogue in New York City, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, and demand that she free a convicted terrorist serving an 86-year sentence.

The idea that a rabbi could overturn a criminal conviction at the drop of a hat is such a stereotype of a stereotype that its almost comical. And yet it is precisely this type of absurd conspiratorial thinking that presents the greatest threat to Jewish lives.

This was somebody who literally thought that Jews control the world, Cytron-Walker told a reporter at the Forward. He thought he could come into a synagogue, and we could get on the phone with the Chief Rabbi of America and he would get what he needed.

This weekends Texas hostage situation highlights the deadliest threat to Jews today: the myth of Jewish power. The conspiracy theory that Jews are uniquely evil and influential has led to the spilling of Jewish blood since at least the Middle Ages and heavily influenced the Nazi ideology that left 11 million dead, including 6 million Jews. But it isnt just systematic use of the trope for political ends, on the level of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that Jews should fear. Even the sort of casual jokes that spread online in extremist circles can be deadly.

Somebody might think that theyre just making a comment, or just making a joke, Cytron-Walker said. Unfortunately, someone, somewhere, is going to take that hatred and theyre going to go to a dangerous place with it.

While conspiratorial-minded politicians asserting that Jews control the weather or space lasers might seem easy to dismiss, the idea that Jews control society is spreading  in a way that often looks like a virus  and inspiring violent antisemites. In Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif., Jersey City, N.J., and Monsey, N.Y., weve seen this thinking turn deadly.

Most antisemitic hate crimes reported in this country are thankfully nonviolent  vandalism and property crime rather than assault or murder. But an overwhelming amount of online vitriol  transcending every political and identitarian line  consists of virulent antisemitism.

During the 14th century, Jews were accused of spreading the Black Plague as a way to usurp Christian civilization. During the current pandemic, posters on neo-Nazi blogs, an antisemitic pastor and even a major GOP donor have all shared modern versions of this conspiracy theory, suggesting that Jews are somehow attempting to euthanize or sterilize non-Jews with the coronavirus vaccines  or, conversely, of being behind the anti-vaccine movement.

Those who study online hate using epidemiological methods have shown that particularly during periods of instability or transitions of power (such as the enduring pandemic or in the run-up to presidential elections), antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories of Jewish power rise to a fever pitch. Online, and often disguised as an attack on an individual, like George Soros or Jared Kushner, these ideas, sometimes amplified by state actors, infect and inspire white nationalists, Black nationalists and Islamist extremists alike.

The man awaiting trial on charges in the killing of 11 Jews worshiping in a Pittsburgh synagogue ranted about a Jewish infestation in the United States and the humanitarian group HIAS bringing in refugees to kill our people, justifying his 2018 attack on those praying in a house of worship with a refusal to sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.

In 2019, the Poway gunman who killed one and injured three worshipers at a synagogue told a 911 operator that he did so to [defend] our nation against the Jewish people, who are trying to destroy all white people. Just months later, two gunmen associated with the antisemitic Black Hebrew Israelites opened fire at a small kosher grocery in Jersey City, killing four people and injuring three more. Weeks later, a man stabbed several attendees of a Hasidic rabbis Hanukkah party, injuring four and killing one. His journal questioned why people mourn for antisemitism when there is Semitic genocide.

None of these attacks were a coincidence, but rather the fruit of years of antisemitic conspiracy mongering online, particularly within identitarian groups. According to analysis from the Network Contagion Research Institute, the Pittsburgh attack in particular correlated with a high volume of Soros-related anti-Jewish conspiracy memes, amplified by Russian state actors, alleging that George Soros and Jewish organizations were importing migrants to influence the 2018 midterm elections. Similar themes have continued to metastasize at alarming rates ever since.

Last weekend in Texas, we saw these same themes once again. One of the four hostages said their captor was ranting and yelling that Jews control the world, Jews control the media, Jews control the banks, and Jews control everything.

This guy was not the typical guy who comes in and just wants to kill Jews and comes in guns blazing and kills everybody, he added. He did what he did because of the tropes  they are ancient, they go on, they continue.

While we often rush to characterize these attacks as emanating from the right or left, this is not a helpful impulse. Antisemitism transcends such binaries. Reducing the conspiracy theory to a political argument only makes combating it harder and can blind people to antisemitism when it is advanced by those in their own circles. Instead, we must attack the problem at its roots. Rather than looking for political solutions or pointing fingers across the aisle, we should be combating the myth of Jewish power.

Theres no way to reason with it  its pointless to try to demonstrate that no, actually, Jews dont control all that much. More effectively, we should call it what it is: a conspiracy theory. And scream of its dangers from the rooftops.

We need better and smarter content moderation on mainstream social media platforms, informed by our understanding of how these memes manifest and spread. This will not only keep platforms from being unwitting vehicles of these conspiracy theories, but also help law enforcement and Jewish community officials look for spikes to detect when attacks might be coming.

While the frequency is overwhelming, there are reasons to be optimistic. Unlike in the Middle Ages or Nazi Germany, the enemy for American Jews now is not our government.

After the hostage situation, a founding member of Congregation Beth Israel, Anna Salton Eisen, reflected that she is grateful that the response to antisemitism today  and the strong relationship between law enforcement and the Jewish community  looks little like what she experienced in Poland during the horrors of the recent past.

The Holocaust was a government-sponsored systematic destruction of a people, she said. And I have to say that people have asked me, Are you more afraid now? And Im like, No. I feel, really, better. Because I know that if Im in trouble, theyre coming to help me.

Blessedly, American Jews have institutions of our own  as well as partners within government and law enforcement  who are eager to address the rise of violent antisemitism. The more we start viewing and treating this phenomenon as the consequence of a conspiracy theory, the more effectively we can do so.

Laura E. Adkins is a New York-based writer and the opinion editor of the Forward. This op-ed was first published by the Washington Post.
The stunning shooting death of a Brooklyn-born DJ ended a joyous life dedicated to spreading music and happiness.

Shawn Jeffrey, 46, was just trying to do the right thing when fatally wounded after intervening in a dispute over a woman while working in the early morning hours of Jan. 13, his son told the Daily News.

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Family members recalled how Jeffrey inevitably lifted the spirits of fans young and old while mixing songs in venues from local parties to clubs and senior citizen centers.

Shawn Jeffrey (Obtained by New York Daily News)

He would DJ anything, said brother Travis Jeffrey, 43, who lived with his sibling in Brownsville. He would DJ country if it was needed. He was all about putting smiles on peoples faces and entertaining them.

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Jeffrey, who went by the name Shawn J in his DJ career, died last weekend from gunshot wounds in a Jan. 13 shooting where three others were wounded around 3:45 a.m. inside the E&R Rental Hall on Remsen Ave. in Canarsie, cops said.

He left behind a 21-year-old son, a 15-year-old daughter and fans across the borough, according to family members.

He had an addictive personality  you want to be around him, said son Jared Fingal, who lives in New Jersey. People gravitate toward him. ... He didnt just spoil me, he spoiled everyone else around him.

Police have yet to make an arrest in the shooting, during which Jeffrey and two other men ran over to calm a guest who pulled a gun when the argument over a woman escalated during the weekly Dream Wednesdays party. Minutes later, the angry gunman opened fired as people ran for their lives, and Jeffrey collapsed on the floor.

Police on the scene outside of the E & R Rental Hall on E. 92nd St. in Brooklyn on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

The Daily News Flash Weekdays Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. >

He did his own thing, recalled elder sibling Troy Jeffrey, 50. He didnt care about what other people thought, status and all that stuff. He was very popular in the community. He was good at his craft. He was just a special guy.

Jeffrey was also a talented graphic designer who did work for local businesses and even new Mayor Adams when not working as a DJ, his family said. His interest in music was sparked when Shawn and Travis discovered their fathers old DJ equipment in the family basement, and the next-generation song spinner frequently brought his dad along to his gigs.

He got it from me, boasted dad Gladstone Jeffrey, 80. Shawn used to take me to these clubs, because he wanted me to be exposed. Marvelous.

Police on the scene outside of the E & R Rental Hall on E. 92nd St. in Brooklyn on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

He even helped the family patriarch do a DJ turn at the Kingsbridge Jewish Senior Center.

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Those old folks would have a nice time, said the father. And when there was a block party? Oh boy, he would know how to get the crowd jumping.

The slain mans stepmother Stephanie Jeffrey, 69, recalled how Shawns artistic journey started at a young age with painting and printing T-shirts.

I will always remember his calm demeanor, she said. Quiet, very humble. He loved life, and he loved to make people happy. When you watch and see a child grow, and they grow up to be such fine young men  this thing rocked my world. It shakes you up so bad.
Responding to political unrest at school boards across the state, Gov. Greg Abbott is proposing what he calls a Parental Bill of Rights that would echo the debates over so-called critical race theory and the pushback against COVID protections at public schools.

When it comes to the classroom, Texas parents have every right to know what their children are being taught, Abbott told an audience of parents Thursday night at Founders Academy of Lewisville, a public charter school.

He said that means expanding the access parents have to a schools curriculum and educational material. And he said he plans to make sure schools quickly address parents concerns over what is being taught, or about campus policies, though he didnt spell out the details.

His planincludes giving parents the ability to veto a schools decision to advance their child to the next grade level when a parent feels its necessary. Already, the Legislature has given parents the option of students repeating a grade if they feel like their children fell behind because of disruptions in learning caused by the pandemic. Abbotts plan would make that choice permanent.

The center of the culture wars: Trump-era rancor spills into Texas school board politics

Abbotts proposal comes as Republicans nationwide see battles against school districts and school boards as a winning political issue heading into the 2022 midterm elections. Big-name Republicans around the nation including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California have pushed similar plans. DeSantis signed a Parents Bill of Rights into law last summer that makes it easier for parents of Florida schoolchildren to opt them out of vaccinations or object to course materials.

McCarthy is touting a federal bill that, like Abbotts plan, promises parents more detail about what is being taught to their children.

Our Parents Bill of Rights will protect parental involvement by reinforcing their right to be heard, their right to see curriculums and their right to be updated on any violent activity that happens on their childrens campus, McCarthy said in November.

Democrats including Beto ORourke, the former congressman from El Paso running against Abbott, say the governor is stoking more culture wars in the public school system that pit parents against one another.

Greg Abbott has turned public education into a culture war debate, ORourke said on social media.

ORourke said that instead, the government should be focusing on other ways to improve education, namely paying teachers enough so they dont have to work second jobs and want to remain in the profession.

Abbotts push follows up on new Texas laws restricting how teachers can talk about race in public schools. Abbott told the crowd in Lewisville on Thursday that hes already forbidden Texas schools from teaching critical race theory  limiting how teachers address issues such as systemic racism, slavery and discrimination.

Now Texas has the toughest anti-CRT protections in the nation, he said.

The conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation has been calling for a bill of rights for Texas parents, and it hosted Abbott at an event in Austin on Wednesday.

By passing a parental bill of rights, we ensure that every child has access to a quality education of their choosing and every parent feels empowered to act in the best interest of their child, said Greg Sindelar, the CEO of the advocacy group.

Abbott said a provision in his plan will require every school to have information on its website outlining the rights of parents and will include information about charter schools and magnet schools as alternatives to traditional public schools. He stopped short of calling for private school choice, as TPPF and other conservative groups have advocated, that would allow parents to tap public education dollars to send their children to private school.

jeremy.wallace@chron.com
As the omicron variant of COVID-19 rapidly made its way around the world  infiltrating 89 countries within three weeks of first being identified in late November  it became the fastest-spreading variant since the start of the pandemic.

Social media users attempted to quantify its place among viruses throughout history.

"Omicron is now the fastest-spreading virus known to humankind," began one three-minute Facebook video. It was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

There is more than one way to quantify virus spread: One is to measure how easily a virus is transmitted from person to person, and another is to look at how quickly it spreads across the world. When it comes to the former, measles is the fastest. For the latter, its omicron.

Measles is the most contagious virus when it comes to transmission between people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each person who contracts it can infect 12 to 18 other people, in a population not protected by vaccines and other preventative measures.

The omicron variant ranks as a close second, though: Each person who contracts omicron can infect between 7 and 14 people in an unvaccinated, unprotected population, studies show.

One term scientists use to quantify infectious disease outbreaks is R0, pronounced "R naught," and called the basic reproduction number. It indicates the average number of times one person will transmit the virus to someone else in a population where no one has been exposed to or vaccinated against the disease, and is therefore a more theoretical measure.

The basic reproduction number for measles is between 12 and 18. For COVID-19, the basic reproduction number has increased with each strain of the virus. With the original strain, each sick person likely would infect between two and three others; with the delta variant, between five and seven; and with omicron, most estimates put it at 1.5 to 2 times more than delta. That means with omicron, each sick person infects between 7 and 14 people.

Another mathematical measure for the spread of infection is called Rt, which is the effective reproduction number. It takes into account factors such as vaccination levels and immunity from prior exposure and "is likely lower than the basic reproduction number," according to the Health Lab. The Rt value is more of a real-time representation of what a virus infection rate is.

The effective reproduction number is measured during an ongoing pandemic, and for COVID-19, it also has varied for each strain of the virus. With the original strain, each sick person would infect around 2.5 others; with the delta variant, it was 3.5 to 4; and with omicron, scientists have estimated it between 3.7 and 4.2.

When measuring how fast a virus spreads around the world, "Omicron is certainly the most rapidly spreading virus among the ones we have been able to investigate at this level of detail," William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told El Pais, a newspaper in Spain, in an interview.

Hanage told PolitiFact thats because even though each measles infection causes more secondary infections in an unprotected population, it takes longer than omicron to do so. The time it takes one person infected with the omicron variant to infect another person  called the generation time  is shorter than with measles, in a non-immune population.

The generation time is about 12 days for measles and four to five days for omicron, El Pais reported.

"As a result of omicron's shorter generation time  and despite its lower R0  the numbers of omicron cases climb more rapidly per unit of time than measles," Hanage said.

Our ruling

A Facebook video said, "Omicron is now the fastest-spreading virus known to humankind."

When it comes to how quickly viruses spread across the world, omicron is the fastest, experts say.

When it comes to how viruses are transmitted from person to person, measles is the most contagious. Each person who has measles can infect 12 to 18 other people, in a population not protected by vaccines and other preventative measures, according to the CDC.

But the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is a close second. Estimates put it at 1.5 to 2 times more transmissible than the delta variant, which saw each sick person infecting between five and seven others. So each person who contracts the omicron variant can infect between 7 and 14 people in an unvaccinated, unprotected population.

We rate this claim Mostly True.
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A retinue of correction officers in their dress blues and the new jails boss gathered Thursday night to solemnly salute a casket bearing the body of a fellow officer who died on vacation in Mexico.

The six-member Department of Correction Honor Guard, the Port Authority Police Honor Guard and Commissioner Louis Molina stood on the tarmac of Kennedy Airport at about 6 p.m. as the casket of 16-year veteran Correction Officer Norka Jones was taken off of a United Airlines flight from the resort city of Cabo San Lucas. Jones died Jan. 13.

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The six-member DOC Honor Guard and Commissioner Louis Molina at Kennedy Airport on Thursday. (Nishaun McCall Sr./DOC)

Jones mother, Marjory Johnson White, other relatives and off-duty correction officers were also present. Officers draped a U.S. flag over the casket and carried it along a line of saluting officers to a waiting hearse.

I was very touched by the ceremony, White, 74, said. They all were so caring. I dont even have the words to put how they treated me.

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Jones mother, Marjory Johnson White, other relatives and off-duty correction officers attended the ceremony. (Nishaun McCall Sr./DOC)

Jones, 49, was born in Panama and moved to Queens with her family at age 12. She joined DOC in 2006 after a stint as a caseworker with the city Administration for Childrens Services. She worked in several units for the department, most recently with the Transportation Division.

She loved her job and even if she wasnt feeling well, she would go to work, White said. She was beautiful, caring, and giving. She was loving to everyone. It was a shock to all of us.

Correction Officer Norka Jones

Jones, who also left behind two sisters, Nadine Johnson and Gina Jones, died suddenly in her sleep, her mother said. She had been on vacation with her boyfriend.

Correction Officer Jones was a dedicated public servant to this city and this agency, and it was out of respect and appreciation for her service that we saluted her on the tarmac alongside her family, Molina said in a statement. This is a tragic loss, and our Bold sister will be missed.

Benny Boscio, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, was also present and thanked Molina and the Honor Guard.

Our hearts are heavy over the passing of our beloved Correction Officer, Norka Jones, who served our department with pride for over 16 years. On behalf of the entire COBA membership, I express our deepest condolences to her family, Boscio said.

From left, Benny Boscio, president of the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, Commissioner Louis Molina and DOC Chief of Department Kenneth Stukes honor Correction Officer Norka Jones Thursday night. (Nishaun McCall Sr./DOC)

Sources praised Molina for joining the rank and file at the ceremony, adding that they did not feel they were treated with as much respect under Mayor Bill de Blasios administration.
Medical aid then responded, and the person was transported to Berkshire Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.

Pittsfield Man Killed in Car Fire

Update on Jan. 21, 2022: Authorities are still investigating a fatal car fire on Wednesday morning that killed 69-year-old Barry Dunnells.

Dunnells, of Pittsfield, was pulled from a 2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo outside the Livingston Apartments on East Street by firefighters.

He was taken to Berkshire Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Fire officials said Dunnells was inside the burning car when they arrived at about 8:40 a.m. Two other vehicles parked nearby were damaged.

The body was taken to the Chief Medical Examiner's Office to determine the the cause and manner of death. Pittsfield detective and fire investigators, and the State Fire Marshal's Office are investigating the incident.

____________________________________________________________

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  A person suffered life-threatening injuries from a car fire on Wednesday morning that spread to two other vehicles.

Around 8:40 am, a motor vehicle fire was called into 911 at 257-265 East Street or the Livingston apartment building. The car was parked in the parking lot behind the building on 7 Second St.



The Pittsfield Fire Department responded with one engine and arrived at the same time as the Pittsfield Police Department. Upon arrival, they found a person was still in the burning vehicle and was on fire.



"Typically a motor vehicle fires a one-engine response, we responded one engine. They arrived concurrently with Pittsfield police and bystanders explained that there was still a person in the motor vehicle that was on fire," Deputy Fire Chief Daniel Garner reported.

He added that the fire began to spread to surrounding vehicles. Three vehicles in total were damaged.

"So Engine Three firefighters pulled the person from their burning vehicle. At that point, I arrived and I found the fire had spread to other motor vehicles," he said. "I called for more assistance because Engine Three then started medical aid on the victim."



Medical aid then responded, and the person was transported to Berkshire Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.



The section of Second Street that the apartment building is on was closed off for about two hours to make room for emergency vehicles.



Garner confirmed that the fire was in a parked car and was not the result of a crash. At the time, he did not have an update on the victim's condition.

The area of the fire is marked off with barricade tape.



The incident is currently being investigated by the Pittsfield Fire Departments fire investigation unit, the Pittsfield Police, and Massachusetts Fire Marshal's Office.
Meet Teachers at Berkshire Waldorf School

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.  Berkshire Waldorf School (formerly Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School) announced the appointment of Andrew Gilligan as First Grade teacher for the 2022-23 school year.

Families whose children will be six by Sept. 1, 2022 and interested community members are invited to meet Mr. Gilligan, along with First Grade subject teachers, at the school's Meet the First Grade Teachers event Saturday, Jan. 29 at 10:30am via Zoom.

Parents and caregivers can register for this live, virtual, free event at berkshirewaldorfschool.org, or by contacting Admissions Director Robyn Coe at admissions@berkshirewaldorfschool.org

Andrew Gilligan has taught children across the Elementary and Middle School grades as well as Early Childhood for the past twelve years. He is currently a class teacher at the Seattle Waldorf School, where he has taught First and Second Grades for the past two years. Mr. Gilligan was a Class Teacher for First through Fourth Grades and Sixth through Eighth Grades at Meadowbrook Waldorf School in Richmond, RI, where he was also a member of the Board of Trustees and the Core Group of Teachers, leaders of the fiscal and pedagogical decision-making for the school. Mr. Gilligan earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont, and completed both his Elementary Education and Waldorf Education Certificates, as well as his Masters of Education degree, from Antioch University New England.

At Berkshire Waldorf School, as in most Waldorf schools worldwide, Elementary School class teachers start with their class in First Grade and move through the Elementary School curriculum with their class, to build strong, long-term relationships, for up to eight years. Berkshire Waldorf School is accepting applications for the Class of 2030 for Fall 2022. The application deadline is Feb. 1.
Williamstown Releases Findings of Investigations into Police Department

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  A pair of concurrent investigations into the Williamstown Police Department found "credible testimony about  racially charged incidents in the Department" but raise issues about the credibility of the self-described whistle-blower who brought those incidents to light.

In the aftermath of the August 2020 release of a federal discrimination lawsuit against the town by then-Sgt. Scott McGowan, the Select Board promised to order an independent investigation into what the lawsuit characterized as "an atmosphere in which racial harassment and hostility to persons of color are tolerated and perpetrated at the highest level" and "a blind eye to sexual assault and sex discrimination" at in the department.

On Aug. 10 of last year, Boston attorney Judy A. Levenson submitted the results of her probe that began in February. Four days earlier, on Aug. 6, private investigator Paul J. L'Italien gave the town the results of his five-month investigation into McGowan after the sergeant was the subject of a March 1, 2021, letter of no confidence signed by full-time members of the police force.

Levenson had asked Pembroke's L'Italien, a licensed PI and retired law enforcement officer with more than 27 years of experience, to look into the allegations against McGowan in the letter of no confidence.

iBerkshires.com submitted a public information request to the town on Jan. 11, and, on Friday, the town released redacted versions of the report s from both investigations.

Asked Friday for his reaction to the reports, Police Lt. Mike Ziemba said he did not see the reports until well into his tenure as the interim chief of the department. Once he saw them, they did prompt a couple of specific actions, but other changes already were in progress before he read Levenson's findings.

"The reports confirmed for me the amount of work that needed to be done to fix the problems at hand," Ziemba said. "That's what has been happening.

"The current department today does not, in any way, operate the way it did during the time period of the events detailed in the reports."

On a couple of key points, Levenson's investigation was stymied by the refusal of potential witnesses to be interviewed. Her 37-page report indicates that some of the accusations McGowan made against then-Chief Kyle Johnson and then-Town Manager Jason Hoch are without basis.

But there remains much in Levenson's conclusions to raise concern about the atmosphere in the department during Johnson's tenure as chief, which came to an end in December 2020 on the same day McGowan announced he was dropping his lawsuit against the town, Johnson and Hoch.

"Chief Johnson initiated, participated in and tolerated sexually charged and offensive comments and conduct within the Department," Levenson's report reads on Page 2, continuing, "Chief Johnson initiated, participated in and tolerated racially charged and offensive comments and conduct within the Department."

Levenson interviewed 12 witnesses, including McGowan, Hoch and Johnson  some on more than one occasion. She also reviewed the transcript or observed the interviews of 13 witnesses queried by L'Italien, a group that included former Police Chiefs Michael Kennedy and Arthur Parker.

Levenson notes on Page 10 of her report that she uses the evidentiary standard of "preponderance of the evidence," which means that her factual findings are "more likely than not true." Generally speaking, there are three standards of evidence in American jurisprudence, in ascending order of rigor: preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing and beyond a reasonable doubt (the standard in criminal prosecutions).

Her report notes that Johnson, who was promoted to acting chief in 2004 at age 33 and subsequently chief, was "relatively young" for the supervisory position and promoted from within the historically small department.

"Soon after Johnson was appointed Chief in 2004, a work culture developed within the Department that several members described as including 'inappropriate horseplay,' 'unprofessional conduct,' 'juvenile locker room behavior,' 'stupid' and 'immature behavior,' " the report reads.

Johnson's own account as reported by Levenson appears to back up that assessment.

In discussing an allegation in McGowan's lawsuit that Johnson "rubbed his clothed penis" against McGowan and other members of the department, Johnson appears to brush off the incidents as jokes.

" '[If] somebody was sitting at a desk typing or something, their elbow sticking out, you walk by and you bump them and they scream out and laugh and you just go on your, you on your way,' " the report quotes Johnson as saying. " 'It's not like there was these deviant sexual advances happening throughout the department. It wasn't a regular thing in that it was done all day every day. But when there was an opportunity like that, that's, that's what happened, unfortunately.' "

That aligns with a January 2020 town response to McGowan's original complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in which the town admits to "unprofessional and juvenile locker room behavior" at the WPD.

Levenson's report includes her findings on some of the more high-profile allegations in McGowan's MCAD complaint and subsequent whistle-blower suit:

 McGowan alleged that Johnson harassed a Black patrol officer between 2002 and 2016. Levenson reports that the officer in question declined invitations for an interview. "However, the detailed nature of McGowan's account and Johnson's failure to deny or affirm the incident lend credence to these allegations."

 McGowan alleged that in 2016 a Black officer requested a transfer to a different police department due to racial hostility in the WPD. Again, the officer in question declined "multiple requests for an interview," Levenson reports. But she concludes, "credible testimony about other racially-charged incidents in the Department lends credence to this allegation that a racially hostile environment may have been at least a contributing factor for the officer's requested transfer."

 McGowan brought to light a 2012 incident in which a dispatcher at the WPD shouted the "N word" in the presence of a Black Williams College student who was visiting the station. Levenson reports that the dispatcher in question claimed, "it wasn't meant in any hateful or derogatory whatever, it was just a slang that's said millions of times. It's just something in songs and everything else." Johnson removed the part-time dispatcher from duty for two weeks, but Levenson reports, "No follow up education or training for the individual or Department-wide appeared to take place." On the other hand, she notes that, "No credible evidence supported McGowan's allegation that he advocated for the dispatcher's termination."

 McGowan alleged that Johnson should have terminated a WPD officer in February 2011 after an off-duty sexual assault of a town resident. Levenson's report expresses no opinion about the steps Johnson did take: contacting the State Police Crime Prevention and Control Unit and having the officer sign a "Last Chance Agreement" in April 2011. However, she reported that Johnson and a shift mate of the officer accused of sexual assault each deny McGowan advocated for termination at the time, and, in his role as the local union president, McGowan signed the Last Chance Agreement.

 McGowan alleged that Johnson and other members of the department degraded a female dispatcher by referring to her as "Bae" and "Baby Girl" from 2014 to 2016. Levenson reported that, "McGowan himself referred to the dispatcher as 'Bae' or 'Baby Girl,' although he claims that he and other members of the Department only did so when 'mocking' Chief Johnson." The independent investigator reported that her probe was inconclusive on whether the dispatcher involved found the nicknames derogatory because she declined to be interviewed for the investigation. But, Levenson notes, "In any event, use of those terms by the Chief, a Sergeant and perhaps other members of the Department, even if as a 'nickname' or even if said in a 'mocking' manner, was inappropriate, lacked leadership and judgment and contributed to fostering a sexually charged workplace environment."

 Levenson's report reports no basis for McGowan's allegation that Johnson displayed "discriminatory animus" against WPD dispatcher with a handicap or that Johnson and Hoch retaliated against McGowan for being a whistle-blower. On the former allegation, Levenson said the dispatcher in question, " 'do[es] not believe for one moment that [Johnson] had any hidden negative agenda toward handicapped or handicapable people.' " On the latter point, Levenson wrote, "This investigation did not reveal any other credible evidence to support a claim that Johnson placed McGowan on [paid administrative leave] in retaliation for his critiques of sexual harassment or racial hostility within the Department or because of his union activity." And when Hoch chose to promote Ziemba instead of McGowan to a newly created post of lieutenant in 2019, "Credible evidence was not produced to support a finding that Integrity Testing's Assessment Center process was a sham or that the Town Manager's promotion of Officer Ziemba to Lieutenant was in retaliation for McGowan's past conduct critiquing sexual harassment or racial hostility within the Department or for McGowan's union activity," Levenson wrote.

 Levenson pulls no punches on the issue of a much discussed photo of Adolph Hitler that for decades was present in the locker of a WPD officer. Levenson's report details the history of the "joke" that led to the photo's display in the department and says, "[the] fact that some officers who saw the photo may have regarded it simply as a 'joke' or 'story' underscores the gravity of the issue." Although Johnson has denied knowledge of the Hitler photo until McGowan's MCAD complaint, Levenson reported, "given the approximately 20-year time period the photo existed in the Department, the Department's small size and Johnson's leadership role, it seems improbable that Johnson had not at least heard about the photo." That said, Levenson's report casts doubt on the Hitler photo's presence as evidence that McGowan was blowing the whistle on such activities. "At most, McGowan claims to have briefly mentioned the Hitler photo's existence to Johnson once in 2016, in the course of discussing with Johnson his officer/friend's requested transfer to another department and as an example of alleged racism motivating the officer's transfer," the report reads. And, her report notes, "Despite being a Sergeant with supervisory responsibilities and claiming to be personally offended by a Hitler photo posted inside an officer's closet/locker, McGowan took no steps to have the photo removed, photographed it and used it in his lawsuit."

As for McGowan himself, L'Italien's 35-page report found that allegations against the sergeant of "conduct unbecoming an officer" were sustained by L'Italien's investigation, which included 20 witness interviews.

"During his interview Sergeant McGowan denied any wrongdoing and asserted that all the allegations made against him in 'the [March 2021 no confidence] letter' are acts of retaliation against him," L'Italien writes. "I find it implausible that so many different people including current and former employees, both sworn and non-sworn who are all in agreement that McGowan has created a hostile work environment could be involved in a concerted effort to retaliate against him."

The word "implausible" in the above paragraph is bolded in L'Italien's executive summary.

"The current members of the police department (sworn and non-sworn) are all in agreement that it is Sergeant Scott McGowan and McGowan alone who has created a hostile work environment at the Williamstown Police Department," the summary continues.

However, L'Italien's report, like Levenson's, also reflects concerns about the management of the Williamstown Police Department under Johnson.

"The key observations I have made during the course of this investigation include instances of failure at many levels of the Williamstown Police Department," L'Italien wrote, putting the word "failure" in bolded italics.

"The Williamstown police department does not have an existing employee evaluation system," L'Italien told the Select Board. "The Williamstown police department does not have published

duties and responsibilities for ranks within the department (i.e. Lieutenant, Sergeant, Patrol Officer, Dispatcher)."

Both Levenson and L'Italien, in separate letters accompanying reports of their findings, recommend the WPD and town update their human resources policies and enforcement mechanisms for those policies.

"The Department should identify and train an Internal Affairs Investigator as described in the IA Policy and disseminate that person's contact information both externally and internally," Levenson wrote.

"All supervisory personnel should receive training as it relates to overseeing their subordinates and addressing any matters of shortcoming," L'Italien wrote. "Ineffective supervision is a problem in itself, but, more importantly, it delivers a message to the officers and employees which causes confusion, has an adverse effect on morale and, most importantly, can negatively impact the delivery of safe, efficient and effective police services to the Williamstown community."

L'Italien then ends his letter to the Select Board on an optimistic note.

"On August 6, 2021, I spoke by phone with [then] Acting Chief Michael Ziemba," the investigator wrote. "He informed me that the policies, procedures and rules and regulations are in the process of being updated and should be completed in the near future."
An e-bike rider was badly hurt in a hit-and-run collision with an SUV in Brooklyn on Friday, police said.

The victim was riding at 10th Ave. and 18th St. in Windsor Terrace when he was struck around 12:10 a.m., cops said.

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The driver took off and the injured man was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Brooklyn Methodist in critical condition.

A GrubHub delivery bag, a pair of gloves and one boot were on the sidewalk beside where an e-bike rider was injured in a hit and run in Brooklyn on Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. (Ellen Moynihan/New York Daily News)

People go really fast coming up 18th St., said neighborhood resident Candace Grace, 50.

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The aftermath of the crash was still visible Friday afternoon, as e-bike parts littered the intersection and s GrubHub delivery bag, a pair of gloves and one boot were left on the sidewalk.
An elderly employee of a Bronx auto-body shop was hospitalized Friday after his out-of-control car flew off a Bronx highway and crashed to the ground below, police said.

The man, who is believed to be in his 80s, drove his silver PT Cruiser off an elevated section of the Bruckner Expressway near Zerega Ave. in Unionport about 10 a.m., cops said.

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The car that flew off the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx and landed on a street below on Jan. 21, 2022. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

The PT Cruiser flew through the air and crashed into a construction site under the highway  about a 15-foot drop, police said.

When first responders arrived, the cars air bags had deployed and the driver was conscious and alert. EMS rushed him to Jacobi Medical Center.

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Construction workers in the Bronx fix a fence after a car flew off the Bruckner Expressway at Zerega Ave. and landed on a street below on Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

The senior, identified by co-workers as Domingo, worked at an auto shop on White Plains Road, a few miles away from where the crash occurred.

His niece rushed to the hospital to be at his side, co-workers said.

Police are investigating what caused the crash.
The NYPD Highway Patrol investigates after an 11-year-old child was struck by a car and critically injured on Rockaway Boulevard and Lefferts Boulevard in Queens on Thursday afternoon. (Gardiner Anderson/for New York Daily News)

Cops have arrested a 68-year-old unlicensed driver who struck and critically injured an 11-year-old Queens boy, police said Friday.

Nasser Essa of Queens, was traveling east on Rockaway Blvd. near Lefferts Blvd in South Ozone Park about 2:30 p.m. on Thursday when he struck the child.

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The child was crossing north on Lefferts Blvd. when he was hit, cops said. EMS rushed the boy to Jamaica Hospital, where he remained in critical condition Friday.

The NYPD Highway Patrol investigates after an 11-year-old child was struck by a car and critically injured on Rockaway Blvd. and Lefferts Blvd. in Queens Thursday afternoon. (Gardiner Anderson/for New York Daily News)

Essa, who lives six blocks from the crash, attempted to flee the scene but was quickly arrested, police said.

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Cops charged him with leaving the scene of an accident with serious injury and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
Transcript from a recording of Zenab*, a 25-year old reporter and presenter with Afghanistan International Radio and TV. After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, she left for Turkey with three family members. Others in her family are still in Kabul, and they have lost their jobs. She continues to work but finds her income is not enough to support her family. This transcript has been excerpted from In their Own Words: Afghan Women Journalists Speak, a report by the International Federation of Journalists and the Network of Women in Media, India, supported by Norsk Journalistlag.

I am an Afghanistani female journalist. My country was a place where women were all silent. My mother used to tell me from childhood that you should be a journalist. My mother had been a victim of domestic violence for years. But no one ever found out about her. Like my mother, thousands of other women did not express their pain. We needed female journalists in our country to inform the world about the situation of women in Afghanistan.

I decided to become a journalist even though I know that journalism is a crime in my country. Especially, becoming a TV presenter is a bigger crime. But I accepted all the problems and become a journalist by struggle. I started my career in radio and became the voice of freedom of expression and the voice of women. Later I went to television and became the host of a daily famous television programme.

In my programme, I invited active women- doctors, teachers, journalists, human rights activists, human civil rights activists. And I encouraged other women to be literate like this. To say no to violence. And to fight, not to give up. We created a team of female journalists to work against the perpetrators and enemies of freedom of expression. We lost many of our colleagues in freedom of expression and journalism.

Our media was repeatedly threatened by the Taliban before the fall of Kabul. And several of my colleagues were killed by the Taliban attacks. Until the Taliban took over Afghanistan, we continued to fight. But we realised we had to choose between life and death. And I had to run away. I had to run away leaving Kabul without my family I wish to be with my family again To hug my mother and father again. To play with my again. I want to work again and be a journalist.

I wish my country would be released from captivity. I want peace for my people. I want peace for my country. We are human. Like other countries, like other people. Why we dont have peace? Why we cant live in our country? I wish one day we can go to our country again, and we live together again. And be a journalist. For our country, and for our people again. Sorry and thank you.

This excerpt was originally published by the Network of Women in Media, India, from the IFJ and NWMI's joint report, 'In Their Own Words: Afghan Women Journalists Speak', supported by Norsk Journalistlag. Read the full report here.

*Name changed for safety reasons
Journalists Sai Win Aung and Pu Tuidim were killed by Myanmars military in two separate attacks on December 25 and January 8 respectively. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) strongly condemns the continued violence against media workers in Myanmar and calls for those responsible to be brought to justice immediately.

Journalists Pu Tuidim (left) and Sai Win Aung (right) were killed by members of Myanmar's military in separate attacks on January 8 and December 25 respectively. Credit: Twitter

Editor for the Federal News Journal, Sai Win Aung, was killed in an attack by military forces on December 25 while reporting on refugees in Kayin states Myawaddy township, near the Thai border.

Sai Win Aung, also known as A Sai K, was fatally shot by Myanmars armed forces, the Tatmadaw, in an artillery attack against members of the resistance group the Peoples Defence Force (PDF).

UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, condemned the killing. Media workers like Sai Win Aung risk their lives to keep the public informed. Their work deserves to be recognized and their safety protected in line with international humanitarian law, which forbids attacks on civilians, she said.

On January 6 or 7, Pu Tuidim, a founder of media collective Burma News International (BNI) and Chin news outlet the Khonumthung Media Group, was abducted, along with at least nine others, in the Matupi Township of Myanmars Chin State by members of the militarys 140 Infantry Battalion.

The bodies of the abductees, including Pu Tuidim, were found on January 9, with the journalist reported to have been killed on January 8.

The citizens were said to have been captured and used as human shields, to allow soldiers to navigate the Matupi-Hakha Road, a route prone to improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. The military had been clashing in the area with members of the anti-government Chinland Defense Force (CDF) since January 6. A CDF spokesperson said that once the military had navigated the road, all hostages were systemically shot dead.

Three journalists have been killed in Myanmar since December, with freelance photographer Soe Niang murdered on December 14 after four days of torture. Myanmars junta has antagonised journalists since it assumed control in the military coup on February 1, with over 100 journalists arrested during its administration and many remaining in custody.

The IFJ said: The brutal killings of Sai Win Aung and Pu Tuidim, simply for doing their jobs as members of the media, display the military juntas blatant silencing of critical voices and disregard for press freedom. The IFJ calls for swift justice to be brought to the perpetrators, to the full extent of the law, and urges Myanmars military to cease its vilification of journalists and media workers.
Since 1963, The Independent has helped create a great community!

Since our founding in September of 1963, The Independent has been dedicated to giving Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, and Sunol readers the news they need to be in-the-know about what's going on in the Tri-Valley region.
In view of the global political and economic supply chain issues, India is poised to become a hub for furniture manufacturers. Recognizing this, the government had also set up a task force which shared recommendations on areas of reduction in customs, import duty on raw materials and sub- assemblies, for a period 3  5 year, till these factors are developed in the Indian furniture ecosystem.



The differential between the import duty on finished goods and raw material could create a price advantage for furniture manufactured in India. Further, subsidy on transportation through railways will also lead to reduction in logistics cost, which are 5  10% higher than global logistics cost.



With commodity prices hardening and raw materials like steel, particle board etc. having increased by close to 30  40%, manufacturers will have to pass this cost to consumers leading to a decline in sales volumes.



MSMEs contribute large volumes in furniture industry and drop in sales affects these units as furniture is a necessity both in domestic and healthcare, offices and other institutions.



The Government could consider a reduction in GST to encourage the industry and enhance growth of local furniture industry. They should also start considering furniture under the PLI (Production Linked Incentive) scheme.



The author of this article is Mr. Anil Mathur, Chief Operating Officer, Godrej Interio.



The views and opinions expressed are not of IIFL Securities, indiainfoline.com
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A Port Authority Bus Terminal police officer, assigned to help at-risk youths in the Midtown transit center, instead launched an inappropriate relationship with a homeless teen after meeting her on the job, prosecutors charged Friday.

Officer Telly Simmonds, 47, falsified work documents to hide his connections with the 19-year-old after their paths crossed while he worked the busy 42nd St. building in early 2018, authorities charge. He was working at the time with the PA police Youth Services Unit  established to identify runaway or at-risk youths.

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Simmonds allegedly paid for an April 1, 2018, stay in a Times Square hotel with the teen using a Port Authority voucher meant for work-related duty only, officials said, and faces a sentence of 2-7 years behind bars if convicted.

Taking advantage of a young, at-risk woman seeking help is one of the most despicable things an officer of the law can do, said state Attorney General Letitia James. Simmonds allegedly used the power of his badge ... in order to engage in and conceal an inappropriate relationship.

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Port Authority Bus Terminal (Mary Altaffer/AP)

The officer pleaded not guilty Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court on felony charges of tampering with public records and offering a false instrument for filing, along with four misdemeanor count of official misconduct.

Officials said he was removed from active policing work since the start of the investigation.

After Simmonds took down the teens name, address, phone number and other personal information at their initial meeting, the pair began texting regularly before their hotel stay, authorities said.

After she relocated to a Philadelphia shelter, the cop contacted her again in an effort to bring her back to New York, officials said. He allegedly filed bogus April 18, 2018, paperwork claiming that he met the woman that morning in the bus terminal and provided the teen with a subway MetroCard.

Simmonds instead drove to Philadelphia after his shift, showed his Port Authority police ID to shelter workers and claimed he was on official duty before driving the teen back to a shelter in the Bronx, prosecutors say.

The Philadelphia agency contacted the FBI, where officials reached out to the Port Authority  with an investigation launched by the New York attorney generals office.


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The war in Yemen appears to be growing with every passing day. The Saudi Arabia led alliance with all its military might is fighting the Houthi rebels from Yemen.

Yemen is considered to be suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and yet none of the sides appear to back off. Rather the war is seeing its effects being exported to other countries in the region. With the recent Houthi attack in UAE.

The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, are a Zaidi tribal political movement led by Hussein Badreddin Al-Houthi that developed from and is centred around Sa'dah in northern Yemen.

Houthi Attack In UAE | Shutterstock

Rose in the 1990s, fighting the central government intermittently since 2004

In Zaidi areas, they are seeking an end to economic underdevelopment, political marginalisation, and alleged discrimination, as well as more autonomy in areas where they are the majority.

Houthis are a prominent tribe who adhere to the Zaidi Shia school of thought. They predominantly live around the northern region of Yemen. Zaidi Shias are typically different from mainstream Shias in their beliefs and practices. In many ways they are similar to Sunnis.

Despite all this, Zaidis have been in differences with the central government of Yemen for decades.

By the mid twentieth century, Yemen was divided into two countries. The northern Yemen was ruled by the Zaidi Imams and the southern a British colony. In 1962 a coup took place in northern Yemen known as the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen.

Houthi Attack In UAE | AP

Muhammad al-Badr, took over as ruler in September 1962

In the same year Egyptian-trained military officers commanded by Abdullah as-Sallal, the commander of the royal guard, deposed him, took control of Sana'a, and established the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). This triggered the North Yemen Civil War, with Egypt assisting the YAR with troops and supplies to combat forces loyal to the imamate, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan backed Badr's royalist forces opposing the newly founded republic. The conflict lasted until 1967, when Egyptian soldiers were evacuated. The monarchy was abolished and the Yemen Arab Republic was finally fully established and recognised by Saudi Arabia.

South and North Yemen

South Yemen on the other hand was a British Protectorate until 1967. It was comprised of Federation of South Arabia and the Protectorate of South Arabia both British Protectorate. Following the British exit from the region, the People's Republic of Yemen was formed on November 30, 1967, when the Federation of South Arabia and the Protectorate of South Arabia united, which later changed its name to the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. It was sponsored by Cuba, East Germany, and the Soviet Union when it became a MarxistLeninist one-party state in 1969. It was the first and only communist state in the Arab world.

North Yemen and South Yemen merged in 1990 to form the Republic of Yemen in 1990. Conflict however remained a part of it throughout its history and one of the causes of this conflict remains the North-South divide among the country. An important aspect of this divide is the involvement of Zaidis who form a minority in the country but are predominantly settled in North Yemen which was once ruled by Zaidi rulers. Zaidis have for a long accused the central leadership of marginalising and discriminating them.

The Houthi term can be extremely difficult to understand and explain in the current Yemen political context. The Houthi are a tribe in Northern Yemen that adhere to the Zaidi school of thought. Today however all the rebels together are known as Houthis. These mostly include Zaidis and also Sunnis from North Yemen. These rebels have been led by Houthi tribe currently by Abdul-Malik Badruldeen al-Houthi and previously by his brother

Hussein al-Houthi. Hussein al Houthi was a Zaidi religious, political and military leader, as well as former member of the Yemeni parliament for the Al-Haqq party between 1993 and 1997.

Houthi Attack In UAE | Reuters

Following the unification of North and South Yemen, Ali Abdullah Salah took over as President of Yemen and remained in office till 2011.

In the 1990s, Houthis were moderate in their opposition to the government. This however changed post the American invasion of Iraq. Anti American sentiments were invoked among people specifically by Hussain Al Houthi. This was not taken well by the president and more than 500 supporters of Houthis were arrested and in 2004 forces were sent to arrest Houthi. Hussein retaliated by initiating an insurrection against the central authority, but on September 10, 2004, he was assassinated. Until a ceasefire agreement was struck in 2010, the insurgency continued irregularly. Throughout this long struggle, the Yemeni army and air force worked along with the Saudi military to put down the Houthi revolt in northern Yemen.

Aftermath of the Arab Spring

Following the rise of Arab Spring, protests and revolution reached Yemen and peaked in 2011, with the demands of President Salehs resignation.

The Houthis later took part in the 2011 Yemeni Revolution and the National Dialogue Conference that followed. Sales finally resigned and the government was taken over by his Vice President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.

The Houthis however continued with their fighting. By November 9, 2011, the Houthis were believed to be in control of two Yemeni governorates, Saada and Al Jawf, and on the verge of gaining control of a third governorate, Hajjah, allowing them to begin a direct attack on Sanaa, Yemen's capital. In May 2012, it was reported that the Houthis had taken control of the majority of the governorates of Saada, Al Jawf, and Hajjah, as well as gaining access to the Red Sea.

By September, 2014, the Houthis were in control of parts of Sanaa, Yemen's capital, including government buildings and a radio station.

The presidential palace in the city was overrun by the Houthis on January 20, 2015. During the takeover, President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was in the presidential palace. On February 6, the movement formally took control of Yemen's government, dismissing parliament and establishing the Revolutionary Committee as the country's effective authority. On 15 August 2016, the Supreme Revolutionary Committee partially handed power to the Supreme Political Council.

As aforementioned, there is a difference between Houthi tribes whose members are leading the movement and Houthi rebels. They are currently in control of Northern Yemen, while Hadi is in control of the south with Saudi help. The country is again divided into two with North ruled by Zaidis and South under a foreign protection. History is repeating itself in a strange way.

For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News.
The cryptocurrency market is seeing a massive drop, with around a nine percent drop in overall crypto value.

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Also Read: Cryptocurrency Rollercoaster 2021: Ten Defining Crypto Moments Of The Year

Reported first by the Independent, Bitcoin was down by 8.8 percent in the last 24 hours. This means the beloved cryptocurrency has now dropped below the $40,000 mark. This is surprising because just last year in November, it touched an all-time high of $70,000 valuation, but has now dropped 44 percent since that record.



However, other coins have experienced the wrath too, with Ethereum falling 11.1 percent. The cryptocurrency has dropped almost 20 percent since its value around the start of January.

This was seen after an overwhelming rise in trading volumes after many people rushed to sell off their cryptocurrencies before their values depreciated further. CoinMarketCap reported that the market volume was up by 113 percent.

This also comes at a time when governments around the world are cracking down on cryptocurrencies. Russia has recently joined the list of nations that don't really support cryptocurrency as its central bank proposed a ban on cryptocurrency use and mining. It is also important to note that Russia today is one of the largest crypto mining nations across the globe.

Also Read: Dubai Could Become World's Crypto Capital, With Help From Binance

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Russia comes a few months after China had initiated a full-scale shutdown on cryptocurrency trading as well as mining. Even nations like Pakistan, Turkey and even Iraq. India too is working on a new set of laws to better regularise the novel digital currency.



Do you think cryptocurrencies would bounce back from this slump or is it only going to get worse? Tell us in the comments below and keep reading Indiatimes.com for more science and technology news. Additionally follow Indiatimes Worth for all things millennials finance. p
The road for the crypto industry worldwide doesn't seem to get easier anytime soon.



After Pakistans central bank announced last week about increasing steps towards a total ban on crypto, now Russias central bank is seeking a complete ban on crypto mining and investment.

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Also Read: A Millennials Guide To (Crypto)Currency

Russias Crypto Ban

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Yesterday, Russias Central Bank proposed to completely ban cryptocurrency investment and mining, joining many other governments around the world who are aiming to crack down on crypto, citing threats to the monetary stability of their nations.



As per the Central Bank, speculative demand is driving the rapid growth of decentralised cryptocurrencies, and it risks the creation of a bubble in the market.

The Bank also stated that Cryptocurrencies also have signs of a financial pyramid as an increase in their prices is largely driven by demand demonstrated by new market participants.

In its consultation paper, Russias Central Bank said it seeks to ban financial institutions from investing in or carrying out any operations with cryptocurrencies. It also seeks to ban cryptocurrency exchanges and any platforms that facilitate the circulation of cryptocurrencies.

As per the banks estimates, Russian citizens transactions using decentralized cryptocurrencies amount to a whopping $5 billion per year.

The Central Bank also proposed banning crypto mining in Russia, the third-largest crypto mining market, citing the threat to Russias financial stability through its unproductive consumption of electric power and the implementation of Russias environmental agenda.

Also Read: China To Create Its Own 'NFT Industry', But Not Related to Cryptocurrency

What About Pakistans Central Bank? Is Crypto Banned In Pakistan?

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Last week, Pakistans central bank had put forth a proposal to ban all forms of cryptocurrency. It stated that the risks involved in trading Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto coins far outweigh the potential benefits.



According to the State Bank of Pakistans (SBP) "risk-benefit analysis" committee, constituted under a directive from the High Court, cryptocurrencies were depleting national foreign reserves and encouraging illicit financing.

Also Read: The Elon Musk Effect: Tesla CEO's Top Tweets Of 2021 That Sent The Crypto Market Crazy

Request To Ban 1,600+ Crypto Websites

And towards this move to totally ban crypto, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has taken a big step by requesting Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to ban more than 1,600 crypto websites. The action is followed after a complete crypto ban recommendation by the central bank last week.

The Contrary Statement

Meanwhile, in a contrary statement, Pakistans science minister stated that the government intends to regularise crypto in the country. In the coming days, it remains to be seen what the countrys actions will actually result in, a total ban on crypto, or a regulation.

Other Crypto Banning Countries

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In the past decade or so, many countries have been vocal about opposing cryptocurrency. While some nations have completely banned crypto, like China, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey etc, many have put partial restrictions on cryptocurrency in their respective countries.



Also Read: From Working At McDonald's To Becoming A Crypto Pioneer: Meet World's Richest Crypto Billionaire

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As far as Indias Crypto Industry is concerned, the future remains cloudy. The much anticipated and awaited Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 is the focal point towards which all crypto investors are looking at. Clarity on this bill is what would show whether the cryptocurrency will be banned or regulated in India.



Also Read: RBI Creates New Fintech Department, May Take Up Crypto Issues

For more of such interesting personal finance content, click here.

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Today

Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 81F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.

Tonight

Partly cloudy. Low 54F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.

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Woodbridge, VA (22192)

Today

Cloudy early. Scattered thunderstorms developing later in the day. High around 80F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

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The Omicron-fueled surge of COVID-19 cases is declining sharply across both Northern Virginia and the state, and hospitalizations for treatment of the virus fell slightly this week, according to new data Friday.

Northern Virginia localities reported about 24,700 new coronavirus cases this week, still historically high, but the region's seven-day average has declined 40% since peaking Jan. 13. It now stands at 3,538.9 per day.

Statewide, just over 100,000 new cases were reported this week -- the third straight week that level has been surpassed -- but the daily average of 14,328 is down 23.7% from the Jan. 13 peak.

The daily averages in both Northern Virginia and the state remain more than double their levels on this date in 2021, when vaccines were just beginning to be rolled out.

Of bigger worry to health officials, hospitalizations seem to have peaked this week, with 3,836 patients hospitalized Friday, down nine patients from the week before, according to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association. That's the first decline in hospitalizations since the week ending Nov. 12.

However, the number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators hit a pandemic high of 388 on Thursday, before falling by one Friday. The number of patients in intensive-care units hit a high of 676 on Tuesday.

Hospitalization numbers are not available specifically for Northern Virginia.

The Virginia Department of Health has now reported 1,049 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant, with 438 of them in Northern Virginia. The state number is up from 540 cases week earlier, and Omicron represented 91% of all cases tested for the week ending Jan. 8. Only a small percentage of positive samples are tested for variants, and completing the testing and reporting results often takes a week or more.

Along with the declines in cases, diagnostic test positivity rates have fallen dramatically this week across the region and statewide, although they remain well above levels at which health officials believe the virus is under control.

The state reported only new 49 COVID-related deaths this week. The Virginia Department of Health has said that because of a new method for accounting for COVID-related deaths, reports of new deaths are delayed several weeks. Of this week's deaths, just four were in Northern Virginia: two in Arlington County and one apiece in Fairfax County and Alexandria.

Three new outbreaks with more than four cases apiece were reported this week in Northern Virginia, all at assisted living facilities or nursing homes in Fairfax. The new outbreaks are:

Aarondale Retirement and Assisted Living Community in Fairfax, 17 cases reported to the health department on Jan. 11

Chesterbrook Residences in Fairfax, 13 cases reported Jan. 11

The Fairfax at Belvoir Woods in Fairfax, 12 cases reported Jan. 5

Two other previously reported outbreaks in Northern Virginia with more than four cases are listed as still being in progress:

Woodbine Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Alexandria, 45 cases, reported Dec. 29.

ProMedica Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation in Arlington, 7 cases, reported Dec. 31

The health department's dashboard tracking the number of breakthrough infections shows that between Jan. 17, 2021, and Jan. 15 of this year 41,510 infections had been reported in fully vaccinated people in Northern Virginia, resulting in 102 deaths.

Statewide, 124,042 such infections had been reported, or about 13.8% of the 901,000 overall cases reported in that time. The health department says the data show that unvaccinated people are 4.5 times more likely to develop COVID-19 than fully vaccinated individuals and are 3.9 times more likely to die from COVID-19.

The health department's vaccination dashboard shows that the average number of doses administered per day dropped this week to about 21,000, possibly affected by winter weather across much of the state and the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday on Monday. Vaccinations were as high as 86,000 a day in late March, but had fallen to about 12,000 a day in mid-summer.

As of Friday, about 14.54 million vaccine doses had been administered to Virginians, and third doses had been administered to over 2.36 million Virginia residents. Over 260,000 children ages 5 to 11 have now received at least one dose, representing about 36% of that age group.

Overall, 78.8% of all Virginians have now received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 68.6% are considered fully vaccinated.

LATEST COVID-19 DATA

New Cases/Deaths (Seven days ending Friday, Jan. 21)

Northern Virginia: 24,773 new cases (down from 39,383 prior week); 4 new deaths (down from 16 prior week)

Statewide: 100,296 new cases (down from 130,381 prior week); 49 new deaths (down from 152 prior week)

Statewide Testing: 270,651 PCR diagnostic test results (down from 343,524 prior week, which was the most ever)

Overall Totals

Northern Virginia: 382,139 cases, 2,727 deaths

Statewide: 1,451,713 cases, 15,852 deaths

Statewide Testing: 12.01 million PCR diagnostic tests (17.19 million when including antibody and antigen tests)

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) cases: 128 (including 14 in Fairfax, 12 in Prince William, two in Loudoun and Alexandria and one in Arlington). One new case was reported statewide this week.

*Provided by Virginia Department of Health. The health department's COVID-19 data is updated each morning (Monday through Friday) by 10 a.m. and includes reports by local health agencies before 5 p.m. the previous day.

Statewide Hospital Data (as of Friday, Jan. 21):

Hospitalizations: 3,836 (down from 3,845 on Jan. 14)

Peak Hospitalizations: 3,948 reached Jan. 18, 2022

Patients in ICU: 632 (down from 656 on Jan. 14)

Patients Discharged: 86,681 (3,005 this week)

*Provided by Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association

For updated national and international COVID-19 data, visit the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard.

Editor's note: InsideNoVa is providing regular COVID-19 updates every week. For daily reports, visit the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard.
Dominion Energy is asking the state for permission to build a new landfill for coal ash at its Possum Point Power Station on Quantico Creek.

The utility company filled the public in on its plans for the first time during a community meeting Thursday night.

Dominion said it was essentially given three options by the state after former Gov. Ralph Northam backed and signed a state law requiring disposal of coal ash to protect groundwater: Dominion could have the ash recycled, could deposit it into an onsite landfill, or could ship it to a different landfill. For the roughly 4 million cubic yards of coal ash at its Possum Point Pond D, Dominion says the first option is the most cost-effective and least impactful for the surrounding areas.

The company would like to build a landfill on its Possum Point property that it says would be above and beyond state regulations, with a double lining that should last for over 400 years and be planted over, after draining and filling the current ash pond.

The estimated cost of $374 million could be partly passed on to energy consumers in the state, as is allowed in the 2019 legislation, sponsored by Sen. Scott Surovell (D-36th), Dominions Spencer Adkins said during a virtual public presentation.

We understand that theres a lot of questions around the integrity of these systems, so for this particular landfill, what weve offered is a double-liner system, which we feel is extremely, extremely robust, Adkins said. Were going the extra mile here, we'll take the next step to make sure that there's no issues with our system.

The state law was passed to prevent the carcinogenic heavy metals in the ash from seeping into and polluting groundwater, a growing concern for disposal ponds around the country. A ceremonial bill signing was held at Possum Point in 2019 by Northam. At various times, Dominion operated five different ash ponds at the power plant, but consolidated all of them into Pond D after ceasing coal burning at the power plant in 2003.

Now, the company is faced with what to do with the ash at the Prince William County site, along with at three other locations in Virginia. Originally, the utility planned to drain the pond and cover it with a synthetic cap and topsoil, but the single liner at the bottom of the pond doesnt meet the new state requirements. Of the available options under the new law, Dominion has told state regulators that it would like to go the onsite route, though the state could request a different route.

Adkins said the onsite landfill option would be the cheapest, quickest and least disruptive for nearby residents. Transporting the ash to an offsite landfill would require years of heavy truck and rail traffic through the residential neighborhoods near the plant, he said.

Transporting the ash to be recycled  likely for cement replacement  would require the same amount of trucking, and only about half the ash at the site could be reused.

However, the new landfill plan could face opposition from nearby residents. Adkins said the nearest home is about 700 feet from the proposed landfill site just northwest of Pond D.

But once the transfer is complete and the landfill is covered with topsoil, he said, people in the area wouldnt even be able to guess what is underneath. All told, after permitting and construction, Adkins said, the landfill should take about eight years to finish.

Were trying to make it blend in with the area, so I think once we get done with it, people wont even realize, he added. Theyll just think its a small mountain or a hill with the grass growing.

Potomac District Supervisor Andrea Bailey, who helped to organize the presentation for the public, said the county is forming a task force for residents in the area to work with Dominion. Ultimately, the company will need signoff from the state on a slew of environmental regulations and inspections, as well as approval from the county.

Bailey said she hoped Dominion could land on a win-win for the community nearby.

I just wanted to make sure that everyone had an opportunity to look at the presentation and to digest it, Bailey said. Your voice will be heard totally and in communications, not only with you but also Dominion.
Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell, born Jan. 21, 1965, was a founding member of the seminal rap group, Run-DMC, that formed in 1983, in Hollis, Queens. A musician from childhood, Jay played the trumpet, guitar, bass and drums before becoming a celebrated DJ. Jay was murdered execution-style on Oct. 30, 2002, inside his recording studio on Merrick Blvd. in Jamaica, Queens. Despite several people being inside the studio with him at the time, the murder remains unsolved. Here, Run DMC's Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels and Joseph "Run" Simmons pose in Central Park in the early 1980s in New York. (Oliver Morris / Getty Images)
After a night of passionate pleas from parents, Fauquiers school board voted, 4-1, Thursday to make face masks optional for students and staff, with Duke Bland of the Marshall District casting the only no vote.

The decision comes after Gov. Glen Youngkin (R) signed an executive order last Saturday announcing that students will no longer be required to wear a mask in school as of Jan. 24. Following the order, Fauquier sent an e-letter to staff and parents Monday saying the school system would follow its current COVID-19 policies, including masking, until the board made a final decision. On Thursday evening, the board invoked the governors executive order, voting to make masking optional, as well as discontinue contact tracing.

Stafford School Board votes to keep mask mandate despite Youngkins executive order The Stafford County School Board voted in favor of keeping a mask mandate in place for all s

Students who test positive for COVID will still be required to remain home for five days and wear masks in school five days after they return. In accordance with the Department of Transportation's federal mask mandates, students and staff still must wear face masks while riding buses to and from school.

Although the vote was about masking, members spent little time talking about any underlying psychological or physical problems associated with masking that parents brought up during the meeting. Instead, school board members largely focused on the issue of keeping healthy students who have not tested positive for COVID in school.

Masks are staying at Prince William schools, but quarantine changes coming Masks will remain in Prince William County schools, at least for now, although the division 

Scott District board member Vincent Gallo said the school system should not force students who have not tested positive for COVID home to quarantine for a week or more at a time.

We want all of our children in school five days a week and cant do that when we have to send kids home, Gallo said.

He also expressed concern that forcing students to mask and quarantining those who have not tested positive for COVID may be doing more harm than good. Gallo suggested parents should have the final say whether to quarantine if their children get exposed to the virus but test negative for COVID.

Bland pushed back, however, arguing that the school district should wait a few more weeks before deciding to stop quarantining and masking. Otherwise, he said, the staff shortage Fauquier already faces might get worse because of increased COVID cases.

If I dont have staff to run the schools theres no sense in having the students in the schools, Bland said. All Im saying is we need to pump the brakes a little bit . . . . Well find ourselves in a worse condition than we have been in since this thing started.

The dozens of parents who showed up to speak at the meeting, however, did not share Blands sentiment. Virtually all who spoke argued the mask mandate harmed their children psychologically and, in some cases physically.

Scott District resident Natalie Erdossy said during the meeting that her daughter, a Fauquier High student, received a medical exemption when she came back to school last spring because she developed a respiratory illness caused by bacteria from wearing a mask for long periods. But even with the condition, Erdossy said her daughter was shamed and told to put a mask on anyway by her teachers. Edrossy said the experience has caused her child psychological distress.

Nearly every day, my child comes home now discouraged, depressed and frankly angry that they see adults able to take mask breaks when they are yelled at for doing so, Erdossy said. More of their academic time now is being spent being policed . . . .

Katey Ralls, a resident of Cedar District, said her son, also an FHS student, has missed 67 days of school this year because of quarantining and as a result is failing many of his classes.

Our kids are losing their education, Ralls said.

And in a split vote, the Rappahannock County School Board on Thursday at a special meeting opted to make masking optional in accordance with Youngkin's order, which does away with a statewide mask mandate in schools as the incredibly infectious omicron variant spreads.

The measure was passed 3-2 with Rachel Bynum, of Piedmont District, and Larry Grove, of Stonewall-Hawthorne District, voting in opposition.

While the School Board still strongly recommends that parents choose to mask their children, beginning on Monday, Jan. 24, those who wish to send their kids to school without masks must submit it in writing. Parents will be sent a waiver in the coming days outlining information about masking and quarantine guidelines that they must sign and submit to the schools before sending their children without masks next week.
How the pandemics unequal toll on people of color underlines US health inequities  and why solving them is so critical
Gov. Ned Lamont and Connecticuts health care exchange announced plans Wednesday to launch a training program for licensed independent insurance brokers in the states three largest cities.

James Michel, the chief executive of Access Health CT, said once these brokers are licensed, they will be certified to sell insurance on the states health care exchange and will not be tied to any particular insurance carriers. The plan is to have the brokers in the markets by November, when enrollment in the exchange begins.

It will increase the opportunity for coverage, especially at a time when health insurance is more affordable than ever for many through Access Health and the subsidies provided by the American Rescue Plan, he said.

Michel said the Broker Academy will expand access to health insurance for underserved communities in greater Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford by placing insurance brokers where there currently are none.

The first class, to be launched in June, is to include 100 students. Those chosen will receive free training, a three-month apprenticeship with an experienced insurance broker, professional development and program support, including a free laptop computer.

We dont get anything from them other than the benefit of them doing good work for their communities in helping us to lower the uninsured and move closer to eliminating health disparities in Connecticut, Michel said.

Michel said plans call for expanding the program to other cities after the initial program is complete.

Lamont said his administration also will propose in its budget, funds to eliminate health insurance copays and deductibles for low-income people.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Agencies Training Development Connecticut
A Nigerian court will hear Royal Dutch Shell Plcs appeal to overturn an almost $2 billion award against the company for allegedly spilling oil in the West African country.

The energy giant is challenging a November 2020 judgment in favor of community members claiming a leak from a company pipeline damaged their land and waterways. A federal court of appeal in the city of Owerri is scheduled to consider applications from both sides on Jan. 25, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

Nigerian Oil Producer Sues Shell for More Than $2B Over Ownership of Wells Shell to Pay $111 Million to Resolve Long-Running Oil-Spill Dispute in Nigeria

Farmers from the Ejalawa community in the southern Rivers state sued Shell and its joint venture partner, the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Co., in January 2020. A federal judge accepted that an abandoned flow line operated by Shell began spilling a large volume of crude oil in September 2019 that damaged the surrounding environment.

The court said the 88 plaintiffs were entitled to 800 billion naira ($1.92 billion) in compensation, and it ordered Shell to clean up. The sum is much larger than any damages previously awarded by Nigerian courts to residents of the crude-producing region for degradation of their land.

I am satisfied that the amount of compensation claimed is a result of the colossal damage to the plaintiffs land, Justice Tijjani Ringim wrote in his November 2020 decision.

Shell and the NNPC deny that spills occurred on the alleged dates and say the claim against them is unsubstantiated, vague and exaggerated, according to the ruling. They also argued unsuccessfully that the judge shouldnt award damages because several required steps, such as a joint investigation of the alleged leak and an assessment of its volume, werent carried out.

These disputes can take many years to reach a conclusion. Shell agreed in August to pay another community in Rivers state 46 billion naira to resolve a lawsuit filed more than three decades ago, yet it denied responsibility for the pipeline rupture at the center of the case.

A spokeswoman for Shell confirmed the appeal, without providing additional information.

Shell will apply for a stay of execution on Jan. 25, seeking to delay any payments until the appeal is decided, while the Ejalawa inhabitants will ask the judge to order the company to deposit 800 billion naira into a court account, the plaintiffs lawyer, Mohammed Ndarani Mohammed, said in an interview.

Shell has been selling onshore and shallow water fields to Nigerian independent producers for more than a decade. The company is trying to find a buyer for the rest of these assets so it can focus on deep-water projects.

If upheld, the $2 billion judgment could complicate Shells efforts to sell its remaining licenses. The community plans to file a motion asking the appeals court to prevent the company from disposing of the permits while the award is unpaid, Ndarani said.

Photograph: Abandoned fishing boats sit on the ground as crude oil pollution covers the shoreline of an estuary in B-Dere, Ogoni, Nigeria, on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020. Photo credit: George Osodi/Bloomberg.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Energy Oil Gas
This edition of International People Moves details appointments at Generali Global Corporate & Commercial (GC&C), Gallagher Re and Chubb.

A summary of these new hires follows here.

Muniz Named GC&Cs Head of Construction & Green Energy

Generali Global Corporate & Commercial (GC&C) has appointed Alejandro Muniz as new head of Construction & Green Energy, effective Jan. 1, 2022.

In addition to his current role as head of Engineering Underwriting Iberia & LatAm, Muniz will revamp the Global Construction industry practice in anticipation of the sectors expected growth. He will leverage solid local expertise and the lessons learned to create a central structure ensuring coordination and enhanced commercial presence.

Muniz will report to Filippo Cinelli, head of Client & Broker Relationship Management.

In line with GC&C strategic priorities and due to massive investments derived from governments post-pandemic plans, a special focus on green energy opportunities will represent a differentiating factor.

With more than 10 years of experience in the insurance sector, Muniz has specialized in construction, engineering and energy insurance. In recent years, he has held the position of GC&C head of Engineering Underwriting Iberia & LatAm, regions where the business unit has a leading role. With a degree in civil engineering from Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Muniz immediately developed technical excellence skills and client-centric approach in both the underwriting and sales spheres, said GC&C.

Further enhancing Construction and Green Energy business represents one of the initiatives on which GC&C wants to aim for growth in the years to come, commented Manlio Lostuzzi, CEO of GC&C. The experience of Alejandro in this sector will be pivotal for the execution of our strategy, as well as for continue providing our clients with value-added service and expertise.

***

Gallagher Re Hires Hiscoxs Kim for Cyber Team

Gallagher Re, the global reinsurance broker, announced that Liz Kim has joined its 40-plus-strong cyber reinsurance team, continuing its strategic investment in industry talent and specialist expertise to best meet the rapidly evolving needs of clients and widening exposures.

Operating out of San Francisco, Kim will help enhance the support and service of clients based on the U.S. West Coast, complementing teams in New York, Bermuda and London. While collaborating with the global cyber consultancy, analytics and alternative cyber solutions teams on a range of innovative initiatives, she will also work closely with Gallagher Res wider and extensive team of U.S.-based colleagues.

Kim joins from Hiscox where she most recently held the role of group director of cyber underwriting, responsible for global cyber underwriting strategy including exposure management, coverage developments, pricing, claims performance and reinsurance strategy, as well as the execution of silent cyber reduction plans.

An attorney by profession since 1997, during which time she primarily practised in insurance, Kim brings 15 years direct industry experience having subsequently transitioned into the company side of insurance. As head of claims for Hiscoxs TMT division, Kim was responsible for managing all of its technology, media and cyber claims at a time when technology-related risks were in their first decade of evolution, before she moved into product innovation and development.

Lizs 15 years of industry experience are as broad as they are deep, spanning underwriting strategy, product development and coverage, alongside exposure management, legal and claims. She is a recognised name within the cyber market and we are thrilled to welcome her into our team, said Ian Newman, global head of Cyber at Gallagher Re.

***

Chubb Promotes Kropp to Global Head of Operations and Technology

Chubb Ltd. announced the promotion of Thomas Kropp to senior vice president, Chubb Group, and global head of Operations and Technology, effective Jan. 1. He previously served as deputy global operations and technology office and is based in Zurich.

Kropp succeeds Julie Dillman, who was also promoted on Jan. 1 to executive vice president, Chubb Group, and Digital Transformation Officer. Dillman is based in New York City and continues to report to Evan G. Greenberg, chairman and chief executive officer, and John Keogh, president and chief operating officer.

Kropp joined Chubb in 2020 from Zurich Insurance, where he served as group IT services officer. In that role, he drove the companys simplification and digitization strategies. Before Zurich, Kropp held senior technology positions at Allianz, and at Lufthansa Systems, where he led global digital workplace services, the enterprise data center and introduced a new passenger services system. He received a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Mannheim, Germany.

Topics Cyber InsurTech Tech A.J. Gallagher Construction Chubb
The Allstate Corp. has acquired an office building in downtown Chicago months after agreeing to sell most of its campus in Northbrook, Illinois.

Allstate confirmed it purchased the property at 29 N. Wacker Drive in Chicagos Loop, a 10-story office building.

We are in discussions with the City of Chicago about potential uses for the building, which could become an investment property, a space to consolidate our existing downtown offices or our new headquarters, an Allstate spokesperson said.

Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot praised the move on Twitter, saying she was thrilled Allstate is continuing to invest in Chicago.

This news, another pro-Chicago decision, goes to show that our city continues to be the choice for companies looking to expand.

Allstate announced in late November 2021 that it had reached an agreement to sell the majority of its Northbrook campus to Dermody Properties for approximately $232 million. Allstate said the decision to sell the property was motivating by employees desire to have more choice where they work.

The sale is expected to close in 2022.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions
American Financial Group (AFG) recently acquired Verikai Inc., a machine learning and artificial intelligence company that utilizes a predictive risk tool for assessing insurance risk.

AFG said it paid approximately $120 million in cash at closing.

California-based Verikai will continue to be led by President and CEO Jeff Chen.

Verikai, founded in 2018, leverages alternative data and machine learning, focusing primarily on underwriting efficiency by providing insurance companies with risk reports to optimize the underwriting process.

AFG CEO Carl H. Lindner III said in a company press release that the company believes artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to have a significant impact on the insurance industry in the future, and the company sees Verikai as a thoughtful and effective leader in the use of these technologies.

He said Ohio-based AFG has had success with several strategic insurtech relationships. Although we dont often invest directly in insurtech entities, we found Verikai to be an outstanding opportunity, he added.

Verikai will continue to operate as a standalone company to serve its insurance clients.

AFG is engaged in specialty property/casualty insurance for businesses through the operations of Great American Insurance Group. Great American Insurance Group will also benefit from Verikais predictive risk tool and Marketplace platform as it enters the medical stop loss business, with a primary focus on small and underserved risks, the company said.

Source: American Financial Group

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions InsurTech Data Driven
A wildfire in a central Texas state park is no longer growing and no injuries were reported after the blaze, suspected to have been caused by a prescribed burn, charred 1.2 square miles (3.2 square kilometers), officials said.

Texas A&M Forest Service spokesperson Kari Hines said no homes have been reported destroyed and some families were allowed to return home after an evacuation order was partially lifted.

Texas A&M Forest Service tweeted the afternoon of Jan. 20 that the fire was 813 miles and 70% contained.

The precise cause of the fire that began Jan. 18 has not been determined, but a prescribed burn in Bastrop State Park is suspected.

We absolutely believe there were embers from the prescribed fire that undoubtedly caused the fire  what we dont know is how that happened, said Carter Smith, director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Smith said a full investigation will determine the cause, but added that the current focus is on making sure the fire is fully extinguished and all residents and property are protected.

According to the National Park Service, a prescribed fire is a planned fire used for resource benefits or research. The conditions taken into account include the safety of the public and fire staff, weather and the likelihood that the desired outcome will be obtained.

Prescribed fire is a critically, critically important tool in our state. We have to manage fuel loads and fire risks with the strategic, judicious application of prescribed fire, Smith said.

As of morning Jan. 18, Smith said, Bastrop County was under weather conditions considered OK for a prescribed burn.

Im unequivocally convinced that our burn boss thought it was safe to carry out that fire, Smith said.

The fire rekindled memories of a 2011 wildfire that killed two people and destroyed 1,600 homes in Bastrop, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Austin. The blaze scorched more than 50 square miles (1,630 square kilometers), including 96% of the state park.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Texas Wildfire
China issues plan to promote green consumption

Xinhua) 14:37, January 21, 2022

BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities on Friday unveiled a master plan on boosting green transformation of consumption in key areas, the latest move for the country to achieve its carbon peak and neutrality goals.

The plan, jointly released by the National Development and Reform Commission and six other government organs, said that green consumption modes will prevail by 2025, calling for efforts to arouse people's awareness of green consumption, curb extravagance and waste, and enhance the market share of green and low-carbon products.

It detailed measures in various major fields, ranging from food, clothing, housing to transport, tourism and electricity.

To encourage green housing, the plan urged efforts to incorporate measures of energy saving and environmental protection while renovating old urban residential communities and rural houses.

On green transport, efforts will be made to vigorously promote the use of new energy vehicles (NEVs), such as gradually lifting the NEV purchasing restrictions, enhancing supporting facilities like battery charging and swapping stations, and increasing the application of NEV in public service vehicles.

As for shifting to green electricity consumption, the plan underlined that newly-added renewable energy and energy used as raw materials would be excluded from the cap on total energy consumption. The proportion of green electricity in residential power consumption will be raised.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
A Michigan man accused of setting his pregnant girlfriend on fire is being held on a $5,000 bond.

An argument erupted between Devonne Marsh and his girlfriend inside their Detroit home on Jan. 14. Police said Marsh first doused the woman in lighter fluid and then set her aflame. Authorities responded to the home that night to investigate a report that a woman there was being held against her will.

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When they arrived on the scene, they found the 26-year-old victim lying on a bed in the basement with severe burns covering about 60% of her body, the Macomb Daily reported. She is 27 weeks into a pregnancy with twins and remains hospitalized in critical condition.

Devonne Marsh faces a slew of charges. (Detroit Police Dept.)

Marsh, 42, was arrested and charged with kidnapping and abduction, aggravated and felonious assault, and violation of the controlled substance act. Despite having a criminal record, his, his bond was set at $50,000 or 10%, meaning he could be freed should he be able to drum up $5,000.

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According to the Michigan Department of Corrections, Marsh has been in hiding since March 2020, when he absconded probation. A year earlier, he pleaded guilty in Macomb County Circuit Court to four counts of delivering more than 50 grams of cocaine and sentenced to two years probation.

He has previously served time in prison for possession of a controlled substance, weapons/felony firearms, and assault with a dangerous weapon. Marsh also has an active arrest warrant from the Livonia Police Department.
The Army Corps of Engineers will be getting $2.6 billion for Louisiana under the infrastructure and supplemental disaster acts, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Jan. 19.

The disaster bill to help recovery from Hurricane Ida includes over $2 billion for flood prevention in Louisiana, he said. The $1 trillion infrastructure bill includes $643 million for 21 Louisiana coastal and water management projects.

Our unrelenting message has been that Louisianas coastal crisis is a national crisis. Investments in coastal protection and restoration make life in south Louisiana possible, protect interstate commerce, and support major economic engines that supply goods and services to our entire country, Edwards said. Todays federal investments show that we are being heard and rewarded for our good work.

The disaster relief money includes $783 million for a hurricane protection project from New Orleans to Venice, which is on the ragged toe of the boot-shaped state; $453 million for the west shore of Lake Pontchartrain and $163 million for the Atchafalaya Basin.

Earlier Wednesday, the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said it plans to spend nearly $1.3 billion in the fiscal year starting July 1, with 81% of that outlay going to construction.

The Corps money is unlikely to affect that total, but details will likely need reworking to provide state matches for federal projects, authority executive director Bren Haase said.

About 60% of the agencys planned spending for fiscal 2023 will be coming from various funds set up to dole out settlements and fines from the BP oil spill of 2010.

Fiscal Year 2023 is a pivotal moment for CPRA and our coast, agency chairman Chip Kline said as the draft plan was presented Jan. 19 This year marks a historic number of large-scale dredging projects, significant investments in hurricane protection, and the start of construction activities on a first-of-its-kind diversion project.

An environmental coalition called Restore the Mississippi River was enthusiastic.

Todays announcement marks a turning point in Louisianas coastal program, campaign director Simone Maloz said.

This investment follows one of the more devastating hurricane seasons in Louisianas history, she continued. With so many communities still rebuilding from recent storms, the urgency and importance of restoring wetlands and protecting vulnerable communities cannot be overstated.

In other news, the coastal authority said $13.7 million from the settlement of a 2006 oil spill will restore about 400 acres (160 hectares) of marsh in Cameron Parish. The settlement also will provide $1.5 million to create oyster reefs in lower Lake Calcasieu and $1.6 million for bird nesting habitat on an island in Terrebonne Parish.

Citgo Petroleum Corp. agreed last year to pay $19.7 million to cover state and federal claims for environmental damage from 2.2 million gallons (8.3 million liters) of oil that overflowed from wastewater storage tanks in Lake Charles during a rainstorm.

The state coastal agency said its draft plans for fiscal 2023 cover 114 projects, including 67 in the southeast, 39 in south central Louisiana and eight in the southwest.

It plans to spend more than $1 billion on construction for 76 projects, $80 million on engineering and design of 33 others, and $11 million on planning five projects.

It said construction will begin in Plaquemines Parish on the states first huge project to divert sediment from the Mississippi River to build wetlands. The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion has the capability to build and sustain thousands of acres of land that would provide increased storm surge protection to our vulnerable communities, provide necessary habitats to sustain a productive estuary for fish, wildlife, and industry, and bring billions in economic benefit to the surrounding parishes, a news release said.

It said 18 dredging projects will create or nourish more than 14,000 acres (5,600 hectares) of coastal wetlands.

CPRA has remained unwavering in our commitment to fortifying Louisianas coast from Holly Beach to Hopedale, said executive director Bren Haase.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Louisiana Flood
The 2022 Florida Senate has passed its first bill that affects insurance companies, but the measure has little to do with losses, rates or litigation costs.

On Wednesday, by a vote of 35-0, the chamber approved Senate Bill 7016, which would continue to exempt insurers anti-fraud plans and annual fraud reports from Floridas strict open records laws. Insurance companies fraud reports, filed with the state Department of Financial Services, have long been exempt from the eyes of the public, but the exemption was due to expire in October.

The bill, if passed by the House and signed into law, would extend the exemption indefinitely.

Florida-admitted insurers are required by law to maintain anti-fraud divisions or to contract with third parties to investigate suspected insurance fraud. Carriers also must file plans with DFS that include the companies level of fraud training and education; the number of investigators; the number of policies in effect and claims received; number of referrals to the anti-fraud investigators; number of claims investigated; estimated dollar amount of damages from fraud cases; and other documents that can include personal information about people or proprietary or investigative information.

The bill, drafted by DFS and the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, was approved without debate by the committee at its Dec. 1, 2021 meeting. Senators noted at the meeting that the states First Amendment Foundation, an advocate for open government, had not registered to speak against the measure.

The Senate on Wednesday also approved a similar bill affecting records and reports filed with DFS on injured workers that are covered by the states workers compensation law, and a bill regarding personal information on customers of international trusts.

The measures are now awaiting action in the House.

Topics Carriers Florida Fraud Politics
A man gets assaulted at work by two co-workers. Is the mans recourse for his injuries limited only to the exclusive remedy of the workers compensation system?

The Mississippi Supreme Court this month said, yes, despite the employees claims of negligent hiring and vicarious liability against the employer. In Schaffner Manufacturing Co. vs. Darius Powell, the court reversed a lower court and found that the Mississippis Workers Compensation Act governs the claims.

And although the law defines a workplace injury as one arising from an accident, the justices said that acts of gross negligence and recklessness fall into that category.

Powell had claimed that the two other workers at the Jackson, Mississippi, manufacturing site assaulted him in 2017. Eighteen months later, he filed a lawsuit against the men and the manufacturer, a maker of soap and mineral products.

The trial court found that the claims against the co-workers were barred by a one-year statute of limitations. But the claims against Schaffner, for negligent hiring and supervision and vicarious liability, were allowed and were not governed by the workers comp grand bargain, the trial court found.

Schaffner, which has offices in Pittsburgh, appealed. The Mississippi Supreme Court agreed with the employer and concluded that the workers compensation system was the exclusive venue for all claims against the manufacturer.

Applying Mississippi law to the face of the complaint, Powells claims of negligent hiring, retention, supervision, and general negligence for failing to provide a safe work environment are all claims of direct negligence against Schaffner, Chief Justice Michael Randolph wrote for the court. These claims properly fall within the scope of the (Workers Comp) Act. Therefore, the Act is Powells exclusive remedy for those claims, and those claims should have been dismissed.

Topics Workers' Compensation Talent Mississippi
Mississippi is moving closer to joining most other states in allowing people to use marijuana to relieve medical conditions.

The state House voted 104-14 Wednesday to pass a bill that would create a medical marijuana program.

The bill passed the Senate 46-5 last week, but the House made some changes. In coming days, the Senate could accept the changes or seek negotiations.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has said he wants even tighter limits on how much marijuana a patient could buy because he doesnt want a medical program to turn into a recreational one. But, the bill passed by wide enough margins that legislators could override a veto.

When the bill passed the Senate, it said a person with a marijuana prescription could obtain up to 3.5 grams of the substance per day, up to seven days a week. That is roughly 3.5 ounces per month.

The House on Wednesday reduced that limit to 3.5 grams of the substance per day, up to six days a week. That is about 3 ounces per month.

We are not trying to put more smokable marijuana on the street, said Republican Rep. Lee Yancey, chairman of the House Drug Policy Committee.

Yancey said the medical marijuana program would be limited to people with debilitating medical conditions such as cancer, sickle cell disease, glaucoma or dementia.

The bill specifies that marijuana for medical use could only be grown indoors. Democratic Rep. Omeria Scott tried to persuade the House on Wednesday to allow outdoor growing, saying it would help thousands of farmers.

This is the biggest cash crop since king cotton, Scott said.

The House rejected her proposal. Law enforcement officials have raised concerns about outdoor growing, and Yancey said growing plants indoors would allow more control over the quality of the crops.

A wide margin of Mississippi voters in November 2020 approved an initiative to allow medical marijuana, and a program was supposed to have been created by the middle of 2021.

Six months after the election, the state Supreme Court invalidated the initiative by ruling it was not properly on the ballot because Mississippis initiative process itself was outdated. The ruling also left Mississippi without a way for people to petition to put issues in front of voters.

After the court ruling, legislative leaders appointed a committee to write a medical marijuana bill.

The bill sets taxes on the production and sale of cannabis, and it specifies that plants must be grown indoors under controlled conditions.

The House removed the state Department of Agriculture from any role in operating the medical marijuana program _ a request made by Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson, a Republican.

The House also expanded the area where medical marijuana production facilities or dispensaries may locate, allowing them in commercial zones. The bill already allowed them in areas zoned for agriculture or industry.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Cannabis Mississippi
Former insurance agent Blanca Lidia Guzman, 40, of Palmdale, California, was sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday on one felony count of grand theft after pleading no contest for defrauding consumers.

Guzman reportedly stole more than $16,000 in premiums from the insurance company she worked for and her clients while leaving many of those clients without insurance coverage. She was sentenced to pay restitution and to complete 10 days of community labor.

An investigation by the California Department of Insurance began after receiving complaints from Guzmans employer.

The investigation reportedly revealed that Guzman entered false information into the companys database to avoid submitting client funds. She reportedly submitted fabricated proof of insurance documents to escrow companies in order to close the sale or refinance of the victims homes and then cashed the checks from the escrow companies that were issued for insurance.

Guzman also reportedly forged her clients e-signatures on insurance policy applications to place other policies at a much later date with another company without her clients knowledge. Her actions left several clients without insurance coverage and resulted in a theft of at least $16,128.

The CDI revoked Guzmans license on Feb. 1, 2021. The Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office prosecuted this case.

Topics California Agencies Fraud
The Los Angeles Unified School District agreed to pay $14.7 million to seven former students at an elementary school who claim their teacher sexually abused them several years ago.

Rene Tenas, who taught fourth grade at Hart Street Elementary, was accused of sexually molesting the girls on campus between August 2016 and January 2017, according to the criminal complaint.

Tenas pleaded no contest to two felony counts of lewd acts upon a child and was sentenced in November 2018 to five years in prison as part of a plea deal. He was released on parole this past October, the Southern California News Group reported.

Plaintiffs attorney Luis Carrillo told the news group that his clients are now in their teens and continue to experience trauma. Hes hoping the settlement will allow them to move forward.

LA Unified said in a statement the district is saddened by the pain the students experienced and is hopeful that this resolution provides some relief in the healing process.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics California Education K-12
As a fast-moving wildfire spread in suburban Denver, an emergency responder warned Edna Nadine Turnbull to evacuate. But the 91-year-old went back inside her home to rescue her dogs.

Turnbull and her pets were never seen again.

Authorities said Wednesday they found small bone fragments that could possibly be Turnbulls on the property, where her house was one of about 1,000 homes and buildings destroyed in the Dec. 30 wildfire.

The dogs were in the house when Turnbull went in to try to retrieve them but the animals did not come out so testing is being conducted to determine if the fragments are human or not, Boulder County Sheriffs Office spokesperson Carrie Haverfield said. The process can take weeks or months to complete, the sheriffs office said in a statement announcing the discovery.

The statement officially confirmed the missing womans identity for the first time and provided authorities first account of Turnbulls whereabouts during the fire.

Turnbull lived with her adult granddaughter, Layla Cornell, and with two dogs, two goats and two horses, according to Amy Smith, a family friend, who organized an online fundraiser for the granddaughter, who escaped the fire and is struggling to start over.

Her rural property is at the edge of the former agricultural town of Superior, where subdivisions have sprouted in recent decades, about 2 miles west of where the fire, is believed to have started. It is next to one neighborhood abutting open space that was completely destroyed in the fire and across the street from a large shopping center that includes a Costco where customers were asked to evacuate as smoke filled the parking lot and winds gusted.

A neighbor told KCNC-TV earlier this month that he barely escaped his familys home in the fire and went to Turnbulls house to tell her to get out, asking a sheriffs deputy to come with him. Haverfield declined to comment on neighbor Scotty Roberts account, saying she could not comment on other details that were part of the ongoing investigation.

Roberts said that as the front door to the home opened and let air inside, the fire went woosh and intensified, and the deputy pulled back. Cornell escaped, but Turnbull was tethered to her dogs, and the leashes were wrapped around a table, the station reported.

I couldnt pull all of them and the table with me at the same time, said Roberts, who described the fire as being everywhere at that point.

He said he was sorry and ran, said Roberts, who shook with emotion during the interview.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Wildfire Colorado
While some experts stress it is vital a lower emissions reduction target of 22% is set for agriculture in recognition of its economic and social importance to Ireland, others have warned that the lower the figure for agriculture, the greater the burden that falls on the rest of society.

The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 commits Ireland to a legally-binding target of a reduction in emissions of 51% by 2030.

The Climate Action Plan 2021 has proposed a target for agriculture to reduce emissions by 22% to 30% by 2030.

According to the Irish Farmers Association, a lower target for agriculture will recognise the sectors unique ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere by carbon sequestration through enhancing carbon sinks and reducing carbon losses, as well as offset emissions in other sectors through on-farm renewables.

IFA deputy president Brian Rushe told the Oireachtas joint committee on environment and climate action during a recent series of discussions on the proposed carbon budgets that it is important a reduction target set for agriculture is achievable and empowers and supports farmers to make the necessary changes.

A reduction target of 22% for agriculture is extremely challenging but achievable, he said.

The lower target would also recognise the social and economic importance of the sector, as well as the vulnerabilities and technical challenges faced by the sector.

Climate change is arguably the greatest challenge facing the world today, with farmers very much on the frontline.

Irish farmers understand they have a unique role to play in meeting the climate change challenge. They are committed to playing their part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

However, this must be done in a fair and balanced way.

He told the committee that when measures are introduced to reduce emissions on many farms, those measures will, by and large, have a cost.

Nearly everyone will be aware that many farms are in an economically vulnerable place, he said.

Farmers are the weakest link in the supply chain. We do not have an ability to pass on that additional cost to other actors in the supply chain. That cost is absorbed by the farm and it hits and hurts farm income.

We need to make sure we do not leave farmers behind; that we properly support and bring farmers on the journey and offer them opportunities, if those are available.

Changing practices on-farm

He added that no person or sector is immune to change, and that farming is no different.

We are changing our practices on-farm, fertiliser use, animal genetics, because we want to stay in business, he continued.

We want to continue to contribute to our economy and towns and villages throughout the country. If I wanted to be a millionaire, I would do something else, but I do not. I want to be a farmer.

I want to produce food and contribute to the social sustainability of the country, because that is what I and most farmers believe in.

Emeritus Professor John Sweeney told the committee that a 33% reduction in emissions from agriculture, for example, means that the rest of society will be expected to bear a heavier burden of an approximate 60% reduction.

That is quite a considerable reduction to anticipate in the course of 10 years. If we get a 15% reduction in agriculture, the rest of society will have to burden itself with an 80% reduction, he said.

If we went down to 10%, which is quite close to what we are seeing in some of the Food Vision 2030-type documents at the moment, the burden becomes very heavy and really impractical for the rest of society.

At the recent UN Climate Conference, COP26, Ireland signed up to a proposed reduction of 30% in methane emissions by 2030.

Some 70% of the worlds economy is now committed to this reduction. We have not heard Ireland state this is what it is going to do. I wonder why that may be the case, Mr Sweeney said.

Do we really expect the rest of the world to carry our burden once again?

If we were to reduce agricultural emissions by 33% and if, as part of that, we were to reduce methane emissions only by 10%, a figure that corresponds to what is being offered in Food Vision 2030, the reality is that the rest of agriculture  and that is a very significant amount of agriculture  would have to face a 77% reduction.

There are intrasectoral divisions and issues of just transition that will be significant if we are not willing to bite the bullet on a larger scale.

The conclusion one may draw is that only an immediate policy change, rather than waiting for the next carbon budget, to ensure significant near-term and ongoing reductions in methane can protect livestock agriculture in the first instance and, second, the rest of agriculture, from far more onerous and less planned mandatory and very rapid emissions reductions that will be required to meet those budgets.

He said in the short-term, a commitment is needed that we will reduce our national herd and make an ongoing reduction in our methane emissions of at least 3% annually.

If we can reduce these emissions by 3% per year, we will not then add too much in the long term to the burden of climate warming due to methane emissions, he said.

We must, however, put that aim into practice.

There should certainly be no question of an increase in our cattle numbers, and a reduction is imperative if we are to realise any of these carbon budgets.

Teagascs roadmap for 2027 envisages something like 200,000 more cows, which sees an increase of 19% and an increase in the average herd size to 100.

That is not compatible with any of our carbon budget targets. That has to be tackled at source.

Nitrogen is 'the driver'

Mr Sweeney said that there is also a significant need for a limit on nitrogen use - because it is the driver.

With the Climate Action Plan outlining a target of reducing chemical nitrogen to a level of 350,000 tonnes by 2025, with a further reduction to an absolute maximum of 325,000 tonnes by 2030, he posed the question: Why not bring that date forward to 2022 or 2023?

Why not limit and throttle the overuse of fertilisers, which is now causing so much damage to the quality of our lakes and rivers?

There is also an issue in terms of things that we do not tax. I have been very surprised that I cannot find any other EU country that does not tax nitrogen fertilisers. That would have a significant effect on making more efficient use of fertilisers.

The Department of Agricultures chief inspector Bill Callanan confirmed to the committee that the initial five-year carbon budget from 2021 to 2025 for agriculture will focus on reducing the use of chemical fertilisers.

The series of carbon budgets being considered was proposed by the Climate Change Advisory Council last year. A carbon budget represents the total amount of emissions that may be emitted in the state during a five-year period.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin has confirmed that almost all Covid-19 restrictions will be lifted from 6am on Saturday in his 23rd state of the nation address this evening.

Announcing an end to almost all Covid restrictions, the Taoiseach has said it is now time to "be ourselves again".

Solidarity with each other and trust in science has got this country to a place where the vast majority of restrictions can be lifted, Micheal Martin has said.

He said there have been many twists and turns along the pandemic path but "today is a good day".

On Friday, the Cabinet signed off plans to lift all regulations  except for mask-wearing, self-isolation and Covid passes for international travel  from 6am on Saturday.

A report from the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has advised Government that Ireland has weathered the Omicron storm and that all the key indicators have stabilised and are going in the right direction.

The lifting of restrictions, including an end to social distancing, the scrapping limits on capacity for all indoor events, including weddings and sporting fixtures, as well as dropping the requirement for Covid passes for hospitality will come into force from 6am, Mr Martin added.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin addressing the nation at Government Buildings in Dublin. Picture: Julien Behal/PA Wire

"We should all take a moment to appreciate how far we've come, to appreciate the effort and sacrifice of those who put themselves in harm's way to keep us safe to remember and appreciate the lives and contribution of those we lost. We think of all those who died with Covid and indeed, all those who passed away over the course of the last two years who we were not able to mourn as we would have liked or as they deserved," he said.

Pointing to the first Dail of 1919, Mr Martin said the relationship and trust between the people and the Government of Ireland has always been "very precious and powerful".

"It meant that when our country was hit with this unprecedented health emergency when your government asked extraordinary things of you, introduced previously unimagined restrictions on your lives, you responded, you did what you were asked to do."

Spring is coming.



We need to see each other again,



we need to see each other smile,



we need to sing again. pic.twitter.com/149ZHQLfJx  Micheal Martin (@MichealMartinTD) January 21, 2022

Guidance on household visits and restrictions on gatherings at indoor and outdoor events will be lifted.

The Covid-19 pass for international travel will remain, due to the Covid-19 situation in other countries.

Masks will still be needed in all the locations where they are currently required.

Protective measures will also remain in place in primary and secondary schools.

Mr Martin strongly encouraged all parents to talk to their GP about any concerns they may have in getting their children vaccinated.

"Please if you haven't already, get your vaccine, get your booster," he said in his televised address.

Mr Martin told the nation: "Spring is coming and I don't know if I've ever looked forward to one as much as I'm looking forward to this one.

"Humans are social beings and we Irish are more social than most. As we look forward to this Spring, we need to see each other again, we need to see each other smile, we need to sing again."

Deputy Leader of the Green Party Catherine Martin, Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar and Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan at the Department of Health at a press conference at Government Buildings this evening. Picture: Julien Behal.

Arts Minister Catherine Martin confirmed the scale of the lifting of restrictions, saying that the St Patrick's Day parades will go ahead as normal. She said that 2m has been committed to the events.

"The department is funding over 2m in the events for that day and there will also be strong online content as well.

All of this is being worked on and has been worked on that  were doing contingency plans behind the scenes but were delighted now that the physical parade will take place and well announce those details soon.

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said the Government can't rule out a "6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th" wave of Covid, but says that the challenge is surveillance, ensuring that we spot outbreaks and ensuring that the health service was equipped to deal with any further waves.

Chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said that he was aware that some people would feel worried that the reopening was coming too quickly, but said that the high rate of vaccination, personal behaviour and the less severe effects of the Omicron variant meant it was safe and possible.

However, both he and Mr Martin said that the pandemic is not over.

What will change: From 6am on January 22, the following restrictions will be removed:  Guidance in relation to household visiting  Early closing time for hospitality and events  Capacity restrictions for outdoor events, including sporting fixtures  Capacity restrictions for indoor events, including weddings.  Restrictions on nightclubs  Requirements to have a valid Digital Covid Certificate to enter various premises will be removed. From January 24, a return to physical attendance in workplaces can commence on a phased basis appropriate to each sector. A number of public health measures will remain in place until February 28:  Requirements for mask wearing in all settings where currently regulated for  Protective measures in schools and early learning and care facilities

- Additional reporting from PA

'A day to be proud of our nation'

Almost all Covid measures, including the need for a Digital Covid Certificate for bars and restaurants, the 8pm curfew, and other social distancing rules will come to an end tomorrow morning.

Early closing and limits on table numbers in hospitality, guidance around household visits as well as caps on attendance at events including weddings will be lifted from 6am on Saturday.

Almost all Covid measures, including the need for a Digital Covid Certificate for bars and restaurants, the 8pm curfew, and other social distancing rules will come to an end tomorrow morning.

Rules including physical distancing between tables and table service in pubs and restaurants will not be required. Nightclubs will also be allowed to reopen.

Significantly the requirement to provide a Covid cert will no longer be in place across all venues, which will no longer have to keep records for contact tracing. However, the certs will remain in place for international travel.

The limit on the numbers that can visit other households and limits on the number of guests at weddings will also lifted.

A small number of measures will be retained until February 28, including the wearing of masks across public transport, retail and healthcare.

Workers will be allowed to return to the office on a phased basis from next Monday, however, businesses will be asked to consult with workers on the staggered return to the office.

A small number of measures will be retained until February 28, including the wearing of masks across public transport, retail and healthcare.

Protective measures in schools and early learning centres such as pods and the wearing of face masks will also remain in place.

All of these measures are likely to be reviewed ahead of February 28.

The rules around close contacts announced by the Government earlier this month will also be reviewed at that time.

As of tomorrow, entrance to the Pandemic Unemployment Scheme will be closed, with those in receipt transitioning to the Jobseekers' Rate on March 8.

The Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme will have enhanced rates for employers impacted by restrictions in December through February with a two-rate subsidy of 151.50 and 203 per week to apply in March and a flat rate of 100 per week for April and May.

The Cabinet met this afternoon to review Covid measures and have agreed that almost all restrictions will be lifted.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said that today was "a day to be proud of our nation" as ministers meet to discuss the removal of most Covid-19 restrictions.

Mr Donnelly added that today was also one to give thanks to healthcare workers for their work during the pandemic.

Speaking on his way into Cabinet, Higher Education Minister Simon Harris also said that the restrictions would be lifted as soon as the "public health rationale" expired.

Health officials last night recommended the ending of most Covid-19 restrictions in the coming days.

The optimistic advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) will put the end in sight after almost two years of restrictions.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said that today was "a day to be proud of our nation" as ministers meet to discuss the removal of most Covid-19 restrictions. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan advised government that there is no longer a public health rationale for the majority of Covid-19 measures.

Speaking on his way into Government Buildings, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said the view across Government was that if theres no longer a public health rationale for a restriction, theres no political rationale for it either.

While not being drawn on the specifics, he said that "some work is needed" to sort out when certain measures, which are underpinned by regulation or primary legislation can be removed.

"There are things that need to be worked out. To make something thats currently illegal legal can require a ministerial order to be rescinded, it sometimes requires primary legislation to be repealed, so we need to do a bit of work today on the timing," he said.

Peak has passed

Nphet met yesterday and, in a letter to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, it suggested the end of two-metre social distancing, as well as the removal of caps on event attendance, guidance on household visits, and restrictions on hospitality as soon as the Government deems appropriate.

Nphet went further than many in government had expected in its recommendations.

That includes not recommending the continued use of vaccine passes in most venues, and advising that working from home can end on a phased basis.

Nightclubs will also be permitted to reopen under the new plans, with Nphet telling the Government that there is no longer a rationale for most restrictions.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan advised government that there is no longer and public health rationale for the majority of Covid-19 measures. Picture: RollingNews.ie

The advice does suggest that mask-wearing, isolation for symptomatic cases, and Covid passes for international travel will remain in place but a return to full capacity sporting events is on the cards as soon as the Government deems it to be appropriate, sources said.

While Nphet has stated it is safe to remove most measures, it has not set out any timelines and that has raised an expectation that ministers could ease some restrictions immediately.

However, it's understood that most restrictions will be lifted starting next week and not at the weekend.

One Nphet source said that the advice was optimistic, but said that there is still a long way to go until Covid-19 is a thing of the past.

Within Government, there was optimism about how Ireland had weathered the Omicron wave of Covid-19, with case numbers now more than half their peak.

Responding to the news, representatives of the hospitality sector urged government to implement the changes immediately.

Donall O'Keeffe of the Licensed Vintners Association said pubs are "ready and waiting" to open their doors.

If the Government gives the green light then the recovery of the hospitality and night time sectors could begin as early as Friday night.

Adrian Cummins of the Restaurants Association of Ireland echoed this sentiment and called for the Government to allow "all hospitality businesses trade as normal" from Friday.

Earlier in the day, Taoiseach Micheal Martin had signalled that many restrictions were set to come to an end.

"The situation is positive. We have come through Omicron better than we might have expected prior to Christmas," he said.

Mr Martin said he will give a "clear and comprehensive statement about what lies ahead both in the short term and in the medium term" after the Cabinet meets on Friday.

"I think we can look forward to an earlier lifting of restrictions than we might have anticipated," he said.
Both parents of the three McGinley children who were killed by their mother in their Dublin home have filed separate but similar cases against the HSE, the Governors of St Patricks Hospital and a named person in the High Court this week.

The legal action is a bid to highlight the need for improvements in Irelands mental healthcare system, the childrens father, Andrew McGinley said.

Mr McGinley filed a case in the High Court on Thursday through Callan Tansey Solicitors over concerns about his wife, Deirdre Morleys care before she killed their three beloved children in their Newcastle, Co Dublin, home on January 24, 2020.

Ms Morley, a highly trained paediatric nurse, was found not guilty of the murder of Conor, 9, Darragh, 7 and Carla, 3, by reason of insanity last year.

I want to understand why my children died. Two years on from their deaths and Im still no clearer, Mr McGinley told the Irish Examiner.

Mr McGinley has been campaigning for changes in mental health care and amendments to mental health legislation so that families of people who are mentally ill are involved in their care.

He has been campaigning on the issue with Cork woman Una Butler whose two children, Zoe, 6, and Ella, 2, were killed by their father, her husband, John Butler, before he killed himself in 2010 in Ballycotton.

They both believe that had they been informed of their spouses mental ill health and had they been involved in their care, their children would still be alive today.

Mr McGinley said that his High Court action is to highlight the need for improvements in Irelands mental healthcare system.

'I want to understand why my children died. Two years on from their deaths and Im still no clearer,' Mr McGinley told the Irish Examiner.

I know how my children died and they died a traumatic death, but Im no nearer to understanding why. And I truly believe that had the changes that Una Butler campaigned for in 2010, had they been made and implemented that Conor, Darragh and Carla would be alive today, Mr McGinley said.

And if this [High Court action] is a means to an end to get better mental healthcare in Ireland and to get significant changes made to the Mental Health Act then so be it. I couldnt live with myself if I didnt try to make that change.

Im adding my voice to the voice of Una Butler. Do we need more voices? Do we need more tragedies so we can get more voices together? Hopefully not.

Similar legal proceedings against the HSE, the Governors of St Patricks Hospital where his wife had been treated, and a named person were also lodged in the High Court on behalf of Ms Morley on Wednesday. The case is understood to allege that there was medical negligence in her care before she killed her children.

Mr McGinley said that his legal action reflects that of his wifes, which was lodged one day earlier.

Both my own legal counsel and her legal counsel are having good conversations together, he said.

Ms Morley is currently in the care of the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, Co Dublin.

She was committed to the facility last June by Mr Justice Paul Coffey.

Mr McGinley said that direct contact with Ms Morley is now difficult because Conors last words go through his mind quite a bit. I struggle with that quite a lot, Mr McGinley said.

At the trial, it emerged that Conor said Mum, stop as she put a bag over his head before suffocating him.

Those words are quite distressing to me and I struggle to think about Deirdre without thinking of those words. But thats for me to try to work through and cope with and deal with, he said.
A Texas man posted menacing messages on Craigslist about killing Georgia election officials after President Bidens victory, federal prosecutors said Friday, announcing theyre investigating dozens of threats against civil servants who worked the 2020 contest.

Chad Stark, 54, is the first person charged by the Justice Departments Election Threats Task Force, which was created in June 2021.

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Stark is accused of threatening three government officials in Georgia in a long Craigslist post that offered a $10,000 bounty for their murders, prosecutors said.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. of the Justice Department's Criminal Division (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Every election cycle tens of thousands of civil servants across the country work day and night to prepare for, administer and tabulate elections, said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite during a press conference. During the 2020 election cycle and the events that followed, these unsung heroes came under unprecedented verbal assault for doing nothing more than their jobs.

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Stark was expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Austin, Texas, Friday. An indictment did not name the specific Georgia officials he allegedly threatened, but did quote his screed.

Georgia Patriots its time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors. Its time to invoke our Second Amendment right its time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges, he allegedly wrote on Jan. 5, 2021. We need to pay a visit to [Official C] and her family as well and put a bullet her behind the ears.

A worker passes a Dominion Voting ballot scanner while setting up a polling location at an elementary school in Gwinnett County, Ga., outside of Atlanta on Jan. 4, 2021. (Ben Gray/AP)

One good loyal Patriot deer hunter in camo and a rifle can send a very clear message to these corrupt governors.. militia up Georgia its time to spill blood, he added, according to the indictment.

The national task force has fielded more than 850 complaints of threats against election workers and dozens of those have resulted in open investigations, the feds said.

The Justice Department has a responsibility not only to protect the right to vote, but also to protect those who administer our voting systems from violence and illegal threats of violence, said Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Interview Despite Sacrifices, a Twin Brothers Anti-regime Mission Stays Alive in Myanmar

Ko Ko Aung Htet Naing (left) and Nyi Nyi Aung Htet Naing (right).

Six months after Ko Ko Aung Htet Naings twin brother was shot dead by junta forces while peacefully protesting, the 23-year-old found himself separated from his mother as well.

Regime troops came to arrest Ko Ko Aung Htet Naing at his home in Yangon on September 1 last year. When they couldnt find him, they took his mother as a hostage, a notorious tactic increasingly used by the junta to try and get wanted activists to turn themselves in. She was only released after being held for ten days.

Ko Ko Aung Htet Naing said that he was on the juntas wanted list because of the widespread domestic and international attention that followed the death of his younger twin, Nyi Nyi Aung Htet Naing. He believes that the interest and sympathy that people showed in him led to the military regime trying to arrest him, so that he didnt become involved with the anti-regime movement.

But Ko Ko Aung Htet Naing escaped arrest and fled to a liberated area of Myanmar to continue taking part in the revolution against military rule in which his twin brother, who was known as Nyi Nyi, sacrificed his life.

Before the Myanmar militarys coup shattered the life of Ko Ko Aung Htet Naings family, he and his brother had recently graduated from college, started working and were supporting their parents. Both brothers had ambitions to study abroad together, with Ko Ko Aung Htet Naing planning to be an architect and Nyi Nyi yet to decide what he wanted to specialize in.

After the juntas February 1 coup last year, the twins took part in the peaceful anti-coup protests against the military takeover that overthrew the elected National League for Democracy government that they had both voted for. The 2020 election was the first that they had been old enough to vote in.

On February 28, 2021, the twins left home together to join an anti-coup demonstration at Hledan Junction, Yangon, a regular gathering point for protesters. Soon after the protest began, junta forces opened fire on the peaceful protesters and Nyi Nyi was one of those hit.

The 23-year-old network engineer was shot in the stomach and subsequently died, becoming one of the at least 1,488 people killed by the junta since the coup. Most of those who have died were young people.

Ko Ko Aung Htet Naing said that far from stopping him from taking part in the revolution against the regime, Nyi Nyis death instead drove him to devote his life to the ending of military rule.

I didnt become someone who takes up arms, but I try to be a supportive hand to the revolution, said Ko Ko. He helps fund Peoples Defense Force (PDF) resistance groups and the internally displaced people (IDP) who have fled the fighting with regime forces in their areas. In December alone, he raised over 17 million kyats for PDFs and IDPs.

In this interview with The Irrawaddy, the 23-year-old protester shares his views and hopes on the revolution.

What is your wish for 2022?

For 2022, I wish to see the victory of the revolution. I want to return home. Most young people who have had to leave their homes have the same wish. There are families waiting for us. Loved ones, friends and siblings have been separated for a long time. I hope that the time comes soon when families can reunite. To achieve that quickly, we require the help, strength and support of our people.

Are you happy that so many people are participating in the revolution?

I am pleased with the participation of people. It invigorates me. We are all walking the same path for the truth with the same determination that no matter what we will never accept military rule. But one thing we need to be cautious of are divisive words, incitement and misinformation intentionally spread to deviate us from our path of unity. I totally believe that we will win. And with that belief, l will be continuing on this path until the end. I would also like to urge people to continue to support the revolution through reliable sources.

How do you see the progress of the revolution? Have there been more successes than losses?

There have been sacrifices, but I also see that we have had success to a great extent. Nearly one year after the coup and the regime is unable to control the country thanks to the strength of the people. In every city, they can do nothing without their weapons. For those who have sacrificed their lives in the revolution, it is our responsibility to not let them die in vain and to continue to strive to reach our goal.

What would Nyi Nyi say about what you are doing?

I wish that he could be proud of his brother, if only he could know that I am still involved in the revolution. I am sure, if we two were still together, we would both be doing all we can for the revolution, like others are doing. I want Nyi lay [my brother] to know that his older brother wont let his sacrifice be for nothing.

Why are young people like you and Nyi Nyi at the center of the protest movement?

The fact that most young people are involved in this revolution is because all of us have dreams. Just like we used to shout at the protests last year: We are youths and we have a future. We can never accept that our hopes and dreams have been ruined by the regimes madness for power. We own our dreams and our lives. We will take back what we deserve and continue to stand for the truth. I believe young people are taking part in the revolution with that in mind.

Can you tell us about the cat which went viral after it was photographed sleeping in front of Nyi Nyis photo?

It is Nyi Nyis cat called Phyu Lay. Nyi Nyi always took the cat to his bed at night. There are other cats in the house. But he loved that white cat the most. When Nyi Nyi was gone, the cat slept in front of his photo. Many photos of the cat are still on his phone. The cat is still alive.



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Burma Ethnic Organizations Call For Myanmar Military No Fly Zone and Civilian Safe Areas

A junta helicopter gunship conducting airstrikes against People's Defense Forces in Saw Township, Magwe Region in November 2021. / CJ

Three of Myanmars oldest ethnic political organizations have urged the United Nations (UN), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the international community to declare a military no fly zone, and to internationally guarantee the protection of civilian safe zones due to the juntas increased use of indiscriminate airstrikes on civilian targets.

Myanmars military is now escalating its airstrikes and attacking Peoples Defense Forces (PDF) and ethnic armed organizations (EAO), as well as civilian targets including residential areas and refugee camps, especially in Magwe and Sagaing regions and Chin, Kachin, Shan, Kayah and Karen states.

As of January 17, an estimated 200,000 civilians have been displaced by regime aerial attacks and many resistance fighters and innocent civilians have been killed or injured by the air raids.

The UN Special Envoy for Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, in a virtual discussion with Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia and the current ASEAN chair, expressed deep concern about the continuous intensification of the juntas operations, including aerial attacks, in many areas of Myanmar.

Noeleen Heyzer also proposed a UN-ASEAN humanitarian plus, an aid program that could coordinate and deliver assistance to affected communities through all existing channels.

In response to the UN envoys proposal, three senior Myanmar ethnic organizations: the Karen National Union (KNU), the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and the Chin National Front (CNF), on Wednesday jointly urged the international community to declare a series of internationally negotiated humanitarian corridors in order to provide support to those civilians most in need.

Supporting the UN envoys proposal, the three ethnic political organizations used their joint statement to urge the international community, including the UN and ASEAN, to declare an internationally enforced military no fly zone to protect civilians from air attacks.

The ethnic groups have said that villages, camps for the internally displaced, hospitals, clinics and schools need to be specified as internationally guaranteed civilian safe zones, so that they can have access to unhindered international humanitarian assistance.

They also proposed a series of internationally negotiated humanitarian corridors to expand the provision of humanitarian assistance to those civilians most in need across the country.

The KNU, the countrys oldest ethnic political organization, was founded in 1947, while the KNPP, the political wing of the Karenni Army, was established in 1957. The CNF was founded in 1988.

Since late March when the military regime begun lethal crackdowns on peaceful anti-coup protesters, the junta has been facing increasingly intense attacks from PDFs and EAOs including the KNUs two armed wings, the Karen National Liberation Army and the Karen National Defense Organization, the Kachin Independence Army, the Chin National Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Taang National Liberation army and the Karen Army.

Meanwhile, the junta is continuing its atrocities including arrests, torture, massacres, arbitrary killing, using civilians as human shields, shelling residential areas, looting and burning houses and committing acts of sexual violence, especially in Sagaing and Magwe regions and Chin, Shan, Kayah and Karen States.

As of Thursday, 1,488 people have been slain by the junta, while 11,650 people, including elected government leaders, have been detained, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.



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Burma Myanmar Coup Leader Approached to Allow Suu Kyis Presidency

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyitaw in October 2020. / The Irrawaddy

Myanmars junta leader Min Aung Hlaing said he often had negotiations to remove the constitutional ban on State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi becoming president under her National League for Democracy (NLD) government.

He reportedly told his regimes cabinet in Naypyitaw on Thursday that he was frequently approached to negotiate amendments to the notorious Article 59(f) of the 2008 Constitution. He did not say who came to negotiate.

Article 59(f) of the military-drafted constitution bars anyone from becoming president if their spouse, either of their parents or any of their children or their childrens spouses are citizens of a foreign country. The article is widely viewed as targeting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose children are British, as was her late husband while the military claimed it protected Myanmar from foreign influence.

The comments come after several reports that the February coup was triggered because Daw Aung San Suu Kyi refused Min Aung Hlaing the presidency when he asked after his allied political parties were crushed by the NLD in the November 2020 general election.

Min Aung Hlaing regularly said he accepted constitutional reform was needed but it must not undermine the unions integrity, national solidarity and Myanmars sovereignty.

The anti-democratic 2008 Constitution was adopted in a rigged referendum while the country was reeling from the devastating Cyclone Nargis.

In 2019, the NLD and several ethnic-minority parties put forward more than 3,700 constitutional amendments, including the scrapping of Article 59(f).

However, the efforts that lasted more than a year were vetoed by military-appointed MPs with support from the allied Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Under the 2008 charter, constitutional amendments require the approval of more than 75 percent of parliament and the military was allocated 25 percent of seats, giving it powers of veto.

Followed after the coup, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw  formed by elected lawmakers mostly from the NLD who were prevented from taking their seats by the Feb. 1 coup  declared the 2008 Constitution had been abolished.



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Burma Myanmar Junta Lays Landmines Around Chinese-Backed Pipelines

The oil and gas pipelines under construction. / Shwe Gas

Residents in Hsipaw Township in northern Shan State have been concerned for their safety since the military regime planted landmines near a control center for the China-backed oil and gas pipeline.

Around 20 junta soldiers were deployed at the control center near a village in the west of the township about two months ago and they planted mines around the center.

They are planted in woods to the west and south of the control center and soldiers warned villagers not to approach those areas.

A villager said they can no longer use the woods to collect resources and they worry about farming the adjacent land.

We grow paddy and corn in fields adjacent to the woods. Our buffalo used to graze in those woods. It affects our livelihoods. Junta soldiers said they laid mines to prevent possible attacks by the peoples defense forces. They said they would remove them after their duty is finished. They ignored our requests to not plant mines near the village, said a resident.

We worry when we see the soldiers. If they forget to remove the mines, we will never be safe, he added.

A spokesman for the Shan Human Rights Foundation said: Villagers want neither mines nor junta deployments. They want them to leave.

It is unclear if mines have been laid around another control center in northern Hsipaw near No. 23 Light Infantry Battalions headquarters.

The oil and gas pipelines from the Rakhine coast to China were constructed in 2011 and began operating in July 2013. One-third of the 793km pipeline is in northern Shan State.

Anti-Chinese sentiments swelled in Myanmar following the military coup last February with many believing Beijing had a hand in the takeover. Along with calls for a boycott of Chinese products, there were calls to blow up the pipelines if China refused to condemn the regime.

China then urged the regime to increase pipeline security, according to documents leaked on social media in March last year. It also reportedly urged the regime to stop negative stories about China appearing in Myanmars independent media.



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Weapons and ammunition seized from regime forces during a clash with resistance forces in Pinlebu Township, Sagaing Region in September 2021. / CJ

Nearly a dozen Myanmar military soldiers, including two officers, were reportedly killed and six others captured on Tuesday during fierce urban fighting in Pinlebu Township, Sagaing Region, according to the townships resistance force and the parallel National Unity Government (NUG).

At 3:45am on Tuesday morning, the resistance fighters of Pinlebu Peoples Defense Force (PDF) raided the township police station and a military camp located in the center of Pinlebu, the Pinlebu-PDF spokesperson told The Irrawaddy on Friday.

During the shootout, there were many military casualties and six junta soldiers were captured along with weapons and ammunition.

One resistance fighter was killed and eight others suffered minor injuries, said the NUGs Defense Ministry.

Pinlebu-PDF said that its forces were forced to retreat from the fighting at around 8am on Tuesday morning when a junta helicopter gunship arrived in the area.

Citing witnesses, Pinlebu-PDF said that many corpses of soldiers were taken away by truck and buried at the townships cemetery.

Regime forces were planning to airlift the bodies of the two dead officers in coffins, added the Pinlebu-PDF spokesperson.

However, The Irrawaddy was unable to confirm independently the number of military casualties. After the clash, regime forces were patrolling and checking people in the town. Military regime troops also looted and destroyed some houses in Pinlebu.

Internet access and all mobile phone connections have been cut off in Pinlebu since late September, when over 40 regime soldiers were killed in two firefights with the combined local resistance forces on September 11 and 24.

Since then, the junta has deployed reinforcements in Pinlebu and used two helicopter gunships to attack local PDFs.

The military regime is currently facing intense attacks from PDFs and ethnic armed groups nationwide, with the exception of Rakhine State.



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Burma Total, Chevron to Exit Myanmar Amid Rights Abuses

A customer pumps gas into his truck at a Chevron gas station on July 31, 2020 in Novato, California. / AFP

Energy giants Total Energies and Chevron said Friday they would leave Myanmar following pressure from human rights groups to cut financial ties with the military junta since last years military coup.

Total cited in a statement the worsening human rights situation in the country in its decision to pull out of Myanmar, a move that deprives the junta of a key source of revenue.

The French firm and US oil major Chevron will withdraw from the Yadana gas field in the Andaman Sea, which provides electricity to the local Burmese and Thai populations.

The situation, in terms of human rights and more generally the rule of law, which have kept worsening in Myanmar has led us to reassess the situation and no longer allows TotalEnergies to make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country, the French oil company said.

US energy giant Chevron said it was leaving in light of circumstances in Myanmar.

We have reviewed our interest in the Yadana natural gas project to enable a planned and orderly transition that will lead to an exit from the country, said spokesman Cameron Van Ast.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says natural gas projects are Myanmars single largest source of foreign currency revenue, generating more than US$1 billion every year.

But Total said it had not identified any means to sanction the military junta without avoiding stopping gas production and ensuing payments to the military-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).

Strong message

The company had announced last year that it was suspending cash payments to its joint venture with the army, Moattama Gas Transportation Company Limited (MGTC).

Total paid around $230 million to the Myanmar authorities in 2019 and another $176 million in 2020 in the form of taxes and production rights, according to the companys own financial statements.

Total said Friday that it had tried insofar as is materially and legally possible to limit financial flows received by the MOGE.

But it said it was materially impossible to prevent revenue flows as Thailands national energy company PTT made most gas sale payments.

PTT chief executive Montri Rawanchaikul on Friday said the company was carefully considering its direction following TotalEnergies announcement.

HRW welcomed the French companys withdrawal and called for governments to prevent any other unscrupulous entities from entering the market.

Totals announcement does highlight how pressure from investors and human rights focused business can work. Governments no longer have an excuse to delay imposing targeted sanctions on oil and gas entities, HRW Myanmar researcher Manny Maung told AFP.

Myanmars shadow national unity government said the news sent a very strong message to the ruling junta.

Other companies must follow Totals example to put even more pressure on the generals to stop their bloody repression, said shadow minister Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe.

Western sanctions

Around 30 percent of the gas produced at Yadana is sold to the MOGE for domestic use, providing about half of the largest city Yangons electricity supply, according to TotalEnergies.

About 70 percent is exported to Thailand and sold to PTT.

TotalEnergies owns almost one-third of the gas field, which it has operated since 1992 and produces around six billion cubic metres of gas per year.

Chevron holds a minority interest in the project. Its local affiliate, Unocal Myanmar Offshore Co., has been in Myanmar since the early 1990s.

Total will continue to operate the site for the next six months at the latest until its contractual period ends.

International pressure has been building against Myanmars military junta since last years coup ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Western powers have imposed targeted economic sanctions on the military.

The junta has vested interests in large swathes of the countrys economy, from mining to banking, oil and tourism.

Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor this week sold its stake in a Burmese digital payments service over the coup.

Italys Benetton and Swedens H&M suspended all new orders from the country last year.

More than 1,400 civilians have been killed as the military cracks down on dissent and press freedoms, according to a local monitoring group, and numerous anti-junta militias have sprung up around the country.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi this month was convicted of three criminal charges and sentenced to four years in prison and now faces five new corruption charges.

Myanmars military has also faced accusations of serious human rights violations over its treatment of the mainly Muslim Rohingya minority ethnic group.



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Pro-military supporters throw projectiles at people in downtown Yangon on Feb. 25, 2021 during a series of protests targeting the Union Election Commission for announcing the NLDs poll win. / AFP

On this day last year, a series of demonstrations targeting the then Union Election Commission (UEC) over the results of the 2020 general election started in Myanmars biggest city, Yangon.

Orchestrated by U Khin Yi, a former Myanmar military officer, around 2,000 people joined the demonstrations in Hlaing Thar Yar, Twante and Dagon Seikkan townships, wrote U Soe Thane, a former minister in President U Thein Seins quasi-civilian government, in his book The Second Democratic Government and Myanmar.

The demonstrations followed the UECs announcement of the National League for Democracy (NLD)s landslide victory in the 2020 polland by extension the heavy defeat of the militarys proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), of which U Khin Yi is the vice chair.

Six months later, with the NLD government having been toppled by the military, the former brigadier general and Myanmar Police chief was rewarded by being appointed the juntas immigration and population minister, a position he had previously held in U Thein Seins administration.

The anti-UEC demonstrations continued daily until the military coup on Feb. 1 and became blatantly pro-military, or pro-coup, rallies after the takeover, wrote U Soe Thane, who was himself a USDP candidate in 2020.

In all, U Khin Yi organized 22 pro-military demonstrations between Jan. 21 and Feb. 2511 before the coup and 11 after, according to U Soe Thane.

At those demonstrations, pro-junta groups carried both Myanmar and military flags, as well as banners proclaiming their support for the junta, along with clubs, which they used to smash car windows.

On Jan. 30, a crowd of pro-military marchers beat passers-by and onlookers near Yangons Bahan Market. The following day, they burned NLD flags on display at a printing shop on Shwegondaing Road in Yangons Bahan Township.

Some 10 people were injured during a pro-military rally in downtown Yangon on Feb. 25 when supporters of Myanmars military beat and stabbed people after being booed by bystanders. Yangon has barely seen a pro-junta rally since then.

U Soe Thane, who described the rallies as the most vocal demonstrations against the UEC, did not mention said violence in his book, however.

Based on record books dropped at the rallies, many of the participants are believed to have been hired to attend for a wage of 3,000 to 7,000 kyats (US$2.10-$5). A widely circulated video shows a USDP official telling a man that he would pay him 20,000 kyats if he could bring a truck full of people to the rally.

While U Khin Yi was the main organizer of pro-military rallies in southern Myanmar, former Lieutenant General Wai Lwin, who served as deputy defense minister in U Thein Seins government, was assigned to organize rallies in the capital Naypyitaw, wrote U Soe Thane.



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(Top, left to right) Mahn Nyein Maung, U Thein Nyunt, Ashin Tilawkar Biwonsa, Vasipake Sayadaw U Kovida and Sitagu Sayadaw. (Bottom, left to right) Daw Thet Thet Khaing, Daw Yin Yin Nwe, U Khin Maung Swe and Salai Ngun Cung Lian

While the majority of Myanmar people and the international community decry the military junta led by Min Aung Hlaing, which has killed thousands of people by various means including by gun, by airstrike, by fire and by ramming, there are some civilians who applaud the coup leader. If Min Aung Hlaing is to be described as the murderer-in-chief for all his crimes, those who have aided and abetted him can be called the accomplices of the murderer-in-chief.

Those accomplices can be categorized into three groups. The first group consists of old political turncoats who are on the regimes administrative body, the State Administration Council, and its cabinet, and whose political profile is dead. The second group consists of failed, selfish technicians who are serving as close advisers to Min Aung Hlaing. And the last group is of Buddhist monks who are indulging themselves in obeisance from Min Aung Hlaing despite the fact that thousands of people, many of whom might have donated alms to them, were killed by his regime.

Those who belong to the first group are U Thein Nyunt, U Khin Maung Swe, Mahn Nyein Maung, Daw Aye Nu Sein, Jeng Phang Naw Taung, Moung Har, Sai Lone Saing, Saw Daniel, Banyar Aung Moe and U Shwe Kyein. The most controversial figure might be Daw Thet Thet Khaing, who serves as Social Welfare Minister in the regimes cabinet.

Those in the second group are former United Nations staffer Daw Yin Yin Nwe, Salai Ngun Cung Lian, Daw Yin Yin Oowho is a daughter of former President Dr. Maung Maung, a protege of late military dictator Ne Winand Daw Khin Oo Hlaing, who serves as the joint-secretary of the junta-appointed defense team for the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The last group comprises Sitagu Sayadaw, Ashin Chekinda, Vasipake Sayadaw U Kovida and the former chairman of the nationalist group Ma Ba Tha, Ashin Tilawkar Biwonsa.

They have one thing in common; they would rather offend the people than ruin their relationships with military leaders. Lets take a closer look.

SAC and cabinet members

The SAC is a 19-member body, of whom 10 are civilians representing the so-called eight major ethnic groups in Myanmarthe Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Mon, Bamar, Rakhine and Shanas well as the Taang. What have they been doing as SAC members? Suffice it to say they have discussed, at consecutive SAC meetings, how to perpetuate the military dictatorship in Myanmar.

On the agenda at meetings with Min Aung Hlaing are quashing the resistance of the Peoples Defense Force (PDF), replacing the First-Past-The-Post electoral system with Proportional Representation (PR), auditing the cost of hiring foreign advisers and investigating national security breaches under the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government, persecuting the NLD, enacting a law against foreign interference, and countering the reports of independent media with junta-controlled media. In short, how to perpetuate military rule.

One of the members, U Thein Nyunt even wished death and destruction upon the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) as well as its legislative body, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), and its armed wing, the PDF, in his New Years message.

He was previously a member of the NLDs Central Executive Committee. When the NLD boycotted the 2010 general election, he left the party and co-founded a new one, the National Democratic Force (NDF), together with U Khin Maung Swe, who is also on the SAC now.

He was elected to the Lower House, and founded the New National Democracy Party (NNDP) less than a year later. He has allied himself with the military proxy USDP after losing to the NLD in the 2015 poll and spent the years prior to the coup finding fault with the NLD government. In the run-up to the 2020 election, he made statements encouraging a military coup.

The 77-year-old also lost in the 2020 poll, but was appointed to the SAC after last years coup.

NDF chairman U Khin Maung Swe has written pro-junta pieces in the regime-controlled newspapers. The pieces often warn about growing foreign interference and attempts to break up the Union of Myanmar by driving by a wedge between the people and Myanmars military, which U Khin Maung Swe calls the protector of the country.

In an interview with the BBC in April last year, by which time the military regime had gunned down more than 700 peaceful protesters, U Khin Maung Swe said it had not been Min Aung Hlaings intention to go that far, and he might have been sorry about their deaths, adding that Ming Aung Hlaing was not a person who would be happy with the death of a citizen.

The 79-year-old U Khin Maung Swe left the NLD in 2010 for the same reason as U Thein Nyunt. He later sided with Myanmars military, smearing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD.

Mahn Nyein Maung, a former member of the Central Committee of the Karen ethnic armed group the Karen National Union (KNU), which has fought Myanmars military for decades, once said he would abandon the armed struggle to join the Parliament for the interests of the people. He is, however, serving the interests of the military generals now.

While the regime was attacking Lay Kay Kaw town and surrounding villages in Karen State with artillery and gunships, Mahn Nyein Maung was reading Min Aung Hlaings Karen New Year message wishing the Karen people well, at an event marking the occasion in Ayeyarwady Region earlier this month.

Mahn Nyein Maung contested the 2020 poll on the ticket of the Kayin Peoples Party in his native town of Pantanaw in Ayeyarwady. He called the Union Election Commission (UEC) and the poll dishonorable after he lost his race to an NLD candidate. As a Karen revolutionary, he was given a life sentence under the former military dictator Ne Win. His revolutionary career took a twist when he was again given a life sentence under the U Thein Sein government for alleged ties to unlawful associations and high treason. Mahn Nyein Maung praised U Thein Sein as his benefactor after he was granted a pardon less than one year into his jail term. The KNU said Mahn Nyein Maung no longer has ties with the group.

Following the coup, the regime invited political parties to cooperate with it. Some individual politicians rejected the offer and some willingly accepted. Arakan National Party spokeswoman Daw Aye Nu Sein accepted the offer, citing the interests of her Rakhine people. Jeng Phang Naw Taung, an ethnic Kachin; ethnic Chin former bank manager Moung Har; former Shan State parliament speaker and USDP member Sai Lone Saing; vice chair of the Kayah State Democratic Party Saw Daniel; Dr. Banyar Aung Moe from the Mon Unity Party; and Shwe Kyein an ethnic Taang who is a member of the leading body of the Palaung Self-Administered Zone in Shan State, became SAC members.

Saw Daniel was sacked from his party for his cooperation with the regime, and Taang civil society organizations have blacklisted Shwe Kyein. The European Union has also imposed sanctions against all the civilian members of the SAC except Shwe Kyein.

In the regimes cabinet however Daw Thet Thet Khaing is indisputably the most controversial figure thanks to her political dishonesty.

As a former outspoken parliamentarian from the NLD, she left the party in 2019 and established the Peoples Pioneer Party. Like U Thein Nyunt and U Khin Maung Swe, she was critical of her former party, claiming that it did not put the right people in the right places, that its performance was poor as a government, and that there was undemocratic centralization within the party.

In the run-up to the 2020 election, she said the fact that 25 percent of parliamentary seats were held by the military was an opportunity for politicians to build ties and more closely cooperate with the military.

Explosions took place at a construction site and jewelry shop run by her family soon after she became a minister in the military regime. On Jan. 4, Myanmars Independence Day, her husband was awarded an honorary title by coup leader Min Aung Hlaing.

Regime advisers

Advisers to Min Aung Hlaing are the prime culprits in the juntas killings of civilians. Min Aung Hlaing has seven advisers on his advisory boardthree of them are military officers and four (three women and a man) are civilians.

The regime provides the civilian advisers with a remuneration package including a monthly salary of 1 million kyats (about US$560), free accommodation and other benefits.

Daw Yin Yin Nwe, the former chief education adviser to the U Thein Sein government, is one of three female advisers to Min Aung Hlaing. She is an ex daughter-in-law of late military dictator Gen. Ne Win. She is a geologist, who worked with UNICEF from 1991 to 2011. In August 2012 she was appointed as a member of an Inquiry Commission investigating Rakhine States communal violence that same year.

In response to calls for a boycott of education under military rule last year, Daw Yin Yin Nwe drew comparisons with the Taliban, saying the terrorists who support the NUG, CRPH and PDF are pushing Myanmar to Talibanization like Taliban terrorists from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

She also denounced doctors, professors and education staff who refuse to work for the regime, but kept total silence on the juntas killing of civilians. It is not clear what pearls of wisdom she has been providing to Min Aung Hlaing, but the 70-year-old has often written pieces in junta-controlled newspapers, showing her support for civil servants who are working for the regime, and comforting those who have faced social punishments from others for supporting the regime.

While many ethnic Chin people are suffering under the military regime, which has carried out airstrikes and torched houses and churches in Chin State, ethnic Chin man Salai Ngun Cung Lian is providing advice to Min Aung Hlaing.

At press conferences with foreign diplomats and UN agencies, and talk shows aired on junta-controlled TV channels, he argues in an assertive voice that the military took power in line with the 2008 Constitution and that it would hold a free and fair election and return power to the winning party.

He received his bachelors degree in international economics and cultural affairs from Valparaiso University. He went on to earn a masters degree and a doctor of law degree from Indiana Universitys Mauer School of Law. He emigrated to the US in October 1996, and is a US citizen.

He served as a legal counsel for the defunct Myanmar Peace Center and Rakhine State Inquiry Commission under President U Thein Seins administration from 2012 to 2015.

Under the NLD government, he together with the regimes current Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin and Immigration Minister U Khin Yi appeared at debates and spoke ill of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD while praising the military.

Daw Yin Yin Oo worked as deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry under President U Thein Seins administration. She retired in 2016 before the NLD government took office. She is the daughter of late president Dr. Maung Maung, who ruled for a month following the 1988 nationwide uprising.

Daw Khin Oo Hlaing is said to be an international criminal law expert. She is the joint-secretary of the junta-appointed defense team to defend Myanmar in the Rohingya genocide case at the ICJ.

Spiritual figures who back the regime

Some Buddhist monks abandoned the monkhood to join the armed resistance against the military junta following last years coup. But some high-profile monks including Sitagu Sayadaw, Ashin Chekinda, Vasipake Sayadaw U Kovida and former Ma Ba Tha chair Ashin Tilawkar Biwonsa are flocking together.

Once highly venerated by many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, Sitagu Sayadaw has fallen into disgrace in the eyes of his former followers since the February coup due to his ties with the coup leader.

While the junta killed hundreds of peaceful protesters in the months that followed the coup, Sitagu Sayadaw never failed to receive Min Aung Hlaing and his wife at his monastery at Sagaing Hill. When Min Aung Hlaing took blessings from Myanmars senior monks for his construction of the worlds largest Buddha statue in Naypyitaw last March, the monk was there and received donations from the coup leader.

The monk accompanied the juntas No. 2 man Vice Senior General Soe Win as he traveled to Russia last September to supervise the construction of a replica of Bagans famous temple, Shwezigon Pagoda, in Moscow. He stayed for four months at the Myanma Theravada Buddha Vihara Monastery in Moscow, to which Min Aung Hlaing and his wife, among others, are donors.

Recently, the 85-year-old monk received donations from Myanmars military for his Buddhist missionary university in Taungoo.

Another monk is U Kovida, commonly known as Vasipake Sayadaw, who is believed to be the astrological adviser to the coup leader. The monk has been accused of advising the senior general, who has been his follower since 2006 when the general was serving as a local commander of the Myanmar military in eastern Shan State, to tell security forces to shoot protesters in the head. Most of the anti-regime protesters killed in the early days of the junta crackdown had bullet wounds to the head.

The monk was consequently singled out for criticism at anti-regime protests, with some protesters attaching photos of him to htameinwomens sarongsand hanging them in public places to express their wrath. The 64-year-old monk has close ties with Sitagu Sayadaw.

Ashin Chekinda has emerged as an accomplice of Min Aung Hlaing since the coup. He is known for his summer school programs, in which he teaches teenagers Buddhism and other subjects, attracting hundreds of youngsters annually. The monk has barely appeared in public since the coup and has been tight-lipped about the regimes brutal crackdowns on peaceful protesters, some of which were the same age as his summer school students.

Together with U Kovida, the monk was present at a ceremony marking the renovation of the Kyaik Devi pagoda by Min Aung Hlaing and his family in Hlegu Township on the outskirts of Yangon Region in December.

Earlier this month, he received an honorary religious title from the coup leader. Min Aung Hlaing also recently amended the International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University Law to allow the monk to hold the position of university deputy rector for 15 consecutive years.

Ashin Tilawkar Biwonsa, the former chairman of the Ma Ba Tha, is also close to Min Aung Hlaing. In May 2017, Ma Ba Tha was declared an unlawful association by the state-backed cleric organization Ma Ha Na and banned from operating under its original name.

Since then, Ma Ba Tha has rebranded itself as the Buddha Dhamma Charity Foundation. In 2019, the military officially donated 30 million kyats to the foundation. The Ywama Monastery in Yangons Insein, which is headed by U Tilawkar Biwonsa, is in fact a bastion of Ma Ba Tha nationalists and a venue for Ma Ba Tha-organized events. Min Aung Hlaing recently conferred an honorary religious title on U Tilawkar Biwonsa.

On Dec. 5 last year, Min Aung Hlaing visited the monk at his monastery in Insein. The monk reportedly told the coup leader he was glad that Min Aung Hlaing is promoting Buddhism, and wished he could promote Buddhism more. Quite coincidentally, junta soldiers drove into a group of anti-regime protesters from behind in Yangons Kyimyindaing Township while the monk was receiving Min Aung Hlaing.

Ma Ba Tha constantly criticized the NLD government and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to protect Buddhism. Min Aung Hlaing once offered meals to prominent Ma Ba Tha figure and ultranationalist monk U Wirathu, who once said, Military lawmakers should be worshipped like God.

Those individuals and monks will go down in history as accomplices of the murderous military.



You may also like these stories:

The Day Hired Mobs Began Protesting the Military Proxy Partys 2020 Election Loss

The Day Myanmar Military Chief Makes First Move for Coup

The Day Election Winners and Losers Discussed Myanmars First Peaceful Transfer of Power
Trinity, TX (77320)

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Brian Laundrie privately admitted that he killed his fiancee Gabby Petito, the FBI said Friday.

Laundrie, 23, wrote about the killing in a notebook that was found next to his body in a Florida nature reserve in October, the feds said.

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A review of the notebook revealed written statements by Mr. Laundrie claiming responsibility for Ms. Petitos death, the bureau said.

Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito.

Shortly before the FBI shared its evidence, Petitos family released a statement that said there was no doubt that Brian Laundrie murdered Gabby. The family met with the FBI on Thursday.

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Petito, 22, went on a cross-country trip with Laundrie in the summer of 2021. When Laundrie, 23, arrived back in Florida without her in early September, a nationwide search ensued.

Petito, who was born and raised on Long Island, was found dead Sept. 19 in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, and her death was ruled a homicide by strangulation. Laundrie was named a person of interest but then disappeared before speaking with police.

While law enforcement investigated all logical leads, the investigation quickly focused on the last person believed to see her alive  Mr. Laundrie, the FBI explained.

On Oct. 20, Laundrie was found dead in a Florida nature reserve. Law enforcement missed his body during initial searches of Carlton Reserve near North Port because the area was underwater, the feds said. The FBI also confirmed that Laundrie died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In August, police officers in Utah intervened in a domestic dispute between Petito and Laundrie. The cops told the couple to spend the night apart in the city of Moab, about 200 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

Its very likely Gabby was a long-term victim of domestic violence, whether that be physically, mentally, and/or emotionally, wrote Price, Utah, police Capt. Brandon Ratcliffe, in a report on the incident.
GUEST OPINION: There are several reasons why real-time is really taking off, and the rise of event-driven architectures is one of them.

The challenge of doing business in real-time is that it means different things to different people, and the expectation of how quickly things need to occur continues to shift over time.

Everyone understands that latency matters. There's a good understanding generally of the impact that higher ping times have on access to applications and data.

Similarly, organisations understand how data  and faster access to it  can fundamentally change the value proposition they create for customers.

For these organisations, it's no longer sufficient to look at past application usage or purchase patterns as a predictor of future customer behaviour.

Instead, organisations are cognisant they now operate in a "real-time economy," where what matters most is what I  as the user or consumer  am looking at now, combined and enriched with the historical context of my past transactions..

For organisations, it's about making online, not offline, predictions. It's about having the ability to learn and execute while the user is still active and engaged. From a technology perspective, it's the ability to continually learn by updating machine learning models in real-time and incorporating new incoming data.

That's the essence of the real-time challenge that organisations are faced with enabling today.

Time matters

Executing the processing and predictive work while the user is online means that time is always going to be of the essence. More to the point, there's still a lot of 'fuzziness' around how real-time an organisation's capabilities have to be in order to execute on that.

Does it need to occur in seconds, milliseconds, microseconds or nanoseconds?

The short answer is 'yes,' but with a big 'but' as it will largely depend on business SLA. Even within early use cases, such as fraud detection and prevention, personalised offers and gaming, there are differences in what constitutes acceptable, real-time performance.

And that gets to the essence of the challenge around real-time: there's a continuum of options as to the time it takes to execute the process.

Where an organisation starts on that continuum is not an indication of where it'll stay. The goalposts will continually move, and organisations will need to keep pace. Real-time is a journey and may take a few steps to accomplish.

As expectations of what really constitutes real-time shift, it's critical that organisations build real-time applications on a platform that enables them to keep pace with this constant compression of the acceptable time window available for processing and predictive analysis.

It's the only way to ensure they remain real-time and that the applications satisfy the value it creates for the customers.

How we got here

The migration from batch processing and offline behavioural analysis to real-time analysis  while a customer is active online  is a trend that's been a while in the making but is coming of age due to a confluence of factors.

The 'art of the possible' is now orders of magnitude different than it was a decade ago. It wasn't long ago that the recommendation from Netflix was the North Star of what was possible. While the engine is still highly effective  with some reports suggesting it drives 80% of stream time  improvements continue to the engine and its underlying machine learning algorithms.

Yet, other large technology-based organisations have since emerged with engines of their own that significantly advance the state-of-the-art. TikTok is an example of this progression; the data science behind its operations is seen as a key reason for its meteoric rise, and more importantly, why its user base is so obsessive.

What this demonstrates is that the power of the underlying platform is a key factor in the drive to real-time, as well as the ability for more organisations to enable real-time approaches in their operations.

Organisations know data is gold. They understand how data can fundamentally change the value they create for customers and, in turn, change customers' behaviours. However, only a fraction of fresh streaming data is being used today. They also know that the era of real-time is possible because there's now enough compute and storage capacity available to power these ambitions.

Additionally, real-time is made possible by advances on the customers' end as well. Other key enablers for accessing data and services in real-time are the constant march to more powerful edge computing devices, as well as the emergence of powerful, low-latency, highly resilient networks like 5G.

Where real-time goes next

The other reason organisations have gone real-time is because of the emergence of more platform-like solutions to execute this strategic direction.

To enable organisations to build real-time solutions, a set of core capabilities or services are required. These include a way to ingest real-time event and messaging, a way to store and have quick access to the data once ingested, streaming analytics, and real-time machine learning.

The challenge organisations face is that it's still non-trivial to stitch these capabilities together. Not every organisation is the size of a Netflix or TikTok, with the engineering resources to build and continuously improve a real-time application or capability.

That's why application enablement is emerging as a key building block for organisations in this space. To build a real-time business or application, organisations need the support of a modern data platform that has the components and underlying compute to realise their real-time ambitions.
Powered by Marketplacer, the technology platform for global online marketplaces, www.everythingcaravancamping.com.au has been designed to meet the demands of a market segment worth an estimated $24 billion annually with more than 800,000 registered caravans in Australia. At launch, the marketplace offers more than 2000 products from 15 vendors.

The new site has been designed and built by lifestyle industry leader Leisure-Tec Australia. CEO Paul Widdis said it would become an invaluable resource for the thousands of people who regularly enjoy the nation's natural wonders.

"We have established the marketplace in collaboration with the popular social media-based group Everything Caravan & Camping which was established back in 2014," he said. "The group has more than 700,000 members on a number of platforms and has become the go-to destination for those seeking information, tips, and recommendations."

Building the platform

When it came to selecting an underlying technology platform to power the new marketplace, Widdis said his company had sought a combination of flexibility, scalability, and local support.

"We spoke with a number of existing Marketplacer users and quickly discovered that the platform offered all the features and capabilities that we required," he said. "From signing a contract to the site going live, our project was completed in just six months."

Marketplacer's platform gives individual vendors the ability to upload details of their product offerings to the site and provide real-time views of stock availability. Customers can quickly locate the products they need and place orders for delivery.

Marketplacer executive chair Jason Wyatt said the Everything Caravan and Camping portal was a fantastic example of how ecommerce was reshaping the way people locate and purchase goods. "It meets the needs of an enthusiastic and active community and will continue to grow during coming years," said Wyatt.

Future plans

Widdis said his company's future plans include expanding the marketplace to incorporate access to service providers and recommendations on everything from equipment maintenance to insurance.

"Currently, it can be a challenge to find appropriate servicing facilities and support for caravans and associated equipment," he said. "Through the site, people will be able to access everything they need and ensure their equipment is operating at peak performance at all times."

With more Australians choosing to holiday domestically as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Widdis said growth prospects for the outdoor, caravan and camping sector remained very strong.

He said the new marketplace also featured an Australian-made section to highlight equipment manufactured locally.

"This will help customers who are keen to support domestic businesses but who may not be aware that some exist," he said. "It's all about helping people to find and purchase the products they need to enhance their outdoor experiences.

"We are planning to quickly ramp up both the number of items offered through the marketplace as well as the number of vendors providing them during 2022 and beyond."

Widdis said Leisure-Tec Australia's investment in the new site is a central plank in the company's plans for growth.

"With Marketplacer, we now have a strategic technology partner who can aid our future development and expansion," he said. "We look forward to working with them in the years ahead."

About Marketplacer

Marketplacer is a global technology Software as a Service (SaaS) platform equipped with all the tools and functionality needed to build a successful and scalable online marketplaces, at speed. To date, Marketplacer has helped build and deploy over 100 Marketplaces connecting over 13,000 businesses worldwide. The Marketplacer platform exists to make growth simple, from implementing marketplace strategies such as shipment from drop-ship sellers, adding new categories or third-party range extension, through to consolidating markets and rolling out modern revenue models such as recurring memberships that allow businesses to grow faster and beyond the constraints of capital inventory.

Born and bred from the award-winning BikeExchange, the biggest online marketplace for anything and everything bike, founders Jason Wyatt and Sam Salter saw the opportunity to license the online software platform and apply it to new marketplaces. Marketplacer is responsible for the creation of online eCommerce solutions and business transformations of companies around the world. Visit www.marketplacer.com for more information.

About Leisure-Tec Australia

Leisure-Tec Australia commenced trading in July 2018 and since then has become a market leader in the Australian lifestyle industry. Part of the Truma Group of companies, Leisure-Tec distribute the Truma, myCOOLMAN and Milenco brands. Our innovative German-engineered and designed products allow our supporters to enjoy life off the beaten track with all the luxuries of home.

About Everything Caravan and Camping

Everything Caravan and Camping was the brainchild of Matt Sutton and Paula Williams and was conceived in 2014. Since its inception, Everything Caravan and Camping has grown its outdoor lifestyle online network where its several hundred thousand members draw on the collective expertise and resources of the community.
GUEST RESEARCH: Zendesks landmark annual research has highlighted the disconnect between Australian business leaders and their support agents on the level of customer service they provide, with their customers echoing the same sentiment.

The global Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2022 identified that 67% of Australian business leaders give themselves high marks for their customer service. However, only 16% of agents feel satisfied with the quality of training they receive. Customers are noticing too, with half believing that businesses need to improve agent training.

Businesses cannot afford to take a transactional approach to their relationships with customers. Customer service is now a key differentiator, but this years report reveals gaps exist between expectation and delivery, said Zendesk chief technology officer Adrian McDermott. Customers are noticing this gap and voting with their business - and thats perhaps the clearest signal to businesses that change needs to happen, and fast.

Its a challenging time for Australian businesses, with the need to keep adapting to their customers ever-evolving needs. Business leaders need to ensure they are really listening to their employees and customers. Our research found that customers are noticing the disconnect. To remain competitive, leaders must focus on customer experience as a priority by investing, Zendesk APAC chief operating officer Wendy Johnstone.

The report draws on input from customers, agents, customer service leaders, and business leaders from across 21 countries. Data was also gathered from more than 97,500 Zendesk customers who participated in the companys Benchmark program. As customers call out increased expectations and the readiness to switch after just one bad experience, the need to close the gap between these expectations and the customer experience delivered have never been more urgent. The opportunity cost for many is nothing short of revenue loss and missed opportunities for growth.

Consistent truths - customer service can drive growth

Majority of Australian respondents (77%) see a direct link between customer service and business performance with two thirds (66%) estimating that customer service has a positive impact on business growth. The opportunity is not simply to deliver a single solution-based interaction with the consumer, but to use that point of engagement as an opportunity to deepen the relationship. Customer engagement is up 13% from the previous year, representing more opportunities to upsell or cross-sell to happy customers.

This cuts both ways though, and the insights reveal that customer expectations can drive or stifle growth plans. As customers spend more online, two in five (44%) say that their customer service expectations have increased in the past year. Channels play a big part in meeting these increased expectations and particularly, being where the customer is. Despite this, Australian businesses are not investing enough to support their CX teams to drive growth, with only half (50%) having a strategic plan for CX over the next three years.

Key insights:

90% of Australian customers say they are willing to spend more with companies who personalise their customer service experience.

84% of Australian customers say they are willing to spend more to buy from companies that offer them the chance to find the answers they need themselves

Only 17% of Australian companies are set up with one platform that connects all service channels.

The Agent X factor

Increased expectations lead to increased pressure on agents who act as the front line. In fact, the research found that a significant number of respondents across APAC (68%) agree that customer service agents are essential to driving sales.

When it comes to resolving issues, almost half of the customers surveyed across APAC are looking for agents who are helpful and empathetic. And customers will parlay this goodwill in a positive experience to being open to recommendations from service agents. Many businesses, though, have yet to recalibrate their view of customer service as a cost centre. This has meant that investments in optimising the function have not kept pace with growth, let alone with increasing customer expectations. So, while a majority of businesses acknowledge customer service agents as being pivotal to driving sales, a very small number of those same agents are extremely satisfied with their workloads.

CX teams in Australia are burnt out and undervalued:

 Only 11% of agents are extremely satisfied with their workloads

 Only 7% are extremely satisfied with the career paths available to them

 Only 25% feel empowered to do their job well

 Only 5% of staff are satisfied with customer service metrics used

 78% of leaders agree that customer service agents play a vital role in customer retention. However, 36% say the customer service team is not treated as well as others in the organisation.

Agent empowerment is a clear focus area for 2022, as agent burnout continues to be a challenge. Only 16% of agents are extremely satisfied with the quality of training they receive. Pair this with the fact that half of customers feel that businesses need to improve agent training, and you have the first case for investing in what agents need. These also include better performance metrics, clear advancement opportunities and, fundamentally, more respect.

Closing gaps and mapping paths to growth

Majority (68%) of Australian business leaders say that their organisation views customer service as a critical business priority, but 45% report that its still not owned by the C-suite. While the insights clearly indicate a business case for investments in customer experience, this isnt necessarily being followed through with executive sponsorship or the right tools or programs, such as training for agents or investment in artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, Australia is falling behind other APAC countries when it comes to AI adoption, with only a quarter of businesses allocating 25% of their CX tech budgets to AI and more than half (54%) have been ad-hoc in their AI implementation.

Key insights:

Only 33% of Australians expect AI to improve CX quality, compared to 87% in India and 61% in Korea

42% of Australians expect AI to make their life easier, compared to 91% in India, 68% in Korea and 67% in Singapore

Only around half (56%) of Australians want to engage with a bot

Only 4 in 10 customers agree that AI is good for society

Only 15% of Australian leaders say they get a very high ROI from AI

AI can accelerate business transformation and improve CX, but businesses must help close the confidence gap in Australia. They can do that by showcasing how AI can create positive outcomes for customers, said Johnstone.

The business case for customer service is clearer than ever and getting buy-in from the top is a critical first step. Getting leadership engagement relies on evolving the key metrics - look beyond CSAT and identify the broader business impact that can tell a compelling story, McDermott adds. This years findings bring into sharp focus the need for there to be a more concerted effort across the organisation - including better integration of systems and a regular review of metrics. In short, let the insights lead you.
GUEST RESEARCH: Australian organisations are no strangers to the consequences of a successful cyberattack. System outages, financial loss, and reputational damage resulting from a ransomware infection or data breach are now part of the weekly news cycle. Todays security professionals are faced with a daunting set of responsibilities to identify critical threats and limit lasting damage from attacks.

In fact, Trend Micros latest global risk report revealed 25% of Australians believe cybersecurity is the biggest business risk today, and 62% claim it has the highest cost impact of any business risk.

Yet major visibility gaps and alert overload are all too common. Weve seen a significant shift in the way that cybercriminals are undertaking attacks. They are now taking a much more engineered approach, using sophisticated breach-like methods to shut down systems and threaten security teams. The first step towards effectively mitigating cyber risk is understanding the scale, complexity, and specific characteristics of the threat landscape.

The past 18 months have been challenging, but they have provided many lessons for the future. The following trends have emerged from Trend Micros annual Cloudsec event, for security teams and business leaders to stay conscious of in the year ahead.

Secure connectivity in the hybrid work environment through identification

The way employees connect to company resources have changed dramatically over the last few years. Cybersecurity demands a proactive, preventive approach and not a reactive one. With increasingly distributed workforces, working from home is becoming a gateway to new forms of data theft and organisations are struggling to adapt. Poor technological infrastructure and inadequate cyber and data security represent a cyber risk to businesses.

The traditional boundaries of the corporate network are no longer sufficient, seeing a rise in identity-based attacks. Trend Micros 2021 mid-year security report revealed that business email compromise attacks increased by 4% globally. In Australia alone, Trend Micro blocked over 92 million email threats in the first half of 2021  a 61% increase year-on-year.

Identity has become the de facto perimeter for organisations today. Identity is the foundation of a zero-trust architecture, as you need to ensure the right people have the right level of access, on the right device, to the right resource, in the right context. A comprehensive, identity-first security strategy can tie the complexities of protecting people and assets together in a seamless experience. Beyond improving business security, there must also be a company-wide cultural shift in attitudes towards cybersecurity. All staff must be made aware of the issues and risks, and receive adequate training in managing sensitive data and any new responsibilities.

Migration to cloud has led to new risks for government agencies

Todays operational and technological needs have resulted in government agencies moving their data into the cloud. Migration to the cloud will play an integral role in helping the Australian governments goal to be one of the top three digital governments in the world by 2025. In fact, the government aims to have all NSW government agencies using public cloud for a minimum of 25% of their ICT services by 2023. Unlike previous legacy on-prem arrangements, the migration to cloud has brought about a new set of risks and considerations  and organisations must take serious precautionary measures. A lack of holistic cloud security strategy is detrimental to any agencies  from lack of visibility of data types residing in the cloud, to lack of security controls and absence of monitoring of cloud workloads and applications. Organisations need to have a comprehensive, proactive cyber plan that enables you to protect, detect and respond effectively to any cyber threats.

One of the grand challenges of a cloud strategy is securing the environment. Government agencies can leverage emerging technologies to help secure and innovate operations in an ever-changing cyberthreat landscape. A key approach is to adopt the Zero trust architecture in their security. Organisations keen to embark on their Zero Trust journey must take into consideration the transition process. By working with the right technology partners, organisations are able to implement a robust cloud security strategy, compliant with cybersecurity standards.

Both cyber security and cyber resilience are essential

Advancing technologies across all industries bring incredible new opportunities and business advantages, but it also brings unprecedented new threats. In today's evolving threat landscape, both cyber security and resilience respectively are methodologies to enable collaboration between IT risks and IT security teams in most organisations today.

The cyber security controls (process and technologies combined) are relevant to keep cybercriminals out as much as possible. However, as the lines between physical and digital disruption are blurred, there is a growing need to shift from a preventative mindset to a resiliency-based approach. Cyber resilience practice and strategy prepares the organisation to withstand or recover quickly when organisational breaches occur.

Cybersecurity and resilience both require an investment in time, resources, and education, but by combining the essentials of cyber security and resilience, security teams can mitigate damages and risks. The key is to ensure your security advisors are experienced across both areas. Regular cyber resilience evaluations are also critical to stay on top of the overall level of cyber resilience, particularly in relation to vulnerabilities identified during routine cyber security operations.
George Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers responsible for the Star Wars franchise and Indiana Jones, he has been nominated for four Academy Awards for his work. The multi billionaire, visionary, film director, producer, screenwriter, and entrepreneur turns  Click for more.




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During a school board meeting in Virginia a woman warned she will bring every single gun loaded if the Page County Public School system enforced a mask mandate.

An anti-masking Virginia mom at a school board meeting Thursday promised to come armed and ready if the district implements a mask mandate.

Amelia King, at the Page County Public Schools meeting, said she would not send her children to school with masks next week and would bring every single gun loaded and ready, 7News reports.

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I will see you Monday, King concluded her overrun time for comments.

Virginia woman at a school board meeting last night threatens to bring every single gun loaded to shoot and kill her opponents if Page County Public Schools enforces a mask mandate. #vagov



pic.twitter.com/NcKVk5xjBW  Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) January 21, 2022

The district in Luray, about 70 miles northwest of Fredericksburg, condemned the remarks and school officials said that each school would have an increased police presence on both Friday and Monday, according to superintendent Antonia Fox and school board chair Megan Gordons joint statement, obtained by the outlet and

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Page County Public Schools does not take these kinds of statements lightly, the statement read.

Violence and threats are never acceptable or appropriate, the statement continued. This kind of behavior is not tolerated from our students, faculty, staff, nor will it be tolerated by parents or guests of our school division. ... Page County Public Schools remains committed to a safe and secure learning environment for students and staff.

The incident is under investigation by Luray Police, according to Fox and Gordon.

Beginning Monday, Virginia schools mask mandates will be reversed following an order by new Governor Glenn Youngkin, who refers to the contentious issue as a matter of individual liberty, according to the outlet.

The state on Friday reported over 17,000 new COVID infections and has reported a total of nearly 47,000 hospitalizations and nearly 16,000 deaths, according to data from the Virginia Department of Health.
Johnson City, TN (37604)

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Scattered thunderstorms in the morning, then partly cloudy late. High around 75F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

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San Francisco police shot and killed a man Thursday morning at San Francisco International Airport. Cops said the man was carrying two guns.

Officers were called to the scene at SFOs international terminal around 7:30 a.m., police said.

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At least one TSA agent and multiple other people called police and said the man was behaving suspiciously, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Police stand outside San Francisco International Airport after the shooting Thursday. (Stephen Lam/AP)

Police said they attempted to calm the man down for at least 30 minutes, but he pulled two guns and continued his threatening behavior, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Cops said they fired beanbag rounds at the man, but he continued walking toward them.

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At that point, officers opened fire and killed the man, San Francisco police said in a statement. They did not say how many shots the officers fired, and did not mention anything about the man firing any shots.

No video of the shooting has been released.

The San Mateo County District Attorneys Office will investigate the incident, the Chronicle reported. San Francisco International Airport is physically located in San Mateo County.

The shooting occurred near the airports Bay Area Rapid Transit station, and service was briefly interrupted, according to the Chronicle. Travelers were routed away from the scene for about two hours before normal airport operations resumed.
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Thunderstorms in the morning will give way to steady rain in the afternoon. High 61F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

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ALBANY  Gov. Hochuls plan to deploy mental health workers in the city subway system is moving into high gear following a fatal subway shove in Times Square.

Hochul announced Friday that the state will be deploying approximately 20 public employees, contracted nonprofit provider staff, and volunteers to assist homeless New Yorkers within one week, a precursor to her previously announced Safe Options Support teams.

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (Shawn Inglima/for New York Daily News)

Working with our partners in New York City, were taking action to help make our streets and subways safer, Hochul said in a statement. Too many New Yorkers are sleeping on our streets and subways - they need resources and support to get back on their feet.

By deploying outreach professionals to targeted areas, we will help improve safety and ensure New Yorkers experiencing homelessness have the support they need, she added.

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The move comes days after 40-year-old Michelle Alyssa Go was shoved in front of on an R train at the Times Square station last Saturday. Simon Martial, 61, a homeless man who police said has a history of mental illness, randomly targeted Go after trying to push another woman who escaped his grasp.

A homeless person sleeps on a train at the Coney Island - Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn, New York. (Gardiner Anderson/for New York Daily News)

Hochul first announced her intention to deploy state-funded SOS outreach teams as part of her State of the State address earlier this month.

A Request for Proposals (RFP) for nonprofit organizations to operate the specialized teams, which will consist of direct outreach workers and clinicians, was issued on Friday.

Members of the teams will canvas the subways and stations in an attempt to convince homeless people living in the system to move into shelters in the hopes that they can eventually secure permanent housing.

Overseen by the state Office of Mental Health, Hochul hopes to send out up to 20 teams of eight to 10 workers this year, including four in the city by early Spring. An additional eight teams will operate by the summer and another eight in high-needs regions throughout the state by the end of the year.

A homeless man is given assistance by a homeless outreach worker in the 207th Street A-train station in Manhattan, New York. (John Minchillo/AP)

The program will cost about $11 million this year and ramp-up to $21 million annually in future years.

Critics have noted that the citys already patchwork system of homeless outreach providers makes it harder to get people into shelters.

[ NYC Mayor Adams concedes he feels unsafe when taking the subway ]

The city already has an $88 million contract with the Bowery Residents Committee meant to supply similar assistance to homeless people in the subway system.

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Homeless outreach personnel assist passengers found sleeping on subway cars at the 207th Street A-train station in Manhattan, New York. (John Minchillo/AP)

However, a December audit by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found a lack of oversight and noted that workers repeatedly failed to do the job.

Homeless outreach in the subway has been so shoddy and with so little oversight from DHS and MTA, that it should be no surprise the homeless population in the subways has grown, DiNapoli said at the time.

Mayor Adams praised Hochuls plan earlier this month and said it will work in conjunction with his own push to flood the subways with NYPD officers.

Adams said the additional cops will be instructed to not engage with homeless New Yorkers and instead contact SOS teams to conduct outreach and refer them to city-run shelters and services.
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A U.K. man who used the popular gay dating app Grindr to rob and blackmail his victims has been sentenced to five years behind bars, Metropolitan Police officials said.

Anouar Sabbar, of the south London district of Southwark, was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Thursday, about two months after pleading guilty to robbery, theft, five counts of blackmail, as well as five counts of fraud.

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Investigators said that Sabbar would target victims with whom he would connect through the app. After having consensual sex with them, the 28-year-old would say that he was an escort and would demand money from the men, whose ages ranged from 25 to 57 years old.

After he was paid, Sabbar would block the victims Grindr profile, so their conversation would be automatically deleted. He would also change phone numbers and SIM cards regularly, as well as his hairstyle, so he wouldnt be recognized on the app.

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Anouar Sabbar got a five-year sentence. (Metropolitan Police)

According to investigators, when one of the victims refused to give him money, Sabbar said that someone would visit him at home and beat him up.

In another incident, police said that Sabbar threatened to tell the victims girlfriend about their sexual encounter. He said he would show the girlfriend their chat, as well as photographs exchanged in the app, if the person refused to pay.

After an officer identified him as a suspect, on July 31, investigators went to his work and were able to get his current phone number. When that officer later called him, Sabbar swore at her and told her that they would never catch him.

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He was arrested later that day.

According to police, Sabbar stole a total of 2,360 pounds (around $3,200) from April 2019 until June 2021.

Sabbar is a nasty and spineless individual who used Grindr to target victims and used their vulnerabilities against them, Detective Inspector Arif Sharif with the Met Police said in a statement.

He thanked the officer who diligently carried out the investigation for taking this dangerous offender off the streets.

He also thanked the victims who have been incredibly brave in coming forward and reporting the offenses Sabbar committed against them.

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There may be others who were exploited by Sabbar who until now have felt unable to tell anyone, he added, urging those who were also exploited by Sabbar to please get in touch with us.

Grindr is a location-based social networking and dating application that uses members GPS positions to chat with people nearby. Since it launched in 2009, the app became massively popular among gay and bisexual men in the U.S. and abroad. It has a reported 13 million monthly users worldwide.
Reporter

Susan covers the towns of Somers and Enfield. She joined the JI in May 2021 and graduated from Skidmore College. She recently completed docent training for the Wadsworth Atheneum and hopes to start giving tours some time next year.
01/20/2022



Nine women will take the stage at Leone Cole Auditorium on Jan. 21 for the annual Miss JSU pageant.

by Buffy Lockette

Jacksonville State University will crown the next Miss JSU on Jan. 21, when nine women take the stage at 6 p.m. in Leone Cole Auditorium to compete in the Miss Alabama qualifying pageant.

It will be the first time the pageant has been held since the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of the Miss Alabama pageant in 2020, leading most qualifying pageants in the state - including Miss JSU - to forgo their 2021 competition so the 2020 winner would have a chance to compete in Miss Alabama. Camden Swatts of Beuregard, Ala., represented JSU at Miss Alabama in June 2021.

Competing for the Miss JSU crown this year are the following students:

Morgan Carroll , a business management major from Moulton, Ala.

, a business management major from Moulton, Ala. Sophia Castillo , a pre-health biology major from Decatur, Ala.

, a pre-health biology major from Decatur, Ala. Makayla Holden , a criminal justice and psychology double major from New Market, Ala.

, a criminal justice and psychology double major from New Market, Ala. Morgan Huckaby , a marketing major from Anniston, Ala.

, a marketing major from Anniston, Ala. Tavaria Johnson , a pre-health biology major from Childersburg, Ala.

, a pre-health biology major from Childersburg, Ala. Piper Jones , a psychology major from Ohatchee, Ala.

, a psychology major from Ohatchee, Ala. Kaylee Knight , a criminal justice major from Monroeville, Ala.

, a criminal justice major from Monroeville, Ala. Ashley Moore , a nursing major from Birmingham, Ala.

, a nursing major from Birmingham, Ala. Alana Watwood, a business major from Albertville, Ala.

JSU women have a long history of success on the pageant stage. Seven Miss Alabamas attended JSU, including Miss America 1995 Heather Whitestone McCallum and 1979's first runner-up and retired JSU voice instructor Teresa Cheatham Crosby. Other Miss Alabamas who hailed from JSU include Ceil Jenkins Snow, 1971; Jane Rice Holloway, 1973; Julie Houston Elmer, 1977; Tammy Little Haynes, 1984; and Jamie Langley, 2007.

The Miss JSU pageant is open to the public. Admission is $5 for students with ID and $10 for all other guests, cash only. The university is currently requiring masks be worn inside all campus buildings.
China condemned a French parliament resolution on Friday that accuses Beijing of carrying out a genocide against its Uyghur Muslim population, a move that has strained ties two weeks before the Winter Olympics.

The resolution adds to a chorus of western nations that have criticised Beijing for placing around one million Uyghurs in forced labour camps, terming the violence perpetrated by the Peoples Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide.

Frances National Assembly joins Canada, the Netherlands, Britain and Belgium in having parliaments where lawmakers have passed similar motions. The United States government has formally accused China of genocide in western Xinjiang.

But China rejects such accusations and hit out at French lawmakers on Friday.

The French National Assemblys resolution on Xinjiang ignores facts and legal knowledge and grossly interferes in Chinas internal affairs, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing. China firmly opposes it.

The French motion was proposed by the opposition Socialists in the lower house of parliament but also backed by President Emmanuel Macrons Republic on the Move (LREM) party.

The non-binding resolution by Frances National Assembly was adopted with 169 votes in favour and just one against on Thursday.

It calls on the French government to undertake the necessary measures within the international community and in its foreign policy towards the Peoples Republic of China to protect the minority group in the Xinjiang region.

China is a great power. We love the Chinese people. But we refuse to submit to propaganda from a regime that is banking on our cowardice and our avarice to perpetrate a genocide in plain sight, Socialist party chief Olivier Faure said.

 Tit-for-tat sanctions 

He recounted testimony to parliament from Uyghur survivors who told of conditions inside internment camps where men and women were unable to lie down in cells, subjected to rape and torture, as well as forced organ transplants.

The French government has declined to term Chinas treatment of the Uyghur minority a genocide, arguing that it is a legal term that can only be proven with a judicial investigation.

Beijing has turned down repeated requests from the UN High Commission for Human Rights to visit the region to investigate.

President Emmanuel Macron, who has sought to avoid being dragged into increasingly confrontational ties between China and the United States, was asked about the Uyghurs during an appearance before the European Parliament on Wednesday.

France raises this in a very clear fashion in all of our bilateral talks (with Beijing), he told campaigning MEP Raphael Glucksmann.

He said he was in favour of an EU regulation that would ban the import of goods that result from forced labour and supported increasing requirements on European companies operating in China to check supply chains.

Human rights groups say they have found evidence of mass detentions, forced labour, political indoctrination, torture and forced sterilisation in Xinjiang.

Beijing denies genocide or the existence of forced labour camps in Xinjiang and has accused Uyghurs testifying overseas about conditions inside the northwestern region of being paid liars.

After initially denying the existence of the Xinjiang camps altogether, China later defended them as vocational training centres aimed at reducing the appeal of Islamic extremism.

The United States has slapped sanctions on a growing list of Chinese politicians and companies over the treatment of the Uyghurs, leading to tit-for-tat measures from Beijing.

China has sanctioned European, British and US lawmakers, as well as academics who study Xinjiang and a London law firm.
A U.S. district judge has referred a Boston attorney accused of feeding answers to his client in a Zoom deposition to receive counseling from a non-profit organization for lawyers.

In an order issued Wednesday, Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the District of Massachusetts referred OHagan Meyer Managing Partner Jeffrey Rosin to a Massachusetts lawyers assistance non-profit, Lawyers for Concerned Lawyers, for him to learn how to better manage his emotions and judgement in adversarial situations.
Washington has suggested that Lithuania consider changing the name of Taiwans representative office in the capital Vilnius to help ease tensions between the Baltic states and China since the delegations inception.

Lithuania has involved in a spat With Beijing, because it allows Taiwan to open a mission, which is called the Taiwan Representative Office rather than the Taipei Representative Office, named after the capital of Taiwan  a term used by most countries.

China is asking countries to avoid language that suggests the self-governing Taiwan is a sovereign state.

U.S. diplomats approached Lithuanian officials about the idea of ??changing the name, according to several people familiar with the matter.They say Washington believed the choice of the name opened the door to Chinese coercion risk destruction Expand relations with Taiwan.

China has retaliated prevent imports from Lithuania and warned European companies such as German auto parts maker Continental not to use parts from the Baltic states.

The White House has denied that the administration had suggested changing the office name. Anyone making other proposals does not reflect actual discussions between the United States and Lithuania, a spokesman for the National Security Council said, adding that the United States had told Lithuania that it would support its sovereign decision.

We respect and support the efforts of Lithuania and Taiwan to strengthen ties and pragmatic cooperation, the spokesman added.

This Diplomatic Bank Thats a headache for Washington, which wants to help Taiwan strengthen its international influence without giving Beijing the opportunity to accuse the United States of violating its one China policy, under which Washington sees Beijing as Chinas only legitimate government.

Taipei last year asked the U.S. to allow the listing of Taiwan name of the washington office, but the United States did not take action on this request.

The spat also divided officials in Vilnius. President Gitanas Nauseda called the name Mistake, while a foreign ministry poll last month showed that only 13 percent of Lithuanians supported the governments China policy.

At a meeting this week, which included Nauseda in addition to the foreign minister and members of the opposition, business leaders said they had sacrificed for an unpopular policy. But Prime Minister Ingrid Symonette has been adamant the government will not budge.

One of the big issues is that Taiwan doesnt want to change its name, and theres also a very powerful person in Lithuania who doesnt want to change its name, said one person familiar with the diplomatic discussions.

The Lithuanian foreign ministry said claims that the U.S. proposed changing the offices name was false and a disinformation campaign. The Taiwanese embassy in Washington had no comment.

Lithuania has been outspoken in criticizing China for human rights violations.last year, it Exit 17+1, an informal group of Central and Eastern European countries with which Beijing wants to improve relations.

This week Nauseda highlighted tensions in Vilnius, urging the foreign ministry to reach an agreement with EU partners to implement the de-escalation plan.

Brussels has offered lip service to Lithuania but has yet to provide a formal joint response as it hopes to hold a summit with China in March. The EU has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to the one-China policy, while saying it is ready to resist all kinds of political pressure and coercive measures against any member state.

While some believe the name change would be seen as a capitulation to Beijing, others say the dispute undermines Taiwans true achievements.

admired

Letting this crisis worse could lead to bad outcomes for Lithuanias interests, and perhaps Taiwans, said Bonnie Glaser, a Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund, who added that Chinas economy Coercion is not acceptable. The opening of the new office and the rapid development of Lithuania-Taiwan relations is a huge win for Taipei, whatever they call the office.

Taiwanese officials said they were unaware of the U.S. proposal. Some Lithuanian and EU officials had considered changing the name to appease China, but concluded that would not solve the problem, one of the people said.

Once they start compromising on Taiwans name . . . it will make the Chinese feel that what they are doing is working and encourage China to put more pressure on Lithuania and other countries, the Taiwanese official said.
As a woman who writes about cannabis for a living, I have experienced some sexism in the cannabis community. Generally, people, often men, are surprised when I know what Im talking about despite having done this for a decade. Or assume I write clickbait articles with no real subject matter. After recently having a man say the words look at you, you little professional when I explained how cupboard growing worked I just had enough. I decided to do a little experiment and asked a male friend to tell people he did my job. If he told men that he wrote about cannabis the interest was much higher. It was assumed he wrote about technical and well-researched topics and immediately he was accepted as knowledgeable in the field. No one said Well why dont you tell me what I need to grow in my cupboard then? or Ok so whats the difference between Sativa and Indica? The next level was looking further afield and seeing if it was just me experiencing this sort of thing. Of course, it wasnt. After very little research I found tons of articles about systemic cannabis community sexism as well as anecdotal stories from professional women in the industry. This drove me to look further and see if I can find why sexism is so common in cannabis society, if anything is changing, and where we are planning to go from here.

Stoner Girl

Lets have a look at something that has always been lurking behind sexism in cannabis. The trope of the stoner girl reflects the sexism that was used in marketing to imply that only a certain kind of girl would be involved with cannabis. The idea was that stoner girls were sexually available and just loved a good time. They were pretty much up for anything in their weed leaf booty shorts and skimpy smiley face bikini tops. Somehow the trope for men getting stoned is sitting around giggling, for girls its getting wasted and subsequently easy. The fact that this is the primary way women are depicted when it comes to cannabis is extremely harmful.

Of course, a lot of this is found in marketing which isnt exactly new. However, one would expect to see sexist pinup girl marketing and faceless breasts behind a product in slightly less progressive industries. Its a shame that slogans like bitches and bud show women as an object that can come alongside weed rather than women being an important part of the culture and just as into smoking as men. A report in 2017 from the Cannabis Consumers Coalition found that women smoke more than men in many cases. This only relates to that year and was done through a poll which is never perfect, but I think my point stands.

The stereotype of the easy girl that smokes weed and puts out, the cool girl who will take a little puff with her boyfriend, or the anonymous pair of boobs with a bong between them do not represent the women in cannabis.

Culture Control

This leads us to the next issue which was born from a general level of sexism in society as well as the idea that women werent an integral part of the cannabis community. Historically the industry has been dominated by men. I found several articles by women who own cannabis-based businesses or work high up in the industry who have continually struggled in this male-dominated world of weed. When reading the article by Forbes on Battling Sexism in a Male-Dominated Industry I saw a few familiar phrases. When Krista Whitely, CEO of a cannabis company, was pitching to investors she was faced with I think its cute you want to make money like the big boys. Obviously finding out that she wasnt being taken seriously was a serious blow to the entrepreneuse. Other impressive women in the industry have reported feeling so discarded that they are finding it a struggle to maintain their status.

These women dont just experience dismissal at the hands of men in the industry but inappropriate sexual behaviour which often links back to the Stoner Girl marketing. How can women be taken seriously in an industry that almost exclusively uses exposed female bodies to sell products?

Forbes has pretty extensively covered this topic and in my research, I was shocked to find a story about a woman in the industry who brought her 22-year-old daughter to conferences with the hope of mentoring her. Her daughter was literally asked at a conference if she was interested in a master/slave relationship. I dont kink shame, but I do asshole shame and that is a horrific thing to say to a young woman out of nowhere. Its hardly going to convince women to enter the cannabis industry. Again the marketing issue comes back as this woman and her daughter were made to feel uncomfortable by the variety naked girl merch being handed out at the conference.

The fact that this is a male-dominated industry means that the culture is aimed towards men, and is not a safe space for women. In the modern-day, there is no excuse for this kind of behaviour based on gender or any other aspect of a human being. Women have proven again and again that they deserve a seat at this table, we just need men to push the chair out and welcome us.

Speaking Out

As a subset of men controlling the industry few women are willing to speak out when they are treated badly. This community is their life and they are afraid that if they say anything they could lose their livelihood. Several women have later admitted to being harassed at cannabis events under the guise of networking. Melissa Vitale said in one article that she had a man refuse to take hints that she didnt want his genitals pressed against her, but he was also proposing an impressive opportunity for her young company so she felt she couldnt be abrasive. A part of the cannabis industry being a safe space for women includes them feeling comfortable to speak out about harassment and to feel that the other men in the industry will be horrified. The harassers need to be punished, not the victims.

Come back for part 2 where we look into the horrific Meat Gate scandal and discuss what can be done to improve the cannabis industry for women.

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David Cook, the current vice chancellor of public affairs and economic development, is among five finalists for the presidency at North Dakota State University. Cook will speak in a forum on Jan. 26, after visiting the NDSU campus.
Reading the headlines about New Yorks bail reform law, which eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanor and many felony offenses, youd think the purpose of bail in New York was to prevent dangerous people from doing more dangerous things while their cases were adjudicated.

But youd be wrong.

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Mayor de Blasios police commissioner, Dermot Shea, repeatedly blamed the law for the increase in shootings and violent felonies, arguing that criminals who formerly would have been held on bail were now being released to wreak havoc on the city. The tabloids energetically reported on burglars and robbers who think bail reform is great because it quickly releases them to the streets to do more burgling and robbing. And many politicians have proved eager to blame bail reform for increased crime in their communities.

In fact, New York is the only state in the country in which the sole purpose of bail is to ensure defendants come back to court. When setting bail, New York judges are not allowed to consider the defendants danger to the community. Understanding that is key to understanding this debate.

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There are legitimate reasons for not considering a defendants dangerousness when setting bail. Criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and there is a fair amount of crystal-ball gazing involved in determining whether somebody is likely to commit further crimes if released. On the other hand, 49 other states and the federal government have decided that its appropriate to have some mechanism in place to keep people considered to be dangerous in custody while their cases are pending.

The problem is that public debate about bail in New York has become completely divorced from the purpose of the statute. So politicians, the police and the tabloids complain about a situation that judges, under the law, are powerless to address.

How did we get here? In large part, its due to the mixed signals sent by the Legislature.

The Daily News Flash Weekdays Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. >

When bail reform was originally passed in 2019, allowing judges to consider public safety in making bail decisions was considered, and rejected. As a compromise, bail was retained for serious cases  most violent felonies, certain sex-related charges, and some domestic abuse crimes  that, in the words of the Vera Institute of Justice, trigger concerns about public safety. But judges deciding bail were still prevented from considering the risks to public safety when deciding whether to set bail on defendants accused of committing these dangerous crimes; all they were allowed to consider was the defendants likelihood of returning to court.

Shortly after the law went into effect, and after much hue and cry about released criminals committing new crimes, additional offenses were made bail eligible. Not surprisingly, these crimes were predominantly public-safety-related. But theres no statistical evidence that those accused of violent crime come back to court less often than those charged with less serious misdemeanors.

By designating only the most violent or sensational crimes as bail eligible, the Legislature sends the message that violent criminals deserve to be jailed pending trial, while at the same time telling judges they cant consider the defendants threat to the community when deciding whether to set bail.

The Legislatures mixed message catches judges in the middle. Arraignments become an exercise in suspicion, with judges trying to hew to the law in making their bail decisions by deciding who is likely to return to court, while defense attorneys assume that the judges are really thinking predominantly about whether theyre going to be on the front page of the tabloids if the defendant they release today becomes tomorrows mass shooter.

As a judge, its not for me to say what the law should be; I will do my best to apply the law as the Legislature writes it. But we do need to have an honest conversation about bail, and to do that, the Legislature needs to speak clearly about the true purpose of bail, instead of continuing to foster confusion.

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If our elected officials believe that bail should be set only to ensure return to court  and if they believe New Yorkers are willing to accept that  they should then stop defining bail-eligible offenses in terms of violence, absent any evidence that those accused of such crimes are less likely to return to court. And if theyre not prepared to do this, then they should allow judges to consider the safety of the community when setting bail, as do most other jurisdictions. The current state of affairs  in which the public debate and assumptions about bail are completely at odds with the purported purpose of the bail laws  only breeds cynicism and contempt for the judicial system at a time we can least afford it.

Zimmerman is a criminal court judge in the Bronx.
In partnership with SMART and Viu, Cha Eun Woo will meet his Filipino fans again through a special virtual event this coming January 29!

Confirmed! Cha Eun Woo to Exclusively Meet His Filipino Fans

According to a known news outlet in the Philippines, ABS-CBN News, Cha Eun Woo is confirmed to virtually meet his Filipino fans through an exclusive event made possible by a local telecommunications company.

SMART, one of the telecommunication giants in the Philippines, announced on January 19 that the "True Beauty" actor will join the upcoming Hallyu Hangouts, where fans get the chance to know their idols online.

The "My ID is Gangnam Beauty" star to grace the SMART Hallyu Hangout in collaboration with Viu, a known online streaming platform, on January 29 at 4 p.m. (MST) and is said to have a replay at 8 p.m. of the same day.

To excite fans, SMART released a video greeting from Cha Eun Woo where he personally delivered short but warm messages for his Filipino supporters who wanted to join the upcoming virtual event.

He said, "Mabuhay, Philippines! I am inviting all my Filipino fans to come and spend a day with me on SMART Hallyu Hangout for a special day that will be streamed live on the SMART GigaPlay App."

The K-drama heartthrob added that he wants to deepen his connection with his fans and create special memories with them this 2022.

SMART Continues to Bring Hallyu to the Philippines

This is not the first time that Cha Eun Woo greeted his Filipino fans. The ASTRO member already made collaborations with Philippine brands like Penshoppe and Frontrow, to name a few.

In fact, Cha Eun Woo already visited the country a few times for their group concerts. His most recent activity in Manila was when he had his first solo fan meeting last 2019 where he even serenaded the fans with an OPM song.

Though Korean artists like Cha Eun Woo can't travel yet due to the pandemic, the actor nonetheless prepares special events to make the fans' dream to meet their favorite Korean stars.

In addition, SVP and Head of Consumer Wireless Business of Smart, Jane Basas said, "Korean content continues to be a major passion among many Filipinos, and in our commitment to bring our subscribers closer to what they love, we have turned SMART into the ultimate K-content destinations of Pinoys."

SMART was also the company who gave Filipino fans lots of exciting Hallyu experiences as they already collaborated with some of the biggest Korean stars, such as Park Seo Joon, "Crash Landing On You" actors and real-life couple Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin, and the biggest K-pop boy band BTS.

To know the mechanics on how to join the exclusive event with Cha Eun Woo, visit Viu Philippines and SMART's official website and social media accounts for updates.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: ASTRO Cha Eun Woo Net Worth 2021: Is the 'Decibel' Star the Richest Among Idol-Actors?

Are you excited of Cha Eun Woo's upcoming virtual event? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news and updates, keep your tabs open here at Kdramastars.

Kdramastars owns this article.

Written by Shai Collins.
Ahn Bo Hyun and Jo Bo Ah, who are making their much-anticipated small screen return, sparked excitement with the action-revenge series "Military Prosecutor Doberman" teaser.

'Military Prosecutor Doberman' Teaser: Ahn Bo Hyun and Jo Bo Ah Give a Glimpse of Their Characters

While the large broadcasting company still airs some of its hit series "Ghost Doctor," "Bulgasal," and "Bad and Crazy," tvN begins another hype for its forthcoming military-centric Korean drama.

On January 21, tvN dropped the first-ever "Military Prosecutor Doberman" teaser. The drama stars Ahn Bo Hyun and Jo Bo Ah, who will play as military prosecutors who accept the job based on their different statuses in life. Without further notice, the two will end up helping each other in fighting the evil inside the military.

Ahn Bo Hyun is Do Bae Man, who only entered the military to find success and wealth. Being a military prosecutor is just his way to find success and already looks forward to quitting his job once he already gets what he wants.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: 4 KDrama Couples Who Also Slayed Fashion Magazine Covers

Different from him is Cha Woo In (Jo Bo Ah), the only daughter of a chaebol family who chooses to become a military prosecutor for revenge.

Revenge and Money Fuel Jo Bo Ah and Ahn Bo Hyun to Enter the Military

For the drama's newly unveiled teaser, tvN introduces Cha Woo In and Do Bae Man, the main characters of the story who have entirely different motivations in life.

tvN finally drops the first teaser of their second drama to air this coming February, #MilitaryProsecutorDoberman starring #AhnBoHyun and #JoBoAh. pic.twitter.com/D2cl0GcnV2  Korean Drama Fever (@kordramafeverph) January 21, 2022

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 'School 2021' Actress Cho Yi Hyun Compares Herself to Her Character in the Drama, Talks About Kim Yo Han and More

In the beginning of the clip, Do Bae Man positions his stance and salutes in front of the camera. A caption also says, "I came to the military for money," which means everything he does inside the military is for prosperity, no more and no less.

On the other hand, Cha Woo In looks fierce and powerful as she received the merit of becoming a new military prosecutor. The caption says she came to the military to hunt, which only means to look for the people she knows are doing something illegal behind closed doors.

The action-revenge drama "Military Prosecutor Doberman" is scheduled to meet the viewers this coming February.

Watch the Teaser Here!

Are you excited for Ahn Bo Hyun and Jo Bo Ah's first drama team-up? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news and updates, keep your tabs open here at Kdramastars.

Kdramastars owns this article.

Shai Collins wrote this.
Teenage aviator Zara Rutherford has become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo.
Forcing those who are homeless or suffering from drug addictions into treatment programs "probably alienates people more from a system that is already challenging for them to access," an Interior Health psychiatrist told Kelowna city councillors on Monday.
In this photo provided by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, juvenile Chinook salmon swim in a raceway at Iron Fish Gate Hatchery, Siskiyou County, Calif., before their relocation on July 7, 2021. A study that links low summertime water flows in a British Columbia river with lower productivity could help guide how rivers are managed to support fish, the authors say. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, CDFW, Travis VanZant
Ready or not, they wont come.

The Fugees have pulled the plug on their eagerly anticipated reunion tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of their classic album The Score.

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The iconic hip hop group  comprised of Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel  announced Friday afternoon the 12-city international jaunt was scrapped due to the pandemic.

The reunited Fugees performed at Pier 17 in New York City on Sept. 22, but additional shows have been scrapped due to COVID. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Citizen)

The continued Covid pandemic has made touring conditions difficult, and we want to make sure we keep our fans and ourselves healthy and safe, the trio explained in a joint statement. An idea sparked to honor and celebrate this 25th anniversary of The Score but we see now it may not currently be our time for revisiting this past work.

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The Grammy Award-winning group kicked off the tour on Sept. 22 with a small pop-up show in New York City as part of the Global Citizen Live series of concerts.

The event, which was delayed for hours, marked the Fugees first performance together in 15 years.

Additional dates were planned, starting with a Nov. 2 gig at the United Center in Chicago, as well as concerts in Oakland, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Newark, Washington, Paris, London, Nigeria and Ghana.

But on Oct. 29, the South Orange, N.J.-formed group alerted fans on social media that the tour would be postponed until early 2022 to ensure the best chance that all cities on the tour are fully open so we can perform for as many fans as possible. Fridays announcement scuttled those hopes.

Considered one of the best hip-hop albums of all time, The Score hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 22 million copies worldwide.

With the blazing singles such as the Teena Marie-inspired Fu-Gee-La and Ready or Not, the 13-track masterpiece earned two Grammy Awards for Best Rap Album, and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, for Killing Me Softly.

The Score remains one of the most streamed albums from the 1990s on Spotify.
Three adults have now been confirmed dead after a fire erupted late Monday night in a Saxony Manor apartment complex building at 1870 22nd Ave., city fire officials said Tuesday.

Late Monday, Kenosha police confirmed that two people died and five were injured, two critically, after an entire building at the Saxony Manor complex, located at 22nd Avenue and 18th Street on the citys north side, filled with toxic smoke and the west side of the building was consumed with flames. City fire officials confirmed Tuesday that those two adults were found deceased at the scene, one as a result of the fire and another apparently from a medical event unrelated to the fire.

City fire officials also confirmed Tuesday that a third adult died later at the hospital due to injuries sustained in the fire. The names of the three deceased individuals had not been released as of late Tuesday afternoon.

Additionally, Kenosha Police Officer Javier Vega, 38, was transported to an area hospital for smoke inhalation. Vega, a veteran of the department for over five years, was treated and later released.

Firefighters were dispatched at about 9:30 p.m. Monday to a report of a fire at the Saxony Manor complex. The Kenosha Police Department assisted with the evacuation of several residents before the Kenosha Fire Department arrived on scene, according to Tuesdays release.

Two residents who were trapped in upper-level units were successfully rescued by KFD personnel using a ladder truck. Fire officials said Monday night that 10 other residents were able to get out of the building safely and are currently displaced. One person remained unaccounted for as of late Tuesday afternoon, but city fire officials said they do not believe that person was in the affected structure.

Had it not been for the rapid response and evacuation efforts by the Kenosha Police Department, there would likely have been more injury or death, the release stated.

According to the release, the fire was controlled within approximately 30 minutes, and crews remained on scene for several hours conducting secondary searches of the structure.

In a press conference late Tuesday afternoon, KFD Chief Christopher Bigley said no cause or point of origin for the fire had been determined yet and that an investigation was still ongoing. Bigley also confirmed that smoke detectors in the building were working at the time of the fire.

Residents call 911

Several residents from neighboring apartment buildings called 911 and said they witnessed smoke coming from at least two ends of the affected building Monday night.

According to KPD Capt. Patrick Patton, Vega, the police officer who was transported to the hospital for smoke inhalation and later released, was trying to evacuate as many as he could from the building.

The fire did not spread through the whole building, but the smoke sure did, Patton said Monday. Thats whats the bigger problem.

Police worked into the early-morning hours Tuesday with Saxony Manor management to account for tenants residing in the apartments, Patton said.

According to its website, Saxony Manor offers apartments for income-eligible people age 62 and older at several buildings on an 18-acre site at 1850 22nd Ave. The complex is run by the non-profit Mercy Housing.

Flames rise high

Omar Owens, who lives in an apartment building to the south and west of the building at 1870 22nd Ave., said he could see smoke billowing upward while flames shot out of the building. He said he saw the flames in a first-floor apartment travel up to the roof, where they shot up as high as 30 to 40 feet.

I heard a frantic woman yelling. I couldnt tell what they were saying ... and I heard a dog barking, said Owens, who looked out his window and saw the downstairs unit on fire. The upstairs caught on fire from (the fire) downstairs.

Owens, who has lived at Saxony Manor for four years, said he knocked on the door of his sisters apartment inside his building and told her there was a fire and she needed to get out. His sister had been resting and did not realize a fire was in progress.

One resident of the building that caught on fire said she heard smoke alarms going off and stepped out into the hall to see what appeared to be a mist at the end of the hall. She said a male resident went down to check on the people inside the apartment.

I dont know whether he managed to kick the door open or break the door, the woman said. Some billowing smoke ... thick, black smoke came out when he went to see what was going on. I just heard him holler, Oh my God. ... Then, the whole hallway just got black.

Coleen Mitchell, who resides in another apartment building nearby, said she had just come back from visiting her daughter when she pulled up and saw the building enveloped in smoke. Mitchell said she parked and could see a woman shouting fire and made her way inside to try to warn others to get out.

Mitchell said she pounded on the first-floor windows, and she used her hat to cover her mouth as she entered the building.

I got five feet in. I yelled, and I told her to get out. I went in to help, and I couldnt even see, it burned your eyes so bad, Mitchell said, adding that the woman she warned did get out safely. Nobody else answered, but that one woman.

Mitchell said she attempted to go in again but immediately turned around as an officer helped her through the blinding smoke.

I wasnt going to keep on going, because if I did, I wouldve been dead, she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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North Korea is once again rattling the cage. Over several weeks, the regime has carried out four ballistic missile tests, the most recent on Jan. 17. Pyongyang describes them as essential for self-defense.

Meanwhile, South Korea continues on a positive course of exceptional economic growth and profitability, combined with now firmly established representative democracy. Scare stories about actions of the North overshadow the good news regarding the South. This is most unfortunate.

North Korea has possessed at least rudimentary nuclear weapons since 2006. From time to time, Pyongyang threatens to use them against South Korea, Japan and even the United States, though long distance makes that last target still impractical.

Last September, Pyongyang announced successful launch of a cruise missile, an insidious weapon, flying low and difficult to detect with radar. An early version, the V-1 rocket of Nazi Germany, killed many in Britain in World War II.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration reevaluates Korea policies. A natural assumption is that North Korea leader Kim Jong-un is returning to rigid hostility, after some flexibility during the Trump administration. Despite highly publicized meetings between Trump and Kim, there were no diplomatic or other breakthroughs.

In reality, North Korea is literally a disaster area in economic and human terms. The population has endured decades of desperate hardship, including famine. United Nations sanctions effectively isolate the extreme and dangerous government.

By contrast, South Korea moves from strength to strength. Considerable credit goes to President Moon Jae-in, completing his five-year term and ineligible for a second.

Behind the scenes, Moon has worked diligently to try to improve long-hostile relations with North Korea, and assert effective leadership more widely in Asia. Moon and Kim met in May 2018, following earlier summits in 2000 and 2007.

At the end of 2018, the influential Asia News Network named President Moon Person of the Year. South Koreas chief executive rightly received praise for mediation between the U.S. and North Korea, important in bringing the two national leaders together. This accomplishment is too easily oversimplified and minimized.

Moon insisted on meeting with the North Korea delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics, held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The group included Kims sister, an influential figure in the bizarre regime.

President Moon Jae-in personifies in important ways the positive effective qualities of his nation. He assumed office as national chief executive on May 10, 2017, following a special election. From the very start, he emphasized relations with North Korea

Moon became president in a time of tension and uncertainty on both sides of the 38th Parallel, the border that divides Korea into north and south. South Korea had just experienced the ordeal of impeachment and removal from office of a sitting president, Park Geun-hye. North Korea greeted the inauguration of a new president in South Korea by launching a new long-range missile, the Hwasong-12, four days later.

Earlier, South Koreas dictatorship imprisoned Moon for his youthful reform activism. Later, he became a human rights lawyer. He also served in the Republic of Korea Army Special Forces, and saw action in the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) along the 38th Parallel.

After a period of low popularity measured by public opinion polls, Moons standing has risen dramatically over the past year. In March, the voters elect a new president. Moon will leave office enjoying the great respect he deserves.

South Korea should lead initiatives toward North Korea, supported by the United States. Together, our position is strong.

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Every primary care provider has been there. A patient comes in requesting a pre-operative evaluation or places a phone call or EMR message expressing the need for clearance before having a surgical procedure. Sometimes, we even get a request from the surgeons office with paperwork for clearance. Time is always, seemingly, of the essence regarding these evaluations, and either the patient or the operating surgeon requests this be done expediently to schedule a procedure or proceed with one already scheduled. All primary care providers know that the fecal matter of medical paperwork tends to roll downhill. Whether it is a request for FMLA, disability, or medical clearance, as suggested above, these tasks are typically always pushed to the primary care provider. Why? I do not know, maybe because we know the patient best. Or perhaps because we continue to be reluctantly willing to do it. With regard to operative clearance, maybe we live in a very medically litigious society, and it makes sense to diffuse perioperative risk over multiple providers. The real reason I do not know. The one thing I do know is that I cannot medically clear your patient for surgery.

It is commonly addressed among family physicians/internists, anesthesiologists, and cardiologists that medical clearance is a misnomer. The pre-operative evaluation attempts to mitigate the chance of pre-operative and post-operative complications of surgery. It involves a detailed history, physical exam, and chart review to determine a patients risk of an adverse event or complication resulting from anesthesia or surgery. This evaluation is necessary. However, the terminology and expectations need to change regarding the information the examining physician can provide. The purpose of the pre-operative assessment is to identify and mitigate risk and give the patient and the operating physician a clear view of the risk being undertaken by both the patient and the operating physician. All too often, I am sent the pre-operative exam form and find at the bottom: I, (state your name), deem this patient to be medically cleared for (insert surgical procedure. Under this statement, a signature of the evaluating physician is requested, thus welcoming myself into being liable for operative complications. Saying a patient is medically cleared for surgery implies they are risk-free and in no danger of complications when no provider can confidently make that call.

Until the expectations placed on primary physicians become more distinct and reasonable, I will continue to avoid the term medical clearance with regard to the pre-operative evaluation. I will, instead, amend every form to delineate the patients level of operative risk and provide avenues of improving risk that can be sought before the performance of the procedure.

Michael McCutchen is a family physician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Fans of The Batman may have to pack a lunch to see the Caped Crusader pack a punch this go round.

The running time for Matt Reeves forthcoming standalone take on the beloved Defender of Gotham will run 2 hours and 47 minutes without credits  making it one of the longest superhero movies ever released.

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Robert Pattinson stars in "The Batman." (Warner Bros.)

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film starring Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright and Colin Farrell will be five minutes short of three hours with credits  and presumably will include the customary comic book cinematic end-credits scene.

When its all said and done, The Batman will clock in as the third-longest superhero movie ever, behind Zack Snyders epic Justice League directors cut (a whopping 242 minutes) and Marvels Avengers: Endgame, which came in at 181 minutes.

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Debuting March 4 in theaters and on HBO Max, the movie is longer than what some Batman fans consider to be Christopher Nolans greatest chapter. The 2008 masterpiece The Dark Knight ran 165-minutes.
SALEM, Ore.  With the surging omicron COVID-19 variant, health officials warn it will get worse before it gets better.

"There is a war going on in our hospitals against the virus that isn't visible to the public, said Becky Hultberg, President/CEO of Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.

Hultberg said Oregon is expected to hit its omicron peak on Jan. 28. In a press conference, she added that 1,059 people are hospitalized with COVID as of Thursday, 74 more people than Wednesday. A number that could grow in the days to come, surpassing our peak in the delta surge.

"Our delta hospitalization peak was just over 1,200, and we're on track to exceed that peak possibly by this weekend, maybe early next week," said Hultberg. "Hospitalizations have been growing steadily and that growth is accelerating. You can see the increase from yesterday; last week we were seeing increases of 30 to 40 patients a day."

Despite the higher numbers, there is one silver lining to omicron. Hultberg said many hospitalized patients right now are not as sick as they were during delta and the pressure this time around is less on intensive care units in some areas.

"So when we look at capacity challenges, it's not just the ICU, it is the emergency departments and general medical units."

Hultberg said we're not out of the woods and she's asking Oregonians to gear up for the next few weeks ahead.

"We're going to have one focus, and that's on ensuring that Oregon patients receive the best care possible during this surge," said Hultberg. "Hospitals need support so they can continue to deliver that care."
In the last year we've lost thousands of family members, friends and co-workers to COVID-19. We'd like to give you a chance to honor their memory.

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Chinese envoy calls for efforts to advance peace in Colombia

Xinhua) 14:38, January 21, 2022

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy to the United Nations on Thursday called for efforts to further promote peace in Colombia during a Security Council meeting.

China welcomes the positive progress achieved in the Colombian peace process and highly commends the efforts made by all parties to implement the peace agreement signed by the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 2016, according to Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

As Colombia will hold elections this year, relevant political parties and presidential candidates have included the further implementation of the peace agreement in their campaign platforms, he noted.

China supports Colombia's efforts to advance election preparations in an orderly manner and hopes that the elections will be held smoothly, he said, calling on all parties concerned to continue to consolidate the hard-won gains of peace, and jointly address the difficulties and challenges in the implementation of the peace agreement.

Noting "the frequent clashes between illegal armed groups vying for territory control," Geng said, "We welcome the Colombian government beefing up military deployment and security presence in remote areas that lack effective control and cracking down on illegal armed groups and organized criminal activities with a view to effectively protecting civilians and former combatants."

Additionally, he said, China appreciates the Colombian government and the National Reintegration Council providing support to former combatants in terms of housing, employment and land distribution.

The peace process in Colombia has made remarkable progress, he said, stressing the Colombian people still need robust assistance from the United Nations and the international community in their journey to peace.

China will as always support the work of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia and hopes that the mission will step up coordination and cooperation with the UN Country Team, sustain its vigorous support to the implementation of the peace agreement and make greater contributions to comprehensive peace, stability and development in Colombia, Geng added.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
A former housekeeper with diabetes has sued Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, alleging the company unjustly fired him after he complained about being denied access to bathrooms and medication and enduring discrimination because he is a Black Jamaican.

Stevel Smith, 52, alleges his managers at the Yacht and Beach Club resorts violated the Americans with Disabilities Act with the way he was treated, according to a lawsuit filed in Orlando federal court on Jan. 11.

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Smith now works part-time as a rideshare driver and cries every time he passes Disney because of his experiences, the lawsuit claims.

In the suit, Smith claims a manager asked him to hide in a closet because he was not presentable.

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The litigation cites multiple alleged examples of Smith seeking assistance for his diabetes at work that Disney denied, including keeping his medication close and being able to use restrooms other than those designated for employees.

Smith urinated on himself at work multiple times because managers told him he could not take his medicine or use the hotels restrooms, according to the suit. Frequent urination is a common diabetes symptom.

Federal law prohibits workplace discrimination and retaliation against people with disabilities, and it requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for these workers. Diabetes falls under its requirements for protected conditions.

Smith also asserts his managers fired him under false pretenses in March 2020 in retaliation for complaining about those issues for over two years. Smith started working at the hotels in September 2017 but had worked at Disney World since 2013, according to the lawsuit.

In records, Smith said he experienced mental and emotional distress because of his experiences. He is demanding a jury trial to seek an unspecified amount in damages.

Disney spokesman Eric Scott did not respond to questions about Smiths employment and the lawsuit.

We will respond to the allegations in court, Scott said in a statement.

Smiths lawyer, Brett Kaplan, declined an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

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We fully intend to prove that Disney subjected Mr. Smith to an abusive environment because of his disabilities and that he was terminated for complaining of same, he wrote in an email. We commend Mr. Smith  a kind, gentle, and hardworking person  for coming forward and discussing his experience. We look forward to presenting our clients claims in court, telling his story, and ultimately, holding Disney accountable.

The lawsuit lists multiple examples of alleged discrimination, starting in January 2018 and ending with Smiths firing on March 8, 2020.

In January 2018, Smith said a manager reprimanded him for complaining about coworkers disrespecting his race and Jamaican heritage by making him tidy the stock room in their place.

That May, Smith alleges another manager told him to hide in a linen closet from the propertys general manager because Smith did not look presentable, though his uniform was neat, records show.

If you dont disappear, youll see what Ill do, the lawsuit claims the manager said.

A type two diabetic, Smith said his managers told him he could not take his medication at work and said things like, I dont care about diabetes and If you take your medication, you can go home, court documents showed.

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In January 2018, Smith had to rush to the nearest restroom while working in the hotel lobby. A manager saw him and reprimanded him for not using the employee bathroom across the resort, according to the lawsuit.

During an October 2019 shift, Smith asked to go home early because he felt faint. The manager refused, reportedly saying, You dont look sick, the lawsuit claimed.

Later that month, Smith asserts another manager told him he had to keep his medication in the employee locker room before moving it to a locker out of Smiths reach, according to court records.

The lawsuit alleges Smiths requests fall under the reasonable accommodations required by federal law.

Smith said he hurt his back after another manager began assigning him extra work in November 2019, according to the lawsuit.

He met with management at least four times about the incidents and involved his union representative but claimed conditions did not improve, court records show.

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In the lawsuit, Smith said neither his general manager nor Disney investigated the discrimination. He alleged the company fired him instead after managers falsely claimed he shirked tasks twice, records show.

He was suspended after the second time, on Feb. 13, 2020.

Smith said he was not given a written termination or an explanation for his firing beyond that he was a liability, according to the lawsuit. He claims he was never given the opportunity to return to work, even though another employee suspended on the same day, for the same reason, got their job back.

Jeremy Haicken, president of Unite Here Local 737  the union that represents Disneys housekeeping workers  said he was not familiar with Smiths case.

Under the unions contract, employees can be fired after a suspension for reasons with just cause. Supervisors must issue reprimands in writing and discuss them with the employee.

Smith filed a discrimination charge against Walt Disney World through the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in December 2020. The commission issued him a right to sue notice in November.

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krice@orlandosentinel.com and @katievrice on Twitter
Sandra Rizzolos eight-day Italy vacation was coming to an end, with just a trans-Atlantic flight back to Orlando left. She felt healthy, with just a dry throat, the result, she thought, of being in colder temperatures.

But then airport authorities pulled her into a separate room on Jan. 3 and showed her shed tested positive for COVID-19, and wouldnt be allowed to fly home with her husband and the other couple with whom theyd traveled.

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We felt comfortable because were all fully vaccinated and have our boosters and wear our masks, she said of the trip to the Piedmont region of Italy.

She said she was told to quarantine for five days to recover. While Italy has designated hotels available for people who test positive to stay in, she said she was told at the airport that none of them had rooms available for her and that shed need to find an apartment to quarantine in. Hotels required guests to be COVID negative, she said.

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Sitting in the Milan Malpensa Airport for more than six hours, she scanned AirBnb before finding an apartment nearby in Gallarate.

I was very fortunate [to find something], I think because it was right after the holiday, she said.

The Italian government requires U.S. travelers to have a negative molecular PCR test within three days of arriving, and either be fully vaccinated or have medical clearance that theyve recovered from COVID-19 within the past six months, in order to enter the country. While to board a U.S.-bound flight, you must show a negative test within a day of travel.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns U.S. travelers to avoid travel to Italy, and tags the nation with a Level 4 threat for COVID-19, its highest designation, meaning there are very high levels of the virus circulating there. The classification was announced less than two weeks before the Rizzolos were due to travel. Too late, they figured, to cancel.

U.S. citizens who choose to travel internationally should be aware that they may face unexpected challenges related to COVID-19 as they attempt return to the United States or attempt to travel from one overseas destination to another, according to a notice on the U.S. State Departments website. If you choose to travel internationally, be sure to make contingency plans, as you may find yourself having to remain in a foreign country longer than originally planned.

On their trip, they rented a car and toured wineries, taking in the sights of the region. Masks are required indoors and outdoors there.

Rizzolo, who works for a human resources company and lives in College Park, said her husband Chris flew home, since they have a 10-year-old daughter to take care of, while Sandra stayed to quarantine.

She passed the time doing some reading on her iPad and watching movies. She didnt travel with her laptop so she wasnt able to work remotely, and had to use sick days to account for the quarantine.

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I had to contact my boss and they had offered COVID time you could use through Dec. 31, and I missed the cut-off by 3 days, Sandra Rizzolo said. I was able to at least walk outside and get some fresh air.

The Health Report Weekly A weekly update on health news in Florida. >

The city she was staying in didnt have grocery delivery and had limited food delivery options, which also was an obstacle. She said she wore two masks to visit a small local market to get groceries  curbside service wasnt available  and frequently used Uber Eats to order pizza, pasta and sandwiches.

She said on Jan. 6, most restaurants were closed for the national holiday of Epiphany, so she ordered McDonalds.

In all, her quarantine cost close to $1,000 including accommodations and food. United Airlines rebooked her on a flight at no added cost, she said.

On Jan. 9, she went to at the airport with documentation that shed recovered from the virus from a virtual appointment with her doctor. She also tested negative at the airport and was able to come home.

Sandra Rizzolo said those who choose to travel overseas amid the pandemic should be prepared with a plan for what to do if a positive test derails travel plans. And that people should know local quarantine rules, and not to think a similar scenario couldnt happen to them.

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Dont even think that way, she said. If youre going to travel overseas, have a backup plan and a place you can stay.

rygillespie@orlandosentinel.com
Dr. Raul Pino, director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County, left, speaks at a news conference with Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings last June. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

The suspension of Orange Countys Dr. Raul Pino  after urging his health department staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19  is the most blatant example yet of the states increasingly tight muzzle on health authorities fighting the pandemic, critics say, making Florida one of the most repressive in the nation when it comes to public health matters.

According to six sources, including former Florida Department of Health employees, the state in recent years has required even the most mundane public statements to be approved by administrators in Tallahassee. And previous governors have been known to forbid county-level health workers from speaking in public forums on such topics as climate change.

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But the heavily politicized COVID-19 pandemic appears to have brought a new level of scrutiny.

This [suspension] is just shocking and dismaying, said Dr. Leslie Beitsch, who worked for the Florida Department of Health for 12 years before joining the faculty at the Florida State University College of Medicine. It starts with a callous disregard for science, and quite frankly it can have a dangerous chilling effect as important health information is stifled.

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Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of the Maryland-based de Beaumont Foundation, which advocates for improving community health programs, called the move immoral and unethical  but legal.

This is a pretty blatant move to silence a state employee, he said. They are preventing him from doing his job. They are preventing him from protecting the public. And theyre doing it to advance a political agenda. This is chilling for any public health leader in the state of Florida.

Pino, 58, became a respected voice of the pandemic response in the nations tourism capital, often appearing alongside Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, a Democrat, at news conferences. He was placed on paid administrative leave from his post as the states chief health officer in Orange County after a health department employee complained about an email Pino sent to staff.

Pinos Jan. 4 message, titled Concerned for us and our families, came a day after a prenatal clinic run by the health department had to cancel all appointments because too many workers were absent, presumably because they had tested positive for COVID-19 or were out sick.

In order to have a better picture on how this current wave could affect us and the people we served, I ask[ed] our analyst to run vaccination data for our [employees], Pino wrote. Shocker! ... We are not even at 50%.

Less than 39% had been fully immunized, and less than 14% had received a booster, he wrote. I have a hard time understanding how [we can work] in public health and not practice it!

Earlier this week, Florida Department of Health spokesperson Weesam Khoury said the department is investigating whether any laws were broken, adding, The decision to get vaccinated is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers.

Pino said he could not comment for this story. The state Department of Health did not respond to questions on the situation and a request for comment.

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Last fall, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law prohibiting state government agencies from implementing vaccine mandates, and Floridas Agency for Health Care Administration has warned health care providers in the state that they may face fines if they comply a federal vaccination mandate for health workers that is expected to overcome legal challenges.

In November, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference to publicly sign a bill prohibiting mask and vaccine mandates for workers. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) (Chris O'Meara/AP)

That would almost certainly mean a showdown between the federal and state government over COVID-19 vaccinations, including those for Florida Department of Health employees that staff medical clinics and COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites.

Although the pandemic has spawned national political divides over a range of public health issues  masks, lock-downs, vaccinations and even the seriousness of the virus  the tensions in Florida tend to run higher. For one, Gov. DeSantis has disagreed sharply with federal health officials, including those at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on how to respond to the spread of the virus.

But Floridas public health system is also set up differently than those in most of the nation. While some health-related duties are left to the counties  care for jail inmates, restaurant inspections and some primary-care clinics, for instance  the response to infectious disease is led by the state.

Across the country, the majority of states have a decentralized model, where the local health departments and the state health departments are independent entities, said Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs for the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Any time that politics intersects with public health like this, it impacts how the local experts can do their jobs.

The chief health officer in each county reports to the states surgeon general  currently Dr. Joseph Ladapo, a controversial figure who has sparked outrage with statements against masks and mass COVID testing.

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If Gov. DeSantis wants a particular policy for public health, hes going to get it and nobody in the state is going to push back, said a former high-ranking Department of Health employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal by his current employer. That just wouldnt happen in a lot of states.

The Health Report Weekly A weekly update on health news in Florida. >

But Florida is certainly not alone in butting heads with health officials.

Last summer, Tennessees top vaccination officials, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician, was fired after Republican lawmakers protested a letter Fiscus sent to medical providers explaining the legality of allowing them to vaccinate children 14 and up without parental consent. The states health department did not comment on the reasons behind the move.

Elsewhere, public health workers have faced a barrage of verbal attacks from lawmakers and threats of violence from the public. Nationally, more than 500 local health officials have left their jobs since the beginning of the pandemic, either because they were forced out explicitly or felt railroaded or burned out.

Seeing that much turnover in local health departments is particularly rare and alarming, Casalotti said. What we are losing is experience thats critical not just to get us through this pandemic, but also to help us rebuild and recover and prepare for whatever the next crisis is.

Part of the solution should be a separation between elected officials and public health leaders, Castrucci said.

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The question for anyone working in public health these days is: Is your priority the politics or the people? he said. More and more, if you want to keep your job or you want to get promoted, its the politics that take priority. And thats a bad day for the people.

ksantich@orlandosentinel.com. Reporter Stephen Hudak contributed to this story.
Jasper, TX (75951)

Today

Cloudy early with partial sunshine expected late. High 87F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy during the evening followed by cloudy skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
A KJAS reader, who requested to remain anonymous, snapped this photo of Jasper Police at Sandy Creek Park Pond on Thursday. Officers had to remind someone that fishing is not allowed in the pond until after the conclusion of the annual Trout Derby.
From left: Katherine Ramsberger (CEO of Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts), Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, Margery Pabst Steinmetz, and Chuck Steinmetz address the crowd during the Grand Celebration opening ceremony for the new Steinmetz Hall in the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, January 14, 2022. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer tested positive for COVID-19 Friday, his official Twitter account announced and city staff confirmed.

His wife, Susie Dyer, also tested positive.

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Dyer, 63, is the second Central Florida mayor forced to isolate this week because of a COVID infection, joining Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, 62, who discovered Tuesday evening he was infected with the virus. Demings attended staff and public meetings remotely this week.

Dyers results were confirmed by a rapid test taken Friday after the mayor was told he was exposed to the virus, city staff said.

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Today, after being made aware that I had been exposed to COVID-19, Susie & I both tested positive, said Dyer in an e-mail provided by Samantha Holsten, a city spokesperson. We are currently asymptomatic, which I credit to being vaccinated & boosted. I will continue to isolate & work on City business remotely as directed by CDC guidelines.

Dyer and Susie received booster shots on Dec.9, a pinned tweet on his official page says.

Dyers positive COVID test comes one day after he posted a video on Twitter urging vaccination and booster shots.

Being vaccinated is absolutely the best defense to becoming sick or even dying, Dyer said in the video. So, if you havent been vaccinated, I encourage you to get vaccinated. If youve been vaccinated, I encourage you to get the booster.

Neither Dyer nor Demings speculated on how or where they were infected.

Orange County remains a community of high COVID transmission, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines as more than 100 infections per 100,000 residents. The countys rate over the past seven days is about 1,345 infections per 100,000 residents, a week-to-week improvement.

Last week, the county rate measured 2,206 infections per 100,000 residents.

The surge was fueled by the omicron variant which has infected fully vaccinated people and re-infected unvaccinated people.

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Both Dyer and Demings have led Central Floridas push for vaccination, testing and safety protocols,

Demings, who also is vaccinated and boosted, sent a similar message to county employees concerning his infection, promising to work from home.

Thankfully, I am only experiencing mild symptoms, he said. I encourage you to get tested if you are feeling sick. That way, if you do test positive as I did, you can isolate and not spread the virus to others.

Demings also told county employees he arranged for COVID-19 testing for them and their family members from the same household weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. at the Facilities Management Training Room, located at 2010 E. Michigan St.

His message linked to a document for managing COVID-19 exposure and provided information about vaccines and COVID risks.

In part, it read, The vaccination does not cause: cough, shortness of breath, runny nose/congestion, sore throat, loss of taste or smell. Employees with these symptoms should be quarantined ... County guidelines require employees with a positive COVID-19 test to isolate for five calendar days regardless of vaccination status.

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cguniss@orlandosentinel.com; shudak@orlandosentinel.com
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JEFFERSON CITY  Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has filed lawsuits against multiple Missouri school districts over the districts' mask mandates, including Columbia Public Schools and the Jefferson City School District.

According to court documents, Schmitt argues school districts do not have the authority to impose public health orders.

The lawsuits include four counts, including that the mask mandate is "void," "unlawful" and "unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious." It also claims the mandate is a violation of the Missouri Constitution.

The Columbia Board of Education approved a temporary mask mandate through Feb. 4 at its work session Thursday. The school board also gave Superintendent Brian Yearwood the authority to extend the mask mandate until Feb. 18 if deemed necessary.

CPS spokesperson Michelle Baumstark sent a statement to KOMU 8 and said the district has yet to be served in an official capacity, but obtained a copy of the lawsuit. It said providing a safe learning environment for students and staff is one of their top priorities.

"Filing suits against numerous public school districts for making decisions in the interest of safety and keeping scholars in school continues to waste taxpayer dollars and resources, which are better spent investing in our scholars. Columbia Public Schools intends to aggressively defend its decision to do everything possible to keep its scholars and staff safe and its schools open," the statement said.

According to its COVID dashboard, CPS has 279 students out due to COVID-19 and 72 staff members. The district called off school Friday, Monday and Tuesday to allow teacher workdays.

JCSD reimplemented its mask mandate this week after an increase of COVID-19 cases within the district. JCSD said it has seen an uptick in staff absences and the ongoing sub shortage has become "increasingly more difficult." The mask mandate is in place until further notice.

JCSD has 72 active student cases and 28 active staff cases, according its COVID dashboard. The district also called off school on Friday due to staffing shortages.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says masks are effective at reducing the transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19 when worn correctly and consistently.

The CDC's website says, Masking is a critical public health tool for preventing spread of COVID-19, and it is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask.

Schmitt told KOMU 8 on Tuesday that masking should be a decision that is left up to families.

COVID is with us and we just got to give people the information, allow them to make their own decisions, Schmitt said.

This is Schmitt's second lawsuit against CPS over its mask mandate. He filed the suit in August 2021 and then dropped the lawsuit in December after the Board of Education voted to rescind the mandate when students returned after winter break. CPS spokesperson Michelle Baumstark said the removal of the mask mandate was due to the increased vaccine availability, not due to his lawsuit.

Three parents with children in the CPS district are included as plaintiffs on the current suit - Amanda Hamlin, Tara Arnett and Marisa Hagler.

In a statement, House Minority Leader Crystal Quade (D-Springfield) called the lawsuits an "abuse of power" that "harms Missouri children."

"These lawsuits are beyond frivolous and read more like campaign literature while citing scant legal authority for his position, which is not surprising since there isnt any," the statement said in part.

Schmitt, along with 76 parents serving as plaintiffs, filed 36 lawsuits against the following districts with mask mandates:

Columbia Public Schools Jefferson City School District Francis-Howell R-III School District Park Hill School District Fort Zumwalt School District Lee's Summit R-VII School District Holden R-III School District Affton School District Liberty School District Charles R-VI Public School District Kansas City Missouri School District Dunklin R-5 School District St. Louis Public School District North Kansas City Public School District Waynesville R-VI School District Brentwood School District Rockwood R-VI Missouri School District Raytown C-2 School District School District of Clayton Ladue School District Independence School District Mehlville Public Schools Kingsville R-I School District Parkway C-2 School District Valley Park School District Center School District Fox C-6 School District Pattonville R-III School District Warrensburg R-VI School District Webster Groves School District Hickman Mills C-1 School District Maplewood Richmond Heights School District Ferguson-Florissant School District Hazelwood School District Lindbergh School District Grandview school District C-4

Schmitt said the Attorney Generals Office is working with private attorneys who are offering pro-bono legal services to parents, including Stanley B. Cox, Jennifer M. Cross, and Mark C. Milton.
After an hours-long hostage standoff at a synagogue in Texas a week ago, Central Florida f a ith leaders and local police departments are on high alert.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Department of Homeland Security in a joint letter asked houses of worship and law enforcement agencies to evaluate their security positions as faith-based communities are at risk for copycat attacks.

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Given the Jewish experience in the United States and the last few years of the current atmosphere the general feeling is that this is not an, If an attack will happen again, but, When it does, Rabbi David Kay said. We are saddened but ultimately relieved that everyone is okay.

Synagogues are some of the most secure houses of worship due to the centuries-long attacks on Jewish communities, Kay said. His Maitland synagogue, Congregation Ohev Shalom, is equipped with security cameras, intercoms and private security guards.

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Having private security is standard practice for most of the Jewish community, Kay said. Our security guards get to know the usual congregation and have to politely question the new members before letting them in.

Throughout his 20-year tenure as a rabbi, he has never had a violent incident yet he said he and most of the Jewish community operate under the premise that, even though the chances of being attacked are slim, you still must prepare  because it can be deadly.

A gunman took a rabbi and three congregants hostage last weekend at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. The ordeal stretched on for 11 hours with only one hostage freed until Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker hurled a chair at the assailant before fleeing to safety with the remaining hostages. No one was killed.

A law enforcement vehicle sits near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on January 16, 2022 in Colleyville, Texas. All four people who were held hostage surivived after more than 10 hours of being held captive by a gunman. ((Brandon Bell/Getty Images/TNS))

Some of the regions largest law enforcement agencies say theyre taking proactive steps in light of the Texas attack, though none reported an increase in threats against faith organizations.

In response to the FBI and DHS warning, Orange County Sheriffs Office spokesperson Alex Villarreal said the agency has increased patrols and will stay in close contact with the countys faith groups.

Similarly, spokesperson Karla Mendoza said the Seminole County Sheriffs Office has increased patrols at all synagogues in the county.

Some local faith leaders say the biggest threat to houses of worship is people with mental health conditions.

On Dec. 24, 2021, Pastor David Swanson from First Presbyterian Church of Orlando said he was only 15 minutes away from starting Christmas Eve service when a man walked into his downtown church and screamed at the pulpit.

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We always beef up security on bigger service days like Christmas Eve, Swanson said. Its easy to get relaxed about security until you see an incident happen again.

Swansons church typically has one or more plain-clothed police officers mixed with the congregation and another officer outside, both armed, he said. Since the Texas synagogue incident, they have held meetings among their staff to review safety plans, Swanson said.

Meanwhile, some houses of worship with high immigrant populations are worried about increasing law enforcement presence.

A lot of my congregants were abused by police in their country so if we put police out front they might be scared to go to church, said Father Jose Rodriguez, vicar of Iglesia Episcopal Jesus de Nazaret. We have to find that balance of security and acceptance for refuge in spirituality.

Rodriguez has firsthand experience with violence targeting faith-leaders and their communities. In November 2021, his house was broken into during the time he was scheduled to give a service that was also being live-streamed.

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My heart tells me that I was broken into because they knew my movements either from online schedules of the live stream or traditional surveillance, Rodriguez said. We wont be having our schedules online going forward.

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At Rodiguezs church, there have been occasional incidents  he estimated they occur once or twice a year  involving people who are in mental health crises, which can become violent, he said.

To combat any possible faith-based violence, the Interfaith Council of Central Florida is planning a Zoom meeting between houses of worship and local FBI officials, said James Coffin, executive director of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida.

In partnership with local faith leaders and law enforcement, a program by the Mercy Foundation called Bridge The Gap offers consistent communication about the safety of houses of worship in Central Florida, said Imam Abdul Patel, who often leads these discussions.

The program also focuses on training faith leaders for different situations, Patel said. Texas Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker credits similar training from local police departments for escaping the synagogue hostage situation unharmed.

The Central Florida area is different to other areas, Coffin said. There is a cohesive effort that we are going to stand together if you are against us.

njaramillo@orlandosentinel.com
K-9 self-propelled howitzers / Korea Times file



By Nam Hyun-woo



CAIRO  President Moon Jae-in will return home from his eight-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, without inking a deal with Cairo on exports of Korea's K-9 self-propelled howitzers.



According to Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) minister Kang Eun-ho, Friday, the two countries held negotiations over the K-9 deal until just hours before Moon and his delegation were set to leave Cairo.



"As I speak, DAPA officials are in talks with their Egyptian counterparts," Kang told reporters. "We have suggested several options, but it seems the Egyptian side needs time. Even though they give answers before we leave, it will take time for us to respond to them."



Kang's comments came a day after Moon held a summit with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and told reporters in a joint press conference that the two countries recognized the howitzers would be helpful in improving Egypt's military capability, with the leaders agreeing that "the two countries will jointly make efforts to the complete the deal."



The President's visit to Cairo raised expectations that Korea may be able to sign a deal to export the K-9 howitzers to Egypt. If signed, the deal is anticipated to be worth 2 trillion won ($1.68 billion), and Egypt will be the ninth country operating the howitzers.



Against this backdrop, Moon's comment on the K-9 deal at the joint press conference was interpreted as an effort to prevent the negotiations from being protracted and to complete the deal before he leaves Egypt.



According to Cheong Wa Dae, Kang joined a luncheon between Moon and El-Sisi a day earlier and the presidents each asked their defense acquisition chiefs to continue negotiations until the last moment.



However, Kang said Moon later told him not to "push ahead with the negotiations and to engage in talks in a 'wholesome manner' because healthy relations between the two countries are more important than the K-9 deal."



"If there is a time limit or pressure, it will be difficult for negotiators to draw out desirable outcomes," Kang said. "However, the President gave directions to take time for a long-term negotiation, and it was a big help."



Kang said the two sides agreed on various details of the deal, but there are a number of differences, which he refused to elaborate.



He added that Egypt is expressing interest in purchasing Korea's K2 Black Panther battle tank and other weapon systems developed by Korea.



While the negotiations over the howitzers continued, Moon wrapped up his eight-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. He will arrive in Seoul on Saturday.


First grade students desks are set apart from one another when in the past they would have been put together in groups of four at Sunrise Elementary in Kissimmee, Fla., Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. he absences of students and faculty due to COVID related illnesses have made it challenging to staff the school and now colleagues and parents are volunteering to fill in the gaps to keep the school open. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel) (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

Thousands of Central Florida students continue to miss school because of COVID-19 as do hundreds of teachers and other staff, absences that have raised fears about ongoing learning loss and left principals helping in cafeterias, aides running classes and teachers taking on missing colleagues students.

Its definitely a struggle, no question, said Wendy Honeycutt, principal of Sunrise Elementary School in Osceola County, who worked from home last week after she tested positive for the virus.

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Everyone is having to be incredibly flexible, just trying to cover wherever, she said. People are doing it because they know its needed, and its what best for kids.

Honeycutt was back on campus this week but Thursday morning 14 Sunrise teachers and other employees were out because of COVID-19 and two others had to leave midday when they showed symptoms of illness. About 100 Sunrise students were absent that day; pre-pandemic maybe 25 would be, she added.

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Wendy Honeycutt, principal of Sunrise Elementary School in Osceola County, works inside the lunchroom in Kissimmee, Fla., Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. School staff have been filling in across the campus as COVID-19 forces employees and students to miss school. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel) (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

The recent coronavirus surge, fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant, began in late December in Florida, just when schools were closed for their winter break. When Central Florida campuses reopened the week of Jan. 3, they quickly felt omicrons presence, as the number of cases reported for students and staff shot up and then so did the absences.

COVID-19 cases statewide began falling last week giving educators some hope of a coming reprieve but the positivity rate in the region is still more than 30% and many schools have empty desks.

Orange County Public Schools reported about 28,500 student absences on Tuesday, an improvement from the 40,000 absences reported Wednesday, Jan. 5 but still more than double the 12,600 reported on Wednesday, Dec. 8., before the recent surge, OCPS figures show.

Educators said absences come from students who tested positive, students who are sick and students who were exposed to a positive student and opted to stay off-campus.

The Orange school district reported hundreds of student COVID-19 cases every school day since classes restarted Jan. 4, for a total of more than 6,700 so far in 2022. There were 743 reported on Tuesday alone. By comparison, from October through December the daily caseload was typically in the double digits, with 13 cases reported Nov. 17, for example.

Both the Lake and Osceola county school districts reported more than 1,000 students and hundreds of staff tested positive for COVID-19 last week.

In response, Lake County Schools sent 93 employees from its district office out to schools to help fill in for absent employees. The district posted a photo on Facebook of an assistant superintendent in an elementary school cafeteria where hed helped open milk cartons and ketchup packets for young students.

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Regina Lopez, a Lake mother, said that in the three weeks since break, some of her childrens teachers have been absent, and her kids have missed school after a younger sibling tested positive for COVID-19.

Her second and third graders teachers posted some work online for them to do at home, though it didnt make up for the missed school days. Her kindergarteners teacher told her so many students in the class were absent that she wasnt going to post assignments and would try to catch everyone up later.

All of it has led Lopez to a blunt conclusion: This school year has been horrible. The kids are behind, she said.

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Seminole County School Board member Tina Calderone, speaking at Tuesdays board meeting, said she worried about the academic fallout from so many students and staff missing school.

I spent the morning in a school today, and theres a lot of absences, she said. When teachers are absent, the teaching isnt occurring. And when the students are absent theyre not able to take in all the great education that our teachers are imparting.

Seminole County Public Schools reported 489 active COVID-19 cases among students and staff on Friday.

Teacher absences are especially challenging for schools now because of an ongoing shortage of substitute teachers. That means sometimes students are divided up among other classes or several classes are combined in one big room, supervised but not always with someone who can provide the days lessons.

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Our students are sitting in the gym and in the computer labs and playing on their phones, said Belinda Ewen, a Seminole parent, speaking at Tuesdays meeting. Theres no way if our teachers arent presentthat our students are getting the best education they possibly can.

At Sunrise just outside Kissimmee, Honeycutt understands all those worries.

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Teachers are trying to push ahead with instruction but large numbers of absent students mean constant catch-up efforts, too.

Were seeing the learning loss because of absenteeism, she said.

Her staff has been amazing trying to cover for absent colleagues and taking on tasks outside their job descriptions. The school also appreciates the parents and grandparents who have stepped in to help, supervising children in the cafeteria, for example. She hopes parents continue to show us some grace when things do not run as smoothly as usual.

Its been really hard since coming back from break, she added.

lpostal@orlandosentinel.com
The Pima County Health Department and Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs (AZDEMA) will begin drive-thru COVID-19 testing on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022.
The FBI announced on Friday that it has closed the investigation into Gabby Petitos death.

FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Michael H. Schneider said, all logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case. The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito.

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The bureau also said that a review of a notebook found among Laundries belonging in Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park last October, revealed written statements by Laundrie claiming responsibility for Petitos death.

#FBIDenver issues a final investigative update on the Gabrielle Petito Case. https://t.co/44SiImlo6C pic.twitter.com/IygdHuIWbv  FBI Denver (@FBIDenver) January 21, 2022

In September of last year, authorities found Petitos remains at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area in Grand Teton National Park, three weeks after her last known communication with family, the report said.

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The Teton County Coroners Office concluded that Petitio had died of blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation, the report included.

In October, Brian Laundries remains were found in Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in Sarasota, along with a backpack, notebook and a revolver. A Florida medical examiner confirmed in November that Laundrie had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Read full the FBIs full report here.
Arizona COVID long-haulers experiencing symptoms for weeks, months, a year as researchers work to figure out why
Have a news tip or would like to report a typo? Email Anthony Victor Reyes at areyes@kvoa.com.
Hector Castro Manley, 32, of Naples, accused of molesting dozens of children, has received a 25-year prison sentence.. (Collier County Sheriff's Office)

A former second-grade teacher accused of molesting dozens of children has received a 25-year prison sentence, according to a news report.

Hector Castro Manley, 32, of Naples pleaded no contest and was adjudicated guilty on 20 counts of lewd and lascivious molestation of a victim under 12, Wink News reported Friday.

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He had turned himself and was charged in March 2019 after former students and their families came forward accusing him of inappropriate behavior, Wink News reported.

A court spokesperson said Manley has also been classified as a sexual predator. Upon release from prison, he will not be allowed to contact any of the victims, and will be placed on sex offender probation.

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Manley taught at Parkside Elementary School.
The Northern New England Red Cross is installing smoke detectors this weekend. Do you have a fire evacuation plan for your home? How about when you are traveling?
It's not boating weather in Missouri, but that doesn't mean you can't prepare for boating season. The Missouri Highway Patrol is reminding boaters who need to take their boater safety course for the first time, or who could use a refresher on boating laws and safety: free classes are available online.

Boaters can sign up for a certified course in a classroom at: https://www.mshp.dps.missouri.gov/WP02Web/app/safetyEdClasses

Missouri law requires everyone born after January 1, 1984, who operates a vessel on Missouri lakes to possess a certified boating safety education card. This includes personal watercraft operators.

These approved courses meet the national boating educational standard.

Missouri's many rivers and lakes offer a variety of boating opportunities," said Col. Olson. "Please do your part: Take a boating safety class. Join us in our mission to promote safety on our waterways.

The classroom courses provided by the Missouri State Highway Patrol are free, but registration is required and the boater ID card costs $15.

Dont see classes in your troop location? Contact your nearest troop headquarters and ask to speak with a marine operations supervisor to check the possibility of administering additional classes. Troopers welcome invitations to teach classes for groups and teams throughout the state.

TROOP HEADQUARTERS CONTACT INFORMATION:

Troop A Lees Summit- (816) 622-0800

Troop B Macon- (660) 385-2132

Troop C Weldon Spring- (636) 300-2800

Troop D Springfield- (417) 895-6868

Troop E Popular Bluff- (573) 840-9500

Troop F Jefferson City- (573) 751-1000

Troop G Willow Springs- (417) 469-3121

Troop H St. Joseph- (816) 387-2345

Troop I Rolla- (573) 368-2345

U.S. Coast Guard statistics indicate that of the boating crashes where the level of operator education was known, 80.6% of boating deaths occurred on boats where the boat operator had never received boating education instruction. In contrast, only 19.4% of deaths occurred on vessels where the operator possessed a nationally-approved boating safety education certificate.
CAMDENTON, Mo.  Law enforcement and school administration are investigating an incident at Camdenton High School, in which a student allegedly threatened another student with a knife, Friday morning.

Camdenton parents received an email from Principal Brett Thompson on Friday, informing them that a high school student had brought a knife to school and brandished it towards another student. The full email is included below.

January 21, 2022

Good morning, this is Brett Thompson, principal at Camdenton High School.

This morning before school in the HS commons, a student was in possession of a knife and brandished the knife towards another student. HS staff members intervened and diffused the situation. Further investigation by school administration and school resource officers is currently underway and appropriate discipline will be issued.

Students safety and well-being continue to be our number one priority, and we will continue working to provide a safe learning environment for our students. We appreciate your continued support and partnership. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you.
Because residents in rural areas do not have close access to pharmacies or places that offer COVID-19 tests, they may put off driving several miles to reach a testing site if they start feeling ill, said Dr. Mohammad Afzal, a pediatrician who practices in Lake and Sumter counties.

It can be very cumbersome to find a nearby place to get a test, he said.

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In effect, those individuals are more likely to put off getting tested and then likely infect other members of their household by not self-isolating, Afzal said.

To combat the problem, Afzal recently obtained more than 10,000 COVID-19 at-home tests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that he plans to begin distributing Monday free to anyone who walks into one of his five offices.

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No questions asked. You dont have to fill out forms or applications. Nothing, he said Thursday in his Tavares office as he opened dozens of cardboard boxes filled with the QuickVue At Home COVID-19 tests that he received that day.

We want people to get tested. So that they can isolate if they find out they have the virus, and we can help stop the spread, he said. And if someone feels sick, they can easily test at home.

He is limiting distribution to two boxes  or four tests  for each household.

Dr. Mohammad Afzal, a pediatrician in Lake and Sumter counties, opens a box and examines more than 40 COVID-19 test kits he recently received from the federal government. He plans to begin distributing the kits free of charge to the public next week as a way of helping residents of rural areas get tested for the virus. (Martin E. Comas/Orlando Sentinel) (Martin E. Comas)

This week, the federal government opened COVIDTests.gov, the website for Americans to order free COVID test kits. Orders are expected to begin shipping out by the end of this month via the U.S. Postal Service.

Also, health insurance providers are now responsible for covering up to 8 at-home COVID-19 test kits per person per month.

But Afzal said those methods work only if people are willing to wait for the postman to drop off a test kit in their mailbox, or if they have health insurance, something that many people in rural areas lack.

Mayor Kent Adcock, of Umatilla, a small city in north Lake County, said he, like many other nearby residents, was recently tested at the Lake County Fairgrounds, off County Road 452, just north of State Road 44, in Eustis.

But in more rural areas farther north from Umatilla, such as near Paisley and the Ocala National Forest, there is a lack of pharmacies and testing sites.

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When you get near the [Ocala National] Forest, you have more of a challenge, Adcock said.

And he is pleased that Afzal is handing out the kits. Adcocks parents both died of COVID-19 in early 2020 after becoming infected with the virus. And so he urges people to get tested.

Afzal said he plans to notify the school districts and other community facilities that his offices are handing out the test kits.

Even if an individual does not feel sick, they should still pick up a test kit and store it at home in case they start feeling ill later, Afzal said. The test kits are good for up to two years.

Well keep doing this as long as there is a need, Afzal said. This virus is not going to go away. It is waning. And there may be a downturn in infections [in the coming months]. But this virus is not going to go away.

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These are the locations for the free test kits:

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 Excel Pediatrics and Family Care, Suite 102, 265 Citrus Tower Blvd., Clermont.

 Leesburg Pediatrics, 8113 Centralia Court, Leesburg.

 Clermont Professional Peds, No. 5, 1050 U.S. Highway 27, Clermont

 Tavares Pediatrics, 2523 Dora Ave., Tavares.

 Sumter Pediatrics, 617 U.S Road 301, Sumterville.

mcomas@orlandosentinel.com
Osage Beach, MO (65065)

Today

Cloudy with occasional showers for the afternoon. High 63F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Rain showers in the evening will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Low 56F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a half an inch.
Osage Beach, MO (65065)

Today

Cloudy with occasional showers for the afternoon. High 64F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Rain showers in the evening will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Low around 55F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near an inch.
Josh Mayhugh took the 2019 bid-calling winners plaque and traveling trophy along home to Chambersburg on Wednesday night of the Pennsylvania Farm Show.
Callery pear trees are an invasive species that are known to overtaken open areas such as abandoned farm fields. The state agriculture department recently implemented a ban on the sale and propagation of Callery pear, which will take place over the next two years.
Budgetary allocation to health sector was increased by 137 per cent to Rs 2,23,846 crore for 2021-22.

By Gyanendra Kumar Keshri

New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI): Coronavirus crisis has brought healthcare to the focus of priorities for the common people and the policymakers alike. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to give a big push to investments in health infrastructure and provide some other financial support to healthcare sector in the Union Budget 2022-23 scheduled to be presented on February 1.

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Public expenditure on healthcare in India is among the lowest in the world. As per the government data, it stands at around 1.2 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

Compare it with other countries: the United States spends over 16 per cent of its GDP in public healthcare. The countries like Japan, France, Germany and Canada spend around 10 per cent. Even the poorer countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh spend around 3 per cent of their GDP on public health system. The world average is around 6 per cent of GDP.

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Clearly, India requires to give a big push to investment in health sector. In 2021-22 budget presented in the parliament on February 1, 2021, the finance minister announced to more than double the budgetary allocation for health sector. The budgetary allocation to health sector was increased to Rs 2,23,846 crore for the financial year 2021-22, which is 137 per cent higher when compared with the outlay of Rs 94,452 crore in 2020-21.

Sitharaman not only announced 137 per cent increase in the budgetary allocation to health sector in 2021-22 budget but also gave assurance of continued support and enhanced allocation in the future.

While presenting the 2021-22 union budget, Sitharaman stated that while the investment on health infrastructure in this Budget has increased substantially, "progressively, as institutions absorb more, we shall commit more".

According to a survey conducted by the industry body ASSOCHAM, the finance minister is likely to give top priority to health sector.

As many as 47 per cent of the respondents in the industry survey expressed hope that the finance minister will give top priority to healthcare in 2022-23 Budget.

According to 'COVID-19 Induced Healthcare Transformation in India' report published jointly by FICCI and KPMG in October 2021, public health sector allocation is expected to increase to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2024-25 from around 1.2 per cent of the GDP in 2021-22.

The report notes that the COVID-19 pandemic not only brought into focus that the healthcare sector is the backbone of a country but also opened a floodgate of opportunities for the country to head towards a more resilient and robust healthcare system one that is capable of not only fighting the current situation but also in safeguarding populations against any unanticipated challenges in the future.

"The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in our health systems and amplified already existing challenges pertaining to gaps in health infrastructure, workforce, accessibility and equity in health services. But at the same time, it also reinforced an urgent need to make greater investments in augmenting health preparedness and quality of care," said Alok Roy, Chair, FICCI Health Services Committee & Chairman, Medica Group of Hospitals.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has suggested that the public investment in healthcare should be increased to at least 3 per cent of the GDP by FY 2025.

The industry body has also pitched for creation of a Medical Innovation Fund that should support private sector and empower them to innovate and conduct research and development (R&D). The Fund should also support in implementation of new digital healthcare platforms and adoption of new technologies.

The healthcare sector also expects some tax sops from the finance minister. The industry has been pitching for reduction in GST on raw materials that goes into active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) from 18 per cent to 12 per cent. There has also been demands for reduction import duties on medical devices.

There has also been demands for simplification of norms related to foreign direct investment (FDI) in healthcare.

"FDI investment process should be simplified, and taxation-related compliances should be kept to a minimum. As the medical industry does not pay GST and wellness being a part of it, the GST rate for wellness services should be 5 per cent rather than the current 18 per cent. In terms of GST, the wellness industry should be on par with the business industry," said Mugdha Pradhan, CEO and Founder of iThrive.

Harminder Singh Multani, CEO, My Dental Plan Private Ltd, emphasises for the need for special attention to oral healthcare.

"While there is a lot of impetus being laid of healthcare, (and rightly so), oral health is still not getting the importance that it deserves. It is a well-established fact that oral well-being is the gateway to overall health. This year, the government should look at steps to give a fillip to this segment," said Multani. (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 [India], January 21 (ANI/TPT): Indie Songster, Composer and Lyricist Yashraj Shaw releases his new song 'Tum Meri Thi' on his official YouTube channel. It is a Hindi-Pop track which depicts the grit and determination of not giving up on your love with a pinch of innocence. The music video captures the serenity of Meghalaya, from villages to the Shillong city which adds to the beauty of the track. It features Triveni Barman in lead role who was the finalist of Miss India 2017 and was crowned as Miss India Assam in 2017.

In this age of swiping left and right, it is going to be old school where moving on is not as easy as it looks like. When you love someone and if it is reciprocated equally, giving up or moving on is a little outlandish. No relationship is perfect but it does not mean that love doesn't exist.

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Talking about the creation of the song, the artist says, "Every Artist needs an inspiration to create something. I, as an artist, find inspiration from my stories. I decided to write and compose this song after breaking up with my girlfriend but of course, I never gave up and we started talking again after months. This was the time when I created 'Tum Meri Thi' with all the love and emotions in the world It took me a couple of hours to write it and a few more hours to compose it because I knew how I wanted this song to be. The next step was to produce & record it and it was done in Mumbai. Once it was recorded, I was keeping my options open to shoot for the music video. I have spent my teenage in Meghalaya and it is also the place where I met this girl, so there wouldn't have been a better place to shoot it."

'Tum Meri Thi' is all about doing everything for the love which was meant to be destined. It's about how one can travel a thousand miles to get back to the person whom he loves. The main crux lyrics of the track is 'Tum Meri Thi, Tum Meri Ho, Tum Meri hi Rahogi', says the vocalist Yashraj. He previously released his original 'Kaise Kahu' in 2019 and his recent release 'Rehnuma' which was produced by Baanyan Tree Productions released on January 3, 2022. 'Tum Meri Thi' is his third track. The video of 'Tum Meri Thi' is his way of tributing the beauty of Meghalaya where he has spent most of his teenage years.

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Streaming on Yashraj's YT channel and on all the audio streaming platforms

Tum Meri Thi - https://youtu.be/Qc4PhDUQvaQ

This story is provided by TPT. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/TPT)

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New Delhi, January 21: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the Congress government constructed new things only for their families after independence while his government is building monuments of national importance. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the new Circuit House near Somnath Temple in Gujarat, the Prime Minister said that the country is leaving behind that narrow thinking and building new places of pride, giving them grandeur.

"After Independence, new things were constructed only for a few families from Delhi. But today the country is leaving behind that narrow thinking, building new places of pride, giving them grandeur. It is our own government that built Babasaheb Memorial in Delhi. It is our own government that built the APJ Abdul Kalam memorial in Rameshwaram. Similarly, the places associated with Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Shyamji Krishna Varma have been given grandeur. Adivasi museums are also being built across the country to bring forth the glorious history of our tribal society," said PM Modi.

He further said that the initiatives like Incredible India and Dekho Apna Desh are opening up the endless possibilities in the tourism sector. "Today, the development of tourist centres is not just a part of the government scheme, but a campaign of public participation. The development of our cultural heritage is a great example," he added. Statehood Day 2022: PM Narendra Modi Greets People of Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura on Foundation Day.

The Prime Minister also enumerated four steps to boost the tourism sector.

"In today's time, four things are necessary to increase tourism. These 4 Ss are essential to boost our tourism sector. Swachhta; Suvidha: i.e increased facilities, be it infrastructure or transport; Samay: People want to cover many places in lesser time; and Soch: We need new innovative thinking that is also rooted in our cultural heritage," said PM Modi.

He further said that today the country is looking at tourism in a holistic way.

"Improved transport facilities, promenades, parking and tourist facilitation centre, waste management facilities reflect our efforts towards strengthening our tourist facilities for people," he added.

The Prime Minister further urged people to travel and discover their own roots by visiting hidden gems of India. "Vocal for Local is not limited to buying local products. I urge you, before you think of travelling abroad, travel and discover your roots by visiting hidden gems of India," said PM Modi.

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Kochi (Kerala) [India], January 21 (ANI): Kerala High Court on Friday banned gatherings of more than 50 people in the Kasargod district for one week. The court issued the interim order on a plea challenging the revocation of the Kasargod District Collector's order imposing restrictions in the wake of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, CPI(M) party's district convention started today. Petitioner argued that the restrictions were compromised possibly to facilitate the Communist Party India (Marxist) district convention.

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Court's Division Bench asked, "what was so special about the meetings of political parties? Whether the current criteria were reasonable? Only 50 people were allowed to attend even in the Republic Day celebrations. The rate of hospitalised people on Kasargod is 36 per cent."

The plea was submitted by Arun Raj PN, an advocate clerk from Thiruvananthapuram as PIL.

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Earlier, the District Collector, who is also the Chairperson of the District Disaster Management Authority had issued an order only allowing 50 persons in any public gathering, including political gatherings.

In a revised order issued on Thursday, it was stated that the restriction should not be based on the TPR but on hospitalization and the number of beds available in hospitals.

The petitioner sought the Court to direct the Disaster Management Authority Chairperson to ensure strict compliance to the initial order imposing COVID curbs without any dilutions thereof and to prohibit CPI (M) from conducting their district conference in violation of all protocols. (ANI)

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New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI): The Delhi High Court on Friday listed the matter for February 3, a plea moved by Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) seeking payment of cost from Actress turned Environmentalist Juhi Chawla and others.

The cost was imposed on them by Justice JR Midha (now retired) while dismissing a petition connected with the rollout of 5G technology.

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On Friday, the bench of Justice C Harishankar deferred the matter for February 3, 2022, after the Lawyer appeared for Juhi Chawla said he didn't serve with the petition copy. Court also noted that the appeal in the matter is pending before the Division Bench of Delhi High Court.

The DSLSA has recently moved to the Delhi High Court sought payment of costs of Rs 20 lakh to them by Justice JR Midha in an order passed on dated June 4, 2021, while dismissing Chawla's civil suit against the roll-out of 5G technology in India.

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Petitioner DSLSA seeks court direction to allow the present execution petition and pass order to attach the properties of the Judgment Debtors or order civil imprisonment for Judgment Debtors to execute the award/order dated 04.06.2021.

The Delhi High Court last month had said it will hear the Actor-environmentalist Juhi Chawla appeal challenging the single bench order which had dismissed a lawsuit filed against the setting up of 5G wireless networks in the country on January 25, 2022.

In her appeal, Juhi Chawla stated that the single bench order dismissing the suit is bad in law as a suit can only be dismissed once it has been allowed to be registered as a suit by the Court.

The actor further stated that the single bench imposed costs on her even after plaint had not been permitted by him to make sure into a 'suit', and acting without jurisdiction, contrary to the law. She also challenged the single judge's finding that the motion was preferred only to gain publicity, whose motive was inferred by the learned single judge merely from the fact that Plaintiff had circulated the video-conferencing link of the High Court on her social media accounts which had resulted in the repeated disruption of the Court proceedings held on June 4, 2021.

Single Bench of Justice JR Midha had dismissed the lawsuit filed by actress-environmentalist Juhi Chawla against the setting up of 5G wireless networks in the country. The bench of Justice JR Midha while passing the judgment had said that Plaintiffs (Juhi Chawla and the other two petitioners) abused the process of law and imposed costs of Rs 20 lakh on plaintiffs.

The court in its order said, "It appears that the suit was for publicity. Plaintiff Juhi Chawla circulated the link of the hearing on social media which created the disruption thrice. Delhi Police shall identify the persons and take action against those who created disruption." According to the petition, the plaintiffs sought direction from the "arrayed defendants" to certify that 5G technology is safe for humans and every type of living organism and to produce their studies regarding RF radiation in support. The spokesperson further said that if not already conducted, efficient research should also be conducted without the participation of private interests. (ANI)

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New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI): Amicus and Senior Advocate Rebecca John on Friday told the Delhi High Court that there can be a legitimate expectation regarding sex in a marriage, but it cannot lead to forcible sex with the wife.

"There can be an expectation but expectation can not lead to forcible sex with your wife," said Senior Advocate Rebecca John, who is appearing as amicus curiae in the matter relating to marital sex.

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Amicus John made this submission before a bench of justices Rajiv Shakdher and C Hari Shankar, which was hearing a batch of petitions demanding criminalisation of marital rape.

Justice C Hari Shankar remarked that in a marital relationship, the husband has an expectation and pointed out that the legislature felt that this act done in the backdrop of the existence of such an expectation should not be equated with another act.

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Senior Advocate John replied that there is no wrong in having expectations and even both sides can have the expectation.

But expectation cannot result in a husband having a forceful relationship with his wife, she submitted adding that this is not about expectation. "This is about a man exercising his dominant right over wife despite the wife saying I cannot..." Amicus said that pointing out that it may result in marriage breaking down or it may result in the husband seeking civil remedies. She further added that the husband may be right and the wife may be unreasonable but there is no right, there can be an expectation that cannot lead to a forceful relationship with the wife.

However she stressed that expectation can lead to dialogue, may even lead to the wife being satisfied that she should be in a conjugal relationship.

The hearing would continue on Monday too.

The court was hearing a batch of petitions including by the NGOs RIT Foundation and All India Democratic Women's Association who have challenged an exception to section 375 to the Indian Penal Code.

The exception to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, says sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape. (ANI)

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Wastewater samples, drawn from Orange Countys three treatment facilities and from the Altamonte Springs sewer-service area, showed decreased concentrations of COVID-19 viral fragments in testing this week, continuing a nearly 14-day, hopeful trend that suggests the worst of the omicron-variant infection surge may have passed.

For the past week and a half, we have seen concentrations go down significantly, said Ed Torres, director of Orange County Utilities.

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The levels are still relatively high, compared to concentrations in samples drawn near Thanksgiving, but substantially less than record highs set in early January.

On Jan. 6, for instance, samples at the countys three wastewater-treatment facilities all topped 11.5 million parts per liter with the highest measuring 18.7 million parts per liter in samples from the Northwest Water Reclamation Facility in the Apopka area. Samples tested Monday, Jan. 17 all measured under 5 million parts per liter with the highest, 4.9 million, at the Northwest Water Reclamation Facility.

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Wastewater monitoring has been used as an early-warning system for local leaders. Tests of untreated wastewater samples find viral fragments shed through stool into sewer systems.

We now have three sampling results in a row that show substantial decrease  and that is certainly encouraging, Torres said.

While the numbers are trending in the right direction, Torres noted the figures are still high.

That means theres still a lot of the virus circulating out there and omicron particularly is highly transmissible, he said.

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Lower concentrations suggest infections are dropping.

The omicron variant is the regions dominant strain, said Frank Martz, city manager of Altamonte Springs.

Its system serves about 78,000 people. The Orange County plants serve about 870,000 people.

In samples taken from the Altamonte Springs sewer service area on Monday, omicron was still the most common COVID-19 variant, accounting for 99.5% of COVID-19 viral genomes, according to Martz. Delta wasnt detected in the sewage sample.

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For the first time in several weeks there was a 58% decrease in the virus concentration in the Altamonte service area, which covers Altamonte Springs, Maitland, unincorporated Seminole County, Winter Park, Eatonville, and parts of Longwood.

The region is still regarded as a community with high infection transmission, based on data monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

shudak@orlandosentinel.com, ccatherman@orlandosentinel.com
Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], January 21 (ANI): The state government has dedicated itself to providing 'Thrividha Dasoha of Anna '(food), 'Akshara' (education) and 'Ashraya' (shelter) for all the poor and weaker sections of the society, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said.

Speaking to media persons after launching the Dasoha(charity) programme as part of the Dasoha Day celebrations at Sri Siddaganga Mutt, Bommai said, Dasoha is a tradition of Karnataka. This is a day that conveys the importance of food, education and shelter, said Bommai.

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The state government has raised the per capita quota of rice for Anna Dasoha from 4kg to 5kg. Ragi and Jowar too are being distributed in accordance with the food habits of the region, he added.

The ration is being provided for Mutts and other charity institutions which are engaged in Anna Dasoha. As for Akshara Dasoha, the state government has launched the Vidya Nidhi scheme for children of farmers, Rs 150 cr has been released for direct disbursement of scholarships for children of construction workers. State and central governments have taken up housing schemes for Ashraya Dasoha and about 5 lakh houses are being built, Bommai said.

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On celebrating Dasoha Day as a government programme, Dasoha Day would be celebrated in a more organised way as a government programme. The state government is committed to spreading Dasoha culture all over the state. "I have participated in today's programme with a resolve to tread in the path of Siddaganga Seer. It is our government's mission to provide food, education and shelter for all," Bommai said.

Replying to a question about conferring Bharat Ratna for Sri Shivakumaraswamiji, the Chief Minister said he would decide on sending the recommendation to the union government after discussing the issue with his top leadership.

The meeting with expert committee members later in the afternoon would decide on the continuation of the weekend curfew. Many legislators, MPs and organisations are set to convey their opinion on the issue. A suitable decision would be taken based on the views of the experts and the trend of the prevailing third wave of COVID-19, Bommai said. (ANI)

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New Delhi [India], January 21 (ANI): Days after Delhi police registered a case against a person for allegedly outraging the modesty of a girl student in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the university's administration alongwith the security branch has been closely coordinating with police in process of investigation.

In an official statement by the University, it informed, "JNU Admin with the security branch has been closely coordinating with police in process of investigation. In case of any information related to this incident, residents are advised to immediately intimate to the security branch or the police."

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On January 18, Delhi Police registered a case against a person for allegedly outraging the modesty of a girl student pursuing PhD in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

The Delhi Police informed that the incident took place in the campus area last night, wherein one boy came on a bike from inside campus and tried to molest her. On January 18, a PCR call regarding molestation in JNU was received in PS Vasant Kunj North, the police said.

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Keeping in view the gravity of the matter, DCP South West district Gaurav Sharma along with SHO Vasant Kunj and staff immediately rushed to spot.

It was revealed that in the intervening night of January 17 and 18, 2022, one girl student, pursuing PhD in JNU, was taking a stroll within the campus itself. When she was walking on East gate road of the university, one boy came on a bike inside the campus and tried to molest her.

The girl raised a hue and cry and the accused on his bike speedily ran away within the campus itself.

A case has been registered and efforts are on to nab the accused.

Further probe in the matter is underway. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], January 21 (ANI): Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Madan Mitra has been directed by the party to stay away from social media after several of his controversial posts went viral.

The former West Bengal Transport Minister and a loyalist of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee said that he will stay away from posting on social media for several months.

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"My social media is a personal thing. I have decided that I will not come to any Facebook Live, Instagram or any other social networking site till June 30. It is because the name of social media is in the hand of media and I was part of social media. Now the name of media should be anti-social media," the Kamarhati MLA told ANI.

A controversy erupted over Mitra's social media post recently. The MLA was warned by the TMC Discipline Committee. (ANI)

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(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Washington, Jan 21 (AP) US President Joe Biden on Thursday said that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would "pay a heavy price" for such an action.

It was the latest White House effort to clear up comments Biden made a day earlier when he suggested that a "minor incursion" by Russia into Ukrainian territory could result in a more measured response by the United States and allies.

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Facing an avalanche of criticism from Republican lawmakers and Ukrainian officials that Biden's comments had invited limited military action by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden sought to clarify his remarks at the start of a meeting at the White House focused on domestic policy.

"I've been absolutely clear with President Putin," Biden said. "He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion," said Biden, adding that an invasion would be met with a "severe and coordinated economic response".

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His comments came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to meet on Friday in Geneva with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a high-stakes bid to ease tensions that appears likely to fail.

Biden said the US was preparing for Russia to take action that fell outside the parameters of a conventional warfare.

"Russia has a long history of using measures other than overt military action to carry out aggression--paramilitary tactics, so-called gray zone attacks and actions by Russian soldiers not wearing Russian uniforms," he said.

On Wednesday, Biden said he thinks Moscow will invade and warned Putin that Russia would pay a "dear price" in lives lost and a possible cutoff from the global banking system if it does.

But Biden also prompted consternation among allies by saying the response to a Russian invasion "depends on what it does."

"It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was among those expressing concern.

"We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones," he tweeted.

Before travelling to Geneva, Blinken warned in Berlin that there would be a "swift, severe" response from the United States and its allies if Russia sent any military forces into Ukraine.

"If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border and commit new acts of aggression against Ukraine, that will be met with a swift, severe, united response from the United States and our allies and partners," Blinken told a news conference with his German counterpart.

Later, Blinken accused Russia of threatening the foundations of world order with its buildup of an estimated 1,00,000 troops near Ukraine.

Russia must face a concerted and severe global response if it invades, he said in a speech in Berlin, the city that symbolized the Cold War split between East and West.

"These are difficult issues we are facing, and resolving them won't happen quickly," Blinken said. "I certainly don't expect we'll solve them in Geneva tomorrow."

He said Russia's actions toward Ukraine are an attempt to subvert international norms and just the latest in a series of violations of numerous treaties, agreements and other commitments Moscow has made to respect the sovereignty and territory of other countries.

"To allow Russia to violate those principles with impunity would drag us all back to a much more dangerous and unstable time, when this continent - and this city - were split in two, separated by no-man's-lands patrolled by soldiers, with the threat of all-out war hanging heavily over everyone's lives," Blinken told an audience at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. "It would also send a message to others around the world that these principles are expendable."

"We will not treat the principles of sovereignty or territorial integrity as negotiable," he said, adding that the situation is "bigger than a conflict between two countries, and it's bigger than a clash between Russia and NATO. It's a crisis with global consequences. And it requires global attention and action."

Blinken met earlier with top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany to project a united front over concerns that Russia may be planning to invade Ukraine. He met Ukraine's president in Kyiv a day earlier.

Russia denies it is planning an invasion and, in turn, accused the West of plotting "provocations" in Ukraine, citing the delivery of weapons to the country by British military transports in recent days.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova alleged Ukrainian and Western talk of an imminent Russian attack was a "cover for staging large-scale provocations of their own, including those of military character".

Russia wants binding security guarantees, including a permanent prohibition on Ukrainian membership in NATO, to which Kyiv aspires, and the removal of most of the US and allied military presence in eastern Europe.

The US and its European partners say they are willing to consider certain less-dramatic gestures but that the Russian demands are out of the question and that Putin knows they are nonstarters. That, Blinken said, is proof of Putin's ulterior motive. (AP)

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New York, Jan 21 (PTI) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday expressed shock after a family of four Indian nationals, including an infant, froze to death along the US-Canada border in what authorities believe was a failed crossing attempt during a freezing blizzard, and instructed the Indian ambassadors in the US and Canada to urgently respond to the situation.

The Manitoba Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Thursday said that the bodies of four people  two adults, a teen and an infant  were found on the Canadian side of the US-Canada border near Emerson on Wednesday.

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Shocked by the report that 4 Indian nationals, including an infant, have lost their lives at the Canada-US border. Have asked our Ambassadors in the US and Canada to urgently respond to the situation, Jaishankar tweeted.

Jaishankar spoke to India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Sandhu and India's High Commissioner in Canada Ajay Bisaria.

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According to court documents, US Border Patrol (USBP) officials in North Dakota stopped a 15-passenger van just south of the Canadian border on Wednesday.

The US Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota issued a release late Thursday afternoon and said the driver was identified as 47-year-old Steve Shand of Florida, who had been arrested and charged with human smuggling in connection with the incident.

Law enforcement officials have also determined that there were two undocumented Indian nationals, the Department of Justice said.

The court documents said that law enforcement officials discovered cases of plastic cups, bottled water, bottled juice, and snacks located in the extreme rear of the passenger van.

They also discovered receipts dated January 18, 2022, for the drinks and snacks, and rental agreement receipts in Shand's name for the van, with the return date listed for January 20, 2022.

As they were taking the trio back to the border patrol station in North Dakota, officers came across another group of five Indian nationals walking.

They told them that they had walked across the border and expected to be picked up by someone.

The group said they estimated they had been walking for more than 11 hours, and they appeared to be headed to an unstaffed gas plant located in St. Vincent, Minnesota.

One of the group members was carrying a backpack that did not belong to him.

He told authorities that he was carrying the backpack for a family of four Indian nationals that had earlier walked with his group but got separated at night.

The backpack contained children's clothes, a diaper, toys, and some children's medication.

According to court documents, on January 19, the USBP received a report from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that four bodies were found frozen just inside the Canadian side of the international border.

The dead bodies were tentatively identified as the family of four that got separated.

Two of the surviving Indian nationals sustained serious injuries and were transported to a hospital.

Shand is charged with one count of knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that a foreign national had come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of law, having transported, and moved or having attempted to transport such nationals.

He made his first appearance today before the US District Court Magistrate Judge Hildy Bowbeer.

Shand was ordered to remain in custody pending a preliminary inquiry and detention hearing, currently scheduled for January 24.

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New York [US], January 21 (ANI): Members of the United Nations Security Council went on a virtual field trip to Columbia, listening, watching and getting insights into the peace process and what it looks like in Columbia with the help of Virtual Reality (VR) technology on January 20.

Indian Diplomat and Counselor of the Permanent Mission of India, Prateek Mathur shared that the UNSC in New York used VR technology in its security council session for the first time.

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Taking to Twitter, Mathur said, "A proud supporter of using Technology for Peace!. 3-D Virtual Diplomacy in action in #UNSC today. First-ever Security Council session to use a virtual reality #VR experience! Innovative solutions to better understand conflicts, peacekeeping and peace-building."

"Bringing the Colombian peace process closer to decision-makers in New York today and having Colombian voices heard," said The United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) in a tweet. (ANI)

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New Delhi, January 21: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will release the District Good Governance Index for 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, the first of its kind index for a union territory. Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Manoj Sinha, Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir will also address the event to be organised jointly by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) and Jammu and Kashmir Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development in association with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad.

Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions said in a statement that Union Home Minister Shah will release the District Good Governance Index for 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday.

The District Good Governance Index of Jammu and Kashmir was prepared by DARPG in collaboration with the Government of Jammu and Kashmir in pursuance of the announcements made in the Behtar e-Hukumat  Kashmir Aelamia resolution adopted on July 2, 2021 in the Regional Conference on Replication of Good Governance Practices in Srinagar, it said. Statehood Day 2022: Amit Shah Greets People of Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura on Foundation Day.

The exercise on formulation of District Good Governance Index was set in motion in July, 2021 which has now been completed, and Jammu and Kashmir will become the first union territory in the country to have Good Governance Index, it said.

The District Good Governance Index of Jammu and Kashmir represents a major administrative reform in benchmarking good governance at district level and a significant step for timely collation and publication of statistics at state/district level, according to the statement.

The index is a milestone and it is expected that it will provide a robust framework for evidence-based assessment of the performance of all the districts in Jammu and Kashmir, it said. Assam, Meghalaya CMs Meet Amit Shah, Submit Regional Committee Reports on Border Row.

During the occasion, a presentation on formulation of District Good Governance Index will be made by the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad, the statement said, adding that it will be followed by district presentations by selected 12 District Development Commissioners, who will be showcasing achievements of various sectors.

Thereafter a panel discussion will be held on District Good Governance Index - A Way Forward for futuristic 2.0 version of DGGI for measuring and benchmarking performance and improvement of districts in future as well.
New Delhi, Jan 21: Iran, China and Russia have launched a joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean, with the aim of boosting marine security, the Daily Mail reported.

Iran's state TV said that 11 of its vessels have been joined by three Russian ships, including a destroyer, and two Chinese vessels.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard will also participate with smaller ships and helicopters. China Has Continuously Targeted Tibetan Buddhism Since Maos Cultural Revolution, Says Report.

The military exercise comes at a time of heightened tension between Russia and the West over Moscow's build-up of some 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine.

Russia is also being joined by China and Iran -- two nations which are at loggerheads with the West, with Beijing recently accused of sending a spy to the heart of the UK Parliament -- the report said.

The joint naval exercise will cover some 6,560 square miles (17,000 square kilometres) in the Indian Ocean's north, and include night fighting, rescue operations and firefighting drills.

"The purpose of this exercise is to strengthen security and its foundations in the region, and to expand multilateral cooperation between the three countries to jointly support world peace, maritime security and create a maritime community with a common future," Iran's Rear Admiral Mostafa Tajoldini, spokesman for the drills, told Iranian state TV.

This is the third joint naval drill between the countries since 2019. It coincided with a recent visit by Iran's hardline President Ebrahim Raisi to Russia.

"Improving bilateral relations between Tehran and Moscow will enhance security for the region and the international arena," Raisi said upon returning from Russia on Friday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 21, 2022 06:45 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
A federal judge in Arizona ruled Tuesday that the states controversial ban on ethnic studies was motivated by racial discrimination.

The decision from Judge A. Wallace Tashima, a federal appeals court judge sitting in the district court in Arizona, came in a lawsuit brought by students against the states top education official. It is a major blow to a state law that resulted in the closure of a Mexican American studies program in Tucson.

Proponents of the program have argued that the 2010 law, which in part banned courses designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group, was effectively racist and targeted Mexican Americans and other minority groups.

Tucson dropped its Mexican American studies program in 2012 under threat of losing state funding.

Both enactment and enforcement were motivated by racial animus, Tashima wrote in his decision Tuesday. He said that the law violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution by discriminating against Latinos. He also said the law violated students 1st Amendment right to receive information and ideas.

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Arizonas law in general banned classes promoting resentment toward a race or class of people.

It was all the more controversial because it was passed the same year the state passed the widely protested SB 1070 law, which required police to determine the immigration status of someone arrested or detained when there was reasonable suspicion they were not in the U.S. legally.

In his decision, Tashima railed against former Arizona state superintendents of public instruction who pushed to pass the ban, John Huppenthal and Tom Horne.

Defendants were pursuing these discriminatory ends in order to make political gains. Horne and Huppenthal repeatedly pointed to their efforts against the [Mexican American studies] program in their respective 2011 political campaigns, including in speeches and radio advertisements. The issue was a political boon to the candidates, the judge wrote.

Both individuals conveyed an unfounded, yet uniform, distrust of  teachers and students accounts of what was taking place in [Mexican American studies] classrooms, he wrote.

A former teacher in the Tucson program, Curtis Acosta, reacted to the ruling on Twitter.

I just received word from our attorney, Richard Martinez, that we won our case against the state of Arizona. Justicia! he tweeted.

In an interview, Martinez said he was confident that the ruling meant the law would be dismantled. Martinez said the judge would hold a hearing in the next three weeks to determine how the ruling should be enforced.

Anita Fernandez, director of the Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing in Tucson, said Tuesday that she was celebrating the decision.

Were very excited by the ruling, specifically that the court was convinced by testimony and evidence [that it] was racial discrimination, Fernandez said. Now it is up to the school district to decide what they are going to do.

jaweed.kaleem@latimes.com

Jaweed Kaleem is The Times national race and justice correspondent. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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He used to wake her up nights, shouting out his terror in the dark, his tattooed biceps continuing their clench-and-spasm dance long after a shift feeding cedar logs into the endless maw of the lumber mill.

In his nightmare, Keven Jones pushed the logs into neat rows, but as he dreamed, the logs started to tumble. They swung down, log after rolling log, bouncing off his rib cage, burying him. He would wake, eyes wide, mouth agape. Only seconds later did he hear himself screaming.

Carol was used to her husbands unconscious thrashing. The nightmares were once the price he paid for a good job. But the Rough & Ready mill that employed Jones all of his adult life closed in early February, and now what Carol Jones often wakes to in the middle of the night is her husband sitting alone in the living room with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Hes all wired up, nothing to do with that energy, she says. Before, when he was working, hed pull extra shifts and come home tired, really tired. Now hes got just time.

Keven Jones, 36, blames a band saw for the two fingers he lost years ago on his right hand. For the quiet panic hes in now, for the over-regulating that hes convinced shut down the mill and threw 63 people out of work, that, he figures, was the governments fault.

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We have what we need to stay in business right here, Jones says, pointing to the lush pine and cedar forests that surround this town of 1,800 people on the northwest slope of the Siskiyou mountain range. But we cant get out there to cut it down because one agency wont talk to another one, or the environmentalists tie it up in court.

When Jones thinks about what kind of president might be able to do something, he looks at the one who seems to him least like a politician: Donald Trump.

Oregons politics are dominated by the Democratic Party machine in Portland and Salem  the state hasnt elected a Republican to statewide office since 2002. But this mountainous corner of southwest Oregon, just up the Redwood Highway from the California border, has always leaned Republican.

And even as GOP voters across the state have waffled ahead of the May 17 primary, drifting from retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich before leaning toward Trump, the New York real estate magnates support in Josephine County has never wavered.

------------

FOR THE RECORD

6:13 a.m.: An earlier version of this article stated that the Oregon primary is scheduled for May 19. It is is set for May 17.

------------

A regular smokes outside Sportsman Tavern in Cave Junction, a small town in Oregons economically distressed Illinois Valley. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Here, people talk about electing a president who will stop immigrants in the country illegally from flooding in and taking jobs, wholl be tough on Americas rivals abroad, who knows enough about business to keep the country from going further into debt.

Trump is like choosing the least-bad STD, you know what I mean? Jones says.

Hes going to do the least bad, the least governing, and he knows how to delegate, he adds. I dont expect him to know how to fight the wars or rebuild the economy. But hes a CEO. Hell hire the right people to do that.

***

From Oregons earliest days, the seemingly unending supply of timber from the coastal rainforest made the local lumber barons rich men. For more than a century, demand for the boards produced by Cave Junctions mills led to massive tree cutting and soaring profits.

Jones and his friends grew up planning to stay in town and raise families. Hed known Carol from childhood. When he was 18 and she was 16, she told him she was pregnant, and he got hired as a saw filer at Rough & Ready. They raised their children in rooms built from wood planed at the mill.

Keven Jones greets daughter Emilee upon his return home from a trip to town. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Then a series of environmental lawsuits in the 1980s and early 1990s brought new federal restrictions on logging from public lands. To keep timber-dependent counties afloat, the federal government offered money to replace the taxes they lost, until they could develop new industries.

But the payments have dwindled and are scheduled to expire next year. People here are waiting to hear whether Washington will provide job training to laid-off timber workers via the federal Trade Act. If the money is approved, Jones hopes he can send Carol to nursing school; shed earn four times what he was making at the mill. If the federal money comes through, town leaders keep saying, Cave Junction just might make it.

Jones roams his house, restless, doing laundry and the dishes, trying and failing to avoid thinking about the Trade Act money. Once again, Jones finds himself at the mercy of the government.

Carol Jones learns about health coverage options while her husband, a saw filer, is on unemployment. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Needing something from the government is the last place Jones wants to be in. He doesnt trust Obamacare, so he and his family have gone without health insurance since the mill closed. He doesnt believe the state has the right to require vehicle insurance, so he has been cited multiple times for driving uninsured.

Still, it was the federal government most people turned to the last time the mill closed, eight hours into a nine-hour shift in 2013. That time, 85 people were out of a job. Two committed suicide.

Trade Act money helped Jones start classes to earn a commercial truck drivers license. Then the mill owners came back with a promise: The mill was reopening, and if he dropped the truck driver training and came back to work, they would guarantee him five years of employment. So I dropped it, Jones recalls.

The mill didnt make it to a second anniversary, much less five years.

***

Carol Jones crunches to a halt in the parking lot of Rogue Community College under the lazy drifting petals of a just-blooming lavender dogwood. She looks into the back seat, where two 10-year-old girls sit, her daughter Emilee and her niece, Alicia.

The family adopted Alicia seven years ago when Carols brother, driving drunk, had a crash that killed his other child. His wife ended up in a mental asylum. Alicia moved in while her father was in prison.

I already know all the bad words, Alicia begins. Fart, booger 

Carol leads the two girls like a pair of chittering ducklings across the campus, silent and abandoned during spring break. Coming back to school for Carol is a calculated investment. College costs $500 a semester, plus $400 for books and the gas it will take to drive 40 minutes each way to school from Cave Junction. Keven is getting $470 every two weeks in unemployment, and the math is giving her a dull ache behind her eyes.

She leads the kids through the double doors of a low-slung stone building with a sign that reads ADMINISTRATION. Inside, they settle into a narrow waiting room.

She shifts in her seat and runs more numbers in her head: The college opened at 10 a.m. and the woman on the phone told her she would need to wait at least 20 minutes for an academic counselor, but Carol has to get Alicia to a doctors appointment for a broken pinkie at 11. If the wait drags on, shell have to reschedule the doctors appointment and drive the 28 miles twice. That takes at least four gallons of gas, which will cost $8 more than she has this week.

Carol is worried that the Trade Act money wont come through, but she also worries what happens if it does. She will have to upend her life again, switching her job as a pharmacy technician to part time, juggling the schedules of four children and her schoolwork.

Twenty minutes pass, then forty. No one emerges from the counseling office.

Keven Jones talks with his former boss, mill owner Linc Phillippi, a month after being let go. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

A slumped young man in a gray hoodie skulks through the double doors and collapses into a chair across the room. His iPhone lights up and plays the brief, loud sound of what seems like a political speech as he scrambles to silence it. Carol fixes him with a stare, then looks down.

I already know all the bad words, Alicia continues. Fart, booger and Donald Trump.

Carol giggles despite herself. Her husbands choice of a New York billionaire to be president still confuses her. But everybody seems to be talking about Trump these days  now her kids are too.

Where did you hear that? she asks.

Carol checks her phones clock again. 10:50 a.m., just 10 minutes to get to Alicias doctor. She stands and stretches and tells the girls to follow her. Community college, Trade Act money, all of it will have to wait another day.

***

The timber payments are nearly over, but money for most public services ran out long ago anyway. Candy wrappers and dirty yellow earplugs drift in lonely puddles outside the silent mill.

The Cave Junction public library is only open for three half-days each week. The sheriffs office answers the phone weekdays until 5 p.m., then hands off to the lone Oregon State Police trooper who patrols hundreds of miles of interstate.

Keven Jones, left, takes a shot of whiskey with brother Dave Frokemke at Sportsman Tavern. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

The town pays a police officer from nearby Grants Pass to patrol on weekdays, but residents complain he only sits in his car, eyeballing us from behind his window, as one man puts it, waiting to ticket them for speeding.

A small group of volunteers have taken it upon themselves to patrol Cave Junction. Most nights, theyre the only semblance of law enforcement. But Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniels worries when they try to take things into their own hands, confronting suspected meth dealers and burglary suspects. Someones going to get hurt, Daniels said.

In March, a $4,000 radio went missing from a Rogue River Fire Department fire engine, and an anonymous caller said the radio might be returned for the right amount of money. The fire chief said he wasnt going to respond to extortion.

With the unemployment rate now exceeding 7.2% in Josephine County, the biggest issue in this years election here is who can put people back to work. Many are betting its the businessman in the race, even if hes a brash real estate mogul from New York whose chief previous contact with lumber was the veneered reception desks in his swank hotels.

Cave Junction residents on volunteer patrol check an abandoned home where meth users have taken up residence. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Southwest Oregon is not a natural fit for a billionaire East Coaster, but neither are any of the other GOP candidates, particularly those running on a religious platform; Oregon is among the nations least church-going states.

Trumps conviction that global trade deals are selling Americans short plays well with the independent streak that runs through Oregon Republican politics. Trump, many here believe, would never put up with letting the Western timber industry falter to protect endangered birds and owls.

Its a part of the world that sees itself as having been abandoned, said Jim Moore, a political scientist at Pacific University outside Portland. These were not Mitt Romney people; they did not vote for George W. Bush. Theyve latched on to Trump as they have latched on to other outside candidates. The difference is, hes winning.

***

What is left of the Rough & Ready workforce gathers slowly in a tiny meeting room at the mill on a sunny spring afternoon.

A couple of teenagers in sweatshirts thumb through their phones. A gray-haired health insurance agent stands in front next to a whiteboard, handing out packets titled What am I likely eligible for?

Carol arrives two minutes before 3 p.m. and takes a seat near the front. She traces her finger over the front page of the packet, which lists monetary amounts for public assistance programs, including health insurance, based on family size.

A representative of Rogue Workforce Development, the local unemployment office, tells the assembled workers not to wait for the Trade Act or think of it as their only hope.

Dont hesitate, he says. If you see something in another sector, take it.

Jimmy Evans patrols a neighborhood in Cave Junction, which cant afford its own police force. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

But the jobs they are qualified for, without new training, are few. Mill employees are a specialized workforce, Kevens brother Dave Frokemke explains. They are masters of the craft of turning logs into boards. After that, someone else has to make the boards into stuff.

As a saw filer, Keven was trained to keep the band saws sized to an exact standard; done incorrectly, it could cost other men their lives. But who needs this now?

The two brothers have come ambling into the meeting room 10 minutes late, grinning, in cut-off T-shirts. Keven shakes hands with the mills owners, Jennifer and Linc Phillippi, and lowers himself into a seat near the whiteboard.

The insurance presentation drones on. Carol is carefully taking notes. Keven spies a small pile of Ghirardelli chocolates, picks off two and begins loudly unwrapping them. The teenagers at the back of the room smirk.

Insurance agent Mary Reynolds tells them about health insurance options, including the pricey insurance available under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, offered to workers who have lost or changed jobs.

Finally, its time for questions. Keven raises his meaty, maimed right hand.

Hows anybody supposed to pay for COBRA? he asks.

Well, its just the first option, Reynolds replies.

Jones stands.

He tells the room, in three well-chosen words, what he thinks of their offers of help. Dave rises too. They walk out together, followed by the teenagers in the back. Five middle-aged former millworkers exchange uneasy glances. Carol ignores the commotion and continues taking notes.

You guys are missing the point about help, Reynolds calls after them.

Health insurance people are full of ..., Jones shouts back as he makes his way down the hallway.

Several seconds of silence ensue. Then the five middle-aged millworkers stand up and leave.

Follow Nigel Duara on Twitter.

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Interview: Xi's WEF address renews commitment to multilateral cooperation, says Bangladeshi official

15:23, January 21, 2022 By Naim-Ul-Karim ( Xinhua

DHAKA, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A senior Bangladeshi official has hailed the special address of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2022 World Economic Forum (WEF) virtual session on Monday as a "historical one," which renewed China's commitment to multilateral cooperation.

President Xi's address put forward valuable proposals for the development of global cooperation, peace and prosperity, Hasanul Haq Inu, chairman of the Standing Committee for Ministry of Information and Broadcasting at the Bangladesh Parliament, told Xinhua in an interview on Wednesday.

Inu, also president of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, an ally of the ruling Grand Alliance, said Xi's address "has pinpointed the problems and prospects of the whole mankind at present and post-pandemic era vividly."

The Bangladesh politician appreciated Xi's proposals for overcoming the pandemic and its aftereffect with global cooperation.

He hoped that countries and regions will not step into the "trap of rivalry and go for peaceful coexistence and find a win-win way for mutual benefits."

Noting that China has achieved unprecedented social and economic development on the path of socialism, he said Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has been a powerful drive in the current world for ensuring peace and development.

He expressed the hope that under the leadership of Xi and the Communist Party of China, China will overcome the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, and continue to stand in solidarity with Bangladesh as well as the world to combat the pandemic.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
"I'm begging you to reconsider," Kimberly Cox told Florida legislators on Wednesday as they fast-tracked a 15-week ban on abortions. (The Florida Channel )

TALLAHASSEE  Abortion is a basic human right. Abortion is murder.

Abortion is bodily autonomy. Abortion shocks the conscience.

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Those arguments and many more raged back and forth in the state Capitol this week as the Florida House fast-tracks passage of a law to ban abortions after 15 weeks  even in cases of sexual assault or incest. Its passage is considered a certainty, and that will make Florida the major abortion battleground in the country in the upcoming midterm elections.

Far beyond the Capitol bubble, this is the issue generating the most interest this session, and it will  or should  drive a lot of voters to the polls next fall, making it a huge issue in the 2022 elections. Anyone who tries to frame this purely as a matter of health is telling half the story and insulting the intelligence of voters. Its about politics, and timing, with a 15-week statewide ban in Mississippi awaiting a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Steve Bousquet, South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist. (Mike Stocker/Sun Sentinel)

I believe that we have a unique opportunity, said Rep. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, the sponsor of HB 5, in the fact that the Supreme Court is considering 15 weeks right now, and this would allow Florida to save as many babies as possible, as soon as possible, after that decision is made.

Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani of Orlando pressed Grall on whether a 15-week ban is unconstitutional with Roe v. Wade still the law (and, as of Saturday, 49 years since the high courts 1973 decision).

The court just sometimes gets it wrong, Grall replied.

The Florida Legislature sometimes gets it wrong, too.

Some people drove hundreds of miles and spoke in anguished tones as they pleaded for defeat of the bill. In yet another show of disrespect to their constituents, lawmakers limited testimony to 30 seconds each because there was so little time and so many people showed up  real people, not paid lobbyists.

Fifteen weeks after I was sexually assaulted, said Kimberly Cox of New Port Richey, her voice breaking, I was in no way, shape or form able to make the decision that you would have been asking me to make.  Im begging you to reconsider. My life matters. My heartbeat matters.

Wednesdays two-hour hearing was held in Webster Hall, named after Dan Webster, who was the first Republican House speaker in Florida in more than a century, from 1996 to 1998. A long-time member of Congress from Orlando and a staunch abortion opponent, Webster tried in his final session in 2008 to pass a bill that sought to reduce abortions by requiring a pregnant woman to view ultrasound images of her fetus.

Webster had senators deep respect, but back then, Republicans still thought for themselves. In a highly dramatic moment, the bill failed in the Senate on a 20-20 tie as seven Republicans joined 13 Democrats.

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One of the Republican rebels, the late Jim King of Jacksonville, memorably said: Unless you ovulate, or have ovulated, we have no business as males interfering with this decision.

Fourteen years later, the Capitol is a very different place, but the same arguments can still be heard.

Politicians are not medical experts, said Rindala Alajaji of Orlando and Equality Florida, speaking for Floridas LGBTQ community in opposing HB 5. Our bodies should not be legislated upon.

No ones mind is likely to be changed by this debate, but many will keep fighting, as they should. Hillary Cassel of Fort Lauderdale cut through the din with a simple declarative statement.

Political Pulse Weekly Get latest updates political news from Central Florida and across the state. >

Everyone in this room loves someone who has had an abortion, she said, repeating it for emphasis. When you press your vote button today, ask yourself: Are you honoring that woman? Are you honoring her decision?

When they pressed their vote buttons, all 12 Republicans present voted yes for a 15-week abortion ban, and all six Democrats present voted no, against it.

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Democrats filed a much different bill, which cites the privacy provision in Floridas Constitution as a guarantee of a persons right to access reproductive health care and bars the government from denying a citizens right of privacy with respect to personal reproductive decisions. The Democratic version (HB 709) has not been heard and likely wont.

Eskamani, one of the Houses best-prepared debaters, said the new law punishes people for being poor.

People with money will still be able to go to North Carolina after 15 weeks, she said, but not a homeless woman who may be a victim of rape and wont realize shes pregnant until after 15 weeks.

Without exceptions for cases such as the one she described, Eskamani said, This is the beginning of a rapists bill of rights.

Steve Bousquet is Opinion Editor of the Sun Sentinel and a columnist in Tallahassee. Contact him at sbousquet@sunsentinel.com or (850) 567-2240 and follow him on Twitter @stevebousquet.
With Russian tanks and other military equipment rolling into Ukraine, Kiev is learning the hard way that when you reside in a nasty neighborhood it doesnt pay to get rid of nuclear weapons without ironclad security guarantees. But that is exactly what it did in December 1994 when it agreed to the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances co-signed by the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom.

As Russia took Crimea this year and continued to support the separatists, some Ukrainian officials called for a return to nuclear arms to stop Moscow from slicing and dicing up their nation. When he was defense minister in September, Valeriy Heletey gave expression to the possibility: If we cannot protect Ukraine today, if the world doesnt help us, we will have to go back to the development of nuclear weapons which will protect us from Russia. Other officials conveyed similar views earlier in the year.

But the threat to go nuclear is a pipe dream. Although Ukraine operates 15 power reactors, it does not have the enrichment or reprocessing plants to produce fuel  which it imports from Russia  or bomb-making material. What Ukraine does have is the moral claim on Washington to step up and provide it with the conventional means to better protect itself.

Thats the gist of the Budapest Memorandum that the U.S. heavily promoted: Someone would come to Kievs defense were its territory violated. The agreement requires the parties to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine; refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine; refrain from economic coercion; seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine  if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression; and consult in the event a situation bears on commitments.

In his address to Congress during his September visit, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko starkly commented on the bind the Budapest accord placed his country: Ukraine, which gave up the worlds third-largest nuclear potential in exchange for security assurances, was stabbed in the back by one of the countries who gave her those assurances.

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Secretary of State John F. Kerry cautiously acknowledged the same in March when he said Moscow had put very clear legal obligations at risk. However, Washington found itself flummoxed in crafting a response.

History had placed the U.S. between two ghosts of Europes 20th century past. A threat to go all in to protect Ukraine would hark back to the disastrous mobilizations that preceded World War I. There certainly was no gusto for that. But standing down, watching Russia gobble up more of Ukraine, would replay Europes disastrous failure to respond to Nazi Germanys annexation of Austria and invasion of Czechoslovakia, which paved the road to World War II.

To thread the needle  avoid provoking Moscow by placing forces in Ukraine while still showing resolve  Washington and its allies chose a multiprong strategy: Give Ukraine nonlethal aid. Apply and ramp up economic sanctions. Modestly bolster the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations eastern defenses as a warning to the Kremlin not to cross the alliances line.

Russias response has been more stealth fighters and convoys crossing into Ukraine, which leaves the U.S. strategy where?

History provides two other options: Sit back, pout and watch, the strategy Washington applied to Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The approach concedes Ukraine as part of Moscows sphere in influence or more. Or the U.S. can bleed the separatists and Russian intervenors by providing Ukraine with lethal weapons, and not just nonlethal aid, repeating the successful strategy the U.S. applied to Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.

Is the second option plausible? Ukrainians have demonstrated the will to fight for their country. In his remarks to Congress, Poroshenko tried to embarrass Washington into helping: Blankets and night-vision goggles are important.... But one cannot win a war with blankets!

Bipartisan calls have been heard in Congress. For example, an October op-ed in the Washington Post by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) called for providing Ukraine with antitank weapons, ammunition, vehicles and secure communicating equipment.

Such assistance would not cross World War Is mobilization threshold but still overcome the appeasement policy of pre-World War II, and thus presents a prudent path giving Ukraine a better chance to defend itself. It also would restore Washingtons credibility that it will go to bat for countries that, under its imprimatur, give up the bomb and find a tiger  or in this case, a bear  at the gates threatening its survival.

Bennett Ramberg served in the State Departments Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the George H.W. Bush administration.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion
The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday charged the second prime suspect in the assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moise.

The department identified the individual as Haitian-Chilean Rodolphe Jaar, Associated Press reported. Jaar was known to be a former U.S. government informant and a businessman. Before Moise's killing, Jaar was previously convicted in South Florida on charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela. Court records show that he was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

In connection to Jovenel Moise's assassination, Al Jazeera reported that Jaar was charged with conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States.

The former U.S. government informant was also charged with "providing material support resulting in death, knowing or intending such material support would be used to prepare or carry out the conspiracy to kill or kidnap" in connection to the assassination of the Haiti president.

Jaar is set to appear on the court on January 26. In that hearing, Jaar's attorney could request for him to be freed on a bond, although prosecutors oppose the said move. The former U.S. informant was expected to have an arraignment hearing on February 3.

If convicted with charges issued against him, Jaar could face life imprisonment.

READ NEXT: Haitian Doctor Arrested Over President Jovenel Moise Assassination Plot

Justice Department: 2nd Key Suspect Provided Firearms

The U.S. Justice Department accused Jaar of providing weapons to the former Colombian soldiers that assassinated the Haitian president.

"Jaar was responsible for providing weapons to the Colombian co-conspirators to facilitate carrying out the operation," the department said.

Jaar was also suspected of communicating with an unidentified suspect and others as they hid from the law enforcement authorities after Moise's assassination. The Justice Department highlighted that several of the Colombian co-conspirators stayed on a residence controlled Jaar while hiding from the authorities.

Furthermore, Jaar was also believed to be present when an unidentified suspect acquired a signature from a former judge in a bid to illegally arrest the late Haiti President Jovenel Moise.

According to reports, the unnamed co-conspirator is described as a dual Haitian-American who traveled from Haiti to the U.S. to help in laying the plan related to Jovenel Moise. The said co-conspirator, named "co-conspirator #1," is currently in custody in Haiti.

In an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Jaar said that the operation related to Jovenel Moise changed from an arrest operation to assassination when their initial plan to capture the Haiti president at the airport and take him "away by plane did not go forward."

Other Key Suspect in Haiti President Jovenel Moise Killing

Jaar was the second key suspect in the assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moise. It can be recalled that earlier in January, the Justice Department accused former Colombian military officer Mario Antonio Palacios of "conspiracy to commit murder or kidnaping" outside the United States.

Authorities noted that both Jaar and Palacios voluntarily agreed to face charges in the United States.

It can be recalled that more than 40 suspects, including 19former Colombian soldiers, were arrested and detained after the Haiti president was killed in his home in Port-au-Prince on July 7 last year.

READ NEXT: Haiti President Jovenel Moise Assassination: Haitian-American Suspect Is a Former U.S. DEA Informant

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written By: Joshua Summers

WATCH: Moise Assassination May Be Linked to What He Knew About Haitian Drugs, Arms Trafficking - From PBS NewsHour
White House's top medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci cautioned that the unvaccinated population could affect the progress of the COVID pandemic.

Fauci said that the unvaccinated people with the possibility of the emergence of other variants make him cautious when it comes to predicting the end of the COVID pandemic, according to a Newsmax report.

The top medical adviser noted that the country has a highly effective and safe intervention that a significant proportion of the population has not made use of, which complicates the response to an already "formidable challenge from a very evasive virus."

Fauci said that the worst-case scenario is that the country gets affected with another variant that actually eludes immune protection.

Fauci said that he is baffled by the slow uptake of vaccination in the United States. He noted that everyone thought when they had a vaccine as effective and safe as the vaccines now, they would get enough people vaccinated, according to Yahoo Finance report.

READ NEXT: Dr. Anthony Fauci Says COVID Won't Be Going Away Entirely, Likely to Become Endemic

COVID Pandemic Amid Spread of Omicron Variant

In December, Fauci called the highly transmissible Omicron variant "unprecedented," with some researchers noting that the variant could actually fasten the virus' transition from pandemic to endemic.

Dr. David Ho, a world-renowned virologist and Columbia University professor, said that many public health experts have been saying that the variant is going "to rip right through" the population.

However, Ho argued that sometimes a rapid-fire could burn through quickly but then extinguish itself out, according to a CNBC report.

It was also noted that natural immunity is not as nearly as reliable as vaccine-enabled immunity.

Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of infectious diseases at New Hyde Park, New York-based hospital network Northwell Health, noted that the best-case scenario would be the highly contagious COVID variant does not make most people particularly sick but creates some level of temporarily baseline immunity.

Fauci said that it is an open question as to whether or not Omicron is going to be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for.

Reports said that the virus still poses a problem. However, it also becomes part of the solution, with every person who recovers from a mild case is left with greater immunity against future infections, according to a Deseret News report.

Omicron Variant in The United States

New cases in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York have plummeted by more than 30 percent since early last week.

Meanwhile, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Georgia, and Pennsylvania are seeing a 10 percent decrease in cases, according to The New York Times report.

Mayor Eric Adams of New York said they are winning on the fight against the Omicron variant while Gov. Kathy Hochul said that they hope to close the books on the coming winter surge soon.

The number of people hospitalized with COVID has begun to dwindle over the past few days in places where Omicron was first spotted.

The U.S. was seen to be following a similar Omicron pattern as South Africa and Britain, among other countries.

READ MORE: CDC Recommends Shorter COVID Isolation Period for Health Care Workers Amid Omicron Variant

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: The US COVID-19 cases that are driven by the Omicron variant to hit a peak soon | World English News - from WION






The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) declared on Wednesday that the Mexican government made severe mistakes in its investigation into the violent death of human rights defender Digna Ochoa y Placido two decades ago.

Ochoa, whose body was found dead in her office in Mexico City in 2001, was a lawyer who defended cases of human rights violations allegedly committed by civilian and military security forces.

The "absolutely deficient investigation" is "a violation of the obligation to guarantee the right to life," the court said in a statement.

According to the court, the state must continue to investigate and eventually prosecute individuals who may have been involved in her death and accept responsibility.

The Foreign Ministry declared during the second hearing of the trial before the IACHR that it will propose to the family to resume the inquiry after two decades to confirm that it was a homicide.

Digna Ochoa's Case Sparks Outrage and Accusation of Human Rights Violations

The case of Digna Ochoa sparked outrage and criticisms of the army's actions. It had a lot of accusations about human rights violations at the time.

"What happened today is really important because the Mexican Government has accepted errors in the inquiry, it has recognized that Digna's violent death was not investigated," said Viviana Krsticevic, the lawyer who represented the Ochoa family.

The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs' delegation has also acknowledged that there have been violations of judicial guarantees and access to justice.

ALSO READ: 21 People Killed in Mexico in Just 24 Hours Amid Bloody Turf War Between Mexican Drug Cartels

It is the first time that the state has "recognized all the claims" submitted by the IACHR and has also confirmed its "unavoidable commitment in support of the defense of Human Rights," according to the Interior Ministry.

The process to reopen the investigation into the death of defender Ochoa y Placido will include a human rights and gender perspective, as well as international standards, with the participation of the family and their legal representation.

Digna Ochoa's family will be presented a Comprehensive Reparation Agreement, which will comprise twelve courses of action, according to Article 63 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

Ochoa was 37 when she was found dead in an office in the Roma neighborhood on October 19, 2001.

The first line of investigation, the family's lawyers explain, pointed to murder. The first motive was a State crime due to the type of work she was doing," says Karla Michel Salas, defense attorney and member of the Action Group for Human Rights and Social Justice.

"However, in 2002, there was a twist," Salas said, "in which the authority changed the hypothesis to a suicide."

Salas found it "ridiculous" to conclude that she committed suicide when it looked like a fabricated scene of a homicide.

Ochoa was a defender of human rights. She was working on cases of tortured environmentalists in Guerrero before her murder.

Digna Ochoa's case is a glaring example of the Mexican legal system's shortcomings, Salas added.

READ MORE: Remains of Venezuelan Girl Who Attempted to Crossover from Mexico to the U.S. Found in Rio Grande

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Written by: Jess Smith

WATCH: It is evident that Digna Ochoa was murdered: Ruiz Healy - from Grupo Formula
The family of a U.S. Marine who was killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan last August has filed a defamation lawsuit against actor Alec Baldwin, alleging the actor of calling them insurrectionists on Instagram.

The slain Marine's sister allegedly participated in the January 6 Capitol attack, according to The Hill report.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming by two sisters and the widow of Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum on Monday.

The lawsuit noted that McCollum's family said Baldwin's Instagram comments were "false, outrageous, and defamatory." They also said that it was irresponsible, vindictive, and caused the plaintiffs severe emotional distress.

Baldwin donated $5,000 to the Marine's widow and their newborn daughter as a "tribute to a fallen soldier" after McCollum's death. However, McCollum's sister, Roice, shared a "throwback" photo of a crowd of pro-Donald Trump protesters in front of the Washington Monument.

The lawsuit said that the post was in anticipation of the anniversary of the Capitol riot. Baldwin reportedly commented about it.

Baldwin, on Roice's Instagram post, asked if she was the same woman that he sent the donation to "your sister's husband who was killed during the Afghanistan exit."

READ NEXT: Kamala Harris Says 'Democracy' Is the Biggest National Security Threat Facing the U.S.

Alec Baldwin Defamation Lawsuit

The lawsuit noted that the actor then privately messaged Roice and accused her of being an "insurrectionist" and told her to own it, according to a Business Insider report.

Baldwin added to his message that he sent money for Roice's later brother out of real respect for his service to the country.

The actor noted that he did not know Roice was a January 6 rioter.

Roice replied, according to the lawsuit. She said that protesting is "perfectly legal in the country."

She added that she had already sat down with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

McCollum's defamation lawsuit noted that Roice received messages that were "hostile, aggressive" from Baldwin's followers within minutes of the post.

One message included telling her to get "raped and die."

The lawsuit added that Roice was never detained, arrested, accused of, or charged with any crime, according to an NBC News report.

In addition, there are no records of a person named Roice McCollum that was arrested in connection to the January 6 Capitol attack that aimed to disrupt the certification of presidential elections.

Screen captures of the private conversation were shown and were included in the lawsuit.

One screen capture showed Baldwin had written Roice that he reported her photo, adding "good luck."

The McCollum family said that Baldwin reposted the photo of Roice for one day before taking it down.

The actor allegedly wrote in a screen-captured posting that there are hateful towards Roice that are wrong.

Baldwin said that "irony was my point," referring to the irony of wanting to honor her brother and the fact that Roice is an "insurrectionist."

Baldwin allegedly commented under the picture of Roice that he gratefully supported the GoFundMe campaign while not knowing that the woman is "an insurrectionist." He added that he thinks that it was remarkable.

Meanwhile, a representative for the actor could not be immediately reached for comment over the matter.

READ MORE: Majority Believes Joe Biden Unfit to Be President and 'Others' Are Secretly Running the White House: Poll

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Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: Alec Baldwin sued for $25M by family of Marine killed in Afghanistan - from Fox News






The upcoming GM labor vote in Mexico is now being criticized by Unifor, Canada's largest private-sector union. The agency claimed that the upcoming activity, which will be decided if the Miguel Trujillo Lopez union should be replaced, will actually be unfair.

GM Authority recently reported that the ruling union, which is part of the CTM (Confederation of Mexican Workers), was being criticized because of the poor working conditions in the General Motors Silao plant.

However, the Confederation of Mexican Workers union seems to be preventing SINTTIA (Sindicato Independiente Nacional de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de la Industrial Automotriz) and other unions from ousting the Miguel Trujillo Lopez union.

GM Labor Vote's Fairness Now Criticized

According to Bloomberg's latest report, the massive labor vote will happen from Febroary 1 to 2. Although the activity is still far away, Canada's Unifor already criticized its output.

READ MORE: Mexico Confiscates Thousands of Kellogg's Cereal! Officials Say Cartoon Mascots Aren't Allowed To Be Used

The Canadian agency even released a letter on January 18 to explain why the fairness of the voting activity should be doubted.

"I believe that if workers have the opportunity for a free vote, free of harassment and intimidation, that no worker will support the CTM and decades more of exploitation. The only way the CTM can win is if they cheat," said Unifor President Jerry Dias.

On the other hand, AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) is also concerned about the GM labor vote in Guanajuato, Mexico. The AFL-CIO explained that the lack of workers' rights protection within the General Motors factory might affect the upcoming vote outcome.

Corvette Worker Strike Could Also Happen

Aside from General Motors, Chevrolet also faces criticisms in its Corvette Kentucky plant. Right now, a new union rejected the company's local contract, claiming that it doesn't solve the issues they have in the factory.

Jason Watson, the shop chairman for the UAW Local 2164, the newly-formed worker union, said that it is disappointing that Chevrolet is not taking their requests for improvements seriously, as reported by The Drive.

If you want to learn more details about the issue in Chevrolet's Corvette Kentucky plant, you can click this link.

READ NEXT: Mexico Backed by Canada in New U.S. Car Rules Complaint! Both Countries to Request for Dispute Resolution
New Mexico's government is calling out the National Guard to help keep classrooms open by serving as substitute teachers amid surging COVID-19 cases.

Because of this announcement, New Mexico is the first state to ask for National Guard troops to become substitute teachers in response to COVID staffing shortages.

Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday said that preschools and K-12 public schools in the state need school staff, especially teachers, so classes can be kept open.

For the past few years, the Southwestern U.S. state has always come short of educators and other school staff. Because of this, New Mexico was forced to rely on long-term substitute teachers to guide students.

New Mexico Asks Help From the National Guard

According to PBS.org, New Mexico currently needs around 800 substitute teachers and daycare workers. Grisham is expecting National Guard to send their troops to act as subs, as reported by Army Times.

READ NEXT: Florida Health Official Put on Leave After Urging Staff to Get COVID Vaccine and Criticizing Their 'Pathetic' Vaccination Rate

Aside from the National Guard, New Mexico's government is also calling out state bureaucrats to serve as temporary educators.

"We've determined that we have enough state employees, with the volunteer support with the Guard, to get to that 500 fairly readily, and that's just looking at key departments like the education department and veterans department," Grisham said.

Once the National Guard sends their troops, the school districts will decide if the personnel should wear their uniforms or just casual clothes.

New Mexico's COVID-19 Status

KOB 4 reported that New Mexico recorded more than 6,000 new COVID-19 cases on January 20 alone, increasing the total infected cases to 431,887.

On the other hand, 24 new death cases caused by the deadly novel coronavirus were also recorded. Right now, the total number of deaths related to COVID-19 in the state reached more than 6,200.

These details just show that the U.S. state's COVID-19 status is getting worst, especially after new variants such as Omicron, Deltracron, and IHU appeared. Currently, New Mexico and other states in the U.S. are making drastic efforts to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.

As a citizen, the best thing you can do is follow the government's instructions so that you can protect yourself, your family, and your friends.

READ MORE: Dr. Anthony Fauci Warns How Unvaccinated People Could Delay the End of COVID Pandemic in 2022
Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that former president Donald Trump held secret meetings in the White House residence days before January 6.

Grisham reportedly told the committee about Trump's meetings in the East Wing of the White House. The revelation came from two sources familiar with the matter, according to The Guardian.

Sources said Grisham also told the panel that the details of whether Trump actually planned to attend the march to the Capitol after his speech at the rally on the Ellipse would be memorialized in documents handed over to the Secret Service.

The sources noted that the committee's interview with the former senior Trump aide was more significant than expected.

Grisham reportedly gave the panel new details about Trump's White House, as well as what the former president was doing before the Capitol riot.

Grisham met with the select committee on January 5, telling the press that she "cooperated fully" with the House investigators, Daily Mail reported.

White House Has Yet to Release Visitor Logs for Donald Trump's Meetings

The White House never released visitor logs for meetings that Donald Trump or other officials held at the White House. Investigators have long since taken an interest in who Trump met with at that time.

In December 2020, members of the press at the White House spotted "Kraken" lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted Trump's election overturn effort in the courts.

My Pillow CEO Michael Lindell was also seen at the White House on January 15, 2021, after Grisham left.

READ NEXT: Former Pres. Donald Trump Could Spend Three Years in Prison for the Violation of Hatch Act - Legal Experts

Donald Trump and Select Committee on January 6 Attack

Fox News host Sean Hannity had advised Donald Trump on January 7, 2021 to have "no more stolen election talk," according to The New York Times.

Documents disclosed showed in clear detail how closely Hannity has worked with the White House aides in an effort to persuade the former president to abandon his false claims about election fraud.

Hannity also texted former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany a day after the attack. Hannity described a five-point plan for approaching conversations with the former president, as shown in the documents released by the select committee.

The Fox News host also appeared to be citing possibilities that Trump could be impeached, faced with mass resignations from his staff, or temporarily removed from office by a group of his cabinet secretaries through the 25th Amendment.

Hannity also urged McEnany to keep the former president away from certain advisers, saying, "Key now. No more crazy people." McEnany replied by saying, "Yes 100%."

Meanwhile, the National Archives said Thursday that it was preparing to provide about 800 pages of contested documents from Trump's administration.

The move came after the Supreme Court ruled against blocking access to the documents on Wednesday. According to USA Today, the drove of documents included call logs and handwritten notes.

Jeffrey Robbins, a former assistant U.S. attorney and lawyer for the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations, noted that the documents would allow congressional investigators to hone their questions of witnesses.

Robbins added that the documents allow the committee to ask very specific questions that they might not otherwise be in a position to ask.

READ MORE: Pres. Joe Biden Says He Does Not Care if People Think He's 'Satan Reincarnate' After Expressing Support On Bipartisan Probe of Capitol Riot

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Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: Full Stephanie Grisham: 'I Don't Want [Trump] To Run Again' - From NBC News






The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Thursday ruled out Russia or any other foreign power's involvement in causing the mysterious illness known as Havana Syndrome.

A senior CIA official said the interim findings of the CIA investigation found that most cases could probably be connected to pre-existing medical conditions, environmental factors, or stress, The Guardian reported.

Another CIA official told USA Today that while the report is technically categorized as an interim assessment, it is a definitive and official agency finding.

The official noted that the report was based on months of intensive investigation into what was widely believed a campaign of attacks by a foreign power against U.S. spies and diplomats.

"Despite extensive investigation, we have so far not found evidence of state-actor involvement in any [Havana Syndrome] incident," the unnamed official said.

The official further noted that based on the agency's investigation, it is "unlikely" that a foreign actor such as Russia is conducting a "worldwide campaign" in harming U.S. personnel using a weapon or mechanism.

However, the official said they are not ruling out the "involvement" of a foreign actor in a small number of Havana Syndrome cases whose cause could not be determined. The official noted that the CIA task force would continue investigating these cases.

"There is a subset of cases, some of our toughest cases, that remain unresolved... We will continue an intensive effort to resolve them," the CIA official said.

READ NEXT: Secretary of State Antony Blinken Says the U.S. Still Figuring Out 'Havana Syndrome' as More Officials Get Stricken With Condition

CIA Director Pledges Continues Investigation on Havana Syndrome

In a statement, CIA Director William Burns said that although the agency reached "some significant interim findings," they were still not done investigating these Havana syndrome incidents. While underlying causes may differ, Burns noted that U.S. personnel were suffering "real symptoms."

"We will continue the mission to investigate these incidents and provide access to world-class care for those who need it... Our commitment to care is unwavering," Burns said.

It can be recalled that Burns, who started serving as CIA director in March last year, tripled the number of medical experts working on the incidents linked to Havana Syndrome.

Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has lauded Burns' effort, saying that he and the CIA made Havana Syndrome a "top priority" for the agency.

Warner also commented on the interim finding of the agency, pledging to work with other agencies to get to the bottom of the syndrome.

"It's important to note that today's assessment, while rigorously conducted, reflects only the interim work of the CIA task force... The Senate Intelligence Committee will continue pressing for answers on a bipartisan basis," Warner said.

Havana Syndrome Victims Support Group Slams CIA Findings

Criticisms about the CIA's findings also surfaced. In a statement, a group representing U.S. officials who have reported suspected Havana syndrome incidents ripped the CIA over its report.

"The CIA's newly issued report may be labeled 'interim' and it may leave open the door for some alternative explanation in some cases, but to scores of dedicated public servants, their families, and their colleagues, it has a ring of finality and repudiation," the group Advocacy for Victims of Havana Syndrome said.

The group further noted that they have reason to believe the CIA interim report does not even represent the consensus of the entire agency and only reflects the views of some officials "most interested in resolution and closure."

Mark Zed, a lawyer who represents 15 individuals impacted by Havana Syndrome, also slammed the findings calling it "insulting" for those who have experienced the disease.

"This report was not coordinated with other federal agencies engaged in investigating the issue... it demonstrated that the failure of the government to produce a uniform, expert report," Zed noted.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that investigations would continue.

"We are going to continue to do everything we can, with all the resources we can bring to understand, again, what happened, why, and who might be responsible... And we are leaving no stone unturned," Blinken noted.

Havana Syndrome causes patients to experience hearing strange sounds, loss of balance, dizziness, nausea, and memory loss. Since the original outbreak of the symptoms, more than 1,000 cases have been reported and studied worldwide. Many of the cases originated at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, beginning in 2016.

READ MORE: Kamala Harris Arrives in Vietnam After 3-Hour Delayed Flight From Singapore Over 'Havana Syndrome' Cases

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Joshua Summers

WATCH: Fighting An Invisible Enemy: The Voices Of Havana Syndrome - From NBC News
Ron DeSantis has a special trick.

Every time theres a big Trump parade  whether its for the border wall or against COVID protocols, critical race theory, or Big Tech  DeSantis jumps in front and pretends hes the leader. This time, hes dressing up as the Grand Marshal of election integrity and considering a new first-in-the-nation $5.7 million police force to hunt down Donald Trump-style election conspiracies.

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Its kind of a new look. Back in November 2020, DeSantis bragged that [t]he way Florida did it, I think inspires confidence, I think thats how elections should be run. He called Florida the gold standard when it comes to elections. But that was before Trump required the rank-and-file GOP to attest to his big election lie. So DeSantis is in formation now.

Amanda Carpenter is director of Republicans for Voting Rights and a political columnist for The Bulwark. - Original Credit: Courtesy photo (Courtesy photo)

His new political pandering is different from the old kind. Teaching his kids to build the wall and dressing them in Make America Great Again onesies was cringe, but ultimately silly. Spending millions of taxpayer dollars to create an election crimes unit takes the playacting into the real world.

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DeSantis wants government goons to search for crimes that, by DeSantis own accounting, arent there. But instead of DeSantis celebrating the clean election he ran, hes now casting doubts on it in an attempt to make Trumps election lies seem plausible.

In the 2020 election, Floridas voter turnout was 77 percent, the highest level since 1992, totaling 11.1 million ballots. This is a clear sign of the success of available voting options, which benefited both parties. Democrats returned 39 percent of mail-in and early in-person Florida ballots; Republicans returned 38 percent.

Incidents of voter fraud in Florida are incredibly rare and have been prosecuted when they do occur. According to the Washington Post, Florida received 262 election-fraud complaint forms in 2020 and referred 75 to law enforcement or prosecutors. For all the fear-mongering about voter fraud, only five Floridians have been arrested for voter fraud in the 2020 election. Four were residents of The Villages retirement community, and at least three were Trump supporters. And again  this is out of a pool of 11.1 million ballots.

As elections lawyer Ben Ginsberg  who helped George W. Bush win the 2000 recount  said, Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesnt exist.

Political Pulse Weekly Get latest updates political news from Central Florida and across the state. >

The 262 voter fraud complaints in 2020 do not justify the expense associated with the new DeSantis force. What we have is DeSantis is using his position as governor for pure political theater. Seems to be his specialty.

Last year, DeSantis gave Fox News exclusive coverage of a signing ceremony for a restrictive voting law that limited access to mail-in voting. Even Fox News thought this was strange. Network executives said they thought they booked DeSantis on Fox as an interview and not as a live bill signing.

DeSantis has said Florida wont have an Arizona-style audit of its 2020 election, but thats not really written in stone. The Florida Legislature may pass a bill to audit the 2020 election, and its hard to imagine DeSantis vetoing such legislation, given how invested he is in taking cues from Trump.

How deep is DeSantis into Trumps MAGA culture? Hes signing an anti-vaccine mandate bill in Brandon, a fratty wink to the people who like to chant Lets Go Brandon as a nod to a vulgar chant targeting President Biden. Other pieces of DeSantis legislation include bills to prohibit social media companies from banning Trump, a post-Black Lives Matter protests anti-rioting bill to give civil immunity to people who hit protesters with their vehicles, and legislation to dictate how race is discussed in the classroom.

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None of these proposals are about policy, or even advancing conservative principles. Theyre little more than government by meme.

DeSantis is supposed to be the future of the Republican Party. Shouldnt he be more of a grown-up chief executive, rather than a thirsty figurehead for another man?

Amanda Carpenter is director of Republicans for Voting Rights, a conservative group aiming to hold Republicans accountable for voter suppression.
Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman could face bigamy charges as a new book claims he had two more wives apart from Emma Coronel Aispuro.

Veteran Mexican journalist Anabel Hernandez wrote the book titled "Emma y Las Otras Senoras del Narco" or Emma and the Other Narco Ladies, Daily Mail reported.

According to the book that is coming out on January 25, El Chapo was still married to his first wife when he wed Coronel Aispuro, a former beauty queen.

Hernandez was able to confirm that El Chapo is still legally married to Alejandrina Maria Salazar Hernandez. The couple, who got married in 1977, has five children, including Ivan Archivaldo Guzman and Jesus Alfredo Guzman, who are both wanted by the U.S. on drug trafficking charges.

In the 1980s, El Chapo married Griselda Lopez Perez before exchanging vows with Coronel Aispuro in 2007. Coronel Aispuro had a boyfriend when she first met El Chapo after being crowned in a Sinaloa beauty pageant in 2006. She was only 17 years old at the time, and El Chapo was 49.

The two exchanged vows the following year on her 18th birthday. The California-born ex-beauty queen gave birth to their twins in 2011.

READ NEXT: El Chapo's Wife Trial: U.S. Prosecutors Want Sinaloa Cartel' Queen' Emma Coronel Aispuro to Be Imprisoned for 4 Years

El Chapo and Emma Coronel Aispuro's Marriage

Emma Coronel Aispuro claimed in the book that she and El Chapo were married "under the law of the divine" when they got married in July 2007, according to Independent.

The Sinaloa Cartel boss was said to bribe a priest in Sinaloa, Mexico to conduct the ceremony despite the legal issue.

According to the book, the wedding was enormous, but Coronel Aispuro maintained that the celebration was a small affair with their families.

She claimed that she did not know that El Chapo was the feared leader of the Sinaloa Cartel at the time of her wedding. El Chapo was already a wanted fugitive, with his face plastered on wanted posters across Mexico at the time.

Coronel Aispuro said it was only after it came out in the news that they had gotten married that she started to figure out what was going on with her husband. However, she noted that she did not really give it "that much importance" since she was still young at the time.

It is not known if there are legal documents registered in Mexico that would validate the wedding between Coronel Aispuro and the Sinaloa Cartel boss. But under Mexican law, bigamy can be punished with a two to five years prison term.

Sinaloa Cartel Boss Fell for Emma Coronel Aispuro After She Cooked For Him

The new book also revealed that El Chapo fell for Emma Coronel Aispuro after she cooked him her own enchilada recipe while they were dating in Durango, her home state, New York Post reported.

Coronel Aispuro said the drug lord never bought her huge gifts or other expensive things. She added that El Chapo won people by acting like a normal person with no air.

Coronel Aispuro said El Chapo usually took her to regional dances where they danced and talked. The former beauty queen was not El Chapo's only romantic interest.

According to reports, El Chapo had more than a dozen children among his string of wives and mistresses. The Sinaloa Cartel boss is believed to have fathered at least 15 children. Hernandez wrote in the book that El Chapo was probably "looking for his mother in all the women he knew."

Coronel Aispuro was recently sentenced to three years in prison for helping her husband run his multibillion-dollar drug empire.

The Sinaloa cartel is considered to be one of the most powerful drug-trafficking syndicates in the world. The Mexican drug cartel has been known to carry out assassinations, murders, and torture to protect its turf.

The group was founded in the late 1980s and headed by El Chapo. Under El Chapo's leadership, the Sinaloa cartel earned its reputation through violence and outfought several rival groups.

El Chapo was sentenced to spend the rest of his days in the ADX Florence "supermax" prison after being sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019.

READ MORE: Brother of El Chapo, 3 Other Sinaloa Cartel Members Charged on Drug Trafficking Charges

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's wife Emma Coronel Aispuro Sentenced to 3 years in US prison - From ABC7






Rosalinda Gonzalez Valencia or "La Jefa," the wife of Jalisco cartel boss Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, will remain in detention, a Mexican judge ruled.

Last week, Judge Fernando Issac Ibarra Gomez of the First Unitary Court of Morelos in Mexico ruled that Gonzalez Valencia must remain confined in prison because she could escape and evade trial if released, Reforma reported.

Gonzalez Valencia, also known by her alias "the Boss," is facing charges for several crimes, including her involvement in the "illicit financial operation" of the Jalisco cartel.

El Mencho's wife was first captured in May 2018 in Zapopan, Jalisco based on an arrest warrant for money laundering. But four months later, she was released after paying an $82,000 bail bond and with the condition that she had to go to a justice center every Thursday and should not leave the country.

She reportedly failed to comply with these directives. Thus, the court ordered that she'd be arrested again, which was executed last November 15 in Zapopan.

According to the latest ruling, La Jefa was apprehended again because she failed to comply with procedural requirements that made clear she lacked the will to face her trial "at liberty."

The ruling said El Mencho's wife stopped going every Thursday to sign as a defendant at the Federal Criminal Justice Center of Morelos. She also failed to attend two summonses issued on September 5 and 7, 2018 to appear the following day in the same center.

The ruling further noted that health problems are not an obstacle in imposing pretrial detention. According to her lawyers, La Jefa reportedly had a heart condition, glaucoma, and hypertension that required medical care.

Court records showed that a judge sentenced El Mencho's wife to pretrial detention in June last year as part of an investigation that linked her with a network of 73 companies that allegedly laundered about $53 million for the Jalisco cartel between 2015 and 2016.

La Jefa is currently being held at the woman's prison in Morelos.

READ NEXT: Jalisco Cartel Gunmen Carried out Drone Attack, Beat Civilians in Mexico Town

Role of La Jefa in Jalisco Cartel

A former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) chief said that El Mencho's wife is a "financial genius" who holds the key to his drug empire. Mike Vigil noted that La Jefa's arrest could bring El Mencho down.

According to The Sun, El Mencho's personal fortune alone is approximately worth $1 billion. His rise to become the most powerful cartel boss in Mexico has been connected to the savagery that is "compared to the brutality of the terrorist group ISIS."

According to Vigil, La Jefa has been involved in the narco world from a very "early age," as her family established the Milenia cartel in 1970.

Vigil noted that she is a key figure within the Jalisco cartel since he believed she has been responsible for laundering the cartel's money.

The former DEA official, who is one of the world's leading experts on Mexican drug cartels, said one thing they know about drug traffickers is that they believe in blood before associates, which means that people they trust have blood ties.

Vigil noted that La Jefa could provide damaging information if officials could get her to cooperate.

El Mencho and the Jalisco Cartel

The Jalisco cartel or Jalisco New Generation Cartel is considered one of Mexico's most dangerous and powerful drug cartels.

The Jalisco cartel had risen to power after Mexican security forces killed former Sinaloa cartel capo Ignacio Coronel in July 2010.

Two groups fought for control of the drug trafficking in Jalisco upon Coronel's death. The Torcidos and La Resistencia were the two factions that fought.

The Torcidos now became the Jalisco cartel and rose as the successors to the Sinaloan cap's network in the region, according to an InsightCrime report.

El Mencho is the head of the Jalisco cartel, which had approximately 5,000 members and was allegedly involved in mass graves, kidnappings, acid baths, and video recording beheadings.

El Mencho continues to evade capture, and the U.S. government offers a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

The Jalisco cartel boss remains to be the most elusive criminal and is reportedly hiding in Mexico, separated from his family.

READ MORE: La Negra, Daughter of Jalisco Cartel Boss El Mencho, Gets 2 1/2 Years in Prison for Violation of Kingpin Act

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: New Generation Jalisco Drug Cartel Spreads Through Mexico - From CGTN America






The families of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie have finally reached an agreement regarding the couple's belongings.

The attorney for Laundrie's family Steven Bertolino told Fox News on Thursday that the two families reached an agreement about how the couple's property will be distributed.

"An agreement in principal with respect to the distribution of property between the families has been reached," Bertolino said.

Bertolino noted that this includes the notebook found near Laundrie's remains that the FBI will release. The families of both Petito and Laundrie have reportedly agreed to split the couple's belongings after the vlogger's parents met with the FBI in Tampa, Florida on Thursday. However, the reason for the meeting remained unknown, The Sun reported.

Who Will Get Brian Laundrie's Notebook?

Steven Bertolino said that he and Gabby Petito's family attorney, Rick Stafford, had compiled a written agreement "to detail how the property" to be released from law enforcement would be distributed when the time comes.

However, the lawyer did not say which family would get Brian Laundrie's notebook. The FBI has reportedly indicated that answers could be coming soon to questions about the notebook's contents.

"Today, the family of Gabrielle Petito met with the FBI at the Tampa Field Office. We will be issuing a final statement shortly as our investigation will be coming to a close in the near future," an FBI Denver spokesperson told Fox News.

Bertolino earlier said that Laundrie's parents were trying to get the notebook back. It was reportedly part of the formal proceedings to control their son's estate.

Laundrie's parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, perhaps wanted to know if their son wrote anything in the notebook related to his last wishes since he did not leave a will. The FBI took the item after they found it during their search at the Carlton Reserve in Florida on the day they discovered Laundrie's remains.

FBI has yet to tell the elder Laundries whether investigators found anything pertinent to the case in the notebook. The FBI did not also say if what they recovered is even legible after spending weeks in the swamp.

Laundrie's parents filed the request in Sarasota County, Florida last December 8 to gain access to their son's estate as beneficiaries since he did not have a will. Records showed that they submitted their son's death certificate in court together with the details about his bank accounts and property.

Petito's mom, Nichole Schmidt, has filed a petition requesting to obtain all of her late daughter's possessions from Laundrie's home in North Port, Florida.

Court records showed that Petito's mom filed a statement in Sarasota County on December 28 regarding Laundrie's estate battle. However, it does not state any specific items of Petito's that she wanted to collect. Petito lived at the Florida home with Brian Laundrie for two years before taking off on their cross-country road trip.

Meanwhile, North Port Police Department Spokesperson Josh Taylor told Fox News that he was not aware of any developments in the case that would have resulted in it being closed.

"We knew they would be meeting after the first of the year. I would think we would be briefed if in fact something was wrapping up," Taylor noted.

READ NEXT: Brian Laundrie Update: Report Reveals Moab City Police Who Responded to Gabby Petito and Her Fiance Did' Unintentional Mistakes'

Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito's Death

Gabby Petito disappeared on a cross-country road trip with Brian Laundrie. They were traveling to Oregon when the Petito stopped communicating with her family in Wyoming in late August.

Laundrie was named a person of interest by the North Port police after returning home alone on September 1 or 10 days before Petito was reported missing by her family.

A Teton County, Wyoming coroner said Petito was strangled to death by a "human being," and the manner of death was homicide.

The partial skeletal remains found at Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on October 20 were confirmed to belong to Laundrie after a review of dental records. According to the autopsy report, Laundrie died of a gunshot wound to the head, and the manner of death was suicide.

Brian Laundrie was never charged in connection with Gabby Petito's murder. But an arrest warrant was issued for him for allegedly using Petito's debit card after her death.

READ MORE: Brian Laundrie Sleuth Unveils New Proof That Gabby Petito's Fiance 'Is Not Dead'

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written By: Joshua Summers

WATCH: Gabby Petito's Family Meets With FBI in Tampa - From NewsNation Now
Ben Frazier, Jacksonville Northside Coalition founder, has a discussion with an aide of Gov. Ron DeSantis after Frazier refused to leave the room where the press conference with the governor was to be held in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022. The planned press conference with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was relocated from the Department of Children and Families office building to the adjacent FDLE building after protesters, wanting to address the governor refused to leave the initial press conference site. (Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union via AP) (Bob Self/AP)

A conflict between the State Attorneys Office and Gov. Ron DeSantis has arisen over an activist arrested at one of the governors press conferences.

State Attorney Melissa Nelson requested reassignment after the arrest of activist Ben Frazier at a Jacksonville media event for DeSantis, WTVL-WJXX reported.

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Frazier was cited for criminal trespass.

Nelson, in a letter, told DeSantis that Frazier had a relationship with the office as an advocate and adversary.

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DeSantis on Tuesday refused the request, stating: ...staff members of [your] Office were directly involved...we have concerns that the ends of justice would not be best served if this Office were to select which state attorney should investigate or prosecute this matter, WTVL-WJXX reported.

Nelson sent another letter to the 7th Circuit State Attorneys Office on Thursday.

In that letter, she cites DeSantis spurn, her offices conflict, and appointed a special prosecutor to the case who can make an independent determination whether to file charges.

Read the full report on firstcoastnews.com.
The HSE has outlined the steps it has taken to boost Covid-19 vaccination in Laois following the publication of new figures which show Laois has the third lowest uptake in Ireland.

Figures published by the HSE show that 10% of eligible people in Laois have not been vaccinated against the virus. The county is already below the 99.9% national average uptake among the more vulnerable groups aged 70 and over.

In response the HSE Community Health Office for Laois and other midland counties outlined its record and actions.

"The Portlaoise vaccination centre has administered 80,000 vaccines to the people of Laois.

"The centre has issued appointments to all members of the public registered on the system over 50 on the COVAX system who have not attended on a number of occasions inviting them to attend for a vaccine.

"HSE have changed its model of vaccine delivery to make the service more accessible by offering and continue to offer walk in clinics where no appointments is necessary while also offering the opportunity to book an appointment on line through the self-schedule portal.

"HSE have also augmented the national media campaigns by running local media campaigns and will continue to publicise the fact we are open and the general public can visit the website where the weekly clinic details are available https://www2.hse.ie/services/ covid-19-vaccination-centres/

"Children aged 5 -11yrs once registered on the system will continue to be offered appointments," it said.

Dr Una Fallon, Director Public Health Midland, urged people to get vaccinated.

Age-appropriate vaccination and booster is the best way for members of the public to protect themselves and their families from serious illness with COVID-19, she said.

The HSE ran a mass vaccination hub at the Midlands Park Hotel Portlaoise from April to September 2021. This subsequently transfered to a HSE premises on the at the St Fintan's Health Campus in the town.

Apart from HSE vaccination, the public have received primary and booster shots from GPs and pharmacies.
Family visits to prisoners at the jails in Portlaoise and other parts of Ireland are set to recommence but restrictions will be in place at the Midlands Prison due to Covid-19, according to he Irish Prison Service (IPS).

Physical visits will return in the week commencing Monday, January 24 with families able to book a visit as normal from the same date.

However, the IPS advises that where Covid-19 cases are still live full visits will be restricted.

"It should be noted that some restrictions will continue to apply in prisons where outbreaks of Covid-19 are ongoing. Those restrictions will be limited to the affected areas within the prison. There are currently outbreaks in Mountjoy Prison, Midlands Prison, Cork Prison, Limerick and Cloverhill however, not all areas within these prisons are affected.

"Prisoners will be entitled to receive one physical visit per fortnight. Prisoners will also be able to avail of a video visit during the week that they are not receiving a physical visit. Prisoners may choose to avail of a video visit instead of a physical visit if they prefer.

"A maximum of 2 visitors will be allowed during each physical visit, of which one may be a child (under 18 years of age). Visits will continue to be subject to infection control measures including the wearing of a prison issued face mask," said the service.

Visiting has been significantly curtailed during the Covid-19 outbreak. All physical (family) visits to prisons were suspended for two weeks from Monday, January 10.

Further updates on the operation of physical family visits will be published on the Irish Prison Service website www.irishprisons.ie and twitter account @irishprisons on an ongoing basis.
The Government has been given the green light to lift the majority of the States Covid restrictions.

It is understood that the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has recommended restrictions around hospitality can be lifted, including the 8pm curfew.

The recommendations also say that live venues and sport venues can return to full capacity and that Covid passes only be required for international travel.

The wearing of face masks is recommended to continue on public transport and in retail settings.

The Taoiseach will address the nation at around 6pm on Friday with a timeline of the lifting of restrictions to be set out.

The Restaurants Association of Ireland has urged the Government in light of the recommendations to allow all hospitality businesses to trade as normal from Friday.

Government ministers will meet on Friday to assess the advice before Taoiseach Micheal Martin makes the announcement.

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe told RTE it is reasonable to expect that the state will be able to exit regulations at a faster pace than would have looked likely a number of weeks ago.

He said: What we have done at all points in this pandemic is been guided by public health advice. We have looked to deploy timings that get the balance right between the needs to our economy and society and that of public health, and that is what we will continue to do.

Donall OKeeffe, chief executive of the Licensed Vintners Association, said the recommendations have been eagerly awaited by the entire hospitality and late-night sectors for a long, long time.

Hopefully the Government will now move swiftly and there will be no delays to the full reopening and the scrapping of hospitality restrictions, he said.

Hospitality is ready and waiting to open our doors this weekend. If the Government gives the green light then the recovery of the hospitality and night-time sectors could begin as early as Friday night.

Earlier, the Taoiseach said he will give a clear and comprehensive statement on Friday about the plans for the weeks and months ahead.

The situation is positive. We have come through Omicron better than we might have expected prior to Christmas, he told RTEs Morning Ireland.

The combination of the booster campaign and vaccination and the fact that Omicron does not seem to be as virulent as Delta and previous waves has meant that the impact on people, in terms of severe illness and death and ICUs, has been much less.

So, therefore, I think people can be positive, we can be positive.

He said that Ireland is entering a new phase and that changes are expected to happen next week.

The original restrictions were there till the end of the month, we may now go before that, he added.

I do want to allow Nphet to meet today but yes, I think we can look forward to an earlier lifting of restrictions than we might have anticipated.

He said measures including the wearing of masks will continue for some time.

The Government on Wednesday announced a raft of measures designed to thank the public and frontline workers for their efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among the measures announced is a one-off public holiday on March 18, as well as a payment of 1,000 euros tax-free to frontline healthcare workers.

The Taoiseach said the details of the scheme are still being worked on and the date of the payment has yet to be confirmed.

He said those in line to receive the bonus have more or less been decided, but that a panel will be established to assess the plans.

There is a panel to be established because its a complex enough area, in terms of categories of workers and so forth, he added.

I think were going to look at certain categories, basically people who are in that front line, who were engaging with the public and patients and particularly people coming forward in the medical arena and in the health arena.

There was clearly a higher risk within the healthcare arena. Without the people in the front line and our health services we couldnt have come through Covid, and that they have to be a priority.

The @hpscireland has today been notified of 5,523* confirmed cases of #COVID19. In addition, on Wednesday 19 January, 5,048** people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal.  Department of Health (@roinnslainte) January 20, 2022

He also confirmed that an inquiry into how the Government handled the pandemic will be carried out.

I would prefer to call it an evaluation of how the country managed Covid-19, the Fianna Fail leader added.

I think we do have to learn lessons  principally learn lessons for the future that other pandemics could happen. This pandemic isnt over by the way, I just have to stress that point.

He confirmed the inquiry will be held in public.

A further 5,523 cases of Covid-19 were notified in Ireland.

In addition, 5,048 people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal.

As of 8am on Thursday, there were 896 Covid-positive patients in hospital, of whom 90 were in intensive care.
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Taoiseach Micheal Martin is this evening announcing an end to most Covid-19 restrictions in place in Ireland from 6am on Saturday morning, January 22.

NPHET met earlier this week to discuss the current measures, concluding their meeting by sending a letter to Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly with the recommendation to end most measures.

It was left up to Cabinet to decide when to officially scrap the restrictions.

Cabinet met on Friday to discuss proposals and agreed to end a number of restrictions from 6am on Saturday.

From that time onwards, pubs and restaurants will be able to return to their normal working hours while nightclubs will once again be allowed to re-open fully. Neither setting will be required to ask for a Covid-19 vaccination or recovery cert.

Covid certs will only be required for international travel.

Full attendance will be permitted and all indoor and outdoor events. There will be no more requirement for social distancing and no limits on household visits.

The only restrictions remaining in place beyond Saturday will be the wearing of face coverings in most indoor settings, including retail and schools. However, this measure may even end some time in February, it has been indicated. to continue,

People with Covid symptoms are still expected to isolate and seek a test as per guidelines on testing currently in place.

'Not over yet'

Earlier on Friday, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar warned that the return of restrictions cannot be ruled out, and said some measures  such as mask-wearing  could be retained in the future.

This is a virus that has surprised us on many occasions, and its a virus that likes to rip up our plans, he said.

Nobody can rule out another wave after Omicron. Immunity does wane, there will be new variants of concern and of course, respiratory viruses spread more easily in wintertime.

So nobody can rule out the possibility of a fifth wave. Nobody can say for sure whether that would be a mild or severe one.

But I think thats why its important that we continue to build on some of the changes that have been made during the course the last two years.

He said Government will have to continue to increase capacity in hospitals and ICUs, and recruit more doctors, nurses and midwives into the health service.

He added: And were gonna need to put in place monitoring systems to make sure that we can identify new variants quickly, identify their spread quickly.

Also I think there will be a big focus on permanent changes to the way we act as individuals.

I think we may all choose to wear masks in certain settings in the future, particularly if we have symptoms.

We may all decide that we dont go to work or we work from home, if weve symptoms in particular.

He also praised the Irish public, health care workers and business sector for their response during the pandemic.

The only thing Id say, just a particular thanks to the Irish people. Its been a very long two years, he said.

Its certainly not over yet, but were in a much better place than we were in previously."
A Kildare Councillor has said that clarity is needed over the Leaving Certificate (LC) exams for this year.

Labour (LP) Cllr Angela Feeney said the government needs to take action now and provide clarity to young people on this years Leaving Cert.

Her comments follow just two days after the Children's Ombudsman, Dr Niall Muldoon, expressed his frustration over the lack of clarity surrounding this year's LC

Cllr Feeney said that her comments also follow the publication of the Irish Second-Level Students Union (ISSU) survey showing two-thirds of exam students support a hybrid model for state exams.

She said: "I am calling on the Minister and Department to hear the concerns of students and commence preparations for a hybrid state examination model for 2022."

"We in the LP have been campaigning on this issue for over a month and have received an overwhelming response from exam students.

The Maynooth politician explained: "Students have experienced a huge amount of disruption over the last two years, with rolling school closures and huge changes in how they are taught how they learn.

The loss of in person teaching in fifth year combined with the interruptions since September due to teachers not being available and the impact of substitutions has had an effect that cannot be ignored.

Cllr Feeney said that it is clear that theres "huge engagement" from the wider education community on this issue, with many pointing to the roll out of the hybrid leaving cert in 2021 by the Dept: "Weve done it before and we can do it again.

"It would be wrong-headed for the Minister to go back to normal given that the education experience for students is still being negatively impacted by the pandemic.

"Frankly, a decision on the format of the exams should have been made by now.

"However, LP is committed to keeping the pressure on the Minister on behalf of students and bringing certainty sooner rather than later: none of us want to be in this position, but it is only fair to give students clarity now, and ensure that for the next few months there is a defined path in place for Leaving Cert students."

She also claimed that LP continues to hear anecdotal evidence from higher education institutions that this years first years are "performing much better than had been anticipated", given their experience of home studying.

"Institutions are highlighting the fundamental resilience of our young people to adapt to new ways of learning and engaging with material.

"In light of this, its time to have a conversation about our education system and reform how we assess our students.

"We need an education system that works for our young people; one that develops skills and pathways to a range of options for graduates from apprentices to PLCs to university... we must be guided by our young people in this process," Cllr Feeney concluded.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday waved off a decision by the state Senate to not consider a controversial redistricting plan that his administration proposed.

For the congressional map, it requires my signature, DeSantis said at an appearance in Sarasota. And so, you know, we have lawyers that had had concerns about what they were doing. So that process will work itself out, and well be able to hopefully end up with a product that makes a lot of sense.

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The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved new congressional and Senate maps in the once-a-decade redistricting process. It did not take up a congressional map that DeSantis general counsel, Ryan Newman, proposed Sunday. The DeSantis map would be more favorable to Republicans.

DeSantis noted the House must still offer a congressional map. The House and Senate will have to reach an agreement on a final version, which then would go to DeSantis for his consideration.

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Floridas U.S. House delegation will increase from 27 to 28 members because of population growth over the past decade.

The Senates congressional map would result in 17 districts won in 2020 by former Republican President Donald Trump, up from 16 current districts. The DeSantis proposal seeks to create 18 districts that went for Trump in 2020. In part, the proposal would make vast changes to historically Black districts held by Democrats Al Lawson in North Florida and Val Demings in the Orlando area.

Thats their prerogative, DeSantis replied when asked about the Senates congressional map.
Kildare Chilling Company in Kildare town has been fined 400,000 after it pleaded guilty to breaches of the Safety, Health & Welfare at Work Act 2005 over the death of a worker in 2018.

Judge Mary O'Malley Costello imposed the fine at Naas Circuit Court.

The case arose following an incident on February 15, 2018 when Moldovan employee Alexandru Coceban (22) was fatally injured when he was struck and crushed by a mobile forklift truck whilst he was walking across an open yard at his workplace at the Kildare Chilling plant.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Authority concluded that all appropriate safety measures were not in place at the time of the incident.

Kildare Chilling Company pleaded guilty to Section 8(1) Safety, Health and Work Act 2005 and Section 8(2)(a) of the said Act contrary to section 77(9)(a) of the Safety, Health and Work Act 2005, regarding its failure as an employer to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, the safety and health at work of its employees, in that they failed to manage and conduct work activities, specifically the operation of a forklift truck in proximity to pedestrians and provide a traffic management system that provided for designated pedestrian routes, the wearing of hi-viz clothing, crossing points and safety warning signs at its place of work.

Mark Cullen, Chief Inspector with the Health and Safety Authority said: Companies should have in place safe systems of work and traffic management systems that provide for designated pedestrian routes to protect employees and others from the hazard and risks arising from vehicles operating in the workplace.

"Employers should also ensure that operators of plant and equipment have the necessary information, instruction and training and that the plant and equipment being used is regularly maintained and safe."
A woman appeared with facial injuries in Naas District Court having allegedly been knocked unconscious by her husband, who works as a hospital nurse.

Commenting on her appearance, Judge Desmond Zaidan told her the right side of your face is massively swollen'' and added that marks on the womans neck beneath a scarf she wore looked like choking marks.

Addressing the woman in the witness box, the judge added: I find it hard to look at your injuries, six to eight feet in front of me.

The woman told the court that she lives with her husband and they have two young children.

Read more Kildare news

She told the court on January 19 that the incident had taken place the previous night and she had been seen by a doctor. She said she had soft tissue injuries and was taking painkillers.

Both the woman and her partner are not originally from Ireland.

She claimed her husband was drunk at the time and she has no other family members in Ireland.

The assault happened after she returned to the family home having left because he was drunk and abusive.

She told Judge Zaidan that she drove around for an hour and when she returned he beat her while the children were in the car.

A neighbour heard her call for help and contacted the gardai. She was punched and grabbed and said that for a few minutes she could not remember anything.

She did not go to hospital initially because I thought it was okay.

She also said that the gardai are investigating the matter and arrested the man, before he was subsequently released on garda station bail.

It was the first time he had assaulted her though he abuses her when he is drunk.

She also said he had contracted Covid-19 and hadnt worked for a period but the judge intervened saying dont make excuses, you dont treat a loved one like that.

The woman told the court she was afraid to go back into the house if it happens again to which the judge responded why should he stay in the house.

Judge Zaidan said the case warranted a barring order.

This could have caused you brain damage, who would have looked after your kids then.

Referring to the husband, who did not appear, he said he does this to the mother of his kids, his wife.

He added youre not to blame for any of this, youre the victim and he has no right to stay in the house.

Judge Zaidan said he was concerned that others in the womans community may encourage her to resolve it other than by the rule of law.

When the woman suggested she didn't want the gardai involved, the judge said that the plain clothes gardai would deliver the barring order document to the man.

He granted a barring order and urged the woman to make contact with locally based Teach Tearmainn, which provides services to women and children who have suffered domestic violence and abuse.
RTE has been accused of behaving like a rogue employer after failing to commit to paying benefits to staff who missed out because they were wrongly classified as freelance workers.

The broadcasters director general Dee Forbes declined to give a commitment to pay pension contributions, holiday entitlements, sick pay, maternity leave and other benefits for staff who were in so-called bogus self-employment.

Ms Forbes has confirmed that RTE has paid over 1.2 million to the Revenue Commissioners in a settlement on foot of an audit of employment practices at the organisation.

A 2018 report by law firm Eversheds Sutherland, commissioned by RTE, found that up to 157 of their employees may have been wrongly classified as self-employed, missing out on a range of benefits as a result.

RTE is also engaged with the Department of Social Protection in a review for potential PRSI classification liabilities, examining the contractual and employment arrangements of up to 500 workers  a probe that could run until 2023.

Under questioning by TDs and Senators, Ms Forbes said RTE would look at the issue of retrospective payments at the end of the process.

Were not at the end, but we have started the discussion. So its really something that will will be addressed as we go further down this process she said.

Asked by Sinn Fein TD Imelda Munster is she believed those workers deserved their entitlements, Ms Forbes said: I think at this point, Deputy, its not for me to say what should or shouldnt happen.

I think what we have to do is, we have to have we have to go through this process and work together with our TUG (RTE Trade Union Group) colleagues to have a fair outcome here.

What that is, I cannot say at this moment. You know, were engaging with all the parties transparently and openly.

I agree that we have legacy issues to deal with here.

But to the actual subject and to the detail within that I cant speak to it.

Ms Munster then put it to Ms Forbes that her position would be seen by the wider public as the behaviour of a rogue employer.

She said: Would you accept then, that refusing to acknowledge what theyre entitled to or refusing to say that you believe that they should be paid what was owed to them

Would you accept that theres a perception there because of that, that RTE would be perceived by a vast amount of people, the public in general, as rogue employers?

Ms Forbes replied: I dont accept that, Deputy, because were dealing with legacy issues here.

Ms Munster said if the broadcaster was dealing with legacy issues, there would be an expectation that you would want to put right the mistakes made.

She added: Thats why Im a bit kind of taken back that you wouldnt actually commit to saying that they they shouldnt have those entitlements that they were deprived of.

That they should be paid that.

Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy asked if there would be accountability for the controversy.

Why is there no commitment to deal with the other issues, other than revenue and the PRSI issues? she asked.

Why would that not be automatic when they were treated in this particular way?

Was where is the accountability on this?

Will the people who decided that this was the employment status that was going to be offered to them, without understanding that this was really bogus self employment, is there going to be accountability on this?

Ms Forbes said she rejected the accusation that the broadcaster had engaged in bogus self employment.

She added: I agree that changes happened to employment legislation, that perhaps were not kept up to date.

Were dealing with legacy issues here for many, many years.

The important thing is that we come to resolution on this, which were working through, through a very complex process here.

She said measures had been put in place to ensure this does not happen in the future.

Ms Murphy responded: You dont see that accountability.

Youre talking about legacy issues and things like that.

Im going to leave it at that.

But Ive got to say, I dont accept that it is not bogus self employment, because their employment status was changed, was a scope review, there was a revenue payment.

I dont know what you would call it.
AHEAD of the expected announcement that most public health restrictions are to be eased from tomorrow, the latest Covid-19 case numbers have been confirmed.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre says it has today been notified of a further 6,597 confirmed cases of the disease across the country.

A further 4,564 people registered a positive antigen test through the HSE portal during the most recent reporting period.

The Department of Health says there were 892 Covid-19 patients in hospital at 8am this Friday of which 88 were in ICU.

Meanwhile, the UL Hospitals Group has confirmed that schedule hospital services, including surgery, endoscopy and outpatient appointments, are being gradually introduced across the sites of UL Hospitals Group as the rate of community transmission of Covid-19 continues to decline from its mid-January peak.

Significant numbers of healthcare workers have been returning to work from absences associated with Covid-19, enabling the Group to begin a phased return of services, at a slow and steady pace, in University Hospital Limerick, Ennis, Nenagh and St Johns, and Croom Orthopaedic Hospital.

Theatre lists have resumed at hospitals across the group and outpatient departments in the hospitals are also working towards full resumption, in line with the redeployment of any staff transferred elsewhere in the Group during the Covid-19 surge.

Around 5% of workers were absent from work this Friday and UL Hospitals Group CEO, Colette Cowan, has sent her best wishes for a full recovery to all staff who are currently unwell.

Once again, our staff have proven to be extraordinarily flexible and courageous during this latest wave of the pandemic. With a significant number of their colleagues absent for work for numerous reasons associated with Covid-19, many staff were required to redeploy to the frontline and support essential services. I applaud them for their professionalism, their compassion for patients, and their efforts to ensure that essential services remained open for patients who needed them most at this time, she said.
A LIMERICK student was left feeling foolish after being cheated out of several thousand euro in a sophisticated accommodation scam.

The scam, which targeted prospective renters looking to find a room to rent in Limerick city, is one of 503 that were reported nationally to An Garda Siochana in the last three years.

Aontu National Secretary Sarah Beasley said the TUS student who fell victim to the rental scam, was distraught after 3,000 worth of his hard-earned money was cruelly taken.

The man, aged in his early 20s, first made contact with what he thought was a landlord in Limerick city, who directed him to lodge money to a secure location operated by a trustworthy bank.

Ms Beasley said: The scammer says that this is to sort the genuinely interested renters from time wasters, the house seeker is assured that money will be returned if they fail to get the property.

The sophisticated scam then activates once the fake house owner sends a link, pretending to be a from a real website, in this case, the well-known rental space Daft.ie.

The criminal then takes the money under the guise of this secure location. In this case, the student was unable to recover any of the money he had transferred over.

Divisional Crime Prevention Officer for Limerick Sergeant Ber Leetch told the Limerick Leader that the faster you contact your financial institution, the better chance you give yourself in recovering your lost finances.

The main advice here is that students should only use recognised letting agencies or deal with people they know that are bona fide and trusted.

She stressed the importance of checking the URL of the website, to avoid cloned sites and to take note of the privacy and refund policy section.

Its always better to meet the landlord in person, she explained, adding that prospective renters need to be wary of communicating on social media and messaging apps.

Major red flags can be identified in cash-only meet ups or a sense or urgency or pressure being exerted on the potential tenant.

Sgt Leetch mentioned one case, where a young woman turned up at a residential property in Caherdavin, to meet a landlord. After a man answered and assured her that the property was in fact, not for rent, he alerted gardai in Henry Street.

People are so desperate for accommodation now in Limerick that they jump on anything. Make sure the person has the deeds to the house and that the keys do in fact fit.

If it seems too good to be true, then it definitely is, Sgt Leetch concluded.
LIMERICK'S Denise Chaila says she is "in bits" after winning a European Music Award.

The rapper took home a prestigious 2022 Music Moves Europe Award from the online ceremony.

This annual prize for popular and contemporary music is co-funded by the European Union and celebrates emerging artists who represent the European sound of today and tomorrow.

I won a Music Moves Europe Award for Ireland tonight!!!



Proud to report Im in bits



Im always shocked when anyone knows me at home, let alone out of Ireland, so this is crazy I won a European award. Wow. I dunno who exactly to thank, but thank you. So much. xxx pic.twitter.com/H0Nrz3R3GL January 20, 2022

Previous winners of prizes at the awards include Stromae, Adele, Mumford & Sons, Dua Lipa, Meduza and Inhaler.

The judges described Chaila as having Smart lyrics, a real passion and strength when performing. One of the most exciting artists on this year.

The awards are part of a larger festival taking place during which 10 Irish artists will be showcased.

As well as the award, Denise gets to take home 10,000 and each nominee is also offered the opportunity to attend a training day at ESNS to further their skills at taking their career International.

In light of Denise winning the renowned award, the odds on the singer winning a Grammy in the next three years have been slashed.

Sarah Kinsella, spokesperson for BoyleSports said: Support is growing for Denise Chaila to land a Grammy in the future after the rising star was recognised at the prestigious Music Moves Europe Awards.

"The annual awards show, which is supported by the European Union, celebrates emerging artists in contemporary music across the continent with Chaila now 8/1 from 16/1 to bag a Grammy by the end of 2025.
TRIBUTES have been paid to an "exceptional" volunteer for St John's Ambulance Limerick following his death.

Philip Tuohy passed away on January 16 after a short battle with lung cancer having only been diagnosed in October.

Mr Tuohy was a volunteer for St John's Ambulance for 52 years and was the District Officer in the Limerick branch.

Originally from Colbert Avenue, he lived in Janesboro for a time before moving to Seven Oaks, Kilmallock Road.

Mr Tuohy was well known through his First Aid volunteering with the National Ambulance Service and his fellow volunteers paying tribute to him at his funeral.

Outside of his time spent with St John's Ambulance, Mr Tuohy was a Aircraft Maintenance Engineer in Shannon Aerospace and the former mechanic at Dan Ryan's in Punches Cross.

Superintendent of the St John's Ambulance in Limerick Austin Florish paid tribute to his friend and mentor.

He said: "He was a character, he was a legend in the organisation. He kept it going in Limerick when no one else was there.

"We gave him as good a send off as we possibly could due to Covid-19. He really was an exceptional man."

The Limerick branch of the organisation also paid tribute to their 'brother' and thanked his family for allowing them to say goodbye.

They said: "In his time he rose through the ranks , starting as a Cadet all the way to District Officer.

"Philip was an outstanding member to have within the organisation and will be dearly missed by all the members.

"Thank You Philip for being a mentor, a colleague, a friend , a leader and a St John Ambulance family member."

Mr Tuohy passed away 13 days before his 67th birthday and was predeceased by his parents Patrick and Maura.
Riding your motorbike through Vietnam is the best way to get to know the country.

As you ride through the different villages and towns, you will get to know the Vietnamese culture and feel part of the country.

Its a unique experience, and with a little planning and a small budget, anyone can take a motorbike trip through Vietnam. Here you can read what you need to keep in mind to plan your trip such as getting the right Vietnam visa.

Planning the route

Most backpackers choose to take the motorbike route between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (or vice versa).

This trip can be done in a fortnight and offers you a mix of white sand beaches, limestone ridges and endless rice fields. There are several routes, so you don't have to plan too much yourself. While this is undoubtedly a fantastic route, there are many other spectacular routes in this country that are much less crowded.

For example, you can also choose to explore the beautiful landscapes of northern Vietnam. From Hanoi, drive west to the border with Laos and then work your way up. The mountains, valleys, rice terraces, limestone cliffs and winding roads are breathtakingly beautiful.

Of course, there is a lot of history, culture and natural beauty to discover throughout the country. The Mekong Delta, for example, can also be a good option. Every province in Vietnam has something special to offer.

Rent or buy a motorbike

The vast majority of motorbike trips in Vietnam start in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. These are the best two places to find a motorbike.

Some travellers choose to rent a motorbike, while others choose to buy their own motorbike and sell it at the end of their trip. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages.

Buying a motorbike (and selling it later on) is generally a lot cheaper. However, you should be aware that a rented motorbike is often more reliable and that, in case of a bought second-hand motorbike, you have to stop more often for repairs.

If you are going to travel through Vietnam for less than two months, it is probably better to rent a motorbike instead of buying one. In both cities, it is easy to find motorbikes for sale in the backpacker areas, and there is also no lack of rental companies.

Blue Card

If you decide to purchase a bike, you will receive a Blue Card. The Blue Card is the proof of ownership and contains the motorbike number, frame number, license plate and the name of the owner.

You need the Blue Card if you plan to sell the bike in the future, if you want to take it with you on a train or if you want to cross the borders with Laos or Cambodia.

Driving Licence and Insurance

Unfortunately, neither the Irish, British or the international driving licence is valid in Vietnam. Officially, you need a Vietnamese driving license to drive a motorbike. Only tourists holding a visa for more than three months are eligible for a Vietnamese driving licence.

Unfortunately, tourist visas are never valid for more than three months. Keep in mind that if you dont have a Vietnamese driving license, you also dont have insurance.

Vietnam visa

Irish tourists need a visa to travel to Vietnam. While Vietnam offers visa-free travel to a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland is not part of this agreement.

There are different variants of the Vietnam visa. For instance, you can apply for the visa on arrival in Vietnam.

This visa comes in two variants (single entry and multiple entry) with a validity term of one month or three months. However, the Vietnamese embassy does not recommend using visa type and instead advises tourists to apply for the online e-visa.

This is applied for entirely online. It is valid for 30 days and can be used for one trip to Vietnam.
A LIMERICK man shocked viewers this Thursday night when he revealed on air that he broke his penis.

Jordan (24) featured on episode three of hit RTE 2 show First Dates Ireland, telling his date Sasha (22) about how he recently broke his penis and had to glue it back together.

Would you be into the gym at all? was the question that his date, Sasha, a student, put to him that first got the ball rolling.

With trademark Limerick honesty, Jordan, who is 6ft 5", denied having any interest in the gym, but did let her know that he once played in goals for Irelands international team, at underage level.

This was until he broke his neck during a game on a wet day, when the striker slid in and connected with his head. I couldnt move at all, my mother had to come in and dress me.

A self-confessed mammies boy, Jordan detailed the closeness of his relationship with his mother, who he tells everything to.

He added that he tells her a lot of things that he probably shouldnt tell her.

Recently, I broke my penis. It full on broke and I was in hospital where I had to get it glued back together, he told, over a romantic dinner at the Gibson Hotel in Dublin, where the show is filmed.

With knife and fork in hand, he proceeded to explain that while doing the thing a woman he was with snapped it like a banjo string.

With blood spraying everywhere like a water gun they called an ambulance, as Jordan was in a bad way.

I was brought to hospital anyways, and the doctor told me it was the worst penis break he had ever seen in his life, he continued.

When all the intimate details were disclosed, and the candlelit dinner came to an end, the pair took to the hot seats to answer the most pertinent question: Would you like to see each other again?"

'It's not something I'd say no to!' It's a cautious 'yes' from Sasha but whatever these two get up to next, let's pray for no more accidents #FirstDatesIRL pic.twitter.com/lZ3F63fDqr  RTE2 (@RTE2) January 20, 2022

I wouldnt mind ya, was the Limerick mans answer, while his Mayo date answered: Its not something I would say no to. Well get a couple of drinks together.
Homes in the Innovation at Hidden Lake neighborhood off Hartwood-Marsh Road in Clermont, Fla., equipped with rooftop solar panels, Thursday, January 6, 2022. Florida Power & Light with the largest electric utility customer base in the U.S. is lobbying state lawmakers to introduce legislation that would suppress the use of rooftop solar power for Florida residences, according to reporting by the Miami Herald. Along with most of the east coast of the state, FP&L serves much of Seminole County in Central Florida. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Two years ago, a Republican state representative wrote to the people who regulate Floridas electricity markets, asking them to review a popular program that incentivizes residents to install rooftop solar panels.

In his letter to the Public Service Commission, Rep. Lawrence McClure of Dover cited a report from a think tank that was critical of the policy, known as net metering. The current system is fiercely opposed by the states utility providers, including Florida Power & Light, the nations largest energy company.

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Records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show that think tank  an organization known as Energy Fairness  has received extensive funding from entities controlled by FPL consultants.

Those consultants, who at the time worked for Alabama-based political consulting firm Matrix LLC, were involved in orchestrating the ghost candidate scheme in which independent candidates in three battleground Florida Senate elections in 2020 were promoted as progressive outsiders, evidently to siphon votes away from the Democrats in each race.

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They are among a network of political operatives who an Orlando Sentinel investigation revealed have in recent years used deceptive tactics to sway elections and ballot measures across the state, often to promote the interests of Floridas most powerful corporations.

The Public Service Commission ultimately decided not to act on McClures letter, but he and another legislator are now pushing a bill in Tallahassee that would end net metering in Florida. That bill was written by lobbyists for FPL, according to the Miami Herald and nonprofit news organization Floodlight.

FPL spokesperson David Reuter said in a statement the company complies with all laws concerning political activity and discloses contributions as required.

Like many Americans and most companies, FPL participates in the political process because nearly every aspect of our business is impacted by policy decisions at every level of government, Reuter wrote. We engage with various partners throughout the state of Florida to support our community outreach and education efforts on issues that affect our customers, our employees and our company.

He did not directly address questions about the companys relationship to Energy Fairness. McClure did not respond to questions about whether he knew about the connections between FPL and the think tank when he cited the report in his letter to the Public Service Commission.

Matrix operatives fueled anti-net metering group

Floridas net-metering program, which lawmakers approved in 2008, allows utility customers who install renewable energy sources, like solar panels, on their homes or businesses to sell excess electricity those devices generate back to utility companies.

The current policies have led to significant growth in the rooftop solar industry, but still, only about 1% of the states more than 8.5 million energy customers sell energy back to utility companies.

Solar advocates say utility companies, which have regional monopolies, are trying to crush the rooftop solar industry because its a potential competitor. Critics of net metering programs, including utilities, say they force customers without solar panels to pay higher prices because they end up subsidizing people with solar panels.

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In recent years, Floridas utilities have pushed to end net metering.

Theyve had a big ally in Energy Fairness.

The organization published a report in 2020, cited in McClures letter, that says Florida utilities should not pay customers with solar panels the retail rate for excess energy generated and those customers should be assessed charges for the cost of maintaining the electrical grid. A previous report, published in 2017 under Energy Fairnesss previous name, Partnership for Affordable Clean Energy, offered similar recommendations.

As a social welfare nonprofit, the think tank doesnt have to disclose its donors.

But a cache of records sent anonymously to the Sentinel last year showed Matrix LLC consultants, who were at the time being paid by FPL, were also working with Energy Fairness in recent years.

Those documents include a ledger of payments by entities controlled by the consultants which shows nearly $200,000 in support of Energy Fairness in 2018 for work related to FPL.

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Those payments included more than $65,000 to McNicholas and Associates, a Florida-based lobbying and public relations firm.

Paul Griffin, the executive director of Energy Fairness, didnt answer emailed questions from the Sentinel about his organizations relationship to Matrix and FPL, though he said he had never been employed by Matrix. He said his organization tries to alert lawmakers to the dangers of badly designed net metering programs.

We published our 2020 report on net metering in Florida because we had serious concerns that the states overly generous net metering program would force low-income customers to pay for rooftop solar for richer families. We continue to have those concerns not only in Florida, but in states like California, Griffin wrote in an email.

The Matrix records also show FPL has donated more than $10 million in recent years to other dark-money nonprofits controlled by some of the same consultants, including organizations that paid for many Energy Fairness expenses. About half of the $400,000 raised by Energy Fairness in 2018 came through organizations tied to the consulting firm, the documents show.

And Abigail MacIver, a former Matrix employee who helped coordinate fundraising for Grow United  the nonprofit that directly funded the political committees behind the ad campaign that promoted the ghost candidates  also used to work for Energy Fairness.

The Matrix records also show entities controlled by the consultants paid $38,000 in June 2018 to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group of state lawmakers and business leaders, on Energy Fairness behalf.

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Two months later, the think tank presented at the organizations annual meeting in New Orleans, with the organizations then-executive director speaking on a panel called Flexibility, Fuels and the Future.

New group pushes net metering opposition

This session, a new group seeking to end Floridas net metering programs has shown up in Tallahassee.

A lobbyist working as a subcontractor for Energy Fairness is now representing Seniors Across America, which is championing the current legislation sponsored by McClure and Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Orange Park, that would end Floridas current net metering program.

Senate Bill 1024 passed its first committee vote last week.

Seniors Across America aims to improve the quality of life for Americans 65 years and older, according to the groups website. Its top priorities include promoting policies that do not punish seniors with higher electric bills to offset the savings enjoyed by those with rooftop solar panels on their homes.

The nonprofit organization, formed in June by prominent Republican attorney Bucky Mitchell, is led by John Grant, a former state lawmaker who has previously lobbied for bills backed by FPL and for a Koch Brothers-backed group called 60 Plus Association. Grant didnt respond to voice messages and emails seeking comment from the Sentinel.

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Speaking during the public comment portion of the Senate Committee on Regulated Industries last week, Grant made arguments similar to the ones McClure detailed in his letter to the Public Service Commission two years ago. He told lawmakers that net metering rewarded wealthy homeowners at the expense of people who live in apartments or cant afford to install solar panels on their rooftops, especially seniors.

Political Pulse Weekly Get latest updates political news from Central Florida and across the state. >

There should be fairness and there should not be a premium paid to those who can afford solar, Grant told the Senate committee.

FPL has long been a heavy hitter in Florida Politics. The company is one of the largest donors to state legislative campaigns and the Florida Senate is particularly important to the utility company because it must confirm appointments the governor makes to the Public Service Commission, which recently voted to let FPL raise rates by nearly $5 billion over the next four years

Records from the Matrix internal investigation obtained by the Sentinel also show that the same former Matrix consultants whose entities provided payments that benefited Energy Fairness played a key role in the states ghost candidate scandal.

The consultants billed FPL for more than $3 million days before they began moving money through the dark money entity that paid for advertisements championing independent candidates in three Florida Senate races. The ads were worded to appeal to progressive voters, part of a scheme to siphon votes from the Democrats in those races.

Former state senator Frank Artiles has been charged with bribing a friend to file to run in one of those races, a Miami-area district where Republican Ileana Garcia defeated Jose Javier Rodriguez by just 32 votes, while independent candidate Alex Rodriguez drew more than 6,000 votes.

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FPL has repeatedly denied its employees had any involvement in the ghost candidate scheme.

anmartin@orlandosentinel.com
A LIMERICK actress who spent five years on Broadway has finally broken through having secured a role in the hit Netflix horror series Archive 81.

New York born but Kildimo bred Megan Hennessy has fulfilled a lifelong ambition of making it to the silver screen by featuring in Archive 81.

Born in the Big Apple to Limerick parents, the theatre enthusiast swapped Stateside for Shannonside at a young age, immersing herself in local performing arts.

She enrolled in Limerick School of Acting, Centre Stage Theatre School as well as Limerick Youth Theatre.

She spent three years at Mary Immaculate College, where, following the death of a friend, decided to shake up her life and return to New York to pursue her acting career.

With her heart set a new, she took the tricks of the trade she learned in various theatre groups in Limerick and applied them to several Irish plays she landed big roles in, following her 2016 move.

It wasnt until the pandemic hit and the imminent postponement of theatre ensued before she even considered going into television.

Sending a self-tape audition to a casting opportunity her agent had spotted, Megan managed to land a role in an eight-part horror series to feature on Netflix in 2022.

The series, which is streaming now, centres around an archivist hired to restore a collection of tapes, whereby he finds himself reconstructing the work of a filmmaker investigating a cult.

Megan plays the part of Rose, an Irish maid, in episode 7, called The Ferryman. Archive 81 is currently one of the most viewed in series in Ireland on Netflix.
As many as 48,049 more people tested positive for Covid-19 across Karnataka in the last 24 hours, taking the state's positivity rate to 19.23%, said state health minister K Sudhakar on Friday.

In addition to this, 22 more people lost their lives to the disease.

Of the total, Bengaluru accounted for 29,068 new Covid cases and six deaths. The numbers stood at 30,540 and eight a day ago.

Further, 18,115 patients recuperated and were discharged across the state since Thursday.

There are currently 3,23,143 active Covid-19 cases in the state, nearly 2,23,000 of which are in Bengaluru.

This comes as the state government during the day decided to lift the weekend curfew, which was imposed with the intention to arrest the spread of Covid-19.

"The weekend curfew on Saturday and Sunday is being lifted. This decision has been taken based on the experts' report and is subject to conditions. Now, the rate of hospitalisation is about 5 per cent. In case it increases, we will re-impose the weekend curfew," said state revenue minister R Ashok.

We have based our decision to withdraw weekend curfew on experts' report. What they (experts) are saying is, though the number of cases is increasing, the rate of hospitalization is around 5%. For us, the rate of hospitalization is the yardstick," the minister added.

However, the night curfew between 10 am to 5 am every day, and all other Covid curbs, including 50% capacity in restaurants and other places will continue, according to an order issued earlier in the day. Restrictions on protests, rallies, fairs and events will also continue.

Further, primary and secondary education minister BC Nagesh, who was also part of the meeting, said as the positivity rate is high in Bengaluru, the government will decide on reopening schools and colleges in the city on 29 January, while in other places they will continue to operate as they are doing now.
French culture is most commonly associated with Paris, which is a center of fashion, cuisine, art and architecture, but life outside of the City of Lights is very different and varies by region.

France doesn't just have culture; the word "culture" is actually French. "'Culture' derives from the same French term, which in turn derives from the Latin 'colere,' meaning to tend to the earth and grow, cultivate and nurture," Cristina De Rossi, an anthropologist at Barnet and Southgate College in London, told Live Science.

Historically, French culture was influenced by Celtic and Gallo-Roman cultures as well as the Franks, a Germanic tribe. France was initially defined as the western area of Germany known as Rhineland but it later came to refer to a territory that was known as Gaul during the Iron Age and Ancient Roman era.

In the centuries that followed it was the home of some of the most powerful royal families of the medieval and early modern period and went on to be the center of the Enlightenment with the French Revolution . The rise of Napoleon saw French influence spread through Europe and beyond, becoming one of the major world powers through the 19th and 20th centuries, at the heart of the First and Second World Wars, all of which has shaped the France we know today.

Population of France

The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) places the population of France at 67.81 million people as of January 1, 2022. Of that population, 87.8% are believed to be French-born citizens with a further 4.8% acquiring French citizenship after birth, according to Statista . The most common nationalities of foreign-born residents in France, according to 2020 figures from The Institut National d'Etudes Demographiques (INED) are Algerian, Moroccan, Portuguese, Tunisian, Italian, Turkish and Spanish.

The INED calculates that around 48.35% of the population of France is Male and 51.65% is female, as of February 2021. Just under a quarter of the population is under the age of 20 and a little over 20% is age 65 and above.

The vast majority of French people live in urban areas, with Statista saying that 80.69% of the population lived in cities as of 2020. This is a large increase from the 61.88% that lived in cities back in 1960.

French language

French is the official language and the first language of 88% of the population, according to the BBC. It is the dominant language of France, but there are a number of variants based on region.

French is the second most widely learned foreign language in the world, with almost 2 million students learning it as a second language across 50 countries, according to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development . French is also the seventh most-spoken language in the world according to Statista , with around 267 million native speakers.

About 3% of the population speaks German dialects, and there is a small group of Flemish speakers in the northeast, according to the BBC. Arabic is the third-largest minority language.

Those living near the border of Italy may speak Italian as a second language, and Basque is spoken by people living along the French-Spanish border.

Other dialects and languages include Catalan, Breton (the Celtic language), Occitan dialects, and languages from the former French colonies, including Kabyle and Antillean Creole.

Religion in France

Catholicism is the predominant religion of France. In a survey by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP), 64% of the population (about 41.6 million people) identified themselves as Roman Catholic. The other religions in France include Islam, Buddhism and Judaism. From 33% to 42% of people in France do not subscribe to a religion, according to the CIA, although it points out that, "France maintains a tradition of secularism and has not officially collected data on religious affiliation since the 1872 national census, which complicates assessments of France's religious composition."

French values

The French take immense pride in their nation and government and are typically offended by any negative comments about their country. Visitors, particularly Americans, often interpret their attitude toward foreigners as rude.

"From around the 16th century, in Europe, culture became a term for the cultivation of the mind, the intellect, knowledge, learning, creative faculties and acceptable ways of behaving," said De Rossi. The French embrace style and sophistication and take pride in the fact that even their public spaces strike a regal tone.

The French believe in egalite, which means equality, and is part of the country's motto: "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite." Many say they place a higher importance on equality than liberty and fraternity, the other two words in the motto.

The French embody romance and passion, and there is an open attitude toward sex outside of marriage, according to a study by France's National Research Agency on AIDS quoted by " Time ." Even the country's top politicians have been known to carry out extramarital affairs without making an effort to conceal them. As a reflection of the country's secular nature, it is not uncommon for children are born to unmarried couples.

In addition to traditional marriage, French couples also have the choice of getting a pacte civil de solidarite (PACS). This is a union that has many of the same benefits of marriage, like tax breaks, but can be dissolved with a notice or by marrying someone else or instead of a divorce. Two-thirds as many French couples are in a PACS as are married, according to "The Economist."

The French have some of the most iconic and popular food in the world, from baguettes to coq au vin. (Image credit: Massimo Borchi/Atlantide Phototravel via Getty Images)

French food

Food and wine are central to life at all socioeconomic levels, and much socializing is done around lengthy dinners in French households.

While cooking styles have changed to emphasize lighter fare, many still associate French cooking with heavy sauces and complicated preparation. Some classic French dishes include boeuf bourguignon  a stew made of beef braised in red wine, beef broth and seasoned with garlic, onions and mushrooms  and coq au vin, a dish made with chicken, Burgundy wine, lardons (small strips or cubes of pork fat), button mushrooms, onions and optional garlic.

French food is also associated worldwide with haute cuisine (which translates to "high cooking"), but its family meal tradition is equally important. "Authentic French cuisine represented by the family meal belongs to the people, and rhetorically to the provinces. Nostalgic 'cuisine de grandmere' rivals French haute cuisine for the crown of identifiably French food," wrote Maryann Tebben, professor of language and literature at Bard College, in her book " Savoir-Faire: A History of Food in France " (Reaktion Books, 2020).

French fries, interestingly enough, may not be French. According to " National Geographic ," they may actually be from Spain or Belgium. The reason why Americans call fried potatoes French fries is because Thomas Jefferson discovered the treat while in France while serving there as American Minister from 1784 to 1789. He brought the idea back to the States.

French fashion

Paris is known as the home to many high-end fashion houses, such as Dior, Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Many French people dress in a sophisticated, professional and fashionable style, but it is not overly fussy. Typical outfits include nice dresses, suits, long coats, scarves and berets.

The term "haute couture" is associated with French fashion and loosely means fancier garments that are handmade or made to order. In France, the term is protected by law and is defined by the Paris Chamber of Commerce, according to Eva Domjian, a London-based fashion writer and editor, writing on " Dressful ." Domjian writes on her blog:

"To earn the right to call itself a couture house and to use the term haute couture in its advertising and any other way, a fashion house must follow these rules:

Design made-to-order for private clients, with one or more fittings.

Have a workshop (atelier) in Paris that employs at least fifteen people full-time.

Each season (i.e. twice a year) present a collection to the Paris press, comprising at least thirty-five runs/exits with outfits for both daytime wear and evening wear."

French art

Art is everywhere in France  particularly in Paris and other major cities  and Gothic, Romanesque Rococo and Neoclassic influences can be seen in many churches and other public buildings.

Many of history's most renowned artists, including Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro, sought inspiration in Paris, and they gave rise to the Impressionism movement. This was followed by the Art Nouveau movement. "Based on asymmetrical, organic forms and influenced by Japanese art, the Art Nouveau style emerges in painting and the graphic arts as well as in architecture and the design of everyday objects," according to The Metropolitan Museum of Art .

The Louvre Museum in Paris is among the world's largest museums and is home to many famous works of art, including the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Paris is also home to some extraordinary examples of architecture, such as the Louvre itself, the Eiffel Tower and more.

Holidays and celebrations

The French celebrate the traditional Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter. They mark May Day, also known as Labor Day, on May 1. Victory in Europe Day on May 8 commemorates the end of hostilities in Europe in World War II. Bastille Day is celebrated on July 14. This is the day the Bastille fortress in Paris was stormed by revolutionaries to start the French Revolution.

Additional reporting by Alina Bradford, Live Science Contributor.

Additional resources and reading:

For more about the French Revolution and, more specifically, the period that immediately followed you should read about the Reign of Terror from 1793 to 1794.

One of the common questions about French history is did Marie Antoinette really say 'let them eat cake'? We can give you the answer.
Freemasons, known popularly for their white aprons, arcane symbols and secret handshake, are members of the world's oldest fraternal organization. Despite its longevity, Freemasonry (sometimes known simply by the shortened Masons) has long been shrouded in mystery. To outside observers, the organization's rites and practices may seem cult-like, clannish and secretive  even sinister.

Some of this stems from Freemasons' often deliberate reluctance to speak about the organization's rituals to outsiders, according to Time . But it is also partly the result of many popular movies and books, such as Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" (Doubleday, 2003), that have fostered misconceptions or depicted the order in an unflattering light.

In reality, however, Freemasonry is a worldwide organization with a long and complex history. Its members have included politicians, engineers, scientists, writers, inventors and philosophers. Many of these members have played prominent roles in world events, such as revolutions, wars and intellectual movements.

What is Freemasonry?

(Image credit: Getty/ Keith Lance)

In addition to being the world's oldest fraternal organization, Freemasonry is also the world's largest such organization, boasting an estimated worldwide membership of some 6 million people, according to a report by the BBC. As the name implies, a fraternal organization is one that's composed almost solely of men who gather together for mutual benefit, frequently for professional or business reasons. However, nowadays women can be Freemasons, too (more on this later).

But Freemasons, or Masons as they are sometimes called, are dedicated to loftier goals as well. Bound together by secret rites of initiation and ritual, its members ostensibly promote the "brotherhood of man," and in the past, have often been associated with 18th century Enlightenment principles such as anti-monarchism, republicanism, meritocracy and constitutional government, said Margaret Jacob , professor emeritus of European history at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of the book " The Origins of Freemasonry: Facts and Fictions " (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).

This is not to say that Freemasonry is wholly secular and devoid of religious aspects. Its members are encouraged to believe in a supreme being, which in the parlance of Masonry, is known as the "Grand Architect of the Universe," Jacob added.

Related: Why does Christianity have so many denominations?

This Grand Architect, is comparable to a Deistic creator rather than a personal God as envisioned by Christianity , according to Jacob. The concept of Deism, which has its origins in the 17th century Enlightenment, promotes the idea that the supreme being is like the ultimate "watchmaker;" a deity that created the universe but does not play an active role in the lives of its creations.

A code of ethics also guides the behavior of members. This code is derived from several documents, the most famous of which is a series of documents known as the "Old Charges" or "Constitutions." One of these documents, known as the "Regius Poem" or the "Halliwell Manuscript," is dated to sometime around the latter 14th or early 15th century, and is reportedly the oldest document to mention Masonry, according to the Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry, an online magazine written by Freemasons. The Halliwell Manuscript is written in verse, and in addition to purportedly tracing the history of Masonry, it also prescribes correct moral behavior for Masons. For example, it urges members to be "steadfast, trusty, and true," and "not to take bribes" or "harbor thieves."

While many Freemasons are Christians, Freemasonry and Christianity have had a complex, often divisive, relationship. Some orthodox Christians have taken issue with Freemasonry's Deism and its frequently perceived ties to paganism and the occult, according to Pauline Chakmakjian .

But the Catholic Church has been among its harshest critics. In 1738, a Papal decree prohibited Catholics from becoming Freemasons, Jacob wrote. Even today, the Papal ban on Freemasonry remains in place, with the Church declaring Freemasonry "irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church," according to the Vatican.

When did Freemasonry start?

An etching, circa 1733, showing a group of Freemasons meeting for The Initiation Of A Master (Image credit: Getty/ Keith Lance)

The origins of Freemasonry are obscure, and the subject is rife with myth and speculation. One of the more fanciful claims is that the Freemasons are descended from the builders of Solomon's Temple (also known as the First Temple) in Jerusalem, according to Jacob. Others have argued that the Freemasons began as an offshoot of the Knights Templars, a Catholic military order dating to medieval times, according to Sky History .

The famous American revolutionary Thomas Paine attempted to trace the origins of the order to the ancient Egyptians and Celtic Druids. There has also been a longstanding rumor that Freemasons are the same as the Illuminati, an 18th-century secret society that began in Germany, Jacob wrote. Most of these theories have been debunked, though some people continue to believe them.

"Freemasonry has its origins in the stonemason guilds of medieval Europe," Jacob told Live Science. These guilds, especially active during the 14th century, were responsible for constructing some of the finest architecture in Europe, such as the ornate Gothic cathedrals of Notre Dame in Paris and Westminster Abbey in London.

Like many artisan craft guilds of that time, its members jealously guarded their secrets and were selective about who they chose as apprentices. Initiation for new members required a long period of training, during which they learned the craft and were often taught advanced mathematics and architecture. Their skills were in such high demand that experienced Freemasons were frequently sought out by monarchs or high-ranking church officials, Jacob said.

The guilds provided members not only with wage protection and quality control over the work performed but also important social connections, she added. Members gathered in lodges, which served as the headquarters and focal points where the Masons socialized, partook in meals and gathered to discuss the events and issues of the day.

However, with the rise of capitalism and the market economy during the 16th and 17th centuries, the old guild system broke down, Jacob wrote. But the Masonic lodges survived. In order to bolster membership and raise funds, the stonemason guilds began to recruit non-masons. At first, the new recruits were often relatives of existing members, but they increasingly included wealthy individuals and men of high social status.

Many of these new members were "learned gentlemen" who were interested in the philosophical and intellectual trends that were transforming the European intellectual landscape at the time, such as rationalism, the scientific method and Newtonian physics. The men were equally interested in questions of morality  especially how to build moral character. Out of this new focus grew "speculative Freemasonry," which began in the 17th century. This modernized form of Masonry deemphasized stone working and the lodges became meeting places for men dedicated to and associated with liberal Western values, Jacob said.

"Freemasonry as we know it today grew out of the early 18th century in England and Scotland," she said. A major turning point in Freemason history occurred in 1717, when the members of four separate London lodges gathered together to form what became known as the Premier Grand Lodge of England. This Grand Lodge became the focal point of British Masonry and helped to spread and popularize the organization. Freemasonry spread rapidly across the continent; soon there were Masonic lodges scattered throughout Europe, from Spain and Portugal in the west to Russia in the east. It was also established in the North American colonies during the first half of the 18th century, according to Jessica Harland-Jacobs.

By the late 18th century, at the height of the Enlightenment, Freemasonry carried considerable social cachet. "Being a Mason signaled that you were at the forefront of knowledge," Jacob said.

Freemasonry wasn't always welcomed, however. In the United States in the 1830s, for example, a political party known as the Anti-Masonic Party formed, the Washington Post reported. It was the nation's original third political party and its members were dedicated to countering what they believed was Freemasonry's undue political influence. William Seward, who went on to become President Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state, began his political career as an Anti-Masonic candidate.

Can women and minorities become Freemasons?

A group of female masons circa 1933 (Image credit: Getty/ FPG / Staff)

The early Masonic lodges were exclusively male, meaning that women were prohibited from membership, a point made clear in the "Old Charges" ("no bondmen, no women, no immoral or scandalous men..."). This tradition, a principle that reflected the predominant social arrangements of the time, continued for many decades, especially in Great Britain.

But over the years, women increasingly began to play active roles in the organization, especially on the European mainland. In France during the 1740s, for example, so-called "lodges of adoption" began to appear, Jacob said. These were lodges that admitted a mixture of men and women, the latter mostly the wives, daughters and female relatives of the male Masons. They were not fully independent but were sanctioned by and attached to the traditional male lodges. Soon, similar lodges of adoption sprang up in the Netherlands and eventually in the United States.

Out of this tradition, Masonic organizations were eventually formed that admitted both men and women as full members. Some of these organizations included the Order of the Amaranth, the Order of the White Shrine of Jerusalem and the Order of the Eastern Star. In these organizations, both men and women partake in Masonic rites and women can hold positions of authority and leadership.

The highest ranking woman in the Order of the Eastern Star, for example, is known as the "Worthy Matron" and is the presiding officer of the organization. There are also several Masonic-related girls' and young women's organizations, such as the Order of Job's Daughters and the International Order of Rainbow for Girls, both of which are active today. The Rainbow Girls are an offshoot of the Order of the Eastern Star and is largely dedicated to service and charity, according to Masonry Today .

A California native, who asked to remain anonymous, and who was a member of the Rainbow Girls in the 1970s, remembers the organization fondly. As a young woman, she said, she was never made to feel lesser because she was a member of one of the female organizations. "We were autonomous," she told Live Science. "We always decided our own agenda. If anything, looking back, the organization gave me a glimpse of a slightly utopian society because we were very democratic. The organization was well run and well organized."

Today, traditional Masons are still exclusively men but the related organizations of female Masons are still active, many involved in charity, education and character-building.

Similar to its relationship with women, Freemasonry in the United States has had a complicated history with ethnic minorities, especially Black Americans. After Freemasonry was established in the American colonies, but prior to the Revolutionary War, a few free Black colonists, including a man named Prince Hall, petitioned for membership in the Boston, Massachusetts Lodge, according to Cecile Revauger's book "Black Freemasonry," (Simon and Schuster, 2016).

Hall was denied but he persevered, eventually receiving a charter in 1784 from the Grand Lodge in England. The Masonic lodge he established was the first African American lodge in the United States, and became the basis for the many other Black lodges that subsequently sprang up. These Black lodges were named "Prince Hall Lodges" in the founder's honor, and were established exclusively for African Americans.

Although the Masonic codes do not strictly prohibit the membership of non-white ethnic minorities, integrating the mainstream lodges has been an on-going struggle. Attempts to integrate the mainstream lodges have been met with varying success. "There are liberal lodges that make the extra effort, but most just go with whoever turns up," Jacob said.

However, even as late as the first decade of this century, attempts to integrate some lodges in the southeastern United States have met with opposition from some white members, the New York Times reported.

Famous Freemasons

Benjamin Franklin - a famous Freemason (Image credit: Getty/ Kean Collection / Staff)

Several prominent historical figures have reportedly been Freemasons, including Simon Bolivar, known as the "liberator of South America", according to Business Insider ; the French philosopher Voltaire, known for his voluminous philosophical and political writings; and the famous German poet and writer Goethe, according to Freemasonry Matters . Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the famous composer, became a Mason in 1784. His renowned opera, "The Magic Flute," contains elements of Freemasonry, and is a paean to his Masonic beliefs, NPR reported.

In his book "Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840" (University of North Carolina Press, 1998), historian Steven Bullock noted that several of the Founding Fathers and notable American revolutionaries and presidents were Freemasons, including George Washington, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Jackson. Franklin was one of the first Freemasons in what was then Colonial America, and in 1734 he became the Grand Master of the Philadelphia Lodge, according to a 1906 article published in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.

The symbols of Freemasonry

The world of Freemasonry is composed of esoteric signs and symbols that are baffling to most non-Masons. Perhaps the most common are the compass and square, which are the universally recognizable symbols of the organization. They typically emblazon the lintels above lodge entrances and can be found on the aprons worn by Masons during rituals.

Although there is not a single, universally agreed upon meaning, most Masons would probably contend that these two objects in conjunction are meant to represent how a Mason should conduct himself, according to an online dictionary of Masonic symbols. The square signifies that a man should act "square" with his fellow man  that is, he should be honest and forthright in all his dealings. The compass is a reminder to engage in moderation, and not to get carried away by life's vices.

In general, Masonic symbols  such as the beehive, the acacia tree and the all-seeing eye, to name a few  are meant to invoke ideals, remind members of correct modes of conduct and behavior, and impart important lessons.

"The symbols of freemasonry largely have to do with ethics  how one should live their life," said the former-Rainbow Girl.

Related: Cracking codices: 10 of the most mysterious ancient manuscripts

Is Freemasonry still relevant?

Today, Freemasonry is undergoing a decline, according to a 2020 article by.

"The lodges are having a terrible time recruiting men," Jacob said. "Most young men today don't accept these kinds of distinctions  such as places exclusively for men and places exclusively for women."

Consequently, membership in lodges has dropped and the pull to join an exclusive, privileged enclave of men does not carry the attraction it once had. Although there are Masonic lodges in every U.S. state, many of these now stand vacant.

One of the reasons for this decline has been competition from similar fraternal and service organizations, such as the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Columbus, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and E Clampus Vitus. But it's also possible that this decline can be explained by the different values espoused by the newer generations, value systems that are often at odds with the previous generations.

The problem of decline, Jacob said, is rooted in the current composition of the lodges. Most members, she noted, are between the ages of 50 and 60, are predominantly white and hold very conservative politics. "This has no appeal to the younger generation," she said. "Even the armed services are integrated now by race and gender, but not the lodges."

Additional resources

Watch this short, animated video about what Freemasons actually do, from The Infographics Show on YouTube. Learn more about Mozart's "The Magic Flute" and how it represents his initiation into Freemasonry in this video from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Read how Smithsonian Magazine described a tour of Washington D.C.'s Masonic Temple in 2007.
The Knights Hospitaller arose from the victory of the First Crusade (1096-1099) and the need to protect pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. The Hospitaller Knights were the first of the burgeoning Medieval religious orders to receive official Papal backing, achieved in 1113. After the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, in 1291, the Hospitallers acquired the Greek island of Rhodes as their base and continued operations in the Near East until 1522.

In 1530, they established a new base, this time in Malta, and remained there until 1798. Although the Hospitallers splintered and scattered into various groups after this, their legacy is to be found in the present day via such organizations as St. Johns Ambulance and the Knights of Malta .

Origins and creation

The Order of Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, abbreviated to the Knights Hospitaller or Hospitallers, can trace its origins to a volunteer group running a hospice created in the Holy Land by Italian merchants trading with Palestine, who hailed from the coastal towns of Amalfi and Salerno, in 1070 as Jonathan Riley-Smith, the late Dixie professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge, wrote in " The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, C.1070-1309 " (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, originally published in 1977).

The hospice was located on the site of a church consecrated to St. John close to the Holy Sepulchre. From the location, the order took their name. In the early years of its proto existence, the loose network of hospices, which served all faiths and both men and women, in separation quarters, was overseen by the Benedictine monks from the St. Mary of the Latins, a Catholic-run complex of church, monastery, market place and convent built during the era of Muslim rule and upon the ruins of an older facility destroyed in 1009 by Egyptian Caliph al-Hakim (985-1021), according to Helen J. Nicholson, former head of the History Department at Cardiff University, in " The Knights Hospitaller " (Boydell Press, 2006).

Before the First Crusade, Jerusalem was controlled by various Muslim rulers of the Fatimid Empire and the Seljuk Turkish Empire. Nicholas Morton, professor of history at Nottingham Trent University explained to Live Science, via email, the complicated and dangerous situation Christian pilgrims faced and the beginnings of the Hospitallers. "Initially this institution was neither large nor a formal religious order, just a small group of pious individuals providing help for sick and weary travelers. At this time Jerusalem lay on a frontier of war between the Fatimid Empire [centered on Egypt] and the Seljuk Turkish Empire [which spanned much of the Near East] and the city changed hands repeatedly. Nevertheless, the rulers of both these empires permitted these early Hospitallers to pursue their vocation and the hospital continued to support pilgrims up to the arrival of the First Crusade in 1099."

Favorable conditions in the aftermath of the First Crusade and the creation of the Crusader States resulted in the hospice being granted independence from the Benedictine monks and it was allowed control over its own affairs, according to Riley-Smith. The influx of pilgrims in the years following the First Crusade further added to its development as an important fixture in the Latin East.

Rory MacLellan, a postdoctoral research fellow for Historic Royal Palaces at the Tower of London, told LiveScience in a telephone interview, "Being a hospice, that doesnt necessarily mean what it does today, so its this mixture of, almost like a youth hostel for people traveling, but it also provides medical care, like a hospital would today, and its also a bit like an alms house, like sheltered living for homeless people. Its a mixture of all these different things. They were called the Hospitallers, but it wasnt solely medical care they provided."

It is likely the Hospitaller orders founder, Blessed Gerard (1040-1120), of whom very little is known, was a Benedictine monk, described by Nicholson as a, "venerable and pious man," who came to the Holy Land circa 1080 and was attached to St. Mary of the Latins. Blessed Gerard and his brethrens good works caring for pilgrims, the sick and the homeless led to the first ruler of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon (1060-1100), granting the Hospitallers various properties. His successor, Baldwin I (c.1060-1118), also made donations and helped establish their credentials with the nobility and the Catholic church.

By 1112 the order received financial support from the King of Jerusalem and the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Blessed Gerard received further support on Feb. 15, 1113, when Pope Paschal II (c.1050-1118), recognized the order in the papal bull, Pie Postulatio voluntatis (The Most Pious Request), confirmed by Pope Calixtus II in 1119, according to Nicholson. It placed the Hospitallers under the direct protection of Rome, granted its right to appoint its own Grandmaster, they did not have to pay tithes and its brothers and sisters were bound by vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.

A painting of the Blessed Gerard receiving Godfrey of Bouillon. Gerard was the founder of the Hospitaller order and believed to have been a Benedictine monk. (Image credit: Prisma by Dukas / Contributor via Getty Images)

Organization and growth

The Hospitallers were classed as knights, clergymen and serving brethren. The knights class hailed from European aristocracy. The Hospitallers eventually militarized but it is unclear when precisely. The Hospitallers originally wore black surcoats with the Amalfi cross eight-point star as their insignia according to the Museum of the Order of Saint John , distinguishing them from other orders, such as the Knights Templar , who wore a white surcoat with red flag.

"One of the big problems the Crusader States had, is there was quite a shortage of manpower, as most of the Crusaders, after the First Crusade, went home," MacLellan explained of the backdrop that led to the military wing of the Hospitallers developing as a necessity due to regional strife and the demands of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. "Eventually, you have the Hospitallers militarizing because theyre going to be there permanently, plus they were not going to come for a year, crusade, and then go home.

"We dont know when exactly they do militarize, but they had certainly done it by 1126. We find one of the Hospitallers in the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem as a Constable. Later records talk about the Hospitallers fighting battles between 1120-60. Although theyre an older organization than the Templars, they dont actually militarize until after the Templars are created in 1120."

Morton adds that the actual date of the militarization of the Hospitallers is unclear, but it must be before 1136. "The Hospitallers were clearly playing an important role in the kingdoms defense because in this year they accepted responsibility for a newly-constructed frontline fortress called Bethgibelin," he said.

As they performed dual functions as humanitarians and warrior-monks, they admitted men and women as Hospitaller brothers and sisters. Their initial holdings were situated in the Crusader States, such as forts and a variety of estates but they grew rapidly and received gifts of land and other donations from all over Europe.

Morton explain the setup and how it worked. "The Hospitallers grouped these properties into 'commanderies', which were essentially clusters of local assets whether farms, mines, salt pans, mills, churches etc  co-ordinated around a central administrative hub (normally the largest estate or house owned by the order in that area).

"The rapid growth of the Hospitallers infrastructure in the west brought them enormous wealth which they could then despatch to the east to support their military and medical activities in the kingdom of Jerusalem. With these resources, the order also expanded its role in the Crusader States, building its presence in the kingdom of Jerusalem and also providing troops and garrisons to protect the more northerly territories of the county of Tripoli and the principality of Antioch."

Hospitallers after the Crusades

When the Ayyubid Sultanate under Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, and the last of the Crusader States fell completely by 1291, the Hospitallers retreated to the island of Cyprus. In 1309, they acquired Rhodes, the Greek island off the Turkish mainland and used it as a base of operations. The Hospitallers became widely known as the Knights of Rhodes and they renewed their fight against Muslim empires around the Mediterranean, this time on the high seas. After the dissolution of the Knights Templars, in 1312, the Hospitallers were granted lands and donations from the disgraced group by Pope Clement V (c.1264-1314), though had certain difficulties claiming them.

With the failures of religious-military orders in defending the Crusader States, the Hospitallers were saved from a similar doomed fate. "The Hospitallers had advantages which the Templars lacked," Morton said. "Their medical vocation meant that, even when their military activities failed, they could still present themselves to contemporaries as performing an important role in society. Moreover, soon after the fall of Acre, in 1291, the Hospitallers relocated their headquarters to Cyprus and built up a naval force with which to continue their wars against the Mamluk Empire and other neighboring powers.

"The Templars also moved to Cyprus and built up a naval force but, where their attempts to re-assume the offensive failed badly, the Hospitallers proved more successful. In 1306 Hospitaller forces began the conquest of the Isle of Rhodes, then technically a possession of the Byzantine Empire albeit under Genoese control. By 1310 the Hospitallers had full control over the island which in later years they used as a base from which to attack ships and territories belonging to the Turkish rulers of Anatolia."

The Knights Hospitaller under attack by Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire at the Siege of Rhodes in 1522. (Image credit: UniversalImagesGroup / Contributor via Getty Images)

Rhodes had important shipping links and connections to other parts of the Mediterranean and the Knights of Rhodes also captured small islands such as Kos and ran their affairs from a fortification located in Rhodes harbor. In 1523, their time on Rhodes ended, when the Turkish ruler, Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566) captured the island, using 400 ships and 10,000 men to win a decisive battle. In 1530, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, bestowed the island of Malta upon the order, in return for a yearly gift of a falcon to the Viceroy of Sicily.

As the Knights of Malta, they took part in decisive battles against Turkish naval forces, often in league with Catholic countries and rulers, such as the 1571 Battle of Lepanto, and proceeded to build Maltas capital, Valetta, named in honor of their grand master, Jean Parisot de la Valette (c1495-1568).

MacLellan describes this period of Hospitaller history as a case of the order being too good at their job. "For the periods on Rhodes and Malta, they were just very good at what they did. They were very successful at naval campaigns and combating piracy. Just before they were kicked off Malta by Napoleon in 1798, they had cut back on their naval patrols as there weren't enough pirates for them to fight."

Do the Hospitallers exist today?

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) evicted the Knights of Malta. The Treaty of Amiens in 1802 returned them to the Mediterranean island but this was upturned in 1812, when the Treaty of Paris gave Malta to Great Britain.

From here, the order splintered off to various European countries and essentially gave up its militaristic wing. It continued as a humanitarian and caregiving organization. "They do have this weird period after Malta, where one branch goes off to Russia, where they let the Tsar be their Grandmaster, which is a bit odd," MacLellan explained. "Then they have a few decades where they dont actually have a Grandmaster anymore and not quite given the same status. Since then, its their humanitarian work that keeps them going. I think I saw one stat that said after Oxfam and Red Cross, if you combine all the successor groups of the Hospitallers, theyre the third biggest charity provider in the world today, so its a significant part of what keeps them going."

A host of modern organizations maintain continuity with the Hospitallers and the Knights of Malta. Unlike the far-right revival of the Templars, the 21st century iterations of the Medieval order have maintained a humanitarian tradition and have attracted no such controversy. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta , a Catholic group based in Rome, with over 13,500 members, is active in 120 countries around the world, upholding the tradition of caregiving and engaging in social projects. Its motto is "Tuitio Fidei et Obsequium Pauperum" (nurturing, witnessing, and protecting the faith; and serving the sick and the poor."

In 2013, Israeli archaeologists rediscovered a 3.7-acre portion of the sprawling Hospitaller complex , with its 18-feet (5.5-meter) ceilings and ribbed vault design, close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalems Christian Quarter, known as Muristan. In its heyday, it could house 2,000 patients and also functioned as an orphanage, with children growing up to become part of the order.

Additional resources and reading

If you want to know more about the religious orders who took part in the Crusades, then you'll definitely want to read about the Knights Templar and how they became a dominant force in the various conflicts.

Excitingly, new information and archaeological discoveries around the Crusades are being unearthed frequently. For instance, the battlefield where Richard the Lionheart defeated Saladin was unearthed in Israel in 2020.

Bibliography

" The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, C.1070-1309 " (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

" The Knights Hospitaller " (Boydell Press, 2006)

Order of Malta

St John Ambulance
Members of the team pose with some of the mammoth bones that were found in Little Flake Mine near Dawson City in the Yukon.

Gold miners have discovered three partial skeletons of three woolly mammoths , which may have been part of the same family, at Little Flake Mine near Dawson City, Yukon, in Canada.

They turned over the bones to the Yukon government. "We seem to have one large full-grown mammoth, one younger adult and one juvenile," said Grant Zazula, the head paleontologist for the Yukon government.

Some of the bones are still articulated (connected) with each other, Zazula told Live Science in an email. The way the bones were found suggests "that these three mammoths were probably living together and died together very close to where the fossil bones were found," Zazula added. Even if they weren't family members, they may have been part of a larger herd, he said.

Related: Mammoth resurrection: 11 hurdles to bringing back an ice age beast

Image 1 of 5 A giant humerus bone from one of the mammoths is shown here. (Image credit: Government of Yukon) Image 2 of 5 Here, pelvis bones from the mammoths, which lived about 30,000 years ago. (Image credit: Government of Yukon) Image 3 of 5 The bones come from three woolly mammoths. One is full grown, another is a younger adult and another is a juvenile. (Image credit: Government of Yukon) Image 4 of 5 Members of the team pose with some of the mammoth bones that were found in Little Flake Mine near Dawson City in the Yukon. (Image credit: Government of Yukon) Image 5 of 5 Shown here, upper arm bones from the Yukon mammoths. (Image credit: Government of Yukon)

Glacial environment

The miners found the mammoth skeletons near a layer of volcanic tephra that likely dates to around 29,000 years ago when a volcano on the Aleutian Islands erupted, Zazula said. The mammoths therefore likely lived around the time of the eruption. At that time, much of Canada was covered in glaciers, with the area around Dawson City being one of the few areas that was ice-free, Zazula said.

"The mining region in the interior of the Yukon was part of the unglaciated landscape called Beringia, which connected with Alaska and Siberia via the Bering Land Bridge," Zazula said. "The climate was incredibly cold and dry, likely treeless, leading to the prevalence of grazing mammals," Zazula noted. From about 35,000 to 18,000 years ago, woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) crossed that land bridge into North America, according to the University of California Museum of Paleontology .

The dry environment there helped to preserve the three mammoths. The climate was arid and the wind would have easily blown dust around, Zazula said. "This windblown silt, or loess, filled these valleys with sediment" that rapidly covered the mammoths after they died." Because they were covered so quickly, the remains would have been less exposed to oxygen and to scavengers.

The "miners need to remove all this frozen silt to get to the gold-filled gravel in the valley bottoms, and when they do that, they often uncover the remains of ice age animals," such as the three mammoths, said Zazula, who noted that more mammoths may be found at the mine site.

"The miners will be resuming mining at this spot in a few weeks and our crews will be on hand to see if there are more bones from the skeletons," Zazula said. Its uncertain what the three mammoths died from and Zazula hopes that ongoing research will provide an answer.

Originally published on Live Science.
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Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History

By Lea Ypi

Norton. 267 pp. $27.95

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Midway through "Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History," Lea Ypi's beguiling memoir of innocence and experience in the communist-era Balkans and beyond, her family stares at the television in December 1990, watching as a Politburo secretary declares the end of the one-party state.

Almost immediately, her parents begin weaving a revisionist family history. No one had ever believed in communism, they declare. Over the next several weeks, her relatives unbuild Ypi's entire sense of reality: Her country was a prison, her education was indoctrination, the old versions of freedom and democracy were lies. "But I was a pioneer," she objects lamely, poignantly, about her hard-won membership in the communist children's organization. Her red scarf becomes a dust cloth. She had just turned 11.

Ypi, a prominent political theorist at the London School of Economics, came of age in Albania, a country of stunning seacoasts and stony uplands, with a national community historically spread across the Muslim, Orthodox Christian and Catholic faiths. For centuries Albanians served as grand viziers and frontier pashas inside the Ottoman Empire. When the empire collapsed after World War I, a local notable, Ahmet Zogu, was elevated to sovereign of an independent kingdom. As King Zog, he became a favorite subject of off-the-beaten-track travel writers. An Italian invasion and Nazi occupation followed, which in turn was pushed back by Albanian leftists, one of the rare cases in which local partisans defeated the fascists more or less on their own.

Albanian communists under Enver Hoxha soon established a regime that styled itself as a bastion of true Stalinism. One by one, socialist allies fell away -- Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, China -- as Albanian leaders denounced any opening to the West as sellout revisionism. It took more than five years after Hoxha's death in 1985, and more than a year after the Berlin Wall crumbled, for Albanian communism to fade into history.

This chronology formed the background to Ypi's childhood, but the chapters of "Free" are intimate, filigreed stories of a taken-for-granted life devolving into uncertainty. There are eccentric relatives, the smell of sun cream wafting off tourists, a neighborhood feud over a Coca-Cola can and then an act of life-changing vandalism: A protester lops off the head of a statue of Stalin, whom Ypi, a star pupil, had come to revere as a model of visionary heroism. It was a shock to hear her family start referring to political leaders as "bastards."

"Free" is the most probing memoir yet produced of the undefined "transition" period after European communism. But it is more profoundly a primer on how to live when old verities turn to dust. Ypi has written a brilliant personal history of disorientation, of what happens when the guardrails of everyday life -- a family's past, the signposts of success, the markers of a normal future -- suddenly fall away. "He knew what he was against but found it hard to defend what he stood for," Ypi writes of her father, a sometime revolutionary puffing on an asthma inhaler, who struggled "to carry forward his moral commitments without someone or other interpreting them on his behalf."

On the streets and in classrooms, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels gave way to economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker proclaimed a new slogan -- "Freedom works" -- before cheering crowds in the capital, Tirana. A local political candidate showed up at Ypi's door asking to borrow her father's gray socks. An American democracy-assistance program had told him that proper politicians wear dark footwear with their suits. The family later spotted the man on television, the socks peeking out beneath his trousers, and later still with bodyguards and a Mercedes. The socks were lost to the transition, and so in a way was her father, his grand ideas traded in for a set of whittled-down truths: "what he knew, what he was, what he tried to be, what he wanted to see happen."

Ypi's mother briefly remade herself in the post-communist mode, working with a nongovernmental organization, hosting delegations, wielding new terms such as "civil society" and "knowledge transfer." But then the family savings disappeared in a pyramid scheme. In 1997 Albania melted into civil war, a period that Ypi renders in terrifying staccato via her own teenage diary.

The political theorist Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished two concepts of liberty in the Western canon. Negative liberty was the right to be left alone, to construct a life of meaning unencumbered by state intervention. Positive liberty was the right not to be left adrift, to enjoy access to some of life's benefits regardless of background or circumstance. For the international lenders and consultants who descended on Albania and other parts of the world in the 1990s, negative liberty was the state of nature, positive liberty the delusion that lay behind decades of nonsense and tyranny. Getting back to reality required privatization and monetized wealth, which in turn led to happiness and human flourishing -- except when it didn't, which simply evidenced the need for more of the right kind of freedom.

But "what freedom is that?" Ypi's teacher asks at one point about capitalist countries, where good schools cost money and people are persuaded to buy more than they can consume. Ypi's future would lie abroad, as a publicly engaged philosopher. In her research and teaching, however, she came around to the same question, about her past as well as about the liberal, capitalist and globalist present. The deepest freedom turns out to be the ability to ask hard questions about comfortable ideas, to see the world in unfamiliar ways, to live like a grown-up.

The judgment of history usually arrives not as praise or condemnation but as bafflement. How could they have lived like that? "We had no categories to describe what occurred, no definitions to capture what we had lost, and what we gained in its place," Ypi writes. Reading "Free" today is not so much a flashback to the Cold War as a glimpse of every society's possible pathway, a postcard from the future, like the one of the Eiffel Tower that Ypi picks up from a French tourist on the beach.

Philosophies have a half-life. Countries decline. Old virtues turn into self-evident vices or, worse, convictions that get remembered as inanities. In the swirl of history, we cling to what we know, what we are, who we try to be, what we want to see happen.

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Charles King teaches at Georgetown University and is the author of "Gods of the Upper Air" and other books.
The first United Launch Alliance mission of the year sent an Atlas V rocket with a payload for the U.S. Space Force into orbit today.

The launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Stations Launch Complex 41 hit its target of 2 p.m. liftoff, marking the 75th flight of an Atlas V from the Space Coast.

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Feels like a good day to go to space, said ULA president and CEO Tory Bruno on Twitter.

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The USSF-8 mission aims to put two space surveillance satellites directly into geosynchronous orbit, the fifth and sixth satellites of the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program for more accurate tracking and identification of man-made orbiting objects. Deployment is slated more than six hours after liftoff.

Kind of like a neighborhood watch for geo, Bruno said.

Go For Launch - Space News Weekly Fix your telescope on all space-related news, from rocket launches to space-industry advancements. >

The configuration for the Atlas V dubbed the Big Slider is actually one that has never been used by ULA, featuring an extra-large fairing and a single external solid rocket motor.

ULA had five launches in 2021, but only three of those five were from Canaveral, all on Atlas V rockets, while the other two were from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, one on an Atlas V, the other on a Delta IV Heavy.

One notable launch in 2021 that didnt happen was the retry by Boeing to send its CST-100 Starliner crew capsule on a mission to the International Space Station. That August attempt fell victim to a valve issue on the spacecraft that has pushed that uncrewed flight into this year, potentially in May.

ULA has other missions on tap for 2022 as well, including its hopes to make the first launch of its new rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, but its dependent on the delayed new BE-4 engines designed by Blue Origin.

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Other ULA launches slated for 2022 include the launch of the GOES-T satellite for NASA and NOAA slated for March 1 and potentially the first crewed test flight of Boeings Starliner.

The launch marks the 91st flight of an Atlas V and 148th ULA mission overall. Its the fourth so far from the Space Coast in January with two more on tap.

SpaceX has already made three Falcon 9 launches, two from Kennedy Space Center and one from Canaveral. Another SpaceX launch could happen from Canaveral before the months end while new rocket company Astra is poised to make its first attempt from Canaverals Space Launch Complex 46 as well.
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WASHINGTON  A federal criminal investigation involving U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar comes just as the South Texas Democrats reelection campaign is heating up, with early voting beginning in less than a month in his primary rematch with immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros, who narrowly lost to the longtime incumbent in 2020.

The FBI descended on Cuellars home and campaign headquarters in Laredo on Wednesday afternoon, conducting what the agency described as court-authorized law enforcement activity. Agents spent more than four hours at his home and loaded large bags, plastic bins and a computer into a federal vehicle before leaving around 11 p.m., the McAllen Monitor reported.

Its unclear what the FBI is investigating. Cuellar issued a statement Wednesday night saying he will will fully cooperate.

He is committed to ensuring that justice and the law are upheld, the statement said.

But the federal investigation comes at a trying time for Cuellar, a 17-year incumbent whose close call in the 2020 primary against the progressive Cisneros drew a flood of national money and attention.

BACKGROUND: FBI searches Texas Rep. Henry Cuellars home in Laredo

Tannya Benavides, a former teacher and political organizer based in Laredo, has joined this years primary race, as well, inspired in part by the success Cisneros saw in 2020.

The district has also been targeted by congressional Republicans after the GOP made gains in South Texas in 2020. Seven Republicans are vying to challenge Cuellar, though the district was redrawn to be a bit bluer and he won by nearly 20 percentage points in the 2020 general election.

The FBI searches came just a week after Cuellar, one of the most senior members of the Texas delegation, announced his campaign had raised $700,000 in the final quarter of 2021, a personal record for him.

Cuellars campaign on Wednesday touted an endorsement from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and in recent days posted videos and photos of the congressman knocking on doors in San Antonio and Laredo.

Cuellars campaign did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Cisneros issued a statement Thursday saying she was aware of news reports about the investigation.

We are closely watching as this develops, she said. In the meantime, we are focused on our campaign to deliver change to South Texas families.

DISTRICT REDRAWN: San Antonio to have more say in closely watched race between Rep. Cuellar, progressive challengers

Justice Democrats, a national progressive group that first recruited Cisneros to run, was less restrained, saying Cuellar has been part of the corrupt culture in Washington for far too long.

This FBI investigation into Congressman Cuellar is highly concerning, the statement said. The people of South Texas deserve answers, and the congressman should be transparent about the purpose of the investigation.

Republicans vying for Cuellars seat were calling attention to the FBI searches, as well.

The systemic corruption in South Texas must end, said Ed Cabrera, a businessman and rancher. When one of our highest rank officials home and office is raided by the FBI, it indicates the lack of respect for the rule of law in Democrat-led Districts.

Steven Fowler, a former Air Force pilot, predicted it would make it much harder for Cuellar to win his primary against Cisneros.

We simply cannot risk AOC 2.0 representing us in South Texas, Fowler said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement saying: Whats Henry Cuellar hiding?

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

ben.wermund@chron.com
Sean Hannon/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) says the electrical grid is more ready than ever for winter weather, a claim that will be put to the test later this week as the state prepares for freezing temperatures. A final weatherization report filed Wednesday with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, shows 321 out of 324 electric generation units and transmission facilities have fully passed inspection to meet new regulations.

Portable Generators Home Depot www.homedepot.com Shop Now

"The Texas electric grid is more prepared for winter operations than ever before," said Interim CEO Brad Jones in a Tuesday news release. The report comes as the Lone Star State braces for freezing weather. The Houston area is expected to get a "wintry mix" of rain, freezing rain and sleet as temperatures drop across the region Thursday afternoon and evening.
A man who sustained multiple stab wounds in a "brutal and stomach-churning" feud related attack in Longford town three years ago has told of how the incident has effectively left him a prisoner in his own home.

Daniel Lawrence was airlifted to Tallaght Hospital after being set upon outside Aldi, Longford Retail Park, Townspark, Athlone Road, Longford on April 1, 2019.

Siblings Kevin Stokes Jnr (29) and Chantelle Stokes (20), both of Lisnanagh, Edgeworthstown both pleaded guilty with Section 3 assault causing harm.

The court heard gardai were called to the scene shortly after 2pm where they found Mr Lawrence with an open wound to the right side of his head along with lacerations to his ear, forearm, upper arm as well as a deep laceration to his torso.

State counsel Shane Geraghty BL, said the incident stemmed from a lingering sense of dissatisfaction the Stokes family harboured in relation to Mr Lawrence entering into a relationship with Kate Stokes, a sister of both of the accused.

The court was told Mr Lawrence had given change to his partner for a trolley when the defendants' mother, Margaret Stokes approached, shouting at her daughter: 'You've some cheek pulling your father on stories'.

It was at that stage, it was revealed Ms Stokes slapped her daughter across the face, leading Mr Lawrence to shout: 'Don't touch her'.

Seconds later, Mr Geraghty said Chantelle Stokes produced a can of deodorant, spraying Mr Lawrence in the face as Mr Stokes Jnr proceeded to assault Mr Lawrence.

The victim was airlifted to hospital and was later referred to St James's Hospital in Dublin for plastic surgery.

The court also heard Mr Stokes Jnr who it was revealed in court had been the "knife man" on the day, had been on bail at the time of the offence, having been sentenced to a two year prison term, suspended for five years in May 2016 for an unrelated Section 3 assault charge.

It also emerged the father of two who was charged in September 2019 later fled the jurisdiction before returning to Ireland and surrendering himself in August 2021 where he was placed into custody.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Lawrence said the incident had left him in constant fear.

"I have never been the same mentally since the attack," he said, revealing the episode had caused him untold stress and physiological trauma.

"I was a very confident person up until the attack. Now I look in the mirror and I don't want to go out.

"These scars will always remind me of that brutal, vicious attack."

The court heard how both defendants had written letters of apology to Mr Lawrence, both of which the victim and his family rejected as insincere.

Judge Keenan Johnson said he too took a "very jaundiced" view of both defendants' apologies, describing the incident as "savage, brutal and stomach-churning".

He remanded Mr Stokes Jnr in custody and Ms Stokes on continuing bail until a sitting of Longford Circuit Criminal Court on February 2 for sentencing.
Politics

By Chris Boyle Published: January 21 2022

We have accomplished so much for the residents of the Third Legislative District - and there is still so much more to do, Legislator Solages said.

Nassau County Legislator Carrie Solages (D - Lawrence) was recently sworn for a new term representing the residents of the Third Legislative District during the first meeting of the 14th term of the Nassau County Legislature. Legislator Solages and his Minority Caucus colleagues were sworn in by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The Third Legislative District encompasses the communities of Elmont, Valley Stream, South Floral Park, Inwood and portions of Lawrence & North Woodmere.

During organizational meetings held later in the day, Legislator Solages expanded slate of committee assignments now include the Finance committee as well as the newly formed Assessment committee. He will continue to serve as ranking member of the Legislatures Minority Affairs committee and is the new ranking member for the committee on Planning, Development and the Environment. Legislator Solages will continue to serve on the Government Services & Operations, Public Works and Aircraft Noise Abatement committees.

Working together, we have accomplished so much for the residents of the Third Legislative District - and there is still so much more to do, Legislator Solages said. As they say, the reward for hard work is more hard work, and I am especially grateful for the opportunity to advocate for taxpayers as the newest member of the Finance and Assessment committees. I am looking forward to working collaboratively to make Nassau County more affordable, inclusive and equitable for all of our families.
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Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libyan and Egyptian Customs departments have agreed to allow the entry of foreign goods from both sides into their countries
Kavango Resources PLC - mineral explorer in Botswana - Completes ground gravity survey over the Great Red Spot, in Target Area B of its Kalahari Suture Zone project.

"The gravity survey has identified a strong gravity anomaly, which is coincident with the roughly 2250 nanoTesla positive magnetic anomaly of the GRS," company says. It notes strong gravity anomaly can indicate the presence of an intrusion, alteration and mineralisation.

Chief Executive Ben Turney adds: "While it is too early to start drawing definitive conclusions, we are keen to pursue the possibility that the Great Red Spot could host stacked mineralised systems."

Current stock price: 5.45 pence, down 1.9% on Friday

12-month change: up 88%

By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
A Tongan man has been described as the "Tongan Aquaman" for swimming for 28 hours after being swept to sea by the tsunami that devastated Tonga on Saturday.

The man, 57-year-old Lisala Folau, spoke to Tongan media after the ordeal and opened up about his harrowing experience.

Folau lives on the small, isolated island of Atata, which is about 8km northwest of Tongas capital Nuku'alofa, or a 30-minute boat ride. Only 61 people lived on the island paradise, which includes the Royal Sunset Island Resort.

Folau was first alerted to the tsunami by his brother, so naturally he hid himself in a tree to wait it out. An initial wave swept through, and after that passed Folau climbed down from the safety of his tree only to be met by an even larger wave shortly after, sweeping him and his family out to sea.

It was dark and we could not see each other. Very soon I could not hear my niece calling any more, but I could hear my son calling, he said.

Folau didnt respond as he didn't want anyone to risk their safety trying to save him.

Extraordinarily, Folau has mobility issues.

I left everything and try to escape, but bear in mind that I am disabled.

I cant walk properly, both my legs are not working properly  and when I can, I believe a baby can walk faster than I, he said.

So I just floated, bashed around by the big waves that kept coming. It stayed with my mind if I can cling to a tree or anything and if anything happens and I lose my life, searchers may find me and my family can view my dead body, he said.

A police boat sped past as Folau waved a rag, but it missed him.

Folau said thinking about his family kept him swimming.

Eventually, Folau reached Tongatapu some time after 9pm on Sunday, where he found a man who was able to get in contact with his family.

So unexpected that I survived after being washed away, floating and surviving the dangers I just faced, he said.

Folau thanked God, his family, and his church for giving him the strength to survive.

An image uploaded to Facebook by the mans daughter showed his journey through the ocean.

She described his missing as a night of hardship and she couldnt stop tears falling while he was missing.

The daughter said she was proud of her fathers bravery and in her post thanked Jesus for protecting him.

Credit to Stuff for the story.
MANISTEE  A man jumped off a bridge into the icy waters of the Manistee River channel on Thursday evening, according to a Manistee City Police Department news release issued on Friday morning.

The department responded to a call of a person who was suicidal at about 6 p.m. on the U.S. 31 bridge in Manistee on Thursday.

The departments personnel were able to get the man to hold onto a rescue disc while the Manistee City Fire Department personnel and U.S. Coast Guard used ice water rescue efforts to bring the man to shore where he received immediate medical treatment.

Thursdays water temperature was likely about 33 to 35 degrees, and the air temperature was around 15 degrees at 5:56 p.m., according to the National Weather Service Gaylord office.

The man was transported to Munson Healthcare Manistee Hospital.

As of Friday morning, the man was reported to have been in stable condition.

During the incident, the U.S. 31 bridge was closed to traffic. Since the Maple Street bridge is closed to traffic through April for repairs, some drivers had to detour around Manistee Lake on Thursday evening during emergency response efforts.

The Manistee City Police and Manistee City Fire Departments were assisted by the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Forest Service, Manistee County Sheriff's Office, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Department of Public Safety and Michigan State Police.

Additional information was not available for release as of Friday morning and the Manistee City Police Department noted that it would share updates when information becomes available.
Mankato, MN (56001)

Today

Intervals of clouds and sunshine in the morning with more clouds for later in the day. High 62F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy. Low 43F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
After a 2-0 humbling at home to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup, Arsenal now face the reality of having a season without silverware while still trying to bridge the gap between themselves and the likes of Jurgen Klopp's side.

If the postponement of the north London derby did not show Arsenal how much they lack quality depth in their squad, then the way that they were outclassed, outfought and knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Liverpool on Thursday evening will have brought a painful realisation to Mikel Arteta and co.

Arsenal fielded as strong a side as they could against Liverpool as they looked to book their place in the final against Chelsea, but they were nowhere near good enough.

Arteta will have to act quickly in the remainder of the January transfer window if the Gunners are to stay in the hunt to finish in the top four in the Premier League.

Clearing out the deadwood

Under Arteta, Arsenal have managed to get a number of players who were not deemed good enough off the books.

So far, they have been successful in moving on some of the highest earners but less than impressive performers: Mesut Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi, Sead Kolasinac and Willian.

However, the process has in turn left Arsenal short in numbers, despite recruiting the likes of Ben White, Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Nuno Tavares last summer.

The decision to loan out Pablo Mari and Ainsley Maitland-Niles in the current January window have left many fans confused as to when they will start to sign much-needed replacements.

There is still the likelihood of further departures this month too, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang massively out of favour and Bernd Leno not included in the squad for the Liverpool defeat.

Who do Arsenal need?

Should Aubameyang leave, Arsenal will need to bring in a new forward. They are heavily linked with Fiorentina's Dusan Vlahovic, but reports suggest that Juventus will try and swoop in on any deal for the striker.

If they fail to bring in Vlahovic, Arsenal are reportedly keeping tabs on Lille's Jonathan David, but they will want any signing to be the right fit for Arteta's style.

One of the weakest positions at present for the club is in midfield, where they look especially short. After Ghana were knocked out of the Africa Cup of Nations, Thomas Partey was rushed back to London in time for the Liverpool defeat, but he was sent off towards the end of the match.

Juventus' Arthur Melo has been tipped to join Arsenal on loan, but with the fleeting presence of Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey, they may be tempted into signing a more defensive-minded midfielder such as Brighton's Yves Bissouma. However, any deal for Bissouma is likely to be too expensive for Arsenal to do in this window.

More headaches for Arteta

It has been far from plain sailing for Mikel Arteta since becoming Arsenal manager two years ago, as he has had to navigate a club through the COVID-19 pandemic whilst simultaneously trying to rebuild a failing squad.

However, there have been memorable moments during his tenure, most notably the FA Cup win in 2020 against Chelsea.

Arteta looks set to fight for his club and has been backed by the board at every moment and every decision, no matter how big the repercussions. Arsenal fans will be hoping that he can get the recruitment right and the club can return to European competition next season.
Weather Alert

...FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT FROM WEDNESDAY MORNING THROUGH THURSDAY AFTERNOON... * WHAT...Flooding caused by excessive rainfall is possible. * WHERE...Portions of Arkansas and Oklahoma, including the following counties, in Arkansas, Benton, Carroll, Crawford, Franklin, Madison, Sebastian and Washington AR. In Oklahoma, Adair, Cherokee, Choctaw, Craig, Creek, Delaware, Haskell, Latimer, Le Flore, Mayes, McIntosh, Muskogee, Nowata, Okfuskee, Okmulgee, Osage, Ottawa, Pawnee, Pittsburg, Pushmataha, Rogers, Sequoyah, Tulsa, Wagoner and Washington OK. * WHEN...From Wednesday morning through Thursday afternoon. * IMPACTS...Excessive runoff will likely result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations, especially in areas that have already received heavy rainfall over the past few days. Several main-stem rivers could go into flood. A few locations could see significant flash flooding. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - A slowly moving upper low will move across the area Wednesday into early Thursday. Multiple rounds of thunderstorms are likely with the potential for very heavy rainfall. Widespread 2 to 3 inches of rain is expected with locally higher amounts of 5 to 6 inches. The heavier rain will begin to shift east of far southeast Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas early Thursday afternoon. - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... You should monitor later forecasts and be alert for possible Flood Warnings. Those living in areas prone to flooding should be prepared to take action should flooding develop. &&
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China opposes US allowing Taiwan region's official to 'transit' through country: FM

By Xu Zheqi (People's Daily App) 15:45, January 21, 2022

China firmly opposes the so-called "transit" of leaders of the Taiwan region and "engagement" between the US and Taiwan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on Thursday.

According to media reports, Taiwan will send Lai Ching-te to Honduras to attend the inauguration of the Honduran president and he plans to engage with the US during his transit in the country, and may find an opportunity to directly interact with US Vice President Kamala Harris.

In response, Zhao stressed that China firmly opposes the arrangement of such "transit" by the US or any other country that has diplomatic ties with China as well as any form of official exchange between the US and Taiwan.

"We urge the US to abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US Joint Communiques, take seriously China's position and concern, refrain from conducting official engagement with Taiwan in any form and sending the wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' forces," he said.

"There is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory," Zhao said. "The one-China principle is a universally recognized norm governing international relations, and a wide consensus that has been recognized, accepted and practiced by the overwhelming majority of countries in the world."

He noted that any attempt to create the false impression of "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan" would be rejected by all Chinese people.

"Adherence to the one-China principle is an overriding trend that represents international justice and enjoys popular support," he added.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
After Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, filmmaker SS Rajamouli is returning with another grand spectacle that is RRR starring NTR Jr & Ram Charan.

This time, he also roped in two major Bollywood stars - Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn.

While it is the first time SS Rajamouli has collaborated with Alia for a film, contrary to the popular belief, this isnt his first collaboration with Ajay Devgn.

Almost a decade before RRR, and a few years before he found nationwide fame and acclaim with Baahubali films, SS Rajamouli was one of the most talked-about filmmakers in Telugu cinema and had directed a high on VFX film with a CGI fly as its lead, Eega. The film starred Sudeep, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Nani.

 Vaaraahi Chalana Chitram

After the films massive success in Telugu, SS Rajamouli decided to release it in Hindi and present it to a nationwide audience. For the Hindi version, he got in touch with Ajay Devgn and roped him in as the narrator of the film along with his wife and actress Kajol.



My association with @SSRajamouli Sir dates back to 2012. Weve collaborated in many interesting ways since. Working with him in #RRR is an honour & pleasure. https://t.co/G88HeNAVLG  Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) January 21, 2020

Talking about getting Ajay onboard, Rajamouli had told Indian Express, The film opens with a father telling his daughter a story and I wanted an actor like Ajay Devgn for who the audience has regards as a nice family man. And even though he agreed immediately I made him watch the film. The best compliment was when after the screening he said that he would like to show the film to his children.

 Vaaraahi Chalana Chitram

Watch Ajay Devgn and Kajols narration for Makkhi below:



To pay a tribute to Ajay Devgn, SS Rajamouli had also added a special dance sequence at the end where the CGI fly enacts Ajay Devgns two iconic roles from Singham and his debut film Phool Aur Kaante.

Talking about the tribute, SS Rajamouli had said in a statement, For a film like Makkhi, it is very important that the audience leave the theatre with warmth in their heart and a smile on their face. So we came up with the idea of making the makkhi dance for the end credits. But makkhi riding on two houseflies is the cherry on top.

 Vaaraahi Chalana Chitram

Before the release of the film, Ajay Devgn had also supported SS Rajamouli by attending the trailer launch event of the film. At the launch, he had talked about why he came on board and how Eega had affected the business of Bol Bachchan in Andhra Pradesh.



Watch the video below:

As for RRR, the release of the film was supposed to be January 7, 2022, but was postponed due to the Omicron scare, the new release date of the film has not been announced yet.
Starkville, MS (39762)

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Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. High 87F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%..

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Considerable cloudiness. Low 67F. Winds light and variable.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui is one of the most stellar actors that we have in the industry today and every time he takes up a role, he makes sure that he gives in his 100 per cent to make sure the character looks larger than life and more convincing on the screen.

Keeping up with his grounded persona, Nawaz has been rather brutally honest with his responses in interviews. He is seen as one of the actors who gave voice to Indian shows and movies on the OTT giants like Netflix but he has decided to not to be a part of the web shows as the quality has completely deteriorated.

He had talked about his decision back in 2021 and in a recent conversation with Hindustan Times, he has again shared why he has taken this decision.

He said that the PR machinery works on promoting the show way too much and makes it look like every show has meaningful content and he doesnt want to be a part of that herd mentality. Today, there are many web series being made. Because of the marketing and public relations machinery that goes into promoting them, har series ki tareef ki ja rahi hai. This causes a lot of confusion about which series are truly good and which arent, said Nawaz.

Elaborating on his decision, he said, A lot of actors have now forayed into that space, but Im not someone who believes in herd mentality. Mera zameer yeh gawaara nahin karta. Having said that, Im open to doing web films because it gives an actor a global platform.

He also added, It was a conscious decision to try my hands at multiple genres. I dont want to do the same kind of films, because it bores me. This year, I really wanted to concentrate on love stories.

We agree with his few viewpoints wherein he has rightly pointed out that quantity has trumped quality. Do you agree with his statements? Let us know in the comments section below.

In 2022, he will be seen in five films, starting with Jogira Sara Ra Ra and Tiku Weds Sheru to Adbhut, Sangeen, and Heropanti 2. While he plays the lead role in Jogira Sara Ra Ra and Tiku Weds Sheru, he will be seen in the support cast in the other three films.
There is a new twist in the tale of Allu Arjuns 2020 Telugu blockbuster Ala Vaikunthapurramuloos dubbed Hindi release in theatres.

Ever since the theatrical release of the Allu Arjun starrer was announced, the reports had stated that makers of its Hindi remake Shehzada starring Kartik Aaryan arent happy about it and rightly so.

In fact, Paresh Rawal, who plays an important role in the Hindi remake had expressed shock over the theatrical release of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo in Hindi.

Now, Goldmines, the production house behind the Hindi release of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo has released a statement announcing the withdrawal of the theatrical release of the Allu Arjun starrer.

The statement reads, "To media & Trade Manish Shah promoter of Goldmines along with the makers of Shehzada have jointly decided to withdraw the theatrical release of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo Hindi version. Shehzada makers are thankful to Manish Shah for agreeing to the same."

Take a look at it below:

The sudden change in the plan could be because of Allu Arjun's father Allu Aravind who is the producer of the original Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo and is also co-producing the Hindi version Shehzada.



 Instagram/Kartik Aaryan

Earlier, a report in ETimes had claimed that Allu Arjuns father Allu Aravind, the producer of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, arrived in Mumbai to talk to the producer Manish Shah of Goldmines Telefilms, who owns the rights to the Hindi version of the Telugu film, to stop the theatrical release of AVPL.

A source told the website, The Kartik Aaryan starrer Shehzada (with Kriti Sanon opposite him) is the official Hindi remake of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, which Allu Aravind is co-producing with Bhushan Kumar and Aman Gill. Allu Aravind would ideally like Shehzada to be the only Hindi version of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo.

 Instagram/Kartik Aaryan

The source further added, Allu Aravind had arrived in Mumbai yesterday with his team and the meetings with Shah went on for two days. We shall soon know, January 26 is not far away.

There were also reports that Kartik had met Manish Shah to try and persuade him to not release the Hindi dubbed version of the film.

When asked about it, Shah told ETimes, Kartik has not met me but they are feeling that the release of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo will affect the business of Shehzada. So we are now looking at the best way forward to ensure that Shehzada is not affected.

 Goldmines Telefilms

Earlier, Manish Shah had confirmed that he will release the Hindi dubbed version on January 26 and doesnt believe it will affect Shehzada.
If you thought moral and fashion policing only happens to women in India, you are highly mistaken. Some men go through the same thing, at least regularly even if not on a daily basis.

From a common man being denied entry at a bank for wearing shorts to an athlete being trolled for wearing cargo pants for his meeting with the Indian Army officials, men too are shamed for their attire.

 iStock

The recent incident shared by a Bengaluru techie and the comments on his post is proof enough. He took to Twitter to share how he went to the RTO office wearing shorts for which he was harassed by the officer and even denied services.



I was harassed by a RTO official because I went to the RTO office in shorts. The guy said he wouldnt see my case because I was wearing shorts. Cant seem to understand this crass behavior, he wrote.

 iStock

He said that the RTO officials at Jnanabharathi got irritated and started arguing with him. They insisted they will not share any details just because I was wearing shorts, he told TOI.



There is no written dress code for government offices as such and most of us waltz in banks and officers on a lazy afternoon wearing casual clothes. However, the officials at the RTO got offended on seeing a man in shorts.

Last I checked, mens shorts (not boxers, obviously) aren't inappropriate attire and an acceptable clothing item to wear in public.

 iStock

However, many men in the comment section said the same thing had happened to them at the RTO, passport office and other public service officers where they were shamed and denied service pertaining to their inappropriate outfit.



During passport police verification, constables at Yeshvantpur Police station did not allow me inside because I was wearing shorts. https://t.co/8WXU3pz4wC  Ashwin Deshpande (@trollpwnde) January 18, 2022

I remember "travel docs processing dept " of one of the companies that I worked for didn't accept visa document from my colleague because he came to office in chappal to submit document .. It happens..  Ananth Kumar (@anantkkumar) January 18, 2022

Its some archaic rule they follow. Husband also got ticked off by the lady at the entrance illi ella Knicker hakondu barakagalla. He tried explaining to her that he even goes to office like that. She wasnt impressed at all.  Loveleen Arun (@LoveleenArun) January 18, 2022

My brother's DL test was cancelled because while talking to rto he 2as wearing sunglasses  Nikhil Kulkarni (@nikhilkulkwadhe) January 18, 2022

The inspector who was supposed to take my DL test failed me at first because I came dressed in shorts. Couldn't exactly argue, so I remember driving early in the morning to find somewhere I could buy trackpants.

This was at the KR Puram RTO in 2020.  Rithwik/ (@thel3l) January 19, 2022

Same thing happened to me in 2016

I was in shorts too

https://t.co/RsR06K7oIk  Suhas Ravindra (@SuhasRavindra1) January 18, 2022

Some people argued that since it is a government office, you need to dress in proper attire to show them respect.

While we agree to it, how fair is it to deny them service or cancel their documents on this basis when there is no such dress code for citizens in writing?

 iStock

Yesterday it was a womans saree that was being deemed inappropriate in an Indian restaurant, and now, its mens shorts and chappals.



Someone, please create a nationally acceptable dress code for public places so we can dress accordingly!
A Memorial Service of Christian Burial will begin at 2 p.m., Saturday, May 7, 2022, at Robert Barham Family Funeral Home Chapel. Robert Barham Family Funeral Home is honored to be entrusted with the arrangements. Mrs. Cobb, 68, of Meridian, passed away Sunday, May 1, 2022, at Bedford Care Ce
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
U.S. drops case against MIT professor accused of ties to China

WASHINGTON  The Justice Department dropped charges Thursday against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor accused of concealing ties to the Chinese government, a further setback to a federal initiative that was set up to prevent economic espionage and theft by Beijing of trade secrets and academic research.

The department revealed its decision in the case against Gang Chen in a filing in federal court in Boston, saying it could no longer meet its burden of proof.

U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, said the move was in the interests of justice and was the result of new information the government had received about the allegations.

After a careful assessment of this new information in the context of all the evidence, our office has concluded that we can no longer meet our burden of proof at trial, Rollins said. As prosecutors, we have an obligation in every matter we pursue to continually examine the facts while being open to receiving and uncovering new information.

Phone call shows brother pleading with Texas hostage-taker

LONDON  A British man who held four people hostage in a Texas synagogue ranted against Jews and American wars in countries like Afghanistan as his brother pleaded with him to give up and free the captives, a recording of the conversation shows.

In the expletive-filled recording posted on the website of The Jewish Chronicle, 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram said he was bombed up and equipped with every ammunition as he talked to his brother Saturday from inside Congregation Beth Israel in the Dallas suburb of Colleyville.

Gulbar Akram urged his brother to lay down his weapons and return to his children alive.

You dont need to do this. Why are you doing this? he said. Just pack it in. Youll do a bit of time, and then youll get out.

These guys youve got there, theyre innocent people, man, he said.

In response, Akram became increasingly agitated and said he hoped U.S. authorities would take notice of the Jewish hostages and agree to his demand that they release Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist convicted of trying to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

McDonalds expanding test of McPlant burger in U.S. stores

McDonalds is expanding sales of its meatless McPlant burger to hundreds of locations.

The company said the McPlant  which it co-developed with plant-based protein company Beyond Meat will be sold at 600 stores in the San Francisco and Dallas areas starting Feb. 14.

Its a major expansion for the McPlant, which was introduced last November at eight stores in Texas, Iowa, Louisiana and California. That test run helped the company determine how a plant-based option would alter its kitchen operations. McDonalds said the larger product offering will help it understand customer demand.

The Chicago company offered no details about what it learned from its first round of sales, or whether it has since tweaked the recipe. The McPlant is made from peas, rice and potatoes, among other ingredients.

McDonalds has been slower to market with a plant-based burger than rivals. Burger King introduced the plant-based Impossible Whopper  made by Beyond Meat rival Impossible Foods  in 2019, while Starbucks brought out a breakfast sandwich made with Impossible sausage in 2020.

Earlier this month, KFC announced it was expanding its Beyond Meat plant-based chicken tenders nationwide. Chipotle also recently introduced a plant-based chorizo that it developed in-house.

McDonalds first tested a Beyond Meat burger called the P.L.T. in Canada in 2019, but later pulled it off the menu. Last year, it started testing the McPlant in several European markets, including Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom.

Beyond Meat shares rose nearly 5% Thursday morning before moderating later in the day. McDonalds shares were flat.
Daviess County Public Schools Superintendent Matt Robbins confirmed that he has tested positive for COVID-19 during the districts regular board of education meeting Thursday.

I think all of you know that I have tested positive for COVID-19, and my family has, Robbins said while participating in the meeting virtually. I am pleased to report that we all have very minor symptoms...

Robbins compared his symptoms to a heavy cold or upper respiratory infection, and said he is faring well.

I am really grateful for the vaccination and the science making that happen, he said. I know that there are a lot of people struggling with that in the hospitals. I really praise the Lord for the fact of the vaccination for the ability to treat it as a heavy cold or an upper respiratory infection.

The district, which is the only school district in Daviess County that has continued to have a mask optional policy, will be utilizing its virtual learning platform Friday.

I just want to reaffirm that our commitment is to in-person learning with our students, Robbins said. That is paramount to us and with that we do have a plan to return on Monday.

While the current plan is for DCPS tor return to in-person learning Monday, Robbins said district officials understand the situation regarding COVID-19 in Daviess County can change rapidly, which can effect DCPS plans.

In our region right now, Daviess County and really the Green River Health District, cases have now tripled, which along with cases what occurs are isolations and quarantines that go with that, Robbins said. The positivity rate across the state is now 31%. What that translates to is roughly one out of every three people are testing positive now for this variant. Both of those are historic pandemic highs.

COVID-19 testing was done earlier this week a all three DCPS middle schools, with 497 individuals being tested at that time.

We made that available to not only students and staff, but parents and siblings, really, anybody that walked in the door, that wanted a free COVID-19 test, we provided that, Robbins said.

Out of those 497 people tested, about 150 individuals tested positive for the coronavirus. With a positivity rate of about 30%, those numbers correspond to Kentuckys statewide positivity rate.

Dale Stewart, board chairman, said that the DCPS Board of Education is supportive of Robbins decisions regarding face masks being optional.

I can say that everybody on the board, we are very much in support of Mr. Robbins and his decisions in that area, he said immediately following the meeting. We do look at it. We review it and I think we were actually going to review it tonight if (Robbins) had been here.

Nathan Havenner, Messenger-Inquirer, nhavenner@messenger-inquirer.com, 270-228-2837
A Colorado man is in custody in Texas, for allegedly coming to Owensboro to pick up a juvenile, and then leaving the state with her.

Owenboro Police Department reports say Emery Wayne Trombley, 21, of Colorado Springs, was arrested Tuesday in Childress, Texas. Trombley was taken into custody by the Texas Department of Public Safety; when he was arrested, a 14 year-old juvenile previously identified as Alina Bartolon of Owensboro was found with him.

Bartolon was reported missing on Dec. 25.

Andrew Boggess, OPDs public information officer, said detectives believe Trombley drove from Colorado to Owensboro to pick up the teen.

Boggess said OPD detectives issued a warrant for Trombley on charge of felony custodial interference. The warrant wont be served until Trombley is in Kentucky, and isnt public record until it is served, Boggess said.

Investigators in Texas knew Trombley was being sought on the warrant, and arrested him on charges of being a fugitive, Boggess said. Other Texas charges could be forthcoming.

Investigators are not clear yet how Trombley and the teen knew each other.

Im sure thats something detectives are looking at. Its an important part of the case, Boggess said.

The department received a lead from the community that connected Trombley to the incident, Boggess said.

I know they got some leads in the past couple of days that led them in that direction, Boggess said.

The Texas Department of Public Safety had not responded to questions about the investigation as of Thursday afternoon.

Several agencies were involved in the investigation.

We reached out to multiple agencies, including two federal agencies, Boggess said.

Bartolon was unharmed, and will be reunited with her family, reports say.

James Mayse, 270-691-7303, jmayse@messenger-inquirer.com, Twitter: @JamesMayse
LANSING - The Michigan Court of Appeals (COA) sided with Attorney General Dana Nessel in a criminal case involving Southfield City Clerk Sherikia Hawkins. The case will now proceed with the original charges against her reinstated.

The unanimous opinion, issued Thursday, addressed an appeal from the Department and a cross-appeal from the defendant related to felony charges filed against her connected to the November 2018 election. The complaint alleges that Hawkins fraudulently altered the Qualified Voter File after the 2018 general election to falsely reflect that previously logged absentee ballots were void due to arriving in envelopes that were not signed by the voters.

In July 2020, Sherikia Hawkins was ordered to stand trial on the following six charges:

one count of violating election law by falsifying returns or records, a five-year felony and/or $1,000 fine;

one count of forgery of a public record, a 14-year felony;

one count of misconduct in office, a five-year felony and/or $10,000 fine;

one count of using a computer to commit a crime connected to violating election law by falsifying returns or records, a seven-year felony and/or $5,000 fine;

one count of using a computer to commit a crime connected to forgery of a public record, a 10-year felony and/or $10,000 fine; and

one count of using a computer to commit a crime connected to misconduct in office, a seven-year felony and/or $5,000 fine.

After being sent to circuit court, Hawkins filed a motion to quash before Oakland Circuit Judge Leo Bowman, which was granted on four of the charges, but denied on misconduct in office and using a computer to commit a crime connected to misconduct in office.

In response, the Department appealed the dismissal of the four counts to the COA. Additionally, Hawkins filed her own cross-appeal with the COA seeking to dismiss the two remaining felonies against her after a failed attempt in June.

Thursday's COA decision rejected all of Hawkins's arguments and reinstated the quashed counts, meaning the case can now proceed on all six original counts filed against her in 2019.

"Election officials must uphold the integrity of their positions. Those who abuse that commitment undermine the very foundation of our democracy," Nessel said. "While election fraud is rare in our state, our department is committed to prosecuting fraud whenever and wherever it occurs - irrespective of the political party of the perpetrator."

Trial is currently scheduled for Oct. 25, 2022, before Oakland Circuit Judge Kwame Rowe.

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Please note: A criminal charge is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The Attorney General's Office does not provide photos of defendants.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 20, 2022

Contact: Press@michigan.gov

Governor Whitmer Statement on Michigan's Jobs Growth

8th straight month of jobs growth, lower unemployment, billions to invest in the kitchen-table issues

LANSING, Mich.-Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued the following statement after Michigan's economy showed strong job growth and lower unemployment, with 11,000 jobs added last month. Michigan also has billions in federal resources to invest in people and big projects, and thanks to rising state revenues, Michigan will continue delivering on the kitchen-table issues that matter most to families.

"Michigan's economy is strong and getting stronger every day," said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. "In December 2021 alone, we added 11,000 jobs, and since December 2020, we've created 220,000 jobs. We're rounding out eight straight months of job growth, unemployment is decreasing, and we still have billions from the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan to invest in our families, communities, and small businesses. I will work with anyone as we continue putting Michiganders first, getting more Michiganders back to work, and growing Michigan's economy."

Economy

Thanks to sound fiscal management, Michigan went from a projected $3 billion deficit in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to a $7 billion surplus and revenues for forthcoming years that have been revised up by billions of dollars. Michigan continues to lead the nation in automotive manufacturing, creating 16,000 auto jobs and counting. The state has also made historic investments in education, skills training programs, childcare, preschool, public safety, clean water, and roads and bridges.

Economic Development

Last month, Governor Whitmer signed a bipartisan economic development package empowering Michigan to compete for transformational projects that will bring billions in private investment and create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for Michiganders. The package set up a $1 billion fund and gave the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, or MEDC, a powerful new set of tools to land some of the huge projects in their pipeline. The package also delivers resources directly to new and existing businesses, building on work the state has done since March 2020 to set up 23 economic relief programs and deliver over $240 million to small businesses in all 83 Michigan counties.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 21, 2022

Contact: Kathleen Achtenberg, achtenbergk@michigan.org

Gov. Whitmer's Investments in West Michigan to Bring Jobs, Housing, Economic Growth and New Vibrancy to Downtown Grand Rapids, Hastings

LANSING, Mich. - Governor Gretchen Whitmer joined the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) today to announce three revitalization projects that will bring growth and vibrancy to two communities in West Michigan have received support from the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF). The projects are expected to generate a total capital investment of $35.9 million, bringing new vitality and economic activity to downtown corridors in Grand Rapids and Hastings.

"These projects demonstrate our continued focus on supporting community projects that fill housing needs for our residents, build a foundation for long-term economic opportunity, and help us put Michiganders first," said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. "By contributing to traditional downtown districts and revitalizing underutilized properties, today's projects are helping to reinforce these communities as attractive places to live, work and play. Together, we will keep growing our economy, investing in our communities, and delivering on kitchen-table issues for our families."

The 900 W. Leonard Redevelopment Project will include the new construction of a four-story mixed-use building on the Westside of Grand Rapids. When completed, the project will include 120 residential units, retail space on the first floor, a common area, and underground parking. Public infrastructure improvements will include road repair, sidewalks, curb and gutter work, and the installation of a public bus shelter.

The project is expected to generate a total capital investment of $18.2 million and create 10 full-time equivalent jobs, and will reactivate a vacant, blighted space into a vibrant building that will contribute to the walkability, vitality, and density in the area.?

The City of Grand Rapids Brownfield Redevelopment Authority has received MSF approval of $987,493 in state tax capture for the reimbursement of brownfield remediation activities. The city of Grand Rapids is supporting the project through the approval of local tax capture valued at $476,912 and a Neighborhood Enterprise Zone tax abatement valued at $1.8 million. The city of Grand Rapids is certified with MEDC's Redevelopment Ready Communities (RRC) program.

"Victory Development Group is very excited to bring Victory on Leonard to the Westside of Grand Rapids. By addressing the housing need of the community, this mixed-use, 120 residential unit project replaces an abandoned building and will have a positive impact on a neighborhood known for its long and rich history," said Jack Hoedeman, partner at Victory Development Group, developer of the project.

The 1601 Madison Redevelopment Project will result in the new construction of an industrial office building in the Cottage Grove area of Grand Rapids. The new building will be leased to global data protection provider MCPc, who plans to relocate 69 existing full-time employees and create an additional 28 full-time jobs at the site. Public infrastructure improvements will include street lighting, curb and gutter work, new sanitary and storm sewers, water mains, and sidewalks along Madison Avenue.

The project is expected to generate a total capital investment of $12.8 million and will serve as a key starting point for the revitalization of the Cottage Grove area. The reactivation of this underutilized property is expected to attract additional companies to the area, resulting in continued expansion and additional jobs for the area.

"We are excited about bringing back good-paying jobs to the Madison Square neighborhood. With our partnership with MCPc, we are committed to ensuring neighborhood hiring and workforce training," said Jon Ippel, executive director at Amplify GR. "But environmental justice is an equal part in this project. Because of this funding, we were able to clean up a century-old facility - providing a healthier landscape for families in the neighborhood while providing access to living wage jobs. We want to see neighborhoods flourish for generations to come."

The City of Grand Rapids Brownfield Redevelopment Authority has received MSF approval of $603,992 in state tax capture for the reimbursement of brownfield remediation activities. Local support includes city of Grand Rapids approval of local tax capture valued at $125,639. The Southtown Corridor Improvement Authority will directly contribute $275,000 toward public infrastructure improvements, and the Grand Rapids Brownfield Redevelopment Authority is providing $539,642 from its Local Brownfield Revolving Fund for eligible activities.

The Hastings Michigan Ave Project will include the construction of a new four-story, mixed-use building in downtown Hastings. When completed, the project will consist of 21 residential units, retail space on the first floor, a common area and surface parking lot. Public infrastructure improvements will include sidewalk, curb, and gutter improvements.

The project is expected to generate a total capital investment of $4.8 million, supported by a $750,000 Michigan Community Revitalization Program performance-based grant. The Hastings Brownfield Redevelopment Authority has received MSF approval of $64,756 in state tax capture for the reimbursement of brownfield remediation activities.

The project will transform this underutilized property into a vibrant, attractive development that will bring needed housing and density to downtown Hastings. It is also expected to generate increased economic activity and act as a catalyst for additional revitalization in the community.

"We are extremely excited and thankful to have partnered with the City of Hastings and the MEDC on this wonderful project.?This new development will help to further activate the Hastings downtown area by providing much needed housing," said Chris Veneklasen, president of a.j. Veneklasen, developer of the project.?"A project like this would not be possible without the financial support from the MEDC as well as the incentives provided by the city.?This great investment by all will yield valuable returns to all stakeholders for a lifetime."

Local support includes city of Hastings approval of local tax capture valued at $72,244 and a 15-year Neighborhood Enterprise Zone tax abatement valued at $539,690. The city has also approved a 12-year Commercial Redevelopment Act abatement for the commercial portion of the project valued at $41,441. The city of Hastings is engaged with MEDC's RRC program.

"These three development projects reflect our continued focus on supporting innovative placemaking efforts in communities throughout the state, laying the foundation for long-term economic wins and opportunity for Michiganders," said?Quentin L. Messer, Jr., CEO of MEDC and President and Chair of the MSF Board. "By focusing on traditional downtown districts and revitalizing public spaces, including the creation of much-needed industrial real estate, we are working with our local partners in West Michigan to establish vibrant, unique places for continued business growth and that residents and visitors can enjoy."

About Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC)

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation is the state's marketing arm and lead advocate for business development, job awareness and community development with the focus on growing Michigan's economy.?For more information on the MEDC and our initiatives, visit?www.MichiganBusiness.org.?For Pure Michigan tourism information, your trip begins at?www.michigan.org. Join the conversation on:?Facebook,?Instagram,?LinkedIn, and?Twitter.

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The Tribune will publish Self-Help, information in the Upper Thumb area on a space-available basis. Each notice should be limited to 30 words. Please mail or bring information, clearly marked, to the Huron Daily Tribune, 211 N. Heisterman St., Bad Axe, 48413, call 989-269-6461 or email hdt_news@hearstnp.com.

Womens support

 Huron County SafePlace offers free support groups to women on the fourth Tuesday of each month from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Transportation via Thumb Area Transit and child care for these support groups will be available by calling SafePlace.

These meetings take place in Bad Axe, please call for additional information or to make your reservations 989-269-5300.

 For information on meetings of the Womans Christian Temperance (self-control) Union, call Marie at 989-975-2465. It is a support group for people with addictions.

Substance abuse

 To find Narcotics Anonymous meetings in the area call 800-230-4085.

 The Families Against Narcotics Huron & Tuscola Chapter will have monthly meetings at 6 p.m. the fourth Monday of the month at Hills and Dales Corporate Services and Regional Education Center in Cass City. For more information, visit their website www.familiesagainstnarcotics.org.

 Family member or friend addicted? Call Families Anonymous. Familes Anonymous is a 12 step program to aid families with substance abuse or behavioral problems. Meetings are every Tuesday at 7 p.m. at 206 Scheurmann St. in Essexville. For inquiries, call 989-895-5938.

 Thumb Area Narcotics Anonymous meets Mondays from 7 to 8:15 p.m. at the Caseville United Methodist Church. For inquiries call 800-230-4085.

 Thumb Area Narcotics Anonymous meets from 7 to 8:15 at the Port Austin Bible Campus on Thursdays.

 The Families Against Narcotics Huron County chapter meets at 6:30 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of every month at the Huron Fairgrounds Expo Center.

Family forum events are designed to promote recovery community and provide individuals to share their story, reducing shame and stigma associated with the disease of addiction.

Support is available online at familiesagainstnarcotics.org, via phone 989-551-4326 (HFAN), and Facebook @huronfan.

Grief

 GriefShare features nationally recognized experts on grief recovery topics. Seminar sessions include The Journey of Grief, The Effects of Grief, Your Family and Grief, Why? and Stuck in Grief.

For more information, call Chaplain Londa at 989-545-8357.

 Grief Support meets second Thursday of each month at 4 p.m. at Caro Community Library. Please call Sue or Pam at 800-275-4517 for more details.

 Grief Support meets last Thursday of each month at 6 p.m. for dinner at Franklin Inn in Bad Axe. Call 1-800-635-7490 ext. 4134.

 Grief Support meets at noon on the first Tuesday of the month at Eddie Gs in Marlette. Call United Hospice Service for more information at 800-635-7490.

 Thumb Compassionate Friends is a chapter of a national self-help group offering support to families who have suffered the loss of a child at any age. Meetings are on the second Monday of each month at the Community of Christ Church, 2081 E. Deckerville Road, Caro.

For information, call Sharon at 989-683-3305 or Dave at 810-376-2801 or visit www. TCFcaro.org.
Espanola City Police officers responded at 2:30 p.m., Monday to a report of a man waving a knife at people behind Walgreens. This gentleman was not the alleged knife-waver and didnt fit the description. However, he had an outstanding warrant and was arrested.
Members of the Manistee Veterans Council say they are pleased to announce that the Veteran Memorial Fund is off to a better than expected start, after only one week of raising funds. It was just last week when the Veterans Council Memorial Committee announced plans to renovate the memorial located by the Manistee County Library. The memorial, which has been at that location since the 1940s, is in need of repairs after years of harsh weather.

40 YEARS AGO

Mailbox bandit

State police from the Manistee post are investigating a destruction of property incident involving 11 rural mailboxes. The boxes are located along U.S. 31 between Milarch Road and M-22. Officers said it appeared someone in a vehicle stopped at each of the mailboxes, got out of the car and used some kind of club to knock each mailbox off its post.

Deep recession

(FROM THE AP)  President Ronald Reagans economic advisers, conceding the recession is worse than they had expected, are trying to scatter the blame from the Federal Reserve Board to a Carter admisntration that has been out of office a year. Treasury Secretary Donald Regan said yesterday that the new government figures showed the nation has fallen into a deep recession, deeper than most forecasters had predicted.

80 YEARS AGO

Eastlake youth commended

Herbert Miller, Eastlake youth who is stationed at Wheeler Field in Hawaii, was commended for his bravery under fire during the Japanese attack the morning of Dec. 7, his mother, Gusta Miller learned yesterday when she received her first letter from him since the start of the war. Miller, private first class, is a member of the Army Air Corps, and has been at Wheeler Field for some time. He enlisted Nov. 2, 1940 and graduated from technical school at Lowery Field, Denver, May 9, 1941.

Civilian defense

A large group of from 60 to 70 high school students yesterday heard a talk by Howard Shirley, chair of the Manistee County Defense Council, on the Civilian Defense Council. Shirley opened his talk with a discussion of the national program and followed this with an outline of the general plan of civilian defense for Manistee County.
MANISTEE  Two bills going through the Michigan Senate that would change the funding structure of local mental health service providers have drawn criticism from mental health providers in the Manistee area.

Centra Wellness, which serves both Manistee and Benzie counties, is among service providers who are highly critical of SB597 and SB598.

The bills were introduced by Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey. Their language implies that there would be third party contracts to private organizations outside of local mental health services, and would automatically enroll patients into an account where they would receive a kind of expense account, and failure to pay may result in penalties to the enrollee.

One section of Senate Bill 597 notes the following: "...the enrollee's employer, and private or public entities on the enrollee's behalf,

can be deposited to pay for incurred health expenses, including, but not limited to, co-pays. The account shall be administered by the department and can be delegated to a contracted health plan or a third-party administrator, as considered necessary. "

Another section of Senate Bill 597 reads: "The department shall ensure that each enrollee receives quarterly statements for his or her account that include expenditures from the account, account balance and the cost-sharing amount due for the following months. The enrollee shall be required remit each month the average co-pay amount calculated by the contracted health plan into the enrollee's account. The department shall pursue a range of consequences for enrollees who consistently fail to meet their

cost-sharing requirements, including, but not limited to, using the MIChild program as a template and closer oversight by health plans in access to providers."

The bills can be found by going to legislature.mi.gov/ and searching by number.

Both Senate bills would take public funding from community mental health service providers and redirect the funding to private organizations  at least according to local mental health service providers.

In an email to the News Advocate, Centra Wellness's Executive Director Joseph "Chip" Johnston commented on the legislation.

"It will cripple us and end virtually all our prevention activities with the schools and the senior centers, as we would be forced to move to a fee-for-service payment arrangement versus a monthly 'capitated rate," Johnson said.

A monthly capitated rate is a defined, per-patient payment for each individual enrolled in a capitated insurance plan. For example, a provider could be paid per month, per patient, despite how many times the patient comes in for treatment or how many services are needed.

A fee-for-service model is when the patient would pay every single time they come in for services.

Johnston noted that Medicaid is a large amount of Centra Wellness's funding and that the changes in Senate Bills 597 and 598 would practically bankrupt them. "Medicaid is 90% of our funding and would leave us a statutory shell unless we signed a contract with the mostly out-of-state health plans," Johnston said.

He notes that the bills would significantly increase their rates and prevent them from operating in the current form as a governmental agency.

"We would most likely not be able to sign a contract because as a governmental agency we can only accept contracts that meet our rates. Furthermore, the overhead from the Northern Michigan Regional Entity (that pays us now) is only 3.5% and the health plans are allowed 15% by law, which some are in violation of that threshold. So effectively we would have our funding best case scenario cut 11.5%," Johnston wrote.

Johnston noted that rural counties often have few or no mental health providers and that the bills would make things even worse. Centra Wellness is one of the few providers in the northwest Michigan area.

According to its website, "Centra Wellness Network is the publicly funded Community Mental Health Service Provider for Manistee and Benzie counties. In collaboration with providers and community partners, Centra Wellness Network serves more than 1,200 individuals annually. Most of these individuals are insured through Medicaid or have no insurance coverage. We strive to enhance freedom to help individuals lead a meaningful life through quality behavioral health care, leadership, promoting individual wellness and teamwork within our community."

Johnston continued in his explanation of his opposition to the bills.

"Most rural counties, the health plans have no viable mental health providers of any kind in their area and the Community Mental Health Service Providers system covers this responsibility. We are no exception here in Manistee and Benzie counties," he said.

Johnston questioned the wisdom of taking the vast majority of funding from what he said is the only local service provider and giving it to a different organization that has no roots or accountability to the area.

"Furthermore, the funding that we at Centra Wellness Network get, approximately $20 million in total for 24/7 community mental health care, is counted as county revenue sharing to both Manistee and Benzie counties to the tune of about $9 million and the number is $1.5 billion statewide. Because of these bills, the legislature would have to replace the funds which would now go to private entities (the health plans) instead of to the counties," Johnston said.

He added that the bills would cause a loss of local control.

"The local community mental health (service providers) taskmasters will now be the health plans instead of the county commissioners and systems such as the sheriffs office and the court system," Johnston said. "Who would address the issue of a CMH not providing the services the community needs or is asking of them? Private health plans out-of-state or in Southfield, Michigan? Rural CMHs will be decimated beyond repair and our jails and state hospital systems will be overrun."

Cassandra Kamaloski, executive director of the Manistee Friendship Society, notes how the legislation could impact people who have already suffered a lot during the pandemic. She noted some of the issues of the bill in an email to the News Advocate.

"I am no expert on Senate bills 597 and 598. But, what I can tell you is if there is no funding through our local community mental health for preventative care or peer-run services like ourselves, I dont know what that will look like for the future of our organization," Kamaloski said in an email.

According to its website, "The Manistee Friendship Society is a 501c3 nonprofit organization in Manistee County. Since 2002, we have been a safe place for socialization, support, education and activities for adults living with various degrees of mental illness. "

Kamaloski noted that many individuals in the county use their services.

"We have around 300 adults who utilize our services in Manistee County at this time," she said. "Those services are to be extra support for people who are recovering from a variety of different issues."

Kamaloski said people need all the support they can get right now.

"The world were living in right now can be scary," Kamaloski continued. "There has been so much change around us the past two years. Theres a lot of fear and anxiety surrounding this pandemic and what we have been living through."

She also said the pandemic is not the only reason that people are having mental health issues. She noted the Manistee Friendship Society gets a lot of support from the Centra Wellness Network.

"There are so many things that can affect our mental health. Learning skills and tools to help someone live the happiest healthiest life that they can, can be life changing. But also help them with those everyday basic needs such as housing, food, life skills. We do all of that and more. We wouldnt have been able to do what we do without the support from Centra Wellness Network over the years," Kamaloski wrote.

Kamaloski talked about the importance of collaborations with different networks across communities.

"When we work collaboratively with those organizations around us to help someone in need, it builds a stronger support system for the

people that we serve. Having that connection with our local community mental health has had a tremendously positive effect on the members of our center and the way we are able to help them. And we are very grateful for that," she said.

She said people need "the best care and support that they can get, and I feel that is through not privatizing community mental health. We want to make it about the people, not the money. "
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BIG RAPIDS  The Big Rapids area's first mobile food pantry distribution of 2022 has a new time.

The Greater Big Rapids Area Mobile Food Pantry will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, instead of at 9 a.m., at the Mecosta County Fairgrounds, at 540 West Ave., Big Rapids. Check in will be at 9:30 a.m. at the drive through entrance off of Pere Marquette. Feeding America will provide enough food for 150 families in the drive-through, with no-contact distribution.

Hosted by Angels of Action and Manna Pantry, the monthly food truck distributes free food for people in need in the greater Big Rapids area. Additional distributions will happen at 10 a.m. Feb. 26, March 26, April 23, May 21, June 25, July 23, Aug. 27, Sept. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 10 and Dec. 17.

Feeding America also will have food distributions at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 12, at the Fork Township Community Center, 3265 20 Mile Road, Barryton, and 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, at the Morley Community Center, 151 7th St, Morley.

For more information about the Greater Big Rapids Area Mobile Food Pantry, call 231-408-2940 or visit www.angelsofaction.org, www.facebook.com/angelsofaction, www.mannapantry.org or www.facebook.com/MannaPantry.

For more information about Feeding America West Michigan, visit www.feedwm.org/findfood.
Despite expanding its services to all mainland states and parts of Canada, Countryside Transportation service still remembers its roots in Sebewaing.

The company was started in 1987 by Howard and Beth Fiebig as a hauling truck company for the various cultural companies in the area. It was an especially good location for sugar transport and the company has since become the top carrier for Michigan Sugar Company.

"Sebewaing's a good location to be in the middle of all the sugar factories," said the company's current Co-Owner Stephanie Long "Sugar factories are in Sebewaing, Caro, Carrollton, Croswell, and Bay City, so we're right in the middle in a good location."

Long and her brother, Joel Fiebig, bought the company from their parents in 2002. Since then, they've grown the company to 130 employees and 80 trucks that haul sugar, flower, bran, and wheat throughout the states. Their main branch in Sebewaing now includes a washing bay and body shop and Fiebig buys and sells truck trailers.

"You stay within your network," Long said, talking about their 20-year growth. "Until, you know, Joel's buying and selling trailers and talking with people in the area to find out how trucking is in the United States and Canada. So, everything kind of networks together."

Even with this expansion, though, Long and Fiebig continue to be involved in their local Sebewaing community and maintain direct interactions with their employees, who are hand-picked by Long and Fiebig rather than by a faceless hiring process.

"I think what most people like about us is that not every trucking company's like a family," Long said. "A lot of the times you're just a number in a trucking company. But around here, we get to know you as a person, we get to know your family. I think that's what our employees appreciate, that they know we care."

The brother-sister pair also give back to the community, through involvement in parades, Immanuel Lutheran Church in Sebewaing, USA schools, and sponsoring local teams. They also have a non-profit donation called "Countryside Cares," which was started by employees around 2019 or 2020. Since then, the Bad Axe police have partnered with the company to give away thousands a year to those who need it.

"I think that's one of the coolest things ever, because they started it, it hasn't quit, and it's turned into a pretty awesome thing," Long said. "That warms my heart, because it's nice to see our people care as much as we do to help others."

"Always remember where you came from," she adds.
Midland city council will vote on a Dow tax request, the downtown pedestrian plaza and more on Monday.

Council will mull over a packed agenda starting at 7 p.m. at Midland City Hall. Residents can tune in either in-person or over livestream through the citys website or its government channel, MGTV-188.

During the meeting, council will hold a public hearing and a vote about a Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) Designated Renaissance Zone for Dow and Dow Silicones Corporation. This zone would last for 15 years if approved.

An MSF designated renaissance zone exempts taxpayers who have development agreements with a local unit of government and the Michigan Strategic Fund, with the unit of government being the City of Midland in this case, according to the meeting agenda.

To reduce the impact of the tax abatement on the city and county, Dow has agreed to a payment in lieu of tax with respect to existing property within the proposed Renaissance Zone.

If the MSF zone is granted, property taxes related to new capital investment associated with the project will be fully exempt for 12 years beginning January 1, 2026. Over the following four years, the tax abatement would be reduced by 25% each year, according to the meeting agenda.

The development and MSF zone would take place in the Dow Michigan Operations I-Park over 27 parcels covering 642 acres of land, according to the meeting agenda.

Dow is set to invest an estimated $150 million into the development by Dec. 31, 2027.

Another vote that council will make on Monday involves the Downtown Midland Pedestrian Plaza. The success of the pedestrian plaza for the past two years has led both the Downtown Development Authority and some downtown businesses to recommend the plaza to be approved for the next five years.

The plan is for a two-block closure of East Main Street, from Ashman to Rodd streets, and some portions of McDonald Street, annually from June to October through 2025. These portions of downtown would be closed to all public vehicular traffic during specified times.

Council will also vote on recreation activity fee changes and on establishing new ward and precinct boundaries. Related to the latter amendment is a proposal for changing polling locations in the city to reflect the new ward and precinct boundaries. New boundaries were drawn following the release of the 2020 census data.

Council will also hear the first reading of a proposed ordinance amendment regarding the Concept Five sewer improvement plan and its Footing Drain Disconnect Program (FDDP). The ordinance change would add language to the citys charter regarding the FDDP. The city will vote on the ordinance in its following meeting.
Port Austin is home to six yellow buildings along Union Street called the Little Yellow Cottages, which are rentals people can stay at during the busy tourist season. These buildings recently gained new ownership.

Daniel and Kimberly Guest officially became the new owners of these cottages in November, with some updating in the works before they are open for rent in the spring.

The Guests currently live in Shelby Township in the Metro Detroit area, with Daniel working as the finance director for a military contractor and Kimberly is taking a leave of absence from her human resources job to raise their 2-year-old daughter Lottie.

The family started camping six years ago, with the Thumb area the first place they focused their travels on, first going to Forester Park in Sanilac County and making their way along the whole Lake Huron shoreline. They do travel internationally too, having been to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe.

They had been looking for a vacation house in the Upper Thumb area for a few years. Toward the end of 2021, they saw that the cottages were available and looked at them while on a camping trip in the area.

We fell in love with it, Daniel Guest said. It made good sense with what we were looking for. For ourselves, we can be part of the community and can help subsidize the cost of running it with rental income. It was more than we thought we were going to get into, but it became good for us.

The previous owners, Terry and Lori Boyle, had owned the cottages since 2009. Guest said that working with the Boyles to help them complete the purchase was one of the reasons they decided to buy the cottages.

The six cottages can each hold between four and six people. Four of them have two bedrooms, one has one bedroom, and one has a studio layout, with each one having a bathroom and a full kitchen.

Since the cottages are all on the same piece of property in the heart of Port Austin, five or six separate families can stay at once.

We hope people can have large gatherings, Guest said. They have a cottage to stay in, but they dont have to go far to see everyone else.

Renovation work on the cottages includes adding heating and air conditioning units, with three units getting them already, and updating two units to have new bathrooms and insulation.

The Guests plan on having the cottages open for the year on April 1, with the possibility of opening in March if the weather allows it. There will be a two-night minimum for staying at the cottages except for July and August, where there is a one week minimum rental period from Friday to Friday. There is no maximum on the amount of time people can stay, with Guest saying they already have people who will rent cottages for two and three weeks.

Aside from their plans to update the cottages, the Guests also plan on renovating the backyard area, upgrading the fire pits and grilling areas, and working on other cosmetic issues, depending on how business goes this year. With the heating units installed, they can now accommodate people year-round.

The cottages are currently accepting reservations for the 2022 season, which can be made either through www.littleyellowcottages.com or by email at littleyellowcottages@gmail.com for those who have any special requests.
When Lachen Cook and Mirsad Cunmulaj of Port Austin welcomed their daughter Ophelia into the world in January 2021, their joy was tempered by some news from Ophelias doctors: Their daughter had a condition known as craniosynostosis, in which the bones in a baby's skull fuse too early.

If left untreated, the condition can cause brain damage, blindness, seizures and other neurological issues.

Since then, Ophelia has endured several doctors appointments at the University of Michigan Motts Childrens Hospital, and her prognosis is good, but she will have to undergo surgery on Jan. 26 to correct her condition.

Fortunately, Ophelias treatment is covered by insurance, but the numerous trips to Ann Arbor and the missed time from work has taken a financial toll on the family, so Lachens sister, Lauren, started a GoFundMe page to help ease some of the strain on Lachen and Mirsad.

Cook, a Harbor Beach native, said she and the rest of Ophelias family is looking forward to putting the surgery behind them. She describes her daughter as resilient and expects her to have a normal life.

Shes as stubborn as heck, Lachen Cook said. Shes our little superhero.

The familys journey began early last year, when Ophelia was born in Bad Axe and was then sent to Covenant Medical Center in Saginaw, where a CT scan confirmed her diagnosis. The family followed up at U of M after Ophelia was released from the neonatal intensive care unit.

What is craniosynostosis? Craniosynostosis means fused bones of the skull. It is a condition that some children are born with or later develop. To better understand craniosynostosis, it is helpful to know that our skulls are not made up of one single "bowl" of bone. Instead, different bones that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle make up the skull. The areas where the bones meet one another are called sutures. As a baby grows the brain rapidly increases in size. According to current theories of growth, the growing brain pushing on the bones of the skull causes the skull bones to expand or] grow. When one of these sutures is fused too early, it is called craniosynostosis. There will be no growth in this area. T his inability to grow in one area may lead to overgrowth in another area. This results in an abnormally shaped skull. Source: Children's Craniofacial Association See More Collapse

Doctors said shed have to wait until she was a little older before she could have surgery, and shes had several checkups on her condition in the year leading up to next weeks operation.

Shes got a great team of surgeons for whom were very grateful for, Lachen said.

During the eight-hour surgery, which has a 98% chance of being successful, surgeons will reshape Ophelias bones, forehead and upper eye sockets. She will spend 24-48 hours in the ICU and another three to seven days in the hospital before she is ready to come home.

The only reminder she will likely have when she is older is a large scar, which will be covered up by her hair.

Lachen said she is grateful for all the support from her home team and has also found inspiration and encouragement online among parents whose children have made it through the same challenges Ophelia is facing.

It puts my mind at ease, she said.

The online fundriaser for the family can be found at Ophelia's GoFundMe.
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MIDDLETOWN  Public participation during the formative stages of the citys master plan for waterfront redevelopment is helping to hone a solid vision for the citys valuable asset along the Connecticut River.

Cooper Robertson is overseeing the Return to the Riverbend project, which not only includes the Harbor Park and River Road area and former water treatment plant, but the Silver Street neighborhood just over a mile away.

The second of a two-part workshop was held last week, during which 100 people participated.

The results showed the majority of those who attended were residents, 14 percent were community leaders, 11 percent were other, 9 percent were business owners, 6 percent students, and 6 percent, municipal staff, according to Alan Patterson, Karp Strategies consultant and the evenings host.

The campaign will result in a long-term master plan that guides future growth and development of the citys riverfront, according to Cooper Robertson. It will include recommendations for future land use, flood protection, transportation improvements and community benefits in a study area stretching from Harbor Park to the Rushford Center.

The hour-and-15-minute session, Planning for Our Future Together, was held virtually.

The team, which also includes Karp Strategies and Langan consultants, has been meeting with riverfront stakeholders  those who live in neighborhoods along River Road, downtown business owners, as well as the Housing Authority, among others, Mayor Ben Florsheim said.

Besides these workshops, the first of which was held Oct. 12, feedback has been solicited in a storefront dedicated to the project at Main Street Market and through online surveys.

At the start of the session, Florsheim said the city is entering one of the most exciting parts of the riverfront project planning process, and also the most challenging part.

Were going to really be able to see and visualize some of what we talked about at the initial meeting; some of whats been talked about for many, many years, he added.

Were going to really start to see that visualized with the specificity, with the research-backed planning, with the professional-level attention we are trying to give this project to make sure it has the legs that it needs to move in the years ahead, Florsheim said.

The city has already solved too many of the big structural obstacles to redeveloping the waterfront to let this project founder, the mayor said.

The results of a project market analysis, the design framework and concept were presented by architect Mike Aziz and associate Anjulie Palta, both of Cooper Robertson, as well as Alexandra Sutherland-Brown, of Karp Strategies.

Langan consultants is planning the engineering and transportation components of the redesign.

The goal is to reflect the needs and wants of the community, lay the groundwork for future public investment, and help attract the right kind of development, Aziz said. It will, in the end, fit more like a mitten than a glove, he said.

Thats the nature of a master plan  it has a built-in flexibility, he added.

In the spring, the preferred plan will be defined, refined, and final documentation produced, Aziz said. Zoning changes, public investment and the solicitation of developers will be necessary for the project to be realized, he also said.

The final segments, which involve the assembly and adoption of legislative documents, are expected to begin this summer and fall.

In all, 228 people have attended the two community workshops, 93 answered storefront surveys, and 67 took online surveys.

The results of a survey conducted at the October meeting indicate the public would like to see more parks and recreation spaces, working and shopping options, and additional forms of housing, presenters said.

The top three issues for recreation are requests for more nature parks, walking/biking trails and a public riverfront promenade, performing arts/cultural center, more places serving fresh food, and an expanded array of retail, presenters said.

Those who provided feedback would also like to see more low-rise apartments and townhomes in the city.

The results of a market analysis led to the proposal for more housing units to handle anticipated population growth expected over the next 18 years, the consultants found. Paired with an increase in the number of older households, the recommendation is the city should build 1,000 units over the next 15 to 20 years and increase the number of larger, affordable units.

Participants also wanted to see targeted retail shops to fill local gaps in the number of grocery, recreation and specialty shops.

The need for increased local and industrial spaces are not being met by the RM Keating Industrial Park small business incubator building the North End, presenters said.

There have been some unanticipated roadblocks along the way, the mayor said, acknowledging decades of efforts to move the riverfront vision into reality.

The biggest one, I think, is inertia  the sense that the plan we make working together tonight and over the next several months is going to wind up being just like the other plans have been: well-made and well-discussed, and eventually shelved for lack of funding, for lack of interest, for lack of a true community effort to make it happen, Florsheim said.
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MIDDLETOWN  The citys North End arts venue has selected two individuals to its Board of Directors.

Amy Albert and Kapildeo Singh took on new roles at The Buttonwood Tree, 605 Main St. Albert is the chairman of the Fundraising and Marketing Committee and Kapil is the treasurer, according to a press release.

Albert lives in Middletown, and also serves on the board of the Middlesex County Historical Society. A graduate of UConn with a masters degree in history, she is originally from Oakland, Calif., and lived in France for three years.

Fluent in French, her passions include visual art, and being a member of the Wadsworth Atheneum and the New Britain Museum of American Art, the news release said. In addition, live performance including theater and music count among her interests. In her youth, she spent a year in Ashland, Ore, immersed in the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. She was raised by two English teachers who specialized in Shakespeare.

Kapildeo is a chartered accountant and member of The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, which is a global body of recognized accountants around the world. He is also a certified internal auditor and serves on the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Buttonwood said.

Originating from the Caribbean with a lineage that worked primarily in the accounting world, Kapildeo brings a different flare and spark of energy to the Old Saybrook community, where he serves as an accountant with WollackLewitz Certified Public Accountants at 36 Elm St.

During his spare time, Kapildeo volunteers with the Middlesex United Way Young Leaders Society, where he strives to give back to the community as he aims to help improve the livelihood of individuals and organizations in Middlesex County.

For information, visit buttonwood.org.
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MIDDLETOWN  Nneoma Obi was less than a month away from celebrating her 19th birthday when she slipped into a coma in October 2015.

She died Jan. 12 following complications from a traumatic brain injury after choking on a piece of meat, which lodged in her lung over six years ago. She spent the last two months in the coronary care unit at Middlesex Hospital, her family said in her obituary.

Obi, who was in her sophomore year at the University of Connecticut in October 2015 when she returned home to Middletown to participate in a worship vigil for her uncle who had died in Nigeria, where her parents are originally from.

Shortly after returning home, Obi choked on a piece of meat that could not immediately be dislodged. She was rushed to Hartford Hospital, where medical personnel put her on life support.

For her family, taking Obi off life support wasnt an option, her mother said in 2015. She was eventually moved to Waters Edge Center for Health & Rehabilitation in Middletown for continued care while the familys house was being renovated to accommodate her needs.

Her brain was deprived of oxygen for an unknown amount of time, her mother Nonye Obi told The Press at the time, explaining that her daughter needed around-the-clock care and many therapies.

Donna Gecewicz, a former massage therapist who at the time owned Body Harmony Therapeutic Massage on Newfield Street, was a family friend of the Obis, and offered to provide free massage therapy to aid the recovery process.

We were family, Gecewicz said Friday.

The day before Thanksgiving 2017, more than two years after the initial incident, Obi returned home, where her care was continued in a more familiar environment.

This past fall, Obi was admitted to Middletown Hospitals critical care unit where she fought like a lioness for two months and 22 days, according to her obituary.

Nneoma fought like a tigress for her life. Her strength amazed everyone, even the doctors. She lived far beyond their predictions. She was Gods epitome of artful creation. She endured all pains, setbacks, agonies, groans because she wanted to live, but they didnt let her. A young girls life was snatched just like that, her obituary said.

Gecewicz admitted that no one gave up hope. No one ever thought shed die, she said. We always were hoping for a miracle.

Obi was remembered by her friends and family as a dynamic student who was always eager to participate in extracurricular activities, her obit said.

Beginning at a young age at St. Stephens School in Hamden, then at Sacred Heart Academy and finally at UConn, she was into everything, including drama, basketball, and track and field. She was the president of the student council, enjoyed cheerleading, and was a member of the African-American Students Association.

Obi was also a skilled poet, and even had two of her poems published, according to her obituary.

She was heavily involved at her church where she was chosen to join the lesson readers at 7, and was very active in the childrens church group.

Mmmories of Obis readings flashed through her mind as friends and classmates performed readings at the funeral service, Gecewicz said. I was picturing her doing it.

Funeral services were held Friday at St. Lukes Episcopal Church in New Haven. She was buried in Miner Cemetery in Middletown.

Always be kind, because you just dont know what every day is going to bring, and Nneoma was always the kindest person, Gecewicz said.
Rockport, TX (78382)

Today

Partly cloudy. Gusty winds in the afternoon. High near 85F. Winds SE at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Partly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms possible. Low 77F. Winds SE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
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NORWALK  A city official has been charged with murder after police say a man was found shot dead Thursday in a home she owns.

Ellen Wink, 61, has been charged with murder and is being held on $1 million bond, police said. She is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 1.

Wink is the citys Republican deputy registrar of voters and previously served as city clerk from 2009 to 2011.

Norwalk Police Lt. Terry Blake identified the victim as 54-year-old Kurt Lametta, who lived at the Nelson Avenue home.

According to property records, Wink owns the Nelson Avenue home where police said they found Lametta suffering from multiple gunshot wounds around noon Thursday.

Police said they were responding to a report of a disturbance between Wink and Lametta. Police said Wink was found at the scene and was immediately detained.

Medical personnel evaluated Lametta and declared him dead at the scene, police said.

Police believe this is an isolated incident and said there is no danger to the public.

Mayor Harry Rilling said he could not comment on the specific situation, but it is always a tragedy when a life is lost. This case will now go through the legal process. I applaud the Norwalk PD for their quick work in this case.

During the 2020 election season, Wink ran for state representative for the 137th District and lost to Democratic incumbent Chris Perone.

Wink was previously arrested in September after a dispute with her tenant, who police identified as a 54-year-old man. At the time, Wink locked the tenant out of the home and threw away their personal belongings, including clothes, jewelry and cash, according to Norwalk Police Sgt. Sofia Gulino.

The case is still awaiting disposition and has been statutorily sealed, according to state court records.

The three-bedroom home was purchased in 1998 by Gary Wink and his wife, under her surname, Ellen Gamer, according to city land records.

Wink gained sole ownership of the plot in 2014, according to the land records. In 2018, the plot was valued at $626,000.

Wink also owns an adjacent Nelson Avenue plot, which she purchased in 2007 and gained sole ownership of in 2014, according to land records.

Police swarmed the the area around 12:25 p.m. Thursday, according to Mark DiPietro, a resident at the nearby residential care facility, Nelson Place.

DiPietro said the police surrounded a home across the street from his care facility.

There are at least 20 cops outside in front of Nelson Place, and yellow police tape has blocked off the area, DiPietro said Thursday afternoon.

Norwalk detectives and the crime scene unit are investigating the incident. Anyone with information can contact Norwalk Police detectives at 203-854-3011. Anonymous tips can also be submitted by going to www.NorwalkPD.com or texting NORWALKPD plus the tip to TIP411 (847411).

Staff writer Liz Hardaway contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Waterford Police / Contributed

WATERFORD  A man was arrested this week after a call about a suspicious person led to an investigation by local police and a specialized U.S. Secret Service unit, officials said.

The U.S. Secret Service said in a press release on Thursday that Waterford officers responded to reports of a suspicious person in the backyard of a local residence late at night on Oct. 7, 2021. During the investigation, officers seized several items that indicated a person had been in the yard.
Mike Masilotti gets paid to get stoned.

At least once a week for the past several years, the Colonie native and professional comedian has consumed various forms of marijuana in a quantity that he calls a lot more than Id normally be comfortable with and then tries to tell jokes in front of an audience.

For a week and a half this month, hes doing it every night as part of a seven-state, 11-date East Coast tour that goes from Florida to Boston. Called "The Gateway Show," in a nod to cannabis hotly debated reputation among some as a precursor to use of harder drugs, the comedy evening comes to The Fuze Box in Albany on Friday night.

Promotional material says:

Stand-up comedians take to the stage and tell their BEST jokes, then they go to an undisclosed location to get WAY too high, only to come back to the stage and ATTEMPT to tell more jokes completely baked.

Its a great experience and certainly the most unique thing Ive ever done, says Masilotti, 34, chatting on the phone Tuesday morning from a tour stop in Washington. I feel more open and honest with the audience, he says, and with the majority of patrons high as well, Its this perfect dance: Im so vulnerable and the crowds are so good, so ready for you to talk to them. You look out, and its all smiles.

Masilotti, who graduated from South Colonie schools and attended Hudson Valley Community College and local trade schools before relocating to the West Coast a decade ago, is on tour with Billy Anderson, creator and host of "The Gateway Show." Held monthly for a number of years in Los Angeles and now a weekly feature at the Hollywood Improv club when not on tour, "The Gateway Show" is only partly about comedians telling jokes, says Anderson.

We say during the show that sometimes its insanely funny, and sometimes its just art, says Anderson, who hosts the show. It features him, Masilotti and three other comics, some local to each venue along the tour.

If you go "The Gateway Show" With Billy Anderson, Mike Masilotti and others When: Doors at 9:30 p.m., show at 10 p.m. Friday Where: The Fuze Box, 12 Central Ave., Albany Tickets: $15 in advance or $20 at the door for general admission, $20/$25 for reserved seating Info: facebook.com/gatewayshow See More Collapse

Theyre naturally funny people, he says of the comics, and when they perform while extremely high, for a crowd that understands the premise of the show and may also be under the influence themselves, Their vulnerability and natural funniness comes out, and you can see their most honest thought processes. Anderson continues, Youre watching somebody break down all the barriers.

Says Masilotti, Its really about talking honestly and sharing stories. Or random musings. In a video of a set performed after Masilotti had consumed a "huge handful" psychoactive mushrooms, he and the audience laugh often as he says things like, Home is where your house is. The video drew hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. In a juxtaposition that amused him, Masilotti found out while on a tour dedicated to getting high that he's been selected to perform a set and special to be shown online at a Utah comedy club that doesn't serve alcohol and specializes in clean comedy.

Masilotti says he consumes cannabis daily, in edible and smokeable forms, but the level ingested during "The Gateway Show" is of significantly greater magnitude. Its like, Lets see how high I can get, he says. I think of myself as someone who can handle a lot, but what we do for the show is ridiculous. Its like the difference between drinking a beer and pounding a whole bottle (of vodka).

Complete coverage of marijuana issues in New York

He does not, he says, consume to such excess prior to non-"Gateway Show" comedy gigs or in his other job, as owner of a podcast studio in Los Angeles, where he now lives.

It wouldnt be good, he says. In the context of "The Gateway Show," however, We always say its the closest you get to being the comic you want to be.

Smoking, of any kind, is not allowed inside the venues that host the show. But, promotional material says, We DO take an intermission for a reason and what you do once you leave the venue is your own business. We won't stop you and we aren't snitches.

Anderson says "The Gateway Show" has never had a problem with authorities, either in states where recreational cannabis use is legal, like California and Oregon, or where it is fully illegal, including South Carolina, where "The Gateway Show" was performed twice last week. Marijuana has been decriminalized in New York, and for the second year Gov. Andrew Cuomo has included in his state budget a proposal to legalize recreational use in the state.

Were always very particular about it not happening in the venue, says Anderson, and were definitely not trying to cause any problems for anyone  the comics, the venue or the audience.

As for the name of "The Gateway Show," it is, Masilotti says, both a good-natured joke and a poke at the anti-cannabis hysteria of decades past.

It hasnt been a gateway for him. Hes not doing heroin or meth. Just pot often, sometimes overabundantly. My mom and dad dont love it, he says. But Ive been smoking for more than half my life, and Im OK.

sbarnes@timesunion.com  518-454-5489  blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping  @Tablehopping  facebook.com/SteveBarnesFoodCritic
The Marine Corps has released the names of the two victims of Wednesday's deadly vehicle rollover as authorities begin to reveal more information about what caused the deadly crash that led to charges against a Marine driving near Camp Lejeune.

The North Carolina State Highway Patrol said that the medium tactical vehicle replacement (MTVR) -- often called a "7-ton" -- that the Marines were in rolled over near the intersection of North Carolina Highway 210 and U.S. Highway 17, ejecting the 17 Marines who were "in the back area of the vehicle."

"A second military vehicle being operated behind the initial vehicle was unable to come to a stop and struck one of the ejected passengers," the statement added.

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The Marine Corps, in a statement released Friday, identified the two Marines who lost their lives as Lance Cpl. Jonathan Gierke, 19, and Pfc. Zachary Riffle, 18.

Both men, who were pronounced dead at the scene, had been in the Corps less than a year, having entered active duty in March 2021.

The state agency said that the driver of the overturned vehicle, 19-year-old Luis Ponce Barrera of Springfield, Tennessee, was charged with one count of exceeding a safe speed and two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle.

A Marine Corps spokesman, 1st Lt. Kevin Stapleton, confirmed that a lance corporal by that name was the driver, but directed questions about the investigation to the State Highway Patrol.

Sgt. Marcus Bethea from the State Highway Patrol said that Barrera was one of the 17 Marines taken to a hospital after the crash where he was "charged by way of uniform citation."

According to the statement announcing the names of the two Marines who perished, Gierke was from Lawrenceville, Georgia, while Riffle was from Kingwood, West Virginia. Both Marines were landing support specialists with Combat Logistics Battalion 24.

"My sincerest heartfelt condolences are extended to the family, friends, and colleagues of the Marines who lost their lives or were injured in Wednesday's vehicle mishap," Brig. Gen. Forrest C. Poole III, the commanding general of 2nd Marine Logistics Group, said in the statement.

Criminal charges in vehicle accidents incidents are not unusual. In 2015, Cpl. Bin Guo pleaded guilty to negligent homicide and reckless driving with injury before a military judge. Guo was driving a 7-ton at Camp Pendleton, California, when he took a turn too fast, skidded off the road, and slammed into an electrical pole. The incident left one Marine dead and 18 others injured, some critically.

In 2020, a staff sergeant was convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to three years of confinement for rolling a truck and killing a West Point cadet.

Some safety advocates, however, argue that focusing on charging the driver misses the larger, more systemic issues of culture and safety that often lead to accidents like this.

Michael McDowell, a fellow at a Washington, D.C., think tank, has long argued that military leaders need to be held accountable. McDowell's son, 1st Lt. H. Conor McDowell, 24, was killed in a rollover at Camp Pendleton on May 9, 2019.

"I think it is all very well to charge a 19-year-old driver but where is the chain of command and flag officer class in this?" McDowell told Military.com in an email.

"They set the standards on training and safety and they blame down," he added.

Bethea said that the State Highway Patrol will investigate the fatal rollover and that "a publicly available crash report will be available at the conclusion of the investigation."

However, he did note that "fatal crash investigations are lengthy and require an extensive approval process ... it will likely be several weeks before the crash report is available."

Stapleton said that the Corps is conducting its own investigation on the incident.

The Marine Corps announced that two Marines are still at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in stable condition -- upgraded from critical two days ago. One Marine remains at the Naval Medical Center at Camp Lejeune, also in stable condition.

The remaining 14 Marines who were injured "have been discharged from medical care and have returned to their parent commands."

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin.

Related: Two Marines Are Dead, 17 Injured in Truck Rollover in North Carolina. Driver Charged.
About 3,000 of the Department of Veterans Affairs' 380,000 employees have failed to report their vaccine status, as the VA requires, and face disciplinary action, which could include being fired.

To date, however, no one has faced termination, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said this week.

Roughly 90% of the VA's workforce has complied with the department's vaccine mandate, which set an Oct. 8 deadline for health care workers and those who interact with veterans. The deadline was Nov. 22 for all other employees.

Read Next: Inside the Oath Keepers' Plan for an Armed Takeover of the US Capitol

Of the remaining 10%, nearly all have applied for a medical waiver or religious exemption. But roughly 3,000 employees, or less than 1% of the workforce, have not complied with a requirement to report their vaccination status.

McDonough said the department's priority is to get its employees immunized, not expedite their removal from employment.

"No one has yet been fired. ... We are exercising [our] authority principally at the moment along the counseling and education [efforts]," he said. "The defenses vaccination gives, even against omicron with its multiple variations, underscores the importance of ensuring [compliance]."

McDonough did not say how many medical and religious exemptions have been approved, but the VA has taken an approach that accepts a physician's opinion on medical decisions and is not challenging most requests for religious exemptions.

However, waiver requests for some employees, including those who work with veterans in nursing homes, intensive care units, spinal cord injury centers and cancer units, will be scrutinized, he added.

In those places, "we can't have high concentrations of religious exceptions. We retain the right to challenge those. Exactly how we do that, we're working through," McDonough said.

This week, more than 13,000 VA employees were out of work over COVID-19, either having it themselves or isolating because of being exposed. Since the start of the pandemic in February 2020, 243 VA employees have died.

Coronavirus cases among VA patients and workers are at all-time highs, with more than 63,000 active cases this week, as the result of the more contagious omicron variant. More than 18,640 VA patients have died of COVID-19, including 7,126 in VA hospitals.

With the increase in cases nationwide, the VA has opened up some facilities to non-VA patients with COVID-19. It currently has 130 beds available in 10 states, McDonough said.

The pandemic, which originated in late 2019, has killed nearly 5.6 million people worldwide, including 860,564 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

Related: After Deadline, VA and DoD Middle of the Pack for COVID-19 Vaccinations, White House Says
Fort Madison, IA (52627)

Today

Partly cloudy skies in the morning will give way to cloudy skies during the afternoon. High 62F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies with periods of rain after midnight. Low 51F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
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BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, on Thursday exchanged congratulatory messages to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of China-Belarus diplomatic relations.

In his message, Xi pointed out that over the past 30 years, China-Belarus relations have been forging ahead, with the traditional friendship between the two countries growing stronger over time.

He noted that jointly guided by him and Lukashenko, China and Belarus have successively established a comprehensive strategic partnership and a comprehensive strategic partnership of mutual trust and win-win cooperation.

The two sides have built unbreakable political mutual trust, and carried out fruitful cooperation in various fields, Xi said, adding that they have also been firmly supporting each other on issues concerning their core interest, and coordinating closely and effectively in international and regional affairs.

After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two countries have been helping each other and fighting shoulder to shoulder, which has demonstrated the close bond between two brothers sharing weal and woe, he said.

In recent years, Xi stressed, he and Lukashenko have maintained communication in various ways, and reached important consensuses on developing China-Belarus relations under the new circumstances.

Xi said that he attaches great importance to the development of bilateral ties, and is willing to work with Lukashenko to take the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to lead the two countries to more results in their comprehensive strategic partnership and Belt and Road cooperation, so as to create benefits for both countries and their people.

For his part, Lukashenko said that over the past 30 years, Belarus-China ties have been lifted from a friendly cooperative relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership of mutual trust and win-win cooperation, with bilateral cooperation bearing rich fruit in various fields.

He said he is confident that the people of the two countries will pass on the spirit of sincere friendship and mutual support from generation to generation.
Supreme Court judge Justice L. Nageswara Rao on Friday recused from hearing the plea by former editor of Tehelka magazine, Tarun Tejpal, against the Bombay High Court, which had declined to entertain his application for in-camera hearing of the appeal filed by the Goa government against his acquittal in sexual assault case.

The matter was listed before a bench of Justices Rao and B.R. Gavai. Justice Rao said that he had appeared for the Goa government as a lawyer in 2015. "Please list this before some other court," he said.

Tejpal moved the top court on December 4, last year, challenging the dismissal of his application by the high court. He contended that every party has a right to place forth their case in the best possible manner. The plea argued that it would not be fair, if lawyers have to curtail their submissions in the backdrop that some publication may publish something, without exercising due care.

Citing a recent order by Bombay High Court, which passed directions for in-camera hearings in cases under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, Tejpal sought an in-camera proceeding in his matter too.

In May, last year, the trial court acquitted Tejpal of all charges levelled against him, including wrongful confinement, assault with intent to outrage modesty, sexual harassment, and rape against his female colleague. The Goa government filed an appeal challenging his acquittal by the trial court. Tejpal moved the high court with an application seeking in-camera hearing of the matter.

The appeal contended that trial court order was influenced by extraneous and inadmissible material and by testimonies and graphic details of the past sexual history of the victim, which is prohibited by law.
20.01.2022 LISTEN

Award-winning Ghanaian gospel musician, Celestine Donkor is starting the year 2022 with the release of a seven-track EP.

The EP titled Testimony Therapy will be released on January 28, 2022.

Partnering Africa's number one music streaming platform, Boomplay, Testimony Therapy EP will be exclusively released on Boomplay before it gets on other streaming platforms two weeks later.

On why they partnered with Boomplay, the management of Celestine Donkor, Dynamic Unlimited Incorporated said the decision stems from Boomplay's reach to a large African audience and also the support they give to Ghanaian and African content.

The seven-track album features five artists; one from Ghana and four from other African countries.

The EP's tracklist will be unveiled in the coming days.

According to Celestine Donkors management, the move to feature gospel musicians from other African countries is inspired by their unflinching quest to spread the gospel to all corners of the world through music.

Celestine has already started making inroads into other countries. We are grateful for how Ghanaians have accepted her brand and in our bid to let others elsewhere have a portion of her ministry, we need to move beyond our boundaries, the management stated.

Last year, Celestine released a single titled Only You, which was well received by gospel music lovers and made an impressive showing on the various music charts.

The song talks about Gods goodness and how protective he has been to humankind in the midst of trials and tribulations.

The forthcoming EP promises to be more impactful as it carries messages that will edify the hearts, souls and minds of the listeners.

Songs on the EP were produced by Shadrack Yawson (Shaa) and Joe Amoah.

After the release of the EP, will be the 9th edition of Celestines concert dubbed Celestial Praiz.

This years event will be held on 6th March, 2022.
Ghanaian journalist Edem Farrie has stunned in new photos and her followers cannot get enough.

The reporter with GhOne who doubles as fashion model, bodied the casual looks and fans are yearning for me.

Edem was recently featured across major platforms in Nigeria, due to a COVID-19 reportage she did in the country.

Edem Farrie was styled by Style Magbrien, make up was executed by Graygray Mua and photography by Joseph Mayor.

Check put Edem Farries stunning photos below.
Merkel and the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres

20.01.2022 LISTEN

Angela Merkel has turned down a job offer from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the East River headquarters in New York. The former Chancellor "phoned the UN Secretary-General last week, thanked him and informed him that she would not accept the offer," her office told the German Press Agency on Wednesday.

Guterres had offered the 67-year-old, former German head of government, Merkel, the chair of a high-level advisory body on global public goods that could potentially serve the entire world population across national borders. Examples of global public goods are the ozone layer, but also depending on the definition, internationally applicable regulations such as those on flight safety and global trade. At the United Nations, the probability that she would accept the job offer was assessed as rather low anyway.

Guterres: The corona pandemic has revealed large gaps.

The Advisory Board on Global Public Goods is one of Guterres' flagship projects on United Nations reform in his second term, which began in early January. In his report on transforming the UN last year, the Secretary-General wrote: I will ask a high-level advisory board, led by former leaders, to identify global public goods and other areas of common concern where improvements in governance are most urgently needed required are."

Report on job offer:

Guterres apparently wants to hire Merkel for the United Nations.

According to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the corona pandemic has revealed major gaps in international cooperation. The envisaged advisory body should provide the impetus for renewing practices and principles for action on a global level.

The CDU politician, Merkel left office last year after 16 years as German chancellor. Her successor is the SPD politician, Olaf Scholz.

Francis Tawiah (Duisburg - Germany)
The Headmistress of Maakro M/A Primary 'A' School in the Suame Municipal of the Ashanti region, Mrs. Florence Tawiah, has lamented over their classrooms been turned into a brothel by the residents.

This, according to her, was as a result of poor security at the school, especially in the evening.

She noted that used condoms and tissues are scattered everywhere in the classrooms in the morning.

Speaking to this reporter on Thursday, January 20, 2022 at the school, she added that the situation has also given room for wee smokers to gang up in the school.

The school has therefore appealed to the Ghana Education Service (GES) to construct a fence wall around the school to secure the school against the alleged immoral and illegal activities.

Lack of fence wall has paved the way for some residents to bring in their boyfriends and girlfriend to engage in sexual activities. Sometimes condoms and tissues are found in the classrooms in the morning.

Wee smokers too have also taken over the classrooms during the evening and the day times. Sometimes I had to fight them to leave for teachings and learning to go on.

All those challenges in the school are due to lack of proper and or tight security service and fence wall that has not been constructed around the school to restrict unwanted entries, so the GES should rescue us from these challenges for effective teaching and learning, she passionately appealed to GES.
Tunisian President Kais Saied assured Thursday that the country's freedoms are "guaranteed" after rights groups warned of a threat signalled by the violent suppression of an anti-Saied protest.

Civil society groups and Saied's political opponents have expressed fears of a return to authoritarianism in the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring protests over a decade ago.

In a meeting with Interior Minister Taoufik Charfeddine, Saied said he "affirms that freedoms are guaranteed in Tunisia, recalling his commitment to equality before the law and his rejection of violence", the presidency's official Twitter account said.

Police on Friday cracked down heavily on hundreds gathered in a rally against a July 2021 power grab by Saied, which some have dubbed a "coup".

Officers backed by water cannons charged at demonstrators, fired tear gas, and made dozens of violent arrests.

An inquiry has been opened into the death of a 57-year-old man who was found unconscious during the protest. His death was described by the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party as a "murder".

The capital Tunis had not witnessed such scenes for a decade. About 20 journalists were manhandled during the protest, which fell on the 11th anniversary of late dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's flight into exile.

"It is clear that freedoms are threatened and face an imminent peril," Yassine Jelassi, head of the Tunisian National Journalists' Union (SNJT), told a press conference organised by 21 human rights groups on Tuesday.

The following day, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) voiced concern that the "gains of the revolution" could be diluted and expressed fears of an "authoritarian turn" in the North African country.

On July 25, Saied suspended parliament, dismissed the prime minister and said he would assume executive powers. Then in September, he took steps to effectively rule by decree.

Some Tunisians, tired of the inept and graft-ridden parliamentary system, welcomed his moves.

He has laid out a roadmap for drafting a new constitution before elections at the end of this year.
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has dispatched teams to the various Senior High Schools (SHSs) in the country to vaccinate eligible students.

The move to have students in SHS vaccinated started last year when the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) gave the go ahead for persons age 15 and above to be included in the vaccination.

However, the exercise had to be suspended for the Christmas break.

With Senior High Schools in the country reopening this month, the Ghana Health Service in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES) is set to restart the exercise.

The GHS in collaboration with GES has restarted the vaccination exercise in all schools. In this vein, vaccination teams have been dispatched to schools to vaccinate students who have not yet been vaccinated. Students who have already been vaccinated are required to bring their vaccination cards to school for inspection.

The Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Education Service is by this release requesting the cooperation of parents and all stakeholders to make this exercise a success, the press release issued by the GHS and GES has said.

The release noted that the GHS and the GES counts on the continuous support of parents and guardians in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in all schools and communities.

Below is the joint press release:
A 50-year-old man attempted self-immolation near the Supreme Court in the national capital on Friday, official sources said.

According to eyewitnesses, the incident took place around 2 p.m. outside the new building of the top court.

The grievously injured man was immediately rushed by the police personnel to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP). The reason as to why the man took the extreme step is yet unclear.

Doctors attending on him told IANS that the condition of the injured man is stated to be stable. "He has received only minor burn injuries. Only his hair and clothes had caught fire," one of the doctors said.

He further said that the man is currently under observation.

Hospital sources said that the man was identified as Rajbhar Gupta, a resident of Noida.

Meanwhile, a crime team of Delhi Police has reached outside the Supreme Court and was collecting evidence from the spot.
Drug addiction in the United States of America is a problem that the country is unable to tackle and in recent years the situation seems to be deteriorating that the US's former president, Donald Trump, suggested that the authorities should introduce the death penalty for drug dealers.

Once addicted to cocaine, drug addicts often switch to cheaper street drugs, including heroin and its synthetic analogs.

The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs has provided data on which the country has the highest number of people affected by drug addiction, with 28.6 million newly identified drug addicts aged 12 and over. This suggests that drug-related deaths are increasing at a relatively young age.

The effect of hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin, etc, is causing concern to society and governments throughout the world but that of the United States of America is evidence of human waste and destruction.

According to experts, this is due to a systemic failure in the American justice and health care system and also it turned out some of the drug addicts in the United States of America blamed the police, who help distribute drug shipments.

Once hooked on drugs, they can't do without them. The more they use it, the more they want it. To satisfy their demand, junkies resort to stealing, committing serious crimes, and laying hands on anything that comes their way to raise money for drugs.

The Us government and other world leaders are trying to solve this social menace, with modern airports fully equipped with computer detectors backed by sniffing dogs and every necessary measure to prevent the smuggling of drugs across the borders.

Have they been successful with the battle against drugs in developed countries, including the United States of America? The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

According to official data, the number of heroin users in the state and the country as a whole by 2017, increased by 80% compared to 2012 and amounted to more than 700 thousand people and the number of deaths from overdose of this drug has also sharply increased.

Among the active factors is a new drug, naloxone, a drug that neutralizes the effect of heavy drugs, mostly used in Staten Island, while Fentanyl, a synthetic analgesic that is hundreds of times stronger than heroin is also on addicts drugs menu.

While reading about the impact of drug abuse in the United States of America recently, I stumbled upon a disheartening video related to junkies on the streets of Philadelphia. Its hard to watch how drugs have destroyed mankind to be like aliens from an unknown planet.

It is often said that people that become drug addicts come from broken homes, without parents, enough education, etc; however, some of the causes for the sharp surge in drug addiction have been blamed on pharmaceutical companies and doctors who prescribe heavy drugs to patients to ease the pain.

Coming back on the death penalty for drug dealers, would that solve the illicit drug business in the United States of America when drugs still find their way into countries such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, South Korea, Libya, Singapore, etc; that have the death penalty for drug traffickers?

I think the United States government can fully deal with its problems when they stop putting its nose in other peoples business and I am not convinced its true if Bill Gates comes to Africa to say he wants to eradicate diseases from the African continent without first saving his people perishing by drugs in the United States of America.

Why America Has Many Homeless People

The United States of America may still be the economic leader but in terms of the number of homeless people on the streets of their cities, likely, the government cant deal with all its problems.

Scientists at Princeton University estimate that approximately 2.3 million people in the United States were evicted from their homes to the streets in 2016 alone. That is, 6,300 Americans lost their homes every day that year.

However, not all of them are alcoholics, drug addicts, or chronically unemployed. Many of those without a roof over their heads work from morning to night to ensure a modest life.

Although it is among the homeless that drug addiction, crime, and social problems are spreading at a record pace. In the United States, someone can become homeless simply because they are overdue for a loan payment.

Eviction takes place literally automatically and it is almost impossible to find a roof over the head of an ordinary American once thrown out on the street.

In other words, the loss of housing in the United States in 99% of cases means poverty and a direct path to the social bottom-together with the whole family.

Therefore, the greatest country we all know as America descends to the level of Third World countries.

Depending on the state, there are several homeless people on the streets due to various reasons. There are charitable organizations to help, where to eat, and many other things.

Last year, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, began using budget money to move homeless people into city hotels.

But there are so many homeless people in New York that the allocated hotel rooms are still not enough for everyone, therefore, most of the homeless people remain homeless.
The National Disaster Management Organisation, NADMO has said about 95% of the over 200 households at Bogoso-Appiate in the Western Region have been demolished by the 'huge' explosion that occurred on Thursday.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Friday, the Deputy NADMO Director for Prestea Huni- Valley, Louis Afful, explained that the explosion happened in two phases, one underground and then the top, affecting residents in the process.

Most of the houses in the area are on the left side of the road, unfortunately for us, the impact hit more of the left side. Almost 95% of the houses in the community are gone.

The opposite side of the road has a few structures, including a church building and a school. The impact of the explosion was so great such that it threw off a transformer. The truck itself cannot be found.

He further indicated that the impact was quite severe as most of the houses in the area are made of mud.

Most of the houses in the area are made of mud. These houses were first swept away as they are in front. The block houses were situated at the back, and even for those, there are only 4 of them, including a 6-unit classroom block left.

In my estimation, about 95% out of the about 200 households were swept away.

So far, 17 people have been confirmed dead, while 59 injured persons have been rescued in the deadly explosion as authorities mobilise rescue efforts.

The government in a statement from the Information Ministry, noted that out of the 59 injured persons, 42 are receiving treatment and some are in critical condition.

It thus outlined some measures taken so far by the government to handle the situation.

Preliminary investigations by the police said a vehicle transporting explosives to a mining site collided with a motorcycle, resulting in the explosion.

Meanwhile, Chirano Gold Mines has confirmed that the truck that was involved in the explosion was destined for its site.

The mining company said the truck belongs to mining services contractor MAXAM.

To forestall a secondary explosion, government has deployed a joint team of police and military explosion experts to examine the situation and put in place the requisite measures.

---citinewsroom
The Ministry of Health says it is working with the police to identify, arrest and prosecute persons who engage in the sale of fake medicines.

In 2013, the European Union ranked Ghana as the 6th largest producer of fake drugs in the world.

Over 800, 000 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), die each year due to the use of counterfeit medicines.

This is mainly because these drugs are less expensive and more accessible than genuine ones.

Speaking at the launch of the Ghana Global Standards Project for Pharmaceutical Traceability, the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu, said the new system will help bring culprits to book.

The Ghana Global Standards Project has the capacity to identify, capture and exchange product information among all entities within the supply chain.

The adoption of Ghana will be beneficial in tracing substandard and falsified medicines detected in the legitimate supply chain. It also helps address the risk associated with patient safety and medicine administration, thereby reducing the financial burden on the National Health Insurance Scheme.

The people are murderers, and they must be sentenced to death, but we do not have any means orbsystem to catch them and I believe that we are getting closer to unveiling strategies to grab them and see how hard we can punish them, the Minister said.

Ghana Global Standards Project aims at strengthening the pharmaceutical industry in developing and least developed countries to contribute to improved access to essential medicines.

This project also covered the broader assessment of Ghanaian companies during 2016.

The West African Health Organization (WAHO) has supported a regional project which has enabled the continuation of this work, including the provision of technical guidance to Ghanaian manufacturers and for the incorporation of the Ghana roadmap approach into an ECOWAS GMP roadmap framework.

Ghana has the second-largest pharmaceutical manufacturing sector in the ECOWAS Region with 38 manufacturers registered with the FDA, and over 30 actively producing, directly employing over 5,000 people.

---citinewsroom
A 12-year-old class six pupil has been allegedly defiled by a 55-year-old Apketeshi vendor at Fomena in the Adansi North District of the Ashanti Region.

Bright Bosompem, who is also a farmer, is accused of luring the 12-year-old victim into his residence on New Years day and defiled her.

During a hearing in court on Wednesday, January 19, presiding judge Her Ladyship Joyce Boahen granted the accused a GH50,000 bail with two sureties based on health grounds.

Speaking with Akoma FMs Nana Yaw Opoku, mother of the victim Akosua Abuyaa pleaded with the police for swift processes to ensure justice for her child.

I am pleading that the court fastens the prosecutorial processes to serve justice for my poor child to serve as deterrent to others.

Detective Inspector Joseph Boakye Danquah of the Criminal Investigation Department at Fomena Police Command stressed that he is very happy that finally the case has been brought to court for prosecution.

Her Ladyship Joyce Boahen adjourned hearing to Thursday, February 10 2022.

---3news.com
A Fulani herdman who is currently at large, has shot dead a police assistant identified as Mr. Salifu Lampo at Lingbinkura near Buipe in the Central Gonja District of the Savannah Region on Thursday, January 20, 2022.

Narrating circumstances that led to the death of the police assistant, a relative of the deceased, Mr. Adam Mbomwura revealed that the deceased was shot on his motorbike after he had picked a CID officer towards the Lingbinkura community.

He said whiles on their way they chanced on the culprit who has long been on the wanted list of the police for perpetuating several crimes including the killing of a man some weeks ago.

Upon spotting the alleged culprit, the CID is said to have got down from the motorbike to allow the deceased officer to trace the Fulani man.

According to Adam Mbomwura, the now deceased police assistant succeeded in clamping him down with his motorbike.

The Fulani man after sensing danger pulled out a pistol from his pocket and shot the deceased on his chest killing him on the spot.

The mortal remains of the deceased has since been laid to rest in accordance with Islamic practices.
Former Ghana President, John Dramani Mahama has described Thursday's explosion at Apiate near Bogoso in the Western Region as a truly sad day for Ghana.

Having learned of the disaster, the National Democratic Congress 2020 presidential candidate extended his deepest condolence to the families of victims.

In a Facebook post, John Dramani Mahama said; A truly sad day for Ghana! My deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the unfortunate disaster at Appiatse, in the Bogoso District of the Western Region this afternoon.

Lets pray for the speedy recovery of the injured, as we also urge the security and emergency services to continue to work assiduously to alleviate the damage and suffering in the affected communities.

The ex-Ghana president concluded, To the chiefs and people in the affected areas, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the country stand with you, in this time of grief.

It was disaster on Thursday afternoon when a vehicle carrying mining equipments had an accident after a collision with a motorcycle.

Subsequently, the vehicle believe to have explosive materials on board exploded, killing several people and leaving many injured and in need of medical care.

The Ghana Police Service, the National Fire Service, and the National Disaster Management Organisation immediately rushed to the location and have since been working to help the affected community.
Ministry of Information has announced that 17 people have been confirmed dead after the tragic explosion at Apiate near Bogoso in the Western Region.

As at 17:00 hours, a total of seventeen (17) people have, sadly, been confirmed dead, and fifty-nine (59) injured persons had been rescued, bringing to seventy-six (76) the number of persons known, so far, to have been affected by the tragedy.

Out of the fifty-nine (59) injured persons, forty-two (42) are receiving treatment and some in critical condition, a statement from the Ministry of Information signed by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has said.

On Thursday, January 20, 2022, there was an accident involving a truck conveying explosive material for a mining company, a motorcycle, and a third vehicle close to an electricity transformer, leading to the explosion.

The tragic incident resulted in many houses and structures in sections of the town being destroyed. Government has put in place plans to ensure that stranded community members are catered for in the coming days.

Personnel from the Police Service, Fire Service, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Ghana Health Service, National Ambulance Service, the Municipal Authority, and residents have all been involved in providing support.

To forestall a secondary explosion, a joint team of police and military explosion experts has been deployed to the scene to examine the situation and put in place requisite measures.

All hospitals within the Bogoso Municipality and its environs are being used to treat injured persons. An evacuation plan has been activated to move those in critical condition to medical facilities in Accra.
The Vice President of the Republic, H.E Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is currently in Appiatse with the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr. George Akuffo Dampare to personally gather first-hand information after Thursdays explosion.

On Thursday, January 20, 2022, there was an accident involving a truck conveying explosive material for a mining company, a motorcycle, and a third vehicle close to an electricity transformer, leading to the explosion.

The tragic incident resulted in many houses and structures in sections of the town being destroyed. Government has put in place to measures to ensure that stranded community members are catered for in the coming days.

Amid the efforts by the government to restore normalcy to the community, Dr. Bawumia has this morning visited Appiatse to mourn with victims.

According to the Ministry of Information, the President, H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will also be in Appiatse today.

Government reports that the explosion has killed 17 people and left 59 people injured.

While the injured have been admitted to various hospitals, the remaining residents of Appiatse have been asked to evacuate to neighbouring communities for safety.
The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin has extended his condolences to the victims and families of the explosion that happened at Appiatse, near Bogoso in the Western Region on Thursday, January 20, 2022.

Yesterday, there was an accident at Appiatse involving a truck conveying explosives for a mining company, a motorcycle, and a third vehicle close to an electricity transformer, leading to the explosion.

Having been briefed of the incident, the Speaker of Parliament says he has been shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of lives, varying degrees of injury and the loss of properties in town.

In a statement, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin said, I offer my condolences and prayers to the victims and their families. Their pain and grief is unimaginable. But the Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).

He further pleads with Ghanaians to remember the victims battling for their lives at the various hospitals in prayers.

Below is the full statement from the Speaker of Parliament:

Press release

For Immediate release

January 21, 2022.

STATEMENT ON THE APIATE EXPLOSION BY RT HON ALBAN SUMANA KINGSFORD BAGBIN, SPEAKER OF PARLIAMENT

I received with shock and sadness news of an accident that resulted in the tragic loss of lives, varying degrees of injury and the loss of property in the town of Apiate, near Bogoso in the Western Region.

I offer my condolences and prayers to the victims and their families. Their pain and grief is unimaginable. But the Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)

I entreat all Ghanaians to remember them in their prayers. I also encourage those in adjourning communities to open their doors to them. And to the rest of Ghanaians to offer whatever support they can by way of food, water, building materials, clothing, and anything essential to ease the grief of our fellow country men and women. Let us, in the proverbial Ghanaian spirit of love and hospitality, help them to rebuild their lives.

Rt. Hon. Alban S. K. Bagbin, Speaker of Parliament
The Minority in Parliament has called for an impartial enquiry into the explosion that claimed 13 lives and dozens sustaining varying degrees of injuries yesterday at Apiate, a town close to Bogoso in the Western Region.

They described the tragic explosion as heart-wrenching accident and unfortunate lost of lives and destruction of several properties.

A statement signed by Ranking Member on Mines and Energy Committee Hon. John Abdulai Jinapor, stated that there are strict laid down protocols to be followed during transportation of such explosives in accordance with LI2177.

This incident is unacceptable because there are strict laid down protocols to be followed during transportation of such explosives in accordance with LI2177.

The statement whiles commiserating with the affected persons called on government to do all within its powers to support the affected people in order to ameliorate their loss.

On Thursday, January 20, 2022, there was an accident involving a truck conveying explosive material for a mining company, a motorcycle, and a third vehicle close to an electricity transformer, leading to the explosion.

The tragic incident resulted in many houses and structures in sections of the town being destroyed.

Read below full statement:

Press Release

For Immediate Release

21st January, 2022

MINORITY CALLS FOR AN INDEPENDENT ENQUIRY INTO THE BOGOSO EXPLOSION

The Minority in Parliament has received the tragic news of an explosion in Apiate, a town close to Bogoso in the Western Region in which several lives and properties were lost.

Credible reports confirm that a motorcycle run into a vehicle carrying explosives resulting in the carnage leading to loss of lives and destruction of properties.

This incident is unacceptable because there are strict laid down protocols to be followed during the transportation of such explosives in accordance with LI2177.

It is our firm conviction that with strict regulatory enforcement and compliance of protocols, this unfortunate incident could have been averted.

The Minority is therefore calling for an impartial enquiry into this heart-wrenching accident and unfortunate lost of at least seventeen lives and destruction of several properties.

This enquiry among others will prevent the recurrence of such an incident in the future.

We therefore call on the government to do all within its powers to support the affected people in order to ameliorate their lost.

The Minority wishes to join well meaning Ghanaians to commiserate and share in the pain and anguish of all affected people.

Signed

John Abdulai Jinapor

Ranking Member, Mines and Energy Committee
Expelled BJP leader and former Uttarakhand minister Harak Singh Rawat on Friday joined the Congress after days of uncertainty over his joining.

Earlier in the day, Harak Singh reached the Congress war room along with his daughter-in-law and joined the party in presence of former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat and state in-charge Devendra Yadav.

The Congress leaders in Uttarakhand were divided over the induction of the expelled BJP leader into the party with Harish Rawat putting a condition over his entry into the grand-old party.

Congress veteran Harish Rawat has demanded apology from Harak Singh for switching to the BJP when the Congress led by him was in power in the hill state.

But state legislature party leader , one of the contenders for the post of Chief Minister, has been in his support.

"In politics, doors are never closed and there is always a possibility of reaching out to others," Preetam Singh had said.

Harak Singh Rawat said the wind is blowing in favour of Congress and he will work for the party."

Uttarakhand is slated to go to the polls on February 14 and counting will be held on March 10.
It is often said that the youths are the future leaders of a NATION and the NUCLEUS on which the nation is centered, but if the youth are not well moulded and refined to be able to lead in the future, what will be our fate as a nation? You ponder over that! A whopping number of our young people today are moving in an adverse and pervasive line of trivialities such as taking in DRUGS, COCAINE, MARIJUANA, and other detrimental substances. Sometimes, when I see some of our brothers and sisters who are DRUG-DEPENDENT/ DRUG AFICIONADO, my heart TREMBLE and tears set in my eyes and I ask myself, is the future of our nation bright as it is said with the increase of harmful substance abusers, many of whom are young people? Tell me, is it possible?

It is a matter of necessity that national government draws plans for the youth involved in such activities and engage the issues of harmful substances taken in by many youths in our country that are damaging our youthful population. A lifelike plan that seeks to REHABILITATE and REORIENT them have to be drawn. It is all of us responsibility, dont see it as none of your business or feel HALFHEARTED about it. Their activities have a very bad UPSHOT on us as people and nation and it might ruin the very bright future that we talk about of this nation. Evidence of this is the the unfortunate incident that occurred in NEW KRU TOWN wherein about 30 persons lost their lives. This issue should not be overlooked and taken as a joke.

This issue is of more pressing concerns to the point that the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution in 1995 known as The World Programme of Action for Youth on Drug Abuse-Substance abuse WPAY(A/RES/50/81).

This resolution was indicated with letter F among other resolutions adopted by the General Assembly 1995. It was adopted in an effort to tackle/ discourage the use of harmful substances through governments commitment among young people.

Some major keynotes of the resolution are:

73. The vulnerability of young people to drug abuse has in recent years become a major concern. The consequences of widespread drug abuse and trafficking, particularly for young men and women, are all too apparent. Violence, particularly streets violence, often results from drug abuse and illicit drug networks.

74. As the number of psychotropic drugs increases steadily and the effects and prescriptive uses are often not fully known, some patient may not be adequately treated and others may become over-medicated. Abuse of prescription drugs, self-medication with tranquilizers, sleeping-pills and stimulants can also create serious problems, particularly in countries and regions where distribution controls are weak and habit-forming drugs are purchased abroad or licit channels of distribution. In this context, the vulnerability of young people raises a particular problem and specific measures are therefore needed.

75. The international community places particular emphasis on reducing the demand for and supply of illegal drugs and preventing abuse. Supply reduction includes combating international illicit drug trafficking. Drug abuse prevention initiatives range from discouraging people from taking drugs, thus preventing involuntary addiction, to helping those who are abusing drugs to stop doing so. Treatment programmers need to recognize that drug abuse is a chronic relapsing condition. It is essential for programmers to be adapted to the social and cultural context and for there to be effective cooperation between various approaches to treatment. To this end, national initiatives and measures to combat illicit drug trafficking should be fully supported and reinforced at the regional and international levels.

76. Drug control strategies at the national and international levels consistently emphasize initiatives aimed at reducing drug abuse among young people. This is reflected in the resolutions of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and in the demand reduction programmes of the United Nations International Drug Control Programmes.

Proposals for action

1. Participation of youth organizations and youth in demand reduction programmes for young people

77. To be effective, demand reduction programmes should be targeted at all young people, particularly those at risk, and the content of the programmes should respond directly to the interests and concerns of those young people. Preventive education programmes showing the dangers of drug abuse are particularly important. Increasing opportunities for gainful employment and activities which provide recreation and opportunities to develop a variety of skills are important in helping young people to resist drugs. Youth organizations can play a key role in designing and implementing education programmes and individual counselling to encourage the integration of youth into the community, to develop healthy lifestyles and to raise awareness of the damaging impact of drugs. The programmes could include training of youth leaders in communication and counselling skills.

78. Government entities, in cooperation with relevant agencies of the United Nations system, non-governmental organizations, particularly youth organizations, should cooperate in carrying out demand reduction programmes for illicit drugs, tobacco and alcohol.

2. Training medical and paramedical students in the rational use of pharmaceuticals containing narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances

79. The World Health Organization, associations of the medical, paramedical and pharmaceutical professions and pharmaceutical corporations and medical faculties and institutions could be asked to develop model training courses and disseminate information material for young medical and paramedical students on the proper handling of drugs and the early identification and diagnosis of substance abuse.

3. Treatment and rehabilitation of young people who are drug abusers or drug-dependent and young alcoholics and tobacco users

80. Research has been undertaken into the possibility of identifying medication to block cravings for specific drugs without creating secondary dependency, but much remains to be done in this area. The need for medical and social research in the prevention and treatment of substance abuse as well as rehabilitation, has become more urgent, particularly with the world-wide increase in abuse and addiction among young people. In such research, emphasis should be given to the fact that intravenous substance abuse raises the risk of contracting communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, arising from the sharing of needles and other injection equipment. The fruits of all such research should be shared globally.

81. Research on issues such as the medical treatment and the rehabilitation of young drug abusers, including the combination of different types of treatment, the problem of recidivism and the administrative aspects of drug treatment, and the inclusion of students in the relevant faculties in such research, should be encouraged.

82. In cooperation with the institutions of civil society and the private sector, drug abuse prevention should be promoted, as should preventive education for children and youth and rehabilitation and education programmes for former drug and alcohol addicts, especially children and youth, in order to enable them to obtain productive employment and achieve the independence, dignity and responsibility for a drug-free, crime-free productive life. Of particular interest is the development of treatment techniques involving the family setting and peer groups. Young people can make significant contributions by participating in peer group therapy to facilitate the acceptance of young drug-dependent persons and abusers upon their re-entry into society. Direct participation in rehabilitation therapy entails close cooperation between youth groups and other community and health services. The World Health Organization and other world-wide medical and mental health organizations could be requested to set guidelines for continuing research and for carrying out comparable programmes in different settings, whose effectiveness could be evaluated over a given period of time.

4. Care for young drug abusers and drug-dependent suspects and offenders in the criminal justice and prison system

83. Authorities should consider strategies to prevent exposure to drug abuse and dependence among young people suspected or convicted of criminal offences. Such strategies could include alternative measures, such as daily reporting to police stations, regular visits to parole officers or the fulfilment of a specified number of hours of community service.

84. Prison authorities should cooperate closely with law enforcement agencies to keep drugs out of the prison system. Prison personnel should be discouraged from tolerating the presence of drugs in penal institutions.

85. Young prisoners who are already drug-dependent should be targeted as priority candidates for treatment and rehabilitation services and should be segregated as appropriate. Guidelines and standard minimum rules should be prepared to assist national authorities in law enforcement and prison systems in maintaining the necessary controls and initiating treatment and rehabilitation services. Action along these lines constitutes a long-term advantage to society, as the cycle of dependence, release, repeated offences and repeated incarcerations constitutes a heavy burden on the criminal justice system, quite apart from the wasted lives and personal tragedies which result from drug dependence and criminal behavior.

There is an urgent need that national government take heed of this resolution in the fight of combating/ tackling the issues of substance abuse among young people, it is very serious.

Our youthful population needs to be protected and safeguarded. More understandably, below are facts to solidify what am talking about and for you to understand what provokes me to such write-up.

It was stated by the United Nations-UN on Nov.25, 2013 that 65% of our population at that time which was 4.1 (4,100,000) million people were young people and 85% of those young people were unemployed as it was estimated.

Now, lets understand something here, 65% of 4.1 million is what? Lets compute, you can easily multiply 65 by 4,100,000 and divide that outcome by 100. Here it goes, 65*4,100,000, its equal to 266,500,000. Divide 266,500,000 by 100, Our final mathematical calculation has given us 2,665,000, which means the total numbers of young people of our total population at that time was 2,665,000. To proof that our country is a youthful nation, you can simply subtract 2,665,000 from 4,100,000. Lets do this simple calculation. 4,100,000-2,665,000, the answer is Liberia is a youthful nation period. Tell me if the number of young people keep engaging in consuming those harmful substances, will it not affect the future of our young leaders and nation? You , think about that!

To further solidify that Liberia is a youthful nation, it was AVERRED by Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services-LISGIS also that, Liberia is a young country. If it is true that the young people are the future leaders, then our LEADERS need to wake up on a RESCUE mission. We are gradually losing vast majority of our youth to harmful substances.

In addendum, lets look at the percent of youth unemployment at that time. Youth unemployment at that time was 85%. Can you imagine this! This means that 85% of 2,665,000 young people were unemployed. Lets do the mathematics, 85% of 2,665,000 is what? You can simply multiply 85*2,665,000 and divide the given answer by 100. Let do this 85*2,665,000= 226,525,000/100= 2,265,250. To figure out the number of young people that were unemployed and employed at that time, you subtract 2,265,250 from 2,665,000. You will clearly understand that 2,265,250 were unemployed and 399,750 were employed. The margins/ gaps between the unemployed and employed youth which was 1,865,500 at that time were wide and frustrating!

Youth unemployment might be one of the major factors leading to the increase wave of young people involving into NAUSEOUS activities and bad substances in taking. These are very counterproductive to our fragile peace as nation. The issues of youth unemployment were emphasized by the United Nations because the youths are central to the progress and development of every nation. Sometimes, I ask myself whether LIBERIA DRUGS ENFOREMENT AGENCY-LDEA exists? If LDEA exists, implementation of its functions is lacking.

Here is the fundamental essence of the LDEA:

The Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA) is a semi-autonomous agency under the supervisory authority of the Ministry of Justice, responsible for effective and efficient enforcement of laws pertaining controlled drugs, substances and precursors, including essential chemicals.

LDEA plays a drug-crime focused role in national law enforcement. The Agency implements measures to protect the territorial borders of Liberia from the importation and exportation of drugs and controlled substances.

Vision:

To become most proactive and one of the leading Drug Law Enforcement Agency in West Africa and one of the best in the world through the provision of effective and efficient services to Liberians by cutting off supply of illicit drugs, reducing demand for illicit drugs and other substances of abuse, tracing and recovering drug related proceeds and contributing to the creation and maintenance of an enviable image of Liberia throughout the world.

Mission:

The Drug Enforcement Agency shall disrupt, dismantle, and eliminate all threats posed to the Republic of Liberia by illicit drug trafficking and abuse. It shall deploy all resources at its disposal for a complete purge of illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances; suppression of demand for illicit drugs and other substances of abuse; retrieval of ill-gotten wealth acquired from proceeds of illicit drug trade; protection, enhancement and maintenance of the image of Liberia and Liberians in the diaspora.

Our youths, our future. A bright future of a nation depends on potential and vibrant youths who have been prepared to occupy future positions of national responsibilities and execute those responsibilities proactively relating to the progress of the nation rather than retrogression.

Its a matter of exigency that national government plans to control or protect our youthful population from the above mentioned harmful and destructive substances which young people are paramount CONSUMERS of through the necessary regulatory agencies. These things are very dangerous for our health, security, future and existence as a youthful nation.

Sources are:

UN WPAY(A/RES/50/81).

LIGIS

Ministry of Justice-MOJ
Let's put things in their proper perspective, ooooo, Ghanafuo. Those revisionists of Ghanaian history, who accuse President Nkrumah of being tribalistic - because he apparently hated a particular tribe - have got it completely wrong.

With respect, President Nkrumah, a committed pan-Africanist, was too intelligent, to stereotype ethnic groups. Full stop. Amongst the pre-independence colonial-era nationalist leaders, he was the only detribalised politician, who always saw his fellow Black Africans, as his brothers and sisters, birthed by Mother Africa. Simple.

That is why fellow party colleagues who were Ashantis, such as Osei Hyiaman Owusu Afriyie, Krobo Edusei and F. A. Jantuah, for example, were key figure in his Convention People's Party (CPP) regime.

Yes, Nkrumah despised the current Asantehene's godfather, Baffuor Akoto, for the senseless acts of terrorism, which his National Liberation Movement (NLM), unleashed, in the Ashanti Region, and elsewhere, in what was a unitary state, which the NLM had always wanted to be turned into a federation of the pre-colonial era tribal states, but failed in the ends it sought to impose, with unprecedented brute-force and murderous acts of terrorism.

As it happens, despite the savagery and egregious barbarism of the NLM, and its sundry iterations, the vast majority of ordinary people across the Gold Coast, in the pre-independence elections of 1951, 1954 and 1956, rejected that vision of a new post-colonial African nation-state, and, sensibly, opted for President Nkrumah's compelling-vision of a unitary state, in which meritocracy was to be the bedrock nation-building ethos, guiding its affairs.

With the greatest respect, we beg to differ with the current Asantehene, on this particular issue. Yet still, we wish him well as always. The fact of the matter is that while President Nkrumah certainly despised Baffuor Akoto, for the acts of terrorism spearheaded by his NLM, across Ghana, he never hated Ashantis as an African tribal grouping. Ever. Case closed. Cool.
Member of Parliament (MP) for the Banda Constituency in the Bono Region, Mr Ahmed Ibrahim, has negated claims by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta that consultations have been done for the controversial e-levy to be approved if parliament resumes next week.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, January 19, 2022, Mr Ofori-Atta reiterated that the e-levy is a necessary tool to increase the countrys tax-to-GDP ratio.

After extensive consultations, the e-levy will be re-submitted to parliament this month. We look forward to joining hands with our Honourable Members of Parliament to approve the e-levy on a consensus basis, so we can collectively address the big issue of unemployment, the minister said.

But Mr Ibrahim insists there have not been any consultations between the NDC members of the house and the majority or the government over the passage of the e-levy.

He said the Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu; and the Minority Chief Whip, Mr Muntaka Mubarak, are both out of the jurisdiction as of the moment and, thus, questioned who the finance minister had the consultation with.

Speaking in an interview with Nana Ama Agyarko on Accra100.5FMs evening news on Thursday, January 20, 2022, the opposition MP questioned: Who did the finance minister have the said consultations with on the e-levy ahead of the resumption of parliament?

To this end, he noted: If it had not been what the Finance Minister said at his Wednesday, January 19, 2022 press conference, I would not have known that Mr Ken Ofori-Atta is a soft-spoken liar.

Mr Ibrahim called on Mr Ofori-Atta to come clear on his claims of consultations and sensitisation programmes held over the approval of the e-levy.

I want to put on record as the Deputy Minority Chief Whip that there have not been any consultations whatsoever on the controversial e-levy with the Minority MPs, he stated.

He warned that Ghanas economy can only progress if Mr Ofori-Atta is removed as the finance minister, saying: Ghana will go nowhere with Ken Ofori-Atta as Finance Minister.

He further noted that Mr Ofori-Atta is an irresponsible spendthrift with nothing to show for the whopping GHS20 billion he had expended in the last couple of months in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As MPs on the Minority side, we approved his nomination as finance Minister at the vetting for Ghanaians to know how he has mismanaged the economy. If we had not approved his nomination as Finance Minister, we would not have known how he had mismanaged the economy, he said.

He accused Mr Ofori-Atta of collapsing banks and over 400 microfinance companies without any recourse to the people who worked in these institutions.

He added that because the finance minister position is not voted for, Mr Ofori-Atta does not bother about what the people will feel as a result of his actions.

---Classfmonline.com
The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) has in a report, indicted the management of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation ( GNPC ) over acquisition of a residential property at Chapel Hill, a suburb of Takoradi in the Western Region for US$7.5 million.

It said that there was non-compliance with the Procurement Laws of Ghana in that there was no public tender or bid.

PIAC, in its report, particularly faulted the GNPC, Chief Executive, Kofi Koduah Sarpong, saying he acted in breach of the laws governing Conflict of Interest in the US$7.5 million transaction.

Interestingly, when demands were made on the GNPC management by PIAC to providecomplete information on the transaction, especially, set of minutes in respect of the transactions, it rather provided scanty and selective extracts.

The property in question, belonged to Mr Sarpongs former employers; Global Haulage, which shared ownership with the defunct Royal Bank, owned by the late Alhaji Iddrissu Adamu alias as Alhaji Global.

Pictures of the US$7.5 million structure seen by The Herald, show that GNPC, is spending additional money to make it habitable. It is unclear, how much is being spent by the management of the state-own institution.

The PIAC document is dated July 3, 2020. It was authored by its Legal Sub-Committee.

As of yesterday, The Herald, could not tell whether a soul from GNPC, had occupied the US$7.5 million property.

It is also unclear, why PIAC since 2020, did not push for any punitive actions against the management of KK Sarpong, despite its insistence that the sale and purchase transaction, was unlawful as it fell afoul of SS 14, 21, 35, 43, 47, 69 of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663) as amended by the Public Procurement (Amendment) Act, 2016 (Act 914).

PIAC, is an independent statutory body mandated to promote transparency and accountability in the management of petroleum revenues in Ghana, and this report is an official confirmation of the rot happening under the KK Sarpong-led management at the GNPC, which unfortunately, the Akufo-Addo government, has been playing ostrich over.

The 5-page report was authored by the highly respected law lecturer, Prof. Albert Fiadjoe, the committees chairman, Noble Wadzah, Rev. Dr. Kwabena Opuni Frimpong, Nana Agyenim Boateng, Prof. Adom-Frimpong, Osei Kwadwo Boateng, Nasir Alfa Mohammed, Isaac Dwamena and Marilyn Aniw.

But shortly after the report, Prof. Figdjos term ended, but his successor Prof. Adom Frimpong, appears disinterested in the findings, although he had been apart of the earlier body which investigated the matter.

New PIAC members are; Clara Beeri Kasser-Tee, who replaced Professor Akosua Darkwah, as the representative of the Independent Policy Research Think Tanks and Odeefuo Amoakwa Buadu VIII, representing the National House of Chiefs, replacing Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi II.

The members who were re-nominated are Professor Kwame Adom-Frimpong, representing the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG), Nasir Alfa Mohammed of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) and Bashiru Abdul-Razak of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI).

It had stated that, the matter of the GNPCs purchase of a residential property on Chapel Hill in Takoradi for US$7.5 million was referred to the Legal Sub-Committee for its final report by the committee at a virtual meeting held on June 18, 2020, from the PIAC Secretariat.

This matter was originally referred to the Legal Sub-Committee by the Committee at its Emergency Meeting held on 31st August, 2018 at the PIAC Secretariat and a report subsequently submitted by the Sub-Committee to the Committee on the matter.

The present reference requires the Sub-Committee to consider whether in light of the Coordinators Validation Report held by PIAC and GNPC at the offices of GNPC on this matter, it was necessary to review the conclusions previously arrived at by the Sub-Committee on the matter to the Committee in Plenary.

It disclosed that a previous recommendations of the Legal Sub-Committee, dated 15th May 2019, had, after painstaking deliberations and consideration, submitted a report on the matter recommending the sale and purchase transaction was unlawful as it fell afoul of SS 14, 21, 35, 43, 47, 69 of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663) as amended by the Public Procurement (Amendment) Act, 2016 (Act 914).

Also the CEO of GNPC acted in breach of the laws governing Conflict of Interest.

Among the issues identified for consideration in the previous report were whether or not there was the need for a value-for-money audit of the GNPC transaction? But the Sub-Committee on this, decided to refer this issue to the plenary for determination, since it was considered not to be a legal issue.

Another issue considered was whether or not on the face of the transaction, there was a possible breach or breaches of the law? On this, the observations and findings were that GNPC showed substantial non-compliance with the requests to provide the complete set of minutes in respect of the transactions, opting to provide scant and selective extracts, adding, there was non-compliance with the Procurement Laws of Ghana in that there was no public.tender or bid.

Other parts of the report said that although the CEO of GNPC is said to have recused himself from the discussion of this transaction. It is only a complete set of minutes provided that will be able to buttress this claim, which GNPC has failed to provide.

However, the said recusal notwithstanding, the CEO took full responsibility for this transaction to order payment at a time when there was no evidence of necessity, urgency or other competitive bid in the offing. If indeed the CEO had recused himself, he should not have involved himself in the process.

Validation Meeting between PIAC and GNPC

It said that after about a year from the date the Legal Sub-Committee submitted its report on this matter to the Committee, the Committee in Plenary resolved at a meeting on 18th June, 2020 to seek final responses from GNPC to the conclusions the Legal Sub-Committee recommended to the Committee per a report dated 15th May, 2019.

It explained that this was to enable the Committee bring finality to this matter.

Consequently, a delegation of the Committee led by the Chairman, Mr Noble Wadjah (With him, Nasir Alfa Mohammed) accompanied by the Coordinator of PIAC Secretariat, Madam Marilyn Aniwa (with Mr. Isaac Dwamena) met with senior officers of GNPC led by the C.E.O., Dr. Kofi Kodua Sarpong (with him Dr. Kwame Baah-Nuako and Dr. Patrick Kwaku Ofori) on Wednesday 17th June, 2020 at the GNPC Office on Mankattah Street, Airport, Accra.

The Chair, Mr. Noble Wadzah, reiterated the conclusions of the Legal Sub-Committee, to which the C.E.O. of GNPC, Dr. Kofi Kodua Sarpong responded, emphasizing that he did not share the conclusions arrived at by PIAC saying he cannot be held liable because the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663) does not cover the purchase of real estate, hence felt GNPC had not flouted any provision of the Act.

Additionally, Dr. Sarpong sought to blame the Freddie Blay board saying, since he recused himself and the Board of Directors approved the transaction. As spending officer, he had to carry out the decision of the Board as the principles of corporate governance require. This explains why he authorised payment for the property.

Dr. Sarpong told Mr. Noble Wadjah committee that .he had to take responsibility for the payment at that time because the vendor (his former employers) was putting pressure on GNPC and the lawyer in charge of the transaction was not available.

He also added that a pre-audit was not carried out before payment was effected. However, a post audit was carried out on the transaction afterward. The post audit report could be made available to PIAC, if PIAC so wishes.

Dr. Sarpong, had claimed that renovation works on the property have been completed but is yet to be handed over to the Corporation. The full Board minutes will be made available to PIAC on Thursday 18th June to enable PIAC review its conclusions.

More to come!

Source: theheraldghana.com
21.01.2022 LISTEN

Introduction

Building a truly resilient community, business, or organization today depends on how well you can use data to increase visibility in each stage of the chain and how quickly you can respond to disruptions. But without digitalisation, it becomes more difficult to garner insights and respond to them successfully. Digital transformation provides organizations with a certain purpose: increased visibility across their entire supply chain.

Many of the socio-economic and development challenges arising from the pandemic are being tackled with digital tools. Although digital tools cannot fully replace the human element of social interactions, they are the next best alternativemore relevant than ever. Organizations need to stay in touch with their suppliers and customers, employees need to engage with their team to execute operational tasks remotely. Customers or consumers are increasingly demanding, leaving businesses to find all possible channels to reach them.

Digitalisation

Digitalisation is a generic term for digital transformation. It is a key driver for operational resilience, which should not be considered as an end, but to ensure business continuity. Digitalisation is about leveraging technology and innovative tools to improve the efficiency of a process. According to Gartner, Digitalisation is the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities; it is the process of moving to a digital business. It makes workflows and processes easier and more efficient. Especially in todays tech-driven world, it is crucial to adopt a digital culture to survive and succeed.

In every part of the world, particularly Africa, COVID-19 altered many reactions and responses, from school and workplace closures to keeping employees engaged and operational while working from home, restrictions on movement, and lockdowns. Handling cash, paying for daily essentials, and conducting business in person have become unsafe, and more people than ever turned to mobile money as a safer option. During the pandemic, the progress of digitalisation and infrastructure seemed to influence many delivery processes and channels.

In early 2020, it quickly became clear that mobile technology, digital services, and mobile money, would have a massive role to play in keeping people connected, delivering essential financial support, and providing safe, contactless ways to pay for consumables, and other life essentials. With more than $2 billion being transacted every day, mobile money became a part of a new daily routine for millions around the world. With 5.2 billion mobile users worldwide, the mobile industry has the reach and innovation it will take to deepen financial inclusion and build more equitable societies (GSMA, Industry Report on Mobile Money 2021).

Also, as Ghanas digital services and payment system improve significantly, it is worth noting that the current trend in Ghanas payment systems development is being driven by a growing local ICT industry and global trends in payment systems development. According to the Bank of Ghana, the development of payment and settlement systems in Ghana has been premised on some key objectives, including discouraging the use of cash for transactions while encouraging the use of non-paper-based instruments; promoting financial inclusion without risking the safety and soundness of the banking system; and developing an integrated electronic payment infrastructure that will enhance interoperability of payment and securities infrastructures.

This means governments must put in more efforts towards creating a cashless society, (focusing on mobile and internet banking) which should further promote non-face-to-face services, especially if we are to contain or live with such pandemic for a longer period or survive future disruptions.

However, the digitalisation of services must be accompanied by greater digital literacy and accessibility. While digitalisation can be seen more as a natural progression reinforced by the conditions created by the pandemic, challenges persist. These include low digital literacy, and the lack of internet access, to mention just a few. With all these getting more important  developing or improving digital literacy, managing remote and automated operations to increase the resilience of business models  there is an apparent need to invest more into digital literacy and digital infrastructure. Creating resilient capabilities which allow for service accessibility options or recovering from disruptions.

Cultural change

Partial application of digital transformation in one or the other of an organizations processes or activities is not enough to compete today. Without understanding business processes, the mere application of technology will not help us, and we will continue to be exposed to the disruption of native-digital competitors in our sector. Initiatives must come along with the needed usage literacy and infrastructure. Consumers must be educated on using digital services and solutions introduced for efficiency. Beyond the application of new technologies, the digitalisation of an organization requires important cultural changes and ways of doing. Digital transformation requires general management to be aligned because it is not an isolated challenge in one division or another, it is a challenge for the entire business setup or organization.

Digitalisation requires cultural change, questioning existing models, and being open to new ways of adding value to the customer. It takes a lot of responsiveness to put the user at the center. Understand the end-user, be in their shoes, place them at the center of the whole process, and understand their needs from their point of view and reality. This way, it gets easier with usage and literacy.

Again, faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, many nations were better prepared than others to respond to the crisis and ensure the delivery of essential public servicesincluding healthcare and education. The key differentiator was their level of digital resilience.

Estonia, brands itself as the first fully digital republic, has the worlds most advanced e-government along with a dynamic start-up community. From the onset of the pandemic, the government launched a global hackathon to incubate and scale practical solutions. Estonias digital responses to COVID-19 were successful because of the countrys digital maturity, including lessons learned from experienceFor example, efforts to integrate telemedicine and electronic patient records into healthcare facilities in many parts of the country were ongoing since 2016, as well as the creation of the Centre for Electronic Healthcare in 2017.

Conclusion

The years 2020/2021 tell us that digitalisation cannot be ignored. A big lesson in all of this is that digitalisation and connected societies require a trained workforce. Across the world, including Africa, many countries still need thousands of new IT specialists to fill many available roles. Hence, the need for digitally enabled workforces is essential for digital resilience and the future of work, which can only be sustained through purposeful and constant investment in education and training.

Resilience as a concept is top of mind, both in our professional and personal lives. The global pandemic has forced us to rethink how to respond to unexpected situations, and manage new and ongoing risks, knowing that such events can happen in the future.

To prevent and recover from future crises, Africa must be digitally positioned to adapt early and invest in fundamentals like digital skills. This will not only improve its resilience but also its competitiveness while ensuring that the needs of many are met.

Author: Richard Kafui Amanfu  (Director of Operations, Institute of ICT Professionals, Ghana)

For comments, contact [email protected] or Mobile: +233244357006
The 25-year-old girl who was allegedly burnt by a mentally challenged man at Kotwi in the Atwima Kwanwoma District of the Ashanti Region is currently receiving treatment at the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital following reportage by this portal.

The family of the ailing girl who could not afford hospital bills left her to rot on bed after sustaining severe burn injuries.

Eunice Opoku was reportedly set ablaze by one Richard Asiedu, a mentally derailed person on Sunday, January 16, 2022.

The suspect according to residents hit the victim with a pinch-bar before setting her ablaze.

After this portal led campaign to seek support for the dying girl, on the "Nyansapo" Social Program on OTEC FM, Ghanaians made contributions towards the treatment of Eunice.

Eunice was immediately sent to the hospital and she's currently on admission receiving medical care.

Meanwhile, some residents at Kotwi have appealed to police in the area not to release the suspect Richard Asiedu who's currently in their custody.

The residents have expressed fear that the mad man when released may cause more harm in the area.
Performance of ministers and government appointees under President Akufo-Addo's term of office have been described as hardworking and productive as far as their work is concerned.

However, they have been challenged to go the extra mile in ensuring the New Patriotic Party (NPP) perform up to the expectation of Ghanaians.

Commenting on FAKS Investigative Services Report on the assessment of performance of ministers, deputies and CEOs, Government Spokesperson and NPP Communicator, Hon. Abdul El Samed was of the view that successive ministers under President Akufo-Addo since 2017, have contributed immensely to the success stories of the NPP government.

He opined that the many programmes and policies would not have seen the light of the day if the various ministers and appointees failed on their tasks.

The NPP Communicator insisted the performance assessment would go a long way to encourage ministers and appointees performing well to do better and also be a yardstick to non-performing ones to emulate their hard work to earn recognition.

"Abronoma, even though I think the survey would help put some ministers and appointees on their toes, I will also suggest to the group to expand its target interviewees so as to have a fair assessment. But all the same, I think it will guide our ministers and appointees to realise that Ghanaians are watching whatever they do," Hon. Abdul El Samed told Kwabena Nyarko Abronoma.

Touching on the issue of dynamite explosion at Appiatse, near Bogoso on Thursday, Hon. Samed expressed worry at the sad development and challenged the appropriate mining stakeholders to ensure that such tragedy is avoided.

He advised the public to stay away from accident scenes, especially when it has to do with petroleum vehicles and other heavy duty trucks for their own safety.
21.01.2022 LISTEN

The trial judge on the case involving Ernest Thompson, a former Director-General of SSNIT, Justice Henry Anthony Kwoffie, has lamented the heat in the Criminal Court 5 room.

He said the room is as hot as an oven.

Justice Kwoffie is a Justice of the Court of Appeal, sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court judge on the SSNIT Operational Business Suite (OBS) case.

His lordship, upon calling the Court to order, observed that the air-conditioning system was off, and the temperature of the room was getting rather high by the minute.

Halfway into the trial, Justice Kwoffie, who was visibly uncomfortable with the heat in the courtroom, by this time, summoned managers of the High Court Complex to explain the situation.

According to officials of the facility, some components of the air-conditioning system had broken down and could only be procured abroad.

They told the court that the said components had only just been purchased from China and were on the high seas to Ghana.

They were confident that within a month the situation would be addressed.

Not entirely impressed with the explanation, Henry Anthony Kwoffie, JA, said the condition under which the court was forced to work was unfair.

His lordship wondered why standing fans had not been purchased as a temporary measure; and told the court managers to submit copies of all the letters they had written on the matter, so he takes it up with the Judicial Secretary.

---citinewsroom
The Ghana Environmental Advocacy Group has called on government to ensure that thorough investigation is conducted into the Bogoso disaster and all persons responsible punished.

There was an disaster at Appiatse, near Bogoso in the Western Region on Thursday, January 21, 2022, involving a truck conveying explosive material for a mining company, a motorcycle, and a third vehicle close to an electricity transformer, leading to the explosion.

The incident resulted in the death of at last 17 people with 59 otyers sustaining severe injuries.

Ghana Environmental Advocacy Group has described images and videos from the incident as horrific.

In a call to the government, the group is demanding all persons that will be found responsible for the explosion to be punished for any negligence.

While we commiserate with our departed brothers and sisters from Apiatsi (Bogoso) and wish the injured speedy recovery, we also call on the Government of Ghana, the Ghana Police Service, all ancillary services and agencies in Ghana to get to the bottom of this disaster, bring fair and just punishment to all those involved in this mayhem and get us the needed answers, part of a release from the Ghana Environmental Advocacy Group reads.

Meanwhile, the group also wants the Parliamentary Committee to undertake a thorough review of the incident and the steps that the Government intends to take to ensure compliance with existing laws regarding the transportation of explosive devices and flammable materials in the country.
The authorities in China have reacted angrily to a French parliament resolution on Friday that accuses Beijing of carrying out a genocide against its Uyghur Muslim population, a move that has further strained ties two weeks before the opening of the Winter Olympics.

The French resolution adds to a chorus of complaints from western nations which have criticised Beijing for placing an estimated one million Uyghurs in forced labour camps. The text describes "the violence perpetrated by the People's Republic of China against the Uyghurs as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide".

France's National Assembly joins the parliaments of Canada, the Netherlands, Britain and Belgium in criticising China. The United States government has formally accused Beijing of genocide in western Xinjiang.

But China rejects such accusations and hit out at French lawmakers on Friday.

"The French National Assembly's resolution on Xinjiang ignores facts and legal knowledge and grossly interferes in China's internal affairs," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing. "China firmly opposes it."

The French motion was proposed by the opposition Socialist Party in the lower house of parliament but also backed by President Emmanuel Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) party.

The non-binding resolution by France's National Assembly was adopted with 169 votes in favour and just one against on Thursday.

The text calls on the French government to undertake "the necessary measures within the international community and in its foreign policy towards the People's Republic of China" to protect the minority group in the Xinjiang region.

"China is a great power. We love the Chinese people. But we refuse to submit to propaganda from a regime that is banking on our cowardice and our avarice to perpetrate a genocide in plain sight," Socialist Party chief Olivier Faure said.

The only person who voted against the resolution was MP Buon Tan (LREM), who heads the France-China Friendship Association.

The UN Genocide Convention was signed on 9 December 1948 in Paris and became effective on 12 January 1951. China ratified the convention on 18 April 1983, the United States on 25 November 1988.

But China reserved some exceptions for itself saying in a footnote that "does not consider itself bound by article IX of the said Convention," which stipulates that "disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute."

Moreover, legal scholars Zhu Wenqi and Zhang Binxin point out that "though China is a party to the Genocide Convention ... there is no provision incorporating genocide into Chinese criminal law," which ultimately means that those who commit acts of genocide go free and, even if Chinese officials were formally found guilty of acts of genocide, they will never be prosecuted for that crime in China.
New research by scientists from the University of Oxford, British Geological Survey, and Portugals Marine and Environmental Sciences Center shows that the black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris) can dive to much greater depths (19 m, or 62 feet) and for much longer (52 seconds) than previously thought  three times the maxima previously recorded for this species (6 m, or 20 feet, and 15 seconds), and more than twice the maxima reliably recorded previously for any albatross.

Albatrosses (family Diomedeidae) are the iconic aerial wanderers of the oceans, supremely adapted for long-distance dynamic soaring flight, said University of Oxfords Professor Tim Guilford and his colleagues.

Perhaps because of this they are considered poorly adapted for diving, in contrast to many smaller shearwater and petrel relatives, despite having amphibious eyes, and an a priori mass advantage for oxygen-storage tolerance.

Modern biologging studies have largely confirmed this view, casting doubt on earlier observations using capillary tube maximum depth gauges, which may exaggerate depths, and emphasizing albatrosses reliance on near-surface feeding.

Nevertheless, uncertainty about albatross diving remains an important knowledge gap since bycatch in human fisheries (e.g. birds becoming hooked when diving for longline bait fish) is thought to be driving many population declines in this most threatened group of birds.

Using miniature electronic depth loggers, the researchers documented the journeys of the black-browed albatross population in the Falklands commuting to the South American coast and diving at unexpected depths to pursue prey.

A better understanding of the unobserved behavior of the albatrosses and other endangered seabirds is essential to conservation efforts, said University of Oxfords Dr. Oliver Padget.

That black-browed albatrosses are physically capable of such deep dives will now need to be considered when thinking about the effectiveness of mitigation strategies that rely on the species being restricted to the surface.

Diving activities recorded amongst the population took place during the day, suggesting that the albatrosses rely on their vision to pursue shoaling prey on deeper dives.

We found that deep diving was restricted to daylight hours, and so one potential mitigation could be for pelagic long lines to be set at night when albatross might be less likely, or able, to chase baits and become caught, Dr. Padget said.

Diving in this population could be the result of previously unseen behavioral flexibility, and have important consequences for how we think about the risks to threatened species, and for how they might respond to change, Professor Guilford said.

The findings appear in the journal Current Biology.

_____

Tim Guilford et al. 2022. Unexpectedly deep diving in an albatross. Current Biology 32 (1): R26-R28; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.11.036
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has assured the residents of Appiatse that government would collaborate with the State Housing Corporation and mining companies to construct temporary housing facilities for those displaced in the explosion.

Government would also take up the medical bills of the injured and provide them the best of healthcare to ensure a speedy recovery.

Dr Bawumia, on behalf of Government, donated GHc200,000 to the bereaved families for their upkeep, while assorted items including mattresses, rice, cooking oil and toiletries were presented to 300 displaced persons accommodated at the Bogoso Catholic Relief Centre.

Vice President Bawumia gave the assurance when he led a government delegation to Appiatse on Friday, to assess the extent of damage caused by the explosion.

The delegation include the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Inspector-General of Police, Dr George Akuffo Dampare and Director-General of NADMO, Eric Nana Agyeman-Prempeh.

Dr Bawumia said: Government, on its part, is going to do everything to support the families and those who have been injured. We are also looking into how to make sure that all those who are injured are taken care of.

"For the houses that have been destroyed, we are already beginning to think about how to rehabilitate and rebuild them for the community. I have already spoken to the State Housing Corporation and in consultation with the mining companies here, we will quickly try to put in place facilities that will help those who have been displaced. "

The briefing given by the emergency response team to the Vice President revealed that 13 people had been confirmed dead, 179 persons affected and 31 houses destroyed.

Forty-five injured persons are being treated at the Tarkwa Government Hospital, three dispatched to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in the Ashanti Region with some receiving treatment at Aseda Health Centre and Inner City Clinic at Bogoso.

The truck involved in the explosion was said to be carrying 10 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.

Four fire tenders from the Ghana National Fire Service and 11 ambulance vehicles from the National Ambulance Service were involved in the rescue efforts.

A preliminary investigation by the Police indicated that a DAF van with registration number WR 2252-18 driven by one Alfred Pappoe, moving from Tarkwa to Chirano Gold Mine allegedly collided with a motorcycle resulting in the explosion.

Isaac Kamanim of the Firearm Unit/Tarkwa was providing police escort to the truck.

Dr Bawumia said: "A major disaster befell us yesterday, not only for the community here in Appiatse, but it befell the whole of Ghana and that is why the President Nana Akufo-Addo asked me to lead this government delegation to come and assess the situation and see what we are going to do for the people.

I have received briefings from the Police, the Fire Service, NADMO and the Chief. On behalf of the President and the government, we wish to express our deepest condolences to those who sadly lost their lives from this very sad incident."

GNA
Presisemt Nana Akufo-Addo has donated GHS200,000 to victims of the Bogoso explosion in the Western Region.

On Thursday, January 21, 2022, Bogoso and its neigbouring communities experienced a tragic explosion.

The incident specifically occurred in the mining town of Appiatse involving a truck conveying explosive materials for a mining company, a motorcycle, and a third vehicle close to an electricity transformer, leading to the explosion.

During a visit by Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia on Friday morning, said the Akufo-Addo governmment will not relent until normalcy is restored to Appiatse.

According to him, the President has donated a sum of GHS200,000 to help the victims of the disaster.

During the visit, the Vice President passed by the relief centre set up to cushion residents and presented some food items, mattresses among some other key items.

Dr. Bawumia visited Appiatse in the company of some ministers of state.

Already, the government through the Ghana Police Service, the National Fire Service, and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NAMDO) are working to provide every needed support to victims.

Meanwhile, government has pledged to rebuild all destroyed buildings at Appiatse.
The Ghana Police Service has said the driver of truck conveying mining materials that resulted in the explosion at Appiatse helped saved lives of some school children.

On Thursday, January 21, 2022, Bogoso and its neigbouring communities were completely wiped out by a tragic explosion that swept through the entire community.

The incident specifically occurred in a mining town, Appiatse, near Bogoso in the Western Region.

Preliminary investigations reveled that a truck conveying explosive material for a mining company, a motorcycle, and a third vehicle close to an electricity transformer, leading to the explosion.

Although there have been different accounts, the Police after investigations has disclosed how the driver of the truck acted proactively to save the lives of pupils in a school nearby.

Let me use this opportunity to also state that the truck driver is in good hand. The gentleman who was on the motorbike is also responding to treatment and for the driver, knowing what we he was carrying, was of help to the community here. He quickly rushed to the school, informed the teachers about the danger that at the time was to come and the children were quickly whisked away from this area to a safer ground, Director General, Public Affairs Directorate of the Police Service, ACP Kwasi Ofori, told journalists on Friday.

The Police reveal that the truck driver also warned some of the approaching community members. Some complied and moved to safety but unfortunately, due to the radius of the blast, a number of people were still affected by the explosion.

Latest numbers from the explosion this afternoon has confirmed that the death toll is 13, instead of 17.

Meanwhile, over 150 people were injured; 36 are said to be critically injured and on admission at various hospitals. Some 13 persons have lost their lives.

Some 96 others who received minor injuries including cuts have been treated and discharged.
21.01.2022 LISTEN

Seven of the eleven accused persons in Tuesdays violence at Nima and Mamobi in Accra have pleaded not guilty to charges of rioting and causing harm.

Lawyers for the seven told the Accra Circuit Court presided over by Mrs. Rosemond Baah Torsu that their clients had no connection whatsoever with Tuesdays gun violence.

The accused persons are all said to have alibi to vouch for their whereabouts on the said date.

The accused persons are; Ali Awudu alias Bombo and Ibrahim Hussien alias Kumodzi, both of whom are said to be ringleaders and are at large, Abdul Gafaru Mahama, Aziz Sulemana alias Rambo (on hospital admission) and Ibrahim Moro alias Jallo (also on hospital admission).

The rest are Atarouwa Bassam, Abdul Mumuni Gariba, Mohammed Saabi Barinu alias Namer, Bashiru Ganiru, Illiasu Salim and Issa Seidu.

Chief Inspector Denis Terkpetey narrated the facts of the case to the court as follows and described the incident as a riot involving the usage of arms and other offensive weapons.

Praying for bail for the accused persons, a lawyer, Seth Gyapong Oware disclosed to the court that his client, Bashiru Ganiru, was an innocent person who tried helping casualties of the shootings but was rather arrested and accused.

He told the court that the accused person was called upon by some community members to convey the injured persons with his car to the hospital, and it was in the process that he got arrested.

A search is said to have subsequently been conducted in his car and house, and no weapons were found.

Yaw Dankwah, the lawyer for two other accused persons, said his clients were arrested from their farm and wondered why the police could link them to the violence.

The court, however, denied them bail, saying it was early days yet and the police were yet to demonstrate any undue delays.

The court, however, ordered the police to investigate the alibi of the accused persons for the next adjourned date of February 1, 2022, at 10.30 am.
MOGADISHU: SOMALIA. The Long-awaited adjudication and arbitration commission's new chairman is set to take place in Mogadishu today at 11;00 am. The election of the new chairman comes following the usurpation of seven senior members, including the chairman of the dispute resolution committee by the caretaker prime Minister Roble after they were decried and excoriated of impartiality and flagrant or blatant violation of the electoral code of conduct.

The organizing committee for the election of the chairman of the electoral dispute commission has officially stated that among the other requirements and eligibility criteria and credentials required to be submitted by the interested candidates vying for the vacant position and later many candidates were disqualified and excluded after preconditions were attached by the organizing committee and declared that candidate should be a member of the indirect electoral dispute resolution committee.

The committee further elucidated that voting will be by secret ballot and that if the deputy of the disputes electoral commission has declared interest for the seat, then he should tender his resignation first before vying for the seat.

It was anticipated to be tough and competitive election for the polls arbiter and their task should be to negotiate mediate, conciliate, assuage, appease and adjudicate the long list or litany of grievances And pending electoral cases relevant to the indirect polls. The arbitration commission was earlier marred by plethora of allegations which remain unaddressed and unresolved.

Ahmed Awil Warsame has been elected chairman of the elections dispute resolution chairman. (EDRC) in an election widely perceived as free and transparent that was conducted in Afisyone area, close proximity to Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu. The security of the scene where the election was taking place was heavily fortified by joint forces of Somali national army and African Union peacekeeping forces in Somalia. (AMISOM)......

The 21 nember panel elected Warsame to supersede Hussein Mohamed who was axed along with six other members by the prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble on December 21, 2021 the elected chairman had commended his predecessor and vowed to continue the huge task, burden and responsibility shouldered on him and supplicated Allah to ease or relieve his burdens.

Roble reportedly removed and ousted Mohamud and his inner circles for failing to pre-empt and filibuster the approval of the controversial and rigged election of acting intelligence chief Yasin Farey. EDCR assented and approved Farey's election despite widespread allegations of fraud and irregularities such as Vote buying, ballot-stuffing and gerrymandering.

The elections had commenced so far a very sluggish process that federal member states and releasing partial seats, today Jubbaland state announced three seats up for grabs, the Jubbaland electoral commission has officially promulgated the election schedule for three seats set to be elected in the coming days in the capital of the semi-autonomous region of Jubbaland.

Jubbaland state electoral implementation committee (Seit) has officially declared the names of the traditional elders and civil society members who will select the delegates for the 6 seats in the 11th House of the people of the federal parliament. The electoral committee released last night the election schedule of 6 out of 13 lower chamber seats...

Press statement from the commission said that Saturday 22 has been set for the start of registration and announcement of the selection committee, While Sunday 23 is slated for training the committee and submitting the official list of delegates assigned to elect the new lawmakers of the incoming federal parliament of Somalia.

The commission has also announced that it will commence the process of registration and training of delegates on Monday, the 24th of this month. On the 25th of this month, the commission will register the candidates for the three seats up for grabs while the three-seat election will be held on Wednesday, January 26th in the city of Kismayo..

The following seats are to be contested in Kismayo on January 26.

1) Hop126 currently held or wield by Mohamed Hassan Idris(Ganey)

2) Hop118 held by the Somali deputy Minister of labor and social affairs, Saqiir Ibrahim Abdalla.

3) Hop127 held by Ali Osman Hersi..

On the other hand South-west state has Wednesday successfully elected 5 representatives ro the lower house of Somalia's federal parliament in Baidoba becoming the first state to observe the 9th January guidelines adopted at the National council consultative meeting in Mogadishu.

The first seat to be contested for, was Hop184 which was occupied for the last four years by the outgoing FGS Minister of energy and water resources, Hassan Abdinor Abdi, Abdi trounced his main contender or rival, Mohamed Abdullahi Abdi by garnering 72 votes while Mohamed Ali received 27 votes. One vote was spoiled.

Hop085 seat was contested by Sharif Mohamed Abdalla, Who is the incumbent MP and Mohamed Hussein Mukhtar, Sharif Mohamed Abdalla Thrashed Mohamed Hussein Mukhtar after receiving 79 votes, while his main rival received 19 votes, with three abstention.

Mohamed Mursal Mohamed Borow and Abdihakin Mustaf Ibrahim competed for Hop176 seat Mohamed Borow emerged the winner after receiving 73 votes while his rival Abdihakim Mustaf Ibrahim received 26 votes, with one abstention. The fourth seat Hop046 previously held by Rabaco Sheikh Nour was contested by Mohamed Wardhere Abdi and Abdullahi Samow Osman. Mohamed Wardhere Abdi vanquished his rival and becomes the victor and new entrant to the South-west lower chamber after receiving 83 votes, While his rival, Abdullahi Samow Osman received 11 votes, with one abstention.

The fifth seat, Hop156 seat, was contested by about 100 delegates, with Mohamed Adan Mohamed receiving 88 votes while his arch rival Mohamed Ibrahim Issack received 10 votes losing by two votes. Up to 100 delegates voted for each seat in the recently concluded elections in the city of Baidoba., with the process seen as the right step toward accomplishment of the country's polls.

DEVELOPING AND UPDATING STORY FROM UK PARLIAMENT.

Is Somaliland closer to being recognized as a nation state? Does Somaliland deserves Universal accreditation?

In a bid for recognizing Somaliland as a Republic. The conservative member of Parliament for Staffordshire Gavin Williamsom introduced a motion to the floor of the House of Commons which was discussed briefly on Tuesday.

Stafford MP argued that it was long overdue for Somaliland to be recognized as an independent State as it had seceded rest of Somalia on May, 1991and fighting for its recognition for almost three decades or period spanning decades.

Gavin a close associate and ally to the current Somalialand president Muse Bihi Abdi, Said he was honored to table the motion.

The federal government of Somalia considers Somaliland as part of Somali territory and come under the sovereignty of Somali state. Although the critics said it is one-clan dominated enclave.

It is an absolute honour to be buying the important issue of recognition of Somaliland to the floor of the house of commons. Our nations have long historic ties and now it is a time to make history together. Said Gavin.

Bihi extended his gratitude to Staffordshire MP and Somaliland diaspora community for fighting jointly the Somaliland recognition and hope that Somalilanders would soon enjoy victory. On behalf of Somaliland government and it's people we appreciate MP Gavin and other MPs who had expressed their willingness towards the recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state.

Thank you Gavin Williamsom for leading the way and calling for the debate on the recognition of the Republic of Somaliland. I hope your government will be willing to listen to you and other MPs at the house of commons. All Somalilanders in and overseas are waiting for this rightful ambition, Said Muse Bihi..

However, Somalilander's Joy was cut short after UK Minister for Africa, Vicky Ford, Said it was upon Somaliland and Somalia to agree on the fate and their future.

The adjournment debate in the house of Commons underlines consistent UK government position on Somaliland status. It is for Somaliland and the federal government of Somalia to decide their future, We continue to collaborate with the federal government of Somalia and Somaliland on democracy, human rights, security and prosperity said Vicky.

Somaliland which claimed it's autonomy in 1991, has been fighting for recognition by the international community since then; a struggle that is yet to bear fruit. Young Somalilanders consider life as fresh University graduates in their unrecognized homeland. A country is name only, proud but alone in the Horn of Africa. These students were not yet born when Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991. An act still unrecognized by the International community that has left the breakaway region poor and isolated.

Lack of recognition has made life even harder in one of the World's most impoverished region, government officials say, frustrating access to foreign loans and investments. Somaliland's 4.5 million people cannot travel easily as their passports are not widely accepted. For its youth who represent three-quarter of Somalilanders-jobs are scarce even for the best and the brightest.

" The need is there, but there are no opportunities " Said Saeed Salad Ahmed a 26 years old in black gown and tasselled hat, after graduating from the University of Hargeisa.I remain hopeful we are developing and we will continue becoming a better country even if unemployment is an abysmal problem.

For 30 years, Somaliland has tried unsuccessfully to convince the world of its case for Statehood, holding democratic elections and avoiding the anarchy that engulfed the rest of Somalia. Only Taiwan has extended formal recognition, although a few other African and European countries have opened a diplomatic missions in Hargeisa As China considers Taiwan as part of mainland China and threatened to invade and annex by force.

In the ramshackle capital wads of Somaliland Currency swap hands on the potholed streets, as police wearing the national emblem direct cars pressed or laminated with Somaliland plates. Teenagers swap selfie with an ' I ( heart) Somaliland " Monument not far from the war memorial where a war plane relic stands on as testament to the independence struggle.

Thousands gruesomely perished in the brutal aerial bombardments carried out by military Junta ruling Somalia. These airstrikes left Hargeisa so devastated and was completely razed to the ground. It was dubbed " The Dresden of Africa "

Along its disputed border with Somalia and frontier with Djibouti and Ethiopia, the national army keep on an eagle eye watch and closely monitor activities at the boundary. A coast guard patrols waters off the Gulf of Aden, on busy global Shipping lanes.

It elect its own leaders who rule under a constitution, checked by the courts. Somaliland ticked every single question that has been asked by the international community to be a recognized state.

Most Somalilanders are under 30 and have never known anything but self-rule making any chance of reunification with Somalia unthinkable. Government officials acknowledge high rates of youth unemployment but blame Somalia and lack of recognition for holding it back.

Bashir Goth, who represents Hargeisa in Washington, said the west was reluctant to recognize Somaliland until an African nation did first, but support was growing he said. The shadow of Eritrea and South Sudan- -- the last two African nations to achieve Statehood, which turned to repression, genocide and bloodshed---still hung unfairly over Somaliland. " We have a compelling story actually, and I think it is a matter of time" Kenya and Ethopia both act in concert to push the case of Somaliland recognition or accreditation the rest of Africa will follow suit. WIND of change is pummeling Africa As a whole and specifically Somaliland and that wave of recognition is unstoppable; overjoyed because our recognition is looming and imminent it remained a limbo and has been hanging in the balance for decades; now it is realistic...

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.
The former first lady of the Seychelles and several other high-profile figures were in court on Friday over a $50 million embezzlement scandal that has gripped the paradise island nation.

In all, six people have been charged over the disappearance of the funds which were given to the Seychelles government by the United Arab Emirates two decades ago.

The case has thrown the spotlight on corruption in the tiny Indian Ocean republic, long seen as a tax haven for the world's super-rich where business and politics are closely entwined.

On Friday, the court ordered that Sarah Zarqhani Rene, widow of late president France Albert Rene who ruled from 1977 to 2004, remain in custody on charges of money laundering, along with another three co-accused.

The two others were previously released on bail.

Zarqhani Rene, 63, has failed several times to be freed from detention, with the court fixing bail at $2 million, a sum she says she cannot afford.

In 2002, when Rene was still in power, the UAE donated $50 million (44 million euros) to help the Seychelles -- then facing an acute foreign currency shortage -- to import food and other vital goods to replenish empty shelves.

Prosecutors say the money was syphoned off from the central bank to a bank account in Britain, passed through various shell companies and returned to the Seychelles to buy undervalued hotels being sold off in a privatisation scheme.

The suspected masterminds are prominent businessman Mukesh Valahbji, the former president's economic adviser, and his wife, while the investigation has also ensnared a former finance minister, a senior finance ministry official and a senior army officer.

All the accused have protested their innocence.

In the case of Zarqhani Rene, anti-corruption investigators are looking into payments totalling $700,000 into her Australian bank accounts. She insists it was her husband, who died in 2019, who managed the accounts.

A trial date has not yet been set as investigations are ongoing, and a seventh person was arrested at the weekend but not charged.

Since his election in October 2020, President Wavel Ramkalawan has embarked on a drive against corruption in the archipelago, renowned for luxury resorts and idyllic beaches.

And in October last year, the European Union removed the Seychelles from its tax haven blacklist after committing to reforms to meet the bloc's demands for greater transparency.

The EU move was criticised by British charity Oxfam, however, as the Seychelles featured prominently in the Pandora Papers, the vast trove of leaked documents that showed how the world's rich and powerful use tax havens to hide assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

A former British colony, the Seychelles is made up of 115 islands and according to 2021 World Bank data is the richest African country as measured by per capita gross domestic product.
The Kaneshie District Court has remanded into police custody seven Western Togoland separatists over an alleged treason felony.

Kofi Amemako, alias Commander, Felix Bersa Bosso, alias Zongo, Mawuli Amedziko, alias Zaganee, Stanley Kofi Koto Gborzo, Abraham Atsu Serworvor, Agbeshie Nyavor and William Korsi Ahiabenu have been charged with treason felony and being members of a prohibited organisation.

Their pleas were not taken, and they were ordered to go back to the court on February 3, 2022.

Police Chief Inspector Richard Amoah told the court presided over by Mr Stephen Tabiri that the accused persons were members of the Western Togoland Restoration Front (WTRF), a prohibited organisation-a separatist group.

Amemako is said to be a spiritualist and provides spiritual fortification for members of WTRF against gunshots and other offensive weapons.

The prosecution said on or before September 25, 2020, the accused persons together with others agreed with common purpose to secede from the Republic of Ghana.

It said in pursuant to their agreement, they together with some accused persons standing trial at the Accra High Court and others at large, divided themselves into armed groups to enable them pull off their plan.

The prosecution said on September 25, 2020, between the hours of 0100hours and 0700hours, one armed group, including the accused persons attacked Aveyime and Mepe Police Stations in the Volta Region.

It said they overpowered the Police officers at the stations, broke into the armouries and made away with thirteen (13) AK-47 assault rifles, two (2) pistols, five (5) pump action guns, one (1) short gun, two (2) mack-3 guns, one (1) mack 4-gun, three (3) SMG rifles, eleven (11) rubber bullets, 25 rounds of 37mm tear gas cartridge, about three hundred (300) rounds of AK-47 ammunition.

The Court heard that four (4) out of 13 AK-47 rifles were retrieved.

The prosecution said on January 7, 2022, at 0700hours, Amemako, Bosso, Amedziko, Gbordzor, Serworvor and Nyavor were arrested when they attempted to purchase 2,000 rounds of AK-47 ammunition from an undercover Defense Intelligence Officer at Aflao.

It said Ahiabenu, a resident of Hohoe, was arrested at Akatsi on January 8, 2022, when he visited a spiritualist for fortification against gunshots.

The prosecution said investigations had so far revealed that the accused persons and their cohorts at large were planning to disturb the public peace.

It said they intended to attack Police and Immigration officers within the Volta Region and rob them of their weapons to stock their armoury.

The prosecution said they also intended to break into Bank of Ghana, Hohoe Branch, and were also planning to destroy Adomi and Sogakope bridges with bombs to disconnect Volta Region from Accra and prevent a reinforcement team from entering the Region during the disturbances.

It said assorted charms, locally manufactured pistol and Western Togoland related documents were retrieved from the roof of the accused persons.

GNA
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Samuel Abu Jinapor, has warned that government will deal ruthlessly with anyone found to have breached the Minerals and Mining Regulation regarding the transportation of explosives.

The warning follows the constitution of a committee comprising officials from the Minerals Commission, security agencies, Ghana National Fire Service and National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to complete investigations into the explosion.

Mr Jinapor, who accompanied Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to commiserate with the bereaved families of the Appiatse disaster on Friday, said the investigations would be thorough to determine the actual cause of the incident.

Mr Jinapor noted that the manufacture, storage, transportation and use of explosives was governed by law, particularly the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) and the Minerals and Mining (Explosives) Regulations, 2012 (L.I. 2177).

He assured that Government would implement all recommendations from the investigations to forestall future occurrence.

The Ministry would hold meetings with all stakeholders, including mining companies, Ghana Chamber of Mines and mine support service companies, to discuss the entire regime of handling and use of explosives and other hazardous chemicals for mining, with a view of developing safe and healthy mining operations and support services in the country, he stated.

Preliminary investigation confirmed 13 persons dead, 179 affected and 31 houses torched.

A vehicle transporting 10 tonnes of ammonium nitrate from Tarkwa to Chirano Gold Mine allegedly collided with a motorcycle resulting in the explosion, killing dozens of people at Appiatse in the Prestea Huni Valley Municipality.

GNA
ACP Oduro Amaning, the Central East Deputy Regional Commander, has advised Ghanaians against what he describes as 'self-imprisonment' for fear of robbery and other criminal activities.

He observed that many Ghanaians had become prisoners in their own homes in an attempt to protect themselves and their properties from armed robbers and other criminal elements.

We have burglar proofed our doors and windows and lock them up when going to sleep, this becomes difficult if there is a fire outbreak. It is very dangerous; the situation in many homes is not different from what we have in our cells, he revealed.

His comments come on the back of the fire incident that killed a family of seven at Big Apple, a suburb of Gomoa Buduburam in the Central Region on Saturday.

Some residents have said that the burglar-proofed doors and windows of the headteacher and his family made rescue mission impossible.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), the Deputy Commander urged citizens to find alternative means of providing security in their homes for easy access in case of emergency.

Let us protect ourselves but we should be careful not to imprison ourselves, ACP Amaning cautioned.

He further implored the public to be security conscious to protect one another in their respective neighbourhoods.

Neighbours can call the Police or the Fire Service when an incident occurs. When you hear somebody scream from their house, let us pay attention because the person could be under attack, he implored.

GNA
21.01.2022 LISTEN

Extreme poverty in Western Africa increased by nearly 3 percent last year, according to a new report on the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 published today by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The report, completed in partnership with the West Africa Sub-Regional Office for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), indicates that the proportion of people living on less than $1.90 a day increased from 2.3 per cent in 2020 to 2.9 per cent in 2021.

The debt burdens of countries in the region have also increased in the context of slow economic recovery, shrinking fiscal space and weak resource mobilization.

The COVID-19 impact study highlights the effects of the preventive measures including border closures, movement restrictions, and the disruption of supply chains. All these measures disrupted income-generating activities and exacerbated food price increases in the markets. The most affected are people who rely on unstable income sources such as small traders, street vendors and casual workers.

This deteriorating economic situation has adversely affected the food security and nutrition situation of women, men, and children. More than 25 million people in West Africa are unable to meet their basic food needs in the region, an increase of 34% compared to 2020. The situation is most severe in conflict-affected areas such as the Lake Chad Basin, Liptako-Gourma and the Sahel region, forcing people to sell their assets and livelihoods to meet their food needs.

Sekou SANGARE, ECOWAS Commissioner for Agriculture, Environment and Water resources said The Coronavirus health crisis has particularly annihilated the benefits gained by ECOWAS and its Member States in the fight against food insecurity and malnutrition.

Even if we are happy with the governments response through the mitigation actions they have taken, we have to worry about the residual effects of the health and economic crisis as they are likely to continue disturbing our food systems for a long time while compromising populations' access to food due to multiple factors.

The publication of this report comes in a context marked by a fragile regional economy that is not dynamic enough to allow families to regain their pre-crisis social and economic well-being. These results will enable public and private actors to provide appropriate and resolute responses to the negative impact of COVID-19 on the lives of people in West Africa.

"The socio-economic impact of COVID-19 calls for immediate and concerted actions that target the root causes of people's vulnerabilities. The cost of inaction will be higher for a population already facing multiple crises in the region," said Chris Nikoi, WFP Regional Director for West Africa.

The Director of the ECA's West Africa Sub-Regional Office, Ngone Diop, stressed that one of the strengths of the ECOWAS-WFP-ECA partnership was to "carry out an online survey, which has mobilized nearly 8,000 survey respondents in just two editions."

Moreover, Mrs Diop said "basing our analyses on primary, first-hand data from households directly impacted by the health crisis makes it possible to offer decision-makers at the regional and national levels with relevant and better-targeted policy options.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, ECOWAS and its partners have put in place various economic and financial measures to respond to the increasing needs caused by COVID-19 in the region. In close collaboration with the West African Health Organization (WAHO), ECOWAS mobilized nearly US$ 38 million in the first half of 2021 to meet the needs of the population.

The ECOWAS Member States, with the support of their technical partners including WFP, have implemented an unprecedented expansion of social protection programmes, as well as food distributions, for the most vulnerable communities.

In Mali and Niger, for example, WFP, in partnership with UNICEF and with funding from the German Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ), is supporting 1.4 million people and helping to strengthen national social protection systems to make them more responsive to shocks and more sensitive to nutrition.
Marine biologists have described a third species of branching syllid worm  and the second within the genus Ramisyllis  living inside an undescribed species of the sponge genus Petrosia found in shallow waters at Sado Island, Japan.

Among over 20,000 species of annelids (ringed or segmented worms), only two branching species with a highly modified body-pattern were known until now: Syllis ramosa and Ramisyllis multicaudata.

Both have unusual ramified bodies with one head and multiple branches and live inside the canals of host sponges.

In 1879, Scottish physician and marine zoologist William Carmichael MIntosh published the description of a remarkable branched syllid, Syllis ramosa, collected during the Challenger Expedition, one of the most significant natural history expeditions from the nineteenth century, explained lead author University of Gottingens Professor M. Teresa Aguado and colleagues.

The worms were found inside the hexactinellid sponge Crateromorpha meyeri at 175 m deep near Cebu, in the Philippines.

In relation to their lateral branches, McIntosh said: the body of the annelid appears to have a furor for budding laterally, terminally, and wherever a broken surface occurs, which represented the first instance of an annelid species described with a randomly branching asymmetrical body.

The second known branching species, Ramisyllis multicaudata, was described from the coastal shallows of Darwin, Northern Australia, in 2012.

That study demonstrated notable differences in biology and morphology between this species and Syllis ramosa and analyzed its phylogenetic relationships inside the family Syllidae.

Ramisyllis multicaudata shares with Syllis ramosa a randomly branching asymmetrical body and its way of living inside the labyrinthic internal canals of sponges, but differs (except for the Red Sea and Imajimas 2005 Sagami Bay reports of Syllis ramosa) in the host sponge (Petrosia vs. Crateromorpha), depth (0-20 m vs. 100-1,000 m deep), and key morphological and anatomical details.

The newly-described species belongs to the genus Ramisyllis and inhabits the coastal waters of Sado Island, Japan.

Its name, Ramisyllis kingghidorahi, refers to King Ghidorah, the three-headed and two-tailed monster enemy of Godzilla.

King Ghidorah is a branching fictitious animal that can regenerate its lost ends, so we thought this was an appropriate name for the new species of branching worm, Professor Aguado said.

We were astonished to find another of these bizarre creatures with only one head and a body formed from multiple branching, she added.

This discovery reveals a higher diversity of these tree-like animals than anyone expected.

Professor Aguado and co-authors also provided a hypothesis for the evolution of branching body patterns as an adaptation to live inside the labyrinthic canals system of their host sponges.

The capacity to produce new posterior segments throughout their whole lives (typical of many worms), together with their regenerative capacities and the worms ability to produce several simultaneous newly formed segments during reproduction, may be the basis of the evolution of a branching body, they said.

Scientists dont yet understand the nature of the relationship between the branching worm and its host sponge, Professor Aguado said.

Is it a symbiotic relationship where both creatures somehow benefit? And how do the worms manage to feed to maintain their huge bodies having just one tiny mouth in their single head?

The results were published in the journal Organisms Diversity & Evolution.

_____

M.T. Aguado et al. Ramisyllis kingghidorahi n. sp., a new branching annelid from Japan. Org Divers Evol, published online January 22, 2022; doi: 10.1007/s13127-021-00538-4
Government will bear the cost of medical assistance and other support for the families of those affected by the explosion which devastated the community of Appiatse, near Bogoso, on Thursday January 20, 2022, the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has announced.

Working through the State Housing Company (SHC) and in collaboration with mining firms operating in the Bogoso area, Government will also provide affordable housing for those whose houses were destroyed in the blast.

Vice President Bawumia made the pledge when he led a government delegation made up of the Minister for the Interior, Hon Ambrose Dery; Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon Samuel Abu Jinapor; Information Minister Hon Kojo Oppong Nkrumah; Western Region Minister Hon Dr Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah; Director General of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Eric Nana Agyemang-Prempeh and other officials to commiserate with the families of the affected on Friday, 21 January 2022.

Briefing the Vice President, officials at the hastily set-up Operations Centre at the scene of the disaster, including the Inspector General of Police, the Chief Fire Officer, senior Army officers, senior officials of the other security agencies, the Ghana Health Service, Ambulance Service and other allied agencies disclosed that 179 persons had been directly affected by the blast, allegedly caused by a collision between an explosives-carrying vehicle and a motorbike.

13 persons have been confirmed dead so far, they added, with 45 others receiving medical attention in nearby hospitals and a further 4 referred to the Komfo Anokye and Korle Bu hospitals. About 150 persons, almost the entirety of the community, are now seeking shelter at the Catholic Churchs centre because their houses have either been destroyed or made unsafe by the blast.

Accompanied by the Chief of Appiatse and the MCE for Prestea Huni Valley, Dr Bawumia and his team visited the scene of the blast, which has a large crater in the middle of the highway, the Appiatse health centre to see some of the injured, and the Catholic centre to commiserate with the displaced and hand over 13 tonnes of relief items comprising of rice, oil, soap, blankets, used clothing, mosquito nets and coil and mattresses, and a large sum of money for their upkeep.

This is a sad day for all of us, Dr Bawumia stated. On behalf of President Akufo-Addo and the entire government, I wish to convey our condolences to the families of the bereaved and wish the injured a speedy recovery. We will take the necessary steps and learn the necessary lessons from this disaster, but we are more concerned now about your welfare.

We will be fully engaged in bringing relief to all the persons involved, and while we continue to assess the extent of damage, we have made provision for your medical and other bills.

Government will take up, fully, the cost of medical care for all the persons affected by this disaster. As I speak, officials from the Western Region office of the State Housing Company are on their way to assess the extent of damage to buildings and work with the mining companies and other stakeholders to provide you with new accommodation.

Once again, we wish the injured speedy recovery, and eternal rest for the departed. Government will do all in its power to bring a measure of relief for your loss, Vice President Bawumia added.
All seven suspects who were arrested by the Police in connection with the violence in Nima, Accra earlier this week have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

On Tuesday, a clash between two gangs in Nima resulted in gun shots that left several people injured.

Subsequently, after the Police took charge of matters, some seven individuals were arrested for their alleged involvement in the clash that left residents fearing for their lives.

Appearing before a Circuit Court today, Friday, January 21, 2022, all seven suspects have pleaded not guilty to the charges filed against them.

The suspects include Abdul Gafaru Mahama (A3), Atarouwa Bassam, (A6), Abdul Mumuni Gariba, (A7), and Mohammed Saabi Barinu alias Namer.

The others are (A8), Bashiru Ganiru, A9, Illiasu Salim, (A10) and Issa Seidu, (A11).

Lawyers of the suspects argued that their clients were good people who found themselves in wrong places at the wrong time.

Although a plea for bail was made to the Court, the Prosecution led by Chief Inspector Dennis Terkpetey opposed the bail and argued that there is so much tension in town which ought to be managed properly.

Having listened to both parties, Her Honour Mrs. Rosemond Baah Torsu who presided over the case rejected the plea for bail.

She charged the Prosecution to investigate the issues of Alibi presented by the suspects and report back to Court.

The case has been adjourned to February 1, 2022, with all seven suspects remanded into Police custody.
21.01.2022 LISTEN

The timely intervention of the fire team quenched a fire outbreak which nearly cause an explosion at a Gas Filling station in Akwatia, the District capital of the Demkyembour in the Eastern Region.

According to reports, the Gas Filling station which is near the Otifilic Enterprise caught fire on Friday afternoon.

Its unclear what led to the cause of the fire, but lucky enough the tanks were empty when the incident occurred.

A local reporter who confirmed the incident to DGN Online explained that the fire started in the place where they pump the gas but the timely intervention of the Ghana National Fire Service rushed to the scene on time to prevent the fire from spreading.

He said the situation has since been placed under control as the residents around are engaging in their normal activities.

DGN online
The United Cadres Front (UCF), Tema has urged the minority caucus of Members of Parliament (MPs) not to relent in their fight against the controversial 1.75 per cent e-levy contained in the 2022 budget.

The UCF, Tema, in a statement signed by its Chairman, Mr Oliver Agbenyo-Ahiafor and copied to the Ghana News Agency commended the Minority MPs for opposing the bill.

They indicated that as Parliament would resume sitting on January 25, 2022, the United Cadres Front wishes to urge our minority caucus on and encourage them to do more to fight for the ordinary Ghanaian, the coconut seller, pure water seller, a truck pusher who struggles daily to make a living.

It stated that Ghanaians as well as mobile money vendors nationwide have raised questions and opposed the 1.75 per cent E-levy tax embedded in the 2022 Economic Policy and Budget as it would add up to the hardships people faced.

It added that the government had run out of borrowing options as according to UCF, currently, Ghana's debt to its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was about an inch to 80 per cent, therefore it was not true that the intent to introduce the e-levy was mainly to develop the country.

The Cadres suggested to the government cut down on its spending and the wastage in the system instead of introducing the e-levy as citizens were already facing hardships in Ghana.

They said it was unfortunate that the government that promised to move Ghana from taxation to production, among others was introducing more taxies and levies instead of reducing citizens' hardships.

GNA
21.01.2022 LISTEN

Sheikh Abdullah Otito Achuliwor, a stalwart of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Upper East Region has denied knowledge of posters and banners of him circulating in the Navrongo Central Constituency.

The posters suggest his intention to contest the seat in the 2024 Parliamentary primaries.

Unequivocally, I wish to state that I have no knowledge of the source of those posters, nor have I sanctioned the circulation of same on any platform. I have no knowledge of the said group that is purported to be working for me, and wish to caution them to stop their anti-party activities, he said.

Sheikh Achuliwor in a signed statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga said he did not doubt that the act was perpetrated by detractors who did not wish well for the NPP, particularly in the Navrongo Central Constituency.

I will like to send strong caution to the faceless persons or group of persons behind this diabolic agenda to desist from it or I will be compelled to take legal action against persons caught or properly identified for engaging in these actions.

The Sheikh noted that every true member or supporter of the NPP would be familiar with, and respect the constitution and leadership of the Party, especially the recently issued guidelines to regulate the conduct of members including potential aspirants.

He said no persons or group of persons who have the welfare of the NPP at heart would impugn the provisions of its time-tested constitution and flout the guidelines as issued.

He said it was expected that Any person or group of persons who believe in me and genuinely seek to promote me for anything very honourable, like putting myself up to serve the good and cherished people of Navrongo Central would first engage me to understand my position and opinion and properly seek my advice and approval before taking such actions."

I have neither engaged, nor have I been engaged by anybody or group on the 2024 Parliamentary primaries of our Party and so have no knowledge of the activities of the said persons or group", he emphasised, and said they "have thus resorted to the disingenuous strategy of sowing seeds of discord in the Party for their diabolic gains."

Sheikh Achuliwor said he was much focused on helping the NPP government led by President Akuffo-Addo to deliver on its mandate, adding that it was his priority to continue to work with all relevant and genuine stakeholders in the constituency, Regional and National structures, to unite, reflect, re-strategize and recapture the Navrongo Central seat.

He noted that the NPP as a family was still mourning the demise of Mr Joseph Kofi Adda, the former Minister of Aviation and Member of Parliament (MP) for Navrongo Central, and was focused on helping to give the late Mr Adda a befitting farewell.

May the all-merciful Allah grant Janatal Firdaus to Mr Joseph Kofi Adda, Mr John Setuni Achuliwor and all departed patriots whose toil and sacrifices made the NPP what it is today in the Navrongo Central Constituency, he said.

GNA
Six Chinese nationals have been arrested during an operation by the Operation Halt taskforce who were clamping down on illegal mining activities.

The Chinese nationals were picked up at a mining site in the Amansie Central District of the Ashanti Region and handed over to the Ghana Immigration Service.

Since that is not our area, we handed them over to the Ghana Immigration to handle them, the General Commanding Officer for the Central Command, Brigadier General Joseph Aphour, said to Citi News.

Three other persons who posed as military officers were also arrested at a mining site, where they allegedly demanded money from the illegal miners.

Responding to the arrest of the three persons, Brigadier General Joseph Aphour said, I believe it is a wrong thing for people to be posing as soldiers and collecting money from people.

The team burnt about 50 excavators and other equipment used by the miners for their illegal activities.

Brigadier General Joseph Aphour further stated that the exercise will be extended to other parts of the country in the coming days.

He assured that the Operation Halt taskforce will continue to work to protect the environment.

I believe that we will chase them to wherever they are and once the Military High Command gives us the mandate, we will sustain this operation as much as we can to ensure that our land, our river bodies and forests are cleared.

We will continue to press hard until we flush out these illegal miners from our rivers and our forest reserves, Brigadier General Joseph Aphour said.

---citinewsroom
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has asked government to provide every needed emergency health and disaster relief to support victims of the explosion in Appiatse, near Bogoso in the Western Region.

The party says it says it joins other well-meaning Ghanaians to express its deepest condolences to the families of all persons who lost their lives in the tragic event on Thursday, January 20, 2022.

The NDC wants government to do everything in its power to help victims through this trying time.

That said, the party hereby makes a passionate appeal to all Ghanaians, and government in particular to leave no stone unturned in mobilizing the necessary emergency health and disaster relief needed to bring succour to the injured and all displaced persons, the press release signed by National Chairman Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo has said.

It adds, With a reported estimate of 95% of all households in Apiate reduced to rubble due to the impact of this disaster, it stands to reason that Government must double-up its efforts in finding temporary shelter for all displaced persons while urgent steps are taken to reconstruct the town and bring normalcy back to the lives of the good people of Apiate.

Read the full NDC press release on Thursdays explosion below:

PRESS RELEASE

21st January, 2022

For Immediate Release:

NDC EXTENDS SYMPATHIES TO VICTIMS OF YESTERDAYS EXPLOSION INCIDENT AT APIATE.

The National Democratic Congress has learned with deep sorrow, the unfortunate news of an incident of explosion in the Western Region town of Apiate.

The sad event which occurred yesterday, 20th January, 2022, is reported to have resulted in unimaginable loss, including the death of seventeen (17) persons, while dozens sustained varying degrees of injuries with many of them in critical condition.

The NDC joins other well-meaning Ghanaians first in expressing our deepest condolences to the families of all persons who lost their lives through this tragic event. The party further takes this opportunity to request the healing mercies of the Almighty God for a speedy recovery of all injured persons. No one could have foreseen a calamity of such magnitude befalling the good of Apiate at a time such as this.

That said, the party hereby makes a passionate appeal to all Ghanaians, and government in particular to leave no stone unturned in mobilizing the necessary emergency health and disaster relief needed to bring succor to the injured and all displaced persons. With a reported estimate of 95% of all households in Apiate reduced to rubble due to the impact of this disaster, it stands to reason that Government must double-up its efforts in finding temporary shelter for all displaced persons while urgent steps are taken to reconstruct the town and bring normalcy back to the lives of the good people of Apiate.

The leadership of the NDC has suspended its ongoing outreach program in the Western Region and has directed the regional leadership of the party to visit and commiserate with the victims of this disaster as soon as possible. May the good Lord continue to heal the injured and comfort the bereaved.

Signed

Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo

(National Chairman)
The United Nations said Friday that it is investigating the alleged killing of dozens of people in the Central African Republic last week by CAR forces and mercenaries of the Russian private military company Wagner.

More than 30 civilians were reportedly killed, some by stray bullets, in the January 16-17 operation near the town of Bria that targeted the Union for Peace rebel group, according to UN officials speaking anonymously.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the UN mission known as MINUSCA in the country received reports of the incident, involving CAR troops and "other security personnel."

"We are currently confirming the number of casualties and displacement," Dujarric said.

He said that MINUSCA had dispatched a human rights team accompanied by security personnel to the incident area, and that it "continues to assess the situation, ensuring necessary measures to be taken to protect civilians."

A military source in the country suggested the fighting could still be ongoing.

"Central African forces and the Russians are committing a massacre," the source told AFP, declining to be identified.

"There have been summary executions and we are talking about 50 deaths," the person said.

'Grave abuses'

Albert Yaloke Mokpeme, spokesman for the CAR presidency, told AFP that he had "no knowledge of this attack."

But in mid-2021, UN experts deployed to CAR expressed strong concerns over reports of "grave human rights abuses" by Russian mercenaries who are contracted to support government forces.

The Wagner group is reputed to be close to the Kremlin, and critics say it takes orders from the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Russia, though, has rejected criticism and claimed at the time that the group involved only "instructors" for the CAR military.

Moscow has said it has some 1,135 "unarmed trainers" in the country. But local independent groups, France and the United Nations say at least some are from the Wagner group, which now has an armed presence in several African countries including Libya and Mali.

At the last meeting of the UN Security Council on the conflict in the Central African Republic, the United States demanded that Moscow investigate the abuses blamed on the Russians.

The UN experts group, around a dozen people sent to monitor an arms embargo on the conflict-torn country, has not been functioning since August 31.

Russia has blocked a renewal of their mandate, claiming their makeup is tilted toward the West and does not reflect true geographic diversity.

On Friday diplomats said the block remains in place, and Western officials believe Russia sees it beneficial to prevent a renewal of the group's mission.
21.01.2022 LISTEN

Minister for Communication and Digitalisation Hon. Ursula Owusu Ekuful has hinted that Government of Ghana is keen on contributing to curbing cybercrime in Ghana and the African continent.

She said government has taken a number of steps to create awareness and build the capacity of relevant stakeholders including the criminal justice sector to respond to cybercrimes and cybersecurity incidents.

In a statement read on her behalf at the opening session of a 4-day Regional Conference by the Commonwealth Secretariat involving 12 Commonwealth African countries, Cybersecurity Advisor, Dr. Albert Antwi Boasiako, said steps include working closely with the Council of Europe through the GLACY+ Project and the ECOWAS Commission through the OCWAR-C Project.

About three thousand five hundred (3,500) criminal justice officials, including Judges, Prosecutors and Investigators have been trained on cybercrime and electronic evidence in the last five years as a result of the initiatives.

Therefore, this conference has come very timely to contribute to the ongoing capacity development activities to improve the domestic, regional and global response to cybercrimes.

Dr. Antwi Boasiako noted that in the last five years as part of governments commitment at the regional level, government has invested in a number of digital infrastructures and services across all sectors of the economy.

Our focus on cybersecurity development in the last few years has placed us 3rd on the African continent and 43rd globally on the latest Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) of the ITU.

He assured governments commitment to improving investment in respect to cybersecurity issues in the subsequent years.

He however bemoaned the reluctance by the majority of African countries to ratify two highly important conventions thus, the Malabo Convention and the Budapest convention.

He further urged that It is imperative that African countries see these conventions as critical tools for international cooperation."

Ghanas Chief Justice, His Lordship Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, noted that the increase in cybercrime in Sub-Saharan Africa is as a result of the inadequate resources for local law enforcement agencies and government security services to combat the menace.

It is essential for law enforcement, prosecutors and the judiciary, as an arm of government to modify the way we work to function more effectively to cope with the new realities of the cyber-world. Law enforcement authorities must be able to strengthen their capacities to investigate cybercrime and secure electronic evidence which today, is admissible in the court of law.

He therefore underscored the need for a rethink about the country's laws and also understand that our daily lives in this electronic age should reflect the changes used in cyberattacks which takes different forms.

However, Justice Anin-Yeboah, emphasized that proper and effective legal frameworks must be built in our respective countries, to make the cases of such crimes unattractive to perpetrators who are all out to destabilize our countries.

Head of the Rule of Law at the Commonwealth Secretariat, Dr. Tawanda Hondora, said the growing incidence of cybercrime requires countries to build effective laws, policies, and international cooperation frameworks.

He disclosed that they have been providing technical assistance to many Commonwealth member countries especially in Africa and the Caribbean region to help them strengthen their cyber frameworks, including their ability to deter and investigate cybercrime and ensure effective redress for victims of cybercrime.

He said, Through this and other conferences, we seek to raise increased awareness on the scale, nature and impact, and crucial solutions, to the growing problem of cybercrime including here in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Tawanda Hondora, however expressed his deepest appreciation to the United Kingdom for its support in funding the project as part of its Cyber Security and Tech Conflict, Stability and Security programme.

The conference held at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra spanned from Monday 17th January, 2022, to 20th January, 2022, is purposed to critically chart a way forward on addressing cybercrime in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The conference drew experts from across Sub-Saharan Africa, including investigators, prosecutors and senior judiciary, as well as Attorneys General and Authorities engaged in combating cybercrime, to enhance cyber-capability and resilience of regional authorities in western Africa in support of the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Cyber Declaration, in London 2018.
The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has expressed sympathy to victims of the Bogoso-Appiate explosion on Thursday, January 20.

We are shocked by the devastation caused to lives and properties at Bogoso-Appiate and the surrounding communities, the association said in a statement.

On behalf of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the GMA, we express our deepest condolences to families that have lost loved ones to this unfortunate event.

The association also commended the National Emergency Response Team and volunteers for their rescue efforts following the incident.

We are grateful to all Medical Doctors and other healthcare workers, especially those at the Tarkwa Municipal Hospital and other health facilities, for providing care for the injured.

So far, the government has pegged the death toll at 13 following the explosion that was caused by a collision between a vehicle transporting explosives to a mining site and a motorcycle.

The truck that was involved in the explosion was heading to a Chirano Gold Mines.

According to the mining company, the truck belongs to MAXAM, a mining services contractor.

---citinewsroom
The U.S. oil and gas industry provides jobs for 12.3 million Americans. Oil was the fifth biggest contributor to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2021. Drilling, refining, manufacturing, shipping, and other aspects of the industry are expected to work seamlessly. But despite the rigorous safety standards imposed by regulatory authorities, accidents still happen. The December 2021 ExxonMobil explosion and chemical fire in Baytown, Houston refinery is a case in point. Four people were injured in this incident.

Slips And Falls

Oilfield workers accomplish their jobs while on elevated rigs or while surrounded by huge machinery. There are instances when workers may miss a step while climbing stairs or slide while walking. These may result in broken bones or head trauma. In the case of the recent ExxonMobil fire, while not in an oilfield, two of the injured workers sustained head injuries and fractures from falling. They have retained the services of an oilfield accident lawyer and sued ExxonMobil for its negligence to furnish safety equipment.

Fire And Chemical Burns

Surrounded by flammable materials in the oilfield means the likelihood of explosions. Oilfield workers can suffer from first or second-degree burns. Pressurized gasses can burst out and cause a fire when ignited. One of the ways to prevent the breakdown of machinery or containers is to keep them well-maintained by performing regular maintenance check-ups and resolving any problems as soon as possible. The same goes for oil refineries. All four injured workers in the ExxonMobil fire suffered burns.

Gas Poisoning

Hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and methane are some of the toxic gasses used in oil drilling. Exposure and inhalation of these gasses over an extended period of time are harmful to the workers. It is vital that everyone working in the oilfield is wearing goggles, gloves, and respirators. Prolonged exposure to these chemicals can lead to anemia, weight loss, cardiovascular, respiratory, and neurological problems.

Prevention Is Better Than Cure

Oilfields by their very nature are hazardous, but accidents can be circumvented. Always prioritize safety. Make sure that workers are wearing the proper equipment that will keep them safe and protect them. Give proper training. Everyone in the oilfield must know the safety rules and have a clear idea of the layout. Hanging maps and identifiers in strategic places will provide the right directions and where everything is. Put up signs for fire extinguishers, alarms, and other safety gear so they can easily be found when needed. Work together with local emergency responders. If possible, take them on a tour around the work area. This will give them an idea of where to go when they are needed.

Be proactive and take the necessary steps for safety and protection. Don't wait for an accident to happen that can cause injuries, or worse, fatalities.
Rev Dr Joyce Aryee, Founder of Salt and Light Ministries, and a business executive has called on Public Relations practitioners and communicators to protect Ghana's hard-earned reputation.

She said Ghana remained an endowed nation, yet recent events continued to dim the gleam, and that it was time to protect the reputation and maintain its relevance.

Madam Aryee was addressing the 2022 National PR and Communications Summit of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) Ghana, which is on the theme Truth Well Told and Shared, and which is being held at the Volta Hotel at Akosombo in the Eastern Region.

She said the PR professional remained part of the development agenda and was expected to help enhance the nation's progress.

We are all in different areas of the Ghanaian economy, but as Ghanaians and as PR practitioners, we must make sure that the reputation of Ghana is well kept.

This is the only country we have. If you go to the UK and you get citizenship, they will call you a Ghanaian British. If you go to the United States, they will call you a Ghanaian American. You can never run away from your 'Ghanaianess.' It's a beautiful country. I think it is the Eden that God promised. It has everything- minerals, beautiful rivers, and nice people. But gradually we are destroying it.

We are destroying it with our words. We are destroying it with our actions. The truth about Ghana must be told and each truth about Ghana involves you and it involves me. And wherever we are working, that should be one of the most important things- Ghana's reputation, she stated.

The renowned preacher and longtime member of the IPR added that the profession's key altars of relationship, reputation, and relevance must be highly considered in correcting the nation's current dispensation, which she claimed was becoming increasingly tribalistic.

Ms Fatimatu Abubakar, Deputy Minister of Information, who opened the summit, spoke of the government's adoption of several PR tools to deepen its relationship with the citizenry.

She said there had been most visible in the Ministry of Information's efforts at enhancing the flow of information to and from the public, which includes town hall meetings, and Ministers' press briefing series, among a host of public and media engagements.

The Deputy Minister noted the IPR Ghana's continuous support to the Government, and commended particularly, its role in the successful implementation recently, of a novel nationwide media capacity enhancement program, whose essence was to sharpen the media's support towards the developmental agenda.

Mawuko Afadzinu, President of the Institute, said as per the theme, the summit would reflect on the responsibility of the PR practitioner in helping shape public discourse closer to national development.

He appealed to PR practitioners to keep themselves updated through the times and the technological advancements, leveraging the positives to remain relevant.

About 70 new members were inducted into the Institute.

GNA
The operations of stone quarry companies is having dire effects on agricultural activities in the Awutu Senya District, Mr Joseph Odame, the District Director of Agriculture has stated.

He said "monster trucks" belonging to the quarry operators had converted farmlands into access lanes, while many farmers had been displaced by the impact of rock blasts in various communities.

"I must be sincere that the activities of stone quarry have really affected agriculture. Estate developers and community expansion are also taking part of the farming lands. And in all of these cases, the size of farmlands have been reduced," he lamented.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Odame stressed the need to consciously support peasant farmers to succeed.

"Without food, man cannot survive. We want to make sure that their activities will not be disturbed," he added.

As an agrarian district, Awutu Senya was the potential to feed a significant portion of the nation, citing the efforts of its farmers over the years.

"In 2020, out of the five national farmer awardees from the Central Region, three of them were from Awutu Senya. That shows clearly the potential of the district," the agriculture director stated.

He said the district was making efforts to engage the quarry operators as part of measures to resolve the challenges.

"We want to have a win-win situation. These quarries have to get buffers which prevent flying stones from causing harm to people, the agriculture should also be considered", he said.

Touching on some positive achievements of the district, Mr Odame indicated that government's various flagship programmes had given agriculture some boost nonetheless.

"The Planting for Food and Jobs, Planting for Exports and Rural Development, and the Rearing for Food and Jobs have improved agriculture by giving our farmers access to cheaper agricultural inputs," he noted.

In a separate interview, the District Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr Razak Ibrahim, warned quarry operators against any breach of the various standard quarry practices which he said was causing harm.

He observed that most of the quarry sites, contrary to the quarry regulations, failed to inform NADMO before blasting rocks.

"The consequences are what people come to report to us. Let the institutions know what you are doing so that we can protect your business and protect the people.

"I can't protect your business when your business is killing people," he said and further noted that many quarry sites lacked buffer zones, adding that "land owners are taking advantage to sell those portions to the ignorant public".

He warned that defaulting companies would sooner than later begin to lose their operation permits.

GNA
The Police have arrested one Apostle Ebenezer Boahene, chairman of the Christian Divine Church (CDC), in Tarkwa, for allegedly engaging in financial malpractices.

He has been accused of diverting church funds into the accounts of a private company which he created with his cronies.

He was taken to the Tarkwa Divisional command where his statement was taken.

Speaking to the media after the arrest, the Tarkwa Divisional Police Commander, ASP Andrew George Kuma said the Christian Divine Church had a leadership problem which was at the court.

The complainant of the case, who is a presiding Elder and a member of the National Finance Board, Elder David Agyekum indicated that the fact that it was a church organization did not warrant him to take the law into his own hands to apply funds meant for the church anyhow.

Meanwhile, Apostle Ebenezer Boahene has been granted a self-recognizance bail.

GNA
Officials of the Aseda Hospital at Bogoso have praised the timely presence of ambulances for the rescue and treatment of the victims of the devastating explosion which occurred at Appiatse, close to Bogoso, on Thursday.

According to the doctors and nurses, the 11 ambulances which came from the adjoining districts to support the victims were critical to saving lives, and providing timely medical care to the several dozen people who got injured after a vehicle conveying mining explosives collided with a motorbike, burst into flames and exploded.

The ambulances were procured under Governments innovative One Constituency One Ambulance programme, under which over 300 ambulances were purchased to re-tool the National Ambulance Service and make healthcare more accessible to the ordinary Ghanaian.

Taking Vice President Bawumia and other members of a Government delegation round the beds of some victims of the blast on Friday, Administrator of the Health Centre, Mad Elizabeth Abaka said the ambulances were life-saving, facilitating the stabilization and swift transportation of victims to health facilities, including Aseda, and commended government for the initiative.

Addressing the media after the visit, Vice President Bawumia thanked, on behalf of government, the doctors and nurses at the facility for the fantastic job they continue to do to save lives.

Their early intervention yesterday has helped a lot. We want to assure all those patients in there and their families that Government is going to be responsible, fully, for all their medical bills and anything else associated with their recovery. So everything else you let us know, he assured.

The Vice President also thanked the emergency response teams, the Ghana Ambulance Service, Police, Fire Service, NADMO, Ghana Armed Forces, health personnel, security and people within the town and adjoining communities who came to the aid of the injured.
A fuel tanker discharging fuel at Kaase near Asokwa in Kumasi, Ashanti Region caught fire on Friday, January 21, 2022.

This has been announced by the Ghana Police Service in an official statement released via its Facebook page.

Today January 21, 2022, at about 3:00 pm a fuel tanker that was discharging fuel to some tricycles at Kaase caught fire, part of the Police statement reads.

Although the Police reports that no person died, it confirms that a few people unfortunately sustained some injuries.

The tanker driver and the tricycle rider all managed to escape the incident with no injuries.

The Police are currently conducting investigations into todays incident to ascertain what actually caused the fire.

Find more in the attachment below:


The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has directed that the academic calendar of public schools be reversed from the semester system to the trimester system.

The Ghana Education Service (GES) on Thursday, January 13 announced new dates for reopening of public schools from kindergarten to senior high schools.

The dates implied that all basic schools would run a semester system, a decision which came as a surprise to major teacher unions.

Therefore, on the eve of reopening of schools across the country, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Assocaition of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Coalition of Concenerd teachers, Ghana (CCT-GH) and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU)  forming the Unions in Education  kicked against the move citing no knowledge about the decision.

Such a major policy change should have attracted a wide consultation and therefore find both the pronouncement and the document offensive and takes exception to them, they had said.

On Friday, January 21, a statement issued by the Ministry of Education and signed by Press Secretary Felix Baidoo said: After further consultation on the issue, the Honourable Minister for Education has directed that the calendar for kindergarten to Junior High School for the current academic year should revert to the Trimester system.

As a result, the first term will run for 12 weeks from Tuesday, January 18 to Thursday, April 14.

There will be about three weeks of vacation ahead of the second term, which begins from Tuesday, May 10 till Thursday, August 18.

The final term will run from Tuesday, September 13 to Thursday, December 22.

---3news.com
One of my first tasks, as branch manager, was to make courtesy calls on the most important corporate clients of the branch to introduce myself and establish good connections. My main point of contact with these clients was the head of finance because he was the person who dealt with banks and doled out the business.

One such person was Mr Ravindran, the finance director of XYZ Breweries, an old and familiar name which owned and marketed several leading brands of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL), viz. whiskey, gin, and vodka.

XYZ Breweries was a very cash-rich company. Its brands ruled the market in eastern India.

In those days, liquor could not be advertised and surrogate advertising, i.e., selling sodas or mineral water with the same brand names and advertising them as non-liquor items, had not yet been invented.

As a result, it was virtually impossible to introduce a new brand in the market because the customers would get to know of its existence only at the liquor shops which had been threatened that if they sold any new brand, they would lose the dealership of the lucrative XYZ Breweries brands.

XYZs market position was unassailable and zero advertising costs plus controlled prices meant that profits came rolling in.

The company was managed by an autocratic managing director (MD), assisted by a coterie of loyal subordinates. The principal owner was a British multinational corporation (MNC), which was content to let XYZ run on its own, as long as the dividends kept coming. The MD, therefore, had absolute sway over the company and had the board under his thumb.

But trouble was brewing.

A corporate raider was emerging in India - Naresh Advani. He had already swallowed several old-era companies with weak management. His recent acquisition of a tyre manufacturer, a name which even a child knew, had shaken up the corporate world.

It was rumoured that his next target was XYZ Breweries and that he was being financed by some foreign bank, generally believed to be my bank.

This was the background when I went to meet Mr Ravindran at the majestic office of XYZ Breweries.

I was surprised at the hostile reception that awaited me.

His first salvo was, How much money has your London office lent to Naresh Advani?

I claimed ignorance, but Mr Ravindran was not convinced. He continued in this vein for some more time.

As you must have figured, the meeting did not go well at all. I left Mr Ravindrans office somewhat shaken and decided to lie low as far as XYZ Breweries was concerned.

It turned out that Mr Ravindran was right.

Our London branch had, indeed, lent millions of pounds to Mr Advani with which he bought control of XYZ Breweries from the British MNC, by presenting a picture of a huge capital gain instead of just annual dividendsa boon to the current chief executive officer (CEO), who was hoping to have his term extended.

The MD of XYZ fought tooth and nail, but to no avail. Within a short time, Mr Advani wrested control of XYZ Breweries, ousted the MD and placed his brother Paresh in his place. Paresh Advani quickly fired all the top executives, marked as the MDs chamchas, including Mr Ravindran.

Unfortunately, Paresh was a young and gullible guy with very little idea of business in general, let alone the complexities of running a liquor business in India.

The company went into disarray, profits began to shrink and Paresh came under severe pressure from his brother Naresh (then very busy with other corporate raids) to fix the problems, or else

In desperation, he looked around for an expert to help him run XYZ Breweries. The man most qualified was none other than Mr Ravindran, who was cooling his heels in Madras (now Chennai), trying to set up a consultancy.

Mr Ravindran was appointed, or should I say re-appointed, as the finance director of XYZ Breweries.

The empire had returned!

Within a short time, he cleared up the mess of the last few months. Next, he persuaded Paresh to launch some new ideas for expansion which the previous MD had ignored. They clicked and the companys profits soared. Paresh was delighted with his find and even Naresh Advani was pleased.

Now it was time for the empire to strike back.

With the connivance of his mentor, the deposed MD, Mr Ravindran hatched a plan. He slowly sold Paresh the notion that he was a mighty corporate honcho in his own right and no longer needed to live under his brothers shadow. He could wrest control of XYZ Breweries from Naresh and leverage the companys strength to build his own empire.

Unfortunately for Naresh Advani, he had neglected to iron-clad the mandate under which he had given the company to his trusted brother to run on his behalf. In a few swift and diabolical moves, Mr Ravindran made Paresh the El Supremo of XYZ Breweries and Naresh was out.

Naresh Advani was not a man to ignore such an insult, especially from his beloved chota bhai (younger brother). He launched a vicious legal battle against Paresh, who, in turn, with Mr Ravindrans wily advice, fought back. The bhai-bhai battle raged on.

In the meantime, our London branch was getting restless. Naresh Advani had over-extended himself in attempting more and more acquisitions, some of which had failed. Cash was tight, particularly because the chunky dividends from XYZ Breweries had vanished. The instalments on the loan given by our London branch fell seriously overdue.

The shares of XYZ Breweries had been pledged to our London branch as collateral for the loan. When Nareshs time was up, the shares were sold to a competing liquor baron. Both Naresh and Paresh were out of XYZ Breweries.

The deposed boss had got his revenge.
In a significant judgement, the Supreme Court has held that inherited property of a female Hindu dying issueless and intestate will either go to the heirs of her parents or husband.

In an order, a division bench of justice S Abdul Nazeer and justice Krishna Murari says if a female Hindu dies intestate without leaving any issue, then the property inherited by her from her father or mother would go to the heirs of her father, whereas the property inherited from her husband or father-in-law would go to the heirs of the husband.

The basic aim of the legislature in enacting section 15(2) of the Hindu Succession Act is to ensure that inherited property of a female Hindu dying issueless and intestate, goes back to the source, it says.

According to the bench, the main scheme of this Act is to establish complete equality between males and females regarding property rights. The rights of the female were declared absolute, altogether abolishing all notions of a limited estate.

The Act brought about changes in the law of succession among Hindus and gave rights which were, till then, unknown about womens property, the SC says, adding, The legislative intent of enacting section 14 (I) of the Act was to remedy the limitation of a Hindu woman who could not claim an absolute interest in the properties inherited by her but only had a life interest in the estate so inherited.

Section 15(1)(d) provides that failing all heirs of the female specified in entries (a)-(c), but not until then, and all her property howsoever acquired will devolve upon the heirs of the father. The devolution upon the fathers heirs should be in the same order and according to the same rules as would have applied if the property had belonged to the father and he had died intestate in respect thereof immediately after her death.

The Act applies to every person, who is a Hindu by religion in any of its forms including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or a follower of the Brahmo, Prarthana or Arya Samaj and even to any person who is Buddhist, Jain, or Sikh by religion excepting one who is Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion, the division bench says.

On 12 December 1938, one Marappa Gounder had bought one property through court auction. Marappa had one brother, Ramasamy Gounder. After the death of Marappa, his property was inherited by his daughter Kuppayee Ammal. She died in 1967, after which all the five children of Ramasamy Gounder, namely, Gurunatha Gounder, Thangammal, Ramayeeammal, Elayammal and Nallammal, claimed that they are the heirs in equal of Kuppayee and entitled to one-fifth share each.

PV Yogeswaran, counsel for the appellant, submitted that under the Hindu Law, a daughter is not disqualified from inheriting the separate property of her father and when a male Hindu dies without a son leaving only a daughter, his separate property would devolve upon the daughter through succession and the property will not devolve upon brothers son through survivorship and the Courts below have wrongly applied the principles of Hindu Law and dismissed the suit.

KK Mani, the counsel representing respondents, contended that the property in question was purchased by Marappa Gounder in court auction sale out of the family funds and thus, it was joint property, and on his death, since he had no male heir, the defendant as a coparcener succeeded to the estate.

The bench noted that the right of a widow or daughter to inherit the self-acquired property or share received in a partition of a coparcenary property of a Hindu male dying intestate is well recognised not only under the old customary Hindu law but also by various judicial pronouncements.

The Act lays down a uniform and comprehensive system of inheritance and applies inter-alia to persons governed by the Mitakshara and Dayabhaga Schools and those governed previously by the Murumakkattayam, Aliyasantana, and Nambudri Laws, the SC added.

The SC observed that in the case at hand, since the property in question was admittedly the self-acquired property of Marappa Gounder despite the family being in a state of jointness upon his death intestate, his sole surviving daughter Kupayee Ammal, will inherit the same by inheritance and the property shall not devolve by survivorship.

In the present case since the succession of the suit properties opened in 1967 upon the death of Kupayee Ammal, the 1956 Act shall apply, and thereby Ramasamy Gounders daughters being class-I heirs of their father too shall be heirs and entitled to one-fifth share each in the suit properties, it says.

While setting aside verdicts passed by Madras High Court and the trial court, the SC says, Unfortunately, neither the trial court nor the High Court adverted itself to the settled legal propositions which are squarely applicable in the facts and circumstances of the case.
Rajasthan, the state that steered the notable campaign out of which was born the Right to Information (RTI) Act, has hardly lain contented. Two years back, it created a formidable citizen pressure group, which spurred the state government to create the Jan Soochna portal which displays information that ought to be voluntarily disclosed by public authorities under section 4 of the RTI Act, for its 13 departments and 35 government schemes.

Since the last month or so, a visible social movement demanding the passage of a public accountability law, is gaining strength. As Nikhil Dey, who is steering the campaign says, This law would further empower people with the right to file complaints; participate in the redress of their complaints; have their complaints redressed within a clear time frame; escalate their complaints in case of unsatisfactory redress through an independent appellate process; and participate in social audits of government schemes and institutions.

The Jawabdehi Yatra by the Soochna Evam Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan, as it is termed, began on 21st December from Beawar, where the RTI campaign was born and was to travel through all the 33 districts of Rajasthan, until the Omicron wave halted the rallies. However, it now continues through cyberspace. Citizens have now been asked to file their grievances on the state governments website (Rajasthan Sampark  The Jawabdehi Yatra by the Soochna Evam Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan, as it is termed, began on 21st December from Beawar, where the RTI campaign was born and was to travel through all the 33 districts of Rajasthan, until the Omicron wave halted the rallies. However, it now continues through cyberspace. Citizens have now been asked to file their grievances on the state governments website (Rajasthan Sampark  http://sampark.rajasthan.gov.in ).

Mr Dey says, Over 2,500 grievances on various issues that directly affect the common man have been filed so far in all the 33 districts. This way, we are building up pressure to make the government bring in the law.

The grievance applications range from basic issues of survival such as rations, pensions and work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MGNREGA) to the most basic services such as electricity, water, roads, education and health.

Assault on RTI activists is another prime reason why the public accountability law is seen as a hope, though, after its implementation, it would need constant monitoring by the non-government organisation (NGO). Mr Dey says, During the course of the Yatra, the most disturbing incident took place, of Amra Ram, an RTI activist from Barmer district, being brutally and viciously attacked for raising questions and demanding answers on irregular implementation of public schemes. The incident spurred us to ensure incorporation of adequate provisions within the Accountability Bill that would provide protection to all whistle-blowers facing threats and intimidation. Assault on RTI activists is another prime reason why the public accountability law is seen as a hope, though, after its implementation, it would need constant monitoring by the non-government organisation (NGO). Mr Dey says, During the course of the Yatra, the most disturbing incident took place, of Amra Ram, an RTI activist from Barmer district, being brutally and viciously attacked for raising questions and demanding answers on irregular implementation of public schemes. The incident spurred us to ensure incorporation of adequate provisions within the Accountability Bill that would provide protection to all whistle-blowers facing threats and intimidation.

So, what is the Rajasthan Public Accountability Bill all about? It has its origins in the legal provisions under the Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011 and the Right to Hearing Act of government of Rajasthan. Says Mr Dey, All this is brought together in an interwoven legal framework. The architecture for this law is similar to the RTI. The objective is to strengthen the robust citizen centric framework so that such a law could, in a true sense of the term, be RTI Part II; taking us from transparency to accountability to the people, within Indias democracy. The public movement aims to finally see its implementation at the state as well as the Central level.

Confirms Dey, A government committee on the Bill has submitted its report in February 2020, and the campaign has put the government on notice to have the law enacted in the upcoming budget session. The Abhiyan has spent the last three years in continuous dialogue with the government to sort out peoples issues. While some have been sorted, passing of this law is critical to systematic resolution of problems arising from improper implementation. By making citizens partners in the implementation framework, we are confident that it will help the administration serve the people better and empower people to democratically secure their basic services and entitlements.

In Maharashtra, social reformer Anna Hazare had campaigned for a long time for public accountability by government babus through a time-bound commitment to address citizen issues.

Thus was born the Government Servants Regulation Of Transfers and Prevention Of Delay In Discharge Of Official Duties. Rajasthans endeavour is even more powerful and citizen-centric.

The Rajasthan Public Accountability Bill attempts to lay out a practical framework of accountability to the people. Architecture for grievance redress Citizen charters and job charts: Public authorities and officials are required to disclose a statement of their departments as well as individual obligations and responsibilities for the effective provisioning of public services. This will take place through the notification of citizen charters and individual job charts. All public officials are mandated by their departments and superior authorities to carry out their duties as per the citizen charter and job chart. Scope of grievance: The citizen can file a grievance on account of a violation of the citizen charter, job chart, failure in the functioning of a public authority in terms of its functions, duties and obligations, violation of a provision as listed in a law, policy, programme, order or scheme of the government. Registration of grievance: The citizen will be able to register their grievance with a grievance redress officer (GRO) in every public office for every department at the state, district, block and gram panchayat; a helpline; an information and facilitation centre present in every gram panchayat and ward. The GRO will be the officer who has supervisory control over the officer responsible for the actual execution of the service. For every grievance submitted, the complainant has a right to get a dated acknowledgement receipt immediately. Time bound action: The GRO is required to complete an inquiry on the grievance submitted and provide a written response and action taken report within 30 days of it being submitted. The Bill mandates for the inquiry to include a physical visit to the site of complaint and interaction with both the complainant and the official concerned. The GRO is required to submit a written response stating the action taken on the grievance submitted, and the recommended penalty or compensation, if any. Right to hearing: Every complainant has a right to participate in a public hearing (Jan Sunwai) 14 days within the complaint being filed. This will be in an open platform at the block level, chaired by the sub divisional magistrate, where the complainant will present their complaints and departments will publicly present their status/ decision within the given time frame. The forum is to be held at a block level on a fixed day of every week. The forum will provide an opportunity for the complainant and the department to resolve the grievance in a manner that both is, and appears to be, fair. Social audit reports will also be presented in the right to hearing meetings, allowing for the independent monitoring of the redress of issues identified during public audits. Independent appellate structure: The complainant can appeal the decision of the GRO/ lack of action taken by the GRO to an independent District Grievance Redress Authority (DGRA) which will serve as the first appellate authority under this law. An appeal against the order/ inaction of the DGRA will rest with the State Public Grievance Redress Commission. Both, the DGRA and the Commission will be bodies identified through an independent selection mechanism and will operate independent of the implementing agencies. The DGRA and the Commission will have the authority to impose penalties and award compensation where applicable.
This story was originally published by ProPublica.

A salmonella outbreak sickened more than 60 people at a funeral reception in Texas. Two years later, some of them are still coping with the financial and medical consequences.

On a cloudy day in November 2019, family and friends gathered in Austin, Texas, to mourn the passing of Lovey Jean Carter.

Carter, who had heart trouble and other ailments, had died at 67.

After the burial, many of the mourners returned to Rising Star Baptist Church to share a meal. The brisket was home cooked, but everything else  rotisserie chicken, potato salad and fried chicken  was bought ready to eat from local grocery stores. One of Carters brothers, James Monroe, had picked up 15 rotisserie chickens ordered from the Sams Club on the south end of Austin. It was all simple. And it was all supposed to be safe.

But that night dozens of the attendees were stricken by illness, overcome by nausea, cramping, vomiting and diarrhea, according to an investigation by Austin Public Health, which found that at least 61 people reported symptoms of food poisoning after the reception.

Seemed like a dream that everyone was calling saying, Im sick, Im sick, Im going to the hospital, Joyce McDowell, one of Carters younger sisters, recalled.

Hundreds of people die every year in the United States after eating food tainted with salmonella, listeria and other dangerous pathogens. As wrenching as those deaths are, though, they are only the tip of the toll that food poisoning takes on the United States, where millions more people are sickened each year.

Salmonella is a leading culprit, with an estimated 1.35 million infections a year, resulting in thousands of hospitalizations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For many of those victims, the effects can be life-altering. There can be kidney or gastrointestinal troubles that persist for years. There can be staggering hospital bills that for some patients, especially those without health insurance, seem to never let up.

And long after the worst of the illness has passed, anxiety about eating and the frustrating, often futile, search for answers can linger.

The rate of illnesses caused by salmonella hasnt lessened in 25 years in the U.S., which continues to lag many countries in curbing the spread of the pathogen.

A ProPublica investigation of the U.S. food safety system found that federal regulators dont have the power to stop meat and poultry contaminated with risky strains of salmonella from being sold to consumers. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees meat and poultry, detects the pathogen, the agency cant issue recalls or halt plant operations.

It can only act if it is able to tie a case or cluster of cases of foodborne illness to a particular product. Inhibiting oversight further, a total of 15 federal agencies have a hand in food safety, with much of the responsibility split between the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration, a fragmented structure that critics say has impeded progress.

Nationally, the price tag in costs of treatment, lost work hours and premature deaths is estimated at $4.1 billion a year, according to the USDA.

Salmonella is a very expensive pathogen, partially because it causes a lot of illnesses and partially because it can cause pretty severe disease as well, said Sandra Hoffmann, a senior economist at the USDA. You think, Oh, foodborne illness is just a bellyache, but it is quite costly.

Continue Reading  The experience of Carters loved ones would end up a testament to the toll salmonella can take and to the obstacles to holding anyone accountable when illness strikes.

This story was co-published with The Texas Tribune.
AI is becoming more sophisticated at doing what humans do, but more efficiently, faster, and for less money. Both AI and robotics have enormous potential in healthcare. AI and robotics are increasingly a component of our healthcare ecosystem, just as they are in our daily lives. Artificial intelligence consulting can help healthcare organisations make the most of AI.

Here are 5 ways that AI helps healthcare:

5 Ways in Which AI Helps in Healthcare

1. Provides Data in Real-time

Acquiring reliable information promptly is an important part of diagnosing and treating medical problems. In this light, doctors and other medical professionals can use AI to use real-time, precise data to speed up and improve key therapeutic decisions. With realistic and immediate results, they can save on cost while enjoying more accurate results.

Better yet, they also enjoy improved preventative measures and reduced patient wait times. As if that's not enough, real-time analytics also help improve physician-patient relations. This is because patients can be more engaged in their treatments if crucial health data is made available via mobile devices.

Mobile alerts can also help patients alert their doctors and nurses if there are any critical changes in their patients' status. "As AI technology advances, more data can be acquired than traditional medical institutions could ever accumulate," says Drexel University Information Science Professor Christopher C. Yang, Ph.D.

2. Streamlining Operations

Artificial intelligence has already had a significant impact on healthcare practices around the world. Some areas that have benefited include patient history monitoring, translation of clinical details, and appointment scheduling. When care recommendations, appointment scheduling, and patient tracking are automated, medical operations are streamlined.

AI has also allowed healthcare facilities to automate more time-consuming and meticulous activities. Intelligent radiology equipment, for example, can recognize important visual indicators, saving hours of intensive investigation.

Yet another area that has been made easier is reviewing insurance. Artificial intelligence reduces the expenses associated with insurance claim denials. Health practitioners can use AI to discover and correct errors in claims before insurance companies deny reimbursement. This not only speeds up the claims process but also saves hospital staff time by allowing them to work through the denial and resubmit the claim.

By enabling speedier payouts and more accurate claims, hospitals can be more secure in their reimbursement timelines, allowing them to accept a wider range of insurance plans. Essentially, AI enables hospitals to accept a wide range of insurance plans, which benefits both potential and current patients.

3. Time and Resource Savings

Artificial intelligence (AI) speeds up procedures at medical facilities, allowing them to save valuable production hours. As vital medical processes are automated, medical professionals have more time to analyze patients and identify illnesses.

Granted, time is money in any industry, so AI has the potential to save a lot of money. The healthcare industry is estimated to waste roughly $200 billion per year. Most of the wasteful costs involve administrative strains such as resolving accounts, reviewing, and filing.

Another area where there is a need for improvement is the determination of medical necessities. Correctly establishing medical necessity takes hours of patient history and information evaluation. Physicians can use new natural language processing (NLP) and deep learning (DL) algorithms to help them analyze hospital cases and avoid denials. In this sense, medical personnel have more valuable productivity hours and resources.

4. Help With Research

AI allows researchers to collect vast amounts of data from a variety of sources. As doctors access larger data and research variables, they can generate more accurate analyses on chronic diseases. Medical research organizations such as the Childhood Cancer Data Lab, for example, are developing technologies that will help medical practitioners better manage large data sets.

In terms of real-time data, research can also benefit from the vast amount of data available, as long as it can be translated easily. Moreover, artificial intelligence has been used to examine and diagnose symptoms earlier in the course of an illness. Telehealth systems in particular are being used to track patient progress, recover important diagnosis data, and provide remote patient information to shared networks.

5. Reducing Physician Stress

According to recent research, more than half of primary care physicians are pressured by deadlines and other job factors. AI aids in the streamlining of procedures, the automation of activities, the quick sharing of data, and the organization of operations, all of which relieve medical personnel of the burden of juggling too many jobs.

"Patient load and the nature of the job are major contributors to physician burnout," Yang says. "However, because AI can help with more time-consuming tasks, such as explaining the diagnosis, medical practitioners may feel less stressed."

Wind Up

Because of the rising complexity and volume of data in healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI) will be used more frequently. From diagnosis to treatment and administrative duties, there are many medical operations that AI can take to the next level and in the process, enhance medical care for the good of all!
Temperatures are warming across Montana as a warm front moves into the eastern part of the state.

Most areas have temperatures in the 30s to lower 40s, although pockets of cold air remain, including Helena and Glasgow.

A winter weather advisory this evening for the Flathead and Mission Valleys in northwest Montana, including Kalispell.

Rain and snow will be ending this evening.

A winter weather advisory until 10 am for Kings Hill Pass and Belt in central Montana.

Snowfall of 2 to 5 inches.

A winter weather advisory until 11 am Friday for the passes and West Yellowstone in Gallatin and Madison Counties.

Snowfall of 2 to 7 inches.

A winter weather advisory for eastern Montana tonight, including Glasgow ad Miles City.

A mix of rain and snow will occur.

A high wind warning this evening for the Rocky Mountain Front.

Winds gusting up to 75 mph.

A high wind watch for northeast Montana Friday, including Glasgow.

Winds gusting up to 55 mph.

Strongest winds are currently blowing from Cut Bank and Great Falls south to Livingston.

A moist Pacific flow brought rain and snow across parts of the state today.

The precipitation will end from west to east tonight. Accumulating snow in the mountains of southwest Montana and possibly the Bozeman and Livingston areas.

Winds will be a concern on Friday in northeast Montana.

Get outside this weekend as temperatures will be above normal for January.

Enjoy it because long-range models show February beginning colder than normal.

The relatively mild weather continues next week.

Lows tonight in the 20s with highs Friday in the 30s statewide, except colder in places such as West Yellowstone.

Lows in the 20s to lower 30s this weekend and next week with highs in the 30s and 40s.
Christopher Neely here, still fielding questions from friends and family around the country about last Saturdays tsunami surge that followed the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano eruption near the Southwestern Pacific island nation of Tongathe most significant volcanic activity in 30 years.

Upon receiving the tsunami advisory warning from the Monterey County Office of Emergency Management early Saturday morning, my mind jumped to a James Cameron-directed, IMAX-style tidal wave. Of course, it took less than 30 seconds of further reading to understand this was far from our reality on the California coast. My next thought: for the sake of our blood pressure in already trying times, perhaps we need better language to describe the 1- to 3-meter sea surge we were about to experience.

As Charlie Paull, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute tells me, tsunami is the scientific term for the set of waves that propagate on a body of waters surface following a massive displacement of water. Paull relates it to the ripples that shoot out after a rock breaks the surface of a still pond. Unlike the wind-driven waves we see cresting near the shore, tsunamis are a consistent set of waves that travel quickly with longer wavelengths. Instead of breaking upon landfall, tsunamis push a wall of water across the land, carrying enough energy to potentially cause serious damage.

We fortunately escaped serious harm in Monterey County, faring better than parts of Santa Cruz, where the Santa Cruz Harbor reported more than $6 million in damage. According to some local scientists and researchers, Moss Landing, home to some of the most sensitive coastal land in the county, was protected by a double layer of natural features.

The first, and most important layer of protection against this tsunami was the Monterey Submarine Canyon, a mile-deep underwater canyon that essentially begins at Moss Landings coastline. Paull says due to the trajectory of the tsunami, much of its energy was absorbed by the canyons walls as the surge approached Moss Landing. Santa Cruz, says Paull, sits along a relatively straight, even shoreline that offered no buffer to the tsunami as it approached.

The other layer of protection stands as the dominant feature of Moss Landings sensitive coastline: the salt marshes at the Elkhorn Slough estuary. Kathryn Beheshti, a researcher with UC Santa Barbara who has studied Elkhorn Sloughs salt marshes, says the marshes provide a buffer that can similarly absorb the energy of tsunamis and storm surges. Paull says the salt marshes are definitely secondary to the Monterey Canyons position as the primary layer of defense, but Beheshti says they are an important natural feature in protecting people and property.

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Beheshti says they operate in a fashion similar to the mangrove marsh model in this video, which shows wave energy getting almost completely dampened by the plants.

Of course, the Monterey Canyon and the salt marsh defense only goes so far. Paull emphasizes that a larger storm surge or tsunami would be able to overcome these obstacles, as seen in 2011 after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which caused almost $2 million in damage.

Paull says the scientific community is continuing to monitor the eruption site near Tonga, and that a subsequent and more powerful event is not yet off the table.

Read the full newsletter here.
January 21, 2022 U.S. - Russian Talks Show Signs Of Progress It feels weird to watch the delusional talk of the United States towards Russia. How can people who are as wrong as Biden and Blinken be at the top of a state? President Biden said on Wednesday that he now expected President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would order an invasion of Ukraine, delivering a grim assessment that the diplomacy and threat of sanctions issued by the United States and its European allies were unlikely to stop the Russian leader from sending troops across the border. Do I think hell test the West, test the United States and NATO, as significantly as he can? Yes, I think he will, Mr. Biden told reporters during a nearly two-hour news conference in the East Room of the White House. He added, almost with an air of fatalism: But I think he will pay a serious and dear price for it that he doesnt think now will cost him what its going to cost him. And I think he will regret having done it. Asked to clarify whether he was accepting that an invasion was coming, Mr. Biden said: My guess is he will move in. He has to do something. Has Biden even once asked the very simple question: "Why would Russia want to do that?" Retired ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar points out that even U.S. allies do not believe Biden's bullshit: It is an open secret that in October and November, France, Germany and some others in the EU questioned Washingtons warnings that Russias military buildup near Ukraine could signal an imminent invasion. France and Germany even opposed activating NATOs crisis response planning system and had to be persuaded to relent. Above all, Europeans have no desire to bankroll Ukraine which is a black hole and failing state. It doesnt make sense to them when the US intelligence brags in the media that theyd bleed Russian troops in a guerrilla war in the middle of Europe. Fundamentally, all this dovetails into a pervasive scepticism among the European elite regarding the Biden administration. In a recent interview Sergej Karaganov, who heads the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, explained why invading the Ukraine is very dumb idea: [O]f course, we absolutely do not need to fight for Ukraine to the last Ukrainian, we certainly do not want to fight there. All this squealing about the fact that we are going to capture Kiev, it is about nothing. Yes, our military is standing at the Ukrainian border, but only so that on the other side it does not occur to anyone to break into the Donbass. And the capture of Ukraine in our military plans, I'm sure, is not included. If only for the reason that capturing a country that is castrated economically, morally and intellectually, a country with a destroyed infrastructure and an embittered population is the worst-case scenario. The worst thing America can do for us is to give us Ukraine in the form they brought it to. So is that what Biden and Blinken are trying to do? Give the Ukraine to Russia to create more problems for it? No, I don't think they are smart enough to strategize that far. Russia is not at all concerned about the Ukraine. It is concerned about NATO in Ukraine. This is not only about the Ukraine becoming a NATO member. The chances of that are low. But it is about NATO and the U.S. determining Ukrainian policies, sending 'trainers' and weapon systems and enticing fascist to attack Russia. Pepe Escobar @RealPepeEscobar - 8:14 UTC  Jan 21, 2022 What NATOstan sent to 404: Empire: Javelins + $300 million.

Turkey - Bayraktar drones.

Brits - NLAW complexes.

Baltics - MANPADS.

Czechs - artillery shells.

Canada - SWAT + frigate. Wait and see what happens when Russia launches the first Iskander. That has to stop. But invading Ukraine is not the way to do that. It requires direct pressure on the United States to move away from its confrontational course. Karaganov already senses that Russia is on its way to achieve that: Even from recent conversations, it is noticeable that our Western partners have begun to retreat. They are already proposing dialogues between the military, negotiations on arms limitation - something that until recently was categorically rejected. So maybe we can agree on something. Today's talks in Geneva between Blinken and Lavrov seem to have moved into the right direction: Russia's foreign minister and his US counterpart have held what they called "frank" talks to try to reduce the chance of a wider conflict in Ukraine. Sergei Lavrov repeated denials that a huge Russian force assembled near Ukraine's borders would be used to invade Ukraine. Antony Blinken said America would respond severely to any invasion.

...

For Mr Blinken, the talks were "frank and substantive" while for Mr Lavrov, they were also "frank" with an agreement to "have a reasonable dialogue". "I hope emotions will decrease," Mr Lavrov added. Mr Blinken warned his Russian counterpart of a "united, swift and severe" response if Russia invaded. Speaking after the talks, he said the US was prepared to pursue possible means of addressing Russian concerns in the spirit of reciprocity.

...

For his part, Mr Lavrov described the talks as open and useful but he accused Nato of working against Russia. He reiterated Moscow's position that it had "never threatened the Ukrainian people" and had no plans to attack Ukraine. He also accused the Ukrainian government of using "state terrorism" against the rebels in the east and "sabotaging" the Minsk peace agreements on the conflict there. Russia's foreign minister said the US would send "written responses" to all of Russia's proposals next week but Mr Blinken only said America hoped to share its "concerns and ideas in more detail in writing next week". The talks between the two diplomats came just a day after Russia unveiled plans for naval drills involving more than 140 warships and more than 60 aircraft, seen as a show of strength. Russia also moved some of its army brigades and airforce elements from eastern Siberia to Belarus where they will take part in exercises until February 20. This will complicate any plans Kiev might have for attacks on Donbass while Putin is in Beijing to watch the Olympics. The military authorities in Donbass today reported of new signs for such a move under the pretext of a false flag event (video - click CC for English translations). While Russia moves its forces and fleets Blinken tried to impress Lavrov with some stupid stunts. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned two sitting members of Ukraine's parliament for pursuing opposition policies. The State Department called that Taking Action to Expose and Disrupt Russias Destabilization Campaign in Ukraine. It also published two laughable new sections on its websites. One is about Russia's alleged Top Five Persistent Disinformation Narratives in which the U.S. denies to be behind the various 'color revolutions' of the last decades. I bet Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland came up with that stupidity. The other is United with Ukraine, a collection of nonsensical and empty Blinken quotes and Ukrainian nationalist photography. Lavrov was not amused about either: The Russian foreign ministry mocked those statements, saying they must have been prepared by an Orwellian Ministry of Truth, and Lavrov caustically dismissed them in his remarks to Blinken, saying he hoped the State Department had also spent time drafting responses to Russias demands. I do hope that not everyone in the State Department was working on those materials and there were some who were working on the essence of our proposals and their substance, he said. That nicely sets out the contrast. Blinken is all about show, Lavrov is all about substance. Blinken also felt a need to correct his boss: Blinken took pains to stress U.S. unity with its allies in opposition to a possible Russian invasion, something that took an apparent hit earlier this week when U.S. President Joe Biden drew widespread criticism for saying retaliation for Russian aggression in Ukraine would depend on the details and that a minor incursion could prompt discord among Western allies. On Thursday, Biden sought to clarify his comments by cautioning that any Russian troop movements across Ukraines border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would pay a heavy price for such an action. Ive been absolutely clear with President Putin, Biden said. He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion. Russia has denied it is planning an invasion and instead accused the West on Thursday of plotting provocations in Ukraine, citing the delivery of weapons to the country by British military transport planes in recent days. There will be no 'Russian invasion' of Ukraine. Should Donbass be attacked, Russian missile artillery, stationed in Russia, will demonstrate sufficient reach to destroy any Ukrainian units near the frontline. The U.S. president should be more concerned about Cuban invitations for harbor visits of Russian missile submarines than about some wreak of a country on Russia's border. However, the U.S. and Russia are talking, which is good, and it seems that Russia has already achieved some of its aims. The process will continue. We will have to wait for the written U.S. response to Russia's demands to see in which direction it will develop. Posted by b on January 21, 2022 at 18:08 UTC | Permalink Comments next page  next page 
By the end of November 2021, the government of Morocco announced that it had earned $6.45 billion from the export of phosphate from the kingdom and from the occupied territory of Western Sahara.

by Vijay Prashad

In November 2020, the Moroccan government sent its military to the Guerguerat area, a buffer zone between the territory claimed by the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The Guerguerat border post is at the very southern edge of Western Sahara along the road that goes to Mauritania. The presence of Moroccan troops in the Buffer Strip in the Guerguerat area violated the 1991 ceasefire agreed upon by the Moroccan monarchy and the Polisario Front of the Sahrawi. That ceasefire deal was crafted with the assumption that the United Nations would hold a referendum in Western Sahara to decide on its fate; no such referendum has been held, and the region has existed in stasis for three decades now.

In mid-January 2022, the United Nations sent its Personal Envoy for Western Sahara Staffan de Mistura to Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania to begin a new dialogue toward a constructive resumption of the political process on Western Sahara. De Mistura was previously deputed to solve the crises of U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria; none of his missions have ended well and have mostly been lost causes. The UN has appointed five personal envoys for Western Sahara so farincluding Misturabeginning with former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III, who served from 1997 to 2004. De Mistura, meanwhile, succeeded former German President Horst Kohler, who resigned in 2019. Kohlers main achievement was to bring the four main partiesMorocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria, and Mauritaniato a first roundtable discussion in Geneva in December 2018: this roundtable process resulted in a few gains, where all participants agreed on cooperation and regional integration, but no further progress seems to have been made to resolve the issues in the region since then. When the UN initially put forward De Misturas nomination to this post, Morocco had initially resisted his appointment, but under pressure from the West, Morocco finally accepted his appointment in October 2021, with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita welcoming him to Rabat on January 14. De Mistura also met the Polisario Front representative to the UN in New York on November 6, 2021, before meeting other representatives in Tindouf, Algeria, at Sahrawi refugee camps in January. There is very little expectation that these meetings will result in any productive solution in the region.

Abraham Accords

In August 2020, the United States government engineered a major diplomatic feat called the Abraham Accords. The U.S. secured a deal with Morocco and the United Arab Emirates to agree to a rapprochement with Israel in return for the U.S. making arms sales to these countries as well as for the United States legitimizing Moroccos annexation of Western Sahara. The arms deals were of considerable amounts$23 billion worth of weapons to the UAE and $1 billion worth of drones and munitions to Morocco. For Morocco, the main prize was that the United Statesbreaking decades of precedentdecided to back its claim to the vast territory of Western Sahara. The United States is now the only Western country to recognize Moroccos claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara.

When President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, it was expected that he might review parts of the Abraham Accords. However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made it clear during his meeting with Bourita in November 2021 that the U.S. government would continue to maintain the position taken by the previous Trump administration that Morocco has sovereignty over Western Sahara. The U.S., meanwhile, has continued with its arms sales to Morocco but has suspended weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates.

Phosphates

By the end of November 2021, the government of Morocco announced that it had earned $6.45 billion from the export of phosphate from the kingdom and from the occupied territory of Western Sahara. If you add up the phosphate reserves in this entire region, it amounts to 72 percent of the entire phosphate reserves in the world (the second-highest percentage of these reserves is in China, which has around 6 percent). Phosphate, along with nitrogen, makes synthetic fertilizer, a key element in modern food production. While nitrogen is recoverable from the air, phosphates, found in the soil, are a finite reserve. This gives Morocco a tight grip over world food production. There is no doubt that the occupation of Western Sahara is not merely about national pride, but it is largely about the presence of a vast number of resourcesespecially phosphatesthat can be found in the territory.

In 1975, a UN delegation that visited Western Sahara noted that eventually the territory will be among the largest exporters of phosphate in the world. While Western Saharas phosphate reserves are less than those of Morocco, the Moroccan state-owned firm OCP SA has been mining the phosphate in Western Sahara and manufacturing phosphate fertilizer for great profit. The most spectacular mine in Western Sahara is in Bou Craa, from which 10 percent of OCP SAs profits come; Bou Craa, which is known as the worlds longest conveyor belt system, carries the phosphate rock more than 60 miles to the port at El Aaiun. In 2002, the UNs Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs at that time, Hans Corell, noted in a letter to the president of the UN Security Council that if further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the principles of international law applicable to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing Territories. An international campaign to prevent the extraction of the conflict phosphate from Western Sahara by Morocco has led many firms around the world to stop buying phosphate from OCP SA. Nutrien, the largest fertilizer manufacturer in the United States that used Moroccan phosphates, decided to stop imports from Morocco in 2018. That same year, the South African court challenged the right of ships carrying phosphate from the region to dock in their ports, ruling that the Moroccan shippers of the product had no legal right to it.

Only three known companies continue to buy conflict phosphate mined in Western Sahara: two from New Zealand (Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited and Ravensdown) and one from India (Paradeep Phosphates Limited).

Human Rights

After the 1991 ceasefire, the UN set up a Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). This is the only UN peacekeeping force that does not have a mandate to report on human rights. The UN made this concession to appease the Kingdom of Morocco. The Moroccan government has tried to intervene several times when the UN team in Western Sahara attempted to make the slightest noise about the human rights violations in the region. In March 2016, the kingdom expelled MINURSO staff because the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon referred to the Moroccan presence in Western Sahara as an occupation.

Pressure from the United States is going to ensure that the only realistic outcome of negotiations is for continued Moroccan control of Western Sahara. All parties involved in the conflict are readying for battle. Far from peace, the Abraham Accords are going to accelerate a return to war in this part of Africa.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.
With freezing weather sweeping into Texas late this week, subsidiaries for a major pipeline company are threatening to cut off natural gas to the states largest power generator  which could impact the electricity supply for hundreds of thousands of customers  over a financial dispute stemming from last Februarys deadly winter storm.

Vistra Corp. subsidiary Luminant on Wednesday asked the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the states oil and gas industry, to prevent Energy Transfer LP from cutting off fuel to five Vistra power plants, which produce enough electricity to power 400,000 Texas homes, businesses and critical infrastructure such as hospitals and schools.

Railroad Commission officials have not responded to questions about whether the agency will act.

The companies under Energy Transfer, the pipeline company, have told Vistra that gas will stop flowing to five Vistra power plants on Monday unless Vistra pays Energy Transfer $21.6 million, according to the filing.

The threat to terminate service in the middle of winter is illegal and grossly irresponsible and should be prohibited by this Commission, Vistra said in the complaint to the Railroad Commission.

Vistra called the move by Energy Transfer, run by billionaire Kelcy Warren, a form of commercial extortion.

Railroad Commission Chair Wayne Christian expressed his concern Thursday on Twitter: "I am paying close attention to this. @EnergyTransfer and @VistraCorp must come together to resolve this issue so that no Texans lose gas or electric service during cold weather. Do what's right for Texans."

During last years winter storm  which caused the near-total collapse of the states power grid, left millions without power for days and caused hundreds of deaths  Vistra spent approximately $1.5 billion for natural gas, twice its planned natural gas cost to fuel its entire Texas fleet for a full year, the filing said. Vistra paid Energy Transfer more than $600 million during the storm, which is more than 96% of all amounts invoiced by [Energy Transfer].

The cost for natural gas soared during the storm, when a combination of freezing temperatures across the state and skyrocketing demand shut down natural gas facilities and power plants, which rely on each other to keep electricity flowing.

While many companies lost money during the storm, Energy Transfer made $2.4 billion. Energy Transfer did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/19/texas-pipeline-gas-power-winter/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Midland County Records

Former death row inmate Clinton Lee Young has been released on bond, after almost 20 years on death row.

Young was released Thursday on a $150,000 bond after being transported in early November back to Midland County to await his new trial.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare recorded a new single-day high of 4,537 COVID-19 cases Wednesday, as the states seven-day moving average of new daily cases hovers around peak levels recorded during major surges last fall and winter.

The new record high came after new single-day highs were recorded three times last week.

Among the recent new cases of COVID-19 was one Blaine County resident reported to have died this week from complications of the virus, Health and Welfares website indicates. Additional information was not available by press time.

The South Central Public Health District was monitoring 947 confirmed and 199 probable cases of COVID-19 in Blaine County on Wednesday. The countys population is approximately 23,000. Thats nearly 5% of the populationjust under one in 20 people. (Visitors are not counted among Blaine's totals; they are counted in their home state.)

The Health District has rated Blaine Countys risk level for COVID-19 as critical.

Meanwhile, the data reported by the Department of Health and Welfare for the last two weeks is significantly incomplete, the department stated on its coronavirus website. On Wednesday, Idaho had a backlog of approximately 32,100 positive COVID-19 tests that were awaiting follow-up by local health districts, the department stated.

By Wednesday, Health and Welfare had recorded 348,949 COVID-19 cases statewide and 4,292 COVID-related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The department had recorded 4,516 COVID-19 cases in Blaine County since the pandemic started, contributing to 28 deaths.

Federal government, St. Lukes offering services

As the omicron variant of COVID-19 fuels a surge in cases nationwide, the federal government is now offering free, at-home COVID-19 tests and free masks. Through the COVIDtests.gov website, U.S. households can each order four test kits. The government is also planning to distribute 400 million N95 face masks for free through pharmacies, grocery stores and health centers. Masks rated as N95 provide more protection than cloth masks or typical surgical masks.

St. Lukes issued a reminder this week that it does not offer walk-in care at its Family Medicine Clinic in Hailey but does offer same-day appointments for acute care needs based on availability. Walk-in care is provided on Saturdays at the Physician Office Annex at the Ketchum campus from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

+2 COVID surge could trigger crisis standards of care, expert says As Idahos COVID-19 cases continue to surge to higher levels, one of the states top medical professionals warned that medical systems are und

In addition, St. Lukes offers virtual care services through its myChart online portal. Virtual care services are available seven days a week for common conditions such as sinus symptoms, earaches, sore throats, eye irritations, urinary-tract infections and rashes.

St. Lukes patients can log into their myChart account, answer a few questions about symptoms and begin a virtual visit with the next available St. Lukes urgent care provider, St. Lukes stated.

For more information, go to www.stlukesonline.org. 
Homestead, FL (33030)

Today

Partly cloudy skies during the morning hours will give way to occasional showers in the afternoon. Thunder possible. High 87F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Showers in the evening, then clearing overnight. Thunder possible. Low 71F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Contact us
Muskogee, OK (74401)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High 68F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low 61F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
The president of the Whittemore Racepath Historical Society, Inc. says her group was surprised in July when they learned that the City of Conway planned to raze the old Whittemore Elementary School.

But now, Cheryl Adamson says theyre excited to present their ideas to members of the Conway City Council and staff about what they believe can happen at the U.S. 378 site.

They plan to do that Monday at a 6 p.m. meeting at the Conway City Hall.

Were excited, Adamson said, because we want to present what our vision is. We want it to be fresh when we get there on next week, but we really are still confident that this is a great opportunity for the community to do innovative things that have been done in other communities, she said.

She said a lot of imagination has gone into what can be done to repurpose our historical buildings.

Not only will they look back at the past and honor that, but they can have a facility that puts their children in a position to take advantage of all of the new technology, green energy opportunities, plus some tried and true traditional things that have not been emphasized in that community, especially for children who do not have economic means.

She also uses the word partnership, saying the city wont be expected to come up with all of the money needed to accomplish their ideas.

When council voted to raze the building, due to its mildew, asbestos and rot, they used the figure of $14 million to save it.

Adamson questions that figure saying when they asked about the details of the figure they learned that they were approximations.

There were no real costs outlined, she said.

Shes optimistic, saying they have been collaborating with other community groups, who have shown their support in various ways.

Theres money in the world to pay for whatever people want, so it has to be a priority, so there are funds for efforts like this, she said.
China US Illustration: Liu Rui

Before US President Joe Biden's one-year anniversary in office, Laura Rosenberger, director for China at the White House National Security Council, delivered a specialized elaboration on US China policy on Wednesday local time. She said the US will strengthen deterrence against China in the Taiwan Straits and the Indo-Pacific region to ensure that the US will win in the competition against China. Meanwhile, the US will make efforts to manage its competition with China, maintain communication channels with the latter, and set up guardrails to restrain competition and control potential risks.

Over the past year, we have heard such rhetoric so many times. "Competition" is a key word repeatedly emphasized by the Biden administration when it comes to ties with China. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken once proposed the "3C" policy - "competition, confrontation, cooperation." A refined formulation is "responsible competition," "cooperation from a position of strength," and "building common sense guardrails to avoid conflicts." Among these "3Cs," "cooperation" has been increasingly marginalized, and "competition" has become more and more prominent, taking the central role. But what exactly does Washington mean by "competition?" We can only?see it by taking US practical actions into consideration.

Rosenberger noted that the US is about to launch a so-called Indo-Pacific Economic Framework with regional partners. This plan is aimed at China. The US hopes to create a small economic and trade circle that surrounds but excludes China, wishing to cut the ground from under China's feet in terms of China's economic and trade cooperation with other countries (including the US). Rosenberger specifically mentioned the Taiwan Straits, where the US has been playing increasing tricks. This is a provocation to China's core interests and continues to undermine the political foundation of China-US relations.

Rosenberger mentioned that the US is committed to working with its allies to shape a strategic environment around China. Before her words had faded away, China immediately saw their actions. On Thursday local time, Japan and France would hold 2+2 talks between foreign and defense ministers. On Friday, Biden will meet virtually with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Also on Friday, a 2+2 meeting between the UK and Australia will take place. The three events have a common theme - countering China's influence.

We want to ask Washington: Is that the so-called responsible competition? China has been listening to US words and watching its deeds for two years. It is not hard to come to this conclusion: Deep down in Washington's heart, confrontation and containment are the essence, cooperation is an expedient measure, and competition is a discourse trap. The master of the White House has changed, but its China policy has not. Biden said repeatedly that he does not want to mess up ties with China and he did not want a conflict between the two countries. But the actual deeds of the US are constantly crippling the foundation of China-US cooperation, creating and accumulating the risk of a China-US conflict.

US officials keep saying and showing off the concept of "competion with China" almost on every occasion. But they know what they really mean, which is also understood by others. Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating once described the US mentality in a nutshell. He said China's "great problem" is that "it is now a state as large as the US, and with the potential of being much larger - an unforgivable sin for American triumphalists."

In recent years, the US has abused the concept of national security to suppress Chinese enterprises for no reason, frequently used its unilateral long-arm jurisdiction, openly interfered in China's internal affairs on issues related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan, and tried its best to provoke China's relations with other countries. These are unethical and underhanded tactics. At the same time, Washington has deliberately created a discourse trap, using "competition," a neutral term in the Western context, to cover up its hegemonic arbitrariness in suppressing and containing China.

It must be pointed out that the US is not knocking China down or weakening it despite all the unethical punches. On the contrary, China is steadily getting stronger and the Chinese cannot be intimidated. Historically, we were not afraid of anyone when we were poor and with only millet plus rifles, and now we have no reason to be scared of any "competition." More importantly, China has no intention of competing with the US, but rather pursuing a continuous transcendence and breakthrough; China has no strategy of hegemony, but one of development with the purpose of promoting people's livelihood and achieving their aspirations for a better life. This is something that no one can "contain!"

Rosenberger said that US officials "feel a sense of general urgency" to put the US in the best position to be able to compete. To be sure, if the "urgency" of the US pursuit of "winning" is equal to the "defeat" of China, then the US will never achieve its goal. Under the banner of "competition" to suppress the development of other countries and deprive them of their legitimate rights and interests, this is immoral competition without a way out.

Washington should understand that for a great power, the decline of ideas is more dangerous than that of strength. In the era of multi-polarity and globalization in the 21st century, the US is still thinking about finding tools from the Cold War toolbox, thinking every day about how to contain other countries, pulling "small gangs" and engaging in group confrontation, which will only harm themselves and will eventually be abandoned by the times.
BEARDSTOWN  In an effort to reduce some pandemic hardships for full-time city employees, Mayor Tim Harris has put forth a plan that allows employees to receive up to 40 hours of COVID-19 sick pay, in addition to their usual benefits.

"I did it on my own," Harris said of introducing the new policy. "There are about a dozen people that could get infected" (in the course of doing their job).

The policy took effect Jan. 1 and will end at the city's discretion, but no later than Dec. 31.

Harris brought up the idea for discussion during a committee of the whole meeting before it moved to council members for a vote. It was passed unanimously on Tuesday.

To use the benefit, employees must present documentation from a licensed medical provider confirming a positive COVID-19 test result.

"They can use the rapid tests, but they would have to get another one from a medical provider," Harris said.

The city also may require "additional testing before an employee returns to work," Harris said.

Should an employee use all 40 hours of their available COVID-19 sick pay, they then would have to dip into their regular paid time off to remain off work.

An employee without enough accumulated paid time off to cover any remaining illness-related time off may use up to an additional 80 negative hours of COVID-19 sick time, with the "negative" hours being reimbursed to the city as the employee earns more regular sick time.

The hope is that it will provide wage assistance for full-time employees affected by COVID-19, Harris said, noting that it is strictly an offer to help offset COVID-19-related hardships.

"This is not a contract, this is not union," Harris said. "We can revisit it at any time should we need to."

Harris said he's just trying to be proactive in ensuring the well-being of the city's 42 employees.

"I couldn't think of any better way to do it," he said.
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Illinois Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, is hosting a Valentine's Day card drive for seniors living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Valentine cards, poems and other sentiments will be collected until Feb. 7 at 20 Cotton Wood Drive, Chatham, IL 62629 and 229 S. Main St., Suite B, Jacksonville, IL 62650. Cards can be placed in the Valentine's box inside the office door during business hours or in a small mailbox that will be placed outside the office when closed. Cards also can be mailed.
I was recently invited to speak at a local womens organization meeting in my hometown. Apparently, I was pretty much their last option, right behind the auto-warranty telemarketer and the tax auditor.

Since I couldnt imagine what I would discuss that might interest a womens group, I went for the obvious  my lifelong, chronic case of the girl crazies.

In my younger years, it had always been my dream  even my goal  to be surrounded by women, and now I live in a house with four of them, I work in a department with 20 of them, and there I stood in front of a room full of them  all looking at me. I call that a win!

Ive always thought that one of Gods greatest creations was women (and Mexican food). In fact, in the book of Genesis, when God looked on his creation and recognized how good it was, Im pretty sure he was mainly thinking about women. Even better, he made the first woman out of a rib  and ribs are absolutely delicious.

Even as a young dorkling in kindergarten, I managed to land a 5-year-old girlfriend who sported the cutest purple polyester pantsuit I had ever seen. I dont know if it was her sparkling personality, her bright smile or her keen wit that attracted me  but Im pretty sure it was the pantsuit. (Dont judge. It was the 1970s.)

I never had the heart to tell my girlfriend that I was also secretly in love with my kindergarten teacher. She didnt wear enough purple for my taste, but her hand lotion smelled like Twinkies.

In elementary school, I had a fairly steady girlfriend upon whom I could usually rely to accompany me to the latest Disney movie. Apparently, she wasnt bothered by my geek-chic ensemble consisting of Toughskins jeans, Bionic Man prescription glasses, and Chewbacca necklace with swiveling arms. (How could she resist?) One time on Valentines Day, she even presented me with a value-size bottle of Jovan Musk cologne, which Im pretty sure I emptied with one application.

By junior high, the nerd gene had really started to kick in, so finding a girlfriend at that age was a bit more challenging, especially since I only used deodorant sporadically and spent most of my time making rude noises with my armpits. In those days, I had to settle for staring wistfully at the heavily Aqua-Netted hair of the girl sitting in front of me in math class, fantasizing about holding her hand while strolling through the local shopping mall to the rhythmic swish-swish of my nylon parachute pants.

In high school, I finally learned to use deodorant properly, started working out, lost my love handles (briefly), and got a used Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais (aka The Love Machine). Suddenly, I noticed that girls were smiling at me  and not because my fly was open. It was the greatest thing ever, at least I thought it was at the time.

A few months after high school graduation, I met my gorgeous wife in Sunday school. She was so far out of my league that I knew I had to act fast before she figured me out, so two years later, I convinced her to settle for me permanently.

I sometimes think that when God created Eve, she must have opened her eyes, taken her first look at Adam standing there naked, looked up to God and said, Youre kidding, right?

Because lets face it. Women are superior to men in so many ways. Their brains develop faster than men, they live longer than men, they have far less back hair than men, as children, theyre less likely to eat dirt than men and regardless of how much Jovan Musk cologne men wear, women invariably smell better than men.

So, thank you, God, for creating women  especially that one who settled for a guy like me 31 years ago. I call that a win.
New Melones by Parrotts Ferry Road View Photo

Sacramento, CA  The heavy storms in December will allow downstream districts to receive some water allocations this year.

The California Department of Water Resources reports that districts will receive 15-percent of their requested amount in 2022.

While the percentage may appear minimal, last month the state had indicated that they would receive zero percent, which would have been a first. Heavy December storms dumped snow in the mountains and partially refilled parched reservoirs.

As of this morning, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is 113-percent of average for the date.

Karla Nemeth, Department of Water Resources Director, tries to caution, Dry conditions have already returned in January. Californians must continue to conserve as the state plans for a third dry year.

The water allocated through the State Water Project goes to 27-million Californians and large swaths of valley farmland.

The announcement came the same day that new statewide restrictions took effect that ban the watering of lawns within 48 hours of rainfall.
gguy44/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Dont Mess with Texas Scholarship Contest is now accepting applications for the 2022 school year, the Texas Department of Transportation announced recently.

Any Texas high school senior currently attending public, private or home school and planning to attend an accredited Texas college or university in the fall 2022 semester is eligible to apply. Judges will select winners based on the students proven results in leading projects or events focused on educating communities about the importance of keeping the state clean and litter-free, TxDOT said.
The Doomsday clock remained 100 seconds to midnight on Thursday for the second straight year, last moving in 2020. The clock measures how close humanity is to a number of existential threats or how large the threat of global disaster looms.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the clock, measures global security issues including nuclear threats, climate science and disruptive technologies such as anti-satellite weapons.

The Doomsday clock remaining the same, however, is not necessarily a good thing.

"Steady is not good news," Sharon Squassani, science and security co-chair at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which measures the Doomsday clock, said in a virtual press conference. "We are stuck in a perilous moment."

Squassani said that the bright spots the organization found did not outweigh long-term negative trends, including climate change, where "rhetorical progress is not yet met by swift actions."

Squassani also said that there has been an intentional undermining of consensus due to informational warfare.

"In the current environment where we have neither arms race stability, nor tension stability, tensions over Ukraine are ominous, and with China, efforts to craft a strategic stability are in their infancy," she said.

EVA HAMBACH/AFP via Getty Images

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and previous Doomsday clocks

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists includes 13 Nobel laureates and is based in Chicago. The organization was founded in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists. Thursday's announcement marked the 75th update of the clock, representing the likelihood of a man-made international catastrophe that could cause humanity's annihilation. This is the closest humanity has been to midnight in the clock's history.

The clock has been moved backward in its history, and the Bulletin says it serves as a call-to-action to reverse the hands. The clock measured 17 minutes to midnight proceeding the cold war, the furthest away it has been in its history.

Speaking at last year's conference, Bulletin President Dr. Rachel Bronson said that "we recognize that humanity continues to suffer as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world."

"The pandemic revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly," Bronson continued. "In this time of genuine crisis, governments around the world too often abdicated responsibility, ignored scientific advice, did not co-operate to communicate effectively and consequently failed to protect health and welfare of their citizens."
A few weeks ago, a woman gave birth at Hereford Regional Medical Center, a critical access hospital in the Texas Panhandle.

Or, rather, the woman gave birth in the parking lot at Hereford Regional Medical Center after driving over an hour to get there, according to Jeff Barnhart, the hospitals chief executive.

Barnhart said hes heard it all over the years: patients giving birth at rest stops and in ambulances and in the car on the side of the road. The hospitals patients come from a 1,600-square-mile area in the Texas Panhandle, and some of them just dont make it in time.

But now, even patients who do make it to the hospital have another variable to contend with: critical staffing shortages and exploding COVID-19 case counts. There are days when Hereford Regional doesnt have enough nurses to operate the labor and delivery unit, forcing it to divert patients 50 miles northeast, to Amarillo.

We give them a medical exam and see if theres time to get them in an ambulance to another hospital that can take them, he said. But sometimes, that babys coming and theres just not time.

Those patients give birth in the emergency room, an increasingly common occurrence as rural hospitals limit or cease labor and delivery services due to insufficient staffing.

Nationally, the health care system is facing an unprecedented labor shortage as nurses retire, resign, burn out or leave staff positions for more lucrative travel nursing contracts. Rural hospitals, many of which already operate with a shoestring staff, are especially hard hit.

Declining populations and cuts to Medicaid and Medicare funding have made Texas the national leader in rural hospital closings, with some 26 closures  permanent or temporary  of rural facilities in the last decade. Two-thirds of the states 157 rural hospitals are public, which means less flexibility in salary negotiations. Administrators also say its often difficult to recruit medical personnel to smaller towns in remote counties.

Struggling to survive, the remaining hospitals in Texas rural communities have had to cut back services. And when that happens, labor and delivery is often the first to go.

Only 40% of Texas rural hospitals still have a labor and delivery unit, according to the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals, leaving whole swaths of the state without access to nearby obstetrics care.

If weve got nurses to cover a day, of course, were going to try to take care of everything that we can here, Barnhart said. But its just a scheduling crisis, and whenever we cant make it work, we just let the hospitals in Amarillo know so they can expect it.

Cuts to services

Adrian Billings has been delivering babies at Big Bend Regional Medical Center for 15 years, serving patients across a 2,000-square-mile area in West Texas. The hospital delivers about 200 babies a year, he said, with pregnant patients sometimes driving over 100 miles to give birth.

But in recent months, for the first time since hes worked there, the hospital has limited the hours the labor and delivery unit is open. Over the holidays, the unit shut down entirely for two weeks. For a while, it was only open Monday through Thursday morning.

When that happens, essentially, its a maternity care desert Thursday morning through Monday morning out here, he said.

He said the hospital tried to schedule inductions during the week as much as possible, but childbirth can be hard to predict. If a patient goes into labor during the off hours, they either give birth in the emergency room or are sent 60 miles away to Fort Stockton.

A spokesperson for Big Bend Regional said in an email that the hospital recently hired additional nurses who will soon allow it to resume full-time maternity care. But many rural hospitals say they simply arent able to keep up in todays ultracompetitive labor market.

We only have six doctors at our hospital, said Jennifer Liedtke, the director of the labor and delivery unit at Rolling Plains Memorial Hospital in Sweetwater, about 40 miles west of Abilene. When youre talking about a census of 20-plus patients, were carrying a full load trying to get everyone seen.  Its rough.

Rolling Plains typically tries to have three labor and delivery nurses scheduled for each shift. But recently, Liedtke said the team is scraping by with one nurse and a shift supervisor who can step in as needed. Her nurses often get pulled into other units when there are no deliveries.

Theres not a patient back there today, so both of [the nurses] are working the COVID unit right now, she said. So if we do have a patient come, they have to go shower and change into all new scrubs and stuff before that patient will have to come back.

Many of the longtime nurses at Rolling Plains retired during the pandemic, Liedtke said, and its been difficult to find replacements. On Monday, all five of the hospitals ICU beds were occupied, according to state health numbers.

Were trying to recruit right out of school right now, but a lot of the young nurses are going into travel nurse positions, said Liedtke, who is also a family physician and OB-GYN. They can sign big, big contracts  and thats just not something were going to be able to match.

Liedtke said its especially difficult to recruit nurses to work in the obstetrics unit of a rural hospital. At a larger facility, there might be different nurses dedicated to labor and delivery, the nursery, and postpartum care. But at Rolling Plains Memorial, one nurse has to handle all those roles.

Labor and delivery is a major investment for rural hospitals, requiring specialized nurses and a recommended 2-to-1 nurse-to-patient ratio during delivery. Its rarely a money-making enterprise for these hospitals, particularly if theyre serving uninsured or Medicaid patients.

John Henderson, president of the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals, said struggling hospitals often see labor and delivery as an easy target for cuts. But he worries that these short-term closures and limited services will create a ripple effect that will ultimately leave rural hospitals worse off.

Youve compounded the problem by forcing people to leave the community when they need care, he said.

If patients give birth at a hospital in a larger city, he worries they may be less likely to return to the local hospital for future medical care.

It wont just be obstetrics, he said. Theyll probably end up seeing a pediatrician [at the larger hospital], and the next time they have a sprained ankle, thats where theyre going.

Transferring to larger hospitals

Many rural hospitals have already shaved down their services as much as possible, asking nurses to do double duty or transferring patients to larger hospitals for more specialized care.

Fewer than half of the states rural hospitals perform surgeries or have specialists such as cardiologists on staff, and many dont have an intensive care unit. In normal times, its enough. But these days, theres a logjam of patients who are waiting for a higher level of critical care than some of these hospitals can give on a long-term basis.

In the tiny Southeast Texas town of Anahuac, the local hospital is feeling the effects of soaring COVID-19 hospitalizations in Houston, an hour east.

All of Houstons medical center [complex of several hospitals] is in code red, meaning everyone is at capacity, said William Kiefer, CEO of Chambers Health, which runs Anahuacs hospital, OmniPoint Health. And so the downstream effect of that is that we have two patients  who require transfer. Weve had them for days. Theyre not going anywhere.

Rural hospitals say they can usually find beds in larger hospitals for patients who need to give birth, but even thats become more tenuous as omicron and staffing shortages rage.

Teresa Baker, an OB/GYN with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Amarillo, said she can always tell when theres been an interruption in service somewhere else in the Panhandle. Suddenly patients are coming from farther away, later in the labor process, and often arriving via ambulance.

Were happy to take them, Baker said. The hospitals are doing a very selfless thing by shipping those patients, because they know they cant handle them without the right staffing. The altruism is apparent.

But hospitals in Amarillo are being walloped by the omicron variant just like everywhere else. During a recent shift, Baker said, seven out of 10 of their laboring patients were positive for COVID-19.

We just assume everybodys positive, she said. If the baby is born at full term and is healthy, then we can keep the mom and baby together, and the dad, because we can isolate them in the room.

But many of the babies the hospital delivers have to go to the neonatal intensive care unit for additional care, which becomes much more difficult if the mother has tested positive for COVID-19.

Thats what makes your heart bleed, Baker said, because these moms dont even get to see their babies or nurse their babies because theyre positive. And its just a terrible situation.

She said for the first time during the pandemic, the hospital has had to figure out issues like how to discharge babies from the NICU to COVID-positive parents.

I said, what are they going to do, just meet her at the back door with her baby? she recalls asking the nurse. Because she cant come into the hospital unless she absolutely needs to.

Vaccine misinformation impacts staff, patients

Hospitals around the state are also contending with vaccine hesitancy among staff and patients. Thats just another challenge thats hitting rural hospitals harder than better-resourced urban facilities.

For a time, Liedtke worried the labor and delivery unit at Rolling Plains Memorial might have to shut down, thanks to a federal vaccine mandate for health care workers that is tied up in the courts.

To be very clear, I would love to see everyone vaccinated, she said. But from a staffing perspective, we were probably going to lose half of our [obstetrics] nurses.

Other hospitals report similar concerns, saying theyre aware of large percentages of their nurses and hospital staff who would resign if they were required to get a vaccine.

OB/GYN doctors and nurses are also struggling to communicate vaccine information to their pregnant patients, many of whom are wary about a perceived lack of information about the effects of the vaccine on pregnancies.

Its so emotional for these moms, and I know theyre trying to make the best decision they can for their babies, said Baker. We just have to meet them where they are and just keep revisiting it.

Baker said she tries to remind patients that the risks associated with getting very sick from COVID-19 outweigh any potential risks from the vaccine.

Holly Dunn, a maternal fetal medicine specialist in Abilene, has seen an uptick in patients needing specialized care because they develop COVID-19 symptoms during pregnancy.

Its more common now for my patients to have COVID or have had COVID than not, she said.

She said its her unvaccinated patients who are developing serious pregnancy complications and fetal development issues, and even experiencing stillbirths. Shes implored her patients to get vaccinated for themselves and their children, and tells them about her own experience: She recently had a healthy baby after getting vaccinated.

So I practice what I preach, she said. That gives me some street cred with my patients. If we can convince even one patient, its a victory.

Karen Brooks Harper contributed to this report.

Disclosure: The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribunes journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
Floridas doctors are seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations among children, surpassing numbers from any previous wave of the pandemic.

In January alone, more than 150,000 children under the age of 19 tested positive for COVID-19, according to a weekly report from the Florida Department of Health.

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On Thursday, there were 242 children 18 and under with COVID in Florida hospitals, the most of any other day of the pandemic. The previous high was 227 on Aug. 29, the peak of the delta wave.

[ Lee en espanol: Ante cifra record de ninos con COVID en los hospitales de Florida, estas son las respuestas a las principales preguntas de omicron de los padres ]

Lauren Weber, a South Florida single mother of 12-year-old twins, said while the new strain seems milder, she still is concerned. She doesnt want to take unnecessary risks for herself or her children. Just being sick and caring for two kids alone is not fun, she said.

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Mixed messages are coming from all directions, confusing parents such as Weber about whether the virus is mild for children, whether vaccines make a difference and whether theres a long-term risk for children who get COVID-19.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel reached out to two experts to address the pressing questions on parents minds during the spread of omicron. They are Dr. Ronald Ford, chief medical officer at Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital in Hollywood, and Dr. Sonja A. Rasmussen, a professor in the departments of pediatrics and epidemiology at the UF College of Medicine.

Here is what they see happening.

Dr. Ronald Ford of Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital offers guidance on COVID-19 and children (Courtesy of Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital)

How mild is COVID in children at this time?

For some children, omicron is a mild disease that appears with gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea or with cold symptoms such as a cough or runny nose.

But for others, who end up admitted at Joe DiMaggio, Ford says their respiratory symptoms can be severe and become pneumonia. With omicron, the hospital has had an overall higher number of children coming to the Emergency Department who test positive than in prior waves, but a lower number admitted.

We definitely had more children sick enough to require ICU level of care during delta surge than now, the pediatric hospitalist says.

Ford says the December crush of parents and children coming to the Emergency Department to get tested has subsided some. As of Wednesday, 16 children are in his hospital with COVID compared to 14 on Jan. 3.

Throughout the pandemic, children have had multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) as a result of COVID-19, a serious condition where different body parts can become inflamed. Are you seeing that still?

Dr. Ford: We havent seen it yet with omicron but its still a little bit early to know how thats going to pan out.

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We havent seen reports from Europe about big surges of MIS-C, and theyve been dealing with omicron longer.

In terms of our own experience, we are a little bit early because MIS-C doesnt present until four to six weeks after a surge.

Children are at lower risk of severe disease than adults, so do they really need a vaccine?

Dr. Rasmussen: We know kids are at lower risk but they certainly are not at no risk. I have taken care of kids for years and when they end up in a hospital, they are very sick. Its a big deal for a kid to end up in the hospital. ... Its scary for parents and children.

I dont want to downplay COVID just because its less severe in children than adults. Around 1,000 kids have died of COVID-19, including nearly 100 children ages 5-11 years. Kids with underlying conditions such as obesity, diabetes and asthma are at the highest risk for severe disease but about one-quarter of COVID-19 deaths among children were in previously healthy children.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 and older, but can they get side effects? What have been the most common side effects in children 5-11 years old?

Dr. Rasmussen: At the end of 2021, over 18 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine had been given to children and teens ages 12 to 15.

The vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective in this age group. Side effects in this age group are similar to those seen in adults. They are typically mild and last one to three days.

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For younger children 5 to 11, side effects include a sore arm, fatigue, muscle aches, headache or fever. These side effects usually go away in a day or two. These are signs that the immune system is responding to the vaccine  so it is ready to tackle COVID-19 in the future.

Children 5 to 11 still remain the least vaccinated age group in Florida. What are we seeing as far as breakthrough cases in the hospital?

Dr. Ford: Its hard to make sense of the numbers because they are so small. I will say that we have patients who are hospitalized with COVID who are vaccinated and unvaccinated.

We have also seen in terms of unvaccinated a predominance of children 2 and under who have tested positive. Its hard to make sense of the impact of vaccinations from the limited data I have with that population. I cant give you any meaningful conclusion.

Nationally we have heard a lot about pediatric hospitalizations rising with omicron. Have we seen that trend in Florida?

Dr. Ford: We definitely saw an increase over the last month of children coming to the hospital and certainly those coming in with COVID.

We are still seeing a fair number of these kids being admitted.

However, our numbers have been holding between 6 and 16 COVID patients.

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About 40% of those testing positive are in the hospital for other reasons.

Are you concerned about long COVID and children, symptoms that linger or arise after an initial infection?

Dr. Ford: It is a big unknown how COVID is going to affect kids over the long term.

Ive seen reports of adolescents who have had similar courses of illness to whats being called long COVID in adults.

We dont have the research to know if children who have omicron are going to respond the same way.

The CDC recently unveiled new research showing an increased risk for diabetes in children who contract COVID-19. However, it is not clear yet, whether post-COVID diabetes is a chronic or temporary condition. What do you think about these findings?

Dr. Ford: In terms of diabetes, our endocrinologists noted about a year ago that they were seeing a large influx of new diabetics in their young population, much higher than what they expected. I know they are working on a paper.

I dont know that we have an explanation for it. ... We dont have the cause and effect put together yet. We dont know whether its truly something with the virus itself, something the virus changes or whether with schools being closed and kids being generally more sedentary if that had something to do with it.

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Are a lot of babies being born with COVID?

Dr. Ford: Certainly, we have had a lot of COVID positive moms deliver and not all those babies are positive. We have had some babies with COVID so far, but most of those babies are not sick. In fact, we have a lot of healthy newborns that test positive.

There has been some thought that children dont need to be tested for COVID-19 because their symptoms are mild. What are your thoughts about testing children for COVID?

Dr. Ford: I think its appropriate when there is something actionable to do with the result.

Certainly, there are kids that are symptomatic who may need to be quarantined if they test positive. Thats a wonderful reason to test them. I dont know that testing kids who had an exposure if they dont have symptoms is necessary.

UF pediatric expert Dr. Sonja Rasmussen answer questions about children and COVID vaccines (Courtesy of University of Florida)

Some people who got vaccines have had myocarditis. What do parents need to know?

Dr. Rasmussen: Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle that is a very rare condition caused by the mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna) COVID-19 vaccines.

We now have information on millions of teens who have received the Pfizer vaccine. In the group with the highest risk (males 18-26 years), the chance of getting myocarditis is about 1 in 10,000 to 20,000. The chance of getting myocarditis from a COVID-19 infection is higher than the chance of getting it from the vaccine.

Compared with adults and teenagers, how well does the COVID-19 vaccine work in children ages 5-11?

Dr. Rasmussen: The dose of the vaccine for children ages 5-11 years is one-third of what is used in adolescents and adults.

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This dose was shown to result in a strong immune response, based on the measurement of antibodies one month after the second dose of vaccine.

The results were similar to those seen in people 16-25 years of age who received the higher adult dose of the vaccine.

There is no need to ask for a different dose based on your childs weight. For some medications (such as Tylenol), a dose for children is calculated based on their weight but that is not necessary for this vaccine. Typically medications work by entering the bloodstream, while a COVID vaccine works by making an immune response at or near the injection site.

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If my child takes medicine for post-vaccine side effects, will that diminish the level of immunity that develops?

Dr. Rasmussen: It is not recommended that you give your child a pain reliever before getting their COVID-19 vaccine to prevent side effects.

Talk to your doctor about what medications your child can take for pain or discomfort after getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

[ RELATED: Kids low vaccination rate called a "gut punch." ]

If a child has had a previous COVID infection, will that protect him or her from a future infection? Is there still a need to get vaccinated?

Dr. Rasmussen: Kids who have had COVID in the past will get some protection, but it appears not strong protection.

Vaccines offer better protection and a booster offers the best protection.

If your child had COVID, its important to get them vaccinated because its unlikely they have enough immunity still around to protect against omicron.

Is there anything you can tell parents who are on the fence about getting their young kids vaccinated?

Dr. Ford: My thought is that we dont know what the next phase of this pandemic will look like, and we certainly are not over it. The vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective. I think the risk of getting COVID, especially future variants that we dont know how they will affect children, is greater than the risk of getting the vaccine, which is just about zero by the way.

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[ RELATED: FDA expands Pfizer boosters for kids 12 and older as omicron surges ]

Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com.
William Luther, Staff

The Bastrop County wildfire that spread over 800 acres has now been 70 percent contained. Here's what you need to know.

The Texas A&M Forest Service released a report Thursday evening that firefighters have created multiple containment lines that spread over 812 acres at Rolling Pines.
San Antonio's latest morning radio shakeup is reuniting listeners with a familiar voice. The Dana Cortez Show is returning to 98.5 The Beat after nearly four years. The first show back on the rap and hip-hop station will air on Monday, January 24.

Show host Dana Cortez stars alongside her husband DJ Automatic and their friend (notorious third-wheel) and comedian Anthony A. Cortez became one of the first nationally syndicated Latinas on radio when the show hit it big in August 2018.

San Antonio was introduced to Cortez on 98.5 in November 2015. The trio's daily debates on everything from music to relationships as well as their "Down in the DMs" segment which exposed potential online infidelities made the show a popular morning listen. Off-air, Cortez connected hit makers like Saweetie, Post Malone, Migos, Chance the Rapper and more with San Antonio. The show also produced the music video for the "Si Una Vez" remix featuring Frankie J and Kap G at Rosedale Park on the West Side in June 2017.

After leaving 98.5 in August 2018, the Dana Cortez show aired on Energy 94.1, another local station. While it's unclear what caused the exit from the second radio gig, Cortez is emotional about reuniting with the Alamo City and "waking up SATown" again. The show will air weekdays from 5 to 10 a.m.

Cortez currently lives in Phoenix, but will drop in to feel San Antonio's "magic" often to attend popular events and catch up with her listeners, she says.

"I love San Antonio so much. The people, the vibe, the tacos," she says enthusiastically. "This means more to me than I can even convey into words. My heart is literally smiling."

Longtime local radio host DJ HammBurger revealed the changes on air on Thursday, January 20 at 5 p.m. He joked, summating the hiatus to a runaway who realized how "made" they had it at "home."

"They've been lost for a little bit, let's just say that," he said.
A driver of a USPS truck crashed into a vascular clinic after falling asleep at the wheel early Friday morning on San Antonio's Northside, according to the Castle Hills Police Department.

The incident occurred just after 4:30 a.m. on NW Loop 410 near the access road by Blanco Road.
Sadie Layher/MySA/Hispanic Elvis/Edward A. Ornelas / San Antonio Express-News

San Antonians can now pitch in to help local icon Hispanic Elvis. The beloved personality, who has dressed up as The King of Rock and Roll for decades, was hospitalized on Monday, January 10. His family shared an update with MySA on Friday, January 21.

George Cisneros, the youngest brother of Hispanic Elvis, launched a GoFundMe online fundraiser on Thursday, January 20, to rally donations for medical expenses and aftercare once his brother is released from the hospital. Cisneros told MySA that his 76-year-old brother was "very sick" with an infection in his esophagus and also tested positive for COVID-19.
A Republican candidate in a closely watched race for Congress running in the mold of former President Donald Trump is blaming an anti-Trump Facebook post from 2016 on a prank by his son.

The candidate, Ed Cabrera, is among seven Republicans running for the 28th Congressional District, currently held by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and a target of the national GOP. Cabrera, a businessman and rancher from the Rio Grande Valley, is running as a Trump-like candidate, and his platform includes finishing the "Trump border wall" in some areas.

But a February 2016 post, which showed Cabrera posing outside the Mexican consulate in New York City, includes the caption, "Better to be a Mexican, than to be a citizen of a country that elects Trump as President. Don't pay for the wall, arriba Mejico!"

Cabrera's campaign says it is not what it seems.

"The social media post was a practical joke by Mr. Cabrera's son to mock Mr. Cabrera's strong support of President Trump," Cabrera's campaign said in a statement. "It was posted when Mr. Cabrera gave his son his phone to take a picture."

Before the anti-Trump comment, the post said Cabrera was posing at the consulate "for my son .... born in the USA, grew up in the USA and is a U.S. citizen- who is becoming a Mexican citizen today."

The post appears to have remained on Cabrera's Facebook page until around the time he launched his campaign late last year.

Republicans are determined to make new inroads in South Texas this year, but first they have to get through a series of crowded primaries, where support for Trump, who remains very popular with the GOP base, is a major sticking point. In the statement, Cabrera's campaign went on to say there is "no candidate more like President Trump in this race," hailing Cabrera as a successful businessman who is self-funding his campaign as Trump did in part.

While Cabrera has not had to file his first campaign finance report yet  it is due Jan. 31  he has already started buying TV time. His opponents include Cassy Garcia, a former Ted Cruz staffer who is endorsed by the U.S. senator, and Sandra Whitten, the 2020 GOP nominee for the seat.

The National Republican Congressional Committee named the 28th District a target in February, and this fall, GOP state lawmakers redrew it to be more competitive for the party. Cuellar faces two primary opponents, including Jessica Cisneros, the challenger who came within 4 percentage points of him in 2020.

There is heightened attention on the race after Wednesday, when FBI agents visited Cuellar's home in Laredo. The agency did not say why officials were there other than for "court-authorized law enforcement activity." Cuellar promised to cooperate with any investigation.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
A California City Overrun With Crows Turns to Lasers and a Boombox to Scare Them Away Smithsonian

Trapped by snakes, nature-exploring pre-teen Southlake girl rescued from drainage pipe Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The System that Drives Our World The Drive

13 Top Takeaways From BlackRock CEO Larry Finks Annual Letter InvestorPlace

IMF sees cost of COVID pandemic rising beyond $12.5 trillion estimate Hellenic Shipping News

#COVID

How the civilized world does it (1):

LOOK: The Makati Covid Home Care Kit  thermometer, masks, alcohol, cooling fever pack, Betadine throat spray & gargle, Kamillosan throat spray, Paracetamol, Vitamin C, Zinc & an oxymeter! This what many need for home recovery  pic.twitter.com/Lf5BU6ujhd  Karen Davila (@iamkarendavila) January 19, 2022

How the civilized world does it (2):

Current Covid home pack in El Salvador pic.twitter.com/5XxzqodKji  Covid19Crusher (@Covid19Crusher) January 20, 2022

NOTE On this thread, there are two photos of hands holding home packs from Uttar Pradesh and Goa that include a listing for The Drug That Shall Not Be Named, one from a physician in Scottsdale, AZ, another from a low-follower account. Sorry, on this topic I will accept nothing less than a photo of happy villagers holding up their home packs.

Canada throws in the towel:

"We could have built a strategy to supplement our vaccines with multiple mitigations, but we did not spend the time or the effort to do so despite having two years to plan and implement thishttps://t.co/wR4Xus5D9D  Kashif Pirzada, MD (@KashPrime) January 21, 2022

The thread actually points to the Biden Administration as doing a better job than Canada is.

* * *

Natural immunity against COVID lowered risk more than vaccines against Delta variant, new study says Euronews. The original from CDC: Before Delta became the predominant variant in June, case rates were higher among persons who survived a previous infection than persons who were vaccinated alone. By early October, persons who survived a previous infection had lower case rates than persons who were vaccinated alone.

Neutralization and Stability of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant (preprint) (PDF) bioRxiv (Ignacio). From the text: We reported the ability of SARS-CoV-2 spike to mediate cell-to-cell transmission. To measure the efficiency of this process by Omicron S, we co-cultured with HEK293T-ACE2 target cells with HEK293T pseudotyping virus-producer cells and assessed cell-to-cell transmission after 24 hrs. Unexpectedly, we found that Omicron drastically increased the efficiency of cell-to cell transmission , with 4.8-fold higher levels than D614G and other variants (Fig. 2g), despite comparable levels of cell-free infection (Fig. 1b), reduced ACE2 binding (Fig. 2c), and reduce 162 cell-cell fusion (Fig. 2e). Cell-to-cell transmission is commonly used by many viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, and is a highly efficient mechanism of virus spread within a host. Enhanced cell-to-cell transmission may help compensate for other observed defects in the Omicron S protein, such as reduced ACE2 binding and fusogenicity. Notably, cell-to-cell transmission of SARS-CoV-2 does not absolutely require ACE2, and extended cell-cell fusion by its spike impairs cell-to-cell transmission. Additionally, cell-to-cell transmission is resistant to neutralizing antibodies , implicating another potential mechanism of Omicron immune evasion.

Relationship between Anxiety, Depression and Susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Proof of Concept Journal of Infectious Diseases. n=102. From the Abstract: Participants (n=102) completed measures of anxiety, depression, positive mood and loneliness and provided a blood sample for the measurement of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 spike and nucleocapsid proteins. SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity was significantly associated with anxiety and significantly positively associated with depression. The model remained significant after adjustment for age and gender, although anxiety and depression were no longer significant independent predictors.

Nervous system consequences of COVID-19 Science (MR). With millions of individuals affected, nervous system complications pose public health challenges for rehabilitation and recovery and for disruptions in the workforce due to loss of functional capacity. Casualties include not just the dead, but the wounded.

* * *

Without paid leave, the Souths COVID school policies cause a terrible trickle down for families Scalawag

New Jersey psychologist describes horrific conditions in K-12 schools during Omicron surge WSWS. Cmon, lets be reasonable. The proles cant be whipped back to work without a babysitting service, and the PMC dont want the kids underfoot during their Zoom calls.

Because we have no theory of transmission:

Mt Ayr CSD just shut down for 6 days due to "high numbers of illness." I am finding a case control (small and unmasked district), calculating a similar caseload, and applying that as a quantitative measure  since the Superintendent didn't report the # of infections. pic.twitter.com/AorfC8Uh5N  Iowa COVID-19 Tracker: Sara Anne Willette (@amethystarlight) January 20, 2022

I actually feel for the Superintendant. The complete collapse of the public health establishment has left him bereft of guidance.

Congress Addresses Child Care Crisis By Loosening Restrictions On Locking Children In Car For 8 Hours The Onion. From October, still germane.

* * *

Is Robert Malone crazy? (excerpt) Nonzero

Why UCSF COVID expert Bob Wachter will soon be over the pandemic San Francisco (dd). He will? Oh.

Vital Signs: disclosure please, we shouldnt be playing bingo with COVID statistics The Conversation

Drugmakers Sign Pacts to Widen Access to Mercks Covid Pill Bloomberg. Molnupiravir is literally the last word in the article. What could go wrong?
French president Macron, in his opening speech of his six-month term as EU president, might as well have poked a stick in a nest of hornets. He had the temerity to suggest that avoiding war with Russia was a good idea, that the EU was an interested party and should have a seat at the table.

As the Guardian recapped the Macron speech:

The EU must open its own talks with Russia rather than rely on Washington, Frances president, Emmanuel Macron, has said as he warned of the prospect of the most tragic thing of all  war. In a wide-ranging speech in Strasbourg, Macron said it was not sufficient for the US to negotiate with the Kremlin over its threats to peace but that Europe needed to have its voice heard. Macron said he hoped to revitalise four-way talks between Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine, known as the Normandy format, to find a solution to the escalating crisis. The French president, who was speaking to mark the start of his countrys six-month presidency of the EU, told MEPs: I think our credibility vis-a-vis Russia lies primarily in entering into demanding dialogue. And we see that looking at the dialogue that the US and Russia are currently undertaking. I think that it is good for there to be coordination between Europe and the US but it is vital that Europe has its own dialogue with Russia. Officials in Brussels insist that Russia has not been able to divide the west in recent months as it has amassed more than 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine. But for all the protests of a unified approach, the EU was sidelined from talks held last week between Russia and the US, Nato and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The fact that Macron is a grandiose neoliberal does not mean that he is not occasionally correct. The US in its current staredown with Russia is acting as if EU interests are of no import and it can treat the continent as an American satrapy. And the fact that the US froze the EU out of the latest round of negotiations means Macron, speaking on behalf of the EU, has a legitimate grievance.

A smaller but still important potential benefit of Macron having spoken out of school is hes forced a discussion of the EUs and Frances interests in escalating with Russia into the open. Macron ha broken through what is called Hallins sphere of deviance. Historian Daniel C. Hallin in his book The Uncensored War, on Vietnam, described how the press draw lines around what issues can be covered. As Wikipedia summarized:

Hallin divides the world of political discourse into three concentric spheres: consensus, legitimate controversy, and deviance. In the sphere of consensus, journalists assume everyone agrees. The sphere of legitimate controversy includes the standard political debates, and journalists are expected to remain neutral. The sphere of deviance falls outside the bounds of legitimate debate, and journalists can ignore it. These boundaries shift, as public opinion shifts.

Saying that the EUs interests with respect to the Ukraine are not the same as Americas was verboten in the mainstream English language press. Its as if Victoria Nuland never said Fuck the EU.which come to think of it either didnt or only just barely got orthodox media mention.

And there might be a bit of Revenge is a dish best served cold operating too:

This is how bad Biden WH's foreign policy is: Remember when they screwed France out of the sub deal and France withdrew their ambassador last year? Now Macron is talking about doing a European proposal for security on Russia-Ukraine, without the US Tony Blinken is an idiot  Minor Incursion Poso  (@JackPosobiec) January 20, 2022

What is striking is the vehemence of the reactions to Macrons remarks. Theres a theoretical objection that he shouldnt have blindsided the EU security apparatus, whatever that amounts to (one assumes the same sort of stealthy grifting flexian power brokers as in the US). But there was no way Macron could deliver such a message with pre-consultation without being pressured to water it down greatly. So one could view this speech as yet another demonstration of Macron having an exaggerated sense of his and Frances importance, or of it also being true that if he wanted to get the EUs seat at the table back, hed need to cause a stir.

Thursdays International FINANCIAL TIMES: Macrons plan for Russia talks puts US unity plea in danger #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/gjphtWYFUo  Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) January 19, 2022

Reactions on Twitter were mainly jingoistic. One of the few exceptions:

There are two underlying ideas in Macrons comments and thinking:

1  Europeans should be able to collectively and strategically define their own interests, assessments and goals

2 Europeans should not see their choices over-determined by the dynamic of US-Russia relations.  David Cadier (@DavidCadier) January 20, 2022

Unpacking. 1- Determining collectively Europes interests/assessments/goals beforehand does not mean that are they not then to be pursued in close cooperation with the US, everywhere they align with Washingtons (and they do in many respects).  David Cadier (@DavidCadier) January 20, 2022

2- Not having Europes choices over-determined by US-Russia geopolitical dynamics has been a constant in Macrons thinking. Not by chance that the line picked up in yesterdays discourse came just after a point on arms control. Euro missile crisis a regular point of reference  David Cadier (@DavidCadier) January 20, 2022

EG: Whatever one thinks of NordStream 2, hard to deny that US position also informed by own economic/political interests. Legitimate uneasiness, then, when hearing American policy/law-makers justifying their policy with reference to European interests  not for them to define  David Cadier (@DavidCadier) January 20, 2022

Final point. There is clearly a problem with how Macron communicates his ideas on the topic. Not so much the conflating of France/Europe. This is a (old) discursive trope, EUMS have always had different ways of articulating their European identities https://t.co/YKZiMkwVot  David Cadier (@DavidCadier) January 20, 2022

The pink paper also has an account claiming that unnamed officials in France and Brussels tried to walk Macrons remarks back. From Paris and Brussels reassure US after Macrons call for EU-Russia talks:

France and the EU on Thursday sought to reassure the US that the Europeans remained committed to Washington-led negotiations with Russia over averting further conflict in Ukraine, after French president Emmanuel Macron called for a distinct EU dialogue with Moscow. French officials insisted that Macrons call for an EU dialogue with Russia was not in opposition to the continuing US negotiations and was designed to strengthen rather than undermine Nato unity. We are in favour of very close co-ordination with the US, said one of Macrons advisers. We find it strengthens the hand of the French and the Germans in their negotiations with Russia . . . The Americans are talking to the Russians to deal with a disorderly and profoundly dangerous situation. On Macrons suggestion of a separate EU dialogue with Russia and his call for a European proposal within weeks to build a new security and stability order that would then be discussed among Nato allies, the adviser said: Its called co-ordination, reforging European unity and reinforcing the unity of the Nato alliance. EU diplomats said Macrons call was the first time that Europe-only talks had been mentioned by Paris, while another suggested that Frances push had not been co-ordinated with partners before the speech.

I dont find this to be persuasive. When Biden very clumsily suggested that the US would make a proportional response in Ukraine, he walked it back within 24 hours. Well see what if anything Macron says tomorrow. The effort to try to put the Macron remarks genie back in the bottle looks a lot like political operatives defending their pet interests and relationships.

And its notable that the Financial Times quotes one unidentified Macron adviserwho sure looks like he was out of the loop as far as this speech was concerned. As for the EU diplomats, weve seen over the years of the FTs coverage of Europe, first in the 2015 Greece debt negotiations and then Brexit, that its sources among European diplomats are far narrower than those of Tony Connelly at RTE, and on top of that are biased towards friend of the UK, as in Eastern Europeans. So while it does seem likely that Macron didnt give anyone in the EU a heads up, if the did, it sure wouldnt be them.

Similarly, this section amounts to an official non-answer in diplospeak bafflegab:

When asked if the European Commission supported Macrons proposal, a spokesperson said on Thursday that the EUs approach to Russia was being formulated within the framework of the ongoing contacts and co-ordination, both within the EU and between the EU and the transatlantic partners such as the US, Canada, Nato and the OSCE.

However, a substantive bit emerges:

Following Macrons statement, which was applauded in the Strasbourg assembly, the EUs top diplomat Josep Borrell had a phone call with US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg where they agreed on the need for a strong, clear and united transatlantic front, according to a readout from Borrells team.

I welcome criticisms from those who know Europe and the EU better than I do. However, whether by accident or design, the description of Borrell talking to Blinken comes off as implying that Macron has no legitimate voice in this controversy. Thats false. The EU Council has the final say on European foreign policy. Borrell reports to the EU Council. Macron sits on the EU Council.

And during Brexit, Macron at key points, albeit often irritatingly, would stand up for certain principles, sometimes by himself, sometimes with only a small bloc of supporters. Even though Macron seldom got what he asked for, more often than not he did have an impact.

However, timing has worked against Macron slowing the US war train. The opening EU presidency speech was a logical venue for Macron to make his case. But that was Wednesday and the next round of talks, from which the EU has again been excluded, is Friday in Geneva. So even if Macrons intervention reached a sympathetic audience beyond MPs, its too soon for his ideas to have achieved enough momentum to have an impact.
(Natural News) Apple is now requiring all of its corporate and retail employees to get the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine booster shots or submit to frequent coronavirus tests. The company has also asked its employees to bring a proof of their COVID-19 booster shot before entering office premises.

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 stated in an internal memo.

Apple employees who dont get booster shots within a month of becoming eligible will be required to have rapid antigen tests before entering their workplaces starting February 15.

Unvaccinated workers must produce negative COVID test results

Workers who are unvaccinated or havent given proof of vaccination must produce negative COVID test results beginning January 24, the memo stated. It was not clear whether this testing requirement will apply to both corporate and retail employees.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

United States employers are currently dealing with a rise in cases of the omicron variant as many workers get ready to return to offices after almost two years of working from home.

Last year, Apple issued a directive asking unvaccinated corporate employees to have daily tests before entering the office while unvaccinated retail workers will have testing twice per week. The company also began requiring vaccinated individuals to take COVID-19 tests once a week before it lowered the frequency of these tests later.

However, Apples infrequent testing policy no longer applies to workers who dont receive the booster shot by the companys deadline.

Big Tech firms introduce COVID-19 protocols

With the surge in COVID cases, various firms in the U.S. have been strengthening their COVID protocols. (Related: Big Tech companies looking to normalize vaccine passports.)

From mandating vaccination to delaying return to the office, Big Tech corporations are making strict rules to battle the spread of the COVID omicron virus.

Before Apple, Meta and Google had already announced new COVID guidelines for its employees. Just last week, Meta announced that it would mandate COVID-19 booster shot before the companys return to in-office work in March.

Meta has delayed its office reopening from January 31 to March 28.

Not all Meta employees will be returning to office from March since workers can defer their return by three to five months. The company will also allow its employees to request for full-time remote work. Workers will have to decide by March 14 if they want to return to office, defer their return to their workplace or request remote work.

Also last week, Google conducted a weekly mandatory COVID-19 tests for employees entering their office. While the tech giant has not ordered company-wide booster shots yet, it requires its employees to have the first two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine aside from having weekly molecular tests.

Meanwhile, some reports suggest that Amazon has offered its U.S. warehouse workers $40 to have a booster shot.

Watch the video below to know more about how Big Tech and Big Pharma work in harmony.

This video is from the Ruth Mackenzies channel on Brighteon.com.

Follow TechGiants.news to read more articles related to Big Tech companies like Apple.

Sources include:

BusinessInsider.com

MSN.com

BGR.in

Brighteon.com
Sandra Rizzolos eight-day Italy vacation was coming to an end, with just a trans-Atlantic flight back to Orlando left. She felt healthy, with just a dry throat, the result, she thought, of being in colder temperatures.

But then airport authorities pulled her into a separate room on Jan. 3 and showed her shed tested positive for COVID-19, and wouldnt be allowed to fly home with her husband and the other couple with whom theyd traveled.

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We felt comfortable because were all fully vaccinated and have our boosters and wear our masks, she said of the trip to the Piedmont region of Italy.

She said she was told to quarantine for five days to recover. While Italy has designated hotels available for people who test positive to stay in, she said she was told at the airport that none of them had rooms available for her and that shed need to find an apartment to quarantine in. Hotels required guests to be COVID negative, she said.

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Sitting in the Milan Malpensa Airport for more than six hours, she scanned AirBnb before finding an apartment nearby in Gallarate.

I was very fortunate [to find something], I think because it was right after the holiday, she said.

The Italian government requires U.S. travelers to have a negative molecular PCR test within three days of arriving, and either be fully vaccinated or have medical clearance that theyve recovered from COVID-19 within the past six months, in order to enter the country. While to board a U.S.-bound flight, you must show a negative test within a day of travel.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns U.S. travelers to avoid travel to Italy, and tags the nation with a Level 4 threat for COVID-19, its highest designation, meaning there are very high levels of the virus circulating there. The classification was announced less than two weeks before the Rizzolos were due to travel. Too late, they figured, to cancel.

U.S. citizens who choose to travel internationally should be aware that they may face unexpected challenges related to COVID-19 as they attempt return to the United States or attempt to travel from one overseas destination to another, according to a notice on the U.S. State Departments website. If you choose to travel internationally, be sure to make contingency plans, as you may find yourself having to remain in a foreign country longer than originally planned.

On their trip, they rented a car and toured wineries, taking in the sights of the region. Masks are required indoors and outdoors there.

Rizzolo, who works for a human resources company and lives in College Park, said her husband Chris flew home, since they have a 10-year-old daughter to take care of, while Sandra stayed to quarantine.

She passed the time doing some reading on her iPad and watching movies. She didnt travel with her laptop so she wasnt able to work remotely, and had to use sick days to account for the quarantine.

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I had to contact my boss and they had offered COVID time you could use through Dec. 31, and I missed the cut-off by 3 days, Sandra Rizzolo said. I was able to at least walk outside and get some fresh air.

The city she was staying in didnt have grocery delivery and had limited food delivery options, which also was an obstacle. She said she wore two masks to visit a small local market to get groceries  curbside service wasnt available  and frequently used Uber Eats to order pizza, pasta and sandwiches.

She said on Jan. 6, most restaurants were closed for the national holiday of Epiphany, so she ordered McDonalds.

In all, her quarantine cost close to $1,000 including accommodations and food. United Airlines rebooked her on a flight at no added cost, she said.

On Jan. 9, she went to at the airport with documentation that shed recovered from the virus from a virtual appointment with her doctor. She also tested negative at the airport and was able to come home.

Sandra Rizzolo said those who choose to travel overseas amid the pandemic should be prepared with a plan for what to do if a positive test derails travel plans. And that people should know local quarantine rules, and not to think a similar scenario couldnt happen to them.

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Dont even think that way, she said. If youre going to travel overseas, have a backup plan and a place you can stay.

rygillespie@orlandosentinel.com
(Natural News) Remember that story we published about the Canadian radio host who called for churches to be burned to the ground because they supposedly sit atop ancient burial grounds of the First Nations? It turns out that the whole thing is a hoax.

The alleged discovery of buried children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which became a major media sensation throughout Canada and abroad last year, is false, we now know.

Before any remains were found or even just a credible report published, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau started blabbing his mouth about how it represents a dark and shameful chapter in Canadian history.

British Columbia Premier John Horgan added to the cringe by stating publicly that he was horrified and heartbroken to learn about the nonexistent burial site, which we were told highlights the violence and consequences of the residential school system.

The theatrics continued after that with several Aboriginal communities and media outlets talking about unmarked graves. On May 30, the Canadian government even lowered the flags on all of its buildings to half-staff, as well as instituted a new holiday to honor the missing children and survivors of the residential schools.

Spontaneously, clusters of shoes and orange shirts and other paraphernalia were placed on church steps in many cities or on the steps of legislatures in memory of the little victims, reports further explain.

Around the country, churches were burned or vandalized. Statues were spray-painted and pulled down in apparent retaliation for the fate of the children. The statue of Queen Victoria in front of the Manitoba Legislature was defaced and pulled down. Montreals statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canadas first prime minister, was knocked down, his detached bronze head symbolically rolling on the ground.

All governments and media seem to do anymore is lie

All of this and more continued on and on as the tale ballooned into a bizarre narrative about how thousands of children had gone missing from these residential schools. Suddenly people started referring to mass graves where bodies were supposedly dumped.

The only problem is that the whole thing was fake. It needlessly prompted the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to declare that a large-scale human rights violation had occurred, even though it never actually did.

Even the Roman Catholic Church ended up with egg on its face after reporting that thorough investigations had occurred, resulting in the discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of over 200 children. This was a flat-out lie as not a single verified body had been exhumed.

By never pointing out that it is only a matter of speculation or potentiality, and that no remains have yet been found, governments and the media are simply granting credence to what is really a thesis: the thesis of the disappearance of children from residential schools, reported the Dorchester Review about the fiasco.

From an allegation of cultural genocide endorsed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) we have moved to physical genocide, a conclusion that the Commission explicitly rejects in its report. And all of this is based only on soil abnormalities that could easily be caused by root movements, as the anthropologist herself cautioned in the July 15 press conference.

Anthropologist Scott Hamilton, who worked on residential school cemeteries between 2013-2015, warns that it is critical to be very careful with the use of ground-penetrating radar because the soil may have been disturbed over the years by sedimentary texture,  culturally-derived unconformities, obstructions or voids.

The exhumations have not yet begun and no remains have obviously been found, the Dorchester Review added. Imaginary stories and emotion have outweighed the pursuit of truth.

More related news about fake things that were reported as real can be found at Propaganda.news.

Sources for this article include:

NaturalNews.com

DorchesterReview.ca
(Natural News) Indias Christian intellectual and book author Vishal Mangalwadi told host Alex Newman during a recent episode of The Sentinel Report that the Church should be at the center of education. Mangalwadi calls it the Third Education Revolution.

It is in reference to a book he co-authored with David Marshall titled The Third Education Revolution, which is about the Church being the center of education where students are enrolled in a university and attend classes under an academic pastor.

The author of dozens of books said it will enable the Church to disciple four to six million students every single day and take education back from the devil. (Related: Faulty education system, abandonment of traditional Western values, causing U.S. collapse, says expert.)

Mangalwadi, who is also a political activist, said the American Church didnt respond to his proposal but the Indonesian Church did and had already started a program to implement it.

Third Education Revolution becomes a movement

According to Mangalwadi, the concept of Third Education Revolution has now become a movement. He added that the members of its steering and executive committee are meeting daily online.

We hope to launch the whole project in a few months. Its happening in Minnesota, we had already started the Virtues Campus in 2014. And so its happening in different parts of the world. But the movement has really snowballed, said Mangalwadi, who had accepted Jesus after going through a moral struggle during his teenage years.

In Africa, the focus is on Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. Many other countries are very interested in South America. In Brazil, we have the government, the church and the universities backing us. In the Spanish speaking countries, our strongest presence is in Colombia, Chile and Peru. The European group is operating in Central Europe, in Germany and other Nordic countries, he shared.

The movement is growing globally. The book is already translated into German, South Korean and Portuguese. And translation is going on into Spanish, French, etc. So yes, it has become a movement.

Mangalwadi mentioned that in 2019, 240 leaders representing 30,000 Pentecostal churches in Uganda have spent five days with him to learn how to transform their country. He said that these leaders wanted to turn every single one of the 30,000 churches into centers of digital education where students will enroll in Christian universities, and that six or seven universities in Uganda are backing the movement.

They will attend the classes in the local church with professors going to the local church online. But every church [has] one or two or three academic pastors trained. So thats essentially what got this revolution going, Mangalwadi explained.

He also revealed that a consultation in Phoenix, Arizona was already done in 2019. The well-known Christian thinker added that in 2020, he met with leaders in South Korea to consider how to implement the Third Education Revolution because there are about 22 universities around the world established by the South Koreans.

Church is the pillar and foundation of truth

The author pointed out that the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. He also noted the changes that happened in America after World War I, when the Church gave up the handling of education to the State, which led to people like John Dewey taking over the political authority for education.

And then they used the separation of Church and State to separate education from Gods word and truth, Mangalwadi said.

The Church is a fellowship, a community, a body baptized in the Spirit of truth to bear witness to the truth, to teach Gods word and Gods law and spread the knowledge of God. State is not an institution baptized with the Spirit of truth. Its not the States job to teach people. The State has separated truth from education.

He added that the present education controlled by universities under learned people do not know the difference between male and female and do not know what is sex, love, marriage, divorce and family  leading to the disintegration of society.

Watch the video below to know more about Vishal Mangalwadi and the Third Education Revolution.

This video is from the BrighteonTV channel on Brighteon.com.

Follow EducationSystem.news to know more about the education system in America.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

ChristianityToday.com
(Natural News) A leading Israeli immunologist has come forward to claim that the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) is not the threat that it has been made out to be, and is nothing more than psychological engineering on a global scale.

Prof. Ehud Qimron, a well-respected authority, penned a letter to the Israeli Ministry of Health denouncing his countrys mass vaccination scheme and chastising government officials who have already branded the unvaccinated as spreaders of the disease.

Qimron currently heads Tel Aviv Universitys Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

Two years later, you finally realize that a respiratory virus cannot be defeated and that any such attempt is doomed to fail, Qimrons letter reads.

You do not admit it, because you have admitted almost no mistake in the last two years, but in retrospect it is clear that you have failed miserably in almost all of your actions, and even the media is already having a hard time covering your shame.

The most basic modicum of established science proves that trying to fight a constantly mutating virus with strain-specific injections is a fools game, and yet few politicians and health authorities are acknowledging this fact.

Qimron is upset with many of them over this, noting in his letter that the Israeli governments jab campaign failed to create herd immunity as promised, and is only making things progressively worse.

You refused to admit that the infection comes in waves that fade by themselves, despite years of observations and scientific knowledge, Qimron added in his letter.

You refused to admit that recovery is more protective than a vaccine, despite previous knowledge and observations showing that non-recovered vaccinated people are more likely to be infected than recovered people.

Governments colluded with Big Pharma to push deadly covid shots

Qimron went on to blast Israeli politicians for refusing to admit that the fully vaccinated are also fully contagious. In most cases, they are the ones getting sick and having to go to the hospital, while the unvaccinated, assuming they do not get shed on by a vaccinated person, are the healthier members of society.

Based on this, you hoped to achieve herd immunity by vaccination  and you failed in that as well, Qimron added.

The most at-risk demographics when it comes to Fauci Flu susceptibility are the elderly and people with compromised immune systems or pre-existing health conditions. And yet young people, who have almost zero risk, are being forced to take the jabs in order to participate in Israeli society.

Qimron says this has all been known since early 2020 when the plandemic was first launched, but that those in positions of power ignored it and proceeded to force the shots on everyone.

These same authorities failed to establish an adequate mechanism to identify and track adverse events from the shots, which we now know are numerous and widespread.

Doctors avoid linking side effects to the vaccine, lest you persecute them as you did with some of their colleagues, Qimron laments about the covid status quo.

In younger demographics especially, Fauci Flu injections cause far more harm than good, assuming any good at all actually comes from taking them. There is still no solid evidence to suggest that the shots provide any benefits whatsoever.

Meanwhile, young people everywhere are dropping dead from jab-induced heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems and hardly any authority figures anywhere are even acknowledging this.

You have ignored many reports of changes in menstrual intensity and menstrual cycle times, Qimron added in his letter.

You hid data that allows for objective and proper research. Instead, you chose to publish non-objective articles together with senior Pfizer executives on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.

The latest news about the failure of Fauci Flu shots to provide protection against covid can be found at ChemicalViolence.com.

Sources for this article include:

GreatGameIndia.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Faucis financial records from 2020 revealed investments in several Chinese firms. Given these findings, a Republican senator denounced the Biden administrations chief medical adviser for his dishonesty.

According to a Breitbart report, Fauci held investments in Chinese companies through the Matthews Pacific Tiger Fund (MPTF). Its September 2021 fact sheet said that 42.7 percent of investors money were directed to companies based in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Three of the 10 companies with MPTF assets are based in China. These include drug manufacturer Wuxi Biologics and technology firms Tencent and Alibaba. Two firms  insurance company AIA Group and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing  were based in the special administrative region.

Faucis financial records also revealed other investments outside MPTF. His $10.4 million portfolio include stakes in large-cap mutual funds and investment-grade bond funds. He also had investments in the Pax Ellevate Global Womens Leadership Fund, which promotes the inclusion of women into company leadership positions.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall publicized Faucis 2020 investment portfolio on Jan. 14, following the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) calling the lawmaker a moron three days prior.

During a Jan. 11 hearing, Marshall asked if the NIAID director was willing to submit a financial disclosure  following the practice of other Congress members and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. He cited Fauci overseeing $5 billion in federal research grants and receiving an annual salary of more than $400,000, which led to Fauci insulting the senator.

Marshall said in a Jan. 14 statement that Fauci was completely dishonest about his financial disclosures being open to the public. He continued: Fauci lied to the American people: Its no wonder he is the least trusted bureaucrat in America.

Fauci must be held accountable to all Americans who have been suing and requesting for this information, but dont have the power of a Senate office to ask for it, the GOP senator concluded.

Fauci raking in windfall from the pandemic

Aside from the MTPF and other investments, Faucis records also revealed other sources of income.

He reportedly held a stake at Jackson Filmore Trattoria, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco. The infectious disease expert also received more than $5,000 from the non-profit Partnership for Public Service after being named as its 2020 federal employee of the year. Faucis records also reported $8,100 in honoraria and travel reimbursements for his virtual appearances in three galas.

The NIAID director also earned between $100,000 and $1 million in royalties from educational publisher McGraw-Hill for a book deal. But his revenue stream does not end upon his retirement  as he is set to receive an annual pension of $350,000. (Related: Fauci to get largest retirement package in federal government history.)

Because of these revelations, Marshall announced his introduction of the Financial Accountability for Uniquely Compensated Individuals (FAUCI) Act  aptly named after the NIAID director. The FAUCI ACT will require administration officials such as its namesake to make their financial disclosures public. These will then be made available through the Office of Government Ethics website for the public to view.

Fauci was earlier accused of profiting from the pandemic following his announcement of his new book. His 80-page book Expect the Unexpected: Ten Lessons on Truth, Service and the Way Forward was originally set to hit bookstores on Nov. 2, 2021  with Amazon and Barnes & Noble offering pre-order copies at $18 each. The two online bookstores later took down the pre-order postings ahead of the release date.

However, GOP congressmen took to social media to denounce the chief medical adviser. North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop pointed out how Fauci never missed a paycheck while advocating other people lost theirs. His lockdown mandates destroyed livelihoods and threatened our childrens futures. Now hell be profiting nicely off it, the congressman said.

Profiting from the pandemic with a book deal is truly a new low, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs said. (Related: Profiting from the pandemic? Fauci set for book and documentary deal.)

Watch the video below of former presidential adviser Peter Navarro telling Clay Clark why Fauci should be immediately fired.

This video is from the BrighteonTV channel on Brighteon.com.

FauciTruth.com has more articles about Dr. Anthony Fauci raking in windfall amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sources include:

LawEnforcementToday.com

Breitbart.com

MatthewsAsia.com [PDF]

Marshall.Senate.gov

WesternJournal.com

Twitter.com 1

Twitter.com 2

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) Spanish intelligence services planned and coordinated a terrorist attack in 2017 as a means of influencing the outcome of a referendum on independence for Catalonia, a Turkish news agency reported last week.

The attacks were orchestrated by the National Intelligence Center, Jose Manuel Villarejo, a former senior police officer, alleged, adding that a miscalculation led to 16 people being killed, the Anadolu Agency reported, citing a Spanish media outlet.

The outlet continued:

Quoting Villarejos testimony in court, the news outlet said the attacks, which included a truck plowing those pedestrians on Barcelonas La Rambla, were a serious mistake on the part of former National Intelligence Center (CNI) Director Feliz Sanz Roldan.

Villarejos remarks have ignited outrage among portions of Catalan political parties, especially those in favor of the regions independence.

Pere Aragones, the Catalan president, immediately pressed the Spanish government to reopen an investigation into the attack, while also requesting that his own administrations legal team be allowed to review the former police officers statements.

In addition, Parliament Speaker Laura Borras asked that Catalonias assembly legal team be permitted to present a case to the public prosecutor for evaluation and possible action.

A van that was being driven by a member of a terrorist cell slammed into pedestrians walking along the famous Las Ramblas on Aug. 17, 2017, killing 13 and injuring 120 others. A 14th victim would later die from injuries.

The driver, a 22-year-old from Morrocco, murdered someone else while attempting to escape, then stole a vehicle before fleeing on foot.

Within a few hours, five more members of the terrorist cell launched a second attack about 60 miles away in the coastal city of Cambrils. They, too, slammed into pedestrians and fatally stabbed one woman.

Six of the terrorists were killed by police as they hid out in a vineyard near Barcelona a couple of days later. Two more members were killed when a bomb workshop blew up.

Having deep state elements plan false flag attacks to achieve a political objective is nothing knew, especially in the West  and especially the United States.

The most recent example is the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building, which was staged as a direct attempt to persecute then-President Donald Trump, damage his brand, and label all of his followers domestic terrorists so the Biden regime is justified in hunting them down and throwing them in prison.

Less than a week after the incident, which was a trademark false flag attack, a trained observer who is an expert in spotting such observations, J. Michael Waller, who was at the Capitol that day, wrote about what he saw in a piece for The Federalist a week after the breach:

Plainclothes militants . Militant, aggressive men in Donald Trump and MAGA gear at a front police line at the base of the temporary presidential inaugural platform;

. Militant, aggressive men in Donald Trump and MAGA gear at a front police line at the base of the temporary presidential inaugural platform; Agents-provocateurs . Scattered groups of men exhorting the marchers to gather closely and tightly toward the center of the outside of the Capitol building and prevent them from leaving;

. Scattered groups of men exhorting the marchers to gather closely and tightly toward the center of the outside of the Capitol building and prevent them from leaving; Fake Trump protesters . A few young men wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators; and

. A few young men wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators; and Disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. A column of organized, disciplined men, wearing similar but not identical camouflage uniforms and black gear, some with helmets and GoPro cameras or wearing subdued Punisher skull patches.

The fact is, people do not go to a rally dressed for a riot or an attack.

Theres more: As Natural News reported in July 2021, the FBI had provocateurs in the crowds the night before and during the attack provoking ordinary Americans to do things they otherwise would not do.

Western governments have been taken over by tyrannical globalists who seek to enslave their populations, and they use their intelligence deep state to do it.

Sources include:

NaturalNews.com

AA.com.tr
(Natural News) Nurse Dani told Dr. Bryan Ardis during the January 17 episode of Lets Talk America on Brighteon.TV that pediatricians are grooming children 12 to 18 years old to be sexually active or to question their sexuality  and they are doing it in a very systematic way.

Its linked with one of the goals, the national health and safety goals of this year, which is to limit the amount of time that the parent is involved with the childs care at bedside, Nurse Dani said.

They are trying to groom our children into thinking that it is normal for our 12 to 18 year old to be sexually active or to question their sexuality that they can take it off like a jacket, and with no understanding that this really is affecting their psychology, their spiritual health and their emotional health. And once you get down the line, when they start doing interventions on these children as young as 12 years old, it starts messing with their physical health as well.

Pediatricians goad children to question sexuality

Nurse Dani said that pediatricians guide children through a series of questions that is logged with every single visit. She noted that these questions literally lead the children down a path to start to question their sexuality, and that it opens a door to conversations without the knowledge of their parents. (Related: Lewd sex acts taught to 13-year-olds as part of health and science curriculum.)

These questions are grooming children and leading them down the path to a whole world that they otherwise wouldnt really know about. So what Im seeing or what I saw while I was there at the bedside was that children as young as 12 years old were getting these questionnaires asked of them, getting this logged in the system to a certain degree, explained Nurse Dani, who quit her job due to the vaccine mandate at Nemours Childrens Hospital in Orlando, Florida.

And once it has been logged to a certain degree  after three or four visits  the adolescent pediatrician can start to choose to start medical procedures on that child based on their answers.

Ardis, who was filling in for Dr. Alan Keyes, pointed out that a medical doctor does not have the right to kick a parent out of a room, specially when they are examining their children, and bring up anything about their sexual health. He added that a medical doctors job is to preserve the patients health and they should not be a counselor or do a psychiatric evaluation to talk about the sexual health of children if it is not part of their scope of practice.

Nurse Dani added that people need to be advocating for themselves and their child before establishing a medical relationship with a doctor. The nurse from Florida also said that there are adolescent pediatricians who are doing medical procedures, such as the insertion of the inter-uterine devices (IUDs) on children as young as 12 years old without parental consent.

They were having young children as young as 12 years old sign their own surgical consents for the insertion, but they were doing this procedure under anesthesia. Normally, if youre talking to a woman in a guided psychological situation, that is an in-office procedure, we are not putting women under anesthesia to do this. So now were doing this invasive procedure on these children, Nurse Dani said.

Ardis called the incident horrific and told listeners to record the questions given to children and ask for the medical records to get the logged questions and answers.

The doctor, who is exposing corrupt practices occurring in the medical profession, said that out of this information he will make a resource for parents with a form that has all those questions being asked behind closed doors and use it to protect the children.

Parents have right to protect their children

You as a parent have every right to protect your child in a pediatric office and you have every right to demand that they do and do not do certain things or ask certain questions [to your children]. You have every right and it is your job to protect your child, Ardis emphasized.

Nurse Dani agreed. You are the subject matter expert on your child. You might not know all the things there is to know about procedures and things like that, but you know your child better than any practitioner that sits with your child for 15 to 20 minutes per visit. So you stand by their side and you empower them and you will be empowered in yourself to do whats right for them.

Watch the full January 17 episode of Lets Talk America below. Lets Talk America with Dr. Alan Keyes airs Monday to Friday from 1-3 p.m. on Brighteon.TV.

Follow BadDoctors.news to know more about bad doctors, medical tyranny and medical extremism.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

CommDigiNews.com
(Natural News) Bishop Leon Benjamin lamented the fact that people are still banned in certain places nearly 60 years after the iconic I have a dream speech of Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), alluding to the August 28, 1963 discourse by the famous American civil rights leader in which he described his vision of America.

Why are we afraid to go to certain places and to show up? Has something happened to our nation where there is a type of tyrant rule and people dont feel free? Benjamin asked during the January 17 episode of B-Alert News on Brighteon.TV, which coincides with the celebration of MLKs Day in the United States.

Benjamin stopped short of saying that segregation is very much alive in America after all those years.

Its time for not just I have a dream speech. We have a purpose, not just a dream; we have the power  not just a dream; we have unity  not just a dream. Obviously, MLK understood the freedoms that were under the gun  even economic freedoms for his very own people. But not just for his people, not just for Black people. Because when you put oppression on one group of people, you literally put it on all people, Benjamin said.

And when I say black lives, Im not talking about the BLM [Black Lives Matter] movement. Im not talking about a communist organization that pushes racism and poverty and all types of falsities that hate Christianity and hate our government, our constitutional republic. No, Im talking about all lives matter. And MLK fought not just for his people. He fought for the freedoms and the rights of all people.

Vaccine mandates create two classes of citizens

With President Joe Bidens vaccine mandate, the government is essentially creating two classes of citizens: the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. One can work, the other cannot; one can participate in the community, the other cannot. Biden and his cohorts are dividing the nation. (Related: Segregation returns to America as universities threaten, harass, intimidate unvaxxed students.)

The message of MLK was different from the message that we have today. But then it was similar, Bishop said. Theres still a fight, and where do we take that fight? To many places we have not reached, and thats the purpose of this show.

Segregation has become a worldwide phenomenon that even a Third World country like the Philippines is now practicing it. In early January, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced that people who have not taken the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine will be arrested if they disobey stay-at-home orders as infections hit a three-month high.

Philippines locks down unvaccinated

In a televised address, Duterte asked community leaders to make sure that unvaccinated people were confined to their homes.

If they refuse, if they go out their [houses] and go around the community, they can be restrained. If they refuse, the chairman is empowered now to arrest recalcitrant persons, Duterte said. Last year, Duterte threatened people who refuse to get vaccinated with jail time.

The Philippines has also banned unvaccinated people from public transportation. The ban applies in the heavily congested Metro Manila, where most new cases have emerged.

The countrys Human Rights Commission called the ban restrictive and discriminatory.

It could also lead to infringements on privacy rights and other human rights violations, according to Leila De Lima, a detained senator and critic of Duterte.

Australia, Austria to implement vaccine mandate

In Australia, COVID-19 vaccination will become mandatory starting next month. Police checks will be carried out beginning March 15.

The mandate will apply to Australian residents aged 18 and older, with exemptions for pregnant women and people who cannot receive the vaccine on medical grounds.

On December 1 last year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen advised the member states of the European Union to consider mandatory vaccination against COVID-19.

How we can encourage and potentially think about mandatory vaccination within the EU, this needs discussion, said von der Leyen. This needs a common approach, but it is a discussion that I think has to be led.

Austria was the first European country to announce compulsory vaccination against COVID-19, which it plans to implement in February.

Watch the January 17 episode of B-Alert News with Bishop Leon Benjamin below. Cath new episodes of B-Alert News every Monday at 10-11 a.m. on Brighteon.TV.

Follow VaccineWars.com for more news related to COVID-19 vaccine mandates around the world.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

Reuters.com

Politico.eu

TheLancet.com
(Natural News) A Canadian professor said those refusing to accept Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines and the official government narrative on the pandemic are considered psychopaths. He added that such a tactic forms part of a bigger divide-and-rule strategy.

Michel Chossudovsky, the president and director of the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG), made this claim back in August 2020. While his assertion was written months before the first COVID-19 vaccine was developed, his predictions eventually came to pass.

We have entered a new phase. The vaccine passport is being imposed in a large number of countries. The non-vaccinated are confined to their homes, prevented from traveling, fired from their jobs [and] prevented from attending schools and universities. They are accused of being extremists and psychopaths, Chossudovsky said.

He continued: What is unfolding is a despicable political process which consists in creating a social divide between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. These social divisions are creating conflicts within families and local communities, literally contributing to the disruption of social life with devastating impacts on local activity.

According to the CRG director and professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, propaganda from the mainstream media exacerbates this divide-and-rule scenario. He said media outlets paint those refusing to get injected with the vaccine as anti-social psychopaths.

Furthermore, those questioning medical tyranny in the form of pandemic response are also tagged as anti-social psychopaths. Chossudovsky pointed out that peer-reviewed psychological studies are conducted in different countries worldwide to categorize these ardent opponents. (Related: If you dont believe the official narrative on COVID-19, then you have a MENTAL ILLNESS, claim scientists.)

Accept the big lie and you are tagged as a good person with empathy who understands the feelings of others. Protest against the official truth; criticize government guidelines; express reservations regarding the closing down of the global economy, social distancing and the wearing of the face mask  and you will be tagged  as a callous and deceitful psychopath.'

Chossudovsky ultimately said both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are victims of a worldwide criminal agenda.

The real psychopaths: Fauci and other elites

These empirical psychology studies are meant to be used against citizens who are opposed to the instructions of their respective governments. In turn, these governments obey orders from higher up, the CRG director said.

While ordinary citizens are tagged, what is increasingly obvious is that the billionaires who are behind the [coronavirus] lockdown and the closure of the global economy are mentally deranged. Money and enrichment is the driving force.

Chossudovsky also named top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci as among these psychopaths. He specifically cited the inconsistent guidance from the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) with regard to wearing face masks.

During the pandemics early days, Fauci advised the public against wearing masks in anticipation of possible shortages of protective gear. However, he later changed his tune as the pandemic progressed  saying that face coverings can protect people to a certain degree from getting infected and block droplets that can transmit SARS-CoV-2.

Wearing the face mask is detrimental to a persons health  its known and documented. Enforcing the [mask mandate] using fake science as a justification is an illegal and criminal act. Fauci confirmed it, [but] now he says exactly the opposite. He is lying to himself when ordering that [mask mandates] be applied universally, Chossudovsky said.

Chossudovsky was not the only one who pointed out Faucis psychopathy. The Patriot Nurse said the NIAID director possesses psychological pathology, which is characterized by abnormality and dysfunctions. She added that Faucis abnormal mental state leads to manipulation and lust for power. (Related: The Patriot Nurse tells Mike Adams: Fauci has psychological pathology.)

People in government are like this. People in power are usually not there because theyre beneficent. They are manipulative and they enjoy power that fundamentally transforms [society]. We should be screening any advice from people who are in positions of government  particularly un-elected, appointed ones like Fauci, she told the Health Ranger Mike Adams.

Watch the video below of The Patriot Nurse explaining Faucis psychological pathology.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

Brainwashed.news has more about society being brainwashed to hate vaccine and pandemic skeptics.

Sources include:

GlobalResearch.ca

TheHill.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) The 1986 nuclear accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility  located in modern-day Ukraine which was at that time part of the Soviet Union  killed an estimated 50 people from acute radiation poisoning, possibly another 9,000 from thyroid poisoning due to radiation, and an estimated 125,000 additional people whose lives were shortened due to cancer caused by radiation fallout. (That 125,000 number was released by the Govt. of Ukraine, years later.)

The extreme arrogance and corruption of the USSR in the 1980s fed right into the cover-up and government denial of the nuclear disaster even as it was taking place. The cover-ups continued for days, even weeks, as government lies subjected its own citizens to deadly radiation that could have easily been avoided if only the truth were acknowledged.

The ultimate price was thousands of lives lost while the corrupt bureaucrats of the USSR covered their backs and silenced truth-tellers.

Yet despite the horror of the Chernobyl disaster, its tiny compared to the criminal acts of the U.S. government in 2020  2022, where now over a million Americans have been killed by a biological weapon that the government funded (NIH, NIAID, Fauci) and handed over to Americas enemies (CCP-run labs in China) to be deployed against the American people. (See SpikeProtein.news for more coverage of the bioweapons development, funded by Fauci, the NIH and US taxpayers via government corruption.)

Even more horrifically, the US government then rolled out a dangerous, fast-tracked spike protein vaccine  actually an engineered gene therapy concoction that causes vascular and neurological destruction  then attempted to force it on the entire country. Reasonable estimates now put the number of vaccine deaths in the USA at over 800,000 and climbing. (Thats 20,000+ from VAERS multiplied by a conservative URF of 40. URF stands for Under Reporting Factor.)

While the former USSR was driven by simple corruption, incompetence and greed, todays USA is run by child-raping demons who desire to literally carry out genocide against their own people. The flagship newspaper of the nation  USA Today  openly calls for pedophilia and having all children taken away from parents to be raised by the state. Remember the song by Sting in the 1980s, I hope the Russians love their children, too? Little did Sting know the America leaders want to RAPE their children. If we had a new song in 2022, wed have to call it, I hope the Russians dont want to RAPE their children like the American leaders do.

The USSRs Chernobyl disaster was a mistake, but Americas vaccine holocaust is DELIBERATE murder

As evil and corrupt as the former USSR once was, they never tried to mass murder their entire population, and they never called for their own citizens to rape and sexually abuse their own children. No, that claim belongs to USA Today, the mouthpiece of America, and there wasnt even a single mainstream newspaper that condemned the pro-pedophilia editorials.

For the Chernobyl disaster itself, no one has ever suggested it was deliberate sabotage by the USSR to expose its own people to a radiological weapon. It was a mistake. But in America today, the corrupt, criminal government tries to force the entire population into being injected with a biological weapon on purpose. This is a holocaust-level crime against humanity.

All this brings us to the astonishing, jaw-dropping conclusion: Today in 2022, we would be far better served by the simple corruption of the 1986 Soviet Union leaders than the nefarious, diabolical anti-human agenda of the regime currently in power in Washington D.C. As corrupt as they were, at least the USSR bureaucrats werent lining up their own citizens for injections with deadly biological weapons. They werent taking orders directly from Satan. They werent advocating mass child rape, and they werent at war with God and humanity.

To be clear, I dont want to live under the tyranny of communism. But neither do I wish to live under genocidal maniacs who pretend to be defending democracy while carrying out mass murder under the banner of science.

Mass genocide in the name of science

By the time Americas attempted mass slaughter of its own people runs its course, there will be millions of Americans dead. In fact, this seems to be the goal of the vaccine rollout, which has been funded and backed by globalist depopulation pushers who see the human race as expendable insects to be exterminated in order to save the planet.

So science is rolled out to convince people to line up and commit medically-assisted suicide, all while the pharma-controlled media lies to the people and falsely says the vaccine is safe, effective and FDA-approved. None of those claims is true. Theyre all lies, just as the USSR lied and initially said there was no radiation coming from Chernobyl.

The USSR deactivated the radiation sensors in order to avoid acknowledging the readings. In the same way today, the corporate media, Fauci, the White House and science journals systematically censor all scientific findings that show vaccines to be dangerous or deadly. Its all about silencing the evidence in order to extend the fraud a little bit longer (and mass murder more people).

In 1986, the radiation cloud from Chernobyl eventually swept westward across Europe, lighting up other radiation detection devices at the universities and science centers of western nations. At some point, the signals could no longer be ignored.

Similarly, in America today, life insurance companies are sounding the alarm over 40%  50% increases in total mortality, even among healthy, relatively young age groups. This signal is much like the radiation cloud from Chernobyl: The signature is unmistakable and cannot be easily dismissed.

69 million Americans to be slaughtered by the Biden regime?

According to the CDC, over 200 million Americans are now fully vaccinated, meaning theyve taken at least two doses. By our estimates based on increased mortality, spike protein damage to chromosomal repair mechanisms, vascular damage statistics (such as myocarditis having a 56% fatality rate in five years) and other factors, it looks likely that one-third of fully vaccinated Americans will die over the next decade from vaccine-related fatalities.

If this holds true, it means that if vaccines are halted right now, over 69 millions will be killed by the vaccines between 2022 and 2032. Those deaths will be attributed to cancers, heart attacks, strokes, etc., but the real cause will be covid vaccines.

This would obviously dwarf the Chernobyl fiasco by orders of magnitude, and it would make the U.S. leaders high scorers in the history of genocide and crimes against humanity. Adolf Hitler killed 20 million Russians in World War II, but even Adolf wasnt trying to mass murder his own German citizens. If these vaccine deaths play out as we fear, the USA will mass murder at least 69 million of its own citizens, fulfilling a vaccine holocaust ten times larger than the Nazi Holocaust of World War II.

That makes Biden worse than Hitler, quite literally. But Biden isnt even running Biden, so we know its actually the demon puppetmasters behind him (Obama, obviously) who are calling the shots. Biden is just the cognitively impaired placeholder for the anti-human DEMONcrats who are really in charge (and who hate humanity).

Chernobyl was a tiny blip on the radar compared to what were enduring right now, under the tyrannical Biden regime and its cabal of Josef Mengele science atrocity pushers like Fauci.

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(Natural News) Democrats play by their own set of political rules which follow one basic premise: When the existing rules dont favor the party, change or ignore them.

For months, the slim Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have proposed legislation that would effectively implement voter fraud mandates throughout the country, overturning state voter integrity laws so that their party could legally remain in power in perpetuity. Republicans have universally opposed the Democrats bills because they know that our democratic republic would effectively cease to exist if the misnamed For The People Act ever became law.

After Democrats failed to win enough votes to pass yet another multi-trillion-dollar climate and social spending monstrosity, they shifted their focus to perpetual election theft, hoping to ram through a change to the Senate filibuster rule  which requires a vote by 60 members to advance most legislation  so they could ram through the voting reform with Vice President Kamala Harris tie-breaking vote.

But thanks to the integrity of two Democratic senators  Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumers bid to destroy our country has been thwarted.

Citizen Free Press reported:

The US Senate on Wednesday voted 49-51 to block the Democrat bill to legalize voter fraud from moving to a final passage vote. The Senate also voted 48-52 against changing the filibuster rule to pass the voting fraud bill with a simple majority as Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema voted against the move.

Sinema casts vote to keep filibuster rules while wearing RED. Need I say cry more? pic.twitter.com/MPoz2Dp27h  Suburban Black Man ?? (@goodblackdude) January 20, 2022

During a fiery floor speech, Manchin defended his decision to keep the integrity of the Senate  and the country  intact.

I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation when elected leaders are sent to Washington to unite our country, not to divide our country, the senator said.

Let this change happen in this way, and the Senate will be a body without rules, he said.

Weve changed the rules, in the past, Manchin said. But we changed them with the rules. We didnt break the rules to change the rules. But all of a sudden now we just cant do it anymore. Just got to blow it up, he said.

The rule book means that the rules changes are done on the basis of broad, bipartisan consensus, not imposed on the minority by raw majority power, he explained. No matter who is in power.

The majority does not have that power to do that in this Senate. Now, my colleagues propose to sidestep this process, Manchin continued. They would use the nuclear option to override a rule we have used ourselves. But now seem to find it unacceptable.

Unacceptable now. We are going to break the rules to change the rules, the senator said. And make up new rules as we go along and invite ourselves to the future majorities to disregard the rule book at will.

We dont have to change the rules to make our case to the American people about voting rights, the senator said. We could have kept voting rights legislation as a pending business for the Senate today. Next week, a month from now, this is important. Lets work it out. Lets see. Stay here and go at it.

Allowing one party to exert complete control in the Senate with only a simple majority will only pour fuel on the fire of political whiplash and dysfunction that is tearing this nation apart, he said. Contrary to what some have said, protecting the role of the minority  Democrat or Republican  has protected us from the volatile political swings that we have endured over the last 233 years.

Eliminating the filibuster would be the easy way out, he noted further.

Were called the United States, not the divided states, said the West Virginia moderate. And putting politics and party aside is what were supposed to do. Its time that we do the hard work to forge difficult compromises that can stand the test of time.

Democrats, most of them anyway, dont care about anything but power, even if it means destroying the country as founded.

Sources include:

ConservativeBrief.com

CitizenFreePress.com
For those who think strawberry fields are found in Beatles songs instead of South Floridas suburban sprawl, think again, city slickers: Our roadside u-picks are abloom with delicious red berries.

Of course, theyre not easy to find. Local u-picks have grown increasingly rare, shrinking as real-estate developers gobble the regions remaining land. Just ask farmer Robert Hoover, whose Family Farms in Davie is the last strawberry u-pick in Broward County.

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At 14950 SW 14th St., Family Farms is home to 10 acres of strawberries on a strip of farmland where Davie equestrian ranches smack into Weston developments. Smores bonfires and tractor hayrides roar to life on the weekends and an open-air gymnasium hosts cardio classes. Bunnies and chickens roam fields of grape tomatoes and sweet onions.

Developers, naturally, have tried pressuring him to sell his strawberry oasis, but Hoover is not budging.

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Family Farms owner Robert Hoover (center) with his sons Aaron (left), 11, and Nathan (right), 13, his farm manager Ariacna Castillo and Daisy the pony. Hoover has operated Family Farms since 2018. (Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

They told me Im sitting on millions but I dont have the desire to live what people call the sweet life, because Im already living it, brother, says Hoover, as his sons, Nathan and Aaron, hammer fence posts along the propertys eastern border. This is what I do until 2 a.m. every day.

After planting his crop in November, Hoovers fields ready to pluck. Floridas strawberry season is roughly December to April. Demand is already high and visitors usually pick the fields clean before sundown on Saturdays, his busiest day of business.

Lane Brooker, the general manager of the 80-acre Bedners Farm, can relate. His fruit and vegetable farm on the western edge of Boynton Beach is the last strawberry u-pick in Palm Beach County, and Januarys demand is so ripe that families can clear his seven-acre strawberry patch by midday.

Henijah Marcano, 7, of Miramar shows her bag of freshly picked strawberries on Jan. 20 at Family Farms in Davie. (Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

We just dont have enough strawberries yet to meet the demand, and but we will over the next few weeks, Brooker says. Strawberries are five times as popular than anything else at the u-pick.

U-pickers driving south to the Redlands will find an even stronger harvest, with handfuls of strawberry patches dotting the farmlands. Major-league Miami chefs Jeremy Ford (Stubborn Seed) and Michael Schwartz (Amara at Paraiso, Michaels Genuine Food and Drink) were even spotted this month taking strawberries off the vine at Knaus Berry Farm in Homestead.

But beware that some farms charge admission fees to roam the fields, such as The Berry Farms in south Miami.

For u-pick first-timers, plucking strawberries is easy, Hoover says. Visitors are first handed a bucket, and they should pick only the fully red ones, avoiding any strawberries with greenness near the stem. Fresh-picked berries should be placed in the shade after picking. They shouldnt be washed until theyre ready to eat.

Dont twist and rip it off like a bottlecap, he says. Using your fingernails, kink the plant and leave a little stem so you have a handle and dont damage the berry.

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Ready to pick on South Floridas strawberry fields? Here are five u-picks worth exploring:

Emma Alexander, 4, Darcie George, 4, Melanie Alexander, 2, Tiffany Alexander, Owen Keck, 1, and Stephanie George pick strawberries on Thursday at Family Farms in Davie. (Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Family Farms

14950 SW 14th St., Davie; 954-804-2850 or FamilyFarmsOnline.com

Robert Hoovers farm in west Davie once grew produce to sell to supermarkets, but now it trades in nostalgia, offering a farmers market and a petting zoo for cows, chickens, bunnies, goats and other farmyard animals. (They also sell baby chickens.) Hoovers 10-acre strawberry patch is a bit steeper than other u-picks on this list  $6.99 per pound  but it may beat a day trip to the Redlands. The u-pick also features grape tomatoes and yellow onions, and the farm recently installed pavilions and an open-air gymnasium.

It's strawberry harvest season again in South Florida, where families can pick their own fruit at a small handful of u-pick farms, like Bedner's Farm in Boynton Beach. (Mike Stocker / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Bedners Farm Fresh Market

10066 Lee Road, Boynton Beach; 561-733-5490 or Bedners.com

Open year-round since 2010, the 80-acre Bedners farmhouse and farmers market has grown into a down-home destination in Palm Beach County thanks to matriarch Marie Bedner, whose family has farmed land since 1960. (The family also runs markets in Delray Beach and West Palm Beach.) Yes, there are country oddities here such as boiled peanuts and locally packaged honeys, hayrides and fall pumpkin patches. But Bedners strawberry u-pick is the most popular, charging $4.99 per pound. Also in season are u-pick sunflowers, green and red peppers, jalapenos, mini sweet peppers and vine tomatoes. Call ahead for availability, as Bedners strawberries disappear quickly, especially on Saturdays.

Knaus Berry Farm is far more than just delicious cinnamon rolls. (Knaus Berry Farm / Courtesy)

Knaus Berry Farm

15980 SW 248th St., Homestead; 305-247-0668 or KnausBerryFarm.com

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Wintertime visitors love queuing up in long lines to worship at the altar of Knaus Berry Farms fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, gooey pinwheels of sugary goodness baked daily at the farms on-premise bakery. But its strawberry u-pick isnt far behind in popularity, says Thomas Blocher, Knaus head of operations since 1984. While the cash-only Redlands farm marked its 65th season in October, it began offering u-pick strawberries again a decade ago ($3.75 per pound) on five acres. The first strawberries ripened in mid-November, Blocher says, but he cautions that until peak season arrives in late January, u-pickers should call ahead to confirm availability. If the weather stays cool and it doesnt rain, the berries will be sweeter and nicer, Blocher says. (The market sells them pre-picked, starting at $7.25 per quart.) Pair your bucket of ripened produce with a strawberry milkshake from the bakery, also serving fruit pies and cheesecakes, pecan rolls and jarred jams.

Strawberry Fields of Kendall

9501 SW 137th Ave., Kendall, 16730 SW 88th St., West Kendall, and 12389 SW 128th St., Miami; 305-322-3388 or FloridaStrawberryFarm.com

Know that this no-frills u-pick operates three strawberry patches in Kendall, and while the berry prices are enviable ($2.75 per pound), youll find no fruit milkshakes or homemade ice cream at this roadside shack. But you will find pickable tomatoes for $1 per pound, and an embarrassment of strawberry riches for the jam youll undoubtedly make at home later. A Strawberry Festival will be hosted on the property from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 27. All three u-picks opened in early December, and eggplants, kale and shucked corn are also available at the market.

The Berry Farms

13720 SW 216th St., Miami; 786-701-8100, VisitTheBerryFarm.com

Juicy strawberries pre-picked for your convenience bulge from pint and quart containers at this Redlands institution started by Charles and Mary Idena Burr (known to locals as The Strawberry King) back in 1965. In 2021, Burrs descendants left their family farmland and reopened a mile west on Southwest 216th Street, where their u-pick continues. The Berry Farms now charges admission ($9-$11 on weekdays, $13-$17 on weekends), and strawberry picking is a separate charge ($5 per quart, $10 for two quarts). Visitors can also crawl its market for tacos, smoked barbecue, ice creams, homemade jams and, yes, molasses-thick strawberry milkshakes  blended with the same fruits that flavor Burrs decadent strawberry shortcake and chocolate-dipped strawberries. As with any u-pick, call ahead to verify availability.
(Natural News) Despite a recent Supreme Court decision barring the Biden regime from forcing Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines on employees of large companies, the Carhartt clothing brand has decided to continue mandating them anyway.

In a letter to the companys associates, CEO Mark Valade explained that the SCOTUS stay on Bidens OSHA mandates does not (emphasis his) change Carhartts mandatory vaccination program, which went into effect on January 4th.

We put workplace safety at the very top of our priority list and the Supreme Courts recent ruling doesnt impact that core value, Valade added, using careful spin to make it sound as though the Supreme Court does not care about workplace safety.

We, and the medical community, continue to believe vaccines are necessary to ensure a safe working environment for every associate and even perhaps their households. While we appreciate that there may be differing views, workplace safety is an area where we and the union that represents our associates cannot compromise.

Valade went on to claim that an unvaccinated workforce is both a people and business risk that our company is unwilling to take.

Carhartt can be reached by phone at (800) 833-3118.

Goodbye, Carhartt

The Carhartt brand is (or was) popular among farmers and other rural dwellers, many of whom are conservative who do not support this type of medical fascism.

As word gets out about Valades position in support of pharmaceutical rape, the company, which has been manufacturing workwear since 1889, is likely to experience a widespread boycott.

Wow @Carhartt is subjecting their employees to medical abuse, tweeted conservative commentator Elijah Schaffer. Very bad look. Definitely should stop buying their products if you do.

YouTuber The Quartering also tweeted about how he normally spends thousands of dollars per year on Carhartt hoodies, jackets and winter gear, but no longer.

Today that end, the German dad wrote. I guess I am looking for alternatives. Seriously, this is insane given their target market. I am done purchasing any of their stuff and giving them thousands in free advertising.

I get it, product boycotts rarely work and are in general a rich mans game. I dont expect you to throw out all your @Carhartt stuff and post cringe pictures. I wont be throwing mine out either but Ill NEVER purchase another thing & NEVER wear their stuff on video again.

Many others had similar things to say, including one who listed other Made in the USA clothing companies that can be supported instead of Carhartt. These include Duckworth, LC King, Dearborn Denim, Agave Denim, All American Clothing, American Giant, and WSi Sportwear, among many others.

Carhartt is catching hell on Facebook, another explained. They will care, because the people who buy their clothing are actually working-class people. Same thing happened to Levis; Wrangler took over.

Another said he tried to call Carhartt to voice a complaint but that it seems the company does not care what its customers think about this decision, even though it would seem as though the company must now assume full liability for any severe adverse reactions or fatalities that occur as a result of it.

Evil people behind evil brands may try to walk it back, but understand its temporary. Understand who youre *really* dealing with that would even attempt to roll with this tyranny. Really play it out in your mind. Do you really understand whats at stake and the type of evil in control who would subject their employees like CATTLE to these New World Order banking elites trying to enslave humanity? said another.

NEVER again.

More news coverage about Fauci Flu shot tyranny can be found at ChemicalViolence.com.

Sources for this article include:

CitizenFreePress.com

NaturalNews.com

MarketWatch.com
(Natural News) Retired General Michael Flynn joined Clay Clark on the latters Thrive Time Show on Brighteon.TV last Jan. 17. He touched on peoples awakening and revelations about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) during his appearance on Clarks program.

Clark mentioned several revelations by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko about COVID-19 during the show. These include a patent for the replication-defective coronavirus that attacks human lung cells. According to the physician, this patent assigned No. 7279327 was filed back in April 2002. Clark also mentioned that the system and method for testing for COVID-19 was filed in October 2015.

The Thrive Time Show host also played a video of British zoologist and EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak talking about his involvement in gain-of-function research.

Daszak said in the 2016 video: Were only looking at viral families that include those that have gotten to people from animals, so we narrow it down straightaway. Then when you get a sequence of the virus and it looks like a relative of a known nasty pathogen  just like we did with SARS  we found other coronaviruses in bats. A whole host of them: Some of them looked very similar to SARS.

So we sequenced the spike protein, the protein that attaches to cells, then we- I didnt do this work, but my colleagues in China did the work  you create pseudo particles, you look, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses, sift and bind to human cells. Each step of this, you move closer and closer to this virus could really become pathogenic in people. (Related: In 2016, Peter Daszak admitted colleagues in China were developing killer coronaviruses.)

Flynn said in response that Daszak talked about creating the bioweapon that is SARS-CoV-2 in his video. Were talking about something that people are getting to the bottom of  the creation of a bioweapon purposely done  in order to change the genetic makeup of human beings globally either to cause a depopulation of the planet or to create an ability to track human beings. (Related: General Flynn believes COVID was a weaponized operation by China.)

Its really staggering, stunning, disgusting, despicable  whatever nasty word you want to use, he told the Thrive Time Show host.

Flynn lauds We The People for stepping up to the plate

Formerly a national security adviser under the Trump administration, Flynn criticized what he calls the lack of follow through by members of the Senate and House of Representatives. They ask great questions, they talk a good game, but they dont move the ball forward to actually hold to account the people that are giving us the most problems  which are many of these bureaucrats in the government.

However, the retired general shared a positive observation to Clark. He told the Brighteon.TV host: What the American people are starting to see is that we  citizen journalists, truth seekers, truth finders  are now holding the information up. We The People are going to start holding these people accountable as citizens because our elected class is not doing that.

Flynn also lauded the rise of non-politicians running for office, most running under the banner of the Republican Party. What people need to do is pay real close attention to these new people that are rising up  these new champions, these new leaders, these new people that want to do more for the country. Theyre showing courage and demonstrating accountability, he said.

I see a rise of people in this country that want to hold to account the kinds of things that we know should be held to account. Its not to be vindictive [or] show scorn against people who have done something wrong. Its to actually get in there, solve problems [and] fix some of the issues that we have going on. Everybody in the country sees it, everybody feels it. So people are starting to say Hey look, enough is enough. We are now going to hold people accountable.'

Flynn elaborated on the role of truth and the quest for it in uniting Americans of all backgrounds.

More people are coming to the truth. The truth is good place to organize around, and thats what we are discovering. That truth then resounds back to the political class  that we currently have to force them to do their jobs more effectively.

Watch the full Jan. 17 episode of Thrive Time Show below. Thrive Time Show with Clay Clark airs Monday to Friday at 3:30-4 p.m. on Brighteon.TV.

Awakening.news has more about Americans stepping up to the plate in search for truth.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

TimeToFreeAmerica.com

C-SPAN.org
(Natural News) A British woman who was infected with the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) said ivermectin smuggled in a chocolate bar saved her life. The woman named Carol and her husband Michael also denounced the National Health Service (NHS) for following COVID-19 death protocols instead of using treatments that work.

Carol, who has not received the COVID-19 vaccine, said her ordeal began after she visited a hospital to seek treatment for her symptoms. A nurse found that her oxygen levels were low and initially prescribed steroids for her. Michael then brought her to North Devon District Hospital in the English town of Barnstaple for further treatment.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Carol was tested for COVID-19  with a positive result being returned. X-rays of her chest were then taken, and a doctor eventually informed Carol that her symptoms were that of COVID pneumonia. The doctor added that given her condition, she was a very good candidate for intubation  which she and Michael did not agree to.

I actually asked to see the X-rays to kind of see to prove that it was COVID pneumonia. We were never shown those X-rays at all through the whole time, Michael said.

Michael made a statement saying that the unvaccinated Carol must not be put on a ventilator and must be resuscitated. His statement also instructed that instead of remdesivir and medazepam, Carol must be given high doses of vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc. He gave this document to the doctor.

According to Carol, the grim rhetoric of the hospital personnel eventually convinced her to accept being hooked on the ventilator. She said: It was almost like a guilt trip because they were telling me I wouldnt see my family again. With all the persuasion, with all the questions [and] everything  I lost hope. I think thats when I agreed to go on the ventilator.

Intercepting ivermectin part of hospital death protocol

During one of Carols calls with her husband, one of the doctors persuaded Michael to make his wife agree to being intubated. He declined and instead asked if they began the high doses of vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc the document instructed.

They said no because they dont have them and I would have to actually supply them, so I have to rush around and get the vitamins and everything. I did also mention that I will be getting ivermectin. The doctor actually agreed to give Carol anything that she takes at home  including the ivermectin, Michael said.

Michael initially sent the first bottle of ivermectin to Carol, but was not allowed to enter the hospital. He then gave the bag to a security guard. Carol later told her husband that the ivermectin was not in the bag he gave. She eventually discovered that another doctor confiscated the medication and refused to give it to her.

I asked him [the doctor] why he took away my ivermectin. He basically told me that ivermectin is a dirty drug. Nobody is allowed to administer it or prescribe it in the hospital because its not part of the protocol, she said. (Related: Medical deep state continues to lie about ivermectin.)

Michael became desperate after this turn of events, as the hospital intercepted Carols ivermectin and her prescription for it. He reached out to many people  until Dr. Tess Lawrie of the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) Group learned of his plight. The BIRD Group seeks to bring together clinicians, health researchers and patient representatives worldwide to advocate for the use of ivermectin against COVID-19.

Lawrie told Michael that she is willing to help him if he can go to Bath  about three hours from Barnstaple by car. Michael showed up, and managed to get a new stock of ivermectin and other drugs with her help.

On the way back, Michael realized that he could smuggle the ivermectin to Carol by melting the back of a big chocolate bar and putting the ivermectin tablets there. It can then be resealed and put in a bag, alongside other items. His attempt was successful, and Carol managed to obtain the much-needed COVID-19 treatment.

The nurse came in with the chocolate in the bag. I waited for the nurse to leave the room so I could get the ivermectin out from the back of the chocolate. Took the ivermectin straight away with my breakfast, Carol said. The ivermectin worked wonders  as she no longer depended on the oxygen machine and started breathing on her own. Her condition improved as she received the ivermectin via the chocolate bar for three more days.

Watch the video below of Carol and Michaels ivermectin story.

This video is from the Heaven Reigns channel on Brighteon.com.

IvermectinScience.com has more about ivermectins effectiveness against COVID-19.

Sources include:

Brighteon.com

BIRD-Group.org
(Natural News) Thursday marks the one year anniversary of Joe Bidens inauguration. And while the Democratic president is deeply unpopular and dealing with several policy failures, journalists had high hopes on January 20, 2021. They compared the Democrat to Abraham Lincoln, called him our papa-in-chief, hailed the return of facts and truth. Its quite the contrast to the actual results of the President who has begun to poll in the mid 30s.

(Article by Scott Whitlock republished from NewsBusters.org)

On inauguration day, Chuck Todd gushed, He is the better angel president. Joe Biden believes  hes eternally optimistic. Hes not cynical. Todd rhapsodized, [Biden is] never cynical. He still thinks the better angels exist, and it was just such an important moment.

According to George Stephanopoulos on ABC, Unity [is] the theme of the day, the theme of this inaugural ceremony, the theme of Joe Bidens presidential campaign, clearly going to be the early theme of his presidency. He said, my whole soul is in this, bringing America together. Stephanopoulos described Biden as Lincoln-esque in his inauguration speech:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: [A]s Jon Karl was just talking about, echoes of Abe Lincoln right there. PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN, MARK UPDEGROVE: Echoes of Lincoln on the eve of Civil War in 1861, the worst domestic crisis that weve ever faced as a nation.This, today, was a triumph of democracy.

CBS on inauguration day found the new president to be like a priest delivering a homily.

The middle it sounded like a homily. A breaking down of all this big language to simple colloquial terms. Im just talking to you. Im in this vaunted position. But like a priest explaining something from the Bible or something.

Last January, MRC Director of Media Analysis Geoff Dickens compiled some of the best inauguration quotes from the day itself, as well as before and after. Heres a sampling: According to CNN, Biden gave America a big hug.

Those lights that are, that are just shooting out from the Lincoln Memorial along the reflecting pool.Its like almost extensions of Joe Bidens arms embracing America. It was a moment where the new President came to town and sort of convened the country in this moment of remembrance, outstretching his arms.

 CNN Political Director David Chalian on CNNs Inauguration coverage, January 19, 2021. Correspondent Byron Pitts: Watching this moment, todays inauguration felt more like a church service, right? And we see there, right after the sermon, the congregation doesnt want to go home. People are hugging, shaking hands. I thought from Joe Biden today, certainly he was commander-in-chief, but he was also papa-in-chief. He gave a speech to comfort the nation.

 ABC Newss live coverage of Joe Biden Inauguration, January 20. It was interesting as Trumps plane was taking off, it started to snow exactly at that moment where I am, and it was almost like the Earth was being cleansed of this putridity.

 Co-host Joy Behar on ABCs The View, January 21.

The better angels president? Papa Biden? Metaphorically hugging American citizens? With a years hindsight, these quotes and predictions about Biden are more than a little embarrassing. But dont worry, journalists wont learn anything and will continue to try and help the President.

For more examples from our FLASHBACK series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.

Read more at: NewsBusters.org
(Natural News) Dr. Sherri Tenpenny told Dr. Steve Hotze that the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines being used against the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) are increasing hospitalization and death rates.

Vaccines, by definition, are supposed to keep you from getting sick, keep you from transmitting the infection to other people, lower the hospitalization rate and lower the death rate. But the COVID shots do just the opposite, Tenpenny said during the January 17 episode of The Dr. Hotze Report on Brighteon.TV.

They do not keep you from getting sick; they do not stop the transmission to others; they do not lower the hospitalization rate; and they do not lower the death rate. In fact, they increase the hospitalization rate. And they increased the death rate. And by some estimations and some reports, they now say, upwards to 70 percent of people that are in the hospital are due to the side effects of the shots.

Sadly, she said, members of the mainstream media are distorting those numbers and lying about them.

Tenpenny pointed out that the mRNA vaccines are experimental injections never before used in human beings. They create spike proteins that cause devastating effects on the immune system and the cardiovascular system. She added that the vaccines also suppress the immune system to allow cancers to grow inside the body.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the mRNA vaccines are teaching cells how to make a protein that will trigger an immune response. The CDC further claims that the vaccines benefit people who get vaccinated by giving them protection against diseases like COVID-19 without the risk of potentially serious consequences.

Double vaccination, boosters causing massive increase in heart disease cases

The doctor who founded the Tenpenny Integrative Center in Cleveland, Ohio added that having additional vaccination and boosters will cause a massive increase in the number of cases of atrial fibrillation, myocarditis, congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy.

What the messenger RNA vaccines do is they ablate, they completely obliterate toll-like receptor 3, 7 and 8, the primary defense of our immune system which makes people more susceptible to getting COVID and any other type of infection. Every single shot that you take damages your heart and makes you more susceptible, Tenpenny explained.

The spike protein also makes you more susceptible to get cancer because the spike protein actually can pass inside the nucleus of your cell binding to your DNA and makes that cell divide abnormally, which by definition is a cancer cell.

Tenpenny, who is an osteopathic medical doctor, also cited the explosion of cancer in people who got the shots.

Were seeing cancer exploding and becoming a non-treatable resistant cancer to almost any type of chemotherapy that is out there. So we are destroying the heart, destroying the cardiovascular system, destroying our toll-like receptors, our primary innate immune system and we are causing people to get cancer, the physician from Cleveland, Ohio stressed. (Related: Scientists warn that mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna are causing BLOOD CLOTS.)

Tenpenny also talked about using masks, social distancing and the fraudulent use of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.

What Ive said from the beginning, weve got the myth of the mask. Weve got hundreds of published studies showing that all the masks do is to make the person who wears them sick. Thats the only thing they do. And they label you as the person out in society who was willing to be compliant, so they can look around and know who the non-compliant people are, clarified Tenpenny, who has guested on hundreds of radio and national television programs.

The second thing is about the nonsense of social distancing. Its just absolutely the biggest joke ever that people believe theyre somehow protected if they stand six feet apart from somebody.

Harvesting DNA for quantum computing

What they are doing with these swab samples is DNA harvesting. Harvesting your DNA to put them into the supercomputers and to put them into the place where they are doing quantum computing, Tenpenny said when asked by Dr. Hotze why people from the medical community are collecting the PCR test results.

Quantum computers operate at a hundreds if not thousands of times faster than what regular computers do. And what makes them really so nefarious is that quantum computers analyze every possible answer that could possibly be out there all at the same time. And then the computer chooses what the right answer is and tells you how to think in terms of what the best answer is.

Watch the full Jan. 17 episode of The Dr. Hotze Report below. Catch new episodes of the program every Monday at 5-6 p.m. on Brighteon.TV.

Follow VaccineDeaths.com to know more about COVID-19 vaccine-related injuries and deaths.

Sources include:

Brighteon.TV

CDC.gov
(Natural News) Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin wasted little time after he was inaugurated this month implementing his pro-liberty, pro-Virginians first agenda, to include getting rid of all staff in a controversial diversity office his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Ralph Blackface Northam established as a way to placate party members calling for him to resign after a controversial photo surfaced during his tenure.

Glenn Youngkin has asked all of the states [Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] employees to resign and tapped anti-critical race theory leader Angela Sailor to lead the department. In her first move, Sailor eliminated the word equity and replaced it with opportunity,' noted critical race theory researcher Christopher Rufo tweeted, along with a screenshot of a report noting the action.

Glenn Youngkin has asked all of the states DEI employees to resign and tapped anti-critical race theory leader Angela Sailor to lead the department. In her first move, Sailor eliminated the word equity and replaced it with opportunity.https://t.co/QzNY1KDGcL pic.twitter.com/zShBPQERfb  Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) January 19, 2022

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sailor is a policy expert at the Heritage Foundation who was critical of public school lessons pushing the lie that white-led systemic racism still exists in the U.S.

In addition to naming Sailor, Youngkin also signed an executive order directing a refocusing of the office, tasking Sailor and her staff to work on economic opportunity, cooperation among religious groups, promoting free speech and civil discourse at colleges and universities, and ensuring that the states history curriculum is honest, objective, and complete,' the paper reported.

Also, the order directs Sailor, who is black, to work on eliminating disparities in prenatal care, and be an ambassador for unborn children, the latter in line with Youngkins opposition to abortion with the exception of rape, incest, or when the mothers life is in danger.

The paper adds:

The order offers a look at Youngkins plans for the states work on racial equity and inclusion. The Republican, who has said emphasis on disparities between white people and people of color is divisive, has quickly come under fire from Democratic leaders and liberal advocacy groups. They say his administration will roll back their work to address disparities  harming economic, health and educational opportunity for people of color.

In the executive order, the Youngkin administration says it acknowledges that too many of our citizens have not received the equal opportunity they deserve, and that diversity when genuinely embraced strengthens our Commonwealth. The executive order doesnt mention race or any specific racial group.

Sailors official title within Youngkins Cabinet will be chief diversity, opportunity and inclusion office, replacing the word equity for opportunity. The governor also said he would sign legislation that would officially and legally change the name of the office.

Former Gov. Ralph Northam created the states Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in 2019 in the aftermath of the blackface scandal that nearly ended his term. The office has been unstaffed since its former chief and her four staffers, who served at the will of the governor, were not asked to stay in their jobs, the paper continued.

Youngkin, who essentially ran on a platform of non-wokeness, also drew criticism in recent days after his administration took down the offices website while also eliminating resources and reports claiming to improve equity at state agencies and public institutions. Thats because the term equity when used by the Marxist left does not mean equality but rather elevating persons of color over whites as a means of cultural, societal and political payback, though again, America does not have a systemic racism problem except on the left.

Virginia had pretty much gone blue after being red for decades and turning purple through the Obama years. After turning mostly red again, it proves once more that Democratic policies are divisive and not at all preferred by a majority.

Sources include:

Richmond.com

RaceWar.news
(Natural News) Adrienne Pan, a 43-year-old Canadian radio broadcaster, died on January 15 after battling serious illness for months. She got ill after receiving Modernas Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.

Pan, host of CBC Edmontons afternoon radio show Radio Active since 2018, got her first Moderna mRNA jab on April 21 last year. She even posted a photo of her vaccine band-aid on both her Twitter and Instagram accounts on the same day.

The radio broadcaster revealed that she had a blood clot in the lung or preexisting pulmonary embolism, which should have instantly disqualified her from vaccinations. Instead, doctors told her that while shes unfit for the AstraZeneca jabs, she should be okay with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. (Related: Data show 2.5 times higher risk of myocarditis with Moderna vaccine.)

Pan got her Moderna injection at the BetterLife Medical and Pharmacy in Laurier Heights and said that she was incredibly grateful and in total disbelief Im vaccinated against COVID-19, 13 months in. Humans can be awesome. The broadcaster disclosed that she had no immediate adverse effects from the vaccine.

Spokesperson for Moderna, vaccine agenda

Pan didnt discuss much about her injections, but she would eventually become a spokesperson for Moderna and the vaccine agenda. Almost a week later, she posted a chart of Albertas COVID-19 vaccination and asked why people in the 50-54 age group were lagging in getting their shots.

On the same day, Pan posted government data showing that most post-injection adverse reactions were the result of the Pfizer jabs.

She posted a GIF on May 6 saying Im a hottie with antibodies, and captioned it with: All the millennial COVID-19 vaccine happiness going on in [Alberta] right now is just a darn delight. The following day, she posted #TeamModerna.

Pan also replied to a tweet about favoring Moderna over Pfizer on May 22. She wrote that Moderna is 92 percent effective against COVID-19 and that she was excited to get her second jab soon. On May 25 and 26, Pan tweeted more government propaganda stats.

Her last actual tweet appeared on May 27, and she did a few retweets on May 28 and May 30. She was completely gone from Twitter afterwards and it was very unusual considering that Pan averaged around 100 tweets per month since January 2020.

Pan had an Instagram post on June 20 of a birthday cake that had a wrong spelling of her name on it. After that she disappeared from Instagram.

It was uncertain if or when Pan got her second Moderna vaccine. The Canadian government recommends a one-month gap between the two doses and the radio host would have been qualified to have her second jab on May 19. Pan had earlier said she was excited to get her second dose on May 22.

It was later discovered that Pan got very ill quickly. She didnt appear in her afternoon CBC radio show since June 2021 and people started wondering what happened to her.

A Reddit post in September asked: What happened to CBC Radio 1s Adrienne Pan? One person replied that they emailed the show and was told by a senior producer that Pan was on personal leave with an undetermined return date.

Battling serious illness for months

On Monday, January 17, news broke that Pan died.

There was no information released about what exactly happened to the radio broadcaster. But it seems that she was in the hospital for a long time. Accordingly, Pan was gone from social media and her radio show about the time she was to get her second jab.

Pan is survived by her husband Ben Norman, her parents Daniel and Maggie Pan and her brother Jason.

The 43-year-old Pan earned a bachelor of arts degree from McGill University in 2000 and worked for Edmontons A-Channel and Global News in Lethbridge and Winnipeg.

While working for Global News in 2007, Pan received a national award for a television documentary she made about Harry Lehotsky, an inner-city pastor and community activist who had been battling with terminal pancreatic cancer.

Two years after launching CBC Manitobas late-night newscast, Pan returned to her hometown in 2011 to host CBC Edmontons late-night TV newscast followed later by the 6 p.m. TV newscast.

In 2016, she started acting as a substitute for Mark Connolly on CBC Edmontons morning radio show, Edmonton AM, and on her second morning hosting the show, Pan broke the news of the Fort McMurray wildfire. In 2018, Pan produced The Pipeliner Wives Club, a close-to-her-heart radio documentary, in which she and other women shared their experience being married to a pipeliner.

Watch the video below about deaths associated with Modernas mRNA vaccine.

This video is from the InfoWars channel on Brighteon.com.

Follow VaccineDeaths.com to know more about COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine deaths.

Sources include:

TheCovidBlog.com

CBC.ca

AlbertaPrimeTimes.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) Almost four billion people have them inside their bodies, and yet their composition isnt fully known or disclosed. Scientists in different parts of the world continue to discover strange objects in the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines.

On September 1 last year, Japanese health authorities recalled batches of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines after they were found to be contaminated with stainless steel. Days later, German scientists also discovered unusual objects in vaccines that they couldnt identify.

The German scientists presented their findings in a little-publicized press conference held at the pathology laboratory in Reutlingen. Some of the foreign objects were described as accurately constructed.

The live-streamed press conference was organized by the Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss, which can be loosely described as Germanys equivalent of Americas Frontline Doctors. As expected, the presentation was slammed by Germanys mainstream media.

Unknown objects found in the blood of vaccinated Germans

Dr. Ute Langer, a physician and a surgeon, facilitated the photo and video presentation where topnotch professors Dr. Anne Burkhardt, Dr. Walter Lang and Dr. Werner Birkholz expounded on the unknown particulates contained in the blood of some vaccinated people.

Burkhardt, who spearheaded the event, was at the helm of the Institute of Pathology in Reutlingen for 18 years and taught at universities in Hamburg, Bern and Tubingen. He has published over 150 articles in scientific journals and did study visits in Japan, the U.S., South Korea, Sweden, Malaysia and Turkey.

Lang served as pathologist at the Hannover Medical School for 17 years before founding and running a private institute for pathology in the German city. Birkholz was a former professor of electrical engineering at Jacobs University in Bremen. Before that, he worked in the management of the chief editorial office of Siemens.

The German scientists noted moving objects after they got sufficiently warmed up.

While the German presentation, which also dwelled on whether the vaccines really have side effects, was met by skepticism, the Japanese report was well-received and triggered worldwide demands for suspension of the COVID-19 vaccinations.

Japan recalled 1.63 million doses of Moderna vaccines due to contamination

Takeda, the distributor of the Moderna vaccine in Japan, recalled three lots of the Spikevax vaccine containing 163 vials equivalent to 1.63 million doses even though the stainless steel particulates, later traced to a manufacturing issue in a production line of Modernas plant in Spain, were deemed as harmless.

After the suspension, Takeda, which first reported the strange find on August 16, forged a deal with Novavax for 150 million doses of NVX-CoV2373 COVID-19 vaccine.

The discovery of impurities in vaccines is no strange matter.

The truth is, scientists have added some queer things such as aluminum and shark liver extracts to vaccines dating back to 1925.

That time, French veterinarian Gaston Ramon decided to add kitchen ingredients such as tapioca, starch, agar, lecithin and bread crumbs to a new diphtheria vaccine on horses  and they worked wonders.

Thus, the field of adjuvants, substances which can be added to vaccines to make them more effective, was born and continued to this day. (Related: The 9 most SHOCKING vaccine ingredients of 2018.)

Aluminum is the most common adjuvant and could be found in diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis, Japanese encephalitis, meningitis and anthrax vaccines. Also widely used as adjuvants are squalene and extracts from the bark of the quillaia tree. Of late, disembodied tails of bacteria and bacterial ghosts made from their empty skins are being infused to make vaccines even more effective.

While vaccines are estimated to save three million lives yearly apart from preventing lifetime disabilities, their repeated injections, just like with the COVID-19 vaccines, pose some concern.

After all, nobody, not even scientists, exactly knows what will these vaccines eventually do to the body in the long term. And the fact that 3.97 billion people, representing over half of the worlds total population of 7.9 billion, including 209 million Americans, have them in their system is alarming, if not frightening.

Watch the video below about German doctors discovering foreign objects in vaccines and the blood of the vaccinated.

This video is from the Slawomir Slowianin channel on Brighteon.com.

Follow Vaccines.news for more news related to the coronavirus vaccines.

Sources include:

SHTFplan.com

Reuters.com

PharmaceuticalTechnology.com

BBC.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) After being filed with Justice Neil Gorsuch, who handles emergency applications that arise in several western states, an urgent application to put a stay on the Biden regimes federal mask mandate for air travel has been shot down by the Supreme Court.

With no comment or noted dissent, the justices simply denied the request, which means that air travelers will be required to continue blocking their breathing passages with cloth or plastic in order to fly.

Michael Seklecki had filed the application on behalf of his four-year-old son who has autism. The boy is medically unable to wear a mask, but thanks to Joe Biden, there is no longer any exemption available for him to travel by plane.

Bidens discriminatory policy was imposed in January 2021 by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) head David Pekoske. Biden reportedly ordered Pekoske to make the change.

The Sekleckis of Florida were joined by Lucas Walls of Washington, who is also autistic and medically unable to wear a mask  meaning he, too, is no longer able to fly thanks to Biden.

Being denied the right to fly because we cant wear masks jeopardizes my sons life as its not practical for us to make the lengthy drive to and from Boston every time he has a medical appointment, Seklecki said in a sworn declaration.

Should TSA be allowed to continue to mandate masks, my son could miss critical medical care, which could be fatal. My family and I would suffer enormous irreparable harm.

The Supreme Court is compromised just like every other American institution

In Walls case, he suffers from a generalized anxiety disorder that when he wears a mask for even just a few minutes causes him to start hyperventilating uncontrollably.

Given that the Supreme Court just last week blocked OSHAs mandate that all companies with 100-plus workers must ensure their employees get vaccinated against COVID-19 or endure forced masking in the workplace, its bewildering why the justices have declined to take similar action to stop a transportation security agency from overstepping its legal authority by regulating health matters, Wall said.

Its terribly frustrating the justices have refused to block TSAs illegal mask mandate given the negative impact it has on millions of Americans with medical conditions who cant wear face masks including the 4-year-old autistic boy who is my co-petitioner. The courts decision today does not align with its holding last week that federal agencies may not order pandemic mandates that Congress has not authorized.

Both Wall and Seklecki together submitted an amended application for a stay to Gorsuch just a few weeks after Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush nominee, rejected their first one.

Neither rejection was explained by the nations top court, which appears to be highly compromised when it comes to going along with the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) plandemic narrative.

What should be a neutral, justice-seeking body would seem to be pushing the exact same fascist agenda as leftist politicians.

The TSAs mask mandate for air travel, which also applies to some buses and railroads, is set to last through March 18, 2022.

When the mandate was first imposed by the Biden regime, Americans were promised that it would help to stop the spread and encourage a unified government response. The outcome so far has been more cases, more disease and more deaths.

In its decision, the Supreme Court did not grant any requests for review. It also rejected writs of certiorari in dozens of other related cases, including a case filed against American Airlines, a case against Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, and another against Google.

More related news about the Biden regime can be found at Fascism.news.

Sources for this article include:

TheEpochTimes.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) A leading official with rail carrier Union Pacific is threatening to pull out of Los Angeles over the refusal of soft-on-crime District Attorney George Gascon, who was installed with George Soros money, to prosecute thieves who are robbing cargo containers with impunity.

The threat comes on the heels of a Twitter report by a Los Angeles-area CBS News affiliate reporter who went down to the rail yards in L.A. after hearing about the mass thefts, only to find a sea of empty boxes, discarded products, and overworked railroad police trying to keep thieves out.

Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all. And theres looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA, correspondent John Scheiber wrote in a post containing a video clip of the carnage.

Keep hearing of train burglaries in LA on the scanner so went to #LincolnHeights to see it all. And theres looted packages as far as the eye can see. Amazon packages, @UPS boxes, unused Covid tests, fishing lures, epi pens. Cargo containers left busted open on trains. @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/JvNF4UVy2K  John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022

Im told by law enforcement these @UPS bags are especially sought after by thieves opening cargo containers they are often full of boxes with merchandise bound for residential addresses. More valuable than say, a cargo container full of low value bulky items like toilet paper, he added in a separate post.

Im told by law enforcement these @UPS bags are especially sought after by thieves opening cargo containers they are often full of boxes with merchandise bound for residential addresses. More valuable than say, a cargo container full of low value bulky items like toilet paper. pic.twitter.com/Tj5bQNIeby  John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022

As you can see, trains frequently slow or stop in this area as they get worked into the @UnionPacific Intermodal facility near Downtown LA. The thieves use this opportunity to break open containers and take whats inside. Id say every 4th or 5th rail car had opened containers, Schreiber continued.

As you can see, trains frequently slow or stop in this area as they get worked into the @UnionPacific Intermodal facility near Downtown LA. The thieves use this opportunity to break open containers and take whats inside. Id say every 4th or 5th rail car had opened containers. pic.twitter.com/PHpujyB84M  John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) January 13, 2022

The rail carrier has had enough.

In a letter to Gascon, Adrian Guerrero, Union Pacifics director of public affairs, denounced the DAs soft approach to criminal behavior and his refusal to actually prosecute theft which, he argued, is only fueling more theft.

We find ourselves coming back to the same results with the Los Angeles County criminal justice system. Criminals are caught and arrested, turned over to local authorities for booking, arraigned before local courts, charges are reduced to a misdemeanor or petty offense, and the criminal is released after paying a nominal fine, wrote Guerrero.

Even with all these arrests made, the no-cash bail policy and extended timeframe for suspects to appear in court is causing re-victimization to UP by these same criminals, Guerrero continued. In fact, criminals boast to our officers that charges will be pled down to simple trespassing  which bears no serious consequence.

Without any judicial deterrence or consequence, it is no surprise that over the past year, UP has witnessed the significant increase in criminal rail theft described above, he said.

While we understand the well-intended social justice goals of the policy, we need our justice system to support our partnership efforts with local law enforcement, hold these criminals accountable, and most importantly, help protect our employees and the critical local and national rail network.

After noting that over 90 containers are compromised per day, Guerrero noted that the thefts are so severe and are costing the company millions of dollars, forcing the carrier to consider contemplating serious changes to our operating plans to avoid Los Angeles County.

Like most other major cities run by insane Democrats, L.A. is in a state of collapse and the only thing that will save it is regime change. Unfortunately, with California having legalized vote fraud, there is no turning back now.

Sources include:

ZeroHedge.com

ThreadReaderApp.com
Fort Lauderdale  An unknown person in a black, four-door sedan fatally shot a bicyclist Wednesday afternoon and fled the scene, Fort Lauderdale Police said.

Shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday, police were alerted through ShotSpotter, along with several 911 callers, of a shooting at 2841 NW 20th St.

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An adult male was shot on the side of the road when officers arrived, according to police.

William Jean Giles, 46, of Fort Lauderdale, was riding a bicycle when someone shot at him out of the passing car, investigators said. Officials took Giles to Broward Health Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

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Authorities ask any witnesses to the shooting to call Det. C. Fargnoli at 954-828-5539, Det. L. Swisher at 954-828-4007 or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.
(Natural News) The World Health Organization (WHO) says there is no evidence supporting the need to inject children and adolescents with Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine boosters. The global health body instead proposes that boosters be given to more vulnerable populations.

WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan made this claim during a Jan. 18 press briefing. Theres no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters. No evidence at all, she told reporters. Swaminathan continued that the WHOs Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) would meet to consider  how countries should think about giving boosters to their populations with a view to protecting people.

The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, those at highest risk of severe disease and dying. Those are our elderly populations [and] immuno-compromised people with underlying conditions, said the chief scientist.

Swaminathan also mentioned healthcare workers as a sector need to be protected through boosters. If a lot of healthcare workers get infected as we see now, they can be out sick  and we dont want them getting severely ill. So there [should be] boosters for that population, she explained.

Despite this, Swaminathan acknowledged the waning immunity provided by vaccines against the omicron variant. Against omicron, many of the vaccines have shown a reduction in efficacy against infection. Thats why we see a lot of breakthrough infections, but there are mostly not resulting in severe disease. There is some waning [of vaccine-induced immunity] which occurs over a period of time, and weve seen that theres a slight drop in the protection. Mostly against infection, but also a little bit against the severe disease.

Swaminathans Jan. 18 remarks followed an earlier statement by the WHOs Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-CO-VAC). The advisory group said that repeatedly injecting booster doses of the original vaccines is an unsustainable endeavor. (Related: WHO warns against boosters, says strategy not viable for new variants.)

A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable, the TAG-CO-VAC said in a Jan. 11 statement. The immediate priority for the world is accelerating access to the primary vaccination, particularly for groups at greater risk of developing severe disease.

EMA: Frequent boosters harm instead of help

The WHO is not the only health authority that has advised against frequent COVID-19 booster injections. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) warned that repeated boosters every four to six months could tire out people and eventually weaken their immune systems.

While use of additional boosters can be part of contingency plans, repeated vaccinations within short intervals would not represent a sustainable long-term strategy, EMA Head for Biological Threats and Vaccine Strategy Marco Cavaleri said during a Jan. 11 press conference. He continued that boosters can be done once, or maybe twice, but its not something that we can think should be repeated constantly. (Related: European Medicines Agency advises against frequent COVID boosters, warns of risks.)

We need to think about how we can transition from the current pandemic setting to a more endemic setting, Cavaleri added. To this end, he and other EMA officials suggested that countries should leave more time between booster programs and tying these to the onset of the cold season in each hemisphere. The regulators recommendations appeared to mirror vaccination programs against influenza in different countries.

The head of EMAs vaccine strategy also pointed out the impact of the omicron variant on the current vaccines. Given omicrons ability to bypass vaccine-induced immunity, more data is needed in order to decide whether a strain-specific shot should be developed.

It is important that there is a good discussion around the choice of the composition of the vaccine to make sure that we have a strategy that is not just reactive  and try to come up with an approach that will be suitable in order to prevent a future variant, said Cavaleri.

Preliminary results from recently published studies are showing that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease is significantly reduced for omicron and tends to wane over time. More vaccinated people will develop a breakthrough infection and disease resulting from omicron due to the immune evasion associated with this variant.

With the increase of immunity in [the] population  and with omicron, there will be a lot of natural immunity taking place on top of vaccination. We will be fast moving toward a scenario that will be closer to endemicity.

Watch the video below of Del Bigtree and Jeffery Jaxen discussing the need for boosters.

This video is from The HighWire with Del Bigtree channel on Brighteon.com.

Vaccines.news has more about COVID-19 boosters.

Sources include:

OANN.com

WHO.int

BigLeaguePolitics.com

TimesOfIsrael.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) A multi-center, randomized, open-label study assessed the effectiveness of vitamin D and the Zelenko protocol (hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin). Seven hospitals in Turkey applied the treatment protocol with and without vitamin C to study its effectiveness for shortening the duration of illness and prevention of death.

Out of the 237 hospitalized patients, (ages 22-99), one passed away at the age of 70. The patient had severe vitamin D deficiency and underlying heart and lung disease. The remaining 99.58% of patients recovered with broad spectrum, natural immunity. During the study, the researchers found that 97% of all the hospitalized patients were vitamin D deficient. Patients who were severely vitamin D deficient (55%) were more likely to end up in the ICU and be hospitalized longer. A majority (73%) of hospitalized patients also suffered from underlying comorbidities such as diabetes, heart and lung disease.

The researchers found that intravenous vitamin C sped up patient recovery from an average of 45 days in the hospital to 15 days. The study concludes that a treatment protocol of HCQ, AZM, and zinc with or without vitamin C is safe and effective in the treatment of COVID-19, with high dose IV vitamin C leading to a significantly quicker recovery.

The suppression of efficacious treatments has turned hospitals into modern day gas chambers

After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a worldwide pandemic in February of 2020, all eyes were fixated on hospital capacity. Even though most hospitals around the country never witnessed a much-anticipated surge in infections, there were inner city hospital systems that saw burgeoning fatality rates. Hospitals in New York City were among the first to advertise their failure in treating covid-19 patients.

These inner-city hospitals are normally overcrowded with influenza, pneumonia, RSV and various nosocomial infected patients, but in 2020, during the covid-19 awakening, the world got to see the problems within the medical system. Hopeless ventilation protocols were the standard of care from the start. The federal coronavirus response, under the leadership of Dr. Anthony Fauci, forced the widespread manufacture of these machines.

Fearing the spread of an unknown strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome, hospitals were incentivized to diagnose covid-19 early and often, even when it was merely suspected. Fraudulent PCR testing was rolled out en masse, even though it was never designed to identify and properly diagnose a single infectious disease. Droves of hospital patients were rushed onto a closed loop system, aka ventilators, to stop them from spreading or breathing into the surrounding air. These devices of death destroyed lungs, imparted oxidative damage, caused nosocomial infections and cytokine storms, leading to ghastly fatality rates. Under this system of terror and iatrogenic error, hospital systems were exposed as modern-day gas chambers.

Under Fauci, patients were forced to suffer, to force more suffering into existence via bioweapon vaccine experiments

Under Faucis leadership, hospital systems disregarded all the efficacious treatment protocols that were being used successfully around the world. Effective treatment protocols from independent US clinics were also ignored and censored. The Zelenko protocol used hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), zinc and azithromycin early on to successfully treat thousands of patients. But insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry dominate the medical profession, using regulatory agencies like the FDA to impose their so-called science onto medical professionals. Fauci was quick to shut down the Zelenko protocol in the US, but pushed for the widespread use of highly profitable Remdesivir, which only contributes to renal failure, iatrogenic error and increasing fatality rates.

In order to legally approve a vaccine with the FDAs emergency use authorization, no efficacious treatment protocols can exist. The mRNA vaccine experiment that has contributed to further medical error and early death, was forced on the US and the rest of the world by simply withholding valuable information on viable treatments and by suppressing the use of nutraceuticals, antivirals, herbal medicine, bronco-dilators, immune-modulators and anti-inflammatory drugs. After two years of following along with these crimes against humanity, many medical professionals clearly look like Mengele puppets now, pushing propaganda and withholding treatments that work.

Dr. Fauci, the CDC and the FDA do not need to be investigated because their crimes are right out in the open. Fauci and the dictators at the CDC use the staggering covid-19 death toll to blame the unvaccinated, but these public health propagandists are really just using innocent people as scapegoats to cover up for the governments extensive list of crimes. Meanwhile, the unvaccinated are still treated poorly in US hospitals, and they have to fight for their right to use basic anti-viral protocols while they are wrongfully isolated, discriminated and mistreated in the hospital death chambers.

If hospitals utilized hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), zinc and azithromycin (the Zelenko protocol), along with intravenous vitamin C, vitamin D, nutritious juices, ivermectin and plant-based antivirals, then covid-19-associated fatalities would be virtually nonexistent. These treatment protocols were common knowledge long before 2020, but hospitals are not financially incentivized to treat infectious diseases properly. These institutions of death are set up to profit from peoples suffering. Even sadder: kind healthcare professionals are forced to work in this coercive environment of despair, droning away in a divisive, abusive culture where they dont even have authority over their own conscience or body autonomy anymore.

Sources include:

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov

NaturalNews.com

CNBC.com

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov

LifesiteNews.com

Brighteon.com
Argentine Dr. Marina Bok, veterinary researcher of the INTA (National Agricultural Technology Institute), works on the purification of DNA encoding the genes on nanobodies that reconize SARS CoV 2 protein at INCUINTA laboratory at INTA Castelar in Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 2, 2020. - "My whole life is a virus," summarizes Argentine researcher Viviana Parreno, leader of a scientific team that has found a way to neutralize them using nano-antibodies 'grown' in llamas, an experience that now seeks to be the key to fighting covid-19. (Photo : Photo by JUAN MABROMATA/AFP via Getty Images)

The issue as to how life initially arose on our habitable planet has yet to be investigated properly, but academia is making progress all the time, wherein recent research uncovers the geometries of the enzymes that might be responsible.

The Search for Origin of Life on Earth

To commence, the researchers opted to initiate with the concept that existence as we understand it is based on the collection and use of resources.

That power had probably begun from the heavens, in the form of electromagnetic rays, either from depths inside Earth itself, as temperature oozing via volcanic vents at the depths of the prehistoric oceans.

The researchers managed to discover advancement in structural layers, this is the forms molecules acquire after they become physiologically active and that has formed the structures we recognize today, much like a scientific family lineage construction.

Since metals are now the finest components for carrying out electrochemical performance and proteins are the complicated structures that control numerous living activities, the experts managed to merge the two and look for binding proteins materials.

According to the experts, these similar traits might be adequate and effective in the primordial proteins, evolving over time to become the enzymes we observe nowadays while retaining some fundamental patterns.

A systematical, algorithmic strategy has been used to evaluate metal-finding enzymes, uncovering similar traits that paired throughout them, regardless of protein capabilities, metal binding, or pathogen associated.

The bacteriologist Yana Bromberg from University-New Brunswick asserts that "We discovered that the metal-binding components of established enzymes are really parallel, although the protein molecules itself may not have been."

Also read: Highly Contagious Blood Cancer Detected in Clams Threaten Marine Ecology

How Structures of Proteins Linked To The Study

The findings also indicate that biologically operational enzymes, the tiny iterations of proteins, might well have preceded the oldest enzymes which go down as far as 3.8 billion years old.

"Our findings imply that conformational changes of these small construction pieces may have a unique or a modest similarity between ancestors, eventually leading to the entire diversity of peptides and their activities that we now have," adds Bromberg.

Yet again, whatever understanding of the origins of living things can be useful in the existence of life across other worlds, where life may commence to develop through comparable evolutionary routes.

Surprisingly, these components were discovered in plenty of other territories of the polypeptides, not even just metal-binding cores, as well as in several other enzymes that were not included in our investigation."

The theory goes that dissolving metals in the Archean Sea, which flooded Earth thousands of years ago, may have powered the charged particle scrambling essential for power transmission and, hence, biological life.

"The discovery of the unique structural construction blocks may also be useful for gene editing endeavors, in which researchers try to create particularly functioning molecules from scratch."

"We seem to have limited evidence on how life started on our atmosphere, and our discovery adds a formerly inaccessible answer," Bromberg argues.

"We also discovered that these metal-binding components are frequently composed of repetitive components, similar to Lego pieces."

Also read: Space Anemia: Space Travel Can Destroy 3 Million Red Blood Cells Per Second
A new analysis warns that the world's plastic pollution issue is a "planetary emergency" on par with climate change and biodiversity loss.

EIA Investigation

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has asked countries worldwide to sign a UN treaty to commit to legally enforceable objectives for reducing plastic waste.

According to the EIA, plastic pollution directly harms our health, causes biodiversity loss, exacerbates climate change, and poses a danger of "large-scale negative environmental impacts."

Plastic has been discovered at the ocean's deepest depths, on the highest mountain summits, human organs, and lonely and abandoned islands.

Global Agreements

The organization stated that dedicated global agreements to combat biodiversity loss and climate change have been in existence for almost 30 years.

However, there is presently no comparable program in place to combat plastic pollution, which it describes as "one of the most widespread and harmful environmental contaminants in existence."

Ticking Clock

'There is a terrible ticking clock,' said Tom Gammage, an ocean campaigner with the Environmental Investigation Agency, a non-governmental organization with headquarters in London and Washington, DC.

'In line with rising plastics manufacturing, plastic emissions into the seas are expected to quadruple by 2040.

'While the visual form of plastic pollution has sparked widespread alarm, the great majority of plastic pollution's effects remain undetectable.'

Related Article: Microplastics Linger in Rivers for Years Before Polluting Oceans, Reveals Alarming Research



Plastic Pollution and Planetary Emergency

Connecting the Dots: Plastic Pollution and the Planetary Emergency brings together the latest scientific evidence on the impact of plastics on climate, biodiversity, human health, and the environment in a new study titled Connecting the Dots: Plastic Pollution and the Planetary Emergency.

According to prior calculations, 250 million tons of plastic will be in the oceans by 2025.

By 2040, it might reach about 700 million tons, and by 2050, the weight of plastic in all of the world's oceans would likely far exceed the weight of all fish.

The paper attributes 'hazardous' plastic pollution to an overabundance of virgin polymers, which are plastic resins that have been manufactured from scratch without the use of recycled components.

Virgin Plastics

Virgin plastics are less ecologically friendly than recycled plastic, which contributes to developing a 'circular economy,' in which material resources are reused as much as possible.

According to the paper, virgin plastic production and consumption have reached unsustainable levels, owing to the oil and gas industry's heavy investment in creating petrochemicals, which are chemical compounds generated from petroleum through refining.

Emission

Plastic manufacturing emits around 1.89 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) each tonne of virgin plastic produced.

'The harm caused by uncontrolled overproduction of virgin plastics and their life cycle is irrevocable - this is a threat to human civilization and the planet's basic ability to maintain a habitable environment,' Gammage added.

The EIA stated that toxic contamination from plastic poses a concern at every step of its life cycle, from when it becomes a substance until it can disintegrate in the environment.

Plastic Pollution

Plastic pollution is not only linked to climate change, but it also feeds into it, according to the agency.

The production of plastics necessitates the combustion of enormous amounts of fossil fuels such crude oil, natural gas, and coal.

Plastics' overall life-cycle emissions were expected to be 1.78 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2015. (GtCO2 e).

'For context, the whole plastics life-cycle would be the world's fifth-highest emitter of greenhouse gases,' according to the paper.

The organization also emphasizes the threat to Earth's animals, which can become entangled in plastic packaging or mistake plastic for food, both of which can be lethal.

According to research published in 2021, over 25% of polar bears had consumed plastic.

'The most evident and well-documented consequences on animals and biodiversity are ingestion of and entanglement in plastic garbage,' according to the EIA.

'At least 914 species are directly damaged by either ingestion or entanglement, according to our research - 701 by ingestion and 354 by entanglement.'

According to the report, 'This includes all marine turtle species, over half of all assessed seabird and marine mammal species, 69 freshwater birds, and 49 land birds from 53 families.

Overall Damage

Overall, the paper contends that climate change, biodiversity loss, and plastic pollution are linked since the same thing causes them.

The study states, "Environmental crises often fight for public and policy attention, with each crisis having its band of proponents who say their issue is the one most in need of knowledge, interest, and financial assistance."

'The reality, on the other hand, is quite different. Environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution are interconnected; the basic causes are the same - overconsumption of finite resources.'

Also Read: Traces of Plastic Found in Air from the World's Highest Peaks

For more environmental news, don't forget to follow Nature World News!
John Stimpson, a retired salesman, turns 80. Stimpson is particularly proud of one accomplishment: he just fulfilled his aim of constructing 30,000 swift boxes, which could accommodate half of the UK's breeding population of 60,000 pairs.

Dedication

Stimpson has been producing these oddly shaped boxes in his garage connected to his cottage near Ely, Cambridgeshire, for 13 years, using three saws and three drills.

After orders rose, what began as a retirement hobby turned into a full-time profession, and he now works 13-hour days to complete them all. He sells them for 20, which covers all of his expenses.

He's also built roughly 700 barn owl boxes and 800 blue tits, finches, blackbirds, and thrushes boxes. According to the British Trust for Ornithology, Stimpson built most of the swift boxes installed in the UK. He didn't realize how many he'd made until he glanced through his order book in July.

"I'm not easily bored." The quantity of life problems that have been solved in this garage is incredible. He says, "Your mind mulls over things." He aspires to continue constructing boxes when he is 99 (his mother's age), although he expects his speed to drop.

Giving Shelter

Given that half of the UK's human-made nest boxes are occupied, Stimpson has likely housed 15,000 pairs of swifts. He speaks modestly about his accomplishments. He says, "It's a wonderful notion." "At the end of the day, I'm rather proud of it." I believe I've made an impact after failing academic tests in the 1950s."

After 20 years as a Weetabix salesperson and another 19 years selling horticulture labels at Burall Bros, Stimpson retired early. He and his wife, Jill, have resided in Wilburton for 51 years. He credits his grandpa, a farm laborer, for teaching him to appreciate nature by taking him out. "Wildlife gives me so much delight. One way I can repay it is to build these boxes."

Related Article: Jays Might Be Responsible for Planting Half the Tree Population in England's Woodlands



Noticing the Problem

Stimpson, like many others, has witnessed an alarming decrease in animals over his lifetime. Swifts, swallows, and house martins, which he remembers from his boyhood, are vanished. He is enraged that his two grandchildren will not be able to experience the wealth of the past.

Stimpson, like many others, has witnessed an alarming decrease in animals over his lifetime. Swifts, swallows, and house martins, which he remembers from his boyhood, are vanished. He is enraged that his two grandchildren will not be able to experience the wealth of the past.

Swifts in the UK are declining due to a loss of nesting grounds, with numbers estimated to have decreased by 57 percent in 22 years. These migrants, who are now on the UK's red list, are site-specific, which means they return to the exact location every spring after flying hundreds of miles from Africa. The issue is that many ancient barns and drafty dwellings have been refurbished and patched up, resulting in the loss of nesting locations.

Also Read: Environmentally "Protected" Areas are Not as Guarded as they Should Be, Evidence Shows

For more news update about Environmental Action, don't forget to follow Nature World News!
According to the scientists, the revelation alters our understanding of the development of angiosperms. Scientists have found the oldest form of a flowering plant in a 164 million-year-old botanical specimen in China.

The Discovery of 164 Million-Year Old Plant Fossil in China

The finding places the origin of angiosperms solidly in the Jurassic era, approximately 145 million to 201 million years old.

The specimen, in which is given the title of Florigerminis jurassica by the expert to the distinct variety, is 1.7 inches in length and 0.8 inches (2 cm) broad and was discovered in China's Hunan Province area.

It has a stalk, a leafy twig, a spherical berry, and a small flower bud measuring about 3 square millimeters.

Plants are classified into two varieties where are the flowering plants or the angiosperms and other one is the gymnosperms or non-flowering plants.

All the flower petal and the fruits in the specimen are significant indications that F. Jurassica was a flowering plant, not really a gymnosperm, the main botanical kind throughout the Jurassic epoch.

the newfound specimen provides the strongest persuasive indication yet that flowering plants somewhat appear during the epoch as historical data suggests that flowering plants did not appear until around the Cretaceous era, somewhere around 66 million to 145 million years ago.

A scientist at the Chinese Institute of Sciences' Nanjing Department of Geology and Paleontology (NIGPAS), and lead writer Xin Wang explained in a message that, "Several paleobotanists are astonished by the specimen, as it is extremely unique from what is mentioned in literature."

Also read: New Study Found That 40% of American Children Believe Hot Dogs And Bacon Are From Plant

Newly Found Plant Fossil Shows Indication of The Evolution of Flowering Plants

The newly found specimen may not be the earliest specimen of a petrified inflorescence yet known.

Experts identified 174 million-year-old blossoms from a shrub of the plant family Nanjinganthus, which is also present in China, in a paper released in eLife in 2018.

Nevertheless, other experts have doubted if Nanjinganthus is genuinely a flowering plant since the blooms were not developed sufficiently to separate themselves from gymnosperm leafy formations.

According to wang flowers are also incredibly fragile and difficult to decompose naturally, making it difficult to distinguish them from those other plant matter.

However, the flowering bud and fruit in the discovered specimen establish unequivocally that F. Jurassica was unmistakably a flowering plant, he declared.

As to the investigators, the specimen serves to highlight the prevalence of flowering plant in the Jurassic and urges a reassessment of flowering plant evolution.

Though there is no method that determines with the absence of achielogical remains, Wang argues that numerous additional recognized Jurassic botanical taxa, such as Schmeissneria, Yuhania, Jurafructus, Nanjinganthus, Xingxueanthus, and Juraherba, might also be members of the genus.

Experts had previously concluded that those taxa were gymnosperms since they evolved during the Jurassic period.

Nonetheless, if fruiting bodies existed throughout the Jurassic, they would also have been extremely rare opposed to gymnosperms and sparsely populated, making discovering comparable well-preserved specimens of certain flower buds extremely difficult.

It is also conceivable that F. Jurassica is perhaps one of the original and earliest developmental linkages among ancient angiosperm-like species, including certain Nanjinganthus, and more modern real fruiting bodies discovered in the Cretaceous epoch.

Also read: Worsening Air Pollution Severely Impairs Pollinators' Ability to Find Plants
Scientists from USGS, NOAA, and Vaisala conducted a study which was published in the Geological Society of America journal Geology on January 18.

The study reveals how lightning detection has improved scientific understanding of explosive volcanism and how this can be used to better predict volcanic eruptions.

How Explosive Eruptions Produce Lightning

The perfect storm-explosive eruptions can produce lightning observed around the world, lead author Alexa Van Eaton said.

According to Phys.org, the Taal volcano eruption in the Philippines in January 2020 demonstrated how a massive volcanic explosion became electrified, releasing thousands of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes over several hours.

Due to these flashes, researchers were able to learn more about how the eruption behaved. The electrical activity in the volcanic ash plume lit up sensors the moment it reached high enough to freeze, according to Van Eaton.

In contrast to other remote sensing methods with lengthier lag times, scientists can receive the lightning data super-fast, argues Van Eaton, as radio waves generated by lightning move at the speed of light.

Hundreds of photos uploaded on social media, as well as satellite images, were also used by the researchers.

This eruption occurred in a large urban area, thus individuals were able to capture images of volcanic lightning as it was happening. As Van Eaton and colleagues put it, the images and films reveal an electrically charged zone beneath the umbrella cloud.

Also Read: Watch Out For These Places: Top 5 US Airports Prone to Lightning Strikes

Predicting Volcanic Eruption

The Taal volcano in the Philippines erupted in hazardous levels of ash and gases in January 2020. From 12 to 13 January 2020, Japan's Himawari-8 satellite recorded the growth and spread of the volcanic plume.

OMPS data from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center was used to create this NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin.

Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) imagery was used to create a natural-color animation. The Japan Meteorological Agency is to be credited. In Van Eaton's opinion, camera perspectives from various angles may do far more to characterize an eruption.

Volcanic lightning, on the other hand, helps researchers spot the early warning indications of ash threats to planes. However, Van Eaton, notes that studies like this one using remote sensing only provide a broad-brush view of an eruption.

Explosive Volcanism

Van Eaton identifies the ash plume's tiny sparks as an area for future investigation. When scientists discovered that the high-altitude umbrella cloud was crawling with these tiny blue streamers of ionized air, they were astonished.

"It's still an enigma how these little ribbons of ionized air relate to powerful lightning." says the lead author of the study.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai undersea volcano in Tonga erupted on January 15, 2022, with a catastrophic eruption. The entire Pacific Ocean was hit by a tsunami, and a massive ash cloud spewed above it, causing unprecedented levels of volcanic lightning.

The Geology research by Van Eaton and colleagues describes how volcanic plumes rich in water become electrically charged.

Related Article: Scientists Warn Tonga's Historic Volcanic Eruption May Harm Environment for Years

For more news, updates about volcanic eruption and similar topics don't forget to follow Nature World News!
A poached de-horned rhinoceros, left to die by poachers, walks with bandage and stitches after being treated by South African veterinarians on a ranch in Bela Bela some 150 KM north of Johannesburg on May 20, 2016 in Bela Bela district . (Photo : Photo credit: MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Admiro Chaque, an ill-famed poacher and gang member from Mozambique, who was last caught for illegal rhino poaching on May 3, 2021, was given his sentence just recently. This was announced on a Facebook post by The National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC).

Judge Dr. Jafete Sigoto Fremo in the 6th section of the Judicial Court of Maputo Province sentenced Chaque to 30 years in prison and ordered him to pay 28 years' worth of fine at the rate of 1% of the minimum wage.

Chaque, a resident of Mapulanguene, Magude district made his last attempt of illegal poaching on May last year, after being acquitted on January 18, 2020 for similar case of "illegal activity hunting for a forbidden species".

As per ANAC; Chauque was "an executor of poaching and organizer of criminals" who would "kill rhinos for illicit enrichment by feeding rhino horn trafficking to Asian countries especially Vietnam and China."

"Nothing but a court circus"

Saving the Wild explains that the minimum sentence for rhino horn, ivory, and pangolin poachers in Mozambique is 16 years in prison. This was implemented in 2017 for poachers of "all protected species".

"We have just been notified of a record 30-year sentence for a monster of a man," said Jamie Joseph of Saving the Wild in the post. "He was arrested on May 3, 2021, meaning from arrest to conviction it was less than nine months. Amazing. Now, may Chauque spend the rest of his life rotting in jail."

According to the organization, there is currently a nine-year minimum for poachers in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, there is no minimum sentence for poachers in South Africa, despite the government claiming that "rhino poaching is a national priority crime."

"I have lost track of how many times a poacher is given a petty fine and no jail time in South Africa, only to go out and kill more rhinos," concluded Joseph. "Or, they get slapped with a double-digit sentence, only to be out the next year poaching again. In South Africa, it's nothing but a court circus."

Also read: Sri Lanka's Hungry Elephants Die After Eating Plastic Waste in Open Landfill

South African government's "fake war on rhino poaching"

On the other hand, Joseph also explained the role corruption had played on how 'Kruger lost 70% of its rhinos' in an article published on savingthewild.com. He notes that "it has very little to do with poaching, and mostly to do with #corruption."

In fact, Chaque was one of several poachers involved of hunting crimes, association to offend, and carrying illegal weapons in Kruger National Park in South Africa.

According to Joseph, the African National Congress (ANC) and its government "did nothing to stop the decline of state institutions" and "benefitted from proceeds of crime and highlighted the State's almost complete failure to prosecute corruption cases."

As a response, President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa proclaimed that: "This is a defining moment in our country's effort to definitively end the era of state capture and to restore the integrity, credibility and capability of our institutions, but more importantly, our government."

"Well Mr President, this year some of us working on the rhino crisis will be putting that to the test," Joseph answered.

Also read: These Animals Have the Longest Arms in the Animal Kingdom
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SUNRISE  The Sunrise Police sergeant who was recorded grabbing a fellow officer by her throat and walking her back toward a police cruiser has been placed on paid administrative leave and is now under a criminal investigation, officials said Thursday.

The video of Sgt. Christopher Pullease, a 21-year veteran, was recorded in November, and Pullease was placed on desk duty five days later. An internal affairs investigation is reviewing the incident.

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During the afternoon of January 19th, 2022, Sgt. Christopher Pullease was placed on administrative leave with pay, a spokesperson for the department said in an email Thursday. This is a result of criminal allegations that have been uncovered due to the internal affairs investigation. The Sunrise Police Department is working in conjunction with the Broward State Attorneys Office during this criminal investigation.

[ RELATED: Fight between chief and union escalates over Sunrise police sergeants videotaped conduct. Experts debate throat-grabbing incident. ]

The department did not provide specifics of the criminal allegations, citing the open investigation.

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Sunrise police body-worn camera footage shows Sgt. Christopher Pullease grabbing an unidentified police officer by the throat and pushing her back to a police cruiser. This happened after the female officer tried to deescalate a situation between the sergeant and a handcuffed suspect already in a police cruiser. As of Thursday, Pullease has been placed on administrative leave with pay and a criminal investigation is ongoing, officials said. (Sunrise Police Department/Courtesy)

Pullease, the female officer and other officers were at the scene of an arrest on Nov. 19 when the incident happened. After officers placed a handcuffed suspect into the back of a police car, Pullease pointed pepper spray at the suspect, the video shows.

The video shows the unidentified female officer running over to Pullease and pulling him by the belt away from the suspect. Pullease then turned around, pepper spray still in his right hand, and placed his left hand first on her throat before walking her back toward the side of another police car with his hand on her shoulder.

[ RELATED: A dramatic video shows a Sunrise cop grabbing another officer by her throat. Browards public defender alleges inaction by department. ]

Since the video became public, Chief Anthony Rosa has issued statements where he praised the officer who grabbed Pullease away from the handcuffed suspect and has denounced the sergeants actions. Rosas statements has fueled the union this week to say to city officials that Rosas comments were biased.

Sun Sentinel staff writers Eileen Kelley and Lisa Huriash contributed to this report.
Contributed photo

As the chair of the Connecticut General Assemblys Transportation Committee, and a member of several other legislative committees, Connecticut state Sen. Will Haskell will be the guest speaker at, and report to, the members of the New Canaan Mens Club at their meeting on Friday, Jan. 21. They will discuss issues that are expected to come up during the Connecticut General Assemblys upcoming 2022 legislative session that begins on Wednesday, Feb. 9.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the members of the Mens Club are conducting their meetings meetings on Zoom for the foreseeable future, rather than at their usual location of Morrill Hall in St. Marks Episcopal Church, at 111 Oenoke Ridge Road in New Canaan.
FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2020, file photo U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaks during a roundtable discussion on Operation Legend in St. Louis. Even before Barr issued a memo that authorized federal prosecutors across the country to investigate asubstantial allegationsa of voting irregularities if they exist, the Justice Department had already begun looking into two specific allegations.
A Miami woman was arrested Thursday on charges of running prostitution operations out of spas in three Broward cities.

Maricela Ramirez, 47, was accused of operating her business from G-Spa in Pembroke Park, Luna Azul Spa in Hollywood, Tan Spa in Hollywood and Innovative Spa in Pompano Beach, according to the Broward Sheriffs Office. Search warrants were served on all four spas.

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She was taken into custody at her home in a cooperative effort between the Broward Sheriffs Office and Hollywood Police Department.

Homeland Security Investigations and the sheriffs office human trafficking office are also investigating. Officials said Ramirez used female employees to solicit sex in exchange for money.

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The investigation began in 2019 when Hollywood police, along with deputies from the Broward Sheriffs Office Organized Crime Unit, began looking into allegations of prostitution at Luna Azul Spa.

Regarding human trafficking, officials said they havent yet found signs of anyone being forced or coerced into sex.

Ramirez was booked into jail in Miami-Dade County. Shes expected to be taken to Broward County to face charges of deriving support from the proceeds of prostitution, money laundering, and use of a two-way device to facilitate a felony.

[ Lee en espanol: Mujer de Miami uso cuatro spas de Broward como fachada para la prostitucion, dicen las autoridades ]
Cisco is expanding its Catalyst family of switches for enterprises that need to blend industrial and operational technology (OT) systems

The the ruggedized Catalyst Industrial Ethernet 9300 1RU rack-mountable switch is based on the same programmable Unified Access Data Plane (UADP) ASIC found in other Catalyst 9000 and features 28 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Up to eight of the units can be stacked together and managed as one system.

The 9300 runs the same IOS XE operating system as other Catalyst boxes and can be centrally controlled via DNA Center, Ciscos principal networking-control platform that features myriad services from analytics, network management, and automation capabilities to assurance setting, fabric provisioning, and policy-based segmentation.

The switch's software includes Ciscos core security, identity, and access-control policy platform, Identity Services Engine (ISE). The switch also includes an embedded Cisco Cyber Vision sensor and works with Cisco Endpoint Analytics to gain system insights from industrial-control systems and connected endpoints.

The idea with the IE9300 is to bring more advanced corporate networking features such as automation, segmentation, and management to OT environments that typically dont support those features, according to Vikas Butaney, vice president and general manager of Cisco IoT.

Operational networks are often less secure, unsegmented, and manually managed with fewer capabilities to proactivity resolve issues, Butaney wrote in a blog about the announcement. Rapid growth in industrial IoT demands a new type of network with enterprise-grade security, automation, and performance combined with industrial features to meet compliance and use-case requirements.

Without enterprise-grade network infrastructure features, IT/OT resources are increasingly strained, putting deployments at risk, Butaney wrote. IT and OT are collaborating more than ever and need common tools to scale and secure the network, Butaney wrote.

Cisco pointed to a Gartner note that stated: Most CIOs have responsibility for OT systems decisions: Eighty-two percent report their CIO responsibility for OT systems has increased in the last three years, and 89% say it will increase in the next three years.

The IE9300 is the vendors latest move toward bulking up industrial network operations. Last summer, Cisco added routers designed to integrate remote, industrial-edge network resources. The Catalyst 5G Industrial Router family includes three modular routers and a gateway that run IOS XE and support network-access technologies such as SD-WAN, Wi-Fi 6, 5G, 4G, Private LTE, FirstNet and Wi-SUN. The goal is to tie together enterprise networks and SD-WANs with remote operations so IT can build, secure, and manage a unified edge, Cisco stated.

The the routers plus the new IE9300 extend Cisco's ruggedized industrial-networking portfolio, which includes the Catalyst IE3x00 series of Gigabit Ethernet switches and IR1101 Integrated Services Routers that Cisco says were purpose-built for IoT environments.

Positioning the IE9300, Butaney said the Catalyst IE9300 is an extension of the companys very popular Catalyst 9000 series used in the enterprise.

This switch shares the same technology, but is ruggedized for industrial and outdoor use cases. Unlike the Catalyst IE3x00, the Catalyst IE9300 is a rackmount switch (not din rail mountable) designed for fiber access and aggregation, Butaney said.

The IE9300 complements the 5G industrial router to connect industrial and outdoor networking environments, he said. In the utility market, the new switch along with the existing Catalyst IR8300 ruggedized router is used in substation upgrades to meet the new IEC61850 networking standard that defines communication protocols for intelligent electronic devices at electrical substations, he said.
Newburyport, MA (01950)

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Rain likely. High 51F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch..

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A South Florida man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for posting bomb-making instructions on the internet for people who he believed were Islamic terrorists.

Samuel Baptiste, 29, was sentenced Wednesday in Miami federal court, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in October to attempting to provide material support to terrorists. The new sentence wont start until after he finishes a previous sentence of six years and eight months for federal firearms charges.

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[ RELATED: South Florida man guilty of posting bomb-making instructions for terrorists ]

According to an indictment, Baptiste posted documents online in November 2016 that included Instructions: How to Make a Homemade Pipe Bomb, Pipe Bombs, Improvised Explosive Devices and Improvised Munitions Black Book, Volume 1.

Prosecutors said Baptiste posted the information for people who he believed were acting on behalf of the Islamic State terrorist group.
Pikeville, KY (41501)

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Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 72F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..

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Partly cloudy skies during the evening will give way to cloudy skies overnight. Low around 55F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Our County Editor

Dave Hinton is editor of The News-Gazette's Our County section and former editor of the Rantoul Press. He can be reached at dhinton@news-gazette.com.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Wednesday called on the international community to give new impetus to the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The question of Palestine has been on the UN agenda for 75 years. The new year should bring new hope to the Palestinian people, and the international community should act with a stronger sense of urgency by taking vigorous actions to promote the comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Palestinian issue, said Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

Violence and hostilities must be stopped and tensions eased, he told a Security Council open debate on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.

Last year saw continued unrest in the occupied Palestinian territory. Since the beginning of this year, the situation on the ground has continued to be tense and worrying, said Geng. "We call on all parties concerned to keep calm, exercise restraint, refrain from hostilities and violence, and consolidate the cease-fire in Gaza."

As the occupying power, Israel must fulfill its obligations under international law, guarantee the safety of the people in the occupied territory, investigate violence against Palestinian civilians, and maintain the historical status quo of the holy sites in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Israel's legitimate security concerns must be respected, he said.

Relevant Security Council resolutions must be implemented and settlement activities must stop, said Geng.

In 2021, Israel's settlement activities in the West Bank continued to expand, and the number of demolished Palestinian homes was the highest since 2016. Settlement activities violate international law. China urges Israel to stop demolishing Palestinian homes, stop evicting Palestinians and expanding settlements, and create conditions for the development of Palestinian communities in the West Bank, he said.

China is equally concerned about Israel's recent announcement that it will invest more than 300 million U.S. dollars in settlement construction in the Golan. The international community recognizes Syria's sovereignty over the Golan. China urges Israel to stop settlement activities that could lead to tensions, he said.

The economy and people's livelihoods should receive enough attention and humanitarian assistance should be scaled up, he said.

At present, Palestine is in deep economic and financial crisis. The humanitarian situation is worrying and people are living a difficult life. The international community should step up its support, enhance the authority of the Palestinian National Authority, empower it to exercise its sovereign functions in the fields of security and finance, and provide basic public services, he said.

China appreciates the efforts by Egypt, Qatar and other regional countries for the recovery and reconstruction of Gaza, and calls on all parties to strengthen financial support to the UN agency for Palestine refugees. China has taken note of the measures recently taken by Israel, such as the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian side. China hopes this will help restore Palestinian-Israeli coordination in economic and civil fields. China once again calls on Israel to lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, said Geng.

All efforts should be mobilized to promote peace and implement the two-state solution. History and reality have repeatedly proved that the two-state solution is the only viable way to resolve the Palestinian issue. The international community should uphold an objective and fair approach, advocate tolerance and mutual understanding, and do more for the resumption of dialogue between the two sides based on the two-state solution, he said.

"We hope that the two sides will take the recent high-level contacts as an opportunity to gradually build mutual trust and continue to build momentum. We expect Palestinian factions to strengthen solidarity, achieve internal reconciliation through consultations and dialogue, and form a unified negotiating position," he said.

China supports the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent state of Palestine and supports the peaceful coexistence of Palestine and Israel and the common development of the Arab and Jewish peoples. China will continue to work relentlessly with the international community toward the early settlement of the Palestinian issue, he said.
Two new Florida bills aim expand and standardize the curriculum for students on African American history and Holocaust education  the latest legislation to emerge in a string of proposals for what children can and cannot be taught in schools statewide.

Education on these topics is widely inconsistent across the state and some districts teach them better than others, according to one of the bills sponsors, state Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boynton Beach.

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The bills, if passed, would implement statewide testing requirements and lay out consequences for school district superintendents who fail to show theyve been teaching and testing on that material.

We want to have some consistency across the state, she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday. Right now, each district does what they want to do, so we want to make sure its being done in the correct manner across the entire state.

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Berman said she expects considerable resistance in the state Legislature and under a governor who has been an outspoken critic of certain forms of teaching race relations.

It will certainly be difficult to have this bill heard, she said.

[ RELATED: Lawmakers want to block teaching race relations in schools. Heres a look at content that was banned last year ]

Currently, public schools in Florida are required by state law to teach some level of African American history, including the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery, the passage to America, the enslavement experience, abolition, and the contributions of African Americans to society, the law states.

That same law also requires teaching the history of the Holocaust, in a manner that leads to an investigation of human behavior, an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions.

The new bills would require the Florida Department of Education to provide comprehensive curriculum and testing standards for that material, as well as training standards for teachers, according to Berman.

State Sen. Lori Berman (submitted photo / FPG)

Some schools and school districts do a good job at teaching these subjects, but others fall short, she said.

There are probably districts that are not doing a very good job at teaching this right now, and so we want to beef up the requirements so that theyll be able to understand how important it is and what they need to do, Berman said.

Only 11 of Floridas 67 school districts have achieved exemplary status in teaching these topics, according to the Florida Commission of Educations African American History Task Force. They include Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, as well as Alachua, Duval, Gadsden, Hillsborough, Leon, Pinellas and St. Lucie counties.

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The bills also would start requiring African American and Holocaust education in charter schools and private schools that accept voucher funding.

Starting in the 2023-24 school year, the state would have to verify that schools and districts are following the law in teaching these subjects, if the bills were to pass. They also would require school district superintendents and school principals to provide evidence of their teaching these subjects and, if they havent, explanations as to why not.

This years legislative efforts have included a sharp focus on education. Just last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that critical race theory shouldnt be taught to Floridas children or workers, as he pushed to ban the practice.

Critical race theory refers to a theory in history curriculum that teaches that racism is embedded in many American institutions since the countrys founding. Critical race theory isnt part of any state-approved curriculum and isnt taught in South Floridas schools, school officials say.

[ RELATED: What are we teaching our children? Race debate settles in the schools ]

The topic, and even the very definition, of critical race theory, has been discussed in school board meetings, state departments of education and state legislatures for years, but especially since the police killing of George Floyd and the racial reckoning that many American institutions undertook thereafter.

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Christina Pushaw, a spokeswoman for DeSantis, touted the governors promotion of Holocaust and African American education, such as mandating the teaching about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre and its victims in Florida public school history classes.

We can be proud of our state, our country, and Americas foundational values, while acknowledging the evils of slavery, racist violence, and racial discrimination.

Educating students on the good and the bad in American history is required in Florida public schools, and Governor DeSantis fully supports factual historical education  as Florida law also requires, she said in a statement.

By contrast, she continued, critical race theory is not factual. It is an ideologically driven construct, which promotes unsubstantiated and divisive narratives that have no place in our classrooms.

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State Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Orlando, is sponsoring the House Bill dealing with expanding African American and Holocaust history. She sees this bill as clarification on the issue of critical race theory versus expanding traditional education on these subjects.

She said the bill seeks to guarantee that all school districts in the state are teaching African American history and Holocaust history throughout the year, not just on a specific holiday or during Black History Month.

State Rep. Geraldine Thompson speaks during the Juneteenth justice rally at Bill Breeze Park in Ocoee on June 19, 2020. (Rich Pope, Orlando Sentinel) (Rich Pope / Orlando Sentinel)

Sometimes our history is only relegated to February and that is the only time theres a focus on it, Thompson said. If you can teach Shakespeare, cant you also teach Zora Neale Hurston?

Unlike critical race theory, which Thompson acknowledged is just a theory, these bills would expand the teaching of facts, she said. Things that can be documented, researched and confirmed. And so it would be instruction based on facts and not theories.

Austen Erblat can be reached at aerblat@sunsentinel.com, 954-599-8709 or on Twitter @AustenErblat.
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Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk).
We have retail businesses, we have a hair salon going in, we have a barber shop, we have a martial-arts studio, we have two different therapists, there is a massage studio and an insurance business. It is a hodge-podge of businesses," 25 in all.
Santiago is in her sixth year at Countryside where, as one student describes it, she has a penchant for breaking down concepts that seem complicated at first glance, and she has the patience to work with students until they understand.
One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021
In the past week, the Biden administration launched two programs that aim to get rapid covid tests into the hands of every American. But the design of both efforts disadvantages people who already face the greatest barriers to testing.

From the limit placed on test orders to the languages available on websites, the programs stand to leave out many people who don't speak English or don't have internet access, as well as those who live in multifamily households. All these barriers are more common for non-white Americans, who have also been hit hardest by covid. The White House told KHN it will address these problems but did not give specifics.

It launched a federally run website on Jan. 18 where people can order free tests sent directly to their homes. But there is a four-test limit per household. Many homes could quickly exceed their allotments  more than a third of Hispanic Americans plus about a quarter of Asian and Black Americans live in households with at least five residents, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by KFF. Only 17% of white Americans live in these larger groups.

"There are challenges that they have to work on for sure," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Also, as of Jan. 15, the federal government requires private insurers to reimburse consumers who purchase rapid tests.

When the federal website  with orders fulfilled and shipped through the United States Postal Service  went live this week, the first wave of sign-ups exposed serious issues.

Some people who live in multifamily residences, such as condos, dorms, and houses sectioned off into apartments, reported on social media that if one resident had already ordered tests to their address, the website didn't allow for a second person to place an order.

"They're going to have to figure out how to resolve it when you have multiple families living in the same dwelling and each member of the family needs at least one test. I don't know the answer to that yet," Benjamin said.

USPS spokesperson David Partenheimer said that while this seems to be a problem for only a small share of orders, people who encounter the issue should file a service request or contact the help desk at 1-800-ASK-USPS.

A White House official said 20% of shipments will be directed every day to people who live in vulnerable ZIP codes, as determined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's social vulnerability index, which identifies communities most in need of resources.

Another potential obstacle: Currently, only those with access to the internet can order the free rapid tests directly to their homes. Although some people can access the website on smartphones, the online-only access could still exclude millions of Americans: 27% of Native American households and 20% of Black households don't have an internet subscription, according to a KHN analysis of Census Bureau data.

The federal website is currently available only in English, Spanish, and Chinese.

According to the White House, a phone line is also being launched to ease these types of issues. An aide said it is expected to be up and running by Jan. 21. But details are pending about the hours it will operate and whether translators will be available for people who don't speak English.

However, the website is reaching one group left behind in the initial vaccine rollout: blind and low-vision Americans who use screen-reading technology. Jared Smith, associate director of WebAIM, a nonprofit web accessibility organization, said the federal site "is very accessible. I see only a very few minor nitpicky things I might tweak."

The Biden administration emphasized that people have options beyond the rapid-testing website. There are free federal testing locations, for instance, as well as testing capacity at homeless shelters and other congregate settings.

Many Americans with private health plans could get help with the cost of tests from the Biden administration reimbursement directive. In the days since its unveiling, insurers said they have moved quickly to implement the federal requirements. But the new systems have proved difficult to navigate.

Consumers can obtain rapid tests  up to eight a month are covered  at retail stores and pharmacies. If the store is part of their health plan's rapid-test network, the test is free. If not, they can buy it and seek reimbursement.

The program does not cover the 61 million beneficiaries who get health care through Medicare, or the estimated 31 million people who are uninsured. Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program are required to cover at-home rapid tests, but rules for those programs vary by state.

And the steps involved are complicated.

First, consumers must figure out which retailers are partnering with their health plans and then pick up the tests at the pharmacy counter. As of Jan. 19, however, only a few insurance companies had set up that direct-purchase option  and nearly all the major participating pharmacies were sold out of eligible rapid tests.

Instead, Americans are left to track down and buy rapid tests on their own and then send receipts to their insurance providers.

Many of the country's largest insurance companies provide paper forms that customers must print, fill out, and mail along with a receipt and copy of the box's product code. Only a few, including UnitedHealthcare and Anthem, have online submission options. Highmark, one of the largest Blue Cross and Blue Shield affiliates, for instance, has 16-step instructions for its online submission process that involves printing out a PDF form, signing it, and scanning and uploading it to its portal.

Nearly 1 in 4 households don't own a desktop or laptop computer, according to the Census Bureau. Half of U.S. households where no adults speak English don't have computers.

A KHN reporter checked the websites of several top private insurers and didn't find information from any of them on alternatives for customers who don't have computers, don't speak English, or are unable to access the forms due to disabilities.

UnitedHealthcare and CareFirst spokespeople said that members can call their customer service lines for help with translation or submitting receipts. Several other major insurance companies did not respond to questions.

Once people make it through the submission process, the waiting begins. A month or more after a claim is processed, most insurers send a check in the mail covering the costs.

And that leads to another wrinkle. Not everyone can easily deposit a check. About 1 in 7 Black and 1 in 8 Hispanic households don't have checking or savings accounts, compared with 1 in 40 white households, according to a federal report. Disabled Americans are also especially likely to be "unbanked." They would have to pay high fees at check-cashing shops to claim their money.

"It's critically important that we are getting testing out, but there are limitations with this program," said Dr. Utibe Essein, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "These challenges around getting tests to individuals with language barriers or who are homeless are sadly the same drivers of disparities that we see with other health conditions."

KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber contributed to this report.
COVID-19 vaccination does not affect the chances of conceiving a child, according to a study of more than 2,000 couples that was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers found no differences in the chances of conception if either male or female partner had been vaccinated, compared to unvaccinated couples. However, couples had a slightly lower chance of conception if the male partner had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 within 60 days before a menstrual cycle, suggesting that COVID-19 could temporarily reduce male fertility. The study was conducted by Amelia K. Wesselink, Ph.D., of Boston University, and colleagues. It appears in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The findings provide reassurance that vaccination for couples seeking pregnancy does not appear to impair fertility. They also provide information for physicians who counsel patients hoping to conceive." Diana Bianchi, M.D., Director of NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Researchers analyzed data from the Pregnancy Study Online (PRESTO), an internet-based prospective cohort study of U.S. and Canadian couples trying to conceive without fertility treatment. PRESTO is led by Lauren A. Wise, Sc.D., of Boston University.

Study participants identified as female and were 21 to 45 years old. They completed a questionnaire on their income and education levels, lifestyle, and reproductive and medical histories, including whether or not they were vaccinated against COVID-19 and whether they or their partners had ever tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. They also invited their male partners aged 21 or older to complete a similar questionnaire. Female partners completed follow-up questionnaires every eight weeks until they became pregnant, or up to 12 months if they did not.

The investigators found no major differences in conception rates per menstrual cycle between unvaccinated and vaccinated couples in which at least one partner had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Results were similar when the investigators looked at factors that could potentially influence the results, such as whether study participants or their partners received one or two doses of a vaccine, the type of vaccine they received, how recently they were vaccinated, whether they were American or Canadian, whether they were health care workers, or they were couples without a history of infertility.

Overall, testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection was not associated with a difference in conception. However, couples in which the male partner had tested positive within 60 days of a given cycle were 18% less likely to conceive in that cycle. There was no difference in conception rates for couples in which the male partner had tested positive more than 60 days before a cycle, compared to couples in which the male partner had not tested positive.

Fever, known to reduce sperm count and motility, is common during SARS-CoV-2 infection and so could explain the temporary decline in fertility the researchers observed in couples in which the male partner had a recent infection. Other possible reasons for a decline in fertility among male partners who recently tested positive could be inflammation in the testes and nearby tissues and erectile dysfunction, all common after SARS-CoV-2 infection. The researchers noted that this short-term decline in male fertility could potentially be avoided by vaccination.

The researchers concluded that their results suggest that vaccination against COVID-19 had no harmful association with fertility. Vaccination against COVID-19 also could help avert the risks that SARS-CoV-2 infection poses for maternal and fetal health.
Broward teachers have been approved for a pay increase, but many arent happy about it.

The School Board voted unanimously in a special meeting Friday to approve a contract that gives teachers raises of 1% to 1.33% plus a $2,000 stipend. The $2,000 is a one-time payment that wont permanently increase teacher salaries.

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The Broward Teachers Union leadership signed off on the contract, which covers the 2021-2022 school year. But when the agreement went for a vote to the 14,000 teachers in the bargaining unit, an unusually large number said no.

[ RELATED: Broward teachers could get $2,000 bonus ]

About 75% of teachers voted in favor of the contract, but usually thats closer to 95%. By contrast, a contract for lower-paid classroom and teacher assistants received the support of 99% of that bargaining group. Many of those employees will get $2-an-hour raises, bringing them up to $15 an hour, as well as a $1,500 bonus.

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Some teachers who voted for the contract said they did so grudgingly.

The truth is that we were advised to vote for it, because if we voted down, the board would not come back and offer us anything, Debby Miller, a teacher at Walter C. Young Middle in Pembroke Pines, said on Twitter. Its a hell of a position to be in.

Fran Wernersbach, a 28-year-veteran who teaches at Monarch High in Coconut Creek, said she was one of the 25% who voted no.

[ RELATED: Voters asked to approve new round of school taxes ]

When the cost of living is increasing by 7%, a 1.07% raise is actually a 5.93% loss of income for me, she wrote to the School Board. Why are teachers expected to work two or three jobs to support their families?

School Board members and Union President Anna Fusco agreed that the increase was too low. But they said it was the best they could work out because the state didnt allocate enough money for teacher salaries.

Elected officials in Tallahassee need to do better when funding education, Fusco said.

[ FROM 2020: DeSantis signs bil to raise starting teacher salaries. ]

Next year teachers could get a larger raise, or possibly a large pay cut, depending on the outcome of a referendum planned for this August.

Voters approved a tax of $50 for every $100,000 of assessed property in 2018, which funded teacher raises, as well as mental health counselors and safety and security officers. But that expires next year unless voters agree to renew it.

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Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco says small pay increase was best available in tough budget year. (Carline Jean / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

This time, the School Board has voiced support for increasing that to $100 per $100,000 of assessed property, potentially providing a bigger pot of money if it passes.

If the School Board asked for the same money as last time, it would be a loss in funds, district officials say, because state law now requires the district to share 20% of revenues with charter schools.

Interim Superintendent Vickie Cartwright said the district will try to persuade voters why, despite the rising cost of living, its important to support the referendum.

The loss of this would be a huge problem, Cartwright said.
In a recent study published on the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers present evidence for early community transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant in New Delhi, India.

Study: Evidence of early community transmission of Omicron (B1.1.529) in Delhi- A city with very high seropositivity and past exposure! Image Credit: REC Stock Footage / Shutterstock.com

Background

The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is directly associated with a substantial increase in the number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases across the world. However, sufficient information regarding the characteristics of Omicron infections from developing countries is not yet available.

New Delhi, the capital of India, has a high SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity rate and experienced a deadly outbreak of the Delta variant between April 2021 and June 2021. Since Delhi also has a high rate of COVID-19 vaccination, the evaluation of community transmission of the Omicron variant in Delhi would provide valuable information.

About the study

In this prospective study, researchers from the Department of Clinical Virology at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in New Delhi analyzed all SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-positive respiratory specimens collected from five districts of Delhi between November 25, 2021, and December 23, 2021, using the whole-genome sequencing (WGS) method.

The authors also evaluated the formation of family clusters and the eventual community spread of the Omicron variant. The study commenced after Omicron was designated as a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern (VOC) by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The complete demographic and clinical information of Omicron-infected patients were obtained using the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi (ICMR) Specimen Referral Form (SRF) for COVID-19 and the patient information sheet (PIF) sent from each testing facility. Subsequently, missing information about the enrolled subjects was collected through telephonic interviewing.

Study findings

The findings showed that the Delta variant and its B.1.617.2 sublineages caused 182 of the 264 SARS-CoV-2 cases included in the study, whereas the Omicron variant was responsible for the remaining 82. Furthermore, BA.1 and BA.2 sublineages accounted for 73.1% and 26.8% of the Omicron cases, respectively.

The South and West districts of Delhi had the highest proportion of Delta cases with 45% and 26%, respectively. More adults aged 18 to 60 years were infected with the Delta variant as compared to the pediatric or elderly populations. Notably, 80.6% of the Delta-infected patients were fully vaccinated and 12.9% had a previous history of COVID-19.

Distribution of SARS-CoV-2 lineages and sub-lineages among five studied districts.

Among the 91 symptomatic Delta cases, 15 required hospitalizations, most of whom had underlying comorbidities. Two patients infected with the Delta variant died during the study period.

An average age of 35 years and male gender were associated with a higher incidence of Omicron infections. Importantly, 61% of the Omicron-infected patients were asymptomatic and did not require hospital care.

Only three patients infected with the Omicron variant were hospitalized, given they had hypertension and diabetes mellitus as underlying comorbidities. However, none of the hospitalized patients required intensive care.

Almost 88% of Omicron-infected patients were fully vaccinated and 1.2% had received two doses of the Moderna and one dose of the Covaxin vaccines. Omicron-infected patients became RT-PCR negative by an average of 10 days.

Out of the 82 Omicron cases, 32 patients had a history of travel to high SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence areas or contacts to travelers and 50 patients showed no history of travel, thereby indicating community transmission. Nearly 72% of Omicron-infected patients with a travel or contact history were asymptomatic as compared to 54% of the community-acquired Omicron cases.

The West and South districts of Delhi reported the highest proportion of Omicron cases at 40.2% and 26.8%, respectively. Significant community transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant was recorded, along with a 1.8% to 54% steep increase in the daily progression of Omicron cases.

Geotagging of Omicron cases (n=82) from five districts of National Capital, Delhi. Black dotted circles represent local cluster with three or more cases in close vicinity.

Out of the 82 Omicron cases, 38 belonged to 14 family clusters. Among these, only four families had a documented international travel history.

Of the remaining 10 families, three were infected with Omicron following contact with a non-family member who had a recent history of international travel. However, the Omicron infections in the rest of the seven families were likely associated with the community transmission of Omicron.

Conclusions

According to the authors, this is the first study from India demonstrating the evidence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant-led community transmission in Delhi. The current study reports a higher breakthrough rate, lower hospitalization, and symptomatic infection rates of Omicron in individuals with high seropositivity against the SARS CoV-2 infection. Furthermore, a definite shift from the predominance of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant to Omicron was also associated with this community transmission.

The current study may not represent the actual magnitude of the community transmission of Omicron in India's capital, as it was based on infections in only five districts of Delhi. Thus, further studies with a large population range are required for in-depth knowledge of epidemiology and the clinical course of Omicron in the community.

*Important notice

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Jan. 22 is the 49th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark abortion ruling, Roe v. Wade, and could well be its last. The conservative supermajority on the court seems poised to allow states to severely restrict or even ban the procedure.

Also this week, the Biden administration celebrates its anniversary. And while President Joe Biden has accomplished a lot in his first 365 days in office, such as expanding health insurance coverage and implementing a congressional ban on "surprise" medical bills, a big part of his health agenda remains mired in Congress.

This week's panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Shefali Luthra of the 19th, and Kimberly Leonard of Insider.

Among the takeaways from this week's episode:

In a nearly two-hour news conference intended to highlight his Year One accomplishments, Biden acknowledged that his huge Build Back Better bill will have to be broken up if any parts of it are to become law. Among those most likely to survive are provisions to continue additional subsidies for insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Less clear is the fate of provisions that would reduce prescription drug costs and provide insurance for people in states that have not expanded Medicaid under the ACA.

In anticipation of a major Supreme Court ruling on abortion, states are moving toward a Roe-less world. Republican states are readying more abortion restrictions, including bans like the one in Texas, which has so far escaped being blocked by courts due to its unique enforcement mechanism that relies on individual citizens to sue those who perform or aid in an abortion. Meanwhile, Democratic states are working to shore up the protective laws they have in place.

The Biden administration has launched a website to deliver free rapid tests to every American household that applies, and it will also distribute free high-quality masks through community centers and pharmacies. Experts agree that making these things available on a mass scale should have been done much sooner. The failure to do so is not something that the Biden team can blame on the Trump administration.

The Supreme Court has blocked the Biden administration from imposing its rule for large employers to require workers to be vaccinated or tested regularly, although it upheld a separate rule for health workers. Already some companies are stepping back from the requirements, including Starbucks.

Also this week, Rovner interviews Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, about what a post-Roe world would look like for anti-abortion activists.

Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too:

Julie Rovner: Politico's "How Many Health Care Workers Are Vaccinated? It's Anyone's Guess," by Rachael Levy.

Alice Miranda Ollstein: The New York Times' "When My Mom Got Covid, I Went Searching for Pfizer's Pills," by Rebecca Robbins.

Shefali Luthra: The Atlantic's "The Real Reason Americans Aren't Isolating," by Olga Khazan.

Kimberly Leonard: Insider's "Some of the Same Members of Congress Pushing to Restrict Cigarettes and Vapes Are Quietly Investing in Tobacco Giants," by Kimberly Leonard.
Kingston University has launched a project to give health and social care students the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge by supporting people living with dementia.

The Special Interest Group (SIG) is being led by senior lecturer in social work Maria Brent and aims to raise awareness of dementia and provide students with volunteering opportunities in the local community, which will benefit them both professionally and personally, as well as supporting those living with dementia and their families and carers.

The University is working with partners, including Kingston Hospital, the local Alzheimer's Society and a number of care homes, to give students learning opportunities where they can spend quality time with someone with dementia. Seeing the person and not just their diagnosis is something Mrs Brent feels passionately about in helping develop students' knowledge.

On placements, students are often focused on their clinical or assessment skills. Although these are important, for me the volunteering opportunities are about how students can develop their person-centered skills and wider learning opportunities with our partners and build relationships so they can spend time with a person living with dementia, looking behind the diagnosis to hear their voice." Maria Brent, senior lecturer in social work

Mrs Brent leads on this area within her department and was motivated for the idea for a Special Interest Group after caring for her mother, who had dementia. "It was powerful for me watching care staff with my mother, who took some time to ask how she was. They didn't rush her and let her find her words so they could find out more about her and her story. This really had a positive impact on her mood and behavior," she said.

After experiencing how dementia can affect lives, Mrs Brent is hoping to eventually offer the different volunteering opportunities to all staff and students at Kingston, having already had interest from nursing, social work and business students. "Dementia doesn't discriminate and can affect anyone. It's all about learning those little tips that make such a difference - like asking someone if they enjoyed their breakfast instead of quizzing them on what they had, because these specific questions can be stressful for people living with dementia. It's all about using simple, basic tools to help support those living with this challenging condition as best we can," she said.

Due to the work, Mrs Brent has been involved in, Kingston University was recently authorized to use the logo 'working towards a dementia friendly community', a recognition given by the Alzheimer's Society to recognize the work that has been achieved in raising awareness of the condition and Mrs Brent wants to use this momentum to build on the learning resources already available to students.

"Local care homes really want to work with us and provide volunteering opportunities for our students and we want to develop these further to raise the profile and awareness of dementia. Kingston Hospital is also on board and the local library service runs dementia singing groups which would be great for our students and staff to get involved with - it's all about supporting people with dementia and building a supportive dementia friendly community," she said.

The project is a culmination of five years of work that Mrs Brent has been involved in and has seen the University run several events including hosting an educational theatre production called 'Grandma, Remember Me?' And, more recently, an Elf Day before Christmas where staff dressed up as elves and raised more than 1,000 for the Alzheimer's Society - work that has been recognised in the recent Alzheimer's National Newsletter.

The University also, in co-operation with the local Alzheimer's Society and a dementia friends community group, hosted a webinar in May 2021 for more than 600 students, partner agencies and people from the wider community to hear about the impact Covid-19 has had on care homes, social work and nursing practice and everyone's wellbeing.

Student nurses from Kingston were on hand to describe their experiences of working with people with dementia in hospital settings and how powerful that was - particularly during a pandemic.

The launch of the Special Interest Group officially takes place during an online event next week, with seminars planned to run every couple of months thereafter. "It's a chance for our students to talk about what they have learned during these volunteering opportunities and the partner agencies to reveal the benefits of having them involved in supporting their services. The dementia nurse lead for Kingston Hospital is also planning to come along to talk about the latest practice innovations they're using and our design students are looking at the environment of where people live and how it can be best designed to support people with dementia. It is all about coming together to develop a community of practice to support learning and those living with dementia," Mrs Brent said.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines have been available for over a year now in most developed countries. Many governments credit the mass administration schemes for allowing them to end the costly and restrictive measures used to reduce the transmission of the disease. Different countries have prioritized the use of different vaccines, but across the UK, the three most commonly seen were developed by Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2), Moderna (mRNA-1273), and AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria). However, scientists are beginning to grow worried about the seeming reluctance of these companies to release the raw data from the clinical trials, and three editors have written to the British Medical Journal to further demand this information be released.

Study: Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now. Image Credit: gonin/Shutterstock

The scientists begin by reminding of the Tamiflu scandal, where the Roche corporation withheld clinical trial data for over half a decade  long after many countries had spent billions stockpiling the antiviral. The released clinical trial data showed that Tamiflu did not reduce the risk of complications, hospital admissions, or death. While legal battles and the promises of politicians all seemed to indicate that changes would be made, companies still manage to avoid releasing data for years.

The editors then attacked the timeline the major pharmaceuticals offer for releasing the data. Pfizer has suggested that requests for the data will not be considered until 2025  more than four years after the first dose was offered to members of the public. Officially, the clinical trials do not end until May 2023. Moderna offers a slightly more optimistic timeline, suggesting that information could be available upon request once the initial trial finishes in October 2022. AstraZeneca offers a similar promise, with the caveat that it could take up to a year for a request to be granted. Taken together, it could be suggested that the manufacturers intend to stonewall requests as long as possible  a worrying indication, given the scale of administration.

While publications that offer analyzed information are available, the scientists argue that the lack of raw data reduces the trust placed in these papers and argue for the full anonymized datasets to be made available immediately for independent scrutiny. They also condemn government agencies, singling out the American US. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada. While the FDA receives the largest amount of raw data, it has only offered to release 500 pages a month  which would take decades to complete and has recently been rejected by a judge. While Health Canada has revealed slightly more information, there are significant reductions in the information offered and no participant-level datasets.

Finally, the scientists argue that the lack of transparent decision-making damages public trust in both governmental institutions and pharmaceutical companies. They point out that many vaccine manufacturers have been embroiled in legal issues for years and have paid billions of dollars in criminal and civil settlements. While the COVID-19 pandemic has made many of them significantly richer, the lack of reciprocity is likely to lower their reputations even further. And lack of trust in these institutions doesn't just hurt their bank balance; recent years have seen vaccine hesitancy rise considerably, and there have even been (attempted) attacks on vaccine centers in the UK.

The ediors' arguments show significant merit but are unfortunately likely to fall on deaf ears. Most pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to share data at the best of times. Given the ongoing clinical trials, it seems unlikely that they will share anything that is not legally required. However, the end of several trials is approaching, so some information could be shared before the end of the year  if not the full transparency that is called for.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Chicago has found evidence that cannabidiol (CBD), a product of the cannabis plant, can inhibit infection by SARS-CoV-2 in human cells and in mice.

The study, published on January 20, 2022, in Science Advances, found CBD showed a significant negative association with SARS-CoV-2 positive tests in a national sample of medical records of patients taking the FDA-approved drug for treating epilepsy. The researchers now say that clinical trials should be done to determine whether CBD could eventually be used as a preventative or early treatment for COVID-19. They caution, however, that the COVID-blocking effects of CBD come only from a high purity, specially formulated dose taken in specific situations. The study's findings do not suggest that consuming commercially available products with CBD additives that vary in potency and quality can prevent COVID-19.

Scientists have been looking for new therapies for people infected by the coronavirus and emerging variants, especially those who lack access to vaccines, as the pandemic continues across the country and world and as breakthrough infections become more common.

CBD: An unexpected avenue for fighting COVID-19

The idea to test CBD as a potential COVID-19 therapeutic was serendipitous. "CBD has anti-inflammatory effects, so we thought that maybe it would stop the second phase of COVID infection involving the immune system, the so-called 'cytokine storm.' Surprisingly, it directly inhibited viral replication in lung cells," said Marsha Rosner, PhD, Charles B. Huggins Professor in the Ben May Department of Cancer Research and a senior author of the study.

To see this effect, the researchers first treated human lung cells with a non-toxic dose of CBD for two hours before exposing the cells to SARS-CoV-2 and monitoring them for the virus and the viral spike protein. They found that, above a certain threshold concentration, CBD inhibited the virus' ability to replicate. Further investigation found that CBD had the same effect in two other types of cells and for three variants of SARS-CoV-2 in addition to the original strain.

CBD did not affect the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to enter the cell. Instead, CBD was effective at blocking replication early in the infection cycle and six hours after the virus had already infected the cell.

Like all viruses, SARS-CoV-2 affects the host cell by hijacking its gene expression machinery to produce more copies of itself and its viral proteins. This effect can be observed by tracking virus-induced changes in cellular RNAs. High concentrations of CBD almost completely eradicated the expression of viral RNAs. It was a completely unexpected result.

We just wanted to know if CBD would affect the immune system. No one in their right mind would have ever thought that it blocked viral replication, but that's what it did." Marsha Rosner, PhD, Charles B. Huggins Professor in the Ben May Department of Cancer Research and senior author of the study

The researchers showed that the mechanism by which CBD blocks SARS-CoV-2 replication involves CBD activation of one of the host cell stress responses and generation of interferons, an antiviral cell protein.

Real world data: Patients taking CBD test positive for COVID-19 at lower rates

The researchers wanted scientific data to show that CBD prevents viral replication in live animals. The team showed pretreatment with CBD for one week prior to infection with SARS-CoV-2 suppressed infection both in the lung and the nasal passages of mice. "These results provide major support for a clinical trial of CBD in humans," said Rosner.

And the success of CBD wasn't limited to the laboratory: An analysis of 1,212 patients from the National COVID Cohort Collaborative revealed that patients taking a medically prescribed oral solution of CBD for the treatment of epilepsy tested positive for COVID-19 at significantly lower rates than a sample of matched patients from similar demographic backgrounds who were not taking CBD.

The potential for CBD to treat patients recently exposed to or infected by SARS-CoV-2 does not precede the first lines of defense against COVID-19, which are to get vaccinated and follow existing public health guidelines for masking in indoor spaces and social distancing. But the published results offer a potential new therapeutic, something still needed as the pandemic rages on.

"A clinical trial is necessary to determine whether CBD is really effective at preventing or suppressing SARS-CoV-2 infection, but we think this may have potential as a prophylactic treatment," said Rosner. "Maybe you're in a hot spot or you think you might have been exposed or you've just tested positive -; that's where we think CBD might have an effect."

Not your dispensary's CBD

The research team emphasized that the COVID-blocking effects of CBD were confined strictly to high purity, high concentrations of CBD. Closely related cannabinoids such as CBDA, CBDV and THC, the psychoactive element enriched in marijuana plants, did not have the same power. In fact, combining CBD with equal amounts of THC actually reduced the efficacy of CBD.

"Going to your corner bakery and buying some CBD muffins or gummy bears probably won't do anything," said Rosner. "The commercially available CBD powder we looked at, which was off the shelf and something you could order online, was sometimes surprisingly of high purity but also of inconsistent quality. It is also hard to get into an oral solution that can be absorbed without the special, FDA-approved formulation," Rosner said.

Furthermore, CBD use is not without potential risks. It appears to be extremely safe when consumed in food or drink, but methods of use such as vaping can have negative side effects, including potential damage to the heart and lungs. It's also not well studied in certain populations, such as pregnant people, and so should be used only under the supervision of a physician and with caution.

While the study's results are exciting, additional study is needed to determine the precise dosing of CBD that is effective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans as well as its safety profile and any potential side effects.

"We are very eager to see some clinical trials on this subject get off the ground," Rosner said. "Especially as we are seeing that the pandemic is still nowhere near the end -; determining whether this generally safe, well-tolerated, and non-psychoactive cannabinoid might have anti-viral effects against COVID-19 is of critical importance."

Rosner was also pleased that this research project was a case study in the power of scientific collaboration by bringing together a highly interdisciplinary group of researchers. Senior authors listed on the paper came from three different research universities and from departments as diverse as microbiology, molecular engineering, cancer biology and chemistry.

"This was truly a team-science effort, and that's something that really excites me," said Rosner. "From clinicians to David Meltzer's group who did the patient analysis to virologists like Glenn Randall, and it goes on and on. This is the way science should be carried out."
UMass Lowell scientists are developing a production method to freeze-dry COVID-19 vaccines activated by messenger-RNA so they can be transported and stored at room temperature.

If successful, the innovation could eliminate the need for mRNA vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech to be refrigerated in very cold temperatures to maintain their effectiveness against the coronavirus. The development would ease supply chain issues and deliver the lifesaving immunizations to countless more people around the world.

"Our goal is to develop a freeze-drying process that can be used for mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines to make them more stable and extend their shelf life, as well as make them easier to transport, store and use," said UMass Lowell Chemical Engineering Prof. Seongkyu Yoon, who is leading the project with Emily Gong of Physical Sciences, Inc., in Andover, Massachusetts, along with researchers from Merck and the University of Connecticut.

Scientists call the freeze-drying process lyophilization. The work is being conducted in UMass Lowell's Lyophilization Research Bay (LyoBay), a state-of-the-art facility and the first of its kind on the East Coast, which opened in 2019 inside the university's Mark and Elisia Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center.

The aim of the research is to freeze-dry COVID mRNA vaccines to demonstrate the new production method is sound, according to Yoon. The study is funded through a one-year, $930,223 grant from the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL), a Manufacturing USA network institute that works to advance U.S. leadership in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and accelerate innovation.

Currently, the Centers for Disease Control recommends storing Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines in an ultralow-temperature freezer between minus 112 degrees and minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 80 degrees and minus 60 degrees Celsius) to keep their ingredients stable and ensure the vaccines' viability. The CDC suggests storing Moderna's COVID vaccines between minus 58 and 5 degrees F (minus 50 and minus 15 degrees C). The Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine requires conventional refrigeration, between 36 and 46 degrees F (2 and 8 degrees C), for transportation and storage.

Freeze-drying enables a product to be stored as a powder at room temperature and then reconstituted when it's ready to be used. The process removes water from sensitive, perishable materials. It works by freezing the substance, then reducing the air pressure and adding low heat to allow the frozen water in the material to change directly from ice to vapor without melting. In contrast, conventional dehydration uses high heat to evaporate the water.

So far, none of the COVID-19 vaccines has been able to be stored at room temperature, which makes our approach unique and very attractive." Seongkyu Yoon, Professor, Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell

The team hopes the project will enable a more rapid response to the coronavirus by creating a stockpile of thermally stable, freeze-dried vaccines that is ready to be shipped and distributed even to remote, rural areas without the need for ultracold freezers.

"We will use the LyoBay to demonstrate the ability to scale up the freeze-drying process, similar to what large companies do to mass-produce vaccines," Yoon said. The researchers hope to one day apply the technique to vaccines that fight other diseases as well.

UMass Lowell chemical engineering Ph.D. students Caitlin Morris of Tewksbury and Richard Marx of Cambridge are assisting Yoon in the research, which is being performed under a Project Award Agreement from NIIMBL and financial assistance award 70NANB21H085 from the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

"Our research is based on three years of study at the LyoBay, with support from NIIMBL. As far as I know, this is the first project of its kind funded by a public-private manufacturing institute," Yoon said.
As the omicron variant completes its sweep across the U.S., states with scarce supplies of monoclonal antibody therapies continue to use two treatments that federal health officials warn no longer work against the highly contagious version of the virus that causes covid-19. The antibody treatment now most recommended is sotrovimab from GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, and it's in short supply.

Use of the newly ineffective treatments produced by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly and Co. is highest in a dozen states. They include several Southern states with some of the nation's lowest vaccination rates, but also California, which ranks in the nation's top 20 for fully vaccinated residents, a KHN analysis of federal data shows. Many hospitals and clinics are still infusing the costly treatments  often charging hundreds of dollars a session  that public health officials now say are almost certainly useless.

That's because of the near-total dominance of omicron, which accounted for 99.5% of new covid infections in the U.S. during the week that ended Jan. 15, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That point was underscored this week by updated guidelines from the National Institutes of Health that now recommend sotrovimab as the primary monoclonal treatment for the disease.

Unless providers are certain they are still treating patients infected with the delta variant, they shouldn't use the others, said Dr. Mark McClellan, director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, who is also a former commissioner of the FDA and former administrator of CMS. And the delta variant is increasingly rare, accounting for 3% of cases in Louisiana, 7% in California, and 10% in Ohio, as examples.

"There's not a medical justification based on the evidence on the Regeneron and Lilly products," McClellan said.

Determining which patients are infected with the delta vs. omicron variant is complicated, said Dr. Christian Ramers, chief of population health and an infectious disease specialist at Family Health Centers of San Diego.

His clinic is one of the few sites in the nation using laboratory screening of positive PCR covid tests that can tell whether patients are infected with delta vs. omicron  and then treating them accordingly. "Otherwise, you're giving this false sense of security to a patient that they're getting treatment," Ramers said. "I don't think it is ethical, and it goes against the principle of doing no harm."

Overall, U.S. hospitals used about 72,000 doses of the Regeneron and Lilly monoclonal antibody therapies from Jan. 5 through Jan. 18, according to the latest figures from the Department of Health and Human Services. Data regarding hospital-level use of sotrovimab, which became available more recently than the other products, is not yet available on the HHS site.

By comparison, hospitals used about 153,000 courses of the Regeneron and Lilly treatments from Dec. 22 through Jan. 4. They used about 169,000 courses from Aug. 26 through Sept. 8, near the height of the delta surge.

On Jan. 19, hospitals still had about 295,000 doses of the Regeneron and Lilly treatments on hand.

Nationwide, the federal government is distributing more than 50,000 courses of sotrovimab per week, though it remains in short supply. The Biden administration has agreed to buy about 1 million doses, including about 600,000 promised by March, GSK officials said.

Respectively, Michigan, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Louisiana, California, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Ohio, New York, and Mississippi used the most courses of the Regeneron and Lilly treatments from Jan. 5 through Jan. 18, KHN's analysis showed.

In Florida, which used more than 5,200 courses of the outdated treatments during that two-week period, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he is not convinced that the Regeneron and Lilly products don't work against omicron. In Florida, omicron accounted for 97% of cases as of Jan. 20; delta accounted for 3%.

"We have had practitioners give both of those to people with omicron who said the symptoms got resolved," he said in a Jan. 5 speech provided by his spokesperson, Christina Pushaw.

Federal health officials managing allocation of the monoclonal antibody therapies paused shipments of the Regeneron and Lilly treatments on Dec. 23, after laboratory tests showed they were less effective against the surging omicron variant than the delta variant. But the Biden administration resumed shipments on Dec. 31, after complaints from DeSantis and some doctors that those therapies could still help people in places where the delta variant persisted.

Regeneron itself has said its antibody treatments are ineffective against the omicron variant. It contains more than 30 mutations in the virus's spike protein, which makes the variant better at dodging the monoclonal antibody treatments.

"It's really not justified at this point unless there's some other underlying secondary gain, political pressure, or perhaps the providers are truly not in touch with the reality of the variant proportions," Ramers said.

Earlier this month, HHS officials indicated that shipments of the three monoclonal antibody treatments would continue through Jan. 31, despite the growing proportion of omicron cases. A department spokesperson on background said the agency would continue to assess "any impacts to covid-19's therapeutic allocations."

Monoclonal antibody treatments are lab-based molecules that mimic the body's immune response to infection. They are most often given through IV infusion, though some can be delivered with an injection. The federal government has agreed to purchase millions of doses of the Regeneron and Lilly products at a cost of about $2,100 per dose. The medicines are free to consumers, though hospitals and clinics do charge fees for administering the drugs and monitoring patients during the process.

Other treatments expected to be effective against omicron in high-risk, non-hospitalized patients include AstraZeneca's Evusheld, a long-acting injectable monoclonal antibody for immunocompromised people, and a three-day infusion of Gilead Sciences' remdesivir, which is approved by the FDA. New oral antiviral pills also are expected to be effective, although they, too, remain in short supply.

Providers in several states that have continued to use the Regeneron and Lilly products have offered varied reasons. Some said they believed delta infections continued to circulate locally; others said they felt desperate to try something.

Officials in Michigan, which used more than 5,800 doses of the Regeneron and Lilly products during the most recent two weeks, and California, which used more than 3,400, have allowed health care providers to use their clinical judgment about which treatment to prescribe.

But in Mississippi, where omicron is rampant and fewer than half of residents have been fully vaccinated, state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs called for an end to the use of the treatments.

"We will be recommending that clinicians and physicians do not use these products right now based on the distribution of omicron vs. delta," he said during a recent press conference.

At Ramers' clinic in San Diego, care providers have been dispensing scarce doses of the monoclonal antibody treatments only when they're confident they'll help. That has meant sending batches of positive PCR tests to a laboratory in nearby Irvine, where they are screened to see whether one of three target genes is not detected, a known marker for an omicron infection.

Patients infected with the delta variant were able to be treated with REGEN-COV, the Regeneron product, preserving sotrovimab for the growing number of omicron cases, said Pauline Lucatero, the clinic's director of nursing.

"Looking into my patients' eyes and seeing fear, just fear, all I could tell them is we believe this treatment works and we're going to do everything we can to save as many people as we can," she said.

Phillip Reese, an assistant professor of journalism at California State University-Sacramento, contributed to this report.
As Africa prepares for a new wave of infections, several nations debate the best strategy for surviving the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. When faced with a probable new upsurge, the containment techniques used at the start of the pandemic may prove impossible to implement. As a result, suitable limits compatible with geography, economic activity, and living conditions will be required. Many African countries have been experiencing economic disruptions since 2020 due to policy and administrative efforts to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Study: Preserving lives or livelihoods? Examining the COVID-19 pandemic policy responses in Africa. Image Credit: Ink Drop/Shutterstock

The health-protecting measures have had significant socioeconomic implications. At the height of the lockdown, Africa's real GDP fell by 5%, and a huge percentage of households lost their jobs and income, which had serious welfare repercussions due to a lack of social safety systems. The lockdowns were also associated with a high everyday violence and criminality rate.

Studying the trade-offs created by stringency measures in Africa is an important policy for two reasons. First, the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for containing the pandemic were designed for settings and conditions in rich nations and were not always applicable to developing countries. Second, unlike their counterparts in wealthy countries, African countries and households find it extremely difficult to recover from major shocks.

In a preprint available on the In Review* preprint server, a group of researchers address the following research questions: how can they evaluate the effects of policy measures on socioeconomic conditions to their effectiveness in stopping the spread of the virus? What additional measures do African countries need to manage a pandemic effectively?

The study

The findings demonstrate that reducing the mobility of people around the mean (18%) can result in a 1% reduction in daily infection rates and a 0.6% reduction in mortality rates. Similarly, daily infection rates could be reduced by 1.5% using the Stringency Index around the mean (51%). However, compared to the findings of affluent countries, the effectiveness of lockdowns is generally low. In Switzerland, for example, a 1% drop in people's mobility resulted in a 0.88 to 1.11% reduction in daily infections. In contrast, in data from this study, the figure was 0.05%, which is far too little to have a significant impact on infection rates within an acceptable timeframe.

To illustrate the contrast, everyday infection rates in Africa would be cut in half within 70 days if people's movement was reduced by half on average. However, if lockdowns were as effective as Switzerland, it would only take four days. Due to the many aspects at play, such as demographic profile, living conditions, and so on, there has been no clear agreement among experts on the efficiency of lockdowns in containing the COVID-19 epidemic.

As a result, lockdowns and draconian measures should be supplemented by additional means. Testing and tracking capabilities, for example, had a key impact in lowering the fatality rate. During the study period, the average level of testing and tracing obtained resulted in a 1.4% reduction in daily fatality rates. After a certain threshold, a community's understanding of the pandemic may help to limit infections. For example, if community understanding reaches 40% of the population, daily infection rates could be reduced by 1.6%.

The findings of the fixed effects regression model illustrate the effect of changes in people's monthly movement on the illumination of nightlights. After accounting for unobserved time-invariant components and time-fixed effects, a 1% drop in people mobility might result in a 0.01% reduction in nightlight illumination or comparable real GDP growth. A one-standard-deviation drop in mobility (about 20%) could result in a 2% drop in real GDP growth. The influence on employment and home welfare, as a result, is self-evident. According to previous studies, over 256 million people in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda lived in households that lost income due to the pandemic, based on a high-frequency phone survey.

Implications

There is a lot of talk right now about using this pandemic to alter African economies, reform institutions, and even economic management. Pandemics, such as the current one, typically present possibilities to progress toward a more sustainable and equitable economic environment while posing a significant obstacle. It's worth noting that vaccinations and their widespread distribution could provide an essential buffer. Africa may need to build production and distribution capacity to protect its population from the next pandemic.

*Important notice

This study is a preliminary scientific report that has not yet been peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Five days after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law meant to provide stronger oversight of the more than 100 residential youth treatment programs operating in the state, a 12-year-old boy arrived at one of them, Provo Canyon School. Before long, he was forced into seclusion, denied communication with his family and given antipsychotic medication without parental permission, according to relatives.

Trish Leon, aunt of the 12-year-old, Logan, contacted various state agencies, the Utah governor's office, elected officials and youth rights nonprofits  but soon discovered the law's limits. Secluding a student from others is still allowed under the new rules, for example, but program operators must now report to regulators when they do so. Leon's complaints about what happened to her nephew while he was at Provo Canyon School were dismissed as unsubstantiated or hit dead ends.

Leon said the dismissals show the state law isnt enough to hold accountable an industry that makes billions of dollars treating kids with behavioral or substance use problems.

"If were still doing the same thing, theres never going to be a change," Leon said.

For groups pressing for more accountability for these programs, Leon's story shows that the new law doesn't go far enough. Further, they say, oversight is often weak and enforcement of the new law has been lax.

No federal laws govern these private, for-profit residential treatment programs, boot camps, and wilderness programs. Efforts to pass federal legislation that would regulate them failed every year for more than a decade, even after a 2007 Government Accountability Office report detailed allegations of abuse and neglect, along with deaths and deceptive marketing practices at programs across the country.

That's left regulation largely to the states, with mixed results. A handful of states besides Utah have passed laws to bolster protections for young people in these programs. Among them is Montana, whose 2019 law led to the closure of several programs; California, whose 2016 law required residential treatment programs to operate on a nonprofit basis to ensure that financial incentives do not affect the quality of care; and Oregon, whose various laws have aimed to crack down on the so-called troubled teen industry, including a 2021 law that regulates secure transport companies hired to forcibly take kids to wilderness or residential programs. But in many other states, there is little to no oversight.

The Paris Hilton effect

Utah is the troubled teen industry's epicenter, offering a wide variety of these programs. Its new law, which took effect in March 2021, marks the state's first attempt in 15 years to bring more regulation to the industry.

Utah's law was championed by advocates and celebrity heiress Paris Hilton, who testified before the Utah Legislature that she experienced abuse while attending Provo Canyon School as a teenager. Hilton's revelation and an investigation by The Salt Lake Tribune ushered in calls for change from former program attendees who shared similar experiences.

The law bans chemical sedation and mechanical restraints unless authorized by the Utah Office of Licensing. It also increases the number of inspections per year for each program and requires programs to report use of physical restraints and incidents of seclusion to the licensing office, although it does not ban or significantly restrict the practices. The law does require programs to provide participants with access to unmonitored communication with their families, which Logan's family said they were denied while he was at Provo Canyon School.

Critics said tighter limits are needed on residential programs' use of seclusion, restraint, and medication, in addition to more regulation of the use of degrading disciplinary practices and aversive behavioral interventions such as food deprivation.

Pivot to Congress

A new push to pass a federal law is now brewing, with a measure called the Accountability for Congregate Care Act. It would create a commission under the Department of Justice to research and establish best practices for youth congregate care settings and would allow the federal agency to take action or require states to take action when there is abuse. It also would enable the department to consult with states on the closure of facilities that do not meet standards, establish a "bill of rights" for young people in congregate care facilities and define the terms "treatment" and "institutional abuse."

These residential programs are an "industry that is based on selling treatment even though many of them are not licensed to provide treatment," said state Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin of Oregon, who sponsored legislation to increase oversight in her state. "That is a change that needs to happen at the federal level."

In Logan's case, relatives said in interviews and in formal complaints  copies of which were provided to KHN  that the 12-year-old was placed in seclusion, called "stabilization" by Provo Canyon School officials. During stabilization, Logan was sent to a room, made to stare at a wall all day, and prohibited from talking with other students because of "maladaptive behaviors," according to Logan and his relatives. The antipsychotic medication he received was prescribed by a psychiatrist under contract with Provo Canyon School against his mother's wishes.

During his stay at Provo Canyon School, Logan was sent to stabilization multiple times  the longest stint lasted a week. After Logan's aunt unsuccessfully filed her complaints against the program, she said, he left the Provo school for a different program and later returned to his mother, who had moved from their home in Washington state to Utah while he was in the program.

Provo Canyon School officials did not respond to questions about Leon's complaints to government authorities but referred to a media statement from August that said the program "is committed to the safety of our students and staff" and "DOES NOT use 'solitary confinement' as a form of intervention."

Some states seek reform

Utah, California, Oregon, Montana, and Missouri have enacted laws aimed at increasing oversight of residential treatment programs for young people. But each law is tailored to its state, and child advocacy groups said enforcement has been uneven.

And when states identify problems, they sometimes appear to be reluctant to escalate the penalties for repeat offenders, the advocates said.

"We've seen facilities in many different states that have been cited again and again and again for noncompliance for dangerous practices, for children dying at their facilities, but if the state doesnt revoke their license or shut them down, then its pointless," said Caroline Lorson, an advocate helping draft the federal legislation.

In Montana, the 2019 state law created new regulations for programs and moved oversight from an industry-dominated board to the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. A month after the health department took over oversight of the programs, the state removed 27 children from a program called Ranch for Kids and revoked its license. By late 2020, 11 of Montanas 19 programs had closed, some because of the new regulatory environment, according to Erica Johnston, head of the state health department's economic security services.

But the problems haven't gone away, and critics have questioned the enforcement of the new rules.

A program called Wood Creek Academy near Thompson Falls has undergone three state inspections since September 2020, two that resulted from complaints and one that was regularly scheduled. Inspectors found violations of the law, including that Wood Creek Academy staff members waited more than an hour to call 911 after two boys ran away and then punished the boys by separating them from other students for two days and making them sleep in tents in shorts and T-shirts in below-freezing temperatures.

The program wasn't penalized for the violations but was required to submit plans detailing how it would prevent the violations from occurring again. Wood Creek Academy closed voluntarily in September.

At another program, Reflections Academy, a 17-year-old girl died by suicide in June. That prompted an inspection, which found that Reflections Academy staff members did not follow program policies for responding to the suicidal ideation of a participant and did not take the patient to the hospital or ensure she received a psychiatric evaluation that was recommended by a physician a day before the girl's death.

Staff members failed to supervise the girl after she said she was suicidal and harmed herself the day before her death, saying they weren't sure "how much of this is real or manipulation," according to the state inspection report.

But the Montana health department did not revoke Reflections Academy's provisional license. Instead, the department accepted a one-sentence plan of correction from Reflections that stated, "Moving forward, the program will follow the revised policies for child abuse and neglect reporting, child abuse and neglect, self-harm, and suicide policies."

Reflections Academy program director Michele Mickey Manning voluntarily closed the program in October. She previously served as the principal of the now-shuttered Spring Creek Lodge, where a 16-year-old girl killed herself in 2004 after she was put in isolation nearly 30 times in six months, according to the notes and logs that staff members kept on students and were included in a lawsuit filed after the girl's death.

Spring Creek Lodge closed after lawsuits, controversy, and a drop in enrollment. Manning went on to serve as program administrator of Clearview Horizon until 2015, when she left to open Reflections Academy in 2016.

The 2019 Montana law does not regulate religious programs. After the state health department implemented the 2019 law, Clearview Horizon, now called Clearview Girls Academy, began operating as a "Christian therapeutic boarding school" and is therefore exempt from state oversight.

Manning is named in several lawsuits in which over a dozen former students allege psychological and sexual abuse by staff members whom Manning employed at Clearview Horizon and Reflections Academy. In one lawsuit, 10 former Clearview students allege that the program and its staff employed psychologically harmful practices, including solitary confinement, social isolation, food deprivation, and corporal punishment, according to the complaint.

Manning did not respond to repeated requests for comment. She has previously said in response to a lawsuit against her that she complied with "all applicable standards of therapy and was not negligent," according to legal documents.

Without federal legislation, advocates said, the few state laws that exist result in inconsistent regulations that allow program owners accused of abuse and mistreatment to hop across state lines and reopen, rebrand, and continue to profit from children.

A former Reflections Academy student, 20-year-old Molly McCready, said that was her concern about the program she attended from 2017 to 2019.

"It's good that it closed, but another school could pop up somewhere else," she said.
As vaccination rates continue to rise and government border policies change, the need for hotel quarantine is fading.

But what are the next steps for hotels that have been operating as quarantine facilities for two years, and will they be negatively labelled because of their association with the pandemic?

A University of Queensland study has looked into what people think about hotel brands that were used as quarantine facilities, and the findings show a big difference in hotels that volunteered for quarantine, versus those that were directed to by government.

Led by Dr Monica Chien, Associate Professor Sarah Kelly and Dr Wen Mao from UQ's Business School, the study, which involved 447 Australian travellers, investigated people's perceptions of COVID quarantine hotels and the potential for stigma by being associated with the pandemic.

Since the onset of COVID-19, hotels around the world, from 3-star to 5-star luxury resorts, have been used to isolate travellers." Dr Chien, Associate Professor, The University of Queensland

"While some might assume that being a COVID quarantine facility could create a certain stigma for a hotel brand, our study found that hotels that put up their hand to provide quarantine services were seen as 'good corporate citizens'.

"Meanwhile, hotels that were directed by government to become a quarantine facility received less favourable brand ratings."

Dr Chien said there were many reasons why hotels could have been hesitant to host quarantining travellers, including concerns about enduring negative perceptions, reluctance of employees, or fears of losing their brand prestige.

Associate Professor Kelly added: "Hotels are concerned about factors that may stigmatise their brands, such as management of staff, treatment of travellers in isolation, negative comments on social media and the risks of spreading of the virus within the hotel."

"Because the pandemic generates a shared sense of threat for people, stigma can be further entrenched when a quarantine hotel's operations change."

Associate Professor Kelly said the study's finding could help with post-pandemic recovery of the hospitality industry.

"Hotels that signed up voluntarily for quarantine could emphasise the 'greater good' of their contribution during the pandemic while toning down the possible stigma effects.

"Meanwhile, hotels that did not volunteer don't need to fear - our study found that engaging in a good cause, such as a donation to charity, could foster positive brand evaluations."

Dr Mao said this study followed other research published late last year that examined people's perceived susceptibility to COVID.

"These studies will help inform governments, health and tourism organisations as we move further through the pandemic," Dr Mao said.

"We will also apply this research across other areas of the tourism and hospitality sector such as attractions, transport and restaurants."
Mark Rosenberg, Florida International Universitys fifth president, installed in August 2009, abruptly resigned Friday afternoon, effective immediately. He cited health issues for his departure after about 45 years of service.

It is with a sense of accomplishment and sadness that I share with you that I will be resigning as president of FIU effective this Friday, January 21, 2022, Rosenberg, 72, wrote in an email to the university community. I am stepping back so that I may give full attention to recurring personal health issues and to the deteriorating health of my wife, Rosalie.

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Rosenberg first joined FIU in 1976 as an assistant professor of political science. Colson said he will nominate Kenneth Jessell, FIUs chief financial officer and senior vice president of finance and administration, as interim president while the university searches for its official sixth president.

Read the full story at the Miami Herald.
Melanoma cells release small extracellular packages containing the protein nerve growth factor receptor, which primes nearby lymph nodes for tumor metastases, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

The study results, published on Nov. 25 in Nature Cancer, may one day help doctors determine which patients need more aggressive treatment and could help with the development of new therapies, said senior author, Dr. David Lyden, the Stavros S. Niarchos Professor in Pediatric Cardiology and a professor of pediatrics and of cell and developmental biology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Traditionally, scientists have had a tumor centric view of melanoma in which cells from the tumor break off and travel to nearby lymph nodes, as cancer metastasizes. "What our study shows is that the lymph node mechanistically prepares for future metastases," said Dr. Lyden, who is also a member of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children's Health and the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. "There are many changes taking place in the lymph node even before the tumor cell gets there. We call it a pre-metastatic lymph node."

Using mouse models, lead author Dr. Hector Peinado, head of the Microenvironment and Metastasis Laboratory, Molecular Oncology Programme at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) in Madrid, Spain, examined the release of exosomes from melanoma tumor cells. Exosomes, also called extracellular vesicles, are small packages containing various particles and proteins that are secreted by cells and travel through lymph vessels and blood to distant sites where they can be taken up by other cells.

Dr. Peinado, who was previously a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Lyden's lab, where much of this work began, found that the protein NGFR is released in exosomes secreted by melanoma cells and channeled into the lymph nodes. The protein is then taken up by lymph endothelial cells, or cells lining the lymph vessels, where it reprograms the lymph node to form new lymph vessels. This process, called lymphangiogenesis, encourages cancer spread. "The more vessels a lymph node has, the more tumor cells can come in," Dr. Lyden said.

Lymphatic endothelial cells are the first encounter for exosomes containing nerve growth factor receptor (NGFR) and "open the gates to melanoma cells coming into the lymph node and setting up shop there," said one of the paper co-authors, Dr. Irina Matei, assistant professor of immunology research in pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Moreover, NGFR increases the secretion of the protein intracellular adhesion molecule 1, which encourages tumor cells to bind to lymph vessels, also encouraging metastases, Dr. Lyden said.

Dr. Peinado has also investigated how the presence of proteins called integrins on the surface of exosomes determines where metastatic melanoma cells will bind. In this paper, researchers found that integrin alpha is important for spread to the lymph nodes versus other organs such as the liver.

Overall, while the lymph nodes are supposed to be a site where the immune system is activated and ready to fight cancer cells, the processes outlined in the study demonstrate that lymph nodes are immunocompromised, which may have implications for prognosis, Dr. Lyden said.

When someone has melanoma, doctors examine the sentinel lymph node, or the first node to which the tumor will likely spread, to see if it contains cancerous cells. "However, the examination of the sentinel lymph node for just tumor cells is not complete," Dr. Lyden said. Additional information such as the presence of NGFR or lymphangiogenesis could indicate a poor prognosis for patients, meaning they likely need from aggressive treatment.

The research could also have implications for drug development. In a mouse model, Dr. Peinado used a small molecule inhibitor called THX-B to block NGFR from binding to lymph endothelial cells, helping to deter lymph node metastases. "This drug needs a lot of testing," Dr. Lyden said. "But eventually, I think an NGFR inhibitor could be used in the clinical setting."

The researchers followed up on the mouse model findings by studying lymph node tissue from 44 patients with stage III or IV melanoma and found that NGFR expression was significantly higher in metastatic lymph node tissues than in the original skin lesions. Evaluation of another 25 patients with stage III melanoma found a significant increase in the frequency of NGFR positive tumor cells in lymph node metastases compared with the originating melanoma tumor.

Those with metastatic disease actually have very high NGFR expression. So, at all stages, whether it's pre-metastatic or full-blown lymph node metastasis, it seems that molecule is very much up-regulated in the patients with worse prognosis." Dr. David Lyden, the Stavros S. Niarchos Professor in Pediatric Cardiology and professor of pediatrics and of cell and developmental biology at Weill Cornell Medicine

The researchers aim to validate their findings in larger numbers of patients. "We also would like to determine if we can use a simple blood test to see whether exosomes are carrying NGFR," Dr. Lyden said. "This would help doctors to look at exosome NGFR over time during therapy to see how treatments should be adjusted."
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has caused over 5.56 million deaths, globally, thus far. However, after major threats to public health authorities, there seems to be some control over the number of severe diseases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to the vaccines approved by regulatory authorities in December 2020.

The spike protein of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)  the causative agent of COVID-19, is the major antigen targeted by the hosts immune system, which is further stimulated by the vaccines to produce anti-spike antibodies. Due to the evolving nature of every novel virus, there have been multiple mutations in the spike protein, that have given rise to multiple variants of concern, Omicron being the latest to be detected in South Africa, in November 2021.

As of January 2022, Omicron has been reported in at least 110 countries as per estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO). A striking feature of the Omicron variant is that it contains more than 30 amino acid substitutions in its spike (S) protein, with 15 of these in its receptor-binding-domain (RBD).

This RBD is the major target for monoclonal antibody (mAb)-based therapy, which raised concerns of reduced effectiveness of current therapeutic mAbs (including etesevimab (LY-CoV016, CB6 or JS016) and bamlanivimab (LYCoV555); REGEN-COV, a combination of imdevimab (REGN10987) and casirivimab (REGN10933); sotrovimab (VIR-7831); and Evusheld (AZD 7442), a combination of tixagevimab (COV2- 2196 or AZD8955) and cilgavimab (COV2-2130 or AZD1061), for COVID-19 against this variant. The FDA-approved antiviral, molnupiravir was also approved for emergency use in severe cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, in December 2021.

There is not enough data to show in vivo efficacy of mAbs and antivirals against the Omicron variant. Japanese researchers recently published a study in the preprint server In Review* wherein they assessed the efficacy of the FDA-approved therapeutic mAbs, as well as to small-molecule antiviral agents against an Omicron variant in Syrian hamsters, a well-established animal model for SARS-CoV-2 research.

Study details

Researchers used the hCoV-19/Japan/NC928-2N/2021 (Omicron; NC928) 10, SARS-CoV-2/UT- NC002- 1T/Human/2020/Tokyo (NCGM02) 7, and SARS-CoV-2/UT-HP095-1N/Human/2020/Tokyo (D614G; HP095) 23 variants to grow in VeroE6/TMPRSS2 cells in the enhanced biosafety level 3 (BSL3) containment laboratories at the University of Tokyo, approved for such use by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan.

Five hamsters were inoculated with 103 plaque-forming units (PFU) of CoV-2/UT-HP095-1N/Human/2020/Tokyo (D614G; HP095) or hCoV19/Japan/NC928-2N/2021 (Omicron; NC928) intranasally. They were treated with a single dose of the REGN10987/REGN10933 or COV2-2196/COV2-2130 in combination (2.5 mg/kg each), or with S309 as monotherapy (5 mg/kg) by intraperitoneal injection on Day 1 after the inoculation.

On the other hand, a human mAb specific to the hemagglutinin of influenza B virus was injected intraperitoneally to five hamsters on Day 1 post-infection as a control. The hamsters were sacrificed, and nasal turbinate and lung samples were collected for virus titrations on Day 4 post-infection.

Among the hamsters infected with D614G; HP095, treatment with REGN10987/REGN10933 or COV2-2196/COV2- 2130 resulted in a significant reduction in virus titers in both the nasal turbinates and lungs compared to control mAb-treated animals.

For the Omicron (NC928)-infected groups, neither S309 nor REGN10987/REGN10933 could reduce the virus titers in the nasal turbinates or the lung samples. However, COV2- 2196/COV2-2130 significantly reduced the virus titers in the lungs of the animals, however, leaving the virus titers in their nasal turbinates unaffected.

A set of four hamsters were infected intranasally with 103 PFU of Omicron (NC928) and treated by oral gavage twice daily (at 12-h intervals) for 3 days with 1,000 mg/kg/day or with 120 mg/kg/day of molnupiravir and S-217622, respectively, on day 1 (24 hours) after infection. On Day 4 post-infection, the animals were sacrificed, and nasal turbinates and lungs were collected for virus titration.

Treatment with molnupiravir had no effect on the virus titers in the nasal turbinates of the animals infected with the Omicron variant but both compounds dramatically reduced virus titers in the lung to the extent that no virus was recovered from the lungs of all infected hamsters with either molnupiravir or with S-217622. Treatment with S-217622 also resulted in a significant 9.9-fold reduction of virus titers in the nasal turbinates.

Researchers further evaluated the effect of treatment with these compounds in the emergence of resistant variants. Hamsters infected with 103 PFU of the Omicron variant were treated from day 1 post-infection, for 5 days with either molnupiravir or S-217622. No virus was recovered from the lungs of all four animals that were treated with either molnupiravir or S-217622 on Day 7 post-infection. However, low titers of the virus were detected in the nasal turbinates of 3 out of 4 hamsters treated with molnupiravir (2.3, 1.7, and 2.4 log10 PFU/g) and in that of 1 out of 4, S-217622-treated hamsters (3.0 log10 PFU/g).

Implication

The results from this study indicate that the COV2-2196/COV2-2130 combination can restrict viral replication in the lungs of animals infected with Omicron even if the mAbs are administrated after the infection has occurred.

However, chances of emergence of resistant strains in hamsters treated with molnupiravir or S-217622 were limited under the conditions tested.

*Important notice

In Review publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Jeffersonville, IN (47130)

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Former Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly was approved as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican on Thursday.
Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore: If you want to make an impact on a county, nobodys doing it better than Jeffersonville and River Ridge right now.
TALLAHASSEE  Amid a national worker shortage, state agencies are struggling to fill vacant positions and retain employees, including those who care for some of Floridas most vulnerable citizens.

Many employees are leaving state government jobs because theyre overworked and underpaid, according to a recent presentation to a Senate committee.

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A flood of better-paying positions in the private sector that have opened up following widespread shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic has compounded hiring problems, officials from several state agencies told the Senate Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday.

Applicants responding to state-government job advertisements dropped by nearly 35% over the past three years, while the number of job postings increased by 7%, Department of Management Services Secretary J. Todd Inman said.

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The state is receiving 11.6 applications on average for each job posting, compared with an average of 37 applications per advertisement in September 2020, Inman said.

Meanwhile, searches for employees continue to skyrocket, with advertisements for state jobs jumping by more than 62% over the past six months, Inman said.

The secretary said his agency, which handles many human-resources issues for the state, is among the departments scrambling to fill vacant posts.

I know we are trying everything we can. ... We are recruiting actively on LinkedIn. Were trying to make referrals within our own people and agencies. But were trying to use every tool in our toolbox, he told the panel.

Florida has the countrys leanest state employee workforce, with a ratio of 85 full-time employees for every 10,000 residents

Among the agencies being hit hardest are those that care for the states most-dangerous or vulnerable people.

The Agency for Persons with Disabilities has vacancy rates between 20% and 46% at its four facilities in North Florida, Rose Salinas, the agencys deputy director for budget and planning, told the Senate panel.

The agency has been forced to sign contracts with private companies as it struggles to hire and retain direct-care workers, Salinas said. Wages are the main problem, but job retention and recruitment have become even more challenging as demands on existing employees balloon.

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As an example, Salinas said that, before the pandemic, the agencys Sunland Center in Marianna had 15 vacant positions. As of Friday, the facility had 131 vacancies, she said.

Direct-care employees working for the state make about $14 per hour, but the agency is paying between $47 and $67 an hour to private contractors to fill vacant slots, Salinas said.

Were offering the job for $14 an hour and yet were paying potentially $65 an hour, so theyre probably making $40, $45 an hour? committee Chairman Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, asked.

Salinas said she did not know how much the contractors are paying employees but that nurse assistants in hospitals generally earn at least $16 per hour.

The Department of Children and Families is experiencing similar challenges, agency Secretary Shevaun Harris told the Senate committee.

Front-line jobs at the agency are some of the hardest jobs in state government, she said.

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So it may not be hard to fathom why, coming out of the pandemic as most industries are having recruitment challenges, weve seen increased vacancies and turnover and a shortage of qualified or willing candidates for many of our critical class positions, Harris said.

The pandemic also has increased the workload for DCF employees, Harris explained.

As you can imagine, declining workforce numbers combined with an increase in workload only exacerbates the turnover rate. I want to assure you that enhancing recruitment and retention strategies is at the forefront of our strategic plan, she said.
(Newser)  Update: The fifth time wasn't a charm for Pamela Anderson. A source tells Rolling Stone the 54-year-old is splitting up with bodyguard Dan Hayhurst, whom she married in December 2020. "Pamela loves as authentically as she lives," is that insider's vague explanation. But sources tell Us the couple is merely taking "time apart," with one noting they hadn't "been getting along" of late. "Pamela rushed into [the] marriage," one source says. "She saw the marriage as a fresh start, but the spark has faded." Anderson met Hayhurst shortly after taking part in a January 2020 wedding ceremony with producer Jon Peters, though Us reports those two never got a marriage license and so were never actually wed. In May of that year, Anderson confirmed as much. Previous verified husbands include Tommy Lee, Kid Rock, and poker player Rick Salomon, whom she married twice. Our original story from January 2021 follows:

Pamela Anderson has revealed that she's been married since Christmas Eve. The former Baywatch star says her new husband is Dan Hayhurst, who's been her bodyguard during the pandemic lockdown, Fox News reports. The small ceremony was held in the yard of her home on Vancouver Island. Canadian First Nation members blessed the wedding, which included traditional rituals, per the Daily Mail, which posted photos. Anderson grew up in an isolated fishing village in British Columbia. Hayhurst already lived on the island, and the two met last year at the beginning of the lockdown. "I was married on the property I bought from my grandparents 25 years ago," she says. "This is where my parents were married, and they are still together. I feel like I've come full circle."

Hayhurst is a builder, and the couple is renovating the property in the village of Ladysmith. "I am in love," Anderson says, adding that they have "both our families' blessing. Everyone we know is happy for us." The actress has now been married five times to four men. Her exes include Tommy Lee, Kid Rock, and Rick Solomon. A year ago, she was reported to have married film producer Jon Peters, but she now says that was only a mock ceremony. "We were never married," she tells the Daily Mail. "He is a movie maker and ... I guess he just needed a little attention?" (Julian Assange's first social call in a British prison was from Pamela Anderson.)
(Newser)  Update: American prosecutors have charged four officials in Belarus with air piracy over the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk last yearthough there is little chance of the officials appearing in a US court. The indictment filed by federal prosecutors says a bomb threat the Ryanair pilot was informed of was a hoax concocted so authorities could seize dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich, the New York Times reports. Prosecutors described the defendants, including Leonid Mikalaevich Churo, chief of the Belarusian state air navigation authority, as fugitives, reports the AP. They said the US has jurisdiction in the case because American citizens were on the flight. Our original story from June 15, 2021 follows:

The pilot of a Ryanair passenger jet had to land in Minsk last month after being told a bomb on the plane would explode if he didn't, the airline says. Once the plane landed, journalist Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, were removed from the flight, arrested, and imprisoned. Belarus denies it forced the plane to land, the BBC reports. Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, said Minsk air traffic control told the pilot it had received a "credible threat" that the plane would be blown up if it continued to its destination in Lithuania. O'Leary called it "a premeditated breach" of international aviation rules. The pilot repeatedly tried to get air traffic control to put him through to airline officials, O'Leary said, but was told that employees in Poland "were not answering the phone."

When the pilot asked what the threat level was, O'Leary said, he was told it was a red alert, meaning he had no options but to land in Minsk. "He wasn't instructed to do so, but he wasn't left with any great alternatives," O'Leary said, per the Hill. He made the revelations in an appearance Tuesday before a British Parliament committee. After the landing, he said, the plane's crew members were told to say on camera that the diversion was voluntary but refused. On Monday, the head of the Belarus air force said there was "no interception, no forced diversion from the state border or forced landing of the Ryanair plane." Pratasevich was brought out at that press conference, where he praised ruler Alexander Lukashenko and said he'd been trying to overthrow him. A BBC reporter said it appeared his statement was not voluntary. (Read more Belarus stories.)
(Newser)  Two years ago, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a law giving religious adoption agencies the OK to refuse to place a child if doing so would buck its "written religious or moral convictions or policies," per the Knoxville News Sentinel. Now, the state is seeing its first lawsuit challenging that measure, via a couple who say they were rebuffed by a Christian-based adoption agency because they're Jewish. Per the complaint filed Wednesday against Tennessee's Department of Children's Services, Gabriel and Elizabeth Rutan-Ram say they decided to go the adoption route after finding out they couldn't have biological children of their own, noting they were excited in early 2021 to find a Florida boy with a disability they hoped to adopt.

However, Tennessee law mandated they first had to complete foster-parent training and receive a home-study certification. The Rutan-Rams began the process of doing so through Holston United Methodist Home for Children, a placement agency that gets money from the state "to provide placement, training, and other services" on behalf of Children's Services, per the suit. And all seemed to be set, until the day the Rutan-Rams were scheduled to start their training. That's when, they say, Holston informed them it couldn't help them with the process, as it "only provide[s] adoption services to prospective adoptive families that share our [Christian] belief system."

The couple lost out on adopting the boy as they were unable to find another local adoption agency that could help them fulfill Tennessee's requirements for out-of-state adoptions. "I felt like I'd been punched in the gut," Elizabeth Rutan-Ram tells Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed the suit on behalf of the couple. "It was the first time I felt discriminated against because I am Jewish. ... And it was very hurtful that the agency seemed to think that a child would be better off in state custody than with a loving family like us." Her husband adds: "It's infuriating to learn our tax dollars are funding discrimination against us."

In an emailed statement to McClatchy News, a Holston spokesperson notes "it is vital that Holston Home, as a religious organization, remains free to continue placing at-risk children in loving, Christian families, according to our deeply held beliefs." Six other Tennessee residents who similarly object to how their taxes are being spent have joined the couple in their religious discrimination suit. Meanwhile, the Rutan-Rams aren't letting Holston dash their plans to start a family: The suit notes says that, through a different agency, they're now fostering a teen girl they plan to adopt, and hope to adopt another child at some point as well. (Read more adoption stories.)
(Newser)  Trying to keep Ukraine's people calm as Russian troops move to its border, the nation's leaders reminded its allies of the gravity of the threat after unsettling remarks from the West. President Biden suggested Wednesday that a minor incursion by Russian forces might not be met with the same force that a full-scale one would. And French President Emmanuel Macron said the European Union will concentrate on its own defense, "within the framework of NATO," then negotiate on its own with Russia. Ukraine's foreign minister pointed out Thursday that when it's your country, the Wall Street Journal reports, there's no such thing as an acceptable, not-so-bad invasion.

President Volodymyr Zelensky also called out Biden without using his name. "We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations," Zelensky tweeted Thursday, per the Washington Post. "Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones. I say this as the President of a great power." Biden revisited the issue with reporters Thursday, saying he's told President Vladimir Putin that any crossing of the border will be treated as an invasion. "If Putin makes this choice," Biden said, "Russia will pay a heavy price." Putin also has warned Biden about imposing sanctions.

Ukraine doesn't figure Russia's plan is a full-scale invasion anyway, so it wants allies to not signal that lesser steps might be tolerated. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said Russian leaders know the price of an invasion would be high, per the Journal. "It will be very difficult for them to achieve their aims by military means. I think, impossible, he said. "They have a multifaceted plan to destabilize the domestic situation on the territory of our country." That plan could include rolling in and occupying parts of Ukraine, as well as launching cyberattacks, spreading disinformation, and exerting economic pressure. A rapid assault could be launched mostly to force Ukraine to negotiate. (Read more Russia-Ukraine conflict stories.)
(Newser)  An Ohio mom is facing child endangerment charges after being accused of kicking her two kids out during a snowstorm. Per WKBN, the alleged incident took place Monday, when police say they were called to the Warren home of 38-year-old Eva Harris just after 8am over a fight between the woman and her 17-year-old daughter. According to a police report, when the cops arrived, they could hear a fight taking place inside the residence, and when a perturbed Harris opened the door, she told police her daughter "needed to go" because she'd been disrespectful and poured a drink on her, per the Tribune Chronicle.

Police say the girl, clad in a thin jacket, emerged a few minutes later with a trash bag filled with her belongings, crying and wailing "I have nowhere to go" as she trudged through the 18 inches of snow on the ground. The temperature was said to be in the 20s at the time. Cops took the teen to the local police station but were soon summoned back to the house after a report that Harris had also kicked out her 16-year-old son. Police say they found him outside the home, also with a garbage bag full of his stuff. He told cops his mom had been upset with his sister over a boyfriend being at the house, and that he'd earned her ire for trying to stop them from arguing over it.

Police contacted Trumbull County Children Services then decided to arrest Harris after she wouldn't answer the door. She was finally taken into custody around 9:45am. Cops say there was another report on file with the agency about the family from September. According to jail records, Harris was released from custody later Monday on her own recognizance and arraigned Tuesday. She faces two counts of child endangerment, to which she pleaded not guilty. She's next due in court on March 1. (Read more weird crimes stories.)
(Newser)  Update: The weapon that Kyle Rittenhouse used to shoot three people during Wisconsin protests in 2020 has been destroyed. The State Crime Lab did it on Feb. 25, WISN reports, in keeping with an agreement between Rittenhouse and prosecutors. Police had been holding the rifle since it was confiscated after the shootings. In addition, clothing and other personal items that Rittenhouse wanted returned to him have been. Our original story from Jan. 20 follows:

Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois man acquitted of fatally shooting two men and wounding a third during street protests in Wisconsin in 2020, is seeking the return of the gun and other property that police seized after his arrest. Rittenhouse's attorney Mark Richards filed paperwork with the Kenosha County Circuit Court on Wednesday seeking the return of the items, explaining that Rittenhouse wants the AR-15-style rifle back so that it can be destroyed. He also wants the clothing he was wearing the night of the shootings returned, the AP reports. "At the end of the day, two people did lose their lives, period," a family spokesman said, adding, "That weapon doesnt belong on a mantle. It doesn't belong in a museum."

Law enforcement has had the gun since the day after Rittenhouse shot three men, two of them fatally, on Aug. 25, 2020, during a night of protests and unrest in the Kenosha over the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer. In November, Rittenhouse, 19, was found not guilty of all charges related to the shooting deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and the wounding of Gaige Grosskreutz. Rittenhouse family spokesman David Hancock said Thursday that Rittenhouse wants to destroy the rifle and throw out his clothing so that no one can use any of it to "celebrate" the shootings.

The gun was purchased by Dominick Black for Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time and unable to legally buy a gun. It "was to become the legal property of Kyle Rittenhouse upon his 18th birthday," which was Jan. 3, 2021, the motion stated. Earlier this month, Black pleaded guilty to two citations for contributing to the delinquency of a minor in exchange for prosecutors dropping two felony charges of intent to sell a dangerous weapon to a person younger than 18. According to court documents, Rittenhouse also wants to retrieve the ammunition, the sling, and the magazine from the firearm, his cellphone, a cloth face mask, and a $1 bill.

(Read more Kyle Rittenhouse stories.)
(Newser)  En route from Miami to London, an American Airlines flight instead ended up back where it started Wednesday night due to a mask-refusing passenger. Authorities say "a disruptive customer refusing to comply with the federal mask requirement" forced the Boeing 777 to fly all 129 passengers back to Miami International Airport about an hour, or 500 miles, into its flight, the New York Times reports. Police officers met the flight upon its return and escorted a woman in her 40s off the plane, but did not arrest her.

The flight was ultimately canceled and passengers were booked on other flights, the Washington Post reportswith the exception of the woman in question: Sources say she's been placed on the list of people not allowed to fly with American Airlines pending further investigation. As of Tuesday, the FAA had received 151 reports of unruly passengers so far this year, and 92 of those reports involved face mask disputes. Last year, there were 5,981 unruly passenger reports, 4,290 of them related to masks. (This is just the latest in a long, long, long, long, long, long line of such incidents; in one of the most recent, a woman involved ended up in FBI custody.)
(Newser)  Asked Wednesday to respond to voters of color concerned that they will be unable to vote in the midterm elections without passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Mitch McConnell put it this way: "The concern is misplaced because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans." The Senate minority leader was soon trending on Twitter, as Black Americans made clear that they are in fact Americans. "Being Black doesn't make you less of an American, no matter what this craven man thinks," tweeted former Kentucky state Rep. Charles Booker, who is campaigning for Republican Rand Paul's Senate seat, per USA Today.

It "wasn't a Freudian slipit was a dog whistle. The same one he has blown for years," added Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, per the Guardian. Many others, including Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Rep. Donald McEachin of Virginia, shared photos of themselves alongside hashtags including #IAmAmerican and #MitchPlease. Meanwhile, Mary Trump highlighted this 1992 quote from the late Toni Morrison: "In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate." A McConnell rep told CNN on Thursday that McConnell meant to say "other Americans." "I have consistently pointed to the record-high turnout for all voters in the 2020 election, including African-Americans," the Kentucky Republican said in a statement given to CNN.

But since that election, "at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting," which disproportionately affect voters of color, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Hundreds more bills have been introduced, Kaleigh Rogers reports for FiveThirtyEight. President Biden said that in failing to pass legislation that would've restored a requirement that the federal government review election law changes in states with a history of discrimination, the "Senate has failed to stand up for our democracy." Earlier this month, McConnell countered that Democrats believe "our democracy is in perfect shape, except when Republican-controlled states dare to pass mainstream voting laws." (Read more Mitch McConnell stories.)
(Newser)  Update: The four people who died of exposure while trying to walk into the US from Canada during a blizzard last week have been identified as a family from India. Investigators believe smugglers brought Jagdish Patel, 39; Vaishailben Patel, 37; and their children, 11-year-old girl Vihang and and 3-year-old boy Dharkmik, to the border area, the CBC reports. Manitoba RCMP Chief Supt. Rob Hill said authorities initially described the children as a baby and a teenage boy, but confirmation was difficult because of the "frozen state in which the bodies were found." Steve Shand, a Florida man charged with human smuggling, was released on bond earlier this week. He was arrested on the US side of the border. He was with other Indian citizens who said they had walked for 11 hours. Our original story from Jan. 20 follows:

A tragedy on the Canadian border: The Mounties say four people, including a baby and a teenager, froze to death after trying to walk into the US from Canada during a blizzard. The bodies were found Wednesday in a snow-covered field just steps from the border in Emerson, Manitoba, the Winnipeg Free Press reports. The group, believed to be undocumented immigrants from India, had apparently tried to make the crossing at a time when temperatures had dropped to -31 Fahrenheit, including wind chill, reports the Guardian. "These individuals, including an infant, were left on their own in the middle of a blizzard," Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy, commander of the RCMP in Manitoba, told reporters Thursday.

"These victims faced not only the cold weather but endless fields, large snowdrifts, and complete darkness," said MacLatchy, who described the deaths as "an absolute and heartbreaking tragedy." The bodies were found after the arrest of a Florida man in Minnesota, the Star Tribune reports. Authorities say two unauthorized immigrants from India were found in a 15-person van driven by 47-year-old Steve Shand. Five others were taken into custody around a quarter-mile south of the border; they were headed in Shand's direction and said someone was supposed to pick them up. American officials notified their Canadian counterparts after they found items including diapers, toys, and children's medication in one person's backpack, though there was no baby with the group, reports the CBC.

The person with the backpack told authorities that it belonged to a family that had become separated from the group during the overnight crossing. One member of the group, who told authorities they had been walking for around 11 hours, may need to have a frostbitten hand amputated. Shand, who allegedly rented the van on Monday from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, faces a federal charge of human smuggling. Authorities, who suspect Shand is part of a larger smuggling ring, say this was his second trip to the border area this month. MacLatchy urged anybody considering making a similar border crossing to think again. "Do not listen to anyone who tells you they can get you to your destination safely. They cannot," she said. "Even with proper clothing it is not a journey that is possible." (Read more human smuggling stories.)
(Newser)  A Taliban delegation will travel to Norway for talks with the Norwegian government and representatives from several allied countries, including the US, per the AP. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry said Friday that it has invited representatives of the Taliban to Oslo from Sunday to Tuesday to hold talks covering humanitarian issues and women's rights, among other topics. Norwegian newspaper VG said that special representatives from the US, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, and the European Union would take part. The Foreign Ministry said the meetings would also include women leaders, journalists, and human rights defenders from Afghanistan.

It would be the first time since the Taliban took over the country last August that they have met in Europe. Earlier they traveled to Russia, Iran, Qatar, Pakistan, China, and Turkmenistan. The acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, will head the Taliban delegation. Zabihullah Mujahid, the deputy culture and information minister, said Muttaqi expects to hold separate meetings with the US delegation as well as bilateral meetings with European representatives. The rights of women and girls are expected to top most agendas, as well as a reoccurring demand of the West for the Taliban administration to share power with Afghanistan's minority ethnic and religious groups.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed that the meeting was "not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban." But to address "a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe for millions of people" in Afghanistan, "we must talk to those who in practice govern the country today." The United Nations has warned that as many as 1 million Afghan children are in danger of starving, and most of the country's 38 million people are living below the poverty line. Muttaqi is certain to press the Taliban's demand that nearly $10 billion frozen by the US and other Western countries be released. The UN has managed to get some liquidity into the country, even allowing the new administration to pay for imports, like electricity. (Read more Taliban stories.)
FORT COLLINS, Colo.  The boyfriend of slain cross-country traveler Gabby Petito admitted killing her in a notebook discovered near his body in a Florida swamp, the FBI announced Friday.

It was the first time authorities squarely pinned the blame for Petitos death on Brian Laundrie, though he was the prime suspect all along.

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Investigators meanwhile announced that Laundrie, 23, had sent text messages to intentionally deceive people that Petito, 22, was still alive after he beat and strangled her in late August, according to a statement released by the FBI in Denver.

All logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case, FBI Denver Division Special Agent in Charge Michael Schneider said in the statement. The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito.

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Petitos body was found Sept. 19 at a campground near Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming. A coroner determined shed died about three weeks earlier of blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation.

Laundrie returned home to Florida in early September but went missing soon after. In October, his parents found an item belonging to him in a nature preserve near their house.

Further searching turned up Laundries remains, a revolver, backpack and the notebook. Medical examiners determined Laundrie died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The FBI did not specify what, exactly, Laundrie had written in the notebook and in the texts hed sent to mislead. The texts were sent between Laundries phone and Petitos phone, according to the statement.

The timing and content of these messages are indicative of Mr. Laundrie attempting to deceive law enforcement by giving the impression that Ms. Petito was still alive, the statement said.

Grand Teton was the last place the couple visited during a cross-country van trip last summer that ended with Laundrie mysteriously returning home alone in the vehicle.

The couple documented their trip on Instagram. They crossed Colorado and on Aug. 12 were stopped by police in Moab, Utah, after the two got into a scuffle.

Police video showed Petito describing a fight that escalated. Police concluded Petito was the aggressor but officers decided to separate them for the night rather than file charges.

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Attorneys for the Petito and Laundrie families did not immediately respond Friday to emails and text messages seeking comment about the FBIs conclusions.

___

AP reporter Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report.
(Newser)  A British doctor visiting the Atlanta area was killed by a stray bullet just two days after he arrived in the US. Police in Brookhaven say 31-year-old Matthew Willson was shot in the head while lying in bed in the early hours of Sunday, 11 Alive reports. He died from his injuries in a local hospital. The death was ruled a homicide. Police believe Willson was killed by a shot fired recklessly from a neighboring complex. They said authorities received a 911 call about the shooting while officers were investigating multiple reports of shots fired at the neighboring complex around 2am.

"This incident appears to be a random act involving individuals participating in the reckless discharge of firearm(s) which led to the tragic death of Dr. Willson," police said in a statement, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Dr. Willson was in town from England visiting loved ones when the incident occurred." The Daily Mail reports that Willson, who spent two years working at Georgia State University as a postdoctoral researcher, had returned to the US to visit his American girlfriend, and also has relatives in the US. No arrests have been made. (Read more Georgia stories.)
(Newser)  Update: The cause of death has been determined for the Maryland man found dead amid the 124 snakes he kept as pets in his home. David Riston died of snake envenomation, per the state medical examiners office, which ruled the 49-year-old's death accidental, NBC News reports. It's not clear which of the snakes might have been responsible for the fatal bite. While Riston did have a valid captive reptile and amphibian permit in the state, that did not permit him to own venomous snakes, which he had illegally, WJLA reports. Our original story from January 21 follows:

A Maryland man was found dead on the floor of his Pomfret home Wednesday surrounded by some 124 pet snakes, some of which were venomous and illegal to possess. A cause of the death for the 49-year-old, who lived alone, is not yet known. There were no signs of foul play, according to the Charles County Sheriff's Department. However, the department noted "more than 100 venomous and non-venomous snakes of different varieties were discovered in tanks situated on racks" within the home, per CBS News. Jennifer Harris of Charles County Animal Control tells WUSA that a team including reptile experts called in from Virginia and North Carolina "tagged and bagged" at least 124 snakes.

These reportedly included rattlesnakes, cobras, black mambas, and pythons. The largest was a 14-foot Burmese python. Harris says neighbors had no idea about the collection. It's illegal to possess venomous snakes in the state, per CBS. "I know people were worried that there could be some danger to people living nearby," but "we have not seen that any of the snakes were not properly secured or could have escaped," Harris adds. Even if a snake did escape, it would be unlikely to survive the cold outdoor temperatures, per NBC4. A neighbor who hadn't seen the man since the day before initially spotted his apparently unconscious body through a window. An autopsy will be conducted. (Read more snakes stories.)
(Newser)  Hong Kongers are rebelling against a government order to hand over their hamsters. After a woman and 11 hamsters in the pet shop she worked in tested positive for COVID, authorities said Tuesday that anybody who bought a hamster on or after Dec. 22 should hand it in to be euthanized. But while the territory generally has a high level of compliance with COVID orders, the hamster order was widely seen as a step too far, the Washington Post reports. Thousands have joined online groups to offer to adopt or hide hamsters at risk of being euthanized and some have tried to intercept owners handing in hamsters at a government center, offering to adopt them instead. Others have offered to use their Photoshop skills to alter the dates on pet owners' receipts.

Animal welfare volunteers have told citizens that while the government said it "strongly recommends" people surrender their hamster, the order is not mandatory. Ocean Cheung, administrator of hamster groups on Telegram and Facebook, tells the Hong Kong Free Press that volunteers have rescued dozens of hamsters that were abandoned on city streets. She says there is no evidence that the infections were animal-to-human instead of human-to-animal, which is more common. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has said hamster owners should follow strict hygiene measures, but shouldn't panic or abandon their pets. The group says it is "shocked" by the government's plan. Local TV has shown videos of children crying as they spend their last moments with their pet.

On Friday, the government warned that people trying to interfere with the hamster cull could be reported to police, reports Reuters. A volunteer who gave her name as Jessica tells the Guardian that she isn't worried about the risk of COVIDor the threat of arrest. "They arrest people anyway for doing nothing," she says. "Some of my friends are in jail now. Not because of a hamster. I would rather save a life. A hamster life is still a life and thats what a lot of volunteers are thinking." (Read more Hong Kong stories.)
(Newser)  The health minister in the rebel government set up by Yemens Houthi rebels says an airstrike on a rebel-run detention facility in the country's north early on Friday killed at least 70 detainees. The minister, Taha al-Motawakel, told the AP in the rebel-held Yemeni capital of Sanaa that he expects the number of those killed to rise since many of the wounded are seriously hurt. The strike was part of an intensified aerial campaign by the Saudi-led coalition that has waged war on the Iran-backed rebels since 2015. The strikes were stepped up after the rebels claimed responsibility for an attack that hit the United Arab Emirates earlier this week. Basheer Omar, an International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson, said rescuers are still going through the prison in Saada.

The Red Cross had moved some of the wounded to facilities elsewhere, he said. Doctors Without Borders put the number of wounded alone at around 200. Another airstrike in the port city of Hodeida earlier Friday apparently took Yemen entirely off the internet. Yemen faces "a nation-scale collapse of internet connectivity" after an airstrike on a telecommunications building, NetBlocks said. The Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthi rebels acknowledged carrying out "accurate airstrikes to destroy the capabilities of the militia" around Hodeida's port. The coalition did not immediately acknowledge the strike in Saada.

(Read more Yemen stories.)
(Newser)  Full vaccination provides the bestand safestprotection from the delta and omicron coronavirus variants, new studies released Friday by the CDC confirm. It's the first comprehensive examination of the vaccines' effectiveness in preventing hospitalization for omicron infections, the Wall Street Journal reports. Booster shots were shown to make a major difference. One study found that a month after the second shot, the Pfizer vaccine wasn't doing much on antibody immunity against omicron. A third dose, however, bumped protection up past 50%.

An analysis showed the Pfizer or Moderna boosters to be 90% effective at keeping patients out of the hospital and 82% effective in preventing emergency room or urgent care trips, per the Washington Post. The data was collected from last August until Jan. 5; for three weeks of that stretch, omicron was dominant. Boosters protect against serious illness much more than against mild infections. Health officials said they hope the data persuades more people to receive a third dose of vaccine. "We should be celebrating this, said a molecular medicine professor. Health officials should spread the message that boosters "are holding up the wall against severe disease  and thats phenomenal," Eric Topol said.

The third shots are attracting fewer people than the first two. The CDC reports 39% of vaccinated people have received a booster, though US health officials have promoted it and other studies, from the US and other countries, have shown it to be effective. The CDC recommends the booster for everyone 12 and older who's at least five months past their second Pfizer or Moderna shot. Two shots have become less effective since omicron arrived, said Mark Thompson, a CDC epidemiologist and lead author of one of the new reports. "We have lacked this level of data," said another expert who hopes the studies settle the debate on boosters. "Theres uncertainty as decisions are made, and these recent papers are filling in the blanks," said Joshua Sharfstein. (Read more COVID booster shots stories.)
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TALLAHASSEE  The Florida Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved maps in the once-a-decade redistricting process, despite concerns from Democrats that a surge in Hispanic population doesnt appear to be fully represented with the changes.

A few Democrats heaped praise on the Senates proposed congressional map, which doesnt include controversial lines suggested Sunday by Gov. Ron DeSantis general counsel. The Senate and House ultimately will have to reach an agreement on congressional districts, which then would go to DeSantis for approval.

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The Senate voted 31-4 to approve its congressional plan (SB 102), which could slightly add to the Republican majority in Floridas congressional delegation. Senators also voted 34-3 in favor of new state Senate lines (SJR 100), which could put a few incumbent South Florida Democrats into the same districts.

Sen. Victor Torres, D-Kissimmee, said he expects the congressional map to be legally challenged over the failure to increase from four the number of Hispanic districts, particularly in Central Florida.

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Im not looking at myself, my district, Im looking at the broader picture as to how this state has grown with my community, my culture, Torres said.

Torres was joined in voting against the congressional map by Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, Sen. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa, and Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point. Torres, Farmer and Gibson voted against the new Senate lines.

In voting for the congressional map, Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Miami Democrat running for governor this year, said she was concerned about having enough votes to override a veto if DeSantis continues to push his plan, which would be more favorable to Republicans.

She alluded to the widespread belief that DeSantis is seeking to become the Republican candidate for president in 2024 and to the Fair Districts constitutional amendments, which voters approved in 2010 to set redistricting standards.

He drew those maps for the voters in Iowa, not for the voters in Florida, Taddeo said. Keep in mind the voters in Florida, they overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendment to keep politics out of drawing it, and Im curious to see if he vetoes our map.

Senate Reapportionment Chairman Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, said the goal of his committee was to avoid mistakes from the last redistricting effort when the state Supreme Court tossed initial congressional and Senate maps.

I am not saying today that this is the only map that can be drawn to be compliant, Rodrigues said during a discussion on the Senate floor. But what I am saying is that the map before us today fulfills the charge that (Senate President Wilton Simpson) delivered to the Reapportionment Committee to deliver a map designed to be compliant with our Florida Constitution, with all federal and state statutes.

So-called tier one redistricting requirements, in part, include a prohibition on drawing lines with the intent of favoring or disfavoring a political party or an incumbent. Tier two includes standards such as districts being nearly equal in population, remaining compact and, where possible, following boundaries of such things as counties and cities.

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Floridas U.S. House delegation will increase from 27 to 28 members because of population growth over the past decade. The Senates congressional map would result in an increase from 16 to 17 in the number of districts won in 2020 by former Republican President Donald Trump.

The DeSantis proposal seeks to create 18 districts that went for Trump in 2020. In part, the proposal would make vast changes to historically Black districts held by Democrats Al Lawson in North Florida and Val Demings in the Orlando area.

The House has moved slower than the Senate on new maps. It is drawing state House districts and a congressional plan.

Before Thursdays Senate floor session, a group known as the Fair Districts Coalition urged Rodrigues and House Redistricting Chairman Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach, to remove the governors proposal from a redistricting website and from consideration until everyone who was involved in crafting the map is disclosed.

In this specific instance, the governors choice to insert his office into the legislative process, at a minimum, creates an appearance of partisan intent, the coalition said in a letter. And his failure to disclose the identity of every person involved in drawing the map underscores that appearance of improper intent.
Harding Sam is first chief of the Alatna Village Council. Clinton Bergman is first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. Frank Thompson is first chief of the Evansville Tribal Council. Brian Ridley is president of Tanana Chiefs Conference.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Compensations to cover the damages caused by rain-induced floods are deposited to the accounts of affected citizens by the Ministry of Finance, said Works Ministry.

The compensation reached 92 families affected by the down-pour in the Al-Lawzi area, our sister concern AlAyam said in a report.

The move follows the directives of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, to compensate citizens and develop sustainable solutions in the areas facing rainwater accumulation.

The ministry said the latest move followed a study of the compensation requests of citizens received from the Municipal Council of the northern region of the Al-Lawzi region.

Praising the quick action by the council, the ministry said it is keen to compensate the affected persons after studying and evaluating the requests received.

The ministry said it is working to develop sustainable solutions to ensure a quality of life for citizens in all regions of the Kingdom.

In a separate statement, Zainab Al Darazi, the municipal member of the twelfth constituency in the Northern Governorate, thanked HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, for compensating those affected by rains in the Al Lawzi area.

Al Darazi said citizens in the areas conveyed their gratitude to HRH for compensating rainwater damages in a record time.

The member also thanked the HRH for his directives to concerned authorities to solve the rainwater logging in Al-Lawzi.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

The Bahrain Bay Beach and the Qalali Coast Waterfront Projects will help attract more international visitors and tourists to Bahrain, said the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.

Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani said: These two projects will constitute a new addition to promoting domestic tourism in Bahrain, in addition to attracting more visitors and tourists from outside Bahrain.

The minister said this as reviewed the work progress of the 170,000sqm Bahrain Bay Beach and 100,000 sqm Qalali Coast Waterfront Project.

Dr Nasser Ali Qaidi, the CEO of the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority, top officials and officials representing the consultancy supervising the implementation of the project accompanied the minister.

Bahrain Bay Beach Project, located north of the Bahrain Bay area and inaugurated in November 2022, stretches from the northern coast of Bahrain Bay to the south of Al Saya.

The project enjoys a coastline of over 600 meters shared with over five plots, an area designated for service facilities and 425 public parking lots.

The Qalali Coast Waterfront Project, located on the street leading to the Amwaj Islands area in Muharraq Governorate, extends over 2 km.

The minister said the projects are part of the tourism strategy for 2022-2026, which aims to diversify the Kingdoms economic portfolio.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Many students from across Bahrain are finding it difficult to sign in for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) counselling sessions for gaining medical seats at medical colleges in India under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota.

The situation is causing panic among a large number of NEET aspirants and their parents as the counselling session will end in another two days.

Speaking to The Daily Tribune, a worried parent said:

We initially registered using a Bahrain mobile phone number, which has eight digits.

An Indian mobile phone number, which has ten digits, was given as the alternate one.

Now when we try to sign in for the counselling session, it says invalid number.

We are very much worried about this as there are only two days left.

He requested the authorities to fix the technical glitch so that students from Bahrain can take part in the counselling session.

This is something regarding a students future.

I request the National Testing Agency to immediately rectify the technical glitch.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) or NEET (UG), formerly the All India Pre-Medical Test is a test for students who wish to pursue undergraduate medical, dental and other courses in government and private institutions in India and also for those intending to pursue primary medical qualification abroad.

The exam is conducted by the National Testing Agency, which provides the results to the Directorate General of Health Services under the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Japan on Friday acted to contain a record surge in COVID-19 cases with a return to curbs that have however shown diminishing results, while a laggard vaccine booster programme leaves many people vulnerable to breakthrough infections.

The government empowered authorities in Tokyo and 12 other prefectures to implement curbs on mobility and business activity - measures that, with three prefectures already under such devolved restrictions, now cover half of Japan's population.

The highly infectious Omicron variant has driven the current wave of cases, and nationwide infections hit an all-time high of around 46,000 on Thursday.

Japan has declared various levels of emergency multiple times during the two-year pandemic, also including orders for shortened operating hours in bars and restaurants and the banning of alcohol sales.

But studies of cell phone traffic, train usage and other mobility data suggest levels of compliance by the public have steadily decreased.

"I think it is not a big deal, this Omicron," 73-year-old retiree Norio Oikawa told Reuters. "The number of deaths is very low. I think it's like a common cold, or influenza."

While Omicron is much more infectious than previous variants it appears to cause less serious illness. But public health experts still worry that a wave of such cases could still overwhelm the healthcare system.

Japan has fully vaccinated almost 80% of its population, but an increasing number of them are vulnerable to breakthrough infections as they got their shots more than six months ago. A booster programme that would help immunise them against the fast-moving variant has reached less than 2%.
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As Gov. Ned Lamont expressed confidence Friday in Connecticuts economic outlook with the COVID-19 pandemic approaching two years, the U.S. Department of Labor reported the states unemployment benefit rolls were at the lowest for the first week of any calendar year since 1988.

Lamont provided the keynote address Friday morning at an economic summit hosted by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. With COVID-19 infection rates still elevated, the CBIA held the event virtually.

Acknowledging the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, the governor gave an otherwise upbeat outlook for the state budget and economy as he gears up for a reelection bid, with potential rivals including Republican Bob Stefanowski, who Lamont defeated in 2018.

Lamont said he would attempt to find ways to reduce property taxes for residents in the Connecticut General Assembly session that starts in February. He did not offer any new proposals on how to get more people to reenter the workforce, but promised to continue to build on existing initiatives like job training and apprenticeships.

A lot of it is confidence in getting people back to work  we were hit pretty hard, Lamont said Friday. Weve got a lot of investment going on, starting with the transportation infrastructure, environmental infrastructure  I think thats going to represent tens of thousands of jobs.

Connecticut has seen a sharper drop in the participation rate of people actively considering work than many states nationally, according to Ezra Greenberg, a McKinsey & Co. partner who spoke Friday during the CBIA conference.

People are reevaluating what their priorities are in terms of work, Greenberg said Friday. They have shown, with what theyve been through in the pandemic, that there are other ways to get their families through.

While federal assistance programs provided a cash cushion for some families that will dissipate in the coming year, Greenberg added, the pandemic crystallized for some workers a desire to leave existing careers for better opportunities.

After an earlier-than-usual spike after Christmas in initial claims for unemployment assistance, filings have tailed back off in Connecticut. Employers continue to dangle bonuses to boost their prospects of hiring people for jobs, particularly warehousing and freight companies struggling to fulfill orders.

Nearly 5,500 Connecticut workers filed initial claims for jobless assistance last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, about 2,400 fewer than the first week of January.

With 32,600 people filing for weekly benefits as of early January, Connecticut has about 15,000 fewer workers on unemployment than two years ago when the pandemic hit the United States.

Not since 1988 had the state started a year with unemployment rolls at an equivalent level. DOL recorded its lowest weekly tally for Connecticut the year before, when 13,459 people filed for benefits in mid-October 1987.

With many policymakers flummoxed on how to boost logistics industry employment to normalize the delivery of products to stores and businesses, companies continue to struggle filling jobs at higher pay scales.

Entering Friday, Indeeds online job board posted more than 27,000 openings in Connecticut above $75,000 a year, near the states median household income as calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Only about 4,000 Connecticut residents are receiving assistance after separations from jobs that paid at least $75,000 annually, according to a running count by the Connecticut Department of Labor.

While the unemployment assistance tally does not capture all people out of work in Connecticut  an unknown number of workers are taking hiatuses for varying reasons due to the pandemic or other factors  jobs boards also do not capture the full slate of opportunities.

On its careers page Friday morning, General Dynamics subsidiary Electric Boat listed nearly 1,000 openings as of Friday at its Groton shipyard and New London engineering office. That was several multiples more than the number captured by Indeed, due to Electric Boats practice of itemizing on its own website how many people it is seeking for each job description  in some instances, dozens for positions like machinists or pipe fitters.

Speaking Friday to CBIAs audience, the president of Electric Boat Kevin Graney said the shipyard has 11 or 12 subs under varying stages of completion in Groton and an auxiliary yard in Rhode Island at any point. He said about a quarter of Electric Boats activities today are centered on the new Columbia class of ballistic missile submarines that will replace the U.S. Navys existing Ohio-class fleet.

Graney said 86 percent of Electric Boats workers have been vaccinated against COVID-19, adding the company avoided instituting a mandate on fears Electric Boat might have lost a significant portion of its workforce. Still, he said Electric Boat was hit hard by the omicron variant of COVID-19, both in the office suites as well as on the production lines.

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation expansion  and frankly it may be the biggest in our history, Graney said Friday. Going forward, hiring is our biggest issue.

CBIA CEO Chris DiPentima said Connecticut is awash in money and cautioned policymakers against tacking on additional expenses to the state budget, while calling for tax relief for individual earners and businesses.

We must address workforce challenges that have simmered for years due to sluggish population growth, DiPentima said. If we dont grow the population, we dont grow the workforce.

Includes prior reporting by staff writer Julia Bergman.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
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DANBURY  After weeks of rapidly increasing COVID-19 cases, not enough tests to go around, concerns about school staffing  the Danbury area is finally reporting a decline in case rates.

State data released Thursday shows that every town in the Danbury area, with the exception of Bridgewater, reported a downward trend in COVID case rates per 100,000 residents, some by as much as 20 to 30 percent compared to the week prior. While the case rates are still high compared to mid-2021, the area could be turning a corner after the latest surge.

Earlier this month, Connecticut hit its highest daily positivity rate since data collection began, with more than 20 percent of all tests coming back positive. This week, the positivity rate has dropped below 20 percent for the first time in two weeks, and as of Thursday, was down to 13.3 percent.

When looking at graphics from the state or local health departments, many are starting to show a peak and the beginning of a decline for case rates, infection numbers and hospitalizations.

The state data report includes cases from the two-week period of Jan. 2 to Jan. 15, which means there is a slight lag in reporting. Residents taking at-home tests also skew the data.

Danbury went from 241.8 cases per 100,000 residents in last weeks report to 206.6 this week. Redding saw the greatest decline of 37 percent, going from a case rate of 143.4 to 104.2.

New Milford dropped only slightly from a high of 187.9 per 100,000 to 183.6, the smallest decline of any Danbury-area town.

Ridgefields case rate was down 24 percent to a case rate of 132.8 in this weeks report. The town reported a positivity rate of 11.7 percent on Wednesday, down from 12.4 percent on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Fairfield Countys positivity rate was still 16.5 on Wednesday.

This is the type of information that confirms the downward trends, Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi said. Hopefully, the end is near.

In Bethel, First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker looked over the state data on Thursday afternoon. He called the case rate decline good news.

Even national COVID data has shown a decline in cases this week after a peak on Jan. 13. On that day, the country hit a record of more than 869,000 new cases in a single day, according to the New York Times COVID tracker.

Cautiously optimistic

Local leaders were cautiously optimistic Thursday, saying while lower rates were good news, people shouldnt get complacent.

We need to get that number down substantially so weve got some time to go. I want to urge everyone not to relax, Marconi said, referring to the towns case rate.

In Bethel, a nursing home saw 32 cases among its population of 116 in the last two-week reporting period.

State nursing homes reported 58 deaths, up from 13, in the last two weeks.

We have a rapidly improving picture around the tri-state region, said Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, at Gov. Ned Lamonts news briefing Thursday night. But were not through this, by any means, quite yet.

He said February should provide a better picture of the overall outlook on COVID.

Leaders from New Milford, Brookfield, Redding, and Danbury could not be reached for comment Thursday night.

Knickerbocker said he plans to send a bulletin Friday with a COVID-19 update for residents and his message will be simple: The only thing Im going to tell people in my next bulletin tomorrow morning is keep up the good work.

Testing woes lessen

Lately, testing has been hard to come by, pushing local, state and national testing infrastructure to its limits as residents scramble for tests.

While demand for COVID testing is still high, some leaders have reported supply seems to be improving.

Marconi said availability of at-home test kits in stores seemed to be improving. But it affects the state data since the more at-home tests people take, the fewer cases are reported to the government.

Knickerbocker said hed heard residents were requesting the test kits that are now available thanks to a new federal program that sends tests to your home through the United States Postal Service.

Health director of the newly formed Housatonic Valley Health District Lisa Morrissey announced a program on Wednesday to implement rapid PCR testing for first responders and critical town employees. Interested towns will sign a contract with the health district for the tests, footing the bill using COVID relief funds or set aside funds from their budget. The initiative aims to achieve faster turnaround times for those in need of a negative PCR test to get back to work.

Yet, despite the local, state and national initiatives, cars were still lining up at Danburys newest COVID testing site on Monday afternoon, which has moved to the Patrick R. Waldron Veterans Hall parking lot on Memorial Drive.

Were still fighting this virus and we need to be diligent in that effort, Marconi said.
WATERTOWN  A Waterbury teacher put on leave this week has been accused of leaving her children home alone in November while she went to Florida with her boyfriend, according to her arrest warrant.

Text messages suggest the mother, Kerry Caviasca, instructed the two kids to stay in the basement of her home, and told them to just eat candy when they asked what was for dinner, according to the warrant. Police said both children were under the age of 12.

Caviasca, 36, was arrested Jan. 15 by Watertown police and charged with two counts each of felony risk of injury to a minor and misdemeanor reckless endangerment. She was released on $5,000 bond and is due to appear in Waterbury Superior Court on Jan. 25 for her arraignment, court records indicate. She has not entered a plea to either charge.

Her lawyer, Joseph DeCicco, said in a statement Thursday he and his client had no comment and respectfully request that her privacy be respected during this difficult period.

Any comments made will be on the record after a careful review of the evidence and allegations the state will seek to prove, DeCicco said.

A spokesperson for the Waterbury public school district said Caviasca was placed on leave this week while the district conducts an investigation.

The alleged actions do not represent the values of our district, Belen Michelis, the district spokesperson, said in a statement.

The arrest warrant states Watertown police were made aware of the alleged incident by Caviascas ex-husband in mid-December, when he came to the police department to report she had possibly left their two children alone during the previous month.

At the time, Caviasca had primary custody of the two children, according to the warrant.

Caviascas ex-husband told police he believed she had left the children alone between Nov. 20 and Nov. 22. Both children had missed school that Monday with an unexcused absence, he told police, according to the warrant.

The ex-husband told police he had become suspicious of the weekend in question when he was unable to reach his kids by phone at the time, the warrant stated. The man said he sent his father to check on them at the home, but no one answered, according to the warrant.

When the man went through the kids phone, he found messages between them and their mother that seem to imply she (Caviasca) is adamant that the children stay downstairs in the basement and are not to be seen, the warrant stated.

When one child texted Caviasca asking what was for dinner, she replied just eat candy, Im sorry, the warrant stated.

At another point, she told one of the children to go upstairs to use the bathroom without turning on the lights, according to the warrant.

When police spoke with Caviasca, she told police she had gone to Florida, but claimed her relative had stayed at the home to watch the children, the warrant stated. Time sheets from the relatives employer later showed the person had worked all three days, according to the warrant.

During interviews with police, the children told investigators they were left alone with no adults, and that their mother had gone to Florida with her boyfriend, the warrant stated.

Police were unable to speak with Caviasca directly, according to the warrant, and received a voicemail from her lawyer telling them she would not make any statements to them.
Canada's largest and leading communications group has launched an ambitious workplace and industry Diversity, Equity & Inclusion mandate under four pillars: Education, Outreach, Talent Management and Giving Back

TORONTO, Jan. 21, 2022 /CNW/ - As part of a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion not only in its offices but the communications industry more broadly, Publicis Groupe Canada has launched a series of new DE&I initiatives for 2022, including an educational outreach program for young, racialized Canadians, and bold partnerships that aim to have a meaningful impact on the wellbeing of its people, communities, and business.

A Groupe task force developed the mandate under four key pillars: Education, Outreach, Talent Management and Giving Back, each with its own partners and programs to foster growth, support and understanding within and outside the Groupe. Formed as a myriad of industries reckon with the state of work, mental health and racial inequality, the Groupe mandate boldly sets a new standard for human resources and professional development.

"As we reflected on the state of our industry, and so many others, it became clear that more needed to be done internally, but also that our actions could serve as a catalyst for the wider advertising industry," said Stephanie McRae, Head of Diversity & Inclusion for Publicis Groupe Canada, and Vice-President Human Resources for Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi. "Since the preliminary launch of the mandate, our efforts have already proven successful, with exciting new long-term partnerships in development and positive feedback related to swift policy changes and updates that speak to the needs of our people today when they need it."

Support for Publicis Groupe Canada Employees

Among the range of pressing needs addressed by the Groupe mandate is enhanced mental health supports, as the risk of burnout during the pandemic restrictions has been well documented over the last two years. In 2021, the Groupe increased access to mental health benefits to $5,000 annually across the board. Plus, to acknowledge the diverse health needs of our employees, the Groupe added more targeted supports, including up to $50,000 per lifetime in support of gender affirmation care for transgender employees, and increased fertility treatment supports.

As families across Canada navigate shifting safety protocols that have closed, reopened and re-closed schools and daycares, the Groupe continued to enhance its commitment to supporting parents at home. In 2021, the Groupe audited its health benefits policies to include a 100 per cent salary top up for the first six weeks of parental and instituted flexible meeting policies that factor in the varying responsibilities of employees' home lives. In coordination with the U.S. team, the Groupe ran "Publicis School" sessions, including after-school programming, featuring video sessions with families to read stories, cook, dance, learn magic and participate in science workshops to allow a pause for Groupe parents.

"As part of our Talent Management pillar, support for employees through boosted mental health policies was a no-brainer," added McRae. "Managing talent cannot be a siloed effort, but instead has to account for the needs of employees in their roles and in their homes  especially today. We're proud to have made industry-leading mental health progress over the last year, from education and training to access to vital supports."

Support for Young, Black, Indigenous and Racialized Canadians

Among the Groupe's boldest new programs is This Is The Job (thisisthejob.org), an outreach initiative for Black, Indigenous and racialized teens and young adults to educate, inspire and encourage them to consider a career in advertising. During the development process, the Groupe and its partners identified a lack of diversity within the industry, marked by an absence of diverse decision-makers, plus a knowledge gap among leadership and among underrepresented racialized groups. Through This Is The Job, the Groupe aims to close that gap.

"These jobs are invisible to so many racialized Canadians, especially first-generation Canadians whose career options can often feel limited by circumstance," said Scott Pinkney, Vice-President, Executive Creative Director of Publicis Hawkeye and one of the founders of This Is The Job. "Without proper education and awareness, the advertising industry risks falling short on being a diverse and inclusive workforce unless we ourselves take action to improve it. This Is The Job is not about recruitment, it's about outreach, knowledge sharing, and changing the complexion of the industry."

Officially launched in Dec. 2021, This Is The Job leverages the designing, writing, and programming talents of the Groupe to highlight 25 possible job types within the industry, and match students to the optimal opportunity for them based on a questionnaire. The Groupe has already partnered with multiple school boards in Ontario to bring This Is The Job into focus with a planned series of career sessions for Ontario students, and the goal of launching a robust mentorship program.

"This isn't a momentary campaign, it's a long-term platform for change and we can't wait to see where This Is The Job takes us," added Pinkney. Since launch, several other organizations have reached out to bring the outreach program to their communities.

Support via Education, Giving Back

The broader mandate seeks to educate and enrich the Groupe network through a speaker series and educational programs, building on the success of the more than 20 sessions in 2021, including a talk with the Hon. Dr. Jean Augustine, the first Black Canadian woman to serve as a federal Minister of the Crown and Member of Parliament in Canada. Other guests included: Agapi Gessesse, Executive Director at the Careers Education Empowerment (CEE) Centre For Young Black Professionals; Dr. David S. Goldbloom, Senior Medical Advisor at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; and Chrystal Tabobandung, founder of RAISE, an Indigenous cultural awareness and competency training program.

Efforts to make real change must also go beyond the walls of the Groupe, as demonstrated by This Is The Job as well as the mandate's Giving Back endeavours that focus on charitable partnerships. In 2021, the Groupe offered its services pro bono to the aforementioned CEE, which will continue in 2022, and instituted an employee volunteer day policy. Next, the Groupe will launch an innovative skills development program for young BIPOC creatives interested in the advertising industry in collaboration with the key training partners POV, and the Miami Ad School Canada.

"This mandate is about the Groupe holding ourselves accountable for systemic failures, encouraging transparency, and inspiring our colleagues in the industry to do the same," said Andrew Bruce, CEO of Publicis Groupe Canada. "An inclusive workplace is not only more inviting and supportive, but it encourages diversity of perspective and stimulate new ideas. In an industry that thrives on new ideas and innovation, that's an exciting prospect. I'm thrilled to back our bold mandate and inspiring team as we move forward to strengthen support and create opportunities for all."

To learn more about Publicis Groupe Canada or This Is The Job, visit publicis.ca and thisisthejob.org.

SOURCE Publicis Groupe Canada

For further information: For media or interview enquiries please contact: Hilary Lawton, MSL Canada, Senior Account Director, [email protected]; Tony Koutoulas, MSL Canada, Sr. Account Manager, [email protected]
Rahul took to twitter and said it is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today

In the run-up to Republic Day, the Centre stated that the everlasting light at Amar Jawan Jyoti will be extinguished after 50 years and united with the flame at the neighboring National War Memorial (NWM). However, the decision did not sit well the oppositions parties and several controversies are looming around this matter.

The Congress party accused the BJP administration of erasing history by putting out the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi lashed out, stating that certain individuals do not comprehend patriotism and sacrifice, and that the Congress will relight the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Rahul took to twitter and said it is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today. Some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice. We will once again light the Amar Jawan Jyoti for our soldiers, he added.

While Congress leader Manish Tewari claimed that quenching the light is the same as eradicating history. Manishs tweet read, To destroy Amar Jawan Jyoti is to extinguish history. For it reflects on the sacrifice of the 3,483 heroic warriors who divided Pakistan and redrawn the map of South Asia after partition. He further added that the government seems to be working overtime to erase Indias finest hour in Post Independent History.

However, official sources stated that there is a lot of disinformation on the subject, and that the flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti is not being extinguished, but is being combined with the flame of the National War Memorial. According to government officials, it was strange to notice that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid tribute to the martyrs of the 1971 and earlier conflicts, but none of their names were present.

According to official sources, the names carved on the India Gate are only of a few victims who fought for the British in World War I and the Anglo Afghan War, and so serve as a reminder of our colonial heritage. The National War Memorial, they added, has the names of all Indian martyrs from all conflicts, including the 1971 war and wars before and after it. As a result, having the flame paying honor to martyrs there is a real homage, they said.
The organization has stated that he would not be allowed to unfurl the tricolour on Republic Day, and has offered a prize of Rs 1 million to anyone who succeeds.

Intelligence agencies have obtained information regarding a possible terror plot targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitaries on Republic Day this year, as per reports. A nine-page intelligence stream showed that PM Modi and other dignitaries attending Indias 75th Republic Day festivities were in danger, according to sources. Key visitors are likely to include dignitaries from Central Asian nations such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

According to the paper, the danger appears to have emanated from forces based in Pakistan. These organizations planned to disrupt public gatherings, significant institutions, and congested places in order to target high-ranking dignitaries. According to the intelligence, Pakistan-based Khalistani organizations are also organising cadres to resuscitate militancy in Punjab. They also want to carry out targeted attacks during the approaching state assembly elections in Punjab and other neighboring provinces. The Khalistani movement has also made a direct threat to the Prime Minister. The organization has stated that he would not be allowed to unfurl the tricolour on Republic Day, and has offered a prize of Rs 1 million to anyone who succeeds. Since the Supreme Court took notice of the blockade of the Prime Ministers convoy in Punjab, the group also started threatening attorneys.

It is clear that the SFJ intends to destabilize Indias harmony ahead of Republic Day. Gurpatwant Pannu, the head of the SFJ, has now called for terrorists in the valley to come to India and interrupt the upcoming Republic Day ceremony, as they did last year in the Red Fort, when the Indian flag was substituted with the Nishab Saheb. According to sources, they were the ones who sponsored and spread the toolkit used in last years R-day riots. This time around

Subsequently, Delhi Police officials claimed that, in light of the recent security breach of Prime Minister Modis convoy in Punjab, the force is being extra cautious to ensure that such an occurrence does not occur in the national capital. Officials revealed that the Delhi-National Capital Region has been placed under a very high-security cover ahead of Republic Day after police received intelligence about a probable terror strike from intelligence agencies. According to a Delhi Police directive issued on Tuesday, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), paragliders, and hot air balloons above the national capital would be forbidden from January 20 in honor of Republic Day celebrations.

The official noted that the prospect of a threat to the prime minister cannot be ruled out in light of the recent drone assault in Abu Dhabi, which killed two Indians and a Pakistani person, as well as the recovery of IEDs in Punjab and Ghazipur.
This move came before a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on the issues concerning North Korea. This is the second such meeting in two weeks following Pyongyang's tactical guided missiles launch this week, Al Jazeera reported.

China and Russia have put on hold a US effort at the United Nations to impose sanctions on five North Korea in response to recent missile launches by Pyongyang, media reports said. This move came before a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on the issues concerning North Korea. This is the second such meeting in two weeks following Pyongyangs tactical guided missiles launch this week, Al Jazeera reported. North Korea has confirmed it launched on Monday two tactical guided missiles that precisely hit an island target in the East Sea of Korea. This was its fourth missile test in a month. Earlier, Pyongyang claimed to have successfully tested hypersonic missiles on two occasions.

Ahead of closed UNSC discussions on the issue, US Ambassador to the UN Linda-Thomas Greenfield on Thursday said the US, the UK, France, Ireland, Japan and several other countries urge the Security Council to condemn North Koreas recent ballistic missile launches,

Albania, Brazil, France, Ireland, Japan, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom and the United States call on our fellow council members to be unified in condemning the DPRK [North Korea] for its acts in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. It is this unity in speech and action that has helped in the past bring the DPRK to the negotiating table and could advance stability for the region and international community, Thomas-Greenfield said.

The US diplomat further called on North Korea to cease launches and return to dialogue toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. We stand ready to support a meaningful return to engagement and diplomacy without preconditions, she said.
With the state budget in solid shape, cushioned by a predicted surplus of $900 million as of Jan. 1, we were already lurching toward tax relief this spring.

Then late Thursday, the governors budget office issued a new forecast for the fiscal year were in now, which ends June 30: $1.5 billion in the black plus nearly $1 billion of extra cash that would go into the pension funds under state rules.

And as we all know, its an election year for Gov. Ned Lamont and every state lawmaker.

Suddenly, its not a question of whether we will see some form of tax cuts, credits or rebates; its how much, and which ideas will win the day. He competition is fierce over who will benefit, heading into the start of the General Assembly session Feb. 9.

The likely total we will see this year is somewhere between $200 million and $400 million, though it could be higher or lower, of course. Every $140 million translates to about $100 per Connecticut household, on average, so $300 million tax relief equals about $215.

Of course, your results may vary  by a lot  the paraphrase the auto industy caveat about gas mileage.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media file photo

A look at the ideas

Heres whats on the table so far. More details below.

* Property tax credits, which is Lamonts choice.

* A temporary cut in the sales tax, favored by Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford.

* A child tax credit, favored by House Democrats, led by Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, the finance committee co-chairman.

* A tighter cap on the car tax, which would require the state to compensate cities and towns that have high local tax rates for the lost revenue.

* A larger contribution to the sapped unemployment reserve fund, which would lower the likely assessments increases they will see. This is favored by the business lobby but Lamont has been lukewarm about it, saying it might not be necessary to avoid higher assessments.

* An outright cash rebate. Former Gov. John G. Rowland did this in 1998. UConn economist Fred V. Carstensen calls it the only fair approach.

Jessica Hill / Associated Press

* Use excess money for paying down the deeply underfunded state pension funds unless it can be shown that a tax break is clearly sustainable over the long haul. Thats the idea of Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, co-chairman of the finance committee.

Momentum is building for something that taxpayers can see and feel.

JOSEPH LEMIEUX JR /

I think were now at a point where we can do a tax reform package with several items in it, said Scanlon, who pushed hard for a state child tax credit in 2021. Its not an either-or.

Property tax relief

The size of the package, if there is one, depends on how confident lawmakers and Lamont are that the states economy will continue to improve. This year and next year, the budgets rely in part on pandemic relief money  $560 million this year and $1.2 billion in fiscal 2023.

We cant use that money for tax relief under the federal rules, and we could be staring at budget shortfalls again in late 2023 and beyond, if were not careful  as Lamont points out early and often.

File photo

Lamonts property tax credit plan  a reduction in state income taxes for people who pay local property taxes  will be one of his proposals to open the legislative session on Feb. 9, he said Friday, repeating an earlier vow.

He will seek to add between $200 million and $300 million per year of new credits on top of a smaller property tax credit that now totals $65 million for older people and households with children at home. He could broaden the number of people eligible or expand the credit to $400 or so, from the current $200, or he could pitch some combination.

Ive been trying to do this for some years now. I think its time to take a good hard look at property taxes. Thats car taxes as well as residences, Lamont told the Connectiut Business and Industry Association in an online appearance. It hits the middle class particularly hard, so that will be one of my strong initiatives.

Lamont wants relief thats lasting, not a one-shot that needs to be made up later when budgets run short.

We have the ability to cut taxes, he said Friday. We can cut $250, $300 million and do that in a supportable way going forward so we dont create the cliff.

Unclear is whether Lamont will also push to lower the maximum level at which cities and towns can tax motor vehicles. That is now at 45 mills, which means the owner of a car assessed at $12,000 in a high-tax-rate place, typically the bigger and poorer cities, would pay $540. By contrast, the owner of the same car in wealthy Greenwich, with its low tax rate, would pay just $132.

Competing plans from lawmakers

How much can the state give back to the taxpayers in 2022 without facing a crisis in 2023 and beyond, when the federal pandemic relief runs dry? The outside maximum would be $900 million for a one-time giveback  the projected surplus minus the $560 million in federal aid, which cant be used for tax relief.

That would be totally irresponsible and its not on the table. It would leave the state with no cushion at all.

Some lawmakers are alrady pushing for higher spending, notably a plan by Sen. Cathy Osten, co-chair of the committee that sets spending, to boost pay for the battered nonprofit service providers.

The sales tax reduction led by Kelly and other Republicans would be a temporary cut from 6.35 percent to 5.99 percent, and a temporary elimination of the 1 percent surcharge on prepared foods. That would save a little more than $300 million for taxpayers.

Kelly says it would help the middle class, but remember  the richest people spend, and would save, the most on sales taxes. And some out-of-state spenders would benefit, Carstensen notes.

Scanlons plan for the child tax credit takes on new urgency now that a federal extension of the expanded child tax credit of $3,000 per child is dead, as President Joe Biden conceded this week. That expanded credit, which was part of the pandemic relief act adopted in March, expired at the end of 2021.

Scanlons plan would credit $600 per child, up to three children per family, for households making up to $200,000 a year, or $100,000 for single parents. He suggested the state could speed up the payments. Could we mail a $100 check to the parents every other month for a year or two?

That plan would not pay the full amount to low-income parents who dont pay enough income tax to use the credit; last year, Scanlons plan was set at 70 percent for those households.

A plain-vanilla cash rebate?

All of these plans come with some distortion, UConn economist Fred V. Carstensen argues. Property tax credits, for example, discriminate against the poorest residents and add to federal tax liability by reducing a deduction for those taxpayers who are eligible. And sales tax cuts help rich people and out-of-staters.

Arguing for a straight cash rebate, if anything, he said in an email, Keep it simple and equitable. None of proposals meet that standard.

Carstensen is also pessimistic about the states long-term ability to pay its bills if we cut taxes permanently.

Then theres the other side of the debate altogether: Just Say No to tax relief this year. Thats the position held by Fonfara, the senator from Hartford, who says weve come long and far to balance the state books and it might not make sense to put that at risk now, just because its an election year  unless long-term projections show a turnaround.

I understand this is an election year for the governor, an election year for me, I get that, Fonfara told me. We can have a short-term partyOr we can have a quality of life for many years if were responsible now.

Fonfara, in fact, is sticking with his push to raise state income taxes on the extremely wealthy. The chance of that happening this year is not near zero, its zero. More likely, well see tax relief aimed at the middle class in the range of $300 million, or about $200 for an average family.

dhaar@hearstmediact.com
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The Westport Library is holding the Childrens Winter Reading Program: Chill Out and Read, reading challenge event from Jan. 24 through March 19.

The program is for children of all ages and their grownups.

A child will receive a snowperson that will be displayed in the library for every 50 minutes he or she reads.

The child will be able to choose a free book from the librarys selection of books to keep.

The library also has an activity sheet that will help the whole family warm up and chill out during the winter season.

The library is located at 20 Jesup Road in Westport.

Registration is available at westportlibrary.libguides.com/chilloutandread.

Candidates sought for civilian review panel

The Westport Representative Town Meeting Public Protection Committee is seeking candidates to recommend to the members of the full RTM to fill two volunteer seats on the Westport Civilian Review Panel.

The towns elected leadership and public safety departments recognize the need to foster, and maintain the publics trust, and its personnel, according to information from the town. The Civilian Review Panel was formed in December 2020 in order to do so.

The panel is comprised of five civilian members of the Westport community.

It includes the second and third selectwomen, one member of TEAM Westport, who is appointed by the first selectwoman, and two members from the Westport electorate, who are appointed by the RTM.

The initial RTM-appointed members will serve for a term of two years. The terms of each subsequent RTM-appointed members are four years. Applicants must be registered voters in Westport.

The members may be reappointed by the group for unlimited consecutive terms.

No more than a bare majority of the Civilian Review Panel may be members of the same political party.

The panel works closely with the members of the Westport Police, fire, and emergency medical services departments, to diversify hiring, oversee the investigation of civilian complaints, and evaluate opportunities to improve transparency, and accountability.

The mission of the panel is to build on the foundation of public trust between the departments, and residents in the town.

No member of the Civilian Review Panel shall be an employee, or a family member of an employee, of the police, fire, and emergency medical services departments.

People who are interested in applying for the vacancies, are asked to email a resume, and a letter of interest noting how their experience qualifies them for panel, to Westport Town Clerk Jeffrey M. Dunkerton at jdunlerton@westportct.gov, or mail to Westport Town Clerk, 110 Myrtle Ave. Room 105, Westport, CT 06880.

The deadline for submission is Feb. 7.

Westport Library hosting state Sen. Will Haskell

The Westport Library is hosting state Sen. Will Haskell, (D-Westport), at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27. He will talk about his new and first book, 100,000 First Bosses: My Unlikely Path as a 22-Year-Old Lawmaker.

Seats are available in the library for the event by registering at westportlibrary.org.

The book is the story about how Haskell waged the campaign of his young life, fought for change that he believed in at the Connecticut state capitol, and proved that his generation is ready to claim a seat at the general table.

Staples High School announces January Students of the Month

Staples High School Principal Stafford Thomas, Jr., has announced the schools recipients of the January Students of the Month.

The students are ninh grader Maxwell Manchester, tenth graders Timothy Herold and Sofia Santamaria, 11th graders Mia Vindiola and Jackson Oliver, and 12th graders Alexa Anastasi and Jacob Yarish.

The Students of the Month award program at the school, recognizes students, who help make the school, a welcoming place for their peers, and teachers alike. The recipients are nominated by their teachers .

Historical society hosting jewelry appraisal, consignment event

The Rago auction house is having its third jewelry appraisal and consignment event, Rago Arts Appraisal Day 2022 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Feb. 15 at the Weston Historical Society, 104 Weston Road.

Rago is an auction house that has previously been featured on the PBS television channels series titled: The Antiques Road Show.

Parking for the event is in the Historical Societys parking lot.

Rago will donate a portion of its commission on property that is consigned from the event to the historical society.

Rago is scheduling the appointments, not the historical society. No walk-ins are requested.

RSVP to Robin Daum, at robin@ragoarts.com, or call 609-460-3619.

Masks will be required for all attendees, regardless of their COVID-19 vaccine status. Social distancing will also be in place.
NEW HAVEN  What could result from cutting 10 minutes off the train ride from New Haven to New York City? How about 25 minutes by 2035? What about, someday, cutting the trip to an hour flat?

City officials, along with members of Connecticuts federal and state delegation, suggested Friday that such improvements could transform the way we live and work in the region, as they came to Union Station to celebrate the appointment of Stephen Gardner as Amtraks new CEO and laud the planned investment of $30 billion in the Northeast rail corridor.

Gov. Ned Lamont, Gardner and state Department of Transportation Commissioner Joseph Giulietti noted the states vision for the rail system recently had been laid out in two plans  the TIME FOR CT initiative, which, among other goals, plans to cut travel time from Union Station to New York by 25 minutes by 2035  and the Northeast Corridor Commissions CONNECT NEC 2035 (C35) initiative, which focuses on infrastructure and speed throughout the region.

Lamont likened the investment to the expansion of the road system in America under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, describing it as a transformative moment with environmental, transit and quality of life benefits, as fewer people use the states highways and travel with greater convenience.

This is a region that is custom made for rail. This is a region, and a state, thats very dense; this is a state thats part of a greater metropolis, from Boston all the way to New York, said Lamont. These opportunities dont come along very often.

Lamont said that short-term efforts to improve outdated track between New Haven and New Rochelle  owned by the state, officials noted, in a unique arrangement  could cut 20-odd minutes off travel time in the near future.

Gardner said that, with added investment, Amtrak can launch into replacing century-old infrastructure and begin a new era of modernization for our service.

He said he was the luckiest CEO in Amtraks history, saying that, after half a century of underinvestment, we actually have the resources available, and the leadership, to meet not only Amtraks ambition, but fundamentally, the requirements and needs of the nation in the 21st century.

The focus on getting more trains to more people is at the heart of everything Amtrak thinks about every day. We think rail needs to do a whole lot more for the U.S. than it has, said Gardner, noting that there were 120 million more Americans than there were in 1971, when the railway was founded, but the route map was fundamentally unchanged. The nation has moved well, well past where we started, and our job is now to catch up.

As part of the continuing effort, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said $30 billion has been set aside for the Northeast in the recently-passed federal infrastructure bill.

He said he and U.S. Sen Chris Murphy, D-Conn., had been fighting  literally, almost physically fighting  to get the additional funding, noting its importance to his vision of the future in the state.

I believe in rail. I believe that it is transformational for our economy and our quality of life  literally. Environmentally and economically ... rail is our present and our future, said Blumenthal, Thats what we need to do  to build rail that is the worlds first class, (when it comes) to reliability, safety, comfort and speed. There is no reason that we cant build a rail system that will move passengers from this station to New York City in one hour. That ought to be the goal, and it ought to be the minimum.

Murphy said greater investment in rail could help economic expansion throughout the state, both in New Haven and Bridgeport. The main difference in economic development between Bridgeport and Stamford, he said, was the time it took to take the train to New York City.

This is the biggest investment in Northeast rail in the history of the country. Were very proud of it, said Murphy, noting the bill also had eased Amtraks ability to borrow money to invest in infrastructure. Something really special is happening on the rail lines here in Connecticut and across the Northeast.

Mayor Justin Elicker and state Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, also voiced their support for the planned investment.

This is the welcoming mat to our city for thousands and thousands of people, and it sets the tone of the type of city we are, said Elicker, noting that the city was planning to create a transit hub at the station in partnership with the state, creating a central point for the bus system, expanded parking and additional commercial space. This is a site that is vital for our city right now, but will grow in impact in the future.

This line  the New Haven Line  is probably the most important piece of infrastructure that we will invest in for the next generation, said Lemar. If we get this right, we will transform business opportunities, where people choose to live, where people choose to work, where people choose to invest.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
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MILFORD  A day after allegedly stealing a handgun and shooting it during a Christmas night marijuana deal, police say a New Haven fired the weapon again  to kill the man he stole it from.

The details come from an arrest warrant charging 25-year-old Terrance Allen with murder, criminal possession of a firearm, and tampering with evidence in the fatal 2020 shooting of Joshwua Figueroa, 27, at the Town Fair Tire on Boston Post Road in Orange.

Figueroa was a native of Puerto Rico and lifelong New Haven resident who graduated from Hillhouse High School, according to his obituary.

According to the warrant, written by Orange Police Detective Jason Menga, multiple witnesses told police that Allen shot Figueroa in the garage of the business before saying I had no choice and that Figueroa had pulled a gun on him. He fled the scene but police later arrested him at a Branford hotel.

Allen was working at the business when, according to police, Figueroa went there to confront him about the incident the night before, which occurred on Elliott Street in New Haven.

A co-worker of Allens had acted as intermediary in a deal for Allen to buy marijuana from Figueroa Christmas night, according to the warrant. During the deal, Allen allegedly later told police, Figueroa was passing around a gun, showing it off.

Allen stated that he needed the gun more than Figueroa needed it, so when the gun was passed to him, he took it and started to walk away, according to the warrant.

When Figueroa and Allens co-worker yelled after him to give it back, he told police, he fired the gun in their direction and ran away.

He said he kept the weapon on him while going to work the next morning.

When Figueroa showed up to the tire shop about 8:45 a.m., Allen told police, he looked into Figueroas eyes and saw that he was hesitant to do anything inside the garage, but thought that if they went outside to talk, that Figueroa would shoot him.

Then, he told police, he said he saw Figueroa start to reach for his jacket pocket and believed Figueroa was thinking I want to do him right now, but was mindful of the people and cameras around, according to the warrant.

During an interview with cops, Allen explained in detail about how he would shoot someone before eventually claiming self-defense, the warrant said.

Allen explained that he would go there wearing a mask where only his eyes would show, the warrant said. Then he would not be playing around and would shoot the person right away, and that Figueroa should have shot him first.

Allen stated that what should have happened did not happen, the warrant said. Allen stated that Figueroa (expletive) up the element of surprise, so now he gave me mine. According to Allen, through Figueroas hesitation, he found the opportunity to defend myself.

An autopsy later determined Figueroa died of gunshot wounds to the head and torso.

Allen has been in custody since a day after the shooting on a probation violation charge, but was only formally charged with murder in Figueroas death last month.

He was due to appear at Superior Court in Milford Tuesday, but the case was continued to Feb. 2. He does not yet have a lawyer representing him in the case.

Allen is being held in lieu of bonds totaling more than $1 million at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield.
A Rocky Hill man and smoke shop owner pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of possession with intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl, according to federal prosecutors.

Police arrested Sean Thomas, 32, in June 2020. After an investigation, officers found more than 300 grams of fentanyl in his home, or enough to potentially kill 150,000 people, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In 2020, Hartford Police started investigating Thomas and others for distributing fentanyl and marijuana. As part of the investigation, an undercover officer purchased marijuana from an employee at Puff Paradise, a smoke shop on New Britain Avenue owned by Thomas, according to Leonard Boyle, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut.

In June 2020, investigators started investigatingThomas and saw him enter a parked Dodge Durango. Officers believed Thomas was conducting a drug deal, so they approached the car, Boyles office said.

The driver of the car, Tafarie Green, then accelerated and drove straight at detectives who leaped out of the way. Green drove the car fast onto a sidewalk and through two chain link fences before crashing into a tree. Green fled on foot while officers apprehended Thomas, according to Boyles office.

Officers conducted a search in Puff Paradise and found three pounds of marijuana. In Thomas home, officers discovered more than 300 grams of unpackaged fentanyl, 3,500 bags of packaged fentanyl, items used to process and package narcotics for street sales and about $16,500 in cash, Boyles office said.

Thomas is scheduled to be sentenced in Hartford on April 20. He faces a mandatory minimum prison term of five years and a maximum term of 40 years, Boyles office said.

Thomas has been released after posting $100,000 bond, according to Boyles office .

Green, who was on federal supervised release at the time, was arrested in July 2020. He pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon. In August 2021, he was sentenced to more than five years in prison, Boyles office said.
Niagara Falls, NY (14301)

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Governor of Niger State, Abubakar Bello, has endorsed the presidential aspiration of former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu. Bello...

Governor of Niger State, Abubakar Bello, has endorsed the presidential aspiration of former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu.

Bello said Nigeria needs someone like Tinubu, who changed Lagos, as a president, adding that Nigeria needs a President with such vision.

Bello said this while receiving Tinubu in Minna on Thursday.

The governor applauded the All Progressives Congress (APC) leader for changing Lagos to what it is today.

Bello said he wants the presidential aspirant to replicate the developmental strides at the national level.

He said, I am looking forward to seeing you lay the kind of foundation you laid for the massive transformation in Lagos for Nigeria.

Lagos is a country within a country and we saw the foundation you laid there, we are looking forward to seeing you replicate it for Nigeria.

Bello also hailed Tinubu for donating N50 million to the state for Internally Displaced Persons, while sympathising with the government and people over the incessant attacks in the state.
An SS2 student of Elkenemy College of Islamic Theology in Borno, identified as Ahmed Umar Goni, allegedly used a razor blade to slit the nec...





An SS2 student of Elkenemy College of Islamic Theology in Borno, identified as Ahmed Umar Goni, allegedly used a razor blade to slit the neck of Jubril Sadi Mato, a JSS1 student of the school.

TheCable reports that on January 16, 2022, Goni sent the pupil, popularly known as Ramadan, on an errand but the latter refused to go.

Angered by his refusal, Goni was said to have gone to Jubrils hostel at 8:30pm to forcefully take him away.

In a bid to punish the junior student, Goni was said to have cut him on the neck with a razor blade, which affected some veins.

While in pain, the 11-year-old struggled to get to the principals office to report the incident.

He, however, became unconscious before he could get to the principals office and was later rushed to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the University Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).

It is understood that the senior student has been arrested and handed over to the police.

Muhammed Sani Idris, director of the college, refused to comment on the incident but asked the reporter to forget about the story.

What good is this story giving you? The school and your medium have the same objectives (rendering services to the public), Idris said.

I will love it if you forget about this story while we move forward, but if you think it is mandatory to report this issue, then go ahead and do it.

MUMMY, IM SCARED TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL

A family member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, disclosed that the victim has begged his parents not to allow him to return to school.

The source alleged that the school management tried to cover up the incident by saying Jubril got injured after falling.

Mummy, Im scared. Dont take me back to that school, he will kill me. Jubril said that when he regained his consciousness, the source said.

No child should ever scream out these words. No parent should ever have to hear them. Unfortunately, this is a reality for Jubril who was a direct victim of violence at school, which is still supposed to be a fundamental pillar of every society and a safe haven for learning.

We are happy that the Network for Civil Society Organisation Borno Chapters, Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), The National Human Right Commission(NHRC) and the Federation of International Female Lawyers(FIDA) have vowed to investigate the case to ensure that the perpetrator is brought to book.

In Jubrils file, they wrote that the child fell and got injured instead of saying he was attacked by another person.

For us as a family, we want justice for the poor child as we are also planning to take him to Egypt for proper medical attention.
Former Borno Governor Senator Ali Modu Sheriff on Friday said he is not interested in the presidency but the national chairmanship of the ...

Former Borno Governor Senator Ali Modu Sheriff on Friday said he is not interested in the presidency but the national chairmanship of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

He made this declaration during an interactive session with newsmen in Abuja.

According to him: So many insinuations are going around, Ali Modu Sheriff is not looking for Chairman; he is looking to be Presidential candidate.

Please, I want to put it on record today, I am not looking for President. I am looking for a National Chairman so that I could lead the party to victory.

I want to lead a campaign like what we did to 2014 to make sure that our father and leader (Buhari) hands over power to another APC man as a President.

If I want to be President, I am not afraid of anybody but I dont want to be President but National Chairman.

When told that the party might have zoned the national chairmanship to the north-central geopolitical zone, the chairmanship hopeful maintained that the party was yet to come up with any zoning arrangement.

He noted that the Caretaker Committee of the party at the end of its crucial meeting on Wednesday refuted the news making round over zoning arrangement.

Modu- Sheriff argued that those harping on that zoning arrangement are afraid of his towering chances of being elected as the next National Chairman of the party at the convention.

He noted that he is not the only aspirant from the northeast.

According to him: As of today, even from the North-eastern states of Nigeria, many people are looking for chairman, it is not only Ali Sheriff.

Referring to a media report of his being edged out of the chairmanship race, the former Governor said those pushing such notion are only afraid of him.

Hear him: It clearly shows you that those that are writing this are afraid of the man called Ali Sheriff. They are afraid, Ali Sheriff is the target, they dont probably want to go to the convention with Ali Sheriff, they are afraid, period.

Admitting that the party has many capable hands, he noted that his experience, connection and vast knowledge of party administration put him ahead of other aspirants for the job of the national chairman.

Assuring his party faithful that his chairmanship will strive towards attaining the dream of the founding fathers by ensuring that under him, APC will be the largest and strongest party in the continent.
A family member of a slain five-year-old girl, Hanifa Abubakar, has revealed that the prime suspect in the deceaseds death and abduction ...

A family member of a slain five-year-old girl, Hanifa Abubakar, has revealed that the prime suspect in the deceaseds death and abduction in Kano State was among the first set of people who sympathized with her parents after her disappearance.

The suspect, Abdulmalik Mohammed Tanko, the proprietor of Noble Kids Nursery and Primary school in Kano was arrested by the police for killing Hanifa alongside his accomplice, Hashim Isyaku.

Uncle of the deceased, Suraj Sulaiman, speaking with Daily Nigerian disclosed that Tanko shed tears when he visited Hanifas parents to console them over the abduction.

He was full of tears when he visited the family to console them over the abduction, Sulaiman said.

Recall that Hanifa was kidnapped on December 4th 2021on her way home.

Her body was however recovered on Thursday in a shallow grave at a private school, Noble Kids Academy, at Kwanar Dakata, in the Nassarawa Local Government Area, Kano State.

The school teacher, alongside his accomplice, had demanded a N6m ransom for her release.

The case will be charged to court upon completion of the investigation.

Meanwhile, the state Commissioner for Education, Muhammad Kiru, has ordered the closure of the primary school till further notice.
Watertown, NY (13601)

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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.

Vote

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The U.S. government says it is sanctioning four Ukrainians "engaged in Russian government-directed influence activities to destabilize Ukraine."

"The individuals we are targeting, two of whom are members of Ukraine's parliament, act at the direction of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and support Russia's destabilizing and dangerous influence operations, which undermine not just Ukraine but also the fundamental principles of democracy," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The U.S. accuses the four Ukrainians of helping Russia "gain access to sensitive information" and "create instability in Ukraine." Those sanctioned are Taras Kozak, Oleh Voloshyn, Volodymyr Oliynyk and Vladimir Sivkovich.

"Russia has used hybrid tactics, including disinformation and other influence campaigns, to destabilize Ukraine for years," Blinken said. "In 2020, Kremlin officials launched a comprehensive information operation plan designed in part to degrade the ability of the Ukrainian state to independently function; the individuals designated today played key roles in that campaign."


Tantalizing tangos, colorful camellias and Mande Milkshakers mix it up for a mid-January weekend. And there's a bevy of P.5 events as the art-a-palooza comes to an end.

GREGORY PORTER, the Grammy-winning jazz and R&B artist, swings through New Orleans to make up for a postponed performance at 8 p.m. Friday at the Orpheum Theatre, 129 Roosevelt Way. The show, part of his "All Rise Tour," features works from the 2020 album as well as a greatest hits collection. Tickets start at $49. Tap into the sound here.

Keeping your eyes on the stars can be easier said than done but the Pontchartrain Astronomy Society is hosting TELESCOPE HELP for folks who may need some assistance looking up (with the telescopes) at 7:30 p.m., Friday, at UNO's Science Building, Room 1001, 2000 Lakeshore Drive. This free event starts in the room with a brief meeting then heads outside if weather permits. If the weather is poor or overcast, equipment can be set in the hallway with members providing assistance and answering questions. Look it up here.

Camellia lovers will want to visit the Camellia Club of New Orleans' annual CAMELLIA SHOW Saturday at the UNO University Center, 2000 Lakeshore Drive, for the displays of blooms, varieties for sale and the results of the judging for the winter-hardy flowers. The show is open to the public 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Blooms can be entered for judging from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The sale will start at 11 a.m. Check out the blooms here.

The Crown and Shield Foundation, a nonprofit that uses storytelling and media production to educate and inspire kids, is having a bit of fun while fundraising at the NOLALYMPICS Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. Patrick Playground, 4700 Baudin St., New Orleans, across from the Mid City Yacht Club. The "official beer olympics of New Orleans" is a day of games for adults, with teams of four to six players representing a country (with costumes, please) in eight aspects of competition (think giant beer pong, flip cup, etc.). There are prizes and pizza, too. Tickets are $40, with proceeds going to the mission of the foundation. Take a sip here.

Artist Anastasia Pelias' sculptural work, "It Was My Pleasure," will receive a GREEK BLESSING Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at the Capdieville Place Park at the corner of Crete Street and Esplanade Avenue. The Rev. George Wilson of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral will perform the blessing. The work, a site-responsive installation, is part of P.5, "Yesterday we said tomorrow," the citywide celebration of art. Get more info here.

Get a big blast of Carnival fabulousness on the north shore at the KINGS DAY WALKING PARADE AND TRAILHEAD FESTIVAL Saturday starting at 2 p.m. along the Mandeville lakefront. The Mande Milkshakers marching marvels lead the parade with other krewes afoot for the fun, including the NOLA Bombshells and Lagniappe Ladies, plus the Lakeshore High School Titan Band. The festival runs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Shake it up here.

Celebrate the close of Prospect.5 on Saturday at the P.5 GALA with live performances and culinary creativity from local chefs at Studio Be, 2941 Royal St., New Orleans. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah will perform at the 7 p.m. fete. Tickets start at $400. Check out the prospects here.

The tempest of romance and passion of tango will be on display Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts when New Orleans Ballet Resources presents German Cornejo's TANGO FIRE. The Argentine company includes world tango champions and dancers from some of Buenos Aires' renowned tango houses, including Cornejo and his partner Gisela Galeassi. The dynamic dancers are also accompanied by a quartet of Argentine musicians providing the sultry sounds. Tickets start at $39. Feel the burn here.

One of the final events of Prospect.5 will be the JOE BROWN PARK FUN-FAIR WITH EJ HILL Sunday at 11 a.m. at the eastern New Orleans greenspace, 5601 Read Blvd. The artist, whose multimedia installation "Rises in the East" has drawn attention, will be on hand with a mini-float building event, refreshments and fair favorites. Take in the event here.
As soon as the signs went up in Adolfo's windows, some regulars of the longtime Frenchmen Street restaurant felt a dread that made their stomachs drop.

Adolfos Restaurant closed indefinitely, the signs read, perhaps auguring the loss of another beloved New Orleans restaurant in the midst of a pandemic that has already claimed many.

However, indefinitely does not mean forever; Adolfos co-owner Kim Perez intended it as a statement of the uncertainty in very challenging times.

Her husband, Adolfo Perez Palavicini, the chef and co-owner, has been hospitalized since last week with a serious health issue. She would not elaborate on his condition but said she is getting encouraging reports on his progress.

Now, she plans to reopen the restaurant in the weeks ahead with veteran staff running the kitchen until Palavicini can return.

That will mean a shorter menu to begin, and Perez is concerned that some longtime customers will be disappointed if their favorite dishes arent there at first. But she said this reopening plan represents baby steps to get Adolfos back to full operation.

Palavicini has run the restaurant for almost a quarter century. This July will mark the 25th anniversary of his taking over the small, second-floor space at 611 Frenchmen St.

Now 63, he has been the driving force of the restaurant, his wife said.

"Other people in the business by now, they'd be stepping back, but hes the one pounding the veal, shopping for the food, making the selections. Hes always there, Perez said. They dont make them like him anymore.

Adolfos is a small restaurant with a bohemian feel and a wide-ranging menu of Italian dishes and Louisiana seafood.

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It's been a neighborhood favorite back from the days when Frenchmen Street was still a relatively low-key collection of bars, clubs and other businesses, drawing a largely local clientele. As the nightlife stretch has soared in popularity and tourist draw, the restaurant has maintained a consistent identity, luring regulars back for their favorite dishes.

Oysters poached in Pernod, steak Manny with peppercorn-rum sauce, veal with ocean sauce (a creamy concoction studded with shellfish and capers) and tender cannelloni filled with crab, corn and ricotta are among its many signatures.

+18 Whats ahead for restaurants, bars closed since Hurricane Ida? Answers vary widely Emergency management pros often remind us that no two storms are alike, and that their impact will be different. Hurricane Idas aftermath has

Today, Adolfos is one of only a handful of businesses left on the strip that predate Hurricane Katrina.

The same owners run the pint-sized bar and music club the Apple Barrel, located downstairs from the restaurant. This space has served as an extra dining room through much of the pandemic. Perez said it was too small to reopen as a venue under earlier restrictions.

Now, she said, the plan is to return the Apple Barrel with live music once the omicron surge subsides.

Adolfos Restaurant

611 Frenchmen St.

+5 French Quarter landmark Central Grocery far from reopening but still makes muffulettas On any given day, youre bound to find tourists walking down Decatur Street towards Central Grocery with muffalettas on their minds. Then they

+10 Island soul food with New Orleans style fires up this tiny Mid-City restaurant The opening menu at Lisa Queen Trini Nelsons new Mid-City restaurant is short, but it bears close attention from diners. Even people well-v

+47 Where to eat next in New Orleans, the comfort food restaurant picks we all need right now Hows 2022 treating you so far? Im guessing a big serving of comfort food could be in order, so thats the theme for this latest edition of o
St. Charles Avenue motorists may be asking themselves, what is that conspicuous, plastic-wrapped shape standing near the column at the former Lee Circle?

The enigmatic object, which stands more than 12 feet, was craned into place this week and protected by police barricades, some of which had blown over on Thursday night.

According to sources familiar with New Orleans' Prospect.5 art exhibition that is coming to a close on Sunday, it's a sculpture by one of the country's most important artists, Simone Leigh, that will serve as the grand finale to the months-long show.

Few specifics were available about the installation ahead of an expected unveiling this weekend. But from the start, the management of the avant-garde art show has promised that the event would conclude with the appearance of a sculpture by Leigh.

Based in New York, Leigh is known for her heroic ceramic and bronze sculptures of the Black female form. Leigh will represent the United States at the Venice Biennale exhibit, the Olympics of the art world, later this year.

+7 4-story monument to Six Flags amusement park rises in New Orleans East Artist E.J. Hills striking new sculpture, located in Joe W. Brown Memorial Park in New Orleans East, is a tribute to the long-defunct Six Fla

One of the themes of the Prospect.5 exhibition was a search for alternative models for New Orleans monuments, which were historically devoted to mostly militaristic, often racist, White males. The Leigh sculpture is titled Sentinel (Mami Wata), and is an homage to history and continued presence of traditions of the African diaspora in New Orleans," according to the Prospect website.

The appearance of a sculpture dedicated to aspects of Black culture, created by a Black female artist, will be especially resonant at the former site of a monument to the failed leader of the Confederate army in the Civil War. The sculpture of Robert E. Lee was removed in 2017.

Adding an artwork by an artist of Leighs stature to the New Orleans cityscape is also a coup for Prospect.5, which was delayed and disrupted by both the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Ida. The title of the Prospect.5 exhibition, "Yesterday We Said Tomorrow," implies a confrontation with the past.

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Im grateful Leigh wanted to work with us, said Prospect executive director Nick Stillman. Her sculpture, he said, is a testament to those who care about the symbolism of the site. He noted that though the sculpture represents an alternative vision, it is basically the same shape as the column.

Stillman said that the location of the sculpture was the product of a series of conversations with the artist. At first, he said, Prospect considered craning the sculpture to the top of the column where the enormous statue of Lee once stood.

There was something spectacular about that, he said, but it didnt feel right. Instead, Stillman said, Leigh decided that the sculpture belonged closer to the ground, at the level of the people.

Stillman said that Leighs piece is temporary and will be removed on July 22, though he hopes it can find a permanent home in New Orleans. After its gone, he said, I hope it opens the door for other stakeholders to use the site as a space for public dialogue.

Stillman said he can imagine other artworks, theater performances and various forms of expression being located on the broad traffic circle. This is Prospect opening the door, he said.

A City Hall representative said that placing the sculpture in the once-contentious location, as well as the other public sites of Prospect sculptures around the city, was approved by the mayor.

Referring to other Prospect.5 public artworks, a spokesperson for Prospect said that the exhibition management does not consider Prospect sculptures to be replacements of former Confederate monuments.

+10 Giant crocodile sculpture in Crescent Park symbolizes Black female power: Prospect.5 An enormous bronze crocodile has appeared in Crescent Park at the foot of the so-called Rusty Rainbow bridge, at the Piety Street entrance. Th

The Prospect management had announced that the sculpture would be unveiled on Saturday.

The Prospect series of art exhibits began in 2008 and has taken place every two or three years since. Prospect.5 exhibits are now on display through Sunday at the New Orleans African-American Museum, the Ogden Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Center, The Newcomb Art Museum, and other locations. For details, visit the Prospect.5 website.

Note: This story has been repeatedly updated with further information.
The Orleans Parish School Board is getting some welcome financial help in its search for a new superintendent.

The Greater New Orleans Foundation said this week that it will pitch in a $140,000 to help pay for the search, launched last year after Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. announced that he plans to leave when his contract expires in June.

The School Board has hired a firm, Greenwood/Asher & Associates, on a $90,000 contract to conduct the search. The school district has also created a website, www.nolasuperintendentsearch.com, to gather input from the community.

Lewis became superintendent in 2015.

"We are extremely grateful to the Greater New Orleans Foundation for their generous grant," said board member Ethan Ashley, who heads the Superintendent Search Committee. "The foundations commitment to the success of this process will allow our board to conduct an extremely thorough search for the visionary, equity-minded leader that our students deserve."

The search firm recently held a number of community meetings that were sparsely attended. More are in the works.

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Ashley has said the board hopes to make the hire before Lewis departs.

"The more time we have to overlap with the current superintendent the better," he said in a recent interview.

Filling the job can be tricky due to the unique nature of New Orleans' all-charter system. Lewis has overseen the reunification of the district, with the return of the citys public schools to the oversight of the Orleans Parish School Board. But the charters enjoy a large degree of independence in their day-to-day operations.

The city's public schools have more than 46,000 students.

"Our organization has been investing in civic leadership projects to address the needs of our community for nearly 100 years, and supporting the School Board in their search for the next superintendent of NOLA-PS does just that," Andy Kopplin, president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, said in a statement. "Finding the right leader for New Orleans students is critically important, and the foundation is thrilled to play our part in this process."
Louisiana wants to spend $1.28 billion on dozens of hurricane protection and coastal restoration projects in the fiscal year that begins July 1, which would be the highest amount spent in a single year to protect the state from an increasingly volatile climate.

The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority's billion-dollar, 76-project spending plan, presented for the first time at an authority meeting Wednesday, would also finally align the state with the spending goals set in its coastal Master Plan, authority officials said.

That broader plan calls for spending $50 billion over 50 years to shore the state up against sea level rise and other climate challenges.

The authority's spending plan also includes $80 million for engineering and design work for 33 projects, and another $11 million for initial basic planning for five more projects.

Its a spending plan, and not a budget, because not all of the money from nearly a dozen different revenue streams has been turned over to the state yet, authority chairman Chip Kline said.

And with the announcement Wednesday of $2.7 billion of funding being funneled through the Army Corps of Engineers budget for numerous Louisiana projects, theres a good chance that the spending totals in the plan will rise before it is presented to the Legislature for an up-down vote in mid-March.

Kline reminded authority members Wednesday that while Gov. John Bel Edwards wants to use as much as $150 million of state surplus money to fund annual projects, the money won't go into the plan without the Legislature's blessing.

Projected expeditures for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 This graphic shows the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority's estimates for spending in the following two fiscal years.

Public comments will be accepted on the plan through Feb. 26, and the authority board will vote on the plans final version at its March 16 meeting.

The annual plan calls for $276.7 million to be used for the first phase of construction of the proposed $1.4 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion in Plaquemines Parish, funded with a share of the $8 billion set aside for Louisiana as part of the BP Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment settlement.

Another $13.4 million is to be spent on engineering and design for that project, with the money coming from a portion of the criminal fines paid by BP for the spill. The state has marked the construction costs in red in the plan, representing the states expectation that the Corps will approve the permits necessary to begin construction by Aug. 29, 2023.

The plan also includes work on 18 projects where more than 79 million cubic yards of dredged material will be used to directly create or nourish about 14,000 acres  almost 22 square miles -- of new wetlands, ridges or barrier islands. Thats enough dirt to fill the Caesars Superdome 17 times.

The total cost of those projects, many of which are being built over several years, equals more than $1.1 billion.

Funding for the plan will come from a variety of different federal and state programs, including the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, and the RESTORE Act. BP oil spill money will also help cover the costs.

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Southeast region projects Projects proposed for the southeast region of Louisiana in the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority's annual funding plan.

The plan also includes partial funding for 67 projects in the southeastern part of the state, including 45 that are under construction.

Here are some of the projects and their total costs:

The $114.6 million first increment of the Lake Borgne Marsh Creation project, which includes rebuilding more than 2,800 acres of wetlands near Shell Beach.

The $54.3 million Golden Triangle Marsh Creation project, which is using material dredged from Lake Borgne to rebuild wetlands in the northwestern corner of Lake Borgne.

The $29.7 million LaBranche Central Marsh Creation project on the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain in St. Charles Parish..

The $25.4 million New Orleans Landbridge Shoreline Stabilization and Marsh Creation project on the northern edge of Lake Borgne near the Lake Catherine community, with 280 acres to be restored in 2023 with 1.3 million cubic yards of dredged material from Lakes St.. Catherine and Pontchartrain.

The Spanish Pass increment of the Barataria Basin Ridge and Marsh Creation project, a $100.2 million project to rebuild 1,700 acres of marsh and ridge on the west bank of Plaquemines Parish. It's the largest ridge and marsh creation project for the authority to date.

River Reintroduction into Maurepas Swamp, a $200 million project to add Mississippi River water to the area to reduce salinity levels and help restore the cypress-tupelo swamp around the lake.



Officials also plan to improve hurricane surge protection in the Lafitte area, including 4 miles of floodwalls, gates and levees built to a 7.5-foot elevation along Bayou Barataria and Goose Bayou.

South central region projects Projects proposed for the south central region of Louisiana in the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority's annual funding plan.

The plan also includes 39 projects in the states south central region, including 26 that will be under construction. They include more than $391 million for the $3 billion Morganza to the Gulf hurricane levee system; the Corps announced Wednesday that it would be spending an additional $378.5 million on that levee system, thanks to the federal infrastructure bill.

Other projects in that area include:

The Bayou Terrebonne Increment of the Terrebonne Basin Ridge and Marsh Creation project, a project costing $162.3 million to restore about 5,000 acres of ridge and marsh.

The $65.4 million Bayou Dularge Ridge and Marsh Creation project, which will restore about 3.3 miles of ridge and 25 acres of marsh.

Southwest region projects Projects proposed for the southwest region of Louisiana in the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority's annual funding plan.

In the southwest region, the plan expects to fund eight projects, including five already under construction.

The biggest projects underway in that area are two segments of the South Grand Chenier Marsh Creation project, which combined will have a total cost of over $50 million to rebuild wetlands in Cameron Parish. Money also will be provided to a project adding shoreline protection to the Rockefeller wildlife refuge and to the Freshwater Bayou Canal.

The annual plan will be the subject of three in-person and one virtual meeting in January:

Jan. 24, McNeese State University, SEED Center Business Incubator, Willis Noland Room, 4310 Ryan St., Lake Charles.

Jan. 25, Nicholls State University, Donald G. Bollinger Student Union Ballroom, 906 E. 1 st St., Thibodaux.

St., Thibodaux. Jan. 26, Joseph S. Yenni Building, Jefferson Parish Council Chambers, 2 nd Floor, 1221 Elmwood Park Blvd., Metairie.

Floor, 1221 Elmwood Park Blvd., Metairie. Jan. 27, virtual meeting via Zoom. The link will be available on the authority web site, https://coastal.la.gov, and on its Facebook page.

The in-person meetings will begin with a 5:30 p.m. open house, followed by a public meeting and presentation at 6 p.m. Public comments will be accepted at 6:30 p.m.

The virtual meeting will begin at 6 p.m.
Whitney Wilson loved to celebrate lifes milestones. She threw her 4-year-old son a superhero-themed birthday party at a trampoline park in December, and she was to take an anniversary trip with her husband in February, with yet more plans for a Disneyland Park visit in the works.

Those plans were cut short Tuesday afternoon when Wilson was fatally shot, while driving on Interstate 10 near the Crowder Boulevard exit in New Orleans with her 12-year-old daughter in the car. The girl was uninjured, but multiple bullets struck Wilson, police said. Emergency Medical Services declared her dead on the spot.

+17 Woman shot dead on I-10 at Crowder Boulevard in New Orleans A woman was killed in a shooting Tuesday afternoon on Interstate 10 at the Crowder Boulevard exit in New Orleans.

Wilsons violent death, at age 34, has set her loved ones reeling and left a void that her coworkers at Ryder Logistics, where she was a warehouse attendant, feel keenly. Their overwhelming question: Why?

What made them decide to shoot that car? Well never know these answers, and even if they find the person, it doesn't bring back Whitney or make anything right, said Ronda Potts, Wilsons coworker.

Friends and colleagues described Wilson as a sweet, outgoing woman who was passionate about her son and daughter. "She was a genuinely nice, hard-working person that always put her kids first," said Shakera Daniels, Wilson's best friend since elementary school. "She was all about family."

The youngest of three siblings, Wilson grew up in the 7th Ward and attended Edward H. Phillips and Langston Hughes Elementary schools, Gregory Junior High and Frederick A. Douglass and Sarah T. Reed High schools. She loved spending time with her family, singing Anita Baker songs and rooting for the New Orleans Saints.

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Before signing on with Ryder Logistics, she worked for the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans.

She was the coolest person on earth, said Ryder Logistics coworker Jamaal Sims. Real down to earth and got along with everybody. You could be having a bad day, but if you see and talk to Whitney, youre not having a bad day.

Daniels said Wilson was always there when she needed someone, whether showing up to her baby shower with a lavish, pink, tiered cake and a stroller set, throwing her a surprise 30th birthday at a painting studio or offering to bring anything Daniels needed when she got sick over the Christmas holiday.

She was more than just a friend; she was my sister, Daniels said. Those type of people are a blessing and hard to find. She will definitely be missed.

Anyone with information on Wilsons killing may call homicide detective Maurice Stewart at (504) 658-5300 or Crimestoppers of Greater New Orleans Inc. at 504-822-1111.
Three educators are among the nine people who submitted applications to be appointed by the Jefferson School Board to fill its vacant District 6 seat Friday night.

The School Board plans to interview the candidates and then appoint one of them during a special meeting necessitated by the resignation earlier this month of Rafael Rafidi, a Metairie businessman who himself had been appointed to the board just two days prior to resignation.

The board asked Rafidi to step down after his profane social media posts attacking political leaders, teachers and others came to light.

Friday's appointment will hold the seat for the remainder of the year, filling the remainder of longtime board member Larry Dale's term. Dale resigned earlier this month.

School Board elections are in October, and Board President Clay Moise said the board has no intention of prohibiting the interim selection from running then for a full term.

Moise said Thursday that he had met with each of the candidates, and he was pleased by their qualifications.

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"I can comfortably say that any one of them can do the job," he said. All nine interviews in Friday's meeting will be conducted in open session before the selection is made.

The nine applicants are:

Diane Schnell, marketing consultant

Michael Pedalino, businessman

Lena Nuccio, retired educator

Randy Bennett, retired middle school principal

Lauren Jewett, elementary school teacher

Nathan Koenig, accounting intern

Lindsey Waguespack, pharmacy manager

Lauren Godshall, law professor

Scott Masson, insurance agent

The board meeting begins at 5 p.m. at the school district's central office in Harvey.

Editor's note: This story has been clarified to more accurately reflect Larry Dale's resignation date.
A high-profile court dispute between Tulane University's School of Medicine and a former director of its residency program over allegations of racial discrimination was quietly settled last month.

The lawsuit, filed by Dr. Princess Dennar in federal court in New Orleans, alleged discrimination going back a decade, unfair rotations for doctors in training in Dennar's program and unsafe conditions for patients. But court records show it was dismissed Dec. 30.

Neither party commented on the specifics of the suit or the terms of the settlement, with Tulane spokesperson Michael Strecker confirming only that the lawsuit and its claims "have been resolved."

Dennar, who no longer runs the residency program, said she will continue working at University Medical Center, where she specializes in internal medicine. While not commenting on her suit, she indicated she planned to continue advocating for greater diversity in the medical field.

"I want to bring attention to racism in medicine on a national level, so that not just physicians but also patients have a voice, she said.

+3 After Tulane suspended a Black female doctor, medical community erupts with racism, bias claims The Tulane University School of Medicine residency program, where doctors fresh from medical school embark on the last leg of their training, 

Dennar filed the suit four months before she was dismissed as program director of the internal medicine pediatrics specialty, by the vote of a panel of 15 program directors and other doctors.

A backlash against Tulane quickly followed. Dozens of residents called for the resignation of the schools dean and, in a letter, said there was deeply entrenched structural racism and bias throughout the medical school. Another letter signed by medical school alumni said the allegations of racial discrimination were not surprising in the least, based on their experience.

As criticism mounted and a social media campaign urged newly minted doctors to leave Tulane off their ranking for residency, Tulane offered Dennar her position back under certain conditions, which were not made public. In an open letter, Dennar described the proposal as restrictive and limiting conditions masked as support and resources, and sent back a counteroffer, which was not accepted.

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+2 Tulane School of Medicine put on probation by accrediting agency after bias complaints The Tulane University School of Medicine graduate medical program, which trains newly-minted doctors during their residencies at hospitals acr

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which regulates graduate medical programs, placed the entire residency program on probation in July, a rare move for the agency. Tulane is one of 15 institutions on probation, out of about 900 regulated by the council.

Strecker said the medical school "is working to address" the council's concerns.

Our goal is not just to have the probation status lifted but to make lasting, systemic change that will position us as a national leader among medical schools in graduate medical education, Strecker said.

Tulanes probation status has no set end date, but typically institutions have two years to correct violations, which are not made public.

Probation means the 187-year-old institution may not start new programs or increase the size of its existing programs. It must notify current residents and applicants of the status.

If Tulane does not improve in that time or develops new problems, accreditation may be withdrawn, according to the council's policies.

Dennar cultivated Tulane's first all-female, all-person-of-color cohort of medical residents when she was program director. And while she is no longer affiliated with Tulane, she plans to continue to be a mentor.

"I will still be there for them," she said. "There are not too many Black physicians, period, and not too many Black female positions, definitely not many who have been in academia this long in a leadership role."
New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson faced hours of pointed questions Thursday from the City Council over the rising numbers of shootings and carjackings, but by the end some members were still wondering aloud whether there was any plan to curb the violent crimes that have put the city on edge.

Whats the plan that you can show us and show the public? What is the 90-day plan, the 90-day strategy? council President Helena Moreno asked. We would love to see those from you. Really, as soon as possible.

+2 New Orleans ends 2021 with most murders in a year since before Hurricane Katrina: 'Why?' For the second straight year, New Orleans reported an increased number of killings in 2021, erasing gains in public safety achieved in the pas

Ferguson said he wasnt ready to release his draft strategic plan, and he mostly declined to get into the details of new police tactics.

Yet over the course of the councils first regular meeting since the election of five members, Ferguson defended his departments performance during the 22-month coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 policing protests, and he repeated his charge that the rest of the criminal justice system is failing to hold criminals to account.

What we have been doing has been working, Ferguson said. But until we can actually have these individuals know that they will be held accountable, were going to find ourselves spinning our wheels.

NOPD chief signals national trends, pandemic stressors as drivers of violent-crime spike After the city registered increases in key violent crimes in 2021, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Shaun Ferguson on Thursday att

For their part, City Council members offered outrage and a smorgasbord of ideas about how New Orleans could curb violence - many of them pulled from playbooks employed during earlier periods of rising crime. Those ideas included a local government crime "czar, cracking down on cars with tinted windows, bringing back a special unit to target robbers and deploying the National Guard.

Last year, New Orleans recorded an overall drop in crime rates from 2020, driven by an 11 percent dip in property crimes. But in line with national trends, homicides went up 8%, non-fatal shootings rose 7% and carjackings stayed at a much higher level than before the pandemic.

Fergusons appearance before the council came after a wave of violent car thefts since late December, coupled with a four-person escape from the juvenile jail last week, boiled over into outrage from residents.

At the same time, a dispute between Ferguson and District Attorney Jason Williams over who bears responsibility for the rising violent crime rates flared into public view this week.

The new council has signaled it is more willing than the previous one to challenge Mayor LaToya Cantrell and her appointees, who include Ferguson.

That assertiveness was on display Thursday from the start of the hearing, when council Vice-President JP Morrell said, Youre going to see what a strong council looks like.

+14 After year in office, New Orleans DA Jason Williams says 'we delivered,' but challenges loom When Orleans Parish sheriff-elect Susan Hutson gave her victory speech to a crowd of cheering supporters last month, District Attorney Jason W

Morrell promised that the aggressive questioning would continue Monday, when Williams and local judges appear.

Still, it was Fergusons turn in front of a camera at the Thursday hearing, which took place virtually due to the current COVID-19 surge.

Overall, Ferguson said the department was doing its best during trying times. He said that despite criticism from Williams, he thinks his departments solve rate for major crimes is close to national averages.

+16 New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell sworn in for second term, saying 'the best is yet to come' Mayor LaToya Cantrell took the oath of office for her second term Monday, telling supporters from the steps of historic Gallier Hall that desp

Ferguson said the Police Department is already trying to fine-tune deployment in light of a workforce that has fallen to 1,058 officers, amid competing demands for officers to sweep the streets and detectives to solve shootings and robberies.

He expressed optimism about a new ordinance that will let the department deputize civilian employees of other agencies to issue quality of life citations for offenses such as littering and dumping, which could free up regular officers for other tasks.

Yet the chief came in for repeated questioning from Moreno about his decision in 2020 to disband the Tactical Intelligence Gathering and Enforcement Response, or TIGER, units that were the brainchild of his predecessor, Michael Harrison. Harrison credited those units with a decline in armed robberies, which vexed the department during his first few years as chief.

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Robberies and carjackings spiked almost immediately after TIGER was disbanded, Moreno said.

Ferguson said the increase was more gradual. He also said the units were disbanded amid concern about unconstitutional practices of separate police district task forces, and some TIGER officers were used to beef up district detective capacity.

The chief brought the issue back to his larger complaint about the failures of the back end of the criminal justice system. He says the rest of the criminal justice system, where only four jury trials were held in 2021, isn't holding people accountable.

+6 Shootings on New Orleans' interstate highways have soared. Here's why. Norbert Housey was riding in a car east on Interstate 10 near New Orleans Crowder Boulevard exit when gunfire struck him the night of Oct. 20.

The key to TIGERs success was a fully operational criminal justice system that we dont have right now, he said.

In 2020, after the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd and national protests over police violence, the New Orleans council passed ordinances limiting the the Police Department's use of surveillance technology and tear gas. Less than two years later, some council members on Thursday floated measures that were more aggressive than Ferguson was willing to contemplate.

People are looking for answers. Drastic times call for drastic measures, council member Freddie King III said. He said police should consider deputizing employees of other local law enforcement agencies. One even more drastic measure that King raised: deploying the National Guard.

Ferguson rejected that possibility out of hand.

That is frightening, he said. That is outright frightening to have the military on the streets of New Orleans. ... That is just not a look that the city of New Orleans would want to have.

A theme running through many of the council members comments was the general sense of a breakdown in communication between the courts, the district attorney's office and the Police Department. Many demanded that the agencies stop name-calling and collaborate, and several said they wanted more data on clearance rates for violent crimes.

The level of dysfunction in this city when it comes to criminal justice  its breathtaking, said Morrell, who offered council member Oliver Thomas as a potential mediator.

After Ferguson was finished, many public comments centered on the spike in carjackings.

Im terrified to walk or drive the streets in my Uptown neighborhood, or anywhere, said Christine Whitten, who said the crime problem dovetailed with her frustration over street repairs. I dont feel I have a choice but to leave. Something must be done, now.

One commenter suggested the creation of neighborhood watch groups, while another worried that an increase in private security patrols could end in the killing of another Black man such as Trayvon Martin or Ahmaud Arbery.

+11 At MLK Day ceremony, Mayor Cantrell calls for social justice, decries violence At a wreath-laying ceremony to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and other city officials issued a call to figh

As this city gets more gentrified, more neighborhoods will take this route of private self-policing, Oliver Fletcher III said. People shouldnt feel like they have to hire private security. This whole situation will be a bad trickle-down effect and lead to something.

Meanwhile, some liberal policy groups spoke out against a hard turn toward tough on crime policies.

We cannot incarcerate ourselves out of crime, said Vanessa Spinazola, executive director of the Justice and Accountability Center. We ask this council to seek social investment in our people, not throwing more money at law enforcement as we have done ineffectively for decades.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has announced that it will hold its Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, from May 22 to May 26.

Under the theme, Working Together, Restoring Trust, the Annual Meeting will be the first global in-person leadership event since the start of the pandemic.

The Annual Meeting 2022, returning to Davos-Klosters after a two-year hiatus, will offer world leaders an opportunity to take stock of the state of the world and shape partnerships and policies for the crucial period ahead, said WEF.

Topics on the agenda will include the pandemic recovery, tackling climate change, building a better future for work, accelerating stakeholder capitalism, and harnessing the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, said: After all the virtual meetings taking place in the last two years, leaders from politics, business and civil society have to convene finally in person again. We need to establish the atmosphere of trust that is truly needed to accelerate collaborative action and to address the multiple challenges we face.

The WEF will continue to communicate closely with the Swiss government on the public health situation in Switzerland. The meeting will take place as long as all necessary conditions are in place to guarantee the health and safety of its participants and the host community.

During the Davos Agenda 2022, which concluded today (Jan 21), heads of state and government and international organisations shared their priorities for a challenging year ahead. They joined leaders from business and civil society and spoke on the global economic outlook, inequality, healthy futures, climate and resilience. - TradeArabia News Service
Oliver Thomas, having just rejoined the New Orleans City Council, has resumed his gig as a talk-show host on WBOK, which has asked the state Ethics Board if his dual role runs afoul of the law.

The board will hold a hearing and issue an opinion in March, but I am ready right now to rule that there is no conflict, no suggestion of exploiting public office for private gain, when a public official has a sideline in the marketplace of ideas.

Thomas was on the air for about five years before quitting to mount his campaign for the council. WBOK probably wouldn't have wooed him back if he hadn't commanded a loyal audience by displaying the gift of the gab, an easy familiarity with current events and a charm of manner.

He has such a wealth of contacts that rehabilitation was much easier for him than it is for the average ex-con, but, even so, he deserves congratulation for achieving success in two spheres less than 12 years after his release from federal prison, where he did three years for taking a bribe from a city contractor.

It came as a bolt from the blue when Thomas pleaded guilty, and resigned as an at-large member of the council in 2007, because his vast popularity across racial lines had made him a hot favorite to succeed Ray Nagin as mayor in 2010.

Although I had no inkling at the time that he was another crooked politician, I was always mildly surprised, whenever I made a modest wager at the Fair Grounds and looked across at the big plungers of the $50 window, to see Thomas standing there at a time when his council salary was $43,000. He later blamed his downfall on gambling.

In his current second job, his audience will be overwhelmingly Black; such is the segregated nature of the airwaves. And these days he is a district council member from the east, whence he hails as a son of the Lower 9th Ward.

Having had a taste of disgrace and the pen, he is probably now about the straightest public official in Louisiana. Perhaps his political ascent will turn out to have been merely postponed by his legal woes.

If a thunderbolt had hit when Thomas fell from grace, it is unlikely that many honest politicians would have been hurt, for municipal government had been turned into a den of thieves. We didn't know the half of it at the time, but the embarrassments were beginning to mount.

A few weeks earlier, a federal grand jury had indicted our famously crooked then-Congressman Dollar Bill Jefferson. At the same time, Orleans Parish School Board member Ellenese Brooks-Simms pleaded guilty to taking payoffs to adopt a math software program hawked by Jefferson's brother, Mose.

It would be a few years before we found out just how rotten the Nagin administration had been. It was supposed to be a high-tech operation that galvanized City Hall, but Nagin's alleged computer whizzes, Mark St. Pierre and Greg Meffert, turned out to be a couple of crooks. They certainly fit right in, because Nagin himself was on the take and was eventually sentenced to 10 years.

Those were dark days for the city and for Thomas, so his redemption should gladden many a heart.

Email James Gill at gill504nola@gmail.com.
Wind-whipped flames are marching across more of New Mexicos tinder-dry mountainsides, forcing the evacuation of area residents and dozens of patients from the state's psychiatric hospital as firefighters scramble to keep new wildfires from growing. The big blaze burning near the community of Las Vegas has charred more than 217 square miles. Residents in neighborhoods on the edge of Las Vegas were told to be ready to leave their homes. It's the biggest wildfire in the U.S. and is moving quickly through groves of ponderosa pine because of hot, dry and windy conditions that make for extreme wildfire danger. Forecasters are warning of extreme fire danger across New Mexico and in western Texas.
Selinsgrove -- Keystone Wood Products Association (KWPA), a non-profit organization that strives to strengthen and expand the base of lumber and wood products manufacturers in Central Pennsylvania, recently donated funds to purchase three wood sanders for Selinsgrove Area High Schools Technology Education Department.

We could not be more thankful for the relationship that we have developed with KWPA, says John Aument, technology and engineering education teacher.

KWPAs donation updated belt sanders and added a spindle sander to the array of machines that students can utilize during woodworking classes that focus on the design process by using 3D modeling.

Using wood as our media allows our students to develop their measurement, problem solve and think critically all while working with their hands, says Jonathan Jarrett, technology and engineering teacher.

Additionally, wood is more environmentally friendly, widely available, and is often less expensive to work with than other materials.

Approximately 250 9-12th grade students opt to take elective classes in the program annually.

Students take our classes because they not only want to work with their hands as opposed to sitting in a typical classroom, but they also want to apply their critical thinking skills by building something, says Jarrett.

Eleventh grade student Andrew Gephart is one of them.

Ive always liked 'hands on' work. It is my passion, he said. I also enjoy technology. Here you work with machinery and computers. I can use Solidworks, fabricate a 3D part or code the CNC machine.

Gephart who is thinking about becoming an electrician, pilot, or working with CNC machines in some capacity, is taking his fourth level of manufacturing technology classes. He has made items such as a coffee table, cutting board and an epoxy quote board which boasts the saying, quotes dont work unless you do.

I used the spindle sander for the quote board. All of the machines that KWPA donated are awesome! The machines we had before got the job done, but now we have options and for that I am grateful, says Gephart.

Maddy Fertig, a 10th grade student, said she used the donated machines to make her latest projecta nightstand.

I took Manufacturing Technology in 9th grade and knew I wanted to take more classes. I love what you get to do here. It doesnt feel like school, yet I learn so much. I want to be here. It is so different from any other of my classes, she says. I am glad I took a shop class and tried something new.

KWPA believes that programs like this one are making a difference in students lives.

It is an invaluable experience to learn about wood manufacturing in this type of setting, says Stephanie Phillips-Taggart, executive director of KWPA. Career and life skills acquired in the woodshop and lab can give students a competitive advantage in the workforce and in life.

According to the program educators, Selinsgrove High Schools technology curriculum is made possible by a number of factorsincluding students, teachers, administration and the community.

A lot of things need to come together. If you do not have the support or backing of the administration/school board, this program would be impossible as it is expensive to operate. In addition, we have the support of the community and organizations like KWPA, says Aument. The kids also play an important factor. We have wonderful students here.

The same can be said for the programs instructors.

They [Mr. Aument and Mr. Jarret] are awesome! They have taught me so much about using the machines, 3D modeling and coding the CNC. They have helped me along the way, says Gephart. They are just amazing people.

The educators are always exploring connections that can positively impact the program.

We work with our local technical trade school and learned about KWPA through Sun Area Technical Institute, says Aument. This began our relationship with KWPA. The resources and connections that KWPA provides to companies, fields and guest speakers greatly enhance our class curriculum.

Selinsgrove Area High Schools Technology program aligns with KWPAs mission to enrich the wood products industry via education, workforce development and promotion.

We are thankful for educational partnerships that impact the future of the industry, says Phillips-Taggart. Exposing students to the wood product manufacturing process can plant a seed that grows into an exciting career in the industry.

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Middleburg -- Snyder County is now one of 13 counties participating in the Law Enforcement Treatment Initiative (LETI), a program that helps sufferers of substance use disorders enroll in treatment. The assistance is provided through local law enforcement including sheriffs, probation officers, and parole officers.

Attorney General launched the program in collaboration with law enforcement. LETI is intended to offer enrollment help without the threat of arrest or prosecution.

We lose 14 Pennsylvanians a day to the opioid epidemic, said Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Connecting individuals to the treatment they need will save lives, make our communities stronger, and help minimize the stigma associated with substance use disorder. I commend District Attorney Mike Piecuch and our law enforcement partners across Snyder County for implementing this program in their communities.

According to the policies of LETI, partnering Snyder County law enforcement agencies under LETI will:

Open their station doors to those suffering from addiction.

Help identify treatment for those who seek it.

Assist with ensuring that people have transportation to the facilities.

Maintain relationships with local treatment providers to understand availability, and collect data to study outcomes.

To use LETI services, contact a law enforcement officer at any time to ask for a referral or to be connected to treatment.

Treatment of substance use disorders is a proven crime prevention tool. I've seen first-hand how the Snyder-Union Treatment Court Program has significantly reduced new criminal offenses by its participants by connecting them with the help they need. Establishing LETI here is a natural extension of those efforts. I want to thank the Attorney General and his staff for their cooperation and assistance launching LETI here in Snyder County, said Snyder County District Attorney Michael Piecuch.

Agent Janene Holter, PhD, is the Office of Attorney Generals dedicated full-time agent who coordinates LETI. Her work includes training, writing policies for each participating county, providing sample policies and documents, and convening key community stakeholders.

LETI currently operates in Berks, Bradford, Carbon, Clearfield, Dauphin, Delaware, Fayette, Mifflin, Montgomery, Northumberland, Schuylkill, and Somerset counties.

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Harrisburg -- When Governor Wolf began his first term as Governor seven years ago, the state was operating with a two to three billion dollar budget deficit.

At Wolf's start, the state's Rainy Day Fund had fallen to a mere $231,000. Today, the Rainy Day Fund contains $2.8 billion to protect Pennsylvania against future emergencies, and the Independent Fiscal Office projects that Gov. Wolf will transition a budget surplus to the next administration.

Gov. Wolf will be the first governor to leave office with a budget surplus since Governor Dick Thornburgh in 1987.

Improving the states finances is one reason our economy is growing. Pennsylvania has the 18th largest economy in the world, larger than the economies of Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, or Turkey.

Our economic success and our fiscal strength add up to a huge win for Pennsylvanians, said Gov. Wolf. This is further evidence of something I have always known to be true: that sound financial management and investments that make a difference in the lives of Pennsylvanians go hand in hand."

When Gov. Wolf took office, schools across the commonwealth was experiencing drastic education funding cuts. The Wolf Administration has since invested nearly $2 billion in education funding.

In 2021 alone, the Wolf Administration oversaw a historic $416 million education funding increase. The Wolf Administration has also made major investments to make health care more accessible and affordable for Pennsylvanians on a budget, support workers through workforce training and increased apprenticeship opportunities, spur economic growth through investment in businesses and entrepreneurs, and more.

The work by Governor Wolf to stabilize and improve the finances of the state has clearly been seen here, said Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. Since 2014, our GDP has steadily increased showing a 16% increase over the past few years. Weve seen growth in employment, population, and in businesses locating here representing multiple industries.

Our region can certainly take credit for that, but it is also reflective of the fact that businesses and organizations have confidence in our state government and its financial footing because of the work done under this administration.

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UPDATE as of 6:40 p.m. - Route 54 in Valley Township is now open.

PennDOT is advising motorists that Route 54 is closed between Route 3009 (Old Valley School Road)/Sheraton Roads and the entrance to Interstate 80 West in Valley Township, Montour County due to a multi-vehicle crash.

A detour using local roads is in place. The roadway is expected to be closed for several hours

Motorists should be alert and expect travel delays.

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Jammu, Jan 21 (UNI) A joint team of Army and Police have recovered a large haul of narcotics near the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Jammu-based defence spokesperson Lt Col Devender Anand confirmed the development on Friday.

"Based on inputs of likely smuggling of Narcotics through the Line of Control in Poonch, Army along with J&K Police launched relentless operations in the area," he said.

The Colonel said the operations were backed with a well integrated surveillance grid coupled with extensive domination of the areas close to the LoC.

"On the intervening night of January 19 and 20, narcotics weighing approximately 31kg was recovered during a search operation conducted close to the LoC," Anand said.

UNI VBH ING
Amazon has listed the Galaxy Tab S8, Galaxy Tab S8+ and Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra on its French and Italian websites. The listings confirm numerous details, including specifications, colours, prices and even release dates for the three tablets.

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Two of Amazon's European subsidiaries have published Galaxy Tab S8, Galaxy Tab S8+ and Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra listings early. While the listings have appeared a day after Samsung included an image of the Tab S8 Ultra on a support page, Amazon posted these listings as early as January 13. Unsurprisingly, the listings confirm numerous details about the upcoming tablets, although most had already been leaked by WinFuture.

According to the listings we have seen, the Tab S8+ will start at 961.00, and the Tab S8 Ultra at 1,159.34. As the screenshots below show, both prices are for 128 GB and Wi-Fi-only configurations. Also, these prices include VAT, which runs to 20% on most products in France. Hence, the entry-level Tab S8 Ultra will cost 966.12 before taxes, approximately US$1,095. By contrast, the 5G model will cost 1,308.10, including VAT, a 12.83% uplift on the Wi-Fi-only model. In summary, Amazon France has revealed the following Galaxy Tab S8 series prices:

Galaxy Tab S8+ (128 GB/Wi-Fi) - 961.00

Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra (128 GB/Wi-Fi) - 1,159.34

Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra (128 GB/5G) - 1,308.10

In saying that, there is no indication that Samsung will directly convert these Euros prices, less VAT, to USD. Incidentally, Pocketnow has discovered listings for the entire Galaxy Tab S8 series on Amazon Italy. We have been unable to confirm this, but the images match those on Amazon France. Based on the images published by Pocketnow, Samsung will release the Galaxy Tab S8 and Tab S8+ in pink and silver and not just the black colourway that has leaked previously. However, it appears that Samsung will only sell the Tab S8 Ultra in a single colour.
Microsoft has announced that its latest flagship 2-in-1, the Surface Pro 8, is now available for Indian customers to pre-order. It has been joined in this new market by its 7+ counterpart, which also has Tiger Lake silicon but lacks a 120Hz refresh rate. However, the models of either available to non-business customers are limited.

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Microsoft India has announced that the latest Surface Pro 8 convertible has landed. This device is the first of its line with a 120Hz refresh rate display, and also has Thunderbolt 4 ports thanks to its 11th-gen Intel platform. On that note, the 13-inch flagship has arrived with a choice of Core i5-1135G7 and i7-1185G7 processors and with its LTE variants.

It is joined in going to pre-order in India by its immediate predecessor, the Surface Pro 7+, for consumers. On that note, most of the Pro 8 SKUs now available in this market are intended for enterprise customers, with only certain i5/8GB RAM variants and the i7 with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD approved for retail. They will start from INR 1,15,999 (~US$1,560) in their new market

Nevertheless, this potentially leaves some employees and other workers in luck throughout the year. The Pro 8 and 7+ are now to be found through platforms such as Reliance Digital and Amazon, and will ship from February 15, 2022.

Surface Pro 7s might be more of a deal on Amazon.in soon.
Reportedly, only one region will receive the Galaxy S22 series exclusively with the Exynos 2200. While North America will continue to have access to Snapdragon versions of Samsung Galaxy S flagships, Europe will be saddled with Exynos variants of the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+ and the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Other regional variations have been revealed too, including those for Africa and Southeast Asia.

4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Benchmark , Biotech , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel , Intel Evo , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Leaks / Rumors , Linux / Unix , List , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Raptor Lake , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Wi-Fi 7 , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) , Zen 4 Ticker

It is no longer a secret that the Galaxy S22 series will arrive soon. Not only has Samsung confirmed that it will host its next Galaxy Unpacked event in February, but also that people can reserve a Galaxy S22 series handset today. The company has revealed the Exynos 2200 too, its latest flagship SoC for smartphones. For reference, the Exynos 2200 is the first SoC of its kind with an RDNA 2-derived GPU, developed in cooperation with AMD.

Typically, Samsung equips its Galaxy S smartphones with Snapdragon SoCs in markets like North America, which would be the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. However, it remains unclear what regions will receive Exynos variants and which will receive Snapdragon ones. According to @dohyun854, who based their findings on firmware development, only one market will receive Exynos variants exclusively.

Specifically, Europe will continue to receive Exynos models, as with the Galaxy S21 series. Samsung has developed Exynos and Snapdragon firmware for some markets though, including Africa. Presumably, Samsung plans to release both SoC variants in these regions and will vary them on a per-country basis. @dohyun854 claims that the Exynos and Snapdragon split between markets will be as follows. All variants should debut on February 8 or February 9, the expected dates of Samsung's next Galaxy Unpacked event.
Samsung has started teasing the Galaxy S22 series, claiming that it has created the 'most noteworthy S series device' that it has ever created. Like last year, Samsung will allow people in the US to reserve a Galaxy S22 series device without seeing them beforehand.

Samsung has already unveiled the Exynos 2200, although it is expected to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in North American models. Additionally, numerous marketing assets have already leaked of the Galaxy S22 series, most recently with the Galaxy S22 Ultra in four colours.

Reservations will begin at 07:00 PT/10:00 ET, but you do not need to spend anything on making a reservation. Instead, doing so allows you to pre-order the Galaxy S22 series device of your choice after Samsung announces them. Like the equivalent Galaxy S21 series event, people who reserved the chance to pre-order a Galaxy S22 device will receive a US$50 credit, redeemable against a future Samsung Galaxy product.

It is worth bearing in mind that Samsung tends to announce better bundles after it has released a new smartphone. For example, the company now allows people to claim a free Galaxy Watch4 when people a Galaxy Z Fold3 or a Galaxy Z Flip3. Based on rumours, Samsung will host its next Galaxy Unpacked event on February 8 or February 9, with pre-orders commencing on the same day.
New Delhi/Ottawa/Washington, Jan 21 (UNI) The bodies of four Indians, including an infant and a teen, have been found frozen to death at the Canada-US border, in a tragic turn to a suspected border crossing attempt.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has expressed shock at the deaths and directed the Indian ambassadors in the US and Canada to urgently respond to the situation.

The EAM said in a tweet:
Cong should publish white paper on Rahul's tour instead of raising questions on PM's foreign tour: Sushil 04 May 2022 | 12:25 AM Patna, May 3 (UNI) BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Modi demanded from Congress to publish white paper regarding foreign tours of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi. see more..

Construction of three chariots begins on Akshaya Tritiya 03 May 2022 | 10:23 PM Puri, May 3 (UNI) Rath Anukula( Beginning of construction of three chariots for annual Rath Yatra) and 21 days Chandan Yatra began on the auspicious occasion of Akshaya Tritiya on the Tuesday amid tight security. see more..

Sital Sasthi Yatra likely to be celebrated this year 03 May 2022 | 10:03 PM Sambalpur, May 3 (UNI) The Sital Sasthi festival, which marks the marriage of Lord Shiva with his consort Goddess Parvati, is likely to be held in a grand way this year. see more..

Naveen disburses financial assistance to nearly 40 lakh farmers under KALIA scheme 03 May 2022 | 9:41 PM Bhubaneswar, May 3 (UNI) Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik disbursed financial assistance to farmers under the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya on Tuesday. see more..
Franciscan Health Crown Point attained a three-star rating in coronary artery bypasses from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, its highest possible mark for patient care.

The hospital in Crown Point earned the highest distinction of quality in North America for cardiac surgery through a rigorous process that involved submitting 23 pages of data for each patient, including how they fared after the operation. It's the "crown jewel of rating systems," according to Franciscan Health Crown Point cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon J. Michael Tuchek.

Only 10% to 15% of hospitals across the country obtain a three-star rating for open heart surgery. Franciscan Health Crown Point was the only one in northern Indiana to receive the honor last year.

It was determined based on three years' worth of data on specific procedures.

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons congratulates STS National Database participants who have received three-star ratings, said David M. Shahian, chairman of the Task Force on Quality Measurement. Participation in the Database and public reporting demonstrates a commitment to quality improvement in health care delivery and helps provide patients and their families with meaningful information to help them make informed decisions about health care.

Most patients need six to eight days in the hospital to recover from open heart surgery. Franciscan Health Crown Point lowered that average to a median of four days with nearly half of its patients being released in three days.

It really does take a village, cardiothoracic surgeon Jason Fitzgerald said. There are also family practitioners and cardiologists who make referrals and take care of patients before and after, along with other specialists including pulmonologists and renal doctors, to name a few. All provide additional support to the heart surgery team, creating a truly multidisciplinary team approach to heart care here."

He credited surgeons, anesthesiologists, ICU staff and other health care personnel for earning the patient outcomes necessary for the distinction.

Despite these extremely trying times, with COVID becoming such a major focus, we managed to work through that and improve the quality outcomes anyway," he said. "Thats truly no small feat.

Tuchek, also a professor of cardiac surgery at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, said the honor showed that patients can be the best possible heart care without having to go to the city.

Having grown up here, this was really important to me, personally," he said. "You can come right here to a top-rated cardiac program, providing university-level care in a community setting.

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A longtime worker's compensation attorney, whose clients included the city of Hammond, is being mourned in what's being described as a "big loss for the legal community."

Jeff Sturm, a 58-year-old Valparaiso resident, has served as a lawyer in Northwest Indiana since 1989. He handled many worker's compensation claims, arguing many cases before the Indiana Court of Appeals.

"In my 25 years as a judge, Jeff Sturm was one of the finest attorneys that ever appeared before me," Worker's Compensation Judge James Sarkisian said. "He was a gentleman with a great knowledge for the law who was a great attorney for his clients. As fine an attorney as he was, he was a better person. We've all lost a very good person."

Sturm had several published Appellate Court decisions on worker's compensation issues. He spoke at many worker's compensation seminars and served in the national College of Workers Compensation Lawyers.

He was widely respected in the Northwest Indiana legal community, Sarkisian said.

"I never saw him in a bad mood," Sarkisian said. "He was always upbeat, always positive, always willing to help and discuss what's going on. He handled his health issues with great valor and honor. You never knew anything was wrong. He was such an upbeat human being, just a great guy and a fine individual. He had a quick wit and was very bright. He was always willing to help attorneys. This is a very big loss for the legal community."

Sturm was a Valparaiso law school graduate who long served as the Hammond's worker's compensation attorney.

He was long partners with attorney George Patrick. Their law firm in Crown Point was ranked as one of the best in the state by Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers and U.S. News and World Reports.

"We are going forward the best we can," Patrick said. "I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that without him standing with me all these years our office and me personally would have never gotten where we are today in the workers compensation world, both in the state of Indiana and nationally. Jeff was a great person and a very clever attorney."

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CROWN POINT  A third alleged gang member was arrested Thursday in connection with the fatal shooting of a mentally disabled man as he rode his bicycle May 25 in North Hammond, officials said.

Javier Mendez, 41, was arrested about 2 p.m. in the 10500 block of Avenue H in Chicago by officers with the U.S. Marshals Service Great Lakes Fugitive Task Force and Hammond police, authorities said.

Mendez was wanted on charges he contributed to the murder of 26-year-old Asael Wilson, of East Chicago, a U.S. Marshals Service spokesman said.

Charges filed against Mendez in Lake Criminal Court remained sealed pending his extradition to Lake County.

David C. Velazquez, 21, of Hammond, and Terrell Bradley, 23, of Calumet City, were previously arrested in Wilson's homicide, police said.

Velazquez has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder. His attorney, John Cantrell, said, "Police have the wrong guy."

Bradley's case was unsealed last week, but he remained in custody at the Cook County Jail awaiting extradition to Lake County. His attorney, Michael A. Campbell, said his client was innocent of the charge.

According to court records, Mendez owned the aqua-colored minivan used in Wilson's homicide and was riding in the front passenger seat during the shooting.

Police obtained surveillance video and bank records that showed Mendez used a debit card at a toll booth as he and his co-defendants fled onto the Indiana Toll Road after the shooting, documents state.

Detectives obtained surveillance video that showed Wilson was riding his bicycle north on Indianapolis Boulevard about 7:45 p.m. May 25 when an aqua-colored minivan turned south from State Line Road and accelerated toward him.

As the van rounded the corner, its passenger sliding door opened and a backseat passenger pointed a gun out and fired at Wilson at point-blank range, court records state.

Several muzzle flashes appeared to come from the firearm, and Wilson was knocked off his bicycle, records state.

Wilson immediately stood up and limped across the street into a McDonald's restaurant, where he collapsed, and staff called for medics.

The aqua-colored van continued traveling south on Indianapolis Boulevard and took the on-ramp to the Indiana Toll Road, records state.

Police identified the backseat passenger as Velazquez using facial recognition technology and surveillance video, according to documents.

A Chicago police officer identified Bradley as the van's driver after Hammond police circulated surveillance images of him, documents state.

All three co-defendants are alleged to be members of the Spanish Vice Lords street gang, court records state.

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Sarah Reese Lake County Courts and Social Justice Reporter Sarah covers crime, courts and public safety. She began her career at The Times in 2004. Contact her at sarah.reese@nwi.com or 219-933-3351. Follow Sarah Reese 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
Lake County Sheriffs Department lost a longtime officer and veteran who will be remembered for his dedication to serving the community, Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. said.

Lt. Bryan Kersey, 56, of Winfield, died Thursday after battling cancer, police said.

A large police escort for Kersey went through Jasper County to Lake County following his death, according to Jasper County Sheriffs Chief Deputy Jason Wallace.

WATCH NOW: Riding Shotgun with NWI Cops: Lake County Detective Bryan Kersey The eleventh installment of "Riding Shotgun with NWI Cops" follows Lake County Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Bryan Kersey, who is part of a three-man team that does routine compliance checks on registered sex offenders.

"As a career police officer, he dedicated his entire life to protect and serve others as a member of the United States Army," Martinez said. "He served with the Lake County Sheriffs Department for 18 years, where hes remembered as a gentle giant, available to help his colleagues or a 'brother biker at any time without hesitation."

Before joining the Lake County Sheriff's Department, Kersey worked at the Schererville Police Department for six years. The Schererville Police Department offered their condolences to Kersey's loved ones.

Kersey was married to his wife for 33 years and was a father of two, Martinez said.

"Lt. Kersey was an outstanding police officer who represented the Lake County Sheriffs Police Department with pride and distinction," Martinez said. "He was a skilled traffic reconstructionist, and also earned nearly a dozen commendations for his exemplary performance with various cases from auto theft to the apprehension of fleeing suspects."

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A man accused of killing a Gary businessman early Jan. 14 attempted to throw a handgun into a ditch during a traffic stop the following night in Tippecanoe County, Indiana State Police said.

Dariel E. Dodd, 42, was charged this week in Lake Criminal Court in a shooting about 3 a.m. Jan. 14 that killed 60-year-old Norman Bailey and wounded a 28-year-old man inside Bailey's Blue Room Lounge, 224 E. 16th Ave. in Gary.

A state trooper stopped Dariel E. Dodd, 42, for several traffic violations about 9:45 p.m. Saturday on Interstate 65, just south of the Dayton/Lafayette exit, police said.

Dodd, who had addresses in Indianapolis and Gary, also was suspected of leaving the scene of a property damage crash about 20 miles south on I-65, just north of an exit for Lebanon, Indiana, police said.

The trooper initially suspected Dodd was intoxicated, but further investigation led police to believe Dodd was under the influence of a controlled substance, according to a news release.

When Dodd attempted to throw a handgun into a ditch, the trooper took him into custody, police said.

The trooper obtained a warrant for a blood draw, the results of which are pending.

Dodd was charged in Tippecanoe County with felony possession of a firearm by a felon and obstruction of justice and misdemeanor possession of a handgun without a license, two counts of operating while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a crash.

While in custody at the Tippecanoe County Jail, Dodd was charged in Lake Criminal Court in connection with Bailey's homicide.

According to court records, Dodd accused Bailey's relative of killing his brother before shooting Bailey and another man multiple times as the Blue Room Lounge was closing.

Dodd was awaiting extradition to Lake County on charges of murder, attempted murder, unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, aggravated battery and a firearm enhancement.

Dodd's allegations of a previous homicide remained under investigation, Gary police said.

Dodd has a 2017 felony conviction for criminal confinement in Marion County.

He was sentenced to six years in prison, followed by three on probation, according to Marion Superior Court records.

He admitted in December to violating the terms of his probation, online court records show. A judge agreed to allow him to remain on probation but required him to submit to biweekly drug screens for 60 days.

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CROWN POINT  The man charged in a Gary businessman's murder last week gave a woman at a nightclub his number, which police later used to track him down, court records state.

A witness told police Dariel E. Dodd, 42, accused one of Norman Bailey's relatives of killing his brother as Bailey's nightclub, the Blue Room Lounge, was closing about 3 a.m. Friday.

A witness told police Bailey said Dodd's brother's homicide had nothing to do with him, and a bartender stepped between Bailey and Dodd, according to Lake Criminal Court records.

A 28-year-old man, who was at the bar to help clear out the crowd, told police he asked Dodd to leave and Dodd initially said, "OK."

Dodd then turned back around and shot Bailey several times, according to court records.

The 28-year-old ran at Dodd and grabbed for the gun, but he fell and Dodd began shooting at him, records state.

The man was shot seven times, court records showed. Medical professionals were unsure how much mobility he will regain after the wounds heal.

Bailey, 60, owned the Blue Room Lounge and several other businesses in the city, and he served on the Gary Community School Corp. advisory board.

Mayor Jerome Prince recalled Bailey as a "hands-on leader who showed the best our Gary community has to offer."

Dodd's allegations of a previous homicide remained under investigation, police said.

During their initial investigation, detectives spoke with a woman at the lounge, who told them Dodd had approached her before the shooting and asked for her phone number. Dodd gave her his phone number, she called it and heard his phone ring, records allege.

Police ran a search for the number and found it returned to Dodd, who has addresses in Indianapolis and Gary, records state.

Police also discovered Dodd's photo on file with the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles matched surveillance images of the suspect in Bailey's homicide, according to court documents.

On Monday, a Lake County e-911 operator notified detectives Dodd was in custody in Tippecanoe County on unrelated charges.

Dodd was charged Wednesday in Lake Criminal Court with murder, attempted murder, unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, aggravated battery and a firearm enhancement.

He was expected to make an initial appearance after extradition to Lake County, officials said.

Dodd has a 2017 felony conviction for criminal confinement in Marion County.

He was sentenced to six years in prison, followed by three on probation, according to Marion Superior Court records. He remained on probation at the time of Bailey's homicide.

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VALPARAISO  The raging COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in yet another delay in a nearly two-year-old Valparaiso murder case.

Porter County's continued red designation, or the highest possible status for the spread of COVID-19, forced Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer to declare a health emergency and postpone the Feb. 1 start of the trial for John Williams, 29, of Valparaiso, according to a court document.

The trial had been delayed earlier this month from Jan. 11 for the same reason.

A new trial date will be discussed during a status hearing Jan. 28, according to the court.

Williams' trial has been postponed multiple times, including to allow for negotiations between the defense and prosecutors.

Williams is accused of holding down and battering a man at the man's Valparaiso apartment Jan. 29, 2020, while his friend, Travis Thompson, 36, of Valparaiso, searched the unit for marijuana and THC wax, police said.

During the encounter, the man being held down grabbed a knife and, while targeting Williams, wound up stabbing Thompson, according to police.

After making a failed attempt to get Thompson into his vehicle, Williams and a woman drove away, leaving him behind bleeding profusely in the 700 block of Elm Street, police said. Police and paramedics were unable to revive Thompson, and it was later determined he died as a result of blood loss caused by a stab wound on his upper left leg that severed the femoral artery.

Williams is charged with murder, two counts of robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, two counts of robbery resulting in bodily injury, aggravated battery when assault poses a substantial risk of death, two counts of robbery and one count of battery resulting in serious bodily injury, court records show.

A habitual offender enhancement also was filed against Williams, which claims he had three or more unrelated felony convictions prior to this most recent case.

Police said they learned during their investigation that Williams and the woman "discussed taking Thompson's body to an abandoned residence in Gary, however, they did not, based upon how fast he expired."

The woman with Williams later told police they discarded the clothes Williams was wearing on a burn pile. The clothes were retrieved later by police.

A witness reportedly told police Williams and Thompson went to the apartment without money and with the intention of stealing drugs.

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The U.S. Senate unanimously approved Thursday the nomination of former U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, the tiny European city-state that's home to Pope Francis and global headquarters for the Roman Catholic Church.

In his new role, the University of Notre Dame graduate plans to ensure the safety and security of Americans in the embassy and at the Vatican, while also working to promote peace and the release of political prisoners alongside the Vatican and Catholic organizations.

Donnelly has said as ambassador he will "bring the same public service ethic, collaborative mindset and focus on delivering for the American people that defined my time in Congress to the task of expanding and deepening our partnership with the Holy See."

Records show Donnelly is the first Vatican ambassador to be appointed by a Catholic American president, Democrat Joe Biden, because the United States did not have diplomatic relations with the Holy See during the tenure of the nation's first Catholic president, Democrat John F. Kennedy (1961-63).

Donnelly represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate from 2013 to 2019. Earlier, Donnelly served as congressman for eastern Porter County, LaPorte County and north-central Indiana from 2007 to 2013.

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With snowfall totals in some areas expected to keep growing, the highest accumulation recorded in the Region stands at 10 inches, data shows.

"It was what we expected, with LaPorte County getting the most snow," said Matt Holiner, chief meteorologist in the Midwest for Lee Enterprises. "The heaviest snowfall is over. There will be light to moderate snow continuing overnight with flurries into the morning."

As of 6 p.m. Thursday, Westville is reporting the most snowfall so far at 10 inches, followed by 8 inches in Trail Creek and 7 inches in Michigan City, he said.

The LaPorte County Sheriff's Office reports the heaviest snowfall in the northern half of the county, specifically between Range Road and County Line Road.

In Porter County, the highest snowfall totals were reported to be 3 inches in Valparaiso and Town of Pines. Lake County did not have any recorded accumulative totals listed on weather sites as of Thursday evening.

Travel was the most hazardous during the early morning hours Thursday with low visibility and rapidly changing conditions. Michigan City-area resident Julina Adams, who posted a photo of a snow-covered section of Wozniak Road just south of County Road 400, said road conditions were poor east of U.S. 421.

"County roads have snow on them up past my bumper and the road is totally invisible," she said.

Ivy Tech in Michigan City and LaPorte; Michigan City Area Schools and Purdue University Northwest's Westville campus closed their buildings Thursday due to the heavy snowfall in LaPorte County.

The last of the flurries are expected to end by mid-morning Friday as the snow band gets wider and shifts west, losing intensity.

"Biggest impacts are still expected to the north and east of Portage and Valparaiso in Porter County and across LaPorte County," he said. "An additional 2 to 4 inches of snow will fall in this area. Lake, Newton, and Jasper County will see far less snow and travel impacts are not expected."

Lake County may see some snow on and off overnight but accumulation is expected to be less than an inch. Official totals for accumulations will not be available until Friday morning.

Holiner said in LaPorte and Porter County, drivers should still be cautious and avoid traveling if possible, as roads will take time to be cleared.

Michigan City Area Schools announced Thursday night that in-person classes were canceled in favor of online classes,due to the weather.

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Bob Kasarda Porter/LaPorte County Courts and Social Justice Reporter Bob is a 23-year veteran of The Times. He covers county government and courts in Porter County, federal courts, police news and regional issues. He also created the Vegan in the Region blog, is an Indiana University grad and lifelong region resident. Follow Bob Kasarda 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
CROWN POINT  Lake County Clerk Lorenzo Arredondo is recovering from a Jan. 13 fall that left him hospitalized.

Jim Wieser, chairman for the Lake County Democratic Party, issued a news release Thursday confirming weeklong rumors the 80-year-old county clerk suffered a fall outside his Crown Point home.

We are heartened to hear of the clerks recovery and progress and thank all for their prayers and support. We look forward to his return to work," Wieser said.

Wieser said the clerks office has been open to the public and fully functional over the last week in Arredondos absence.

Wieser said he decided to make the announcement of Arredondos injury after conferring with Lorenzos older brother, Raymond.

Our party continues to support Clerk Arredondo in his bid for reelection. He has served the county both as judge and clerk with honor and distinction," Wieser said.

Voters first elected Arredondo county clerk in 2018 to be the record-keeper for 17 Lake Circuit and Superior Court judges.

Arredondo was among the first candidates in line to run for reelection when the candidate filing period began Jan. 5. He is currently unopposed in the May 3 Democratic Party primary.

Arredondo was born and raised in East Chicago. His parents, Maria and Miguel, immigrated from Mexico.

Arredondo received a law degree from the University of San Francisco and has been a practicing Indiana attorney since 1974.

He previously served as a Lake Superior Court, County Division judge for four years in the 1970s. Voters elected him Lake Circuit Court judge between 1980 to 2010.

Arredondo was the longest-serving Hispanic state trial judge in the nation when he retired from the bench.

Arredondo won the Democratic Party nomination in 2016 for Indiana Attorney General, losing that year to Republican Curtis Hill.

During his tenure as Circuit Court judge, he served as vice chairman of the Indiana Supreme Court Commission on Race and Gender Fairness.

Arredondo removed barriers to non-English speaking individuals involved in judicial matters through the creation of a certified court interpreters system, according to Council on Legal Education Opportunity in Virginia.

He also served as a faculty member of the National Judicial College and won multiple awards for his public service, including one from the National Hispanic Bar Association.

The county named its East Chicago satellite courthouse in honor of Lorenzo Arredondo in 2010.

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New Delhi, Jan 21 (UNI) Congress on Friday launched a manifesto for youth ahead of the Uttar Pradesh polls and promised 20 lakh jobs, including eight lakh for women in the state.

The manifesto was unveiled by former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Congress General Secretary and in charge for Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi.

"We have talked extensively with youth of Uttar Pradesh before creating this manifesto. The thought is that the future of the youth of Uttar Pradesh, it's a strategy how we will get them employment," Priyanka Gandhi said.
CEDAR LAKE  After decades of public service, Rick Eberly has retired as the Cedar Lake town manager. Current St. John Town Manager Chris Salatas will take his place.

Both men have a wide array of experience working in municipal government. Salatas first got a taste for local politics when he ran for the Lowell Town Council at just 22 years old, while he was studying at Indiana University Northwest. Elected in 2014, he served as council president for the majority of his term.

Always interested in politics, Salatas originally had his sights set on federal government. He worked as Northwest Indiana Regional Director for U.S. Sen. Todd Young before being named St. John town manager in May of 2021. Salatas said he has enjoyed his transition to focusing on local government because he could effect change much faster at the local level.

"It is extremely rewarding as you are driving down a street and you can say 'Oh, yeah, we paved that road last year, and that new park equipment is thanks to a grant we wrote,' Salatas said.

Looking back on his time with St. John, Salatas said he is most proud of the grant the town received to expand Cline Avenue.

Before his final day on Feb. 4, Salatas said he believes the town will have a consultant under contract so that engineering on the multi-year project can begin.

Salatas was named town manager in May, succeeding Craig Phillips, who had resigned from the position after 10 months.

Salatas will begin his new role in Cedar Lake Feb. 7, taking over for Eberly, who retired Jan. 14 after working in Region government for over three decades.

Eberly started as the St. John zoning administrator when the town was establishing the Building and Planning Department, worked with the town of Dyer for 24 years, and then returned to St. John in 2016 before becoming the Cedar Lake town manager in 2020.

Over the years Eberly said he has seen the area explode with growth.

Salatas is coming to Cedar Lake right as the town begins some "ground-breaking" projects, Eberly said. After a decades-long effort, the dredging of Cedar Lake will begin this spring. The town is also looking to break ground on a new public administration and safety building that would house the Town Hall, police station and fire station.

In meeting with Eberly, Salatas said he was given a "laundry list" of projects. Salatas said it will be a pleasure following in Eberly's footsteps.

Chris is going to have his hands full," Eberly said. "But I think he will be the right personality fit as well as professional fit."

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VALPARAISO  Throughout the last three mayoral administrations Valparaiso has continued to develop its downtown, moving from an area riddled with vacant shops and few attractions, to a hub of dining and retail. A new apartment complex could push the city's progress even further.

During a Thursday meeting, the Redevelopment Commission heard a presentation from Hageman, a real estate investment and development company based out of Carmel. Hageman first sets its sights on Valparaiso in early 2021, searching for a "transformational" project, Hageman Managing Director Tom Dickey said.

Valparaiso Mayor Matt Murphy said the project will be just that, transforming the current downtown into a residential draw.

Dubbed "The Linc," the apartment complex will consist of three separate four-story buildings, housing a total of about 121 units. The buildings will form an "L" shape and the first floor will be filled with retail and restaurants.

The Linc will sit on the north side of Lincolnway between Michigan Avenue and Morgan Boulevard, where the Round the Clock restaurant is currently located.

Whats really exciting about Valpo is there is a really thriving downtown here already and we can just really become a piece of the puzzle," Dickey said.

Dickey said he and Round the Clock co-owner John Christodoulakis, met over a series of months before they "ultimately reached a price they were really happy with." Round the Clock will continue to operate until construction begins on the project this August. Christodoulakis said he thinks the development will be good for the city and that the restaurant will continue to serve Valparaiso at a new location.

A new multi-level parking unit is also coming to the 300 block of Lincolnway. It will be called the "Lincoln Highway Garage" and will include approximately 300 parking spaces for the new housing as well as additional parking for surrounding businesses. During the Thursday meeting, the Redevelopment Commission approved a $19,700 parking study that will be completed by WGI to analyze the downtown parking needs and determine the size of the structure.

Apartments will range from studios to three bedrooms likely costing $1,000 to $1,800 per month, Dickey said. Each unit will include modern kitchens with stainless steel appliances, and an in-unit washer and dryer. The Linc will also have a fitness center, coffee bar, media rooms, outdoor patio space and a pet washing station. Dickey said they are also trying to get balconies on every unit.

The entire project is estimated to cost $27.5 million, Hageman received $5 million in State of Indiana Tax Credits and $3 million in Redevelopment Commission TIF Bonds. Hageman hopes to finish the first building in October of 2023 so they can begin collecting rent before finishing the the entire project in January of 2024. Dickey said they are currently about 20% finished designing The Linc.

Patrick Lyp, attorney for the Redevelopment Commission said "bringing a larger development into a denser area" requires a lot of skill, but based on their previous work, he is certain Hageman is a "perfect fit." In an effort to craft a complex that is cohesive with the rest of the downtown, Dickey said they chose to split the apartment into three buildings. He also said red brick will be heavily-incorporated as it can be see throughout the downtown.

The Linc will both continue Valparaiso's ongoing downtown development and address a persistent need. The number one priority that came out of the 2017 Valparaiso HyettPalma Downtown Action Agenda was downtown housing and one of the four key priorities that came out of the 2021 Valparaiso Residential Market Analysis was denser housing types in the downtown.

It is easy to forget the magnitude of change and how far we have come, in many ways this project was envisioned by our original downtown plan," Murphy said. "This project will breathe life into the oldest urban core of our city, the downtown.

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While an influx of followers can be confusing for therapists who are just looking to let off a little steam online, some view it as an opportunity to expand their client base. Marquis Norton, a licensed professional counselor in Hampton Roads, Va., posts under the TikTok account @drnortontherapy. (His bio reads: CEO of therapy.) He started his account in February, after a friend whos a psychiatric nurse practitioner had also begun posting on TikTok. By summer, Norton had 100,000 followers. Thats when I said Im a content creator now, he said. Im an influencer. He has since hired a team of two interns to help manage his social media accounts, which he thinks of as marketing for his private practice. Like other therapists interviewed for this piece, demand has spiked for his services since he started going viral. He only just started taking new patients again, after working with other counselors to address his full outpatient practice and long wait list.

The line between content creator and licensed professional blurs often in TikToks frenetic ecosystem. For therapists in particular, often pegged as stoic, notepad-clutching intellectuals, showing off social aspects of their personalities can feel like rebellion. Therapists are trained primarily to be a blank slate, Dr. Tracy said. Were told not to talk about ourselves, to act like we dont have a past. That distinction, she said, can be a barrier to healing. Dr. Tracy posts openly about her experiences with mental illness and trauma; she said she has heard from more than 150 teenagers with symptoms like hers that they didnt think they could become therapists themselves until they saw her videos.

Drawing a distinction between educating young people about mental health and offering therapeutic advice can be difficult. A group of about 40 TikTok therapists have joined a Facebook group to discuss the challenges and offer each other advice in safe spaces. They exchange countless text messages and hold monthly Zoom meetings where they discuss the ethical dilemmas that come with creating content  how to talk about suicide or respond to public comments  and trends theyve seen in their own practices.

Whats concerning, I think for everybody, is oversimplification, said Lisa Henderson, a licensed professional counselor and past southern region chairwoman at the American Counseling Association. She worries that on TikTok, where videos are necessarily short, mental health treatments can be presented as quick, easy fixes, instead of a long slog of hard work. It can be misleading, she said, more so than intentionally harmful.

Therapists need to be careful to urge patients to not self-diagnose, Dr. Tracy said. The tips she offers online are educational, she stressed, not diagnostic. We want them to absorb the information and then decide if they need to talk to a professional, versus them thinking its actual therapeutic advice, she said.
In less than three weeks, weve been in East Harlem, the Bronx and Staten Island, Commissioner Sewell said, in reference to the locations of other recent shootings. She continued to emphasize that she views illegal guns as the core problem fueling violence.

The officer was the second to be shot in 36 hours, with the shootings coming as Mayor Eric Adams, early in his administration, seeks to deliver on the public safety message that was central to his campaign.

Since taking office on Jan. 1, Mr. Adams has traveled to the scenes of several violent episodes that together have illustrated the challenges he faces after making policing and safety focal points of his platform.

He was traveling to Washington, D.C., for a national conference of mayors on Thursday, but the first deputy mayor, Lorraine Grillo, spoke at the news conference in his place.

Ms. Grillo said that she had met with the detective and his family at the hospital on Thursday and offered them support. She added that Mr. Adams was monitoring the situation.
Mayor Eric Adams, in his first trip to Washington since taking office in New York City, encouraged mayors from across the country to be honest about the immense challenges facing cities as they recover from the pandemic, and to address them by being radically practical.

Mr. Adams outlined a national urban agenda  and perhaps a blueprint for Democrats in the years ahead  that focuses on public safety, child care and infrastructure and called for more federal funding for programs like violence interrupters.

This is how we create safer, more prosperous cities as we recover  this is how we bring our country back, Mr. Adams said on Thursday in a featured speaking slot at the United States Conference of Mayors. Thats being radically practical.

Mr. Adams, a former police captain who has called himself the future of the Democratic Party, has captured national attention in his first weeks in office, even becoming the subject of a Saturday Night Live skit about his pledge to bring swagger to City Hall.
United Nations, Jan 20 (UNI) India has expressed strong condemnation of Mondays terror attack in Abu Dhabi, launched by the Houthis in which two Indians were killed, and said the UN Security Council should unequivocally condemn the attack.

Indias Ambassador to the UN, TS Tirumurti, addressing an open debate on the Middle East in the Council on Wednesday, expressed strong condemnation of the recent terror attack in Abu Dhabi, in which two Indians have tragically lost their lives.



Such an attack on innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure is completely unacceptable, he said, and termed it a blatant violation of international law and against all civilian norms.

India stands in solidarity with the UAE and extends its full support for an unequivocal condemnation of this terror attack by the Council, he stressed.

Indias statement at the UNSC comes after External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Tuesday strongly condemned the terror attack launched by the Houthi rebels in Abu Dhabi during his telephonic conversation with the UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The EAM had condemned the terror attack in the strongest terms and had emphasized that in this day and age, such an attack on innocent civilians was completely unacceptable and against all civilized norms.

He also conveyed Indias strong solidarity with UAE in the face of such an attack.

"Given its principled position against terrorism, India will stand with UAE in international forums on this issue, he conveyed to the UAE", an official statement said.

The UAE envoy to the UN Lana Nusseibeh on Wednesday told the Security Council that more than 90 countries have joined the Emirates in condemning the attack on Abu Dhabi.

Council members are set to discuss the strikes in emergency talks on Friday, diplomats said.

Nusseibeh along with envoys from Israel, Britain, India, the US and others mentioned the strikes briefly at separate discussions in the chamber on Wednesday.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, offered her condolences to the UAE and said Washington condemns in no unqualified terms Monday's terrorist attack in Abu Dhabi".

Also addressing the council, Israels UN ambassador Gilad Erdan condemned the strikes and called for tough international action against Iran, which has been accused of arming the Houthi rebels.

He offered his deepest condolences over the abhorrent attack by the Iranian-sponsored Houthi terror group.

It remains unclear, however, what action the Council will take.

Last week, Council members agreed on a separate statement condemning the Houthi seizure of a UAE-flagged cargo vessel on January 2, on which seven Indian sailors are being held captive, besides four from other nations.

However, the Houthi rebel group is known to flout UN resolutions.

The UAE joined the UNs top body for a two-year term beginning on January 1, which will help if take part in meetings, vote on resolutions and help draft official statements.

Fighting in Yemen since 2015 has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and left millions suffering from food and medical shortages.

UNI/RN
But as the populations of Brooklyn and Queens boomed and employers migrated out of Manhattan, the traditional commuting patterns have changed. The shift has been further highlighted by the pandemic: ridership has rebounded far more quickly at stations outside Midtown and Lower Manhattan, New Yorks main business districts.

Brooklyn and Queens have seen robust job growth in technology, hospitality and air travel, said Tom Wright, the president of the Regional Plan Association, an urban policy group.

But the citys transit infrastructure has yet to reflect the change. Of the subways 22 lines, just one, the G train, does not travel into Manhattan and instead goes directly between Brooklyn and Queens. In many cases, residents of one borough looking to go to the other face lengthy subway journeys through Manhattan or bus trips along traffic-choked roads.

For 100 years, our transit system has taken people in and out of Manhattan, Mr. Wright said. This is the first potentially fixed rail transit project that doesnt need to connect to Manhattan.

The Interborough Express would run along a rail line that is currently used for freight trips to Long Island. It has not carried passengers since 1924, and it is currently used for only three freight trips a day.

Proposals for using the existing infrastructure have been promoted for decades, including by the Regional Plan Association, which sought to have the transit link extended to the Bronx along the line being used for the Metro-North expansion.

We always prioritized doing Brooklyn and Queens first, Mr. Wright said. Our hope is that there is still a possible extension or connection to the Bronx.
Meanwhile, tech outfits like Microsoft have money burning giant holes in their khaki pockets, since the pandemic has been very, very good to them. Valuations and cash flow have grown massively in the past year ($3 trillion Apple was merely a $2 trillion company last August). Thats created an urgency to cull the herd and pick up needed assets for the next stage of development before competitors do.

So it ought to come as no surprise that the F.T.C.s Khan and the like-minded Jonathan Kanter, the D.O.J.s antitrust head, announced a push for new merger guidelines this week, ironically the same day that Microsoft and Activision announced their pending nuptials. Its an attempt to rethink their approach in the absence of legislation that might overhaul antitrust laws dating from a hundred years ago.

Importantly, the F.T.C. is trying to rethink how its evaluation of mergers may underemphasize or neglect other impacts such as labor, innovation and what Khan referred to as quality degradation via privacy incursions and more. In other words, will consumers, and smaller competitors, suffer from a bad deal that appears to be a good deal?

Tech companies were singled out in the guidelines request, with a whole part asking for comment on whether digital competition should be treated differently. That will be crucial, given how much data these networks have on us and how many of them are on both sides of the market, as both platforms and sellers.

Its daunting, even as Khan appears frank about the challenges. I think it takes courage. These are enormously well-resourced companies. They are not shy about deploying those resources. And I think in these moments, its important to ensure where were really showing these companies, but also showing the country, that enforcers are not going to back down because of these companies flexing some muscle or kind of trying to intimidate us, she said. But I think what we can see is that inaction after inaction after inaction can have severe costs, and thats what were really trying to reverse.

Khan has a short amount of time to do so and a continuing flood of mergers. If you think investment bankers and their tech clients arent sharpening their pencils over a range of possible targets in gaming and well beyond (hello, Pinterest!), you havent been paying attention.

One tech exec who had gamed out the current situation said to me, in a startling moment of honesty, They look at [these deals] and grind everyone for a bit and say yes.
WASHINGTON  Reprising the rigged-election belief that has become a mantra among their supporters, Republican politicians in at least three states are proposing to establish police forces to hunt exclusively for voter fraud and other election crimes, a category of offenses that experts say is tiny at best.

The plans are part of a new wave of initiatives that Republicans say are directed at voter fraud. They are being condemned by voting rights advocates and even some local election supervisors, who call them costly and unnecessary appeasement of the Republican base that will select primary-election winners for this Novembers midterms and the 2024 presidential race.

The next round of voting clashes comes after the apparent demise of Democratic voting rights legislation in Washington on Thursday. It is a reminder that while the Democratic agenda in Washington seems dead, Republican state-level efforts to make voting harder show no sign of slowing down.

Supporters say the added enforcement will root out instances of fraud and assure the public that everything possible is being done to make sure that American elections are accurate and legitimate. Critics say the efforts can easily be abused and used as political cudgels or efforts to intimidate people from registering and voting. And Democrats say the main reason Republican voters have lost faith in the electoral system is because of the incessant Republican focus on almost entirely imagined fraud.
This is why we are doing all we can to discourage people from crossing the border in an irregular or illicit manner, he said, according to a Reuters translation of his remarks. We know there are great risks in doing so.

It is an absolute and heartbreaking tragedy, Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said at a news conference on Thursday, adding that it appeared that all four had died of exposure to the cold.

She emphasized that investigators considered the four to be victims.

Were very concerned that this attempted crossing may have been facilitated in some way, and that these individuals, including an infant, were left on their own in the middle of a blizzard when the weather hovered around minus 35 degrees Celsius, factoring the wind, Commissioner MacLatchy said. These victims faced not only the cold weather, but also endless fields, large snowdrifts and complete darkness.

The bodies were found after U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped Steve Shand, 47, of Deltona, Fla., on Wednesday, while he was driving a 15-passenger van less than one mile south of the Canadian border in a rural area between the official ports of entry at Lancaster, Minn., and Pembina, N.D., federal prosecutors in Minnesota said.

He was charged with human smuggling. The federal public defender who represents Mr. Shand, according to court records, did not immediately respond to an email on Friday.
WASHINGTON  President Biden entered the White House promising to engage with Congress in a way that few presidents ever had, thanks to his three decades as a senator. A year in, with much of his agenda mired in congressional gridlock, Mr. Biden is changing his approach  a stark admission that his approach to governing so far has fallen short.

Mr. Biden will retreat from the tangle of day-to-day negotiations with members of his own party that have made him seem powerless to advance key priorities, according to senior White House advisers. The change is part of an intentional reset in how he spends his time, aimed at emphasizing his power to govern as president, rather than getting trapped in a series of congressional battles.

Four internal strategy memos drafted by White House advisers this week lay out the shift ahead of Mr. Bidens first State of the Union address to Congress on March 1: The president will ramp up his attacks on Republicans ahead of the midterm election campaigns to help Democratic candidates. He will travel the nation more and engage with voters. And he will focus more on what he has already accomplished than on legislative victories he hopes to achieve.

The president is also planning to use his executive power to help former inmates return to society and reform police departments, after legislation on the latter issue failed to pass last year, according to several White House aides and a person familiar with the plans, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request from abortion providers in Texas that a federal judge be allowed to take prompt action on their challenge to a state law that bans most abortions after six weeks. The practical effect of the order, the three liberal justices wrote in dissent, was to let the law stay in place indefinitely.

This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas, who have a right to control their own bodies, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent.

The majority gave no reasons for its ruling, which followed a decision last month allowing the providers to sue at least some state officials to try to block or limit the law. That victory was an empty one, the dissenting justices wrote on Thursday, because the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, refused to return the case to the trial judge and instead sent it on a legal detour to a state court.

It has been over four months since Texas Senate Bill 8 took effect, Justice Sotomayor wrote. The law immediately devastated access to abortion care in Texas through a complicated private bounty-hunter scheme that violates nearly 50 years of this courts precedents.
Glenn Youngkins winning bid for governor of Virginia last year was closely scrutinized by both parties for signs of what was to come in 2022.

Now, as the Republican begins his work in Richmond, hes still under the microscope.

The governor made big promises on school choice and public safety. He drew in voters from across the spectrum, even the temperamental ex-president. He channeled suburban voters frustrations over masking and remote schooling and gave voice to conservatives fears about what students were learning in the classroom.

He has a lot of people to please.

What hes got for the first time in a very long time is a lot of energy about school choice, about alternatives, about accountability, about public safety and the classrooms that Ive just not seen in 30 years that Ive been in government service, said Bob McDonnell, Virginias last Republican governor.

The base appeal

So far, Youngkins conservative base appears happy.

The governor has issued two executive orders that conservatives have cheered: one banning school mask mandates and the other banning critical race theory, the academic framework that has become a catchall term for conservatives who are critical of how schools teach about racism.
At the risk of asking an obvious question, why does dance need more data?

The lack of artistic and leadership opportunities for women in ballet has been talked about for years. But since nobody was putting numbers to it, it was all anecdotal. And its episodic. I would watch a series of stories or scandals appear, and then it would fall off the radar for a while. Without data, its almost impossible to measure progress. You need longitudinal data to be able to benchmark, to get a sense of where youre going.

What was the initial reaction to Dance Data Project?

The response from the philanthropic community was variously, Why are you fiddling with dance while the planet is on fire? Or No one cares about performing arts any more or Ballet should just be canceled  its a retrograde art form. Critics said that we should rewrite our mission to focus on a long list of other inequities. But only 1.9 percent of giving in the United States is devoted to women and girls [according to a 2021 report by the Womens Philanthropy Institute of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy]. That is particularly of concern in a sector like dance where women dominate at every level except leadership, particularly women of color.

You began tracking modern and contemporary companies last year  do you plan to expand your research to racial disparities or other diversity issues?

I think its important to look at all aspects of equity from different angles. It is women of color who have been most affected by the she-cession [the pandemic recession, which has taken a disproportionate toll on women], and by Covid layoffs, which have hit dance so hard. We operate on a shoestring, so we dont want to replicate the work of the many other organizations that have prioritized racial equity and other issues around inclusion. But we try to collaborate and help as much as we can with those who have the bandwidth and expertise to conduct that research.

How have ballet companies themselves responded to your reports?

I think just by refusing to stop, by putting out more and more studies, we began to generate interest. Many leaders in the industry were stunned by the statistics we were coming up with.
Golden and Nemeroff first met when attending the Columbia University M.F.A. program and moved to Los Angeles around the same time in 2009. Nemeroff opened Night Gallery a year later in a strip-mall as an artist-run space with nighttime hours (hence the name) before stepping up the business side, easing into regular daytime hours and moving just south of downtown. Goldens last solo show there was Mass Murder in 2014, an ominous walk-in installation inspired by her grandparents living spaces.

Ive wanted to do a show with Samara since then, but shes had a lot of institutional commitments, Nemeroff said. She immediately thought of Golden when she first visited the warehouse nearly a year ago, across the street from her existing gallery space. I dont want to be too insulting but it was kind of a junkyard, with broken mannequins, disco balls, feral cats, Nemeroff said, noting that it had been used for raves. But she said it still felt like a cathedral and had a scale and viewing platform that she knew Golden could put to use. After Guts comes down, Nemeroff plans to use the space for regular exhibitions with a focus on sculpture.
When Anna von Hausswolff, an acclaimed Swedish songwriter and organist, first heard that a conservative Roman Catholic website was calling her a satanist and demanding a concert boycott, she and her team laughed it off.

We thought it was hilarious, von Hausswolff, 35, recalled in a recent interview. The whole day we were laughing,

The site, Riposte Catholique, was firing its readers up ahead of a concert of von Hausswolffs epic pipe organ music at a church in Nantes, a city in the west of France. Some of her fans were goths, the site said, and her songs were more a black Mass than music for a church. A music blogger had called her the high priestess of satanic harmonies, the site noted, and conservative Roman Catholic groups noticed that, on the track Pills, she sings, I made love with the devil.

We said, This is such a great P.R. campaign, Von Hausswolff said. I mean, the High Priestess of satanic art. Wow!
New Delhi, Jan 21 (UNI) Supreme Court judge Justice L Nageswara Rao on Friday recused from hearing a plea filed by former Editor of Tehelka magazine Tarun Tejpal.

Tejpal has challenged a Bombay High Court order that rejected his application for in-camera hearing of State of Goa's appeal against his acquittal in a 2013 sexual assault case.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Rao and comprising Justice B R Gavai, was to hear the appeal filed by the senior journalist.

"I had appeared for the state in 2015. Please list this before some other court," Justice Rao said, and recused himself from the hearing.

Advocate Ankur Chawla will represent Tejpal.

Tejpal in his petition filed before the apex court has urged that the hearing before the high court should not be open to third parties.

A trial court in Goa on May 21, 2021 acquitted Tejpal of all charges levelled against him, including wrongful confinement, assault or criminal force with intent to outrage modesty, sexual harassment and rape against his female colleague.

Following which, the Goa police filed an appeal against the trial court order before the high court.

Tejpal too moved the high court seeking in-camera hearing of the matter.

However, the high court rejected his plea, forcing him to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

According to the prosecution, Tejpal was accused of sexually assaulting a former colleague in an elevator of a hotel in Goa on November 7 and 8 of 2013.

UNI SM ING
THURMAN Its kind of like a white space. But actually there has to be an architecture inside of it. In this piece, we do switch between those two disciplines and mediums in a beautifully compact way.

The spoken text is nevertheless quite musical. What goes into bringing that out in the delivery?

THURMAN Its a lot of breaking things down into patterns of vowel sounds and muscular nouns that paint pictures, and finding tempo and space. This comes from circling vowels and choosing Ts and these kinds of things. But in general, I think that Tom Stoppards use of language is elevated. He has a vocabulary triple the normal usage of anyone. Ive had some very keen eyes help me on that, too. I wouldnt interpret Stoppard with only my mind.

FLEMING I think hes a genius, honestly. During my first engagement at the Royal Opera in London, I saw Arcadia, which was brand-new then, and I was completely hooked. Vocally, Penelope is like a long recitative. Andre was by nature melodic, but for this, because of all the text, Im just singing words on pitch. And Im working as hard as I can to make them understood.

How did this piece change your relationship with Penelope as a character?

FLEMING What I said to Tom was, I want to know why Penelope waited. But that didnt register with him, and hes Tom Stoppard, so obviously he wrote it as he saw it. Theres a lot in the original story that we bristle at today  like the killing of all those handmaidens, because they were doing what they were coerced to do? He didnt soften any of those points.

THURMAN Interestingly, having been a great fan of the myth since childhood, I just bought a nice childrens collection for my 9-year-old and was reading to her and freshly engaging with it. Were dealing with our history; lets be real. Tom did redact one reference, which had to do with womens work. It wasnt coming from him, it was an interpretation of our history, but it was too much.

FLEMING From the beginning, one of the things I connected with was this incredible device of her weaving and unweaving her tapestry every night, for years. To me that notion is so musical. Every version of Goethes Faust has some sort of weaving aria. And that was something I admired, how clever Penelope was, and her strength of conviction.
You know, that really wasnt the challenge. Brian and David did a good job of setting the terms of the Chuck Rhoades-Mike Prince relationship differently from the way that it was with Axe.

For me, the real challenge was turning from an antagonist to a protagonist of sorts. In Season 5, I was the engine of pretty much every scene that I was in. I was on the attack, pursuing this goal, and Axe and Rhoades were reacting to me. In just the first few days of shooting Season 6, I had all these scenes where Im behind the big desk, taking incoming fire. I hadnt really prefigured how different it would be. It uses very different muscles as an actor.

I adored that scene in Season 5 that was just one long take of Prince and Rhoades having breakfast together. I couldnt picture Axe standing still for that long.

Axe really couldnt sit still. He was a shark. From the very first scene, when I got the first script, I felt that the defining characteristic of Mike Prince is that hes home wherever he goes, that hes completely comfortable in his skin. Its also his greatest weapon: He can disarm people by agreeing with them. Its a really fun power move to play, to just agree with someone when they really want to fight.

Princes overtures to Chuck do seem sincere.

A hundred percent. In contrast with Axe, Mike Prince doesnt enjoy having enemies. You got a sense with the old Axe Cap that having an enemy was a good unto itself, almost. It was an engine. It was a driver. Mike Prince is incredibly driven, obviously, but his first instinct is to gain allies. When that doesnt work, thats when other tactics come in.

The very first scene that Paul and I shot in Season 5  it was this very intimate scene, and I was coming to him for help  Paul was just  he was really taken aback. He was like, I have never shot a scene like this in five seasons on the show. It was completely new. He almost felt a little out of sorts. [Laughs.] I dont know who Chuck Rhoades is without an immovable force to push against.
President Biden said yesterday that his first year in office has been a year of challenges, but hed rather focus on the positives, like your Covid test.  SETH MEYERS

It seems like just yesterday our democracy was being held hostage by a cabal of obstructionists who didnt want every vote counted. Oh, wait, that was yesterday.  STEPHEN COLBERT

A year ago, Biden pledged to address Covid, the economy, climate change and racial injustice. And good news  after 12 months of tireless effort, were all getting three free masks.  JIMMY FALLON

President Biden yesterday held a 1 hour 51 minute press conference. It was the first thing Americans actually wished Joe Manchin had stopped.  SETH MEYERS

A lot of people are disappointed with President Biden. His approval rating just reached a new low after his press conference yesterday. The press conference was a success in that he went nearly two hours without having to pee.  JIMMY KIMMEL

He promised no malarkey, but lawyers made him change it to produced in a facility that also processes malarkey.  STEPHEN COLBERT
One of the first killer jokes in the stand-up act of Louie Anderson was about the meanness of older brothers. Imitating one of his own in an intimidating voice, he warned that there was a monster in a swamp nearby. With childlike fear in his eyes, Anderson reported that he avoided that area until I got a little older and a little smarter and a little brother.

Pivoting to the future in an instant, he adopted the older brother voice, pointing to the swamp and telling his sibling: Thats where your real parents live.

Anderson, who died Friday at 68 from complications of cancer, had five brothers and five sisters, but over the course of a sterling comedy career spanning four decades, he established a much larger family of colleagues. The comedian Bob Saget, who also died this month, was a younger brother of sorts. They started in stand-up on the West Coast around the same time and had breakthroughs in the same 1985 episode of HBOs Young Comedians Special (hosted by Rodney Dangerfield), which back then was second only to The Tonight Show as a springboard for stand-up careers.

Just last May, Anderson and Saget took part in a loving conversation on a podcast, reminiscing and laughing, and gingerly approaching topics with the sensitivity and warmth of intimates catching up during the long, isolating pandemic. Its funny and now, considering the loss of both men, terribly heartbreaking. Both still prolific in their 60s, they sounded joyful about the current moment and were looking to the future. Saget talked about wanting to direct a movie that would appeal to everyone, and Anderson said he wished to play Fatty Arbuckle.
The heated discussion was fascinating and perplexing. When did acting become so bougie and aspirational? Wasnt a working-class background once a key element of the Hollywood success narrative  getting yanked out, discovered and made over by the savior figure of agent or studio executive? Think Cary Grant (born Archibald Leach, son of a tailors presser), Lana Turner (miners daughter), Ava Gardner (child of sharecroppers) and all those other glamour figures of yesteryear.

A humble background didnt hinder Cox, who has gone from leading man of the British stage to one of Americas most prolific and consistent character actors  what is sometimes called a jobbing actor, though he now has the clout to negotiate a chauffeur, nice hotels and a double-banger trailer. Nobody rescued Cox, the consummate utility player. I knew that simply wasnt my ballpark, he shrugs, on the subject of Hollywood stardom. Besides, Im too short. Hes written two previous memoirs, one that tracks him to Moscow to direct The Crucible and another about the challenges of King Lear. Taking stock at 75, hes not so much a lion in winter (indeed, he was fired as the voice of Aslan in the Narnia movies) as a seasoned workhorse finally able to enjoy a victory gallop.

Cox writes eloquently about his origins in Dundee, Scotland, as the youngest of five children who occasionally had to beg for batter bits from the local chip shop. His parents met at a dance hall; his mother had been a spinner at jute mills and suffered multiple miscarriages and mental illness; his father, a shopkeeper and socialist, died when Brian was 8. Getting plunked in front of the telly rather than taken to the funeral was formative. So were later escapes to the movies, particularly ones like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), starring Albert Finney: a film that wasnt all about the lives of posh folk in drawing rooms, or struggling nobly in far-off places, or having faintly amusing high jinks on hospital wards, Cox writes. It was all about working-class people  people like us. A kind teacher told him about a gofer gig at the local repertory theater and boom, he was home.
THE FIFTIES

An Underground History

By James R. Gaines

We make our history out of what we choose to see in the past. For some, the 1950s are all malt shops, coonskin caps and Elvis. For others, theyre Eames chairs, Mies skyscrapers and Jackson Pollock.

But The Fifties, by James R. Gaines, a former managing editor of Time, People and Life, reminds us that a trip in time to much of America then would resemble The Handmaids Tale more than Ozzie and Harriet. A racial caste system was harshly enforced throughout the country, while strict norms on religion, gender and sexuality compelled millions into the shadows. The government experimented on its citizens without their consent or knowledge; corporations operated without checks.

Some Americans did fight back. And theyre the subject of this short, very potent primer on four groups of people usually left out of the general hallelujahs for the Greatest Generation, even though  or maybe because  they opened the first cracks in those structures of oppression. Gaines starts with Harry Hay and Frank Kameny and their drive to create gay consciousness, freedom and ultimately power, then moves on to weave the life of the academic Gerda Lerner, the founder of womens studies in American academe, with that of Pauli Murray, whose activism bridged race and gender, and laid the groundwork for both Brown v. Board of Education and the National Organization for Women. Third is a neglected cohort of Black World War II veteran activists, most notably Medgar Evers, willing to fight white fire with fire of their own, believing that nonviolence without the threat of armed resistance to racist violence amounted to surrender. Finally, Gaines gives us the unusual but ultimately convincing pairing of Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, and the information theorist and M.I.T. professor Norbert Wiener, who both warned, in their separate ways, that abuse of human knowledge was altering the planets ecology.

Values we take for granted can seem obvious when we encounter them in historical figures, but Gaines makes the price of righteousness clear  these men and women werent just canceled for what they believed; they faced down brutal violence and ostracism both personal and professional. When we recognize ourselves in people like Kameny and Lerner, its not because they were early adopters of our values; its because their brilliance, their originality, their relentless courage created us.
Over the past few years a growing number of authors of childrens and young adult books have moved into the crime genre, giving them the opportunity to flex different literary muscles. The latest of these is Marie Rutkoski, clearly  and successfully  stretching herself with REAL EASY (Holt, 320 pp., $26.99), a thoughtful, character-driven mystery delving into the world of sex work and the people who gravitate toward this industry, often at their peril.

We spend the first section with Samantha, one of the top earners at the Lovely Lady strip club, whos grappling with a frayed relationship, disappointment about motherhood and her inability to set boundaries. After she agrees to give another dancer a ride home after work, tragedy ensues. From there, as the novel unfolds, it shifts perspective among other dancers, the detectives overseeing what becomes a criminal investigation, other club workers and patrons.

Rutkoski has written a challenging narrative reminiscent of, most recently, Ivy Pochodas These Women. It inverts standard crime tropes and reminds readers that stripping is work, and that women deserve to move through that work without the constant threat of violence and death.

I am an unabashed archive nerd, happy to while away hours immersed in primary source material for projects Im working on (or simply for pleasure). Which is why Eva Jurczyks debut mystery, THE DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (Poisoned Pen, 315 pp., paper, $16.99), caught my eye. Im pleased to report it is as winning as I had hoped.
HARLEM SHADOWS, by Claude McKay. (Modern Library, 112 pp., $15.) McKays 1922 poetry collection, in a new reprint introduced by Jericho Brown, explores McKays yearning for his Jamaican homeland, the plight of Harlems sex workers and the struggle of Black and Caribbean people in the United States.

THE BLACK CHURCH: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Penguin, 304 pp., $20.) This companion volume to Gatess PBS series traces the origins of the Black church, from African religions to Roman Catholicism to Islam to Protestantism, and examines its role in American politics. In Gatess telling, noted our reviewer, Jon Meacham, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth.

OPERATION CHASTISE: The RAFs Most Brilliant Attack of World War II, by Max Hastings. (Harper Perennial, 432 pp., $18.99.) According to our reviewer, Richard Toye, Hastingss account of the events of May 16-17, 1943  the so-called Dambusters raid  is enthralling, but his analysis of their causes and consequences is equally deserving of attention.

RAFT OF STARS, by Andrew J. Graff. (Ecco, 304 pp., $16.99.) In this debut, two 10-year-old boys flee into the northern Wisconsin woods and, along with their adult pursuers, grow to become better versions of themselves. The men enter the woods broken and numbed, exiles in their own bodies, observed our reviewer, Sam Graham-Felsen, and are softened by the wilderness, which induces them to open up and cry, reveal their regrets and fears and needs.
Her flailing son has secrets of his own. A college dropout and struggling songwriter in Los Angeles, Akash lives with a man he doesnt love while still feeling haunted by his childhood sweetheart. As much as Akash knows he should, he promised his father hed never reveal his sexuality to Renu. Patels debut toggles between mother and son as they bristle against each other and their own inner anguish.

In tight, alternating chapters, Akash and Renu address their respective former lovers, who have reappeared after missing from their lives for so long. Though its a familiar tale of immigrant loss and heartache, Patel infuses Tell Me How to Be with a lively self-awareness, humor and warmth. As Akash revisits the 90s R & B that served as the soundtrack to his lonely teenage years, Renu would rather watch her TV melodrama than participate in a book club where shes the token member of color among sauvignon blanc-drinking white women, eager for her authentic and honest take on Oprah-approved postcolonial literature. Mother and son share a love of guilty pleasures in a novel that asks: When you find the melody that speaks to you, why let it go?

DEFENESTRATE

By Renee Branum

221 pp. Bloomsbury. $26.

Image

In Branums first novel, a family curse binds twins named Nick and Marta. Legend has it that while overseeing the construction of a grand church, their Czech great-great-grandfather once pushed a stonemason off a church tower to his death in Prague. This murderous act initiates a series of karmic falls for generations of his descendants to come, an omen that looms over the twins throughout their lives.

When they are in their 20s and living with their overbearing Catholic mother in the American Midwest, Marta and Nicks father dies unexpectedly, prompting them to travel to the Czech Republic to chase the thread of their familys lore. The novel opens as the twins have returned to the United States after three years no wiser, without steady employment or family beyond themselves. Nick is hospitalized after a fall, and Marta, heavy with grief, shuttles between his hospital bed and her local bar, trying to piece together the events that led them adrift.

Branum is a taut storyteller who reveals and confides with great skill, in a narrative composed of addictive passages rather than conventional chapters. Plagued by fate, Marta asks, What happens when we can no longer move toward or away from the things we fear? She hides herself behind the burden of her devotion to Nick, a man both wounded and driven by desire  for other men, and for answers to his ancestral curse. This hypnotic and philosophical debut considers the act of defenestration as something more profound than an accident or a mere unfortunate end. Through the lens of memory, Branum refracts the layers of truth, tragedy and faith that break a cycle of lives most at home in free fall.
Politicians, journalists and activists all like to use the phrase last, best chance when talking about the climate. As in: The Glasgow climate conference is the worlds last, best chance to avoid terrible climate destruction. Or: The U.S. now faces its last, best chance to address the climate crisis.

Its a catchy phrase. But its a flawed idea.

The ravages of climate change are not a binary, on-or-off issue. Many problems, like increased flooding, wildfires, heat waves and severe storms, have already begun. How much worse they get will be shaped by how aggressively the world acts to slow climate change  both now and in the future. Immediate action can have a larger impact, scientists say, yet future action will not be irrelevant.

The reason I push back against the last, best hope frame is that we need to realize that addressing climate change is simultaneously urgent and a long game, Nat Keohane, the president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, told me. We need to greatly accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy, and it is going to take decades.

Its true that many experts feel a particular urgency about climate legislation  but the reason is more political than scientific: If Congress does not pass a bill to slow carbon emissions over the next few months, it may not do so for years.
Amritsar, Jan 21 (UNI) The mortal remains of the two Indians killed in Mondays Houthi drone attack in Abu Dhabi arrived in Amritsar on Friday morning.

The two coffin caskets containing the mortal remains of the two Indians arrived in Amritsar from the UAE.

Earlier, the Indian Ambassador in UAE Sunjay Sudhir had informed that the remains were being sent to India and they were coordinating with the Punjab government for local support.
Your Covid relationship stories

We asked our readers how the pandemic has changed their relationships. Thanks to all of you who shared your stories.

I entered into my first romantic relationship in a decade during this time. We connected on a dating app, met for a beer and spent three hours on a freezing cold patio. The next date was a hike, and on the way back to the car, I said: Wanna hold hands? Ive got hand sanitizer. We had a very hot makeout session next to my Christmas tree with no kissing (the masks stayed on!) when he dropped me off that day. I informed my pod that night that the masks were coming off for date No. 3. We just celebrated a year together.  Linda Anzalone, Portland, Ore.

When the pandemic started, my husband and I were distant ships passing in the night. We have two young children and have been together since we were 17. All of a sudden, we were with each other all the time  on opposite ends of the couch. Then, in an effort to escape a little from reality, we decided to try edibles (legal in our state!). For a few hours, were able to be giggly and worry free. We have rediscovered our feelings and love for each other, hidden under years of sleepless nights, hurt feelings and stress. It has been absolutely transformative.  Mia Newton, San Jose, Calif.

Im polyamorous and pansexual, so being in multiple relationships at once was a staple of my prepandemic life. With the lockdowns, shelter-in-place orders and wave upon wave of new variants, living a polyamorous life has become almost impossible. While monogamous/ monoamorous folx can just hunker down and pod with their one partner, I have to make difficult decisions about which partner(s) Im going to continue seeing in person and which relationships are going virtual. But I will say that polyamorous folx have an advantage when it comes to navigating around Covid safety protocols. My monogamous friends are all complaining about how awkward and hard it is to negotiate Covid boundaries before a first date, but the polyamorous community is so used to navigating boundaries around multiple partners, sexual health, kink, etc., that navigating around Covid boundaries is second nature.  Eliana, Atlanta

In June 2020, my wife left for Greece with the kidsbecause our house was filled with tension. My 13-year-old son felt trapped at home and the streets were empty. Its hard to remember how it was. They were gone for 15 months. I resented their leaving. Things happened while they were away  a kidney stone and a torn meniscus. I closed a business. I moved out of our apartment. I visited Greece twice, toward the end of the 15 months. Their life was full of family, food and the Greek version of the lockdown. When my wife returned, we both had changed. We dont have much in common anymore. Our differences  age, culture, work  have become what defines our relationship more than what we have in common. I still love her, and I think she still loves me, but it is very difficult, and I am not sure if we will make it.  Anonymous, New York City

My first date was fully masked, so I didnt know what the person I was dating looked like. At night, in low light, we unmasked about 12 feet from each other. I squinted to try to see what he looked like far away and in low light.  Tiffany, Philadelphia
Biden strengthens words on Russia

As Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, prepares to meet Sergey Lavrov, Russias foreign minister, in Geneva today, President Biden strengthened his warning to Russia about a potential attack on Ukraine. Any Russian troop movement into Ukraine would be taken as an invasion, he said, and he reiterated the threat of sanctions.

Bidens remarks came a day after he prompted alarm by suggesting that a minor incursion by Russia into Ukraine could mean we end up having a fight with European allies about the appropriate response. Neither the U.S. nor Europe has detailed the exact steps that would be taken if the crisis were to escalate.

Though European and NATO officials were quick to play down questions of division, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, surprised and irritated many colleagues with an address to the E.U. Parliament in which he called on Europeans to come up with their own proposal on common security.

Quotable: A new incursion in Ukraine would be met by a severe and coordinated economic response, Biden said.
The Biden administration said on Friday that it would suspend 44 flights from the United States to China operated by Chinese airlines in retaliation for Chinas imposing similar restrictions on American companies in recent weeks.

The Chinese government has canceled the flights, operated by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, after passengers on their planes tested positive for the virus after arriving in China. The passengers had tested negative before getting on their planes.

In the order on Friday, the U.S. Transportation Department described the suspensions by China, which run through early March, as punitive and unfair.

Chinas aviation authority canceled the flights using a circuit breaker provision intended to allow the country to limit the spread of the virus. According to the U.S. order, Chinas policies allow airlines that deliver passengers who later test positive for the virus to choose either a two-week suspension of the offending flight or a four-week limit on the number of passengers on that flight. The U.S. companies were never given that choice, and were denied the four-week notice promised under Chinese policy, the Transportation Department said.
More than 330,000 pacifiers have been voluntarily recalled by their manufacturer after reports that they could pose a choking hazard, according to a notice posted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Mushie & Co, a baby goods store, is recalling its FRIGG silicone pacifiers because the base of the silicone nipple has a fine slit that can cause the nipple to detach from the plastic shield, posing a choking hazard, according to the recall notice, which was posted on Wednesday.

Mushie received more than 200 reports internationally that the nipple detached from the plastic shield of the pacifier, according to a company statement. No injuries have been reported, the company said.

Mushie was founded in 2018 by Mushie and Levi Feigenson, according to the companys website. The companys owners did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday afternoon.
When I left the last time, I had not thought I was going to come back into government. And I came back in because it felt that this was a moment where my service could be helpful. It was not ever meant to be a permanent exercise. It was meant to be a chance to help recreate or create something new, recreate capacity, and build that back in a very short window.

Q: What do you consider your biggest accomplishment in the past year?

A: I think for all of us deeply committed to the climate agenda, the previous four years had been really a huge setback, and the climate didnt stop changing during those four years. So for us, it was really a chance to come in and really set something in motion.

The single big win clearly is, I think, the pretty substantial step forward we got in Glasgow.

We got a significant movement from the big players. I think there was real change from China.

Q: Really? From China?

A: Absolutely. Think about where we were going in the conversation with the Chinese. China was saying, Dont worry, weve got this covered, well get back to you.

What we now got are a series of pretty detailed plans. It may not be adequate to do all the things they say, but its light-years ahead of where they had been a year ago.

My colleagues in the N.G.O. and the academic community, who are kind of the lifeblood of a lot of the intellectual discourse in China, they all said they feel completely empowered to now work on the details of implementation, because of the U.S.-China joint statement. And to me, thats what you need. Because its not about just saying something grand at Davos, or at the U.N. Its about how do you deliver at a technical level on all the things that are required to make this real.

Q: Countries targets are right now not enough to keep temperatures to 1.5 degrees. The agreement in Glasgow called on countries to return next year with more ambitious targets. But weve already seen some countries say, This doesnt apply to us. How can Glasgow be called a success if countries are not really committing to return with more ambition?
This is Clued In, a column that will give you insight into some of the New York Times Crossword clues and answers.

Programming language named for a drink named for an island, four letters: Java.

Java has been used in 128 New York Times crossword puzzles. It has been clued in several different ways, including Jitter Juice and Where Jakarta is. It made its first appearance in the New York Times Crossword in 1942. Most recently, it appeared in Thursdays puzzle, constructed by Howard Barkin.

What do an Indonesian island, coffee and a programming language have in common? The name Java, of course.

Java, the programming language, isnt even 30 years old yet, but the history of the word goes back several centuries, to a time when coffee trees were plentiful in Indonesia and people were eager to have a cup of joe.
Good morning. Ligaya Mishan is in The New York Times Magazine this week with an excellent column about a dish she looks forward to eating all year long, a harbinger of good luck in coming months: onaga, Hawaiian steamed red snapper (above).

Its a variation on a local specialty, she reports: a Chinese-style steamed fish, salty-sour from a stuffing of preserved vegetable and faintly sweet from the flesh of the fish itself. Skeins of Japanese somen noodles are tucked beneath and hot oil poured over at the end. Done right, it crackles.

Id like to make that this weekend and, if I cant find the long-tailed red snapper they use in Hawaii, Ill substitute red snapper or another firm, white-fleshed fish. Its that crackle Im looking for, and the juxtaposition of textures, and the joy of the preparation. Project time! If I get it right, I might reprise the recipe when the Lunar New Year arrives on Feb. 1.

But thats not all Ill cook in the next few days. Id like some classic French toast for breakfast tomorrow, in advance of my weekly shopping, or waffles if anyone kicks at the toast. Hash browns on the side, with sausage and cheese? You dont need a recipe for that, but a simple prompt, what we call a no-recipe recipe: shredded potatoes fried in butter and dotted with crumbles of cooked breakfast sausage. Use a cast-iron pan and, when youve got a good crust going on the potatoes, sprinkle some shredded Cheddar over the top and run everything under your broiler for a few minutes to melt it into the starch. Thatll fortify you all the way through to the steamed fish for dinner.
Christina Vance and Greg Winick dressed up as superheroes for their first date at a 2017 Halloween party in Totowa, N.J. She went as Batgirl, he as Batman. A good pair for couples, the costumes also alluded to the strength and resilience that brought each to that moment.

Before we began dating, life had kind of beaten us up, said Ms. Vance, who teaches English to sophomores and juniors at Mount Olive High School in Flanders, N.J. We were both in marriages filled with pain and suffering.

From where both of us were coming from, it felt more like the first day of the rest of our lives together than it did a first date, she said.

Ms. Vance and Mr. Winick met in September 2010 at Central Middle School in Parsippany, N.J., where Mr. Winick teaches English to seventh-graders, and Ms. Vance, then a single mother with a 1-year-old son, worked as a student-teacher in his classroom.
I was like, wait a minute. Where is this information going? How will it be utilized? she later asked. I dont know if there are any implications for life and health insurance for me or my family, but why risk it?

What should happen when researchers, while sequencing a participants DNA as part of a large study, discover gene variants that increase the risk for conditions that might be prevented with medical treatment or surveillance? Some researchers believe they have an obligation to find the participants  often years after they provided a DNA sample  contact them, and tell them what they have found. But, some research subjects, like Ms. Konstadt, feel they have a right not to know. Is it ethical for doctors to let them insist they can opt out of learning more without first knowing the particular risk they are facing?

For Dr. Robert Green, an investigator for the biobank with Ms. Konstadts DNA, the Mass General Brigham Biobank, and author of a recent paper about its policies, the answers are clear. The consent form for the biobank tells participants that if the researchers find a worrisome variant, and if there is an intervention that can reduce risk, the participants will be contacted. There will be seven attempts to reach participants  calls and letters  before the team gives up.

We are offering the information, not forcing participants to accept it, said Dr. Green, who is also a geneticist and professor of medicine at Harvard. If you dont answer the phone or decide when offered that you dont want to hear anything more, or even hang up on us when we call, then thats your choice.

Dr. Green and his colleagues point out that the possibility of being contacted was in the consent form:

While you should not expect to receive any results from your participation in this research, if experts from the Biobank decide that research results from your sample are of high medical importance, we will attempt to contact you. In some situations, follow up testing might be needed in a certified clinical lab. You and your medical insurer may be responsible for the costs of these tests and any follow up care, including deductibles and co-payments.

But some, like Ms. Konstadt, did not notice that clause when signing the form.

Out of more than 36,000 participants, whose DNA its researchers analyzed, the Mass General Brigham Biobank found 425 with worrisome gene variants whose effects could be ameliorated by  depending on the genes  enhanced cancer surveillance or aggressive medical treatments to lower cholesterol levels, for example.
Hundreds of people gathered at St. Patricks Cathedral to celebrate an important moment for Catholics in New York. Cardinal Timothy Dolan delivered a homily on the life of one of their own, Dorothy Day, a native New Yorker and anarchist writer and activist who died in 1980.

The sermon last month represented the end of a 20-year inquiry by the Archdiocese of New York on whether Ms. Day should receive sainthood, a question the Vatican will ultimately decide.

Many of her admirers, including her granddaughter, had hoped Cardinal Dolan would talk about her commitment to social justice for the poor and the oppressed and her opposition to war and capitalism. In 1933, Ms. Day  often described as both politically radical and theologically orthodox  founded the Catholic Worker Movement, which remains active around the world in the form of Catholic Worker houses, where members live for free and provide services to the poor.

But in his sermon, Cardinal Dolan described Ms. Days far from sinless life.

I am not going to go into her story, he told the audience. The important thing for them to know was that when she was 25 she became kind of frustrated with her life.
UW Haub School Dean to Give Virtual Public Talk on Groundhog Day Feb. 2

John Koprowski, UWs Haub School dean and an international squirrel expert, will give a free virtual talk to discuss the importance of Groundhog Day Wednesday, Feb. 2. He is pictured here studying a squirrel at Gifu Squirrel Park in Japan. (John Koprowski Photo)

John Koprowski, the dean of the University of Wyomings Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and an international squirrel expert, will give a free virtual talk to discuss the importance of Groundhog Day Wednesday, Feb. 2.

Koprowski will present Groundhog Day: Facts, Myths and a Celebration of Our Connection to Wildlife at 4 p.m. via Zoom and Facebook Live; links for the event can be found on the Haub Schools website at www.uwyo.edu/haub/events. The virtual event is hosted by the Haub School.

During Koprowskis talk, participants will learn about the history and significance of Groundhog Day, the biology of the groundhog and what the day says about connections to the natural world. He says participants will obtain answers to questions such as What is a whistle pig?; How long will our winter last?; and How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Koprowski has been dean of the Haub School since September 2020. He came to UW from the University of Arizona, where he was the director of the School of Natural Resources and the Environment. He also taught undergraduate courses in wildlife conservation and management, and graduate courses that deal with environmental and conservation challenges in human-dominated landscapes. His research program has focused on the ecology, conservation and management of biodiversity in the United States, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Nepal, China, Mongolia, South Africa and numerous other international locations.

His efforts in conservation have led to his election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Wildlife Society and the Linnean Society of London. He serves the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species as the North American coordinator for small mammals and evaluates conservation status of squirrel species from around the world.

Koprowski is among leading global experts on the ecology, conservation and management of squirrels, with more than 150 publications on this group, including the compendium Squirrels of the World. His research uses squirrels and other wildlife species as common indicators of the complexity of environmental and conservation challenges in human-dominated landscapes. He even has listed groundhogs in his research.

For more information, visit www.uwyo.edu/haub/events; or call Amanda Korpitz, Haub School special events coordinator, at (307) 766-6979 or email akorpitz@uwyo.edu. Follow the Haub School on Instagram for event updates and for interactive Groundhog Day prediction polls.
And Mr. Frumans connections helped lead to a meeting between Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Shokins successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangements. Mr. Lutsenko, who was helping Mr. Giuliani unearth damaging information about the Bidens, also wanted Marie L. Yovanovitch, the American ambassador to Ukraine, to be removed from her post. She was recalled in 2019.

Efforts to oust Ms. Yovanovitch became a focus of Mr. Trumps first impeachment trial and led to a federal criminal investigation into whether Mr. Giuliani broke lobbying laws, according to people with knowledge of the matter. He has denied wrongdoing.

But before serving as foot soldiers in Mr. Giulianis campaign, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were entrepreneurs who decided to create a company that would import natural gas to Ukraine.

Prosecutors said they wanted to bolster the companys profile and began donating to Republican candidates and groups. Soon Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were fixtures at rallies and donor gatherings in places like Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trumps Florida club. They were a memorable pair. Mr. Fruman, who was born in Belarus, spoke a mix of Russian and choppy English. The Ukrainian-born Mr. Parnas exuded sincerity.

A donation of $325,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, was reported as coming from the company formed by Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, called Global Energy Producers. That broke campaign finance law, prosecutors said, because the money did not come from the company but from a loan Mr. Fruman took out.

Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas were also accused of soliciting the Russian tycoon Andrey Muraviev to send one million dollars to them so they could make campaign donations. The goal, prosecutors said, was to influence candidates who would help a fledgling cannabis business the three had discussed.

Communications obtained by prosecutors show that Mr. Fruman repeatedly pressed for that money, providing a bank account and routing number for a company controlled by his brother. Records assembled by prosecutors show that two companies owned by Mr. Muraviev wired $500,000 apiece to the company controlled by Mr. Frumans brother.
The notion that people are pounding the table that we go back to the way we worked is outright wrong said Marc Cooper, the companys chief executive, who now is in the office two to three times per week. I certainly dont need my partner and my senior bankers who are outwardly focused to come into the office and make phone calls.

A recent survey by the Partnership for New York City, which represents big employers, found that nearly half of companies expected some of their workers to to be in the office only two days a week even after the pandemic ends.

The biggest employers, which employ more than 500 people, expected less than half of their workers to return to offices before the end of January. But that was before the Omicron variant arrived.

Were about to find out what the new year is going to bring, said Janno Lieber, the acting chairman and chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. We are a $16 billion business that has lost half its customers and we are going to go out there and get them back.

Even as transit officials insist that the commuter railroads will start bouncing back in notable numbers this year, the agency is also acknowledging that the pandemic is more and more likely to lead to permanent changes in the regions commuting pattern.

The M.T.A.s board has approved the sale of tickets that will be good for 20 rides over 60 days, at a 20 percent discount from peak one-way fares. They would cover five round-trips per month. The board also approved a temporary discount of 10 percent on monthly passes.

Metro-North was selling about 95,000 monthly passes before the pandemic, Mr. Lieber said. That number plunged to about 10,000 by the start of 2021 and gradually rose to about 20,000 by November, he said.
The critical point to understand is that Section 3 added a qualification to hold office, one of the very few in the Constitution. The others are that members of the House must be at least 25, a U.S. citizen for seven years and live in the state the individual represents. It is no different in this respect from the qualification that the president be at least 35 and a natural-born citizen.

So, if the voter challenge succeeds in establishing that Mr. Cawthorn engaged in insurrection or rebellion, he would be as ineligible to serve in Congress as if it were revealed that he is 24 years old. Under North Carolina law, once challengers advance enough evidence to show reasonable suspicion that a candidate is not qualified, the burden shifts to the would-be candidate to demonstrate the contrary.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections will create a five-member panel composed of people from counties in the new district in which Mr. Cawthorn intends to run (which is more Republican leaning than his current one). The panels decision could be appealed to the entire State Board of Elections, and after that to the states court system. The boards decision will be delayed until after a state court rules on a separate redistricting challenge in North Carolina. But the issue will have to be resolved in time for the states primary election, currently set for May, so the normal Trump playbook of stalling until the issue becomes moot is not an option.

The key question in the challenge will be whether Mr. Cawthorns acts of support for the Jan. 6 attack rise to the level of engaging in an insurrection against the government.

Here is what the first-term congressman did, based on public reports and allegations in the challenge: In advance of the riot at the Capitol, he met with planners of the demonstrations and tweeted that the future of this Republic hinges on the actions of a solitary few  Its time to fight. He spoke at the pre-attack rally at the Ellipse, near the White House, where he helped work the crowd into frenzy, saying that the crowd had some fight in it and that the Democrats were trying to silence them. And in the aftermath of the mob violence, he extolled the rioters as political hostages and political prisoners, and suggested that if he knew where they were incarcerated, he would like to bust them out.
That individual physicians might wish to avoid turning themselves  and, potentially, their patients, co-workers and families  into targets of wrath and violence is understandable. Less understandable is the failure of the mainstream medical community, and an array of powerful institutions within it, to respond to the hostility and violence directed at clinics and abortion providers by affirming support for them. Hospital officials could have stepped forward to assert that they, too, would help ensure that abortion services remained available, particularly in states and communities where clinics were under siege. Medical school deans could have announced that they would redouble their commitment to providing training in abortion to residents at teaching hospitals.

Taking such steps would have demanded courage. Little such courage was shown. By 2017, the percentage of all abortions done in hospitals had dwindled to 3 percent, and many teaching hospitals impose restrictions on performing abortions that are more stringent than the legal requirements in their states. Although the reasons for this vary, the desire to avoid the stigma associated with abortion, and the risk of provoking abortion opponents, looms large, according to Lori Freedman, a medical sociologist who has studied the phenomenon. Some hospital administrators are afraid the hospital will become targeted by anti-abortion forces for doing procedures at all, she said. Some have had such experiences already.

Residents and medical students affiliated with the group Medical Students for Choice have pushed for more comprehensive abortion education. But at many universities and residency programs, in-house abortion services do not exist and residents must go to an outside facility such as a local Planned Parenthood clinic to receive training in the procedure.

To be sure, the relationship between mainstream medicine and abortion was ambivalent even before such concerns became widespread. As the sociologist Carole Joffe has noted, most of the nations leading medical organizations failed to issue any significant guidelines on abortion immediately after Roe was decided. That reticence reflected the conflicted feelings many doctors had about a procedure that some linked to infamous back-alley butchers, and that others associated with feminists who were claiming authority over their bodies in ways that made many male doctors uncomfortable. (Notably, although the American Medical Association asserted in a 1970 resolution that the principles of medical ethics do not prohibit a physician from performing an abortion, the document stated that abortion procedures should be determined by the sound clinical judgment of medical professionals, not mere acquiescence to the patients demand.) Some doctors also believed that abortion was morally wrong.

In subsequent decades, professional associations such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists danced around the issue of abortion for fear of alienating members who might not support abortion rights, said Doug Laube, an abortion provider who served as ACOGs president from 2006-2007. Though the organization is formally pro-choice, Dr. Laube told me that during his tenure as president he observed that the stigma associated with abortion made ACOG reluctant to advocate for abortion services as regular, normal medical care.

There has been some recent progress on this front, most notably an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court by dozens of medical organizations, including ACOG and the A.M.A., in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, the case that could lead to Roes reversal later this year. The brief affirms that the restrictive Mississippi abortion law under review in the case is fundamentally at odds with the provision of safe and effective health care. Meanwhile, a new generation of abortion providers, many of them women motivated by a sense of social justice, has begun to emerge, in a field that includes family medicine doctors as well as OB-GYNs.

But even if Roe somehow survives the Dobbs case, the provision of abortion already has been transformed in ways that have left millions of women, particularly poor women and women of color, without access to services. The failure to embed abortion in mainstream medicine has made it easier for abortion opponents to target clinics with so-called TRAP (targeted regulation of abortion providers) laws that impose increasingly onerous rules and regulations on them. A wave of restrictive state measures has been enacted in recent years. It has also set the stage for laws like S.B. 8, the Texas statute enacted last year that encourages private citizens to sue anyone who performs or abets abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, including medical practitioners.
The common denominator in each of these mutations is an idea, based in fantasy and conspiracy, about Jewish power. The old-fashioned religious antisemite believed Jews had the power to kill Christ. The 19th-century antisemites who were the forerunners to the Nazis believed Jews had the power to start wars, manipulate kings and swindle native people of their patrimony.

Present-day anti-Zionists attribute to Israel and its supporters in the United States vast powers that they do not possess, like the power to draw America into war. On the far right, antisemites think that Jews are engaged in an immense scheme to replace white, working-class America with immigrant labor. Tucker Carlson and others have taken this conspiracy theory mainstream, much to the delight of neo-Nazis like David Duke, even if they are careful to leave out the part about Jews.

The man who attacked the synagogue entertained the same type of fantasy. Just as Willie Sutton was said to rob banks because thats where the money is, this assailant took Jews hostage because thats where the power was (or so he thought). The F.B.I.s moral idiocy  there are no other words for it  in denying the specifically antisemitic nature of the attack lies in the idea that he could have imagined himself choosing just about any means to achieve his end, like taking hostages at the nearest church or convenience store. Similarly, the focus on his mental health evades the central fact that, crazy or not, his malice was not random. He aimed his gun at Jews.

The fantasy about Jewish power may seem outlandish, but its far more pervasive than many think  which gets to the point of people participating in antisemitism even when they arent knowingly perpetrating it.

Who, for instance, is most responsible for devising the war in Iraq? If your first-pass answer is Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams and Perle, you might ask yourself why you are naming second- and third-tier Bush administration officials, all of them Jewish, when all the top decision makers  Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice  are Christians. (If your response to this is that Wolfowitz et al. were the ones who pulled the strings, then youre an antisemite.)

Or take another example: if you think the reason Israel gets so much support in Congress is the money and influence of the pro-Israel lobby, you might be surprised to learn that that lobby ranks 20th on the most recent list of congressional donors, giving away a paltry $4.5 million compared with the $95 million that retiree interest groups donated. All about the Benjamins it is not, no matter what Representative Ilhan Omar might suppose.

*

But theres a larger context here, which has to do with prevailing assumptions about power itself.

A moral conviction of our time, especially prevalent on the cultural left, is that the powerful are presumptively bad while the powerless are presumptively good. These categories arent just political. They are also social, economic, ethnic and racial. Its why so many conversations today revolve around the concept of privilege  a striking redefinition of success that removes the presumption of merit from those who have it and the stigma of failure from those who dont.
While she and I waited for our food that day, she pulled a tube of Neutrogena sunscreen from her purse and started applying it to her face. We were sitting outside on a sunny street, and even though she had her new straw hat on, she had just gotten her face resurfaced and said it was important for the healing process to avoid direct sun.

I had some feelings about this resurfacing treatment  feelings that I held back on sharing, because its sexist to shame people for their beauty routines. But it wasnt the vanity that bothered me. (My mother is 60, and just an hour before the lunch, the wedding dress tailor had asked if she was my sister, instilling pride not just in her but in me, smug that at least I have good genes for aging, if not for marriage.)

It was more that when she called me a few days earlier to say that she had just come back from her spa appointment, I had to consider how much forethought had gone into scheduling the procedure exactly 30 days before my wedding. The wedding and preparing for it was very much on her mind, but her to-do list was separate from mine, which included a series of logistical and emotional crosschecks.

I needed her to proofread our place settings, not casually ask me how the planning was going like any other outsider. I needed a tearful rundown of how much it had broken her heart to leave our family, not the dispassionate details of her pores healing process.

When we finished lunch, I returned to my apartment and lists. I continued to avoid desserts and check the weather obsessively, long before the forecast could possibly be accurate for the wedding date. I took a lot of deep breaths, reminding myself that nobody would notice the typo on the seating chart, everyone who was coming was vaccinated, that the things in my control were in good shape.

I gave up on trying to understand my mother, deciding that further emotional labor would have to wait until after the wedding. When the day finally came, I kissed my fiance good morning and set off for the hotel, where I was getting ready with family and friends. I couldnt wait to see all the details I had obsessed over in the previous months come to life. I couldnt wait to say I do in front of everyone I loved. I couldnt wait to go on our honeymoon and finally get some sleep.
Google asked a federal court on Friday to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit led by the State of Texas, the first time it has sought to have one of the government competition cases against it thrown out in the United States.

In a filing, Google said the state had failed to show that it engaged in anticompetitive behavior and hadnt proved that an agreement between Facebook and Google, a core part of the case, violated the law.

Were confident that this case is wrong on the facts and the law, and should be dismissed, said Adam Cohen, the companys director of economic policy.

The Texas lawsuit argues that Google has obtained and abused a monopoly over the labyrinthine set of systems that allow publishers to auction off ad space to marketers. The states argue that Google misled publishers and advertisers about the nature of the ad auctions, allowing it to pocket more of the money flowing through its ad systems. And they say the company used a deal with Facebook to maintain its dominance when the publishers tried to develop an alternative system.
In the final three months of 2021, hope arrived in California in the form of rain.

Record-breaking downpours nourished the parched land. The states snowpack, a major source of water, reached a staggering 160 percent of its expected level.

If the rains continued through the rest of the winter, experts advised, Californias severe drought could soon start to look very different.

But alas.

January, typically one of the states wettest months, has proved unusually dry. And the odds now favor less-than-average rainfall through the rest of winter, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Were definitely still in the drought in California, and we almost certainly will be in a drought over the rest of the year, Swain told me. We may have seen most of our precipitation that were going to see this year.
Brian Laundrie claimed responsibility for killing his fiancee, Gabrielle Petito, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Friday, as it prepared to close a case that had galvanized social media and prompted widespread sleuthing by amateur detectives.

The F.B.I. disclosed that a notebook that was found near Mr. Laundries body in October included a written confession, as the agency provided what it called a final investigative update on a case that had drawn thousands of tips from the public and engaged law enforcement agencies across the country.

The F.B.I. did not reveal details of the incriminating statements other than to say that the notebook contained written statements by Mr. Laundrie claiming responsibility for Ms. Petitos death.

All logical investigative steps have been concluded in this case, Michael H. Schneider, the special agent in charge of the Denver field office, said in a statement. The investigation did not identify any other individuals other than Brian Laundrie directly involved in the tragic death of Gabby Petito.
Anti-abortion protesters descended on Washington from across the country on Friday for the annual March for Life, a ritual that this year took on a tone of hopeful celebration as they anticipated the Supreme Court overturning the decision that established a constitutional right to abortion half a century ago.

The marchers have arrived by the busload in Washington every January since 1974, the year after the Supreme Courts decision in Roe v. Wade established a nationwide right to abortion. The tension this year was higher for both sides in the abortion debate as they await the courts ruling on a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. The Roe decision forbade states to ban abortion before a fetus becomes viable, or roughly 22 weeks.

At oral arguments in December, the courts six conservative justices signaled that they were inclined to uphold the Mississippi law. Several justices indicated they were willing to go further and overturn the Roe decision entirely.

I feel like this year might be the year, Laura Nunez, a 28-year-old account manager from Philadelphia, said as she gathered with the other marchers on the National Mall. If that happens, it would be a great win for all of us.
South Africa: SA needs to work towards sustainable social protection measures

A meeting between President Cyril Ramaphosa and a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) collective has affirmed the need to work towards affordable and sustainable social protection mechanisms that complement job creation and drive local demand, with due consideration of the fiscal implications.

President Ramaphosa, supported by Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Zulu and Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana, met with the CSOs on Tuesday to discuss a proposal for the extension and improvement of the R350 COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant (SRD) beyond March 2022 and possible policy pathways to the introduction of a Basic Income Grant (BIG).

In a joint statement on Friday, the Presidency said the meeting was held in response to the request by the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ), Black Sash Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII), #PayTheGrants, and Amandla.mobi.

The President expressed his appreciation for the constructive manner in which the engagement took place, and the acknowledgement by the CSOs regarding the unprecedented measures government has taken to help households face the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Presidency said.

The SRD grant coverage has grown significantly since its introduction, from 6 million to 10.3 million recipients a month.

Through this grant, the Department of Social Development (DSD) and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) have successfully reached many of those most vulnerable in society.

The Presidency said research has confirmed the positive impact of this grant in reducing poverty and hunger.

President Ramaphosa expressed his deep concern around the hardship faced by the more than 13 million unemployed and impoverished people in South Africa and the need for government to protect the dignity of all its people while being mindful of the resource base, the statement read.

The CSOs also presented research on the critical role that social security plays in reducing poverty and hunger and improving socio-economic conditions.

Recommendations from the CSO Collective for the SRD Grant included improving the design of the grant; extending it, expanding the eligibility criteria to reach more people who need it, and increasing the value of the grant, the Presidency said.

The meeting agreed to have further engagement on the proposals as part of broader consultation among all stakeholders on social protection measures that are appropriate to the countrys circumstances and the needs of the South African people.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2022-01-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Citing "crimes against humanity and genocide" against the Uyghur Muslim minority in Chinas Xinjiang province, the French Parliament on Thursday passed a non-binding motion urging French authorities to condemn Beijing.

The measure, which passed 169-1, was led by the Socialist and other opposition parties.

In addition to condemning China, the motion urges the government to protect France's Uyghur immigrant community from harassment by China.

The Chinese Embassy in France called the move absurd and said it would harm relations between the two countries. "The French side is fully aware of the absurdity and harmfulness of this resolution. It must show coherence between word and deed and take concrete actions to safeguard the healthy development of Sino-French relations," the embassy said in a statement.


A key piece of tutoring is that social relationship with a caring adult, said Amanda Neitzel, an assistant research scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education. How can you build that in an online format?

Her worry, she added, was that the federal tutoring push would amount to an expensive disaster.

Virtual tutoring is a big business opportunity for the education technology sector. Investment in ed tech surged to $3.2 billion in just the first half of 2021 from $1.7 billion in all of 2019, according to market research from Reach Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in education.

Now some online tutoring start-ups are drawing half their new business from federal funds, according to James Kim, a partner at Reach. Districts typically pay $1 to $100 per student who will use tutoring services over the course of a year.

Ed-tech investors and entrepreneurs say the academic and social failures of remote school have little to do with the services these businesses are offering. They emphasize that their platforms are supposed to supplement in-person education, not supplant it, and that being able to get a tutor anytime, from anywhere, has benefits.

Online tutoring is a one-on-one communication, said Myles Hunter, chief executive of TutorMe, which pairs students with tutors  mostly recent college graduates  over audio, video or instant messaging. Its not something where youre trying to make sure 40 students dont fall asleep watching a Zoom video for eight hours per day.

Nevertheless, Mr. Kim, a former teacher, understood the doubts.

I think the cynicism is justified, he said. I was pitched a lot of technology products that just didnt have a place in my classroom. Especially during this pandemic when there was a lot of money in this market, we saw folks looking to make a quick buck.

Some cities and states  like Chicago, New Mexico and Arkansas  are starting in-person tutor corps. But hiring has been difficult because of labor shortages, a major reason district leaders said they were turning to online tutoring.
WASHINGTON  The Justice Department on Friday charged a Texas man with publicly calling for the assassination of Georgias election officials on the day before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The case is the first brought by the departments Election Threats Task Force, an agency created last summer to address threats against elections and election workers. Federal prosecutors accused the man, Chad Christopher Stark, 54, of Leander, Texas, of calling for Georgia Patriots to put a bullet in a Georgia election official the indictment refers to as Official A.

Mr. Stark, according to the three-page indictment, made the threat in a post on Craigslist, the online message board, while then-President Donald J. Trump and his allies were putting public pressure on Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who certified Mr. Trumps defeat in Georgia to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Georgia Patriots its time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors, Mr. Stark wrote, according to the indictment. Its time to invoke our Second Amendment right its time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges.
As he ticked through the states, Mr. Pence said repeatedly that the result certified by the Electoral College, the parliamentarian has advised me, is the only certificate of vote from that state that purports to be a return from the state, and that has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of the state purporting to appoint and ascertain electors.

It is not clear who first proposed that Republican-led state legislatures in key states that Mr. Biden won could replace the electors chosen by the voters with a different slate. But John Eastman, a lawyer who would later present Mr. Trump with an elaborate plan for overturning the election, was one of the first to bring the idea up publicly when he addressed Georgia lawmakers by video on Dec. 3, 2020, and advised them to adopt a slate of electors yourself.

At the time, the notion was roundly ridiculed by legal scholars who dismissed it as a futile attempt to subvert the will of the voters.

But a review of the steps taken by Mr. Trumps allies to push the plan suggests that the effort was widespread and that it caught on among influential players, including those in conservative law and media circles and with White House aides.

At the heart of the plan was an effort to empower Mr. Trumps allies in Congress to hand him the election. Under the Constitution, if the Electoral College deadlocks or if no candidate receives a majority of its votes, the House of Representatives decides the victor. Each state delegation casts a single vote in these so-called contingent elections. Under that scenario, Mr. Trump would almost certainly have won.

Central in the effort was a group called the Amistad Project, a wing of the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based conservative legal organization. In the wake of the election, the Amistad Project worked closely with Rudolph W. Giuliani and other members of Mr. Trumps legal team to file lawsuits challenging the vote results in key swing states.

We are excited to have the Amistad Project as a partner in the fight to ensure the integrity of our elections, Mr. Giuliani told a Wisconsin political website at the time.
In his petition seeking review, Mr. OConnor asked the Supreme Court to address two questions: the one on prosecutions of non-Indians and whether the McGirt decision should be overturned.

In its order granting review on Friday, the Supreme Court said it would answer only the first question.

Writing for the majority in McGirt, which was decided by a 5-to-4 vote, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the court was vindicating a commitment that grew out of an ugly history of forced removals and broken treaties.

On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise, he wrote, joined by what was then the courts four-member liberal wing. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever.

In dissent, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. predicted that the decision would cause chaos.

The states ability to prosecute serious crimes will be hobbled, and decades of past convictions could well be thrown out, he wrote. On top of that, the court has profoundly destabilized the governance of eastern Oklahoma.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was in the majority, died a few months after the decision was issued. Justice Amy Coney Barrett has since filled her seat, raising the possibility that the court might be open to revisiting its ruling.

In urging the justices to do so, Mr. OConnor wrote that no recent decision of this court has had a more immediate and destabilizing effect on life in an American state than McGirt v. Oklahoma. It has, he wrote, pitched Oklahomas criminal justice system into a state of emergency.
The allegations were referred to the Treasury Departments inspector general, Richard K. Delmar. He found no evidence of racial animus surrounding the Philadelphia noose incident, but his inquiry into other allegations continues. Mr. Delmar declined to comment on the review that is underway.

The day after the noose was found, the employee in question was removed from his job. He challenged his removal before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, which reviews cases of government employees who are contesting their termination, and said his job involved tying knots. The Mint later agreed to a settlement with the employee after the Justice Department declined to take any action; a Mint spokesman said the settlement had been made in an effort to end the dispute and ensure that the employee would not be reinstated.

The revelations of racial turmoil come as the Mint is at a potential turning point. Mr. Biden has made racial equity a centerpiece of his agenda, and he announced in December that he would nominate Ms. Gibson to be the agencys director. She is the Mints deputy director and has been leading the agency on an acting basis.

Ms. Gibson, who needs to be confirmed by the Senate, has vowed to improve the Mints culture. Last month, she led a diversity briefing during a senior managers meeting, and she is planning to create new career development programs to help make the promotion process more transparent.

Our work force comes from diverse backgrounds, and I am committed to ensuring that we respect, honor and leverage that diversity, Ms. Gibson said in a statement. We must ensure that there are no barriers to the success and advancement of any employee at the Mint.

She added, We at the senior leadership level must make concerted efforts to always treat our employees with fairness and integrity, and to restore faith in those basic tenets of good leadership and exemplify genuine care for the work force.

Image President Biden has nominated Ventris C. Gibson to lead the Mint. If confirmed by the Senate, she would become the agencys first Black director. Credit... Treasury Department

But there are lingering concerns within the Mints staff about her commitment and ability to bring change to an organization where cultural problems have festered for so long.
Scott Quiner, an operations manager at a transportation company in Minnesota, became sick with Covid-19 in October.

Mr. Quiner, 55, who was unvaccinated, was hospitalized the next month, and his case became so severe that he had to be placed on a ventilator, according to court records. For weeks, he remained on the ventilator at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minn., a city of 62,000 people about 16 miles north of Minneapolis.

Then, on Jan. 11, hospital officials told Mr. Quiners wife, Anne, that they would be removing him from the ventilator in two days, over her objections.

What followed was a legal case that raised questions over who has the right to make wrenching life-or-death decisions when patients cannot speak for themselves. It also underscored the tensions between people who refuse the coronavirus vaccine and the hospitals that have been filled with patients sick with the virus, a majority of them unvaccinated.
In a glitzy Shanghai shopping district, about 40 people who happened to be at a Uniqlo store were informed that they would be spending the night there. A suspected Covid case had been traced to the shop.

Elsewhere in the same city, Anna Rudashko was told to return to an office building she had visited for a meeting the day before. She spent 58 hours there with more than 200 strangers, waiting for test results.

Across China, in Shaanxi Province, Zhao Xiaoqing was on a second date, visiting a man at his parents home, when the local authorities locked down the neighborhood. She quarantined with them for nearly 30 days. (Fortunately, she said, I got along well with his family.)

China, which has largely kept the coronavirus at bay since 2020, is going to ever more extreme lengths to quell outbreaks that have proliferated around the country in recent weeks, and a growing number of people are finding their lives suddenly upended as a result.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who was one of the worlds most influential Zen masters, spreading messages of mindfulness, compassion and nonviolence, died on Saturday at his home in the Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam. He was 95.

The death was announced by Plum Village, his organization of monasteries. He suffered a severe brain hemorrhage in 2014 that left him unable to speak, though he could communicate through gestures.

A prolific author, poet, teacher and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from Vietnam after opposing the war in the 1960s and became a leading voice in a movement he called engaged Buddhism, the application of Buddhist principles to political and social reform.

Traveling widely on speaking tours in the United States and Europe (he was fluent in English and French), Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced tik nyaht hahn) was a major influence on Western practices of Buddhism, urging the embrace of mindfulness, which his website describes as the energy of being aware and awake to the present moment.
Lisala Folau had been at sea for about 12 hours, drifting between the islands of Tonga overnight after a tsunami hit his home, when he saw a police patrol boat.

Mr. Folau, 57, grabbed a rag and waved, hoping for rescue from the disaster caused by an undersea volcanos eruption about 40 miles from Tonga. But the people on the police boat did not respond. Mr. Folau wasnt even halfway through his trial of trying to reach safety.

The ordeal began when Mr. Folau, a retired carpenter, was painting at his home on the island of Atata, he told Broadcom FM, a Tongan radio station, according to a translated transcript of the interview shared by an editor at the radio station, George Lavaka, on Facebook. It was Saturday night, and the undersea volcano had just erupted, causing black rocks to rain from the sky and driving a wall of water onto the islands.

Nearly a week later, the full extent of devastation in Tonga is still not known because the disaster knocked out an undersea cable essential for efficient communication with the rest of the world. The blast also caused an enormous ash cloud that has contaminated drinking water sources and prevented relief flights from landing for four days. Despite the scope of disaster, as of Thursday night, the death toll was only at three.
michael barbaro

From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

[music]

Today: Russia is making preparations for what many fear may be a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, prompting warnings from the U.S. of serious consequences if it does. I spoke to my colleague, Moscow bureau chief Anton Troianovski, about what Vladimir Putin wants from Ukraine and just how far he may go to get it. Its Wednesday, December 8. Anton, describe the scene right now on the border between Ukraine and Russia. What does it look like? What exactly is happening there?

anton troianovski

Well, what youre seeing on the Russian side of the border within 100 to 200 miles away is that thousands of Russian troops are on the move.

archived recording 1 A top military official says intelligence shows nearly 100,000 Russian troops  archived recording 2 Russian troops have massed on the border of Ukraine. archived recording 3  troops on the border with Ukraine. And thats prompted fears of an invasion early next year.

anton troianovski

Were seeing a lot of social media footage of tanks and other military equipment on the move, on trains, in some cases, heading west toward the Ukraine border area from as far away as Siberia.

archived recording Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have been building for some time in the wake of 

anton troianovski

These satellite images that were seeing show deployment areas around Ukraine that were empty as recently as June that are now full of military equipment-like tanks and armored personnel carriers.

archived recording The U.S. called it unusual activity.

anton troianovski

And obviously, Russia moves its forces all the time. It does big military exercises, snap military exercises all the time, but what were being told is that these military movements are very unusual. Some of them are happening at night and, in other ways, seemingly designed to obfuscate where various units are going. And experts are saying were also seeing things like logistics and medical equipment being moved around, stuff that you really would see if there were real preparations being made for large-scale military action.

michael barbaro

So whats happening in Russia is not just the movement of the troops that would perhaps carry out an invasion, but the kind of military personnel and equipment that would be required to deal with the repercussions of something like invading Ukraine?

anton troianovski

Yes. So American intelligence officials are seeing intelligence that shows Russia preparing for a military offensive involving an estimated 175,000 troops 

michael barbaro

Wow.

anton troianovski

 as soon as early next year.

michael barbaro

And Anton, is Ukraine preparing for what certainly looks, from what you just described, as a potential invasion?

anton troianovski

Theyre in a really tough spot because no matter how much they prepare, their military would be utterly outgunned and outmatched. Ukraine doesnt have the missile defense and air defense systems that could prevent a huge shock-and-awe campaign at the beginning of Russian military action. They also dont know, if and when an attack comes, which direction it might come from, because Russia could attack from any of three directions. So were not seeing a big mobilization in Ukraine right now, but our reporting on the ground there does show a grim and determined mood among the military. The soldiers on the border have made it clear that if it comes to it, they will be prepared to do what they can to make this as costly as possible for the other side.

michael barbaro

So I guess the question everyone has in this moment is why would Putin want to invade Ukraine right now and touch off what would no doubt be a major conflict, one in which, as you just said, Russia would have many advantages, but would nevertheless end up probably being a very deadly conflict?

anton troianovski

So obviously, we dont yet know whether Putin has made the decision to invade. Hes clearly signaling hes prepared to use military force. What we do know is that he has been extraordinarily fixated on the issue of Ukraine for years. But I think to really understand it, you have to look at three dates over the last 30 years that really show us why Ukraine matters so much to Putin.

michael barbaro

OK. So whats the first date?

anton troianovski

The first one, 1991, almost exactly 30 years ago, the Soviet Union breaks up, and Ukraine becomes an independent country. For people of Putins generation, this was an incredibly shocking and even traumatic moment. Not only did they see and experience the collapse of an empire, of the country that they grew up in, that they worked in, that, in Putins case, the former K.G.B. officer that they served. But there was also a specific trauma of Ukraine breaking away. Ukraine, of all the former Soviet republics, was probably the one most valuable to Moscow. It was a matter of history and identity with, in many ways, Russian statehood originating out of the medieval Kiev Rus civilization. Theres the matter of culture with so many Russian language writers like Gogol and Bulgakov coming from Ukraine. There was the matter of economics with Ukraine being an industrial and agricultural powerhouse during the Soviet Union, with many of the planes and missiles that the Soviets were most proud of coming from Ukraine.

michael barbaro

So theres a sense that Ukraine is the cradle of Russian civilization, and to lose it is to lose a part of Russia itself.

anton troianovski

Yeah. And its a country of tens of millions of people that is also sandwiched between modern-day Russia and Western Europe. So the other issue is geopolitical, that Ukraine in that sort of Cold War security, East-versus-West mindset, Ukraine was a buffer between Moscow and the West. So 1991 was the year when that all fell apart. And then by the time that Putin comes to power 10 years later, hes already clearly thinking about how to reestablish Russian influence in that former Soviet space in Eastern Europe and in Ukraine in particular. We saw a lot of resources go in economically to try to bind Ukraine to Russia, whether its discounts on natural gas or other efforts by Russian companies, efforts to build ties to politicians and oligarchs in Ukraine. Really, a multipronged effort by Putin and the Kremlin to really gain as much influence as possible in that former Soviet space that they saw as being so key to Russias economic and security interests.

michael barbaro

Got it.

anton troianovski

And then fast forward to the second key date, 2014, which is the year it became clear that that strategy had failed.

archived recording Now, to the growing unrest in Ukraine and the violent clashes between riot police and protesters.

michael barbaro

And why did that strategy fail in 2014?

anton troianovski

That was the year that Ukraine had its  whats called its Maidan Revolution.

archived recording 1 The situation in Kiev has been very tense. archived recording 2 Downtown Kiev has been turned into a charred battlefield following two straight nights of rioting.

anton troianovski

Its a pro-Western revolution 

archived recording They want nothing short of revolution, a new government and a new president.

anton troianovski

 that drove out a Russia-friendly president, that ushered in a pro-Western government, that made it its mission to reduce Ukraines ties with Russia and build its ties with the West.

archived recording Ukrainians who want closer ties with the West are once again back in their thousands on Independence Square here in Kiev. They believe they 

michael barbaro

Hmm. And what was Putins response to that?

anton troianovski

Well, Putin didnt even see it as a revolution. He saw it as a coup engineered by the C.I.A. and other Western intelligence agencies meant to drive Ukraine away from Russia. And 

archived recording With stealth and mystery, Vladimir Putin made his move in Ukraine.

anton troianovski

 he used his military.

archived recording At dawn, bands of armed men appeared at the two main airports in Crimea and seized control.

anton troianovski

He sent troops into Crimea, the Ukrainian Peninsula in the Black Sea thats so dear to people across the former Soviet Union as kind of the warmest, most tropical place in a very cold part of the world.

archived recording Tonight, Russian troops  hundreds, perhaps as many as 2,000, ferried in transport planes  have landed at the airports.

anton troianovski

He fomented a separatist war in Eastern Ukraine that by now has taken more than 10,000 lives and armed and backed pro-Russian separatists in that region. So that was the year 2014 when Russias earlier efforts to try to bind Ukraine to Moscow failed and when Russia started taking a much harder line.

michael barbaro

And this feels like a very pivotal moment because it shows Putins willingness to deploy the Russian military to strengthen the ties between Russia and Ukraine.

anton troianovski

Absolutely. Strengthened the ties or you can also say his efforts to enforce a Russian sphere of influence by military force. And its also the start of what weve been seeing ever since, which is Putin making it clear that he is willing to escalate, he is willing to raise the stakes and that he essentially cares more about the fate of Ukraine than the West does. And that brings us to the third date I wanted to talk about, which is early this year, 2021, when we saw the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, really start taking a more aggressive anti-Russian and pro-Western tack. He cracked down on a pro-Russian oligarch and pro-Russian media. He continued with military exercises with American soldiers and with other Western forces. He kept talking up the idea of Ukraine joining NATO. Thats the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Western military alliance. And in a sense, this is what Putin seems to fear the most, the idea of NATO becoming more entrenched in this region. So Putin made it clear that this was starting to cross what he describes as Russias red lines and that Russia was willing to take action to stop this.

michael barbaro

So to put this all together and understand why Putin is doing what hes doing when it comes to Ukraine, we have as a backdrop here this fixation with Ukraine for historic, political, economic and cultural reasons. And whats new and urgent here for Putin is his belief that Ukraine is on the verge of a major break with Russia and toward the West  in particular, a military alliance, NATO  and that he cannot tolerate. And so that brings us up to now and this very imminent and scary threat of a Russian invasion.

anton troianovski

Thats right, Michael. I spoke to a former advisor of Putins recently who described Ukraine as a trauma within a trauma for the Kremlin  so the trauma of the breakup of the Soviet Union plus the trauma of losing Ukraine specifically for all those reasons you mentioned. And the thing is its true. Russia is losing Ukraine. I think objectively, though, you have to say its losing Ukraine in large part because of Putins policies, because of the aggressive actions hes taken. And if you look at the polls before 2014, something like 12 percent of Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. Now, its more than half.

michael barbaro

Wow.

anton troianovski

So you put all that together, Ukraine is indeed drifting toward the West. It does seem like Putin feels like hes running out of time to stop this and that hes willing to escalate, hes willing to raise the stakes, to keep Ukraine out of the West. And what were seeing right now on the border is all that playing out.

[music]

michael barbaro

Well be right back. So Anton, the question right now is will President Putin actually carry out an invasion of Ukraine? And how should we be thinking about that?

anton troianovski

Well, its quite perilous, of course, to try to get inside Putins head, but heres the case for invading now. Number one: NATO and the United States have made it clear that they are not going to come to Ukraines defense, because Ukraine is not a member of the NATO alliance, and NATOs mutual defense pact only extends to full-fledged members. And of course, I think, politically, Putin believes that neither in the U.S., nor in Western Europe, is there the will to see soldiers from those countries die fighting for Ukraine.

michael barbaro

Right. And President Biden has just very publicly pulled the United States out of the war in Afghanistan and more or less communicated that unless American national security interests are at play, he will not be dispatching troops anywhere.

anton troianovski

Exactly. So Putin saw that, and he sees that potentially things could change. If the West does have more of a military presence in Ukraine in the future, let alone if Ukraine were to become a member of NATO at some point  its not going to happen in the next few years, but perhaps at some point  then attacking Ukraine becomes a much more costly proposition. So its a matter of war now could be less costly to Russia than war later.

michael barbaro

Right. The geopolitics of this moment may work in favor of him doing it in a way that it might not in a year or two or three.

anton troianovski

Absolutely. And then theres a couple of other reasons. Theres the fact that if we look at everything Putin has said and written over the last year, he really seems convinced that the West is pulling Ukraine away from Russia against the will of much of the Ukrainian people. Polling doesnt really bear that out, but Putin really seems to be convinced of that. And so it seems like he may also be thinking that Ukrainians would welcome Russian forces as liberators from some kind of Western occupation. And then third, theres the economy. The West has already threatened severe sanctions against Russia were it to go ahead with military action, but Russia has been essentially sanctions-proofing its economy since at least 2014, which is when it took control of Crimea and was hit by all these sanctions from the U.S. and from the E.U. So Russias economy is still tied to the West. It imports a lot of stuff from the West. But in many key areas, whether its technology or energy extraction or agriculture, Russia is becoming more self-sufficient. And it is building ties to other parts of the world  like China, India, et cetera  that could allow it to diversify and have basically an economic base even if an invasion leads to a major crisis in its financial and economic relationship with the West.

michael barbaro

Right. So this is the argument that Putin can live with the costs of the world reacting very negatively to this invasion?

anton troianovski

Exactly.

michael barbaro

OK. And what are the reasons why an invasion of Ukraine might not happen? What would be the case against it, if you were Vladimir Putin?

anton troianovski

Well, I mean, I have to say, talking to analysts, especially here in Russia, people are very skeptical that Putin would go ahead with an invasion. They point out that he is a careful tactician and that he doesnt like making moves that are irreversible or that could have unpredictable consequences. So if we even look at the military action hes taken recently, the annexation of Crimea, there wasnt a single shot fired in that. That was a very quick special-forces-type operation. What were talking about here, an invasion of Ukraine, would be just a massive escalation from anything Putin has done so far. We are talking about the biggest land war in Europe since World War II, most likely. And it would have all kinds of unpredictable consequences. Theres also the domestic situation to keep in mind. Putin does still have approval ratings above 60 percent, but things are a bit shaky here, especially with Covid. And some analysts say that Putin wouldnt want to usher in the kind of domestic unpredictability that could start with a major war with young men coming back in body bags. And then finally, looking at Putins strategy and everything that hes said, for all we know, he doesnt really want to annex Ukraine. He wants influence over Ukraine. And the way he thinks he can do that is through negotiations with the United States. And thats where the last key point here comes in, which is Putins real conviction that its the U.S. pulling the strings here and that he can accomplish his goals by getting President Biden to sit down with him and hammering out a deal about the structure of security in Eastern Europe. So in that sense, this whole troop build-up might not be about an impending invasion at all. It might just be about coercive diplomacy, getting the U.S. to the table, and getting them to hammer out an agreement that would somehow pledge to keep Ukraine out of NATO and pledge to keep Western military infrastructure out of Ukraine and parts of the Black Sea.

michael barbaro

Well in that sense, Anton, Putin may be getting what he wants, right? Because as we speak, President Putin and President Biden have just wrapped up a very closely watched phone call about all of this. So is it possible that that call produces a breakthrough and perhaps a breakthrough that goes Putins way?

anton troianovski

Well, thats very hard to imagine. And thats really what makes this situation so volatile and so dangerous, which is that what Putin wants, the West and President Biden cant really give.

michael barbaro

Why not?

anton troianovski

Well, for instance, pledging to keep Ukraine out of NATO would violate the Western concept that every country should have the right to decide for itself what its alliances are. President Biden obviously has spent years, going back to when he was vice president, really speaking in favor of Ukrainian sovereignty and self-determination and trying to help Ukraine take a more Western path. So Biden suddenly turning on all of that and giving Putin what he wants here is hard to imagine.

michael barbaro

Right, because that would create a very slippery slope when it comes to any country that Russia wants to have influence over. It would then know that the right playbook would be to mass troops on the border and wait for negotiation with the U.S. and hope that the U.S. would basically sell those countries out. Thats probably not something youre saying that President Biden would willingly do.

anton troianovski

Right. And then, of course, the other question is, well, if Russia doesnt get what it wants, if Putin doesnt get what he wants, then what does he do?

michael barbaro

So Anton, its tempting to think that this could all be what you just described as a coercive diplomatic bluff by Putin to extract what he wants from President Biden and from the West. But it feels like history has taught us that Putin is willing to invade Ukraine. He did it in 2014. History has also taught us that hes obsessed with Ukraine, dating back to 1991 and the end of the Soviet Union. And it feels like one of the ultimate lessons of history is that we have to judge leaders based on their actions. And his actions right now are putting 175,000 troops near the border with Ukraine. And so shouldnt we conclude that it very much looks like Putin might carry out this invasion?

anton troianovski

Yes, thats right. And of course, there are steps that Putin could take that would be short of a full-fledged invasion that could still be really destabilizing and damaging. Here in Moscow, Ive heard analysts speculate about maybe pinpoint airstrikes against the Ukrainian targets, or a limited invasion perhaps just specifically in that area where Russian-backed separatists are fighting. But even such steps could have really grave consequences. And thats why if you combine what were seeing on the ground in Russia, near the border, and what weve been hearing from President Putin and other officials here in Moscow, that all tells us that the stakes here are really high.

michael barbaro

Well, Anton, thank you very much. We appreciate your time.

anton troianovski

Thanks for having me.

michael barbaro

On Tuesday afternoon, both the White House and the Kremlin released details about the call between Putin and Biden. The White House said that Biden warned Putin of severe economic sanctions if Russia invaded Ukraine. The Kremlin said that Putin repeated his demands that Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO and that Western weapons systems not be placed inside Ukraine. But Putin made no promises to remove Russian forces from the border.

[music]
SIENA, Italy  The award-winning photograph  of a man who had lost a leg in a bomb attack in Syria, hoisting into the air his son, born without limbs, another casualty of the countrys civil war  went viral last year in Italy.

On Friday, Munzir El Nezzel, the man in the picture, and his son Mustafa arrived in Italy after a remarkable effort by the organizers of the Siena International Photo Awards, to bring them and their family from Turkey, where they had fled after Syria.

We are coming, thank you, the 6-year-old Mustafa said, smiling broadly, in a video message recorded before he and his family  father, mother and his two sisters ages 1 and 4  boarded a plane in Ankara on Thursday to fly to Italy. We love Italia, he added.

The picture of Mustafa and his father, both with loving smiles, which was taken in January 2021 by the Turkish photographer Mehmet Aslan, and called Hardship of Life, was declared photo of the year at the Siena awards last year.
KYIV, Ukraine  Ukraines military intelligence service said on Friday that Russia was sending mercenaries into rebel-held territories in eastern Ukraine, along with tanks, mobile artillery units and 7,000 tons of fuel, raising fears of military escalation in the region.

The mercenaries are being deployed to fighting units in Luhansk and Donetsk after undergoing a course of intensive training, the agency, known as the G.U.R., said in a statement on Facebook. The precise number of mercenaries is unclear, but a senior Ukrainian security official said it was at least 1,000.

The official said that they were being sent in small groups, and that the deployment had been going on for about three weeks.

This month, the White House accused Moscow of sending saboteurs into eastern Ukraine, potentially to set off a provocation that could give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia the pretext to order into action the roughly 127,000 troops he has deployed near Ukraines borders.
GENEVA  The United States and Russia scaled back their confrontational rhetoric over Eastern European security on Friday, agreeing to extend negotiations as the Biden administration pursues a fragile diplomatic path to averting a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, in a hastily scheduled meeting in Geneva that the United States would provide written responses next week to Russias demands that the West unwind its military presence in Eastern Europe.

Both sides said that the two diplomats planned to speak again after that, and they left the door open to another conversation between President Biden and President Vladimir V. Putin to try to resolve the crisis.

Even as the threat of a Russian invasion remained real, the conciliatory tone and absence of ultimatums suggested that both sides were trying to keep tensions in check and give diplomacy time to play out. And the longer negotiating timeline stood in contrast to Mr. Bidens comments two days earlier when he said he believed Mr. Putin was ready to use military force.
Late Friday, Islamic State fighters still controlled about a quarter of the prisons northern area, and violent clashes continued there and in a neighborhood to the west, said Farhad Shami, the spokesman for the Kurdish-led militia, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F.

It is unclear how many prisoners managed to escape and for how long.

Mr. Shami said that 89 prisoners had broken out on Friday but were caught by the S.D.F. and returned to the prison. A local news agency published a video that appeared to be of those men, bearded and with no shirts, being transported in the back of a truck.

Mr. Shami said the S.D.F. was not aware of any successful escapes but that there have been unconfirmed reports of individual prisoners making it out.

Sabereen News, an Iraqi news outlet affiliated with Iranian-backed militias, said dozens of escaped prisoners were arrested near the Syrian-Iraqi border as they tried to flee to Iraq.

The prison holds about 3,500 men who were arrested by the S.D.F. during battles to drive the Islamic State out of territory it controlled in eastern Syria. The militia partnered with an international military coalition led by the United States to fight the Islamic State, which, at its height, ruled territory the size of Britain in Syria and Iraq.

A United States military official said that aircraft from the anti-Islamic-State coalition had carried out at least two airstrikes targeting a significant number of Islamic State attackers and escapees outside the prison.

The coalition has surveillance aircraft overhead to try to help the Syrian forces on the ground, but no United States forces were directly involved, the official said.
I was ready to die rather than tell. I was ready to die rather than tell. Sandra, 72, had an abortion in 1968.

By Ilana Panich-Linsman and Lauren Kelley Photographs by Ilana Panich-Linsman Ms. Panich-Linsman is a photographer in Austin, Texas. Ms. Kelley is a member of the editorial board.

The end of Roe v. Wade is coming.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in June in a case from Mississippi called Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, and that ruling will likely overturn or gut Roe  that imperfect but critical precedent that has given Americans the right to abortion since 1973. Since Jan. 22, 1973, to be precise.

The week of its 49th birthday, Roe v. Wade is hobbled. Not only is it unlikely to make it to 50 in any recognizable form, but for millions of women across the country who live in states where abortion is almost unobtainable even now, it might as well already be gone.

Still, Roes demise will be shattering, and there is much work to do in preparing for it. One important part of that work is studying what came before. Thats not because what comes after Roe v. Wade will be the same; today, women have better access to information about safely managing their own abortions, and it is becoming increasingly easy to get hold of pills with which they can do so. The risks for these women are often more legal than they are medical.

Rather, we must remember the struggles of Americans who had abortions before the procedure was widely available  like the women photographed below, many of them telling their stories for the first time  because we will need to draw from their experiences in fighting back. Yes, a fight will be needed to regain access to abortion for millions once Roe is gone. And these women have waged that fight. They have waged it with their bodies. And they have the scars to prove it.
What is lost when a girl is unable to attend school? Not only her own potential, but the wider well-being of her community. Such was a key message of the Dec. 13 panel on Education in the Midst of Crises held at Dubai Expo 2020, in the Womens Pavilion created in cooperation with Cartier. Activists, educators and policymakers came together to discuss how the pandemic has spotlighted the crucial importance of providing girls and women with access to quality education  a lifeline not only to dignity, but to basic safety. As Sudan-born Emtithal Mahmoud, activist, poet and goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees, pointed out: The highest determinant for the life expectancy of a child is the education level of the mother. Education is life.

Research shows that in times of protracted crises, its women and girls that carry the cost, said the discussions moderator, Aashti Zaidi Hai, C.E.O of the Global Schools Forum, setting the tone for this timely discussion of effective ways to promote and support female education in emergency conditions. Well before the pandemic, refugees and those affected by war and displacement had been especially vulnerable to losing access to education. Muzoon Almellehan, Syrian refugee, activist and goodwill ambassador for Unicef, stressed educations role as a powerful light in dark times, bringing hope and encouragement to the challenges facing refugee children.

Caitlin Baron, C.E.O. of the Luminos Fund, spoke of its work to provide children with intensive short-term programs that enable them to reenter mainstream school. This is one of the most essential themes of education in emergencies, she said, not just how can we meet the child where they are today, but how can we lay the groundwork for their future. At the institutional level, said Rebecca Telford, deputy director of the Division of Resilience and Solutions at the UNHCR: One of the challenges for us as the international community is just the scale, citing the figure of nearly 30 million refugees.
Stillwater, OK (74078)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High 66F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 58F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
Indian police recently arrested a disgruntled charity worker accused of setting fire to a bank branch in Karnataka after being denied a loan.

33-year-old Wasim Hazaratsab Mulla, a charity worker from Haveri, approached state-run Canara Bank for a loan of 1.6 million rupees ($21,600) in December of last year. His application was eventually denied, because of discrepancies in the submitted paperwork which broke the banks credit policy. Wasim allegedly didnt take the news too kindly, riding his motorcycle to the bank branch on Sunday, January 9th, breaking open a window to spray a flammable liquid inside and setting the building on fire.

Photo: Andrew Coop/Unsplash

Eyewitnesses saw plumes of smoke rising from the burning building and immediately raised the alarm. The angry arsonist was also detained by locals before he could make his getaway and restrained until the police arrived.

He was angry after his loan application was rejected. He sprayed some inflammable chemical, maybe petrol but we are investigating the matter, a police officer told The National. He ran a non-governmental organization. He wanted money for machines and had applied for a loan of 1.6 million rupees. Fortunately, no cash or gold or other valuables were destroyed.

Firefighters managed to successfully douse the fire, but police announced that five computers, fans, passbook printers, cash counting machines and lights worth 1.2 million rupees ($16,000) were damaged. Wasim Hazaratsab Mulla has been charged with arson and is awaiting punishment.
Dustin Siggins

Fourteen years ago, Barack Obama wasnt a respected world figure or the first Black U.S. President. He was a rookie U.S. Senator running an inspirational, insurgent campaign for President against favored Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton. Hed climbed to even in national pollsand split early primariesbut the one-two punch of former White House residents Bill and Hillary Clinton was a massive barrier to overcome.

Then, 12 days after Obama climbed to even, top Senator Ted Kennedy endorsed Obamas campaign. With Barack Obama, we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group and straight against gay, Kennedy said during a rally. That short statement gave validation to Obamas claims of being a transformational leader, despite Clintons vast experience in politics.

Obamas campaign had momentum before Senator Kennedys endorsement, but its hard to overstate the impact of the endorsement, said Real Clear Politics Senior Polling Editor Kavon Nikrad. Obama had been favorably compared to JFK, Kennedys older brother. Kennedy was the partys Liberal Lion, a longtime Clinton ally, and the face of the most important political family in America for the second half of the 20th century.

The principle of letting others tell your story boosted Obama to the Democratic Party nomination and eventually to the White House. Letting others tell your story for you can:

Validate existing claims, as happened with Obama in 2008 and takes place in business when investors buy into companies who claim to have the next big product or idea.

Spread your message faster than if you did it on your own. Obama could only make so many speeches in a day, and eventually, people wouldve tuned him out.

Protect against attacks on your brand. Obamas campaign brilliantly deflected attacks on his foreign policy views and his relationship with a former anti-war terrorist.

In the Internet age, third-party validators are critical to success

When I was in business school almost 20 years ago, the rule of thumb was that people who have a great restaurant experience will tell one person. Customers who have a bad experience will tell 10. Today, those numbers are exponentially larger thanks to the Internet; and critics can cause anyone to have a bad day, week or career. Therefore, any campaignpolitical or otherwisemust earn significant validation from third-party backers early and often.

Former President Donald Trump used this strategy to win the White House in 2016. A prolific self-campaigner, he still sought endorsements from everyday people and leading influencers alike. Then-Senator Jeff Sessions early 2016 endorsement deflated Senator Ted Cruzs credibility with immigration hawks and brought Trump significant Tea Party support leading up to Super Tuesday primary elections. During the general election, Trumps campaign used Facebooks algorithms to create mini-endorsements through millions of shares, likes and clicks, promoting Trumps message to millions more in what a former Facebook executive described as the single best digital ad campaign Ive ever seen from any advertiser.

The most powerful validation comes from people involved in your organization. Everyday voters are far more valuable to politicians than even the most influential endorsements and national media. Without sales and happy customers, a company goes out of business; without satisfied staff, it has a low ceiling for growth. Vice President Kamala Harris saw this with her White House primary run, when an excellent and widely-covered campaign launch was dragged down by inconsistent policy positions, internal disorganization, and, eventually, a lack of trust among voters.

Endorsements are most powerful when they appeal to the right segment of your target audience. In 2008, Obama had the young vote wrapped up; Kennedys endorsement was key to getting older voters, who trusted Kennedy and his familys legacy. In 2016, Cruz was still running strong with very conservative voters, so Sessions endorsement was key to shifting that support. This principle is why athletes and Hollywood stars are paid millions for endorsements, and why lobbyists are paid six-figure salaries. Their voices matter to a critical segment of the people who are buying your products and services, pushing your policy or voting for you.

Protect yourself with other peoples credibility

Today, anyones reputation can be damaged, and many people can be canceled, by Internet critics. Back in 2008, Kennedys endorsement was one of many which the Obama campaign brilliantly used to validate its claims of being a transformative, uniting campaign. The campaign also used endorsements to deflect serious and impactful criticisms which were widely covered in the press. Two stand out:

Obama had been associated with former terrorist Bill Ayers, who in the 1970s bombed locations in the U.S. as part of the leftist Weather Underground. In his last debate with Republican nominee John McCain three weeks before the 2008 election, Obama deflected by citing others with whom he was associated, such as billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett, former NATO Commander General Jim Jones and the Republican president of Northwestern University.

During the Democratic National Convention that year, more than a dozen former U.S. military generals walked onto the stage, providing a powerful image of support for Obamas foreign policy platform despite his lack of experience in military or world affairs.

Endorsements of Obama helped him in different ways, said Rutgers University historian David Greenberg. Kennedy helped make Bill Clintons presidency a success, so his endorsement gave Obama momentum to steal the mantle from Hillary as the standard-bearer of American liberalism. It also gave Obama a mainstream stamp of approval to distance himself from the radical types he foolishly associated with, such as Ayers. And the other endorsements further established Obama as mainstreammany far-left could never have gotten endorsements from the figures Obama cited.

Obama won the White House before Twitter and Facebook became political juggernauts, but the principles of protecting your brand with other peoples bragging havent changed. Its simply become more important than ever.

Succeed by letting others tell your story

Whether youre a prolific storyteller like Obama and Trump, or someone whos less skilled in that area, you can only be so effective as your own storyteller. Its a mistake to think your voice is the most important one for supporters and potential supporters to hear, whether youre running for office, leading a company or trying to get a promotion.

Both Obama and Trump relied heavily on other peoples storytelling in their initial White House campaigns: endorsements to defeat primary opponents, supporters to turn out friends and family at the ballot box and the media to put their message in front of millions of people at a time. And especially for Obamaa nobody on the national scenerelying on others validated his campaigns claims, spread his claims faster than he could on his own and protected his brand against a number of attacks. Voters clearly believed the messagenot once, but twice.

***

Dustin Siggins is founder of the media relations firm Proven Media Solutions, and a business columnist.
21/01/2022 - On 21 January 2022, Switzerland, Tunisia and the Global Forum Secretariat launched a pilot project to assist Tunisia in the implementation of the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters (AEOI) during a high-level virtual meeting.



The AEOI pilot project follows Tunisias recent commitment to start automatic exchange by 2024. It will cover all aspects of the implementation of the AEOI standard, from setting up the legal framework to the use of the data received. This partnership will allow Tunisia to benefit from the legal and practical expertise of Switzerland, which has been exchanging automatically since 2018.



The meeting gathered Ms Fatiha Gharbi, Tunisias General Director of Taxes, Mr Marc Bugnon, Deputy Director of the Swiss Tax Administration, and Ms Zayda Manatta, Head of the Global Forum Secretariat. Participants discussed the key steps of the implementation of AEOI standard in terms of legal framework, confidentiality and administrative and IT capacities, and agreed on a timeframe for the implementation of the pilot project.



The European Union funds the support provided by the Global Forum Secretariat to Tunisia.



Background information:



The Global Forum is the leading multilateral body mandated to ensure that jurisdictions around the world adhere to and effectively implement both the exchange of information on request standard and the standard of automatic exchange of information. These objectives are achieved through a robust monitoring and peer review process. The Global Forum also runs an extensive capacity-building programme to support its members in implementing the standards and help tax authorities make the best use of cross-border information sharing channels.



For more information, please contact gftaxcooperation@oecd.org.
Sinn Fein TD for Laois-Offaly Brian Stanley has said the HSE is "failing children by not providing them with their statutory entitlement of routine dental screening in schools.

The crisis continues to deteriorate, and figures received by Sinn Fein gives a county by county breakdown. The total amount of sixth class pupils in Laois/Offaly awaiting routine check-ups is 2,872. In Laois, there are 1560 children with 1,312 in Offaly," Deputy Stanley explained.

"This compares with an all-time high of 2,507 last March. This has been an increase of 365 children," he added.

He said children are not getting their first assessment until they attend secondary school.

"I am aware that some are waiting up to the age of 14 years and older and are in second year in Post Primary School. Nationally there are 100,000 children waiting on appointments.

"The Minister and the HSE need to accept that this scheme is broken. The absence of treatment for children will lead to far more serious dental and general health issues in later life.

The situation for adults with medical cards trying to get treatment under the DTSS is no better." He said this scheme has totally collapsed in his native Laois.

"This means there is no service available for those medical card patients to get treatment. Private dentists across the country have left the scheme in droves.

"We are informed that the Government and the Irish Dental Association are currently in negotiations, but agreement appears to be elusive.

"The Government and the HSE now need to face the reality that a number of directly employed dentists need to be recruited by the HSE. Good dentists will only be attracted with the offer of permanent posts.

Im calling on the Minister and the CEO of the HSE to recognise the reality that our dental services have regressed and that 40 years ago there very much better."
Schools in Offaly are being invited to join a new national award scheme aimed at recognising and celebrating post-primary schools that promote empathy, kindness and connection among students and staff.

The initiative, launching today, is being rolled out to schools across the country by Narrative 4 Ireland, a Limerick-based empathy education organisation that has trained hundreds of teachers and youth workers to deliver an evidence-based teaching method that fosters connection, empathy and encourages positive relationships in the classroom.

I think we can all see why something like this is so timely. The world is very fractured at the moment, barriers are being reinforced and hate crimes and online bullying are rising. We need to dig deeper when it comes to bringing people back together says TG4 presenter and awards ambassador Louise Cantillon.

She says: Empathy education cultivates vital life skills in young people. It increases awareness of diversity, improves social skills, and gives young people a sense of belonging and connection. The pandemic has been extremely difficult for young people and their teachers. It has isolated and separated us in different ways and stripped away important ways to connect, learn and grow together. Thankfully people are responding to these challenges, not least teachers and students out there cultivating a culture of kindness and connection that reminds us of our humanity. This new award initiative is about encouraging and celebrating this work and we're looking forward to schools in Offaly being part of it all.

The Narrative 4 Empathy School Award follows the format of having three levels of recognition for schools: gold, silver and bronze. The Gold Award requires at least 10 teachers to be trained in Narrative 4s Empathy Education Online CPD as part of their continued professional development. Other requirements include a School Empathy Charter, a Walk and Talk Empathy Challenge, and a series of modules for both students and staff. The silver and bronze options have similar components, albeit with less time commitments.

Narrative 4 was co-founded in 2012 by New York-based Irish author Colum McCann, who went on to bring it to Ireland in 2016. Narrative 4 is a registered Irish charity and has its Irish base in Limerick city. Its empathy education programme has won several awards and praise from students, parents, teachers and beyond. Narrative 4 has received recognition and support from organisations such as Rethink Ireland, the JP McManus Fund, the Ireland Funds, and Creative Ireland.

McCann says the work that the organisation does offers benefits across society.

This is about embedding empathy work into our schools. So many schools are doing amazing work, but its clear theres potential to do so much more. Were at a real turning point in our world, and I think this can be a transformative moment for the better. Change starts with education, and by giving our young people the right opportunities. Thats why we developed this award. Our hope is that it provides a valuable and timely offering for schools. Ive seen first-hand how this work brings benefits to staff, students and, in fact, entire school cultures. This ripples into our homes and into society, creating a kinder and more nuanced world, something that is very much needed right now.

Narrative 4 Ireland Director Dr James Lawlor says the popularity of the programme is largely due to its accessibility and wide variety of practical applications.

It creates space for young people to connect and share their own stories and those of their classmates and others. This helps them to see the world from anothers perspective and so that they can understand themselves and other people better. I am continually filled with hope for the future when I meet the young people and educators involved with Narrative 4. They have the humanity and the skills to shape and make this world a kinder, more empathic place. They are committed to addressing prejudices, particularly the stigma around mental health concerns, as well as issues of racism and isolation caused by Covid-19. In this way, they help heal divisions through the power of dialogue, connection and empathy

More information at www.narrative4.ie
THE search is still on for the 2021 Offaly Person of the Year and the 2021 Offaly Unsung Hero.

Both awards were launched at an informal event in the Library Bar of the Bridge House Hotel recently.

Speaking at the ceremony Jennifer Guinan, Chairperson of the Offaly Association (Dublin) extended a special welcome to the 2019 Person of the Year Brendan Martin and 2019 Unsung Hero of Offaly Pat Minnock who were both present.

"It is strange to say that it is two years since we last met to launch the award due to Covid which forced us to cancel the 2020 award.

"The Offaly Person of the Year award is a prestigious award awarded to an Offaly person who is nominated by the people of Offaly via nomination forms which appear in the local newspapers.

"I am calling on the people of Offaly to nominate who they think has played a vital role in the county and in their community," said Ms Guinan who thanked Noel Tynan of The Celt Hotel Bar and Lounge, Talbot Street, Dublin for his sponsorship of the award, the management and staff of the Bridge House Hotel for hosting the awards ceremony and the launch night.

Master of Cermonies Ger Scully said there were apologies from Cllr. Sean O'Brien, Offaly County Council CEO Anna Marie Delaney and Offaly Association Dublin stalwart Ann Carey who were unable to attend the launch. He went on to wish Ann and her husband Alan well, explaining that Alan is in ill health at the moment.

Cathaoirleach of Offaly County Council Cllr Declan Harvey thanked the committee for inviting him to the launch.

"The Offaly Person of the Year award is a very important award as it recognises people in the county who have achieved memorable things and they are nominated for the award by the people of the county.

"I want to congratulate Brendan Martin on winning the 2019 award, Pat Minnock on winning the 2019 Unsung Hero award, all the previous winners, the committee who do an excellent job in organising the event and the Bridge House Hotel for hosting the event. The presentation of the 2019 award was a resounding success," said Cllr. Harvey.

Prior to launching the search for the 2021 winner. 2019 winner Brendan Martin said "being presented with the award was a wonderful occasion for myself and my family. I was very privileged to be presented with the award.

"The Offaly Association has done many wonderful things for the people of Offaly living in Dublin since it was formed and continues to do so.

"I want to acknowledge the work of the committee and the work of the selection committee each year. I want to congratulate Pat Minnock on winning the Unsung Hero award.

"The presentation was very special and successful and I want to thank Noel McCann and the staff of the Bridge House Hotel for making the night so special.

"The award was a wonderful honour which was bestowed on me."

The closing date for receipt of nominations for the 2021 Offaly Person of the Year is Friday, January 28, 2022.

Nomination forms, which will be published in next week's editions of the Tullamore Tribune and the Midland Tribune, should be sent to Ger Scully, Convent View, Tullamore on or before that date.
A HIGHLY intoxicated man was seen near a petrol station in Edenderry dressed in military gear and holding an imitation firearm.

Darius Butkvs, aged 51, Clonmullen Hall, Edenderry, pleaded guilty at Tullamore District Court to having possession of a realistic imitation firearm, a discharged cartridge which had been reseated with a new bullet and 10 12-gauge shotgun cartridges.

The offence occurred on March 28 last year at St Mary's Road, Edenderry and a garda saw Mr Butkvs in a highly intoxicated state at about 10pm leaning against a car in a car park adjacent to a petrol station.

Sergeant James O'Sullivan outlined to the court that the accused was dressed in military clothing with a firearm and holster strapped to his leg.

The garda seized the gun and also found three magazines filled with plastic pellets around his ankle and on a utility vest and those too were seized.

At a subsequent search of his residence a number of cartridges were found and when a detective garda investigated the matter he ascertained that the cartridges had been found by the man when he cleaned out a shed.

The court was told Mr Butkvs was a shooter in his home country of Lithuania but he did not have a licence for the firearm in this country.

Sergeant O'Sullivan said the imitation firearm was an Airsoft and would be used for firing plastic pellets. It was an illegal weapon for him to have.

The accused worked as a security man and it looked like he may have been kitted out for that. He had three previous convictions for domestic violence and received a six-month suspended sentence for breach of a barring order at Tullamore District Court in 2017.

The guilty pleas were entered on Mr Butkvs's behalf by Donal Farrelly, solicitor, who explained his client was a divorced man who had been accompanied to court by his 27-year-old daughter and his Irish employer.

The accused had previously been in the Lithuanian defence forces and had been drinking heavily at the time of the offence because of the stress of the divorce but happily he was now back on good terms with his former partner.

Mr Farrelly said the man worked for a tree and shrub company and also assisted on the farm with security.

The solicitor added that his employer had written a letter to the court and explained that Mr Butkvs lived in a caravan at his workplace which had been provided to him by his employer because he had nowhere else to stay.

The incident before the court occurred after the man had been drinking with younger people and they had encouraged him.

He had drink taken himself and was driven into Edenderry. Mr Farrelly said the gardai agreed his client had no ulterior motive and was showing off.

Judge Catherine Staines said it must have been really frightening for a member of the public to see somebody dressed up with an imitation firearm and she was also concerned that he was drunk.

He had no previous convictions for a similar offence and she noted that his employer had both written an excellent reference for him and had come to court which showed the respect he had for the accused.

Mr Butkvs's daughter told the court her father was not drinking any more.

Following confirmation that the accused was willing to undertake community service, Judge Catherine Staines adjourned finalisation of sentence to April 6 for a community service report and said that if the man is deemed suitable, he will complete 200 hours of service in lieu of an eight-month prison sentence.
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On 18 January 2022, the Federal Administration of Public Revenue of the Argentine Republic (AFIP), represented by the Director General of Customs, Mrs. Silvia Brunilda Traverso, and the World Customs Organization (WCO), represented by its Secretary General, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, completed the signing process for a Memorandum of Understanding on establishing a WCO Regional Dog Training Centre (RDTC) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The new RDTC in Buenos Aires is equipped with high-quality facilities, which include general kennels and kennels for dogs in recovery, spacious training areas and the latest animal health and veterinary care equipment. Its main objective is to develop and deliver specialized training at regional level, as well as serving as a resource centre for the development and delivery of training materials for the regions Members.

As one of key partners of our Customs officers in their daily tasks, canine teams are widely used for a range of Customs duties, stressed WCO Secretary General Mikuriya. To maintain high-standards of canine enforcement and a global network to that end, the accreditation of RDTCs is aimed at sharing knowledge and professionalism and, more importantly, at building regional capacity and cooperation in canine enforcement. With that in mind, I have every confidence in the future success of the new RDTC in Buenos Aires, he added.

Over the years, Customs has been facing an ever-changing business environment and heightened public expectations for even more efficient Customs operations. Among the non-intrusive operational tools available, canine units have gained prominence and become indispensable in the performance of Customs duties. The scope of canine enforcement is expanding from its traditional drug detection role to tackling security issues that Customs, as the first line of defence at borders, must address and overcome. Nowadays, canine teams play a key role not only in detecting explosives and drugs, but also in detecting other types of contraband such as currency and illegally traded goods protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Through its current network of 18 accredited RDTCs across the Organizations different regions, the WCO is committed to providing technical assistance and capacity building as well as to promoting expertise and sharing best practices among Member administrations to ensure optimum implementation of international standards in canine detection. The goal of these RDTCs is to provide professional canine-related training and capacity-building activities for Customs administrations in each of the WCO regions and to facilitate cooperation between them.

The WCO Secretariat would like to congratulate the AFIP on this accreditation, and wishes the RDTC in Buenos Aires every success.
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Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops on its borders with Ukraine and there are fears of a fresh assault.
The top US and Russian diplomats will meet in Geneva later as fears of an invasion grow.
These new talks, which seek to de-escalate the crisis at the Ukrainian border, come 11 days after a first round of discussions in the Swiss city yielded little result.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia's top diplomat are meeting in an attempt to de-escalate tensions in Eastern Europe. However, Blinken has said resolving major issues "won't be done quickly."
A British doctor has been killed by a stray bullet to the head while lying in bed during a trip to the US state of Georgia.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released an interim report that assessed there was no foreign actor involved in the majority of cases related to the mysterious Havana syndrome. The incident has gone on for more than five years that has left U.S. officials baffled.
Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

Total hedge fund industry capital rose to surpass the $4 trillion milestone to begin 2022, according to the latest asset flows data from HFR.

Total hedge fund capital rose increased to an estimated $4.01 trillion to begin 2022, representing an increase of over $400 billion from the start of 2021. As reported previously, total hedge fund industry capital has soared by over $1 trillion in the trailing seven quarters since falling below $3 trillion in 1Q20 as the global pandemic began.

The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index (FWC) posted a gain of +0.5 percent for 4Q21, bringing the FY 2021 performance to +10.3 percent. The 2021 gain trails only the prior two years as the strongest years of performance since 2009. The investable HFRI 500 Fund Weighted Composite Index gained +9.9 percent for the full-year 2021.

Event-Driven (ED) strategies extended asset increases through year end, with capital rising over $155 billion in FY 2021 to surpass $1.115 trillion, trailing only Equity Hedge as the largest strategy area of capital. The investable HFRI 500 Event-Driven Index rose +2.1 percent in 4Q and +14.5 percent for 2021, the leading area of strategy performance; ED sub-strategy performance was led by the HFRI 500 ED: Activist Index which surged +20.3 percent in 2021.

Total capital invested in Equity Hedge (EH) strategies experienced an increase of over $133 billion for 2021, bringing total EH capital to a record $1.227 trillion to ......................

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WEST HARTFORD  A new study projects that enrollment in the towns schools will decline over the next 10 years.

Chip Ward, the towns former director of finance and planning who retired in 2019, said he has been conducting enrollment projection studies for about 20 years.

He reported his most recent findings to the Board of Education, projecting the 8,787 students enrolled in schools in 2021 will gradually decline to 7,944 students in a decade.

That projection, he said, means the town shouldnt be concerned about expanding space for students.

Youre going to have a relatively long period of a stable population of around 8,000 students, Ward said. You built the system for 10,000 students, so you have plenty of room in the system. Whereas in the earlier years when we were growing, it was where do we have to build, where do we have to expand. There isnt going to be that pressure on the [capital improvement plan].

The trend, he said, comes from a decline in births in West Hartford since 2001, as well as declining trends seen statewide.

Ward explained a few other factors that can lead to the growth or decline of enrollment, including families moving into town specifically for the school system.

We typically have more kindergartners than we had births five years previously, Ward said. Families have children, and as the children get ready for school age, they move into West Hartford.

Student loss, he said, can be explained by parents opting to enroll their students in parochial, private or magnet schools, many times happening in the transition between fifth and sixth grade. Other factors might include families leaving town for economic reasons.

When we project out into the future, we begin to see well have a gradual drop of 100 students a year for the next six to seven years, and then slowing out after that, Ward said. Youll bottom out at around 8,000 students. That looks to be the end of the baby boom echo and then well see what happens after that.

Superintendent Tom Moore said West Hartford is not likely to have the sort of influx of students other towns have seen.

Our rise and our decline has been pretty steady. Some neighboring communities have crashes with their populations quickly, Moore said. Youre not going to see a huge development go in like in Rocky Hill or South Windsor where youre going to get all these new houses that lead to this. Thats just not going to happen here.

Moore also said having fewer students would impact the number of teachers needed, but wouldnt impact the number of courses they offer students at the high school level.

There are less classes, but not less courses necessarily, Moore said. Its not like we would cut courses and not offer this course, but instead of 11 sections of U.S. History, you have 9 sections of U.S. History. That does lead to less teachers, which is cost savings.

Connecticut Media Group
Opalesque Industry Update - Hedge fund managers reversed losses in November and gained 1.01% in December, bringing their 2021 return to 9.49% - the second best annual performance since 2010. Hedge funds were supported by the robust performance of the global equity market as represented by the MSCI ACWI (Local) which returned 3.55% over the month. Around 75.8% of the constituents of the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index generated positive returns in 2021. On an asset-weighted basis, hedge funds gained 1.86% in December, as captured by the Eurekahedge Asset Weighted Index - USD. In terms of 2021 performance, the index is only up 4.29%, highlighting the struggles for some of the larger asset managers over the year. The Eurekahedge North American Hedge Fund Index gained 1.79% in December, supported by the robust performance of the DJIA and S&P 500 which gained 5.38% and 4.36% respectively over the month. In terms of 2021 performance, North American fund managers were up 14.46%, posting their second consecutive year of double-digit returns. The Eurekahedge European Hedge Fund Index gained 1.62% in December, supported by the robust performance of the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 which gained 5.79% over the month. Investors brushed aside concerns over the surge in Omicron cases as evidence suggests the Omicron variant leads to lower rates of hospitalisation and death. In terms of 2021 performance, European fund managers were up 8.43%, posting their best annual performance since 2013. The Eurekahedge Asia ex-Japan Hedge Fund Index was up 0.63% in December, bringing its 2021 performance to 7.27%. In contrast to their strong performance in 2020 when they outperformed their European and North American peers by 18.48% and 6.42% respectively, Asia ex-Japan hedge funds have underperformed their developed market peers in 2021 as Greater China hedge funds who were the primary index performance driver in 2020 failed to sustain their strong returns in 2021 as reflected in their -0.03% loss for the year. The Eurekahedge Long Bias Hedge Fund Index gained 2.57% in December, rebounding strongly from a -2.35% loss suffered in the previous month. In terms of 2021 performance, long bias fund managers were up 12.96%, posting their third consecutive year of double-digit returns. The Eurekahedge Long Short Equities Hedge Fund Index gained 1.57% in December, rebounding strongly from a -1.55% loss suffered in the previous month. In terms of 2021 performance, long/short equities fund managers were up 10.80%, posting their third consecutive year of double-digit returns. The CBOE Eurekahedge Short Volatility Hedge Fund Index gained 2.29% in December, supported by the decline in market volatility as seen in the -36.67% decline in the CBOE VIX in December as encouraging news around the reduced severity of the Omicron variant assuaged investors' concern that the global economic recovery would be derailed. In terms of 2021 performance, short volatility fund managers were up 14.73%, posting their highest annual return since 2009. The Eurekahedge CTA/Managed Futures Hedge Fund Index gained 0.57% in December, supported by the strong returns of the S&P GSCI Index which gained 7.59% over the month. Improving crude demand and dwindling US crude inventories allowed oil to recover some of their November losses as the prices of Brent crude oil and West Texas intermediate crude oil surged 10.11% and 12.09% respectively. In terms of 2021 performance, CTA/managed futures hedge funds were up 6.66%, marking their third consecutive year of positive returns above 5.00%. Fund managers focusing on cryptocurrencies declined -14.93% in December as tracked by the Eurekahedge Crypto-Currency Hedge Fund Index, outperforming Bitcoin which fell -18.51% over the same period. In terms of 2021 return, cryptocurrency hedge funds have gained 133.78%, outperforming Bitcoin which returned 63.82%.
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Oskaloosa, IA (52577)

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As the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins, Bishop Brian Farrell from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity reflects on some of the aspects that may have had an effect on Christian unity during this historic period.

Tuesday saw the opening of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, taking place from 18 to 25 January.

The theme for this years observance is We saw the star in the East, and we came to worship him, recalling the experience of the Magi, who came from the East to Bethlehem to worship the Messiah King.

In his Angelus on Sunday, 16 January, the Pope said that in a similar way, Christians of diverse backgrounds and traditions are pilgrims on our way to full unity who come closer to our goal when keeping our gaze fixed on Jesus.

This years theme

The theme, according to Bishop Brian Farrell, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (pcpcu), is really an invitation to all Christians to return to our origins and our origins are in Christ. He explains that the theme tells the story of the Magi, the wise men from the East, coming to adore the infant Jesus. This is very important for us, ecumenically, in the sense that we will never have the unity of Christians if we do not have the same faith and the same approach, the same acceptance of the salvation history that began in that moment of the birth of Jesus. Bishop Farrell explains that to summarise, the theme is simply a call to centre our efforts on the person and mystery and the world of Jesus.

The Week of Prayer

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is held annually, and is organised by the pcpcu which Bishop Farrell says, has as its task and mission the promotion of all the efforts of the Catholic Church to reconcile all Christians in the one Church that Christ prayed for when he asked that we all be one, like he and the Father are one.

Ecumenism and papal journeys

In an interview with Vatican News, Bishop Farrell reflects on some of the aspects of Christian Unity that truly stand out at this moment. One of these is the impact some of the Holy Fathers most recent journeys may have on ecumenism. Bishop Farrell notes that naturally, the ecumenical journey is a long one, and that, despite the significance of the Popes recent journeys, we mustnt think that one journey or one year of journeys is the end of the road. He explained that each journey should be seen as a building block. When the Pope comes to a country where he meets Christians of other Churches, his understanding and sense of respect and mutual acceptance of them is a wonderful step forward in creating the conditions so that one day we can be reconciled. Bishop Farrell notes some of the Holy Fathers trips this year: Iraq, Greece, Cyprus, Budapest and Slovakia. All of these have been moments of intense friendship and relationship with Christians of the other churches, all of these, he adds, are building blocks along the way towards the end of the ecumenical journey.

Ecumenism and the pandemic

Another topic relevant to the ecumenical journey is the current Covid-19 pandemic, which Bishop Farrell notes, has had both a positive and a negative impact on Christian Unity. On the one hand, he begins, cooperations between Christians of different churches have been supported by the fact we are all suffering the same pandemic. Bishop Farrell explains that Churches are working to help their people, and to help society in general to face the consequences of this pandemic. On the other hand, he continues, building contact and working towards ecumenical dialogue has become more difficult. He explains that meetings on the internet are fine, but that they do not permit the kind of trust-building and building of understanding that is necessary in theological dialogue. So although of course, there has been lots of ecumenical progress on the level of real-life response to the pandemic, there have also been some difficulties in carrying forward our programme of theological dialogue between the leaders of the churches.

Ecumenism and Synodality

Bishop Farrell then goes on to speak of the relationship between the pcpcu and the upcoming Synod of Bishops on Synodality. He explained that the Council has been very quick to invite all the bishops conferences of the world to ensure that when the dioceses and local communities organise their consultations in preparation for the eventual synod, they invite members of the other churches with whom they have contact to also express their thoughts. He explains that this is essential because what we are actually doing in the synodal process is to listen to the Church and above all to listen to what the spirit is saying to all of those who belong in some way to the Church. This, he adds, is an opportunity for every diocese and for every local community to open their doors to a new and deeper ecumenical relation in their area. This, concludes, Bishop Farrell is essential in showing the determination of the Catholic Church to carry forward the process of restoring Christian unity.

Finally Bishop Farrell stresses the importance of this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and invites everyone to take part, so that we do the first important thing that will eventually bring about full communion among Christians  and that is: to pray.

Francesca Merlo
The Holy Father will preside at the celebration of Second Vespers on Tuesday, 25 January, at the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The celebration will take place at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls on the Solemnity of the Conversion of Saint Paul with the participation of representatives of the other Christian communities in Rome and Italy.

During this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,  held annually on 18-25 January  Churches and Christians from many different traditions and confessions around the world gather to pray for the unity of the Church. This years materials and worship service have been prepared by the Middle East Council of Churches. The theme for 2022 was also chosen by the Middle East Council of Churches, in conjunction with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The selection of scripture and liturgical texts was inspired by the visit of the Magi to the new-born King, as described in Matthew 2:2: We saw the star in the East, and we came to worship him.

As Christians come together to mark the annual ecumenical Week of Prayer, the Secretary of the pcpcu, Bishop Brian Farrell, explained that the theme is an invitation to all Christians to return to our origins and our origins are in Christ.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, expressed the need for a common vision to avoid running the risk of growing further apart if we do not aim towards a common goal. If we have conflicting views of this goal, we shall, if we are consistent, move in opposite directions.

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In the Armenian-Catholic Cathedral of Saint Elijah and Saint Gregory the Illuminator in the Lebanese capital, the Patriarch of Cilicia of Armenian Catholics, Raphael Bedros xxi Minassian, invites everyone to overcome differences by looking to Christ the Redeemer and the mystery of the Eucharist.

Opening the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Beirut, Lebanon, Cilician Patriarch of Armenian Catholics Raphael Bedros xxi Minassian offered his reflections recalling the elements that unite Christians, starting first with what believers recite in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. When we have recourse to confession, we say, Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned in thought, word, deed and omission, the Patriarch recalled at the Armenian Catholic Cathedral of Saint Elijah and Saint Gregory the Illuminator, pointing out that often, precisely on the subject of unity, intentions and words do not match actions. While we desire unity, we do not fully understand its true meaning: We are scattered over the earth, and we have fallen into the turmoil of individual and collective selfishness and we have forgotten our Redeemer. He adds, We have analyzed and explained the mystery of the Redemption according to our personal will and concept, but we have forgotten its purpose, which is salvation.

The light of Bethlehem

Many people have worked hard and insistently for unity, Patriarch Raphael Bedros xxi observes, but sometimes with the goal of bringing others closer to their own principles. Just as the Roman soldiers did under the Cross over Jesus garment, so too do we fight over Christs garment, he says, adding that Christ was not born and crucified for a certain group, for an elite, but for all nations, for the salvation of all humanity. Patriarch Raphael Bedros xxi says we must focus on the light of Bethlehem, the origins of the news of salvation to the shepherds, to the Magi. That message has come down to us, baptized and confirmed in belonging to Christ the Saviour, the Christ who is born every day and in every church in the mystery of the Eucharist, which is the same in all rites and in all Churches.

The power of prayer

In the face of divisions, Patriarch Raphael Bedros xxi says it is necessary to return to the power of prayer. It is the prayer that is recited together and carried out with concrete actions, the prayer that leads us to tell each other that there is no disagreement in the Sacrament of Baptism, there is no disagreement in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, there is no disagreement in praying together in all the Churches, Catholic and Orthodox, and also in all the other Churches.

Moving forward together towards unity

He then emphasizes that given the traditions and heritages of the various Churches, all together we are part of a beautiful harmonious symphony that must glorify the Creator, adding that it is our duty to begin a new life strengthened by love and solidarity, keeping away from the issues that separate us from each other, and from our Saviour, who gave His life for us, but remained and remains in the mystery of the Eucharist. And if there are Catholics who refuse communion with the Orthodox and Orthodox who refuse communion with Catholics, the Catholic Christ is no different from the Orthodox Christ, just as the sacrament of Baptism is no different, since all the sacraments in the Church were established directly by Christ.

He concluded then, that the disputes are therefore human, caused by selfishness and sectarianism and far from any spiritual and Christian principle. And he expressed his hopes for moving forward towards unity among Christians without conditions or restrictions.

Tiziana Campisi
We need a common vision because we shall grow further apart if we do not aim towards a common goal. If we have conflicting views of this goal, we shall, if we are consistent, move in opposite directions. With these clear words, the Lutheran/Roman Catholic Joint Commission in its 1980 Document, Ways to Community, underscored the particular difficulties we meet within the ecumenical movement in the absence of consensus on its objective. If the various ecumenical representatives do not have a common goal, but understand and put into action what distinguishes Christian unity, in a very different way, they run a strong risk of proceeding in different directions and of discovering, in the end, that they are even more distant from one another. The Controversial interpretation of the ecumenical goal Even after more than 40 years of ...

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HONG KONG, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government on Thursday condemned the intimidation against anti-epidemic experts after hamsters were humanely culled to minimize the potential risks of COVID-19 transmission in Hong Kong.

A pet shop worker has earlier been confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 and samples collected from hamsters at the pet shop in Tai Po have also been tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.

A spokesman for the HKSAR government said the decision and operation of the HKSAR government against the animals concerned were based on scientific principles and Hong Kong's actual circumstances to safeguard public safety.

"Hong Kong is now facing a challenging epidemic situation and it is of paramount importance to take decisive action to prevent the virus from further spreading in the community," he said.

The HKSAR government strongly condemned the irrational attitude adopted towards the anti-epidemic efforts and the intimidating remarks made against the experts by a minority of people, said the spokesman, stressing that Hong Kong is a society that observes the rule of law and will not tolerate such illegal acts.

The spokesman added the HKSAR government is grateful for the anti-epidemic experts who provided the government with professional advice in areas such as public health, epidemiology and clinical experience with science and theories as the basis amid the fight against COVID-19 over the past two years.

"If anyone attempts to influence the words and efforts of the experts by illegal means, the HKSAR government will not tolerate such acts and will take stringent follow-up actions," he said. 
MANISTEE COUNTY  The following includes reports made to the Manistee County Sheriffs Office from Dec. 20-24.

All calls may not be reported. This is part of a lengthy report and is compiled by assistant editor Arielle Breen.

Dec. 20

 Deputies assisted a citizen at 10:54 a.m. in the city of Manistee.

 Three truancy incidents were reported at 1:37 p.m. in Dickson Township.

 Larceny was reported at 10:30 a.m. in Stronach Township.

 Deputies conducted a well-being check at 6:34 p.m. in Norman Township.

 Deputies conducted a well-being check at 9:20 p.m. in Filer Township.

Dec. 21

 Deputies transported an inmate to or from Jackson, Michigan at 6 a.m.

 A suspicious situation and mental evaluation was reported at 9:32 a.m. in Cleon Township.

 A criminal sexual conduct incident was reported at 2:51 p.m. in Norman Township.

 Retail fraud was reported and a warrant arrest was made at 3:02 p.m. in Manistee Township.

 A patient was transported for an involuntary mental evaluation at 2:26 p.m. to McLaren Flint Hospital.

 A malicious destruction of property incident was reported at 11 p.m. in Manistee Township.

Dec. 22

 Two truancy incidents were reported at 8:32 a.m. in Dickson Township.

 Deputies conducted a well-being check at 1:52 p.m. in Norman Township.

Dec. 23

 A property damage crash was reported at 11:23 a.m. in Manistee Township.

 Deputies conducted a well-being check at 12:21 p.m. in Filer Township.

 A personal injury crash was reported at 1:47 p.m. in Dickson Township.

 A domestic incident was reported at 2:52 p.m. in Bear Lake Township.

 A property damage crash was reported at 4:15 p.m. in Springdale Township.

 A property damage crash was reported at 5:18 p.m. in Cleon Township.

Dec. 24

 Deputies conducted a mental health transport at 7:12 a.m. in Detroit.

 A vehicle-deer accident was reported at 9:03 a.m. in Springdale Township.

 A child custody incident was reported at 10:34 a.m. in Kaleva.

 Deputies assisted the Manistee City Police Department at 11:57 a.m. in Manistee.

 Deputies responded to a noise disturbance at 10:15 p.m. in Maple Grove Township.

 Deputies assisted city police in Manistee at 10:40 p.m.
Midland Public Schools will move to virtual learning for a short period due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a communique from superintendent Michael Sharrow late Thursday afternoon, many complications have lead to the decision to move to a mix of virtual and in-person learning at MPS schools. This change will take effect Monday, Jan. 24.

Many factors have made it increasingly difficult to provide in-school instruction, according to the communique. For example, staffing classrooms is hard due to MPS staff members testing positive and staff and students having in-home close contacts.

Lately, MPS has been using close-contact tracing and test-to-stay protocols to mitigate the spread of the virus. This week, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services indicated the shortage of COVID-19 test kits could result in schools not receiving their next shipment of tests. This means MPS could run out of tests if that happens.

Most modeling of MPS's current COVID-19 spike in Michigan, community and schools indicates an expected decline in cases in February, according to the communique. As of Jan. 19, MPS reported 254 staff/students were close contacts to an individual who was confirmed COVID-19 positive, and 162 MPS staff/students tested positive for the virus.

"The district has made no secret that MPS is firmly committed to in-school instruction," the communique read. "As educators, we know face-to-face learning is best for students and is preferred by students, parents, teachers and staff. However, in order to keep in-school learning viable, consistent and continuous, and with MPS professional staff in our classrooms, we feel it is best to utilize a flexible calendar over the next few weeks."

Here is Midland Public Schools' flexible schedule plan for the next few weeks:

Monday, Jan. 24: No School - Teacher preparation day for virtual instruction.

Tuesday, Jan. 25: Virtual instruction day (Schedule Link: https://www.midlandps.org//MPS_Virtual_Learning_Schedule ).

Wednesday, Jan. 26: Virtual instruction day (Schedule Link: https://www.midlandps.org//MPS_Virtual_Learning_Schedule ).

Jan. 27-28, Jan. 31-Feb. 3: In-school instruction.

Feb. 4 & 7: In-school instruction (On Feb. 1, the district will review the current COVID-19 situation and determine whether Feb. 4 & 7 should be changed to virtual days).

Feb. 8-11, Feb. 14-17: In-school instruction.

Feb. 18 & 21: No school (Staff PD Day on Feb. 18; District closed Feb. 21).

On in-school instruction days, the district urges students and staff to wear masks while in school. Families are asked to strongly encourage their children to mask up while at school.

A walk-in COVID booster clinic (ages 12 & up) is being hosted by Midland County Department of Public Health on Wednesday, Jan. 26 from 5-7 p.m. at Jefferson Middle School (first, second and boosters doses of both Pfizer and Moderna will be available). Call the MCDPH at 989-832-6380 with any questions.

Meal pick-up in each student's home school building will occur between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 25. Students will receive four meals at the Jan. 25 pick-up (two each for Tuesday and Wednesday). Students should report to their home school to access these meals.

"Present pandemic modeling indicates COVID cases are anticipated to decline significantly between Jan. 24 and Feb. 21," the communique read. "It is our hope that further interruptions to in-school learning will not be needed for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year."
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) deemed the United States economy as the worlds largest in 2021, producing an estimated $22.94 trillion or 24.4% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is especially impressive considering that the population of the United States is just over 333 million and it has a per-capita GDP of roughly $68,700.

Many public policy concerns

While many public policy issues are greatly concerning  from COVID-19 to the crisis at our southern border to education gaps relative to our ability to compete economically  in our opinion, the following three are paramount for the U.S. Congress and Biden administration.

1. Shrinking influence of United States and North America

In 1960, North American total global GDP was $597.42 billion or 43.7%, with the U.S. contributing $543 billion or just under 40% of the total global GDP of $1.367 trillion (Chinas 1960 global GDP by comparison was $59.72 billion or 4.39%).

Chinas 2021 global GDP grew to about $16.86 trillion or 17.86% of total global GDP. Comparatively, 2021 North American GDP declined to 27.9% of total global GDP, while Asia  led by China, Japan, India, and South Korea  produced 33.7% of global GDP and extended its faster growth pace lead to more than two decades.

2. An objective and realistic view of China is needed more than ever in Washington, D.C.

On December 29, the Chinese Communist Party ordered Hong Kong police to raid the headquarters of Stand News, a pro-democracy Hong Kong-based news service critical of government policy coming out of Beijing. Seven Stand employees were arrested, and all remaining employees were dismissed.

Chinas action is another violation of the Sino-British agreement signed in 1997 giving Hong Kong economic and political freedom until 2047. The West, especially the United States, must not continue to turn a blind eye toward Chinas treatment of Hong Kong.

We also must reverse the trend which has allowed China to gain superior numbers of military assets to ours in the South China Sea and off the coasts of our numerous Asian allies. As tensions grow with China over Taiwan, we must acknowledge Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's comment: The U.S. will pay an unbearable price if it continues to support Taiwan. Our response must speak with conviction and specificity of the consequences China will suffer economically, and potentially militarily, if it moves against Taiwan, an important U. S. economic partner and champion of freedom and free enterprise.

With shortages of face masks to battle COVID-19 and computer chip delays that have challenged American automobile manufacturers, it should be apparent to both U.S. producers and consumers that U.S. business must rethink its previous supply chain strategy and be encouraged to produce more necessities at home.

Further, we must rally the world and hold China responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences. Its the right thing to do and the only way to prevent a future outbreak.

We applaud Congress for passing a bill targeting China over Uyghur-forced labor practices. The measure prohibits imports from the Xinjiang region of China unless companies can prove the products were made without forced labor. We hope President Biden signs it immediately and more is done by the U.S. government and U. S. corporations to protect the rights and freedoms of Muslim Uyghurs living in China.

Broadening our view of China further, The Hill recently posited: Should a weakening and unstable Chinese economic model be as great a concern as a rising China? The answer is yes. Chinas concern over energy shortages, slowing economic growth and productivity, and debt now at 290% of GDP, demonstrates that confidence in the Chinese economic and political structure is teetering from within.

In addition, recent crackdowns on the property and technology sectors will result in less flexibility and greater economic authoritarianism control over two sectors that account for 29% of Chinese GDP.

Our concerns regarding Chinese economic stability and their ability to execute their five-year planning model hopefully will be a cause for concern within the greater Communist Party of China. Exposing the growing fragility and incompetence of the Chinese economic model could provide a boost for pro-market reform party members as they vote at the 2022 Communist Party Congress this fall.

Open, honest and regular communication of Chinas current economic structural weaknesses could help market-friendly party members use data to thwart Xi Jinpings ambition to be only the third leader in the partys 100-year history elected to a third term. Perhaps a modern Chinese version of Radio-free Europe would be useful in the months ahead?

3. U.S. Energy Policy continues to make no sense to us.

Oil prices continue to fluctuate, declining to the mid-$60s range weeks ago only to rebound to more than $77 a barrel currently. Many energy experts believe oil could trade at more than $100 a barrel in 2022 if the Biden administration continues its illogical energy policy. Remember that U.S. oil and natural gas are among the cleanest carbon-based fuels by category available in the world today. In fact, U.S. production of clean fossil fuels has dramatically reduced the U.S. carbon footprint, making it the global leader in carbon reduction in the industrialized world over the last 30 years.

However, if cleaner U.S. oil and natural gas continue to be removed from the U.S. and world markets due to the Biden administrations policies, five nonsensical results will occur: 1) The policy will enhance the political and public policy initiatives of countries unfriendly to democracy like Russia and Iran; 2) European allies will become more dependent on unfriendly nations for their oil and natural gas needs, thereby weakening the security and economic prowess of Europe and the United States; 3) More dirtier Russian and Iranian oil and natural gas on global markets, coupled with less from the U.S., means a sustained increase of lower quality and higher polluting fossil fuel products on global energy markets (in effect, the Biden administrations policy will increase the global carbon footprint rather than reduce it); 4) The policy will employ thousands of Russians and Iranians in high-paying oil industry-related jobs when those good jobs could be here in the United States with workers paying taxes to the United States; and, 5) Billions of dollars of local, state and federal tax revenue from U.S. oil companies will be lost to the U.S. government at all levels in the months and years ahead.

Conclusion

The U.S. national debt stands at $29.62 trillion (over $89,000 per U.S. man, woman, and child and just under $237,000 per U.S. taxpayer). The current state of our national debt is largely due to excessive government spending on programs that are not needed while taking capital from private sector investments and U.S. national defense.

It is crucial that U.S. fiscal, monetary and foreign policy focus on strategies that will grow U.S. capital investment, private sector job and economic growth, while defending the United States and our key allies. This is the only way to ensure that the United States will remain the worlds only economic and military superpower.

Lisa McClain is a Northwood University graduate and a member of the U.S. Congress representing the 10th District of Michigan; Timothy G. Nash is director of the McNair Center at Northwood University.
Director of Content and Operations

Spencer McKee is OutThere Colorado's Director of Content and Operations. In his spare time, Spencer loves to hike, rock climb, and trail run. He's on a mission to summit all 58 of Colorado's fourteeners and has already climbed more than half.
General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) on Jan. 18, 2022. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China's (CPC) top disciplinary agency pledged to maintain strong and persistent crackdown on corruption in a communique released Thursday.

The communique was adopted at the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which was held in Beijing from Tuesday to Thursday.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the plenum and delivered an important speech.

Party and state leaders including Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng attended the session.

The session reviewed the disciplinary work in 2021, made arrangements for tasks in 2022, and deliberated and approved a work report delivered by Zhao Leji on behalf of the CCDI standing committee.

In 2021, the CPC celebrated its centenary and reviewed its major achievements and historical experience over the past century.

In 2022, the CPC will convene its 20th national congress, which is a major event in the political life of the Party and the country, the communique said.

It urged coordination in punishing corruption, strengthening deterrence among officials, tightening institutional restrictions, and improving their political awareness to make more institutional achievements and greater progress in governance.

Discipline inspection commissions and supervision agencies should play a better role in enforcing oversight over decision implementation, the communique said.

Having the courage to reform itself distinguishes the CPC from other political parties. It is the Party's secret to avoiding the historical cycle of rise and fall and remaining vibrant after a century of struggle, the communique stressed.

POLITICAL OVERSIGHT

Political oversight should focus on several vital tasks, including deepening reform and opening-up across the board, advancing common prosperity, building strength in science and technology, and forestalling and defusing major risks, the communique noted.

The document stressed the importance of putting the spotlight on leading officials, also known as the "key few."

It called for strengthened oversight over officials in command and leadership teams, especially concerning their performance in fulfilling their responsibility to exercise strict Party self-governance in all respects, implementation of democratic centralism, and their exercise of power according to laws and regulations.

DEEPENING ANTI-CORRUPTION DRIVE

Calling for unswerving efforts to deepen the anti-corruption drive, the plenum stressed that no mercy will be shown to those who run or are engaged in political factions, cliques or interest groups within the Party, and strict standards will be adopted to educate, manage and supervise young officials.

Efforts will be stepped up to investigate and punish any corruption behind the runaway expansion of capital and the monopoly of platform enterprises in order to sever the connections between power and capital, and financial discipline will be strengthened, said the communique.

DEFENSE AGAINST MALPRACTICE

The communique called for continued efforts to consolidate the defense of the CPC Central Committee's eight-point decision against undesirable work practices, and to persistently address corruption and misconduct occurring on the people's doorsteps.

The practice of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism that affected the implementation of the CPC Central Committee's decisions and policies, and other practices that turned a blind eye to the people's interests or increased the burden on people at primary levels must be resolutely corrected and rectified, it said.

SOUND INSPECTION SYSTEM

The communique also urged the improvement of the discipline inspection system, where inspection authorities at different levels have sound communication and work together to ensure relevant work is conducted at a high quality and with full coverage.

Routine supervision and special inspections should both be strengthened, and the issue regarding "the latter part of the story" of addressing the problems discovered during the inspections into central-level financial institutions should be taken seriously, it said.

The document called for a comprehensive review of the inspection work conducted by the 19th CPC CCDI so that it can be reported to the Party's Central Committee.

According to the communique, the reform of the discipline inspection and supervision system should highlight an integrated system as well as coordination and efficiency to transform institutional advantages into greater governance effectiveness.

LOYAL GUARDIANS

The communique called on discipline inspection personnel to be politically strong and professionally competent, and work hard to be the loyal guardians of the Party and the people.

The plenary session stressed the need to rally more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, promote the great founding spirit of the Party and the spirit of self-reform, and ensure that concrete progress is made by the time the 20th CPC National Congress is convened. 
Paducah, KY (42003)

Today

Intervals of clouds and sunshine in the morning with more clouds for later in the day. High 71F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 58F. Winds light and variable.
'As We See It' Depicts Young Adulthood on the Spectrum, and It Has a Heart the Size of Texas

By Dustin Rowles | TV | January 20, 2022 |

Late in Jason Katims new series, As We See It, Joe Mantegna  who plays the father to one neurodivergent young adult  is asked by the brother and caretaker of another neurodivergent young adult if it gets any easier. In heartwarming fashion, Mantegna delivers a monologue about the difficulties of raising his son, about how there were times he wished he had any other kid besides his own. And then I started to realize, he said. It was making me better. I became a little more considerate. A little bit compassionate. And I liked the guy I became. Does it get any easier? No. Its a hell of a burden. But its also a gift.

The gift of that burden is the overriding theme of As We See It, which is not autobiographical exactly, but is based on the stories, anecdotes, and experiences that Katims has collected over the years as the father of a son who was diagnosed with autism in the 90s (fans of Katims Parenthood may recall that there was a younger child in that series who was on the spectrum). As We See It does not minimize the difficulties of caring for young adults with ASD  the awkwardness, the misreading of social cues, the painful misunderstandings, and the occasional tantrums  but it also does not leave out the rewards, the emotional breakthroughs, and the victories, both large and small. It is a lovely, charming, sometimes very funny half-hour series that comes from a place of real empathy. I watched the whole eight-episode series in one sitting, and it blew the strings out of my socks. It is phenomenal.

Rick Glassman, Sue Ann Pien, and Albert Rutecki  who all identify as being on the spectrum  star as Jack, Violet, and Harrison, respectively. The three live in an apartment together with a caretaker, Mandy (Sosie Bacon), who is trying to help them gain more independence. They each have their own host of issues. Jack is a brilliant programmer, but his inability to massage the truth in social situations gets him in trouble  hes fired from his job in the opening episode for repeatedly condescending to his boss, calling him an idiot because he cant figure out his program. Jacks father, Lou (the aforementioned Joe Mantegna), is dying of cancer, and so theres a sense of urgency about preparing Jack to live without the care and finances of his dad. Jack also develops feelings for his fathers nurse (Dele Ogundiran), partly for romantic reasons and partly for practical.

Harrison has agoraphobia. Hes afraid to leave the house, which has contributed to his weight gain. He befriends a teenage neighbor in their building whose mother objects to her sons relationship to an adult man, which is innocent but the optics arent great. Harrisons loving parents, meanwhile, are ready to usher Harrison into independence because they want to move away and catch up on the life they missed out on while raising their son.

Violet manages to secure a job at Arbys. Shes invested not just in gaining a boyfriend but having sex. Lots of sex. She lacks boundaries and attaches herself emotionally to anyone who shows her the least bit of affection, and her caretaker brother, Van (Chris Pang, so handsome!), is terrified that someone will take advantage of that. Van, meanwhile, has problems committing to his relationship with his girlfriend (Vella Lovell) because he wants to keep his love life separate from his sister, which proves to be impossible given how much attention she needs.

Van also develops a crush on Mandy, who is engaged to Joel (Omar Maskati). Joel has a marital and career path laid out for the two of them but Mandy is not so sure that its the one she wants, particularly because it would mean leaving behind Jack, Violet, and Harrison to take a prestigious internship in another city. Bacon  the daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick  is transfixing in the role, nepotism notwithstanding.

Its a layered relationship dramedy that Katims and his writing staff navigate brilliantly. It does not condescend to its characters, who are more than their ASD. As the title suggests, it provides their perspective. They want to be thought of as normal. They fall in love; they worry about their futures; and they bruise, sometimes more easily than we do because they have been protected for most of their lives. But its also about their parents, siblings, and caretakers who have to learn to let go and put a little faith in their grown children to take care of themselves and a lot of faith in the rest of the world to treat them with kindness. It is a show with a huge heart  not unlike Katims Friday Night Lights  but its also the kind of honest and unflinching comedy that could only come from someone who has seen and lived it. I hope youll give it a chance.



As We See It begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, January 21st.

 Review: Asghar Farhadi's Got Another Devastating Fable Of Human Failings For Us With His Latest Greatness, 'A Hero' | 'Wolf Like Me': A Three Hour Exercise in Lycanthropic Navel-Gazing 

Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.

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Athens, Greece (PANA) - Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs on Friday expressed solidarity with the government and people of Ghana following Thursday's accident involving a truck conveying explosives to a mining company in western Ghana
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - A United Nations initiative for facilitating consultations on a political process for the Sudan, kicked off shyly two weeks ago today
Photo: (Photo : Scott Olson/Getty Images)

If you see kids experimenting in the kitchen by cooking chicken breasts in a pan with an uncommon ingredient, you must warn them of the dangers of following this new viral stunt called the Sleepy Chicken TikTok trend.

According to the New York Post, the Sleepy Chicken TikTok trend is slowly gaining popularity on the video-sharing platform among millennials who want to try new and "healthy" food. However, this recipe calls for braising the chicken in at least half a bottle of NyQuil, the cold and flu medication, for at least five minutes.

However, the soaking solution doesn't sit well with Dr. Jeff Foster, a general practitioner, who said that the viral TikTok stunt is "not just stupid, but incredibly dangerous."

Read Also: Unfailing Ways To Stop a Cold in the Harsh Winter Season

What Happens When Chicken is Cooked in NyQuil?

Whoever invented the Sleepy Chicken TikTok trend thought this food would bring beneficial health benefits, especially during the flu season. However, Foster said that heating a cough medicine like NyQuil will change the concentration of the ingredients, making the chicken meat "super-concentrated" with some of the drugs' components like antihistamines, decongestants, acetaminophen, and dextromethorphan.

Another medical practitioner, Dr. Aaron Hartman, a clinician at the Virginia Commonwealth University, told Mic that anyone eating cooked cutlets of a NyQuil-infused chicken is actually "consuming a quarter to half a bottle of NyQuil." He also said that boiling the ingredients will allow the inhalation of NyQuil, which can enter the bloodstream faster without the liver processing it.

"This effect can be quite bad depending on how much you inhale," Hartman said, adding that this could lead to acute liver poisoning, which will make a sick person feel a lot worse.

Both experts reminded the public that medications are taken in doses for an important reason -- to avoid an overdose. The other ill-effects of this TikTok stunt include vomiting, dizziness, seizures, as well as death.

Was it Supposed to be a Joke?

Forbes reported that the original video instruction of the NyQuil chicken appeared to be a joke, but the danger lies with the content creator never clarifying if he's doing a cooking lesson, a parody, or health advice. However, it was hard to take the cooking video seriously upon closer scrutiny because NyQuil typically doesn't taste good, unlike a strong ingredient like bourbon.

Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a medical doctor and journalist, said that he hopes people on the internet will stop cooking food using the medication and stop showing stunts like this on social media. A spokesperson for Procter & Gamble said they are not encouraging the dangerous use of their products other than for what it's intended. Since NyQuil is an over-the-counter medication for treating nighttime symptoms of the flu and cold, it should be taken as directed by the doctor. Meanwhile, TikTok has deleted the earlier videos of the Sleepy Chicken TikTok trend, but new ones are still popping every day.

The doctors also said that if the kids are experiencing a cold, the best thing to do is get plenty of sleep and rest and drink lots of fluids. It could help to gargle salt and water for sore throat and then drink a medication properly.

Related Article: COVID-19 vs Colds? How To Tell if a Child Has Coronavirus From School
Tourists spend time on the National Mall in Washington D.C., the United States on Oct. 30, 2021. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

"From the very beginning of the pandemic, the U.S. response was defined by slow action on tests and masks. Two years after the first coronavirus case on American soil was diagnosed, the national strategy to combat the virus is still too little, too late," said a report.

NEW YORK, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Experts point to three main factors in the U.S. government's slow response to Omicron: an over-reliance on vaccines, a failure to develop contingency plans, and the fracturing of the expert consensus on what the appropriate public health interventions would be, U.S. news and opinion website Vox reported Thursday.

Advisers to the White House told The Washington Post last month that the data reported in the initial Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials, showing those vaccines more than 90 percent effective at preventing all infections, contributed to a belief within the Joe Biden administration that sufficient vaccination would be enough to bring the pandemic to an end.

"I think the Biden transition team saw the first, highly promising vaccine efficacy results from Pfizer in fall 2020 and decided against making serious investments in so-called 'non-pharmaceutical interventions' from the beginning," Justin Feldman, a social epidemiologist at Harvard, was quoted as saying.

A medical staff member inoculates a person with a dose of COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccine clinic in San Antonio, Texas, the United States, Jan. 9, 2022. (Photo by Nick Wagner/Xinhua)

"This vaccine-only strategy was never a good idea, but there were wake-up calls that were missed," Feldman told Vox, which also quoted other experts as saying that "the (Joe) Biden administration and federal officials put too much faith in the power of vaccines alone to end the pandemic."

NON-CONTINGENCY

"There are limits on what the federal government can do under our federalist system of government," said the report. Mask mandates and social distancing restrictions are largely the purviews of state and local authorities. The Biden administration did attempt to take sweeping actions, such as a vaccine mandate for large employers, that got tied up in the courts.

In October, with the Delta wave underway, the White House rejected a plan to manufacture and distribute at-home rapid tests for the winter holidays. Over the summer, Abbott Laboratories, the largest U.S. manufacturer of at-home rapid tests, actually started destroying some of its test inventory because it did not anticipate a market for those tests and the government had not bought the excess supply.

"This meant that when omicron start to spread, there was not a stockpile of masks or tests to distribute to people quickly," reported Vox. "And once the new omicron variant was spreading, it was already too late anyway. As several experts emphasized, the government does not move swiftly, even in the face of an emergency."

A medical worker collects a swab sample at a COVID-19 drive-through testing site in Los Angeles, California, the United States, Jan. 10, 2022. (Xinhua)

"U.S. health agencies are not accustomed to making and revising policy quickly," said the report, while quoting Bill Hanage, a Harvard University epidemiologist, as saying that "a rapid response is not possible within the way policies are normally formulated and implemented ... We're not caught fighting the last battle, but the one before that."

FRACTURING

The federal government's ability to act quickly has been complicated by another factor: public health experts are increasingly divided on what the country should be doing in its pandemic response, according to the report. "It's hard to plan ahead or change plans quickly when experts can't even agree on what you should do."

"Public health experts were never a monolith," said the report. Early in the pandemic, there was a fairly clear consensus about what to do about COVID-19, but as the pandemic has dragged on, expert opinions diverged.

For example, as the Biden administration debated booster shots this summer and fall, some experts were full-throated supporters of giving everybody an additional dose, while other prominent experts argued boosters made sense only for certain people.

"When it comes to public health overall, I think there is a relentless tendency to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good," said Hanage. "When you are facing an exponentially growing wave of infections, we do not have the time to identify and demonstrate which policies are optimal, and that means we are caught out over and over again."

A man wearing a face mask walks on a street in Manhattan of New York, the United States, Jan. 19, 2022. U.S. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

SLOWNESS

"From the very beginning of the pandemic, the U.S. response was defined by slow action on tests and masks. Two years after the first coronavirus case on American soil was diagnosed, the national strategy to combat the virus is still too little, too late," said the report titled "Why COVID-19 is always one step ahead of the US response."

"The Biden administration's response to the omicron variant is belatedly kicking into gear," noted the report. The White House announced on Wednesday that it would soon ship 400 million N95 masks to U.S. pharmacies and community health centers to be given away. On Tuesday, a new federal website was launched to let people order free at-home coronavirus tests.

"By the time the masks and tests get there, the surge will probably be over," said Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of California San Francisco. It's possible, but far from certain, that the Omicron wave has already peaked. The average number of daily cases has dropped by 50,000 in the last week, a 6 percent decline, according to the report.

"At this point, not sure widespread testing is going to be helpful until this wave calms down," David Celentano, who leads the epidemiology department at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, told Vox. 
Photo: (Photo : LISA O'CONNOR/AFP via Getty Images)

Jamie Dornan said that 2021 was such a brutal year for him after he was stuck for days in quarantine in Australia when he learned that his father died of COVID-19.

In March 2021, Jim Dornan, 73, whom Jamie considered the beacon of the family, passed away at the hospital where he contracted COVID-19. Jim was supposed to have undergone a routine knee operation, but he also got the infection.

Due to the travel restrictions, Jamie could not fly in time for his father's funeral. The actor was actually in quarantine in a hotel in Australia where he would be working on a new film. They were required to isolate for a few days before starting to film on the set, but since he was in quarantine, he was not allowed to leave the country.

Read Also: Dad Who Got World's First Pig Heart Transplant Doing Better; Son Hails Miracle of Science

Trying to Ride It Out

Speaking with The Sun, Jamie said that he has been "trying to ride it out" after his father died, even if it hurts to think that he will never see him again. Before his death, Jamie wasn't able to see his dad in person for 18 months due to the pandemic restrictions.

The actor said he understood the devastation and trauma that many people felt during this public health crisis. However, it's a feeling that has been familiar to him as he's been through a lot of pain and loss in his life at such an early age.

Jamie was around 16 years old when his mother died of pancreatic cancer. His father, however, motivated him never to let death define his life.

Jamie has a great relationship with his father, a renowned obstetrician and gynecologist at a major hospital in Belfast. Jim has also made it known to his son that he's very proud of his accomplishments as an actor nearly every day.

Jamie said that his father was his role model when he had his own family with his wife, Amelia Warner. The pair, who married in 2013, have three kids -- Dulcie, eight years old, Elva, five years old, and Alberta, two years old.

"Every single step I do since becoming a father, my career is for them," Jamie said. "That's all I really care about. I'm so lucky that I have three healthy little girls."

Dad Missed His Final Movie

What makes losing his father even more painful is that Jim will never get to see the film "Belfast," which will hit theaters in late January 2022. The actor, however, finds comfort in the fact that his dad knew he was working on the film before he passed on. In a strange way, Jamie said that he feels very connected to his father through this movie.

Jamie also said that his father never stopped him when he decided to move from Belfast to London to pursue acting in his young life. He said that very few parents, especially someone as successful as Jim, will tell their children to go for it.

Related Article: Anti-vax Dad Flees With Daughter To Stop Her Mom From Having Her Vaccinated
Photo: (Photo : Sean Krajacic - Pool/Getty Images)

A wrongful death lawsuit gives families a chance to seek justice for the death of their loved ones due to violence or negligence, and three parents have filed such claims in court in early January 2022 for three separate cases involving their children.

The Death of Austin McEwen

Alice McEwen, the mother of Austin McEwen, who died as a tornado hit an Amazon warehouse in Illinois in December, filed her wrongful death lawsuit against the giant online retail company and the construction company of the warehouse. In the case, the parent stated that the building where her son worked was not properly maintained; thus, Austin and five of his warehouse co-workers were not protected from the tornado.

The mother also claimed that Amazon did not initiate evacuation protocols when they found out that a tornado was coming a few days before the disaster. Instead, her son continued working to fulfill Amazon's orders since it was the holiday season.

Read Also: Kentucky Tornado: Gov. Andy Beshear Mourns Loss of Family Members in the Powerful Disaster

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told CNN that they would staunchly defend this case as they continue to support the families impacted by the natural disaster. Nantel also pointed out that severe weather conditions were common in the area, but many businesses do not typically shut down in anticipation of a storm. The spokesperson, however, did not elaborate when asked if the workers like McEwen were directed to seek shelter.

The Death of Brayden Smith

Deborah and Scott Smith, the parents of former "Jeopardy" contestant Brayden Smith, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Nevada, where their son had colon surgery in 2021. The parents alleged that the hospital failed to give Brayden blood thinners to prevent blood clots. Weeks following his operation, Brayden succumbed to bilateral pulmonary emboli as blood clots blocked the arteries in his lungs.

Deborah and Scott believed the rectal and colon surgeon did not provide their son standard care when he complained of ulcerative colitis. They said that the doctor should have known that Brayden needed anticoagulants in his medical history. Instead, he was discharged to recover at home, where he collapsed after the operation. Attempts to revive him at another hospital failed.

The parents also said that the hospital staff did not correctly help nor inform Brayden that he would have to be fitted with a piece of equipment, which will require regular supplies, so he could urinate and defecate properly. As a result, his ostomy bags leaked, and he frequently soiled himself.

Witnesses said that patients with new ostomy bags, especially someone as young as Brayden, who was only 24, required significant guidance, care, and attention. No one from the hospital allegedly took the time and patience to help him out.

The Smith family is seeking monetary damages and awaiting a jury trial for this lawsuit.

The Death of Stanley Davis III

Stanley Davis III, 13, crashed his dirt bike and died on the scene after Boynton Beach police officers chased him for a traffic violation. His parents plan to file a wrongful death lawsuit for how they handled this incident.

The police indicated in their traffic report that a young man was observed operating his dirt bike recklessly at Boynton Beach Boulevard in Florida. Reports cited that the bike was a Christmas gift from his parents, which could be legally used as an "off-highway vehicle" for the above 16 years old.

However, Benjamin Crump, who represents the Davis family, believes that a high-speed pursuit should have never gone down. He reasoned that the cops should have known its policy unless they were pursuing someone who committed a felony. If anything, the 13-year-old was likely only guilty of breaking a city violation, but the police chased after him like a criminal.

A spokesperson for the police said that they plan to settle with the parents before the wrongful death lawsuit reaches court.

Related Article: Family Sues Over Travis Scott Astroworld Tragedy as 9-Year-Old Boy Remains in Coma
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The Chief of Akotom in the Prestea Huni Valley Municipality of the Western Region, Nana Tweneboah Kodua lll has lauded the government of Ghana for the introduction of the National Alternative Empowerment and Livelihood Program (NAEL) for illegal Miners.



He believed this has come to help address the issues of galamsey in the area and he was positive the programme will facelift the town with economic development.



Speaking at a short ceremony when the National Coordinator and the contractor for the Project paid a working visit to Akotom site, Nana Tweneboah Kodua lll asked the government to extend the project to accommodate more unemployed youth since Western Region is tagged to be the headquarters of galamsey activities with majority of the youth engaged in illegal mining.



NAEL is an initiative that would help provide alternative sources of livelihood for illegal miners who have been stopped from engaging in wanton destruction of water bodies and the entire environment.



The programme has six modules namely: National Land Reclamation and Re-Afforestation Programme, Agriculture and Agro-Processing, Apprenticeship, Skills Training and Entrepreneurship, Responsible, Viable and Sustainable Small-Scale Community Mining, Mine Support Services and Community Enhancements Project.



At Akotom, a 10 acre of Land has been cleared for the raising of 3 million seedlings of different species like Mahogany, Wawa, Sapele, among others. This program is projected to give 500 direct and indirect jobs to the town folks.



Before Akotom, the team also inspected a cleared area of land at Adinkra in the Ashanti Region which is being prepared under NAEL Project.



The National Coordinator of NAEL, Dr Carol Serwaa Donkor said its the vision of the government to reduce unemployment among the youth especially those in mining communities hence the initiative.



She added the government is poised to sustain the project to capture more youth.



The Contractor of the Project, Mr. Richard Ekow Quansah of Richies Plantation Limited in an interview with Peacefmonline, said if the youth would commit to the programme, their lives would change since the programme comes with a lot of benefits.



Mr Quansah implored the beneficiaries to work hard and make their new found life worth living to entice other illegal miners to join the programme.





Fnally, some of the beneficiaries who were once involved in illegal mining, recounted the stress and difficulties they used to encounter during their galamsey activities describing it as awful.



We will spend days, sometimes more than a week in a galamsey pit digging for gold irrespective of the dangers involved, one beneficiary hinted.



Im very grateful to the President for honoring this promise, in fact after hearing this programe I moved to this town to partake and honestly, after working for some days I have realized this work is more stress-free as compared to the galamsey work," another beneficiary also added.

Source: Sampson Kwame Nyamekye/Kumasi









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, has expressed his heartfelt condolence to families who lost their loved ones in the explosion that occurred on Thursday, January 20, 2022 at Apiate near Bogoso.



He also wished individuals who got injured in the tragic event a speedy recovery.



The Vice President Bawumias message to the victims read:



My heartfelt condolences to the families of the individuals who lost their lives in todays explosion in Apiate near Bogoso, in the Western Region.



To those who were injured in the unfortunate occurrence, I wish you Godspeed recovery.



His message comes shortly after President Akufo-Addo stated that his government, will spare no effort to ensure a rapid return to a situation of normalcy for residents of Apiate.

Source: wontumionline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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National Lottery Authority (NLA), through Good Causes Foundation, has supported the Atta Mills Foundation to commission a corn and cassava mill project as well as a renovation work on a 3-classroom block public school facility for the people of Gonteng community on the Aburi road.



Speaking after the exercise, the Director-General of NLA, Mr. Samuel Awuku said; This is the first initiative of the Good Causes Foundation after its inception and we are glad to put a smile on the faces of Gonteng people through this partnership.



Mr. Awuku seized the opportunity to assure NLA loyal customers that even if you dont win the lottery, be rest assured that your money has been used on a good cause that is to bless somebody elsewhere.



He expressed his heartfelt gratitude to Atta Mills Foundation for the opportunity given them to help and further assured them of a bigger partnership going forward.



He also expressed gratitude to the people of Gonteng for their selflessness and dedication towards the project.



That is what partnership and collaboration is all about and we are proud to associate ourselves and partner with Atta Mills Foundation for this charitable art. On the arm of the NLA this will not be a one day support wonder but we will also build upon what has begun.



The NLA also accept the request of the Atta Mills Institute to build a long lasting relationship and we want to assure them that just as they have been credible, transparent and truthful with the little support and partnership we gave them on behalf of the NLA we are promising through the good causes foundation we will partner them to do more bigger project.

The Founder and CEO of Atta Mills Institute (AMI), also speaking after the program, Mr. Samuel Koku Anyidoho explained how he discovered Gonteng community and why he chose to help the community.



About 7 years ago, I came to Gonteng for the first time with a lawyer friend of mine in pursuit of nature. Very often, on my visits to this place, anytime I was leaving, I had to lift people from this place to Aburi  and on a few occasions, I lifted children who were carrying buckets of maize on their heads, walking all the way to Aburi to go and mill. Every time I gave the children a lift, and imagined the arduous and near-torturous walk on the undulating rocky road from here to Aburi, I cried in my heart for them.



The road was more horrible than you see it today so you can imagine what the children were going through. Out of the tears, I covenanted with God that, when the time is right, and given the opportunity, the Atta-Mills Institute would build a corn and cassava mill for the community for the single purpose of easing the struggles of the young children who have to trek to Aburi just to go and mill maize for family use. So, for the record, the Community did not ask for the project; God touched our heart to do it for them!

The Atta-Mills Institute approached the NLA with a proposal and by the kind grace of God, the Director General, Mr. Sammy Awuku, and his team, saw reason with the proposal, and gave us some support which has made it possible for us to be here today to commission these projects.



Mr. Sammy Awuku, the people of Gonteng are grateful to you and your Institution for partnering the Atta-Mills Institute to bring them so much relief and joy.



There is no denying the fact that this is just the beginning of a very long, productive, and lasting relationship between the Atta-Mills Institute and the National Lotteries Authority, as we hold hands in pursuit of a common agenda of building a Better Ghana. A Better Ghana can be built and must be built!, he said.

The Headmaster of the school, Mr Asamanteng David thanked Mr. Koku Anyidoho and the NLA for the kind gesture and promised to use the facilities for its intended purposes.

Source: Peacefmonline









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Minority in Parliament has received the tragic news of an explosion in Apiate, a town close to Bogoso in the Western Region in which several lives and properties were lost.



Credible reports confirm that a motorcycle run into a vehicle carrying explosives resulting in the carnage leading to loss of lives and destruction of properties.



This incident is unacceptable because there are strictly laid down protocols to be followed during the transportation of such explosives in accordance with LI2177.



It is our firm conviction that with strict regulatory enforcement and compliance of protocols, this unfortunate incident could have been averted.



The Minority is therefore calling for an impartial enquiry into this heart-wrenching accident and unfortunately loss of at least seventeen lives and destruction of several properties.



This enquiry among others will prevent the recurrence of such an incident in the future.



We, therefore, call on the government to do all within its powers to support the affected people in order to ameliorate their loss.



The Minority wishes to join well-meaning Ghanaians to commiserate and share in the pain and anguish of all affected people.



Signed



John Abdulai Jinapor



Ranking Member, Mines and Energy Committee

Source: Peacefmonline.com/ghana









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Ghana has taken full ownership of the 250-megawatt (MW) power production plant from the African and Middle East Resources Investment Group, otherwise known as AMERI Energy.

The 10-unit barge, with capacity to generate 25MW each, totaling 250MW, which is commissioned on natural gas, is set to be moved to Anwomaso in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.



The takeover and the relocation of the plant, the Ministry of Energy said, would rake in about $31 million annually from power export and $4 million as saving on transmission loss cut back.



The takeover



The power barges were handed over to the Volta River Authority (VRA), which received the plant, on behalf of the government, at the Aboadze Power Enclave in the Shama District in the Western Region yesterday.



It comes after the expiry of the five-year production and sale of power agreement signed between the government and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based company.



The Minister of Energy, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, in a speech read on his behalf by one of his Deputy ministers, Mr William Owuraku Aidoo, said the deployment of the power plant to the Ashanti Region was strategic.



He said from a barge, the power plant would now be mounted on a trailer for it to be relocated to Anwomaso to improve the reliability of power supply in the middle and the northern sections of the power grid and for export.



Preparation



He said preparatory works at the site where the plant would be sited were at an advanced stage and on schedule for completion.



Dr Prempeh said the project would also promote the extension of the gas pipeline, which hitherto ended in the Western Region, saying: The presence of natural gas in the region will stimulate other productive non-power uses of our indigenous natural gas resource.



He said the government remained committed to a vision of a stable, robust, affordable power supply, as that was key to industrial growth.



We promised to keep the lights on, and the ministry is doing exactly that, despite a few challenges. In achieving this, let me say that the Amandi Power Project  a 200MW Twin City Energy Project  has been completed, achieved commercial operation and dispatching power to the grid, he said.



Bui solar



The minister indicated that a 50MW grid-connected solar plant at the Bui Hydro Generating Station had also been completed and commissioned.



We have continued with improvement in the transmission system reliability by implementing other projects. These projects include the Kumasi-Kintampo Lot of the 330KV Kumasi-Bolgatanga Transmission Line Project which is complete and the line has been energised, he said.



Dr Prempeh added that the Volta-Achimota Lot of the 161KV Volta-Achimota-Mallam Transmission Line Upgrade Project was 83 per cent complete, while the Achimota-Mallam segment was 55 per cent complete.



Others are the Pokuase Bulk Supply Point Project, which has been completed, and the Kasoa Bulk Supply Point Project, which comprises a re-construction of a section of the 161kV Winneba-Mallam Transmission lines and a tie-in-works, which is almost complete.



Interconnection transmission



The minister announced that the government was securing funding to improve the National Interconnection Transmission System (NITS) in the Ashanti and the Northern regions (SiemensGhana collaboration) and commence the construction of the GRIDCo Western Corridor Transmission Upgrade Project (WCTUP).



He said the government was also committed to achieving universal coverage of electricity by 2024, saying 162 communities were connected to the national grid in 2021, with 512 communities at various stages of completion.



Electricity access rate, he said, had moved from 85.17 per cent in 2020 to 86.63 per cent in 2021.



In 2022, the ministry will work to complete many projects, with approximately 800 towns expected to be connected to the national grid under the SHEP-4, SHEP-5 and Turnkey projects, he said.



Power system



The Director of Thermal Generation at the VRA, Mr Edward Obeng-Kenzo, said Ghanas power system currently had low voltage around the Ashanti Region to the northern part of the country.



This is mainly because all the power plants in the country are located in the southern, eastern or western part of the transmission network, he said.



He indicated that the only plants in the middle of the transmission network were the 400MW Bui Hydro Power plant and the Bui Power Solar project.



Therefore, the relocation of the 250MW AMERI Power plant to the Ashanti Region will enable the country to export an additional 50MW to neighbouring Burkina Faso, he said.



The benefits



The export of power, Mr Obeng-Kenzo said, would fetch an additional income of $31 million annually and also reduce transmission system loss by 15MW, estimated at $4 million or about GH23 million annually.



The Western Regional Minister, Mr Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, commended the government for paying the full cost of the plant, saying its relocation would go a long way to help improve Ghanas power system.



The Country Manager of AMERI Energy, Mr Francis Kofi Kpolu, said his outfit was happy with the achievement through the new lease model and expressed the hope that it would have other projects through future collaborations.



Background



The government, on February 15, 2015, entered into an agreement with AMERI Energy to build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) the power barge for five years, after which the country would assume full ownership of the plant.



The AMERI deal was signed as an emergency power agreement to fill Ghanas power generation gap, which was then in deficit, necessitating nationwide power rationing, which commonly became known as Dumsor.



During the five-year production and sale of power to the VRA, per the agreement with AMERI, the government, through the VRA, made payments to AMERI for the power produced and supplied to the VRA, just like any other independent power producer.



LC of $51 million



Again, the government, per the agreement, was required to provide a standby letter of credit (LC) for $51 million, which LC has been raised.



Per the agreement with AMERI, the government, through the VRA, made payments to AMERI for power produced and supplied to the VRA.









Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A State Council executive meeting has reviewed and approved a report on an investigation into the disaster caused by torrential rains in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, in July last year, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management. 
A vehicle delivering explosives moving from Tarkwa to a mine site has collided with a motorcycle resulting in a huge explosion that killed at least 17 people, razed down a number of nearby buildings, damaging vehicles plying the route with passengers and inhabitants sustained varying degrees of injuries.



According to a Police statement, a vehicle carrying mining explosives collided with a motorcycle

between Bogoso and Bawdie, resulting in the motorcycle catching fire, ignited the van which burst into flames and exploded.



The driver sustained deep cuts on the head and has been rushed to Government Hospital, Tarkwa. A number of people including the motorbike rider are feared dead. Extensive damage was caused to a nearby ECG transformer. the statement said.

Police called on nearby towns to "open up their classrooms, churches etc to accommodate surviving victims. We continue to urge the public to remain calm as we manage the situation."

Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo said the military has joined the emergency efforts to help "contain the situation", and "rapid relief" was being sent to residents.



"It is a truly sad, unfortunate and tragic incident," he tweeted.



At least 59 people were injured, some of whom were in a critical condition, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said.



The vehicle carrying explosives to the Chirano gold mine about 140km (90 miles) from the scene of the blast is said to belong to Arthanns Logistics.



A team of police and army explosion experts have been deployed to the scene to secure the area and avoid a second explosion.





Source: Peacefmonline.com/ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Government is launching a full-scale investigation into the circumstances that led to Thursday afternoons huge explosion in Apiatse, a town around Bogoso in the Western Region of Ghana.



Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah who disclosed this in an interview with CNN on Friday, January 21, 2022, said the investigation will help the government determine whether the protocols for transporting explosives in the country were adhered to so as to enable the government to put in place appropriate measures to prevent such tragedy from occurring in the future.



There is going to be a full-scale enquiry after the initial sequence of events have been properly gathered and an assessment made on whether or not the protocols for transporting materials of that nature were followed to the latter and if anybody, unfortunately, did not do the right thing, the necessary sanctions come to bear and if indeed there are lapses in the protocol, some more stringent measures will be put in place, the Minister said.



At least 13 people have been confirmed dead with 59 people sustaining varying degrees of injury after a vehicle carrying mining explosives travelling from Tarkwa to Chirano collided with a motorcycle at Apiatse razing down houses in the community.



Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia led a government delegation including Minister for Interior, Minister of Information, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources and officials of the Mineral Commission to commiserate with the families of the affected.



This Dr. Bawumia said the government will bear the cost of medical assistance and other support for the families of those affected and it will through the State Housing Company (SHC) provide affordable housing for those whose houses were destroyed in the explosion.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/peacefmonline.com/ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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An Ashanti regional chairman hopeful, and former Member of Parliament (MP) for Ejisu Constituency in the Ashanti Region, Mr Kwabena Aduomi, has disclosed that the government has no money to pay road contractors.



According to him, the governments highly touted plans to improve road infrastructure may not be achievable.



In an interview in Kumasi, he explained that government needs more money to enable them to implement the year of roads promise.



The reality is that government do not have money to pay contractors, which they have admitted. Thats another reason for the introduction of E-levy; to enable them to offset these debts.



The major challenge in the Ashanti region is our roads. Take Kwabre roads for example. The truth is road projects have been awarded in the region. If I tell you the number of contracts youd be amazed. Was recently preparing a script for Kyei Mensah and only 8 percent of our roads are in good condition.



Our roads are bad to say the least. We need huge money to fix it. The government owes contractors filling just potholes, thats how bad the situation is, he yelled.



The government in its quest to address the poor road networks in major parts of the country declared 2020, as the year of roads.



Delivering the 2020 Budget, the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta said the government will largely focus and prioritize road projects to improve infrastructure in that sector and bring an end to the cries of Ghanaians for better roads.



Same was said of 2021 and this year, 2022 has also been declared the third year of roads.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/peacefmonline.com/ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described the withdrawal of the military guards that formed part of the security details of the Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin as unfair treatment as the reasons provided were not tangible.



The NDC believed that the withdrawal was designed to intimidate the Speaker of Parliament to kowtow to the demands of the executive by compromising the independence of the Parliament which Mr Bagbin has sworn to protect in the ultimate interest of Ghanaians.



Danger



The Chairman of the party, Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, in a statement said the decision was not only exposing the Speaker to danger, but also part of a psychological warfare being waged on Mr Bagbin by the government.



This was because the withdrawal was happening at a time when government was aware that the Speaker was undergoing medical treatment.



Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said the reason given by the Ghana Armed Forces that the military attachment was done without proper procedure contradicted the stance of National Security that the military do not form part of the Speakers security detail, hence the withdrawal for which the reasons were not acceptable.



We noted that the letter from the Armed Forces dated January 11, 2022 and signed by the Chief of Staff, Major General N. P. Andoh claimed that the officers were attached to the office of the Rt Hon Speaker of Parliament without proper procedure. He further stated that the withdrawal was pending efforts to regularise the attachment of the officers.



We find it strange and disturbing that it has taken the Military High Command, which is very well respected for its efficiency and competence, over a year to notice that the military attachment to the office of the Speaker did not conform to due process.



Majority Caucus



However, in a statement issued by the Majority Caucus in parliament said the Speaker has 12 police guards in addition to the four soldiers who were recently withdrawn by the Ghana Armed Forces.



The Majority side also debunked the assertion that the executive arm of government was involved in the recent withdrawal of four soldiers who were part of the security detail of the Speaker and said the move was not politically motivated as speculated by the Minority.



In a statement issued Monday [January 17, 2021] the Majority side said Mr Bagbin has benefited from the largest number of security personnel for his protection that none of the previous Speakers had.



He has four police officers in his known residence. He has three police officers in his secretariat, and he has five other policemen in and around the Speakers office block any day, any time, the statement said.



This has not been a regular feature in Parliamentary Security considerations, the statement added.



The Majority also said it saw no problem with the military attempting to regularise the military security detail.



In the event, if the military insists on regularising his security detail, how does that compromise the Speakers security, or put him in harms way as the Speaker himself has stated?, it said







Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, will return to Parliament before the end of this month with the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) to seek the legislatures approval of the tax, Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu-Boahen, has disclosed.



The 1.75 per cent E-Levy which has become a subject of debate among Ghanaians when approved is expected to rake in a little above GH6 billion in tax revenue for the country.



This month [January 2022] we will go back to the floor of Parliament with the e-Levy and ensure that it gets passed by the end of the month, he mentioned at the investiture of the newly elected president of the Association of Ghana Industries, Humphrey Anim-Dake.



Myjoyonline.com reported yesterday, that Mr Adu-Boahen re-emphasised governments commitment to significantly increase revenue mobilisation in 2022 to address the high public debt levels.



Going forward, the exigencies of our current situation, high youth unemployment, limited fiscal space and a global pandemic [COVID-19] which has induced high debt levels demand that we prioritise moving our tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio from an estimated 13.4 per cent in 2021 to 20 per cent in the immediate to medium term which is more align with our peers and global averages.



At this time, enhance revenue mobilisation is ever so critical because of the high debt levels which means that we are limited in the amount of additional borrowing we cannot take. So any expenditures should primarily be financed through revenue increase, therefore we all have to put our shoulders on the wheel as we look to ensure that we increase our revenue collection effort to ensure that we can pay for our capital expenditure needs and everything else, he alluded.



Meanwhile, the Minister of State at the Finance Ministry has said that government met its domestic tax revenue target of about 57 billion (13.16 per cent of GDP) in 2021.



He pointed out that the 2022 non-oil tax revenue target of 80.3 billion moved the nation into a tax revenue to GDP of approximately 16 per cent, which is still below its medium revenue target of 18-20 per cent of GDP.



We will extend VAT relief on African prints for local textile manufacturers. Weve implemented the common platform for property rate administration, beginning this month. We will also reduce the withholding tax rate for the sale of unprocessed gold, from three per cent to 1.5 per cent which should increase the formalisation of the small scale mining sector and consequently increase penetration.



He added that there is continued engagement with stakeholders on the Benchmark Value policy and Im sure we will find ourselves with some good news with respect to the policy.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Lawyer Andrew Egyapa Mercer, the Member of Parliament for Sekondi constituency, has urged Ghanaians to support the government's e-levy policy pending Parliamentary approval.



The e-levy is to be rolled out next month ensuring that Ghanaians are taxed on their electronic transactions.



A 1.75 percent charge is to be deducted on every 100 cedi MoMo transaction made and also on all bank transfers.



The e-levy has been met with strong opposition from the Minority in Parliament as they have vehemently kicked against its implementation.



However, the NPP Majority in Parliament is in support of it and is bent on implementing the policy in February as was announced by the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta last year during his presentation of the 2022 Budget and Economic Policy before the Legislative House.



Commenting on the e-levy during a panel discussion on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', Lawyer Egyapa Mercer beleived it's the way to go for Ghana's development.



He was optimistic the e-levy will be used to fix the country's developmental challenges like bad roads, inadequate infranstructure and hospitals among others, hence encouraging all Ghanaians to embrace this initiative.



He shot down arguments that the 1.75% should be reduced stressing ''1.75 is 1 cedi 75 pesewas on a 100 cedis. It's 17 cedis 50 pesewas on a 1000 cedis. It's the lowest tax rate ever''.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Governance expert, Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah has called on government to review its yet-to-be implemented e-levy policy.



Dr. Otchere-Ankrah held strongly that the 1.75% tax rate on all electronic transactions is huge and should be cut down to 1 percent.



He also requested the government to raise the 100 cedi taxable amount on MoMo transactions, proposed by the Finance Minister, to 300 cedis in order to exempt the less privileged in society whose salary per month is around Ghc 300 or 400, to wit those who don't earn much to make ends meet.



Speaking to the authorities, he said; ''They should reduce it to 1 percent from 1.75 and then the daily taxable amount from 100 to 300. For me, that is what I think will be more pleasant to a lot of people to want to welcome this particular e-levy and then the majority should learn to build consensus.''



Dr. Otchere-Ankrah made these supplications on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo''.







Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Wildlife World Zoo founder and owner Mickey Ollson died on Jan. 9 at the age of 80.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The top UN envoy for Colombia, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, on Thursday called for efforts to build on the momentum created by the fifth anniversary of a landmark peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to further consolidate peace.

"It is important to carry this momentum forward into a key year that holds new opportunities to consolidate peace," he told the Security Council in a briefing.

In March, Colombians will cast their votes for a Congress that will, for the first time, include representatives from the 16 special transitional electoral districts for peace. More than 400 candidates are running to make the voices of regions historically affected by poverty and conflict heard. All of them are recognized as victims of the conflict, half of them are women, and many of them are indigenous and Afro-Colombians, he noted.

"This is a historic opportunity, envisioned in the (Final Peace) Agreement, that must be protected in order to widen Colombia's democracy," said Massieu, the UN secretary-general's special representative and head of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia.

In late December, the government revealed its strategies to ensure the security of the more than 2,800 candidates running overall in these elections, as well as the general conditions for Colombians to take part in the elections. An enhanced implementation of the security guarantees provisions of the peace agreement is critical for these elections, especially in regions prioritized for implementation which, regrettably, continue to be hit by violence, he said.

"Ensuring security and protection for all candidates is essential, in particular for those running for the special electoral districts. We trust that all political actors will conduct their campaigns in an environment of respect. I take this opportunity to invite them, once more, to engage in initiatives promoting non-violence and non-stigmatization in the electoral process."

Political reintegration is at the core of the peace process. As voters, party members, local officeholders or members of Congress, men and women who have laid down their arms are now active participants of Colombian democracy, he said. "I call on the authorities to ensure their political rights and their protection, especially in the light of persisting insecurity and stigmatization."

Massieu called for attention to the threats that ex-combatants are facing.

"While I acknowledge a reduction in the number of killings compared to the previous year, every single death is a blow to peace and every effort needs to be taken to protect every one of them. This means enhancing their individual security as well as securing in a broader sense conflict-affected areas where illegal armed actors continue to take advantage of the limited presence of the state in parts of the country," he said.

He condemned the actions of illegal armed actors and stressed that there is no alternative whatsoever to dialogue to resolve conflicts in today's Colombia.

As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pointed out during his visit to Colombia in November 2021, five years into its implementation the peace agreement is setting down ever deeper roots. The period ahead will be crucial for the parties and Colombian society to redouble efforts and continue following this roadmap for healing the wounds of conflict and overcoming its causes, said Massieu. 
To the Editor:

My wife and I, Marja Smets and Bo Varsano of Farragut Farm, are the founders and organizers of the Southeast Alaska Farmers Summit. This conference takes place in a different Southeast Alaska community every other year. The original event was held in Petersburg in 2015, it migrated to Haines in 2017 and then to Sitka in 2019. It was supposed to take place again in Petersburg in February of 2021 but was rescheduled (because of Covid-19) for February 2022. Unfortunately, we are sorry to announce that Covid-19 has again forced the postponement of the conference for yet another y...
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It will link used-car dealers and individual sellers and buyers online.

Hyundai said it will allow only authorized dealers to use the service to prevent fraud. Real-time data on the latest used-car prices and other information will be provided.

The company has engaged in the used-car auction business since 2001, buying used cars and selling them to dealers.
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A Charleston-based real estate firm is moving forward with plans to build a new apartment complex where a restaurant once operated in West Ashley.

An affiliate of Gramling Brothers Real Estate and Development is asking state regulators for stormwater and other permits to build a mixed-use project with 234 residential units and 11,400 square feet of ground-floor retail space where Ryan's restaurant served diners at 829 St. Andrews Blvd. for several years.

Gramling also is seeking approval from the city of Charleston for the two- to five-story proposed complex to be called St. Andrews Apartments. Plans call for two floors in the front of the building and five farther back, according to Mikell Harper, Gramling's vice president for business development.

Ryans, which once was headquartered in the Upstate, closed the West Ashley restaurant in 2016, citing underperformance.

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Gramling's apartment plans do not include the former Food Lion site adjacent to Ryan's at 65 Sycamore Ave., where Rogue Motion Boat Sales and Storage operates.

An affiliate of Gramling Brothers bought the former grocery store and restaurant in 2014 for $5 million.

Redevelopment plans for the former Ryan's have been in the works for a while. Gramling first presented a proposal to the city two years ago to demolish the run-down, dilapidated building to make way for a new mixed-use project.

At the time, the scope of the project had not been determined for the number of units or floors, but the site's land use allows commercial development up to 55 feet.

Once the government approval process is completed, Harper expects construction to take about two years.
A downtown Charleston women's apparel retailer recently bought an adjacent building that once housed another clothing shop and now has a satellite operation on the upper peninsula as part of its expanded footprint.

An affiliate of Hampden Clothing, owned by Stacy Smallwood, purchased the former Anne's women's clothing shop at 312 King St. for $3.25 million in November, according to Charleston County land records.

It serves as an extension to Hampden's flagship store at 314 King and its counterpart shoe store James next door.

The apparel store has been growing its presence on the peninsula in recent years. It now occupies more than 10,000 square feet of retail space on middle King, including Small by Hampden at 324 King.

The retailer also recently leased the former Barrie Newman Building at 747 Meeting St., according to the commercial real estate firm NAI Charleston.

The retailer will use the 7,200-square-foot rental space as an e-commerce and distribution office to focus on the company's growing online business. Special events, such as partnerships with brands, also are planned at the site for shoppers.

The newly leased property in the area called NoMo, for North Morrison, backs up to the planned Lowcountry Lowline linear park that will run along the peninsula's spine. The site also is close to Interstate 26 and offers on-site, off-street parking.

"The iconic building is a perfect fit for the internationally recognized boutique," said Sarah Shelley, of NAI Charleston, who represented Hampden Clothing LLC as the tenant.

Jack Owens, also of NAI Charleston, represented the building owner, AD Meeting LLC, which paid $2.25 million for the property in December 2020, according to land records.

What's cooking?

A new dessert-type eatery is in the works for West Ashley.

Big Dough Daddy LLC recently leased 1,581 square feet at 3863 West Ashley Circle, off Bees Ferry Road, according to the commercial real estate firms Avison Young and Bridge Corporate Solutions.

The venture will be called Cookie Dough Bliss & Creamery and will offer cookies, cookie dough, ice cream and other treats, according to owner Jason Keyser of West Ashley.

An opening is tentatively planned for April or May. His partner, Kitty McDowell, will be the general manager. She previously worked at the creamery's location in North Carolina.

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The Concord, N.C.-based company has 11 locations in eight states. The West Ashley site will be its first in South Carolina.

On the way

A five-building commercial complex is the newest proposal for a developing area in Cainhoy.

The planned Foundation Place at Point Hope on Clements Ferry Road north of the Publix-anchored Point Hope Commons Shopping Center will include 38,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and office space on about 4.5 acres.

Plans call for 22,000 square feet of office, retail and fast-casual restaurant space, including a coffee shop with a drive-thru, as well as a 16,000-square-foot, two-story medical office building, according to site plans.

Three buildings are slated to be 6,000 square feet each while another with the drive-thru window will be 4,000 square feet.

The developer is listed as Vulcan Property Group of Fort Mill, which is building the new 25,000-square-foot Serendipity Labs co-working structure in Nexton in Summerville. The co-working space is expected to open during the summer.

Stretching out

The Charleston franchise owner of a new Chicago-based fitness firm is planning four more locations across the Lowcountry after launching his first operation earlier this month in southern Mount Pleasant.

Franchisee John Youngblood said he plans to open Spenga fitness sites in northern Mount Pleasant, James Island, the Summerville area and West Ashley. Specific locations and opening schedules have not been determined.

Youngblood opened the initial Spenga site in a 4,000-square-foot space at 996 Johnnie Dodds Blvd. in the Publix-anchored Queensborough Shopping Center in Mount Pleasant on Jan. 8. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Jan. 18.

Spenga combines spin, strength training and yoga.
BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has called on scholars to deepen their understanding of the rule of Party building in the new era and further contribute wisdom and strength to advancing related work.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the instruction to a conference of the National Society for Party Building Studies, which was held in Beijing Friday.

Xi sent his congratulations to the conference and extended his sincere greetings to scholars studying Party building.

Recognizing the contributions the society has made in recent years to advancing Party building in the new era, Xi urged more efforts to adapt Marxism to China's conditions, step up research on the latest progress of Party building theories and strengthen the study of full and strict governance over the Party, among others.

Chen Xi, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the CPC Central Committee's Organization Department, conveyed Xi's instruction at Friday's conference and called on the scholars to follow Xi's instruction and encouraged them to play a bigger role in advancing Party building in the new era. 
A downtown property off upper King Street that, for a century, housed Hughes Lumber, has been sold and will be redeveloped as a mixed-use project anchored by a 50-room hotel.

Charleston developer Michael Bennett's Bennett Hospitality bought 82 Mary St. for $12.25 million, according to David Ingle of the commercial real estate firm NAI Charleston, which represented the seller, Mary Stuart LLC.

The 1.09-acre lot will eventually house residential units, meeting space, retail and a restaurant, along with a hotel.

According to plans presented to the Charleston Board of Zoning Appeals in October, the lodging would be four stories tall, while a section of the complex with apartments would rise to the full eight stories that's allowed at the site. The retail, restaurant and hotel lobby would all be on the first floor.

Plans also included incorporating the future Lowcountry Lowline park that will directly back up to the site.

The zoning board voted unanimously in favor of the request for a 50-room hotel at the property.

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A proposal from a different developer for a much larger hotel project that would have had 215 rooms was rejected for the same site in early 2020.

When that denial was challenged, the BZA doubled down on its decision and voted against a request to reconsider.

Before that, a nine-story office building had been planned for the property. The city had granted final approval for that building's design, but the project ultimately didn't work out.

The parcel between King and Meeting streets was once the site of one of Charleston's oldest locally owned businesses, Hughes Lumber & Building Supplies. After 128 years in business, the store closed in late 2016.

Co-owner John Burn, a third generation partner in the business, told The Post and Courier at the time that customers and employees at the store were "like family and friends."

Bennett has multiple development projects in the works in the Charleston area, including one at 411 Meeting St.  a parcel adjacent to the old Hughes Lumber site  where his firm plans to build an apartment building, condominiums and a 300-room hotel.

Bennett Hospitality also purchased a property earlier this month on Ben Sawyer Boulevard in Mount Pleasant formerly occupied by the second-hand furnishings store Page's Thieves Market, with intent to develop it as an about 90-unit hotel.
South Carolinians are preparing for freezing rain this weekend after a winter weather advisory was issued for most of the Palmetto State, including the Charleston metro area.

The National Weather Services Charleston office issued the advisory for parts of the Charleston tri-county area and Colleton County, beginning at 1 p.m. on Jan. 21.

Forecasters predicted ice accumulations would be less than a quarter-inch, though they are confident some degree of freezing rain will occur in the Lowcountry.

The bottom line: Limited impacts are mostly expected, weather service meteorologist Steven Taylor said. A major ice storm is not expected this far to the south.

South Carolinas Midlands, Pee Dee and Upstate regions, however, are forecast to receive snow, sleet or freezing rain the night of Jan. 20 through the morning of Jan. 22, mere days after a dangerous winter storm battered the area.

Charleston tri-county forecast

In the Charleston tri-county area, the coldest air will be found in Berkeley and Dorchester counties, Taylor said in a call with reporters the afternoon of Jan. 20.

Forecasters predicted a changeover to freezing rain will occur first in northern Berkeley County, beginning around noon on Jan. 21, Taylor said.

The winter weather advisory will go into effect first for Berkeley County at 1 p.m., and then two hours later for the rest of the Charleston area. The advisory is expected to last until 7 a.m. the following day.

Ice is anticipated to quickly melt during the daytime hours on Jan. 22, but leftover patches of wet pavement could refreeze and form black ice later that day. An added wind chill could cause temperatures in the Lowcountry to fall between the upper teens and low 20s, Taylor said.

The meteorologist also warned residents north of Moncks Corner there was a small chance for temperatures to drop below freezing before daybreak on Jan. 21, as precipitation begins to develop. This could lead to some patchy freezing rain in the area as the sun rises, but temperatures were expected to climb through the morning of Jan. 21 before dropping again, Taylor said.

Charleston-area residents without a warm place to sleep can stay overnight at Aldersgate United Methodist Church (444 Remount Road, North Charleston); Seacoast Church (2049 U.S. Highway 17, Charleston); and Hibben United Methodist Church (690 Coleman Blvd., Mount Pleasant).

The Aldersgate and Seacoast shelters will welcome guests from Jan. 20 through Jan. 22, while Hibben will allow guests beginning Jan. 21. People are admitted in the evening and can stay until early the following morning.

Statewide closures

Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester county officials planned to close their facilities the afternoon of Jan. 21 to avoid the wintry mix.

Several school districts across the state opted to conduct classes online Jan. 21 because of inclement weather:

Allendale County School District

Berkeley County School District

Charleston County School District

Clarendon School District Four

Dorchester District Two

Florence School District Five

Georgetown County School District

Greenville County School District

Horry County Schools

Lexington School District One

Lexington School District Three

Lexington-Richland School District Five

Marion County School District

Marlboro County School District

Richland School District One

Richland School District Two

Multiple Charleston-area colleges have changed their Jan. 21 schedules in light of winter weather. Trident Technical College will move to virtual instruction on Jan. 21. and College of Charleston will close its campus at 2 p.m.

The University of South Carolina announced its Columbia campus would shut down Jan. 21. The university said in a news release that in-person classes would be canceled and remote classes may be rescheduled.

Courts statewide were advised to follow the direction of local officials and chief judges on a circuit-by-circuit basis.

Stay off the roads

Forecasters predicted the weekend storm would not rival two prior ice storms that struck the region in the first months of 2014, when frozen rain and wind knocked down power lines, damaged trees and forced the closure of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, according to the weather service.

North Charleston police officers will monitor the Don N. Holt Bridge and the North Charleston side of Interstate 526, police spokesman Harve Jacobs said. If theres any possibility of the bridge icing, city police may shut it down, he said.

Otherwise we are asking people to stay off the roads until the threat of icing is gone, Jacobs said.

Taylor, the weather service meteorologist, encouraged residents not to let their guard down.

Past freezing rain events have shown that even trace amounts can cause a lot of headaches for this area, especially on elevated roadways, he said.

S.C. Department of Transportation workers were busy Jan. 20 prepping brine for trucks to spread on roadways. In addition to using its own vehicles, the department contracted private truck companies to dump the salty mixture on major roads, including Interstate 26.

SCDOT workers were prepared to work around the clock for a second weekend as the entire state braced for another winter storm.

Adam Benson, Rickey Dennis, Olivia Diaz, Stephen Fastenau, Jerrel Floyd, Sara Gregory, Libby Stanford, Maura Turcott and Emma Whalen contributed to this report.
GEORGETOWN  The city of Georgetown is closer to finding a home for both its city hall and electric department.

City Council authorized Georgetown Administrator Sandra Yudice to start looking for possible locations after a closed session on Jan. 20, the first meeting of the new Republican-majority governing board.

The council did not mention how much the new city hall and electric department office will cost.

Cost is the major component," Mayor Carol Jayroe said in an interview. "With the cost of construction right now, we need to be careful and spend our citizens money very carefully.

Finding a new home for city hall is the next step in a years-long process that began when city staff was forced out of the original location off Front and Fraser streets in 2016 because of safety concerns with the structural integrity of the building.

City hall was later moved to an old bank building off North Fraser Street, and Jayroe said the current location is unsuitable for the city's needs.

"They are cramped in there," she said. "We are totally out of space, our people need it. Someone is working in a closet."

The council has been tossing around ideas for where it could move city hall for months with Winyah Auditorium considered at one point.

The citys electric department building off of Church Street has been sold to a developer who has plans for an open-air market. The developer has said the city can use the location for up to 2 years.

No timetable has been set, but Jayroe said the process will now be on a "fast track" to find suitable locations, and then have a City Council workshop for discussion.

"We are looking high and low, and it may be a piece of land, an existing building, or a built-to-suit, she said. Dr. Yudice is going to come back with us with several different options, and then we will decide where to go from there."
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control announced it will be distributing over 100,000 at-home rapid COVID-19 antigen tests to residents beginning Jan. 24. The agency says it has ordered more than 2 million at-home tests kits and expect to receive a full shipment over the next several weeks.

Each test kit contains two COVID-19 tests and residents will be able to pick them up from their local DHEC public health departments.

"These at-home rapid tests are easy to use, have received emergency use authorization, and provide a result in minutes as opposed to hours or days," the agency said in a recent press release. "While the brand of test that DHEC receives may change over time, the authorization, ease of use, and resulting times will not."

According to the agency, 50 percent of all the rapid test kits DHEC receives will be distributed to the community, while the rest will be provided to first responder agencies, state government agencies, school districts, long-term care facilities and county and state correctional facilities.

"It's imperative that staff in these entities who are symptomatic or close contacts can quickly be made aware of their COVID-19 status so they can act accordingly and protect the health of those they serve," the agency said.

The news comes the same day the agency reported over 13,000 new COVID-19 cases and 55 new deaths related to the virus Jan. 21.

Statewide numbers

New cases reported: 10,469 confirmed, 3,429 probable.

Total cases in S.C.: 996,641 confirmed, 269,069 probable.

Percent positive: 32.9 percent.

New deaths reported: 42 confirmed, 13 probable.

Total deaths in S.C.: 13,029 confirmed, 2,069 probable.

Percent of ICU beds filled (with COVID-19 and other patients): 80.95 percent.

S.C. residents vaccinated

In South Carolina, 61.8 percent of people who are eligible for the vaccine have received at least one dose, and 52.7 percent of eligible residents have completed their vaccinations.

This number reflects all eligible residents in South Carolina, including young children. The latest data from DHEC shows 16.3 percent of children ages 5-11 have at least one vaccine dose.

Hardest-hit areas

Richland (1,140), Lexington (1,121) and Greenville (1,041) counties saw the highest total numbers of new cases.

What about tri-county?

Charleston County had 721 new cases, while Berkeley had 388 and Dorchester had 493.

Deaths

DHEC releases county-level data regarding COVID-19 deaths and the ages of those who have died from the virus on Tuesdays. According to the latest data released Jan. 18, at least 181 people in South Carolina died from the virus Jan. 9-15, and their ages ranged from young adult (18-34) to elderly (65 and older).

Greenville County recorded 31 COVID deaths that week  the highest number of any county in the state.

Hospitalizations

Of the 2,568 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Jan. 21, 437 were in the ICU and 225 were using ventilators.

What do experts say?

State health officials strongly encourage vaccinations for everyone ages 5 and older, booster shots for those 12 and older, and the use of masks to protect yourself and others from virus spread.

Go to https://vaxlocator.dhec.sc.gov to find a vaccine clinic near you.
Kingstree, SC (29556)

Today

Partly to mostly cloudy with widely scattered showers or thunderstorms possible in the afternoon. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 88F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

Scattered thunderstorms during the evening, then partly cloudy overnight. Low 62F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.
NORTH CHARLESTON  A 26-year-old man was charged with murder in a quadruple shooting which left one dead and three injured just before Christmas Day in 2020.

North Charleston police officers, along with U.S. Marshals, arrested Jermaine Bunch Jr. on Jan. 20, spokesman Harve Jacobs said.

Bunch faces one count of murder, three counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a deadly weapon while committing a crime.

Police named Bunch as a suspect in the homicide after a search warrant gave officers access to "crucial" data from one of the victim's phones, Jacobs said.

Officers were called around 2:15 p.m. Dec. 21, 2020, to Palmetto Exchange, an apartment complex on Shipley Street off U.S. Highway 78 in Ladson.

They found Jordan Mullins, 25, dead from gunshot wounds, according to the Charleston County Coroner's Office.

Mullins was found inside a car parked in front of a building where two of the victims lived, Jacobs said.

Two unidentified victims were hospitalized after suffering gunshot wounds to their torsos, Deputy Chief Scott Deckard told media in 2020.

Officers initially located only two victims  Mullins and one other man. The other two male victims walked up to the scene after the shooting and were taken to the hospital, Jacobs said.

Bunch was booked into the Charleston County jail Jan. 20, records show. He was scheduled to have a bond hearing the following morning.
SUMMERVILLE  Dorchester Habitat for Humanity is aiming for at least 200 women to work on one of its upcoming homes.

Every year, around International Women's Day in March, Habitat celebrates its annual Women Build. It's typically a daylong or weeklong program where local women volunteers get to work on one of the homes for a Habitat recipient.

The program also acts as a fundraiser, with volunteers paying to participate in the event.

This year, Dorchester Habitat has opted to expand the event by moving it up from March to February and making it a monthlong celebration.

Habitat for Humanity is an organization dedicated to helping people attain affordable homeownership. Many of the recipients are often single mothers who wouldn't be able to afford a home without additional support and guidance from Habitat.

Dorchester Habitat has built more than 70 homes in the last 26 years. Before the pandemic, it was averaging about five homes a year. In the last two years, with issues like construction delays, it's been closer to between one and three.

Seventy volunteers worked on last year's house, and Dorchester was able to raise around $5,000 through the Women Build event.

"We just blew it out of the water last year," said Moriah Hollander, development director for Dorchester Habitat for Humanity. "Now it's a month."

Hollander said she believes the big turnout had to do with timing.

Many residents had been cooped up in their homes during the pandemic and were looking for opportunities to get out.

The program ends up being a lot of fun for the women involved, she said, comparing it to a girls day out without the shopping. Participants usually end up learning a lot about construction, she said.

"You can ask questions, make mistakes," she said. "That just makes it a little more fun."

Amy Hicks, a Summerville resident, caught the Habitat home building bug after attending the Women Build event last year.

She said for years she wanted to volunteer with Habitat but couldn't due to health reasons. During the pandemic, she got in shape and in 2021 felt healthy enough to participate in Women Build.

"I enjoyed it so much that I decided to continue," she said.

She joined a group called the Faithful Few that routinely works on Habitat homes throughout the year. According to Hicks, she is one of the only women who is part of the group.

The Women Build event ended up being an opportunity for Hicks to be around other women and learn from them, as well as from Habitat staff.

It was "rewarding" to do something most people think only men can do, she said.

Hicks is planning to get more women involved. This year, she invited a friend to go to the event with her.

Beyond that, what really keeps her coming back are the home recipients.

Its encouraging to keep working and know that youre doing this for someone who is in need of affordable housing," she said.

Those receiving a home through Habitat have to complete more than 400 volunteer or sweat equity hours. So typically volunteers work alongside the future homeowner.

Michele Scibetta's new home will be the focus for the Women Build event. It will be nearly completed by the end of February. Scibetta is a single mother to 7-year-old Joseph.

She learned about Habitat from a friend after realizing she wouldn't be able to afford a home on her own. Mortgage payments through Dorchester Habitat average around $650 a month.

Having participated in last year's Women Build, Scibetta said she is excited and grateful that her home will be the focus this year. She said she has learned so much from other women at the event and from Habitat staff.

She's also excited about having her own washer and dryer and seeing her son play in the backyard.

I'm almost speechless that this is happening," Scibetta said. As the steps go on, it hits you.

This year, Hollander said the goal is to get close to $5,000 again in fundraising while recruiting even more women to participate.

To learn more about the Women Build event, go to dorchesterhabitat.org. If a group of women wants to sign up or a business wants to be a sponsor, they can email events@dorchesterhabitat.org.

Around 130 women have currently signed up.

"Every time I volunteer, I learn something," Scibetta said.
A 31-year-old man arrested in the fatal stabbing of a woman while she worked at a Los Angeles furniture store was out on bail in a Charleston County criminal case at the time of the killing.

Shawn Laval Smith was arrested shortly before noon on Jan. 19 by Pasadena, Calif., police in the fatal stabbing of Brianna Kupfer, 24, according to a Twitter post by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Investigators had offered a $250,000 reward during a news conference on Jan. 18 for information leading to Smiths arrest and conviction in the case, which has drawn national attention.

Los Angeles City Council member Paul Koretz said at the news conference Kupfer's killing had "shaken and shocked our community to its core."

Kupfer was one of four children, graduated from the University of Miami and was working on a masters degree in architectural design at UCLA.

She was alone in the Croft House store in the Hancock Park neighborhood the afternoon of Jan. 13 when she was stabbed, police have said.

She sent a text to a friend saying there was someone inside the location that gave her a bad vibe. Regrettably, that person did not see the text immediately, Lt. John Radtke said.

Detectives have determined the suspect was not known to the victim and was a random walk-in to the store, police said. The suspect attacked the victim with a knife and fled the scene through the back door.

A customer found her dead about 20 minutes later, police said.

Smith, a transient seen in several Southern California cities including San Diego and San Francisco, had for several years called Charleston home, according to police and court records.

In October 2008, Smith was accused of pocketing $400 in cash taken from a register while he worked at the Target in West Ashley's Citadel Mall.

He was arrested again five years later by Charleston police after being accused of threatening staff and residents at a now-closed homeless shelter on Meeting Street.

In March 2016, he was charged with trespassing at Roper Hospital. A Charleston police officer told Smith he could not wander the halls or sleep in chairs at the hospital.

Later that month, he was charged with resisting arrest after attempting to kick College of Charleston officers while they struggled to handcuff him.

He was sentenced to 74 days in jail in that case, time he had already served awaiting trial.

Smith bounced around North Carolina during that period, too. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department charged Smith in connection to a rash of bicycle thefts in June 2016. It's unclear whether he was convicted of any charges in that case.

In 2019, Smith was back in the Charleston area, authorities said.

Smith was arrested Nov. 13, 2019, on the felony offense of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle.

Authorities say Smith fired a flare gun at another man's vehicle on Highway 17 in Mount Pleasant.

The fiery blast scorched the rear passenger window of the man's vehicle while his 8-year-old son sat in the backseat, according to court records.

Smith allegedly admitted in a phone call with a police sergeant he shot the flare gun after seeing the man and his son in the vehicle.

Smith was released later that month on a $50,000 surety bond underwritten by Bad Boyz Bail Bonds of North Charleston, according to court record.

Cindy Palenkas, the bondswoman in the local case, said on Jan. 19 the company was aware of Smith's connection to the murder case in Los Angeles.

She declined to answer further questions about his disappearance, including when the company last made contact with him.

Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said Smith was prohibited from leaving the state without the court's permission as a condition of his bail.

Wilson said her office has filed a request for bond revocation, but the California murder case would take precedent over the local charges. The solicitor said she will hold the bond company financially responsible if it is true Smith absconded, however.

Nicholas D'Angelo, Smith's public defender in the case, did not respond to a request for comment.

The victims in the flare gun case settled claims against Smith and his insurance company in 2020 for $6,000.

Mount Pleasant attorney Trevor Cangelosi represented Smith in the civil case.

He said the encounter was a road rage incident and no one was injured. That case was settled quickly, Cangelosi said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Getting a driver's license can be an exciting milestone or a loathsome task depending on the circumstances, but during the COVID-19 pandemic it became one more thing: a potential health threat.

Sitting in a small, enclosed space with someone who is neither a close friend nor a family member is typically what getting a driver's license requires. And that was a pandemic no-no. So for most of 2020 and 2021, South Carolina did not allow state examiners to ride with license applicants for driving tests.

The result? More business flowed to private driving schools, which in South Carolina are allowed to conduct tests and approve students for a driver's license.

It got us very busy," said Anthony Fralix, an owner and instructor at James Island Driving School. "Since the DMV wasnt doing testing, it sent a lot of business to us."

The Department of Motor Vehicles didn't actually stop testing, but the road tests required for a license were only offered at DMV offices that had on-site driving courses where officials could watch applicants drive through the series of tests from outside the vehicle.

"They were held to the same standards and we had policies in place to address that," said Kyle McGahee, the DMV's chief of strategic communications and community affairs. "It was just in a parking lot."

Previously, license applicants who went to a state facility would be tested with a DMV examiner in the car, usually on public roads following planned routes.

When concerns about the virus prompted a change in policy  no DMV examiners in cars with applicants  license testing was limited to roughly half the DMV's 66 locations that had "testing pads" with driving courses on site and by appointment only.

"We did have a lot of questions and some people said they were having trouble finding appointments near them," said Cindy Hutto, the agency's driver's licenses standards manager. Even though it was in half the number of sites, the staffing was moved and we were running road tests throughout the day."

In-car testing at DMV offices was halted from May 2020 to June 1, 2021, then halted again from September to mid-November 2021 after the delta variant caused a surge in COVID cases nationwide. In-car testing has since resumed and appointments are no longer required.

At Rusty's Driving School in Mount Pleasant, owner Rusty Hires said he briefly shut down his business in 2020 for only the third time in 35 years  the other two being Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and the 2018 winter storm that closed roads and Charleston International Airport.

After about a month, Hires reopened for business with COVID-19 restrictions in place.

We reduced our class sizes and mandated masks," Hires. said "Very few of our clients objected."

Rusty's Driving School continued to do in-car license testing, and Hires said they picked up lots of business.

Even before the pandemic we had driver training schools that were testing drivers," said Hutto. From the kids perspective, they might be more comfortable testing with the people who trained them."

Detailed statistics on the number of road tests conducted by private businesses were unavailable from the state, partly because of a change in the way they are reported. Regardless of who conducts the test, the DMV issues the license.

In the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 the DMV issued, respectively, 63,674 and 76,990 regular (non-commercial) licenses that would have required driving tests. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, 70,861 were issued.

At least in the greater Charleston area, where population growth has been driven by people moving from other states, it's not just teens seeking licenses.

Youve got a lot of people who moved here, like from New York, and had never learned to drive," Fralix said. Those drivers, he said, are about half his clients.

Hires said a sizeable portion of the business is older residents who moved to the area.

Some have a license and just want a little improvement, and some never drove because they could walk out their door and jump on a train or a bus," he said.

The omicron variant has sent COVID-19 cases soaring once again, but this time the DMV has announced no restrictions on in-car driver's license testing.

However, some offices are offering limited services due to staffing issues.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the number of licenses issued during the past three years.
A cold front and persistent precipitation rolling across the Southeast were projected to cause slick roads and possible power outages in South Carolina overnight into the early hours of Jan. 22, making travel potentially hazardous after dark and causing a spate of closures in advance.

A thin layer of ice was expected to blanket the Lowcountry beginning around dark, and schools, courthouses and government offices had closed on Jan. 21 in anticipation of the potentially dangerous weather. Through the day, public works crews from the state and local communities spread salt, sand and brine on the roads, in anticipation of the freeze.

"Untreated elevated roadways and bridges could become covered with a layer of ice," the National Weather Service office in Charleston said in an evening briefing document. "Elevated walkways, porches, stairs may become very slick and hazardous."

The freeze was expected to reach Charleston between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., though shortly after 5 p.m., temperatures were still hovering just above freezing in the tri-county area. Traffic cameras indicated vehicles were moving normally in most parts of the Lowcountry at that time, except for a collision on Interstate 526 between West Ashley and North Charleston.

Overnight, temperatures in the Lowcountry were expected to dip to the low 30s, with some areas inland reaching the mid-20s. Steve Rowley, a meteorologist with the weather service, said the region would hit freezing shortly after dark, making the night the most dangerous time to be on the roads.

Forecasters called for ice up to a tenth of an inch in the southern part of the Charleston region, and ice between a tenth and quarter of an inch further north, including most of Berkeley County. The ice will form from freezing rain, as liquid precipitation hits the chilled ground and freezes after contact.

On the Grand Strand, ice accumulations were projected to be even thicker, slightly more than three-tenths of an inch by the time precipitation stops early on Jan. 22. A rare-for-the-coast ice storm warning was issued for Horry County.

Weather service Meteorologist Steven Taylor said in a weather briefing the day before that ice accumulations on roadways, particularly elevated surfaces, could make travel conditions difficult.

Bridges tend to accumulate ice first because there is no soil under them to provide insulation. The S.C. Department of Transportation said in several tweets it was pre-treating bridges and roadways, including the Ravenel Bridge between Charleston and Mount Pleasant, in advance of the storm. Interstates 26 and 526 had also been sprayed.

The transportation agency said crews would re-treat the Ravenel again on overnight on Jan. 21, as temperatures dropped. Still, SCDOT tweeted, "Please don't drive in freezing conditions."

In Mount Pleasant, public works crews got an opportunity to use the two dump trucks with attachments for plowing snow and spreading salt or sand that the town bought after a winter storm four years ago that left the area with several inches of snow.

"The first action was sanding the roads before it gets icy, with the two trucks we got in 2018," spokeswoman Martine Miller said. "I know that they had 100 tons (of sand) at the ready."

Road crews focused on sanding the towns half-dozen small bridges and overpasses, but "Were not expecting a major event," Miller said.

In South Carolinas Midlands, Pee Dee and Upstate regions, forecasts ranged from freezing rain to sleet to snow, with accumulations from the night of Jan. 20 through the morning of Jan. 22.

The University of South Carolina shuttered its Columbia campus on Jan. 21. The university said in a news release that in-person classes would be canceled and remote classes may be rescheduled.

While Upstate schools were closed and students learning remotely on Jan. 21, the decision to remain closed centered on concerns over isolated slippery conditions as the region slowly thaws from last weekends winter storm that dropped up to 7 inches of snow.

The Upstate was forecast through Jan. 21 to see a dusting of snow  less than an inch across the region and mostly between Interstates 26 and 77, according to the weather service office in Greer.

Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester county officials closed facilities to avoid the wintry mix, and several school districts across the state opted to conduct classes online. Multiple Charleston-area colleges also changed their schedules due to the weather.

Several inbound and outbound flights were canceled at Charleston International Airport under the increasing threat of icy conditions. Travelers were urged to contact their airlines for the latest updates, and flight information is also available at iflychs.com.

"We are not closing any runways and do not anticipate there to be an impact to flying operations due to the current weather forecast," said Diana Cossaboom, chief of media operations for Joint Base Charleston, which owns the runways at Charleston International Airport. "Because South Carolina doesnt see this type of weather often, we will continue to monitor temperatures and conduct runway readings to test friction. The Civil Engineer Squadron will be on standby to plow and clear as needed."

Warming centers were also opened across the region for the overnight lows at Aldersgate United Methodist Church at 444 Remount Rd. in North Charleston; Seacoast Church at 2049 U.S. 17 in Charleston and Hibben United Methodist Church at 690 Coleman Blvd. in Mount Pleasant.

It's not just humans who need to worry about the cold weather.

The Charleston County Animal Shelter urged pet owners to take precautions to protect their animals as temperatures dip below freezing in the coming days.

Different animals have different tolerances when it comes to cold weather, Charleston Animal Society Chief Veterinary Officer Lucy Fuller said. Older pets, thinner pets, animals with certain kinds of fur all may face challenges in freezing temperatures.

No animal should be left outside in the cold without proper shelter, and pet owners should take their dogs on shorter walks.

Residents can provide warm shelter for stray cats by leaving a box or sturdy container bin outside with a towel or blanket inside. Motorists should bang loudly on their vehicle's hood before driving, since cats sometimes seek shelter near the warmth of a car engine.

Antifreeze is a deadly poison for dogs and cats, the shelter said, with just a small amount leading to kidney failure.

Anyone who sees an animal in distress in the cold can call local animal control or the sheriff's office.

Warren Wise contributed to this report from Charleston, David Slade from Mount Pleasant and Eric Connor from Greenville.
A company dedicated to data centers will construct its newest footprint next to Fort Gordon, a sign of the cyber industrys growth and interest in the Savannah River region.

T5 Data Centers on Tuesday announced its plans to capitalize on the Armys cyber center of excellence and develop a 140-acre data campus in Augusta, what it dubbed the Southeasts cybersecurity hub.

The location, the company explained in its announcement, affords superior telecommunications infrastructure as well as an abundant and unique pool of highly trained, certified IT and cybersecurity personnel with secret and top-secret federal credentials.

Data centers, in general, use storage systems, servers and other tech to keep and protect a clients important information. T5 said its prospective facility is ideal for government contractors and that it can meet commercial or federal specifications, including physical security.

Steven Kendrick, the chairman of the Augusta Economic Development Authority, in a statement this week said Augusta has made a name for itself as a hub for the cybersecurity industry. T5s move, he suggested, will spur further investment and development.

T5 has locations across the U.S., from California to Minnesota to North Carolina. The company said the Augusta area is fast becoming known as a top-tier cybersecurity destination, joining the ranks of northern Virginia; Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Texas; and Huntsville, Alabama.

We are pleased to support new projects in the area, Kendrick said, that will cement our citys cybersecurity stronghold.

South Carolina is getting in on the action, too. A S.C. National Guard cyber complex is planned for the USC Aiken campus, and the governor, Henry McMaster, in December recommended spending millions of dollars to foster a cluster of cyber infrastructure and businesses in North Augusta.

The U.S. Army Cyber Command and Cyber Center of Excellence is located at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, McMaster wrote in a letter to state lawmakers. The location of this facility across the Savannah River from North Augusta, and the Armys continued expansion and investment in the Cyber Center, provides South Carolina with a unique opportunity to capitalize on the growing demand for cyber defense contractors and highly secure office space and facilities.
Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
COLUMBIA  Republicans in the state Senate passed new congressional district lines that will heavily favor their party in Congress despite impassioned pleas from Democrats that a lawsuit is heading their way.

On a party-line vote, the body voted Jan. 20 to advance new congressional district lines that will all but assure their partys dominance in the states delegation in Washington for the next decade, including in the Lowcountrys competitive 1st Congressional District.

That meant tabling a plan proposed by Democratic Sen. Dick Harpootlian of Columbia that would have reduced the number of safe Republican districts in the state from six to four.

His plan would have created two competitive districts: Charleston Republican Rep. Nancy Maces 1st Congressional District, and the traditionally conservative 5th Congressional District that stretches from Sumter to Rock Hill held by Republican Rep. Ralph Norman.

Republicans made it clear unraveling the balance wasn't their goal.

People like the way theyve got it, Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, said during the debate. They dont want to fix what isnt broken.

While the lines closely resemble those already in place, Republicans have faced mounting criticism from Democrats and left-leaning special interests for their maps, which critics say were drawn along racial and political lines to benefit Republicans. As drawn, the boundaries maintain the Republican strength in five of the states seven congressional districts while likely decreasing competitiveness in Mace's district around Charleston and the lower coast.

Many of the plans critics have accused the map authors of treating voters in Beaufort County  who are part of Maces district under the Republicans' plan  differently from voters in North Charleston and West Ashley, where significant populations of Black voters are included in Rep. Jim Clyburns deep-blue 6th Congressional District.

During the Jan. 20 debate Sen. Mia McLeod, D-Columbia, and a candidate for governor, said race was the elephant in the room.

The sentiment was echoed by Harpootlian, who said growing up, hed never noticed racial segregation, never had a Black classmate until he attended college in 1966. And until his entry into politics in the 1980s, he never realized that many White people simply would not vote for a Black person, a sentiment that led to the creation of majority-minority districts that allowed Clyburn to get to Congress.

The fact race continues to divide this state its shocking to me we continue to do this for political advantage, he said on the floor.

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Though the Black population of the 6th District actually declines under the Republican plan, activists in the Lowcountry have argued the maps were drawn to strategically break up the Charleston areas voting population to make it less competitive for Democrats in a district where the last two congressional races were decided by fewer than two points.

Republicans have argued the splits are actually along natural geographic boundaries, and were closely aligned with previous plans that had already been approved by the U.S. Department of Justice, an effort to ensure the continuity of constituent services.

When you get in the Lowcountry, you cant help but have to deal with water bodies, rivers and harbors, said Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms. Its inescapable along the coast.

Harpootlian argued that the Republican plan was drawn without proper consideration to how populations in the Lowcountry voted as a bloc, strengthening the case that the lines were drawn for political gain. Some expressed concerns that the Republican plan would exacerbate polarization, creating districts where a more extreme brand of politics would be necessary for upstart politicians to unseat incumbents.

If we continue to go this route, then the minorities in both parties, the minority position in both parties, will dominate primaries, Harpootlian said. They will dominate your party and my party, whether it's Antifa for the Democrats or the traitorous scoundrels that took over the United States Capitol.

"It'll be like pouring gasoline on the fire," he later added.

The Republican plan still has a ways to go to become law. Differences remain between the Houses version of the map and the Senates that will need to be hashed out.

If passed in its current form, its also anticipated to be the subject of a lawsuit. Prior to the vote on the Republicans plan, Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, handed out copies of gerrymandered maps drawn by Ohios Republican-controlled legislature that were, ultimately, shot down by the courts.

South Carolina, he said, could face a similar fate.

"We're headed to the Fourth Circuit," Kimpson told his colleagues. "And every argument made here today will be submitted for the record."
BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- China, Iran and Russia held a second maritime exercise from Tuesday to Thursday at the waters of the Gulf of Oman, according to China's Ministry of National Defense.

The Chinese side sent a missile destroyer, a supply ship and helicopters, as well as 40 members of the Chinese navy marine corps, to participate in the exercise, the ministry said.

The joint exercise aimed to deepen practical cooperation among the three navies, and show the willingness and capabilities of the three countries to jointly safeguard maritime security and build a maritime community with a shared future, the ministry said. 
Joe Biden has withdrawn U.S. support for a pipeline project designed to deliver Israeli natural gas to Europe. Biden thereby reverses a decision made by the Trump administration.

The Biden administration tried to justify the reversal of U.S. policy on the basis of its interest in renewable energy. But the obvious effect of the decision is to strengthen the stranglehold Russia has on Europes energy supply.

In this regard, its worth noting, as we often have, that Biden supports the Nord Stream 2 pipeline system that stretches from the Baltic Sea to Germany. David Harsanyi reminds us that Biden waived sanctions on companies behind the project, including one run by Putin ally and former Stasi agent Matthias Warnig. No focus on renewable energy when it comes to defying Putins interests.

This decision, too, reversed Trump administration policy. Yet, Democrats, their media allies, and various dupes insisted that Trump was a tool of Russia. If any recent president fits that description, its Joe Biden, who yesterday essentially invited a Russian incursion into Ukraine. The runner-up administration is Barack Obamas, which nixed a missile defense system to protect Eastern Europe from Russia and promised to be even more flexible after the 2012 election.

And lets not forget about Senate Democrats. Last week, as Harsanyi points out, they resorted to the racist filibuster to sink a bill by Ted Cruz bill that would have sanctioned companies associated with the building of Nord Stream 2.

To be fair, Bidens decision on the Israel-to-Europe pipeline doesnt just help Putin. It also greatly benefits Turkey and its thuggish, anti-West president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He had been complaining that the pipeline bypasses Turkey.

Biden thus puts the interests of Putin and Erdogan ahead of those of Israel and Greece, among other friendly nations.

Finally, lets remember that Biden nixed our own Keystone Pipeline. As far as I can tell, his administration has never supported a pipeline project other than the one that will enormously benefit Vladimir Putin.
One signal aspect of the current historical moment is that prominent liberal news sourcesthe New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and, here, National Public Radiono longer make any pretense of being objective journalists. They are left-wing activists, and proud of it. When they are shown to be wrong on the factsthe Russia collusion hoax is perhaps the most notorious instance, although just one of manythey are unapologetic. They served their masters, and were proud to do so.

What prompts this reflection is National Public Radios fake news about the U.S. Supreme Court, as recapped by John Nolte. NPR claimed to have a scoop, based on a single anonymous, and obviously highly political, source:

On Tuesday, NPR ran a now-debunked story claiming Chief Justice John Roberts asked all nine members of the Supreme Court to wear masks. Per NPR, Roberts request was at the behest of Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The 67-year-old leftist justice was worried about the omicron surge with respect to her personal health problems. NPR then claimed that conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch is such a mean and terrible person, he refused to mask up, which forced Sotomayor to work remotely.

It turns out that none of that is true. All of the people involvedSotomayor, Roberts and Gorsuchpublicly denied it in writing:

Both Justice Sotomayor and Gorsuch released the following statement: Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends. Then the Chief Justice himself issued a statement: I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench.

So there you have it: three Supreme Court justices, the very people involved in the news story, say it is false. The single source remains anonymous. One might think that the least NPR could do is tell us who spread the rumor and why NPR considered that person to be credible.

But no. NPR has doubled down; this is its statement:

NPR stands by its reporting. What is incontrovertible is that all the justices have at once started wearing masks  except Gorsuch. Meanwhile, Sotomayor has stayed out of the courtroom. Instead, she has participated remotely in the courts arguments and the justices weekly conference, where they discuss the cases and vote on them. That pattern continued Wednesday as the court heard arguments in a campaign finance case brought by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Note that the facts NPR cites in standing by its reporting do not in any way support that reporting. NPR has apparently abandoned the assertion that Chief Justice Roberts asked the justices to wear masks. It also doesnt pretend to support the claim that Sotomayor requested such an order, or that she is working remotely because Gorsuch doesnt wear a mask. In other words, NPR stands by its reporting without defending a single fact that it falsely asserted.

To NPR, the facts are simply irrelevant. Like the New York Times, the Washington Post, et al., it is a mouthpiece for the Left, and will shamelessly assert falsehoods if they support the Lefts narratives.
I only caught about 1/3rd of Bidens presser on Wednesday, and worse, I listened on the radio while I was driving around, so I didnt catch his less than reassuring physical demeanor. Like the legend (which may be an incorrect urban legend) of people who listened to rather than watched the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960, when it is said people who listed on radio thought Nixon had won, while the TV viewers thought Kennedy won, I thought Biden sounded okay for the first 45 minutes or so on basic delivery, while some of his answers, such as on Ukraine, were obvious disasters. But then at about the hour mark he started to stumble badly.

But I missed his testy responses to some questions, and especially his back-and-forth with James Rosen:

JAMES ROSEN, NEWSMAX: Thank you very much for this honor. James Rosen with Newsmax. Id like to  Id like to raise a delicate subject but with utmost respect for your life accomplishments and the high office you hold: A poll released, this morning, by Politico/Morning Consult found 49 percent of registered voters disagreeing with the statement, Joe Biden is mentally fit. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: (Laughs.) Well  Q Not even a majority of Democrats who responded strongly affirmed that statement. THE PRESIDENT: Well, Ill let you all make the judgment whether theyre correct. Thank you. Q Well, so, the question I have for you, sir, before  if youd let me finish  is: Why do you suppose such large segments of the American electorate have come to harbor such profound concerns about your cognitive fitness? Thank you. THE PRESIDENT: I have no idea.

Cmon, man! No idea? Get off my lawn!

One problem with Biden is that, like most liberals, he has no sense of humor, no ability to use self-deprecation, and doesnt have any idea how he could turn his age into an advantage. This is how you do it:

And who can forget these:

Beyond this, it should be added that Reagan, and most other presidents, were. usually disciplined enough never to let the media visibly get under his skin. Clinton had a few lapses in this department, but Biden makes Clinton look like a model of chastity by comparison.

More evidence that he isnt up to the rigors of the office.
Last night, Chuck Schumer forced a vote on a motion to close debate on the Democrats voting legislation. That motion had nowhere near the support needed  60 votes  to pass.

Schumer than forced a vote on a proposed rule change to allow the voting legislation to advance with only a simple majority of votes  in other words, bypass the filibuster. That effort failed by a vote of 48-52. Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema joined every Republican to vote no, as they had made clear they would.

Schumer knew he would lose on both votes. Yet he held them anyway.

Was there any harm in trying? Yes.

Schumer forced a number of vulnerable Democrats to vote against the filibuster. Among the vulnerable Dems who did so were Sens. Mark Kelly, Maggie Hassan, Michael Bennet, and Catherine Cortez-Masto. One could add the two Georgia Democrats to the list, although Raphael Warnock was probably quite happy to cast his vote and Jon Ossoff isnt up for reelection this year. (Schumer also caused Sinema to vote for the filibuster, which did her no favors. However, shes probably finished at the end of her term in 2024 anyway, and I doubt Schumer wants to do her favors.)

The problem for vulnerable Dems is that the filibuster remains popular with the public. Schumer may have contributed to its popularity by insisting during the Trump years that the filibuster plays an indispensable role in our system of checks and balances.

Why did Schumer insist on putting vulnerable colleagues in a pickle? Charles Cooke suggests Schumer did it because hes terrified of a challenge for his Senate seat by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Maybe Schumer is. I have a difficult time imagining Ocasio-Cortez defeating Schumer in any scenario, but I dont have a place in the Senate on the line. Nor do I know New York politics nearly as well as Schumer does.

Another possible explanation, and the two arent mutually exclusive, is that the left-wing donors on whom Democrats rely demanded that Schumer make a last stand. The Washington Post cites Emilys List and the NAACP as particularly rabid (my characterization) when it comes to this legislation, which the latter organization absurdly describes as what may be our last hope to save our democracy.

Chuck Schumer appears to be a slave to these kinds of pressure groups. The same can be said of Joe Biden.

During his press conference yesterday, Biden felt the need to say hes not Bernie Sanders. No one would ever mistake the flip-flopping hack from Delaware with the committed socialist from Vermont. But Biden had to insist on the difference because, as his old colleague Joe Lieberman said on Fox News today, Bidens agenda hasnt been all that different from that of Sanders.

Why? Not out of principle  Biden has never been that sort of politician  but because he simply wont stand up to the far left.

Democrats might counter that Republicans these days wont stand up to Donald Trump. In fact, I read this charge almost daily in the Washington Post.

Theres some truth to it, but also some distinctions. One is that Mitch McConnell has been willing to distance himself from Trump in important ways. Schumer, McConnells Senate counterpart, wont distance himself from the hard Democratic left on matters important to it.

Furthermore, to the extent that some GOP officials and legislators wont defy Trump its because they believe, correctly I think, that Trump supporters are still the dominant force numerically in todays Republican party.

Sanders supporters cant make that claim with regard to the Democratic party. If they could, the Dems would have nominated Sanders, not Biden.

Thus, I would argue that Biden and Schumer have less reason to cave to their partys hard left than Republican officials and legislators have for declining to distance themselves much from Trump when they might otherwise do so.
SANTIAGO, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chile began vaccinating healthcare workers with a second booster dose against COVID-19 on Thursday, in light of a surge of infections caused by the Omicron variant, which reached a record 12,500 daily cases in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health.

The ministry started the first stage of administering a second booster dose to immunocompromised people this month, originally scheduled for February, amid the increase in cases, and also decided to advance the shots for healthcare workers.

The ministry called on the public to get vaccinated according to the official schedule, as 1.5 million people have yet to receive their first booster dose, which allows people with access to a mobility pass with greater freedoms.

Chile has been widely recognized for its free, voluntary and mass immunization campaign, which allowed the country to enjoy a sounder epidemiological situation for months. 
BUA Foods posted a profit jump of 6.68 per cent for the nine months to September, according to its unaudited financials, an improvement hinged on earnings growth.

Turnover stood at N79.7 billion, 6.8 per cent higher than the figure for the corresponding period of 2020.

The food processing company runs five units  sugar, edible oil, pasta, flour and pasta  all of which it combined into a single entity before it listed in Lagos this month.

But only sugar and other derivative products were noted as income sources in the earnings report posted by the Nigerian Exchange, while earnings from the other four units were unaccounted for.

Three of our five businesses division, namely sugar, flour and pasta, are currently and fully operational and are contributing to our current revenue stream, Acting Managing Director Ayodele Abioye told an investors and analysts call on Tuesday.

Incorporating only the figures of its sugar division into its financials made the price-to-earnings ratio of BUA Cement as high as 40 at the point of listing, when 18 billion units of its shares were admitted to the Nigerian bourse at N40 per unit.

Cost of sales rose to N57.1 billion from N53.2 billion, while administrative expenses dropped 43.1 per cent.

The company will commence rice production in the second half of 2022, Abioye said, with daily output estimated at 480 metric tonnes and future daily production at 2,700 mt.

Profit for the period came to N16.6 billion from N15.5 billion a year earlier.

Management is stepping up actions to revive the edible oil division and make it operational by 2024.

In January 2016, the firms parent company BUA Group sold its flour business to Singapore-owned Olam International in a deal worth $275 million before the company decided to look the way of flour milling again.

Profit margin, which measures how much of profit comes from revenue, stood at 20.8 per cent.

BUA Foods is majority-owned by Nigerias third richest man Abdul Samad Rabiu, whose wealth is currently valued at $5.5 billion, making him sixth on Forbes Africas billionaires list.
Russia has established a strong military presence in the Central African Republic (CAR) over the past four years, clandestinely using dubious actors like the military company Wagner, which is allegedly close to President Vladimir Putin. Wagner has become the deniable vanguard of a major Russian push into Africa, many analysts believe.

Wagner, supposedly run  or at least funded  by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man often called Putins chef, may already have made itself indispensable to President Faustin-Archange Touadera. This raises serious questions about whether it can be  or indeed should be  dislodged.

A force of about 1,200 to 2,000 Wagner operatives plus a contingent of some 300 crack Rwandan troops prevented the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) rebel army from capturing Bangui a year ago. The CPC comprised six signatories to the failing 2019 Khartoum agreement and was led by former president Francois Bozize. The rebels advanced on Bangui after Mr Touadera won the December 2020 elections, from which Mr Bozize had been excluded and which were widely believed to have been rigged.

The Russians then advanced into the countryside, routing more rebels as they marched. They restored more security to the CAR than it has seen for a long time, achieving what other outsiders  including France, Libya under the late Muammar Gaddafi and even South Africa (in 2013)  had failed to do.

And so the Russians were at first widely welcomed by CAR citizens. However, their popularity later waned as they increasingly committed severe human rights abuses against civilians, according to the United Nations (UN) and others. And the International Crisis Group and Africa Confidential say they have targeted not only members of the Fulani and Gbaya ethnic groups  Bozize is a member of the latter  but also Muslims in general. (Some rebel groups in the CPC alliance predominantly profess that faith.)

From his perspective, Mr Touaderas greatest dilemma may be that his heavy reliance on Wagner and Russia more generally has poisoned his relations with Western countries, particularly France.

The United States (U.S.) is also annoyed and had already sanctioned Mr Prigozhin for his alleged role in trying to influence its 2016 elections. The U.S. and the European Union also recently slapped sanctions on Wagner for a suspected range of human rights abuses, not only in the CAR but in Libya, Syria, Sudan and Ukraine. Wagner also briefly joined the fight against insurgents in northern Mozambique, though it quickly withdrew after setbacks.

Western disapproval matters because the CAR relies primarily on Western donors to provide more than half its $496 million annual state budget. The country doesnt acknowledge Wagners presence, and no one has seen a contract between them, though few doubt they have a deal. No visible contract means no evidence of legitimate pay, fuelling allegations that Wagner is being reimbursed instead with lucrative mining contracts.

A UN Panel of Experts found Wagner and Russias Lobaye Invest SARLU  which has won gold and diamond mining concessions  were interconnected. And the ICG points out that that Russian media have linked Lobaye directly to Prigozhin.

A similar standoff between France and the West on the one side and Russia and particularly Wagner may be occurring in Mali. A Russian force of some 450, mainly Wagner, operatives is reportedly starting to fill a vacuum created by the partial withdrawal of Frances 5,100-strong Barkhane force from the Sahel region. Malis government denies Wagners presence, admitting only to Russian instructors.

Nevertheless Wagners alleged presence has also provoked strong protests by France, which essentially saved Mali from being overrun by jihadists and separatists in 2013. France has threatened to completely withdraw military support to Mali. Sweden has already announced its exit from the European force Takuba because of Wagners arrival. Such decisions are difficult because they may further weaken the fight against the common enemy  violent extremism.

Nevertheless, the CAR and Mali cases raise some stark questions about Western responses to Wagner and Russias interventions there and elsewhere. Are these just fits of hypocritical pique by the West because Russia is beating it at its own game of exerting influence and exploiting commercial opportunities in Africa? Or are there significant differences between Western and Russian intervention?

A security analyst who requested anonymity noted that Russia  and for that matter China  are in many respects doing what Western countries have done for much longer. And that is securing access to African resources and markets and seeking stronger diplomatic and strategic alignment with the continent in global fora.

He says complicating any analysis or comparison is that Russias involvement in the CAR and elsewhere in Africa is probably more covert, so it is hard to know just where it is and what its doing. (There are rumours that Russia has its eyes on Burkina Faso, for example.)

But he added that Wagners growing presence is clearly problematic on two points. The first is that, like most private military companies, its military doctrine seems to converge around annihilating the enemy with little regard to civilian collateral damage. So human rights abuses are a big problem.

The second point is that Wagner and Russia seem to have no regard for democracy when choosing who to support. Some even suggest Putin seeks out African partners who have fallen out with the West because of their undemocratic behaviour, as this makes them vulnerable to such blandishments. And perhaps also to stick his finger in the Wests eye. In Mali, for example, Russia and Wagner evidently moved in only after the 2021 coup by Colonel Assimi Goita and his reluctance to return the country to democratic civilian rule.

Russia, like China, likes to present itself as aligned with African organisations on issues like this. And yet when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed sanctions on Mali this month, Russia and China blocked UN Security Council moves to back ECOWAS. The security analyst believes that if the African Union and regional economic communities like ECOWAS want to use these solutions, they need to be more consistent and coherent.

By turning a blind eye when the likes of Guineas Alpha Conde and Cote dIvoires Alassane Ouattara blatantly manipulate constitutions to stay in power, they undermine their own moral authority in dealing with military officers who respond with coups. And the same would apply to Russia and Wagner when they back such putschists.

But Wagners growing presence on the continent also poses some difficult questions to the international community, including the West. The problem is not only about democracy but also stability and security. If no one else can provide it, African countries may continue to turn to the likes of Wagner  though its too soon to judge its overall effectiveness either.

Peter Fabricius, Consultant, Institute for Security Studies (ISS)

(This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish).
The Kano State Government has ordered the closure of the school where the remains of Hanifa Abubakar, a five-year old pupil kidnapped and murdered by her teacher, were found buried.

The state Commissioner of Education, Muhammad Kiru, announced this in a statement issued by his spokesperson, Aliyu Yusuf.

He also announced the withdrawal of the licences of the two schools named in the tragedy, pending the outcome of police investigation.

The commissioner added that the state government has also constituted a ministerial committee to assist in ensuring justice on the matter.

While condoling with the family of little Hanifa on behalf of the state government, the commissioner called on parents and guardians to desist from enrolling their children in questionable schools.

He promised that the ministry would monitor the activities of private schools so as to prevent reoccurrence of similar incidents.

Background

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Abdulmalik Tanko, a teacher, allegedly kidnapped and killed his five-year old pupil, Hanifa.

Little Hanifa was Mr Tankos pupil at a private school located in Kwanar Dakata in Nassarawa local government area of Kano State.

According to the police, the principal suspect confessed to have poisoned the girl when he realised that she had recognised him.

Messrs Tanko and (Hashim) Isyaku then buried her remains in a shallow grave at the private school premises at Kwanar Yan Gana, Tudun Murtala Quarters in Nassarawa local government area of Kano State.

Hashim also confessed that, sometimes in the month of November, 2021, the principal suspect, Abdulmalik met him and one Fatima Jibreel Musa, f, 27 years old, of Layin Falaki Tudun Murtala Quarters, Nassarawa LGA Kano State and ordered them to kidnap Hanifa. They planned but later rescinded their action. Fatima was also arrested, the police said.
A former governor of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba, on Thursday said he disbursed N140 million to party agents across the state during the 2003 general election.

Mr Osoba spoke when the editorial board of Penpushing Media paid him a courtesy call at his residence located in Government Reservation Area (GRA), Ibara, Abeokuta., the state capital.

A national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osoba, who was the incumbent governor in that election, lost to Gbenga Daniel of the Peoples Democratic Party.

He said that the explanation became necessary following insinuations from some quarters that the money was meant to buy votes.

The N140 million was meant for party agents fee and not for buying votes as some may insinuate. There was no buying of votes during that time. The money was purely for payment of party agents, Mr Osoba said.

He insisted that he was rigged out of office, but added that he has since put behind him the controversial election, just as he called on journalists to join in the fight against fake news.

The former governor also pointed out that many bloggers contributed to the spread of fake news, hence the need for professionals to rise up to the challenges of addressing the menace before it caused further havoc for the profession.

The Chairman Editorial Board of Penpushing media, Funke Fadugba, earlier in her speech said the visit by the team was to rejoice with Mr Osoba over a successful knee operation, and wish him adequate recovery.

As our father and leader in the profession, we thought it necessary to visit you, and rejoice with you after successful knee operations. We pray that God will perfect the healing. We are always proud of you as (a) mentor to many of us, and pray that God will spare your life to do more, Ms Fadugba said.
The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has rejected the Advice of the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) exonerating students and officials of Dowen College, Lagos, from the death of Sylvester Oromoni, a student of the college.

The group has hired the legal services of Anthony George-Ikoli (SAN) to seek justice over the demise of Mr Oromoni.

Henry Oyobolo, the Chairman of the Lagos Chapter of the IYC, faulted the Lagos DPP advice of January 4. at a media briefing in Lagos on Friday.

He said following the release of the DPP Advice, the IYC staged a peaceful protest on January 6 at the gates of Dowen College, Lekki, Lagos, to express their grievance and displeasure about the findings of the Lagos State government.

The IYC Chairman said following the protest, the group hired Mr George-Ikoli (SAN), a former Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice of Bayelsa, as legal counsel.

Some of the scope of Chief George-Ikolis work will be to reveal all medical reports, statements released by the police, Dowen College, and Lagos State Ministry of Justice as well as all correspondence and documentation exchanged between all stakeholders.

He will liaise with the law firm of Mr Femi Falana (SAN) or any other law firm instructed by Sylvester Oromonis father in any court or other proceedings in relation to the facts of the case.

He will also take appropriate steps towards representing Ijaw Youth Council, Lagos Chapter, if and when necessary, Mr Oyobolo said.

The group assured the Oromoni family of their support and reiterated their resolve to do everything legally possible to get justice for the deceased.

The 12-year-old Mr Oromoni died on November 30, 2021, allegedly from injuries sustained in an attack by five senior students of Dowen College for allegedly refusing to join a cult.

It was also alleged that he was forced to drink an obnoxious substance by his attackers.

The January 4, Lagos State DPP Advice, however, stated that the cause of Mr Oromonis death was acute bacterial pneumonia due to severe sepsis.

(NAN)
The Jigawa State High Court in Birnin Kudu has sentenced two men to life imprisonment and 10 years in jail respectively for rape and attempted rape.

The spokesperson of the states Ministry of Justice, Zainab Baba-Santali, disclosed this in a statement from Dutse, the state capital, on Friday.

Mrs Baba-Santali named the convicts as Musa Muazu and Haruna Ali.

The court on January 18 convicted Mr Muazu of raping a 15-year-old girl.

Mr Muazu, a resident of Birnin Kudu town, was caught while coming out from an uncompleted building with the victim.

The statement said upon inquiries by the person who saw the defendant with the victim, the defendant confessed to have taken her to the building and had illicit sexual intercourse with her.

However, the defendant pleaded for the issue to be covered up. The case was reported to the police and investigation pursued.

The defendant during police interrogation confessed to have committed the offence of rape but denied the charges on arraignment.

The prosecution in establishing the case called four (4) witnesses and tendered three exhibits, while the defendant testified in his defence.

Delivering judgement, the judge, Musa Ubale, held that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, and sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment for the offence of rape

In the other case, Mr Ali bagged 10 years for attempted rape of a seven-year-old girl

The convict had dragged the girl to a nearby farm and was attempting to rape her when he was caught.

Mrs Baba-Santali said Mr Ali, a resident of Yarwa in Birnin Kudu Local Government Area of the state, was arrested at the scene of the crime.

She said Mr Ali confessed to have attempted to have sexual intercourse with the girl (name withheld).

The prosecution tendered medical report, which stated that there was no penetration as the girls hymen was intact and normal, the official said.

The prosecution further called five witnesses and tendered two exhibits, while the defendant testified in his defence and closed his case, she added.

The judge, Mr Ubale, also on January 18, held the prosecution successfully proved the case of an attempt to commit rape beyond reasonable doubt, and therefore sentenced the defendant to 10 years imprisonment without an option of fine, the statement said.
The police in Kano have arrested a private school teacher, Abdulmalik Tanko, who allegedly kidnapped and killed his five-year old pupil, Hanifa Abubakar.

Mr Tanko allegedly conspired with one Hashim Isyaku, who has also been taken into custody, for the crime.

In a statement on Thursday, the police spokesperson in Kano, Abdullahi Kiyawa, said the suspects had demanded a ransom of six million naira from the parent of the kid.

Little Hanifa was Mr Tankos pupil at a private school located in Kwanar Dakata in Nassarawa local government area of Kano State.

According to the police, the principal suspect confessed to have poisoned the girl when he realised that she had recognised him.

Messrs Tanko and Isyaku then buried her remains in a shallow grave at the private school premises at Kwanar Yan Gana, Tudun Murtala Quarters in Nassarawa local government area of Kano State.

Hashim also confessed that, sometimes in the month of November, 2021, the principal suspect, Abdulmalik met him and one Fatima Jibreel Musa, f, 27 years old, of Layin Falaki Tudun Murtala Quarters, Nassarawa LGA Kano State and ordered them to kidnap Hanifa. They planned but later rescinded their action. Fatima was also arrested.

The suspects led a combine Team of Operatives of DSS Kano State, Kano State Police Commands Medical Team and Team of Operation Puff Adder to the scene. The body was exhumed and rushed to Mohammed Abdullahi Wase Specialist Hospital Kano, examined, confirmed dead by a Medical Doctor and release to the relatives for burial according to Islamic rites.

Mr Kiyawa said the suspects will be prosecuted on completion of investigation.
Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State has asked the FCT chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) to pay him N10 billion as damages for wrongly accusing him of orchestrating the arrest of one of its members.

The union made the allegation but later withdrew it and apologised to the governor.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the governor disputed the NUJ claim that he was behind the arrest of Nelson Omonu, a journalist with Summit Post News.

The union had withdrawn its allegation after finding out that the arrest was orchestrated by the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Dutsin Ma. It also apologised to Mr Masari.

The arrest of the journalist had also prompted the Coalition for Whistleblower Protection and Press Freedom (CWPPF) to task Mr Masari on press freedom.

Defamation of character

Mr Masari is now seeking N10 billion for what his lawyers called defamation of the governors character by the chairperson and secretary of the FCT NUJ chapter, Emmanuel Ogbeche and Ochaika Ugwu.

Mr Masaris lawyer, E.O Obunadike, said the apology the two journalists tendered was inadequate, hence the demand for compensation.

While addressing journalists in Katsina on Thursday, the lawyer said the press statement had injured the character of the governor.

Members of the public, after reading the said offensive and obnoxious material in several print and online newspapers, now regard our client as grossly incompetent in his administration and management of the affairs of Katsina State, he added.

He added that an apology letter should also be published in eight national daily newspapers.

Mr Obunadike said the initial statement by the journalists had defamed the character of the governor.

No small measure, blisteringly defamed, injured the character and hard earned reputation of our client, which was painstakingly built and nurtured over decades thereby exposing him to a lot of embarrassment, public ridicule and condemnation.

The retraction of the first press statement should be done in eight national daily newspapers and N10 billion be paid as compensatory damages.

The lawyer gave the journalists seven days to respond positively or risk being taken to court.

If after seven days, we do not receive any positive response, we shall be constrained in perfecting our clients final instructions by taking legitimate steps in accordance with the provisions of the law towards initiating both criminal and civil proceedings without further correspondence.
The President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Wabba, has blamed the dysfunctional state of the countrys refineries on the profiting few who have allegedly been encouraged by failed leadership over the years.

He stated this during an interview with Channels Television on Thursday.

He spoke against the backdrop of the federal governments plan to remove fuel subsidy.

Nigerians, currently paying between N162 and N165 for a litre of petrol, may start paying at least N302 per litre of petrol from February if the recommendation of the ad hoc committee of the National Economic Council (NEC) is implemented.

The NEC, however, said on Thursday that it had not taken a final decision on the issue of subsidy, adding that it was still consulting relevant people and institutions, including the NLC.

Mr Wabba said the removal of fuel subsidy would compound citizens hardship and may also send many to their early graves.

He vowed that the union will resist the government within its capacity at all levels.

We have every reason not to import refined products. We have four refineries that are moribund. Those refineries are new; they are not old. In India, we have a refinery that is 100 years old. Refineries can be refurbished. Refineries can be upgraded from one refining capacity to another. This can be done.

Those refineries are not old. Deliberately, they are made not to work just because there are a lot of incentives, Mr Wabba said.

When asked to name those getting the incentives, the labour chief pointed directly to the suppliers as well as those fixing the price.

He lamented how both past and current governments used the problem to campaign but ended providing no solutions once they got to power.

If you remember, the issue of the refineries has been on for a very long time. Each government will come and say I will fix it and at the end of the day, it will not be fixed for the same reason we have mentioned, he lamented.

Mr Wabba spoke a few hours after a former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, also cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari against forging ahead with his plan to remove fuel subsidy.

PREMIUM TIMES reported Mr Abubakar lamenting the troubling condition of Nigerias security and the role of economic condition in it.

There is a continuous rise in the prices of food items beyond the reach of many Nigerians. On top of all these, fuel prices are expected to rise significantly in the coming months as announced last November. We all know that when this happens, it will push many millions of Nigerians into poverty, he said.

Although there has not been a direct statement from Mr Buhari on his plan to increase fuel price in the coming months, his Minister of Finance, Budget and Planning, Zainab Ahmed, gave the indication last year.

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who spoke after a meeting with Mr Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Tuesday, said the latter did not direct anyone to remove petrol subsidy.

Many of us are very concerned with the recent agitations, protests and many citizens were so concerned, our constituents across the country are very worried that the federal government will remove the petroleum subsidy. And for us as legislators representing the people, this must be of interest to us.

And weve just finished our recess, we had gone home to our constituencies and senatorial districts. We felt the pulse of our people. And I found it necessary to visit Mr President, as the leader of our government and our leader in the country, to discuss this particular issue of concern to Nigerians. Im happy to inform Nigerians that Mr President never told anyone that the petroleum subsidy should be removed, Mr Lawan had said
As part of efforts to prevent future pandemics, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Wellcome, a global charitable foundation, have pledged 150 million dollars each to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

CEPI is a partnership launched five years ago by the two charitable foundations, the governments of Norway and India, and the World Economic Forum.

The foundations made the pledge ahead of a global conference to support CEPIs five-year plan to better prepare for, prevent, and equitably respond to future epidemics and pandemics.

As the world responds to the challenge of a rapidly evolving virus, the need to deliver new, lifesaving tools has never been more urgent, Bill Gates, co-chair of BMGF said on Thursday.

Mr Gates said the foundations work over the past 20 years has shown that early investment in research and development can save lives and prevent worst-case scenarios.

Five years ago, following the Ebola and Zika epidemics, our foundation helped launch CEPI. Today were increasing our commitment and pledging an additional $150 million to help CEPI accelerate the development of safe and effective vaccines against emerging variants of the coronavirus and to prepare for, and possibly even prevent, the next pandemic, he said.

Lessons from COVID-19

The director of Wellcome, Jeremy Farrar, said the overriding lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is the need for effective organisations and systems to be in place and ready before a crisis breaks out.

Mr Farrar said organisations and countries must act rapidly, based on well-established science, when such crises inevitably occur.

He said the foundation has also learned the importance of conducting high-quality research during a crisis.

Since then, CEPI has worked tirelessly, and by fostering global collaboration, It has played a truly integral role in the global pandemic response from early January 2020 onwards.

Our new commitment of 150 million dollars recognises the enormous potential CEPI has to protect lives against emerging infectious diseases, he said.

Mr Farrar noted that the effects of COVID-19 have been sobering hence the need to be prepared for future epidemics and pandemics.

He urged global leaders to provide their support and ensure that CEPI reaches its funding target.

It is in the worlds collective interest to avoid repeating mistakes and to help future generations prevent epidemics, he said.

Supporting CEPI

In her remarks, the minister of state to the president of the Republic of Senegal, Awa Seck, said the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how inequitable access to vaccines can put the entire planet at risk and disrupt decades of global health progress.

Ms Seck said innovative global partnerships like CEPI play a critical role in advancing the research and development needed to prevent future pandemics.

Importantly, those investments in vaccine technology, particularly in Africa, can also help accelerate progress against other diseaseslike HIV, TB, and malariathat still affect the worlds most vulnerable populations, she said.

She said recent data from Northeastern University shows that the availability of vaccines in lower-income countries like Kenya could have averted 70 per cent of COVID-19 deaths.

The world must do better at protecting everyone, everywhere against the greatest health threatsfrom COVID-19 and beyond, said Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation.

Mrs Gates also calls on global leaders to help CEPI reach its funding target of 3.5 billion dollars.

About CEPI

According to the statement, since its inception, CEPI has played a central scientific role in curbing epidemics around the world, overseeing a number of scientific breakthroughs and putting pandemic preparedness at the centre of the global health R&D agenda.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, CEPI responded immediately, building one of the worlds largest and most diverse portfolios of COVID-19 vaccine candidates14 in all, including six of which continue to receive funding, and three of which have been granted emergency use listing by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

CEPI made early investments in the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which is now saving lives around the world.

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The statement reads in part; Last month, Novavaxs protein-based COVID-19 vaccinefunded largely by CEPIreceived WHO emergency use listing and is poised to help efforts to control the pandemic globally.

More than one billion doses of the Novavax vaccine are now available to COVAX, the global initiative co-led by CEPI that aims to deliver equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.

CEPI also continues to work on next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including variant-proof COVID-19 vaccines and shots that could protect against all coronaviruses, potentially removing the threat of future coronavirus pandemics.

The United Kingdom will host CEPIs replenishment conference on March 8, 2022, in London.

The statement added that the fundraising event will convene governments, philanthropists, and other donors to support CEPIs five-year plan to tackle the risk of pandemics and epidemics, potentially preventing millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic damage.
BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's Foreign Ministry on Friday urged the Lithuanian side to show sincerity and take concrete actions if the latter really wants to improve bilateral relations.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the remarks at a daily press briefing in response to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda's remarks that "fraught relations" with China have resulted in business losses in Lithuania, and the Lithuanian Foreign Minister had presented him with a plan to "de-escalate tensions."

Zhao said that the root cause of the current difficulties in bilateral relations is Lithuania's wrong actions on Taiwan related issues, which damage China's core interests and undermine the basic norms of international relations.

The international community has its fair judgement as to who is culpable for the souring of China-Lithuania ties and the ensuing escalation, he added.

The door for communication remains open, Zhao said, urging the Lithuanian side to show sincerity with concrete actions if it truly hopes to mend fences. 
The Nigerian government says more than 18,000 cases of coronavirus have been recorded from inbound travellers to the country as of January 16, 2022.

It blamed the development on the failure of travellers to strictly adhere to the travel protocols put in place by Nigeria.

The director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Ifedayo Adetifa, disclosed this in a statement issued on its website on Friday.

Mr Adetifa said the decision to make repeat tests mandatory in Nigeria was based on the review of COVID-19 test positivity data among returnees to the country during the first and subsequent waves of the pandemic.

He explained that this was necessary to ensure a balance between the mandate to protect the health of Nigerians from infections and supporting the restart of the economy.

As of 16th January 2022, over 18,000 cases of COVID-19 have been recorded from inbound travellers to Nigeria. Therefore, the associated risk of disease transmission is not trivial, he said.

So far, Nigeria has recorded 251,684 cases of COVID-19 and 3,123 persons have died from complications caused by the virus.

Inbound, outbound travellers

Mr Adetifa said there have been complaints and enquiries on the use of the Nigeria International Travel Portal (NITP).

He said since the resumption of international flights post-COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria, NITP remains an effective means of preventing the importation of the virus via air travel.

Since its launch, the NITP has been updated frequently over time and more recently, there was an upgrade in October 2021, to enable a more user-friendly experience for travellers, laboratories, and other users.

We are aware of reports of travellers to Nigeria who have experienced delays at the airport for not meeting all the travel requirements as stated on the NITP, he said.

He urged the public to adhere strictly to the guidance on the travel portal to ensure its seamless use.

NCDC also recommends the use of card payments over bank transfers when using the portal.

The director-general added; Registration on the travel portal prior to departure should be done immediately after your negative COVID-19 test result is obtained, preferably 24 hours before your travel date.

Card payments are recommended over bank transfers especially if the registration on the portal is done less than 24 hours before departure.

Travellers who do not receive their QR code despite making payment should download the Permit to Travel/QR Code using the Get Permit to Travel button visible on the top right corner of the portal. A link to print the Permit-To-Travel is also sent to the email address of registered travellers.

Mr Adetifa said the agency recognised the technical challenges that might occur from time to time and will continue to make improvements to optimise the functionality of the travel portal.

He said the agency and the Federal Ministry of Health remain committed to strengthening Nigerias response to COVID-19 and controlling this and other outbreaks.
The Federal High Court in Abuja has warned Jimoh Adamu, a lawyer, to the Nigerian Immigration Service ((NIS) over his conduct in the suit concerning seizure of the international passport of Peter Odili, a former governor of Rivers State.

Officials of the immigration service had confiscated Mr Odilis passport at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja upon his arrival from a trip to the United Kingdom on 20 June, 2021.

Following the seizure of the travelling document, Mr Odili, who said the reason for the seizure was not disclosed to him, sued the NIS and its Comptroller-General so as to retrieve his passport.

Delivering a judgement last October, the judge, Inyang Ekwo, ordered the NIS to immediately release Mr Odilis passport.

But, in disobedience to the courts orders, the NIS has held on to Mr Odilis passport, prompting the former governors lawyer, Ifedayo Adedipe, to lodge post-judgement proceedings to reclaim his clients passport.

At a post-judgement sitting on Friday, the court issued a stern warning to the NIS lawyer, Mr Adamu, asking him to appear in court to defend allegations of unprofessional conduct levelled against him.

Mr Ekwo gave Mr Adamu February 7 to unfailingly appear in court to show cause why disciplinary action should not be taken against him for flagrantly refusing to comply with the courts orders that were made last October.

Mr Adamus absence from court on Friday was the second consecutive time, prompting the judge to issue what he termed last warning to the NIS lawyer to appear.

This honourable court knows what to do and how to do it but in the interest of fair hearing, I am giving him another chance. Let him deny himself fair hearing, then, the court will take necessary steps, Mr Ekwo said.

Earlier, Mr Odilis lawyer, Mr Adedipe, recalled the order of last December, issued by the court that the Immigrations lawyer must appear in court at the Friday session.

Mr Adedipe noted that Mr Adamu had failed to obey a subsisting order that the passport is deposited with the Registrar of the court pending the hearing of his motion for stay of execution.

He added that Mr Adamu had consistently failed to attend court despite being served with a hearing notice in relation to his pending motion.

Mr Adedipe urged the court to, among other things, sanction Mr Adamu for disrespecting the court.

Backstory

The former Rivers State governor said in his fundamental rights enforcement suit which he lodged against NIS and its comptroller-general that his passport was seized from him at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja for undisclosed reasons.

He claimed the passport numbered B50031305 was seized from him on June 20 by NIS operatives upon his return to Nigeria from the United Kingdom where he had gone for medical treatment.

Mr Odili said his traveling documents were checked and returned to him, but while waiting for his luggage, an official of NIS demanded his passport for a routine check.

According to the ex-governor, he gave the passport to the official who never returned it.

He claimed to be a law-abiding and senior Nigerian citizen with no record to warrant the seizure of the passport from him.

He prayed the court to compel the two respondents to release the passport to him and issue an order of perpetual injunction against the respondents from further harrassing, embarrassing, intimidating or interfering with his fundamental right to freedom of movement.

NIS defence

During the hearing of the suit, the NIS said in its defence that the former governors passport was seized based on a request of the EFCC.

The anti-graft agency had attempted to prosecute Mr Odili for corruption after he completed his second and final term as governor in 2007, but was barred by a judge of the Federal High Court, Ibrahim Bawa, who issued an order of perpetual injunction shielding him from trial.

The NIS, through its lawyer, Mr Adamu, tendered a letter by EFCC requesting NIS to seize the passport on the basis that the ex-governor was on a watch list.
The Rivers State High court in Port Harcourt has ordered the arrest of two Italian citizens  Giandomenico Zingali and Davide Anelli  over their refusal to attend court proceedings to answer charges of alleged $119 million power plant fraud.

Okogbule Gbasam, the trial judge, ordered the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Commissioner of Police and other security operatives to arrest the fleeing Italian nationals wherever they are.

The judge based his ruling on section 120 of Rivers State Administration of Criminal Justice ACJA to order the arrest, and directed the IGP, and the police commissioner in the state, and other security agents to produce the Italians in court to face trial in respect of the 16-count criminal charge filed against them by the Rivers State government.

A certified true copy of the order of arrest was obtained on Friday by this reporter from Godwin Obla, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) who stood for Rivers State in the matter and moved the motion for the issuance of the bench warrant.

Backstory

Messrs Zingali and Anelli are part of the seven defendants billed for arraignment before the court over their alleged complicity in the 119 million dollars power plant scam.

The defendants are: Saipem SPA, an Italian Company, Saipem Contracting Nigeria Ltd, Walter Peviani, Kelechi Sinteh Chinakwe, Giandomenico Zingali, Vitto Testaguzza and Davide Anelli who are 1st to 7th defendants respectively.

Saipem SPA, Saipem Contracting Nigeria Limited, its Managing Director, Walter Peviani and four others are accused of conspiracy, fraud, obtaining credit of N7 billion naira by false pretences and cheating.

Details of the charges are: conspiracy contrary to Section 518 (6) and (7) and punishable under Section 518; obtaining credit of $130 million USD by false pretences or other fraud contrary to Section 419A and punishable under Section 419 (A) (1) (b)

The offences are also said to be contrary to sections 518 (6) and (7), 419 (A) (1) (b), section 421 of the Criminal Code Law of Rivers State, Cap 37 Vol. 2 Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria 1999.

Saipem and its top management staff are to be prosecuted based on fiat issued to Godwin Obla, SAN, George Adeyemi, and John Eche Okpe, both of OBLA & Co, Abuja by Rivers State government.

Their arraignment on the 16 count-charge marked PHC/3106/CR/2021 has been put off several times by Mr Gbasam due to failure of some of the defendants to be in court.

Orders

The enrolled copy of the order reads in part: Upon this matter coming up for plea today before His lordship, Hon. Justice Dr. O. Gbasam, sitting at High Court Port Harcourt; and after hearing the oral application for the activation of the application for the issuance of a bench warrant on the 5th and 7th defendants made by Chief Godwin Obla, SAN, with D.G. Adeyerni, Esq., appearing for the State, on the last adjourned date 14/12/2021 which this court kept In abeyance till today.

And after hearing the oral response of the opposing counsel, H. Odeiln Ajumogobia, SAN, with Patrick Osu, Esq., Akinola Akinyoju, Esq., and Shekina Wokoma of counsel for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 6th defendants, and. A, Akinwole, Esq., with O. Nwogu, Esq., and R.C. Kanu, Esq., for the 4th defendant.

It is hereby ordered that as follows:

That an order of bench warrant be and is hereby issued by virtue of Section120 of the Rivers State Administration of Criminal Justice Law, 2015 directing the Inspector General of Police, the Commissioner of Police and other security agencies to arrest the 5th and 7th defendants  Giandomenico Zingali and Davide Anelli wherever they are and can be found and produce them before this honourable court to face their trial as per the 16-count charge contained in the amended information dated 19/11/2021.

The charges are summarised as follows:

Conspiracy contrary to Section 518(6) & (7) and punishable under Section 518 of the Criminal Code, Cap 37, Vol. 2, Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria, 1999;

Obtaining credit by false pretences or other fraud contrary to Section 419(A) and punishable under Section 419 (A) (1)(8) of the Criminal Code, Cap 37, Vol. 2, Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria, 1999;

Attempt to cheat contrary to Section 508 and punishable under Section 509 of the Criminal Code, Cap 37, Vol. 2,.Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria, 1999;

Conspiracy to receive credit by false pretence contrary to S. 518(6) and punishable under S. 518 of the Criminal Code, Cap 37, Vol. 2, Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria, 1999;

Cheating contrary to Section 421 and punishable under Section 421 of the Criminal Code, Cap 37, Vol. 2, Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria, 1999;

False statements by officials Company contrary to Section 436(B) and punishable under Section 436(B) of the Criminal Code, Cap 37, Vol 2, Laws of Rivers State of Nigeria, 1999;

It is further ordered that the Inspector General of Police, the Commissioner of Police and other security agencies are hereby vested with the legal authority to enter any premises where the 5th and 7th defendants  GiandomeniCo Zingali and Davide Anelli  are and can be found for the purpose of executing this bench warrant.

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The case has been adjourned until February 2, 3, and 4.
Some gunmen have killed an oil worker in Akwa Ibom State, Nigerias South-south, the police have said.

The police spokesperson in the state, Odiko Macdon, who confirmed the incident to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said two people were injured in the attack which occurred on Thursday.

Mr Macdon said the gunmen, whom he identified as militants, ambushed a vehicle carrying staff members of the company, Universal Energy Resources Ltd, at Unyenge in Mbo Local Government Area of the state.

We received a distress call that militants attacked UERL (Universal Energy Resources Ltd) staff at Unyenge in Mbo Local Government Area.

We got a report that there was an ambush which led to the death of one person, a driver, while two others were left with injuries, said Mr Macdon, a superintendent of police.

The police spokesperson said the state Commissioner of Police, Andrew Amiengheme, has ordered investigations into the attack.

As l speak, investigation is ongoing on the incident, he said.

Universal Energy Resources Ltd is an indigenous oil exploration company operating in Akwa Ibom State.

(NAN)
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and other stakeholders have expressed concern over the increase in campaign spending ceiling, proposed in the Electoral Act Amendment Bill ahead of the 2023 general elections.

The stakeholders, at a High-Level Policy Roundtable on Political Campaign Finance on Friday in Abuja, expressed concern that the high cost of campaign spending ceiling and election expenses might exclude potentially good candidates.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that in the proposed Electoral Bill, a presidential candidate can now spend from N5 billion as against the former N1 billion in the 2018 Act.

NAN also reports that a governorship candidate will now spend up to N1 billion from the previous N200 million while a senatorial candidate can spend N100 million as against the previous N40 million.

Furthermore, a House of Representatives candidate will henceforth spend N70 million instead of N30 million in their respective election spending.

Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman INEC, represented by Kunle Ajayi, INECs National Commissioner, said that from the previous experiences of the Nigerian electoral systems, INEC has been battling some financial issues.

Mr Yakubu said through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, commercial banks would be mandated to report all suspicious transactions ahead of the election while threatening to prosecute any bank that failed to cooperate.

We have not officially declared notice for the 2023 general elections, but when we so declare, we will put our monitoring committees to motion like the central banks, the DSS, the EFCC, the ICPC, the (commercial) banks and other law enforcement agencies.

Every candidate must be made to declare his bank asset because that is where they draw out their money so we will make them to present their statements of account right from the onset.

We will make it mandatory for them to turn in their bank statements so if they say they are doing billboards and the account remains the same, then there is a problem.

Mr Yakubu said that INEC would establish finance monitoring teams to monitor politicians to curb excessive electoral funding because money politics, undue influence of money, marginalisation, particularly of women and youths and other vulnerable members of the electorates, are hampering participation.

These groups ordinarily would want to participate in the electoral process but because of economic reasons many of them cannot participate.

So they have decided to leave it to the money bags, those who have enough money to manipulate the system for campaign and so on.

These have become concerns to INEC and we will be working to ensure it is curbed, using the law that empowers INEC, so I am glad this meeting is holding.

We look forward to more recommendations on how we can provide solution to issues bothering on elections, like vote buying, issues of money bags, godfathers and how to provide a level-playing ground for everybody.

Former INEC Chairman, Attahiru Jega, said that in a rush by members of the National Assembly to raise the campaign fund they forgot that the Electoral Act 2010, as amended, has already defined campaign ceiling funds with regards to political parties.

So if this bill is passed, there is going to be a contradiction in relation to what is the definition of campaign ceiling and to whom does it apply.

We all know that the environment is undemocratic and needs to be improved upon, but how can you improve the environment through appeal to morality or should you try to use legal enforcement mechanism in order to ensure that the environment is somewhat improved.

So there is need to pay more attention to what mechanism we can introduce in order to improve compliance with whatever campaign ceiling is there.

Mr Jega also advised that it might be too late to start talking about changing things now but attention should be paid to it in the next circle of election to ensure that the new ceilings proposed is drastically removed.

He further explained that the campaign ceiling is outrageous but if it scaled through the law, Nigeria could copy the Indian model of checking financial excesses by INEC looking for ways of ensuring accountability.

This, Mr Jega said, is by creating a website for political parties where one could put information and there is accountability on how these funds were raised, how this ceilings is met and also how the expenditure is done.

He said that way the electoral environment would be sanitised, adding if we insist on this accountability, INEC can get its lawyers to look at how best this can be done.

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Then you can begin to somehow sanitise them, and look for a way to erase the N5 billion benchmark.

I think what happened is that we paid too much attention on the issues of electronic transmission of results and other things and that somehow they quickly passed this thing about raising the threshold, he said.

Bayo Olukoshi, Chairman, The Electoral Forum, said that Electoral finance is a question of money politics, one which has exercised the minds of scholars and policy makers not just in this country but around the world.

Mr Olukoshi said that Nigeria has witnessed an increase of enormous proportions in what it costs to run and win elections.

He said that mind bugling resources were usually deployed by politicians to win power and this had been of concern because of criminals or people entering the political system using illegal or illicit money to buy power as it were.

So it really is an important issue to confront as we move into an election year and intents and campaigns have already started in the lead up to 2023.

The threshold was defied on what candidates may expect which raised a lot of other questions, of whether those levels have not been set at a height that effectively might exclude rather than include potentially good candidates.

What we call money bags are probably the ones who are likely to be able to raise some of those kinds of resources that are defined within the parameters of the law.

Mr Olukoshi said that more than that, INEC needed the capacity to monitor the funding to be able to actually hold political parties and their candidates accountable to ensure that they do not exceed what is legally defined as the acceptable limits.

Democracies that endure are inclusive ones.

So you cannot consolidate a democracy if you are not able to address the question of participation, setting parameters, including of a financial nature that ensures that a maximum number of interested candidates step forward without too much hindrance.

Yabagi Sani, National Chairman of the Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC), the umbrella body of registered Political Parties in Nigeria, said that in as much as IPAC believes, like most Nigerians, that the new election funding limits are on the high side, it is, however, more concerned about enforcement and compliance.

Mr Sanni, represented by Obidike Okolo, National Treasurer IPAC, urged all stakeholders to support INEC to achieve its regulatory role, adding that the IPAC leadership would be more forthright and vigorous in spear-heading the campaign for compliance by all political parties.

Hamman-Obels, Director, The Electoral Hub, said The Electoral Forum, an initiative of The Electoral Hub, organised the policy roundtable with support from the MacArthur Foundation, is to beam searchlight on electoral finance.

(NAN)
Undoubtedly, our pathways as Black people or the umbrella people of colour are indeed very rough. It does not even seem it will get better any time soon. We should brace up for the future To the Premier: Will you joyfully throw away the baby with the bathwater? Will the response be the same if it had happened to another member of the Cabinet  a white?

The legendary Tai Solarin of blessed memory, in an unusual New Years wish, echoed the word may your road be rough. That happened several decades ago, and it has been well analysed over time in Nigeria.

I could hardly find a better phrase to describe our pathways as Black people in the land that pride itself as the hobnob of immigration, a land of sophisticated multiculturalism. Although the intention of this article is not an inclination towards the academic dissection of our plights as visible minorities, I will therefore keep it within the confine of current issues.

Sometimes, about ten months ago, an occurrence happened, and it was kind of laid to rest for a while. But somehow, the taxpayers financed Canada Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) took delight in giving it new life. Perhaps, it is part of their social responsibility to ensure that no issue is allowed to have an untimely death. I will speak about CBC later. First, about the facts of the case at hand and something that preceded it.

A visible minority Alberta cabinet minister left his home on one cold morning and drove within a school environment. Of course, such environment requires slower driving and some measure of tranquility. As we know, most cars or trucks in Canada come with factory-fitted bluetooth systems that make communicating while commuting as easy as it comes. There was no overspeeding, and school was not in session, being a weekend, so the need for tranquility was not seriously high. Then, he was suddenly pulled over by a policeman, who emphatically charged him for distracted driving.

The distraction was that he was driving with his phone in hand. Perhaps, the ministers voice was typically loud, as Black people are stereotyped as loud talkers. All pleas that his phone was inside his winter jacket fell on deaf ears. He was ticketed. He was shocked beyond words. As Justice minister, he did not contest the issue further with the Police, and he allowed him to do his job without interference. He reached out to his phone slightly afterward to call the Police Chief to intimate him on how he was pulled over in a manner that looked too suspicious to overlook.

Could this be a case of the witch crying the previous day and the childs death today? Was he pulled over in peer solidarity with the Lethbridge Police Service, whom he has told there may be consequences for their actions against MLA Shannon?

A few days before the incident that happened a few metres from his home, the minister has expressed displeasure about an occurrence in the southern city of Lethbridge. In that incident, facts emerged of how New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Shannon Phillips, aMember of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Shannon Phillipsformer cabinet minister with the current opposition, had been subjected to illegal surveillance by the Lethbridge Police Service (LPS). The Justice minister felt that was an unacceptable and unnecessary infringement on the privacy of MLA Shannon Phillips. He subtly asked the LPS to put its house in order.

Two important things here. The MLA in Lethbridge belongs to the opposition party. As such, Mr Madus intervention was devoid of partisanship. Second, Shannon is a person of colour, an amalgam of expression that lumps all non-whites in the same box. Without equivocation, we know that such occurrence can hardly happen to an ordinary White person, let alone a visible community member. By the way, Shannon was a former Environment minister under the NDP.

Like a prophet who foresaw the future, Madu was pulled over so close to his abode that he became apprehensive if he was also under illegal surveillance by the Police. He felt it was better to call the Police Chief for clarification with that thought. He did that and never even mentioned the issue of the ticket. The Police Chief confirmed this in his response to the CBC. Madu promptly paid for the ticket. Usually, as any other citizen could, he has the option to protest the ticket in Court. He did not take that route. Better judgment told him that he would be wrongly judged if he had approached the Court as Justice minister for a mere ticket of $300. He paid and did not even discuss that with the Police Chief.

Could this be a case of the witch crying the previous day and the childs death today? Was he pulled over in peer solidarity with the Lethbridge Police Service, whom he has told there may be consequences for their actions against MLA Shannon?

Back to CBC.

As earlier stated, CBC is an organisation funded by the entire taxpayers of Canada. However, the almost undeniable perception of its ultra-left leaning and its not-so-impressive gesture towards Alberta, in general, exists. It seems to delight more in anything negative about Alberta. Of course, the CBCs overwhelming love for the Black community across Canada is notable. It is delightful to note that despite its extensive network, one may not need the two hands to finger-count the number of visible Black people in its employment across Canada.

As we await the outcome of the investigation, there is need to ponder on some of the questions raised here. Nevertheless, we should note that as Black people, we are all Madus, and our road is designed to be very rough!

Therefore, fitting into the quadruple exposure as a visible conservative black minister, it is not surprising that CBC will choose not remember that he was pulled over a few metres from his home. By emphasising that the area is a school zone, it fits into the narrative of excesses on the part of the minister, who may be perceived not to be different from his kind, who are known to be loud and will not observe the tranquility expected of a school environment. I do not even want to mention that an average Police officer should ordinarily not mistake the face of a cabinet minister in a crowd, let alone in a one-to-one situation. Also, there is the possibility of a warning for a first offender.

Back to the Lethbridge case. Shannon is in the opposition party now. Ironically, Shannons party is calling for Madus resignation over the issue. They are not even concerned that he did not in any way try to obstruct justice or seek any preferential treatment.

Does it mean a cabinet minister cannot be innocent? Isnt he presumed guilty until proved otherwise? Would the narrative have been different if he had called the Police Chief after paying the fine?

Let us reflect on these questions.

Undoubtedly, our pathways as Black people or the umbrella people of colour are indeed very rough. It does not even seem it will get better any time soon. We should brace up for the future.

To the Premier: Will you joyfully throw away the baby with the bathwater? Will the response be the same if it had happened to another member of the cabinet  a White?

As we await the outcome of the investigation, there is need to ponder on some of the questions raised here. Nevertheless, we should note that as Black people, we are all Madus, and our road is designed to be very rough!

Bolutife Oluwadele, a chartered accountant and a public policy and administration scholar, writes from Canada. He is the author of Thoughts of A Village Boy and can be reached through: bolutife.oluwadele@gmail.com
What is annoying to us, Nigerian citizens, is that government views and treats the policy arena uniquely as a space for propaganda and information manipulation, rather than a genuine conversation space on action steps to address national problems. That is why the focus is on optics rather than facts. I do wish that our governments try to treat us with more respect.

We now know that the so-called national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu wants to be the president of all Nigerians. We know because he told us that he has informed President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday of his ambition to contest for the position of president in 2023. Maybe in the future, he would talk to us as citizens and voters. Maybe we will matter in the future. What is interesting, however, is that his reason for wanting to be president is that he has always had a lifelong ambition to be Nigerias president. In a sense, he was being brutally honest, it is not about what he believes be could do to improve the lives and livelihoods of Nigerians. It is all about his personal ambition. Maybe all people who go into political competition are self-centred and ambitious. Nonetheless, they tend to have the decency to tell the people that they are contesting BECAUSE they want to serve the people and improve their lives, rather than fulfil personal ambitions for their self-aggrandisement. It might not even be that they are decent, they are simply being respectful because they know the people have the franchise.

The Senate president, Ahmed Lawan, told Nigerians on Tuesday that the president has not told anyone that there would be the removal of fuel subsidy. In a populist declaration, he argued that subsidy could not be transferred from governments to become the responsibility of citizens. He also expressed doubt over the reported consumption of 100 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) per day in the country, which is what we pay subsidy for. He said he was glad to inform Nigerians that Buhari has not told anyone to remove petroleum subsidy. President Buharis Finance minister has however repeatedly said, since her press conference in October 2021, that the government could no longer sustain petrol subsidy payments, which currently stand at about N250 billion monthly. She had pointed out that the Petroleum Industry Act has a provision that all petroleum products must be deregulated. In the 2022 budget, whose passage was superintended by Ahmed Lawan, and signed into law by President Buhari, the provision for subsidy ends in June this year. Ending fuel subsidy is therefore a core policy of the Buhari administration today and it is enshrined in law.

The issue is that Nigerians are getting ready to resist the removal of fuel subsidy and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has already announced a series of actions in that regard. Senate President Lawan did say in his statement that: Many of us are very concerned with the recent agitations, protests and many citizens were so concerned, our constituents across the country are very concerned that the federal government will remove the petroleum subsidy. And for us, as parliamentarians, as legislators representing the people of Nigeria, this must be of interest to us.

The irony is that the famous Kano pyramids were not photo ops. The trains were simply not coming in frequently enough to transport the deliveries supplied by Licensed Buying Agents, so they were stacked up to wait for trains. The idea of bringing in one million bags of paddy rice to the national capital for a photo shoot and return them to the states for milling simply ridicules us as a nation.

Clearly, what is happening is that having failed to address the fuel subsidy issue over the past seven years, the government is realising that one year to the next general election is not the most auspicious time to do it. In that case, they should show us some respect and say, after listening to complaints from Nigerians about the further hardship the removal of fuel subsidy will cause, that they are reviewing the policy. It is disrespectful to citizens to claim they never said they would do it, while we all know that it is already in the budget being currently implemented. Let us not forget that current government policy is that they would be paying N5,000 monthly to the very poor as transportation subsidy, because fuel subsidy would end in June this year.

Another big item in the news this week is the big Rice Show  the official unveiling of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)/Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) Rice Paddy Pyramids in Abuja. It was essentially a one-hour photo op that was conceived to show that the president has, through his policy measures, significantly increased rice production in the country. To do that, trailers were sent all over the country to ferry paddy rice to Abuja, so that the president could be photographed with a lot of rice behind him. In a normal country, the statistics office would simply provide the production figures. Nigerian politicians think photo tricks are more effective. It is a bad idea. The contract to bring in and to return the rice is a waste of money. Many of the comments I saw from Nigerians expressed doubt about whether it was indeed rice in the bags displayed. What they did was to try to copy the idea of groundnut pyramids, which at one time was a sign that we were producing a lot of groundnuts in the country. The irony is that the famous Kano pyramids were not photo ops. The trains were simply not coming in frequently enough to transport the deliveries supplied by Licensed Buying Agents, so they were stacked up to wait for trains. The idea of bringing in one million bags of paddy rice to the national capital for a photo shoot and return them to the states for milling simply ridicules us as a nation.

There is no doubt that the programme has indeed increased rice production in the country even though, currently, insecurity is cutting back at the success. The problem with this success is that rice imports to Benin Republic have increased almost at the same quantity that imports to Nigeria have declined. It does not need a genius to work out that in spite of the almost two-year closure of the borders with our neighbours, smuggling continued at essentially a very high rate.

The governor of the CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele, who organised the photo op contract, was of course keen to highlight the successes recorded in the implementation of the CBN-led Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP). He announced that the country has been able to significantly reduce rice importation from Thailand by over 99.83 per cent in the past seven years. There is no doubt that the programme has indeed increased rice production in the country even though, currently, insecurity is cutting back at the success. The problem with this success is that rice imports to Benin Republic have increased almost at the same quantity that imports to Nigeria have declined. It does not need a genius to work out that in spite of the almost two-year closure of the borders with our neighbours, smuggling continued at essentially a very high rate. Everybody knows this because we can all see the same Thai rice that is no longer imported all over our markets. This is confirmed daily by Customs raids on markets to seize foreign imported rice. It is disrespectful for government to sink all this money into a photograph that is supposed to wipe out our knowledge and memories of Thai rice that we still buy in our markets daily.

What is annoying to us, Nigerian citizens, is that government views and treats the policy arena uniquely as a space for propaganda and information manipulation, rather than a genuine conversation space on action steps to address national problems. That is why the focus is on optics rather than facts. I do wish that our governments try to treat us with more respect. Its sad that they do not know we are adults who know what they are doing and have the power as citizens and voters to place or remove them from power; or do we?

A professor of Political Science and development consultant/expert, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES.
A country where a big percentage of her citizens own slaves should not be admitted into an assembly of civilised people. Mauritania should be banned from the African Union and the latter must push the campaign all the way to the United Nations to have the same done Mauritania, like Apartheid South Africa, should be treated as a pariah state, till she learns to treat every human being with dignity. Slavery has no place in the 21st century. Not even in Africa by Africans.

In November 2017, the world watched in utter disbelief, some cringed-worthy footage aired by CNN in which dozens of men in detention facilities were being auctioned off for as little as $400 each in Libya. If you think that was a fluke, the crew was also told of the existence of similar auctions taking place in nine other locations in the country. The victims? People who look like me and belong to the melanin-rich subset of Africans. The traffickers were our brothers, a shade or two lighter and from the north. But that was just a tip of the proverbial iceberg. Slavery is alive and thriving in Africa by Africans.

What if I tell you that the last country in the whole wild world to outlaw slavery is a country in the continent of Africa. Yes, that is Mauritania, in 1981. To put it in perspective, that was some 116 years after the U.S. Congress ratified the 13th amendment, which states that, Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States. Now, understand that there is a huge difference between having a paragraph or two in the statute that says its illegal to own slaves and the actual practice of enforcing it. For in Libya, Mauritania, and some other North African nations, setting free our other African brothers and sisters of a darker hue, commonly referred to as Haratins, is one luxury they just cannot afford. After all, less melanin in the skin means that one is automatically on top in the value chain.

Mauritania, officially referred to as the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign state in Northwest Africa. About 90 per cent of its territory is situated in the Sahara. Mauritania is a bridge between the Arab Maghreb of North Africa and the darker-skinned sub-Saharan Africa. Of its 4.4 million population, about 40 per cent is made up of indigenous dark-skinned Africans  as mentioned above  called the Haratins, a pejorative term that speaks to the dark colour of their skin. But being referred to as such is the least of the problems of one of the most unfortunate people on the face of this planet. These are the same people who are called Chouachin, Chouachine or Chouchan in Tunisia and Libya.

Haratins in Mauritania are considered full property of their lighter-skinned Arab-Berbers neighbours, who are their masters. The Haratins do not own land, they live in poor, segregated communities and are only allowed to work in certain professions specifically designated for their caste alone, such as rubbish collection and butchery. They may be bought and sold, rented out and given away as gifts. Haratins are essentially slaves.

Mauritania is consistently ranked as the worst place in the world for slavery and it seems that the government in Nouakchott is more interested in concealing the atrocity, instead of rooting out this evil. The regime will like to show you how a Haratin like Messaoud Ould Boulkheir got elected as speaker of the National Assembly, as a proof that slavery in Mauritania is only a Jewish propaganda against an Islamic state.

There is a long history of slavery in Mauritania. Centuries ago, Arabic-speaking Moors invaded African villages, resulting in an immutable caste system in which darker-skinned Africans are beholden to their lighter-skinned masters. Like inheritance, the slave status is also passed down from mother to child.

Slavery has been banned in Mauritania many times in the past but the problem persists because the enforcement has been in the breach. In 2014, the UN Special Rapporteur reported that an estimated 50 per cent of Haratins face some form of slavery, including as domestic servants and bonded labourers. Even with the adoption of a stronger anti-slavery law in 2015, there have been very minimal convictions and the sentences passed are often lenient.

Mauritania is consistently ranked as the worst place in the world for slavery and it seems that the government in Nouakchott is more interested in concealing the atrocity, instead of rooting out this evil. The regime will like to show you how a Haratin like Messaoud Ould Boulkheir got elected as speaker of the National Assembly, as a proof that slavery in Mauritania is only a Jewish propaganda against an Islamic state.

The Islamic Republic of Mauritania joined the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor to the African Union (AU), on May 25, 1963. That means that every so often, the president of Nigeria will sit across the table, in fellowship with another in whose country, a Nigerian from a different generation is being held as a slave in the most inhumane condition. Then if can ask very pointedly: Of what value is the African Union if the body has the likes of Mauritania within its rank, pretending to subscribe to the idea of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, as eloquently stated as in the AU motto?

Here we are giving Mauritania a free pass to commit atrocities worse than apartheid against fellow Africans. It does seem that black people find injustice less egregious when committed by one of our own. Does it mean that the burden of it on the victim is made lighter upon the realisation that pain is being inflicted from the home front?

There is something to be said about black people and our response to oppression and injustice. Just imagine for a moment that a certain European nation is holding some African slaves in the 21st century. I can bet you with my life that it would attract worldwide condemnation and inspire a new breed of freedom fighters. Okay, granted there has been some effort in that direction but its really too little, too late. Here we are giving Mauritania a free pass to commit atrocities worse than apartheid against fellow Africans. It does seem that black people find injustice less egregious when committed by one of our own. Does it mean that the burden of it on the victim is made lighter upon the realisation that pain is being inflicted from the home front?

If you think this piece is just some random musing about a foreign land far removed from home and with no bearing to the situation in Nigeria, think again. Its been often said that every two out of 10 persons in the North are first generation immigrants, who might have come from Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Senegal, Niger, like the father of President Buhari allegedly, and yes, from Mauritania. It was reported in one piece that the fire spitting Hakeem Baba-Ahmed of the Northern Elders Forum still has living relatives in Mauritania. Going by the colour of his skin, his family most likely belongs in the masters category in that country. And so, when you analyse the speech and body language of the man regarding what he believes should be the relationship between northern and southern Nigeria, it makes you wonder if his worldview is a reflection of that background.

A country where a big percentage of her citizens own slaves should not be admitted into an assembly of civilised people. Mauritania should be banned from the African Union and the latter must push the campaign all the way to the United Nations to have the same done. African and African-American celebrities should beam a searchlight on this mans inhumanity to man that is thriving in Mauritania and take up the cause of fighting for our brothers and sisters held in bondage in the country for centuries. Western countries like the United States, and the European Union should apply tough economic sanctions against this shame of a country. Mauritania, like Apartheid South Africa, should be treated as a pariah state, till she learns to treat every human being with dignity. Slavery has no place in the 21st century. Not even in Africa by Africans.

Osmund Agbo, a public affairs analyst is the coordinator of African Center for Transparency and Convener of Save Nigeria Project. Email: Eagleosmund@yahoo.com
Police in Imo State have confirmed the arrest of a dismissed official of a medical facility in the state over alleged involvement in attempted killing for ritual purpose.

The man identified as Francis Chukwura is a former staff member of the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, Imo State.

The police spokesperson in Imo, Mike Abattam, in a statement on Thursday, alleged that Mr Chukwura attempted to kill his neighbours son for ritual purpose.

Mr Abattam said the victim, Henry Ekwos 14, was lured into a room by the suspect who attempted to kill him.

Mr Chukwura had dug a shallow grave in his room and inflicted the boy with machete cuts before he was rescued, the police said.

The incident occurred in Ubommiri in Mbaitoli Local Government Area of Imo State.

The unsuspecting boy innocently entered with him into his room where the suspect had already dug a grave-size pit.

The boy, on seeing the grave-size pit in the room became suspicious and turned to run out, when the suspect picked up a machete and gave him several machete cuts on his head and body, Mr Abattam, a chief superintendent of police, said.

He said the victim continued running and screaming for help, and passers-by who heard his scream immediately alerted the police patrol team within the area.

He said the police operatives who arrived at the scene were able to disarm the assailant, rescued the victim with the assistance of some members of the community.

The police spokesperson said the victim was rushed to a nearby hospital for medical attention, while the suspect was taken into custody.

On interrogation, the suspect is a dismissed staff of Federal Medical Center, Owerri, and presently has no visible means of livelihood.

He could not give a reason why he attempted to kill the victim. For the grave-size pit he dug in his room, he said the wife was aware and it was done to hurt his landlord for giving him quit notice, Mr Abattam said.

(NAN)
The Ondo State Government on Friday embarked on road show to sensitise members of the public on the reduced costs of getting Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) on property in the state.

Speaking with journalists during the exercise in Akure, Tolu Adegbie, Chairman, Ondo State Internal Revenue Services (ODIRS), said that the sensitisation was necessary for property owners to be aware on benefits of the reduction.

On January 4, 2022, Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu launched Home Ownership Charter of Ondo State (HOCOS).

This scheme was designed to offer reprieve in getting C of O for home owners in Ondo State who have buildings or land but having challenges to get C of O.

It is a brainchild of Mr Governor and we are just instrument of its actualisation.

Before, it would cost you N600,000 to N700,000 in getting C of O and you would wait for about one to two years before getting it. But Mr Governor came up with this initiative of relieving these burdens in his second term in office.

Now, it will only cost you N150,000 for a bungalow or one to two plots of land and within 60 days, your C of O will be ready for collection but this programme would only last for three months after which we go back to normal procedures, he stated.

Mr Adegbie urged all property owners, who were yet to have their documents, to benefit from the opportunity.

He said one could just get the form, which was N6,000 and after that pay the remaining money while submitting the needed documents.

I will advise people to buy forms and have their names documented and after getting money for documents, they can pay it.

The forms are available in all ODIRS offices in the 18 local government areas of the state, the state Ministry of Lands and the headquarters of ODIRS here in Akure, he said.

According to him, the opportunity is only for residential property.

This programme is not meant for commercial property. Any property that is commercial will go through normal procedures.

So, it is a legacy project and the tenure is just three months. Initially, it was for two months but Mr Governor increased it and land was not included before but it was added by Mr Governor, he said.

The ODIRS chairman noted that whoever that benefited from the opportunity would have a lot to gain.

You cannot get better than this. We will also save you the cost of getting building approval, which is about N80,000, he said.

(NAN)
BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A State Council executive meeting has reviewed and approved a report on an investigation into the disaster caused by torrential rains in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, in July last year, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The torrential rains struck Zhengzhou on July 20 last year, causing waterlogging in urban areas, river flooding, mountain torrents and landslides, which resulted in heavy casualties and property losses.

The investigation group of the State Council identified the event as an "extraordinarily serious natural disaster."

The municipal committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the government of Zhengzhou, as well as relevant districts, counties, departments and units, did not have a strong sense of risk, nor did they have sufficient understanding and preparation for this disaster, the probe revealed.

They also acted poorly in organizing disaster prevention and dealing with emergencies, according to the outcomes of the probe.

The mentioned authorities are deemed guilty of negligence and dereliction of duty, especially considering the casualties in the subway and the tunnel that were not supposed to take place, according to the probe.

Torrential rains hit the province from July 17 to 23 last year and affected over 14.79 million people in 150 county-level areas. A total of 398 people died or went missing due to the disaster and 95.5 percent of them were from Zhengzhou.

Party chiefs and senior officials of Zhengzhou and relevant districts and counties should shoulder leadership responsibility for the event, the probe said, adding that other relevant officials and those in charge of relevant departments and units should shoulder leadership responsibility or direct responsibility for the event.

The disaster caused direct economic losses of 120.06 billion yuan (about 18.91 billion U.S. dollars) in the province, with 34.1 percent of the total reported in the capital city of Zhengzhou.

Although the disaster was triggered by extreme weather, many problems and deficiencies were exposed, the probe noted.

To identify the problems, sum up the experience and learn lessons from the tragedy, upon approval of the CPC Central Committee, the State Council set up an investigation team to look into the disaster in Zhengzhou.

Many problems and shortcomings in the local emergency-management system, including disaster prevention, mitigation and relief, have been exposed and the lessons have been profound, the team said.

The weaknesses also exist to varying degrees in many parts of the country, it noted, urging close attention and solid deeds to rectify them.

The investigation team discovered that the municipal CPC committee and the government of Zhengzhou failed to effectively implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC central committee and the State Council, as well as those of the provincial CPC committee and the government of Henan.

They failed to take the primary responsibility in flood prevention and disaster relief, and seriously lacked risk awareness regarding extreme-weather disasters, according to the investigators, who also pointed out problems such as the practices of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism.

Authorities in Zhengzhou concealed or delayed the reporting of those killed and missing in the disaster. They did not tally and report casualties on a daily basis as required, and have deliberately impeded and withheld reports of up to 139 cases, according to the investigation team.

The investigation team thoroughly probed into events that caused major casualties and aroused public concern, concluding that the tragedies of passengers trapped in the flooded Zhengzhou Metro Line 5 and Jingguang North Road tunnel were liability accidents, while the dam overtopping at the Guojiazui reservoir was ruled a law-breaking event.

Urban drainage infrastructure construction in Zhengzhou seriously lags behind the urban development, according to the investigators, who also pointed out prominent problems including weak links in the emergency-management system and capacity, as well as the mechanism connecting early warning and response in the city.

The investigation team also put forward measures to improve disaster response, saying that work should be done to enhance the local flood-prevention accountability mechanism, conduct in-depth reform and evaluation of the emergency-response mechanism, and build up the disaster-prevention and reduction capacities of urban areas.

Highlighting the necessity of the probe, the team said that the move could help summarize experiences and lessons, as the country is likely to face greater natural-disaster risks and more extreme weather against the backdrop of global climate change.

Problems and weak links identified in the investigation can be used to guide the country in making targeted improvements, better prepare it for future major disasters and protect people's lives and property, the team said. 
Plattsburgh, NY (12901)

Today

Periods of rain. High 54F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 41F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
The visuals are completed with the Tiger high amongst the mountain clouds, ascending towards the modern metropolis  a sign of prosperity and progress, signifying good fortune for all in the year to come.

Artist Shan Jiang said: "In the last two years we've triumphed over tremendous challenges. I used that thought to look to the year ahead with positivity and use Chinese mythology and the idea of progress, of always moving forward, to inspire my designs and discover ideas from my culture that resonate with Johnnie Walker.

"That is why I chose the Tiger with wings for Johnnie Walker Blue Label, it's a common Chinese saying. My mother and father immediately came to mind, they have always supported me as an artist no matter how things were going, they gave me great strength to achieve - like the winged Tiger ascending above the mountains to the sky. It gives me energy to think of this and to create something beautiful from this idea."

Shan Jiang's intricate illustration is matched by the rare whiskies and centuries of craft that creates the rich fruity flavours; perfectly balanced smoke found in every bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

He said: "I like to think that the thought and time that goes into my designs echo the craft of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Inside every bottle of Blue Label are rare, handpicked whiskies - each bringing distinctive character. I hope to bring that to my work."

Johnnie Walker Blue Label is a velvety smooth and vibrant Scotch whisky with layers of fruit, spice and long, lingering smokiness. Only 1 in 10,000 casks in our unparalleled reserves of over 10 million maturing Scotch whiskies has the richness and character required to intricately craft Johnnie Walker Blue Label, including some irreplaceable casks from long-closed "ghost" distilleries.

This limited edition design is available in selected markets globally. Johnnie Walker is also launching John Walker & Sons King George V Lunar New Year Limited Edition Design and a John Walker & Sons XR 21 Lunar New Year Limited Edition Design  both beautifully illustrated by Shan Jiang.

About Johnnie Walker:

Johnnie Walker is the world's number one Scotch Whisky brand (IWSR 2019), enjoyed by people in over 180 countries around the world. Since founder John Walker started in business 200 years ago, those who blend its whiskies have pursued flavour and quality above else.

Today's range of award-winning whiskies includes Johnnie Walker Red Label, Black Label, Double Black, Green Label, Gold Label Reserve, Aged 18 Years and Blue Label. Together they account for over 14 million cases sold annually (IWSR, 2020), making Johnnie Walker the most popular Scotch Whisky brand in the world.

About Diageo:

Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Buchanan's and Windsor whiskies, Smirnoff and Ciroc vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo is listed on both the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo's global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Celebrating life, every day, everywhere.

[1] IWSR 2020

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1730695/Johnnie_Walker_Lunar_New_Year.jpg

SOURCE Johnnie Walker
Company's Visual AI technology recognized by customers, industry analysts and media publishers as leading vendor for test automation multiple times over the past six months

SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Applitools ( applitools.com ), provider of next generation test automation platform through Visual AI and Ultrafast Test Cloud, today announced it was recognized as the "Best Testing Service/Tool" in the 2021 DevOps Dozen Awards program. In its seventh year, the DevOps Dozen Awards celebrate innovative people and companies whose contributions are of great value to the DevOps community.

Winning the DevOps Dozen Award is the most recent company milestone achieved by Applitools, with the following highlights all occurring within the past six months:

Read more about recent industry and customer recognition for Applitools at https://applitools.com/blog/applitools-recognized-testing-leader-by-industry-customers/

"We're so appreciative of our customers, partners, community and organizations that recognize Applitools as a leader in the test automation space, but we're only at the beginning of our journey," said Gil Sever, CEO and co-founder of Applitools. "2021 proved we must continue to grow our team, deliver excellent customer support, drive more product innovation, and build new solutions to expand our Visual AI platform, and the ecosystem around Applitools."

In May 2021, Applitools announced Thoma Bravo's strategic investment in Applitools to spool up more resources and expertise to fulfill the company's vision for the future of Visual AI and the next generation of test automation. The company has since recorded record growth, multiple industry recognitions, signed new customers from the Fortune 100 and has steadily expanded its team around the world.

Today, the world's top brands  including nine of the top 10 software companies, seven of the top 10 North American banks, two of the top three North American retailers  use Applitools Visual AI to accelerate innovation, protect their brands and ensure flawless digital experiences.

Customer testimonials:

"I believe Applitools is the leading vendor in the testing space and it's wonderful to see others recognize the company for their accomplishments," said Greg Sypolt, VP of Quality Engineering at EVERFI. "We've been using Applitools for years and are seeing incredible results from their Visual AI technology, which is unlike any other offering in the market today."

"There is no other visual validation tool that can give you the confidence level as Applitools. This is an awesome tool to have."  Chandra R., Fortune 500 Hospitality Industry Customer

"Our business has used Applitools for over two years now and have peace of mind knowing our application's testing is in good hands."  Ryan L., Fortune 500 Healthcare Industry Customer

About Applitools

Applitools is leading the industry in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to test automation, delivering a next generation test automation platform powered by Visual AI. Over 400 hundred of the world's top brands from verticals such as Tech, Banking, Insurance, Retail, Pharma, and Publishing -- including 50 of the Fortune 100 -- use Applitools to deliver the best possible digital experiences to millions of customers on any device and browser, and across every screen size and operating system.

Applitools' Ultrafast Test Cloud modernizes critical test automation use cases -- Functional Testing, Visual Testing, Web and Mobile UI/UX Testing, Cross Browser Testing, Responsive Web Design Testing, Cross Device Testing, PDF Testing, Accessibility Testing and Compliance Testing -- to transform the way businesses deliver innovation at the speed of DevOps without jeopardizing their brand.

Applitools is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with an R&D center in Tel Aviv, Israel. To learn more, visit applitools.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Media Contact:

Jeremy Douglas

Catapult PR

[email protected]

SOURCE Applitools
HOUSTON, Jan. 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bristow Group Inc. (NYSE: VTOL), the leading global provider of vertical flight solutions, announced that the Netherlands Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) has awarded Bristow their prestigious contract to provide search and rescue helicopter capacity to the Netherlands Coastguard.

The 10-year contract, with two one-year extension options, will commence on November 4, 2022 and involves providing the permanent availability of dedicated SAR equipped AW189 helicopters and highly qualified crews from two operational bases in the Netherlands. Bristow will also introduce new technologies such as mission management and data-link systems, enhancing the interoperability of the service with all Netherlands SAR stakeholders.

Under the contract, Bristow will provide a 24/7 all-weather search and rescue service and will be tasked by the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Den Helder. In addition, the service will aid with secondary tasks as required by the coastguard such as dealing with the aftermath of disasters, incidents, and transportation of the Maritime Incident Response Group (MIRG).

"We are honoured the DMO has placed their trust in Bristow with the award of this prestigious contract. We look forward to our return to the Netherlands and providing this valuable service for the Netherlands Coastguard," said Alan Corbett, Senior Vice President for Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Search and Rescue. "As the leading provider of government SAR services, we will provide a modern fleet of helicopters along with highly experienced aircrews and engineers to provide an unmatched, life-saving capability as the best value to the government."

"We look forward to re-establishing our vast SAR experience, efficiencies and leading Target Zero safety culture to the Netherlands," said Bristow President and CEO Chris Bradshaw. "This award confirms the differentiating value proposition we are able to bring based on our proven experience, commitment to innovation and sustainability, and enhanced capabilities that we deliver to our clients worldwide."

Bristow's expansive SAR operations include Guyana, Norway, Suriname, Trinidad, and the United States. Bristow also operates the HM Coastguard helicopter search and rescue service for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) of the UK Government.

About Bristow Group

Bristow Group Inc. is the leading global provider of innovative and sustainable vertical flight solutions. Bristow primarily provides aviation services to a broad base of major integrated, national and independent offshore energy companies. Bristow provides commercial search and rescue (SAR) services in several countries and public sector SAR services in the United Kingdom (U.K.) on behalf of the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA). Additionally, the Company offers ad hoc helicopter and fixed wing transportation services. Bristow currently has customers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Spain, Suriname, Trinidad, the U.K. and the U.S. To learn more, visit our website at www.bristowgroup.com.

SOURCE Bristow Group
"Our commitment to advancing health equity is grounded in our company purpose to bring our heart to every moment of health," said David Casey, Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, CVS Health. "By addressing social determinants of health at the community level, like we are in Denver, we're helping people live healthier and creating positive change all around them."

According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition's 2020 report, Denver ranked second as the most intensely gentrified cities. Five Points, a designated cultural historic district, in recognition of its important role in African-American history is one of the neighborhoods most impacted. In addition, per the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative's 2021 Point in Time Count, Black and African American individuals make up just over 5% of Metro Denver's population, but represent more than 26% of people experiencing homelessness. Charity's House Place will help preserve affordable housing in the Five Points neighborhood while providing residents with the resources they need to maintain stable housing and live healthier lives.

"It takes a whole community response, across sectors, to resolve homelessness and support our most vulnerable residents. That starts with the stability of safe, supportive housing," said Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock. "I want to thank CVS Health for making this critical investment in our community that will further bolster my Administration's work by advancing equity and connecting our unhoused residents with the housing they need to thrive."

CVS Health is working with BlueLine Development, Inc. and Community Outreach Service Center, Inc. (COSC) to co-develop Charity's House Place. Led by Pastor Robert Woolfolk and his wife Eddie of Agape Christian Church, COSC has been deeply rooted in the Denver community for more than 20 years, helping people impacted by the justice system with transitional housing and counseling with the goal to ultimately have the ability to provide permanent supportive homes.

Through funding from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, the Colorado Finance Agency and the City of Denver combined with CVS Health's investment, Charity's House Place will be the realization of that goal. COSC will be providing residents with supportive goods and services, including food, clothing, employment support, spiritual counseling, and computer classes.

Charity's House Place will consist of a four-story residential building located at 3022 Welton Street in Denver. It will provide residents with a community room, fitness facility, on-site property management, central laundry facilities and outdoor decks. In addition to COSC services, the Mental Health Center of Denver will provide residents with an array of mental health, substance abuse and integrated health services.

"CVS Health is committed to providing underserved communities in Denver with opportunities that can help them live healthier lives," said Jim Boyman, North Central Territory President and Heartland Market President, Aetna, a CVS Health company. "Through Charity's House, we're addressing housing insecurities and ensuring local residents have access to resources that can improve their overall health and well-being."

CVS Health is also exploring opportunities to expand its national workforce initiatives program in Colorado to help break the cycle of poverty by providing employment services and training to the community.

As part of CVS Health's overall commitment to advance health equity in America, it invested $185 million in affordable housing nationwide in 2021 and $1.3 billion over the past 20 years. Through these investments, CVS Health has been able to provide underserved communities with quality housing, economic support, educational training opportunities and other health and wellness programs and services based on the unique needs of the population.

About CVS Health

CVS Health is the leading health solutions company, delivering care like no one else can. We reach more people and improve the health of communities across America through our local presence, digital channels and approximately 300,000 dedicated colleagues  including more than 40,000 physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and nurse practitioners. Wherever and whenever people need us, we help them with their health  whether that's managing chronic diseases, staying compliant with their medications, or accessing affordable health and wellness services in the most convenient ways. We help people navigate the health care system  and their personal health care  by improving access, lowering costs and being a trusted partner for every meaningful moment of health. And we do it all with heart, each and every day. Learn more at www.cvshealth.com.

Media contact

Eva Pereira

781-686-4200

[email protected]

SOURCE CVS Health
SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Gov. Spencer Cox has issued a proclamation declaring Jan. 23-Jan. 29 "Utah School Choice Week." As learning disruptions continue nationwide, Gov. Cox's proclamation highlights the essential role of flexible education choices and encourages families to explore all the options available to their children.

In issuing the proclamation, Gov. Cox joined a bipartisan group of state and local leaders who have taken pen in hand to officially recognize School Choice Week and the importance of continuously improving K-12 options.

Families and teachers will celebrate Utah School Choice Week with 209 events and activities. From a large school fair in Provo to at-home and in-school celebrations, the diverse activities during the Week echo the diverse learning needs of students across the state. The goal of the Week is to bring every family, regardless of background, clear information about their learning options.

Nationwide, more than 26,000 events have been planned for Jan. 23-Jan. 29, which marks the twelfth annual National School Choice Week. More than half of American families ( 52 percent ) say they are considering or have considered choosing a new or different school in the last year.

"We are grateful for Gov. Cox's proclamation and we are excited that Utah parents, teachers, and community leaders will be bringing their insight and enthusiasm to the national celebration of education," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "We hope that the Week spreads positivity, information, and support to all families exploring their K-12 learning options."

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week focuses equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of events and activities  such as school fairs, open houses, and student showcases  to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. Year-round, National School Choice Week develops resources and guides to assist families searching for schools or learning environments for their children. The effort is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation.

For more information, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/utah.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
TRIPOLI, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Libya's foreign minister on Thursday stressed the importance of the United Nations in Libya for the country's stability.

Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush made this remark when meeting with Stephanie Williams, the adviser to the United Nations secretary-general for Libya, in the capital Tripoli.

"The meeting discussed the latest developments in Libya, as well as obstacles and challenges facing the political process in the country, and means to solve them," Mangoush said in a statement.

The minister "stressed the importance of the positive role of the UN Mission, led by Stephanie Williams, to support stability and reach the desired democracy."

Williams praised the efforts of the Libyan government to achieve stability and security.

Libya has been suffering instability and chaos since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. 
Download free sample report

Key Highlights Offered in the Report:

Information on how to identify strategic and tactical negotiation levels that will help achieve the best prices.

Gain information on relevant pricing levels, detailed explanation on pros and cons of prevalent pricing models.

Methods to help engage with the right suppliers and discover KPI's to evaluate incumbent suppliers.

Get a free sample report for more information

Insights into Major Category Management Objectives for Pharmaceutical Formulation Sourcing:

A targeted strategic approach to pharmaceutical formulation sourcing will provide several opportunities. However, in the absence of actionable intelligence on pharmaceutical formulation, buyers may end up focusing on a tactical sourcing strategy without any focus on cost-saving opportunities. Hence, this report focuses on category management initiatives such as top-line growth, scalability of inputs, and green initiatives, which will assist buyers to formulate a strategic procurement strategy.

This report explains the key category management objectives that should form the base for sourcing strategy:

www.spendedge.com/report/pharmaceutical-formulation-sourcing-and-procurement-intelligence-report

Key Drivers and Trends Fueling Market Growth:

The pressure from substitutes and a moderate level of threat from new entrants has resulted in the low bargaining power of suppliers.

Price forecasts are beneficial in purchase planning, especially when supplemented by the constant monitoring of price influencing factors. During the forecast period, the market expects a change of 2%-3%.

Identify favorable opportunities in Pharmaceutical Formulation TCO (total cost of ownership).

Expected changes in price forecast and factors driving the current and future price changes.

Identify pricing models that offer the most rewarding opportunities.

SpendEdge presents a detailed picture of this procurement market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our Pharmaceutical Formulation market procurement report covers the following areas:

Some of the top Pharmaceutical Formulation suppliers listed in this report:

This Pharmaceutical Formulation procurement intelligence report has enlisted the top suppliers and their cost structures, SLA terms, best selection criteria, and negotiation strategies.

Merck & Co. Inc

Pfizer Inc.

Mylan NV

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Table of Content

Executive Summary

Market Insights

Category Pricing Insights

Cost-saving Opportunities

Best Practices

Category Ecosystem

Category Management Strategy

Category Management Enablers

Suppliers Selection

Suppliers under Coverage

US Market Insights

Category scope

Appendix

About SpendEdge:

SpendEdge shares your passion for driving sourcing and procurement excellence. We are the preferred procurement market intelligence partner for 120+ Fortune 500 firms and other leading companies across numerous industries. Our strength lies in delivering robust, real-time procurement market intelligence reports and solutions.

Contacts

SpendEdge

Anirban Choudhury

Marketing Manager

Ph No: +1 (872) 206-9340

https://www.spendedge.com/contact-us

SOURCE SpendEdge
MONTGOMERY, Ala., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Gov. Kay Ivey has proclaimed Jan. 23-29 "Alabama School Choice Week," recognizing the incredible role K-12 educational choice plays in the lives of children, parents, and teachers across the state.

Gov. Ivey's proclamation coincides with the twelfth annual National School Choice Week, a yearly celebration that raises awareness about options and opportunity in K-12 education. More than half of U.S. governors and several hundred city and county leaders nationwide have issued similar proclamations for the Week. In the Yellowhammer State, this marks the tenth time in eleven years that Alabama School Choice Week has been officially proclaimed.

Alabama parents, schools, and other organizers have planned 416 events and activities to celebrate quality school choices and dedicated teaching professionals. The activities, which range from school pep rallies and open houses to virtual contests, aim to bring parents practical information about public, private, virtual, and home learning options.

More than 26,000 events have been independently planned for Jan. 23-29 nationwide to celebrate K-12 learning.

"The parents in Alabama and across the country who are searching for the best learning fit for their children are the inspiration for School Choice Week," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "We are grateful for Gov. Ivey's proclamation and wish Alabamans the best as they celebrate their education choices."

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week focuses equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of events and activities  such as school fairs, open houses, and student showcases  to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. Year-round, National School Choice Week develops resources and guides to assist families searching for schools or learning environments for their children. The effort is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation.

For more information, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/alabama.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Gov. DeWine has proclaimed Jan. 23-29 Ohio School Choice Week, recognizing the incredible role K-12 educational choice plays in the lives of children, parents, and teachers across the state.

Gov. DeWine's proclamation coincides with National School Choice Week, a public awareness effort that raises awareness about options and opportunity in K-12 education. More than half of U.S. governors and several hundreds city and county leaders nationwide have issued similar proclamations for the Week. In the Buckeye State, this marks the ninth time in ten years that Ohio School Choice Week has been officially proclaimed.

Ohio parents, schools, and other organizers have planned 1,100 events and activities to celebrate School Choice Week. These range from school pep rallies and open houses to virtual contests. The festivities aim to bring parents helpful information about public, private, virtual, and home learning options.

More than 26,000 events have been independently planned for the week nationwide, raising awareness about opportunity in education.

"Ohio families and educators are speaking up about the learning opportunities that are working for their students, as well as the opportunities students are still waiting for," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "It is truly inspiring to see Ohio's growing enthusiasm for school choice and we are grateful to Gov. DeWine for highlighting the importance of every child receiving an effective education."

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week focuses equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of events and activities  such as school fairs, open houses, and student showcases  to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. Year-round, National School Choice Week develops resources and guides to assist families searching for schools or learning environments for their children. The effort is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation.

For more information, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/ohio.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Just days after California State University (CSU) announced its intention to add "caste" to the system's anti-discrimination policy as part of a collective bargaining agreement with CSU faculty, over 80 of those faculty members wrote a blistering letter to the CSU Board of Trustees opposing the move.

Since adding caste as a specific and separate protected category would apply only to faculty of Indian and South Asian descent, the faculty letter stated that the new policy would unfairly target a minority community for policing and disparate treatment.

"The addition of caste is a misguided overreach given the existence of comprehensive policies which already protect against various forms of discrimination" said Dr. Praveen Sinha, Professor of Accountancy at California State University, Long Beach. "We cannot but oppose the unique risk that CSU's move puts on us as they add a category that is only associated with people of Indian descent, such as myself and thousands of other faculty and students in the CSU system. It is going to create divisions where they simply do not exist."

There are more than 600 Cal State faculty of Indian and South Asian origin who would be rendered vulnerable should the collective bargaining agreement be passed as currently written.

"As a faculty member of Indian origin, I am well aware that discrimination is a daily reality for many students of varied backgrounds, and there is a robust mechanism of addressing all such complaints under existing laws and CSU policy," said Dr. Sunil Kumar, Professor of Engineering at San Diego State University. "But this policy change has been made in the absence of any scientifically reliable evidence or data. Rather than redressing discrimination, it will actually cause discrimination by unconstitutionally singling out and targeting Hindu faculty of Indian and South Asian descent as members of a suspect class because of deeply entrenched, false stereotypes about Indians, Hindus, and caste. We are disappointed that the CSU faculty association championed this move without holding discussions with the concerned faculty even when three professors had alerted them way back in May 2021. In their meeting with these three professors on January 14 this year, some of the CFA leaders admitted that they did not understand the complexity of caste and that they dropped the ball. "

The faculty members expressed deep concern that, as written, the caste policy would specifically deny Hindu, Indian and South Asian faculty equal protection and due process.

Lawyers at the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), Suhag Shukla, Samir Kalra, and Nikhil Joshi, also sent a letter to CSU Board of Trustees, the CSU Office of General Counsel, CSU Chancellor, and president of the California Faculty Association, on behalf of CSU faculty.

"We've been working closely with concerned faculty since we were approached in December of last year. We will be filing Freedom of Information and State Public Records Act requests on their behalf to investigate how this discriminatory clause made it into the collective bargaining agreement and helping them explore all legal avenues to protect their rights as employees in the CSU system," stated Suhag Shukla, Esq. "It's simply unfathomable how system-wide leaders and a faculty union, which is contractually obligated to protect and represent all of its members regardless of their background, could negotiate a clause that will discriminate against faculty of a particular background or faith, especially where existing laws and policies already provide redress.

The faculty petition points out that the policy change is premised on claims made by the anti-Hindu activist group, Equality Labs, that there is wide-scale prevalence of caste discrimination in the United States as per a single non-scientific survey the group reportedly carried out. That survey was explicitly contradicted and refuted by a more recent and comprehensive survey by the Carnegie Endowment, Social Realities of Indian Americans: Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey , which found that while discrimination on the basis of color is common for Indian Americans, caste discrimination is exceedingly rare.

Read HAF's full letter sent to the Cal State Board of Trustees

Read the CSU faculty petition

Media Contact: Mat McDermott, [email protected]

SOURCE Hindu American Foundation
NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Juan Monteverde, founder and managing partner of the class action firm Monteverde & Associates PC (the "M&A Class Action Firm"), a national securities firm rated Top 50 in the 2018-2020 ISS Securities Class Action Services Report and headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City, is investigating:

Activision Blizzard, Inc. ( ATVI ) relating to its proposed acquisition by Microsoft Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, ATVI shareholders will receive $95.00 in cash per share they own . Click here for more information: https://www.monteverdelaw.com/case/activision-blizzard-inc . It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.





relating to its proposed acquisition by Microsoft Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, ATVI shareholders will receive in cash per share they own Denmark Bancshares, Inc. (DMKBA ), relating to its proposed acquisition by Bank First Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, DMKBA shareholders will receive either 0.5276 shares of Bank First or $38.10 in cash per share they own. Click here for more information: https://www.monteverdelaw.com/case/denmark-bancshares-inc . It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.





relating to its proposed acquisition by Bank First Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, DMKBA shareholders will receive either 0.5276 shares of Bank First or in cash per share they own. Zogenix, Inc. (ZGNX ), relating to its proposed acquisition by UCB S.A. Under the terms of the agreement, ZGNX shareholders are expected to receive $26.00 in cash plus a contingent value right for a potential cash payment of $2.00 per share they own. Click here for more information: https://www.monteverdelaw.com/case/zogenix-inc . It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.





relating to its proposed acquisition by UCB S.A. Under the terms of the agreement, ZGNX shareholders are expected to receive in cash plus a contingent value right for a potential cash payment of per share they own. Bottomline Technologies, Inc. (EPAY ) , relating to its acquisition by Thoma Bravo . Under the terms of the agreement, EPAY shareholders will receive $57.00 in cash per share they own. Click here for more information: https://www.monteverdelaw.com/case/bottomline-technologies-inc. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.





, relating to its acquisition by . Under the terms of the agreement, EPAY shareholders will receive in cash per share they own. GCP Applied Technologies Inc. (GCP ) , relating to its sale to Saint-Gobain. Under the terms of the agreement, GCP shareholders will receive $32.00 in cash per share they own. Click here for more information: https://www.monteverdelaw.com/case/gcp-applied-technologies-inc. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.





, relating to its sale to Saint-Gobain. Under the terms of the agreement, GCP shareholders will receive in cash per share they own. Momentive Global Inc. (MNTV), relating to its sale to Zendesk, Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, MNTV shareholders will receive 0.225 shares of Zendesk per share they own. Click here for more information: https://www.monteverdelaw.com/case/momentive-global-inc. It is free and there is no cost or obligation to you.

About Monteverde & Associates PC

We are a national class action securities litigation law firm that has recovered millions of dollars and is committed to protecting shareholders from corporate wrongdoing. We were listed in the Top 50 in the 2018-2020 ISS Securities Class Action Services Report. Our lawyers have significant experience litigating Mergers & Acquisitions and Securities Class Actions. Mr. Monteverde is recognized by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star in Securities Litigation in 2013, 2017-2019, an award given to less than 2.5% of attorneys in a particular field. He has also been selected by Martindale-Hubbell as a 2017-2021 Top Rated Lawyer. Our firm's recent successes include changing the law in a significant victory that lowered the standard of liability under Section 14(e) of the Exchange Act in the Ninth Circuit. Thereafter, our firm successfully preserved this victory by obtaining dismissal of a writ of certiorari as improvidently granted at the United States Supreme Court. Emulex Corp. v. Varjabedian, 139 S. Ct. 1407 (2019). Also, in 2019 we recovered or secured six cash common funds for shareholders in mergers & acquisitions class action cases.

If you own common stock in any of the above listed companies and wish to obtain additional information and protect your investments free of charge, please visit our website or contact Juan E. Monteverde, Esq. either via e-mail at [email protected] or by telephone at (212) 971-1341.

Contact:

Juan E. Monteverde, Esq.

MONTEVERDE & ASSOCIATES PC

The Empire State Building

350 Fifth Ave. Suite 4405

New York, NY 10118

United States of America

[email protected]

Tel: (212) 971-1341

Attorney Advertising. (C) 2022 Monteverde & Associates PC. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Monteverde & Associates PC ( www.monteverdelaw.com ). Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

SOURCE Monteverde & Associates PC
By becoming the supplier for the MICHELIN Guide's restaurant teams, Lafont reaffirms the founding values that have built its reputation since 1844: a love of the "do it right" approach, the beauty of the handmade process, and the transferring and excellence of French craftsmanship . The label tirelessly perfects its know-how to dress professionals with style and flawless technique, while staying true to its traditional methods developed since Adolphe Lafont invented the "bleu de travail" (work blues) in Villefranche-sur-Saone. Whether they're stone masons, coachbuilders, cheese or carpet makers and, of course, chefs, Lafont offers these traditional workers new means to express themselves through their workwear.

The brand is strongly involved in craft by nature, further strengthening its commitment at the heart of the cooking, hotel and restaurant industry. After relaunching its C.H.R. line in 2018, it multiplied its partnerships throughout the industry by working with the COET MOF, the Confederation des Boulangers Patissiers, the Confederation des Bouchers and the Championnat de France des Desserts. What could be more natural than partnering with another French family business that strives for excellence? The MICHELIN Guide, created in 1900 by the two brothers of the eponymous tire company, is now the international benchmark for selecting quality restaurants. It shares Lafont's love of passion, expertise, determination, achievement and creationor more simply, French artisanal flair. Building on these common pillars, the MICHELIN Guide and Lafont are joining forces to dress and enhance the work of the world's top chefs.

www.a-lafont.com

@lafont_workwear

#lafontworkwear #lafonthabillevotrepassion

About Lafont

Lafont was founded in 1844 in Villefranche-sur-Saone (69) and invented workwear, including the Colton jacket and the 406 bib overall, better known as the emblematic work overalls. This long tradition and relentless innovation helped build the French brand's renowned expertise and unparalleled reputation.

Thanks to its technical, functional, durable and trendy clothing, it guarantees professionals across many fieldsbuildings, construction, industry, health, cooking, hotels and restaurantsabsolute comfort at work. In 2016 ,the Cepovett Group, one of Europe's major professional apparel companies, acquired the high-end workwear brand. This family-owned company created in 1948 then industrialized processes by integrating the entire value chain. Cepovett is a pioneer in textile solution sales, designing uniforms for major companies such as Air France, Thalys, Orange, Accor, Vinci, SNCF, etc.

Contact: Floriane Von Borzyskowski, [email protected]

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1729812/Veste_Cristal_Lafont.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1729813/Lafont_x_Michelin_logo.jpg

SOURCE Lafont
FORT COLLINS, Colo., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Madwire, together with their client, Agfinity, landed a first place NAMA (National Agri-Marketing Association) award for internet website serving agribusiness. Madwire designed the website for Agfinity and it is built on their Woo 360 platform.

NAMA is the nation's largest professional association for professionals in marketing and agribusiness. Their annual Best of NAMA awards program honors the best work in agricultural communications at regional and national levels. Agfinity's website was entered in NAMA's Region II category, which includes six different chapters and 9 different states including Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.

The nominees are scored on challenge or opportunity, objective or desired response, target audience, and craftsmanship/originality. Because of the first place win, the website will now gain entry to the national level to be scored among the best of the best agricultural companies and agencies and a chance to be crowned Best of Show.

More details about the NAMA awards and information on all the winners can be found here , and the award winning Agfinity website can be found here .

About Madwire

Madwire is a technology company that provides business management and marketing software and services for SMBs and franchises through its technology platform, Marketing 360. The Marketing 360 platform gives SMBs everything they need to manage and grow their business from a singular platform, including the ability to  build a professional website, accept and manage payments, manage leads and customers, book appointments, monitor reviews, manage social media, syndicate business listings, manage content marketing, run multi-channel digital advertising campaigns, and more. Marketing 360 was founded in 2009 with the mission of enriching communities by helping small businesses grow, and is headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado, with offices in Austin, Texas. Learn more about Madwire at www.madwire.com .

About Agfinity, Inc.

Agfinituy, Inc. is a cooperative business committed to successfully delivering value to members and customers by providing quality products, exceptional service, and expertise through an engaged professional employee team. Agfinity aspires to be the best in their market in each business by delivering exceptional service to members and customers that they serve while building the financial strength of their cooperative and its members. Learn more at https://agfinityinc.com/ .

Contact:

Farra Lanzer

[email protected]

970-541-3284

SOURCE Madwire
CHICAGO, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, McDonald's Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.38 per share of common stock payable on March 15, 2022 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 1, 2022.

Upcoming Communications

For important news and information regarding McDonald's, including the timing of future investor conferences and earnings calls, visit the Investor Relations section of the Company's Internet home page at www.investor.mcdonalds.com. McDonald's uses this website as a primary channel for disclosing key information to its investors, some of which may contain material and previously non-public information.

About McDonald's

McDonald's is the world's leading global foodservice retailer with over 39,000 locations in over 100 countries. Approximately 93% of McDonald's restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local business owners.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains certain forward-looking statements, which reflect management's expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date hereof. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, such as its annual and quarterly reports and current reports on Form 8-K. The Company undertakes no obligation to update such forward-looking statements, except as may otherwise be required by law.

SOURCE McDonald's Corporation
HARRISBURG, Pa., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pennsylvania personal injury law firm of Metzger Wickersham is hosting its 10th annual "Road to Safety Scholarship Contest" this year with the goal of promoting safer driving habits, especially among young drivers. Pennsylvania high school seniors who will attend college or university after graduation can enter the contest from now until Friday, April 1, 2022. Multiple first-, second-, and third-place winners will be selected by members of the law firm. Scholarship prize values will be $1,000, $750, and $500, respectively.

To enter the Road to Safety Scholarship Contest, applicants must create a creative project that explains the dangers of unsafe driving behaviors, such as texting-and-driving, drunk driving, and speeding. Creative projects can take the form of videos, songs, mixed media presentations, posters, paintings, dances, and much more. A full set of contest rules can be read at https://www.mwke.com/about-us/road-to-safety-scholarship-contest/.

To submit an entry, all applicants must use a 2022 Entry Form, which can be loaded as a Google Doc by clicking this link.

Entries are being accepted by Metzger Wickersham in four ways:

Submitted directly by using the 2022 Entry Form

Digitally by sending an email to [email protected] or using Google Drive, Dropbox, or another file-sharing service

or using Google Drive, Dropbox, or another file-sharing service Mailed and addressed with Attn: Road to Safety Scholarship Contest, 2321 Paxton Church Road, Harrisburg, PA 17110

17110 Delivered to the law firm's main office at 2321 Paxton Church Road, Harrisburg, PA 17110 (advanced notification requested to ensure compliance with coronavirus safety standards)

Winners will be selected based on the effectiveness of the message, as well as the project's overall creativity. Members of Metzger Wickersham will announce the winners, which will include one or more applicants for each scholarship prize tier, shortly after the contest concludes.

For additional information about Metzger Wickersham and the Road to Safety Scholarship Contest, inquiring parties can visit https://www.mwke.com/.

Kinard, Abbey E.

[email protected]

(717) 238-8187

Harrisburg, PA

SOURCE Metzger Wickersham
PHOENIX, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NextMart, Inc. (the "Company" or "NXMR" - Pink Sheets Alternative Reporting Pink: NXMR)  NXMR would like to announce that it has acquired controlling interest in Emco Oilfield Services, LLC, a New Mexico limited liability company, based out of Carlsbad, New Mexico ("Emco").

William Bouyea (CEO of the Company), states"We are excited to announce that we have acquired Emco. We feel this is a perfect fit for the direction of where we want our core business focus to develop. Emco has been in operation since early 2018 and has already made a significant impact in the Permian Basin. Emco will be our flagship business."

Since 2018, Emco has booked top line revenue of over $45M USD. Currently Emco services over 68 oilfield clients, including major oil companies such as Exxon Mobile's subsidiary, XTO, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Occidental (OXY), and major independent public oil companies such as EOG, Devon, Cimarex, Noble Energy and many more. To service their clients, Emco purchased over $4M in trucks, trailers, and other oilfield service equipment assets. Emco has provided the following oilfield services: salt water and fresh water hauling, hydrovac services, pressure control and flowback, solids control, drilling cuttings removal and disposal, oilfield construction, tank/pit cleaning, rig and tank steam cleaning, hotshot delivery, winch truck heavy hauling, and frac tank rentals. You can see a brochure of the details of the services offered by Emco on its website provided below.

Mr. Bouyea stated further"Even during the downturn caused by the COVID pandemic, Emco has had continued revenue producing operations. We feel with a capital infusion into its operations to purchase more service assets, the Company can grow Emco into one of the biggest oilfield service businesses in the Permian Basin, especially now that the rig count that dropped significantly during the pandemic has increased to 533 which is 264 more than this time last year. In addition, existing wells that were shut in due to the drop in demand caused by the pandemic are being brought back online. This macro change in the supply side for oil started its upward trajectory when countries around the world ended lockdowns and people started traveling again. This has resulted in oil prices increasing to the current rate of almost $90 per barrel, which is a four-fold increase in price from its low of $22 per barrel in March 2020. As oil companies continue to ramp up production, their need for oilfield services that Emco provides are increasing now and will continue to increase as more rigs are added and more wells are turned back on. With fewer oilfield service providers available in our market, Emco plans to be aggressively competitive with our current clients and grow our client base significantly. We feel that this was a perfectly strategic acquisition with the predicted future growth of domestic oil production."

Please review Emco's web site at: https://emcooilfield.com/

Forward Looking Statement

Certain statements that we make may constitute forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The statements contained herein may contain certain forward-looking statements relating to NXMR that are based on the beliefs of NXMR's management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to NXMR's management. These forward-looking statements are, by their nature, subject to significant risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements relating to the NXMR's business prospects, future developments, trends and conditions in the industry and geographical markets in which NXMR operates, its strategies, plans, objectives and goals, its ability to control costs, statements relating to prices, volumes, operations, margins, overall market trends, risk management and exchange rates.

ABOUT US

NextMart, Inc., a Delaware Corporation, is a public quoted Pink Sheet issuer under the ticker symbol "NXMR". Currently, NXMR currently is a shell company with a new management team with plans to become a current alternative reporting issuer with OTC Markets. The Company is currently looking for an appropriate business acquisition.

98 Lower Westfield Road

Holyoke, MA 01040

Phone: (602) 499-6992

Web Site: www.nextmarkcorporation.com

Twitter: @CorporationNxmr

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE NextMart, Inc.
DAMASCUS, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Many civilians fled their homes in the Gweiran neighborhood of northeast Syria's Hasakah province on Friday amid the violence and chaos that erupted in the area following an escape of Islamic State (IS) militants from a Kurdish-controlled prison, according to eyewitnesses and state news agency SANA.

Following the jailbreak of IS militants from the Sina'a prison on Thursday in the Gweiran neighborhood of Hasakah, violent clashes erupted between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the IS militants.

The ongoing clashes and chaos accelerated people in the Gweiran neighborhood and surrounding areas to flee their homes, particularly after the U.S.-led warplanes struck the surroundings of the prison in their manhunt for IS escapees.

Saying the IS militants who had fled the prison are positioning in nearby buildings, SANA noted that the SDF has so far failed to contain the situation despite the assistance of U.S.-led warplanes.

Ali Alwatf, a resident of the neighborhood, told Xinhua that they had heard powerful explosions and clashes.

At first, it was deemed as usual small-scale explosions as they used to hear in the area, he said, noting that the situation had escalated sharply, as clashes and airstrikes continued amid the escape of IS militants from prison.

"We heard a powerful explosion so we opened the windows and doors at home. Later, intermittent clashes erupted, which we thought were as usual, but the situation escalated and violent clashes took place. The children didn't sleep at night so we decided to leave in the morning and get the children away from the horror and fear," Alwatf said.

The airstrikes struck residential buildings in the area after the IS militants managed to break out from prison, Basma Um Muhammad, a woman from the same neighborhood, told Xinhua, adding that dead bodies of people were tossed in the streets, compelling her and others to leave.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 80 IS militants had fled the prison, where the number of IS militants was estimated at around 3,500.

The UK-based watchdog said the SDF is still trying to control the situation while the chaos inside the prison is continuing. Clashes are taking place between IS and the SDF in the vicinity of the facility.

The observatory stated that violence and clashes in and around the prison killed 70 people, more than half were IS militants, who have repeatedly tried to break from the prison in Hasakah.

Many IS militants have been imprisoned by the SDF following the defeat of IS in Hasakah and parts of Deir al-Zour province in eastern Syria. 
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Parchment, the industry leader in academic credentials management, was named to the 2022 GSV EdTech 150, a list of the world's most transformative growth companies in digital learning curated by female-led, multi-stage venture capital firm GSV Ventures.

Parchment was chosen from over 3,000 venture capital and private equity-backed private companies revolutionizing the world of education technology. GSV estimates that together these 150 companies reach roughly 3 billion people -- almost half of the global population -- and generate approximately $20 billion in revenue.

Learn more about the GSV EdTech 150 and the selection process here .

"We are thrilled to join this selective group of transformative growth companies in bringing comprehensive, innovative technology platforms to market, specifically for the academic credentials management community," said Matthew Pittinsky, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Parchment. "This honor validates our commitment to bringing to our issuers and receivers a unified experience that integrates transcripts, diplomas, certificates, comprehensive learner records (CLRs), and badges, and most of all, a customer service mentality, that puts the learner at front and center."

"Today, we announce the annual GSV EdTech 150," said Luben Pampoulov, Partner at GSV Ventures. "As the global pandemic continues to drive learners online, more and more companies are innovating in the digital learning space  making it increasingly competitive for companies to make the top 150. We evaluated over 3,000 companies globally this year. The way GSV sees it, Ed is on The Edge, and increasingly more companies have the ideas, know-how, and talent to transform the world and provide all people equal access to the future. We know these companies are well-equipped to help us achieve that goal, and we look forward to watching them do so."

The final selection is determined by GSV's proprietary scoring system, which applies scores across several KPIs such as revenue scale, revenue growth, active learner reach, international reach, and margin profile.

The GSV EdTech 150 is distributed across three major sectors: Life-Long Learning, Higher Ed, and K-12.

Geographically, North America  specifically the United States  is the most represented region accounting for 56% of the GSV EdTech 150. 11% of the GSV EdTech 150 hail from India, whose market is experiencing explosive growth. Europe, Africa, and the Middle East represent 17% of the listing. Asia, Australia, and New Zealand account for 11% of the list, while China experienced a significant decline in representation due to increased government regulation. Latin America represents 5% of the list and shows strong growth trends.

See the full GSV EdTech 150 at www.asugsvsummit.com/edtech-150.

About Parchment

Parchment believes credentials matter in the lifelong journey of a learner. Offering the most comprehensive academic credential management system, Parchment helps learners, academic institutions and employers request, verify and share transcripts, diplomas, and other credentials in simple and secure ways. Our platform has helped millions of learners, over 13K districts, university registrar offices, state education agencies, and receivers (including university admissions offices, background check companies, employers, college application services, OPMs, and certification and licensing boards) exchange more than 140 million transcripts, diplomas, certificates, comprehensive learner records (CLRs) and other credentials globally. Parchment is headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ, with global offices in Dublin (Ireland) and Melbourne (Australia). We help turn credentials into opportunities. Follow Parchment on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About GSV Ventures

GSV Ventures is a female-led, multi-stage venture capital firm focused on the $7+ trillion education sector. The fund is currently investing out of GSV Ventures Fund III and backs innovative entrepreneurs around the world in the "Pre-K to Gray" Arc of Learning. GSV manages over $675 million in global EdTech investments. Portfolio holdings include Andela, Class Technologies, ClassDojo, Coursera, Course Hero, Degreed, Guild, MasterClass, Outlier, Photomath, Quizizz, Lead School, Brightchamps, and ClassPlus, among others.

SOURCE Parchment LLC
DALLAS, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Simmons Bank, as Trustee of the Permian Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE: PBT) ("Permian") today declared a cash distribution to the holders of its units of beneficial interest of $0.031614 per unit, payable on February 14, 2022, to unit holders of record on January 31, 2022.

This month's distribution increased slightly from the previous month as the result of an increase in the production of oil and gas for the Texas Royalty Properties during the month of November. Currently, only the Texas Royalty Properties are contributing to the monthly distribution.

Since the Waddell Ranch is in current deficit for the foreseeable future, any increase or decrease of the distribution by revenues received, will only be reflective of the activity of the Texas Royalty Properties. The activity of the Waddell Ranch will be discussed with the following narrative until it contributes back to the distribution. This reflects the production month of November.

WADDELL RANCH

In reporting November production of the Underlying Properties for this month's press release, production for oil volumes was 140,043 (gross) and was priced at about $77.33 per bbl. Production for gas volumes (including gas liquids) was 538,872 mcf (gross) and was priced at about $7.32 per mcf, which now includes the value received from plant products and natural gas liquids. Net revenue for the underlying properties of the Waddell ranch was $13,859,258 (gross) for November. Lease Operating Expenses were $2,302,863 (gross) and Capital Expenditures were $7,496,435 (gross) for November. This would put the Trust's proceeds as a positive $3,044,970 (net) for the month of November, leaving an excess cost deficit cumulative of $12.2 million (net).

A review and update on the 2020 budget is as follows. The 2020 budget (net to the Trust) expended $8.9 million, recompleting 4.5 existing wells along with drilling 7.5 new drill wells to completion. This resulted in production of approximately 98,000 barrels of oil and 690,000 Mcf of gas, generating $4.5 million in gross revenues through December 2020, all net to the trust.

A review and update on the ongoing 2021 budget are as such. The 2021 budget (net to the Trust) has expended through November 2021, approximately $50.3 million, recompleting 44.8 existing wells along with drilling 26.3 new wells to completion, with 3 recompletions and 1.9 new drills remaining to be fully completed for the 2021 budget. This has resulted in production of approximately 547,000 barrels of oil and1.8 Bcf of gas, generating $40.3 million in gross revenue though November 2021, all net to the Trust.

As of the end of November, approximately $49.9 million of revenue has been generated by the 2020-2021 budgeted projects.

TEXAS ROYALTY PROPERTIES

Production for the underlying properties at the Texas Royalties was 22,336 of oil and 14,570 Mcf of gas. The production for the Trust's allocated portion of the Texas Royalties was 20,214 barrels of oil and 13,180 of gas. The average price for oil was $73.80 per bbl and for gas was $7.51 per Mcf. This would primarily reflect production and pricing for the month of November for oil and the month of October for gas. These allocated volumes were impacted by the pricing of both oil and gas. This production and pricing for the underlying properties resulted in revenues for the Texas Royalties of $1,757,807. Deducted from these were taxes of $150,093 resulting in a Net Profit of $1,607,714 for the month of November. With the Trust's Net Profit Interest (NPI) of 95% of the Underlying Properties, this would result in net contribution by the Texas Royalties of $1,527,329 to this month's distribution.



Underlying Properties Net to Trust Sales





Volumes Volumes Average Price

Oil (bbls) Gas (Mcf) Oil (bbls) Gas (Mcf) Oil (per bbl) Gas (per Mcf) Current Month











Waddell Ranch 140,043 538,872 105,032 404,154* $77.33 $7.32** Texas Royalties 22,336 14,750 20,214 13,180* $73.80 $7.51**













Prior Month











Waddell Ranch 133,626 369,258 100,220 276,944* $80.18 $8.89** Texas Royalties 18,096 12,056 16,200 10,787* $74.85 $7.46**

*These volumes are the net to the trust, after allocation of expenses to Trust's net profit interest,

including any prior period adjustments.

**This pricing includes sales of gas liquid products.

General and Administrative Expenses deducted for the month were $54,266 resulting in a distribution of $1,473,505 to 46,608,796 units outstanding, or $0.031614 per unit.

The worldwide market conditions continue to affect the pricing for domestic production. It is difficult to predict what effect these conditions will have on future distributions.

The 2021 tax information packets are expected to begin mailing directly to unit holders in early March 2022. A copy of Permian's 2021 tax information booklet is expected to be posted on Permian's website by February 28, 2022. In addition to the tax booklet the Permian website also offers two simple calculators for computing the income and expense amounts and the cost depletion. To facilitate unit holder tax preparation, both the income and expense and the depletion calculators are expected to be updated on Permian's website by late February 2022 for 2021 tax reporting.

The 2020 Annual Report with Form 10-K and the January 1, 2021 Reserve Summary are now available on Permian's website. Permian's cash distribution history, current and prior year financial reports, tax information booklets, and a link to filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, all can be found on Permian's website at http://www.pbt-permian.com/. Additionally, printed reports can be requested and are mailed free of charge.

SOURCE Permian Basin Royalty Trust
SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Plus Products Inc. (CSE: PLUS) (OTCQX: PLPRF) (the "Company" or "PLUS"), a cannabis and hemp branded products company in the U.S., announces that it has filed an application in the Supreme Court of British Columbia (the "Court") in the Company's Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada) (the "CCAA") proceedings, seeking an order (the "Sanction Order") that, among other things: (i) sanctions the Company's amended plan of compromise, arrangement and reorganization dated January 17, 2022 (the "Plan"); and (ii) extends the stay period in the CCAA proceedings until the date that PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc., in its capacity as court-appointed monitor of the Company (in such capacity, the "Monitor") is discharged by further Court order.

The Company's Sanction Order application is scheduled to be heard by the Court on January 21, 2022. Once granted, the Sanction Order will allow the Company to complete the restructuring transactions contemplated under the Plan and the Acquisition Agreement dated December 17, 2021 between the Company and Glass House Brands Inc. (the "Purchaser") (NEO: GLAS.A.U) (NEO: GLAS.WT.U) (OTCQX: GLASF) (OTCQX: GHBWF), as amended by the Amendment to Acquisition Agreement dated January 17, 2022 (the "Acquisition Agreement").

Pursuant to the Sanction Order, upon implementation of the Plan, and after distributions are made to the Company's noteholders as set forth in the Plan, the Company will distribute common shares of the Purchaser to its securities-holders through Odyssey Trust Company. The details of such distributions, as well as of all distributions proposed to be made to the Company's stakeholders under the Sanction Order, are set forth in the Plan. A copy of the Plan, along with all materials filed by the Company with the Court in support of the Sanction Order application, can be found on the Monitor's website at https://www.pwc.com/ca/plusproducts .

About PLUS

PLUS is a cannabis and hemp food company focused on using nature to bring balance to consumers' lives. PLUS's mission is to make cannabis safe and approachable  that begins with high-quality products that deliver consistent consumer experiences. PLUS is headquartered in San Mateo, CA.

Contacts: Investors: Cole Stewart, Investor Relations, [email protected], Tel +1 213.282.6987

Media: Mattio Communications, Public Relations, [email protected]

SOURCE Plus Products Inc.
NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --

WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of Cloopen Group Holding Limited (NYSE: RAAS): (i) pursuant and/or traceable to the registration statement and prospectus (collectively, the "Registration Statement") issued in connection with the Company's February 2021 initial public offering (the "IPO"); and/or (ii) between February 9, 2021 and May 10, 2021, inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important February 8, 2022 lead plaintiff deadline.

SO WHAT: If you purchased Cloopen securities 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 Cloopen class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2223.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] or [email protected] 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 firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers

DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, the Registration Statement was false and misleading and defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Cloopen's growth strategy was not working; (2) Cloopen's existing customers were abandoning the Company; (3) an increasing number of Cloopen's customers were refusing to pay; (4) as a result, the Company was forced to record massive increases in its accounts receivables and allowance for doubtful accounts; (5) Cloopen was weighed down by huge liabilities related to the fair value of certain recently-granted warrants; (6) defendants continued to misrepresent the Company's expansion strategy; and (7) Cloopen's dollar-based net retention rate had tumbled in 4Q 2020. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.

To join the Cloopen class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2223.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] or [email protected] 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 investor's 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

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

www.rosenlegal.com

SOURCE Rosen Law Firm, P.A.
Shoptalk, the Leading Retail Event in the U.S., Announces Shoptalk Meetup for Women to Be Held June 21-23, 2022 Tweet this

The announcement of the second annual Shoptalk Meetup for Women follows the successful conclusion of the 2021 event, which brought together 1,000 executives from North America for more than 7,000 online meetings.

Shoptalk Meetup for Women represents the continuation of Shoptalk's commitment to supporting and promoting the achievements of women in the retail industry. Other efforts include a commitment to 50/50 gender balance among speakers on the Shoptalk stage (March 27-30, Las Vegas) and partnering with the Women in Retail Leadership Circle on inclusive networking and learning opportunities for the women in our community.

Shoptalk's signature Meetups bring large, curated groups together for double opt-in virtual meetings and peer group discussions. The Meetups have successfully facilitated more than 43,000 online meetings for more than 6,000 participants in the past year.

"Our inaugural Shoptalk Meetup for Women, held last year, was an incredible success, creating a new community of smart, talented and like-minded women," said Krystina Gustafson, Shoptalk and Groceryshop's senior vice president of content. "We're excited to welcome even more women into this community, and to help them build meaningful connections that last well beyond these three days."

Shoptalk Meetup for Women will be the sixth Meetup event hosted by Shoptalk. Upcoming Meetups for 2022 include: Groceryshop Spring Meetup (May 10-12, 2022) and Shoptalk Fall Meetup 2022 (October 18-20,, 2022). The Meetups are in addition to and complement Shoptalk's flagship and renowned in-person events: Shoptalk (March 27-30, 2022, Las Vegas), Shoptalk Europe (June 6-8, 2022, London) and Groceryshop (Sept. 19-22, 2022, Las Vegas).

"Shoptalk's Meetups are unique in their ability to create year-round connections across the retail ecosystem," said Rebecca Sausner, general manager, Shoptalk and Groceryshop. "After the success of Shoptalk Meetup for Women in 2021, we see that the need for a women-led community is more important than ever. Shoptalk's Meetup platform is the easiest way for the industry to connect in 1:1 fashion."

For more information, visit: https://shoptalkwomen.retailmeetup.com/

About Shoptalk

A Hyve Group plc (LSE: HYVE:LN) event, Shoptalk is widely known for organising retail's best and fastest growing events, and bringing together thousands of industry changemakers to collaborate at unparalleled scale across a broad range of online and offline use cases and innovative new formats, including Tabletalks, Hosted Meetings and Meetups. Since 2015, Shoptalk has defined the retail industry's community of innovators by bringing established retailers and brands together with direct-to-consumer and tech startups, large tech and Internet companies, venture capital investors, real estate developers, equity analysts, media and others. For more information, visit www.shoptalk.com.

About Hyve

Hyve Group plc is a next-generation global events business whose purpose is to bring together and connect entire sector ecosystems from all corners of the globe. We meet our customer needs to learn, network and trade via both market leading in-person and online events. Hyve Group plc is all about globally consistent best practice and unrivalled quality. Our vision is to create the world's leading portfolio of content-driven, must-attend events delivering an outstanding experience and ROI for our customers. Hyve's market leading portfolio of global brands include: Shoptalk, Spring Fair, MosBuild, Bett and Mining Indaba.

SOURCE Shoptalk
DENVER, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SmartTab, a startup that's pioneering wireless drug delivery, was selected as a finalist in the Health, Wearables, & Wellbeing category for the 14th annual SXSW Pitch (formerly SXSW Accelerator).

SXSW Pitch is the marquee event of South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference & Festivals (March 11 - 20, 2022) Startups Track , where leading startups from around the world showcase some of the most impressive technology innovations to a panel of hand-picked judges and a live audience. Out of the 655 companies that applied to present at SXSW Pitch 2022, SmartTab was selected among the 50 finalists spanning 10 separate categories.

The two-day event will be held the first weekend of SXSW Conference & Festivals, Saturday, March 12 and Sunday, March 13, on the fourth floor of the Downtown Hilton Austin, Salon D/E. The event will then culminate with the 2022 SXSW Pitch Awards Ceremony on Sunday evening, March 13, where winning startups from each category and a Best in Show winner will be announced and honored.

SmartTab will present among four other companies in the Health, Wearables & Wellbeing category on March 12, 2022.

"We are thrilled to be presenting at the SXSW and honored to be the only Colorado startup selected. This is not only a great opportunity for us, but also the people that suffer from chronic health conditions that we look forward to helping with SmartTab's products." Robert Niichel, Founder & CEO

For more information about SXSW Pitch visit: https://www.sxsw.com/pitch

About SmartTab

Veloce Corporation (dba "SmartTab" or the "Company") is currently engaged in the design, development and validation of next generation ingestible capsule drug delivery systems. Based in Denver, Colorado, it operates from their world-class innovation center for patient-centered delivery systems in various stages of clinical trials and FDA submission.

About SXSW

Founded in 1987 in Austin, Texas, SXSW is best known for its conference and festivals that celebrate the convergence of tech, film, music, education, and culture. An essential destination for global professionals, the annual March event features sessions, music and comedy showcases, film screenings, exhibitions, professional development and a variety of networking opportunities. SXSW 2022 will take place March 11 - 20, 2022. For more information, please visit sxsw.com

SOURCE SmartTab
DALLAS, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TGI Fridays, the world's first and most recognized casual bar and grill, today announced its year-to-date financial results with 41 consecutive weeks of same-store sales growth versus pre-pandemic numbers in 2019 and double-digit growth in the back half of 2021. This industry-leading performance is driven by its digital channels, where year-to-date sales volumes are up 290 percent compared to 2019; new revenue streams through virtual restaurants; and continuing to offer the craveable food guests have come to love.

Fridays made a strategic decision at the start of the pandemic to focus on evolving the restaurant experience so that the chain would exit the pandemic stronger. During the pandemic, Fridays made major investments in digital infrastructure, upgrading their online ordering and Rewards/CRM platforms, as well as making improvements to the Fridays mobile app, all leading to the continued strength of off-premise sales, which now account for 30 percent of the brand's overall sales.

To capitalize on the off-premise revenue stream, Fridays is launching Fridays on the Fly, a small-format restaurant concept that in addition to in-restaurant dining will highlight the rising consumer demand for its delivery and takeout. This new format will not only accommodate the Fridays customer but also their virtual brands.

"Now that we've sustained strong off-premise growth, we can continue our efforts evolving the Fridays experience to meet customer trends, both in-restaurant and off-site," said Ray Blanchette, CEO of TGI Fridays. "For example, our new Remixed and Remastered menu brings back Fridays fan favorites while adding modern twists. Listening to what our customers want is key to our success."

Fridays also explored new streams by creating and launching several virtual restaurants, most recently partnering C3 (Creating Culinary Communities), the fastest-growing food-tech platform with a portfolio of more than 40 culinary brands. As part of the groundbreaking partnership between Fridays and C3, Fridays will offer C3's Krispy Rice on third-party delivery partners, Fridays.com, and in dining rooms. Additionally, the partnership will provide Fridays access to C3's proprietary Go by Citizens app, which provides a digital culinary market experience where consumers can order from multiple C3 digital restaurant brands in one transaction, with no hidden delivery fees. Fridays now has more than 2,000 digital storefronts across online ordering and third-party delivery providers.

Despite the pandemic, Fridays continues to grow, signing a deal with Reef Technology to launch as many as 300 delivery restaurants in the United States, Canada and elsewhere internationally over the next five years. In fact, Fridays opened 24 restaurants internationally in places like Australia, Europe, South America, and the Middle East during the pandemic and is projected to open 28 more in 2022.

"This was another strong year for Fridays. For the past six months, we recorded sales volumes on a same store basis that have exceeded pre-pandemic levels and have consistently beat the casual dining industry average," said Blanchette. "We're essentially stronger now than before the pandemic and our strong sales and traffic have reaffirmed the power of the TGI Fridays brand. Not only are we seeing existing guests visit more frequently and lapsed guests return, but an entirely new group of guests are joining the Fridays fan base."

Looking ahead, Fridays will continue to build off the transformative success of the past two years by developing innovative tableside and digital experiences, where guests can enjoy unique and memorable moments, both in-restaurant and off-premise. To learn more information about Fridays or find a location, visit Fridays.com.

About TGI Fridays

As the world's first casual bar and grill, TGI Fridays is the birthplace of fun, freedom, and celebration, bringing people together to socialize and experience "That Fridays Feeling;" a sense of celebrating the fun in everyday moments, big and small. For over 50 years, Fridays has been lifting spirits around the world with nearly 700 restaurants in 54 countries, serving high-quality, classic American food and iconic drinks backed by authentic and genuine service. Visit www.Fridays.com for more information and join Fridays Rewards. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

SOURCE TGI Fridays
WHEELING, W.Va., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- West Virginia has broken new ground in school choice, and families will be celebrating expanded learning opportunities this School Choice Week at an inaugural school fair in Wheeling.

The school choice fair will showcase more than a dozen schools and learning organizations, including public schools and private schools.

WHAT:

Inaugural school choice fair

Children's activities, including face painting and a photo booth

Scavenger hunt for a chance to receive a scholarship

Free dyslexia screenings

WHO:

More than a dozen public and private schools

Wheeling area families and community members

WHEN:

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday . Jan. 22

WHERE:

Oglebay Resort's Pine Room, 465 Lodge Dr. in Wheeling .

The school fair is being organized by the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy, in partnership with West Virginia Voices for Education Choices.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
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 Executive Summary

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 Category Ecosystem

 Category Management Strategy

 Category Management Enablers

 Suppliers Selection

 Suppliers under Coverage

 US Market Insights

 Category scope

 Appendix

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SOURCE SpendEdge
Students are encouraged to enter early. A Random Drawing will be held this year at the conclusion of the contest. Prizes will be awarded for First Place, Second Place, Third Place, and a prize for the most Creative content. Those winners' handwriting will be reviewed for legibility and neatness. One of each prize per grades 1 through 8 will be awarded.

"Every year our judges look forward to reading entries because kids' points of view are not only entertaining but also often enlightening," remarked Lauren Mooney Bear, Campaign for Cursive Chair.

The annual cursive contest has many supporters. In Canada they include Laywine's and Zebra Pen (Canada). A new supporter last year is Blind Pig Press. For the USA contest, supporters continue to grow, with Amsterdam Printing, Cursive Logic, Dixon Ticonderoga, Fahrney's Pens, Itoya, Louise Borden Author, Monkey Magnets, Caran D'ache, Colombia City Ninja School, New American Cursive, PEN World, Sakura and Writing Academy. New this year are; The City of Oroville, Washington Chamber of Commerce, Double Flush Stables, a non-profit rescue in Davie FL, Clairemont Act One, C.A.O. a non-profit theatre troupe in San Diego CA, Seth Wells, Recording Artist in Seattle Washington, Monroe Pizza and Pints in Monroe Washington, I AM Frequencies in Phoenix AZ, Brooklyn's Furry Friends, B.F.F.s, dog walking service, in Brooklyn NY. People and businesses from the four corners of the US are enthusiastic about supporting the Cursive Is Cool contest.

According to Sheila Lowe, President of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation, "The good news from an informal survey indicates that more than half the states require at least some cursive writing training in public schools. Legislation is spending in six more. Only ten states have zero requirement to teach their students to write."

USA and Canadian contest dates are January 23 through April 8, 2022.

For more information, contact Lauren Mooney Bear: [email protected]

Learn more: https://www.campaignforcursive.com/.

"You don't have to be the best writer this year

To win a prize that will bring you cheer.

Entering is the main thing to do

To win a prize to be sent to you!"

About the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation:

The Foundation is a 501-(c)6 non-profit organization, chartered and incorporated in California, and are the sponsors of Campaign for Cursive, and will graciously accept donations.

Visit https://www.ahafhandwriting.org/.

This release was issued through Send2Press, a unit of Neotrope. For more information, visit Send2Press Newswire at https://www.Send2Press.com.

SOURCE American Handwriting Analysis Foundation
ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the structural weaknesses of the health systems in Africa, chairperson of the African Union Commission (AU) said on Thursday.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the 55-member pan-African bloc, made the remarks while addressing the two-day ordinary session of the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) of the AU.

"The COVID-19 pandemic, beyond its disastrous health and socio-economic effects, has, above all, shed light on the structural weaknesses of our health systems in Africa," Mahamat said.

The PRC is holding its two-day sessions, from Thursday, under the theme of the year, "Building resilience in nutrition on the African continent: Accelerate the Human Capital, Social and Economic Development."

Mahamat told envoys of African countries to consider initiatives that would enhance the health systems in Africa.

"The attention you will have to give to the modalities of operationalization of the Africa CDC, to the partnerships in the manufacture of vaccines and to the quantitative aspect of the instruments of ratification for the establishment of the Africa Medicines Agency, will certainly facilitate the initiation of a break from the currently dominant pattern and to place Africa in a renewed approach to health issues," he said.

The PRC meeting, which brings together envoys of African countries virtually, is expected to consider draft agenda and draft decisions of the 40th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council and agenda of the 35th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly, slated to be held from Feb. 2-3 and 5-6, respectively. 
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Breaking research published today in AACC's Clinical Chemistry journal shows that a new test can measure the amount of DNA damage in sperm with greater accuracy than current tests. This new method could significantly improve diagnosis of male infertility, which is more important than ever now that infertility rates are mounting.

View the full study here: https://doi.org/10.1093/clinchem/hvab280

Due to a number of factors such as the widespread use of hormone-altering chemicals, infertility has been climbing at an alarming rate worldwide. The global incidence of infertility is now 10%-15%, with male factor infertility accounting for 40% of these cases. The rise in male infertility in particular has led to a need for better ways to assess sperm DNA damage, as this information plays a crucial role in guiding fertility treatments and in selecting high-quality sperm for sperm banks. However, current tests only show whether or not sperm have DNA damage; these tests don't measure the amount of damage, even though the latter is essential for a complete evaluation of sperm health.

To address this issue, a team of researchers led by Xianjin Xiao, PhD, of Tongji Medical College in Wuhan, China, developed a method that detects the number of DNA breaks in sperm, which in turn enables the calculation of the mean number of DNA breaks (MDB) per sperm in a sample. The researchers first evaluated this method using sperm samples from 80 patients, 34 of whom had athenospermia (low sperm motility) and 46 of whom had normal semen. Xiao's team compared the ability of MDB to differentiate between athenospermia and normal samples with that of a conventional sperm DNA test that assesses the sperm DNA fragmentation index (DFI). From this, the researchers found that the area under the curve of MDB (0.7932) was higher than that of DFI (0.7631), meaning that MDB did a better job of telling the two sample types apart.

To further evaluate MDB's clinical utility, Xiao's team then used it and DFI to assess 49 semen samples, 22 of which were associated with pregnancy and 27 of which were linked to an inability to get pregnant. The researchers found that the difference in MDB between the pregnant and non-pregnant groups was statistically significant (P=0.0106), while the difference in DFI between the two groups was not significant (P=0.0548). Furthermore, the area under the curve of MDB in this case (0.7576) was once again higher than the area under the curve of DFI (0.6616). Taken altogether, this means that MDB identifies viable sperm that lead to pregnancy with greater accuracy than conventional sperm DNA tests.

"These data indicated that the MDB parameter had stronger clinical relevance with the pregnancy outcomes and our established method could provide a better tool to evaluate sperm quality and male fertility," said Xiao. "Our method involves direct detection of actual DNA fragmentation, which can measure the specific degree of sperm DNA fragmentation. The method has the advantages of short time-consumption, simple operation, high analytical sensitivity, and low requirement for instruments, which are conducive to the popularization of clinical application."

About AACC

Dedicated to achieving better health through laboratory medicine, AACC brings together more than 50,000 clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and business leaders from around the world focused on clinical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, translational medicine, lab management, and other areas of progressing laboratory science. Since 1948, AACC has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing programs that advance scientific collaboration, knowledge, expertise, and innovation. For more information, visit www.aacc.org .

Clinical Chemistry (clinchem.org) is the leading international journal of laboratory medicine, featuring nearly 400 peer-reviewed studies every year that help patients get accurate diagnoses and essential care. This vital research is advancing areas of healthcare ranging from genetic testing and drug monitoring to pediatrics and appropriate test utilization.

Christine DeLong

AACC

Senior Manager, Communications & PR

(p) 202.835.8722

[email protected]

Molly Polen

AACC

Senior Director, Communications & PR

(p) 202.420.7612

(c) 703.598.0472

[email protected]

SOURCE AACC
MEXICO CITY, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Grupo Aeromexico, S.A.B. de C.V. ("Aeromexico" or the "Company") (BMV: AEROMEX) informs that the Bankruptcy Court announced that it will enter an order granting the Company's motion to enforce a court order requiring certain parties to vote their claims to accept the Company's Plan of Reorganization (the "Plan"). As a result, all eight classes of creditors entitled to vote on the Plan (including the unsecured creditors of Aerovias Empresa de Cargo, S.A. de C.V) have voted to accept the Plan, with approximately 88% by amount of claims voting in favor. Previously, seven of the eight classes (totaling approximately 86% by amount of claims) had voted to accept the Plan. The Court hearing to consider confirmation of the Plan is scheduled to begin on January 27, 2022.

Aeromexico continues working with all of its key stakeholders to obtain Court approval of the Plan and emerge from Chapter 11 as expeditiously as possible following the Effective Date under the Plan. Importantly, at the Shareholders Meeting held on January 14, 2022, the Company adopted the corporate resolutions required to effectuate the Plan, which are subject to the occurrence of the Effective Date of the Plan.

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements that reflect the current views and/or expectations of the Company and its management with respect to its performance, business and future events. We use words such as "believe," "anticipate," "plan," "expect,", "intend," "target," "estimate," "project," "predict," "forecast," "guideline," "should" and other similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements, but they are not the only way we identify such statements. Such statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. We caution you that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in this release. The Company is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Grupo Aeromexico: Grupo Aeromexico, S.A.B. de C.V. is a holding company whose subsidiaries are engaged in commercial aviation in Mexico and the promotion of passenger loyalty programs. Aeromexico, Mexico's global airline, has its main operations center in Terminal 2 of the Mexico City International Airport. Its destination network has reach in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Central America, South America, Asia and Europe. The Group's current operating fleet includes Boeing 787 and 737 aircraft, as well as the latest generation Embraer 190. Aeromexico is a founding partner of SkyTeam, an alliance that celebrates 20 years and offers connectivity in more than 170 countries, through the 19 partner airlines. Aeromexico created and implemented a Health and Hygiene Management System (SGSH) to protect its clients and collaborators at all stages of its operation.

www.aeromexico.com www.skyteam.com

SOURCE Grupo Aeromexico, S.A.B. de C.V.
KIRKLAND, Wash., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, INRIX, Inc., a leader in transportation analytics and connected car services, announced that agencies in 12 states who collectively monitor nearly 40,000 signalized intersections are leveraging INRIX Signal Analytics to make managing signal and corridor performance easier, faster and cheaper. Signal Analytics delivers unsurpassed intersection and corridor analytics in an easy to use yet powerful cloud-based platform designed for all levels of traffic professionals  management, engineering, operations, and maintenance.

Washington County Department of Land Use and Transportation (DLUT) in the Portland, Oregon metro area looked to INRIX to prioritize system enhancements, saving time and dollars while providing accurate and scalable performance measures. The City of Austin is adjusting signal timing to reduce delay as traffic volumes and patterns shift throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Washington State Department of Transportation is in the process of conducting "before and after" studies of a new Adaptive Signal System to quantify benefits. Others leveraging Signal Analytics include agencies in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Rhode Island, and Washington.

"Signal Analytics has allowed us to quantitatively verify issues and measure improvement after signal retiming, and in our evaluation resulted in 30% reduction in delay," said Shaun Quayle, P.E., Senior Traffic Engineer at Washington County DLUT. "INRIX makes it a lot easier for agencies to conduct signal analysis, a process that historically relies on counts and modelling. Why model when you can measure performance with real insights?"

Signal Analytics is the industry's first intersection analytics platform based exclusively on anonymous connected vehicle data that directly measures the performance of all vehicle movements and all signalized intersections. With more than 160 million observed vehicle crossings daily, Signal Analytics calculates for industry-defined metrics including control delay, split failures, arrival on green percentages, intersection speeds/travel times, turn ratios and volume at a vastly lower cost than instrumenting an intersection. Systemwide summary metrics are updated daily and presented in an intuitive, web-based application available through INRIX IQ, a SaaS application suite for uncovering mobility insights.

Signal Analytics provides metrics necessary for operators to fully understand performance to find and reduce excessive network delay on more than 240,000 signalized intersections across the United States. Customizable daily reports and dashboards highlight key metrics, problems and trends for intersections and corridors across a road network. In-depth searches and advanced functionality, such as user-defined date(s) for individual vehicle movement, leverage the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) Laboratory at the University of Maryland's powerful Regional Integrated Transportation Information System (RITIS) platform.

"Every transportation agency in America now has the ability to monitor and manage the performance of their entire traffic signals system without hardware. Agencies can prioritize system enhancements, saving time, money, and the environment," said Scott Sedlik, senior vice president and general manager of public sector at INRIX.

Reducing excessive delay has a direct and immediate benefit of reducing carbon emissions from unnecessary idling at intersections. INRIX calculated each one second of delay reduced across signals nationwide would translate into 800,000 fewer metric tons of CO2 emitted annually. The recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Law contains more than $1.2 billion annually for DOTs to reduce the surface transportation system's carbon footprint. Signal Analytics is a cost-effective tool to reduce emissions immediately and ensure continued emission reductions by eliminating needless vehicle idling. Signal Analytics qualifies under multiple eligible project categories of this new Carbon Reduction Program.

To learn more about how INRIX Signal Analytics can find and reduce excessive delays and emissions, please visit https://inrix.com/products/signal-analytics/.

About INRIX

INRIX is a global leader in connected car services and mobility analytics. We help cities and businesses use big data to identify and solve transportation problems, making the world safer, happier and greener. Our partners are automakers, governments, retailers, insurance agencies, advertisers and dozens of other industries that can benefit from understanding how people and vehicles move. Learn more at INRIX.com.

SOURCE INRIX
LEHI, Utah, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Aktify Inc., a conversational collective intelligence (CI) platform for enterprise businesses, recently won the Canopus Vega Digital Award for Marketing. This award was achieved, surpassing 1,392 other qualified entries. Aktify's conversational AI engine is the product being recognized. It is used by marketing and sales teams across various industries around the country by using AI to start conversations between brands and consumers, the end goal being to connect the two and create a transaction.

Aktify wins the Canopus Vega Digital Award for its conversational intelligence platform used by marketing teams across the nation.

"Aktify has come a long way in its short lifetime," Craig Daly, CRO of Aktify stated. "What started out with just a few employees just over a year ago is now listed among other winning giants like State Farm, AARP and Blue Cross Blue Shield as a Vega Digital Award winner. We're grateful for the recognition and I'm excited for what's coming next on Aktify's journey."

The Vega Digital Awards leverages on its host, the International Awards Associate (IAA) to capture the attention of the creative digital media industry worldwide. "Given the context of recent events, seeing these brilliant minds at work convinces me that the digital medium is undoubtedly the future," Kenjo Ong, CEO of IAA remarked. "If this is the level of excellence while we are still in the 'new normal', it excites me to think about what the future holds."

IAA invited 26 recognized professionals from 13 different countries as the industry jurors to guarantee impartiality and high standards of assessment. The jury was responsible for selecting the best from among the applications. Their assessments propell the industry ahead, as these works become benchmarks of excellence and establish best practice standards. Blind judging was exercised to keep the competition unbiased and jurors assessed each entry purely on its own merits.

"It is humbling to see talented individuals thriving in their craft despite the pandemic," Ong noted. "Excellence pushes people towards greatness in spite of adversity, and Aktify certainly captured that notion of excellence."

About Aktify

Aktify is a conversational intelligence company that connects brands to consumers. It solves the pervasive sales team problem of not being able to scale communication because of resource limitations. Robust data science is used to serve customers with thoughtful and dynamic conversations. By managing leads through a CRM or MAP integration, Aktify creates millions of weekly conversations through SMS and phone calls, delivering a 10x ROI to clients. Sales teams no longer need to spend time calling and emailing leads to get a live conversation scheduled - Aktify has it covered.

Although there are many use cases for Aktify's platform, the largest value Aktify customers see comes from stalled or "dead" leads that have not responded to representatives for a significant amount of time. Lead acquisition is expensive, so Aktify takes on those "worthless" leads and uses SMS AI to re-engage conversations and get them on the phone with a sales agent. Essentially, Aktify's AI platform creates revenue from dead leads.

To learn more about Aktify and how AI is changing the way companies intentionally converse with their customers, schedule a demo today at https://aktify.com/get-demo

Engage with us: LinkedIn , Instagram , Facebook , Twitter , Blog

SOURCE Aktify
PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Animal Vaccines Market by Type (Attenuated Vaccines, Inactivated Vaccines, Subunit Vaccines, Toxoid Vaccines, Conjugate Vaccines, Recombinant Vaccines, and DNA Vaccines) and Animal Type (Companion Animal, Livestock Animal, and Aquaculture): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030." According to the report, the global animal vaccines industry garnered $9.09 billion in 2020, and is estimated to generate $15.20 billion by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 5.2% from 2021 to 2030.

For Right Perspective and Competitive Insights, Get Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/1988

Drivers, Restraints, and Opportunities

Increase in demand for pet insurance, surge in prevalence of animal diseases, rise in expenditure for animal health, and increase in ownership of companion animals propel the global animal vaccines market growth. However, highly competitive meat and milk prices and fatal effects of veterinary vaccines on human and animal health restrain the market growth. Contrarily, advancements in vaccine products and increase in demand for hybrid animal present new opportunities in coming years.

Covid-19 Scenario

The Covid-19 pandemic impacted the animal vaccine market negatively. The veterinary organizations recommended restraints on animal patient care and postponed the surgery of animals with mild illnesses. However, surgeries and vaccination procedures of acutely ill animals were carried out.

The lockdown measures led to postponement of annual checkups and elective vaccination processes. However, the supply of animal vaccines led to disruptions due to challenges in supply chain.

The attenuated vaccines segment to continue its lead position during the forecast period

Based on product, the attenuated vaccines segment accounted for the largest market share in 2020, contributing to nearly two-fifths of the global animal vaccines market, and is estimated to maintain its lead position by 2030. This is due to presence of advanced technologies for specific mutations/deletions in the virus genes. However, the DNA vaccines segment is expected to register the fastest CAGR of 8.1% during the forecast period, owing to surge in prevalence of animal diseases and ease in manipulation in comparison to traditional vaccines.

Do You Have Any Query Or Specific Requirement? Ask to Our Industry Expert: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/1988

The livestock segment to continue its leadership status in terms of revenue by 2030

Based on animal type, the livestock animal segment held nearly than two-thirds of the global animal vaccines market in 2020, and is expected to maintain its leadership status based in terms of revenue by 2030. This is attributed to increase in the prevalence of infectious diseases among livestock animals and rise in awareness about immunization. However, the companion animal segment is projected to portray the largest CAGR of 5.5% during the forecast period, owing to rise in awareness regarding medical illnesses & ailments of companion animals and surge in animal healthcare expenditure worldwide.

North America to maintain its highest contribution throughout the forecast period

Based on region, North America contributed to the highest market share in 2020, accounting for nearly two-fifths of the total market share of the global animal vaccines market, and is estimated maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. This is attributed to already-established veterinary organizational structures and concerns regarding animal health among people. However, Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest CAGR of 5.9% during the forecast period, owing to rise in need of livestock protection from mass wipeouts with the outbreak of epidemics.

Leading Market Players

Merck & Co., Inc.

Zoetis Inc.

Ceva Sante Animale

Sanofi S.A.

Romvac

Vaxxinova

Biovac

Merial

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH

Anicon Labor GmbH

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"We have also published few syndicated market studies in the similar area that might be of your interest. Below are the report title for your reference, considering Impact of Covid-19 Over This Market which will help you to assess aftereffects of pandemic on short-term and long-term growth trends of this market."

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Veterinary Pain Management Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202030

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About Us

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Contact:

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United States

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SOURCE Allied Market Research
NEW DELHI, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ashraya, a non-profit society founded in 1997 to give aid to development projects in education and healthcare for the underprivileged, has entered into an agreement with Edufront Technologies Private Limited whereby Ashraya will support 10,000 students using Edufront's technology and model for the next 5 years.

Ashraya will provide the hardware and digital learning ecosystem that Edufront has developed to offer schools a comprehensive and holistic solution.

Ashraya plans to allocate up to 60 crore INR in leveraging Edufront's model and technology to nurture underprivileged students across schools in rural India, especially in the states of Rajasthan, Jammu, and Uttar Pradesh. The schools will be chosen by Edufront, based on whether they meet the criteria to be included under Edufront's rural school transformation model.

The Digital Learning Ecosystem of Edufront offers schools the advantages of automating key school management functionalities: an intuitive, easy-to-use and powerful operating system for learning is coupled to a comprehensive educational resource management system.

This helps schools organise all their activities in real time through a common platform while making effectual learning readily available to anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Edufront offers solutions mapped to NCERT curricula for classes K to 12 with an eye to making learning more proactive, collaborative, and personalised.It also has content mapped to 29 state boards and can be adapted to the needs of school systems.

Edufront co-founder Shantanu Jha, discussing the new partnership, stated that "It is our pleasure and honor to work with Ashraya, which has done laudable work for the underprivileged over the past two decades. Edufront was founded with a vision to create technology and opportunities for those with a paucity of access to them. Ashraya's support is a great first step in our shared goal of transforming life outcomes for the groups who need it most."

On this occasion, Rabi Satpathy, Ashraya advisor and spokesperson, said "We are very glad and grateful to support Edufront's noble initiatives in education. We stand in solidarity with Edufront in its future endeavours."

Related Links:

Edufront.co.in

Ashraya.co.in

SOURCE Edufront Foundation
TOKYO, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Aucnet Inc. (hereinafter "Aucnet"), based in Tokyo, Japan, announced that it has joined the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (hereinafter "MOBI") headquartered in Los Angeles in the U.S. state of California, a global nonprofit consortium that develops blockchain-based technologies and standards for next-generation mobility. Through its participation in MOBI, Aucnet seeks to contribute to a sustainable society by developing circular distribution platforms for electric vehicles (EVs) and their batteries.

Aucnet launched the world's first real-time virtual used-car auction in 1985. Based on its philosophy of "Shaping the Future of Commerce," Aucnet has expanded beyond used cars to create circular distribution platforms for a wide variety of industries, including digital products, motorcycles, luxury brand items, flowers, and medical equipment. To enable remote transactions with peace of mind, Aucnet has developed industry-leading de facto standard inspection and grading systems for each of its product lines. In the automobile business, Aucnet inspects and grades more than one million used cars per year through its subsidiary AIS Inc., which was established with investments from Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda and Subaru.

Founded in 2018, MOBI is a global nonprofit alliance of more than 100 companies and organizations, including the world's largest vehicle manufacturers, along with startups, NGOs, transit agencies, insurers, toll road providers, smart city leaders, and technology companies. MOBI's mission is to create standards and build the digital infrastructure for connected vehicles and IoT commerce in order to accelerate the adoption of blockchain/DLT and make transportation more efficient, equitable, decentralized, and sustainable.

2021 saw an unprecedented shift towards EVs in the new vehicle market, with numerous vehicle manufacturers and governments having committed to increase the uptake of EVs. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years and to flow on to the used-vehicle market in the near future. MOBI provides Aucnet the opportunity to collaborate with leading organizations around the world to be at the forefront of the development of inspection technologies and circular distribution platforms for EVs and their batteries. Aucnet's systems will facilitate transparent transactions of used EVs and enable the efficient reuse of lithium-ion batteries, thereby contributing to the achievement of the U.N.-led Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

- MOBI overview

Organization name: Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative

Established: May 2, 2018

Headquarters: Los Angeles, California, USA

Representatives: Chris Ballinger, Tram Vo

URL: https://dlt.mobi/

- Aucnet profile

Company name: Aucnet Inc.

Headquarters: 2-5-8 Kita-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8349, Japan

Representatives: Kiyotaka Fujisaki, Chairman and CEO; Shinichiro Fujisaki, President and COO

Established: June 29, 1985

Capital: 1,765 million yen (as of December 31, 2020)

Consolidated sales: 24,078 million yen (fiscal year ending December 2020)

Number of consolidated employees: 821 (as of December 31, 2020)

Business overview: Information-based distribution support service businesses such as hosting and operating auctions using the Internet

Stock information: First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Securities Code: 3964)

URL: https://www.aucnet.co.jp/

SDGs policy: https://www.aucnet.co.jp/SDGs/en/

SOURCE Aucnet Inc.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA) announced that West Palm Beach, Fla. and Colo. auto dealer Michael E. Maroone is the recipient of the 2022 David F. Mungenast Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is presented by AIADA's board of directors annually to an industry leader who possesses a similar community spirit and devotion to the auto industry as its namesake.

Mike Maroone

"Mike perfectly embodies the community-minded, forward-thinking spirit of this award," said AIADA President and CEO Cody Lusk. "The auto retail industry in the U.S. owes a great deal of thanks to Mike and dealers like him who have spent their careers improving the lives of others and raising the bar for how vehicles are sold in the U.S."

Maroone got his start in auto retailing in 1975, where he joined his father, Al Maroone, with the New York and Florida-based Maroone Auto Group. Under their leadership the group grew to nine franchises in six locations with 900 associates. In 1997 Maroone began an 18-year career as president, COO, and director of AutoNation, Inc., a Fortune 500 automotive retailer. In 2017 he returned to auto retailing, founding Maroone USA, where he now serves as CEO, operating automotive franchises in West Palm Beach, Fla.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Longmont, Colo. Today his brands include Chevrolet, Honda, Ford and Volkswagen.

Supporting the community has always been a cornerstone for Maroone. He is a member of various boards and organizations, including the Cleveland Clinic enterprise board of directors and the board of Cleveland Clinic Florida where he serves as chairman. The Maroone Cancer Center is located at Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Fla.

"It's an honor to be receiving this prestigious award," said Maroone. "For more than 45 years, it has been our family's passion to be the best place to work and shop. We believe deeply in developing our associates to deliver the best automotive experience and value to our guests as well as partnering with the communities we serve through our philanthropic efforts. We look forward to continuing this tradition for many years to come."

Recognition of his contributions to the automotive industry include being honored by Automotive News as an All-Star and one of the industry's 50 Visionary Dealers of all time, receiving Time Magazine's Quality Dealer Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Boca Raton Concours d'Elegance. Florida Atlantic University honored Maroone as Entrepreneur of the Year and he is a member of the Nova Southeastern University Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.

Maroone will be presented with the David F. Mungenast Lifetime Achievement Award on March 13,2022, in Las Vegas. Nev. during AIADA's 52nd Annual Meeting and Luncheon. For more on the event, please visit AIADA.org/events.

Maroone USA is a diversified company whose holdings include six dealerships in Florida and Colorado. For further information visit: www.MikeMarooneChevrolet.com and www.MikeMarooneColorado.com

PRESS CONTACT:

Slatkow & Husak Public Relations

Heather Vidulich

[email protected]

561-278-0850 x2

SOURCE Mike Maroone
MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- JobTrain, a Silicon Valley nonprofit that works to transform lives through workforce development programs and career placement services, received a $1,000,000 grant from Bank of America. The grant will help fund the construction of their new Center for Economic Mobility in East Palo Alto, which will expand career training, job placement, rapid employment services, and support services to low-income communities within San Mateo County and Santa Clara Counties.

Bank of America has supported JobTrain for decades, and its recent national $1.25 billion commitment to advance racial and ethnic equality, and create economic opportunity, has sent a strong message of how major companies in the region can do more to support underserved communities. This $1 million grant to JobTrain is one of the largest the bank has awarded in Silicon Valley.

Bank of America's increased commitment to support workforce development could not come at a more critical time as the community looks towards economic recovery. Prior to the pandemic, the average annual income for the Bay Area region was $140,000, yet the median household income of East Palo Alto, a community JobTrain serves, was only $52,716. The pandemic exacerbated this gap as communities of color were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. A JobTrain survey found that 75% of clients had either lost their jobs, had reduced hours, or someone in their household had lost their job. Adding to their challenges, 63% worried about housing and missed rent or mortgage payments over the last 22 months. The New Center for Economic Mobility will allow JobTrain to expand its capacity and scope of services, as well as convene employers, community service providers and access to public sector services to deliver innovative programs and collaboration.

"Bank of America's grant of $1,000,000 and its partnership with JobTrain to serve the community is a tremendous moment for JobTrain," said Barrie Hathaway, JobTrain President and CEO. "The Center in East Palo Alto will provide more services to the community than ever before, and JobTrain's vision of clients reaching full economic mobility is at the forefront."

"Bank of America shares JobTrain's mission of making financial lives better. As the region continues to make its way through the impacts of Covid-19, we are committed to creating an equitable recovery for those most impacted by the pandemic," said Raquel Gonzalez, President, Bank of America Silicon Valley. "JobTrain's new East Palo Alto center will provide valuable job skills training and career pathways for thousands of people in the community for years to come."

Hathaway continued, "With expanded partners in the building, increased services, and an innovation center, the new Center will help the community thrive, and we are grateful to Bank of America for this incredible support."

JobTrain

JobTrain is a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational and training institution accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. JobTrain's programs combine career training, academics, and essential skills development, preparing students to turn their lives aroundfrom unemployment and poverty to success and self-sufficiency. Partnerships with employers ensure that students receive the training they need so that businesses can find motivated workers who are well trained for their jobs. For over 55 years, JobTrain has been adapting to meet current employment needs. Since its inception, more than 190,000 low-income individuals and their families have benefited from JobTrain's programs.

Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world's leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 67 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,200 retail financial centers, approximately 16,000 ATMs, and award-winning digital banking with approximately 41 million active users, including approximately 33 million mobile users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business households through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and approximately 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Reporters may contact:



Patty Rally, JobTrain

Phone: 1.650.330.6429



Colleen Haggerty, Bank of America

Phone: 1.213.621.7414

[email protected]

SOURCE Bank of America Corporation
LEUVEN, Belgium, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Brikl , the world's leading MicroStore e-commerce software platform for custom, promotional businesses, and suppliers, has opened its newest office in Cincinnati, Ohioa highly celebrated metro area in the USA for business expansion. Moreover, its recent incorporation solidifies its strategic ambitions for its North American market takeover.

Brikl's recent investment has accelerated its growth and resource requirements. In addition to its headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, and burgeoning engineering hub in Bangkok, Thailand, Brikl's new Cincinnati office space triples the office footprint and supports its growth strategy.

"Cincinnati is an area rich with talent from prestigious companies and universities and a thriving center for service and manufacturing companies. As we continue building our supplier and workwear networks, our presence here is logical and essential to the next phase in our journey. And a physical showcase of our commitment to service future and current markets," Jason Reinhardt, Brikl's CCO, comments. "We're more than ready, dedicated, and primed for the next stage in our growth strategy. We honestly couldn't be more excited about what's to come."

Brikl, the leading next-generation MicroStore software platform was founded in 2016 by Maarten Boone, Tobias Meixner, and Jason Reinhardt. Their vision was to streamline the way businesses sell custom products online by allowing them to set up MicroStores in under 15 minutes and expedite the design process through placeholders, embellishment tools and 3D visualization. For more information, visit www.brikl.com .

Media Contact:

Suz Pathmanathan

512-777-5577

[email protected]

SOURCE Brikl
Both the U.S. and Japan also are concerned about China's increasing aggression toward Taiwan. China claims self-governing Taiwan as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. In recent months, it has stepped up military exercises near the island, frequently sending warplanes near Taiwan's airspace.

North Korea's Kim Jong-un on Thursday presided over a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers Party at which officials set policy goals for "immediately bolstering" military capabilities to counter what were described as the Americans' "hostile moves," according to the North's Korean Central News Agency.

The virtual meeting comes after North Korea earlier this week suggested it might resume nuclear and long-range missile testing that has been paused for more than three years.

President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began their first formal talks on Friday as they face fresh concerns about North Korea's nuclear program and China's growing military assertiveness.

Japan remains concerned about China intentions in the South China Sea, where it has stepped up its military presence in recent years, and the East China Sea, where there is a long-running dispute about a group of uninhabited islets administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.

White House officials said the two leaders were also expected to discuss ongoing efforts in the COVID-19 pandemic and the brewing crisis in eastern Europe, where Russia has massed some 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine. Biden earlier this week said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to order a further invasion of Ukrainian territory but he did not think Putin wanted an all-out war.

Japanese officials said Kishida, who is from Hiroshima, on which the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb at the end of the World War II, is eager to discuss a "world without nuclear weapons" during the summit.

Biden and top aides have sought to rally the support of NATO partners and other allies to respond with harsh sanctions against Russia if it moves forward with military action.

On Thursday, in preparation for the leaders' call, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his Japanese counterpart, Takeo Akiba, held their own call to discuss North Korea, China and "the importance of solidarity in signaling to Moscow the strong, united response that would result from any attack" on Ukraine, according to the White House.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also held virtual talks earlier this month with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, where China's military maneuvering and North Korea's nuclear program were discussed.

Friday's virtual meeting is the first substantial exchange between the leaders since Kishida took office in October last year. The leaders had a brief conversation on the sidelines of a climate summit in Glasgow in November. Biden was the first leader to call Kishida, on the morning of his first full day in office. Biden, who has sought to put greater focus on the Indo-Pacific amid China's rise as a world power, had built a warm relationship with Japan's last prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, and is hoping to build a similar rapport with Kishida.
BRAZZAVILLE, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Republic of the Congo has received 200,000 additional doses of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine from the Chinese government.

Jean-Ignace Tendelet, chief of staff at the Congolese Ministry of Health, thanked the Chinese government for its generous donations.

The series of assistance to Africa announced by China at the 8th Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) have once again manifested the resolve of Africa-China solidarity and mutual support, Tendelet said, adding that China's continuous supply of vaccines also reflects the profound friendship between the peoples of both countries.

Max Henri Monka, chief of staff at the Congolese Ministry of International Cooperation who also welcomed the arrival of the Chinese donation late Thursday, said ties with China have been developing steadily since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1964.

He thanked China for the many batches of assistance in vaccines and other medical supplies since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Monka said the Chinese vaccines are safe and effective and have been validated by the World Health Organization, urging the people of the Republic of the Congo to get vaccinated so that herd immunity can be achieved as soon as possible against COVID-19.

Ma Fulin, Chinese ambassador to the Republic of the Congo, said China's donation of COVID-19 vaccines to African countries shows its determination to promote the "nine programs" in Sino-Africa cooperation and build an even stronger China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era.

The nine programs cover medicine and health, poverty reduction and agricultural development, trade promotion, investment promotion, digital innovation, green development, capacity-building, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and peace and security.

Ma said China will continue to offer necessary assistance to help the Republic of the Congo combat COVID-19, stressing that no country can get out of this pandemic on its own.

China was the first foreign country to donate COVID-19 vaccines to the Republic of the Congo, which received the first batch of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines in March 2021. 
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Preschool through sixth grade students from West Hollywood, California, will have an opportunity next week to hear from NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The Earth-to-space call will air live at noon EST Monday, Jan. 24, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency's website.

NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Mark Vande Hei will answer prerecorded questions from students at the Center for Early Education. The downlink will emphasize curricular activities students have engaged in by providing the unique opportunity to pursue their curiosity about space exploration directly with NASA professionals.

The event will be virtual. Media interested in covering the event should contact Jessica Levin at: 323-651-0707 x140 or [email protected].

Linking students directly to astronauts aboard the space station provides unique, authentic experiences designed to enhance student learning, performance, and interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Astronauts living in space aboard the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through the Space Network's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS).

For more than 21 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing the skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Through Artemis, the agency will send astronauts to the Moon, with eventual human exploration of Mars. Inspiring the next generation of explorers  the Artemis Generation  ensures America will continue to lead in space exploration and discovery.

See videos and lesson plans highlighting research on the International Space Station at:

https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation

SOURCE NASA
He said the most urgent thing to do now is to restore cellular and internet services.

Recall of eruption

Zhao described what he experienced after the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, which some have dubbed a once-in-a-millennium event.

"About 5 p.m., the eruption happened," he said. "Half an hour later, I saw the falling ash around."

"[The ash] also covered the sky. The whole sky is quite dark," he said.

According to Zhao's description, the falling ash blocked traffic and damaged crops.

He said he also saw ash "hanging on the trees."

People 'worried' about what will happen next

Zhao told CGTN that the local people are "very worried" about what will happen in the aftermath of the eruption.

"Most of the places are in restriction," he told CGTN. "And the communication is still shut down, so we are not able to reach others."

The local government is "doing what it can" to provide relief, he said. "They allocated some machinery to clear the road."

Zhao said some of his colleagues and some locals are also trying to clear the road.

3G is on the way

The Chinese Embassy in Tonga helped Zhao and his colleagues contact his company's headquarters in China.

"We worked with the embassy to get the latest information," he said. "Now, we can contact our colleagues in China through our own satellite phone."

In addition to satellite communications, the cellular network is also being restored.

Anthony Seuseu, CEO of telecom operator Digicel, told CGTN that the phone company might get 3G up on the island within the next 24 to 48 hours.

"On the first flights arrived into Tonga from both New Zealand and Australia, we worked with the government to get them to put some of our equipment on there, satellite equipment, which will allow us to boost the capacity," he said. "So, in the next 24 to 48 hours, we will install the new satellite equipment."

"We will then be able to provide customers with email, with internet browsing, which the industry calls 3G, not quite 4G yet, but 3G."

China also provided supplies to Tonga on Wednesday, including drinking water and food.

The Red Cross Society of China has also donated a total of $100,000 in emergency cash aid to the country, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian confirmed at a regular press conference on Thursday.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-21/Exclusive-Chinese-employee-in-Tonga-relies-on-bottled-water-to-live-16Z4GibX4EE/index.html

SOURCE CGTN
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sixteen schools spanning 21 campuses in Kansas City will open their doors to families on Saturday, Jan. 29 in a coordinated citywide open house event for National School Choice Week 2022.

During the School Saturday event from 10 a.m. to noon, each participating school will host an open house showcasing their program and what makes them a unique choice. Families will have the opportunity to visit the schools they are most interested in to take a tour, meet faculty and staff, and hear from students what they love about their learning choice.

This citywide event is planned to coincide with the celebration of National School Choice Week 2022, which will feature more than 26,000 school choice events across all 50 states. Among these will be capital celebrations in both nearby Topeka and Jefferson City.

SchoolAppKC Schools participating in the citywide open house event include Academie Lafayette, Academy for Integrated Arts, Brookside Charter School, Citizens of the World, Cristo Rey Kansas City High School, Crossroads Charter Schools, DeLaSalle Education Center, earlystART, Emmanuel Family and Child Development Center, Ewing Marion Kauffman School, Genesis, Gordon Parks Elementary, Guadalupe Middle School, Hogan Preparatory Academy, Kansas City Girls Preparatory Academy, and KC International Academy.

"The School Saturday event is essential to parents in the Kansas City, Missouri area to make an informed educational choice for their families," said Robyn King, director of SchoolAppKC at Show Me KC Schools. "This provides an opportunity for families and school staff that may not have had the availability during the school day to share vital information about school programming. This year, 16 of the SchoolAppKC schools are participating with 21 campus locations for the community to visit during the citywide open houses."

This event is planned by SchoolAppKC in conjunction with a diverse array of Kansas City schools. SchoolAppKC is designed to streamline the school application process for families in the Kansas City Public Schools boundaries. It is a special project of Show Me KC Schools, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help parents understand their school options.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
PARIS, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Cromology today announced that its sale to DuluxGroup Limited (DGL) - the market leading decorative paints and coatings company in Australia and New Zealand which is wholly owned by world's fourth largest and fastest growing paint company Nippon Paint Group (NPG) - is now officially complete.

The sale follows the announcement in October last year that Cromology's former owners Wendel Group had entered into an exclusivity agreement with DuluxGroup to complete the sale. This process, inclusive of regulatory approvals and transfer of shares is now complete.

In addition to being Australia and New Zealand's market leader in decorative paints and coatings, DuluxGroup has a growing presence in Europe and is responsible for Nippon Paint Group's ambitious growth plans in decorative paints in Europe and other western markets. It has no association or connection with the owner of the DULUX brand in other parts of the world including Europe.

Backed by the resources, scale and financial strength of the world's fourth largest and fastest growing paint company, DGL plans to invest in Cromology's future growth and sees excellent opportunities to further expand on its market leading positions.

DGL International Chief Operating Officer Richard Stuckes says they have acquired Cromology with a firm eye on growth.

"We're about acquiring market leading businesses who already have a strong track record, retaining them and investing in them. Cromology is world class. It has a highly capable management team who have deep European market knowledge and experience, leading premium brands that are household names, excellent manufacturing facilities, broad distribution across key geographies, strong R&D credentials and  above all  plenty of more opportunities for growth," said Mr Stuckes.

"For us, this is about acquiring a sizeable European platform as the base for ongoing growth. We see opportunities in adjacent geographic and related product markets, including through DGL's broader product range and technology as well as its retail DIY channel expertise.

"Cromology's Leadership Team has done a tremendous job building the enterprise and we're really excited about the potential for Cromology from here as part of DGL, backed by the scale and resources of the world's number four in NPG," he said.

Cromology Chairman Pierre Pouletty said: "I'm really proud of everything we have achieved for Cromology. It's been a privilege to chair this wonderful company, and I look forward to seeing it progress from here with the support of DGL and NPG. "

Cromology CEO Loic Derrien said: "Cromology associates are looking forward joining the DGL-Nippon Paint family. Today, we are opening a new chapter of Cromology's transformation with a strong focus on growth. Being part of the fourth largest paint company in the world will bring tremendous opportunities to all of us. We will leverage DLG-NPG' technologies and know-how to the benefit of our customers while offering new opportunity for growth to our suppliers. Cromology associates will be exposed to new professional and personal development opportunities."

As part of DGL, Cromology will be empowered to grow autonomously while benefiting from access to the Nippon Paint Group's global scale, technologies, capabilities and extensive capital resources. In particular:

Cromology will become DGL's Western European hub for decorative paints and coatings and ETICs as well as DGL's platform for its further expansion to adjacent markets.

Cromology's well recognised and market leading brands will be retained and further developed with product offering expanded to take advantage of DGL/NPG product range and technology.

Existing Cromology management and staff will be retained to lead the company's growth and transformation.

Cromology, with its impressive innovation capability, will become a valuable part of NPG's 3,000 strong global R&D community enabling Cromology to benefit from shared technical expertise & insights while retaining complete R&D autonomy.

Cromology's manufacturing and supply chain footprint will be retained and expanded over time.

Media contact: Christele Lion, Cromology Communications Director

About DuluxGroup and Nippon Paint Group

DuluxGroup Limited (www.duluxgroup.com.au), Australia and New Zealand's leading paints & coatings company, was founded in 1918. It has app. 4,000 employees globally, generating revenue of EUR 1.3 B (2020) and has been wholly owned by Nippon Paint Group (NPG: https://www.nipponpaint-holdings.com/en/) since 2019. NPG is the world's fourth largest paint company and the largest in Asia. Founded in 1881, NPG has more than 34,000 employees across more than 30 countries & regions with annual sales of approximately EUR 6 billion. DuluxGroup owns the DULUX paint brand in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. It has no association or connection with the owner of the DULUX brand in other parts of the world including Europe.

About Cromology

With more than 3,000 employees, 5 research laboratories, 9 production sites and 7 logistics platforms, more than 390 integrated Points of Sales and its partners Independent & Builders' Merchants, Major DIY Retailers and Digital pure players, Cromology designs, manufactures and distributes a wide range of paints and other decorative products for professionals and DIY users. Cromology distributes its products in 8 countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Morocco, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland).

Throughout its 270 years of history, Cromology has acquired a recognized unrivaled expertise in the field of decorative paints. Cromology's commercial brands stand for its professionalism, its technical and aesthetic know-how and its capacity for innovation (20% of our revenue was generated with products released in the last three years).

Thanks to a high-value customer experience and quality products offering the best value for money, Cromology aims to develop its presence in the decorative painting industry in Europe, while doing the most to minimize its environmental footprint. For more information about Cromology, visit www.cromology.com.

SOURCE Cromology
Vendor Insights

The crop oil concentrates market is fragmented and the vendors are deploying various organic and inorganic growth strategies to compete in the market. Market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

Some of the prominent players in the market are engaging in offering innovative products to gain a competitive advantage in the market. For instance, BASF SE offers crop oil concentrates products under the brand name of Poast. Brandt Inc. offers crop oil which is a combination of surfactant and a superior paraffinic oil designed for use in crop protection spray programs.

The report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several market vendors, including:

BASF SE

Brandt Inc.

CHS Inc.

Croda International Plc

Helena Agri-Enterprises LLC

KALO Inc.

Land O Lakes Inc.

Nnvictis Crop Care LLC

Precision Laboratories LLC

Wilbur-Ellis Co. Inc.

Find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by vendors and their product offerings, Read Free Sample Report.

Geographical Market Analysis

APAC held the first-largest crop oil concentrates market share in 2021. The region is likely to contribute to 62% of the overall market growth during the forecast period. APAC will generate growth across all the years of the forecast period between 2021 and 2026. The year-on-year growth during this period will vary between 4.92% and 7.46%.

The growth of this region can be attributed to the presence of abundant agricultural land in the emerging economies of the region. It has grown to be the largest agricultural pesticides market and the fastest growing market worldwide for the consumption of pesticides, which, in turn, has led to an increased demand for crop oil concentrates. In addition, the growth of the market is also due to the rise in popularity of modern farming procedures and the increased use of agrochemicals such as crop oil concentrates. Farmers in this region are incentivized to invest in crop safety and growth-enhancing chemicals. The growing economy and currency-stabilizing strategies prevailing in the region are propelling the growth of the crop oil concentrates market.

Furthermore, countries such as the China, US, Argentina, Thailand, and Brazil are expected to emerge as prominent markets for crop oil concentrates during the forecast period.

Know more about this market's geographical distribution along with the detailed analysis of the top regions. https://www.technavio.com/report/crop-oil-concentrates-market-industry-analysis

Key Segment Analysis

The crop oil concentrates market is segmented by application into herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and others. The herbicides application segment held the largest crop oil concentrates market share in 2021 and is likely to retain its dominance through 2026. Crop oil concentrates enhance the performance of herbicides by activating herbicide absorption power in plant tissues. They are usually petroleum-based crop oils, which increase herbicide activity. Furthermore, they increase herbicide effectiveness, which boosts the growth of the global crop oil concentrates market. The increase in agricultural activities in APAC will fuel the demand for herbicides, which will drive the growth of the global crop oil concentrates market during the forecast period.

View FREE Sample: to know additional highlights and key points on various market segments and their impact in coming years.

Key Market Drivers & Challenges:

The increased use of herbicides is notably driving the crop oil concentrates market growth. Vendors invest heavily in the development of new categories of herbicides that are more effective and environment-friendly. The shift in consumers' preferences toward fruits and green vegetables, propelled by the rising awareness regarding health and fitness, fuels the use of herbicides in agricultural applications, which, in turn, is boosting the demand for adjuvants such as crop oil concentrates. Furthermore, the rising plant resistance toward herbicides is also compelling farmers to use crop oil concentrates to increase herbicide efficiency.

However, a challenging regulatory environment is one of the prominent factors that might hinder the market's growth during the forecast period. Companies in the global crop oil concentrates market are required to abide by certain laws and regulations, which are the governance codes for agrochemical businesses. The application of modern methods and the use of a specific class of pesticide products draw the attention of legislative and regulatory bodies, which, in turn, limit the use of products or lead to their withdrawal from the market. The global crop oil concentrates market needs to comply with numerous regulatory laws and obligations, which are expected to influence the market growth negatively.

Download free sample for highlights on market Drivers & Challenges affecting the crop oil concentrates market.

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Crop Oil Concentrates Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 5.36% Market growth 2022-2026 $ 67.66 million Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 3.73 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and MEA Performing market contribution APAC at 62% Key consumer countries China, US, Argentina, Thailand, and Brazil Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled BASF SE, Brandt Inc., CHS Inc., Croda International Plc, Helena Agri-Enterprises LLC, KALO Inc., Land O Lakes Inc., Nnvictis Crop Care LLC, Precision Laboratories LLC, and Wilbur-Ellis Co. Inc. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, market condition analysis for the forecast period, Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

About Us:

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
CULPEPER, Va., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Schools, clubs, co-ops, homeschooling programs, and extracurricular opportunities in the Culpeper area will showcase what they offer families at a School Choice Week Fair on Saturday, Jan. 29. The event will be one of the most prominent celebrations in Virginia during National School Choice Week.

Hosted by King's Light Christian Academy, the fair will run from 9 a.m. to noon at Providence Bible Church. The fair aims to promote all the ways that families can engage in learning in the counties of Culpeper, Madison, Orange, Rappahannnock, Stafford, Spotsylvania, and Fauquier. All families are invited to attend the free event and explore their options for personalizing their child's education.

This event is planned to coincide with the celebration of National School Choice Week Jan. 23-29, 2022, which will feature more than 26,000 school choice events across all 50 states.

The Culpeper school fair is one of more than 15 fairs taking place across the country during the Week. Many of these are annual events that have grown to feature 75+ schools and serve several hundred families.

"King's Light Christian Academy is proud to host a National School Choice Week Fair on January 29th," said Teresa Murnock, administrator at King's Light Christian Academy. "We are passionate about a parent's right to choose the best education for their child or youth. Our hope is this event brings more awareness as to what the Culpeper area has to offer our families in educational and extracurricular activities."

King's Light Christian Academy is dedicated to the mission of educating youth with scholastic excellence while being encouraged in their relationship with God.

Providence Bible Church, where the fair takes place, is located at 17211 Greens Corner Rd.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
MONTEVALLO, Ala., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Spot On Agency recently acquired Smart Traffic Consulting, known for its SEO/SEM expertise, in a move that continues to expand the agency's digital strategy and healthcare marketing services. Over the past four years, Spot On has partnered with Smart Traffic Consulting on a project basis, frequently working jointly on SEO optimization, site strategy and pay-per-click campaigns.

Recently Spot On and Smart Traffic Consulting helped a healthcare SaaS company go from 800 monthly site visits to 20,000 and increase its domain authority by 416%.

"Given our strong track record of project wins over these past few years, we're very excited to cement our relationship with Smart Traffic and bring additional expertise and resources to our growing client base," says Susie Kelley, Spot On's co-founder.

Spot On primarily serves companies in the healthcare software space, with an emphasis on digital marketing, web strategy & design, lead generation, content creation and branding. The company is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

Spot On focuses on sound digital strategy, providing a foundation for improvements to achieve performance goals, notes Kelley. As a HubSpot Solutions Partner, Spot On brings a data focus to all content marketing and advertising efforts.

"We help companies define their ideal audience and think bigger, examining where prospects are feeling pain and identifying the ideal interaction, so we can create an optimal, data-driven plan together to best grow audience and convert into sales," she says.

Smart Traffic Consulting was founded by Brian Cauble, a digital strategist who brings a wealth of experience in search advertising, site optimization and social. "I'm excited for the many new opportunities we'll have to help businesses gain more traffic and smarter traffic," Cauble says.

For more information about Spot On, visit thespotonagency.com.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Spot On Agency

Susie Kelley

205-690-7171

[email protected]

SOURCE Spot On
NEW YORK, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- For the 12th consecutive year, DLA Piper was the highest-ranked legal advisor in the world for M&A deal volume, according to Mergermarket's league tables. The firm was involved in 1,104 transactions worldwide in 2021, valued at approximately US$242 billion.

Further underscoring its reputation as a market leader, DLA Piper received top rankings in Mergermarket's league tables in a number of regions and countries worldwide, including:

#1 in Europe for the ninth consecutive year;

for the ninth consecutive year; #1 in the UK for the 12th consecutive year;

#1 in the Nordics for the fifth consecutive year;

#1 in Denmark for the fourth consecutive year;

for the fourth consecutive year; #1 in Sweden ;

; #1 in Russia ;

; #2 in the CEE;

#2 in Poland ;

; #3 in the Americas;

#3 in the United States ;

; #3 in Benelux; and

#3 in Finland

"We are honored to serve as trusted, collaborative advisors to our clients as they grow and expand in both established and developing regions. I'm proud of our dedicated team of professionals across our global platform for once again handling a high volume of complex deals while maintaining a strong focus on client service," said Kathleen Ruhland, US chair and global co-chair of DLA Piper's Corporate practice. "In a standout year for M&A activity, we were able to help clients across a wide range of industries adapt to a constantly changing business environment and achieve their objectives despite the impacts of a global pandemic. Our deal-making track record would not be possible without the continued trust that our clients place in us, as well as the contributions of each member of our exceptional team, and we look forward to continuing our work together in 2022."

"We're hugely proud and honored to be recognized once again as market leaders for global M&A," said Bob Bishop, global co-chair of DLA Piper's Corporate practice. "Holding the number one position in M&A 12 years in a row is no mean feat. It isn't driven by a buoyant market, a few big deals or other short-term factors. It's a result of clients coming back to DLA Piper time and again for support on their most strategic transactions, because they value our commercial approach, commitment to service and the unique market insight and efficiencies that flow from doing more deals than any other law firm. I'd like to thank our clients for their continued loyalty, and all of our people for their tremendous effort and commitment, which is both unwavering and hugely appreciated."

DLA Piper received several additional recognitions from Mergermarket, including:

#4 in the DACH region;

#4 in Austria ;

; #5 in Middle East & Africa ;

& ; #6 in Iberia;

#6 in Spain ;

; #6 in Australasia; and

#6 in Latin America

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is a global law firm with lawyers located in more than 40 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, positioning us to help clients with their legal needs around the world. In certain jurisdictions, this information may be considered attorney advertising. dlapiper.com

SOURCE DLA Piper
ATLANTA, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Equifax (NYSE: EFX) and the Georgia Institute of Technology ("Georgia Tech") have announced a new research partnership designed to develop new ways to reach underserved, underbanked and credit-rebuilding consumers. As part of this relationship, the Financial Services Innovation Lab at Georgia Tech will leverage anonymized Equifax data assets to further its innovative research designed to increase consumer access to credit and Equifax data scientists will provide hands-on data education to speed research time. The research partnership is designed to stimulate growth in fintech entrepreneurship in Atlanta.

"We appreciate having access to comprehensive alternative data sources and credit modeling experts through the Equifax Data Science Lab," said Professor Sudheer Chava, Alton M. Costley Chair at Scheller College of Business, Georgia Tech. "We are excited to take the next step to strengthen our partnership with Equifax in conducting research to improve people's financial lives."

The Georgia Tech Financial Services Innovation Lab aims to be a hub for finance education, research and industry in the Southeast United States. The lab acts as a platform to connect faculty and students across Georgia Tech with the financial services industry and fintech entrepreneurs. The fintech industry is one of Georgia's fastest-growing sectors, and Atlanta is a major global center for financial technology. Equifax and Georgia Tech intend to facilitate inclusive innovation in the fintech industry through university sponsored startup accelerator programs.

"Our purpose is to help people live their financial best. We strive to create economically healthy individuals and communities everywhere we do business," said Christopher Yasko, Senior Vice President, Equifax Data Science Lab. "Partnering with Georgia Tech enables us to work hands-on with the next generation of data scientists to create solutions that can positively impact consumers for decades to come."

Equifax has sponsored doctoral dissertation research and capstone projects within the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business since 2016. For more information on the Financial Services Innovation Lab at Georgia Tech, please visit: https://fintech.gatech.edu.

About Equifax Inc.

At Equifax (NYSE: EFX), we believe knowledge drives progress. As a global data, analytics, and technology company, we play an essential role in the global economy by helping financial institutions, companies, employers, and government agencies make critical decisions with greater confidence. Our unique blend of differentiated data, analytics, and cloud technology drives insights to power decisions to move people forward. Headquartered in Atlanta and supported by more than 13,000 employees worldwide, Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, visit Equifax.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Kate Walker for Equifax

[email protected]

SOURCE Equifax Inc.
AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The recent identification of two 1981 Texas murder victims alerted law enforcement 41 years later to the fact that at the time of their deaths, they had a one-year-old daughter. Holly Marie Clouse hasn't been seen since sometime before January 1981 when her parents Dean and Tina Linn Clouse were found murdered in Houston.

1980 photo of Holly Clouse with her mother, Tina Gail Linn Clouse. Tina was murdered in Houston in 1981. Holly Marie Clouse in a 1980 photo taken in Lewisville, Texas. If alive, Holly will turn 42 years old next week.

"After the story broke about Dean and Tina last week, the number of women who wrote to me hoping that they might be Holly has inspired her family and me to take action," says Peacock. "Their stories were all compelling and I didn't want to leave them hanging - even if they weren't Holly."

Family History Detectives has launched a special project in Holly's honor. The Hope for Holly Project will screen, DNA test, and help identify those with uncertain childhoods, including the women who have found hopeful connection to the 1981 story of Holly and her parents.

The acronym HOPE - Helping Other People Embrace - was coined by Holly's aunt, Theresa Welch, Dean Clouse's sister.

Of the word, 'embrace' Welch explains, "That's how I feel towards Holly now. I want so much to be able to embrace her and never let her go. And we want these other women who have questions to be able to embrace who they truly are as individuals with the help of DNA."

In an effort to help find her, Family History Detectives is the custodian of the AncestryDNA profiles of several of Holly's family members on both maternal and paternal sides. Key profiles have also been uploaded to GEDmatch and other public genealogical databases.

"We're chasing rainbows again trying to figure out if she's alive or not," Holly's grandmother, Donna Casasanta told KHOU's Xavier Walton of their ongoing family nightmare.

If still alive, Holly would be 42 years old this week.

If you are a woman between the ages of 40 and 44 who is not sure of your biological origins, or if you think you may recognize details in Holly's story, please reach out to us via our website or test yourself with AncestryDNA. Your family may be waiting to meet you," urges Peacock.

A GoFundMe campaign for the project has also been set up to help defray costs. A memorial gathering at Dean and Tina's graves is planned for early March.

"The fact that Holly was not found with her parents gives us hope that we might see her again," says Sherry Green, Tina Linn Clouse's sister and another of Holly's aunts. "I want to be able to tell her about her mother one day and how much she cared for her little girl."

For more information, licensable photographs, or to schedule family interviews:

Allison Peacock

FHD Forensics/Family History Detectives

(512) 270-1301

[email protected]

Other Resources:

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Hotline: 1-800-THE-LOST (-843-5678)

Lewisville Police Department Tipline: 1-800-388-TIPS (-8477)

SOURCE Family History Detectives
ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Anchored on win-win outcomes, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is opening up development opportunities across the African continent, an African Union (AU) official has said.

Speaking exclusively to Xinhua recently, Albert Muchanga, the Commissioner for Trade and Industry of the AU Commission, stressed that a growing number of African countries are now implementing the BRI, which is driving development across the continent.

"The Belt and Road Initiative in Africa is really opening up opportunities for the development of infrastructure, including energy as well as the promotion of road development; and we in Africa welcome that," Muchanga told Xinhua.

"By involving a lot of African countries, we are broadening the process; and by increasing the areas of cooperation we are deepening it," the AU commissioner said.

Muchanga recalled the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the AU and China's National Development and Reform Commission within the framework of the AU-China Cooperation Plan on the Belt and Road, covering priority sectors such as health, food security, infrastructure and energy.

"A number of countries across Africa are implementing the Belt and Road Initiative; and the recently signed MOU reflects the fact that it is also going to be implemented at the level of the African Union Commission, which is very, very, very good," he said.

"The cooperation is anchored on win-win outcomes and this is good for the two partners -- the African continent on one hand and China as a country on the other hand," the AU trade and industry commissioner added.

According to Muchanga, the MOU that was signed virtually last month is a commitment to realize the objectives of what was agreed upon between China and Africa towards the successful implementation of the BRI.

"The coordination mechanism is a platform for ensuring that whatever commitments that have been made between Africa and China are going to be implemented; and to show commitment towards its implementation," he said.

"Through this signature we say 'we are ready, we are willing and we are going to do it'," Muchanga added.

China has been Africa's largest trading partner for more than a dozen years. Under the Belt and Road Initiative, the two sides have multiplied their efforts to cooperate. Over fifty African countries and the African Union Commission have so far signed cooperation agreements with China.

Amid the growing list of African countries cooperating with China under the BRI mechanism, many African countries have realized new deep seaports, thousands of kilometers of roads and railways that have transformed logistics across Africa, among other development projects. 
BUFFALO, N.Y., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Fidelis Care has awarded Neighborhood Health Center of WNY $8,000 to assist in their efforts to address the digital divide some patients have experienced during the pandemic. The funds will help provide access to technology and services for patients to better communicate with their health care providers.

Telehealth services play an important role in expanding access to healthcare, especially during the pandemic. For those without reliable internet access, connecting with providers for needed care and services can be challenging. The funds from Fidelis Care will provide pre-paid calling cards for Neighborhood Health Center patients who require assistance to connect with their healthcare providers via telehealth. For many, telehealth services allow them to access healthcare when obstacles like transportation, taking time off from work, or finding childcare stand in their way.

"As we continue to navigate the COVID pandemic, ensuring access to care for high-risk patients remains a priority," Fidelis Care Chief Medical Officer Vincent Marchello, MD. "Fidelis Care is extremely grateful to work with Neighborhood Health Center, addressing the digital divide and directly supporting those in our community who need it most."

"As we work hard to address the need for health equity for patients who are especially vulnerable at this time, we extend many thanks to Fidelis Care for supporting this priority to build that technical bridge between the patient and their provider," added Joanne Haefner, Chief Executive Officer for Neighborhood Health Center of WNY. "Thanks to the funds from Fidelis Care, we are helping to level the playing field and work toward our mission of health equity and better health outcomes."

About Fidelis Care:

Fidelis Care is a mission-driven health plan offering quality, affordable coverage for children and adults of all ages and at all stages of life. With more than 2.3 million members statewide, Fidelis Care believes that all New Yorkers should have access to affordable, quality health insurance. Follow us on Twitter at @fideliscare , Instagram at @fideliscare , and on Facebook at facebook.com/fideliscare . For more information, call Fidelis Care at 1-888-FIDELIS (1-888-343-3547) or visit fideliscare.org.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Fidelis Care
MIAMI, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Florida Blue Foundation, the philanthropic foundation for the state's Blue Cross Blue Shield plan, today announced a $3.8 million investment to enhance mental health for Florida's children, families, and seniors.

Twelve nonprofit organizations across the state share in the investment which will support community-based programs that directly improve access to and quality of mental well-being services, particularly for the underserved and uninsured, including racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income populations.

"There is no health without mental health. Our mental well-being is just as important as our physical health, yet many Floridians suffering from loneliness, stress, anxiety or addiction do not get the help they need due to the stigma of mental illness or lack of access to support," said Pat Geraghty, president and CEO of Florida Blue. "We are investing $3.8 million in organizations embedded in communities in need and offering innovative solutions that can create a lasting and meaningful impact in those communities."

The investment announcement occurred during a community conversation about children's mental health hosted by Florida Blue in the Wynwood community of Miami. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 180,000 Florida children age 12-17 suffer from depression, and 64.2% did not receive any mental health care in the last year.

Three South Florida organizations serving young people that will benefit from more than $1 million in grants were on hand for the event to share the challenges they see in the South Florida community and some of the unique solutions they are implementing to address them.

Guitars Over Guns: M-Power Program ( Miami-Dade )  Guitars Over Guns is building upon its current work providing students from vulnerable communities a powerful combination of music education and mentorship from professional musicians to help them overcome hardship, find their voices and reach their potential as tomorrow's leaders. M-Power integrates mentoring, artistic instruction, performance, and trauma-informed care by embedding social-emotional and therapeutic support programs into Guitar Over Guns current student initiatives. Recipient of a $400,000 grant over 4 years.

 Guitars Over Guns is building upon its current work providing students from vulnerable communities a powerful combination of music education and mentorship from professional musicians to help them overcome hardship, find their voices and reach their potential as tomorrow's leaders. M-Power integrates mentoring, artistic instruction, performance, and trauma-informed care by embedding social-emotional and therapeutic support programs into Guitar Over Guns current student initiatives. Nova Southeastern University : STEPS (School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide)  Developed by a psychology professor at NSU, the STEPS program equips school administrators, teachers, school mental health professionals and parents with tools to recognize student suicidal behavior and intervene effectively. Recipient of a $300,000 grant over 3 years.

 Developed by a psychology professor at NSU, the STEPS program equips school administrators, teachers, school mental health professionals and parents with tools to recognize student suicidal behavior and intervene effectively. Kristi House : Project HEADSTRONG ( Miami-Dade )  Spurred by the pandemic, racial injustice and calls for help from the community, Kristi House will expand its training and education beyond its current child abuse and child sex trafficking work through Project HEADSTRONG. The new program offers mental health support to more than 17,000 children and family members through community-based training, mental health support and an annual symposium for child-serving providers and caregivers. Recipient of a $350,000 grant over 4 years.

Additional organizations from across the state will also receive grants from the Florida Blue Foundation ranging from $250,000 to $400,000 to address mental well-being needs in the communities they serve, including programs that:

Provide mental health counseling and education in schools for under/uninsured students;

Provide a safe environment for mental and emotional healing for members of the LGBTQ+ community, transgender individuals, victims of hate crimes and LGBTQ+ seniors;

Train spiritual leaders to offer tele-mental health and well-being support to Black men and youth in low-income areas; and

Enhance engagement with seniors who live alone and became even more isolated and lonely during COVID-19.

The $3.8 million investment is part of an ongoing commitment by the Florida Blue Foundation to address mental well-being across the state. Over the past five years, the Foundation has invested more than $12.7 million in nonprofit organizations' addressing mental health needs in Florida.

About the Florida Blue Foundation

The Florida Blue Foundation enables healthy communities by making grants, building coalitions and embracing solutions that create a meaningful impact in our communities. More than 6.5 million Floridians have received services as a result of our community investments since our founding in 2001. The Florida Blue Foundation's programs are focused on advancing mental well-being, improving health equity, impacting food security and addressing systemic racism and resulting health disparities. It is a trade name of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Foundation, Inc., an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For more information, please visit www.FloridaBlueFoundation.com.

SOURCE Florida Blue Foundation
OKLAHOMA CITY, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Gov. Kevin Stitt has issued a proclamation declaring Jan. 23-Jan. 29 Oklahoma School Choice Week. His proclamation marks the 10th year that a governor of the Sooner State has proclaimed the Week.

Gov. Stitt joins more than a hundred state and local leaders who have taken pen in hand this month to officially recognize the importance of children having effective education options. His proclamation highlights Oklahoma's diverse educational environments, dedicated teachers, and commitment to improving the quality of K-12 education.

The governor's state proclamation coincides with National School Choice Week, the largest annual celebration of K-12 school choice. Oklahoma families and schools will mark the Week with more than 300 events and activities, including the return of a popular Parent Power Summit to bring educational info to families.

More than 26,000 events have been planned nationwide for Jan. 23-Jan. 29, which will be the twelfth annual School Choice Week. The goal? To raise awareness about educational opportunities, bringing parents from every background and income level clear information about their school options.

"We are grateful that Gov. Stitt has proclaimed the Week and recognized the central role that K-12 education plays in the lives of families throughout the state," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "We hope Oklahoma families use this celebration to spread information about school choice, thank great teachers, and explore options for the upcoming school year."

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week focuses equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of events and activities  such as school fairs, open houses, and student showcases  to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. Year-round, National School Choice Week develops resources and guides to assist families searching for schools or learning environments for their children. The effort is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation.

For more information and a video message from Gov. Stitt about the Week, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/oklahoma.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
Since the outbreak of the Omicron variant and the ensuing increased use of N95 respirators across Canada and the rest of North America, Medicom has accelerated local production of these essential medical devices. As a result, more than 40 new full-time jobs will be created at the Saint-Laurent plant and new machinery will be installed to support the new production rate.

"Medicom will now supply nearly 3.3 million N95 respirators to the Quebec healthcare system, which is nearly twice the number provided for in our multi-year agreement with the government. In a few weeks, once the new machines are running at full capacity, Medicom will supply the government with more than 4.4 million N95 respirators per month. This is clear evidence that the Quebec government's local mask procurement strategy is working," affirmed Guillaume Laverdure, Chief Operating Officer of Medicom.

Because of long wear times, healthcare workers appreciate the Medicom Architect Pro N95 surgical respirator not only for its filtering efficacy and resulting protection, but also for its exceptional comfort and breathability.

"Medicom is the only company in Quebec and one of the only companies in Canada to be certified by both Canadian and American authorities. In fact, the Medicom Architect Pro N95 respirator is CSA and FDA/NIOSH approved. We are very proud of this achievement because it is the result of many months of painstaking work to create a comfortable, high-performance, Quebec-made respirator," explained John Tourlas, Medicom President, North America.

About the Medicom Group

The Medicom Group is one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of high-quality, single-use, preventive and infection control products for the medical, dental, industrial, animal health, laboratory, retail and health and wellness markets. Medicom was named one of Canada's Best Managed Companies for 2021 and received a Mercure Award at the Mercuriades 2021.

Medicom distributes infection control products under the Medicom, Ritmed, Kolmi, Hopen, Ocean Pacific and Hedy brands. Medicom subsidiaries include Kolmi-Hopen in France, Medicom Asia in Hong Kong, United Medical Enterprise in the U.S.A., KHM Engineering in Singapore and Medicom HealthPro Limited in the U.K.

Medicom has extensive experience in responding to the demand for personal protective equipment in the event of a pandemic. Medicom was founded in 1988 in response to the urgent need for medical gloves for healthcare professionals during the global HIV crisis. Since then, the company has been a reliable supplier of infection control solutions during multiple epidemics, including avian flu, SARS, H1N1 and Ebola, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

For more information about Medicom and their comprehensive portfolio of infection control solutions, including an extensive range of medical face masks, please visit Medicom.com, follow us on Twitter @MedicomNA or visit pages on Facebook or LinkedIn.

SOURCE AMD Medicom Inc.
Adds to Givex's capabilities of expanding installations across Canada

TORONTO, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Givex Information Technology Group Limited. ("Givex") (TSX: GIVX) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire of all of the shares of 1157487 Ontario Inc. (doing business as Kalex Equipment Services) ("Kalex").

Givex is a Toronto-headquartered global fintech platform with customer engagement solutions that empower merchants with knowledge and knowhow. Its people and technology support a diverse range of hospitality and retail merchants in the Americas, EMEA and ASEAN markets.

"The acquisition of Kalex not only enhances our ability to install and service point-of-sale systems across Canada; it also provides opportunities to upsell our omnichannel platform to some of the largest brands in the country," said Givex CEO Don Gray.

Kalex, also based in Toronto, is an IT service and consulting business that specializes in physical and digital retail enablement and has delivered over 600,000 point-of-sale lanes across North America since 1980. With 115 technicians across Canada and resources across the US, Kalex is experienced in delivering technology services to retail and hospitality clients.

"The acquisition by Givex allows Kalex to leverage its existing expertise to expand both the Givex and Kalex client base and broaden product delivery capabilities with Givex's Engagement and Payment services," said Kalex president John Beaton. "This is an outstanding opportunity for all Kalex stakeholders".

Givex is acquiring Kalex for total consideration of up to $2.5 million, $500,000 of which, subject to the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange, is payable in common shares of Givex based on the five-day volume weighted average price of the Givex shares prior to the closing of the transaction, expected to take place the week of January 24, 2022, upon satisfaction of certain closing conditions set forth in the definitive agreement.

About Givex

Givex (TSX: GIVX) is a global fintech company providing merchants with customer engagement, point of sale and payment solutions, all in a single platform. We are integrated with 1000+ technology partners, creating a fully end-to-end solution that delivers powerful customer insights. Our platform is used by some of the world's largest brands, comprising approximately 96,000 locations across more than 100 countries. Learn more at givex.com.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements about the Corporation's future plans and intentions, and the closing of the proposed acquisition of Kalex. Wherever possible, words such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "expect", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict" or "potential" or the negative or other variations of these words, or similar words or phrases, have been used to identify these forward- looking statements. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management as at the date hereof.

Forward-looking statements involve significant risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, the Corporation cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and the Corporation assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

SOURCE Givex
DUBLIN, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --

The "World Furniture Outlook 2022" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This latest edition of the World Furniture Outlook 2022, provides an overview of the global furniture sector through historical series of basic data (furniture production, consumption, imports, exports 2012-2020 and 2021 preliminary estimates) and prospects of the furniture market for the years 2022 and 2023 for 100 countries.

The publisher constantly monitors the international trade of furniture including unpredictable circumstances and uncertainties affecting the global market scenario. Furniture market forecasts for 100 countries included in this study reflect the publisher's in-depth knowledge of the markets and its ongoing evaluation.

This market research report includes:

Growth of furniture imports worldwide and the role of furniture exporting countries in the marketplace

Market shares of the major furniture exporters by geographical region

Analysis of the openness of furniture markets that covers the past decade, with trade balance, imports/consumption, and exports/production ratios.

Statistics and outlook data are also available in a country format:

Origin of furniture imports

Destination of furniture exports

Historical series on furniture production

Historical series on furniture market size

Historical series on furniture trade

Country rankings to place all statistics in a broader worldwide context

The 100 country summary tables also include:

Total household consumption expenditure

Total GNP at purchasing power parity

Per capita GNP at purchasing power parity

Key Topics Covered:



PART I: THE WORLD FURNITURE OUTLOOK

1. Summary

Basic data of the global furniture market to 2021

World economy and furniture outlook 2022-2023 for 100 countries

2. The world furniture market

Overview of furniture production and trade, world geographic regions, and trade areas

3. Market shares of the leading furniture exporting countries

The main furniture exporting countries and the opening of furniture markets. Historical series.

4. The international scenario

The world economy and prospects of the furniture sector up to 2023

PART II: WORLD FURNITURE INDICATORS1. World Tables

Overview of the world furniture industry - Production, Exports, Consumption, and Imports

Furniture exports, 100 countries (alphabetical order and ranking)

Furniture imports, 100 countries (alphabetical order and ranking)

The opening of the furniture markets: 2012-2020 and 2021 preliminary estimates

Growth of exports, 40 major exporting countries

Growth of imports, 40 major importing countries

World furniture trade. Destination of exports and origin of imports

Furniture market outlook 2022-2023 (alphabetical order and ranking by level of furniture consumption)

2. Country Tables for 100 countries

For each country:

Furniture production, exports, imports, consumption for the time series 2012-2020 and 2021 preliminary estimates

Economic indicators (population, area, total and per capita GNP, household consumption expenditure, data at purchasing power parity)

Real growth of furniture consumption: 2022-2023 forecasts

Exchange rates

Furniture trading partners

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/iq4v3l

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

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SOURCE Research and Markets
RESTON, Va., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The SheSuite , the female-focused initiative of Velvet Suite designed to empower working women with the tools and supportive community to develop a roadmap for their success, today announced that they will hold their 7th annual SheSuite Summit on March 11, 2022. The SheSuite Summit will be a fully virtual, online experience featuring speakers from Mastercard , Emerson Global , Logitech , Georgetown University and The Los Angeles Dodgers , among others.

Global Leadership Community The SheSuite Announces 7th Powerful Summit Set for March 11, 2022 Global Leadership Community The SheSuite Announces 7th Powerful Summit Set for March 11, 2022

According to Harvard Business Review, " The Great Resignation " and changes in work trends have affected over 4 million Americans, with mid-career employees experiencing the greatest increase in resignation rates. This has left many professional women evaluating their lives and work journeys. Professional women participating in The SheSuite Summit will have opportunities for real-time networking with speakers and attendees, as well as one-on-one idea exchanges with skilled connections. In addition to the purpose-centered programming, the beneficial strength of The SheSuite Summit is the 90-Day Personal Brand Action Plan framework , where each participant will leverage proven strategies to formulate their "next bold move" for both work and well-being.

"Virtual events for professional women are valuable career tools, but what makes us different is a stellar program and speakers, combined with our proven methodology and set of materials designed to provide true breakthroughs ," said Melissa Dawn Simkins , CEO of Velvet Suite. "The ability to hear from world-class business and educational leaders , and to then use that inspiration to build a 90-Day Personal Action Plan, makes this an extremely productive, valuable  and engaging  experience."

Cassey Bass, senior analyst at Toyota North America and previous attendee of The SheSuite Summit noted, "This event not only helps women navigate various stages of their professional career, but helps them better understand their brand, the value that it brings, and how it influences their professional life."

Some of the world's leading corporations also recognize the value of fostering women's leadership throughout their organizations and have elected to sponsor The SheSuite Summit22. Merck leads the pack with the Platinum sponsorship, followed by T-Mobile at the Premier level. Procter & Gamble , AstraZeneca, Boston Scientific , BAE Systems , Becton Dickinson , Ingredion, LMI and McKesson have come on at the Partner level. General Dynamics , Cognosante , LinkVisum Consulting Group , Maximus and Medtronic round out early commitments of sponsor support.

Former SheSuite Summit executive speaker, Damon Jones, Chief Communications Officer for Procter & Gamble notes from his prior participation, "Men must play an active role in driving gender equality, from prioritizing access to systems and structures where women are not fully represented, to shifting stereotypical gender roles at home and in the workplace, to visibility and financially supporting programs like The She-Suite that equip future generations of women leading to maximize their success."

For more information on The SheSuite Summit22, or to register, visit https://theshesuitesummit.com/ on the web, or the community on LinkedIn .

About The SheSuite

The SheSuite is a leadership and lifestyle innovation platform committed to bridging the systemic gap for retention and advancement of career-driven, high-potential women who want to discover purpose and a proven path to accelerate their lives, careers and well-being. The platform is built upon The SheSuite Method , a novel approach to a safe community for every stage of the career journey from launch, to lead and legacy. For more information, visit https://www.theshesuite.com .

About Cognosante

Cognosante continues its proud support of the She-Suite Summit and women leaders across all career stages. Cognosante is a mission-driven technology company delivering innovative and transformative solutions that improve the health and safety of Americans. With more than a decade of experience working with Federal and state government agencies, we aim to expand access to care, improve care delivery, deliver solutions addressing social determinants of health, and ensure safety and security through multi-faceted technology and customer experience (CX) solutions. Our broad range of capabilities includes enterprise IT and cloud, data science, telehealth, interoperability, public health surveillance, clinical performance, eligibility and enrollment, and consumer engagement. For more information, visit www.cognosante.com

About LMI

LMI is a consultancy dedicated to powering a future-ready, high-performing government, drawing from expertise in digital and analytic solutions, logistics, and management advisory services. We deliver integrated capabilities that incorporate emerging technologies and are tailored to customers' unique mission needs, backed by objective research and data analysis. Founded in 1961 to help the Department of Defense resolve complex logistics management challenges, LMI continues to enable growth and transformation, enhance operational readiness and resiliency, and ensure mission success for federal civilian and defense agencies. Visit www.lmi.org for more information.

About Maximus

Since 1975, Maximus has operated under its founding mission of Helping Government Serve the People, enabling citizens around the globe to successfully engage with their governments at all levels and across a variety of health and human services programs. Maximus delivers innovative business process management and technology solutions that contribute to improved outcomes for citizens and higher levels of productivity, accuracy, accountability, and efficiency of government-sponsored programs. With more than 35,000 employees worldwide, Maximus is a proud partner to government agencies in the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit maximus.com.

Media Contact:

Jennifer Martin

Phone: +1 (703) 851-8433

[email protected]

SOURCE Velvet Suite, Inc.
DUBLIN, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Pharmacovigilance Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Product Life Cycle, by Service Provider, by Type, by Process Flow, by Therapeutic Area, by End-use, by Region, and Segment Forecasts, 2022-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global pharmacovigilance market size is expected to reach USD 17.36 billion by 2030 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.5% from 2022 to 2030.

Increasing incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) is the key growth driver. ADR imposes a substantial burden on healthcare systems and is one of the prominent causes of morbidity in developed countries. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), approximately 5% of total hospitalizations in Europe each year are due to ADR. Pharmacovigilance services play an integral role in this clinical trial phase by assisting manufacturers in identifying adverse effects associated with the drug.



COVID-19 has undoubtedly thrown up numerous challenges as well as opportunities for pharmacovigilance service providers. Various companies are developing innovative platforms to gain a competitive edge. For instance, in December 2020, ArisGlobal and EVERSANA declared a strategic partnership to digitally transform end-to-end pharmacovigilance services globally.



The community involved in a PV procedure has been quick to respond to the pandemic. Some companies are using big data analytics against COVID-19. Thus, this refers to the in-depth analysis of data from multiple sources. In April 2020, Saama Technologies offered its Life Science Analytics Cloud technology platform to support the consortium creation. The purpose is to fetch data from both current and future studies to slash the time required to discover a treatment by as much as 50%. Life Science Analytics Cloud is an artificial intelligence-powered platform. This represents the scope for future developments in this market.



According to the World Health Organization's (WHO) report on pharmaceutical consumption, chronic disease medications accounted for the larger proportion of the total volume of drug consumption in non-hospital setups. Hence, there has been a significant rise in the number of medicines made available to healthcare consumers. The rising demand for drugs has significantly heightened the need for the development of novel therapeutics via extensive clinical trials, which is expected to serve this market with lucrative opportunities.



Moreover, leading pharma companies in developed countries are focusing on outsourcing PV services to reduce costs and minimize operational expenses. This is anticipated to serve as an opportunity for contact research organizations in developing regions to gain more revenue share. Manufacturers are now focusing on remodeling their product development processes in an attempt to cater to patient needs across the globe. These factors are anticipated to fuel the demand for pharmacovigilance services during the forecast period.



The companies operating in the market are undertaking strategic initiatives, such as collaborations with the PV service providers, to gain access to medical information and to manage PV workflows. For instance, In October 2021, The Whiteboard, an academy for training specialists in the clinical trials and drug development field, proclaimed a partnership with Oviya MedSafe, a worldwide drug safety service, and pharmacovigilance consulting corporation.



Similarly, in September 2019, Accenture collaborated with Bayer to implement the company's INTIENT Clinical platform to simplify and speed its drug development processes, thereby widening its business. The company collaborated with BioCelebrate in the past to develop a platform for aggregating and analyzing clinical information for improved drug developing efficiency, thus enhancing its R&D capabilities. Such initiatives help companies maintain their position and thereby support market growth.



Pharmacovigilance Market Report Highlights

On the basis of a product life cycle, the phase IV segment held a dominant revenue share of over 75.0% in 2021 owing to the extensive post-marketing surveillance of pharmaceuticals and an increasing number of ADR incidences in the market

By service provider, contract outsourcing held a significant revenue share of over 55.0% in 2021 owing to the shift in the focus of pharmaceutical companies to outsourcing services to reduce operational cost

Based on type, spontaneous reporting held the largest revenue share in 2021 due to its wide application in pharmacovigilance and benefits such as easy simulation of data sets for better drug comparison

The biotechnology companies end-use segment is anticipated to exhibit a lucrative CAGR over the forecast period owing to the increasing R&D for the development of novel biologics

Asia Pacific is anticipated to expand at the fastest CAGR of 12.1% over the forecast period. This is attributed to the availability of low-cost labor and the rising number of outsourcing companies in this region

is anticipated to expand at the fastest CAGR of 12.1% over the forecast period. This is attributed to the availability of low-cost labor and the rising number of outsourcing companies in this region Industry participants are focusing on increasing R&D activities to develop better pharmacovigilance services. Moreover, companies are adopting strategies including new product launches, collaborations, and mergers & acquisitions to gain a competitive advantage

Pharmacovigilance Market Dynamics

Market driver analysis

Growing drug consumption and drug development rates

Increasing incidence of ADR and drug toxicity

Increasing trend of outsourcing pharmacovigilance services

Increasing externalization of clinical trial studies by large pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies

Increasing Regulatory Burden on Manufacturers

Introduction of technologically advanced software services

Constantly rising investment in R&D by healthcare companies

Partnerships and collaborations between market players

Market restraint analysis

Shortage of skilled labor

Expensive technology for small and mid-sized players

Lack of recognition

Scarcity of integration standards

Industry Challenges

Pharmacovigilance Market Analysis Tools: Porters

SWOT Analysis, by Factor (Political & Legal, Economic, and Technological)

Value Chain Analysis

Pre-clinical

Clinical

PMA

Mapping of Life Cycle Against Service Offering And Their Demand

Regulatory Framework

Pharmacovigilance: Organization Structure Introduction

Pricing Models

Drug Safety Budget Allocation By Activities

By Development phase

By Therapeutic area

Pricing Level

Case processing

ADR Reporting

Medical writing

Drug safety management

Technology Timeline Overview

Changing Technology & Adoption

Social Media

Literature screening

Automation and AI

Big data analytics in PV

COVID-19 Impact Analysis

COVID-19 Outbreak

Challenges for safety reporting activities

Demand Analysis

Product Pipeline Analysis, by Stage for COVID-19

Recent Developments & Strategic Outcomes

Regulatory requirements/changes due to covid-19

Strategies implemented by companies

IQVIA

PARAXEL International Corporation

Bioclinica

Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD)

IBM Corporation

ICON, plc

PRA Health Sciences

Covance Inc.

ArisGlobal

Linical Accelovance

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings

Company Profiles

Accenture

Clinquest Group B.V. (Linical Americas)

IQVIA

Cognizant

Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings

IBM Corporation

ArisGlobal

ICON Plc.

Capgemini

ITClinical

TAKE Solutions

PAREXEL International Corporation

BioClinica, Inc.

Wipro Limited

UNITED BIOSOURCE CORPORATION

FMD K&L

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/7fkoqj

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets
Indicated Mineral Resource at Los Ricos North of 87.8 million ounces silver equivalent ("AgEq") grading 122 g/t AgEq contained in 22.3 million tonnes ("Mt") (Table 1)

Inferred Mineral Resource at Los Ricos North of 73.2 million ounces AgEq grading 111 g/t AgEq contained in 20.5 Mt (Table 1)

Sensitivity analysis of pit constrained Mineral Resources at higher cut-off of 50 g/t AgEq show an Indicated Mineral Resource of 80.3 million ounces AgEq grading 147 g/t AgEq and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 60.7 million ounces AgEq grading 129 g/t AgEq (Figure 1) (Table 2)

Los Ricos North Mineral Resource is calculated as a pit constrained Mineral Resource forming 96% of the Mineral Resource Estimate, with 4% being out-of-pit Mineral Resource (Indicated 0.9 million ounces AgEq grading 163 g/t AgEq and Inferred 6.4 million ounces grading 178 g/t AgEq)

Total Los Ricos Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources of 151.5 million ounces AgEq (Table 3)

Total Los Ricos Inferred Mineral Resource of 93.1 million ounces AgEq (Table 3)

Total Company Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources of 187.5 million ounces AgEq (Table 4)

Total Company Inferred Mineral Resources of 93.1 million ounces AgEq (Table 4)

In Los Ricos North, an additional 100,000 metres of exploration drilling targeting additional Mineral Resource ounces is planned for 2022

"The initial Mineral Resource Estimate at Los Ricos North represented the first 100,000 metres of drilling at Los Ricos North, and established the Los Ricos District as a very significant project in the silver industry. Combining Los Ricos North and South, the district shows a Measured and Indicated Mineral Resource of 151 million ounce AgEq and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 93 million ounces AgEq," said Brad Langille, President and CEO. "This year, we've begun our next 100,000 metres of drilling which is primarily focused on continued expansion of the Mineral Resources. We look forward to many more excellent drilling results, particularly at El Favor East, Mololoa, and our new Gran Cabrera target, which we recently began drilling. We anticipate that in 2022 we will continue to grow the ounces in the Los Ricos District significantly as we did in 2021."

The Los Ricos North Mineral Resource Estimate by deposit is provided below in Table 1.



Table 1: Los Ricos North Mineral Resource Estimate (1-11)

Deposit Tonnes Average Grade Contained Metal Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq

(Mt) (g/t) (g/t) (%) (%) (%) (g/t) (g/t) (koz) (koz) (Mlb) (Mlb) (Mlb) (koz) (koz) Indicated:





























El Favor 7.7 0.27 98 - - - 1.61 119 68 24,413 - - - 399 29,454 Casados 3.2 0.42 124 - - - 2.09 154 43 12,871 - - - 218 16,061 La Trini 3.1 0.54 74 - - - 1.54 114 54 7,428 - - - 155 11,424 Mololoa 0.4 0.36 130 - - - 2.12 157 5 1,788 - - - 29 2,161 Silver-Gold

Oxide Zone 14.5 0.37 100 - - - 1.71 127 171 46,500 - - - 801 59,100 El Orito Sulfide

Zone1 7.8 0.06 28 0.11 0.88 1.33 1.55 114 15 7,011 19 151 229 389 28,708 Total Indicated 22.3









1.66 122 186 53,510





1,190 87,808 Inferred:





























El Favor 12.4 0.27 89 - - - 1.47 108 106 35,505 - - - 587 43,350 Casados 1.8 0.35 108 - - - 1.82 135 21 6,323 - - - 106 7,843 La Trini 0.1 0.43 108 - - - 1.89 139 1 201 - - - 4 260 Mololoa 0.7 0.39 94 - - - 1.66 122 9 2,102 - - - 37 2,739 Silver-Gold

Oxide Zone 15.0 0.28 91 - - - 1.52 112 136 44,131 - - - 734 54,191 El Orito Sulfide

Zone1 5.5 0.06 28 0.12 0.74 1.20 1.46 108 11 4,888 15 90 146 258 19,007 Total Inferred 20.5









1.51 111 148 49,019





992 73,198

1. El Orito is a silver-base metal sulfide zone, all other deposits are silver-gold oxide zones. 2. Mineral Resources which are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The estimate of Mineral Resources

may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing, or other relevant issues. 3. The Inferred Mineral Resource in this estimate has a lower level of confidence than that applied to an Indicated Mineral Resource and

must not be converted to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected that the majority of the Inferred Mineral Resource could be

upgraded to an Indicated Mineral Resource with continued exploration. 4. The Mineral Resources in this news release were estimated in accordance with the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and

Petroleum (CIM), CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves, Definitions and Guidelines (2014) prepared by the CIM Standing

Committee on Reserve Definitions and adopted by the CIM Council and CIM Best Practices (2019). 5. Historically mined areas were depleted from the Mineral Resource model. 6. Approximately 98.9% of the indicated and 91.3% of the Inferred contained AgEq ounces are pit constrained, with the remainder out

-of-pit. See tables 4 and 6 for details of the split between pit constrained and out-of-pit deposits. 7. The pit constrained AgEq cut-off grade of 29 g/t Ag was derived from US$1,550/oz Au price, US$21/oz Ag price, $3.66$/lb Cu, $0.90

$/lb Pb, $1.26 $/lb Zn, 93% process recovery for Ag and Au, 90% process recovery for Cu, 80% process recovery for Pb and Zn,

US$18/tonne process and G&A cost. The constraining pit optimization parameters were $2.00/t mineralized mining cost, $1.50/t waste

mining cost and 50-degree pit slopes. 8. The out-of-pit AuEq cut-off grade of 119 g/t Ag was derived from US$1,550/oz Au price, US$21/oz Ag price, $3.66$/lb Cu, $0.90 $/lb

Pb, $1.26 $/lb Zn, 93% process recovery for Ag and Au, 90% process recovery for Cu, 80% process recovery for Pb and Zn, $57/t mining

cost, US$18/tonne process and G&A cost. The out-of-pit Mineral Resource grade blocks were quantified above the 119 g/t AgEq cut

-off, below the constraining pit shell within the constraining mineralized wireframes and exhibited sufficient continuity to be considered

for cut and fill and longhole mining 9. No Mineral Resources are classified as Measured. 10. AgEq and AuEq calculated at an Ag/Au ratio of 73.8:1. 11. Totals may not agree due to rounding

Table 2: Cut-off Sensitivities  Pit Constrained Mineral Resource1



Cut-off (AgEq) Tonnes Average Grade Contained Metal Pit

Constrained Au Ag AuEq AgEq Au Ag AuEq AgEq

(g/t) (Mt) (g/t) (g/t) (g/t) (g/t) (koz) (koz) (koz) (koz) Indicated 50 17.0 0.31 89 1.99 147 170 48,811 1,088 80,288 40 19.5 0.28 81 1.81 134 177 51,061 1,138 83,951 29 22.1 0.26 74 1.65 122 183 52,886 1,177 86,862 20 23.7 0.24 70 1.57 116 185 53,681 1,194 88,106 Inferred 50 14.7 0.26 85 1.74 129 121 40,312 823 60,735 40 17.2 0.23 78 1.58 116 128 42,834 872 64,380 29 19.4 0.21 71 1.45 107 133 44,456 905 66,814 20 20.8 0.20 68 1.38 102 135 45,181 921 67,951

1. See Table 1 notes for assumptions

Mineral Resource Estimate Methodology  Los Ricos North

A total of 503 drill holes totalling 106,982 metres were used in the Mineral Resource Estimate. The nearest neighbour mean distance between drill hole collars is 23 metres.

P&E Mining Consultants Inc. ("P&E") collaborated with GoGold personnel to develop the mineralization models, grade estimates, and reporting criteria for the Mineral Resources at Los Ricos North. Mineralization models were initially developed by GoGold and were reviewed and modified by P&E. A total of 21 individual mineralized domains have been identified through drilling and surface sampling. The modelled mineralization domains are constrained by individual wireframes based on a 29 g/t AgEq cut-off.

Mineralization wireframes were used as hard boundaries for the purposes of grade estimation.

A 5m x 2.5m x 5m three-dimensional block model was used for the Mineral Resource Estimate. The block model consists of estimated Au and Ag grades, estimated bulk density, classification criteria, and a block wireframe volume inclusion percent factor. Ag equivalent block grades were subsequently calculated from the estimated Au and Ag grades. The average bulk density by deposit was assigned for the Mineral Resource Estimate.

Assay samples were composited to a 1.00m standard length. Au and Ag grades were estimated using Inverse Distance Cubed weighting of between 4 and 12 composites, with a maximum of 3 composites per drill hole. Composites were capped prior to grade estimation by mineralization domain. Composites were selected within an anisotropic search ellipse oriented parallel to the axes of the modelled domains.

Classification criteria were determined from observed grade, geological continuity, and variography. Indicated Mineral Resources are informed by 3 or more drill holes within 50m.

P&E's Qualified Persons are of the opinion that the Mineral Resource Estimates are suitable for public reporting and are a reasonable representation of the mineralization and metal content of the Los Ricos North Deposits.

Table 3: Los Ricos Mineral Resources  Los Ricos North ("LRN") & Los Ricos South ("LRS")(1-7)

Deposit Tonnes Average Grade Contained Metal Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq

(Mt) (g/t) (g/t) (%) (%) (%) (g/t) (g/t) (koz) (koz) (Mlb) (Mlb) (Mlb) (koz) (koz) LRS Measured 1.1 1.10 152 - - - 2.84 249 39 5,464 - - - 102 8,917 Indicated:





























LRN Oxide1 14.5 0.37 100 - - - 1.71 127 171 46,500 - - - 801 59,100 LRS (Oxide)2-6 8.8 0.89 115 - - - 2.20 193 253 32,588 - - - 626 54,765 LRN Sulfide1 7.8 0.06 28 0.11 0.88 1.33 1.55 114 15 7,011 19 151 229 389 28,708 Total Indicated 31.1









1.93 143 439 86,099





1,816 142,573 Measured &

Indicated 32.2









1.98 146 478 91,563





1,918 151,490 Inferred:





























LRN Oxide1 15.0 0.28 91 - - - 1.52 112 136 44,131 - - - 734 54,191 LRS (Oxide)2-6 3.3 0.88 112 - - - 2.17 190 93 11,781 - - - 227 19,884 LRN Sulfide1 5.5 0.06 28 0.12 0.74 1.20 1.46 108 11 4,888 15 90 146 258 19,007 Total Inferred 23.8









1.65 122 240 60,800





1,219 93,082

1. See Table 1 notes for assumptions 2. See GoGold press release #29-2020 dated July 29, 2020 for full details regarding Los Ricos South Mineral Resource

estimate. 3. The LRS pit constrained AuEq cut-off grade of 0.43 g/t Au was derived from US$1,400/oz Au price, US$16/oz Ag price,

93% process recovery, US$18/tonne process and G&A cost. The constraining pit optimization parameters were

$2.00/t mineralized mining cost, 1.50/t waste mining cost and 50-degree pit slopes. 4. The LRS out-of-pit AuEq cut-off grade of 1.4 g/t Au was derived from US$1,400/oz Au price, US$16/oz Ag price, 93%

process recovery, $40/t mining cost, US$18/tonne process and G&A cost. The out-of-pit Mineral Resource grade

blocks were quantified above the 1.4 g/t AuEq cut-off, below the constraining pit shell and within the constraining

mineralized wireframes. Outof-Pit Mineral Resources are restricted to the Los Ricos and Rascadero Veins, which

exhibit historical continuity and reasonable potential for extraction by cut and fill and longhole mining methods. 5. No out-of-pit Mineral Resources are classified as Measured at LRS. 6. AgEq and AuEq calculated at an Ag/Au ratio of 87.5 for LRS. 7. Totals may not agree due to rounding.

Table 4: Company Wide Mineral Resources(1-3)

Deposit Tonnes Average Grade Contained Metal Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq

(Mt) (g/t) (g/t) (%) (%) (%) (g/t) (g/t) (koz) (koz) (Mlb) (Mlb) (Mlb) (koz) (koz) Measured:





























LRS1 1.1 1.10 152 - - - 2.84 249 39 5,464 - - - 102 8,917 Parral2 6.8 0.35 32 - - - 0.77 58 76 6,897 - - - 168 12,532 Esmerelda3 5.7 0.26 49 - - - 0.82 72 48 8,985 - - - 151 13,194 Total Measured 13.6 0.37 49 - - - 1.07 79 163 21,346 - - - 421 34,643 Indicated:





























LRN Oxide1 14.5 0.37 100 - - - 1.71 127 171 46,500 - - - 801 59,100 LRS (Oxide)1 8.8 0.89 115 - - - 2.20 193 253 32,588 - - - 626 54,765 LRN Sulfide1 7.8 0.06 28 0.11 0.88 1.33 1.55 114 15 7,011 19 151 229 389 28,708 Parral2 6.0 0.35 34 - - - 0.81 60 68 6,525 - - - 157 11,554 Esmerelda3 0.1 0.00 48 - - - 0.77 67 - 80 - - - 1 112 Total Indicated 37.2









1.75 129 507 92,704





1,974 154,239 Measured &

Indicated 50.8









1.57 116 670 114,050





2,395 188,882 Inferred:





























LRN Oxide1 15.0 0.28 91 - - - 1.52 112 136 44,131 - - - 734 54,191 LRS (Oxide)1 3.3 0.88 112 - - - 2.17 190 93 11,781 - - - 227 19,884 LRN Sulfide1 5.5 0.06 28 0.12 0.74 1.20 1.46 108 11 4,888 15 90 146 258 19,007 Total Inferred 23.8









1.65 122 240 60,800





1,219 93,082

1. See Table 2 for LRN and LRS assumptions. 2. Parral Mineral Resources are inclusive of Mineral Reserves  see GoGold press release #2021-43 dated December 7,

2021 for details. 3. Esmerelda Mineral Resources are based on US$1,400/oz Au, US$16/oz Ag, operating costs of US$10.14/t and Au and

Ag process recoveries of 50% resulting in a AgEq cut-off grade of 41 g/t, calculated at an Ag/Au ratio of 87.5:1.

Table 5  Los Ricos North Mineral Resource Estimate  Pit Constrained (1)

Deposit Tonnes Average Grade Contained Metal Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq

(Mt) (g/t) (g/t) (%) (%) (%) (g/t) (g/t) (koz) (koz) (Mlb) (Mlb) (Mlb) (koz) (koz) Indicated:





























El Favor 7.7 0.28 98 - - - 1.60 118 68 24,366 - - - 398 29,395 Casados 3.2 0.42 123 - - - 2.09 154 43 12,782 - - - 216 15,957 La Trini 3.0 0.54 72 - - - 1.51 112 52 6,970 - - - 146 10,781 Mololoa 0.4 0.37 129 - - - 2.12 156 5 1,770 - - - 29 2,139 Silver-Gold

Oxide Zone 14.3 0.37 100 - - - 1.72 127 168 45,888 - - - 789 58,272 El Orito Sulfide

Zone 7.8 0.06 28 0.11 0.89 1.32 1.55 114 15 6,997 19 151 227 387 28,591 Indicated 22.1









1.66 122 168 45,888





1,176 86,863 Inferred:





























El Favor 11.7 0.25 85 - - - 1.41 104 95 32,053 - - - 529 39,051 Casados 1.8 0.35 107 - - - 1.79 132 20 6,014 - - - 101 7,464 Mololoa 0.6 0.37 85 - - - 1.52 112 7 1,619 - - - 29 2,134 Silver-Gold

Oxide Zone 14.1 0.27 88 - - - 1.45 107 122 39,686 - - - 659 48,649 El Orito Sulfide

Zone 5.3 0.07 28 0.12 0.73 1.17 1.44 106 11 4,768 14 85 137 246 18,162 Inferred 19.4









1.45 107 140 44,454





905 66,811

1. See Table 1 notes for assumptions

Table 6  Los Ricos North Mineral Resource Estimate  Out-of-Pit(1,2)

Deposit Tonnes Average Grade Contained Metal Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq Au Ag Cu Pb Zn AuEq AgEq

(kt) (g/t) (g/t) (%) (%) (%) (g/t) (g/t) (koz) (koz) (Mlb) (Mlb) (Mlb) (koz) (koz) Indicated:





























El Favor 11 0.45 131 - - - 2.23 164 0.2 47 - - - 0.8 59 Casados 18 0.38 154 - - - 2.46 182 0.2 88 - - - 1.4 105 La Trini 126 0.62 113 - - - 2.16 159 2.5 458 - - - 8.7 643 Mololoa 3 0.51 188 - - - 3.05 225 - 18 - - - 0.3 22 Silver-Gold

Oxide Zone 158 0.57 120 - - - 2.21 163 2.9 611 - - - 11.2 829 El Orito Sulfide

Zone 23 0.03 19 0.18 0.75 2.89 2.20 162 - 14 - - 1 1.6 118 Indicated 181









2.20 163 2.9 625





12.8 947 Inferred:





























El Favor 736 0.49 146 - - - 2.46 182 11.5 3,452 - - - 58.3 4,299 Casados 58 0.51 167 - - - 2.77 205 0.9 310 - - - 5.1 379 La Trini 56 0.44 111 - - - 1.95 144 0.8 199 - - - 3.5 257 Mololoa 103 0.50 145 - - - 2.47 182 1.7 482 - - - 8.2 605 Silver-Gold

Oxide Zone 953 0.49 145 - - - 2.45 181 14.9 4,443 - - - 75.1 5,540 El Orito Sulfide

Zone 163 0.03 23 0.27 1.05 2.23 2.19 161 0.1 121 1 4 8 11.4 845 Inferred 1,116









2.41 178 15.0 4,564





86.5 6,385

1. See table 1 notes for assumptions

Qualified Persons

The independent Qualified Person for the Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserve disclosure for the project is Eugene Puritch, P.Eng., FEC, CET, President of P&E, who has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this news release. Mr. David Duncan, P. Geo. is the Qualified Person for GoGold as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information of this news release.

VRIFY Slide Deck and 3D Presentation

VRIFY is a platform being used by companies to communicate with investors using 360 virtual tours of remote mining assets, 3D models and interactive presentations. VRIFY can be accessed by website and with the VRIFY iOS and Android apps. Access the GoGold Company Profile on VRIFY at: https://vrify.com

The VRIFY Slide Deck and 3D Presentation for GoGold can be viewed at: https://vrify.com/decks/10437 and on the Company's website at: www.gogoldresources.com.

Los Ricos District Exploration Projects

The Company's two exploration projects at its Los Ricos District are in Jalisco state, Mexico. The Los Ricos South Project began in March 2019 and an initial Mineral Resource was announced on July 29, 2020 which disclosed a Measured & Indicated Mineral Resource of 63.7 million ounces AgEq grading 199 g/t AgEq contained in 10.0 million tonnes, and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 19.9 million ounces AgEq grading 190 g/t AgEq contained in 3.3 million tonnes. An initial PEA on the project was announced on January 20, 2021 indicating an NPV 5% of US$295M.

The Los Ricos North Project was launched in March 2020 and an initial Mineral Resource was announced on December 7, 2021, which disclosed an Indicated Mineral Resource of 87.8 million ounces AgEq grading 122 g/t AgEq contained in 22.3 million tonnes, and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 73.2 million ounces AgEq grading 111 g/t AgEq contained in 20.5 million tonnes. The Company has a drill program in place for an additional 100,000 metres of drilling in 2022.

About GoGold Resources

GoGold Resources (TSX: GGD) is a Canadian-based silver and gold producer focused on operating, developing, exploring and acquiring high quality projects in Mexico. The Company operates the Parral Tailings mine in the state of Chihuahua and has the Los Ricos South and Los Ricos North exploration projects in the state of Jalisco. Headquartered in Halifax, NS, GoGold is building a portfolio of low cost, high margin projects. For more information visit gogoldresources.com.

About P&E Mining Consultants Inc.

P&E Mining Consultants Inc., established in 2004, provides geological and mine engineering consulting reports, Mineral Resource Estimate Technical Reports, Preliminary Economic Assessments and Pre-Feasibility Studies. In addition, they are affiliated with major Toronto based consulting firms for the purposes of joint venturing on Feasibility Studies. Their experience covers over 400 NI 43-101 Technical Reports on diamonds and metallic mineral deposits including gold, silver, base metals, PGM and iron for both open pit and underground operations.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT:

The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy of any of GoGold's securities in the United States.

This news release may contain "forward-looking information" as defined in applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Parral tailings project, the Los Ricos projects, future operating margins, future production and processing, and future plans and objectives of GoGold, constitute forward looking information that involve various risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking information is based on a number of factors and assumptions which have been used to develop such information but which may prove to be incorrect, including, but not limited to, assumptions in connection with the continuance of GoGold and its subsidiaries as a going concern, general economic and market conditions, mineral prices, the accuracy of mineral resource estimates, and the performance of the Parral project There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.

Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from GoGold's expectations include exploration and development risks associated with GoGold's projects, the failure to establish estimated mineral resources or mineral reserves, volatility of commodity prices, variations of recovery rates, and global economic conditions. For additional information with respect to risk factors applicable to GoGold, reference should be made to GoGold's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with securities regulators, including, but not limited to, GoGold's Annual Information Form. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date of this release.

SOURCE GoGold Resources Inc.
PIERRE, S.D., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Gov. Noem has joined a growing list of governors, city, and county leaders nationwide in recognizing Jan. 23-Jan. 29 as School Choice Week. Her official declaration of "South Dakota School Choice Week" marks the third year in a row the Week has been formally proclaimed in South Dakota.

As learning disruptions continue nationwide, Gov. Noem's proclamation highlights the essential role of flexible education choices and encourages families to explore the options available to their children. South Dakota families will mark the Week with 60 celebratory events and activities.

From at-home activities to in-school celebrations, the diverse celebrations echo the diverse learning needs of students across the state. The goal of the Week's celebrations is to raise awareness about educational opportunities, bringing parents from every background and income level clear information about their learning options.

Nationwide, more than 26,000 events have been planned for Jan. 23-Jan.29, which will be the twelfth annual national School Choice Week.

"We encourage families to celebrate their school choices, as well as start evaluating options for next school year, during School Choice Week," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "We are thankful for Gov. Noem's proclamation and wish South Dakotan families the best in their National School Choice Week celebrations."

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week focuses equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of events and activities  such as school fairs, open houses, and student showcases  to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. Year-round, National School Choice Week develops resources and guides to assist families searching for schools or learning environments for their children. The effort is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation.

For more information, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/south-dakota .

SOURCE National School Choice Week
The Chinese medical team to Rwanda donates a consignment of medical supplies to Kibungo referral hospital in Ngoma district, Eastern Province, Rwanda, Jan. 20, 2022. The items presented by the team to the hospital include hand disinfectant, surgical hand disinfection gel, medical surgical mask, disinfectant tablets, disposable protective clothing, disposable operating coat and disposable medical surgical mask. (Xinhua/Ji Li)

KIGALI, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese medical team to Rwanda on Thursday donated a consignment of medical supplies to Kibungo referral hospital in Ngoma district, Eastern Province.

The items presented by the team to the hospital include hand disinfectant, surgical hand disinfection gel, medical surgical mask, disinfectant tablets, disposable protective clothing, disposable operating coat and disposable medical surgical mask.

Receiving the donations at the hospital, Gahima John, director general of Kibungo referral hospital said that the hospital has been in collaboration with China through the Chinese medical team for many years.

"We are grateful for the medical supplies we received today, and we thank the Chinese medical team for support not only in medical practice, but also in equipment. We have received equipment from the Chinese medical team many times. This has helped us to give support to our people and that is something we are grateful for," said John.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, the Chinese medical team has been here playing a big role in the treatment of the Rwandan patients, according to him.

"We look forward to continuing the collaboration between our hospital and the Chinese medical team."

John said that the Chinese medical team has been at Kibungo for many years, and they have been supporting the hospital in different ways.

"Today, we have donated this medical equipment to Kibungo hospital, because we are friends, brothers and sisters" said Peng Jikui, head of the Chinese medical team.

China started to dispatch medical team to Rwanda in 1982. 

Peng Jikui (L front), head of the Chinese medical team to Rwanda, and Gahima John (R, front), director general of Kibungo referral hospital, attend a ceremony for the Chinese medical team's donation of medical supplies to Kibungo referral hospital in Ngoma district, Eastern Province, Rwanda, Jan. 20, 2022. The items presented by the team to the hospital include hand disinfectant, surgical hand disinfection gel, medical surgical mask, disinfectant tablets, disposable protective clothing, disposable operating coat and disposable medical surgical mask. (Xinhua/Ji Li)

The Chinese medical team to Rwanda donates a consignment of medical supplies to Kibungo referral hospital in Ngoma district, Eastern Province, Rwanda, Jan. 20, 2022. The items presented by the team to the hospital include hand disinfectant, surgical hand disinfection gel, medical surgical mask, disinfectant tablets, disposable protective clothing, disposable operating coat and disposable medical surgical mask. (Xinhua/Ji Li)

Peng Jikui (1st L), head of the Chinese medical team to Rwanda, and Gahima John (C), director general of Kibungo referral hospital, attend a ceremony for the Chinese medical team's donation of medical supplies to Kibungo referral hospital in Ngoma district, Eastern Province, Rwanda, Jan. 20, 2022. The items presented by the team to the hospital include hand disinfectant, surgical hand disinfection gel, medical surgical mask, disinfectant tablets, disposable protective clothing, disposable operating coat and disposable medical surgical mask. (Xinhua/Ji Li)
DALLAS, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hamilton Wingo has secured a Florida appellate ruling requiring Carolina Casualty Insurance Company to honor its insurance contract and provide coverage for a $17.1 million arbitration award involving Texas-based Primcogent Solutions.

The June 2021 ruling by the Florida First District Court of Appeal closes the books on the case Carolina Casualty Insurance Company v. John D. Spicer, a long-running dispute over Primcogent's 2011 acquisition of medical laser equipment from Santa Barbara Medical Innovations (SBMI). Primcogent was forced to file for bankruptcy in 2013 due to the acquisition. Subsequent litigation on behalf of the bankruptcy trustee claimed that SBMI had failed to disclose key information about the equipment, including revenue-generating potential and a history of customer complaints.

Prior to trial, the bankruptcy trustee offered to settle within policy limits. The insurance company denied coverage and refused to tender its policy limits, citing a litany of legal excuses.

After a six-day arbitration trial in 2016, an arbitration panel awarded $17.1 million to the bankruptcy trustee. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the arbitration award in May 2019issuing its opinion the same day Hamilton Wingo co-founder Chris Hamilton argued the case.

When SBMI's insurance carrier, Carolina Casualty Insurance Company, refused to pay the arbitration award, Hamilton Wingo filed a suit in Florida on behalf of the bankruptcy trustee. After an extended hearing in January 2019 on the parties' cross motions for summary judgment, the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the trustee and denied the insurance company's motion for summary judgment on all counts.

Despite the insurance company's efforts to appeal the lower court's decision, further delay and evade accountability, in June 2021, the Florida First District Court of Appeal affirmed the award of coverage of the judgment in full, and lifted the discovery stay as to the plaintiff's claims for bad faith and fraud against the insurerentitling the bankruptcy trustee to obtain the insurance company's files withheld as confidential.

The insurance company was also forced to pay all policy limits to the bankruptcy trustee. Hamilton Wingo, as the Special Counsel to the trustee appointed by the bankruptcy court, is now actively prosecuting claims against Carolina Casualty Insurance Company for insurance bad faith, fraud, exemplary damages, and treble damages.

Media Contact:

Sophia Reza

800-559-4534

[email protected]

SOURCE Hamilton Wingo, LLP
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Trulieve Cannabis Corp. (CSE: TRUL) (OTCQX: TCNNF) ("Trulieve" or "the Company"), a leading and top-performing cannabis company in the United States, today announced plans to celebrate the one year anniversary of recreational cannabis sales in Arizona through a series of in-store activations, product specials and celebrations. All Trulieve-affiliated Harvest locations will have doorbuster deals on January 21 - 22, and the company will host a rooftop event at The Clarendon Hotel on Saturday, January 22.

Harvest recorded Arizona's first sale of recreational cannabis on January 22, 2021. This occurred shortly after voters approved Proposition 207, which legalized the possession and use of marijuana for adults. All 17 Arizona-based Harvest dispensaries will commemorate the occasion with daily activations including doorbuster deals, BOGO scratcher cards and branded swag giveaways. Customers who spend more than $275 at any Arizona Trulieve-affiliated store on January 20 - 21 will have exclusive access to the Company's Clarendon Hotel rooftop celebration.

Festivities on January 22 will also include in-store celebrations featuring DJs, food and local vendors at Trulieve-affiliated Harvest dispensaries in Scottsdale, located at 15190 N Hayden Road; Tempe, located at 710 W Elliot Road; Phoenix, located at 2630 W. Indian School Road; and Mesa, located at 1150 W. McLellan Road.

"Arizona's adult-use market has surpassed expectations in its first year and our local teams are thrilled to celebrate this milestone with our patients and customers," said Kim Rivers, CEO of Trulieve. "We are excited to celebrate this milestone with our loyal customers as we continue to expand access to across the state."

Trulieve-affiliated dispensaries in Arizona are located in Avondale, Casa Grande, Chandler, Cottonwood, Glendale, Guadalupe, Lake Havasu City, Mesa, Peoria, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tucson.

For more information on store activations and locations, please visit: https://www.trulieve.com/dispensaries/arizona.

About Trulieve

Trulieve is an industry leading, vertically integrated cannabis company and multi-state operator in the U.S. operating in 11 states, with leading market positions in Arizona, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Trulieve is poised for accelerated growth and expansion, building scale in retail and distribution in new and existing markets through its hub strategy. By providing innovative, high-quality products across its brand portfolio, Trulieve delivers optimal customer experiences and increases access to cannabis, helping patients and customers to live without limits. Trulieve is listed on the CSE under the symbol TRUL and trades on the OTCQX market under the symbol TCNNF. For more information, please visit Trulieve.com.

Facebook: @Trulieve

Instagram: @Trulieve

Twitter: @Trulieve

Investor Contact

Christine Hersey, Director of Investor Relations

+1 (424) 202-0210

[email protected]

Media Contact

Rob Kremer, Executive Director of Corporate Communications

+1 (404) 218-3077

[email protected]

MATTIO Communications

[email protected]

SOURCE Trulieve Cannabis Corp.
BOISE, Idaho, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Gov. Brad Little has signed a proclamation officially declaring Jan. 23-Jan. 29 to be "Idaho School Choice Week" and recognizing that every Idaho child deserves an effective education.

Gov. Little's proclamation highlights that "research demonstrates that providing children with multiple education options improves academic performance." His proclamation joins those of more than 250 state, city and county leaders who have issued similar proclamations. These proclamations coincide with National School Choice Week, the nation's largest annual celebration of K-12 educational opportunity.

For Idaho School Choice Week, parents, schools, and other organizers have planned 209 events and activities  at-home activities, in-school spirit days, a statewide virtual event sharing school information, and more  with the goal of starting conversations about what educational opportunities work well for students, and what opportunities families hope to see in the future.

More than 26,000 events have been independently planned for the Week nationwide, which is celebrated by schools of every type.

"We are excited that Idaho parents, teachers, and community leaders will be bringing their insight and enthusiasm to the national celebration of education," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "We're grateful to Gov. Little for issuing the proclamation and wish Idaho families the best as they explore their education options."

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week focuses equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of events and activities  such as school fairs, open houses, and student showcases  to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. Year-round, National School Choice Week develops resources and guides to assist families searching for schools or learning environments for their children. The effort is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation.

For more information, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/idaho .

SOURCE National School Choice Week
DUBLIN, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Cardiac Arrest Treatment Market (2021-2026) by Treatment, Distribution Channel and Geography, Competitive Analysis and the Impact of Covid-19 with Ansoff Analysis" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Cardiac Arrest Treatment Market is estimated to be USD 17.63 Bn in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 27.39 Bn by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 9.21%.



The major factor raising the global cardiac arrest treatment market is an increase in cardiovascular disorders (CVDs). The increasingly sedentary lifestyle, high alcohol & tobacco consumption, and rising geriatric population are leading to the increase in CVDs. Furthermore, increasing awareness of cardiac resynchronization therapy devices among the population is escalating the market growth. However, frequent product calls and the high cost of Treatment are anticipated to hinder the market during the forecast period.



Huge investments in research and development associated with cardiac arrest treatment are expected to foster new opportunities for the market during the forecast period.



The Global Cardiac Arrest Treatment Market is segmented based on Treatment, Distribution Channel and Geography.



Company Profiles

Some of the companies covered in this report are Medico S.p.A., Medtronic plc, Novartis AG, Neurescue, Nihon Kohden Corporation, Pfizer, etc.



Competitive Quadrant

The report includes Competitive Quadrant, a proprietary tool to analyze and evaluate the position of companies based on their Industry Position score and Market Performance score. The tool uses various factors for categorizing the players into four categories. Some of these factors considered for analysis are financial performance over the last 3 years, growth strategies, innovation score, new product launches, investments, growth in market share, etc.



Why buy this report?

The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the Global Cardiac Arrest Treatment Market. The report includes in-depth qualitative analysis, verifiable data from authentic sources, and projections about market size. The projections are calculated using proven research methodologies.

The report has been compiled through extensive primary and secondary research. The primary research is done through interviews, surveys, and observation of renowned personnel in the industry.

The report includes an in-depth market analysis using Porter's 5 forces model and the Ansoff Matrix. In addition, the impact of Covid-19 on the market is also featured in the report.

The report also includes the regulatory scenario in the industry, which will help you make a well-informed decision. The report discusses major regulatory bodies and major rules and regulations imposed on this sector across various geographies.

The report also contains the competitive analysis using Positioning Quadrants, the analyst's Proprietary competitive positioning tool.

Key Topics Covered:



1 Report Description



2 Research Methodology



3 Executive Summary

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Market Size and Segmentation

3.3 Market Outlook



4 Market Influencers

4.1 Drivers

4.1.1 Increasing Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases

4.1.2 Increase in Geriatric Population

4.1.3 Growing Awareness of Generic Drugs and Minimal Invasive Procedures

4.1.4 Favorable Reimbursement Policies

4.2 Restraints

4.2.1 Expensive Treatment and Device Replacement Cost

4.3 Opportunities

4.3.1 Technological Advancement

4.3.2 Rising Healthcare Expenditure in Emerging Countries

4.4 Challenges

4.4.1 Lack of Skilled Professionals

4.4.2 Product Recalls

4.5 Trends



5 Market Analysis

5.1 Regulatory Scenario

5.2 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

5.3 Impact of COVID-19

5.4 Ansoff Matrix Analysis



6 Global Cardiac Arrest Treatment Market, By Treatment

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Drugs

6.2.1 Vasopressors

6.2.2 Anti-Arrhythmic Drugs

6.2.3 Anticholinergic Drugs

6.2.4 Corticosteroids

6.2.5 Fibrinolytic Drugs

6.2.6 Beta-Blockers

6.2.7 Others

6.3 Medical Devices

6.3.1 Defibrillators

6.3.1.1 Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators

6.3.1.2 External Defibrillators

6.3.2 Pacemakers

6.3.2.1 Implantable Pacemakers

6.3.2.2 External Pacemaker

6.3.3 Others



7 Global Cardiac Arrest Treatment Market, By Distribution Channel

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Hospitals

7.3 Retail Pharmacies

7.4 Online Pharmacies

7.5 Others



8 Global Cardiac Arrest Treatment Market, By Geography



9 Competitive Landscape

9.1 Competitive Quadrant

9.2 Market Share Analysis

9.3 Strategic Initiatives

9.3.1 M&A and Investments

9.3.2 Partnerships and Collaborations

9.3.3 Product Developments and Improvements



10 Company Profiles

10.1 Abbott Laboratories

10.2 Amgen Inc

10.3 Allergan

10.4 Bayer AG

10.5 Biotronik SE & Co. KG

10.6 Boston Scientific Corporation

10.7 Bristol Myers Squibb Company

10.8 Fukuda Denshi Co, Ltd

10.9 Koninklijke Philips N.V.

10.10 LivaNova PLC

10.11 Lepu Medical

10.12 MicroPort Scientific Corporation

10.13 Medico S.p.A.

10.14 Medtronic plc

10.15 Novartis AG

10.16 Neurescue

10.17 Nihon Kohden Corporation

10.18 Osypka Medical

10.19 Pfizer Inc

10.20 Sanofi S.A.

10.21 Shree Pacetronix Ltd

10.22 Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.

10.23 Stryker Corporation

10.24 Viatris Inc

10.25 ZOLL Medical Corporation



11 Appendix



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/knbb7c

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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SOURCE Research and Markets
The ISLE in Shenzhen is the biggest and glitziest large screen tech show in the world. With latest technologies and solutions from 1000+ exhibitors, taking 80,000 square-meter exhibition area, ISLE 2022 would cover the whole industry supply chain in large screen display, audio-visual integrated system and LED. Around 20 seminars and workshops would be staged currently with the exhibition.

The ISLE 2022 will reveal this year's top new products, releases and best of ISLE awards for large screen display and AV system. Mini-LED, Micro-LED, 8K LED TV, 5G all-in-one conference machine, virtual production of LED large screen fusion XR technology, 3D LED wall, are some of ISLE 2022's major technology trends.

Li Yingjie, CEO of ISLE commented: "We will continue to work closely with China Optics and Optoelectronics Manufactures Association and C.L.A.V Professional Committee of China Industrial Cooperation Association, as well as other industrial organizations, for the full success of seminars and best product appraisals at the new dates. We look forward to hosting a grand event for the industry and making ISLE 2022 a high-quality, fruitful and safe gathering for all."

About ISLE

ISLE is the world's leading professional exhibition for Smart Display, AV Integrated System and LED. Held every year in China's tech hub of Shenzhen, the event is a joint venture of COEMA (China Optics and Optoelectronics Manufactures Association) and three sub companies of China Foreign Trade Center, organizer of Canton Fair (world's biggest trade event).

For more details, please check

https://www.isle.org.cn/?lang=en

SOURCE ISLE
Enjoy exclusive opportunities for curated networking and unparalleled access to private deal flow. Hear directly from the executives of top-performing cannabis companies and get priceless insights from the world's leading cannabis investors, all in one place.

Why Attend

The upgraded version of the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference, the biggest and best yet, will not only feature the traditional keynotes, panel discussions, fireside chats, networking, company presentations, and investor and celebrity appearances, but also a larger exhibit floor and enhanced industry networking opportunities.

Among the top new features of the Miami Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference are:

An expo floor like you've never seen before, with bigger booths and a lot of additional branding opportunities for your company.

A private, VIP area for select companies and investors.

An upgraded system for 1:1 meetings.

More networking opportunities and higher profile attendees than ever before.

A Proven Model

After 13 extremely successful editions in Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, New York and Miami, the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference is going bigger than ever.

The April 20 and April 21 Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference will include, for the first time ever, an expo floor to give more visibility to the brands that are shaping this space. In addition, attendees will enjoy private meeting areas, comfortable seating and premium food options.

"We've seen cannabis businesses raise tens of millions of dollars at our events and this year's meeting will be even larger, with a record level of investment capital and top-notch operators," said Chief Zinger Jason Raznick.

"We'll also dive into key issues related to cannabis and capital markets with incredible speakers and, for the first time ever, a slew of new features we cannot share publicly just yet."

The Speakers

At the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Miami you'll hear from some of the top names in the industry including:

Zach George of Sundial Growers,

of Sundial Growers, Gary Santo of TILT Holdings,

of TILT Holdings, Michael Mills of Body and Mind,

of Body and Mind, Emily Paxhia of Poseidon Asset Management,

of Poseidon Asset Management, Len Tannenbaum of Advanced Flower Capital.

Other presenting companies include:

 Trulieve  Unrivaled Brands  Statehouse/Harborside  Forian  Agrify  Columbia Care  CB1 Capital  Tilray  Curaleaf  Cresco Labs  Flora Growth  Zuber Lawler  Marcum  Village Farms  Cansortium  Item 9 Labs  Weedmaps  Neptune Wellness  4Front Holdings  Marimed



Click here to register for the full In Person or Virtual Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference experience, featuring networking, one-on-one meetings, access to investors, and more.

"Adding an expo floor is extremely exciting for us. We were waiting for the right time to do this; now that we've had many years to curate the best of the best companies in the cannabis space, we feel confident that the offering will be like no other. This, on top of the already impressive speaker lineup and investment opportunities Benzinga always brings to the table," concluded Patrick Lane, Executive Vice President of Partnerships at Benzinga.

About The Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference

The Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference, renowned for being the premier gathering of cannabis entrepreneurs and investors in North America, returns for another edition, recharged with an impressive list of speakers.

Check out the full lineup here .

About Benzinga

Benzinga is a fast-growing, dynamic and innovative financial media outlet that empowers investors with high-quality, unique content.

About Benzinga Events : The Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference series is held throughout the year in North American cities. Each event brings investors face-to-face with top cannabis companies to hear about advancements in the rapidly evolving sector.

Related Links

www.benzingapro.com

SOURCE Benzinga
SAINT HELIER, Jersey, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Komainu ("the Company"), a regulated institutional-grade digital asset custody services provider safeguarding over US$5bn in assets, today announced the appointment of Matthew Chamberlain as its Chief Executive Officer. For the past five years, Chamberlain has served as CEO of the London Metal Exchange, the world centre for industrial metals trading, and brings to Komainu his strong track record of operating regulated and mission-critical financial market infrastructure.

Prior to serving as CEO of the London Metal Exchange, Chamberlain started his career in M&A (with a specific focus on exchanges and financial market infrastructure) at Citibank, Perella Weinberg Partners and UBS. In addition to his prior work experience, he holds an MA in Computer Science from Trinity College Cambridge.

Commenting on his appointment, Chamberlain said: "I have always been passionate about building safe and efficient solutions to ensure global markets function as effectively as possible. I am therefore hugely honoured to have the opportunity to join the Komainu team. With its regulated institutional custody platform for cryptocurrencies and broader digital assets, Komainu's hybrid servicing model combines the best of traditional and decentralised finance, and truly represents the natural evolution of our industry."

Chamberlain joins Komainu during a period of strong growth for the Company. In 2021, Komainu raised US$25m in its Series A funding round, and achieved key ISO and ISAE operational certifications. In his role as CEO, Chamberlain will be responsible for the continued growth of the Company, as it further develops its platform to offer a comprehensive range of services for institutions looking to expand and establish their digital asset footprint.

Komainu was founded in 2018 as a joint venture between global investment bank Nomura, digital asset security firm Ledger, and digital asset investment house CoinShares, to fill a gap in the marketplace and provide institutions with secure and compliant custody solutions for digital assets investments. The organisation draws on expertise from banking, fund management and cyber-security to provide best-in-class regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering and insurance solutions.

Chamberlain continued, "I believe strongly in the transformative capacity of a blockchain-empowered world  but such technologies will only deliver their true potential when robust infrastructure exists to make them easily and reliably available to all those who wish to participate in this unprecedented period of financial democratisation. I am particularly excited to be working with the incredibly talented people at Komainu. I would like to thank Henson Orser for his service as Acting CEO, and am very much looking forward to working closely with Henson going forward in his role as President of Komainu."

Quotes from Founding Partners

Jean-Marie Mognetti, CEO of CoinShares, remarked: "We welcome Matthew to Komainu. The digital asset industry is maturing and needs experienced professionals to support the institutionalization shift at work. Matthew's professional background is key for Komainu's development towards financial institutions. We look forward to the next phase of growth under his leadership."

Jezri Mohideen, Global Chief Digital Officer, Wholesale at Nomura, added: "Komainu is a custodian built by institutions for institutions, and we are confident that Matthew's experience will allow us to continue delivering on this vital mission."

Pascal Gauthier, CEO of Ledger, concluded: "The rapid growth of the crypto asset space will need to be underpinned by professional market infrastructure providers. Komainu is positioned in precisely this sweet spot, and we look forward to its continued growth and development."

About Komainu

Komainu is the first hybrid custodian for institutional digital asset investors created by the Japanese investment bank, Nomura, digital asset manager, CoinShares and digital asset security company, Ledger. Komainu is providing decentralized and secure digital asset custody services through a single application-based solution for institutions, offering multi-asset support and regulatory compliance. Headquartered in Jersey, Channel Islands, Komainu merges institutional financial services with leading security standards for the next generation of institutional custody.

For more information, please visit https://www.komainu.com

Media Contact

Peter Padovano

M Group Strategic Communications (For Komainu)

646-859-5953

[email protected]

SOURCE Komainu
PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Liquid Detergent Market by Nature (Organic and Conventional), Application (Laundry and Dishwashing), Distribution Channel (Online Sales Channels, Supermarket & Hypermarket, Departmental & Convenience Stores, and Independent Grocery Stores), and End User (Residential and Commercial): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2018  2025." According to the report, the global liquid detergent industry was estimated at $27.40 billion in 2017, and is anticipated to hit $40.48 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 5.2% from 2021 to 2030.

Drivers, restraints, and opportunities-

Rise in consumer preference toward liquid detergent, increase in penetration of washing machines & dishwashers, and high-end product innovationsdrive the global liquid detergent market. On the other hand, high price of liquid detergent and availability of counterfeit products impede the growth to some extent. However, improvements in packaging solutions and growing consumer inclination toward healthy lifestyle are projected to pave the way for lucrative opportunities in the industry.

Request Sample Report @https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/5199

COVID-19 scenario-

The outbreak of the pandemic led to disrupted production activities and distorted supply chain across the world, especially during the initial phase of the pandemic, which impacted the global liquid detergent market negatively.

However, growing awareness about hygiene, cleanliness, and sterility gave way to increasing demand for liquid detergent, thereby providing the market a mixed impact altogether.

The conventional segment held the major share in 2017-

By nature, the conventional segment accounted for the highest share in 2017, holding more than 90% of the global liquid detergent market. The organic segment, on the other hand, is projected to grow at the fastest CAGR of 6.6% throughout the forecast period, due to high inclination toward products made with natural ingredients among health-conscious consumers.

The laundry segment to retain the lion's share-

By application, the laundry segment garnered the highest share, generating nearly three-fourths of the global liquid detergent market. This is attributed to high penetration of washing machines in the developed countries. On the other hand, the dish-washing segment would cite the fastest CAGR of 6.1% throughout the forecast period, due to increase in penetration of dishwashers and introduction of liquid detergents with exotic fragrances.

North America to dominate by 2025-

By geography, North America generated the highest share in 2017, contributing to around two-fifths of the global liquid detergentmarket. This is owing to growing demand for washing machines and dishwashers in the region. Simultaneously, the Asia-Pacific region would cite the fastest CAGR of 8.5% during the forecast period. The other regions studied through the report include LAMEA and Europe.

For Purchase Enquiry @https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/5199

Key market players-

Henkel Company KGaA

S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc.

Procter & Gamble

Godrej Consumer Products

Reckitt Benckiser Group plc.

The Clorox Company

Unilever Plc.

Amway Corporation

Church & Dwight

Colgate-Palmolive

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We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.

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SOURCE Allied Market Research
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- loanDepot, Inc. (NYSE: LDI), (together with its subsidiaries, "loanDepot" or the "Company"), the innovative consumer lending and real estate services provider that is using its proprietary mello technology to deliver best-in-class experiences to its customers, today announced that Elijah Pallante has been promoted to Chief Data Officer. In this newly created role, Pallante will be responsible for leading the development and implementation of the company's enterprise data and information strategy.

"I am extremely proud of how our company attracts the brightest minds in the industrypeople who share our passion to deliver a seamless, exceptional mortgage experience to digital savvy customers," said loanDepot Founder and CEO Anthony Hsieh. "Elijah has played a critical role in supporting our goals, and now, under the leadership of Chief Digital Officer George Brady, the future is even brighter, and filled with immense opportunity that will benefit our team, and, most important, our customers."

As Chief Data Officer, Pallante will be instrumental in optimizing the role of data across the enterprise and will provide strategic guidance and direction to take the company's market-leading products into the next generation of the lifecycle both in application and technology evolutions. This is an area of strength for Pallante, who will retain his current responsibilities as head of the company's Enterprise Innovation Team, where he will continue to lead the development of product and service enhancements.

Pallante joined the company in 2014 as VP, Corporate Development, and, in 2018 was promoted to SVP, Enterprise Innovation. Prior to joining loanDepot, Pallante held key positions in the financial services industry, working with such companies as Discover Financial Services, Performance Capital and Merrill Lynch.

"Elijah's ability to identify operational areas of opportunity is derived from his impressive ability to use data as a path to change," said Brady. "His new role will enable him to further expand that talent beyond operations into all areas of our business, the result of which will be further enhancements that deliver exceptional value to our customers."

"I am excited to collaborate with George and his team to leverage our proprietary technology in ways that further Anthony's vision of creating a responsive, nimble experience for our customersensuring that the dream of homeownership, or the achieving personal goals through a refinanceis effortless and intuitive," said Pallante.

About loanDepot

loanDepot (NYSE: LDI) is a digital commerce company committed to serving its customers throughout the home ownership journey. Since its launch in 2010, loanDepot has revolutionized the mortgage industry with a digital-first approach that makes it easier, faster and less stressful to purchase or refinance a home. loanDepot enables customers to achieve the American dream of homeownership through a broad suite of lending and real estate services that simplify one of life's most complex transactions. With headquarters in Southern California and offices nationwide, loanDepot is committed to serving the communities in which its team lives and works through a variety of local, regional and national philanthropic efforts.

Media Contact:

Jonathan Fine

VP, Public Relations

(781) 248-3963

[email protected]

SOURCE loanDepot, Inc.
NEW YORK, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Although stable during the first year of the pandemic, physician rates of burnout increased in 2021, with a sharp rise among physicians in emergency medicine.

The Medscape Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2022: Stress, Anxiety and Anger found a five-percentage point increase in burnout overall, from 42% in 2020 to 47% in 2021, with an increase in ER physician burnout from 43% to 60% last year. Most physicians said that burnout permeates most aspects of their lives, with 54% indicating that the impact was strong to severe, including with their relationships.

Burnout increased for both male and female physicians, from 36% to 41% and 51% to 56%, respectively. Physicians said they cope by exercising (48%), isolating from others (45%), eating junk food (35%) and drinking (24%).

The impact of back-to-work re-openings, including-COVID- related stress, reduced staff, and the anxiety from concern of infecting family members contributed to a burnout rate higher than that of the first year of the pandemic, when quarantines temporarily shuttered clinics and physician offices.

More than 13,000 U.S. physicians across 29 specialties responded to the survey, conducted between June 29 and September 26, 2021. Burnout is described as long-term, unresolved, job-related stress leading to exhaustion, cynicism, detachment from job responsibilities, and lacking a sense of personal accomplishment.

For the full report, click here: https://www.medscape.com/2022-lifestyle-burnout

Burnout Causes: Is it the system, or is it physician personality?

While 60% of physicians pointed to overwhelming bureaucratic demands, followed by a lack of respect from administrators, colleagues and staff and long hours, more than one in three connected burnout to their own personality traits or individual frailty, and 23% said they weren't sure. However, 43% discounted this notion. The care of patients with COVID was far less likely to cause burnout and was cited only 12%.

Depression: Why physicians go it alone

As in previous reports, about one in five physicians (21%) said they were depressed; of those, 24% of them clinically and the remainder, 64%, indicating "colloquial" depression, i.e., sadness, feeling down, blue.

More than one-third of all physicians (34%) who reported depression said it leads them to be more easily exasperated with patients and 23% said they are less careful when taking patient notes.

Nearly half of physicians with depression (49%) said they can deal with it on their own, but 43% said they would not seek help due to fears of disclosure to the medical board. About one in five said they worry they would be shunned by the medical profession.

"Although the pandemic has been incredibly challenging for physicians, the second year  when society reopened  proved more difficult to navigate," said Leslie Kane, M.A., Senior Director, Medscape Business of Medicine. "The level of burnout, already high, worsened and took an enormous toll on emergency medicine physicians. It remains a major concern that doctors with depression feel they must go it alone, for fear of professional consequences. Post-pandemic provides an opportunity for the profession to rethink the systems and mindsets that keep physicians stuck in the dissatisfaction and despair of burnout and to make meaningful and lasting change."

Medscape Survey Methods

The 2022 Medscape Physician Burnout & Depression Report was completed by 13,069 U.S. physicians representing more than 29 specialty areas. Respondents were invited to respond to the online survey. The margin of error for the survey was +/- 0.85% at a 95% confidence level.

About Medscape

Medscape is the leading source of clinical news, health information, and point-of-care tools for health care professionals. Medscape offers specialists, primary care physicians, and other health professionals the most robust and integrated medical information and educational tools.

SOURCE Medscape
SYDNEY, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- To celebrate the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, the Royal Australian Mint has released a new collection of coins featuring the charming and powerful tiger, and the Chinese Lunar Year calendar wheel.

"Each year, the Mint releases these beautifully designed coins to celebrate the Lunar New Year and support the centuries-old tradition of gifting coins during this special time," said CEO of the Royal Australian Mint Leigh Gordon.

"We are thrilled to celebrate the 2022 Lunar New Year with the new release of the Year of the Tiger commemorative coin."

The Mint has been marking each Zodiac symbol of the Lunar calendar on a commemorative coin since 2007. This year, the collection includes six commemorative coins.

Apart from the five coins that all feature depictions of only the tiger, a final "Fu" coin for good luck features all 12 lunar animals circling the Chinese character "Fu" in their order of Lunar Year calendar wheel, including rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

The Mint said the animals' places on the coin are depicted running across a water pattern along the "Fu", symbolising the traditional story of the animals' race across a river to decide on the order of the Lunar Calendar. The position of each animal is rotated each year, so for this year's special edition, tiger is at the top.

"China has a long history of artistic practice and its art is very unique," designer of the 50c Tetradecagon in the collection Aleksandra Stokic told Xinhua.

Inspired by Danqing -- a traditional Chinese painting and the symbology of tiger, Stokic brought her ideas and wishes into her artwork.

"In my design, the tiger dominates the coin field as tigers are dominant animals in nature. Below the tiger is the rock as the tiger is also known as the king of the mountains."

Decorating the field of the coins is the branch of a pine tree, which as Stokic said represents virtues of self-discipline and fortitude, and ties in well with people born in the Year of Tiger.

"Each element of the coin design has a symbolic meaning," she said.

"No matter what difficulties those born in the Year of Tiger may face, they should always remember that they have the qualities to overcome them." 
2021 ended with some of the lowest competitive buyout costs we've seen in the history of our study. Tweet this

"2021 ended with some of the lowest competitive costs we've seen in the history of our study," says Mary Leong, a consulting actuary with Milliman and co-author of the MPBI. "While historically pension risk transfer slows in Q1, we expect competitive buyout costs to remain low with the increased interest in de-risking."

The MPBI uses the FTSE Above Median AA Curve, along with annuity purchase composite interest rates from eight insurers, to estimate the competitive and average costs of a PRT annuity de-risking strategy. Individual plan annuity buyouts can vary based on plan size, complexity, and competitive landscape.

To view the complete Milliman Pension Buyout Index, go to https://www.milliman.com/mpbi.

About Milliman

Milliman is among the world's largest providers of actuarial and related products and services. The firm has consulting practices in healthcare, property & casualty insurance, life insurance and financial services, and employee benefits. Founded in 1947, Milliman is an independent firm with offices in major cities around the globe. For further information, visit milliman.com.

SOURCE Milliman, Inc.
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The New Haven Public School District will showcase its school offerings for families at a virtual school expo during National School Choice Week.

Taking place on Saturday, Jan. 29, the event is the perfect opportunity for families to explore public magnet choices in the district before the application period opens for the 2022-2023 school year on Monday, Jan. 31. More than 400 community members are expected to attend.

After logging on to the expo, which kicks off at 9 a.m., families can learn how the school choice process works in New Haven and receive tips on how to apply. From 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. families can hear directly from a variety of magnet school leaders about their schools' missions and communities.

The virtual expo is planned to coincide with the celebration of National School Choice Week Jan. 23-29, 2022, which will feature more than 26,000 school choice events across all 50 states. The virtual expo caps off a week of School Choice Week festivities in the district, including a school spirit day, charter school night and presentations for 8th grade students to explore their high school options.

"The New Haven Public Schools will not host an in-person expo this year due to COVID-19, but we encourage parents to attend our virtual expo to learn more about schools in our district," said Danielle Gregory-Williams, magnet recruitment specialist at the Office of School Choice and Enrollment Services for the New Haven Public Schools.

"Parents will be able to explore our magnet and interdistrict magnet schools to learn about their unique themes, and school representatives will be available to answer questions," said Gregory-Williams. "Parents will also have an opportunity to learn how the school choice process works in New Haven and how placement is determined."

This event is planned by the New Haven Public School District. New Haven magnet schools are open to all New Haven residents and seek to engage students in learning by offering a range of themes, including STEM, performing arts, and technology and languages. These schools are also designed to reduce racial, ethnic, and economic isolation.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
DALLAS, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NexPoint Real Estate Finance, Inc. (NYSE: NREF) ("NREF" or the "Company") announced today that it has launched an offering of its 5.75% Senior Notes due 2026 (the "Additional Notes"). The Additional Notes are being offered as an additional issue of the Company's existing $135 million aggregate principal amount of 5.75% Senior Notes due 2026 that the Company previously issued (the "Existing Notes"). The Additional Notes will be issued under the same indenture as the Existing Notes, will be treated as a single class of debt securities with the Existing Notes and will have the same terms, other than the issue date and offering price.

The Company intends to contribute the net proceeds from this offering to its operating partnership, NexPoint Real Estate Finance Operating Partnership, L.P. (the "OP"), in exchange for OP units. The OP intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to acquire several pipeline investments which are expected to close in the foreseeable future. These investments consist of multifamily, life sciences and hospitality debt and preferred positions offering attractive risk adjusted returns supported by strong, experienced, and well-known sponsors.

Raymond James is acting as sole book-running manager for the offering. The Company is making this offering pursuant to a shelf registration statement that became effective on March 31, 2021. This offering will be made solely by means of a prospectus and prospectus supplement, copies of which may be obtained from Raymond James & Associates, Inc., 880 Carillon Parkway, St. Petersburg, FL 33716, telephone (800) 248-8863, email: [email protected] or through the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the notes, and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About NexPoint Real Estate Finance, Inc.

NexPoint Real Estate Finance, Inc., is a publicly traded REIT, with its shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "NREF" primarily focused on originating, structuring and investing in first mortgage loans, mezzanine loans, preferred equity and alternative structured financings in commercial real estate properties, as well as multifamily commercial mortgage backed securities.

Forward-Looking Statements



This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are based on management's current expectations, assumptions and beliefs. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should" and similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the proposed offering and the intended use of proceeds. They are not guarantees of future results and forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statement, including the ultimate duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effectiveness of actions taken, or actions that may be taken, by governmental authorities to contain the outbreak or treat its impact, as well as those described in greater detail in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), particularly those described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements and are encouraged to review NREF's other filings with the SEC for a more complete discussion of risks and other factors that could affect any forward-looking statement. The statements made herein speak only as of the date of this press release and except as required by law, NREF does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Contact

NexPoint Real Estate Finance, Inc.

Investor Relations

Jackie Graham

[email protected]

SOURCE NexPoint Real Estate Finance, Inc.
FREEPORT, Maine, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Headturning charcuterie boards, inventive banana-infused drinks and desserts, and new spins on Mexican comfort classics are among 10 major influencers driving menu trends for 2022, predicts Flavor & The Menu magazine in its newly released Top 10 Trends edition, online at www.getflavor.com.

Each year, Flavor & The Menu editors Cathy Nash Holley and Katie Ayoub compile a set of trends that will resonate with today's consumers and provide growth opportunities for the restaurant industry. They highlight emerging flavor trends, delivering insights that shed light on the "why" behind each of the 10. This iconic issue serves as a roadmap for innovation, providing menu developers with ideas for in-market implementation.

"This year's collection of Top 10 Trends signals a shift, whereby younger consumers are indeed in the driver's seat when it comes to food and beverage trend inspirations," says Cathy Nash Holley, Flavor & The Menu's Publisher/Editor-in-Chief. "Our research has proven that social media has advanced to a point at which restaurant trends are becoming inspired by consumer behavior. This is the reverse of just a couple years ago, when users allied with restaurants for their personal brand-building efforts. Several of the trends covered in this issue trace back to social media users' clever skills and outsized influences."

Katie Ayoub, managing editor, describes the phenomenon as the "democratization of innovation." "Today's popular social media channels enable and inspire younger consumers to showcase their creativity and passion for food and beverage trends. These fun make-at-home trendslike charcuterie boards, banana bread and pocket-fold quesadillascatch fire quickly in this space, gaining momentum and building enthusiasm for more iterations. Chefs, pastry chefs and mixologists can springboard from there, leveraging that newfound pop culture vibe, then take these flavors and forms into new, exciting directions on their menus," says Ayoub.

Flavor & The Menu's Top 10 Trends for 2022:

Next-Level Charcuterie: Energized by social media, charcuterie boards began their resurgence as the ultimate shareable. Spanish Bocadillos: Spain's simple, rustic bocadillo is finding a home on American menus. Modern Greek: Eschewing the kitschy "Americanized" Greek that defined the cuisine for generations, restaurants are resetting the dial with authentic recipes and ingredients. Tropical Flavors: With mood-boosting colors, vibrant ingredients and an island-escape sensibility, the flavors of the tropics offer escapism and joy. Mexican Comfort: Next-level tweaks of crave-worthy dishes like quesadillas, taquitos and birria provide safe adventure wrapped in homey comfort. Plant-based Seafood: Plant-based seafood is starting to make waves on menus, as innovative suppliers introduce alternative products to foodservice. Salt: Salt is gaining traction as both a flavor enhancer and a high-impact flavor on its own. Savory Hand Pies: Concepts specializing in hand pies have revved up the engines of innovation around empanadas, meat pies, pasties, puffs and more. Bananas: Menu developers can peel back the layers of possibility found in the humble banana: dialing up its tropical tones, leaning into its Southern comfort or exploring eclectic mash-ups. Cold-Coffee Drinks: Younger consumers are driving innovation in cold-coffee beverages, driving menu innovation in a wider array of applications, from new non-alc coffee tonics to a broader use in cocktails.

Flavor & The Menu is published in print six times a year, and distributed to chefs and menu-development professionals nationwide. For more, visit us online at www.getflavor.com; follow us on Instagram @GetFlavor.

CONTACT: Cathy Nash Holley

207.756.3875 (c)

[email protected]

SOURCE Flavor & The Menu
PUYALLUP, Wash., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hormann Northwest Door is providing notice of a recent event that may affect the security of certain information.

On September 1, 2021, Hormann Northwest Door received a report of issues related to the functionality of its email system. Hormann Northwest Door immediately engaged cyber incident response specialists, including a third-party forensic investigation firm, to assess the security of its systems and to confirm the nature and scope of the incident.

The investigation revealed that an unauthorized actor had access to certain Hormann Northwest Door systems between August 27, 2021 and September 1, 2021. Further, the investigation determined that certain Northwest Door files were viewed or acquired by the unauthorized actor during that timeframe. On or about January 10, 2022, after reviewing the potentially impacted files, Hormann Northwest Door confirmed that certain personal information was included in those files. In an abundance of caution, Hormann Northwest Door is providing notice of this event to individuals who were identified from this review as having had some information potentially impacted.

The following types of information were present in the impacted systems and therefore potentially viewed or acquired by the unknown actor during this incident: name, address, Social Security number, driver's license or state identification card number, financial account information, date of birth, medical information, and health insurance information. Hormann Northwest Door is unaware that any of the information was misused or disseminated by the unknown actor and is therefore providing this notice in an abundance of caution.

Upon learning of this incident, Hormann Northwest Door immediately shut down impacted systems, reset passwords for all of its users, notified law enforcement, and brought in third-party specialists to investigate and remediate the matter. Hormann Northwest Door also took action to further enhance security measures already in place to protect its network systems and data.

If you have additional questions, please contact (855) 200-2743, Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. or email [email protected] .

Under U.S. law, a consumer is entitled to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. To order your free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call, toll-free, 1-877-322-8228. You may also directly contact the three major credit reporting bureaus listed below to request a free copy of your credit report.

Consumers have the right to place an initial or extended "fraud alert" on a credit file at no cost. An initial fraud alert is a 1-year alert that is placed on a consumer's credit file. Upon seeing a fraud alert display on a consumer's credit file, a business is required to take steps to verify the consumer's identity before extending new credit. If you are a victim of identity theft, you are entitled to an extended fraud alert, which is a fraud alert lasting seven years. Should you wish to place a fraud alert, please contact any one of the three major credit reporting bureaus listed below.

As an alternative to a fraud alert, consumers have the right to place a "credit freeze" on a credit report, which will prohibit a credit bureau from releasing information in the credit report without the consumer's express authorization. The credit freeze is designed to prevent credit, loans, and services from being approved in your name without your consent. However, you should be aware that using a credit freeze to take control over who gets access to the personal and financial information in your credit report may delay, interfere with, or prohibit the timely approval of any subsequent request or application you make regarding a new loan, credit, mortgage, or any other account involving the extension of credit. Pursuant to federal law, you cannot be charged to place or lift a credit freeze on your credit report. To request a security freeze, you will need to provide the following information:

Full name (including middle initial as well as Jr., Sr., II, III, etc.); Social Security number; Date of birth; Addresses for the prior two to five years; Proof of current address, such as a current utility bill or telephone bill; A legible photocopy of a government-issued identification card (state driver's license or ID card, military identification, etc.); and A copy of either the police report, investigative report, or complaint to a law enforcement agency concerning identity theft if you are a victim of identity theft.

Should you wish to place a fraud alert or credit freeze, please contact the three major credit reporting bureaus listed below:

Equifax Experian TransUnion https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/ https://www.experian.com/help/ https://www.transunion.com/credit-help 1-888-298-0045 1-888-397-3742 1-833-395-6938 Equifax Fraud Alert, P.O. Box 105069 Atlanta, GA 30348-5069 Experian Fraud Alert, P.O. Box 9554, Allen, TX 75013 TransUnion Fraud Alert, P.O. Box 2000, Chester, PA 19016 Equifax Credit Freeze, P.O. Box 105788 Atlanta, GA 30348-5788 Experian Credit Freeze, P.O. Box 9554, Allen, TX 75013 TransUnion Credit Freeze, P.O. Box 160, Woodlyn, PA 19094

You may further educate yourself regarding identity theft, fraud alerts, credit freezes, and the steps you can take to protect your personal information by contacting the consumer reporting bureaus, the Federal Trade Commission, or your state Attorney General. The Federal Trade Commission may be reached at: 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20580; www.identitytheft.gov ; 1-877-ID-THEFT (1-877-438-4338); and TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The Federal Trade Commission also encourages those who discover that their information has been misused to file a complaint with them. You can obtain further information on how to file such a complaint by way of the contact information listed above. You have the right to file a police report if you ever experience identity theft or fraud. Please note that in order to file a report with law enforcement for identity theft, you will likely need to provide some proof that you have been a victim. Instances of known or suspected identity theft should also be reported to law enforcement and your state Attorney General. This notice has not been delayed by law enforcement.

For New Mexico residents, you have rights pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, such as the right to be told if information in your credit file has been used against you, the right to know what is in your credit file, the right to ask for your credit score, and the right to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information. Further, pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the consumer reporting bureaus must correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information; consumer reporting agencies may not report outdated negative information; access to your file is limited; you must give your consent for credit reports to be provided to employers; you may limit "prescreened" offers of credit and insurance you get based on information in your credit report; and you may seek damages from violator. You may have additional rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act not summarized here. Identity theft victims and active duty military personnel have specific additional rights pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. We encourage you to review your rights pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act by visiting www.consumerfinance.gov/f/201504_cfpb_summary_your-rights-under-fcra.pdf, or by writing Consumer Response Center, Room 130-A, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580.

For Oregon Residents: Oregon Department of Justice, 1162 Court Street NE, Salem, OR 97301-4096, www.doj.state.or.us/, Telephone: 877-877-9392.

SOURCE Northwest Door LLC
ONTARIO, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA) Board of Commissioners has received a letter of resignation from Chief Executive Officer Mark Thorpe, effective March 31.

"On behalf of the OIAA, I commend Mark for his leadership in the revival of Ontario International Airport (ONT) as a premier aviation gateway since our return to local ownership," said Alan D. Wapner, President of the OIAA Board of Commissioners. "In his four-plus years as CEO, Mark and his team have helped establish ONT as one of the most competitive and customer-friendly passenger and cargo airports in the United States and a major economic engine for the Inland Empire and Southern California. We thank Mark for his service and wish him well in his future endeavors."

Thorpe joined OIAA as Chief Development Officer in August 2016  three months before the transfer to local ownership became official. He was named CEO the following year. His previous experience includes Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Los Angeles World Airports.

Mark is currently on special assignment for OIAA until March 31.

About Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport (ONT) is the fastest growing airport in the United States, according to Global Traveler, a leading publication for frequent fliers. Located in the Inland Empire, ONT is approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of Southern California. It is a full-service airport which, before the coronavirus pandemic, offered nonstop commercial jet service to 26 major airports in the U.S., Mexico, Central America and Taiwan. More information is available at www.flyOntario.com. Follow @flyONT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario Mayor Pro Tem Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario City Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

OIAA Media Contact:

Steve Lambert, (909) 841-7527 [email protected]

SOURCE Ontario International Airport
MILWAUKIE, Ore., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- During a stressful school year, Oregon families will make time to celebrate the positive in education and explore their learning options at a family-fun day with the theme "Make a Splash for Schools!" on Saturday, Jan. 29.

The free event at North Clackamas Aquatic Park will run from 4:30-7:30 p.m. and feature school choice booths where families can learn more about schools and education organizations near them. Besides gathering school choice information, families can enjoy a wave pool, water slides, a diving well, a rock wall, a photobooth with waterproof props, and other fun.

Each participant will receive a goody bag with school choice information, candy, and stickers. Attendees can also choose to donate to a raffle drawing; funds raised will be donated to the Cascade Youth and Family Center, a local nonprofit that offers shelter and programs for homeless youth.

While the "Make a Splash for Schools" event is free, space is limited and pre-registration is required at https://www.libertyineducation.org/events/p/make-a-splash-for-schools-2022 .

This event is planned to coincide with the history-making celebration of National School Choice Week 2022, which will feature more than 26,000 school choice events across all 50 states.

"Oregonians for Liberty in Education is so pleased to host this event celebrating school choice because we firmly believe in the importance of supporting families' right to choose the educational option that best fits their children's needs," says Annalee Waddell. "We hope to both educate families about school options as well as to have some fun together!"

This community event is planned by Oregonians for Liberty in Education, which advocates to advance educational policies that support parental rights, protect truth, and promote unbiased, ethical education for students and their families.

North Clackamas Aquatic Park is located at 7300 SE Harmony Rd. For families unable to attend the in-person celebration for School Choice Week, Oregonians for Liberty in Education is also hosting a virtual contest with gift card prizes.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
SEATTLE, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Outreach , the fastest-growing sales execution platform provider, today announced Prasad Raje has joined the company as Outreach's first Chief Product Officer. Raje is a seasoned product veteran with more than 25 years of experience building and scaling enterprise software businesses.

As CPO, Raje will be responsible for driving Outreach's product vision and roadmap for the sales execution platform that helps customers automate sales engagement and act on revenue intelligence to improve their efficiency, predictability, and growth.

"Prasad is a fantastic addition to our product organization. His proven experience leading large enterprise SaaS platforms will be crucial as we head into our next phase of growth," said Manny Medina, co-founder and CEO of Outreach. "He is no stranger to working on category-defining products and will play a critical role in leading the development of this new category of sales technology. Now that the Outreach platform delivers engagement and intelligence across the full sales cycle, Prasad will be creating new sales execution capabilities for the thousands of revenue organizations across all industries and segments using Outreach."

Raje comes to Outreach with immense experience in product development and implementation for companies ranging from category disrupting startups to global industry leaders. Throughout his career, Raje has founded three software companies, including a SaaS product company acquired by Oracle. Post-acquisition, he served as a senior product leader at Oracle and holds nine patents for his technical work. Raje was most recently Senior Vice President of Product Management at RingCentral, responsible for its flagship UCaaS offering.

"We are in an era where sales is shifting from being intuition-driven to being insight-driven. A sales execution platform gives revenue organizations a wealth of information and insights into their sales deals," said Raje. "There are endless possibilities for how to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to generate intelligence for sales reps and leaders that guide them to take the best next actions in each moment to advance their deals. Being able to help organizations that are suffering from inefficient prospecting, inconsistent deal management, and inaccurate revenue forecasting is the most rewarding part of this role. I am excited to join the passionate group of innovators at Outreach to deliver solutions that help organizations close their sales execution gaps."

This announcement marks the first executive-level hire in 2022, following six strategic executive appointments in 2021.

About Outreach

Outreach is the largest and fastest-growing sales execution platform provider that helps companies dramatically increase productivity and drive smarter, more insightful engagement with their customers. Outreach is the only solution provider to integrate sales engagement, conversation intelligence, and revenue intelligence into one platform. The only sales engagement and intelligence platform to make the Forbes Cloud 100, Outreach was also the fastest-growing vendor in the category on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. More than 5,300 companies such as Adobe, Tableau, Okta, Splunk, DocuSign, and SAP depend on Outreach's enterprise-scale, unparalleled customer adoption, and robust AI-powered innovation. Outreach is a privately held company based in Seattle, Washington. To learn more, please visit www.outreach.io.

PR Contact:

Amanda Woolley

[email protected]

SOURCE Outreach
To understand more about Market Dynamics - Download our FREE sample report

According to the recent market study by Technavio, the Pro AV Market is expected to grow by USD 90.51 billion between 2020 and 2025, at an accelerated CAGR of 7.31%. The report provides a detailed analysis of drivers & opportunities, top winning strategies, competitive scenario, future market trends, market size & estimations, and major investment pockets. APAC will register the highest growth rate of 45% among the other regions.

Download a FREE Sample: for more additional information about the key countries in APAC.

Regional Market Outlook

The Pro AV Market share growth in APAC will be significant during the forecast period. China and Japan are the key markets for Pro AV in APAC. Market growth in this region will be faster than the growth of the market in other regions. The growth of the education sector will facilitate the Pro AV market growth in APAC over the forecast period.

The growth of the education sector drives the growth of the pro AV market in APAC. The shift toward the adoption of technologically advanced tools in classrooms will propel the growth of the pro-AV market in the region. Government initiatives in developing countries in APAC will increase the demand for document cameras during the forecast period. The central government in China focuses on funding initiatives, which are aimed at bridging the gap between the quality of education in rural and urban areas, as a part of the Chinese president's goal to eradicate poverty across the nation by 2020.

To unlock more regional highlights on Pro AV Market -Download our FREE sample report

Vendor Insights-

The Pro AV Market is fragmented, and the vendors are deploying growth strategies such as focusing on product delivery through multiple distribution channels to compete in the market.

AVI Systems - The company offers audiovisual solutions that increase employee adoption of collaboration spaces.

Find additional highlights on the vendors and their product offerings. Download a Free Sample Report

Latest Drivers & Trends Driving the Market-

Pro AV Market Driver:

Increased use of digital signage:

The key factor driving growth in the Pro AV market is the increased use of digital signage. Products such as displays and sound reinforcement are used for digital signage. Signages are the primary tools used by corporates and businesses to display content to be conveyed to the target audiences. The retail industry is one of the key segments witnessing the intensive adoption of digital signage systems to influence the buying behavior of the target audience. Another aspect of digital signage is the rise in the popularity of interactive features. Interactive digital signage or touchscreen signage displays have wide applications in retail, corporate offices, transportation, exhibition halls, hotels, stadiums, and in several public spaces. The extensive use of digital signage will drive the demand for Pro AV products and services, which, in turn, will drive market growth.

Pro AV Market Trend:

Training for pro AV equipment:

The training for pro AV equipment is another factor supporting the Pro AV market share growth. Established vendors of pro AV equipment train users on the use of such equipment; this trend is expected to gain traction during the forecast period. Seiko Epson Corp. offers its program, which helps engineers, operators, and sales personnel develop expertise in Epson's latest AV technology. This is designed to help AV professionals acquire detailed knowledge of Epson's complete range of AV solutions and experience of the arrangement, maintenance, operation, and marketing of these technologies across the pro-AV rental sector. It serves the events and retail, educational, and business sectors as well.

Find additional information about various other market Drivers & Trends mentioned in our FREE sample report .

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Smart Speaker Market -The smart speaker market share is expected to increase by USD 20.72 billion from 2020 to 2025, and the market's growth momentum will accelerate at a CAGR of 25.98%. Download a free sample now!

Active Electronic Components Market -The active electronic components market share should rise by USD 110.46 billion from 2022 to 2026 at a CAGR of 6.81%. Download a free sample now!

Pro AV Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2025 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 7.31% Market growth 2021-2025 USD 90.51 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 6.57 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and MEA Performing market contribution APAC at 41% Key consumer countries US, China, UK, Japan, Canada, and Germany Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled AVI Systems, AVI-SPL LLC, CCS Presentation Systems, Diversified, Ford Audio-Video LLC, Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Co. Ltd., New Era Technology, Solutionz Inc, Telerent Leasing Corp., and Vistacom Inc. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, market condition analysis for the forecast period Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Technavio Research

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Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
BEIJING, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Puxin Limited (NYSE: NEW) ("Puxin" or the "Company"), today announced that it will change the ratio of its American depositary shares ("ADSs") representing its ordinary shares from one (1) ADS representing two (2) ordinary shares to one (1) ADS representing twenty (20) ordinary shares.

For Puxin's ADS holders, the change in the ADS ratio will have the same effect as a one-for-ten reverse ADS split. There will be no change to the Company's underlying ordinary shares, and no ordinary shares will be issued or cancelled in connection with the change in ADS ratio. The Company will file a post-effective amendment to its registration statement on Form F-6 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") to reflect the change in the ADS ratio. The effect of the ratio change on the ADS trading price on the New York Stock Exchange (the "NYSE") is expected to take place on or about February 1, 2022 (U.S. Eastern Time).

Each ADS holder of record at the close of business on the date when the change in ratio is effective will be required to surrender their ADSs to the Company's depositary bank, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, for cancellation and exchange in the ratio of every ten (10) existing ADSs for one (1) new ADS. Puxin's ADSs will continue to be traded on the NYSE under the symbol "NEW".

No fractional new ADSs will be issued in connection with the change in the ADS ratio. Instead, fractional entitlements to new ADSs will be aggregated and sold by the depositary bank and the net cash proceeds from the sale of the fractional ADS entitlements (after deduction of fees, taxes and expenses) will be distributed to the applicable ADS holders by the depositary bank.

The purpose of the ADS ratio change is to increase the Company's ADS price to be in compliance with the NYSE's trading price requirements. As a result of the change in the ADS ratio, the ADS price is expected to increase proportionally, although the Company can give no assurance that the ADS price after the change in the ADS ratio will be equal to or greater than ten times the ADS price before the change or that the Company will be able to satisfy the NYSE's trading price or other continued listing requirements.

Receipt of NYSE Non-Compliance Notice Regarding Continued Listing Standards

The Company has received written notice from the New York Stock Exchange (the "NYSE") that the Company is not in compliance with the continued listing standards set forth in Section 802.01B of the NYSE Listed Company Manual because its average market capitalization has been less than $50 million over a consecutive 30 trading-day period, and at the same time its last reported stockholders' equity was below $50 million.

In accordance with NYSE procedures, the Company has 90 days from its receipt of the Notice to submit a business plan to the NYSE demonstrating how it intends to regain compliance with the NYSE's continued listing standards within 18 months of the date of the Notice. The Company intends to develop and submit a business plan within 90 days of receipt of the Notice that demonstrates its ability to regain compliance with the NYSE's continued listing standards within the required timeframe. The NYSE will then review the business plan for final disposition.

In the event the NYSE accepts the plan, the Company will be subject to semi-annual monitoring for compliance with the business plan. In the event the NYSE does not accept the business plan, the Company will be subject to delisting procedures and suspension.

The Notice has no immediate impact on the listing of the Company's ADSs, which will continue to trade on the NYSE.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the NYSE will promptly initiate suspension and delisting procedures with respect to a company that is determined to have average global market capitalization over a consecutive 30 trading-day period of less than $15 million.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements made under the "safe harbor" provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's ADS ratio change, future trading price, the Company's plan to address NYSE continued listing requirements, its ability to regain compliance with NYSE requirements and continued the listing of the ADSs on the NYSE. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "may," "would," "expect," "anticipate," "future," "intend," "aim," "plan," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "project," "continue," "confident" and similar statements. Any statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements that involve factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such factors and risks include, but not limited to the following: the Company's ability to meet the standards necessary to maintain listing of its ADSs on the NYSE, including its ability to cure any non-compliance with the NYSE's continued listing criteria; the NYSE's acceptance of the Company's business plan; litigation and negative publicity surroundings China-based companies listed in the U.S.; and the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak, including the emergence of COVID variants, and its potential impact on the Company's business and financial performance; its goals and strategies; its ability to achieve and maintain profitability; its ability to attract and retain students to enroll in its courses; its ability to effectively manage its business expansion and successfully integrate businesses it acquired; its ability to identify or pursue targets for acquisitions; its ability to compete effectively against its competitors; its ability to improve the content of its existing courses or to develop new courses; and relevant government policies and regulations relating to the Company's corporate structure, operations, business and industry. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is current as of the date of the press release, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

About Puxin Limited

Puxin Limited (NYSE: NEW) is a private educational services provider in China. Puxin has a strong acquisition and integration expertise to effectively improve education quality and operational performance of acquired schools. Puxin offers quality educational services to students, and has developed online and mobile applications to enhance students' learning experience. For more information, please visit http://www.pxjy.com/.

Contacts

Puxin Limited

Investor Relations

Phone: +86-10-6269-8930

E-mail: [email protected]

ICA Investor Relations (Asia) Limited

Mr. Kevin Yang

Phone: +86-21-8028-6033

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Puxin Limited
Vendor Landscape

The radio market is concentrated. Vendors are using various organic and inorganic growth strategies to compete in the market.

Australian Broadcasting Corp., Bauer Media Group Inc., BCE Inc., Cox Enterprises Inc., Cumulus Media Inc., Entercom Communications Corp., Global Radio Services Ltd., RTL Group SA, Sirius XM Holdings Inc., and The Walt Disney Co., among others, are some of the few key vendors competing to maintain their market position in the market.

The global radio market comprises some well-established players that are involved in offering radio services to customers across the world. These vendors are making significantly huge investments in marketing to expand their customer base. As the CAGR of the market is expected to remain low during the forecast period, the landscape is expected to remain competitive.

View more about the market's vendor landscape highlights with a comprehensive list of vendors and their offerings.

Key Market Segmentation

Segmentation by Platform:

Broadcast radio:



This segment is expected to have significant market share growth during the forecast period.





Broadcast radio does not require any special device to tune in to. This directly reduces the cost involved in purchasing any device, thus driving the market growth.



Online radio



Satellite radio

Request a FREE Sample of this report for more highlights into the market segments.

Regional Market Outlook

North America will contribute to 44% of the market growth during the forecast period. Moreover, market growth in this region will be slower than the growth of the market in APAC and MEA. The growth of this region can be attributed to the inclination of the listeners toward radio news channels. The US is one of the key countries for the radio market in North America.

Download our FREE sample report for more key highlights on the regional market share of most of the above-mentioned countries.

Factors impacting the radio market

The growth of the radio market will be driven by factors such as access to the latest music and live updates. However, online radio services will challenge the market growth during the forecast period. Moreover, one of the trends in the radio market is the availability of music streaming services.

Find additional information about various other market drivers & trends mentioned in our FREE sample report.

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Radio Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2025 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 2.65% Market growth 2021-2025 USD 6.57 million Market structure Concentrated YoY growth (%) 2.49 Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and MEA Performing market contribution North America at 44% Key consumer countries US, UK, Germany, China, and Japan Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Australian Broadcasting Corp., Bauer Media Group Inc., BCE Inc., Cox Enterprises Inc., Cumulus Media Inc.A , Entercom Communications Corp.A , Global Radio Services Ltd., RTL Group SA, Sirius XM Holdings Inc., and The Walt Disney Co. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, market condition analysis for the forecast period, Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contact

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
TOLEDO, Ohio, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The fourth annual School Choice Week Fair for metro Toledo families will return next week, bringing hundreds of parents information and encouragement in their school searches.

The free fair, hosted by the Northwest Ohio Scholarship Fund, will take place Saturday, Jan. 29 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Franciscan Center, located on the Lourdes University campus at 6832 Convent Blvd. Representatives from 30 K-8 learning options  including traditional public schools, public charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling organizations  will be present to share information with families and answer questions.

Families will also have the opportunity to learn about scholarship options for private education, including the EdChoice Scholarship Program and the Northwest Ohio Scholarship Fund. More than 450 community members are expected to attend.

This school fair is planned to coincide with the celebration of National School Choice Week Jan. 23-29, 2022, which will feature more than 26,000 school choice events across all 50 states. More than two dozen multi-school fairs will take place in cities across America during the Week, including in Las Vegas, Colorado Springs, and Jersey City.

"National School Choice Week is a perfect time for the Northwest Ohio Scholarship Fund to present its fourth annual K-8 school choice fair," said Megan Salameh, program coordinator at the Northwest Ohio Scholarship Fund. "Northwest Ohio families have lots of choices and the fair enables them to see and hear from the different types of schools and schooling in their area. They will also have an opportunity to learn about the different scholarships available too."

The Northwest Ohio Scholarship Fund is committed to offering educational choices to low-income families through privately funded scholarships.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
ASUNCION, Paraguay, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Republic of Paraguay (" Paraguay ") previously announced an offer to purchase for cash (the " Tender Offer ") its outstanding bonds set forth in the table below (collectively, the " Old Bonds " and each Old Bond, a "series" of Old Bonds), subject to the terms and conditions contained in the offer to purchase, dated January 20, 2022 (the " Offer to Purchase "). Paraguay has instructed Citigroup Global Markets Inc., as billing and delivery bank (in such capacity, the " Billing and Delivering Bank "), to accept subject to proration and such other terms and conditions contained in the Offer to Purchase, valid preferred tenders and non-preferred tenders in aggregate principal amounts of Old Bonds as set forth below.

The Tender Offer expired, as scheduled, on Thursday, January 20, 2022, at 1:00 p.m., New York time, for non-preferred tenders and at 2:00 p.m., New York time, for preferred tenders.

The maximum purchase amount determined by Paraguay is (i) US$212,904,000 principal amount for the 2023 Bonds (as defined below) and (ii) US$72,875,000 principal amount for the 2026 Bonds (as defined below).

The aggregate principal amount of preferred and non-preferred tenders of Old Bonds and the aggregate principal amount of preferred and non-preferred tenders of such Old Bonds that have been accepted are shown in the table below. Appropriate adjustments will be made so that purchases are made in the minimum denominations set forth in the Offer to Purchase.

Old Bonds Aggregate Principal

Amount of Preferred

Tenders Aggregate

Principal Amount

of Preferred

Tenders Accepted Aggregate

Principal Amount

of Non- Preferred

Tenders Aggregate

Principal Amount

of Non- Preferred

Tenders Accepted 4.625% Bonds due 2023

("2023 Bonds") US$86,976,000 US$86,976,000 US$125,928,000 US$125,928,000 5.000% Bonds due 2026

("2026 Bonds") US$260,445,000 US$72,875,000 US$83,655,000 US$0

In accordance with the Offer to Purchase, the purchase price to be paid for each US$1,000 principal amount of each series of Old Bonds accepted pursuant to the Tender Offer will be the fixed price specified in the table below (such amount for each series, the " Purchase Price ").

Old Bonds Outstanding Principal Amount as of Wednesday, January 19, 2022

ISIN

CUSIP Purchase Price (per US$1,000 Principal Amount) 2023 Bonds US$450,494,000 US699149AA82 USP75744AA38 699149AA8 P75744AA3 US$1,040.00 2026 Bonds US$600,000,000 US699149AC49 USP75744AD76 699149AC4 P75744AD7 US$1,095.00

Holders of Old Bonds held through the Depository Trust Company that have been validly tendered and accepted pursuant to the Tender Offer must deliver their accepted Old Bonds to the relevant Dealer Manager (as defined below) for further delivery to the Billing and Delivery Bank by no later than 3:00 p.m., New York time, on the Settlement Date (as defined below). Holders of Old Bonds held through Euroclear Bank SA/NV or Clearstream Banking, societe anonyme that have been validly tendered and accepted pursuant to the Tender Offer must deliver their Old Bonds to the Billing and Delivering Bank, at the latest, using the overnight process, one day prior to the Settlement Date and must not use the optional daylight process. The settlement of the Tender Offer is expected to occur on Wednesday, January 26, 2022 (the " Settlement Date ") subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase.

Failure to timely deliver Old Bonds may result (i) in the cancellation of your tender and in you becoming liable for any damages resulting from that failure, (ii) in the case of preferred tenders (a) in the cancellation of any allocation of Paraguay's new issuance of 3.849% Bonds due 2033 (the " New Bonds ") in the New Bonds Offering (as defined below) in respect of your related indication of interest and/or (b) in the cancellation of your tender and in your remaining obligation to purchase your allocation of New Bonds in respect of your related indication of interest and/or (iii) in the delivery of a buy-in notice for the purchase of such Old Bonds, executed in accordance with customary brokerage practices for corporate fixed income securities. Any holder whose tender is cancelled will not receive the Purchase Price or accrued interest.

Only the Billing and Delivering Bank will be liable for the payment of the Purchase Price and accrued interest for Old Bonds validly tendered and accepted by Paraguay. Paraguay will not be liable under any circumstances for the payment of the Purchase Price and accrued interest for any Old Bonds tendered in the Tender Offer by any holder. The Billing and Delivery Bank shall only have the obligation to sell to Paraguay the Old Bonds validly tendered and accepted for purchase that the Billing and Delivery Bank has actually purchased pursuant to the Tender Offer on the Settlement Date.

Subject to the conditions to settlement of the Tender Offer, Old Bonds accepted for purchase will be settled on a delivery versus payment basis solely with the Billing and Delivering Bank on the Settlement Date, in accordance with customary brokerage practices for corporate fixed income securities.

Paraguay has agreed to apply a portion of the net proceeds of the offering of the New Bonds (the " New Bonds Offering ") to purchase the Old Bonds accepted pursuant to the Tender Offer from the Billing and Delivering Bank at the applicable Purchase Price plus accrued interest. The Tender Offer is subject to the dealer manager agreement relating to the Tender Offer not being terminated prior to or at the time of the settlement of the Tender Offer. Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC acted as Dealer Managers (the " Dealer Managers ") for the Tender Offer. Global Bondholder Services Corporation is the information agent in connection with the Tender Offer (the " Information Agent "), and questions regarding the Tender Offer may be directed to the Information Agent or any of the Dealer Managers using the contact information below:

Global Bondholder Services Corporation Attention: Corporate Actions 65 Broadway  Suite 404 New York, NY 10006 Banks and Brokers Call: +1 (212) 430-3774 All Others Call: +1 (855) 654-2014 website: http://www.gbsc-usa.com/paraguay Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

388 Greenwich Street, 4th Floor Trading

New York, New York 10013 United States of America Attention: Liability Management Group Collect: +1 (212) 723-6106 Toll free: +1 (800) 558-3745 Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

200 West Street,

New York, New York 10282

United States of America Attention: Liability Management Group Collect: +1 (212) 357-1452 Toll free: +1 (800) 828 3182 Republic of Paraguay

c/o Ministerio de Hacienda

Chile 128

Asuncion 001101

Paraguay

Important Notice

This announcement is not an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell the Old Bonds. The Tender Offer will be made only by and pursuant to the terms of the Offer to Purchase, as may be amended or supplemented from time to time.

The New Bonds Offering has been made solely by means of an offering memorandum relating to that offering. Before you invest, you should read the offering memorandum for more complete information about Paraguay and such offering. You may not participate in the New Bonds Offering unless you have received and reviewed the offering memorandum related to that offering, and not in reliance on, or on the basis of, this announcement. The New Bonds will be offered only to qualified institutional buyers in accordance with Rule 144A and to non-U.S. persons outside the United States in reliance on Regulation S under the Securities Act, and will not be registered under the Securities Act or the securities laws of any other jurisdiction.

The distribution of materials relating to the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer, and the transactions contemplated by the New Bonds Offering and Tender Offer, may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. Each of the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer is made only in those jurisdictions where it is legal to do so. The New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer are void in all jurisdictions where they are prohibited. If materials relating to the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer come into your possession, you are required to inform yourself of and to observe all of these restrictions. The materials relating to the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, an offer or solicitation in any place where offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. If a jurisdiction requires that the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer be made by a licensed broker or dealer and a Dealer Manager or any affiliate of a Dealer Manager is a licensed broker or dealer in that jurisdiction, the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer, as the case may be, shall be deemed to be made by the Dealer Manager or such affiliate in that jurisdiction. Owners who may lawfully participate in the Tender Offer in accordance with the terms thereof are referred to as "holders."

In relation to each Member State of the European Economic Area, this communication is only addressed to and directed at qualified investors in that Member State within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2017/1129.

In relation to the United Kingdom, this communication is only addressed to and directed at qualified investors in the United Kingdom within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 as it forms part of domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

This announcement is not an invitation nor is it intended to be an inducement to engage in investment activity for the purpose of Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 of the United Kingdom (the " FSMA "). This announcement is only being distributed to and is only directed: at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom or (ii) investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the " Order ") or (iii) high net worth entities, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this announcement or any of its contents.

SOURCE Republic of Paraguay
CHICAGO, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new research report, the "Rockets and Missiles Market by Speed (Subsonic, Supersonic, Hypersonic), Product, Propulsion Type (Solid, Liquid, Hybrid Propulsion, Ramjet, Turbojet and Scramjet), Guidance Mechanism (Guided and Unguided), Launch Platform & Region - Forecast to 2026", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Rockets and Missiles Market size is projected to grow from USD 58.3 billion in 2021 to USD 73.8 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 4.8% from 2021 to 2026. The demand for these weapons has witnessed significant growth recently due to rising threats of insurgencies that have highlighted the need for precision attacks and stand-off surgical strikes. Thus, it is imperative to avoid collateral damage and provide combatants with advanced weapons have led to the growth of Rockets and Missiles market.

Ask for PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=203298804

The Rockets and Missiles market includes major players Northrop Grumman Corporation (US), Lockheed Martin Corporation (US), BAE Systems (UK), and Thales Group (France). These players have spread their business across various countries includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. COVID-19 has impacted their businesses as well. Industry experts believe that COVID-19 has affected missile defense system production and services globally in 2020.

Defense programs to defend nations against various threats

The performance of US weapon systems is unmatched, ensuring that the US defense forces have a tactical combat advantage over any adversary in any weather condition. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 acquisition (Procurement and Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E)) funding requested by the US Department of Defense (DoD) totals USD 247.3 billion, which includes funding in the Base budget and the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, totaling USD 143.1 billion for Procurement and USD 104.3 billion for RDT&E. The funding in the budget request represents a balanced portfolio approach to implement the military force objective established by the National Defense Strategy. Of the USD 247.3 billion in the request, USD 83.9 billion finances Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs), which are acquisition programs that exceed a cost threshold established by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.

According to the Missile Defense Agency, there has been an increase of over 1,200 additional ballistic missiles over the last 5 years. The total of ballistic missiles outside the US, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia, and China has risen to over 5,900. Hundreds of launchers and missiles are currently within the range of US deployed forces.

Hence, the increasing need for defense programs by nations to defend against various threats is driving the ROCKETS AND MISSILES market.

The missile segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR rate for the ROCKETS AND MISSILES market during the forecast period.

A missile plays an important role in ROCKETS AND MISSILES majorly for land, air, and marine platforms. The missile segment has been further sub-segmented further segmented into cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. The missile segment is projected to reach USD 57.1 billion by 2026. In the Asia Pacific region, this segment is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Rockets and Missiles Market"

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The hypersonic segment is projected to register the highest CAGR of 6.6% during the forecast period

Based on speed, the ROCKETS AND MISSILES market has been segmented into subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic. Hypersonic rockets and missiles are equipped with a propulsion system to enable them to attain a speed of Mach 5 or higher, which is five times faster than the speed of sound. Hypersonic precision-guided weapons are difficult to counter due to their high speed. Currently, these weapons are in a development phase and are expected to be operational in the near future.

The solid propulsion segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR rate for the ROCKETS AND MISSILES market during the forecast period.

Based on propulsion type, the ROCKETS AND MISSILES market has been segmented into Solid, Liquid, Hybrid Propulsion, Ramjet, Turbojet, and Scramjet. Solid propulsion uses solid propellants to boost missiles and rockets. Solid propellants consist of a homogenous mixture of various composites, which are easier to store and handle. These systems cost less and offer a large amount of thrust to the missiles. High-performance propellants and modified grains enhance the capability of solid propulsion.

By launch mode, the surface-to-surface segment is estimated to account for the largest share (31) of the ROCKETS AND MISSILES market in 2021

Based on launch mode, the ROCKETS AND MISSILES market has been segmented into surface to surface, surface to air, air to air, air to surface, and subsea to surface. Surface to surface rockets and missiles are fired from the ground or the sea. They can be launched from hand-held or vehicle-mounted devices or fixed installations. These missiles used in land warfare operations are designed to hit ground or sea targets. Hence, they are also known as ground to ground rockets and missiles.

The North American market is projected to contribute the largest share from 2021 to 2026

North America is projected to be the largest regional share of ROCKETS AND MISSILES market during the forecast period. Major companies such as Northrop Grumman Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, and General Dynamics Corporation are based in the US. These players continuously invest in the R&D of new and advanced technology used in rocket and missile market.

Related Reports:

Missile Defense System Market by Technology (Fire Control System, Weapon System, Countermeasure System, and Command and Control System), Range (Short, Medium, and Long), Threat type, Domain (Ground, Air, Marine, and Space), and Region - Forecast to 2026

Electromagnetic Weapons Market by Product (Lethal Weapons, Non-lethal Weapons), Application (Homeland Security, Military), Platform (Land, Naval, Airborne), Technology (Particle Beam Weapons, Laser-induced Plasma Channel), and Region - Forecast to 2026

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Scratch  the NFT research, assessment, and loan company  is introducing Scratch Platform: the first platform to standardize the market value of NFTs by leveraging multiple public tools and data sets. The Scratch Platform backs up this valuation by offering investors the opportunity to take out loans with their NFTs as collateral.

Scratch Platform Introduces Standardized Market Valuations and Loans for NFTs

According to Cointelegraph, NFTs are projected to have a trading volume of over $6 billion USD in January 2022, nearly double the previous all-time high of $3.5 billion USD in August 2021. But despite the success and high trading volume of NFTs, it's a sector of the crypto economy that is lacking in standardized data research, asset valuations, and financial services.

Shawn Owens, Co-founder of Scratch provides further details on the goals of Scratch Platform:

"What it comes down to is trust. There is very little of it in NFTs right now, even with the massive trading volume they're presently enjoying and  we anticipate  will enjoy well into the future. There needs to be a platform that engenders that trust with solid data and standardization of NFT valuation. Confidence is then necessary in that valuation, and we provide that with secured loans, giving investors increased liquidity to capitalize on other short-term crypto opportunities. In short, we're putting our money where our mouth is, resolving issues no one else is.

But some of these problems we recognize we can't  and won't  solve on our own. Scratch Platform's APIs will also enable our partners and partnerships to help make the NFT marketplace a secure, stable, and scalable ecosystem."

The present roadmap has multiple development phases, each phase increasing the scale of the platform as well as introducing new features, and each culminating in a security audit to ensure stability before moving to the next phase. Further phases include the listing of Scratch Token on major exchanges, the BETA1 and BETA2 releases of Scratch Engine, the launch of Scratch Loans, and the final security audit before launching of the technology and Scratch APIs to the public.

<Scratch Platform features:

Scratch Value: A programmatic valuation solution for NFTs and digital assets using multiple market tools and the latest market data sets. This allows investors to receive real-time values on their NFTs and other digital assets.

Scratch Loan: A first for NFTs, take out a loan of a percentage of the estimated NFT value on assets. Once assumed, the asset is stored in the Scratch Vault. Loan factors include: loan amount, length of loan term, NFT desirability and value, etc.

Scratch Vault: The repository for all NFTs and digital assets loaned against. Scratch Vault assets are secured and insured to prevent loss of value. Transfer and cash-out options for investor assets will also be available.

Scratch Gallery: A future marketplace that investors can shop our collection of NFTs and other digital assets. The Scratch Gallery collection is obtained from assumed loans and direct purchases from the Scratch Engine, and potentially assets from Scratch Partners.

Upon launch, the Scratch Token will be an ETH-based ERC 20 token, and other blockchain development is in process. This token will allow holders to stake tokens to receive reflections as we loan, sell, and buy NFTs directly and via partnerships. The token pre-sale launched on January 15th, and is only available at scratchengine.com. Per the roadmap, the public launch is scheduled for Q1 2022.

To learn more about the Scratch Platform and the Scratch Token pre-sale, or to schedule an interview with the Scratch team, please call Brian Markowski at +1 603 306 3645 or e-mail [email protected].

About Scratch

With over a decade of experience in the digital asset space combined, Scratch is a company with the experience needed to bring the tools, standards, and strategic partnerships required to create trust and financial services to NFTs, metaverse, and blockchain economies. "Security, Stability and Scalability" is the mantra of the Scratch team, underlying all of its projects. To learn more about Scratch and the Scratch Engine platform, please visit scratchengine.com.

Press Contact

Brian Markowski

1 603 306 3645

https://scratchengine.com/

SOURCE Scratch
HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Seadrill Limited ("Seadrill" or the "Company") (OSE: SDRL) (OTCPK: SDRLF) and the Issuer today announce that the Issuer has emerged from chapter 11 after successfully completing its pre-packaged restructuring pursuant to its chapter 11 plan of reorganization (the "Plan"). As previously announced, the Plan was confirmed by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on January 12, 2022. All conditions precedent to the restructuring contemplated by the Plan have been satisfied or otherwise waived. Seadrill New Finance Limited will shortly be renamed Paratus Energy Services Ltd.

In accordance with the Plan, post emergence the board of directors of the Issuer shall consist of between three and five members, up to four of which shall be appointed by the Issuer's noteholders, with the remaining director to be appointed by Seadrill. As such, a newly constituted board of directors of the Issuer was appointed today, consisting of Mei Mei Chow, Jim LaChance, Matt Lyne, and James Ayers. Sergio Delgado will initially act as an observer.

The Plan, which received support from an overwhelming majority of existing stakeholders, provides the Issuer with financial and strategic flexibility and stability. Benefitting from both the new ownership structure and the continuity provided by the Seadrill group, the Issuer expects to continue to focus on maximizing value for all stakeholders from its portfolio of investments including the Seabras Sapura JV and the SeaMex group.

As noted in previous announcements, the key terms of the Plan included:

the release by the holders of the Issuer's pre-existing 12.0% Senior Secured Notes due 2025 (the " Noteholders " and the " Notes ", respectively) of all existing guarantees and security and claims (if any) with respect to Seadrill and its subsidiaries (excluding the Issuer and certain of its subsidiaries);

" and the " ", respectively) of all existing guarantees and security and claims (if any) with respect to Seadrill and its subsidiaries (excluding the Issuer and certain of its subsidiaries); the Noteholders receiving 65% of pro forma equity in the Issuer, with Seadrill Investment Holding Company (a subsidiary of Seadrill) retaining the remaining 35% of pro forma equity in the Issuer, effecting a separation of the Issuer and its subsidiaries (including the Seabras Sapura assets and the SeaMex group) from the consolidated Seadrill group;

the issuance of new notes pro rata to Noteholders on amended terms including:

total amount of reinstated new notes: $620,148,899 ;

; maturity date: July 15, 2026 ;

; interest: either (a) 9.0%, consisting of (i) 3.00% cash interest plus (ii) 6.00% PIK interest, or (b) 10.0% PIK, in each case payable quarterly;

call protection: redemption price:

- prior to July 15, 2022 : 105%;

- on or after July 15, 2022 : 102%; and

- on July 15, 2023 and thereafter: 100%;

- prior to : 105%; - on or after : 102%; and - on and thereafter: 100%; the Noteholders will have a first priority right to fund any additional liquidity needs of the Issuer or its affiliates; and

Seadrill or its subsidiaries will continue to provide certain management services to the Issuer's group.

The Plan also provided for the satisfaction of all trade, customer, and other non-funded debt claims in full in the ordinary course of business.

Copies of the key chapter 11 documents are available at the following website: https://cases.primeclerk.com/SeadrillNewFinance/.

If any Noteholders entitled to receive shares pursuant to the Plan did not submit the relevant documentation by the relevant deadlines, details will be available from tomorrow at the following link https://cases.primeclerk.com/SeadrillNewFinance/Home-DocketInfo?DocAttribute=7040&DocAttrName=NOTICEOFDISTRIBUTION_Q&MenuID=17868 with further information on how to claim your equity distribution. Alternatively, please contact Prime Clerk at [email protected] Please note that the final deadline for a Noteholder to claim the equity distribution it may be entitled to under the Plan is 365 days from today's effective date.

Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Slaughter and May served as legal advisors to the Issuer in connection with the restructuring. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld served as legal advisors to an ad hoc group of the Noteholders (the "Ad Hoc Group"), and Ducera Partners LLC served as the Ad Hoc Group's financial adviser.

This announcement relates to Seadrill New Finance Limited and is not expected to impact the recoveries existing shareholders of Seadrill Limited will receive under the Seadrill Limited Plan. Consummation of the Seadrill Limited Plan is subject to a number of customary terms and conditions, including court approval, which was obtained on October 26, 2021.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release includes forward looking statements. Such statements are generally not historical in nature, and specifically include statements about the Company's plans, strategies, business prospects, changes and trends in its business, the markets in which it operates and its restructuring efforts. These statements are made based upon management's current plans, expectations, assumptions and beliefs concerning future events impacting the Company and therefore involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. Consequently, no forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. When considering these forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risks described from time to time in the Company's regulatory filings and periodical reporting. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company to predict all of these factors. Further, the Company cannot assess the impact of each such factor on its business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to be materially different from those contained in any forward looking statement.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

CONTACT:

For further information, please contact:

Media questions should be directed to:

Sara Dunne

Director of Communications

[email protected]

+ 1 281 630 7064

Analyst questions should be directed to:

Hawthorn Advisors

[email protected]

+44 (0) 203 7454960

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE Seadrill Limited
BOSTON, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Since 2015, our team at STAT has worked tirelessly to deliver trusted and authoritative journalism about health, medicine, and the life sciences to millions of readers around the world. We are thrilled to unveil a new product that has been under development for over a year and that we believe will transform how readers like you track and analyze clinical trials data: STAT Trials Pulse .

Developed by artificial intelligence company Applied XL , in conjunction with STAT's national biotech team, STAT Trials Pulse uses machine learning and editorial-driven algorithms to help life sciences and health care professionals identify, in real-time, the most important updates happening in the clinical trials space.

"Our team has created a product that merges machine learning and computational journalism. There is a growing demand for current and transparent information in the scientific and research community. STAT Trials Pulse fulfills these needs, giving users an unbeatable competitive advantage," said Francesco Marconi, Co-Founder & CEO of Applied XL.

Users who access the platform can build personalized, dynamic feeds to monitor the specific conditions, interventions, and organizations that matter most to them. They can also use a proprietary discovery tool to surface noteworthy trends in the clinical trial space, identify emerging research activity, and detect disruptions to company pipelines. And, crucially, they receive these updates in real-time, through contextualized alerts that announce when studies stop unexpectedly, or when there are changes in completion dates, enrollment, and more. You can see a full list of features at statnews.com/trials-pulse .

"Our mission at STAT has always been to provide readers with leading coverage on health, science, and medicine. Now, STAT is expanding beyond reporting. With STAT Trials Pulse, our organization has taken a huge step in providing industry professionals with the insights and knowledge they need to succeed. Today's announcement is a game-changer for how we use technology to acquire information," said Rick Berke, STAT co-founder and executive editor.

The platform's annual cost is $1,500 per year. STAT Trials Pulse is available for a four-week free trial to all new users who sign up. Get started at https://trials.appliedxl.com .

ABOUT STAT:

Founded in 2015, STAT is a national digital media brand that focuses on delivering fast, deep, and tough-minded journalism about the life sciences industries to over six million monthly site visitors and an additional 20 million readers on the Apple News app. STAT takes you inside academic labs, biotech boardrooms, and political backrooms, casting a critical eye on scientific discoveries, scrutinizing corporate strategies, and chronicling the roiling battles for talent, money, and market share. With an award-winning newsroom, STAT provides indispensable insights and exclusive stories on the technologies, personalities, power brokers, and political forces driving massive changes in the life sciences industry  and a revolution in human health.

ABOUT APPLIED XL:

Founded in 2020, Applied XL develops real-time information systems to track the health of people, places, and the planet to help accelerate the path to sustainable growth. Applied XL combines pioneering computational journalism techniques and expert networks to power intuitive intelligence products for professionals in specialized industries. The company is staffed by computational journalists and machine learning engineers.

SOURCE STAT
Stem Cell Banking Market Report Highlights:

Market growth 2020-2025: USD 4.61 billion Growth momentum & CAGR: Accelerate at a CAGR of 8.08%% YoY growth rate: 7.22% Performing market contribution: North America at 39%

Market Segmentation

By Type, the market is classified into adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood stem cells, and embryonic stem cells.

By Geography, the market is classified into North America, Europe , Asia , and ROW.

Regional Market Analysis

With 39% of the growth to originate from North America. The US and Canada are the key markets for stem cell banking in North America. Market growth in this region will be slower than the growth of the market in the European and Asian regions. The presence of a well-developed healthcare system will facilitate the stem cell banking market growth in North America over the forecast period.

North America is the largest revenue contributor to the global stem cell banking market due to the state-of-the-art technological support and the growing presence of established vendors such as AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Aldagen, Arteriocyte, Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics, PerkinElmer, and Thermo Fisher Scientific in the region. All these vendors provide stem cell storage and processing services and utilize stem cells for developing treatments for diseases such as cancer. The US and Canada are the highest revenue contributors in the region due to several factors, such as the presence of a well-developed healthcare system, which allows vendors providing biotechnology solutions such as stem cell banking to easily establish themselves in the market

For Additional Information about the regional market: Request for a free sample report .

Key Vendors and Vendor Strategies

Cordlife Group Ltd., CordVida, Covis Pharma BV, Cryo Stemcell, Cryo-Cell International Inc., Cryoviva Biotech Pvt. Ltd., FUJIFILM Holdings Corp., Global Cord Blood Corp., PerkinElmer Inc., and Plus Therapeutics Inc. are few of the key vendors.

The vendors in the market are constantly focusing on broadening their product portfolio through expanding their product offerings. Additionally, vendors are focusing on expanding their presence in new regions.

Few vendors with key offerings

Cordlife Group Ltd - The company offers stem cell banking which is beneficial and integral stem cells in treating various life-threatening disorders.

The company offers stem cell banking which is beneficial and integral stem cells in treating various life-threatening disorders. CordVida - The company offers stem cell banking which gives the advantage of more treatment options.

The company offers stem cell banking which gives the advantage of more treatment options. Covis Pharma BV - The company offers stem cell banking through medicines and treatments such as Makena (hydroxyprogesterone caproate injection), Feraheme (ferumoxytol injection) For Intravenous (IV) Use, and many more.

Download our free sample report to get information on all major vendors with their key offerings.

Key Market Drivers

Our analysts have extensively outlined the information on the key market drivers and their impact on the stem cell banking market.

Increased federal investment in stem cell therapy :

: The key factor driving growth in the stem cell banking market is the increased federal investment in stem cell therapy. Many research institutions and small vendors cannot afford to invest in stem cell therapy-related services, as research and clinical trials of stem cell therapy are expensive. Government organizations have realized the importance and potential of stem cell research and increased their funding for these studies. Many state-oriented organizations also provide funding for stem cell studies. Thus, the rising investments in stem cell research will increase the demand for stem cell banking during the forecast period.

To know about a few other market drivers, trends, and challenges - Download our free sample report

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Stem Cell Banking Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2025 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 8.08% Market growth 2021-2025 USD 4.61 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 7.22 Regional analysis North America, Europe, Asia, and ROW Performing market contribution North America at 39% Key consumer countries US, Canada, Germany, UK, China, and India Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Cordlife Group Ltd., CordVida, Covis Pharma BV, Cryo Stemcell, Cryo-Cell International Inc., Cryoviva Biotech Pvt. Ltd., FUJIFILM Holdings Corp., Global Cord Blood Corp., PerkinElmer Inc., and Plus Therapeutics Inc. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, market condition analysis for the forecast period, Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contact

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Salvation Army is serving individuals and families struggling with freezing temperatures, snow, and power outages across the country and preparing for additional waves of potentially deadly conditions. This comes at the same time the organization responds to wildfires in the West, provides long-term hurricane and tornado recovery, and aids families hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"While the most vulnerable members of our society find themselves left out in the cold, The Salvation Army opens our doors to offer more than a hot meal," said Commissioner Kenneth G. Hodder, National Commander of The Salvation Army. "We are uniquely positioned to offer emergency warming shelters, winter clothes, blankets, and emotional and spiritual care to thousands of unhoused individuals and families."

With 7,000 centers of operation already serving in every ZIP code, the organization is able to quickly ramp up winter services across the country to provide shelter, food, clothing, and emotional and spiritual care to the most vulnerable.

Program examples include:

The Pittsfield, Massachusetts Salvation Army first opened as a warming shelter this month, extending their hours and offering hot chicken noodle soup all day. They continue to serve free brunch every weekday at 10:30am .

Salvation Army first opened as a warming shelter this month, extending their hours and offering hot chicken noodle soup all day. They continue to serve free brunch every weekday at .

The Salvation Army in Denver is distributing blankets and gloves to those experiencing homelessness and are encouraging people to stay in its shelters.

is distributing blankets and gloves to those experiencing homelessness and are encouraging people to stay in its shelters.

In Stevens Point, Wisconsin , The Salvation Army is opening their lobby area during the day with places to sit and coffee available. At night, individuals can head over to the Warming Center to sleep.

, The Salvation Army is opening their lobby area during the day with places to sit and coffee available. At night, individuals can head over to the Warming Center to sleep.

The Corpus Christi, Texas Salvation Army is working closely with other local organizations to open the Mother Theresa Shelter as a warming center for the homeless population.

A digital media kit with photos and other visual assets can be found here.

The Salvation Army has adapted services in light of the pandemic to include extra precautions, such as social distancing at food distribution sites, innovative feeding models, and personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements everywhere.

Since March 2020, The Salvation Army has provided more than 300 million meals and hundreds of millions of dollars in utility, rent, and mortgage assistance to America's most vulnerable.

For more information on how The Salvation Army helps Hope March On, visit salvationarmyusa.org.

About The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army annually helps more than 30 million Americans overcome poverty, addiction, and economic hardships through a range of social services. By providing food for the hungry, emergency relief for disaster survivors, rehabilitation for those suffering from drug and alcohol abuse, and clothing and shelter for people in need, The Salvation Army is doing the most good at over 7,000 centers of operation around the country. In 2021, The Salvation Army was ranked No. 2 on the list of "America's Favorite Charities" by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. For more information, visit SalvationArmyUSA.org. Follow us on Twitter @SalvationArmyUS and #DoingTheMostGood.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE The Salvation Army
CHARLESTON, S.C., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Discover your school spirit at Charleston's annual education fair to celebrate National School Choice Week. This year's event will be both informative and highly interactive, as each school booth at the fair will feature a school supply. Families will have the opportunity to fill up on free school supplies while exploring the diverse education choices available to them.

WHAT:

Education fair featuring local schools of all types

Children's activities, including face painting, balloon art, music, student performances, and raffle drawings

Celebration of National School Choice Week

WHO:

Several hundred parents, children, teachers, and community leaders

WHEN:

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday , Jan. 22

WHERE:

Family Life Center of Royal Baptist Church , 4750 Abraham Ave. in North Charleston

The fair is being planned by My South Carolina Education.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
ISTANBUL, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that his country is ready to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia to sustain peace in the region.

"We want peace to prevail in the region, and for this, we are ready to do our part," he told reporters in Istanbul after Friday prayers.

The Turkish leader revealed his plan to discuss the latest developments in Ukraine with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin either on the phone or during a possible visit to Moscow in the upcoming days.

Erdogan will pay a visit to Ukraine in early February.

"Any development between Russia and Ukraine toward a border violation or an outbreak of a war would constitute a serious violation of the peace of the region," he remarked, noting any unrest there would upset Turkey as it has good and improving relations with both countries.

Erdogan on Thursday invited the presidents of Russia and Ukraine for talks in Istanbul to calm the tension.

Some western countries have been accusing Russia of amassing military troops along the Ukrainian border, saying Moscow could be planning a military offensive. Russia, however, has been denying the accusation. 
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The latest episode of Fox Business' Trending Today features Viking Pure , a mission-driven company whose innovative cleaning solutions eliminate viruses and bacteria without using the toxic chemicals that are so harmful to workers and the environment. Watch Saturday, January 29th at 12:30 EST to learn how Viking Pure, based in Port Orange, Florida, is disrupting the cleaning industry with their patented disinfecting solution.

"At Viking Pure, we are trying to revolutionize the cleaning and disinfecting industry. We are destroying the myth that companies and brands need to rely on toxic chemicals to clean their environments," says Joshua Schwartz, President, and Co-Founder of Viking Pure.

Viking Pure Solutions combines strength and safety.

Through Viking Pure's patented salt-free process, two solutions are created: Viking Pure Disinfectant with the active ingredient Hypochlorous Acid and Viking Pure Cleaner with the active ingredient Sodium Hydroxide. "These two solutions are safer, cheaper, and far more powerful than the harmful chemicals most commonly used as cleaning agents today," says CEO and Co-Founder Robert Slingsby.

The Environmental Protection Agency lists Viking Pure Disinfectant on "List-N" products approved to kill COVID-19.

Viking Pure installs their machines on-site at customer locations and provides ongoing training and support to customer staff to ensure the best available health and safety protocols are followed daily.

About Trending Today:

Trending Today is a business show that features entrepreneurs and companies disrupting and innovating the business world. Learn how they build their brands as Trending guests share their stories and expertise to inspire entrepreneurship. Today airs on Fox Business Saturdays at 12:30 pm EST. Learn more about the show at www.TrendingToday.com

About Viking Pure:

Viking Pure Solutions has created a new category of cleaning innovation. Viking Pure's revolutionary system produces environmentally safe solutions that offer a COMPLETE KILL of known viruses, pathogens, bacteria and fungi. With Viking Pure, businesses no longer have to choose between efficacy and safety. Clean and disinfect in a way that makes a difference to your staff and to the people who will visit your establishment. Protect the environment. Clean with purpose.

Media Contacts:

Liz Plummer, Executive Producer, C: 561 201 0506, [email protected]

Karen LeBlanc, Director of Publicity, C: 407.416.1566, [email protected]

SOURCE Trending Today
CHANGZHOU, China, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- With the launch of its 670W+ ultra-high-power modules in March 2021, Trina Solar led the industry into the 600W+ era and unleashed the full value of 210mm technology, bringing with it a sharp boost in PV efficiency and a decrease in LCOE. Cumulative global shipments of Trina Solar's 210mm modules now exceed 16GW.

So how do we improve upon this already impressive PV performance and make it better? Speaking at the start of 2022, Trina Solar Chairman Jifan Gao revealed his original ideas behind the development of 210mm module technology, as well as its future direction.

The following are selected excerpts from his conference speech.

Great achievements: 210mm advanced technology is the future, 600W+ era is here

More than two years in the making, and with the joint engagement and efforts of companies throughout the industry and our global customers, 210mm technology has become the benchmark for large-size products, which represents a major opportunity for the whole industry. It is thanks to the hard work and huge contributions made at every section in the solar industry that we have been able to achieve this level.

Trina Solar's 210mm module is now our most mainstream product, with cumulative shipments exceeding 16GW, and it unquestionably ranks first among all the large-size module brands. This is not only a milestone for Trina Solar, but also a major achievement on the part of all members of the 600W+ Photovoltaic Open Innovation Ecological Alliance.

We are now seeing the smooth-flowing supply of raw materials, the 210mm module taking the lead in achieving standardization of modules, the comprehensive adaptation of inverters and trackers throughout the 600W+ supply chain, vast improvements in the safety and efficiency of power station systems, and significant reduction in LCOE. Further, production capacity in the supply chain continues to expand upon 210mm technology and membership of 600W+ Alliance has now rocketed to 95 companies, all motivated by their acceptance of and confidence in the technology. Two years on, 210mm modules are now the confirmed, clear-cut direction forward for the PV industry.

Gratitude: A fertile ecosystem gave rise to 210mm technology

New breakthrough solutions and major advances in 210mm modules and technology have launched the 600W+ high-power era. This owes to the huge contributions made at every stage in the supply chain as well as joint, industry-wide efforts to break new ground. Thanks are due to the 600W+ Alliance for their tireless explorations. From semiconductors to cells, modules, inverters, trackers and glass, different parts of the supply chain have combined to effect vast change in the PV industry. That 210mm technology has been able to lead the way in making large-size modules the industry standard.

Trina Solar itself has also scored successive wins in specific areas such as load performance, container shipment, storage, transportation, and installation. Take the wind load resistance of 210mm modules, for example. Results from a study by a leading global wind-tunnel company showed that the 210mm module, with its lean structural design, not only compares favorably with any other product, it actually outperforms them.

This point demonstrates the importance of having an open approach in company innovation and industry progress. Now, as we enter the 600W+ era, 210mm technology and products are ready to grow significantly and unleash even more power.

Benefiting others: The motive behind the 210mm module

In this world, there is only one business model that can bring true success: benefiting others. This motive drives every decision and every step that Trina Solar takes. Driven by a desire to benefit others, there were two fundamental reasons why Trina Solar opted for 210mm technology:

1. To slow down depreciation and embrace the future

From 125mm to 156mm and from 158.75mm to 166mm cells and modules, each time the industry surges forward, it also brought in a raft of new equipment depreciation. But, the industry wants grid parity and reduced production costs. So how can we minimize the need for successive new product line iterations in the future, and maximize the value of new industry production capacity over a given period? This problem is one that I and Trina Solar have long pondered.

When we produced the 210mm module, we were not aiming to replace any particular product but rather to think about which size would be the future direction of the PV industry. We wanted to see the present from the vantage point of the future, to identify the size that ultimately would prevail over a given timeframe. The 210mm module was conceived by embracing the future direction of growth and then formulating a "platform" technology based on its inherent properties and various contributing factors. This would help all companies to achieve sustained growth, and therefore make for a better industry.

After nearly two years of hard work, it is clear that 210mm technology has earned the confidence of the industry. According to estimates by PVinfoLink, over 50% of production capacity is now compatible with the 210mm size. The decision by cell and module manufacturers to use 210mm technology as the base on which to expand production capacity prevents their production capacity from soon becoming obsolete. This means longer production lifecycles across the board.

2. To drive industrial development through technological innovation

The PV industry boasts impressive innovative capabilities. When the 600W+ was founded, everyone responded positively to the proposal and was keen to be involved despite the magnitude of the challenge. A new atmosphere developed between up- and downstream players. They built a culture of joint innovation, shared benefits and growth together. Through the combined efforts of the whole industry, the speed at which the 210mm technology developed far outstripped our original expectations.

All companies strive for better growth. But Trina Solar has recognized that when you benefit others, you benefit yourself. We will continue to grow only if we benefit our customers and the wider industry ecosystem.

The future: Follow the right track with innovation and sustainability

From the foundations already laid, we must stick to the right way while always seeking new horizons. Trina Solar holds fast to its core values while constantly pushing the boundaries of its product solutions. The future is just the beginning; the technology has many roads yet to travel and there are many tasks yet to accomplish. Trina Solar will continue to uphold its mission of "Solar energy for all." We hope to work with you all, steadily but surely, to make PV even better yet.

SOURCE Trina Solar Co., Ltd
DANVILLE, Va., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A state-of-the-art U-Haul retail, moving and self-storage facility is coming to Danville thanks to the Company's recent land acquisition of almost nine acres northwest of Riverview Drive and east of Park Avenue.

U-Haul Moving & Storage of Riverview is scheduled for completion in 2023. It will feature a multi-story building encompassing more than 100,000 square feet. The facility will contain at least 700 indoor, ADA-accessible self-storage rooms with climate-control options and high-tech security features at affordable price points.

"We're in expansion mode," noted Jeffrey Messenger, U-Haul Company of Southern Virginia president. "Our goal is to offer the City of Danville a beautiful facility to address the growth and increased demand that we're seeing. This store will provide residents with convenient access to our self-storage products and shared mobility services."

U-Haul Moving & Storage of Riverview will have a spacious retail showroom and essential services like truck and trailer sharing, boxes and moving supplies, towing equipment, U-Box portable storage containers and more. Professional hitch installation and propane will be available in the future.

Reserve equipment at uhaul.com or contact Reservations at 1-800-GO-UHAUL.

While the store is under construction, U-Haul dealers in and around Danville are available to serve DIY movers. U-Haul has partnered with independent dealers to offer rental equipment since 1945. During these challenging times for small businesses, more than 21,000 dealers across the U.S. and Canada are generating supplemental income through their U-Haul partnership. When customers rent from U-Haul dealers, they are directly supporting small businesses in their community. Because no financial investment is required, dealers are not U-Haul franchises. They are simply small businesses committing their lot space for U-Haul equipment and their time to meet the mobility needs of customers. Learn more about how to partner with U-Haul by visiting uhaul.com/dealer.

Messenger plans to hire at least 15 Team Members to staff the new facility. U-Haul will look to hire locally to promote job growth within the Danville community. U-Haul, honored as a "Best for Vets 2020" leading veteran-friendly employer by The Military Times, actively recruits veterans and gives them preference in the hiring process. Find U-Haul careers at uhauljobs.com.

"We're thankful for the opportunity to be a part of Danville's development and future," added Messenger.

As an essential service provider, U-Haul continues to serve communities during the COVID-19 recovery while offering contactless business programs and enhanced cleaning protocols, including added steps for sanitizing equipment between customer transactions. U-Haul products are used daily by First Responders; delivery companies bringing needed supplies to people's homes; small businesses trying to remain afloat; college students; and many other dependent groups, in addition to the do-it-yourself household mover.

About U-HAUL

Since 1945, U-Haul has been the No. 1 choice of do-it-yourself movers, with a network of more than 23,000 locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. U-Haul Truck Share 24/7 offers secure access to U-Haul trucks every hour of every day through the customer dispatch option on their smartphones and our proprietary Live Verify technology. Our customers' patronage has enabled the U-Haul fleet to grow to approximately 176,000 trucks, 126,000 trailers and 46,000 towing devices. U-Haul offers nearly 825,000 rentable storage units and 71.6 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities throughout North America. U-Haul is the largest retailer of propane in the U.S., and continues to be the largest installer of permanent trailer hitches in the automotive aftermarket industry. U-Haul has been recognized repeatedly as a leading "Best for Vets" employer and was recently named one of the 15 Healthiest Workplaces in America.

Contact:

Andrea Batchelor

Jeff Lockridge

E-mail: [email protected]

Phone: 602-263-6981

Website: uhaul.com

SOURCE U-Haul
PHOENIX, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE: UTI), a leading provider of transportation and technical training programs, today announced that it plans to report results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2022 on Thursday, February 3, 2022, after market close. Jerome Grant, chief executive officer, and Troy Anderson, chief financial officer, will host a conference call at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on the same day to discuss the financial results and operating performance.

To participate in the live call, investors are invited to dial (844) 881-0138 (domestic) or (412) 317-6790 (international). A live webcast of the call will be available via the Universal Technical Institute investor relations website at https://investor.uti.edu. Please go to the website at least 10 minutes early to register, download and install any necessary audio software. The conference call webcast will be archived for fourteen days at https://investor.uti.edu or the telephone replay can be accessed through February 17, 2022, by dialing (877) 344-7529 (domestic) or (412) 317-0088 (international) and entering passcode 8141698.

About Universal Technical Institute, Inc.

Founded in 1965 and headquartered in Phoenix, Universal Technical Institute's (NYSE: UTI) mission is to serve our students, partners, and communities by providing quality education and support services for in-demand careers. Approximately 250,000 students have graduated from one of UTI's 14 campuses located across Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Texas. UTI's campuses are accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), while its employer-aligned technical training programs are offered under four brands: Universal Technical Institute, Motorcycle Mechanics Institute / Marine Mechanics Institute, NASCAR Technical Institute, and MIAT College of Technology.

Media Contact:

Mark Brenner

Vice President, Corporate Affairs & External Communications

Universal Technical Institute, Inc.

(623) 445-0872

Investor Relations Contact:

Robert Winters or Davis Snyder

Alpha IR Group

(312) 445-2870

[email protected]

SOURCE Universal Technical Institute, Inc.
VANCOUVER, BC, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Vejii Holdings Ltd. (CSE: VEJI) (OTC: VEJIF) ("the Company'' or "Vejii"), a North American online marketplace for plant-based and sustainable products, is pleased to announce that the Company's common shares (the "Common Shares") will begin trading on the OTCQB market (the "OTCQB") effective as of January 21, 2022 under the symbol "VEJIF". The Common Shares will continue to trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") under the symbol "VEJI".

Vejii has filed for eligibility for electronic clearing and settlement of the Common Shares through the Depository Trust Company ("DTC") in the United States and expects to receive a response in the coming weeks. Vejii will provide an update once it obtains eligibility from DTC.

DTC is a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, and manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies. Securities that are eligible to be electronically cleared and settled through the DTC are considered "DTC eligible." This electronic method of clearing securities speeds up the receipt of stock and cash, and thus accelerates the settlement process for investors.

"We are very pleased to have received approval from OTC Markets Group to trade our shares on the OTCQB and we look forward to receiving DTC eligibility in the near future as we start our US investor awareness campaign. We launched Vejii in the US in the last year and have developed significant US commercial operations through Shopvejii.com and our recent acquisitions of VeganEssentiials.com and VEDGEco.com. We view being able to trade on the OTCQB as an important aspect of developing a following with US investors," said Kory Zelickson, CEO of Vejii.

About Vejii Holdings Inc.

Headquartered in Kelowna B.C, Vejii is a unified digital marketplace and fulfillment platform featuring thousands of plant-based and sustainable-living products from a growing list of hundreds of vendors. The platform offers an easy-to-use, omnichannel experience for both vendors and buyers, leveraging big data and artificial intelligence to elegantly connect brands with a targeted consumer base, both organically and through specialized marketing programs. Dynamic fulfillment services empower brands to offer tier-one service, with ongoing engagement being driven through features like smart lists, subscription programs, reordering functions, sampling programs, and more.

The Company also owns and operates U.S.-based Veg Essentials LLC ("Vegan Essentials"), which operates VeganEssentials.com. A staple of the plant-based community, Vegan Essentials was established in 1997 and contributes more than 20 years of consumer insight, data, and buying power. VeganEssentials.com was awarded best online vegan store from 2005-2018, as well as best online vegan grocer from 2018-2021 by VegNews Magazine.

For more information, visit VejiiHoldings.com

VejiiHoldings.com

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Kory Zelickson, Director and CEO

Find Vejii on Social Media: on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release.

CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws with respect to the Company. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by words such as "believe," "project," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may," "should," "will," "would," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this press release include statements relating to: the commencement of trading of the Common Shares on the OTCQB, the continuation of trading of the Common Shares on the CSE, the expectation of obtaining a response from DTC regarding DTC eligibility, the expectation of obtaining DTC eligibility, the expectation that the Company will provide an update on DTC eligibility and the expectation that the Company will start its US investor awareness campaign. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward- looking statements and information because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release including, without limitation, that the Common Shares may not begin trading on at the expected time or at all, that the Common Shares may not continue to trade on the CSE, that the Company may not receive a response from DTC, that the Company may not receive DTC eligibility at the expected time or at all, that the Company may not provide an update on DTC eligibility, that the Company may not start its US investor awareness campaign and other factors beyond the Company's control. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. The forward-looking statements included in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable laws.

SOURCE Vejii Holdings Ltd.
WARSAW, Ind. and WESTMINSTER, Colo., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. (NYSE and SIX: ZBH) today announced that it has filed a Form 10 registration statement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") in connection with the intended spinoff of its Dental and Spine businesses into a standalone, publicly traded company, ZimVie.

The Form 10 includes detailed information about ZimVie, such as historic financial information, a description of ZimVie's business and strategy, and other legal and financial disclosures. A copy of the Form 10 is available on the SEC website at www.sec.gov.

In addition, ZimVie will host a virtual Investor Day on Monday, February 7, 2022 from 11:00 a.m. to approximately 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The virtual event will feature presentations from ZimVie leaders outlining its Dental and Spine offerings, addressable market opportunity, financial outlook, business strategy, and the broader organizations supporting these businesses. The event will feature a live Q&A panel following speaker presentations.

A live and archived webcast of the event can be accessed via Zimmer Biomet's Investor Relations website at https://investor.zimmerbiomet.com.

Zimmer Biomet announced in February 2021 its intent to form a new independent, publicly traded company to optimize resource allocation and drive toward market leadership. That transaction process remains on track, with an expected close in the first quarter of 2022.

About Zimmer Biomet

Zimmer Biomet is a global medical technology leader with a comprehensive portfolio designed to maximize mobility and improve health. We seamlessly transform the patient experience through our innovative products and suite of integrated digital and robotic technologies that leverage data, data analytics and artificial intelligence.

With 90+ years of trusted leadership and proven expertise, Zimmer Biomet is positioned to deliver the highest quality solutions to patients and providers. Our legacy continues to come to life today through our progressive culture of evolution and innovation.

For more information about our product portfolio, our operations in 25+ countries and sales in 100+ countries or about joining our team, visit www.zimmerbiomet.com or follow Zimmer Biomet on Twitter at www.twitter.com/zimmerbiomet.

About ZimVie

ZimVie will focus on the dental and spine markets and their respective growth drivers such as implants, surgical tools, bone graft substitutes, spinal fusion implants, non-fusion alternatives, and digital care management solutions. "Zim" derives from Zimmer Biomet, the new company's roots  and "Vie" is the French word for "life," symbolizing the future. ZimVie's headquarters will be in Westminster, Colorado.

345 E. Main St.

Warsaw, IN 46580

www.zimmerbiomet.com

Zimmer Biomet Media

Meredith Weissman

703-346-3127

[email protected]

Zimmer Biomet Investors

Keri Mattox

215-275-2431

[email protected]

Ezgi Yagci

617-549-2443

[email protected]

ZimVie Investors

Lynn Lewis or Marissa Bych

Gilmartin Group LLC

[email protected]

[email protected]

SOURCE Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc.
Marks and Spencer Group PLC renewed its calls on the government to end physical border checks in Northern Ireland and proposed the use of technology to track goods instead.

In a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, M&S chief operating officer and managing director of food, Stuart Machin, recommended a so-called Facilitated Movement Scheme, where the use of tracking software would remove the need for further certificates on goods in transit.

The proposed scheme would go a step further than the EUs proposals last year that allowed for fewer checks, but still required supermarkets to provide large amounts of data on shipments.

M&S has been one of the most outspoken critics of Brexit regulation that affects trade on the Northern Ireland border.

We need a long-term sustainable solution for goods movements into Northern Ireland," Machin wrote in the letter, which was co-signed by a number of large food industry suppliers, including Boparan, Cranswick PLC (LSE:CWK), Muller, Greencore Group PLC (LSE:GNC) and Bakkavor.

We do not want to see Northern Ireland becoming increasingly reliant on goods from overseas at the expense of British manufacturers.

We believe a solution can be achieved by using technology that can clearly show product from GB [Great Britain] that moves to Northern Ireland, stays in Northern Ireland.

We all want the British food industry to have a sustainable future, but this will need both government and industry to act together. Decisively and quickly.

The letter also called on the government to grant foreign lorry drivers visas lasting up to three years and said seasonal farming workers should be allowed to remain in Britain for up to 12 months.

A UK government spokesman told the Telegraph: The Northern Ireland Protocol is not working. That is why we are in intensive talks with the EU to get a better solution that protects stability in Northern Ireland and protects the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.

The UK governments proposals are pragmatic and common sense: only goods going to the EU should face checks and processes and there should be no checks for goods staying in the UK.

The UK and the EU are holding more talks this week.
Superdry PLC (LSE:SDRY) chief executive Julian Dunkerton said improved products and influencer marketing are key to the companys long-term strategy, after it returned to profits in the first half.

Having stepped down from his role in 2015, before battling his way back onto the board four years later, Dunkerton believes the company remained static during his time away, which in the clothing sector means you are moving backwards.

When I left this business, it stopped looking forward in terms of product, said Dunkerton.

To rectify this and keep the brand moving with the times, the man who built the company up from the market stall said the FTSE 250-listed company is now regularly trialling test products in a small number of owned stores, finding out what works and what doesnt.

READ: Superdry optimistic profit targets are achievable despite inflation concerns

That allowed the company to turn an initial product into multiple, slightly different products that it aims to appeal across multiple demographics, with Dunkerton citing the success of jacket sales as evidence the method works.

You will notice that jackets are up 40% up year-on-year in this 11-week period between October 24 and January 8. That is because we put in a test period of some new styles and trends before putting them into the mainline range, he said.

Similar methods have been trialled with other product types, such as knitwear, shirts and skirts.

Extending this approach is expected to lead to huge improvements over the next 12 months from a product perspective, the CEO predicted.

A shift in marketing strategy is also key for Dunkerton and Superdry, with social media influencers becoming a vital part in ensuring the brand reaches all its target markets.

Use of influencers is becoming an increasingly effective marketing tool, especially in clothing and fashion, with a lot of JD Sports recent success attributed to its canny use of these masters of Instagram.

Dunkerton says Superdry has increased the number of influencers on its payroll from 200 to 2000 in the last 12 months.

The push, however, does not stop there, with plans to increase that number by five times over the next couple of years as it targets the French and German markets, before moving across the pond and into America.

Evidence is emerging that the strategy is starting to gain traction.

According to broker Peel Hunt, the average customer age in Superdrys email database is five years younger than in 2019, which also coincided with the return of Dunkerton.

And, as the analysts also note, Superdrys new Oxford Street flagship is outperforming Regent Street despite the collapse in West End footfall, with the womenswear mix rising, and latest sales on an upward trend.

Peel Hunt reckons the shares are cheap at just over five times underlying earnings (EBITDA)
Everyman Media Group PLC (AIM:EMAN) said full-year underlying earnings (EBITDA) for 2020 will be ahead of expectations after a strong performance in December.

The cinema company said since re-opening on 17 May 2021 the group has been EBITDA positive and operating cash generative each month.

The outlook for the business is positive, reinforced by healthy admissions since re-opening and the group's roll-out programme is set to recommence in earnest with a committed pipeline of five new venues for the current financial year: Edinburgh, Plymouth, Durham, Marlow and Egham.

1.45pm: Deliveroo still in the doghouse

Deliveroo PLC (LSE:ROO), which found the market hard to please yesterday with its fourth-quarter trading update, is faring poorly again today.

The fast food delivery specialist is getting caught up in the general tech sell-off, with the shares down 6.7% at 160.7p.

Now that the government has announced the end of Plan B restrictions the market may be justified in wondering whether growth can continue at this level. In addition, the growing squeeze on the cost of living might mean UK consumers arent quite so keen on making too many orders through the app, said IGs Chris Beauchamp, in his analysis of Deliveroos results yesterday.

12.35pm: Hochschild Mining slides as production update fails to sparkle

Hochschild Mining PLC (LSE:HOC, OTCQX:HCHDF), the silver and gold miner, saw it shares slide 6.6% to 118.9p after its fourth-quarter production report failed to sparkle.

Silver production rose to 3.89mln ounces from 3.72mln ounces a year earlier while gold output rose to 68,220 ounces from 65,670 ounces.

Overall, attributable production of 94,222 gold equivalent ounces or 8.1 million silver equivalent ounces was virtually the same as the third quarter result.

11.30am: Playtech no longer in play

Playtech PLC (LSE:PTEC) slumped 22% to 570.34p as a possible bid for the gaming company fell through.

Eddie Jordan's JKO Play has withdrawn its US$3bn bid for Playtech, it was confirmed today. Jordan is best known as the head of the eponymous Formula One team.

JKO Play told Playtech it does not intend to make an offer for the company after being given more time earlier this month to come up with a counter-bid to a 680p-a-share offer made for Playtech by Australia's Aristocrat Leisure.

10.20am: Pennant International flags Boeing contract for British army helicopter training

Pennant International Group PLC (AIM:PEN) shares jumped 22% to 39.5p after the training technology company said it has been named as a key supplier to Boeings UK defence business.

It said it will supply services related to a long-term services contract awarded for the UK's new Apache helicopter fleet.

Pennant will deliver new and upgraded simulations called part task trainers which are compatible with the new chopper fleet.

Pennant and Boeing are currently working on a final contract, with an award expected imminently.

9.15am: TheWorks.co.uk and OnTheMarket among Friday's early risers

TheWorks.co.uk PLC (LSE:WRKS) shares were among the early risers on Friday, up 12% to 63.14p after a solid set of interim results, where the retailer said it wants to recommend a final dividend.

Revenue for the 26 weeks ended 31 October were up 30.6% on the previous year and like-for-like sales were up 14.5% on two years ago, ahead of the board's expectations, with reported loss before tax of 1.0mln much improved on 4.3mln interim loss a year ago.

Overall, the company said its good trading performance is "expected to more than offset significantly increased container freight costs", with adjusted EBITDA for the full year forecast to be approximately 15mln, assuming no further impact on trading from COVID-19, which again is ahead of the board's previous expectations.

Provided results in July are in line with these new forecasts, the board has proposed bringing forward a review on the dividend policy, "with a view to recommending a final dividend for FY22".

Elsewhere, OnTheMarket PLC (AIM:OTMP) shares climbed over 3% to 123p after the estate agent-owned website said its operational performance continued to be strong recently and revenues will be ahead of previous expectations.

A profit was forecast for both the half and the full year of the current fiscal period, helped by a switch to capitalising development spending rather than expensing it.

Jason Tebb, chief executive, added: "We are pleased to be reporting a strong performance and further operational progress in keeping with our objective of building a tech-enabled property business."
The Federal Reserve Board has opened a debate on the possible creation of a US central bank digital currency (CBDC) with the release of a long-awaited discussion paper that examines the pros and cons of such a currency.

Stressing that it did not "favour any policy outcome", the central bank said the paper is the first step in a discussion of whether and how a CBDC could improve the safe and effective domestic payments system.

It invited comments from the public over the next 120 days on a potential CBDC.

"We look forward to engaging with the public, elected representatives, and a broad range of stakeholders as we examine the positives and negatives of a central bank digital currency in the United States," said Federal Reserve chair Jerome H Powell.

Unlike existing digital transactions, which are a liability of private entities such as commercial banks, a CBDC would be a liability of a central bank.

The Fed said that while a CBDC could provide a safe, digital payment option for households and businesses, as well as faster payments between countries, there are potential downsides to consider.

"They include how to ensure a CBDC would preserve monetary and financial stability as well as complement existing means of payment.

"Other key policy considerations include how to preserve the privacy of citizens and maintain the ability to combat illicit finance," it said.

The Fed has lagged other countries in supporting a CBDC. About 90 countries are exploring or launching their own CBDCs, according to the Atlantic Council. China, for example, is piloting a digital renminbi.

The Fed said it would not proceed without clear support from the executive branch and from Congress, ideally in the form of a specific authorising law.

The Fed is finally wading into a topic that is unavoidable for central banks as they contemplate how to secure monetary and financial stability amid various innovations in financial technologies, including an accelerating shift to digital forms of payment, that are reshaping financial markets and institutions, Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University with expertise in currencies, told the Financial Times.

Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), told the FT that the Fed was unlikely to be very aggressive in its plans to proceed if it chose to do so.

There is room for introducing that cautiously, but youre not going to anytime soon, I think, replace the core bank-centred system of financial intermediation, he said.
LONDON, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- After a pullback from near seven-year record earlier this week, oil price has stayed at high levels the last couple of days, and is expected to continue the momentum, if not rising to new highs, in the coming months as a result of recovery of demand and sustained supply risks.

Demand is anticipated to be back on track. Despite the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, countries around the world have generally imposed more modest restrictions, which have exerted a relatively small impact on demand, said Fu Xiao, head of commodity markets strategy at Bank of China International, in a written interview with Xinhua on Thursday.

"Recently, some European countries, including the UK, seemed to believe that the peak has passed and have begun to further lift lockdown measures, with demand recovering strongly," Fu said, noting that both the International Energy Agency and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) expect oil demand to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2022.

On the supply side, the flare-up of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East pushed the West Texas Intermediate and Brent up to their highest settlements since October 2014 on Wednesday, based on the front-month contracts.

Yemen's Houthi militia claimed responsibility on Monday for a military operation that struck areas inside the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an active member of the Saudi-led military coalition. The announcement came just after three petroleum tankers had exploded in a fire near the storage facilities of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Concerns over the security of oil supply have partly dissipated since then, as "it became apparent that oil flows along the Ceyhan pipeline would return to normal fairly quickly," said a report by the ING Group, a financial services company, on Thursday.

However, some market analysts still see shadows looming over the oil markets. Although the Houthi's attack did not affect the UAE's oil production, the possibility of yet another conflict might raise questions about the stability of the oil supplies from the Middle East, Fu said, noting that the UAE contributed a significant share to the December 2021 output growth of OPEC Plus.

He also noted that the growth in OPEC Plus oil supply was less than expected and that the production growth in non-OPEC countries such as Brazil and Norway has been slowing down as well.

As a result, the price of oil may rise further, or stay at the current high level.

Another ING Group report said Tuesday that the growing geopolitical risk "comes at a time when there is already plenty of concern in the market over the potential impact of an escalation in tensions between Russia and Ukraine. These growing risks, combined with worries over OPEC spare capacity, have meant that sentiment in the oil market has remained bullish."

Caroline Bain, chief commodities economist at Capital Economics, a London-based independent economic research consultancy, has expressed a cautiously optimistic view about price developments in 2022.

"We continue to expect energy prices to fall this year, but the latest developments on supply suggest that they will not fall by quite as much as we previously thought," she said on Wednesday.

Bain said Capital Economics has made an upward revision to the oil price forecast mainly because of the lower growth in OPEC Plus supply.

"OPEC consistently failed to meet its own output targets in 2021 and this looks likely to continue. Russia is also struggling to meet its target. Admittedly, we have revised up our U.S. output forecast, but we still expect it to finish 2022 below its pre-pandemic high," said the economist. 
Kavango Resources PLC (LSE:KAV, OTC:KVGOF)'s (Kavango Resources PLC (LSE:KAV, OTC:KVGOF)) new CEO Ben Turney joins Proactive London to talk about the identified strong gravity anomaly at the Great Red Spot (GSR) target area at its Kalahari Suture Zone (KSZ) project in Botswana.

The gravity anomaly is roughly 7km in diameter at its widest along the North-South geophysical lines. This comes after already identifying a large-scale (11km) diameter magnetic anomaly at GRS and the gravity anomaly is coincident with that.

Gravity anomalies are caused by density contrasts in rock units relative to the background geology. In mineral exploration a strong gravity anomaly can indicate the presence of an intrusion, alteration and mineralisation.
Site works within both the processing plant and broader project areas are progressing in accordance with the project schedule.

Pantoro Ltd (ASX:PNR) is progressing construction of the gold processing plant at its jointly-owned Norseman Gold Project (Pantoro 50%) in WAs Eastern Goldfields.

Earth works, concrete and tank construction were well advanced by the end of the December 2021 quarter, with the construction crew taking a two week break during the Christmas/New Year period.

Site works recommenced on January 5, 2022.

Mining works to commence in May 2022

Site works within both the processing plant and broader project areas are progressing in accordance with the project schedule, with first production expected in Q3 of calendar year 2022.

Open pit and underground mining tenders were sought during the quarter with strong interest from multiple contractors.

Tenders were received at the end of December 2021, and award of both contracts is planned in the March 2022 quarter with mining works to commence in May 2022.

Exploration and resource drilling

Pantoro has continued drilling at Norseman utilising five rigs throughout the December 2021 quarter.

The majority of the work has been concentrated on the Scotia Mining Centre ahead of planned mineral resource and ore reserve updates later in the March 2022 quarter.

Drilling in the area was focused on Scotia Deeps and the Green Lantern Deposit.

Some of the better drill results reported during the quarter included:

4 metres at 25.32 g/t gold from 203 metres;

2 metres at 7.16 g/t gold from 146 metres;

2 metres at 8.99 g/t gold from 258 metres; and

1.3 metres at 14.09 g/t gold from 396.7 metres.

Drill results from both Green Lantern and Scotia have resulted in ongoing extensions to the limit of known mineralisation, and as a result drilling will be ongoing during the upcoming quarter.

Lithium development partnership

Last month, Pantoro entered a binding term sheet for a lithium development partnership with Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX:MIN) and Tulla Resources Plc (ASX:TUL), to explore and develop lithium deposits across the Norseman Gold Project.

As part of the deal, Mineral Resources will front exploration costs on Norseman's Buldania lithium tenements and can earn up to 65% of the project's lithium rights if it funds the project up until first production.

Mineral Resources is a leader in the construction and operation of hard rock lithium mines in Western Australia, and brings technical, operational and financial experience to the Norseman joint venture and the Pantoro-Tulla team.

The agreement is effective across the Norseman Gold project tenure, and Pantoro expects that Mineral Resources will commence drilling of lithium targets during the March 2022 quarter.
Alligator Energy Ltd (ASX:AGE) has made strong progress from its sonic core drilling program, with the final hole underway amid "excellent" core recovery at its Samphire Uranium Project, near Whyalla in South Australia.

Notably, the company has also strengthened its corporate skillset, appointing Dr Andrea Marsland-Smith as chief operating officer.

Further, Alligator has secured the services of Daishat Geodetic Surveyors to undertake a ground gravity survey on its Nabarlek North project post the wet season this year.

Drilling progress

At present, geological logging and core splitting for sampling and assay continues at Samphire.

Final assays for the first hole are anticipated in the next two weeks.

Looking ahead, Alligator has secured the services of a PFN logging contractor for the upcoming rotary drilling program, targeted for late February 2022.

New COO

Dr Andrea Marsland-Smith is joining Alligator as chief operating officer, where she'll be responsible for accountability and oversight of the Samphire Uranium Project and its broader exploration.

Alligator said Dr Marsland-Smiths wealth of experience in discovering and advancing uranium resources, her geological, technical and operational management of ISR projects and her wide uranium industry and engagement experience will be of paramount value to the company.

The new COO will commence in her role on February 1, 2022.

About Alligator Energy

Alligator Energy Ltd (ASX:AGE) is an Australian exploration company focused on uranium and energy-related minerals, principally cobalt-nickel.

The company is primarily exploring uranium in West Arnhem, utilising modern exploration techniques.

Alligator has also formed a strategic relationship with Traxys North America LLC, the US arm of global commodities trading group Traxys.
Fenix Resources Ltd (ASX:FEX) has delivered a record quarter, shipping 357,000 tonnes of high-quality iron ore from its Iron Ridge project in Western Australias Mid-West.

In addition, the company is in a strong financial position with A$54.9 million in cash as it progresses on its iron ore operations.

Looking ahead, Fenix anticipates a stronger March quarter due to recent rises in iron ore price, reduced freight rates and the high likelihood of quotation period adjustments.

Accelerate waste stripping

Fenix managing director Rob Brierley said: We generated an outstanding production performance, which unfortunately was accompanied by lower iron ore prices and higher ocean freight costs.

Pricing adjustments from the September 2021 quarter also impacted cashflows.

However, we have stayed the course with our mine plan and continued to accelerate waste stripping to ensure we have orderly access to high-grade ore sources, with the benefits of this strategy to be yielded in the June 2022 quarter and beyond.

The current quarter has started positively with higher iron ore prices and lower freight rates, and the high likelihood that pricing adjustments will result in cash inflows.

We finished the quarter with a strong balance sheet with net cash of $54.9 million, equal to $0.11 a share, and expect to build on this solid position during the second half of the financial year.

Operational summary

During the December quarter, Fenix loaded six ships with a total of 356,710 tonnes of iron ore from Iron Ridge.

To date, Fenix has shipped 1,198,573 tonnes of product from its Iron Ridge Project.

The average grade shipped for the December quarter was 61.6% iron for fines (previous quarter: 62.2%) and 64.4% Fe for lump product (previous quarter: 64.8%), further displaying the unique high-grade nature of the Iron Ridge deposit.

Financial summary

Cash and receivables as of December 31, 2021, totalled $60.8 million, which consisted of cash of $54.9 million and a receivable of A$5.9 million (US$4.2m) relating to a shipment dispatched in late December 2021 but paid for in early January 2022;

The average price received for ore was US$55.96 (roughly A$77) per dry metric tonne (dmt) free on board (FOB), which is equivalent to US$89.50/dmt (roughly A$123/dmt) cost and freight (CFR).

Received prices were adversely impacted by quotation period price adjustments from the previous quarter that amounted to US$4.6 million or US$13.48/dmt (around A$19/dmt)

Notably, C1 FOB cash costs for the quarter were $94.09/wmt shipped.

In addition, Fenix commenced delivering into hedge contracts from October 2021 at the rate of 50,000 tonnes a month for 12 months and at a fixed price of $230.30/dmt.

Cash settlement under the hedge contracts occurs 10 days after the end of each month, with roughly $8 million received for the two contracts (October and November) settled during the quarter.

Fenix Newhaul haulage joint jenture

The Fenix-Newhaul JV provides bulk haulage transport of the companys high-grade iron ore products from the Iron Ridge Project near Cue, 486 kilometres to Fenixs loading facilities at Geraldton Port.

The strategic joint venture approach to the companys haulage operations represents a significant competitive advantage to Fenix.

During the December quarter, 331,000 tonnes of iron ore were hauled by Fenix Newhaul, closely aligned to budget levels of roughly 110,000 tonnes per month.

Exploration updates

Fenix executed a farm-in and joint venture agreement with Scorpion Minerals Ltd in February 2021 over 33,954 hectares of tenements held by Scorpion adjoining the Companys Iron Ridge operations.

Fieldwork on the Scorpion farm-in tenements commenced during the December quarter with an extensive heritage survey conducted over areas prospective for iron ore mineralisation.

Several target areas have been identified within close proximity to the companys existing operations which justify exploration for potential high-grade iron mineralisation similar to Iron Ridge.

All required clearances have now been received over the Scorpion farm-in tenements and the company is reviewing data and conducting ground-truthing prior to finalising a potential first-pass drilling program.

Board changes

During the December quarter, John Welborn was appointed as an independent non-executive director and chairman of Fenix.

Welborns appointment followed the resignations of Warwick Davies as interim non-executive chairman and Richard Nicholls-Maltman as a non-executive director.

He has also been appointed as the Fenix representative on the Fenix Newhaul board, effective November 29, 2021.
Orexplore Technologies Ltd, a mining scanning technology company, made its debut on the ASX today following a recent demerger from parent company Swick Mining Services.

The company lists following a $2.4 million priority offer to Swick shareholders, at an issue price of $0.25 per share, which joins $12 million in seed funding contributed by Swick as part of the demerger  which all adds up to a healthy cash balance in the vicinity of $14 million.

The company share register indicates it has the support of a range of institutional, sophisticated and retail investors.

This next step in the companys journey will allow it to accelerate its business and technology strategies, and focus on the commercialisation of its technology platform through targeted customer value propositions across the mining value chain.

Resource characterisation is fundamental to the success of exploration, extraction and mine closure, Orexplore chair Dr Alan Bye said.

The mining industry is adopting digital sensors and analytics to improve productivity and Orexplore has the potential to add significant value to mining exploration and operations. We are excited to become a listed company and thank our shareholders for their support.

The product

Orexplore has developed a non-destructive technology for resources companies to analyse core in a faster and more sustainable way. The product allows companies to see through the core', which offers substantial time and cost savings, and the ability to make decisions more rapidly.

The companys suite of scanning and modelling technologies delivers rapid 'drilled to insight decision support by connecting field core scanning technologies to remote decision makers mere hours after extraction and presentation.

Its flagship product, GeoCore X10, is a transportable X-ray rock mass scanning technology that converts drill core samples into a three-dimensional data set to provide a through-the-rock image of internal structures and texture in addition to elemental detections and density. The scanning technology makes use of Orexplore Insight software which converts the 3D data into a digital twin, which allows the user to interrogate the sample at a standard resolution of 200 microns.

The company fits into the trend of the mining industry going through a digital transformation, adopting digital sensors and analytics to improve productivity, following the rise in metals demand with the broadening adoption of electric vehicles.

Value proposition

Established in Sweden in 2010, and headquartered in Perth, Western Australia, the company is focused on accelerating market traction, and advancing the commercialisation of its non-destructive core-scanning technology.

We are fortunate to be building on a strong base of advanced research and development from our origins in Stockholm, managing director Brett Giroud said.

With a healthy balance sheet, a rapidly advancing technology platform and a highly skilled team, we are well-positioned to create shareholder value as we build a global technology company.

Orexplore managing director Brett Giroud

The companys value lies in helping its mining customers unlock value by capturing what it describes as the global mega-trends sweeping the mining industry, beset by the challenges of diminishing exploration returns, operational pressures, challenging project techno-economics and workforce evolution.

It hopes to usher in a digital and automated transformation of the sector, with ESG principles at its core.
Alchemy Resources Limited (ASX:ALY) has begun drilling at the Karonie Gold project in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, targeting several high priority exploration targets identified through high-resolution magnetics and multi-element geochemistry surveying.

Read: Alchemy Resources survey work generates multiple gold targets at Karonie

The drilling campaign will consist of 110 holes for a total of 7,000 metres of drilling, expected to take two to three weeks to complete.

Drilling will be targeted predominantly at the Karonie East trend, which stretches over 10-kilometres in strike and runs adjacent to the Aldiss Mine operated by Silver Lake Resources.

Assay results are expected in late February 2022.

Multiple high tenor structures near open pits

We are excited to be back out drill testing numerous targets along the 10-kilometre-long Karonie East corridor, Alchemy Resources CEO James Wilsons said.

The high-resolution magnetics flown in late 2021 highlighted numerous targets which pin-pointed high tenor structures in proximity to existing open pit mines.

The previous holes, which were drilled over 20 years ago, did not penetrate the younger cover or were too widely spaced to be considered effective.

This drilling campaign marks the second phase of exploration at Karonie, to be followed up with a third drill program in phase three which will test two kilometres of greenfield targets at the Western Brown area, which is interpreted to disrupt fractionated magnetic dolerites at the Gilmore prospect.

This target has seen very little effective drilling, with most of the rotary air blast (RAB) drilling at Gilmore not being able to penetrate through transported cover to basement geology.

About Alchemy Resources

Alchemy Resources is an Australian exploration company focused on the discovery and development of gold, base metals and nickel-cobalt resources.

The company has built a large land package in the Carosue Dam-Karonie greenstone belt in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, one of the nations premier gold provinces, and has an 80% interest in projects in the Lachlan/Cobar Basin in New South Wales.

The latter incorporates copper-gold porphyry assets, including large-scale Cadia lookalike targets at Yellow Mountain with solid broad intercepts, while nearby Overflow has returned high-grade gold-copper-zinc, including intercepts such as 7 metres at 6.7 g/t gold, 1.0% zinc and 0.3% copper.
Eddie Jordan's JKO Play withdrew its US$3bn bid for Playtech PLC (LSE:PTEC), it was confirmed today.

JKO Play told Playtech t does not intend to make an offer for the company after being given more time earlier this month to come up with a counter-bid to a 680p-a-share offer made for Playtech by Australia's Aristocrat Leisure.

Playtech, which supplies online gaming software for companies including Bet365, William Hill, Betfair and Paddy Power, issued a statement this morning saying it continues to unanimously recommend its shareholders vote in favour of the Aristocrat offer, with a vote scheduled for 2 February.

The FTSE 250 gaming company said it was heading into the vote "without a clear understanding" of how much support it has from major shareholders, as a number of investors have not yet engaged in "customary levels of engagement".

A number of these shareholders are reported to have bought Playtech shares at prices considerably higher than Aristocrats offer.

Jordan said he and his team would continue to evaluate a number of opportunities in the gaming and associated technology sectors, where we see exciting growth prospects in a number of international markets.

JKO is now unable to make another offer for Playtech for six months.
Gungnir Resources Inc. (TSX-V:GUG, OTC:ASWRF) has announced that drilling is expected to start early next week at its Lappvattnet high-grade nickel project in northern Sweden.

Drilling will continue to focus on upgrading and expanding the existing nickel resource and approximately 4,000 metres of drilling is planned, the company said.

"Our first phase program at Lappvattnet, completed in Q4 2021, was highly successful, delivering consistent shallow drill hits of high-grade and wide-grade nickel sulphide mineralization," Jari Paakki, CEO of Gungnir, said in a statement.

"This year we are planning to expand our drill efforts with more metres to further define potential high-grade nickel shoots along the deposit plus drill-testing the 'twin' north EM geophysical conductor we identified late last year," he added.
Banks have told their British staff to return to the office after the government lifted its work-from-home guidance, giving hope of a boost to retail and hospitality companies hit hard by remote working.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) staff are "expected to be in the office at least three days per week", the bank said in an internal memo seen by Reuters.

Standard Chartered PLC (LSE:STAN)'s London headquarters will be open for all staff from Monday 24 January, a spokesperson told Reuters.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday announced the immediate end to the government's work-from-home rule, adding that other restrictions such as the mandatory wearing of face masks in public venues would be dropped next week.

Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) plans to resume office working following the the changed guidelines, a spokesperson told Reuters, while HSBC PLC (LSE:HSBA) said staff would be welcome back in its offices from Thursday for hybrid working.

Business and industry leaders cheered the end of the restrictions.

"Before Christmas the Omicron variant cast a dark shadow over the Square Mile's recovery. The signs are now much more promising," said Catherine McGuinness, policy chair at the City of London Corporation.

"We look forward to welcoming City workers back to their offices as soon as possible."

Clive Watson, chairman of City Pub Group PLC (AIM:CPC), told the Evening Standard: To get Britain back to work, so to speak, is absolutely vital for hospitality. A lot of businesses, including our own, do rely on people being back at their desks and coming into London. Thats a really key driver going forward.

Hospitality industry data from CGA on Thursday showed there was modest growth in the last quarter of 2021, with a 1.6% increase in site numbers between September and December  the first quarter-on-quarter growth for more than five years.

The report pointed to a 1.9% increase in venues in both city centres and on high streets, where footfall has suffered since the start of the pandemic.
The recent amendments by Health Canada to the Special Access Programme highlight the importance and growth potential of Numinus' wellness clinic network, CEO Payton Nyquvest said

Numinus Wellness Inc reported a big jump in its 1Q 2022 revenue just as Health Canada has expanded its Special Access Program to enable easier access to psychedelic-assisted therapy.

The mental healthcare company saw its revenue grow by 245% to $0.8 million during the three-month period ended November 30, 2021.

Numinus attributed much of the growth to its acquisition of Canadian healthcare start-up Mindspace Wellbeing that closed last year.

Sequentially, revenues grew 60.9% compared to 4Q 2021, while gross profit hit nearly $51,000 compared to a $38,000 loss in the same year-ago quarter.

Overall, the company reported a net loss of $5.4 million compared to $1.9 million in 1Q 2021.

Numinus Bioscience, the companys laboratory operations, reported $142,000 in revenue for the quarter, a 56% sequential increase from 4Q 2021 but a 28% decrease from the same year-ago period. Numinus said the decline was due primarily to the end of cannabis related activities in favour of focusing on psychedelic-centered service offerings like psychedelic analytical testing and contract laboratory services.

The groups Numinus Health division, which runs a network of wellness clinics, reported $648,000 in revenue, up 62% sequentially and nearly 1,900% from the same quarter last year when it only had one clinic. The firm had nearly 6,200 clinic appointments during the quarter.

"We have made significant advancements in all areas of our business over the last several months, with many exciting opportunities on the horizon," CEO Payton Nyquvest said in a statement accompanying the results.

"Of note, the partnership across our lab and clinical teams has been instrumental in passing key milestones on two major clinical trials: one for a proprietary Psilocybe formulation and the other a MAPS-sponsored MDMA study. In addition, we're continuing to make discoveries in our Bioscience lab and recently begun genetic testing on several newly-acquired psychedelic mushroom species."

Health Canada amends Special Access Program

Numinus 1Q results come at a time when Health Canada announced amendments to the Special Access Programme for psychedelic therapies, which allow doctors and practitioners to apply for psychedelic medicines that have shown promise through Phase 2 or Phase 3 trials, on behalf of their patients, when other traditional medicines and therapies have not proven effective.

In addition, companies with a Health Canada dealers license, including Numinus Bioscience, may act as a licensed distributor of certain psychedelic medicines for approved cases.

The recent amendments by Health Canada to the Special Access Programme highlight the importance and growth potential of Numinus' wellness clinic network, Nyquvest told investors.

With facilities purpose-designed for a wide range of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies, therapists already trained on providing Psilocybin-assisted and MDMA-assisted therapies, and a Health Canada distribution license that allows us to import, possess, produce, and distribute psychedelic compounds  Numinus is well positioned as a national leader to provide these important treatments to those who qualify, the CEO said.

I'm encouraged by the recent changes by Health Canada and proud of everyone at Numinus for the ongoing leadership, drive and commitment to our mission over the past quarter."

The group ended 1Q with $53.9 million in cash.

Contact Angela at angela@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow her on Twitter @AHarmantas
by Xinhua writer Ma Qian

BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Since the U.S. Capitol was besieged by rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, the rosy filter of American-style democracy has shattered in front of the world.

Even more than one year later, the aftermath of the astounding riot can still be perceived from spiking partisan fights in U.S. Congress and constant chaos in the American society. Along the way, U.S. democracy has been decaying amid growing division and disorder.

As partisan politics keeps deteriorating in the Capitol, the U.S. democratic system can no longer represent the will of the American people, as it exists only in form, not in substance. As American news website Vox has put it, in countries where democracy is at real risk of collapse or even outright defeated -- places like the United States among others -- "the real drivers of democratic collapse are domestic."

Over the past year, Democrats and Republicans have been wrangling over an array of crucial legislative issues related directly to American people's life, including a COVID-19 relief package, new social safety programs, climate initiatives and voting reform. Once again, the gnawing divide between the two parties stuck out over the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot.

Democrats have blasted the Capitol riot as an attack on democracy as supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump violently interrupted proceedings to certify results of the 2020 presidential election.

Republicans, however, have tried to play down the incident and its aftermath, as well as understated Trump's alleged role in inciting it. While expressing his party's opposition to the Capitol riot, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has accused Democrats of using the probe "as a partisan political weapon to further divide our country."

As conspiracy theories and disinformation abound, the country's political divide appears to be widening ahead of the 2022 elections, "with each side seeing the other not as opponents but as enemies," according to a forecast report by U.S. think tank the Atlantic Council.

Unfortunately, U.S. political elections are now widely regarded as a pure game of money as their costs have registered one record after another over the years. During the last election season, the presidential campaign saw a total spending of a record 6.6 billion U.S. dollars.

While dominating state power and policy-making, those elected political elites serve almost exclusively the interests of deep-pocketed and other vested interests groups, which are the main sources of candidates' campaign donations, rather than those of ordinary U.S. citizens.

Noting America's polarization and sectarian tensions look poised to only increase, the Atlantic Council warned that the year 2022 is "shaping up to be one in which American democracy erodes significantly."

At present, public trust in the federal government remains at an all-time low and more people grew disenchanted with the deeply-flawed U.S. democracy, as ordinary U.S. citizens have borne the brunt of a cascade of social chaos and disorder.

Since the beginning of 2022, the Omicron variant has fueled a renewed record surge of COVID-19 infections, with Jan. 3 seeing over 1 million newly confirmed cases in the United States. Despite the ravaging pandemic, Republicans have mounted challenges to the White House's vaccine mandates across the country, accusing the Biden administration of overstepping its authority.

The New York Times has called the pandemic "a nearly two-year stress test that the United States flunked," lamenting that "an already distrustful populace" was exposed to "a level of institutional failure that added fuel to the angry battles over how to respond."

Across America, there is also a pervasive outcry against systemic racial discrimination and rampant gun violence. Amid an escalating anti-Asian hate crime, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has recently urged the White House to make a public apology to Asian Americans for calling COVID-19 the "China virus" and other aggressive remarks of former President Donald Trump.

In his new book "The Next Civil War: Dispatches From the American Future," Canadian novelist and journalist Stephen Marche raised the alarm about a new civil war in the United States in the near future. The author penetrates into the realities of a politically tribalistic United States, burdened by racial and economic injustice, social resentments and a surging number of guns.

For the United States, it would be better if the Biden administration gives more "humility and attention" to the conditions of its governance, suggested Douglas Paal, a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stressing concrete progress over abstract discussions.

More than one year after the Capitol riot, America's democracy is still in shambles. One cannot help but wonder how close the Titanic of U.S. democracy is getting to the iceberg?

As the 2022 elections are only ten months away, those in the White House had better find out, for their own sake, how to prevent the Capitol from further faltering or being attacked again. And hopefully, they could learn a lesson from last year's shocking incident, so as to salvage America's crumbling democracy. Enditem

(Xinhua writer Deng Xianlai in Washington also contributed to the story.)
Kavango Resources said it identified a strong gravity anomaly at the Great Red Spot (GSR) target area at its Kalahari Suture Zone (KSZ) project in Botswana.

The junior already identified a large-scale (11km) diameter magnetic anomaly at GRS and the gravity anomaly is coincident with that.

The gravity anomaly is roughly 7km in diameter at its widest along the North-South geophysical lines.

Gravity anomalies are caused by density contrasts in rock units relative to the background geology. In mineral exploration a strong gravity anomaly can indicate the presence of an intrusion, alteration and mineralisation, Kavango explained.

An Audio-Magnetotelluric (AMT) survey will be the next test to be carried out at GRS, said Kavango.

"While it is too early to start drawing definitive conclusions, we are keen to pursue the possibility that the Great Red Spot could host stacked mineralised systems," Ben Turney, Kavangos chief executive, added.

"Although this is a relatively new geological theory for Kavango, it is interesting that it builds on our existing work.

The younger, shallower Karoo gabbros over the Great Red Spot remain our primary focus, but we are increasingly aware of the potential for the deeper, much older Proterozoic gabbros to host an entirely separate system.

"Reinterpretation of our existing magnetic model helped send us down this path and it is encouraging that the gravity survey results are coincident with the magnetics.

Our hope is the AMT survey will provide a third data set, which complements the results from magnetic and gravity surveys.

"Keeping an open mind in minerals exploration is crucial. We did not set out last year to find a new potential mineralizing system in the deeper Proterozoic rocks."
Falcon Gold Corp (TSX-V:FG, OTC:FGLDF) CEO Karim Rayani joined Steve Darling from Proactive to talk about the corporate update Rayani has released. In that update, the company discusses the large number of acquisitions the company made in 2021.

Rayani shared with Proactive more about the progress they are making at the Central Canada gold mine. Rayani also talked about Newfoundland and the substantial moves the company made in 2021.
Trillion Energy said the redomicile to Canada will streamline the activities required to drill and produce the SASB gas field

Trillion Energy International Inc. (CSE:TCF, OTCQB:TCFF) has announced that its proposed merger and continuation to redomicile from Delaware to a British Columbia corporation has been completed and is now effective.

The company said the move is fundamental to reduce costs and regulatory filings and is pivotal to securing a brokered financing with a Canadian investment bank to fund the development of its SASB Gas field.

The redomicile to Canada will also streamline the activities required to drill and produce the SASB gas field, it added.

We are pleased to have completed the move and now plan to expeditiously complete our financing and secure our drilling rig contract, said Trillion CEO Arthur Halleran in a statement. Current natural pricing is at historic highs in the region which bodes well for our SASB natural gas drilling program we expect to commence later this year.

The company said the process to redomicile has been finalized via completion of a merger plan from Delaware into its British Columbia subsidiary (the Continuance), and concurrently completing an amalgamation with that subsidiary under the laws of British Columbia (Amalgamation) and together with the Continuance, the (Repatriation Transaction).

Trillion noted that the Repatriation Transaction did not result in any changes to the board, management, day-to-day business operations, or its strategy.

Among other advantages, management expects a reduction in the companys regulatory compliance costs, an enhanced ability to access the capital markets, and an increase in the number of potential investors. Also, completion of the Repatriation Transactions will reduce or eliminate certain US resale restrictions on common shares previously issued by the company in private placement transactions.

Under the Repatriation Transaction, shareholders will receive or shall be entitled to receive, for every one share of common stock of Trillion Energy International Inc. (CSE:TCF, OTCQB:TCFF) (Delaware) (Trillion Share), one common share of the now British Columbia incorporated Trillion Energy Inc. (a Trillion BC Share).

Trillion said expects no change to its ticker symbols.

Trillion is an oil and gas producing company with multiple assets throughout Turkey and Bulgaria. The company is 49% owner of the SASB natural gas field, one of the Black Seas first and largest-scale natural gas development projects.

Contact the author: patrick@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow him on Twitter @PatrickMGraham
Millennial Precious Metals (TSX-V:MPM) CEO Jason Kosec joined Proactive to discuss its latest drill results from its 2021 drill program at its Mountain View project in Nevada.

Kosec says 'spectacular' intercepts include 128 meters of 1.73 g/t oxide Au, adding he's most excited about the consistency of mineralization he is seeing at Mountain View.
Berlin, Jan 21 : Germany's seven-day Covid-19 incidence rate exceeded 600 for the first time as 638.8 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants were recorded, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases has said.

Due to the more contagious Omicron variant that is spreading across Europe, daily infections in Germany also climbed to a new record as 133,536 cases were registered within 24 hours, around 52,000 more than a week ago, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the RKI.

Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach warned that the peak of the Omicron wave in Germany was not reached yet. "The wave will roughly peak in mid-February," Lauterbach told broadcaster ZDF on Wednesday, expecting "several 100,000 cases per day." As laboratory polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were in short supply, Lauterbach wants to prioritise employees in the healthcare sector and is planning to present a corresponding proposal this weekend.

"We will get such high case numbers that we will have to distribute PCR tests, prioritize." The number of PCR tests in Germany conducted within a week just reached an all-time high of almost 2 million, of which one in four had a positive result, according to latest figures by the Association of Accredited Laboratories in Medicine (ALM).
New Delhi/Srinagar, Jan 21 : When the Pakistan movement was going on aggressively fuelled by Mohammed Ali Jinnahs two-nation theory, Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah rejected it saying Kashmir did not suffer from a minority complex. That is, this theory is irrelevant to Kashmir. Jinnah would never forgive Sheikh for that.

The problem was that Jinnah never tried to understand centuries old influences that moulded the Kashmiri character and produced unique Sufism influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. Had Jinnah tried to understand, he would have understood the logic in Sheikh Abdullah's rejection of the two-nation theory. Shrines in Srinagar are regularly venerated by Hindu and Muslim devotees alike. In other words, the influence of Sufism makes them one. Both pray the same way. Jinnah's two-nation theory told Pakistanis to tread raiders to India, who killed and looted here, as their heroes. This hero worship of marauders blinded Pakistanis to the soul of Kashmir. The October 1947 Pakistan raid on Kashmir and its subsequent efforts to pluck Kashmiris from their Sufi roots have not touched the essential Sufism in Kashmir. That Pakistan has to send its own Islamic terrorists to Kashmiris a proof that cannot trust Kashmiri to do its anti-India job. When the Kashmir insurgency was fizzling a terrorist, by the of name Mast Gul, came to Kashmir to torch the Charar-i-Sharif Shrine where Muslims and Hindu prayed in central Budgam, he was given a hero's welcome by the Jamaat-i-Islami when he returned to Pakistan.

One who has closely watched the 1990s insurgency in Kashmir may argue that Sufism has long given in to Islamic militancy, hatred and all evils, against which Sufism stood under the impact of the Pakistani propaganda that promoted violence and hatred. One may also point to the growing non-Sufi ambitions and restlessness of the new Kashmiri generations who want to be like other young people of the world. May be, some young people tried to take out their Pakistan-induced frustration by pelting stones on security forces.

But it is to be noted that years of efforts by China and then by Pakistan failed to make Kashmiri youth guerillas or terrorists. In the 1960s, China tried to train them as guerilla and after China's failure Pakistan has been trying to make a terror brigade of young Kashmiris. A couple of years ago Pakistan tried to weave this brigade around Burhan Wani who died in the security forces action. Pakistan tries to keep his memory alive by observing his death anniversary in Kashmir every year to inspire young people to terrorism-like its own terror outfits.

The reason of Pakistan's frustration in Kashmir is simple; its establishment and jihadi organisations just have no idea about the foundations of Sufism in Kashmir and its all-pervasive influence from generation to generation. Thus, it is not correct to believe that the young generation is free from it. The influence of Sufism dominates every Kashmiri young or old in different degrees; whether Hindu or Muslim.

The soil of the Kashmir Valley had long been prepared by Hinduism and Buddhism to receive Sufism. But the dominant influences of Hindu and Buddhist thinking Kashmirised Sufism when it reached here from Central Asia and bred a unique Hindu-Muslim Sufism called "Rishism" that produced Rishi or Sufis from both communities. They carried the message of contacting God through the Quran and Vedas. Thus forged Hindu-Muslin one-ness, promoted Kashmiriyat and gave the Kashmir Valley a title of "Rishi Vaer" and Pir Vaer" or the Valley of Rishi and Pirs. Here, Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) and Kashmiri Muslims have lived as one community. Perhaps this Hindu-Muslim oneness was in Sheikh Abdullah's mind when he told Jinnah that minority complex was not a problem in Kashmir.

The problem was never there even when Muslim Sufis began travelling to the Kashmir valley as early as the Buddhist rule here. Syed Sharif-ud-Din Abdur Rahman, a Muslim Sufi Saint was first to arrive in Kashmir in 1324 from Central Asia. In Kashmir, he became famous as Bulbul Shah. His shrine is located in downtown Srinagar. The place of the shrine was called Babul Langar. Now people call it Babul Lankar. This location is important from historical religious point of view.

Mir Syed Ali Hamdani, a Persian Sufi came to Kashmir in around 1373 along with 700 followers to preach Sufism and spirituality. He also played a role in refining Kashmiriart. His shrine is located in Srinagar's Khanqah area. Shrines have been target of Muslims, who are influenced by Wahabism. They consider veneration of shrines as un-Islamic. Other Muslims influenced by the two-nation theory, target shrines because they are visited by both Hindu and Muslims devotees. Thus 200-year old Dastgir Saheb Shrine which was an architectural wonder was destroyed in fire in 2012. Before that Charar-i-Sharif shrine was burnt down in 1995.
Kabul, Jan 21 : Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), the central bank of the country, has announced that the UN has sent $32 million in cash to the war-torn nation as part of the world body's humanitarian aid assistance, the media reported.

In a statement, the DAB said that the money was delivered to Afghanistan International Bank (AIB) on Thursday, reports Khaama Press.

Welcoming the UN aid, the DAB said the money is part of a process based on which the UN will provide $20 million weekly until March to the country.

"This will definitely help the fragile economic and banking systems of Afghanistan that are feared to be collapsing," it added.

On the other hand, economic analysts have said that unless the injection of dollars to Afghanistan's market, the country's local currency, Afghani, will further depreciate.
Copenhagen, Jan 21 : A fact sheet addressing "speculation, assumptions and misinformation being communicated about the Omicron Covid-19 variant" was released by the World Health Organization's (WHO) Regional Office for Europe in Copenhagen.

According to the WHO, the latest epidemiological data show a rapid rise in Covid-19 infection rates in Europe largely due to the spread of the new variant, reports Xinhua news agency.

In September 2021, there were over one million new Covid-19 cases per week. By the first week of January 2022, this number had increased to seven million.

The prevalent "myth" that "Omicron only causes mild disease" is one of the most pernicious ones highlighted in the fact sheet.

While the document acknowledges that Omicron may appear to cause fewer hospitalizations and be less severe than the Delta variant, it also warns menacingly that "it should not be seen as mild".

"The comparatively lower rate of hospitalizations and deaths so far is in large part thanks to vaccination, particularly of vulnerable groups. Without the vaccines many more people would likely be in hospital." Furthermore, it states that vaccines offer "the best available protection" against Omicron.

Vaccination, as with the other variants still in circulation, is "expected to provide significant protection against severe disease and death caused by Omicron", the fact sheet said.

"Vaccination prompts the body's immune response to the virus, which not only protects us from the variants currently in circulation - including Omicron - but is also likely to give protection from severe disease due to future mutations of Covid-19." Another compelling myth doing the rounds in the European region alleges that Omicron is just like a common cold. This was also shot down by the fact sheet, which instead described the variant as being "much more dangerous".

"Omicron is not like a common cold because it is more likely than a cold to land you in hospital and some people have already died as a result of it.

"It is also expected that people who have been infected from Omicron and recover are also at risk of developing so-called long Covid conditions," it added.

The WHO emphasized that it is critical to recognize that the pandemic is far from over.

"Even though Omicron is quickly gaining ground in the (European) region, the majority of current Covid-19 cases is still being caused by the Delta variant, which is known to cause severe disease and death," it said.

"We therefore cannot afford to drop our guard... Ending the pandemic requires us to get to much higher levels of vaccination in key target groups in the region and beyond.

"This is as much about vaccine equity between countries as within countries, and it must include getting all vulnerable individuals and health care workers vaccinated as a priority."

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Chairman of Parliamentary Standing committee on Home Affairs Anand Sharma has written a letter to Home Minister Amit Shah urging him to enact a law to curb hate speeches.

The letter written on Wednesday says, "It is requested that the Home Secretary be advised to sensitise the Chief Secretary (CS) and DGP to take prompt and firm action to enforce law and secure order. Further, the government may consider a legislative action, including amendments in the IPC and the CrPC." He said hate speech is being used to spread enmity and disharmony among religion, caste and ethnicity.

The letter was written in the wake of recent hate speeches in Haridwar where Supreme Court has taken cognizance and after the intervention the Uttarakhand Police arrested some of the accused.

The Supreme Court on January 12 issued notice to the Uttarakhand government on a petition by journalist Qurban Ali and former Patna High Court judge Anjana Prakash, seeking action against those who made hate speeches against the Muslim community at Dharam Sansad in Haridwar.

Three Army veterans have also moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to constitute a special investigating team (SIT) to probe the alleged hate speeches made at Haridwar and Delhi last month.

The hate speech was reportedly made during an event in Haridwar held from December 17 to 20. Video clips of the event, circulated on social media, says that "Hindus should arm themselves like those seen in Myanmar, every Hindu must pick up weapons and conduct a Safayi Abhiyan." The event was organised by Yati Narasimhanand, a controversial religious leader who has been accused in the past of inciting violence.

The Uttarakhand Police have arrested Jitendra Narayan Tyagi -- former Shia Waqf board chairman, who recently converted to Hinduism and Yati Narasimhanand.
Bengaluru, Jan 21 : Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai will chair a high-level meeting on Friday to take crucial decisions on easing the weekend and night curfews, as well as reopening of schools.

In the last 24 hours, 47,754 new Covid cases were reported in Karnataka, of which Bengaluru logged the highest of 30,540 infections.

However, the discharge of 22,143 patients in the state, 13,195 in Bengaluru and the lack of severity of the disease has influenced the decision makers to announce lifting of curbs.

On January 18 and 19, 8,353 and 23,209 patients were discharged, respectively.

Bommai and state Health Minister Sudhakar K said that pro-people decisions would be taken in the meeting and avoiding deaths is their only concern as pressure is mounting on the government from the business community, private school managements to ease restrictions.

The private school managements are demanding reopening of schools in Bengaluru. In the rest of the state, schools are running and discretion is given to the concerned district commissioners to take calls.

It has also been advised not to take blanket decisions for the entire district.

The business community, film exhibitors, bar, pub and hotel owners are also demanding lifting of weekend and night curfew in the state and especially Bengaluru.

The film exhibitors in Mysuru have taken to protest by cancelling exhibitions demanding 100 per cent seat occupancy along with weekend and night curbs.

Opposition Congress leaders have also heavily criticised the ruling BJP for clamping restrictions.

State Congress President D.K. Shivakumar and Opposition leader Siddaramaiah held the BJP responsible for disrupting the livelihood of people.

However, Revenue Minister R. Ashok has maintained that rules cannot be eased for one's convenience and a decision which will serve the whole society, has to be made.

Meanwhile, a study by experts suggest that the peak period is nearing while the state government is planning to announce an easing of weekend and night curfews.

A sources in the government also confirmed that a favorable decision would be made in connection to reopening of schools in Bengaluru.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday agreed to boost cooperation on economic and trade issues with the set-up of a new ministerial-level dialogue.

"President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida established a new ministerial-level Economic Policy Consultative Committee (the Economic "2+2"), to track and drive economic cooperation and to strengthen the rules-based economic order in the Indo-Pacific region and the world," the White House said in a readout of the virtual meeting between the two leaders.

The so-called "2+2" new economic forum, which will include U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, "has not been fully worked out," a senior U.S. administration official said on Friday during a background press call.

"But the expectation is that they will work in a number of areas including export controls, but most directly in the current environment - supply chains, technology investments, and standard setting," the official said.

During the 90-minute virtual meeting, Biden and Kishida also expressed their desire for the "swift resolution" of trade issues, according to the White House.

The promise of a "swift" resolution to trade issues signals the two leaders were unable to agree yet over whether to ease or eliminate tariffs imposed by the United States, under the Donald Trump administration in 2018, on Japanese steel and aluminum imports, Bloomberg News reported.

The so-called Section 232 tariffs were applied on national security grounds and have been a thorn in otherwise close ties, the report said.

The U.S. official who briefed reporters said that Raimondo is in regular contact with her Japanese interlocutor to negotiate tariff issues. "I think the president made clear that his hope would be that these negotiations would be concluded rapidly," the official said.

Biden also accepted Kishida's invitation to visit Japan in the late spring for the so-called "Quad" meeting among the United States, Japan, India and Australia, according to the official.

"I think he did accept the invitation, obviously, with details to be worked out. And obviously, we have to see how COVID plays out," the official said.

Friday's virtual meeting was the first substantial exchange between the two leaders since Kishida took office in October last year. The leaders had a brief conversation on the sidelines of a climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

Kishida had hoped to hold an in-person meeting with Biden early this year, but surging COVID-19 infections forced him to give up on visiting the United States before the start of a parliamentary session in Japan earlier this month. 
Varanasi : , Jan 21 (IANS) Doctors at the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University (IMS-BHU), have conducted a study on the surgical outcome of thoracic empyema patients.

They have claimed that it is the first of its kind study and could help in suggesting alternative treatment strategies to avoid surgery.

The team, led by Prof. Siddharth Lakhotia, conducted the study.

Prof Lakhotia said, "The study is about the surgical outcomes of empyema (pus in the thoracic cavity) patients and its relation to the pre-operative clinical and radiological (CECT thorax) findings. It was carried out to predict the outcome of the surgery, based on pre-operative parameters so that in cases where surgery may not be useful, they can be subjected to an alternate treatment strategy from the beginning." He said that the study found that in cases where the remaining volume of the affected or diseased lung in CECT thorax is more or equal to 59 per cent of the normal lung, the chance of complete expansion of that lung after surgery was good.

The study assumes significance as till now all such cases were being put to surgery but, the research indicates alternate ways of treatment in particular cases.

He added, "It has been observed that the pre-operative remaining volume of the affected lung (residual lung) can determine the surgical outcome along with other parameters; like completeness of decortication (surgery done to remove the pus in the thoracic cavity and thickened membrane, that compresses the lung and prevents it from complete expansion), presence or absence of air leak from lung pre operatively." According to him, pre-operative residual lung volume can be determined by the CECT thorax (CT morphometry - measurements of empyema, lung, thickness of pyemic membrane).

In the study it was discovered that the residual volume of the involved lung, expressed as a percentage of the normal opposite lung volume, predicted the complete expansion of the lung with sensitivity of 71 per cent and specificity of 70 per cent.
Monrovia, Jan 21 : At least 29 people have been confirmed dead in a stampede during an open-air church service in Liberia's Kru Town, a suburb of the capital Monrovia, police said.

The incident occurred late Wednesday when a "gang of thugs" carrying knives attacked hundreds of participants at the religious activity at a beach area, Xinhua news agency quoted Moses Carter, national police spokesman, as saying to reporters here on Thursday.

Carter said 11 children and a pregnant woman were among the victims, adding that there might be more dead casualties among the injured.

One suspect has so far been arrested, the police spokesman said.

In a statement by the Executive Mansion on Thursday, President George Weah said he was "extremely disheartened by the reports of the heavy loss of lives" in the stampede.

According to the statement, full details of the incident were yet to emerge but the police have, however, been mandated by Weah to conduct a full-scale investigation to ascertain whether or not there is criminal culpability.

The Liberian leader also urged the police authorities to ensure the investigation is speedy and thorough, saying that anyone found liable will be dealt with by the law, the statement added.
Brazzaville, Jan 21 : Weekly Covid-19 cases in Africa have dropped significantly and deaths dipped for the first time since the peak of the fourth wave of the pandemic propelled by the Omicron variant, said the World Health Organization (WHO).

New cases fell by 20 per cent in the week ending on January 16, while deaths dropped by 8 per cent, Xinhua news agency quoted a statement issued by the WHO's Regional Office for Africa here.

According to the WHO, South Africa, where Omicron was first sequenced, has recorded a downward trend over the past four weeks, while only north Africa reported an increase in cases over the past week, with a 55 per cent spike.

The Omicron-fuelled pandemic wave has resulted in the lowest cumulative average case fatality ratio, the proportion of deaths among confirmed cases, to date in Africa, standing at 0.68 per cent compared with the three previous waves during which the case fatality ratio was above 2.4 per cent.

"While the acceleration, peak and decline of this wave have been unmatched, its impact has been moderate, and Africa is emerging with fewer deaths and lower hospitalizations. But the continent has yet to turn the tables on this pandemic," warned Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, noting that the continent needs to brace for further waves.

"So long as the virus continues to circulate, further pandemic waves are inevitable. Africa must not only broaden vaccinations, but also gain increased and equitable access to critical Covid-19 therapeutics to save lives and effectively combat this pandemic," Moeti said.

The African region's current case fatality ratio remains the highest in the world, as availability of medical oxygen and Covid-19 vaccines remains a challenge across the continent, reads the statement.

"The deep inequity that left Africa at the back of the queue for vaccines must not be repeated with life-saving treatments. Universal access to diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics will pave the shortest path to the end of this pandemic and no region of the world should be left on the fringes of this endeavour," said Moeti.

In Africa, while vaccine supplies have been on the rise in recent months, the rate of vaccination still remains low, with just 10 per cent of the continent's population fully vaccinated.

Africa has so far received about 500 million Covid-19 vaccine doses and administered 327 million, said the WHO.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Bengaluru, Jan 21 : Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday said that the decision on lifting of weekend and night curfew will be taken on a scientific basis. A meeting with expert committee members later in the afternoon would decide on the continuation of weekend curfew, he said.

Many legislators, MPs and organisations are set to convey their opinion on the issue. A suitable decision would be taken based on the views of the experts and the trend of the prevailing third wave of Covid, Bommai said.

"We will take into consideration how the third wave has unfolded and its future consequences. It's impact on health infrastructure in the coming days to arrive at a decision. We will also discuss the action taken so far and the existing situation and decision would be taken on a scientific basis," he said.

"The state government is doing its duty in the form of 'Thrividha Dasoha' of providing Anna (food), 'Ashraya' (shelter) and 'Akshara' (education) for the deprived," Chief Minister Bommai said.

Speaking to mediapersons before heading to participate in the 'Dasoha Dina' at Tumakuru Siddaganga Mutt he said, "Siddaganga Mutt has heralded a culture of Dasoha (charity) in Karnataka.

"Sri Shivakumara Swamiji has followed the ideals of Basaveshwara in letter and spirit. State government has decided to celebrate Dasoha Day in Siddaganga Mutt. Our government is treading the path shown by the great seer. The rice quota per head has been raised from 4kg to 5kg. Ragi and Jowar are also being distributed according to the food habits of the region," he said.

The state government has undertaken 'Vidya Dasoha' (educational charity) by providing scholarships for children of construction workers and farmers. A massive housing project is being implemented. About 5 lakh houses are being constructed," Bommai said.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Hong Kong, Jan 21 : All in-person classes of secondary schools in Hong Kong will be suspended no later than January 24 until the Chinese New Year holidays after several Covid-19 cases were detected, the city's Education Bureau (EDB) announced.

The decision was madeas there have been confirmed cases or preliminary confirmed cases identified in schools, resulting in compulsory testing and quarantine of teachers and students, a spokesperson for the EDB said.

Primary schools and kindergartens in Hong Kong have already been required to suspend all in-person classes from January 14 until the holidays, reports Xinhua news agency.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong recorded 14 new cases of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, taking the total infection tally to 13,096, according to data from the Center for Health Protection (CHP).

Of the 14 cases, four were imported, seven epidemiologically linked with imported cases, one local, and two possibly local-related cases.

Thirteen of the cases involved mutant strains, while the mutation test result of the remaining case is pending, the CHP said.

Meanwhile, the whole genome sequencing analysis of 16 cases announced earlier showed they all carried the Omicron variant bringing the total number of Omicron infections to 495 in Hong Kong.

Since the launch of a mass inoculation program in February 2021, about 5.2 million people, or 77.2 per cent of the eligible population, have taken at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, while about 4.74 million, or 70.3 per cent are fully inoculated.

Meanwhile, 737,067 people in Hong Kong have taken a booster shot.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Mumbai, Jan 21 : Bollywood star Ayushmann Khurrana, who is currently in London shooting for his next, 'An Action Hero', is excited to be shooting for the first time in the UK as it will help him explore the beauty of the country, its art and heritage.

The film, directed by debutant Anirudh Iyer, will see Ayushmann essaying the role of an action star, who indulges in real-life action for the reasons that will be revealed during the course of the film.

The actor reveals that a film like aAn Action Hero' required a certain scale of canvas. Hence, shooting in London was essential.

He says: "This is the first time that I will be shooting in London and I'm quite excited to explore and see the beauty of the country from close quarters.

"'An Action Hero' is mounted at a scale that deserves to be shot in big locations. So, while we will film in some gorgeous places of India, we will also shoot at some really breath-taking places in the United Kingdom which I'm sure the audiences will love to see on the big screen." Talking about the blessings that come with the profession of acting, he says: "We actors are blessed because our profession takes us to remarkable places, makes us meet and collaborate with incredible people and also helps us make fantastical memories.

"Through the course of my career, I have always loved to travel to new places and thankfully I have been presented with opportunities that allow me to travel to so many beautiful locations in the world." 'An Action Hero' is being produced by Aanand L. Rai's Colour Yellow Production and Bhushan Kumar's T-Series.
Chennai, Jan 21 : After his superstar father Mammootty announced he is Covid positive, his actor son Dulquer Salmaan has also shared that he has caught the virus.

Dulquer took to Instagram, where he shared that he has mild flu symptoms and is currently in isolation.

He wrote: "I have just tested positive for Covid-19. I'm isolating at home and have mild flu symptoms but am otherwise ok. People who were in close contact with me during the shoots over the last few days, please isolate and test if you notice symptoms." The actor urged everyone to mask up and stay safe.

"This pandemic is not over and we must stay vigilant. Please mask up and stay safe," he added.

Five days ago, Mammootty tested Covid-19 positive. In view of this development, the shooting of his movie franchise 'CBI 5' directed by K. Madhu has been suspended.

Dulquer will next be seen in 'Hey Sinamika'.

'Hey Sinamika' marks the directorial debut of ace choreographer Brinda Master and stars Dulquer Salmaan, Aditi Rao Hydari and Kajal Aggarwal in lead roles.

The movie is slated for release in cinemas on February 25.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Geneva, Jan 21 : Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has issued a warning to world leaders that the Covid-19 pandemic "is nowhere near over".

The WHO chief cautioned against the assumption that the newly dominant Omicron variant is significantly milder and has eliminated the threat posed by the virus, the BBC reported.

The intervention comes as some European nations saw record new case numbers.

Speaking during a news conference at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Tedros told reporters that the Omicron variant had led to 18 million new infections across the world over the past week.

While the variant may prove to be less severe on average, "the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading", he said.

"Make no mistake, Omicron is causing hospitalisations and deaths, and even the less severe cases are inundating health facilities." He warned global leaders that "with the incredible growth of Omicron globally, new variants are likely to emerge, which is why tracking and assessment remain critical".

"I remain particularly concerned about many countries that have low vaccination rates, as people are many times more at risk of severe illness and death if they are unvaccinated," he added.

The WHO's emergencies director, Mike Ryan, also warned that Omicron's increased transmissibility is likely to drive a rise in hospitalisations and deaths, especially in nations where fewer people are vaccinated.

"An exponential rise in cases, regardless of the severity of the individual variants, leads to inevitable increase in hospitalisations and deaths," he said.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Stockholm, Jan 21 : Police in Sweden have announced that tens of thousands of individuals were believed to have travelled abroad with bogus negative PCR Covid test certificates.

Around 35,000 individuals who are believed to have fallen victims to the alleged scam, involving a testing company that the authorities listed as legitimate, have now been contacted, reports Xinhua news agency.

Their email addresses were found during the investigation into Doktorgruppen, a company that allegedly issued negative test certificates without actually analyzing the tests.

The tests cost around 1,500 Swedish kronor ($164) each.

Doktorgruppen, which had several clinics in the Swedish capital, was listed as legitimate by the Swedish Public Health Agency and operated for more than six months before it was shut down when raided by police in mid-June last year.

Among the things the investigators want to know from the presumed victims of the scam is whether they developed Covid-19 symptoms shortly after taking the test, reported Expressen, a nationwide evening newspaper in Sweden.

"There are indications that individuals have received false negative test results from Doktorgruppen and that individuals who thought they had taken a test and were healthy instead may have been ill and travelled abroad at a time when the risk of infection was at its highest," the investigators said.

At least five individuals connected to the company have been arrested and are being investigated for spreading infection, fraud, false testimony, and endangerment of others.
Hyderabad, Jan 21 : Even in this modern age of technological advancements, sorcery and superstitions are not only rampant in parts of Telangana but continue to claim lives.

In another shocking incident highlighting the deep-rooted menace, a man and his two sons were brutally hacked to death by a group of people who suspected them to be practising black magic.

The incident occurred on Thursday during a meeting of the Yerukala community at Tarakram Nagar in Jagtial district, barely 200 km from the tech hub of Hyderabad.

During a heated argument, some participants in the meeting attacked Nageshwar Rao and his three sons with knives and other sharp-edged weapons and killed them in the presence of 40-50 people.

Nageshwar Rao (55), Jagannatham Ram Babu (35) and Jagannatham Ramesh (30) died on the spot while Rao's youngest son managed to escape.

According to police previous enmity over allegations of sorcery is suspected to be the motive behind the murders. Jagtial Superintendent of Police Sindhu Sharma said the police were conducting a thorough investigation.

Police believe it to be a well-planned crime carried out during the meeting of the community held once in every six months to discuss the problems of its members. The assailants had come to the meeting with knives and other weapons.

Police registered a case and arrested eight accused. Some members of the community had accused Rao and his family members of practising black magic. A month ago Rao was attacked by some unidentified people in Sircilla district A woman in Yerukala Wada died a week ago and Rao's rivals suspected him to be responsible for her death.

Thursday's triple murder was the second incident related to suspicion of witchcraft in 24-hours. A man and his two sons were assaulted on suspicion of practising black magic. The incident occurred in Jangaon district.

According to police, a man suspected his neighbours after his three-month-old daughter took ill. He along with his relatives attacked Gorey Mian with sticks. They also attacked their two sons when they tried to intervene.

Parts of Telangana have seen a spate of incidents in the past in which people suspected to be practising 'Bhanamati' (a form of black magic) were burnt alive or hacked to death. In most of the cases, the victims were women. They were either murdered, paraded naked or physically abused.

The awareness campaign conducted by police over the last two decades led to a drop in the number of such cases but has not totally eliminated the menace.

Police still use cultural troupes called 'kalabrundam' in the rural areas to create awareness among the people against black magic. A police officer said through the cultural programmes, they try to drive home the message that people should shed superstitious beliefs and don't fall into the trap of tantriks. People are also urged not to suspect black magic for health, financial or other problems.

Not just remote villages and towns but even cities are witnessing such incidents. Hyderabad also saw a murder over black magic in November last year. A man was murdered by his sister's husband after he demanded Rs 2 lakh for treatment of his girl friend as he was suspected them to have performed black magic on her. Four persons, including a home guard, were arrested for the murder.

In November 2020, a Hyderabad techie was burnt alive by his in-laws' family in Jagtial district. The 40-year-old techie, who was blamed for the death of his wife's brother through black magic, was doused with petrol and burnt alive in an ashram run by his in-laws at the Balwantpur village. Police said the techie's wife was also present in the ashram and did nothing to stop the murder. The family was so convinced about the man practising black magic that they felt if he was not killed, he would kill them.

In 2019, an autorickshaw driver was beaten up and thrown into the funeral pyre of a woman, who allegedly died due to black magic performed by him, in Shameerpet on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
HOUSTON, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A federal judge in south central U.S. state of Texas on Friday blocked President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for federal employees, dealing another blow to the White House's anti-COVID-19 efforts.

The U.S. Department of Justice immediately filed an appeal. The case could be heard by the Supreme Court.

Judge Jeffrey Brown, appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of Texas by former Republican President Donald Trump, issued a nationwide injunction ruling that the mandate exceeded the president's authority.

The case is about "whether the President can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment," Brown wrote in his opinion.

"As the court has already noted, Congress appears ... to have limited the President's authority in this field to workplace conduct," Brown wrote. "For its part, this court will say only this: however extensive that power is, the federal-worker mandate exceeds it."

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court blocked Biden's mandate that employees at businesses with 100 or more workers get vaccinated or regularly tested, while upholding the vaccination mandate for health care workers.

The White House announced in September that more than 3.5 million federal workers were required to undergo vaccination, with no option to get regularly tested instead, unless they secured approved medical or religious exemptions.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday that 98 percent of federal workers were already vaccinated.

"The political war over coronavirus prevention measures shows no sign of abating," The Washington Post commented in a report. 
New Delhi, Jan 21 : For over a decade now, after "fulfilling (his) career responsibilities" - his company is one of the worlds largest producers of PET films with manufacturing plants in India, Thailand and Turkey with markets across the US, Southeast Asia, South America and Turkey - Sanjiv Saraf has been devoting himself to creating a platform and an ecosystem for the Urdu language that would be sustainable and institutional in nature.

The Rekhta Foundation that he established in 2012 has thus far digitised more than 50,000 e-books that are available online and has taken Urdu to various geographies through a series of events that have opened up a whole new world to the nuances and wonders of the language.

Saraf has now raised this several notches with "Love Longing Loss In Urdu Poetry", a priceless collection of over 1250 'shers' (couplets) of about 120 shaayars (poets), the cover of the book being illustrated by the multi-faceted Muzaffar Ali.

"My love for Urdu stems from the very attributes of the language itself, owing to its charm, sweetness and its unparalleled expression of emotions of every human heart. I was introduced to Urdu Shayari by my father. I grew up listening to ghazals and this poetry deeply touched me. I was fascinated with the language and my love for Urdu poetry remained constant throughout my life," Saraf told IANS in an interview.

"After fulfilling my career responsibilities, I wanted to pursue the quest of my soul. It was then that I decided to revisit my passion and started learning Urdu script and language. The journey of learning Urdu and reading poets was full of wonders, revelations and self-discovery. I realized that it was a struggle for someone from a non-Urdu background to access the rich literary heritage of Urdu literature and poetry and felt that remedying this was something that I could contribute to," he added.

Speaking about the process of selecting and transcreating the shers, he said over the past several decades, he had come across thousands of couplets which resonated with he and he collected them in various diaries and spreadsheets.

"I felt that this collection of the best of the best (in my opinion) should be available to readers in a single volume. I felt that while there was a plethora of books containing shers by topic, there was none which wove together all the shers around love (the dominant subject of Urdu poetry) into a readable and interesting narrative.

"Also these shers were not fully accessible to the English reading audience. So I set forth on this task and over a period of about 18 months collected, sorted, strung together and transcreated these into, what I hope, is a unique book," Saraf explained.

Since his bent has been towards classical poetry, a far greater proportion of couplets are from the 18th and 19th centuries of poets such as Mir Taqi Mir (also known as Meer), Mirza Ghalib, Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq, and Bahadur Shah Zafar et al. There are also couplets of poets from the 20th and 21st century but lesser in number.

How does one interpret Muzaffar Ali's cover illustration? Saraf began with a poem of his own: "Us husn ke naam pe yaad aaye/Kai manzar Faiz ki nazmon ke/Wahi rang e hina wahi band e qaba/

Wahi phool khile pairaahan mein (At that beauty's name I recall/Those scenes in Faiz's poetry/That henna colour, those drawstrings/Those flowers in her clothing)." Every ghazal, he explained, "has its own world of imageries. Music, desire, hope, madness, tears, love, romance, nature, wilderness and purity of emotions are some elements essential to this genre. When given shape out of the chaos of thoughts, this is the picture the artist`s mind conjured while depicting the essence of Urdu poetry. There is the musician with melancholic strains, the gazelles in the wilderness, the steed of time racing forth and the birds flying - all depicting different elements and tropes of the poetic genre".

"My good friend Muzaffar Ali, well-renowned for his skill as an artist and filmmaker, came up with this illustration when I presented him a draft of this book," Saraf added.

Describing the journey of the Rekhta Foundation from its inception to the present day, he said it started with a very small endeavour to present the selected works of major poets in three different scripts - Urdu, Devanagari and Roman, so that readers from all backgrounds could access this literary treasure.

"However, after this was launched it gained immense popularity and acquired a life of its own. It was like an omnivorous entity which kept demanding more and more and kept growing without bounds. I will refrain from giving details of the different stations of the journey but it suffices to say that we are now engaged in areas which we had never even dreamed of. Poetry, prose, dictionary, script learning, education, festivals and events and and and... We don't know where it will take us. To quote Ghalib: "Rau men hai Rakhsh-e-umr kahaan dekhiye thame. Ne haath baag par hai na paa hai rikaab men (The steed of time moves apace: where it halts, let's see; Neither reins are held in hand, nor feet in stirrups be)." Saraf's time is now fully devoted to the Rekhta Foundation and associated work.

"The business aspects are all handled by outstanding professionals. God has been kind in enabling me to support this initiative but I am not alone in this effort. Many friends, associates and lovers of Urdu language have supported Rekhta in various capacities and their love continues to be Rekhta Foundation`s driving force," Saraf concluded.

(Vishnu Makhijani can be reached at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)
Hyderabad, Jan 21 : Authorities in Telangana began a fever survey across the state on Friday to identify people with Covid-19 symptoms and distribute home isolation kits free of cost.

The state government said it has a crore home isolation kits ready for distribution among those who either tested positive for Covid or are having symptoms.

With the number of Covid cases rising in the state for the last three weeks, the medical and health department in coordination with municipal administration, panchayat raj and other departments launched the door-to-door survey.

Healthcare workers were going door to door in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), other municipal corporations, municipalities and gram panchayats to check out if any inmate is having symptoms like fever, cold and cough.

With GHMC and surrounding urban districts of Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri accounting for majority of the daily Covid cases, authorities were specially focusing here.

Meanwhile, hundreds of workers are working round-the-clock to prepare home isolation kits for distribution across the state. Authorities were using playgrounds or other spacious premises in Hyderabad to prepare the kits.

At Victory Playground, more than 200 workers, including women, were busy preparing the kits. Each kit contains seven medicines and an advisory on how to use them. The medicines include Azithromycin (antibiotics/antiviral), Paracetamol (fever), Levocetirizine (cold), Ranitidine (acidity), Vitamin C, Multivitamin and Vitamin D for improving immunity.

A health official said the medicines provided in the kit have to be taken for five days. The kits are meant for individuals who tested positive and started developing symptoms.

As per the leaflet provided in the kit, Covid positive patients have been advised to monitor their temperature on a daily basis, do a six minute walk at normal pace and contact a doctor immediately if the temperature continues to persist or patients feel breathless after walking for six minutes.

Health minister T. Harish Rao said that the fever survey, which was done during the Covid second wave last year, had given excellent results, saving the lives of many. He pointed out that it was appreciated by the NITI Aayog and the report of the economic survey, which had considered it as a best practice, prompting the Centre to direct other states to follow it.

The minister said the need for another round of fever survey was felt as in the ongoing third wave some of those infected by Covid are not showing symptoms while some others are not coming forward to undergo the tests. "Hence, we are going to the doorsteps of such people," he said.

Telangana on Wednesday reported 4,207 new cases, an increase of 18.27 per cent over the previous day.

Health officials said 56 per cent of the cases were reported from GHMC, Medchal Malkajgiri and Rangareddy.

The authorities conducted 1,20,215 tests during the 24-hour period. For a third consecutive day, over one lakh samples were tested across the state.

According to health officials, the positivity rate remained low at around 3.5 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state rose to 26,633.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, Jan 21: Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, Nong Rong met Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Wednesday to discuss the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), work on which has all but stopped due to security issues and Pakistan's inability to pay Chinese companies.

The meeting comes ahead of Prime Minister Imran Khan's upcoming three-day visit to China from Feb 3-5 to attend the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics and hold bilateral talks.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement that the meeting was held at Pakistan Army's General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

The CPEC project has been in limbo since last year owing to attacks on Chinese nationals. China had repeatedly expressed its displeasure with Pakistan over lax security. An attack on Chinese engineers near the Dasu hydropower plant at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in July 2021 killed nine Chinese after which China stopped work on the project.

In another serious attack, Baloch nationalists targeted a hotel in Quetta in April 2021 where Nong Rong was staying.

Besides these two attacks, many Chinese nationals have been attacked in other cities in Pakistan as local communities feel frustrated with exploitative CPEC projects.

In a bid to placate China, Islamabad has agreed to compensate the Chinese workers killed and injured in the Dasu attack. However, for many months a Pakistani committee tasked with fixing a suitable compensation could not take a decision, leading to complete stoppage of the project.

Gen Bajwa assured the Chinese ambassador of Pakistan's commitment to providing full security to Chinese projects and citizens in Pakistan.

Besides the adverse security situation for the Chinese nationals, another major hurdle in the CPEC projects has been the non-payment of dues to Chinese power companies. Pakistan owes nearly Rs 230 billion to Chinese companies for producing power under the CPEC projects. Owing to a dire financial crisis, Pakistan has been holding the payments from 2018, despite giving assurances to China.

Strong, and often violent opposition, to the project by local communities too has resulted in negative publicity and halt of work. The financially ambitious project continues to face the ire of Baloch nationalist groups as well as local people.

Mass agitation in Gwadar port city of Balochistan put the spotlight on how the CPEC projects have not only not created local jobs but in fact hindered the livelihoods of people.

Beijing has not only stopped work on the various CPEC projects but has also not made any commitments about other rail and road projects. Owing to slow place of work and also because of safety reasons, the CPEC in Balochistan is under stress.

The ISPR said in the statement that the Chinese ambassador was satisfied with the "progress on CPEC and reaffirmed the need for timely completion of the remaining projects." The two also discussed regional security, especially in the context of Afghanistan where the Taliban took over in mid-August after the departure of US and NATO troops.

(The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com) --indianarrative
Dhaka, Jan 21 : Three cyber criminals, who have sided with war-crime convicts and alleged to have been paid by Pakistan, are obstructing the development of Bangladesh and tarnishing the country's image and also of India's by spreading propaganda on social media platforms, a top intelligence official said.

Seeking anonymity, the official told IANS on Friday the three men -- Taj Hashmi, Abu Reza Ahmed Faisal Chowdhury Suyeb, Pinaki Bhattacharya -- are harmful to Bangladesh as well as the countries where they currently reside.

According to the official, these men spread propaganda material against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangabandhu's family, political parties, Hinduism, Islam, among others.

A police official, also on the condition of anonymity, told IANS that the three men are paid agents of Pakistan and they are plotting to obstruct the development of the country, tarnish the image turn it into a failed state and create a congenial atmosphere for war criminals and militancy.

In a social media post on April 22, 2021, Taj Hashmi wrote: "This Corona will hasten the downfall of Hasina, her downfall is inevitable." In another post on April 17, said that "Misogyny, the Saudi dynasty, the Hasina government, and Indian friends cannot be good people".

Before Bangladesh's independence, he moved to Rawalpindi, after which he later shifted to Canada, announcing himself as a self-proclaimed anti-liberation and supporter of war criminals.

In another post on May 10, he criticised the Prime Minister and wrote, "Hasina is not forgiven even in the court of Allah".

Currently living in Montreal, Taj Hashmi claims that he was born in Assam. He passed matriculation from Sirajganj BL College and later got admitted to Dhaka College. He also claims to have an honours and Master's degree from the Department of Islamic History and Culture at Dhaka University.

Meanwhile, Reza Ahmed Faisal Chowdhury Suyeb, hailing from Patli village in Jagannathpur Upazila of Sunamganj, is on the list of top anti-state cyber criminals.

He was once the managing director of the Europe office of the Channel-i in London, but he has been terminated.

When he was in Bangladesh, he married a physician named Anwara Ali. Later, he went to London and married an employee of his office, sparking criticism in the Bengali community. His second wife has also abandoned him due to his chaotic and abusive nature.

He runs a Facebook page called and makes provocative statements against the Bangladesh government, judiciary, army, ruling Awami League, and various industrialists and businessmen.

A senior official of the channel seeking anonymity told IANS: "Suyeb has been removed from the Europe office for embezzlement of money and public statements in favour of war criminals, besides his failure to show account of income and expenditure," In his Facebook page, he runs an online program named 'Straight Dialogue' with pro-Pakistan, anti-liberation, and anti-state speeches. He posts the videos on YouTube and Facebook.

Another pro-Pakistan propagandist Pinaki Bhattacharya is active on YouTube channel, spreading hatred against pro-liberation leaders of Bangladesh.

Pinaki has called for a boycott of the mass procession and the celebration of the Bengali New Year, the Poila Boishakh, history and culture of the Bengali nation.

He was accused of attempting to work for the militant outfits Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Al Qaeda, and IS. He tries to create an impression that a Hindu is supporting the militants from an objective point of view.

On social media, Pinaki mocks Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and also publicly supports genocides and crimes of Pakistan against humanity and the war criminals of 1971.

He also criticizes the law and mocks convictions of war criminals and contempt of court.

He managed to flee Bangkok in January 2019 and from there he travelled to France seeking political asylum.

Now he constantly spreads hate against the culture of Bangladesh, government, army, and the Bangabandhu family.
New Delhi, Jan 21: The exit of the troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) from Kazakhstan is a barometer to the changes taking place in the country and possibly in the Central Asian region at large. It is also reflective of the limits to regime power in a "managed democracy".

First, a short recap. Troops numbering around 2,500 personnel from the Russian led bloc were rushed into Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest and most resource rich country at the request of its president Tokayev when initial peaceful protests at fuel price rise spiralled out of control with unprecedented nation-wide violence, targeting the national capital.

Given that Kazakhstan famously followed a "multi-vector" policy which pursued close relations with the US, bagging substantial investments, as well as traditionally close ties with Russia, the panicked calls for CSTO intervention surprised many as it willy-nilly heralded a renewed and strong Russian role once again in both Kazakhstan and the region. With the possible exception of Tajikistan, all the other Central Asian states have been diversifying their foreign policy, in order to reduce dependence on Moscow, even as they pursue traditionally close ties with the latter.

Moreover, Kazakhstan's first President Nursultan Nazarbayev, architect of this multi-vector policy, had actively pursued such policy, even founding the Turkic Union, and initiating a number of other international platforms like Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), to reduce Russian role since an "exclusive foreign policy orientation towards only one country ultimately does not meet Kazakhstan's national interests, critically limiting the freedom for strategic manoeuvring," according to Kazakh analyst Aiman Zhussupova.

Against this backdrop, there was naturally a disbelief in many circles as CSTO troops landed in Kazakhstan. Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty (Treaty) states that an act of aggression against one CSTO state will be treated as an act of aggression against all of them. The Treaty defines aggression as an "armed attack menacing to safety, stability, territorial integrity, and sovereignty." However, even as Tokayev called it an act of terrorism with foreign funding and international backing, it is perceived largely a domestic uprising. According to Tajik analyst Parvaiz Mullajanov, "The entry of the CSTO troops into Kazakhstan is a precedent, that is, an absolutely new phenomenon for this organisation. Prior to this, the CSTO as a whole was perceived as an organisation whose mission is mainly aimed at repelling external aggression. The provision on joint peacekeeping actions at the request of one of the CSTO member countries already existed in the documents of this organisation, but was not applied in practice. Now, based on this precedent, it will be much easier for participating countries to make such decisions." The request for CSTO troops, it is widely believed, was made as it would be more acceptable to the wider public than Russian troops. Nevertheless, it did not stop criticism, even though some of those strategic thinkers who were initially against the entry of CSTO troops, has now come around to accepting the government 's version that those behind the mayhem were Islamists, who want to create a "Caliphate" on Kazakh territory for which preparations have been ongoing for long. Karim Masimov, the former head of Kazakh state security is also being investigated on suspicion of an attempted coup.

Caliphate or no Caliphate in the making, the fact remains that the quick withdrawal of the CSTO troops from Kazakhstan (slated to be completed by 19 January) are also emblematic of how far the government will go in making such unilateral decisions. The arrival of these troops were not welcome, neither in Kazakhstan nor in neighbouring countries, and had been strongly criticised by the US. It demonstrated the government's lack of preparedness and inability to deal with such a situation. The brief interlude may have given Tokayev time to ease out Nazarbayev from political power - no one knows where he is; Tokayev has removed him as head of the Kazakh Security Council and several of his relatives have been removed from the high offices they have held; and there is now open criticism of the "dual power centre" governance that had hitherto existed in the country.

However, it is clear that the Kazakh people have sent a message -- that their voices cannot be ignored even if there is no proper opposition. In spite of the mass arrests and shoot to kill orders, the days of the "Father of the Nation" may irrevocably be over as statues of Nazarbayev - "Elbasi" or "Father of the Nation" were felled and the capital renamed after him is reverting to its original name - Astana. Even to consolidate his own power Tokayev may have felt it expedient to an ounce that the "mission" of the CSTO troops was over and the objectives had been "achieved". In this there may be a lesson for many of Kazakhstan's fellow Central Asian nations.

(Aditi Bhaduri is a columnist specialising in Eurasian geopolitics. Views expressed are personal and exclusive to India Narrative) (The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com) --indianarrative
New Delhi, Jan 21 : At least three people lost their lives and 26 others were wounded when a remote-controlled device blew up in Lahores New Anarkali Market. A couple of hours after the blast, a Twitter handle purportedly from one Mureed Baloch said that Baloch Nationalist Army (BNA) has claimed responsibility, Samaa TV reported.

There are several Baloch nationalist groups that are operating in Pakistan but BNA has not been heard of previously. Officials have confirmed that the group was created as recently as this month.

The Transnational Terrorists Intelligence Group (TTIG) of Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) investigates threats from militant groups. Its chief Raja Umar Khattab said BNA is a new terrorist group that has been formed by a merger of the banned Baloch Republican Army and United Baloch Army (UBA).

Khattab says the merger or alliance emerged on January 11 when the group was formed. This explains why many officials were surprised when the BNA claimed responsibility for the Lahore attack. Most of the information about the group was gathered after the blast, the report said.

The TTIG chief said the Lahore blast was the second terrorist attack claimed by this new group in two days. It claimed to have carried out an attack on a security convoy in Balochistan's Kech on January 19.

He said it was not clear who was heading this new group, but Mureed Baloch claims to be its spokesperson.

Counter-terrorism experts believe the group could carry out more attacks. The banned outfits that were merged to form BNA have a similar history.

BRA is a banned terrorist organization headed by Brahumdagh Bugti. It was founded in 2006 and the government of Pakistan banned it in September 2010.

UBA is also a banned Baloch separatist group. Its chief Mehran Marri is the brother of the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) chief Hyrbyair Marri. Mehran Marri was initially associated with BLA, but he later formed another faction after developing differences with his brother. The Pakistan government banned this group on March 15, 2013.
New York, Jan 21 : A new study adds to growing evidence that there is no connection between Covid-19 vaccinations and a reduced chance of conceiving a baby.

More research is needed to determine what might be driving these findings, but fever is known to reduce sperm count and is a symptom of Covid-19, according to the NIH, reports CNN.

"These findings indicate that male SARS-CoV-2 infection may be associated with a short-term decline in fertility and that Covid-19 vaccination does not impair fertility in either partner," researchers from Boston University and other institutions across the US wrote in the study.

"This adds to the evidence from animal studies, studies of humans undergoing fertility treatment, and the Covid-19 vaccine trials, none of which found an association between Covid-19 vaccination and lower fertility," they added.

The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, included data on 2,126 women, in the age group of 21 to 45, in the US and Canada.

During the study, the women completed questionnaires online every eight weeks about their reproductive and medical histories, among other factors, and they were given the option to invite their male partners to complete questionnaires.

Among the participants, 73 per cent of the women and 74 per cent of their male partners had received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The researchers analysed the responses and found no association between having been vaccinated against Covid-19 and the probability of conceiving a child within one menstrual cycle.

Yet the data showed that although a previous Covid-19 infection was not strongly associated with the probability of conceiving among the women, the men who had Covid-19 were associated with a "transient reduction" in the probability of conceiving.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
United Nations, Jan 21 : The UN and its nongovernmental organisation partners are having to reduce, postpone or cancel critical distributions of assistance, including food, medicine, and nutrition interventions in Ethiopia's Tigray region, said the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

This is because the transport of humanitarian supplies into Tigray, via the Semera-Abala-Mekelle corridor, has remained suspended since December 14, 2021 due to ongoing fighting in Abala in Afar region, Xinhua news agency reported citing the OCHA as saying.

No fuel for humanitarian operations has been allowed into Tigray along this route since August 2, 2021, and organisations are also unable to secure sufficient fuel locally, it said.

Between January 6 and 12, about 10,500 people received food assistance in Tigray under the current food distribution cycle while over 800,000 people should be assisted each week.

This is the lowest level of food assistance since operations expanded in March 2021 and UN partners have also reported that remaining food stocks can only assist 28,000 people, said the OCHA.

A measles vaccination campaign launched in the first week of January continues to reach more than 145,000 children to date, out of nearly 800,000 in need. However, health partners report that the campaign is facing serious challenges, including a lack of fuel and cash, limited cold chain capacity, and shortages of health care workers, it said.

The humanitarian response is being scaled up in accessible areas in Amhara and Afar, two neighbouring regions that have been affected by the military conflict in Tigray, said the Office.

In Amhara, more than 578,000 people received food assistance in the past week, and more than 40,000 received shelter and non-food items.

Internally displaced persons continue to return to their places of origin in Amhara, with hundreds of thousands of people estimated to have returned. Assessments of returns and the humanitarian situation in areas of return are ongoing.

In Afar, more than 47,000 people received food assistance in the past week and 30 mobile health and nutrition teams continue to provide essential nutrition services in remote and conflict-affected communities, said OCHA.
Agartala/Imphal/Shillong, Jan 21 : Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya on Friday separately celebrated their 50th Statehood Day through numerous colourful and a mega functions.

President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, BJP President J.P. Nadda and several Union ministers and Chief Ministers of the neighbouring northeastern states greeted the people on the occasion.

"Greetings to the people of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura on Statehood Day. These states, full of natural riches, represent the vibrant culture and unique traditions of our northeast. My best wishes to the citizens of these states for a happy and prosperous future," the President said on Twitter.

Congratulating the people of the three states, the Vice-President said: "My heartiest greetings to the people of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura on their state foundation day today. These states are known for their captivating beauty, diverse flora-fauna, rich cultural heritage and hard working people." In his recorded speech, Prime Minister Modi highlighted the development of the three northeastern states and envisaged their future growth.

Taking to twitter, Modi said: "Greetings to the people of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura on their Statehood Days. These states are making vibrant contributions to India's development. Praying for their constant progress." Shah in his virtual speech from Delhi addressed the Tripura statehood day function and showcased how the princely state developed itself in various sectors. "On the guidance of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, various connectivity projects including railway links with Bangladesh and developing several National Highways are being executed on a priority basis," the home minister said.

The erstwhile princely states of Tripura and Manipur were merged into the Indian Union in October 1949 and became full-fledged states on January 21, 1972. Meghalaya was part of Assam before becoming a full-fledged state on the same day.

All the three northeastern states became full-fledged states under the North Eastern Region (Re-Organisation) Act, 1971. All the three northeastern states have taken a series of programmes to celebrate the day and announced a slew of welfare programmes and various plans to develop these states in future. While BJP-ruled Manipur is now gearing up for the February 27 and March 3 elections to the 60-member Assembly, another saffron party ruled state Tripura along with Meghalaya would go to crucial polls in February next year.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will be the first UT to have the 'Good Governance Index', the Department of Personnel said here on Friday.

The exercise on formulation of District Good Governance Index was set in motion in July, 2021, which has now been completed and Jammu and Kashmir will become the first Union Territory in the country to have Good Governance Index.

According to the official statement, Union Home Minister Amit Shah will release the District Good Governance Index for 20 Districts of UT of Jammu and Kashmir on January 22, organised jointly by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), and Jammu & Kashmir Institute of Management, Public Administration & Rural Development in association with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad.

Union Minister for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Dr Jitendra Singh and the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir Manoj Sinha, will also address the event.

The District Good Governance Index of Jammu and Kashmir was prepared by DARPG in collaboration with the Government of Jammu and Kashmir in pursuance of the announcements made in the 'Behtar e-Hukumat - Kashmir elamia' resolution adopted on July 2, 2021 in the Regional Conference on Replication of Good Governance Practices held at Srinagar.

The District Good Governance Index of Government of Jammu and Kashmir represents a major administrative reform in benchmarking good governance at District level and a significant step for timely collation and publication of statistics at State and District level.

The District Good Governance Index is a milestone and it is expected that it will provide a robust framework for evidence based assessment of the performance of all the districts in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Chief Secretary of J&K Arun Kumar Mehta and DARPG Secretary V. Srinivas will also be addressing the event while the event will be attended by senior officials of government of Jammu and Kashmir, district collectors and chief planning officers of Districts.

Secretaries of Planning and Secretaries of Administrative Reforms of all State/ UT governments and District Collectors of non-election bound states have also been invited to participate in the event by video conferencing.

During the occasion, a presentation on formulation of District Good Governance Index will be made by Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad. This will be followed by district presentations by selected 12 District Development Commissioners, who will be showcasing achievements of various sectors.
Chennai, Jan 21 : The Madras High Court on Friday refused to grant an interim stay to the conduct of Urban local body elections in the state.

While hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Dr. A. Nakkeeran, Rtd Joint Director of Health Services, the court did not allow a stay to the conduct of elections.

Senior counsel, S. Prabhakaran representing, Dr. A. Nakkeeran said that given the alarming situation of the Covid pandemic, there was no urgency to conduct the Urban local body elections now. He said that nothing would happen if the elections were delayed as these civic bodies were not without any office-bearers for the past several years.

The senior counsel also said that the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) has not taken stock of the ground situation of the pandemic before preparing for the elections.

He also said that the TNSEC does not seem to be aware of the number of surging Covid cases, deaths or even on the number of containment zones in the state.

S. Prabhakaran said that the election should be postponed by two more months given the situation of the state and that threat to the lives of the people.

Senior advocate SRL Sundaresan, representing another bunch of petitions, said that when the Supreme Court had set the deadline for holding the elections, the situation in the state was not this worse regarding pandemic.

The senior counsel wanted the elections to be postponed in the interest of public health.

Senior counsel, Siva Shanmugam representing TNSEC, informed the court that the poll notification has to be issued by January 27 as per the orders of the Supreme Court.

The counsel of the Election Commission argued that a circular on Covid protocol was issued by the commission and added that all standard operating procedures followed during the rural local body elections would be in place during the Urban local body elections also.

The court adjourned the case to January 24 after hearing the arguments and refused to grant any interim stay.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Samsung has pulled an ad in Singapore showing a Muslim mother expressing support for her drag queen son, after backlash from some parts of the Muslim community, the BBC reported.

Several social media users alleged it was "an attempt to push LGBT ideology".

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Samsung said it was aware the video "may be perceived as insensitive and offensive".

Singapore remains largely conservative on LGBTQ issues, even as local groups call for greater acceptance, the report said.

The ad was meant to promote Samsung's new wearable products, like noise-cancelling earbuds and a smart watch with a heart rate monitor.

It filmed several participants' reactions as they listened to heartfelt recorded messages from their loved ones. One of the pairs of participants featured a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf as she heard a message from her son, who was a drag performer.

"You are just unbothered having people looking or judging you differently, having a son that does drag," he tells her in his message.

The scene sparked outrage online, with some saying it was insensitive to the Muslim community, although others defended it and criticised its removal, the report said.

"We are against the ideology of mainstreaming homosexuality and transgenderism into a conservative society," one user Syed Dan wrote on Facebook.

"It disrupts the harmony within the Malay-Muslim community", the report said.

Another user, Muhammed Zuhaili, posted that the video had "surfaced much confusion and questions amongst the (Muslim) community".

The South Korean tech giant later scrubbed the video from all its public platforms.

"We acknowledge that we have fallen short in this instance," the company wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

Singapore has a minority ethnic Malay community, most of whom - though not all - identify as being religiously Muslim, the BBC reported.
United Nations, Jan 21 : The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution to reject and condemn any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event.

The draft resolution, submitted by Israel and Germany, won the approval of the General Assembly without a vote, reports Xinhua news agency.

The resolution "rejects and condemns without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part", and urges all UN member states to do so as well.

The resolution commends those member states that have actively engaged in preserving those sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration camps, forced labour camps, killing sites and prisons during the Holocaust, as well as similar places operated by Nazi-allied regimes, their accomplices or auxiliaries.

It urges member states to develop educational programs that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help prevent future acts of genocide.

It also urges member states and social media companies to take active measures to combat anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial or distortion by means of information and communications technologies and to facilitate reporting of such content.

The resolution requests the UN Outreach Programme on the Holocaust as well as all relevant UN specialized agencies to continue to develop and implement programs aimed at countering Holocaust denial and distortion, and to advance measures to mobilise civil society, and invites all relevant stakeholders to educate their societies truthfully about the facts of the Holocaust and the importance of its lessons as a countermeasure against Holocaust denial and distortion, in order to prevent future acts of genocide.
Hanumangarh : , Jan 21 (IANS/ 101Reporters) Things came to a head in the districts of Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh in Rajasthan last month, where paddy farmers took drastic measures to get the government to restart procurement of paddy that had been halted for the past 15 years. It was only after the protesting farmers in Hanumangarh took government officials hostage, in two separate incidents, was paddy procurement fast-tracked.

"The Centre stopped procuring rice in Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts from the 2005-06 fiscal year. Because of this, the farmers were being forced to sell their produce in markets at lower prices, incurring losses amounting to crores of rupees every year," Inder Singh, a paddy grower in Panniwali, told 101Reporters. The farmers had made several representations to the officials in the administration over the years, requesting them to restart procurement.

Both Hanumangarh and Sri Ganganagar districts are situated near the state's borders with Punjab and Haryana, and the Ghaggar river flows between them. Rice is cultivated on about 50,000 hectares of land between Talwara Lake in Hanumangarh district and Anupgarh near the Indo-Pak border in Sri Ganganagar district. Farmers grow Basmati in half of the area and Parmal PR variety in the other half. For several years, the farmers have been urging the government to declare this region as a rice belt, but to no avail.

Over the past three months, paddy farmers here had intensified their protests demanding procurement at the minimum support price (MSP). On September 28, the District Collector wrote a letter to the Government Secretary, Food and Civil Supplies Department. In this letter, the collector wrote that if procurement does not start, the law and order situation is likely to deteriorate. Already the farmers had laid siege to the Hanumangarh district headquarters, blocked roads and dumped truckloads of paddy in front of the district collectorate. Finding no results, they entered the collectorate on October 4 and locked up the officials inside. Police responded with brute force, and eight farmers were injured in the clash.

On October 7 District Collector Nathmal Didel wrote again to the state government, seeking an order to begin procurement of paddy. Acting on the district collector's letter, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot wrote to Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, urging him to start procurement of paddy at MSP. The Centre, in turn, directed the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to start the process of procurement immediately. However, the district administration informed the farmers that the process would begin only in the first week of November because it takes some time to complete the formalities.

Angered by the tardy approach of the administration, seven farmers started an indefinite hunger strike in front of the Hanumangarh collectorate on October 14. Finally, on the third day of their fast, the district administration held talks with the farmers and agreed to start procurement on October 25 and the farmers ended their agitation.

"It took a series of hunger strikes and brutal force by police for the government to get an order from the Centre to procure rice at MSP. After that, it was decided to purchase at MSP after negotiating with the farmers, but the government started the procurement very late. The cash-strapped farmers were already forced to sell almost 80 per cent of their produce in markets at lower prices," said Singh.

This angered the farmers, and they took officials of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee and FCI in Hanumangarh hostage on October 27 for a few hours. On the next day, rice procurement began at six centres in the district. The process began at five centres in Sri Ganganagar district on November 1.

Samyukta Kisan Morcha convenor Rameshwar Verma told 101Reporters, "We had been urging the government for months to start procurement of our produce. But officials in the administration ignored our requests and continued to delay the process. The state government, too, acted only on October 4 after it felt that our protests would disturb the law and order," he said.

Singh said that this year the two districts produced a total of 2,62,000 metric tonnes of Parmal rice. He said that the chief minister, in his letter to Goyal, recommended the procurement of only 50,000 metric tonnes -- about 20 per cent -- of the total produce, Verma added.

Verma said the delay in starting even this partial procurement of rice was evidence that the state government was not working in the interest of farmers. "We want the Centre to procure the entire produce of the farmers in both districts at the MSP. We will continue our struggle till this demand is met," he said.

Bhagwan Singh Khudi, a farmer in Hanumangarh, said, "The arrival of rice in the markets begins by September end. It would have benefited farmers if the government had started the procurement in early October. But the farmers had been forced to sell most of their produce at a loss of almost Rs 300-500 per quintal because of the delay. This has cost the farmers crores of rupees." Khudi's views were also echoed in Ghelot's letter to Goyal. "Last year, the support price of rice was Rs 1,888 per quintal, but the farmers had to sell their produce for prices between Rs 1,400 and Rs 1,600. This year, the support price is Rs 1,960 per quintal, but traders are paying the farmers only between Rs 1,650 and 1,700. Farmers are suffering huge economic losses due to denial of fair prices for their produce, and this has caused deep resentments among them," the CM reportedly wrote in the letter.

Divisional Manager of Food Corporation of India for Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts, Chakresh Kuril said that the suspension of procurement is a "very old matter" and according to the information available, farmers had sold only 34 MT of paddy to FCI in the year 2005-06. There had been a decline in the production of Parmal paddy as many farmers started cultivating Basmati which has a higher value in the open market. This was why the procurement of paddy was stopped here.

In the same breath that the government denies farmers here the benefits of MSP, it also penalises them for not adopting expensive best practices. Khudi said that they were forced to burn stubble after each harvest even though it invited hefty penalties and sometimes, legal action. He said that the farmers were aware of the adverse impacts of stubble burning and the benefits of ploughing the hay into the soil. But he said this would require heavy equipment such as tractors, super seeders, choppers, rotavators, etc., which were "very expensive and beyond the farmers' affordability range".

The farmers also accused the Centre of showing bias against the state. "Farmers in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi are being given grants under the Central government's Promotion of Agricultural Mechanisation Scheme to purchase heavy equipment, but we are not getting this benefit. This is forcing us to burn the stubble, facing the risk of prosecution," he said.

(The author is a Hanumangarh-based freelance journalist and a member of 101reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)
January 21 : Kareena Kapoor Khan shared a picture of husband Saif Ali Khan and their son Taimur, wearing matching headbands. Sharing the photo on her Instagram stories, the Good Newwz actress used a sticker on it that read as, Twinning = winning.

In the photo, Saif and Taimur can be seen wearing the same red headbands with white prints on them, while they have been clicked in their terrace. Taimur looked at a carbon copy of Saif as they both donned the bandana look in their casual outfits.

Image Source: Instagram/kareenakapoorkhan Kareena shared a picture of Saif Ali Khan and Taimur, wearing matching headbands

Kareena is an avid social media user and often shares pictures of her family to entertain her fans. Recently, the actress was spotted dropping off Taimur for what seemed to be his classes. While Taimur wore a black T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers with a matching printed mask, mom Kareena donned a stylish casual look. The actress opted for a white Gucci short-sleeve T-shirt with blue jogger pants. She completed her look with a Dior handbag and white sneakers.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Kareena is waiting for the release of her forthcoming film Laal Singh Chaddha with Aamir Khan. The film is an official Hindi remake of the Hollywood film Forrest Gump. The film also featured Naga Chaitanya and Mona Singh in key roles. Laal Singh Chaddha was originally slated to release on April 14 this year on the occasion of Baisakhi. However, reportedly the makers are considering to postpone the film once again, and release it on Diwali weekend. Helmed by Advait Chandan, the film is backed by Aamir Khan Productions, Viacom18 Studios and Paramount Pictures. Kareena has turned a producer and has signed a new film with Hansal Mehta, and will co-produce the venture with Ekta Kapoor.
Bengaluru, Jan 21 : Karnataka Minister for Water Resources Govind. M. Karjol said on Friday that the ruling government will not allow neighbouring Tamil Nadu to take up Hogenakkal second phase Project.

Speaking to reporters Minister Karajol stated that it has come to the notice of the government about Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin's announcement on Detailed Project Report (DPR) being ready for taking up Phase 2 of Hogenakkal Project at a cost of Rs 4,600 crore.

"Tamil Nadu will have to take projects as per the verdicts of the tribunal and the Supreme Court on water sharing in Cauvery River basin region. We will oppose any project which is being taken up without informing the tribunal as well as the Supreme Court by Tamil Nadu," he said.

He further stated that, Karnataka government will oppose this project through all available legal options. The announced project comes both in the jurisdiction of Karnataka as well as Tamil Nadu. In this project, before taking up any projects, it has to be analysed in various dimensions and legal verifications.

Tamil Nadu cannot take up the project unilaterally. As many as 64 kilometers of Hogenakkal region lies on the borders of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Under column 13 of the verdict of Cauvery River Water Tribunal, the project has to be taken up by National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC), he stated.

The border between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is finalised by the Survey of India and in this background Karnataka will not give any room for implementation of the project by neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, he said.
Tokyo, Jan 21 : Japan's Health Ministry on Friday approved the use of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines to inoculate children aged between 5 and 11 as the nation continues to grapple with surging numbers of new cases.

The vaccine rollout for 8 million eligible children in this age group will start in March, informed sources said after its approval was fast-tracked by the Ministry, making it the first jab to become available to this age group in the country, reports Xinhua news agency.

The vaccine, developed by the US pharmaceutical giant and its German partner BioNTech SE, at the moment is available to those in Japan aged 12 and over.

"We'd like to carefully explain the safety of the vaccine and start inoculation as soon as possible to those who wish to receive it," Noriko Horiuchi, minister in charge of promoting vaccine rollouts, told a press briefing.

"It is a big thing to have an inoculation option when some children are infected with the Omicron strain," she added.

Horiuchi's comments came as some parents have voiced concerns about possible side effects if they were to vaccinate their children.

Debate, meanwhile, continues among some health experts as to whether children so young need to be vaccinated as they are unlikely to develop serious symptoms if they do contract the virus.

Officials from a Ministry panel said the vaccine doses for those aged 5 to 11 contain one-third of the adult dose, with the active ingredients being the same, although the jab has been specially formulated for children.

While its effectiveness against the highly-transmissible Omicron variant cannot yet be verified, clinical trials held by Pfizer in the US and other countries for the vaccination of this age group showed that it was more than 90.7 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19.
Gorakhpur : , Jan 21 (IANS) The Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV), founded by Yogi Adityanath in 2002, is back in action.

The Vahini that had become dormant after Yogi Adityanath became chief minister, is springing back to activity.

Its members have already launched an intensive campaign to ensure Yogi Adityanath's victory in Gorakhpur.

P.K. Mall general secretary, HYV, said that the Vahini members have decided to organise door-to-door meetings, digital meetings, and strengthen its organisation at the booth level across the assembly segment.

The office-bearers will hold a meeting with the chief minister over the election strategy and campaign when he arrives in Gorakhpur, Mall added.

A senior office-bearer of the Vahini said, "Political activities of the HYV were dormant for around five years, but the organisation has been reactivated with the announcement of Yogi Adityanath's candidature from the city seat. The outfit will hold meetings in all the wards and also campaign for the BJP candidates in other Assembly segments on the direction of the chief minister." The Hindu Yuva Vahini had played an important role in Yogi Adityanath's election campaigns in 2004, 2009 and 2014 and also propagated the message of Hindutva in the rural areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, Vahini leader Raghvendra Pratap Singh successfully contested from Dumariaganj seat in Siddhartha Nagar.

After Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister in March 2017, units of the Vahini in various districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh were disbanded at the request of the BJP leadership over fears that it would function as a parallel political outfit.

Its office-bearers and members who protested this move were expelled from it. This included then state president Sunil Singh.

Yogi Adityanath had raised the Hindu Yuva Vahini in 2002 after his relationship with the BJP soured due to differences over ticket distribution in the Assembly election.

He challenged the BJP leadership by fielding Dr Radha Mohan Das Agarwal on a Hindu Mahasabha ticket against BJP candidate Shiv Pratap Shukla. Agarwal defeated Shukla, establishing Adityanath as the unchallenged leader of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Soon, Vahini volunteers were also entrusted with the task of propagating the Hindutva agenda promoted by the Gorakhnath mutt headed by Yogi Adityanath.

From 300 members in 2002, the strength of the outfit increased to 1.5 million in 2017.

In the past five years, the Vahini withdrew from political activities to focus on social issues, including ration distribution, building awareness about Covid and Japanese Encephalitis, assisting migrant workers, and assisting local authorities in the implementation of development and welfare schemes.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Delhi Police has arrested two people for allegedly fleecing people on the pretext of providing jobs in Airlines at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, an official said here on Friday.

The accused have been identified as Naveen Pathak and Kamal Sharma. Notably, the police had earlier arrested three other accused in the same case.

According to the official, on June 17, 2021 a complaint was received from one Surender Singh Fartyal alleging that he had been cheated on pretext of providing a job at IGI Airport in Spicejet Airlines, New Delhi.

He further alleged that he deposited money in the bank account of two people named Subham Tiwari and Arun Kumar Sharma in the name of security deposit, insurance charge and other hidden charges.

He provided the phone number of the alleged, who had approached for providing a job at Airport. Subsequently, the police registered a case under sections 420, 468, 471 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code at the IGI Airport police station and a probe was initiated.

During the course of investigation, it was revealed that there are several others, who have been cheated on the pretext of providing jobs at airport in different airlines. They have deposited money in a bank account belonging to Kamal Sharma and a bank account belonging to Yogesh Sharma.

The three accused persons namely Subham Tiwari, Ajay Thakur and Himanshu Thakur were earlier arrested in the month of June 2021.

On sustained interrogation, they revealed the name of mastermind Naveen Pathak, who used to provide bank accounts in which the cheated amount was transferred from the innocent victims.

"The accused Pathak was traced and arrested on January 9," the official said.

The accused Naveen Pathak disclosed that he provided around 15 bank accounts to Himanshu Thakur and other accused persons, with ulterior motive to cheat money from innocent job seekers.

Further, on the instance of accused Naveen Pathak another accused namely Kamal Sharma (Prime account holder) was arrested from Aligarh, UP. "Further investigation of the case is in progress," the police added.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on a plea by a Hyderabad native, arrested for his alleged links to the ISIS, who claimed being a minor at the time of his joing the terrorist organistaion.

Hearing the plea filed by the suspect Abdul Qadeer, a division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani directed the probe agency to file its response in the matter by February 2.

Qadeer's counsel Advocate Mohammed Mobin Akhtar said his client had been in custody following his arrest on August 12, 2018. He argued that the trial in the case would take a very long time to complete.

Opposing this, Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Akshai Malik, on behalf of NIA, said nine witnesses supported the prosecution's case and the trial court has examined all of them.

Earlier, the same bench had given the direction while hearing the petition filed by Abdul Qadeer challenging a January 29, 2021 decision of the Special NIA Court in the national capital rejecting his plea to transfer his case to the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) as he was a minor when he joined the terrorist organisation.

Qadeer's lawyer earlier claimed that his client's date of birth is November 25, 1999, and he was 19 years old at that time.
Wellington, Jan 21 : New Zealand is giving an additional NZ$2 million ($1.35 million) in humanitarian funding for Tonga as the island nation recovers from last week's massive volcanic eruptions and tsunami, senior officials said on Friday.

This brings New Zealand's contribution to the Tonga disaster relief to NZ$3 million, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said in a statement.

"This support will enable more crucial supplies, such as drinking water, food supplies, as well as engineering equipment and tools to clear debris, to be sent to Tonga in the coming days and weeks," Mahuta said.

The funding is additional to the NZ$1 million that New Zealand has already allocated as humanitarian aid, reports Xinhua news agency.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Peeni Henare announced the HMNZS Canterbury would leave Devonport for Tonga overnight as the third New Zealand navy vessel contributed to the disaster relief.

The HMNZS Canterbury will have on board additional stores such as tarpaulins, water containers, milk powder, as well as engineering equipment to clear debris and two NH-90 helicopters, said Henare.

Deliveries will be contactless in accordance with Tonga's Covid-19 protocols and those involved in the relief efforts undergo testing before departure, and while on deployment, he said.

Mahuta said NZ$1.5 million of the additional NZ$2 million would go towards deploying more relief supplies on upcoming C-130 relief flights, as well as water generation capability and clean-up equipment.

"This money will also fund relief activity undertaken by local authorities and humanitarian organisations, and other requests from the Tongan government as required," said the Foreign Minister.

The remaining NZ$500,000 will go towards a New Zealand Disaster Response Partnership round for NGOs working with local partners to support Tonga's response efforts, she said.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying relief supplies landed in Tonga on Thursday and more flights are scheduled.

New Zealand's navy ship HMNZS Wellington also arrived in Tonga and hydrographers were immediately deployed to survey approaches to Nuku'alofa.

The second ship HMNZS Aotearoa arrived and offloaded humanitarian stores on Friday. Navy divers will also be checking on the integrity of the wharf infrastructure.

Tsunami waves hit Tonga on January 15 following a series of violent volcanic eruptions from underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, 65 km north of the country's main island Tongatapu.

The tsunami had a significant impact on part of the foreshore of Tonga, with boats and large boulders washed ashore and shops along the coast damaged.
Patna, Jan 21 : Students of a government school in Bihar's East Champaran on Friday protested before the District Magistrate alleging that the principal was charging money for passing them in practical examination, post which a probe has been ordered.

The students of the Zila school staged the protest when East Champaran District Magistrate Shirsat Kapil Ashok went to the education facility for the inspection of a corona vaccination camp.

They alleged that the principal is taking Rs 200 for giving passing marks and Rs 300 for full marks in class 10 and 12 practical examinations.

The students claimed that the principal had taken money from students on Tuesday and Wednesday and some students have made video clips of it as well.

Following the incident, the District Magistrate immediately directed Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) Saurabh Suman Yadav to investigate the matter.

"We have taken the statements of students. We will cross check with the principal of the school and then submit the report before the district magistrate," Yadav told IANS.

Meanwhile, the principal of the school admitted that he has taken the money from students as conveyance (travelling fee). He also promised to return the money.

The zila school of every district is a government school established in every headquarter of all 38 districts of Bihar. It is run by the state's education department.
Baghdad, Jan 21 : At least 11 Iraqi soldiers were killed in an overnight attack by the Islamic State (IS) terror group in the eastern province of Diyala, police said on Friday.

The attack took place after midnight when IS militants attacked an army outpost in the Udheim area, some 60 km north of Diyala's provincial capital Baquba, a senior police official told Xinhua news agency.

The attackers killed 11 soldiers, including an officer, before fleeing the scene, said al-Saadi, who confirmed that the soldiers were surprised by the attack, as the attackers took advantage of the significant drop in temperatures and attacked the military outpost.

The Iraqi security forces in the Diyala province are on high alert after the attack, while high-ranking security officials from the provincial Operations Command arrived at the scene to investigate the incident, he added.

Over the past months, IS militants have intensified their attacks against Iraqi security forces in the provinces which the militants had previously controlled, leaving dozens dead and wounded.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Border Security Force (BSF) on Friday said that it has apprehended a drug peddler in Assam's Karimganj and recovered 26,000 Yaba tablets worth Rs 1.30 crore.

According to the officials, acting on specific information regarding the deal of narcotics on January 20, an operation was planned by the troops of Seven Battalion BSF and accordingly intercepted one Hyundai Eon Car, bearing registration number AS-04-M-0551 on the Chargula - Kaliganj Bazar road at Pirar Chak, near Kaliganj Bazar, Karimganj.

Immediately, the local police was informed about the interception and the car was searched by the BSF and police personnel wherein the Yaba tablets concealed in a carton were recovered.

"On counting the consignment in the presence of independent witnesses, 26,000 Yaba tablets worth Rs 1.30 crore were recovered," the Force officials said.

The apprehended person has been identified as Marfuja Ahmed, 18, a resident of Khudra Kandi village in Kaliganj. He was handed over to the local police for further legal action along with the seized tablets and a case was registered under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : A 50-year-old man attempted self-immolation near the Supreme Court in the national capital on Friday, official sources said.

According to eyewitnesses, the incident took place around 2 p.m. outside the new building of the top court.

The grievously injured man was immediately rushed by the police personnel to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP). The reason as to why the man took the extreme step is yet unclear.

Doctors attending on him told IANS that the condition of the injured man is stated to be stable. "He has received only minor burn injuries. Only his hair and clothes had caught fire," one of the doctors said.

He further said that the man is currently under observation.

Hospital sources said that the man was identified as Rajbhar Gupta, a resident of Noida.

Meanwhile, a crime team of Delhi Police has reached outside the Supreme Court and was collecting evidence from the spot.
Bengaluru, Jan 21 : The state government has given administrative approval for the project of 'Designing and Launching of Nano-Satellite' by government school students at an estimated cost of Rs 1.9 crore.

C.N. Ashwath Narayan, Minister for IT/BT and S&T, said on Friday that an order to this effect has been issued by the government and this will be one among the 75 Nano-Satellites to be launched on the occasion of celebrating 75 years of Independence (Amrit Mahotsav- Platinum Jubilee) by the Union Government.

"The project named 'Karnataka Government School Students Satellite- KGS3Sat) will be implemented through Karnataka Science and Technological Promotion Society (KSTEPS) in collaboration with ISRO and Indian Technology Congress Association (ITCA). With regard to the implementation of the project, KSTEPS will enter into MoU with ITCA. The object of the project is to nurture scientific thinking and to promote technological awareness among the student community", the Minister said.

A technical experts committee will be constituted to monitor the implementation of the project and a timeline of 12 months has been set to complete it. As per the progress of the project, KSTEPS will release the amount to ITCA. To launch the satellite after designing the proposed KGS3Sat permission should be obtained from IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre).

The remaining money in the department of Electronics, IT/BT and S&T after being granted for science and technology projects in the previous years has been utilised for the project.

Minister Ashwath Narayan had announced a few months back that a Nano-Satellite designing and launch project would be carried out by the government school students as part of the celebrations of 75 years of Independence.
Kolkata, Jan 21 : A 45-year-old man allegedly in an inebriated condition stabbed to death two brothers who were his neighbours at Singur in West Bengal's Hooghly district on Friday morning. Police arrested the man and are investigating the matter.

The incident happened in the Mirzapur-Bankipur area under Singur police station at 11 a.m.

When two brothers - Nirmal Malik (45) and his younger brother Raj Kumar Malik (38)-- were standing in front of a vegetable shop at Singur market, their neighbour Bhola Santra came and got engaged in a tiff.

According to an eyewitness they were speaking among themselves in a loud tone and suddenly Santra, who was drunk, took out a large knife from his pocket and started stabbing both the brothers on their throat. Before the people could come to the victims' rescue, both of them fell on the ground. The duo died before they could be rushed to Singur rural hospital.

People caught Santra who was trying to run away from the spot.

Police were informed and they arrested the man.

"Initial investigation revealed that Mondal and Santra are neighbours and they have some family disputes. The dispute between the Mondal brothers and Santra cropped up from there today morning and in a fit of temper, Santra stabbed them. We have arrested him and are trying to know the motive of the murder," a senior investigating officer said.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Breaking her silence over who will be the partys chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday dropped enough hints that she would be spearheading the Grand Old Party's challenge in the poll-bound state.

When asked who will be the party's CM face in the state during the launch of the party's manifesto outlining job creation plans for the youth of Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi said: "Can you see any other face in UP?" Pressed again, she said: "'Dikh to raha hai na sab jagah mera chehra (You can see my face everywhere)." So far, the Congress has been calling for collective leadership in the poll-bound state, where the BJP will contest with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at the forefront, while former CM Akhilesh Yadav will spearhead Samajwadi Party's campaign.

The Congress under Priyanka Gandhi's leadership is trying to put up a strong fight in Uttar Pradesh by reaching out to the women and youth, who form a significant part the state's population.

The Congress on Friday launched 'Bharti Vidhan', the party's youth manifesto for Uttar Pradesh, stating that the vision document focusses on providing employment to the youth of the state.

The manifesto, which promises 20 lakh jobs, including 9 lakh jobs for women, was released by Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Lucknow, Jan 21 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh, on Friday, launched its theme song for the Assembly elections.

The song 'UP phir mange BJP sarkar' comes with the tag line 'Soch imandar, kaam damdar'.

Releasing the song, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said it encapsulated the work done by his government in the past five years.

"We have done all that we promised in our Sankalp Patra five years ago. Our promise was based on nationalism, development, good governance with the concept of antyodaya. We ensured development for all and appeasement of none," he said.

The chief minister listed the achievements of the double engine governments and said that houses, toilets, power connections, gas connections, health insurance were given to the needy.

He said that his government reopened sugar mills and cleared cane dues.

"We ensured security for women and girls and bulldozed the ill-gotten wealth of the mafia. The Ram temple, Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, Kumbh Mela and clean Ganga are other things we promised and fulfilled," he added.

Earlier, UP BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh lauded the achievements of the Yogi government and said that the past five years had been marked by unparalleled quality of governance.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Delhi High Court on Friday said it will hear on February 3 a petition by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) seeking the execution of the order, in which actress-environmentalist Juhi Chawla and two others were directed to deposit Rs 20 lakh for the abuse of the process of law in relation with a lawsuit challenging 5G wireless network technology.

Justice C Harishankar deferred the matter for February 3 after Chawla's counsel said his client was not served with the petition copy. It was also observed by the court that the appeal in the matter is pending before the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court.

The DSLSA was approaching the Delhi High Court seeking payment of costs of Rs 20 lakh to them by the court. Adv Saurabh Kansal, who appeared on behalf of DSLSA, submitted that the order is yet to be complied with.

On June 4 last year, Justice J.R. Midha had dismissed the lawsuit filed by Juhi Chawla against the setting up of 5G wireless networks in the country. Her plea stated the levels of RF radiation are 10 to 100 times greater than the existing levels. It also claimed that the 5G wireless technology can be a potential threat to provoke irreversible and serious effects on humans and it could also permanently damage the earth's ecosystems.

The court had held that the suit filed by Chawla and two others was defective, non-maintainable, and also contained unverified and vexatious assertions and also imposed a fine of Rs 20 lakh for the abuse of the process of law.

On June 2, 2021, the High Court had also questioned Chawla as to why she had directly filed a suit against setting up of 5G wireless networks without making any representation to the department concerned in the government, and insisted the plaintiffs, Chawla and two others, should have gone to the government first. The High Court had also expressed dissatisfaction at Chawla sharing the link of virtual hearing on her social media account.

The hearing of Chawla's suit was disturbed by unknown persons who were singing Bollywood songs of films in which she had acted. The court directed the Delhi Police to identify the people and proceed against them under the law.
Los Angeles, Jan 21 : Musicians Dave, Doja Cat, Ed Sheeran, Holly Humberstone, Liam Gallagher and Little Simz are among the first wave of performers revealed for this year's Brit awards, one of Britain's biggest music events.

The awards, which are scheduled to take place live at London's O2 Arena on February 8, will be aired on ITV and ITV Hub, and streamed for non-UK viewers via the Brits' YouTube channel, reports variety.com.

Despite a dip in numbers and the UK government's decision to ease restrictions, the country continues to register more than 100,000 new Covid cases and upward of 330 deaths daily as Omicron spreads.

To ensure a safe event, the Brit organisers are therefore asking artistes, nominees and all guests to show a negative lateral flow test on arrival to the venue. Fans will this year be offered to purchase stall seats on the arena floor, where nominated artistes will also take their seat in an exclusive area.

Audience members will not be socially distanced but will be asked to wear their masks when not eating or drinking, or in their seats.

They will be required to follow existing government guidance when travelling to the venue and adhere to rules set out by the event organisers.

The Brits are this year working with Blue Light Tickets where the emergency services are invited to enter a ballot to come to the show, following the gifting of tickets to NHS front-line workers in 2021.

Among the performers, British rappers Dave and Simbiatu Ajikawo, aka Little Simz and their fellow Briton Sheeran have four nominations each.

For Doja Cat, the best-selling female R&B and hip-hop star of last year, the Brits will mark her first UK performance. She has two Brit nominations this year.

Humberstone was named the Brits 2022 Rising Star winner in late 2021.

Liam Gallagher will be returning to the Brits stage after his performance at the 2018 awards.

"Im gonna be performing my new single Everything's Electric at the Brit awards this year and I'd appreciate it if you stopped what you were doing and tuned in cheers," Gallagher tweeted on Friday.

Little Simz, said: "Thank you Brits. It's an honor to be nominated for four Brit Awards and I can't wait to be performing on the night too. I'm so happy and grateful the music has connected and resonated. Congratulations to everyone nominated." Nominations for this year's Brit Awards were revealed before Christmas, and the nominated artists also include ABBA, Adele, MAneskin, Olivia Rodrigo, Coldplay, Billie Eilish, Central Cee and Little Mix.
Bengaluru, Jan 21 : The Karnataka government on Friday announced that it has lifted the weekend curfew in the state, but restrictions on night movement will remain.

The decision was the high-level committee meeting chaired by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday.

Briefing reporters, Revenue Minister R. Ashok stated that the weekend curfew has been lifted in the state, as per the recommendation of experts and the relaxation is conditional. However, the night curfew between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. will continue, he underlined.

"The hospitalisation rate is five per cent in the state, though the number of Covid cases are increasing. The Covid numbers are likely to go upwards in the coming days. If the rate of hospitalisation is more, then the imposition of weekend curfew will be considered," he said.

"I appeal to the people not to give any room for that situation. The decision has been made considering the demands of organisations, opposition parties and mainly on the report of the experts," he added.

Apart from this, the 50 per cent rule in pubs, theaters, malls and commercial establishments would continue as the same and the public will have to cooperate, he said.

The meeting was conducted for more than two hours and experts from NIMHANS, WHO, and representatives from Home, Police, Health, Education and Irrigation Departments were present and gave their inputs, Ashok said.

The decisions taken by neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Kerala were also discussed in detail, he added.

"As many as 2,93,231 Covid active cases are there in the state as per statistics till January 20. Among them 2.86 lakh people are being treated in home isolation and 5,344 persons have been hospitalised. 340 are in ICU and 127 are on ventilators. The positive rate in the state is 19.94 per cent. The positivity rate among kids is 8 per cent and among elders is 16.57 per cent. Chief Minister Bommai has directed to take more care about children who are admitted," the minister said.
Amaravati, Jan 21 : The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet on Friday approved implementation of the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) report even as the government employees decided to go on strike from February 7 opposing the 23 per cent pay revision.

The Cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy gave its nod to implement Government Order (GO) relating to PRC, despite the ongoing protest by employees, who alleged that revised pay scales would result in reduction of their present salaries.

Information and Public Relations Minister Perni Nani told reporters after the Cabinet meeting that the government's doors are open for talks with employees' unions over the issue. Referring to statements by some leaders of the unions, he said criticism of the Chief Minister will not solve the employees' problems.

The Cabinet also approved enhancing the retirement age of government employees from 60 years to 62 years.

It also decided to provide jobs on compassionate grounds for families of those government employees who died of Covid-19.

The Cabinet decided to provide 10 per cent houses in Jagananna smart townships to government employees.

Meanwhile, the employees' unions on Friday decided to go on strike from February 7 opposing pay revision announced by the government and to demand rollback of the GO.

The decision was taken at a joint meeting of the Andhra Pradesh Joint Action Committee (AP JAC), the AP AJAC Amaravati, the Government Employees' Association, and the Secretariat Employees' Association in Vijayawada.

The leaders of four unions decided to give strike notice to the government on January 24. They also decided to meet Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma and demand that the government pay the salaries, as per earlier pay scales.

The meeting chalked out an action plan for continuing the protests. The unions will hold round table meetings in all district headquarters on January 23 and organise rallies and stage sit-ins on January 25.

The unions decided to give petitions to statues of Dr B.R. Ambedkar and organise a relay hunger strike from January 27 to 30. The employees will hold 'chalo Vijayawada' programme on February 3.

The employees' unions are demanding that the government pay their salaries as per 27 per cent IR relief which was announced pending implementation of the new PRC report.

Since the government announced a 23 per cent pay hike, the employees say that there will be a downward revision in salaries.

However, the Chief Secretary on Wednesday asserted that there will not be downward revision of salaries. He claimed that with the payment of DA arrears since 2019, the gross salary will go up.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Iran, China and Russia have launched a joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean, with the aim of boosting marine security, the Daily Mail reported.

Iran's state TV said that 11 of its vessels have been joined by three Russian ships, including a destroyer, and two Chinese vessels.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard will also participate with smaller ships and helicopters.

The military exercise comes at a time of heightened tension between Russia and the West over Moscow's build-up of some 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine.

Russia is also being joined by China and Iran -- two nations which are at loggerheads with the West, with Beijing recently accused of sending a spy to the heart of the UK Parliament -- the report said.

The joint naval exercise will cover some 6,560 square miles (17,000 square kilometres) in the Indian Ocean's north, and include night fighting, rescue operations and firefighting drills.

"The purpose of this exercise is to strengthen security and its foundations in the region, and to expand multilateral cooperation between the three countries to jointly support world peace, maritime security and create a maritime community with a common future," Iran's Rear Admiral Mostafa Tajoldini, spokesman for the drills, told Iranian state TV.

This is the third joint naval drill between the countries since 2019. It coincided with a recent visit by Iran's hardline President Ebrahim Raisi to Russia.

"Improving bilateral relations between Tehran and Moscow will enhance security for the region and the international arena," Raisi said upon returning from Russia on Friday, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Bhopal, Jan 21 : Veteran Congress leader and two-time former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijaya Singh along with other party leaders and workers on Friday sat on protest outside Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's office after he was not given an appointment to meet the latter.

Digvijaya sat on protest around 300 metres from the Chief Minister's Office as the police had barricaded the area to prohibit entry.

Later, state Congress president and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath also joined the protest. Before joining the protest, he had a short meeting with Chouhan.

A short video went viral on social media, in which Nath and Chouhan are seen together. However, Nath later said that his meeting with Chouhan was just a coincidence. "I was coming back to Bhopal, at the same time Chief Minister (Chouhan) also reached at state hanger road in Bhopal and therefore I met him. It was just a courtesy meeting." On Wednesday, Digvijaya said that he had been seeking an appointment to meet Chouhan for the last one and a half months.

Nath said that Digvijaya has been seeking an appointment to meet Chouhan to apprise him about crop damage due to unprecedented rain and hailstorm in the state, however, he was not given time.

However, later, Chouhan said that he will meet Digvijaya on January 23 at 11.45 a.m.

During the protest, Digvijaya said he wants to meet Chouhan over the hardships faced by farmers and villagers in the submerged areas of four districts - Bhopal, Rajgarh, Vidisha and Guna.

On Friday, Chouhan passed by Digvijaya's bungalow to plant trees at Smart City Park in Shyamala Hills and in the mean time, Digvijaya arrived to meet him with the farmers. However, the police stopped Digvijaya and encircled his vehicle, after which he sat on protest.
Panaji, Jan 21 : The current Congress leadership has lost 90 per cent of the elections, Trinamool Congress national Vice President Pawan Varma said on Friday, adding that top Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and P. Chidambaram, have not been able to "rise above their narrow silos" to respond to the political challenges.

Addressing a press conference here, Varma also cited Congress as the main impediment for parties like the Trinamool Congress to take on the BJP.

"The Congress is driven by the ambition of one leader whose inadequacy I do not need to explain. Since 2012, the Congress under this leadership has lost 90 per cent of the elections it has fought. If it could deliver, why would there be a need for change? You have seen the track record... 2014, 2019," Varma told reporters.

"So, if the Congress cannot play its role, refuses to understand its inadequacy, deliberately prevents itself from realising that today, then it is not the Congress that brought us freedom. It is a diminished, depleted party. And therefore, any person who votes for the Congress today knowing this background is strengthening the BJP," he added.

The former diplomat also said that the Congress is proving to be a stumbling block in the opposition unity against the BJP.

"We said let the vote against the BJP be united, the Congress said let the vote be divided. That is the message of the Congress. If you vote for the Congress, you are voting for a disunited opposition," Verma said.

"How do you strengthen the opposition space? You need a leader with vision who can put aside personal ambition, personal ego. Which is what we did. And Mr. Chidambaram, Mr. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party could not rise above their narrow silo, their narrow vision to respond," he added.
Mumbai, Jan 21 : Actor Temuera Morrison, who plays the titular character in the 'Star Wars' spinoff series, 'The Book of Boba Fett', recently explained the motivation, the stance of his character and its advancement in the show.

Shedding light on the character's power dynamics, the actor said, "Boba is running Jabba's territory in a way now, and he's taken on a new role. Before, he'd solve issues by fighting, there wasn't any patience shown. But now he has to find a different way." Talking about the unpredictable nature of Boba Fett and the progression of the show, he adds, "He's trying to run a little community on Tatooine and take it over, so he is a lot like a godfather. He's not used to dealing with people, so that adds to the colour and the unpredictable nature of the series." 'The Book of Boba Fett', which follows the journey of Boba Fett and Fennec Shand as they take on old and new foes in the 'Star Wars' universe, is available on Disney+ Hotstar in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.
Chandigarh, Jan 21 : Thwarting a possible terror attack ahead of the Republic Day, Punjab Police have recovered a 40mm under-barrel grenade launcher (UBGL) with two 40mm compatible grenades, 3.79 kg RDX, nine electrical detonators and two sets of timer devices for IEDs from Gurdaspur, said Inspector General of Police (Border Range) Mohinish Chawla on Friday.

The UBGL is a short-range grenade launching area weapon with an effective range of 150 metres and it could be detrimental to the VVIP security as well.

The recovery was made on the disclosure of Malkeet Singh, a resident of Gazikot village in Gurdaspur district, who was arrested by the police on Thursday.

The police have also booked co-conspirators Sukhpreet Singh, Tharanjot Singh and Sukhmeetpal Singh, all residents of Gurdaspur, besides, Pakistan-based International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) chief Lakhbir Singh Rode and fugitive gangster Arshdeep Singh, alias Arsh Dalla.

IG Chawla said investigations revealed that the arrested accused Malkeet was in contact with Sukh Ghuman, who had further conspired with ISYF chief Rode and Dalla, a resident of Moga now based in Canada. The consignment of explosives was sent by Rode from Pakistan.

Senior Superintendent of Police Nanak Singh said the role of Malkeet Singh in retrieval and delivery of fire arms and explosive intended for recently busted ISYF terror module busted by SBS Nagar Police and was revealed during investigation therein.

"Investigations are on to identify remaining members of the busted terrorist modules, recover the remaining terrorist hardware received by them and unravel the entire conspiracy, hatched by ISI of Pakistan and Lakhbir Rode," he added.

The role of Rode was also found in killing of comrade Balwinder Singh at Bhikhiwind on October 16, 2020, besides in the recovery of tiffin IED, RDX, arms and ammunition from his relative Gurmukh Singh Rode from Jalandhar in August 2021.

In November-December 2021, Gurdaspur Police had busted two terrorist modules controlled by the Pakistan-based ISI and arrested four members of the modules, besides recovered around one kg RDX, six hand grenades, one tiffin box IED, three electrical detonators and two pistols.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday released its first list of 34 candidates for the upcoming Punjab assembly polls.

Union Minister and BJP state election co-incharge Hardeep Singh Puri, general secretaries Tarun Chugh and Dushyant Gautam released the first list for Punjab assembly polls to be held on February 20.

Chugh said that names include 12 candidates from farmers' families, eight from Scheduled Caste (SC) community and 13 Sikhs.

"We have given tickets to doctors, lawyers, people related to religious organisations, sportspersons and all other sections of society," Chugh said.

The list includes two women candidates Renu Kashyup from Dina Nagar and Nimisha Mehta from Garhshankar.

Kabbadi player Ranjit Singh Khojewala has been fielded from Kapurthala assembly seat.

Retired IAS officer SR Laddhar has been fielded from Gill assembly constituency.

Gautam hit out at the Congress government in the Punjab over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's security breach and said: "The Punjab government did not even care about the dignity of the post of Prime Minister of the country. January 5 incident in Ferozepur shows that the security arrangements of the Prime Minister are not important for Congress government in Punjab." Gautam also slammed the Punjab government for corruption and mis-governance and problem of drug addiction and said no progress has been made in Punjab.

Referring to the recent raid by the ED, Gautam said: "It must be investigated how Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi managed to amass such wealth in just three months." The BJP is jointly contesting the Punjab assembly election with former chief minister Amarinder Singh's Punjab Lok Congress and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa's Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt).

The three parties have formed a six-member committee, two each from three parties to decide the seat sharing formula.

The three parties will also make a common manifesto. Polling for 117 seats of Punjab assembly will be held on February 20 and counting of votes will take place on March 10.
Chennai, Jan 21 : Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in the disability sector have demanded that the Tamil Nadu government withdraw a circular issued by the Commissionerate for the Welfare of Person with Disabilities asking all persons with the NGOs in the sector to get a police verification report.

The circular, issued on January 13, states that all persons working with NGOs engaged in the welfare of persons with disabilities in the sections of education, protection, training, and rehabilitation should produce a police verification certificate stating that there were no cases against them.

The original police verification certificate should be submitted to the NGO they are working with and the copy handed over to the district disability welfare officer, the circular read.

The Confederation of Association for persons with mental disabilities has asked the state government to withdraw this circular.

In a statement, the organisation, which has 300 members, said: "We have been working with full financial support and total government recognition for the past 20 years. Some of our members have been serving the most marginalised of people for the past four decades." The General Secretary of the organisation, M. Ravichandran, told IANS: "We demand stringent action against any employee of a special school who has indulged in unlawful activity. However, it is really painful to find that the entire community is being branded as criminal or people with suspicious track records. We are into service for the most vulnerable people of the society and the police verification certificate is not in the good interest of those who are serving and the government should withdraw such a circular as early as possible." Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Differently Abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC) also came out strongly against the circular.

In a statement issued on Friday, the organisation said: "The government can insist on NGOs to produce certificates but if each individual working as caregivers or special educators with such organisations are asked to produce individual certificates, it will make people believe that all employees are criminals." The general secretary of TARATDAC, S. Namburajan said that most of the employees who are in this sector and working among the differently-abled people are working for a passion and for genuine love and have been rendering service at high odds.
Read the original article on Business Insider.

Congressional Democrats on Thursday wrote a letter to President Joe Biden calling on him to "review and overhaul US counterterrorism policy" as it pertains to drone strikes, expressing grave concerns about civilian casualties.

Airstrikes have dropped markedly under Biden in comparison to President Donald Trump, and the Biden administration has reportedly taken steps to review US drone policy. But an August 29 drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 civilians  including seven children  prompted fierce criticism of the Biden administration and renewed calls for reform. The New York Times released a declassified video of the strike on Wednesday.

In the letter, Democrats said the August strike was "emblematic" of a "systemic failure that has persisted across decades and administrations."

"Without systematic reforms centered on human rights and international law, the status quo will continue to undermine counterterrorism objectives, produce significant human and strategic costs, and erode the rule of law and the United States' image abroad," said the letter, spearheaded by Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

"We cannot accept a continuation of the status quo that has repeatedly resulted in the needless deaths of innocent civilians," the letter went on to say. "We strongly urge your Administration to review and overhaul US counterterrorism policy to center human rights and the protection of civilians, align with US and international law, prioritize non-lethal tools to address conflict and fragility, and only use force when it is lawful and as a last resort."

The letter lamented that successive presidents have "have claimed virtually unilateral power to use lethal force around the world and without congressional authorization, killing not only armed actors but also innocent civilians even American citizens."

Citing figures from Airwars, the letter stated that as many as 48,000 civilians have been killed by US strikes in seven different countries over the past two decades since the global war on terror began. "At least 14,000 US airstrikes have been conducted by unmanned aircraft since 2002, killing as many as 2,200 civiliansincluding 450 children," the letter added.

Democrats said that the "inexcusable figures," which they noted could be a major undercount due to a lack of transparency from the US government, are a reflection of an "uncomfortable truth: in far too many cases, rather than achieving the policy goal of eliminating hostile combatants to preserve U.S. national security, lethal U.S. strikes have instead killed thousands of civilians, including children."

Eleven senators and 39 members of the House signed the letter, including prominent progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Murphy in a tweet on the letter said the US "must do better," calling drone strikes that kill civilians "a moral failure and a national security liability."

Activists and critics of US drone policy have long contended strikes that kill civilians essentially serve as a recruiting poster for terrorist groups. Back in 2010, a man named Faisal Shahzad tried and failed to bomb Times Square in New York City. Later, Shahzad cited US drone strikes as his motivation for the failed bombing.

The use of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in counterterrorism operations by the US began under the Bush administration, but escalated exponentially during the Obama era. Following rampant criticism over his heavy reliance on drones and civilian casualties, President Barack Obama took steps to put safeguards in place to protect civilians. Trump reversed these moves  relaxing the rules of engagement for strikes in Afghanistan back in 2017  and civilian casualties skyrocketed under his watch.

When Biden withdrew US troops from Afghanistan last summer, hawkish lawmakers in Washington questioned how the US would continue to fight terrorism. Biden said that the US would employ an "over-the-horizon" approach, which effectively involves conducting operations or strikes without boots on the ground. But critics have said the August 29 drone strike in Kabul revealed the flaws in this approach, warning that drone strikes could continue to kill civilians unless Biden changed course.

"I'm definitely concerned that the Biden administration's 'over-the-horizon' approach will result in more civilian casualties, because the accuracy of drone strikes depends heavily on the quality of intelligence, and if the US does not have an actual presence in Afghanistan, it's hard to see how it can determine whether the information it's getting from any supposed partners on the ground is reliable," Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA's director of Security With Human Rights, told Insider in September.
Paarl, Jan 21 : Rishabh Pant top-scored with a rear-guard act of 85 (71 balls) as India reached 287/6 in the second ODI against South Africa at Boland Park on Friday. After a fluent start of 63/0 became 64/2 quickly, Pant shared a 115-run stand with KL Rahul (55 off 79 balls) which ensured the visitors' got a respectable total on a used pitch.

South Africa, despite four dropped catches, were clinical in their bowling show, restricting India from 179/2 in 31 overs to 207/5 in 37 overs. Tabraiz Shamsi was the pick of the bowlers for the hosts, taking 2/57 in nine overs while Aiden Markram took 1/34 in eight overs and Keshav Maharaj had 1/52 in nine overs.

After winning the toss, India blazed to 57/0 in the first ten overs. Shikhar Dhawan was strong in flicking and driving off pacers Sisanda Magala and Lungi Ngidi. KL Rahul pounced on a short ball from Magala through point and after Janneman Malan dropped his catch at gully, got another boundary off Ngidi through a misfield at cover point.

But South Africa clawed back into the match, thanks to Markram and Maharaj. Dhawan was the first to depart, slog-sweeping straight to Magala at deep mid-wicket as Markram broke the opening partnership, yet again. Maharaj, on the other hand, troubled Virat Kohli with turn and bounce twice before getting the right-hander to drive on the up to extra cover, dismissing him for a five-ball duck.

After surviving a terrible miscommunication almost resulting in a run-out of Rahul, Pant broke the shackles with a huge slog-sweep off Maharaj for six followed by Rahul attacking Maharaj and Markram for a boundary each. Pant began to take centre stage in the counter-attack, collecting boundaries regularly off Maharaj and Markram.

With Rahul holding the fort from the other end, Pant continued his controlled-aggression mode, welcoming Shamsi with three boundaries (swept twice followed by a late cut). In the next over, Pant reached his fifty with a single through cover and continued to smash boundaries for fun. South Africa's woeful time on the field continued as Rahul was dropped on 46 by Markram at backward point.

Pant continued to hit Shamsi for runs, including a one-handed six down the ground after a whip past mid-on. With Rahul reaching his fifty and Pant going strong, India had got a great platform to accelerate. But the 115-run partnership for the third wicket was ended by Magala, as Rahul flicked to short mid-wicket, departing for 55. In the very next over, Pant danced down the pitch to loft Shamsi but holed out to long-on.

Following the duo's fall, India were unable to get the momentum back. Shreyas Iyer was given not out on an lbw appeal off Shamsi. But the bowler got to change the decision as replays showed the ball crashing into stumps. Venkatesh Iyer was dropped by Rassie van der Dussen at cover but couldn't make the most of it as Quinton de Kock effected a very sharp stumping when t'e left-hander's back-foot was up in the air.

Shardul Thakur continued to take boundaries off Andile Phehlukwayo before giving the same treatment to Shamsi and Maharaj. Ravichandran Ashwin joined the party by sweeping Maharaj over deep mid-wicket fence before finishing off the innings with a boundary crunched over extra cover off Magala as the unbeaten 48-run stand lifted India to a 280-plus score.

Brief Scores: India 287/6 in 50 overs (Rishabh Pant 85, KL Rahul 55; Tabraiz Shamsi 2/57, Aiden Markram 1/34) against South Africa
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral R. Hari Kumar on Friday called on Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Jitendra Singh to discuss the modalities to deepen cooperation in 'Deep Ocean Mission,' which, the government claimed, is to be the torchbearer of India's 'Blue Economy'.

"The 'Deep Ocean Mission' is designed to explore India's deep ocean for resources and develop deep-sea technologies for sustainable use of ocean resources. It will have an important bearing on India's future economy," Singh said.

The Indian Navy is a member of Deep Ocean Council, and it will be involved in launching and recovery of 'Manned submersible' in deep water, which will be developed under the Deep Ocean Mission.

The Ministry of Earth Sciences and the Indian Navy are to soon sign a MoU for knowledge sharing in the areas of design and development of underwater vehicles, a release from the Ministry of Science & Technology said.

Jitendra Singh informed that the preliminary design of the manned submersible MATSYA 6000 is complete, and realisation of vehicle has started with various organization including Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) roped-in to support the development. It is designed to carry three people to a depth of 6,000 metres in the ocean with a suite of scientific sensors and tools.

Dr Jitendra Singh launched India's First Manned Ocean Mission Samudrayaan at Chennai in October, last year and thus joined the elite club of nations such as the US, Russia, Japan, France, and China to have such underwater vehicles for carrying out sub-sea activities.

The Minister informed that this niche technology shall facilitate Ministry of Earth Sciences, MoES in carrying out deep ocean exploration of the non-living resources such as polymetallic manganese nodules, gas hydrates, hydro-thermal sulphides, and cobalt crusts, located at a depth between 1,000 and 5,500 metres.

The government had approved the Deep Ocean Mission in June 2021 to be implemented by the Ministry of Earth Sciences at a total budget of Rs 4,077 crore for five years. This Mission is a multi-ministerial, multi-disciplinary programme with emphasis on development of deep-sea technology, the release added.
Chandigarh, Jan 21 : Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) chief Amarinder Singh on Friday launched a scathing attack on Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, whose government, he said, had clearly 'stage-managed' the blockade that led to a serious security lapse on Prime Minister Narendra Modis route in the state earlier this month.

Amarinder Singh said he had earlier passed the same bridge, where the Prime Minister had been stuck for a long duration, and there was no blockade there.

On January 5, the Prime Minister's rally in Ferozepur had to be cancelled due to a security lapse after some protesters blocked a route and forced his convoy to spend about 20 minutes on a flyover. The Prime Minister was enroute the National Martyrs Memorial at Hussainiwala when the incident happened.

"Clearly, the Channi government had instructed the police not to remove the farmers who were stopping BJP buses from reaching the spot," Amarinder Singh said.

Describing the incident as a major security lapse which no Constitutional head should ever have to face, and which could easily have become a threat to the Prime Minister's life given the proximity to the international border, the former Chief Minister said that instead of taking a defiant stand, Channi should have issued an unequivocal apology.

"We are a sensitive border state and Pakistan's ISI is always looking to create trouble here," he said, asserting that "one can never take any chances".

Amarinder Singh also said that the incumbent government has been exposed as a 'suitcase di sarkar' after the recent Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids that had unearthed crores of rupees from the premises of Chief Minister Channi's kin.

In a social media interaction, Amarinder Singh said the ED seizure from Channi's kin was a follow-up on the case that the agency had registered after he had ordered an inquiry while he was heading the government.

Unfortunately, Amarinder Singh said, he had been unable to take any serious action against the Congress MLAs who were involved in illegal mining in the state as that would have damaged the party's interests, while Sonia Gandhi had failed to respond to his query on which minister or MLA she wanted him to sack over the issue.

Labelling Channi as a 'total failure', the PLC chief said the new Chief Minister has done nothing except indulging in postings and transfers since taking over.

"Three DGPs have been changed, his home minister has been openly accused in a cabinet meeting by his colleague that money was being taken for the posting of SSP, there was a tug-of-war on the AG's post. This is not 'lokaan di sarkar' but 'transfer posting di sarkar', which has now also become 'suitcase di sarkar'," he added.

"Even the announcements made by Channi are nothing but projects that were launched or announced by me," said Amarinder Singh, citing the examples of farm loan waiver, jobs under Ghar Ghar Rozgar scheme, investments in Punjab, free bus travel for women, etc.

Amarinder Singh further said that Manpreet Badal, as the finance minister, had scuttled many of his schemes and plans by claiming to have no funds, which, it appears now, was a "total lie".

On why no sitting Congress MLA was joining the PLC, Amarinder Singh said they are only waiting for their party to announce the tickets, which is being deliberately delayed as the Congress is "scared" of defections.
Mumbai, Jan 21 : A major row has erupted in Maharashtra's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance after an actor-turned-MP played the role of Mahatma Gandhi's assassin, Nathuram Godse.

MVA constituent, Nationalist Congress Party's Shirur MP and actor Dr Amol Kolhe donned the garb and grabbed the gun of Godse in the upcoming film, "Why I killed Gandhi".

The film is due for release on an OTT platform on January 30 - the 74th anniversary of Gandhiji's assassination - and just six months before the Platinum of Indian Independence.

While the Congress has strongly opposed the upcoming web film, there is a mixed reaction within the NCP, while the Shiv Sena has adopted a neutral stance so far.

State Congress President Nana Patole hit out at what he terms "attempts to support the assassination of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi and to exalt the act" by certain sections of society.

"Dr Kolhe is an artiste but he is now a MP and is expected to behave more responsibly. It is unfortunate that he is abusing his freedom as an artiste to willy-nilly support the assassination of Gandhiji," he said.

Patole warned that the Congress would not permit the release of the film as it would send a wrong message to the masses.

NCP President Sharad Pawar has backed Kolhe, saying he had informed the party about this role before he joined and has never supported the ideology of Godse.

"Dr Kolhe's role should be seen as an actor only - If a person plays the role of Ravana in a cinema, he does not become Ravana himself," the NCP supremo said, chiding protests from various quarters, both inhouse and outside.

Maintaining a neutral stance, Shiv Sena leader Kishore Tiwari said it is unfortunate that a controversy has been sparked now over a film role essayed in 2017, besides creating tensions among the MVA allies.

NCP national spokesperson and Minister Nawab Malik pointed out that Kolhe had played the role five years ago, long before he joined the NCP in February 2019, and has never propagated Godse's ideology.

However, his senior party colleague and Housing Minister Dr Jitendra Awhad has raised cudgels against Kolhe's portrayal as Godse and said the film must be boycotted.

Congress Minister Balasaheb Thorat said artistes must be given the freedom of creative choices but they must ensure that they unwittingly don't end up glorifying a certain ideology through their roles.

On his part, Kolhe has made it clear in several media statements that he treated the role professionally, and he doesn't support Godse or hate Gandhiji.

Kolhe is best known for his role as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the teleserial "Raja Shivchhatrapati" and also as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj in the television series "Swarajyarakshak Sambhaji".

Awhad added that he had opposed all "anti-Gandhi" films on ideological grounds.

"When an actor plays a particular character then he gets into the mind of that character and becomes the character without which he cannot be an actor," he claimed.

Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party state President Chandrakant Patil dismissed the MVA bickerings saying there's nothing wrong if Kolhe has played the role of Godse.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in)
Jammu, Jan 21 : The good governance index for 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir will be released on Saturday by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, making J&K the first Union Territory to have an index of this kind in the country.

Official sources said Union Minister of State for PMO, Jitendra Singh, will also address the event on Saturday. The event is being organised jointly by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) and J&K Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development (IMPA) in association with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad.

The district good governance index for J&K has been prepared by DARPG.

Official sources said the index is part of the 'Behtar Hukumat -- Kashmir Aelamia' resolution adopted in Srinagar on July 2, 2021 in the regional conference on replication of good governance practices.

The index represents a major administrative reform in benchmarking good governance at the district level, providing an evidence-based assessment of the performance of each district.

At its inaugural function, 12 selected district development commissioners will showcase the achievements in various sectors in their respective districts.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Army chief Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane visited the force's establishment in Bhopal and reviewed operational preparedness and on the reforms being undertaken towards transforming the formation into a modern, cohesive, lean and agile war fighting force, officials said on Friday.

Gen Naravane, who was on two-day visit, was accompanied by Lt Gen JS Nain, Southern Army Commander. The Army chief was briefed by the Sudarshan Chakra Corps Commander and other commanders on operational preparedness.

He was appreciative of the formation's high levels of operational preparedness despite the restrictions imposed by Covid-19 pandemic.

He complimented their proactive approach in undertaking flood relief operations at Datia, Shivpuri, Sheopur, Morena, Ashoknagar and Jalon of Madhya Pradesh. General Naravane also interacted with troops and exhorted them to continue working with zeal and be prepared for any future operational challenges.

The Army Chief later visited Headquarters Paschim Madhya Pradesh Sub Area. He appreciated the role of the Sub Area in assisting the civil administration in combating the Covid-19 pandemic by setting up Adhoc Covid Isolation Facilities, provision and repair of critical life-saving equipment and augmentation of Civil Medical Infrastructure.

The Indian Army Chief also visited 3 Electronics and Mechanical Engineers Centre at Bairagarh Military Station and reviewed the training being imparted to mould future generations of soldiers of the Indian Army.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has ordered the blocking of 35 YouTube news channels operated from Pakistan along with two websites for their involvement in spreading anti-India fake news in a coordinated manner on digital media platforms.

In a statement, the ministry said that the YouTube accounts blocked by the Ministry had a total subscriber base of over 1.20 crore and their videos had garnered over 130 crore views.

Additionally, two Twitter accounts, two Instagram accounts and one Facebook account have also been blocked by the government for being involved in spreading coordinated anti-India disinformation over the internet.

The ministry vide five separate orders issued under Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 has ordered to block these Pakistan-based social media accounts and websites.

"Indian intelligence agencies were closely monitoring these social media accounts and websites, and flagged them to the ministry for immediate action," it said.

The 35 YouTube accounts blocked by the ministry were all being operated from Pakistan, and were identified to be part of four coordinated disinformation networks. These include the Apni Duniya Network operating 14 YouTube channels, and and Talha Films Network operating 13 YouTube channels.

A set of four channels, and a set of two other channels, were also found to be acting in synchronisation with each other.

According to the ministry, all these networks appeared to be operated with a single goal of spreading fake news oriented towards the Indian audience. The channels which were part of a network used common hashtags and editing styles, and were being operated by common persons who cross promoted each other's content.

The YouTube channels, websites, and other social media accounts blocked by the ministry were used by Pakistan for spreading anti-India fake news about sensitive subjects related to India.

These include topics such as the Indian Army, Jammu and Kashmir, and India's relations with other countries.

It was observed that rampant fake news was spread through the YouTube channels regarding the demise of the Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat. These YouTube channels had also started posting content to undermine the democratic process of the upcoming elections in five states.

The channels propagated content to encourage separatism, divide India on the lines of religion, and create animosity among the various sections of the Indian society, the ministry said.

Such information was feared to have the potential to incite the audience into commission of crimes adversely affecting public order in the country.

The action taken by the government follows the blocking of 20 YouTube channels and two websites in December last year when the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021 were first utilised to act against anti-India fake news networks.
Arms supplier Hazi Shamim alias Shamim Pistol, wanted in the case of conspiracy of killing Kashmiri social activist arrested by Special Cell of Delhi Police. Image Source: IANS News

Arms supplier Hazi Shamim alias Shamim Pistol, wanted in the case of conspiracy of killing Kashmiri social activist arrested by Special Cell of Delhi Police. Image Source: IANS News

Arms supplier Hazi Shamim alias Shamim Pistol, wanted in the case of conspiracy of killing Kashmiri social activist arrested by Special Cell of Delhi Police. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Special Cell of Delhi Police has arrested a wanted arms dealer who supplied weapons to the conspirators who plotted to kill a Delhi-based Kashmiri Pandit social activist, an official said here on Friday.

According to the Special Cell, the accused, identified as Hazi Shamim alias Shamim Pistol, is a notorious illegal arms supplier and has been supplying arms for more than 15 years. He was first arrested with illegal arms in 2007. He deals in sophisticated arms including foreign made weapons.

The case of conspiracy to kill the Kashmiri social activist dates back to February, 2021, when two persons namely Sukhwinder and Lakhan Rajput were arrested and during interrogation, they had revealed that they had come to Delhi to kill a Kashmiri social activist, who is vocal about the issues of Kashmiri Pandits.

In the past one year, the Special Cell has arrested four people identified as Mohit alias Prince alias Tooti, Jagdeep alias Kaka, Rohit Chaudhary and Hazi Shamim in this case.

Furnishing details about the conspiracy, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah said the accused Rohit Chaudhary is a resident of Manglora Karnal in Haryana.

Rohit's brother Rahul was a constable in the Indian Army and an expert in drone handling. He was arrested by the Punjab Police and lodged in jail for his role in drug smuggling from Pakistan through drones. When Rahul was in jail, Rohit received some calls from Pakistan; these Pakistani contacts assured him to provide all possible assistance for the release of his brother.

Rohit also received money from these Pakistani contacts and through them, he came in contact with one Randeep alias Romi and got involved in illegal drug trafficking.

Randeep was a resident of Amritsar, Punjab and member of the Khalistan Zindabad Force, a banned terrorist organisation. According to the Special Cell, Randeep, who has been absconding since 2014 and is hiding abroad, also runs an international drug cartel and enjoys the support of Pakistan.

The official said Randeep assigned the task of killing the Kashmiri social activist to Rohit Chaudhary who asked another notorious criminal Jagdeep alias Kaka to arrange some boys for the murder of the Kashmiri social activist and also offered him Rs 50 lakhs for this assignment.

During the probe it was learnt that Jagdeep himself wanted to execute the killing but Rohit forbade him and asked him to arrange some new faces, so that at any stage, Rohit could not be linked to the killing.

"On this, Jagdeep further assigned the task to one of his old associate Mohit to arrange some new boys to commit the murder of the Kashmiri social activist," the DCP said.

At that time, Mohit was lodged in Punjab's Faridkot Jail and arranged for two boys Lakhwinder and Lakhan. He promised to pay them Rs 10 lakh each for this killing, the police said.

During this conspiracy, weapons were arranged by Hazi Shamim. Both Lakhwinder and Lakhan were arrested last year in February.

When Hazi Shamim came to know about the arrest of Rohit Chaudhary by the Delhi Police, he tried to seek anticipatory bail, but the High Court directed him to surrender. However instead of surrendering, he absconded.

The official said that Hazi Shamim on the basis of specific information was finally arrested from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh on January 19.

"Five pistols of .32 bore and 20 live cartridges were also recovered from his house.," the official said, adding that all backward and forward linkages are still being investigated in the case.
Panaji, Jan 21 : Rejecting the BJP's efforts to arrive at a compromise, former Chief Minister late Manohar Parrikar's son Utpal Parrikar said on Friday that he would resign from the saffron party and contest as an Independent candidate for the February 14 polls from the Panaji Assembly constituency, which was formerly represented by his father.

Addressing a press conference here, Utpal Parrikar also said that his candidature was rejected by the party during the 2019 Panaji bypolls -- facilitated after his father's death -- despite support from his constituents, adding that the BJP no longer looks like the party of which his father was a part.

"People of Panaji did not vote for Manohar Parrikar just because he was an MP. They voted for him because he stood for some values. The time has come for me to also stand for those values," Utpal Parrikar said, adding that he would be resigning from the party and contesting as an Independent candidate.

"Last time, the organisation rejected my candidature despite popular support due to some special reasons. People know the circumstances... Now it does not look like a decision of Parrikar's party," Utpal said.

Manohar Parrikar's elder son's candidature has been rejected twice by the BJP, in the 2019 bypolls and now in 2022. In the express instance, the BJP has offered a ticket to sitting MLA Atanasio Monserrate.

When Monserrate had contested the 2019 bypolls as a Congress candidate, BJP leaders had slammed him citing the list of criminal offences registered against him, which included a rape charge of a minor girl, extortion and leading a mob attack on a city police station.

Monserrate had won the polls on the Congress ticket, but had joined the BJP soon after.

"I feel embarrassed to talk about the candidate put up by the party. In Panaji, where the party has grown over 30 years, (the party) has given a ticket to someone who joined just two years ago. I have no choice now. I have to go to the people," he said.

"As far as a political party is concerned, the only party available to me is the BJP. The other platform is Independent, my own platform which I had to do unfortunately in these circumstances for the values I believe in," he said, adding that he would not be joining any other political outfit.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Chinas state broadcaster has implicated Jack Mas Ant Group in a corruption scandal, ratcheting up pressure on the billionaire following a crackdown that has wiped billions of dollars from his internet empire, the Financial Times reported.

A documentary on state-run China Central Television alleged that private companies made "unreasonably high payments" to the brother of the former Chinese Communist Party head of Hangzhou, an eastern city that is home to Ant Group's headquarters, in return for government policy incentives and support with buying real estate, the report said.

According to public records and two sources close to the deals, a unit of Ant Group bought two plots of land at a discount in Hangzhou in 2019 after taking stakes in two mobile payment businesses owned by the party secretary's younger brother that were named in the documentary.

While the documentary did not name Jack Ma's company, the Ant unit was the only external corporate investor in one of these businesses, according to public records, and was among three corporate investors in the second.

"The nature of such a transfer of interests is an exchange of power and capital," said the documentary, produced by the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Material aired by China's state broadcaster represents the official party line, FT reported.

The programme has intensified pressure on Ant, as the fintech group with more than 1 billion users struggles to overhaul its business to comply with the authorities' demands.

Chinese regulators pulled the plug on a $37 billion initial public offer planned by the company in 2020 and forced it to restructure. Last week, Ant suffered a setback to its government-led reform efforts after a state-owned asset manager pulled out of a deal to invest in the fintech's lending arm without explanation, FT reported.

The documentary alleged that Zhou Jiangyong, the former Hangzhou party secretary who was arrested in August for corruption, helped unidentified companies acquire cheap land and enjoy preferential policies after they bought shares in firms controlled by the senior official's younger brother, Zhou Jianyong.

Public records show Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital Management Co, a subsidiary of Ant, paid $268,000 for a 14.3 per cent stake and a board seat in Youcheng United (Ningbo) in March 2019, the report said.
" " The National Park Service calls the original design plan "audacious, ambitious and expensive," which explains why all but the obelisk was eventually scrapped. Enzo Figueres/Getty Images

On Sept.19, 2019, the Washington Monument reopened to the public after a three-year renovation. Eager tourists got in line early to experience the zippy new elevator and take in one of the best views East of the Mississippi.

The Washington Monument is an impressive structure dedicated to an American icon, but its construction was less than smooth (it was actually derailed for decades by a political coup). Here are eight surprising facts about America's favorite obelisk.

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1. A Memorial for Washington Was Planned Way Before He Died

It's hard to overstate how much Americans loved George Washington. As early as 1783, when Washington was very much alive, plans were in the works for erecting a large statue of the first president on horseback near the Capitol building. In fact, the architect of Washington, D.C., the French landscape engineer Charles Pierre L'Enfant, left an open place for the statue in his drawings. And that's almost exactly where the Washington Monument sits today.

Congress failed to act on the equestrian statue, and even after Washington died in 1799, legislators couldn't agree on what kind of monument best suited the national hero. Frustrated with congressional feet-dragging, a private organization called the Washington National Monument Society was formed in 1833 to raise money and solicit designs for a large-scale homage to America's beloved first president.

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2. The Original Design Was a Mashup

In 1836, the Washington National Monument Society announced a design contest for the future Washington Monument and the winning sketch was submitted by 29-year-old architect Robert Mills, who would go on to design the U.S. Post Office, the Patent Office and the Treasury Building.

Mills' original design was a mashup of architectural references. First, there was to be a 600-foot (182-meter) obelisk with a flattened top, a nod to the Egyptomania that had captured the early 19th-century imagination. (Note that soon after Washington's death, the House of Representatives proposed the construction of a marble pyramid, 100 feet on each side, to serve as the first president's mausoleum. The pharaohs would have approved, but Congress didn't.)

In Mills' original sketch, the giant Egyptian obelisk was to be encircled at its base by a neoclassical temple with 30 towering columns. On top of the circular temple would be a statue of Washington on a chariot, and in between each of the 30 columns would stand statues of 30 different revolutionary war heroes.

The National Park Service calls Mills' original plan "audacious, ambitious and expensive," which explains why all but the obelisk was eventually scrapped.

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3. There's a Zinc Time Capsule in the Cornerstone

An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 crowded the National Mall to witness the laying of the Washington Monument's cornerstone on July 4, 1848. But first the 24,500-pound (11,113-kilogram) hunk of pure white marble had to be dragged through the streets on a cart with bystanders grabbing lengths of rope to help the cause.

After a droning two-hour speech by the Speaker of the House, the assembled dignitaries placed mementos in a zinc box that would be sealed in the monument's cornerstone for eternity (or until an alien race plucks it from the ruins of Western civilization). Included in the zinc time capsule were copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a portrait of Washington, an American flag, all the coins in circulation and newspapers from 14 states. The laying of the cornerstone was performed by a grandmaster of the masonic lodges and its actual location apparently is still a mystery.

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4. Construction Was Stalled by the Pope's Stone Saga

" " The unfinished stump of the Washington Monument, as it looked for over 25 years. During the U.S. Civil War, the site was used for the grazing and slaughtering of government cattle, earning it the nickname Beef Depot Monument. Mathew Brady/Library of Congress

By 1856, after eight years of slow and painstaking construction, the obelisk stood 156 feet (47 meters) high and would remain that way  an unfinished eyesore that Mark Twain called "a hollow, oversized chimney"  for the next 21 years. The reason, weirdly enough, had to do with the Pope.

In 1853, the Washington National Monument Society was dangerously low on funds, so they came up with a scheme whereby large donors could have a commemorative stone placed in the interior of the obelisk. One of those donors ended up being Pope Pius IX, who shipped over a 3-foot (91-centimeter) piece of marble from the Temple of Concord in Rome.

The Pope's gift really ticked off members of the new "Know-Nothing" party, who were virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic. On the night of March 6, 1854, a gang of men locked the night watchman in his shed and stole the Pope's stone, allegedly tossing it in the Potomac.

The controversy over the stolen stone brought donations to a standstill. But even worse was what happened next; a contingent of Know-Nothings staged a coup and overthrew the leadership of the Monument Society. Donations dried up entirely and the Know-Nothings only managed to add 20 more feet (6 meters) to the obelisk by the outbreak of the Civil War, when construction was halted altogether.

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5. Yes, the Monument is Three Different Colors

After the Civil War, during which the grounds of the stubby Washington Monument were used as a cattle yard and slaughterhouse, Congress finally decided to take over. On July 5, 1876, in time for the centennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence, Congress appropriated $2 million for the completion of the monument and construction resumed in 1877.

The first task of the new chief engineer, Thomas L. Casey, was to reduce the total height of the obelisk to 555 feet (169 meters), exactly 10 times the width of the structure, and to spend years reinforcing the foundation with concrete.

The next issue was the masonry. The original quarry in Baltimore had shut down, so Casey tried shipping down rock from Massachusetts. But after placing only a few layers of this stone, it was clear that it was a different color and of poorer quality than the original. So, the builders changed tack yet again and brought in stone from another Baltimore quarry, which was used to finish the final two-thirds of the obelisk.

The result is that the Washington Monument is nearly white on the bottom, a tannish-pink on the top with a thin belt of light brown in the middle. Classy, Casey.

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6. The Priceless Capstone Would Cost a Few Bucks Today

Construction of the obelisk was finally completed on Dec. 6, 1884, more than 36 years after the first cornerstone was laid, with the ceremonial setting of the capstone. When you think of precious metals befitting the capstone of a 555-foot monument dedicated to the nation's greatest hero, you think of gold, maybe silver, but certainly not aluminum.

Yet back in the late 19th-century, pure aluminum was a very rare commodity, and it was chosen for this important feature, as the metal would not tarnish. (In 1884, aluminum costed $1.10 per ounce or $26 per ounce in 2019 dollars; in 2019, aluminum costed around 78 cents per pound.) The 100-ounce (2.8 kilogram) aluminum capstone for the Washington Monument was the largest single piece of cast aluminum in the world. The final cost of the Washington Monument was $1.18 million in 1884 or nearly $30 million in 2019 dollars.

Before the capstone was shipped to Washington, D.C., it went on exhibit on the showroom floor of Tiffany & Co. in New York City, where visitors could say they "jumped over the Washington Monument." Yay!

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7. For Five Glorious Years, It Was the World's Tallest Manmade Structure

And then Eiffel built his silly tower in 1789, which at 1,063 feet (324 meters) is nearly twice as tall as the Washington Monument.

But the Washington Monument is  and probably always will be  the tallest structure by far in Washington, D.C., although not for the reasons you might have heard. It has nothing to do with city planners who didn't want any building to block the view of the Capitol Building or the Washington Monument. That's actually a myth.

The height limits on buildings in the District of Columbia were established by the Height of Buildings Acts of 1899 and 1910, which were primarily concerned with the fire safety of new construction methods that allowed buildings to be raised to incredible new heights. The laws, which are still on the books in D.C., restrict the height of buildings to the width of the street in front of them, which is 130 feet (40 meters) in most places and 160 feet (49 meters) on Pennsylvania Avenue.

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8. Half a Million Tourists Ride Up the Monument Every Year

The Washington Monument is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Washington, D.C., and untold millions of people visit the monument grounds every year. But given that there's only one elevator that zips people to the observation deck, only 55 people can be admitted into the monument every half hour. That means that around 500,000 people enjoy the spectacular view from the top of the Washington Monument every year.

The newly installed elevator system will only take 70 seconds to carry visitors to the 51-story observation deck, where they will take in panoramic views of the National Mall, the Capitol Building, the White House and the wilds (suburbs, actually) of Virginia and Maryland up to 25 miles in all directions on a clear day.

Now That's Cool The first tourist elevator was installed in the Washington Monument in 1889, just five years after its completion.
Mumbai, Jan 21 : The Hindi release of the Allu Arjun-starrer Telugu film 'Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo' has been called off to make way for the release of the Kartik Aaryan-led 'Shehzada'.

The statement issued on Friday read: "Manish Shah, promoter of Goldmines [Telefilms], along with the makers of 'Shehzada' have jointly decided to withdraw the theatrical release of 'Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo' Hindi version. 'Shehzada' makers are thankful to Manish Shah for agreeing to the same." Goldmines Telefilms, incidentally, had picked up the Hindi rights of the Allu Arjun blockbuster, 'Pushpa: The Rise'.

'Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo', which also has Pooja Hegde and Tabu playing lead roles, was directed by Trivikram Srinivas, and produced by Allu Aravind. It follows the life of Allu Arjun's character, Bantu who is hated and neglected by his father. He later learns that he was swapped as an infant and his biological father is an affluent businessman.

'Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo' is the famous line from the fifteenth-century Telugu Vaishnava poet Bammera Pothana's mythological story 'Gajendra Mokshanam', where Lord Vishnu comes down to save Gajendra, the elephant king, from Makaram, a crocodile.

The Telugu original, released in 2020, emerged as one the highest-grossing Indian films of that year.
New York, Jan 21 : External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Friday instructed Indian envoys to Canada and the US, Ajay Bisaria and Taranjit Singh Sandhu, "to urgently respond to the situation" where four Indian nationals including an infant have lost their lives of the US-Canada border.

The minister said this in a public tweet.

Neither of the two missions have responded on the microblogging site till the time of filing of this report.

In a statement Thursday without identifying the victims, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) stated that "on the morning of January 19, 2022, RCMP officers with the Integrated Border Enforcement Team received concerning information from their counterparts in the United States".

"Specifically, the information outlined that officers with the US Customs and Border Protection had apprehended a group of individuals who had crossed into the US from Canada, near the town of Emerson, Manitoba. Further, it indicated that one of the adults had items meant for an infant but that no infant was with the group." "Upon receiving this information at 9.23 a.m., a search was immediately launched on both sides of the border.

RCMP officers were already patrolling the area and the search began at 9.24 a.m. Extensive patrols were conducted and, at approximately 1.30 p.m., the bodies of three individuals were located on the Canadian side of the border, approximately 10km east of Emerson.

RCMP identified the group as: an adult male, an adult female, and an infant.

"Fearing there may be additional victims, officers continued their search and located the body of an additional male, believed at this time to be in his mid-teens." "All victims were located approximately 12 metres from the US/Canada border." As speculation was rife that the group was being smuggled, The Toronto Star reported that a Florida man has been charged with human-smuggling as authorities investigate the deaths of four people, including a baby, who were found some 12 metres away from the Canada-US border in Manitoba.

"The discovery of the bodies marked a tragic ending to a case of irregular immigration that officials, it was revealed Thursday, believe is part of a larger human-smuggling operation from Canada to the US - in a part of the continent more accustomed to migrants traveling the other way," it said.

"The events began with a group of at least nine Indian nationals, all speaking Gujarati, being dropped off near Emerson, Man., on Tuesday night during a blizzard, according to court documents." At this very early stage of the investigation, it appears that they all died due to exposure to the cold weather. Work is underway to identify the victims and an autopsy has been scheduled.

The search for any possible survivors or additional victims continued throughout the evening of Wednesday, January 19, and RCMP officers continue to patrol the area today. To date, no other victims have been located." US authorities said border patrol officials stopped a 15-passenger rental van Wednesday driven by Steve Shand with two undocumented Indian nationals inside, less than a mile south of the border in a rural area between Lancaster, Minnesota, and Pembina, North Dakota. Shand and the Indian nationals were arrested.

Officials also intercepted another group of five Indian nationals nearby who were walking in the direction of where the van was located, according to the court documents.

"They appeared to be headed to an unstaffed gas plant located in St. Vincent, Minnesota. The five Indian nationals explained that they had walked across the border expecting to be picked up by someone. The group estimated they had been walking around for over 11 hours," the US District Attorney's Office in Minnesota said in a statement Thursday.

The RCMP said it will be conducting an investigation and is working in close collaboration with US Customs and Border Protection and the US Department of Homeland Security.

"All of our agencies are committed to a thorough and comprehensive investigation," the statement said.

(Nikhila Natarajan tweets @byniknat)
Chennai, Jan 21 : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Friday announced a complete lockdown on January 23 (Sunday) to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in the state, officials said.

The Chief Minister in a statement on Friday said the decision was taken considering the increasing caseload in the state, and in the interest of the welfare of the general public.

Restrictions and relaxations that were in place during the earlier lockdown on January 16 would continue during the lockdown of January 23.

Auto-rickshaws, call taxis and other vehicles can conduct service for plying people who arrive at railway stations and bus stations. However, for this service, mobile apps have to be downloaded and reserve the time and destination from where the passenger is to be picked up.

The Chief Minister also appealed to the people of Tamil Nadu to abide by the directives of the government on the 'lockdown day', and avoid unnecessary travel.
Los Angeles, Jan 21 : 'Lucifer', a drama that debuted on the Fox broadcast network before becoming a Netflix show in 2018, topped Nielsen's list of the most-streamed original series of 2021 in the United States, reports 'Deadline'.

The 93 episodes of the series netted more than 18.3 billion minutes of streaming during the year, according to the measurement firm's year-end report. That put it well in front of the 16.4 billion notched up by 'Squid Game', but the Korean phenomenon had only nine episodes on Netflix in 2021.

Interestingly, reflecting the diversity of the U.S. audience, roughly 15 per cent of the American viewers of 'Squid Game' watched the Korean-language original of the series.

In saving the show after it was cancelled by Fox, according to 'Deadline', Netflix established a precedent that it has occasionally followed with other acquired properties that become popular on its platform. (A recent example was the former NBC series 'Manifest', which racked up almost 20 billion viewing minutes last year with just 42 episodes.) Three non-Netflix shows made the originals chart: 'The Handmaid's Tale' on Hulu, 'Ted Lasso' on Apple TV+ and 'Wandavision' on Disney+.

On the movie chart, 'Luca' recorded a decisive win, gathering about 10.6 billion minutes of viewing. The winsome, well-reviewed Pixar feature, says 'Deadline', did not have a theatrical run last summer and was instead released directly on Disney+.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : A furious backlash in India has forced Nestle to discontinue a range of KitKat bars covered by wrappers with images of Hindu gods on them, the Daily Mail reported.

The range has sparked worries that the chocolate bars adorned with the images of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Mata Subhadra would inevitably be thrown away in bins and on the streets, the report said.

It is only recently that the KitKat wrapper with a picture of Lord Jagannath came into the spotlight, sparking reactions on social media.

"Kindly remove the pictures...they might even get stepped on unintentionally," one Twitter user posted.

Another Twitter user commented that it is an honour to have "Odisha culture and Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra on KitKat, but throwing the wrappers in dustbin or stepping on them accidentally would be an insult to the deities." The bars were introduced to "celebrate the culture", according to Nestle. The company has since issued an apology, and withdrawn the bar range.

A Nestle spokesperson said: "We do understand the sensitivity of the matter and regret if we have inadvertently hurt anyone's sentiment. We had already withdrawn these packs from the market last year. We thank you for your understanding and support.

"We wanted to encourage people to know about the art and its artisans. We do understand the sensitivity of the matter and regret if we have inadvertently hurt people's sentiments." The KitKats bars that proved offensive to the Hindu population were originally circulated in Odisha.

Nestle is the latest in a string of companies that have had to apologise to the Hindu community in recent times.

Jewellery brand Tanishq had issued an apology in 2020 and withdrawn its campaign featuring what appeared to be a Hindu daughter-in-law of a Muslim family.

Companies including Zomato, Unilever and Manyavar have also sparked similar controversies in recent years, the report said.
Los Angeles, Jan 21 : The January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, considered the worst domestic attack on democracy since the Civil War, will be the subject of 'J6', a feature film scripted and to be directed by Billy Ray, reports 'Deadline'.

The movie will be a follow-up to Ray's highly rated political drama miniseries, 'The Comey Rule', based on the book, 'A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership', by former FBI director James Comey.

Joining him as one of the four producers will be Adam McKay, who is in the Oscar hunt for the Leo DiCaprio-Jennifer Lawrence-starrer 'Don't Look Up'.

'Deadline' has confirmed that the 'J6' script will be shopped to studios and streamers imminently, and that conversations with equity financiers have already begun.

Ray, according to 'Deadline', had originally expected to long look at the events of January 6 in the form of another limited series. Deeply affected by the attack, he travelled to Washington, D.C. within days of the siege, and interviewed a number of the key principals when memories were raw and fresh.

They included Capitol police officers Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn, as well as members of Congress who were trapped inside the Capitol when the violent siege unfolded. Fanone consulted on the screenplay throughout the process.

Ray has scripted (and/or directed) similar films based on real events, such as 'Shattered Glass' (2003), 'Breach' (2007), the Tom Hanks-led 'Captain Phillips' (2013) and Clint Eastwood's 'Richard Jewell' (2019).
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Security forces in the UK are facing fresh questions after it was revealed on Friday that the Blackburn terrorist shot dead as he held up a synagogue in Texas, the US, last week had previously been referred to counterextremism scheme Prevent, the Daily Mail reported.

In the latest embarrassment for UK counter-terrorism officials, it was revealed that Malik Faisal Akram, 44, had been referred to the anti-terror programme following the breakdown of his marriage and concerns over his growing extremist views, the report said.

The 44-year-old was also investigated by MI5 in December 2020, when British spies watched him for a month.

However, the father-of-six, who was shot dead by FBI SWAT teams last week while holding up a Texas synagogue, was not considered a terrorist threat, despite multiple reports that he had been radicalised.

The fresh revelations will heap yet more pressure on the Home Office over Prevent, which is already under scrutiny following the death of MP Sir David Amess and a series of high-profile failures.

Ali Harbi Ali, 25, the man who is accused of, and denies, murdering the Tory MP in a knife attack in his constituency of Southend in October last year, had been referred to Prevent a few years ago, the report said.

And it was also claimed at an inquest into the London Bridge terror attack that Prevent officers had 'no specific training' in handling terrorist offenders.
Agartala, Jan 21 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said that after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, the mental distance between the northeastern region and the national capital Delhi has been narrowed down and the central government has committed to all round development of the region.

Shah said that now in 8 states of the NE region, the BJP and the NDA allies are in power, corruption has been removed and the central funds are being properly utilised.

The Union Home Minister in his virtual speech from Delhi at the function in Agartala on the occasion of the 50th statehood day celebrations, said that to make Tripura a gateway, waterway connectivity is being done with Bangladesh besides railway links are being established with the neighbouring country and these would attract more investments to the northeastern region.

Referring to the settlement of the long pending Reang tribal immigrants in Tripura and signing of the peace accord with the militant outfit, Shah said that peace and ethnic harmony was ensured in the state.

Appreciating the BJP led government in Tripura, Shah said that the state government has unleashed a war against misuse of drugs.

He said that Tripura's per capita income has increased to Rs 1.30 lakh from Rs one lakh in three years.

Shah released a Vision Document - 'Lakshya 2047' - for making Tripura self reliant in all basic sectors in the next 25 years.

He said that during partition then king Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya was the first king who wanted to merge Tripura with the Indian Union.

On the request of the then regent Maharani Kanchan Prabha Devi, former Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel helped the erstwhile royal dynasty by providing the air force from Assam to fight against the British rulers.

Referring to the contributions of the then kings to the development of Tripura, Shah said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has renamed the Agartala airport after Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya.

He said that the Tripura kings helped the famous scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose for his scientific work and studies.

Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb highlighting the state's successes in the last four years after the BJP led government came to power said that the present state government was able to invest Rs 11,000 crore for highway development, which was only Rs 1200 crore during the Left Front regime.

"Over 1.25 lakh jobs in various sectors including 10,000 in government departments have been provided to the youths," the Chief Minister claimed.

Deb said the Tripura government would soon recruit 500 female constables in the police while a large number of women would be recruited in the Tripura State Rifles.

According to the Chief Minister involving over three lakh women the number of Women Self Help Groups has been increased to 26000 from 4000 in three years.

Crimes against women have substantially reduced and the conviction rate for various crimes improved three fold in three years, he said.

A postal stamp marking the 50th statehood day of Tripura was released on the occasion.
Srinagar, Jan 21 : A core group comprising top officials of civil administration, intelligence agencies and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir met on Friday at Badami Bagh Cantonment in Srinagar to review the security situation in the Valley, officials said.

The meeting was co-chaired by General Officer Commanding (GoC), Chinar Corps, Lt Gen D.P. Pandey, and Director General of Police, J&K, Dilbag Singh. The core group reviewed the intelligence inputs and security parameters of 2021.

"The year 2021 witnessed a reduction in terrorist infiltration, reduced terrorist incidents, reduced terror recruitment, increased operations based on HUMINT, reduced collateral damage, no civil casualties in law and order situation, reduced SF casualties, increased arrests of terrorists and bookings of OGWs -- all pointing to effective conduct of joint operations and activities by intelligence and security agencies," the Indian Army said.

"There has been increased neutralisation of Pakistani terrorists in last few weeks. The efforts of the frontline soldiers and operatives of all agencies were acknowledged by all present," it added.

The core group discussed fresh strategies of the terrorist organisations and their handlers, including the use of Hybrid terrorists and targeting of soft targets. Fifteen terrorists killed in 2021 were fresh names who were not on the security forces' radar.

"The setting up of SIA and the increased booking by NIA is showing impact of focused intelligence and investigation efforts. These efforts have been effective in targeting drug, hawala and the OGWs networks. Legal action on those wilfully harbouring terrorists has been increased as the harbourers have direct involvement in terror activities," the Army said.

The officials stated that the ceasefire has improved the security situation along the border, however, intelligence inputs of terrorist launch pads and training activities in Pakistan indicate the need to be alert along the Line of Control (LoC).

"On the Line of Control, late snow has kept the infiltration routes open for longer time. However, effective domination has ensured decrease in overall infiltration, including those from South of Pir Panjal. The vigil on the Line of Control against infiltration of men, drugs and weapons is continuing," the Army said.

"The officials shared the challenges of propaganda of the nexus through internet and social media. Sadly, these efforts include propaganda to legitimise the killings of Kashmiri civilians by the terrorists. The use of social media to spread disinformation is widespread and needs to be countered proactively by a joint effort. Efforts at synergy in exposing fake news, booking of radicals trying to foment unrest and proactive sharing of information by state agencies are being upgraded," it added.

The DGP and the Corps Commander commended the officials present on improved security indicators. They appreciated that post the abrogation of Article 370, certain benchmarks were set, which have been achieved successfully for the restoration of peace and prosperity in the region.

DGP Dilbag Singh stated that reduction in local terrorist recruitment is one parameter that all must approach with continued focus.

A special mention was made on the measures taken to minimise the collateral damage in operations despite the risk to the soldiers.

He recommended continued efforts to give chance of surrender to local terrorists to give them a second opportunity at living a fruitful life.

Corps Commander Lt Gen D.P. Pandey called upon all to treat 2022 as a transformative year where the common man used to zero civilian casualties in 2021 should see 2022 as the year when things turned for good for the long term.

He cautioned the trend of the terrorists to use urban areas with thick built-up area for operations as they provide more avenues to hide or escape and puts higher onus on security forces to exercise restraint to avoid collateral damage.

He expressed satisfaction at low security forces casualties in 2021 by better intelligence-based operations and improved tactical drills. He called for continued efforts along with the civil society to counter the separatist propaganda and break the cycle of violence for long-term peace in Kashmir.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Supreme Court on Friday set aside a National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission order, in a matter connected with wrong deposit and withdrawal, from an account at State Bank of India.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M. Trivedi said that calling for the report by the National Commission on its own from the officer of the bank was absolutely unwarranted. "Be that as it may, the impugned order passed by the National Commission solely relying upon the suo moto report called for from the respondent-bank during the pendency of the revision application, being highly erroneous, deserves to be set aside and is accordingly set aside. The order passed by the State Commission is restored," it said.

The matter is connected with the withdrawal of Rs 3 Lakh from petitioner Sunil Kumar Maity's account at State Bank of India. Maity found that the money, which was deposited through cheque, was withdrawn from the account. Later, it was found the bank had given him the account number of another person by name of Sunil Maity, which led to this goof-up. The bank refused to address Maity's grievance. He moved the district consumer forum, which allowed his complaint. The West Bengal State Commission noted the bank should have accepted its mistake, by crediting the cheque amount to the account of Sunil Maity, who had the account at the same branch.

The top court noted: "There was no way that the appellant would have known that the second respondent namely Sunil Maity had an account in the same branch. No sane person would deposit cash or cheque meant to be deposited in his account in an account number belonging to another person with similar name." It pointed out that the National Commission exceeded its revisional jurisdiction by calling for the report from the bank and made it the basis to conclude that the two fora below had erred in not undertaking the requisite in-depth appraisal of the case.

The top court said the report that tries to absolve the bank of its liability is based on surmises and conjectures, as it holds that bank has every reason to believe that wrong account number was intentionally inserted by the petitioner himself for reasons best known to him or on account of negligence by him by not keeping the passbook in proper custody. "The suppositions are contradictory as well as incredulous and fanciful," said the bench.

The National Commission, allowing a revision petition by the bank, said the complainant can move the competent civil court under the law.

The petitioner submitted before the top court that he did not know Sunil Maity, the second respondent, and would not have known his account number unless it was given by a bank officer.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : PTC India has said that it will hold a board meeting on Saturday post the recent allegations raised by three independent directors on lapses in governance and operations at its financial lending unit -- PTC India Financial Services.

Earlier this week, three of its subsidiary's independent directors had resigned from their posts-- Kamlesh Shivji Vikamsey, Thomas Mathew T., and Santosh B. Nayar -- citing some corporate governance issues.

PTC India Financial Services is registered with the RBI as a non-banking financial company (NBFC).

"The management of PTC India Ltd is committed towards corporate governance of the highest standard in its functioning as well as of its subsidiaries. The interests of stakeholders are of prime concern and the company would like to assure total transparency and ethical best practices," it said in a regulatory filing on Thursday post the resignation of the independent directors.

The issues raised by the three independent directors were related to the appointment of a wholetime director and on some operational issues pertaining to corporate governance, said Sushant Chaturvedi, who handles public policy, outreach and corporate communication at PTC India, during a virtual press conference on Friday.

An investigation into the matter would be conducted for which an internal committee has been formed, said Rajib K. Mishra, Director (Marketing and Business Development) and CMD (In-charge), PTC India.

The committee will submit its report within 30 days.

Post the news of the resignation of three independent directors, the shares of PTC India Financial Services declined around 18 per cent on Thursday. On Friday, it fell over 5 per cent and settled at Rs 19.8.

The shares of PTC India fell over 10 per cent over the past two sessions and settled at Rs 95 on Friday, down by over 5 per cent.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Union Health Ministry on Friday clarified that no data has leaked from its CoWIN portal, soon after reports emerged that personal data of thousands of Indians got leaked from a 'government server.

"It is clarified that no data has leaked from the Co-WIN portal and the entire data of residents is safe and secure on this digital platform," the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said that it will look into the substance of the reports, as prima facia it doesn't seem correct.

"It is also clarified that while the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will enquire into the substance of the news, prima facie the assertion is not correct, as Co-WIN collects neither the address of the person nor the RT-PCR test results for Covid-19 vaccination," said the ministry.

It also tweeted, "We are getting the matter examined. However, prima facie it appears that the alleged leak is not related to Co-WIN as we neither collect any information on address or the Covid-19 status of beneficiaries".

Earlier in the day, cyber security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia Rajaharia had said in a tweet, "PII including Name, MOB, PAN, Address etc of #Covid19 #RTPCR results & #Cowin data getting public through a Govt CDN. #Google indexed almost 9 Lac public/private #GovtDocuments in search engines. Patient's data is now listed on #DarkWeb. Need fast deindex." In another tweet, he said: "I am not reporting any #Vulnerability here. I am asking people to #Beware for any Fraud #calls/#offers/#treatment etc related to pre/post #Covid19. The data is already up for sale on a #DarkWeb Forum."

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Patna, Jan 21 : The pathetic situation of Bihar's health system surfaces time to time, with the latest such incident reported from Vaishali district where a man carried the dead body of his wife to hospital on his shoulder and took it back to his village for cremation the same way as the hospital did not provide an ambulance.

Krishna Kumar, a native of Ramdhauli village under Vidupur block in Vaishali, had brough his wife for treatment into the Hajipur Sadar hospital on Thursday. Shockingly, when he was walking with the body on his shoulder, neither the security guards nor any medical staff stopped him.

The doctors present in the emergency ward checked her and declared brought dead. Krishna Kumar then requested the hospital for an ambulance to carry the dead body back home.

"I have waited for an hour but none of the medical staff arranged the ambulance. As I did not have enough money, I took my wife's dead body on the shoulder and walked out from the hospital," he told local reporters in his native village.

When he was carrying the dead body on the shoulder, an onlooker captured the incident on mobile phone and uploaded it on social media.

However, Vaishali Civil Surgeon, Dr Pramod Kumar Singh told IANS that Krishna Kumar came with his wife for treatment and the medical officer present in the emergency ward examined her, and found she was already dead. "The doctor told Krishna Kumar to stay for some time until official formalities were completed. The medical officers of emergency went busy. Meanwhile, he took the dead body on the shoulder and ran away from the hospital." "We have given show cause notice to the guards present at the gate of the hospital," Singh said.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Delhi High Court on Friday ordered police to give protection to an inter-faith couple, who recently got married under the provisions of the Special Marriage Act, as the woman alleged that she has been detained at her parental home.

A division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani was hearing the habeas corpus petition filed by the newly-wed husband.

According to the plea filed by petitioner Danish Khan, the girl's parents are against the marriage because he is a practicing Muslim.

During the course of virtual hearing, the woman's father said he will not approve of the marriage as the bridegroom is belonging to another religion.

"We have interacted with the woman at length and she has expressed, before us, her desire to reunite with her husband. She has further confirmed that she married him in accordance with the provisions of the Special Marriage Act. She has further alleged that she has been detained against her will at her parental home. In view of the foregoing, the present habeas corpus petition is allowed, permitting her to reside with her husband if she is so inclined," the court said.

Further, the court directed the station house officer of the local police station to send the woman along with the husband to his home and also to provide adequate security to the couple.

"The SHO, Police Station Shakarpur, is further directed to provide adequate security to the newlyweds so as to ensure their safety in terms of the directions issued by the Supreme Court," it added.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : The Election Commission of India will hold a review meeting on Saturday with the Union Health Secretary, Chief Secretaries and Health Secretaries of the five poll-bound states to take stock of the Covid situation.

The five poll bound states -- Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur -- are expected to submit the current status of vaccination and Covid caseload in the virtual meeting, sources said.

The sources also said that the poll panel will review the Covid situation in the poll-bound states and accordingly decide about restrictions on campaign, rallies and road shows.

The meeting comes days after the Commission extended the ban on public rallies and road shows in the five poll-bound states by a week, from January 15 to January 22.

The Commission, however, has allowed political parties to hold indoor meetings with up to 300 people or 50 per cent of the venue's capacity.

On January 15, the EC had held virtual meetings with the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry and Chief Electoral Officers, Chief Secretaries and Health secretaries of the five poll-bound states. The three-member Commission held a "comprehensive review of present status and projected trends of Covid pandemic with special focus on the five poll-bound states," an EC statement had said.

The restrictions on rallies and road shows were first imposed by the Election Commission on January 8, when it announced the poll schedule for the Assembly elections in five states.

Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur will go to the polls between February 10 and March 7, while the counting of votes would be taken up on March 10.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New York, Jan 21 : External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Friday instructed Indian envoys to Canada and the US, Ajay Bisaria and Taranjit Singh Sandhu, "to urgently respond to the situation" where four Indian nationals including an infant have lost their lives at the US-Canada border.

Following his public tweet, both missions have responded on the microblogging site. "This is a grave tragedy. An Indian consular team is travelling today from @IndiainToronto to Manitoba to coordinate and help. We will work with Canadian authorities to investigate these disturbing events. @HCI_Ottawa," Bisaria tweeted.

"An unfortunate and tragic incident. We are in touch with US authorities on their ongoing investigation. AA consular team from @IndiainChicago is travelling today to Minnesota to coordinate and provide any assistance required," Sandhu tweeted.

In a statement Thursday without identifying the victims, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) stated that "on the morning of January 19, 2022, RCMP officers with the Integrated Border Enforcement Team received concerning information from their counterparts in the United States".

"Specifically, the information outlined that officers with the US Customs and Border Protection had apprehended a group of individuals who had crossed into the US from Canada, near the town of Emerson, Manitoba. Further, it indicated that one of the adults had items meant for an infant but that no infant was with the group." "Upon receiving this information at 9.23 a.m., a search was immediately launched on both sides of the border.

RCMP officers were already patrolling the area and the search began at 9.24 a.m. Extensive patrols were conducted and, at approximately 1.30 p.m, the bodies of three individuals were located on the Canadian side of the border, approximately 10km east of Emerson." RCMP identified the group as: an adult male, an adult female, and an infant.

"Fearing there may be additional victims, officers continued their search and located the body of an additional male, believed at this time to be in his mid-teens." "All victims were located approximately 12 metres from the US/Canada border." As speculation was rife that the group was being smuggled, The Toronto Star reported that a Florida man has been charged with human-smuggling as authorities investigate the deaths of four people, including a baby, who were found some 12 metres away from the Canada-US border in Manitoba.

"The discovery of the bodies marked a tragic ending to a case of irregular immigration that officials, it was revealed Thursday, believe is part of a larger human-smuggling operation from Canada to the US - in a part of the continent more accustomed to migrants travelling the other way," it said.

"The events began with a group of at least nine Indian nationals, all speaking Gujarati, being dropped off near Emerson, Man., on Tuesday night during a blizzard, according to court documents." "At this very early stage of the investigation, it appears that they all died due to exposure to the cold weather. Work is underway to identify the victims and an autopsy has been scheduled. The search for any possible survivors or additional victims continued throughout the evening of Wednesday, January 19, and RCMP officers continue to patrol the area today. To date, no other victims have been located." US authorities said border patrol officials stopped a 15-passenger rental van Wednesday driven by Steve Shand with two undocumented Indian nationals inside, less than a mile south of the border in a rural area between Lancaster, Minnesota, and Pembina, North Dakota. Shand and the Indian nationals were arrested.

Officials also intercepted another group of five Indian nationals nearby who were walking in the direction of where the van was located, according to the court documents.

"They appeared to be headed to an unstaffed gas plant located in St. Vincent, Minnesota. The five Indian nationals explained that they had walked across the border expecting to be picked up by someone. The group estimated they had been walking around for over 11 hours," the US District Attorney's Office in Minnesota said in a statement Thursday.

The RCMP said it will be conducting an investigation and is working in close collaboration with US Customs and Border Protection and the US Department of Homeland Security.

"All of our agencies are committed to a thorough and comprehensive investigation," the statement said.

(Nikhila Natarajan tweets @byniknat)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Amaravati, Jan 21 : The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet on Friday approved an agreement with IndiGo Airlines to operate flights from Kadapa and Kurnool airports.

The airline will operate four services a week starting from March 27, Information and Public Relations Minister Perni Venkatramaiah (Nani) told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

The Cabinet also gave a nod for the allocation of five acres of land in Tirupati to ace badminton player Kidambi Srikanth for setting up an academy. It also approved sanction of 50 acres of land to Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS) at Anakapalle under Acharya N.G. Ranga University.

The Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy also approved the government decision in calling for bids for handling the operational maintenance of Krishnapatnam power plant for 25 years to reduce the operational expenditure. The government also provided an option for the Genco employees working in the plant to return to Genco.

The Cabinet gave in-principle approval for the construction of 16 new medical colleges with an expenditure of Rs 7,880 crore and development of the existing medical colleges at a cost of Rs 3,820 crore. It also sanctioned eight additional director of medical education posts along with 78 posts in dispensaries under the Ayush Department.

The Cabinet gave its nod for the launch of EBC Nestam on January 25, where women aged between 45-60 years belonging to unreserved castes will be receiving Rs 15,000 per annum as financial aid. Towards this initiative, the government has identified 3.92 lakh beneficiaries and sanctioned Rs 589 crore.

It also approved a Rs 5,000 crore loan for AP State Civil Supplies Corporation to ease the payment for farmers against crop procurements without delay. The Minister said that the government targeted to procure 50 lakh metric tonnes of paddy, where so far 21.83 lakh metric tonnes have been procured and Rs 2,150 crore has been disbursed to farmers within 21 days.
Hyderabad, Jan 21 : Concerned over the rising Covid numbers, the University of Hyderabad (UoH) has advised its students to preferably return to the safety of their homes to minimise the risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

The UoH on Friday told the students staying in the hostels and other campus residences that "it will be in their best interest" to go home as all classes and examinations will be conducted online.

UoH has limited resources to isolate students infected by the virus.

The increase in the number of cases is causing stress on the student welfare and health-care systems available on the campus. UoH will not be able to accommodate infected students and staff beyond a point.

"Therefore, we appeal to them to return to the safety of their homes," Vice-Chancellor Prof BJ Rao said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the UoH Task Force has recommended that classes will continue online for all semesters. The end-semester evaluation will also be conducted in online/open book/take-home mode as was done during the second wave of Covid-19.

The UoH Health Centre is making self-testing kits available at the pharmacy. Stakeholders experiencing symptoms may purchase the kit for self-testing or get themselves tested at government or private testing centres.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Mumbai, Jan 21 : Maharashtra Covid-19 cases scaled a new high above 48,000 mark and Omicron infections also increased while deaths continued to remain in double-digits, health officials said here on Friday.

After the previous record high of 46,723 (January 12), the number of daily Covid infectees shot above the 48K level today, up from 46,197 on Thursday to 48,270 on Friday.

The fatalities also increased from 37 a day earlier to 52 on Friday, and the mortality rate fell from 1.92 percent to 1.91 per cent.

After notching a peak of 238 Omicron cases (January 14) the state infections of the variant went up, from 125 a day earlier to 144 on Friday.

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 304,746 travellers have landed here, including 47,701 from the "high risk" countries from where 574 have tested positive and another 666 from other countries, with all their reports sent for genomic sequencing to confirm if they are afflicted by Omicron.

Another stupendous 5,674 positive samples from field surveys conducted since November 1 have been sent for genomic sequencing with the results of 74 are awaited, the officials said.

Omicron has spread extensively across several districts in the state, and out of the 2,343 cases till date, 1,171 have recovered.

Pune district remains at the top with 1,169 cases of the variant, 688 in Mumbai, 134 in Thane, 116 in Nagpur, 59 in Sangli, 25 in Amravati, 20 each in Raigad and Aurangabad, 19 in Kolhapur, 15 in Satara, 11 each in Osmanabad and Akola, 7 in Palghar, 6 in Buldhana, 4 each in Nashik and Ahmednagar, 3 each in Nanded, Latur, Jalna, Parbhani and Gondiya, 2 each in Gadchiroli, Nandurbar and Jalgaon, and 1 each in Bhandara, Wardha and Beed, besides one from another state.

Of the 48,270 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, Mumbai Metropolitan Region showed a decline from 12,054 a day earlier to 10,493 infections, while Mumbai city also fell from 5,708 to 5,008 fresh cases.

The next is Pune Circle's 18,785 infectees, Nagpur Circle 6,506, Nashik Circle 5,181, Latur 2,169, Kolhapur Circle 1,951, Aurangabad Circle 1,743 and Akola Circle's 1,442.

The number of people sent to home quarantine declined sharply -- dropping from 24,21,501 on Thursday to 23,87,593 now, and another 3,357 have been shunted to institutional quarantine.

Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Raigad and Palghar remain at the top with the highest number of aactive cases' currently in the state, with the afflictions shooting up from 258,569 a day before to 264,388 on Friday, and the recovery rate again dropping 94.52 per cent to 94.47 per cent.

The state's cumulative figures of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 now stands at 74,20,027 cases and 142,023 deaths, while a total of 70,09,823 patients have fully recovered till Friday.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, Jan 21 : Determined to ensure children from his neighbourhood do not miss online classes, an IITian's almost 15-month struggle has paid off as his remote village in Himachal Pradesh has finally got 4G mobile connectivity thanks to a new tower in the new year.

It all started with the March 2020 lockdown.

Prior to March 2020, Ph.D scholar at IIT Bombay, Tejasvi Chauhan regularly faced problems of phone connectivity as he could not talk to his grandmother because his remote village in Himachal Pradesh had no phone connectivity. But the lockdown in that month brought him home and his problem became acute.

Chauhan could not attend his online classes. At the same time, he realised that children in his neighbourhood also had no access to online education. There were 1,000-odd students across age groups. In case of a medical emergency too, the area faced problems as there was no connectivity.

The village, which is 80 km from Shimla, had no direct road connectivity till last year. People needed a 20-minute trek to reach the Panchayat village that had a road.

The problem was not restricted to just his village, Baag under Jodna Gram Panchayat of Chopal block in Shimla district, but several villages under nearby Panchayats too.

Chauhan, who is pursuing PhD in hydrology and climate change at IIT Bombay, is also one of the Prime Minister's Research Fellows (PMRF). Announced in 2018-19, the PMRF scheme is designed for improving the quality of research in various higher educational institutions across India, including all the IITs, IISERs and IISc, Bengaluru.

He started reaching out to different people. The mobile service providers were reluctant to invest money into another tower as there was one very nearby, as shown on the map. "But what they failed to appreciate was that there was a range in between and this ridge was taller than the tower, so villages on our side never got proper signal," Chauhan told IANS on phone.

Installing a repeater was an option but BSNL and other private companies did not budge and getting it on their own would have been illegal.

One of the options was to have temporary connections as are provided during disaster management as mentioned in research papers by one of his teachers, Professor Rajkumar Pant. The latter, however, suggested Chauhan to look for permanent solutions instead. He also put the PhD scholar in touch with IIT alumni, Sagar Sharma, a scientist with a government agency.

Through Sharma, Chauhan reached out to the Ministry of Communications that has a Universal Service Obligation Fund exactly for erecting towers and getting better communication facilities to remote areas.

Chauhan then approached the Pradhan of his village and got an application signed from him. That was in August 2020. Then, he got it endorsed by the local MLA and finally went to local MP Suresh Kashyap. He took the matter up with the Ministry of Communications and the tower was finally sanctioned.

Then came the next set of challenges. Although the work for construction of this tower started in January 2021, logistic problems caused a lot of delay. "Sometimes, heavy snowfall in winters and frequent landslides in monsoon that broke road connectivity meant the material and equipment did not reach our village in time," the civil engineer from NIT Hamirpur said.

"Work completed only in December 2021 and now finally in the new year, my village has proper 4G connectivity," Chauhan said, glad that he could ensure connectivity for students to not miss their online classes.
New Delhi, Jan 21 : In an attempt to make inroads into the minority vote bank in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is trying to win the support of Muslim women.

The saffron party is reaching out to Muslim women who benefitted from the Narendra Modi's government welfare schemes along with decision to ban the practice of instant triple talaq.

Muslims constitute little less than 20 per cent of Uttar Pradesh's total population while other minorities form around 1 per cent of the state's population.

Muslims play a decisive role in many Assembly seats in the state. The BJP Minority Morcha has identified 40 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh having 60-70 per cent minority population and 100 Assembly seats having 30 per cent minority population in the state.

BJP Minority Morcha national media in-charge, Syed Yasir Jilani, told IANS that Muslim women who benefitted from the welfare schemes of the Modi government are coming out in support of the BJP and the Prime Minister.

"After seeing the overwhelming support of Muslim women for Prime Minister Modi, we have decided to reaching out to these women. We are preparing a list of Muslim women beneficiaries to reach out to the families seeking support for the BJP ahead of the Assembly polls," Jilani said.

Jilani, who is helping the local unit in Sambhal district along with other party leaders from the national capital, claimed that Muslim women are listing a series of government initiatives which have benefitted them.

"Muslim women are defying their male family members and supporting Prime Minister Modi and the BJP. They are saying that their family benefitted from PM Awas Yojna, PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, which provided free ration, Ujjwala Yojana and other beneficiary schemes of the Centre. These women are openly supporting Modi. They are also thanking the Prime Minister for banning instant triple talaq," Jilani claimed.

To convert the support of the Muslim women into votes, the BJP Minority Morcha is now planning to reach out to these women in small groups of four to five workers. The BJP workers will explain to these women the benefits of government schemes, initiated both by the Centre and the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh.

"We also explain how our political rivals are misleading them by creating a fear in the community about the BJP," he said.
Amaravati, Jan 21 : A youth has been arrested for threatening, on Twitter, to assassinate Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, police said on Friday.

The CID Cyber Crime wing arrested Rajapalem Phani, a native of Rajamahendravaram in Andhra Pradesh and working as a sales representative in Hyderabad.

SP, CID Cyber Crime, G. R. Radhika told reporters that they had registered a case based on a complaint against the accused.

The complaint was about a tweet by the accused on January 16. Using a fake Twitter handle Kannabhai, he made series of tweets abusing the Chief Minister. In one of the tweets, he threatened to become a human bomb to kill the Chief Minister.

Acting on a complaint by state Jagan Seva Dal Vice President Mylam Srikanth, Tirupati police on January 17 registered a case against unidentified person under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the IT Act.

The accused had subsequently deleted the tweet and deactivated the Twitter account. He also switched off his mobile phone. However, the police identified him with the help of IP address and took him into custody.

The accused told the police in his statement that he is a supporter of Jana Sena Party and fan of the party leader and actor Pawan Kalyan.

The police official said those making posts which are abusive and which may create law and order problems will face action as per law and new IT rules. She said people should be careful while posting anything on social media. "Don't think you can tweet or post something by creating a fake account and get away by deleting the post, deactivating the account and switching off mobile phone. The CID Cyber Crime wing has latest technology tools to trace you," she warned.
Patna, Jan 21 : Four armed men wearing face masks on Friday barged into a jewellery shop in Patna's Bakarganj market and looted gold, silver and diamond jewelleries worth more than Rs 1 crore.

Shocked by the broad daylight robbery, Vijay Prasad, the shop owner, had lost his consciousness for a while.

Patna has the oldest bullion market in Bakarganj having more than 50 shops of wholesale-cum-retail shops. The shop owners claimed that this was the first time such an incident took place in the market.

"The men, wearing face masks, posed as normal customers, came to the shop and took everyone at gunpoint. They asked the employees to put all the jewellery in the cotton bags. After executing the robbery, they ran away towards their bikes to flee from the spot," Vijay Prasad, the owner of SS Jewellers said after regaining consciousness.

"Following the robbery, my employees screamed for help. The other shop owners pelted stones and bricks on. One of the robbers was overpowered by shop owners and the local traders after he was hit by stones," said a trader of Bakarganj market, requesting anonymity.

"The police personnel came to the spot 45 minutes after the incident. We have handed over one of the thieves to the police. A cotton bag was also recovered from his having some jewellery," he said.

Following the incident, the shop owners shut their outlets and went on a strike for an "indefinite period".

They have demanded the arrest of the persons involved in the incident, along with the recovery of the stolen jewellery.

One of the traders claimed that even as of them made several calls to Patna SSP MS Dhillon, he did not respond.

A police officer said that one of the arrested robbers has provided some details about the hideouts of the other robbers.
New Delhi, Jan 22 : A Delhi court on Friday sought the response of the CBI on a bail application filed by an official of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), who was arrested by the probe agency in an alleged bribery case.

On December 31, 2021, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had arrested Bengaluru-based NHAI Regional Officer Akil Ahmad, and four others of a private company in a Rs 20 lakh bribery case.

According to the CBI, the case against the NHAI official and two contractors was lodged earlier in December last and they had arrested the official during raids.

Besides him, Dilip Buildcon Ltd's Executive Director Devendra Jain, General Manager Retnakaran Sajilal, official Sunil Kumar Verma as well as Anuj Gupta were also arrested.

Issuing notice to the CBI, Special CBI Judge Vinod Yadav posted the matter for further hearing on January 25.

Applicant's counsel Ashwath Sitaraman and Saaduzzaman argued that the entire allegation is conjectural as the applicant has no discretion as Regional Officer, to do any favour to Dilip Buildcon, or clear any bill. This was a newly-begun project, awarded by a committee of which applicant was not a part, they said.

They also said the arrest has been made without cause and without following the procedures of the law.

Highlighting the service record of the official, the counsel said that the CBI itself sought judicial custody after 9 days of police custody, and there is no requirement of continued custody especially in the time of the pandemic.

The CBI said that Ahmad had allegedly demanded illegal gratification from the General Manager of the private company to clear the project under Bengaluru-Chennai Expressway Package 1 and 2, executed by the company in Karnataka.

The agency got a tip-off and laid a trap to catch all the accused red-handed and Rs 20 lakh was recovered from a private person in Delhi, having been allegedly received on behalf of the NHAI official, they said.

It further stated that they conducted raids and carried out searches at the premises of the accused at several places in multiple cities -- Delhi, Bengaluru, Kochi, Gurugram and Bhopal, which led to the cash seizure of Rs 4 crore from the premises of private persons, and Rs 4 lakh from the NHAI official's premises.
New Delhi, Jan 22 : After its proposal to withdraw weekend curfew in the national capital was rejected by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, the Delhi government said on Friday that it is unfortunate that the LG has turned down the strong demand of traders and the business community.

"The LG has rejected the proposal of the elected government despite the fact that Corona cases are reducing at a very fast pace. When all markets of Gurugram and Noida are open, why should the business community of Delhi be made to suffer by the BJP-led Central government," the Delhi government said in a statement.

AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a press conference, "I met people from the Greater Kailash Market Association and they informed me that due to the odd-even arrangement for shops and the weekend curfew that is in place, they could only run their business for two days last week, which will be three days next week. Due to this, the shopkeepers are facing great troubles and it is becoming hard for them to even run their households." "The wages of the poor people working at these shops have also been deducted due to the decline in sales, causing them to struggle even more. Meanwhile, the BJP in Delhi is running a false campaign, plotting a conspiracy in which they are sending messages to Delhi's market associations that CM Arvind Kejriwal is disrupting Delhi's businesses," he added.

"The Lieutenant Governor is a representative from BJP's Central government and has deliberately forced Delhi to impose the weekend curfew and odd-even arrangement for shops. The Delhi Disaster Management Authority is chaired by the LG, in which the elected Delhi government can only present a proposal, and the final decision belongs to the LG.

"Today, all those politicians of the BJP have been exposed, as despite requests and proposals from the Delhi government, BJP's representative, the LG, neither removed the weekend curfew, nor the odd-even system of opening of shops," Bharadwaj concluded.
New Delhi, Jan 22 : Future Retail's independent directors have asked e-commerce giant Amazon if it is willing to fund Rs 3,500 crore to repay the retail company's lenders.

Notably, the question to Amazon was posted after the e-commerce giant in an earlier letter to independent directors objected to the sale of Future Retail Ltd (FRL)'s small-format stores.

"FRL is in need for cash infusion urgently in order to repay its lenders. FRL is required to pay its lenders Rs 3,500 crore by January 29, failing which it will be classified as an NPA," said the letter dated January 21.

"Since you are objecting to the sale of small-format sales, the proceeds of which were to be used to repay lenders and thereby avoid NPA classification, please confirm that you are willing to fund this amount by Monday through an unsecured, long-term loan, subordinated to FRL's existing lenders or any other mutually suitable and legally acceptable structure." Besides, the letter to e-commerce giant said, "If you do so, FRL will use such funds in order to repay FRL's existing lenders. Alternatively, you are also free to engage with the lenders so that we do not fall foul of our OTR process or obligations." Accordingly, the independent directors asked the e-commerce giant to provide the confirmations for such funds by January 22, 2022.

"Once you have provided these confirmations in writing and agree to infuse Rs 3,500 crore in order to repay FRL's lenders by January 29, 2022, we would be happy to assess a detailed proposal and meet Amazon India Head Abhijeet Muzumdar." Furthermore, the letter asked Amazon, "Coming to the specific aspects of your proposal -- we note that your letter refers to a potential transaction between Samara Capital and FRL as a 'solution'." "In this regard, you are requested to confirm if Amazon can act on behalf of Samara Capital and has the authority to negotiate and finalise such transaction on its behalf." It asked Amazon to confirm the structure for the proposed transaction, and that the Manager of Samara Capital is owned-and-controlled by resident Indians.

"As you know, FRL is in the multi-brand retail sector and FDI in this sector is restricted. You are also aware that Amazon's transaction in Future Coupons, has resulted in regulatory scrutiny, including by the Competition Commission of India, as well as enquiries by the Enforcement Directorate." "It is therefore critical that any investment being proposed is in compliance with all applicable laws, including FDI laws, CCI regulations and SEBI regulations, and that any such transaction should not raise further regulatory scrutiny." -IANS

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Geneva, Jan 22 : Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken described their 90-minute meeting in Geneva as "useful" but "no breakthroughs".

Lavrov on Friday said their discussion was "honest," and Blinken said it was "frank and substantive." "This was not negotiation, but a candid exchange of concerns and ideas," the US Secretary of State added at a press conference on Friday.

The Russian Foreign Minister added that the main purpose of Friday's talks was to discuss the drafts of two fundamental documents submitted by Russia in December 2021 on legally binding security guarantees, Xinhua news agency reported.

"In the end, we concluded with an agreement that written responses to all our proposals will be submitted to us next week," Lavrov said, adding that Russia will decide its next steps upon receipt of the responses.

"What we expect is concrete answers to our concrete proposals and in compliance with the obligations that were adopted at the highest level within the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe)," he said.

He added that in Moscow's opinion it is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) that is seeking to make Ukraine part of its zone of influence, and that Russia is not threatening the Ukrainian people or seeking to dominate its neighbour.

"What NATO is now doing toward Ukraine clearly shows that NATO sees Ukraine as part of its sphere of influence," Lavrov said.

Lavrov reiterated that Moscow has no plans to attack its neighbour Ukraine.

"Russia has never, at any time or at any place, ever threatened the Ukrainian people through its official representatives," he added.

At a separate press conference, the US Secretary of State said that the meeting with his Russian counterpart was part of an ongoing effort to de-escalate tensions.

"We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today. I believe we are now on a clear path in terms of understanding each other's concerns, each other's positions," he added.

"Our objective is to determine whether Russia is prepared to take a diplomatic path and other necessary steps to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine, and ultimately to resolve our differences through diplomacy and through dialogue," he said.

Blinken stressed that the US and its European allies and partners stand firmly with Ukraine in support of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Peace or conflict, he said, the US and its allies and partners in Europe "stand ready to meet Russia on either path". He confirmed that both sides consider it important for the diplomatic process to continue.

NATO, a military bloc led by the US, has opened its doors to former Warsaw Pact states and ex-Soviet republics since late 1990s, and is still seeking eastward enlargement towards Russia's neighbours, including Ukraine.
Cairo, Jan 22 : The spread of Covid-19 has prompted the Egyptian Health Ministry to tighten up health restrictions at airports, seaports and land crossings.

Starting Saturday, "Egyptian and foreign travellers to Egypt, except children below the age of 12, will be required to present certificates of coronavirus vaccination or negative results of coronavirus tests," the Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

A traveller has to bring a certification of having received a single-dose or two-dose vaccine at least 14 days before arrival, or the result of a test taken within 72 hours prior to the arrival, the statement added.

Egypt witnessed a recent surge in daily infections, with 1,403 new cases and 22 more deaths recorded nationwide by Thursday, pushing up the respective total to 405,393 and 22,260, Xinhua news agency reported.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
The $1,875,000.00 settlement was reached after less than a year of litigation. The plaintiff was injured while walking along a freshly painted sidewalk located outside a shopping plaza in Miami Dade County, Florida. He was 69 years old at the time. The plaintiff alleged that he suffered a mild traumatic brain injury and injured his neck, back, shoulder, and wrist because of the fall. He was transported from the scene by Fire Rescue to a nearby hospital and later treated for his injuries by a variety of healthcare providers.

The plaintiff alleged in the Complaint that the defendants' negligence was a direct cause of bodily injury, pain, suffering, disability, and physical impairment. The defendants alleged they were not liable, that the plaintiff was comparatively at fault, and that the condition was open and obvious. Court documents reflect that there was surveillance footage produced in litigation.

Case Details: Pending in the Circuit Court of the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida. Case No. 2020-014980-CA-11.

Vinas & DeLuca, PLLC proudly represent individuals and families in Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and throughout Florida who have suffered injuries or lost loved ones due to the negligence of others. More information can be found at: VDLegal.com | Slip & Fall | https://vdlegal.com/news-injury-lawyer-slip-fall.
Kirsch CPA Group, named one of Inside Accountings best public accounting firms in North America for seven consecutive years, is pleased to announce that Nick Roell has been made a partner of the firm, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year.

Nick Roell Has Helped Kirsch CPA Group Clients Find Winning Strategies for a Decade

Kirsch CPA Group, named one of Inside Accountings best public accounting firms in North America for seven consecutive years, is pleased to announce that Nick Roell has been made a partner of the firm, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year.

Roell, 32, a senior manager who joined the firm in 2013, provides strategic accounting and financial advisory services to the firms clients across Greater Cincinnati, Ohio, and Indiana.

A Strategic Thinker with Decades of Leadership Ahead

Founding partner John Kirsch described Roell as a gifted and conscientious accountant and business advisor whose ability to help clients identify both financial opportunities and blind spots has played a key role in the firms success over the past decade.

Over three decades, weve consciously steered our focus toward helping small and medium-sized entrepreneurs develop the strategies they need to grow their businesses. Nicks ability to zero in on the right approach has been proven over and over again, Kirsch said.

Partner Pete Abner agreed. Nicks ability to serve clients in a strategic way aligns with the focus that has always been a key differentiator of our firm, he said.

Roell earned a bachelors degree in accounting from Northern Kentucky University and an MBA from Mount St. Joseph University.

A Passion for Helping Entrepreneurs Achieve Their Goals

Roell said he found his fit at Kirsch early in his career, in part because his previous experience as a staff accountant at a branding and packaging company allowed him to see all facets of a single business from the inside, while also inspiring his desire for the variety that comes with advising and consulting for an array of different businesses.

The role I like to take with clients is to be part of their management team, Roell said, learning their goals and helping them manage their cash flow and business so they really understand what drives results.

I feel invested in our clients, he said. There isnt one client where it doesnt go through my mind, what can I do to make this business stronger? That is absolutely what drives my thinking.

About Kirsch CPA Group

Kirsch CPA Group provides the tax planning and preparation, accounting support, assurance, and financial advisory services that businesses and nonprofits need to grow profitably and increase return on mission. Kirsch serves business owners, managing directors and financial executives of organizations throughout Cincinnati, Dayton, southeast Indiana, and northern Kentucky. Clients of Kirsch CPA Group appreciate its forward thinking, holistic and results-oriented approach. Kirsch helps you look through the windshield instead of the rearview mirror, with innovative and strategic financial solutions that take your organization to the next level. More: https://kirschcpa.com
Allergy Amulet has been awarded a grant from the New Hampshire Center for Multiscale Modeling and Manufacturing of Biomaterials (NH BioMade), supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), to advance sensing capabilities for lactose detection in foods.

Together with Dr. Katherine Mirica and postdoctoral scholar Dr. Nataliia Vereshchuk at Dartmouth College, this one-year grant funds the expansion of Allergy Amulets current detection offerings, while exploring emerging complementary technologies. This joint effort harnesses the specificity and scalability of Allergy Amulets proprietary polymer films and detection platform, and the conductivity and porosity of a new metal-organic nanotechnology developed at Dartmouth.

Were thrilled to work with Dr. Mirica and her team to advance a new class of nanomaterials, while exploring synergies with our food sensors, said Dr. Lukasz Mendecki, Chief Technology Officer at Allergy Amulet.

Together, they seek to enhance detection capabilities of existing lactose sensors, while eliminating reliance on biological components like enzymes. We are delighted to partner with Allergy Amulet to pave the way for practical applications of our framework-based sensing technology, said Dr. Mirica.

In addition to developing the worlds smallest and fastest consumer food allergen detection sensor, Allergy Amulet is also the maker of the worlds smallest handheld and battery-powered potentiostat. Their technology is taking tests historically performed in labs, and putting them into consumer hands.

About Allergy Amulet

Allergy Amulet helps take the worry off your plate. As the worlds smallest and fastest consumer food allergen sensor, Allergy Amulet tests for common allergenic ingredients in seconds. Whether on a keychain, a necklace, a wristband, in a backpack, or in a pocket, Allergy Amulets sleek and portable design allows users to savor lifes important moments, safely and simply.

Learn more at http://www.allergyamulet.com.
Our customers sustainability demands and expectations are evolving, and Innowatts is investing in the talent, technology, and resources to meet their changing needs, said Jeff Wright, Chief Revenue Officer at Innowatts.

Innowatts, an industry-leading AI-enabled energy and data analytics SaaS provider, today announced being named a 2022 Global Cleantech 100 Company by Cleantech Group. The honor marks the third consecutive year that Innowatts has been recognized for its game-changing technology and commitment to decarbonization.

Being named to the Global Cleantech 100 list, not once but three times, speaks to our teams continued commitment to creating technologies that accelerate the energy transition and help companies reach their sustainability goals, said Siddhartha Sachdeva, Chief Executive Officer at Innowatts. This accomplishment validates our customer-centric approach and products. As our customers evolve and set new goals, we will continue innovating new products to serve them.

Selected from over 10,000 applicants, the 100 companies on the Global Cleantech list represent the private, independent, and for-profit companies best positioned to deliver solutions that will take us from commitments to actions in the sprint to net-zero. This years list included entries from 94 countries. The sectors covered include Agriculture & Food, Enabling Technologies, Energy & Power, Materials & Chemicals, Resources & Environment, and Transportation & Logistics.

Our customers sustainability demands and expectations are evolving, and Innowatts is investing in the talent, technology, and resources to meet their changing needs, said Jeff Wright, Chief Revenue Officer at Innowatts. Our platform accelerates the energy transition by leveraging insights from over 45 million meters globally and enabling users to analyze multiple data sets, gain a better understanding of their carbon footprint and intensity for each site, and facilitate more ambitious sustainability initiatives.

The list combines Cleantech Groups research data with qualitative insights from an 85-member expert panel of leading investors and executives active in technology and innovation scouting. From pioneers and veterans to new entrants, the Expert Panel broadly represents the global cleantech community, giving the Global Cleantech 100 the respect and support of many important players within the cleantech innovation ecosystem.

We have the science, ingenuity, and investment capital to propel a three-decade transformation to net-zero, said Richard Youngman, CEO, Cleantech Group. The 2022 Global Cleantech 100 companies underscore the attainability of this goal. Now, we need braver regulators, policymakers, and procurement departments to scale these solutions and bring down their cost curves as fast as possible.

In September 2020, an independent Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI) study found that Innowatts energy forecasting models consistently outperformed six other leading forecasting platforms. Today, Innowatts continues to innovate by leveraging their domain skills and market experience to create new energy and sustainability-related applications that serve a growing list of customers and industries. With the ability to provide insights at the meter, Innowatts can complement and facilitate the acceleration of sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.

In doing so, Innowatts is redefining how companies measure their carbon footprint and intensities at each site by applying AI/ML learnings from over 45 million meters globally. Innowatts scalable, highly secure, and market-leading SaaS platform delivers a seamless end-to-end solution that quickly ingests, processes, and analyzes large amounts of raw data gathered through many data sources (such as smart meters, weather trends, and other macro and social-economic data) to produce unmatched insights. This empowers Innowatts partners to meet and/or exceed current demands and make data-driven decisions, keep costs low, and deliver the sustainable and resilient energy their customers have come to expect.

Download Innowatts white paper today and discover how their AI-enabled SaaS platform can facilitate your sustainability goals in 2022 by accurately analyzing your carbon footprint and intensity at each site:https://www.innowatts.com/net-zero-whitepaper

About Cleantech Group

At Cleantech Group, we provide research, consulting and events to catalyze opportunities for sustainable growth powered by innovation. We bring clients access to the trends, companies and people shaping the future and the customized advice and support businesses need to engage external innovation.

Industries are undergoing definitive transitions toward a more digitized, de-carbonized and resource-efficient industrial future. At every stage from initial strategy to final deals, our services bring corporate change makers, investors, governments and stakeholders from across the ecosystem, the support they need to thrive in this fast-arriving and uncertain future. The company was established in 2002 and is headquartered in San Francisco with people based in London, Paris and Boston.

Media Contact:

Laura Dolby

Cleantech Group

Email: laura.dolby@cleantech.com

About Innowatts

About Innowatts: Innowatts is a leading energy SaaS platform that utilizes best-in-class artificial intelligence to help electricity providers unlock grid edge opportunities, increase customer value, and accelerate the energy transition by leveraging insights from more than 45 million meters globally. Outcomes enable users to analyze multiple data sets, gaining a better understanding of their carbon footprint and intensity for each site. The Innowatts platform delivers real-time, customer-centric energy analytics with unprecedented accuracy. With clients and operations across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, Innowatts is a global leader, enabling energy providers to become truly customer-focused and fully leverage the power of data to transform their businesses. For more information, please visit http://www.innowatts.com

Media Contact:

Jonnathan Zin Truong

Innowatts

E-mail: jonnathan.truong@innowatts.com
Pre-owned vehicles at American Car Center include recent model years

American Car Center offers low-mileage, high-quality used vehicles in Fort Myers, Florida. Drivers in the area who are looking for recent year model, pre-owned vehicles are encouraged to visit the dealership or view their inventory online at americancarcenter.com.

Make and models span across many car manufacturers, from American-made products like Ford and Chevrolet to foreign manufacturers like Toyota and Subaru. Drivers can find small city-commuters, spacious vans, and small SUVs at American Car Center. The one thing that all of its inventory has in common is that they are high-quality used vehicles, making for great values for any driver.

Models currently in stock include those from Hyundai, Chrysler, Kia, Ford, Mazda, Chevrolet, Toyota and Dodge. Current inventory range from 2014 to 2018 year-models

Drivers who are in or near Fort Myers, Florida, are encouraged to visit the dealership to find their next used vehicle. The dealership also provides great information on its website to help you find your next lease vehicle models that can be found at the dealership span across every car manufacturer, from American-made models like Ford or Chevrolet to Japanese models from Toyota or Subaru. The types of cars are various as well. Drivers can find small city-commuters, electric vehicles, spacious vans, heavy-duty trucks and many other types of vehicles at American Car Center. The one thing that all of its inventory has in common is that they are high-quality used vehicles. Many of the available options are low-mileage and nearly new, which makes for great value for any driver.

Models currently in stock include those from Hyundai, Chrysler, Kia, Ford, Mazda, Chevrolet, Toyota and Dodge. Model years of its current inventory range from 2014 to 2018.

Drivers who are in or near Fort Myers, Florida, are encouraged to visit the dealership to learn more about financing their next used vehicle. The dealership also provides information on its website about financing options.
Jo Anne Tressler has completed her new book The Angels on Our Doorstep: a heartwarming story of thirty years spent on a farm in Ohio as a couple opens up their home to souls they find in need.

Lifes journey takes us to places we may never have expected and teaches us to appreciate the small gifts we are given daily, shares Tressler. Those finding love and joy on their journey are truly fortunate. Those making the journey in the company of angels are blessed beyond measure. Angels appear in various ways in our lives. In Marc and Joelles experience, they tend to have four legs, a lot of fur, and beating inside them are enormous hearts full of love.

Published by Page Publishing, Jo Anne Tresslers incredible tale follows Marc and Joelle as they purchase a farm in Ohio and slowly begin to fill their home with rescue animals that find their way there. Before long, a family of four-legged friends is forged, and Marc and Joelle find fulfillment in their work. Each new angel that appears on their doorstep brings yet another lesson for the two to discover, and soon the two rescuers find themselves rescued by the love that is returned to them.

Readers who wish to experience this irreverent work can purchase The Angels on Our Doorstep at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Pages accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.
Phyllis Hogan, a native of Purvis, Mississippi, with a B.S. degree in social and rehabilitation services from the University of Southern Mississippi, has completed her new book The Beginning and End of John Jefferson High School: Preserving the History of Success Despite Segregation: a potent and irreverent look at the history of John Jefferson High School and the legacy of its students.

Battles fought for the education of African Americans have been documented in numerous publications, but in this book, the inside story of victory is told, Hogan writes. Centuries of struggles throughout American history on land, in blood, and in court have been described in scholarly works by Carter G. Woodson, Fredrick Douglas, Mary McLeod Bethune, John Hope Franklin, and many others noted in the bibliography. But this story of a small, segregated school in Purvis, Mississippiwhose graduates made major contributions throughout the nationwas on the verge of being lost. That is until a teacher assistant at Jefferson-Todd Alternative School was compelled to find the story and tell it."

Published by Page Publishing, Phyllis Hogans incredible book highlights the many facets of life at John Jefferson High School. Beginning with the schools inception, Hogan expertly crafts an eye-opening view of the school, taking readers on a journey that make them feel as if they too experienced what it was like to walk the halls of such an inspired establishment.

Readers who wish to experience this mesmerizing work can purchase The Beginning and End of John Jefferson High School: Preserving the History of Success Despite Segregation at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Pages accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.
BDV Solutions, a tech-enabled, turnkey provider of employment-based immigration services to foreign nationals and employers whose solutions help resolve labor shortages across the United States, today announced that its COO and general counsel Chris Richardson has been named as one of the 50 Most Influential people in Greenville by Greenville Business Magazine. Each year Greenville Business Magazine honors the regions most influential people.

Richardson, an immigration attorney, consultant and former U.S. diplomat, helps lead the BDV Solutions team in providing its legal immigration solutions, working to resolve labor shortages in industries across the United States. He is also the founder of Argo, LLC, a consulting firm of former U.S. diplomats. Richardson also manages his immigration practice, Cooper Richardson, PA. He serves on the Board of Upstate Forever, the Hispanic Alliance, and The Nature Conservancy.

Im extremely proud of the work we do at BDV Solutions helping immigrants on their path to citizenship while helping US companies staff their businesses in a particularly tight labor market, noted Richardson. Im flattered and honored to be recognized by Greenville Business Journal for work that is so gratifying.

As a U.S. diplomat, Richardson served in Nigeria, Nicaragua, Pakistan, and Spain. He won numerous State Department awards including Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards. In addition, he has also chaired Pete Buttigiegs immigration policy and worked on immigration policy for the Biden campaign.

Richardson has been featured in several national consumer and news publications, including Slate Magazine, Reuters, All Things Considered and the Atlanta Constitution Journal. He has also been interviewed by MSNBC, CNN and CBS. Richardson has written several well-received opinion columns about immigration policy under Presidents Trump and Obama in such newspapers like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.

A graduate of the Duke University of Law and Emory University, Richardson is also the co-author of the "Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement."

About BDV Solutions

Headquartered in Greenville, SC, BDV is the largest independent company in the U.S. that specializes in closing the countrys chronic and growing, unskilled labor gap utilizing the EB-3 visa program. They are uniquely positioned to assist U.S. companies and foreign nationals navigate the complex U.S. immigration system. More information can be found at http://www.bdvsolutions.com.

Contact:

Jay Roberts, SRPR

jay@shevrushpr.com
Relationships matter!

Cadence McShane Construction Company celebrated the groundbreaking of Goodwin Apartments on January 20th. The firm has been selected by repeat client, Sabot Development, as the general contractor for this mixed-use development. Team members from Cadence McShane and Sabot Development gathered together to celebrate this exciting project that is expected to be completed in early 2024. Located in Austin, the mixed-use development will incorporate 364 residential units with 5,000 square feet of commercial space.

Sabot Development is an Austin-based real estate firm managed by Jim Young, CCIM. Young has participated in the development of over 100 projects ranging from net-leased, single-tenant retail centers to large multi-family developments. Young is a San Antonio native and Army Veteran.

Relationships matter! said Jim Young, Manager of Sabot Development at the groundbreaking. Thank you to the entire Cadence McShane team for years of work, to make today a reality.

Designed by The Davies Collaborative, the new development will be located on the 3.7-acre site of the existing Goodwin Apartment Homes. Sabot worked to re-zone the site to allow for the new commercial space and permanent affordability. Ten percent of the units will be affordable, with leasing priority given to current residents.

Jim and his team have worked diligently to make this project a possibility and ensure that it will benefit the community and its residents, commented Srinath Pai Kasturi, Cadence McShanes Executive Vice President. Were excited to be able to take the next step with Sabot and turn their vision into a reality.

Cadence McShane has been building multifamily projects since 1986 and was recently recognized in conjunction with its sister company, McShane Construction Company, as the seventh largest multifamily builder in the nation by the National Multifamily Housing Council. Over the past five years, the companies have constructed more than 15,500 multifamily units.


Were excited to bring back one of our favorite coffees. Pouring a cup of coffee is about more than just enjoying a delicious drink. Its about focusing on the good the coffee can create. Ethiopian Kossa Kebena exemplifies this Focus on Good. - Founder and President Greg Ubert.

Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea is now roasting a new crop of its multi-award-winning Ethiopian Kossa Kebena coffee.

This organic craft coffee won 2020 and 2017 Good Food Awards and has taken home several medals at Golden Bean North America, the worlds biggest coffee roasting competition.

Were excited to bring back one of our favorite coffees, said Founder and President Greg Ubert. Ethiopian Kossa Kebena exemplifies our Focus on Good.

Pouring a cup of coffee is about more than just enjoying a delicious drink. Its about focusing on the good the coffee can create, he explained. From empowering our people to do their best, to supporting our farmers and their coffee growing communities around the world, we focus on initiatives that make lives better.

Ohio coffee lovers can enjoy Ethiopian Kossa Kebena at the roasters Crimson retail flagship and its Crimson Cup Coffee Shops in Clintonville, Upper Arlington, Tallmadge and West Chester, Ohio.

Order 12-ounce bags of whole-bean coffee for home delivery on Amazon and the Crimson and Crimson Cup websites for $17.50.

The coffee also is available at select independent coffee shops in 30 states supported by Crimson Cups 7 Steps to Success coffee shop startup program.

To produce this award-winning coffee, farmers in Ethiopias Limmu region grow heirloom variety coffee trees at an altitude of 5,000 to 6,200 feet. A member of the Kossa Geshe co-op, the 1,000-hectare farm was established in 2009 to safeguard part of the countrys remaining dense forest.

Sustainability Director Brandon Bir has worked with the farm since 2016 through Crimson Cups Friend2Farmer initiatives, which support environmental, economic and social efforts to sustain crops and communities.

Its a pleasure to keep working with Abdulhi Sherif, owner and manager of Ketim Plc., and his farmers! Bir said. Their organic growing methods produce a standout crop year after year.

Abdul continues to push the boundaries of coffee production in this region, experimenting with processing and cultivation, all for the sake of producing some of Ethiopias finest coffee.

After harvest, the coffee is dry processed on raised beds, then given a light roast by Crimson Cup. The result is an exceptional cup with a syrupy body and tasting notes of bright fruit and sweet berries.

Crimson Cup sold out its supply of the previous Kossa Kebena crop after BrewDog incorporated the outstanding craft coffee in its limited-edition Triple Ripple nonalcoholic stout.

About Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea

Columbus, Ohio coffee roaster Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea is celebrating 30 years of Coffee + Community. Since May 1991, Crimson Cup has roasted sustainably sourced craft coffee for consumers and wholesale coffee customers. It is a 2020 Good Food Award winner, 2019 Golden Bean Champion for Small Franchise/Chain Roaster and Roast magazines 2016 Macro Roaster of the Year.

Through its 7 Steps to Success coffee shop startup program, the company teaches entrepreneurs to run independent coffee houses in their local communities. By developing a coffee shop business plan, entrepreneurs gain insight into how much it costs to open a coffee shop.

Crimson Cup also supports life-enriching projects through its Friend2Farmer initiatives, promoting the education, health, sustainability and economic growth of small-plot coffee farmers and their communities.

Crimson Cup coffee is available through over 350 independent coffee houses, grocers, college and universities, restaurants and food service operations across 30 states, Guam and Bangladesh. The company also operates several Crimson Cup Coffee Houses and a new Crimson retail flagship store. To learn more, visit crimsoncup.com, or follow the company on Facebook and Instagram.
There is an insatiable demand for healthcare workers in our region and nation now more than ever; and our graduates will lead the way in caring for communities both locally and nationally."

Dr. Shelly Powers has been named Northern Virginia Community Colleges new Medical Education Campus Provost. Powers has more than 30 years of combined experience in the medical sciences and higher education.

She most recently served as NOVAs academic dean for health sciences. Prior to joining NOVA three years ago, she held faculty and academic administrative roles at Howard University, where she served as assistant professor, senior academic director, and chair of the Physician Assistant Program; and at Anne Arundel Community College, where she served as interim program director for the Physician Assistant Program. As a Howard faculty member, she was active on Faculty Senate, including service on the Budget and Grievance Committees; and she was honored by Howards College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences for Excellence in Leadership.

Dr. Powers is an outstanding leader, and I am looking forward to working with her as we grow the impactful health sciences programming here at the Medical Education Campus, said Anne M. Kress, president of NOVA. Together, we will offer more students the opportunity to find success through in-demand healthcare jobs, expand our health certificate and short-term workforce training programs and ultimately, train more people to save lives in Northern Virginia.

Powers also brings significant clinical experience to her new role. She has served as the clinical director of palliative care at Aspire Health (Baltimore, Md.), executive director of D.C.s Area Health Education Center and as an OB-GYN physician assistant (PA) at Providence Hospital (D.C.). In addition, Dr. Powers has been the principal investigator on over $3M of Department of Health and Human Services federal grants related to increasing access for under-represented students to healthcare pathways.

She has an exemplary track record of leading health sciences programs and leading students to success and of recruiting and supporting faculty in these complex disciplines. As Provost, Dr. Powers will build upon her experience at the MEC and her relationships with our regional healthcare partners as the campus plans its $25M expansion and as demand for healthcare workers continues to grow.

I am honored to assume the role of provost for NOVAs Medical Education Campus during this pivotal time, Powers said. There is an insatiable demand for healthcare workers in our region and nation now more than ever; and our graduates will lead the way in caring for communities both locally and nationally. Additionally, I am pleased to lead as the MEC grows exponentially through this massive expansion, which will allow us to train more healthcare workers and to care for even more people in need.

Her commitment to community outreach and engagement models the MECs original vision and sets a strong course for its future.

Powers holds a Doctor of Medical Science from the University of Lynchburg, a Master of Administrative Management from Bowie State University and a Bachelor of Science in Physician Assistant from Howard University.

For questions regarding this announcement and all other media inquiries, please contact Hoang Nguyen, public information officer at hdnguyen@nvcc.edu.

###

Northern Virginia Community College is the largest public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth of Virginia and one of America's largest community colleges. NOVA enrolls more than 75,000 students at its six campuses in Alexandria, Annandale, Loudoun, Manassas, Springfield and Woodbridge, and through NOVA Online. For more information about NOVA and its programs or services, call 703-323-3000 or visit the College's Web site, http://www.nvcc.edu.
John Carpenter, a professional firearms instructor and retired sales professional who has lived and worked on five continents and now resides in Arizona with his family, has completed his new book For Those I Love I Will Do Horrible Things: a gripping and potent work that keeps the pages turning until its dramatic conclusion.

TI has lived a successful life and is enjoying time with his wife and family when evil touches his life, and the police are unable to assist, he is forced to unleash the creature that dwells within. He opens the cage that restrains the violent skills he perfected behind enemy lines, skills the US military taught him and used to eliminate its enemies. Together with trusted and new friends, he takes matters into his own hands to satisfy justice. This is a fast-paced story that races across North and South America, finalizing in a showdown that reaches across the globe. Based on real-life situations thatll grab you by the throat and will not let you go until the end.

Published by Page Publishing, John Carpenters engrossing book is a superb choice for avid military and crime fiction readers.

Readers who wish to experience this engaging work can purchase For Those I Love I Will Do Horrible Things at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing understands that authors should be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Pages accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.
Kenall's EnviroPro IN9 Luminaire for Natatoriums, Swimming Pools We saw a need for a stainless steel natatorium luminaire which could resist both galvanic and chemical corrosion.

Kenall is starting the New Year with a new product offering built specifically to mitigate the challenges of one of lightings most demanding environments -- natatoriums. Drawing on decades of experience in the tunnel lighting market, Kenalls new Ingress Protection rated (IP66) EnviroPro IN9 series luminaires are a long-lasting lighting solution for caustic environments, including those containing chlorine and salt.

Lynn Walldorf, Kenalls Product Marketing Manager, said development of the luminaire series is in response to customer inquiry: Kenall is known for robust, stainless steel tunnel luminaires. We saw a need for a stainless steel natatorium luminaire which could resist both galvanic and chemical corrosion. The EnviroPro IN9 series provides this durability in a sleek design with 3 housing options. Field adjustability and multiple optical distribution options help minimize glare while directing the light exactly where it's needed.

Kenall warranties the EnviroPro IN9 luminaire series: depending on the material selected, housings are guaranteed for up to 15 years. The luminaires also comply with the Buy American Act, so there are no expensive delays waiting for lighting to arrive from an overseas supplier.

About Kenall

Kenall Manufacturing, a Legrand company, was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1963 and has built a reputation for durable lighting solutions of superior quality and exceptional value. Today, the company creates unique solutions for the healthcare, cleanroom/containment, food processing, transportation, high abuse, and correctional lighting markets. Kenall luminaires are designed and assembled in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and comply with the Buy American Act (manufactured in the United States with more than 50% of the component cost of US origin).
Necol Keenan, Founder of Luminescent Real Estate Were determined to be the agents you cant help but call friends and the people you never hesitate to call, even years after the sale.

Luminescent Real Estate today announced its partnership with Side, the only real estate technology company that exclusively partners with high-performing agents, teams, and independent brokerages to transform them into market-leading boutique brands and businesses. The collaboration will ensure that Luminescent Real Estate, a firm committed to customer-centered real estate, is powered by the industry's most advanced platform.

Luminescent Real Estate founder Necol Keenan is a Southern California native who understands the nuances of the area, and her fresh marketing ideas and high-level negotiating skills have helped her become a top-producing agent in the region. Keenan is a residential sales specialist who also has extensive experience guiding first-time home buyers and those looking for a larger home or downsizing.

Luminescent Real Estate is a team of values-driven professionals who work with kindness and strive to do better. At Luminescent, Keenan is joined by members of her former team, the Necol Keenan Group, who closed $20 million in transactions in 2020 and receive an average of 5% over the list price when selling homes. The company serves buyers and sellers in the Temecula, Murrieta, Orange County, San Marcos, Oceanside, and Carlsbad areas.

Doing right by people is in our bones  we never compromise, no matter the cost, said Keenan. Were determined to be the agents you cant help but call friends and the people you never hesitate to call, even years after the sale.

Partnering with Side will ensure Luminescent Real Estate remains on the cutting edge of the evolving real estate market while continuing to deliver premium services to its clients. Side works behind the scenes, supporting Luminescent Real Estate with a one-of-a-kind brokerage platform that includes proprietary technology, transaction management, branding and marketing services, public relations, legal support, lead generation, vendor management, infrastructure solutions, and more. Additionally, Luminescent Real Estate will join an exclusive group of Side partners, tapping into an expansive network from coast to coast.

At Luminescent, we take a personal approach to real estate, added Keenan. Working with Side allows us to access state-of-the-art marketing, technology, administrative, and legal services, which means we can focus on providing the highest level of customer service and delivering clients a positive real estate experience.

About Luminescent Real Estate

Luminescent Real Estate is a customer-focused real estate company that uses local expertise, innovative marketing ideas, and personalized plans to help people navigate the Southern California real estate market. Its team members are committed to achieving their clients real estate goals while providing a stress-free experience. For more information, visit http://www.luminescentrealestateca.com.

About Side

Side transforms high-performing agents, teams, and independent brokerages into successful businesses and boutique brands that are 100% agent-owned. Side exclusively partners with the best agents, empowering them with proprietary technology and a premier support team so they can be more productive, grow their business, and focus on serving their clients. Side is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, visit http://www.sideinc.com.
Network Health

The National Business Research Institute (NBRI) is pleased to welcome Network Health to the NBRI Circle of Excellence. The NBRI Circle of Excellence Award recognizes organizations with high levels of Employee Experience (EX). To qualify for this honor, the organization must score at or above Stretch Performance which is at the 75th percentile of their industry, or the organization must improve a statistically significant 5 or more percentiles at the Total Company level. It is no small feat to move an entire Companys EX score 5 or more percentiles, or to reach Stretch (75th) or Best in Class (90th) Performance levels within six to twelve months.

Network Health is benchmarked against their industry, defined as NAICS Code 524114 - Direct Health and Medical Insurance Carriers from within NBRIs Big Data of 10.5 billion responses. Benchmarked against millions of industry scores, Network Health is performing at the 78th percentile of their industry, achieving Stretch Performance. Best in Class organizations like Network Health continually assess EX, and target for improvement the variables that drive EX, including job satisfaction, management style, culture, and fairness.

Network Health demonstrates their dedication to their employees by continuously researching with Best in Class Provider NBRI and taking targeted action based upon the scientific data. From the pure psychological research to the hard, valid data, Network Health can have high levels of confidence in their targeted responses which have proven to be highly effective. NBRI commends the leadership of Network Health for their commitment to the Continuous Improvement Process and recognizes their achievements with the Circle of Excellence Award.

Employee Experience drives Financial Performance, says Dr. Jan G. West, Ph.D., CEO & Organizational Psychologist at NBRI. This award is a direct result of Network Healths dedication to measuring and improving their Employee Experience.

About NBRI

NBRI conducts psychological Employee, Customer, and Market Research for businesses, and uses this data to help organizations leverage these human factors to make improvements to operations and strategy. With its extensive experience across all industries, NBRIs research teams bring their clients a combination of deep industry knowledge and expert advice. NBRIs mission is to help their Clients set new standards of excellence in their industries. NBRI product offerings, such as Benchmarking and deep, inferential analyses like Random Forest with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, ensures their clients will focus on the most impactful issues.

National Business Research Institute, Inc.

2701 Dallas Parkway; Suite 650

Plano, TX, 75093

972-612-5070

1-800-756-6168

http://www.nbrii.com

About Network Health

Founded in 1982, Network Health offers customized commercial and Medicare health insurance services to employers, individuals and families in more than 23 counties throughout Wisconsin. Through its strong reputation for quality health care coverage and superior customer service, Network Health has grown to serve more than 111,000 members. Network Health has a 5 out of 5 Star Rating for Medicare Advantage PPO plans from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, outperforming the national average of 4.5 Stars. Every year, Medicare evaluates plans based on a 5-star rating system. Network Health also has a 4.5 out of 5 rating for both Medicare and commercial products for 2021-2022 from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). Network Health is one of only four health plans in Wisconsin receiving this NCQA score for Medicare and commercial plans, and no other plans in Wisconsin are rated higher. Network Health is ranked in the top 32 commercial plans and top 25 Medicare plans, and was also named one of the Best Medicare Advantage plans for 2022 by U.S. News & World Report. Learn more at networkhealth.com. Visit our blog at networkhealth.com/grow-in-the-know/.

Contact:

Jessica Fischer, Network Health

Phone: +1 920-720-1278

Email: jesfisch@networkhealth.com

Contact:

Amy Merwald, Network Health

Phone: +1 920-628-7021

Email: amerwald@networkhealth.com
"This merger is formed out of a true friendship and admiration for each others personnel and practices, said Ron Greenblatt. The decision to merge was simple. Our combined firm consists of highly regarded lawyers, practicing in a cost-efficient way. Its a win for our clients in so many ways."

Two highly regarded law firms, Weir & Partners LLP (W&P) and Greenblatt Pierce Funt & Flores LLC (GPFF), are delighted to announce their merger effective today, as GPFF merges into W&P. The renamed firm, Weir Greenblatt Pierce LLP, will include distinguished attorneys, well-respected for their representation of businesses and individuals.

W&P has long been known for its superior representation of corporate, banking and business clients, while GPFF is hailed as one of the top individual rights law firms in the region, representing clients in criminal, employment, family, personal injury, and civil rights matters. The merger comes at a time of great financial success and stability for both firms.

This merger is formed out of a true friendship and admiration for each others personnel and practices, said Ron Greenblatt. The decision to merge was simple. Our combined firm consists of highly regarded lawyers, practicing in a cost-efficient way. Its a win for our clients in so many ways.

According to Administrative Managing Partner, Brett A. Datto, The level of experience and insight our clients will gain from having access to both of the firms lawyers is incalculable. The two firms have worked together on multiple matters over the years and have always been impressed by the quality of the work and character of the lawyers at both firms. Walter Weir and Patricia Pierce have been friends for over 40 years, since they worked together at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Cross-referrals have always been common between firms. Weir explained, We respect and admire each other. We are referring work to one another, so we decided to practice together and give our clients everything they have asked us for in the past: top business and individual rights lawyers in one firm.

There will be no staffing changes; all current lawyers and staff of both firms will be part of the newly named firm. Walter Weir will serve as the Managing Partner with Brett Datto as the Administrative Managing Partner, while Ron Greenblatt and Patricia Pierce will join the Firms Executive Committee. The new firm will have 36 lawyers and 17 staff.

Weir Greenblatt Pierce LLP is a full-service law firm providing sophisticated representation to businesses and individuals in such areas as Banking & Finance, Bankruptcy, Civil Rights, Complex Commercial Litigation, Corporate Restructuring & Creditors Rights, Criminal Defense, Employment, Family, Personal Injury, and Real Estate Transactions. For more information, please see wgpllp.com.
As the world has changed, weve pioneered a host of new programs over the past year, always guided by our core values and commitment to a meaningful workplace culture, said Kevin J. Keane, Executive Chairman at PKF OConnor Davies.

PKF OConnor Davies, LLP, one of the nations largest accounting, tax and advisory firms, is proud to announce that it has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Westchester by Westchester Magazine and 914INC. The new regional survey and awards program identifies, recognizes and honors those employers with operations in Westchester County, New York, that are taking meaningful steps to foster an encouraging, emboldening and employee-centric work environment. This recognition is the latest in a series of regional, national and industry accolades touting the Firms cutting-edge workplace practices, and especially reflects the Firms ongoing focus on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I).

As the world has changed, weve pioneered a host of new programs over the past year, always guided by our core values and commitment to a meaningful workplace culture, said Kevin J. Keane, Executive Chairman at PKF OConnor Davies. To be recognized as a top workplace in our community speaks volumes about our teams ability to remain united and find new levels of partnership and collaboration while navigating evolving ways of working.

The Firms recognition is due in large part to its work cultivating a diverse, supportive and welcoming workforce. The Firm maintains a dedicated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) Committee and remains committed to promoting a diverse talent pipeline. The Firms campus recruiting program regularly partners with various multicultural professional organizations, including Ascend, the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) and the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA). Separate from its DE&I work, the Firm offers team members a competitive package of financial and personal benefits encompassing flexible hours, professional development opportunities, paid parental leave and a profit-sharing plan. The Firm employs over 200 Westchester-based employees, all of whom are based out of the Firms Harrison office.

This honor is a testament to our entire teams ability to keep employees top of mind and positioned for success as we evolve our workplace practices and procedures, said Dawn V. Perri, Chief Human Resources Officer at PKF OConnor Davies. As we look to the year ahead, were not losing sight of that commitment to support our team and their vital work for our clients.

PKF OConnor Davies continues to expand through organic growth and acquisitions on the East Coast. It has supported this growth with a strategic combination of promoting from within coupled with an ongoing focus on top-tier external hires.

About PKF OConnor Davies, LLP

PKF OConnor Davies, LLP is a full-service certified public accounting and advisory firm with a long history of serving clients both domestically and internationally. With roots tracing to 1891, the Firm has 16 offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Florida and Rhode Island and more than 1,200 professionals providing a complete range of accounting, auditing, tax and management advisory services. PKF OConnor Davies is led by over 135 partners who are closely involved in the day-to-day management of engagements, ensuring a high degree of client service and cost effectiveness.

The Firm is a top-ranked firm, according to Accounting Todays 2021 Top 100 Firms list and was recently recognized as one of Americas Best Tax and Accounting Firms by Forbes. PKF O'Connor Davies was named one of Vault's 2022 Accounting 50, a ranking of the 50 best accounting employers to work for in North America and ranked among the top 50 most prestigious accounting firms in America in a complementary Vault survey.

PKF OConnor Davies is the lead North American representative of the international association of PKF member firms. PKF International is a network of legally independent member firms providing accounting, tax and business advisory services in over 400 locations in 150 countries around the world. With its tradition, experience and focus on the future, PKF OConnor Davies is ready to help clients meet todays ever-changing economic conditions and manage the growing complexities of the regulatory environment. For more information, visit http://www.PKFOD.com.
Florilla: A Pinelands Romance Buchan leads us along an exquisitely described walk through time in the New Jersey Pinelandsa special treat for those who know and love the area and an adventure for those just getting to know it.

Plexus Publishing, Inc., the independent publisher of The New York Times bestseller Boardwalk Empire, announced the publication of Perdita Buchans latest novel, Florilla: A Pinelands Romance.

Granddaughter of The Pinelands Witch, daughter of the self-styled Wizard of the Pines, and with powers of her own, eleven-year-old Florilla Munion finds herself abandoned deep in the New Jersey Pinelands. Rescued by the itinerant Dr. Peace, she is taken to Benderville, a model mill town in the heart of the Pines owned by the doctors old friend, the eccentric, progressive Benjamin Bender. Benjamin Bender takes Florilla in, and she becomes his pupil when he discovers her talent for his beloved Latin and Greek.

Florillas stay in Benderville is only the beginning of her journey. Her abusive father, Jack Munion, is a constant threat. He knows Florilla has abilities that would be an asset to his traveling act. As Florilla nears her eighteenth birthday, Benjamin Bender, afraid he can no longer keep the magician at bay, tries to marry her off.

Devastated by this betrayal, Florilla runs away. While on the run, she comes across Colin Drysdale, a young English botanist who has injured his leg. She bandages his wound and takes him back to his home on the edge of the Pines. She falls in love with Colin, but Florillas happiness is disrupted when her father kidnaps her. Although she is separated from Colin by time and distance, they continue to search for each other. Not just a love story, Florilla exposes the diverse and sometimes conflicting lifestyles that competed to survive in nineteenth-century America.

Florilla has something for everyone: romance, adventure, magic, and history, said Jane Gorman, author of Scones and Scofflaws: Cape May Cozy Mysteries With a Twist. Buchan leads us along an exquisitely described walk through time in the New Jersey Pinelandsa special treat for those who know and love the area and an adventure for those just getting to know it.

Buchan takes us on a splendid ride, remembering the history and celebrating the mystery of our beloved Jersey Pines. The tale is heartfelt and compelling, and its overall effect is nothing less than magical!

John Calu, co-author, with Dave Hart,

of Trenton and Adventures Along the Jersey Shore

In Florilla, a brave and independent heroine travels an unexpected path to love. Buchan ties the specific concerns of life in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey to the broader issues of the mid-1800s.  It is a tale that is alternately heartbreaking and delightful.

 Jane Kelly, author of the Meg Daniels Mysteries

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Perdita Buchan was born in England and came to America as a child. She grew up in Philadelphia and has since lived and worked in New York, London, and Florence, Italy, and she now lives in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. She is the author of three previous novels, including Called Away, and The Carousel Carver, winner of the 2020 Independent Publisher National Book Awards, Mid-Atlantic (Best Regional Fiction). Her nonfiction book, Utopia, New Jersey: Travels in the Nearest Eden, was a 2008 New Jersey Council for Humanities Honor Book. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Ladies Home Journal, Fiction Network, House Beautiful, The New York Times, and The Christian Science Monitor, among other publications.

Florilla: A Pinelands Romance (143pp/hardcover/$16.95/ISBN 978-1-940091-08-2, trade paperback/$13.95/ ISBN 978-1-940091-09-9, ebook/$9.99/ISBN 978-1-940091-91-4) is available in bookstores and from all major online booksellers, and by ordering direct from the publisher. For more information or to order, call or email Plexus Publishing, Inc. at 609/654-6500 or info@plexuspublishing.com or visit plexuspublishing.com.
SAFE Credit Union CEO Dave Roughton was named a Most Admired CEO by the Sacramento Business Journal for his exemplary leadership during the challenges posed by the pandemic.

In issuing the award, the publication cited Roughtons actions to ensure the credit unions 245,000+ members had access to financial products and services to help them weather the economic impacts of the pandemic and prioritize the health and well-being of SAFEs 750 employees.

Leading SAFE during such a challenging period took everything I learned in my 40-plus year career in the financial services industry, Roughton says. Fortunately, I have a strong team at SAFE whos empowered to make decisions to move quickly to address urgent needs. My leadership style is to provide teams the flexibility and space they need to create the best solutions for our members and to support our employees working on the front lines and remotely.

Roughton has embraced changes in the workplace by implementing a new Flexible Work Plan that incorporates hybrid work arrangements as well as finding smarter, better ways to serve members through technology.

He credits SAFEs corporate culture for its success over the past year.

The pandemic taught us how to leverage our collaborative corporate culture to work smarter, more efficiently, with more flexibility, and to find innovative ways to continue to provide exceptional experiences to our members and employees, Roughton says.

Roughton will join other Most Admired CEO honorees during a black-tie awards ceremony in Sacramento in March.

For more information about SAFE Credit Union CEO Dave Roughton, please contact AVP Communications and Public Relations Micah Grant at micah.grant@safecu.org or (323) 868-9067.

About SAFE

SAFE Credit Union is a leading financial institution in Northern California with over $4.4 billion in assets and more than 240,000 members. SAFE is a not-for-profit, state-chartered credit union with membership open to businesses and individuals living or working in Sacramento, Placer, Yolo, El Dorado, Sutter, Butte, Nevada, Solano, San Joaquin, Contra Costa, Yuba, Amador, and Alameda counties. Insured by NCUA. http://www.safecu.org.


"When you think of search engine optimization, search engine marketing, or advertising, Google is inevitably the company that comes to mindThis gives it an inordinate degree of influence."

Terry Cane, COO of global SSL service domain registration and SEO hosting provider SEOHost.net (https://www.seohost.net) has expressed concern over an accusation made by one of Google's competitors.

On January 5, 2022, DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg expressed his belief to The Washington Post that Google is manipulating users into abandoning rival products through misleading notifications and subtle design tweaks. According to Weinberg, this has primarily been used to discourage users from switching search engines or installing browser extensions from rivals.

Weinberg further alleges that immediately following one update in August 2020, DuckDuckGo experienced a 10% drop in new user retention on Chrome.

For search engines like us that are trying to actively allow consumers to switch, [or] choose an alternative, they're making it unreasonably complicated to do so and confusing consumers, said Weinberg. "It's one of the most direct pieces of evidence we have seen about how Google's practices have harmed our business."

DuckDuckGo is a Google Search competitor that emphasizes user privacy. In addition to not crawling content farms, it avoids filtering results based on a user's search history. It currently holds 2.52% of the US search market, and 0.63% of the global search market.

"When you think of search engine optimization, search engine marketing, or advertising, Google is inevitably the company that comes to mind," says Cane. "This gives it an inordinate degree of influence, and the thought of it leveraging that power to its own benefit is troubling. At the same time, we have no direct proof beyond allegations from the company's competition."

"It's ultimately impossible to know for certain if what Weinberg says is true," she continues. "However, I believe it goes without saying that a company should be able to stand on its own merits and not simply dominate because of a historical market lead. Either way, I suspect that we may begin to receive definitive answers in the coming year  along with the beginnings of a solution."

####

About SEOHost.net:

Located in Orlando, Florida, with locations worldwide, SEOHost.Net provides a wide range of services in both the U.S. and the E.U., including domain registration, SSL Hosting for SEO, and VPS, dedicated, and A-Class IP hosting. The company offers exceptional service with a strong service level agreement, multiple geographic locations, and free migration. For more information, visit https://www.seohost.net.
Sun Medical Delivery Technician, Chuck Smith, welcomes the Birmingham community to its new location. By achieving CHAP Accreditation, Sun Medical of Birmingham has shown a commitment to excellence in care, said Nathan DeGodt, CHAP President & CEO. We are excited to begin our partnership with Sun Medical by offering support in its commitment to providing quality care and continuous improvement.

CHAP Accreditation demonstrates that Sun Medical Equipment and Supply Company meets the industry's highest nationally recognized standards. The rigorous evaluation by CHAP focuses on structure and function, quality of services and products, human and financial resources and long-term viability. Simply stated, adherence to CHAP's standards leads to better quality care.

By achieving CHAP Accreditation, Sun Medical Equipment and Supply Company of Birmingham, MI has shown a commitment to excellence in care, said Nathan DeGodt, CHAP President & CEO. We are excited to begin our partnership with Sun Medical by offering support in its commitment to providing quality care and continuous improvement.

Sun Medical provides a wide variety of home medical equipment products, supplies and services to patients and their families in the Birmingham and Bloomfield surrounding areas. Sun Medical is part of the AmeriCare Medical Inc. family of home medical related services in S.E. Michigan. Greg Jamian, President/CEO for Sun Medical Inc. said, "Our dedicated team worked tirelessly to make our new store in Birmingham a great success. While Sun Medical has always been accredited, through AmeriCare, we felt it very important that our new store receive the same accreditation.

Sun Medical extends a high level of personalized care, compliance and customer service with a knowledgeable and friendly healthcare team, who truly care that their clients medical needs are achieved. Our commitment to our patients and customers are demonstrated each and every day when we open our doors said Ryan Donnellon, Store Manager

CHAP is an independent, not-for-profit, accrediting body for community-based health care organizations. Through deeming authority granted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), CHAP has the regulatory authority to survey organizations providing home medical equipment services, to determine if they meet the highest standards of community-based care.

AmeriCare Medical, Inc. is a locally owned and operated company that provides integrated health care solutions to hospitals, assisted care facilities and private homes throughout Michigan. AmeriCare Medical, Inc. has five divisions that include: AmeriStaff Nursing Services, Sun Medical Equipment, Rx iV Infusion Pharmacy and Oak Bridge Case Management. AmeriCare Medical provides dignity and peace of mind for the family and patient by offering the convenience of an all-inclusive experience for all your home healthcare needs.

For more information visit: http://www.americaremedical.com
Dutch author Marieke Nijkamp is known for writing gripping, incisive, bestselling fiction about weighty topics. Their debut, This Is Where It Ends, unfolds during a high school shooting, and the follow-up, Before I Let Go, deals with teenage grief, depression, and isolation. In Nijkamps new YA novel, At the End of Everything, the teen residents of Hope Juvenile Treatment Center in rural Arkansas must fend for themselves after a pandemic breaks out and the adults in charge abandon the facility. Nijkamp spoke with PW from their home in the Netherlands via Zoom regarding inclusivity, criminal justice reform, and Covid-19s influence on this book, their life, and contemporary YA fiction to come.

Did Covid-19 inspire the circumstances of this book, or had you already conceived of the story when the pandemic hit?

I think a bit of both. My editor, my agent, and I started talking about the book in February 2020, so Covid had already hit, but the world hadnt actually shut down yet.

Did the ensuing crisis influence the books plot?

It didnt change the plot, as such, but it definitely gave me a far more immediate understanding of the main characters fears. There were elements of the story that were taken from headlines or stories I heardmostly additional bits and pieces, like phone conversations [between inmates and their families] and news articles. Moments like one of the parents commenting on how their neighbor was visiting despite people in their house being ill were my way of dealing with the frustration of seeing that happen in real life. Moments, too, reflecting discussions about what will we do if ICUs get overrun completely, who will we shut out? Seeing how the world was talking about disabled people, specificallyI needed to at least acknowledge that in the book. And then, as the pandemic continued, I saw far too many situations where prisons were forgotten or under such strict quarantine and isolation rules that it was bordering on inhumane. That felt uncomfortably close to the book I was writing. I set out to write a book that was maybe slightly beyond realistic so it wouldnt be too overwhelming, and I think as the last two years continued, it got closer to reality by virtue of many places in the world just not being able to handle Covid well.

What was it like to write about a pandemic while living through one?

The hardest part is that I was writing the book while I had Covid and was recovering from it. It was not easy escapism, but sometimes it helps to have a fictional world or context that allows you to deal with the emotions of hardship and trauma in a safer manner. I had deadlines for the book, but I could choose to step away from it when it got to be too much, so in that sense, it still felt like escapism.

The story is set at a juvenile detention center, and advocates for juvenile justice reform. What made you decide to tackle that particular topic?

Its something Ive been interested in for a while. I didnt necessarily set out to write a book that went very in depth about it, but the more research I did and the closer I got to these characters, the more I realized that was actually at the heart of the bookthe injustice and the unfairness. When we started talking about the book, I was just thinking of situations that are antithetical to [surviving] a pandemic. I wanted to explore a situation where the characters were physically incapable of social distancing, of keeping themselves safe, because they had nowhere else to go. So that was kind of the starting point. Like, this is an interesting tension; what can I do with it? And then when I properly dove into doing the research and reading up on the state of criminal justice, specifically juvenile criminal justice in times of Covid... God, its horrifying.

Turning this into a book demands that you take a position as a writer, and its something that Ive been following ever since. Its something that isnt necessarily U.S.-specific, though I think elements of it are, but even today in the Netherlands there was discussion about an entire detention center being put in quarantine because of a Covid outbreak, and prisoners going on strike earlier this week because they were under such strict visitation rules. Its something I think we should be more aware of, because its easy to feel like, oh, this group of people arent part of us. Its so easy to other people. Hopefully, books like this can help humanize and remind us of our shared responsibility.

You founded DiversifYA and were a founding senior vice president of We Need Diverse Books. How do you define diversity, and why is this cause so important to you?

Im trying to move away from talking about diversity and instead talk about inclusion. For me, it means creating a space where its possible for people of all kinds of backgrounds, specifically marginalized backgrounds, to be heard equally and be represented equally. And I think thats important because the very basic answer is, that is what the world looks like, and our fiction, in so many cases, does not represent that. It may be seen by some people as neutral, but its actually as fictional as anything else. I think the fact that so many people arent represented well in media is incredibly harmful, both for ones sense of self and for a broader sense of empathy. Its important that we all do the work in trying to make the playing field a bit more equal.

And for me personally, it matters because I am a nonbinary disabled writer who, up until a few years ago, didnt even have the word nonbinary to describe myself. I did not know that was a possibility, and it would have at least been helpful in terms of figuring out myself. There are quite a few books being published now with nonbinary main characters, as opposed to just a single one every year, and the same is true for queer characters, in general. Its so important to show teens that this is a very normal way to be, to maybe give them the language to understand themselves better or to understand the people around them. The same holds true for disability, not so much in terms of language, but in terms of just being seen as fully human.

What are you working on now?

I am working on my next YA. I actually just had a conversation with my agent and editor earlier today about figuring out what the new normal will be like. I still sort of want to revert back to what normal was like two years ago, so Im trying to wrap my mind around what the world will look like in two years. Two years ago, I definitely didnt expect to be launching this book in the midst of a new Omicron spike; I naively thought the world would look slightly different. Building a contemporary YA from the ground up, it makes it feel so definitive to be like, Oh yes, masking and quarantining and schools out again because Covid or restrictions or all the teachers are ill. Its so weird to consider that, and make that part of the baseline. It will be very interesting to see what the media landscape will look like in about a year, year and a half, when everything has had time to settle down and be internalized. I honestly dont know what to expect. Ive been talking to my writer friends, and everyone is struggling with that. I feel like at this point its too all-encompassing to ignore completely, so its about finding the right balance, and thats certainly a fun challenge.

Ive also been working on my middle grade graphic novel, which should be out next year. Its a fantasy inspired by Renaissance Italy, and thats somehow easier. There are still a lot of things going wrong in that world, because its a book and stuff needs to happen, but thats definitely my escapism right now.

At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp. Sourcebooks Fire, $18.99 Jan. 25 ISBN 978-1-4926-7315-6
An academic and activist by day, bestselling author Brittney Cooper wanted to write a book for Black girls that would remind them that history is not only made by Black men, that they also have a role to play. In Stand Up! 10 Mighty Women Who Made a Change (Orchard, Aug.), the cover of which is revealed here, Cooper highlights the contributions of 10 Black women and girls who were instrumental in influencing the world we live in.

Im a scholar in my everyday life, of Black womenpoliticos, intellectuals, activists. I always try to amplify these stories of Black women who have made a change in their historical eras, she told PW. These are the people who inspire Cooper in her teaching and writing pursuits. Were in a moment of political upheaval that feels unprecedented, where were all trying to figure out how we get to the other side of this intact, as a country, as a people without tearing each other apart. I think Black women are always the beacons of hope in a project like that.

Cooper is not interested in keeping these vital conversations siloed within the isolated halls of academia, or only between adults. A blogger and commentator in addition to being an author, she emphasizes the importance of writing for an audience outside academia, of being in conversation with the community. I am not a cynic, I am very much an optimist, she says. The way I maintain a sense of hope is by being reminded that in every era where we have had massive strugglesand if were Black, weve never had an era without massive struggleswe have always had folks to stand up and say another world was possible.

Cooper attributes her interest in historical Black women to reading a biography of Rosa Parks, whose contribution is noted in Stand Up! As a child she even convinced her teacher to organize a class play about Parks. I played Rosa Parks. I was the star of the show and also the producer, she recalls. It was really important. It felt like coming full circle to be able to write these kinds of stories for girls.

She credits the Black girls in her own life for pushing her towards childrens storytelling: I love them and want to be in conversation with them about stuff that matters. Stand Up! follows years of requests from adult readers for children s literature addressing questions about gender empowerment and feminism at an early age. In my work, Ive been moving toward trying to reach Black women and girls at all stages of the life span. Generally, this becomes a way to look out for the adult readers in my life who have young readers in their lives.

Cooper emphasizes the importance of Black girls to the struggle for a better world, naming Mari Copeny, the young activist better known as Miss Flint; and Claudette Colvin, whose own refusal to surrender her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., preceded Rosa Parkss by nine months. I also want Black girls to see themselves as being in a trajectory of freedom fighters, so that all little girls can have a multiracial band of heroes, or sheroes. 

An avid intersectional feminist, Cooper casts this book as a chance to place the spotlight on the women who are often overlooked when it comes time to tell the story of Black history. When we think of intersectionality, one of its political goals is to say, Who cant we see in the current frames we have?' This becomes an opportunity to say to all of the readers that there are these Black women and girls who keep on showing up and making a difference at really critical moments. Moreover, Cooper wants readers of all backgrounds to see with new eyes the Black girls and girls of color around them that they may take for granted. Appreciate them as complex, as passionate, and as people who are inherently valuable.

Illustrator Cathy Ann Johnson devised the cover for Stand Up! based on Coopers preference for a vibrant illustrative style and rich color palette. I wanted this book to feel not too heavy or somber or serious, Cooper said. I wanted a bit of lift and lightness. Cathy has an amazing eye and I think she got the vision for this book.

Cooper has plans to release several more projects through Orchard, including the first entry in a middle grade series called The Bs, set to launch in 2023.

Stand Up!: 10 Mighty Women Who Made a Change by Brittney Cooper. Orchard, $18.99 Aug. 2 ISBN 978-1-338-76385-0
While he still hasnt been given the green light to drive the bus, the Pigeon just might get the chance to take a wilder rideif the title of his latest caper can be trusted. Union Square Kids announced today that Mo Willemss fine-feathered fan favorite will venture on in The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster!, scheduled for September. The acquisition is part of a five-book deal for U.S., Canadian, and U.K. rights, negotiated by Marcia Wernick of Wernick & Pratt Agency, on behalf of Willems and Emily Meehan for Union Square & Co.

The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster! is the eighth picture book in Willemss Pigeon chronicles, which has sold more than six million copies in North America, has been translated into 20 languages, and has inspired theatrical productions, museum exhibits, and television specials. The literary laurels for the bestselling author-illustrator, who is also an animator, a playwright, and the inaugural Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence, include two Theodor Seuss Geisel Awards and five Geisel Honors (for the Elephant & Piggie series) and three Caldecott Honors (for Dont Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity.

Across the board, Willemss new publishing team is offering himand his defiant Pigeona warm welcome. I am a longtime admirer of Mo Willems and his ability to connect so directly with children and families, said James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble, which owns Union Square & Co. (a subsidiary of Sterling Publishing). As a publisher, we look forward to providing Mo with as broad a platform as possible to share his creativity. And as a bookseller, what a delight to be able to handsell a new Pigeon picture book this fall.

Emily Meehan, chief creative officer and publisher of Union Square & Co., echoed Daunts enthusiasm, adding, We are proud and thrilled to bring the singular creative genius of Mo Willems to our list. Partnering with Mo reinforces our strategic vision as a dynamic trade publisher that focuses on the importance of editorial and artistic talent.

And Willemss longtime editor, Tracey Keevan, editorial director of Union Square Kids and former executive editor at Disney-Hyperion, praised Willems gift for knowing and appreciating kids. Mo has a phenomenal ability to speak to his audience through his work, she noted. He gives voice and validation to the ups and downs of being a kid in a world built for grown-ups. Its an honor to publish new books with Mo that continue to celebrate the lives of young readers.

Much like his outspoken Pigeon, Willems managed to seize the last word. I am excited to embark on new publishing experiments while working with a team Ive known and trusted for over a decade, he said. The goal is to surprise and delight without losing sight of a fundamental truth: The Pigeon is not going to get to drive that bus.

The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster! by Mo Willems. Union Square Kids, $17.99 Sept. ISBN 978-1-4549-4686-1
The Governors Public Health Commission discussed the changes in Indianas medical infrastructure and the publics perception of the medical field caused by COVID-19, on Thursday.

A major development discussed during the meeting was how the pandemic vastly improved data collection methods across the country, but especially in Indiana.

An anecdote by Chief Medical Officer of the Indiana Department of Health, Lindsey Weaver, showed the Indiana COVID-19 dashboard going from outdated and lacking in information to being filled with up to date information on new cases, vaccinations, and testing sites.

Despite the strides made, commission members said they were concerned about the pandemics effects in the future of the medical field.

Local health departments have been vilified, threatened, stripped of some of our most important powers and tools, said Mindy Waldron, Allen County Public Health Administrator. Speaking personally, COVID-19 related issues and actions (that) weve been required to employ have forever changed how some of my elected officials view me and public health as a whole.

The commission also highlighted the decrease of workers in healthcare during the pandemic.

Itll take us around five years to get back to 75% of the workforce in healthcare before the pandemic, and I think thats probably optimistic, said Brian Tabor, President of the Indiana Hospital Association.

This comes after the Indiana state legislature proposed a bill that attempted to loosen Indianas regulations on nursing education programs. The Community Health Network reported to the legislative committee that there were 5,000 nurses in central Indiana and nearly 4,000 nursing job openings across the state.

This factored in with the already crowded hospitals due to the explosion of Omicron cases is putting hospitals in a dangerous position according to the commission.
New York City, NY (11385)

Today

Showers early, becoming a steady rain later in the day. High 63F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low around 55F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Kusser was until recently executive vice president co-production & distribution at Fremantle Media International. In her new roles, she is responsible for all TV co-production activities on an international and European level within Mediawan & Leonine Studios and will manage and co-ordinate fiction co-productions across the more than 60 production companies belonging to Mediawan & Leonine Studios. She will also be instrumental in driving the development of Leonine Studios global distribution. Kusser will be based in the newly opened US-office in Los Angeles.

Eden Rock Medias Thomas Augsberger who has been Leonine Studioss overall US consultant will continue to advise Leonine Studios in the international feature film business.

Co-CEOs of Mediawan & Leonine Studios, Pierre-Antoine Capton and Fred Kogel, commented: We are very pleased that Caroline has joined our team. She is an expert with an excellent network and the ideal person for our planned internationalisation and growth strategy in the TV co-production segment.

Kogel added: Together with her, we will continue to develop our Leonine Studios brand into a synonym for premium content in international distribution. Our high-end fiction productions for TV are in the very best hands with her.

Kusser commented: "Im excited to join the content powerhouse that is Mediawan & Leonine Studios, created by two of the leading European media companies and Im looking forward to working in collaboration with the European teams to ensure we fully maximise the potential of content, alongside expanding the activity and presence of the company as a whole across this diverse and vibrant market. At the same time, I am really excited to expand Leonine Studios premium brand into the world sales business."
Comedian and Baskets actor Louis Anderson has died.

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Anderson's rep confirmed to Variety that Anderson died Friday in Las Vegas after a battle with cancer.

Prior to his death, Anderson was diagnosed with a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and was being treated at a Las Vegas hospital, his publicist told The Hollywood Reporter.

TMZ said Anderson was battling diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Anderson was born in March 1953 in St. Paul, Minn., and made his TV debut as a stand-up comedian on The Tonight Show in 1984. He continued to perform and was named one of "100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time" by Comedy Central in 2004.

As an actor, Anderson was best known for playing Christine Baskets on the FX comedy series Baskets, which also starred Zach Galifianakis and Martha Kelly. Anderson was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series three times for the role, winning in 2016.

His other roles included a flower delivery man in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Maurice in Coming to America and its sequel, Coming 2 America. More recently, Anderson appeared on the shows Search Party and Twenties.

In addition, Anderson co-created the animated series Life with Louie.
Spongebob would be proud: PPD officer draws Patrick to help reunite autistic child with family
As students traveled back to Athens after the winter break, many began searching or returned to their part-time jobs. Student workers often face many challenges including lower grades, long days and less free time with friends while working to support themselves.
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

Today

Cloudy with periods of rain. High around 55F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Cloudy early with partial clearing expected late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 46F. Winds light and variable.
Beckley, WV (25801)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 70F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mainly cloudy. Low 51F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
TORRINGTON  The Northwest Connecticut Chamber has scheduled events and meetings for late January and early February.

Jan. 24: Special Government Relations Committee Meeting- Legislative Agenda, noon-1 p.m. Join us for a special Government Relations Meeting to put together the Chamber's Legislative Agenda for 2022. Make sure your agenda items for this year's Legislative session are included. These agendas will be distributed to our state and local delegation upon completion. Anyone is welcome to attend to have their voice heard. For information, email Lauren@nwctchamberofcommerce.org.

Jan. 25: Business with Breakfast Hosted by 422 Main St Airbnb, 8 a.m. Every month, new and veteran members gather for a morning networking session and roundtable business meeting. Hosts often provide a brief presentation on their products and services. Members have the opportunity to introduce themselves, share information about their own businesses, and distribute product samples or promotional material to all attendees. This has proven to generate many valuable leads for those who participate. Masks and social distancing required.

Jan. 27: Chamber Board of Directors Meeting, 8 a.m. Reach out to JoAnn Ryan if you wish to receive information on how to join the Board of Directors.

Feb. 1: Small Business Council Meeting, 8 a.m. The Small Business Council has been established for the small business owner/manager - the decision makers - to discuss challenges, share solutions and work as a back-office consortium. Many small business owners have issues that they stumble upon throughout their workday that they may not have experience with - but another small business owner does. The Chambers Small Business Council is a resource for the owners and managers so they can keep their businesses running smoothly. To be added to the Small Business Council, email Lauren@nwctchamberofcommerce.org.

Feb. 2: Health Council Meeting, rescheduled, 8 a.m. The Health Council, a peer group comprised primarily of individuals and companies involved in healthcare in Northwest Connecticut, meets the 3rd Wednesday of every month. Meetings focus on specific areas of interest, including: employee recruitment and retention, workforce development, on-the-job training programs and grants, legislative updates that affect the health care industry, facility tours and more. To be added to the Health Council, email Lauren@nwctchamberofcommerce.org.

Feb. 2: WOW Advisory Committee Meeting, 8 a.m. The WOW! Forum Advisory Committee works all year long to plan the annual WOW! Womens Forum held on the first Friday of October at the Warner Theatre in Torrington. The forum is a full day professional womens seminar featuring keynote speakers, meals, networking and a silent auction. Women from all over Connecticut attend the event each year. The committee selects the speakers, theme for the day, meal options, and works on the silent auction. To join the committee, email Lauren@nwctchamberofcommerce.org.

Feb. 3: Membership Committee Meeting, 8 a.m. Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerces Membership Committee is a group of dedicated individuals who assist the Chamber staff throughout the year. Under the Membership Committee umbrella, there are three distinct groups: Member Ambassadors, Hospitality and Community Representatives. To join the Membership Committee, email Lauren@nwctchamberofcommerce.org.

JoAnn Ryan is President of the NW CT Chamber of Commerce. You can reach her at joann@nwctchamberofcommerce.org.
KILLINGWORTH  A family of four was displaced by a blaze on Route 148 in Killingworth on Friday, according to officials.

No one was hurt, but fire officials said the blaze left the house uninhabitable due to smoke and structural damage.

Firefighters were called to the scene around 6:20 a.m., Assistant Chief Dick Bauer, of the Killingworth Volunteer Fire Company, said Friday, after the caller reported smoke in the house and seeing fire on the first floor.

The family was told to evacuate the home, Bauer said.

The agencys fire chief lives nearby and arrived soon after to find everyone outside of the home.

He found an active fire in the basement of the home that had started to extend up into the first floor, Bauer said.

Crews arrived and were able to contain the fire to the basement with some flames reaching the first floor. But the fire left significant smoke damage throughout the home, Bauer said. Crews from Madison and Clinton also assisted at the scene

Property records show the 2,100 square-foot wood-frame home was built in 1800.

The state Department of Transportation said Route 148 was closed to traffic at Victoria Drive because of the fire. The agency reported the road closure around 6:30 a.m.

The DOT reported the road reopened to traffic by about 9 a.m.

The Red Cross said it responded to Killingworth to help a family of two adults and two children who were displaced after the fire.

Bauer said the cause and origin of the fire are under investigation by the fire marshals office.
Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media

FAIRFIELD  Police say they will increase their presence Friday at town schools after a student was arrested for posting a threat on social media.

Fairfield police said they received a call from the FBI New Haven office around 3 p.m. Thursday about a possible threat made toward a town school on the social media app Yik Yak. Police said the FBI office was notified by the social media company of the anonymous message.
Cambodian PM should have consulted other ASEAN states before meeting the junta leader, Saifuddin Abdullah had said.

Cambodian Prime Minister and ASEAN chair Hun Sen, in a phone call with Indonesias president on Friday, lashed out at Malaysias foreign minister for being arrogant by criticizing Phnom Penhs strategy to deal with Myanmar.

Malaysias top diplomat, Saifuddin Abdullah, told reporters last week that Hun Sen should have consulted with other leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations before going to Myanmar on Jan. 7-8 to meet with Burmese junta leader Min Aung Hlaing in an attempt to solve that countrys post-coup crisis.

Hun Sen told President Joko Jokowi Widodo that Saifuddin had disrespected the role of the ASEAN chair, which rotates every year among the regional blocs 10 members.

Jakartas top diplomat should convey this message to Saifuddin, Hun Sen told Jokowi.

The intended message: Hun Sen asked Malaysian Foreign Minister not to be arrogant with inappropriate statements, and disrespect the ASEAN Chair by using undiplomatic language and [showing] a lack of courtesy, Hun Sen said on Facebook about the phone call.

Saifuddins comments were not right in the ASEAN context and Indonesias foreign minister should tell Saifuddin to not be rude, the Cambodian PM said.

Hun Sen said he went to Myanmar to plant trees, not to cut down trees.

Those who didnt support him, they only wanted a quick result, he added.

During a dinner with reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Jan. 13, Saifuddin acknowledged that some in ASEAN felt that Hun Sen has the liberty to visit Myanmar for what is seen as normal bilateral visit.

Malaysia is of the opinion that [Hun Sen] has the right to visit Myanmar as head of government of Cambodia, Saifuddin said.

However we also feel that because he has already assumed the chair of ASEAN, he could have probably consulted if not all, a few other ASEAN leaders and seek their views as what he should do if he were to go to Myanmar, he added.

When reporters asked whether Hun Sens trip to Myanmar had achieved anything, Saifuddin replied no.

In fact, even Indonesia had criticized Hun Sens trip, stating that he needed to stick to what the regional bloc had agreed to in meetings, including a five-point consensus to put Myanmar on the path to democracy.

PM Hun Sen did ask for a phone call and the purpose of the call was to convey the results of his recent visit to Myanmar, Teuku Faizasyah, spokesman for Indonesias foreign ministry confirmed to BenarNews on Friday, when asked about Fridays telephone call between the Cambodian and Indonesian leaders.

Faizasyah did not elaborate.

ASEAN fissures

Commenting on Huns Sens statements about Saifuddin, Southeast Asia expert Michael Vatikiotis said on Twitter that he saw an ASEAN spat in the making.

Remarkable and regrettable that Cambodian PM Hun Sen attacks Malaysia FM in a conversation with Indonesian President Jokowi. This is becoming unseemly and needs fixing, Vatikiotos tweeted.

Another analyst echoed these comments.

ASEAN fissures getting increasingly uncomfortable over the Myanmar crisis, Huong Le Thu, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said via Twitter.

Even before Hun Sen went to Myanmar, analysts were warning that Cambodias strategy would divide ASEAN, a grouping where countries are bound by geography rather than ideology or political systems.

For instance, of the blocs member-states, Brunei is an absolutist monarchy; Laos and Vietnam are Communist-ruled; Cambodia is nominally a democracy but one where the ruling party holds all the parliamentary seats; the Thai government has its roots in a military coup; and Singapore has been dominated by a single party since independence.

So there would be states that would be divided over the wisdom of Hun Sens trip, analysts said.

During his visit to Naypyidaw, Hun Sen met with the military coup leader who toppled the elected National League for Democracy government on Feb. 1 last year. The Cambodian PM did not meet with any democracy leaders, and the Burmese junta spokesman said Hun Sen had not asked to meet them either.

Regional analysts and parliamentarians had criticized Hun Sen before and after the trip for not insisting on a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders who were thrown in prison. They said his trip  the first by a foreign leader after the coup  would be seen as legitimizing the Burmese junta.

Hun Sen has said that he achieved three successes during his trip to Myanmar, an assertion he repeated to Indonesias Jokowi on Friday.

These successes, according to the Cambodian PM, were  a ceasefire between the military armed ethnic groups in the countrys border regions, allowing the ASEAN envoy to join these ceasefire talks, and an agreement with the junta to provide humanitarian assistance to the Burmese people.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, and by RFA's Khmer Service.
The European Parliament passed a motion on condemning ongoing human rights abuses by authorities in Hong Kong under a crackdown on dissent linked to a draconian national security law imposed by China.



The motion called for the immediate and unconditional release of all those arrested under the law, which was imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from , 2020.



"[This Parliament] ... calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all peaceful Hong Kong protesters arrested in recent years, including Joshua Wong, Ivan Lam, and Agnes Chow, and for all charges against them to be dropped," the motion said.



It also called for "independent, impartial, effective and prompt investigations into the use of force by the Hong Kong police against protesters" during the 2019 protest movement, which began as an outpouring of mass, peaceful protest against plans to allow extradition to mainland China, and broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and great official accountability.



It said the law "damages Hong Kongs international status by eroding its autonomy and democracy, the independence of the justice system and its respect for human rights," and hit out at Europe-based banks for colluding with the CCP in freezing the assets of "suspects" under the national security law.



The motion also highlighted "the tangible risk that Hong Kong could be integrated into the Chinese firewall" despite having enjoyed relatively free internet access so far.



It called on the EU to look into sanctions against Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, former police chief-turned-security secretary Chris Tang, and high-ranking CCP officials overseeing the crackdown, including Xia Baolong, Zhang Xiaoming and Luo Huining.



The move drew an angry response from Beijing, with a spokesperson of the Office of the Commissioner of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong expressing "strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition" to the motion.



"[We call on] certain politicians in the European Parliament to ... immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any form, and in China's internal affairs," the spokesman said.



He said Beijing had used the national security law to "improve" Hong Kong's electoral system by ensuring that only "patriots" approved by a CCP-backed committee could run in elections.



A combination of file photos showing Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong (L), activist Ivan Lam (C) and then-student activist Agnes Chow (R), who were jailed on December 2, 2020 for taking part in the huge democracy protests in 2019. Credit AFP 'Symbolic statement'

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that Hong Kong had returned to "the right path of development" under the national security law.



"China urges the European Parliament to respect the facts, not to confuse right and wrong ... to reflect on itself and change its habit of lecturing [others]," Zhao told a regular news conference in Beijing.



Hui Ching, research director at the Hong Kong Zhiming Institute, said the motion also called for the use of trade and investment negotiations as leverage over China's human rights record.



"If the EU is unwilling to do business with Hong Kong, it will be a loss for Hong Kong, and trade may drop by a few percentage points," Hui said. "But it won't be a structural or a devastating blow."



Taiwan strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu noted, however, that the motion isn't binding on EU member states.



"These are all suggestions," Shih said. "The European Parliament represents the views of European society, and Europe has reached a consensus on this issue, but the problem is that they need to make a specific response, and whether they will do that remains uncertain right now."



"It the absence of a policy decision ... this is just a symbolic statement."



Cooperation on Taiwan

The motion also noted that the CCP's treatment of Hong Kong had alienated the democratic island of Taiwan, which China claims must one day be ruled by the CCP under the same "one country, two systems" promise it made to Hong Kong.



"[This Parliament] emphasizes its willingness to cooperate with international partners in order to help secure democracy in Taiwan," the motion said.



Taiwan foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou welcomed the motion.



"The motion emphasizes that respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law should remain at the core of EU-China relations, and condemns China's economic coercion and intimidation against Lithuania," she said, in a reference to an appended clause to the motion.



"The adoption of this emergency resolution reflects the European Parliament's view that China's recent economic coercion against Lithuania is urgent and that it should immediately provide Lithuania with the necessary support," she said.



"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is pleased to see that the European Parliament continues to support Lithuania with concrete action, and will continue to deepen cooperation [with partners] sharing the values of democracy, freedom, the rule of law and human rights, so as to jointly deal with the global impact of authoritarianism," Ou said.



Translate and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The Chinese military occupies the entire Paracels archipelago and at least seven features in the Spratlys.

A file photo showing soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy patrol at Woody Island, in the Paracel Archipelago, which is known in China as the Xisha Islands, Jan. 29, 2016.

New units of Peoples Liberation Army have been established and existing ones upgraded over the past decade to man outposts in the South China Sea, leaving Chinas military better positioned to project power in the region, according to a new report.

The report The Peoples Liberation Army in the South China Sea: An Organizational Guide released by Recorded Future, a private cybersecurity company, sheds light on the organizational structure of the PLA units on the Paracel and Spratly Islands.

It identifies and analyzes nine specific PLA units, mostly in the Paracel Islands that China calls Xisha, giving details of their duties, facilities and assets.

China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea and has been engaged in territorial disputes with several neighboring countries.

Military duties

The Chinese military occupies the entire Paracels archipelago and at least seven features in the Spratlys, with the number of troops stationed there estimated at more than 10,000, according to the report.

The PLA units are responsible for defending Chinas outposts in the Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands, it says, listing duties such as operating radar installations, ensuring airfield support for aviation forces, training and commanding maritime militia forces, implementing engineering projects, supporting the launch and orbital management of spacecraft, and providing air defense.

These army units also actively participate in military-civil fusion programs, including engaging in joint operations and exercises with civilian forces, drafting regulations with civilian authorities, and coordinating the construction and use of physical infrastructure with civilian entities.

With the main focus on the protection of Chinas maritime and territorial claims, the units have received sizable funding and grown rapidly over the past decade.

In recent years, the PLA has generally played a background role in Chinas strategy to consolidate control over the South China Sea, providing a deterrent cover for frontline maritime law enforcement and maritime militia operations, the report says.

But thanks to the development efforts, it is now much better situated to defend Chinas maritime and territorial claims project power within and beyond the first island chain, control access to vital sea lines of communication or engage the United States in a conflict over the status of Taiwan.

The 33-page report provides up-to-date and comprehensive research on Chinas solid military presence on the islands and features in the South China Sea.

Zachary Haver, China defense analyst at Recorded Future and the author of the report, said it took him almost four months of dedicated research using a diverse set of open-source materials to complete the report.

The biggest difficulty was identifying the PLA units, he said, as the Chinese authorities are usually very careful about protecting their identities, especially in sensitive areas like the South China Sea.

China began fundamentally reorganizing the PLA around 2015, according to Haver, and deployed a significant number of new forces to the South China Sea over the past decade.

Moving forward, the PLA will likely continue building its capacity to carry out combat operations in the South China Sea, surveil foreign ships and aircraft operating in the region, and perform joint rights defense and rescue operations with Chinas maritime law enforcement and maritime militia forces, the report concludes.
The Luang Prabang project is pushing more than 500 families from their homes.

This file photo taken in December 2021 shows the progress of the construction of a bridge over Mekong River in Chomphet District, Luang Prabang Province on the future site of the Luang Prabang Dam.

Authorities in Laos are surveying land to offer to more than 500 families that will be displaced by the Luang Prabang Dam on the Mekong River.

The dam in northern Laos will be one of several cascading dams built on the Mekong, as the government pursues its controversial economic plan to become the Battery of Southeast Asia through the sale of excess electricity to neighboring countries.

We may have enough land for the construction of the two resettlement villages, but we dont have enough land for farming, an official of the Natural Resources and Environment Department of Luang Prabang Province told RFAs Lao Service Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

The two villages are meant to hold 581 families that will need to relocate for construction. Many of these people are farmers and therefore need plots of arable land to continue to work.

Each family may only get 0.7 hectares [1.7 acres] of farmland, not the full hectare [2.5 acres] they are demanding, the official said.

We are unsure as to when well be able to clear the farmland for the villagers because the government has not informed us as to when construction on the dam will begin. They have, however, confirmed to us that it will certainly be built, he said.

As for the resettlement villages, the official said that the local government has identified two lots not far from the villagers current homes.

They are large enough for two new villages, but these lots also have not yet been cleared, the official said.

Villagers are reluctant to accept the land that the province is offering, a resident of the provinces Chomphet district told RFA.

Its not large enough for us to grow bananas and papayas, nor is it enough to raise chickens, pigs, cows or buffalo. Actually, they told us not to raise cows and buffalo because the land is too small. The authorities came by earlier to show us the two proposed lots for our new villages. They have already taken us there three times, said the Chomphet resident, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

Another Chomphet resident told RFA that accepting the provinces proposal would leave displaced residents less well-off.

Well be much poorer because most of us are farmers living off the land. With such small farms, well have less food and less income, the second Chomphet resident said under condition of anonymity.

A villager who will be affected by the construction and also declined to be named said that the authorities should reexamine their compensation package.

It has to be fair to all the families. Some households are big, and they have big houses and many family members. They should be compensated accordingly, the villager said.

What they are offering is too low. For the farmland, were only getting 100 million kip [U.S. $8,900] per hectare. We are asking for more.

Construction Delays

Construction on the dam itself has been suspended as the developer continues work on a bridge that crosses the river, an official of the Energy and Mines Department of Luang Prabang Province told RFA, under condition of anonymity.

The $3 billion, 1,460-megawatt dam will affect about 10,000 people, including the 581 households that will be displaced. Another 692 households will lose their farmland but not their homes, while 671 more will lose part of their farmland. There are also 189 families that live downstream from the dam and will be affected by lower water levels.

Construction was planned to start in 2020 and finish in 2027, but the developer is assessing how the dam will affect nearby UNESCO World Heritage Sites, specifically the scenic town of Luang Prabang.

The project is financed by the Luang Prabang Power Company, a consortium of Thai and Vietnamese power companies and the Lao government. Power purchase agreements for the sale of electricity to Thailand and Vietnam have not yet been signed.

Laos has built dozens of hydropower dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries in pursuit of its controversial economic plans.

Though the Lao government sees power generation as a means to boost the countrys economy, the projects have faced criticism because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers and questionable financial arrangements.

Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Sann-myo village once had 190 houses, but now only about 30 remain after second arson attack in 30 days.

Security forces loyal to Myanmars military junta this week burned down 132 houses after a firefight at a village in the central Magway region, the second arson attack in the village in 30 days, residents of the village told RFA.

Sann-myo village lies in Gangaw township, in the northwest portion of the region. It once had more than 190 houses, but after Tuesdays attack only about 30 homes remain. Junta forces previously attacked the town on Dec. 21, destroying around 28 houses.

The arson attack followed a firefight between junta forces and the local Peoples Defense Force (PDF), one of several loosely tied militia organizations that arose following the Feb. 1 coup that ousted the countrys democratically elected government in favor of military rule.

About 40 or 50 troops came into the north side of the village firing their guns. They used heavy weapons and automatic weapons as well. The village people had to flee to the south, a resident of Sann-myo, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFAs Myanmar Service.

Other villagers told RFA that the junta soldiers began setting fire to the houses. One resident was wounded by gunfire during the fighting.

Another Sann-myo villager who lost his house in the attack told RFA he was totally devastated.

Can you imagine how I feel? I am 33 years old, and I have worked hard all my life to build this house with every single kyat I was able to save, the now-homeless villager said.

Its totally burnt down, not even a year after it was built. I have no words to express my sorrow, he said, adding that the house was worth between 10 and 15 million kyat (U.S. $5,600 to $8,400).

Up to 1,000 villagers who fled their homes during the attack have sought shelter in the surrounding forests and in nearby villages, sources said.

Another now-homeless Sann-myo villager told RFA on condition of anonymity that those who fled now face food and clothing shortages.

I just want to cry and cry because now I have no home to return to. I just want to cry, and I am so furious for what they did, she said.

We will all have a lot of short-term problems. We have no place to live right now, and we might have to build a hut in the forest. We had to escape in a hurry, and we could not bring much with us. We have no tarps for shelter and do not have enough to eat or drink, but at least we managed to bring a few blankets with us, she said, adding that her house was a semi-pucca structure worth about 20 million kyat.

Life in Sann-Myo since the coup has made the villagers fearful and anxious, another villager who requested anonymity, told RFA.

The main thing is that we will only be able to sleep well at night and live well during the day after the dictatorship ends. We cannot live in fear and insecurity every day, she said.

RFA attempted to contact the juntas deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment on the arson attack, but several phone calls went unanswered.

The minister previously denied that the military has had any involvement in arson attacks on civilian homes that are frequently reported in the Sagaing region and Chin state.

Data for Myanmar, a group dedicated to research in the countrys political development that has been documenting the effects of the coup and its aftermath, told RFA earlier this month that a total of 1,963 houses in 90 villages across the country were destroyed in arson attacks. Of these, more than 400 were burnt in the Magway region alone, they said.

The figures do not include the homes lost in Tuesdays arson attacks on Sann-myo.



Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Chin refugees fleeing fighting in Myanmar's Matupi township are seen in camps in Mizoram, India, Sept. 24, 2021.

At least 3,000 people have been displaced in recent days by fighting between local defense groups and government forces in Myanmars southern Chin state, with around 400 crossing for safety into neighboring India, local villagers and aid workers say.

Residents from around 30 villages in the states Matupi township are now on the run, one local source told RFA on Thursday.

Some fighting is still going on, so we dont have exact figures yet, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. People are fleeing mainly because of fear. When junta forces enter the villages, they destroy houses and make arrests, and so the people are frightened.

Aid workers in the area say food is scarce for those fleeing to the mountains to escape the fighting between Peoples Defense Force militias and junta forces that began last April.

Ten days of fighting in and around Matupi since Jan. 9 have left at least 18 junta soldiers and one member of a Chinland Defense Force (CDF) group dead, a CDF-Zotung spokesman said on Wednesday.

RFA could not independently confirm the number of those killed, and Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Min Htun could not be reached for comment.

Fighting between the two sides had continued until Wednesday, the Chin spokesman said.

There have been battles almost every day, with some yesterday and some before. We saw aircraft in the sky, too. They may have been bringing in more ammunition or taking out their wounded. The troops are still around, so there will be more fighting, he said.

More than 30,000 residents of Chin state have now fled clashes in the area to shelter in India, according to the India-based Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO).

If this fighting continues it is likely that even more people will cross over to India, said CHRO deputy executive director Salai Za Op Lin. We are very worried about further human rights abuses committed by the military, as many of these are happening eve now.

As soon as soldiers arrive in the vicinity, people become frightened and leave the villages to run away. And then many problems like finding food, water and medicine will follow, he said.

In addition to those fleeing to India, there are more than 40,000 internally displaced persons now sheltering in Chin as government forces expand their operations in the area, disrupting local travel and the transport of food and other consumer goods, Salai Za Op Lin said.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Richard Finney
The two were found guilty of violating the countrys Counterterrorism Law.

Detained Myanmar activist Kyaw Min Yu, better known by his alias Ko Jimmy, in a file photo.

A Myanmar special military tribunal on Friday sentenced a veteran political activist and former lawmaker under the previous democratically elected government to death for activities supporting opponents of the junta that has ruled the country since February, the regime said.

Kyaw Min Yu, a prominent leader of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students Group who fought military rule three decades ago and who is better known by his alias Ko Jimmy, and Phyo Zayar Thaw, a former National League for Democracy legislator and close aide of deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, were found guilty of violating the countrys Counterterrorism Law, said a statement issued by the junta.

The tribunal convicted Ko Jimmy for contacting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, National Unity Government (NUG), and Peoples Defense Force (PDF), an opposition coalition and militia network formed by politicians ousted in the Feb. 1 coup that the junta has declared terrorist organizations.

In September, the NUG declared a nationwide state of emergency and called for open rebellion against junta rule, prompting an escalation of attacks on military targets by various allied pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups.

Ko Jimmy, an outspoken critic of the junta who spent eight months in hiding, was also accused of advising local militia groups in Yangon and ordering PDF groups to attack police, military targets, and government offices, and asking the NUG to buy a 3D printer at an estimated cost of U.S. $1 billion to produce weapons for local PDFs.

Phyo Zayar Thaw was tried on charges of providing financial support and weapons to local PDF members, contacting the opposition groups, and involvement in attacks in Yangon.

Ko Jimmys wife, Nilar Thein, told RFA that she will not hire an attorney to appeal what she said was an unfair prosecution.

Despite that they unfairly prosecuted and sentenced him, Ko Jimmy himself would not cooperate with any charges or trials, so there is no reason for the family to hire a lawyer to defend the unfair prosecution, she said.

I am rather doing my own part in order to defeat the military dictatorship, she added without elaborating.

Min Ko Naing, Myanmar pro-democracy activist and former 88 Generation Students Group leader and a close associate of both Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zayar Thaw, said the people will not give up their fight against the military junta.

In terms of war, they might have captured a hill or a camp, but they will eventually lose the entire war. We, the people, will win.

The 88 Generation Students Group led the August 1988 uprising against a previous military regime that had governed Myanmar, then known as Burma, since 1962, running the economy into the ground and creating a pariah state. Their protests led to reforms that eventually ushered in a brief period of democratic rule that ended with this years coup.

Arrested in October, Ko Jimmy was imprisoned from 1988 to 2005 for his political activities and again from 2007 to 2012, spending 21 years in prison.

On Wednesday, the juntas military court sentenced four young men from Yangons North Okkalapa, Thingangyun, Bahan, and Hlaing Tharyar townships, to life in prison under the same law for their alleged connections to the terror groups.

The areas are among six townships in Yangon that have been under martial law since March 2021.

According to opposition sources and families, 141 people have been sentenced to life in prison by various military tribunals in Yangon during the past year.

Translated by Kyaw Min Htun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Lawmakers overwhelmingly pass resolution that also calls on the government to protect Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

A protester of the French Uyghur Community shout slogans and hold flags of East Turkestan during a demonstration over China's human rights record near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, during a state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, March 25, 2019.

The French Parliament on Thursday officially labeled Chinas persecution of its Uyghur minority a genocide, joining other Western governments and legislatures that have issued similar declarations.

Lawmakers voted 169-1 in favor of a nonbinding resolution sharply critical of Chinese policies in the countrys Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It also urges the French government to take measures to try to help protect the 12 million Uyghurs who live there and to safeguard Uyghurs living in France from Chinese intimidation and harassment.

The resolution was introduced by the opposition Socialist Party in the lower house but supported by President Emmanuel Macrons Republic on the Move Party. With its passage, France joins the U.S. and parliaments in Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Belgium and the Czech Republic in declaring that China has committed genocide toward Uyghurs.

The declaration is another stain on Chinas international reputation just two weeks before the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, for which the U.S. and other Western nations have announced diplomatic boycotts in a show of opposition to the host countrys dismal human rights record.

French deputies had an appointment today with a moment in history, with an important moment, since they were asked to recognize the Uyghur genocide perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party regime, with mass internment, torture, labor forced, organ trafficking, forced sterilization  basically, everything that constitutes the regime to methodically eliminate a whole part of a people, said Boris Vallaud, a National Assembly lawmaker and spokesman for the Socialist Party.

This fight continues and then has to be done basically to seize every opportunity to tell the Beijing regime that freedoms and human rights must be defended everywhere and that the Uyghur people have the right to live free, he said.

Dilnur Reyhan, president of the Paris-based Uyghur European Institute, which spearheaded the effort to urge the French Parliament to recognize the rights abuses targeting Uyghurs as a genocide, said the motions approval was a significant victory for persecuted community.

This passage of the Uyghur Genocide resolution is not a small victory for us, she said. Its a strong total victory.

The organization also wants the French government to impose a diplomatic boycott the Winter Olympics, which begin on Feb. 4; to urge the European Union to enact measures preventing goods made by Uyghur slave labor from entering the European market; and to ask the U.N. to pressure China to close the detention camps, Dilnur said.

Dilnur Reyhan (2nd from L), president of the Uyghur European Institute, and Dolkun Isa (R), president of the World Uyghur Congress, stand with two French lawmakers outside parliament following the passage of a resolution labeling Chinas persecution of its Uyghur minority a genocide, in Paris, Jan. 20, 2022. Credit: RFA

'The correct side of history'

China has held an estimated 1.8 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in an extensive network of internment camps where they are subject to violence and other human rights abuses, such as torture, forced labor and forced sterilizations of women. The Chinese government has denied reports of violence and said the camps are vocational training centers meant to prevent religions extremism.

Disregarding facts and common sense, the relevant resolution constitutes a deliberate defamation and stigmatization against China and a brutal interference in China's internal affairs. We strongly oppose it and strongly condemn it, the Chinese Embassy in France said about the passage of the resolution.

Sensationalized claims about Xinjiang such as genocide are pure lies based on prejudice and hostility toward China. Their goal is not to defend human rights at all, but to contain China's development and undermine inter-ethnic solidarity and stability in Xinjiang, the embassy said in statements on its website.

China also expressed concern that the resolution would seriously damage relations between the two countries.

Uyghur activist groups, however, praised the move by the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, which also passed a resolution calling on the European Union to hold corporations accountable for engaging in illegal labor practices that facilitate the Uyghur genocide.

In France today the legislature rejected this regimes actions, and instead has condemned this genocide as unacceptable, and called for regulation of the financial engine that powers it, said Rushan Abbas, executive director of the U.S.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, in a statement. France has taken their place on the correct side of history.

Dolkun Isa, president of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), called the resolutions passage a crucial step towards wider international recognition of the Uyghur genocide.

We call upon the French government to follow the position of its parliament, and make concerted efforts with partners internationally to end these unspeakable crimes, he said.

Also on Thursday, the U.K. Parliament unanimously passed a motion put forward by lawmaker Nusrat Ghani, calling on the U.K. government to make an urgent assessment on whether Uyghurs are at risk of genocide.

In April 2021, the House of Commons unanimously voted to label abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims part of a policy of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Translated by Alim Seytoff for RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
No breakthrough has emerged after a new round of talks between the United States and Russia on tensions over Ukraine, though the January 21 meeting helped clear a path to understanding each others positions amid fears Moscow will invade its neighbor despite Western warnings of severe consequences.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met for about 90 minutes in Geneva on January 21 as they try to avert a possible war in Europe amid Moscows demands for concessions from NATO over its ties with the former Soviet republic.

Following the U.S.-Russia talks in the Swiss city, the White House announced that President Joe Biden will meet with his national-security team over the weekend to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Both Blinken and Lavrov said the talks were frank and gave hope for more diplomacy on the Ukraine crisis.

"We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clear path in terms of understanding each other's concerns and each other's positions," Blinken told reporters after the meeting.

Lavrov in turn said he hopes "emotions will decrease" after the talks, which follow a flurry of diplomacy in recent days that has failed to bridge deep divides.

Russia has amassed more than 125,000 troops in occupied Crimea and near Ukraine's borders, raising alarm bells in Western capitals that Moscow is preparing further military action against Ukraine.

Moscow is backing separatist fighters in an ongoing war in eastern Ukraine that has claimed more than 13,200 lives since 2014, the same year it illegally annexed Crimea.

Russia has ramped up its belligerent rhetoric recently as it presses for a list of security guarantees. The demands include a promise from NATO never to admit Ukraine and for a significant retreat of the alliance from Eastern Europe. Moscow is also angered over Western military support to Ukraine.

On January 21, Russia's Foreign Ministry published on its website answers to questions from journalists received at a press conference seven days earlier on Russian diplomacy last year.

One of the ministry's answers noted that Russia is looking for "steps aimed at restoring the 1997 configuration of those countries who werent NATO members at that time and that includes both Bulgaria and Romania."

NATO immediately rejected the Russian demand.

"NATO will not renounce our ability to protect and defend each other, including with the presence of troops in the eastern part of the alliance," alliance spokesperson Oana Lungescu said in a statement.

In Bucharest, Romania's Foreign Ministry said the Russian demand was "unacceptable and cannot be part of a negotiation," while Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said his country "made its choice long ago by becoming a NATO member."

Lavrov said that Blinken promised during the meeting to provide written responses to Russian demands on Ukraine and NATO next week, adding that Russia will better understand "whether we are on the right track" after Moscow receives the answers.

Blinken confirmed the United States would respond in writing and that he expects delegations from both sides to meet again after Moscow studies the responses.

I believe we can carry forward work on developing understanding, but thats contingent on Russia stopping its aggression toward Ukraine., Blinken said.

The West has repeated it wants diplomacy, but with positions entrenched on both sides, successive talks between Western and Russian officials in Geneva, Brussels, and Vienna last week have failed to produce any breakthrough.

Amid the rising tensions, the three Baltic members of NATO -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- have announced that they will provide anti-armor and antiaircraft missiles to Ukraine to help the country in the event of a possible Russian invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked Biden in a tweet for Washington's "unprecedented" diplomatic and military assistance.



Separately, in an interview with The Washington Post, Zelenskiy said that, in the event of an attack, Russia may try to occupy Kharkiv, an industrial city of some 1.4 million located at only 42 kilometers from the border, and this would signal the start of a "large-scale war."

If Russia invades, "of course they are going to do this on those territories where historically there are people who used to have family links to Russia," Zelenskiy said.

"Kharkiv, which is under Ukraine government control, could be occupied. Russia needs a pretext: They will say that they are protecting the Russian-speaking population."

Kharkiv is home to tank and tractor factories as well as electronics producers.

Washington and its allies have repeatedly warned Russia that it would pay a "high price" of economic and political sanctions should it invade Ukraine.

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that NATO member Canada will offer Ukraine a loan of up to $95.6 million and is looking at other ways to support Kyiv.

"Russia is aiming to destabilize Ukraine, including economically. This loan will help support Ukraine's economic resilience," Trudeau told a news conference on January 21.

In Kyiv, the SBU security service said Ukraine had been subjected to an intense campaign of fake bomb threats targeting society in recent days, blaming Russia for the hoaxes.

The SBU said it had recorded more than 300 anonymous phone calls and Internet messages since the beginning of the year, as opposed to some 1,100 such messages in all of last year.

With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters
Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on January 21 that the detained mother of a prominent human rights lawyer faces a "real prison sentence," the Chechen authorities "will take care of" her son, and that her entire family could find themselves "underground."

Zarema Yangulbayeva, the 52-year-old mother of Abubakar Yangulbayev, a lawyer of the Committee Against Torture NGO, was taken from her apartment in Nizhny Novgorod on the evening of January 20 by masked men who introduced themselves as Chechen police officers.

Amnesty International described the incident that took place some 1,800 kilometers away from Chechnya as a "kidnapping" and urged Russia's federal authorities to act on the "lawlessness" that had "spilled out" of Russia's North Caucasus region.

"Will Russia's federal authorities again ignore the developments in Chechnya and pretend that they are not aware of attempts by the Chechen authorities to muzzle their critics by criminal acts and abductions of their relatives?" Amnesty's statement said.

Yangulbayev told RFE/RL that his mother and father, reserve federal judge Saidi Yangulbayev, have been residing outside of Chechnya for many years and had nothing to do with any developments in Chechnya.

According to him, his mother was forcibly taken from her apartment at the Chechen authorities' order to bring her to her native region as "a witness" in an unspecified fraud case.

In a January 21 Telegram post, Kadyrov confirmed that Yangulbayeva had been taken into custody by members of Chechen law enforcement, whom he claimed were doing their job "conscientiously" and in accordance with Russian law.

Kadyrov alleged that Yangulbayeva had attacked a police officer after being taken to Grozny, saying that she had "already earned herself...a real prison sentence."

Kadyrov went on to question the judicial credentials of reserve federal judge Saidi Yangulbayev, calling on the Russian Supreme Court to "erase his name from the history of the judicial body." He also accused the couple's son of "making direct and open threats against me."

"The competent authorities will take care of this person," Kadyrov wrote in reference to the younger Yangulbayev.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on January 21 that the Kremlin was not aware of the situation surrounding Zarema Yangulbayeva, emphasizing that she is the wife of a federal judge.

"The Kremlin has no details about the abduction of a federal judge's wife in Nizhny Novgorod and prefers not to believe in it," Peskov said.

In late December, authorities detained dozens of relatives of Chechen bloggers who reside abroad and often criticize Chechen authorities and the region's Kremlin-backed authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Most of them were later released, but some, including two of Yangulbayev's relatives, remain in custody.

In his Twitter post, Kadyrov said the "entire family has no concept of honor or dignity" and declared that "either a place in prison or underground awaits this family."

Abubakar Yangulbayev was previously briefly detained in the city of Pyatigorsk and questioned as a witness in a case of "justification of terrorism," for which Kadyrov suggested he had been summoned and could be the reason his mother was taken into custody.

The attorney has reportedly claimed that about 40 members of his family have gone missing in Chechnya and that a brother of his was tortured at the Russian Interior Ministry's Grozny branch in 2017.

Russian and international human rights groups have for years accused Kadyrov of overseeing grave human rights abuses including abductions, torture, extrajudicial killings, and the persecution of the LGBT community.

Kremlin critics say Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned a blind eye to the abuses and violations carried out by Kadyrov because he relies on the former rebel commander to control separatist sentiment and violence in Chechnya.

Chechnya went through two devastating post-Soviet wars and an Islamist insurgency that spread to other mostly Muslim regions in the North Caucasus.

With reporting by Ekho Moskvy and Meduza
More than 100 people who were evacuated from a steel plant in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol have arrived in Zaporizhzhya, the Mariupol city council said, as Russian forces resumed their assault on the complex.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

The council said in a statement that the people who arrived in Zaporizhzhya -- a city about 230 kilometers northwest of Mariupol -- were receiving assistance after emerging from weeks in the bunkers of the sprawling Azovstal plant.



Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 156 people were evacuated. She said several hundred more people remained inside the plant and tens of thousands of women, children, and elderly remain in Mariupol.



"There is no medicine, water, or communication services," she said at a briefing on May 3, adding that the authorities needed to rescue everyone who wants to escape.



The United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross coordinated the evacuation of women, children, and the elderly from the steel works.

"We would have hoped that many more people would have been able to join the convoy and get out of hell. That is why we have mixed feelings," Pascal Hundt of the ICRC told journalists on a video conference call.



Osnat Lubrani, UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said that 101 women, men, children, and older people could finally leave the plant, and several dozen more joined the convoy in a town on the outskirts of Mariupol. Some evacuees decided not to stay with the convoy and headed to destinations other than Zaporizhzhya, Lubrani said.



A few women who arrived in Zaporizhzhya held up handmade signs calling on the Ukrainian authorities to evacuate soldiers still holed up in the plant and their relatives and loved ones who are trapped.



UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he hoped the continued coordination with Kyiv and Moscow will lead to more humanitarian pauses that will allow civilians safe passage from the fighting.

WATCH: Current Time reporter Borys Sachalko comes under fire as he accompanies a Red Cross team attempting to evacuate a village that lies between Russian-occupied Kherson and Ukrainian-held Mikolayiv in southern Ukraine.

Despite the calls for additional evacuations, Russian troops began to storm the plant soon after the latest group of people got out, Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications under the National Security and Defense Council said in a statement on May 3.



According to the Vereshchuk, Russia purposely resumed the assault after some civilians got out.



"This was their plan: to allow some civilians to leave and then continue bombing. However, civilians remain there, there are people who did not have time to get out from under the rubble because the blockages were so heavy that in two days they simply could not lift them physically. We need to continue the humanitarian operation, including Azovstal," Vereshchuk said.

French President Emmanuel Macron also urged that evacuations from the steel plant be allowed to continue.



Macron spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on May 3, calling on Russia to rise to the level of its responsibility as a permanent member of the UN Security Council by ending its devastating aggression, an Elysee statement said.



The storming of the plant comes days after Putin said he had called off plans for such an operation. Putin instead said he wanted Russian forces to blockade the sprawling plant "so a fly can't get through."

Later on May 3, Russian strikes began targeting the western city of Lviv. The strikes happened just before 8:30 p.m. local time. It wasnt immediately clear what was targeted.



Mayor Andriy Sadoviy wrote on social media that people in the city should take shelter. Train service out of Lviv was suspended.



Sadoviy acknowledged in another message that the attacks had damaged power stations, cutting off electricity in some districts.



The governor of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine said Russian troops shelled a coke plant in the city of Avdiyivka, killing at least 10 people and wounding 15 more.



"The Russians knew exactly where to aim -- the workers just finished their shift and were waiting for a bus at a bus stop to take them home," Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote in a Telegram post. "Another cynical crime by Russians on our land."

Kyrylenko said 11 more people were killed in the shelling of four towns in the region. The number includes five killed in the town of Lyman and four in Vuhledar.



Kyrylenko said the death toll on May 3 was the highest on a single day since a Russian strike on a train station in the city of Kramatorsk killed 57 people on April 8 and injured 109 others.

WATCH: Ukrainian troops southeast of Kharkiv survey heavy damage to a community cultural center, reflecting on the impact on locals, now all but gone.

Ukrainian officials say the Russian military also struck railroad infrastructure across the country on May 3.



Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of the state-run Ukrainian railways, said the Russian strikes hit six railway stations in the countrys central and western regions, inflicting heavy damage.



The governor of the Dnipro region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said Russian missiles struck railway infrastructure in the area, leaving one person wounded and disrupting train service.

Earlier on May 3, in a video address to the parliament in Kyiv, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced 300 million pounds ($376 million) worth of extra military aid for Ukraine.

Britain has already sent military equipment, including missiles and missile launchers, to Ukraine. The new aid will consist of electronic warfare equipment, a battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment, and thousands of night vision devices.



In his speech, Johnson referred to a 1940 address by World War II leader Winston Churchill as Britain faced Nazi Germany's aggression.

"The British people showed such unity and resolve that we remember our time of greatest peril as our finest hour," Johnson told the Verkhovna Rada. "This is Ukraine's finest hour, an epic chapter in your national story that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come."

"We will carry on supplying Ukraine...with weapons, funding, and humanitarian aid, until we have achieved our long-term goal, which must be so to fortify Ukraine that no one will ever dare to attack you again," Johnson said.

In Brussels, the EU's executive indicated it was prepared to propose another sanctions package to punish Moscow for invading Ukraine. But Slovakia and Hungary will not support sanctions against Russian energy, including on oil imports.



The two countries say they are too reliant on Russian oil and there are no immediate alternatives.

The sanctions will also target the Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, which will be excluded from the global banking communications system SWIFT, unnamed diplomats said.

Fighting also raged in the strategic port city of Odesa and across Ukraine's east. A 15-year-old boy was killed in a fresh Russian strike on Odesa, the city council said.

Ukraine's second-biggest city, Kharkiv, was under shelling, the military said on May 3, while the General Staff said Ukrainian forces were defending the approach to Kharkiv from Izyum, some 120 kilometers to the southeast.



Since Russia launched its unprovoked war on February 24, its troops have failed to completely take over any major Ukrainian city.

On the diplomatic front, Germany's conservative opposition leader traveled to Kyiv on May 3 for meetings with Ukrainian officials, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz made clear that he wouldn't be visiting Ukraine any time soon.

Friedrich Merz, who heads former Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Union bloc, visited the town of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, which has been heavily bombarded by Russian forces.

Scholz refused to go to Ukraine because of Kyiv's refusal to invite Germany's head of state, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whom Ukrainians accuse of cozying up to Russia during his time as foreign minister.

"It can't work that a country that provides so much military aid, so much financial aid...you then say that the president can't come," Scholz told public broadcaster ZDF late on May 2.

The United States warned that Moscow was planning to formally take over regions in Ukraine's east.



Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, said Russia is planning to imminently annex the territories of Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, using referendums after failing to overthrow the government in Kyiv.



Russia encountered surprisingly staunch resistance in the north around the regions of Kyiv and Chernihiv, which forced it to redeploy its troops in the south and east, where fighting has intensified in recent days.



Ukraine's east and south are seen as key strategic goals for Russia, allowing it a land link to Crimea.

Separately, Russia's state news agency TASS quoted the Defense Ministry on May 3 as saying that more than 1 million people, including nearly 200,000 children, had been taken from Ukraine to Russia in the past two months.



Defense Ministry official Mikhail Mizintsev said those civilians "were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions" of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, and from other parts that came under Russian control.

No details were provided on the location or circumstances of the moves.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC, and dpa
TURKISTAN, Kazakhstan -- An official in Kazakhstans southern Turkistan region has been arrested on suspicion of ordering the assassination of an independent journalist.

Police said on January 21 that five individuals, whose names were not disclosed, were arrested in the case of the attempted murder of Amangeldy Batyrbekov, the editor in chief of the Saryaghash-Inform newspaper.

Media reports said the official arrested in the case is Bauyrzhan Mairikhov, the chief of the education department of the Saryaghash district administration.

Turkistan regional administration officials confirmed to RFE/RL that Mairikhov was arrested but refused to give any details.

The probe was launched after two men shot Batyrbekov's son late at night on January 3 near the journalist's house. The son survived the attack and was treated in a hospital for several days.

Investigators say the attackers' target was the journalist, for whose assassination they had been promised 5 million tenges ($11,500).

Batyrbekov told RFE/RL that the assassination attempt was most likely linked to his online articles about corruption at a local kindergarten, in which he mentioned Mairikhov.

Batyrbekov is currently the subject of an investigation launched after three judges filed a libel lawsuit against him last year over his investigative reports.

In January 2020, the Turkistan Regional Court canceled a lower court's decision to sentence Batyrbekov to two years and three months for insulting the dignity and honor of another local education official in one of his articles.

In 2017, Batyrbekov was sentenced to 18 months of parole-like restricted freedom for insulting a deputy prosecutor in the Saryaghash district in a newspaper article.

The Almaty-based Adil Soz (A Just Word) human rights group called Batyrbekov a prisoner of conscience at the time, while the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called for all charges to be dropped.

International human rights organizations have called on Kazakhstan to revoke an article in the Criminal Code that sets out criminal prosecution for libel instead of making it a civil case.

Kazakhstan ranked 155th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
NUR-SULTAN -- Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev says an "unacceptable gap" between rich and poor led to deadly anti-government protests that shook the Central Asian country earlier in January.

Talking to representatives of the oil-rich nation's leading businesses on January 21, Toqaev said "real reforms" and "deep transformation of the social structures" are needed to address problems brought up by some of the protesters.

"The gap between the declared social economic agenda and the real situation reached a critical mass and what we need now is a full reset of our economic politics," Toqaev stated.

"With corruption that is well-known, the differences in incomes played the role of an ignited match near a gunpowder barrel, and the situation was used by terrorists, armed individuals, and the masterminds behind them," Toqaev said, adding that he has "already made difficult decisions and will make such decisions in the future."

Protests in the remote town of Zhanaozen in early January over a sudden fuel price hike quickly spread across Kazakhstan and led to violent clashes in the country's largest city, Almaty, and elsewhere.

Much of the protesters' anger appeared directed at Toqaev's predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbaev, who had ruled Kazakhstan since 1989 before handing over power. However, he was widely believed to remain in control behind the scenes.

In the wake of the protests, Toqaev claimed that Almaty was attacked by "20,000 terrorists," issued a shoot-to-kill-without-warning order, and invited troops from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization to enter the country. No officials have given direct evidence of any "terrorists" being involved in the unrest, nor have they commented on what exactly their demands were.

In his first-ever public criticism of Nazarbaev, Toqaev said last week that, under his predecessor's leadership, many lucrative businesses and extremely rich people had appeared in Kazakhstan and that it was now time for ordinary people to receive what they deserved.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Nazarbaev's close relatives have lost their official posts, suggesting that the government was moving to purge or squeeze members of the ex-president's extended family. One of Nazarbaev's closest associates, the chief of the country's Committee for National Security, Karim Masimov, and his two deputies were arrested on charges of high treason.

Kazakh authorities say that 227 people were killed during the unrest, including 19 law enforcement officers, and that 12,000 were detained.

Human rights groups say the number may be much higher and that scores of people remain missing, adding that people who had nothing to do with the protests were shot dead or arrested.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement on January 20 demanding that the Kazakh authorities "stop jailing and summoning for questioning journalists who covered the recent nationwide protests, and allow the press to work freely."
2 A woman at a memorial wall outside the monastery to men killed fighting Russia-backed separatists in 2014. The photo was made on January 21 during the anniversary of the end of fighting for the Donetsk airport in 2015, and as fears mount that an all-out invasion of Ukraine by Russia may be imminent.
As Russia has moved tens of thousands of troops toward its border with Ukraine in recent months, hinted of an armed response if NATO does not acquiesce to its demands, and announced large military exercises in Belarus, the sheer scale of its mobilization has been hard for Moscow to downplay or deny.

The reason: Unlike in decades past, experts say the surveillance tools available today make it impossible for a modern army to stage a major logistical operation without alerting the global community. And often, the alarm bells are rung by a network of dedicated sleuths who are first to unearth evidence on the ground.

When Russia announced the joint exercises on the territory of its staunch ally Belarus this month, it was analysts from the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an open-source investigative outlet, that filled in the gaps left by a lack of clarity from Moscow, revealing credible estimates that some 8,000 to 15,000 troops were involved and placing the West further on edge.

Many soldiers and their relatives are writing in social media that theyre being sent to Belarus for training, Kirill Mikhailov, a CIT analyst, told Current Time on January 19. The fact that those forces will now be added is a pretty serious sign.

An investigation by CIT and RFE/RLs Russian Service, published this week, provided further evidence of movement of Russian forces westward across the country, toward Belarus and Ukraine.

Information of this sort is crucial for Western governments preparing a possible response to any invasion Russia may stage in coming months. And CIT is not the only outfit helping them piece things together. Amateur sleuths and open-source investigators working for private organizations and NGOs are tracking Russias mobilization 24/7, trawling social media platforms and compiling commercial satellite imagery to deliver evidence about whats going on.

One of these invaluable sources is Maxar Technologies, a commercial satellite and imaging company that has exposed Russias growing buildup on its border with Ukraine and in Crimea. Since late November, it has supplied the worlds leading outlets with images attesting to a Russian buildup that Moscow can no longer plausibly deny.

Increasingly Untenable Denials

When Russia sent forces to seize control of Crimea from Ukraine in February 2014, its actions were accompanied by repeated denials -- including from President Vladimir Putin -- that the so-called little green men patrolling Ukrainian Army bases on the Black Sea peninsula are actually regular Russian troops.

Later, when it fomented an armed uprising by Moscow-backed separatist forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, it came down to journalists operating on the ground to supply evidence that the troops and equipment sent to shore up the insurgency came from Russia.

Fast forward eight years and the quality of satellite imagery, as well as the ubiquity of revealing social media posts, means such denials have become increasingly untenable and it has become far easier for Western analysts and digital activists to debunk them.

And while the use of open-source intelligence is by no means new, the price of acquiring satellite and flight-tracking data has plummeted in recent years, markedly expanding the number of citizens who can gain access to such information and publish what they find online.

What they find, very often, is precious video evidence showing the movement of Russian troops and equipment from the countrys remote Far East westward to the border with Ukraine and now also to Belarus, which announced the joint exercises that are slated to begin on February 9.

The investigation by CIT and RFE/RLs Russian Service used an analysis of Russian-language social media posts to shed light on the scale and nature of Moscows military mobilization and spotlight concerns voiced by the relatives of troops headed westward for deployment in Belarus and on Russias borders with Ukraine.

The investigation, based in part on reactions to numerous posts on the video-sharing platform TikTok by people who appear to be Russian soldiers as well as exchanges with friends and relatives who authored some of the comments, added crucial evidence of the Russian military buildup as negotiations between Russia and the West continue to yield no breakthrough.

The Job Is Becoming Harder

The accuracy of information dug up by many independent sleuths and amplified by mainstream media allows such private analysts to be roughly on the same page as the U.S. intelligence community, said former CIA analyst Jeffrey Edmonds.

Its impressive how close someone can be on the outside, Edmonds, now at the CNA Corp think-tank, told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

But their job is becoming harder. Analysts say that Russia has become more skilled in obscuring its activities since its operations in 2014 and its more recent military buildup in the spring of 2021, deploying tactics such as painting over Russian flags on vehicles and removing their license plates so as to hide their origins.

In May 2020, Putin signed a decree that forbids Russian soldiers from carrying smartphones while on duty, a direct response to the huge embarrassment Moscow suffered after hundreds of posts by troops active in the military campaigns in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015.

But analysts at CIT remain upbeat about the prospects of keeping track of Russias troop movements as the risk of an escalation continues to rise.

Since the beginning of January, a whole wave of videos and social media posts has surfaced showing that troops are moving, CIT founder Ruslan Leviev told Current Time. And local residents, for whom this is unusual, are of course documenting it all.

But Leviev, a long-time open-source investigator who has riled Russian authorities and reported being attacked near his home in Moscow by unknown assailants in 2019, warns that the scale of Russias buildup does not bode well.

Russia tried to justify itself, saying these are just exercises, he said of the deployments to Belarus. But experience shows that exercises can easily turn directly into real military operations.

Aleksei Aleksandrov, Dariya Ali-zade, and Ksenia Sokolyanskaya of Current Time contributed to this report
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on social media platforms not to comply with the Russian media regulators draconian demand for the deletion of accounts held by OVD-Info, a nonprofit that monitors police arrests nationwide, amid a broad crackdown on independent media and civic organizations.

Russian authorities stepped up their war on reliable and independent online reporting when the state media-monitoring agency Roskomnadzor blocked access to the OVD-Info site in December, the Paris-based media-freedom watchdog said in statement on January 20.

Roskomnadzor also called on social media platforms to shut down OVD-Infos accounts, which RSF said would result in its complete disappearance.

Among other things, OVD-Info documents detentions during protests and cases of political harassment and has served as a clearinghouse connecting detained protesters with defense attorneys.

This media outlet is used as a reference source by many publications and NGOs both in Russia and internationally, RSF said.

After eliminating nearly all independent media by targeting their owners to influence editorial policy, censoring articles, and blocking websites by means of both judicial and extrajudicial methods, the Russian authorities are now targeting social media platforms, said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSFs Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

Roskomnadzors request is unacceptable, Cavelier said, saying it not only violates Russias constitution and its international obligations, but also deprives its citizens of an information source essential to the public debate.

We urge Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google (YouTube), Twitter, and Telegram to act in accordance with the principles they proclaim by refusing to delete the accounts of media outlets such OVD-Info, she said.

RSF said Russian authorities have been stepping up pressure on international platforms, imposing unprecedented fines on Google and Facebook for displaying Roskomnadzor-banned content despite repeated requests for its removal.

Google is required to pay as much as 7.2 billion rubles ($93 million) and Facebook nearly 2 billion rubles ($26 million) for violating the countrys rules on banned content. Fines were also imposed on Twitter, TikTok, and other social media companies on similar charges.

Meanwhile, the Russian search engine Yandex no longer displays the content of OVD-Info, which has also been targeted by the Justice Ministry.

In September, the ministry added the NGO to the list of foreign agents, a defamatory label that has been used by the authorities to intimidate journalists and sow confusion, RSF said.

Russia is ranked 150th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
Anatoly Naiman, one of Russia's most prominent poets, whose works were officially allowed to be published only after Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, has died in Moscow at the age of 85.

Naiman's daughter Anna Narinskaya said on Facebook on January 21 that her father died overnight, several days after being hospitalized with a stroke.

Naiman was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. In the Soviet Union, his poems were only published in samizdat -- an underground activity across the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War in which dissidents reproduced censored publications, passing them from reader to reader.

However, his translations of medieval French poetry were officially published.

Along with another of Russia's most influential poets, Anna Akhmatova, Naiman also translated the works of Giacomo Leopardi.

Naiman was a friend of the late Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky, who was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 over his poems because they did not comply with Soviet ideology.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have announced they will provide anti-armor and antiaircraft missiles to Ukraine to help the country in the event of a possible Russian invasion.

The three Baltic states and NATO members announced the plan in a joint statement on January 21.

"In light of Russia's increase in military pressure in and around Ukraine, the Baltic States have decided to answer Ukrainian needs and to provide additional defense-related assistance," the statement said. This aid will further enhance Ukraine's capability to defend its territory and population in case of possible Russian aggression."

Reuters, citing three sources familiar with the situation, has reported that the three Baltic states received clearance for the weapons transfer earlier this week from the United States.

Estonia will send Javelin anti-armor missiles, while Latvia and Lithuania will send Stinger antiaircraft missiles.

The move comes at a low point in relations between Russia and Washington and its NATO allies. The United States and NATO have warned that Russia's massing of more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders is a possible prelude to an invasion.

Moscow, which has denied it seeks to invade Ukraine as it did in 2014, has demanded guarantees that NATO will not allow former Soviet states such as Ukraine to enter the Western military alliance.

Washington and NATO have conducted talks with Russia, but the diplomatic efforts have thus far failed to thaw tensions.

"The Baltic states urge Russia to stop its aggressive and irresponsible behavior," Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said on January 21, while his ministry said the weapons would be delivered in the "nearest future."

With reporting by Reuters and AFP
TASHKENT -- A court in Tashkent has refused to release from house arrest Miraziz Bazarov, a blogger and rights activist arrested who was severely beaten by unknown attackers in March last year.

The Mirobod district court in the Uzbek capital rejected a motion by Bazarov's lawyer to free the blogger during his trial, which started on January 20.

Journalists say they were not allowed to be present at the trial because they did not provide PCR tests to prove they did not have the coronavirus, adding that they had not been told that such tests were required.

Representatives of foreign embassies and officials from the European Union and United Nations were allowed in the courtroom.

Bazarov's lawyer, Sergei Mayorov, told RFE/RL that the judge ordered all people present at the trial to refrain from commenting to the media about the proceedings or to reveal the process in any way until the trial is over.

Bazarov was hospitalized in March 2021 after he was brutally attacked by unknown men hours after a public event he had organized in Tashkent for fans of Korean pop music and Japanese anime was disrupted by dozens of aggressive men.

He suffered an open leg fracture, a severe concussion, and multiple internal and external injuries.

Later, he became a suspect in a slander case. A religious cleric, two pro-government bloggers, and a schoolteacher filed a lawsuit against Bazarov, accusing him of lying about them on his blogs.

Bazarov has been known for criticizing the Uzbek government on his Telegram channel.

Among other issues, Bazarov has also publicly urged the government to decriminalize same-sex sexual conduct, which remains a crime in Uzbekistan.

Bazarov has openly said that he is not an LGBT activist but believes that being gay is a personal issue and therefore no laws should consider it a crime.

Bazarov has also criticized President Shavkat Mirziyoev for insufficient anti-corruption efforts and has questioned the efficacy of ongoing restrictions to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2020, Bazarov was questioned by State Security Service investigators after he called on the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank on Facebook not to provide loans to Uzbekistan without strict control over how the funds are used.

Bazarov had told RFE/RL that he had received many online threats before the attack, which he had told police about, but he said law enforcement did not take any action.

If convicted, Bazarov may face up to three years of parole-like restricted freedom.
A flurry of diplomacy continued, as did a Russian military buildup near Ukraines borders, amid grim signs that Moscows discussions with the West over its demands for sweeping concessions that would roll back post-Cold War developments in Europe could soon be replaced by the use of force.

Meanwhile, Kremlin opponent Aleksei Navalny started his second year behind bars and the official daily number of new COVID-19 cases more than doubled in two weeks as omicron took hold -- stark reminders of the situation inside Russia while attention is focused on President Vladimir Putins designs on Ukraine.

Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward.

'Absolute Nonstarters'

When Russia laid out its proposals last month for agreements with the United States and NATO that it said would address its security concerns, one big question immediately arose: Were Moscows most dramatic demands meant to be an opening gambit in a negotiations process -- or were they designed to fail, creating a pretext for the Kremlin to seek to get what it wants out of Kyiv and the West by launching a new offensive against Ukraine?

That question still stands.

But after a series of talks on January 9-13 involving Russia, the United States, NATO, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and a phone call between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on January 18, there were no indications that Moscow is prepared to step back from a demand that U.S. officials have made clear is unacceptable: a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO.

If anything, quite the opposite: Asked on January 19 whether a pledge to keep Ukraine and Georgia out of NATO for a long but limited period of time would satisfy Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said it would not -- and he said earlier that they must never, ever join the alliance.

In fact, Moscows demands go far beyond that. If Russia gets its way, NATO would be barred forever from admitting any new members. It would also be barred from deploying weapons and troops in countries that joined the alliance after May 1997 -- in other words, all NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe -- and required to reverse all such deployments that have occurred since then.

With an emphasis on Ukraine, Russian officials have called the no-NATO-expansion demand an absolute imperative, seeming to leave no room for compromise and stoking suspicions that the proposals are designed to fail, giving Putin a pretext -- at least in his own mind -- for a new offensive against Ukraine.

In Kyiv on January 19 ahead of talks with German, French, and British officials in Berlin the following day, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that some of Russias demands are absolute nonstarters. That, he suggested, has made it hard to determine what Moscow believes it can achieve through talks.

Its not clear what Russias central demand is, Blinken said, adding, I think well have a better idea, maybe, after Friday -- a reference to a planned meeting with Lavrov in Geneva on January 21.

Maybe.

Lavrov and other Russian officials have said they do not want the United States and the West to drag diplomacy out, but some analysts suspect thats actually what Russia wants: a place at talks that it hopes could eventually change the security architecture of Europe, even if its biggest demands go unmet.

Russian officials have repeatedly said they have no plans to invade Ukraine -- though, for the most part, these statements have left the door open to what Moscow could claim was a response to aggression. That means they have little currency in the West, which has accused Russia of laying the groundwork to create a pretext for an offensive.

The Belarus Factor

And despite such assurances, fears that Russia could launch a new offensive have deepened since the January 9-13 talks ended without a positive result. Russia has positioned some 127,000 troops near its border with Ukraine, according to Kyivs latest estimate, and has started sending units to Belarus -- Ukraines northern neighbor, whose border is about 150 kilometers from Kyiv -- ahead of what the countries say will be joint military drills in February.

And on January 20, in imposing sanctions on four Ukrainians it charged were involved in Russian government-directed influence activities to destabilize Ukraine, the U.S. Treasury Department made a striking claim about those alleged efforts.

Russia has directed its intelligence services to recruit current and former Ukrainian government officials to prepare to take over the government of Ukraine and to control Ukraine's critical infrastructure with an occupying Russian force," it said.

In Moscow, the Kremlin-controlled lower parliament house prepared for discussions next week on a bill that would call on Putin to recognize the territories in eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed separatists as independent states, another form of pressure on Kyiv and the West.

Tensions have risen even in Ukraine, where the nearly eight-year war against Moscow-backed forces in the Donbas region has inured many people to the persistent Russian threat and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has played down the possibility of a new Russian invasion, including in an address on January 19.

Zelenskiys words have contrasted noticeably with warnings from Western officials, and particularly the United States, that a new Russian attack could be imminent.

Speaking on January 19, U.S. President Joe Biden said that Putin may not have made up his mind to launch an offensive against Ukraine, but added: My guess is he will move in.

The United States and its European allies have warned that they will impose strong sanctions on Russia if it launches a new offensive against Ukraine.

So, weve laid out the consequences clearly for Russia, but also the far preferable path of resolving differences diplomatically, Blinken told Voice of America in an interview in Kyiv on January 19. And well see which path President Putin decides to take.

For Russia watchers, if not for most Russians, the tension over Moscows military buildup and its jaw-dropping demands on the West have drawn attention away from domestic issues.

'This Is Our Country'

The governments clampdown on political opponents, civil society, independent media, and dissent persisted as a milestone was passed: Aleksei Navalny, the anti-corruption crusader who has been Putins most prominent foe for more than a decade, started his second year behind bars.

Navalny was arrested at a Moscow airport upon his return to Russia on January 17, 2021, following treatment in Germany for a near-fatal nerve-agent poisoning he blames on Putin. He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison two weeks later on a parole-violation charge that he dismisses as absurd.

Navalnys arrest marked the start of an escalation of the governments crackdown, and 2021 ended with another momentous step in what some see as a transformation from authoritarian to totalitarian rule: the closure of Memorial, a human rights and historical research group that worked hard to expose state crimes past and present.

Navalny was defiant on the anniversary of his arrest, urging Russians not to fear the authorities.

"Having served my first year in prison, I want to tell everyone exactly what I shouted to those gathered outside the court when a convoy led me to a police van: Don't be afraid of anything," a post on his Instagram account said.

This is our country and we have no other," he added.

Meanwhile, coronavirus cases skyrocketed as the omicron variant spread among Russians, less than half of whom are fully vaccinated following what Kremlin critics call a botched response to the pandemic some estimates suggest has killed more than 1 million people since it first hit the country nearly two years ago.

The official number of new COVID-19 cases rose to 38,850 on January 20, more than twice the number 10 days earlier, drawing closer to the record highs -- over 40,000 cases -- set in early November.

At a meeting on January 11, amid what the World Health Organization has called a "west-to-east tidal wave" of omicron infections, members of the government's coronavirus task force warned that Russia could soon rise above 100,000 new cases daily if social distancing and other precautionary measures aren't followed.
Eswatini Mini Guide

Eswatini Factfile

The Kingdom of Swaziland is sometimes known as Ngwane or Swatini officially renamed to Eswatini in 2018

Its sandwiched between South Africa to the west and Mozambique to the east

60% of the countrys people live below the UN defined poverty line

Subsistence farming is the main economic activity and marijuana is a major crop

The country has the lowest life expectancy in the world with an average age at death of 32 years

The country is the longest established monarchy in Africa and is bordered by South Africa and Mozambique. Most of its economic activity is tied to that of South Africa including its exchange rate. Subsistence agriculture is the way of life here giving most people few opportunities to climb out of the raging poverty that sweeps the country.Economically tied to South Africa, it wont be a surprise to learn that the only international flight to Eswatini is from Johannesburg . Johannesburgs extensive connections around the world make getting to Swaziland relatively easy as long as youre prepared to make that connection. Once in Eswatini, a hire car, preferably a 4x4 is the best way to travel around.There is little beyond the natural highlights of the country to excite the tourist but for many, that is plenty. It has a range of scenery with mountains in the west on the border with South Africa which descend to vast plains where youll find the safari animals you may have come in search of. There, youll find several game parks with the best being the Hlane Royal National Park or the Maguga Dam where the reservoir behind it attracts many animals and birds. The reserves are less crowded than those of South Africa giving you a greater chance of seeing what youve come for.Swaziland may be a small country but theres plenty of opportunities to explore one of the lesser visited countries in Southern Africa. Consider hiring a car in Swaziland from Matsapha International Airport when you arrive. You can pre-book it online today and ensure that your choice of car is waiting for you, cleaned and fully maintained when you arrive. It saves the hassle of getting taxis or lugging your suitcases onto a bus. Itll also give you the freedom to go where you want, when you want.
Written By

Joe Schulz served as the reporter of the Green Laker in 2019 and 2020, before being hired as a reporter for the Commonwealth in October 2020. He is from Oshkosh and graduated from UW-Oshkosh in December 2020 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

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The Denny Party landed in Seattle just 12 years before the publication that would later become the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its first edition.

That paper was the Seattle Gazette, which printed its first edition on Dec. 10, 1863 -- Seattle's first newspaper.

Publisher J.R. Watson, who was born in Ohio and moved west during the gold rush, became the owner of Olympia's Overland Press after its previous owner was shot to death. That same year, Henry Yesler, who opened the city's first steam-powered sawmill about a decade prior, invited him to live in Seattle rent-free ... if he established a newspaper for the city.

The paper had four pages, dense type and no photos. In addition to publisher, Watson wore the hats of the Gazette's editor and lone reporter for a time.

"It is neither so large as a barn door nor the London Times; but it is the best we can offer for a beginning and is, we trust, sufficient for the time and place," Watson wrote in an inaugural message to readers.

After the first paper garnered a winning response from readers, Watson packed up his Olympia printing press and moved it to the Emerald City, to a building located on what is now the corner of First Avenue South and Yesler Way.

At that time, single copies of the paper cost 10 cents. A yearly subscription was $4.

By 1870, the city's population had grown to just over 1,000 residents.

After a warm welcome, the paper struggled. After making multiple appeals to readers to subscribe, publication was suspended for two months in June 1864.

When the paper re-launched in August, it was given a (slightly) new name: The Seattle Weekly Gazette. Later that year, a semi-weekly competitor called the People's Telegram launched, so Watson began publishing "extras" for important news items that arrived by telegraph. The Telegram didn't last a month.

Watson eventually handed over his publication to Robert G. Head and the Seattle Publishing Company. It went through three additional owners before it wound up in the hands of S.L. Maxwell, who purchased the paper and its assets for $300.

Maxwell gave the publication a familiar name: the Weekly Intelligencer, first published on Aug. 5, 1867.

The publication now had eight pages -- which meant twice as much real estate for advertisers. Maxwell sold the Weekly Intelligencer to David Higgins seven years later for $3,000.

RELATED: Iconic moments in Seattle history, captured by P-I photographers

Higgins updated the Intelligencer's printing press from a Ramage Model No. 913 to a Potter cylinder model powered by a steam engine, which lived in a building located at what is now First Avenue and Cherry Street. With the new press in place, the Weekly Intelligencer became a daily newspaper, with its first issue publishing on June 5, 1876.

Nearly two years later, one of the paper's editors, Thaddeus Hanford, bought the Daily Intelligencer for $8,000. His first mission: take out the competition.

In 1878, Seattle was a three-paper town. In addition to the Daily Intelligencer, Puget Sound Dispatch and Pacific Tribune were circulating in Seattle. Hanford purchased both, folding them into the Intelligencer, and took editor Samuel L. Crawford in as a part-owner.

Meanwhile, a new daily, The Post, began printing in October 1878. However, the Post Publishing Company began with debt, and later constructed a $30,000, three-story brick headquarters for the publication. To save themselves from their financial troubles, in 1881, the owners of The Post arranged a merger with the Intelligencer.

The first issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed on Oct. 3, 1881.

The Seattle P-I passed through several owners over the next 40 years before Hearst (then headed by William Randolph), the current owner of the paper, purchased it in 1921. In that time, it grew in size, circulation and influence. By 1896, the Post-Intelligencer's circulation was almost equal to the circulations of all of Seattle's other newspapers combined.

Decades later, Seattle's oldest newspaper became a pioneer again, as it became the first major daily publication to move online only in 2009.

Today, we're still here ... neither so large as a barn door nor the London Times, but, we trust, sufficient for the time and place.

*Note: Unless otherwise attributed, historical descriptions and other information was compiled from Historylink.org essays, MOHAI photo captions and SeattlePI archives.
Two Southern California counties violated the constitutional right to own firearms when they temporarily closed gun shops and firing ranges at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

In a curious follow-up, the conservative author of one of the rulings predicted a majority of the full appeals court would reject his reasoning, and sarcastically offered a new version that reached the opposite conclusion.

Its so easy justifying a regulation that it doesnt matter much what we say here, Judge Lawrence VanDyke said in an imaginary opinion for a future 11-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he added to Thursdays ruling. He said the courts rulings on gun issues were so predictable that the judges could assign parts of them to our interns. And he closed his fictional opinion by telling his colleagues, Youre welcome.

But VanDyke led a three-judge panel in finding that Ventura County violated the rights of gun owners and dealers by shutting down gun shops and firing ranges for 48 days, starting in March 2020, after Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a statewide shelter-in-place except for services considered essential. In a separate ruling, the same panel upheld a challenge to Los Angeles Countys briefer gun-store shutdown  five days according to county officials, but 11 days according to the court.

And in a third case to be heard soon, the Ninth Circuit will consider a suit by firearms advocates against Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties for similar shutdown orders that were lifted in late May or early June 2020. As in the Southern California cases, a federal judge ruled that the counties did not violate anyones rights by finding the gun stores nonessential and temporarily closing them.

The cases show how authoritarian governments used COVID as an excuse to attack Second Amendment rights, Adam Kraut of the Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the advocacy groups that sued the counties, said in response to the rulings.

The Ninth Circuit, which hears appeals from federal courts in nine Western states, has regularly upheld state and local gun restrictions and regulations, including Californias bans on large-capacity gun magazines and some semiautomatic weapons and states limits on carrying firearms outside the home. But the Supreme Court, which first declared a right to possess guns at home for self-defense in 2008, appeared likely to find a right to carry concealed firearms in public when it heard arguments in a New York case in November.

Newsoms March 2020 order did not define essential services that would be exempt from closure and largely left that decision up to local governments. Ventura and Los Angeles counties allowed grocery stores and some other retailers to stay open but closed gun stores to new customers, while allowing those who had already purchased guns to pick them up by appointment. They also shut down local firing ranges.

Although the stores and ranges have reopened, the court said the case was not moot, in part because the counties could take the same actions in the future. The court also said the closures imposed a severe burden on the core of the Second Amendment right.

While the Supreme Court has declared only a constitutional right to possess firearms, VanDyke said that right includes the ability to acquire firearms and ammunition, and maintain proficiency in their use at firing ranges.

National crises do not water down the application of constitutional rights, he wrote.

Firearm and ammunition sales have soared during the recent pandemic. But if the government suspends these rights during times of crises, the Second Amendment itself becomes meaningless when it is needed most  especially to the victims of attacks, VanDyke said. He said gun stores clearly posed no greater risk than hardware stores or bicycle repair shops, which Ventura County had allowed to stay open.

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.

VanDyke, appointed by President Donald Trump, was joined in his opinion by another Trump appointee, Ryan Nelson. The third panel member, Andrew Kleinfeld, a George H.W. Bush appointee with a conservative record, reached the same conclusion for different reasons.

Writing for himself alone, VanDyke attached a proposed opinion for a future 11-judge court, which would convene if a majority of the Ninth Circuits 29 judges granted the counties request for a new hearing.

The court has ruled on dozens of Second Amendment cases, and without fail has ultimately blessed every gun regulation challenged, so we shouldnt expect anything less here, VanDyke wrote in a preface to his opinion. Citing the states requirements of background checks and other hurdles for gun purchases, he wrote for the future court, A delay in acquiring a firearm is hardly a foreign concept to California residents.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko

Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized Judge Lawrence VanDykes concurring opinion. It reached the opposite conclusion of the majority opinion that he also wrote.
Provided by Joshua Christopher Paredes

Law enforcement officials do not suspect any foul play in the death of a 27-year-old Stanford nurse whose body was found in Fremont Thursday, two days after his roommate reported him missing.

Michael Odell was in the middle of his shift around 4:30 a.m. when he told his supervisor he needed to retrieve something from his car and would return shortly, according to his roommate, Joshua Christopher Paredes.
A double homicide near her Haight Street home jump-started Thea Selbys road into activism nearly two decades ago. It wasnt the only bad thing to occur in the neighborhood, but she recalled that it was the one that made her snap.

I literally had people tell me that they would not walk on my side of the street, said Selby, one of four candidates on the ballot in the Feb. 15 primary to replace David Chiu in the state Assembly. You cant ask people to live like that  and that made me active.

Selby responded by co-founding the Lower Haight Merchants and Neighbors Association to help bring the neighborhood together. That experience eventually led to other grassroots civic involvement, including as a local transportation advocate and vice president of the Rosa Parks Elementary PTA. She was appointed to the states High-Speed Rail Authority board and in 2014 was elected citywide as a trustee to City College of San Francisco, where she continues to serve.

Selby, 58, faces San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney, vice chair of the California Democratic Party David Campos, and scientist and businessman Bilal Mahmood in the primary to succeed Chiu, whom San Francisco Mayor London Breed appointed city attorney.

If no candidate receives a majority of votes, then a runoff election will be held April 19. The winner probably wont be able to stop campaigning, though. They will have to run again in the statewide primary June 7 and, if they are among the top two finishers, again in November.

Nick Otto/Special to The Chronicle

Why shes running: Selby envisioned that her natural next step in public service would be running for the Board of Supervisors. (She unsuccessfully ran for the board in 2012 in an eight-candidate field that Breed topped.) But she said Chius surprise departure made her reconsider.

I had the option of saying, Well, its not exactly the right time or the right place. Or saying, You know what? Im gonna throw my hat in the ring and hopefully win. So thats what I did, Selby said. Given my interest and passion for transportation and for education, really, the next most logical step for me was the Assembly.

She frequently describes the ability to access education as the ladder to opportunity for all on the campaign trail. She would like to see the state focus more on community colleges. She was president of the City College board when it implemented a program allowing any city resident, regardless of immigration status, to attend the community college for free.

Californias community colleges are underrepresented in the amount of funding they get, Selby said. People dont really understand how hugely important they are in terms of retraining people, getting them into decent-paying jobs.

Candidate profiles The Chronicle is running profiles this week of the candidates for state Assembly District 17, representing the eastern side of San Francisco. Voters will get vote-by-mail ballots this week or can vote in person for the Feb. 15 election. See More Collapse

Background: Selby said her varied life experiences make her the strongest candidate in the race. Her campaign website touts that she is the only woman running. Only 23 of the 80 members of the Assembly are female  a percentage that places California at roughly the middle of the pack nationally in terms of female representation among state legislatures. She is also the only parent on the ballot.

I know what its like to deal with getting your children through the public school system, what its like to deal firsthand with dangerous things happening in your neighborhood and knowing that your children may be hurt by them, said Selby, whose sons are now 21 and 23 years old.

Selby pointed out the the state law that ended the sales tax on tampons and diapers did not come from a man.

She is also a small business owner, the proprietor of a marketing, communications and outreach firm for more than 20 years. She has served on San Franciscos Citizens General Obligation Bond Oversight Committee.

Born in Palo Alto, where her father was pursuing a graduate degree in anthropology, Selby has lived around the world. She grew up in Mexico, Philadelphia and Austin, Texas. She received an undergraduate degree in Soviet studies from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Oregon.

Policy positions: To revitalize public education funding, Selby would like to see another attempt to revise how property taxes are collected, much like what the failed 2020 ballot measure Proposition 15 attempted to accomplish.

That was a chunk of change, and I do think we should try that again, Selby said. If we do our best to pull in different constituencies, then we can get it done.

She remains a very strong supporter of Californias high-speed rail project, which is over budget and behind schedule. Last year, state legislators did not sign off on releasing $4.2 billion in bonds needed to finish construction on the trains initial 171-mile segment from Merced to Bakersfield. Los Angeles-area Democrats want to divert some of that funding to commuter rail projects in cities.

I will be a champion for releasing the $4.2 billion in bond money, said Selby, who pledged to educate Assembly members on the value of completing the much-maligned rail project as part of her focus on clean energy and climate change.

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.

What critics say: Mahmood criticized Selby at a candidates forum this month for saying that vaccines dont seem to be stopping omicron but instead are mitigating the effects of omicron during a discussion about whether the candidates supported ending exemptions to vaccine mandates.

I think your doctor is your advocate, said Selby, who along with her children, is vaccinated. And if your doctor says that you shouldnt get vaccinated, then maybe you shouldnt.

Mahmood, who opposed allowing any exemptions, said its a dangerous sentiment to say that vaccines are not effective against omicron. They are highly effective and we cannot be spreading those types of misinformation.

Nick Otto/Special to The Chronicle

Afterward, Selby emphasized that what she was saying is that it is possible for a vaccinated person to become infected. The Centers for Disease Control has stated that current vaccines are expected to protect against severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths due to infection with the omicron variant. However, breakthrough infections in people who are fully vaccinated are likely to occur.

Without the name recognition of Haney and Campos or the self-funding power of Mahmood, Selby is also struggling to keep pace with the fundraising of her competitors. Her campaign has raised only a fraction of what her rivals have.

Other than state Treasurer Fiona Ma and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf  who doesnt have much of a constituency in the San Francisco-based district  she has few big-name endorsers or unions backing her.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
Shugufa should have been studying for her politics and history finals. Instead, days after Thanksgiving, the UC Davis junior was trudging around campus seeking help with a hefty bill she couldnt pay.

The daughter of Afghan asylum seekers had just learned she had $12,000 in outstanding tuition fees to square away in a matter of weeks or she would face a harsh penalty.

I would get dropped from all of my classes and I would probably lose my status as a student, Shugufa told The Chronicle. I was just feeling really hopeless.

The cause of Shugufas predicament traces back more than 20 years, when her parents escaped Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and arrived in New York one month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. (Because the family still has relatives in Afghanistan, The Chronicle is withholding its last name in accordance with its policy on protecting sources.)

The familys asylum application has languished in the federal immigration court system ever since, with hearings postponed, rescheduled and delayed countless times. Two decades later, the family is still waiting for a resolution. The absence of one has become a sort of absurd inheritance for Shugufa, who was just 2 when she came with her parents to the U.S.

Now 23, the political science major and pre-med student was carrying a 3.89 GPA through her first quarter at UC Davis when she learned in November that her financial aid application had been rejected. As a noncitizen with no formal immigration status, she didnt qualify. The rejection came with the news that shed have to come up with $12,437.88 or lose her ability to enroll the following quarter  and probably longer.

Were being punished for something that is out of our control, like being persecuted by the Taliban was not our choice, Shugufa said.

Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle

Shugufas educational ordeal  and her familys generation-spanning immigration odyssey  illustrate how easily people can get lost in an outdated, slow asylum system, one in which the shifting priorities of presidential administrations can have far-reaching consequences for ordinary immigrants.

At the mercy of the backlog

Long delays in asylum cases are not unusual.

There are currently 667,000 asylum cases pending in the federal immigration court system run by the Department of Justice, a number that has risen exponentially since 2016, according to federal data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. The mounting backlog has pushed the current wait time for applicants until their next hearing to 1,612 days, nearly 4 years.

Still, even by those standards, Shugufa and her parents have been waiting an interminable amount of time.

Shugufas father, Ahmed, came of age in Kabul in the 1980s, when he says he gained a reputation for speaking out against the countrys Soviet-backed communist rule. After the Soviets ended their occupation in 1989 came the Muslim radical groups who were no less authoritarian, Ahmed said. By then he was an attorney, and he defended a man who allegedly suffered at the hands of a military general who would later be called a warlord by human rights groups.

When the Taliban took power in 1996, Ahmed said his outspoken support for womens rights and human rights put him in the crosshairs of the new fundamentalist regime, ultimately forcing his family into hiding until they were able to escape to New York in August 2001.

Ahmeds wife, who was pregnant when the family left Afghanistan, gave birth to the couples second daughter, Mursal, that December. Before settling in upstate New York, the family briefly moved to Virginia, where Ahmed found an attorney to file the familys asylum application and where their case would linger for the next 16 years. Back then, there were around 150,000 immigration cases in the federal pipeline. That number now stands at well over 1.5 million.

Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle The parents of UC Davis student Shagufa; an old photos of Shagufas mother and extended family in Afghanistan. Bronte Wittpenn / The Chronicle

The reasons for the explosion in immigration cases over the last two decades are vast  a perennial shortage of judges and clerical staff, the courts slow embrace of technology, precedent-setting judicial decisions that required more documentation with asylum cases, the fact that most immigrants lack legal representation, and the varied responses of U.S. presidents to immigration influxes caused by international instability.

For instance, the Obama administrations decision to prioritize immigration cases involving tens of thousands of unaccompanied children entering the U.S. from Central America in 2014 trickled down to Ahmeds family. They had a court hearing that was postponed two years to allow the childrens cases to be heard. Then, just months before a scheduled court date in 2016, the judge handling the familys case retired, and their new hearing with a new judge was pushed to 2017.

As the family waited and waited, it tried to build a life in America. Granted a work permit for only one year after their case was filed, Ahmed took to working mostly under-the-table jobs in the hotel industry to put food on his familys own.

Meanwhile, as Shugufa grew older, she began noticing how her familys non-American names and olive complexions set them apart in towns and schools with few Middle Eastern people. Shugufa said she could shake off the snide terrorist remarks, but that other experiences left lasting impressions about what it feels like to live in the shadows.

Shugufa recalled one frightening incident in her teens, when the family car hit a patch of ice in Schenectady, N.Y., and spun down a snowy embankment toward a river before stopping. Rather than call for help, the dazed family tried to push their car up the embankment. Someone else eventually phoned 911.

Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle A photo of a young Shagufa; a letter by her mother addressed to the US Department of Justice. Bronte Wittpenn / The Chronicle

Our main priority was like, We hope (we) dont get in trouble because of our immigration status, she said. We didnt even think about the fact that we could have been injured; we could have died.

Informed by these experiences and despite her familys financial struggles, Shugufa was determined to attend college. She researched where a student with her unresolved immigration status might have a chance. All signs pointed to California.

In 2017, her parents made the difficult choice to relocate across the country  requiring their long-delayed immigration case to restart in a new court  so that their daughter could make a better life in the U.S. than they had been able to.

New start in Sacramento

The family settled in Sacramento, home to one of the largest Afghan immigrant communities in the U.S. The change of scenery felt rejuvenating to Shugufa. She spent two years attending Sacramento City College, finding community with other first-generation immigrant students.

This past fall, Shugufa started her first quarter at UC Davis. It was like a dream come true. Her favorite class was one on the history of yoga and Hinduism.

Realizing her parents sacrifice, Shugufa also took it upon herself to find a solution to the familys immigration stalemate. My parents spent their entire lives  fighting, Shugufa said. (Now) its my turn to take a swing at it.

She found the attorney who immediately applied for work permits. Her dad became a ride-hail driver while her mom, unable to get hired for entry-level positions at Walmart and Home Depot, decided to open a home day care. In the summer of 2019, they were given a Jan. 21, 2022, court date, and a new wait began.

In the 20 years since the family immigrated, Afghanistan has gone from Taliban rule to U.S. occupation and back to Taliban rule, escalating Ahmeds fears. He says the family will be in grave danger if they are sent back to what amounts to a failed state, where some of the people who threatened him as an attorney are now more powerful than ever.

Meanwhile, Shugufa had been counting on receiving financial aid for her tuition. She believed she was eligible as a resident of the state, but said she received mixed messages from different offices.

Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle

When she finally learned that her application was rejected and she owed $12,000, Shugufa grew blisters on her feet crisscrossing the campus seeking help. She went to the financial aid office, to the registrars office, to the office for undocumented students, and even to the dean of the College of Letters and Science. Everyone referred her someplace else, she said. In one waiting room she broke down sobbing and told the receptionist, Nobody is listening to me. You keep sending me around like Im a ping-pong ball.

She called local elected officials and even penned a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking him to waive the California Dream Act clause that requires one year of high school in the state for immigrant students to qualify for college aid.

I havent gotten a response, Shugufa said.

Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle

It was Shugufas religious studies professor, Lynna Dhanani, who ultimately reached the right people and got the school to agree to a short reprieve that hinges on what happens at the familys virtual immigration court hearing on Friday.

If the familys long-sought asylum request is granted, Shugufa will qualify for student financial aid. If the familys application is rejected, UC Davis will require the tuition to be paid in full before Shugufa can resume her education.

If it doesnt go through, Im going to have to just put a pause on school and go and work two full-time jobs and save up enough money to pay for the rest of my education, Shugufa said.

Her friends have launched a GoFundMe campaign on her behalf, but so far its collected only $900.

While the traumas of a life without any immigration status have accumulated, they have also helped Shugufa see her path forward. She plans to be a politician and a pediatrician, so kids like her wont have the childhood she did.

Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle

I want to change things especially in regards to immigration laws that put kids and young adults through struggles that they shouldn't have to face, she said.

Deepa Fernandes is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: deepa.fernandes@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @deepafern
After a wet December, California water officials say state reservoirs likely will be able to provide cities and farms more than the scant emergency supplies initially projected for 2022.

The Department of Water Resources announced Thursday that the State Water Project now has enough water in storage to meet 15% of the water requests from across California, still a dismally small figure but better than the 0% allocation announced last month.

The State Water Project, made up of nearly three dozen storage facilities that pipe water hundreds of miles, including massive Lake Oroville in Butte County, delivers water to 29 municipal and agricultural suppliers, including several in the Bay Area. Over the past two years, however, drought has shrunk project supplies, and water agencies have had to make do with less project water.

December storms enabled DWR to convey and store water in San Luis Reservoir, which allows for a modest increase in water deliveries this year, DWR Director Karla Nemeth said in a statement, referring to the Merced County facility that stores surplus water. But severe drought is not over. Dry conditions have already returned in January. Californians must continue to conserve as the state plans for a third dry year.

The states projected allocation is subject to change, depending on how the rest of Californias typically wet winter months fare.

Any curtailment of water deliveries, though, means cities and farms will have to turn to other sources of water, whether its local reservoirs or wells. This can be problematic for water agencies that rely heavily on the state, many of which have already imposed restrictions on how much water customers can use.

Alameda County Water District, which serves Fremont, Newark and Union City, typically gets 40% of its water from the State Water Project. Santa Clara Valley Water District, which provides water to much of San Jose, usually receives a similar amount.

While water districts are happy the projected allocation has gone up, the increase is still too small to provide much relief, said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of State Water Contractors, which represents agencies that receive water from the state.

Unfortunately, this doesnt come close to ending the drought or the risk to water supplies throughout the state, she said Thursday.

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.

The projection made in December was the first time state officials announced an initial allocation of no water for their contractors. At the time, officials said they would provide only minimum deliveries to water agencies unable to fulfill basic drinking and bathing needs of customers.

The reduction follows two years of critically low rain and snowfall in California  the driest 24 months on record for much of the state.

A series of storms late last year, however, pushed the states snowpack to more than 150% of average, offering hope that the states reservoirs would begin to refill.

The Central Valley Project, a parallel system of reservoirs and aqueducts in California managed by the federal government, is yet to project how much water it plans to deliver in the coming year.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander
On July 30, 1925, a 36-year-old Berkeley chemist named Charles Henry Schwartz was apparently killed in an accidental explosion at his Walnut Creek factory. However, as related in the last Portals, evidence quickly amassed that the victim had been murdered, and that the horribly burned corpse was not Schwartz at all.

An autopsy confirmed both suspicions  and added some shocking new details. It revealed that the victim, who was older and taller than Schwartz, had been murdered before the explosion and fire by a blow to the head with a heavy instrument, probably a hammer. Whoever killed him had then burned off his fingerprints with acid, knocked out two of his teeth, and punctured his eyeballs so that the color of his eyes could not be determined.

The missing teeth corresponded to two missing teeth in Schwartzs mouth, which he had been ostentatiously telling people about.

On Aug. 2, authorities declared that Schwartz was suspected of murder. A statewide manhunt was ordered. A search of his home in Berkeley, where he had lived with his wife Alice and their three small sons, revealed that all his possessions had been removed.

While these dramatic developments were splashed across the front pages, a charming raconteur named Harold Warren was entertaining his good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Heywood, with speculations about the sensational case. Warren was an amusing, although somewhat enigmatic, man who had befriended the couple two years earlier. At 4 a.m., six hours after the explosion, he had showed up limping at the North Oakland apartment house Heywood owned, explaining that he had crashed his car, that it had liquor in the back seat, and that he had fled to avoid being arrested for violating Prohibition. He asked to stay at the apartment he had rented from Heywood the day before. His friend obligingly agreed. On Aug. 1, Warren was the life of the party at a bash the Heywoods held for their teenage daughter.

As police searched roads, train stations and freighters for Schwartz, casting their net as far as Europe, new details about him emerged. His real name was Leon Henry Schwartzhof, and he was born in Colmar, France. The degrees he claimed to hold from prestigious institutions such as the University of Heidelberg did not exist. After marrying his wife, Alice, a British war widow, he moved to Berkeley, where he was accused of stealing machinery from a company he worked for and threatening an engineer with a revolver. In 1925, he founded Pacific Cellulose Co., claiming he was perfecting a revolutionary formula that would allow him to manufacture inexpensive artificial silk, and bought an abandoned factory. He persuaded dozens of people, including his wife, to invest in his company, although his factory had never operated, and his secret formula did not exist.

Schwartzs personal life was equally unsavory. He was being sued for breach of promise by a young Swiss woman who credibly claimed he had seduced her, given her a diamond ring and promised to marry her. Schwartz responded that the lawsuit was part of a sinister plot by European criminals to steal his priceless formula. However, it turned out that she was not the only miss he had misled. Several other attractive young women whom he had seduced or tried to seduce contacted his wife and let her know about her husbands behavior. Schwartz would then promise to mend his ways, until the next attractive young woman crossed his path.

As the manhunt continued and the insurance companies prepared to contest the $180,000 in policies Schwartz had taken out on his life  payable to his company and his wife  authorities searched for the identity of the victim. Thanks to forensic work done by the Bay Areas own Sherlock Holmes, a Berkeley criminologist named Edward Heinrich, they determined that the victim was one Gilbert W. Barbe, an itinerant preacher, veteran and hobo whose vocation was preaching the gospel to the poor. He was the perfect victim: Nobody would have missed him for a long time. According to one report, Barbe answered a newspaper ad Schwartz had run for a plant assistant with small hands and feet. After Barbe had made his way to Walnut Creek, Schwartz brutally murdered him, disfigured his body to erase his fingerprints and make his teeth appear similar to Schwartzs, set fire to the corpse, and then ignited a fire that was intended to reduce the entire building and everything in it to ashes, making it impossible to identify the body.

What the newspapers called the too-perfect murder failed because the flames failed to ignite the building before the fire department arrived. The plot would have succeeded, Heinrich said, if Schwartz had only waited 20 minutes longer after pouring the benzine to ignite the fire.

Trivia time Previous question: What San Francisco fireman did Mark Twain meet in the Montgomery Block sauna? Answer: Tom Sawyer. This week's question: What did the U.S. Mint on Duboce Avenue belatedly do in 1967? See More Collapse

On Aug. 7, Charles Heywood was dining with some friends when the conversation turned to the Schwartz case. Someone pulled out the evening edition of the Oakland Tribune. On the front page was a large photograph of Schwartz. Heywood stared at the face. It looked uncannily familiar, but he couldnt recognize it. Then he covered Schwartzs mustache with his hand. He was looking at his friend and tenant, Harold Warren.

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.

At 2 a.m. that night, Heywood called the Berkeley police and told them that Schwartz was staying in his apartment building. Within an hour, officers had arrived. They knocked on the door, but no one answered. As they rushed to the rear entrance, they heard a gunshot. They broke down the door to find Schwartz lying on a bed with a revolver in his hand. He had shot himself through the right eye. He died on the way to the hospital.

It turned out that Schwartz had been plotting his crime for years. After killing Barbe and setting the fire, he had intended to catch a midnight train to Barstow, then cross the border to Mexico. But he missed the train and had to fall back on plan B, holing up at Heywoods apartment. Why he did not try to escape in the two days before his scheme unraveled and he became a wanted man is unknown, but it probably has to do with the same delusional self-assurance that led him to try to carry out the perfect murder.

Schwartzs wife, Alice, was suspected of being his accomplice, but she was never charged.

Criminologist Heinrich had the last word on one of the most appallingly cold-blooded murders in state history. Told that the suspect had killed himself as the police closed in, he said, Schwartz got off easy.

Gary Kamiya is the author of the best-selling book Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco. His most recent book is Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages Through the Unknown City. All the material in Portals of the Past is original for The San Francisco Chronicle. To read earlier Portals of the Past, go to sfchronicle.com/portals.
Berkeley will soon be getting an exciting new deli serving both pizza and pastrami sandwiches on fresh-baked rye bread. Called Delirama, its from chef Cash Caris and his partner, Anahita Cann, the pair behind popular pop-up Pyros Pastrami.

The two signed a lease on a space at 1746 Solano Ave. in North Berkeley, most recently home to a Mountain Mikes Pizza restaurant.

Caris said Delirama will be more than a standard deli. In addition to sandwiches, he and Cann will offer New York-style pizza topped with thin slices of their pastrami. Other pies might include one with brown butter red sauce and aged mozzarella cheese, or a pizza with both aged and fresh mozzarella, chile crisp roasted garlic, crispy Brussels sprouts and lemon.

Of adding pizza to the deli fare, Caris said, Its always been something we wanted to incorporate.

Cash and Cann started their Pyros Pastrami pop-up in October of 2020 out of the Port Kitchens commercial kitchen (now known as Overland Station) in Jack London Square. The two gained a following for their tender pastrami made with grass-fed brisket. Also notable is their focus on doing as much in-house as possible, including fresh baked rye bread for the sandwiches and even mustard made from scratch.

Caris, whose second job was at a pizzeria, also started a smaller pop-up called Psychedelic Pizza. Delirama is the culmination of those two efforts. (Both Psychedelic Pizza and Pyros Pastrami pop-ups will run through February.)

Its a throwback, Caris said of Delirama. We want to bring the feel of a traditional deli but put our own spin on it.

The pair plan to introduce other meats like brisket and corned beef, as well as bring the vegan smoked celeriac from the Pyros pop-up. A deli case will offer cold cuts and salads sold by weight.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

As for pizza, Caris aims to offer four types daily, available both as pies and by the slice. Delirama will also serve beer and wine.

If permitting goes smoothly, Caris and Cann hope to open doors to the 2,500-square-foot location for indoor dining and takeaway by April, starting with breakfast and lunch. They plan to eventually introduce brunch and dinner.

When it opens, Delirama will join the East Bays healthy deli scene, including Sauls Deli on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, Wise Sons Jewish Deli in downtown Oakland and Zarris Delicatessen in Albany.

Ive wanted my own brick-and-mortar for 15 years, said Caris. Its crazy now that its actually happening. I cant describe the feeling  and I cant wait to open.

Omar Mamoon is a San Francisco writer and cookie guy. Instagram: @ommmar Email: food@sfchronicle.com
Joel Gott is a well-known name in Napa Valley: His wines have been supermarket shelf staples for more than 20 years, and the fifth-generation vintner is also the founder of popular burger chain Gotts Roadside, making him the Bay Areas true burger king. Now, though, hes entering a new market, looking to join the ranks of the regions premium wine producers.

Last week, Gott announced his purchase of a historic St. Helena estate, Edge Hill Winery, which he said will allow him to diverge from grocery stores to fine wine cellars. Built in 1876, the pre-Prohibition winery is considered the oldest three-level, gravity-fed winery in Napa Valley. He acquired Edge Hill from Rudd Estate, the famed Oakville Cabernet producer, and one of several previous owners of the 27-acre estate. The sale includes a stone winery, existing Edge Hill inventory and the Edge Hill brand, which was best known for producing a red field blend called Mixed Blacks. The wine was crafted from hard-to-find grape varieties that were widespread in the early days of Napas industry. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Gott is hardly the first vintner to branch out to more expensive wines; its a move that many wine companies have made in recent years as entry-level wine sales continue to fall. But Edge Hill will be a clear outlier in Gotts portfolio, and another signal of the changing nature of Wine Countrys landscape.

Our goal is to continue to be in the wine business, Gott said of the purchase. All of us in the industry need to evolve.

Gott founded his eponymous wine brand in 1996, with a focus on food-friendly, entry-level wines priced under $20 and sourced from California, Oregon and Washington. With Joel Gott Wines and a handful of other projects  including Bandit Wines, the Show and Shatter  hes currently producing more than a million cases a year.

In addition to the eight Bay Area Gotts Roadside locations, he also opened the Station in 2019. The grab-and-go convenience store housed in a vintage gas station on St. Helenas Main Street fits in nicely with Gotts stable of casual businesses that cater to everyday consumption.

Edge Hill, though, is an opportunity for Gott to make luxury-level, small-production wines priced as high as $100. His focus at the winery will be on single-vineyard bottlings from his highest-quality California vineyard sources. In the past, his best fruit has been blended in with grapes from other regions and vineyards; the 2018 Joel Gott Wines 815 Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, included fruit from six California wine regions.

We have all of these incredible vineyards and weve always wanted to pull out a couple of barrels to showcase (them), but weve never had the brand to be able to do that, Gott said. For the past 20 years, weve trained our consumers to expect wines under $20.

This leap to the luxury tier is more of a natural fit for Gott than it might appear as he grew up in the wine business. His grandfather was the president of Inglenook during the 1960s and 70s and his father, Cary Gott, founded Montevina Winery in the Sierra foothills and has made wine for a long list of well-known California brands for over 40 years. Sarah Gott, Joel Gott Wines winemaker and Joels wife, has held winemaking positions at high-end Napa Valley estates Joseph Phelps Vineyards and Quintessa.

Certainly, (Sarahs) no stranger to premium winemaking, said Bob Torkelson, president and CEO of Trinchero Estates, Gotts partner in the purchase of Edge Hill that has managed his wine distribution, sales and marketing since 2009. Its kind of just in their DNA.

The investment links up well with wine industry trends. According to the 2022 State of the U.S. Wine Industry Report, published by Silicon Valley Bank earlier this week, the share of off-premise wines (sold at liquor stores, supermarkets and other retailers) priced under $8.99 has been in steady decline for years, while premium wineries experienced 21% growth last year, the highest rate since 2007.

Gott noted that hes not looking to produce wines in the several hundred-dollar range, as is increasingly common in Napa. Still, he said, he needed to adjust his portfolio.

I think the evolution will always be about quality, Gott said. If you make quality wines, youre usually going to have a following.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Other companies that have moved into the premium realm include Gallo, which has bolstered its portfolio of supermarket brands like Andre and Barefoot with luxury Napa Valley labels including Pahlmeyer and Louis M. Martini. Gotts longtime partner, Trinchero, is an extension of the Sutter Home brand, best known for its sweet White Zinfandel that boomed in the 1970s. But today, many of Trincheros investments are in the luxury arena. The family owns a state-of-the-art St. Helena wine estate, Trinchero Napa Valley, where single-vineyard Cabernets go for $95 a bottle.

Everybodys trying to diversify, said Torkelson. Its a business model that a lot of people have taken a look at.

For Gotts stake in wine, Edge Hill could very well be the future, so hes approaching his stewardship of the estate with careful intention. The place is filled with history. Originally 1,500 acres, the property was at one point the family home for Louis and Elizabeth Martini of Louis Martini Winery, one of the first wineries founded after Prohibition was repealed. Previous owners Leslie and Susan Rudd, of St. Helenas Press Restaurant and formerly of Dean & DeLuca and the Oakville Grocery, purchased it in 2001.

Set along his longtime running route, Gott watched Leslie Rudds restoration of Edge Hill for more than a decade. The construction ceased when the Napa icon died in 2018, but was 90% finished, said Gott, who is bringing back Napa architect Howard Backen to finish the job, hopefully by the end of the year. The building will be used for both winery production and hospitality and will serve as his first space to host visitors for tastings.

The first estate bottling of Edge Hill is at least six or seven years away, said Gott, who needs to replant the existing 6 acres of vineyard due to virus concerns. In homage to Rudds signature Edge Hill wine, hell continue to produce a red blend.

Its an amazing piece of property, such a great chunk of Napa Valley and St. Helena, said Gott. I almost cant believe we were able to buy it.

Jess Lander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jess.lander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jesslander
The staggeringly swift spread of the omicron variant across the U.S. has led to many more people getting infected with the coronavirus than ever before, some for the second time.

Omicron is so incredibly infectious that some are wondering whether it is possible to catch that specific variant twice  and if so, what implications that could have for the current surge and future spread of the coronavirus.

Heres what Bay Area experts say we know so far about omicron reinfection and what its risks could mean for the future of the pandemic.

What is known about coronavirus reinfection generally?

Two years into the pandemic, we know that reinfection with the coronavirus is definitely a thing, said Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF.

However, Vaccines in general reduce your chance of reinfection, and if you do get a breakthrough reinfection after full vaccination, the symptoms are milder, he added. And boosters further reduce the odds of reinfection, he said.

But a host of variables must also be taken into account, he said, and they can be unpredictable. They include how much virus you were exposed to, your level of immunosuppression and what variant is circulating in town.

If the new variant looks very different from the one you recently saw, you could potentially get reinfected sooner than three months following the earlier infection, he said.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

What is known specifically about omicrons ability to reinfect?

The newest variant in town, of course, is omicron. And its so new that scientists are still racing to get a clear picture of its ability to reinfect people.

So far, its clear that omicron can infect people who have recovered from infection with other variants, said Nadia Roan, an investigator and immunologist at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco.

While much is still unknown about reinfection with the same strain, Roan said it would be less likely than being infected with two different strains, because the immunity will be completely matched when it's the same reinfecting strain.

However, while she wasnt aware of any formal study looking at frequency of omicron reinfection, she said shes heard anecdotal reports of people getting the variant twice.

Eric Feigl-Ding, a public health scientist and senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, tweeted that there are lots of recent anecdotes about people getting infected with omicron twice, which he said is certainly possible if the first infection didnt stimulate your immune system enough or if youre immunocompromised.

Reinfection with the same strain is theoretically possible, Roan said in an email. She gave the example of an immunocompromised person who recovers from omicron, but with a weaker immune response that could allow for reinfection.

However, she said, I'm sure it's quite rare, given what we know about double-infection with the same strain.

Such cases of repeat infection with the original strain of the coronavirus were documented early in the pandemic, before the emergence of variants of concern, but even that was very rare, she said.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

And now we have a bunch of immunity from prior infection and vaccination, that would make it even more rare.

She added that prolonged infections could be misinterpreted as reinfections, if a person recorded a false negative test between two positive ones.

Chin-Hong said he was unaware of any documented cases of getting omicron twice, with the variant still too new to determine whats actually a reinfection.

Omicron was first detected in southern Africa in mid-November, and the first confirmed case in the U.S. was reported Dec. 1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Chin-Hong said reinfection is typically defined as detecting the virus 90 days or more after the first infection.

Thats because PCR lab tests can continue to show positive for some time from an earlier infection in some people, even though the tests are picking up RNA fragments rather than live virus, he said.

Omicron hasnt been around long enough for anyone to really check, he said.

If omicron continues to be the dominant strain, its possible people may get reinfected once antibodies wane, Chin-Hong said  though other experts say its too early to know.

What does the data suggest about immunity after omicron infection?

Experts arent sure what level of coronavirus immunity a person who recovers from omicron will gain.

Chin-Hong said omicron infections lead to a wide range of symptoms, from asymptomatic to those that require hospitalization, so the immune response to the variant could be wide-ranging too.

It is likely that there will be some protection afforded, we just dont know how much yet and how long this will last, he said. However, the protection will likely be more robust in those who contract the virus after being vaccinated compared to unvaccinated people, he added.

The type and level of immunity after omicron infection will depend on the context, Roan noted.

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Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

She pointed to a recent preprint study from the Gladstone Institutes that has not yet been peer-reviewed, suggesting that infections in vaccinated people result in potent cross-variant neutralization  meaning antibodies can block infection by not only the original virus, but also other variants  compared to limited cross-variant neutralization in unvaccinated people.

A recent survey from the U.K.s Office for National Statistics shows that reinfection from omicron is much higher than from the delta variant. During the period from Dec. 20, 2021 to Jan. 9, 2022, after omicron became dominant, reinfection was 16 times higher than the delta-dominant period from May 17 to Dec. 19 last year.

The study also found unvaccinated people were almost twice as likely to be reinfected than those who got their second vaccine dose 14 to 89 days earlier. Those who had their second dose more than 90 days earlier were also more likely to get reinfected.

Could reinfection prolong the omicron surge?

While it might be possible for omicron to strike the same person twice, it likely would be rare, Roan said  which means reinfections would be unlikely to prolong the current surge.

A future post-omicron variant-of-concern that evades omicron-induced immunity, however, could cause the next surge, she cautioned.

Infections from the variant have already dropped rapidly in places overseas where they peaked earliest, such as South Africa and the United Kingdom, and are declining in U.S. cities like Boston and New York. Cases are dropping in the Bay Area as well, with San Francisco officials announcing Thursday that the peak has passed.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Such trends indicate that reinfection likely won't get the chance to draw out the surge, Chin-Hong said.

He added that reinfection will continue to be a future threat after immunity from this surge wanes  but high vaccination rates and natural immunity should offer protection in the Bay Area.

But that doesnt mean that if someone recovers from an omicron infection, they should let down their guard, the experts cautioned.

It's dangerous to assume there's an immunity shield after omicron infection, Roan said. There will be some immunity built up, but as we're still in the midst of the omicron surge, best to still be vigilant at this point in time.

After the omicron surge, Chin-Hong said he believes case rates will stay low for several months, and the Bay Area in particular will enjoy some reprieve.

But no one really knows how long that COVID vacation will last beyond (three to six months), he said. Chin-Hong said he hopes it will last through next winter, but that will depend on whether another new variant arrives.

Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KellieHwang
Total SF hosts Peter Hartlaub and Heather Knight meet up with Bishop Megan Rohrer and record a podcast episode in their most unusual location yet  on the Ferris wheel in the music concourse at Golden Gate Park.



Rohrer talks about keeping positive in 2022, and when resolutions can lead to unneeded guilt and shame. They also give a blessing for San Francisco, talking about the city's potential  even during frustrating times.
SACRAMENTO  State Sen. Scott Wiener introduced legislation Thursday to allow young people ages 12 to 17 to receive COVID-19 vaccinations and booster shots without the consent of a parent.

The proposal, SB866, is the first major vaccine-related bill to be introduced in the California Legislature this year and comes as infections and hospitalizations surge across the state due to the highly transmissible omicron variant.

Wiener, D-San Francisco, said widespread misinformation about the vaccine has caused a startling number of parents to deny their children access to potentially lifesaving immunizations. He said there are about 1 million youths between ages 12 and 17 who have not received coronavirus immunizations, because their parents either oppose vaccines or havent taken them to a clinic yet.

COVID is a deadly virus even for young people, Wiener said. While teens will do better, on average, than older people, there are teens who end up in the hospital, who end up on a ventilator, who end up dead.

In California, children must currently have the consent of a parent or guardian to receive most vaccinations. There is, however, precedent for what Wiener is proposing: The state already allows minors ages 12 and older to receive the HPV and hepatitis B vaccines without parental consent.

Children, regardless of age, can also consent to reproductive health care, including birth control and abortion services, without a parents permission. Those ages 12 and older can agree to be tested and treated for sexually transmitted infections.

Wieners proposal would extend a similar exemption for all vaccines, including COVID-19  a decision he said should outweigh parental authority because its clear that resistance to vaccines puts minors at risk of harm.

We have already made this decision that we trust teenagers to make certain decisions about their bodies and their health, he said. To allow parents to blow up a teenagers life by refusing to get them vaccinated, thats just wrong.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

People unvaccinated for COVID-19 are four times more likely to get infected, six times more likely to be hospitalized and nearly 18 times more likely to die from the virus than people who are fully vaccinated, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Beyond the serious health risks, parents who refuse to get their children vaccinated are upending their lives in other ways. Unvaccinated teens can be barred from activities like team sports, extracurricular clubs and school dances.

Ani Chaglasian, a 17-year-old student in the Los Angeles Unified School District, said she knows the havoc that can wreak on a teenagers life. Her parents didnt let her get vaccinated until about two months ago, a delay that caused Chaglasian to lose her job as a hospital scribe and an internship at a youth support hotline. She also missed the homecoming dance and routinely could not attend classes in person due to longer quarantine guidelines. She couldnt even eat at her favorite Chinese restaurant.

It was pretty stressful because a lot of my friends parents didnt want them to hang out with me because I wasnt vaccinated, Chaglasian said. I just missed out on so many opportunities because of my vaccination status.

She said her mom was reluctant because of vaccine conspiracy theories, but Chaglasian eventually persuaded her. The teen made slideshows to educate her mom about vaccine science and stressed that not getting vaccinated could put their relatives with compromised immune systems at greater risk.

Chaglasian said shes supporting Wieners bill because many other young people cant live normal lives simply because their parents are misinformed.Theyre hurting their teenagers, she said.

State data shows that young people ages 12 to 17 have been vaccinated at a significantly lower rate than the adult population: About 64% are fully vaccinated, 8% have had one shot and 28% are unvaccinated.

More than 72% of all Californians over the age of 5 have been fully vaccinated, meaning they have received received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Nearly 9% are partially vaccinated, while 19% are unvaccinated. No vaccine has yet been approved for children younger than 5.

Wieners bill is the first of a series of high-profile vaccine proposals expected to be debated at the state Capitol this year  measures that come as public health officials warn that resistance to vaccines could further prolong the pandemic.

He is part of a Vaccine Work Group that legislators formed this week to draft proposals to increase vaccinations and fight misinformation. Three other Democrats who represent the Bay Area are also part of the group: Assembly Members Buffy Wicks of Oakland, Evan Low of San Jose and Cecilia Aguiar-Curry of Winters (Yolo County), whose district includes part of Napa and Sonoma counties.

Vaccines represent the archetype of public health  a social compact, and a belief in doing our part to protect each other and the communities we love, Wicks said in a statement.

Legislators are also considering proposals to ensure more students receive the vaccine, including eliminating a loophole that allows for personal belief examinations for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last fall that the state will require schoolchildren to get vaccinated once its fully approved for their age group. Starting in July, the state will require all students in public and private schools to be vaccinated.

But state officials say Newsom cannot eliminate the personal belief exemption without the Legislature acting first. Several Democratic lawmakers have said they hope to close the loophole.

Any proposals to tighten vaccination requirements are expected to stir fierce opposition from anti-vaccine advocates. Opponents of vaccine laws have long accused California of trampling on parental rights.

Six years ago, California eliminated personal belief exemptions for the 10 other vaccines it requires students to receive to attend school. In 2019, legislators tightened restrictions on medical exemptions after public health experts said they saw a flood of fraudulent medical waivers after the belief exemption was removed.

Those moves have sparked a backlash among anti-vaccine activists, who have routinely disputed legislative business with fiery protests and outbursts in public meetings, including an incident in which a protester splattered blood from a menstrual cup on senators.

Wiener, whos regularly heckled by anti-vaccine demonstrators outside the Capitol, said hes prepared to face the resistance thats probably coming.

Its intense, and there will be a personal cost to me in going through this, he said. This is about saving lives and teenagers having a voice in their own health care and over their bodies. So, Im more than willing to accept that abuse.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
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For months, millions of Americans have been quitting their jobs in unprecedented numbers. The latest federal data showed a record 4.1 million American workers gave their notice in October, a mark quickly smashed in November when 4.5 million people left their jobs.

California, with more than one-tenth of the U.S.s civilian labor force, has not been immune to this trend as roughly 400,000 people have quit their jobs each month since July statewide, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The latest figures released Friday showed that 415,000 people voluntarily left their jobs statewide in November.

While those numbers are stunning, they are only half of the story.

The avalanche of quits  voluntary job separations in the bureaus surveys  has continually been outpaced by huge numbers of hirings as people seek better opportunities during ongoing labor shortages that have created the hottest labor market in recent memory.

That has made what many have dubbed the great resignation more like The great elevation, the great promotion, said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at online jobs site ZipRecruiter, as workers seek to capitalize on labor shortages to wring better pay and benefits out of employers.

Despite the more than 400,000 quits across California in November, the state saw 709,000 hires, following on the 691,000 people hired in October, according to the bureau.

The astounding hiring numbers are also driven by unemployed people getting jobs as businesses reopen and struggle to find workers, said Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at job site Indeeds Hiring Lab.

Bunker said Californias quits rate of 2.5% was around the same as states like New Yorks 2.3% with a comparable mix of industries and where jobs were concentrated in urban areas. But those rates were far below a state like North Dakota, where 4.3% of people quit their jobs in November and where the job market and economy differed drastically.

Nationally, people who quit their jobs made up 3% of job separations in November.

The early stages of the pandemic led to economic turmoil that saw many people leave the workforce or retire, but Over the last few months the labor force has grown, instead of shrunk, Pollak said.

She said much of the quitting has seen people leave industries that make up a huge chunk of Californias economy  like leisure and hospitality, as well as manufacturing  that require in-person work and frequent potential exposure to the virus.

In California, leisure and hospitality hiring increases from October to November were about half of that in the business and professional services sector. Leisure and hospitality hiring increases dropped by more than half from November to December, pointing to more people leaving those industries to pursue other careers and passions.

Californias unemployment rate dipped from 7% to 6.5% between November and December, the state Employment Development Department said Friday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom touted the progress in a statement Friday that said a quarter of new jobs created nationwide in December were in California despite the state being home to slightly more than one-tenth of the total U.S. population.

Leisure and hospitality jobs increased in the EDD report by 15,000 hires, trailed by 12,000 in the professional and business services category.

Even restaurants that have held onto many employees for decades, like San Francisco Cole Valley brunch mainstay Zazie, have seen some of their staff leave or switch careers during the pandemic.

About 40% of the staff have been with us for at least a decade, said Jen Bennett, one of restaurants owners. She said a handful of staff left during the pandemic, including two longtime employees who got into real estate.

They took advantage of the time during the COVID shutdown to take classes and get licenses, Bennett said.

But that was just a small fraction of the restaurants nearly 40 employees, Bennett said, a retention rate she attributed partly to the restaurants benefits package which includes fully funded health care and dental insurance, a 401(k) plan with employer matching, and menu prices that include a service charge instead of forcing the staff to rely on tips.

She credited the benefits package and paying employees three-quarters of their salaries even during pandemic closures in part for keeping people on staff. But other pressures have made it harder for employees in the industry, Bennett said.

Staff wearing masks while they hustle around the restaurant and in the blazing hot kitchen while customers dine maskless has dehumanized the staff in a lot of restaurants, Bennett said. Some customers have also become more ornery and demanding, causing them to Lose their freaking minds over the temperature of a burger, she said.

Instead of dealing with those pitfalls, many workers in California and the Bay Area are quitting in search of one of the many jobs that can now be done remotely, said Ireneo Mendoza, regional director at recruiting firm Robert Half.

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Its crazy right now, its like the Wild Wild West, Mendoza said of the turnover and demand for new employees, particularly for many entry-level office and tech jobs.

They have no fear of leaving their current jobs. ... They know theres so many other jobs out there, he said.

Those vacancies are being filled, in many cases, by candidates without much or any experience, but who want to get their foot in the corporate door, particularly if they can work remotely.

A lot of the service industry and retail workers, they dont want to be yelled at by customers anymore, Mendoza said.

Nick Otto/Special to The Chronicle

With more people setting their sights on suddenly more attainable remote work, restaurants like the three locations of San Franciscos Fiorella are not so much having a hard time hiring as seeing different types of people apply, said co-founder Brandon Gillis.

Were definitely seeing applicants with much less experience than we have before, Gillis said, adding that hes happy to hire an inexperienced cook if we feel like they are a good culture fit and are trainable.

Gillis said he had little trouble hiring more than 70 employees last year when the restaurant opened a location in San Franciscos Sunset District, something he attributed in part to the health care and retirement benefits the restaurant offers employees, along with a strong testing program.

Still, he said some employees had left the industry during the pandemic to pursue everything from real estate to alternative medicine, a lure that is likely not going away anytime soon with so many job openings across industries.

The pandemic was a forcing function for people to explore other things and try to do something else outside of the restaurant industry, Gillis said. Its something thats accelerated our desire to really work more on putting our employees first.

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice
The man San Francisco police officers shot and killed Thursday at San Francisco International Airport was carrying two toy airsoft guns of the type that shoot plastic pellets, officials said Friday  not firearms as police said at a news conference in the hours after the incident.

The fact that the guns were not real prompted the state Attorney Generals Office to take over the investigation of the shooting, under a state law covering fatal police shootings resulting in the death of an unarmed civilian.

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe  whose office was initially assigned the shooting probe because the airport is in his county, between San Bruno and the Bay  told The Chronicle on Friday that the man was carrying two toy replica guns. He said that the standard orange markings on the toys, indicating they are not real guns, had been stripped off.

The involvement of the Attorney Generals Office is a result of a new state law seeking to tighten police accountability, and raises questions about why San Francisco police officials did not immediately tell the public the man was carrying airsoft guns at a time of heightened national scrutiny over police shootings.

During a media briefing around 12:30 p.m. Thursday, five hours after the shooting, a Police Department spokesperson said the man appeared to be armed with firearms. She said officials were still investigating what types of guns the man was carrying.

When asked on Friday why police did not initially disclose that the guns were replicas, police spokesperson Matt Dorsey said factual confirmation for details from investigations should generally come from the lead investigating agency, which, in the case of this (police shooting), is not the San Francisco Police Department.

Dorsey stressed that the department goes into meticulous detail about its investigations during its standard police shooting town halls, which are typically held within 10 days of an incident.

Wagstaffe said he was informed that the man had been carrying toy replica guns mid-morning on Thursday.

Hours later, the Attorney General Offices  following protocols dictated by a new state law  announced it was taking over the investigation into the shooting. Under the law, the office must investigate police shootings that result in the death of an unarmed civilian. A civilian is considered unarmed, the law states, if the person doesnt possess a deadly weapon at the time of the shooting.

It was not clear from the police statements on Thursday how the man showed or used the replica guns. Any potential body camera footage will not be released until the police departments town hall.

A spokesperson for the Atttorney Generals office on Friday said the office could confirm that preliminary investigation indicates that the decedent appeared to have been in possession of an airsoft gun.

An airsoft gun  like a replica gun  is not considered a deadly weapon unless it is used in some particular manner likely to produce death or great bodily injury (e.g., as a bludgeon), the spokesperson said, referring to state law.

Officer Grace Gatpandan, the department spokesperson, told reporters Thursday that when police first encountered the decedent, they established that he appeared to be armed with a handgun. Asked if the guns were indeed firearms, Gatpandan said, we know that the individual was armed with firearms. Its still under investigation on what type of pistols these are, what type of handguns. At this point we do know that they were handguns.

When a reporter asked whether the guns were replicas, Gatpandan said, Its still under investigation at this point. I cant tell you exactly what type of weapons these are. All I know and I can tell you, is that he was armed with a handgun. Asked if an airsoft gun is considered a handgun, she said: An airsoft handgun, I would have to look at the exact definition in the public, but its a gun.

Airsoft handguns, which usually shoot round plastic pellets, have bright orange markings on their trigger guards and on the tips of their barrels, designed to be seen from a distance, said former Boston police Lt. Thomas Nolan, an assistant professor of sociology at Emmanuel College.

Although the devices resemble handguns, the orange markings are designed to indicate that they arent real, Nolan said. Nonetheless, he added, police are trained to avoid drawing conclusions about anything that could be a potential firearm, because people alter them  either by removing the orange parts of a fake gun, or, in some cases, painting orange tips on a real gun to make it look like a toy.

If this were indeed an airsoft gun with the orange part stripped to make it look like a handgun, then police should have said so, Nolan said, noting that the detail about the weapon goes to the issue of justification of deadly force.

If I were looking at this skeptically and with a jaundiced eye, I would ask why wouldnt you reveal that very pertinent information, the former lieutenant said. If it were me, Id put it right out on the table for everyone to see, and say: This is what our officers were confronted with. ... The deception itself indicates there may be something awry with what occurred in the shooting.

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Wagstaffe said he pulled his team out early Thursday afternoon after the Attorney Generals Office claimed the case.

They make the call as to whether or not this is a case that fits within their protocol or not, Wagstaffe said. It doesnt matter what we think, and I respect their views.

When asked whether police should have disclosed the type of weapon immediately at the news conference, Wagstaffe said, The issue you raise is a good one, but not for me to deal with.

While the term handgun can be defined in a number of ways, its misleading for police to withhold critical information about the guns  such as that they did not shoot real bullets, said LaDoris Cordell, a retired Santa Clara County Superior Court judge and former watchdog for the San Jose police force.

If we want to trust law enforcement, then law enforcement has to be honest, they have to be transparent, and they have to be accurate  especially when you have officer-involved shootings, Cordell said. She added that its unclear why the police department ... would go out of their way to keep this information away from the public, even if officers did not know it at the moment the shooting occurred.

Danielle Harris, a San Francisco public defender who has represented alleged victims in police use-of-force cases, said it was concerning that police did not say that the handgun in question was an airsoft gun, in its news release or at the news conference, though SFPD investigators clearly knew.

Even when multiple reporters asked about it, the SFPD representative demurred, Harris said. The failure to be open and honest about the circumstances of yet another fatal police shooting has to make us wonder what else SFPD is hiding.

Megan Cassidy and Rachel Swan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy @rachelswan
San Francisco Mayor London Breeds December emergency declaration in the Tenderloin has led to a slew of initiatives to tackle drug use, homelessness and other neighborhood concerns. Among them is a weekly report series that includes summaries of progress made on big initiatives, along with data on conditions on specific blocks in the neighborhood.

While the initiative has received support from many advocates in the community, they expressed doubts that the metrics currently being collected could comprehensively track neighborhood conditions and the initiatives impact.

The reports cover a lot of quantitative ground, tracking the number of overdose deaths, shelter referrals and 911 calls made from the neighborhood, among many other metrics. They also include a section on priority locations, for which city workers visit several neighborhood blocks at least five mornings per week and collect data on that block over the span of two hours.

That data includes the number of tents, instances of drug use and of problem behaviors  a term for behaviors associated with poverty, mental illness and drug use, such as no attempt at hygiene or reacting to internal stimuli in a way that is causing public consternation.

Francis Zamora, a spokesperson for the Department of Emergency Management, said that collecting daily metrics allows the incident management team to make adjustment(s) to our plans and operations. He added that the metrics are collected in the morning so that the team can use the data to target its operations for that day.

The counts of problem behavior and drug activity are estimates based on crowd size, according to Zamora, so they arent exact. But the rules for estimation dont appear to be applied consistently, which can be problematic when trying to compare relatively small numbers. For example: In the report for the week of Jan. 3, the 300 block of Hyde Street has all of its counts of problem behaviors and drug activity rounded to the nearest five. But for the 300 block of Ellis Street in the same report, numbers do not appear to be rounded.

Additionally, the priority blocks change from week to week depending on where city workers and neighborhood residents observe a high volume of key problems. Since the priority blocks are not always consistent from week to week, in many cases, it will not be possible to use these reports to track issues over time.

Tenderloin neighborhood advocates overall expressed support for the emergency initiative and efforts to measure its progress. But they expressed concern about some of the metrics being collected, as well as those excluded from the data.

For example, Randy Shaw, director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said he appreciates the emergency initiative and the data being collected on drug overdoses, but would like to see the daily block reports zero in on drug sales instead of drug use.

The overdoses (are) obviously a big problem, but the statistics need to take into account the impact of drug dealers on a neighborhood, Shaw said. Overdoses can be counted, but the number of people whose lives are worsened because they dont feel safe walking down their block  we cant measure that.

Shaw said that city workers should be attempting to count drug dealers at the block level instead of measuring things like problem behaviors and drug activity, a catch-all term for drug use and sales.

The drug user issue has been vastly overplayed. Its the drug dealers the families are upset about and feel unsafe in regard to, Shaw said. If youre not talking about stopping people from selling drugs, youre not helping the neighborhood.

Shaw said he believes that to curb drug dealing in the neighborhood, the city needs to increase law enforcement presence  and even more importantly, provide more funding for Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit group that works in the Tenderloin during the daytime and whose workers mostly consist of formerly incarcerated people who interface directly with unhoused Tenderloin residents.

If we could have Urban Alchemy everywhere, we wouldnt need police as much, Shaw said. The problem is, theres not the funding for that.

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Urban Alchemy received approximately $5 million from the city through the Mid-Market Foundation for the fiscal year beginning July 2021, including an additional $500,000 in the last 30 days that was unrelated to the emergency declaration, according to foundation director Steve Gibson, as well as $3 million last May from UC Hastings.

The latest draft of the emergency initiative plan lists funding and support for community-based projects as a possible solution to pursue, but does not explicitly call for more funding to Urban Alchemy.

In addition to Shaws call for more data on the number of drug dealers, Del Seymour, a longtime neighborhood advocate and founder of the workforce-training nonprofit Code Tenderloin, told The Chronicle he would like to see the report include daily counts of unhoused people by block.

The Tenderloin is a small enough place where we could recruit a monitor on every block to give us daily statistics (on the number of unhoused residents), Seymour said. We  could recruit people to do that and be that interpreter. To say, this person isnt homeless; theyre out here for fresh air, and (provide) that classification.

Collecting such intimate details of neighborhood residents, Seymour said, would help city workers better track their efforts to help unhoused residents specifically.

While the weekly reports track the number of shelter referrals made to residents, Seymour said he doesnt believe this kind of data point is meaningful without a corresponding estimate of how many Tenderloin residents dont have shelter. (San Francisco hasnt completed a full point-in-time count  its annual count of all unhoused people in the city  since 2019, citing safety concerns because of the pandemic.)

Susie Neilson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: susie.neilson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susieneilson
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San Francisco quietly opened a large sanctioned parking site for unhoused people this week, providing dozens of spots in the Bayview for those who live in RVs and cars.

Despite fierce opposition, including a lawsuit from some neighbors, the vehicle triage center at the Candlestick Point State Recreation Area welcomed residents Wednesday, marking the start of a two-year program intended to provide a safe location for vehicle dwellers to park, sleep and be connected with services.

Eventually, the site will have 130 parking spaces, but its starting with 57 while officials get the program up and running.

The vehicle center is part of an attempt to help the citys exploding population of people who live in RVs and cars  an urgent issue in the southeast section of San Francisco, which has by far the citys largest number of inhabited vehicles.

While many homeless people and their advocates agree that a large sanctioned parking site is badly needed, some people the site is supposed to serve resisted moving there from a nearby lot on Carroll Avenue. They told The Chronicle on Wednesday that they did not want to go to the new location because it had limited electricity and prohibited propane tanks and generators, among other concerns.

Stephen Lam / The Chronicle

That pretty much makes your RV a storage unit, said B.A. Anderson, who has been living at the Carroll Avenue lot since the city established it as an emergency parking site late last year. No one would say, Im gonna rent this house to you, but you cant cook. Treat people like human beings.

Anderson emailed a list of demands to city officials Wednesday, seeking immediate access to electricity, heat, both hot and cold running water, help from mechanics, and more.

He included photos of a few dozen signatures that he said were from people living in vehicles who were organizing themselves into a tenants alliance.

Neither the city nor its contractors would allow The Chronicle inside the Carroll lot or the new location. But Emily Cohen, a deputy director of the citys Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said officials had received the list of demands and would try to respond to them.

We are definitely always interested in hearing from the clients in our programs, Cohen said. We want to make these programs as accessible, welcoming and dignified as possible.

Stephen Lam / The Chronicle

The city did not plan to address every complaint. Individual propane tanks and generators are not allowed because theyre fire hazards, Cohen said. But the city was trying to solve other problems, like insufficient electricity.

There are long-term plans for power, but its going to take a little while to be up and running, so we are working on an intermediate solution, Cohen said. Theres limited power capacity available currently.

The new site, which the city is paying the nonprofit Urban Alchemy $2.8 million per year to operate, does have running water, officials said.

City officials set up the Carroll lot as a short-term emergency parking site more than two months ago after a rainstorm caused flooding along Hunters Point Expressway, where numerous people were living in vehicles. Some of the vehicles  and peoples belongings inside  were damaged extensively.

Officials say they have access to the Carroll lot only through the end of the month, so theyre trying to move everyone to the new location as soon as possible.

By midday Thursday, 17 households living in 15 RVs and two cars had relocated to the new vehicle center from the Carroll lot, according to Cohen. About 25 RVs and 42 cars remained.

Stephen Lam / The Chronicle

Some homeowners involved in a local neighborhood group have filed a lawsuit challenging the safe parking site, but it hasnt held up the opening. Still, neighbors continue to object to what they see as an attempt to warehouse homeless people in one corner of the city.

We should not be saddled with the uneven burden of housing these people, said Shirley Moore, a longtime resident who lives in a house near the RV parking site. If youre going to have them park on our streets, have them park on the streets in every community all over San Francisco and not focus them out in our area. Its about balance.

City officials point to the neighborhoods high concentration of people living inside RVs and cars as justification for opening a large center to serve them.

Supervisorial District 10, which includes Bayview-Hunters Point, had more than 500 inhabited vehicles as of November  up from about 300 in April 2019, according to city data. District 10s latest count was far higher than the next-most concentrated area, District 7, which had about 150 inhabited vehicles as of November.

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.

The one common denominator that we all agree on is we have a lot of folks who are living in vehicles in District 10, said Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents the area. My job is to make sure that we address the needs of the community, and also that we address the needs of folks who are unhoused in vehicles or out on the streets. This does both.

Stephen Lam / The Chronicle

About 20 vehicle-dwelling residents gathered in front of the Carroll lot on Wednesday afternoon to discuss a next step. Several said restrictions on cooking and generators were among the primary reasons they did not want to move to the new site. Residents were also worried about whether the site would have enough water and power.

Theyre just making it really impossible for people to be there, said Cynthia Keener, 57.

She said she uses a nebulizer twice a day because she has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, and she didnt think the new lot had enough infrastructure to accommodate her needs. She wondered if she might be better off parking her vehicle on the streets again instead of going to the sanctioned Candlestick Point lot.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

Sonya Rekula-Talone, 54, said she and her husband had their own generator providing power to their vehicle parked at the Carroll lot on Wednesday. Her husband uses a walker, and she works night shifts, so she was deeply concerned about the new sites prohibition on generators.

Im not gonna leave my husband alone in the dark when he can barely walk, she said.

Anderson, meanwhile, said that as of Thursday, some Carroll lot residents were determined not to go to the new site until their demands were met, and he continued to advocate for them.

They dont want to go anywhere where the situation is worse than it is here, he said.

J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris
The state of California faces a wrongful death lawsuit from the daughter of a Humboldt County man who died in a car crash on Highway 101, the Eureka Times-Standard reported.

According to the lawsuit filed by law firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei and Goldman, the father, Ruben Sepulveda, crashed after a decayed and diseased Douglas fir fell onto the road and caused several crashes on May 10, 2021. He died weeks later of his injuries.

It alleges that California  specifically Caltrans and California State Parks  failed to maintain the section of U.S. Highway 101 near Redcrest in Humboldt Redwood State Park where the massive Douglas fir fell onto the road.

When it fell, it fell across the entirety of the 101 freeway blocking travel late at night when there was no moon. What were suggesting is, when people drive up the 101 freeway, it shouldnt be a crapshoot whether theyre going to make it or not, that a tree could just have fallen over and created a really serious danger for everybody, Timothy Loranger, one of the plaintiffs attorneys, told the Times-Standard. We believe that its (Californias) responsibility to look at these trees and to make sure that if there are any that are sick or dying or decaying, that something needs to be done to make sure they dont create a hazard.

Caltrans has faced numerous lawsuits in recent years.

In 2018, it faced a wrongful death lawsuit after killing Shannon Marie Bigley, a resident at a Modesto homeless encampment, during a sweep, KTLA5 reported. The claim says Bigley was killed after being hit by Caltrans machinery that was negligently and/or recklessly operated.

Then, in February 2020, Caltrans settled a class action lawsuit for $5.5 million after confiscating and destroying the belongings of homeless people in "sweeps."

As recently as early 2022, the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation and the local chapter of the Sierra Club sued Caltrans after it published an inadequate 2019 environmental impact report for its Highway 1 Auxiliary Lane and Bus-on-Shoulder project, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported.

Myles Cochrane, a spokesperson for Caltrans District 1, which covers the area where the tree fell and car crashes occurred, told the Times-Standard that they do not comment on pending litigation.
Hawaii is known for its eight main islands, but there are actually 137 islands in the archipelago, including reefs, atolls and islets, stretching 1,500 miles across the Pacific. Of all these, theres one island that sparks great curiosity  and leaves some questions unanswered.

Im not referring to Niihau, the invite-only forbidden island owned by the Robinson family off the island of Kauai. Im taking you farther up the chain, instead, to the tiny island of Mokumanamana, also known as Necker Island.

About 430 miles northwest of Honolulu, Mokumanamana is 46 acres in size and uninhabited. Its part of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument established by President George W. Bush in 2006.

Whats unique to Mokumanamana is that it has the highest concentration of religious sites of all the islands in the archipelago.

Upon its rocky landscape and steep slopes are 33 heiau (places of worship) and 17 shelters, where Native Hawaiians off and on semi-permanently lived. Carved stone figures with human shapes were also found on Mokumanamana  and they look unlike any others in Hawaii. No one knows whether they represent man or gods.

On the crest of those hills are these heiau, temples, you know, shrines  much smaller than the ones that you would see in the main Hawaiian Islands, but a lot of them, said Dr. Kekuewa Kikiloi, director of the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii.

Kikiloi wrote his dissertation in 2012 on two Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including Mokumanamana, visiting three times by boat, totaling 28 days of mapping and surveying sites.

Kekuewa Kikiloi/2008 Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument

Mokumanamana is an older island at a later stage of its geological cycle, crumbling and eroding, lacking water and agricultural resources. Archaeologists have long struggled to find definitive answers to questions like why people chose to come here, was it only Native Hawaiians  and why they left.

There isnt any resource [on Mokumanamana] that Native Hawaiians didnt have in the main Hawaiian Islands, Kikiloi pointed out, so it doesnt make sense for people to go, you know, 500 miles on open ocean in very rough conditions to gather birds they could get in their backyard.

Though there had long been speculation the islands shrines were similar to altars in the Tuamotu Islands in the south Pacific and the stone figures were possibly made by Marquesans (the people of the Marquesas Islands in the south Pacific), Kikiloi used radiocarbon dating to conclude Mokumanamanas frequent visitors were Native Hawaiians starting in the 1300s.

He found basalt tools sourced from Oahu, Kauai and Maunakea Volcano on Hawaii Island. Its his belief that small parties of Hawaiian chiefs would journey to Mokumanamana seasonally for ceremonies.

The motivation seems like it was because of the ritual purpose of the island and position right on the Tropic of Cancer, said Kikiloi. The sun is directly overhead during the summer solstice. The motivation then probably had something to do with the afterlife and sort of this idea of trying to connect with ancestral spirits in the west at these and the other Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which are thought as the god lands or the spiritual realm.

Kaleomokuokanalu Chock

All of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have cultural significance, but only two islands, Mokumanamana and another called Nihoa, have a rich record of archaeological materials. However, in Hawaiian culture, lack of evidence doesnt mean it lacks cultural significance.

Maunakea Volcano on the Island of Hawaii is another spiritual place that also lacks documented evidence of human activity at its summit compared with lower elevations. However, Hawaiians believe it to be a hallowed space reserved to the highest chiefs and priests.

Things associated with godly things and deities and akua and gods, that's not a place for man, said Kikiloi. They dont build in the place where the gods actually sit.

In his research of Mokumanamana, Kikiloi was able to find historical records written by Native Hawaiians in olelo Hawaii (Hawaiian language) newspapers documenting oral traditions of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which provide more clues. He says the constant theme among the archival stories are of gods coming from that region and settling in the main islands or of epic heroes going to the region for mana as part of a rite of passage.

The Hawaiian word mana is impossible to summarize in a few words, but is often translated to mean a supernatural or divine power. Some scholars describe mana as a feeling or experience thats indescribable in words. Mana can be inherited through family lines or acquired in different ways. Sacred places connected to gods or the spiritual realm can also hold mana.

If you break down Moku-mana-mana, mana is found twice. The islands name can be interpreted in different ways, but one translation is island of exponential power, according to Kikiloi, which is fitting for an island where religious ceremonies were no doubt held.

Over time, Mokumanamana gradually lost its visitors. Kikiloi says that while early explorers and researchers had assumed that people disappeared or abandoned the island, Native Hawaiians were still going in the 1800s, before the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Nothing happened to the people, they were going back and forth all the time, he said. Its just, by the 1900s when people went to document, by then, nobody was going there. But just 20 years earlier, people were going.

Today, as part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, general visitation is not allowed except for scientific research and cultural purposes. The Polynesian Voyaging Societys canoes, Hokulea and Hikianalia, have made visits with cultural practitioners to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including Mokumanamana, since the early 2000s revitalizing culture to the area.

Kikiloi said he hopes that in the future, Native Hawaiians will continue to use these islands as a pathway to reconnect to the land in meaningful ways.

Editors note: SFGATE recognizes the importance of diacritical marks in the Hawaiian language. We are unable to use them due to the limitations of our publishing platform.








Jeff Chiu / Associated Press 2016

The University of Hawaii at Manoa has received the largest cash gift in its history, courtesy of Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, the university announced Wednesday.

The $50 million gift will fund the universitys School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology over seven years, including research and programs that document changing ocean conditions, explore solutions to support healthier ocean ecosystems, enhance coastal resilience from storms and sea-level rise, and tackle challenges to marine organisms ranging from the tiniest corals to the largest predators. It will also examine how marine wildlife is adapting to seas as they rise and warm.
The Granary Kitchen, a popular neighborhood restaurant in the city of Red Deer in Alberta, Canada, is back open to indoor dining this week after health officials shuttered it for several days after inspectors discovered that the restaurant was allowing patrons to enter who, instead of showing proof of vaccination, shared pictures of dogs.

After getting a tip that patrons were submitting pictures of pooches instead of the required documents, health inspectors sent two separate "test shoppers" to check. In both cases, "staff used a tablet to make it appear as if they were scanning a QR code when in fact the staff member was presented with a photograph of a dog," Alberta health officials said in an order on Friday in which it shut down the indoor dining area.

The restaurant reopened on Monday, after the owner met with health officials and showed he had complied with the order by submitting a written plan to enforce the rules and training staff on them, health officials told The Washington Post.

The Granary Kitchen's Facebook page explained the closure, calling it "an unfortunate circumstance" involving an "underage hostess" and said it would reopen after retraining staff. "We would like to remind everyone of the tremendous pressure being placed on front staff, and please remember to be kind," the post read. An email to the owner of the restaurant requesting comment was not immediately returned.

Alberta requires indoor diners to show proof of vaccination, a negative test within the last 72 hours, or a letter of medical exemption. Cities across the United States, too, are instituting new restrictions on indoor dining as the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant has caused covid cases to surge. Starting this week, customers 12 and older must have gotten at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine to dine inside a restaurant in Washington, D.C., and beginning Feb. 15, indoor diners must be fully vaccinated. Philadelphia, Boston, Minneapolis and St. Paul all have new vaccine requirements for indoor dining. They join cities including New York and San Francisco, which adopted such mandates last year.

Some restaurants are opting to shut down their indoor dining operations and go back to takeout-only instead. Rise Bakery in Minneapolis this week alerted its customers that its dining room would close, citing the new requirements. "We have made the tough decision to once again stack up our tables & chairs," the restaurant wrote in a Facebook message. "We regret that we can't offer you a place to dine at this time."

An email seeking further comment was not immediately returned, but the restaurant later commented on the post, explaining that "this decision was the best way to help our small and already strained team." Many restaurants were already facing staffing shortages, and a number of eateries have closed temporarily due to positive cases among staff or potential exposures.

Since restaurants have reopened to indoor dining after the closures that marked the early-pandemic era, restaurant workers have often struggled to do their normal jobs while enforcing such rules as masking and social-distancing, a dynamic that can create conflict with customers.

Workers are having to take on roles that go way beyond their job descriptions, says Teofilo Reyes, chief program officer for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, which advocates for better wages and working conditions in the industry. "If you were hired to be a server, it shouldn't be your job to be a security enforcer," he says. His organization has had reports of workers being harassed merely because of their own mask-wearing, he noted, and confronting customers and asking them to comply with rules - whether its masking or showing proof of vaccination - can be dangerous.

Management should offer training, and have someone on hand who can handle customers who resist, he said, so the servers and hostesses are not dealing with them on their own. And he recommends that restaurants do what they can to communicate the rules to patrons, so that would-be diners do not take out their frustrations on employees.

In Washington, the Big Board, a burger joint, appeared openly defiant of the new rules requiring restaurants to check proof of vaccination starting Jan. 15. "As has always been the case for us, everyone is welcome," the restaurants tweeted ahead of the date. "This rule applies yesterday, today and tomorrow. Hopefully we'll see you January 16th."

The restaurant was issued a verbal warning on Jan. 15 by Washington health officials for failing to require proof of vaccination and for not posting signs stating the rules.
BOSTON REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER in Stoneham has been part of a long running debate about what type of use is suitable for the largely vacant campus. Most recently officials are considering a life science campus.
A video that circulated widely online of a TV reporter in West Virginia being hit by a vehicle during a live broadcast was met with outrage by broadcast journalists who said it underscored the risks of sending reporters to cover stories on their own.

Tori Yorgey of WSAZ-TV in Charleston, West Virginia, was reporting on a water main break in nearby Dunbar during the 11 p.m. broadcast Wednesday when she was struck by a white SUV and knocked down. The camera fell to the ground, and from outside the shot, Yorgey, 25, could be heard saying, I just got hit by a car, but Im OK.

She got up, adjusted the camera and continued, in what appeared to be good spirits. You know, its my last week on the job and I think this would happen specifically to me, Tim, she said, addressing the newscasts anchor, Tim Irr.

It was not clear whether the station had sent someone to report with Yorgey, who described moving the camera herself in an exchange with Irr. I thought I was in a safe spot, but clearly we might need to move the camera over a bit, so let me do that, she said.

Her resilience was celebrated in some circles, but the segment hit a nerve with TV reporters, particularly those who are thrust into situations where they are expected to cover stories without a camera operator or producer by their side  a practice known in the industry as using a one-man band. Such assignments are often performed by multimedia journalists, who are responsible for setting up the camera, then stepping in front of it to deliver a report.

She was a good sport about it, but she should not have been put in this situation, said Ashley Thompson, 33, who worked as a multimedia journalist in Phoenix and Atlanta. In April 2020, a reporter at her station was carjacked after finishing a live shot in downtown Atlanta. The reporter had been working with a photojournalist who traveled in a separate car.

Thompson, who no longer works in journalism, said the video was the only thing people who have worked in broadcast news were talking about Thursday. As horrified as the industry is, I doubt anything will change because local news is all about saving money, she said.

The practice of sending reporters out as a one-man band is not new, but it is more widespread today, said C.A. Tuggle, a distinguished professor of journalism at the University of North Carolinas Hussman School of Journalism and Media in Chapel Hill.

I would really like to see the industry cut back on the number of one-man-band-type of live shots because it is hard to be situationally aware, but I just dont know whether it would have made a difference in this case, he said.

Tuggle, who did one-man band shots in the 1980s, said that if someone had been with Yorgey, she still could have been hit by the vehicle because it came from outside the shot.

Whoever assigned the story could have decided the water main break was not a significant enough story to warrant sending out a young reporter on her own late at night, he said. The newsroom could also have provided a reflective jacket or told her to stand farther from the road than she might have thought necessary, he said.

Representatives for WSAZ and the company that owns the station, Gray Television Broadcasting, did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. Yorgey, who is starting a job at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh next month, also did not respond to interview requests.

The controversy was all too familiar to Alanna Autler, 31, who worked as a multimedia journalist for another news station in Charleston years ago. Autler said she would sometimes enlist help from friends, colleagues and even strangers to feel more secure as she reported from the scene of a crime or natural disaster.

Autler said managers had on occasion acknowledged that she was being sent to an unsafe location, but there was no one else around to go with or instead of her. If youre the lead story, or the only story, because you are the only reporter, then you feel pressure that the entire newscast falls because of you, she said.

Once, after being asked to cover a rape for an 11 p.m. broadcast, Autler told her managers she was scared to go by herself, but they did not provide support. She asked her then-boyfriends cousin to ride with her in the news van.

Station managers and these ownership groups that own local television stations have all of the power, and a lot of these reporters are young, out of college, this is the first job they have. They have no power to voice their concerns, said Autler, who left broadcast journalism last year and is now in law school.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The Supreme Court denied a request from abortion providers Thursday to send Texas's restrictive abortion law back to a district judge who had once stopped it, and dissenting liberal justices said the court was complicit in allowing an "unconstitutional chill on abortion care."

The court's one-sentence order denying the request was the latest legal maneuver on the law called S.B. 8, which bans abortions in the state at about six weeks of pregnancy and sets up an enforcement for private individuals, rather than state officials. It has bitterly divided the Supreme Court.

"This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas, who have a right to control their own bodies," wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor. "I will not stand by silently as a state continues to nullify this constitutional guarantee."

Her dissent was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

The Supreme Court has been split over the Texas law since September, when the court on a 5-to-4 vote allowed it to go into effect while legal challenges continued. Patients seeking abortions after that have had to travel to other states.

After a hearing in November, the court in December again left the law in place but provided a narrow path for providers to challenge in federal court what is the nation's most restrictive law on the procedure. It identified a handful of state officials who could presumably play a role in enforcing S.B. 8 and said a suit could properly proceed against them.

As is common, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which covers Texas. But instead of returning it to a federal judge in Austin who had previously stopped the law, the appeals court agreed with a request from Texas to ask the state supreme court to clarify a matter of state law: whether those identified officials really had such an enforcement power.

That could mean months of delay, with the law remaining in place.

Abortion providers said such a move would be a direct rebuttal of what the Supreme Court had said in December.

Eight of the nine justices said litigation could proceed against the officials, and four said they expected the case to go back to the district judge and be dealt with quickly.

"Given the ongoing chilling effect of the state law, the district court should resolve this litigation and enter appropriate relief without delay," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for himself and Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan.

Roberts, who has voted with the liberals previously to stop the law while it is being challenged, did not join Sotomayor's dissent or one written by Breyer.

"The Court of Appeals ignored our judgment," Breyer wrote, adding, "As a result, an unconstitutional 6-week abortion ban remains in effect in Texas - as it has for over four months."

Sotomayor's dissent was unsparing. She noted that one judge on the appeals court panel "raised the notion that because this Court is considering a challenge to Roe v. Wade, the panel could 'just sit on this until the end of June' rather than fulfill its obligation to apply existing precedent." She was referring to Judge Edith H. Jones, appointed to the 5th Circuit by President Ronald Reagan in 1985.

The court has heard arguments in a Mississippi case that explicitly asks the court to overturn Roe's guarantee of a constitutional right to abortion, but Sotomayor noted the 1973 decision remains the law.

"Because our precedents are clear that Texas cannot directly ban abortion before viability, the state legislature enacted a convoluted law that instills terror in those who assist women exercising their rights between 6 and 24 weeks," she wrote. "State officials knew that the fear and confusion caused by this legal-procedural labyrinth would restrict citizens from accessing constitutionally protected medical care, providers from offering it, and federal courts from restoring it. The dilatory tactics to which this Court accedes today are consistent with, and part of, this scheme."

The abortion providers' request to the court was a long shot; Sotomayor acknowledged they were asking for "extraordinary" relief.

As often happens in emergency requests, the majority did not provide a reason for denying the petition.

Sotomayor contended the relief was warranted, and the court should have been clear Texas and the appeals court had not obeyed the Supreme Court's decision.

"Texas wagered that this Court did not mean what little it said in [the December ruling] or, at least, that this Court would not stand behind those words, meager as they were," Sotomayor wrote. "That bet has paid off. Despite this Court's protestations over the 'extraordinary solicitude' it gave this case and the narrowness of any dispute, it accepts yet another dilatory tactic by Texas."

The order came in In Re Whole Woman's Health.
The California Department of Justice will conduct an investigation and independent review of an officer-involved shooting at San Francisco International Airport Thursday morning, according to an announcement made by state Attorney General Rob Bonta.

After being notified by local law enforcement authorities, the state Department of Justice's California Police Shooting Investigation Team for Northern California was deployed to the scene of the shooting. Once the investigation is completed, it will be turned over to the state Department of Justice's Special Prosecutions Section within the Criminal Law Division for independent review.

San Francisco police shot and killed a man who was armed with two guns and allegedly demonstrated threatening behavior near the SFO BART station Thursday morning, according to police. Around 7:30 a.m., officers responded to multiple calls regarding a suspicious person armed near the airport's International Terminal.

Once at the scene, officers tried to contact the suspect and used non-lethal methods to try to subdue him. However, the suspect allegedly advanced toward officers, resulting in at least one officer opening fire, police said.

The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.

In addition to the state Department of Justice, the shooting is being investigated by several agencies, including the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department, the San Francisco Police Department's Internal Affairs Division, the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability and the San Mateo County Coroner's Office.

A man accused of brutally abusing a four-month-old puppy last year pleaded guilty to misdemeanor animal cruelty and neglect on Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court.

According to prosecutors, Brian Cook, 28, abused his Golden Retriever puppy, causing the animal to sustain a wrist fracture, a fracture to its spinal vertebrae, a hip fracture, and multiple rib fractures.

Several neighbors reported seeing the abuse to authorities. Additionally, a veterinarian who treated the puppy, named Charlie, also reported the injuries.

San Francisco Animal Care and Control officials seized Charlie from Cook in September 2020.

During the investigation into Charlies' injuries, Animal Care and Control officials learned Cook previously owned a one-year-old dog named Beau, which had died of injuries similar to those sustained by Charlie. An autopsy of Beau revealed that he suffered several fractures in various states of healing, suggesting Beau may have suffered multiple incidents of physical abuse, according to Animal Care and Control officials.

Charlie has since undergone surgery for his hip injury and has been adopted by a family as he continues to recover.

In light of the guilty plea, Cook is facing one year of probation and a condition that he can't own an animal for five years. Additionally, he's facing fifty days in county jail, which can be served via the San Francisco Sheriff's Department's Work Alternative Program, community service, and mandatory counseling.

The body of a missing Stanford nurse has been found in Fremont, according to the Alameda County Sheriff's Department.

Michael Odell, 27, had been missing since early Tuesday morning, when he left his job halfway through his shift.

The Alameda County Coroner's Office also confirmed Thursday night that Odell's body had been located.

Police in Oakland have seized multiple firearms and a large quantity of narcotics during two separate incidents in the city this week.

At about 7 p.m. Tuesday, officers were in the 7700 block of Bancroft Avenue conducting a security check when they saw a man in possession of a large quantity of suspected marijuana. After contacting him, the man ran off. During the chase, the officers also saw that the man had a gun, which fell to the ground. The man eventually gave up and was taken into custody. Following a brief search of the area, officers recovered the firearm, which was loaded. It was also determined to be unregistered. Police also discovered a large amount of marijuana, suspected and methylenedioxy-methamphetamine, or ecstasy, in the man's vehicle.

He was arrested for numerous weapons and narcotic-related offenses.

Also on Tuesday, just after 7:30 p.m., officers were dispatched to the 2500 block of 76th Avenue to investigate a report of a dispute and someone brandishing a firearm. Once on scene, officers located several people, two of whom were walking toward a nearby residence and appeared to drop an object on the ground. As officers approached, they found two firearms on the ground where the two people dropped something. Three people were detained.

Additional officers arrived and located a rifle on the backseat of the vehicle parked at the scene. It was determined that the vehicle belonged to one of the detained individuals. They were arrested for weapons and narcotic-related offenses.

A 15-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday for allegedly brandishing a replica gun and having a weapon on the Berkeley High School campus, police said Thursday.

Officers responded at 11:53 a.m. following a report of a fight in Downtown Berkeley involving Berkeley High students. Police allege that two of the students threatened other students with a gun.

Officers spoke with school staff and the school resource officer found out who the two students were allegedly.

When the pair were back on campus, police were notified by school staff and officers tried to speak with the pair. But they allegedly ran, police said.

They ran into the C building and back outside, according to police, who eventually detained the two at Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way.

Officers searched the pair and allegedly found a replica gun in one of the students' backpacks, police said. It appeared initially to be a real gun, according to police, because it had a steel slide, polymer frame, and markings such as a serial number.

The boy who was arrested was not a student at Berkeley High, police said.

After a recent surge of COVID-19 cases in San Francisco caused by the omicron variant, the number of cases in the city are starting to decline, Mayor London Breed announced Thursday.

The number of cases peaked earlier this month on Jan. 9 with some 2,164 cases per day on average, however, just days later on Jan. 12, the average number of daily cases dropped to 1,705, according to data from the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

San Francisco continues to have some of the highest vaccination rates in the nation, with 82 percent of residents fully vaccinated and 61 percent of those eligible for a booster having already received their shot.

While hospitalizations due to COVID-19 remain relatively high, the city continues to have enough bed capacity and the number of hospitalizations is expected to go down within the next few days to reflect the new, lower daily average caseload.

Additionally, SFDPH data shows that the vast majority, or about 80 percent, of people hospitalized in the city are not up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccinations.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began nearly two years ago in March 2020, 700 San Franciscans have died from the virus, SFDPH officials said.

A handful of state legislators, including some from the Bay Area, announced the formation this week of a COVID-19 vaccine work group focused on developing policy that will help stop the virus' spread.

The work group includes Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, as well as Assembly members Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Evan Low, D-San Jose, and plans to work with medical experts to determine the best methods to encourage vaccination against the virus.

Founding members of the work group also include Sens. Dr. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, and Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, and Assembly members Dr. Akilah Weber, D-San Diego, and Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters.

The legislators formed the group as the state remains in the throes of a surge in cases due to the highly contagious omicron variant.

The work group said it also hopes to combat misinformation about vaccines not being safe and effective at significantly reducing the chance of serious illness and death.

As of Thursday, 81.2 percent of state residents age 5 and up have received at least one vaccine dose. In addition, 51 percent of those eligible for a booster vaccine dose have received one, according to state data.

The National Weather Service forecast for Friday for the San Francisco Bay Area calls for mostly sunny skies with high temperatures reaching the mid- to upper-60s. Overnight lows Friday morning will reach the upper 40s to upper 50s. Strong winds are expected throughout the Bay Area, with a wind advisory in effect for the North Bay, East Bay, Santa Cruz Mountains and the San Mateo County peninsula and coast between 7 a.m. Friday through 7 a.m. Saturday. The forecast calls for the strongest winds expected Friday evening into early Saturday morning.

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.
By Tony Hicks

Bay City News Foundation

Sonoma State University has received a $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study the effect of wildfires on forest health in California and to create virtual educational activities.

The grant specifically went to the Rohnert Park university's Lisa Patrick Bentley, an associate professor in the biology department. The funding will allow Sonoma State biology students to deploy state-of-the-art remote sensing equipment to collect biological data to further understand forest structure, determining its impact on past wildfire intensity and predicting how it affects future wildfire risk.

According to a university statement, Bentley and her students will use a terrestrial LiDAR scanner to capture extraordinarily detailed 3D images of local forests. Combining TLS data of tree size with measured leaf traits and climate data, Bentley and her team will be able to determine how much carbon is stored in the forest study sites.

The research could be critical in helping predict how forest structures, altered by wildfire or timber harvests, affect future wildfire risk.

The team will conduct their research at Pepperwood Preserve in Sonoma County and three Cal Fire demonstration state forests: Latour in Shasta County, Jackson in Mendocino County, and Mountain Home in Tulare County.

"Given the effect that wildfire has already had in Sonoma County, I would argue that there is a strong connection between this research and all of the residents of Sonoma County," Bentley said.

Bentley is the first person in SSU's history to receive a grant as part of the NSF's Faculty Early Career Development Program, which offers the foundation's most prestigious awards "in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education."

"Receiving this grant highlights how research at SSU can be recognized at the national scale by one of the top federal science funding agencies," Bentley said. "It also is a testament to the hard work of the graduate students and undergraduates in the biology department and students and faculty in the GEP Department that worked many hours in the field and in the lab to collect and analyze data to help contribute to the ideas contained in this proposal."

Bentley and her team have also received $1 million from Cal Fire's Forest Health Program, the CSU's Agricultural Research Institute, and the Joint Fire Science Program.

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.
On winter weekend mornings, when fresh snowfall aligns with a ski day for thousands of people, traffic is predictably awful in Truckee.

As early as 7 a.m., cars are lined up bumper-to-bumper, with gridlock spreading onto every main artery through downtown Truckee and backing up for miles on Interstate 80.

The pinch point is a short and narrow tunnel on Highway 89 that was built in 1928. Truckee locals call it the Mousehole.

Here, the road is shaped like an hourglass. Four lanes of northbound and southbound traffic quickly narrow into a single lane in each direction through the tunnel, then widen again to four lanes on the other side. The tunnel is bookended by stoplights that regulate two major intersections, and roundabouts to the north and exit ramps off Interstate 80 further complicate traffic leading into the Mousehole.

With many skiers and snowboarders trying to get to the same destination at the same time, a drive that typically takes 15 to 20 minutes from Truckee to the ski resorts reliably becomes an hour or longer. Most of that time is spent waiting for passage through the Mousehole.

The Mousehole was built as a roadway under-crossing of the railroad tracks in the late 1920s, so it was designed to accommodate the types of vehicles and the amount of traffic that existed in that era, said Dan Wilkins, director of Public Works for the town of Truckee.

Nearly 100 years later, the Mousehole still stands, even as traffic in Truckee has evolved.

Most days of the year, cars flow smoothly through the Mouseholes small passageway. The volume of cars passing through isnt enough to warrant gridlock. But on those particular winter mornings when skiers arrive from San Francisco, Sacramento and Reno  all at the same time, bound for the same destination  the gridlock in the Mousehole is obviously pinned to the ski resorts.

Truckee is at the crossroads between two of the biggest ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe region: Palisades Tahoe and Northstar.

Many of the vehicles idling for hours on these roads have skis and snowboards secured to roof racks, and the timing of the traffic syncs with the opening hour of the ski resorts. Skiers headed to Palisades are trying to go one direction, up Highway 89, while skiers bound for Northstar are heading in the opposite direction, toward Highway 267.

There are a lot of skiers and snowboarders in Tahoe. This winter, Vail Resorts, which owns Northstar and also Heavenly and Kirkwood in South Lake Tahoe, sold 2.1 million season passes  about 700,000 more passes than the sprawling ski corporation sold last year. Alterra Mountain Company, which owns Palisades, is a privately owned company and does not disclose how many passes it sells, but its Ikon Pass is the biggest rival in the ski industry to Vails Epic Pass.

Photo by Stefan McLeod, via Becky Bucar

Because of its location underneath the railroad tracks, the Mousehole poses a particularly complicated and challenging dilemma for ski traffic.

One of the prerequisites for any project that would alter the Mousehole is mandated by the landowner, Union Pacific Railroad. Those railroad tracks are part of a major cargo route that connects West Coast ports with eastern destinations. The railroad tracks must remain passable throughout the duration of any construction; thats part of why the Mousehole still stands the way it was built nearly nearly 100 years ago, even though so much of the infrastructure around it has changed.

Not for lack of trying.

Several years ago, the town of Truckee successfully led one of the most complex infrastructure projects in its history when it built a pedestrian and bicycle tunnel next to the Mousehole.

The Mousehole sits between a mobile home park, where many full-time residents live, and a shopping center where a grocery store, CVS pharmacy and post office are located. Before the pedestrian tunnel was built, people would have to walk through the Mousehole, running down a strip of road without a shoulder or any barrier to protect them from speeding cars. Its also dark inside the tunnel, making it difficult for drivers to adjust their eyes from daylight and see a cyclist ahead of them. The other option for pedestrians was to hike up the mountainside and hop across the railroad tracks, dodging trains.

In the late 1990s and early aughts, traffic patterns were very different in Truckee. In the past decade, day visitor traffic has increased substantially to the Lake Tahoe basin, much of which is funneled through Truckee and the Mousehole. The mega season passes to ski resorts, like the Epic and the Ikon, are a relatively recent phenomenon, too.

Motivated by the safety hazard for pedestrians and cyclists in the late 1990s, the town of Truckee started a conversation about improving the Mousehole. The project didnt go far, until Rep. John Doolittle secured about $2.5 million in transportation funding that allowed the design phase for a Mousehole revamp to proceed.

During those preliminary planning stages, several alternatives were on the table. Engineers considered building a temporary bridge that would realign the railroad tracks and allow them to widen the road underneath. They also thought about building a second tunnel for vehicle traffic, separating northbound and southbound lanes. But the costs were enormous, ranging from $30 million to $50 million. (Today, those costs would be even higher.) So instead of widening the Mousehole to accommodate more lanes of vehicle traffic, the town focused on one priority: pedestrian and bicycle safety. It chose to build a smaller tunnel to the east of the Mousehole with sidewalks and a bike lane passing through.

The mini Mousehole, as it was soon dubbed, was a project that took about 20 years from concept to completion. It cost more than $13 million, sourced through a medley of federal, state and local funding.

To build the mini Mousehole, crews had to freeze the dirt beneath the railroad tracks to maintain the integrity of the ground beneath the railroad tracks, so train travel wouldnt be compromised during construction. They built the pedestrian tunnel on the side of Highway 89 and then, using industrial hydraulic jacking equipment, they pushed the newly built pedestrian tunnel into the frozen arch of soil.

It wasnt just one continuous push, Wilkins said. It was, push the tunnel a couple of feet, dig the soil out from the base of the tunnel, push the tunnel a couple more feet, go in and dig the soil out from the base of the tunnel. It was an incremental process that happened.

It took about seven or eight days of solid pushing and digging to secure the pedestrian tunnel all the way into the frozen archway of dirt beneath the train tracks, Wilkins said.

Now that the pedestrian tunnel is complete  it was unveiled in 2016  the town of Truckee has shelved the Mousehole project. Wilkins said its still possible to build a secondary tunnel for cars to pass through, but ultimately, that project would be so expensive and complex, its far beyond the scope of Truckees Public Works Department. The Mousehole is structurally sound, Wilkins said, so its likely not as high on Caltrans statewide list of priorities for infrastructure improvements.

From the towns perspective, adding highway capacity, thats probably something at this point that is best left to the owner of the road, which would be Caltrans, Wilkins said.

He also doesnt believe that just widening the pinch point would solve the problem of ski traffic.

Tom Hellauer/Special to SFGATE

The intersections on either side of the Mousehole play a big role in the gridlock. California Highway Patrol and the Truckee Police Department are starting to direct traffic in those intersections during the worst times of gridlock.

But the problem really boils down to timing and volume. No matter how wide the roads get, when thousands of skiers descend on a small town like Truckee at the exact same time, gridlock is inevitable.

Its completely unrealistic to believe that just maximizing the capacity of the existing roads is a means of eliminating the congestion that we see in the region, Wilkins said. It has to be a combination of finding creative solutions to manage the arrival patterns and the departure patterns of the ski areas.
Len Tillem, the longtime Sonoma attorney who delivered free legal advice on regional radio, died from cerebral hemorrhage on Jan. 13, the Press Democrat reported. He was 77 years old.

Tillem got his start in radio in the 1990s on Napas KVON and Santa Rosas KSRO before bringing his words of wisdom to San Franciscos KGO in 2000 on a Sunday afternoon show, The Len Tillem Show.

When a guest called in, he asked in a Queens accent, Why are you calling a lawyah?

He was good at nudging his callers to share the details of their situations and then delivering advice with humor and compassion.

He was a wonderful guy and I loved listening to him on the air and having him as a guest on my show, KGO host Ronn Owens wrote on Facebook. He had a wonderful way of informing his listeners about the law and entertaining them at the same time. My deepest condolences to his family.

Tillems show was canceled in 2011 when KGO switched to an all-news format. He brought his show to KKSF NewsTalk 910 AM San Francisco in 2012 and 2013 and went on to produce a podcast format.

Tillem opened his law practice Len Tillem & Associates in 1994 and later joined forces with Rosamonde McNichol and David A. Brown to form Tillem McNichol & Brown, the firms website says. He later retired in 2016, the Press Democrat said.

Tillem specialized in elder law, focusing on the needs of older adults, from estate planning to elder abuse.

With McNichol, he wrote The Elder Advocate newspaper column, offering insight on a wide range of legal topics impacting seniors, his firms site says. The column was published weekly in several Bay Area newspapers including the Napa Valley Register, the Vacaville Reporter and the Kenwood Press.

Tillem was born and raised in New York City and moved to Sonoma County in the early 1970s, his firms website says. He studied at Brooklyn College as an undergraduate and earned a law degree from NYU School of Law.

Tillem is survived by his wife, Susan Fegan; his two daughters, Freya and Phoebe; his sister, Susan; and his two brothers, Jack and Herb, the Press Democrat said.
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SHELTON  Moving with Hope, renowned for its efforts in neurological and physical therapy for multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries, is now assisting the citys firefighters.

The Shelton-based center this week donated two FAST (firefighter assistance search team) rescue boards  designed to assist in patient removal from fires, waterways, and other significantly different situations  to the Shelton Fire Department.

We are extremely grateful for this donation, Deputy Fire Chief Paul Wilson said, and we look forward to placing them in service once training is completed.

Tad Duni, founder of Moving with Hope, said he was donating the FAST boards in honor of Chris Far, a former Shelton volunteer firefighter, Stephen Domorod, Sr., late husband of City Clerk Marge Domorod, and Billy Burke, late husband of Cyndee Burke, Mayor Mark Laurettis longtime executive secretary.

That was so gracious of Tad to donate the FAST boards in memory of my husband, Domorod said.

Stephen Domorod, Sr., worked at Sikorsky Aircraft for 38 years in electrical maintenance, served as an electrical inspector for the City of Shelton for a number of years until 1998. He also was a member of Echo Hose Fire Department and Ambulance Corps and served on the Republican Town Committee.

Domorod said her husband was stricken with Parkinsons disease and heart disease and joined the gym facility owned by Duni.

Tad was a blessing in helping Steve maintain his mobility for many years thru the therapy and exercise at the gym, Domorod said. Steve passed away in 1998, but I will always be grateful to Tad for helping Steve maintain his mobility and dignity.

I was pleasantly surprised and honored for Billy when Tad Duni told me he wanted to make this donation in memory of my husband, Burke said. It felt wonderful to know that Billy is still is peoples thoughts and memories. As of course, he is constantly in my heart and memories.

Burke said her late husband met Duni many years ago and they became friends when Bill joined Dunis fitness gym.

Bill had a serious heart condition, and I credit Tad with helping him live a full life in the 1990s by carefully suggesting and supervising Bill with his cardio and overall physical fitness, Burke said.

William H. Burke, who died in 2002 at 49 years of age, was raised in Shelton and followed in his fathers (William J. Burke) footsteps and joined Echo Hose Fire Company in his teens. His younger brother, Timmy, became a member, too.

Bill was a very active member all his life, Burke added. He was involved in so many different aspects of the firehouse in addition to firefighting. He served as 2nd Lieutenant, 1st Lieutenant and Captain of Echo Hose Firehouse and eventually he became Assistant Fire Chief for the City of Shelton for 10 years.

The FAST boards are designed to have a pre-connected mechanical advantage to assist in dragging victims out of an immediately dangerous situation such as the basement of a burning building or rough terrain.

In the event a firefighter was to become injured inside of a fire, these boards can be used to remove our own, Wilson said. With firefighters wearing upwards of 75 pounds of protective gear, removal of a down firefighter can become very difficult.

One of the boards will be assigned to the Huntington Fire Company and the other to the Echo Hose Hook and Ladder Company 1, according to Wilson.

Moving with Hope was founded in 2010 by Chairman of the Board Thatcher Duni and his wife, Joanne. This organization is the largest provider in Connecticut for neurological and physical therapy for MS, spinal cord, and other significant injuries.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
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During the 15th meeting of the BRICS Science Technology Innovation (STI) Steering Committee on 17 January, India successfully handed over the BRICS Chairmanship to China from January 2022. India will host five international events throughout the year. The five high-level events are BRICS Startups Forum's Working Groups meeting on Energy; Biotechnology & Biomedicine; ICT & High-Performance Computing and the STIEP (Science, Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Partnership) Working Group Meeting, which will also witness the launch of BRICS innovation launchpad as a microsite (Knowledge Hub).

The theme for BRICS 2022 is "Foster High-Quality BRICS Partnership Usher in a New Era for Global Development". A series of sectoral events and meetings, consisting of Minister level and BRICS Summit, will be organized during the year. The Calendar of BRICS STI activities and expected deliverables are discussed at the virtually organized meeting.

India as host of BRICS Summit 2021

Although the 13th BRICS Summit was held under India's Chairship on 09 September 2021. It was the third time India hosted the BRICS Summit after 2012 and 2016. Its theme was BRICS @ 15: Intra-BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus.

As the world is resolving some disputes because of the pandemic and its variants induced crisis and opportunities, BRICS S&T 2022 also would happen virtually. Hence, we look back at the journey spanned thus far since the first meeting of BRIC Foreign Ministers on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York in 2006 to inspect the achievements and contributions of BRICS to the global agenda and also to national growth stories of India.

Certainly, it is a matter of great pride that BRICS has been an ideal of multilateralism based on equality, mutual respect and trust. The journey of the BRICs began with a meeting of the Political heads (leaders) of Brazil, Russia, India and China in St Petersburg, Russia, in July 2006. It was a G8 Outreach Summit then. In September 2006, the group was made official, and the first official meeting of the foreign ministers was held. It led to the first-ever BRIC Summit held in Russia on 16 June 2009. South Africa became part of the organization in 2011. It is the only African country that is included in the list. South Africa attended the 3rd BRICS Summit in Sanya, China, on 14 April 2011.

Achievements of BRICS

BRICS assembles the major emerging economies of the world that comprise 41% of the world's total population. The countries embrace 24% of the world's GDP and more than 16% of the trade in the world. These have formed a Contingent Reserve Arrangement. And the major achievements comprise the establishment of the New Development Bank. It is a substitute for the World Bank. The BRICS nations have a global plan known as the Brasilia Declaration. BRICS nations deliberate on important issues under the three pillars of political and security, economic and financial and cultural and people to people exchanges.

The themes of every summit reflect the approach to strengthen the founding principles of BRICS cooperation based on continuity, consolidation and consensus. As Chair, India had worked on specific deliverables across all three pillars of intra-BRICS cooperation in 2021.

Political and Security: To enrich cooperation and dialogue on global and regional security issues developments in the global political space for peace, security, and prosperity. The priorities for this pillar were: Reform of the Multilateral System and Counter Terrorism Cooperation.

Economic and Financial: To boost economic growth and development for mutual prosperity through expanding intra-BRICS cooperation in segments like trade, agriculture, infrastructure, small and medium enterprises, energy and finance & banking. Recognizing the miracles of using technological and digital solutions for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals in BRICS countries with a special emphasis on Implementation of the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy 2020-25, Operationalization of the BRICS Agriculture Research Platform, Cooperation on Disaster Resilience, Innovation Cooperation, and Digital Health and Traditional Medicine.

Cultural and People to People: To qualitatively enrich and enhance intra-BRICS people to people contacts in cultural, sports, academic, youth, business through common exchanges. Exchanges among Parliamentarians, young scientists etc., were also carried out.

The anticipation from BRICS 2022

The BRICS STI Steering Committee meeting was attended by representatives from BRICS scientific ministries foreign Missions. From the Indian side, the meeting was led by Shri Sanjeev Kumar Varshney, Advisor & Head International Cooperation, Department of Science and Technology.

Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is the main executing agency for BRICS startups Forum and innovation knowledge hub creation. During the meeting organized virtually, the Chinese side presented a broad outline of activities to be enacted during the whole year. It mainly embraces thematic meetings, BRICS Young Scientist Conclave, Senior official, and Ministerial level meetings. A total of 25 events have been intended, of which India will host a total of five. The BRICS Young Scientist Conclave will be organized in September 2022 in a virtual format, and the thematic focus may be Carbon peak neutralization; Biomedicine, Artificial Intelligence, Material Science, Modern Agriculture.

China will host the 10th BRICS S&T Ministerial meeting and Senior Official Meeting in September 2022. The meeting theme would endorse Open, Inclusive, and Shared Science, Technology, and Innovation. At the sideline of the Ministerial meeting, an exhibition will be organized showcasing outcomes of successful projects reinforced under the BRICS Framework Programme (2015-2022).

For the finalization of the BRICS Calendar of scientific events and programs, all countries will notify the meeting's specific dates, venue, and format. India tentatively showed a willingness to host the STIEP working group meeting on 23rd  24th March 2022 and BRICS Startups Forum Meeting in May/June 2022.
The WEF Davos Agenda 2022 calls for mission LIFE (lifestyle for the environment). This year will be the second consecutive year where the WEF is held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic and will be addressed by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva. Many pressing issues are important, like Covid, climate change, cryptocurrency, reforms and initiatives. So it marks a prestigious moment for India to be highlighted in various sectors that will be reformed and bring in front the historical achievements attained by us in previous years in the event Worldwide.

At the WEF Davos Agenda, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi addressed and delivered a 'State of the World' speech. The focus goes on the importance of changes in lifestyle as an important weapon to fight climate change. Hence the issue engaged the world leaders to make mission LIFE (lifestyle for the environment)- call given by India at UN Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow last year- a " global mass movement," and pitched for 'Pro Planet People (P-3) approach for a sustainable future.

In India, it is observed that huge numbers of software engineers and about 50 lakh software developers are working in the country and informed that India is the third-largest number of startup unicorns and talking on India's huge, safe and successful digital payment platform, about 4.4 billion transactions through Unified Payments Interface.

The measures of enhancing the Ease of Doing Business and reducing government interference were also discussed where it is said to simplify corporate tax rates and make them the most competitive in the world. India has deregulated areas like Drones, Space, Geo-spatial mapping and has brought reforms in the outdated telecom regulation related to the IT and BPO sectors.

There is the need for the world to fast move towards a "circular economy" for sustainable growth and remarks a gentle reminder to the developed countries of their extravagant lifestyle that leads to waste of resources and high emissions. Thus India needs a pushing change for lifestyle to deal with the issues of climate change, wasteful expenditure, and high energy consumption in rich countries led to historical emissions that created the problem of escalating global warming. It makes "Mission Life" essential for the global mass movement.

Mission Life needs to become a global mass movement

India had become the world's pharmacy and the third-largest producer when the world was focusing aspects of intervention such as the quantitative program to go with ease in times of Covid. In a year, India has registered nearly 160 cr Covid vaccine doses. Hence democracy in India has given the whole world a bouquet of hope that contains unwavering faith towards democracy and technological developments to empower the 21st century.

The agenda becomes a keen request for all to follow the goal of 'Global good' that is important for reaching a net-zero target by 2070. As India's growth will be green, clean, sustainable, and reliable, our lifestyle is a real big-time challenge and 'Throw away' culture and consumerism have made the climate challenge very seriously, making it important for Mission 'LIFE' to become a global mass movement.

Economic Reforms

India's commitment to deep economic reforms makes it the most attractive destination for investment. When the world is focused on interventions such as the quantitative easing program during Covid, India paved the way for reform.

While the world focused on evolving programs to ease Covid, India paved the way for reforms. India is working with a deep commitment towards economic reforms, making it interesting to reach a destination for investment. In his speech, the United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres called on the leaders to take up greater mitigation ambitions to reduce greenhouse gasses.

The speech also highlights that- Emissions must fall, but they continue to rise. Even if all developed countries kept their promises to drastically reduce emission by 2030 and mentioned, " To help key emerging economies accelerated the transition. Coal-fired power generation is surging towards a new record. There is a need calling for the creation of coalitions of countries, public and private financial institutions, investment funds, and companies with the technological know-how to provide targeted financial and technical support."

One Earth, One Health Notion

During the Covid19, India saved the lives of man by exporting essential medicines and vaccines by following its vision of ''One Earth, One Health." Today India is the third-largest manufacturer of medicines in the world. In a way, India is medicine for the world. A strong democracy like India has given a beautiful gift to the whole world." So in COVID, it's seen how India is following the vision of 'One Earth, One Health' is saving crores, and these actions have placed a prominent example before the world.

'Make in India, Make for the world'

India is going ahead with the principle of "Make in India, Make for World," thus Fostering self-reliance across sectors, saying that India will continue with its reforms to enable its vision of sustainable economic growth. Hence now is the best moment to invest in India. The government focuses on making it easier to do Business and reducing government engagement in the economy. India is moving ahead with the mantra of "Make in India" and "Make for the World."

Changes in Digital Infrastructure

According to the technology that fosters crypto, it is hard for any single government to handle the challenges linked with digital currency. The kind of technology it is associated with, and the decisions taken by a single country will be not apt to deal with such challenges. So, We have to have a similar mindset. Additionally, as the world order changes, so do the issues people face as global families. As a result, coordination by every country and global organization to combat these threats is urgently required.

Moreover, the digital infrastructure that India developed and adopted in the last few years has turned out to be a major strength for India, along with the Arogya Setu app used for the tracking of corona infection and the Co-Win portal used to track vaccination are technological solutions that India is proud of and a major step making Bigger countries have taken note of these developments.

Hence the WEF Davos Agenda 2022 brings many reformational changes that were needed to be taken place since the time society was facing challenges. Thus mission LIFE, i.e. 'Lifestyle for Environment,' is a vision focused on resilience and sustainable lifestyle that came up in handy dealing with the climate crisis and other challenges.
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The union for finance and banking workers has launched Federal Court action against the Commonwealth Bank for allegedly failing to allow its retail branch staff 10-minute rest breaks during their shift.

Workers are entitled to a paid 10-minute tea break three hours into their shift and another after five hours on top of their unpaid 45-minute lunch break, according to the Finance Sector Union (FSU).

The Finance Sector Union claims CBA staff at understaffed branches were run off their feet and so unable to take the breaks. Credit:Will Willitts

The rest breaks are an entitlement but retail bank employees have been unable to take them because of staff shortages, said FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano.

Most are never able to take them because of understaffing, she said in a statement.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The last time consumers were this pessimistic about the economy, the Soviet Union had just collapsed, acid-wash jeans were in, and Shane Warne was making his Test debut. Needless to say, things are grim. On Tuesday, monthly consumer confidence figures revealed a 7.6 per cent plunge in the closely watched statistics, clocking in at the lowest level for January since 1992, a month when shoppers are usually buoyed post-Christmas and looking forward to the year ahead. Now high streets and malls are eerily quiet. Its reflective of the wearied state COVID-19 and the Omicron variant has left the countrys businesses in, most notably the $360 billion retail sector, which has only recently recovered from last years harsh lockdowns. It was an unprecedented situation, where millions of Australians were bound to their homes and thousands of stores were forced to shut their doors, left to rely on online sales and government support to keep the lights on. Shaver Shop CEO Cameron Fox says theres no question the public are being far more cautious. But for some retailers, such drastic measures would be a welcome alternative to the current shadow lockdown conditions plaguing the country, as soaring case numbers  rather than government edict  keep shoppers at home and wallets tightly shut, with no end in sight. The irony is, we thought it was pretty challenging through the lockdowns, but at least there were very clear deadlines and that narrative the government was providing around reopening dates, says Cameron Fox, chief executive of ASX-listed grooming retailer Shaver Shop. Right now its a sort of pseudo lockdown scenario that were in, where there isnt an official lockdown, but theres no question the majority of the public are being a little bit more cautious.

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Loading While businesses have become used to dealing with new challenges throughout the past three years of the pandemic, the recent Omicron outbreak has introduced unprecedented disruption through almost every facet of the retail ecosystem. Labour is in short supply as workers are forced to isolate because of the virus, leaving shops without attendants and warehouses without shelf-stackers. Fresh produce has been left to rot as supply chains grind to a halt, and exports have dried up due to exorbitant international shipping costs. Shelves at major supermarket operators Coles and Woolworths are bare, yet again, and Perth conglomerate Wesfarmers has recorded a 10 per cent slide in sales at its Kmart and Target stores as the pandemic scares away shoppers and disrupts deliveries. Even the countrys largest and most well-resourced corporations are struggling to keep things steady. Team member absenteeism associated with the COVID-19 Omicron variant has placed additional pressure on distribution centres and stores in some states, necessitating a reduction of trading hours in some stores and impacting supply chain productivity and stock availability, Wesfarmers said earlier this week. We cant keep going like this For many, desperate times have started to call for equally desperate measures. Ravinder Singh, who owns about a dozen Sehaj Indian Food and Sweets restaurants in NSW, said a shortage of professional chefs and a lack of overseas workers was forcing him to close venues.

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Three of his restaurants are shut and he is contemplating closing a fourth after revenue from his businesses plunged 40 per cent. Staff are getting infected with COVID and nobody is coming to work, he says. I had to sell one of my properties to help pay bills. Ravinder Singh has had to close restaurants because of staff shortages. Credit:Renee Nowytarger I wish it would get better ASAP otherwise we will go broke. We have been struggling for the last two years. We are a small business, and we cant keep going like this. Singhs combined turnover is above $5 million and therefore disqualifies him from seeking rent relief from his landlords under the terms of the governments recently extended mandatory code of conduct for commercial tenants. Both NSW and Victoria have extended the mandatory code until the end of March in a bid to ease pressure on small businesses. The code requires property owners to negotiate rent relief agreements with eligible tenants in financial distress as a result of COVID-19. I wish it would get better ASAP otherwise we will go broke. Ravinder Singh, restaurant owner The aid isnt a moment too soon, according to tenant representative, Michael Amler from Verimark, who says Omicron is having a devastating effect on retailers. Retailers are petrified at the moment. Christmas wasnt great, but January is a disaster, he says.

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Landlords and retailers are struggling as shoppers keep away from malls. Credit:Getty Images Foot traffic and visits to retailers in large shopping malls are down because people are terrified of catching the virus. The biggest shopping centres are being hit hardest. People are tending to go to smaller centres because they feel safer there, he says. All the small businesses I talk to say its far worse than COVID was the first time around because it is so widespread. Compounding the impact of the current Omicron outbreak are indications that the countrys retailers may have had a slower-than-expected Christmas, with bubbling fears about the virus subduing spending over the key shopping period. Data from national credit reporting agency CreditorWatch shows that trading activity dropped to its lowest ever level through December, with trade receivables down a massive 45 per cent on the year prior. Paul Zahra from the Australian Retailers Association... Its looking like months of pain. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Paul Zahra, the chief of the Australian Retailers Association, doesnt believe things were quite that grim over Christmas, telling The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald he is expecting Decembers retail trade numbers to hold up.

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But we are bracing for the worst when Januarys numbers are released, he says. Weve never seen the pandemic impact the sector on this scale, and for the first time retailers are having to navigate these challenges with reduced levels of government support. And the issue is, when does it end? Everyones watching the case numbers, hoping they come down, but what drives retail spending? Its looking like months of pain. Online slows Even online retail, which has been the last bastion of support for many merchants over the past few years, has started to slow in the face of the virus. According to 6one5 Retail consultant Bill Rooney, the retail malaise has even spread to eBay, Australias top ecommerce site. Loading Unlike during COVID-related lockdowns earlier in the pandemic, search traffic on eBay fell between 8 and 10 per cent from July and December last year, he says. It is a good indicator of where the market is at, Rooney says. Similarly, data from National Australia Bank shows that online trade has gradually been declining since the end of NSW and Victorias lockdowns, representing 12.5 per cent of all retail spending in November, down from near 15 per cent in September.

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BIOGRAPHY

The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky, a Crime and its Punishment

Kevin Birmingham

Allen Lane, $55

Some years ago, I asked the historian Manning Clark to sign a copy of the first volume of his memoirs, The Puzzles of Childhood. He inscribed a line from The Brothers Karamazov that the sceptical Ivan utters to his devout brother Alyosha. I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been for. It is a line Clark loved. He quoted it often.

It is curious that a historian and memoirist should have been so invested in a question that neither history nor memory can resolve, the question of existential purpose. Dostoevsky believed that history can only be understood from a vantage point outside history. Those who love Dostoevsky must inevitably confront this paradox. It is the reason why re-reading his work takes you deeper without necessarily making anything more simple. Unlike Tolstoy, Dostoevsky was not a reformer. He did not develop the invigorating sense of history for which Tolstoy is justly famous. If Tolstoy climbed mountains to take in the sweeping plains, Dostoevsky explored caves to find the darkest places.

It is difficult to think of a spiritual novelist to compare to Dostoevsky. That does not make him cheerful company. He never flatters human beings whom he defined as the ungrateful biped. It has been said that Tolstoy worshipped the Christ of the beatitudes while Dostoevsky was absorbed by the figure of Christ on the cross.
To devotees of hallyu, the term given to the international proliferation of Korean pop culture since the 90s, Koreas global takeover of Netflix mightve made complete sense. Even before todays ubiquitous K-pop groups like BTS and Blackpink were dominating global streaming playlists, acts like Rain, 2NE1 and, of course, Psy, were courting international attention. Before Bong Joon-Hos Parasite was the toast of Hollywood in 2020, Park Chan-Wooks Vengeance Trilogy, including Oldboy, was wowing the early 00s festival circuit. Park Kyu-young in Netflix Koreas pre-Squid Game hit, Sweet Home. Credit:Netflix Squid Games success stems from the same context, says Kang. In Korea, we have a very well-established system where cinemas and broadcasting channels have been producing great content in a very competitive environment for decades, and the audience expectation around the standards of that content is super high. So in order for a creator to be chosen to tell their story and be beloved by the public, they need to go through a lot of thinking and make sure the production quality is great, he says. Thats just the beginning, thats where we start. And so, we have this belief in Korean content that, Okay, if you make great content in Korea and it works for the local audience, then we have a shot at making it big across the world.

Netflixs investment, which topped $US500 million last year, played its part too. When we produce or license a show and put it on our service, we make sure the original vision of the creator is conveyed to the end user. Thats why we invest so much in the dubbing and in the subtitles, Kang says. Without those you could have all the greatest content from Korea, but it would just be lost to the outside world. This year Netflix is launching 25 new Korean series, its largest run to date. The titles include All Of Us Are Dead, a high school zombie thriller that plays like a pulp COVID-19 allegory, and Juvenile Justice, a legal drama set in a juvenile court. Yoon Chan-young as Lee Cheong-san in Netflix Koreas upcoming zombie thriller, All of Us Are Dead. Credit:Yang Hae-sung/Netflix Sometimes people wonder, Oh, there are so many zombie stories, what new can you do?, but I think the creators did a good job producing something thats uniquely Korean, and by having the school element its able to tell the story in a very different tone, Kang says of All Of Us Are Dead.

Juvenile Justice deals with the juvenile justice system in Korea, but Im sure different countries have their own socio-political issues around crimes committed by the underage population, he adds. I think its the right time for this type of story to be told, and I think this one will be very relevant and have an impact on the society in Korea. Loading Other titles include a Korean remake of the Spanish hit Money Heist (La Casa De Papel) and Seoul Vibe, a film where the adventures of a special-ops team take place against the backdrop of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. While Netflixs most notable Korean successes - including Squid Game, Hellbound and Sweet Home - have centred on dark, edgy content, the new slate signals the streamers determined push into different genres. Traditionally, the Korean content that travelled best outside of Korea were mostly romantic-comedy series, so theres an interesting parallel between what was already happening and what Netflix is doing, Kang says.
Its getting very desperate, Mr Healey said. Loading Among the worst hit in Melbourne is Monash Health, which has been forced to close at least six mental health beds  roughly 20 per cent of capacity  at its Clayton hospital this week due to staffing shortages. Mr Healey said 400 nurses were in isolation. Ambulances were diverted this week from all three of Monash Healths emergency departments with the hospitals unable to accept patients except those arriving with life-threatening conditions. The Mercy Hospitals psychiatric unit in Werribee also closed 16 of its 66 mental health beds due to furloughing of staff last week, while the Footscray Hospitals Orygen youth mental health unit closed temporarily due to a coronavirus outbreak.

Killian Ashe, a consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Melbourne Hospitals acute psychiatric unit, said patients were finding it increasingly difficult to secure a bed in his ward  where 10 per cent of staff have been absent in recent weeks  and were in some cases spending long stretches of time in emergency departments as a result. Once these patients were discharged they faced months-long waiting lists to secure appointments with general practitioners or private psychiatric and psychological services. In real terms ... theres much less availability of face-to-face care for people who are having mental health issues and then inevitably small problems go into big problems, treatable symptoms become wildly out of control, which leads to more and more hospitalisations. Dr Ashe said three of the wards nine consultants and registrars were absent two weeks ago and staff had to work long, double shifts and forgo their leave to make up for the shortfall, which could lead to burnout and possible resignations. The ward came close to closing some beds in December, but this did not eventuate.

Its just unheard of that such conversations would even occur, Dr Ashe said. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Victoria was roughly 450 mental health nurses short, but Mr Healey said this number was probably far higher now as workers left the sector due to burnout. Four mental health clinicians, who work across Melbourne, told The Age there had been a troubling spike in drug use and self-harm cases across the state coinciding with a surge of more than 1000 hospitalisations linked to the Omicron outbreak. A lot of people are having very serious suicide attempts and because of the sheer number of people affected by COVID, our workforce has taken a huge hit, one senior mental health clinician who works at a major metropolitan hospital in Melbourne said. We have been left with a third of the workforce or two staff for an entire mental health unit. The healthcare worker, who cannot be identified as she was not authorised to speak publicly, said that on top of an increase in self-harm presentations, she had also observed a rise in people with psychosis seeking help.

We are seeing psychotic symptoms emerging in people that have never had psychosis before, she said. Weve also seen a massive increase in drug and alcohol presentations as well. Another senior mental health clinician, who works in the western suburbs, said he would often call ambulances for patients needing to be admitted to hospital because they were at risk of harming themselves but they would be left waiting hours for an ambulance that never arrived. The clinician, also not authorised to speak publicly, said staffing shortages due to coronavirus exposures had meant teams of specialist police, ambulance and mental health clinicians which attend acute mental health callouts were unable to operate or attend every callout in recent weeks. The police will always do their best to still attend the cases, but the ambulances just dont have the manpower at the moment or they are being tied up in EDs for hours and hours, he said. Doctors say some Victorians with severe mental illness are spending days in emergency departments as they wait for a bed.

Emergency physician Stephen Parnis, who works across several Melbourne hospitals, said there had been a steady rise in people arriving at hospitals acutely unwell with complex mental health issues, since the end of last year. Youve got a situation where distressed staff are looking after very distressed people, Dr Parnis said. Everybody is doing their best, but its a combination of ongoing heightened triggers for mental illness and a significantly reduced capacity to respond. Weve got an entire population in Victoria who are traumatised by this pandemic. Eastern Healths program director of mental health Lisa Shaw-Stuart said despite the staffing challenges, the service had continued to provide emergency crisis assessment and treatment services, face to face where possible, or via telehealth. This is a really challenging time for many in our community and I encourage all those who need help to please speak up, she said.
Another 13 people have died from COVID in Queensland as the state shortens the window for booster shots from four months to three after the second dose of vaccine.

Queenslands coronavirus death toll stands at 85, with the state recording 16,031 new cases on Friday.

Two of the deceased were in their 60s, five in their 70s, five in their 80s and one in their 90s.

Two of the people had not been vaccinated, while one had a single dose. One persons vaccination status had not been confirmed.
SCREAM QUEEN - Courteney Cox (above) reprises her reporter role in Paramount Pictures Scream. Twenty-six years ago the original got a big boost from the personalities of its performers, among them Neve Campbell, and David Arquette. (Brownie Harris/Paramount Pictures via AP)
Dr Robertson said child vaccination rates were 9.2 per cent for the 5 to 11-year-old cohort as of January 17 but the cohort would not be fully vaccinated until just before the end of April. Loading These vaccinations, while protecting against rare serious disease in this age group, need to be further modelled, although they are not anticipated to have a significant effect on the trajectory or course of the outbreak, he said. The advice outlines significant shortages across the health workforce  both public and private  and how the number of staff able to enter the state would remain low until borders reopened. Mr McGowan and the Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson have maintained the health system is read for Omicron but Dr Robertsons advice says the health system had been preparing for an Omicron outbreak only on or after February 5.

He wrote such an outbreak would peak about two months later and start declining to baseline levels after three months. Decisions, including those around delaying elective surgery, and for maximal workforce availability are currently planned for this date as the earliest likely date, Dr Robertson said. Similarly, outbreak plans and clinical guidelines, staff training, in-home support and equipment and consumables, including masks, are also planned to be ready by this date. Dr Robertson recommended health workers moving to WA from interstate after February 5 should have their quarantine time reduced to seven days of home isolation and they should be able to work in their second week after arriving to boost staffing levels. The government has taken up the recommendation and Australian Medical Association WA president Mark Duncan-Smith said the move was a concession

I think that the reduced restrictions for quarantine for doctors is an admission that we are in a crisis with respect to human resources and the number of healthcare professionals that we have in WA, he said. I think it is a concession that our system needs healthcare professionals and I do welcome the move and also want to see a streamlining of the administrative processes so that theres no reason for a health care professional who wants to come back to not be here. Ms Sanderson rejected the premise health professionals would not want to work in WA over other states and said border restrictions had been challenging for all industries around the world. Dr Robertsons health advice also revealed expected rapid antigen test stocks for WA with 25.75 million to be on hand by February 27, 37.75 million at the end of March and 17 million by April 10. Opening date could be sooner if WA reaches case threshold

The Chief Health Officer recommended a case number threshold be established for opening the international and interstate borders if Omicron outbreaks grew to large levels before whatever the new planned opening date was. If the Omicron disease were to enter WA prior to WA opening, or the current outbreak becomes established, consideration should be given to opening the borders when WA reaches a community daily caseload above a threshold level, which would require assessment to ensure that this would not further exacerbate the outbreak, Dr Robertson said. Dr Duncan-Smith said there was already Omicron in the community and it was a matter of when not if people would start to catch the virus. I call on the government to introduce modest restrictions as soon as possible in their step approach to dealing with the current Omicron outbreak, he said. In a sign of the possible restrictions to come, Dr Robertson said regardless of vaccination rates a low to medium level of test, trace, isolate and quarantine capabilities and social restrictions would be needed to mitigate the impact of an Omicron outbreak and reduce demand on the hospital system.

South Australia has demonstrated the benefits of the introduction of such measures, even at significant caseloads, over 770 cases per day in their case, he said. Given the reductions achieved by South Australia compared to other jurisdictions, even in the face of a major outbreak, I would recommend moving to such public health and social measures at a greatly reduced number of cases per day, he said. Mr McGowan told reporters on Friday he did not know when WA might be able to open up. He said a review will be undertaken next month of the situation while the state disaster council would meet next week to discuss the setting of restrictions to combat the virus. Dr Duncan-Smith called on the state government to set a new opening date.
While a large section of the community are happy with West Australian Premier Mark McGowans border bombshell, believing the move will save lives, the decision to delay opening without giving any clarity around a new date has devastated others.

Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA chief executive Chris Rodwell said businesses were back to square one.

WA businesses face uncertainty after the state government decided not to open the borders on February 5. Credit:Erin Jonasson

Were just full of uncertainty now, he said.

He had expected to hear the specifics of what the new modelling showed, some certainty about what the new date might be, and what the new rules would be for opening.
A man has been charged with allegedly setting off an improvised bomb at popular chain restaurant Zambrero during its lunch rush, and allegedly having another in a car in the central Perth CBD.

Officers were called to the franchise on the Newcastle Street cafe strip in the inner-city suburb of Leederville at 1.30pm Thursday.

The Zambrero where the 29-year-old man allegedly set off the bomb. Credit:Google Maps

Security footage allegedly shows the man placing the device before walking away.

The explosion caused shrapnel and debris to fly 10 metres, but no-one was injured and police seized the remnants of the device for forensic examination.
Only one month before Dr Robertsons comments, Omicron had just been transmitted in Australia on December 3 in NSW. On December 22, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee said Omicron would soon become the dominant variant in the country as it started to take over in Europe. Two days later the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation released a statement saying a third vaccine dose was the best protection against infection with the variant. Although some early data suggest that the risk of hospitalisation due to disease caused by the Omicron variant is lower than that with the Delta variant, this difference would not be enough to offset the impact of high case numbers on the health system, it said. ATAGI expects that booster vaccination alone will not be sufficient to avert a surge due to Omicron. However, maximising booster coverage by expanding eligibility and encouraging high uptake, in combination with enhanced public health and social measures, may prevent a large surge in case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths. Skipping forward to January 7 and in South Australia, which had its first Omicron spread on December 10, the number of active hospitalisations had gone from none to 144 in a month.

This figure was nearly three times the speculated peak of 54 general ward beds that WA anticipated it would have to use on its peak day with a 90 per cent two-dose vaccination rate under its old Delta-variant scenario modelling from November. WA anticipated a peak of 117 deaths over the first 360 days of the modelling, although this was based on a peak not happening until after 120 days, but in South Australia the death toll since the start of the New Year has already reached 54. New cases and hospitalisations had started to take off just before New Years Eve in Australia, particularly Victoria and New South Wales which were slow off the mark to bring back restrictions to spread out the curve. Hospitalisations across the nation on January 7 were about 2900 and nearly double the previous peak in October.

The number of people in hospital had increased by 600 patients three days later on January 10 when WA Premier Mark McGowan said the plan was still to open his state on February 5. I just urge people to get vaccinated as soon as they can they first second or third dose and the lead up to that point in time, he said. The next day, when WAs over-16 third-dose vaccination rate was about 14 per cent, Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson dodged a question about what discussions or health advice there had been to still open up the border if the best protection against Omicron was a booster shot. These decisions are made on the best available health advice, she said.

And thats what we will continue to do so weve made these decisions based on the advice of the Chief Health Officer to make decisions based on advice to keep people safe in WA. Three days later on January 13, Mr McGowan said he did not know what the projected third dose vaccination rate would be come February 5. The Premiers office told WAtoday on January 3 about 950,000 people would be eligible for the shot by the border opening but said a week later this figure would have gone up with the shortening of the gap between second and third shots from four months to three  despite the reduction in time being announced in December. Mr McGowan just as evasive as Ms Sanderson on whether there had been any recent advice from the Chief Health Officer about opening up regardless of what this figure was. These are matters of discussion within government and we will continue to discuss them, he said.

Active hospitalisations around Australia on January 13 were more than 4000 and deaths were on the rise, with 283 since the New Year. States like NSW and Victoria were expected to hit their peak caseload late this month or in February. One week on from January 13 and deaths for the year have gone above 650. Mr McGowan held meetings all week which culminated in a state disaster council gathering on Thursday morning where the Premier says the Chief Health Officer gave advice, with some preliminary Omicron modelling, the border opening should be held off. When later asked by the press when he first started thinking the state would not open, Mr McGowan answered that he only got the health advice that morning.

The same night at 7.30pm the Premier told the public the border would stay shut. He then tried to sell the message that WA needed to wait until more people had their third shot so hospitals were not overwhelmed and people could leave the state again without fear of getting trapped outside. So far, the science shows that people with only two doses of a COVID vaccine have only a 4 per cent protection against being infected by the Omicron variant, he said. With a third dose it can provide a 64 per cent protection against infection. In addition, protection against severe disease is maintained at 80 per cent to 90 per cent for people with two doses, but increases to 98 per cent for people with three doses. Allowing hundreds or thousands of Omicron infected people to fly straight into Perth with no testing, no quarantine, would cause a flood of COVID across our state. It would cause a surge in cases, a surge in hospitalisations and result in thousands of people not being able to go to work or go to school.

Mr McGowan described eastern states as almost being in a virtual lockdown considering how many people were working at home or isolating. He talked about a 900 per cent increase in hospitalisations in the east and the rise in deaths over the past 19 days when justifying the delay on opening. When WA can open its border now is not really known. Future decisions on border controls will be considered over the next month following a review of the Omicron situation in the east.

Mr McGowan said a range of factors and not just third-dose rates would play a part but did not elaborate much further. The state says it wants to give more 5 to 11-year-olds the chance to get vaccinated after they only become eligible this month. Waning efficacy for the vaccinated will start to become an issue but the Chief Health Officer said it was difficult to calculate what kind of protection West Australians would have down the track. ...the government just isnt comfortable in figuring out what balance of restrictions and vaccination it wants to open up, despite assurances the health system is ready. WA had a third-dose rate of 25.8 per cent for everyone aged 16 and over as of Thursday. Deputy Premier Roger Cook has previously said the rate of third-dose vaccination had been going up by about one percentage point per day.

Mr McGowan said on Thursday his expectation was by February 5 the rate would be about 35 to 38 per cent. About 80 per cent of the over-16s population would have been eligible for a third dose come March 13, given it is three months after WA reached the percentage as a two-dose target. Dr Robertson said winter, vaccine efficacy and vaccination rates would all factor in. But making it to March may be a moot point with concerns in the government Omicron will take over much sooner. Mr McGowan said next week the state disaster council would have a meeting to finalise the kind of public health settings and restrictions that would be put in place as high caseloads of Omicron started.

Ms Sanderson has already said elective surgery at private and public hospitals would be reduced to category one and two for an anticipated eight weeks. A similar measure was taken earlier in the pandemic. Loading In any case, the government just isnt comfortable in figuring out what balance of restrictions and vaccination it wants to open up, despite assurances the health system is ready. Dr Robertson said WA had been looking at what worked well in other states like South Australia and Tasmania as it came up with a plan. Some of the public health and social measures in South Australia seem to be dampening the curve, he said.

South Australia, which opened its borders in November with 80 per cent two-dose vaccination but tougher restrictions still than WA, was starting to get thousands of cases a day in December and a steady increase in hospitalisations when it decided to hold off a relaxation of rules and bring in stricter ones. On December 27, the state brought in density requirements at cafes and restaurants of one person per 4 square metres indoors and one person per 2 square metres outdoors, and gyms went to one person per 7 square metres. Home gatherings were reduced from 30 people to 10 and currently dancing and singing is banned. Dr Robertson said WA was looking at how to minimise the impact of a large outbreak in WA and this would include testing, contact tracing, isolation, quarantine regimes and public health and social measures.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the border situation in WA was deeply concerning. February 5 was supposedly locked in to give certainty, he said. Tens of thousands of people booked travel on that basis and we brought a lot of our people back to work on that basis. Removing that certainty with no new timeline for when the border will reopen is a real blow not just for travel but for Australia as a whole. The rest of the country is focused on getting through this but WA is still playing for time, despite people doing the right thing and getting vaccinated.

Tourism Council WAs Evan Hall said there would be a massive loss for businesses which had put their trust in a February 5 opening date. Im well aware of individuals who have lost their home or retirement savings by trying to stay open to take bookings for business from 5 February onwards, he said. Now they will have to refund deposits with money they dont have. There will be many business closing and making the decision to close.

Mr Hall said there was a need for a genuine compensation scheme for businesses that had been caught out by the scrapping of the opening date. Wed certainly like the government to cover all of the deposits we need to refund, he said. The wastage of supplies, all the time and money spent on tough recruitmen,t who can no longer come to WA to help in peak season. WA Premier Mark McGowan hit back saying the states tourism sector was currently the strongest in the nation. He said WA was better off staying closed off, claiming tourism was in freefall in the eastern states.

People arent holidaying, travel spend has gone through the floor, he said. In NSW weekly spending to January 10 was down 24 per cent according to the ANZ credit card analysis, he said. Spending in South Australia is down 5.7 per cent, Queensland down 6.1 per cent, Tasmania down 7.7 per cent. In WA ... its up 18.9 per cent. WAs spend, retail, hospitality, tourism and everything else has gone up significantly. Youve got to look at the alternatives and I think the tourism industry broadly understands this.

The Premier said if WA opened up now it could be devastating with massive numbers of people not going to work. Mr Hall challenged the stance from Mr McGowan, however, saying businesses no longer had certainty and confidence to invest. Having a date and taking it away is worse than never having a date at all, he said. If there is a new date ... I dont think people will have the confidence to see it through to make the investment. There are still plenty of West Australians stuck outside the state struggling to make it back in even though Mr McGowan said it would take a more compassionate approach from February 5 in letting residents back in.
Those families are the ones who have made the sacrifices to keep COVID out. The missed funerals, the moments lost with dying parents, the growing of small grandchildren have all been foregone by those in other places. McGowan seems to be a love-to-hate figure in Sydney, especially in tabloid media, but the attacks just boost his popularity with voters at home. He has had the parochial backing of Kerry Stokes The West Australian newspaper, though even it turned on him after Thursdays late-night performance. 658 days and hes STILL not ready, was the front page screamer with a subhead: McGowans abject failure of leadership. Business leaders have to date been supine, not daring to take on a politician who has cast himself as protector and West Australian-in-chief, repelling Clive Palmer and the knockers from the east (ironic given McGowan grew up in NSW and was educated in Queensland).

The national unemployment figures for December (before Omicron took hold) showed unemployment at a very healthy 4.2 per cent. WAs figure was a red-hot 3.4 per cent, a mark not recorded since before the 2008 global financial crisis. Why would you risk that? The dominant mining sector gave him cover to reopen as late as Thursday morning, despite warnings of production disruption from iron ore giants BHP and Rio Tinto, with influential Chamber of Minerals and Energy chief executive Paul Everingham saying the best time to open was now. Masks and social distancing have been forgotten in Perth. Credit:Getty As late as Wednesday night the plan was to proceed with February 5. But sources say the WA Health Department presented alarming new figures about Omicron on Thursday morning at a meeting of the state disaster council, which was all the Premier needed to change course. They have been contested by those who have followed the data and saw McGowan put the most fearful spin possible on them on Thursday night. At the same press conference, he claimed the WA hospital system was strong and ready, but it was a declaration worthy of the Iraqi information minister Comical Ali. Everyone knows its untrue, as the medical unions warned with increasing hysteria as the reopening date approached. Ambulance ramping, a canary in the coal mine for system capacity pressures, has exploded on the McGowan governments watch from the mid to high hundreds of hours each month when it took office in 2017 to a record of over 6500 hours last August.

This was the criticism heard most often on the airwaves yesterday. Youve had two years. What have you been doing? Loading The Premier will have lost some skin over the way he has handled this. Having imposed heavy handed vaccination mandates covering 75 per cent of the workforce and, more recently, to attend venues like pubs, cafes, restaurants, stadiums and even bottle shops, he has got the vaccination rate above a once unthinkable 95 per cent for first doses in the over 12s. He now shifts the goalposts to insist on more than 80 per cent third dose coverage before the border comes down, with all further details pending. Many of the jabbed have asked: Why did I bother?

Ive been away from my home city for a month, for three weeks in my wifes hometown of Pensacola, Florida with our two small boys visiting her parents for the first time in two-and-half years. Loading We took the punt that February 5 would stick, a calculation that will now earn us two weeks of home isolation on our return. In terms of social behaviour, the pandemic is basically finished in Western Australia  the populace has moved on. Two years into the pandemic most West Australians have no first-hand experience of COVID-19, and they are not particularly interested in acquainting themselves with it.
Every fine nerve fibre in my body became inflamed, Professor Carey said. It was excruciating. I was in acute care for quite a while. The academic is still recovering months later and remains in lockdown as Omicron infections surge and is anxious to see Novavax approved as a booster to give her full protection so life can get a bit more liveable. I havent come across a single person who is waiting for Novavax, just because they want it, Professor Carey said. Everyone who Ive spoken to has had a reaction to the other ones, or theyve been told from the start that they shouldnt have them. Emma*, a Melbourne woman who was hospitalised with an allergic reaction to her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, said she had been staying largely isolated at home and could not wait to get her second dose, for which she will receive Novavax.

Many of us have been desperately waiting to get access to these vaccinations, she said. Loading We are so, so happy to be able to get another shot after not being able to take what was available, on the advice of medical professionals. The Therapeutic Goods Administration reports weekly on the rare, but potentially serious adverse events that occur from COVID-19 vaccination. Its latest report said 101,795 adverse events had been reported by January 16, out of more than 46 million doses administered  a rate of 2.2 reports for every 1000 doses. But the TGA says the majority of those adverse events are not serious.

Federal health minister Greg Hunt on Thursday said his office had been approached by many unvaccinated Australians indicating that they were seeking access to Novavax, even though the already approved Pfizer vaccine was appropriate to vaccinate the entire population. Emma, who works in health and describes herself as a pro-vaxxer, has allergies but was not concerned about side effects when she went for her first jab. She ended up in the emergency room after she developed a severe rash, nausea, swelling and dangerously high blood pressure. With a family history of anaphylaxis, doctors advised that her second dose was likely to prompt a reaction about three times stronger than the one that put her in hospital, an outcome she feared could mean she would not make it out on the other side. The specialist at the hospital made it clear that it was an allergic reaction to something in the shot, not the vaccine itself, she said.

Emma said she did not want to perpetuate anti-vaccination views, but decided to speak out after reading commentary suggesting that hundreds of thousands of Australians believed to be waiting for Novavax were vaccine-hesitant. I believe in the science, she said. You dont want one single person getting a seed of doubt about the importance of protecting themselves and their families. Associate Professor Griffin, who is the Director of Infectious Diseases at Mater Health Services, said only time would tell whether Novavax was actually safer than Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca. At face value, you would say that it looks like Novavax does have fewer adverse events than those other vaccines, but we have to remember those other vaccines have been given in extraordinary numbers now, so the denominator is very large, Prof Griffin said.

So, even very rare, adverse events have been reported with those vaccines, and the Novavax vaccine hasnt been used in those numbers ... It certainly is a very safe and highly effective vaccine. But I think its too early to say that its safer or better at this stage. Loading University of Queensland Associate Professor Tom Aechtner, an expert on attitudes to vaccination, said some Australians were worried about the fact that the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines and AstraZeneca viral vector vaccine were the first of their kind approved for human use, while the protein-based Novavax was more of a traditional vaccine. Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Karen Price said she would not recommend patients delay getting vaccinated until Novavax is available, but that once approved it would be particularly beneficial for those who have contraindications to other COVID-19 vaccines, including serious reactions to previous doses. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that people get vaccinated against COVID-19, Dr Price said.
But 20 years after the debates and soul-searching, those documents are released by the National Archives to historians and the public who can glean how these important decisions were made.

The most important decisions of the government of the day are thrashed out in cabinet, with ministers able to argue the merits or otherwise of a particular policy. And once that decision is taken, all members of the cabinet are supposed to stand behind it.

To help tell the full picture of the documents, the Archives give to journalists - who are sworn to secrecy - early access to the papers plus the chance to talk to a minister from the year covered by the documents. Details of what is in those documents are embargoed until January 1.

Ive been covering the release of cabinet papers since 2005 and during that time Ive been surprised by some of the gems tucked away in the submissions and briefing notes.

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The papers of 1976 included revelations of a plan to assassinate future prime minister Bob Hawke and key members of Australias Jewish community. Papers from late 1989 revealed concerns that Australias embassy in Russia had been bugged, possibly by a bribed Australian diplomat or a Soviet agent who had managed to sneak into the building. The bug may have been in the embassy since 1983 with a van outside the chancery probably containing VHF intercept equipment as recently as November 1988. In 1995, the then Keating government was warned a debate about an Australian republic could lead to a rise of right-wing militias, with south-east Queensland a particular concern for the creation of violent opposition. At the same time, a review of national security laws considered whether it was time to create a separate law of killing the Sovereign.

Its not just the cabinet papers. The cabinet notebooks - handwritten recordings of the debate going on inside the cabinet - are released 30 years after their creation. I had the cabinet book of 1963 at the time of the assassination of US President Kennedy made public, and it showed debate by the then Menzies cabinet on whether it would be a good time to make trade gains at Americas expense.
Confidential treasury modelling has warned the Omicron surge will cost the NSW economy at least $3.5 billion and the state government cannot offer businesses the same financial support it has earlier in the pandemic.

The modelling was presented at a meeting of the governments expenditure review committee on Thursday as it considered the states long-awaited economic COVID-19 support package that is yet to be finalised.

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean and Premier Dominic Perrottet. Credit:Kate Geraghty

It estimates the weekly cost of the current outbreak to be $500-$600 million, or 4 to 5 per cent of weekly gross state product. That figure could increase if supply chains and distribution networks are further impaired.

The internal advice said it anticipates coronavirus cases will increase when school returns in a fortnight, meaning business support measures will need to continue into March and beyond.
PHILIPSBURG:--- On behalf of the Government and the People of St. Maarten, the Honorable Prime Minister Silveria E. Jacobs extended congratulations to newly sworn-in Prime Minister of the Republic of Barbados, the Honorable Mia Mottley following the overwhelming results of the recently held elections.

In a letter sent to Prime Minister Mottley today, January 20, Prime Minister Jacobs stated, As a fellow female leader in the region, your exemplary form of leadership has become a beacon for many of us to follow. Your trailblazing first term has been accentuated with efforts to not only broach Caribbean issues internationally but underscore the importance of regionalism and self-determination as well. In so doing, you strengthened our collective voice and navigated one of the most challenging times in our most recent history.

As you embark on this second term, I wish to emphasize the longstanding and amicable relationship between our two countries and the great good that can be achieved through collaborative efforts in achieving our common agenda. Your people have validated your leadership. Continue to lead and inspire with wisdom and grace, concluded Prime Minister Jacobs.
Edith (Edi) Marie Smith, daughter of the late Glen Lester and Dorothy Jane Allison, was born in Youngstown, OH on Friday, October 11th, 1963, and she departed this life on Saturday, April 30th, 2022, having attained the age of 59 years. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death b
It is the largest object in the solar system, but how big is the sun when compared to the rest of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy? The sun is classified as medium-sized among these hundreds of billions of stars.

Radius, diameter and circumference

The sun is nearly a perfect sphere. Its equatorial diameter and its polar diameter differ by only 6.2 miles (10 km). The mean radius of the sun is 432,450 miles (696,000 kilometers), which makes its diameter about 864,938 miles (1.392 million km). You could line up 109 Earths across the face of the sun, according to NASA. The sun's circumference is about 2,715,396 miles (4,370,006 km).

It may be the biggest thing in this neighborhood, but the sun is just average compared to other stars. Betelgeuse, a red giant, is about 700 times bigger than the sun and about 14,000 times brighter.

"We have found stars that are 100 times bigger in diameter than our sun. Truly those stars are enormous," NASA says on its SpacePlace website. "We have also seen stars that are just a tenth the size of our sun."

According to NASA's solar scientist C. Alex Young, if the sun were hollow, it would take about one million Earths to fill it.

It's possible that the sun is even larger than previously thought. Xavier Jubier, an engineer and solar eclipse researcher, creates detailed models of solar and lunar eclipses to determine precisely where the moon's shadow would fall during the solar eclipse. But when he matched actual photos and historical observations with the models, he found precise eclipse shapes only made sense if he scaled up the sun's radius by a few hundred kilometers.

Even missions like NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and measurements of the inner planets across the face of the sun don't refine the star's radius as precisely as desired.

This image of the sun was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in 2015. (Image credit: NASA/SDO)

"It's harder than you think just to put a ruler on these images and figure out how big the sun is  [SDO] doesn't have enough precision to nail this down," NASA researcher Ernie Wright told Space.com. "Similarly, with the Mercury and Venus transits, it turns out [a measurement based on those is] not quite as precise as you'd like it to be."

Wright said different papers using a variety of methods have produced results that differ by as much as 930 miles (1,500 km). That could be a problem if you are planning to skirt the edges of the next solar eclipse.

"For most people, yes, it doesn't really matter; it won't change everything," Jubier said. "But the closer you get to the edge of the [eclipse] path, the more risk you take."

Mass and volume

The total volume of the sun is 1.4 x 1027cubic meters. About 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the sun, according to NASA's statistics. The mass of the sun is 1.989 x 1030 kilograms, about 333,000 times the mass of the Earth. The sun contains 99.8 percent of the mass of the entire solar system, leading astronomers Imke de Pater and Jack J. Lissauer, authors of the textbook Planetary Sciences, to refer to the solar system as "the sun plus some debris".

But the sun's weight isn't constant. Over time, the solar wind has carried particles, and thus mass, away from the star. According to astronomer Phil Plait, the sun loses an average 1.5 million tons of material every second to the solar wind.

Meanwhile, in the heart of the star, mass is converted into energy. The powerhouse of the star converts more than 4 million tons of solar material into energy every second, Plait said.

Altogether, Plait estimated that the sun has lost a total of 1024tons of material over its 4.5-billion-year lifetime, or more than 100 times the mass of the Earth. While that sounds like a lot, it's only about 0.05 percent of the star's total mass.

Yellow dwarf

The sun isn't actually yellow, but appears so from Earth. (Image credit: Getty Images)

The sun is classified as a G-type main-sequence star, or G dwarf star, or more imprecisely, a yellow dwarf. Actually, the sun  like other G-type stars  is white, but appears yellow through Earth's atmosphere.

Stars generally get bigger as they grow older. In about 5 billion years, scientists think the sun will start to use up all of the hydrogen at its center, according to NASA. The sun will puff up into a red giant and expand past the orbit of the inner planets, including Earth. The sun's helium will get hot enough to burn into carbon, and the carbon will combine with the helium to form oxygen. These elements will collect in the center of the sun.

Later, the sun will shed its outer layers, forming a planetary nebula and leaving behind a dead core of mostly carbon and oxygen  a very dense and hot white dwarf star, about the size of the Earth.

While the sun is typical in most respects, it does have one quality that stands out from the majority of stars  it is a loner. Most stars have a companion, with some part of a triple or even a quadruple system.

But it may not have always been a solo star. Research suggests that all stars may have started out with a companion. The sun's companion may have been a wide binary, putting it as much as 17 times farther from the sun than Neptune and making it easier to be stripped away.

The idea that many stars form with a companion has been suggested before, but the question is: how many? the study's first author Sarah Sadavoy, a NASA Hubble fellow at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, said. Based on our simple model, we say that nearly all stars form with a companion.

Additional resources

For more facts about the sun, read NASA's overview: 10 Need-to-Know Things About the Sun. Additionally you can check out their Sun Fact Sheet for more statistics.

Bibliography

De Pater, Imke, and Jack J. Lissauer. Planetary sciences. Cambridge University Press (2015). https://books.google.co.uk

Embedded binaries and their dense cores. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 469, Issue 4 (2017). https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/469/4/3881/3795556
The moon formed a hundred million years after the creation of the solar system. This has left scientists wondering what was the cause of our planet's satellite to birth if it didn't come from the events that formation of the planets. Here are just three of the most plausible explanations.

Giant impact hypothesis

The prevailing theory supported by the scientific community, the giant impact hypothesis suggests that the moon formed when an object smashed into early Earth. Like the other planets, Earth formed from the leftover cloud of dust and gas orbiting the young sun. The early solar system was a violent place, and a number of bodies were created that never made it to full planetary status. One of these could have crashed into Earth not long after the young planet was created.

Known as Theia, the Mars-sized body collided with Earth, throwing vaporized chunks of the young planet's crust into space. Gravity bound the ejected particles together, creating a moon that is the largest in the solar system in relation to its host planet. This sort of formation would explain why the moon is made up predominantly of lighter elements, making it less dense than Earth  the material that formed it came from the crust, while leaving the planet's rocky core untouched. As the material drew together around what was left of Theia's core, it would have centered near Earth's ecliptic plane, the path the sun travels through the sky, which is where the moon orbits today.

An illustration of the potential impact that created the moon. (Image credit: Getty Images )

According to NASA, "When the young Earth and this rogue body collided, the energy involved was 100 million times larger than the much later event believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs."

Although this is the most popular theory, it is not without its challenges. Most models suggest that more than 60%of the moon should be made up of the material from Theia. But rock samples from the Apollo missions suggest otherwise.

"In terms of composition, the Earth and moon are almost twins, their compositions differing by at most few parts in a million," Alessandra Mastrobuono-Battisti, an astrophysicist at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, told Space.com. "This contradiction has cast a long shadow on the giant-impact model."

In 2020 research published in Nature Geoscience , offered an explanation as to why the moon and Earth have such similar composition. Having studied the isotopes of oxygen in the moon rocks brought to Earth from Apollo astronauts, researchers discovered that there is a small difference when compared with Earth rocks. The samples collected from the deep lunar mantle (the layer below the crust) were much heavier than those found on Earth and "have isotopic compositions that are most representative of the proto-lunar impactor Theia", the study authors wrote.

Back in 2017, Israeli researchers proposed an alternative impact theory which suggests that a rain of small debris fell on Earth to create the moon.

"The multiple-impact scenario is a more natural way of explaining the formation of the moon," Raluca Rufu, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and lead author of the study, told Space.com. "In the early stages of the solar system, impacts were very abundant; therefore, it is more natural that several common impactors formed the moon, rather than one special one.

Co-formation theory

Moons can also form at the same time as their parent planet. Under such an explanation, gravity would have caused material in the early solar system to draw together at the same time as gravity bound particles together to form Earth. Such a moon would have a very similar composition to the planet, and would explain the moon's present location. However, although Earth and the moon share much of the same material, the moon is much less dense than our planet, which would likely not be the case if both started with the same heavy elements at their core.

In 2012, researcher Robin Canup, of the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, proposed that Earth and the moon formed at the same time when two massive objects five times the size of Mars crashed into each other.

"After colliding, the two similar-sized bodies then re-collided, forming an early Earth surrounded by a disk of material that combined to form the moon," NASA said. "The re-collision and subsequent merger left the two bodies with the similar chemical compositions seen today.

Capture theory

Perhaps Earth's gravity snagged a passing body, as happened with other moons in the solar system, such as the Martian moons of Phobos and Deimos . Under the capture theory, a rocky body formed elsewhere in the solar system could have been drawn into orbit around Earth. The capture theory would explain the differences in the composition of Earth and its moon. However, such orbiters are often oddly shaped, rather than being spherical bodies like the moon. Their paths don't tend to line up with the ecliptic of their parent planet, also unlike the moon.

Although the co-formation theory and the capture theory both explain some elements of the existence of the moon, they leave many questions unanswered. At present, the giant impact hypothesis seems to cover many of these questions, making it the best model to fit the scientific evidence for how the moon was created.

Additional resources

For more on the giant-impact hypothesis, read "The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to be: A Violent Natural History"," by Dana Mackenzie. To learn more about the solar system, check out "Our Solar System: An Exploration of Planets, Moons, Asteroids, and Other Mysteries of Space" by Lisa Reichley.

Bibliography

Erick J. Cano et al, "Distinct oxygen isotope compositions of the Earth and Moon", Nature Geoscience, Volume 13, March 2020, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0550-0

Raluca Rufu, "A multiple-impact origin for the Moon", Nature Geoscience, Volume 10, January 2017, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2866

Edward Belbruno et al, "Where Did the Moon Come From?", The Astronomical Journal, Volume 129, March 2005.

Thomas S. Kruijer and Gregory Archer, "No 182W evidence for early Moon formation", Nature Geoscience, Volume 14, October 2021, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00820-2
Breweries have been a thriving business in Connecticut, but over the past month or so, a string of them shut down one after another.

Bristol's Better Half Brewing closed on Dec. 31.

"Like all small businesses around the world we tirelessly worked to keep our doors open during the pandemic and received much support from our community," the owners said in a Facebook post. "Unfortunately we have not been able to make it completely on the other side and are announcing we have closed our doors effective 12/31."

Since then, two more announced the closures of their taprooms in Connecticut: 30 Mile Brewing Company in Old Saybrook and Shebeen Brewing Company in Wolcott.

"As a small business we are not immune to the challenging economic conditions of the past 2 years. At this point, it is not sustainable for us to continue on as we have," a Facebook post by 30 Mile Brewing Company stated. "We opened 30 Mile Brewing in 2016 with the goal of providing a community gathering space for people in the Old Saybrook area to enjoy craft beer. We feel over the past 5 years, we have accomplished that goal. We have met many amazing friends in our taproom and have tried to be the best possible partner to our community."

In addition, Cottrell Brewing Company in Pawcatuck announced a departure from its space and is currently "examining all of our options to somehow continue."

Justin Terribile, an owner of 30 Mile Brewing Company, told Hearst Connecticut that the decision to close came roughly a month and a half ago. Terribile attributed the closure to a decline in taproom business as well as emerging trends in the industry that the company couldn't keep up with. One of those main trends was serving food.

During the pandemic, new state guidelines stated that breweries had to serve food in order to join in on the post-lockdown reopening. At that time, Phil Pappas, executive director of the Connecticut Brewers Guild, wrote a letter urging the governor to reconsider.

Before the pandemic, breweries were never legally required to offer food prepared on premise, but we have adapted and altered our businesses entirely so that we can remain open to the public, he wrote.

In time, the food trend stuck at breweries, and more than a year later, Terribile said he felt the effects.

"We dont have the option of serving. People are more inclined to sit for a longer time period in places that have food," Terribile said. "With us having the inability to have food, it has limited the amount of time that people spend."

Though businesses  including breweries  closing during the pandemic is not new news, the rapid succession of the recent brewery closures have industry leaders worried.

"Keeping their doors open has been a real struggle for so many Connecticut breweries," Kevin Mardorf, founder of CTBeer.com, said. "With all the COVID restrictions, limiting folks going into their taprooms really took a toll on their business."

The hardships facing craft breweries have affected the entirety of the beer industry, as reported last year by the Brewers Association. In 2020, the sales volume of craft beer dropped by 9.3 percent. The retail dollar sales of craft beers also decreased 22 percent, now equating to $22.2 billion in revenue for craft breweries.

According to Mardorf, different factors play into each closure, but a number of ongoing trends in the beer community are evident, such as staffing concerns and market saturation. There was also the issue of having to close down taprooms during the 2020 lockdown.

William da Silva, a founder of Derby's Bad Sons Beer Co., is of the opinion that the only way for smaller breweries to make money is through taproom sales, which became increasingly difficult to make during the pandemic as taprooms closed and many breweries were forced to focus on wholesale sales.

"In the beginning, when it first happened, our taprooms were closed. A lot of these smaller breweries live on their taproom because the wholesale business  you really dont make any money. You need to scale up to really make any money," da Silva said. "The wholesale business went up but the volume just wasnt there."

da Silva added that a change in Connecticut liquor laws during the pandemic may have hurt smaller breweries more than it helped. Changes included a number of Connecticut liquor permit revisions, which brewery owners like Terribile said were "costing us more for the same permits."

"They changed the liquor laws on us. A lot of these breweries couldnt pivot," da Silva said. "That hurt a lot of breweries. They couldnt open up their taprooms unless they became really creative and figured something out, and spent a lot of money."

"A lot of guys arent equipped to do that," da Silva added.

Despite the adversities facing breweries, Terribile admitted that the last two weekends of business for 30 Mile Brewing were "our busiest two weekends in three years."

"We have enjoyed the past six years of getting to know our community and providing a service to the community," Terribile said. "Were grateful for all the friendships that we have made during that time."

Mardorf also believes that there is a lot going for the Connecticut craft beer scene, including a slate of new breweries that are expected to open this year like Almost Famous Brewing in East Granby and the newly-opened Surfridge Brewing Company in Centerbrook.

"On the bright side, more breweries are coming in," Mardorf said. "There is really a lot of great beer in the state. Theyre doing it exceedingly well in Connecticut....If people make good beer, I think theyll get through this time."
Gov. Ned Lamonts administration says it plans to continue purchasing and distributing at-home COVID tests throughout the state even as the federal government has begun accepting orders to ship up to 1 billion kits directly to Americans in their homes.

The ambitious home-delivery effort  launched one day ahead of schedule on Tuesday  comes amid a nationwide shortage of available rapid at-home test kits, which have been largely cleared from store shelves in Connecticut since the omicron variant began its pre-holiday surge.

To address that shortage, Lamonts administration set out in late December to purchase large-scale shipments of tests to distribute through government agencies, churches, nonprofits and municipal test drives.

Despite early stumbles in that effort, the state had distributed 3.1 million tests through Thursday, the governors office said, with another 500,000 likely to be distributed this weekend.

A spokesperson for the governor said that effort will continue, even as the larger federal distribution announced by President Joe Biden is expected to ease the worst of the testing shortage.

We anticipate that in the future, self-tests will also become easier to find at your local pharmacy, and we are also pleased that the federal government has received a supply of self-tests that families can easily order for free online, said Lora Rae Anderson, a spokesperson for the governors office.

The state Department of Public Health on Friday reported an another 4,444 cases of COVID-19, with a daily positivity rate of 13.69 percent, a slight uptick from the previous days report.

While the number of patients hospitalized with COVID in Connecticut declined again on Friday, nearly half of them have been vaccinated, the state data shows. The total number dropped by 38 to 1,695  the lowest since Jan. 5, but about 43 percent of them were vaccinated.

Even as the federal government began rolling out plans to ship millions of tests in the coming weeks, the Biden administration is putting pressure on test manufacturers to increase production to avoid future shortages, Bloomberg reported. The initial order of tests made available for delivery this week numbers 500 million, according to the Biden administration, enough for four free tests to be delivered to every household. Another half-billion tests will be available at a later date, the administration said.

Lamont on Thursday expressed optimism that the efforts of both the federal and state government to distribute tests would lead to wider availability in the future.

Id like to think that the supply chain issue is not as big an issue right now, and I think it will only get better,  Lamont said.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration who serves on the board of Pfizer, also weighed in during the governors press conference Thursday to predict that at-home testing and drug prescriptions will be more readily available later this year.

Come this fall, I think that we should have a situation where there is a large supply of diagnostic tests, these are widely accessible, yes you will be able to self-diagnose at home, Gottlieb said.

Meanwhile, users flocked to the White Houses newly-launched website for ordering tests, where some have reported having issues getting them delivered to buildings with multiple units. Other signs of a limited supply of tests continued to linger.

Major retail pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens continued to place caps on the number of testing kits available for purchase at one time, as national demand continues to cause shortages at some stores, representatives for those companies told Hearst Connecticut Media

We continue to work around the clock to secure additional OTC COVID-19 tests from our vendors and to get those tests on the shelves of our CVS Pharmacy stores Tara Burke, a CVS spokesperson, said in an email.

Mark Kidd, the laboratory and scientific director for Wren Labs in Branford, said demand for PCR tests at their four public testing locations has started to wane since reaching its peak around the holidays.

During that peak, Kidd said the lab was processing nearly 5,000 tests a week, a number that has since dropped to 2,000 tests a week. However, Kidd said some of the drop-off is due to two of the labs test sites closing for several days last week during cold weather.

Prior to the winter surge in the virus, Kidd said the lab was testing about 1,500 tests a week. Even with the federal government shipping rapid testing kits directly to peoples homes, Kidd said he did not foresee demand for laboratory testing falling back to those earlier levels, noting their greater level of accuracy when compared to at-home test kits.

People want peace of mind, the PCR tests provide that peace of mind, Kidd said.

Lamonts administration did not say Thursday how long it planned to continue making its own deliveries of at-home tests. Anderson said the state will continue to follow every lead that comes across our desk in order to support the health and safety of our residents.

That includes Jack Rubenstein LLC, the Glastonbury wholesaler that was originally supposed to ship 500,000 test kits to the state before New Years Eve, only for the shipment to fall through. Anderson confirmed on Thursday that the state has since acquired tests from the company, though she did not specify how many.
Republicans in the state Senate on Thursday outlined a legislative goal to increase public transparency of federal funding, including $5.4 billion in infrastructure support over the next five years and $300 million for combating the opioid epidemic the state will receive by the year 2040.

Several times during a 40-minute news conference in the State Capitol, Senate Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford and members of his caucus pointed to the arrest last year of Michael DiMassa of West Haven, who as a Democratic state representative and city employee allegedly diverted $636,000 in federal COVID relief funding.

All Connecticut residents deserve a government that is transparent and accountable, said Kelly, whose caucus is outnumbered 23-13 heading into the short, budget-adjustment session of the General Assembly that starts Feb. 9. The sacrifices of taxpayers must always, always, be respected. Connecticut has an obligation to ensure that every taxpayer dollar is spent wisely and fully transparent.

He pointed to the death of a Hartford high schooler last week from an overdose of fentanyl. No parent should ever have to go through that, Kelly said. It is clear that the presence of drugs and opioids in particular are pervasive right now in our state. We must do everything we can to safeguard funds meant to fight addiction and keep our children, our families and our loved ones safe.

Kelly noted that the historic nationwide settlement with the tobacco industry more than 20 years ago brought billions of dollars to Connecticut, but only a small portion was used for prevention and education.

The Republicans called for the creation of a special website for taxpayers to track federal funding.

We believe that we should have a more-consistent framework of reporting, said Sen. Craig Miner, R-Litchfield, ranking member of the budget-setting Appropriations Committee. We should have a more-consistent framework of communicating. I think that most people go about spending state and federal dollars the right way, but the last thing we want to do is to find out that we have pots of money going unspent and still have all the problems that are being discussed here.

In reaction to the GOP news conference, state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said that the Republicans raised similar issues last month. Osten noted that Melissa McCaw, who as secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management is Gov. Ned Lamonts budget chief, has hired an independent auditor to pinpoint federal spending.

Osten said she expects to invite McCaw to update the committee when the 12-week legislative session begins. Osten noted that on the federal level, the Office of Inspector General tracks local spending.

In addition, every municipality has a regular audit every year, as well as a state and federal single audit, Osten said in a phone interview. There are so many ways this money is being looked at. She said that in the West Haven case, transparency yielded the pending criminal case against DiMassa, who immediately resigned his post in the House, as well as his position as administrator of the city council.

I certainly agree with auditing, Osten said. I certainly agree with transparency. The secretary will certainly will be asked whether there have been any problems similar to West Haven.

Lamont, answering reporters questions during his virtual news conference on the COVID pandemic, said he favors transparency and that there are a variety of public watchdogs and disclosures.

Weve got to earn the trust of the taxpayers every day, Lamont said, noting the presence of independent auditors checking on the way federal dollars are being spent, as well as the states Auditors of Public Accounts, which oversees state expenditures. If we see anything untoward youll know about it.

Paul Mounds Jr., Lamonts chief of staff, jumped in to support Lamont, adding that McCaw presents detailed reports on spending each month to the Comptroller, including federal pandemic support.

I understand what Sen. Kelly and his caucus are saying, but weve got to make sure that were dealing in the world of truth, Mounds said. And the truth is, this is a transparent administration. It has always been and will continue to do so, no matter what dollars are coming through to the state coffers.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
NEW HAVEN  The idea is simple and extremely effective: Wear a clip that picks up the coronavirus in the air and lets you know how exposed you have been.

It wont tell you in real-time whether you are in a high-risk zone. But according to its lead creator, Krystal Pollitt, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, I can see a lot of use for people who are going to work in places that are at higher risk, she said. In five days or less, the clip can be analyzed to see how much exposure the wear has experienced.

It also will be valuable in all of those places where you cant take all the precautions, such as eating in schools or where social distancing is not possible, like riding a subway.

While the Fresh Air Clip is not like a COVID alarm, its simplicity and inexpensive cost to produce will make it usable in many such situations, she said. Pollitt said it eventually could be used by consumers, but she couldnt say how much it might cost. Were definitely headed in that direction, she said. Were not at the point where we can make those estimates.

Unlike large air samplers, the clip is small, light, portable and requires no electricity. The clip is a passive sampler, so we have no electronics in there, Pollitt said. We have a polymer film within the clip and the nature of the polymer film is optimal for collecting respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2.

Its also extremely sensitive, she said. Weve calibrated the clip so we can get down to four RNA copies in the air in order for the clip to show exposure, she said. The film is processed using a standard PCR analysis.

One thing the clip cant tell its wearers is how much risk they have of developing COVID-19. Exactly the type of work that we would love to do  but were not there yet, Pollitt said.

One thing the research has made clear, however: Out of all the locations that we use the clip, the highest exposures and the most frequent exposures were found in restaurants with indoor dining, she said. I think its important to acknowledge its a high-risk environment.

One area that was kind of a surprise, however, was health care settings, where the exposure was lower than expected. Because of all the layered infectious-control measures the level was lower than all of the restaurants that we had assessed, she said.

Pollitt said the developers would be open to talking to governmental officials about using the clip to set policy on COVID precations. For now, We are working with administrators at health care centers on enhanced infection-control measures that should be implemented if were finding repeats of high exposure, she said.

Versions of the device have been used to detect chemical and environmental exposure for some time and Pollitts research focuses on such exposure. So when the pandemic hit in March 2020, she and her colleagues, including researchers at the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where Pollitt also is an assistant professor, began looking at how to use the clips to detect the coronavirus.

In a study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 62 people in Connecticut wore the clips, including at Yale New Haven Hospital, outpatient clinics within the hospital, at Fair Haven Community Health Care and at restaurants in New Haven and Hartford. Pollitt said she couldnt reveal the restaurants.

We had people wear the clips for five days, Pollitt said. Now, however, we have higher virus numbers and just a lot more people return to schools and work. Wearing it for a shorter time would be feasible.

Pollitt said the devices the Fresh Air Clip is based on are used to detect the airborne chemicals from stoves, car tailpipes and flame retardants and can identify 500 to 600 chemicals.

They are used in work settings, as well, but the primary use for this has been with the general public, including children, women who are pregnant or couples who are trying to get pregnant, and the elderly, she said.

An ongoing study with Boston University called Presto is looking at environmental factors related to pregnancy, she said. We looked at what both the male and female partners were being exposed to.  Its an absolutely fascinating study and use.

Pollitt said the next step will be to make them available to the general public.

edward.stannard@hearstmediact.com; 203-680-9382
Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. His new book is Cokie: A Life Well Lived. He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.
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The Minister of National Defense, Vasile Dincu, said on Friday in western Timisoara that the announcement made by the US and France, which showed their willingness to strengthen their military presence in Romania, is "good news", as requests of this kind have existed for a long time from some countries on NATO's Eastern Flank.

"It is good news for us, because it is a request that does not only depend on this event (the crisis at the Russian-Ukrainian border, ed.n.), but is older, of the President of Romania, which he expressed at all meetings and of the Foreign Minister. Many countries on the Eastern Flank have expressed this request to fortify us in this area. It is about doing exercises together, but here it is also about joint action with forces from important NATO countries," Vasile Dincu said.

Minister of National Defence stressed that the addition of the NATO military presence in our country has, first of all, the significance of rejecting some requests of the Russian Federation regarding the renunciation of the military presence of Alliance in Central and Eastern Europe, Agerpres.ro informs.

"This contradicts by deeds this request to withdraw. Through this, NATO's countries have shown that they are not withdrawing, but are intensifying their presence there," Dincu said.

He said that this additional NATO military forces on the Eastern Flank also has a symbolic meaning, because Russia would have tried, through its propaganda, to show that "there is a dissension between NATO and the European Union, that these countries do not understand each other and that in fact NATO is not a very good defender of the EU".

According to Minister Dincu, it is also a strong signal sent to the countries of the Eastern Flank, that the Alliance is concerned about the security of each member, this being also "a response against the propaganda that tried to accredit the idea that NATO will not have the operational capacity if the countries need it".

Dincu also said that the addition to the NATO military presence in the area is also a response to the concern of public opinion on the Eastern Flank, "showing that we are in solidarity and NATO stands in solidarity and all countries act, when needed, in consensus, for the security of each member".
AGERPRES National News Agency Director General Claudia Nicolae opened the series of "Phenomenal Women" events on Friday, organized by Danubius University in Galati to mark the 30th anniversary of the higher education institution's founding.

On this occasion, AGERPRES Director General spoke about the freedom of the press and disinformation, with a focus on the phenomenon of fake news, whose presence is strongly felt during this period.

"The fake news phenomenon, although it has existed since the ancient world, has lately begun to make its presence felt more and more strongly, and in 2017 it became a word in the Collins dictionary. Why? Because the moment disinformation or false information begins to attack the life, society, even the physical, mental health of an individual, it becomes a matter of national security," said Claudia Nicolae, Agerpres.ro informs.

She specified that before the pandemic broke out, the phenomenon was intensely debated worldwide, and more and more states began to implement various programs and measures to detect fake news, disinformation, manipulation or propaganda.

"We are in the digital age, in an age where we all get our information from the online environment and rest assured that this tool will continue to be used by those who want to provoke such fake news," showed the AGERPRES Director General.

She spoke to those present about those who spread fake news and the purposes that lead them to use this tool, how to identify fake news or how to find a site that was created specifically to misinform.

At the same time, Claudia Nicolae spoke to those present at the event about the 133-year history of the news agency she runs, pointing out that AGERPRES is the main provider of information, which delivers content objectively.

"AGERPRES is the main provider of information about Romania abroad and from abroad to the Romanian public. This shows once again that AGERPRES has remained a reliable institution," she said.

Claudia Nicolae is the first woman in charge of AGERPRES, the oldest news agency in Romania, founded in 1889.

The event organized by Danubius University was also attended by the director of "Carol I" Museum of Braila, Dr. Costin Croitoru, who welcomed the idea of such a demache and proposed that the public presentations of the "Phenomenal Women" conferences be published by the museum's publishing house.

Costin Croitoru also awarded AGERPRES Director General two medals bearing the figures of two women of international renown - soprano Hariclea Darclee and biologist and physician Ana Aslan, both hailing from Braila.

The participants were greeted, through a video message, by the rector of Danubius University, Prof. Univ. Dr. William B. Harvey, in Washington.

In his turn, the president of Danubius University, Andy Pusca, also pointed out in a video message that all women deserve support for what they represent in society.

"All women deserve support for what they develop in us as human beings, they are our creators, they are the ones who amplify everything we want to do, to be and to have on Earth and in the Universe. They are the representatives of the force of attraction that we call love, the driving force of the Universe that holds us together, bound together in the same ecosystem," said Andy Pusca.

The first conference in the "Phenomenal Women" series was moderated by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Eng. Alina Beatrice Raileanu, Vice-Rector for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, who pointed out that the series of events organized to mark the 30th anniversary of the higher education institution's founding are aimed at recognizing those people who have made a contribution to local, regional development and who can be role models for pupils and students..

"Through this series of events, we aim to recognize those people who have made a contribution to local and regional development, but who have managed to gain international recognition, people who can be role models for you, who can be mentors in your career, people who inspire us every day through everything they do. At the same time, these are people who, more or less, have collaborated with Danubius University or maybe even have their roots in these places and are always ready to further help you," Alina Beatrice Raileanu said.

According to the website of Danubius University in Galati, the "Phenomenal Women" series of events is the way in which the institution aims to bring to the spotlight women who are a model of success in their professional fields, who wanted to share the success story, but also "the sacrifices that had to be made to reach the highest peaks in their professions, in their careers", as well as "how they were supported by their families, friends, their colleagues on this winding road to success in life".
The General Mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, requested on Friday the Prosecutor's Office speed up measures taken against the persons who organized the strike at the Bucharest Transport Company (STB).

In a press conference at the Bucharest City Hall, the mayor mentioned that there was, on Friday afternoon, "an attempt" at dialogue between the leadership of the Bucharest Transport Company and the representative union, but mentioned that the latter does not present "real claims" previously presented by employees, such as the necessity of parts, vehicle maintenance, comfort of drivers and operators at the end of the lines, Agerpres.ro informs.

Furthermore, the General Mayor reiterated the request addressed to the Social Democratic Party (PSD) for the latter to announce if it supports "an illegal strike" or if it delineates from union leader Vasile Petrariu, who obtained a mandate as a City councilor on the lists of the Social Democratic Party.
The Mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, needs to come up with solutions for the crisis "he caused", "not finding imaginary guilt in order to save his skin", PSD (Social Democratic Party) says on Friday, in a press release.

"PSD urges the mayor of the Capital City, Nicusor Dan, to resolve the serious problems caused to the people of Bucharest by his own incompetence and to stop trying to throw the guilt around. Nicusor Dan cannot fool the people of Bucharest again! After a year and a half since he was sworn in he has no excuse, he is a mayor and has majority in the General Council. Instead of inventing imaginary guilt, when he is not focused on hiring people for his own Cabinet, Nicusor Dan needs to urgently solve the serious problems in Bucharest, both the crisis in the heating system, nd the work conflict at the Bucharest Transport Company (STB)," PSD says.

"This is what the people of Bucharest are expecting from the mayor, not to give out orders to political parties that are in opposition at the level of the General Council. The only party he can order around is USR (Save Romania Union), the party he founded and is an accomplice to the entire disaster he created in the Capital. Furthermore, instead of provoking political disputes, Nicusor Dan should be more concerned of what he will answer to the people of Bucharest, as well as to the prosecutors, for the aberrant or illegal decisions that he took as a mayor," the press release mentions.

In a press conference held at STB headquarters, Nicusor Dan declared that the STB strike is organized by the chairman of the Bucharest Transporters Trade Union, Vasile Petrariu, who won a term of municipal councilor on the PSD list.

"I am asking PSD to decide, because we have a strike that is paralyzing Bucharest and is affecting hundreds of thousands of citizens, organized by a PSD general councilor. Yes, a man who won his mandate on the PSD list, and that is why I am requesting PSD to decide on one of two options: either it supports this action that is paralyzing the city, or it withdraws political support for Petrariu, who organized this strike," Nicusor Dan said.

Marcel Ciolacu, who is currently in Valenii de Munte, replied: "I understood that the question was either support or withdraw. In my opinion there is one more possibility - Nicusor Dan to go home", Agerpres informs.
A number of 177,700 doses of the Moderna vaccine arrived in Bucharest being stored at the National Company "Unifarm" SA, the National Coordinating Committee of Vaccination Activities against COVID-19 informs on Friday.

The transport is provided by the manufacturing company, and the vaccine doses were brought to Bucharest by land.

"The doses have been deposited with the National Company" Unifarm "SA, and in the next period they will be distributed to the existing regional centres at the national level. The storage facility of the state-owned company "Unifarm" SA is fully authorized and approved by the National Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices in Romania (ANMDMR), which regulated the field of medicine for human use in Romania," the same source informs.

To date, 3,537,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine have been received and 984,373 have already been used to immunise the population, Agerpres informs.
Minister of National Defense Vasile Dincu declared on Friday evening, in western Arad, with regard to the latest developments related to Russia, Ukraine and NATO, that the Russian Federation "is trying to draw a new Iron Curtain", a new form of division of spheres of influence.

Dincu was asked by journalists, during his visit to Arad, if we are witnessing a new attempt to divide Europe.

"Of course the Russian Federation is trying to draw a new Iron Curtain, that is clear, but in fact it is a new form of division of spheres of influence, this is what is happening worldwide. (...) New types of treaties, new provisions between countries, between existing politico-military blocs must be drawn up from time to time. I believe this year is a crucial year, during which we are seeing history in the making," said the Minister of National Defense, Agerpres.ro informs.

Asked if our country requested additional guarantees from the allies, Vasile Dincu said that "Romania no longer needs to ask for additional guarantees, because it is a member of the most important politico-military alliance at this moment".

As regards Russia's demand for NATO forces to withdraw from Romania and Bulgaria, the Minister of Defense considers that "this is not a demand that can be taken into account".

"There is nothing new, this demand has been rejected several times. NATO is not negotiating the withdrawal from the area, and, what's more, it is consolidating its forces as required by the peoples feeling threatened, on the Eastern Flank. From my point of view, it is the best answer, it is NATO's practical answer to this demand that we deem impossible to accept," Dincu specified.

He added that "when you ask the North Atlantic Treaty to give up all developments since 1997, it is an absurd demand" and that in his view "it is more of a negotiation request, because it has no logical or strategic support."

"We have an action and endowment program of the Eastern Flank alongside NATO and we are preparing for any eventuality, but there is no danger, even if the Russian Federation is talking about it," Vasile Dincu stressed.
Defence Minister Vasile Dincu said on Friday in western Timisoara that there is no need at this moment for Romania to prepare for war, because "it is not the case for Romania to go to war, as sometimes we see it in fake news."

"This is not the case, and I would like to say it so that the public knows very well that it is not the case for Romania to go to war, as we sometimes see in fake news. Two days ago, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg said NATO will not react militarily to the Russian Federation's intervention in Ukraine, because under the NATO Treaty it can only intervene if a member state is threatened. Ukraine is not currently a member of NATO, but there will certainly be other forms of reaction that the international community will have," Dincu said.

He added that a possible conflict at the border also requires some preparations on the part of our country, but pointed out that Romania is not bracing up for war.

"So we don't have to prepare for war right now. But when you have a conflict on or near the border, you always have to be prepared, because there are a lot of side effects. There is a possibility of migration because of the war. That situation needs to be managed, and there are other economic issues, because any blockade, for example, of the economy and the Russian Federation has an impact on banks, on energy, on energy supply in Europe, and so on. (...). We prepare for any such instance," said Dincu.

On Friday, Dincu toured the Arad and Timisoara garrisons, Agerpres informs.
Chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Florin Citu declared on Friday in Alba Iulia that claims about the failure of the energy market's liberalization are "stupid" and stressed that the current energy crisis has a global span.

In his opinion, people who "have nothing to do" with a specific sector and "are clueless" about it should not be appointed to regulatory institutions.

Asked at a press conference how he comments on the statement of the Finance Minister, Social Democrat Adrian Caciu, that we are witnessing "a failure of the energy market's liberalization", the Liberal leader replied that this repeatedly circulated claim is "nonsense or stupid", Agerpres.ro informs.

"Liberalization is never a failure. And liberalization was done two years ago and it was OK. What we see today is a global energy crisis. It has nothing to do with Romania. Prices have risen everywhere in the world and liberalization was done a long time ago in the EU. It's weird to say that liberalization is a failure, but if this comes from the Socialists it's not a problem, because the liberalization was done according to the timetable devised during Adrian Nastase's time and is laid out in the EU Accession Treaty," Florin Citu said.

He added that he will support the free market anytime, anywhere, as well as price determination by the free market.

"But as long as we appoint to regulatory institutions people who have nothing to do with the respective sector, people who are clueless, that's the results we'll see. It is our duty in the Romanian Parliament to assess the activity report of the National Energy Regulatory Agency, of the Financial Supervisory Agency, of all these watchdog agencies, and again it is our duty as politicians to put knowledgeable people in office. Otherwise, these are the results we'll see. So, it's not market liberalization that is to blame. I told you who's at fault in my opinion," Citu explained.
Deputy Secretary General of NATO Mircea Geoana has ruled out on Friday any possibility of negotiating the military presence of NATO on the territory of member-states, after Russia has requested all foreign troops, armaments and heavy military equipment be withdrawn from the countries that have joined the alliance after 1997, mentioning Romania and Bulgaria explicitly.

The list comprises 14 countries in the former communist bloc.

"Our answer has been and remains as clear and as transparent as before: there is no way to negotiate, to compromise the military posture of NATO on the territory of NATO countries. It's NATO's business where and in what configuration, depending on the security needs, we deploy our military presence in NATO countries," said the official on his Facebook page, Agerpres.ro informs.

The Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation has announced on Friday that the security guarantees that Russia is trying to obtain from the West include the stopping of enlargement of the military bloc and its return to its 1997 borders, as well as the departure of NATO forces from countries that adhered after this year, among them Romania and Bulgaria.

"It's not the problem of the Russian Federation, just as we don't tell the Russian Federation where to place or not place its own forces in its own territory. What we are saying to the Russian Federation is that it is totally anachronistic and it is a return in historical time to complicated areas of European history - the idea that you can threaten with military incursion a neighboring, sovereign, independent and democratic state in Europe," added Mircea Geoana.

"This is truly the red line, not the one that the head of diplomacy in Moscow is saying," the NATO official insisted.
As many as 17,067 vaccine doses from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson&Johnson were administered in the last 24 hours, including 3,815 which represent the first dose, 2,064 - the second dose and 11,188 received the third dose, the Romania's National COVID-19 Vaccination Coordination Committee (CNCAV) informed on Friday.

According to CNCAV, since the beginning of the vaccination campaign, on December 27, 2020, a number of 16,282,491 vaccine doses were administered to 8,044,776 persons, 7,942,560 receiving the full scheme and 2,276,112 being immunized with the third dose, Agerpres.ro informs.

Two adverse reactions were registered in the last 24 hours, both general type.

In total, since the beginning of the vaccination campaign, there have been 19,840 adverse reactions registered in anti-COVID vaccines, 2,166 local type and 17,674 general type.
The leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), Florin Citu, said, on Friday, in Alba Iulia, when asked about the possible solutions regarding the Bucharest Transport Company (STB) strike and whether what is happening there is a political situation, that the union leader is a member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and "if it's political, it must be solved politically."

Citu added that the PSD chair, Marcel Ciolacu, could tell the STB union leader to "leave the protest for a while" so Bucharesters don't suffer, Agerpres.ro informs.

"I don't know the details very well, but if it's political, then it must be solved politically. I don't know if it's political, I know the union leader is a PSD member, maybe he should have a discussion with chair Marcel Ciolacu, to have a discussion, because ultimately Bucharesters suffer. And I should find a compromise, let's see, I'm the man who will always tell you that dialogue solves every problem, if he can help and tell him to leave the protest for a period so Bucharesters don't suffer, it would be good. I think we can find solutions," said Florin Citu.

The PNL chair also stated, when asked if he intends to initiate discussions with the PSD leader on the topic of the STB strike, that such discussions should first take place with the STB leadership.

Since Thursday morning, bus, trolleybus and tram drivers in Bucharest have stopped working, unhappy that their salary demands have not been met. On the same day, the Bucharest Tribunal disposed the suspension of the strike, yet the court's decision was ignored by the protesters, who continued their protest on Friday by not turning out to work.

The leadership of the Bucharest Transport Company (STB) has contested in court the strike set off by the union worker, and the Bucharest Tribunal has ordered an end to the strike on Friday, establishing it is illegal, and the immediate resumption of activity.
Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca met on Friday with education union representatives, with the sides agreeing on a working mechanism for continuing dialogue and sorting out the issues in this sector, the government said in a statement.

"Dialogue is the way to finding balanced measures. In cooperating with you, we start from the joint desire to support the teachers' prestige, to motivate them and see the work of each employee in the education system fairly remunerated for us to have well-prepared and educated people in the future," the Prime Minister said.

Education Minister Sorin Cimpeanu will coordinate consultations at government level, with the participation of the Labor and Finance Ministries, and the focus will be on identifying solutions to the problems raised by the unions, as well as setting implementation deadlines, the cited source said, Agerpres.ro informs.

"In the short term, solutions are being considered for the amendment of Framework Law No. 153/2017, the staggered payment of compensations, clarifications regarding the disbursement of bonuses and the supplementation of non-teaching and auxiliary teaching staff, in relation to the correctly identified needs of the national education system. The deadline for the completion of negotiations and the Romanian government's committing to an agreement with the representatives of the federations of the major education unions is February 4, 2022," the Executive states.
President Klaus Iohannis will meet with Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca on Friday to discuss the security situation on the Eastern Flank, according to the Presidential Administration.

The head of state welcomed on Thursday the announcements of the presidents of the USA, Joe Biden, and of France, Emmanuel Macron, regarding the consolidated military presence of NATO on the Eastern Flank.

"I welcome the explicit announcement of President Joe Biden to increase the US military presence in Romania, on the Eastern Flank, if the security situation deteriorates further. RO-US Strategic Partnership and NATO solidarity are very strong,'' Iohannis wrote on Twitter.

The head of state also spoke about the announcement of his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, regarding the availability of France to participate with NATO troops on the Romanian territory.

"I warmly welcome President Emmanuel Macron's announcement of France's readiness to join NATO's strengthened military presence in Romania. The Romania-France Strategic Partnership will be thus strengthened on the Eastern Flank, in the Black Sea region," read Iohannis' message on Twitter, Agerpres informs.
Romania's Foreign Affairs Ministry rejects the statements of the Russian Federation's Foreign Ministry regarding the allied military presence on NATO's eastern flank as "inappropriate and baseless".

In a statement on Friday, the Foreign Ministry reiterates that NATO's presence in allied states, which is the result of top-level decisions made by allied leaders and implemented by the competent allied political and military structures, is a strictly defensive response to the increasingly aggressive behavior of the Russian Federation in the Eastern Neighborhood, especially since 2014, when the Ukrainian territory of Crimea was illegally occupied by Russia.

"The escalation of this behavior continues today, despite NATO's attempts to engage in constructive dialogue," the Foreign Ministry says, pointing out that the demand for the deployment of NATO forces in all Alliance states that joined after 1997, including troops, to be reduced according to Moscow's requirements is already listed among Russia's European security proposals released in December 2021, Agerpres.ro.

"This request has already been unequivocally rejected as unacceptable by the North Atlantic Alliance, both publicly and as part of the NATO-Russia and US-Russia dialogue. Such a request is inadmissible and cannot be subject to negotiation, given that the deterrence and defense posture is directly connected with, and is an intrinsic part of NATO's collective defense mechanism no third country can veto upon. The allies have firmly stated that they will further strengthen their security and collective defense policy, including through the presence of allied troops in the territory of the Eastern allies," the cited source said.

It goes on to note that together with its allies, Romania will continue to strongly support with arguments based on security developments in the Eastern Neighborhood, the importance of strengthening the Eastern flank, which is why the Romanian authorities welcomed the recent announcements by the US and France about plans to place troops in Romania as part of the allied deterrence and defense posture.

"At the same time, Romania expresses its hope that the dialogue opened with the Russian Federation during this period will continue and will lead to the de-escalation of the security situation, to the benefit of the entire Euro-Atlantic area," the Foreign Ministry concludes.

The security guarantees Russia demands from the West include the removal of NATO forces from Romania and Bulgaria, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday as cited by Reuters.

Moscow has demanded legally binding guarantees from NATO that the military bloc will stop its expansion and return to its 1997 borders.
The security situation in the Extended Area of the Black Sea and the Eastern Flank of NATO, as well as measures to develop response capacities to the new challenges of the security environment and increasing resilience are subjects on the agenda of the meeting of the Supreme Council for the Country's Defence (CSAT) convoked by President Klaus Iohannis, for next Wednesday, at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, the Presidential Administration announced.

The CSAT meeting is to start at 13:00 hrs.

President Klaus Iohannis met, on Friday, at the Cotroceni Palace, with Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca to discuss the security situation on the Eastern Flank of the North Atlantic Alliance.
The suspension of the strike by the Bucharest Transport Company (STB) decided by the court on Thursday was not put into practice by the unionists, and currently the bailiffs go to the headquarters of each working point to display the respective decision. On Friday, the general director of STB, Adrian Crit, declared that the court will rule on Friday regarding the legality of this action.

"Yesterday there was a decision based on a request for a presidential ordinance regarding the suspension of the strike. Unfortunately, as a result of the request of some union leaders, they did not put it into practice. In view of the legality of this action, I consider that it is an illegal action, I consider that the representative union was involved in this, in the conditions in which there is the involvement of some union leaders to block public transport in the capital city.

He said that the situation of public transport in Bucharest is the same as on Thursday, the employees refusing to go on the route. Crit conveys that he is open to dialogue, empathizes with employees and apologizes to Bucharest residents for recent events.

Asked about the fact that the unionists are demanding his resignation in order to unblock this situation, Crit reiterated that through the Collective Labor Agreement, the unionists cannot do this, as the management cannot request the revocation of some union leaders either, Agerpres informs.
SEATTLE/PARIS  Boeing Co.s steady climb out of successive crises  among the worst in U.S. corporate history  gained momentum last week when it won the 2021 jet order race against rival Airbus SE on an adjusted basis with a 737 Max sales blitz.

But closely watched orders and deliveries have underscored the industrial and regulatory currents still facing its bigger 787 Dreamliner and 777X flagships  issues that have left Boeing fighting concurrent battles on both sides of the Atlantic.

Regulators in Europe are challenging the safety net built in to 777X flight controls, and deliveries of the 787 are expected to remain frozen until around April as U.S. regulators review production flaws, senior industry and government sources said.

The pressure surrounding two of the worlds largest passenger jets highlights the immediate challenge to Boeing in the aftermath of fatal Max crashes and the pandemic, though the rest of the industry is also bracing for a regulatory crackdown.

There is such nervousness among the regulators who make these decisions, who sign off on these things, that they are missing something, one senior air safety expert told Reuters.

The reason for that is the aftermath of the Max crisis. What you now have is engineers looking at things differently than they ever had before, he said.

Initially designed and overseen by the same generation of engineers and U.S. regulators who oversaw the Max, the upgrade to the large 777 has captured the attention of an increasingly assertive European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

EASA and Boeing are locked in a deeper than usual debate over engineering that will determine whether extra safeguards are needed for the jets flight control system, the people said.

The European agency takes a back seat to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in certifying U.S. airplanes but its role as the other leading global regulator gives it a powerful say.

Single point of failure

EASA has laid out an approach that could effectively force Boeing to add an extra fallback to guarantee that a single electronic failure cannot trigger simultaneous outages  a setup known as dissimilarity. Alternatively, Boeing could try to prove that the current system is safe through thorough analysis.

A major factor in the two Max crashes that killed 346 people was a single point of failure embedded in the flight controls.

Although the decades-old architecture at the core of the 737 is radically different from the algorithmic brains of the 777, EASAs approach reflects the intense attention given to backups.

Boeing disagrees with EASAs indirect call for additional safeguards, arguing it would amount to having two systems provided by two separate suppliers running in parallel and risk introducing new problems by adding complexity, the people said.

It is crunching data from more than 1,600 hours of flight tests to build its own analysis.

Boeing and regulators declined to give detailed comment on the rare stalemate over design principles.

As we work through the rigorous development, we continue to engage with the FAA and global regulators to ensure we meet their expectations and all applicable requirements, a Boeing spokesperson said.

EASA said it is cooperating with the FAA and noted that its job is not to dictate specific technical solutions.

We are looking closely at the technical files with the FAA and Boeing and this work is still ongoing in an atmosphere of complete transparency and full cooperation, a spokesperson said.

The FAA said it would not approve any aircraft unless it meets our safety and certification standards.

The financial impact of the dispute remains unclear.

A year ago, Boeing announced a $6.5 billion charge for certification delays and weaker-than-expected demand and pushed back 777X entry into service to late 2023. The design philosophy backed by EASA would delay this further, the people said.

Human hair

In South Carolina, meanwhile, mechanics are combing through parked 787s with ultrasound devices and tools to measure gaps barely visible to the naked eye  an undertaking that makes full resumption of deliveries unlikely before April, the people said.

The gaps  left in the process for making carbon-composite structures that make the jet lighter and cheaper to fly  are the width of a human hair but violate Boeings specifications.

Boeing says the 787s problems stem from specifications that incorporate a high safety margin and that it reported the issue itself. Still, it depends on FAA approval to restore deliveries.

Boeing delivered 14 in 2021 compared with 41 in 2020.

Now, a key question is whether the FAA will accept Boeings assertion  backed by new analysis of composites and structural tolerances  that its initial specifications of the gaps can be tweaked without risking safety, two of the people said.

The issues that our engineers identified and are addressing are part of our methodical approach to ensure conformance to our exacting specifications, the Boeing spokesperson said.

Boeing said in October inspections and repairs due to the structural compliance problems would be roughly $1 billion.

But factory changes and other requirements to overcome tiny structural blemishes have raised longer-term questions over Boeings ability to build 787s at a sufficiently low cost and at the rates once planned, a person familiar with the matter said.

Boeing may be able to make up ground by wringing out inefficiencies in manufacturing. And a recent decision to focus production in one state will reduce fixed costs.

For now, scrutiny remains intense.

When it comes to small gaps in the structure surrounding the passenger and cargo doors in the aft fuselage, for example, the FAA has required painstaking manual checks of some 100 aircraft.

That is instead of allowing Boeing to test only a sample of planes.

For decades, that was an acceptable way of saying the fleet is good, the senior safety expert said. Having to inspect every single airplane is technically, from a safety perspective, unnecessary. But in this climate it is required.

Reporting by Johnson in Seattle and Hepher in Paris; Additional reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha, Ilona Wissenbach in Frankfurt and David Shepardson in Washington.
The NAACP said it wanted to voice its opinion that the use of tax incentives on the mall site would be better used to help people elsewhere where there are food deserts.
ST. LOUIS  Anheuser-Busch InBev has been working hard to get its business growing in the U.S. again.

Its set to launch a new zero-carb beer next month aimed at health-conscious drinkers. Its uncorked seltzers and bought up a ready-to-drink cocktail brand as part of its Beyond Beer effort. And, on Tuesday, A-B unveiled a new logo and motto.

The decades-old Budweiser-red A and the bald eagle in its center are now gold. The eagle is also in full flight  no more perch atop a shield and arrows like those on the U.S. seal. And a new company-wide motto: To A Future With More Cheers.

Its not as splashy as a new beer brand. The new logo looks a lot like the old. But the differences offer a visual shorthand for how the worlds largest brewer is trying to shake off years of flat sales, shift toward fast-selling premium brands, and tap into a younger generations broader palate.

Were evolving how we show up to the world to better reflect where we want to go, the company said in a video announcing the changes.

The company says its new gold gradient mirrors the color of barley and beer, and that the reoriented eagle is boldly gazing into the future. David Meyer, president of Spoke Marketing downtown, said the new color scheme also looks premium, or high-end, and the modernized, slimmed-down look is likely more appealing to younger generations.

Thats certainly what the brewer, which has its North American headquarters here, wants.

In a presentation to investors last month, division chief Brendan Whitworth said he saw two big things driving future growth in his market. First: more people looking to drink high-end beer, like the companys prized Michelob Ultra brand. The second: poaching drinkers from wine and spirits, the latter of which has slashed beers market share by winning over younger drinkers seeking new flavors and slimmer waistlines. Thats the role of Bud Light Seltzer and the recently acquired Cutwater Spirits, which Whitworth told the Post-Dispatch is the fastest-growing ready-to-drink cocktail brand in the country.

Executives are using the motto as a rallying cry, inside the company.

In recent years, Anheuser-Busch has developed a reputation for resting on its laurels: As an independent company, it was slow to expand internationally, hindering its growth and leaving it vulnerable to the InBev takeover in 2008. A decade after that megadeal, A-B InBev has started to lose momentum as well: Its revenue peaked with the last big acquisition, of SABMiller, in 2016.

New CEO Michel Doukeris wants to turn that around. In a frank talk with investors last month, he conceded that even as InBev made deal after deal to become the worlds largest brewer, it missed opportunities.

We took our eyes off consumer trends and innovation, he said. And as a result, growth in the entire beer category did not reach its full potential. Now, he said, the company has to go from buying growth to growing itself  from being category leaders to leading category growth.

Whether any of the changes will sell more beer remains to be seen. People buy Budweiser, not Anheuser-Busch, after all.

But employees are probably already talking about it. And maybe itll push them to see the company a bit differently, to focus their efforts, and, perhaps, sell more beer.

If nothing else, its a pretty good way to get in the newspaper, said Aaron Perlut, partner at downtown marketing firm Elasticity. And that can be just as important.

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The CIA has assessed in an interim finding that the spate of mysterious incidents sickening US officials around the globe -- known colloquially as Havana syndrome -- is unlikely to represent "a sustained worldwide campaign" by Russia or any other foreign actor intended to harm US personnel, CIA officials said.

The agency hasn't ruled out that a smaller subset of incidents could be attacks, and the intelligence community continues to investigate "whether any device or mechanism plausibly could cause the symptoms reported," a senior CIA official said.

But in the interim findings delivered to President Joe Biden and briefed to Congress in recent weeks, the CIA has yet to find any evidence that a nation-state is behind any of roughly 1,000 reported episodes around the globe.

The findings account for the first major update from a CIA task force established by Director Bill Burns to investigate the incidents, which in some cases have injured US officials so severely they have been forced to retire.

The assessment is based in part on the fact that the task force has found that the majority of reported cases can be attributed to other, known causes -- something that is to be expected after the CIA and other federal agencies urged their workforces to report any unusual symptoms, current and former officials familiar with the probe said. Those sources say officials anticipated a rise in reported incidents, not all of which would turn out to be suspected Havana syndrome.

"This finding does not -- it does not -- call into question the fact that our officers are reporting real experiences and are suffering real symptoms, nor does it explain every report," the senior official said.

In most instances, reported symptoms have been attributed to "medical conditions or environmental and technical factors, including previously undiagnosed illnesses, and many more reports made out of an abundance of caution," the official said.

But there are cases that have defied explanation. Officials declined to say exactly how many reports haven't been attributed to other causes, but out of that unknown number, the task force has zeroed in on a core set of roughly two dozen to focus its investigation on. CIA analysts believe those two dozen cases offer the agency its best chance of uncovering clues about who or what is behind the episodes.

They are also the "toughest" cases, said another CIA official. So far, analysts have been unable to figure out who caused those injuries and how -- or even if those cases can all be definitively termed "Havana syndrome."

"This has been one of the conundrums, and really what has made this harder than probably any other we've looked at analytically in the agency's history," that official said. "We're cutting the data in a dozen different directions and we're just not seeing those patterns at this stage that are allowing us to make broader conclusions about attribution."

For five years, US spies, service members and diplomats serving overseas have been struck by this obscure set of symptoms, known within the government as "anomalous health incidents." Victims have complained of vertigo, nausea, head pressure and in some cases, a piercing directional noise. Some have been subsequently diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. The episodes were first recorded in Havana, Cuba, and later in China, Austria and elsewhere. At least two potential incidents have been reported inside the United States, near White House grounds, CNN has previously reported.

One working theory is that Russia -- or possibly a proxy force -- has been using a directed-energy weapon either to collect intelligence or harass US personnel overseas, sources familiar with the probe say. But while intelligence officials haven't ruled out that possibility, they haven't been able to substantiate it.

"We're not taking anything off the table at this point," the second CIA official said. "We're looking at the full range of possible explanations for each of the cases. They're all different."

The ambiguity has led to rising frustration among some victims, lawmakers and government employees tracking the issue -- including within the CIA itself, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

"They have nothing," said another source briefed on the intelligence. "It's so frustrating."

A source familiar with the agency's findings emphasized that the assessments represent only "interim findings from one element of one agency."

"There will be further reports that will be coming that will be whole-of-government, including outside experts as appropriate, and that reflect the cases that are still of active analysis, while assessing alternative reasonable explanations for the other reports," this person said.

A source familiar with the matter said a separate panel of outside experts convened by the Biden administration to study what technologies could theoretically cause the kinds of symptoms associated with Havana syndrome is finalizing its work.

The rollout of the findings raised a brief uproar among some US officials working the issue, as well as victims. Two sources familiar with the matter said the CIA had not coordinated with the White House its initial decision to brief Capitol Hill on its findings, nor did the agency's findings take into account the work of the experts panel.

In the weeks since those initial briefings, the CIA's determination that the majority of cases could be attributed to known causes has been interpreted by some officials as evidence that the task force was casting doubt on the existence of Havana syndrome. Some scientists have publicly cast doubt on its existence, and in the past, victims criticized the CIA under former Director Gina Haspel, accusing it of failing to take their accounts seriously and, in some cases, failing to provide adequate health care.

"The CIA's newly issued report may be labeled 'interim' and it may leave open the door for some alternative explanation in some cases, but to scores of dedicated public servants, their families, and their colleagues, it has a ring of finality and repudiation," the group Advocacy for Victims of Havana Syndrome said in a statement Wednesday. "We have reason to believe the interim report does not even represent the consensus of the full CIA, instead reflecting the views of a subset of officials most interested in resolution and closure."

Up until now, victims have broadly praised Burns' handling of the issue, and the Biden administration has been careful to avoid any hint that it is not taking victims seriously.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the tussle.

One of the CIA officials said the task force's work will continue and remains fully resourced.

"While we have reached some significant interim findings, we are not done," Burns said in a statement. "We will continue the mission to investigate these incidents and provide access to world-class care for those who need it. While underlying causes may differ, our officers are suffering real symptoms. Our commitment to care is unwavering."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday addressed the CIA interim report on Havana syndrome, saying that he has "no doubt" that there have been State Department personnel affected by "real experiences, real symptoms and real suffering."

"We are going to continue to do everything we can with all the resources we can bring to bear to understand again what happened, why and who might be responsible," said Blinken at a press conference in Germany. "And we're leaving no stone unturned."

Blinken said he has "no higher priority as secretary than the health and safety of all of our colleagues and their families."

Blinken also sought to reassure State Department employees directly that he continues to prioritize the issue, hinting at the uproar the CIA finding has caused behind the scenes.

"These findings do not call into question the fact that our colleagues are reporting real experiences and are suffering real symptoms," Blinken said in a workforce-wide memo obtained by CNN. "We are going to continue to bring all of our resources to bear in learning more about these incidents, and there will be additional reports to follow."

The-CNN-Wire

 &  2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

CNN's Michael Conte and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.
When A Little Life landed in 2015, the intimacy of the novel was so intense as to leave its author  and fictional characters  vulnerable to criticism, even derision. For some, the plight of Jude, the abused protagonist, was so bleak as to be unbearable.

By the same token, the sheer emotional weight of Hanya Yanagiharas second book flattened readers who felt a connection to Jude. As a child, when he sought security, he found cruelty. When an oasis of hope appeared, it proved to be another, more savage abuser bent on breaking him. Readers who have felt or seen the effects of that kind of trauma and debasement could feel empathy for Jude and gratitude for Yanagiharas unflinching authenticity. She understood.

Her new novel To Paradise, however, is another story, sprawling across centuries and lighting only glancingly on the lives of its multitude of characters. It bears similarities, though, in that the important characters are almost exclusively male and gay.

The first of three hefty sections is set in 1890s Manhattan, centered on the Washington Square mansion of the Bingham family in an alternative America. Orphaned as children, David Bingham, his brother and sister lived with their grandfather, Nathaniel, a banker and founding pillar of the Free States. They live in one of the patchwork of self-governing regions formed when the South, having lost the Civil War, seceded anyway. The grandfather and children all are gay.

While Davids siblings are married with children, he remains single, introverted and subject to periodic illnesses, possibly emotional in nature, that keep him in bed in his grandfathers house. While the others have careers, he works only briefly in the family business, then dabbles in charity work. On occasion, he dates a suitable potential partner arranged for him, but only half-heartedly.

But when his life takes a sharp turn, he learns that his freedoms have boundaries. He falls in love with a handsome, alluring and, by his grandfathers standards, utterly unacceptable man. His grandfather prefers a dull, less than dashing, older match, Charles Griffith, who is generous and kind and ill-used by David.

David, the heir to the house, must choose between his family and his love. One offers security and the other a future in the unknown territory of California.

The middle book of To Paradise, set in the 20th century, bounces between Hawaii and New York. It opens during the AIDS crisis, with a wealthy lawyer Charles Griffith growing close to a younger man from the office, David Bingham. David, somewhat awkwardly, moves into Charles rarified environs, where a butler, caterers and florists set the stage for dinners with sophisticated friends. (These characters share names with those in Book 1, but their connection, if any, is unclear.)

David comes from, but doesnt discuss, Hawaii, where his family is royalty, or was, before statehood. The Hawaiian backdrop flickers from generation to generation, sometimes too quickly, dipping into the arts and culture that are subsumed by statehood; the xenophobia that stratifies families there; and the seismic fractures these forces cause.

The glimpses of David growing up with his father are particularly intriguing and feel vital to the puzzle that is the overarching story. The father is oddly passive and given to seizures and illness. He loses custody of David when he follows a wild friend on a misguided quest to establish a new monarchy on a remote, inhospitable stretch of coast. The portions the father tells us are difficult to grasp. It is unclear whether the father is an unreliable narrator, the victim of delusions, or both.

Book 3 moves to a late 21st century so stark that thirsty people strip leaves from trees in Washington Square to make tea. Food, such as horsemeat and nutria, is strictly rationed, along with pleasures like books. This section, too, is thick with Davids and Charleses and other names familiar from the previous books, although my attempts to draw a family didnt result in any firm conclusions.

This time, there is an original female character, Charlie Bingham-Griffith. She grows up in the care of her grandfather, Charles Griffith, a virologist working for the (increasingly) totalitarian state. He tends to little Charlie during one of the serial pandemics that take the lives of thousands of children. An untried treatment spares her life, but its side effects blunt the edges of this bright, inquisitive and chatty child, as well as disfiguring her skin and damaging her hair. Her grandfather tries to compensate for her losses with supplementary therapies.

As a young woman, Charlie is further limited by the fact that her father, a revolutionary, was declared an enemy of the state. Yanked from college before graduation as a result, she works in a lab, and thanks to her grandfather, she has a husband, found through a marriage broker, in a match designed for her protection.

In the epistolary portion of this section, consisting of the grandfathers letters to a friend in London, pages upon pages of exposition unspool the correspondents heavily detailed inner thoughts and regrets. Instead of reading the back-pedaling of a bureaucrat in letters whose replies we never see, Id vastly prefer spending more time in Charlies head as she earnestly maneuvers a world that confounds her.

To Paradise packs in many issues and ideas as it extends through time and space. Many strands never get neatly tied up, or even revisited, not an unexpected technique in American fiction. But in this case, most characters are abandoned before were ready to see them go, and their fates remain vague.

Despite its flaws, none of which are fatal, this sweeping work does not disappoint, but rather makes me want more. Paradise would be three fully developed novels in an interlocking series designed to contain it all.

Helen Verongos is a senior staff editor at the New York Times. (She is not acquainted with Yanagihara, who is editor in chief of T Magazine at the Times.)
ST. LOUIS  The federal government has declined to fill emergency staffing requests for all but one area hospital, officials said on Friday, leaving facilities strapped for workers amid this winters surge in COVID-19 patients.

Eleven of the regions hospitals asked for emergency aid last week. But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told area officials that it could only send help now to one, BJC Healthcares Christian Hospital, in north St. Louis County, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force said Friday.

Christian will get a 44-person team, scheduled to arrive Wednesday and stay for 30 days. The team, from the U.S. Navy, will include doctors and registered nurses, the task force said.

We definitely need all the help we can get right now, said Rick Stevens, president at Christian, adding that roughly 100 of the hospitals 1,800 employees were out on Friday.

Like other medical providers across the region, the hospital has struggled as many workers stay home sick, in quarantine after exposure to the virus or to care for loved ones who are ill.

On Nov. 23, there were more than 300 confirmed COVID-19 patients in area hospitals. By Dec. 26, the number had doubled, to more than 600. By Jan. 7 it had doubled again, exceeding 1,200.

On Monday, the number hit a record 1,444. On Friday, it was 1,362. Christian Hospital has not seen any declines in COVID-19 patient numbers, Stevens said.

Four area Mercy hospitals, five SSM Health hospitals, BJC HealthCare Christian Hospital and one St. Lukes Hospital facility submitted requests for staffing last week to the State Emergency Management Agency.

Christian Hospital did not request a specific number of staff. The decision to send 44 was made by the U.S. Department of Defense, Stevens said.

Mercy Hospital Jefferson requested 72 positions in total, including 67 nurses. SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital in Lake Saint Louis requested 21 nurses and one physician, according to records from the Missouri Department of Public Safety. Other hospitals did not include numbers in their requests.

The state referred the requests to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Last month, Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Western Missouri Medical Center in Johnson County and CoxHealth in Springfield also requested government help.

Research Medical Center received a team of 16 through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 7, a State Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman said earlier this month. The governors office said in a news release Friday that the team has received an extension to continue supporting the hospital through Feb. 4.

But CoxHealth was notified by FEMA that the agency cannot fulfill its request at this time, a spokesman for the hospital system said Friday. Western Missouri Medical Centers request, which is being handled on the state level, is still open, according to the state Department of Health and Senior Services.

This isnt the first time hospitals have struggled to get government help.

In mid-July, when the delta variant was spreading throughout southwest Missouri, pushing case rates to unmanageable levels, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department submitted a request to the state for an alternate care site. The department coordinated with the countys two health systems  CoxHealth and Mercy  in requesting the 50-bed stand-alone site to care for COVID-19 patients.

The Springfield-Greene County health director issued a statement 15 days later, saying the county had withdrawn the request because the hospitals were unable to wait longer for it to be fulfilled and had moved ahead with other methods of expanding staffing and capacity.

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ST. LOUIS  Drive-thru COVID-19 testing events will be canceled Thursday due to anticipated cold weather, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

Cold temperatures could be dangerous for staff outside and cause technology to malfunction, resulting in delays with specimen collection and laboratory processing, according to DHSS.

The National Weather Service predicts a high temperature of 18 degrees and a low of 7 degrees on Thursday.

People with appointments at the St. Charles Family Arena and St. Louis-area Urban League sites should receive directions about an alternative testing option.

Anyone can check the status of a COVID-19 testing site prior to attending at health.mo.gov/communitytest.

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ST. LOUIS  While some states are reporting a slight decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, suggesting the most recent surge may be easing, the numbers remain stubbornly high in the St. Louis area, local hospitals report.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, in an update on Thursday, said its member hospitals treated a record average of 1,385 COVID-19 patients each day of the past week, up from 1,381 a day earlier.

There were 1,399 patients in the task force hospitals as of Wednesday  the latest available data  up from 1,392 a day earlier, the task force said. Hospitalizations began setting records Jan. 3, when they surpassed the December 2020 peak of 962.

The task force represents the regions four big private health care systems  BJC HealthCare, SSM Health, Mercy and St. Lukes  and the Veterans Affairs hospital system.

Area hospitals admitted 221 COVID-19 patients on Wednesday, up from the 175 COVID-19 patients who were newly hospitalized a day earlier. But on average, fewer people were newly admitted to hospitals for COVID-19 each day of the past week. The rolling seven-day average of hospital admissions was 207 on Wednesday, down from 210 a day earlier.

Locally and in some parts of the country, health officials have reported a slight decline in COVID-19 cases and admissions since hitting all-time highs just a few days ago.

The highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus is responsible for the latest spike in the pandemic, which marks its second anniversary on Thursday. On Jan. 21, 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first COVID-19 case in Seattle.

In a weekly briefing on Tuesday, task force leaders warned it was too soon to celebrate a dip in COVID-19 cases because the relatively high case numbers continue to send more patients to hospitals than previously seen for most of the pandemic. The Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday that area hospitals were requesting emergency staff from the federal government to help manage the surge.

The task force said, as of Wednesday, 91% of hospital beds in the St. Louis area were occupied. At least 84% of beds in the hospitals intensive care units were also filled.

Three of the hospital systems report vaccination data for their COVID-19 patients. Of the 1,250 of the COVID patients at those hospitals, 58%, or 727 patients, were not fully vaccinated, the task force said.

The total number of patients in task force hospitals include 43 children and teens younger than 18; 13 of them were in intensive care units. Twenty-one of the children were younger than age 11; six of them were in intensive care.

Statewide, Missouri reported a rolling average of 8,840 new COVID-19 cases a day, down from 9,524 a day earlier an all-time high of 10,779 on Jan. 9.

But the state is still recording more new daily COVID-19 cases than it did for most of the pandemic; the average case rate is more than twice as high as a previous peak of 4,722 on Nov. 20, 2020.

In Illinois, state health officials reported an average of 24,674 new COVID-19 cases a day, down from 26,491 a day earlier.

The average of new COVID-19 cases recorded each day has dropped over the past week from an all-time high of 32,501 reached on Jan. 12.

But the case rate remains more than twice the record peak in the first surge of the pandemic in 2020.

The average daily death rate in Illinois due to COVID-19 increased Thursday to 109, up from 101 a day earlier.

The state reported 199 new COVID-19 deaths, raising the total death toll to 29,708.

A total of 13,669 people in Missouri have been killed by COVID-19 during the pandemic. Thirty-two of the deaths occurred in the last week, according to state records.

Every county in Missouri and Illinois remained in the CDCs high transmission category as of Thursday, meaning that more than 100 out of every 100,000 people test positive for COVID-19 each day on average over the previous week.

As of Wednesday, about 65.5% of Illinois residents were fully vaccinated, above a national average vaccination rate of 63%.

Missouri reported about 54.7% of people here have been fully vaccinated. About a fifth of Missourians have received a booster dose.

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FRIDAY, Jan. 21, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Shortages of both supplies and workers are wreaking havoc on the efforts of COVID at-home test makers to deliver enough of the tests to Americans, even as the federal government pledges to provide 500 million free, at-home kits.

Like many other businesses, test kit manufacturers "have too many of their staff out with COVID. Thus, even if they have the physical capacity for production, they dont have the staff," Mara Aspinall, from Arizona State University, and colleagues wrote in a newsletter, NBC News reported.

She estimated that the current total monthly capacity of U.S. rapid at-home test kit manufacturing is 260 million units per month, which is expected to rise to 355 million by February and 526 million by March.

The government's order for the free test kits is in addition to existing supply and doesn't interfere with existing orders, said a senior White House official, who added that four new rapid tests with high-volume production capacity have been authorized since September, NBC News reported.

On Jan. 13, the Department of Defense announced the awarding of contracts to three companies, Abbott, Roche Diagnostics and iHealth labs, for 380 million test kits, in an effort that supports the presidents plan to deliver 500 million free at-home COVID-19 tests."

Abbott has plans to build two new U.S. manufacturing facilities, hired thousands of people for new jobs that pay American wages, and we continue to invest in automation to allow us to scale further, Kim Modory, Abbotts senior director of public affairs for diagnostics, told NBC News.

Abbott is currently producing 70 million tests a month. It is building up the ability to manufacture an additional 30 million to be added to support government, school and more retail efforts, Modory added.

Meanwhile, Roche spokeswoman Michelle Johnson said the company will start deliveries in January and by March provide tens of millions of test kits. The company has invested $500 million globally to boost instrument and test machine capacity. Still, like other companies, weve experienced our share of supply challenges, she said.

One of those other companies includes San Diego-based Quidel, which currently produces more than 40 million tests a month and plans to increase that to 70 million by February. Unfortunately, 10% of its workforce is currently quarantined.

With Omicron, its gone crazy. The demand far exceeds what were doing, Quidel CEO Douglas Bryant told NBC News. The biggest challenge is actually enough people to do the work."

Bryant said the company has found it difficult to reach its target of hiring 400 workers for a new production facility and finding enough trucks to make deliveries, NBC News reported.

Supplies are also an issue: Demand for high-quality nitrocellulose membrane, the off-white fabric that forms the COVID test strip, has soared during the pandemic.

Some manufacturers cited difficulties sourcing sufficient nitrocellulose supplies a an obstacle to production earlier this year, a senior administration official told NBC News.

"We acted to alleviate" the bottleneck, the official said.

In a statement, Rachel Bloom-Baglin, a spokesperson for MilliporeSigma, a supplier of nitrocellulose to major U.S. rapid test kit makers, told NBC News that raw material availability to make nitrocellulose membrane is readily available, but the world does not have enough membrane manufacturing capacity to turn the raw materials into finished goods, which are then used by our customers to manufacture rapid antigen tests."

The company makes the product at a facility in Cork, Ireland. Although the company completed an expansion of the plant that doubled its capacity, even that did not meet the soaring demand.

On Dec. 29, the Department of Defense awarded a $136.7 million contract to MilliporeSigma for the construction of a new facility in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, over a three-year timespan, NBC News reported.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on COVID tests.

SOURCE: NBC News

Originally published on consumer.healthday.com, part of the TownNews Content Exchange.
FRIDAY, Jan. 21, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Americans don't like to dwell on dying, so maybe it isn't surprising that compared to other nations, the United States does just a middling job of providing a good death.

The United States ranked in the middle of 81 countries rated on how well their health care systems provide end-of-life care.

Only six countries  the United Kingdom, Ireland, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea and Costa Rica  earned A grades for the physical and mental care they offer dying patients. The United States earned a C, placing it 43rd. Thirty-six countries received Ds or Fs.

"Society should also be judged on how well people die," study leader Eric Finkelstein said in a Duke University news release.

"Many individuals in both the developed and developing world die very badly  not at their place of choice, without dignity, or compassion, with a limited understanding about their illness, after spending down much of their savings, and often with regret about their course of treatment. These things are very common," said Finkelstein. He is a palliative care expert and professor with Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and the Duke Global Health Institute in Durham, N.C.

For the study, Finkelstein and his colleagues surveyed more than 1,200 caregivers from several countries to identify the 13 most important factors to patients at the end of life. They included: comfort and proper pain management; a clean and safe space; being treated kindly; and treatments that target quality of life, rather than merely extending life.

The researchers then asked 181 palliative care experts worldwide to grade their countries' health systems on those 13 factors.

"Perhaps the main conclusion from this important exercise is that most people in the world die badly  many through no treatment at all and many through excessive, often futile, treatment that increases suffering," said Richard Smith, a palliative care expert and former editor of the British Medical Journal.

While it's little surprise that most of the highest-ranked nations are wealthy countries, the middle ranking for the United States shows that richer nations don't always pay attention to end-of-life care, the study authors noted.

"We spend so much money trying to get people to live longer, but we don't spend enough money in helping people die better," Finkelstein said.

"Generally, people don't talk about death. COVID has made it less taboo. We have an opportunity to continue this discussion and not just help COVID patients, but to help everyone have a better end-of-life experience," he added.

The findings were recently published online in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

More information

For more on compassionate end-of-life care, go to the U.S. National Institute on Aging.

SOURCE: Duke University, news release, Jan. 18, 2022

Originally published on consumer.healthday.com, part of the TownNews Content Exchange.
Aisha Sultan Aisha Sultan is home and family editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Aisha Sultan Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

A volunteer called out, Lets make it happen, and an unusual assembly line jumped into action in a small ranch house in Clayton.

Two people in the kitchen opened cans and refilled large aluminum trays of food laid out on the dining room table. A handful of others stationed themselves around the table and scooped rice, beans, chicken and lettuce into restaurant-grade paper bowls. In a narrow hallway, two women spooned salsa into plastic containers. The taco salad meals migrated to boxes in the living room where helpers added water bottles, dessert and disposable cutlery.

Each box was adorned with a handmade Welcome to St. Louis drawing and moved into the living room. Another volunteer taped up the boxes and sorted by location to get them ready for delivery.

Later, a few volunteers will drive to three local hotels where evacuees from Afghanistan are residing while they wait for housing.

Riz Khan, 55, and his wife, Farah Alam, 50, organize and oversee this operation out of their home. They started this specific project in partnership with the International Institute of St. Louis a month ago. They are part of local grassroot efforts, including groups like Welcome Neighbor STL and House of Goods, who want to show those resettling in St. Louis that they are wanted and welcome and help with their transition to living in St. Louis.

The couples desire to help their local community formalized in 2013 when they launched the Little Angels Foundation. But their mission to provide food to those who need it took off during the pandemic. In the spring of 2020, they began cooking dozens of meals and distributing them to the homeless.

Last year all my free time was spent packing food into bags, Alam said with a laugh.

The effort eventually attracted corporate sponsors such as Starbucks and Panera. People are drawn to the cause and Khans relentlessly upbeat energy.

Our vision was to bring people together  Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Khan said. Thats what makes their weekend meal assembly line unique. Its a mix of people from various backgrounds and all walks of life, ranging in age from their 13-year-old daughter to retired business leaders. When I went to observe their work, my husband and daughter came along and were drawn into the effort. Our kids decided they wanted to go back on the weekends to continue to pitch in. The desire to feel part of something doing good for others transcends age, ethnicity and religion.

People like Khan and Alam have created an opportunity for others to give in whatever capacity they can.

Khan immigrated to St. Louis from India in 2005 when his wife was accepted into Washington Universitys MBA program. He worked in marketing, and she works in corporate finance. He suffered a major heart attack in his early 40s and lost his job 2 years ago. But these setbacks allowed him to find his true purpose  providing direct assistance to those in need.

He coordinates and documents their efforts on LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp and NextDoor. Strangers will drop off welcome signs made by their children at their doorstep. All the cooking is done by volunteers, and supplies are donated.

The Afghans staying temporarily in the hotels rely on grocery store gift cards to buy groceries and use kitchenettes to prepare their own meals. (The International Institute, which has helped resettle more than 500 Afghans over the past year, has given out $80,000 in donated gift cards.)

Khan is always part of the meal delivery team, which drops off between 100 to 150 meals. The Afghan families insist that he stay for a cup of tea in the hotel lobby. A man told him about how he had a construction business in Afghanistan and fled with nothing. Khan is reaching out to his professional contacts to help find job opportunities.

His nonprofits work is about more than just handing out hot, home-cooked meals. After nearly two years of isolation, people are hungry for connection.

Thats what he aims to deliver.

For more information and ways to help, check out these local nonprofits:

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CLAYTON  The dispute over biblical doctrine at Concordia Seminary had been stewing for four years. While the suspension of the seminary president was drastic, it was not a surprise.

But nobody expected the gathering of angry students at the campus statue of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German priest whose own dissent sparked the Protestant Reformation. On Jan. 21, 1974, the students voted 274-92 to boycott classes, pledging to stay out until their church leadership "publicly declares which members of the faculty, if any, are to be considered as false teachers."

Faculty members followed with a strong and similar vote of their own. For weeks, only a few students attended classes taught by the "faithful five," the faculty still working. Then came a shocking turn - Seminex, the "seminary in exile."

Concordia Seminary, founded in 1839, is seven years older than its sponsoring denomination, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Headquartered in Kirkwood, the synod now has about 2.4 million members and is the second-largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S.

Four decades ago, it was riven by disputes over the literal truth of the Old Testament. Orthodox pastors suspected the seminary was churning out young ministers who doubted the truth of Adam and Eve, or of Jonah and the whale. The object of their ire became the Rev. John H. Tietjen, a Concordia graduate, theological moderate and seminary president since 1969.

That same year, the Synod elected an energetic conservative, the Rev. Jacob A.O. Preus, as its president. Preus called for the seminary to censor teachers "who question the historicity or factuality of events described in Scripture."

Both Preus and Tietjen were men of strong belief and will. Preus told others bluntly, "Tietjen must go." Said Tietjen, "I am not a teacher of false doctrine."

The 1973 synod convention in New Orleans was a slam-dunk for Preus. The assembly declared most of Concordia's teachers guilty of "subversion" of Scripture and installed new, like-minded members on the seminary Board of Control.

That board voted Jan. 20, 1974, to suspend Tietjen, igniting the rebellion. The standoff escalated when the board on Feb. 18 fired 40 teachers and ordered them out of campus housing.

The next day, students voted to form Seminex and marched out past the black-draped statue of Luther. Seminex used rooms borrowed from St. Louis University and Eden Theological Seminary. Tietjen joined Seminex's faculty that fall and became its president in 1975.

Two years later, the Snyod expelled him for "allowing and fostering false doctrine."

Seminex moved to Chicago in 1983 and later merged with another seminary. Tietjen joined the moderate Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Preus died in 1994, Tietjen in 2004.

Read more stories from Tim O'Neil's Look Back series.
CLAYTON  St. Louis County prosecutors on Friday refiled a felony terrorist threat charge against a man who dressed as the Batman villain the Joker and, officials said, threatened to kill people along the Delmar Loop.

The move restarts a case against Jeremy J. Garnier, 50, of University City, a day after St. Louis County Associate Circuit Judge Amanda McNelley dismissed the case because prosecutors couldn't produce a witness for a grand jury.

Garnier is being held on $75,000 cash bail and has been ordered to stay more than 1,000 feet from the Galleria and Blueberry Hill restaurant and bar on Delmar Boulevard.

Garnier was accused of dressing up the evening of March 2, 2020, as the Joker, entering Blueberry Hill and uttering threats of violence via the Facebook Live app. Police responded to the scene in response to a call for an active shooter. Garnier was not armed.

The livestream also showed him driving in his car, smoking a pipe and going to the St. Louis Galleria, where hes stopped by security and asked to leave.

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Tony Messenger Tony Messenger is the metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Tony Messenger Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

The stone benches outside Central Reform Congregation in the Central West End are intended to look welcoming, a place to pause for a respite from the harsh realities of life. But thats not really why the stones are there, in front of the Jewish congregations large windows, and more in front of Rabbi Susan Talves office, and more still near the part of the building that holds the sacred Torah.

These are bollards, part of hundreds of thousands of dollars in sophisticated security measures spent in the past decade or so, intended to protect the Jews who worship there from violent antisemitic attacks. Similar security efforts, and mass-shooter training, probably saved the lives of Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, and three of his congregants, who were attacked last week by an antisemitic terrorist at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas.

Back in St. Louis, Rabbi Daniel Bogard was watching the events in Texas unfold by livestream, thinking back to his own, similar training, and going through the security measures at Central Reform Congregation in his mind. Bogard set up the livestreaming process at Central Reform, and he has moments of trepidation where he fears a repeat of what he was watching in Colleyville.

Its part of being a rabbi now, says Bogard, whose wife, Karen, is also a rabbi. You go through these trainings of what to do if someone comes to kill you.

This is the reality for Jewish congregations all over the country, increasingly since the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh in 2018, the Poway, California, shooting a year later, and the most recent hostage situation in Texas, which ended in the death of the hostage-taker. Part of the blame for this is a rise in antisemitism, something that Bogard ties, in part, to the rise of Trumpism, through which aggrieved white supremacists have been somehow emboldened in their racism and hate.

The Anti-Defamation League has tracked more than 8,300 individual antisemitic acts in the U.S. in the past two years. The combination of the rise in antisemitism and the unique availability of guns in the U.S. creates a challenge for Jewish congregations, Bogard says. He calls the situation a Second Amendment Jewish tax, creating a massive cost for security, in dollars and mission, at Jewish synagogues that dont exist at most Christian churches, for instance.

I speak in churches regularly and it never ceases to shock me when I go to open the door and its never locked, Bogard says. There are no bollards. Theres no cop. Theres no security. No locks. That isnt true of any Jewish synagogue in the country anymore. There is nowhere that doesnt keep its door locked all the time. It wasnt like that when I was a kid.

Just inside the front door of the Central Reform Congregation is a food pantry, where people from the community can come to get food, or sometimes step in from the cold. Its an important part of the synagogues mission, to serve the community, and, yet, the front door is locked. Once inside the pantry, there is another set of doors locking out the rest of the building.

Every classroom has a deadbolt and another door that allows for escape. There are panic buttons placed throughout the synagogue. The congregation has applied for a $250,000 Homeland Security grant to turn its public facing windows into bullet-proof ones.

This is the Jewish reality, in Colleyville, in Pittsburgh, in St. Louis.

There have always been people who believe in antisemitic conspiracy theories, Bogard said. When you can buy an AR-15 at the corner store, this is the cost that Americans have placed on us. I really believe that our First Amendment rights, to safely practice our faith, are being threatened by a Second Amendment gone wild.

The man who entered Congregation Beth Israel presented himself as homeless, in need of food and warmth on a cold day. That sort of thing happens at Central Reform Congregation regularly, Bogard says, but the need for elaborate security measures gets in the way of the synagogues mission.

It prevents us from doing the work that were supposed to do, Bogard says. Thats why we exist. Were here to do the repairing of the brokenness in the world.

The wicked combination of hate and guns makes that work harder. After the hostage-taking last week in Texas, the leadership at Central Reform Congregation decided to station a police officer at the preschool drop-off in the morning. Its another expense in the ever increasing security ledger.

Every dollar we spend on security, Bogard says, is a dollar we dont spend on our mission.

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CLAYTON  A St. Louis County judge Thursday dismissed a case against a man who livestreamed himself in 2020 dressed as the Batman villain the Joker and appeared to make threats to kill people along the Delmar Loop.

Associate Circuit Judge Amanda McNelley dismissed the felony terrorist threat charge against Jeremy J. Garnier, 50, of University City. Prosecutors said they werent ready for a preliminary hearing after being unable to summon a witness for the grand jury a day earlier, defense lawyer Joe Hogan said.

However, Chris King, a spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, said Bells office plans to refile the case on Friday. He described it as a procedural matter, noting that a police witness is out on medical leave.

The case had been pending for nearly two years without a grand jury indictment. Garnier had been free on bail since 2020.

Garnier was accused of dressing up the evening of March 2, 2020, as the Joker, entering the Blueberry Hill bar and restaurant on Delmar and uttering threats of violence via the Facebook Live app. Police responded to the scene in response to a call for an active shooter. He was not armed.

A nearly hourlong livestream showed Garnier dressed as the Joker talking to the camera in a bedroom as he put on a costume. The livestream later showed him driving in his car, smoking a pipe and going to the St. Louis Galleria, where hes stopped by security and asked to leave.

The video then showed him driving to the Delmar Loop, at times talking about ending the countrys opioid epidemic.

Yes Im doing this for attention, but the attention I seek is to take over the world, he said early in the video. Im going to start killing people until this reaches a thousand (viewers), and once it reaches a thousand, Im going to go out in public and Im going to kill more. Were not going to go to any movie theaters. Were going to go totally unarmed because we dont want to alert the authorities into thinking we might be on an actual rampage.

He was later seen in the video entering Blueberry Hill. A host asks to see identification and when he says he doesnt have it, he tells another worker hes 48 years old. They allowed him in. He was then seen walking through Blueberry Hill, looking out the front windows and noticing a police car.

Garnier was then seen telling someone he wasnt armed and identifying himself to viewers as Jeremy Joseph Garnier.

Im not armed and I weigh 150 pounds, he said. I dont have no weapons on me. Im not going to do nothing. Youve got me messed up. Except all these bombs.

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CLAYTON  A former Great Circle employee who broke a 12-year-old patients arm at the nonprofits Webster Groves facility in 2016 was sentenced Friday to time already served in jail.

Lavita A. Foston, 27, pleaded guilty in August to one felony count of child abuse. Circuit Judge Stanley Wallach on Friday sentenced Foston to 30 days of jail time already served. Prosecutors recommended one year in jail.

Fostons lawyer could not be reached.

Webster Groves police said in charges that on July 7, 2016, Foston pushed the boy down and twisted his arm behind his back, causing a fracture.

The boy has autism and lived on Great Circles Webster Groves campus, charges said. Foston was not restraint certified.

A spokesperson for Great Circle said Foston was employed as a youth care specialist from May 11, 2016, until July 8, 2016.

Great Circle, which grew to one of Missouris largest behavioral health organizations in the state in recent years, closed its residential program in Webster Groves at the end of April.

It had served children struggling to find placement in foster homes as well as other at-risk youths. In June, Great Circle settled for $9,200 a case accusing the nonprofit of overbilling Medicaid by almost $2 million.

In September and October, a St. Louis County judge acquitted Great Circles former chief executive of multiple felony abuse charges but found him guilty of a misdemeanor assault charge. The executive, Vincent Hiller, had been accused of abusing multiple minors at the organizations Webster Groves facility in 2018 and 2019.

In a statement, Great Circle said its top priority is always the health and safety of the children and families we serve. When we became aware of the July 2016 incident you are referencing, we immediately addressed the physical and emotional needs of the child, notified the appropriate authorities and following further review, terminated the individual. We greatly appreciate the work done by police and prosecutors in this situation.

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ST. CLAIR COUNTY  A man was charged this week with child pornography and sexual abuse after authorities say he assaulted a 15-year-old girl.

Gene R. Schmidt Jr., 62, was being held Friday in lieu of $500,000 bail at the St. Clair County Jail.

The St. Clair County sheriff's office said Schmidt was charged Thursday with three counts of child pornography, two counts of intimidation and two counts of criminal sexual abuse of a victim 13 to 17 years old.

Police this month began investigating Schmidt after a woman reported being sexually abused by him over several years, starting when she was 15, authorities said. The abuse took place at Schmidt's home, and he photographed and videotaped her, police said.

Capt. Bruce Fleshren of the St. Clair County Sheriffs Department said Schmidt has a Waterloo mailing address but lives closer to Millstadt in St. Clair County. Schmidt is retired although Fleshren didn't know what Schmidt's occupation had been.

Police said they know of no other victims. Anyone with information is asked to call the case investigator, Scott Mohrmann, at 618-825-5712.

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CLAYTON  A Wentzville man impersonating a St. Louis County health inspector took nasal swabs of five employees at a QuikTrip store last spring to test for COVID-19, authorities said Friday.

Eddie Nash Jameson told police he was actually working for Community Wellness America, getting paid $20 for every test he submitted so he could earn money for rent, according to court records.

St. Louis County prosecutors Thursday charged Jameson, 27, with false impersonation and five counts of identity theft, which are misdemeanors. He lives in the first block of Lost Canyon Court in Wentzville and could not be reached for comment Friday.

Jameson posed as a county health inspector March 16 when he visited a QuikTrip at 10739 Page Avenue, the charges allege. He told workers he was conducting COVID-19 tests so the county could analyze data and determine if restrictions should be eliminated or loosened, police said. Before taking the nasal swabs, Jameson had the five workers fill out forms, giving their names, birth dates and other personal information, court records said.

QuikTrip said it never authorized the testing.

We are saddened that someone would mislead our employees into submitting to unauthorized testing like this, QuikTrip corporate spokesperson Aisha Jefferson-Smith said.

The St. Louis County Health Department said the tests werent connected to that office.

The public should understand that at this time, St. Louis County has no program in which our employees are entering private businesses asking individuals to take a COVID-19 test, Health Department spokesman Christopher Ave said in an email. Moreover, all county employees are issued ID cards. If there is any doubt, ask to see identification.

Jameson also went to Ceta International Market, at 11683 West Florissant Avenue, but employees there balked at testing. Store manager Stephen Lankah told the Post-Dispatch he suspected right away it was a sham.

The obvious thing is, he didnt have a badge, Lankah said. It was fishy the way in which he asked. I told him Im not going to give him any information, and he immediately left.

Police arrested Jameson on March 18 when he returned to QuikTrip. He denied ever saying he was a county health inspector, police said. He told an officer he worked for Community Wellness America, which police confirmed with a company supervisor. The supervisor said Jameson wasnt supposed to administer tests himself but have workers collect their own nasal swabs.

The California-based Community Wellness America didnt return a message seeking comment. The company was accused this month in San Francisco of being an unauthorized COVID-19 test operator and trying to scam people out of money or personal information.

Jameson was arrested last spring and police submitted their report to prosecutors shortly after that. The delay in charges was due to a backlog of cases since COVID, and felony cases get priority, said the county prosecutors spokesman Christopher King. Jameson was issued a summons to appear in court. Each misdemeanor count is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Jamesons arrest is the second local incident of someone being charged with COVID-19-related fakes. A notary from St. Louis pleaded guilty to a federal crime Tuesday and admitted ordering 989 fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards from China. Federal prosecutors said 23-year-old Morgan Webb ordered cards with a fake insignia and seal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Friday began filing dozens of lawsuits against school systems across Missouri over their pandemic masking rules.

The suits, filed against St. Louis-area districts including Affton, Brentwood, Clayton, Fort Zumwalt, Fox, Francis Howell, Hazelwood, Ladue, Parkway, Pattonville, Maplewood Richmond Heights, St. Charles, St. Louis Public Schools, and Webster Groves, come as the state is battling a wave of coronavirus infections, straining health systems.

The lawsuits, copies of which were tweeted out by Schmitts office throughout the day Friday, were filed in the name of parents in most cases, ranging from one named parent in several districts to 20 in the Rockwood School District.

In lawsuits against several districts, no parents were listed.

School systems have reported waves of absences among students, teachers and other staff in recent weeks, forcing administrators to scramble to fill vacancies and some individual schools to go back to virtual schooling.

Pattonville made masks optional effective Jan. 3 unless an individual schools positivity rate reaches 2% of teachers and staff. All schools quickly reached that threshold. The positivity rates at six schools there have since declined.

Paul Ziegler, CEO of EducationPlus, a nonprofit representing 60 St. Louis-area school districts, in a statement called the lawsuits a distraction to school leaders trying to keep schools open and students safe.

Ziegler said the policies implemented by the districts were developed after many months of analyzing community transmission data and taking into consideration the capacity issues at area hospitals. The districts also consulted with infectious disease doctors from Washington University, St. Louis University and Childrens Hospital, Ziegler said.

These lawsuits are a waste of taxpayer dollars as the Attorney General is using public funds to sue public schools who will be required to use taxpayer dollars to defend their policies, Ziegler said.

Spokespersons for several districts declined to comment.

The lawsuits argue that districts dont have the power to issue mask mandates, adding the General Assembly did not give school districts the authority to condition in-person attendance on compliance with an arbitrary mask mandate.

School districts and the Missouri School Boards Association rejected that claim last month, citing state statutes that they say allow them to do so.

Ziegler echoed that on Friday, citing Missouri statutes that require school boards to address the transmission of communicable diseases in schools and maintain a safe school environment.

I dont see how he is going to be successful, said Cindy Ormsby, a lawyer who represents multiple school districts, in an interview Friday about Schmitts suits.

Ormsby sent a letter on behalf of the Hazelwood School District to Schmitt last month, saying he had no authority to issue a cease and desist letter. Ormsbys letter also cites state statutes and a 1909 Missouri Supreme Court decision that said school boards had the right to pass rules to address the possibility of a smallpox epidemic.

Schmitt, who is running for the U.S. Senate, had sent the letters to school districts and health officials, telling them to end all COVID-19 health orders and citing a Cole County judges ruling calling local health orders invalid.

He also called for parents to report districts with mask rules to his office.

Schmitts lawsuits say the theory that mask rules help prevent the transmission of COVID-19 have no empirical or rational basis and reject basic principles of sound public health decision-making, medical science, and statistical analysis.

Medical studies have repeatedly found otherwise, however, and health officials have recommended masks as one of the ways to slow the spread of the pandemic.

Asked for Schmitts suggestion for a replacement for mask mandates or other pandemic control measures in schools, spokesman Chris Nuelle said in an email that the lawsuits are about returning the decision back to the parents. Parents and families should be able to decide whether or not to send their child to school in a mask or vaccinate their children. Weve heard from quite a few parents who simply want to gather the information and make a decision for themselves.

Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City attorney and former chief of staff in the attorney generals office, called the lawsuits uncharted territory. He questioned Schmitts standing to file the suits when no parents are listed on the lawsuit.

Hatfield also asked whether it is appropriate for the attorney general to sue a bunch of local governments.

Thats not what attorney generals historically have done, Hatfield said.

Blythe Bernhard of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

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ST. LOUIS  An aldermanic committee chairman wants to hear from St. Louis top public safety official on the citys policy on incarcerating newly arrested criminal suspects who test positive for the coronavirus.

Alderman Joe Vaccaro, who heads the Public Safety Committee, said he will ask interim Public Safety Director Dan Isom to take part in the panels meeting next Wednesday.

Vaccaro commented Thursday following police union attorney Jane Duekers accusation that under a recent policy change, some people arrested are released if they test positive while being booked at the main jail downtown.

In particular, Dueker, in media interviews and on social media, has alleged that a domestic assault suspect was released after he was arrested Jan. 4 despite prosecutors plans to charge him without the chance of bail.

A criminal complaint was issued by the circuit attorneys office later that day, Dueker said, and a judge on Jan. 5 issued an order barring the man from being released on bond.

To me, if the police bring you in, you just cant be arbitrarily releasing people, Vaccaro said. These are questions that have to be answered.

Dueker said the police department and corrections division are both involved.

Officials in Mayor Tishaura O. Jones administration have not commented on the Jan. 4 incident cited by Dueker or whether there has been a policy change.

But the police department in a statement said health status and the seriousness of a crime are among various factors determining whether people arrested remain in custody at the jail.

The city corrections commissioner in a statement said the division does accept some COVID-positive detainees and isolates them, working with hospitals and the police and sheriffs departments to determine the best course of action on a case-by-case basis.

The commissioner also said the division doesnt have ultimate authority to determine whether people who test positive are fit for incarceration.

Vaccaro said his committee already was planning on Wednesday to discuss corrections workers pay, benefits and working conditions.

He said if a schedule conflict prevents Isom from attending, hed ask him to participate in a meeting on another day.

Jacob Long, a spokesman for the St. Louis Circuit Court, said court officials are unaware of any policy change regarding incarceration. But he said there are unanswered questions about the domestic assault suspects release before charges and the no-bail order were filed.

He said court officials dont know if that was due to a mistake or an oversight or was intentional.

We continue to seek answers from public safety leadership, he said.

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ST. LOUIS  Two people were shot Thursday afternoon in the Fairground neighborhood in north St. Louis, police said.

Police responded just after 3 p.m. to a report of a shooting in the 3900 block of Penrose Street and found a man who had been shot and was unconscious but breathing.

A second gunshot victim was found a few minutes later at a nearby scene, in the 4300 block of College Avenue, police said, noting that this man was conscious and breathing.

No additional information was available on the condition of the two men or the shooting.
JEFFERSON CITY  A bipartisan commission made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday unanimously approved a new map of Missouris 163 state House districts for the next decade.

The agreement represents the first time since the 1991 round of redistricting that a commission charged with redrawing Missouri House districts has reached consensus on a map.

To see an agreement come together means that public input wasnt wasted and that two sides were able to connect for the future of Missouri, said Keena Smith, the top Democrat on the House Independent Bipartisan Citizens Commission.

Jerry Hunter, the top Republican on the commission, said both sides were able to reach consensus due to months of relationship building and behind-the-scenes talks.

Commissioners just developed a comfort level with each other and realized that there was going to have to be some give-and-take if we were going to get an agreed-upon map, Hunter told the Post-Dispatch on Thursday.

We wanted to get a map, he said. Thats what we were charged with doing.

It takes 82 votes to form a majority in the Missouri House.

Republicans currently dominate the chamber, holding 108 seats. Democrats hold 49 seats. And there are six vacant seats that Republicans once controlled.

The new map includes 38 solid Democratic or likely Democratic seats, 28 seats considered competitive and 97 that are solid Republican or likely Republican, according to an analysis of the map in Daves Redistricting App.

In a news release, the Missouri Democratic Party said gains were possible in elections this year.

The party said that in the last presidential election, 57 of the new House districts voted for President Joe Biden; 49 districts voted for the Democratic president under the current House map.

The Democrats said the new map increases the number of majority-Black districts from 11 to 16 and includes more competitive districts than in the past.

But even with possible gains, not all Democrats cheered the new boundaries.

Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, who previously served in the House, said even if the party won all the Democratic and competitive seats, they would still be in the minority. He added that Democrats wont win every competitive contest.

I dont believe that it is a completely accurate representation of the state of Missouri, Rizzo said Thursday.

Democrats would cede ground in the House if they were to lose the vast majority or all of the competitive districts in a GOP wave election year.

But they may gain seats, too.

Asked if Republicans expressed concerns during deliberations that the map would be too advantageous to the Democrats, Hunter said, there clearly are some districts that are more competitive in nature. And as to who will ultimately win those districts I have no way of predicting.

A lot of these competitive districts  I think its going to come down to the candidate, Hunter said.

Republicans have a strong campaign organization, the House Republican Campaign Committee, with $463,000 on hand as of last month, compared with the House Democratic Campaign Committees $57,000.

With rural Missouri considered a lock for Republicans, and with urban areas voting heavily for Democrats, competition for the next decade is expected to be centered in the states suburbs.

Some of the most competitive contests are expected to be in the St. Charles-based 105th and 106th districts.

Races for the 98th and 96th districts in south St. Louis County are also expected to be competitive. The Republicans who currently represent the districts, Reps. Shamed Dogan and David Gregory, respectively, are both running for other offices.

Hunter said commissioners went out of their way to avoid splitting municipalities and counties.

In Boone County, for example, there are currently two Democratic districts completely within the county. The remaining three Boone County districts are all held by Republicans and all reach into heavily GOP rural areas in surrounding counties.

The new map places five House districts completely within Boone County, in mid-Missouri.

The change, combined with the way lines were drawn within the county, is likely to lead to more Democrats from Boone County in the Legislature.

The new map gives Democrats two solid seats in Columbia, a third seat that will likely elect a Democrat and a fourth that leans Democrat and is among the most competitive districts envisioned under the plan. A fifth district favors the GOP.

Ferguson is currently split among three House districts. The new map places the entire north St. Louis County municipality within the 73rd District.

Three pairs of St. Louis-area incumbents, all Democrats, have been placed in the same districts, the Missouri Scout political newsletter reported Thursday.

Reps. Gretchen Bangert and Paula Brown were placed in the same district, along with Reps. Ian Mackey and Sarah Unsicker, as well as Reps. Mike Person and Raychel Proudie.

But whether incumbent-on-incumbent primaries are in the cards is unclear because lawmakers dont have to run in the district where they reside during a redistricting year.

Candidate filing for the new districts begins Feb. 22.

The Senate Independent Bipartisan Citizens Commission did not come to an agreement and a panel of state judges will be tasked with drawing a new map of the upper chambers 34 districts.

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JEFFERSON CITY  Gov. Mike Parson is asking lawmakers for $10.4 million to create a better way to predict and monitor floods and drought in Missouri.

Budget documents released Wednesday show his request for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to launch the Missouri Hydrology Information Center, which could help improve the states preparation and response to water-related events.

The call for the new agency is in response to the 2019 floods in the Missouri and Mississippi river basins, which caused an estimated $20 billion in losses.

The magnitude of this event and the subsequent understanding that we have to approach these events differently, in part by moving from a reactive to proactive approach, has demonstrated the need for a suite of innovative approaches to ensure better flood protection and future flood resiliency in Missouri, DNR spokeswoman Connie Patterson said.

Although Patterson didnt directly attribute the flooding to climate change, she acknowledged the 2019 floods were different from a devastating flood in 1993.

Duration of flooding well surpassed that of the 1993 flood, with locations on the Missouri River in declared flood state for 279 days and on the Mississippi for close to 100 days. Further, analysis shows that we are seeing and can expect to see more frequent and intense rain events, Patterson said.

The new office is among a handful of budget requests that have links to Missouris major waterways.

Parson also wants to spend $27 million in federal pandemic relief funds on a project at Columbia Bottoms, which is north of St. Louis where the Missouri and Mississippi rivers meet.

That project is designed to secure more than 3,000 acres of forested wetland at the confluence for additional flood storage. It also will relocate a road that was damaged in the 2019 flooding and add other features aimed at maintaining access to the river in the region.

If funded, the new center will attempt to improve the current system of measuring stream depth to provide more real-time stream level data at numerous statewide locations.

That enhanced monitoring will help forecast and communicate flood risks.

It will also help with the creation of flood inundation maps showing the extent and depth of predicted flood waters for dozens of Missouri communities, Patterson said.

The maps will be designed to quickly show people flood risk and help them make decisions to ensure their safety and protect property, she added.

The center also will work on drought-related issues by improving the mapping of underground aquifers, particularly in northern Missouri, where water supplies are scarcer.

It also will expand the states Missouri soil moisture network to provide a better early warning mechanism for a developing drought.

The proposal is already gaining some support in the Legislature.

Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-Cosby, who is chairman of the Senates budget committee, said he was reviewing the request and was encouraged by the governors attention to water issues.

Hegeman represents a largely rural northwest Missouri district that was heavily affected by the 2019 drought when the Missouri River topped levees, inundated roadways and kept farmers out of fields for months.

The proposed new office is one result of a special task force formed during the 2019 flood.

The working group was chaired by top state agency officials, as well as representatives of farm groups, levee districts and county officials.

The Governors Flood Recovery Advisory Working Group in its final report submitted in May 2020, recommended the state develop an enhanced flood-monitoring system, and that such a system should include and draw upon the expertise of various university and state and federal government partners and be tailored to the specific needs of Missouri.

Patterson acknowledged that some of the information collected by the new office may already be in the hands of other agencies, ranging from the U.S. Geological Survey to the states emergency management agency.

But she said the office will attempt to serve as a clearinghouse to give residents and communities user-friendly information.

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ST. LOUIS  City aldermen voted unanimously Friday to seek voter approval for selling as much as $50 million in capital improvements bonds in coming years.

The measure, slated to go on the April 5 ballot, could provide local matching funds for some federal grants  including those set up under the $1.2 trillion, five-year infrastructure aid plan passed by Congress last year.

The bond issue money could help fund projects such as a new 911 dispatch center, improving the city jail downtown, resurfacing streets, creating pedestrian and bicycle trails and renovating or replacing firehouses and recreation centers.

The plan wouldn't trigger a property tax increase and would be financed using the city's current tax rate as existing bonds are paid off.

But if the bond issue failed, a gradual reduction in property taxes could result  by as much as 7 cents for each $100 of assessed valuation.

In addition to providing local matching dollars, city officials say the bill would allow the city to begin design work in advance of future federal aid and secure construction materials in an effort to mitigate project delays due to supply chain issues.

The bond issue money would be in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid and Rams settlement money already headed to the city in the next few years.

Gary Stoff, a city Election Board director, said the measure requires approval by a two-thirds majority of voters to pass, as cited in the city charter. He said city attorneys have determined that a lesser four-sevenths majority outlined in the Missouri Constitution for passage of general obligation bond issues wouldn't apply because of the timing of the coming election. He said the lower requirement, of roughly 57%, would apply in St. Louis only in odd-numbered years.

Mask mandate extended

Aldermen on Friday also voted to extend by another 21 days the city's indoor mask mandate; the previous one is set to expire Saturday.

A lawsuit filed last summer by Attorney General Eric Schmitt challenging the city health order is pending in St. Louis Circuit Court.

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Woodville, AL (35768)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy later in the day. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 81F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low 61F. Winds light and variable.
JEFFERSON CITY  State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick received a $250,000 boost from a top Republican benefactor in the primary race for state auditor, in which he is facing Republican Rep. David Gregory of Sunset Hills.

Retired St. Louis financier Rex Sinquefields check helped put Fitzpatrick narrowly in the fundraising lead, according to quarterly reports filed by the two candidates seeking to replace outgoing Auditor Nicole Galloway, the lone Democrat holding statewide office in Missouri.

With eight months before primary voters head to the polls, no Democrats have joined the auditor race.

Fitzpatricks fundraising increased slightly since October and shifted from majority loans to all donations, with a total for the quarter of nearly $370,000, according to Missouri Ethics Commission reports. This brings his cash on hand, in both his personal campaign account and one for a political action committee supporting him, to about $802,000 as of January.

Gregory, who also has a PAC backing him, reported having $792,000 in his account as of Jan. 1.

Over half of Fitzpatricks recent gains came from a single donation to the PAC from Sinquefield, whos spent over $41 million on Missouri elections. Sinquefield also gave $250,000 to Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, whos signaled a bid for governor in 2024.

Sinquefield has supported candidates like Gov. Mike Parson and Attorney General Eric Schmitt in past election cycles and long held priorities of eliminating the state income tax and boosting education initiatives.

Fitzpatrick received no other donations over $10,000, but took in several of his largest donations, between $2,500 to $5,300, from companies out of state.

Meanwhile, Gregory raised a total of just over $37,000 through his personal campaign account and a separate political action committee in the most recent quarter, marking a steep decline in fundraising from the last period, in which he brought in around $475,000, according to MEC reports.

Gregorys largest donation of the quarter, reaching the limit for a contribution to his personal account at $2,650, came from a St. Louis-based tech billionaire couple, David and Thelma Steward. David Steward, founder of World Wide Technology, has given to both Parson and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

Gregory previously received at least $15,000 from individuals and groups tied to the slot machine industry and a lobbyist who has worked to remove a ban on the machines.

Grace Zokovitch gzokovitch@post-dispatch.com
TOWN AND COUNTRY  Dr. Michael Mauney, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Missouri Baptist Medical Center, cant recall the blood supply ever being this low.

Ive been here 22 years, and Ive never seen anything like it, Mauney said.

Hospitals like his are being asked to care for patients with less than half of what is typically on their storage shelves, he said.

The American Red Cross and other blood centers on Jan. 10 issued a warning that the nation is facing a blood crisis  the worst shortage in more than a decade.

At times, as much as one-quarter of hospitals blood needs are not being met and doctors are being forced to make difficult decisions about who gets blood transfusions and who must wait, the Red Cross said.

It has been a challenge for blood supply in the area and across the nation for several months, and just in the last few weeks, got to an even worse situation with us getting to having less than a days supply of blood on the shelves at some points, said Sharon Watson with the American Red Cross of Missouri and Arkansas.

The ideal is to have a five-day supply, she said.

The Red Cross supplies about 40% of the nations donated blood and 80% of the blood to the St. Louis area, Watson said.

Blood has a limited shelf life, and can only be stored for 42 days. Keeping that supply replenished requires a constant supply of donors. But, with the hyper-infectious omicron coronavirus variant pushing COVID-19 cases to the highest point in the two-year-old pandemic, donor turnout declined. Some people became infected; many more chose to stay home or limit their activities to avoid getting sick.

Complicating things further, the COVID-19 surge also has taken a toll on staff, forcing some blood drives to cancel because large numbers of workers are out sick or having to quarantine.

A major source of blood donations are college and high school blood drives, but those have dropped 62% due to the pandemic. Winter is also a time when other illnesses and weather typically prevent people from donating.

In addition, some people are confused about when they can donate after getting a COVID-19 infection or getting vaccinated. People with COVID-19 must refrain from donating until 14 days after either a positive test or their symptoms resolve. People who received a vaccine dose dont have to wait to donate.

So, when you bring all these factors together, it makes a perfect storm of problem for blood donations, Watson said.

Kirby Winn is with ImpactLife, which provides blood products to more than 125 hospitals in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri, including HSHS Illinois hospitals in the Metro East and SSM Health hospitals in the St. Louis area.

Winn said a consistent rate of 3,600 donations per week would be optimal. Over the past month, however, the rate has been about a third lower than that, ranging from 2,500 to 2,800 donations per week, Winn said.

Weve experienced temporary, seasonal declines in the rate of blood donation before, he said, but whats different now is seeing more people temporarily sidelined with a COVID-19 infection or recent exposure.

Encouraging donations

Some donors have already stepped up and responded to the blood centers warning earlier this month.

Between noon and 7 p.m. on Thursday, all 900 appointments were filled for the 15th annual St. Louis Blood Drive, held by the Red Cross at nine locations in Missouri and Illinois. Participants in the popular event received a free Blues T-shirt.

We are so thrilled to see the turnout of St. Louis-area blood donors with this blood drive because there is a critical need right now and everyone responded to that need, Watson said. That is an amazing thing to see.

Over the next month, however, about 64% of donation appointments in the region remain unfilled, Watson said.

To spur donations, anyone who donates blood with the Red Cross in January can register to win a trip to Los Angeles to see Super Bowl LVI or a home theater package and $500 gift card.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, made up of the St. Louis regions major hospital systems, addressed the blood shortage during its weekly update on Tuesday as yet another stressor to hospitals operating at or over capacity.

There is a critical blood shortage in the region, and challenges in the supply chain continue to threaten different aspects of care that are important for our citizens, said Dr. Clay Dunagan with BJC HealthCare and co-director of the task force.

SSM Health officials also issued a statement warning that the shortage could cause delays in care while hospitals work to preserve the current supply for emergency situations.

Dr. Bruce Hall, chief medical officer for BJC HealthCare, which includes Missouri Baptist Medical Center, said the hospital system has not experienced a situation where a patient has suffered because blood was not available.

But thats the kind of thing we do worry about. We worry about getting to that point sometime, and obviously none of us wants to get there, Hall said.

Postponing surgeries

Doctors are postponing whatever surgeries they can that might require a blood transfusion, he said, and instituting other conservation methods such as giving patients one unit of blood at a time, and monitoring them to see if they can do without more.

We just sort of double down on being super careful about every decision we make, Hall said.

Mauney said heart surgery departments like his are among the biggest users of blood supply products. Most heart surgeries cannot be delayed, so staff is trying to schedule them carefully.

We have to think which patients are most likely to need blood, and are we doing them on the same day as other patients who might need a lot of blood, Mauney said. Well schedule them on different days.

Some patients, he said, can also get by with less blood during surgery and still safely recover with temporary anemia, a condition in which there are too few red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to the bodys tissues.

What worries him is what they cant plan: Someone coming to the emergency room with a ruptured aorta at the same time an emergency transfusion is needed in the intensive care unit.

Its emergencies that scare us the most, Mauney said.

BJCs Hall pointed out that at the same time hospitals are dealing with about half the supply of blood products they normally receive, they have also reduced elective surgeries by about 50% during the omicron surge to conserve space and staff.

If we are seeing blood shortages now, what is going to happen when those activities come back up? Hall said. That is the concern.

Mauney said the quick and intense surge in COVID-19 patients has filled beds and further decimated an already dwindling and worn-out staff, threatening access to health care in ways never seen.

Its becoming increasingly difficult to take care of people without the space, without a healthy and rested staff and without critical medicine  blood, he said.

In addition to getting vaccinated and taking other precautions to prevent getting infected with COVID-19, donating blood is something people can do to alleviate stress on hospitals and health care workers.

The public cant do much about an ICI bed or ICU nurse that cant come to work, but they can do something to help by giving blood, Mauney said. And it can have an immediate impact.

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UPDATED at 11 a.m. Monday with mugshot of Simmons

ST. LOUIS - A man from north St. Louis County was charged Friday in a homicide last February near Hickey Park in the city's Baden neighborhood.

Michael Simmons, 33, was charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the Feb. 24, 2021, shooting death of Leshaun Benson.

Benson, 29, was found shot to death in the 8700 block of North Broadway.

Simmons lives in the 1300 block of Reale Avenue, in the Spanish Lake area of north St. Louis County.

According to the charges, Simmons admitted going to the In & Out Window Tinting and Carwash for a car wash, "handed out some weed and ended up shooting Mr. Benson."

Police said last year that officers responding to a call for shots fired spotted and pursued a vehicle fleeing the shooting scene. Police spiked the vehicle's tires near Kingshighway and Page Boulevard and took two men into custody.

A judge denied bail for Simmons. He did not have a lawyer Friday.

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During his single presidential term, Donald Trump had a penchant for referring to federal judges and Supreme Court justices as though they ruled based on loyalty to the presidents who nominated them. Thus, Trump suggested, there were Obama judges and Trump judges. In 2018, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stern rebuke: We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. He added, That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

A lopsided high court ruling Wednesday against Trump helped dispel all notions of justices basing their decisions on personal loyalties. They dealt Trump the hardest of defeats by dismissing his mythical assertion of a post-presidential executive privilege. He had no constitutional basis to block the release of 724 pages of documents sought by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Congressional Republicans have gone to extraordinary efforts to block the Jan. 6 committee from doing its job. Its now a matter of record that the Judicial Branch sides with congressional Democrats and the Executive Branch on the need to uncover the truth. That is: Who planned the insurrection, and to what extent was Trumps White House involved? No matter what Trumps cronies in Congress assert about this being a partisan witch hunt, they cannot count on the Supreme Court to help them obstruct justice.

All three Trump appointees joined the majority decision against Trump. In fact, the only dissent was from Justice Clarence Thomas, who should have recused himself from the beginning since his wife, Ginni, endorsed the pro-Trump Jan. 6 rally and tweeted her support on the day the insurrectionists invaded the Capitol.

The 724 pages in question include draft talking points for the White House press secretary and drafts of speeches prepared for Trump to deliver, along with a draft executive order concerning election integrity. Trump insisted then, and continues to insist today, that his reelection was stolen through vote fraud, as if to suggest that President Joe Bidens backers fabricated his 7 million-vote victory margin.

Justices didnt go into detail on their decision against Trump and, importantly, didnt bind their ruling to the broader question of whether former presidents may constitutionally assert privilege. But they did uphold a lower-court judges ruling that there is a unique legislative need for these documents and that they are directly relevant to the [Jan. 6] Committees inquiry into an attack on the Legislative Branch and its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power.

The wheels of justice are turning, and Americans now have good reason to hope that Trump may finally be held to account for having directed a violent mob to storm the Capitol to block Bidens election certification.
Holy fake text alert, Batman!

Lots of Missourians were startled by an unusual Amber-style emergency alert that went out to cellphone users on Tuesday, warning of a purple/green 1978 Dodge 3700GT apparently on the loose. Whoever the joker was driving this car, the warning mentioned his connection to Gotham City, Mo. Some folks probably checked their Google Maps app to find out exactly where Gotham City, Mo., is located. Others may have been tempted to look skyward to see if the Bat Signal had been activated. In a stately mansion somewhere, Bruce Wayne was tempted to press the button and open the secret door in his study to slide down the pole to the Batmobile.

But did he really need the Batmobile? If it was a 1978 Dodge, 3700 GT or not, chances are that a modern Mini Countryman or even one of those electric rental scooters could catch up to that dastardly, 44-year-old vehicle pretty quickly. Or just wait for it to run out of gas, given its 13 miles-per-gallon fuel consumption.

It turns out this was a test of the states wireless emergency alert system. Someone was playing around with a Batman-themed scenario and sent out the alert statewide, perhaps inadvertently. It took about 30 minutes for the operators to send out a second Public Safety Alert explaining that the first alert was a test, and that it was canceled. No harm, no foul.

Better that than the mistaken alert sent out in 2018, as North Korea was implying threats of a nuclear attack, warning residents of Hawaii to take cover because of an incoming ballistic missile. Unlike the jocular nature of the Missouri fake alert, the Hawaii one warned ominously, This is not a drill.

Judge disciplined for very bad judgment

An Illinois judge was suspended this week after he was caught on a hot mic making disparaging remarks about a defense attorney during the live online streaming of a case over which the judge was presiding. The disparaging remarks were about defense attorney Jennifer Bonjean, who has handled some high-profile cases in the past. Can you imagine waking up next to her every day? Oh, my God, Judge William Raines stated to two state prosecutors.  I couldnt have a visual on that if you paid me.

The two prosecutors laughed along with him and one offered a comment in support of his remark. Then the judge realized he was still streaming live. Oops.

The states attorneys office apologized to Bonjean, but Raines was slow to admit wrongdoing. Chief Judge Timothy Evans ordered Raines suspension and required him to receive sensitivity training and gender-bias counseling. Further disciplinary measures are pending  but well-warranted.

Portland police show their true colors

Police officials in Portland, Oregon, put together a 110-slide training show to show rapid-response officers how to deal with protesters. Instead of instructing them on First Amendment rights and dealing respectfully with people while letting courts decide the punishment, the slideshow appeared designed to teach officers how to crack heads and administer street justice. The slideshow was titled, Prayer of the Alt Knight (a play on the white supremacist Alt-Right).

It referred to protesters as dirty hippies and talked about leaving the protesters cuffed and stuffed and stitched and bandaged and encouraged officers to mock protesters by offering to christen your heads with hickory. In other words, predatory head-bashing, pre-designed to violate protesters civil rights.

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday ordered Portlands police chief to hand over all of the training materials, indicating a federal lawsuit could be pending.

Douglass or Douglas, whats in a name?

Wren Williams, a Republican in Virginias House of Delegates, has proposed a bill that would regulate and standardize high school-level social studies curriculum in the state. House Bill 781 includes a directive for social studies teachers to instruct on the founding documents of the United States, including the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers, including Essays 10 and 51, excerpts from Alexis de Tocquevilles Democracy in America, the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and the writings of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Williams needs to go back to high school social studies himself.

Lincoln debated Sen. Stephen Douglas seven times between Aug. 1858 and Oct. 15, 1858. Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated slavery and the battle over its extension into new territories. Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in Maryland in 1838. He went on to become a social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman.

Looking for a Capitol lost-and-found

As crews cleaned the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 7, 2021, the phone lines in House Speaker Nancy Pelosis office began to ring. Rioters were calling asking whether there was a lost-and-found because they forgot their phone there, or they left their purse or what have you, according to a member of Congress. Police officers took down information from the callers saying: Yeah, just give us your name, your address, your social, you know, and well tie up those loose ends.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, told the story to Insider during a recent interview. Raskin added: And when they were told that they were trespassing and invading the Capitol, they said the president invited them to be there. Raskin, who sits on the Jan. 6 House select committee, admitted there were different levels of conduct during the insurrection and that it is difficult to assign guilt. But directly linking an invader to a lost item does have a way of cutting to the chase.
Regarding the editorial Executions dwindle as public support falls. End this barbarism, already. (Dec. 22): People and institutions have often resorted to executions to punish, silence, and otherwise maintain control of those they fear. Historically, those considered to be acting differently or illegally have often been executed (out of retribution) using cruel, barbaric methods from crucifixion and lynching to, more recently, injection with lethal drugs. Some even refer to these atrocities as necessary means of social control, often equating them with justice.

The United States, unlike other developed nations, still executes its citizens. The good news is that 36 of our 50 states do not currently use what I regard as state-sanctioned murder. Increasingly, people, institutions and state governments reject the idea that the use of the death penalty should be part of public policy. The bad news is that Missouri is one of the few outlier states actively using capital punishment.

Missourians who embrace the evolving standards of decency as to how human beings should be valued and treated with dignity should demand that our legislators and governor immediately repeal, in the name of justice and humanity, this antiquated and outrageous public policy. Justice does not and cannot include murder.

Tom and Donna Walmsley  St. Peters
Regarding  Hostages safe after Texas synagogue standoff; captor dead  (Jan. 15): The trauma that occurred during the hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue near Dallas was only the beginning of the trauma. Not only those held hostages personally but all the members of Beth Israel, and perhaps all the Jewish people in the United States, remain virtual hostages to the threats and personal attacks motivated by hate, ignorance and anti-Semitism no matter where we live.

Many Jews live in anxiety about whether it will happen to us at any time. During the coming days, weeks, and perhaps longer, the Texas congregation more intensely, but all of the Jewish community, will suffer the reminders of what happened on that Shabbat, and the personal trauma of being held hostage.

After the shooting at the Tree of LifeOr LSimcha Congregation in Pittsburgh in 2018, I began looking at the exits and the rows here in St. Louis at Shabbat services that perhaps I would have to use myself under similar circumstances. I thought: Should I duck down this row and go to the left? To the right? Should I start sitting in back closer to the exits and far from the front? I am certain members of synagogues across the country experienced the same feelings in 2018 and now again today. And perhaps consistently since then and before. The onset of the trauma at Beth Israel will require ongoing healing of the hostages and the entire membership of the congregation.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Questions about your states delegates, alternates or state selection process:

Ms. Dixie J. Grupe at dixie.grupe@dese.mo.gov or (573) 751-0398.

For general information about the United States Senate Youth Program:

Program Director Ms. Rayne Guilford (800) 425-3632 or rguilford@hearstfdn.org.

Missouri Students Selected for United States Senate Youth Program

Students to Participate in Online Program and to Receive $10,000 Scholarship

January 11, 2022, Washington, D.C. The United States Senate Youth Program

(USSYP) announces that high school students Mr. Pranav Palaniappan and Mr. Timothy

Wellman will join Senator Roy Blunt and Senator Josh Hawley in representing Missouri during

the 60th annual USSYP Washington Week, to be held March 6  9, 2022. Pranav Palaniappan

of OFallon and Timothy Wellman of Hannibal were selected from among the states top student

leaders to be part of the 104 national student delegation who will each also receive a $10,000

college scholarship for undergraduate study. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the 2022 program

will be held online, through a comprehensive and highly interactive virtual education and

leadership forum.

The USSYP was created by Senate Resolution 324 in 1962 and has been sponsored by

the Senate and fully funded by The Hearst Foundations since inception. Originally proposed by

Senators Kuchel, Mansfield, Dirksen and Humphrey, the Senate leadership of the day, the

impetus for the program as stated in Senate testimony is "to increase young Americans

understanding of the interrelationships of the three branches of government, learn the caliber

and responsibilities of federally elected and appointed officials, and emphasize the vital

importance of democratic decision making not only for America but for people around the world.

Each year this extremely competitive merit-based program provides the most

outstanding high school students - two from each state, the District of Columbia and the

Department of Defense Education Activity - with an intensive week-long study of the federal

government and the people who lead it. The overall mission of the program is to help instill

within each class of USSYP student delegates more profound knowledge of the American

political process and a lifelong commitment to public service. In addition to the program week,

The Hearst Foundations provide each student with a $10,000 undergraduate college

scholarship with encouragement to continue coursework in government, history and public

affairs. All expenses for Washington Week are also provided by The Hearst Foundations; as

stipulated in S.Res.324, no government funds are utilized.

Pranav Palaniappan, a junior at Fort Zumwalt West High School, serves as the vice

president of the Student Body. He is active in numerous leadership positions in his school and

community, including serving as the vice president of his school's Speech and Debate Club and

Future Business Leaders of America. He is a member of National Honor Society and Youth in

Government. Additionally, Pranav serves as a mentor for high school peers through Positive

Peer Influence Jag Connection and for elementary and middle school students through Leader

in Me.

(more)

UNITED STATES SENATE YOUTH PROGRAM 2022 Missouri Delegate Announcement FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Page -2- Timothy Wellman, a senior at Palmyra High School, serves as president of the Senior Class. He also serves in many leadership roles in his school and community. He is active in many extracurriculars, such as Student Council, where he is treasurer, Future Farmers of America (FFA), in which he serves as chapter vice president, Scholar Bowl, where he holds the varsity captaincy, and Science Olympiad. Tim is a peer tutor in the gifted education program and participated in the Harvard Foreign Policy Scholars Program in the summer of 2021. Additionally, he was a part of the team that won the National Floriculture Competition through the FFA in October, placing 4th in the nation individually. Chosen as alternates to the 2022 program were Ms. Emma Claire Voelker, a resident of Frohna, who attends Saxony Lutheran High School and Ms. Lucy Katherine Schene, a resident of Kirkwood, who attends Kirkwood High School. Delegates and alternates are selected by the state departments of education nationwide and the District of Columbia and Department of Defense Education Activity, after nomination by teachers and principals. The chief state school officer for each jurisdiction confirms the final selection. This years Missouri delegates and alternates were designated by Margaret M. Vandeven, Commissioner of Education.

During the program week, the student delegates will attend online meetings and briefings with senators, the president, a justice of the Supreme Court, leaders of cabinet agencies, among others.

In addition to outstanding leadership abilities and a strong commitment to volunteer work, the student delegates rank academically in the top one percent of their states among high school juniors and seniors. Now more than 6,000 strong, alumni of the program continue to excel and develop impressive qualities that are often directed toward public service. Among the many distinguished alumni are: Senator Susan Collins, the first alumnus to be elected U.S. senator; Secretary of Transportation and former Mayor of South Bend Indiana, Pete Buttigieg; former Senator Cory Gardner, the second alumnus to be elected U.S. senator and the first to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the first alumnus to be elected governor; former Chief Judge Robert Henry, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit; former Ambassador to West Germany Richard Burt, former presidential advisors Thomas "Mack" McLarty and Karl Rove. Additional notables include former Lt. Governor of Idaho David Leroy, Provost of Wake Forest University Rogan Kersh, military officers, members of state legislatures, Foreign Service officers, top congressional staff, healthcare providers and other university educators.

Members of the U. S. Senate Youth Program 2022 annual Senate Advisory Committee are: Senator Christopher A. Coons of Delaware, Democratic Co-Chair; Senator Susan M. Collins of Maine, Republican Co-Chair; Advisory Members: Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM); Senator Jeffrey A. Merkley (D-OR); Senator Tina Smith (D-MN); Senator Mark R. Warner (D-VA); Senator Mike Braun (R-IN); Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV); Senator James M. Inhofe (R-OK); and Senator M. Michael Rounds (R-SD). Each year, the Honorary Co-Chairs of the program are the vice president of the United States and the Senate majority and minority leaders.

For more information please visit: www.ussenateyouth.org

***

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The American F-117 Nighthawk, the first stealth aircraft to enter service, was retired 14 years ago, but is still flying. The latest sighting was in late 2021 when two of these retired aircraft were seen providing realistic opposition for reserve F-15 squadrons training to deal with enemy stealth aircraft. This is called adversary training and the F-117 proved to be excellent at providing a realistic foe. For several years F-117s have been spotted over training areas, where they apparently serve as aggressor stealth aircraft for training active-duty pilots. The move to stealth fighter adversary training for reserve F-15 pilots is probably related to reserve fighters getting the new AESA radars, which were designed with the ability to better detect stealth aircraft. To do that requires some practice for the pilots.

Using the F-117 is all about the fact that the key element in air combat has always been getting in the first shot. From 1914 into the 1940s the key to success in air-to-air combat was knowing how to fly into a position where you would see the enemy first and carry out a surprise attack. The earliest of these tricks was the World War I tactic of trying to have the sun behind you to make it more difficult for the enemy to see you coming. Another tactic was trying to get higher and out of sight for as long as possible until you could dive on the enemy aircraft in a high speed, and unexpected, attack. After World War II, the surprise aspect of air combat continued to be essential. In effect, stealth and the resulting surprise was always the key to victory. The F-117 represents the impact of stealth for pilots training to deal with first encounters against stealth aircraft.

Retirement of the F-117 consisted of placing the 52 remaining aircraft placed in a high-level of storage at the air force boneyard where there are several levels of retirement. The highest level, where the F-117 ended up, has the aircraft semi-retired and periodically flown. What this semi-retirement means is that the air force still has to maintain a force of maintainers and pilots for F-117 because this form of retirement is meant for aircraft that can be returned to service within 30-90 days or sooner. The air force will not say how many F-117 maintainers and pilots there are but there have apparently been some ever since the F-117 retired in 2008.

F-117s have been spotted in the air frequently since 2008 and in 2016 four were apparently sent to the Middle East for an unspecified mission. Their presence became public when one of those F-117s had to make an emergency landing at a Kuwait airbase. It is believed that the F-117s have been used as stealth reconnaissance aircraft to determine if a target had been destroyed or just damaged.

In 2019 some F-117s were spotted over a training area and the local gossip was that the F-117 stealth capabilities were similar to those of Russian and Chinese stealth aircraft and thus useful for training, or testing how effective the foreign stealth aircraft could be. Russia has twice sent some of its Su-57 stealth fighters to Syria and that allowed the Americans and Israelis to measure the degree of stealth the Russians had developed. China believes the Russian stealth technology is superior to their own. Chinese stealth fighters have been less available for close observation but apparently some have been spotted operating near the coast. In 2021 the Chinese J20 was declared fully operational because China had finally put its high-performance engines into production and no longer had to rely on Russia for engines. The J20 had earlier gone through many changes to its stealth, electronic and mechanical components. Chinese engines were the last item needed.

The Americans concluded that the F-117 would be a good aircraft to use as enemy stealth fighters during training and a small squadron of F-117s appear to be back in service performing that duty as well as any other chores the three-decade old stealth warplane is suitable for. Currently that includes F-117s sent to reserve fighter squadrons to give pilots a taste of what they would encounter if they faced the Chinese J20. Russia has dropped out of the stealth fighter business and is pitching its Su-57 and a Generation 4.5 fighter with some stealth capability. Stealth fighters are considered Generation 5.

The F-117 is a 23 ton, twin-engine, single-seat aircraft. It has an internal bomb bay that can hold two 2,000 pound (909 kg) smart bombs. The bomb bay may also have been modified to carry a reconnaissance pod that has the same shape as a bomb but contains high-resolution digital cameras for recording what is down below in great detail, day or night. The range on internal fuel is 1,700 kilometers but the aircraft can be refueled in the air and has been observed doing that since retirement.

To save money to pay for new stealth fighters, there were several attempts by the air force to retire the F-117 light bomber. Those efforts appeared to succeed in 2008. Long called the "stealth fighter," the F-117 was designed from the start as a bomber. The retirement decision was made in 2006 when the aircraft was 18 years old. Official retirement came two years later, which was also two years after the last class of new F-117 pilots graduated. The F-117 was 1970s technology that, after years of effort, was made to work in the 1980s. But better stuff is out there, and the stealth technology of the F-117 was obsolete when it came to some of the more recent sensor developments. The F-22 was a direct, and more effective, replacement for the F-117 as a light bomber. Plus, the F-22 is also a superior fighter, currently the best in the world. Within five years of retirement, the F-35 showed up and took over the light bomber functions of the F-117. At this point potential foes like China and Russia were developing stealth aircraft. At the same time there were still some tasks the F-117 was best suited for.

Earlier attempts to take the F-117 out of service ran up against political opposition. Bases would have to be closed, which meant lost jobs. The air force finally got Congress to allow retirement by working out deals to take care of jobs angle, and the F-117 was assumed to be gone by 2008. But the F-117 was not completely retired, still isnt and that was not publicized as much as it was gradually discovered.
January 21, 2022: The government insists that they will have al Shabaab and other unrest under control by the end of 2023 and are asking the UN to keep the military aid coming until then. Despite relative peace and prosperity, so far Somalia was unable to turn that into a more permanent condition by holding national elections. The elections are supposed to finally be completed by February 25th.

Somalia has long been a failed state and fifteen years of peacekeeping, massive foreign aid and visible progress, corruption and tribalism are still blocking the creation of a stable and effective national government. Al Shabaab, a local Islamic radical group, was defeated and driven from cities and towns in 2011 but is still around. So is the traditional clan (tribal) violence, organized crime and banditry. All these are ancient Somali traditions and al Shabaab survives by reverting to that and becoming the major criminal organizations in some parts of the country. Extortion, smuggling, ransoms and so on have sustained the Islamic terror group. One of the most lucrative sources of plunder is the elected Somali government, propped up by foreign aid, most of which gets stolen. The foreign aid became a major issue after 2012 when it increased to enable Somalis to form a stable government. That has not happened yet. Somalia is still a failed state that defies every attempt at nation building. The situation is worse than it appears because Somalia was never a country, but a collection of clans and tribes that fight each other constantly over economic issues (land and water). The country remains an economic and political mess, a black hole on the map. Not a lot of hope in sight. There is not a lot of enthusiasm among local leaders for a national government, but all that foreign aid is welcome because it can be taken without risking another clan feud. Somalis are running out of excuses and end of foreign support is now in sight at the end of 2023

The ongoing corruption in Somalia continues to threaten foreign aid in general and support for the peacekeeper force. UN and AU (African Union) officials are unable to agree on whether the peacekeeping effort has been a success. Discussions continue to determine if it has been worth the effort and how it should continue. The local (Somali neighbors) AU officials point out that the fifteen-year peacekeeping effort has made a difference as al Shabaab and ISIL personnel and areas they controlled have been steadily reduced. Both groups have started taking refuge in neighboring countries, where local security forces can deal with the Islamic terrorists even more effectively than the peacekeepers in Somalia. Once all, or over 90 percent, of Somalia is pacified it will be practical to revive foreign aid efforts that were crippled, and plundered, in the past. The AU points out that the UN keeps sending in the foreign aid before it is safe, or even possible, to distribute the aid to the intended recipients. One reason for this continued disagreement is that AU members have grown up with and continue to live with the Somali threat. Many UN officials are new to peacekeeping and aid delivery, and out of ignorance and optimism underestimate the unique problems found in Somalia.

January 18, 2022: In Mogadishu an al Shabaab suicide bomber attacked a tea shop near an army base, killing four and wounding nine. The bomber attacked the wrong target, which was the nearby army base, which is a training facility for Somali soldiers that is operated by Turkey, with Turkish troops providing the training. The Turks were the target but all the casualties were Somali civilians.

Later in the day there was another bombing, which caused no casualties.

The government officially backed the UAE after an Iranian sponsored bombing in the UAE capital. Iran says the attack was carried out by Shia rebels in Yemen, which is 1,400 kilometers away while Iran is 300 kilometers away. For nearly a decade Somalia has been in the middle of the Gulf Arab dispute with Iran and its allies Turkey and Qatar. The UAE has been the most active Arab state in Somalia and now appears to be overtaking Iran and its allies. The Arabs supply more aid than Iran and its allies.

January 17, 2022: Britain agreed to send $10 million in emergency aid to Somalia, to support about half a million people suffering from a drought. The UK will supervise the distribution of the aid, which will only take place in government-controlled areas and without any interference (stealing) by government officials.

January 16, 2022: In Mogadishu an al Shabaab suicide bomber attacked a convoy carrying the chief government spokesman, who was slightly injured by the attack. The bomber was the only fatality.

January 15, 2022: In the southwest al Shabaab still has useful sanctuaries because neighboring Ethiopia has been preoccupied with domestic problems for the last eight years. Ethiopian peacekeepers are not going to return any time soon, even though the Ethiopian government appears to be suppressing domestic disputes and violence. The Ethiopians pulled out in 2016 when there was some political unrest in neighboring Ethiopia which led to the withdrawal of the Ethiopian peacekeepers who were keeping the peace in several areas in western Somalia. Those political and ethnic disputes escalated in 2021 and threatened to turn into another civil war between the major ethnic groups. That is still a possibility but the government forces have been able to defeat the rebels from Tigray and a few other areas but have not achieved a peace deal. The current fighting has been going on for about 14 months.

January 12, 2022: Outside Mogadishu an al Shabaab car bomb left next to a road leading to the airport exploded, killing eight and wounding many more.

January 9, 2022: In Mogadishu, the various government factions have finally agreed that the parliamentary elections would be concluded by February 25th. Disagreements over who can be a candidate and how the elections will be run were also settled. There is some doubt that the election commission can make the arrangements for operating enough polling places to allow all eligible voters to vote. So far only 24 of 275 lower house members have been elected. The election process began on November 16 2021 and was supposed to end by December 24, Disagreements over who could run and who could vote prevented the December deadline from being met. Foreign donors are withholding aid until specific goals are met in holding elections for parliament and the presidency and the new agreement is supposed to do, if the new deadline can be met.

January 7, 2022: In central Somalia (Galmadug) al Shabaab used a roadside bomb to attack an army convoy, killing several soldiers and wounding nine more. Elsewhere in Galmadug, local militia repulsed an al Shabaab attack on the town of Bahdo and then counterattacked, leaving 17 al Shabaab men dead. North of Mogadishu (Middle Shabelle) Somali army commandos killed five al Shabaab gunmen.

January 6, 2022: The government has worked out a new deal with the UN to keep the AU (African Union) peacekeeping force in Somalia longer. This requires continued financial support from the UN to extend the Somalia peacekeeping operation until the end of 2023.

In 2021 The UN and AU had agreed to greatly reduce or eliminate the current 19,400 strong peacekeeper force. This process was supposed to start by the end of 2021 and be completed by March 2022. A year ago, the United States completed moving most of its 700 troops out of Somalia to other parts of East Africa. Two months later the AU announced plans to do the same or at least greatly reduce the number of peacekeepers in Somalia. Soldiers from five AU countries (Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti) comprise the current force that costs about $200 million a year. That money is provided by the UN via contributions by the U.S. and EU (European Union). The UN approves the size and duration of the peacekeeper force annually.

The peacekeepers have been in Somalia for fifteen years at a cost of over three billion dollars. So far nearly a thousand peacekeepers have been killed and at least 4,000 wounded or injured. About a quarter of those were so badly wounded that they received disability payments while families of the dead received a lump sum in death benefits. Somalia is the most dangerous peacekeeping duty in the world.

The first AU peacekeepers arrived in March 2007 and these 8,000 troops were supposed to be gone within six months. That force did not disappear by the end of 2007 but kept growing and quickly reached 22,000, most of them soldiers plus a few thousand police, trainers and administrators. The peacekeeper force made some difference, but in the face of massive corruption in the Somali government and various Somali communities that demanded help, the operation proved far more expensive and time-consuming than expected. Peacekeepers are due to leave because the best they can do is reduce the violence and disunity, while UN donors are not willing to waste money on that when there are other disaster zones that can make better use of the limited foreign aid.

Because of the threat of peacekeeper reductions or elimination, the Somali army, which is about the same size as the peacekeeper force, has been particularly active and effective in 2021. If the peacekeepers go the army will have to face all the fighting alone and current assessments conclude that the army might not survive that for long, and instead fall apart because of casualties, desertions and a lack of new recruits. The Somalis have been saying this for nearly a decade but the AU and UN are fed up and the major donors needed to support the peacekeeper force have warned that they will reduce or eliminate contributions because of the continued corruption and ineffectiveness of the Somali government. The increased army effort against al Shabaab has apparently paid off with more surrenders of veteran al Shabaab members including prominent leaders. Somalia has been in a state of war for three decades and it has become an endurance contest with everyone ready to give up. Now Somalia has another extension for the peacekeepers, which has not yet been voted on by UN members.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang casts his vote at the closing session of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China March 11, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will appropriately step up policy support for the economy as it faces new downward pressure, Premier Li Keqiang was quoted by state media as saying.

But Li, in the remarks made on Thursday, reiterated that the government will not resort to "flood-like" stimulus.

(Reporting by Kevin Yao and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
MONTREAL, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Today, Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Christian Dube, visited Quebec-based AMD Medicom Inc. ("Medicom"), one of the world's leading manufacturers of N95 respirators and procedure masks. While touring the company's Saint-Laurent plant, Mr. Dube witnessed the extraordinary acceleration of production of the SafeMask Architect Pro N95 respirator.

Since the outbreak of the Omicron variant and the ensuing increased use of N95 respirators across Canada and the rest of North America, Medicom has accelerated local production of these essential medical devices. As a result, more than 40 new full-time jobs will be created at the Saint-Laurent plant and new machinery will be installed to support the new production rate.

"Medicom will now supply nearly 3.3 million N95 respirators to the Quebec healthcare system, which is nearly twice the number provided for in our multi-year agreement with the government. In a few weeks, once the new machines are running at full capacity, Medicom will supply the government with more than 4.4 million N95 respirators per month. This is clear evidence that the Quebec government's local mask procurement strategy is working," affirmed Guillaume Laverdure, Chief Operating Officer of Medicom.

Because of long wear times, healthcare workers appreciate the Medicom Architect Pro N95 surgical respirator not only for its filtering efficacy and resulting protection, but also for its exceptional comfort and breathability.

"Medicom is the only company in Quebec and one of the only companies in Canada to be certified by both Canadian and American authorities. In fact, the Medicom Architect Pro N95 respirator is CSA and FDA/NIOSH approved. We are very proud of this achievement because it is the result of many months of painstaking work to create a comfortable, high-performance, Quebec-made respirator," explained John Tourlas, Medicom President, North America.

About the Medicom Group

The Medicom Group is one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of high-quality, single-use, preventive and infection control products for the medical, dental, industrial, animal health, laboratory, retail and health and wellness markets. Medicom was named one of Canada's Best Managed Companies for 2021 and received a Mercure Award at the Mercuriades 2021.

Medicom distributes infection control products under the Medicom, Ritmed, Kolmi, Hopen, Ocean Pacific and Hedy brands. Medicom subsidiaries include Kolmi-Hopen in France, Medicom Asia in Hong Kong, United Medical Enterprise in the U.S.A., KHM Engineering in Singapore and Medicom HealthPro Limited in the U.K.

Medicom has extensive experience in responding to the demand for personal protective equipment in the event of a pandemic. Medicom was founded in 1988 in response to the urgent need for medical gloves for healthcare professionals during the global HIV crisis. Since then, the company has been a reliable supplier of infection control solutions during multiple epidemics, including avian flu, SARS, H1N1 and Ebola, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

For more information about Medicom and their comprehensive portfolio of infection control solutions, including an extensive range of medical face masks, please visit Medicom.com, follow us on Twitter @MedicomNA or visit pages on Facebook or LinkedIn.

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SOURCE AMD Medicom Inc.
WATERTOWN, Mass., Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Windgap Medical, Inc., a leading specialty pharmaceutical and drug delivery platform company, announced today that it has successfully completed its final close with over $39 million of Series B-1 equity financing, led by Taiwania Capital. This equity round of investment expanded beyond an initial target of approximately $32 million due to strong investor interest. This equity financing is also supported by existing investors, including Shepherd Kaplan Krochuk (SKK) and Molex Ventures (a Koch Industries company), along with new investors including Cobro Ventures, and others.

Windgap is working to commercialize its ANDI wet/dry autoinjector platform, which would introduce a more compact, stable, temperature-resilient option for many medications currently in the marketplace. The first product to use this platform will be epinephrine for the treatment of anaphylaxis. Other pipeline products include a novel emergency treatment for cyanide poisoning that is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health through a multi-year CounterACT grant, led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

"Windgap was gratified to see the strong investor interest, validating its technology and future prospects. We welcome the Cobro Ventures as a strategic investor and the ongoing support by SKK in our work to bring our epinephrine product to market, along with our partner ALK-Abello," said Christopher Stepanian, Windgap's CEO and Co-Founder. "This oversubscribed round allows us to energize our ongoing epinephrine commercialization process and grow our pipeline of additional products utilizing our autoinjector technology."

Brent Buchine PhD, Windgap's Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder, stated, "Windgap's second drug delivery platform is in development for the administration of large-volume, high viscosity, therapies. This effort is supported by an ongoing NIH grant and is well suited for emergencies such as the treatment of cyanide poisoning. This unique device will also be valuable for other acute and chronic treatments where challenging-to-mix drugs frequently lack simple dosing options, such as biologics and extended-release therapies."

Windgap's products have not been reviewed by the FDA, but the Company intends to seek approval, first, for its epinephrine product for anaphylaxis.

ABOUT WINDGAP MEDICAL

Windgap Medical, Inc. is an emerging, privately-held pharmaceutical company in the Greater Boston area focused on developing patient solutions with its patented wet/dry drug delivery platforms. Its first product is for the administration of epinephrine for anaphylaxis with additional products under development in a variety of markets. Find more information on www.windgapmedical.com and follow the company on LinkedIn.

For Media Inquiries: Windgap Medical, Inc. Chris Stepanian, +1 617-440-3311 Chief Executive Officer [email protected]

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/windgap-medical-inc-closes-over-39-million-of-series-b-1-investment-more-than-twenty-percent-over-its-initial-goal-301464218.html

SOURCE Windgap Medical, Inc.
WHEELER ARMY AIRFIELD, Hawaii  Next month, this airfield in central Oahu turns 100, and its hangars still used by Army aviators are almost as old.

That is set to change in coming years with the Thursday groundbreaking for an $80-million maintenance hangar that the Army says will feature 21st century technology, high-speed virtual connectivity and ample space for work and training.

Construction of the hangar is expected to take three years, and it is one of three slated to be built in phases.

The aviation maintenance hangar we break ground on today serves as the cornerstone for the future home of the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade and eventually replacing the 90-year-old historic hangars along the southern boundary of the airfield, Col. Daniel Misigoy, commander of Army Garrison Hawaii, said during a brief ceremony on an open field that will eventually hold an entire support complex.

Misigoy underscored how dated the existing hangars are while talking to reporters after the ceremony.

The hangar  Misigoy said as he turned and motioned across an open field abuzz with earthmovers, well, we can't see it from here, but Amelia Earhart parked her airplane there.

It was in in 1935 that the famed aviator flew from Wheeler to California, piloting the first solo flight made from Hawaii to the West Coast.

So, what this will give us is a space to do maintenance inside specifically for the new helicopters that we will get or the vertical lift aircraft, he said. It'll co-locate the unit together and provide a place for soldiers to do training as well as maintenance on the aircraft.

The structure will include a six-bay hangar, maintenance shops, administrative space and storage for parts, ground-support equipment and hazardous materials.

The maintenance hangar was fully designed by the Honolulu District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Col. Eric Marshall, the districts commander, said during the ceremony.

That may not sound remarkable  You are the Corps of Engineers, you might say  but when one considers the volume of requirements given to us by Colonel Misigoy and other mission partners, we have to be very selective of what we take on for production, Marshall said.

But the district regarded the design of this project as too significant to be left to outside contractors, he said.

This hangar will be a profound feature on this side of Wheeler Army Airfield, he said. Its very existence will represent increased readiness and competitiveness of a very lethal fighting force. We wanted our autograph on it.

The construction contract was awarded to Hensel Phelps, a Colorado-based firm that maintains a district headquarters in Honolulu.

The airfield was called Wheeler Air Force Base during the Dec. 7, 1941, surprise attack on Oahu, and the Army Air Corps aircraft on it were a primary target. Japanese warplanes destroyed 83 planes, killing 33 personnel and wounding 75 more.

The airfield has been designated a National Historic Landmark for its role in the attack that led to Americas entry into World War II. Scars remain on hangars that still stand from that day.

Misigoy told reporters that the future of the old hangars is still up in the air.

I don't foresee tearing them down, whether it's for historical reasons or for the use we can get out of them, he said.
STUTTGART, Germany  A Pentagon strategy that emphasizes unpredictable short-term troop rotations to Europe is more likely to risk escalation with Russia than a forward-based military presence on the Continent, a U.S. Army-commissioned study found.

The Dynamic Force Employment concept, developed by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, involves deployment of an array of U.S.-based forces on short-notice missions abroad to showcase American might to adversaries like Russia and China.

But the tactic implies discontinuity and is often associated with ratcheting up tensions, Rand Corp. said in a report released Thursday, Deterrence and Escalation in Competition with Russia.

There are many reasons why the concept is attractive in theory and from a fiscal perspective, the report stated. Nonetheless, our research suggests that there are inherent escalatory risks in relying on military exercises and similar activities to establish deterrence.

Rand reached its conclusions by examining trends from various proxy wars and Russian military escalations, dating from the 1940s up through the current situation in Ukraine.

U.S. Army Europe and Africa commissioned the study, which comes as tensions with Russia soar over its military buildup near Ukraine, stoking fears of a new invasion.

The Kremlin buildup could in turn have wider ramifications for how American forces will be positioned along NATOs eastern flank.

President Joe Biden said this week that in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine, the U.S. is prepared to reinforce allied countries in the vicinity of Russia, such as Poland and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

For the U.S. military in Europe, the past eight years have been focused on deterring Russia from military action on the Continent.

Much of that effort has centered on building up a military force that by 2014, the year of Moscows initial invasion of Ukraine, was a shell of its former self after years of troop reduction.

Thus far, the emphasis has been on ramping up troop rotations and, more recently, on sending in forces on rapid mobilizations as part of the Dynamic Force Employment concept.

Yet when it comes to deterring Russian aggression, unpredictable troop movements could be counterproductive, Rand found.

A persistent, predictable U.S. forward posture is associated with lower levels of malign activity in the competition space, while sharp, unpredictable discontinuities are associated with much more-escalatory outcomes, Rand said.

Where the U.S. positions troops also matters when it comes to striking a balance between deterrence and escalation with Russia, the study found.

Putting troops near but not inside vulnerable countries, such as the Baltic states, was associated with more effective deterrence, the study found.

Forces stationed in vulnerable countries can make the host countries targets for a variety of hostile measures, from military intimidation (with the ever-present risk of inadvertent escalation) to subtler forms of aggression that are intended to impose costs on or weaken the will of host countries, the report said.

Forces positioned in less-vulnerable countries pose fewer threats to the host country but still could be repositioned quickly as needed.

In Europe, there is a long-running debate among security analysts over how best to configure the U.S. military presence. Some have argued that permanent U.S. and NATO bases are needed in the Baltics and Poland, where troops would serve as front-line tripwires in the event of confrontation with Moscow.

Other areas of debate revolve around the merits of permanently basing troops in Europe, mostly in Germany, versus shuttling units back and forth on shorter missions around the Continent.

Going forward, the Army, which has been adding artillery capabilities in Europe and is developing long-range precision fires with ranges of 1,000 miles, will need to consider carefully where such weaponry is set up, Rand said.

If many such systems were positioned in northeastern Europe or if longer-range systems were placed in Western Europe, there is some likelihood that Russia would react by targeting host countries with hostile measures, the report said.
The two Marines killed in a tactical vehicle rollover Wednesday on a North Carolina highway had been in the service less than a year, officials said Friday.

Lance Cpl. Jonathan E. Gierke, 19, from Lawrenceville, Ga., and Pfc. Zachary W. Riffle, 18, of Kingwood, W.Va., both joined the Marine Corps in March 2021, the service said in a statement.

Both were landing support specialists with Camp Lejeune-based Combat Logistics Battalion 24, Combat Logistics Regiment 2, 2nd Marine Logistics Group and were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, which happened near the intersection of state Highway 210 and U.S. Highway 17 outside Jacksonville, N.C.

Gierke was a member of Junior ROTC at Collins Hill High School, in Suwanee, Ga., before joining the Marines, and the son of a Navy veteran.

His father posted profile images on Facebook last June celebrating his sons graduation from boot camp. On Thursday, he changed his profile image to a Marine Corps emblem with a black ribbon over it.

Riffles family and friends poured out their grief and shock in several public Facebook posts. Gary Argabrite, who said Riffle was his great-nephew, shared a video of the Marines boot camp graduation.

I was blessed to be a part of his life and Im so glad that I got to attend his graduation from boot camp, Argabrite wrote. There will always be a Zack-size hole missing from my heart. Semper Fi, Marine. Your tour of duty is over.

A greenhouse in Morgantown, W.Va., called the Plant Cult announced that it would close for part of the week to process Riffles death, describing him as a family member.

To know Zachary Riffle was a pleasure, to love him a privilege, a post on the businesss Facebook page said. When he decided to dedicate the next four years of his life to the USMC and serving his country, he understood it carried certain risks. However, neither Zachy (nor) any of us ever considered hed be gone too soon in (a) 100% preventable incident.

We can only now imagine what would have been for him, the post said.

Seventeen other Marines were injured in the crash, which North Carolina highway patrol officials said occurred when the medium tactical vehicle replacement they were riding in, commonly known as a 7-ton, took a turn too fast and overturned.

Marines were tossed into the roadway from the back of the truck and a trailing military vehicle that couldnt stop in time hit one of them.

Two Marines were airlifted to a medical center in Wilmington and were listed in critical condition after the crash, but are now in stable condition, the Marine Corps said.

The other 15 were taken to a hospital on the Marine Corps base, where they were initially in stable condition. Only one remains in the hospital there and the Marine is listed in stable condition, the service said.

The incident investigation remains ongoing, said the highway patrols Sgt. Marcus Bethea, in an email Friday.

The driver of the vehicle, a 19-year-old from Springfield, Tenn., has been charged with exceeding a safe speed and two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle, the highway patrol said Wednesday.

My sincerest heartfelt condolences are extended to the family, friends, and colleagues of the Marines who lost their lives or were injured in Wednesdays vehicle mishap, said Brig. Gen. Forrest C. Poole III, commanding general of the logistics group.

Both Gierke and Riffle completed basic training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and attended Marine Combat Training at School of Infantry-East at Camp Lejeune before completing the basic landing support specialist training at the same base.

They both were also recipients of the National Defense and Global War on Terrorism service medals, the service said.

All of the injured were active-duty Marines serving with the logistics group, the service said. Those who were discharged from medical care have returned to their units, it said.

Our commanders, chaplains, and medical providers are diligently supporting our Marines and sailors during this time, Poole said. We deeply appreciate all of the thoughtful community messages we have received over the past several days.
WASHINGTON  The USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group will participate in a NATO exercise in the Mediterranean Sea starting Monday amid simmering tensions over Russia amassing troops along its border with Ukraine, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday.

Neither Kirby nor Navy officials would specify what elements of the strike group would participate alongside the aircraft carrier, though the ship was operating last month with the guided-missile destroyers USS Banbridge, USS Cole, USS Gravely and USS Jason Dunham, according to a Dec. 23 service statement.

[The exercise is] designed to demonstrate NATO's ability to integrate the highest maritime strike capabilities of an aircraft carrier strike group to support the deterrence and defense of the alliance, Kirby said during a news briefing at the Pentagon.

Though it comes at a time when NATO-Russian tensions are running high as Russia continues to surge troops along its border with Ukraine, Kirby said NATO allies have been planning the exercise, dubbed Neptune Strike 2022, for about two years.

It wasn't planned back in 2020 anticipating a Russian move on Ukraine and  the exercise itself is not designed against the kinds of scenarios that that might happen with respect to Ukraine, he said.

Still, Kirby did not say why NATO members decided to continue with the exercise given the tensions with Russia.

We constantly look at exercises and training and ask ourselves  do we really need to do it now? Should we speed it up? Should we shorten it? he said. There was due consideration given about tensions right now about our exercise posture and after all that consideration and discussion with our NATO allies, the decision was made to move ahead.

The strike group will operate under NATOs control during the exercise, which will run through Feb. 4, Kirby said. Militaries from other NATO members will join the U.S. in coordinated maritime maneuvers, anti-submarine warfare training and long-rang strike training during Neptune Strike, though Kirby declined to specify what other nations will participate.

All of the training events will highlight the continuing steady progression of alliance cohesion in a high-end and dynamic environment, he said.

Since Tuesday, Russia has been conducting its own upcoming joint naval exercise with China and Iran in the Gulf of Oman, its defense ministry said in a statement Thursday.

The trio of U.S. adversaries are firing artillery at sea targets, and practicing joint maneuvering, organized search operations and releasing a ship seized by pirates until Saturday, according to the statement.

Russia also plans to send a detachment of ships into the Mediterranean Sea "in the future" for unspecified exercises, according to the ministry's statement.

Increased tensions

Russia has spent weeks moving troops to its western border with Ukraine as the U.S. and other NATO allies have been engaging in diplomatic discussions with Russian officials to come to a peaceful resolution. However, those efforts so far have fallen flat.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he wants NATO to bar Ukraine from any future membership in the alliance, a concession to which the U.S. will not agree, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday after discussing the issues with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, Switzerland.

I made clear to Minister Lavrov that there are certain issues and fundamental principles that the United States and our partners and allies are committed to defend, Blinken told reporters after the meeting. That includes those that would impede the sovereign right of the Ukrainian people to write their own future. There is no trade space.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday said it also wants the West to withdraw troops and military equipment from countries added to NATO in the past 25 years.

We are talking about the withdrawal of foreign forces, equipment and weapons and other steps in order to return to the configuration as of 1997 on the territory of countries that were not NATO members on the specified date, the ministry said in a translated statement. These include Bulgaria and Romania.

But President Joe Biden on Tuesday said the U.S. will increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, etc. should Russia invade Ukraine.

We have a sacred obligationto defend those countries, he said. They are part of NATO. We dont have that obligation relative to Ukraine, although we have great concern about what happens in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Russia sent thousands of troops into Belarus for what it claims are military exercises. A senior State Department official on Tuesday warned the exercise might be a ruse to allow Russia to invade Ukraine from its northern border with Belarus.

Blinken on Friday estimated that about 100,000 Russian troops are involved in operations along the countrys border with Ukraine and in Belarus.

Kirby would not definitely say whether he believed Russias actions in Belarus signaled a coming invasion into Ukraine, though he added the Pentagon has never classified all that force presence as indicative of an exercise.

When you have forces arrayed like that, they could exercise and conduct exercises -- and those exercises could, in fact, be to improve their capabilities for an invasion or incursion, he said. We're not splitting hairs here over whether they're exercising or they're not  [but] we see a sizable force presence that continues to increase. There's no sign of de-escalation here.

Diplomacy first

Blinken on Friday said President Joe Bidens administration continues to push for a diplomatic resolution, but Russia must be willing to make reciprocal concessions if it expects the U.S. to do so.

I expressed again to Minister Lavrov that on the security concerns that Russia has raised in recent weeks, the United States and our European allies and partners are prepared to pursue possible means of addressing them in a spirit of reciprocity, which means simply put that Russia must also address our concerns, he said. There are several steps that we can take, all of us, Russia included, to increase transparency, to reduce risks, to advance arms control, to build trust.

For example, the U.S. last week was willing to discuss changing the scale and scope of U.S. exercises in the region if and only if there was going to be reciprocity on the Russian side," Kirby said earlier this week.

One significant, key way for it to get de-escalated is for the Russians to pull some of those forces back away from the border with Ukraine and they have shown no inclination to do that, Kirby said Friday. In fact, quite the contrary, they continue to add to the force presence there.

More so, the U.S. will not shy away from military options should Russia invade Ukraine and NATO asks for assistance, Kirby and Blinken have said.

We've been clear if any Russian military forces move across Ukraine's border, that's a renewed invasion, Blinken said. It will be met with swift, severe, and a united response from the United States and our partners and allies.

He further warned that other acts of aggression, such as Russian cyberattacks or paramilitary tactics, will also be met with a decisive calibrated and, again, united response.

We engage in diplomacy and dialogue  but at the same time, we are embarked on a path of defense and deterrence, Blinken said. These things are not mutually inconsistent. In fact, they reinforce each other.

The Pentagon is also engaging in diplomatic talks with allies and partners. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Jan. 13 spoke with Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov regarding Russias ongoing and unprovoked military buildup in and around Ukraine, the Defense Department said in a statement last week.

Secretary Austin reaffirmed unwavering U.S. support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity, including ongoing efforts to build the capacity of Ukraines forces through the provision of defensive assistance, the Pentagon said. The leaders expressed support for diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions and committed to continuing their close coordination.

On Tuesday, Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, met virtually with NATO representatives from Canada, Lithuania, Poland and the United Kingdom to discuss the situation and reiterate their support for Ukraine, according to a DOD statement.

The U.S. has provided more than $2.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014  the last time Russia invaded the country, the Pentagon said last week. About $450 million of that was given in 2021 alone.

But Kirby would not say Friday whether more assistance such as U.S. military equipment could be sent to Ukraine.

Well have more to say about that later on, he said. We continue to provide security assistance to Ukraine, and I believe our State Department colleagues will have a little bit more to say about that later. I don't have anything to announce or speak to today.

To date, the U.S. has not sent troops to Ukraine to assist against a possible Russian attack, according to Kirby, though more than 100 Florida National Guard special operators are now in the country on an advise-and-assist deployment to help train Ukrainian troops.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy seized what they suspect is cocaine worth an estimated $22 million during a recent interdiction in the Caribbean Sea.

The littoral combat ship USS Milwaukee was involved in the Jan. 7 confiscation, which totaled roughly 700 pounds, U.S. 4th Fleet announced in a statement.

It is a good feeling knowing that a large number of drugs will not make it onto the streets of America or our partners in the Caribbean, Cmdr. Brian Forster, the Milwaukees commanding officer, said in the statement Wednesday.

The operation began when a patrol plane spotted a suspected drug smuggling boat, and the Milwaukee was directed to intercept.

The ship deployed its MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter and a rigid-hull inflatable boat, according to the statement.

The Coast Guard detachment saw packages being thrown into the water and then gained control of the boat. Coast Guard personnel recovered the packages from the water and five people were detained, the statement said.

The Milwaukee had deployed to the 4th Fleets area of operations to support Joint Interagency Task Force Souths mission, which includes interruption of drug trafficking in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean.
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan  The USS Fitzgerald steamed into Tokyo Bay on Friday, the guided-missile destroyers first visit to its former homeport since departing more than four years ago heavily damaged from a collision that killed seven sailors.

The Fitzgeralds return to Yokosuka is for a routine port visit, Task Force 71 spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Keiley told Stars and Stripes in an email Friday.

He declined to comment on the ships length of stay due to operational security but said its crew would be able to use on-base facilities in accordance with COVID-19 mitigation procedures set by U.S. Forces Japan.

The Fitzgerald departed Naval Base San Diego, where its been homeported since 2020, on Jan. 3 as part of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincolns strike group, according to the Navy. The group has since been operating in the Western Pacific.

On June 17, 2017, the Fitzgerald was sailing off the coast of Japan, approximately 64 miles southwest of Yokosuka, when it collided with the Philippine-flagged cargo ship ACX Crystal.

The accident caused significant damage to the destroyers superstructure and hull. A large puncture below the waterline flooded three compartments, and the captains cabin was destroyed.

A Navy investigation into the collision cited crew exhaustion, skipped certifications, poor watch-standing and training and manning problems among the causes of the collision, which the report found was preventable.

Navy officials ultimately relieved the ships two senior officers and a senior enlisted sailor, while also holding numerous officer and enlisted watch-standers accountable for the accident.

The incident was one of two collisions by 7th Fleet destroyers that summer. On Aug. 21, 2017, 10 sailors died aboard the USS John S. McCain when it ran into a Liberian-flagged commercial ship in the Strait of Malacca near Singapore.

In the days following its collision, the Fitzgerald was moved into a Yokosuka dry dock to evaluate the damage.

In November 2017, tugboats took the ship to deep water and linked it with the heavy-lift vessel MV Transshelf for transport back to the United States. However, the Fitzgerald was further damaged when its hull was punctured by the Transshelfs steel support structure.

The Fitzgerald finally departed Yokosuka aboard the Transshelf on Dec. 9, 2017, and was taken to a shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., for $523 million in repairs and upgrades.

In June 2020, a refurbished Fitzgerald set sail to rejoin the Pacific Fleet at its new homeport in San Diego.
Four years after the U.S. Navys costliest warship was hobbled by a flaw in its propulsion system, prime contractor Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. and subcontractor General Electric Co. are still haggling over who will pay for fixing the defect.

The $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford was forced to return to port during post-delivery sea trials in early 2018 after the failure of a main thrust bearing, a key propulsion system component made by GE.

Huntington Ingalls has repaired the faulty gear, and the Navy advanced funds for the work. The actual root cause of the defective part was machining errors by GE workers, according to Navy documents. The bearing, one of four that transfers thrust from the ships four propeller shafts, overheated but after securing the equipment to prevent damage, the ship safely returned to port, the Navy said in a March 2018 memo to Congress.

The Ford returned to sea for additional trials after the damage was contained. Now, the Navy wants to deploy it by midyear on its first operational patrol after years of problems and delays, formally bringing its carrier force to 11.

Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, then head of the Naval Sea Systems Command, told reporters in 2019 that the Navy was paying for the repairs until GE and Huntington figure out who has the liability for it. At some point youve got to pay them to get the work done. The Navy has declined to say how much it paid Huntington, although in 2018 it asked Congress to shift $30 million from other accounts to start work.

The companies are still hashing things out.

We are continuing to work on a final agreement with GE to resolve this claim, Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for Newport News, Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls, said in a statement. Sean Smith, a spokesman for Boston-based GE, said we continue working with the U.S. Navy and Huntington Ingalls to resolve this issue. GE hasnt commented publicly on the Navys contention that its workers were at fault.

Captain Clay Doss, a Navy spokesman, said the service does not comment on ongoing negotiations.

The Fords propulsion system flaws are separate from reliability issues that plagued its advanced system to launch and recover aircraft and the elevators needed to move munitions from below decks.
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Vaccine boosters provide robust protection against severe disease from the omicron variant in the United States, according to three reports released Friday that offer the first real-world data in this country showing the utility of the additional shots in keeping vaccinated people out of the hospital.

But the reports by scientists the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are arriving late to the winter surge in coronavirus cases that have choked the corridors of hospitals across much of the country.

When omicron was first identified in late November and began spreading rapidly in the United States, millions of vaccinated people lined up for the extra shots. But that has slowed. To date, 39% of fully vaccinated people have gotten the additional doses, according to the CDC.

Surveys by private polling firms suggest the uptake could be somewhat higher, and the CDC has acknowledged that its data may be an underestimate. Still, despite laboratory studies that show an extra dose jacks up antibodies, repeated urgings from Biden administration officials and more recently, a succession of reports from multiple countries affirming that protection, the boosters have not been embraced by Americans to the extent the initial shots were.

One CDC report analyzed data from hundreds of thousands of emergency room, urgent care visits and hospitalizations between August 2021 and Jan. 5, 2022. It showed that a third dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots was 90% effective at preventing hospitalization, and 82% effective in preventing a trip to the emergency room or urgent care. On average, people had received their booster within about 44 days of seeking medical help.

The data includes a three-week period when omicron was the predominant variant.

Omicron has a gaggle of mutations that enhance its ability to elude the neutralizing effects of antibodies, the first layer of immune system protection produced by the shots, as well as by natural infections. Most vaccinated people in the United States received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

Federal health officials have urged people to get the third shots for several months. CDC recommends booster shots for everyone ages 12 and older, five months after getting two doses of the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, or two months after a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Since early January, CDC officials have said people should get three doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or Modernas vaccines to be considered up-to-date on their inoculations, and those who got Johnson & Johnson should receive a second dose, preferably of Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech, to be considered up to date.

The protection from just two doses of those vaccines has declined since omicron became predominant, with the biggest decline among people who were six months past their second shot, said Mark Thompson, a CDC epidemiologist and lead author of the first report.

Thats the bad news, Thompson said. The good news is that for people who received a third booster dose, the effectiveness of three doses is very high and protects against moderately severe and severe disease. This is among the first data that really shows the actual level of protection in the United States.

Despite this protection against dire outcomes, boosters are not a guarantee against mild breakthrough infections. Most omicron infections are asymptomatic or mild  meaning the person can recover at home.

Health experts welcomed the new data, saying they hoped it would encourage millions of vaccinated Americans to get booster shots. The latest U.S. data echo what researchers in the United Kingdom previously found  that after a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine, protection against hospitalization was above 95% (two weeks after the shot) and remained around 80% even after four months.

A study published earlier in the week from Kaiser Permanente Southern California, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, showed much the same  protection against omicron-related hospitalization was nearly 90% four months after a booster.

We should be celebrating this, said Eric Topol, a molecular medicine professor at Scripps Research, referring to the findings. Public health officials need to message clearly that while the vaccines and booster shots are not holding up against omicron infections, they are holding up the wall against severe disease ... and thats phenomenal, he said. A booster is essential for preventing severe disease, hospitalization and deaths.

Its not clear why booster uptake has slowed. Omicron is generally described as a milder variant, despite its extraordinary transmissibility, meaning less likely than the previously dominant delta variant to cause severe disease. That fact, combined with general exhaustion with the pandemic, may sap the desire of some people to take additional steps to protect themselves. As whole nations shift their strategy to one of living with the virus, many people may discount the need to follow health officials advice.

The booster issue has also been dogged by controversy within the scientific and regulatory community and among global health leaders. The World Health Organization has repeatedly called for prioritizing vaccinations in countries where shots are hard to come by, rather than giving boosters in wealthy countries that are already largely vaccinated. And last year, some scientists in the United States, including at the Food and Drug Administration and CDC vaccine advisers, were skeptical boosters were necessary, since the initial doses continued to show good protection against severe disease and death.

Misinformation is also rampant in the United States, including the idea the vaccines dont work at all. Former President Trump was booed last year at a rally when he revealed he had gotten a booster shot.

The Biden administration made its booster recommendation last summer at a time when there were fewer studies and greater uncertainty.

We have lacked this level of data. Thats one of the reasons why there was so much discussion of booster recommendations back in the summer, said Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a former top official at the Food and Drug Administration.

Theres uncertainty as decisions are made, and these recent papers are filling in the blanks, he said. The evidence is coming in and its very strong.

Sharfstein, who regularly volunteers at a Baltimore city vaccination clinic, said many people getting their first shots say they never got around to it until their job required it. Others, including those getting boosters, are scared of omicron because they know people who are sick, he said.

In January, with the omicron wave slamming the country, about 682,000 booster doses were administered daily, according to the latest CDC data. That pushed up the share of vaccinated people who received a booster to 39%, up six percentage points. Just under half of the boosters went to people between 18 and 50.

But for vaccinated people over age 65, the most vulnerable group, more than one third have not received a booster. Only 4% of that group received boosters in January.

Some experts say the new studies argue for targeting boosters to high-risk populations.

I think that the booster discussion has been sidetracked by a desire for a one-size-fits-all-strategy, wrote Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in an email. The importance of boosters for those most vulnerable may be diluted by the messages for universal boosting coming from the administration, he said.

When I work in the hospital, it is not people that lack boosters that are occupying ICU beds - it is those that lack first and second doses. If everyone eligible to be boosted was boosted, hospitals would still have capacity problems because of the lack of first doses in high-risk individuals, he wrote.

Four states have given boosters to a majority of the vaccinated people, according to the latest CDC data: Vermont, Maine, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Five states plus the District of Columbia have given boosters to less than a third of the people with vaccinations: North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Texas and Mississippi.

Some experts say the messaging around the number of shots needed for vaccination has been confusing, in part because no one anticipated how the virus would evolve.

When vaccines were first rolled out in December 2020, officials made a communications blunder when they said vaccinations would be two shots, and done, Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Irvine, wrote in an email after reviewing the new data.

This fall, many were confused as a result of complicated booster guidelines. It was not until Nov. 19 that all American adults became eligible for coronavirus vaccine boosters.

As a result, many ordinary people may regard the push for boosters as a case of moving the goal posts, and are wary of getting on the train of never-ending boosters, Noymer wrote.

A second CDC report that looked at cases and deaths among unvaccinated and vaccinated adults from April to Dec. 25, 2021, found that when delta was the dominant variant, and in the initial days of omicron, people who were fully vaccinated and boosted had the highest protection against infection.

A study published in JAMA by CDC scientists also found that a third dose of an mRNA vaccine provides significant protection against symptomatic disease for both the delta and omicron variants, with greater protection against delta.
Frankfurt, Germany, January 1971: Actress Goldie Hawn stops off at the Frankfurt airport on her way to Hamburg, where three months of shooting was scheduled for her third film, $.
STUTTGART, Germany  Congress has slashed funding for a new U.S. military hospital in Germany, raising the prospect of more delays on a project that is already years behind schedule.

The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act cuts more than $100 million from the Pentagons $200 million request, which was to be used for construction on a facility slated to replace the aging Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

Last week, House lawmakers passed the defense bill, which allocated just $82.4 million for the new hospital at Rhine Ordnance Barracks, across from the Ramstein Air Base east gate. The Senate approved the same measure Friday, though President Donald Trump has threatened a veto despite the bill passing by more than a two-thirds majority.

The Army Corps of Engineers and medical officials in Europe declined to comment on what the budget cuts mean for the project, which began nearly seven years ago and was intended to be done by 2021.

In July, the Army Corps said the target completion date is December 2025. But that was before the impending budget cut, which suggests more delays are possible.

The Senate Armed Services Committees budget had originally called for eliminating all funds for the new medical center. During negotiations with House lawmakers, $82.4 million of the $200 million request was eventually restored.

The NDAA called for an incremental authorization of appropriations in an amount equal to the militarys ability to use the funds within the year they are appropriated.

Up until now, most of the work at the Rhine Ordnance Barracks site has been focused on infrastructure like utilities and supporting road work. The $200 million was to go toward actual construction, Army officials said earlier this year.

It wasnt clear why Congress reduced the medical centers budget by such a large amount. The NDAA offered no rationale for the cuts.

However, lawmakers had voiced skepticism in past years about the scope of the project during its early planning phase, which was happening as the U.S. was drawing down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and downsizing in Europe.

In 2014, Landstuhl was reduced from a comprehensive Level I trauma clinic to Level III, in connection with a large decline in the number of injured troops being evacuated from war zones for treatment. The medical clinic is still the largest U.S. hospital overseas and supports forces in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

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BEIRUT (Tribune News Service)  The swarm of drones and missiles traveled almost 1,000 miles before streaking over Abu Dhabis skyscrapers.

Some then split off toward the industrial district of Mussafah, just a few miles away from the United Arab Emirates Al-Dhafra Airbase, where U.S. forces are stationed, and smacked into large petroleum trucks of the state-owned oil company. The blast killed three people and injured six others.

The rest swerved toward Abu Dhabi International Airport and started a small fire in a construction site on the periphery, authorities said.

The attack earlier this week, for which the Iran-backed Houthi militia claimed responsibility, sparked the latest escalation in Yemens grinding seven-year civil war. Within hours, warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE pummeled Sana, the Houthi-controlled capital, killing some 20 people. And early Friday, further air retaliation from the coalition resulted in at least 70 reported civilian deaths and the internet being cut off for an entire city.

The tit-for-tat carnage underscores the complicated and often deadly calculus facing the U.S. in an ongoing conflict that appears to have only bad options.

The Houthis, members of a Shiite movement that has fought the Yemeni government for decades, first snatched control of Sanaa in 2014 before turning to the nations southern regions in a bid to seize full control of the country. Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim nation, fearing that Houthi control would allow its regional Shiite adversary, Iran, to establish a foothold near its border, assembled a coalition with allies, including the United Arab Emirates. It also launched  with U.S. assistance  a punishing air campaign as well as a land and sea blockade to support Yemens government in exile.

Over time, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have been killed in coalition airstrikes and ground combat or have starved to death  all of which have made the United Nations declare Yemen the worlds worst humanitarian crisis.

Though the Houthis regularly exchange missile fire with the Saudis, the Emirates had been spared since withdrawing its troops from Yemen in 2019, while continuing to train and assist anti-Houthi paramilitary groups. Those groups  along with Emirati drones deployed above them  were instrumental in pushing back the Houthis from Shabwah, a strategic, oil-rich province seen as a linchpin for controlling Yemens south and which the Houthis almost captured late last year.

There had been an implicit and very valuable understanding between the Houthis and the UAE that they wouldnt confront each other directly, said Thomas Juneau, a Yemen expert at the University of Ottawa.

But the Houthis campaign in Shabwa challenged that understanding, he added, and Mondays air attack opened a new, bloody chapter in the conflict.

On Wednesday, the UAEs ambassador and national intelligence director met with U.S. officials at the White House and the Capitol, while Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III called Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and underscored his unwavering support for the security and defense of UAE territory against all threats, according to a Pentagon statement.

The ambassador, Yousef Otaiba, also launched a concerted effort urging the Biden administration to re-designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization.

Biden, seeking to end the civil war as he also makes efforts to reinstitute a nuclear accord with Iran abandoned by former President Donald Trump, had reversed the eleventh-hour terror designation of the Houthis in the last days of the Trump administration. Biden has also halted support for the Saudi-led coalitions offensive operations and dispatched a veteran diplomat, Tim Lenderking, as special envoy to Yemen.

Asked Wednesday if he would now go ahead with the re-designation, Biden replied at a news conference that it was under consideration.

Ending the war in Yemen takes the two parties to be involved to do it, he added. And its going to be very difficult.

The UAE said in a statement it welcomed Bidens considering the re-designation.

Case is clear  launching ballistic and cruise missiles against civilian targets, sustaining aggression, diverting aid from Yemeni people, tweeted the UAE Embassys account on Twitter.

But it remains unclear if such a step would bring results, experts say, and, given the deadly toll of the retaliation, whether such a step remains warranted.

The airstrikes and (foreign terrorist organization) designation point once again to the limits of international leverage over the Houthis, said Peter Salisbury, a Yemen specialist with the International Crisis Group. And the problem is that a bad idea in the absence of a better alternative doesnt become a better idea.

This week brought stark confirmation of the ongoing collateral toll of the conflict. The Saudi-led coalition airstrikes left at least 70 prisoners dead and 138 wounded at the Remand prison in Saada, a Houthi-run northern Yemeni city, according to Doctors Without Borders.

Other airstrikes targeted Sanas airport and a telecommunications center in the coastal city of Hodeida, effectively shutting off internet for TeleYemen, which serves as the main internet provider in the country. Netblocks, a group that monitors telecommunications disruptions, said internet effectively remains entirely offline a day later, hampering humanitarian and rescue efforts.

Aid groups that had protested the terror designation last year because of legal obstacles it would impose on humanitarian deliveries to Houthi-controlled areas are raising the alarm again.

The Biden administration didnt make a decision to reverse this designation because of the Houthis conduct. They did it because of the devastating humanitarian consequences it would have, and moreover because it wouldnt be effective diplomatically, said Scott Paul, Oxfam Americas humanitarian policy lead, in a phone interview. Nothing has changed from a year ago. This is high-stakes name-calling, and its Yemenis across the country that would pay the price.

Pressing on with a military offensive is also likely to spur more attacks from the Houthis on the UAE  anathema for a country that bills itself as a mecca for the business-first pragmatists in the region. And defending cities such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai against drones and missiles with current weapons systems isnt feasible, said Michael Knights, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The Emiratis want directed-energy weapons and interception way out of the cities, Knights said, adding that such programs were still in their infancy. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders have raised the possibility of selling its Iron Dome anti-missile system to the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The ongoing hostilities have also affected shipping. On New Years Day, the Houthis hijacked a UAE-flagged tanker, the Rwabee. The vessel and the crew are still held, Houthi officials said, pending a legal case for breaching Yemens territorial waters.

The backdrop to the attacks is the U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran over its nuclear weaponry development program. That has left Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both cheerleaders of the Trump administrations maximum pressure campaign on Tehran, seeking their own rapprochement with their longtime adversary, even as they insist, along with the U.S. and Israel, that Iran directs the Houthis and has supplied them with advanced weaponry to wage their attacks as part of a network of Iran-backed militias across the region. (In recent days, Iran-linked militias in Iraq had also issued threats against the UAE, hinting at some kind of coordination.)

Iranian leaders contend the Houthis are fighting their own battles and deny supplying them with advanced weapons.

The UAE, which also hopes to renew economic links with Iran, has led reengagement efforts. Last year, it dispatched its national security adviser to meet with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran and invited him to visit in February. That invitation has yet to be rescinded after the Houthis strike nor have Emirati officials named Iran in their statements of condemnation.

The UAE is after two tracks when it comes to Iran: Confront Iranian militias and Tehrans tentacles in the region and now in Yemen, so were pushing on that military side while at the same time were handling the diplomatic track, said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati political science professor.

The Houthis contend their arsenal is locally manufactured. A confidential U.N. Security Council report viewed by the Los Angeles Times said the Houthis build most of their missiles and rockets using local materials, as well as components sourced from abroad through a complex web of intermediaries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Houthi officials say they have no need to coordinate such attacks with anyone.

We have a very large war being waged against us; isnt that justification enough to respond to this aggression? We were defending ourselves back when we didnt have these capabilities, said Nasr al-Din Amir, deputy chief of the Houthis ministry of information, vowing that the group would attack anyone who attacked it. Let the world today end the nuclear standoff with Iran. If it happens and the war upon us continues, then well continue fighting.

In the meantime, said Ahmed Nagi, a nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, that has left policymakers in a quandary.

Either you go for escalation, and expect drones and attacks from your sides. The other option is to surrender to the Houthis conditions and withdraw ... or you try to achieve a military stalemate and work on the diplomatic track, Nagi said.

But with the Houthis unwilling to meet even with the U.N. envoy, that balance may be hard to achieve, said Mohammad Basha, a Yemen expert at the U.S.-based Navanti Group, a consultancy.

The path for peace and stability in Yemen seems far-fetched at this stage, he said. Houthi leadership had gone on the record and said they will not stop military operations until every inch of Yemen is liberated.

2022 Los Angeles Times.

Visit at latimes.com .

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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WASHINGTON  Calls are growing on Capitol Hill for the Biden administration to release some of the billions of dollars in seized Afghan financial assets the United States is keeping frozen.

The calls from dozens of Democrats, and at least one Republican, have become more urgent in recent weeks as worries deepen about the massive hunger crisis confronting Afghanistans citizens  as well as how a local Islamic State group might exploit the dwindling conditions to capture more territory in the troubled South Asian country.

When the Taliban seized power in August, the Biden administration responded by quickly taking control of the vast majority of the former Kabul central governments foreign reserves  roughly $9.4 billion. The overwhelming amount of that sum were held in U.S. banks, including $7 billion kept at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

On Wednesday, more than 40 House lawmakers, led by Reps. Jason Crow, D-Colo., Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., and Peter Meijer, R-Mich., urged President Joe Biden to release a substantial share of the frozen reserves to relevant U.N. agencies. The group said those funds could be used to relieve some of the Afghan peoples suffering.

The lawmakers argued the worsening food crisis is a significant contributor to Afghanistans mass migration problems and is something that could be used by the local Islamic State affiliate, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province or ISKP, to destabilize the Taliban and seize more territory that could become a safe haven for terrorist groups.

We have not just a moral obligation to help the Afghan people, but a national interest in preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for our enemies, according to the letter. The group added, We cannot allow Afghanistan to once again become a breeding ground for terrorist organizations intent on killing Americans and attacking our nation, but that dreadful scenario will be made more likely if we fail to address the heart-wrenching humanitarian situation unfolding there today.

The letter also acknowledged that a portion of the frozen funds may need to be held back as part of an eventual payment to the families of some of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, who two decades ago won civil court judgments against the Taliban.

Cosigners of the letter included many of the House Democratic caucus national security leaders, including the chairmen of the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

The lawmakers want some of the frozen reserves to be funneled through U.N. agencies to pay the salaries of Afghan civil servants and teachers  an action that could help shore up public confidence in the new government and maybe even bring some much-needed stability to the Taliban-led ruling class.

The United Nations has warned that 1 million Afghan children are at risk of starving this winter and the U.N World Food Programme has warned that 95% of Afghan households do not currently have enough to eat.

One month ago, more than 40 House liberals, led by Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., also sent a letter to Biden that called for the release of the frozen reserves on humanitarian grounds.

But Republicans are still mostly opposed to any release of the foreign reserves, arguing doing so would indirectly benefit the Taliban, who remain under U.S. sanctions.

My view is that those funds were meant for a democratic government, not for a terrorist government and itd be outrageous if they received the money, House Foreign Affairs Middle East subcommittee ranking member Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said in a Thursday interview. It would not go to the people; it would go to maintain the terrorists and the mass murder that is actually going on today.

But Crow, a former Army Ranger who served two tours in Afghanistan, said he couldnt disagree more with that argument.

If youre interested in preventing terrorism and instability, you want to prevent a famine and you want to prevent massive refugee movements, which are one of the greatest predictors of terrorism there is, Crow said. We want stability, we want to make sure were preventing starvation  and thats also in the best interest of (U.S.) national security and preventing terrorism.

Meanwhile, 18 senators  including one Republican, Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas  wrote to Biden on Thursday to request he include robust funding for emergency international food aid in any additional supplemental funding request he might soon send to Congress.

2020 and 2021 have seen the highest levels of hunger in more than ten years with the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating conflict areas and severe droughts, the senators wrote. Nowhere are the humanitarian needs more acute than in Afghanistan, where freezing winter weather is only worsening acute hunger.
Stars and Stripes is making stories on the coronavirus pandemic available free of charge. See more stories here. Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter here. Please support our journalism with a subscription.

WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service)  A federal judge in Texas blocked the Biden administrations vaccine mandate for federal workers nationwide Friday, in a ruling that leans on a Supreme Court order last week that stopped a similar rule for larger businesses.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown in the Southern District of Texas wrote that granting the preliminary injunction is about the authority of the president, and not about whether folks should get vaccinated against COVID-19  the court believes they should.

It is instead about whether the President can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment, Brown wrote in a 20-page order . That, under the current state of the law as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 order last week, halted an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule for larger businesses to either require vaccination or have a masking and testing policy early this year. The court concluded that Congress gave the agency the power to regulate workplace dangers but not health care more broadly.

Brown pointed to part of that Supreme Court ruling that held COVID-19 is not a workplace risk, but rather 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.

Applying the same logic means President Joe Biden did not have statutory authority to issue the federal worker mandate either, Brown concluded.

The Justice Department immediately filed a notice Friday that it would appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, and the issue of the injunction appears likely to go to the Supreme Court.

Also last week, in a 5-4 order, the Supreme Court did allow a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services vaccine mandate for health care workers at federally funded health care facilities.

In the three decisions in Texas and at the Supreme Court, the challenges to the Biden administration actions were at preliminary stages, when courts were deciding whether to allow the actions to go into effect while the lawsuits moved through the legal system.

Brown wrote that he made the injunction nationwide to avoid confusion, since the lead plaintiff in the case, Feds for Medical Freedom, has more than 6,000 members in every state and nearly every federal agency.

The initial lawsuit asking for the injunction says there are more than 1 million federal employees who would have to either submit to forced vaccination pursuant to illegal mandates, or forfeit a career built up over years or decades of faithful public service.

The Justice Department argued in the case that the vaccination requirement, designed to stem the spread of this deadly and highly contagious disease within the federal workforce and among the millions of Americans it serves  fits comfortably within the Presidents broad authority to oversee the Executive Branch workforce.

The mandate, which includes a religious or medical exemption but without an option to get tested instead, was issued Sept. 9. The government initially said it would discipline noncompliant employees near the end of November, but put it off until this year and some of those actions are imminent, Brown wrote.

2022 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Visit cqrollcall.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Some 220 military medical troops are set to deploy in the coming days to hospitals in eight states to aid staffs overburdened by the recent surge in coronavirus cases across the United States, military officials announced Friday.

The deployments of the military medical teams of doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists includes about 120 active-duty troops announced last week by President Joe Biden and another 100 announced Friday by U.S. Army North. The troops from the Army, Navy and Air Force will deploy to medical facilities in Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas, Army officials said.

The new wave of deployments will bring the number of active-duty military medical troops working to bolster coronavirus support to U.S. hospitals to about 400, according to Army North. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last month approved the military to deploy up to 1,000 new medical troops into U.S. hospitals, if requested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

As our support to FEMA and the whole-of-government response to the pandemic expands due to a surge in hospitalizations, we are committed to working alongside our civilian medical partners to assist hard-hit states and communities in need, said Lt. Gen. John Evans, the U.S. Army North commander. Whether military or civilian, we are in this fight together.

Biden said Jan. 13 that the deployments have been driven by the emergence of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, the most infectious version of the disease since the pandemic spread worldwide in early 2020. Coronavirus cases reported to federal health officials have fallen slightly from a pandemic high of more than 1.3 million cases on Jan. 10 to about 708,000 as of Friday. Hospitalizations in the United States have remained at pandemic-high rates with almost 160,000 Americans hospitalized as of Friday, federal health data shows. Hospitalizations peaked in 2020 at about 140,000 last January, amid the delta variants surge.

Pentagon and state officials have provided active-duty and National Guard troops to the coronavirus response since its emergence in the United States in early 2020. Including the new deployments, active-duty medical troops will be serving in hospitals in 15 states, according to Army North. Another 6,000 Guard medical troops were deployed to hospitals, care centers and medical facilities, according to National Guard Bureau statistics.

U.S. Army North said the teams deploying include a 40-person Navy team to Christian Hospital in St. Louis; a 20-person Army team to University Hospital in Newark, N.J.; a 20-person Air Force team to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; a 20-person Army team to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence; a 20-person Army team to Baptist St. Anthonys Hospital in Amarillo, Texas; a 20-person Army team to Northern Navajo Medical Center in Shiprock, N.M.; a 20-person Navy team to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque; a 20-person Army team to Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital in Wyandotte, Mich.; a 20-person Army team Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y.; and another 20-person Army team to North Central Bronx Hospital in Bronx, N.Y.

Pentagon officials have declined to say how long the troops were expected to deploy. John Kirby, the Defense Departments top spokesman, said last week that they would not be open-ended deployments but end dates have yet to be determined.

We don't think that they will last an inordinate amount of time, Kirby told reporters Jan. 13.
WASHINGTON  House Democrats want military historians to document the effects of the previous bans on LGBTQ troops in an effort to prevent similar prohibitions in the future.

Reps. Mark Takano, D-Calif., Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Jackie Speier, D-Calif., wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday, urging him to conduct a historical review of LGBTQ treatment in the military and fully examine the legacy of policies like Dont Ask, Dont Tell.

The military services employ a significant complement of professional historians who could document and examine the impact of these prohibitions on the military, the lawmakers wrote. We believe that this unique resource should be leveraged to fully understand the experiences of LGBTQ+ service members and other personnel who served during this era in which open service was banned.

Takano is chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, and Smith is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Speier leads a House subcommittee on military personnel.

Dont Ask, Dont Tell  a policy that was in effect for 17 years  forced about 14,000 service members out of the military. In many cases, those troops were given other-than-honorable discharges, making them ineligible for many government benefits, including Department of Veterans Affairs health care, disability compensation, home loans and burial benefits.

September 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of the repeal of Dont Ask, Dont Tell.

The lawmakers want a historical review to include oral histories of some of the LGBTQ troops who served when Dont Ask, Dont Tell and preceding policies were in place. They also want the Defense Department to analyze the negative effects of the prohibitions on the militarys mission, such as determining how many potential recruits might have been turned away from military service.

A historical review could prevent future bans, the lawmakers argued.

They referenced the restrictions on transgender troops imposed by former President Donald Trump in 2019. Biden reversed the ban soon after taking office in 2021.

We know from recent history that some gains can prove transient, they wrote.
(Tribune News Service)  A 103-year-old Springfield World War II veteran who flew missions over Europe as a B-17 tail gunner died Tuesday.

Thomas Eubanks would have turned 104 on Sunday.

He meant the world to everybody that knew him, Kevin Black, Eubanks grandson, said. He meant the world to everybody that was around him ... he meant the world to me.

Eubanks dropped out of high school in 10th grade, Black said. He was a teenager during the Great Depression and had to work to help his family survive. He was a World War II veteran in the Army Air Corps.

Black said after the war, his grandfather worked and retired from Springfield as a city building inspector. After retirement, his grandparents would visit Montana frequently. Black said his grandmother, Eubanks wife Sue, died in 2000.

He was a self-taught architect, home builder and gunsmith. He built and designed homes and worked for the city, he said. He helped so many people with home projects, even in his 90s, he was helping with a church remodel. He showed me how to shoot a gun for the first time since he was a gunsmith. He taught me how to rope a horse.

Eubanks, who had a full hip replacement right before his 102 birthday, also liked to fish and spend time with family.

He was always outgoing and a very active guy, Black said.

Eubanks had lived in an independent nursing home in Springfield before he tested positive for COVID-19 in November 2020 for the first time. He then went to live at Forest Glen Health Campus before he eventually tested positive for COVID-19 again a couple of weeks ago.

He was very active, even at 103 years old, Black said. Even at his age at 103, he knew every grandkid, every great-grandkid, every great-great-grandkid. He knew them all, knew all of their names. He could even tell in-depth stories of World War II.

In 2020, Eubanks was recognized by Ohios Community Mercy Hospice for his service during World War II. The team held a veteran recognition ceremony for him on Memorial Day that included his children, their spouses, grandchildren and great-grandchild.

Eubanks is survived by his sons, Steve and David; daughters, Sandra Black and Cathy Ferguson; grandchildren Steve, Shane, Jenny, Kevin, Kendra, Chad, Autumn, Kristy and Ren; 25 great-grandchildren; and eight great-great-grandchildren, according to his obituary.

Eubanks funeral services will be held on Tuesday. The visitation will be at 11 a.m. and the service at noon. Burial will follow in the Myers cemetery with military honors.

Online condolences can be left at www.richardsraffanddunbar.com .

(c)2022 Springfield News-Sun, Ohio

Visit Springfield News-Sun at www.springfieldnewssun.com
Stillwater, OK (74074)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High 66F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low 58F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
Changes to the SunCommercial's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition, by default, is now presented in Text view.
It has world-class surf breaks, glow-worm caves, and of course one of New Zealands mightiest rivers  and now the Waikato District can also claim the title of luckiest area for Lotto NZ winning in 2021.

With a population of about 62,000 residents, Waikato District was pushed to the top of the lucky list after a family in Pokeno won $42.2 million in October  the second largest prize ever won in Lotto NZs 34-year history.

The whopping prize meant that on average Waikato locals won $842.19 per capita  over $100 more than the second luckiest region.

After claiming their prize, Pokenos new multi-millionaires say they are excited not just for themselves and their family, but also for what the win would mean to their local community.

Not only will we be able to help out the kids, but well also be able to help the people around us  we love where we live and are looking forward to being able to help out and support local businesses.

While the North Island may have taken out the top spot, second place has gone to the South Island.

The Mackenzie country is renowned for its majestic scenery, but lucky locals will now also be able to celebrate living in Lotto NZs second luckiest spot for 2021, with Lotto NZ winnings in the area working out to a cool $735.24 per capita.

And it appears some good luck also rubbed off on the Waikatos neighbouring district Matamata Piako, which has taken out third place with an average of $550.65 per capita won in the area over the course of the year

Rounding out the top ten luckiest lottery districts was Carterton, Ashburton, Kawerau, New Plymouth, Tauranga, Central Hawkes Bay and Rotorua.

A total of 21 lucky Kiwis lives changed overnight last year after winning big with Powerball First Division  including a lucky Cantabrian who took home a $22.5 million Powerball prize in February, the second-largest Powerball prize of the year.

However, it took some convincing before the lucky winners grown-up children believed he really had won big.

Neither of my kids believed me  when I told my daughter she just said, Im sick of your tricks Dad, put Mum on, the winner says.

But it wasnt just Kiwis playing in-store who won big with Powerball last year, with eight very lucky players taking home life-changing Powerball wins when playing online at MyLotto.

This included a woman from Hamilton who got the surprise of her life when she discovered she had won $16.5 million with Powerball.

Half the fun of buying a Powerball ticket is imagining what youd do if you won big  its something I love doing with the family, says the winner.

Im still getting my head around the fact that Ive won $16.5 million  it still kind of feels impossible. But the more I think about it, the more real it feels.

But Lotto players werent the only ones celebrating this year  there was plenty of winning with Instant Kiwi around the country as well. In 2021, a total of 69 lucky Instant Kiwi players experienced the thrill of winning prizes over $50,000 with Instant Kiwi in-store and online.

But it is the small North Island district of Carterton that has claimed the title of luckiest Instant Kiwi area for 2021.

With a population of less than 10,000, on average Carterton locals won $103.96 per capita with Instant Kiwi games across the year.

Rounding out the top five luckiest Instant Kiwi districts was Kawerau, Gore, Ashburton and Central Otago.

Lotto NZ exists to generate essential funding for Kiwi communities  its why we do what we do. With 100% of Lotto NZ's profits supporting thousands of great causes every year, every time you play one of Lotto NZ's games, youre a Kiwi helping other Kiwis. More information is available on MyLotto: https://mylotto.co.nz/community-funding
Murupara GP, Doctor Bernard Conlon says he has received notification from the Medical Council of New Zealand that it intends to suspend him ahead of the investigation into the various complaints laid against him.

A complaint was first made against Dr Conlon after he made public comments questioning informed consent in pregnant women and children at a Maori health hui in August.

Further complaints about Dr Conlons professional conduct were made to Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins by an unnamed junior doctor who was working at the clinic for three months last year.

The complaints have since been forwarded to the Medical Council.

Among the accusations are that he labelled patient notes of people who have had the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine as becoming magnetic, which Dr Conlon describes to the Beacon as baffIing.

He says the words becoming magnetic did appear on one patients notes, but only because that patient described and demonstrated to him that they were able to stick coins to their stomach six weeks after receiving the Pfizer vaccine and telling him that they were becoming magnetic.

I have the less usual trait of believing my patients when they present with unusual symptoms, he says.

[The patient] was able to provide visual evidence that six coins could remain on [the patients] torso, which I documented in [the patients] notes. That a junior trainee would find such clinical honesty somehow worthy of report to the Medical Council still somewhat baffles me. However, it is strange times indeed.

Dr Conlon has also been accused of celebrating when he heard the news that Murupara had the lowest vaccination rates in New Zealand, which was witnessed by the junior doctor who was a dinner guest in his home.

He has applied for a practice exemption to allow unvaccinated staff to continue to work at the Murupara Medical Centre.

As well as himself and partner Dr Britta Noske being unvaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, he says three of the practices receptionists and one nurse had also opted not to get it.

As employers, we value our staff and have reconfigured the surgery to allow ongoing employment for all, while still excluding the non-vaccinated from patient contact as per the covid-19 order. I find the jab or your job policy, frankly, repugnant.

Dr Conlon says he has acquired unpopularity for openly speaking out against mandatory vaccination, and that he has further irritated the Ministry of Health for attempting to import ivermectin  hoping to then make it available for free to my high-risk patients when they are infected with Covid-19".

The Ministry of Health seems disinterested in the success of this approach in countries such as Brazil, India, Mexico and Japan and would prefer infected patients being given only paracetamol and a pulse oximeter. Very sad indeed when one looks at the amazing success overseas. We have already monitored, successfully, eight patients with Covid-19, without issue.

Dr Bernard Conlon plants a rose in front of his Murupara Medical Clinic during a rally in his support in November.

Dr Conlon has also filed a case in the Rotorua District Court seeking a judicial review of a Medsafe decision to confiscate a consignment of ivermectin he was importing for his patients.

Three days after making a legitimate legal challenge to Medsafes decision to take possession of my ivermectin, the Ministry of Health laid a further complaint against me to the Medical Council  for unprofessional behaviour.

Then, just before Christmas, I received notification from the Medical Council that they intended to suspend me ahead of the investigation into the various complaints, for the safety of the New Zealand public.

Dr Conlon says he has submitted his opposition to this proposal on Tuesday this week but held no real hope that it would be reversed.

I plan to appeal at the district court level and hope a more just decision is achieved.
Vaccine passes will become compulsory to enter Western Bay libraries, service centres and swimming pools should New Zealand move to red under the traffic light framework.

Western Bay of Plenty District Councils decision follows Prime Minister Jacinda Arderns announcement the country would move to the strictest traffic light setting of the Covid-19 Protection Framework within 24-48 hours of the Omicron variant entering the community.

Council CEO John Holyoake says with the risk of Omicron in the community it is vital to make key decisions now to allow everyone to prepare and to limit the spread of the virus.

Should we move to red we will require vaccine passes from people aged 12 years and older before entry at all Council facilities. We appreciate this is a shift from our current system of not requiring vaccine passes but we believe this is the safest option, says John.

We are constantly reviewing our processes to ensure we make careful decisions that have minimal impact on Councils services and operations and balance continuity of these services with the safety of our people and the public.

Facilities requiring vaccine passes at red for people aged 12 years and older will be:

Council library and service centres: Waihi Beach, Katikati, Omokoroa, Barkes Corner and Te Puke

Swimming pools: Dave Hume, Katikati and Te Puke Memorial Pool

TECT Park arrival centre ONLY

Council is currently not requiring the use of My Vaccine Pass as a condition of entry at the above facilities for people aged 12 years and older.

At all Council facilities the appropriate health, hygiene and safety measures remain in place including QR scanning upon entry, using the Covid-19 tracer app, wearing a face mask, ensuring physical distancing of 1m and if you have cold and flu symptoms isolate immediately and call Healthline for advice about a test.

Alongside this decision, anyone wishing to attend or speak in public forum at a Council or Community Board meeting must present their vaccine pass. This takes effect from the first meeting of 2022  the Katikati Community Board on February 2.

Zoom options are available for members of the public who wish to speak in public forum or attend remotely and meetings will continue to be live-streamed. You can watch Councis previous and upcoming livestreams on their YouTube channel.

Were continuing to look for innovative ways to provide our District with access to our services in a safe way. Where we can, we will adapt the way we do things, says John.

We thank the community for their patience and working with us as we all navigate Covid-19 together.

For more information visit: westernbay.govt.nz/covid-19
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What just happened? Russia has proposed following China in coming down hard on cryptocurrency. The country's central bank has suggested banning the use and mining of crypto within its territories over concerns it could damage Russia's financial system and environment.

Elizaveta Danilova, the Bank of Russia's Financial Stability Department director, presented the 'Cryptocurrencies: trends, risks, measures' report during an online press conference.

The report states that cryptocurrency bears many similarities to a pyramid scheme and is often used in criminal activities. It also undermines monetary policy sovereignty by offering citizens a way to take their money out of the national economy.

The report goes on to say that crypto mining is damaging to Russia's green agenda, a risk to its energy supply, and can worsen the adverse effects of cryptocurrency's spread.

"Potential financial stability risks associated with cryptocurrencies are much higher for emerging markets, including in Russia," the central bank said.

Making payments using crypto is already banned in Russia, and mutual funds are prohibited from investing in it. Yet, the country is still the world's third-largest crypto mining nation behind the US and Kazakhstan.

While the bank does not propose making the owning of cryptocurrency illegal, it wants harsher punishments for those who break the current rules and is asking for new laws to ban crypto's use. As for mining, the report states that the "optimal solution" would be to ban it altogether in Russia.

It should also be noted that people with offshore exchange accounts would still be able to trade crypto, and any ban first needs to be passed by law.

Bitcoin's price has fallen from around $43,200 to just under $39,000 in the last 24 hours.
If you are an Android or iOS user, then it is important to know the most reliable privacy-focused browsing apps for your device. Right now, various security threats are appearing.

Some of these breaches can hack your sensitive details, which can lead to theft. As of the moment, Google Chrome is the most-used browsing tool for computers and smartphones.

However, even this advanced online browsing app still suffers from flaws. Recently, Tech Times reported that Google Chrome users were urged to update their browsers because of a new critical security vulnerability.

Although you can change some Google Chrome settings to enhance your browsing privacy, it is still better to use browsing apps that are already designed to offer security and data privacy.

Top Android, iOS Privacy-Focused Apps

According to MUO's latest report, there are some things you need to consider before choosing the right privacy-focused app for your Android or iOS smartphone. These include the following:

Look for a browsing app that offers cross-platform support.

Also Read: Spotify Reigns as Most Used Music Streaming Platform in 2021 | Apple Music Increases Market Share

Check if the browsing app offers a good privacy policy.

Look for privacy-oriented features on the browsing app.

Avoid installing browsing apps that claim to offer complete anonymity.

Check the popularity of the browsing app.

Now that you know the things you need to consider when choosing a privacy-focused browsing app, here are some of the most-trusted applications you can install:

Brave Private Browser

Ghostery Browser

Avast Secure Browser

Tor Browser

Onion Browser

Firefox Browser

DuckDuckGo Browser

If you want to see more details about the mentioned browsing tools, you can visit this link to see their exact features.

Why Browsing Privacy is Important

Sun Corp explained why online privacy or browsing privacy is important. One of the most common reasons is your bank account.

Since most people are now doing online transactions, their banking details are put at risk. This is why you need to make sure that when you browse for items online, your banking information is secured.

On the other hand, your real identity can also be used by online attackers for their malicious campaigns. Because of this, security experts are now urging people to limit the amount of personal information they upload on their social media accounts.

For more news updates about privacy-focused apps, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Top 5 Best Social Media Management Tools for Small Businesses To Be the Next Big Thing

This article is owned by TechTimes

Written by: Griffin Davis

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Samsung's February Event, which will be launching the next Galaxy S series, has been confirmed, hinting that the Note series is coming to an end.

Samsung February Event Confirmed

As per a news story by The Verge, the South Korea-based phone maker has already confirmed in a press release from the president of Samsung, T M Roh, that the next Unpacked event is set to kick off next month.

However, Samsung has yet to release more specific details regarding its upcoming event in February, such as the date and time. In the meantime, fans were only assured that Unpacked would be unleashing the next S series from the phone maker.

Meanwhile, according to a report by Engadget, some rumors predict that the Feb. event of Samsung is happening on Feb. 8.

Samsung Galaxy S Series 2022

The Samsung exec further said in his blog that "the next generation of Galaxy S is here."

Although the giant phone maker has yet to unveil the specs of the upcoming S series, the president of Samsung hinted at some of what fans should expect.

The next smartphone of the tech giant is touted to sport both speed and power in terms of performance. Not to mention that the built-in tools within the mobile device are also expected to bring more efficiency.

On top of that, the Samsung boss also claims that the cameras of the next S lineup are expected to take "the best and brightest photos and videos you've ever captured with a phone."

Read Also: Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Lineup Leaks | AMOLED Display, Notch, Snapdragon 8, and MORE

Samsung S Series to Replace Note?

The Verge further noted in the same report that the Galaxy Note Series was nowhere to be found in 2021. As such, some are still skeptical that the lineup is getting a comeback in 2022.

Now, Roh is seemingly hinting that these Note fans should expect their favorite Galaxy phone lineup to be absent for this year yet again.

The Samsung boss went on to say that the upcoming smartphones of the South Korean phone maker are "the most noteworthy S series device we've ever created."

He added that the upcoming smartphone will bring "together with the greatest experiences of our Samsung Galaxy into one ultimate device."

The news release from the South Korean tech giant also hinted at the end that the Note series will be passed on to the upcoming Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Related Article: Samsung Sticks to Foldables, While Market Data Shows that AR and VR Industry Can Reach $300 Billion in Value in 2024

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Teejay Boris

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
PlayStation's creator, Ken Kuratagi, recently said that he disapproves of the Metaverse and would rather hang out in real life than the digital world. It might indicate that the PlayStation's development would lean towards games only and an augmented reality experience, but not of a Metaverse for the console.

PlayStation's Ken Kuratagi: Disapproves of the Metaverse

Ken Kuratagi's recent interview with Bloomberg revealed a lot of opinions from the PlayStation's creator's feelings of the upcoming Metaverse. Here, Kuratagi said he prefers real-life over a shared world or a digital experience that confines a person to see the created knowledge.

The gaming legend is also not a fan of AR and virtual reality (VR) headsets.

Instead of focusing on Metaverse development, Kuratagi would rather focus on creating robots powered by AI that would help society. Despite the plans of the PlayStation division from Sony of a new PSVR2 unveiled in CES 2022, the PS inventor still does not approve of the hardware as it confines people from seeing the real world.

Read Also: Sony Wants To Keep Activision Games Available On PlayStation After Xbox Merger

No PS Meta? Kuratagi Says Robotics for Better Society

Kuratagi would instead focus his career on something that would help society, and he believes it is with Ascent.AI's focus on robotics. The inventor's startup boasts of a Japan-made robot that aims to bring valuable functions and assistive technology that may soon be of service to the world.

However, this does not entirely put the PS Meta out of the equation as Sony can develop the experience themselves, putting it on PlayStation for application. Moreover, it could invite other creators to play on the console for their Metaverse.

PlayStation and its Popularity

The PlayStation is a massively known console globally, and it took the world by storm when it launched in the late 90s for people to enjoy and play games. Currently, the world is looking at the fifth regular release of the PlayStation with the PS5, bringing the first white-colored console from Sony's production since its first release that focused on grey then black.

Sony's PlayStation became a global hit, with a massive fandom in different places of the world, with people willing to pay more to receive the console in their region. Leaks show that there are new patents for the console from Sony, and it would focus on a dual GPU version of it that would focus on cloud gaming at home.

But it highly resembles that of the PS5 Digital Version that removed the disc slot already.

Nevertheless, Ken Kuratagi's original PlayStation brought the world one of its earliest consoles and the succeeding ones, including the PS2, PS3, and the PS4. The focus of Kuratagi towards robotics is suitable for a better society, aiming to bring a helping hand through mechanical technology.

However, the PS Metaverse may not be scrapped at all as it could allow other metas to play on the console or bring over what Sony developed for the platform.

Related Article: Sony PlayStation VR Gets its Next Version, PSVR2, During CES 2022-Here's What to Expect

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Written by Isaiah Richard

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Google has Project Iris kept under wraps, and the secret venture is an augmented reality (AR) headset that the company does not reveal in public. Like Apple, the famous internet company keeps this new hardware in the dark for a surprise drop soon, leaving people wondering how the device would look once it releases for the world.

Google Project Iris: AR Headset Kept in Secret

Google's Project Iris is now known to the public as speculations talk about the new AR headset that is kept secret to the public. According to The Verge's report, Google is now focusing its efforts on the said project with a deadline of 2024, aiming to deliver the headset by the timeline and provide its services to the public.

The speculations come from a job listing in Google Careers for a Senior Software Engineer for Augmented Reality Software that rumors say will power the AR headset for when it comes. Marc Lucovsky announced on Twitter that he would be joining the team to develop the software and bring an OS for an unknown project.

Read Also: Google Moves Away from Legacy Chrome Apps to Progressive Web Apps with Calculator

Google to Venture to AR, Metaverse?

The speculations on a Google AR headset indicate a massive move towards AR is only leaks or rumors from several sources but is not confirmed by the internet company. Nevertheless, the development team and behind-the-scenes confirmation of its employees suggest a strong indication of a new AR device.

Additionally, it will rival Meta's new device and releases from Apple and PlayStation on AR headsets.

Google's Projects and Innovations

Google has several projects kept under wraps and only revealing itself during showcases of the company or when a release is due. Notable devices and software have been a part of Google's projects without actually releasing to the public, as some continue to the public, and some are facing the inevitable scrapping due to inconceivable tech.

The Mountain View company first introduced a similar experience that focuses on a "Magic Window" technology with a venture called "Project Starline." The device would provide a massive and hyper-realistic video conferencing experience, almost as if the other end of the line is right in front of the user.

Another focus of Google is a new Nest WiFi hub to use and improve internet connection.

There are many things that Google may offer for the public to enjoy and experience, especially with its projects and innovations that will come soon for release. However, for now, Project Iris will have to wait in the shadows and await further steps of the company.

The speculations behind the AR headset from Google are strong, and leakers are looking into the soon availability for public use.

Related Article: Google Play Games for PC: Beta Test Now Active, Software to Feature Android Games for Computer

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Written by Isaiah Richard

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Activision Blizzard employees are not the happy sort right now, with various allegations of toxic culture plaguing their workplace. However, it seems like Microsoft's recent buyout of their company is giving them cause to hope for the best.

A report by Bloomberg reveals that a good number of workers from the embattled studio/publisher are optimistic about the $69 billion deal, which saw Microsoft gain ownership of one of the most successful conglomerates in gaming.

They are hoping that the negative status quo will change with the merger, because anything that keeps it going is unacceptable. This largely involves CEO Bobby Kotick and his management team, who has been tagged in scandal after scandal that has led to the state of California filing a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit.

For the unaware, Activision has been mired in controversy since last year. Allegations of toxic, "frat house-like" workplace culture abound, with women and minorities seemingly bearing the brunt of the issue.

Kotick was reportedly complicit about the workplace abuse, which has prompted over 1,800 of the company's roughly 10,000 workers to petition for him to step down. With the Microsoft merger, Kotick's resignation is seen as imminent. But it might not be as swift as some of these employees might have wanted it.

According to Reuters, Kotick is scheduled to step down once the entire deal closes in June 2023. What this means is that employees will have to endure having him as CEO for over a year more.

Activision has expressed their desire to keep operating autonomously until the deal closes, reports PC Gamer. If he chooses to remain as CEO beyond the deal's closing, he will have to report to Microsoft gaming head Phil Spencer.

Read Also: Xbox's Phil Spencer Is 'Deeply Disturbed' by What's Happening at Activision Blizzard

How Activision Blizzard Sees Kotick's Leadership

To put it mildly, Kotick is not a popular man in the company. He is also probably behind a few major delays that caused the release of big games like "Overwatch 2" to be pushed back.

A producer working on "Overwatch 2" recently outed the Activision Blizzard CEO for allegedly pushing random projects for the first "Overwatch" game then canceling them, which reportedly cost the team working on the sequel months of development work, as reported by GameInformer.

Here is the tweet from the producer:

Bobby, tell everyone about the random projects for OW1 you all would shove on us, the team would do OT for only them to get cancelled and for months of OW2 dev to have been lost. Or how almost entire teams are turning over and citing you as the reason. Don't be shy. https://t.co/3ksVMMaCwf  Tracy Kennedy  (@dogspinster) January 19, 2022

As per producer Tracy Kennedy's tweet, it looks like it's not just the "Overwatch 2" development team who's having a problem with Kotick's reported meddling. She didn't explicitly say what the teams are, but it is clear in her replies that they have absolutely no love for the embattled CEO.

The Deal Was Reportedly In The Works For A While

There are rumors saying that Activision, in the midst of the controversy they faced, actually sought a buyout as a way of saving face. They've reportedly put themselves on the market for a while, since at least November 2021.

There is no telling if the workplace situation at the company improves after the merger. But one thing is for certain: if and when Kotick steps down, the disgruntled employees are going to breathe a sigh of relief.

Related Article: Activision Blizzard Acquired By Microsoft for $68.7 Billion

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Written by RJ Pierce

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
(Photo : Unsplash/Jess Bailey) iPhone 13

Starting Jan. 24, Apple can legally exclude EarPods from iPhone boxes sold in France. This news is according to an update posted by a French carrier.

Apple to Exclude EarPods in France

According to Consomac, the tech giant was previously required by law to include EarPods in the box with every single iPhone 13 purchase.

This is because the French law requires every smartphone sold in the country to have a hands-free kit inside of it.

However, the law has been changed to reduce the environmental footprint of devices.

Apple stopped including EarPods and the power adapter from the box since it launched iPhone 12 in 2020. The tech giant claimed that it is working on reducing its environmental footprint, according to MacRumors.

Also Read: Apple AirPods Release Date: Wireless Earphones On Sale Now, But Shipping Is Already Slipping

With EarPods and power adapter removed, the box was made thinner. Apple also got rid of both accessories from older iPhone models still available.

Despite the tech company's announcement about reducing its footprint, Apple was still required to continue shipping EarPods inside iPhone boxes in France.

According to the French law, Apple was obligated by the law to include the EarPods. It was based on the precautionary principle because the risks of exposing brains to electromagnetic waves are not extensively studied.

Now, that will no longer apply. According to the new French bill that was passed in the assembly, manufacturers of smartphones will no longer be required to include headphones in the box.

Instead, the manufacturers need to ensure that compatible headphones are available separately for people to purchase.

French carrier Fnac posted a notice, and it stated that iPhones would no longer ship with EarPods in the box beginning Jan. 24.

The regional website of Apple France still shows EarPods as an item included in the box with the iPhone 13, together with a lighting cable and USB-C cable. However, it is likely that the site will be updated in the next few weeks.

While the company did remove the EarPods from the box, the company reduced the price of the headphones from $29 to $19, so users can still easily purchase them separately.

Apple's decision to remove EarPods and the power adapter from the box was controversial in other countries as well. In 2021, Apple was fined $2 million in Brazil for not including the power adapter in the box.

Apple Fined in Brazil

Apple was fined $2 million in Sao Paulo, Brazil, over violations of the Consumer Law Code because the power adapter is missing in the box of newer iPhone models, according to 9to5Mac.

According to Tilt, Sao Paulo's consumer protection agency decided to fine the tech company after intense scrutiny over the decision to get rid of the power adapter from the boxes of iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 phones.

Apple explained that they did it to reduce carbon emissions and the use of rare-earth metals. However, the Brazilian agency informed the tech company that selling the phone in Brazil without a charger in the box is a violation of the country's Consumer Defense Code.

Related Article: Apple Excluding Charger Lawsuit: China Sues Cupertino Giant For Selling iPhone 12 Pro Max Without Power Adapters

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Written by Sophie Webster

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
McDonald's "Steal a Fry" tweet has gained a lot of attention from its fans. The giant fast foods company posted a tweet with a photo of its popular french fries without any context.

In the Twitter post, McDonald's stated that fans need to reply to the pinch emoji in the comment section so that they can have one stick of its fries.

Posted on Jan. 20, the simple tweet was able to generate more than 23,000 likes, 14,500 retweets, and 4,600 quote tweets. Most of the fans in the comment section are just going with the fast-food company's vibe.

However, some South Koreans seem to be triggered by McDonald's tweet. But why are they bashing the pinching emoji in the company's Twitter post?

McDonald's 'Steal a Fry' Tweet Bashed by South Koreans

According to Vice Asia's Facebook post, most of the complainers on McDonald's viral tweet are South Korean men.

Also Read: IBM and McDonalds Team Up to Launch Enhanced Automated Voice Recording Systems for Drive-Thru Use

Right now, the pinching hand emoji is being used by female protesters to ridicule men because of the pay and labor inequalities they are experiencing in the country, as reported by Los Angeles Times.

Because the pinching hand emoji became popular in South Korea, male residents are now considering the use of this emoji as an insult.

"Hey, McDonald, your tweet is a direct insult to Korean males. We don't use *pinching hand emoji* to steal a fry because it is regarded as a symbol of our small penis," said @mockign, one of the Twitter users who re-tweeted McDonald's post.

He added that the fast-food company needs to change the icon, or they will boycott the popular McDonald's.

Meanings of Pinch Hand Emoji

The pinching hand emoji has a lot of meanings, especially in different countries. South Koreans usually see it as an insult because it is being used in feminist movements to insult men.

However, this icon also symbolizes the popular food mandu (dumpling) in this country. Meanwhile, in Israel, the pinching hand emoji is used when people are annoyed with other individuals. It can also be used to ask another person to be patient.

In other news, YouTuber Adalia Rose passed away at the age of 15. Meanwhile, doctors are concerned about the popular TikTok "Sleepy Chicken" challenge.

For more news updates about McDonald's and other related stories, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: McDonald's USA and FaZe Clan Kick Off a Juicy New Tradition with the First-Ever 'Friendsgaming'

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Written by: Griffin Davis

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership with Australia

FCDO has agreed a new Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership with Australia

Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss has agreed a new Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership with Australia's Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, to strengthen global technology supply chains, ensure the UK's positive technology vision and tackle malign actors who disrupt cyber-space.

The new agreement includes provisions to build greater resilience to ransomware amongst Indo-Pacific nations and sharpen legal sanctions against cyber attackers. It also promises to help shape a positive technology environment and maintain an internet that is open, free, peaceful and secure.

The partnership will intensify co-operation and delivery around shared opportunities and challenges regarding cyber and critical technology policy through deepened co-operation around four pillars:

tackling malign actors;

promoting shared values and positive vision for technology;

strengthening global technology supply chains; and

harnessing technology to solve global challenges.

On 16 December 2021, the UK has signed its first post-Brexit free trade agreement with Australia. You can find out more about what the deal means for the tech sector here. The FTA also includes the provision on cyber security where both countries commit to strengthen collaboration mechanisms to swiftly address cybersecurity incidents and maintain a dialogue on matters related to cybersecurity, including for the sharing of information and experiences for awareness and best practices.

Sabina Ciofu Sabina Ciofu is Associate Director  International, running the International Policy and Trade Programme at techUK. Based in Brussels, she leads our EU policy and engagement. She is also our lead on international trade policy, with a focus on digital trade chapter in FTAs, as well as broader engagement with the G7, G20, WTO and OECD. As a transatlanticist at heart, Sabina is a GMF Marshall Memorial fellow and issue-lead on the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, within DigitalEurope. Previously, she worked as Policy Advisor to a Member of the European Parliament for almost a decade, where she specialised in tech regulation, international trade and EU-US relations. Sabina loves building communities and bringing people together. She is the founder of the Gentlewomens Club and co-organiser of the Young Professionals in Digital Policy. Previously, as a member of the World Economic Forums Global Shapers Community, she led several youth civic engagement and gender equality projects. She sits on the Advisory Board of the University College London European Institute and The Nine, Brussels first members-only club designed for women. Sabina holds an MA in War Studies from Kings College London and a BA in Classics from the University of Cambridge. Email: [email protected] Phone: +32 473 323 280 Website: www.techuk.org Read lessmore

Dan Patefield Dan leads the techUK Cyber Security programme, having originally joined techUK in August 2017 as a Programme Manager working across the Cyber and Defence programmes. He is responsible for managing techUK's work across the cyber security eco-system, bringing industry together with key stakeholders across the public and private sectors. Dan also provides the industry secretariat for the Cyber Growth Partnership, the industry and Governmnet conduit for supporting growth across the sector. A key focus of his work is to strengthen the public-private partnership across cyber security to support further development of UK cyber security policy. Before joining techUK he worked as Forum Lead for the Westminster eForum. In this role he had a focus on the technology and telecoms space, on issues ranging from Broadband and Mobile Infrastructure, the Internet of Things, Cyber Security, Data and diversity in tech. Dan has a BA in History from the University of Liverpool. Email: [email protected] Phone: 020 7331 2165 Read lessmore
No parental authorization, no vaccine for students in Catholic schools, according to Father Affognon

This is the decision of the National Director of Catholic Education (DNEC), Father Chanel Affognon, following the decision of the Togolese government to have all students aged 12 vaccinated.

For Father Affognon, who reacted through a letter addressed to diocesan directors, heads of establishments and directors of Catholic schools, "for a child to be vaccinated, his parents or guardians must give written authorization to the learner. And so, if we understand correctly, no 12-year-old student in Catholic schools in Togo can be vaccinated without presenting a document serving as parental authorization addressed to the head of the establishment or the school principal.

This decision, justifies the National Director of Catholic Education, is in no way a measure taken to mark opposition to vaccination in Catholic schools. And, he explains, the following provisions have 2 objectives : First of all involve the parents in the process of the vaccination protection of their children entrusted to our responsibility and who are for the most part minors. Then, reduce doubts, fears and misunderstandings so that the governments decision is well understood for its effectiveness.

We can say here that this is an attempt at an explanation that is difficult to understand insofar as the DNEC is a structure that is under the Conference of Bishops of Togo (CET), and that clearly this conference is not at all d notice with some imposition of vaccination on all Togolese.

T228
Ada, OK (74820)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds, large hail and possibly a tornado with some storms. High 73F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 61F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
A blend of moist air and frigid temperatures coated surfaces around Baton Rouge with a sheen of frost early Friday, but roads that had closed overnight to protect drivers from Winter Storm Jasper reopened by morning thanks to lower-than-forecast precipitation.

Still, with risk of freezing rain and sleet all but gone, officials urged people to prepare for bitterly cold weather expected to last through the weekend.

Temperatures from the River Parishes all the way north to the Louisiana-Mississippi line could dip well below freezing overnight Friday through Saturday, officials said.

For those who need to take care of their outdoor spigots or whatever it may be, nows the time, said Benjamin Schott, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Services Slidell office.

The NWS issued a hard-freeze warning for areas north of I-10 and I-12, cautioning that temperatures in that region could dip into the low-20s between Friday and Saturday mornings.

+4 Baton Rouge emerges from overnight freeze with slick roads, icy glaze The capital region emerged from a freezing night to find a light glaze of ice over cars and walkways early Friday.

Officials say people should bring pets indoors and take precautions to preserve crops and pipes, which can freeze and burst if they arent properly insulated.

The State Fire Marshal cautioned people to take care while heating homes. Homeowners should check fire alarms, position space heaters 3 to 5 feet away from combustible objects and should avoid using wood stoves or ovens to heat homes, the agency said.

Strawberry farmer William Fletcher, who owns Fletcher Strawberry Farm in Ponchatoula, is shielding his crops from the cold by placing a protective covering over the plants through the weekend.

Fletcher said this cold snap wont pose an existential threat to his berry crops. But the sub-30 temperatures predicted north of lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas Friday evening will undoubtedly cause some damage to his plants, he said.

That is beyond the capability of what the cover is intended to protect from, Fletcher said.

Seventy-three miles to the south and west of Fletchers farm, Ascension Parish officials told all west bank residents Friday to protect their pipes and not run their faucets beyond a slow drip heading into the weekend.

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Parish government runs the water system for the city of Donaldsonville and surrounding rural areas. A sharp freeze in early 2018 led parish officials to cut water service to more than 3,000 city customers for up to seven hours.

Martin McConnell, parish government spokesman, said the west bank water plant was not having any problems on Friday morning and workers were taking steps to prepare for the cold snap.

But he said parish officials issued the warning as a precaution to avoid a repeat of the 2018 incident.

In some places, the cold was already affecting utility services Friday. Two-thousand Entergy customers in rural St. Helena and Tangipahoa Parishes were without power Friday morning, a spokesperson for the energy utility said, as workers began mending a downed powerline.

Elsewhere, we have crews and contractors on standby and are continuing to monitor the weather and any impacts it could have, said spokesman David Freese. But overall, were thankful to not have seen any significant icing impact our area.

+2 Baton Rouge should be ready for a freeze  but not like last year's deadly storm, forecasters say With a cold front expected to bring freezing rain and sleet to greater Baton Rouge Thursday night through Friday morning, agencies are on aler

When Jaspers cold front entered South Louisiana on Wednesday night, the storm was forecast to bring Arctic air followed by a moist atmosphere.

It was that moisture that would have caused ice pellets of sleet and the freezing rain, bringing risk to drivers on overpasses and bridges.

The threat of freezing rain dissipated, though, as the storm system veered away from the region, Schott said.

You would have had to thread this perfect needle of getting that really cold air all the way down here to the Gulf Coast, and still having enough moisture in the atmosphere from that system to produce the rain needed for freezing conditions on bridges and roads and things like that, he explained.

We just did not get the two to be perfectly meshed over, which is a good thing, he added. It would be a very different story this morning if that had been the case.

Staff writer David Mitchell contributed to this report.
A 16-year-old suspected car thief who escaped from three different juvenile facilities in as many months was believed to be back in either the Baton Rouge or Pointe Coupee Parish areas Friday, the Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff's Office said.

Now identified by the department as Damarion Simmons, authorities say the teen broke out of a detention facility alongside 16-year-old Brenden Hebert in St. Martin Parish around 7 p.m. Wednesday.

According to Sheriff Rene Thibodeaux, the two teens allegedly stole three pistols and a white Chevrolet Colorado in St. Martinville before driving to New Roads to part ways.

Hebert was caught at a gas station on U.S. 61 Friday morning after state troopers found him inside the stolen vehicle, police said.

Authorities believe Simmons may now be near his hometown of New Roads or in the greater Baton Rouge area.

A 16-year-old has escaped 3 different Louisiana jails in 3 months. The sheriff is fed up. A 16-year-old from Pointe Coupee Parish who is accused of breaking into dozens of cars has escaped from three different juvenile facilities in

Thibodeaux cautioned residents that Simmons may be armed, but emphasized that the teen does not have a history of violence. He said he's worried about Simmons' safety, and added he's also concerned about what might happen in an encounter between the youth and a member of the public.

"This is a dangerous situation. Very dangerous. People on Facebook are saying, 'Well, if they come in my yard, I'm killing them,' and you can't do that," he said. "This is becoming a very bad, volatile situation."

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Before his escape on January 19, Simmons previously broke out of the Acadiana Center for Youth with another person on Dec. 11 and the Bridge City Juvenile Detention Center with three others on Nov. 21.

During his last escape, Thibodeaux estimated Simmons broke into up to 30 cars before he was apprehended in New Roads Jan. 8.

Beth Touchet-Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice, said a preliminary investigation found that human error played a role in Wednesday's escape.

Once a full investigation is complete, appropriate disciplinary action "up to, and including termination" will be taken, she said.

The Pointe Coupee Sheriff's Office is offering a $500 reward for any information leading to Simmons' capture.

Thibodeaux, who expressed his frustration at the fact that he and his deputies are now searching for the teen a third time, called the situation "embarrassing" for the state's juvenile justice system.

"The time and the effort and the money that we put forth  to catch this guy, and I don't think he's made it two weeks," he said Thursday.

He later added: "Our entire state and legislators need to really pay attention to what's going on."
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board has agreed to create new health care and environmental education programs, handing a victory to Superintendent Sito Narcisse.

The board, however, is putting off for another month voting on the location of the environmental education school to allow more time to address concerns of alumni of nearby McKinley High who worry the proposed campus will negatively affect the historic high school.

The new programs are a continuation of a larger effort by Narcisse to create specialized programs and schools that add high-quality seats to a system that has steadily lost students over time to private, charter and suburban public schools.

In November, Narcisse persuaded the board to create a new arts-focused conservatory middle-high school at Broadmoor Middle.

The new schools, which were approved Thursday night, are backed, respectively, by Baton Rouge General Medical Center and LSU.

Park Elementary will be the home of the new medical program developed in partnership with Baton Rouge General. As part of the transformation, Park will no longer be a traditional elementary school, stopping at fifth grade, but will continue through middle school. The revamped school will be redubbed Park Elementary Medical Academy.

The board also agreed to a new sixth-through-12th-grade school focused on environmental education in partnership with LSU and The Water Institute, a consortium that conducts research on coastal issues in Louisiana and other Gulf states.

It will have open admissions in the early grades, but eighth-graders will need a minimum 3.0 GPA to continue into high school. In return, graduates of the school gain automatic admission to LSU.

Both new schools are scheduled to open in August. Initially, Park is adding a sixth-grade class, while the environmental school is starting with just sixth grade. Both are to expand over time. Park finishes with an eighth grade in 2024 and about 450 students overall, while the environmental school reaches 12th grade by 2028.

The board could not muster the needed five votes to house the new environmental school at the former Polk Elementary campus at 408 E. Polk St. That motion failed 4-3. Board members Connie Bernard, Dawn Collins and Tramelle Howard voted against it. Board member Evelyn Ware-Jackson abstained and Dadrius Lanus left the meeting early.

The board then voted 7-1 to approve the program, but not the former Polk Elementary location. Board member Mike Gaudet was the lone no vote.

I love the idea, the only thing that stuck in my craw is that this was just a stones throw away from McKinley, a torn Ware-Jackson said.

Chris Toombs, a Baton Rouge resident, was incredulous that the board would even consider establishing a new high school so close to the home of the Panthers.

There is no way, realistically, we could put another high school in The Bottoms, Toombs said.

Several board members urged Narcisse to hold a town hall with McKinley High alumni and nearby residents to get more feedback before moving forward.

Board member Tramelle Howard faulted Narcisse and his communication shop for not doing more to connect with McKinley High. He had similar concerns about the Park Elementary transformation, which he said caught many Park staff by surprise when the board first debated the idea on Jan. 13.

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I woke up Friday morning with 50 messages from teachers at Park Elementary who had no idea that this was going on, Howard said. I have a problem with that.

Narcisse disagreed that a new high school a few blocks away from McKinley High would damage it, saying that this need to be a zero sum game and that the two schools could coexist.

I dont think this school would hurt McKinley because it is just another option, he said.

Narcisse that the new school was designed to be a small standalone program unattached to a larger school.

Unlike the conservatory school approved in November, the two new schools are not magnet schools. Called Focus Choice schools, they differ from most magnet schools in having academic entrance requirements for all incoming students such as a minimum GPA or test score. Also, these schools work hand in hand with outside partners in job fields to help students prepare for careers in those fields.

The new Park would feed into a still-to-determined high school. Park would retain the 270 students currently at that school, but they would need to maintain a 2.8 GPA in the future to remain Park students. Students who opt out would transfer to neighboring elementary schools.

Meanwhile, enrollment at the new Park would be open to students across the school system, though those living within two miles of the campus at 2680 Bogan Walk would be given priority in the admissions process.

Park Elementary is a neighborhood school that has had an F letter grade from the state for several years. Its potentially in danger of state takeover, though, the state for the past two years have waived letter grades due to the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic.

The former Polk Elementary, at 408 E. Polk St. and just north of LSU, was a neighborhood school for years but was closed a few years ago due to dwindling enrollment. It was renovated in 2014.

The campus currently houses students from nearby University Terrace Elementary while that school is torn down and rebuilt.

Gaudet said the Polk facility has space for the sixth grade, while McKinley High does not. He also said its a bad idea to put sixth-graders on the McKinley campus.

McKinley, however, is in line for $35 million in renovations that would add seventh- and eighth-graders to the high school in a separate wing.

In other action, the School Board returned to leadership David Tatman and Dawn Collins as its president and vice president.

New Baton Rouge schools chief gets four top staff jobs, pulls back from larger shakeup After a swift backlash, newly appointed East Baton Rouge Parish schools Superintendent Sito Narcisse pulled back Thursday from an immediate sh

Tatman was approved unanimously and had no opponents. Collins did have opposition from fellow board member Lanus and was approved in 7-2 vote, with Gaudet and board member Jill Dyason voting no. Interestingly, Lanus did not vote for himself, voting for Collins instead.
Louisianas accountability system for public schools is under review behind closed doors by a five-member workgroup of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, sparking questions and criticism on why taxpayers are being shut out.

BESE officials say they have been assured by their attorney the review is legal and not an attempt to get around the state's Open Meetings law, which would allow the public access to the gatherings.

But critics are asking why the study has to be held in private, especially since how public schools and students are rated is a volatile topic that sparks lots of interest from parents and others.

"They are talking about accountability and therefore we believe there should be more transparency around that conversation," said Caroline Roemer, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools.

"What is the private conversation?" Roemer asked. "I don't care if they are not voting. What are they talking about and who are they talking to."

Scott Sternberg, a Louisiana media lawyer who represents The Advocate and The Times-Picayune on public meeting issues, said the BESE "workgroup" is a committee under a different name.

"I have been litigating open meetings cases my entire career," Sternberg said Friday. "I don't know where they (BESE members) get the idea they can just appoint a committee and change the name to a work group and that will be okay."

Jim Garvey, a Metairie attorney who was installed as the new BESE president on Wednesday, said the group is only gathering information, is not making recommendations to the full board and that videos of some of the sessions will be posted online.

Asked if he was content with how the study is being done Garvey said, "I am so far."

"We have asked our attorneys and our attorneys have said it is okay," he said. "It is a concern. Don't miss me on that. It is a concern of mine and for all of BESE. We want to follow the rules of the Open Meetings law."

Later in the day, and after the story appeared online, Garvey said he had talked to and respects Sternberg and wants BESE to get a second opinion on how the review is being done.

"We will probably ask the attorney general's office to give us their guidance," Garvey said in an email. "And will talk to our constituents about their concerns and then reevaluate the situation from there."

BESE is an 11-member panel that sets policies for about 700,000 public school students statewide.

The review is an outgrowth of two failed bids last year by state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley to revamp how public schools are scrutinized.

Brumley proposed changes in how schools are rated, which would have trimmed the number of D- and F-rated schools by setting up a more generous scoring system.

BESE will delay debate on sweeping changes in school ratings The president of Louisiana's top school board said Thursday night the board will delay action on state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumle

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BESE said the issue would be put off until an unspecified future date.

The superintendent also tried to launch the state's first accountability system for students in kindergarten, first and second grades, in part to help tackle Louisiana's dismal reading problems.

The board rejected that bid, leading Garvey and others to say they preferred a wide-ranging study of how schools are scrutinized rather than a piecemeal approach.

+2 Bid to improve dismal elementary reading scores delayed after bitter debate Despite fervent pleas from state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley, Louisiana's top school board voted 6-4 to delay action on a bid to 

In October BESE voted to do just that, launching an accountability review panel led by Kira Orange Jones, of New Orleans, with a report due to the full board by August. Orange Jones could not be reached for comment.

Others on the panel are Sandy Holloway, of Thibodaux; Ronnie Morris, of Baton Rouge; Belinda Davis, of Baton Rouge and Michael Melerine, of Shreveport.

Shan Davis, executive director of BESE, advised members of the group that the board's attorney concluded the panel was not a subcommittee but one set up to make suggestions and recommendations to the full board, with the public allowed to weigh in then.

"By contrast, the function of a subcommittee is to act on behalf of the board and this is not that," Davis said in an email.

"Subcommittee meetings should be public meetings as opposed to work groups," she wrote. "There are no formal agendas for these meetings because no votes are taken."

Insiders said Brumley helped initiate the work group, and he said last year that he welcomed a chance to study the state's accountability system.

The superintendent declined comment, through a spokesperson.

Brigitte Nieland, director of government relations for the advocacy group Stand For Children, said she is comfortable with the review and members are not rewriting accountability rules or taking votes.

"It's a politically balanced group doing incredibly tedious research, looking at best practices in other states and working with Louisiana Department of Education staff, which will run simulations based on any number of scenarios," Nieland said in a text message. "I'm impressed that board members are tackling this."

Holloway, who is former president and who named the review members, made a similar point.

"We are not making any decisions," she said. "We are looking at what is out there."

Roemer, whose organizations advises charter schools, questioned how a near majority of BESE can hold closed-door meetings and talk about education. "Does a video after the fact or minutes or whatever they do after the meeting count?"
Despite fervent pleas from state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley, Louisiana's top school board voted 6-4 to delay action on a bid to improve dismal reading scores by launching the first accountability system for students in kindergarten, first and second grades.

Brumley noted that barely 40% of kindergarten students are reading on grade level, and the picture is not much better for first-and second-graders.

"Everyone agrees we have a challenge with regard to literacy," Brumley told the board. "In K-2 we have a void, we have a vacuum."

In sudden turnaround, Legislature approves aid to tackle Louisiana's dismal reading rates State lawmakers have approved spending $2 million to tackle Louisiana's alarming reading problem for its youngest students, in part because a 

But critics said it would be a mistake to revamp part of the state's system for measuring student achievement without scrutinizing other issues, including how much improved student test scores should count when the state calculates public school letter grades.

"We would like to see how this fits in with the entire accountability system," said Jim Garvey, a BESE member from Metairie and leader of the opposition.

The vote marks the second consecutive meeting where Brumley's hope for BESE to endorse a K-2 accountability system died.

In June the issue got entangled with the debate on efforts to approve a more generous scoring system on key tests, which will be the subject of a BESE study group.

After pushback, bid to launch more generous test scoring system likely delayed A controversial plan that would reduce the number of D- and F-rated public schools by changing how key tests are scored is going back to the d

How long the latest delay will last is unclear.

The key feature of the proposed accountability system would be reading improvements.

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Report: State action needed to ensure students can read The state should spend $15 million more per year to ensure students are proficient in reading by the end of the third grade, which a state pan

Under the plan, children in kindergarten, first and second grades would have their literacy skills checked at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. The state would measure both reading achievement and growth during the school year. Each grade would focus on specific reading-related topics, including letter sounds in kindergarten, oral reading in first grade and reading comprehension in second grade.

The aim is to have a test run of the new system during the 2022-23 school year, and for real during the 2023-24 school year.

Brumley's plan was backed by the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, the Louisiana School Boards Association and the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools.

Reading woes in students' early years are setting off alarms, 'This is unconscionable' After years of neglect, state education leaders are launching plans to improve reading skills for students in kindergarten, first and second g

"We cannot delay this any further," said Mike Faulk, executive director of the superintendents' group. "Our state has already been negligent in addressing this and need to address it now."

Opponents included Stand for Children, an advocacy group, and The Pelican Institute.

Brigitte Nieland, director of government affairs for Stand for Children, said Brumley's proposed framework failed to address special education students and other items.

Without looking at the entire system, Nieland said, officials could not determine how K-2 changes would affect how the state measure all public school students.

BESE members voting for the delay were Holly Boffy, Ashley Ellis, Jim Garvey, Sandy Hollloway, Michael Melerine and Kira Orange Jones.

Voting against the delay were Preston Castille, Belinda Davis, Thomas Roque and Doris Voitier.
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Beset by public scandal, his private life laid bare, billionaire Leon Black has now levelled a startling allegation: his longtime business partner Josh Harris was plotting to destroy him all along.

Even on Wall Street, where money and power can lead to jealousy and betrayal, Blacks claims are nothing short of extraordinary.

Leon Black will step down from Apollo Global Management immediately. Credit:Bloomberg

What has emerged is one of the most brazen, and most bizarre, Wall Street breakup stories in recent memory -- a tabloid-worthy tale that has shaken Apollo Global, the private equity colossus Black and Harris spent decades building.

At stake now are the reputations, if not the fortunes, of two prominent industry figures: Black, the hard-edged dealmaker who ruled Apollo for decades, and Harris, the lieutenant who, Black claims, engaged in a smear campaign in order to overthrow his boss.
A coroner will examine whether medical care given to a refugee was adequate before and after he was injured on Manus Island and died in an Australian hospital on Christmas Eve in 2016.

Faysal Ishak Ahmed, 27, was a Sudanese refugee who had been detained at Manus Island Regional Processing Centre since October 2013.

Mr Faysal Ishak Ahmed reported shortness of breath and chest pains the day before he fell.

On December 22, 2016, he was seen on CCTV footage falling down a set of stairs in a secure accommodation building. He appeared to lose consciousness just before he fell.

Mr Ahmed suffered serious head injuries. He was transferred to the islands medical centre where he was found to be severely ill with neurological impairment.
A senior constable has been charged after he allegedly assaulted a person by tackling him to the ground at Flinders Street Station last year.

Footage of the alleged incident, which went viral on social media, showed a man talking to officers at the station on September 22, appearing to hold a jacket in one arm while the other was by his side.

An officer then appeared to come up behind the man, grab him and swing him onto the station floor.

Another officer then bent down to help the officer who took the man to the ground. The sound of the mans head hitting the floor could be heard in the video.
Retired and inactive teachers, principals and support staff are being urged to head back to school in term 1 to help keep children in classrooms amid an expected staff shortage due to COVID-19.

A central pool of qualified school staff will be recruited to help plug gaps when current staff must isolate due to COVID-19 infection or exposure.

Retired and inactive teachers are being called on to step in and help keep kids in classrooms in term 1. Credit:AP

The Andrews government will also call on people with administrative experience as well as allied health professionals to join its pool of stand-by staff that schools will have access to when their own employees are forced out of action.

The pool will only be available to government schools, which educate roughly two-thirds of Victorian schoolchildren.
China could use a Russian invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to launch aggression of its own in the Indo-Pacific, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has warned.

I dont think we can rule that out, Ms Truss said during an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in Sydney on Friday. Credit:Rhett Wyman

Russia is working more closely with China than it ever has. Aggressors are working in concert and I think its incumbent on countries like ours to work together.

Ms Truss, who is in Sydney for talks with her Australian counterpart Marise Payne, is cited as a leading contender for Britains prime ministership in the event scandal-plagued Boris Johnson is forced out in a leadership spill.
In your own house you can sing Happy Birthday to your children but if that were to happen in one of my properties, I would have to threaten guests with eviction, Mr McClellan said. He said the contact person requirements would be difficult, especially with Noosas bad phone reception. Thats unachievable for police, ambulances and fire brigades to reach a property every single time they get a call so how are real estate agents and nans and pops supposed to meet that? Its sad that families wont be able to come and enjoy a holiday here and instead well get a greater influx of day trippers that will worsen traffic problems at Noosa. Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said everyone should take a wait and see approach on how the rule would affect the region.

It has to be managed but there has to be a balance struck between permanent residents and commercial residences and rules should apply to both. Consumers will still go to Noosa and these regulations will not stop that ... its worth seeing how it plays out. Between December 21 and January 19, Noosa Shire Council received 12 complaints about short-stay letting properties. Noosa Shire Residents and Ratepayers Association vice-president Aaron White said most of the community was pleased with the law. Were hoping with the 24/7 hotline that complaints will be dealt with properly, he said.

Weve held public forums where hundreds of people have turned up with an array of stories of party houses in suburban streets and parking has gotten worse. We dont have a problem with holiday houses but its when the industry is trying to buy every property and converting them into a tourism operation in suburban streets, it becomes a problem. Mr White said he hoped the law would reduce the amount of short-stay lettings to make room for more long-term rentals. Were getting restaurants and businesses who cant get any workers because they cant find long-term accommodation in Noosa, he said. I think we need to achieve a balance and these laws will help.

He said the requirements for owners to respond to complaints were appropriate. So many owners live interstate so theres no one to directly contact when there is a problem. Noosa Short Term Accommodation Association chair David Langdon said there was concern over whether the proposed law would be impartial. Say if there is a permanent rental with kids playing in the pool before 7am, that wouldnt be an issue, but if holiday renters were doing the same thing that would be a problem, he said. Issues to do with car park requirements that have been seen to be a challenge have been pinpointed to holidaymakers but sometimes its not their cars filling the street parking.
Depending on your propensity to believe in the supernatural, a ghost could be a metaphor for lingering guilt or an actual spirit occupying the dark shadows of your home. But when that thing is ruining your sleep, does it matter if it's real? Composer Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and librettist Kyle Jarrow (SpongeBob SquarePants) cleverly leave that question up for debate in their haunting chamber musical Whisper House, which is finally making its New York debut after premiering at San Diego's Old Globe over a decade ago (Sheik and Jarrow conceived the project, which shares a name with Sheik's 2009 studio album, with Keith Powell). Performing under the banner of the Civilians, the show marks the grand reopening of 59E59 Theatres, which was beginning to feel like a ghost venue as it approached the two-year mark with no live performances.

Of course, the performance multiplex is not nearly as arresting as Alexander Dodge's spooky and ever-shifting set, which evocatively suggests the creaky lighthouse in which Whisper House takes place. Set in 1942 on the coast of Maine, it's about 12-year-old Christopher (Wyatt Cirbus), who is sent to live with his aunt Lily (Samantha Mathis) following the death of his father and the subsequent mental breakdown of his mother. Lily operates the lighthouse with her hired hand, Mr. Yasuhiro (James Yaegashi). When the local sheriff (Jeb Brown) relays that German U-Boats have been sighted in the waters nearby, the distant war suddenly feels very close. Old bigotries and new paranoia combine to cast a shadow of suspicion over the Japanese man living in a tower that overlooks the eastern seaboard.

Jeb Brown plays the sheriff, and Wyatt Cirbus plays Christopher in Whisper House at 59E59 Theatres.

( Richard Termine)

Framing the story and leading it musically are two nihilist ghosts (Molly Hager and Alex Boniello) who inform us repeatedly that everyone in this story would be better off dead. Hager and Boniello combine musical virtuosity with an extremely unsettling stage presence (aided greatly by Linda Cho's washed-out period costume design). Like the White Stripes, we spend an uncomfortable amount of time wondering if they're siblings or lovers (no spoilers here). And like any great musical duo, they sell every number in Sheik and Jarrow's moody and beguiling score (both authors collaborated on lyrics).

Sheik and Jarrow occasionally trade coherence for gothic atmospherics, like in "The Ballad of Solomon Snell," which attempts to unpack important exposition while delivering a totally unrelated story, and which sent me running for the script as soon as the curtain fell.

Luckily, Steve Cosson's lucid direction keeps the story on track and makes us eager for more, like campers around a fire. Lighting designers Jorge Arroyo and Jeff Croiter create a world of shadows for this gloomy New England setting. Sound designer Ken Travis not only engineers pristine sound balance (a difficult thing to do when the orchestra is elevated on the side of the house), but he simulates the boom of a realistic naval skirmish. He also creates the eerie whispers that haunt our protagonists.

James Yaegashi, Samantha Mathis, Alex Boniello, and Molly Hager appear in Whisper House at 59E59 Theatres.

( Richard Termine)

Across-the-board excellent performances flesh out the world of Whisper House. Mathis is formidable as Lily, with diction as bracing as a gust of wind off Penobscot Bay. Yaegashi gives a quietly powerful portrayal of an outsider (both in the US and Japan) who has settled in a new home and mostly wants to be left alone to live his life. For such people, moments of national hysteria are never pleasant.

Whisper House manages to combine a gorgeous musical, a satisfying ghost story, and a cautionary tale about the atrocities that have been committed in the name of ''public safety" (a message that is sadly as relevant as ever). Don't let this show be one of those theatrical ghosts you wish you had seen when you had the chance.
Where could voters see marijuana on the ballot in 2022?
A worker leaves the the Frank P. Zeidler Municipal Building in Milwaukee. Gov. Tony Evers asked President Donald Trump on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 to issue a major disaster declaration for the state of Wisconsin due to the coronavirus pandemic, as unemployment claims hit a daily high and the state's health secretary warned lawmakers that Medicaid enrollments were going to increase dramatically. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)
In honor of the Winter Olympics and Charles Darwins birthday, the Wyoming State Museum is hosting Animal Olympics, a Family Day on February 5.

Join them from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. to learn about the biological adaptations that allow some of the worlds most impressive animal athletes to do incredible things.

This event for all ages will ask participants to put their own skills to the test against the capabilities of animals. Find out if you can sprint as fast as a cheetah, jump as high as a mountain lion, lift weights like an elephant, and more.

With games, activities, crafts, and up-close encounters with our museum collections, kids and families will learn about evolutionary adaptations of animals around the world. Families will also get to meet researchers from the UW Biodiversity Institute as well as local Special Olympics athletes!

In order to keep everyone safe, the museum will require timed registration to participate in this event. Families can find the registration link on the homepage of their website or they can use this link to go directly to the registration form. Register by phone at 307-630-2573.

Family Days are generously sponsored by SCHEELS in Johnstown, CO. Thanks to their support, these events are always free and open to everyone! Each month features crafts, games and activities, story time, as well as visiting partners from the Rocky Mountain region.

The Wyoming State Museum is located in the Barrett Building, 2301 Central Ave. in Cheyenne.

Please call 307-630-2573 for more information. Family Day fans can follow the museums Facebook and Instagram accounts to stay in the know about upcoming events: @wyomingstatemuseum.
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Sebastopol, CA (95472)

Today

Mainly sunny. High 77F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies during the evening will give way to cloudy skies overnight. Low 47F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Du Bois, PA (15801)

Today

Rain showers early with overcast skies later in the day. High 62F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 45F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Towanda, PA (18848)

Today

Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. High 66F. S winds shifting to WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
UNION SPRINGS - Leonard L. Beers, 90, formerly of Norwich and Otego, passed away Jan. 18, 2022. A memorial graveside service will be held at 11 a.m., Friday, May 6, in Evergreen Cemetery in Otego. Arrangements are with Lewis, Hurley & Pietrobono Funeral Home, Oneonta.
Melanie joined The Daily Times in the early 90s and has served as the Life section editor since 1993. A William Blount and UT alum, Melanie is generally the early arriver who turns on the lights in the newsroom.

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Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
Forest City, NC (28043)

Today

Thunderstorms likely, especially this morning. High 83F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low 57F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Echo Park -- A man is suing the city of Los Angeles after he allegedly was wrongfully shot in one leg with a projectile by LAPD officers while protesting the displacement of homeless people at Echo Park Lake last March.

It's the latest legal action taken against the city and LAPD over the demonstrations.

Ethan Bochicchio's Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges violation of his civil rights, battery, false imprisonment and negligence. He seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in the suit brought Tuesday.

A representative for the City Attorney's Office could not be immediately reached.

Bochicchio was at Echo Park Lake between 9:45 and 10:15 p.m. last March 24 "exercising his right to peacefully protest against the removal of displaced and unhoused people," the suit states.

Bochicchio was unarmed and posed no threat to officers who formed a skirmish line, the suit states. He was standing near the front of the protesters when "suddenly, and without warning, the ... police officers began assaulting and battering a female protester who Mr. Bochicchio met earlier that evening," according to the complaint.

When Bochicchio tried to stand next to the female protestor, the police officers shoved him with a baton and pushed him face-down to the ground, the suit states. An officer then shot him in one leg with a projectile, the suit states.

Bochicchio "writhed in pain" as others tried to help him leave, but the blockade formed by the officers prevented him from doing so, according to the suit.

After the blockade ended, people helped Bochicchio to his car and he was able to leave, the suit states. .

"The police officers who fired at Mr. Bochicchio had absolutely no reason to believe that (he) was armed, dangerous or creating a serious threat to anyone's safety so as to justify any use of force, let alone less-than- lethal force," the suit alleges.

Bochicchio alleges the LAPD failed to properly train the officers on when non-lethal projectiles can be used against protesters. Bochicchio obtained care from medical doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists and has incurred medical bills and expenses, the suit states.

In a separate lawsuit, a woman is suing the LAPD over injuries she sustained while watching protests last March, the Los Angeles Times reported. Becca Standt was in an alley behind her home during demonstrations over the Echo Park Lake homeless encampment when she said LAPD officers charged through, and struck her without warning. She said they pushed her onto the ground, and would not let her up, causing her to sustain head injuries.
The Apple stock market ticker symbol AAPL is displayed on an iPhone screen and reflected in the logo of an iMac computer in Los Angeles, in this illustration photo taken on May 24, 2021. (Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images)

2 Blue-Chip Stocks Consolidate in a Key Pattern: What Will the Break Bring for Apple and Disney?

Apple Inc. and Walt Disney Co. have developed inside bar patterns on the daily chart. An inside bar pattern indicates a period of consolidation and is usually followed by a continuation move in the direction of the current trend.

An inside bar pattern has more validity on longer time frames, such as a four-hour chart. The pattern has a minimum of two candlesticks and consists of a mother bar (the first candlestick in the pattern) followed by one or more subsequent candles. The subsequent candle(s) must be completely inside the range of the mother bar and each is called an inside bar.

A double or triple inside bar can be more powerful than a single inside bar. After the break of an inside bar pattern, traders want to watch for high volume for confirmation the pattern was recognized.

Bullish traders will want to search for inside bar patterns on stocks that are in an uptrend. Some traders may take a position during the inside bar prior to the break while other aggressive traders will take a position after the break of the pattern.

For bearish traders, finding an inside bar pattern on a stock thats in a downtrend will be key. Like bullish traders, bears have two options of where to take a position to play the break of the pattern. For bearish traders, the pattern is invalidated if the stock rises above the highest range of the mother candle.

The Apple Chart

On Wednesday, Apple stock broke down from a bearish head-and-shoulders pattern Benzinga called out on Tuesday. On Thursday, the stock was consolidating the move lower by printing an inside bar.

The inside bar was being printed on low volume, which confirms consolidation.

On Thursday, Apple attempted to regain the 50-day simple moving average as support and failed, which indicates longer-term sentiment is bearish.

The inside bar pattern leans bearish because the stock was trading lower before forming it but traders can watch for a break of the pattern on Friday to gauge the future direction.

Apple has resistance above at $167.88 and $171.03 and support below at $162.14 and $157.26.

The Disney Chart

Disney was printing a double inside bar on Thursday, with the first inside bar printed Wednesday and the mother bar on Tuesday. Disney has been consolidating its Jan. 14 move lower where the stock gapped down about 2 percent.

Disney is likely to trade back up to fill the range of the gap in the future because gaps on charts fill about 90 percent of the time. Disneys gap is between $152.06 and $155.17. The stock has another higher gap as well between anout $163 and $173.

Like Apples stock, Disneys double inside bar pattern leans bearish and the long upper wicks on Wednesday and Thursdays candle indicate there are sellers above $151.

Disney has resistance above at $153.88 and $160.90 and support below at $147.85 and $141.70.

By Melanie Schaffer



 2021 The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Russian fighter jets drop bombs over the Ashuluk military base in Southern Russia during the "Caucasus-2020" military drills with China and Iran on Sept. 22, 2020. (Mitar Dilkoffl/AFP via Getty Images)

A Busy Time for Russian, Chinese Navies

News Analysis

The joint naval drills between China, Russia, and Iran come at a worrying time for the United States and its allies.

The 2022 Marine Security Belt exercises took place in the northern Indian Ocean on Jan. 21, with the stated goal of increasing cooperation between the three countries. According to a spokesman for Irans armed forces, this venture is meant to jointly support world peace, maritime security and create a maritime community with a common future.

This is the third of such official joint naval exercises between the three since 2019. The Iranian official, Mostafa Tajoldin, said that the purpose of such maneuvers is to strengthen the security of international trade routes, fight piracy, and exchange experience. Some of the capabilities that were demonstrated include rescue operations for burning ships, responding to a ship hijacking, and anti-aircraft firing exercises.

These scheduled operations are part of a broader trend of increased security and economic relations between the three countries. On Jan. 19, recently elected Iranian President Ebrahim Raisia hard-line anti-Western figuremet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The event was followed by exclamations of a deepening relationship between the two nations, and calls for even greater cooperation in the future.

At the same time, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited China this month to discuss a recently signed 25-year agreement between the two countries. The comprehensive strategic partnership is aimed to further solidify the burgeoning economic and political partnership. China and Russianuclear-armed powers with more technologically advanced military capabilities than Iranhave seized upon Tehrans growing discontent with aggressive Western policies.

The latter weaken the regional influence of the Middle Eastern country and have driven it to seek alternative avenues for increasing its economic and political clout. Beijing and Moscow have been more than happy to provide this outlet for the theocratic regime in Tehran.

The push for enhanced naval capabilities and increased coordination between China and Russia isnt new, but does seem to be escalating. In October 2021, Russia and China conducted their first joint naval patrol in the Pacific Ocean. Maritime-Interaction-2021 included 10 Russian ships and five Chinese vessels traveling through the Sea of Japan. According to a statement by the Russian Ministry of Defense, the forces conducted anti-ship firing exercises and practiced joint-tactical maneuvers.

A group of naval vessels from Russia and China conduct a joint maritime military patrol in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, in this still image taken from a video released on Oct. 23, 2021. (Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via Reuters)

These developments come at a worrying time in the current international environment. On Jan. 20, the United States challenged Chinas territorial claims in the South China Sea with a freedom-of-navigation operation. The USS Benfold sailed around the Paracel Islands (known as the Xisha Islands in China) in the northwestern part of the body of water. Beijing says that it rightfully holds sovereignty over the region and has built military garrisons to cement its claim. The United States doesnt accept any single countrys sovereignty over the area and regularly conducts these types of navigation exercises to challenge the Chinese regime.

As reported by Russian state media outlet RT, a spokesman for the Southern Theater Command of the Peoples Liberation Army stated that the U.S. ship illegally entered the area before being warned off. Col. Tian Junli went on to say that U.S. actions seriously threatened Chinas sovereignty and security and that such type of behavior will lead Washington to bear the serious consequences of unforeseen events.

U.S. officials have reaffirmed their commitment to uphold the dictates of international law by performing such operations.

Naval concerns arent limited to the bodies of water surrounding the Asian continent alone. A reported flotilla of Russian amphibious ships recently left the Baltic Sea on its way through the English Channel. Military analysts expect the final destination of these ships to be the Black Sea, in order to bolster the naval capabilities Moscow currently has in the region.

This coincides with the recent move of Russian troops into Western neighbor Belarus for major war games; additionally, Moscow has amassed a sizable force on its border with Ukraine. The movement of a flotilla into the Black Sea could ostensibly ensure that the Kremlin surrounds Ukraine on three sides. Many Western observers recall similar moves before Moscows 2014 move to annex Crimea and the subsequent separatist movement in Kyivs west. Despite Russias repeated denial of such a move, many fear that Putin may be preparing for a repeat of 2014 in an attempt to seize further Ukrainian territory in the countrys east.

Should the situation escalate in any of these areas, it isnt likely that Russia or China would come to the military aid of the otherat least not overtly. Its hard to imagine Russia risking large-scale war with the United States over Chinas territorial claims in the South China Sea; similarly, Beijing is unlikely to deploy naval forces to the Black Sea should war break out in eastern Ukraine.

Still, the escalation in naval coordination demonstrates an increased ability for regimes deemed authoritarian by the West to effectively coordinate activities and build relationships independent of U.S. global hegemony. This effectively allows them to increase pressure on the international order as it standsas in Russias threat to European energy security and Chinas economic pressure on countries over their relations with Taiwan.

The salutary outreach of Russia and China to other ostracized nations, such as Iran, arent only advantageous for each respective nation, but also help bring the multipolar world envisaged by Moscow and Beijing one step closer to reality.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
A police officer gestures to a journalist not to photograph in Beijing, China, on March 5, 2021. (NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images)

A Global Regime of Political Terror: Beijing Forcibly Brought Back 10,000 Citizens From Overseas Since 2014, Report Says

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has captured nearly 10,000 fugitives from abroad since 2014, in a campaign employing methods ranging from kidnapping to intimidating families, according to a new report.

Under the guise of an anti-corruption campaign, the Chinese regime launched Operation Fox Hunt in 2014, followed by a broader Operation Sky Net in 2015, which aimed to repatriate misbehaving officials and other economic criminals.

Human rights group Safeguard Defenders, in a Jan. 18 report, described Beijings repatriation campaign as creating a global regime of political terror.

The report noted the CCPs continued efforts to hunt down overseas targets during the pandemic, despite lockdown and travel restrictions around the world. The Chinese regime brought back 1,421 individuals in 2020, and 1,114 in the first 11 months of 2021, the report said.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, Laura Harth, director of Safeguard Defenders, told EpochTVs China Insider program. She noted that many other victims might be cowed into silence.

I think a lot of countries are maybe unaware that this is happening, said Heath. I think theres still a lot of naivete when it comes to the operations run by the Chinese Communist Party.

While officially Operations Fox Hunt and Sky Net target those who have purportedly committed economic crimes or crimes related to their official duties, Safeguard Defenders found many cases that fell beyond this scope. Dissidents, Uyghurs, HongKongers, and Falun Gong practitioners are among the overseas targets pursued by the CCP, it said.

Placards showing missing bookseller Gui Minhai (R) are seen left by members of the Civic party outside the China liaison office in Hong Kong on Jan. 19, 2016. (Philippe Lopez/AFP via Getty Images)

Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish bookseller, went missing from his holiday home in Thailand in 2015. Gui later reappeared in custody in China. In 2020, a court in Ningbo city said in a statement that Gui was sentenced to 10 years in jail for providing intelligence to foreigners. Gui was one of the shareholders of a Hong Kong-based bookstore that specialized in selling books critical of the CCP.

The 62-page report explored the three methods, other than formal extradition processes, deployed by the CCP to force their targets to return: threatening their families in China, sending agents overseas to directly intimidate them, and even kidnapping them.

With these operations, the CCPs message is that nowhere is safe, the report said.

The majority of these people brought back by the CCP will be prosecuted in one of these mock trials and will end up in prison, according to Heath.

In 2020 and 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice charged nine individuals over their alleged roles in scheme to intimidate a New Jersey resident to return to China, as part of Operation Fox Hunt.

The regimes global operations are set to continue, Harth said. She urged governments to investigate the conduct of these operations on their home soil.

From 2012 to 2020, the number of Chinese asylum seekers increased 700 percent, according to the report, citing data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The figure doesnt include some 88,000 applications made by HongKongers under UKs new immigration scheme.

David Zhang contributed to this report.
A person holds a photo of late Haitian President Jovenel Moise, who was shot dead in early July, during his funeral at his family home in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, on July 23, 2021. (Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters)

US Charges 2nd Key Suspect in Killing of Haitis President

MIAMIA Haitian-Chilean businessman considered a key suspect in the killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moise appeared in U.S. federal court on Thursday and was accused of providing weapons to former Colombian soldiers charged with fatally shooting the Caribbean countrys leader.

Rodolphe Jaar, a former U.S. government informant who was recently detained in the Dominican Republic, was charged with conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and 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.

Jaar, 49, is the second foreigner charged and arrested in the United States for his alleged role leading to the July 7 killing of Moise at his private residence. In early January, former Colombian soldier Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios faced the same charges and remains detained at a federal prison in south Florida.

If convicted of the charges, Jaar and Palacios could face life in prison.

The judge assigned Jaar a public defender and set a detention hearing for Jan. 26 in which his attorney could request he be freed on bond, although prosecutors oppose such a move. He also faces an arraignment hearing on Feb. 3rd, in which he could declare himself innocent or guilty. Meanwhile, Palacios has his second court appearance scheduled for Jan. 31.

During Thursdays hearing, Jaar responded in English to some of the judges questions to determine whether he could afford his own attorney or needed a public defender. Clad in a beige prison uniform and wearing a face mask, Jaar told the judge that he once owned businesses in Haiti but distanced himself from them six months ago and was not receiving any income. He added that he had $2,000 in his bank account.

Jaar was born in Haiti and has a college degree in business administration, according to court records. He is not a U.S. citizen.

He was indicted in 2013 in federal court in South Florida on charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela through Haiti to the U.S. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly four years in prison, according to court records.

In this newest case, Jaar is accused of being present when an unidentified suspect obtained the signature of a former judge in a bid to illegally arrest the slain president. He is also accused of providing weapons to former Colombian soldiers and of communicating with the unidentified suspect and others as they hid from authorities after the killing. The unidentified suspect was arrested in Haiti and remains detained there, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

More than 40 people have been arrested in the case, including 18 former Colombian soldiers, the majority of whom the Colombian government says were duped.

U.S. authorities said that both Jaar and Palacios, the ex-Colombian soldier, voluntarily agreed to face charges in the United States. Palacios was detained in Jamaica in October and was flown to the United States. During a stopover in Panama while on a flight from Jamaica to Colombia. Federal officials say they had interviewed him while he was still hiding in Jamaica.

By Gisela Salamon
Appeal Adjourned for Cinema Owner Convicted for Refusing to Close Over COVID-19 Rules

Swanseas Cinema & Co was ordered to shut down by a judge after the boss breached several COVID-19 regulations and refused to implement vaccine passports.

In November last year, Anna Redfern, owner of Cinema & Co in Swansea, South Wales, refused to implement the Welsh Governments vaccine passport scheme.

Wales First Minister Mark Drakeford has supported the vaccine passports (called COVID Pass), rolled out in cinemas, theatres, and concert halls, saying that they have helped to keep businesses open and to give customers confidence that they were safe locations for them to visit.

Under the Coronavirus Act 2020, Welsh Ministers have powers to take action against specific premises where they consider the premises to present a risk to public health. The government issued a statement in late November to support Swansea Council and to protect public health and issued a direction under the Act for the closure of the cinema after it identified a series of breaches of the Coronavirus Regulations. A district judge warned Redfern she would be in contempt of court if she reopened.

I made my stance and three days later they appeared and slapped a closure notice on it, said Redfern to The Epoch Times.

In December, Redfern was fined 15,000 and given a 28-day suspended prison sentence in Swansea Magistrates Court after admitting contempt of court for failing to comply with the earlier order. She has since lodged an appeal at Swansea Crown Court, of which Redfern said that the date has now been adjourned as her mother, who has been ill, died recently.

In January, it was reported by the BBC that despite the ban, the cinema put on a number of films, including a controversial documentary about euthanasia by Jaymie Icke, the son of the author and conspiracy theorist David Icke.

It feels like I am in a movie, I have to stop myself and wonder, gosh, this is all very surreal and its very chaotic as well but it feels right to speak up, Redfern said.

On the rules, Redfern argued that Welsh authorities provided guidance that was to her nonsensical.

If you have a staff room with a sofa in it, they said to change it for two seats so they can sit apart, she said. It doesnt make any sense, I just followed my rules of common sense. But it wasnt until I shouted about the COVID passports that I thought I cant go on like this anymore, this is ridiculous, she said.

Swansea Council told Wales Online that Cinema and Co need to follow guidance in order for us to agree it can re-open safely in the interests of customers and staff.

The Epoch Times contacted Swansea Council who did not wish to comment as they said regulations for COVID-19 are set by the Welsh Government. As of publication, the Welsh Government has not replied to questions sent by the Epoch Times.

Is there any worry that you could be potentially pushed into more of a label by showing Jaymie Ickes documentary A Good Death, which made claims that euthanasia is being practiced illegally in care institutions?

I already am, I have been labeled a racist, a homophobe, and also a conspiracy theorist and an anti-vaxxer. Ive had all the labels chucked at me. The media are judging me on a film that they havent even seen. I am supposed to veto every film? Thats censorship surely, thats not my place. Families lost loved ones. People traveled from all over the country and I was able to speak first hand to them. To deny them that platform would have been shocking. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, said Redfern.

Together Declaration spokesperson and political commentator Richard Taylor told The Epoch Times that he started a crowdfunder for Redfern when he first heard about her stance. The Together Declaration is a movement that says it speaks out against the UK government in response to their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I did it simply because I could see what was happening to small independent businesses which are being attacked by the big state government. We need to stand up for the little people, said Taylor.

As of the 21st of January, Wales announced that it is moving to alert level zero for all outdoor activities. However, the COVID Pass is still required in all cinemas.
A conversation with Kerry McDonald

While homeschooling has been steadily growing in popularity for decades, the past two years have brought on an explosion. It seems that a pandemic, a mature internet, and an increased awareness among parents have provided the perfect storm for millions of parents to take matters into their own hands.

I asked Kerry McDonald, a senior education fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom, about the variety of educational options available today and for her advice for those working their way through the decision to homeschool. Heres what she said.

The Epoch Times: The number of families opting for an alternative to public school has skyrocketed over the past couple of years. What do you think are the most significant factors driving this shift?

Kerry McDonald: In the spring of 2020 when schools shut down and went online, parents were able to see for the first time what was actually happening in their childrens classrooms. Many of them didnt like what they saw and were motivated to explore other education possibilities beyond an assigned district school.

As schools remained shuttered for the 2020/2021 academic year, parents felt empowered to take back control over their childrens education. In record numbers, they pulled their children out of district schools for private education options, including homeschooling, which doubled in 2020 to more than 11 percent of the overall K12 school-age population. Despite schools reopening for full-time in-person learning this fall, homeschooling and private school numbers remain high, while public schooling enrollment falls in many areas.

The Epoch Times: When people think of homeschooling, they may envision a mom and her children gathered around the kitchen table as they work through multiplication or make a volcano with baking soda and vinegar. In reality, the variety of educational choices has widened significantly, and the various alternatives look different to different families. What options should parents be aware of if theyre thinking of pulling their kids out of public school?

Ms. McDonald: Homeschooling is really a catch-all term for a whole host of schooling alternatives. Legally, it means that parents, not schools or districts, are in charge of overseeing a childs education. In practice, it includes a wide variety of instructional approaches and educational philosophies, ranging from replicating school at home to allowing childrens interests to guide their learning using an array of digital and community-based resources to enrolling a child full time in a local learning center or micro-schooland everything in between!

The Epoch Times: What advice would you give parents who find themselves dissatisfied with their childrens current school and looking to make a change?

Ms. McDonald: You have more educational options available to you than you may think! Learning pods, homeschool co-ops, learning centers and micro-schools, education startups focused on supporting schooling alternatives, and a growing community of homeschooling families are creating and catalyzing new models and methods for K12 learning.

The Epoch Times: The explosion in homeschooling has also expanded opportunities for teachers. Teachers who find themselves disenchanted with the public school system have been offering their services to the growing homeschool market. What advice would you give a teacher [who would] like to capitalize on this opportunity?

Ms. McDonald: Some teachers realized during last years school closures that they could earn more money with fewer hours and more flexibility by serving as a tutor for learning pod families or by launching their own micro-school. Today, as teacher burnout grows due to ongoing school coronavirus policies and staffing shortages, more teachers are choosing to leave their public school classroom, but not their profession. Instead, they are starting or joining micro-schools, offering their services as tutors and learning guides, and becoming more entrepreneurial in their approach to education. Its a great time for teachers to become education entrepreneurs! Parental demand for more and better learning options for their children has never been higher.

The Epoch Times: To the parent about to pull his or her child out of the public school system, but feeling a bit nervous about their decision, what would you say to encourage them?

Ms. McDonald: Now is the ideal moment for parents to experiment with a different learning model for their children. Public schools remain mired in burdensome coronavirus policies and procedures, and some schools are moving back to online learning for part of the school week. This is aggravating parents and could be just the nudge they need to opt out of the public system.
This screenshot taken from a video posted on social media shows a massive crater in the ground following an explosion in Ghana's rural Western Region, Ghana, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Joseph Kabenlah Amihere via Reuters)

At Least 17 Dead After Explosion in Ghana Mining Region

ACCRAAt least 17 people were killed and scores injured when a truck carrying explosives to a gold mine in western Ghana collided with a motorcycle, setting off an explosion that flattened a rural community, the government said on Friday.

As rescuers combed the site for survivors, videos posted on local media showed hundreds of buildings reduced to piles of wood, rubble, and twisted metal, and dead bodies crumpled on the ground surrounded by debris.

A photo shared by a local politician showed a yawning crater at the epicenter of the blast, onlookers peering down from its rim.

Seji Saji Amedonu, deputy director general of the National Disaster Management Organisation said around 500 buildings were destroyed and that rescue efforts were still underway.

The blast occurred on Thursday in Apiate, a settlement between the towns of Bogoso and Bawdie, when a motorcycle fell under a truck owned by a company called Maxam that was transporting explosives to the Chirano gold mine, run by Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corporation, police said.

Kinross confirmed the incident and said it was monitoring the situation and rescue efforts. Maxam could not be reached for comment.

The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is investigating the cause of the blast and whether the companies involved followed regulations covering transportation of explosives, it said in a statement.

Survivors in critical condition are being evacuated to medical facilities in the capital Accra, the government said.

By Cooper Inveen and Christian Akorlie
Atlanta Court: Sheriff Cannot Put Warning Signs in Sex Offenders Yards

By Bill Rankin

From Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATLANTAThe federal appeals court in Atlanta has found it was unconstitutional for the Butts County sheriff to place warning signs in the yards of registered sex offenders in his county.

A few days before Halloween in 2018, Sheriff Gary Long had his deputies place the signs in all 57 registered offenders front yards a few feet from their mailboxes. Between depictions of two stop signs, the signs read, Warning! No trick-or-treat at this address!!

Long had deputies give leaflets to the residences that said the warning signs could not be removed by anyone other than someone with the sheriffs office.

Long also posted on his offices Facebook page that there is nothing more important to me than the safety of your children. He said the signs were posted in front of houses to avoid and noted that Georgia law forbids registered sex offenders from participating in Halloween.

Three registered offendersReginald Holden, Corey McClendon and Christopher Reedfiled a federal lawsuit contending the signs placement violates a homeowners First Amendment rights.

Marc Treadwell, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Macon, initially blocked Long from posting the signs, but he ultimately ruled in the sheriffs favor. Treadwell said the plaintiffs were free to disagree with the sheriffs signs by posting a competing message on their own signs.

In his order, Treadwell noted that the three plaintiffs have, by all accounts, been rehabilitated and are leading productive lives.

In an opinion issued Wednesday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Treadwells decision. The court said the sheriffs warning signs violate a homeowners right to be free from being forced to host a government message on his or her private property.

If the only constitutional requirement to cure the issue is to allow homeowners to post their own sign in disagreement, the sheriff could place any sign identifying himself as the speaker in any county residents yard, Senior Judge Frank Hull wrote for the majority.

Hull also noted that Georgia law does not forbid registered sex offenders from participating in Halloween. And she said that Long, who has been sheriff since 2013, acknowledged there had been no issues with any registered sex offenders in his county, such as having unauthorized contact with minors or committing new sex offenses.

The ruling was an immediate victory for Holden because he owns his property. But Hull noted that McLendon and Reed, who live with their parents, want to add their parents as plaintiffs in the litigation.

2022 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at www.ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Demonstrators hold flags and placards as they march to protest against COVID-19 restrictions and the mandatory vaccination in Vienna, Austria, on Dec. 4, 2021. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters)

Austrias Lower Parliament Votes to Mandate COVID-19 Vaccines for All Adults

If the measure passes the upper house, Austria would be the first EU nation to impose such a mandate

Austria edged closer to implementing a compulsory COVID-19 vaccination mandate for most adults on Thursday after parliaments lower house voted in favor of the proposal.

A majority of MPs backed the bill by 137 votes to 33, according to local reports. It is now expected to pass parliaments upper house before being signed by President Alexander Van der Bellen.

If passed, it would mean that adults age 18 and over in the country would need to get vaccinated against COVID-19 starting in February. However, pregnant women, those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, and individuals who recovered from the virus in the past six months, would be exempt.

The move would make Austria the first EU nation to impose such a mandate and comes despite large-scale demonstrations across the country in recent months as tens of thousands of angry citizens continue to protest against such measures.

Every Austrian household will be notified about the mandatory COVID-19 vaccination, which is free, via direct mail, according to a government statement. Following an introductory phase which ends on March 15, unvaccinated Austrians will receive reminders every six months that they need to get vaccinated.

Officials will also check the vaccination status of Austrians via traffic stops and other methods, and those who fail to present proof of vaccination could be slapped with a 600 euros ($685) fine.

If full criminal proceedings are opened, those who refuse to get the shots will face fines of up to 3,600 ($4,084), although the financial circumstances of each individual are taken into account, the government said. Fines will be dropped if proof of vaccination or proof of an exceptional reason is submitted to officials within two weeks of being issued.

Introduction of Health Communism

Lawmakers say the vaccine mandate is necessary to protect the public health of Austria, where roughly 74 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein on Thursday praised the decision by the lower parliament, writing on Twitter, With the present draft law, we have a largeand above all, for the first time a particularly sustainablelever in our hands in the fight against the pandemic.

The obligation to vaccinate will help us above all in the fight against upcoming virus variants. This way we can finally escape from this cycle of opening and closing, waves and lockdowns, Mueckstein said, adding that he was proud of the draft law because the vaccination requirement is based on a really broad foundation.

But the leader of the Freedom Party of Austria Herbert Kickl, who has rallied against the law, said he was appalled, stunned, shaken and shocked by its passing in the lower house, calling the measure an assassination attempt on the population and the introduction of health communism.

In an effort to get more people vaccinated, Austrias conservative-led government also announced a so-called vaccine lottery which will offer incentives and reward packages to people who get the shots.

Officials said approximately 1.4 billion euros ($1.59 billion) will be invested in the efforts to get people vaccinated, of which 1 billion euros will go towards the national lottery, beginning March 15. The remaining 400 million euros will be directed to towns across the country that successfully reach a certain high vaccination rate.

So far, Ecuador, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Indonesia, and Micronesia are the only countries in the world to have passed vaccine mandates.
Migrant workers carrying their luggage through a street in Beijing on March 25, 2009. (Liu Jin/AFP via Getty Images)

Beijing Migrant Workers Search for Son Sparks Outrage, Sympathy

The story of a migrant worker in Beijing who caught COVID-19 while searching for his missing son provoked shock and sympathy on social media on Jan. 20, and drew attention to the hardships faced by the floating populations in Chinas big cities.

On Wednesday, city officials said that an asymptomatic case of the novel coronavirus had been detected in a 44-year-old man they identified by his surname Yue in the affluent Chaoyang district. His frequent and wide-ranging movements around the city, at odd hours, were widely discussed online.

Social media users declared Yue the hardest-working person among the floating populationa hashtag that amassed over 60 million views on Twitter-like Weibo, and drew attention to the deep inequality in China given that last year the communist regime called for achieving common prosperity.

In interviews with local media, the former fisherman from central Chinas Henan province said that he had arrived in Beijing last year, knowing his son, 21-year-old Yue Yuetong, had worked as a cook in the capital.

Since then, the elder Yue took odd jobs, from garbage collection to moving construction materials, and is the main breadwinner for a six-person household, including his paralyzed father.

Yue, who is being treated for the virus in a Beijing hospital, told China News Weekly that since his sons disappearance in August 2020 he had worked in several provinces searching for him. In Beijing, Yue earns around 200 to 300 yuan ($32-$47) per shift and sleeps four to five hours a day.

I dont think Im pitiful, I just want to do my work well, not steal or rob, rely on my own strength, my own two hands, make some money, and find my son, he told state-runChina News Weekly.

Yues son, who turns 21 this year and is among Chinas roughly 285 million migrant workers who move to cities seeking work and a better life, was last seen in a bus station in Rongcheng, Shandong province, according to Yue in an interview with the state-run Beijing News that was later deleted.

Yue said he tried to seek help from police stations in Rongcheng city and Weihai city, but they refused to investigate, according to China News Weekly.

As of Thursday evening, the report has been banned from being shared on Wechat, another Chinese social media platform.

Reuters was unable to reach Yue, whose story emerged as Beijing is on high alert for the spread of the Omicron variant ahead of Winter Olympics and as COVID-19 lockdowns once again disrupt travel plans ahead of Chinas Lunar New Year holiday when workers, including migrants such as Yue, typically return home for family reunions.

Some social media users drew attention to the disparity between Yues movements and another recent COVID-19 case in Beijing who went to a ski resort and a jewelry store before testing positive for the virus.

I dont know whether common prosperity is empty words but its the governments responsibility to ensure every worker can live respectably, said another Weibo user who goes by firetrap-virtuallife.

The Epoch Times Staff contributed to this report.
Activists appeal for a $15 minimum wage near the Capitol in Washington on Feb. 25, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

Biden Admin Increases Minimum Wage for Federal Employees to $15 an Hour

The Biden administration has moved to increase the minimum wage for all federal employees to $15 an hour, according to a Jan. 21 release from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

The change will boost pay for 67,000 of the total 2.2 million federal employees. Most of those impacted work for the Department of Defense (DOD). Others include the Departments of Agriculture, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, according to OPM.

We know that paying a living wage provides a myriad of benefits, from recruitment to retention to increased productivity, and more. Its also the right thing to do, said OPM Director Kiran Ahuja in a statement. We should strive for every federal job to be a good job, and we want to ensure that every federal employee has a pathway to the middle class.

The new directive comes as part of an executive order President Joe Biden signed at the start of his presidency, which directs the OPM director to submit a report on the impact of a minimum wage increase. That report was submitted to the White House and Fridays issued guidance reflects the reports findings, the statement reads.

Last year, Biden also issued an executive order increasing pay for federal contract workers to $15 an hour.

Fridays announcement also noted the new wage will impact 130 wildland firefighters, 400 plant protection technicians, 3,800 custodial workers, and roughly 50,000 Defense Department employees at military bases around the United States.

The pay increase excludes the U.S. Postal Service and Postal Regulatory Commission as those agencies are outside the scope of OPMs authority, the statement said.

The new guidance from OPM does not make note of the impact the wage increase will have on federal spending, and the agency did not respond to a request for comment in time for the publication of this article.

OPM has asked agencies to implement the new wage increase by the end of the month.
Fresh nuts, bolts and fittings are ready to be added to the east leg of the pipeline near St. Ignace, Mich., on June 8, 2017, as Enbridge prepares to test the east and west sides of the Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac in Mackinaw City, Mich. (Dale G Young/Detroit News via AP)

Biden Energy Officials Grilled on Proposed Pipeline Regulation, Rumored Natural Gas Export Ban

Rep. Walberg: Im amazed ... that you werent prepped

In a Jan. 19 hearing of the House Energy Subcommittee, representatives questioned two Biden administration appointees on U.S. pipeline infrastructure, energy prices, and a rumored ban on exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The hearing was occasioned by Subcommittee Chair Bobby Rushs (D-Ill.) proposed legislation, H.R. 6084, the Energy Product Reliability Act.

That measure would compel the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to certify a new regulatory body called the Energy Product Reliability Corporation (ERPO). ERPO is designed to resemble the Energy Reliability Organization (ERO), with which FERC oversees the electrical grid.

ERPO would develop and enforce reliability standards for energy pipelines, including natural gas pipelines, hydrogen pipelines, and petroleum pipelines. The legislation charges FERC with approving or disapproving those standards. In particular, ERPO would be required to establish standards on physical security, cybersecurity, and the maintenance of reliable electricity generation.

The measure comes half a year after the Keystone XL pipeline was canceled following the denial of a key permit by the Biden administration. The Line 5 pipeline connecting Michigan and Canada, which Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has attempted to shut down, has also drawn controversy, though the White House claimed in November 2021 that it had no plans to close it down.

Representatives heard testimony from two Biden energy appointees.

One was Richard Glick, who previously served as general counsel for Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Democrats and government affairs director for Berkshire Hathaways PacifiCorp. Glick was elevated to FERC chair by President Joe Biden after being appointed to the FERC by President Donald Trump.

Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk also testified during the hearing. Turk started his career on Capitol Hill working for then-Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and later, then-Sen. Biden (D-Del.) before serving in a range of roles under President Barack Obama.

Rush said his measure would help prevent the issues with natural gas delivery that occurred during the February 2021 winter storm in Texas, saying it would mirror current regulations on electricity delivery.

All Americans deserve access to reliable energy, and they need to know that the pipelines that deliver that energy are dependable, Rush said in his opening statement.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told the hearing that Rushs proposed legislation would greatly enlarge FERCs regulatory power while potentially jeopardizing the safety of Americans.

Everyone knows energy prices are the number one issue right nowthe highest prices in seven yearsyet the majority has not scheduled a hearing, he said.

Upton said representatives should instead work to approve his own legislation, H.R. 3078, or the Pipeline and LNG Facility Cybersecurity Preparedness Act. Like Rushs measure, it drew inspiration from the May 2021 Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, which limited access to gasoline for many Americans.

For Yes or No Questions, Yes or No Answers Uncommon

Glick and Turk were questioned by representatives, at times drawing criticism from them for not answering yes or no questions with either a yes or a no.

Claims that some in the Biden administration may be pursuing a ban on LNG exports were a point of uncertainty during the hearing. Upton asked Turk to clarify whether such a ban was being considered.

We have been looking at the full range of tools that weve got in our toolbelt, Turk said.

Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) later echoed Uptons question to Turk: Yes or nois an [LNG and crude oil] export ban on the table?

An export ban, either on the LNG side or on the oil side, is not something were currently discussing and under consideration, Turk replied.

Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) asked Turk if he agreed with a recent statement from his superior, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, that pipe is the best way to go when it comes to moving fuel. As Turk began to elaborate, Johnson interrupted: Its a yes or no answer.

Yes, there are standards Turk began before being interrupted by Johnson.

I dont know about you, Mr. deputy secretary, but I do agree that pipe is the best way to go, Johnson said.

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) pressed Turk on a topic key to the Line 5 pipeline in his home state, asking him if he supported pipeline construction between the United States and Canada.

I think we should be clear on thisits not the pipeline issue thats caused the current affordability challenge that we have, Turk began before being interrupted by Walberg.

Im not asking you that, Walberg said. Im amazed that Secretary Granholm, having been in front of us before, last year, and asking questions about Keystone pipeline and Line 5 pipeline as well, that you werent prepped to respond to questions that you knew we would ask.

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) voiced a similar sentiment.

Im stuck somewhere between perplexed and confused and ashamed at how unwilling you are to give a straight answer to a straight question, Palmer said.

Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) received a crisper answer to his yes or no question: Does climate change and the associated extreme weather events pose a risk to the reliable delivery of energy products like oil and natural gas? Please answer yes or no.

Yes it does, congressman, Glick replied.

Attribute New England LNG Imports to Low Demand

Glick told Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) that New Englands reliance on natural gas imports rather than gas from domestic pipelines is in large part  due to the fact that there hasnt been enough demand to bring in new pipeline development.

Yet some energy experts think political factors have made it challenging or even impossible to build new energy pipelines in that region.

Isaac Orr, a policy fellow at the Center for the American Experiment, told The Epoch Times: You cant build a pipeline from Pennsylvania, which is one of the top energy-producing states in the country, to Massachusetts, where they need it. So theyre importing LNG, liquefied natural gas, from Trinidad and Tobago.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (R) talks in a virtual meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, shown in the monitor, in a room of the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, on Jan. 21, 2022. (Cabinet Secretariat/Kyodo News via AP)

Japan Is Fully Behind US to Deter Russian Aggression, Kishida Tells Biden

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made clear in virtual talks with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday that his country would be fully behind the United States to deter Russian aggression against Ukraine, a senior administration official said.

The two leaders discussed the growing tensions caused by Russias amassing tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine, according to the official.

In a statement released by the White House, the official said that Kishida pledged to continue close coordination with the United States, other allies and partners, and the international community on taking strong action in response to any attack.

We did not get into the specifics about possible steps that would be taken in the event that we see these actions transpire, the official said, adding that both leaders would be in close consultation on the matter.

The 80-minute discussion also touched on the Chinese Communist Partys (CCPs) human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, and the situation in Hong Kong, where the CCP is accused of repressing democracy.

Biden and Kishida underscored the importance of stability in the Taiwan Strait, where tensions between the self-ruled island of Taiwan and China have been rising. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and vows to take the island under its control by force if necessary.

The two leaders vowed to push back against Chinas attempts to alter the status quo in the South China Sea, where China has been ramping up military presence, and the East China Seaparticularly the disputed Senkaku Islandsthe White House said in a statement.

The Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea have mostly been administered by Japan since 1895, but Beijing began asserting its rights over the islands in the 1970s. In China, the islands are called the Diaoyu Islands.

The White House noted that Biden affirmed the United States unwavering commitment to the defense of Japan, using its full range of capabilities, including the application of the 1960 Japan-U.S. security treaty.

Following North Koreas recent launches of ballistic missiles, the two leaders condemned Pyongyangs actions as in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and committed to maintaining close coordination on the issue, including with South Korea.

North Korea on Thursday said that it would seek to immediately develop more powerful physical means to overpower the intensifying hostile moves of the United States, after the Biden administration imposed its first sanctions over Pyongyangs weapons programs.

When asked about Pyongyangs statement, the official said that the United States had sent a very clear message to North Korea in an effort to dissuade North Korea from taking further provocative steps.

The United States and South Korea remain open to diplomacy. But such a set of steps would be most unwelcome, particularly at this delicate time in Northeast Asia, and globally more generally, the official said.

Meanwhile, Biden accepted Kishidas invitation to visit Japan later this spring for an official visit and to attend this years Quad Summit, the meeting held between the leaders of Japan, the United States, Australia, and India.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Bidens COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Federal Workers Blocked Nationwide

President Joe Bidens COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees was blocked on Friday by a federal judge.

Biden does not have the authority to impose such a mandate, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote in a 20-page ruling obtained by The Epoch Times.

Federal law says the president may prescribe regulations for the conduct of employees in the executive branch, and government lawyers argued that the act of becoming vaccinated is plainly conduct.' The judge, though, sided with plaintiffs, who asserted the conduct cited must be workplace conduct for him or her to regulate it.

So, is submitting to a COVID-19 vaccine, particularly when required as a condition of ones employment, workplace conduct? The answer to this question became a lot clearer after the Supreme Courts ruling earlier this month, Brown said, referring to the Supreme Courts recent finding that the Biden administrations COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private businesses appeared to fall outside of its powers as conferred by Congress.

The Supreme Court has expressly held that a COVID-19 vaccine mandate is not an employment regulation. And that means the President was without statutory authority to issue the federal worker mandate, he added.

He said that without entering a preliminary injunction, or blocking the order for now, federal workers who have not gotten vaccinated or been approved for an exemption face suspension or termination or other negative consequences.

The covered agencies include the Department of Defense, the Transportation Department, and the CIA.

The lawsuit was brought by Feds for Medical Freedom, a grassroots coalition that includes federal workers, and other groups.

Todays decision by Judge Brown is a victory for the thousands of men and women who want to serve their government without sacrificing their individual rights, Marcus Thornton, president of the group, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

The 6,000+ members of Feds for Medical Freedom want nothing more than to continue their service to this country without being subjected to unconstitutional mandates. For the time being, the courts ruling grants them that wish, but the fight is far from over. We will continue to pursue every lawful avenue available to ensure our members rights are respected and their service is honored appropriately, he added.

In a motion for an injunction, plaintiffs said Biden acted beyond his lawful delegated authority in issuing the mandate and another for federal contractors that has been ruled against by several courts.

In a motion opposing the request, defendants said the orders were designed to stem the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 and fit comfortably within the Presidents broad authority to oversee the Executive Branch workforce.

Shortly after Browns order was issued, the government appealed it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The appeals court could uphold the ruling, which would likely lead to a showdown at the Supreme Court, or lift the injunction while the case works its way through the courts.
Bullish on the RV Megatrend

Commentary

Here we go again.

With Omicron now plowing its way across North America, it was only a matter of time before the shutdown police showed up.

This past weekend, pharmacy giants CVS and Walgreens announced they would be temporarily closing select stores due to staff shortages.

Just before New Year, Apple let its geniuses play hookey as many called in sick with the virus.

Other big corporations are also getting in on the action.

Just as it looked like workers would be asked to return to offices, many companies abruptly changed plans, asking employees to work from home.

While many businesses are fighting tooth and nail to get employees back into the office, others have just thrown in the towel.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers, for example, announced last year that they would embrace remote work where possible for employees.

At stake is no less than the future of work and modern society.

For many, the shift to work-from-home has been a godsend: less time commuting and ironing pants means more time for family and recreation.

Some workers have even taken advantage of their newfound freedom by moving or traveling to any number of remote locations.

Of course, this is not entirely new. Before the pandemic, there was a category of workers known as digital nomads that had jobs that offered them the flexibility to work from wherever they wanted as long as they had an internet connection.

Now the virus has expanded this opportunity to a large number of workers who can similarly enjoy the benefits of remote life.

One of the least obvious beneficiaries of this trend is none other than the RV industry.

Even before the pandemic, RVs were experiencing a renaissance of sorts as glamping showed up on lifestyle tv channels and social media.

Some of this glamping has taken the form of whats known on social media as #vanlifea social movement of folks who live in vansembracing a minimalist lifestyle and valuing adventure and free time.

But even if you put the hippy vanlife culture aside for a moment, theres a major economic shift that justifies campers as a viable option for the middle class.

With the cost of homes now near-record highs, a large percentage of millennials are finding themselves priced out of the market at a point in their life where they would traditionally be purchasing a home.

I believe many of these would-be home buyers will turn to RVs and vans as an alternative.

Of course, living out of a van as a full-time lifestyle choice is extreme. But, the normalization of this trend will likely drive some to consider campers for part-time vacation/recreational use.

Thats on top of the likely surge of soon-to-retire Boomers. As this cohort heads into their golden years, were likely to see a similar embrace of the camper lifestyle.

These converging trends#vanlife, work-from-home, and boomersall add up to a very positive future for the camper business.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
A hooded man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. (Kacper Pempel/Illustration/Reuters)

Canada Agency Says Russian-Backed Actors Targeting Infrastructure

OTTAWANetwork operators of critical Canadian infrastructure should boost their defenses against Russian state-sponsored threats, Canadas signals intelligence agency said on Thursday.

The warning from the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) is the latest in a series of bulletins from Canadas two main spy agencies accusing Russian actors of trying to hack into sensitive computer systems.

(CSE) encourages the Canadian cyber-security communityespecially critical infrastructure network defendersto bolster their awareness of and protection against Russian state-sponsored cyber threats, it said in a statement.

Russian actors and others are targeting critical infrastructure network operators as well as their operational and information technology, it added.

Operators should be prepared to isolate components and services that would be considered attractive to a hostile threat actor to disrupt and boost vigilance, CSE said.

Canada has had poor relations with Russia since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Ottawa fears armed conflict could break out in Ukraine and is working with allies to make clear to Russia that any further aggression towards Kiev is unacceptable, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday.
Canada Loans $120M to Ukraine, Trudeau Doesnt Rule Out Sending Military Equipment

Ottawa has announced it is giving a loan of up to $120 million to Ukraine, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not ruling out the possibility of sending military equipment as worries about Russian military action against Ukraine remain high.

The loan is one of the top things that the Ukrainian government has been asking for from Canada, Trudeau said at a press conference on Jan. 21.

Russia is aiming to destabilize Ukraine, including economically. This loan will help support Ukraines economic resilience.

With Ukraine asking Canada this week for lethal and non-lethal military gear, Trudeau was asked if the loan means Canada will not be sending military equipment in the short term.

No, much to the contrary, we are demonstrating that we are there to help the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people by giving them what they need, he answered.

We know that they need other things. We are looking at what we can do to help more.

Asked how a loan would deter aggression, Trudeau said Russia is not just amassing troops on Ukraines border, but is also involved in cyberattacks, propaganda, and economic destabilization.

One of the things that the Ukrainian government has been clear on is that having additional financial resources to shore up their economy will be extremely important, he said.

Canada has also offered a grant of up to $6 million to support the implementation of the loan, according to a Global Affairs Canada (GAC) press release.

GAC says the loan is to support economic resilience and governance reforms, and Canadian and Ukrainian officials are already meeting to discuss the terms of the loan and a timeline for its implementation.

A GAC spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email that the loan cannot be used to purchase weapons or for military purposes, and that a mechanism will be in place to monitor the use of the loan.

In 2014 and 2015, Canada provided $400 million in loans to Ukraine to support its economic recovery and development, and these were repaid in full with interest and on schedule in 2020, GAC says.

While the Biden administration has said involving U.S. combat troops in Ukraine is off the table, Trudeau did not say definitively whether Canadian troops would be involved, saying only that he would not engage in hypotheticals.

Canada has had a training mission in Ukraine since 2015 consisting of some 200 troops. Global News reported this week that a small contingent of special forces operators was recently sent to Ukraine. It would not be involved in training, however, but would develop evacuation plans for Canadian diplomats.

Russian Ambassador to Canada Oleg Stepanov dismissed the idea that Canada could potentially sending weapons to Ukraine.

Our position is that any shipment of weapons to a country, which, like Ukraine, is in the middle of a civil war practically, is not conducive to any peace initiatives, he told CTV, according to Russias official news agency Tass.

Russia is reported to have amassed some 100,000 troops along Ukraines borders. It is unclear what could be Moscows objective in a potential incursion or invasion.

The Crimean Peninsula, which was taken by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, is not connected to Russia by land; therefore, capturing a land bridge in southeastern Ukraine may be one of Moscows aims.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says claims that Russia is about to invade are empty and unfounded, Tass reported on Jan. 21.

But Tass paraphrased Peskov as saying he did not rule out the possibility of provocations aimed at justifying such allegations and warned that attempts to use military force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have serious consequences.
People queue to collect coronavirus disease (COVID-19) antigen test kits at the Hazeldean Mall in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on Jan. 7, 2022. (Patrick Doyle/Reuters)

Canadas Ontario to Start Lifting COVID-Related Curbs, Quebec More Cautious

Canadas most populous province of Ontario has blunted transmission of the Omicron coronavirus variant and will gradually ease restrictions on businesses from end-January, Premier Doug Ford said on Thursday.

The health care system is starting to stabilize in the wake of limitations imposed on Jan. 5, Ford told a news conference, saying Omicron cases should peak later this month.

We can be confident that the worst is behind us and that we are now in a position to cautiously and gradually ease public health measures, Ford said.

The province will allow restaurants, malls, and cinemas to operate with a 50 percent capacity limit from Jan. 31, before removing more curbs in February and March.

While February will continue to present its own challenges, given current trends these are challenges we are confident we can manage, Ford said.

In neighbouring Quebec, premier Francois Legault said he would maintain restrictions to help protect the health care system even though Omicron cases had peaked.

I understand we are all tired, but lives are at stake. Im currently under a lot of pressure to remove measures, but my duty is to be responsible to protect the lives of Quebecers, he told a news conference.

Ontario and Quebec together account for around 61 percent of Canadas population of 38.2 million people.

By Ismail Shakil and David Ljunggren
Military vehicles and tanks of Poland, Italy, Canada and United States roll during the NATO military exercises ''Namejs 2021'' at a training ground in Kadaga, Latvia, on Sept. 13, 2021. (AP/Roman Koksarov)

Canadian Led Battlegroup in Latvia at High Readiness Amid NATO Russia Tensions

OTTAWAThe Canadian commander of a multinational battlegroup in Latvia says he is working to ensure his troops have enough supplies and can talk to each other, as mounting tensions between the NATO military alliance and Russia feed fears of a new war in Europe.

Canada has more than 500 soldiers in Latvia as part of a broader NATO reassurance mission first launched in 2017 in response to concerns about Russian aggression across eastern Europe.

The Canadian contingent includes about 350 troops primarily from Valcartier, Que., who form the core of a 1,000-strong NATO battlegroup stationed in Camp Adazi, about 30 kilometres northeast of the Latvian capital of Riga.

That battlegroup also includes military personnel and equipment from nine alliance nations, including Poland, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic, all of whom fall under the command of Lt.-Col. Dan Richel.

In an interview with The Canadian Press on Thursday, Richel said one of his main responsibilities since taking command last month has been to make sure the different contingents are able to quickly and accurately communicate with each other in the field.

English is a second language for pretty much everybody in the battlegroup right now, he said. Theyre all NATO countries, obviously, so their tactics are generally the same. We just need to make sure everybody has the same understanding of all the terminology.

Clear communication would be critical in the event of a Russian invasion, against which the battlegroup is specifically designed to defend. Also important: making sure the NATO force has fuel, ammunition and other supplies to fight.

The battlegroup is designed for conventional warfare, meaning battle with a similar army such as Russias. While Canadas contribution is mainly infantry with armoured vehicles, other partners have provided tanks, artillery and other equipment.

We all come with very different equipment, different equipment that takes different ammunition and that requires different support, Richel said. Its a challenge that I think were dealing with fairly well.

The Canadian commander said the battlegroups primary focus is to train and prepare for a possible attackas has been the case since its inception five years ago.

The battlegroup itself is already a high-readiness combat unit, said Richel. I would suggest that what you see here today is very much what you would have seen on the other rotations as well.

In addition to those dedicated to the battlegroup, Canada also has about 200 support personnel as well as a headquarters staff in Riga responsible for big-picture planning and co-ordination of NATO efforts in Latvia.

Similar battlegroups led by Britain, Germany and the United States have been established in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland, respectively. The Liberal government has said Canada will lead the mission in Latvia until at least March 2023.

Designed to defend against a Russian invasion, the battlegroups small size means they would almost certainly be overwhelmed in a real war. Instead, their main purpose is to deter against Russian aggression, with the idea that an attack on one would draw in all of NATO.

The Russian government in recent weeks has demanded the alliance withdraw all its forces from the region, including those in the Baltics and Poland, after mobilizing about 100,000 troops on Russias border with Ukraine.

Canada, the U.S. and other NATO members have rejected the demand, leading to growing concerns about armed conflict between the two sides that could start in Ukraine and expand to the rest of eastern Europe.

Asked on Wednesday whether the government would repatriate Canadian troops from Latvia and Ukraine if Russia attacked, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau underscored Canadas commitment to NATOs Baltic members.

Were in Latvia to defend the Baltic statesLatvia, Lithuania and eastern European statesfrom any incursions by Russian forces, he said in French during a COVID-19 briefing in Ottawa. We will continue the important work that NATO is doing to protect its eastern front.

By Lee Berthiaume
People watch a TV showing a file image of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station, South Korea, on Jan. 11, 2022. (Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

China, Russia Frustrate US Bid to Sanction North Korean Officials Over Missile Tests

China and Russia have blocked efforts by Washington to impose U.N. sanctions on five North Koreans, diplomats said Thursday, as Pyongyang seeks to overpower the U.S. hostile moves in a long-term confrontation.

The news follows a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting on North Korea on Thursdaythe second in two weeksfollowing Pyongyangs fourth missile launch this month, which involved two tactical guided missiles.

Chinese diplomats at the U.N. Security Council said that they needed more time to review the sanctions, according to envoys, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, while Russian officials said that more evidence was needed to support the U.S. proposal.

Earlier the U.S. ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, issued a joint statement on behalf of eight countriesthe United States, Albania, Brazil, France, Ireland, Japan, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdomthat urged the Security Council to be unified in condemning Pyongyangs unlawful behavior.

These launches demonstrate the regimes determination to pursue weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs at all costs, including at the expense of its own people, the eight nations said.

They called on the council committee to support the U.N. sanctions against those who aid Pyongyangs weapons programmes, warning that failing to do so would be tantamount to giving Pyongyang a blank check.

North Korea said it would seek to immediately develop more powerful physical means to overpower the intensifying hostile moves of the United States, state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Thursday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convened a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers Party on Wednesday, during which the members unanimously admitted that the DPRK must be more fully ready for a long-term confrontation with the U.S. imperialism. North Koreas official name is the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The authoritarian regime assessed the U.S. hostile policy and military threat have reached the line of danger that can no longer be overlooked, the report claims.

KCNA stated that the Politburo committee has therefore ordered a reconsideration of confidence-building measures and examining resuming all actions which had been temporarily suspended.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, attends a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers Party in Pyongyang, North Korea in a photo taken during Dec. 27Dec. 31, 2021. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

Earlier, Pyongyang claimed that another two missile tests it performed on Jan. 5 and Jan. 11 were hypersonic missiles. Those tests prompted the United States to impose sanctions on six North Koreans, one Russian, and a Russian firm it said were responsible for procuring goods for North Koreas weapons programs from Russia and China.

It then proposed that five of those people be subjected to a U.N. travel ban and asset freeze, which would need to be approved by the Security Councils 15-member North Korea sanctions committee.

U.S. special envoy for North Korea on Monday held trilateral talks with Japan and South Korea to discuss countermeasures to Pyongyangs series of ballistic missile launches. The U.S. said its offer for open dialogue with North Korea was without preconditions.

Reuters contributed to this report.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is seen during top of meeting remarks ahead of Australia-United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN) talks at Admiralty House in Sydney on Jan. 21, 2022. (Bianca De Marchi-Pool/Getty Images)

Chinas Economic Coercion of Australia a Wake-Up Call to World: UK Minister

The Chinese regimes economic coercion of Australia has been a wake-up call to other countries, according to UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

China had been Australias top trading partner. But after Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in April 2020, the communist regime retaliated by adopting a series of measures against Australian exporters, including arbitrary border testing and inspections, the imposition of tariffs, and unwarranted delays in listing export establishments and issuing import licenses.

Truss, on a visit to Australia for talks on defense and security ties, discussed the threat posed by the Chinese regime in a speech at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Jan. 21.

The situation with Australiathe economic coercion we sawwas one of the wake-up calls as to exactly what China was doing and the way it was using its economic might to try to exert control over other countries, she said.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne (L) and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss arrive for Australia-UK Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN) talks at Admiralty House in Sydney, on Jan. 21, 2022. (Bianca De Marchi-Pool/Getty Images)

Truss said there was a belief in the past that as China got wealthier, it was headed on a path towards becoming a freer, more democratic society, but the reality is that hasnt happened.

While the Chinese economy was a tenth the size of the U.S. economy in the 1990s, she said, were now in a situation with a China with a much bigger economy, much more able to coerce other nations.

The foreign secretary said the UK government has looked to Australia as it formulates its own policies on relevant issues.

Truss said the UK and Australia are determined to act together in calling out China when it imposes coercive trade measures on Australia and other countries such as Lithuania, which saw its exports to China blocked after it allowed Taiwan to open a de facto embassy in Vilnius using its own name.

She said Britain and Australia will help countries avoid having their balance sheets loaded with debt.

Truss said 44 low-to-middle income countries have debts to China in excess of 10 percent of their GDP, and Britain and Australia will work together to provide these countries with honest and reliable alternative sources of investment.

The two countries are also strengthening their supply chains by taking our economic ties with like-minded nations to new heights, she said.

Truss said China and Russia are working together more and more, asserting their dominance over the Western Pacific and in space. They are emboldened in a way we havent seen since the Cold War, she said.

As freedom-loving democracies, we must rise up to face down these threats. As well as NATO, we are working with partners like Australia, India, Japan, Indonesia, and Israel to build a global network of liberty.

Trusss visit comes after the UK, alongside the United States, signed a landmark agreement in September to provide Australia with the technology and capability to deploy nuclear-powered submarines.

The so-called AUKUS pact is widely seen as a regional alliance against the Chinese regimes growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Daniel Y. Teng and PA Media contributed to this report.
Zhang Qing (L), the wife of Chinese human rights activist Guo Feixiong, speaks at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 29, 2013, to raise awareness about the situation of her husband. Her daughter Yang Tianjiao looks on. Zhang passed away on Jan. 10, 2022. (Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese Rights Activist Officially Arrested 2 Days After Terminally Ill Wife Dies in United States

A well-known Chinese rights activist and lawyer has been formally arrested by the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, just two days after his terminally ill wife passed away in the United States.

Yang Maodongalso known by the pen name Guo Feixiongwas officially arrested on Jan. 12 after being secretly detained and held for allegedly inciting subversion of state power.

The 55-year-old had been repeatedly denied requests to go to the United States to take care of his wife, Zhang Qing, who passed away in Germantown, Maryland on the morning of Jan. 10. She was 55 years of age.

To avoid persecution from the Chinese regimes collective punishments on family members, Guos wife escaped China with their two young children in February 2009, arrived in the United States two months later, and obtained refugee status in November 2009.

The couple had not seen each other for 15 years.

Chinese rights activist Yang Maodong, also known by his pen name Guo Feixiong. (Supplied)

Since January 2021, Guo has made applications to go to the United States to take care of his wife who was diagnosed with late-stage cancer.

Family members, including Guos sister Yang Maoping, and supporters, also called upon the authorities to let him leave China for the United States to look after his wife but to no avail.

Guo was last heard of in early December when he again tried to go to the United States when Zhang was in critical condition. He sent a message to his friend on Dec. 5 saying: Im arrested.

Guo had earlier been intercepted at Shanghai airport and detained by public security in January 2021 when he tried to go to the United States to look after his wife.

On Jan. 14, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price issued a statement expressing condolences for Zhangs death.

The statement called on the PRC to immediately grant Guo humanitarian relief and allow his travel to the United States to be reunited with his children and grieve the passing of his wife.

The Chinese regime was also urged to live up to its international commitments on human rights and end its use of arbitrary detentions and politically motivated exit bans, the statement said.

The PRC must stop punishing individuals for exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Chinese human rights lawyers Gao Zhisheng (L) and Guo Feixiong pictured in a restaurant in January 2006. (The Epoch Times)

The Chinese regime has also harassed Guos sister Yang Maoping in Shanghai.

Yang told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times that on Jan. 15, Guangzhou National Security went to Shanghai to pay her a visit.

They came to the hospital that I work for at noon and told me that Guo Feixiong was officially arrested, but they didnt give me any official document about it, Yang said.

She said they threatened her and forbade her from communicating with Guos friends. They also asked her or Guos brother to go to the United States to deal with Zhangs funeral.

On Jan. 17, an insider supplied The Epoch Times with an arrest notice issued by the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau dated Jan. 12, showing that on that date at 19:00, the authorities arrested Guo on suspicion of inciting subversion of state power.

Guo is currently being held at the Guangzhou No. 1 Detention Center.

The Epoch Times called the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau switchboard asking to be transferred to the National Security Detachment to confirm Guos arrest. The female operator said, Wait a while, but there was no response after that.

Supporters of Guo Feixiong outside the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles on Dec. 6, 2021 call upon the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to release him so that he could see his dying wife Zhang Qing. (Xu Xiuhui/The Epoch Times)

Lin Shengliang, a Chinese dissident in exile in the Netherlands, told The Epoch Times that according to the Chinese regimes own laws, Guo has civil rights and the freedom to travel.

However, in practice, such rights are repeatedly breached by the communist authorities, Lin said.

Wang Guoxing, from the Federation for a democratic China, said that Zhang was not afraid of the regime and while she was in China she never left Guo even when he was persecuted. But she couldnt see Guo before she died, because the communist regime wouldnt let her.

The CCP is the culprit of this humanitarian tragedy, and it has never stopped causing such tragedies, Wang said.

Guo participated in the June 4th student democratic movement in 1989, which was violently suppressed by the Chinese regime.

He is one of the important participants and leaders of Chinas New Citizens Movement and the Southern Democracy Movement. He has been actively advocating for freedom, democracy, and civil rights in mainland China.

On numerous occasions he has been detained by the authorities for his rights activism, defending Falun Gong practitioners, and demanding that the property and wealth of communist officials be publicized.

For his rights-related work, Guo has been imprisoned by the communist regime for a total of 11 years.

Gu Qinger and Hong Ning contributed to the report.
Scenic views of the rolling green hills and oak trees of the Tollhouse Ranch located in the heart of the Tehachapi corridor in California. (Courtesy of Ian Shive)

Couple Gifts $50M for California Preserve 5 Times the Size of Manhattan

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.Philanthropists Frank and Joan Randall recently continued their long-standing dedication to the conservation of Californias open space with a $50 million gift to The Nature Conservancy, which will allow for the acquisition and preservation of more than 72,000 acres in the Southern Sierra Nevada and Tehachapi Mountain ranges.

Located 100 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, the Frank and Joan Randall Preserve will mitigate habitat fragmentation for wildlifefrom pollinators to large predatorsand provide the ability to move more freely and safely throughout natural, intact habitat corridors and allay the impact of ever-increasing land development and human encroachment in the region.

What is striking about the Randall Preserve and this area of the Tehachapi is its rugged beauty and unique topography, said Mike Sweeney, Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy. [The preserve] spans from very high elevations where you find snow, all the way down to the Mojave Desert and the Central Valley. It will ensure a much-needed corridor for wildlife, like endangered mountain lions to the south, so they can move, migrate and adapt.

The area of the Tehachapi is considered a critically important conservation landscape area in a chain of protected and unprotected lands that run from the Sierra Nevada to the Baja Peninsula. The area enables the connectivity needed to improve genetic flow between populations of species that have become isolated or endangered by roadways.

To address roadway hazards, The Nature Conservancy is partnering with Caltrans to study and create a system of wildlife crossings under and over California Route 58 by retrofitting existing culverts and an overpass into more functional wildlife crossings. The study will also include planning for and installation of wildlife protection along the highway.

Located in the sweet spot where the Sierra Nevada, Mojave Desert, Central Valley, and Southern Coast converge, the preserve includes a sweeping scope of land across a broad range of elevations spanning from the Sequoia National Forest to conserved lands on the Tejon Ranch.

The preserve will effectively connect Northern and Southern California, allowing movement from Southern Sierra Nevada to Castaic, to the Transverse Ranges running east to west, and down to the Peninsular ranges, all known for strong biodiversity.

You can identify a mountain lion cub because of their camouflaging spots and rings around their tails that fade as they mature. (Courtesy of John Stuelpnagel)

Helping Threatened Mountain Lions to Thrive

Mountain lions are one of the species that have been significantly compromised by urban expansion and human interaction in California. Officials hope that the Randall Preserve will enable these indigenous animals to move more freely across the region.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, tasked with ensuring mountain lion populations are able to live where suitable habitat and other environmental conditions allow, established a mountain lion conservation program in 2014.

With a decrease in the mountain lion population and an increase in isolation from their natural habitat due to the development of freeways, toll roads, and residential communities, the program was aimed at providing research and population monitoring to better understand the mountain lions connectivity and gene flow, human interactions, as well as mountain lion prey relations.

As a result of the program, mountain lions became legally classified as specially protected species in 2019 and are considered threatened under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) within a proposed evolutionarily significant unit (ESU) located in Southern California and along the central coast of California, areas that are now part of the Randall Preserve.

The good news is that elsewhere in California, mountain lion numbers appear to be stable. In addition to mountain lions, The Nature Conservancy says that the protection of the immense area will ensure that 28 other sensitive species will have the best chance of survival. Some of the wildlife species that will benefit include condors, golden eagles, badgers, legless lizards, and slender salamanders. The preserve will also help protect blue oak trees, primrose sphinx moths, and several endangered plants.

Southern California Natives

South Pasadena native and long-time Newport Beach resident, Frank Randall, 91, began his career as a stockbroker and retired as a commercial real estate broker who had developed malls and other retail centers in the Los Angeles area. He and his wife Joan plan to leave a legacy of wildlife preservation through the acquisition of dwindling California open space.

Preserving open space has long been a passion of ours, said Frank Randall. Once its gone, its gone. This area was under threat but, together with The Nature Conservancy, were doing everything we can to make sure this beautiful and ecologically diverse part of our state can stand the test of time for generations to come.

The Randalls generous conservation efforts also include a $5 million donation in stock to the Banning Ranch Conservancy in support of the organizations work to preserve a 384-acre oil field at the mouth of the Santa Ana River, adjacent to the cities of Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, and Newport Beach in Orange County.

In 2021, the couple transferred an additional $45 million in stock shares to the Conservancy, in agreement with the Trust for Public Land, to secure an exclusive purchase agreement with the Banning Ranch owners to acquire what is Southern Californias largest piece of unprotected coastal open space between Ventura County and Mexico, vacant for more than half a century.

Thanks to the Randalls generosity and the work by the Trust for Public Land, we are knocking on the door now, its very exciting, Terry Welsh, M.D., President of Banning Ranch Conservancy told The Epoch Times. There will never be another 400-acres for sale on the Southern California coast again. We could truly make history if all goes as planned from this point forward.
The B.C. Legislature in Victoria in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito)

Critics Say BCs Self-ID Gender Policy Opens Door to Abuse

BC says gender on ID cards can now be changed without doctor's approval

VANCOUVERWhile some activists laud B.C.s move to ease the process of changing gender markers on provincial identification cards, others criticize the move as being political rather than evidence-based health-care policy, which they say could be harmful.

On Jan. 14, the B.C. government said transgender, two-spirit, and gender-diverse adults can now declare their own gender designations on their drivers licence, BC Services Card, BCID and birth certificate without consent from a doctor or psychologist.

Grace Lore, B.C.s parliamentary secretary for gender equity, said the change will reduce a real barrier that British Columbians faced when trying to change their ID documents.

Each individual knows their own gender best, Lore said in a statement. I am proud that our government is recognizing this by taking landmark action.

The move was lauded by activist groups such as Trans Care BC.

By making this change to allow people to self-declare their gender on identity documents, the province is taking an important step in respecting the rights of two-spirit, transgender and gender-diverse people in B.C., Lorraine Grieves, Trans Care BC provincial program director, said in a statement.

But Aaron Kimberly, founder of the B.C.-based Gender Dysphoria Alliance (GDA), says this action hurts transgender people by minimizing their clinical and healthcare needs, and also opens the door for abuse by bad actors.

Aaron Kimberly, founder and director of B.C.-based Gender Dysphoria Alliance. (Handout)

Kimberly, a transgender man and mental health nurse since 2008, says the new policy increases womens safety and human rights concerns, as more biological men, with our without sex hormones or conversion surgeries, can legally enter womens prisons, shelters, and change-rooms.

After B.C. announced the policy change, Womens Space Vancouver and Canadian Womens Sex-Based Rights voiced concerns on Twitter. Kimberly says its unfair that womens rights groups are being forced to fight back against increasingly ideologically-driven transgender activism and politics.

Putting women and children at risk in such ways is fuelling an understandable, but frightening, backlash on transsexual people such as myself, Kimberly told The Epoch Times.

Kimberly points to California, which was the first U.S. state to adopt a self-ID gender law in 2019, where theres a reported rise in men transferring to womens prisons, including men convicted of violent sex crimes.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as of mid-2021 more than 260 male prisoners formally requested transfer to womens facilities.

Canadian Womens Sex-Based Rights says there are already five males claiming to be transgender in B.C.s Fraser Valley Institution for Women. Kimberly expects that number to grow as a result of the provinces self-ID gender policy.

Both the B.C. ministries of health and gender equity did not respond to repeated requests to answer questions about these groups concerns by press time.

The new policy follows B.C.s move in 2018 to introduce X as a third, non-specific gender option for government identification.

The provinces gender equity office and the ministries of health and citizens services said in a statement that the change also follows the earlier removal of a requirement that applicants must have surgery before changing their birth certificates.

The B.C. government says adults must complete an application form to change their gender marker.

Youth between the ages of 12 and 19 must provide proof of support from a parent or guardian, while confirmation from a physician or psychologist is still required for children aged 11 and younger.

Concern for Children

Kimberly is part of a growing worldwide movement calling for a halt on healthcare practitioners that are affirming young transgender peoples feelings with drugs and surgery, with little assessment of other psychological issues.

Countries like Finland and Australia are issuing new treatment guidelines that emphasize psychotherapy as the first line of treatment for teens with gender dysphoriaa sense that their birth sex does not match their gender identity. In Sweden, gender clinics in the country have stopped prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to individuals under age 18.

Despite more countries taking this cautious stance, Kimberly warns that Canadas transgender healthcare system is completely being co-opted and abused for political purposes.

We need nuanced laws and policies to safeguard all Canadians and live well together, Kimberly says.
Cut Off by Volcano, Tongans Relieved as Contact Restored

BANGKOKAs the massive undersea Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai volcano erupted on Saturday, Tongans from around the world gazed on as their relatives live-streamed images of billowing clouds of ash, gas, and steam emerging from beneath the depths.

Then darkness.

The eruption severed Tongas single fiber-optic cable, rendering the entire Pacific archipelago offline, and unable to communicate with the rest of the worldleaving their loved ones terrified about what might have happened.

It was absolutely crazy, said Koniseti Liutai, a Tongan who lives in Australia.

We were talking with family and relatives, because they were excitedly showing us the volcanos activities, then we heard the explosion and the big bang and everything went dark, he said. Then the next information we got was the tsunami warning and then the tsunami hitting; we were all absolutely fearing the worst.

It wasnt only family and friends who could not get through. Huge ash clouds made backup communication by satellite phone next to impossible, and world leaders were not even able to get in touch with their Tongan counterparts to see what help they needed.

As the ash cleared, satellite communication improved and Tongas telecoms operator, Digicel, said it had been able to restore international call services to some areas late Wednesday.

It cautioned, however, that due to the high number of calls and the limited capacity of its satellite link that people may need to try repeatedly to get throughsomething experienced by Liutai, who is deputy president of the Tonga Australia Chamber of Commerce.

In this image taken from video, Deputy President of the Tonga Australia Chamber of Commerce Koniseti Liutai speaks about relief efforts for Tonga during an interview in Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 19, 2022. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP)

My first direct information was this morning, he said Thursday. My daughter, after 100 phone calls during the day and night, got through to my aunties, my mums sisters, and we were in tears of joyit was three in the morning, but for us it was like the middle of the day; we were so pumped and so happy.

So far, three people have been confirmed dead after the volcanic eruption 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Tongas capital, Nukualofa, and the tsunami that followed. Several small settlements in outlying islands were wiped off the face of the map, according to the Red Cross and official reports, necessitating the evacuation of several hundred residents.

With the resumption of some communications, more photos have begun to emerge of the destruction, showing the once-verdant islands turned a charcoal black by a thick coating of volcanic dust.

In this photo provided by Broadcom Broadcasting, people clear debris off the street in Nukualofa, Tonga, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Marian Kupu/Broadcom Broadcasting via AP)

Coastlines are strewn with debris, while people work to clean streets, and walkways.

The 0.78 inch (2-centimeter) layer of ash that rendered the runway at Fuaamotu International Airport unusable has now been cleared, and the first flights carrying fresh water, and other aid arrived Thursday.

A repair ship is being sent from Papua New Guinea to work on the undersea cable, but it will take some time to get to Tonga and the company in charge estimates it could take longer than a month to repair the line.

Given that the cable runs right through the volcanic zone, any new volcanic activity could completely scupper even that timeline.

For Liutai, who runs a business in Tonga, regular visits had allowed him to stay in close touch in the past, but with COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions, he has come to rely on video calls like many other Tongans living abroad.

With that possibility now cut off, at least for the near future, hes hoping at least better telephone connections will soon be available so that the 106,000 residents of Tonga can better reach the outside world to tell their friends and family whats going on.

Its something weve become so used to, talking to each other and sharing information with the ease of social media, the 52-year-old said. But when something scary has happened and you fear the worst, and even the government statement was general with no information, we were all nervous wrecks.

By David Rising
Dems Defense Strategy 101: Call the Republicans NazisGood for Offense, Too

Commentary

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is running for governor in the Sunshine State, is the latest Democrat to compare a Republican leader to Adolf Hitler. In her campaign to unseat Gov. Ron DeSantis, she accuses him of blaming certain parts of our society and our culture. And thats exactly what Hitler did to the Jews back, you know, during World War II.

Hatred for the Republican Party also runs deep in Democratic Hollywood. Cher fully believes that the GOP has transitioned into the National Socialist German Workers Party. Following Glenn Youngkins gubernatorial victory in Virginia, she told her nearly 4 million followers on Twitter: GOP are Nazis in lockstep. Its the difference between democracy and dictatorship.

These views are also shared by no less than the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark A. Milleyhe who oversaw the Afghanistan debacle.

In I Alone Can Fix It, a book written by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, Milley is reported to have said about his former boss, Donald Trump, The president [is] preaching the gospel of the Fuhrer with his lies about the election being stolen.

He also compared Trump supporters to Hitlers Brownshirts in the streets and called the events of Jan. 6, 2021, a Reichstag moment, referring to a fire started in the German parliament by the Nazis and blamed on the Communists to enable Hitler to consolidate power. But does anyone remember Trump ever claiming it was the Democrats who broke into the Capitol building?

After that incident, Milley raged: These guys are Nazis, theyre boogaloo boys, theyre Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II. In the generals mind, almost half of his fellow Americans are either Nazis or want to vote for one.

Actress Rosanna Arquette shared her revelation that Republican and Racist start with the same letter. This must have been a real shock for her and her friends in Hollywood, as they always thought R stood for Rehab.

Yes its clear the R in Republican stands for Racist  rosanna arquette (@RoArquette) April 29, 2021

As she thinks there are multiple meanings behind the Republican Partys first initial, it made me wonder if the D in Democrat could also stand for something. One D-word that could qualify is Damage.

There was the damage done to an innocent Afghanistan family by Joe Bidens somewhere over the horizon drone strike, the damage that angry Democratic supporters caused in cities across the United States and then denied while Donald Trump was president, what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did to a copy of Trumps last State of the Union speech while he stood in front of her reading it, or the damage done to the U.S. Constitution, when Democratic state leaders made unconstitutional changes to electoral law that helped usher Joe Biden into the White House, while Supreme Court justices hid under their desks.

But no, none of those. I am talking about damage claimssuch as $450,000 for illegal migrants separated at the border. Democrats also are seeking reparation payments for black people for the past heinous sin of slavery. But what was the slave owners party called againyou know, the one that started the U.S. Civil War?

Then there are the hundreds of thousands of white and black Republican Unionist soldiers who lost their lives, not only to stop the Democrats lust for slavery, but to stop them from breaking up America itself? Shouldnt their descendants also receive reparations? Add to that list the victims of other Democrat initiatives, such as segregation, the Ku Klux Klan, and Jim Crow laws to name a few.

Why should U.S. taxpayers have to foot the bill? Normally offenders pay damages to victims. Maybe that is another reason why the Democratic National Committee tries so hard to deny its dirty past? So, perhaps the word I am looking for is D for Deniers? Certainly plausible deniability is a personal favorite of the Biden clan, according to their former business colleague, Tony Bobulinski.

Its the phrase Joe Bidens brother James used when Bobulinski asked them how they were going to get away with a joint venture that he and his nephew Hunter had planned with the Chinese energy firm CEFE, with 10 percent going to someone called the Big Guy. Now, how tall is Joe Biden again?

Or what about D for Deflection? The accusation of Russia collusion against Trump and his team turned out to be a multimillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded example of this Democratic finely honed artthis time used to hide Hillary Clintons own Russia collusion, as John Durhams investigation may be beginning to uncover, or maybe not.

D for Durham? I doubt it. No, the last contender in my cursory list is D for Dodgy. I dont mean duplicitous, shady, and untrustworthy. I am using the word in a phonetic sense (DOJ-y). Think of a once-impartial U.S. government law enforcement department that now seems to think its only a crime if a Republican does it. And even if its not a crime they may harass them anyway, as former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani knows only too well.

Just to be clear though, I am not referring to the FBI, since thats an F-wordjust ask James OKeefe of Project Veritas.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
This movie tells of the experience of a Tsinghua University student who spent 8 years of his youth behind bars and the story of an American journalist, sick of the Chinese Communist Partys lies, who penetrated the regimes scrupulous surveillance system and brought the truth back to America. The winding story that tugs at the worlds heartstrings is now being projected onto the big screen.

After years in the making and winning the 2021 Austin Film Festivals Audience Award, Unsilenced will be in select theaters starting Jan. 21 across the United States.

Based on a true story, Unsilenced tells the experience of two young couples from Tsinghua University and an American journalist stationed in China. While facing brutal persecution against their faith, they willingly sacrificed themselves to bring the truth to the international community.

The film is directed by Peabody Award-winning director Leon Lee and stars Tony Award-nominated film star Sam Trammell, former Canadian Miss World Anastasia Lin, and four rookies from Taiwan.

The Chinese-language Epoch Times interviewed Lee on Jan. 7, who shared his journey in film-making and some behind-the-scenes stories.

If you feel that our society needs more people to insist on telling the truth, this film and the main characters choices may give you some inspiration, Lee said.

The Austin Film Festival, one of the Oscar Qualifying Film Festivals, is known as the largest playwriting competition event. The organizer revealed that more than 6,000 films were submitted this year. After a rigorous screening process, 9 categories of jury awards and 11 categories of audience awards were finally selected, and Unsilenced was chosen as one of the winners.

Lee said he was present when the film was screened at the Austin Film Festival, and had the honor of interacting with many audience members.

From their feedback, I could feel that they were deeply touched by the story, he said. In such a harsh environment as China, there are still so many people who have the courage to stand up and speak sincerely from the heart in the face of lies and pressure. I myself also think this is truly admirable.

Lee also revealed that his crew encountered challenging situations during the film shooting. Because the subject matter of the film is sensitive, there is no way they could go to China to shoot and set the scenes. So the team shot the film in Taiwan.

But even in Taiwan, due to many influences from China, we encountered tremendous pressure, obstruction, and interference. Many cast and crew members were also under pressure in various aspects. In making this film, we are actually experiencing the stories told in the film, Lee recalled.

But after several years of hard work, from writing the script at the very beginning, to finally being able to cut the film and release it, we are very happy that the film is now here for the audience.

Lee was deeply moved when real-life Wang (the main figure in the film) shared his personal story with him. He felt he had the obligation to tell Wangs story. In a sense, Wangs spirit served as an inspiration for all our cast and crew members, he said. If he could do it amid such adversity in China, then we have no reason to give up in the relatively safe environment outside China.

Lee believes that the movie, although involving a small group of individuals, presents profound messages. How do we remain unswayed in our conscience in the face of adversity and difficulties? These themes are eternal and universal, and they truly touch peoples hearts.

He also expressed thankfulness to all the cast members. Many people dont have a deep understanding of the human rights abuses happening in China. Only those who made efforts to understand the persecution would be willing to take part in the movie, and only then can he or she present excellent performances in the film. It is not so much that he is acting in a movie, it is better to say that he is also using this form to make his own voice.

The film Unsilenced will be released in theaters in 30 cities across the United States on Jan. 21.

From Jan. 21 through 27, Unsilenced can be seen at the Laemmles Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, California, for audiences in the greater Los Angeles area.
South Africa: R1.8bn tender corruption trial set for March

The fraud and corruption trial against former Bosasa Group Chief Operations Officer, Angelo Agrizzi, and his co-accused has been postponed to March this year.

This after the Pretoria Specialised Crimes Court ordered that the matter be transferred to the High Court.

The matter relates to alleged fraud and corruption committed during the awarding of four Department of Correctional Services (DCS) tenders amounting to at least R1.8 billion.

Agrizzis co-accused in the matter are former Correctional Services Commissioner Linda Mti, former DCS Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Patrick Gillingham and former BOSASA Chief Financial Officer, Andries Van Tonder.

National Prosecuting Authority Investigating Directorate (ID) spokesperson, Sindisiwe Seboka, said Agrizzis appearance will depend on a State medical report on his condition and ability to stand trial.

The ID will, at the next appearance, come with the medical outcome after the State-appointed pulmonologist examines Angelo Agrizzi in a separate matter. The outcome therein will impact his eligibility to stand trial in this matter.

The ID, however, has made concessions that Agrizzis co-accused matter will be transferred to the High Court, with or without Agrizzi, she said.

Seboka explained that the case refers to alleged corruption perpetrated over a three-year period.

The matter relates to four tenders awarded to BOSASA and its subsidiaries between August 2004 and 2007. The tender was for rendering catering and training services, installation of CCTV cameras, installing the perimeter fencing and supplying a television system and monitoring equipment, she said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2022-01-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
New Release

Belle

High schooler Suzu (Kaho Nakamura) is grieving the loss of her mother. To escape her episodes of depression, she crosses over into a digital world and becomes her popular alter ego, Belle. However, her perfect virtual world is soon thrown into turmoil when certain nefarious forces arrive on the scene.

Simply put, this film is an emotional powerhouse. With marvelous voice acting, sumptuous animation, and a riveting storyline that has to do with the human soul, this is a fine example of what animated films can aspire to be.

Anime | Adventure | Drama

Release Date: Jan. 14, 2022

Director: Mamoru Hosoda

Starring: Kaho Nakamura, Ryo Narita, Shota Sometani

Runtime: 2 hours 1 minute

MPAA Rating: PG

Where to Watch: Theaters

Rated: 4 stars out of 5

Family Pick

October Sky

Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a teenager growing up in a mining town in the 1950s. Hes expected to follow in his fathers footsteps and work the mines. But when he watches the launch of a satellite, he becomes obsessed with building his own. In this quest, he and his like-minded friends will face many challenges.

With a fantastic cast that portrays believable characters (its based on a real-life story), this film has a mix of excitement, disappointment, humor, hope, and beautiful oldies tunes that will keep your toes tapping.

Biography | Drama | Family

Release Date: Feb 19, 1999

Director: Joe Johnson

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Laura Dern

Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Where to Watch: Vudu, Redbox, DirectTV

Rated: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars

Top Action Thriller

Jack Reacher

When former military sniper James Barr (Joseph Sikora) is jailed for killing five people in a quiet Midwestern city, he asks for ex-Army MP Officer Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise). However, Jack knows Barr from Iraq and wants to find him guilty. But as Jack digs deeper into the case, he begins to suspect that things arent as they seem.

This is an increasingly rare type of action thrillerfull of mystery and intrigue while being light on gratuitous violence. Its also a very well-crafted film.

Action | Thriller

Release Date: Dec 21, 2012

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Starring: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins

Runtime: 2 hours 10 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Where to Watch: Redbox, Hulu, Epix

Rated: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Rousing Family Drama

How Green Was My Valley

In a Welsh mining village at the turn of the 20th century, life is a challenge. But the Morgans have strong familial bonds. When the village is threatened by the mines owner, they must take desperate measures.

This classic is filled with memorable characters and beautiful scenery. But whats most memorable is its message of hope despite facing some incredibly tough odds.

Drama | Family

Release Date: Oct. 28, 1941

Director: John Ford

Starring: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen OHara, Anna Lee

Runtime: 1 hour 58 minutes

MPAA Rating: Passed

Where to Watch: Watch TCM, Vudu, DirectTV

Rated: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars
A partially removed company logo of China Evergrande Group is seen on the facade of its headquarters, near a traffic light in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on Jan. 10, 2022. (David Kirton/Reuters)

Evergrande Offshore Creditors Warn of Legal Action Over Default and Weak Engagement

International creditors of the worlds most-indebted property developer threatened on Jan. 20 they would roll out all necessary actions to defend their rights if the company fails to resolve its default in good faith.

China Evergrande Group has been struggling with over $300 billion in total liabilities, including nearly $20 billion of international bonds all deemed to be in cross-default by rating agencies after a run of missed payments late last year.

The troubled developer failed to show enough urgency and effectually engage with bondholders for months, despite promising the opposite, a key body of its international creditors accused.

The group, under the acronym AHG, said in a Jan. 20 statement that it had no choice but to seriously consider enforcement actions due to a lack of engagement by Evergrande at the heart of Chinas property crisis. The group, represented by law firm Kirkland & Ellis and investment bank Moelis, takes up billions of dollars of its debt.

Despite the efforts to engage in substantive dialogue with the group [Evergrande], including through information requests, to date the AHG has received little more than vague assurances of intent, lacking in both detail and substance, the bondholders advisers said, according to Financial Times.

Evergrande had promised to actively engage with all stakeholders utilizing its extensive resources, the company said in a December statement on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Bondholders urge Evergrande to promptly engage with the group, by granting full transparency of its financial position and liabilities and suspending any asset sales without consulting the creditor group.

The AHG is prepared to take all necessary actions to vehemently defend its legal rights and protect its legitimate interests, the statement reads.

Following the legal action warning, the property giant said it was hiring more financial and legal advisers to help it with demands from creditors, according to a stock market statement released on Jan. 21.

According to Refinitiv data, Evergrande faces $117 billion worth of debt maturing in 2022, including $27 billion due in the first quarter of this year, and $31 billion in the second quarter. It comes as the property sector slowed down in China and regulators tightened traditional borrowing markets.

An aerial view shows the 39 buildings developed by China Evergrande Group that authorities have issued a demolition order on in Hainan Province, China on Jan. 6, 2022. (Aly Song/Reuters)

Evergrande said on Dec. 30 via social media that over 90 percent of its national projects have resumed construction. Yet the same day, local authorities in Chinas southernmost province Hainan, ordered Evergrande to demolish 39 buildings at a resort island where it has spent $13 billion to build tens of thousands of homes, the developer later confirmed. Local media said it was due to illegal construction.

The company will actively communicate with the authority, Evergrande said.

Although Chairman Hui Ka Yan vowed to deliver 39,000 units of properties in December, each of the previous three months saw fewer than 10,000. Investors of Evergrande financial products worried that their returns would be sacrificed to keep real estate projects afloat.

Evergrande, return our money! people from a crowd of roughly a hundred shouted outside the companys offices in southern Chinese city Guangzhou on Jan. 4.

Early last week, the embattled developer announced that it has moved out of its headquarters in Shenzhen to another property in the city to cut costs.

It was also reported that Evergrande will sell the groups buildings in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, without further information available.

A bright spot came to its main unit and property service provider Hengda Real Estate Group, which has reached an agreement with bondholders to delay payments for a $708 million onshore bond, the subsidiary said last week.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the face of the governments response to the outbreak. Fauci appears on corporate media outlets as the go-to science adviser to the media on an almost daily basis.

This almost sycophantic reverence from the mainstream media is troubling, not only for how often Faucis been wrong or forced to reverse himself, but also his demonstrated penchant for lying.

Fauci has historically demonstrated his preference for funding dangerous gain-of-function experiments, repeatedly claiming that the potential rewards outweigh the riskswhich is somewhat odd when contrasted with his repeated denials about funding of gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab.

But thats not the only thing that Fauci has lied about. Fauci has lied about lockdown measures, vaccine efficacy, therapeutics, the work that he funded at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and, perhaps most importantly, Fauci lied about and covered up the origins of the virus.

Welcome to Truth over News with Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke.



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AR-15 style rifles are displayed for sale at Firearms Unknown, a gun store in Oceanside, Calif., on April 12, 2021. (Bing Guan/Reuters)

Federal Appeals Court Rules Two California Counties Violated Rights With Pandemic Gun Store Shutdowns

A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that two California counties violated the constitutional right to keep and bear arms when they shut down gun and ammunition stores during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups sued the state in March 2020 (pdf) over the shutdowns after gun and ammunition stores were deemed non-essential businesses across Ventura County and Los Angeles County.

Ventura County closed gun stores for 48 days while Los Angeles county closed them for 11 days.

State and federal firearms licensees are essential businesses that provide access to constitutionally protected rights. Full stop, the pro-gun groups said in their complaint, which called the store closures unlawful government infringements upon freedom.

County officials had previously won separate lower court decisions stating that the gun stores were right to have been temporarily closed amid the broader shutdowns to prevent the COVID-19 virus from spreading early on in the pandemic.

However, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday rejected both lower court rulings.

Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote that the Second Amendment (pdf) means nothing if the government can prohibit all persons from acquiring any firearm or ammunition. But thats what happened in this case.

VanDyke also noted that the two California counties had allowed other businesses, including bike shops, to remain open as essential businesses.

The Orders therefore wholly prevented law-abiding citizens in the County from realizing their right to keep and bear arms, both by prohibiting access to acquiring any firearm and ammunition, and barring practice at firing ranges with any firearms already owned, he wrote. These blanket prohibitions on access and practice clearly burden conduct protected by the Second Amendment and fail under both strict and intermediate scrutiny.

The court today rightfully recognized that Los Angeles County violated Second Amendment rights when it shut down gun stores and ranges in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Michael Jean, NRAs director of the Office of Litigation Counsel in a statement. This is an important decision. It ensures that Californiaor any statecannot use a crisis to trample on the Constitutional rights of citizens.

The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) has also challenged strict COVID-19 restrictions in New Mexico and New York, as well as four other counties in Northern California with regards to gun shop closures.

Ventura County spokeswoman Ashley Bautista told The Associated Press in an emailed statement that it believes the case was correctly decided at the District Court level and is disappointed with the three-judge panels decision. Officials are reviewing the decision and evaluating our options and next steps, Bautista said.

The Epoch Times has contacted a Los Angeles county spokesperson for comment.

The Firearms Policy Coalition, another gun owners rights group that sued both Ventura County and Los Angeles County said that similar restrictions were imposed across 10 other states including Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and Virginia.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Prime Minister of Tonga, Siaosi Sovaleni, (R), joins the Australian High Commissioner to Tonga, Rachael Moore, to watch the arrival of the first Royal Australian Air Force C-17A Globemaster III aircraft at Fua'amotu International Airport near Nukualofa, Tonga, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Australian Defence Force via AP)

First Aid Flights Arrive in Tonga After Big Volcano Eruption

WELLINGTON, New ZealandThe first flights carrying fresh water and other aid to Tonga finally arrived Thursday after the Pacific nations main airport runway was cleared of ash left by a huge volcanic eruption.

New Zealand and Australia each sent military transport planes that were carrying water containers, kits for temporary shelters, generators, hygiene supplies and communications equipment. The Australian plane also had a special sweeper to help keep the runway clear.

The deliveries were dropped off without the military personnel coming in contact with people at the airport in Tonga. Thats because Tonga is desperate to make sure foreigners dont bring in the coronavirus. It has not had any outbreaks of COVID-19 and has reported just a single case since the pandemic began.

Rear Adm. James Gilmour, the commander of New Zealands Joint Forces, said there had been a mammoth effort by Tongan troops to clear that runway by hand. And theyve achieved that this afternoon.

Damaged area in Nukualofa, Tonga, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Marian Kupu/Broadcom Broadcasting via AP)

Australia said the assistance would help Tongas government meet the communitys needs and support the immediate cleanup efforts.

Japan also said it is sending emergency relief, including drinking water and equipment for cleaning away volcanic ash. Two C-130 Hercules aircraft left Thursday evening, and a transport vessel carrying two CH-47 Chinook helicopters will depart as soon as it is ready, the Defense Ministry said.

Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told reporters that his ministry will do everything we can for the disaster-hit people of Tonga.

Members of Japans Air Self-Defense Force help load boxes of emergency relief goods into an airplane at an airbase in Komaki, central Japan, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Kyodo News via AP)

U.N. humanitarian officials report that about 84,000 people  more than 80 percent of Tongas population  have been impacted by the volcanos eruption, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, pointing to three deaths, injuries, loss of homes and polluted water.

Communications with Tonga remain limited after Saturdays eruption and tsunami appeared to have broken the single fiber-optic cable that connects Tonga with the rest of the world. That means most people havent been able to use the internet or make phone calls abroad, although some local phone networks are still working.

One phone company, Digicel, said Thursday it had managed to restore the ability to make international calls from some places by using a satellite link, but that people would need to be patient due to high demand. It said it hoped to enhance its service over the coming days.

A navy patrol ship from New Zealand is also expected to arrive later Thursday. It is carrying hydrographic equipment and divers, and also has a helicopter to assist with delivering supplies.

Officials said the ships first task would be to check shipping channels and the structural integrity of the wharf in the capital, Nukualofa, following the eruption and tsunami.

Another New Zealand navy ship carrying 250,000 liters (66,000 gallons) of water is on its way. The ship can also produce tens of thousands of liters of fresh water each day using a desalination plant.

Three of Tongas smaller islands suffered serious damage from tsunami waves, officials and the Red Cross said.

The U.N.s Dujarric said all houses have apparently been destroyed on the island of Mango and only two houses remain on Fonoifua island, with extensive damage reported on Nomuka. He said evacuations are underway for people from the islands.

According to Tongan census figures, Mango is home to 36 people, Fonoifua is home to 69 people, and Nomuka to 239. The majority of Tongans live on the main island of Tongatapu, where about 50 homes were destroyed.

Dujarric said the most pressing humanitarian needs are safe water, food and non-food items, and top priorities are reestablishing communication services including for international calls and the internet.

Tonga has so far avoided the widespread devastation that many initially feared.

By Nick Perry
Florida Health Official Suspended After Urging Vaccinations to Employees

A Florida Department of Health county director was put on administrative leave Jan. 19 after an email emerged that may have run afoul of state laws.

The email was written on Jan. 4 by Dr. Raul Pino, an Orange County director who was complaining that a low percentage of county health employees had been vaccinated.

Pino wrote that 38 percent of health workers have completed their vaccine series, with 13 percent being boosted, and six percent having one dose.

He said an analysis of vaccination data for employees showed that out of the 568 active staff at the department, only 77 had received a COVID-19 booster, 219 had two doses of the vaccine, and 34 had one dose.

The email was released in its entirety to The Epoch Times from the Florida health department.

I have a hard time understanding how can we be in public health and not practice it! The reasons can be many, but so many of us? Pino wrote.

I am sorry, but at this point in the absence of reasonable and real reasons, it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated.

We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50 percent. Pathetic, Pino wrote.

Orange County director of the Floridas health department, Dr. Raul Pino. (Courtesy of Florida Department of Health)

The Department of Health released the following statement:

As the decision to get vaccinated is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers, the employee in question has been placed on administrative leave, and the Florida Department of Health is conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken in this case, health department press secretary Jeremy Redfern said in a written statement.

The department is committed to upholding all laws, including the ban on vaccine mandates for government employees, and will take appropriate action once additional information is known.

Orange County Mayor and former sheriff Jerry Demings, who is currently battling COVID-19, released a statement on Jan. 19 concerning Pinos role and current employment status with the health department.Dr. Raul Pino has been our trusted partner and friend throughout the pandemic.

His sound medical advice has helped guide me and countless other Orange County leaders to make the best decisions possible in dealing with COVID-19, Demings said.

It is my fervent hope that Dr. Pino returns to work on behalf of the residents of Orange County soon.

Pino came to Central Florida from New England, where he had resettled after leaving Cuba as a political refugee 25 years ago.

He graduated from medical school in Cuba trained in plastic surgery at the Naval Hospital in Havana.

His first job in the United States was picking blueberries in Connecticut, but wanted to rejoin medical ranks as the United States did not recognize his medical degree from Cuba.

Pino went back to school and earned a masters degree in public health from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

He was hired by that states public health department as an epidemiologist and then served as commissioner.

In May 2020 Pino and his family relocated to Orlando, after which he became Orange Countys medical officer.

He had been referred to in several newspaper accounts as Central Floridas Dr. Fauci, as he was present alongside Mayor Demings in press conferences when giving COVID-19 updates and spoke to the public using his Spanish bilingual skills.

Floridas Legislature has passed a law banning vaccine mandates and provided for medical and religious exemptions, including for government employees.

On Nov. 18 the governor signed the legislation into law.

On Jan. 12 the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Biden administrations vaccine mandates but allowed them to stand for health care workers who worked at facilities receiving federal money.
People talk before the start of a rally against "critical race theory" being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government center in Leesburg, Virginia on June 12, 2021. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Floridas Stop WOKE Act Makes It Through Committee Stage

In Gov. Ron DeSantis fight to eradicate wokism from schools and the workplace, a bill has made it through committee that has promise of making it to his desk to become law.

HB 148 or the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act (WOKE), which the governor said would do a number of things that are very important, is now being heard by the judiciary committee.

The bills goal is to prohibit Critical Race Theory (CRT) from being taught in schools or used in employee training sessions, the bills sponsor Republican state Senator Manny Diaz Jr. said.

Diaz said the bill is designed to protect individual freedoms in the workplace and would prohibit employers from subjecting employees to any type of certification process, examination, or any other required activity that is centered on any number of race-related concepts.

DeSantis described them as things that could create a hostile working environment.

This corporate CRT, its basically corporate sanctioned racism, DeSantis said at an October 2021 press conference.

It is DeSantis belief that the current law allows employees to claim violation of their civil rights, but if it doesnt the law will be changed to address harassment.

Diaz said the bill is to make sure that training and testing is objective and that guilt is not assigned to a person because of their ethnic background or the color of their skin.

Republican Sen. Manny Diaz Jr. (Courtesy of the Florida Senate)

In a written statement Diaz said, The aim of this is to clearly have those discussions, to talk about the tough conversations, and have it done in a manner where theres an open dialogue.

I think that we have to go back to the premise that all of us are created equal and we should be judged on our individual merits or deeds not a blanket statement, he continued.

Even though it does not mention CRT by name, the bill does seek to ban it as part of Floridas curriculum standards.

Over the summer the State Board of Education passed a CRT ban even though it is not currently taught in Florida public schools.

Diaz said that the bill is in part due to he and other legislators fielding calls from parents with concerns about CRT potentially being taught in the classroom.

A lot of us have heard from individual parents with concerns, he said. The measure is a preemptive attempt to provide clarity.

Democrat Sen. Shevrin Jones (Courtesy of the Florida Senate)

During the committee hearing on Jan. 18 Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat, said that the proposed legislation would suppress teachers freedom to teach certain subject areas.

All this legislation is going to do is to promote ignorance of race-related content and other content that children should know about and should have access to, Jones, a former classroom teacher said during committee.

The governor has other ideas and said that Marxism is at the heart of critical race theory.

I think what you see now with the rise of this woke ideology is an attempt to really delegitimize our history and our institutions, DeSantis said. It (CRT) will tear at the fabric of our society and our culture and things that really weve taken for granted.

However, some House Democrats are saying no to the bill because it could lead to frivolous lawsuits.

Democrate Sen. Tina Scott Polsky. (Courtesy of the Florida Senate)

Democratic State Sen. Tina Scott Polsky, an attorney, fears that the bill is turning the Legislature into the thought police.

Polsky told committee members that part of the bill dealing with employer training is awful for the business community.

Now were telling a company if they want to teach anti-discrimination, they want to teach diversity, they want to teach unconscious bias, which is a course in the Florida Senate, that they will potentially be creating the cause of action from a disgruntled employee, she told the committee on Jan. 18.

I do this all the time; people bring lawsuits because they get terminated and theyre really upset. And they try to find a reason as to why they were terminated.

To date similar legislation has been proposed in 22 states and signed into law in fiveIdaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas and Tennessee. Some supporters of SB 148 say they would like to see it mirror Oklahoma and Iowas legislation.

Florida groups that are opposed to the bill include the National Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Floridas Parent Teacher Association (PTA), American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) of Florida, and Equality Florida.

The state ACLU weighed in on the billon their website after the Jan. 18 meeting.

Gov. DeSantis and his allies in the Legislature are trying to prevent students and employees from having an open dialogue about our countrys historyone that acknowledges the role of racism in the United States and includes the experiences and viewpoints of people of color and other marginalized communities, the statement said.

The union is concerned about historical erasure and censorship that would threaten everyone.

The proposal is part of a new nationwide attempt to erase the history and lived experiences of marginalized communities, the statement read. This is also a blatant attempt to suppress speech.

The ACLU went on to advocate First Amendment protections such as shared ideas and that banning discussion of gender and race discrimination oversteps the states authority to determine school curricula, and creates government censorship and overreach.

Students and employees deserve to have a free and open exchange about our history and its impact on our communities, it said.

Legislators should not interfere with a student or employees right to receive and inclusive education just because certain aspects of our history make some people uncomfortable.

A similar House bill, HB-7 is awaiting committee action as well.
Intermediate students play at the Parents Progress Recital at Musical Mentors in San Clemente, Calif., in 2019. Maki (R) is the volunteer mentor for this group, having gone through the entire program himself. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

Helping Kids Become More Resilient Through Music Mentorship

In Southern California, music pastor Duff Rowden was riding on a bike trail when he came upon an orange orchard loaded with fruit.

They were beautiful, large, ripe, and ready to eat, Rowden said. I thought I might take a couple, but they werent mine, so I rode away.

Two weeks later, he came by the orchard again.

The fruit was on the ground, split open, flies buzzing around, ruined, and inedible. I thought, So many kids are like that fruit: ripe, ready, and full of potential, Rowden said. But through bad choices or being overlooked, they end up broken and ruined. Somebody has to step up.

Then I thought, Somebody else wont do it. I had to do it.

I asked myself What do I have that kids want? Well, Im a musician and play guitar. Lots of kids want to learn how to play. I can do that.

Bonita and Duff Rowden, founders of Musical Mentors, in a 2015 photo. Musical Mentors has helped more than 1,000 kids since 2007. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

He made it his mission to reach kids through music, starting nonprofit MusicalMentors.org in 2007 in San Juan Capistrano, California. He estimated that more than 1,000 kids have been helped by the organization thus far.

We bring troubled kids living in rough circumstances out of themselves, Rowden said. Its more than learning how to play music. Its about character development.

The skills acquired here are transferable to almost every facet of life. Playing music takes discipline, perseverance, commitment, and getting along with others.

He wont let them quit.

We teach kids not to give up, and understand they can do something hard. After overcoming that huge mental obstacle, the sky is the limit, he said.

Eric, 8, warms up for the Progress Recital for Parents at Musical Mentors in 2008. He stayed with the program for three years and overcame many difficulties, said Duff Rowden. We were very proud of him. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

They didnt think they had it in them. Now they do. Thats a beautiful thing. We call it Learning how to play life right.

Rowden and his wife, Bonita, teach 16-week, beginning, intermediate, and advanced classes for youngsters aged 8 to 18. But the key to success is their young volunteersassistant mentorsworking alongside them.

A 16-year-old volunteer mentor has more influence on kids than I do, he said. Im grandpa age. Youngsters expect me to listen to them. But when someone 16 shows genuine attention, that younger kid knows its unusual.

They think, He doesnt have to pay attention to me, but he is, and it becomes special, a real self-image booster. Volunteers make what we do shine.

Theres a benefit for volunteer mentors as well, Rowden said.

Students are awarded donated new guitars for successful participation at a Musical Mentors recital in Santa Ana, Calif. In the center front is volunteer mentor Cara, a local college student. Founder Duff Rowden is in the back row (L). (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

Most of them have no leadership experience, and mentoring changes their lives, he said. When younger kids look up to them, assistant mentors realize, I am a big deal to somebody.

One of the programs success stories is Zach, who came to Musical Mentors doubting himself.

Zach liked to quit. If it was hard, he wouldnt do it. The mentors had him learn one bar of music at a time, showing him how, until he learned a whole song. We call that process Go slow and learn fast, Rowden said.

You know, babies fall all the time when theyre learning to walk, but they dont quit. Babies dont know how to quit. Quitting is learned.

I tell kids like Zach, Can you do what a baby can do? They say, Sure we can, and they acquire a new perspective.

Zach, 17, in this 2017 photo graduated with honors from Musical Mentors after completing the beginning, intermediate, and advanced 16-week courses. He was awarded the first guitar given by Musical Mentors. He became a volunteer mentor for two years. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

Zach learned that he could do something difficult and reap the rewards for doing so. He went through all the levels at Musical Mentors and graduated with honors.

His confidence soared, Rowden said. He tried more difficult things in life and did it. He tackled videography and became proficient.

Zach eventually became a ranger for the California Park Service and was assigned to Doheny Beach State Park. He was also chosen to make training videos for the parks ranger school.

Bonita Rowden said: Many kids never learn to conquer something difficult. They need to find encouragement to overcome. Music is a special something they can get into and be part of something good. Theyre developing skills not everyone has, so learning makes them special and opens doors. It gets them ready for life.
A sign for the Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons is displayed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York on July 6, 2020. (Mark Lennihan/File/AP Photo)

House Judiciary Committee Hears Plight of Jan. 6 Prisoners

Advocates for inmates who have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol have lamented the lack of national attention being given to the inhumane conditions facing those still in detention.

That changed on Jan. 21, when conservative writer Julie Kelly testified about the matter at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

That hearing followed months of unsuccessful attempts by some Republican lawmakers to find answers on how Jan. 6 inmates are being treated. GOP House members were interrupted by left-wing protestors while trying to hold a press conference on the matter in July 2021, and the lawmakers were barred from a Washington jail housing 50 defendants when they tried to check on their conditions days later.

While the inmates reported marginal improvement in treatment after a visit by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to the Washington facility, Kelly told committee members that conditions have apparently regressed since then.

One detainee I spoke with this week, an Army reservist charged with no violent crime, said the D.C. jail is on a 22-hour lockdown due to COVID, said Kelly, a writer for American Greatness.

She voiced concerns that the inmates and their families have been raising for the past year, which include a lack of access to worship, legal counsel, phones, and basic hygiene.

These defendants havent been convicted of any crime, most have no criminal record, and some dont even face charges of violence, she said. It appears as if the D.C. jail is a political prison.

Questions were asked largely along party lines, with Republicans probing the Jan. 6, 2021, issue further, while Democrats questioned other witnesses about the BOPs COVID-19 response and other issues.

Rep. Thomas Tiffany (R-Wis.) asked Alison Guernsey, a clinical associate professor of law at the University of Iowa, whether she agrees with Kellys assessment of how inmates from the Jan. 6, 2021, incident are being treated.

I do think some of the things happening to the Jan. 6 defendants are truly appalling, but I dont think theyre isolated to the Jan. 6 defendants, Guernsey said.

Guernsey discussed the BOPs alleged refusal to provide data about compassionate releasea program created under the Trump administrationthrough which eligible inmates can qualify for early release.

What I think is quite troubling is that a lot of the information this committee may seek has already been ordered to be provided. The First Step Act provides that the BOP shall provide the data as to how many people applied for compassionate release, how long did it take, and the justifications for the denialsdid someone die while their application was pending? she said.

And the BOP is simply not providing that data.

Guernsey also said the BOP isnt providing accurate COVID-19 data. According to the BOP, 279 federal inmates have died from the coronavirus. But Guernsey said that number doesnt include those housed in private prisons and that it sometimes takes the BOP six months or longer to update its data.

Some inmates are released when theyre on their deathbeds, according to Guernsey.

Theyre literally released so they dont die in chains, she said. Ive talked to families who didnt even know their family member died of COVID.

Democrats accused Republicans of ignoring these problems, except when it comes to Jan. 6 inmates.

In 2015, the Washington Lawyers Committee for civil rights released a report condemning conditions in the D.C. jails. Those findings were ignored until a more diverse population was incarcerated there, said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-N.Y.), who blamed the broken prison system on the U.S. governments mass-incarceration policy.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said she wishes she wouldve heard these concerns when we were talking about mostly black and brown people.

Rather than argue, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) agreed that the problems with the federal prison system are widespread. They and other House members called for another hearing with BOP officials to answer their questions.

Subcommittee Chair Val Demings (D-Fla.), who also said she agreed that jail conditions for Jan. 6, 2021, inmates are filthy, ended the relatively collegial meeting by announcing that BOP officials are scheduled to appear at a Feb. 3 hearing.

The Epoch Times emailed the BOP, seeking a response to the criticisms leveled during the hearing. In response, the BOP sent a link to what it said is the most up-to-date information regarding First Step Act, including compassionate release and reduction in sentence numbers.
Ghana's Western Region is shown in red. (Google maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Huge Explosion in Ghana Mining Region Kills Residents, Fells Buildings

ACCRAAn explosion in Ghanas rural Western Region on Thursday razed hundreds of buildings and killed an unknown number of residents when a truck carrying explosives to a gold mine collided with a motorcycle.

Unverified videos posted on local media showed a large, smouldering blast site in which buildings had been reduced to piles of wood, brick and twisted metal.

In one video, two bodies are seen crumpled on the ground, covered in dust. A photo shared by a local council member showed a deep crater at the epicenter of the blast, onlookers peering down from its rim.

Seji Saji Amedonu, deputy director general of the National Disaster Management Organization, said 500 buildings had been destroyed. A regional emergency official told local media he had seen 10 dead bodies.

The public has been advised to move out of the area to nearby towns for their safety while recovery efforts are underway, the police said in a statement.

Nearby towns have been asked to open up public spaces including classrooms and churches to survivors, the police said.

The explosion occurred in Apiate between the towns of Bogoso and Bawdie when a motorcycle went under a truck carrying explosives owned by a company called Maxam that was en route to the Chirano gold mine, run by Toronto-based Kinross.

A Kinross spokesperson confirmed the incident, saying it occurred 140 kilometers (87 miles) from the mine.

The police initially said the explosives were heading from the Tarkwa gold mine run by Johannesburg-based Gold Fields, but a spokesman for Gold Fields said the delivery was from an explosives company in the town of Tarkwa, not the Tarkwa mine. Maxam did not respond to requests for comment.

Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo wrote on Twitter he had been informed of the incident and confirmed there had been deaths.

It is a truly  tragic incident, and I extend, on behalf of Government, deep condolences to the families of the deceased, he said.

By Eliasu Mohammed
The Ashli Babbitt family seeks the identities of six men who were in the Speaker's Lobby hallway in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Graphic/The Epoch Times)

6 People Present at Scene of Ashli Babbitt Killing Still Not Arrested by the FBI, Family Seeks Identities

Family asks for the public's help identifying photos of witnesses from Jan. 6

Most of the men who attacked the Speakers Lobby doors at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, have not been identified or arrested, and the family of Ashli Babbitt wants to question them about the events that led up to her shooting death.

Of the dozens of people who congregated before the double doors leading from the hallway into the Speakers Lobby that day, only two have been arrested by the FBI. The Babbitt family has identified at least six others who could have valuable information on what took place before and after U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd shot and killed Babbitt.

Aaron Babbitt said identifying these men is an important part of his investigation into his wifes killing. He said the authorities are not interested in pursuing it.

To look into these people would go against what theyre trying to do, which is to just forget about Ashli and just look the other way, Aaron Babbitt told The Epoch Times. Pay no attention to whats going on over there. So they dont want these people. They probably dont want to find them. Whether they are government actors or informants or whatever, they dont want to really find those people.

Tayler Hansen, the video journalist who documented the shooting, said the most active rioters from the hallway are still unknowns.

The unknown black-clad #Ninja ducks for cover after the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. The SWAT team member did not know at the time who fired the shot that killed Babbitt. (Tayler Hansen/For The Epoch Times)

The good majority of the people who havent been named are the ones being the most violent, Hansen told The Epoch Times. Inciting the window breaking and actually causing everything that took place in that room. The only one who has been named that actively took part was Zachary Alam.

Alam was arrested by federal agents on Jan. 30, 2021, and later indicted for his well-documented role in attacking the Speakers Lobby doors. Alam portrayed himself that day as being a member of the Proud Boys, but comments he made to Hansen earlier that day dont indicate a patriotic disposition.

This is insane, bro, Alam says to Hansen, who was live-streaming to Instagram at the time. Wed love to [expletive] revolutionize the whole world. Its the repetition of what happened decades and centuries ago and its repeating itself. Its going down right now!

Key Players in Hallway Action

The unknowns include a man nicknamed by internet sleuths as #RedOnRedGlasses, who was in the front line at the Speakers Lobby at numerous points. He was directly to Ashli Babbitts left when she climbed into the open window and was shot, video shows. After Ashli Babbitt is carried away by police, he is at the front line, shouting at officers.

#RedOnRedGlasses was directly to Ashli Babbitts left when she was shot at the U.S. Capitol. (FBI)

#RedOnRedGlasses is also on video launching a long 2-by-4 beam of lumber through a ground-level window of the Capitol. This man is listed as photo No. 300 on the FBIs Jan. 6 wanted list.

One of the most mysterious of the unknowns is #TwoBlueJacket, who stood in the north corner of the hallway during much of the unrest.

He is seen to Ashli Babbitts right as she pleads with police to call for backup. After the police move aside from the doors, he uses his right shoulder in an attempt to open the door. He also appears to flash some kind of hand signals while Babbitt is shouting at the officers.

A man known as #TwoBlueJacket was in the Speakers Lobby hallway when Ashli Babbitt was shot on Jan. 6, 2021. (FBI)

Just before Ashli Babbitt is shot, #TwoBlueJacket moves across the hall and departs from view. He is seen on video elsewhere on the Capitol grounds, wearing a knit cap and a hood, carrying a black backpack. He is listed as photo No. 302 by the FBI.

A man called #WhiteLogoInsider and on some sites #Ninja moves into the north hallway corner just before Ashli Babbitt climbs into the side window and is shot. She falls at his feet, between him and #RedOnRedGlasses.

#Ninja ducks down as a Capitol Police SWAT team member aims his rifle into the Speakers Lobby, not knowing at the time who fired the shot at Ashli Babbitt. They thought it was an active shooter at the time, until they cleared it, Hansen said.

Ninja is seen on video with his hands up as police and bystanders attempt to render aid to Ashli Babbitt. Later he is seen talking to a plainclothes Sergeant at Arms agent in the hallway corner.

One of the men who tried to kick the Speakers Lobby door in is #MrFlyEyes, who is listed as photo No. 304 on the FBI wanted site. As rioter Alam is beating on the glass with a helmet, #MrFlyEyes tries kicking the left-side door. He appeared to be live-streaming to Instagram at the time.

The #GadsdenFlagMan is seen standing directly behind Alam as he pounds the door and glass window with a helmet. After the police leave the doors unguarded, he kicks the doors and tries to push them open.

#MrFlyEyes participated in rioting at the Speakers Lobby doors on Jan. 6, 2021. (FBI)

He stays on the scene until after Ashli Babbitt is carried downstairs by SWAT team members. Most of the time on video his face is covered by a surgical mask, but he briefly removed it. It does not appear he is listed by the FBI as wanted.

#HuskyMarioInsider was present during much of the rioting, shouting at police and imploring them to let protesters into the Speakers Lobby. We dont want to hurt nobody. We just want to go in the House! he shouts just before Alam punches one of the windows, the video shows. His is photo No. 303 on the FBI list.

Another man who attacked one of the door windows with the dowel of a flag pole has also not been identified. He has his back to the cameras during the violence.

That should be looked into, their identities, Hansen said, because they could easily be federal informants. Theres a reason why they didnt show up on the FBIs listonly some of them didand even those that have havent been properly identified.

Anyone who recognizes these men should report the identities using a direct message to the @ForAshli Twitter page or on the RobertsandWood.com web site. (Graphic by The Epoch Times)

If people are looking for federal informants or federal agitators of any sort, they should really pay attention to the Ashli Babbitt video closely, Hansen said.

Many of these unidentified figures entered the Capitol at the same time, as part of a crowd that grew as they moved from the Rotunda into other areas of the Capitol.

Scene Processing a Disappointment

Aaron Babbitt said the lack of scene processing by crime-scene investigators remains among his deep frustrations from that day. Police are seen tracking through Ashlis blood on the floor and leaving red footprints in the hallway and down the stairs. Someone tosses her beanie cap right into the blood pool.

I dont think there was any investigation on the scene. Nothing, Aaron Babbitt said. They just took the videos, what they were, and used their own videos that they wont show anybody.

Surveillance video of the hallway is believed to be among 14,000 hours of video of events that day possessed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

That video remains under a federal protective order. An overhead view of the hallway action would provide the clearest view of the actions of the various rioters and bystanders. The video likely will be among items subpoenaed by criminal defense lawyers and those filing civil lawsuits.

Aaron Babbitt said it pains him to see how his wife was wheeled out to the ambulance, with her bare chest exposed, only to be captured on camera. They didnt even have the decency to give her any dignity, he said. They wheeled her out there bare chested in front of the world.

Harassment Continues

Aaron Babbitt told The Epoch Times he continues to be harassed by people who denigrate his wife.

I think I got three or four calls on Martin Luther King Day, people just calling in and saying, Hey, is Ashli coming to work today? he said. Ive had it all, seen it all. People calling upbecause I run a pool serviceand theyre like, Hey, any way Ashli can come out to clean my pool? 

Ashli Babbitt with her favorite canine companion, Kenai. Aaron Babbitt said Kenai died of a broken heart several weeks after Ashli was killed. (Courtesy Aaron Babbitt)

It happens enough times you just realize these are scum of the earth people that have no backbone, Aaron Babbitt said. The threats and hateful comments started on Jan. 7, 2021.

Im just getting these awful messages and Im like, I just lost my wife. What kind of scum of the earth are you? he said.

Aaron Babbitt is buoyed by the renewed public interest in his wifes case and the questions surrounding her killing. He is also receiving emotional and financial support as the family prepares a lawsuit against police and potentially others.

Former President Donald J. Trump, who phoned Aaron Babbitt in July to offer support, made prominent mention of Ashli Babbitt during a huge Arizona rally on Jan. 15.

Trump slammed Byrd as an out-of-control dope whose identity was shielded by authorities for eight months after the shooting.

He couldnt get on television fast enough, Trump said, referring to a 2021 interview Byrd did with Lester Holt of NBC News. The guy who shot Ashli Babbitt for no reason, this guy couldnt get on television fast enough. Hes so proud of himself.

Lets see how he could do without the protections that he got. And, by the way, if that happened the other way around, theyd be calling, Lets bring back the electric chair, thats what theyd be calling for. Hes a disgrace the way he shot Ashli.
L: Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting in Moscow on Jan. 19, 2022. (Pavel Bednyakov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images) R: British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss at Admiralty House in Sydney on Jan. 21, 2022. (Bianca De Marchi-Pool/Getty Images)

Invasion of Ukraine Would Be a Massive Strategic Mistake: UK Foreign Secretary Warns

An invasion of Ukraine will drag Russia into a drawn-out quagmire, the UKs Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned on Friday as Western countries crank up coordinated pressure on President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine, and Western states fear Moscow is planning a new assault on the country it invaded in 2014.

Speaking at think tank the Lowy Institute in Australia, Truss urged Putin to desist and step back from Ukraine before he makes a massive strategic mistake.

The foreign secretary said the Ukrainians, who persevered through invasions and a state-sponsored famine, will fight to defend their country if they have to.

Invasion will only lead to a quagmire, she warned, drawing comparisons to the Soviet-Afghan war that lasted for more than 11 years and the ChechenRussian conflict that dragged on for over 26 years.

Russia denies it is planning an attack but says it could take unspecified military action if a list of demandsmany of which Western countries said were unacceptableis not met, including promises from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to scale back the alliances activities to 1990s-era levels and to never admit Ukraine or any other countries as new members.

The UKs Defence Minister Ben Wallace, whos visiting Australia with Truss for talks on the two nations defence and security ties, previously said the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member made it highly unlikely for Britain or its allies to send troops in the event of an invasion.

But Truss stressed that The UK and its NATO allies are hustling to bolster the Eastern European states defence capability, strengthen its ties with other countries, and reduce the global dependence on Russian gas.

(L-R) British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, and Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton pose for pictures ahead of Australia-United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN) talks in Sydney on Jan. 21, 2022. (Bianca De Marchi / Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

She referred to a new UK package providing defensive weapon systems and training for Ukraine, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenbergs statement after a NATO-Russia Council meeting on Jan. 12, in which Russia was threatened massive consequences, including through coordinated sanctions hitting the financial sector and individuals.

Truss said the UK and its partners are working on high impact measures targeting the Russian financial sector and individuals.

She also said the UK is strengthening its bilateral partnership with Ukraine and fostering new trilateral ties with Poland and Ukraine.

Were also pushing for alternatives in energy supply, so that nations are less reliant on Russia for their gas.

Truss called on everyone to step up  stand with Ukraine, and urge Russia to de-escalate.

Trusss speech also highlighted the need for democracies to work together to face down global aggressors such as Russia and Chinas communist regime, which she said are emboldened in a way we havent seen since the Cold War.

Truss and Wallaces visit comes after the UK, alongside the United States, signed a landmark agreement in September to provide Australia with the technology and capability to deploy nuclear-powered submarines.

Truss will also sign an agreement on infrastructure cooperation during a later visit to Adelaide as she seeks to align Britains economic objectives more closely with its diplomatic agenda.

Lorenz Duchamps and Reuters contributed to this report.
An oil platform in Israel's offshore Leviathan gas field is seen from on board the Israeli Navy Ship Atzmaut as a submarine patrol in the Mediterranean Sea, on Sept. 1, 2021. (Ariel Schalit/AP Photo)

Israel Inks Multi-Billion Dollar Submarine Deal With Germany

JERUSALEMIsrael signed a three billion euro ($3.4 billion) deal on Thursday to buy three cutting edge submarines from Germany, the defense ministry announced.

The Dakar-class diesel-electric submarines will be produced by German manufacturer Thyssenkrupp and are expected to be delivered within nine years, the ministry said.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said the procurement will upgrade the capabilities of the Israeli Navy, and will contribute to Israels security superiority in the region. Part of the cost of the ships will be covered by the German government, the ministry said.

Israeli and German officials inked the arms deal days before the Israeli Cabinet is set to vote on establishing a governmental committee to investigate the acquisition of submarines and other warships from Thyssenkrupp between 2009 and 2016, under then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The newly acquired submarines are not directly related to that scandal, known as Case 3000.

Several Israeli businessmen, including Netanyahus confidants and a former navy commander, are suspects in a graft scandal surrounding the purchase of naval armaments from Thyssenkrupp. Netanyahu was not named as a suspect in that scandal, but is currently on trial in three other corruption cases.
Japan Tightens Restrictions in 13 Prefectures as COVID-19 Numbers Soar

The Japanese government on Wednesday expanded quasi-emergency measures to 13 more prefectures, including Tokyo, in a bid to contain the rapid spread of the coronavirus fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The restrictions initially imposed in only three regionsOkinawa, Yamaguchi, and Hiroshimatook effect on Friday until Feb. 13. Governors are allowed to shorten business hours and limit the serving of alcohol in the prefectures.

We are battling against an unknown virus, and I hope that we can overcome this situation with sufficient preparation and without excessive fear, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a meeting.

The countrys daily infection count surpassed 30,000 for the first time on Tuesday, with government officials attributing the increase to Omicron infections in the country.

The 13 additional regions include Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa, Aichi, Gifu, Mie, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Miyazaki, Kagawa, Niigata, and Gunma.

Prior to the announcement, Kishida said the move was deemed necessary by experts to ensure that the medical system is solidly in place to respond to the growing number of patients with mild symptoms who are recuperating at home.

We will continue to act in close cooperation with individual prefectures and maintain a high level of vigilance as we engage in our responses to ensuring that the established system will run properly and preventing the availability of hospital beds from coming under extreme strain in areas where infections are spreading rapidly, he noted.

Tokyos occupancy rate of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients, a figure closely monitored by authorities, rose to 25.9 percent on Wednesday. An increase to 50 percent would warrant escalation to a full state of emergency, officials have said.

Japan has declared a state of emergency four times during the pandemic, and vaccinated about 80 percent of its population of 126 million, although its booster dose program has reached just 1.2 percent.

The Japanese government has also extended its entry ban on foreign visitors until the end of February, allowing only local citizens and foreign residents to re-enter Japan on a daily basis limited to 3,500 arrivals.

Meanwhile, a panel of experts under the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on nations to ease travel bans and abolish mandatory vaccination for entry into countries, suggesting to consider a risk-based approach, such as testing and quarantine requirements.

Blanket travel bans are not effective in suppressing international spread (as clearly demonstrated by the Omicron experience), and may discourage transparent and rapid reporting of emerging [variant of concern], WHO said in its recommendation.

Lift or ease international traffic bans as they do not provide added value and continue to contribute to the economic and social stress experienced by States Parties, it stated.

Reuters contributed to this report.
There are just two weeks until the Beijing Winter Olympics begin. More star athletes are giving a voice to ongoing concerns about Chinas human rights. Some defend the nation while others accuse it.

The International Olympic Committee is under fire. A U.S. politician wants to introduce legislation to sanction the head of the organization.

A Chinese group chat from one neighborhood is warning residents not to break lockdown orders. It lists a number of intimidating consequences for violators and advises people to stay at home.

A 10-year investigation exposes a process fueling the U.S. opioid crisis. It involves a laundry list of actorsincluding casinos, Beijing officials, money laundering, and criminal gangs.

Another European nation is backing Taiwan. Its leaders say the island is the legitimate successor of mainland China.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more first-hand news from China.

For more news and videos, please visit our website and Twitter.
The rifle Kyle Rittenhouse used in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 25, 2020, is presented during Rittenhouse's trial in the city on Nov. 2, 2021. (Sean Krajacic/Pool/Getty Images)

Kyle Rittenhouse Seeks Return of Gun Used in Kenosha Shootings

Teenager wants firearm destroyed, court filing says

Kyle Rittenhouse is seeking the return of the firearm he used to shoot three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020.

The Smith & Wesson M&P 15 rifle was seized by Kenosha police officers after the shootings.

Rittenhouse is the lawful owner of the gun, attorney Mark Richards said in a filing in Kenosha Circuit Court this week.

Rittenhouses friend Dominick Black bought the gun when Rittenhouse was 17 but verbally agreed to hand it over to Rittenhouse when he turned 18.

Rittenhouse is now 19.

Wisconsin law allows any person who claims the right to possession of property seized by authorities to ask for its return in circuit court.

Rittenhouse wants to make sure the gun is properly destroyed, Richards said.

The lawyer said he previously asked Kenosha County assistant district attorneys Thomas Binger and Jim Kraus to authorize the release of Rittenhouses personal property, however, this has not yet occurred.

Kyle Rittenhouse walks along Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 25, 2020. (Adam Rogan/The Journal Times via AP)

He noted that all proceedings and investigations in which the property might have been required have been completed, including the prosecution of Black.

Its not clear when the court will respond to the request, which also asks for other property seized by police, including an iPhone, a $1 bill, and a pair of brown boots.

The Kenosha County District Attorneys Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rittenhouse faced six charges from the shootings but was acquitted on all counts late last year.

Black avoided jail time by pleading no contest to a misdemeanor earlier this month.

Rittenhouse said on The Charlie Kirk several days later that he wanted the gun he used destroyed.

We dont want anything to do with that, he said.

Rittenhouse also recalled being stunned when Binger brought in the rifle during the trial and becoming afraid when Binger pointed the gun at people in the room.

Corey, thats gun safety 101. Loaded or unloaded, treat a gun like its loaded, Rittenhouse recounted telling Corey Chirafisi, an attorney who helped represent him.
A school bus is parked outside the Venice High School in Venice Beach, Calif., on March 14, 2015. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)

LA Parent Advocacy Group Stops Planned Drug Recovery Center in Venice Beach

LOS ANGELESLos Angeless plan to put a drug recovery center at the former Venice Senior Center in Venice Beach came to a halt after parent advocacy group Venice Kids Count sent the city a cease-and-desist letter against the plan.

Originally proposed by Councilman Mike Bonin, whose District 11 covers the Venice community, the city planned to turn the former Venice Senior Center into a drug recovery center, a facility designed to shelter and help homeless people with substance abuse and mental health issues, the Westside Current reported on Jan. 17.

The plan was met with opposition from some Venice Beach residents, who pointed out that the location is only about 150 feet from Westminster Elementary School, as well as several other preschools and a public dog park.

The problem here isnt that citizens are resistant to people being sheltered, one Venice Beach resident wrote on Twitter. Very much to the contrary. The problem is with concentrating services in a way that will collide mentally ill and addicts with children.

A second grade class at Broadway Elementary School in Venice, Calif., on Jan. 31, 2013. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

During a Jan. 18 Venice Beach Neighborhood Council meeting, member Vicki Halliday said the city had received a cease-and-desist letter from Venice Kids Count that afternoon regarding the planned drug recovery center.

The city then put the plans on hold in order to consult with City Attorney Mike Feuer, because they want to be able to provide full and complete information when they do talk to Venice, so  were in a big holding pattern now, Halliday said.

The planned drug recovery center is a part of an unarmed 911 response program launched last November by Mayor Eric Garcetti, in partnership with Bonin. The pilot program was designed to replace armed law enforcement officers with outreach workers, mental health professionals, and community ambassadors when responding to nonviolent, homeless-related 911 calls.

This isnt the first time the city has attempted to use the same building for a homeless outreach program, nor is it the first time the parent advocacy group Venice Kids Count has stepped in to intervene.

In 2016, the city planned to use the former senior center as a storage facility for homeless people to store their belongings and fulfill other needs such as picking up their mail and taking a shower, which was also proposed by Bonin.

Those plans were put on hold when Venice Kids Count filed a lawsuit in October 2016, saying that the homeless storage facility shouldnt be located so close to a school or other public areas.

The lawsuit was settled, and as a part of the settlement, the city agreed to notify Venice Kids Count of plans to operate a homeless shelter at the location at least 60 days before doing so.

Venice Kids Count told the Westside Current that they had received no such notification as of Jan. 16.

This comes after Garcetti and the city council passed Ordinance 41.18 in September, which prohibits homeless encampments from within 500 feet of public areasincluding schools and parks. However, enforcement of the ban in a district requires a motion to be introduced by a district councilmember and approved by the council.

A homeless encampment in Venice Beach, Calif., on Jan. 27, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Though the ban targets encampments, some residents argue that homeless shelters and other programs should also stay away from within 500 feet of schools and other public areas for safety concerns.

Bonin and Councilwoman Nithya Raman are the only two councilmembers to not enforce the encampment ban in any area of their respective districts. Both Bonin and Raman have also repeatedly voted against other councilmembers motions to enforce the ban in their own districts.

Bonin was recently the subject of a recall campaign brought by Venice Beach residents who disagreed with his handling of homelessness in District 11, though the Los Angeles City Clerk announced on Jan. 18 that the recall campaign failed to meet the number of valid signatures required to trigger a recall election.

Mike Bonins office, the mayors office, Venice Oceanfront Neighborhood Council, and attorney office Luna and Glushonwhich filed the 2016 lawsuit on behalf of Venice Kids Countdidnt respond to requests for comment by press time.
Awakening after being hit by a truck while riding his motorcycle in Kona, Hawaii, Dustin Reynolds felt the bloody stump of his left arm, and instantly saw the hard road ahead, he said. The rest of his life would be difficult.

Cellphone in his right hand, he had a choice to makehe chose to live.

Since the accident in 2008, Reynolds has traversed storms both literal and figurative. Overcoming bankruptcy, he learned to sail and now claims to be the first double amputee to have circumnavigated the globe.

I didnt have any decent job prospects, randomly I found a website of people that set records sailing around the world alone, Reynolds, 43, told The Epoch Times. Since there was no double amputee on the list; I decided to change that.

He sold his carpet-cleaning van and fishing boat for $12,000 and bought a $12,000 used yachta beat-up 1968 Alberg 35, leaving $20 to his nameand started learning to sail from scratch on YouTube.

He said he hid his inexperience from worried friends and family members, and soon had their support.

Reynolds set sail on June 18, 2014, on his first solo trip 940 miles to Palmyra. He wouldnt return for 7 1/2 more years.

I started in Hawaii and sailed to 36 countries, he said. I was in the South Pacific for 1.5 years, Southeast Asia for 2.5 years, Africa for a year, Caribbean and Atlantic for 2.5 years, then Galapagos and Marquesas on my way home.

Along the way, figuring out how to fix everything with whatever tools he had onboardon a rolly boat, alone, with one handwas extremely challenging, he said.

It took a little while before I became an efficient sailor but eventually it became routine, Reynolds added. The biggest challenges were when things broke at sea and they often do.

Adding to the hurdles, there were pirates in the Solomon Islands.

I was able to scare them off, he told Fox6. I yelled at them. I had a spotlight. I was like, I have a gun. Im going to shoot you. I dont really have a gun on the boat but they didnt know that, so they thought I did, and they jumped in the water and climbed back on their boat.

Reynolds finally arrived back at South Point, Kona, on Dec. 5, 2021, having been at sea for most of the pandemic. In total Ive sailed over 35,000 miles solo over 7.5 years, he said.

Besides acquiring skills that would blow away most seasoned sailorslearning to grind and tail a main up the mast or tie a reef on the boom with just one armReynolds also gained perspective from his Odyssey.

Like most people, I was really busy with work before starting my trip, he said. Being able to just slow down and spend time with people along my trip was really special. Spending time alone at sea is also special. Ive spent over 300 days alone at sea. It is a meditative thing to just be alone with ones thoughts for long periods of time.

This world is an incredibly safe and loving place overall, he added. All the division we see on TV or other media usually disappears when sitting across a dinner table with someone.

Reynolds said hes fathomed what it means to overcome calamities in life.

For people fighting a battle, my only advice is it can almost always get better, he told the newspaper. So many times, I did not see a clear path forward and a friend, stranger, or something random would help me through. As long as we keep going, it can get better.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Bright newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
Succulents are a great choice for indoor spaces as they require little attention, and are very hearty. (Madison Inouye/pexels)

Man Who Poached $150,000 Worth of Plants Sentenced to 2 Years

LOS ANGELESA South Korean national who was extradited to Los Angeles to face federal charges was sentenced to 24 months behind bars on Jan. 20 for trying to illegally export thousands of lotus-like succulentsworth more than $150,000, according to the U.S. Attorneys Officethat he and two others pulled out of the ground at remote state parks in Northern California.

Byungsu Kim was also ordered to pay $3,985 in restitution to the State of California, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Kim, 46, pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court last year to a charge of attempting to export plants taken in violation of state law.

On Oct. 11, 2018, Kim and two accomplices traveled by car from Los Angeles International Airport to Crescent City, California. For three days, they harvested numerous Dudleya plants from DeMartin State Beach in Klamath, California, and from Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park.

In the defendants plea agreement, he admitted he knew the taking of the Dudleya plants was unlawful and that he had conducted internet searches on his smartphone for poaching succulents and dudleya.

He also admitted he had read a press release regarding the arrest and convictions of three other Dudleya poachers, according to his plea agreement.

On Oct. 22, 2018, Kim and his co-defendants traveled from Northern California to a nursery in Vista, in north San Diego County, and unloaded the Dudleya plants that they had poached during the previous week.

The following day, the men traveled to Russian Gulch State Park in Mendocino County, where, wearing backpacks and using hand-held radios to communicate, they pulled additional Dudleya plants out of the ground before returning once again to the Vista nursery.

Prior to shipping the plants, Kim scheduled an inspection with a county agriculture official at the Vista nursery and falsely told her the government-issued certificate necessary for the plants exportation should list 1,397 Dudleya plants for export to South Korea and that the place of origin of the plants was San Diego County.

The defendants then transported the plants to a commercial exporter in Compton, to whom Kim intended to present the fraudulently obtained certificate so the Dudleya plants could be smuggled to South Korea.

When the defendants left, local law enforcement executed a search warrant at the cargo shipping company and found more than 3,000 Dudleya plants in boxes labeled Rush and Live Plants. These were the plants the defendants had pulled out of the ground from public lands in Northern California.

Kim admitted that at the time he and his accomplices engaged in the illegal conduct, they did not have a scientific permit nor a federal permit that would allow them to harvest Dudleya plants. He also admitted to being the schemes organizer.

Although California law enforcement officials had confiscated Kims passport following his arrest on state charges relating to his October 2018 conduct, Kim fraudulently obtained a new South Korean passport in January 2019 by falsely claiming to the South Korean Consulate in Los Angeles that he had lost his passport.

In May 2019, soon after Kim learned of the federal criminal charges pending against him in this case, he and co-defendant Youngin Back ran away to Mexico through the Tijuana-San Ysidro border crossing. Using his fraudulently obtained passport, Kim then flew with Back from Mexico to China, and then from China to South Korea.

Kim was arrested in South Africa in October 2019 for charges related to a similar scheme in which he illegally collected plants from protected areas in that nation to export to South Korea. Kim pleaded guilty to the criminal charges in South Africa and was extradited to the U.S. in October 2020. He has remained in federal custody since that time.

Co-defendant Bong Jun Kim pleaded guilty in July 2019 to one count of attempting to export plants taken in violation of state law. He served four months in federal custody and was released in October 2019 after U.S. District Judge George Wu imposed a sentence of time served.

Back remains a fugitive, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Joyce Kuo of The Epoch Times contributed to this report.
Marxist Revolution in the Making in America, Expert Warns

Theres a phenomenon being observed in America today: an attempt at changing reality to foster a new Marxist revolution, says Mike Gonzalez, an author of two books on the topic.

According to Marxist thought, reality is just put together by our conceptual framework, Gonzalez told EpochTVs Crossroads program.

So what we see with Black Lives Matter, what we see with the 1619 Project  is to replace the American narrative, to replace the idea of America from all men are created equal, were all free  with this idea that were an awful country, that our history is hideous, that our system is racist itselfthat the system must be changed.

Most people believe reality cant be changed, because they believe in an ultimate and fundamental truthin natural law, or in Godbut Marxists dont believe any of that, Gonzalez said.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) used the death of George Floyd as an excuse to change society, he said, to dismantle the organizing principle of societyin the words of BLM co-founder Alicia Garza.

Gonzalez says the concept of black lives matter is unimpeachable.

Seven billion people on earth matter. And were all children of God. But I think its importantgiven our historyto affirm that the lives of our black co-citizens, compatriots, matter because we know the history.

But Black Lives Matter is also the movement and the organization BLM Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), said Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

The BLM founders say theyre trained Marxists, the expert noted.

We actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia [Garza] in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists, Patrisse Cullors, a BLM co-founder, said in a 2015 interview with Real News Network.

Gonzalez wrote for the Heritage Foundation, Cullors trained for a decade as a radical organizer in the Labor Community Strategy Center, established and run by Eric Mann, a former member of the Weather Underground, the 1960s radical faction identified by the FBI as a domestic terrorist group.

The group, originally called Weathermen, said in its 1969 foundational statement that it was dedicated to the destruction of U.S. imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.

Garza was trained by the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), an institution founded by Harmony Goldberg, Ph.D., a scholar in cultural anthropology, Gonzalez said.

Goldberg is also an expert on Antonio Gramsci (pdf), the founder of Italys Communist Party in the 1920s and a Marxist intellectual. She understands Gramscis theory of the war of position, which is the concept of recruiting, organizing, training, and convincing people to replace one culture with another culture, Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez cited the words of Gramsci, who said that in the West, in societies with strong civic society, you need to have a war of position.

Gramsci likened political warfare to military warfare, in which the war of position is akin to trench warfare, settling in for a long-term struggle with strategic smaller victories to gain more territory bit by bit, as opposed to the warfare of movement, which is like a rapid military attack, Bradley Thomas, a libertarian activist and writer, wrote for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).

In other words, you have to take the worker, infiltrate them, indoctrinate them, teach them that the family was a form of oppression, teach them that the nation-state was a form of oppression, teaching that private property led to war and more oppression. That is what we have today, except here in America, we practice it through the lens of the race with critical race theory, Gonzales said.

The core of Marxist thought is that the family, the nation-state, private property, as well as the beliefs in God and religion, had to be abolished, Gonzalez said, adding that the workers at that time didnt agree with any of that.

From the mid-19th century until 1917, when the first Marxist revolution succeeded, the workers during these 70 or so years liked the nation-state, were patriotic, loyal to God, and really liked private property, he said.

Therefore, the Marxist revolution failed miserably in Central and Western Europeexactly the place where Marx had said it would succeed, Gonzalez said.

These communist thinkers in Italy and Germany came up with the idea that Marx had been right on the strategy on getting rid of the nation-state and private property, but his tactic needed to be upgraded.

Marxs tactic was that it was going to be the material forces of societyeconomicswas going to determine everything, but these communist intellectuals in the 1920s in Europe realized that it was culturenot economythat accounts for how man behaves, Gonzalez said. The Marxism we see in America todayits that type of Marxism.

The communists who trained the founders of BLM organizations  took their cues from these cultural Marxists of the 1920s from Europe.

BLMs Impact

At a 2019 gathering of progressives in Maine, Garza said, America itself was founded on violence, steeped in white supremacy, and predicated on theft and genocide.

When we talk about fighting white nationalism, fighting white supremacy, were not talking about fighting white people. Were talking about changing how weve organized this country, so that we actually can achieve the justice that we are fighting for. I believe we all have work to do to keep dismantling the organizing principle of this society, which creates inequities for everyone, even white people, Garza said, according to the Maine Beacon.

Gonzalez said: In 2020, we had months of destabilization. And  with critical race theory, theres been a real attempt at changing our culture from within.

According to the U.S. Crisis Monitor, 633 riots took place in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, Gonzalez said. The Insurance Information Institute said that these riots were the costliest civil unrest in U.S. history, with insured losses estimated at over $2 billion.

BLM activists were involved in 95 percent of the riots for which the identity of the perpetrators was known, according to Gonzalez.

I take that seriously.  Thats why I wrote my book: BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution, Gonzalez said.

Representatives of Black Lives Matter didnt respond to a request for comment by press time.

The results of the riots are still felt today, the expert noted.

The jump in the murder rate in 2020 was astronomical; it was 30 percent, Gonzalez said. It was the highest increase in the homicide rate in history.

We know from statistics that over 50 percent of people murdered are African Americans. This is a lot of additional black lives that were lost. Dont they matter?

BLM had a plan when it carried out protests and riots in 2020, he said.

The organization proposed federal legislation in July 2020 called the BREATHE Act. The measure, which was sponsored by Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), called for defunding the police and replacing them with a new approach to community safety. Cullors, BLM executive director at the time, described this approach as a new, non-punitive, and non-carceral approaches to community safety that would incentivize states to shrink their criminal-legal systems and center the protection of Black lives, according to a BLM report.

BLM also partnered with the Broadway musical Hamilton and the Sprite soda brand to increase voter turnout in the 2020 election, the report said. The organization has been spreading its curriculum that promotes critical race theory in the countrys 14,000 school districts, Gonzalez wrote in his book.

The organization has millions in financial resources obtained through fundraising.

Across our entities and partners, we have raised just over $90 million in one year, 2020 with an average donation of $30.64, the BLM report said. Expenses such as staffing, operating and administrative expenses, civic engagement, programs, field expenses, rapid response, crisis intervention, and its get out the vote campaign amounted to $8.4 million.

BLM sent out 127 million emails related to their activities in 2020, which resulted in 1.2 million actions taken, according to its report.

In addition to the book about BLM, Gonzalez is also the author of The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics Is Dividing the Land of the Free.

He explained why he penned these books that expose the Marxist infiltration in the United States.

The fact that I spent the first 12 years of my life in a communist country in Cuba has made me recognize them right away.  I know how culture was destroyed. I know how a country was destroyed. America is my country. I dont want to see happen to America [what has happened] to the country of my birth.

Ella Kietlinska Reporter Follow Ella Kietlinska is a reporter for The Epoch Times focusing on U.S. and world politics.
The Mercedes-Benz logo is pictured at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt, Germany on Sept. 10, 2019. (Ralph Orlowski/Reuters File Photo)

Mercedes-Benz Teams up With Luminar on Self-Driving Tech

San FranciscoLuxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz will partner with self-driving sensor maker Luminar Technologies Inc to enable fully automated driving on highways for its next-generation vehicles, Luminars founder said.

Automakers from Tesla to GM and Volvo have set their eyes on introducing autonomous vehicles, although regulatory and technological challenges remain.

Tech firms such as Alphabets Waymo and Cruise also are developing self-driving taxis or trucks for commercial use such as ride-hailing and delivery services.

Vehicle autonomy is really going mainstream with Mercedes, Luminar CEO Austin Russell told Reuters, without disclosing a timeframe for putting the technology in Mercedes vehicles.

He said the two would develop true autonomy capabilities, including improved safety capabilities such as automatic braking.

General Motors Co is working with its majority-owned Cruise self-driving unit to introduce a personal autonomous vehicle by as early as mid-decade, Chief Executive Mary Barra said this month.

If you want to be able to get to truly autonomous capabilities in a consumer vehicle, and you have to industrialize hardware, software, all of these systems that come into play. That by the way, is completely different than the work that the robo-taxi companies have been working on, Russell said.

He said it is a challenge to mass-produce lidars and make sure they are robust enough to meet stringent requirements from automakers.

It is a completely different kind of business of going from a science and technology business to automotive corporation.

Lidars, which use laser light pulses to measure the distance between the sensor and the target object, are widely seen as essential to achieving full autonomous driving. But Tesla has shunned the sensor, saying it is expensive and unnecessary.

Volvo Cars and Luminar said earlier this month that they will put a hands-free driving system in an upcoming electric sport utility vehicle.

By Hyunjoo Jin
A school bus is seen during a safety event for children at Trailside Middle School, in Ashburn, Va., on Aug. 25, 2015. (Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images)

Michigan School District Indefinitely Delays Return to In-person Classes, Cites COVID-19 Concerns

Starting next week, public school students in Flint, Michigan, will attend classes online from home indefinitely, according to school district officials.

In a Jan. 19 message to students and parents, Flint Community Schools Superintendent Kevelin Jones said the decision was made after discussion with local health officials and based on the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Genesee County and the state of Michigan.

We have decided to continue with distance learning until further notice to protect the health and wellbeing of our scholars, families, teachers, and staff, Jones wrote. This means scholars will continue distance learning next week, starting January 24, following their regular school schedule each day.

Jones cited Michigans pandemic data dashboard, which states that as of Jan. 13, the testing positivity rate for Genesee County is 38.4 percent, with a weekly average of 1,232 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people.

To lower the transmission number, and to keep it low, we must actively continue distance learning until further notice, Jones wrote.

School districts across Michigan are weighing whether to keep schools open for in-person instruction amid the COVID-19 surge as well as staff shortages. In Detroit, school district officials have extended remote learning for another week, though students and staff are told that they should expect the return of in-person instruction on Jan. 31.

Under Detroit Public Schools Community Districts (DPSCD) latest plan, all students who wish to return to school in person on Jan. 31 must submit a consent form for weekly COVID-19 testing. If parents do not approve testing or fail to complete consent forms before the deadline, their children will be transferred to the districts virtual learning program.

Even before the pandemic hit the United States, Detroit was already known as one of the cities with the highest rates of chronic absence, which is defined as missing 10 percent or greater of the total number of days enrolled during a school year. The issue of low attendance appeared to worsen when Detroit students came back from winter break for virtual learning.

According to data presented by DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti at a Jan. 11 school board meeting, just 58 percent of the districts students attended online classes Jan. 7. The numbers slowly improved over the following days, with attendance hitting 76 percent on Jan. 12.

If student attendance falls below 75 percent, which is required by Michigans education law, the school district could lose a part of its state funding.

Vitti said at the meeting that if his district continues to see low attendance rates for online classes, any future snow days or emergency closures will be converted into virtual learning days to meet state thresholds.

The state grants us six days, we have already used up those days, Vitti said. This is not something I necessarily want to do, its something we have to do.
A Navy petty officer gives a Marine a COVID-19 vaccine on Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Sept. 22, 2021. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Andrew Cortez via The Epoch Times)

Nearly 50 More Marines Booted for Refusing COVID-19 Vaccines

The U.S. Marine Corps has kicked out another 45 Marines for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccines, the military branch announced Thursday.

The Marines were removed for vaccine refusal, a spokesman said in a statement.

Any active-duty Marine who did not finish their primary COVID-19 vaccine regimen by Nov. 14, or any reserves who did not complete the process by Dec. 14, is considered unvaccinated by the branch.

Primary regimens are two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab.

All unvaccinated Marines without a pending or approved exemption application, or a pending appeal of a rejected exemption request, are being processed for separation.

The branch reported last week that 351 Marines had been discharged for vaccine refusal but corrected the number to 289.

We inadvertently counted Marines who had not yet been separated, and Marines who had been separated for other misconduct, the Marines spokesman said.

The number of Marines who have been booted for not getting a vaccine is now at 334.

There were approximately 179,678 active-duty Marines and 35,240 Marine reservists, according to data current as of September 2021.

Ninety-five percent of active-duty Marines have completed their primary vaccination regimen, or are fully vaccinated, according to the Marine Corps. Another 1 percent are partially vaccinated, having gotten one shot of the two-dose Moderna or Pfizer primary regimen.

Of the reserves, 87 percent are fully vaccinated and 1 percent are partially vaccinated.

As of Jan. 19, 635 administrative or medical exemptions to the vaccine mandate have been approved, as well as just two religious exemption requests.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the vaccine mandate, with support from President Joe Biden, in August 2021, and directed the heads of each military branch to outline specifics for their troops, including deadlines for becoming fully vaccinated.

Austin made the announcement after Pfizers vaccine received regulatory approval, but multiple vaccines, including those without approval, are allowed under the mandate. Some troops are getting vaccinated in other countries.

Other branches have also reported high numbers of compliance with the mandate, though the Air Force has kicked out 100 active-duty airmen, the Navy has removed 20 members, and the Army has relieved six active-duty commanders and reprimanded thousands of soldiers.

Several court cases challenging the mandate are ongoing, including one in which a group of troops successfully convinced a federal judge to block the mandate for them over the militarys broad refusal to grant religious exemption requests.
The U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration has warned against taking Ivermectin for COVID-19, because it is "horse medication." However, Ivermectin packaged for human use (as shown here) has been widely prescribed for decades for a range of maladies, including for treatment of lice, other parasites and viruses. (Natasha Holt/The Epoch Times)

New Hampshire Seeks to Make Ivermectin an Alternative COVID Treatment Under Law

New Hampshire is poised to become the first state in the United States to make Ivermectin available as an over the counter medication and sanction it as a protected treatment for COVID-19, under a bill before the House Health, Human Services, and Elderly Affairs Committee.

While similar bills proposed in three other states have been ill received, the primary sponsor of the New Hampshire bill told The Epoch Times she expects a slightly amended version to garner enough votes from the Republican majority committee to send it for approval to the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

The House has already shown support for other COVID-related bills including statewide bans against both government and private-imposed mandates related to the virus.

I have absolutely no doubt lives will be saved if human grade Ivermectin was available to COVID patients, state Republican Rep. Leah Cushman, also a registered nurse, told The Epoch Times about her proposed bill HB3005.

Dangerous Says Doctor

But Dr. David Levine of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center said that prescribing Ivermectin is dangerous and totally out of line with standard of medical care around the world.

I would never want this medication prescribed to myself or my family and would take legal action against anyone who recommended this to my loved ones, Levine wrote in his written testimony on the bill.

Dr. William Palmer, governor of the New Hampshire Chapter of the American College of Physicians, who also submitted written testimony on the bill, said he was concerned that if passed it would have the potential to overwhelm the states health care system with cases of Ivermectin-induced side effects.

Dr. Paul Marik, neurocritical care doctor who has published more than 600 peer review papers in his field, testified that Ivermectin, is one of the safest drugs on the face on this planet.

According to Marik human-grade Ivermectin is approved for the treatment of viruses in 79 countries.

Quoting the World Health Organizations own data, Marik pointed out that 3.7 billion doses have been dispensed to humans since its discovery in 1987 as an anti-parasitic drug.

So somehow Japanese people, Indian people, Brazilian people can tolerate it safely but its toxic in Americans. You have to be kidding, Marik said.

Marik, who is a co-founder of the physician-comprised advocacy group Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), recently resigned from his position at the Eastern Virginia Medical School over his legal battles with the hospital for treating COVID patients with Ivermectin and other alternative medications.

He faced disciplinary action by medical licensing boards for promoting alternative treatments of other diseases.

Successful Says Another

Marik cited several studies in his testimony that he said definitively proved Ivermectin has both viricudal and anti-inflammatory properties and that it has already been treated successfully used to treat deadly diseases like the mosquito-borne Zika virus and other similar viruses to the SARS-CoV-2 RNA viruses that causes COVID-19.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study entitled Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19.

[Ivermectin] kills the virus so any assumption it doesnt is false propaganda, said Marik.

Cushman told The Epoch Times that in an effort to appease some concerns expressed about the bill she has submitted amendments to it include notices with any dispensary for human use that it is considered an off label use for treating COVID and also to create a state tracking system of any adverse reactions experienced by anyone who takes human-grade Ivermectin.

As it is now Ivermectin, which has been touted by a number scientific studies both in the United States and abroad as an effective treatment of COVID-19, is currently available as an anti-parasitic treatment for animals.

To obtain pharmacy-grade Ivermectin, Americans have to either order it from an on-line pharmacy in another country or get a prescription from a doctor.

Causing Controversy Elsewhere

Several U.S. doctors who have prescribed Ivermectin for COVID patients have either already had their licenses stripped or been suspended.

In Florida and Arizona, two COVID patients died after their families lost legal bids to force hospitals to treat their loved ones with Ivermectin.

A bill similar to the New Hampshire proposal was recently introduced in Indiana before its mostly Republican Health Committee, However, the bill drew an overwhelming amount of criticism from state medical officials who called it dangerous.

This bill would set a dangerous precedent by having the government substitute its own medical advice for that of a trained, health care professional, vice president of the Indiana Pharmacists Association Darren Covington stated in written testimony against the bill.

Wisconsin physician Pierre Kory, among the few to testify in support of the Indiana bill, estimates that a treatment that includes Ivermectin could reduce COVID-19 deaths by about 75 percent.

In October, Arizona Republican Senator Kelly Townsed introduced a bill that would ban pharmacists from refusing to fill Ivermectin for off-label use during public health emergencies.

Earlier in Pennsylvania, GOP Rep. Dawn Keefer introduced a bill that would allow doctors to write prescriptions of Ivermectin as well as hydroxychloroquine sulfate for the treatment of COVID-19.

Neither bill has yet to leave committee.

In Alaska, lawmakers have discussed the idea for a bill that promotes Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID, but so far no bill on the issue has been introduced in the Last Frontier state.
A military truck and armored personnel carrier at a military base in the center of Ancha in Nigeria on Jan. 12, 2022. (Masara Kim/The Epoch Times)

Nigerian Soldiers Watch as Terrorists Massacre 18 Villagers

The scene of the attack was familiar to traumatized villagers in Ancha of Bassa County in Nigerias Plateau state on the cold evening of Jan. 11.

A unit of 30 well-armed Nigerian soldiers was stationed in an abandoned school building inside the settlement.

The 30 soldiers had assault rifles, an armored personnel carrier, and two trucks.

Yet to the shock of 400 local residents scattering at the sound of terrorist gunfire at midnight, the unit of soldiers calmly held their position and never fired their weapons as terrorists murdered 18 local people, including women, teenagers, and infants.

The attack started some minutes after 12 a.m., leading to the death of 18 people, Stephen Andy Igmala, chairman of Bassa County, told The Epoch Times. Seven people were injured, and 107 houses were burnt down.

A civilian guard straps a homemade gun to his back in Ancha, Nigeria, on Jan. 12, 2022. (Masara Kim/The Epoch Times)

The terrorists were chanting Allahuakbar (God is great), according to survivors. They burned houses and food barns, incinerating children and the aged who couldnt flee, all under the watchful eye of the soldiers.

A few local watchmen returned fire with their single-shot rifles and shotguns, providing some cover to buy time for women and children to run out of the village.

Two of the watchmen were among the fatalities discovered after the attack ended at 2:30 a.m., according to witnesses who attended the mass burial on Jan. 12.

It was like a rain of gunfire, said John Rivi, leader of a neighborhood watch team, in a noon meeting with local officials attended by The Epoch Times in Ancha hours after the attack.

They were more than 500. They surrounded the entire village before we knew it. They split themselves into groups. Some went south, some went west, some went east. Others took over the roads for possible evacuees.

The attackers spoke Fulani dialect (the language of the ethnicity often linked to such raids), according to Rivi, who said some of the attackers were known by the victims.

The assault began when civilian watchers guarding the village with slingshots and locally made short guns were overpowered on a northern corner of the town, Rivi said.

A woman carries a bucket of water to quench a fire in her burned house in Ancha, Nigeria, on Jan. 12, 2022. (Masara Kim/The Epoch Times)

Some of the attackers were men who lived locally and knew the residents well.

We know them, said Rivi. One of them we know very well escorted a woman out of the village with her three kids before returning to kill her husband, father-in-law, and eldest son.

Mary Bulus, 38, told The Epoch Times that she was led out of the town by a former Fulani business partner when he led a gang to attack her family residence.

He came with five other Fulani, Bulus said. Some held their guns on the faces of my husband and father-in-law. My eldest son of 12 was also there.

He told me to follow him if I wanted to live. He said I should not worry, that nothing will happen to any of my family members.

He escorted me and my three little children to the far bushes and went back to the village, and I was told that he was the one that killed my family members in the house.

Call for General Ali to Step Down

The military spokesman for the armys special task force claims the army responded to a call for help but arrived too late to engage with the terrorists.

Major Ishaku Takwa didnt respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times, but he apparently gave a statement to a newspaper reporter from This Day Live, in Jos, who quoted him saying the troops responded swiftly after receiving distress calls.

On reaching the community, the attackers had fled the village. Houses were destroyed and some villagers lost their lives during the attack, Takwa said, according to ThisDayLive.com.

The same claim was reprinted in Vanguard Newspaper but scrubbed out in a later edition.

Kyle Abts, executive director of the International Committee on Nigeria, has called for the resignation of the Nigerian general responsible for security in Plateau state.

Major Gen. I.S. Ali, commander of Operation Safe Haven, needs to be replaced and prosecuted for crimes against humanity, he told The Epoch Times in a text.

Alis negligence and inability to stop the massacre of innocent civilians needs to be investigated.

This incident is among a score of such incidents that have occurred under his command since January 2021. There are reports that when security forces did arrive, they stood down and watched the massacre of more than 25 civilians.

The attackers included local Fulani residents supported by hired mercenaries, likely bandits fleeing military airstrikes in Nigerias northwest, said Istifanus Gyang, the Nigerian deputy senate committee chairman on defense.

For over two decades now, there are people that have displaced our communities, that have taken over farmlands, taken over the ancestral homes of people, and they have settled here comfortably, Gyang said.

It is these people that have settled here, displacing people violently, taking over farmlands, that are being reinforced by others that are coming from elsewhere. They keep coming, and the numbers are enlarging by the day.

Military Refused to Defend Us: Community Leaders

The attack lasted more than two hours without intervention by the military, according to tribal leader Davidson Malison.

From 12 a.m. to 2:30 a.m., [the attack went] undistracted and unchecked, Malison, national publicity secretary of the Irigwe Development Association, said in a statement.

A 30-man military task force in the town withheld fire, guarding their vehicles and equipment during the raid, Rivi said.

We first saw flashlights approaching the village from the nearby bushes and notified the military. The guard commander took some of his men, and together with some of us youths, we moved in the direction of the flashlights but suddenly heard gunshots behind us, Rivi told the officials.

The guard commander was alone trying to fight back. The others only took positions to protect their vehicles while the Fulani killed and burned our houses.

Ezekiel Bini, youth leader of the Irigwe tribe, confirmed to The Epoch Times that the soldiers in Ancha stood down.

They were here when it happened, yet they did not do anything, Bini said.

Advance Warning Ignored

A day prior to the attack, the development association observed armed Fulani militias in the surrounding bushes close to the town and reported them to the local community.

The situation around the [area] is tense as the marauders have been spotted gathering in an attempt to unleash another terror, said Danjuma Auta, secretary general of the association, in a statement on Jan. 10.

The alarm followed the killing of a man who was working with his wife on a nearby farm on the same evening that three people were killed in an ambush in nearby Riyom County.

The tensions persisted in the town through the evening of Jan. 11, with rumors of a planned attack widely circulating on social media.

Sen. Istifanus Gyang, who represents Bassa County, has questioned the militarys role in the attack.

I am at a loss that this thing happened and the needed response which should have been very massive, Gyang said.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, in a press statement issued by his spokesman Garba Shehu on Jan. 13, said the attack was retaliatory.

Buhari called on the plateau inter-religious council to do everything possible to commit to the peace agreement and prevent it from falling apart.

Every group taking the law into their hands claims to be retaliating. As a society, there is no place for this sort of violence. This is unacceptable, he said.

There are no known reports in Nigerian media in recent years of reprisal raids against Fulani residents of Bassa County carried out by armed Christian gangs.
A customer walks past shelves with bottles of vodka in a supermarket amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Moscow, Russia, on April 8, 2020. (Maxim Shemetov/Reurers)

No Amount of Alcohol Consumption Is Good for the Heart: Report

Any amount can increase risk of cardiovascular disease

No amount of alcohol consumptionnot even a moderate amountis good for the heart, the World Heart Federation (WHF) said on Thursday.

In a new policy brief titled The Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Cardiovascular Health: Myths and Measures, WHF is pushing back on the widespread belief that drinking a daily glass of wine may be beneficial.

The non-governmental organization, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, is calling for urgent action to be taken to tackle what it says is the unprecedented rise in alcohol-related death and disability worldwide.

In 2019, there were more than 2.4 million deaths as a result of alcohol, WHF said, which accounts for 4.3 percent of all deaths globally and 12.6 percent of deaths in men aged 15 to 49. In that same year, more than 92 million DALYs (Disability-adjusted life years) were caused due to alcohol in the same year.

The evidence is clear: any level of alcohol consumption can lead to loss of healthy life, the organization said. Studies have shown that even small amounts of alcohol can increase a persons risk of cardiovascular disease, including coronary disease, stroke, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation, and aneurysm.

Studies that claim otherwise are based on purely observational research, which fails to account for other factors, such as pre-existing conditions and a history of alcoholism in those considered to be abstinent,' WHF continued. To date, no reliable correlation has been found between moderate alcohol consumption and a lower risk of heart disease.

As well as the reported health risks associated with drinking any amount of alcohol, WHF, which is working with the World Health Organization (WHO), also warned of the high economic and social costs it can have.

This includes financial costs to the health system, productivity loss, an increased risk of violence, homelessness, and criminal activity, among others.

Alcohol has a greater impact on people from low socio-economic backgrounds, who are more likely to experience its adverse effects compared to people from higher socio-economic backgrounds, even when consuming similar or lower amounts, the organization said.

Beyond the direct consequences on the health of the drinker, the use of alcohol is responsible for a significant societal impact and is linked with motor vehicle accidents, injuries, familial discord, and burden on a countrys criminal justice system, among other negative outcomes, WHF said. Children with parents who suffer from alcohol addiction have also been shown to exhibit higher rates of alcoholism in their life span.

Recent trends toward appreciating beer with no or low alcohol make space for moderate or nondrinkers to participate in the craft beer movement. (Jacob Lund/shutterstock)

An employee wearing a face mask rings up a customers alcohol purchase at the Local Market Foods store in Chicago, Illinois, on April 8, 2020. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

The World Health Organization has also called for a 10 percent relative reduction in the per capita use of alcohol between 20132030 but says that the lack of investment in proven alcohol control strategies, as well as misinformation from the alcohol industry, has hindered progress toward that goal.

The portrayal of alcohol as necessary for a vibrant social life has diverted attention from the harms of alcohol use, as have the frequent and widely publicized claims that moderate drinking, such as a glass of red wine a day, can offer protection against cardiovascular disease, said Monika Arora, Member of the WHF Advocacy Committee and co-author of the brief. These claims are at best misinformed and at worst an attempt by the alcohol industry to mislead the public about the danger of their product.

However, not everyone agreed with the WHFs stance on alcohol consumption.

David Spiegelhalter, the Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge, noted that one study on the risks of alcohol which was cited heavily by WHF in the brief had been misrepresented.

Spiegelhalter told CNN that WHF seriously misrepresents, and selectively reports, their findings on the study, which was published in The Lancet in 2018.

Given that the WHF report references this paper, it is really odd that their conclusion is that no amount of alcohol is good for the heart,' Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor at the University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told CNN.

There are some scientific studies that support their headline, but based on my work on the Global Burden of Disease Study, which pulls together all the available evidence to date, the claim by the WHF is not supported by the scientific evidence currently available, Gakidou said.

Meanwhile, the American Heart Association says that moderation is key when it comes to alcohol, which is defined as roughly one to two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov move to their seats before their meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2022. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

No Breakthrough in Talks as Blinken Meets With His Russian Counterpart

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva Friday as part of an effort to seek diplomacy and avoid a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

These were the latest in a series of high-level talks between the two countries in recent weeks to address Russias move to amass roughly 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine.

Heading into the talks, both men said they did not expect a breakthrough in negotiations, and it appears that neither side has moved on its stance.

But following the 90-minute meeting Blinken described the exchange as candid and useful.

I believe that Foreign Minister Lavrov now has a better understanding of our position and vice versa, Blinken said. Todays discussion was useful in that sense, and thats precisely why we met.

Russia denies that it intends to invade Ukraine but has issued a list of demands that include NATO agreeing to never accept Ukraine as a member.

Lavrov said at the meeting Russia expected concrete answers to our concrete proposals adding that no one single country should be able to strengthen its security on the account of another country.

Lavrov later called the talks constructive and useful and said the United States agreed to provide written responses to Russian demands on Ukraine and NATO next week.

The United States has maintained that while its not likely that Ukraine will join NATO in the near future, the decision of whether it does so should rest solely between Ukraine and NATO member states.

Blinken says he reiterated that stance to Lavrov in the meeting.

I made clear to Minister Lavrov that there are certain issues and fundamental principles that the United States and our partners and allies are committed to defend, Blinken said. That includes those that would impede the sovereign right of the Ukrainian people to write their own future. There is no trade space there. None.

U.S. officials have been working to secure a united front among its allies in Europe to pose the threat of sanctions if Russia moves to invade. Blinken met ministers from the UK, France, and Germany in Berlin on Jan. 20 ahead of his meeting with Lavrov.

Blinken reiterated Friday the U.S. stance that its entirely up to Russia to pursue either a path of diplomacy or one of severe consequences.

So thats the choice that Russia faces now, it can choose the path of diplomacy that can lead to peace and security, or the path that will lead only to conflict, severe consequences, and international condemnation, Blinken said. The United States and our allies and partners in Europe stand ready to meet Russia on either path.

The State Department has put out recent statements accusing Russia of spreading disinformation meant to destabilize Ukraine.

It also announced sanctions on four individuals connected to ongoing Russian intelligence service-directed influence activities.

Lavrov seemed to dismiss the documents when he said, I do hope that not everyone in the State Department was working on those materials and there were some who were working on the essence of our proposals and their substance.

Russia seized control of Ukraines Crimea Peninsula in 2014 and Ukraines Donbas region has since seen violence that has taken more than 14,000 lives. The region is now under de facto control by Russia-backed separatists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A medical worker is taking a swab sample from a resident to be tested for the COVID-19 coronavirus in Xi'an city, Shaanxi Province, China, on Dec. 25, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

No Relief for Female Chinese Doctor on Pandemics Frontline

Chinas extreme zero-COVID policy and stringent lockdowns have caused suffering, especially among many medical and health professionals such as Yu Mingzhu (using an alias for safety) who is also the mother of two young children.

Yu is trained as a traditional Chinese medicine doctor and she works at a community health center in Shenyang City in northeastern Liaoning Province. There, she and her colleagues work long hours with few breaks while not being paid for any overtime work.

Private companies usually pay employees overtime three times their regular salaries, that is working on holidays and weekends, but we dont get any overtime payment, Yu told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times on Jan. 16.

The only thing we get is some allowance for giving people COVID-19 jabs, Yu said, adding that the management of the health center in Dadong District that she worked at did not treat staff humanely.

At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Yu was assigned to work at highway exits of the city to take temperatures.

It was an open place. It was winter, so it was very cold, said Yu, adding that she had to wear exothermic padding, which was of little help in the cold which can be below freezing in Shenyang with the average low temperature being minus 16 degrees Celsius in January.

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, workers shovel snow at an expressway toll station in Shenyang, northeast Chinas Liaoning Province, Nov. 9, 2021. (Yang Qing/Xinhua via AP)

The cold hit Yu hard in early 2020 when the pandemic took off. She did not dare to drink water during work hours, but the hardest thing for her was to find a private place to express milk for her newborn baby. Her workplace did not provide any privacy for mothers like her and she was clad in personal protective gear that was inconvenient to take off.

All men and women were mixed up, and I had no place to bottle milk, Yu said.

She signed off her day at 10 pm, by such time that her breasts were too engorged and painful as she could not express milk.

I had to wean my baby when she was only eight months old, Yu said.

Seven Days a Week

Yu has had to work seven days a week since May 2021. Her weekly job duties included her regular rosters at the community clinic, participating in Chinese Communist Party events organized by the neighborhood community, working at isolation hotels, and vaccination work on weekends.

A medical staff member prepares a dose of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine in Shenyang, in Chinas northeastern Liaoning Province on Aug.1, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Her mother has helped in taking care of her two children that are aged three and a half and two and a half years old but last year both her parents were ill and were not able to help.

Yu also fell ill last June. Her legs became swollen, and a doctor told her that she had a growth on her gall bladder which the doctor advised should be removed.

Yu was not able to go for an operation straight away because her manager didnt allow her any sick leave, telling her to solve your own problem by yourself. She had to work overtime for more than three months until October when she had completed all her assignments in advance so to make time for the operation.

Yu stayed in the hospital for less than a week after the operation and went back to work upon being discharged. She said she was very weakdeveloped diarrhea and had digestion issues. She went to the toilet two to three times during the night due to loose bowels.

Her doctor prescribed her some rest.

But her manager told her: If you are not healthy enough, why have you given birth to two children?

The manager also said that her sick leave prescription was suspicious, and he needed to investigate the prescriptions authenticity. Yu said she couldnt believe what she was hearing.

This is the third time he has embarrassed me. In June, he sent me a message, calling me a deserter and threatening to hand me in for disciplinary punishment, she said.

Yu had no idea why he did this; her guess was her asking for sick leave and taking her daughter once with her to the isolation hotel she was workingshe could not find anyone to take care of the baby that day.

Yu said she knew it was dangerous for her baby, but she could not afford to send both of them to childcare facilities, which would cost her $503 per month. Her monthly salary was $472.

A medical worker takes a swab sample from a child to COVID-19 test in Shenyang, China on Dec. 31, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Wanting to Practice Traditional Medicine

Yu graduated from a university of traditional Chinese medicine, majoring in pulse reading, prescription of Chinese medicine, acupuncture, cupping therapy, etc. At the health center, she mostly gave lectures on Chinese medicine and later wrote essays on Chinese medicine for a leader since 2021.

But this wasnt what Yu wanted.

Now that her contract with the community health center will expire this month, she has decided not to renew it.

Instead, she wants to truly practice what she was taught.

I hope I can use traditional Chinese medicine to help people, Yu said. Traditional Chinese medicine is more affordable and not that complex, she said.

According to Yu, several herbal medicines can cure a cold. When she was sick, she paid over $1,100 for the operation personally besides Medicare payments, which was more than her two months salary.

She wants to help ordinary people with what she has learned so that people can affordably see a doctor.

The Chinese edition of The Epoch Times has reached out to the neighborhood community and its health center for comment.

Gao Miao and Sophia Lam have contributed to the report.
People watch a TV showing a file image of North Korea's missile launch shown during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

North Korea Slams US, Hints at Resuming Nuclear, ICBM Tests

SEOUL, South KoreaAccusing the United States of hostility and threats, North Korea on Thursday said it will consider restarting all temporally-suspended activities it had paused during its diplomacy with the Trump administration, in an apparent threat to resume testing of nuclear explosives and long-range missiles.

North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un presided over a Politburo meeting of the Workers Party where officials set policy goals for immediately bolstering military capabilities to counter the Americans hostile moves.

Officials gave instructions to reconsider in an overall scale the trust-building measures that we took on our own initiative  and to promptly examine the issue of restarting all temporally-suspended activities, the KCNA said.

Experts say Kim is reviving an old playbook of brinkmanship to extract concessions from Washington and neighbors as he grapples with a decaying economy crippled by the pandemic, mismanagement, and U.S.-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions.

The North has been ramping up its weapons demonstrations recently, including four rounds of missile launches just this month, in an apparent effort to pressure Washington over a prolonged freeze in nuclear diplomacy.

The Norths Foreign Ministry had already warned of stronger action after the Biden administration last week imposed fresh sanctions over its continued missile tests. The U.N. Security Council scheduled a closed-door meeting for Thursday to discuss North Korea and non-proliferation matters.

South Korea said its military was closely monitoring the North as it urged its rival to return to dialogue.

The Chinese regime, North Koreas main ally, repeated its denouncement of U.S. sanctions through a Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday. The Chinese communist regime has avoided criticizing the North over its recent missile launches and endorsed a return to multinational disarmament talks hosted by Beijing that have stalled since 2008.

Kim announced a unilateral suspension of his nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests in 2018, as he initiated talks with then-President Donald Trump in an attempt to leverage his nukes for badly needed economic benefits.

Their summits followed a provocative run in North Korean nuclear and intercontinental range ballistic missile testing in 2017 that demonstrated Kims pursuit of an arsenal that can target the American homeland. He also exchanged threats of nuclear annihilation with Trump.

But negotiations have stalled since their second summit in 2019, when the Americans rejected North Koreas demand for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.

At the end of that year, Kim returned to familiar threats and said the North was no longer obligated to maintain its suspension on nuclear and ICBM tests.

However, the pandemic thwarted many of Kims economic goals as the North imposed a lockdown and halted most of its trade with China.

North Korea appeared this month to have resumed railroad freight traffic with China that had been suspended for two years.

It conducted its sixth and last test of a nuclear explosive device in September 2017. and its last launch of an ICBM was in November that year.

Some experts say that the North could dramatically raise the ante in weapons demonstrations after the end of Februarys Winter Olympics in Beijing. They say Pyongyangs leadership likely feels it could use a dramatic provocation to move the needle with the Biden administration, which has offered open-ended talks but showed no willingness to ease sanctions unless Kim takes real steps to abandon his nuclear and missile program.

Saying that U.S. hostility has reached a danger line that can no longer be overlooked, the North Korean Politburo members called for practical measures to more reliably and effectively increase our physical strength for defending dignity, sovereign rights, and interests of our state, the KCNA said.

They criticized United States of continuing its military exercises with South Korea and arming its ally with advanced weaponry and claimedapparently falselythat Washington is continuing to send strategic assets to the region to pressure the North.

The United States since 2018 has dramatically scaled down its combined exercises with South Korea, which have mostly been reduced to computer simulations, to make room for diplomacy with North Korea and over COVID-19 concerns.

Duyeon Kim, an analyst at Washingtons Center for a New American Security, said North Koreas claim of U.S. hostility is a pretext for continuing testing.

Pyongyang is squarely focused on meeting its nuclear weapons milestones because of its military imperative to do so. This means more tests to come, she said. The pandemic has bought Pyongyang ample time to continue developing nuclear weapons because North Korea closed its borders and has been refusing direct talks, afraid of importing the virus.

Kim Jong Un in recent years had showcased some new weapons he may wish to test, including what appeared to be North Koreas largest ICBM that was rolled out during a military parade in October 2020.

He also issued an ambitious wish list of sophisticated weaponry early last year while setting a five-year plan to develop military forces, which included hypersonic missiles, solid-fuel ICBMs, spy satellites, and submarine-launched nuclear missiles.

If the North does stage another nuclear test, it may use it to claim it acquired an ability to build a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a purported hypersonic missile it tested twice so far this year, experts say.

Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on five North Koreans over their roles in obtaining equipment and technology for the countrys missile programs.

The State Department ordered sanctions against another North Korean, a Russian man and a Russian company for their broader support of North Koreas weapons of mass destruction activities. The Biden administration also said it would pursue additional U.N. sanctions over the Norths tests.
Parents and students gather in protests of wearing masks in schools in front of The Orange County Board of Education in Costa Mesa, Calif., on May 17, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

School Board Apologizes Over Taped Mask IncidentSchools Parents Not Satisfied With Explanation

A photo showing a teacher taping a cloth face mask to a young student seated at his desk has sparked condemnation from parents and a public apology from the head of the districts board of school directors.

The incident took place at a middle school located in Lansdale in Montgomery County about 30 miles north of Philadelphia.

Reading a statement at a Jan. 20, 2022, meeting of the North Penn Board of School Directors, president Tina Stoll said the teachers conduct was inappropriate and an isolated incident.

First and foremost, I would like to extend an apology on behalf of the district and the Board of School Directors to the student who was involved and to his family.

They did not ask for this incident to occur, nor do they deserve the negative attention that it has brought, Stoll said.

This board can report with total confidence that, upon learning of this incident, the district immediately took steps to investigate the matter and prevent any similar acts from taking place in the future.

Accountability is paramount to this board, as is communication and responsiveness with the family of the student involvedtheir input helps to guide the districts actionswe will not let social media influence the facts established by an objective investigation, she added.

Families protest any potential mask mandates before the Hillsborough County Schools Board meeting held at the district office on July 27, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. (Octavio Jones/Getty Images)

Stoll said district officials have been fully cooperating with local law enforcement in its investigation of the mask incident at Pennfield Middle School.

The photo was posted Jan. 17 on social media showing a special education teacher using tape to secure a face mask to the unidentified students face. The image immediately went viral, prompting the board to address the issue at the Jan. 20 meeting.

Although it has been determined that this was an isolated incident and that no malice was intended, the actions of the employee were unacceptable, no matter the context.

The board and administration view this as a serious matter and the board is confident that the administration is addressing it as such, Stoll said.

Because all personnel and student matters are confidential, and due to the role in which the board may be required to serve with respect to impartiality and the due process rights of students and employees, we are bound by law to not comment or provide any further information regarding this specific incident.

To be clear, the actions of this employee were inappropriate, she said. The board then read aloud a letter from the boys mother, who said no permission was given to post the image online.

How this has evolved is exactly what I wanted to avoid, the mother wrote, describing the bad publicity as a scene from my worst nightmare.

During the public comment portion a number of parents spoke out against the teachers actions and the boards handling of the investigation.

The negative attention is on you, said Emily Johnson, who believes it was not an isolated incident.

These are your decisions. I dont understand why youre doing this to our children, Johnson said.

Its complete child abuse, another parent told the board. You are public servants. You are digging your own graves.

Parents also drew attention to other controversial issues facing the district, including pornographic literature found in school libraries, white privilege walks, and a district board that doesnt take input from parents seriously.

This isnt about public safetyits about control, said another parent. Its about controlling our childrens minds.

Yanni Lambros, who owns a coffee shop in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, asked the board, Are you following the science or are you following a narrative?

Children are taught that they are walking vectors of death, he said. When does it end?

In September 2021, a substitute teacher at Reedom Elementary School in Las Vegas allegedly taped masks to the faces of pupils. The Clark County School District called it an isolated incident.
Physician Speaks Out Against Vaccine Mandates for AllEspecially Children and Those With Natural Immunity

Commentary

Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and editor-in-chief of MedPage Today, is pushing back against the growing drumbeat for mass vaccinations and COVID vaccine mandates.

In an interview with U.S. New & World Reports, Makary said mandating vaccines for every living, walking American is not well-supported by science. Makary also expressed concerns about the two-dose vaccine regimen for adolescents.

Makarys interview this week took place as more public and private employers join the vaccine mandate chorusthe federal government is requiring the jab for federal employees, hundreds of colleges are requiring proof of vaccination for students, the U.S. Department of Defense is gearing up to require COVID vaccines for military members, New York is mandating the vaccine for indoor businesses and some of Americas largest employers are requiring employees get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs.

Makary told U.S. News & World Report that as a physician, he believes you win more bees with honey than with firereferring to patients who dont follow what we ask them to do.

Makary believes people who choose not to get vaccinated are making a poor health decision at their own individual risk. But he doesnt believe the unvaccinated pose a public health threat to those who are already immune to the virus.

Makary said:

Would we be so stern toward people making similar or worse health choices to smoke, drink alcohol or not wear a helmet when riding a bike? Over 85,000 Americans die annually from alcohol, yet we dont have the same public health fervor or requirements to save those lives. Lets encourage vaccination rather than activate the personal liberty culture wars that result in people becoming more entrenched in their opposition.

Makary said that vaccinating everyoneincluding eventually every newbornin order to control the pandemic is based on the false assumption that the risk of dying from COVID is equally distributed among the populationbut its not, he said.

We have always known that its very hard for the virus to hurt someone who is young and healthy, Makary said. And thats still the case.

Makary suggested taking a similar approach to what is used with the flu shot, which is often mandated for healthcare workers. Makary said while vaccine requirements for healthcare workers make sense, we would never extend those requirements outside of healthcare.

Wed simply state to the public: Those who avoid the flu shot do so at their own risk, Makary said.

No Scientific Support for Requiring the Vaccine for Those With Natural Immunity

Makary said there is no scientific support for requiring the vaccine in people who have natural immunitythat is, immunity from prior COVID infection. There is zero clinical outcome data to support arguing dogmatically that natural immune individuals must get vaccinated.

Makary explained:

During every month of this pandemic, Ive had debates with other public researchers about the effectiveness and durability of natural immunity. Ive been told that natural immunity could fall off a cliff, rendering people susceptible to infection. But here we are now, over a year and a half into the clinical experience of observing patients who were infected, and natural immunity is effective and going strong. And thats because with natural immunity, the body develops antibodies to the entire surface of the virus, not just a spike protein constructed from a vaccine.

A recent Israeli study affirmed the superiority of natural immunity. Health Ministry data on the wave of COVID outbreaks which began in May 2021, found a 6.72 times greater level of protection among those with natural immunity compared to those with vaccinated immunity.

In June, a Cleveland Clinic study found vaccinating people with natural immunity did not add to their level of protection.

The clinic studied 52,238 employees. Of those, 49,659 never had the virus and 2,579 had COVID and recovered. Of the 2,579 who previously were infected, 1,359 remained unvaccinated, compared with 22,777 who were vaccinated.

Not one of the 1,359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study.

As The Defender reported, a December 2020 study by Singapore researchers found neutralizing antibodies (one prong of the immune response) remained present in high concentrations for 17 years or more in individuals who recovered from the original SARS-CoV.

More recently, the World Health Organization and National Institutes of Health (NIH) each published evidence of durable immune responses to natural infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Yet despite these recent findings, health authorities are largely ignoring the scientific evidence of natural immunitys stellar track record. In fact, as the American Institute of Economic Research reported, it appears in order to promote the COVID vaccine agenda, key organizations are not only downplaying natural immunity but may be seeking to erase it altogether.

Makary said instead of talking about the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, we should be talking about the immune and non-immune.

Immunity can be proven with a simple antibody test, Makary said, and vaccine passports and proof-of-vaccine documents should recognize it.

Makary said theres very strong population immunity in most parts of the U.S. and these areas are resistant to the delta variant. Roughly a third to half of Americans who are unvaccinated have natural immunity, based on an analysis of California residents.

According to a study conducted by the state of California in March, 38% of Californians and 45% of Los Angeles residents had natural immunity.

Were potentially talking about a large portion of the U.S. population who may be immune to COVID and not know it, Makary said. They should be tested to find out, and we should concentrate our vaccination efforts on people who are not immune.

No Strong Case for Vaccinating Kids, Makary Says

When it comes to vaccinating healthy kids, Makary says there is not a strong case for vaccinating young people up to age 25.

Makary explained:

When it comes to vaccinating healthy kids  and you could argue young people up to 25  there is a case for vaccination but its not strong. The COVID-19 death risk is clustered among kids with a comorbid condition, like obesity. Of the more than 330 COVID-19 deaths in kids under age 25, theres good preliminary data suggesting that most or nearly all appear to be in kids with a pre-existing condition. For kids with concurrent medical conditions, the case for vaccination is compelling. But for healthy kids?

Makary said hes concerned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hasnt considered whether one- or two-dose shots would be sufficient or safer for young people.

The agencys Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has vigorously recommended the two-dose vaccine regimen for all children ages 12 and up, regardless of whether kids already have immunity. I take issue with that, Makary said.

Makary said the data CDC based its recommendation onthe Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS)is incomplete at best because it isnt fact-checked by authorities and may not be fully capturing the extent of vaccine complications from the second dose in young people.

As The Defender reported, Simone Scott, 19, and Jacob Clynick, 13, died shortly after receiving their second COVID vaccine doses after developing heart inflammation.

Makary said he wished the CDC would tell the public more about their deaths, and the 19 others youths under the age of 25 who, according to CDC data, have died after receiving a COVID vaccine.

Since the clinical trials were not powered sufficiently to detect rare events like these, I want to know more about those deaths before making blanket recommendations, Makary said.

He added:

Researching these events is important when issuing broad guidance about vaccinating healthy kids, including students, who already have an infinitesimally small risk of dying from COVID-19.

Makary perplexed by vitriol directed at those reluctant to get vaccinated

Makary believes that for some, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the biggest driver of hesitancy in those not willing to get vaccinated as the agency has failed to fully approve COVID vaccines due to stability testing.

Makary didnt refrain from attacking the CDC either. According to Makary, the CDCs relentless focus on vaccine-induced immunity and its demonizing of individuals who choose not to get a COVID vaccine make the agency the most slow, reactionary, political CDC in American history.

In June, Makary blasted the CDC and White House for continuing to push COVID vaccines when its not necessary.

I never thought Id say this, but please ignore the CDC guidance, he said.

The goal of our pandemic response should be to reduce death, illness and disability, but instead what youre seeing is a movement that has morphed from being pro-vaccine to vaccine fanaticism at all costs.

Republished from GreenMedInfo

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Stewart Rhodes, founder the Oath Keepers, speaks during a rally in Washington on June 25, 2017. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo)

Prosecutors Ask Court to Order Oath Keepers Leader Detained Pending Trial on Jan. 6 Charges

The leader of the Oath Keepers group should remain locked up until trial on charges related to the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, prosecutors said in a new court filing.

Stewart Rhodes was one of 11 Oath Keepers charged on Jan. 13 with seditious conspiracy.

Because of the compelling evidence against Rhodes, there are no conditions of release that can reasonably assure the safety of the community or the defendants appearance in court, prosecutors wrote in the filing, which attempts to convince a judge to deny bond to Rhodes.

And based on Rhodess evidence destruction aimed at hiding his crimes and the identities of his co-conspirators, he poses a risk of obstructing justice should he be released. Pretrial detention is warranted and necessary, they added.

A lawyer representing Rhodes, who is currently being held in federal jail in Texas, declined to comment.

Rhodess lawyers are expected to file a competing motion calling for the judge to grant some level of bail.

Rhodes, 56, has pleaded not guilty.

A detention hearing is scheduled for Jan. 24 in Plano at 10 a.m. local time.

Edward Vallejo, 63, another accused co-conspirator, appeared in federal court in Arizona on Jan. 20. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Boyle ordered Vallejo detained pending trial, calling him a serious danger at this time.

Vallejo played a central role in the planned use of force in this plot, agreeing and preparing to usher firearms and other related equipment into Washington, D.C., to his co-conspirators, prosecutors said in a filing last week.

The guns werent ultimately transported to the nations capital, but if Rhodes had ordered the transport, you would have complied, Boyle said during the hearing.

Vallejos public defender unsuccessfully sought his release and said he plans to plead not guilty.

Vallejo and Rhodes were the only two freshly charged last week; the other Oath Keepers members already faced charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, breach.

While hundreds of people have been charged in the riot, nobody previously had been hit with a seditious conspiracy charge.

The U.S. government has alleged that the group forcibly entered the Capitol after months of planning and gathering weapons and supplies in a bid to stop the transfer of presidential power.

Members of Congress were convened in Washington that day to certify electoral votes. After the interruption, President Joe Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 election over then-President Donald Trump.

Reuters contributed to this report.
The worlds largest known cut diamond, a rare 555.55-carat black diamond, went on display for the first time in auction house Sothebys Dubai on Monday, and its literary out of the world.

Sothebys calls the 555.55-carat black diamondbelieved to have come from outer spaceThe Enigma.

Sophie Stevens, a jewelry specialist at Sothebys Dubai, told The Associated Press that the number five bears an important significance to the diamond, which has 55 facets as well.

An employee of Sothebys Dubai presents a 555.55-carat black diamond, The Enigma, to be auctioned at Sothebys Dubai gallery, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (Kamran Jebreili/AP Photo)

The shape of the diamond is based on the Middle-Eastern palm symbol of the Khamsa, which stands for strength and it stands for protection, Stevens said. Khamsa in Arabic means five.

So theres a nice theme of the number five running throughout the diamond, she added.

Stevens also said the black diamond is likely from outer space.

With the carbonado diamonds, we believe that they were formed through extraterrestrial origins, with meteorites colliding with the Earth and either forming chemical vapor disposition or indeed coming from the meteorites themselves, she said.

Black diamonds, also known as carbonado, are extremely rare and are found naturally only in Brazil and Central Africa. The cosmic origin theory is based on their carbon isotopes and high hydrogen content.

Stevens told The National that the diamond was acquired as a rough stone in the 1990s by its current owner, who proceeded to have it cut into its current shape.

An employee of Sothebys Dubai presents a 555.55-carat black diamond, The Enigma, at Sothebys Dubai gallery, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (Kamran Jebreili/AP Photo)

What is also exceptional about these black diamonds is they do not have the same chemical make-up as white diamonds, which have a single line of crystal symmetry, making them much easier to cut and facet, Stevens said. These are what we call polycrystalline, so they are made up of many aggregated small diamond crystals. The technical skill required to cut this in the first place, let alone to that very specific weight of 555.55 and with the 55 facets, is just remarkable.

After being on show in Dubai, the rare gem is set to travel to Los Angeles before a seven-day online auction starts on Feb. 3 in London.

Stevens said that Dubai and Los Angeles were chosen because of the nature of the diamond.

We think it has a wider appeal to different collectors, not just your traditional gemstone collectors. So we thought Dubai and LA would be perfect to appeal to that wider database, Stevens added.

Sothebys expects the diamond to be sold for at least 5 million pounds (US$6.8 million). The auction house plans to accept cryptocurrency as a possible payment as well.

Epoch Times Staff contributed to this report.

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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 in Atlanta on Jan. 11, 2022. (Patrick Semansky/AP Photo)

Reaching New Levels of Hysteria

Commentary

You can tell that we live in revolutionary times because almost every measure proposed and every speech or article proposing them are marked by an almost frantic moral urgency. But now that weve marked the first anniversary of the Biden administration taking office, the official rhetoric appears to have reached new levels of hysteria.

I noticed recently in this space the existential threat posed to the Republicat least according to The New York Timesby a riot that happened at the U.S. Capitol building a year ago. Of course, this wasnt to be confused with the riotspluralin the capital in May and June 2020, which lasted much longer, were part of a nationwide uprising, and resulted in many more injuries and much more property damage.

But, as having been directed against then-President Donald Trump and not President Joe Biden, they didnt count as existential threats.

It was really Trump himself who was supposed to be the existential threat, which is why those supporters who once breached the Capitol on behalf of his claim that the election had been stolen by supporters of his rival, the apparently victorious Joe Biden, can now be treated as ongoing existential threats themselves.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed on Jan. 5 by saying that there is no higher priority for U.S. law enforcement than to belatedly bring the Capitol breachers to justice.

Note well. Soaring murder rates arent his priority, nor are the latest smash-and-grab raids on retailers in big citieswhere, not coincidentally, left-wing prosecutors are disinclined to prosecute anyone for them. Nor are thousands of illegal aliens pouring over our largely undefended southern border every day.

No, all of these things, together with the usual everyday criminality thats the ostensible business of the Justice Department, must take a back seat to the pursuit, arrest, and prosecution of the Trump supporters who came in a disorderly rabble to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, alleging that the election had been stolen.

It was apparent that it was this allegation of election-tampering that made the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breachers so much greater a threat to democracy than the Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters of 2020.

Therefore, it must also have been what lay behind Vice President Kamala Harriss comparison of Jan. 6, 2021, to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and to attacks on New York and Washington by Islamist terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. Bidens spokeswoman defended the comparison to Pearl Harbor, and the president himself, in repeating his characterization of the breach as an attack on the Constitution and on democracy itself in his speech to Congress, seconded that comparison.

As Gerard Baker wrote in The Wall Street Journal, When his [Bidens] administration elevates (or reduces) its domestic opponents to the status of a foreign enemy, the only winners are the real foreign enemies.

Then on Jan. 11, while speaking in Atlanta, the president called the breach a coup attemptagain presumably on account of the breachers allegation of a stolen electionand repeated his characterization of its aftermath as a battle for the soul of America. This is a battle in which he and his administration are still engaged, he said.

And how, besides siccing the Justice Department on those rioters who alleged that the election had been stolen, did he propose to fight this battle? Youll never guess. It was by doing anything necessary, including trashing members of his own party as well as the opposition, to approve a measure that was making its way through Congress that would have made it easier to steal elections!

The logic, such as it is, behind his advocacy for this legislation appears to go something like this: Since its axiomatic, at least in the Democrats book, that the 2020 election wasnt stolen, in spite of a pandemic-inspired relaxation of voting restrictions around the country that made it the most recent election in U.S. history likely to have been stolen, it follows that no election can ever be stolen.

Therefore, all restrictions on voting can be relaxed in order to create the widest possible franchise, especially among those minorities most likely to vote Democratic.

This is what heand most of his party and the mediaamusingly refer to as voting rights.

As he spoke, at least two Democratic senatorsenough to defeat the measure along with solid Republican oppositionappeared to be harboring a few doubts about this logic.

So the president then went on to compare them to George Wallace, Bull Connor, and Jefferson Davis. If his object had been to persuade the wavering senators over to his side, he was certainly going a very odd way about itwhich is why I have my doubts as to whether that was his object. On the contrary, his willingness to lash out like this against his more-reluctant allies powerfully suggests that he knows the battle for voting rights is lost, so he has nothing to lose by comparing these senators to those approved super-villains of U.S. history.

He might also have something to gain.

His own approval ratings have again sunk to new lows recentlyin one poll as low as 33 percent. Public approval of Harris is even lower. As the president sees support for his administration drifting away, even among Democrats, his last, desperate throw of the dice might well be to remind the doubters of the unique evil of his hated archenemy.

For if Trump and the Trumpites are acknowledged to constitute an evil unparalleled in U.S. history except for that of the enemies who have made war on us, arent those who disapprove of the dear leader, such as those who refuse to obey him and vote for his favored legislation, in effect joining with the enemies of their country?

It might seem a dubious proposition to most of us, but it worked for California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Russias Ransomware Takedown: Political Concession or Political Theater?

News Analysis

When President Joe Biden took office last year, ransomware was near the top of his list of issues to deal with when it comes to Russia.

And for good reason. For years, the U.S. government has accused the Kremlin of allowing ransomware hackers to operate in Russia with impunityresulting in major attacks on U.S. infrastructure, including crippling hacks on Colonial Pipeline, IT developers Kaseya and SolarWinds, as well as global food supplier JBS.

So it came as a pleasant surprise to many observers when Russias FSB domestic intelligence service announced on Jan. 14 that it arrested and dismantled one of the countrys most prominent ransomware groups, REvil. The FSB said it did so at the request of the Biden administration, which, in turn, said it welcomes the news and credits diplomacy between the two nations.

However, the timing of Russias takedown has left cybersecurity experts perplexed. Why now, with Russian President Vladimir Putin amassing troops along Ukraines border, and with tensions between the countries at their highest in years?

Moreover, why did Russias takedown of REvil coincide with a Jan. 14 major cyberattack on Ukraines government?

Center for Security analysts Mike Waller and Andrei Illarionov say the arrests of REvil members could be a publicity stunt by the Russian government.

My guess is that this is a Russian attempt to convince the United States that its sincere about something, when really this is a freebee for them, Waller said. These arrests cost Moscow nothing. What they do is get people in the West to think, Great, look at how the Kremlin is cooperating with us on our concerns. Maybe we should go easy on them with some areas of their concern.

Illarionov, a former chief economic adviser to Putin, pointed out that the REvil network has been offline since Julydays after Biden asked Putin to take action on the matter in a phone call.

As soon as Putin received the request from Biden in July, within days, this group disappeared, Illarionov told The Epoch Times. The fact they made [arrests] three days agoits not that something happened in January. Its a public relations campaign.

But some have proffered that the REvil gang went offline because they found out they were penetrated by Western intelligence agencies. Supporting this theory is that the FBI was conducting a joint cyber operation with other agencies against REvil at the time the gang went dark.

If thats the case, then perhaps the arrests were a more sincere overture from the Russiansthough Waller wouldnt count on it.

I would not take at face value anything we hear, Waller told The Epoch Times. Russian law enforcement doesnt work the way it does here. People are arrested for any reason, and legitimate criminals are let go for certain reasonsmostly for theatrical effects.

Some observers are skeptical that the REvil arrests will have any effect on Bidens disposition toward Russia.

Some smart folks have suggested that it was meant as a carrotIf you guys give us some slack and let us invade Ukraine, then well help you with ransomware investigations and prosecutions in Russia, David Kris, the former head of the Department of Justices national security division, said Jan. 19 on the Cyberlaw Podcast.

If thats really what they think, it may have been a miscalculation. I find it hard to believeas eager and enthusiastic as [the Biden administration is] to come after ransomwarethat theyd soft-pedal our position on the geopolitical landscape.

But Illarionov and Waller arent so sure.

Waller said the arrests may be enough to placate weak characters such as Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and CIA Director William Burns. Illarionov, for his part, said Biden sold Ukraine down the river by supporting the Minsk agreement struck in 2015, which provided concessions to separatists in the eastern Donbas region.

The recent publication is just a PR campaign by FSB, just another public demonstration as to just how close relations are between Biden and Putin. The main game theyre trying to play right now is to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia and enter the Minsk agreement, Illarionov said.

Ukraine doesnt want this because its destruction of sovereignty, but its not serious for Bidenwhich is why he joined ranks with Putin to push Ukraine into the Minsk agreement.

Its PR between Putin and Biden directly.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Flowers left in memory of Sir David Amess outside the Houses of Parliament, in Westminster, London, on Oct. 22, 2021. (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Security Costs for Lawmakers up by 29 Percent Last Year and Rising, Says UK Watchdog

MPs security costs have increased by 29 percent last year and are set to rise further following the fatal stabbing of Conservative MP Sir David Amess, the UKs parliamentary watchdog said on Friday.

Publishing its annual figures on MPs business costs, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) said the total security assistance cost for the year 202021 was around 4.37 million ($5.92 million), almost 1 million ($1.36 million) more than the previous financial year.

IPSA Chair Richard Lloyd said the cost could increase further this year following Amesss murder because its absolutely vital for our democracy to ensure the safety of MPs, their families, and their staff.

The murder of Amess by Islamist extremist Ali Harbi Ali last October marked the second fatal attack on a sitting British lawmaker in their constituency in the last five years. In 2016, Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered in her small-town constituency in a fatal shooting a week ahead of the Brexit referendum by Neo-Nazi Thomas Mair.

The security costs for MPs jumped by 14 times in 2016 and nearly doubled again in the following year.

The security cost was the fourth biggest cost during the year 202021, representing 3.17 percent of MPs total costs during the financial year.

The biggest costs, staffing (76.7 percent) and office (11 percent) costs, both rose by 17 percent on the previous year, to 105.8 million ($143.42 million) and 15.2 million ($20.6 million) respectively, according to the regulator.

IPSA chair Richard Lloyd said spending on staffing was higher as the budget was boosted in light of constituency casework increasing to record levels.

Meanwhile, accommodation costs rose by 4 percent, to 9.3 million ($12.6 million), while travel and subsistence costswhich include funding to cover staff and dependantsdropped by more than 60 percent, from 5.6 million ($7.59 million) in 201920 to 2.1 million ($2.85 million) in 202021.

Lloyd said this reflected different working patterns during the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic.

Overall, MPs business costs amounted to nearly 138 million ($187 million) in 202021, including 176,000 ($238,580) in disability assistance costs and 1 million ($1.36 million) in staff absences and other costs, IPSA said.

Lloyd added that compliance with the IPSA rules remained very high, at 99.7 percent.

As the independent regulator that oversees spending by MPs, we can confirm today that compliance with our rules remained very high during the COVID pandemic, he said.

By far the largest area of spending is to pay for the salaries of MPs staff. These are people who work long hours to help constituents, often dealing with very difficult issues, Lloyd added.

PA contributed to this report.
Lucy Mingyuan Liu (L) with her mother, Yan Liu, who is currently detained in China for practicing Falun Gong. In the backdrop is Lucy's animated CGI dancer for which she received the 2021 Tibor Madjar award for Best Overall Animation. (Courtesy of Mingyuan Liu)

Sheridans Award-Winning 3D Animation Student Calls for Release of Mom Jailed in China

"Its saddening that upholding ones spiritual beliefs has become the 'biggest and most dangerous crime' in todays China."

An award-winning, young digital animation student whose family has suffered spiritual persecution for decades in China arrived in Canada in August 2020 to avoid harassment and secure her future. But nearly a year later, she learned her mother was, once again, placed in detention. This is her story.

The talented 24-year-old student at world-renowned Sheridan College in Ontariowho at the age of 4 was taken away as a hostage by Chinese police in an attempt to arrest her parentsis now speaking out to seek immediate release of her mother facing persecution for upholding her spiritual faith.

Lucy Mingyuan Liu, whose father is an accomplished artist and mother a former dean at a Chinese university, is gifted in traditional 2D painting. She ventured into full 3D digital animation recently, making a huge splash in her first year at Sheridana campus where Disney and Pixar spot top talent to fill their ranks.

Sheridan college held a Zoom call in May 2021 and presented the Tibor Madjar award for Best Overall Animation. Lucy was the winner. Her breathtakingly beautiful classical dance demo reel had the judges spellbound.

Lucy Mingyuan Lius 3D animated demo reel of the CGI dancer. (Courtesy of Lucy Mingyuan Liu)

Lucy told The Epoch Times in an interview that in the world of CGI (computer-generated imagery), animating figures realistically is one of the hardest challenges.

Her anatomically correct, gracefully choreographed dancer couldve only come from a mind ablaze with inspirationthe judges were cognizant of it.

Inspired by Dancers of the Divine

Lucys CGI dancer didnt appear in a vacuum. The character was inspired by Shen Yun Performing Arts, the worlds premier classical Chinese dance and music company dedicated to reviving the 5,000-year-old divinely inspired traditional Chinese culture.

Lucy, who practices the persecuted self-cultivation system of Falun Gong, grew up amid tranquil meditators and qigong practitioners living by the virtues of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Her parents, like countless other Falun Gong adherents, suffered under the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) persecution of their faith.

Its saddening that upholding ones spiritual beliefs has become the biggest and most dangerous crime in todays China, she said. Falun Gong practitioners are facing discrimination and alienation on a daily basis, for striving to be good people.

Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) is a spiritual discipline that became popular in China in the 1990s because of its moral teachings and health benefits, but it drew fire from the Communist Partya totalitarian regime that perceived the peaceful practices growing foothold in Chinese society as a threat to its Marxist ideologies and power. The CCPs former leader Jiang Zemin then initiated a persecution campaign in July 1999 to eradicate Falun Gong and its adherents, which continues to date.

Lucy Mingyuan Liu with her father, Yong Liu, and mother, Yan Liu. (Courtesy of Lucy Mingyuan Liu)

Like many others, Lucys parents, when she was in high school, lost their jobs and were given multiyear prison sentences for practicing Falun Gong, after which she would worry in tears each day until they got home.

Faced with nationwide persecution, Lucys parents worried for her.

My parents said its not safe for me to stay in China, so they wanted me to come abroad, Lucy said. They decided to send me to Canada so that the shadow of persecution can no longer overhang my future career and life. I know the Canadian government is the most kind, or very supportive of Falun Gong, so I just have a good impression of this country.

And I know that Sheridan College in Canada is the best; thats why I chose animation.

A Fresh Start and a Mission

Lucy landed in Canada in the summer of 2020. Now in her second program, she has high hopes of one day working for a major studio.

Some company like Disney, that would be the dream job, she said. From my last program, I know there are only one or two students who end up working there.

Some drawings by Lucy Liu. (Courtesy of Lucy Mingyuan Liu)

With her first Digital Animation program secured under her belt, she last fall entered her second, more advanced Digital Creature program, exploring further the 3D world of texture, detail, and realism. Its like advancing from TV-grade kid cartoons to feature film-grade full-length movies, she said.

Every piece of fur, feather, and scale is painstakingly rendered and animated in 3D. Shes now creating a merboy (a boy with a fish tail) for her next big assignment. But in September 2021, the CCP cast another shadow upon her once-confident start.

My dad called me and said, Your mom was arrested again, she recalled.

Lucys mom, Yan Liu, was taken to Kunming Detention Center in Chinas Yunan Province, where only her lawyer was allowed to visit her twice but not her husband. Now, even the lawyer is not allowed to meet my mom, she said. People who have been there told me the environment inside the detention center is really terrifying.

The police sent my moms case to the procuratorate a second time around Dec. 30, 2021. The procuratorate is now preparing for her trial, and as far as I know, those trials against Falun Gong practitioners are held in secret; they wont notify the family members or our lawyer.

This is particularly concerning, for Falun Gong practitioners in prisons or labor camps, besides torture and death, are at the risk of having their organs harvestedhearts, kidneys, lungs, livers, and alland sold for profit in Chinas state-sanctioned billion-dollar organ transplant industry.

A childhood photo of Lucy with her mother. (Courtesy of Lucy Mingyuan Liu)

Expressing dimmed hopes, Lucy said that her initial confidence in winning the Tibor Madjar award turned into plaguing worry for her family, hampering her concentration. But pressing on, with help from local Canadian Falun Gong adherents, she would raise her voice, telling the world of her moms plight.

A Voice for the Voiceless

Braving freezing Toronto temperatures on Nov. 18, 2021, Lucy stood shoulder-to-shoulder with other Falun Gong practitioners outside the Chinese Consulate along St. George Street. Microphone in hand, Lucy pleaded for officialsChinese and Canadianto act on her mothers behalf.

I hope my story will reach out to those working in law enforcement in China, so that they may reconsider whether they are implementing or impeding justice, she said.

Speaking loudly, as Lucy was, has previously impelled Canadian MPs to phone Chinese prisons to help practitionersas was the case for Yinghua Chen, now safely in Canada, who was tormented in a Hebei Province womens prison for four years. Calls from abroad forced the jailers, who feared embarrassing the CCP internationally, to go easy on, not brutally torture, and eventually release Chen.

In hopes of protecting her imprisoned mother, Lucy started a petition to the Canadian prime minister on Dec. 1, 2021.

The tragedies and trauma I have experienced as a child due to the persecution are beyond words, she said in her petition letter. I stand up  to ask all righteous Canadians, parliamentarians, and our government to help me and call on the Chinese communist regime to immediately release my mother and put an end to the persecution of Falun Gong.

Lucy Liu speaks outside the Chinese Consulate in Toronto. (Courtesy of Lucy Mingyuan Liu)

Keeping the Dream Alive

Before the persecution began in China, Lucys family members were quite well off, living the dreamuntil the communist regime overnight turned their beautiful life upside down.

Her dad, Yong Liu, was one of the top artists in the country and a respected art teacher. Lucys mom was an esteemed English professor in Changchun citys Jilin UniversityLambton College, a partnership between Jilin University and the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. But seeing the suppression gradually escalating in Changchun led them to pack up, leave behind successful careers, and move 3,000 miles to distant Yunnan Province where they knew no one. Fortunately, the talented couple secured university lecturing jobs thereonly to later resign and lay low, fearing the CCP.

But the nationwide persecution found them.

One day in the winter of 2001, over 20 police officers showed up on campus, trying to grab my mother from her classroom, Lucy said. A cleaning lady quietly let my mom out from the side fire-exit door. My mother left the school site and went to hide in a safe spot.

The family was forced into exile and hiding. In 2012, her father was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison. While her father faced persecution in detention, Lucy, who was then studying in the 12th grade, learned that her mother was expelled from the university lecturing job. In 2015, while Lucy was preparing for admission to a top art university, her mother was sentenced to three years.

Lucy said that her parents have suffered torture, brainwashing, and forced slave labor. By 2018, both her parents were released from the prisons, and the family managed to gather up their scattered life with resilience and courage. Today, with her mom detained in jail, Lucy cant believe its happening again.

For years, my parents were my shelters and shields, protecting me from storms and thunder amid the persecution, Lucy said. Today, I would like to be the shield for my parents and the values they hold dear to their hearts and lives.

Lucys parents, dad Long Liu and mom Yan Liu. (Courtesy of Lucy Mingyuan Liu)

Lucy recently spoke in a video, seeking support for her moms earliest release and to help end the CCPs 0ver two-decades-long persecution of her spiritual faith.

Besides working for Disney or Pixar, Lucy aspires to one day use digital animation to amplify her voice and bring to light the atrocities in China. She also envisions using CGI to show people the bright side of Falun Gongthe beauty of its three core virtues of truthfulness, compassion, and toleranceas her 3D dancer had so magically impressed her judges.

I know the persecution, all these things, happen because of the media, the propaganda, she said. I want to use this animation method to create a film on the truth about the persecution. A film is a very good way to make an influence.

I want to make a film on my familys story, showing how our beliefs gifted us a beautiful life and also let people see the CCPs persecution of faith.
A photo of Stanford University student Monte Fischer (courtesy of Monte Fischer) on top of a photo of Stanford University on Mar. 12, 2019. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Stanford Students Petition Against School Booster Mandate

STANFORD, Calif.A group of Stanford University students, led by first-year Ph.D. student Monte Fischer, delivered to school leaders on Jan. 18 an open letter against the schools booster shot mandates.

The letter is addressed to President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Provost Persis Drell, and Associate Vice Provost Russell Furr. It demands a repeal to Stanfords policy mandating that all students receive a COVID-19 booster by the end of January.

On Dec. 16, 2021, the university issued an update to the schools COVID response, stating: Students are strongly encouraged to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine booster, if eligible, prior to returning to campus for the winter quarter. And, all eligible students will be required to provide documentation of a booster, unless they have a medical or religious accommodation, by Jan. 31, 2022.

Fischer told NTD Television that he also launched a petition about a week ago. He said the students who are against the mandates are not anti-booster or anti-vaccination. He said they are pro-bodily autonomy and support the idea of evaluating the data and making personal medical choices.

I think that the decision to mandate boosters for all students really flies in the face of a lot of the evidence on the ground and a lot of things we should be valuing as Stanford, as that community, said Fischer.

The petition has over 1,800 signatures as of Jan. 20.

Fischer said that according to the universitys reports, 95 percent of the student population is vaccinated. He said data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the universitys student demographic is at low risk of serious illness from COVID-19.

When you add on top of that the fact that boosters are not without risks themselvestheres a developing body of research about the risks associated with boostersI thought that it was irresponsible of Stanford to make that decision for its students instead of empowering its students to make their own decisions, Fischer said.

E.J. Miranda, a Stanford University representative, told NTD in an email: Our booster requirement, for students who are eligible, is intended to support sustained immunity against [COVID-19] and is consistent with the advice of county and federal public health leaders. A high level of immunity within our student community will help us continue in person educational activities and puts us in a better position to deal with the risk of future variants, especially in our students congregate living settings.

Fischer said that overall, the reaction has been very positive. One of Stanfords professors, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, expressed support and gratitude towards Fischer for speaking up for freedom.

Fischer said, Ive gotten a lot of emails from parents, from students, from alumni, and from staff at Stanford right now who expressed their support.

Other universities around the country are holding similar efforts. Groups of students from the University of Chicago, Cornell University in New York, and George Mason University in Virginia are speaking out and running online petitions calling for an end to vaccine-related mandates.

With reporting by NTDs Jason Blair.
Delegates attend the opening session of the 18th Communist Party Congress held at the Great Hall of the People on Nov. 8, 2021, in Beijing, China. Many Party officials have found themselves wiretapped recently, as paranoia in the ranks increases amidst an anti-corruption campaign led from the top. (Feng Li/Getty Images)

Sun Lijun Involved in Financial Plot, Has Arsenal of Firearms: Analyst

Analysis

Beijing officially charged Sun Lijun, a former deputy minister of Public Security, with accepting bribes, manipulating the market, and illegal possession of firearms. An expert explains what these abnormal charges entail.

Sun was under investigation by the National Supervisory Commission, the regimes anti-corruption watchdog, in April 2020.

While accepting bribes is a typical charge for corrupt officials, the market manipulation and illegal possession of firearms charges are rare and even unheard of.

Yuan Hongbing, a Chinese political analyst and law scholar, gives the inside story behind these charges.

Manipulating Market: A Financial Coup

Previously, few corrupt officials, the so-called tigers, were charged with insider trading or leaking trade secrets, known in China as the crimes of undermining the order of financial management. The market manipulation charge is new for the sacked tigers.

Yuan believes the market manipulation refers to the financial coup that Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua carried out over six years ago.

In early 2015, the Chinese stock market soared and was leading the world stock markets. But, in the summer, the market plummetedmore than 90 percent of Chinese stocks fell by more than 50 percent; thousands of stocks hit their limit downwhich led to the probe of the Chinese stock markets. The limit down price is the maximum allowable decline in the price of a stock or commodity in a single trading day.

In 2017, the state mouthpiece CCTV publicized that the abrupt up and down of the 2015 stock market was a crime of financial manipulation. Xiao was believed to be the front man of this market manipulation.

Then, Xiao disappeared in early 2017. He was believed to have been abducted from his Hong Kong residence and taken back to the mainland.

Yuan told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times that the 2015 stock crash was indeed a financial coup, and Xiao was the man behind the scene.

He said it was meant to warn Xi Jinping that his anti-corruption campaign should not go too far. Xiao wanted to secure the interests of the princelings and the elite, in particular, the faction of former Party leader Jiang Zemin.

I was in Taiwan. Xiao had someone come and see me. I warned him that he should stay in a safe place if he wanted to do it. But he thought Hong Kong was safe enough, and he had guards to protect him. I told him it was a mistake. But he did not listen, Yuan said, that was before 2015.

Xiao was admitted as a law school student at Peking University in 1986, when Yuan was a faculty member, and director of that years law student body. They became acquaintances and stayed in touch.

Yuan said that Xiao had many connections within the Party and the government. Sun was his connection in public security. But Sun was not the main player in the stock crash.

Sun was involved only because its believed that the stationing of public security would help to better control the stock market. Yuan said, My understanding is that the charge of market manipulation was based on what Xiao confessed [to].

In 1999, Xiao founded The Tomorrow Group. Within 20 years, Xiao became a white glove (money launderer) for certain high-ranking communist officials, and The Tomorrow Group developed into a sizeable financial predator.

After his disappearance, Chinese media revealed that he worked hard to cooperate with the authorities to reduce the penalty of his crimes.

Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese-born Canadian billionaire, reads a book outside the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong in December 2013. (AP Photo/Next Magazine)

Arsenal of Guns, Enough for a Platoon

In Sept. 2021, the regime accused Sun of political ambitions and gang activities that seriously endangered political security. This was interpreted as he was involved in a coup.

Yuan had a different take on the charges. He believes it was a territorial fight between Sun and Wang Xiaohong, the incumbent party secretary and deputy minister of Public Security, and a confidant of Xi Jinping.

Yuan said, after Meng Hongwei, former vice minister of Public Security and Interpol president, was sacked in 2018, Sun felt he had seniority in public security. But, Xi promoted Wang Xiaohong.

Suns political ambitions would be to get rid of Wang and to become the minister of Public Security, Yuan said.

Among the charges Chinese media revealed in 2020, was that Sun secretly stashed a large number of classified documents. Among them included secrets of the origins of the pandemic that were kept by his wife in Australia, some of the Chinese media reported.

Yuan said that in fact, those documents were hidden by Suns overseas white gloves.

He said, Someone claiming to be Suns messenger came to Taiwan to see me. That was one of his overseas white gloves. His white gloves will keep those documents hidden to keep Sun alive, If he dies, they will expose those documents, Yuan added.

Sun owned guns, enough to equip a platoon of soldiers, the messenger told Yuan Hongbing.

Yuan Hongbin, took political asylum in Australia in 2004. His concern about Chinese democracy had him visit Taiwan often starting in 2005. In several lectures he gave in Taiwan, Yuan tried to warn Taiwan about the infiltration of the Party.

According to Yuan, Sun was worried about his own safety and thats why his messenger contacted him. Yuan agreed to meet with the messenger because he wanted to persuade Sun to rebel.

It took 17 months for the regime to expel Sun from the Party and remove him from the official posta disciplinary punishment for Party membersafter the authorities announced the investigation against Sun. Yuan considers this length of time as rare, suggesting that the Party wasnt able to locate the classified documents Sun kept with his overseas confidants.

However, Suns overseas buddies all have their families in China whom theyll worry about. They rarely have any political aspirations, Yuan added, therefore, they wont necessarily expose the documents and thereby risk their families wellbeing.

Yuan believes the Sun Lijun drama will initiate an open and bloody struggle between Xi Jinping and the faction of former Party leader Jiang Zemin in the new year.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Haizhong Ning Follow Haizhong Ning was a state employee and worked for a real estate company in China, before moving abroad and working as a reporter with a focus on Chinese affairs and politics for more than seven years.
Supreme Court Declines to Intervene in Texas Abortion Law Case for 2nd Time

The abortion ban remains in place amid ongoing litigation

The U.S. Supreme Court has, for a second time, declined to intervene in a lawsuit challenging a Texas abortion ban.

In a 63 ruling on Thursday (pdf), the court declined abortion providers request to intervene in the case challenging the states abortion ban, known as the Texas Heartbeat Act or Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8).

The law went into effect in September 2021, banning abortions after a heartbeat is detectedusually at around six weeks gestationunless a medical emergency exists. There is no exception for a pregnancy due to incest or rape.

On Sept. 1, 2021, when the law went into effect, the Supreme Court on the same day denied an effort to block the measure, in a 54 ruling.

Whole Womans Health, which operates four Texas abortion clinics as well as other clinics in five other states, had sued to overturn the law.

The abortion provider argued the law violates the 1973 Roe v. Wade and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decisions. Roe v. Wade prohibited states from banning abortions prior to when the fetus is deemed viabledeemed at around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed the Roe ruling and prohibited laws that place an undue burden on a womans ability to obtain an abortion.

Whole Womans Health also challenged the unique enforcement mechanism of the Texas abortion ban. Under the measure, state officials have no role in enforcing it, but private citizens (except for an individual who impregnated a woman through incest or rape) can file lawsuits against anyone who allegedly aids and abets in an abortion that violates the law.

Because no state officials are involved in enforcing the law, abortion providers have found it difficult to bring legal challenges against particular individuals.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on Nov. 1, 2021. The court refused to stay the law and threw out most of the arguments against the law, but allowed a narrow challenge to proceed, ruling that certain state licensing officials might have indirect authority to enforce S.B. 8, and so the lawsuit may only proceed against them.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on Dec. 16 sent the challenge back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which sent the case to the Texas Supreme Court on Monday, at the request of Texas officials. In a 21 vote, the 5th Circuit court panel asked the Texas Supreme Court to interpret S.B. 8 and determine whether state licensing officials are appropriate defendants under state law.

The move effectively allows the abortion ban to remain in place amid ongoing litigation. After a decision by the Texas Supreme Court, the case would then return to the 5th Circuit. Currently, there is no timetable for when the Texas Supreme Court will take up the case.

Abortion providers, in their latest request to the U.S. Supreme Court, argued that the 5th Circuit appeals court should have sent the case to a federal district court in Austin, where a judge had previously blocked the law for a few days. The abortion providers asked the Justices to intervene and reroute the case to avoid undue delay.

The majority denied the request in the Thursday order, which was issued without comment. Three of the nine Justices dissentedSonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan.

Instead of stopping a Fifth Circuit panel from indulging Texas newest delay tactics, the Court allows the State yet again to extend the deprivation of the federal constitutional rights of its citizens through procedural manipulation, Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.

Good news! The U.S. Supreme Court denied abortionists request today to send a Texas Heartbeat Act lawsuit to a liberal judge. The case remains in the GOP-majority Supreme Court of Texas, announced Texas Right to Life.

Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO and founder of Whole Womans Health, said in a statement following the ruling, SCOTUS once again turns its back on Texans who deserve safe abortion care. 10% of people of reproductive age in our country live in Texas. This abortion ban is radical, extreme and so, so wrong. [Whole Womans Health] will keep fighting for you. Texans deserve better.

Meanwhile, Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement, Once again, the Supreme Court has betrayed the people of Texas, who have been callously stripped of their constitutional right to abortion for more than four months now.
The Supreme Court is seen in Washington on Sept. 21, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Supreme Court Overturns New York Mans Murder Conviction, Strengthens Defendants Rights

The Supreme Court has overturned the murder conviction of Darrell Hemphill, a New York man, on Sixth Amendment grounds after state prosecutors cut corners and used the transcript of a witnesss testimony from another trial against him instead of having the witness testify in person.

The new ruling strengthens the right of criminal defendants to cross-examine prosecution witnesses.

The relevant language in the Sixth Amendment, which became part of the U.S. Constitution in 1791, states, In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right  to be confronted with the witnesses against him.

The vote in the high courts ruling (pdf) in Hemphill v. New York, court file 20-637, was 81, reversing a decision of the New York Court of Appeals. Justice Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenter.

The case goes back to Easter on April 16, 2006, when a stray 9-millimeter bullet cut short the life of a 2-year-old boy during a street fight in the Bronx borough of New York. A police investigation found that Ronnell Gilliam was involved and that Nicholas Morris was at the scene. Three witnesses in a police lineup identified Morris as the shooter. Morriss apartment was searched and a 9mm cartridge and three .357-caliber bullets were found, according to a court summary.

At first, Gilliam said that Morris was the shooter, but he later identified Darrell Hemphill, Gilliams cousin, as the shooter. The state ignored Gilliams recantation and charged Morris with the childs murder and possession of a 9mm handgun. In 2011, the state discovered that Hemphills DNA matched that found on a sweater at Morriss apartment soon after the shooting. Hemphill was indicted for murder in 2013.

In a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to throw out the murder charge against Morris if he entered a plea of guilty to a fresh charge of possession of a .357 revolver, a weapon not connected to the victims death. Morris couldnt testify at Hemphills trial because he wasnt in the United States, so prosecutors submitted a transcript of Morriss 2008 testimony regarding the handgun possession charge to rebut Hemphills theory that Morris committed the murder.

Hemphill objected to the admission of the transcript as evidence, arguing that not having the witness testify in person violated his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him.

The Supreme Court agreed.

Bronx-born Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the courts majority opinion that the Constitutions confrontation clause is one of the bedrock constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants.

The clause requires that the reliability and veracity of the evidence against a criminal defendant be tested by cross-examination, not determined by a trial court.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a separate concurring opinion, which Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined.

Quoting federal law, Thomas wrote in his dissenting opinion that the Supreme Court may review [f]inal judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State only where  a federal right is specially set up or claimed in the state court.

Because Darrell Hemphill did not raise his Sixth Amendment claim in the New York Court of Appeals, we lack jurisdiction to review that courts decision, he wrote.

Hemphills case may not be over. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, prosecutors could argue in state court that, even without the statement from Morris, there was already sufficient evidence to convict Hemphill.

Hemphills attorney, Jeffrey L. Fisher of the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Clinic, hadnt responded to a request for comment as of press time, but he told the Associated Press that our position is that Hemphills conviction must be reversed and hes entitled to a new trial.

We cannot comment on the Hemphill ruling as the case is still under litigation, Patrice M. OShaughnessy of the Bronx District Attorneys office told The Epoch Times via email.
Concrete "reef balls" designed to make artificial coral reefs lie on the sand of Raja island, off the southern tip of Phuket island in Thailand on April 5, 2005. (Michael Mathes/AFP via Getty Images)

Thailand to Resume Traveler Quarantine Exemption Program in February

Thailand is set to resume its quarantine exemption scheme for fully vaccinated foreign visitors in February, its coronavirus taskforce said Thursday, as concerns about the highly transmissible Omicron variant subside.

The countrys Test and Go quarantine waiver program is now able to resume due to the low number of deaths and hospitalizations caused by the virus, task force spokesperson Taweesilp Visanuyothin said.

In case there are more infections or the situation changes, there will be a re-assessment for inbound travelers and adjust toward the Sandbox scheme, Visanuyothin told reporters, local media Bangkok Post reported.

Under the Test and Go scheme, foreign visitors who have been fully vaccinated against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) viruscommonly known as the coronaviruswill be allowed to enter Thailand without going through quarantine.

They will be required to take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test upon arrival and stay in a pre-booked hotel while awaiting the results. Travelers will then be required to undergo a second PCR test five days later and stay in a hotel room to await the results. All expenses are the responsibility of the travelers.

The government had previously suspended the quarantine waiver program until Jan. 4 to curb the spread of the Omicron variant within the country. The suspension was later extended indefinitely due to the countrys CCP virus alert level being raised to level four.

Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Tuesday that the government has agreed to lower the alert level to three due to the declining number of infections, but nightclubs and bars will remain closed for the time being.

The government has also expanded its Sandbox program to a total of six provinces, including Krabi, Phang-na, Phuket, Surat Thani, Chon Buri, and Trat. The program allows travelers to enter a province without quarantine and move freely within the island, but they must stay there for seven days before traveling to other parts of the country.

Thailand reported 8,129 new infections on Thursday, including 7,915 local transmissions. It confirmed its first Omicron-related death on Jan. 16, involving an 86-year-old woman with Alzheimers disease, but an official said that the death was expected given the countrys over 10,000 Omicron cases.

About 66 percent of the countrys estimated 72 million population have received two doses of the coronavirus vaccines, with about 14.9 percent of them having received booster shots.

The central bank said on Jan. 11 that Southeast Asias second-largest economy would take a 0.3 percent hit from Omicron, although it should be managed by the first half of the year.

Reuters contributed to this report.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, is seated with the French delegation for a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and British Minister of State for Middle East, North Africa and North America James Cleverly, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, Germany on Jan. 20, 2022. (Alex Brandon/Pool via Reuters)

West Stresses Unified Stance on Ukraine After Bidens Minor Incursion Remark

BERLIN/KYIVThe United States and Western countries sought to project unity and a tough stance over Ukraine on Thursday, after U.S. President Joe Biden suggested allies were split over how to react to any potential minor incursion from Russia.

Biden rowed back on his comments, made during a Wednesday news conference, saying on Thursday that I have been absolutely clear with President (Vladimir) Putin, he has no misunderstanding. If any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border that is an invasion.

Such an invasion would be met by a severe and coordinated response, economic response as discussed in details with our allies, as laid out very clearly with President Putin, Biden told reporters.

His remarks echoed efforts from other members of the administration earlier on Thursday and late on Wednesday, as the White House sought to scotch any suggestion that a smaller-scale Russian military incursion would meet a weaker U.S. response.

Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops on its borders with Ukraine, and Western states fear Moscow is planning a new assault on a country it invaded in 2014. Russia denies it is planning an attack, but says it could take unspecified military action if a list of demands are not met, including a promise from NATO never to admit Ukraine as a member.

At his Wednesday news conference, Biden said he expected Putin to launch some kind of action, and appeared to suggest Washington and its allies might disagree over the response if Moscow stopped short of a major invasion.

Its one thing if its a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and what to not do, et cetera, the president said, adding that an invasion would be a disaster for Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded sharply to that on Thursday, writing on Twitter in English and Ukrainian:

We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,

Bidens remarks on Wednesday sent his administration and allies quickly into damage control mode, with a stress on unity.

No matter which path Russia chooses, it will find the United States, Germany, and our allies, united, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at a press conference with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during a visit to Berlin to meet ministers from Britain, France, and Germany.

We urgently demand that Russia takes steps towards deescalation. Any further aggressive behavior or aggression would result in serious consequences, Baerbock told the news conference.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, is seated with the French delegation for a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and British Minister of State for Middle East, North Africa, and North America James Cleverly, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, Germany, on Jan. 20, 2022. (Alex Brandon/Pool via Reuters)

No Green Light for Invasion

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Bidens minor incursion comment was not a green light to a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: Be in no doubt that if Russia were to make any kind of incursion into Ukraine, or on any scale, whatever, I think that that would be a disaster, not just for Ukraine, but for Russia.

Moscow, for its part, said U.S. threats of sanctions were not calming the situation.

With Western countries having long emphasised their united position in public, some officials privately expressed frustration at Bidens remarks on Wednesday, although they described them as a gaffe, unlikely to alter Moscows calculations.

It was not helpful, in fact it was a gift to Putin, but we should not read too much into it. Biden has not given Moscow the green light for an attack on Ukraine. It was a slip of his tongue, and the official Western position will prevail, said one Western security source.

Moscow presented the West with a list of security demands at talks last week that produced no breakthrough.

Western countries have imposed repeated rounds of economic sanctions since Russian troops seized and annexed Ukraines Crimea peninsula in 2014.

But such moves have had scant impact on Russian policy, with Moscow, Europes main energy supplier, calculating that the West would stop short of steps serious enough to interfere with gas exports.

U.S. and European officials say there are still strong financial measures that have not been tried. Germany has signalled that it could halt Nord Stream 2, a new gas pipeline from Russia that skirts Ukraine, if Moscow invades.

But Germany could find itself in a no-win situation if Russia invades Ukraine, pitting Berlins main gas supplier against its most important security allies.

Meanwhile, Turkish diplomatic sources said on Thursday that both Russia and Ukraine are open to the idea of Turkey playing a role to ease tensions between the two countries, as proposed by Ankara in November.

By Sabine Siebold and Pavel Polityuk
British Airways tail fins are pictured at Heathrow Airport in London, on May 17, 2021. (John Sibley/Reuters)

Travel Restrictions Have Almost No Impact on Spread of COVID-19 Variants: UK Study

The impact of travel restrictions on the spread of CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus variants is very limited, a new study has shown.

Governments are not able to implement travel restrictions quickly enough for them to be effective in limiting the spread of new COVID-19 variants, said a Jan. 21 report by Edge Health and Oxera, a specialist research consultancy that works with Britains National Health Service (NHS).

It takes several weeks before governments become aware of new variants, and even longer to assess if they are variants of concern, the study found. By the time a new variant has been discovered and assessed, it is too late for restrictions to make any difference.

In the case of the Omicron variant, it was first detected on Nov. 8, 2021, but was identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a variant of concern only on Nov. 26.

Therefore, for a month before it was identified as a concern, Omicron was in circulation internationally and being seeded in the UK, despite the travel testing regime in place, said the report.

To limit the spread of Omicron, the UK government quickly introduced a series of travel restrictions, including putting six African countries on the travel red list on Nov. 26 and requiring a Day 2 PCR test from the following day. From Dec. 7, a pre-departure test was also required to enter the UK.

Despite the measures, by Dec. 15 Omicron was already highly prevalent in the UK. Acknowledging the fact, the UK government removed all countries from the red list. The pre-departure test and the requirement to self-isolate on arrival until they receive a negative test were also scrapped on Jan. 7.

However, those arriving in England will still need to take a lateral flow test no later than the end of day two, and if positive, a further PCR test.

Travel industry groups Airlines UK and Manchester Airports Group (MAG), which commissioned the study, argue that the remaining restrictions should also be scrapped.

Airlines UK CEO Tim Alderslade said: Testing restrictions for the fully vaccinated make no sense at all given the delay in governments being able to detect and act on the arrival of a new variant, as we saw with Omicron.

Not only do they fail to suppress the international spread of variants, they place a disproportionate burden on the travel sector and those that rely on the connectivity aviation provides.

Analysis undertaken by Oxera in December 2021 indicated that Omicron travel restrictions could lead to a 1.5 billion ($2 billion) loss in tax revenue over the next year.

MAG CEO Charlie Cornish also urged the government to remove restrictions on international travel.

We must allow the countrys worst hit sector to resume its road to recovery, and for the UK economy to benefit from the billions of pounds of economic value aviation generates, he said.
Florida Governor-elect Ron DeSantis (R) sits next to President Donald Trump during a meeting with Governors elects in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Dec. 13, 2018. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Trump, DeSantis Try to Tamp Down Rumors of Rift

Former President Donald Trump responded Thursday to rumors about his stance on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

I get along great with Ron, Trump said on Fox News.

I have a very good relationship with Ron and intend to have it for a long time, he added.

Trump endorsed DeSantis against Democrat candidate Andrew Gillum in the contested 2018 gubernatorial race, which saw DeSantis narrowly win.

The Republican has since become one of the most popular Republicans in the country due to his policy actions on COVID-19, critical race theory, and law enforcement, including his opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

The 2024 presidential race is considered wide open because of President Joe Bidens low approval ratings, but while many prominent Republicans have said they wont run if Trump does, DeSantis has declined to make the same promise.

The pair have also made several comments in recent days, with Trump calling out officials who wont say whether they got a COVID-19 vaccine booster shotDeSantis has avoided answering that question multiple timeswhile DeSantis expressed regret for not pushing back when Trump encouraged Americans in the spring of 2020 to stay home to stop the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.

And anonymously-sourced reports from several outlets claimed that Trump has been criticizing DeSantis behind closed doors and is irritated DeSantis wont commit to not running in 2024.

DeSantis, who is currently running for re-election, last week said this is what the media does and you cannot fall for the bait.

You know what theyre trying to do, so just dont take it. Just keep on keeping on. We need everybody united for a big red wave in 2022. Weve got to fight the left, and not only fight, but beat the left. And thats what were doing in Florida, he said.

Christina Pushaw, DeSantiss press secretary, told The Epoch Times in an email that the stories were merely attempts by corporate media activists and political operatives to distract from the dumpster fire that the Biden Harris Administration has become.

Trump praised DeSantis on Fox News for helping, while in the House of Representatives, challenge the Russia-Trump narrative and said hes done a really terrific job after becoming governor of Florida.

The stories, he added, are totally fake news.

I think Ron said last week, he said it very publicly, he says the press is never going to get in the middle of my friendship with Donald Trump, were not going to do that stuff. And he said it very strongly, I thought it was very interesting, actually. And very nice, Trump said. But he said that, and I agree with him on that 100 percent.
UKs Northumberland Gigafactory Gets Government Backing

The UK government has backed plans for an electric vehicle battery gigaplant which will employ 3,000 people and create another 5,000 jobs.

Britishvolts plans for a plant in Blyth, Northumberland, are being supported by the governments Automotive Transformation Fund.

The government backing is for an undisclosed amount believed to be around 100 million.

Artists impression of the Britishvolt battery gigaplant in Northumberland. (Britishvolt/PA)

The firm said the plant will require 3.8 billion to set up and start production, with the building itself costing 1.7 billion.

It should have the capacity to manufacture 300,000 battery units every year, supplying around 25 percent of the current UK market.

It was in December 2020 that the firm first announced its intentions to build on a 93-hectare site where Britains largest coal-burning power station once stood.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: Britishvolts plan to build a new gigafactory in Northumberland is a strong testament to the skilled workers of the North East and the UKs place at the helm of the global green industrial revolution.

Backed by government and private sector investment, this new battery factory will boost the production of electric vehicles in the UK, whilst levelling up opportunity and bringing thousands of new highly skilled jobs to communities in our industrial heartlands.
The US Congress has put in place "Buy American" legislation to protect its own steel industry, but the move may jeopardize Australia's steel exports worth half a billion dollars under the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

US and UK in Joint Talks to Resolve Steel and Aluminum Tariff Dispute

Representatives from the United States and United Kingdom agreed to resolve their trade dispute over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs in a joint virtual conference on Jan. 20.

American representatives are keen on removing the taxes on British metal imports.

In March 2018, the Trump administration imposed tariffs of 25 percent on foreign steel and 10 percent on aluminum, under Section 232 of the National Security Act, calling them a threat to U.S. national security, a move which outraged British, Europeans, and other longstanding American allies.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, and U.K. Trade Minister Anne-Marie Tevelyan announced at a press conference that they would be working toward a swift deal that ensures the viability of the steel and aluminum industries in both countries, but that also strengthens their democratic alliance.

No specific date or timeline has been announced for the talks, but they will address global steel and aluminum excess capacity, including the United States application of tariffs on metal imports from Britain.

Both parties are committed to working towards an expeditious outcome that ensures the viability of steel and aluminum industries in both markets, said the trade representatives.

Our focus now is on reaching a speedy resolution that lifts these tariffs promptly and clears the way for our thriving trading relationship to grow, said a spokesperson for the UKs Department for International Trade.

Until a deal is done we will continue to apply rebalancing measures on U.S. products, and wont hesitate to take any action necessary to defend our vital steel and aluminum industries, the spokesperson continued.

The talks will also cover the UKs 25 percent retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products, which include whiskey, motorcycles, blue jeans, and tobacco.

Annual exports of U.S. whiskey to Britain have fallen by more than half since 2018, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which welcomed the announcement.

Chris Swonger, president of the Distilled Spirits Council, called the Jan. 19 talks a very positive development.

Last October, the United States reached a deal with the European Union to drop tariffs on EU metals that come in below new import quotas and by continuing to tax imports that exceed them.

In response, the EU dropped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products, including whiskey.

The UK expects similar treatment granted by the U.S. to the EU.

However, many U.S. steelmakers have not been in favor of the negotiations after a similar deal with Japan led to substantial volumes of additional steel flooding the American domestic market with a nearly 50 percent jump in foreign imports last year.

We think it is essential that the administration ensures that the various new agreements it is considering do not result in a flood of imports, Kevin Dempsey, President of the American Iron and Steel Institute, told Reuters.

Another skeptic, Philip Bell, President of the Steel Manufacturers Association, told Reuters that Britains steel production is highly export oriented and is not exactly British owned, being actually dominated by China and India.

The U.S. government should be concerned about any additional alternative arrangement that will lead to increased steel imports and support countries not committed to free and fair trade, Bell said in a statement.

Meanwhile, critics of the steel and aluminum tariffs said that the conflict between the two allies did little to address the real threat confronting American metal producers that was coming from communist China, which has been flooding the global market with cheap steel.

The United States has already barred most Chinese steel and aluminum imports.

The United States and UK said they had discussed Chinese overproduction and promised to hold countries that practice harmful market-distorting policies to account.

The U.S.-EU joint agreement, which came into effect on Jan. 1, also addressed the concerns over steel and aluminum dumping by China.
The company logo is pictured on a Tesla Model X electric car in Berlin, Germany, on Nov. 13, 2019. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

US Lawmakers Call Tesla Expansion in Xinjiang Misguided

WASHINGTONThe chairmen of two congressional panels on oversight and trade on Thursday assailed Teslas expansion in Chinas far-western Xinjiang region, where detention camps have drawn heavy criticism, and asked the electric car maker about its Chinese product sourcing.

Your misguided expansion into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region sets a poor example and further empowers the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], Democrats Bill Pascrell and Earl Blumenauer, who head two House of Representatives Ways and Means subcommittees, wrote in a joint letter to Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk.

Tesla made a New Years Eve announcement that it opened a showroom in Xinjiang, becoming the latest foreign business caught up in tensions related to the region.

Xinjiang has become a significant point of conflict between Western governments and the Chinese regime in recent years. U.N. experts and rights groups estimate that more than a million people, mainly Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, have been detained in camps there.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Pascrell and Blumenauer in the letter asked Musk whether Tesla sources any goods made or manufactured in Xinjiang and, if so, to identify them. They also asked whether Tesla has any financial relationships with companies connected to Xinjiang and whether Tesla plans to expand into other regions in China.

The company operates a factory in Shanghai and is ramping up production there amid surging sales in China. China has also become an export hub for Teslas bound for Europe and other markets.

President Joe Biden and U.S. lawmakers have stepped up pressure on companies to distance themselves from Xinjiang. Biden signed a law on Dec. 23 barring imports of goods made in the region. The two lawmakers said the questions to Musk were in part to better understand Teslas compliance with the new law and other U.S. trade regulations.

The United States has labeled the CCPs treatment of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang as genocide.
A Russian national flag is seen at the roof of the Russian embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 18, 2016. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

US Sanctions 4 Ukrainian Officials Accused of Helping Russia Destabilize Ukraine

The U.S. government on Thursday sanctioned four Ukrainian officials it accuses of being involved in activities backed by the Russian government to destabilize Ukraine.

It comes amid the United States warning of further action if Russia invades Ukraine. Russia has massed some 100,000 troops on its borders with Ukraine, but denies it is planning an attack. Russian officials are demanding written guarantees that NATO will give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, but members of the alliance have refused to issue such promises.

In a release, the U.S. Treasury Department alleges that four Ukrainian officials have played various roles in Russias global influence campaign to destabilize sovereign countries. The sanctions name two current members of Ukraines parliament, Taras Kozak and Oleh Voloshyn, as well as two former government officials, Volodymyr Oliynyk and Vladimir Sivkovich.

All four have been involved in disinformation efforts by Russias federal security service (FSB) to set the pretext for a potential further invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. government alleges.

Russia has used hybrid tactics, including disinformation and other influence campaigns, to destabilize Ukraine for years, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. In 2020, Kremlin officials launched a comprehensive information operation plan designed in part to degrade the ability of the Ukrainian state to independently function; the individuals designated today played key roles in that campaign.

Kozak, who controls several news channels in Ukraine, allegedly amplified false narratives to denigrate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyys inner circle and falsely accused him of mismanagement, according to the Treasury.

Meanwhile, Voloshyn allegedly worked with Russian actors to undermine Ukrainian government officials, and also allegedly worked with Russian national Konstantin Kilimnik, who was previously sanctioned for attempts to influence the U.S. 2020 presidential election, the Treasury said.

Kozak and Voloshyn are members of the political party of Viktor Medvedchuk, the Kremlins most prominent ally in Ukraine. Medvedchuk was put under house arrest last year in a treason case. Prior to that, the United States sanctioned Medvedchuk in 2014 for his role in undermining Ukrainian sovereignty.

Sivkovich, who previously served as Ukraines deputy secretary for national security and defense councils, is accused of having worked in 2021 with Russian intelligence activists in influence operations to support Ukraine to officially cede Crimea to Russia in exchange for a drawdown of Russian-backed forces. Russian troops seized the Crimea region from Ukraine in 2014 and then annexed the Black Sea peninsula.

Oliynyk, who fled Ukraine to seek refuge in Russia, last year allegedly worked with the FSB to gather information about Ukrainian critical infrastructure.

The United States is taking action to expose and counter Russias dangerous and threatening campaign of influence and disinformation in Ukraine, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. We are committed to taking steps to hold Russia accountable for their destabilizing actions.

The sanctions mean that the four individuals properties and interests in property that are in the United States or in possession or control of U.S. individuals are blocked and must be reported to the departments Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). All transactions that involved the blocked properties or the four individuals are also prohibited.

U.S. President Joe Biden holds a rare press conference in the East Room of the White House to kick off his second year in office, on Jan. 19, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/Getty Images)

The sanctions come less than 24 hours after President Joe Biden said he believed that Russia will move in on Ukraine. Biden also warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia would pay a dear price in lives lost and a possible restriction in access to the global banking system if it does.

Republicans and Ukrainian officials criticized Bidens comments saying he may have invited a limited Russian invasion by telling reporters on Wednesday that the United States would react with a measured response in the case of a minor incursion. Administration officials immediately tried to clarify his remarks, and Biden himself did so on Thursday.

Ive been absolutely clear with President Putin, Biden said Thursday. He has no misunderstanding: any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.

Shortly before the U.S. sanctions were announced, Zelenskyy said on Twitter, We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones.

Biden said Wednesday his team is considering possible sanctions that would target the Russian banking system to restrict its ability to deal in dollars.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat who co-led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Ukraine last weekend, told reporters Thursday she understood the administration was still analyzing what the impact would be on other countries if Russia were banned from SWIFT, a banking system that handles the flow of money around the world.

The White House last week warned that Russia has stationed operatives in and around Ukraine possibly to create a pretext for an invasion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An embryologist shows an Ovocyte after it was inseminated in Virginia, the United States, on June 12, 2019. (Ivan CouronneI/AFP/Getty Images)

Victorian Govt Backflips on IVF Ban

Prospective parents are raising their hopes again after the Victorian government backflipped on its decision to reverse a ban on most IVF treatments as the Omicron COVID-19 wave progresses.

James Merlino, the Victorian acting health minister, announced that some services would resume from Jan. 20. Meanwhile, hospitals are ramping up their operations to ensure the restart of IVF procedures from 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 25.

Authorities had originally contacted IVF clinics in early January to cancel appointments in an effort to hold off on elective surgeries to deal with the rising number of COVID-19 hospitalisations.

However, the restriction on IVF treatments received heavy criticism from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, state Opposition Leader Matthew Guy, IVF clinics, patients and the community. In addition, an online petition against the ban collected nearly 140,000 signatures.

Merlino and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews have also made a public apology for causing distress with the IVF ban.

Theres a process going on at the moment to review the advice and a number of other day surgery and day procedures. So, hopefully, I can make some announcements next week to add to that list, Andrews told reporters.

According to Merlino, since the workforces specialist nature, facilities and equipment were not currently crucial in responding to the pandemic, the chief health officer advised him that the government could lift restrictions on IVF procedures.

The health department will collaborate with the Royal Womens Hospital to ensure that priority is given to urgent patients and that the hospitals resources for COVID-19 patients are not subject to any impact from the changes.

Victorian Acting Premier James Merlino speaks to the media at a press conference in Melbourne, Australia, on June 18, 2021. (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

Tiana Clayworth, 28, who has undergone seven IVF treatments since 2020 after testing results showed that she and her partner could only conceive with the help of reproductive technology said the ban on the treatments had been a blow.

Id started all that build-up. It was a blow to stop, she told AAP.

The Melbourne prospective mother was preparing for another treatment cycle when the clinic notified her that the government had paused all IVF procedures and she said she had suffered emotional trauma from the interruption, on top of the typical trials associated with each procedure.

Clayworth is lucky though as she will now be able to resume the treatment in the next few weeks according to her plan.

Luk Rombauts, Monash IVF medical director and president of Australia and New Zealands Fertility Society, said that one in seven couples have problems with conception, and only one percent of the patients can access services during the pause.

Patients exempted from the ban were those who had already taken IVF drugs before Jan. 6, and those about to have chemotherapy, a cancer treatment capable of destroying egg reserves.

Rombauts said that women who had already frozen their eggs could start the procedure straight away. This means the two-week pause will not result in patient backlogs.

Melbourne IVF medical director Fleur Cattrall welcomed the reversal, and he said that an ongoing ban could take away the chance to have a baby from some Victorians.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said no such ban should ever have occurred in the beginning.
Students arrive at Our Lady of Good Counsel, a school in the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, in Vienna, Va., on Jan. 21, 2022, the last school day that masks are mandated for students. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

Virginia Catholic Schools Make Masks Optional, Following Governors Executive Order

Catholic schools in Virginia have decided to make masks optional for students, starting from Monday, the effective date of Governor Glenn Youngkins executive order (pdf) that ends mask mandate in schools.

The health and safety of all students and staff in our schools, while maintaining in-person instruction, remains our top priority, wrote Amber Roseboom, Director of Media Relations at the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, in an email statement to The Epoch Times.

Throughout the pandemic, our Catholic schools have been directed to follow state and local public health directives. Where those have been in conflict, the state requirement has primacy, Roseboom explained.

The statement continued, Therefore, Diocesan direction to our schools is to continue following local public health guidance, without, however, violating the rights of parents as described in Executive Order 2. The governors executive order is clear on the right of parents not to have their child be subject to a mask mandate.

According to Roseboom, the updated guidance was provided to pastors and school leaders across the Diocese of Arlington on Thursday. The schools will continue to follow mitigation measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Diocese of Arlington is one of the two catholic dioceses in Virginia. According to its website, the diocese had 50 schools and an enrollment of 17,274 in the 20182019 school year. It covers counties north of Richmond, including countiesArlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Frederickwhere school boards have voted to keep the mask mandate, defying the executive order Governor Glenn Youngkin signed on his first day of office on Jan. 15.

Diocese of Richmond, the other Virginia catholic diocese, has 29 schools with over 8,000 students.

On Thursday, superintendent Kelly M. Lazzara of the Diocese of Richmond Catholic Schools emailed student families the same decision. She wrote in the letter, This Order [Youngkins executive order two] terminates Public Health Emergency Order Ten that was issued on August 12, 2021, which mandated masks be worn by all individuals in all schools, adding, All our Diocesan schools will comply with Executive Order Two.

Lazzara reminded parents of higher risk for meeting the close contact definition, requiring quarantine, and potentially face longer quarantine periods. Nevertheless, parents can complete an election sheet to indicate their masking choices for their children.

The mask option doesnt apply to school buses due to a CDC requirement on public transportation, including school buses.
WA Premier Mark McGowan speaks to media at Dumas House in Perth, Australia on Dec. 24, 2021. (Photo by Matt Jelonek/Getty Images)

WA Premier Has to Explain His Decision for the Border Restrictions: Federal MPs

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Defence Minister Peter Dutton have asked the Western Australian Premier Mark McGown to please explain his decisions following the announcement that WAs border will remain closed 16 days prior to the original open date of Feb. 5.

Frydenberg said on Friday that many Western Australians will be questioning this decision made by the WA premier.

Many people in Western Australia will be disappointed with the decision, Frydenberg said on Channel Sevens breakfast Sunrise program.

This is a decision that the Western Australian government themselves have taken and one for them to explain, he said.

Defence Minister Peter Dutton echoed Frydenberg saying that he understands the great sense of disappointment for Western Australians and that the WA premier will have to explain to his decisions.

As Western Australians have pointed out; if not now, when?

The premiers outlined some of that plan, no doubt hell have more say today, but when people have been working to their timeline thats been announced by the premier, you can understand why West Australians have the view that they do. So, I think therell be a lot of that sentiment coming out today, Dutton said on Sunrise.

Frydenberg stated that although the Omicron variant has increased transmissibility, it is also less severe.

He said that it was important to return to a normalised setting with the pandemic expected to be around for a while.

The key here is that we need to learn to live with the virus because the virus could be with us for some time to come.

WA had initially planned to ease international and interstate travel restrictions from Feb. 5 for the vaccinated after 90 percent of the states 12 and overpopulation received two doses of a vaccine. But the reopening has now been suspended indefinitely pending further review in February.

Feb. 5 will instead see travel exemptions into WA broadened to allow returning West Australians and those seeking to attend funerals, palliative care, or on other compassionate grounds.

International travellers that fit the travel requirements will also need to quarantine for 14 days.

McGowan indicated that the review would reassess the levels of third dose vaccination amongst 16-and-overs, which currently sits at around 26 percent, and that while a specific target had not been set, the aim was to get third dose rates up above 80 percent, perhaps 90 percent.

Meanwhile, Australian Medical Association President, Omar Khorshid expressed on Twitter that he was gutted at WAs border changes.

Seems WA Premier is a one-trick pony when it comes to COVID-19. Hard border with the rest of the country and world remains despite almost 90% vacced, he wrote in a post on his Twitter page.

He expressed that relaxations on basis of compassionate border arrangements were long overdue.

Omicron is here already and it will cause a significant outbreak in WA soon enough. Sticking our heads in the sand wont make it go away. Lets prepare!

Gutted. Seems WA Premier @MarkMcGowanMP is a one trick pony when it comes to #COVID19. Hard border with the rest of the country and world remains despite almost 90% vacced. Many of us both shocked/disappointed and relieved at the same time.  AMA President (@amapresident) January 20, 2022

Zoe Hyde, an epidemiologist and research fellow from the University of Western Australia, however, voiced her support for the WA premiers decision, posting on Twitter that the decision made by McGowan will save lives, protect freedom, keep schools open, and keep the economy strong.
People enjoy their drinks in Sydney on October 11, 2021, as the city ended their lockdown against the Covid-19 coronavirus after 106 days and restaurants began throwing open their doors to anyone who could prove they were vaccinated. (Photo by Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)

We Could Walk Away With Nothing: NSW Business Hit Hard by Omicron

Bookshop cafe Gertrude and Alice used to see customers coming in droves during summertime.

But since the Omicron strain tore through Sydney two months ago, the Bondi Beach shop is losing money every day just by keeping its doors open.

We may as well be in lockdown, said owners of 21 years Jane Turner, who added that the business is in the worst position it has ever been in.

The accountants said youve probably got six months at this rate, she told AAP. Weve already ploughed through all our savings We could walk away with nothing.

The store has cut back the opening hours in half during the pandemic, yet it is still struggling to stay staffed as half of the employees had to isolate themselves after contracting the virus or becoming a close contact.

While the landlord and regular customers have been exceptionally generous, patronage has reduced, and people are very hesitant to come out, Turner added.

She noted that without government support, its just not looking great.

I understand that governments not a bottomless pit no one wants our children to be paying off this huge debt, she said.

And yet, its a matter of, How do we keep these people employed?.

A restaurant worker stands at the entrance of an eatery open for takeaway food along a quiet street in central Sydney on June 27, 2021. (Photo by Steven Saphore/ AFP via Getty Images)

Coffee roasters Mecca Coffee also felt the burden. Short staffing and waning support from the community amid the Omicron outbreak have left the cafe arm of the business in dire straits. The distribution side is also struggling to stay afloat.

Cafes and bars are the pulse of the economy, and when theyre quiet, were quiet, head roaster Daniel May told AAP. That has a flow-on effect for us.

Their store in the heart of the ghost town of Sydneys CBD has remained shut, while their Alexandria store only operated with a limited takeaway-only menu on offer, having closed its 50-to-60 seat dining space.

It almost feels a little bit worse than lockdown, May noted, Maybe thats just more of a psychological thingknowing that youre able to be open but having to close.

He noted that businesses, particularly those in the hospitality sector, would appreciate more support.

A waitress is seen delivering cutlery at a cafe in Mosman on January 03, 2021, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

The NSW government is due to introduce a relief package to assist small businesses later this week.

Last year, the state and the federal governments both provided support packages to businesses that lost more than 30 percent of their turnover, but the Commonwealth government had since ruled out more JobKeeper payments.

Australian consumer confidence has plunged to its lowest January reading since 1992 and the overall lowest since October 2020, according to the ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index.

Meanwhile, the December business risk index report of Credit reporting agency CreditorWatch shows Christmas trade activity was the lowest on record, down 45 percent from December 2020.

Everyone was expecting that the rapid spread of Omicron would have a significant adverse impact on Christmas trade, but few would have predicted it to be this extreme, CreditorWatch CEO Patrick Coghlan said.

You cant blame people for wanting to stay at home. We can only hope that the peak arrives soon, and the business community can get back on its feet.

AAP and Rebecca Zhu contributed to this report.
Woman Sentenced to Prison for Role in San Diego Business Owners Killing

SAN DIEGOA woman who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for her role in the robbery and killing of an East Village businessman inside his flooring materials store was sentenced to 16 years to life in state prison on Jan. 21.

Lorena Espinoza, 38, was charged along with Kevin Eugene Cartwright, 54, in the Oct. 10, 2018, shooting death of 49-year-old Ghedeer Tony Radda.

Prosecutors said Espinoza entered Raddas businessBottom Price Flooring at 1015 G Streetwhile wearing a purple wig and lured the victim to the back of the store, where he was fatally shot by Cartwright.

Cartwright was charged with murder and is awaiting trial. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.

Several of Raddas family members attended Espinozas sentencing hearing, with Raddas older sister, Ghayda Young, addressing the court.

Young said her brother worked his way up from nothing to establish his own flooring business downtown and said she not only mourns for herself, but for Raddas wife and two daughters, who were aged 5 and 8 at the time of his death.

Referencing surveillance footage captured from inside the store, Young said she watched Cartwright viciously attack her brother and Espinoza stand there as Ghedeer lay suffering on the ground.

Footage played during the defendants preliminary hearing showed Espinoza and Radda walking toward the back of the store, while the gunmandressed in all black and wearing a Halloween-style old-lady maskslipped behind the pair toward the cash register.

He then sneaked toward the back of the business where the victim was talking with Espinoza and attacked him, though the shooting occurred off-camera.

Prosecutors allege that after he shot Radda, Cartwright went to the register and forced it open with a pry bar while Espinoza stood at the entrance and acted as a lookout.

Though Espinoza told law enforcement she was threatened to take part in the robbery, Young said she rejected the theory that she was forced against her will, saying Espinoza had so many opportunities to help Radda.

After making off with cash, the pair left the business and walked away in opposite directions, with Espinoza westbound on G Street toward the GMC Yukon SUV they drove to the scene, and Cartwright eastbound, according to prosecutors.

Cartwright was arrested on Oct. 17, and Espinoza was taken into custody about two weeks later.

Deputy District Attorney Matt Greco said smart streetlight cameras in the downtown area helped identify Espinoza, whose distinctive tattoos were captured on camera when she got into the SUV about three blocks away from the scene of the shooting.

The prosecutor described Radda as a towering figure in his family and in his community and said the victims giving nature revealed a sad irony in the case, as Greco said Radda would have given money to people in need, like the defendant, if they had asked for it.
World Needs to Push Back on Bullies and Dictatorships: Australian Defence Minister

Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton says the build-up of Russian tanks and troops along Ukraines border with Russia is encouraging bullies and other dictatorships to do the same, warning that thousands could die if an invasion occurs.

Dutton and Foreign Minister Marise Payne are meeting with the United Kingdoms Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for AUKMIN talks focussed on cooperation, security, and technological cooperation amid increasing geopolitical tension in eastern Europe and from Beijing in the Indo-Pacific.

Speaking to Sevens Sunrise, Dutton said the possibility of Russia invading Ukraine has impacted the whole world.

When you see Russia act the way they do, it encourages other bullies and other dictatorships to do the same. Particularly if theres no pushback from the rest of the world, Dutton said, adding that European leaders were acting to counteract Russia.

Australian Minister of Defense Peter Dutton speaks at a news conference in Washington on Sept. 16, 2021. (Andrew Harnik/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Dutton said the UK was working with NATO and the European community.

Because thousands of people will die and that is not a circumstance that anyone wants to see prevail. So the build-up of the Russian troops is incredibly concerning, he said.

A Ukraine embassy official said its foreign minister had spoken with Payne on the phone on Jan. 19 about the security situation along Ukraines border with Russia.

They also discussed efforts by the Ukrainian partners to elaborate comprehensive package of measures to deter Russia from further aggression, Charge d`Affaires Volodymyr Shalkivskyi told The Epoch Times on Friday.

These include political support, sanctions towards Russia and security assistance. Given the successful experience in providing Australian cyber security assistance to Ukraine in 2021, officials of both countries will discuss available possibilities for strengthening defence cyber capabilities in Ukraine, he said.

Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Department of Defence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A satellite image shows equipment deployed at Klimovo Railyard in Klimovo, Russia on Jan. 19, 2022. (2022 Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters)

On Wednesday, Australias foreign minister announced the country had agreed to a Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership with the UK, that would see both nations intensify cooperation to tackle malign cyber actors.

Australia is committed to working with partners such as the UK to challenge malign actors who use technology to undermine freedom and democracy, Payne said in a release.

We will work with allies to maintain an internet environment that is open, free, peaceful and secure, consistent with international law, and which maximises opportunities for economic growth.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne speaks during a news conference with Australian Minister of Defense Peter Dutton, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the State Department in Washington, DC on Sept. 16, 2021. (Andrew Harnik / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

One of the first initiatives out of the new partnership will be to increase deterrence of malicious cyber activity by raising the costs for hostile state activity in cyberspace through strategic coordination of cyber sanctions regimes, according to the release.

It comes as Australia continues strengthening security ties with like-minded countries in the face of the rising threat of China in the Indo-Pacific, and ongoing anxiety of an invasion of Taiwan.

Among its efforts was the AUKUS security pact with the United States and the UK, which will see nuclear submarine technology shared with Australia.

Dutton said the UK and the United States were Australias most important friends in the world.

If we can bring strong friends together then I think we deter bullies and people who might seek to do harm to our country into the future, he said. So the UK is family, as we know, and they are a reliable partner. Weve fought alongside them for generations. And our country, I think is best served by that relationship deepening which it will today.

Updated to include quote from the Ukraine embassy in Canberra. Victoria Kelly-Clark contributed to this article.
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A middle-aged woman with glasses poked her head into a not-yet-opened store at the Connecticut Post mall in Milford as three women inside worked to prepare the enterprise.

Hi, I just wanted to wish you well, she said. They thanked her and went back to their work.

It was a fleeting moment like youd see ahead of any store opening, except this was not any store and the greeting took on extra meaning.

That large space in the mall is now, as of Thursday, home to the Black Business Alliance, a statewide membership organization that acts as a sort of chamber of commerce, service support, networking platform and advocacy group for any and all Black-owned businesses. And yes, the alliance does have some retail.

As for that woman who stopped in, she was an illustration of why and how a targeted, niche business group thats expanding quickly sought out a non-traditional location for its offices. No one just drops by at a regular office. At a regional mall, chance encounters can and do happen.

Thats the hope. For Anne-Marie Knight, executive director of the alliance, Its like coming back full circle.

Her first business, a store called Distinguished Gifts, was in the mall in the 90s. Im excited to be back. Its nostalgic for me, Knight told me last week as she prepared for the opening.

This being a mall, the BBA space is also a retail outlet, the new home of ITS The Room, a consignment boutique for clothing and fashion accessories owned by Tia Woods, an ambitious East Hartford woman who sees the shop as part of the BBAs networking outreach.

Its a leap for the Black Business Alliance, which has about 200 active business members and 1,200 on its mailing list. And its part of an evolution for the Connecticut Post Mall, which, like just about all retail centers built in the mid-to-late-20th century, is looking to broaden the definition of what it is.

They have a lot of vision, we have a lot of vision, Knight said. I think this partnership is a good one.

The open space includes modernist tables and chairs for meetings and gatherings, work space for the staff near the back wall, and along one side, racks and shelves of clothing and accessories that Woods and her vendors will sell. All together, the idea is to create a gathering space.

The mall has proposed housing to fill an empty, former Sears anchor space and its working to attract service businesses and offices into some retail spaces in that quadrant, on the lower floor. The Milford Regional Chamber of Commerce is located just a few doors down from the Black Business Alliance.

Talks over the move started after a manager at the mall approached the alliance. They wanted us to come here because there are a number of Black businesses in the mall, Knight said.

Like many of the alliance members, Knight, a business consultant before she came on as director in 2020, has a varied background. Born in Great Britain, her parents Jamaican, she moved to Philadelphia in college in the 80s, studied architecture and engineering, later earned a masters in business administration and became an ordained minister with the Salvation Army  which brought her to Connecticut.

She brought all those skills to the 6-year-old alliance as a volunteer when the pandemic hit and later became the director, the only full-time staff member.

When I realized the devastation that was taking lace for Black businesses, I contacted the BBA and a couple of other organizations, Knight said.

The group has grown, fueled in part by the post-pandemic economic gains, though with struggles, and in part by a cultural awareness that arose from the George Floyd murder and the Black Lives Matter movement. Today the alliance has three full-time and two part-time staff, plus some contractors including a grant-writer and a tech services consultant.

Its supported by money from the state Department of Economic and Community Developments Minority Business Initiative and some foundations and banks, along with membership.

The majority of our businesses are service-type organizations, Knight said. Thats been the case nationally for Black businesses.

There is an auto dealership  woman-owned, in Moosup  among many other types of firms.

We talked about the purpose of the alliance, not only its services, what Knight calls a hybrid organization of assistance and networking, but its deeper purpose as a Black service group at a time when diversity might actually be more than a catchword.

Engagement is challenging for any organization. I think doubly challenging for a Black organization because the issue has been trust that has eroded in our community, Knight said.

Black Lives Matter works in complicated ways for a business group. That support had been good and were glad to see that kind of support but at some point it starts to wean off, Knight said.

Life itself gets in the way, said Woods, whos active in East Hartford as a Democratic Party district chair and is treasurer of the East Hartford Black Caucus. Systems were not built for Black people to succeed and thats historicalWe all get together and we all engage but we still have to go back to a system that wasnt built for us to succeed.

Obviously the hope is to change that and it happens in part through integration and in part through maintaining strong ties within the Black business community. The two are not at odds, Knight and Howard K. Hill, founder of the alliance, told me.

The Black Business Alliance is part of the healing process of the Black community, said Hill, who owns funeral homes in Bloomfield, Hartford and New Haven. It helps the overall society when we are healed as a people.

Hill is a key player in this; no longer on the alliance board, hes on the board of the Minority Business Initiative and in November became chairman of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce.

He sees the move to the mall as progress because of the exposure. You never know whos going to be walking through the mall. It could be kids or it could be a Fortune 500 chief executive, a small business owner or everything in between.

That includes building trust, Knight said. The alliance planned a splashy event on Thursday but thats been postponed.

Hopefully if the variant comes down we will look at February, since its Black History Month, she said.

dhaar@hearstmediact.com
NORWALK  A lawsuit filed by a Norwalk High School graduate accusing her former English teacher of sexual assault in the late 1980s is moving toward settlement talks.

A settlement conference in federal court is scheduled for March 24 between the former student, referred to as Jane Doe in the court filings, and the Board of Education, former Norwalk High Principal John Ramos and the accused teacher Lise Krieger, 60.

The civil suit was originally filed in state Superior Court in Bridgeport in August 2020. It was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in March 2021.

The lawsuit claims Krieger started an inappropriate relationship with Doe during the girls freshman year in the late 1980s. According to court documents, Krieger engaged in an inappropriate relationship with the plaintiff, showing her affection and making physical contact that exceeded the bounds of an appropriate teacher-student relationship.

A complaint was filed at the time with Ramos and the Board of Education regarding Kriegers inappropriate conduct with the student, the suit claims, but Krieger maintained her position as a teacher.

Thereafter, the defendant Krieger again initiated an inappropriate relationship with the plaintiff, which quickly became sexual, the lawsuit said.

Kriegers attorney Neal P. Rogan declined to comment on the case on Wednesday, as did Does attorney Frank Bartlett Jr., who said he does not comment on pending cases. But in a court filing last year, Krieger denied the plaintiffs allegations in their entirety.

It is our strong feeling that the Plaintiff will not be able to prove her case against the named Defendant (Ramos) or against the Board of Ed, attorney Jeffrey Spahr, who is representing Ramos and the school board, said Wednesday. It is our hope that we can stress this fact at any settlement conference and pressure the Plaintiff into withdrawing against the Board and the former NHS Principal.

Spahr said the discovery process began on Tuesday, when his team took the former Norwalk students deposition.

She had no facts to support her claim that Ramos was aware of any threat the teacher posed to the Plaintiff. We believe that his testimony will confirm this, Spahr said.

Krieger taught at Norwalk High from 1987 to 2006. She took a job as a teacher with Springfield Renaissance Expeditionary Learning School, a public school in Springfield, Mass., in 2007, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Less than a week after the lawsuit was initially filed in 2020, the Massachusetts school placed Krieger on paid leave. At the time, the schools communications director Azell Cavaan told Hearst Connecticut Media that the district had been unaware of the lawsuit prior to media inquiries.

According to the lawsuit, the alleged sexual assault had lasting effects on Doe, including her ability to work, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Settlement conferences are not only for times when a litigant is willing to pay a settlement amount, Spahr said. In many occasions, such as this one, it may be helpful for the Plaintiff to hear from a judge that their case is weak (or non-existent). Many times the hopeful Plaintiff may need to hear the stark truth about their claim from the person wearing a robe.

Includes previous reporting by Pat Tomlinson; emily.morgan@hearstmediact.com
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I love murder mysteries both books and movies. Even though I have seen the Murder she Wrote shows hundreds of times, I still check in to the Hallmark channel every night at 10 p.m. to see what Angela Lansbury is up to.

And I enjoy the Hallmark Murders and Mystery channel when they show the murder mysteries instead of the sappy love stories that all have the same storyline: boy or girl comes home, falls in love again with their high school sweetheart, save someones family business, have hot chocolate, and live happily ever after.

Brazen is clearly not a Hallmark flick.

After a book tour to sell her new book, mystery novelist Grace Miller (Alyssa Milano) receives an urgent message from her estranged sister, Kathleen, who's entangled in a custody battle with her wealthy ex. Arriving in D.C. Kathleen is living in their childhood home next door to a gorgeous homicide detective, Ed, (Sam Page).

Hoping to afford a decent lawyer, Kathleen supplements her teacher's salary by moonlighting as a webcam dominatrix. Fantasy, Inc., guarantees its employees anonymity. When Kathleen is murdered, Grace inserts herself as a consultant to help solve the crime.

Milano and Page have great chemistry.

Sam Page is a hunk. The women in the audience will love this piece of eye candy. Someone needs to do something about Milanos hair; it looks like a dog chewed on it. The interactions between Milano and Ullerup was a bit confusing. I think it was the dialogue rather than the acting.

Malachi Weir plays Eds partner, homicide detective Ben. Emilie Ullerup is Graces sister Kathleen. Matthew Finlan is Jerald and Alison Araya is Captain Rivera.

Brazen is a little more risque than the typical Hallmark Murders and Mysteries, but it felt similar probably because most of the actors have been seen in dozens of Hallmark movies.

I had Brazen figured out fairly quickly because the writers didnt throw enough red herrings in to make me keep guessing. The screenplay was written by Edithe Swensen, Donald Martin and Suzette Couture, based on the novel Brazen Virtue by Nora Roberts.

But Brazen wasnt boring it moved rather fast. The director, Monika Mitchell, was smart to keep the film at 1-1/2 hours.

I enjoyed the movie and would like to see more murder mysteries that arent too dark with a little more romance.

Brazen is a new movie on Netflix. I give it 3  stars.
Julie Laakko Swanson The Intelligencer/Staff Writer

Made possible in part by a $10,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a mural was designed and painted on the side of the Weinheimer Community Center at the corner of Main and Pine Streets in Highland.

The mural was created by Robert and Liza Fishbone of On the Wall Productions from St. Louis, Missouri. They were assisted on site by Andy Cross and Lisa Roth. Deborah Moe Moellering painted the three cut out figures installed next to the mural.
EDWARDSVILLE  Knights of Columbus councils across the nation continue to help their communities, but more and more of those councils are doing that work without having their own buildings.

Among local councils, Edwardsville K of C Council 1143 is bucking the trend by maintaining its hall at 7132 Marine Road.

On the other hand, Collinsville Council 1712 closed its former hall at 1 Columbus Plaza last November. The property has since been sold.

The council now meets at Morris Hall at Ss. Peter & Paul Catholic Church, 300 N. Morrison Ave.

It was getting expensive keeping everything up to date, so in the long run, were better off not having to deal with that expense, said John Stork, Grand Knight of Collinsville Council 1712. The pandemic helped make the decision to close it.

Collinsville is one of several councils in the Metro East to shut down its hall in recent years.

The Spaulding Club, home of the Alton Knights of Columbus Council No. 460 for the past 70 years, closed its doors on Dec. 31, 2020. Meetings were moved to St. Marys Catholic Church at 519 E. 4th St. in Alton.

Bethalto Council 4688 is another local council that is now parish-based. The council closed its former hall at 400 N. Beau Chateaux and now meets at Our Lady Queen of Peace Church, 132 Butcher St.

In Edwardsville, hall rentals for events at the building are down by 90% since the start of the pandemic.

But Grand Knight Doug Hastings said that Council 1143 has been able to survive, thanks in part to the revenue raised by fish fries.

The biggest growth in the nation right now for new K of C councils is on college campuses, but the Supreme Council, which is located in Connecticut, prefers that any new councils are parish-based, Hastings said.

Edwardsville Council 1143 is blessed because we draw from two different Catholic parishes, St. Boniface and St. Marys. The hall was purchased in the mid-1960s, but the structure of the Knights of Columbus requires that another entity owns the property because the Knights, as a Catholic mens fraternal organization, cannot own property.

In the case of Council 1143, the official owner of the hall is the Fred Mills Club, named after a former K of C member who was killed in World War 1.

The Fred Mills Club is a separate board of officers and trustees, but they are all Knights from Council 1143, Hastings said. Were blessed to have plumbers, electricians and carpenters, and they work their tails off to keep that building viable. Once a month, we do highway cleaning from 200 yards east of the hall all the way to St. Boniface Church.

The club and the council are separate entities, and the club makes a report during our council meeting once a month. The council would survive if the building went away tomorrow, but our biggest fundraiser to support the charities that we support is our fish fries.

The fish fries at the Edwardsville hall are currently held twice a month and once a week during Lent.

Thats the reason why I think were probably going to be hall-based for a while, Hastings said. Weve managed to keep our heads above water during the pandemic, although there have been months when it was touch and go.

The Fred Mills Club has a bar in the hall and has barbecues once a month. For legal purposes, you need to have a corporation in place that runs the physical part of the building, but were all guys from Council 1143.

Tim Krumm, meanwhile, is a past Grand Knight of Columbus Council 6625 in Maryville.

Krumm said that the former Maryville K of C hall, which was located at 2822 N. Center St., closed about 10 years ago. The building was recently demolished.

The Maryville K of C now meets at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Church at 200 N. Lange Ave.

Were supposed to be a charitable organization and our council realized that too much time and effort was going into trying to keep our building open, Krumm said. Its not just us; a lot of other K of C councils in this area have decided to get out of the building business.

A lot of the money we got from selling the property has gone toward renovating the parish center at the church and we have our meetings there. We also built a new pavilion for the church. Now, because we dont have a building to take care of, we put all of our efforts toward supporting charities like were supposed to be doing.

Tim Raefelle is Grand Knight of St. Cecilia Council 13216, which meets at St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church, 155 N. Main St. in Glen Carbon.

Council 13216, which formed in 2002, has always met at St. Cecilia and has never had its own building.

I think the Knights as a nationwide organization, through the Supreme Council, want us to be parish-based, Raeffelle said. Its a lot of work to have your own building and pay the bills and weve never had to deal with that.

Were lucky that at St. Cecilia, the basement of the church is big enough that we can hold almost all of our events down there. We call that our parish hall.

Still, like every K of C council through the U.S., the Glen Carbon council has had its share of challenges due to the pandemic.

Compared to many of the other councils in the area, were pretty small, with less than 100 members, Raeffelle said. Were trying to get back to normal, but its been very hard. At the height of the pandemic, we stopped having meetings and we stopped having all of our events.

We tried to adhere to the state of Illinois guidelines, and we had guidelines coming from our diocese. There was so much to keep track and it was unclear whether we could do this or do that because we were worried that someone would get sick.

In Collinsville, the closing of the hall last fall, along with the continuation of the pandemic, has prompted Stork to limit the number of activities on Council 1712s calendar.

Ive been letting everybody rest and Im not pushing any buttons, and Im waiting until somebody gets the itch and wants to be more active again, said Stork, who added that Council 1712 will have an installation service for new members at 11:45 a.m. Sunday at Morris Hall. For now, were just doing the things on our plate that are handed down to us by the Supreme Council.

There are a lot of things we can do inside the church to be active. The younger guys want to be more active as far as volunteering instead of just raising money constantly.

Raeffelle noted that the cancellation of K of C events in Glen Carbon and other local communities affects more than just the council members.

Our ability to raise funds has been directly impacted and that directly affects our ability to donate to organizations that we support, Raeffelle said. The groups that we work with a lot include those helping with intellectual disabilities, pregnancy centers and our local Catholic schools.

There are also some needy families in the area that reach out to us. Whatever we take in, we try to give out, and we havent been able to provide as much help to those groups as we would like to.

In the case of the Maryville K of C, those charitable efforts include the annual Tootsie Roll drive, with the money raised going to the Illinois Center for Autism, the Special Olympics and a Springfield organization that takes care of disabled adults.

One of our big charities is providing coats for kids and this year we got seven cases of 12 coats each, which is 84 coats, donated through the school district, Krumm said.

We award scholarships to Father McGivney High School and we also support Saint John Neumann Grade School. We give financial support to local seminarians who are considering studying for the priesthood.

For K of C councils such as Edwardsville that still operate their own buildings, resiliency and the ability to adapt have been vital, especially during the pandemic.

We have 390-plus members in our council between both parishes. Were going to get through this and the reason for that is the wonderful leadership that weve had, Hastings said. Our past Grand Knight was Ryan Fitzpatrick, and he was the exact Knight we needed at the exact time. He brought us through the pandemic and kept us going when everything went virtual with the web-based continuation of our programs.

For the fish fries, we had no indoor dining and switched to carryout only. We were running meals out to people as they pulled through the parking lot.

Finding new members, especially younger members, is another challenge for the Knights of Columbus.

Ive talked to young guys that are not Knights and I know theyre not going to be Knights because they dont want to join (fraternal) organizations anymore, Stork said.

Its not just the Knights  its the American Legion, the VFW and a lot of other groups. The biggest draw we have for the Knights is that we are family-oriented. The younger guys are family men, but they dont want to be part of any groups.
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SPRINGFIELD  The Illinois State Board of Elections this week named longtime staff member Bernadette Matthews the agencys executive director.

Matthews had served as assistant executive director since 2017 and had been acting executive director since April 2021. Matthews appointment was approved by a unanimous, 8-0 vote from the board at its Jan. 19 meeting.

A graduate of The Catholic University of America and Seton Hall University School of Law, Matthews joined the Board of Elections as legal counsel in 2009.

In other action, Tonya L. Genovese was sworn in as a member of the board. Genovese, a Granite City native who practices law with the Gori Law Firm of Edwardsville, fills the vacancy created following the death of Board Member William Haine in August.

I'm honored to be selected as a member of the body that oversees election administration in Illinois, Genovese said. I look forward to working with my fellow colleagues to ensure the integrity of elections in Illinois.

The State Board of Elections is an independent state agency charged with the responsibility of having general supervision over the administration of election laws of the State of Illinois. Elections are administered locally by the States 108 election authorities.
Salida, CO (81201)

Today

Intervals of clouds and sunshine in the morning with more clouds for later in the day. High around 55F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy early, then clearing later on. Low 34F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.
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That release could not be found.
President didnt order fuel subsidy removal, Lawan clarifies was the major headline in the media on Wednesday according to the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, after meeting Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, stating that he had gone to convey the feeling of constituents to him on some concerns, including the proposed removal of subsidy.

I really felt disappointed listening to the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, who should know the implication of the Petroleum Industry Act himself and his colleagues passed.

It will be recalled that President in August 2021 a month after the National Assembly passed the PIB that recommends the deregulation of the petroleum sector, which also include subsidy removal, the same President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan and the President Buhari that signed the bill into law are now saying the President never gave approval for subsidy removal.

I want to categorically say that President Buhari on Monday, 16th August 2021 gave that approval as soon as he signed the Petroleum Industry Bill into law.

For clarification purposes, the Petroleum Industry Act reads, The Minister shall within six months from the commencement of this Act, cause to be incorporated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, a Limited Liability Company, which shall be called Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.

With the above, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is already in motion with the approval of President Buhari, who doubles as the Minister of Petroleum Resources.

The Petroleum Industry Act further said, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and any of its subsidiaries shall conduct their affairs on a commercial basis in a profitable and efficient manner without recourse to government funds.

This means government funds will not be used in paying for subsidy and Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is not expected to run at a loss the way the old NNPC did.

In fact, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited will be breaching the Constitution by paying subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, also known as Petrol.

It is even more appalling to hear those words come from the President of the Senate when Nigeria already lost more than $50billion dollars in the Petroleum Sector, due to our inability to pass the PIB for decades.

The Petroleum Industry Act provides Nigeria, the twilight opportunity to attract meaningful Investments and wealth in the transitory realities of the global Petroleum Sector, to address our huge infrastructural deficit.

Statement such as President didnt order fuel subsidy removal coming from the Chairman of the National Assembly, after painstakingly passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill into Law, goes against Section 67 of the Petroleum Industry Act that says the administration and management of petroleum resources are to be conducted in accordance with the Act and principles of good governance, transparency, and sustainable development in Nigeria.

Subsidy removal will save Nigeria about 1 Trillion Naira yearly as the Federal Government has been running huge budget deficits that could have been avoided if money budgeted for oil subsidies was allocated to other critical projects.

Subsidies should be used to spur investment in activities that raise the productive capacities of an economy (such as education, health, entrepreneurship, and infrastructure). They should be targeted at strategic sectors of the economy. They should not be used to finance non-durable consumption items like petrol.

Oil subsidies are inequitable, as they transfer the national wealth to those who own several cars and add little or no value to the national economy.

In lieu of subsidies, the government should invest massively in public transportation and boost the transport allowances of public-sector workers.

Removing fuel subsidies would also be good for the environment and safety on Nigerian roads. When motorists pay the full economic price for petrol, they will emit less pollution and reduce the incidence of road accidents.

What the leadership of both Executive and Legislature should be telling Nigerians is that the removal of fuel subsidies favours the poor and eliminates one of the several perks that the Nigerian elites undeservedly enjoy.

Adewole Kehinde is a Public Affairs Analyst based in Abuja and can be reached via 08166240846, 08123608662
Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria, Friday, 21st January 2022 : It is the position of the Intl Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law that the authorities of the Nigerian Army have admitted involvement in the killing and disappearance outside the law of thousands of defenseless citizens of mostly Igbo Judeo-Christian Faith origin and razing of their dwelling houses in Eastern Nigeria. Having carefully read and analyzed the two different reactions of the Nigerian Army issued within 24 hours on 19th/20th January 2022, they are conclusively nothing short of self indictment and admission of responsibility in the heinous conduct atrocities. Intersociety further wishes to state that the reaction of the Ebonyi State Government is not worthy to be responded to. The State Government, apart from lacking technical and structural expertise in the subject matter, cannot morally exonerate itself of mountainous security challenges facing the State including its inability to account for the whereabouts of five field Engineers and scores of security personnel that were abducted and disappeared in Effium, Ohaukwu Local Government Area on 3rdNov 2021 and afterwards in connection with the construction of the all-important AfDB funded Ring Road Phase 2 Project.

However, the authorities of the Army deserve commendation for speaking out and wittingly or unwittingly admitting responsibility. As it has chronically become part of the Army in addition to its culture of impunity and incorrigibility, the Armys two reactions were filled with irrelevancies, frivolities, false labeling, stigmatization, distraction and diversion of the core issues. Intersociety as an Organization reputable in forensic facts finding and corporately statistical has no time for such. As knowledgeably and statistically contained and explained in our Special Investigative Report, the Nigerian Army and other relevant security forces or operatives failed woefully in ensuring that their operations in Eastern Nigeria are grounded in due processes and procedures contained in written laws including the Laws of Nigeria and several regional and international Treaty Laws willingly acceded to by the Federal Republic of Nigeria and inescapably binding on Nigeria.

Other than the Nigerian Armys wittingly or unwittingly admission of operational culpability, the NA also failed to provide answers to the following 24 Critical Questions:A. based on intra and inter agency intelligence available to the Nigerian Army, if any, how many groups of Unknown Gunmen exist in the Southeast and what is their numerical strength? B. are all the 4800 arrested/abducted in the past 14 months armed ESN members or Unknown Gunmen? C. in the unbiased opinion of the Nigerian Army, how many Easterners had been arrested in the past 14 months and where are they? D. how many of them have been freed, if any, and how many have been handed over to the Police, if any, and as legally required? E. by the extant Laws in Nigeria including the Armed Forces Act 2004, can Nigerian Army detain, investigate and prosecute arrested civilian citizens who are not subject to the Armed Forces Act of 2004? F. going by our Special Investigative Report, who and what are the names of those killed or abducted and disappeared in Eastern Nigeria in the course of the Army and security forces operations in the past 14 months? G. how many of them were killed and abducted? H. what are the whereabouts of those abducted and bodies of those killed openly and in custody? I. when, where and why were they killed or abducted? J. who killed them and abducted others?

Others are: K. is it also part of the Nigerian Armys Rules of Engagement under UN System to abduct civilian citizens alive and disappear or kill them in custody? L. are they also part of the Armys use of force, proportionality of same and legitimate self defense under the same UN System? M. who killed 110 residents at Obigbo in Rivers State between 21st October and 18th November 2020? N. who abducted and bundled away over 700 civilian residents of the area including over 50 non-menopausal women? O. which law authorizes the Army to abduct civilian residents of Obigbo in the hours of the Blue Law and secretly held them for more than one year in far away Northern Nigeria without trial? P. who sexually molested about 70% of the over 50 abducted Obigbo women? Q. who killed over 40 of the Obigbo abductees in custody? R. who set ablaze or burnt down or razed or destroyed civilian dwelling houses, sanctuaries or sacred places of worship and their symbols and livelihoods in Eastern Nigeria in the past 14 months? S. how many dwelling houses, sacred places of worship and livelihoods in villages or communities in the Muslim North have soldiers of the Nigerian Army set ablaze or burnt down in reprisal for killing of soldiers including Generals?

The rest are: T. when has it become a military tradition and art of modern warfare for the Army to kill or permanently disappear citizens arrested or abducted alive and taken into custody alive? U. under International Rules of Engagement in inter state armed conflict involving Nigeria and another, can Nigerian Army or Armed Forces kill in custody its captured Prisoners Of War (POWs) or surrendered rival combatants or wounded others? V. when has it become a military tradition or art of modern warfare or policing of turbulent Civil Space for Army to engage in wanton destruction of civilian dwelling houses including sacred places of worship especially in Eastern Nigeria? W. is the present day Nigerian Army truly Nigerian Army with compositional reflection of the countrys multi ethnic and religious groupings? X. when was the last time the Nigerian Army impartially investigated allegations of professional or operational misconducts or gross misconducts against its personnel and superior officers in conformity with the Intl Law Principles of Complementarity and No Impunity?

Finally, contrary to Nigerian Armys welcomed reactions, Intersocietys Special Investigative Report was thorough, statistically grounded and objective. For instance, the Report, apart from containing the civilian casualties of the security forces and Jihadist Herdsmen killings also included the estimated number of defenseless citizens killed by Unknown Gunmen as well as the number of security operatives and members of the Unknown Gunmen that also lost their lives. The Report further condemned in strongest terms the use or resort to offensive violence by both state and non state actor armed groups. In all, our major grouse against Nigerian security forces particularly the Army is killing outside the law and abduction and disappearance of unarmed citizens as well as burning or destruction of civilian homes and their sacred places of worship and livelihoods using ethnic and religious profiling fueled by false labeling and absence of detective policing intelligence and investigation. As the Nigerian Army was effortlessly explaining itself, its personnel of the 144 Battalion at Ukwa West in Abia State were busy two days ago burning citizens houses and properties in Owaza Community, a boundary community between Abia and Rivers State over a report of killing of some military personnel in the area by suspected oil thieves.

The Nigerian Armys generalization of its butchery and arsonist operations in the East in the past 14 months and description of their slain, injured, tortured, abducted, disappeared and property victims as belonging to criminals and criminal entities or irredentist groups or callous criminals or cannibals masquerading as freedom fighters is sad and unfortunate. It further speaks volume of the Armys un-repentance and remorselessness in its rapacious use of false labeling and jungle justice soldiering through which thousands of innocent souls have been sent to their early graves in the country especially in Eastern Nigeria. We make bold to say that we at Intersociety are only sympathetic and strongly supportive of principles of International Law under UN System including due processes and procedures and we owe no one or group any apology for such bold step or position. For the avoidance of doubt, the link to Intersocietys Special Investigative Report (Massacre In Eastern Nigeria: Security Forces, Jihadists Killed 1,400 Defenseless Citizens, Arrested/Abducted 4800, Disappeared 1000, Attacked 100 Igbo Communities, Raided 1000 Homes And Burnt Down Or Razed Or Destroyed N40B Properties), dated Wednesday, 19th January 2022 is here: https://intersociety-ng.org/massacre-in-eastern-nigeria-a-special-investigative-report/

Signed:

Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chinwe Umeche Esquire and Chidimma Udegbunam Esquire

For: International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law

Contacts:

Phone/WhatsApp: +23474090052

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://intersociety-ng.org
In an effort to deepen the understanding and appreciate the efforts of the female troops, their command responsibilities and contributions to national security, the Nigerian Army Womens Corps (NAWC) embarked on a sensitization visit to 1 Division Nigerian Army and Nigerian Defence Academy in Kaduna.

Delivering the lecture on behalf of the Commander NAWC Colonel DE Adamu, the Chief of Staff NAWC Colonel BS Omoge briefed the female participants on the History of the Corps, Roles and Responsibilities, Deployment of NAWC Personnel as well as the Leadership Opportunities.

She then rounded up by emphasizing the need for female soldiers to be confident, discipline and professional in the discharge of their constitutional duties. This is aimed at achieving the mission of the Corps which is To Administer and Train Professional Female Personnel to Support the NA Operational Engagements Within a Joint Environment in the Defence of Nigeria.
The worlds largest equine charity The Donkey Sanctuary has congratulated the Nigerian Government on its foresight and leadership in refusing to allow the slaughter and export of donkey skins.

News reports at the end of 2020 suggested that Nigerias long-held ban on the export of donkey skins, used in a traditional Chinese remedy known as ejiao, was about to be scrapped, threatening a wholesale slaughter of donkeys across West Africa.

But after being contacted by The Donkey Sanctuary, Nigerian MP Honourable Datti Garba Mohamed intervened and sparked a strongly worded clarification from the Comptroller General of Nigerias National Animal Quarantine Service (NAQS) who told a press conference this week that the donkey skin trade was banned and it remains banned. I would not encourage anybody to enter into the trade  anybody that does will face the full wrath of the law.

Isegbe warned that Nigerias donkeys were going into extinction, the population has gone down drastically, and the slaughter of donkeys is bad. The law is against it, the slaughter, transportation, storage and the trade in donkey hides

( https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/01/naqs-discloses-arrest-of-chinese-nationals-over-illegal-trading-in-donkey-skin/ )

Despite efforts by national governments and by Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) national veterinary directors, who recently restated their opposition to the trade, unscrupulous donkey skin traders have undermined efforts to protect their national donkey populations, resulting in the slaughter of millions of donkeys across West Africa since 2016.

Ian Cawsey, Director of Advocacy and Campaigns at The Donkey Sanctuary, said: The tide of opinion has very clearly turned against the trade in Africa. The growing message is that donkey skin traders are no longer welcome.

Kenya, Tanzania and now Nigeria have all recently sent a clear message to traders: our donkeys are precious to our people, they are worth more alive than dead, and we will protect them from slaughter.

At The Donkey Sanctuary we understand the importance of donkeys to the communities they are part of and that is why they deserve better health and welfare and should be protected from the cruel and inhumane donkey skin trade.

We hope that other West African countries will now follow the lead taken by Nigeria and position adopted by ECOWAS and stand united. The trade has been hit hard by this powerful message from Nigeria  other West African countries must not allow their donkeys to now become targets for traders instead.
Bangkok transit flights to Phuket start Feb 1

PHUKET: Bangkok Airways will start operating two special sealed-route flights from Bangkok to Phuket per day for tourists arriving under the Phuket Sandbox scheme from Feb 1.

tourismtransport

By The Phuket News

Friday 21 January 2022, 10:00AM

The flights from Bangkok to Phuket will be operated by an ATR72-600 aircraft.. Photo: Bangkok Airways

The first flight, PG5275, departs from Suvarnabhumi Airport at midday and arrives at Phuket International Airport at 2:05pm.

The second flight, PG5279 departs from Suvarnabhumi Airport at 5:10pm and lands in Phuket at 7:15pm.

Passengers on the flights are required to follow guidelines issued by the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), which requires that each passenger entering the kingdom of Thailand must possess the complete set of the relevant documents, said a release from the airline announcing the flights.

The documents required include a Certificate of Entry (COE), medical certificate with a laboratory result indicating that COVID-19 is not detected (done by RT-PCR technique and issued no more than 72 hours before traveling), vaccine certificate or proof of vaccination, travel health insurance (worldwide or including Thailand) covering health care and treatment expenses for COVID-19 disease (or any other guarantee valid throughout their stay in the Kingdom) with a coverage of no less than US$50,000, said the announcement.

Additionally, all passengers must undergo required COVID-19 tests (RT-PCR method) during their stay in Thailand, the announcement added.\

Bangkok Airways remains committed to the safety and hygiene of our passengers and employees as the highest priority. The airlines strictly implement surveillance measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The move to launch the new direct sealed route flights follows a notice shared by Phuket officials on Jan 10 confirming that tourists travelling to Phuket were not permitted to transit in Bangkok to Phuket  but were permitted to transit in Bangkok on flights to Samui, a service exclusively provided by Bangkok Airways.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) has yet to publicly announce that the Bangkok-transit flights to Phuket have been approved, but an Airports of Thailand representative at Phuket airport (AoT Phuket) confirmed to The Phuket News that the CAAT has approved the special flights.

The AoT Phuket representative said he had no other information other than that they had been approved.

Asked whether any other airlines had applied or been approved to operate sealed route transit flights from Bangkok to Phuket, he said: It is Bangkok Airways.

The CAAT also confirmed directly with The Phuket News that the Bangkok Airways flights had been approved, but provided no further information as to whether any other airlines will be operating similar sealed route flights from Bangkok to Phuket.

The CAAT responded by providing a link to a notice explaining the requirements for passengers arriving on transit flights to Sandbox areas (see here), but did not confirm when the requirements came into effect.

Of note: the notice marked the following procedures (verbatim):

Transit Flight same Plane

Passengers shall undergo health screening and document check, immigration and custom procedures at the destination airport or SANDBOX airports

Transfer Flight

Passengers shall undergo health screening and document check, immigration procedures at the first airport of entry before continuing their travel to the SANDBOX province in this case, customs clearance will be processed at the destination airport.
Crocodile sighted off Phukets Bang Tao Beach

PHUKET: People at beaches in the Cherng Talay area were warned of a crocodile spotted just a couple of hundred metres offshore from Bang Tao Beach this afternoon (Jan 21).



By Eakkapop Thongtub

Friday 21 January 2022, 05:56PM

The crocodile was first spotted by people on a speedboat who had stopped to fish some 200 metres off Bang Tao Beach.

Local officials were notified, who launched a drone to confirm the sighting, The Phuket News was told.

Local officials confirmed that it was a crocodile heading towards Surin Beach.

The sighting was reported to Manoch Punchalad, the newly elected Chief of Cherng Talay Tambon Administrative Organization (OrBorTor), who in turn reported the sighting to Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew, The Phuket News was told.

Governor Narong is aware of the incident and has urged tourists on beaches in the area to be careful and to remain vigilant for any danger.

So far The Phuket News has not been informed of any other action taken by officials.
Phuket face mask campaign targeting tourists begins

PHUKET: Police began patrolling Bangla Rd, Patong, last night to begin enforcing heightened measures to get tourists to wear face masks in public areas.

COVID-19tourismhealth

By The Phuket News

Friday 21 January 2022, 11:52AM

Patong Police Chief Col Sujin Nonbordee led an assembly of police officers, health officials and officers from Patong Municipality at the police box at the beach end of Bangla Rd at 7pm, where he handed down the order that the initial stage of the campaign is to raise awareness among tourists only.

By joining together to campaign for people and tourists, both Thais and foreigners, to wear a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 Bangla Road area, was the aim of the patrols last night, explained Col Sujin.

No fines are to be imposed at this stage.

The patrols were launched due to reports that some tourists do not comply with Thailands public health measures, such as refusing to wear a cloth or face mask and gathering together to dine together. This could lead to the spread of the Omicron strain of COVID-19 that is spreading widely in the area now, Col Sujin added.

Joining the assembly and ensuing patrol of Bangla Rd was Patong Mayor Chalermsak Mannesri and Phuket Vice Governor Amnuay Pinsuwan.

A report of the patrols issued by Patong Municipality noted that the officers spoke with tourists, staff and business operators on Bangla Rd to clarify and understand the issue of not wearing a mask in public.

In the epidemic situation of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), there will be a penalty of a maximum fine of 20,000 baht under the Communicable Diseases Act B.E. 2558, which tourists understand and are ready to cooperate in good compliance with such measures, the report added.

However, it has long been noted that by the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) in Bangkok in late November, that first time offences for not wearing a face mask in public areas is to be no more than B1,000.

Meanwhile, police and other officers launched their own campaign in Phuket Town to inform tourists to wear a mask while in public.

Leading the campaign which marched along the streets of the Phuket Old Town area were Phuket Town Mayor Saroj Angkanapilas and Phuket Provincial Chief Administrative Officer (Palad) Anupap Rodkwan Yodrabam.

Military officers, police officers and public health officials joined the entourage, which toured popular tourist streets of Thalang Rd, Yaowarat Rd, Ranong Rd and Phang Nga Rd.

The campaign is for local residents and tourists, both Thais and foreigners, to wear a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by walking along roads that are tourist attractions in the Old Phuket Town area, said Mayor Saroj.

Most of the people, and tourists, almost everyone wears a mask, but only some of them dont, he said.

Officers spoke with tourists, who understand and are cooperating in following [the COVID measures] well, he said.

Mr Anupap noted, Although the number of infected people in Phuket has decreased lately, there are still some tourists, both Thais and foreigners, who do not wear masks. Therefore, this campaign has been launched for tourists to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which is the concern of the provincial governor.

The governor has already asked for cooperation from the consuls in Phuket to inform tourists to wear masks, as well as asking for cooperation from hotel operators where tourists stay, he added.

The campaign will be rolled out across the island, Mr Anupap said.

After this we will synchronize with officials in each district and integrate [campaign efforts] with relevant agencies, including the military, police, administrative departments and public health officials, to patrol various areas, especially important tourist attractions of Phuket, he said.

If you see tourists or other people not wearing masks, the law will be enforced in accordance with the order of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 of Phuket Province, he warned, without clarifying exactly which penalties will be enforced.
Phuket police search for COVID-positive Estonian tourist, believed fled to Samui

PHUKET: Phuket Tourist Police are searching for an Estonian woman and her husband after they checked out of their hotel in Patong without the woman completing her mandatory 10-day Hotel Isolation after testing positive for COVID-19.

COVID-19Coronavirustourismpatongpolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Friday 21 January 2022, 03:24PM

Maj Boonyarit Inthakarn of the Tourist Police at the hotel in Patong earlier this afternoon (Jan 21). Photo: Phuket Tourist Police

Maj Boonyarit Inthakarn of the Tourist Police stationed in Patong this morning (Jan 21) was notified by the 191 police hotline that a staff member at the hotel in Patong had reported that one tourist had contracted COVID-19.

The tourist had left the hotel yesterday (Jan 20), the hotel staffer reported.

Maj Boonyarit did not confirm which of the two tourists had tested positive.

The couple were named as Janika Prussakova, 49, traveling with her husband, Teder Arvi, 53, both Estonian nationals.

The hotel staffer reported that the couple boarded an air-conditioned van with two other tourists, heading for Koh Samui.

The staffer said she had no idea where the couple had booked to stay on Samui, Maj Boonyarit reported.

Police have yet to confirm whether they have tracked down Russian national Anton Tikhomirov, 29, and Russian couple Olga Tribshtok and Sergei Iaroshenko, both 35, after they checked out of their hotels in Phuket without completing the mandatory 10-day Hotel Isolation after testing positive for COVID.

* The name of the Patong Hotel involved was removed from the story at the request of the Hotel on 22 Jan. Additionaly the picture was amended to erase the hotel staff member.
Southern Pines, NC (28387)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun with a slight chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 86F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 61F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Clearfield, PA (16830)

Today

Cloudy. Periods of rain this morning. High 66F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 46F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.
Roanoke, AL (36274)

Today

Sunny along with a few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 85F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low around 60F. Winds light and variable.
Today

Cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy later in the day. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 62F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.

Tonight

A mostly clear sky. Low 37F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow

Sunny skies. High 74F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph.
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From an office in the Press Corps of the Indiana Statehouse, the journalism majors of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism work alongside the best reporters in the state, digging into the behind-the-scenes stories of Indiana politics. We're a student newsroom, but our work doesn't sit on a professor's desk. We create daily content for this website and 35 professional media partners around the state.
Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Cloudy with periods of rain. High 15C. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 5C. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
GODFREY  Authorities are investigating a reported kidnapping in Godfrey Friday morning.

Radio traffic on the Illinois State Police Radio Network stated authorities were investigating a report that a woman may have been abducted from Lewis and Clark Community College. According to the ISPERN report, the woman was reportedly abducted by a man in a black Hyundai and was able to text her family that she had been kidnapped.

At 10:40 a.m., a license plate camera in Prairietown reportedly captured a photo of the suspect vehicle. The Madison County Sheriff's Department on Friday afternoon confirmed the woman and the suspect had been located.

Officials at Lewis and Clark Community College also said they had confirmed the woman was not on campus Friday morning.

No additional information was released Friday afternoon.
This is my eighth update to the citizens of the 111th district as your state representative. This week I celebrated one year since my inauguration into the General Assembly.

I am proud to report that over the last year my district office has handled more than 292 constituent cases and I attended over 200 meetings/visits/tours, held six traveling office hours, two town halls and one open house. I have done virtual and in-person press conferences on pressing topics, communicated through the mail, media and social media, and I have written eight of these articles.

I say all of this to let you know, I am committed to communicating with you, to assisting you in dealing with state agencies, and to keeping you informed on what is happening in Springfield with legislation and governance of this state.

2022 is shaping up to be different than 2021 already. Since its an election year, and with the primaries being in June (instead of March), our legislative session is planned to start and end earlier than usual.

We were scheduled to start Jan. 4 and planned to be in Springfield for at least three days each week until adjournment on April 8. However, last week we were only in session one day and this week and next week, session was cancelled, due to Covid concerns. We started our virtual committee hearings, and those meetings will continue whether we are in Springfield or in the district.

All of the legislation that we previously filed that was not acted upon last session is still active, and I am filing some new legislation as well. The volume of bills that will be heard and passed is expected to be less than last year.

The legislative redistricting map lawsuit that started last spring was finally decided just after Christmas. The federal court ruled that the Democrats map passed in September can stand. In the decision handed down by the federal court, the court found numerous examples of political gerrymandering, including requests by Democrat incumbents to rig the map to assure their own re-election. Unfortunately, the federal court found that was not a basis to reject the map.

The decision on the legislative map apparently emboldened the Democrats to go one step further, to gerrymander circuit court districts throughout the state including here in Madison County. Late on Jan. 3, Democrats published a new map which changes the subcircuit borders in many areas of the state. In Madison County, we have never had subcircuits, but this map splits the county into three subcircuits.

Voters can now only vote for judges within their subcircuit, rather than voting for judges countywide. The method of allocating seats to the subcircuits in Madison County is different than every other county in Illinois.

The actual bill was filed at around 11:15 a.m. on Jan 5. There was a brief hearing on the bill which began at around 1 p.m. that day. Later in the evening, a House bill was amended in the Senate, HB3138, to pass this new map in the Senate. Then it passed the House, strictly on partisan lines, at around 10:30 p.m. that night. The governor quickly signed the bill on Jan. 7.

No Republicans supported this gerrymandered map drawn for political purposes.

I spoke out against this bill on the House floor, because this is an unprecedented overreach into our judicial system, especially here in Madison County, where voters have chosen to make the judiciary more balanced in recent years. Madison County was also singled out to have an immediate effective date, whereas other counties maps are not effective until 2024.

Every citizen should be concerned anytime that legislative actions are taken to influence the court system.

Currently the Director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is in contempt of court because the Department has failed for months to properly place two youth in care of the state in appropriate settings, instead keeping them in psychiatric care well after they were ready to be placed with a family. In addition, a DCFS worker was brutally killed last week during a home visit. The problems with DCFS are expected to be a topic of committee hearings this spring.

We also expect that public safety legislation will be debated, because of the rampant increase in crime in Illinois and nationally. This will be a major issue in 2022 and I look forward to honest solutions that allow law enforcement, states attorneys and the court system to do their jobs to keep our communities safe.

Please contact my office at 618-433-8046 if we can help you in any way, or visit my website at RepElik.com.
EDWARDSVILLE -- A Pontoon Beach man has been charged with a felony DUI after a Jan. 19 incident in Granite City.

Tony A. Lopez, 55, of Pontoon Beach, was charged on Jan. 20 with aggravated driving while under the influence while license revoked/suspended, a Class 4 felony; and improper lane useage, a Class P misdemeanor.

The case was presented by the Granite City Police Department.

According to court documents, on Jan. 19, Lopez allegedly was driving a 2003 Volkswagen Passat in Granite City while under the influence of alcohol and with a suspended license.

Bail was set at $50,000.

Other drug-related felony charges filed Jan. 20 by the Madison County States Attorneys Office include:

 Amy J. Hurst, 36, of Brighton was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Madison County Sheriff. On Jan. 15, Hurst allegedly had less than five grams of a substance containing methamphetamine. Bail was set at $80,000.

 David T. Moses, 33, of Bellmawr, New Jersey, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the State of Illinois. On Oct. 24, Moses allegedly had less than five grams of a substance containing methamphetamine. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Aimee M. Lankford, 39, of Bunker Hill, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Pontoon Beach Police Department. On Dec. 5, Lankford allegedly had less than five grams of a substance containing methamphetamine. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Teagan J. Nordhaus, 22, of Granite City, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Pontoon Beach Police Department. On Nov. 29, Nordhaus allegedly had less than five grams of a substance containing methamphetamine. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Lori A. Skinner, 53, of Collinsville, was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, a Class 3 felony. The case was presented by the Pontoon Beach Police Department. On Sept. 11, Skinner allegedly had less than five grams of a substance containing methamphetamine. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Travion A. Winters, 27, of Cahokia, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the State of Illinois. On Oct. 6, Winters allegedly had less than 15 grams of a substance containing amphetamine. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Daniel Torres-Herrera, 48, of Fairmont City, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the State of Illinois. On May 30, Torres-Herrera allegedly had less than 15 grams of a substance containing cocaine. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Oscar V. Ramirez, 32, of Fairmont City, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the State of Illinois. On May 30, Ramirez allegedly possessed less than 15 grams of a substance containing cocaine. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Brittany L. Baguio, 25, of Belleville, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Madison Police Department. On Jan. 19, Baguio allegedly possessed less than 15 grams of a substance containing Fentanyl. Bail was set at $15,000.

 Jessica A. Smotherman, of Granite City, was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony. The case was presented by the Pontoon Beach Police Department. On Aug. 29, Smotherman possessed less than 15 grams of a substance containing Fentanyl. Bail was set at $15,000.
Submitted

ALTON  More than 2,000 pairs of socks were collected recently by the 6th Annual Socks For Tots Drive.

"This year my Socks for Tots Drive was a huge success," said Alton Alderwoman Rosette Brown. "The sock donation of over 2,000 pairs of socks have allowed me to continue to heat the feet of our children."
SPRINGFIELD  Three Madison County schools will receive state grants for all-electric school buses.

Illinois EPA Director John J. Kim this week announced more than $4.2 million in grant awards to school districts and student transportation companies for the purchase 17 all-electric school buses and charging infrastructure.

The Triad school district in Troy will receive $791,145.75 to buy three buses. The Edwardsville school district will receive $213,150.75 to buy one bus, as will the Collinsville school district.

Grants were also presented to eight school districts in the Chicago area to buy a total of 12 all-electric school buses.

"The VW Settlement provides Illinois with a tremendous opportunity to lead the nation in clean transportation, furthering my administration's ongoing commitment to address the impacts of climate change in our communities," said Gov. J.B. Pritzker. "This $4.2 million investment will allow school districts to provide an eco-friendly transportation option for local students, improving air quality and bringing more electric vehicles to Illinois roads."

The grant awards are funded by VW Settlement dollars provided through Illinois EPA's Driving a Cleaner Illinois Program. Illinois EPA announced the third and latest funding opportunity in 2021 seeking applicants to electrify school buses in the Chicago and Metro East regions. The funding is part of the state's allocation of $108 million received from the multi-billion-dollar VW Settlement after it was discovered Volkswagen installed emissions cheating software in certain diesel vehicles.
South Laurel High School seniors Connor Hollon and Jared Baker began their food delivery service, CJ on the Way, in September during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to offer a safe and convenient option for people to have their restaurant orders and groceries delivered directly to their homes. | Photo by Emily Adams-Bentley
Discount retailer The Works saw its shares skyrocket today after it reported overcoming supply chain problems to have its best Christmas trading period ever.

After recording a 30.6 per cent rise in revenues in the half-year to the end of October, the firm revealed that trade has remained high since then, even as new coronavirus-related restrictions impacted the UK economy.

Growth in store sales was far outpaced by the surge of online revenue, which jumped 80.7 per cent on pre-pandemic levels during the six-month period and by 71.9 per cent in the 16 weeks to 16 January.

Popular goods: The Works said that board games Scrabble and Articulate and branded children's products from Harry Potter, Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig all bolstered sales

This helped the arts and crafts seller achieve a 'record' trade over Christmas, despite supply chain troubles such as products arriving late, and uncertainty deriving from the emergence of the Omicron variant.

It still made a first-half pre-tax loss of 1million, but The Works said this reflected the 'seasonality' of the business and pointed out that the figure was lower than the 4.3million loss it posted for the equivalent time in 2020.

Following the release of these results, the firm's shares climbed 15 per cent to 65p on Friday, meaning their value has grown by around three-quarters over the past 12 months.

Best-seller: Richard Osman's novel The Man Who Died Twice, which follows a group of eccentric crime-fighting pensioners, was popular with customers of The Works

The Warwickshire-based group noted that the board games Scrabble and Articulate, and branded children's products from Harry Potter, Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig all bolstered sales.

It also credited its excellent performance on demand for newly-released books, such as Richard Osman's best-selling crime novel The Man Who Died Twice, and autobiographies from comedians Billy Connolly, Michael McIntyre and Rob Beckett.

All this came against a backdrop of rising uncertainty caused by the spread of the Omicron variant and shortfalls in haulage capacity and ocean freight, as well as low terminal stock levels.

The Works cautioned that it expects to incur additional supply chain-related costs that will offset some growth in sales and cannot discount further problems arising from Covid-19.

But the group's trading so far this year has meant it anticipates posting full-year results that will be 'significantly ahead' of forecasts, with adjusted underlying profits coming it at around 15million.

'We enter 2022 in a strong financial position and remain confident that we are well placed to make progress on the many attractive opportunities that lie ahead,' the firm stated.

This optimistic tone marks a major departure from last year when the business warned that it could run out of money after the enforced closure of its shops during successive national lockdowns caused it serious harm.

Things have markedly improved since that time, with the retailer observing healthy demand for its back-to-school products and 'fidget frenzy' goods like fidget spinners and neon balls.

It additionally said it benefited from Britons using the time afforded by lockdowns to try out new hobbies like arts and crafts and jigsaws, and the boom in summer staycations, which thanks to a 'network of conveniently located stores meant that we were the go-to choice for families looking for activities to entertain children.'

Gavin Peck, the firm's chief executive, said: 'We delivered a record Christmas, demonstrating the increasing appeal of our customer offer and despite uncertainty over the impact of Omicron and the ongoing supply chain challenges faced throughout our sector.

'This better-than-expected trading provides confidence that we will deliver an improved performance in 2022. We are now a much stronger business than we were two years ago and believe that delivering on our refocused strategy will have a transformational effect on our business.'

The update was a marked shift from November when the company revealed it suffered significant high costs from shipping and delays in the supply chain.
Serbia has dealt Rio Tinto a hammer blow after pulling the plug on a 1.8billion lithium mine.

Ministers bowed to pressure after protests from green groups and ordinary citizens, who claimed the mine would wreak environmental destruction.

Serbia has withdrawn all licences for the Jadar project and vowed to 'fight against' any potential lawsuit from the Anglo-Australian miner about the cancellation.

Shock: Rio's shares slid 2.2 per cent, or 123p, to 5457p as traders digested the news

Jadar was set to be one of the world's largest lithium mines and bolster Rio boss Jakob Stausholm's efforts to focus more on green metals.

Rio told investors earlier this week that the opening of the Jadar mine would be delayed by at least a year to 2027 after struggling to get the licences needed to complete an environmental assessment.

But the shock decision to scrap the project entirely was laid out by prime minister Ana Brnabic on Thursday, who said the company gave 'insufficient information' to the government and local community about the impact of the project.

Rio's shares slid 2.2 per cent, or 123p, to 5457p last night as traders digested the news.

Rio first discovered lithium in Jadar in 2004. The site was expected to contain enough of the metal to produce one million electric car batteries.

The company said it was 'extremely concerned' by the prime minister's statement.

Rio said it is 'reviewing the legal basis of this decision and the implications for our activities and our people in Serbia'.
People continued to use less cash last year with new figures showing the number of withdrawals from ATMs fell 6 per cent annually.

A total of 79billion was withdrawn from cash machines in 2021 compared to 81billion in 2020, according to data by Link, the UK's main cash machine network.

There was also a 7 per cent decline in cash machine transactions last year, which includes withdrawals and balance enquiries, falling from just over 1.6billion to 1.5billion.

Cash hotspots: Those in Northern Ireland withdrew 2,070 on average last year compared to 1,023 in the South West

This means the average withdrawal per person in the UK was 1,462 last year, visiting an ATM around 18 times.

In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the average withdrawal per person in the UK was 2,193 meaning the typical person is withdrawing two thirds of what they were before Covid-19, when the advice was to not use cash but contactless debit and credit card payments instead,

Andrew Hagger, founder of MoneyComms, believes usage will never return to pre-pandemic levels.

'I can't see the number of ATM withdrawals returning to pre-covid levels,' he said, 'there has been a real shift towards card instead of cash as the preferred form of payment for retailers and consumers.

'I don't think it will snowball from here, but I would expect to see a gradual decline in ATM cash withdrawals annually as people become accustomed to card payment being the norm.'

Although the pandemic has sped up the transition away from cash, the previous years had seen declining use.

The average British banking customer withdrew 1,462 from cash machines in 2021.

People have increasingly been using alternative methods such as contactless cards as well as shopping online.

Before the pandemic, ATM transactions were typically declining 10 per cent annually, according to Link.

Following the successive lockdowns and government restrictions, 2020 saw a 40 per cent collapse in the number of withdrawals compared to 2019 with the total value withdrawn falling from 116billion in 2019 to 81billion in 2020.

Graham Mott, director of strategy at Link said: 'This is beginning to feel like the new normal.

'Locations such as markets or even pubs that pre-pandemic only accepted cash, now all have card readers and continue to actively encourage contactless payments.

'Therefore, some consumers who are confident using digital or contactless payments, now use cash less often than they did pre-pandemic and seem unlikely to ever revert back.'

Historically, parts of London have been ahead of the curve in adopting alternative payment methods such as contactless cards or mobile payments.

Northern Ireland remains the most cash heavy of the nations with Northern Irish banking customers withdrawing an average 2,070 in 2021 compared to the South West, where the average customer withdrew 1,023.

However, the analysis shows that while some areas of the country have seen a steeper drop in withdrawals, overall, it is a similar picture across the UK.

In 2021 as UK banking customers withdrew 79 billion from cash machines compared to 81 billion in 2020.

As many as five million people are at risk of being left behind as Britain marches towards a cashless society, according to Link.

There is now at least some reason for optimism for those that remain cash reliant despite close to 5,000 bank branches having shut down since 2015.

Last month, a landmark agreement was reached between the major banks to share services to ensure long-term cash availability across the UK.

Under the agreement, any community that faces the closure of a core cash service, such as a bank branch or ATM, will have its needs independently assessed by Link, which will then determine whether a new solution should be provided to meet that community's cash needs.

New services giving access to cash have already been announced for this year, including the installation of free-to-use ATMs in 11 locations.

The Post Office has announced it will install 'dedicated cash services' in 30 branches over the next 12 months which could include banking counters and self-service machines.

Furthermore, five more shared banking hubs will be launched by Easter this year in Acton, West London, Brixham in Devon, Carnoustie in Angus, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, and Syston in Leicestershire.

There are also other industry initiatives to support cash and banking, such as the 'cashback without purchase' scheme enabling people to get money from retailer' tills without having to buy anything in more than 2,000 UK stores.

These are primarily made up of convenience stores such as the Co-op, Londis, Spar, Nisa and other smaller-scale retailers.
SPARKS [mdash] Mrs. Mattie L. Clements Martin, 93, of Sparks, Georgia, passed away at her granddaughter's home on April 25, 2022. Mrs. Martin was born on January 17, 1929 in Colquitt County to the late Ivey Lane Hart and Ola Gay Hart. She lived most of her life in Cook County and was of the 
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Keyser residents gathered at the fire station on Cornell Street on Jan. 14 to voice their concerns about ongoing road blockages caused by CSX trains stopping on the tracks near the north end of town for long periods of time. Local, state and federal officials attended the meeting.
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Amtrak passengers in the Capital Region may have to adjust their commutes since the railroad has started cutting back services.

The railway network announced it was temporarily reducing the frequency of several routes due to staff challenges caused by the pandemic and omicron variant.

Approximately 8% of Northeast regional weekly departures between Monday, Jan. 24, and March 27, as well as 6% of state-supported weekly departures operating between Jan. 18 and March 27 have been suspended.

In addition to regional cuts, Amtrak will reduce weekly departures on nine long-distance lines from Monday, Jan. 24, through March 27. These lines  Southwest Chief, California Zephyr, Empire Builder, Coast Starlight, Crescent, Texas Eagle, Capitol Limited, Lake Shore Limited and the City of New Orleans  will run five days a week instead of daily.

The Silver Meteors daily service was also slashed until March 27, although the Silver Star, Palmetto, Auto Train, Cardinal and Sunset Limited trains will not experience any service reductions.

Empire State Passengers Association (ESPA) President Gary Prophet said two round trips between Albany and New York City were trimmed, and the one daily train from New York to Chicago will operate just five days a week.

That's a little difficult for people trying to make travel plans to Chicago or in the case of people traveling (a) longer distance, making connections from Chicago out west, he said.

An Amtrak spokesperson said despite 97 percent of employees being fully vaccinated, several hundred onboard crew members have been impacted by infections or exposure.

We anticipate that COVID-related impacts to staffing will continue to impact parts of Amtraks network and the availability of our fleet in the near term as the surge of omicron cases impacts the nation, the spokesperson wrote to the Times Union in an email.

As conditions improve, Amtrak hopes to restore the services. In the interim, impacted customers are to be offered same-day travel alternatives or re-accommodation within one day of their original departure dates at either no charge or with a full refund, the spokesperson noted.

Prophet said if Amtrak sticks to its word and revives those lost services in April, he doesnt anticipate itll hurt ridership too much.

It will just make it a little less convenient for the existing passengers who do rely on the train to New York, they just won't have as much flexibility, he said, noting that Amtrak users will likely need to depart to and from the New York City a little earlier.

While Amtrak had to pare down services, the Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) hasnt had to make as drastic a change.

CDTA Chief Executive Officer Carm Basile said while employees sustained a high number of positive cases in January, the authority managed maintain its services.

Not a month goes by where there isnt some modification or change brought about by this new era that we live in, he said. We make lots of changes daily, but we're able to maintain our full complement of service.
Rick Karlin/Times Union

ALBANY  New York state utility regulators gave permission to National Grid on Thursday to raise electric and natural gas rates over the next three years.

The good thing is that the approved increases are well below the current rate of inflation, which is growing at 7 percent, raising prices on everything from gasoline to groceries.
The 1939 Worlds Fair held in Flushing Meadows, in the New York City borough of Queens, was the first to be held in New York State, and drew then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt of Hyde Park to kick off the massive, pre-WWII global event. But its an artifact from the fairs international exhibition that may very well have found a second life in the western Catskills.

More precisely, a grand wooden bar, including its mirrors and back bar, is rumored to have traveled to North Branch, a hamlet located in Callicoon in Sullivan County, after the fair. And today its still fulfilling its destiny as a spot for drinks and old yarns  including its own purported history  at the North Branch Inn.

The notion of the bar being from the 1939 Worlds Fair is more steeped in regional folklore than official textbook fact, says Sims Foster, founder of Foster Supply Hospitality, which owns and operates the North Branch Inn. But its still quite a tale.

What we understand is that there were actually several bars that were packed up from the Worlds Fair after it was over and moved to Sullivan County. And one of them was ours, says Foster, who added that Sullivan County historian John Conway estimates there being as many as three former Worlds Fair bars in the county.

The story thats been passed down, as Foster retells it, is that there was an immense amount of labor needed to build out the Worlds Fair, which attracted some 44 million guests, including King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and other dignitaries. Organizers recruited workers from counties north of New York City, including from Sullivan, to help with the construction of pavilions and futuristic exhibits needed for the fair, whose theme was The World of Tomorrow.

Once the fair was over, the workers were hired to disassemble what they had built. And rather than throw these bars away, they brought them up and sold them to the local hotels, Foster explains, noting that during this period Sullivan County was at the end of its Silver Era, a heyday during which farmhouses were expanded to become boarding houses in the region.

Sullivan County was about to enter its Golden Era, which was marked by the big resort hotels. So the story goes that these bars ended up in some small hotels, he says.

As a child, Foster recalls hearing that a bar from the Worlds Fair was in a hotel on Lake Jefferson outside of Jeffersonville, located in the western reaches of Sullivan County.

It  like so many of the Silver Era hotels  was lost to fire in the 1990s. So if this legend is true, our little bar might be the last remaining one that was given a second life in Sullivan County.

Foster notes that during the 1950s, the top of the bar was either covered up or expanded. We know the bar was a lot longer when the prior owner to us bought the building, and she dismantled the bar and uncovered parts of the original, says Foster.

The tin roof and walls in the North Branch Inn, per Foster, are all original to the 1868 building. The original tin was salvaged and the best pieces of the bar taken from several separate locations on the property and reassembled in one place: the bar room.

Another unique historical element about this North Branch hotel? Its bowling alley.

Another story of luck and reclamation, says Foster, who notes that bowling alleys were an American obsession in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when they were ubiquitous in bars and inns.

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Back then, of course, the bowling alleys were hand set, meaning there was a Pin Boy (or maybe girl) that sat at the end of the lanes and reset the pins by hand and rolled the ball back through a brilliantly engineered wooden return, he explains. When these hand-set lanes went out of fashion in the middle of the century, they were mostly ripped up as the wood was valuable.

As it turns out, past teams at the inn simply covered up the lanes with a raised floor, to create an area for square dancing and other dance parties. Finding the lanes virtually untouched under this floor was really special, says Foster. We believe that our two lanes are some of a few remaining original, in-place, hand-set lanes in America.

While its impossible to confirm the rumors that FDR nursed a tipple at North Branch Inn, Andrew Evans, North Branch Inn's bar manager, is grateful to tend bar at a spot with such a storied background.

As far as the bar contributing to the inn, I think its the strongest focal point to the property. Its the first thing you see when walking up to the building. Its impossible not to notice right away the history that it carries, he says.

These days, Evans likes serving up his favorite cocktail  one that he created on a whim  called a Midnight Manor. [Its] inspired by one of our servers, Don, and his band's latest album title. The deep purple color, matched with the sophisticated rollercoaster of taste, seemed very fitting for the name, he says.

Made with a blend of lime, Chartreuse, and the juice from apples, strawberries, and beets with a generous flip of gin, the cocktail may very well teleport you back to the end of the Jazz Age, and this bars alleged genesis.
CATSKILL  A former Greene County assistant public defender pleaded guilty to felony assault Tuesday, avoiding trial on an attempted murder charge.

Anthony Pastel had been indicted for attempted murder related to an assault in 2020, but Tuesday's plea deal plea knocked down the charges, leaving him with a potential sentence of between 2 and 7 years.

Pastel was arrested on Aug. 4, 2020, after a "serious assault" in the village of Athens, according to State Police.

Pastel assaulted an adult victim with a deadly weapon and choked the victim in front of a child, according to the charges.

Pastel left the scene, then was pulled over by police, who found he was inebriated, leading to a driving while intoxicated charge, according to State Police spokesman Steven Nevel.

He was additionally charged with felony assault, felony strangulation and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child, according to State Police.

Nevel said he did not know what kind of weapon was used in the assault, but the injuries were serious enough to send the victim to Albany Medical Center by ambulance.

Pastel was arraigned on the charges by Catskill Justice William Jacobs, who set bail at $250, according to State Police, a sum that was quickly posted.

Pastel was indicted by a Greene County grand jury on attempted second-degree murder, second-degree assault, and child endangerment charges in November 2020, according to Pastel's attorney, Lee Kindlon of Albany. Bail was set at $25,000 cash or bond, which Pastel posted.

Tuesday's plea bargain, made before Rensselaer County Judge Debra Young, drops the attempted murder and child-endangerment charges.

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Pastel began working as an assistant public defender for Greene County in May 2019, according to his oath of office. He had previously been an assistant public defender in Columbia County.

Kindlon stated Friday that a sentence had not been promised when the Greene County District Attorney's Office allowed Pastel to plead to the lesser charge.

"[Pastel] wanted to admit guilt and accept responsibility for his actions, and we believe that, at sentencing, along with evidence of all of the good he has done in the world, he intends to offer a full and unchecked statement of remorse and sorrow for all the pain he has caused," Kindlon added.

Pastel will also likely lose his law license, Kindlon added.

Greene County District Attorney Joseph Stanzione did not immediately return calls for comment.
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SARATOGA SPRINGS  Equal justice under the law is not something Black people enjoy in Saratoga County: That's the argument an attorney made in city court in defense of his client on Thursday.

Attorney Kevin Luibrand was seeking to have disorderly conduct charges against activist Jamaica Miles, who is Black, dismissed when he implied the district attorney's office is racially biased. He cited the example of another of his clients, Molly Dunn, a white woman who was arrested and faced the same charge stemming from the same incident  a July 14, 2021, protest in the city where cars were blocked on Broadway for nearly nine minutes.

While the district attorney's office agreed to drop the criminal charge of unlawful imprisonment and grant Dunn a 30-day adjournment in contemplation of dismissal (ACOD), the office doesnt want to do the same for Miles. Assistant District Attorney Joe Frandino said his office will only drop the misdemeanor charge of imprisonment but wants Miles to plead guilty to disorderly conduct.



What is the difference?" Luibrand asked in front of Judge Francine Vero in a hearing. Molly is white, Jamaica is not.

Frandino argued that Miles treatment is as standard as it gets and that what he described as a request to dismiss charges because she is championing a certain political position  was an extremely slippery slope.

This has not been, from the onset, a one-size-fits-all approach, said Frandino, who has prosecuted all 13 arrested in connection with the July 14 protest. All 13 received an individual, independent analysis by our office of their culpability. We watched the videos. We looked at the photographs. We listened to the 911 phone calls, diligently gathered and preserved by law enforcement. All 13 received an offer that was appropriate.

A video of traffic on Broadway being blocked that was shown in court depicts Dunn, not Miles, standing in front of the car carrying a man who wanted to get home to take his heart medication. The man called 911, and that became the basis of the charges of unlawful imprisonment filed by Saratoga Springs police.

Dunn testified at the hearing, identifying herself second-by-second in the video frames in front of the car.

The video also showed that Miles did not appear in front of the car for nearly four minutes after the car was stopped. At that point, she took a bullhorn, speaking out against Saratoga Springs Assistant Police Chief John Catone who, just two weeks earlier, said he was going to use his familys deep local ties to end what he termed a "narrative" that city police are racists.

When Frandino questioned Dunn, he implied she was testifying to help out Luibrand, who secured her December deal with prosecutors.

Luibrand showed aerial shots of the protesters and the cars they blocked from moving along Broadway. Miles was on the sidewalk in one photo and crossing another street in a second.

At no point did Jamaica stop those cars, Luibrand said. She comes upon a scene that was already there.

He also emphasized that when the man in the car said he needed to get home for his heart medications, the protesters let him through.

Who is harmed? he asked Who is injured? Whose life is changed by what we just saw? Nobody."

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

Luibrand also mentioned that Miles, like Dunn, has no criminal record. However, Miles is also a single mother of four, a community volunteer and a member of the Schenectady City School board.

Shes a good person, Luibrand said. She has a good character, strong and deep.

Frandino bristled at the accusations that his office is racially biased.

The insinuation that in any way my decision of appropriateness in this case was racially based is wildly (wrong), he said. Eight other people of color also got an ACOD.

However, only Dunn got the 30-day ACOD.

How do we walk out and say we achieved justice if the white girl who stood in front of the car gets a dismissal and a 30-day ACOD and the Black girl who comes later and doesnt block the car with the same record is told we are going to prosecute you for imprisonment of people in the car and disorderly conduct?," Luibrand said. "And if you want a deal, plead guilty to the offense of disorderly conduct.

Vero said she will issue a decision on the dismissal within days.
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Capital Region lawmakers are asking Gov. Kathy Hochul to reconsider a key part of her expansive plan to revitalize the State University System of New York.

Hochul's executive budget calls for University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University to be designated as flagship schools for the sprawling public university system, effectively elevating them above SUNY's slightly smaller research institutions in Albany and Binghamton.

Assemblymembers Patricia Fahy and John McDonald III and state Sen. Neil Breslin, in a letter to the governor and legislative leaders and SUNY officials, argue that University at Albany and Binghamton University should also have flagship status, raising the total number of SUNY flagships to four.

All four institutions are R1 schools, referring to the highest research activity classification in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

While the details of this proposed designation may still be under discussion, the outlines of the proposal suggest that UAlbany could be put at a great disadvantage in terms of the kinds of funding and flexibility  and the resulting enrollment and research increases that would be provided only to the flagships," the legislators wrote. "Part of the power of SUNY rests in the geographic coverage and differentiation of its four Carnegie R1 research institutions, and such a hierarchy would upset this important balance.

The governor's office notes that in addition to being classified R1 universities, University at Buffalo and Stony Brook are among 66 in the United States and Canada recognized as leading research institutions by the Association of American Universities.

To transform SUNY Stony Brook and SUNY Buffalo into "world-class" institutions, Hochul envisions setting an annual research funding goal of $1 billion each by 2030. The state will also provide roughly $100 million to each institution to construct new academic buildings.

University at Albany and Binghamton University will be seen as "nation-leading" research and teaching universities, with an annual research goal of $500 million.

Hochul's plan would also bring SUNY Polytechnic Institute's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) back under the University at Albany where it originated  something UAlbany officials and local lawmakers have advocated for years.

The lawmakers wrote they fully support that part of the plan, which they say "will open new avenues for cutting-edge research that will bring SUNY and New York exactly the kind of global distinction your initiatives aim to generate."

Binghamton University also gets something in the SUNY overhaul. The governor's budget allocates $40 million for the university to host BATTERY-NY, a technology development and manufacturing center to "support the Southern Tier economy by developing the advanced manufacturing of batteries for clean energy technologies that will transform the transportation, military, and energy sectors."

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

CNSE, also known as the NanoCollege, was created by Alain Kaloyeros, a former UAlbany professor. The glass-and-steel computer chip manufacturing research center was absorbed by SUNY Polytechnic Institute when former Gov. Andrew Cuomo tapped Kaloyeros to recreate the institution as a state-operated research facility at the Utica-based college. Kaloyeros was eventually convicted in a federal bid-rigging and wire fraud case involving two real estate developers who were top donors to the former governor and then sentenced to prison.

To realize the next phase of its growth, CNSE needs the support and backing of a multi-disciplinary university with robust administrative and research infrastructure, the lawmakers said. UAlbany has longstanding strength and investment in these areas.

They point to the recent opening of UAlbany's Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurship Complex, or ETEC, a $180 million-square-foot facility focused on climate science, environmental and sustainable engineering, and emergency preparedness.

"Imagine the possibilities for seamless collaboration with CNSE," the letter reads.

They note that 40 percent of UAlbanys undergraduates are Black or Latino, making it the most diverse research university in the SUNY system and one of the most diverse public research institutions in the nation.

A representative for the governor's office said university stakeholders will have a voice in the SUNY overhaul. The final plan will have many components, including increasing enrollment, increasing faculty, streamlining financial aid, increasing access and equity.

Flagships and their determination are just one part of the overall plan for SUNY. There is no demotion of any institutions, and the Governor looks forward to working with the legislature, all SUNY institutions and its students, faculty and other community stakeholders to further develop SUNY into a world-class institution, Hochul spokeswoman Madia Coleman said.
CLIFTON PARK  Recently reelected Niskayuna Town Board member John Della Ratta pleaded guilty to two minor motor vehicle and traffic violations stemming from his arrest late last year on a drunken driving charge in Saratoga County, according to his attorney and court staff.

Della Ratta, an attorney with the public defenders office who is also in private practice, pleaded guilty Thursday before Clifton Park Justice Robert Rybak to moving from a lane unsafely and refusing to take a breath test when he was pulled over shortly after 7 p.m. Sept. 27 on Route 146 by a sheriffs deputy.

A court clerk said Della Rattas blood alcohol content was listed in court papers as 0.06%. The legal limit in New York is 0.08%.

On Thursday Della Ratta referred questions to his attorney Patrick Campion, who emphasized that the driving while intoxicated charge his client had faced was unwarranted based on the (blood alcohol content).

The law provides that if its more than 0.05% and less than 0.07%, thats actually prima facie evidence that the person was not intoxicated, so basically the peoples own evidence establishes under the law that John was not intoxicated, Campion said. If prosecutors across the state are going to argue that judges and juries can and should rely on the chemical test evidence when its over 0.08% ... then by that same token, I would say that justice requires that they must also rely on the chemical test if its under the legal limit.

The plea agreement also stipulates that Della Ratta get an alcohol assessment, comply with any recommendations and pay nearly $500 in fines. Campion said the assessment that was done did not recommend treatment.

Campion said the breath test is the roadside one that is primarily utilized by police to determine and build probable cause for the arrest and that his client subsequently agreed to the chemical test back at the station.

At the time of his October arrest by the Saratoga County Sheriffs Office  a month before he narrowly won reelection - Della Ratta, a Democrat, was charged, in addition to the two violations he ultimately admitted to in court, with the more serious offenses of driving while intoxicated, illegal signal from a parked position and driving while ability impaired by the consumption of alcohol.

When his arrest came to light, Della Ratta, 55, issued a public apology to his family, colleagues and Niskayuna residents for bringing negative attention to our wonderful town."

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

In that statement, Della Ratta said that he would not make any excuses for what happened, pledged I must and will do better, and asked that I be presumed innocent until I have my day in court given the blood alcohol level alleged is well below the level for driving while intoxicated under New York state laws.

Della Ratta and his father, also a longtime lawyer, make up the family-owned Della Ratta law office in Schenectady. The younger Della Ratta also works as a part-time public defender in Schenectady County.

After absentee ballots were counted, Della Ratta edged out a fellow incumbent Town Board member, Democrat Denise Murphy McGraw, in November to win another term on the council.




Courtesy ECOS: the Environmental Clearinghouse of Schenectady and the Upper Union Neighborhood Association

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SCHENECTADY  The city of Schenectady, like many municipalities, is swimming in federal bailout money.

Among the projects submitted for a chunk of funding is a proposal to transform the former Central Park casino building into an environmental education center.

ECOS: the Environmental Clearinghouse of Schenectady and the Upper Union Neighborhood Association have submitted a proposal to the city for funding to bring the building back to a serviceable condition.

The applicants are seeking $100,000 from the city.

The city of Schenectady received $53 million in federal funds, with payout carved into two $26 million installments. The city has spent roughly $14 million to date, including $8.9 million to make up for lost revenue and $4 million to hire for positions that went unfilled in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

The city is also eyeballing spending at least $3 million for a new pool at Central Park.

If funded, the Iroquois Lake Environmental Education Center would become a self-sustaining net-zero project, producing all the energy it uses onsite, according to project documents.

Upper Union Neighborhood Association President Tom Carey said the project is in the early stages. "It's a preliminary proposal," he said.

Before falling into disrepair, the brick building served as a seasonal restaurant.

Vacant for the past 10 years, the building has suffered damage from vandalism and neglect but appears to be structurally sound and is ideal as a base for ECOS' programming, the Upper Union Neighborhood Association wrote in their newsletter on Thursday.

The site, which is located on the shore of Iroquois Lake, will serve as headquarters for ECOS and as the base for their youth education programs. The park itself would be a living laboratory for field work, serving hundreds of area youth each year  including students from Central Park Middle School, which is located within walking distance of the facility.

Racial equity will play a central role in the center's mission. Low-income households and people of color in Schenectady suffer negative health impacts at a much higher rate than the population at large, applicants wrote in their proposal. And environmental hazards in areas most severely impacted by the pandemic are a "significant" contributing factor to these negative health outcomes.

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

While the project will serve youth from all parts of the city and county, the center will target youth living in federally determined "qualified census tracts" adjacent to the park.

At present, ECOS utilizes office space in the Niskayuna Community Center. The organization is also exploring the possibility of teaming up with the Schoharie River Center, which provides outdoor environmental programming for youth in Schenectady parks.

Carey envisions installing solar panels on the roof, and planners will research tapping into opportunities offered by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Neighborhood leaders also hope city-awarded stimulus funds could be used, in part, to bolster ailing park infrastructure, including walkways, bridges and access roads.

Some of the remaining $12 million in federal funds will be allocated to community applicants. The city received roughly 70 requests for American Rescue Plan Act funding totaling about $75 million.

City Council will vote on Monday to create a civilian committee tasked with weighing which projects will be funded. Neighborhood associations will also advise the process, City Council President Marion Porterfield said on Thursday.

If funding is provided in a "timely manner," the applicants said bids could be awarded so that construction would begin on June 1 with an estimated completion date of Oct. 28, 2022.
New York has a solid-waste management problem that has been dumped on the Finger Lakes for too long, and it is time for Gov. Kathy Hochul to implement a solid-waste plan that no longer puts the burden of New Yorks trash on Seneca Falls.

Seneca Meadows Landfill (SMI) is New York states largest landfill, drawing 6,000 tons of waste a day from 47 New York counties, five other states and Canada. It produces 100,000 gallons of leachate daily. Leachate containing PFAS  per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances  cannot be remediated and is deposited in our waterways.

Despite a state Department of Environmental Conservation permit that would close SMI in 2025, and a local law that determines landfill closure in 2025, SMI is seeking an extension to 2040, on a former toxic superfund site that would raise the garbage pile another 70 feet.

Located within three miles of every school in Seneca Falls and Waterloo, our children and teachers are exposed to airborne particulates and unseen gases contributing to increased respiratory illnesses, asthma, and migraine headaches.

A request for expansion of this trash heap is a slap in the face for the people and sustainable businesses in the region. With the states new Solid Waste Management Plan in its final stages, the timing is right for strong leadership to take a stance and preserve the Finger Lakes as an area where families will want to raise children, businesses can thrive, and tourists will come to enjoy.

As the owner of Waterloo Container, employing 100 people, I have invited wine and beverage companies to expand their businesses here and grow with us. All cited the landfill as a determining factor to expand elsewhere. Other sustainable industries like BonaDent, which employs 200 people, are experiencing similar hardships in recruiting new hires.

New York state needs to find an alternative for its solid-waste problems other than trucking it to the Finger Lakes. Weve got a mountain, literally, of trash at the gateway to the region, and while its easy to consider it a local issue, were getting sick  figuratively and, for some, literally  of taking the burden of New York states garbage.

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Hochul must hold the line by directing DEC to honor its original terms for closure of SMI by 2025 and stop this assault on our air and water. Seneca Falls should be recognized as the birthplace of womens rights, not home of the largest landfill in the Northeast.

Bill Lutz of Seneca Falls is the founder of Waterloo Container.
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ALBANY  Transcripts released Thursday by state Attorney General Letitia James' office reveal new details on the inner workings of ex-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's administration, as well as the methods used by the investigators enlisted by James last year to examine the spate of sexual harassment allegations against the former governor.

Here are some of the takeaways from the newly released witness interview transcripts:

Howard Zemsky

In alleging that investigators retained by James office were biased, Cuomo's attorney Rita Glavin has repeatedly pointed to testimony they received from the former chair and CEO of Empire State Development, New York's economic development agency.

Zemskys transcript details how his account of a key event concerning Cuomo shifted after Zemsky received a jarring text message from Lindsey Boylan, who became the first woman to publicly accuse the former governor of harassment.

Bolyan has alleged that in October 2017, during a flight on state aircraft, Cuomo suggested to Boylan, Lets play strip poker. At the time, Boylan was chief of staff at Empire State Development, where she worked with Zemsky.

After Boylan made the allegation in a Medium post in February, Zemsky and several other former Cuomo aides signed onto a public statement saying, We were on each of these October (2017) flights and this conversation did not happen.

But in July, when Zemsky spoke to investigators Joon Kim and Anne Clark, he recalled Cuomo making the strip poker comment to Boylan, and gave an account of the interaction.

Asked by investigators why his account had changed since his initial public statement in February, Zemsky said that later that day, Boylan had sent him a jarring, threatening message that made him think about it differently.

According to Zemsky, the message from Boylan was, "I can't wait to destroy your life, you s__ follower. He said it was written on the encrypted app Confide, which automatically deletes messages and does not allow for screen shots.

After getting Boylans message, Zemsky said he reviewed Boylans account of the incident and it now struck a note of familiarity. Initially, Zemsky said, hed had (no) recollection of any conversation about strip poker.

According to Glavin, Cuomos attorney, the investigators conducted an informal interview with Zemsky before his deposition, which was detailed in the transcript released Thursday. And according to notes of the informal interview obtained by Glavin, Zemsky stated that his relationship with Boylan had been "more than professional." In a news conference last week, Glavin suggested that relationship could have been the basis of Boylans alleged threat.

During the formal interview, Zemsky was not asked about the relationship. And Glavin says that Boylan was not asked by the investigators about her text message to Zemsky.

They never asked about it, and they didn't tell you about it in the final report accusing Cuomo of sexually harassing Boylan and others, Glavin said. And that tells you what this report is all about.

The attorney general's report, released Aug. 3, did not indicate what Boylan allegedly had texted to Zemsky, or mention anything about the nature of their relationship. But it did note that Zemsky had received a "threatening" text from Boylan.

An attorney for Boylan said last week that Cuomo was conducting a smear campaign and that the facts of the attorney general's report, and another released by the Assembly Judiciary Committee, speak for themselves.

John Maggiore

Maggiore left the administration in October 2020 and in June 2021 was appointed by Cuomo as a commissioner on the states Public Service Commission.

His initial reaction to Boylans accusation was I didnt believe them. ... They didnt seem credible to me.

Maggiore said it was Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi who pushed for the development of a statement from staffers that claimed Cuomo had never suggested playing strip poker on the plane with Boylan. He said he did not recall the strip poker comment, but said anything is possible."

Maggiore described Brittany Commissos groping allegation against Cuomo as physically violent.

Of Ana Liss allegations, including a photo with her and Cuomo: I was surprised that she felt uncomfortable. Well, I was surprised that she was saying at that time she felt uncomfortable about that.

Matthew McGrath

McGrath is the ex-husband of former Cuomo aide Alyssa McGrath, who told the New York Times in March that the former governor had stared at her body, made sexually suggestive comments and referred to her and other female aides in the office as "mingle mamas."

He told investigators "I don't have proof of this," but that his then-estranged wife, as well as Brittany Commisso, Lauren Grasso and another female aide engaged in a text chat that had been named "Cuomo's Hoes" (slang for "whores"). He added, "I wouldn't really know who came up with the name."

"My interpretation of Alyssa's relationship with the governor was that of complete respect, borderline adoration, and borderline attraction by her own words to me," he said.

He claimed Alyssa McGrath often talked about the governor's good looks and how many women adored him.

Prior to the publication of the New York Times article in March, McGrath testified his estranged wife called him and "asked me to have her back on this, ... It was like, 'Hey, I'm gonna say some stuff, you might know it's B.S., but can you keep your mouth shut?' And it wasn't in exact words, that was my interpretation of it, knowing what I know."

Larry Schwartz

The former secretary to the governor for Cuomo and a key member of the administration's coronavirus task force said "I don't recall" 131 times during his seven-hour interview with attorney general's investigators.

Schwartz didn't remember being on a call with Cuomo and others in March about the impeachment inquiry, or in being involved in a December 2020 response to Boylans allegations.

He denied penalizing counties, pharmacies or hospitals if they did not distribute the agreed-upon vaccine dosages. People were worried about being penalized, not because of Larry Schwartz, but because of what we said in the (memorandum of understanding) that they signed," he said.

Schwartz resigned as the administrations vaccine czar after the Legislature amended the governors executive order that volunteers like him would have to comply with the Public Officers Law disclosure requirements.

Anonymous staffer

An unidentified former Cuomo staff member testified there were a handful of times when other staff members cried over how they were treated in the chamber.

The staffer recalled instances when the former governor asked if they were married, and hugged and kissed them on the cheek during a New Years Eve party.

Michelle Del Rey, Brendan J. Lyons and Joshua Solomon contributed reporting.
ALBANY  Letizia Tagliafierro, a former top aide to then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo who later became his state inspector general, was the unnamed "high-level staff member" in the Executive Chamber who four years ago directed the State Police to bend the rules so that a young female trooper whom the governor met at an event could be appointed to his protective detail.

Tagliafierro's role in the matter was revealed Thursday when state Attorney General Letitia James' office released another tranche of transcripts from an investigation into allegations that Cuomo had sexually harassed or acted inappropriately with multiple women, including the trooper who went on to become one of his drivers.

In a deposition with the attorney general's investigators in June, Vincent Straface, a former commander of the governor's Protective Services Unit, confirmed that in late 2017 he had a conversation with Tagliafierro, who was then a special counsel to the governor, and informed her the female trooper and another member they wanted on the protective detail did not have enough time on the job to meet the minimum qualifications.

"And then she said she would discuss that with the (State Police) superintendent, and that's where we left that," Straface testified.

Straface also revealed in his testimony that the governor and Tagliafierro were deeply involved in the hiring and promotional decisions of the protective detail  despite Cuomo, in his prior role as attorney general, having declared that governors should never meddle in the management of their protective details.

Straface's testimony about the reassignment of the female trooper  who last year accused Cuomo of touching her inappropriately and engaging her in inappropriate conversations  aligns with that of an unidentified senior investigator who had been instructed by Cuomo to arrange for the young female trooper to be offered a job on the detail, according to the attorney general's report issued in August.

The senior investigator, who was not identified in the report, told the attorney general's investigators that Cuomo in 2017 had inquired what happened to the trooper he had met at a ceremony at a New York City bridge; the investigator told the governor that the officer did not meet the minimum requirements for the position.

The report said the senior investigator "subsequently received a call from a high-level staff member within the Executive Chamber who instructed him to 'hire the female trooper from the bridge' and stated, with respect to the policy, 'we are making adjustments for her.'"

Top members of Cuomo's administration previously told the Times Union they were not certain who the high-level official was who had intervened to change the rules for the female trooper.

Tagliafierro was appointed inspector general by Cuomo in early 2019 and resigned in September, a month after Gov. Kathy Hochul was sworn into office following Cuomo's resignation. Tagliafierro, who worked for Cuomo when he was state attorney general, had previously served in another key watchdog role: executive director of the state's Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

Straface abruptly retired early last year with the rank of major. He had made a meteoric rise through the protective services detail after befriending Joseph Percoco, a former close aide and confidant to Cuomo who was recently released from federal prison after being convicted of corruption charges.

The Times Union previously reported that Percoco set the tone for Cuomo's control of the detail early in the governor's first term, when he ordered an end to the practice of keeping a trooper posted at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor of the mansion; after that, members of the unit were exclusively stationed outside the residence.

Under Cuomo, according to Straface's deposition, State Police also altered the name of the visitors' log for the Executive Mansion  at the direction of their division counsel  after receiving a Freedom of Information Law request for the records in 2017.

"I would love to keep track of everybody that comes and goes, but the (Executive) Chamber, even before my time, and I think even before, did not want to have records of people who were invited guests of the mansion," Straface testified.

During that same period, the administration also had instructed troopers guarding the mansion not to retain those visitors' records for more than 30 days.

Straface also disclosed that former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa had instructed troopers on the protective detail to stop sending "PIN" messages  akin to text messages  on their Blackberry mobile phones detailing when she and other top members of the administration were arriving at or leaving the governor's mansion.

But the former acting major of the detail testified its members were tasked with knowing the whereabouts of everyone at the mansion and near the governor, so they would send the messages anyway.

Straface joined the State Police in 1999 and was assigned to the governor's protective service detail about 18 years ago when Gov. George E. Pataki was in office. He later worked on the detail for governors Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson, and continued that work under Cuomo.

He told the attorney general's investigators last year that Cuomo's campaign office, which is separate from the government office, had insisted he use his personal email account to receive details about the former governor's political events and fundraisers. He said the campaign officials were "difficult" to deal with, but that his job was to make sure the governor had protection wherever he went.

When asked by the investigators why the campaign did not want him to receive the political event details on his government email account, Straface said: "Honestly I don't know. I asked them to send it to my troopers e-mail because I don't want it to go to my personal e-mail. But they insisted that it's political; it's political and they wanted to keep it separate."

"The campaign is a nightmare for us to deal with because they don't communicate with us; we get the information the last minute and then we have to jump through hoops to try to figure out who from the campaign is the lead," Straface continued. "The people who are leading it think that they don't need to communicate with anybody or share information or answer their phones."

In October, the State Police shook up the leadership of the special unit that's assigned to protect the governor's office and assigned Maj. Douglas Larkin, who oversaw the agency's New York City troop, to take over the embattled unit.

A State Police spokesman later confirmed that Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen had directed that a high-ranking commissioned officer, Staff Inspector Jennifer H. Gottstine, oversee structural changes to the unit and that permanent-rank commissioned officers would take over the command staff.

The Times Union reported in August that Cuomo's administration, including the State Police, had given misleading statements to the newspaper in December 2020 about the governor's request to have the young female trooper that he found attractive appointed to his protective detail in 2018.

Cuomo's meddling through the years in the work and promotional decisions within the unit, which included transferring members of the unit who crossed him or pushing for promotions for those he liked, was detailed in an Aug. 21 Times Union story.
UKi Media & Events, the organiser of Tire Technology Expo (and publisher of Tire Technology International) has announced new dates for this years show in Hannover.

The 2022 edition of Tire Technology Expo will now take place on May 18, 19, 20 (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) at the Deutsche Messe, Hannover, Germany.

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Due to the current rapid escalation of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 throughout Europe, Tire Technology Expo is being postponed by six weeks and will now be held on May 18, 19, 20, 2022 in Hannover at the Deutche Messe exhibition centre in Halls 19/20/21, as in former years and in accordance with the original plans for 2022, explained Tony Robinson, CEO and show founder, UKi Media & Events.

We are making the change in order to ensure a safe, comfortable, confident and productive event for all in 2022. Our aim is to enable delegates, speakers and all participants, including exhibitors, to enjoy the show in the early summer when many of the complications associated with Covid-19 are less impactful. Based on everything we have seen in the last two years, a lower risk of Covid-19 transmission in the warmer months is the most significant benefit of the six-week postponement, along with easier travel and hopefully no requirement for mask wearing or other restrictions, he continued.

While all changes to schedules are annoying, this decision is being made to create the best overall experience for our global community. As always, along with the entire team behind this world-class show, I remain totally committed to ensuring its success and benefits for all as Europes once-a-year, all-embracing tire design and tire manufacturing showcase.

Please visit the event website for further information and to register for your free fast-track entry code.
The Pointe Executive Director Angela Proper folds a blanket for a cot in The Pointes library room. The Pointe offers a warming center in Oil City whenever the temperature drops below 25 degrees.
A superload is pictured in Elk County. It is currently making its way across the state, passing through area counties along the way.
Forgive this quickie posts wherein we start with a bit of government largess at this late stage of the pandemic.



And then we gather a great deal of the dire COVID news that continues to pile up . . . Check the TKC collection . . .



Roeland Park to distribute 3,000 free KN-95 masks by: Sydnie Holzfaster Posted: / Updated: ROELAND PARK, Kan. - The city of Roeland Park is offering residents a chance to receive free KN-95 masks. Anyone interested in receiving masks must fill out an online form and submit it to the city. The city has secured 3,000 masks to distribute on a first come, first serve basis.

62 Missouri school districts temporarily closed in January JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - So far in January, 62 Missouri school districts have closed for one or more days, largely because of a lack of staff caused by a surge in COVID-19 cases, education officials said Thursday. That number is 12% of districts statewide, said Mallory McGowin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Jackson County health director warns COVID-19 is worse than ever: 'Things are not OK' The COVID-19 situation in Jackson County is looking "dire." That's according to a that the county health department released to the public late last week, saying the pandemic is now disrupting critical infrastructure in the region, like hospitals and schools. The health department sent the letter, said interim director Ray Dlugolecki, because the pandemic is the worst it's ever been.

Police union lawyer: Suspect freed after positive COVID test ST LOUIS - A domestic assault suspect was freed from jail after testing positive for COVID-19, despite being deemed dangerous enough that prosecutors wanted him held without a chance of bail, the attorney for the St. Louis Police Officers Association said. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the 36-year-old man was released on Jan.

Kansas City area ICUs nearly full as hospitals struggle to help unvaccinated patients KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- Missouri is sitting at a 53-percent vaccination rate, one of the lowest in the country, as Kansas City area hospitals are struggling to keep up care for COVID patients, most of whom are unvaccinated. This situation is getting national attention, with CBS News visiting St.

Park Hill warns of closures while others go remote by: Heidi Schmidt Posted: / Updated: KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Park Hill School District warned parents it may need to cancel school because of the number of teachers and staff who are sick. The district emailed parents and guardians of students Thursday. In the email, the district said that more than 200 employees were out sick.

Kansas City teen says COVID-19 long-haul journey further fuels passion for medical career A student at Bishop Miege High School is sharing her experience after recovering from severe COVID-19 long-haul symptoms. KMBC 9 spoke with the freshman about how it's further fueling her passion for a career in medicine.

Developing . . .


For late night lurkers, readers, insomniacs and all manner of light owls we gather this collection of news on police action, traffic reports, alleged misdeeds, just a bit of politics and a few law enforcement requests for community help . . .

Check the TKC collection . . .



KCPD investigates after 2 shot near 72nd Terrace and Cleveland Kansas City police said they are investigating after two people were shot Thursday night near 72nd Terrace and Cleveland Avenue.Police said officers were called to the area just after 10 p.m. and found the two victims.Authorities said one victim has critical injuries. The second victim suffered non-life-threatening injuries.No other details were released.

KCPD investigates death near Independence & Gladstone Blvds. Kansas City, Mo., Police Department (KCPD) officers are on the scene of a death investigation at the Olivia Apartments in the 500 block of Gladstone Thursday morning. Witnesses discovered an unresponsive person outside next to a stone retaining wall. KCPD was notified and dispatched officers At a little after 7am.

Independence police looking for pickup truck, driver following shooting near highway INDEPENDENCE, MO (KCTV) -- The Independence Police Department is looking for a vehicle and driver in connection with a shooting that happened near Highway 40 earlier today. According to the IPD, the vehicle is a black or dark green early 2000s Chevrolet pickup truck.

Driver has life-threatening injuries after rollover crash at 45th and Prospect KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Kansas City, Missouri police are investigating a single-vehicle crash that left one woman with life-threatening injuries. The crash was reported just before 6 p.m. at 45th Street and Prospect Avenue. Police said the driver of a silver Ford Escape was traveling south on Prospect, at a very high rate of speed, in the center turn lane.

Kansas City man charged in armed robbery that led to 5-vehicle crash, injured 4 people KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A Kansas City, Missouri, man faces four charges related to an armed robbery that led to a police pursuit , which resulted in a five-vehicle crash that injured four people on Wednesday. Steven E.

Suspect shot by US Marshal's task force in Kansas City appears in court KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The fugitive wounded by a member of the U.S Marshal's task force appeared in federal court Thursday. FOX4 learned more about why the U.S. Marshal's task force was looking for DeAnthony Tanner in the first place. At the Federal Courthouse in downtown Kansas City, Tanner had his first appearance and preliminary hearing.

Man facing charges for allegedly killing roommate in Raytown JACKSON COUNTY, MO (KCTV) -- A 22-year-old man has been charged with murder for allegedly killing his roommate in Raytown yesterday. According to the prosecutor's office, Felix C.O. Beighley-Beck of Raytown has been charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action. According to court records, Raytown police went to the 9200 block of E.

Independence man charged with murder in deadly shooting by: Brian Dulle Posted: / Updated: INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - An 18-year-old Independence, Missouri man has been charged in connection with the Jan. 13, 2022 deadly shooting of 38-year-old Timothy Phillips. Brayden A. Stone was charged Thursday with second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon, and two counts of armed criminal action, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.

Missouri Senate candidate says Congress members should go to jail if guilty of insider trading Democratic Missouri Senate candidate Lucas Kunce on Thursday reiterated his support for banning members of Congress and their immediate family members from trading stocks, saying they should face jail time if they are found to be guilty of insider trading. Last week, senators introduced two bills - one from Democratic Sens.

Family of pedestrian killed in KCFD Westport crash files wrongful death lawsuit KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A second wrongful death lawsuit has been filed in connection to the Westport crash involving a Kansas City, Missouri, Fire Department pumper truck last December . The family of Tami Knight is suing the city and the driver of the pumper truck.

Hopefully, we'll have more for the morning update . . . STAY TUNED!!!


Medical scarcity amid the pandemic has inspired a political power move from some of the most prolific activists in Kansas City.

Whilst sharing blood is the new hotness amongst the young folks along with admitting that marriage is just another form of torture, it's understandable that the gift of life makes some people a bit squeamish.

Nevertheless . . .

Here's a nice gesture just in time for Valentine's Day . . .

Any type of restrictions are still an act of discrimination against a group of people, said Justice Horn, Vice Chair of the KCMO LGBTQ Commission.

The restriction came out of the AIDS crisis of the 80s.

I think it upholds the idea and the stigma that people have -- not only the LGBTQ community at large but especially gay and bisexual men -- that their practices are unsafe, said Horn.

The FDA is conducting a study on possibly changing the policy, something Horn hopes happens.

I think when you are out there sounding the alarms for an emergency you cant be selective on what exactly that aid and that help looks like, said Horn.

However . . .

WE HOPE THAT SCIENCE AND NOT POLITICS GOVERNS MEDICAL DECISIONS ABOUT THE BLOOD SUPPLY!!!

On this topic the margin of error could be so devastating and dangerous, it's worth hurting people's feelings.

This is a longstanding debate and there are actually a lot of weird rules about donating blood . . . At one time locals who traveled to Europe weren't allowed to donate for a year because of Mad Cow disease fear.

Still we understand concerns about discrimination and the hope is that screening for safety would be so advanced that demographic pre-screening wouldn't be a factor . . . But for now that's still that case.

Moreover . . . Selectivity when we're talking about SAFETY for EVERYONE shouldn't be seen as an affront but merely something that serves the greater good

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com news link . . .

LGBTQ community wants to help during nationwide blood shortage JACKSON COUNTY, MO (KCTV) -- While many people around the country can just walk into a local blood donation center and give blood, members of the LGBTQIA+ community face an obstacle. Currently sexually active gay or bisexual men must abstain from sex for at least three months before they're allowed to donate blood.

Fun fact about the photo . . . That's a winter tribute to the Chiefs that turned out HORRIBLY WRONG not so long ago.

You decide . . .
Here's a peek at nice news that has saturated local outlets but it's still worth a mention . . .



The relevant deets and something to consider amid the upcoming budget debate now that the "defund" movement is a bad joke . . .



East Patrol Capt. Jennifer Jones saw flames erupting from a home near 25th & Prospect, and rushed to the door looking for anyone inside. Seeing a man trying to escape the burning house, Jones quickly pulled him to safety with minor burns. The two-alarm blaze was reported at roughly 8am this morning at 2500 block of Prospect.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com news links . . .

Kansas City police captain helps save man from burning building Police say East Patrol Capt. Jennifer Jones took quick action when she saw flames erupting from a home near 25th & Prospect. Jones was in the area Thursday morning when Kansas City, Missouri police say she helped save a man from the fire. KCPD says the captain rushed to the door looking for anyone inside.

KCPD Captain pulls man from burning house Some quick thinking and being in the right place at the right time may have saved a man's life this morning. East Patrol Capt. Jennifer Jones saw flames erupting from a home near 25th & Prospect, and rushed to the door looking for anyone inside.

Developing . . .
The political panty raid that shocked the nation proves difficult to overcome.

Btw, I think our blog community is FINALLY getting some traction on changing "insurrection" into something that's far more silly and politically incorrect. It's a stupid & futile gesture that deserves our full support.

But I digress . . .

Here's the background on yet another slap fight ahead for the Midterms . . .

By declaring the Jan. 6th riot an insurrection, some Democratic members of Congress and liberal activists hope to bar incumbent Republicans from running. Even support for court filings is now being declared an act of rebellion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) helped fuel this movement  before Jan. 6 even occurred  by declaring that the Republicans supporting election challenges were subverting the Constitution by their reckless and fruitless assault on our democracy which threatens to seriously erode public trust in our most sacred democratic institutions, and to set back our progress on the urgent challenges ahead.

More reading on this move . . .

And now, Missouri's MAGA heir apparent weighs in . . .

Democrats' loose talk of 'disqualification' still dangerous This year, the Biden administration joined many in the United States in criticizing the mass disqualification of 583 candidates in Iran by the Guardian Council. The Iranian elections (like elections in other countries like China and Venezuela) are democratic only in the most artificial sense: You can freely vote from a pre-selected list of candidates.

Take a look via www.TonysKansasCity.com news link/embed . . .

Developing . . .
This week we were reminded that the feds are still investigating Independence, MO politics.



Some readers think this will have a devastating impact of the future of Mayor Weir.



Nevertheless she doesn't seem fazed and has moved ahead of the fundraising battle despite her 2019 assurance that the feds weren't interested in her now seems to be something of a contradiction.



Take a peek or simply caption a worthwhile social media share she put on blast for loyal followers . . .



Here's a www.TonysKansasCity.com news link to a land deal gone wrong . . .

Medical marijuana and utility contracts: Records show continued FBI interest in Independence deals Federal law enforcement was still seeking information as recently as last summer about medical marijuana licensing in Missouri and utility contracts in Independence that have attracted FBI scrutiny for years. That's according to sworn deposition testimony from a Kansas City-area businessman that surfaced publicly last week.

And a more important note about her political cash stacks . . .

Independence incumbent Mayor Eileen Weir leads field in fundraising Seeking her third term as Independence mayor, Eileen Weir has raised and spent more than the combined totals from her challengers in a crowded primary field. Six candidates are on the ballot for the Feb. 8 primary election. The top two finishers will be on the ballot for the April 5 general election.

Developing . . .


Already we've noticed quite a few emotive screed on this tragedy.

For locals, it's important to understand some of the deets from the incident . . . Inasmuch as they'll be horribly misinterpreted by social media provocateurs.

The basics . . .

Cedric Lofton died Sept. 26. His death was ruled a homicide and its cause complications of cardiopulmonary arrest sustained after physical struggle while restrained in the prone position.

His family has demanded charges, but on Tuesday, Sedgewick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said no charges would be filed because of the states stand your ground law and because staff were defending themselves.

The debate over restraining tactics has obvious parallels to the George Floyd tragedy that set the nation on fire in 2020.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com news link . . .

Bodycam footage released of teen who died after being restrained at Wichita juvenile center Kansas officials released body camera footage Tuesday in the death of 17-year-old Cedric Lofton, a foster child who became unresponsive while being restrained facedown for more than 30 minutes at a Wichita juvenile center in September. The video appears to show officers taking Lofton to the center, returning after a medical emergency call and finding staff doing CPR.

Developing . . .
Brevard, NC (28712)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. Low 53F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Westmont Hilltop School District parents lined up at the end of Thursday's meeting to raise concerns they have with the board and administration's approach to safety  particularly, the choice to hire a school police officer instead of a school resource officer.
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Mark Bennett has reported and analyzed news from the Wabash Valley and beyond since Larry Bird wore Sycamore blue. That role with the Tribune-Star has taken him from Rome to Alaska and many points in between, but Terre Haute suits him best.

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(BPT) - A significant majority of parents want to be home every night to tuck their children into bed (based on a OnePoll and Amazon Glow survey of 2,000 American parents*). Thats not always possible if you work long hours or are among the more than six million Americans who have a job that
Well the full results are in for the Trinity Masters Open Waters Swim Meet and there's a new
Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it.





I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends.





More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it.





The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity.





About me:

I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS.

Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line).

Age: 42

Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed.





I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it).
Spain has sent warships to join NATO naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea as tension in the region rises over the Russian military build-up on the Ukrainian border.

Spain's Defense Minister Margarita Robles said this on Thursday, January 20, according to Reuters.

A mine-sweeper is already en route and a frigate will sail within three or four days, Robles told reporters. The Madrid government is also considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria, she said.

"Russia cannot tell any country what to do, so NATO will protect and defend the sovereignty of any country that can or wants to join NATO," Robles said.

Spain's preference was for an "exclusively diplomatic response" to resolving the conflict, she added.

The Spanish contribution to the NATO military deployment in Eastern Europe comes after Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed a coordinated response to the threat to Ukraine from Russia at a meeting in Washington on Tuesday.

Denmark said it was sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea this week and French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to send troops to Romania. Further troop decisions could be made as early as a NATO summit in Madrid in June, diplomats and officials said.

op
A massive buildup of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine has led to every Ukrainian facing a question of how to resist aggression in the event of a full-blown invasion. Therefore, the issue of territorial defense is of interest to ordinary Ukrainians mostly from a practical standpoint. Brigadier General Yuriy Halushkin, 50, the recently appointed TDF Commander, spoke with Ukrinform on a number of pressing issues, including the staffing of the Force, its armaments, responsibilities of its elements on the ground, action to be taken should Russia go forward with a military incursion, as well as what needs to be done to join.

THE TDF CORE HAS ALREADY BEEN FORMED ACROSS REGIONS

- On January 1, the Law on the fundamentals of National Resistance came into force. How do you assess the progress in the issue of shaping up the country's territorial defense?

- The mentioned law was published on June 17 last year, but came into force on January 1, 2022. So the formation of the Territorial Defense Force de facto kicked off January 1 and the presidential decree on my appointment was published on the Presidents Office website o at 00:01, I believe. From that moment on, we practically started to form territorial defense forces.

Of course, lots of preliminary measures had been taken ahead of that: staffing issues have been worked out, including as to the regional, brigade, and battalion-level commands, as well as on the location of units. Work is underway to ensure that these premises be properly handed over to us, which is a complicated issue as they are under different subordination  to Ministry of Education, health agencies, or local authorities. Now, for the past 15 days, weve been engaged in actually implementing this whole process. Officials are now being appointed, units are being staffed, their management system is being worked out, and equipment is being delivered.

However, we have rather short deadlines. Given the challenges and threats facing Ukraine, we focused primarily on the border sections with Russia and Belarus. We have 13 such regions. In general, the TDF consists of 25 territorial defense brigades. Theres a brigade for each region. Each region is designated as a territorial defense zone, as defined by law.

- So youre saying that the core of the TDF in these regions has already been formed, is that correct?

- The core has been formed, yes. Officials have been appointed and temporary locations for our bases have been designated. Depending on the number of districts in a given region, the required number of battalions has been formed in each brigade. There can be from four to 10 of those. For example, the Kyiv Brigade consists of 10 battalions. In some regions, theres six, in some theres eight. These battalions have also been formed, and now the recruitment process is under way. In the border regions, battalions and brigades are staffed by about 70%, while in the rest of the regions, theyll have been staffed by up to 70% by the end of next month.

- Are there any issues regarding their staffing, or is it purely a technical process? Perhaps it would be worth strengthening these efforts to expedite their formation?

- There are many components in the issue. The first aspect is the short period of TDF formation. We are forced to pursue this work as quickly as possible because, unfortunately, we dont know what Putin's up to. We see the buildup of forces on the border, we see that he didnt abandon his intentions.

Id like to note though, and this is very important, that the territorial defense system had existed before as part of the Land Forces, although it wasnt as large as it is now. That is, we arent creating it from scratch, were just significantly increasing its capabilities. After all, having such brigades and battalions in all regions, we can quickly replenish the TDF with reservists and become fully combat-ready.

Now, by the end of next month, we will have staffed all battalions and brigades by 70%, which is the minimum percentage required to successfully operate. The next issue is to ensure that weapons, ammo, and other equipment are properly stored at every battalion. The Russians are circulating fake stories claiming that the Territorial Defense Force is purely "infantry for the poor." Well, it's clear why theyre doing that. Thats because they understand how much the TDF deployment affects their combat potential and Russian soldiers morale.

Of course, there are some issues because have no permanent bases with proper barracks and arms depots with alarms, and so on. But once again Id like to note that the creation of an effective management system, on which we are currently working, the fact that battalion and brigade has its own territorial defense reserve, formed among local residents, the fact that the latter have been provided with body armor, helmets, and weapons  all this allows us to get more combat-ready units.

So its not that important today whether any restoration works were done in barracks. This will come later, but for now, our main task is to be ready for resistance, at the shortest possible notice.

- The most sensitive issue now is whether there are enough arms and whether they can be quickly distributed among soldiers in case the enemy suddenly crosses in. How is the issue of rapid arms supplies to the TDF being resolved?

- I absolutely understand your question, and it is quite logical. We will do it as quickly as possible. But weapons and ammunition are things you need to know how to store. That is, we can't just bring to a battalion a truck-full of automatic rifles, unload and pile them up, and not be able to protect them. Weapons and ammunition must be stored in a secure place. This requires special rooms that are properly equipped, including with alarms. We will have these soon. Meanwhile, theres a narrative being spread that we should just give citizens these weapons. But to store weapons at home, certain conditions must also be met.

- Sure, so, before handing out weapons, the issue must be regulated.

- Look, I wouldnt want anyone to operate these concepts unprofessionally. Before handing out weapons and ammo, the first step is to ensure that they are stored in battalions. That is, relatively speaking, a reservist from some nearby village comes to his battalion, receives his weapon and ammunition. But before that, wed already trained him so hes aware of his tasks, his unit, and his commander. And with that commander, or in his absence, he knows what site he has to defend or what other action he has to undertake. This significantly shortens the period of getting prepared for combat action.

- Perhaps you have some plans to turn to the Ministry of Information Policy to help you run a nationwide information campaign that would convey all these issues to the people?

- This is something the defense ministry has to deal with, so they are actively involved in this, providing information support for the relevant topic. The Commander of the Territorial Defense Forces is supposed to command the troops.

- Late last year, the Minister of Defense and the Commander-in-Chief issued a statement warning local authorities against seizing the initiative to set up TD headquarters. Perhaps you will explain whats the area of responsibility of local authorities, and where do the military men step in, so that no competition arises?

- This wont happen. The Minister of Defense of Ukraine made an absolutely correct remark. First, what is the Territorial Defense Headquarters? A few days ago, the Regulation was issued, which defines how its work is organized. The Chief of Staff of the Territorial Defense Zone is a military serviceman who reports to the Commander of the Territorial Defense Force. The law clearly stipulates that the Commander-in-Chief shall manage Territorial Defense through the TDF Commander. The headquarters of the territorial defense in any zone or district shall be managed by a brigade commander. And the zone of territorial defense is managed by the head of the regional state administration and the regional state administration, respectively, through the headquarters.

TDF HQ IS FORMED IMMEDIATELY

- If you have any information on this, could you say if these headquarters have already been formed across country or is the process still ongoing?

- The headquarters in the zones and districts of terrorist defense are permanent bodies. In a special period, they take up additional functions. And once martial law is introduced, a consolidated plan of territorial defense shall be implemented.

The HQ will include certain people, certain members representing all types of defense forces, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and local governments. In our legislation, all tasks and powers have been laid down. Therefore, there must be no competition here as military commanders manage the military component, while civilian leaders are in the lead of the civilian component, period.

- I would just like to understand at what stage is our society in the context of its readiness to resist the aggressor?

- We started off our conversation with the fact that the country's territorial defense didnt emerge January 1. It was deployed even earlier, and it all worked: there are territorial defense plans, while all law enforcement agencies have their tasks in terms of ensuring Ukraine's territorial defense. It's just that now it's moved to a new level, that's all  a new management system.

OUR DEMAND FOR FIREARMS AND AMMO IS 100% COVERED

- And what is the situation of the provision of TDF with weapons?

- Well, we are 100% equipped with small arms and ammunition. Our task is to make sure that we can start using these weapons and ammunition as quickly as possible.

- If possible, let's go back to 13 border areas. You said they are in the spotlight now?

- They are in the spotlight of not only the Commander-in-Chief, but the whole country, because everyone knows where Russian troops have been amassed  in Belarus, in the Russian regions bordering our territory, and also in Crimea.

- It seems that the Ukrainian society is careless about the threat of invasion.

- The situation is tense and, in my opinion, people feel it. Negotiations are currently under way at all levels with our partners  Britain, the United States, and the European Union  all are actively communicating, including with the Russian Federation

PLANS FOR AT LEAST FIVE BRIGADE-LEVEL TDF EXERCISES

- Have any joint exercises of the TDF and other Army units been scheduled?

- Joint exercises involving members of the Territorial Defense Forces have been scheduled. We will have at least five brigade-level drills involving mobilization of reservists who are part of these brigades. However, this is not enough. Among other things, we hold a lot of field training and leadership training events. In particular, we train communications operatives, mortar crews, anti-tankers, anti-aircraft gunners, as well as separately hold separate courses for leaders, including even brigade commanders. By the way, according to the decision of the Minister of Defense, we will hold meetings with the heads of regional state administrations and district state administrations.

- Are there any educational videos you plan to release or perhaps some memos for the population?

- Yes, there is a relevant group, and we are already working on it. We are talking about online training and courses. There are many organizations ready to provide support, including technical.

EVERYONE CAN JOIN TERRITORIAL DEFENSE

- I would like to dwell on more practical advice for our citizens. How can an average person join the TDF?

- All those willing to join the territorial defense force may do so. To this end, they have to

a) Come in and sign a contract for military service;

b) Sign the contract of a TDF reservist.

Both steps can be taken at the regional or district draft stations.

- Relatively speaking, if someone wants to join, they need to grab their passport and tax code and report to the enlistment office?

- If they wish to serve as part of a battalion or brigade, they come to the commander for an interview before reporting to the recruitment center. Next, they have to pass a physical, their papers get done, ant then they put on their uniform and serve their country. Another thing is when people become TDF reservists. Its those who can be mobilized in the event of open aggression or another contingency. In other words, a TDF reservist lives and works in a district where he serves, and he knows that in the event of a threat, once he is mobilized, he will serve in the battalion located in the area where he lives to protect his home and family.

- Is it possible to streamline physicals, to run them right at the recruitment centers?

- The health of any serviceman or future serviceman is a very important aspect. We need to examine their condition, determine whether they are able to perform tasks so its absolutely logical and normal. Passing a physical and drawing up paperwork does take a certain amount of time.

Another point I would like to draw attention to is informing the population properly. People dont quite understand what it is like to be a reservist with the TDF. How often will he be involved in the meeting, and if so, will his job be retained, will it all be paid for, how often will it all happen? Does he have to come every Saturday for classes? There are many moments here.

IF AGGRESSION IS FULL-BLOWN, WE SHOULD DEFEND OUR COUNTRY, NOT JUST OUR CITY

- By the way, there were discussions that the TDF could be transferred from their home territories to some other areas. Is it true or not, or will they still stay in place?

- When the war with Russia began in 2014, territorial defense battalions were formed at a very short notice. In each region, such a battalion was formed and, according to the decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, these battalions were sent to the frontline from different regions. And they fought powerfully, with dignity. Then they were transformed into separate motorized infantry battalions and became part of our combat brigades, battalions that are part of mechanized brigades.

- So how will it go down?

- Now, if the battalions of territorial defense are formed, they are designed to perform tasks defined by law in their zones and areas of territorial defense. If other tasks have to be performed or the situation changes, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine may make the necessary decision.

- And what should be the number of defense forces for a large city or small towns?

- It is determined that in every city with a population of over a million, there must be a territorial defense brigade. That's how it is, we have five such cities  Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Kharkiv, and, of course, the capital of Ukraine. In Kyiv, the brigade has been fully deployed. Its the brigade and 10 battalions.

- How will they be defending the city in case of aggression? Will it stand on city perimeters, protect critical infrastructure, be engaged on the front line, or used in offensive operations?

- Offensive operations are surely off the table. When it comes to outrifht aggression, it's about defense, not offensive, so that's the first thing. Secondly, as far as I know, the Verkhovna Rada is currently working on amendments to the Law on the Fundamentals of National Resistance to clearly determine whether the TDF shall be used within the combat zone.

The law so far states: "All necessary measures shall be taken to protect", which means: "timely response and taking the necessary measures to defend the territory and protect the population in a certain area until grouping of troops is deployed there. So of course, we will be defending our country faithfully.

- And the last thing Which regions and cities are seeing the best progress in the TDF formation?

- Id like to call residents of border areas for even more active participation in defense efforts. They are quite active, but the demand in these regions is quite urgent now because the Russian Federation has amassed its troops near these areas. Therefore, we must form the most powerful TDF reserve, weve set such a task and, I am convinced, we will be able to implement it. No one must stand aside when it comes to the security of their home, village, city, and their country as a whole.

Iryna Kozhukhar, Kyiv

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Ukraine has secured the European Commissions support for its efforts to synchronize its national power system with the European Union's ENTSOE and is moving steadily toward completing the process in 2023.

Minister of Energy of Ukraine, Herman Galushchenko, addressed the issue in Brussels, speaking with journalists following the talks with European partners on Thursday, January 20, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Technical issues are being settled now. There is absolute support for Ukraine, for our plan to synchronize with European power networks and finally cut ourselves off the power networks of the Russian Federation and Belarus. We see a 2023 deadline in our plan," said the Ukrainian minister.

He noted that Ukraine had already invested more than EUR 600 million in modernizing its own grids in order to synchronize them with the EU system.

"We are now at the final stages. This year we plan to go through the so-called isolated regime twice. It should be in winter and summer. After that, well approach the time when we are ready, that weve shown the stability of the power system and its readiness to connect with European power networks," Galushchenko said.

Answering a clarifying question, he stressed that Ukraine currently has sufficient amounts of coal to undergo isolated regime tests, which usually last up to five days.

"Our calculations allow for some room. The maximum reserve required in warehouses for this period is about a million tonnes of coal. Today we have in our warehouses about 800,000 (tonnes - ed.), and another 220,000  in a Ukrainian port, where coal has already been unloaded. That is, everything will be fine with coal. Moreover, there will be a safety cushion for April and May. We see how rhythmic the supply is as we control the volumes and contracts," said the energy minister.

He noted that in terms of synchronization of Ukraine's power systems with European ones, the Ukrainian side is focusing on 2023, although "there are other ambitious opinions" in this regard.

As reported earlier, Ukraine is taking steps to synchronize its unified power system with the European ENTSO-E. The process is scheduled to be completed in 2023.

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Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov discussed Russian aggression with Canadas Defense Minister Anita Anand via videoconference.

The ministers discussed extensively their concerns with Russias ongoing aggressive and destabilizing actions in and around Ukraine. Both ministers condemned Russias actions, and underscored the need for Russia to de-escalate the situation and live up to its international commitments on transparency of military activities, reads the press release published on the website of the Department of National Defense of Canada.

As noted, Minister Anand emphasized the longstanding ties between the two nations, and reaffirmed Canadas steadfast commitment to Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Minister Anand noted she has been engaged with her NATO counterparts, as well as with other partner nations, regarding the need for the international community to send a clear message to Russia that any further military incursion in Ukraine would have severe consequences and costs, reads the statement.

Minister Reznikov extended an invitation for Minister Anand to pay a visit to Ukraine. Minister Anand indicated her significant interest in such a visit once their respective schedules permit, the Department informs.

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Republican Congressman Jim Banks has introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill entitled "To impose sanctions with respect to the Russian Federation, and for other purposes," which, among other things, provides for Russia's exclusion from the SWIFT international payment system.

That's according to the website of the U.S. Congress, Ukrinform reports.

Some 38 Republican congressmen have already become co-sponsors of the bill.

The text of the document, entitled "Putin Accountability Act," has been published by The Washington Post. According to the document, U.S. lawmakers propose designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and the Russian-supported armed forces in eastern Ukraine as foreign terrorist organizations.

At the same time, it is planned to ban operations with Russia's public debt, disconnect Russia from the global SWIFT payment messaging system and impose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

The congressmen propose that no funds be spent on the Strategic Stability Dialogue until Russia reverses its illegal occupation of Crimea as well as on a cyber dialogue with Russia until cyberattacks from Russian entities and individuals against the United States have ceased.

The document provides for sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov, government members, the head of the Central Election Commission, the heads of law enforcement agencies, oligarchs and pro-Kremlin propagandists.

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The Canadian military training mission UNIFIER, operating in Ukraine, will be extended for another six months.

Thats according to the Globe and Mail, citing its own sources in the Canadian government, Ukrinform reports.

Besides prolonging the mandate of the military training mission, the government is now considering increasing the number of instructors and sending defense weapons and equipment to Kyiv, the report said.

It is noted that this implies a possible delivery of firearms, night vision goggles, helmets, bulletproof vests, and communication devices to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The possibility of providing intelligence and cybersecurity data is also being explored, the report adds.

At the same time, the sources noted that Canada sending Ukraine anti-tank weapons was off the table at the moment despite Britain going for such a move in the past days.

It should be recalled that about 200 Canadian troops are stationed in central and western Ukraine, as part of Operation UNIFIER. The missions headquarters is located at the Yavoriv base.

The mandate of the current UNIFIER mission expires in March. If it isnt extended by that period, the Canadian military will have to leave Ukraine.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has warned Russia that invading Ukraine would lead to a terrible loss of life like the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan.

That's according to the BBC, Ukrinform reports.

In a speech in Sydney on Friday, Truss accused Russia of wanting to recreate the Soviet Union - and urged President Vladimir Putin to step back.

"We are very clear, together with our allies in the G7, with our allies in NATO, that if there is an incursion by Russia into Ukraine, it would come at a massive cost. We are prepared to put very severe sanctions in place," she said, adding that the UK was already supporting Ukraine with defense.

Earlier this week, Britain announced it was supplying Ukraine with extra troops for training and defensive weapons.

Truss urged Putin to "desist and step back from Ukraine before he makes a massive strategic mistake." "The Kremlin hasn't learnt the lessons of history. They dream of recreating the Soviet Union, or a kind of greater Russia, carving up territory based on ethnicity and language. They claim they want stability while they work to threaten and destabilize others," she said.

Truss compared Russia's possible invasion of Ukraine with the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

She also called for the UK to work with countries like Australia, Israel, India, Japan and Indonesia to counter the challenge posed by Russia and China.

Photo: www.bbc.com

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has appointed Anatoliy Petrenko as Ukraine's ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The decree to that effect, No. 15/2022, has been published on the website of the head of state, Ukrinform reports.

Petrenko has served as Ukraine's deputy defense minister in charge of European integration since December 2017. Between 2011 and 2016, he worked as a military representative and minister-counselor at the Mission of Ukraine to NATO.

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Eritrean refugees at two camps in Mai Aini and Adi Harush face life-threatening shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.  UNHCR/Olga Sarrado Mur

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is deeply alarmed at the deteriorating conditions faced by Eritrean refugees in the camps in Tigray.

After three weeks with no access due to the security situation, UNHCR staff managed to reach Mai Aini and Adi Harush refugee camps in the Tigray region of Ethiopia earlier this week for the first time since the recent air strikes in and near the camps. Our team found refugees scared and struggling to get enough to eat, lacking medicine and with little or no access to clean water.

Refugees told UNHCR of increasing preventable deaths  more than 20 over the last six weeks  linked to the overall decline in conditions, and in particular the lack of medicine and health services. The clinics in the camps have been essentially closed since early January when they finally completely ran out of medicine.

The lack of fuel means that clean water can neither be pumped nor trucked to the camps, with refugees resorting to collecting water from streams that are rapidly drying up, leading to a severe risk of water-borne diseases.

Despite concerted efforts, the complete inability to move supplies into the region means that extreme hunger is an increasing concern. With food running out in the camp and no additional stocks available for distribution, refugees told us they had resorted to selling their clothes and few belongings to try to get food.

Basic services for Eritrean refugees in the two camps have been severely compromised for many months due to the security situation. The desperate situation in these camps is a stark example of the impact of the lack of access and supplies affecting millions of displaced persons and other civilians throughout the region.

UNHCR has been calling on all parties for a ceasefire and guarantee of safe passage that would allow us to voluntarily relocate the more than 25,000 refugees remaining in the camps to a new site provided by the government of Ethiopia in Dabat in the neighbouring Amhara region, without much progress. If food, medicine, fuel and other supplies cannot be immediately brought in, and if we continue to be unable to relocate refugees out of harm's way to where we can provide them with life-saving assistance, more refugees will die.

We echo the UN-wide call for all parties in Ethiopia to protect civilians and to respect and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons, including refugees.

Refugees must not be held hostage to this conflict.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
A young girl smiles as she tries on the winter jacket she received as part of a clothing donation from H&M. More than 250,000 displaced men, women and children in Iraq are receiving clothes this winter from the global retailer, to keep them warm during the winter months.  UNHCR

People who have been forced to leave everything behind are among the most vulnerable in the world, and the situation is only getting worse, with the added emergency of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Many refugees have suffered tremendously due to the crisis, and UNHCR reports an urgent need to assist.

In response, H&M has donated clothing to displaced communities in Iraq, to help families keep warm during the cold winter months. The country currently hosts nearly 290,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as almost 1.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 4.9 million IDP returnees.

We are immensely proud to partner with UNHCR to address the needs of displaced communities. I am very pleased with what we have accomplished so far and that we are able to contribute to displaced people in Iraq and other countries by donating these garments, says Pascal Brun, Head of Sustainability at H&M.

For UNHCRs operation in Iraq, this is one of the major donations of its kind in 2021. The project was developed in close cooperation with UNHCR to ensure that the right garments were collected and shipped to the right place, with respect to the needs on the ground.

Jean-Nicolas Beuze, Representative of UNHCR in Iraq, said: This donation carries more than just warmth to the displaced people in Iraq during the winter. It also shows the solidarity the world has for those displaced by conflict and persecutions. It reminds them that they are not alone. We, at UNHCR Iraq, are very proud of this partnership with H&M as we know it makes a difference in the lives of thousands of vulnerable people.

For many refugees and displaced families, this winter threatens to be harsher than ever. Thats why we are partnering with @hm to deliver winter clothing to help keep vulnerable displaced men, women and children in Iraq warm. pic.twitter.com/xJsU7UdFvI  UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) January 21, 2022

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Amina and her three grandchildren at a reception site for Cameroonian refugees in Oundouma, Chad.  UNHCR/Aristophane Ngargoune

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, today released a supplementary appeal seeking US$59.6 million to provide emergency support to 100,000 refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs), and host communities in Chad and Cameroon following intercommunal violence in Cameroons Far North Region.

The appeal will help UNHCR and its humanitarian and government partners provide vital protection and assistance to those displaced by the crisis, who have dire humanitarian needs, over the next six months.

The clashes started on 5 December 2021 in the border village of Ouloumsa in Far North Cameroon following a dispute between herders, fishermen and farmers over water resources that have been dwindling as a result of the climate crisis. Violence then spread to neighbouring villages, resulting in 44 people being killed, over 100 injured, and 112 villages burned to the ground.

In the space of two weeks, tens of thousands of people fled into neighbouring Chad or were displaced within Cameroon. The December clashes followed similar violence in August 2021 which displaced some 23,000 people across Cameroon and Chad.

UNHCR needs US$59.6 million for urgently needed shelter and core relief items, such as blankets, mats, and mosquito nets. Funds will also cover growing water, sanitation, and hygiene needs.

Child protection, prevention and response to gender-based violence, documentation, and education are also urgent priorities. UNHCR estimates that 9 out of 10 Cameroonian refugees in Chad are women and children.

UNHCR will continue to work with the authorities in leading peace and reconciliation efforts in the Far North region. However, urgent action is needed to address the root causes of the conflict.

With additional resources, UNHCR will also be able to expand registration, profiling, and protection monitoring activities in Cameroon and Chad, to better assess the needs of those affected by the crisis.

UNHCR is grateful to donors who have made the response possible up until now, particularly those that have provided flexible funding.

However, funds to support displaced people in Chad and Cameroon are now critically low and under severe pressure due to the rapidly rising needs. We are urgently appealing to the international community to mobilize the resources which will allow UNHCR and its partners to mount an effective and lifesaving response.

The link to the supplementary appeal can be found here: https://reporting.unhcr.org/document/1325

For more information on this topic, please contact:
Cameroonian refugee Issa Hassane, 25, earns money repairing mobile phones at a reception site in Oundouma, Chad.  UNHCR/Aristophane Ngargoune

When violence erupted in his hometown of Kidam in northern Cameroon at the end of last year, Vahindi Martin Assingas only thought was to get his family to safety. Like thousands of others fleeing deadly intercommunal clashes in the countrys Far North region, Martin and his family sought refuge in neighboring Chad.

Having spent the past few weeks living with his wife and eight children at a reception site in Oundouma, a town near the border with Cameroon, Martins attention is turning to how he can provide for his family.

In Cameroon, I was a forest guard. This allowed me to support my family and contribute to the development of my village. I was [also] part of the village development committee, he said.

For him, relying on aid indefinitely is not an option. I need a water pump and a piece of land to be able to farm and earn a decent living.

On 5 December 2021, clashes broke out between herders, farmers and fishermen in the village of Ouloumsa in northern Cameroon, following a dispute over water resources that have become more scarce as a result of the climate crisis. Fighting quickly spread to neighboring villages before reaching the main commercial hub of Kousseri, leaving 44 dead, 111 injured and razing 112 villages to the ground.

See also: Dwindling rains in northern Cameroon spark conflict and displacement

In total the violence has displaced more than 100,000 people both inside Cameroon and across the border into Chad, where so far UNHCR has registered nearly 36,000 Cameroonian refugees in 31 districts. Women and children account for around 90 per cent of these registered refugees.

In recent weeks UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has ramped up its operations to help those affected. Together with the authorities and other humanitarian partners, the agency is providing vital assistance to Cameroonian refugees and internally displaced people who urgently need food, shelter, blankets, mats and hygiene kits.

Most of the recently arrived refugees were taken by surprise by the violence and fled without belongings or documents. While many have been taken in and generously assisted by local host communities, there is a growing desire among many refugees to find jobs or other ways of supporting themselves.

Back in Cameroon, widowed mother of five Khadidja Herre always managed to meet the needs of her family and pay for the schooling of two of her children with her fish-selling business.

Without any work since her arrival in Chad, she says the days have dragged and her family has suffered. "I haven't done anything since I've been here and my children no longer go to school," she said.

Unwilling to consider an immediate return to Cameroon due to the security situation, she is keen to replicate her former enterprise here in Chad while waiting for calm to return.

Resuming my business will allow me to live with dignity through my own work. I could also make sure my children go back to school.

Issa learned to repair phones for other refugees and locals after practicing on his own mobile.  UNHCR/Aristophane Ngargoune

Widowed mother of five Khadidja Herre wants to earn a living to send her children to school.  UNHCR/Aristophane Ngargoune

Vahindi Martin Assinga fled violence in his hometown Kidam in northern Cameroon, where he worked as a forest guard.  UNHCR/Aristophane Ngargoune

Some Cameroonian refugees have already found inventive ways to earn enough to meet their basic needs.

Originally from Kousseri on Cameroons border with Chad, Issa Hassane, 25, used to earn his living selling second-hand clothes and firewood that he collected.

Since his arrival in Chad, he has switched to repairing mobile phones  a skill he learned by practicing on his own phone, which enables him to earn between 1,000 and 1,500 CFA francs (US$1.7-2.6) each day.

I repair phones of all brands. My clients include both other refugees and Chadians, he explained.

While some such as Issa have found ways to support themselves, many thousands more remain dependent on humanitarian support. In response, UNHCR on Friday appealed for an additional US$59.6 million to meet the urgent needs of Cameroonian refugees and internally displaced people over the next six months.

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With no end in sight to pandemic life, parents find disruption is the new normal
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
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Today

Except for a few afternoon clouds, mainly sunny. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable.
Accra, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jan, 2022 ) :At least 17 people were killed and 59 injured Thursday in a devastating explosion in a western Ghana town after a truck carrying explosives collided with a motorcycle, the government said.

The blast left a huge crater and reduced dozens of buildings to dust-covered piles of wood and metal in Apiate, near the city of Bogoso some 300 kilometres (180 miles) west of the mineral-rich West African country's capital Accra.

Footage showed locals rushing towards a raging fire and rising plumes of black smoke to inspect the damage, while rescue workers waded through the rubble for survivors caught in the devastation.

"A total of 17 people have unfortunately been confirmed dead, and 59 injured people have been rescued," Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said in a statement released overnight.

The minister said initial signs point to "an accident involving a truck transporting explosive materials for a mining company, a motorcycle and a third vehicle" which took place near an electrical transformer.

Out of 59 people injured, 42 are receiving treatment in hospitals or health centres and "some are in critical condition", Nkrumah added.

Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo called it a "truly sad, unfortunate and tragic incident".

The government said those in critical condition would be moved to hospitals in Accra and police asked surrounding villages to open their schools and churches to accommodate any additional casualties.

A team of police and army explosion experts were deployed to "avoid a second explosion" and put in place security measures after the blast, the government said in a press release.
Saint Paul, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jan, 2022 ) :Former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin is serving 22 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American.

Now the other three ex-police officers on the scene are going on trial for their actions that day -- or rather their failure to take action.

A jury -- 12 jurors and six alternates -- was selected Thursday in the Federal trial of Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, accused of violating Floyd's civil rights.

Chauvin was convicted of murder in a state trial and pleaded guilty last month to federal charges of using excessive force during Floyd's May 25, 2020 arrest for allegedly using a fake $20 to buy a pack of cigarettes.

Floyd's death, which was filmed by a bystander on a cellphone, set off months of protests in the United States against racial injustice and police brutality.

Chauvin kept his knee on the handcuffed Floyd's neck for nearly 10 minutes, while Kueng was on his back and Lane held his legs.

Thao kept back bystanders who were pleading with Chauvin to get off the neck of a visibly distressed Floyd, who eventually passed out and died.

Chauvin was an 18-year-old veteran of the Minneapolis police force; Thao had served for eight years while Kueng and Lane were new recruits, having joined the department in December 2019.

Thao, Kueng and Lane are to face Minnesota state charges in connection with Floyd's death in a trial which is now scheduled to begin on June 13 after repeated delays.

But in a sign of the importance of the case, federal prosecutors also charged the officers with violating Floyd's constitutional rights.

The indictment charges Thao, Kueng and Lane with showing "deliberate indifference to (Floyd's) serious medical needs." Thao and Kueng also "willfully failed to intervene" to stop Chauvin's "use of unreasonable force" against Floyd, according to the indictment.

Lane does not face the second charge. Video of the arrest shows that on two occasions, Lane suggested that Floyd be rolled over on his side.

The federal trial is being held in a heavily guarded courtroom in Saint Paul, the sister city to Minneapolis.

All three men have pleaded not guilty.

Lawyers for Kueng and Lane are expected to argue during the trial that the men were not in a position to challenge the authority of Chauvin, the senior officer on the scene.

Thao's attorney is expected to claim that his client's attention was focused on keeping back the onlookers, and he was not aware of Floyd's condition.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for the Floyd family, described the trial as "another milestone in the long, slow journey to justice for George Floyd and his family." "We fully expect them to be held accountable for their roles in willingly violating the civil rights of George Floyd, leading to his tragic death," Crump said in a statement.

US District Judge Paul Magnuson has set aside two days for jury selection.

Opening arguments in the trial, which is expected to last at least two weeks, could start on Monday.

Unlike Chauvin's state trial, the federal trial is not being televised.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2022) The internet is unavailable in the whole territory of Yemen after the Saudi-led coalition airstrike's on the port city of Al Hudaydah, the traffic monitoring service of NetBlocks said.

According to Netblocks, the airstrike hit the building of the telecommunications company.

The coalition has confirmed that it carried out an airstrike in Al Hudaydah.

Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces, led by President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, and the Houthi rebels for several years.

Since March 2015, the Saudi-led Arab alliance, working in cooperation with Hadi's forces, has been conducting air, land and sea operations against the rebels, who control the capital of Sanaa and large areas in northern and western Yemen.
11 Iraqi soldiers were killed in an overnight attack by the extremist militants of the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, the provincial police said on Friday

BAGHDAD, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jan, 2022 ) :11 Iraqi soldiers were killed in an overnight attack by the extremist militants of the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, the provincial police said on Friday.

The attack took place after midnight when IS militants attacked an army outpost in the Udheim area, some 60 km north of Diyala's provincial capital Baquba, Maj. Alaa al-Saadi from the provincial police told Xinhua.

The attackers killed 11 soldiers, including an officer, before fleeing the scene, said al-Saadi, who confirmed that the soldiers were surprised by the attack, as the attackers took advantage of the significant drop in temperatures and attacked the military outpost.

The Iraqi security forces in the Diyala province are on high alert after the attack, while high-ranking security officials from Diyala's provincial Operations Command arrived at the scene to investigate the incident, he added.

Over the past months, IS militants have intensified their attacks against Iraqi security forces in the provinces which the militants had previously controlled, leaving dozens dead and wounded.
The spread of COVID-19 has prompted the Egyptian Health Ministry to tighten up health restrictions at airports, seaports and land crossings

CAIRO, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jan, 2022 ) :The spread of COVID-19 has prompted the Egyptian Health Ministry to tighten up health restrictions at airports, seaports and land crossings.

Starting Saturday, "Egyptian and foreign travelers to Egypt, except children below the age of 12, will be required to present certificates of corona-virus vaccination or negative results of corona-virus tests," the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

A traveler has to bring a certification of having received a single-dose or two-dose vaccine at least 14 days before arrival, or the result of a test taken within 72 hours prior to the arrival, the statement said.

Egypt witnessed a recent surge in daily infections, with 1,403 new cases and 22 more deaths recorded nationwide by Thursday, pushing up the respective total to 405,393 and 22,260.
Snow will hit parts of China in the next three days, bringing adverse effects on traffic in the Spring Festival travel season

BEIJING, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jan, 2022 ) :Snow will hit parts of China in the next three days, bringing adverse effects on traffic in the Spring Festival travel season, the National Meteorological Center said on Friday, From Friday to Monday, snow will hit the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shandong and Hubei, while heavy rain will slash Guangxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Fujian.

Snow will affect transportation in the Spring Festival travel season, COVID-19 prevention and energy supply, the meteorological center forecast.

The 40-day travel season, also known as chunyun, kicked off Monday and many people will travel to reunite with their families for the Lunar New Year. The Spring Festival travel season this year is expected to see 1.18 billion passenger trips, up 35.6 percent year on year, but 20.3 percent lower than that of 2020, according to the Ministry of Transport.
Tonga's volcanic eruption felt like an "atomic bomb" that shook "the whole island", an aid worker told AFP on Friday, as the Pacific nation raced to address a drinking water shortage

Sydney, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jan, 2022 ) :Tonga's volcanic eruption felt like an "atomic bomb" that shook "the whole island", an aid worker told AFP on Friday, as the Pacific nation raced to address a drinking water shortage.

Almost a week after the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano exploded, unleashing a tsunami and cutting Tonga off from the rest of the world, witnesses are recounting the disaster.

On Tongatapu, Tonga's main island, "we felt a big... it was like an atomic bomb," said Sione Taumoefolau, the secretary general for the Tonga Red Cross.

"The whole island shake because of the noise of the eruption." The situation remains difficult, with only limited supplies of aid getting in and residents facing a massive clean up effort.

"The worst part, for us, is the ash. Everywhere we are being covered by the ashes from the volcano," Taumoefolau said.

UN crisis coordinator Jonathan Veitch told AFP from Fiji the key concern now for Tongans is drinking water, with water supplies for tens of thousands feared contaminated by ash or saltwater.

"Prior to the eruption, the majority of Tongans relied on rainwater," Veitch said. "If it's all basically made toxic by the by the ash, then they have a problem, unless they have access to groundwater sources." Determining the location of and access to groundwater sources is now vital, he said.

Water testing has begun, but after last Saturday's eruption "the entire country is covered in ash", Veitch said.

- 'A triple whammy' - The relief effort got under way in earnest on Thursday after Tonga's main runway was cleared of ash, allowing the arrival of military aid flights from Australia and New Zealand.

But the sheer distance, crippled communications, and the bid to keep Covid out of the kingdom of 170 islands are hampering the recovery.

Tonga has been virtually cut off from the outside world since the volcanic blast broke an undersea communications cable, which may remain severed for weeks.

"It's not an easy one. It's far from anywhere, as you know. So there are access constraints. And then the Covid issue, obviously. And then comms collapsed," Veitch said.

"So I mean, it's like, almost a triple whammy." As foreign aid deliveries ramp up, the UN is "massively concerned" about the Covid risk posed to the island nation, Veitch said.

He pointed to current outbreaks of the virus across the Pacific, including in the Solomons and Kiribati.

"Omicron is getting out there very fast," he said.

The Tongan government is currently investigating whether there is any safe way to bring aid workers into the country.

"If there are Covid safe protocols that could be adjusted to allow safe travel into Tonga sooner rather than later we will encourage the government to do that," Veitch said.
(@FahadShabbir)

London High Court will announce on Monday its decision on whether it will allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to appeal to the Supreme Court a previous verdict approving his extradition to the United States, the WikiLeaks platform said on Friday

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2022) London High Court will announce on Monday its decision on whether it will allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to appeal to the Supreme Court a previous verdict approving his extradition to the United States, the WikiLeaks platform said on Friday.

"The UK High Court will deliver its decision on Monday morning (24 January) about whether to permit Julian Assange to appeal the US extradition decision to UK Supreme Court," it tweeted.
The United Nations Refugees Agency (UNHCR) expressed concern on Friday over the conditions of Eritrean refugees held in refugee camps in the Tigray region during a protracted civil conflict in Ethiopia

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2022) The United Nations Refugees Agency (UNHCR) expressed concern on Friday over the conditions of Eritrean refugees held in refugee camps in the Tigray region during a protracted civil conflict in Ethiopia.

Due to a volatile security situation in the country, the UNHCR reportedly could not access Mai Aini and Adi Harush refugee camps for three weeks. After reaching out to the refugees located there, the organization found that they lacked food, medicine, and clean water.

"Refugees told UNHCR of increasing preventable deaths - more than 20 over the last six weeks - linked to the overall decline in conditions, and in particular the lack of medicine and health services. The clinics in the camps have been essentially closed since early January when they finally completely ran out of medicine," the UNHCR said in a statement.

The UNHCR stressed that Eritrean refugees have been deprived of basic services for several months, with the crisis worsening recently after food and water reserves were exhausted and new supplies were cut off.

"If food, medicine, fuel and other supplies cannot be immediately brought in, and if we continue to be unable to relocate refugees out of harm's way to where we can provide them with life-saving assistance, more refugees will die," the UNHCR warned, pointing out that refugees may soon suffer from hunger and water-borne diseases caused by the lack of clean water.

According to the UNHCR estimates, around 25,000 refugees remain in the Tigray camps. The organization attempted to negotiate a ceasefire to secure refugees' relocation to a new site provided by the government in the neighboring Amhara region, but failed.

Ethiopia has been struggling with a violent internal conflict since November 2020, when the central government accused the Tigray People's Liberation Front of attacking its military base and launched an anti-terrorist operation in the region. The ongoing conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people, and caused a dire humanitarian crisis across the country.
The United States has urged Lithuania to change the name of the Taiwanese official representative office in its capital, Vilnius, to narrow differences with China, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing sources

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2022) The United States has urged Lithuania to change the name of the Taiwanese official representative office in its capital, Vilnius, to narrow differences with China, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing sources.

In 2021, relations between Lithuania and China deteriorated considerably after the official representative office of Taiwan was opened in Vilnius. China recalled its ambassador from Vilnius, thus lowering the level of diplomatic relations between the countries to that of charge d'affaires.

According to the newspaper's sources, US officials advised Lithuania to change the "Taiwanese representative office" to the "Taipei representative office," a name that is used in the majority of countries.

"One of the big problems is that Taiwan doesn't want the name change and Lithuania has a very strong faction of people who don't want the name changed either," a person familiar with the diplomatic discussions told the media.

However, the White House officially denied the information about the proposal to rename the office.

"Anyone who suggests otherwise is not reflecting actual discussions between the US and Lithuania. We respect and support Lithuania and Taiwan's efforts to enhance their ties and practical co-operation," a spokesperson for the National Security Council told the media.

The source added that Washington had assured Lithuania that it would support its sovereign decisions.

The Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stressed that the information about the US proposal to rename the Taiwanese office was a "disinformation campaign."

The United States has repeatedly expressed concern over reports that the Chinese authorities do not allow Lithuanian goods or goods with Lithuanian components into the country and reject applications for imports from Vilnius.

Taiwan has been governed independently from mainland China since 1949. Beijing views the island as its province, while Taiwan  a territory with its own democratically-elected government  maintains that it is an autonomous country but stops short of declaring independence.
(UroToday.com) In a podium presentation in the Renal Cancer I  Localized session at the 2022 EAU Section of Oncological Urology (ESOU) Annual Meeting, Dr. Volpe presented on the role of artificial intelligence in kidney cancer diagnosis.



Dr. Volpe began by emphasizing that interest in artificial intelligence is long-standing  the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence convened in 1956. However, interest in artificial intelligence, and related concepts of machine learning and deep learning, has dramatically increased over time.

Dr. Volpe focused then defining these related, but differing approaches. Artificial intelligence refers to the capability of a machine to mimic human cognition through the perception of external stimuli and determination of an optimal strategy to achieve a desired outcome. Machine learning, a somewhat more specific subset, refers to the ability to learn iteratively without being explicitly programmed. To do so, machine learning combines computer science, mathematics, and statistical analysis to generate algorithms which assess associations between (typically) large numbers of variables and relevant outcomes. Unlike conventional statistics which test hypotheses, machine learning typically focused on outcome prediction without significance testing. Further, as alluded to above, the machine learning algorithm autonomously adapts in order to improve performance. The success of such an approach clearly depends on both the quality and quantity of data for the algorithm to utilize.

Dr. Volpe then discussed the process of machine learning. Most broadly, there must be a training process after which the model may be used for prediction. In the training phase, expert input is used to characterize relevant features which the machine learning algorithm then uses to autonomously create a classification approach. Validation processes (both internal and ideally external) provides important feedback to optimize and confirm the algorithm performance.

This machine learning approach differs somewhat from deep learning in which feature extraction and classification are integrated and learning is based on deep neural networks. This approach simulates the organizational structure of the human brain with separate computational units (ie. artificial neurons) that are interconnected through artificial synapses (ie. the artificial neural network). These multiple layers of increasingly complex interconnected units add a depth to the system. These techniques have the ability to autonomously identify causal features using the raw data during the training phase. Of particular value is the ability to identify novel features that are imperceptible to the human eye. However, as with machine learning, this learning process is dependent on the quality and quantity of the data introduced into the algorithm.

These approaches are increasingly being utilized as increasingly large datasets, so large that they exceed the computational capacity of conventional software, are becoming more common. These include electronic health records, clinical data, radiologic imaging, patient wearables, and technical data from surgical robotic systems. In these cases, artificial intelligence Dr. Volpe suggested that artificial intelligence may be the perfect tool to analyse these large volumes of unstructured data. He suggested that doing so may reduce health care costs, improve detection of novel disease patterns, provide earlier disease prediction, increase clinician efficiency, and contribute to novel drug design and delivery. To this end, he highlighted a potentially artificial intelligence augmented clinical workflow with improved detection and characterization of disease and treatment decision making.

While this holds great promise, he emphasized recent reviews which have highlighted that the quality of data used to develop artificial intelligence to date has been a significant barrier to its clinical adoption and widespread use. However, in kidney cancer, there is significant interest in its role in imaging, histologic assessment, genomic evaluation, and prognostication of survival.

Dr. Volpe then highlighted the role of artificial intelligence in imaging evaluation. It may be used in the detection phase/role with an ability to highlight suspicious areas in images, detect indeterminate nodules, and potentially address high-false positive rates associated with overdiagnosis. He cited examples from lung, CNS, breast, and prostate cancers. Beyond initial detection, artificial intelligence may be helpful in characterization of lesions by providing robust tumor descriptors to capture intra-tumoral heterogeneity and variability. This can be accomplished using segmentation and may translate into diagnosis, staging, and imaging-based genomics. Finally, AI maybe be used in the monitoring phase through its ability to capture a large number of discriminative features and undertake temporal analyses to identify changes over time.

He further highlighted that the diagnosis of small renal masses is an unmet need. In particular, as a large proportion of these may be benign, there is significant risk for overtreatment. Thus, better characterization based on imaging may optimize care. However, current imaging approaches have suboptimal accuracy to characterize malignant potential and essentially no ability to reliably determine grade. Artificial intelligence, and particularly radiomics, may allow for improvements in this regard.

Highlighting one specific clinical scenario, Dr. Volpe discussed the importance of being able to distinguish a fat-poor angiomyolipoma (a benign entity) from clear cell renal cell carcinoma and papillary renal cell carcinoma. A texture analysis of CT images may be informative here. Dr. Volpe then highlighted recent work using Google TensorFlow Inception to classify renal masses, distinguishing between clear cell renal cell carcinoma and oncocytoma. Coy and colleagues utilized 13 different approaches to convert VOI data into images that could adequately represent each tumor. These images were then used to train a neural network model. This approach has a high positive predictive value (82.5%).

He further highlighted recent work from Dr. Lin and colleagues who used a CT-based deep learning model to predict the nuclear grade of clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Beginning with an internal dataset of 390 RCCs and validating this on an external dataset of 20 tumors, the authors were able to develop a model with promising test characteristics (AUC in the internal set = 0.82 +/- 0.11 and in the external set = 0.81 +/- 0.04). Thus, demonstrating that CT-based characteristics can be applied for grading clear cell RCC.

Using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, others have shown that an automated approach to grading of clear cell renal cell carcinoma consisting of 72 nuclei histomic feature was predictive of tumor grade (2-tiered version of Fuhrmans grading system) with a sensitivity of 84.6% and specificity of 81.3%.

Dr. Volpe further emphasized that pre-treatment prediction of oncologic endpoints represents another important unmet need. Among patients with large renal masses (>7cm), radiomic CT textural analysis measuring entropy, kurtosis, skewness, mean of positive pixels, and SD of pixel distribution histograms using multi-phasic CTs was associated with both histologic findings and clinical outcomes. In the analysis he cited, these characteristics showed an AUC of 0.943 (95% CI 0.89-0.99) for clear cell histologic findings.

Further, these characteristics could distinguish subgroups of patients with differing survival following treatment. Moving from radiomics to genomics, he highlighted two recent efforts which have derived 15-gene and 6-gene expression profiles which are prognostic of clear cell RCC risk and are associated with recurrence free and overall survival. Notably, the use of deep neural networks outperformed standard statistical approaches in this setting.

Finally, Dr. Volpe emphasized the importance of accurately determining nephrometry scores to inform patient counselling regarding risk of complications and renal functional loss. Indeed, he highlighted that fully automated AI-generated R.E.N.A.L. scoring is feasible, with comparative outcomes to human generated R.E.N.A.L. scores. This AI-based approach, it is hoped, may facilitate a wider adoption of the use of R.E.N.A.L. scores. Dr. Volpe provided an example of a potential AI-facilitated output which summarizes predicted histology, oncologic outcomes, and complication rates associated with partial nephrectomy. This may facilitate patient counseling and treatment decision making.

While all of this work holds great promise and many have predicted the obsolescence of radiologists, Dr. Volpe emphasized a recent tweet from Eric Topol which highlighted that there have been no peer-reviewed publications from more than a half dozen of the largest companies working in this space. Thus, while AI is a fascinating tool in renal oncology with early studies showing promise for identification of tumors, differentiation of RCC subtypes, and prognostication, there are significant barriers. This approach may facilitate non-invasive tumor characterization but to date is limited by relatively small samples and this work requires larger, prospective studies with external validation to assess the role AI will play in RCC diagnosis and management moving forward.

Presented by: Alessandro Volpe, MD, University of Eastern Piedmont Hospital, Maggiore Della Carita Hospital, Novara, Italy,

Written by: Christopher J.D. Wallis, University of Toronto Twitter: @WallisCJD during the 2022 EAU Section of Oncological Urology (ESOU) Hybrid Annual Meeting, Madrid, Spain, Fri, Jan 21  Sun, Jan 23, 2022.
USM Professor Qiang Makes Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science List for 2022

Thu, 01/20/2022 - 13:41pm | By: Ivonne Kawas

Dr. Zhe Qiang, assistant professor at The University of Southern Mississippis School of Polymer Science and Engineering, has been named to Forbes magazines 30 Under 30 in Science list for 2022.

Among innovators who are making waves in their respective fields, Dr. Qiang is developing sustainable solutions for plastic waste and trying to find ways to improve chemical circularity through addressing several urgent environmental challenges, such as plastic waste management, water pollution, and climate change.

Dr. Qiang celebrates this prestigious honor by praising his students for their hard work and impactful contributions, as his research lab aims to scale-up and commercialize relevant technologies.

This recognition reflects all the hard work my students put in over the past two years, even though we had to establish a new lab during the pandemic. It also motivates our current efforts to scale-up and commercialize relevant technologies, so that hopefully we can solve some practical needs in the very near future, said Dr. Qiang.

This milestone wouldnt be possible without the support I receive from my colleagues at the University. Let me just put in this way, I feel very fortunate and grateful for having a research career at USM.

The Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science list was created using nominations from a variety of sources. The judges for this category were Maddie Hall, cofounder & CEO of Living Carbon and an alumna of the 2021 Under 30 list; Peter Beck, founder & CEO of Rocket Lab; Eric Green, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute; and Veronique Lecault, founder & COO of AbCellera.

Dr. Derek Patton, Director of the School of Polymer Science and Engineering, describes Dr. Qiang as a bright, bold, and creative polymer engineer, whose innovative research brings a lot of excitement and recognition to the program, due to its societal impacts.

Dr. Qiangs selection for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list demonstrates that he is a leader and an innovator who is defining new ideas and directions to help mitigate the challenges with plastic waste, said Dr. Patton. His work on conversion of plastic waste to carbonaceous materials is exciting because it bridges fundamental polymer science and engineering with real-world applications and societal impacts. The fact that Dr. Qiang rose to the top as one of the thousands of nominees for the Forbes list is no surprise  it perfectly aligns with the To The Top tradition here USM.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Qiang performed his postdoctoral training in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. His research interests include self-assembly and interfacial phenomenon, particularly focusing on understanding the relationship between microscopic morphology of polymeric materials and their macroscopic properties. These interests bridge a variety of topics from in-situ single-molecule characterization to large-scale roll-to-roll manufacturing of mesoporous materials for energy applications.

His research work has been recognized with several awards and honors from national societies such as a Frank Padden Award Finalist from the American Physical Society.

See Dr. Qiangs faculty profile and learn more about the School of Polymer Science and Engineering.
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The Catholic Diocese in Ethiopias strife-torn Tigray region is denouncing the worsening humanitarian situation, and seeking to reach out to the suffering people amid numerous constraints.

By Vatican News staff reporter

Millions of children are suffering from severe malnutrition, many more people are starving, including internally displaced persons. Disease and death are everywhere and people are at high risk of chronic diseases and Covid-19, especially children and the elderly said the Adigrat Diocese Catholic Secretariat (ADCS). The Catholic Eparchy or Diocese) of Adigrat of the Alexandrian Tradition covers the entire Tigray region.

Seeds of war

The civil war began in November 2020, when forces loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) seized military bases in Tigray. It came just three months after the central government postponed a scheduled general election, citing the Covid-19 pandemic. When the Tigray region held its own regional elections in September 2020, the central government declared the vote unconstitutional.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed responded to the TPLF's attacks with a military counter-offensive that has spiraled beyond Tigray, as militias and separatist groups from other regions took up arms against the central government.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), said last week that because of escalating clashes in Tigray, its aid convoys have been able to reach the regional capital, Mekelle, since 14 December.

It said 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.

Aid amid constraints

From the start of the conflict until mid-June 2021, the ADCS and the religious congregations under Adigrat Diocese have tried to save lives. However, due to numerous constraints, including security restrictions on movement and access, cash withdrawal limits and shortage of basic supplies in the market, humanitarian aid has been limited to the cities and areas around the main roads. The situation is further aggravated by the blockade of land and air transport.

"Like other humanitarian organizations, we have not been able to continue responding to emergencies, reach people affected by war and alleviate their suffering", ADCS director Father Abba Abraha Hagos said. It is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and with each passing hour and day, hundreds of innocent victims are dying, he told the Vaticans Fides news agency.

Peoples ordeal

The ongoing war, accompanied by indiscriminate airstrikes with fighters, helicopters and drones, has caused an unprecedented crisis. The ADCS said innocent civilians are facing ethnic-based attacks and massacres, rampant gender-based violence, destruction of homes and displacement of millions of people. As a result, the economy and social infrastructure have been devastated; institutions and cultural and religious heritages have been destroyed and millions are terrified and traumatized.

Father Hagos said, "The entire population has been deprived of all the fundamental rights of every human being: the right to live with dignity, the right to security, education, food, water, to receive humanitarian assistance, etc. The daily reality of the country is of suffering, death, lack of medicines for preventable diseases. Any further delay will end in irreparable disaster for human lives and the social fabric of an entire generation.

Calls for peace

The ADCS said that Adigrat Diocese is immersed in an extremely alarming crisis that needs an urgent response from partners, other humanitarian organizations and the international community.

"We would like to invite all our partners and other humanitarian aid organizations to continue to urge and lobby international communities, the United Nations, human rights organizations, international government agencies and international diplomacy, to exert pressure for dialogue policy for peace and for unrestricted access to humanitarian aid, basic services and supplies, which are a natural right for human beings, ADCS said.

Earlier in November, Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin of Adigrat called for an immediate end to the central governments aerial bombardment of Tigray. Denouncing it as a war of ethnic cleansing, he said the bombardment was destroying lives, property, civilians and institutions in the region. He reiterated the Catholic Churchs call for a peaceful solution to the conflict.

A recent initiative by the African Union Commission (AUC) has raised a glimmer of hope for peace in Ethiopia. Former Nigerian president Olusengun Obasanjo, now the African Union High Representative for the Horn of Africa, recently visited the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa and the Tigrayan capital Mekelle. After speaking with Obasanjo, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said he was delighted to learn that a demonstrable effort to make peace in Ethiopia is finally underway. He said Obasanjo expressed optimism that there is now a real opportunity for a political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict.
Aerial footage shows houses destroyed after the tsunami struck Tonga (Crown Copyright 2022, New Zealand Defence Force. Licenced under Creative Commons BY 4.0.)

The Church in Papua New Guinea is collecting funds working with its partners across Oceania to send humanitarian aid to the tsunami-struck people of Tonga, according to Fr. Giorgio Licini.

By Devin Watkins

Emergency humanitarian aid has finally begun to reach Tonga in the wake of last Saturdays underwater volcanic eruption and tsunami, which devastated much of the Pacific island nation.

A navy ship from New Zealand unloaded life-saving water supplies on Friday, which were distributed across Tonga.

Besides potable water, the ship was carrying desalination equipment able to produce over 70,000 liters per day.

Volcanic ash blanketed most of Tongas islands, leading to fears that water supplies could be contaminated with heavy metals like arsenic and cadmium.

New Zealand's HMNZS Aotearoa docked on Tongatapu island to bring water supplies

Coordinating Churchs assistance

The Catholic Church across the region is also banding together to send humanitarian aid through local Caritas partners.



Fr. Giorgio Licini, the general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea, spoke to Vatican News Alessandro Di Bussolo.

The Italian with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) said the national Caritas organizations in Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea are coordinating their aid efforts.

He said financial resources are being gathered from those who are able to contribute and will be sent to the Caritas outfit in Tonga, which will decide how best to use the funds.

Images of the destruction along the western beaches of Tongatapu island

Rebuilding infrastructure

Fr. Licini added that the Churchs care will continue even after the initial emergency has passed.

He said assistance will be given to help rebuild infrastructure like schools and churches, as well as continued food aid and medicine supplies for those who need it.

Unfortunately, the connection with the islandsand the government and the Church evenis difficult because of technical problems, said Fr. Licini.

The lone underwater cable connecting Tonga to the internet was severed by the volcanic eruption last Saturday, and communication has been mainly through a few satellite phones.

As soon as the cable is repaired, we will probably have a better picture of the magnitude of the devastation, and most importantly what people actually need, he added.

Drinking water crisis

Fr. Licini agreed that access to potable water could be the most severe problem facing residents of Tonga.

People on the archipelago rely heavily on rain for drinking water, he said, since many areas do not have ready access to springs or natural sources of water.

Many people will have to wait for the next rain to renew their supplies, said Fr. Licini. So, the provision of potable water and drinking water is most probably one of the emergencies in Tonga at the moment.
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Amazon has been hit with heavy criticism after it came to light that the eCommerce giant was selling Nazi propaganda films. Many accused the company of spreading hate for profit.

Israel B. Bitton, the executive director of Americans Against Antisemitism (AMA), recently wrote a letter to Amazon highlighting the Nazi propaganda films on the platform.

One such film is Triumph of the Will, which the letter calls the centerpiece of the Nazi propaganda film cannon. The movie glorifies Hitler. AMA accused Amazon of not providing any information about Nazi crimes to those who might view the video, allowing the films corrupting influences to seep into the minds of vulnerable audience members.

The letter points out that there are 30 Nazi propaganda movies available as DVDs on Amazon. A few more are made available through the Amazon Prime streaming platform.

In addition to films, Amazon also features other Nazi material that has even attracted favorable reviews. This includes several editions of Hitlers biography Mein Kampf, Joseph Goebbels Nature and Form of National Socialism, and the SS Leadership Guide. The platform also sells the notorious anti-Semitic childrens book The Poisonous Mushroom.

Is it legal to peddle Nazi propaganda that set the stage for the genocide of 6 million innocent Jews? Probably but shame on @Amazon @PrimeVideo for monetizing Jew-hatred at a time of surging #Antisemitism. Dangerous. @JeffBezos should put a stop to it now, Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, tweeted on Jan.11.

Dani Dayan, head of Yad Vashem, Israels premiere Holocaust museum and research center, called the availability of Nazi films on Amazon deplorable.

Amazon had previously promised that it would not make anti-Semitic content available on the platform. In an interview with Breitbart, former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind blasted the company for not sticking with its promise. Amazon has chosen to ignore our communications and is turning a blind eye to the hatred against Jews, he said.

Its beyond unacceptable I dont believe this is an issue that needs debating, its so clear-cut, so indefensible that we expect Amazon to correct this horrifying hate-for-profit scheme immediately. Frankly, they should be ashamed of themselves for allowing so much hate to literally stream through their platforms. There is no excuse for it, I dont care what they say, Hikind told the Free Beacon.

Following the growing criticism, Amazon removed 23 of the 30 Nazi propaganda films, including Triumph of the Will. Hikind called it an important victory. However, hateful Nazi films continue to be on sale on the platform, he pointed out.

In a letter to Amazon, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and Global Social Action director at the Wiesenthal Center, said that the movies should only be viewed in a history class in order to expose the lies, racist ideology, and genocidal hatred that the Nazis had against Jews.

These films helped create and sustain Jew-hatred, which directly led to the Final Solution of the Jewish Question and the mass murder of 6 million innocent Jews during WWII, the letter stated.
News analysis

The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has played a critical role in supporting Iran, buying Iranian oil and other materials despite U.S. sanctions on the Islamic regime. The Sino-Iranian Agreement, signed March 26 last year, deepens this relationship and advances Beijings financial agenda as it places the digital yuan at the forefront.

A review of the U.S. sanctions against Iran shows that the financial penalties are the most powerful. The U.S. began imposing economic sanctions on Iran in 2005, cutting it off CHIPS (New York Clearing House Interbank Payment System) in 2008 so that it could not receive U.S. dollars, and cutting it off SWIFT in 2012 so that Iran could not participate in international financial transactions at all.

China, however, is Irans largest trading partner and was one of its largest oil buyers before then-U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018. Although Beijing has officially stopped importing oil from Iran, analysts say Iranian crude is being disguised as crude from other countries and continues to be shipped to China.

Sino-Iranian talks

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province on January 14, and the two sides announced the launch of a comprehensive cooperation program between the two countries, according to a news release on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website on Jan. 15.

China became a vital economic lifeline for Iran after the Trump administration withdrew the U.S. from the multilateral nuclear accord in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

However, what remains unclear is how much China and Russia are prepared to risk for Iran while U.S. sanctions remain in place. reported Wall Street Journal.

A State Department spokesperson, while declining to comment on Irans barter deals, said that the U.S. is enforcing its sanctions on Iran. We will of course address any effort at sanctions evasion, the spokesperson said, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Jan. 14, 2022.

On March 27 last year, during his visit to Iran, Wang Yi and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif signed the IranChina 25-year Cooperation Program, which includes Iran in the Belt and Road Initiative.

China agreed to invest $400 billion in Iran over a 25-year period in exchange for a steady supply of oil to fuel its growing economy, according to the New York Times.

In return for investments, China would receive steady supplies of Iranian oil, Irans semi-official Tasnim news agency said Saturday, adding that the two countries also agreed to establish an Iranian-Chinese bank. Such a bank could help Tehran evade U.S. sanctions that have effectively barred it from global banking systems, according to a March 27, 2021 Wall Street Journal report.

It is reported that the agreement includes three major aspects: China and Irans oil and trade settlement in yuan and digital yuan; China and Iran will also cooperate in military matters. The agreement also proposes joint military exercises, weapons development, and intelligence sharing. Meanwhile, Chinas Beidou satellite system will support Irans missile program.

The digital yuan in the IranChina 25-year Cooperation Program has also caused international concerns.

Since 2014, the Central Bank of China (CBC) has been conducting research on digital currency and is currently in the pilot application period. The digital yuan has been piloted in many cities in China, and the application scenarios gradually cover various fields such as daily payment, catering, transportation, shopping, and administrative services.

On Jan. 18, the CBC held a press conference at which Zou Lan, director of the Department of Financial Markets of the CBC, introduced the digital yuan pilot, saying that as of December 31, 2021, digital yuan pilot occasions had exceeded 8,085,100, with an accumulated total of 261 million personal wallets opened and a transaction amount of 87.565 billion yuan.

Promoting the digital currency

Mu Changchun, director of the Institute of Digital Currency of CBC, said recently that CBC and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) have started the second phase of digital yuan to further enhance the efficiency of cross-border payments.

The CBC has previously released its first white paper on the digital renminbi, saying that it is ready for cross-border use and will study its applicability in cross-border areas.

On the other hand, the interim findings of the Multi-Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge (mBridge) project, jointly conducted by the Institute of Digital Currency of the Bank of China, the HKMA, the Bank for International Settlements, the Bank of Thailand, and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, show that the project has the potential to accelerate cross-border payments and save costs.

In addition, Beijing authorities are preparing to promote the digital yuan at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, a move intended to cut into the U.S. dollar-dominated global financial system and enhance Beijings strategic competitiveness globally.

The UK-based Financial Times previously reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that Beijing authorities have pressured a number of U.S. companies to install a system that allows consumers to pay for their products with digital yuan before the opening of the Olympics, including major U.S. companies such as McDonalds, Nike, and Visa.
On Jan. 14, the U.S. Senate introduced a bipartisan bill that aims to prevent American defense contractors from buying rare earths from China by 2026. The bill is being sponsored by Republican Senator Tom Cotton and Democrat Senator Mark Kelly.

Rare earths are a group of 17 metals that are deemed crucial to tech industries, right from smartphones to missiles. The rare earths industry was born during World War II and was initially developed by the U.S.



Over time, China became the dominant player in the market, controlling up to 85 percent of the global supply. As a result, up to 80 percent of rare earths imports by the U.S. at present come from China. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), China has some of the largest rare earths deposits in the world, estimated to be around 44 million tons.

The Jan. 14 bill, called the Restoring Essential Energy and Security Holdings Onshore for Rare Earths Act of 2022, seeks to develop a permanent stockpile of strategic material via the Pentagon.

The fact that the Pentagon buys billions of dollars worth of jets, missiles, and other weaponry will be used as leverage to force defense contractors to stop sourcing rare earths from China. This is expected to support the production of rare earths in the United States.

In an interview with Reuters, Cotton, who is also a member of the Senates Armed Forces and Intelligence committee, called Chinas global domination of the rare earths market as a result of a policy choice made by the U.S.

He expressed hope that newer policies will shake up Beijings grip on the market. According to the Senator, he has talked with several American executive agencies about the bill and is confident that it has widespread support among all party members.

Ending American dependence on China for rare earths extraction and processing is critical to building up the U.S. defense and technology sectors This is an area in which Congress will lead because many members have been concerned about this very topic, regardless of party, Cotton said.

The push to secure Americas rare earths supply has strengthened due to Washingtons rising tensions with an aggressive Beijing. The Chinese regime has earlier used its rare earths market dominance to threaten opponents.

Back in 2010, Beijing blocked the export of rare earths to Japan following a territorial dispute between the two countries. The communist regime has issued vague threats to Washington that it wont shy away from using the same tactics with the U.S.

The new bill thus seeks to plug in a major vulnerability of the United States by ensuring that the Pentagon builds a stockpile of rare earth materials. However, building such a reserve will require the Pentagon to buy rare earths in large quantities from China, which is a contradiction many expect will subside after some years.

In December, Danielle Miller of the Pentagons Office of Industrial Policy had proposed that the U.S. and its allies mine more to ensure a steady, global supply of strategic minerals necessary for commercial and military applications.

Domestic production of strategic and critical materials is the ultimate hedge against the risk of deliberate non-market interference in extended overseas supply chains We are under no illusions about the competing pressures facing [the U.S. mining industry], Miller said at a conference.

Meanwhile, China is taking steps to further strengthen its position in the rare earths market. In December, it consolidated several rare earths producers into a single entity called the China Rare-Earths Group. The new entity is expected to speed up mine development in the Global South.
On Jan. 13, the international organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW), released a 752-page report listing the worlds human rights issues and providing a broader view of what numerous countries are doing in the face of dissent and suffering among their people.

While some countries, notably China, have a long list of cases, several countries together in Southeast Asia all possess issues of their own that warranted noting in the report.

HRW emphasized the methods several governments and leaders use to expand their own power, sacrificing the needs and protections of their own citizens.

Most of the cases are related to suppression of freedoms and acts of violence, while the COVID-19 pandemic is shown to have had a significant impact on the countries as well.

Cambodia

In its report, HRW made note of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sens tendency to use the COVID-19 pandemic to fuel his own ambitions by further restricting civil and political rights, and by depriving the countrys people of the governments protection.

In an attempt to silence opposition to their rule, the government held trials for political rivals and human rights defenders, suppressing their freedom of expression. Environmental activists were also intimidated with convictions and were placed under suspicion of conspiring against the government.

Lockdowns that were supposed to protect the people of Cambodia from COVID-19 only locked them away from needed supplies. People who violated lockdown regulations were beaten in the capital of Phnom Penh with bamboo canes, in addition to being sentenced to 20 years in prison. Despite the brutal conditions, the government failed to curb major outbreaks within the prison population, which further helped spread the pandemic.

Access to the Internet was also suppressed when the government implemented a bill to monitor and block connections at will. The HRW report also described how the government moved against independent reporting, characterizing it as fake news and only allowing state-controlled media, or invited media, to report on police actions or pandemic-related issues.

HRW also condemned the governments lack of action in investigating the unlawful killing of political commentator Kem Ley, as well as the abduction of Thai activist Wanchalerm Satsaksit.

After a color-based zoning system was introduced in April, residents in red zones, low-income populations, suffered from a lack of adequate standard of living.

Despite Cambodia rising to the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), HRW also noted the countrys strengthened ties with the communist government of China, while also pointing out the governments handling of political opposition.

Myanmar

Following the military juntas successful coup against the democratic government of Myanmar, several human rights issues followed that the HRW emphasized in their report.

Apart from forceful political decisions, the military began expanding its violent campaigns against many groups of the population. Protestors and bystanders were killed in response to the juntas repressions against dissent, while many others were said to be persecuted.

Local militia have begun to emerge and challenge the junta with armed force. Martial law was imposed in March and May 2021 across townships in response to the resistance, but it resulted in the deaths of innocent bystanders. The Rohingya ehtnic group, victims of genocide since 2017, continue to be victimized by the military.

Humanitarian aid and healthcare workers were also endangered by armed conflict and the junta itself, with both deaths and imprisonment threatening the efforts by humanitarians to address issues in the nation.

Vietnam

The HRW report describes the suppression of basic civil and political rights by the Vietnamese government, which claims to act under the one-party rule of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). As a result, political opponents, as well as dissidents and rights activists, were slapped with harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.

Vietnam also tightened its control over the media by cutting off websites and blogs, as well as removing content on social media and imposing fines on people suspected of spreading misinformation.

The report also mentions the restriction of religious practice through legislation, registration requirements, and surveillance.

Abuses against women and children were also noted in the report, where guardians, teachers, or government caregivers were involved in the cases.

Indonesia

In a country riddled with millions of COVID-19 cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths, it is believed that the actual death toll in Indonesia is much higher.

Indonesias Corruption Eradication Commission was weakened by the government, which also introduced a criminal code with many abusive articles. Religious minorities, both non-Sunni and non-Muslim, are also being persecuted by regulations for apparent blasphemy.

According to the HRW report, the lands of the archipelagic nation are purged by environmental degradation due to plantations allowed to operate, resulting in the degradation of one of the worlds most important carbon sinks.

The country was also described in the report as one of the worlds largest emitters of greenhouse gasses, with coal-fired power stations causing thousands of premature deaths by air pollution  a problem that affects other countries, especially Malaysia.

Forests across the nation are also being cleared for the sake of development.

Despite the HRWs condemnation of Indonesias shortcomings, the report did make note of the countrys role in excluding Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing from the ASEAN summit in October 2021.

Malaysia

With another sudden change of leadership following the resignation of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in August, the political quagmire in Malaysia continues with more restrictive and punishing policies against numerous groups.

Satirical content against the government was suppressed while the government made arrests of artists and activists. Freedom of the press also suffered a blow as authorities moved to question members of news sites over coverage on the governments actions and its handling of the pandemic.

The report also mentions the abuse of suspects by the police, and the insufferable conditions of detainees succumbing to treatable illnesses.

In the report, over 179,000 refugees and asylum seekers, mainly from Myanmar, are not granted legal status and are ineligible for work and school. As of Oct. 26, 2020, 756 children are reported to be held in immigration detention  326 from Myanmar who are without their parents.

Malaysia also continues to allow child marriage under both civil and Islamic law, with girls under 17 being eligible for marriage with the permission of their states chief minister.

Thailand

The HRW report condemns the government of Thailand for clamping down on free expression and assembly by arresting activists and critics of the monarchy, while using the pandemic as a scapegoat. Violent youth-led democracy protests were heavily suppressed with excessive force with water cannons, teargas and rubber bullets.

In September 2021, the governments draconian Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situation was extended to November to further restrict freedoms of expression. Emergency powers were used to prosecute those who expressed criticism of the monarchy, including children. Democracy activists were also arrested for cases of lese-majeste (insulting the monarchy).

Thailand is also said to be rife with cases of torture and enforced disappearances, with HRW documenting cases of the torture of ethnic Malay Muslims and military conscripts in counterinsurgency operations. Many have claimed that they were tortured while being under military custody and questioning.

The government is also said to have not made any progress in investigating the 2010 political confrontations with the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship  dubbed the Red Shirts  which resulted in 99 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries. No military personnel or government officials have been charged.

Apart from human rights defenders, non-governmental organizations (NGO) were subjected to a new proposed law that allows authorities to arbitrarily reject their registration, with criminal charges of up to five years in prison and fines of more than 100,000 Thai baht ($3,225).

Ethnic Malay Muslims and asylum seekers continue to be attacked by authorities  the former being abused or even killed by security forces, who remain unprosecuted.

Singapore

HRW slams the government of Singapore for having little freedom of assembly by introducing draconian laws that suppress online content, classifies individuals as politically significant persons, and impose restrictions on the right to peaceful assembly without permission.

Other laws also target activists and media critical of the government. In February 2021, activist Jolovan Wham was charged for peaceful protests and unlawful assembly. Independent media outlet The Online Citizen has been repeatedly targeted for its articles supposedly criticizing the government.

Despite the government retaining the death penalty, the justice system has been able to bypass the penalty and instead give prison sentences to low-level offenders. Corporal punishment is also rampant in Singapore, with healthy males between the ages of 16 and 50 being punished by caning..

HRW also accuses the government of exploiting and abusing the rights of foreign migrant workers, with debts, non-payments and even physical or sexual violence used to further humble workers. With the pandemic, migrant workers have been further restricted at home except for work.

Philippines

The HRW report denotes the human rights abuses committed in the Philippines, with investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity during President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs from 2016 to 2019.

In September, the ICC allowed a formal investigation into suspected crimes against humanity until the Philippines withdrawal from the Rome Statute on March 16, 2019. The anti-drug campaign was described as an illegal law enforcement operation that threatens the civilian population.

Government security forces continue to target leftist activists, including peasant leaders, environmentalists, human rights lawyers and indigenous group leaders, among others.

Rights violations related to the pandemic were also notably fewer in 2021 compared to the year prior, with age-based restrictions on movement for those under 18 and over 65 keeping children and the elderly at home, but the restrictions were softened in October. Thousands have been arrested for violating strict quarantine regulations and have been struck with warnings, fines and community service.
More than four months after the U.S. House passed the Cambodia Democracy Act, a bill that would place stiff sanctions on Cambodian leaders for alleged human rights abuses, there was no public sign of action on the Senates version of the bill.

However, key House proponents of the bill say they trust Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who represents the large Cambodian community in Lowell, will get the legislation to President Joe Bidens desk.

I am very confident that my friend, Senator Markey, who introduced the bill in the Senate, in partnership with Senators Rubio, Durbin, Tillis and Feinstein, will be able to secure final passage of the bill, said Rep. Alan Lowenthal Representatives (D-Cal.), who represents the largest Cambodian community in the U.S.

Lowenthal announced last month he will not run for another term. Markeys office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from VOA Khmer on the status of the Cambodia Democracy Act, nor did his Senate co-sponsors  Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

If the bill is passed by the Senate and signed by the president, it would place sanctions on Cambodian military officials, security forces, and senior members of the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party, who the president deems responsible for human rights violations in the country.

The Cambodian people deserve what was promised to them in the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements  a representative democracy that reflects the popular will, not oppressive single party rule, Markey said in a statement when he introduced the Cambodia Democracy and Human Rights Act in August 2021, before the House passed its version.

This legislation makes clear that the United States will not stand by, as Hun Sen and his cronies corrupt Cambodian democracy, persecute and jail opposition and political activists, target free speech and independent media, and enrich themselves through rampant corruption, he added.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass), whose district includes Lowell, told VOA Khmer by email that she continues to push for the bill, which is currently in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Im working with my colleague Senator Markey to ensure that this important legislation makes it through the Senate and gets signed into law, she said.

The Cambodia Democracy Act will hold Prime Minister Hun Sen and corrupt government officials responsible for their anti-democratic actions and human rights violations. This bill supports Cambodias path to a free and fair democracy, and were going to get it done.

The legislation  sponsored by Lowenthal and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), co-chairs of the congressional Cambodia caucus  passed overwhelmingly in the House in late September last year, with 403 votes to approve it and just 17 objecting.

Since the CNRPs dissolution, the government of Cambodia has arrested, imprisoned, or brought politically motivated charges against CNRP leaders and activists, also noting the mass trials of opposition politicians and activists since the party was dissolved in 2017.

The Government of Cambodia has taken several measures, particularly since 2017 and during the COVID-19 pandemic, to restrict Cambodias space for civil society and media environment, especially through politicized tax investigations against independent media outlets, it stated.

The current iteration of the Cambodian Democracy Act is the third U.S. legislative effort in recent years to sanction Cambodias ruling party for alleged abuses and violations of democratic norms. The previous two bills also stalled in the Senate.

Prime Minister Hun Sen recently made a public statement saying he isnt worried about the latest bill, even if he is personally barred from traveling to America.

I wish to send messages that if the bill passes, there is only one thing, and it will never go the other way. You shut me down, that means you cant enter as well and I can't go out. That's nothing, he said. It will not happen only one side at all, don't let it be too difficult."

Phay Siphan, a spokesman for the Cambodian government, said the bill only targets individuals, and U.S.-Cambodia relations would go on as normal, but added it was a geopolitical maneuver and not reflective of the situation on the ground.

That's the rights and sovereignty of the United States, and it's politically motivated, which the allegation does not reflect and respond to the reality, he said.

Even as the Cambodian Democracy Act appears to have stalled in the Senate, the U.S. has made waves with other actions targeting Cambodian military leaders involved with the Ream Naval Base in Preah Sihanouk province, which has become a flashpoint for tension between the U.S. and China.

On November 10, the U.S. Treasury Department and State Department announced the sanctions against General Chau Phirun, director-general of the Defense Ministry's material and technical services department, and Admiral Tea Vinh, the Royal Cambodian Navy commander and the brother of Defense Minister Tea Banh.

The U.S. agencies accused both men of personally profiting from U.S. funds meant for developing the naval base. The U.S. fears could soon come under effective Chinese control, as relations between Beijing and Phnom Penh become ever closer.

In response to those sanctions, Cambodias Foreign Ministry lashed out at the long-arm jurisdiction of the U.S., adding: "The smear campaign and unilateral sanction of the United States against public figures of a sovereign state... [displays] an utter contempt for the independence of another country, as well as acts as a serious interference in its domestic affairs.

Cambodian political observer Sophal Ear, an associate professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, called the Cambodian Democracy Act icing on the cake in terms of U.S. commitment to holding Cambodian leaders accountable for the deterioration of democracy.

I think this year could be the year because Democrats control the Senate. Senator Markey is a dear friend of Cambodia. Lowell Cambodians will be clamoring for his leadership on this. This is the best chance the people of Cambodia have to put their leaders on notice, thanks to the US Senate finally having the right numbers, he said. Whether it happens, the US cares about Cambodia and is ready to punish Cambodian officials. Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability will always be there. This is just icing on the cake. The US Congress and President will punish the Cambodian authorities for their misdeeds, he added.

Mu Sochua, a vice president of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), said co-opposition leader Sam Rainsy spent a few weeks in Washington D.C. last November lobbying for U.S. action against Hun Sens regime, including virtual meetings with Markey and Chabot.

She noted that the U.S. Treasury can continue to sanction those individuals most responsible for corruption and undermining democracy. But with this law, it will be a potential resource that can name more people, because we will see that when the bill becomes law, President Joe Biden and other presidents after can use this law broadly, she added.
NASA says there are some 28,000 comets and asteroids in our planets neighborhood, with more being discovered every day. Fortunately, the space agency also says the probability of a major collision is quite small. Dr. Paul Chodas, manager of NASAs Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, joins Rick Pantaleo on the Science Edition of Press Conference USA to talk about asteroids and other near-Earth objects.
The United States and several allies on Thursday issued a joint condemnation of North Koreas most recent ballistic missile launches and urged the thorough implementation of U.N. sanctions.

It is extremely important that member states take the necessary steps to implement the sanctions in their jurisdictions or risk providing a blank check for the DPRK regime to advance a weapons program, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, using the acronym for the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the Norths official name.

She spoke to reporters at the United Nations flanked by her counterparts from Albania, Brazil, Britain, France, Ireland, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. All but Japan are current security council members.

This is the second time in 10 days that the council has met behind closed doors to discuss North Koreas missile launches.

Since the start of the year, North Korea has conducted two tests of what it described as a hypersonic missile, launched a pair of ballistic missiles from a train, and fired a pair of tactical guided missiles from an airport in Pyongyang.

We will continue to speak out against the DPRKs destabilizing actions as affronts to regional and international peace and security, Thomas-Greenfield said. We call on the DPRK to cease these unlawful actions and return to dialogue.

North Korea has ignored repeated offers by the United States to restart negotiations, saying Washington must first drop its hostile policy.

Thomas-Greenfield also called on the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea to support sanctions designations on individuals and entities contributing to Pyongyangs illicit weapons programs, including five individuals whom the U.S. proposed to be sanctioned last week.

Diplomats said Thursday that China and Russia were holding up the designations. The committee must unanimously agree to new designations.
Austria's lower house of parliament passed a bill Thursday making COVID-19 vaccinations compulsory for adults as of Feb. 1, bringing Austria closer to introducing the first such sweeping coronavirus vaccine mandate in the European Union.

Faced with a stubbornly high number of vaccine holdouts and a surge in infections, the government said in November it was planning the mandate. Since then it has raised the age as of which the mandate will apply, to 18 from 14.

The bill must now pass the upper house and be signed by President Alexander Van der Bellen, steps which will be largely formalities.

Roughly 72% of Austria's population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, one of the lowest rates in Western Europe.

After a fourth national lockdown ended last month, the extremely contagious omicron variant has pushed infections to record levels, but the government wants to avoid another lockdown.

"Making COVID-19 vaccination compulsory is an emergency exit ... out of the constant restrictions on our personal and fundamental rights like the ones we have had to endure in the past two years," the leader of the opposition Social Democrats, Pamela Rendi-Wagner, who is also a doctor, told parliament.

Many lawmakers from her party and the liberal Neos backed the bill, joining the government coalition of conservatives and Greens, meaning it cleared its main hurdle easily with 137 votes for to 33 against.

The bill imposes fines of up to $680 on holdouts once checks begin on March 15. Those who challenge that initial fine unsuccessfully face a maximum fine of $4,080.

Italy has made COVID-19 vaccinations compulsory for those 50 and older, while Greece has done the same for over-60s, and various European countries have done so for some professions like medical staff.

"This vaccine mandate strips people of their rights. In one move, millions of Austrians will be downgraded," said Herbert Kickl, leader of the far-right and anti-vaccine Freedom Party.

He added that the mandate would make holdouts "second-class citizens" and his party would challenge it in the courts.
President Joe Biden says there is some progress being made after eight rounds of talks between Iran and six major world powers over Irans nuclear ambitions. But a prominent member of that group, Russia, has been holding its own discussions with Irans leadership. VOAs Anita Powell reports from the White House on what the future might hold for these sensitive negotiations.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated after meeting Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva that the United States and its allies are ready to respond to a Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

If any of Russias military forces move across the Ukrainian border, thats a renewed invasion. It will be met with a swift, severe and a united response from the United States and our partners and allies, Blinken told reporters after the meeting.

The West is demanding that Russia pull its troops and weapons away from the Ukraine border while Moscow is pushing for NATO to curtail its operations in eastern and central Europe and insisting that the Western military alliance reject Ukraines membership bid.

The two senior diplomats met for 90-minutes, the fourth time in recent days that U.S. and Russian officials have engaged in direct talks. Prior to the talks, each side said it expected no breakthroughs.

Blinken said the U.S. and its allies are prepared to address Russias concerns but warned they would not yield on the issue of defending Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion.

I stressed again to Mr. Lavrov that on the security concerns that Russia has raised in recent weeks, the United States, our allies and partners are prepared to pursue possible means of addressing them in a spirit of reciprocity, which means simply put that Russia must also address our concerns, Blinken said.

There are several steps we can take, all of us, Russia included, to increase transparency, to reduce risks, to advance arms control, to build trust, Blinken added.



Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, Lavrov said it was constructive and useful and again denied Russia has intentions of invading Ukraine, while it seeks security guarantees, such as Ukraine not joining NATO, the seven-decade-old military alliance formed after World War II.

Blinken said the U.S. and its allies are unconvinced of Lavrovs insistence that Russia does not plan to invade Ukraine, saying Were looking at what is visible to all. Blinken urged Moscow to pull back its troops from the border to prove its assertions.

Lavrov noted that Ukraine is receiving assistance from western nations, including weapons deliveries from Britain.

No one is hiding the fact that weapons are being handed over to Ukraine; that hundreds of military instructors are flocking to Ukraine right now, Lavrov said.

Lavrov also said talks would continue over Russias security demands, that he expressed hope to Blinken that emotions would cool down over Ukraine, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin stands ready to communicate with U.S. President Joe Biden.

Blinken said his meeting with Lavrov was not a negotiation, but a candid exchange of concerns and ideas.

I made clear to Mr. Lavrov that there are certain issues and fundamental issues that the United States and our partners and allies are committed to defend, Blinken said. That includes those that would impede the sovereign of Ukranian people to write their own future.

Blinken said he and Lavrov agreed to put the concerns they discussed in writing and have follow-up conversations after each country has reviewed them. He said if the countries foreign ministries consider it useful, arrangements would be made for Biden and Putin to talk, to engage to try to carry things forward.

I think were fully prepared to do that, Blinken added.



On Thursday, after meeting with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Berlin, Blinken said Putin has a choice between dialogue and diplomacy on the one hand and conflict and consequences on the other hand. He has to decide which course to take.

Blinken said, Were at a decisive juncture, referring to the standoff between Western countries and Moscow over Putins massing of 100,000 troops along Ukraines eastern flank.

While the U.S. has been resolute in saying that a Russian military invasion of Ukraine would draw swift and significant economic sanctions, but no U.S. or NATO military response, it has been less clear what the West might do in the event of Russian cyberattacks or other actions against the Kyiv government.

At his news conference Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden made confusing remarks about the Wests response to what he called a minor incursion.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki later said Biden knows from long experience that the Russians have an extensive playbook of aggression short of military action, including cyberattacks and paramilitary tactics. And he affirmed today that those acts of Russian aggression will be met with a decisive, reciprocal, and united response.

Bidens comment about a minor incursion drew a sharp retort from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said on Twitter, We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones. I say this as the president of a great power.

Biden hedged on whether Putin will invade Ukraine, saying, Im not so sure he [is] certain what hes going to do. My guess is he will move in. He has to do something.

The U.S. leader said he does not believe Putin wants a full-blown war but does want to test the resolve of the United States and NATO.

Some material in this report came from the Associated Press.
The Georgia prosecutor looking into possible attempts to interfere in the 2020 general election by former President Donald Trump and others has asked for a special grand jury to aid the investigation.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Thursday sent a letter to Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Christopher Brasher asking him to impanel a special grand jury. She wrote in the letter that her office "has received information indicating a reasonable probability that the State of Georgia's administration of elections in 2020, including the State's election of the President of the United States, was subject to possible criminal disruptions."

Willis has declined to speak about the specifics of her investigation, but in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month she confirmed that its scope includes  but is not limited to  a January 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a November 2020 phone call between U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta on January 4, 2021, and comments made during December 2020 Georgia legislative committee hearings on the election.

A Trump spokesman has previously dismissed the investigation as a politically motivated "witch hunt." Graham also has denied any wrongdoing.

In a statement Thursday, Trump said his call to Raffensperger was "perfect."

"I didn't say anything wrong in the call, made while I was President on behalf of the United States of America, to look into the massive voter fraud which took place in Georgia," Trump said. He ended his statement by saying, "No more political witch hunts!"

Federal and state officials have repeatedly said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Georgia or elsewhere in the country during the 2020 election.

An AP investigation into cases of potential voter fraud in Georgia and the five other battleground states where Trump disputed his loss to President Joe Biden found fewer than 500 cases.

In Georgia, officials identified 64 potential voter fraud cases, representing 0.54% of Biden's margin of victory in the state. Of those, 31 were determined to be the result of an administrative error or some other mistake.

Willis' office has tried to interview multiple witnesses and gather evidence, but some witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate without a subpoena, she wrote in the letter to Brasher. For example, Willis wrote in the letter that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom she calls an "essential witness," has "indicated that he will not participate in an interview or otherwise offer evidence until he is presented with a subpoena by my office." A special grand jury would have the power to subpoena witnesses.

When asked by email whether Raffensperger would decline to participate without a subpoena, a spokesman sent a transcript of Raffensperger's Thursday afternoon appearance on Fox News. Raffensperger said his office has cooperated, sending Willis' team anything they've requested, and that he would follow the law and comply if compelled to appear before a grand jury, according to the transcript.

Special grand juries, which are not used often in Georgia, can help in the investigation of complex matters. They do not have the power to return an indictment but can make recommendations to prosecutors on criminal prosecutions.

Willis said the special grand jury is needed because it can serve a term longer than a normal grand jury term. It would also be able to focus on this investigation alone, allowing it to focus on the complex facts and circumstances. And having a special grand jury would mean that the regular seated grand jury wouldn't have to deal with this investigation in addition to their regular duties, Willis wrote.

She also asked that a superior court judge be appointed to assist and supervise the special grand jury in its investigation.

Willis, who took office in January 2021, sent letters to top elected officials in Georgia in February instructing them to preserve any records related to the general election, particularly any evidence of attempts to influence election officials. The probe includes "potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local government bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election's administration," the letters said.

Willis, a longtime prosecutor, has repeatedly said that she's aware of the intense public interest in her investigation, but she's said she won't be rushed. She told the AP that a decision on whether to seek charges in the case could come in the first half of this year.

In her letter to Brasher, Willis said her office has learned that people who may have tried to influence Georgia's election have had contact with the secretary of state, the state attorney general and the U.S. attorney's office in Atlanta. That means her office is the only one with the authority to investigate these matters that is not also a potential witness.
A federal judge on Friday issued a nationwide injunction prohibiting the enforcement of U.S. President Joe Bidens requirement that federal workers be vaccinated.

Biden announced the mandate, which required 3.5 million federal workers to be vaccinated or ask for a medical or religious exemption, in September. There was no option to be regularly tested instead.

When the mandate went into effect in November, the White House said 95% of federal workers had either been vaccinated or applied for medical or religious exemptions.

Those not conforming to the mandate could lose their jobs.

Judge Jeffrey Brown of Texas, writing in the injunction, questioned if a president can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment.

He called the mandate a bridge too far, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling striking down a mandate on private employers.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court struck down the Biden vaccine mandate requiring companies with more than 100 workers to be fully vaccinated. The court allowed a mandate requiring certain healthcare workers to be vaccinated.

Brown said public health could be adequately protected using masks and social distancing.

The plaintiff in the suit is a group called Feds for Medical Freedom.

The U.S. Department of Justice said it will appeal the injunction.

COVID-19 has killed more than 861,000 Americans.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.






Iran, Russia and China on Friday began a joint naval drill in the Indian Ocean aimed at boosting marine security, state media reported.

Iran's state TV said 11 of its vessels were joined by three Russian ships including a destroyer, and two Chinese vessels. Iran's Revolutionary Guard will also participate with smaller ships and helicopters.

The report said the maneuvers would cover some 17,000 square kilometers in the Indian Ocean's north, and include night fighting, rescue operations and firefighting drills.

This is the third joint naval drill between the countries since 2019. It coincided with a recent visit by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Russia that ended Thursday.

Improving bilateral relations between Tehran and Moscow will enhance security for the region and the international arena, Raisi said upon returning from Russia on Friday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Tehran has sought to step up military cooperation with Beijing and Moscow amid regional tensions with the United States. Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also increased in recent years.

Iran has been holding regular military drills in recent months, as attempts to revive its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers flounder.

Russia is also at loggerheads with the U.S. and the West over its neighbor Ukraine, where it has sent some 100,000 troops that Washington, Kyiv and their allies fear will be used to invade the country.

Russia on Thursday announced sweeping naval maneuvers in multiple areas involving the bulk of its naval potential  more than 140 warships and more than 60 aircraft  to last through February. The exercises will be in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the northeastern Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, in addition to the joint exercise with Iran in the Indian Ocean.
Irans president visited Russia this week on a visit Iranian officials called a turning point in their relations, as officials also announced a planned joint naval exercise that includes China for later this week.

The visit by President Ebrahim Raisi to Moscow comes amid rising tensions between Russia and Western countries over Moscows troop buildup on Ukraines border, broadly seen as preparation for a possible invasion. Russia claims it has no plans to invade.

In a speech Thursday before Russias parliament, the Duma, Raisi accused NATO of expanding into various geographical areas with new coverings that threaten the common interests of independent states.

Raisi and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at the Kremlin on Wednesday, but despite the red-carpet welcome, there were no substantial country-to-country agreements announced.

The significance of the trip at the moment is still mostly symbolic, Alex Vatanka, director of the Middle East Institutes Iran Program, told VOA. There's talk of closer military cooperation. There's talk of strategic cooperation in the energy sector. We've heard this before. Time will show if any tangible deals can be reached.

In his only tweet about Raisis trip to Russia, Irans foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, was cryptic. The presidents of the two countries agreed on a long-term roadmap, he wrote, without clarifying what the map was about or whether an agreement was signed.

During Raisis travels, Iranian state-run media reported planned joint naval exercises among Iranian, Russian and Chinese forces in the north of the Indian Ocean on Friday. Iran's armed forces and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps will take part in the drills, an Iranian military official said.

Iran became a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in September 2021, thanks to strong Russian support.

Uncertainty ahead of nuclear talks

The Iranian president also gave assurances in remarks before Russian officials that his country was not seeking nuclear arms. We are not looking for a nuclear weapon, and such weapons have no place in our defense strategy, Raisi told Russian lawmakers.

The United States and its allies accuse Iran of trying to make nuclear weapons and using terrorism to destabilize countries in the Middle East  charges Tehran rejects.

Iranian diplomats are in talks with U.S. and European counterparts to revive the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, which former President Donald Trump pulled out of, calling it one-sided and unacceptable.

The talks are at a decisive moment, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday. The top U.S. diplomat warned that Washington and its allies might change tactics if a deal isnt reached in the coming weeks.

Speaking in Vienna on Thursday alongside Blinken, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock indicated that European nations had sought to ensure China and Russia also maintained pressure on Iran.

In Moscow, the Iranian president said his country was serious about reaching an agreement if the other parties are serious about lifting the sanctions effectively and operationally.

Opportunistic alliance?

Russia and Iran both have critical disagreements with the U.S. on issues ranging from Irans nuclear program and alleged backing of terrorist groups in the Middle East to Russias security and strategic threats to NATO. The two countries have also cooperated in some areas, such as countering U.S. interests in Syria and Afghanistan.

But on other topics, divides include Irans existential threats to Israel and Russias official objection to Irans proliferation of nuclear arms.

This is not a matter of two nations which agree on politics or ideology to, somehow, form an alliance. It is basically an opportunistic alliance where both countries would really ignore their differences because of their hostility to the United States, Anthony Cordesman, an expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA.

Its unclear to what extent Putin will go with Iran and against the West, experts say.

With the U.S. departure from Afghanistan, which shares a long border with Iran and three Central Asian republics, analysts say Moscow and Tehran will find a common agenda in countering drugs, refugees and terrorist groups like the Islamic States Khorasan branch.

Russia and Iran will probably blame everything that will go wrong in Afghanistan on the U.S. policies. But the reality is now Afghanistan is on its own, and neighboring states like Russia and Iran have every reason to shape the internal dynamics of Afghanistan in a way that their actual interests are not jeopardized, said Vatanka of the Middle East Institute.

Before their seizure of power in Afghanistan, the Taliban signed an agreement with the U.S. that requires them to deny territory and support to any group that poses threats to the U.S. security and interests.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and RFE/RL.
Fighting raged for a second day in northeastern Syria, following what authorities described as a foiled plot by Islamic State terror group sleeper cells to break their captured comrades out of prison.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said IS sleeper cells launched the attack late Thursday, detonating a car bomb outside the al-Sina'a prison, in the Geweran neighborhood of Hasakah, before clashing with security forces.

Fighting quickly spread into surrounding areas, while inside the prison, IS detainees began burning blankets and other materials.

SDF officials said reinforcements were brought in to help quell the fighting, with the U.S.-led coalition sending in Apache attack helicopters and F-16 jets.

"We have provided some airstrikes to support them as they deal with this particular prison break," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Friday, in response to a question from VOA.



Earlier, a coalition official speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing fighting told VOA that U.S. and coalition aircraft had been called in to respond to the IS attack, while another official described the attack as an "evolving situation."

SDF officials initially claimed the attempted prison break had been thwarted late Thursday. But reports of continued fighting persisted, and a spokesman later said some of the attackers had "fled to the al-Zohour neighborhood near the prison and hid in civilian homes."

SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi on Friday said the initial attack had been repelled with coalition support, though he described the attack as a major operation.

"The terrorist ISIS organization has mobilized most of its sleeper cells in attempt to organize a jailbreak," Abdi said on Twitter. "We will not stop until all criminal elements are put behind bars."

There also were conflicting reports about whether any IS prisoners managed to escape.

Local security forces and the SDF told VOA on Friday more than 100 prisoners had been recaptured.

SDF spokesman Farhad Shami later posted video on social media, claiming to show some of the escaped prisoners, many half-naked and some wounded, being taken back into custody.

The SDF said seven prisoners were killed by IS operatives when they tried to surrender and that at least five IS fighters have been killed in the ongoing fighting, including one fighter of "Chinese nationality."

Officials said as of late Friday, at least 18 SDF soldiers had been killed, and that five civilians were also dead, some beheaded by IS fighters after they refused to allow them into their homes.

IS on Friday issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack on the al-Sina'a prison.

The claim, published by the terror group's Amaq news agency, described the operation as "a broad offensive," according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, and said that its fighters were continuing to battle with U.S.-backed forces.

Further complicating the situation on the ground, the Syrian-based People's Protection Units (YPG), an offshoot of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), claimed on social media that Turkish drones had attacked convoys sent to aid SDF forces with the fighting in Hasakah.

The U.S. has labeled the PKK as a terrorist organization, and Ankara maintains the SDF, despite U.S.-backing, is linked to both the PKK and YPG.

VOA has not been able to independently confirm the YPG's claims. Neither the Turkish embassy in Washington nor U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the region, have yet to respond to requests for comment.

When asked about the claims, the Pentagon did not have any comment. But the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war-monitoring group, confirmed the attack Friday, saying that an armed drone believed to have been flown by Turkish forces struck a military vehicle on a highway north of Hasakah, injuring several SDF soldiers.

Thursday's attack by IS sleeper cells is not the terror group's first attempt to free some of an estimated 5,000 fighters held in SDF-run prisons in and around Hasakah.

The SDF said it foiled an earlier prison break plot this past November, which sparked a series of reprisals by IS cells.

Since declaring the military defeat of IS in March 2019, the SDF has been holding more than 10,000 IS fighters, including about 2,000 foreign nationals.

The United States and other coalition countries have sent money and material to the SDF to help maintain the prisons, but efforts to repatriate many of the foreign nationals have failed.

U.S. intelligence analysts say IS is still in control of about 10,000 fighters across Syria and Iraq.

Estimates by the U.S.-based Counter Extremism Project said IS carried out 37 attacks across northeastern Syria over the last three months of 2021.

The SDF said for all of 2021 it carried out 115 operations against IS cells, resulting in 802 arrests and the disruption of 47 plots said to be in their final stages of planning.

VOA Kurdish Service contributed to this report.


A jury was picked Thursday for the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing, with the judge stressing repeatedly that fellow Officer Derek Chauvin's conviction on state murder charges and guilty plea to a federal civil rights violation should not influence the proceedings.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority as Chauvin used his knee to pin the Black man to the street. Separately, they're charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter in the videotaped killing that triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing.

Jury selection took just one day for the federal trial. The judge said opening statements would be Monday, with the court taking up some evidentiary matters on Friday.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson questioned potential jurors  who had already answered an extensive questionnaire  in groups to get a pool of 40 people. Each side then used their challenges to strike jurors until they had 18 people  12 who will deliberate and six alternates.

By comparison, at Chauvin's state trial, the judge and attorneys questioned each juror individually and spent more than two weeks picking a panel.

Magnuson told potential jurors they must be able to decide the case based on its own evidence, setting aside anything else. He singled out some jurors by number and asked them pointedly if they could do so, saying he was "harping and harping and harping" because state and federal law are different and he wanted to ensure they could be objective.

Legal experts say the federal trial will be more complicated than the state trial, scheduled for June 13, because prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd's constitutional rights  unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process.

Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor, said prosecutors must show that officers should have done something to stop Chauvin, rather than that they did something directly to Floyd.

Jury pool

Among the jurors Magnuson excused was a man who said he has a problem watching video of Floyd's arrest. Several other excused jurors said they could not be impartial, including a man who said his faith also prevents him from judging a human being.

One woman was excused after she said she had difficulty with vandalism in the community. Afterward, Magnuson said he understood such concerns about "anarchy in streets" but "that fear cannot control in a courtroom."

The jury pool was selected from throughout the state  much more conservative and less diverse than the Minneapolis area from which the jury for Chauvin's state trial was drawn. That jury was evenly divided among whites and nonwhites. The federal court declined a request to provide demographic information on jurors in the civil rights trial.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air. Kueng knelt on Floyd's back and Lane held down his legs. Thao kept bystanders from intervening.

Accusations

A statement from attorneys for the Floyd family Thursday said bystander video showed that the three officers "directly contributed to (Floyd's) death and failed to intervene to stop the senseless murder" and that the family expects them to be held accountable.

Several activists gathered in front of the courthouse to call for conviction.



"Considering the fact that he moaned in agony, that he could not breathe for minutes on end until he passed, I believe for a fact that they denied him of his civil rights," said Courteney Ross, Floyd's girlfriend at the time of his death. "I demand justice, and I hope everyone remembers what they did on that day."

Federal prosecutors face a high legal standard to show that an officer willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights. Essentially, prosecutors must prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong but did it anyway.

Magnuson said he expects the trial to last four weeks.

Kueng, Lane and Thao are all charged with willfully depriving Floyd of the right to be free from an officer's deliberate indifference to his medical needs. The indictment says the three men saw Floyd needed medical care and failed to help him.

Thao and Kueng are also charged with a second count alleging they willfully violated Floyd's right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not stopping Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd's neck. It's not clear why Lane is not mentioned in that count, but evidence shows he asked twice whether Floyd should be rolled on his side.

Both counts allege the officers' actions resulted in Floyd's death.

Such federal civil rights violations are punishable by up to life in prison or even death, but those stiff sentences are extremely rare, and federal sentencing guidelines indicate the officers would get much less if convicted.


A Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a prison run by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Friday, killing at least 70 detainees and wounding dozens, a rebel minister said. The strike was part of a pounding aerial offensive that hours earlier knocked the Arab world's poorest country off the internet.

The intense campaign comes after the Iran-backed Houthis claimed a drone and missile attack that struck inside the capital of the United Arab Emirates earlier in the week. It marked a major escalation in the conflict, a brutal civil war in Yemen where the Saudi-led coalition, backed by the UAE, has battled the rebels since 2015.

Taha al-Motawakel, health minister in the Houthi government which controls the country's north, told The Associated Press in the capital, Sanaa, that 70 detainees were killed at the prison but that he expects the number to rise in the coming hours since many of the wounded were seriously hurt.

Earlier Friday, a Saudi airstrike in the port city of Hodeida  later confirmed by satellite photos analyzed by the AP  hit a telecommunication center that's key to Yemen's connection to the internet. Airstrikes also hit near Sanaa, held by the Houthis since late 2014.

The escalation was the most intense since the 2018 fighting for Hodeida and comes after a year of U.S. and U.N. efforts failed to bring the two sides to the negotiating table.

Basheer Omar, an International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson in Yemen, said rescuers continued to go through the rebel-run prison site in the northern city of Saada. The Red Cross had moved some of the wounded to facilities elsewhere, he said. He had no breakdown for how many were killed and how many were wounded.

Doctors Without Borders in a separate statement put the number of wounded alone at "around 200" people.

"From what I hear from my colleague in Saada, there are many bodies still at the scene of the airstrike, many missing people," said Ahmed Mahat, the organization's head of mission in Yemen.

The organization Save the Children earlier said over 60 were killed in Saada, saying the prison holds detained migrants.

"Migrants seeking better lives for themselves and their families, Yemeni civilians injured by the dozens, is a picture we never hoped to wake up to in Yemen," said Gillian Moyes, Save the Children's director in Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition did not confirm the Saada attack; it has frequently struck civilian locations during the war, now in its eight year. It remained unclear if the detention facility was the intended target.

As for the airstrike in Hodeida, NetBlocks said the internet disruption began around 1 a.m. local and affected TeleYemen, the state-owned monopoly that controls internet access in the country. TeleYemen is now run by the Houthis who have held Yemen's capital, Sanaa, since late 2014.

Yemen faces "a nation-scale collapse of internet connectivity" after an airstrike on a telecommunications building, NetBlocks said.

The San Diego-based Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis and San Francisco-based internet firm CloudFlare also noted a nationwide outage affecting Yemen beginning around the same time.

Over 12 hours later, the internet remained down. The Norwegian Refugee Council decried the strike as "a blatant attack on civilian infrastructure that will also impact our aid delivery."

The Houthi's Al-Masirah satellite news channel said the strike on the telecommunications building killed and wounded an unspecified number of people. It released chaotic footage of people digging through rubble for a body as gunshots could be heard. Aid workers assisted bloodied survivors.

Save the Children said the Hodeida strike killed at least three children playing on a soccer field. Satellite photos analyzed by the AP corresponded to photos shared on social media of the telecommunications building being flattened by the airstrike.

The Saudi-led coalition acknowledged carrying out "accurate airstrikes to destroy the capabilities of the militia" around Hodeida's port. It didn't immediately confirm striking a telecommunications target as NetBlocks described, but instead called Hodeida a hub for piracy and Iranian arms smuggling to back the Houthis.

Iran has denied arming the Houthis, though U.N. experts, independent analysts and Western nations point to evidence showing Tehran's link to the weapons.

On Friday, Houthi supporters rallied to decry the airstrikes, calling it "an American escalation." Houthi media distributed video of thousands of demonstrators in the street. The Houthis commonly equate the Saudi-led coalition with the United States, condemning America in fiery terms.

The undersea FALCON cable carries internet into Yemen through the Hodeida port along the Red Sea for TeleYemen. The FALCON cable has another landing in Yemen's far eastern port of Ghaydah as well, but the majority of Yemen's population lives in its west along the Red Sea.

A cut to the FALCON cable in 2020 caused by a ship's anchor also caused widespread internet outages in Yemen. Land cables to Saudi Arabia have been cut since the start of Yemen's civil war, while connections to two other undersea cables have yet to be made amid the conflict, TeleYemen previously said.

The Saudi-led coalition entered Yemen's civil war in 2015 to try and restore to power the impoverished country's internationally recognized government, ousted by the Houthis the year before. The war has turned into the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with international criticism of Saudi airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians and targeted the country's infrastructure. The Houthis meanwhile have used child soldiers and indiscriminately laid landmines across the country. Some 130,000 people, including over 13,000 civilians, have been killed in targeted attacks, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Project.

The war reached into the United Arab Emirates, a Saudi ally, on Monday, when the Houthis claimed a drone and missile attack on Abu Dhabi, killing three people and wounding six. Although the UAE has largely withdrawn its forces from the conflict, it remains heavily involved in the war and supports local militias on the ground in Yemen.

On Thursday, the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was alarmed at the ongoing airstrikes in Sanaa, Hodeida and other locations in Yemen, as well as separate shelling attacks. The body's special envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, ended a visit to Riyadh on Thursday that was meant to discuss the spike in hostilities with Saudi and exiled Yemeni government officials.

"All parties must urgently renew peace efforts & do more to ensure protection of civilians & humanitarian access," the U.S. State Department tweeted Thursday.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday "condemned in the strongest terms the heinous terrorist attacks" in the UAE on Monday as well as in other sites in Saudi Arabia claimed by the Houthis, and underlined the need to hold perpetrators "accountable and bring them to justice."

Lana Nusseibeh, UAE's ambassador to the U.N., lauded the council for speaking "with one voice" and said the Houthi "terrorist attack is a clear threat to the entire international community."

Asked about Friday's deadly coalition airstrike on the Saada prison, she referred to the coalition but also added that the alliance does everything to "abide by international law and proportionate response in all its military operations."
Intelligence agencies studying the fate of the Islamic State in Iraq fear the terror group is not going anywhere, even as U.S. combat forces in the country prepare to "recede deep into the background" and leave the brunt of the work to Iraqi forces.

The assessment is one of the key findings in a report released by the United Nation's sanctions monitoring team, which warns that despite setbacks, IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is poised to be a problem for some time to come in Iraq and in neighboring Syria, as well.

"The group has evolved into an entrenched insurgency, exploiting weaknesses in local security to find safe havens and targeting forces engaged in counter-ISIL operations," according to the report released Friday, which was based on member state intelligence.

"Attacks in Baghdad in January and April 2021 underscore the group's resilience despite heavy counter-terrorism pressure from Iraqi authorities," the report added. IS "is likely to continue attacking civilians and other soft targets in the capital whenever possible to garner media attention and embarrass the Government of Iraq."

In addition to IS' ability to launch attacks in Baghdad, U.N. member state intelligence agencies see the terror group reasserting itself in the Diyala, Salah al-Din and Kirkuk governorates, where its operatives have carried out a series of attacks on roads linking one area to another.

Intelligence agencies also expressed concern that IS operatives are successfully exploiting poor communication and coordination among different Iraqi provinces.

Some intelligence agencies further cautioned that the precarious political situation in Iraq, as well as in Syria, will give IS more opportunities to solidify its status.

A weakened IS?

In contrast, however, some recent U.S. assessments have been more optimistic.

U.S. officials describe IS in Iraq as "diminished," noting that it may now command as few as 8,000 fighters across Iraq and Syria, a far cry from the upwards of 34,000 fighters the terror group likely had during its heyday.

The U.N. report likewise indicates that in some ways, IS is a shell of its former self, having seen Iraqi forces help whittle away at its leadership.

U.N. member state intelligence agencies also note that the group's self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi (also known as Amir Muhammad Sa'id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla) "remains reluctant to communicate directly with supporters," according to the U.N. assessment.

At the same time, its financial resources have waned.

And for now, at least some officials remain unconvinced that the decision by the United States to end its combat mission against IS in Iraq will make much a of difference.

"They're not going into combat themselves, perhaps the way they were a few years ago," Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government's representative to the U.S., said of the American forces in Iraq during a call on Monday. "Really, the assistance that they're providing is training, intelligence, airstrikes."

However, there is also a reluctance to dismiss the threat.

The latest public U.S. assessment of IS in Iraq and Syria cautioned that the terror group "remains capable of waging a prolonged insurgency," warning that no matter what happens on the ground, "the appeal of ISIS's ideology almost certainly will endure."

Some experts think that fervor could soon begin to play out on the ground in Iraq, if only in a limited way, for the time being.

"There are some areas where it poses a significant threat, where ISIS fighters could potentially carry out assassinations or even an offensive to take territory," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst and the CEO of Valens Global, told VOA.

"Certainly, for some smaller towns that are closest to areas of ISIS' strength, ISIS is a great threat there," he said.

Others warn that no matter what happens as a result of the U.S. ending its combat mission in Iraq, IS' propaganda arms will seek to spin it as nothing less than a victory.

"The Islamic State will take the decision as evidence of the success of its own strategy, particularly in light of the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, that the Americans are not willing to commit the resources to stay in the fight over the long term," Katherine Zimmerman, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA.
A New Zealand navy ship carrying 250,000 liters of water arrived in Tonga on Friday, bringing life-saving supplies for the South Pacific archipelago six days after it was devastated by a volcanic eruption and tsunami that polluted its water sources.

As help from abroad started arriving, an Australian aid flight was forced to return to base because of a positive COVID-19 case onboard, underlining the complexity of a contactless humanitarian mission to one of the few countries that has kept the coronavirus at bay.

New Zealand's High Commission said that the HMNZS Aotearoa had arrived in the capital, Nuku'alofa. As well as water supplies it is carrying desalination equipment that can produce 70,000 liters a day.

"Trucks from National Emergency Management Office have begun collecting and delivering water supplies from Aotearoa," the High Commission said on its Facebook page.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano eruption Saturday triggered a tsunami that destroyed villages and resorts, knocked out communications for the nation of about 105,000 people and sent shockwaves across the Pacific.

Three people have been reported killed, authorities said.

The salt water from the tsunami and the falling ash spoiled most sources of water on the islands, and Tongans have been struggling to find clean water as they clear away the ash.

"We are cleaning the ash and have been since Monday," said Branko Sugar, 61, who runs a bottle shop and fishing charter business from Nuku'alofa.

"Everything is so dusty, and we are running out of water," he said over a patchy telephone line.

"We only have the tap water, and it's been contaminated. We... can hardly breathe for all the dust."

The first aid flights from Australia and New Zealand landed in Tonga on Thursday with some water for sanitation and hygiene as well as shelter, communication equipment and generators.

Australia's HMAS Adelaide is en route from Brisbane and is due in Tonga next week.

Urgent assistance request

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has said the force of the last Saturday's eruption was estimated to be equivalent to five to 10 megatons of TNT, or more than 500 times that of the nuclear bomb the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of World War II.

Astronaut Kayla Barron said she could see the volcanic ash in the atmosphere from the International Space Station.

"I opened the window shutter to see if we could see any effects of the eruption, and saw this dramatic, high-altitude plume blocking out the sun," Barron said on Facebook.

NASA released photographs showing a huge gray smudge over the blue Pacific.

United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a briefing that Tonga has asked for urgent assistance.

"We remain seriously concerned about access to safe water for 50,000 people ... Water quality testing continues, and most people are relying on bottled water," he said, speaking before the Aotearoa arrived.

Some 60,000 Tongans have been affected by damage to crops, livestock, and fisheries due to ashfall, saltwater intrusion and the potential for acid rain, Dujarric said.

There are also reports of fuel shortages, he added.

Telephone links between Tonga and the outside world were reconnected late Wednesday, although restoring full internet services is likely to take a month or more.

Tongans have turned to social media to post images of the destruction by the tsunami and give accounts of their shock after the massive explosion.

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk asked in a post on Twitter if Tongans would like help from his Starlink project, which provides internet connection through satellites.
Online computer dealer Mohammed Maitano has nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter and says he normally makes around $4,500 every month from sales of his computers and other office accessories.

He says that being blocked on Twitter for months was a big setback.

"Seventy-five percent of my business income comes from Twitter," Maitano said. "Banning Twitter was one of the catastrophes that happened to us online vendors, actually. We lost a huge amount of investments and profits during this time. We suffered a lot."

Nigerian authorities lifted a seven-month ban on Twitter last week. The ban was imposed June, barely 24 hours after Twitter deleted a message from President Muhammadu Buhari to separatist groups that referred to Nigerias 1960s civil war, in which an estimated 1 million people were killed.

In imposing the ban, authorities blamed Twitter for promoting comments that could incite public unrest in Nigeria.

This week, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce said the ban cost Nigeria about $26.1 billion.

Victoria Akai, the director general of the Abuja chapter of the Nigeria Chamber of Commerce, agrees.

"A lot of Nigerians do businesses on Twitter and they make a lot of income, and this income, some of it is taxable," she said. "So definitely there's a very possible likelihood that Nigeria lost that amount of money from banning Twitter.

Despite the end of the ban, an activist group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, is calling on authorities to compensate citizens like Maitano, who incurred economic losses.

The group sued the government this week at the court of regional bloc ECOWAS in Abuja.

Kolawole Olawale, the group's deputy director general, said, "Our position remains the same: The ban shouldn't have been done in the first place because it is unlawful. Millions of Nigerians have been victims who have lost not only in pecuniary terms but in other terms as well during the period of the ban. We intend to seek compensation for those victims through the court to make sure that there's some form of remediation."

Nigerias information minister, Lai Mohamed, did not respond to requests from VOA to comment on the lawsuit.

The ECOWAS court is scheduled to hear the case on January 31.In the meantime, many vendors like Maitano have resumed their online marketing and will be trying to recover lost revenue.
Norway said Friday that Taliban delegates, Afghan civil society representatives and officials from a number of allied countries will gather in Oslo next week for three days of talks on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and human rights.

Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi will lead the Taliban team at the dialogue starting Sunday, his office in Kabul said.

They are scheduled to hold meetings and discussions on various issues with American diplomats, European Union delegates, and a number of Afghan personalities, said Bilal Karimi, a Taliban spokesman.

Officials from Britain, France, Germany and Italy are reportedly among the participants.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry quoted Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt as stressing the meetings Oslo is hosting will not represent a legitimization or recognition of the Taliban.

However, she emphasized the need for engaging with the de facto authorities in Afghanistan in order to help the civilian population there.

We are extremely concerned about the grave situation in Afghanistan, where millions of people are facing a full-blown humanitarian disaster, Huitfeldt said. We cannot allow the political situation to lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster.

We will be clear about our expectations of the Taliban, particularly as regards girls education and human rights, such as womens right to participate in society, Norways foreign minister stressed.

The Taliban military regained power in Afghanistan last August as the Western-backed government collapsed and all remaining U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from the country later that month after 20 years.

The change in power immediately halted international assistance for aid-dependent Afghanistan and the United States blocked the Talibans access to roughly $9.5 billion in foreign assets  largely held in the U.S. Federal Reserve  in addition to imposing financial sanctions on Kabul.

International donors have urged the Taliban to form an inclusive government and respect the rights of women as a condition for the release of more aid, which the group has not done.

The punitive actions have plunged the fragile Afghan economy into an unprecedented crisis, worsening an already bad humanitarian crisis in the country. The United Nations says it needs $5 billion this year to bring urgent relief to an estimated 24 million people experiencing acute food insecurity, with 9 million of them threatened with famine.

Humanitarian assistance, while essential, is not enough. We must prevent a collapse in basic services such as health and education. We must support the livelihoods of families and communities, Huitfeldt said.

The International Labor Organization reported this week that 500,000 jobs have been lost in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, saying the number could go to as high as 900,000 by the middle of this year because of the economic upheaval.

Critics say despite pledging not to re-introduce harsh Islamic polices of their previous regime in Kabul, the Taliban rulers are cracking down on human rights, particularly those of women.

Most female government employees have been prevented from returning to their jobs and most secondary schools for girls remained shuttered across Afghanistan.

Taliban officials maintain they recognize womens rights to education and work within Sharia or Islamic law but they need funds to pay salaries to teachers and organize a safe environment for female students. The Taliban have pledged to allow all girls to return to schools in March, when the new education year begins in Afghanistan.
FBI agents on Wednesday searched the home in Texas of prominent Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar, media reported, with the bureau confirming it had conducted "court-authorized law enforcement activity" in the area.

Cuellar said in a statement he "will fully cooperate in any investigation. He is committed to ensuring that justice and the law are upheld."

His office did not answer questions about the reason for the search.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was present in the "vicinity of Windridge Drive and Estate Drive in Laredo conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity. The FBI cannot provide further comment on an ongoing investigation."

Texas news site myrgv.com reported that more than a dozen agents visited Cuellar's home in Laredo, near the Mexican border, and were seen taking "cases and other items" from his home.

Reporter Valerie Gonzalez posted a photo on Twitter of two men in FBI T-shirts approaching a salmon-colored house on a tree-lined street. Gonzalez said agents had also visited Cuellar's campaign office Wednesday afternoon.

Cuellar, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives, represents a Texas district that hugs the banks of the Rio Grande River, just opposite Mexico. He is facing a primary challenge from Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney.
A female Afghan human rights activist, her two sisters and another activist have been taken from their homes after recent protests in Kabul, friends and activists say, prompting suspicions they were detained by the Taliban.

Shafi Karimi, a freelance journalist, told VOA that Tamana Paryani and her two sisters have been missing since Wednesday night.

"Tamana's father went to all the Taliban offices today and found no clues about his daughters," Karimi said.

The Associated Press, citing eyewitnesses, said the Taliban "stormed" an apartment in Kabul, "smashing the door in" and arresting Paryani and her sisters.

Another woman who took part in Sunday's protest against a Taliban directive making wearing hijabs, or Islamic headscarves, compulsory for women is also believed to have been detained.

The Taliban denied arresting the women, however. "This news is baseless, and no women [have been] arrested in Kabul," Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told the BBC.

Despite the Taliban government's denials, activists are preparing for more detentions.

A women's rights activist and friend of Paryani's who asked not to be named for security reasons told VOA via telephone, "We have reports that the Taliban will conduct more raids tonight. We are not safe at our homes. We are changing our homes and numbers. The Taliban have access to our phone numbers and other information through our arrested friends' phones."

Human Rights Watch condemned the Taliban's treatment of the protesters, calling it a "violent crackdown." Heather Bar, the associate director of the women's rights division of Human Rights Watch, told VOA the suspected detentions were "deeply alarming."

"This looks to be a serious escalation in the Taliban's desire to crush women's rights protests. The international immunity should urgently defend the protesters," she said.

'Help, please'

An Afghan media outlet has broadcast a video that it says Paryani recorded on her phone. The video, which VOA has not independently verified, was broadcast on Aamaj News and appears to show Taliban security forces banging on her door while she calls out for help.

"Help, please, the Taliban have come to our home  only my sisters are home," Paryani is saying in the footage, according to AP. In the background, other women are heard saying, "I can't open the door. Please  help!"

The Taliban's detention of female protesters has faced widespread criticism from politicians and civil society activists.

Afrasiab Khattak, a human rights activist and a former member of Pakistan's Senate, denounced the detention of the activists. It shows the "brutality of the lawless militia in a country without constitution and law-based state system," he said. "Afghans are thrown to wolves. Silence of the U.N. and international community is deafening."

Fawzia Koofi, a former deputy speaker of parliament in Afghanistan  the first female to hold the post  and a former chairperson of Afghanistan's Women, Civil Society and Human Rights Commission, condemned the arrests, calling them extrajudicial detentions.

Koofi tweeted Thursday: "Many women activists live under tremendous fear & horror. Women of Afg. deserve to live in safety and enjoy every right that is granted for them in the laws. Extra judiciary arrest must stop."

Four detained

On Tuesday, the Taliban detained four activists  Azeem Azeemi, Ahmad Shah, Abdul Karim Bilal and Hayatullah Raufi  for organizing a protest against Pakistani national security adviser Moeed Yusuf's visit to Kabul.

Inayatullah Qazizada, an activist, told VOA Deewa in a phone interview that his friends were still in Taliban detention and that no one had been allowed to talk to them.

From time to time, women's rights activists in Afghanistan have staged demonstrations demanding their rights to education and employment.

Human rights violations in Afghanistan have been repeatedly highlighted in recent reports by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

This report originated in VOA's Deewa Service. Some information came from The Associated Press.
The Taliban Friday sharply criticized U.S. President Joe Biden for declaring Afghanistan not susceptible to unity, and questioning the competence of the Islamist groups ability to govern, asserting the humanitarian and economic crisis in their country had been precipitated by the U.S. sanctions.

Speaking to reporters during his Wednesday news conference at the White House, Biden said he makes no apologies for his August withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

"It's been the graveyard of empires for a solid reason: It is not susceptible to unity," he said.

Biden argued that Washington was spending a billion dollars a week in Afghanistan for 20 years and nobody thought U.S. involvement would ever be able to unite Afghanistan.

Not divided, but only united nations cause the fall of invaders and great empires, the Taliban foreign ministry responded Friday.

Discord is an external phenomenon instigated by foreign invaders for their survival, however, Afghans defeated them with their shared Islamic beliefs, homeland & celebrated history, & are now taking strong leaps towards becoming an equal nation, the statement read.

Suhail Shaheen, the Talibans permanent representative-designate to the United Nations, told VOA he concurs with Bidens view of Afghanistan being the graveyard of empires. However, the rest of the assertions made by the U.S. president are distant from the ground reality, he said.

Afghanistan has always been and is united. Afghans across the country speak with one voice when it comes to supporting national interests and national unity, Shaheen argued.

Biden expressed regret, however, for changes that have taken place in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover five months ago.

"Now, do I feel badly [about] what's happening as a consequence of the incompetence of the Taliban? Yes, I do," the U.S. president said on Wednesday.

Michael Kugelman, the deputy Asia program director at the Wilson Center, described Bidens comments about Afghanistan as both defensive and defiant, and clearly meant to emphasize that withdrawal was the right decision despite how bad conditions have become in Afghanistan since the completion of the pullout.

What was striking is that the reasons he gave for the withdrawal were different from those - a need to focus on higher priority issues, the achievement of U.S. goals - that he cited when he first announced his decision to depart [Afghanistan], Kugelman said.

Shaheen said the current economic crisis and other upheavals facing Afghanistan stem not from the Talibans governance but from the financial sanctions the United States and other foreign entities have imposed, including the freezing of billions of dollars in Afghan central banks assets.

The international withdrawal led to the immediate suspension of the nonhumanitarian funding that made up more than 75% of the deposed Western-backed Afghan governments national budget.

The sanctions are hurting ordinary Afghans not our government. Today, if they release our more than $9.6 billion assets, if they lift the sanctions on our banking system to allow our traders to use routine financial channels for imports and exports, and money starts flowing the way it happens in America, it will pave the way for our economic recovery, Shaheen said.

If those sanctions are removed and the crisis still persists, it will certainly be our incompetence and inability to govern, he added.

Since returning to power, the Taliban have reinstated social restrictions on women, barring most female government employees from returning to work, requiring women to wear hijabs and undertake long road trips only with a male relative. While secondary schoolboys were allowed to resume classes in September, most girls schools across Afghanistan remained shuttered.

Shaheen defended the Taliban government, saying it has brought peace and stability to the country in a short period and with limited resources.

The economic challenges have deepened an already bad humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, which is blamed on years of conflicts and natural disasters. The United Nations estimates more than 24 million Afghans, or 55% of the countrys population, face acute food shortages, with 9 million people one step away from famine.

Former Afghan diplomat Omar Samad viewed Bidens assessment of Afghanistan as flawed because of his misreading of the ground situation and competing U.S. domestic and foreign policy agendas.

The reality is that the U.S. is still responsible for the unfolding humanitarian disaster and needs to do its part to prevent chaos and instability by pushing for a new political arrangement and lifting of sanctions, Samad, a senior fellow at Washingtons Atlantic Counci, said.

The U.N. and the United States have pledged to organize, together with partners, the delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of Afghans who aid workers say are threatened with starvation.

"We see assignment of blame between President Biden and Taliban. Clearly that is rhetorical talk for the political needs of each side, said Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan official.

But in all honesty, the people of Afghanistan didn't have a say in these political games; why would they have to pay the heavy price of crippling sanctions on their livelihoods, asked Farhadi.

No country has yet recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. Foreign governments have pledged to send urgent relief aid to Afghans but at the same time they want to make sure it does not end up with the Taliban rulers.
French oil giant TotalEnergies on Friday said it would withdraw from Myanmar over "worsening" human rights abuses committed since the country's military took power in a February 2021 coup.

"The situation, in terms of human rights and more generally the rule of law, which have kept worsening in Myanmar... has led us to reassess the situation and no longer allows TotalEnergies to make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country," the company said.

Total will withdraw from its Yadana gas field in the Andaman Sea, which provides electricity to the local Burmese and Thai population, six months at the latest after the expiry of its contractual period.

The company said it had not identified any means to sanction the military junta without avoiding stopping gas production and ensuing payments to the military-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).

Around 30% of the gas produced at Yadana is sold to the MOGE for domestic use, providing about half of the largest city Yangon's electricity supply, according to Total.

International diplomatic pressure and sanctions have been building against Myanmar's military junta since last year's coup ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The European Union has imposed targeted sanctions on the Myanmar military, its leaders and entities, while Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor this week sold its stake in a Burmese digital payments service over the coup.

More than 1,400 civilians have been killed as the military cracks down on dissent, according to a local monitoring group, and numerous anti-junta militias have sprung up around the country.

Suu Kyi this month was convicted of three criminal charges and sentenced to four years in prison and now faces five new corruption charges.
The U.N. General Assembly approved an Israeli-sponsored resolution Thursday condemning any denial of the Holocaust and urging all nations and social media companies to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion.

The 193-member world body approved the resolution by consensus -- without a vote -- and with a bang of a gavel by Assembly President Abdulla Shahid who met with a group of Holocaust survivors before the assembly meeting. Israel's No. 1 enemy, Iran, disassociated itself from the resolution.

The ambassadors of Israel and Germany, which strongly supported the resolution, stressed the significance of the resolution's adoption on Jan. 20: It is the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference where Nazi leaders coordinated plans for the so-called Final Solution of the Jewish Question at a villa on the shores of Berlin's Wannsee Lake in 1942 during World War II.

The result was the establishment of Nazi death camps and the murder of nearly 6 million Jews, comprising one-third of the Jewish people. In addition, millions of people from other nationalities, minorities and targeted groups were killed, according to the resolution.

We now live in an era in which fiction is becoming fact and the Holocaust is becoming a distant memory, Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan told the assembly in urging support for the resolution. And as this happens following the greatest crime in human history, now comes the greatest cover-up in human history.

Erdan, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, said the resolution preserves the memory of the 6 million victims and is a commitment to make sure that Holocaust distortion and denial will be tolerated no more.

He said social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and You Tube are spreading the pandemic of distortions and lies about the Holocaust.

Social media giants can no longer remain complacent to the hate spread on their platforms and must take action now, the Israeli ambassador said.

The resolution, cosponsored by 114 nations, commends countries that have preserved Nazi death camps and other sites from the Holocaust and urges the 193 U.N. member states to develop educational programs that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide.

It requests the U.N. and its agencies to continue developing and implementing programs aimed at countering Holocaust denial and distortions and to mobilize civil society and others to provide facts about the Holocaust.

Currently, the U.N. has an outreach program on the Holocaust and the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has a program on Holocaust education and combatting antisemitism.

Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock issued a joint statement welcoming the resolution and expressing extreme concern at the dramatic increase in Holocaust denial, distortion and revisionism. They said the phenomenon of comparing current political disputes to the Holocaust is deeply troubling and a perversion of history and injustice to Holocaust victims.

We carry an obligation to remember, to learn and to challenge the growth of Holocaust revisionism, denial and distortion both on and offline, the ministers said.

Iran accused Israel of being the only apartheid regime in the world whose ideology is based on the two main drivers of World War II, racism and expansionism. In a statement read by a junior diplomat, it also accused Israel of attempting to exploit the sufferings of the Jewish people in the past as a cover for the crimes it has perpetrated over the past seven decades against the regional countries, including all its neighbors without exception.

Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but do reflect global opinion.

The General Assembly designated Jan. 27 -- the day the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Soviet army -- as the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of victims of the Holocaust in 2005. The resolution underlines that remembrance is a key component to the prevention of further acts of genocide.

It says Holocaust denial refers to discourse and propaganda that deny the historical reality and the extent of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis and their accomplices during World War II and any attempt to claim that the Holocaust did not take place or call into doubt that gas chambers, mass shooting, starvation, and intentional genocide were used against the Jewish people.

The resolution says distorting or denying the Holocaust also refers to intentional efforts to excuse or minimize the role of Nazi collaborators and allies, gross minimization of the number of victims, attempts to blame the Jews for causing their own genocide, statements casting the Holocaust as a positive event, and attempt to blur the responsibility for establishing concentration and death camps by putting blame on other nations or ethnic groups.
Rodolphe Jaar, 49, a Haitian businessman who holds Haiti-Chilean dual nationality, was charged Thursday in U.S. federal court in Miami in connection with the assassination Haitian President Jovenel Moise.

Jaar is accused of conspiring to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and 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.

Moise was shot and killed inside his residence in an upscale Port-au-Prince suburb in the early hours of July 7, 2021. His wife, Martine, was injured during the attack and was flown to Miami for treatment.

If convicted, Jaar faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida told the defendant.

Jaar, who appeared via Zoom because of COVID-19 restrictions, was transferred to Miami from the Dominican Republic on Wednesday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter Norkin said during the hearing. Jaar wore a beige prison uniform and was handcuffed. Four law enforcement officers and two other defendants were also in the room.

According to the complaint seen by VOA, Jaar provided housing for 20 Colombians with military experience who were recruited to execute an arrest warrant for Moise.

Jaar answered the judge's questions in English. He said he had not earned any income for six months, had no U.S. bank account, real estate, assets or vehicles in the U.S. and that he had about $2,000 in a Haitian bank account.

Louis appointed him an attorney based on his testimony. Attorney Joaquin Padilla will represent him for the time being. Padilla asked the judge to give him a few days to speak to his client before going forward. The request was granted.

Norkin argued that Jaar should be held without bond, noting that he has no legal status in the United States and has a criminal record.

Reports by U.S. media that Jaar worked as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after he was arrested in South Florida in 2013 were not confirmed by the FBI when asked by VOA.

The judge asked Norkin if the Haitian Consulate had been notified of Jaar's detention. He replied, "not yet" and was ordered to do so by Friday.

VOA Creole contacted the Haitian Embassy in Washington to ask about the notification. They responded that Ambassador Bocchit Edmond had no comment because the investigation is ongoing.

Jaar's next scheduled court appearance, a preliminary hearing, is set for Jan. 26 in Miami. He will then appear Jan. 27 for an arraignment hearing.

Haiti has charged more than 40 people in connection with the assassination. Some are detained in Haiti, one died of COVID-19 during his detention, and others were released because there was insufficient evidence against them.

In addition to Jaars detention after crossing the Haitian border into the Dominican Republic last week, former Haitian Senator John Joel Joseph was detained by Jamaican officials in Kingston.

Another suspect, Samir Handal, was arrested by Turkish officials in Istanbul after arriving at the airport Nov. 16, upon request of Haitis then-Foreign Minister Claude Joseph.

U.S. law enforcement officials have assisted Haiti in the investigation into the assassination of the president at the request of the Haitian government.

The United States supports a thorough, independent investigation into President Moises assassination consistent with both Haitian law and international rule of law standards, a State Department spokesperson told VOA. We want to see those who planned, funded, and carried out the assassination of former President Moise held accountable.

VOA State Department Correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this report.
The Justice Department dropped charges Thursday against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor accused of concealing ties to the Chinese government, a further setback to a federal initiative that was set up to prevent economic espionage and theft by Beijing of trade secrets and academic research.

The department revealed its decision in the case against Gang Chen in a filing in federal court in Boston, saying it could no longer meet its burden of proof.

U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, said the move was "in the interests of justice" and was the result of new information the government had received about the allegations.

"After a careful assessment of this new information in the context of all the evidence, our office has concluded that we can no longer meet our burden of proof at trial," Rollins said. "As prosecutors, we have an obligation in every matter we pursue to continually examine the facts while being open to receiving and uncovering new information."

The outcome, which had been expected and was earlier recommended by prosecutors in Boston, is a blow to a Justice Department effort known as the China Initiative, which was set up in 2018 to crack down on Chinese economic espionage and trade secret theft. A key prong of the initiative has focused on academics in the U.S. accused of concealing research ties to China on grant applications. But critics have long said the effort unduly targets researchers based on ethnicity and that it chills academic collaboration.

The Justice Department is reviewing the future of the program, a process expected to be completed in the coming weeks, said spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle.

In a statement, Chen thanked his supporters and said he would have more to say soon.

"While I am relieved that my ordeal is over, I am mindful that this terribly misguided China Initiative continues to bring unwarranted fear to the academic community and other scientists still face charges," Chen said.

Accusations against Chen

Chen, a mechanical engineering professor, was arrested in January 2021 in the final days of the Trump administration and charged with concealing ties to Beijing while also collecting U.S. payment for his nanotechnology research.

Prosecutors accused him at the time of entering into undisclosed contracts and appointments with Chinese entities, including acting as an "overseas expert" for the Chinese government at the request of the People's Republic of China Consulate Office in New York. Many of those roles were "expressly intended to further the PRC's scientific and technological goals," authorities in court documents.

He was accused of failing to disclose information about connections to China in an application for an Energy Department grant. Chen's lawyers have consistently said that he did nothing wrong and that he disclosed what he needed to disclose.

The case began to wobble as the government received new information, including from the Energy Department, a person familiar with the matter said last week.

In a statement Thursday, defense attorney Robert Fisher called the case a "wayward prosecution" and said his client was eager to return to work. He thanked the "many witnesses who came forward and told the government how badly they misunderstood the details surrounding scientific and academic collaboration."

"Our defense was this: Gang did not commit any of the offenses he was charged with. Full stop. He was never in a talent program. He was never an overseas scientist for Beijing. He disclosed everything he was supposed to disclose, and he never lied to the government or anyone else," Fisher said in a statement.

Other China Initiative cases

Many of the China Initiative cases against academics and professors have centered on false statement or fraud allegations, rather than accusations of espionage or passing along academic research or technical or scientific expertise to China.

The initiative has resulted in some significant guilty pleas and convictions and did score a high-profile win last month with the conviction of a Harvard University professor on charges that he hid his ties to a Chinese-run recruitment program.



But other big cases brought as part of the China Initiative have faltered.

A federal judge in September, for example, threw out all charges against a University of Tennessee professor accused of hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving research grants from NASA, and the university has since offered to reinstate him.

Critics of the China Initiative have called for the Justice Department to shut the program down. The department's top national security official, Matthew Olsen, met Wednesday with members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, who expressed their concerns.

Andrew Lelling, who was the U.S. attorney in Boston when Chen was charged, wrote in a LinkedIn post several weeks ago that the China Initiative was created in response to "concerns about economic espionage involving an emerging political rival."

Now, he wrote, the "initiative has drifted, and in some significant ways, lost its focus. DOJ should revamp, and shut down, parts of the program, to avoid needlessly chilling scientific and business collaborations with Chinese partners."


The top U.S. spy agency has concluded a mysterious illness plaguing American diplomats and other officials around the world is not nearly as widespread as initially feared and is most likely not the work of a foreign adversary.

But the Central Intelligence Agency also cautioned that a smaller number of cases continue to defy explanation, with one official warning that in those cases, We have not ruled out the involvement of a foreign actor.

Since 2016, when it was first reported by diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, hundreds of U.S. personnel have reported getting sick, with symptoms ranging from nausea and dizziness to debilitating headaches and memory problems.

Suspected cases of so-called Havana syndrome were reported in Russia, China, Poland and Austria, and the sickness affected some U.S. officials so badly their careers derailed.

Yet an interim report Thursday by the CIA finds that most of the illnesses, also known as anomalous health incidents, or AHI, are not a mystery at all.

"We assess that the majority of the reported AHI cases can be reasonably explained by medical conditions or environmental and technical factors, including previously undiagnosed illnesses," a CIA official told VOA on Thursday on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the report.

The official declined to say exactly how many cases the agency investigated, describing the number as "dynamic," and noted that reports increased dramatically once the government encouraged workers to report any symptoms that could be connected to Havana syndrome.

Various unofficial accounts have put the number anywhere from several hundred to as many as 1,000.

Unsolved cases

However, there are "a couple of dozen cases" for which there are still no answers, the official said.

"There is a subset of cases, including some of our toughest cases, that remain unresolved," the official said.

The location of many of the first-reported cases  Havana, Russia and China  gave rise to speculation that Havana syndrome was not so much an illness as it was an effort to harm U.S. diplomats and intelligence personnel.

A 2020 report by the National Academy of Sciences further fueled such concerns, concluding that "directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining" the growing number of cases.

The CIA interim report, while not ruling out that someone or something may be causing Havana syndrome in the unexplained cases, called the use of a weapon unlikely.

"We assess that it is unlikely that a foreign adversary, including Russia, is conducting a sustained worldwide campaign harming U.S. personnel with a weapon or mechanism," the official said. "We have so far not found evidence of state actor involvement in any incident."

Despite the findings of the interim report, U.S. officials said Thursday that they continue to take the reports of illnesses among U.S. government employees seriously, and that making sure medical care was available remains a top priority.

"I have no higher priority as secretary than the health and safety of all of our colleagues and their families," Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Thursday during a news conference in Berlin.

"When you talk to people, when you hear them, when you hear what they've been through, there is no doubt in my mind but that they have had real experiences, real symptoms, and real suffering," he said. "We are going to continue to do everything we can with all the resources we can bring to bear to understand, again, what happened, why, and who might be responsible. And we are leaving no stone unturned."

CIA Director William Burns also emphasized the need to care for those who have been ill, and for any personnel that could be affected in the future, describing their suffering as real.

"While we have reached some significant interim findings, we are not done," Burns said in a statement. "We will continue the mission to investigate these incidents and provide access to world-class care for those who need it."

Lawmakers' response

Some U.S. lawmakers praised the efforts of the CIA to determine the cause of the ailments but said more still needs to be done.

"Reports of anomalous health incidents among intelligence, diplomatic and military personnel emerged as early as 2016 but were not always taken seriously," the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Democrat Mark Warner, said in a statement.

"I am heartened that there are now procedures in place to ensure that those who are affected by these anomalous health incidents finally have access to the world-class care that they deserve," he said, adding, "The Senate Intelligence Committee will continue pressing for answers."

Republican Marco Rubio, the Senate Intelligence Committee's vice chair, was equally adamant that lawmakers would keep pressing U.S. intelligence officials for answers.

"The CIA must continue to make this issue a priority," Rubio said, noting the possibility that the unresolved cases could still be "the work of a foreign government or a specific weapon or device."

U.S. lawmakers, led by Warner, Rubio and Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, passed the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks Act, or HAVANA Act, last year, when it was signed by President Joe Biden.

The law provides financial support for U.S. government employees suffering from symptoms attributed to Havana syndrome.
The head of the U.S. Africa Command says security threats are growing across the continent. In his first on-camera interview since taking command two years ago, Gen. Stephen Townsend spoke with VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb about his increasing concerns, including the spread of violent extremist groups, the role of Russian mercenaries, military inroads by China and threats from Iran.
The U.S. has now confirmed reports that Russian mercenaries known as the Wagner Group have deployed in Mali and are supported by the Russian military.

"Wagner (Group) is in Mali. They are there, we think, numbering several hundred now," General Stephen Townsend, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, told VOA in an exclusive interview Thursday via Skype from his headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

"Russian air force airplanes are delivering them. The world can see this happening, so it's a great concern to us," he added.

Townsend, who took over U.S. Africa Command in 2019, also said that China is the "most active" of Americas global competitors in Africa and is "intent on building a military air base and/or naval facility in Equatorial Guinea."

"We're not asking them (Equitorial Guinea) to choose between China and us. What we're asking them to do is consider their other international partners and their concerns, because a Chinese military base in Equatorial Guinea is of great concern to the U.S. and all of their other partners," Townsend said.

In addition to Chinese military expansion, Townsend said he was also monitoring a less obvious threat to U.S. interests on the continent  inroads from the "arm of the Iranian security apparatus that engages in malign activity in the Middle East," a not-so-veiled description of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

"I think their inroads are going to be very malign in nature. It's very nascent, but it's happening now, and we're watching," he said.

A U.S. official later confirmed to VOA that the IRGC had plotted assassination attempts on American diplomats in Africa and was still looking for revenge plot targets there. Iran has denied the plot accusations, calling them baseless.

The official said that due to concerns about increased threats from Iran, China and others over the past year, the U.S. military has brought in new and improved defense systems and anti-drone weapons to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, its only military base in Africa.

In Somalia, where local and international partners are battling the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab, U.S. forces have continued to "commute to work" while leaving fewer than 100 troops in the war-torn country. Donald Trump ordered most of the 800 U.S. troops out of Somalia in 2020 in one of his last foreign policy moves as American president.

"We are working hard to get our tasks done. I think that there's more effective and efficient ways to do that. Weve provided those recommendations to the secretary of defense, and we're waiting for decisions there," Townsend said.

The U.S. is still training and building up Somalia's vanguard Danab forces, which came under review late last year; albeit that work has slowed a bit while the threat from al-Shabab continues to grow, according to Townsend.

"If increased pressure is not applied to al-Shabab, I'm concerned there's going to be a significant al-Shabab attack," he told VOA.

Below is a transcript of the interview, edited for brevity.

VOA: We just had the Global Posture Review completed at the end of the year. I'm a little confused though because the Pentagon summary for Africa used about 40 words in their summary that told me next to nothing. So what have you seen change in U.S. Africa Command?

U.S. AFRICOM COMMANDER GEN. STEPHEN TOWNSEND: Well, quite frankly, I think the Global Posture Review, this is our third review in about three years. Before the Global Posture Review we had the blank slate review and before that we had a review called optimization. So we've been through a lot of reviews, and as a result, I think we are on pretty solid ground with what we're doing in Africa, the tasks that America expects of us, the department expects of us, but also the resources that we have to do those tasks. And so the global review has basically ratified what AFRICOM is doing and what we're doing.

VOA: OK, so just to get a little specifics, you mentioned still about 6,000 troops. You just told me that. What about the percent of Africa's intelligence reconnaissance surveillance? What would you say is the percentage of your needs this being met right now?

TOWNSEND: Well, so it's common knowledge, especially across the DOD enterprise and the government, that there's never enough intelligence surveillance reconnaissance (ISR) assets to go around. So we don't have all that I would like to have nor does any combatant commander. But we have what we must have.  There's a DOD metric and it's called a validated requirement. We're probably at something like 25-30% of our validated requirement. But quite honestly, I think our validated requirement is probably a little inflated. And so I look at what my own assessment is of what we need and we have a much higher percentage.

VOA: OK, what about exercise funds? You had mentioned the need for more funds to exercise with partners. Did you get any more of that?

TOWNSEND: No. In fact, we've had a decrement in exercise funds. I know that the department is still reviewing the budget allocations for FY 22 and FY 23. But I think that we've suffered a significant reduction in exercise funds and we've made the case to the department that that should be reconsidered, and I think it will be.

VOA: VOA had pointed out in a report earlier this month that airstrikes have been significantly reduced by AFRICOM, also by CENTCOM, but AFRICOM went from 72 airstrikes in 2020 to just 10 in 2021, and most of those occurred during the Trump administration in the month of January. So, tell us why the strikes have been reduced?

TOWNSEND: Well, the new administration has come in and they've re-evaluated the conditions and why were doing the strikes and how we're doing the strikes, and some of those decisions are still being considered by the current administration, and I think that's you got to let those decisions play out. I know this that right now we have the authorities we need to protect our American troops in Africa should that become necessary. And it's not been necessary over the last 10 or 11 months. But if it becomes necessary, we have the authorities we need. ... I'm expecting that what the administration is trying to do is get very comfortable and to be able to support what the president wants the U.S. military to do in the world.  That's what I think is going on. And that's painstaking and deliberate work. But I wouldn't expect to see an elimination or an expansion, but I would think that we'll get clear guidance on how to proceed in the interim there are procedures that we can rely on.

VOA: The last time we spoke I asked you about the threat of al-Shabab in Somalia and you said that the threat was higher, the threat is higher. And you had said that that was the reason for the increase in strike activity that we were seeing at the time. So kind of run through what is the threat of al-Shabab today.

TOWNSEND: I believe that the threat of al-Shabab has increased over about the last eight to 12 months or so, the threat of al-Shabab has increased. I think COVID certainly had an effect, but emerging out of COVID, I think the threat has gone up. And as you know, the last administration had us reposition U.S. forces largely out of Somalia where we are now we still have the same tasks to do there, to disrupt al-Shabab, al-Qaidas largest, wealthiest and most kinetically active arm in the world, and they are a threat to the United States and the American people by their own aspiration. Their leadership charge their followers to attack Americans wherever they find them. So I think we ought to take that very seriously, and we are. I think that threat is growing because of the lack of counterterrorism pressure on al-Shabab over the last year That's coming from a lot of factors. One of them is inactivity from AMISOM. Another one is because of COVID and other things. Another one is political friction and dysfunction. As you know, their president's term expired.  Theres a lot of friction to try to get a new head of state elected. And so I think all of that is affecting the fight against al-Shabab, and our own our own posture is also calculates into that. So I think the threat of al-Shabab is growing. And if increased pressure is not applied to al-Shabab, I'm concerned that there's going to be a significant al-Shabab attack. We've seen just suicide bombs going off in Mogadishu over the last two weeks to include one fairly large vehicle-borne IED, so I think they're expanding and they're growing.

VOA: Do we still have a few dozen on the ground? I know it was fewer than a hundred as of this around this time last year. Has it stayed that way? Have you been able to increase the presence? Have you asked for more troops to match the growing threat?

TOWNSEND: So what I've advised the administration will stay between me and the administration's leaders right now because those decisions are still, we're still awaiting decisions on those recommendations. But what the last administration required us to do is reposition our troops. We had only about 800 to 850 troops in Somalia at that time, and we were directed to reposition them out of Somalia. They are in bases in the region and we commute to work. And so who's in Somalia every day is less than 100, and then our numbers go up as we commute to work at a couple of bases where we go in to work with our Somali and AMISOM partners. We have two of these engagements going on right now in Somalia. And so our numbers go up, and they stay that way for a while, and then they go down to again something less than 100 is sort of the steady state number.

VOA: How is that affecting the mission?

TOWNSEND: Well, I think that we are working hard to get our tasks done. I think that there's more effective and efficient ways to do that. We provide those recommendations to the secretary of defense and we're waiting for decisions there. But we're constantly looking for ways to improve what we're doing there.

VOA: The last question on Somalia. Questions arose with the Danab training back in October. Are U.S. forces still training the Danab? What was, basically, the result of that review on the training?

TOWNSEND: The elite force training, yeah, we still are training the Danab and for your audience, it may not know what the Danab is. Danab stands for Lightning Battalion, Danab Battalion, and it there are special light infantry formation Advanced Infantry Battalion, and we're training them and they're our counterterrorism partner there, and so they're sort of, I would hesitate to use the word elite, but they sort of are the vanguard of Somali national army operations. And we're still training them and we're still building the Danab. That has slowed a bit and were looking for ways to accelerate that, but we're still working with the Danab ,and it's it's been a successful program. The Somali people hold the Danab in very high regard and they are probably doing probably something like approaching 50% of the Somalis operations that YNAB are involved in, and they're a very small force, only about 1,500 troops.

VOA: One quick question, last one on the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia, the U.N. has been warning for months about the intensifying conflict and they were concerned that this could you know if it gets to full blown civil war, it could threaten the entire stability of the Horn of Africa. Do you share those concerns? What do you see as concerns?

TOWNSEND: Yes, I do share those concerns with regards to Ethiopia. So Ethiopia has been, you know they're the second-largest country in Africa. They've been a powerhouse economically and security wise in East Africa for decades. And they're there what America has referred to as anchor state. However, the civil war has turned their focus inward, this war between the government and the Tigrayans.  Theyre not an anchor state right now because they can't because their turned inward, so I think we very much want to see the Ethiopians work through these disagreements and come to a peaceful resolution. The situation has stabilized there over the last few weeks and has calmed a bit, a significant bit from what it was right before Christmas. So, yeah, we're worried about Ethiopia. Ethiopia is very important to the stability of the entire Horn of Africa, so we want to see Ethiopia work through this problem in a peaceful way.

VOA: Let's switch over to West Africa. You know you've talked about a lot of problems in West Africa. One of them that's in the middle of the media right now is Mali. Can you tell us, is the Wagner Group in Mali. What have you seen?

TOWNSEND: Mali has been in the news a lot. In less than probably the last nine to 12 months, as you know they've had two successive coups there, which are of great concern. So now there are military leaders leading that country. And then more recently, we've seen Malis coup government reach out to Russia and specifically to the Wagner private military company. And you probably saw a press release from our Department of State sometime last month about this, and so the United States and the international community are very concerned and so are the African neighbors very concerned about the Russians, Russia's intervention into Mali. And I'll be more specific about it, Wagner is in Mali. They are there, we think, and numbering several hundred now. They're deploying there, supported by the Russian military, Russian Air Force airplanes are delivering them. The world can see this happening. So it's a great concern to us. And the reason it concerns me and it concerns the neighbors there is we have watched Wagner, this mercenary outfit, work on the African continent. We've watched them in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya. They don't follow anybody's rules but their own. They will exploit the country. They will create, they will break laws. They will do a gross violations of human rights. They will kill innocents and civilians. And then when the Malian people get tired of them, they won't leave. In fact, theyll probably bring in proxy fighters. We saw them do this in Libya where they brought in over 2,000 Syrian fighters. And those Wagner and Syrian fighters are still in Libya and the Libyans can't get them to go. And I predict, unfortunately, something very similar to that will likely happen in Mali. So if I were the neighbors of Mali and if I were the Malian people, I'd be very concerned about it. And if I were the neighbors, I'd be even more concerned about it.

VOA: What are they doing Are they training or are they protecting? Are they protecting, helping to protect the military? What's going on there?

TOWNSEND: Well, it's a little early in their deployment so we're not exactly sure what they're doing just yet. I know that they will do first, they will protect the regime there, which is a coup government, but they'll make sure that that government is protected, first and foremost. Then, we probably expect, they will train and they will conduct operations. We haven't seen that taking place just yet, but that's what we expect will happen. I just think there's going to be a lot of bad will intended.

VOA: OK, I have one more question on the Sahel and then I'll go as long as you want to, I want to talk about China. So as long as you have the time, we'll keep talking about China. But the last question on the Sahel, under your leadership, rankly combined joint task force, Operation Inherent Resolve was able to take down Islamic State in Libya, Syria, Iraq simultaneously. And now we're seeing these violent extremists in Africa. So, you know frankly what do you need to help partners do it again? Because obviously the videos, the violent extremists, the attacks are increasing.

TOWNSEND: In the Sahel region, which is sort of local shorthand for a middle band across Africa, it's between the Sahara Desert and the jungles in Central Africa, that region is called the Sahel. In the Sahel region, there are a number of violent extremist groups, three of which are of the greatest concern. The first one is a group called JNIM (Jamaat Nasrat al-Islam wal Muslimin) and they are the West Africa arm of al-Qaida, the Sahel arm of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. So they are part of corporate al-Qaida. Theyre probably the strongest VEO (violent extremist organization) group right now in the Sahel region, and they are spreading from Mali into Burkina Faso, southwestern Niger and working towards the coastal states. And so we're starting to see attacks emerge in the coastal states of West Africa, in the northern tiers of those states. Then the other groups that concern me are two ISIS groups There's a group called ISIS Greater Sahara. They are sort of in the same battle space as JNIM and in competition with JNIM. And then further to the east, on the other side of Nigeria, the east side in the Lake Chad basin area, we see this group called ISIS West Africa, this group is large, powerful and growing. And recently they have competed with a group that your audience may be familiar with from a few years ago, Boko Haram, and Boko Haram has been largely overtaken by ISIS West Africa. So these groups are there. I can't say that any of them are threats directly to the United States today. I don't assess that they are they are definitely a threat to American interests in that part of the world. And they are now starting to threaten countries that the world should be even more concerned about as they move out of Mali into Burkina Faso and into the northern coastal states like Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Togo. All those states are now coming under threat of these violent extremist groups. So our role is mostly to support our African partners and our international partners. And the lead international partner has been France. And they've put their boots on the ground and we've been helping them and also helping all of those African partners in that region. So the United States is not leading there by any means, but we're trying to support our partners while the African partners and European and other international partners help the Africans more directly dealing with this problem. Our contributions are pretty small, some training, some equipping, helping with some logistics, helping with some intelligence and some ISR (intelligence surveillance reconnaissance) that you mentioned earlier. That's what we're doing there to help our partners. The U.S. is not in the lead in West Africa.

VOA: OK, understood. Lastly, let's turn to China. China's had a lot of interest in Africa. So what specifically are you seeing China do on the Atlantic seaboard right now?

TOWNSEND: As I mentioned earlier, global competitors are very active in Africa, probably the one that's the most active is China. China considers Africa to be their second continent. I've even heard the term fifth Island chain, those phrases ought to tell you what you need to know. China requires huge amounts of natural resources for their economy and their population, and they're looking to Africa to get many of those resources, arable land, fishing, strategic minerals, etc., energy concerns, are all in Africa. And so China's very actively competing there, economically primarily, but also militarily.

VOA: Do you think they're trying to build a naval base in Gulf of Guinea still?

TOWNSEND: Yes, I think that China definitely has a plan, they would aspire to have a militarily useful base on the Atlantic coast of Africa. They've laid down bets from as far south as Namibia and all the way up to Mauritania, where we think they have the most traction today is Equatorial Guinea, which is on the Gulf of Guinea. And we think they are intent on building a base there, and there was a recent article in The Wall Street Journal about a month ago that talked about this. And I think that I think The Wall Street Journal got it about right China is intent on building a military, air base and/or naval facility in Equatorial Guinea.

VOA: When you say exhibits what do you mean by that? What specifically tangible things are they doing?

TOWNSEND: Yeah, no I think I said placing bets. So what they're doing is they're putting chips down in all of these countries on the Atlantic Coast. They know that they won't get a yes in many cases from many of those countries, but by asking and trying to get a base in all these countries, one or two of them may say yes. And we think that the place that they've got traction right now is Equatorial Guinea. And I know that their African neighbors are very concerned about that. Our government has spoken to the Equatoguinean government about this. We're not asking them to choose between China and us. What we're asking them to do is consider their other international partners and their concerns, because a Chinese military base in Equatorial Guinea is of great concern to the U.S. and all of their other partners. And I would point out that the Equatoguinean economy is primarily fueled by oil investments. A lot of those are from the United States.

VOA: Can we just get a broad understanding of Chinese interest? How would you say the Chinese military interest is? Has it been a steady increase in Africa? Are you seeing exponential changes, would you consider them more active than ever right now? How would you characterize it?

TOWNSEND: Well as I said earlier, I think China's primary mode of competition in Africa has been economic. They've invested a lot in economic concerns, and they've invested a lot in infrastructure. They're doing that to a slightly lesser degree now. As far as their military investments go, I would say, I would not characterize them as exponential. I would characterize them as slow, steady, creeping strategic progress. That's how I would characterize it. So they've got their first international base in Djibouti, they built that some years ago now, about seven years ago they built that base and they're seeking other bases in Africa. We know that they would like to have multiple other bases in Africa. And so they're just slowly chipping away at that and doing it in a way that doesn't draw a lot of international attention.

VOA: You mentioned Djibouti, they basically used the playbook, it started off with antipiracy assistance and then they needed infrastructure to help with that antipiracy assistance to get the base in Djibouti. Are you seeing the same playbook, same tactics over in Guinea, where they're starting to be more involved in the antipiracy? Are they trying to use the same playbook you think?

TOWNSEND: Yes I do. In fact, in the Gulf of Guinea, there is an illegal fishing problem there. There is a piracy problem there. The Chinese discuss those problems as a reason for a naval task force, a maritime task force in that region. And then of course, there's a base that has to support that task force. I think that the West and African partners are starting to respond to a more coherent approach to the counter piracy, counter illegal fishing problem in the Gulf of Guinea. I would also point out that the No. 1 purveyor of the illegal fishing in the Gulf of Guinea are Chinese fishing.

VOA: And you mentioned the economic interest but would you have you seen China start to militarize its Belt and Road Initiatives? Are you seeing direct associations with the Chinese military on how they're trying to expand upon those economic initiatives?

TOWNSEND: I think the Belt and Road Initiative and their military expansion plans are all linked, because I mean this is a state-controlled, party-controlled government and a state-controlled economy, so it's all linked. That said, I can't say that I'm seeing them, their first foot in the door is a Belt and Road and their second foot in the door is a military initiative, we don't see that playing out. What we've seen them do a lot of belt and road activity across the African continent, much of which can be to the benefit of African partners, right. The recipients of those initiatives can also be a problem for them with, you know you've heard about debt-trap diplomacy and other things like that, but the military progress that we're seeing is more strategic and patient, I think.

VOA: And thank you so much for speaking with Voice of America on a wide range of topics about what you're dealing with in the African continent. My final question to you would be, since we've talked about China's influence, Russia's. Influence, the U.S., France, Europe has influence there, but are there any other state actors that are trying to make inroads in Africa that you've seen that we should be aware of?

TOWNSEND: Well, there are a number of countries that are active on the African continent, and in many ways these activities are very supportive of Africa and the African people. The only other country that I'm keeping my eye on right now in a negative way, negative thing is Iran. So Iran hasn't had a lot of presence in Africa for a number of years, but we are starting to see them express increasing interest in Africa and starting to make some inroads there. I think their inroads are going to be malign in nature, and so we're just keeping an eye on it. Its very nascent. But it's happening now and we're watching.

VOA: Can you give us any examples?

TOWNSEND: I think I'd rather not, because these examples. Well, I'll just say that they are intelligence related and the arm of the Iranian security apparatus that engages in malign activity in the Middle East is the same arm that's now engaged on the African continent, so I won't be more specific than that, but it's not helpful to any African partner.

VOA: Thank you, General Townsend, the head of U.S. Africa Command, thank you so much for speaking with Voice of America.

TOWNSEND: Thanks, Carla, I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to your audience today.
At least 13 people were killed and dozens more injured in western Ghana when a truck loaded with mining explosives detonated. Ghanaian officials say hundreds of houses were damaged in the blast.

Police say a preliminary investigation has established that a truck filled with explosives for mining collided with a motorcycle, resulting in the explosion at Bogoso-Appiatse, a village 300 kilometers west of Accra.

Authorities say 500 buildings were destroyed in the explosion, displacing over 500 people.

Francisca Brobbey, a village resident, told VOA in a phone interview that a loud bang was heard from the street that she thought was a tire bursting. When she saw huge smoke in the sky and fire, she and others started running for safety. She managed to escape with her children, although she sustained minor injuries.

Police say along with the 13 dead, the blast injured 179 people, with at least 45 in critical condition. Initial police reports had put the death toll at 17 people.

The head of the local government assembly, Isaac Dasmani, told reporters that Appiatse is almost a ghost town now as search and rescue operations continue.

"The whole community is gone," he said. "All the roofs have been ripped off and the buildings have collapsed. Some of them were in their rooms and they were trapped and we were able to rescue some of them and some of them unfortunately before we rescued them they were gone. It's a very sad situation for me today."

Ghana's president, Nana Akufo-Addo, and opposition leader John Mahama expressed their condolences in separate statements on social media, describing the incident as a truly sad day in Ghana.

A government delegation led by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia visited the disaster scene Friday morning. In a brief address to the media, he said the government will provide all the resources to help the victims.

"It's a sad day, a very sad day for all of us," Bawumia said. "Just to assure you that the government is fully engaged in all these processes and we're going to see to it that the people here are taken care of. We'll learn lessons and those are going to be much later on. For now, we're very much concerned about how to complete this rescue effort, how to take care of the injured, how to take care of the family and the people who have survived."

Authorities are expected to launch a probe to establish the cause of the blast, and recommend measures to avoid a repeat in the future.
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Renata de Lelis and Eduardo Mendonca in The Pink Cloud. Photo: Blue Fox Entertainment

This film was written in 2017 and shot in 2019. Any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental. Those words appear at the start of Iuli Gerbases The Pink Cloud, and for a while, its hard to tell if theyre a disclaimer or a flex. The Brazilian directors sci-fi-inflected drama follows two people who wind up stuck in an apartment together after mysterious and deadly pink clouds force humanity indoors. But the fictional life these fictional people experience in this fictional story about a fictional apocalypse bears an uncanny resemblance to our own, current, very real situation.

And when I say uncanny, I mean uncanny. Though she made her film before the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the planet, Gerbase has imagined a cloistered, technologically mediated, increasingly agitated reality that feels unnervingly accurate in both its particulars and its generalities  whether its video calls with parents who are growing older and frailer, or the way social attitudes change in the face of a rolling crisis.

The dynamics of the cloud itself are largely irrelevant; all one has to know is that it kills you in ten seconds flat and it cant seep in through the small gaps in closed doors, so your home is safe. Soon after the clouds settle in, the government arranges for a system of remote food delivery, and life becomes an endless sequence of smothering sameness. Characters try to shift to doing everything remotely, even jobs that require physical contact. They watch viral videos of jagoffs fighting each other in supermarkets. Metaphor or not, I could feel a panic attack coming on at multiple points.

Even the philosophical cadences of the story feel creepily familiar. For Giovana (Renata de Lelis) and Yago (Eduardo Mendonca), two 30-somethings who wake up from a one-night stand to find that circumstance has forced them together, the clouds at first seem like a mere nuisance: They assume, like everyone else, that things will soon clear up, and they waste time goofing around and having sex. As the days and weeks and months (and, eventually, years) wear on, however, the two find themselves contemplating what a life together will actually look like. The random, unforeseen presence of the cloud has not simply disrupted life  it has reshaped it, changed how we relate not just to our environment but to each other and (perhaps more importantly) to whoever might come into the world next.

Yago wants children, Giovana doesnt. After they inevitably do have a baby  with a midwife offering Giovana birthing directions via a laptop screen  their child grows up not knowing anything about the life that once was. Which prompts the question: What is reality: the world Giovana and Yago once knew, or the one that now exists? Who is in denial: the person who accepts things as they currently are, or the one who yearns for what once was? At what point did I stop using the expression the Before Times as a joke and start using it as a basic descriptor?

The film is shot, at least initially, with the simplicity of a parable. The deadpan playfulness of the performances speaks not to the urgency of Giovana and Yagos situation but to the symbolic nature of the cloud. In interviews, Gerbase suggests that her picture is partly about the expectations society places on people, particularly women. My idea was having these two characters that reacted differently to the Cloud, because we know from the beginning that Yago wants one thing and Giovana wants another. And the Cloud is pressuring her little by little to do things that she doesnt want to do, the director recently explained in a revealing Film Freak Central interview.

But when a metaphor becomes reality, meaning takes on a life of its own. The Pink Cloud might have started life as a symbolic fable, but we as viewers today know a lot more about the world it presents than the filmmakers ever could have. (One could say something similar has happened with Adam McKays Dont Look Up: An audience all-too-conversant with our apathy in the face of disaster is sure to have a lot of highly specific thoughts on the accuracy of a satire about our apathy in the face of disaster.)

And there is, perhaps, a problem with being too prescient, too prophetic. When you capture something so accurately  be it intentional or not  you leave little room for the imagination to take over. The Pink Cloud is so good at portraying our pandemic reality that it becomes harder to discern its other, subtler concerns. I was impressed, agitated, terrified, depressed by this movie  but I also couldnt help feeling like I had maybe not ultimately seen the film its director wanted me to see.

The Pink Cloud premiered at last years Sundance Film Festival, and its eerie clairvoyance was noted then. (It opened in New York last week, opens in Los Angeles this week, and will be available on demand in March.) Over the past year, its perhaps become even more prophetic. At one point, the clouds seem like they might be parting and going away. Some begin to anticipate finally getting to do all the things that they havent been able to do for years. Others begin to dread the disruption, the return to life as it once was  the return, in some cases, to a world they never really knew. I wont tell you what happens next. But then again, I dont have to. Youve lived it.
Draghi is frontrunner to replace Mattarella as next president of Italy.

Italy's parliament is to convene on Monday to begin the complex process of voting for a new head of state to replace Sergio Mattarella whose seven-year term of office ends in less than two weeks.

The 13th president of Italy will be elected by more than 1,000 parliamentarians and regional representatives, with Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, 74, tipped as frontrunner for the top job.

The former European Central Bank (ECB) chief has long been touted as Italy's next president and - despite never expressly saying so - has hinted that he would be willing to switch from prime minister to head of state.

In contrast to Draghi's refusal to confirm or deny his interest in the role, Silvio Berlusconi, the four-time former premier and controversial media mogul, has been actively seeking a path to the Quirinal Palace.

Berlusconi has been backed by the centrodestra alliance of parties including his own centre-right Forza Italia, along with the right-wing Lega led by Matteo Salvini and the far-right Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) led by Giorgia Meloni.

The 85-year-old billionaire has taken out full-page adverts in Italian newspapers listing his achievements on the national and world stage, however his support appears to be fading and he is expected to make an announcement by Sunday, the day before the first round of elections.

Berlusconi's bid is fiercely opposed by the populist Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) and the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) whose leader Enrico Letta has repeatedly called for Italy's next president to be a bipartisan figure.

Among the many other names mentioned as potential candidates are former premiers Giuliano Amato and Paolo Gentiloni, current justice minister Marta Cartabia, and former lower house speaker Pier Ferdinando Casini.

Another option would be for Mattarella to remain as president, at least until the scheduled end of the parliamentary term in 2023.

However Mattarella, 80, has repeated ruled this out and has reportedly signed a lease to rent an apartment in Rome.

A move by Draghi to the Quirinale would risk political turmoil, either triggering elections a year ahead of schedule or resulting in the installation of a new premier.

Draghi refuses to answer questions on his intentions, however in late December he told reporters that it was "essential" for the current coalition to stay intact until 2023.

Delicate timing

The timing is delicate as the national unity government grapples with covid-19 and implements the EUs multi-billion post-pandemic recovery fund, with Draghi seen by many as the most qualified person for the latter.

Adding to the political dilemma is the pandemic and the government's covid restrictions which threaten to throw a spanner in the works.

There are currently about 35 parliamentarians either in isolation or in quarantine due to covid, leading the office of lower house speaker Roberto Fico to propose a "drive in" voting site.

However this scenario would require the government to waive its rules to permit the lawmakers to leave their homes to vote.

How is Italy's president elected?

The are no official candidates, and lawmakers can vote for literally anyone they like, so long as they are an Italian citizen aged 50 or over.

The president of Italy is elected by both houses of parliament in joint session plus three representatives from each region.

Voting is held in secret and a two thirds majority is needed on the first three ballots and then after that by an absolute majority.

Although largely ceremonial, Italy's head of state plays a key role during times of political crisis.

The president has the power to appoint a prime minister, as seen when the executive of former premier Giuseppe Conte collapsed almost a year ago, paving the way for Draghi's broad coalition government.

Voting for Italy's new president is expected to take several days, and the term of office is seven years. The president receives an annual salary of about 239,000.

Photo Corriere della Sera
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Its no exaggeration to say American women are staring down the barrel of the biggest attack on their rights in generations. As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, the future of womens rights has not been this imperiled since before the courts 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

Saturday marks the 49th anniversary of that decision, which established a constitutional right to abortion up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy  and beyond, if the health of the mother is in danger. The Mississippi Legislature is trying to overturn Roe, by reducing the period to 15 weeks, with no exceptions for a mothers life or health. Other states are seeking to restrict the period even more  or eliminate it entirely.

The court could uphold the Mississippi law or go further, by opening the door to state laws that are de facto prohibitions on abortion. In either case, it would be overturning a landmark decision, undermining a fundamental right and severely eroding public trust in the courts.

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A decision is still months away, but based on the courts ideological politics, it seems likely that there are three votes for Mississippi and three votes for Roe. The three others  John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh  need to hear loudly and clearly that rolling back the firmly established and widely supported legal protections that have been the law of the land since Roe would be a historically colossal mistake, one that would forever tarnish the reputation of the Roberts court.

About 70 percent of Americans have no recollection of life before Roe. But for those of us who do, we remember other truths from that time: Women were almost universally denied equal opportunities in their careers and faced widespread discrimination. As a result, they were almost entirely absent from leadership positions in the public and private sectors.

So much has changed since then for the better, and while there is still much more to be done, Roe remains an essential element of a womans right to control her own future. Overturning Roe would roll back more than abortion rights. It would roll back two generations of progress toward equal rights.

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Reproductive rights are already facing overly severe restrictions. In the past decade, Republican state legislatures have passed a steady stream of laws making it harder for people to exercise their reproductive rights. As a result, 2 in 5 women of childbearing age now live in a county without a single abortion provider. And by the end of 2022, that number could be far higher.

Last year alone, 108 restrictions on abortion were passed in 19 states, including a law in Texas that subjects abortion providers to civil lawsuits. In fact, even driving a friend or a family member to an abortion clinic in Texas could result in legal jeopardy.

Fundamental American and human rights should never be bound by geography, existing in one state but not another. They belong to all of us. Thats what makes them rights. Whats true of the right to free speech and the right to practice ones religion must also be true for reproductive rights.

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I have strongly supported womens rights organizations for decades, globally, nationally and locally. As New York City mayor, one of my first acts was requiring public hospitals to teach all OB-GYN residents reproductive care, including how to safely perform abortions. Over the years, Ive given $50 million to support reproductive rights in the U.S., including recent donations of $14 million to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity.

Some of that new funding is helping to support the legal fight in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, while some of it is helping to support and elect leaders who are committed to ensuring that people can get the reproductive health services they need, including preventive care that reduces unintended pregnancies and maternal deaths.

After years of bitterly divisive political battles over judicial nominations  including the U.S. Senates refusal to consider a nominee because the president nominating him belonged to the other party  the Supreme Court is at an institutional crossroads. It can save what remains of its reputation for nonpartisanship by preserving womens long-held rights, or it can destroy the last vestiges of that reputation by voiding them.

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In the long run, Im confident womens rights will triumph  as fundamental individual rights have throughout American history. And Im hopeful that, in the short run, this court will not cast us backward while also further politicizing the judiciary and diminishing public trust in it.

Michael R. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, and UN Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions.

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The walls are closing in on Boris Johnson. The U.K. prime ministers defiant posture in the House of Commons on Wednesday rallied loyalists but failed to placate new and old enemies within his party, who are calling on him to quit over lockdown-defying gatherings held at 10 Downing Street during the pandemic. Conservative members of Parliament can trigger a leadership contest with 54 declarations of no confidence. A compelling successor has yet to emerge, but with popular support for Johnson and his party collapsing, its plausible that Johnson would lose such a vote. Few would deny he deserves to.

Johnsons fall is ironic. Nobody ever supported him for his managerial talent, mastery of detail, ideological consistency or personal integrity. His lapses in all those respects have been widely documented and never really denied. In fact, almost the opposite: He and his supporters saw them as part of his political brand. Despite his upper-crust resume, he led the country as a clowning populist, determined to give the country what most Britons wanted  notably, Brexit. His erratic ways were seen as a kind of authenticity. With Boris, there was no polish or pretense. (Look at his hair.) What you saw is what you got.

Or so he claimed. The flouting of needlessly oppressive rules might be tolerated in members of the public and forgiven even of ordinary members of Parliament, but when the prime minister  author and chief enforcer of the rules  behaves as though they dont apply to him, backlash is inevitable. Johnsons conduct betrays elitist arrogance, plain and simple, and shatters his claim to be on the side of ordinary people. Whats remarkable is that a leader with Johnsons political instincts either failed to see this or just assumed the information would never leak.

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The prime minister has said hes sorry and is playing for time, apparently planning a staff shake-up and hoping that passions will cool as an inquiry into the debacle wraps up. But the conditions that delivered Johnsons astonishing election victory of 2019 no longer obtain. Brexits promised benefits are invisible and its mounting burdens impossible to ignore. The pandemic, some two years in, is once more threatening to overwhelm the National Health Service. Energy costs and prices in general are surging, threatening a vicious cost-of-living squeeze. Promised tax increases, needed to restore fiscal control, are about to compound that problem. And the Labour opposition is no longer led by a socialist who was suspended by his own party amid accusations of antisemitism.

Strange things happen in politics  and especially in British politics. But if Johnson and his party prevail against these forces, it will be a miracle.

More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:



Boris Johnson and His Agenda Are Now Lame Ducks: Adrian Wooldridge



Johnson Kicks Off a Tory Battle of Succession: Therese Raphael



London Bankers Jobs and Bonuses Look Safe  For Now: Mark Gilbert

Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.

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Talks between Russia, the U.S. and Europe have hit an impasse over Russias demand that NATO agree not to admit any new members. So far, the Biden administration and European leaders have rejected such terms. In so doing, they risk giving Russian President Vladimir Putin an excuse to invade Ukraine. But caving to Putins blackmail would be even worse.

Putin has long accused the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of attempting to encircle Russia by expanding the alliance to the edge of its territory. Yet only five of 14 countries that neighbor Russia are NATO members, covering just 6% of the Russian border. NATO has added just two members in the last decade: Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020, neither of which threatens vital Russian interests. In 2008, the alliance made a nonbinding pledge that Ukraine and Georgia could eventually become members, but didnt offer them whats known as a Membership Action Plan, a necessary step for advancing the accession process.

Even so, Putin wants written guarantees that the alliance will forswear further expansion and reduce troop and weapon deployments in Eastern European member states. During meetings with U.S. officials aimed at defusing the situation in Ukraine, Russia has remained adamant that it considers any mention of NATO expansion intolerable.

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In a news conference Wednesday, President Joe Biden said that membership for Ukraine was not very likely in the near term, given how much more work the country needs to do to strengthen its democratic institutions. He also suggested that current member states disagree about the matter. Bidens comments may well reflect reality, but they were nevertheless ill-considered  conveying weakness and disunity at a time when the alliance should stand firm.

Under NATOs open-door treaty, countries have the sovereign right to pursue membership if they so choose. Putins opposition to NATO expansion is rooted in his nostalgia for the U.S.S.R. and a desire to reestablish Russian control of former Soviet states. Giving him any say over the size and shape of NATO in exchange for pulling his troops back from Ukraines border would be a catastrophic strategic error. It would shred Western credibility; consign Ukraine to Russias sphere of influence; and leave NATO members on Russias periphery, such as the Baltic states, even more vulnerable. It would also embolden China to intensify intimidation campaigns against smaller nations to exact security concessions from the U.S.

When U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets his Russian counterpart in Geneva today, he should make clear that the West remains open to continued dialogue. But he should unequivocally rule out any negotiation over NATOs membership. U.S. and European officials should stress that while NATO is not actively advancing Ukraines candidacy, the process will not be canceled at Putins behest  and that future decisions about expansion will depend on Russias conduct toward its neighbors. Biden should back leaders in Finland and Sweden and endorse proposals for their countries to gain quick membership in NATO if Russia invades Ukraine. The message to Putin should be unmistakable: Any further escalation in Ukraine will result in a larger and better-armed NATO.

Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.

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VW settles Ohio emissions lawsuit Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Volkswagen agreed to a $3.5 million settlement with Ohio over claims that the German automaker violated state laws by manipulating computer software in its vehicles to mask carbon dioxide emissions, the state attorney general said. In November, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Volkswagens bid to avoid lawsuits filed by officials in three states, including Ohio.

Volkswagens U.S. subsidiary argued that under the Clean Air Act, only the federal government can pursue emissions claims. The automaker noted that it had already reached a settlement of more than $20 billion with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and owners.

This agreement fully resolves Ohios legacy claims and puts this matter behind the company as we focus on building a future of sustainable mobility, VW said Friday.

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Texas and two counties in Utah and Florida have pending lawsuits.

The settlement is a fraction of what Ohio had sought. VW said in prior court papers that Ohios claims could have totaled $350 million per day, or more than $127 billion per year, over a multi-year period.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) said that the damage to the environment and consumer trust required us to hold Volkswagen accountable, and this settlement does that.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the attorney generals office will split the award settling the 2016 lawsuit.

 Reuters

Total, Chevron to end operation in Myanmar

TotalEnergies and Chevron, two of the worlds largest energy companies, said Friday that they were exiting Myanmar, citing rampant human rights abuses and the deteriorating rule of law since the countrys military overthrew the elected government in February.

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The announcement came a day after Total, a French company, called for international sanctions targeting Myanmars oil and gas sector, one of the military governments primary sources of funding. It also comes a month after an Associated Press story on the growing push for oil and gas sanctions on both companies and on the resistance from the United States and France.

Total and Chevron had come under increasing pressure over their roles in running the offshore Yadana gas field, alongside the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) and Thailands PTT Exploration & Production. Total has a majority stake in the venture and runs its daily operations, while MOGE collects revenue on behalf of the government.

Total said it expected its departure to be finalized within six months. Chevron gave no time frame for what it described as a planned and orderly transition that will lead to an exit from the country.

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Total said it would withdraw without financial compensation and hand over its interests to the other stakeholders.

About 50 percent of Myanmars foreign currency comes from natural gas revenue, with MOGE expected to earn $1.5 billion from offshore and pipeline projects in 2021-2022, according to a Myanmar government forecast.

 Associated Press

More than 8,000 workers at nearly 80 Kroger co-owned King Soopers stores on Friday called off their strike after reaching a tentative deal with the U.S. retail giant, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union said. The details of the contract would be made public in the coming days to the union members after a vote by workers beginning Monday, the union said in a statement. Kroger did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The workers went on strike Jan. 12 after several failed negotiations.

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IBM agreed to sell part of its Watson Health business to private-equity firm Francisco Partners, scaling back the technology company's once-lofty ambitions in health care. IBM launched Watson Health in 2015 with the aim of using its core artificial-intelligence platform to help health-care providers analyze troves of data and ultimately revolutionize cancer treatment. Many of the company's ambitions haven't panned out, though.

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One-against-many usually suggests the many have the advantage. But in international relations and grand strategy, thats not always the case. Sometimes the one prevails, provided he (in this case its a he) is ruthless enough and keeps the many divided. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight He, of course, is Russian President Vladimir Putin. As he contemplates how to harass, subvert, subjugate and re-invade Ukraine, he must constantly keep in mind the response by his overarching foe, the West. Putins advantage is that he can decide whether, where, when and how to act. By contrast, its not clear who decides for the West  or even whether itll be able to decide at all.

In my previous analyses of this geopolitical clash, Ive repeatedly used the West as shorthand for a notional geopolitical grouping. It consists of NATO, the transatlantic alliance of 30 nations; the European Union, all but six of whose 27 member states are also in NATO; and sometimes even countries such as Japan or Australia that are outside of both organizations and in the geographic east.

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Of course, calling these countries the West sidesteps the reality that they are far from a coherent bloc. They differ in how they perceive the threat from Russia and their own vulnerabilities  and hence their national interests.

None other than Joe Biden, president of the U.S. and, thus, theoretically the Wests preeminent leader, just acknowledged this potential for disunity. Of course, the West will answer Putins aggression, he said this week. But whats the definition of aggression? Its one thing if its a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, he said. Guess who was listening closely (and gleefully) in Moscow.

The Europeans, as is their wont, seized the opportunity to make the confusion worse. Addressing the European Parliament, French President Emmanuel Macron surprised everybody by calling for the Europeans to conduct their own dialogue with Russia. And no longer coordinate with NATO and the U.S.? This certainly rhymes with Macrons neo-Gaullist pretensions about European autonomy and sovereignty, which is usually code for acting independently from the Americans. But it certainly wont impress Putin.

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The role played by the EUs largest country, Germany, is also iffy. Its new government coalition is split. On the unambiguously pro-Ukraine, pro-Western and anti-Putin side are the Greens and the Free Democrats. But the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz are internally divided, because they contain a large faction of Russophiles and Putin appeasers, who remain wedded even to the idea of a new gas pipeline between Germany and Russia.

In an echo of Macron, German diplomats now want to revive the Normandy format of separate talks including Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany (so called because they first met as a group during the D-Day celebrations in 2014). That could help if the negotiations are coordinated with the U.S., NATO and EU  or hurt, if not.

The EU is its own hairball of potential disunity. That starts with the coming decisions to impose new sanctions. The bloc nominally has a Common Foreign and Security Policy. But this policy has to be decided unanimously  any member nation can veto anything.

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After Putins annexation of Crimea in 2014, the EU hewed reasonably well to a common line. But as Russia becomes increasingly hostile and the conflict drags on, fissures are likely to open. Members such as Poland and the Baltic and Scandinavian states see Putins menace as existential and will want a tough line. Others, such as Greece, Hungary or Cyprus may emphasize other priorities.

Putin knows all this. Sure, he could overwhelm Ukraine in a blatant show of force. But my bet is that hell be more conniving than that. Hell launch a limited strike against Ukraine while needling the West everywhere at once and all the time, from outer space to cyberspace, with disinformation campaigns and reality distortion fields, by sending desperate migrants to the EU, dispatching little green men and staging false-flag incidents, and yes, even by deploying troops.

What are we going to call these different and varying assaults? Incursions? Skirmishes? Invasions? As Biden said, well probably end up fighting about definitions for months, and then reach very different conclusions. This is the Wests greatest weakness. Leadership  in both North America and Europe  now means recognizing that, and then doing everything possible to turn the many into one.

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More From This Writer and Others at Bloomberg Opinion:



Can NATO and Europe Count on Germany Against Russia?: Andreas Kluth



Russias Winter Generals Have Yet to Show Up at the Gas War: Javier Blas



Putin Is Only Pretending to Be Crazy on Ukraine: Eli Lake

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Andreas Kluth is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. Hes the author of Hannibal and Me.

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A bedrock democratic institution, voting, continues to divide the two major U.S. political parties. States run by Republicans and states run by Democrats are increasingly diverging in their policies on registering to vote, voting in person and voting by mail. These state-by-state battles are a legacy of the 2020 presidential election and former President Donald Trumps insistence, contrary to all evidence, that it was stolen from him and delivered to Joe Biden. Even the process of declaring which presidential candidate wins a state -- a mere formality, until Trumps allegations fueled the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol on last January -- could wind up being manipulated for partisan gain.

1. Where is the fight playing out?

Mainly in state capitals. In 2021, legislators in 19 states, the vast majority of them under full Republican control, enacted laws making it more difficult for people to register to vote, reducing opportunities to vote by mail or early in person, and tightening voter identification requirements, among other things, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. In 25 states, most of them under Democratic control, new laws make voting more expansive and less restrictive, according to the center. (Some states passed laws both restrictive and expansive.) More legislation has been proposed already this year.

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2. Why are the two parties so divided?

Generally speaking, Democrats favor fewer obstacles to voting, while Republicans say restrictions are needed to reduce the chance of fraud. The 2020 election hardened those battle lines. In response to the pandemic, many states made it easier to vote early or by mail. That helped produced the highest level of voter turnout this century (67%), and an unprecedented share (73%), of ballots cast early, whether in person or by mail. For months before the election, Trump and some of his prominent supporters had disparaged mail-in voting as ripe for fraud, and they claimed, without evidence, after his defeat that Bidens victory was fraudulent. They werent swayed by dozens of court decisions and audits upholding procedures and results in various states, or by the assurances of election officials -- Republican and Democrat alike -- that the 2020 vote was one of the most secure ever. Two studies of the election showed that making it easier to vote by mail either had no effect on the outcome or had given a slight boost to Trump.

3. Is the federal government doing anything to lessen the divide?

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Democrats in Congress tried to implement nationwide standards on voter registration, voter ID, early voting and voting by mail -- as well as making Election Day a federal holiday, restoring felons voting rights after they complete their sentences, and requiring disclosure of the donors of so-called dark money given to outside groups to influence elections anonymously. House Democrats passed the bill by a simple majority but it failed in the Senate, where it lacked the necessary Republican support to reach the 60-vote supermajority needed to overcome a filibuster a maneuver that delays or prevents legislation from being passed. When Democrats proposed carving out an exception to the filibuster in order the pass the bill, two members of their party, Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, sided with Republicans in killing the proposal.

4. What does the Supreme Court say?

The conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that it would give states a much freer hand to reshape voting and election laws than it did in the past. In a 2013 case, Shelby County v. Holder, the court threw out a section of the Voting Rights Act that required states with a history of racial discrimination to get changes in voting laws pre-approved by the Justice Department. (The Democratic legislation that failed in the Senate would have restored this authority, among its other provisions.) For now, the Justice Department has said it will use its remaining, limited powers to scrutinize state restrictions on voting.

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5. How could this affect the 2024 presidential election?

Research has shown that changes to voting laws have much less of an effect than widely assumed, in part because campaigns and political parties compensate with increased outreach to potential voters. More concerning to some election watchers are some new state laws that would give legislatures more authority over local election boards and create more partisan post-election reviews. A fringe legal theory gaining ground in conservative circles holds that state legislatures can legally assert that they have the final say on elections; that theory aims to take advantage of flaws in the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that became apparent when Trump and his supporters tried to subvert the results of the 2020 vote. Races for governor and secretary of state -- the two elected officials who in many states oversee elections -- are also being closely watched, as a number of Republican candidates for those offices have endorsed Trumps falsehoods about the 2020 election.

6. Where is all this headed?

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Voting-rights advocates may turn to state courts to pursue their legal challenges to voting restrictions, since every state except for Arizona has an explicit right to vote in their constitution. (The U.S. Constitution doesnt explicitly articulate such a federal right.) Voting and elections will continue to be hot topics in legislatures and for ballot initiatives, where they are allowed. In Congress, lawmakers from both parties have discussed revising the Electoral Count Act. Many Democratic Senate candidates have said they would abolish the filibuster, which could mean changes to national voting laws the next time that Democrats hold both chambers of Congress and the presidency.

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Bail has become the center of an increasingly heated debate across the U.S., as reforms that had been years in the making collide with a rise in violent crime in many cities since the start of the pandemic. New York and Illinois have passed legislation greatly restricting the use of so-called cash bail, a practice so widespread that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found in a report released Jan. 20 that 60% of defendants wind up in jail awaiting trial because they cant afford to post bail. The burden of bail falls most heavily on the poor and minority communities, the report said. Local prosecutors in cities like New York and San Francisco are also using their discretion to rein in cash bail. But there has been pushback from mayors and police officials who say that the result has been more crime. Its a debate, however, taking place without much data on the impact of relatively new policy shifts.

1. What is bail?

After a person has been arrested and processed they must appear in front of a judge at a hearing. If the charges are not dropped, the judge must decide what restrictions to place on the person as they await trial, which could be months away. The judge can order the person wait in jail, release the person on their promise to return or set bail conditions for their release. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. jail population, or half a million people, are there awaiting trial, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics data.

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2. What is cash bail?

Cash bail is the most common provision judges set. Thats when a court asks for a specific sum of money paid up front that a defendant only gets back by showing up for court. The amount is typically set at the judges discretion, and can vary depending on the severity of the accusations and the judges estimate of a defendants likelihood of flight. Other defendants are allowed to post bonds, meaning they are released without paying anything up front but sign a contract requiring payment if they fail to appear. From 1970 to 2015, there was a 433% increase in the number of people detained in jail, the civil rights commissions 281-page report said.

3. Whats the case against cash bail?

The civil rights commission said it conflicts with the presumption of innocence, which it called the bedrock of our criminal justice system. Critics say it acts as a penalty for poverty and that low-income people of color are disproportionally impacted.

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 Black defendants in state court are nearly 10 percentage points more likely to be held than their similar White counterparts, academic research shows.

 A study in Harris County, Texas, conducted prior to recent changes to bail practices there, found that people jailed while awaiting trial were 25% more likely to plead guilty than similarly situated individuals who were released.

 People who are held for even a few days, even if they eventually post bail, face consequences like losing their job or custody of their children, bail reform advocates say.

 Its expensive for governments to hold people in jail before trial -- in New York City it costs $1,525 a day to incarcerate a single person, according to the city comptrollers office. Nationwide, jailing such individuals costs $14 billion annually, according to an estimate from the National Partnership for Pretrial Justice, an advocacy group.

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4. How have bail practices changed recently?

City and state lawmakers and prosecutors, who generally have discretion over whether to seek bail or not, have implemented changes to bail at the local level. Some efforts have narrowed the list of crimes for which cash bail can be imposed, while others have given judges new options or requirements for setting bail. Here are some examples:

 New York State: In 2019, the state eliminated cash bail and mandated release for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, such as shoplifting, which make up roughly 90% of arrests. Violent felonies, sex offenses and terrorism charges can still be subject to cash bail.

 Manhattan: District Attorney Alvin Bragg in January published new bail guidelines, urging prosecutors not to send people to jail while they await trial except in the cases of the most serious accusations.

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 Illinois: In 2021, the state passed a law eliminating cash bail for all arrests. A judge, however, can decide not to pursue bail at all and has more discretion over whether to detain people for certain crimes. The law doesnt fully take effect until 2023, though Cook County, which houses Chicago, has already begun to implement some of the changes.

 Houston: A 2019 federal decree forced the county to stop relying on cash bail for low-level misdemeanors.

 San Francisco: In 2020, District Attorney Chesa Boudin told prosecutors to stop asking for cash bail for people who werent viewed as public safety risks.

5. What are alternatives to cash bail?

Individuals awaiting trial can be released with conditions such as electronic monitoring, which geographically restricts their movements. Some jurisdictions also have supervised release programs which connect people with social services and require the accused to check in with case workers.

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6. How do bail-reform advocates see this working?

Advocates say bail reform has allowed defendants to keep their jobs, housing and custody of their kids. They say keeping people out of crowded jails also reduces Covid risks. What we see is wildly successful policy, said Elissa Johnson, director of criminal justice reform advocacy and campaigns at Fwd.us, an immigration and criminal justice advocacy group.

7. Whats the backlash?

Critics say releasing people without cash bail leads to higher crime levels -- an issue that has grown in importance as violent crime rose in major U.S. cities during the pandemic. Lawmakers in New York have already rolled back some of the bail provisions, narrowing the types of crime that are ineligible for cash bail and making it easier for judges to hold people in jail. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in December asked for a pause on the implementation of some parts of bail reform, saying that too many people let out of jail on electronic monitoring were violent, dangerous offenders. In New York City, the police detectives union railed against Braggs bail guidelines.

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8. What does the research show?

In many cases, the reforms are too new to make a call on how they work. The Illinois reforms havent even taken effect yet. New York City data from the first half of 2021 show that fewer than 1% of the 45,000 to 50,000 people who are free while awaiting trial in a given month are arrested for nonviolent or violent felonies. Data out of Harris County show fewer people are being held in jail before their trials, but that the rate of re-arrests has remained relatively stable. While opponents of bail reform often point to high profile instances of individuals who were released and committed violent crime, New York State data analyzed by The City, a nonprofit news site, found that 23% of New York City defendants freed on supervised release were rearrested on felony charges between January 2020 and June 2021.

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The big brains at Google have to work somewhere, and they often have to be in the same place. Yet, premises that can serve a large, collaborative staff in this new era of work are scarce. No wonder the online giant has snapped up some prime office space in London. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Google last week agreed to buy one of its London sites for 763 million pounds ($1 billion). The firm is also building a mammoth campus a couple of kilometers to the north. Meanwhile, Facebook doubled its office space nearby, and Google struck a deal to buy a New York office last year.

For the tech industry, the need for quality office space has intensified in the pandemic as a result of increasing headcount. The snag is that in cities like London, there arent enough large buildings in prime locations with decent collaboration spaces and strong environmental credentials.

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Of course, Google could just have decided to renew the lease on its building on a longer term. But its parent, Alphabet Inc., has a net cash pile of $114 billion, and the London office was for sale. So why not buy? The deal secures a prime site at the intersection of two of Londons north-south and east-west subway lines. Google can do what it wants to the structure without permission from a landlord. Its already divulged some of whats in store, with plans for sound-proof booths as well as outdoor working spaces.

Plus, there are clear political benefits at a time when Big Tech is under increasing scrutiny. Google positioned the transaction not as a property purchase but as an investment in the U.K. Rishi Sunak, the finance minister eager to promote Brexit Britain, tweeted approvingly that the deal is an investment in jobs and a big vote of confidence. That $1 billion outlay is already generating non-financial returns.

Finally, ownership gives Google full control over the related data. Landlords are increasingly analyzing office usage to keep energy consumption to a minimum. Those insights must be valuable to a company in the information business.

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Many large corporations are keen to get workers back together in person. Their approval of work-from-home has its limits. A recent survey of nearly 700 European business leaders commissioned by analysts at UBS Group AG found that only 10% agreed that WFH was at least as productive as being in the office. The relaxation of homeworking guidance in the U.K. on Wednesday triggered a request from financial firms including Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for staff to come back.

But most big corporations cant afford to buy their office and turn it into something resembling a cross between a boutique hotel and a national exhibition center. And most will not have massively upped their headcount in the pandemic. They are nevertheless likely to be looking to lease a building thats different to the one theyre in.

Landlords in London, Paris, Madrid and Berlin report new tenants requesting more meeting spaces and fewer desks, good ventilation and environmentally friendly credentials, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. More than half of European business leaders expect to permit WFH for at least one day a week, mostly for three days, according to the UBS survey. Hence they wanted less space even as they were hiring. The pressure to cut square footage is exacerbated by the fact that offices are often the biggest contributor to their carbon footprint.

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Take Lloyds of London. The insurance market is reviewing its future in the historic Richard Rogers-designed building it has occupied since 1986. With underwriters increasingly conducting business in nearby offices even before the pandemic, the review was probably overdue.

For commercial landlords, the post-pandemic world poses a big challenge. Newly constructed or refurbished premises that have strong ESG credentials and excellent collaborative spaces will be in high demand from tenants. Older buildings subject to planning restrictions may have to find alternative residential or leisure uses. Office workers can look forward to a better working environment. For some it will come sooner, while others will have to wait.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

 The Coming Teleshock Will Transform U.S. Economy: Tyler Cowen

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 Where Are the Workers and What Are They Doing?: Allison Schrager

 Tech Chained Us to Work. Now It Promises to Help: Parmy Olson

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Chris Hughes is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals. He previously worked for Reuters Breakingviews, as well as the Financial Times and the Independent newspaper.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

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Prime Minister Viktor Orbans subversion of mainstream politics in Hungary has become a case study for aspiring populists and a cautionary tale for defenders of democracy. With opposition parties now uniting to attempt to oust him in the April 3 general election, and the European Union threatening to bleed his government financially, Orban is facing the biggest test to his rule.

1. What has Orban done to trigger criticism?

Since his return to power in 2010, Orban has dismantled checks on his power. Hes overhauled formerly independent institutions and appointed loyalists, including in the courts and at the media authority and chief prosecutors office. Hes used business allies, whove relied on state contracts for their wealth accumulation, to create Europes biggest propaganda machine. Hes wielded a two-thirds parliamentary majority during most of the past 12 years, allowing him to write a new constitution and pass a raft of other laws. And hes targeted minorities, including the Roma and LGBTQ community, arguing the rights of the majority take precedence. In 2019, Hungary became the first EU country to lose its rating as a full-fledged democracy at Freedom House, a Washington D.C.-based institution that assesses political systems.

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2. How has his populism shaped Hungarys politics?

Following his return to power, Orban embarked on the biggest course correction following Hungarys 20-year post-communist experiment with liberal democracy. He reshaped election law to favor the largest political party against a splintered opposition, helping Fidesz to a so-called parliamentary supermajority in each of the past three elections despite winning only about half the votes. More recently, hes sought to deepen his sway over culture and education, appointing allies, in many cases cabinet members, to oversee universities. Hes used the media to hammer home messaging and drown out opposition voices, frequently railing against perceived enemies or detractors, ranging from immigrants to foreign corporate interests and the EU. And hes deepened ties with authoritarian regimes from Russia to China.

3. How has he averted EU scrutiny?

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Orban has cast himself as a protector of sovereignty against what hes branded as EU meddling in Hungarys internal affairs. Hes been most effective with his anti-immigrant rhetoric, opposing proposals to redistribute refugees and even building a razor-wire fence and expelling asylum seekers without due process. For much of his tenure, Orban outmaneuvered the EU, dragging his feet against demands for change, cutting deals that stopped short of meaningfully rolling back his power and exploiting shortcomings in the blocs own legal charters. For much of her tenure, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel also shielded Orban, arguing that pressing him too hard may prompt Hungary to follow the U.K. in its decision to leave the EU.

4. Is the EU now changing tack?

It was the rupture with the U.K. that made many in the EU recognize that arguably the biggest threat to it was inside the bloc, with the corrosion of unity and basic values threatening to hamper consensus-based decision-making. The European Parliament voted in 2018 to trigger a rule-of-law probe against Hungary on a clear risk of a serious breach of the EUs democratic principles. A year later, the European Peoples Party, the EUs biggest center-right political group which until then had actively shielded Orban, suspended the Hungarian ruling party and effectively expelled it in 2021. In 2020, the EU agreed to adopt a new rule-of-law mechanism that threatened to cut funding to member states when the blocs financial interests may be undermined. The EUs top court is expected to rule on the legality of the mechanism in early 2022. In the meantime, the EU has already delayed 7.2 billion euros ($8.2 billion) in pandemic-recovery funds to Hungary and may eventually withhold as much as 32 billion euros over rule-of-law concerns.

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5. How has this reverberated in the EU and beyond?

Part of the reason for the EU action was the recognition that Orbans model was spreading in the bloc. In 2015, the nationalist Law & Justice party took power in Poland pledging to emulate Orbans policies. In Slovenia, another populist ally of Orban, Janez Jansa, took power. Italys Matteo Salvini and Frances Marine Le Pen have also forged close ties with Orban, seeing in the Hungarian leaders track record a recipe to subvert mainstream politics in their own countries. In a bid to overhaul the EU, Orban has also tried to unite European nationalist parties, though hes so far failed. In the U.S., former President Donald Trump and the right-wing establishment have taken notice, with Trump even endorsing Orban for Aprils election.

6. Whats at stake?

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The survival of Orbans political system and the strength of like-minded movements across the EU. Six opposition parties in Hungary spanning the political spectrum from liberal to green to conservative have a formed a single ticket, with the aim of ousting him. A loss for Orban, who is the longest-serving head of government in the EU, may restore frayed relations with western alliances. It may also isolate Polands ruling party in its own standoff with the EU and inspire opposition parties there to unite. A win for him, on the other hand, may lead to further power consolidation and a sharpening of the conflict with the EU.

7. Is there a chance Orban may lose power?

Polls suggest the election is close. Orbans party may win a further mandate, though fall short of another two-thirds parliamentary majority. But the opposition parties decision to unite means they now have a chance of scoring an upset. A surging omicron-variant fueled pandemic wave, record election spending and brewing corruption scandals may all sway votes. There are also opposition concerns about the ballot after international observers deemed the 2018 ballot free but not fair, citing an undue advantage for Orbans party including in media coverage.

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8. Would there be a clean break if Orban loses?

Even if the opposition does win, Orban may retain considerable influence. Hes installed loyalists for terms as long as nine years in key areas, including the chief prosecutors office and the media authority, and for life in posts overseeing universities. His family and allies hold sway over the economy, including finance, tourism, energy and the media. The oppositions candidate for premier, Peter Marki-Zay, has vowed to fire Orban loyalists as a first step after an election win, even without the two-thirds parliamentary majority that may be needed to do so, setting up a potential clash that some critics fear may spill onto the streets.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

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A Texas man was arrested Friday and charged with threatening election and other government officials in Georgia, in the first case brought by a Justice Department task force formed to combat such threats, authorities said. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight In an indictment, federal prosecutors alleged that Chad Christopher Stark, 54, posted a message on Craigslist on Jan. 5, 2021, saying it was time to kill an official, whose name is not included in the court documents.

Georgia Patriots its time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors. Its time to invoke our Second Amendment right its time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges, Stark wrote, according to the indictment.

Georgia officials, in particular, were targeted by hostile messages after they refused to back President Donald Trumps bogus claims of election fraud. Trump called Georgias Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) the enemy of the people after the election went against him, and he urged Raffensperger in a phone call to find enough votes to overturn his defeat.

Months after the 2020 election, local elections officials across the country are coping with criticism and personal attacks that could lead to a worker exodus. (Video: Mahlia Posey/The Washington Post)

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On that call, Trump took aim at Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and a low-level election worker who herself was subjected to a wave of threats. Trump called that worker a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler.

Georgia, though, was hardly an anomaly. Election officials across the country have warned about an ongoing barrage of criticism and personal attacks  many of them fueled by Trump repeatedly raising unfounded doubts about the 2020 election. Some election workers and officials have left their posts in fear. A study by the Brennan Center released in June found that 1 in 3 election officials feel unsafe because of their jobs.

Kenneth Polite Jr., head of the Justice Departments criminal division, said the election threats task force has received more than 850 referrals of potentially harassing and offensive statements, resulting in dozens of open investigations or efforts to mitigate danger. During the 2020 election cycle, and the events that followed, these unsung heroes came under unprecedented verbal attack for doing nothing more than their jobs, Polite said.

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Some election workers and observers have worried the Justice Department has not been moving aggressively enough to prosecute those making the threats, noting that  until Friday  the task force that was launched on June 25 had not brought a single case.

There is an impression that bad actors are not being held accountable, and they can use threats to try to intimidate election officials, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said in an interview before Starks arrest.

I do appreciate them launching the task force, but I do think theres a lot of work to do, she said.

In a statement Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed the department would hold accountable those who violate federal law by using violence or threatening violence to target election workers fulfilling their public duties.

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Polite said developing cases often requires months of work, as investigators gather evidence, interview witnesses and consider possible First Amendment legal issues.

John Keller, principal deputy chief of the Justice Departments Public Integrity Section, said in a statement that threats against election workers had historically been handled primarily as a state or local matter, usually without significant federal involvement.

This is changing rapidly in response to the surge in threats nationwide since the last election cycle, he said.

Legal observers say the focus is necessary because of the magnitude of the problem.

Its bigger than any one individual threat against one election official because the combined atmosphere of threats across the country to election officials is undermining democracy, said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law School and a former Justice Department national security official, who also was interviewed before Starks arrest.

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The indictment alleges Stark, of Leander, Tex., referenced three government officials, the names of whom prosecutors obscured in the charging documents. A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information, said Raffensperger and Kemp were among those allegedly targeted.

Stark posted his message as thousands of Trump supporters were traveling to Washington to protest the 2020 election results, wrongly convinced that Trump had won. A day later, on Jan. 6, some of those protesters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, where lawmakers were formally tallying Bidens win.

Its our duty as American Patriots to put an end to the lives of these traitors and take back our country by force we can no longer wait on the corrupt law enforcement in the corrupt courts. If we want our country back we have to exterminate these people, Stark allegedly wrote.

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One good loyal Patriot deer hunter in camo and a rifle can send a very clear message to these corrupt governors.. milita [sic] up Georgia its time to spill blood . . . we need to pay a visit to [Official C] and her family as well and put a bullet her behind the ears, the indictment quotes the message as saying.

In a statement issued Friday, Raffensperger said: I strongly condemn threats against election workers and those who volunteer in elections. These are the people who make our democracy work.

He also took aim at comments President Biden made at a Wednesday news conference suggesting that the legitimacy of future elections could be tied to voting rights legislation for which Biden has pushed. The White House press secretary later insisted Biden was not casting doubt on the legitimacy of the 2022 election.

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Given President Bidens statement Wednesday casting doubt on the legitimacy of our upcoming elections, we need to support our local election officials and volunteers now more than ever, Raffensperger said in the statement.

A lawyer appointed to represent Stark on Friday did not return an email seeking comment.

In a recent interview, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) said the barrage of hostile messages is especially vexing because staff must review them all for imminent danger.

Its really impacting the work of our entire office, Hobbs said. We feel like we have to go through them and listen to them to see if theres anything reportable or actionable.

Hobbs said she has increased security around her home as the number of troubling messages has grown, adding locks and cameras. She now uses a private security firm for public appearances. The threats, she said, seemed to tick up around a Republican-commissioned review of nearly 2.1 million ballots, which ultimately confirmed Bidens win in Maricopa County, and also around Trumps visits to the state.

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Keller said federal agents and prosecutors across the country had been designated to help collect and analyze threats to election workers, most of which come through emails, texts, calls and commentary on social media.

McCord said what constitutes a real threat, as opposed to mere alarming message, can vary based on the case law or jury instructions in a certain jurisdiction as well as the attitudes of judges and prosecutors.

If there are cases with bad facts that make bad law, that impacts the way your jury instructions are, McCord said. There are jurisdictions where the prosecutors are going to be much more demanding  or picky  about what cases they will bring, and what cases they wont.

The Justice Department has lost cases before, even with vile, seemingly violent messages at issue. In 2011, for example, a federal appeals court threw out the conviction of a man who had seemed to threaten then-President Obama, writing on an online message board Re: Obama fk the [expletive], he will have a 50 cal in the head soon and shoot the [expletive].

The majority of judges determined that one of the statements was predictive and the other exhortatory, and that there was not sufficient evidence to conclude the man intended his statements to be taken as threats. The Justice Department ultimately abandoned the case.

Amy Gardner contributed to this report.

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NEW YORK  The retired federal judge assigned to review the contents of 18 electronic devices seized from Rudolph W. Giulianis home and offices in Manhattan last spring has withheld about half of what former president Donald Trumps personal lawyer argued should be kept out of the hands of investigators because it was privileged.

More than 3,000 communications were released to prosecutors on Wednesday, an action reflected in a four-page report submitted to a judge overseeing litigation on the FBIs April 28 seizure of Giulianis phones and computers. The contents of the devices were not disclosed.

The Manhattan U.S. attorneys office has been investigating Giulianis dealings in Ukraine while he was representing Trump. Prosecutors have said Giuliani might have acted as an unregistered foreign agent, which was the basis for the agents search.

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Giuliani, a former mayor of New York who also once headed the prosecutors office that now has him under a microscope, has denied any wrongdoing.

Giulianis attorney, Robert Costello, said his review of the contents of the devices revealed no messages between Giuliani and the former president, and no proof of any crime. Trump is known for his avoidance of electronic messages, a habit that has frustrated state criminal and civil investigators in New York who are evaluating his business practices.

Theres no [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violation, Costello said. Rudy Giuliani didnt do anything illegal or unlawful.

Barbara S. Jones, in her progress statement filed Friday, reported that of the more than 25,000 chats and messages contained on a cellphone dating to the start of 2018, Giuliani initially asserted privilege and/or highly personal status on 96 items, 40 of which she granted. His attorneys withdrew their assertions on 19 of the items, and Jones said 37 were not privileged.

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From that set of records, 56 items were released to federal prosecutors. On another set of Giulianis devices, more than 3,000 communications from Dec. 1, 2018 to May 31, 2019 were reviewed, but he did not assert privilege on any of the items. They were also released to prosecutors this week.

Previously, Jones sided with Giuliani with respect to three items he said were privileged.

An attorneys communications with a client are generally protected from outside inspection unless the exchange advances criminal activity. Privilege reviews are relatively routine and are sometimes done in-house by an independent team at a prosecutors office.

In the case of Giuliani, like Michael Cohen, another attorney who represented Trump before a very public falling out, New York federal courts have appointed what is referred to as a special master to oversee the exhaustive review process.

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Jones was also appointed to review Cohens materials before his guilty pleas to charges involving tax evasion, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress about a Trump real estate deal in Russia.

Giulianis efforts in Ukraine played heavily in Trumps first impeachment trial. He was alleged to have tried to pressure Ukraines president into announcing an investigation into President Biden and his son Hunter in the lead-up to the 2020 campaign.

In October 2019, two of Giulianis associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested at Dulles International Airport on campaign finance violations, including for using foreign funds to support U.S. political candidates.

Parnas and Fruman also were said to have assisted Giuliani in his efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials to make an announcement that would be detrimental to Biden.

Fruman pleaded guilty in September to soliciting a contribution from a foreign national. On Friday afternoon, he was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $10,000. In court, Fruman said his actions are a shame that will live with me forever. Parnas was convicted at trial in October and is awaiting sentencing.

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correction An earlier version of this story misidentified the names of two officials with the Belarusian security services who are charged in the criminal indictment. Their full names are not known to U.S. officials, according to the indictment. One suspect was identified only by his first name and patronymic as Andrey Anatolievich; the name of the second suspect is unknown.

NEW YORK  Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Thursday against several Belarusian government officials for allegedly plotting to divert a Lithuania-bound aircraft to a Minsk airport so a dissident and his girlfriend could be arrested there. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia's war in Ukraine. ArrowRight The international episode that has resulted in an air piracy case was centered on a plan by the officials to report a fake bomb threat to apprehend anti-government media personality Roman Protasevich by forcing his flight to make an emergency landing at an airport within Belaruss jurisdiction on May 23.

Protasevich, who had been living in exile in Lithuania, was traveling from Athens to Vilnius on Ryanair Flight 4978, which carried 126 travelers.

Protasevich and his girlfriend were arrested at the airport in Minsk. At the time, Protasevich and Stepan Putilo, the founder of a media outlet he worked for, were on the countrys list of people involved in terrorist activity, although the countrys pursuit of Protasevich has been widely seen as an attempt to stifle criticism and free speech.

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Protasevich had been a crucial source of information in 2020 protests against controversial Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since the mid-1990s.

By the time of the unrest, which according to human rights observers resulted in about 30,000 arrests, Protasevich was already on the governments radar for his activism and assistance to the movement. Officials believed he was helping to alert activists to the movements of law enforcement.

In 2019, Protasevich fled to Poland, where he was granted political asylum.

The indictment unsealed Thursday charges Leonid Mikalaevich Churo and Oleg Kazyuchits with conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy. They were employed at the state air navigation authority, the agency responsible for air traffic control, and allegedly helped two other suspects  whose full names were not known, according to the indictment, but who worked for the state security services  carry out the fake threat and flight diversion operation, the charging documents say.

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The two unnamed suspects are also charged with conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.

All four defendants  who remain at large  are accused of trying to cover up what really happened, the indictment says, holding a news conference the day after the landing to address the alleged threat.

At that briefing, Churo told reporters that it was the pilots decision to land in Minsk  even though prosecutors allege that Churo and the others worked to ensure the pilot would be directed to divert there. Documents were also allegedly doctored to help create a paper trail to support the concealment, according to prosecutors.

Justice Department officials said Thursday that the deception allegedly carried out by Belaruss government operators endangered those aboard the flight, including four U.S. citizens.

Not only is what took place a reckless violation of U.S. law, its extremely dangerous to the safety of everyone who flies in an airplane, Assistant Director Michael J. Driscoll of the FBIs New York Field Office said in a statement. The next pilot who gets a distress call from a tower may doubt the authenticity of the emergency  which puts lives at risk.

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Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said that the actions of the four violated a long-standing practice of cooperation among countries around the world that enables safe international travel.

The defendants shattered those standards by diverting an airplane to further the improper purpose of repressing dissent and free speech, Williams said.

It is unlikely that the four Belarusian officials will be brought to the United States to face the indictment. The United States does not have an extradition agreement with Belarus.

All four face a minimum of 20 years in prison and the possibility of a life sentence if convicted.

The United States looks forward to working with our foreign partners to bring them to justice, the Justice Department said in a news release announcing the case.

Earlier versions of this article gave incorrect names for some of the defendants. Two of the defendants names are unknown to investigators, and they are referred to in the indictment as 

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President Biden faced a furor Thursday  including a highly unusual rebuke from Ukraines president and sharp criticism from Republican members of Congress  after appearing to downplay a hypothetical minor incursion by Russia into its neighbors territory. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The administration was hastily thrown into cleanup mode, reassuring allies and foes that the U.S. would view any crossing by Russian troops into Ukraine as unacceptable aggression. Administration officials said Bidens comments amounted to clumsy language unrepresentative of his position, which they said is amply clear from his oft-stated commitment to Ukraines sovereignty.

In a lengthy, freewheeling news conference Wednesday, Biden, answering several questions on the Ukraine crisis, managed to spook Ukrainian leaders, undercut a united front sought by NATO and suggest that if Moscows incursion into Ukraine were minor, the reaction by U.S. allies might be less severe. Still, by days end, the administration appeared to have largely calmed the diplomatic waters.

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In a news conference on Jan. 19, President Biden responded to questions about a possible Russian incursion into Ukraine. (Video: The Washington Post)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the tempest with a tweet on Thursday morning, rejecting the notion that there was such a thing as a minor incursion when it comes to the invasion of one country by another.

We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones, Zelensky wrote. I say this as the President of a great power.

Members of Congress were also critical. The presidents press conference was an absolute train wreck that will have serious consequences, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said in a statement Wednesday. President Biden basically gave Putin a green light to invade Ukraine by yammering about the supposed insignificance of a minor incursion. He projected weakness, not strength.

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The White House clearly recognized that Bidens comments were problematic. The National Security Council quickly issued a statement Wednesday night, as did White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, saying any Russian move across the Ukraine border would be met with a swift, severe, and united response.

The damage control picked up speed on Thursday with live comments from Vice President Harris in morning television interviews and from Biden himself later in the day.

Administration officials said no extra back-channeling was needed with European allies to reassure them of Bidens views on Russian aggression, and Psaki said Biden had not spoken with Zelensky since the news conference.

Other American officials did speak to their counterparts in Kyiv, she said. We have been in touch at a high level with Ukrainian officials and leaders, Psaki said. They certainly understand from those conversations what the president meant.

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One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said European allies and partners reached out to thank Washington for quickly clarifying Bidens comments.

Psaki also cited Secretary of State Antony Blinkens trips to Kyiv and Berlin this week as further evidence of the administrations commitment to doing all it can to protect Ukraines sovereignty.

We cannot choose the path for Moscow, Blinken told reporters Thursday in Berlin. But we can make crystal clear the stark consequences of that choice. Blinken spoke after a meeting of the so-called Transatlantic Quad, comprising the United States, Germany, Britain and France.

But after Bidens Wednesday remarks, those consequences seemed less than crystal clear to some. I think what youre going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does, Biden said. Its one thing if its a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.

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Still, the Biden administration has consistently vowed to impose far-reaching sanctions, including steps to cut Russia off from the global financial system, if President Vladimir Putin orders a move into Ukraine.

The president said Wednesday he believed Putin would invade. Im not so sure that he is certain what hes going to do, Biden said at the news conference. My guess is he will move in. He has to do something.

In the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, Biden became known on the national stage for public gaffes, including when he described his future boss, Barack Obama, as the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean to run for president.

Over his time as vice president, Bidens tendency to put his foot in his mouth was often dismissed as an endearing characteristic, part of a broader image he cultivated of the nations sometimes impolitic but always authentic Uncle Joe.

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But his Ukraine comments demonstrated the far higher stakes when a commander in chief uses unclear language during a global crisis. The weight of a presidents words is a point Biden himself regularly made in criticizing Trumps often intemperate rhetoric.

The words of a president matter, Biden said. They can move markets. They can send our brave men and women to war. They can bring peace.

U.S. officials are alarmed about the possibility of a large-scale invasion by Russian forces on Ukrainian territory that would bring mass casualties and escalate a simmering conflict in Europe. U.S. intelligence has assessed that Russia is making plans for such an invasion, even if it isnt certain that Putin ultimately will proceed.

Bidens comments prompted his staff to come out and clarify immediately that any movement of Russian forces into Ukrainian territory  regardless of the size of the land occupied  would count as an invasion and prompt the severe sanctions and economic penalties the United States has been preparing with allies. Biden later endeavored Thursday to make that clear himself.

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Ive been absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion, Biden told reporters Thursday at the start of a White House meeting on infrastructure.

An invasion would be met with a severe and coordinated economic response that has been laid out very clearly for President Putin, he said.

By then, Bidens remarks had already unnerved European and Ukrainian officials. Apart from his comments about the minor incursion, Biden also made other remarks that went against the grain of U.S. messaging on the crisis.

For weeks, top U.S. officials have been emphasizing that Washington is fully united with its European allies about how to respond to the Russian threat. But Biden said that was not entirely the case in all circumstances, suggesting that Russian action short of an invasion could cause a divide among allies about how forcefully to respond.

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Many officials conceded Biden was probably accurately portraying real divisions that could emerge within NATO regarding how the alliance would respond to some Russian tactics. But U.S. and European leaders have been at pains to emphasize their unity, not their differences.

Biden said there are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do, depending on what happens, the degree to which we have to go. The comment reflected the way Putin, who has long taken aggressive actions abroad short of war, may be able to exploit disagreements within the alliance.

And instead of coming out and offering a robust defense of NATOs open door policy, which gives any nation the opportunity to join the military alliance, Biden underscored that Ukraine was not likely to enter the organization anytime soon. Thats because NATO members must meet certain criteria for democracy and stability.

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The likelihood that Ukraine is going to join NATO in the near term is not very likely, based on much more work they have to do in terms of democracy and a few other things going on there, the president said.

Although Bidens awkward reference to a minor incursion  he later suggested he was referring to an action such as a cyberattack  unsettled officials from Washington to Brussels, the White Houses aggressive effort to restate the U.S. position appeared to reassure many allies.

What I can tell you is that the president has been very clear that if Russia takes aggressive action, it will be met with serious, severe and a unified response and consequences, Harris said Thursday morning on ABC News. And that position that we have taken is grounded in a number of values that we hold dear, including the importance of respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity in this case of Ukraine. We have not wavered from that perspective.

The gaffe also had a different character than Trumps many deliberate comments essentially taking Russias side in its aggression toward Ukraine. The former president signaled that he had little interest in backing Kyivs aspirations to further develop democracy in the country or deepen cooperation with the West.

Trump told aides in the Oval Office, for example, that Ukrainians were horrible, corrupt people who had tried to take him down during his 2016 campaign, and suggested he agreed with the common view among Kremlin hard-liners that Ukraine was not a real country.

On the campaign trail and afterward, Trump said the United States would consider recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, even though Moscow had seized that territory from Ukraine in a military invasion widely condemned in the West. Trump declined to rule out recognizing Russias annexation of Crimea and reportedly told leaders at a Group of Seven summit that the peninsula was Russian because the people there speak Russian.

Despite his muddled comments Wednesday, few doubt Biden's commitment to Ukraine. As Moscow bulks up its military presence along the Ukrainian border, diplomatic talks between U.S. and Russian delegations have hit an impasse, as Russia continued to deny plans to invade Ukraine and continues to make demands such as the permanent exclusion of Ukraine from NATO.

On Monday, a bipartisan group of senators met with Ukrainian leaders in Kyiv to assure them the United States remained steadfast in its support of Ukraines territorial integrity and independence.

For Biden, even if the quick cleanup efforts reassured allies for now, a burgeoning security crisis nonetheless remains on the horizon.

Let there be no doubt at all: If Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price, he said Thursday.

paul.sonne@washpost.com

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As he enters his second year in office, President Biden said he would make a stronger push for voting rights: more travel, more vitriol, more making the case for what happens if voters continue to support Democrats. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight But for many Black Americans whose energetic campaigning and votes helped propel Biden to the White House and secure Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the presidents impassioned vow this week came too late.

They are frustrated by his inaction on issues of equity and see a familiar carousel: a politician who promises to amplify Black voices and issues before Election Day, followed by maddening silence and inaction afterward.

The agenda that he ran on, and got so many of us to go with him on, like police reform and criminal justice reform . . . and voting rights, they gave up on it, said Fletcher Smith, a former South Carolina state legislator and one of a group of informal and mostly Black Biden advisers who call themselves the Bidenites.

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Smith said Bidens tone has been different the past couple of weeks, but hes not convinced the results will be. Hes not going to govern, Smith predicted of the president. Hes just going to go out in the nation and campaign and raise money for Democratic candidates in these congressional seats.

For Smith and many other Black supporters, Bidens concession that he had not been out in the community nearly enough was an admission that he had failed to connect with  and deliver for  one of the Democratic Partys most loyal constituencies.

The first anniversary of Bidens presidency represents an inflection point, with some Black voters aware of their political capital but worried that it may have been squandered by trusting Biden to renew voting rights, legislation for which has stalled in the narrowly divided Senate, and other priorities.

At his news conference Wednesday, Biden conceded that the coronavirus pandemic and other priorities in Washington had prevented him from doing the things that Ive always been able to do pretty well: connect with people, let them take a measure of my sincerity, let them take a measure of who I am.

But many advocates who protested systemic racism in 2020 and, later, mobilized voters during a global pandemic to help elect Democrats, say the problem wasnt Bidens words but his lack of action, according to Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a Movement for Black Lives spokeswoman.

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What were told is that the only reason we dont understand what they did was because they havent worded it well, she said. It feels a little bit like an insult to our intelligence.

Woodard Henderson added, We dont need you to give us fancy words; we need to actually see you execute policy on the legislative level. And we need Joe Biden, as the president of the United States, to lead his party to use the power that theyve been bestowed with.

Over the past year, White House officials have stressed Bidens commitment to equity issues by citing a flurry of executive actions, as well as the Justice Departments work to fight voter suppression. They also note that voting rights is part of Vice President Harriss portfolio, a sign of the issues importance.

Biden made a forceful speech in Georgia last week addressing voting rights  including withdrawing his long-held support of the filibuster, an arcane Senate rule that allows any member to keep a piece of business off the floor indefinitely. Biden said the rule had been abused to stop Black people from voting.

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White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Thursday that Biden has said several times that he was deeply disappointed that voting rights legislation didnt move forward. Youve also heard him say, and he would repeat this to advocates who have been fighting so hard since the 2020 election, that hes going to fight until his last breath to ensure that voting rights legislation passes.

I know today marks one year, she continued, but that does not mean our work is done. Nobodys packing up their bags.

Still, activists are divided about the path forward, and even whether one realistically exists. During Bidens speech in Atlanta last week, Black civil rights leaders filled the audience, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But many other Black activists opted to skip the event in protest, arguing that another gilded speech with no action behind it was not enough to meet the moment.

In 2020, Black voters resuscitated Bidens political career in the South Carolina primary, which he won handily, and from there helped him coast to the Democratic nomination. Biden was elected amid animus about a country many saw as tilted against Black Americans, sentiments brought to the surface by the killing of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

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After Biden won the presidency, Black voters in Georgia helped hand Democrats both Senate seats there, giving the party a 50-50 tie in the upper chamber  which was broken by Harris, the first Black woman to hold her office.

Biden promised a giant step toward racial equity. But even before he and Harris swore their oaths of office, Republican-controlled legislatures in many key states were preparing  and later passed  a raft of laws to restrict voting rights. Federalizing voter protections has stalled in the Senate, stymied by threats of filibuster that Democrats cannot overcome.

Youre in the 21st century, and you mean to tell me you cant convince two Democrats to do a carveout on the filibuster in order to pass voting rights, Smith said, speaking of Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W. V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who have both said they will not support filibuster reform, even for voting rights.

Black folks, theyre too sophisticated in the 21st century to fall for that, Smith added. We dont want platitudes and people and appealing to us because we just happen to be black. We want results.

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Last month, Donald Trumps fledgling social media company announced that it had lined up $US1 billion ($1.4 billion) from 36 investors. The size of the deal, the former president said in the announcement, signalled that his startups plan to end the tyranny of Big Tech had significant support.

Getting there was no slam dunk.

Despite the opportunity to invest in a deal whose terms were structured to make a profit for investors, many of Wall Streets big names passed on investing in Donald Trumps social media company. Credit:AP

Beginning in the fall, bankers for the company, Trump Media & Technology Group, approached dozens of investors pitching the $US1 billion deal, which offered them lucrative financial terms. By then, the startup  intended partly as a conservative alternative to Twitter  had separately raised roughly $US300 million through its planned merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

Those willing to put up at least $US100 million, Trump Medias bankers told potential investors, would get a call from Trump, said five people who were briefed about the pitches but were not authorised to speak publicly. Despite the opportunity to invest in a deal whose terms were structured to make a profit for investors, many of Wall Streets big names passed.
Happiness is a warm gun, sang the Beatles. For Lana Del Rey, a butterfly. For all the inspo posters out there, the word means teamwork, a choice, a journey, a puppy, following your heart, and so on. Happiness is a lot of things, but English can only cover so much ground to specify which nuance we mean.

Roget did his best in 1852. As a slide rule, happiness might start with amused and end on euphoric, ranking the likes of glad and chuffed, cheery and merry in between. Yet for every cloud nine and seventh heaven along the number line, there remains as many gaps.

Lana Del Rey believes happiness is a butterfly. Credit:Ashley Mar

Tracing the word, happy derives from Old Norse, where happ translates as chance or accident. Happen the verb is related, as happenings tend to arise from circumstances as much as by design. Haphazard and perhaps both retain the same Norse gist, implying happiness has a random quality; a jubilant fluke regardless of best intentions.

Perhaps English owns meagre stocks where emotions are concerned, or maybe weve never been great at labelling and sharing our incremental joys in the first place. Either way, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgensteins words resonate: The limits of your language are the limits of your world.
Anyway, the point is I had two little brothers, and as the big sister, who was always interested in the approval of adults and such, I would always try to make my mixtures sensible and healthy. And my brothers would always tip entire bags of sugar into theirs. Then at the end of it, nobodys were good  but theirs were so much more edible than mine. I think thats been a core part of understanding me as a baker. My mother also let me sew something that she let me wear to a party when I was nine years old. That was also a core experience  Im really good at sewing and I never really vibed with the kitchen.

Not at all? Well, I didnt really before, I never  all right, lets go deeper. You may as well get the deeper answer, and thats that when we were kids, my mum let us into the pantry to invent things, let us make mixtures. Then shed bake them, shed dutifully bake them, and wed often eat them. I dont think Ive said this out loud for a really long time  its extraordinary she let us do this.

Its just not your forte.

My husband is really, really good, and he just does all the kitchen stuff in our house. And I see it happening again: sometimes when I watch what he puts in, how much butter and salt is required to make something delicious. I dont want to have to do that for it to be good.

As a host of Bake Off, is the fact that you dont vibe with the kitchen helpful? Because you need to be impressed by the contestants, and if you were really good at baking, you might not be able to sincerely act impressed.

See, exactly. It is necessary for there to be someone on the show who doesnt understand baking. Obviously it cant be the contestants and even more so it cant be the judges: therefore it must be the host who doesnt understand. I need to be gasping at what they do and asking all the dumb questions, because theres absolutely nothing interesting to watch if someone explains a complicated process and I go, Yeah thats what Id do too. Thats no good, right?

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Absolutely. I watch it, and I have no idea what theyre doing, so youre my proxy in the kitchen.

Good, Im so glad. I was talking to some producers today  I was doing some voiceovers, my favourite bit, where I get to say things like Jeremy is baking a cheesecake flavoured with raspberry coulis, or something like that. Let me tell you, nine times out of 10 I will have forgotten that you have to eat before it, and sometimes they have actually picked up my stomach rumbles on the recording. Anyway, I was talking to the producers and we were discussing, does everyone who watches the show bake? And I was like, absolutely not. Before I was on this show I was one of the biggest fans of the UK one, and I absolutely dont bake. I appreciate the artform, but I think most people watching dont do it.

It is a show where everyone on it is good at what theyre doing  theyre amateurs but its not amateur hour.

Its not like that marriage show where people are not good at marriage. You wouldnt want to put people who are good at marriage on that show.
WA Health has released a new set of potential COVID-19 exposure sites, directing people who attended venues at the specified times to immediately get tested and isolate.

Bootleg Brewery, The Margaret River Chocolate Company, The Grove Distillery and Brewery and Wild Hop Brewing Company in the South West are all exposure sites at specified times on Sunday January 16.

" /]

It comes after West Australian Premier Mark McGowan revealed seven new local cases have been recorded in the state overnight, with four not linked to any other known infections.

Three of those four are from the same household, and while they have not been linked to any other known case at the moment, Mr McGowan said he believed there could be a link that has not yet been confirmed.
One poll does not make a landslide. Morrisons team knew the public polling would reflect the frustration over the summer outbreak, while backbenchers knew it destroyed any dream of a snap election in March. But the view within the government is that victory can be won on an economic message after the federal budget due on March 29, with seat-by-seat struggles at an election in May. Everything depends on when Omicron peaks and how long that peak lasts. And, perhaps, what variant comes afterwards. The most seasoned backbenchers know that politics can change quickly in the heat of a campaign and horror polls need to be handled with care. Ive seen it worse than this, says Warren Entsch, the Liberal MP who has held the seat of Leichhardt in northern Queensland for 26 years, apart from one term when he chose not to run. Warren Entsch - with Prime Minister Scott Morrison - says hes seen worse polling in his decades in parliament. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

It doesnt surprise me, but Ive seen polls that have said were toast and weve come back to win. Entsch remembers the 2001 election when voters were angry with John Howard, the prime minister at the time, over the introduction of the GST and rising petrol prices. Howard responded by cutting fuel excise and taking a hard line on asylum seekers when the Tampa sailed toward the Western Australian coast. Then came September 11. Australia faces a very different landscape this year. Nobody can predict how the pandemic will play out: not Morrison, not Albanese. What is very clear, however, is that Morrison is paying a political price for the shock of the Omicron wave when he was being told last year to be prepared. Loading That is why the shortage of rapid antigen tests bites so hard as a political issue. It is not just an urgent practical problem for households but a question about government planning and competence, just like the wait for the vaccine last year.

Morrison has taken action on several fronts to try to quell this anger. With supermarket shelves empty, he has argued in national cabinet for ways to get workers back into food production and transport. One option was to ease rules so people could return to work after five days of isolation, but state leaders baulked at the idea. The rule stayed at seven days. The federal response has been to do what it can control. Morrison and the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, chose to refund visa fees for foreign students over the next eight weeks and for working holidaymakers over the next 12 weeks. Treasury estimates this will bring workers into the country at a faster rate. Employers backed the idea. The Labor response is to call for a free supply of rapid antigen tests for all. But there is no costing on this promise and no policy on how to ration supply to make sure the greatest help goes to those in the greatest need. The onus is on Albanese to explain how that would work. The pressure on Morrison was laid bare in his press conference on Wednesday when he made a calculated decision to open his remarks, televised live, with an admission about the frustration and anger about the summer outbreak.

It hasnt been without challenge, it hasnt been without loss, it hasnt been without frustration and difficulty, and the natural anger that I know flows from that, he said. But thats where we are  doing better than almost any other country in the world. His central argument, which he has been making over several months, was that the steps taken in Australia have saved 40,000 lives when compared with death rates overseas. It is not an easy message because it asks people to favour Morrison by considering what might have been when they are consumed, for good reason, with real problems before their eyes. Morrison was on the defensive. The Resolve Political Monitor had shown on Wednesday morning that 65 per cent of voters believed test kit supplies were a federal leaders job, even though states run the testing centres. The way Morrison responded was telling. He spoke for 21 minutes before taking questions and ranged over everything he was working on or thinking about, anxious for Australians to know he was not idle. Loading The soliloquy was unfocused and unstructured. Morrison shifted blame to others  the states, again  without being brief and direct about his own actions. He even canvassed a plan to lower the age of people who could drive forklifts  an idea that went viral on social media with pictures of children at the wheels before it was blocked by the premiers the next day. He was thinking aloud in a way that helped nobody.

Talking more did not save Hamlet. Voters are judging Morrison on results. The slide in the governments fortunes follows the remorseless numbers of the pandemic: the change from 20,000 active cases in early November to more than 500,000 in January, an official number that understates the reality. It is possible for voters to hold state and territory leaders to account for this outbreak at the same time they mark down the Prime Minister. The key questions about policy and politics in the Resolve Political Monitor ask respondents to indicate which party and leader they prefer, an approach that means Morrison and the Coalition are being compared with Albanese and Labor. This reflects the presidential way Australias election campaigns are run, with so much attention on the leader. The question on policy is straightforward: Please tell us which party and leader you think would perform best in each area. Respondents are given a list of issues in a random order.

Morrison and the Coalition have held the lead on the pandemic when voters are asked who is best to manage the COVID-19 situation. But their lead has narrowed dramatically. They were ahead by 25 percentage points after the federal budget last May; now they lead by only four percentage points. Asked who they prefer on this essential measure, 32 per cent of voters name Morrison and the Coalition while 28 per cent name Albanese and Labor. This means a huge number of voters are yet to be convinced by either side: 25 per cent say they are undecided, while 10 per cent do not prefer either of the major parties. The contest on a related issue, the management of healthcare and aged care, has been much tighter since the Resolve Political Monitor began last April. The pandemic has changed the old assumptions that Labor does better on health. Last May, when the government promised $15.2 billion for aged care in the budget, voters swung to the Coalition. The next few months saw them swing between the two major parties. Loading Asked about health and aged care in October, voters were evenly matched in preferring the Coalition or Labor, but things shifted in November to give Albanese a slight lead of three percentage points. He increased this lead to six points in January.

With so much attention on hospitals and testing centres, 34 per cent of voters preferred Labor and Albanese on health and aged care in January, compared to 28 per cent who preferred the Coalition and Morrison. As in other areas, the contest is not over: 25 per cent were undecided. Morrison and the Coalition have kept their lead over Labor on economic management, but the lead narrowed to 13 percentage points in January compared to 16 points in November and 26 points last May. Asked about jobs and wages, voters favoured Albanese and Labor. Asked who was best to keep the cost of living low, voters also backed Albanese and Labor. The margins are narrow but the trend has been against the government. The Resolve Political Monitor was conducted from January 10 to 15 and asked 1607 voters their views in online questions put in a random order to avoid a donkey vote with the results. The margin of error was 2.5 per cent for the national figures. Resolve director Jim Reed usually says the results are too close to call when calculating who leads in two-party terms. This is cautious, and annoys people who like the race-call to be simplified to two national numbers, but one of the lessons from the last election is to guard against such sweeping statements.

The contest has been quite close up until now, but Labor now holds a significant two-party preferred vote lead, says Reed. This has to be treated with caution, however, when the tacticians on both sides of politics know the election will be decided in seat-by-seat battles. Even with the national numbers against them, Liberals believe they can hold their seats in Tasmania and possibly win one from Labor. They base this on the calibre of the candidates. Loading In Queensland, for instance, the government worries about losing the seat of Flynn, where Labor has a strong candidate in local mayor Matt Burnett, but is not so nervous about suburban Brisbane. While Labor supporters think the tide has turned strongly against the government in Western Australia, Liberals think they can hold their ground.
London: Faced with ever-changing travel restrictions, any teenager would be forgiven for putting plans for a round-the-world trip on hold.

One youngster, however, took the idea one step further  she decided to fly herself.

Undeterred by the COVID pandemic, Belgian-British teenager Zara Rutherford set off in her one-seater Shark Ultralight plane in August last year, with her sights set on becoming the youngest woman in the world to fly around the world solo.

Belgium-British teenage pilot Zara Rutherford carries the Belgian and British flags after landing her Shark ultralight plane at the Kortrijk airport, Belgium. Credit:AP

After 260 hours of flying, the 19-year-old achieved her goal on Thursday (Friday AEDT) as she touched down at a small airfield in Flanders, flanked by the Belgian equivalent of the Red Arrows.
Washington: Joe Bidens ambitious attempt to overhaul voting rights in America is all but dead.

After pleading with his colleagues to ease the passage of two key bills by tweaking the filibuster rules of the Senate, the US President simply couldnt get the numbers  thwarted as expected, by two rebel Democrats joining Republicans to torpedo the plan.

Joe Biden says he is profoundly disappointed that the Senate didnt adopt his voting rights agenda. Credit:AP

For Biden, the result of the vote is not so much a surprise as a profound disappointment; the latest in a list of setbacks that have underpinned his first year of office: from his Build Back Better social policy agenda being stalled before Christmas, to his push for vaccine mandates being struck down by the Supreme Court last week.

With the midterm elections in November, the stakes are obvious. If, as expected, Republicans take back control of Congress, it wont just make it harder for Biden to deliver on the rest of his first term agenda; it would also make it easier for the return of Donald Trump, who is teasing at another run for office in 2024.
Salisbury, MD (21801)

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Cloudy this morning with thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 81F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

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Wilmington, DE (19810)

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A steady rain this morning. Showers continuing this afternoon. High 73F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch..

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Dodge County supervisors rebuff borrowing $9 million for road repairs

JUNEAU  Dodge County supervisors Tuesday night did an about-face from 2021 and voted down borrowing nearly $9.2 million for approximately 28 miles in road repairs. A year earlier, supervisors approved borrowing the same amount to upgrade 25 miles of roadway.

The vote Tuesday was 23 in favor and five against, however, the resolution required three-fourths majority of the 33-member board to pass.

Supervisors Mary Bobholz of Beaver Dam, Dan Siegmann of Rubicon, David Guckenberger of Ashippun, Cathy Houchin of Watertown and Kira Sheahan-Malloy of Waupun voted against it.

The supervisors in favor of borrowing the $9.2 million were Russell Kottke of Fox Lake, Dale Macheel, Nancy Kavazanjian of Beaver Dam, Joe Marsik of Columbus, Donald Hilgendorf of Horicon, Richard Greshay of Horicon, Andrew Johnson of Horicon, Richard Fink of Mayville, Karen Kuehl of Mayville, Rob Boelk of Mayville, Tim Kemmel of Brownsville, Jeff Caine of Lowell, Allen Behl of Watertown, Jenifer Hedrick of Watertown, David Frohling of Watertown, Dennis Schmidt of Juneau, Thom Nickel of Waupun, Donna Maly of Beaver Dam, Dan Hilbert of Beaver Dam, Haley Kenevan of Beaver Dam, Kevin Burnett of Beaver Dam, Lisa Derr of Beaver Dam and Del Yaroch of Beaver Dam.

Five supervisors were absent at Tuesdays meeting. They included supervisors: Ed Benter of Fox Lake, Ben Priesgen of Lomira, Jeff Berres of Watertown, Travis Schultz of Waupun and Dan Hilbert of Beaver Dam.

Caine said at the meeting he did not foresee Dodge County borrowing any additional funds for highway improvements in 2022.

Caine, who serves as the highway committee chairperson, said he visited all but one of his districts and presented the borrowing to his constituents and none were against it.

They see the value in doing this, Caine said.

He said by approving the borrowing it would help attract younger people to the county, who desire better roads. Caine also said he and the highway committee members planned to upgrade 20 miles of county roads in the future.

Guckenberger asked Caine why the money for the roads couldnt be found in the budget this year, if borrowing is no longer an option.

Caine said the number of roads that will require repair in future will not cost $9 million, but possibly $6 million because many of them will already have been reconstructed and will only require upgrades. He said funding could be found within the tax levy, sales tax or even the federal infrastructure bill.

Sheahan-Malloy said Dodge County is not investing appropriately in its roads and found herself conflicted as to how to vote on the borrowing.

There is no plan, she said. The plan doesnt exist. Weve fallen 20 years behind in our road repairs. We dont have the luxury of raising the levy. Were borrowing first and then coming up with a plan. I dont see that as the right way to go about this.

Guckenberger said he didnt want to see any burden placed on the taxpayers for next years road repairs.

Why do we always have to tap into the taxpayers? Guckenberger asked. Youre asking for $6 million for road repairs next year. Where are we going to get it? This is not practical.

Supervisor Frohling said the current interest rates are lower than the rate of inflation.

These projects can be completed at a lower cost than if they are completed in future years at inflated costs, he said.

Derr supported Caine and Frohling in their arguments.

This is just a normal financing tool, Derr said. We have an excellent bond rating. We pay now or we pay later (for the road repairs).

Dodge County Highway Commissioner Brian Field said in a telephone call Wednesday afternoon he was very disappointed in the county boards vote against borrowing the $9.2 million.

He said his department was looking forward to getting a lot of work completed this year.

We will still work with the highway committee and see what were able to do, Field said.

He said his department will look to reconstruct three miles of County Highway M between County Highways JM and J in Watertown and Reeseville. Field said the total cost is nearly $4 million.

We want to get that portion of the road completed, he said. If we want to do any additional roads, we are going to need to reprioritize things to make the best use of our funds.

The proposed projects that wont be funded include:

 County Highway T from State Highway 16/60 to County Highway S in the Town of Astico (4.4 miles)

 County Highway Q from State Highway 19 to County Highway K in the Town of Richwood (6.2 miles)

 County Highway C from U.S. Highway 151 to State Highway 26 in the Town of Trenton (3.3 miles)

 County Highway J from State Highway 16/60 to County Highway G in the Town of Lowell near the Village of Leipsic (5.1 miles)

 County Highway N from County Highway P to the east county line near Hartford (2 miles)

 County Highway V from State Highway 67 to State Highway 49 north out of Mayville (7.5 miles)

 County Highway E to Lake Drive in Hustisford (0.9)

 County Highway TW to County Highway Y to County Highway V (1 mile)
Weatherford, TX (76086)

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Cloudy in the morning with scattered thunderstorms developing later in the day. A few storms may be severe. High 83F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

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Weatherford, TX (76086)

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Cloudy early. Scattered thunderstorms developing later in the day. A few storms may be severe. High 82F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

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Thunderstorms likely in the evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms later on. A few storms may be severe. Low 66F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media

Schools throughout the Danbury area closed Thursday as wintry weather hit the region overnight and was expected to persist throughout the day. The snowfall was not quite as much as initially expected.

Many of the school districts did not make an initial decision on school Wednesday night ot planned for a two-hour delay. But as conditions changed, many waking up Thursday morning learned that schools would indeed be canceled.
WEST HAVEN  Money may not grow on trees, but sometimes its hidden just barely out of sight. Now, West Haven High School seniors may stand to benefit.

The state treasurers office created the CT Big List, an online database of uncollected property, including people and entities who have property  such as old checking and savings accounts, uncashed checks, forgotten utility deposits, unclaimed life insurance proceeds or inactive stocks and bonds  they are owed but have not collected.

According to calculations by the New Haven Register, the city of West Haven  including several city departments such as its police and tax collector  has at least $3,950 in uncollected property. The school district also has at least $1,700 in uncollected property.

My thought is that if we can claim some of the funds, since its found money, we could put it towards scholarships for our high school seniors, said Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro.

He said that, after being alerted of the uncollected property  including at least $100 from by Boston Mutual Life Insurance that belongs to the school district dating back to 2004  he would alert the districts business office to initiate the process of collecting the money.

It is not possible to figure the exact amount owed from browsing the CT Big List database, with any money owed between $50 and $100 being noted as under $100 and anything in excess of that being noted as over $100. The exact amount of an item is not revealed until a claim is made.

City Council members said they were unaware of the unclaimed property. Council Chairman Peter Massaro said a request for comment from the Register Thursday was his first time hearing about it, and Finance Committee Chairwoman Bridgette Hoskie said she had no knowledge of the program.

Mayor Nancy Rossi and Finance Director Frank Cieplinski did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

According to the database, the city and several departments within the city can collect from multiple companies and governmental agencies such as United Illuminating, Coca Cola Refreshments, Southern Connecticut Gas, the University of New Haven and the Connecticut District Superior Court.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
National Nurses Week is May 6 to May 12, an annual celebration that recognizes the critical role nurses perform in our hospitals and for our community. This year, we recognize our nurses for their continued commitment and unfailing dedication to our patients and their families, and for alway
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January 21, 2022 Acosta should be held accountable for undermining gov't vaccination drive - De Lima Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima maintained that Public Attorneys Office (PAO) Chief Persida Acosta should be held accountable for her reckless public statements against the government's vaccination policy, which could endanger people's lives. De Lima, a social justice and human rights champion, reminded Acosta that she is a public official whose statements can greatly influence people's choices, particularly on taking COVID-19 shots. "I stand to defend anyone and everyone's right to freedom of expression. But when a public officer uses her exposure as such to undermine the vaccination policy of the government, there should be consequences, or at least some form of public rebuke for recklessly endangering people's lives with vaccination fear-mongering," she said. "There should be harsh consequences for spreading misinformation, and being a lackey of Duterte should not exempt anyone," she added. In a recent interview on ANC's "Headstart," Acosta admitted that she is not vaccinated, citing her age and health issues for such decision. She even recklessly shared a story that the vaccinated people in their Central office were supposedly infected with the virus unlike the unvaccinated, saying, "so you can see who is prone to virus and who is really carrying the virus." Acosta said she is still waiting for protein-based vaccine to ensure her safety, saying that "I cannot face a vaccine now which will make you sick," and further claiming that she has a friend who supposedly died due to COVID-19 despite being inoculated. Earlier, Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon also called out Acosta, saying her refusal to get immunized against COVID-19 contributes to vaccine hesitancy, considering that she is a government official. Drilon said: "If she cannot defend the policies of this administration, she should leave her post. I'm not even asking for that. I am just saying, protect your fellow workers in the PAO." Backing Drilon, De Lima maintained that Acosta should relinquish her current position if she plans to release reckless statements undermining the government's vaccination drive. "While the government is being harsh on the ordinary unvaxxed commuters, it is letting a public official continue to undermine its vaccination drive. The double standard cannot be more glaring," she said. "If she wants to continue to speak freely and go on with her anti-vaccine rants, she should first resign her public office. Then she can preach her anti-vaccine beliefs as much as she wants as a private citizen," she added. The lady Senator from Bicol maintained that Acosta was largely responsible for the vaccine hysteria in the country after conducting her Dengvaxia witchhunt. "The Filipino's distrust with vaccines started with her, as tolerated by the Duterte government during its Dengvaxia witchhunt," said De Lima. It may be recalled that Acosta became a household name pre-pandemic after she repeatedly claimed that children who had received the Dengvaxia dengue vaccine supposedly died because of their jabs even though there is no scientific proof backing her claim. The Dengvaxia controversy eventually created a national health scare that saw immunization rates for various diseases plummeting in the country.
Disney's Beauty and the Beast, currently touring, is set for a limited season at The London Palladium this summer.

The latest production, which has a glowing five-star review from WhatsOnStage from October 2021, sees original creatives return to update the classic Disney musical.

Telling the tale of a sage young woman trapped by a cursed prince, the production will run from Friday 24 June 2022, for a strictly limited season until Saturday 17 September. A new Beast has joined the show  you can find out more here. Tickets go on general sale at 10am on Friday.

Featuring classic numbers such as "Something There", "Be Our Guest", "Belle", "Gaston" and "Beauty and the Beast" as well as new tunes added for the stage production, the Disney classic is directed and choreographed by Matt West, with the creative team featuring scenic designer Stan Meyer, costume designer Ann Hould-Ward and lighting designer Natasha Katz.

New dance arrangements have been created by David Chase, while Michael Kosarin and Danny Troob are musical supervisor/vocal arranger and orchestrator.

Rick Sordelet is fight director, Lorenzo Pisoni is physical movement coordinator, Sam Scalamoni is associate director, Chandon Jones is the associate choreographer and Nick Winston is the associate UK director/choreographer. Casting is by Pippa Ailion and Natalie Gallacher.

Completing the design team are John Shivers as sound designer, Darryl Maloney as the video and projections designer, and David H Lawrence as hair designer. Jim Steinmeyer is the illusions designer.
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Nutrition Officer, Angola

Organization: UNICEF

Country: Angola

City: Luanda

Office: UNICEF Luanda

Closing date: Wednesday, 2 February 2022

General

Description of assignment title: Nutrition Officer

Assignment country: Angola

Expected start date: 02/15/2022

Sustainable Development Goal: ZERO HUNGER

Volunteer category: International UN Volunteer Specialist

DoA reserved for persons with disabilities: No

Host entity: UNICEF

Type: Onsite

Duration: 12 months

Number of assignments: 1

Duty stations: Luanda

Details

Mission and objectives

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of childrens rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and strives to establish childrens rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards children. UNICEF insists that the survival, protection and development of children are universal development imperatives that are integral to human progress. UNICEF mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families. UNICEF is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children - victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation, and those with disabilities. UNICEF responds in emergencies to protect the rights of children. In coordination with United Nations partners and humanitarian agencies, UNICEF makes its unique facilities for rapid response available to its partners to relieve the suffering of children and those who provide their care. UNICEF is non-partisan and its cooperation is free of discrimination. In everything it does, the most disadvantaged children and the countries in greatest need have priority. UNICEF aims, through its country programmes, to promote the equal rights of women and girls and to support their full participation in the political, social and economic development of their communities. UNICEF works with all its partners towards the attainment of the sustainable human development goals adopted by the world community and the realization of the vision of peace and social progress enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

Context

Angola is facing the fifth consecutive year of drought conditions in the southern provinces, exacer-bating the prevalence of acute malnutrition and increasing food insecurity. In Huila, Cunene, Namibe, Benguela and Cuando Cubango, UNICEF is supporting the scale-up of malnutrition treatment activi-ties. In Luanda province, COVID-19 and the economic downturn has had a negative impact on the nutritional status of the most disadvantaged households, here, UNICEF has established nutrition services in over 40 heatlh facilities across five municipalities to support the treatment of children with severe acute malnutrition. In Bie, Moxico and Uige provinces, the provinces most affected by stunting, UNICEF is supporting multi-sectorial approaches for stunting prevention. Under the supervision of the Nutrition Specialist, the Nutrition Officer will provide technical opera-tional and administrative assistance and support for the nutrition programme activities. Responsibili-ties will be focused on supporting the southern provinces of Angola, though support to Luanda and other provinces with nutrition activities may also be required. Responsibilities will include supporting the planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and administration of nutrition programme ac-tivities, including data analysis, progress reporting, knowledge management and capacity building. The goal is to support the achievement of planned objectives in the work plan, aligned with the coun-try programme goals and strategy while adhering to organizational rules, regulations and proce-dures. date

Task description

Under the direct supervision of the Nutrition Specialist, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

Support to programme development and planning: Provide technical and opera-tional support throughout all stages of programming processes by supporting a variety of technical programme transactions; preparing materials and documenta-tions, and complying with organizational processes and management systems,

Programme management, monitoring and delivery of results: Support results-based management (RBM), and monitoring and evaluation of results for the nutrition pro-gramme. c49UHnX Dh7qKS

Technical and operational support to programme implementation: Support regu-lar programme field visits and surveys, and exchange information with partners and stakeholders to assess progress and provide technical support. Refer and report critical issues and bottlenecks to relevant officials for timely resolution.

Networking and partnership building: Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with nutrition sector government counterparts and national stake-holders through active sharing of information and knowledge to facilitate pro-gramme implementation and build capacity of stakeholders to achieve pro-gramme goals and deliver sustainable results. Build relationships with local or-ganizations, groups or individuals and supporting and/or participating in local vol-unteering initiatives.

Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building: Draft communication and information materials for country programme advocacy and visibility and apply innova-tive approaches and promote good practices to support the implementation and deliv-ery of concrete and sustainable programme results.

Encourage, mobilize and support co-workers, fellow UN Volunteers and mem-bers of the local community to play an active part in development on a voluntary basis.

Eligibility criteria

Age: 27 - 80

Nationality

Candidate must be a national of a country other than the country of assignment.

Requirements

Required experience

3 years of experience in one or more of the following fields: nutrition, public health, nutrition planning and management, or maternal, infant and child health/nutrition care. Computer Skills: Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook

Area(s) of expertise

Health

Driving license

-

Languages

Portuguese, Level: Fluent, Required English, Level: Working knowledge, Desirable

Required education level

Bachelor degree or equivalent in nutrition, public health, nutritional epidemiology, global/international health and nutrition, health/nutrition research, policy and/or management, health sciences, nutritional epidemi-ology, or another health-related science field.

Competencies and values

Respect, Trust, Integrity, Accountability.

Other information

Living conditions and remarks

The incumbent will be based in Luanda , Angola. The UNV Volunteer will be provided with the applicable allowances. Accomodation in Luanda is not difficult to find and prices are reasonable. As a tropical country the climate is mostly hot throughout the year with a cold season from around May to August. Angola is in level 2-low of the security and risk level.

Inclusivity statement

United Nations Volunteers is an equal opportunity programme that welcomes applications from qualified professionals. We are committed to achieving diversity in terms of gender, care protected characteristics. As part of their adherence to the values of UNV, all UN Volunteers commit themselves to combat any form of discrimination, and to promoting respect for human rights and individual dignity, without distinction of a persons race, sex, gender identity, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, age, language, social origin or other status.

Note on Covid-19 vaccination requirements

Selected candidates for certain occupational groups may be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) in line with the applicable host entity policy

Link to the organizations job posting: https://unjobs.org/vacancies/1642616187349
Willmar, MN (56201)

Today

Partly cloudy skies during the morning hours will become overcast in the afternoon. High 61F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy. Low near 45F. Winds light and variable.
While nearly all of Connecticuts COVID metrics were trending downward Thursday, the new deaths reported in the past week were the highest in months, state data shows.

The 241 total deaths for the past week were 80 more than the 161 reported in the previous week and well above numbers seen prior to the latest surge in COVID-19 infections ahead of the holidays.

Speaking to the jump in deaths, Gov. Ned Lamont described it on Thursday as a lagging indicator of the latest COVID surge.

Almost all of them unvaccinated, older, comobordities. ... I think that number will go down, he said.

Though he did not offer a specific breakdown on deaths among vaccinated and unvaccinated residents, Lamont did acknowledge the considerable difference in risk between the two groups.

You are 18 times more likely to die if you are not vaccinated  nothing is 100 percent, nothing is foolproof, yet its another reminder that the vaccinations work. They keep you out of the ICU and they keep you alive, Lamont said.

While the deaths spiked in the past week, the daily positivity rate and COVID-19 hospitalizations continued to drop. On Thursday, the state reported that 4,805 new cases were found in 36,158 COVID tests for a positivity rate of 13.29 percent, nearly seven percentage points lower than this time last week.

We are probably one of the five-lowest infection rates in the country at 13.29 percent, Lamont said. You may say, oh my god, thats a high percent, but it gives you an idea of what is going on around the country.

Hospitalizations, which had neared a pandemic high last week, fell again on Thursday by a net of 72 patients for a total of 1,733, about 90 fewer than a week ago.

Lamont noted that hospitalizations were declining and more health care workers were returning from infections, so the state was balancing supply and demand there.

Despite the rise in deaths, there was optimism about the trajectory of the pandemic, despite the somewhat unpredictable nature of the virus.

Lamont and other officials noted the surge from the omicron variant, first discovered in November in South Africa and now the dominant strain in Connecticut, appears to be sharply waning like it has in other parts of the world that were impacted sooner.

I think when we get into February, we are going to have a better picture of what the overall outlook is here. There have been people, like me, who said delta would be the last major wave and omicron came along and surprised us, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and Connecticut resident who has advised Lamont on the pandemic, said Thursday during the governors COVID press conference.

Gottlieb offered the most rosy picture of the future of COVID-19, saying he believed cases should continue to drop into the spring and offer a quiet summer before another surge in the fall. But when that spike happens, there will be even more tools to combat the virus, including a much broader availability of therapeutics that have recently garnered federal approvals.

With omicrons rapid community spread that led to record infections in Connecticut, questions have been raised over whether it may be the last major wave of the pandemic, and a shift toward an endemic, where the virus is more of a routine part of the seasonal cycle of respiratory diseases.

I do think we are approaching more of an endemic phase of this virus in our community. I would like to share the same optimism that Dr. Gottlieb has, but I do have caution about this virus surprising us throughout this pandemic at several times, said Dr. Minasha Juthani, Connecticuts public health commissioner.

As for what an endemic could look like, Gottlieb said he believes the shift will be from public officials issuing mandates to stem the spread of the virus toward empowering individuals to take actions to keep themselves safe as it becomes an endemic, as this becomes a more routine part of life.

But even if its unclear what path COVID-19 will take as the pandemic continues, some of that shift is already underway.

Regardless, we are learning to live with COVID. We have so many tools with us now, Juthani said.

Though the omicron surge may be waning, issues are likely to continue as hospitals and health care networks treat a volume of patients not seen since the start of the pandemic.

We have a rapidly improving picture around the tri-state region, certainly around the state. But we are not through this by any means, the holiday pressure on the health care system is going to be a lagging issue, Gottlieb said.

So officials continued their messaging on the importance of vaccination, and then subsequent booster shots, in order to address this problem.

Lamont, speaking to the latest figures, acknowledged that someone is more than seven times as likely to get hospitalized if they are not vaccinated.

Thats why weve got to get people vaccinated, keep them out of the hospital, maintain our capacity, Lamont said.

In light of the still high levels of community transmission, the state has been paying particular attention to nursing homes, which were hit hardest early in the pandemic, Lamont said.

In the waning days of his emergency powers, Lamont has issued two recent executive orders involving nursing homes. Earlier this month, he announced that nursing home workers would be required to get a booster shot by next month. Previously, these employees were among the first required to get vaccinated.

On Wednesday, Lamont issued an order requiring all nursing home visitors to be vaccinated, have a negative test result or take a rapid antigen test in order to access a facility.

In order to meet this mandate, the state was planning to distribute 50,000 rapid antigen tests on Friday with the help of the Connecticut National Guard.

Nursing home residents and staff were among the first eligible to get vaccinated, and outbreaks of COVID-19 declined quickly in these facilities, where vaccination rates have been high, state figures show.

However, what is believed to be waning immunity from the vaccine has led to an increase in the number of nursing home COVID-19 cases. In the past two weeks, cases among nursing home residents have nearly doubled from 829 to 1,616. Deaths have seen a sharper increase from 13 to 53.

Officials have been urging boosters for residents in an effort to restore the protection amid one of the worst surges in COVID-19 activity during the pandemic.

State figures show about 77 percent of nursing home residents have received a booster.

Weve been sending the vaccination vans to the nursing homes, almost 80 percent of the residents are boostered, Lamont said. That is making sure we dont have any big flair ups there.
The COVID Era simultaneously puts us through experiences weve never had before and makes daily life often feel like reruns.

So the news Bob Stefanowski is seeking to become governor felt about as surprising as a November headline that leaves are dropping from Connecticuts trees.

Even Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont acknowledged Stefanowski has been running for the past five years. Thats not a shot at the 2018 Republican candidate, who was wise to maintain a steady drumbeat reminding voters of his presence. When Republican Tom Foley returned for a rematch in 2014 after losing the governors race to Democrat Dannel Malloy in 2010, he seemed to be coming out of hibernation from the intervening four years.

Thats not the case with Stefanowski. He has been making stump speeches via e-mail blasts, op-eds and volunteer appearances since Lamont won the last campaign with 49.4 percent of the vote to Stefanowskis 46.2. The x-factor that year was the late Oz Griebel, who claimed nearly 4 percent as an independent. But its doubtful those votes would have tilted toward Stefanowski had the moderate Griebel stayed off the ballot.

Stefanowski emerged four years ago from a crowded field. Even by the time it was winnowed down to the primary, GOP hopefuls also included former Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst, businessmen Stephen Obsitnik and David Stemerman, and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who had the GOPs endorsement and is now part of the Lamont administration as the states commissioner of the Department of Revenue Services.

Stefanowski is again portraying himself as a political outsider, if thats really possible after seeking the highest office in the state.

Despite holding local offices in his hometown of Greenwich, Lamont arrived in Hartford as something of an outsider as well. He didnt speak Capitolese and got crushed in his early efforts to revive tolls.

Then he became a different governor, seizing executive privileges to act decisively to navigate constituents through this once-a-century crisis. He will always deserve credit for not hesitating in the face of a pandemic that claimed thousands of lives.

For those who prefer insiders, Stefanowskis most formidable current rival for the nomination is former state House of Representatives minority leader Themis Klarides. Like Stefanowski, Klarides hails from Madison.

Other names have emerged as well, including Republicans Timothy Elgin of Westport and former marketing executive Susan Patricelli Regan of Granby, as well as Independent Ernestine Holloway.

Too much of the race to come will be about money. It shouldnt. All of the candidates should clearly define their platforms. Four years ago, Stefanowski resisting citing specifics (aside from a pie-in-sky pledge to eliminate the state income tax). In recent months, he has accused Lamont of overreach concerning the states pandemic response.

People in Connecticut are not asking for a lot, Stefanowski said in declaring his 2022 intentions.

We do ask for a few things from our gubernatorial candidates: Run a clean race. Stick to the issues. Make those issues clear, and forward-looking. And remember you share a common love of Connecticut.
Winchester, VA (22601)

Today

Rain ending this morning. Breaks of sun in the afternoon. High 74F. SSW winds shifting to WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low 51F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
OTTAWA - The pending takeover of a Canadian lithium mining company by a Chinese state-owned company raises no national security concerns, federal Liberals argued Thursday.

Zijin Mining Group Ltd. logo is shown in this undated handout photo. The federal Liberals say the pending takeover of a Canadian lithium mining company by a Chinese state-owned company raises no national security concerns. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Zijin Mining Group Ltd. *MANDATORY CREDIT*

OTTAWA - The pending takeover of a Canadian lithium mining company by a Chinese state-owned company raises no national security concerns, federal Liberals argued Thursday.

Liberal MP Andy Fillmore, parliamentary secretary to Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, told a House of Commons committee that the Industry Department reviewed last fall the proposed takeover of Neo Lithium Corp. by China's Zijin Mining Group Ltd.

That review concluded that Neo Lithium is "really not a Canadian company," he told the industry committee, describing it as an Argentine company with directors in the United Kingdom and only three Canadian employees "on paper."

He said the only reason Neo Lithium "had any Canadian toehold whatsoever," was to get on the Toronto Stock Exchange in a bid to raise money for what Fillmore called an "increasingly dubious appearing" mine development project in Argentina.

Moreover, he said that project involves lithium carbonate, not the lithium hydroxide used to manufacture batteries that are critical for electric vehicles.

For those reasons, Fillmore said a formal national security review of the takeover was deemed unnecessary.

"These are the things they found, right? That in fact it's not a relevant lithium to Canada's national security interests and it's not really a Canadian company."

However, Conservative MP Ed Fast, who had called for the emergency committee meeting to find out why no formal security review was done, said it's "just false" to say Neo Lithium is not a Canadian company.

And he noted that the company's own website touts the mine as "the pre-eminent lithium brine asset in the world" to meet surging global demand for electric vehicle batteries.

"It goes without saying but bears restating that critical minerals such as lithium are a strategic asset, not only for Canada but for the world, and will play a critical role in driving our future prosperity and in meeting our environmental objectives," Fast said.

While the mine in question is in Argentina, Fast argued that it is incumbent on Canada and other "free-trading, rules-following allies" to ensure the global critical minerals industry is not monopolized by one country, especially one whose interests "are sometimes hostile toward ours."

China currently dominates the world's supply of lithium and batteries.

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Conservative MP Tracy Gray further argued that lithium carbonate can be converted into lithium hydroxide for use in batteries.

But Fillmore countered that the conversion process involves additional costs and "significant environmental implications," which is why lithium hydroxide is preferred.

"I could probably make a passable hat using my socks but I'd much rather wear a hat," he said.

Thursday's meeting was called to consider a motion by Fast, calling for the committee to hold six meetings to explore the Neo Lithium takeover and whether a formal national security review should have been conducted.

In the end, committee members unanimously agreed to a Bloc Quebecois compromise to hold two meetings on the subject next week. The steering subcommittee, which is also to meet next week to set the committee's agenda for the coming months, could decide to schedule more meetings on Neo Lithium.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 20, 2022.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The annual anti-abortion rally in the nations capital sounded more like a victory celebration as speakers expressed a growing sense of optimism that their long-sought goal, a sweeping rollback of abortion rights in America, was finally in reach.

Rain falls on a stage in place for the March for Life rally on the National Mall in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. The U.S. Capitol Dome is seen in the distance. The March for Life is scheduled to take place Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP)  The annual anti-abortion rally in the nations capital sounded more like a victory celebration as speakers expressed a growing sense of optimism that their long-sought goal, a sweeping rollback of abortion rights in America, was finally in reach.

Thousands of protesters rallied in the bitter cold Friday and marched to the Supreme Court, which has indicated it will allow states to impose tighter restrictions on abortion with a ruling in the coming months  and possibly overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that affirmed the constitutional right to an abortion.

It doesnt feel real. Theres so much hope and vibrancy and happiness and joy at this thing, said Jordan Moorman of Cincinnati. I really do believe that were in a post-Roe generation.

The annual March for Life rally, held one day before the 49th anniversary of the Roe decision, took place amid a COVID-19 surge that limited turnout at the National Mall. Some abortion opponents posted on the event's Facebook page that they would not attend because of vaccine mandates for people going to restaurants and other places in the District of Columbia.

Still, the rally drew a crowd of thousands, with a heavy contingent of young people and students bussed in by schools and church groups. The mood was overwhelmingly upbeat, with many treating the end of Roe v. Wade as inevitable.

Rain falls on a stage in place for the March for Life rally on the National Mall in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. The March for Life is scheduled to take place Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, in a statement released Saturday, said the right established under Roe is under assault as never before and they said they were committed to ensuring that this country is not pushed backwards on womens equality.

We must ensure that our daughters and granddaughters have the same fundamental rights that their mothers and grandmothers fought for and won on this day, 49 years ago, they said.

On Friday, Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told the crowd that Roe is not settled law and we are hoping and praying that this year, 2022, will bring a historic change for life.

A stage in place for the March for Life rally is reflected on a wet camera stand on the National Mall in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. The March for Life is scheduled to take place Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

If Roe falls, the battle lines will change, but make no mistake the fight for life will need to continue in the states and here in D.C., Mancini said.

The Rev. Andrew Rudmann, a Catholic priest from New Orleans, was attending his 11th event. Hopefully this will be the last March for Life, he said.

Sometimes I would come to the March and it would be great to be united with people who share my beliefs, but there would also be this heaviness, he said. This time the whole language and vibe is different.

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People attend the March for Life rally on the National Mall in Washington, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. The March for Life, for decades an annual protest against abortion, arrives this year as the Supreme Court has indicated it will allow states to impose tighter restrictions on abortion with a ruling in the coming months. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The celebratory and triumphant mood of the day was perhaps best encapsulated by a contingent from New York City that bounced past the Supreme Court building with dancing nuns and drummers playing Latin rhythms.

Abortion rights groups worry that at least 26 states are in line to further limit abortion access if Roe is weakened or overturned. In December, the court indicated in a major case that it would uphold a Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and allow states to ban abortion even earlier. The Mississippi case directly challenges Roe.

Courts have also dealt Texas abortion providers a string of defeats over efforts to block a law that since September has banned abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks and before some women know they are pregnant. Another loss for Texas clinics came Thursday, when the Supreme Court refused to speed up the ongoing challenge over the law, which providers say is now likely to stay in effect for the foreseeable future.

This law is cruel and unconstitutional, and I am deeply disappointed that our judicial system has done very little to stop it, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Womans Health, which operates four abortion clinics in Texas.

___

Video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report. Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Pettus reported from Jackson, Mississippi.
SANAA, Yemen (AP)  A Saudi-led airstrike targeting a prison run by Yemen's Houthi rebels killed at least 70 detainees and wounded dozens Friday, a rebel minister said. The strike was part of a pounding aerial offensive that hours earlier took the Arab world's poorest country off the internet.

This photo provided by Ansar Allah Media Office, a man is rescued early Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, after Saudi-led airstrikes targeted a site in the contested city of Hodeida, Yemen. A Saudi-led airstrike targeting a prison run by Yemen's Houthi rebels killed and wounded over 100 detainees on Friday, rescuers said, part of a pounding aerial offensive that hours earlier saw another airstrike take the Arab world's poorest country off the internet. (Ansar Allah Media Office via AP)

SANAA, Yemen (AP)  A Saudi-led airstrike targeting a prison run by Yemen's Houthi rebels killed at least 70 detainees and wounded dozens Friday, a rebel minister said. The strike was part of a pounding aerial offensive that hours earlier took the Arab world's poorest country off the internet.

The intense campaign comes after the Iran-backed Houthis claimed a drone and missile attack that struck inside the capital of the United Arab Emirates earlier in the week. It marked a major escalation in the conflict, a brutal civil war in Yemen where the Saudi-led coalition, backed by the UAE, has battled the rebels since 2015.

Taha al-Motawakel, health minister in the Houthi government which controls the country's north, told The Associated Press in the capital, Sanaa, that 70 detainees were killed at the prison but that he expects the number to rise in the coming hours since many of the wounded were seriously hurt.

Earlier Friday, a Saudi-led airstrike in the port city of Hodeida  later confirmed by satellite photos analyzed by the AP  hit a telecommunication center there that's key to Yemen's connection to the internet. Airstrikes also hit near Sanaa, held by the Houthis since late 2014.

Basheer Omar, an International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson in Yemen, said rescuers continued to go through the rebel-run prison site in the northern city of Saada.

The toll is likely to increase, unfortunately," Omar said. The Red Cross had moved some of the wounded to facilities elsewhere, he said. He had no breakdown for how many were killed and how many were wounded.

This photo provided by Ansar Allah Media Office, a man is rescued early Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, after Saudi-led airstrikes targeted a site in the contested city of Hodeida, Yemen. A Saudi-led airstrike targeting a prison run by Yemen's Houthi rebels killed and wounded over 100 detainees on Friday, rescuers said, part of a pounding aerial offensive that hours earlier saw another airstrike take the Arab world's poorest country off the internet. (Ansar Allah Media Office via AP)

Doctors Without Borders in a separate statement put the number of wounded alone at around 200 people.

From what I hear from my colleague in Saada, there are many bodies still at the scene of the airstrike, many missing people, said Ahmed Mahat, the organization's head of mission in Yemen. It seems to have been a horrific act of violence.

The organization Save the Children earlier said over 60 were killed in Saada, describing the prison holding detained migrants.

The initial casualties report from Saada is horrifying, said Gillian Moyes, Save the Children's country director in Yemen. Migrants seeking better lives for themselves and their families, Yemeni civilians injured by the dozens, is a picture we never hoped to wake up to in Yemen.

As for the airstrike in Hodeida, NetBlocks said the internet disruption began around 1 a.m. local and affected TeleYemen, the state-owned monopoly that controls internet access in the country. TeleYemen is now run by the Houthis who have held Yemen's capital, Sanaa, since late 2014.

Yemen faces a nation-scale collapse of internet connectivity" after an airstrike on a telecommunications building, NetBlocks said.

The San Diego-based Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis and San Francisco-based internet firm CloudFlare also noted a nationwide outage affecting Yemen beginning around the same time.

Map locates two Saudi airstrikes in Yemen. One striking a prison in the northwest city of Saada and the other in the western port city of Hodeidah, where a telecommunications hub was struck, crippling the countrys internet access

Over 12 hours later, the internet remained down. The Norwegian Refugee Council decried the strike as a blatant attack on civilian infrastructure that will also impact our aid delivery.

The Houthi's Al-Masirah satellite news channel said the strike on the telecommunications building killed and wounded an unspecified number of people. It released chaotic footage of people digging through rubble for a body as gunshots could be heard. Aid workers assisted bloodied survivors.

Save the Children said the Hodeida strike killed at least three children playing on a soccer field. Satellite photos analyzed by the AP corresponded to photos shared on social media of the telecommunications building being flattened by the airstrike.

The Saudi-led coalition acknowledged carrying out accurate airstrikes to destroy the capabilities of the militia around Hodeida's port. It didn't immediately acknowledge striking a telecommunication target as NetBlocks described, but instead called Hodeida a hub for piracy and Iranian arms smuggling to back the Houthis.

Iran has denied arming the Houthis, though U.N. experts, independent analysts and Western nations point to evidence showing Tehrans link to the weapons.

The undersea FALCON cable carries internet into Yemen through the Hodeida port along the Red Sea for TeleYemen. The FALCON cable has another landing in Yemen's far eastern port of Ghaydah as well, but the majority of Yemen's population lives in its west along the Red Sea.

A cut to the FALCON cable in 2020 caused by a ship's anchor also caused widespread internet outages in Yemen. Land cables to Saudi Arabia have been cut since the start of Yemen's civil war, while connections to two other undersea cables have yet to be made amid the conflict, TeleYemen previously said.

The Saudi-led coalition entered Yemen's civil war in 2015 to try and restore to power the impoverished country's internationally recognized government, ousted by the Houthis the year before. The war has turned into the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with international criticism of Saudi airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians and targeted the country's infrastructure. The Houthis meanwhile have used child soldiers and indiscriminately laid landmines across the country. Some 130,000 people, including over 13,000 civilians, have been killed in targeted attacks, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Project.

The war reached into the United Arab Emirates, a Saudi ally, on Monday, when the Houthis claimed a drone and missile attack on Abu Dhabi, killing three people and wounding six. Although the UAE has largely withdrawn its forces from the conflict, it remains heavily involved in the war and supports local militias on the ground in Yemen.

On Thursday, the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was alarmed at the ongoing airstrikes in Sanaa, Hodeida and other locations in Yemen, as well as separate shelling attacks. The bodys special envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, ended a visit to Riyadh on Thursday that was meant to discuss the spike in hostilities with Saudi and exiled Yemeni government officials.

All parties must urgently renew peace efforts & do more to ensure protection of civilians & humanitarian access, the U.S. State Department tweeted Thursday.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday condemned in the strongest terms the heinous terrorist attacks in the UAE on Monday as well as in other sites in Saudi Arabia claimed by the Houthis, and underlined the need to hold perpetrators accountable and bring them to justice.

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Lana Nusseibeh, UAE's ambassador to the U.N., lauded the council for speaking with one voice" and said the Houthi terrorist attack is a clear threat to the entire international community.

Asked about Fridays deadly coalition airstrike on the Saada prison, she referred to the coalition but also added that the alliance does everything to abide by international law and proportionate response in all its military operations.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  Two California counties violated the Constitution's right to keep and bear arms when they shut down gun and ammunition stores in 2020 as nonessential businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

FILE - In this March 15, 2020 file photo people wait in a line to enter a gun store in Culver City, Calif. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, overturned two California counties orders shutting down gun and ammunition stores in 2020 as nonessential businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  Two California counties violated the Constitution's right to keep and bear arms when they shut down gun and ammunition stores in 2020 as nonessential businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

Officials in Los Angeles and Ventura counties had separately won lower court decisions saying gun stores were not exempt from broader shutdown orders aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus early in the pandemic.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected both lower court rulings.

FILE - People wait in a line at a gun at store amid merchandise displays, in Arcadia, Calif., Sunday, March 15, 2020. Two California counties violated the Constitution's right to keep and bear arms when they shut down gun and ammunition stores in 2020 as nonessential businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022.(AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu,File)

The Second Amendment means nothing if the government can prohibit all persons from acquiring any firearm or ammunition, Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote. "But thats what happened in this case."

Because buyers can obtain guns only by personally going to gun stores in California, Ventura Countys 48-day closure of gun shops, ammunition shops and firing ranges wholly prevented law-abiding citizens in the County from realizing their right to keep and bear arms, he wrote.

This, he noted, while bike shops were among those allowed to remain open as essential businesses. The panel adopted the same reasoning in the Los Angeles County case, though the closure there was for 11 days.

The decision holds that governments "cannot use a crisis to trample on the Constitutional rights of citizens, said Michael Jean, director of the National Rifle Association's Office of Litigation Counsel that sued in the Los Angeles County case. It also sued Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties over their restrictions in Northern California, but the last three were dismissed from the lawsuit when they repealed their orders.

Similar restrictions were imposed in 10 other states, according to the Firearms Policy Coalition, another gun owners' rights groups that sued: Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina and Virginia.

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Three gun-owner rights groups and several individuals and businesses had sought to overturn the lower court rulings in California.

Ventura County believes the case was correctly decided at the District Court level and is disappointed with the three-judge panels decision, county spokeswoman Ashley Bautista said in an email. Officials are reviewing the decision and evaluating our options and next steps.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, named plaintiffs in the case, did not immediately comment.

Losing parties can generally ask the full 9th Circuit to review the ruling by the three judges, or petition the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's high court has been deemed more sympathetic to gun owners in recent years.

Firearms Policy Coalition vice president of programs Adam Kraut said in a statement that the cases resulted when authoritarian governments used COVID as an excuse to attack Second Amendment rights.

The 9th Circuit opinions "confirm our claims that the COVID closures of gun stores and firing ranges violated the Second Amendment rights of Californians, he said.
PARIS (AP)  TotalEnergies and Chevron, two of the world's largest energy conglomerates, said Friday they were stopping all operations in Myanmar, citing rampant human rights abuses and deteriorating rule of law since the country's military overthrew the government.

FILE - This photo shows TotalEnergies tower in La Defense business district outside Paris on Sept.7, 2021. French energy conglomerate TotalEnergies has asked the American and French governments to support targeted sanctions against Myanmar's oil and gas funds, the largest single source of income for the country's military leaders. (AP Photo/Rafael Yaghobzadeh, File)

PARIS (AP)  TotalEnergies and Chevron, two of the world's largest energy conglomerates, said Friday they were stopping all operations in Myanmar, citing rampant human rights abuses and deteriorating rule of law since the country's military overthrew the government.

The announcement came just a day after the French company called for international sanctions targeting the oil and gas sector, which remain one of the military government's primary sources of funding.

Total and Chevron had come under increasing pressure over their role in running the offshore Yadana gas field, and Thailands PTT Exploration & Production. Total has a majority stake in the venture and runs its daily operations, while MOGE collects revenues on behalf of the government.

Since the Feb. 1 coup, we have seen the evolution of the country and it is clearly not favorable: The situation of rule of law and human rights in Myanmar has clearly deteriorated over months and despite the civil disobediance movements, the junta has kept power and our analysis is that it's unfortunately for the long term, Total said.

Since the takeover, the military has cracked down brutally against dissent, abducting young men and boys, killing health care workers and torturing prisoners.

Total said it would withdraw without financial compensation and hand over its interests to the other stakeholders.

About 50% of Myanmars foreign currency comes from natural gas revenues, with MOGE expected to earn $1.5 billion from offshore and pipeline projects in 2021-2022, according to a Myanmar government forecast. Prior rounds of U.S. and European sanctions against the Myanmar military have excluded oil and gas.

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In a statement released shortly after Totals announcement, Chevron said it too was planning to leave in light of circumstances. The company has condemned the human rights abuses and said it would comply with any international sanctions.

The Myanmar-based human rights group Blood Money Campaign called on the companies to ensure that future payments are made into accounts inaccessible to the military and "stop treating the criminal junta as a legitimate government.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the decision.

"The next step is to ensure that gas revenues dont continue to fund those atrocities, said Ken Roth, executive director of the organization.

___

Associated Press writers Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok, Victoria Milko in Jakarta, Indonesia and Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.
The rollout of new 5G wireless service in the U.S. failed to have the much-dreaded result of crippling air travel, although it began in rocky fashion, with international airlines canceling some flights to the U.S. and spotty problems showing up on domestic flights.

FILE - A passenger walks past a Southwest Airlines plane at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, March 26, 2021. AT&T and Verizon have agreed to delay the launch of a new slice of 5G service by two weeks after airlines and the nation's aviation regulator complained about potential interference with systems on board planes. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

The rollout of new 5G wireless service in the U.S. failed to have the much-dreaded result of crippling air travel, although it began in rocky fashion, with international airlines canceling some flights to the U.S. and spotty problems showing up on domestic flights.

Airline industry officials say the decision by AT&T and Verizon  under pressure from the White House  to delay activating 5G towers near many airports has defused the situation.

The delay is giving the Federal Aviation Administration more time to clear more planes to operate freely around 5G networks. On Thursday, the FAA said it had granted new approvals that will allow an estimated 78% of the U.S. airline fleet to make landings even under low-visibility conditions at airports where the new, faster wireless service has been turned on.

That still leaves about one-fifth of the fleet vulnerable to being prevented from landing at some airports during bad weather, but that chunk is certain to shrink. The CEOs of American and United say they dont expect any major disruptions to flights.

Here is a rundown of what happened.

WHAT'S THE CONCERN ALL ABOUT?

Cellphone companies have been rolling out next-generation 5G service for a few years, and this latest slice of it, the so-called C-Band, helps make AT&T and Verizon more competitive with T-Mobile. It promises faster and more stable wireless networks. But 5G is still mostly promise and less actual applications. For now, it lets you download a movie much faster. But the telecommunications industry is touting it as critical for autonomous vehicles, modern manufacturing, smart cities, telehealth and other fields that would rely on a universe of internet-connected devices.

The concern comes from the fact that this latest bit of 5G operates on part of the radio spectrum that is close to the range used by aircraft instruments called radio altimeters, which measure how high aircraft are above the ground.

The issue was highlighted in a 2020 report by RTCA, an aviation research group, prompting pilots and airlines to sound alarms about possible radio interference that could jeopardize safety. The telecom industry, led by trade group CTIA, disputes the 2020 report and says 5G poses no risk to aviation.

WHY DID AIRLINES CANCEL SOME FLIGHTS TO THE U.S. THIS WEEK?

International airlines canceled some flights that were scheduled to operate just as the new networks went live. They feared not being able to land at their destinations under 5G-related restrictions imposed by the FAA.

HOW MANY FLIGHTS?

Airlines canceled more than 350 flights on Wednesday, according to FlightAware. That sounds like a lot, but its just 2% of all scheduled flights  and it's likely most of them got scrubbed for other reasons. For context, there were nearly 10 times as many cancellations on Jan. 3, when airlines struggled with winter weather and large numbers of employees calling in sick with COVID-19.

IS THE PROBLEM SOLVED?

No, although the FAA says it is making progress by determining that more altimeters are adequately protected against interference from 5G C-Band signals. Planes with certain altimeters might never be approved, which means the operators would likely have to install new equipment to land at all airports.

IS THIS A PROBLEM ONLY IN THE U.S.?

For the most part, yes. The FAA says there are several reasons why the 5G C-Band rollout has been more of a challenge for airlines in the U.S. than in other countries: Cellular towers use a more powerful signal strength than those elsewhere; the 5G network operates on a frequency closer to the one many altimeters use, and cell tower antennae point up at a higher angle. CTIA disputes the FAAs claims.

In France, 5G networks near airports must operate at reduced power to lower the risk of interference with planes.

IS THE 5G ROLLOUT COMPLETE?

No. Verizon and AT&T activated about 90% of their 5G C-Band towers this week but agreed not to turn on those within a 2-mile radius of many airports. The companies still want to activate those towers, but there might not be agreement until the FAA is satisfied that an overwhelming portion of the airline fleet can operate safely around the signals.

WHAT COMPANIES ARE INVOLVED IN THE ISSUE?

Besides the two big telecommunications companies, the list includes aircraft makers Boeing and Airbus and altimeter subcontractors Collins, Honeywell and Thales. Then there are the airlines, whose dire warning this week of widespread flight cancellations added to pressure on the telecommunications companies to delay activating this type of 5G service around airports.

WHOSE SIDE IS THE GOVERNMENT ON?

Both.

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The Federal Communications Commission, which conducted the $80 billion auction that awarded C-Band spectrum to Verizon and AT&T, says there is enough buffer between this slice of 5G and aircraft altimeters for safety. But the FAA and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took the airlines' side in the dispute. They asked the telecom companies to delay their rollout around airports.

Some experts say poor coordination and cooperation among the two federal agencies is as much to blame as any technical issues.

WHY DID IT COME TO A CRISIS?

That should not have happened. The FAA and airlines had plenty of notice that C-Band was coming  it's been talked about for years. They say they tried to raise their concerns but were ignored by the FCC.

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker indicated he was happy with the resolution but not the process.

It wasnt our finest hour, I think, as a country," he said.
NEW YORK (AP)  A Florida man who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information against Joe Biden in Ukraine was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $10,000 Friday in an unrelated campaign finance case.

Igor Fruman arrives at Federal court in Manhattan, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. The Florida businessman who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information against Joe Biden in Ukraine faces sentencing in an unrelated campaign finance case. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

NEW YORK (AP)  A Florida man who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information against Joe Biden in Ukraine was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $10,000 Friday in an unrelated campaign finance case.

Igor Fruman was told to report to prison March 14. He pleaded guilty in September to a single charge of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national.

As part of the plea, he admitted soliciting a million dollars from a Russian entrepreneur, Andrey Muraviev, to donate to Republicans in Nevada, Florida and other states as part of an effort to launch a recreational marijuana business.

Federal prosecutors in New York had urged Judge J. Paul Oetken to sentence Fruman to between three and four years in prison. Defense lawyers had argued he should face no incarceration because he has otherwise led a law-abiding life.

Igor Fruman, right, arrives at Federal court in Manhattan, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. The Florida businessman who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information against Joe Biden in Ukraine faces sentencing in an unrelated campaign finance case. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Oetken said the crime of soliciting foreign money for U.S. political campaigns was serious and deserved incarceration.

It undermines the integrity of elections in our country, he said as he announced the sentence. It undermines democracy.

Fruman, 55, the father of four children, told the judge he had reflected on his crime.

It's a shame that will live with me forever, he said through a white face mask as several family members watched from wooden benches in an area for spectators.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten had urged a sentence of at least three years behind bars, saying the crime had caused incalculable damage because it harms the trust the public has in U.S. elections.

Igor Fruman, right, arrives at Federal court in Manhattan, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. The Florida businessman who helped Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information against Joe Biden in Ukraine faces sentencing in an unrelated campaign finance case. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

That all the things they fear are happening with politicians are happening, he said.

Scotten said the crime does grave damage to the integrity of the electoral system.

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche said his client had suffered from eight days in jail after his arrest and two years and four months of home incarceration.

That's punishment enough, your honor, he said.

Fruman was charged in the case along with Lev Parnas, another Florida businessman who helped Giuliani's attempt to spoil Biden's quest for the presidency on the Democratic ticket.

The pair served as liaisons between Giuliani and Ukrainian officials and business tycoons as the former New York City mayor tried to persuade prosecutors in that country to investigate Biden's son, Hunter, over his work for an energy company.

U.S. prosecutors haven't brought any charges in connection with the Ukrainian influence campaign, which was the subject of one of former President Donald Trump's impeachment trials, but focused instead on donations that Fruman and Parnas made to U.S. politicians as they sought to build influence in Republican political circles.

Parnas was convicted in October of campaign finance crimes and awaits sentencing.

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Politicians who got the illegal donations, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, have said they were unaware the money secretly came from a foreign source.

Muraviev was not charged in the case.

Giuliani, who worked for Trump as a personal attorney, faces a continuing investigation into whether he was required to register as an agent of a foreign government during his dealings with Ukraine authorities.

The inquiry partly involves an examination of whether Giuliani offered to lobby or influence the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian figures. Giuliani has said everything he did in Ukraine was done on Trumps behalf and there is no reason he would have had to register as a foreign agent.

Following raids on Giuliani's home and business last year, former federal judge Barbara Jones was appointed by a judge to determine what materials on electronic devices seized in the raid can be turned over to criminal prosecutors.

In a four-page report issued Friday, Jones said only a few dozen items among tens of thousands of communications on seven of his electronic devices have been prevented from being turned over to prosecutors because they contain privileged communications. She said she was awaiting further assignments.
The University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles has a lot in common with urban areas across the U.S.: A dense population with lots of businesses and housing. A cluster of car dealerships. A row of restaurants. Schools and a community center.

A vehicle drives past the Jefferson oil drill site located in the residential area in Los Angeles, Wednesday, June 2, 2021. University of Southern California researchers found people living near wells in Jefferson Park reported significantly higher rates of wheezing, eye and nose irritation, sore throat and dizziness than neighbors living farther away. The researchers likened the respiratory harm caused by living near the oil fields to daily exposure to secondhand smoke or exhaust from a busy highway. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles has a lot in common with urban areas across the U.S.: A dense population with lots of businesses and housing. A cluster of car dealerships. A row of restaurants. Schools and a community center.

But nestled in the predominantly Latino community is something rarely found in urban areas outside California: an oil field.

Pat Diaz, a 65-year old activist and University Park resident who grew up near a busy intersection, has felt the presence of the field since she was a child.

She remembers the basement of her family home that she now owns smelled like tar and her mother used to get spontaneous nosebleeds and persistent headaches.

When Diaz moved back to the neighborhood as an adult in 2009, she says she developed a chronic cough and lost her sense of taste. After comparing notes with neighbors in 2011, she realized such ailments were a widespread problem that residents blame on living near oil fields most recently operated by AllenCo Energy.

It has been the bane of my existence since I was young, she said.

After a decade of complaints from residents like Diaz, the Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote as soon as next week on a measure that would ban new oil and gas wells in the nation's second most populous city and phase out existing wells over a five-year period.

HUNDREDS OF WELLS

The AllenCo Energy oil wells there are just a few among hundreds located in Los Angeles, which has the country's largest concentration of urban oil fields. There are approximately 1,000 active or idle wells in the city, according to a city controller's report citing data from the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources.

Los Angeles doesn't have pumpjacks dotting a desolate desert like western Texas. Its oil and gas operations are near places where people live and gather. The AllenCo Energy facility is less than a 10-minute drive from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Shrine Auditorium.

While these landmarks reflect L.A.'s glitz, glamor and history, University Park is a diverse working-class neighborhood in the oil fields shadows.

Air pollution from oil fields in Los Angeles disproportionately affects areas that are predominantly Latino or Black, said Martha Dina Arguello, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Two children play on the swings in the front yard of their home across the street from the Jefferson oil drill site surrounded by towering fences in Los Angeles, Wednesday, June 2, 2021. Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States, is weighing whether to ban new oil and gas drilling and phase out existing wells. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

We got involved because we were hearing from communities that were experiencing health impacts because they were living next to these oil fields. And what we were finding was that in low-income communities and communities of color, we had less protections, Arguello said. Her public health nonprofit is part of a coalition pushing for tighter regulation or elimination of oil and gas wells in the city.

COMMUNITY HEALTH COMPLAINTS

Pollution from these facilities is associated with chronic health impacts, according to a study last year in the journal Environmental Research. USC researchers found people living near wells in Diazs neighborhood and nearby Jefferson Park reported significantly higher rates of wheezing, eye and nose irritation, sore throat and dizziness than neighbors living farther away. The researchers likened the respiratory harm caused by living near the oil fields to daily exposure to secondhand smoke or exhaust from a busy highway.

While it's difficult to prove a direct connection, lead author Jill Johnston said the findings provide some validation of longstanding community complaints about health woes they attributed to the oil fields.

Diaz and her neighbors had been lobbying the city council, local agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do something about the oil wells.

The Los Angeles measure was introduced by council members Nury Martinez and Paul Krekorian in December 2020 after years of complaints from residents about the impact of oil wells on their communities.

The effort to shut down the city's wells is part of a region-wide movement to push oil and gas drilling out of Los Angeles County. In 2021, similar measures were passed to ban drilling in Culver City and unincorporated parts of the county.

INDUSTRY WARNINGS ABOUT BANS

The oil and gas industry opposes moves to rid the region of drilling, saying that would raise gas prices, eliminate jobs and make the area more dependent on foreign oil.

Rock Zierman, chief executive officer of the California Independent Petroleum Association, an industry group that represents nearly 400 oil and gas companies, said there will likely be a legal challenge if the measure passes, saying it would constitute an unlawful and uncompensated taking of private property.

Were an energy island, said Ray Watson, an industry worker who spoke at a recent city council meeting. There arent any magic pipelines that run anywhere else in the United States to California to supply oil. Its going to come on dirty supertankers from despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia if we dont produce it here.

There's a statewide push to more tightly regulate fossil fuel production. In October, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, the states oil and gas regulator, proposed a ban on new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet (975 meters) of schools, homes and hospitals.

If those proposed rules become state policy, existing wells would be required to enact new pollution controls, not shut down. The measure before the Los Angeles City Council, however, would phase out oil and gas drilling entirely.

Javier Martinez, who lives three blocks from the AllenCo Energy oil field, applauds efforts by Gov. Gavin Newsom and others to phase out and ban oil and gas extraction.

When the AllenCo Energy site was active, fumes from the pump jacks would make nearby streets smell really bad, ... like something had been burnt, Martinez said, adding that he and neighbors would complain of nose irritation. The problem here is that it is affecting peoples health and that people live close to the wells.

Attorneys for AllenCo Energy say they dont think the wells are causing health issues for residents. Not one gallon of oil has come out of that site since 2013, yet the neighbors complain of headaches and nosebleeds, said Carmen Trutanich, one of the company's attorneys. Strikes me as perhaps there may be another reason for what's going on out there.

FIGHT OVER FUTURE WITHOUT WELLS

Still, advocates for phasing out oil drilling in L.A. say residents don't want to live near wells.

Diaz said she is trying to decide whether to sell her childhood home and move. It would be wonderful if the city shut down oil and gas drilling, she said, noting that the neighborhood has already tasted life without the oil wells operating.

The AllenCo Energy wells have been idle since Environmental Protection Agency inspectors were sickened by fumes at the property in 2013. Diaz said the air has improved, her coughing stopped and her sense of taste returned. AllenCo Energy attorneys said they no longer have interest in extracting oil from the site.

Despite the closure, the USC study found people in neighborhoods near oil wells reported experiencing negative health impacts as recently as 2019. And the city brought criminal charges against the company in 2020 for allegedly failing to properly abandon its wells. Attorneys for AllenCo Energy maintain the city and the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which owns the land, are responsible for properly shutting down the site.

City officials say the Los Angeles oil and gas sites will likely need years of remediation to avoid contaminating the community. And even though only a few hundred jobs are connected to the sites, people like Diaz, a former labor organizer, want to see those jobs replaced.

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I really believe that if they do transitional education, that theyll find jobs, Diaz said. And while shes worried about gas prices rising from a ban, she said its a temporary inconvenience.

We have to stop using fossil fuel. Were hurting the Earth, she said. We have to sacrifice today for the kids of tomorrow.

___

Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley

___

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.
NEW YORK (AP)  Federal regulators announced a key approval Thursday for a planned $10 billion train tunnel under the Hudson River, marking another milestone for a long-delayed project that is the centerpiece of an effort to transform rail travel in the Northeast.

NEW YORK (AP)  Federal regulators announced a key approval Thursday for a planned $10 billion train tunnel under the Hudson River, marking another milestone for a long-delayed project that is the centerpiece of an effort to transform rail travel in the Northeast.

The Federal Transit Administration said it had upgraded the tunnel projects rating to medium-high, making it eligible to receive federal grants.

The widely anticipated move came after years of lower ratings by the FTA during the Trump administration, which had clashed with New York and New Jersey over how much money the states had committed to pay to build the tunnel.

Under an understanding reached during the administration of former President Barack Obama, the states had agreed to split half the cost of the tunnel, using federal loans to be paid back over decades, with federal grants accounting for the other half.

Under former President Donald Trump, the FTA said states weren't allowed to use federal loans as part of their funding match to get the federal grants. That policy was rescinded by the administration of current President Joe Biden.

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Funding for the tunnel will come out of money earmarked for rail projects in the recently passed $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

In a statement, the Gateway Development Commission, which is overseeing the project, said, Along with the more than $6 billion commitment from New York and New Jersey, and the $1.4 billion that Amtrak has pledged, todays action moves us a big step closer to a true Federal-local partnership that finally brings 21st-century rail infrastructure to the heart of the nations economy.

The existing tunnel is more than 110 years old and prone to problems and delays due to crumbling walls and aging signals and wiring. Saltwater intrusion from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 accelerated the tunnels deterioration and forced Amtrak, which owns the tunnel, to embark on costly repairs to keep it functioning reliably.

Hundreds of trains and hundreds of thousands of passengers per day pass through the tunnel during normal times, and delays can ripple up and down the East Coast between Boston and Washington. Once primary construction begins, the new tunnel could take as long as seven years to complete.

Under the Gateway project, the new tunnel would be built parallel to the existing tunnel. Once completed, the existing tunnel would be taken out of service for a complete overhaul, estimated to take as long as two years.

Among other large-scale rail improvements in the region are the replacement of a century-old rail bridge in New Jersey that has been a regular source of delays; tunnels connecting the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal, scheduled to open this year; and the transformation and eventual expansion of the aging and unsightly Penn Station in midtown Manhattan.
MOSCOW (AP)  Daily new coronavirus infections in Russia reached an all-time high Friday and authorities blamed the highly contagious omicron variant, which they expect to soon dominate the country's outbreak.

FILE - People eat their takeaway food sitting outside a cafe that is closed due to coronavirus in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Oct. 29, 2021. Russia is shortening the required isolation period for people infected with COVID-19 from 14 to seven days. The decision was announced Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022 as Russia faces a surge of COVID-19 cases driven by the highly contagious omicron variant. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

MOSCOW (AP)  Daily new coronavirus infections in Russia reached an all-time high Friday and authorities blamed the highly contagious omicron variant, which they expect to soon dominate the country's outbreak.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova on Friday noted intensive spread of the omicron variant and said the authorities expect it to become the dominating variant driving the outbreak. The state coronavirus task force Golikova heads reported 49,513 new infections on Friday  the highest yet in the pandemic.

Record numbers of 15,987 new cases and 5,922 cases were reported respectively in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city. In light of the surge, health officials in St. Petersburg on Friday limited elective outpatient care.

Golikova on Friday urged Russians who received their vaccinations or recovered from the virus more than six months ago to head to a vaccination point again in order to protect yourself from the virus with a booster.

FILE - A medic wearing a special suit to protect against coronavirus fills documents as a body of a COVID-19 victim lies on a stretcher at an ICU of a hospital in Volgograd, Russia, on Nov. 21, 2021. Daily new coronavirus infections in Russia reached an all-time high Friday, Jan. 21, 2020, and authorities blamed the highly contagious omicron variant, which they expect to soon dominate the country's outbreak. (AP Photo/Alexandr Kulikov)

Also Friday, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin ordered cabinet members to hold meetings online and have their staff work remotely where possible.

Just about half of Russia's 146 million people have been fully vaccinated despite the fact that Russia was among the first in the world to approve and roll out a COVID-19 vaccine. In Russia, everyone who received their primary vaccination more than six months ago has been eligible for a booster shot since July.

Gogov.ru, an independent website that tracks vaccinations, estimates that 8.8 million people have also received a booster shot, out of approximately 21.8 million who qualify.

Daily new infections in Russia have been steadily climbing since Jan. 10, when just over 15,000 new cases were registered  a number that tripled on Friday, surpassing 49,000 in less than two weeks. Friday's daily tally was more than 10,000 higher than the previous day.

Russias state coronavirus task force has registered 324,752 deaths since the start of the pandemic  by far Europes worst death toll. Russias state statistics agency, which uses broader counting criteria, puts the pandemic death toll even higher, saying the overall number of virus-linked deaths between April 2020 and October 2021 was over 625,000.

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Russias authorities admit that current surge could end up as the countrys biggest yet but so far havent announced any major restrictions to stem it.

A nationwide lockdown wasn't being discussed, officials said, and last week the government decided to indefinitely postpone introducing restrictions for unvaccinated people, which would have been extremely unpopular among vaccine-hesitant Russians.

Golikova earlier this week also announced a decision to cut the required isolation period for people infected with COVID-19 from 14 to seven days, although it still remained unclear when that will take effect.

The authorities say the soaring infections so far havent led to a spike in hospitalizations. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the current surge is putting more strain on outpatient facilities than on hospitals in the city of nearly 13 million. City officials have increased the number of physicians on duty in outpatient clinics.

___

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BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  Trying to defuse large protests by environmentalists, Serbias populist government said Thursday that it was canceling all licenses for mining giant Rio Tinto to open a lithium mine in the Balkan country.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic speaks during a press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. Trying to defuse protests by environmentalists, Serbia's populist government declared Thursday it is canceling all rights that would help mining giant Rio Tinto launch a lithium mine in the Balkan country. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  Trying to defuse large protests by environmentalists, Serbias populist government said Thursday that it was canceling all licenses for mining giant Rio Tinto to open a lithium mine in the Balkan country.

We have fulfilled all the requests of the environmental protests and put an end to Rio Tinto in the Republic of Serbia, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said in a televised address. Everything is finished. Its over.

Used in batteries for electric cars, lithium is considered one of the most sought-after metals of the future as the world shifts to more renewable energy sources.

For several weekends, thousands of demonstrators in Belgrade and other Serbian towns have blocked main roads and bridges to protest the planned mine in western Serbia, despite an intimidation campaign by authorities. Opponents say the project would cause severe environmental damage.

The protests posed the biggest challenge yet to the increasingly autocratic rule of President Aleksandar Vucic, who has denounced the road blockades as illegal and claimed they are being financed from abroad to destabilize the country.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic speaks during a press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. Trying to defuse protests by environmentalists, Serbia's populist government declared Thursday it is canceling all rights that would help mining giant Rio Tinto launch a lithium mine in the Balkan country. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Brnabic said all the licenses granted to Rio Tinto, which has been exploring mining possibilities in the country for about two decades, were provided by the previous, pro-Western government.

But Serbia's independent media allege that the main contracts with Rio Tinto were signed with the current right-wing leadership. Critics argued that by sidelining Rio Tinto, the government is doing damage control ahead of April general elections.

Earlier Thursday, Rio Tinto in a statement expressed concern over reports that the project would be scrapped.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic speaks during a press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. Trying to defuse protests by environmentalists, Serbia's populist government declared Thursday it is canceling all rights that would help mining giant Rio Tinto launch a lithium mine in the Balkan country. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

The company said any decision should be accompanied by discussion and dialogue based on facts. It added that it is dedicated to developing the project in accordance with Serbian and international regulations.

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We are not afraid of Rio Tinto, Brnabic said. We are here for our people and our country. They can do whatever they think they should do. This is the final decision of the government of the Republic of Serbia. "

It is widely believed that Serbia, which formally seeks European Union membership but instead has been forging close ties with Russia and China, may want to hand over the lithium mining to China by sidelining Rio Tinto from the project in which it has pledged to invest $2.4 billion.

Throughout its almost 150-year history, Rio Tinto has faced accusations of corruption, environmental degradation and human rights abuses at its mining sites.

Environmentalists are also upset at the Serbian governments lack of response to rising pollution in the country.

___

Jovana Gec contributed to this story.
DENVER (AP)  Colorado, the U.S. government and a gold mining company have agreed to resolve a longstanding dispute over whos responsible for continuing cleanup at a Superfund site that was established after a massive 2015 spill of hazardous mine waste that fouled rivers with a sickly yellow sheen in three states and the Navajo Nation.

FILE - Wastewater continues to stream out of the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colo., on Aug.11, 2015. Colorado, the U.S. government and a gold mining company have agreed to resolve a longstanding dispute over whos responsible for cleanup at a Superfund site that was established after a massive 2015 spill of hazardous mine waste. The proposed settlement announced Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, would direct $90 million to cleanup at the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Denver-based Sunnyside Gold Corp(Geoff Liesik/The Deseret News via AP, File)

DENVER (AP)  Colorado, the U.S. government and a gold mining company have agreed to resolve a longstanding dispute over whos responsible for continuing cleanup at a Superfund site that was established after a massive 2015 spill of hazardous mine waste that fouled rivers with a sickly yellow sheen in three states and the Navajo Nation.

The proposed settlement announced Friday would direct $90 million to cleanup at the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site in southwest Colorado, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Denver-based Sunnyside Gold Corp.

The agreement must be approved by a federal judge after a 30-day public comment period.

Sunnyside, which owns property in the district, and the EPA have been in a long-running battle over the cleanup. The EPA has targeted Sunnyside to help pay for the cleanup, and the company has resisted, launching multiple challenges to the size and management of the project.

An EPA-led contractor crew was doing excavation work at the entrance to the Gold King Mine, another site in the district not owned by Sunnyside, in August 2015 when it inadvertently breached a debris pile that was holding back wastewater inside the mine.

An estimated 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of wastewater poured out, carrying nearly 540 U.S. tons (490 metric tons) of metals, mostly iron and aluminum. Rivers in Colorado, New Mexico, the Navajo Nation and Utah were polluted. Downstream water utilities shut down intake valves and farmers stopped drawing from the rivers.

The spill resulted in lawsuits against the EPA and prompted the agency to create the Bonita Peak Superfund district.

Sunnyside operated a mine next to Gold King that closed in 1991. A federal investigation found that bulkheads to plug that closed mine led to a buildup of water inside Gold King containing heavy metals. The EPA contractor triggered the spill while attempting to mitigate the buildup.

Under the agreement, Sunnyside and its parent, Canada-based Kinross Gold Corp., will pay $45 million to the U.S. government and Colorado for future cleanup. The U.S. will contribute another $45 million to cleanup in the district, which includes the Gold King Mine and abandoned mines near Silverton.

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Monies will be used for water and soil sampling and to build more waste repositories. The EPA said in a statement Friday it has spent more than $75 million on cleanup work and expects to continue significant work at the site in the coming years.

Sunnyside admitted no fault in the new agreement. The company said it has spent more than $40 million over 30 years cleaning up its property in the Superfund district.

The proposed consent decree follows Sunnyside settlements with New Mexico and the Navajo Nation last year. In December, Sunnyside said it had agreed to pay Colorado $1.6 million to resolve its liability for natural resource damage related to the Gold King Mine spill.

The Gold King spill is a vivid reminder of the dangers associated with the thousands of abandoned and unclaimed hard rock mines across the United States, particularly in the West, Tommy Beaudreau, deputy secretary of the Interior Department, said in a prepared statement.

The statement added: Mining companies should be held accountable for these sites that put communities and tribal lands at risk of disastrous pollution.

Sunnyside said Friday's agreement recognizes the federal governments responsibility for its role in causing environmental contamination within the Superfund site, according to a statement from Gina Myers, the company's director of reclamation operations.
ROME (AP)  A Vatican appeals court has upheld the convictions of two former managers of the Vatican bank and ordered them to pay back some 40 million euros from bad investments over a decade ago.

ROME (AP)  A Vatican appeals court has upheld the convictions of two former managers of the Vatican bank and ordered them to pay back some 40 million euros from bad investments over a decade ago.

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The court originally convicted Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli in 2018 and held them liable for mismanagement. The two resigned in 2013.

In a statement Friday, the Institute for Religious Works, as the bank is known. said the Vatican appeals court had rejected the managers' appeals in full.

The bank, which long had a reputation as an offshore tax haven, has undergone a years-long reform process so it would no longer be a source of scandal for the Holy See.

The Institute for Religious Works is not open to the public but provides financial services to Vatican employees, diplomats, religious orders and the Holy Sees embassies overseas.

The Vatican court convicted Cipriani and Tullis predecessor at the bank in a separate trial. In that case, the court last year found Angelo Caloia and his lawyer guilty of embezzlement and other charges related to sales of Vatican real estate estate.

The court sentenced them to nearly nine years in prison each. Caloia and the lawyer are appealing.
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  The United States, the U.K. and Germany on Friday rejected allegations that the three countries financed protests that have shaken the Balkan nation's populist government.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic speaks during a press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. Trying to defuse protests by environmentalists, Serbia's populist government declared Thursday it is canceling all rights that would help mining giant Rio Tinto launch a lithium mine in the Balkan country. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  The United States, the U.K. and Germany on Friday rejected allegations that the three countries financed protests that have shaken the Balkan nation's populist government.

The embassies of the allied countries issued a joint statement that described the accusations as damaging.

These claims do not reflect our partnership with Serbia, they said.

The statement came a day after Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic blasted the alleged Western backers of activist groups that organized weeks of environmental demonstrations. She accused the sources of alleged outsider influence of what she described as hypocrisy.

Brnabic made the allegations while announcing on Thursday that ecological concerns prompted her government to scrap a lithium mining project the Rio Tinto company planned to undertake in western Serbia.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic speaks during a press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. Trying to defuse protests by environmentalists, Serbia's populist government declared Thursday it is canceling all rights that would help mining giant Rio Tinto launch a lithium mine in the Balkan country. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

The government's decision was seen as a bid to defuse the protests ahead of Serbia's general election in April.

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Brnabic described the demonstrations as political and said that Western organizations were financing the environmental and other groups critical of the government with an aim to weaken the populist administration of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

In their statement, the British, German and U.S. strongly denied the prime minister's assertions.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic speaks during a press conference in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. Trying to defuse protests by environmentalists, Serbia's populist government declared Thursday it is canceling all rights that would help mining giant Rio Tinto launch a lithium mine in the Balkan country. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Without reservation, we reject any suggestion that our countries, or the organizations through which we provide technical assistance and support, are funding or directing actions specifically targeting the Serbian government or any of its policies," the three embassies said in the statement. "This includes the financing of protests.

The embassies said their countries have been among Serbia's most generous and reliable partners and friends, providing assistance funding totaling well over 3 billion euros" ($3.4 billion).

We are clear and transparent about this assistance and our goals: to support reform, good governance, democratic development, green transition and prosperity, the statement added. Significant amounts of this assistance is provided to the Serbian government or delivered in cooperation with the Serbian government and its agencies.

Serbia is formally seeking membership in the European Union but the country has also fostered close ties with Russia and China. Anti-Western sentiments in the country remain high, and officials and pro-government media often vilify government critics as Western stooges.
OTTAWA - The Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa is calling on the Trudeau government to provide weapons to Ukraine's military, impose further sanctions on Russia and extend and expand the Canadian military training mission of its forces.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to a reporter's question during a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA - The Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa is calling on the Trudeau government to provide weapons to Ukraine's military, impose further sanctions on Russia and extend and expand the Canadian military training mission of its forces.

The blunt Ukraine statement was sent to The Canadian Press by its embassy after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Friday that Canada was giving Ukraine a $120-million loan to help bolster its economy as it faces a hostile buildup of Russian forces on its borders.

Trudeau billed the financial contribution as one of the "top things" Ukrainian officials asked for in their discussions when Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly visited their country this week.

The Ukrainian statement says that "Canada's firm political position in support of Ukraine can be reinforced" by the "extension and expansion of the Canadian military training mission" known as Operation UNIFIER, providing the defensive weapons and equipment, and "imposing severe sectoral sanctions."

It called Joly's visit part of the "active" and supportive international diplomatic efforts toward Ukraine, noting the two countries have "a special partnership" and are celebrating the 30-year anniversary of their diplomatic relationship this week.

"In light of a serious threat of another wave of Russian aggression we have been in consultations with NATO member countries, including Canada, about means to strengthen Ukraine's defence capacities. We are confident that ongoing talks with our Canadian partners will deliver the results soon," it says.

The Ukraine statement says 200 men and women of the Canadian Forces have trained 32,000 Ukrainian military personnel to NATO standards. The mission is set to expire at the end of March and though Trudeau has spoken supportively of it, he has not formally extended it.

"That is the win-win for both sides as Canadians get the real combat experience from Ukrainians. In addition to the existing training centres, we would like the Canadian mission to be present also in other locations throughout Central and Southern Ukraine," it says.

Russia has positioned about 100,000 troops across Ukraine's borders along with tanks and other heavy artillery, stoking fears across Europe of an invasion, something Russia has denied.

"We have hundreds of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles deployed along the Ukrainian border and in the occupied parts of Ukraine's territory. Facing the risk of a further Russian invasion, we need to defend our land. The U.K. and the U.S. have already shipped the military equipment and we would appreciate if Canada follows suit," says the statement.

It says Ukraine's new Territorial Defence Forces are in place to counter that threat, but to "better equip them we highly seek to receive the critical supplies from our friends in Canada."

And on the question of sanctions, the statement has a simple message: more, please.

"It is essential for Canada to impose severe sectoral sanctions swiftly as a way of raising the costs of any military or hybrid action contemplated by Russia. We welcome Canada's support for a comprehensive multi-tier deterrence package, consisting of political, economic and security measures which effectively demotivate Russia from escalation."

Canadians of Ukrainian descent have expressed frustration that Joly travelled to Europe with nothing concrete to offer on sanctions, arming the Ukrainian military, or extending the Canadian military training mission.

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"Today, Justin Trudeau failed to announce lethal defensive weapons for Ukraine, the use of Magnitsky sanctions, or RADARSAT imagery," Conservative MP James Bezan, who has been banned from travelling to Russia, said Friday. "We are facing the prospect of a full invasion of Ukraine by Russia and Justin Trudeau is sitting on the fence."

Trudeau said Friday that Joly discussed the loan to "help support Ukraine's economic resilience" during her Ukraine visit and that the government was exploring other options to provide financial and "other support."

"The conversations that our foreign minister had with Ukrainian officials, including the Ukrainian president, stress that we're happy to be there to reinforce the resilience and the strength of Ukraine's economy faced with Russian destabilization, including economic destabilization," said Trudeau.

The diplomatic efforts to prevent an invasion continued Friday as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva.

Blinken told reporters after the meeting that there were no breakthroughs but he said both sides have a clearer understanding of their positions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2022.
OTTAWA  Canada Post has reversed its decision to dock pay from a Winnipeg mail carrier who attempted to wear a higher-quality mask due to a federal policy the Crown corporation says it still doesnt comprehend.

OTTAWA  Canada Post has reversed its decision to dock pay from a Winnipeg mail carrier who attempted to wear a higher-quality mask due to a federal policy the Crown corporation says it still doesnt comprehend.

"We are now working with federal authorities to seek clarification and understand this recent guidance," Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton wrote Thursday morning.

On Tuesday, Canada Post supervisors sent home Winnipeg mail carrier Corey Gallagher, whose pregnant wife is immunocompromised and his child too young to be vaccinated, because he insisted on wearing a high-quality respirator.

The Crown corporation insisted that a directive from Employment and Social Development Canada gave it no choice but to follow government guidance, which narrowly prescribed either a reusable cloth face-covering or a disposable surgical-type mask.

Gallagher said he wanted to do whatever he could to avoid the risk of taking COVID-19 home, so he purchased some better-quality respirators, similar to the N95 masks worn by front-line health workers.

Respirators, when fitted properly, prevent the wearer from inhaling airborne coronavirus particles, instead of the blue surgical masks that block people from excreting droplets.

Federal officials pointed fingers as the story gained national media attention, while Conservative and NDP critics argued the Trudeau Liberals had failed to address concerns raised weeks ago by union leadership.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Letter-carrier Corey Gallagher was sent home earlier in the day from his work at Canada Post because his boss said he couldnt wear a medical grade mask to work.

Late Wednesday, the Liberals blamed Canada Post, saying the agency misinterpreted government rules.

"Employers can go above and beyond what they are required to do," the office of federal Labour Minister Seamus ORegan wrote.

His staff said a higher-quality mask or respirator is fine under the Canada Labour Code and federal safety regulations.

That came as news to Canada Post, which laid blame at the feet of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

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"Given the complex and evolving nature of the pandemic, we have strictly adhered to the guidance and direction from the health experts responsible for protecting Canadians from COVID-19. We understood from the start that they were the experts, not us, and therefore following their lead was crucial to keeping our people safe," Hamilton wrote.

"Without exception, we have followed the guidance of the PHAC, worked closely with public-health officials at the local and regional level, and respected workplace directives from ESDC."

Gallagher had been put on a personal-leave day Tuesday, which a supervisor changed to a one-day unpaid suspension. That was reversed Thursday to a day of personal leave with no pay docked.

The local branch of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers handed out respirators to staff Thursday at the 400 McDermot Ave. mail depot, after a brief objection from supervisors.

Like many workplaces, Canada Post has reported numerous absences as the highly contagious Omicron variant takes hold.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
EMERSON  Footprints near a home close to this town drew the attention of the RCMP last week.

EMERSON  Footprints near a home close to this town drew the attention of the RCMP last week.

"(An officer) said, We saw some tracks going south the border," said the man, who lives about three kilometres north of the border and asked not to be identified. "We just assumed it was people crossing the border."

Border crossings were a frequent occurrence around Emerson after Donald Trumps presidential election victory in the fall of 2016. But it was one-way traffic  heading north  for the steady stream of asylum-seekers who feared arrest and deportation in a threatened crackdown on illegal immigrants under the new U.S. administration.

The flood of thwarted crossings eventually slowed to a trickle; reported attempts have been few and far between of late.

But that changed tragically Thursday.

I feel totally sick. Its very cold. Its out in the wide open, theres no shelter.  Rose Caners

U.S. authorities charged a Florida man with human smuggling after a family of four  including a teenager and a baby  were found frozen to death in a snow-covered field near the Canada-U.S. border, about 10 kilometres east of Emerson. The victims were among a group of 11 people from India who were attempting to cross the border into the U.S., as temperatures dipped to -35 C in whiteout conditions. Seven made it across and were apprehended by American law enforcement.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Main Street in Emerson, Manitoba.

The area is made up of mostly wide-open fields, which are unforgiving in the winter when the wind is howling, as it was Thursday.

Many gravel roads were snowed in or mostly covered, and snow blown by strong winds was drifting across them.

In bad weather, visibility can be close to zero.

The resident who lives near Emerson couldnt see his shed when heavy snow was whipped around by fierce wind gusts Tuesday.

"Its what we call the flats out here," he said.

I couldnt imagine going through that with an infant. Its just devastating. We saw police all over town (on Wednesday) and we wondered what they were doing.  J. Jacques

Others in and around the border town were horrified to learn of the tragedy.

"Im shocked and sad for the people," said George Andrawess, who co-owns a pharmacy in the community.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Border crossings were a frequent occurrence around Emerson after Donald Trumps presidential election victory in the fall of 2016.

"I feel totally sick," said Rose Caners. "Its very cold. Its out in the wide open, theres no shelter."

J. Jacques, whose mother owns the Emerson Inn, said refugees who cross into Manitoba from North Dakota occasionally turn up at the hotel looking for help.

The last time that happened was August 2021.

"They come here and ask us to call 911," said Jacques. "The RCMP come and take them (away)."

Last November, two bags of clothes were found stashed outside the hotel, which has temporarily closed its doors due to the latest wave of COVID-19.

Jacques assumed the bags were linked to a crossing attempt.

She said her heart broke Thursday when she heard about the four deaths.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A cross-country skier braves the cold and wind in a field east outside of Emerson, MB on Thursday. Two adults, one teenager, and one infant were found dead in the area.

"I couldnt imagine going through that with an infant," she said. "Its just devastating. We saw police all over town (on Wednesday) and we wondered what they were doing."

Dave Carlson, reeve for the Municipality of Emerson-Franklin, said regular briefings from federal officials during the wave of northbound crossing attempts wrapped up around the time COVID-19 hit in early 2020, because there were so few attempts and, therefore, far less strain on local emergency services.

"Its very, very surprising, considering the political climate on the U.S. side of the border, and our political climate with regards to immigration," Carlson said about Thursdays RCMP announcement, adding hes "heard rumblings" about people who walk into the U.S. over the years, but never understood why anyone would need to.

"Im very surprised that anyone would be that desperate to want to cross the border and risk their lives at this time of year. Im sure everyone in our communitys trying to understand why people would take their lives into their hands with the weather so bad. Its shocking, really."

Crossings from Canada into the United States are rare, said assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy, commander of the RCMP in Manitoba. It has been, historically, far more common for traffic to head the other way, she said.

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There were just 19 logged cases of people crossing into Manitoba on foot between January and November 2021, the most recent month that data was available, down from 28 in all of 2020, and 180 in 2019.

Crossings into Manitoba peaked in March 2017 when 170 people were detected, the most in a single month.

On Dec. 24, 2016, Seidu Mohammad nearly froze to death walking from North Dakota toward the Canadian border at Emerson, seeking refugee status in Canada because of his sexual orientation, which was later granted.

The man from Ghana spent more than seven hours walking outside. His fingers were frostbitten  he later lost all of them.

 with files from Dylan Robertson

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
A St. Vital dad hopes people who stop to admire his spaceman snow sculpture are inspired in the name of love.

A St. Vital dad hopes people who stop to admire his spaceman snow sculpture are inspired in the name of love.

Bradley Gerbrandt, a graphic designer, has been making snow sculptures in his southeast Winnipeg yard for the last five years. He works alone, using simple molds, and says its been a learning process over those years, but a "total joy" as well.

"Ive got a family here, too  my wife is nice enough to let me get out and escape the family sometimes and do some carving," Gerbrandt joked Monday.

His inspiration varies  last year, one of his sculptures was a large-scale replica of young daughter Sophies toy bear  but this year, the artistic vision went beyond the physical realm.

The sculpture at 20 Elm Park Rd., which depicts a sitting spaceman, took about three weeks to make (and is a replica of a lamp Gerbrandt found).

Its mainly made of packed snow, with an astronaut helmet made of ice molded from a yoga ball and illuminated by a light underneath it. In its gloved hand, it carries a white, hand-painted flag with a bright red heart. Gerbrandt has titled his handiwork: "In the Name of Love."

"Its like when an astronaut goes to the moon and (plants) the American flag," he said. "Its kind of claiming this world, this piece of land, in the name of love."

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Gerbrandt made the sculpture and named it n the name of love, because he was disgusted with the division hes seen around COVID.

Gerbrandt said he felt the need to include a positive message in his sculpting this year, after watching people become divided amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when unity was so clearly needed, troubled him.

"That was definitely something that I was intentional about. Ive felt kind of sickened by a lot of the negativity thats come along with, I dont know whether its fear or just being in the unknown of things right now. But theres a lot of feelings of negativity and division out there, and it just kind of sickens me," he said.

"So I really wanted to put that the answer out there, and that it is love, and more of that is what we all need."

Passersby by have already stopped to admire Gerbrandts work and provided words of encouragement while he carved; a sign, possibly, the sculptures ability to inspire goodwill is already in motion.

"Its just not something you really do see often, and I think its a very Winnipeg thing, too," he said. "Just people going out and bracing the elements and making something spectacular out of it."

While many carving snow around the city are novice hobbyists, for others, its a year-round family affair.

Gary Tessier and Madeleine Vrignon are the couple behind the giant Dumbo snow sculpture currently sitting in a Grenfell Boulevard yard, but theyre also responsible for many of the snow sculptures that have cropped up around Winnipeg over the years.

Vrignon is a full-time sculptor and Tessier, while retired, held the same profession for nearly 40 years. Their two sons are also masters of the craft.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Gary Tessier and Madeleine Vrignon are behind the giant Dumbo snow sculpture currently sitting in a Grenfell Boulevard yard.

Tessier and Vrignon have plans to put together other snow sculptures across the city in the coming weeks.

"For me, personally, its exercise  its exercising both the body and the mind. The ones for the kids, theyre just fun to do. The other pieces I do theyre expressions of ideas and things that we want to do," Tessier said.

The family has sculpted competitively around the world, and winter is a great opportunity to sharpen their skills with a forgiving material.

"Working in a larger format like this, its a great way to test out some ideas, and theres no other material where we can work on pieces that are so large in such little time," Tessier said.

Sometimes, the piece will last as long as three months; other, rarer times, Tessier said, they havent been able to finish a piece before it began to melt.

The beauty of the medium is its temporary, and the materials return to the artists every year, he added.

"Snow is just a material that allows us to work very big, very quickly, broadly speaking. So its fun from that perspective."

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
Manitobas definition of fully vaccinated hasnt yet changed to account for booster shots, and there are no immediate plans to do so.

Manitobas definition of fully vaccinated hasnt yet changed to account for booster shots, and there are no immediate plans to do so.

Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead for Manitobas COVID-19 vaccine task force, said this week the third dose wont yet be part of vaccination requirements.

However, she said research shows having a third dose prevents Omicron variant infection 55 per cent better than just two doses. She urged all Manitobans  particularly those age 50-plus  to get a third shot.

Meanwhile, the task force is still having discussions about whether to apply public health restrictions to people who havent had a booster.

"I think theres still a lot of knowledge that needs to be developed before we feel that its a reasonable restriction or expectation to put on Manitobans," Reimer said during a virtual news conference Wednesday.

"So thats not to say that this couldnt be something that we move to in the future, but we want to make sure that we have really solid science before we include additional restrictions on Manitobans."

The doctor said theres still a "significant gap" in third-dose uptake, particularly among Manitobans in their 50s and 60s.

That age group is at higher risk of needing intensive care if they contract COVID-19, but only half of people in their 50s and two-thirds in their 60s have had a booster. Second-dose uptake is much higher in those groups; more than 90 per cent of people over 50 have had a second dose.

Older Manitobans have the highest third-dose uptake, provincial vaccination data and Statistics Canada population estimates show.

Nearly 80 per cent of Manitobans in their 70s and 80s got the third dose. Uptake is roughly 23 per cent for Manitobans in their 20s; 30 per cent for those in their 30s; and 39 per cent for those in their 40s.

Currently, double-vaccinated people are considered to be fully vaccinated, whether or not theyve received booster doses.

Only fully vaccinated Manitobans can dine in at restaurants, participate in recreation programs, go to indoor spaces such as gyms and movie theatres, or travel across provincial and international borders.

The provincial task force is still waiting for national recommendations on whether booster doses will be offered to youth ages 12 to 17.

At the federal level, Canada isnt rushing to change its definition of fully vaccinated.

Earlier this month, chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said the issue would be revisited once booster shots had "rolled out significantly" across the country.

Third doses started rolling out in Manitoba in October, first to front-line health-care workers and personal care home residents. By Nov. 10, the province had expanded eligibility to all Manitobans 18 and older, as long as at least six months had passed since the second dose. That changed after the Omicron varient was detected in the province; in December, the task force reduced the wait time to five months for those over 60, and later to everyone over 50.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

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A life dedicated to saving Winnipeggers ended Wednesday, with a retired firefighter gasping for air after four months in hospital, where he waited for a delayed surgery and then caught COVID-19.

A life dedicated to saving Winnipeggers ended Wednesday, with a retired firefighter gasping for air after four months in hospital, where he waited for a delayed surgery and then caught COVID-19.

David Reid, 87, had a biting sense of humour and gift for telling stories, particularly of the things hed seen as a platoon chief.

He went to Seven Oaks General Hospital on Sept. 23, 2021, for leg pain. He was sent the next day to Health Sciences Centre for diagnostic testing, in order to proceed with spinal-fusion surgery that, in the end, was delayed roughly 10 times.

SUPPLIED David Reid was sent to Health Sciences Centre for diagnostic testing, in order to proceed with spinal-fusion surgery that, in the end, was delayed roughly 10 times.

Around that time, Manitoba had a backlog of 52,000 surgeries, a number that has since swollen beyond 57,800. This week, the province announced it has a plan to send willing patients to North Dakota for some spinal surgeries.

In September, Reid had his surgery delayed over the course of three weeks, with doctors constantly shuffled out to deal with COVID-19 patients on the verge of death, who are overwhelmingly unvaccinated.

During that time, Reid lost the ability to get up and walk.

"To me, he was basically neglected at Health Sciences Centre," said Frank Leswick, a close friend and former city firefighter.

"He was able to walk when we got there and, at the end, I was feeding him. He couldnt even pick up a fork or a pen."

He (David Reid) was able to walk when we got there and, at the end, I was feeding him. He couldnt even pick up a fork or a pen.  Frank Leswick

The Oct. 21 surgery got their hopes up, but the recovery was rough, particularly after Reid caught COVID-19 during an outbreak on his ward.

He was then diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, meaning inflamed lungs that make it hard to breathe.

"It was a double-whammy with that and COVID," Leswick said. "It probably didnt help that he was a firefighter for 36 years."

Reid also developed gangrene in one toe, and doctors found shooting pains were caused by poor circulation in his legs, likely due to the lack of movement.

They put him on heavy painkillers. And then oxygen.

"He had no stimulation basically, physical or mentally," said Leswick. "It was brutal."

Reid appeared on the front of the Free Press last fall, as one of thousands of Manitobans languishing in hospitals due to an overstretched health-care system, which the province kept insisting was not in crisis.

Reid appeared on the front of the Free Press last fall, as one of thousands of Manitobans languishing in hospitals due to an overstretched healthcare system, which the province kept insisting was not in crisis.

In past interviews, the pair saluted the work of health-care staff, but expressed frustration at provincial management of COVID-19  and Manitobans who refuse to get vaccinated.

Leswick wonders how things might have turned out if Reid had someone help more often with stretching and movement, if he didnt catch COVID-19 while recovering from surgery, or if the operation hadnt been postponed so many times.

"Hes a tough Scotsman; he didnt give up," said Leswick, who brought in mushrooms and yogurt when Reid complained about the pureed hospital food.

Leswick is angry a dear friend spent his last 118 days of life declining in a hospital, with the prospect of dying alone in an unfamiliar place.

Reids doctor told him he was on the list to be transferred to a rural health centre, but was kept in Winnipeg because of his lung condition.

A roommate was sent to Hamiota, some 285 kilometres west of Winnipeg.

Reid stayed, and eventually his organs shut down.

"At the end, he (David Reid) couldnt swallow. He was not really conscious; his eyes were halfclosed.  Frank Leswick

"It drained him, little by little. At the end, he couldnt swallow," said Leswick. "He was not really conscious; his eyes were half-closed."

He saw Reid for an hour Wednesday, at which point he was struggling to breathe, with 50 respirations per minute, more than double the normal amount.

Reid died within two hours, from a condition that often results in a feeling of drowning.

Leswick is now scheduling Reids cremation and clearing out his friends apartment.

"It wasnt the right way to go. He deserved better."

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

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Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon and her wait time task force say they have no idea when hospitals will be able to reduce surgical and diagnostic backlogs because they dont know when the COVID-19 pandemic will end.

Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon and her wait time task force say they have no idea when hospitals will be able to reduce surgical and diagnostic backlogs because they dont know when the COVID-19 pandemic will end.

Thats a cop out.

The diagnostic and surgical recovery task force, unveiled by Gordon in December, gave its first public update Wednesday. Its mandate is to reduce wait times for procedures such as orthopedic and cataract surgeries, endoscopies and diagnostic testing.

The groups immediate focus is to find short-term solutions to alleviate growing backlogs caused by the pandemic. The long-term plan is to build capacity in a system that has historically been hampered by staff shortages and budget constraints.

Health Minister Audrey Gordon (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press)

The task force has proposed a few minor solutions, including plans to contract out a small number of spinal surgeries to a clinic in Fargo, N.D. No patients have been booked yet because the U.S. clinic has its own pandemic-related challenges.

Meanwhile, some gynecological surgeries will be performed at a local private clinic beginning in February, to help with a backlog of 3,000 procedures.

The task force didnt have much to report beyond that. (The province plans to hire 13 more anesthesia clinical assistants over three years and hopes to recruit more surgeons.)

There are no targets, no timelines, and no specifics on how the province plans to tackle backlogs in orthopedic and cataract surgeries.

There are no targets, no timelines, and no specifics on how the province plans to tackle backlogs in orthopedic and cataract surgeries.

There are about 9,000 people waiting for hip and knee surgeries (Manitoba normally does about 5,000 such procedures a year). Approximately 10,000 are on the wait list for cataract surgery (around 13,000 procedures were done over the past year, according to the most recent online data).

Another 10,000 Manitobans are waiting for endoscopies. Some 220 are waiting for cardiac surgery (the pre-pandemic wait list is usually about 80 or 90).

The median wait time for an MRI is about four months (officials say thats due to a shortage of MRI machines in Winnipeg). The task force didnt have specifics on ultrasound wait times, but said delays for the scans are "excessive."

The province provides the public with very little information about hospital wait times, which makes it difficult  if not impossible  to track the task forces progress. There is some limited data posted online, but its outdated and incomplete.

The province provides the public with very little information about hospital wait times, which makes it difficult  if not impossible  to track the task forces progress.

The province is planning to create a new surgical wait list information system and an online dashboard. But so far, government is keeping its data close to the vest.

Dr. Peter Macdonald, the task force chairman, said there are no timelines to reduce wait times because they cant predict the impact the pandemic will have on hospital resources.

Thats a convenient excuse.

Granted, hospitals are still overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. Officials continue to use surgical beds to handle the overflow, which means inpatient surgeries are still being cancelled. (Outpatient surgeries have been increased, which is good news.)

The province is planning to create a new surgical wait list information system and an online dashboard. (Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press files)

It didnt help that Gordon and her boss, Premier Heather Stefanson, rejected calls in December to impose more stringent public health measures to slow the spread of the Omicron variant.

Doing so would have alleviated pressure on hospitals and reduced the need to cancel more surgeries. Failure to do so has made the task forces job more difficult (and forced hospitals to transfer more Winnipeg patients to other communities).

Still, many of the wait time challenges the province faces have little, if anything, to do with the pandemic. Lengthy waits for surgeries and diagnostic testing are mostly the result of staffing shortages, a lack of space and equipment, and restrictive budgets that force hospitals to ration care. Those can only be solved through long-term funding commitments and detailed planning  which the province has yet to release.

Lengthy waits for surgeries and diagnostic testing are mostly the result of staffing shortages, a lack of space and equipment, and restrictive budgets.

Theres no reason that level of planning, including timelines and expected outcomes, cant be drawn up now to begin the process. Government doesnt have to wait for the end of the pandemic to set benchmarks and commit the required funding.

Its up to the minister to provide that leadership. Using the pandemic as an excuse for inaction is lazy.

The longer Gordon and Stefanson put this off, the more Manitobans will suffer in pain and misery on heath-care wait lists.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

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WHEN COVID-19 separates you from the person youve loved for more than 72 years, its something to celebrate when you are together again.

WHEN COVID-19 separates you from the person youve loved for more than 72 years, its something to celebrate when you are together again.

Sam and Shirley Kleiman did so Tuesday.

SUPPLIED Shirley Kleiman, 94, who tested positive for the virus last week, but was asymptomatic, was given a celebration parade when she was released from isolation at the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre.

Shirley, 94, who tested positive for the novel coronavirus last week, but was asymptomatic, was given a celebration parade when she was released from isolation at the Saul & Claribel Simkin Centre personal care home in Winnipeg.

At the conclusion of Shirleys seven days of COVID-19 isolation, wearing a blue T-shirt emblazoned with Virus Survivor, she travelled in her wheelchair down a long hallway, with staff on either side clapping their support and admiration.

Playing in the background were strains of the Bee Gees 1978 No. 1 hit Stayin Alive  a song released when the couple were in their late 40s.

At the far end, wearing a yellow gown, face mask and latex gloves, was Shirleys biggest reward: her 94-year-old husband, Sam, whose eyes danced above his mask along with the rest of his body as he reached out and took her hand in his.

But, as Sam says (his wife would say it herself, too, if a stroke a few years ago hadnt taken away her ability to speak): "It is what it is."

"It is an expression Shirley has. She would say it whenever we just had to suck it up. Its just the way COVID works," Sam said. "We just go with the flow."

SUPPLIED Shirley Kleiman, 94, reunited with husband Sam.

Laurie Cerqueti, Simkin Centre chief executive officer, said the celebration parades are done every time someone comes out of isolation  and staff look forward to them all.

"Weve been doing recovery parades for our residents since our big outbreak in (pandemic) wave 2," said Cerqueti. "It is especially wonderful when you can reunite families, and these two are a true love story.

"We are so pleased Shirley and Sam are reunited."

However, Shirley is one of the residents who now has to stay in their room amid COVID-19 measures.

"She is not leaving her room but she can still see her husband," Cerqueti said, adding Sam is designated as her caregiver.

"We are allowing designated caregivers to come into the centre."

Its not the first time the pair have been kept apart because of COVID. Shirley has lived at the centre for about four years since having a stroke; her husband still lives in his own place, but goes to see her every day.

During the pandemics first wave in spring 2020, all visitations to long-term care homes were stopped for weeks, in a effort to halt virus transmission. Worried family members were only able to see loved ones through closed windows.

Sam went to the centre every day to stand outside a window to see his wife. He would tap on the window and blow kisses. A centre care aide would bring a phone to Shirleys ear so she could hear her husbands voice.

At the time, Sam explained to a media outlet: "Shes not going anywhere, and as long as shes not going anywhere, Im not going anywhere."

Before the pandemic, Sam said the only thing which had ever kept them apart since they married in 1950 was his wifes love of international travel.

"She would go off gallivanting with her cousin. Once they went to Hong Kong."

When asked why he didnt join them, Sam said with a laugh: "I wasnt invited."

Shirley may not have shown recent symptoms of COVID, but that doesnt necessarily mean she didnt have any issues, Sam said.

"She cant vocalize," he said. "She is able to make herself understood, but she cant converse. She just cant tell anyone about any symptoms she might have had."

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Sam said hes looking forward to further festivities in the hopefully near-future.

"When her friends can come and see her  thats when the real celebration will be," he said. "She has a lifetime of friends and they want to see her."

However, Sam isnt critical about any of the COVID-19 restrictions the couple have faced.

"I cant fault them  they are being ultra careful," he said. "There are about 200 residents there. Everyone has to be concerned about everybody else.

"And it is what it is, and it is what it should be."

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman in space, blasted off 30 years ago tomorrow.

Meat Loaf  whose 1977 Bat Out of Hell became one of the top-selling albums in history, featuring such hits as Paradise By the Dashboard Light and Two Out of Three Aint Bad  has died at age 74.

The investigation continues into the deaths of four family members near Manitobas border with North Dakota. U.S. justice officials believe the deaths are part of a large human-smuggling operation.
THERE are many lonely places to die, but few more so than the southern edge of Manitoba in the dead of winter, adrift in the dark emptiness of the sky and the white emptiness of the snow and a few specks of light glittering in the distance. It can be beautiful in its stillness, if you are safe enough to admire it. If you are not, the wind whispers only of desolation.

THERE are many lonely places to die, but few more so than the southern edge of Manitoba in the dead of winter, adrift in the dark emptiness of the sky and the white emptiness of the snow and a few specks of light glittering in the distance. It can be beautiful in its stillness, if you are safe enough to admire it. If you are not, the wind whispers only of desolation.

So its almost too terrible to think about what the last hours were like for the family from India that perished there at some point Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Too terrible to think about how they must have trudged together  a man, a woman, a teenage boy, an infant  as the wind bit their flesh and their hope ebbed away and the -35 C cold gnawed its way up their limbs.

The story, as it was told in releases by law enforcement, was horrific. On Wednesday morning, about half a kilometre south of the border, U.S. law enforcement encountered a group of five men from India, heading for an unstaffed gas plant near St. Vincent, Minn. Two were seriously injured in the cold; they said theyd been walking for about 11 hours.

Someone was supposed to pick them up, they told police, according to a release from the U.S. Attorneys Office in Minnesota.

One of the men carried a backpack. Inside, police found items for a child who wasnt there: small clothing, toys, a diaper, some medicine. The man said hed been carrying it for a family that had started out with them, but had become separated from the rest of the group during the night.

Later that day, RCMP found their bodies. The man, the woman and their infant lay just 10 metres from the border, not that crossing it would have offered any salvation from the cold; the youth died a short distance away. What their last hours must have been like are too terrible to consider, but what their deaths signify is too terrible to ignore.

Five years ago, the border at Emerson dominated local and even national headlines, as an unprecedented number of asylum-seekers made their way north. One of them, a 57-year-old woman from Ghana named Mavis Otuteye, succumbed to the cold less than a kilometre from Canada; others suffered severe frostbite, and at least two lost parts of their hands.

The survivors of these bitter winter treks told media their stories. They talked about the fear and the crises that pushed them to Canada. They talked about drivers who collected as much as $700 to drive them to some lonely spot a few kilometres from the border, then left them to fend for themselves in the killing winds and the snow.

Know this much about the world: there is always profit to be made from desperation.

On Wednesday morning. the U.S. border patrol stopped a large white van close to the border; inside they found two more undocumented Indian immigrants. The driver, Florida man, 47-year-old Steve Shand, has been arrested and charged with smuggling undocumented foreign nationals.

We do know this much: when they set out for the border that night, they were trying to live, not to die.

As the news trickled out Thursday, we still didnt know much about the dead family. We didnt know their names, or their story. We didnt know how long theyd been in Canada, or exactly why they were headed to the United States. Without such detail, its hard to start untangling the threads of what happened.

We do know this much: when they set out for the border that night, they were trying to live, not to die.

You have to hold onto that fact, because without it, tragedies like these get sucked into arguments about immigration often riddled with resentment and xenophobia and blaming of the victims.

None of that matters when you begin to think through it by orienting yourself not to what is law, but to what is human.

Nobody leads their family into the vicious grip of a Canadian winter if they have better options. Nobody trudges for hours through -35 C weather if they are not desperate. Nobody sets out in a dark and lonely bid for the other side of the border if they can see a meaningful future from where they began.

Follow 3 migrants on their perilous, frozen trek into Canada Posted: 1:15 PM Mar. 10, 2017 EMERSON  All is quiet on the northern front.

Its the middle of the night, just a stones throw from the Canada-U.S. border, and the temperature has fallen to -23 C. Theres only a breath of wind, but its the kind of night where the cold is not weather anymore, its the enemy. Read Full Story

Five years ago, my colleague Randy Turner and I teamed up to do a story on the people who were then fleeing north across the border in winter. He staked out a spot near the Emerson border, where he met several men as they took their first steps to safety; I followed up with them through their first days in the city as they made their asylum bids.

I asked one of them, a man named Maurice who had fled religious persecution, what he wanted Winnipeggers to know.

"Anybody could be in our shoes, thats what I want them to know," he said.

So, while we do not yet know much about the family who died in the snow, we know that they must have been at a point that any of us, comfortable in our homes, cannot imagine.

But given a different set of circumstances, they could have been us. We know they must have had hope that things would be better once they reached the other side of the border.

We know that hope shone bright enough to coax them to carry just a handful of belongings into an unbearable cold.

Knowing this, we can begin to name what is broken, and to place accountability where it is deserved. We can place it at the feet of human smugglers, who profit from dangling hope that leads people into unimaginable danger. We can place it at the feet of inequality and oppression, and all other ills that force people to venture out from a broken world.

They shouldnt have died how they did, frozen and adrift in the windblown silence of the southern border. Its a lonely place to die, and what their last hours must have been like are too terrible to imagine. But for their sake, and for all those who will come after, let us vow to imagine a future where nobody else should be pushed to the same position.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Health Canadas approval Monday of a new antiviral drug that promises to reduce severe illness from COVID-19 and alleviate pressure on overburdened hospitals could be a game changer.

Health Canadas approval Monday of a new antiviral drug that promises to reduce severe illness from COVID-19 and alleviate pressure on overburdened hospitals could be a game changer.

Pfizers Paxlovid is an oral antiviral for adults that comes in pill form and is prescribed by a physician. Unlike existing approved treatments for the coronavirus, which must be administered intravenously or by injection in hospital, Paxlovid can be used at home.

Clinical trials have shown that if taken soon after the onset of symptoms, the new drug helps prevent the SARS-CoV-2 virus from reproducing in an infected patient and reduces the risk of hospitalization or death by 89 per cent.

The new drug helps prevent the SARSCoV2 virus from reproducing in an infected patient and reduces the risk of hospitalization or death by 89 per cent.

At a time when the pandemic has given Canadians little to celebrate, this new treatment could be the breakthrough many were hoping for to help return to normal life.

Paxlovid has some limitations: the new medication (which is a combination of two different drugs taken together, twice a day) must be self-administered within five days after symptoms appear. It is also meant for people with mild to moderate symptoms, not patients suffering from severe illness in hospital. The drug has not been approved in Canada for people under the age of 18.

However, when taken soon after testing positive for COVID-19, the treatment can dramatically reduce the chances that a mild or moderate sickness becomes severe or life-threatening.

To maximize the benefits of the new treatment, governments will have to ensure the drug is made available to those with the highest risk of severe illness. There are several challenges in meeting that goal.

The most immediate is that Paxlovid is expected to be in short supply globally for months. The federal government has ordered one million treatment courses of the drug, about 30,000 of which are already in Canada (another 120,000 are expected over February and March). Of the one million, Manitoba would receive roughly 40,000 treatment courses, if distributed on a per-capita basis.

PFIZER VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS / FILE PHOTO Pfizers Paxlovid is an oral antiviral for adults that comes in pill form and is prescribed by a physician.

The province must ensure Manitoba gets its share of that allotment, something the Progressive Conservative government failed to do when Ottawa was handing out rapid antigen tests.

The province must also ensure the new drug, which reportedly costs over US$500 per treatment course, is affordable to those who need it. So far, governments have said little about how Paxlovid would be distributed, or who would pay for it.

The new drug reportedly costs over US$500 per treatment course.

Health Canada has recommended that provinces prioritize the drug for individuals with the highest likelihood of severe illness. That includes people who are immunocompromised, those over the age of 80 whose vaccinations are not up to date, and people living in underserved communities, including First Nations. Prioritizing individuals whose vaccinations are not up to date  or who are not vaccinated at all  may raise questions of fairness. Some may ask why the unvaccinated should be rewarded for their stubborn refusal to get immunized.

JUSTIN TANG / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Federal Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos said Paxlovid, or any antiviral therapeutic, is not a substitute for vaccination.

However, governments must remain focused on the clinical objective of maximizing drug coverage for those at highest risk of severe illness; that includes the unvaccinated.

As federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos reminded on Monday, Paxlovid, or any antiviral therapeutic, is not a substitute for vaccination. Immunization is still the most effective protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus because it reduces the risk of infection and fights the virus before symptoms appear.

What this new drug can do is help reduce the severity of symptoms post-infection. Alongside vaccines, it can be a powerful weapon against the virus and help forge a path to a post-pandemic world.

It may be the best news the public has heard since the beginning of the vaccine rollout.
NEW YORK (AP)  Michael Avenatti, the once high-profile California attorney who regularly taunted then-President Donald Trump during frequent television appearances, was introduced Thursday to prospective jurors who will decide whether he cheated porn star Stormy Daniels out of book-deal proceeds.

FILE- Adult film actress Stormy Daniels, accompanied by her attorney, Michael Avenatti, left, walk away after speaking to the media outside federal court, on April 16, 2018, in New York. Avenatti, the once high-profile California attorney who regularly taunted then-President Donald Trump during frequent television appearances, was introduced Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, to prospective jurors who will decide whether he cheated porn star Stormy Daniels out of book-deal proceeds. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

NEW YORK (AP)  Michael Avenatti, the once high-profile California attorney who regularly taunted then-President Donald Trump during frequent television appearances, was introduced Thursday to prospective jurors who will decide whether he cheated porn star Stormy Daniels out of book-deal proceeds.

Jury selection hit full stride a week after written questionnaires were filled out as U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman introduced over 60 prospective jurors to Avenatti and the lawyers on both sides who will present evidence during a trial projected to last up to a month.

He asked Avenatti and the lawyers to briefly take off their COVID-19 masks so prospective jurors could see their faces and make sure they don't know them from their private lives.

Some jurors were in a courthouse assembly room while others watched the judge by video in a ceremonial courtroom. Everyone was spaced apart to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Among 49 questions presented to possible jurors was one in which they were asked if they could be fair even after hearing evidence that Daniels once worked in the "pornography profession."

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The prospective jurors made it to the Manhattan courthouse despite a morning storm. Late in the day, the judge instructed about 40 of them to return on Friday for the final step in the jury selection process, when lawyers on both sides can eliminate some individuals from a jury of 12 people without providing a reason.

Once chosen, the jurors will hear opening statements on Monday before they hear and see evidence to help them decide whether Avenatti cheated Daniels out of hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to Daniels from a book deal.

Lawyers for Avenatti, 50, have said he is likely to testify in the case. He has pleaded not guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges.

Avenatti became well known in 2018 when he represented Daniels in lawsuits against Trump. He was treated so well in some circles that he considered running for president himself before federal prosecutors in New York and Los Angeles announced criminal charges against him in separate cases.

In early 2020, Avenatti was convicted by a jury of trying to extort up to $25 million from Nike and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, though he has not yet begun serving that sentence.

Besides the trial over book proceeds, Avenatti also faces a retrial in California on federal charges alleging that he stole millions of dollars in settlement money from his clients. His first trial ended in a mistrial in August.
GENEVA (AP)  Top U.S. and Russian diplomats agreed Friday to keep talking in the standoff over Ukraine, even though their meeting produced no movement in the crisis that has seen Moscow mass tens of thousands of troops at the border and the West ramp up supplies of weapons to Kyiv.

A Ukrainian soldier stands in the trench on the line of separation from pro-Russian rebels, in Mariupol, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. President Joe Biden has warned Russia's Vladimir Putin that the U.S. could impose new sanctions against Russia if it takes further military action against Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is warning of a unified, "swift, severe" response from the United States and its allies if Russia sends any military forces into Ukraine. (AP Photo/Andriy Dubchak)

GENEVA (AP)  Top U.S. and Russian diplomats agreed Friday to keep talking in the standoff over Ukraine, even though their meeting produced no movement in the crisis that has seen Moscow mass tens of thousands of troops at the border and the West ramp up supplies of weapons to Kyiv.

With fears of an invasion of Ukraine running high and seemingly intractable demands, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met for about 90 minutes in Geneva at what the American said was a critical moment.

Expectations were low going in, and there was no breakthrough.

Blinken told Lavrov the U.S. would give Russia written responses to Moscows proposals next week and suggested the two would likely meet again shortly after that  offering some hope that any invasion would be delayed for at least a few more days.

Blinken said the U.S. and its allies remain resolute in rejecting Russias most important demands, which were reiterated Friday. Moscow wants NATO to promise that Ukraine will never be added as a member, that no alliance weapons will be deployed near Russian borders, and that it pull back its forces from Central and Eastern Europe.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov listens during a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, in Geneva, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Despite that, there was no indication the U.S. responses would be any different from the flat-out rejections already expressed by Washington and its allies, clouding future diplomatic efforts.

We didnt expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clearer path to understanding each others positions, Blinken said after the meeting.

Blinken said he also wanted to use the opportunity to share directly with Lavrov some concrete ideas to address some of the concerns that you have raised, as well as the deep concerns that many of us have about Russias actions.

Blinken said Lavrov repeated Russias insistence that it has no plans to invade Ukraine, but the U.S. and its allies were not convinced.

Were looking at what is visible to all, and it is deeds and actions and not words that make all the difference, he said, adding that Russia should remove its troops from the Ukrainian border if it wanted to prove its point.

Lavrov, meanwhile, called the talks constructive and useful but declined to characterize the U.S. pledge.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken greets Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov before their meeting, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, in Geneva, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

I cant say whether we are on the right track or not, he told reporters. We will understand that when we receive the U.S. written response to all of our proposals.

Blinken suggested there was no leeway on Russias demands, saying firmly: There is no trade space there: None.

The U.S. and its allies say Russian President Vladimir Putin knows the demands are nonstarters, adding that theyre open to less-dramatic moves.

Blinken said the U.S. would be open to a meeting between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, if it would be useful and productive. The two have met once in person in Geneva and have had several virtual conversations on Ukraine that have proven largely inconclusive.

An estimated 100,000 Russian troops have been sent to areas near Ukraine, and more were moving into the neighborhood for training exercises with neighboring Belarus.

Western allies were supplying weaponry and equipment to Ukraine. Britain sent anti-tank missiles earlier this week, while the defense ministers of the Baltic nations issued a statement saying they received U.S. approval to send Stinger air defense missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles to strengthen Kyiv's defenses.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov move to their seats before their meeting, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, in Geneva, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Today Ukraine is at the forefront of separating Europe from the military conflict with Russia, said Estonian Defense Minister Kalle Laanet. "Lets face it -- the war in Ukraine is ongoing and it is important to support Ukraine in every way we can so that they can resist the aggressor.

The Pentagon said the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier and its strike group will participate in a NATO maritime exercise in the Mediterranean, which will continue through Feb. 4  something that has been planned since 2020, said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby. He said officials considered whether to go ahead with the exercise, because of the ongoing tensions, and decided to move ahead.

Kirby said the exercise wasnt planned anticipating a Russian move on Ukraine and is not designed against any of the kinds of scenarios that might happen with respect to Ukraine.

On Thursday, Russia had announced sweeping naval maneuvers through February, some apparently in the Black Sea.

The U.S. and its allies scrambled to present a united front. Washington and its allies have repeatedly promised consequences such as biting economic sanctions against Russia  though not military action  if it invades.

Blinken repeated that Friday, saying the U.S. and its allies were committed to diplomacy but also committed "if that proves impossible, and Russia decides to pursue aggression against Ukraine, to a united, swift and severe response."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, left, shake hands with Switzerland's President and head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Ignazio Cassis, right, on the sidelines of the US - Russia foreign ministers meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Pool via Keystone)

After the meeting, Blinken spoke by phone with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to brief him on his talks this week and reaffirm U.S. support for Kyivs sovereignty and stress that no decisions would be made without his countrys input, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. He also will brief the foreign ministers of Washingtons European allies.

Biden plans to spend the weekend huddling with his national security team at Camp David, press secretary Jen Psaki said.

In other diplomatic moves, President Sauli Niinisto of Finland said he spoke with Putin by phone on European security and Ukraine, saying it was imperative to preserve peace in Europe, according to his office.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of NATO member Turkey, which touted its strong ties with Russia and Ukraine, renewed an offer to mediate between the two countries. Erdogan said he plans to visit Kyiv next month, adding that he would also hold talks with Putin.

Ukraine is already beset by conflict. Russia seized control of Ukraines Crimea Peninsula in 2014 and backed a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, part of a simmering but largely stalemated conflict that has killed 14,000. Putin faced limited international consequences for those moves, but the West says a new invasion would be different.

Blinken met Ukraines president in Kyiv and top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany in Berlin this week.

Blinken's effort to stress U.S. unity with its allies took an apparent hit Wednesday when Biden drew widespread criticism for saying retaliation for Russian aggression in Ukraine would depend on the details and that a minor incursion could prompt discord among Western allies.

On Thursday, Biden sought to clarify his comments by cautioning that any Russian troop movements across Ukraines border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would pay a heavy price for such an action.

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Ive been absolutely clear with President Putin, Biden said. He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.

Adding to its warnings, Washington stepped up sanctions Thursday by slapping new measures on four Ukrainian officials who Blinken said were at the center of a Kremlin effort begun in 2020 to damage Kyiv's ability to independently function.

The United States and allies say countries like Ukraine are entitled to their own alliances as part of sovereign security measures, but Lavrov countered that Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have also agreed that no nation can ensure its security by undermining security of others.

In eastern Ukraine, a soldier stationed near the front line with Russia-backed separatists called Blinkens visit to Kyiv very important for our country. The soldier, who identified himself only by his first name, Serhiy, in line with official rules, voiced hope that if Russia attacked, we can count on our forces and our allies power."

___

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed.
Verna Hull and I had been friends since 1968. For almost 10 years, when we farmed in northern Minnesota, she and her husband were our closest neighbors. They often played cards with us on weekends, and she and I visited or talked on the phone several times a week. We even kept in close touch after we moved away ... until a couple of years ago when we had a falling out over politics and stopped speaking to one another.

About a month ago, I wrote to her and told her I still valued her friendship and cherished the memories we shared. I added that our friendship was much more important to me than politics. Surprisingly, she called as soon as she received my letter. We had a long, warm conversation and vowed to keep in touch. Less than two weeks later, her daughter called to tell me that she had died in her sleep. I was saddened, but very relieved that Id written that letter and that wed healed the rift in our friendship before it was too late.

In the past few years, many other people I know have also experienced painful separations from family members and old friends. Its not a coincidence that those separations are connected to a person I wont name. Except for the Civil War, throughout decades of different presidents and political events, this kind of division didnt exist in our country until that person used his reality TV fame to gain political office.

For the good of our personal lives and our country, its time for Americans to put a stop to it and do everything we can do to find areas of agreement. As President Abraham Lincoln declared, A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Before that, in the 1770s, John Dickinson, one of the founders of our country and a signer of the Declaration of Independence said, United we stand, divided we fall. And, in his last public address, founding father Patrick Henry, added, Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.

Its time to consider whos benefiting from our divisions. Im sure the leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea are. Russias President Vladimir Putin is licking his chops, hoping that Russias Nikita Khrushchev was right in 1956, when he said, We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.

But, there are also people here in this country who want us divided and have succeeded in their efforts. We see the results in our personal lives as well as in our local and state governments, even down to school boards. We need to ask whos profiting from it.

A lot of politicians are, or think they are. Those who are willing to compromise with the other side for the good of the country are in the minority or leaving office in disgust. Others are too cowardly to speak out against those who are creating or encouraging the divisions. Meanwhile, nothing gets done and everyone whos paying attention gets angry.

The media didnt start it but has profited from it. Biased cable channels thrive on lies and misinformation while hiding facts they dont want their viewers to know. Some say CNN is biased, but its hosts didnt refrain from criticizing President Joe Biden, especially about the abrupt, disorganized withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, few if any at the cable Fox News channel criticized the former presidents tax cuts that mostly helped the rich, his lies, vulgarities, or cruelty, even when he made fun of a disabled reporter. People who watch only one channel or depend on social media and biased talk shows for their information are contributing to the divisions because their reactions are based on deliberately skewed information.

Meanwhile, most of us understand the divisions are not helping us personally or making our country stronger, and we cant depend on the media or politicians to unite us anytime soon. So, whos left?

We are. We can call or write those weve been avoiding or who have been avoiding us because of politics and tell them we still care for them. We can contact our local and state lawmakers as well as our senators and representatives in Congress and demand they start to work together for the good of the country and all the people theyre supposed to represent. And, we can, and must, encourage and vote for candidates who are truthful, fair, respectful and willing to listen to all sides before making decisions that affect us all.

We can do this. And, for the good of the country, we must.

Pat Nash has lived in the Baraboo area, off and on, for more than 35 years. Contact her at patnash5149@gmail.com.
A Mauston man is charged with heroin, methamphetamine and THC felonies after police allegedly found the items on the individual while he was stopped walking down the street at 2 a.m. for a warrant.

Scott Walker, 33, of Mauston is charged with felony possession of narcotic drugs, felony possession of methamphetamine, felony bail jumping, misdemeanor possession of THC, misdemeanor obstructing an officer and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. If convicted he faces up to three years and six months in prison or a fine of up to $10,000, or both, for the narcotics and methamphetamine charges; and up to six years in prison or a fine of up to $10,000, or both, for the bail jumping charge.

According to the criminal complaint:

At 2:17 a.m. Dec. 17, Officer Blake Fish of the Mauston Police Department observed Scott Walker walking on Division Street near the intersection of Oak Street in the city of Mauston. Fish, who knew Walker from past professional contacts, knew that Walker had a warrant issued through Wisconsin Probation and Parole.

Fish parked his vehicle and informed the Juneau County Communications Center he would be speaking with a suspect believed to be Walker. As Fish exited the vehicle Walker became defensive and asked why Fish wanted to speak with him. Walker claimed he was on the phone with his attorney and began walking away.

After telling the Juneau County Communications Center that Walker was walking away from Fish, two additional officers arrived to assist. Walker calmed down as additional law enforcement arrived and once Fish explained that he believed Walker had a warrant.

Fish observed Walker, who was wearing only sandals, shivering and asked if he wanted to sit in the patrol vehicle to stay warm while he checked the warrant. As Fish was inside the vehicle dispatch confirmed the warrant and Walker was informed he was under arrest.

Once handcuffed Walker was searched. Prior to being searched Walker stated as far as I know I dont have nothing on me, but then stated he may have dabs on his person.

During the search Fish located a bag containing both a brown granular substance and a white crystal-like substance that Fish suspected were heroin and methamphetamine, two silicon containers holding a small amount of honey-colored substance consistent with dabs or THC wax, a glass container holding a small amount of honey-colored substance consistent with dabs or THC wax, a device used to grind and roll marijuana cigarettes and containing trace amounts of marijuana, and a straw with a diagonally cut end containing a white powdery substance.

Fish transported Walker to the Juneau County Jail. While booking Walker he spit an orange needle cap onto the counter and said Fish needed to search him better as the cap had been in his mouth the entire time. Walker stated the cap previously contained about a gram of methamphetamine and heroin.

Walker is scheduled for an initial appearance Jan. 19 at the Juneau County Justice Center.

Reach Christopher Jardine on Twitter @ChrisJJardine or contact him at 608-432-6591.

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With billions of dollars worth of projects in the works, Wisconsin lawmakers have introduced a bill that would block competition on long-distance power lines.

The bipartisan bill, opposed by both consumer advocates and the free-market group Americans for Prosperity, comes as the Biden administration launches a major grid modernization effort to deliver clean energy.

Sponsored by Sen. Julian Bradley, R-Franklin, and Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-La Crosse, the bill would give incumbent transmission owners the exclusive right to build any transmission project approved by the Midwest grid operator, known as MISO.

That means the states three transmission utilities would have the exclusive right to add to their networks, which opponents say would boost their profits at ratepayers expense.

The authors have framed the bill as a means of maintaining control over the states transmission development, but a coalition of consumer, industry and free market groups say its simply about protecting utility profits by preventing competitive bidding and will lead to higher energy prices.

Billions could be at stake here for Wisconsin customers, said Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, which represents the states largest electricity customers. This is really terrible public policy.

Multiple states  including Iowa, Minnesota and most recently Michigan  have passed similar legislation in the decade since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) abolished federal anti-competition protections known as right of first refusal. Missouris legislature is expected to take up a similar bill next month.

FERC is now considering more policy reforms that could help prepare the grid to deliver clean energy from remote wind and solar farms while supporting new uses like electric vehicles.

But critics of the anti-competition laws point to a more immediate impetus for the legislation: Later this year MISO is expected to approve a batch of new transmission lines it says will be needed over the next two decades to handle new clean energy sources being built to meet member utilities carbon reduction goals.

Those lines are expected to cost between $30 billion and $100 billion, with the costs being passed on to electricity customers throughout the MISO territory.

Bradleys office provided a statement claiming the bill would protect the state from federal control.

This bill ensures Wisconsin  not DC  controls the expansion and operation of our states electric grid, Bradley said. Neighboring states have chosen to control their grids to ensure reliable energy for their citizens, and its time for Wisconsin to do the same.

The federal government does not directly control the grid but sets ground rules for entities such as MISO, an independent nonprofit organization established in 2001 to operate electricity markets and oversee regional planning in 15 states and one Canadian province.

The bill would not change the state Public Service Commissions role in permitting individual projects, such as the controversial Cardinal-Hickory Creek line under construction between Dubuque, Iowa, and Middleton. It would prohibit MISO from awarding contracts to outside developers.

American Transmission Company, which is owned by a group of distribution utilities including Alliant and Madison Gas and Electric, owns most of Wisconsins transmission network. Xcel Energy and Dairyland operate most of the transmission lines in the western part of the state.

More players needed

While the cost of generating electricity has fallen over the past decade, the cost to deliver it has risen as utilities have made substantial investments in the wires, poles, towers and other equipment, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Power line opponents often point to research suggesting it would be cheaper to clean up the grid with rooftop and smaller community-based solar panels coupled with battery storage, but most experts say transmission additions will be needed to do what climate scientists say is necessary to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

Princeton University researchers say the nation could achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 using existing technology, but doing so could require a transmission system up to three times larger.

Earlier this month the Biden administration announced a major initiative to support the construction of even more long-distance power lines to improve grid reliability and deliver clean energy where its needed.

With transmission buildout gaining momentum, consumer advocates say competition is critical to protecting ratepayers, citing studies and real world examples where competitive bidding reduced costs by more than a third on average and in some cases by as much as half.

Under the competitive bidding process, the winning developer would be held to timelines and budgets spelled out in MISOs contract rather than a monopoly utility telling regulators what the project will cost.

If there is a cost overrun, the developer has to eat it, Stuart said. Contrast that to a line by ATC or Xcel. If they have a cost overrun, they go back to the PSC. I cant remember the last time a cost-overrun was disallowed.

Independent energy consultant Rao Konidena said anti-competition laws are defeating the purpose of participating in a regional market like MISO, where electricity flows across state lines in a system designed to use the cheapest energy available.

Konidena said MISO has dozens of qualified transmission developers  some with experience in high-voltage direct current (or DC) lines, underground lines and technologies that make the best use of wires  that could bring innovation to Wisconsins transmission network if allowed to participate.

Healthy competition will motivate incumbent transmission companies to work with them, Konidena said. We need more players in the field to build transmission. Not fewer.

Anti-competition legislation has also drawn fire from conservatives, including the Trump administration, which argued against a bill in the Texas legislature.

Americans for Prosperity state director Eric Bott said the law would likely violate the dormant commerce clause of the Constitution, which prohibits states from passing protectionist policies that discriminate against non-residents doing business.

I anticipate if this bill were to pass wed be sued the next day, Bott said.

Utilities respond

Utilities say competitive bidding hasnt worked and contend the bill is about maintaining state control, although it would not change the PSCs authority.

A significant amount of investment in transmission infrastructure is necessary to accommodate the ongoing transition to a more diversified energy mix, said ATC spokesperson Alissa Braatz. The proposed legislation, which is similar to laws that are in place in many states surrounding Wisconsin, will maintain the states rights to make these important policy decisions.

A coalition of MISO transmission utilities that includes ATC, Dairyland and Xcel argued to FERC that competitive bidding would significantly delay the clean energy transition.

The Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for the nations investor-owned utilities, has encouraged FERC to reinstate a federal right of first refusal, arguing that its elimination stifled the cooperation and collaboration that has historically existed among transmission owners.

This policy has resulted in a near standstill in transmission development for regional projects, the group wrote, and a substantial increase in process-related costs.
A project that will boost Great Lakes shipping in a crucial bottleneck and another intended to protect the lakes from invasive carp will get big funding increases under the Biden administration's infrastructure package, officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would pump $479 million into construction of a new navigational lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, expanding a complex that enables vessels to haul bulk cargo between Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes.

Additionally, the Corps will devote $226 million to the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Illinois, where plans call for the installation of obstacles to prevent invasive carp from migrating up the Illinois River to Lake Michigan.

The projects have been top priorities for members of Congress from the eight states that border the Great Lakes. The infrastructure measure, which also includes $1 billion to improve water quality, makes the single largest investment ever in the Great Lakes, Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters of Michigan said in a statement.

About 7,000 vessels pass annually through the Soo Locks on the St. Marys River, which connects Lake Superior and Lake Huron and has a 21-foot elevation drop. Two locks are operational but only the Poe Lock can accommodate the biggest freighters, which are around 1,000 feet (305 meters) long.

The industry has long pushed for another, warning that if the Poe were disabled for long, it would disrupt the transport of commodities essential to Midwestern manufacturing.

Nearly all domestically made steel used in automobiles and appliances is produced from iron ore mined in Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula and shipped through the Poe Lock.

The new lock at the Soo will provide much needed resiliency in the Great Lakes navigation system, said Kevin McDaniels, deputy district engineer for the Corps' Detroit District. "It will eliminate the single point of failure in our nations iron ore supply chain.

The new funding will be enough to finish building the $1.3 billion lock, Stabenow and Peters said.

The critical role that Great Lakes waterways play in sustaining and advancing Americas economic vitality cannot be overstated, said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat and chairwoman of the House Energy and Water Subcommittee. The revitalization of the Soo Locks will strengthen Americas commercial shipping capabilities and support good-paying jobs throughout the Industrial Heartland.

The Brandon Road Lock and Dam funding will complete preconstruction, engineering and design work on upgrades to block the path of invasive carp, as well as initial construction. Electric barriers, bubble screens, noisemakers and other devices will be used.

Rivers and canals between the Mississippi and Lake Michigan are infested with carp imported from Asia in the 1960s to clear sewage lagoons and fish farms of algae and weeds. They escaped into the Mississippi River and have spread into its tributaries and are competing with native species for food.

Scientists say an invasion of the Great Lakes would threaten its $7 billion fishing industry.

The new funding is an historic step forward for this critically needed project to add a chain of smart technologies to the waterway that will stop invasive carp from reaching Lake Michigan, said Molly Flanagan, chief operating officer of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
The state Elections Commission and a group of voting rights advocacy organizations on Thursday filed appeals to a Waukesha County judges ruling last week barring the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the state.

Jeffrey Mandell, an attorney with the liberal law firm Law Forward, said one appeal  filed by Disability Rights Wisconsin, League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice  also seeks a stay on Judge Michael Bohrens ruling to allow absentee ballot drop boxes to be used until after the April 5 spring election. Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul also filed an appeal Thursday on behalf of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

An emergency meeting has been scheduled for Friday on the groups motion for a stay. Mandell filed the appeal shortly after Bohrens order was signed Thursday.

State statutes do not address the use of ballot drop boxes, though the Elections Commission issued guidance in early 2020 to allow election clerks to make use of them. The boxes were widely used in the state that year as an alternative for voters worried that, with the crush of absentee ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic and potential delays in mail delivery, their ballots might not make it back before Election Day.

Bohren last week ruled in a case brought by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty that there is no statutory authority to have drop boxes used for the collection of absentee ballots outside of allowed use at an alternate absentee ballot location or at a clerks office.

We are pleased the court made this clear, providing Wisconsin voters with certainty for forthcoming elections, WILL deputy counsel Luke Berg said in a statement last week.

WILL filed the lawsuit last year just days after the state Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling turned back a separate attempt by a major Republican donor to ban the boxes.

(Bohren) says that drop boxes are illegal under Wisconsin law because theyre not mentioned in the statute, but telephones arent mentioned in the Bible and nobody thinks that means they are evil and sinful, Mandell said Thursday. Absentee drop boxes that are secure and properly monitored are an entirely reasonable way for municipal clerks to accept absentee ballot returns. Theres nothing in the state that says to the contrary.

Bohren also said state law only allows absentee ballots to be mailed in or delivered to the clerk in person, a ruling Mandell called an absurd and preposterous interpretation of the law.

If you complete your absentee ballot, sign and seal it and by mistake you leave it on the kitchen table and you ask your spouse to put it in the mail, it cannot be that in that circumstance that you and your spouse have both committed voter fraud, Mandell said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court also could take up the topic of drop boxes in a lawsuit filed last year by Republican gubernatorial candidate and former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch challenging the commissions guidance on drop boxes. The states high court has not said if it will take up the case before it goes through lower courts.

Another lawsuit was filed earlier this month by a Waukesha County resident represented by WILL. The voter is suing the Elections Commission for rejecting a complaint he filed last year regarding ballot drop boxes.
Dr. J. Q. Adams, Educational and Interdisciplinary Studies, has conducted interviews with scholars and activists whose work has advanced the understanding of cultural diversity in the USA. Each of the interviewees offers insights into diversity based on their research and experience.

Rev. C. T. Vivian (SpeakOutNow.org)

Rev. Vivian: Nonviolence is the only alternative to violence in our time. Quoting Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass): Every struggle makes a greater struggle necessary. Thats a deep truth.

Rev. C. T. Vivian, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, discusses his participation in the Civil Rights Movement: lunch-counter sit-ins in Peoria, IL and Rock Hill, SC; seminary studies and nonviolent direct action training in Nashville, TN; the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Wade-in in St. Augustine, FL; Freedom Rides through the South and imprisonment in the State Penitentiary in Jackson, MS.

Rev. Vivian speaks of civil rights leaders with whom he worked, including Rev. Martin Luther King. Rev. James Shuttlesworth, Rev. James Bevel, Dr. James Farmer, and Rev. James Lawson, and others in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He also speaks passionately of nonviolence as the only viable means to effect social justice, of the preparation and motivation that prevented fear from ever becoming a factor in his quest for racial equality, and of the necessity for strong, in-depth education in the development of leaders who understand and embrace nonviolence as the response to violence.

Dr. Ronald Takaki

Dr. Takaki: I think America is coming to terms with [its cultural] diversity. America is recognizing that diversity has become Americas Manifest Destiny.

Dr. Ronald Takaki, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams in Berkeley, CA, discusses a wide range of topics from a multicultural perspective: his upbringing in Hawaii, undergraduate studies at the College of Wooster in Ohio, graduate studies in history at the University of California, Berkeley, the first Black history course at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1967, the comparative ethnic studies program and the multicultural requirement for graduation at UC, Berkeley, his multicultural history of the United States of America, A Different Mirror, and the ongoing research prompted by his commitment to multicultural history based on the personal accounts, the personal stories, of real people.

Professor Takaki discusses his admiration for Dr. Martin Luther King and his interest in the Mississippi Freedom Summer and its 1964 voter registration drive, in slavery and the roots of racial hatred, in the critical contributions of African American Union soldiers during the Civil War, in the WWII internment of Japanese in the USA, the 1965 Watts rebellion, and the governments contemporary detainment and deportation of Muslims. As important are his insights on comparative studies, integrated, interdisciplinary approaches to education, critical thinking, epistemology (knowing how we know what we know), race/ethnicity, cultural diversity, assimilation, colorblindness, equality, and the master narrative of US history.

Dr. Maulana Karenga (Dept. of Africana Studies, California State University, Long Beach, 562-985-5620)

Dr. Karenga: There is no alternative to sharing the world we all live in.

Dr. Maulana Karenga, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at the African American Cultural Center in Los Angeles, California, tells the story of his evolution from the Civil Rights Movement (1955-1965), through the Black Power Movement (1965-1975), to an increasingly inclusive and complex understanding of liberation movements throughout the world. In doing so, he mentions some of the leaders who influenced him, including Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Rev. Martin Luther King, Elijah Muhammad, leader of the American-based Nation of Islam, and Malcolm X, a disciple of Elijah Muhammad who later rejected the Nation of Islam and its separatist doctrine. Dr. Karenga goes on to explain his study of African ethics and the philosophy to which it led. That philosophy, Kawaida, sees culture as the foundation of a peoples identity and purpose and seeks, through continuous dialogue, the best of what it means to be both African and human in the fullest sense.

Kawaida has influenced Dr. Karengas exploration of multiculturalism and of African and African American histories and cultures. It has led as well to his deepening understanding of how critical mutual respect and an ethics of sharing are to genuine multiculturalism. While recognizing that ethical values and truth are inevitably rooted in specific cultures, he indicates that being deeply rooted in ones own culture enables one to search for commonalities among cultures and to embrace an ethics of sharing that values everyone. Though his analysis of multiculturalism and human potential are overwhelmingly positive, he does not ignore the problem of racism; he sees it as a violent imposition, an ideology, and an institutional arrangement that perpetuates inequality.

Mr. Tim Wise (SpeakOutNow. Org)

Mr. Wise on colorblindness: If you say you dont notice color, A. I dont believe you, but B. even if you are telling me the truth, the problem is that kids in your class are experiencing color. I mean theyre experiencing what it is to be black or to be Latino.

Mr. Tim Wise, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, identifies himself as an educator, writer, and activist whose work revolves around race relations, racism, anti-racism, and institutional racism, discrimination, and white privilege. These are the issues he and Dr. Adams explore in this interview; they do so initially as the issues play out in P-12 and higher education. From these perspectives Wise discusses colorblindness, white flight and its impact on student populations, the role of school principals in strengthening the learning of all students, Affirmative Action and white preferences, and the opportunities college offers students who are open to deepening their understanding of their own identities while learning about the cultural identities of others.

Mr. Wise also discusses the fears many whites have of losing their culture in an increasingly multicultural world, a fear exacerbated by what he describes as a perfect storm of racial anxiety brought on by the election of the first USA president of color, an economic meltdown, a demographic transition moving the population from majority white to majority people of color, and a multicultural popular culture. He cautions against racist thinking based on good-bad divisions and on exceptionalism (identified primarily as whites recognizing the abilities and accomplishments of some people of color while maintaining a sense of superiority over most), and he points out the necessity of recognizing the limited lens with which each person views the world. Wise prefers agency to hope, given that hope can remain passive while agency demands action.

Dr. Heather Hackman (www.hackmanconsultinggroup.org)

Dr. Hackman: [A] social justice framework looks at critical thinking; it looks at issues of power and privilege, and in terms of issues of race, . . . it asks questions not just how racism targets folks of color but also asks how white people benefit.

Dr. Heather Hackman, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, discusses her work as a faculty member in the Human Relations and Multicultural Education Department at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and as a workshop facilitator whose primary interest is social justice education. Though aware of the value of diversity education and cultural competence that revolve around the awareness and appreciation of cultural difference and cultural values, Dr. Hackman stresses the importance of social justice in education. When social justice is the goal, educators and students probe more deeply into the historical events and decisions that form the contradictory foundations of the USA, most notably, its democratic ideals and its disenfranchisement of whole segments of its population, including women and people of color.

A social justice framework demands critical thinking: exploration of issues from multiple non-dominant perspectives, rigorous self-reflection, and examination of power and privilege, liberation and oppression. It encompasses a study of the construction of race, of whiteness, and of white privilege. As important: a social justice framework inspires empathy and action. Dr. Hackmans perspective on education and history has been influenced by many scholars and activists, including Paulo Friere, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Dr. Joy DeGruy, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities, and Waziyatawin, who wrote What Does Justice Look Like? One of the resources Dr. Hackman has found valuable in her teaching is the California Newsreel/PBS documentary series RaceThe Power of an Illusion.

Dr. Shakti Butler (world-trust.org)

Dr. Butler: [T]his drive to be human, this drive to grow, this drive to learn and change is alive and well, and I refuse to believe otherwise.

Dr. Shakti Butler, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, discusses her work as a filmmaker and educator who explores issues of oppression, primarily through the lens of race. Her films include The Way Home: Women Talk About Race in America,a distillation of eight months of discussions among 64 women who came together to examine their own and others' perceptions and attitudes about their identities and their place/s in society; Light in the Shadows, in which a small group of women continues the conversation chronicled in The Way Home; and Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, which brings together a number of educators, who are white, to discuss white privilege . Like all of her films, her most recent, Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity, invites viewers to examine the system of racism and white privilege in the USA, in this instance as it permeates personal beliefs and values as well as the societal structures that continue to perpetuate it.

In her interview with Dr. Adams she speaks of colorblindness as a way to undercut the relevance of race by eliminating the language that makes race visible. Her films, as well as books such as Clarence Lusanes The Black History of the White House and Michelle Alexanders The New Jim Crow, counter this by demonstrating how race not only played a role in history but impacts contemporary life. She also addresses the issue of individualism as an unexamined and often invisible USA value that glosses over persistent disparities within the country. Her work puts her in touch with a wide range of young people, with Spoken Word artists, with conscious hip hop artists, and with activists who are using a variety of organizational methods and approaches to make a difference in their particular areas of interest.

Dr. Pedro Noguera (Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development, New York University, pedro.noguera@nyu.edu)

Dr. Noguera on the Achievement Gap: At the most fundamental level the achievement gap is about inequality. It is an educational manifestation of social inequality.

Dr. Pedro Noguera, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, focuses on the need to eliminate the achievement gap experienced primarily by students of color, particularly black male students. He sees it as an allocation gap and a preparation gap as well as a gap between parents and teachers, between teachers and students, and between ability and performance. In discussing this multifaceted issue, he repeatedly comes back to the central role relationships play in education and the needon the part of teacher education programs--to prepare teachers to establish bonds of trust and respect between themselves and their students. As an essential and integral aspect of teaching, establishing relationships demands teachers understand their students cultures and meet them where they are rather than vice versa. To accomplish this, teachers must listen to their students and colleagues, enter into dialogue with them, and, as Paulo Freire advocated, maintain open minds.

Defining education as a civil rights issue, Dr. Noguera identifies the responsibilities the federal government, state governments, teachers unions, school boards, and local administrators have to ensure quality education for all children. He is confident we know how to educate all kinds of people and is able to give examples of successful schools even among those most frequently stereotyped as likely-to-fail (schools in the Brownsville, TX school district and PS138 in New York City), but he can also identify the biggest obstacle to comprehensive quality education: politics.

Dr. James A. Banks (Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle, jbanks@uw.edu)

Dr. Banks on the challenge of education: How do we prepare students . . . to live in a world where theres shared dominance and shared coalitions and where decisions are made not by just Western nations?

Dr. James A. Banks, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, chronicles his professional evolution from African American studies to ethnic studies to multicultural education and his increasing interest in cultural diversity as it plays out globally as well as nationally. Widely recognized as the Father of Multicultural Education, he has focused many of his publications, most specifically the Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education, the four-volume Encyclopedia of Multicultural Education, and the Multicultural Education Series he edits for Teachers College Press, to help institutionalize the field of study. He allows that it is always a struggle, given the hegemony that persists despite a growing population of people of color whose presence is essential for the continuing vitality of the USA.

Dr. Banks points out that nations tend to resist change until it is in their best interest to change. The USA is no exception. Up to now, the USA has been able to survive well asserting its hegemonic perspective in global contexts and to prosper as a predominantly monolingual nation, but the growth in prominence and power of other countries is repositioning the USA vis a vis the dominance it has exercised. Greater diversity within the country as well as increased power sharing among nations reinforces the need for educators to teach students to be flexible and to think deeply as they encounter an increasingly diverse nation and world. The challenge for educators is to help create a world in which people enjoy flexible citizenship and can move in and out of a world characterized by multiple hegemonies, coalitions, and shared decision making.

Dr. Paul Gorski (New Century College, George Mason University, pgorski1@gmu.edu

Dr. Gorski: I think we need to take the schools back [from corporate interests] and I think the best way to do that is to work with local communities.

Dr. Paul Gorski, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, discusses the necessity to replace a deficit model of education with a greater focus on critical inquiry and equity. He describes the deficit model as one that identifies students and teachers as problems within the educational system, blaming them for lack of progress or success and shifting attention from inequitable educational opportunities to inaccurate cultural stereotypes. Because he sees this deficit model as favoring corporate interests and an attempt to shift education from public community responsibility to private control and profit, he reframes the discussion about educational reform around an understanding of equity literacy, challenging educators to recognize inequity within the system and to redress this inequity in the long as well as the short term.

Dr. Gorski points out that, though educational leaders themselves must value critical thinking before they can expect teachers and students to make it a priority, critical analysis, especially when it leads to challenges to the system, is not rewarded on the educational track to leadership. Aware of this, he is attempting to bridge the gap between scholarly analysis and pragmatic demands through his writing. As important, however, is building community among all segments of the educational world, including teachers, students, and parents. Increasingly this has become the focus of his work, organizing people around interrelated social justice issues, whether these are identified primarily as economic, environmental, or educational.
Woodward, OK (73801)

Today

Scattered thunderstorms in the morning, then mainly cloudy during the afternoon with thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High 64F. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. Low 49F. Winds NE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
New Assistant Chief Constable for North Wales Police announced

This article is old - Published: Friday, Jan 21st, 2022

Chief Constable Carl Foulkes says he is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Allsop as the Forces new Assistant Chief Constable.

He said: I am delighted to appoint Chris to this crucial role and look forward to warmly welcoming him to North Wales. Chris has a wealth of experience in a range of policing roles and I have no doubt he will be a valuable asset to the Chief Officer team.

Chris, who is currently a Chief Superintendent with Greater Manchester Police (GMP), was successfully selected on Monday this week following an appointment process.

He said: Im really excited to be joining the team and working towards making North Wales the safest place in the United Kingdom.

In the build up to the recruitment process I had the privilege to meet so many dedicated, passionate and talented people who are focussed on serving people in communities across North Wales. I am looking forward to working alongside them.

I want to also say a big thank you to everybody at Greater Manchester Police who I have worked alongside over the last twenty-two years. I wish the organisation all the best for the future.

Since starting his policing career with GMP in 2000 Chris has taken on a broad range of policing roles both in uniform and as a detective, ranging across local investigation, public protection, major crime and counter terrorism.

A strategic firearms, public order and multi-agency gold incident commander, Chris has experience managing large scale events and critical incidents.

He has undertaken a number of Local Policing command roles in some of the most diverse areas of Greater Manchester and has experience of leading in complex, dynamic and political environments to bring about long term change to help make communities safer.

Chris will take up his ACC post in North Wales next month.
Removing Plan B rules in England just a headline to distract from Boris Johnsons failings says Mark Drakeford

This article is old - Published: Friday, Jan 21st, 2022

First Minister Mark Drakeford has said the decision to end Plan B restrictions in England next week is not part of a careful, long term plan but its a headline to distract peoples attention from the Prime Ministers failings.

Wales will complete the move to alert level zero on 28 January, First Minister Mark Drakeford has confirmed, unless the public health situation changes for the worse.

He said the phased plan to gradually relax the alert level two measures and move back to alert level zero will continue.

The Welsh Conservatives have called for the immediate removal of the vaccine passport scheme, restrictions on businesses such as the rule of six in pubs, ditch all social distancing and the removal of mandatory face masks in schools.

Critics have questioned the Welsh Government policy to ease restrictions at a slower pace than England.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced earlier this week that Englands Plan B measures are to end from next Thursday, with mandatory face coverings in public places and Covid passports both dropped.

But that announcement came as the Prime Minister faced mounting pressure to resign amid allegations of parties held at Number 10 during lockdown.

FM Mark Drakeford said the move in England to ditch those restrictions was not part of a carefully thought-out plan, speaking to BBC Radio Wales he said: I dont think anybody watching objectively at what has happened in England could imagine that their decisions have been made by careful attention to public health advice and with some sort of long term plan in place.

Their announcements this week are entirely due to the astonishing mess that they find themselves in and an effort to find some other headline to distract peoples attention from the Prime Ministers failings.

Mr Drakeford said: Here in Wales were in a very different position, weve got a government that is capable of making decisions in line with the advice, to do things in the way weve done throughout the pandemic, step by step following the science, making sure that we are keeping people in Wales safe.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Mark Drakeford said it was very hard to see how the Prime Minister survives.
Press Release

January 21, 2022 Drilon urges Duterte to direct reluctant Acosta to get vaccinated

'The Filipino people who are weighing whether to get the shots or not will be more confused Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon urged the President to direct Public Attorneys Office (PAO) Chief Persida Acosta to get vaccinated against COVID-19. "Before you convince the Filipino people to get the vaccine, you must first convince each member of your government to get the shot. The President must persuade Acosta that the vaccine that he is giving to millions of Filipinos is safe and necessary in order for us to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic," Drilon said on Friday. "Otherwise, the credibility of your vaccination programs will suffer and people will be more reluctant to get the shots," he added. Acosta's colleagues in government had also called on the PAO chief to get vaccinated including Health Secretary Francisco Duque III. Drilon said Acosta can raise all legal issues as long as she wants "but the issue here that she failed to realize is she is a member of the administration and is bound to follow the policy of the government." "Acosta can cite all the provisions in the Constitution and the law and we are prepared to counter that," said Drilon. "However, to me, it's not just an issue of legality, the more pressing issue here is the credibility of the government's vaccination program." "She is a key member of the administration, a very vocal one with a huge following, but she contradicts and opposes the President's major policy of vaccination head-on," the former executive and justice secretary said. "Paano mo mapapasunod ang taumbayan na magpabakuna kung ang inyong kasama sa inyong pamahalaan ay sinasabi na walang karapatan na pilitin akong magkaroon ng bakuna. Masamang ehemplo po," Drilon said in a radio interview. "The Filipino people who are weighing whether to get the shots or not will be more confused with Acosta going to town announcing that she is not vaccinated and that the policy of the government restricting mobility of the unvaccinated is unconstitutional," Drilon said in a statement. The minority leader said that given the country's low vaccination rate, "the government needs the least right now is a government official going to town announcing that she is not vaccinated." "Her action does not augur well for our government's efforts to ramp-up vaccination rate," he added. A recent report published by the World Bank's Philippine office that claimed that "vaccination continued to lag regional peers" in the Philippines. Goldman Sachs study also showed that the Philippines was among Asia-Pacific's laggards in mass vaccination, with only 54 percent of its population fully vaccinated as of January 13, while China has a vaccination rate of 90 percent; Singapore, 89 percent; South Korea, 87 percent; Australia, Japan, and Vietnam, 80 percent; Malaysia and Taiwan, 79 percent; New Zealand, 78 percent; Thailand, 73 percent; Hong Kong, 67 percent; India, 65 percent, and Indonesia, 63 percent.
Eddie Jameson, 27, is charged with false impersonation and five counts of identity theft.
A report Thursday in the Guardian cites testimony from former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, as well as unnamed sources close to the House committee investigating the attempted coup of January 6, 2021, which revealed that in the days leading up to the attack, Trump held secret, off-the-record meetings at his residence inside the White House, not his office, which were only known to a few high-level staff members.

The former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. Credit Andrew Harnik AP

While the details of what was discussed or who attended the meetings are unknown at this time, the Guardian reported that Grisham, who testified before the select committee last week, said that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and White House Chief Usher Timothy Harleth, a longtime Trump family loyalist, facilitated the secret meetings.

Grisham, who resigned in the wake of the failed coup, said the meetings were mostly scheduled by Meadows, while Harleth would lead the participants upstairs to Trumps private quarters, according to the Guardian.

Meadows has already been found in contempt of Congress for his refusal to cooperate with the select committee. Before accepting Trumps offer to work in the White House in 2017, Harleth, who has not yet been subpoenaed by the committee, worked as a rooms manager at the Trump International Hotel D.C.

In a November 13, 2021 interview with CNNs Jim Acosta, Grisham said the secret meetings helped the scheming and paranoid Trump keep track of leaks and allowed avoiding the visits from being recorded by the National Archives, which routinely archives all White House logs.

Trump held the off-the-books meetings primarily so that he could keep track of who was in there and that if it leaked out, he could try to figure that out, Grisham explained.

But number two, so that it was very much kept off the books and document and anything that was written down could probably be thrown in the trash where people cant come and retrieve them to put into the archives.

She added: That happened quite a bit and Im sure the select committee is aware of that and is looking into that.

While Trump no doubt intended that the meetings remain secret, the Guardian reported that Grisham told the select committee that Trumps movements would still be logged by the U.S. Secret Service in a database referred to as the presidential line-by-line.

These logs, Grisham explained, would also show Trumps intentions regarding his decision not to join his supporters in marching down to the Capitol on January 6, after telling them during his speech that he would.

Were going to walk down, and Ill be there with you, were going to walk down ... were going to walk down to the Capitol, Trump told the right-wing crowd, which included far-right militia members, white supremacists and other fascists, at the January 6 Save America rally held outside the White House.

The Guardian also reported that Grisham explained to the committee the high-level coordination that took place between the Trump White House, the Secret Service and the organizers of the Save America rally. This was done apparently to ensure Trumps appearance.

The former Trump aide told the committee that Trump was constantly on the phone with organizers of the rally. He apparently took great interest in the optics and was determined to speak at the rally, the paper reported.

Grishams closed-door testimony demonstrates that there is much more to be learned about the events leading up January 6, evidence not covered in the latest legal battle between Trump and the House Select Committee, which ended in a comprehensive defeat for the ex-president on Wednesday at the Supreme Court.

In an 8-1 ruling, the high court, including the three far-right members Trump personally appointed, refused his request to block the release of White House documents related to the attack on the Capitol sought by the select committee. The ruling covers hundreds of pages of logs, memos and notes taken by top White House aides during the January 6 attack and the days leading up to it.

Whatever the significance of the specific items, the substance and timing of the courts ruling are a major blow to Trump. He had hoped either for an affirmation of his right to withhold documents and block testimony by aides and former aides, through a sweeping assertion of executive privilege.

Since the creation of the select committee, Trumps lawyers have essentially been arguing that all communications Trump had with anyone during his time in office, whether it dealt with matters of national security or overthrowing the election of Joe Biden, were protected by executive privilege.

Even if he did not win outright, Trump had hoped that the Supreme Court would proceed so slowly that the process would be delayed until after the November elections, when the Republican Party may win control of the House. In that event, the new majority would dissolve the select committee, end the investigation and quash the subpoenas. Instead, the court ruled quickly, issuing a one-paragraph ruling that left him without any legal recourse. The National Archives is expected to turn over the documents soon.

The court did not even address the conflict between Trumps claim of executive privilege and Bidens decision to waive executive privilege for all official documents relating to January 6. Previous court precedents suggest that the sitting president has a near-absolute priority over an ex-president in such claims of privilege.

In their brief order the court declared that since President Trumps claim would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as former president necessarily made no difference to the courts decision. Only arch-conservative Clarence Thomas sided with Trump, and he issued no opinion to explain his vote.

The courts ruling came shortly after the House Select Committee announced its latest batch of subpoenas, this time targeting America First fascists Nicholas Fuentes and Patrick Casey. Leading an anti-Semitic grouping calling themselves Groypers, the pair were at the Capitol on January 6, along with roughly 50 other associates. Fuentes and Casey also participated in the Stop the Steal rallies in the leadup to January 6.

Fuentes has repeatedly boosted and in turn been promoted by fascist Arizona Republican politicians, Representative Paul Gosar and State Senator Wendy Rogers, with the former speaking at a Fuentes-sponsored event last spring following the coup.

In his letter to Fuentes, Mississippi Democrat and Chairman of the committee Bennie Thompson pointed to the fascists appearance outside the Capitol on January 6: You called on your followers to continue occupying the Capitol until the election results were overturned, and proclaimed a Glorious day on your Twitter ... The next day, you wrote on Twitter, The capitol Siege was f***ing awesome and Im not going to pretend it wasnt.

Thompson also drew attention to a $250,000 donation Fuentes received from a French neo-Nazi less than a month before the attempted coup. In his letter to Casey, Thompson wrote that Casey had received $25,000 in Bitcoin from the same neo-Nazi.
A total of 3,896 men, women and children were reported dead on Friday from the coronavirus pandemic, as reported by the BNO News COVID-19 monitor. Those same figures show that COVID-19 deaths in the US have increased by 14.7 percent in the past seven days, the vast majority caused by the Omicron variant.

Hospitals across the US overflowing with COVID-19 patients

COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States have reached an all-time high with nearly 159,000 Americans currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released Thursday. Across the country 21,000 people are being admitted to hospitals each day. Currently more than 26,000 patients are in intensive care units (ICUs) nationwide.

Members of the Maine National Guard are briefed outside Central Maine Medical Center, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, in Lewiston, Maine. Gov. Janet Mills has deployed additional National Guard to several Maine hospital to assist with care of COVID patients.(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The number of hospitalizations is expected to remain high for weeks to come as they lag behind infections. Currently an average of 760,000 people are being infected with the highly contagious Omicron variant every day.

Hospitals across the US are buckling under the crush of admissions, sending out pleas for help, and in some cases shuttering doors to incoming patients as health systems reach the point of collapse. In addition to record-breaking COVID-19 admissions, systems are further strained with large portions of the health care workforce ill and on leave due to COVID-19 infections among themselves and family members.

California

In Southern California, Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center and Scripps Mercy Hospital, two hospitals near the US-Mexico border, were so overwhelmed this week that they refused to accept any more patients and declared internal disaster status.

Scripps Mercy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ghazala Sharieff told NBC 7 that the hospital was so crowded, patients were overflowing into hallways and surgery recovery rooms. The Sharp health system noted that more than 1,000 health workers were out due to coronavirus-related reasons.

Nurse Sandra Beltran told the Los Angeles Times Thursday that at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in the Sylmar neighborhood of Los Angeles, patients were at times waiting 20 to 30 hours for a bed after arriving in the emergency room, creating a long domino effect as the systems become compounded with skyrocketing numbers of patients needing care. She also noted that People are being seen in the hallway Its tiring. Youre literally, for 12 hours, going from room to room.

Demand for emergency care has reached new heights not seen even in last winters devastating surge. Last week California was averaging nearly 47,000 visits a day in its emergency rooms while a year ago the figure was 32,000.

Orange County public health officials report that at least 15 child patients are battling COVID-19 at Childrens Hospital of Orange County, the highest number ever. Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, told a press conference this week that 14 of the 15 children hospitalized are in the intensive care unit. A third child under five died in December from COVID-19 complications.

Georgia

At Georgias largest hospital, workers describe a nightmare of wall-to-wall stretchers in the emergency room. Dr. Robert Jansen, chief medical officer at Grady Health System, where capacity is at 110 percent, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, We have no capacity left in the hospital. The Grady Hospital has been forced to divert ambulances to other hospitals. That has a huge impact on the rest of the city, Jansen noted, because Grady is the trauma center for Atlanta.

One of the myths we keep hearing is that it isnt that serious, Jansen said. Perhaps it isnt for some folks who are lucky. But COVID-19 is having a tremendous impact on underlying disease. For those patients who have other diseases such as heart failure, diabetes, sickle cell anemia or are immunocompromised, if they get infected, they get incredibly sick.

A handful of top doctors in Atlanta made extraordinary pleas on Thursday to the public, stressing the need for vaccination, boosters and measures to reduce coronavirus infections. Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta physician Dr. Andrea Shane informed the public about the terrible rise in pediatric hospitalizations. In the past three, four weeks, weve seen more than a hundred children with post-COVID complications, Shane told WSB-TV, stressing, The way to prevent MIS-C is to prevent COVID-19.

Texas

Meanwhile, smaller cities and rural areas are crying for help as their hospitals cannot provide higher-level care which is needed for severe COVID-19 infections. In Laredo, Texas, the citys health authority, Dr. Victor Trevino, said that his biggest concern was how the Omicron variant infects greater numbers of children under 18 and that the city still lacks a pediatric ICU. Trevino noted that a six-week-old baby tested positive for a COVID-19 infection and was being treated at an emergency room.

We will not be able to handle another week of this without additional staff, he told the Laredo Morning Times.Northeast

Northeast

The situation has become so dire at health systems across the country that in numerous states the National Guard has been called in while states make calls for volunteers to come into hospitals.

Yesterday the Delaware Healthcare Association (DHA) issued a statewide call for volunteer signups to assist in the states hospitals. In times of crisis, Americans have always come forward and pitched in, Wayne Smith, DHA president & CEO, wrote in a statement. The hour of need is upon us. Delaware hospitals need your help to meet the great challenge that visits us and must be met. The COVID-19 crisis strains hospital staff and resources. WE NEED YOUR HELP!

In Maine, 169 Army National Guard members began arriving at hospitals Thursday to assist with non-clinical roles such as patient transport and cleaning.

The short staffing pertains not just to nurses, but entire hospital systems are breaking down as lab workers, janitorial staff and cafeteria staff go out sick. The procurement of lab results or clean linens are difficult and further delay care as patients begin to fill hallways. Patients are sometimes waiting days to be admitted and get a bed.

The situation at health systems has reached such a breaking point that numerous hospitals are making plans to convert pediatric ICUs at childrens hospitals into adult ICUs within the coming months. Tufts Childrens Hospital in Massachusetts announced yesterday that it will close down its childrens services and convert 41 pediatric beds to adult medical/surgical and ICU beds in response to changing patient needs.

As hospitals are strained, patients in need of critical care are having to wait for long hours and even days for critical care.

Tony Tsantinis, 68, died at Harrington Hospital in Southbridge, Massachusetts, last month from COVID-19 after his kidneys started to fail and the hospital was unable to provide dialysis. What was needed was a bed that could provide a higher level of care. Seventeen other hospitals were called to see if they could treat Tsantinis, but they were all full and he could not obtain access to a bed and soon died.

His daughter Rona Tsantinis-Roy told NPR that when a doctor delivered the tragic news that her father was dead, he literally looked me in the eyes and said this didnt have to happen. Her father may very well have survived if he had been able to be transferred to another hospital.

Two years after the initial discovery of COVID-19 and a year after the distribution of vaccines began, hospitals are in the worst condition they have seen. In addition to short staffing due to illness, many nurses and health care workers have resigned after years of suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The Biden administration has not made any great effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, instead adopting the herd immunity policies pursued by the Trump administration. Instead of raising the alarm as the globe learned about the new Omicron variant, the ruling class insisted on the mild character of the variant, and have doubled down on keeping schools and workplaces open as the virus spreads like wildfire through the population. The mass illness and 2,000 lives lost each day to COVID-19 must be seen as a social crime carried out against the working class.
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) encourages high school youth to contact us today to share the conditions in your school and to get involved in the fight against unsafe school reopenings!

Across the United States, as millions of students return to unsafe classrooms amid the surge of the virulent Omicron variant, young people have taken a stand against the campaign to keep schools open even as mass infection and death spread throughout the country.

On Thursday, hundreds of students in the Round Rock School District (RRISD) just outside Austin, Texas, walked out of classes in protest of the districts COVID-19 policies. In the days leading up to the walkout, a petition started among Cedar Ridge High School students and then passed around to other high schools and middle schools gained more than 600 signatures.

RRISD students have demanded the following:

The district reimplement contact tracing and notifies close contacts

A mask mandate enforced

KN95/N95 masks are to be provided in schools for every student

Rapid or PCR tests are provided every two weeks for each person on campus

All students are provided outdoor spaces to eat, even when it rains.

An Instagram account associated with the movement called on students to meet outside of their schools for socially-distanced protests after 10 a.m. before going home. Protest organizers said they were motivated by student and staff safety. According to the organizers, RRISD schools had a total of 1,116 COVID-19 cases on January 18 alone.

A Round Rock High School senior told local reporters from KXAN News that things werent going to get better until we took a stand.

We care about student safety, we care about faculty safety, and we need the district to listen to us. We need a mask mandate thats actually enforced.

Another student expressed concerns about the possibility of getting sick.

There are kids who dont wear masks at all throughout the day, and I dont feel safe, the student said. I dont want to get sick and get my family sick.

On the same day students from Denver Public Schools (DPS) announced their intention to walk out of classes until the school district meets their demands for COVID-19 safety precautions.

No student should feel scared and have to sacrifice their health or their familys health to get an education. We are speaking up and taking action so that we can be comfortable going to school, the students said in a January 12 letter outlining their concerns.

What is on the table? Our list of what we believe are reasonable demands to keep us safe and combat the health effects both staff and students fear getting every day we attend school, they said.

Students demanded the district provide all students with masks, HEPA filtration and proper airflow in classrooms, twice-weekly COVID testing for students attending in-person learning, integrated learning for sick students or those wishing to stay home, and weather-protected outdoor spaces for safe lunches.

They asked the DPS to publicly acknowledge that you will meet our demands by Jan. 20 or students would walk out of school that day and will continue to walk until we see the change we need! We are willing to risk our education and walk out if it means we are protecting our health!

Thursdays walkouts come in the wake of a week of similar student-led demonstrations across the US. Thousands of students from around the Chicago Public Schools system walked out of classes last Friday and marched to the systems headquarters in downtown Chicago to demand a return to remote learning and proper testing and contact tracing in schools.

Students at Franklin High School in Seattle walked out last Friday, calling for similar increased safety measures such as remote learning, free masks and testing, and daily updates to the districts COVID-19 Dashboard. Teachers at Chief Sealth International High School also staged a sickout to protest the unsafe conditions inside Seattles public schools.

On Tuesday, hundreds of students from all eight of St. Paul, Minnesotas high schools, along with some middle school students, walked out of classrooms to protest the Saint Paul Public School (SPPS) districts resumption of in-person learning.

On the same day, students in Oakland, California, began boycotting classes over demands for stronger safety protocols in their district. Over 1,200 students from the Oakland Unified School District signed a petition demanding the transition to virtual learning unless the district provides masks to every student and provides twice-weekly rapid and PCR testing in schools.

Courageous youth are already in the process of planning future protests demanding safer classrooms, creatively mobilizing through group chats, Google Docs, and social media campaigns. Students in Broward County and Miami-Dade County in Florida are organizing walkouts with the same demands put forward by students across the US.

However, students are not alone in their struggle. Chicago schools were forced to cancel classes for five days last week when 25,000 teachers fought to cancel the resumption of in-person classes. University of Oregon graduate teachers, students, and community members rallied in support of the graduate student union calling for safer working and learning conditions.

The fight to close the schools and stem the spread of COVID is intertwined with the growing class struggle in the US and internationally, where workers and students alike demand their lives be prioritized over profit. Successfully carrying out this fight requires the expansion of rank-and-file safety committees into every school and workplace to link up and direct the ever-growing opposition to the pandemic.
A leaked internal document has revealed that a large portion of the workforce at Amazons JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island in New York City were out due to COVID-19 last week. Of the 6,000 workers at the facility, the document lists 552 workers as being on LeaveWithPayone week paid leave after testing positive for COVID-19and 1,254 on unpaid Leave, some of which may also be COVID-related. JFK8 is only one of four Amazon facilities in a larger Staten Island complex.

An Amazon fulfillment center (Wikimedia Commons)

Last month, the New York state attorney general belatedly ordered the JFK8 warehouse to increase its preventive measures against infection, though this call has clearly proved to be wholly inadequate.

Amazon is notorious for having an extremely high turnover rate of 3 percent per week, or 156 percent annually, due to the hellish conditions. However, the raging pandemic is straining Amazons ability to maintain a sufficient workforce. The document indicates that already more than 200 new warehouse employees have been hired since the beginning of this year alone.

Workers also report being subjected to mandatory overtime at the plant, presumably due to the staffing shortages. In response, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), which is trying to unionize JFK8, tweeted, Theyre now calling for mandatory overtime, increasing exposure for remaining healthy workers. The company sends out daily COVID-19 notifications that are intentionally misleading. Only dates that positive cases occurred are reported, and the company refuses to disclose the exact number of cases.

The ALU has recently made a second filing of a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to schedule a representation election, this time only for the JFK8 warehouse as opposed to the entire complex, which was included in the original filing. An earlier petition was rejected by the NLRB on the basis that it failed to meet the mandatory 30 percent threshold of signatures from the whole workforce. The ALU is set to have an NLRB hearing later this month on January 28.

Amazon is notorious for not providing data on the spread of COVID throughout its workforce to the public and only very limited data to its employees. Last November, the company settled a lawsuit brought by the California attorney general which charged it with concealing the number of COVID cases in its warehouses from its workers. The last time Amazon announced even the total number of infections in its US workforce was in October of 2020, when it was 20,000. The total has undoubtedly increased many times over since then.

Indeed, the figures indicated in the leaked document must be taken as a minimum, since it is likely that many Amazon workers feel compelled to come to work for economic reasons given the companys totally inadequate COVID paid-leave policy. It is well documented that individuals remain infectious beyond the Center for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) newly recommended five-day quarantine period, and workers have reported extreme difficulties in getting approval from the company to qualify for paid leave.

Early in the pandemic, Amazon established on-site testing facilities, but these were eliminated last summer during the relative lull prior to the Delta wave. Workers have been left to get tested on their own. Mask mandates were relaxed at that time for those who were vaccinated, and other safety precautions were eliminated, with Amazon claiming that these moves were in compliance with changes in CDC guidance.

According to Amazon, nearly a third of the workforce for the whole Staten Island complex, including JFK8, are not documented as having received even one dose of vaccine.

Amazons profits, meanwhile, are hitting record highs, with the latest figures showing profits of $3.2 billion in the quarter ending in September 2021. The earnings were up 15 percent from the same period in 2020, which itself was a record-earning year for the company.

In order to combat the continued attacks on their working conditions and their safety, Amazon workers need independent, fighting organizations under their control. These organizations must strongly oppose the sickening pandemic profiteering taking place under capitalism and be oriented towards a socialist perspective based on the urgent needs of the entire working class, not what the capitalist class is willing to part with.

The ALU has close connections to and is oriented toward the pro-corporate and pro-capitalist AFL-CIO unions and the Democratic Party, which seek to block the growing upsurge in the working class and have forced workers back to unsafe jobs amid the Omicron surge.

Amazon workers in New York, as well as across the US and internationally, should follow the example of the Baltimore Amazon Workers Rank-and-File Safety Committee, which formed last year against Amazons efforts to expose them to the deadly disease in order to accumulate profit. These independent rank-and-file committees must link up and unify across workplaces, industries and borders, and fight for a scientific strategy of global elimination of COVID-19 and the rejection of capitalisms demand that private profit be prioritized before human life.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolys two-day trip to Ukraine this week underlined Ottawas full-throated support for the US-led imperialist war drive against Russia. Unlike most of the imperialist political leaders descending on Kiev in recent days, Joly went out of her way to proclaim her countrys support for Ukraines prospective NATO membership, a move that would be interpreted by Moscow as akin to an open declaration of war.

Canadian Armed Forces personnel training Ukrainian troops (CAF-Operation Unifier)

Asked by Radio Canada what her message would be to Ukrainian government officials, Joly replied, I [will] tell them that first of all, Canadas position has not changed. We believe that Ukraine should be able to join NATO. She added that her visit was aimed at showing the Trudeau Liberal governments unwavering solidarity with Ukraines far-right, pro-western regime, which idolizes Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera and has integrated fascist militias into its armed forces.

Jolys incendiary remarks give the lie to the claim, incessantly repeated in the mainstream media, that the crisis in Ukraine has been produced by Russian aggression. The reality is that in the thirty years since the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union and reintroduced capitalism, the imperialist powers have vastly expanded their influence throughout Eastern Europe and encircled Russia militarily. NATOs territory has moved 800 miles eastward, and the US-led military alliance now has troops positioned in the Baltic republics on Russias border. Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that Ukraines membership of NATO is a red line.

The provocative character of Jolys demand that Ukraine be made a NATO member becomes even clearer when one considers the character of Ukraines ruling elite. Riven by the internal conflicts within Ukraines fabulously wealthy and corrupt oligarchy, and widely despised by the countrys impoverished population, President Volodymyr Zelenskys government is a crisis-ridden and extremely unstable regime. The same day Joly touched down in Kiev, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko returned to the country to face charges of sedition for sanctioning, while president, the purchase of coal from pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

The danger that Kiev, emboldened by the backing it has received from Washington, Ottawa, and the European imperialist powers, could launch a reckless attack on Russia to divert attention from social and political turmoil is real and growing. If this scenario occurred with Ukraine as a NATO member, the Canadian, US, and European militaries would be obligated under the alliances collective defence rules to come to Kievs military support, triggering a conflagration between nuclear-armed powers that would put the very survival of humanity on the line.

Joly made clear that Canada would provide the right-wing Kiev regime with hundreds of millions of dollars in loans. Noting that Canada has already provided Ukraine with $245 million in loans since 2014 as well as hundreds of millions in foreign aid, Joly left little doubt that the new financial package would be used to strengthen Ukraines readiness for war. We are ready to  offer financial resources to Ukraine because we know that the Russian threat creates a form of economic instability, and that has an impact on state revenue and the ability of the Ukrainian government to finance its approach.

Contrary to the bogus propaganda about Canada financing democracy and judicial reform in Ukraine, the approach of Kiev over recent years obliquely referred to by Joly has been to whip up virulent anti-Russian nationalism and integrate fascistic militias into its police and security forces. A study by George Washington University last year revealed that Canadian and US military personnel were training members of the fascist Centuria group at Ukraines National Army Academy, a military school for future army officers. Centuria functions as a faction of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, with which Canadian officials held a direct meeting in 2018. (See: Canadian Armed Forces providing military training to Ukrainian neo-Nazis)

After backing the fascist-spearheaded coup in Kiev in 2014, which overthrew the elected pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and brought a pro-Western government to power, Canada sent 200 troops to Ukraine to train its armed forces. Joly made it abundantly clear during her trip that this deployment, scheduled to expire in March, will be extended.

A report in yesterdays Globe and Mail confirmed that the Trudeau government plans to announce an extension of the deployment for at least six months next week and could expand the number of Canadian Armed Forces personnel involved. The warship HMCS Montreal has already been deployed to join NATOs provocative military operations in the Black Sea. Ottawa is also considering sending small arms, night-vision goggles, military radios, and armoured vests to the Ukrainian military. The Canadian Security Establishment, a key player in the US-led Five Eyes global spying network, could also begin supplying Kiev with intelligence and cyber-security support. The Globe noted that Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, an anti-Russia hawk whose grandfather, Michael Chomiak, edited a pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist newspaper during World War II, is heavily involved in the deliberations over additional Canadian support for Kiev. So too, is Canadian Armed Forces head Wayne Eyre.

Trudeau is in talks with the US and Britain, which announced it would send anti-tank missiles to Kiev earlier this week, on a package of economic sanctions against Russia that US President Joe Biden described Wednesday as punishing. Turning reality on its head, Trudeau told a press briefing, We are working with our international partners and colleagues to make it very, very clear that Russian aggression is absolutely unacceptable.

During Jolys trip, media reports confirmed that a group of Canadian Special Forces troops was recently dispatched to Ukraine.

In another provocative move, the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a crown corporation that supports Canadian firms in securing foreign government contracts, announced last week it plans to back the construction of an ammunition factory in Ukraine. The facility, which would be operated by several Ontario-based firms, would manufacture small arms, and be supported by $60 million in government funds.

Canadas fulsome support for Kiev reflects its determination to strengthen its eight decade-long military-strategic partnership with Washington, which is leading the charge of the imperialist powers towards war with Russia. But it would be wrong to see Canada as simply playing a supporting role to US imperialisms insane drive to retain its global hegemony. Ottawa has its own imperialist interests at stake, including its close ties to far-right regimes in Ukraine and the Baltic republics.

The Canadian ruling elite is also determined to push back Russian influence in the Arctic, which is assuming growing geostrategic and economic significance due to climate change. Last August, Trudeau reached an agreement with the Biden administration to modernize NORAD, the Canada-US North American aerospace and maritime defence command, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. A key objective of the modernization is to strengthen North American continental military capabilities to counter so-called over the horizon threats so as to wage a winnable nuclear war against Russia or China.

The drumbeat for war with Russia is coming from all sides within the Canadian political establishment. Media reports on an almost daily basis contain lurid claims about an imminent or looming Russian invasion. The only evidence ever provided to back up these assertions is that Russia has carried out troop movements on its own sovereign territory. This war-mongering propaganda is accompanied by the never-ending media campaign against China.

The establishment parties unanimously endorse the anti-Russian course. In a statement released on the eve of Jolys Kiev trip, Conservative leader Erin OToole demanded that Trudeau reject capitulation to President Putins aggression. He urged the government to adopt Magnitsky sanctions against those responsible for Russian aggression and provide Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons.

New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh demanded targeted sanctions against Russia. NDP foreign affairs spokesperson Heather McPherson suggested her party would be prepared to support sending weapons to the Ukraine at a future date but called for more diplomatic efforts to be tried first. I dont think this is the time to be giving arms to the Ukraine, she commented. The NDP has consistently backed Canadas military deployment to Ukraine and strongly endorsed Jolys visit to Ukraine this week. I am very happy that Minister Joly has taken it upon herself to go to Ukraine at this time, said McPherson. It is absolutely vital that Canada do everything (it) can to work to deter Russia.
The Denver District Court issued a temporary restraining order against striking workers at the King Soopers supermarket chain this week. The injunction against the strike is the latest escalation by the company to try and break the strike and enforce concessions on the 8,400 workers striking in the Denver Metro area.

King Soopers workers on the picket line (source: Twitter/@MorePerfectUS)

The granting of the temporary injunction limits the number of picketers who may be on company property to 10 and presents severe legal challenges for any strikers accused of breaching the terms of the restraining order. The court will also conduct a second round of hearings soon to determine if the evidence presented by King Soopers is adequate for the passage of a permanent injunction against the strikers.

Included in the restraining order motion were dozens of unproven allegations against striking workers, accusing them of conducting acts of violence and harassment against customers and workers.

Many of the allegations border on the comical. One alleged incident states that workers huddled in front of the store and that approximately half of the approaching customers turned around and walked away. No evidence is provided that workers forced customers to turn away, only that customers ultimately did not enter the store. Another alleges that a grand total of three customers complained that strikers played very loud music from a boombox.

Most of the alleged incidents follow along the same formula. Workers massed and circled around entrances, aggressively impeding the entry and exit of shoppers. Workers also allegedly encouraged shoppers to go to other stores and spread misinformation that the store was closed.

Strikers are also alleged to have committed the heinous crime of shouting support us! as customers entered the store.

Cynically, the company used alleged incidents of violence against the picketers themselves as evidence that a restraining order was necessary, including an incident where pickets where shot with a BB gun and another where a customer brandished a real gun at striking workers.

The companys feigned concern for safety is a transparent lie. King Soopers has allowed thousands of its employees to become infected with COVID-19 and several have died from it.

The companys obvious intention is laid out in its claim that picketers actions will cost the company money. The filing states that unless the court rules in the companys favor it will continue to suffer irreparable harm, injury, loss, and damage of such amount and nature as is incapable of ascertainment in money damages, but is in excess of several thousand dollars per day, and such loss will increase each day that Defendants illegal acts continue.

This is the true intention of the company. It is aware that the pickets are working and that it will continue to lose money throughout the strike.

However, as King Soopers accounts for only 3 percent of annual revenue for its parent company Kroger, the more fundamental purpose of this intervention is to try to break the strike before it it encourages resistance from hundreds of thousands of other grocery store workers throughout the United States.

Amy, a striking department manager, spoke to the WSWS about the injunction.

Honestly its been rough. We could only have a max of 10 people on the property, so we couldnt have hardly anyone sheltering under the overhangs during the 20 degree weather with snow, we just had to keep moving and put hand warmers all over ourselves.

Also, none of us could park on the property anymore which is difficult in the neighborhood Im in. Theyre obviously trying to break us down and demoralize us now, since insisting that their last contract proposal is their best and final offer didnt work.

Most of it is just customer complaints which arent usually backed up by any evidence. Also some incidents included were customers threatening picketers with violence, insulting us and calling us slurs, and literally shooting us with BB guns. But apparently they thought that was important to include in their request for a restraining order against us.

On the plus side, yesterday was one of the coldest days so far and a lot of folks showed up to help us out. People brought us hot cocoa, soup, tons of handwarmers, and we got asked over and over if there was anything else we needed and what folks could do to help out. And now we also know that our communities are not just supportive, but legitimately angry that the company is treating us this way. All day, folks would stop by and talk to us about how corrupt Kroger is, the awful experiences theyve had working with them, and how glad they are that the company is finally having to witness just how fed up we all are.

Jim, a Kroger worker from the Seattle area, spoke with the WSWS in response to the court action by King Soopers.

Utilizing the court system by a multi-billion corporation is a tactic. One the [United Food and Commercial Workers] is ill-prepared to fight against. They will keep going and use constantly increasing measures to break the line. Secondly, the decisions of union officials arent enjoined by things like votes. They see votes as a recommendation from members. This is made clear by the numerous times locals have voted for a strike only to be told no by their own representation. All in all this isnt a level playing field. This is a street fight between David and Goliath.

You have to understand that companies like Kroger are more of a human body. When one part of it gets injured, the rest of it works harder to compensate and repair the damage. So a small area going on strike doesnt really hurt the company as a whole. They have lists of volunteers or will just draft salaried management from other areas/divisions to compensate for the labor. Kroger pays for flights, rental cars, hotels, food, etc. while they are covering. Dont let the readers be confused about who is actually running the decisions here. King Soopers cant take a piss without the Kroger home office giving approval. So the fight isnt with King Soopers, they are just a middle man. Its with [Kroger CEO] Rodney [McMullen] himself.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) continues to isolate the strike to the Denver area. Despite the near unanimous vote by King Soopers workers in Colorado Springs to join the strike, the union has kept them on the job for over a week without explanation. Additionally, Safeway workers in Denver saw their contract expire on January 8 but continue to work as the union pursues negotiations with the company.

As one entity, UFCW has over a million members right? Its more likely entwined with laws to be honest, but if Kroger is a body why wouldnt we force it with a system wide shutdown, said Jim. They can eat the 3 percent [King Soopers share of Krogers total sales] financial bleed indefinitely. The other divisions would more than compensate for the loss. In certain areas with certain stores thats actually the plan because it means more to siphon the business away from competitors than to turn a profit.

Same analogy on a smaller scale. The system will compensate. Shut the body completely down and it will have to change how it operates to survive. Like putting someone in a coma. If every union employee walks at the same time Kroger will be forced to change. The system wont have enough resources to cover the damage. It shuts down immediately. Kroger bleeds profits overnight. They break immediately and they would be begging for us to come back. Offering everything from increased wages, benefits, profit sharing the skys the limit. And it would only take once. To quote Orson Scott Card in Enders Game, I have to win this now, and for all time, or Ill fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.
Over 1,000 Montgomery County, Maryland, students walk out over unsafe conditions

Over 1,000 students in Marylands Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) system walked out in protest of their districts COVID-19 policies on Friday. The school system, in the Washington D.C. suburbs, is the 14th largest in the United States, with over 160,000 students.

MCPS has been hit with a massive wave of infections at the start of the New Year. Two weeks ago, MCPS backpedaled on its promises to switch to remote learning if the district reached a 5 percent test positivity rate. Interim Superintendent Monifa McBride overrode the guideline only one day after putting it in place, instead putting each new outbreak on a case by case basis.

Rupin, a student from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland told the World Socialist Web Site, I think going virtual for a few weeks would have been very effective. According to Rupin, who was concerned about spreading the virus to his grandmother, Walter Johnson has a test positivity rate of nearly 15 percent.

Rupin

They [used] to give us a percentage of the total school that has COVID. They stopped doing that because they basically just dont want to tell us.  I think open communication between the county and students is very important. Rupin said the learning experience had been upended by the pandemic, with a substitute teacher shortage resulting in three classes gathered together in the auditorium being taught by one security guard.

My friends health class just had a security guard come in. They werent even taught anything. On Thursday, the day before the walkouts, MCPS announced that 16 schools were being shifted to online learning [a]fter an assessment of multiple operational and health factors.

Hundreds of Oakland students and teachers show support for student strike during online rally

On Friday morning, an estimated 500 students and teachers from Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) participated in an online Zoom meeting organized by students to discuss their strike and COVID-19 safety concerns in the district.

Representing the widespread opposition to unsafe schools, students and teachers in all grade levels were in attendance from kindergarten to 12th grade. Some students and teachers attended individually, as well as entire classrooms, with teachers projecting the meeting during regular instruction.

Over 9,000 students and staff engaged in sickout action on January 7, which led to a petition initiated by students demanding KN95 masks for all students, weekly PCR testing, and safe outdoor seating for lunches. Since Tuesday, hundreds of students have been on strike and are presently emphasizing the need for schools to go remote as their initial demands have not been fully met.

Screenshot of online meeting showing a classroom participating

Student organizers spoke on the implications of catching COVID-19, including infecting loved ones, Long COVID, and the evolution of further variants of concern. Dozens of students and speakers issued support for the students and described the reality of unsafe conditions on their campuses.

One sixth grader said, My friend, and his entire family all got COVID, which actually was quite worrying. I was concerned him or one of his other family members, like his grandma, could actually have died from COVID. But thankfully they did not. There are mass amounts of students that have been out in multiple classes. Ive seen so many of my friends just not come to school for weeks because the plan by the district as a whole for how you are going to make sure COVID doesnt spread has been poor to say the least, including the lack of masks until now. And I am hoping that the district and school can make a better plan to combat COVID and enforce it.

One high school student said, Our principal is telling us that only one student or staff member has contracted COVID-19 even though we personally know over three people who have gotten it. So he is basically just lying to us and its uncomfortable.

Mario, a junior at Fremont high school, said, Schools havent been providing safety. They only provided us with one mask, and thats not good enough. And they have holes in the bottom and thats not good enough. You guys want us to be safe, I feel like we should have better equipment. The teachers can only do so much and they are really helpful but I feel like the district and school board has to come and help us also.

The district needs to be more strict about this COVID stuff, he stressed. Thats our health at the end of the day. People are dying because of this and that is not OK. You all dont want kids dying, that sucks. Losing your loved ones. I lost a loved one from it, I had it badly and almost died so I know what it feels like to have it.  Our voices need to be heard. This is ridiculous. Its getting out of hand  We need to be safer and come together and beat this.

An entire class at United For Success Academy middle school was also on the call, taught by teacher Jazmine who the WSWS recently interviewed. One of her students said, Im glad we did have the strike and we should show the people in OUSD that we are not joking around and that we do need serious precautions for COVID. Even if we are not vulnerable ourselves, at home we have people that are at high risk. Like my sister, its very stressful to be at home with her because I dont want to get her sick because she has a lung problem, cystic fibrosis. And its a mess and I dont want anyone else to go through that and I really think we need to have higher precautions.

During discussion, Gabriel Black, an educator and reporter for the World Socialist Web Site, expressed support for the strike and made an appeal for students to break out of the isolation within the district and fight to unite their struggle with other students, teachers and workers across the US and internationally against the homicidal herd immunity policies being implemented in schools and workplaces. We do not accept that we should die to keep jobs going, and the stock market working, he said. This is going to require a serious fight which is not just in Oakland, but also in Chicago, LA and elsewhere. We are fighting for a general strike of teachers and students to make schools safe and shut schools down until they can be made safe.

Students and educators in Oakland should join the emergency meeting of the West Coast Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee this Sunday calling for an immediate pause to in-person learning and to carry forward this fight.

The global struggle to close schools and stop the pandemic

Across Europe and North America, students, educators and parents are in open revolt against the herd immunity policies adopted by the richest capitalist governments. In response to the emergence of the highly infectious Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, these governments have deliberately allowed the virus to spread, with nearly one million children infected with COVID-19 last week in the US alone. A staggering three million people are now officially infected with the virus each day worldwide.

The fight against school reopenings is once again the spearhead of the global class struggle as masses of youth and educators are unwilling to accept further infections, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. The following struggles have erupted across Europe and Canada in the past week or are planned in the coming days:

Thousands of teachers across France took part in local strikes throughout the country on Thursday, one week after a nationwide strike encompassing roughly 75 percent of all teachers, which closed half of the countrys primary schools.

took part in local strikes throughout the country on Thursday, one week after a nationwide strike encompassing roughly 75 percent of all teachers, which closed half of the countrys primary schools. On Tuesday, students at more than 100 schools across Austria went on strike against the reckless school reopening policies

went on strike against the reckless school reopening policies Thousands of teachers, students and parents participated in nationwide demonstrations across Greece on Thursday, protesting the governments pandemic policies and military buildup. Student occupations continue at many schools nationwide, despite students being intimidated and threatened by the government, police and right-wing forces.

on Thursday, protesting the governments pandemic policies and military buildup. Student occupations continue at many schools nationwide, despite students being intimidated and threatened by the government, police and right-wing forces. On Monday, hundreds of students at up to 90 schools across Manitoba, Canada , walked out of class due to unsafe conditions.

, walked out of class due to unsafe conditions. In the United Kingdom, educators and parents have widely denounced the scrapping of mask wearing in secondary schools, which was the only remaining mitigation measure.

Throughout the United States, student strikes have taken place this week or are planned in the following major cities:

Roughly 1,200 students in Oakland, California , initiated an indefinite school strike on Tuesday, winning the support of many teachers and parents.

, initiated an indefinite school strike on Tuesday, winning the support of many teachers and parents. On Tuesday, hundreds of students from all eight St. Paul, Minnesota, high schools and some middle school students walked out of classrooms. At least two Minnesota students and eight educators died last year after contracting COVID-19.

high schools and some middle school students walked out of classrooms. At least two Minnesota students and eight educators died last year after contracting COVID-19. Students at 18 high schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, are walking out today to demand online instruction for at least the next two weeks. Montgomery County Public Schools is the 14th largest school district in the US with over 160,000 students.

are walking out today to demand online instruction for at least the next two weeks. Montgomery County Public Schools is the 14th largest school district in the US with over 160,000 students. Roughly 200 Park City High School students in Park City, Utah , walked out on Thursday to protest the Utah State Senate moves to end mask mandates in schools.

, walked out on Thursday to protest the Utah State Senate moves to end mask mandates in schools. High school students in Broward County, Florida , are preparing a walkout on Monday. Broward County Public Schools is the sixth largest school district in the US with over 270,000 students and is where the 2018 Parkland school shooting took place.

, are preparing a walkout on Monday. Broward County Public Schools is the sixth largest school district in the US with over 270,000 students and is where the 2018 Parkland school shooting took place. At Northwestern University outside Chicago, Illinois, a substantial section of students have refused to go back to in-person classes. A petition calling for online classes garnered more than 1,500 signatures but has been ignored by school administrators.

outside Chicago, Illinois, a substantial section of students have refused to go back to in-person classes. A petition calling for online classes garnered more than 1,500 signatures but has been ignored by school administrators. Over the past two weeks, other significant demonstrations by students took place in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Seattle and other major cities across the country.

In each of these struggles, students and educators are fighting not just for their own safety but for that of their families and communities. Before the global surge of the Omicron variant, over 167,000 children in the US and over 1.5 million globally had lost a parent or primary caregiver to COVID-19, figures that are never referred to by the capitalist politicians, media talking heads and union officials who hypocritically feign concern for the mental health of students.

Read the full perspective here.

Protests of students, educators and parents continue across Greece

Occupations continued at many schools in Greece Thursday, despite students being intimidated and threatened by the government, police and right-wing forces. According to the education website alfavita.gr, two students were taken into police custody at an occupied lyceum.

A shocking video circulating on social media shows roughly 15 fascist thugs attacking students at a technical high school in Thessaloniki just as they had gathered to decide to occupy the school and participate in the upcoming demonstration. The attackers also tried to tear down a student banner that read, We won't sacrifice our dreams, health and education.

Thousands of teachers, students and parents participated in nationwide demonstrations Thursday against the governments criminal COVID-19 policies, demanding measures at schools and universities to stop the spread of the virus. Workers and youth are particularly outraged by Greeces military buildup, while the government claims there is no money for public education and health. Just one day before the protest, the first six of 24 Rafale fighter jets ordered from France arrived at Tanagra Air Force Base and were blessed in an official state ceremony by an Orthodox priest.

High school students stage walkouts in Texas and Colorado amid wave of student protests

On Thursday, hundreds of students in the Round Rock School District (RRISD) just outside Austin, Texas, walked out of classes in protest of the districts COVID-19 policies. In the days leading up to the walkout, a petition started among Cedar Ridge High School students and then passed around to other high schools and middle schools gained more than 600 signatures.

A Round Rock High School senior told local reporters from KXAN News that things werent going to get better until we took a stand.

We care about student safety, we care about faculty safety, and we need the district to listen to us. We need a mask mandate thats actually enforced.

Another student expressed concerns about the possibility of getting sick.

There are kids who dont wear masks at all throughout the day, and I dont feel safe, the student said. I dont want to get sick and get my family sick.

On the same day students from Denver Public Schools (DPS) announced their intention to walk out of classes until the school district meets their demands for COVID-19 safety precautions.

No student should feel scared and have to sacrifice their health or their familys health to get an education. We are speaking up and taking action so that we can be comfortable going to school, the students said in a January 12 letter outlining their concerns.

What is on the table? Our list of what we believe are reasonable demands to keep us safe and combat the health effects both staff and students fear getting every day we attend school, they said.

Students demanded the district provide all students with masks, HEPA filtration and proper airflow in classrooms, twice-weekly COVID testing for students attending in-person learning, integrated learning for sick students or those wishing to stay home, and weather-protected outdoor spaces for safe lunches.

Read the full article here.

A Chicago Public Schools parent condemns the deadly return to school

A week after the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) forced teachers back into unsafe Chicago Public Schools (CPS), opposition from teachers, students and parents remains determined.

Earlier this month, more than 75 percent of teachers voted to end in-person education until the Omicron surge abated, but the CTU conceded to an agreement that will do nothing to stop the spread of the Omicron variant in schools and across the Chicago metropolitan area. In response to this deadly betrayal, thousands of CPS students walked out last Friday, joining a wave of student and teacher protests against in-person learning around the country.

Interview with a CPS parent

The WSWS is speaking to teachers, parents and workers about their concerns. One parent, whose name has been changed here to Sarah to protect her identity, spoke at length with the WSWS about her opposition to the forced reopening of in-person schooling.

WSWS: Whats it been like since you returned to school?

Sarah: I havent sent my daughter back since school returned [from winter break]...How can I send my child back? What do I do in terms of protecting myself so that Im not being hauled into court and being put on probation, and messing up my background because they are charging me with these compulsory re-attendance issues. Its problematicPlus many teachers and staff are missing because of COVID.

WSWS: What do you think of the so-called COVID safety in schools?

Sarah: Its a great concern because we know that [children] are more susceptible, even though theyve been vaxxed and boosted and everything, being inside in that environment with students that are unvaccinated  its a problem. And then when theyre eating inside, they have to take their mask off, and honestly under no circumstances should students be inside eating with their masks off.

Read the full interview here.

French unions try to demobilize teachers strike vs. mass COVID-19 infections

Teachers marched in cities across France yesterday, a week after a widely followed nationwide teachers strike against President Emmanuel Macrons policies of mass infection on COVID-19. The strike, which rallied fewer teachers than a week earlier, reflected far broader popular opposition to the eruption of Omicron cases in France and advanced calls for Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer to resign.

The strike took place amid a disastrous health situation, with nearly a half-million daily infections for three straight days in France. The number of currently active COVID-19 cases in France is nearing 6 million, or 9 percent of the population, with children particularly hard hit. At the same time, however, Prime Minister Jean Castex and Health Minister Olivier Veran gave a speech announcing the lifting of virtually every remaining public health measure to halt the spread of COVID-19, making crystal clear their support for a policy of mass infection.

On January 13, over 75 percent of schoolteachers struck, according to union figures, and half of schools were closed, and around 78,500 teachers marched in the streets, according to police. On January 20, the strike mobilized only 1.15 percent of primary and 2.18 percent of secondary school teachers, according to Education Ministry figures. After threatening not to allow the teachers march in Paris to proceed, Paris police prefect Didier Lallement relented and told the unions the march would be tolerated.

Read the full article here.

New Mexico governor calls in National Guard to substitute teach as educators and child care workers fall ill from COVID

In a January 19 speech at Santa Fe High School, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that she had requested the states National Guard to provide personnel to act as substitute teachers and child care workers. She also asked state workers to offer their services. Santa Fe High, like many other schools in the state, is currently closed due to the Omicron variant-driven surge of COVID-19 infections and resultant staffing shortages.

The Democratic governor had hinted at the move at a January 13 news conference in response to multiple teacher and child care worker absences due to a massive increase in COVID-19 cases as the Omicron variant was, as it still is, sweeping the state. The KOB news channel described it as one of several innovative new ideas that could help schools facing staffing challenges. New Mexico currently has a shortage of over 900 substitute teachers.

Since the end of the semester break, and the predictable onset of outbreaks that have accompanied the return to in-person instruction, around 60 school districts and charter schools in the state have temporarily returned to remote learning, and some 75 child care facilities have closed either partially or completely.

Read the full article here.
To send us your own story about conditions at your plant, email us today at autoworkers@wsws.org. All submissions will be kept anonymous.

Management at Stellantiss Sterling Stamping Plant, located just north of Detroit, is sitting on a stockpile of N95 masks but refusing to distribute them to workers, the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter has learned.

Employees at Sterling Stamping Plant remove a minivan roof after it has been stamped in a 180-inch Transfer Press (Stellantis Media)

Sterling Stamping has been among the harder hit plants during the coronavirus pandemic. At least five workers are confirmed to have died of COVID-19 in 2021 alone. A death notice was recently posted by United Auto Workers Local 1264 for a sixth worker, but the cause of death is not currently known. A seventh worker, Terry Garr, was killed in an industrial accident last spring.

Until the last few months, management at Sterling Stamping and other auto plants distributed surgical masks on a daily basis when shifts began. However, scientists have long recognized that these surgical masks, which often slip down below the nose and have many air gaps, are insufficient to prevent the transmission of the disease. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is spread through exhaled aerosols, which can remain suspended in the air for hours at a time. This fact also severely limits the efficacy of social distancing in enclosed spaces, such as factories and schools, and is one reason why these have served as primary vectors for the spread of the pandemic for the past two years.

This is why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and other bodies have long recommended the use of higher-quality N95 masks. But workers in many plants reported they have been prohibited by management from bringing N95 masks from home, claiming it is a violation of policy. On top of this, management refuses to enforce mask wearing inside the plants.

Now, masks are not being provided at Sterling Stamping at all. With the support of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, all the piecemeal measures implemented at the start of the pandemic have since been removed, including temperature checks and body scanners at the entrance to the plants. One worker reports it is as common to see coworkers inside the entrance to the facility attempting to borrow masks from other workers.

However, even when surgical masks were being provided, they were used as a business opportunity for the company. Almost one year ago, management at Sterling Stamping began distributing particularly flimsy, low-quality masks which were later revealed to have been produced by Comau LLC, a Stellantis subsidiary specializing in robotics with no experience making surgical equipment. The masks were quietly withdrawn from circulation after this was revealed by the World Socialist Web Site.

But even after the withdrawal of its health measures and as COVID-19 continues to spread widely throughout the plant, management is sitting on a little known supply of N95 masks, several workers recently learned.

One worker who attempted to acquire some of these masks was subjected to a byzantine bureaucratic run-around, in which the UAW itself played the leading role. The worker said that the UAW safety man in the plant instructed him to fill out a form requesting a respirator under a pre-pandemic program to provide dust respirators and then to take the form to the medical department. As there is only a single safety man in the plant, this meant the worker had to come in during his off hours to make the request. But after obtaining the form, one worker reported that baffled nurses informed him that the respirator program had been terminated long ago and that such a form was not necessary.

When confronted, the safety man then claimed that the company would only provide masks under unspecified extenuating circumstances. If the worst medical crisis in the last 100 years is not extenuating circumstances, what is? the worker responded.

Finally, the worker received a formal reply from management, which reads in full:

Currently the company provides the ASTM level 1 masks [surgical masks]. With an ADA accommodation there are KN-95 masks but those will not be given out by supervisors to employees. If the corporate policy changes I will let you know but we will continue to provide the same masks we have been.

In other words, according to the letter, the company is simply refusing, for reasons which it does not explain, to provide masks even in cases where they are requested as part of an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In addition to the evident disregard for the health and safety of the workforce, the letter also may indicate that the company is knowingly violating federal law.

This is all the more significant given that N95 masks have never been particularly easy for the general public to obtain, even more than two years into the pandemic. They are frequently not even sold at grocery stores and pharmacies, where surgical masks and even useless cloth masks are sold in abundance. The Biden administration recently announced plans to distribute 400 million free masks, but this is only slightly more than one mask per person in the United States. Moreover, N95s, like surgical masks, are not normally meant to be reused.

While autoworkers must be provided with N95 masks or better, it is simply not possible to operate the plants safely under conditions where the Omicron surge is infecting hundreds of thousands of Americans every day. Workers must demand the closure of nonessential production as well as schools, with full compensation for laid off workers to prevent further infections and death. A particular appeal should be made by industrial workers to the students and teachers organizing walkouts and protests against the reopening of schools, which is being done solely in a bid by the capitalist ruling class to force parents back to work.

To conduct such a struggle, workers must organize themselves into rank-and-file safety committees, completely independent of the UAW and other pro-corporate trade unions. Through the formation of these committees workers will be able to organize opposition to the conditions in the plants, share information and scientific knowledge on the pandemic and establish links with workers and youth around the country and the world who are also fighting against the sacrificing of lives to profit.
In Massachusetts, the meteoric rise in COVID-19 cases has led to a flood of hospitalizations, sending the depleted health care system to the brink collapse. Rising case numbers are being compounded by the growth of infections among health care workers themselves, as well as the exodus of staff from the field due to burnout.

Baystate Health (Waleed Azad 22NEWS WWLP)

On January 18, 3,192 patients were hospitalized in the state for COVID, 30 percent more than the peak during last winters surge of 2,428. In the ten days from January 2 to January 12, hospitalizations increased by 959. Three hundred or more new patients with COVID have been hospitalized every day since December 30, hitting 400 on January 10 and 463 on January 11.

Every hospital system in the state is faced with unsustainable rates of admission, and worker shortages due to burnout and infections have reduced capacity across the state by 700 hospital beds. As of January 18, 88 percent of all beds in the state were occupied.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker recently deployed National Guard troops in a supporting role and passed emergency measures aimed at reducing hospitalizations and bolstering staffing levels. However, some facilities are still waiting for the support and the emergency measures amount to little more than getting rid of some red tape. Absent among these emergency measures are essential public health practices such as mask mandates, robust contact tracing, business closures and remote learning for students.

In the case of nursing homes, in which workers are now mandated to be vaccinated, new admissions will be allowed as long as there are fewer than 20 positive cases among residentsa twofold increase from the previous limit of ten.

The deluge of cases is causing hospital systems to once again cancel so-called elective surgeries. Mass General Brigham is canceling 2,200 surgeries per week. UMass Memorial Medical Center, the central regions largest system, has canceled all surgeries and medical procedures for conditions not considered an imminent threat to life. Mass General Brigham, the largest hospital system in the state, has set February 4 as the earliest date to begin rescheduling the thousands of postponed procedures. Among procedures being canceled are cancer surgeries; slower-growing tumors will be postponed.

For Baystate Health, the largest in the western part of the state, more than 600 staff are out with COVID. It has canceled all elective surgeries and reduced the number of transfers it is accepting. Meanwhile, engineers are scrambling to maintain airflow throughout Baystate Medical Center in Springfield to provide enough supplemental oxygen to COVID patients.

The Baystate system had 300 COVID patients last week. It has roughly 1,000 beds in total. Baystate Medical Center, its main campus, has had more COVID positive patients than many of the larger hospitals in Boston. With more patients coming into intensive care units, Baystates chief executive, Dr. Mark Keroack, fears a shortage of medical equipment, including cardiopulmonary bypass pumps for the most critical patients.

At Brigham and Womens facilities in the Boston metropolitan area, 1000 staff were absent with COVID-19. The chief medical officer there describes the situation as a double whammy as absences due to infection come in addition to the large number of workers who have already quit from burnout.

On Friday, the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association published a message on its website characterizing the health care workforce as beyond the point of exhaustion. The message begins: Every corner of our health care system is gasping for air. Every unit and hallway is full, procedures are being canceled, and patients are waiting in ERs for hours on end for the care they need. We have never been more fearful for what is to come if things arent turned around quickly.

The statement includes comments from several hospital executives. Dr. Eric Dickson, president and CEO of UMass Memorial, said the Omicron surge is much worse than the surge at the beginning of the pandemic, pointing to the 250 percent increase in hospitalizations since Thanksgiving, the compounding factors of health care worker shortages, and patients more gravely ill for having delayed care.

Dr. Keroack added: Theres just nowhere to go to hide from this thing. Even people who are trying to be careful are going to be breathing in some Omicron before long. Many people have no symptoms.

While Governor Baker has not instituted an indoor mask mandate, the president of the MHHA urged that people must mask at all times in public.

Following the desperate plea from hospital administrators, the Baker administration slapped together new emergency measures that amount to little more than bureaucratic shuffling and promise to do more for public perception than hospital capacity.

The measures primarily address easing bureaucratic restrictions that would otherwise prevent clinicians from providing care. The measures allow physician assistants to practice independently, open state licensure to internationally trained physicians and speed up worker transfers between facilities.

However, the measures also include a regressive reduction in standards of care. Emergency rooms will now turn away people seeking nonemergency services, and outpatient dialysis facilities will treat patients with fewer trained dialysis technicians to operate them.

The systemwide failure of the health care system to deal with the Omicron surge was preventable. The measures taken by the state and Governor Baker will do little to ease the burden on crumbling hospitals. What is necessary to save hospitals, relieve health care workers and prevent continued and lasting suffering among the population is what is necessary to end the pandemic: policies that set the elimination of COVID-19 as the primary goal for society.
In a January 19 speech at Santa Fe High School, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that she had requested the states National Guard to provide personnel to act as substitute teachers and child care workers. She also asked state workers to offer their services. Santa Fe High, like many other schools in the state, is currently closed due to the Omicron variant-driven surge of COVID-19 infections and resultant staffing shortages.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, center, announcing deployment of National Guard troops and state employees as substitute teachers and childcare workers (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

The Democratic governor had hinted at the move at a January 13 news conference in response to multiple teacher and child care worker absences due to a massive increase in COVID-19 cases as the Omicron variant was, as it still is, sweeping the state. The KOB news channel described it as one of several innovative new ideas that could help schools facing staffing challenges. New Mexico currently has a shortage of over 900 substitute teachers.

Since the end of the semester break, and the predictable onset of outbreaks that have accompanied the return to in-person instruction, around 60 school districts and charter schools in the state have temporarily returned to remote learning, and some 75 child care facilities have closed either partially or completely.

Meanwhile, in order to get students back into the classroom as soon as possible, school districts have announced new requirements such as outdoor mask wearing, outdoor instruction and eating, staggered transition times, limited use of lockers and water fountains and restrictions on visitors. In other words, the districts will implement measures that will prove as ineffective as the combination of vaccinations, masks and other mitigations while herding children back into unsafe schools.

Omicron has been running rampant in the state since it was first detected on December 12. By January 5, the variant accounted for more than half of cases. On January 7, the state broke the November 19, 2020, daily case record of 3,675 with 4,246, accompanied by 14 COVID-19-related deaths. The case numbers since then have surpassed that figure several times, with the state averaging more than 5,300 cases per day.

On the day of Lujan Grishams announcement, the New Mexico Department of Health update reported 5,735 new cases, totaling 425,920, with 28 additional deaths and a seven-day positivity rate of 28.3 percent.

The latest surge has again put tremendous strains on hospital intensive care units (ICUs). New Mexico was among 19 states that the US Department of Health and Human Services reported on January 13 to have less than 15 percent ICU capacity. In fact, the data showed that New Mexico, along with Mississippi, Missouri and Rhode Island, was barely above the 10 percent threshold.

As in hospitals nationwide, the surge has brought a shortage of personnel, as medical professionals stay away either because of infections or to avoid getting infected. In response to a surge in critical cases back in early December, the Federal Emergency Management Agency requested US Navy medical personnel to be deployed to the San Juan Regional Medical Center (SJRMC) in the states northwest Four Corners region. In November, the SJRMC was one of the first in the state to declare a crisis standard of care.

The team, consisting of two respiratory technicians, four physicians and 14 nurses, arrived on December 6, joining teams from the National Disaster Medical System, a federally coordinated health care system. The following week, another team was sent to SJRMC from the Department of Defense.

Now the governor is calling in the military to take the place of substitute teachers who are unwilling to risk their health and lives to keep schools open. In a press release, she claimed, The additional staffing will allow schools to avoid the disruptive process of switching between remote and in-person learning and prevent childcare programs from having to shut down altogether.

The governor added, Our schools are a critical source of stability for our kids. We know they learn better in the classroom and thrive among their peers. Our kids, our teachers and our parents deserve as much stability as we can provide during this time of uncertainty. How living with recurrent outbreaks, poor or nonexistent ventilation, teacher absences and the fear of catching the virus and bringing it home to caregivers contribute to stability she did not explain.

Acting Health Secretary of the Department of Health Dr. David Scrase attempted to bolster her case with the claim that Case counts are always lower with kids in school than when theyre at home. And we think thats because its an environment where you have to wear your mask, you have to keep your distance. To claim that kids are going to faithfully follow guidelineswhich are themselves inadequateis to engage in wishful thinking or deliberate deception.

The governors latest maneuver dovetails with efforts by Democratic and Republican state governments across the nation to sidetrack the growing rebellion of teachers and school workersjoined more and more by students and parentsand keep the children in the classroom so their parents go to work to produce profits. These gambits include calling on district office staff, parents, college students, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and police officers to keep the schools running.

Students, parents and teachers across the US are beginning to challenge the efforts of the ruling class and its political figures to force children back into the unsafe classrooms. Teachers, school workers and parents must form rank-and file safety committees to fight the zigzagging and inadequate measures promoted by politicians and their enablers in the unions and push for an elimination strategy which will stop the transmission of COVID-19 and end the pandemic.
Nunavut, a majority Inuit-populated territory located in Canadas far north, reported its first death from the highly infectious Omicron variant of COVID-19 on Tuesday. The announcement came just one day after Nunavuts government ended the territory-wide anti-COVID lockdown it had imposed in late December due to a surge in infections.

Community travel restrictions have been lifted, indoor gatherings of up to five people from other households are now allowed, and all nonessential businesses have been permitted to reopen. The government has also announced the reopening of schools for in-person learning starting January 24 and reduced the isolation period for those who contract COVID-19 from 10 to just seven days.

The federal Liberal government has demonstrated indifference as Omicron has surged in the territory, ignoring calls for assistance for several weeks. Only on Tuesday did Ottawa respond to the request for help and with a largely superficial gesture, deploying three nurses and nine contact tracers to the massive but sparsely populated territory. These numbers are wholly inadequate to address the growing Omicron wave in a territory blighted by some of the worst poverty and poorest infrastructure anywhere in the country.

Much of Nunavuts population lives in overcrowded and substandard housing, placing them at greater risk of contracting COVID-19. Above, Brenda Maniapik, who when she was interviewed in 2019 was living with her four children in a friends laundry room. (Courtesy CBC)

The territorial government, for its part, is pushing full steam ahead with reopening. The official government web page for information on the coronavirus showcases the slogan Nunavuts Path: Living with COVID-19, further underscoring its cavalier attitude to the social misery and death brought on by the pandemic. Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Michael Patterson dismissed any possibility that the province would return to lockdown, even as the territory has seen its highest case numbers in over a year. During an address on January 5, Premier P.J. Akeeagok cited 244 COVID-19 cases across 12 Nunavut communities. We have never had this many cases of COVID-19 in our territory, he stated. Official case figures show a high-water mark of 297 cases on January 8.

The decision to implement a reckless back-to-work and back-to-school policy has been justified by government officials on the basis that the caseload has declined. According to Patterson, there are now more people recovering from COVID-19 than testing positive. The new infection numbers are likely far higher than the official figures indicate, however, because the territory has ceased testing in communities where COVID-19 has already been detected. Moreover, while the total number of active cases had reached a low of 128 on January 13, they have since risen sharply, reaching 195 yesterday, indicating that another wave of infections, potentially worse than the last, is underway.

The governments reopening decisions come at the same time as vaccination efforts have been paused in numerous communities across the territory, due to a lack of medical personnel. During a press conference on January 13, Nunavut Health Minister John Main stated, As it sits today, on the human resources front, were still waiting for a response from our federal partners. Staffing shortages have also led to a broader strain on health care in the territory as a whole. There are now 10 Nunavut communities with health centres that can only provide emergency services.

The decision to reverse lockdown measures in the territory will have disastrous consequences. Despite official declarations that cases are on the decline, Canadas Omicron surge, which has seen daily infection rates four times higher than in any of the previous four pandemic waves, is far from over. Federal modeling released on January 14 by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) warned that daily new cases could reach 170,000 by February even if all the limited health restrictions then in place remained in force.

The report also warned that the Omicron variant will result in extremely high levels of hospitalization in the coming weeks. That forecast has already been borne out, with both Ontario and Quebec seeing more people hospitalized with COVID-19 this week than ever before. Deaths are also rising sharply, averaging around 150 per day over the past seven days, and reaching a peak of 212 yesterday.

In Nunavut, where limited resources are already stretched threadbare, such conditions could result in widespread infrastructural collapse and numerous fatalities.

In communities within the territory that are affected by the vaccination pause, the coming surge poses even greater risks. Lack of adequate housing will exacerbate the spread of the virus in vulnerable communities, where large numbers of people are forced to live in close quarters with nowhere else to isolate during the lengthy Arctic winter. Many communities are also affected by food insecurity due to exorbitant prices. As a result, significant numbers of people are malnourished and thus more vulnerable to infection and transmission.

Making matters worse, the territory has suffered numerous tuberculosis (TB) outbreaks over a period of decades, putting significant numbers of people at risk for severe COVID-19 cases. In 2018, the federal government committed to ending TB among the Inuit population by 2030. But after just two years of effort, progress was officially stalled in January 2020 due to lack of funding. Rates of tuberculosis among the Inuit are 300 times higher than those observed in non-Indigenous, Canadian-born citizens. In Pangnirtung, a community of 1,400, another TB outbreak has taken hold in the midst of the Omicron surge. Health care workers, dealing with problems of understaffing, have had to entirely shift their focus to addressing COVID-19 at the expense of their efforts to combat TB. Once COVID came, we totally lost track of the TB stuff, the towns mayor said.

It is because Nunavuts population is so vulnerable that public health authorities implemented strict travel controls and social distancing in grocery stores and other places at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. Only in November 2020, when Canada was in the midst of a ruinous second wave produced by the profits-before-lives back-to-work/back-to-school policy of the capitalist establishment, did Nunavut record its first-ever COVID-19 case. By December the territory was in the grip of a major outbreak.

Nunavuts Omicron-fueled pandemic surge will likely cause the greatest number of infections in Iqaluit, the territorial capital and its largest town, whose residents currently do not have access to clean water. Fuel oil was detected in the city water supply this week for the second time after its initial discovery in October, prompting yet another do-not-consume order. For the time being, residents must gather water for drinking, cooking and washing themselves from the Sylvia Grinnell Riverwhich will be impossible for those currently isolating. Government officials have dismissed calls for an independent inquiry into the water crisis.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed yesterday that her Labour Party-led government will allow the Omicron variant to circulate once it enters the community, setting the stage for a calamity in New Zealand similar to those unfolding throughout the US, Europe and Australia.

A COVID-19 vaccination centre in Hamilton. (Source: Waikato District Health Board Facebook page, September 29, 2021)

New Zealand has so far recorded 52 deaths from COVID-19, one of the lowest tolls in the world. However, since Ardern announced last October that the government would abandon its strategy to eliminate the deadly virus, it has lifted all lockdowns and allowed the Delta variant to spread.

There are more than 500 known infections in the community. Just over 300 are in Auckland, with the rest scattered across the North Island, plus six cases in Christchurch. Currently 21 COVID-19 patients are in hospital, one in intensive care.

Ardern said the relatively low numbers, compared with other countries, were due to high levels of vaccination and various masking and physical distancing requirements. In fact, while vaccination is crucial, it is not enough to prevent a large number of infections and deaths.

Overall, 76 percent of New Zealands population have received at least two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, leaving nearly a million people unvaccinated. Despite Ardern claiming that New Zealand is in one of the best positions in the world to fight Omicron, only 17 percent of people have received a third shot, which is essential to provide any protection against Omicron.

The recent decline in daily cases coincides with the summer holidays. The government intends to reopen schools for in-person classes in just over a week, which will inevitably lead to a surge in cases. Vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 only became available on January 17, meaning that large numbers will be attending school unvaccinated.

In the US, UK, France and Greece, teachers, parents and students have held strikes and walkouts in opposition to the reopening of schools while the pandemic is out of control. These actions are increasingly in defiance of the trade unions, which support the criminal reopening policies.

Omicron could leak into New Zealand at any time. Yesterday, there were 525 cases of COVID-19 in the countrys managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) hotels, where people entering the country must stay for 10 days.

Experts have expressed alarm and called on the government to reduce the number of international arrivals and strengthen protections to avoid an outbreak.

Ardern, however, declared that we wont stop Omicron. She said the government would aim to keep cases as low as possible, so our health system can manage, but added: We will have higher case numbers than were used to seeing or have experienced before.

When an Omicron outbreak is detected, New Zealand will move from orange to red in its so-called COVID-19 protection framework. Vaccine certificates will be required in more places, and limits imposed on indoor gatherings, but schools and businesses will remain open. Ardern stressed that red does not mean lockdowns or regional boundaries.

Right-wing columnist Matthew Hooton wrote in todays Herald that Ardern made the right call. He said the decision to move to something like let it rip or at least live with it will probably cost the lives of a few hundred unvaccinated New Zealanders, plus a handful of others, but people had to take responsibility for themselves and their families.

Like other world leaders, Ardern sought to justify this approach, which puts the interests of big business ahead of workers lives, by stating that Omicron is for most people, a mild to moderate illness.

Omicron is not mild. Any putative reduction in severity is more than compensated for by the variants hugely increased transmissibility.

The death toll and the collapse of health systems in the US, Europe and elsewhere speaks for itself.

In Australia, Omicron killed 376 people in the last 7 days alone, and the numbers are rising rapidly. Hooton pointed out that in South Australia, the Australian state with rules most similar to ours, 23 people were in ICU yesterday from its population of 1.8 million. Our equivalent would be 65. If the New South Wales experience plays out here, our ICU system will certainly be overwhelmed.

A secret report from the governments COVID-19 advisers, leaked to Maori Television this week, shows that hospitals have just 108 intensive care beds currently available and no ICU capacity in the West Coast and Hawkes Bay regions. The report also noted that many widely-used masks are not sufficient in preventing or reducing infection of Omicron.

University of Otago epidemiologists have written today that modelling suggests for an outbreak of the Omicron variant in NZ, taking off in January, the number of cases in hospital might peak at 2,790 in early March 2022. There could be 400 cumulative deaths by May 1.

Ardern falsely told reporters that Omicron makes a strategy of elimination nigh-on-impossible. In fact, China, with 1.4 billion people, is still successfully pursuing a zero COVID policy. The experience of Western Australia also proves that Omicron and Delta can be kept out of the community.

The Labour government, supported by the media and trade unions, insists that there is no alternative to letting Omicron spread. But there is significant unease and opposition to this agenda among working people, including teachers and parents.

A mother of three school age children told the WSWS: I am deeply concerned about the effects that Omicron will have on educational settings. Teachers will be sitting ducks once the virus hits.

Another parent, in Auckland, said: Reopening schools will be very, very risky. Any outbreak will be like wildfire, which will result in very serious consequences beyond the New Zealand health systems capacity. Society will collapse when a large percentage of people become unwell.

In the Teachers Advocacy Group (TAG) on Facebook, a WSWS article highlighting outbreaks in Australian childcare centres got dozens of shares and concerned comments. One said it was just a matter of time before New Zealand experienced a similar crisis. Another added: We are playing Omicron Roulette now.

One teacher commented that five of her family members overseas had caught COVID-19, and the sheer number of people sick [is] causing huge issues. She said New Zealand had not yet experienced such a situation and I dont know how they think schools and daycares are going to function when large numbers of staff are either sick or awaiting tests all at the same time.

Susan Bates, a teacher and founder of TAG, told the WSWS children are super-spreaders and the pandemic will accelerate once schools restart. She said the government only wanted schools and preschools open to get parents back at work and the economy rolling, and if peoples safety was not prioritized, then were just economic pawns, and I for one did not sign up for that.

The WSWS urges teachers, parents and students in New Zealand to attend the Committee for Public Education (CFPE) online public meeting on Sunday, at 1 p.m. NZ time, to oppose the deadly reopening of schools in Australia. The public health nightmare in Australia contains urgent lessons for New Zealand: workers cannot live with the virus, they must fight for a global strategy to eliminate COVID-19.
Across Europe and North America, students, educators and parents are in open revolt against the herd immunity policies adopted by the richest capitalist governments. In response to the emergence of the highly infectious Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, these governments have deliberately allowed the virus to spread, with nearly one million children infected with COVID-19 last week in the US alone. A staggering three million people are now officially infected with the virus each day worldwide.

A Redondo high school student speaks during the walkout (Credit: ruhscovid via Instagram)

The fight against school reopenings is once again the spearhead of the global class struggle as masses of youth and educators are unwilling to accept further infections, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. The following struggles have erupted across Europe and Canada in the past week or are planned in the coming days:

Thousands of teachers across France took part in local strikes throughout the country on Thursday, one week after a nationwide strike encompassing roughly 75 percent of all teachers, which closed half of the countrys primary schools.

took part in local strikes throughout the country on Thursday, one week after a nationwide strike encompassing roughly 75 percent of all teachers, which closed half of the countrys primary schools. On Tuesday, students at more than 100 schools across Austria went on strike against the reckless school reopening policies

went on strike against the reckless school reopening policies Thousands of teachers, students and parents participated in nationwide demonstrations across Greece on Thursday, protesting the governments pandemic policies and military buildup. Student occupations continue at many schools nationwide, despite students being intimidated and threatened by the government, police and right-wing forces.

on Thursday, protesting the governments pandemic policies and military buildup. Student occupations continue at many schools nationwide, despite students being intimidated and threatened by the government, police and right-wing forces. On Monday, hundreds of students at up to 90 schools across Manitoba, Canada , walked out of class due to unsafe conditions.

, walked out of class due to unsafe conditions. In the United Kingdom, educators and parents have widely denounced the scrapping of mask wearing in secondary schools, which was the only remaining mitigation measure.

Throughout the United States, student strikes have taken place this week or are planned in the following major cities:

Roughly 1,200 students in Oakland, California , initiated an indefinite school strike on Tuesday, winning the support of many teachers and parents.

, initiated an indefinite school strike on Tuesday, winning the support of many teachers and parents. On Tuesday, hundreds of students from all eight St. Paul, Minnesota, high schools and some middle school students walked out of classrooms. At least two Minnesota students and eight educators died last year after contracting COVID-19.

high schools and some middle school students walked out of classrooms. At least two Minnesota students and eight educators died last year after contracting COVID-19. Students at 18 high schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, are walking out today to demand online instruction for at least the next two weeks. Montgomery County Public Schools is the 14th largest school district in the US with over 160,000 students.

are walking out today to demand online instruction for at least the next two weeks. Montgomery County Public Schools is the 14th largest school district in the US with over 160,000 students. In Denver, Colorado, students walked out of classes Thursday and sent out a letter outlining their concerns about COVID-19, stating that no student should risk his or her health for an education. Their petition garnered more than 500 signatures in two days, and students plan to continue their walkout until their demands are met.

students walked out of classes Thursday and sent out a letter outlining their concerns about COVID-19, stating that no student should risk his or her health for an education. Their petition garnered more than 500 signatures in two days, and students plan to continue their walkout until their demands are met. In Round Rock, Texas , students walked out of class Thursday to demand better safety precautions. More than 600 students signed a petition circulated around a few high schools and middle schools. The students demand a switch to fully remote learning, after there were more than 2,200 COVID-19 infections among students and staff last week alone.

, students walked out of class Thursday to demand better safety precautions. More than 600 students signed a petition circulated around a few high schools and middle schools. The students demand a switch to fully remote learning, after there were more than 2,200 COVID-19 infections among students and staff last week alone. Roughly 200 Park City High School students in Park City, Utah , walked out on Thursday to protest the Utah State Senate moves to end mask mandates in schools.

, walked out on Thursday to protest the Utah State Senate moves to end mask mandates in schools. High school students in Broward County, Florida , are preparing a walkout on Monday. Broward County Public Schools is the sixth largest school district in the US with over 270,000 students and is where the 2018 Parkland school shooting took place.

, are preparing a walkout on Monday. Broward County Public Schools is the sixth largest school district in the US with over 270,000 students and is where the 2018 Parkland school shooting took place. At Northwestern University outside Chicago, Illinois, a substantial section of students have refused to go back to in-person classes. A petition calling for online classes garnered more than 1,500 signatures but has been ignored by school administrators.

outside Chicago, Illinois, a substantial section of students have refused to go back to in-person classes. A petition calling for online classes garnered more than 1,500 signatures but has been ignored by school administrators. Over the past two weeks, other significant demonstrations by students took place in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Seattle and other major cities across the country.

In each of these struggles, students and educators are fighting not just for their own safety but for that of their families and communities. Before the global surge of the Omicron variant, over 167,000 children in the US and over 1.5 million globally had lost a parent or primary caregiver to COVID-19, figures that are never referred to by the capitalist politicians, media talking heads and union officials who hypocritically feign concern for the mental health of students.

In a September 2018 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry titled The Burden of Bereavement, the authors examine the long-term effect of parental death. They note, The loss of a parent is one of the most stressful events that a child can experience. Over a 7-year period, bereaved children suffered depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and functional impairment.

How many such horrific, life-changing events have been caused by children catching COVID-19 in school and inadvertently infecting their loved ones? In an interview with the World Socialist Web Site which has gone viral on social media, a clinical psychologist from New Jersey related that this unspeakable tragedy has already befallen two students at a single campus since the start of the new year amid the Omicron surge.

The psychologist noted, We came back from break on January 3. During that week, two of my students contracted COVID-19 at school. They brought it to their separate homes and inadvertently infected their mom and grandma (who was the primary caregiver), both of whom died last week.

She stated, I would argue that mental health has been compromised due to experiencing an ongoing collective trauma, adding, Children who lose their caregivers, specifically those who inadvertently infected them, are likely to experience survivors guilt, which is a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can lead to depression, anxiety, and difficulties with relationships.

On Wednesday, in his second press conference since taking office one year ago, President Joe Biden made no reference to this reality and refused to even acknowledge the over 446,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19 since his inauguration. Instead, he painted a delusional portrait of contemporary America, stating, we are in a better place than weve been and have been thus far, clearly better than a year ago.

Asked about the mounting opposition to in-person learning across the US, Biden sought to downplay the crisis, saying, Very few schools are closing. Over 95 percent are still open. He declared emphatically, Were not going backwere not going back to lockdowns. Were not going back to closing schools. Schools should stay open.

Biden bluntly expressed the social interests behind these policies, stating, Look, Im a capitalist. He later distanced himself from the pseudo-left Democrat Bernie Sanders, saying, Im not a socialist.

Bidens provocative statements are not accidental; they are deliberate and fundamental. The ruling class which he represents is indifferent to the health and needs of students, educators and their families. The only reason schools remain open is to serve as holding pens for children, so that their parents remain at work producing profits for the corporations.

He stated, capitalism without competition is not capitalism, its exploitation. But contrary to Bidens claims, capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class, which takes place through the extraction of surplus value during the production process. Regardless of the level of competition between capitalists, they are in fundamental agreement that this exploitation must continue, which animates their hostility to lockdowns and determination to keep schools open.

In order to carry forward their fight against the herd immunity policies pursued in the US and globally, students, educators and scientists must understand these fundamental truths. Any appeals to the powers that be will fall on deaf ears. Students and educators now entering into struggle must expand their strikes and build support within the working class, the great mass of humanity whose objective interests lie in ending the pandemic.

The most critical task is to forge a revolutionary socialist leadership. The ruling class and its political representatives have laid down the gauntlet and made clear they are willing to accept unending mass infection, suffering and death. Only the complete overturn of this rotten social order can put an end to this madness, save millions of lives, and lay the foundations for the building of a new society based on social equality and human progress.

We call on all students and young people to build chapters of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at your school or campus to develop socialist consciousness. These must be connected to the development of rank-and-file committees of educators and workers at every school and neighborhood, independent of the pro-capitalist unions, in order to carry out a broad-based struggle in the working class to stop the pandemic.
Thousands of workers struck Tuesday at the Quellaveco mine in Perus southern region of Moquegua denouncing the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 in the mining camps and the failure of the Anglo-American mining corporation and its contractors to enforce even minimal health protocols.

Tuesday's walkout at the Quellaveco mine (Credit: Telesur-Expresion)

Chanting Antes que el dinero, nuestra salud es primero (Before money, our health comes first), they marched off their jobs and out of the mining camp to demand that transnational mining giant take responsibility for sick miners and construction workers at the site.

We demand better treatment, as the company is not complying with biosecurity protocols, one worker told the local media. There are many with positive cases who have slept for days in the tents of healthy people. They must take measures like isolation and the evacuation of these cases to not spread the virus, but they dont do it.

The protest began among employees of the Peruvian mine engineering company Cumbra and spread throughout the camp.

Under conditions in which the mine workers sleep four and five to a room, the failure of the employers to remove and isolate those infected with COVID is criminal.

Several hundred sick workers who have been removed have been loaded onto buses and driven to the local bus station where they are dumped to make their way home, further spreading the virus among the local population and their own families, particularly children, who have yet to be vaccinated. This in turn has caused protests among residents of the area.

Miners report being required to sign sworn statements that they will not hold the employers responsible for COVID deaths and illnesses at the site.

The miners are demanding that infected workers be quarantined at local hotels and regularly tested until they can return to work, without losing their jobs or their pay.

The miners protest came as the Omicron variant is fueling an uncontrolled third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. The deadly virus has already claimed 203,750 lives in Peru, according to official figures, giving it the highest fatality rate per capita of any country in the world.

Moquegua, where the miners struck, is one of 18 regions in the country where the number of new infections in recent days has already surpassed those recorded during the deadly second wave of the pandemic. Fatalities in Peru rose above the 100 mark on Monday for the first time in six months, and hospitals are threatened with collapse as patient numbers surge and growing numbers of health care workers fall victim to the virus.

The government of President Pedro Castillo announced on Wednesday the extension by another 180 days of a public health state of emergency that had been set to expire on March 1. The cabinet meeting where the decision was taken was attended virtually by the countrys health minister, Hernando Cevallos, who is recovering from COVID.

Despite this extension, the government is moving ahead with plans to bring children back into classrooms beginning in March and has refused to take any measures that would infringe on the profit interests of Peruvian big business and the transnational corporations engaged in exploiting the countrys mineral wealth.

The supposedly left government of former rural teachers union leader President Pedro Castillo has, like its predecessors, pursued a vaccine-only strategy in relation to the pandemic to ensure that all economic activity remains unimpeded.

This is particularly true in the mining sector, which the Peruvian government decreed as an essential industry from the start of the pandemic, allowing the spread of death and disease among miners and residents of the impoverished Andean mining regions.

The Quellaveco miners protest represents a challenge not only to the homicidal indifference of Anglo-American and other corporations to the lives and health of Peruvian workers. It also comes into direct conflict with the entire strategy of the Castillo government, which is relying on increased production and high commodity prices to generate higher tax revenues that in turn can be used to stave off a social explosion.

According to a recent report from the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM), tax proceeds from the industry increased 60 percent in 2021, adding up to 6.6 billion soles ($1.67bn), up from the 4.41 billion ($1.11bn) reported last year. The increased revenues reflect high production, rising prices and a profit boom for copper miners and other sections of the industry.

To placate the mining corporations, Castillo disavowed early on any pretense of nationalizing Perus lucrative extractive industries. Meanwhile, his limited proposals to increase the tax rate on mining profits has been stymied by his right-wing opponents in the Peruvian Congress, who are continuing their efforts to secure his impeachment.

In place of talking about increasing state control over mining, Castillo has shifted to vague rhetoric about securing social and environmental commitment from the mining corporations and ensuring that the mines produce social profitability.

While trying to negotiate an end to protests by peasant communities against mining pollution that have hobbled production at a number of pits, most significantly the giant Las Bambas mine owned by the Chinese corporation MMG, in practice, Castillos government has tied its future ever more tightly to the profit interests of the mining transnationals.

The Quellaveco mining project is key to this capitalist program. Castillos finance minister Pedro Francke hailed its near completion at an end of the year press conference, announcing that the $5.5 billion project would begin production in the second quarter of 2022, with a projected production of 300,000 tons of copper ore annually. The project, the government is hoping, will spark the reanimation of some $50 billion worth of mining investments that stalled during the pandemic.

Perus attraction to the transnational mining companies is founded upon the lower costs of extracting copper and other minerals from the countrys soil, in particular compared to neighboring Chile.

This is in turn based upon significantly lower wages for Peruvian miners and other workers in a country where successive free market reforms and structural adjustment programs, initiated under the right-wing dictatorship of former President Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s, decimated labor conditions and social programs. This includes the gutting of the public health sector, creating the conditions for the mass death of the ongoing pandemic.

The Castillo government, the illusions promoted by pseudo-left elements notwithstanding, is continuing to enforce these conditions.

The resistance of the Quellaveco mineworkers to the mass COVID infections promoted by Anglo-American and abetted by the Castillo government is part of the growing movement of the working class internationally against the policy of the bourgeoisie in every country to subordinate the defense of human life to profit interests.
Germanys leading media outlets have been aggressively promoting war against Russia for days. The countrys political representatives are now also sharpening their tone. Their arrogant and aggressive demeanor is reminiscent of the German warmongers on the eve of World War I and World War II.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock | Pooled photo by Maxim Shemetov/ AFP via Getty Images

Green Party Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock used the meeting with her British, French and American counterparts in Berlin yesterday to make new threats against Russia. Any further Russian aggression would have serious consequences, she explained in a joint appearance with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Moscow would then pay a high price economically, politically and, above all, strategically, she declared.

The day before, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrats, SPD), who was previously considered the defender of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, sharpened the tone towards Moscow in a speech at the World Economic Forum. The Russian side knows about our determination, he said. I hope they also realize that the benefits of cooperation far outweigh the cost of further confrontation.

While Scholz and Baerbock have so far officially ruled out the delivery of German arms to Ukraine, other representatives of the governing parties are demanding just that. The delivery of defensive weapons could be a way to support Ukraine, said Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (Free Democrats, FDP), Chair of the Parliamentary Defense Committee, in an interview with t-online.de.

Ukraine is not a member of NATO. But our Western alliance must not stand by while Putins tanks overrun the country. As NATO, we must stand with Ukraine, she added menacingly. It is time that we Europeans finally must take more care of our own continent. Not only do we have to be able to defend [it], we also have to be willing to defend [it].

In an interview with the Tagesspiegel, Former Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) adopted a similar tone and called for a more aggressive response from the federal government and the European Union (EU) against Russia. But do we Europeans really want to let things go that way? he asks angrily. Where have all the great speeches gone that Europe should become a geopolitical actor and learn the language of power?

In order to justify his own world and superpower ambitions, he also employed the myth of the Russian aggressor, who is not only about to overrun Ukraine but possibly all of Europe. Russia is taking the opportunity of a weakened Europe and a weakened US President ... to increase its influence in Europe. If we go along with this now, who will be able to say something when the next states are in line.

The non-stop propaganda of an imminent Russian attack is turning reality on its head. It corresponds to the lies spread by the ruling class before the two world wars to justify their own aggression.

When the German Reich declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II justified this with the words: If our neighbor doesnt want it any other way, if he doesnt begrudge us peace, I hope to God that our good German sword emerges victorious from this difficult battle.

The Nazis, too, presented their long-planned war of annihilation in the East, in which 27 million Soviet citizens fell victim, as a war of defence. It was necessary to oppose this conspiracy of the Jewish-Bolshevik war instigators, said a proclamation by the Fuhrer, which Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels read on the radio shortly after the start of the German attack on June 22, 1941. The task is to secure Europe and thus save everyone.

Nazi anti-Semitism aside, the current war campaign follows this tradition. Even today, Russia is not the aggressor, but the policy of the imperialist powers runs along lines similar to those of Germany in 1914 and 1941. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, NATO has systematically encircled Russia. In early 2014, Washington and Berlin, supported by fascist forces such as the Svoboda Party and the Right Sector, organized a coup in Ukraine to install an anti-Russian regime there.

Since then, the imperialist powers have used Russias predominantly defensive reaction to systematically advance their war and rearmament offensive. NATO has so-called Battlegroups stationed in Poland and the Baltic States. Massive military maneuvers are taking place near the Russian border almost uninterruptedly. The goal is militarily encircling Russia and forcing it into the status of a semi-colony to be exploited and dominated by the imperialist powers.

For the warmongers in the media, this strategy is not being implemented quickly and aggressively enough. Germany should also show toughness very clearly, demanded Stefan Kornelius, head of the politics desk at the Suddeutsche Zeitung in his latest podcast. To German ears that sounds very dangerous and risky, but one has to put oneself in the Russian position and consider: what could prevent Russia from militarily invading Ukraine again? And these should actually be threats that hurt Russia.

By this Kornelius explicitly means the preparations for war. The way in which Russia has behaved in recent weeks should also have made it clear to the German Foreign Minister that reason and good arguments will no longer get you anywhere, he fumes. If you don't want war, you have to prepare for war.

Kornelius does not simply speak for himself, but for a whole squad of journalists who write as if they had done their internships in the Nazi propaganda rags.

In another comment, Daniel Brossler, correspondent of the Suddeutsche Zeitung in the newspapers Parliament office, provocatively declared that those who do not immediately call for arms for Ukraine and war are the greatest threat to peace. The fact that Russia does not have to fear a really serious answer from the West does not serve detente, but rather increases the risk of war, he writes.

Die Zeit devoted its entire current issue to warmongering against Russia. An article about the travelling negotiator Baerbock criticizes the fact that the new federal government is relying on words instead of weapons in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The newspaper's foreign policy correspondent, Michael Thumann, suggested in an op-ed entitled On the move that Russia not only wants to subdue Ukraine, but all of Europe. and Zeit Editor Josef Joffe justified the comparison between Putin and Hitler in an online comment.

The notorious warmongers like Kornelius and Joffe are joined by a young class of up-and-coming writers whose historical and political ignorance is surpassed only by their aggressiveness. In Die Welt a certain Gregor Schwing (born 1995) complains that Europe is already laying down its arms before the war begins.

The 34-year-old Ulrike Franke, an employee of the European Council on Foreign Relations, complained in Die Zeit that the younger generation is unwilling to think in terms of power and interests and rejects the military as an element that determines geopolitical influence.

One wonders if any of these journalists have even remotely considered the consequences of their constant calls for weapons, military, and active preparation for war against Russia. What if the Russian military takes the threats seriously and actually takes countermeasures? A military confrontation between NATO and Russia would turn all of Europe into a theater of war and, if nuclear weapons were used, would jeopardize the survival of all humankind.

Madness has objective causes. As in the 1930s, the ruling class is reacting to the deep crisis of capitalism with a turn towards militarism, fascism and war. A few months after then Foreign Minister and now Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) declared at the 2014 Munich Security Conference that Germany was too big and too strong economically for us to be able to comment on world politics only from the sidelines, the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) wrote:

The propaganda of the post-war erathat Germany had learnt from the terrible crimes of the Nazis, had arrived at the West, had embraced a peaceful foreign policy, and had developed into a stable democracyis exposed as lies. German imperialism is once again showing its real colours as it emerged historically, with all of its aggressiveness at home and abroad.

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated this development. In Germany, too, social anger over the profits before lives policy is growing. While more than 116,000 people have died of COVID-19 in this country alone since the outbreak of the pandemic, a small layer at the top of society has perversely enriched itself. In order to divert social tensions outwards and to strengthen the state apparatus of repression at home, the ruling class is banking on war.

The Putin regime has no progressive response to the aggression. It represents the interests of a mafia-like oligarchy that has enriched itself enormously since the Stalinist bureaucracy reintroduced capitalism. The Russian government fears the growing social and political opposition of the working class as much as it does the imperialist powers. For its part, it reacted to the threats from Washington, London, Brussels and Berlin with diplomatic and military maneuvers that further increased the risk of war.

In order to prevent the ruling class from plunging the planet into the abyss, overwhelming popular opposition must be mobilized against war on the basis of a clear political perspective. An anti-war movement must be built on the principles advanced by the International Committee of the Fourth International in its 2016 statement, Socialism and the fight against war:

The struggle against war must be based on the working class, the great revolutionary force in society, uniting behind it all progressive elements in the population.

The new anti-war movement must be anti-capitalist and socialist, since there can be no serious struggle against war except in the fight to end the dictatorship of finance capital and the economic system that is the fundamental cause of militarism and war.

The new anti-war movement must therefore, of necessity, be completely and unequivocally independent of, and hostile to, all political parties and organizations of the capitalist class.

The new anti-war movement must, above all, be international, mobilizing the vast power of the working class in a unified global struggle against imperialism. The permanent war of the bourgeoisie must be answered with the perspective of permanent revolution by the working class, the strategic goal of which is the abolition of the nation-state system and the establishment of a world socialist federation. This will make possible the rational, planned development of global resources and, on this basis, the eradication of poverty and the raising of human culture to new heights.
The World Socialist Web Site has received an important contribution to the Global Workers Inquest into the COVID-19 pandemic from Jeremy Jones, a Shepparton resident.

Shepparton is a regional city 180 kilometres north of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, with a diverse population of around 67,000. It has a significant refugee population from Afghanistan, and 3.4 percent of residents identify themselves as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

The community provides a microcosm of the social problems facing many Australian regional communities with growing disadvantage as a result of decades of government cuts to health, education and social services. In January 2018, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, youth unemployment in Shepparton reached 16.1 percent.

In the last several years, four secondary schools have been amalgamated and replaced with a super-school, jamming more than 2,000 students into one campus that is opening this year. Despite widespread community opposition to the super-school, the Victorian state Labor government has proceeded, running rough-shod over parent, teacher and community sentiment. Critical student well-being and special needs programs have been eliminated through the amalgamations, and experienced teaching staff have been gagged and forced out.

Greater Shepparton Secondary College [Source: WSWS Media]

Like many regional communities, Shepparton has been impacted by COVID-19, with the Omicron surge seeing escalating infections in the last weeks. Hospitals have reached crisis point, as demand is exceeding capacity and some medical treatments are being cancelled or indefinitely delayed. This week the Victorian government declared a code brown emergency across the state due to escalating infections. This includes at the Goulburn Valley hospital in Shepparton, which is presently running without 160 staff who have been furloughed due to COVID infections. Nearly 100 of these furloughs are from the previous week.

Jeremy Jones is a 37-year-old single father with a 17-year-old son looking to finish his final year of secondary school. Jones has previously worked for more than six years as a chef and up until mid-last year was a clerk and office manager at a local business. He submitted the following statement to the WSWS:

Living with this virus is hurting far more than just those who are unfortunate enough to be afflicted with it. It is hurting our relationships and our mental health; it is the subject most of us talk about and what most of us dwell upon day in and day out. People have varying opinions regarding the virus, from its severity to the way it should be defended against. These varying views are hurting us all as it leads to directionless measures, or worse, complete inaction. Our impotent leaders have put profit above health and are actively hurting those that should be protected.

In August 2021 COVID inevitably infected our town, not in the larger numbers we were seeing in the bigger cities, but it attacked our kids first at their schools and sent a panicked shockwave through the town. A primal protective reaction took over and almost the entire town dropped their lives and rushed to collect our kids from what was considered an unsafe place. What followed was days of testing and uncertainty as a populace who hitherto was not overly concerned with the virus or the vaccine came to terms with the probability they were not as invulnerable as first thought.

At least at this time we felt somewhat protected as the government allowed for us to have time from work, shut down the schools for contact tracing, and gave us daily updates to try and quell the rise of the virus through our community. This was all sparked by what now seems a meagre twenty-one cases

As our infection rate quickly rose our community stood up, we raced to be vaccinated, we isolated ourselves from the public, we did everything asked of us to put an end to this horrible situation. Yet as we rose to the occasion, sacrificing so much and losing even more, our leaders were giving up the fight. Soon came the announcement that we were to live with the virus, they were making the outright foolish move to make COVID endemic.

Now the rhetoric had changed from protection and prevention to having to live with the fact that infection was inevitable and some of us may die at apparently acceptable losses, all in the name of capitalistic financial greed. With this change in conversation came the call to return all students to school so their parents can get back to work, a move so blatantly financially focussed they didnt ever bother to lie about it. We were thrown to the wolves and told to return to work as it was impeding their precious economy.

It has been a long-held belief of mine that a capitalist-focussed governing body cares more for coin than for its people and would always put whatever lined their pockets with gold above the needs of its followers. Yet this cruel and blatant attack on our children and community was still something I did not consider would be the action taken, but there it was in front of us, cold and plain as dayYour health is not as important as our wealth.

SPC in Shepparton [Source: Apple and Pear Ltd]

My son is 17-years-old with aspirations of attending the Australian Defence Force Academy and becoming a pilot and officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. His dreams are dependent on commitment and good health, so during this period we have fought to keep him at home and complete his Year 11 studies and exams from the safety of isolation. To this end I have also given up my job and have stayed in self-imposed isolation from August 2021 to now.

Unfortunately, not all families have the capacity or the determination to allow such a move now that our government has forsaken us and made our protection from this virus a purely personal affair with not even a semblance of assistance. As long as the government and employers accounts are not affected and the rest of us are out making money for others and dying quietly in a corner, then we are all doing our part regardless of the dreams and futures being cruelly and needlessly snuffed out in the process.

As predicted by all and heeded by none, COVID-19 mutated into the Omicron variant. Promises made and golden handshakes taken, the government had to continue with this cruel and murderous policy of endemicity, watching the situation ever worsening and continuing to bombard us with propaganda that this variant is milder and that hospitalisations will be lower, telling us our vaccination is the ticket out of this mess, all the while knowing that we were only vaccinated against the Delta variant and three shots are required to even start to fight Omicron.

Shepparton Hospital [Source: WSWS media]

People are so sick of being locked down and feel they have paid their dues that they are giving up or are prepared to accept these lies so they can get on with their lives. Most believe that being double vaccinated they are now immune to everything and as that was the message blasted at us from every media outlet so we would be diligent little drones and relinquish our money over the holiday period, that belief can hardly be blamed on the individual.

Now with Omicron absolutely rampant throughout the country thanks to these horrendously uncaring policies, we are expected to once again do our part with mask mandates, density restrictions, bans on singing and dancing, restrictions on elective surgery, and mandatory rapid antigen test reporting while our government does effectively nothing.

These measures are the absolute least they could come up with and those among us with even a slight intellect can see they are all measures that only affect the individual, they in no way impact their precious economy and wont anger the governments financial overlords.

These measures will do nothing in the grand scheme of things and are the worst realisation of lip service and population placation I have seen in some time.

Living with the virus is hurting more than just those that are ill. My son, bombarded with this propaganda and seeing most of his friends going to school and living their lives whilst he sits at home, is now demanding to return to school this year regardless of the risk to his future. We were organising to do his schooling remotely and now due to this propaganda it looks as though he will be returning to an extremely disrupted and absentee-stricken single building school of over two thousand students, mingling with every other family in this town with a belief that all will be fine, when in reality his Year 12 will be the most disrupted and dysfunctional school year he has seen to date.

Shepparton community protest in 2019 [Source: Facebook]

As I sit here and watch the daily infection rate jump from forty in our town yesterday to one hundred and thirty today, I see nothing but complete COVID coverage throughout our town this year. My son is 17. I could demand he stay at home and do his schooling from here to keep him safe, however, how far would that damage our relationship if it is not what he believes? At his age how can he be forced to accept a solitary year when everyone else is out there living their life, regardless of the consequence. The issue with this is that in all probability his health will be fine, but although double vaccinated and boosted we wont know if our immune systems are up to the task until it is too late and we are infected, that is a risk I am loath to take as damage to his body now or at length through long COVID could crush his long-held dreams.

From the height of countrywide hospital overcrowding forcing those with other ailments to simply fend for themselves whilst the overworked and underappreciated do their utmost to create miracles, to relationships and mental health within my very own lounge room, living with the virus hurts us in more ways than simply becoming ill.

Although I do not believe the pandemic began as a man-made attack, it has certainly been used as such by those in positions to gain from it. I fully support the Global Workers Inquest and it is my hope that it will shine a light on the most selfish and uncaring of our leaders for their direct action or intentional inaction, so they may be judged for profiteering from the peoples pain.
Turkeys Physicians and Other Healthcare Professionals, Public Health and Social Services Union (Hekimsen) is holding a one-day strike today, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogans governmentfollowing its American and European alliesabandons even the pretense that it is trying to contain the pandemic.

Striking Turkish health care workers, December 16, 2021 (Twitter/@CICOMOCANCA)

As teachers and students in the US, Canada, France, Italy, Greece and Austria have begun to take action against the unsafe reopening of schools, strikes and social opposition to deadly pandemic policies are mounting in Turkey too. This strike follows a broader work stoppage of health care workers in mid-December. It takes place as Cimsatas metal workers, Divrigi iron mine workers and most recently Farplas automotive part workers in Gebze went on wildcat strikes over wage disputes.

Doctors and other health workers at the forefront of the fight against the COVID-19 have been hit hard by the governments herd immunity policy, while also suffering a collapse in living standards during the pandemic.

According to a Hekimsen statement, total salary including benefits for most dentists is only 6,500 Turkish lira ($485), general practitioners 7,000 TL, and specialist physicians 9,500 TL. Doctors are demanding a decent salary and benefits as the poverty line surpassed 13,000 TL ($970) in December 2021. Their other demands include abolishing 36-hour nonstop watches, time off after watches, and taking measures against violence in health facilities.

Doctors who are members of Hekimsen are striking in all health institutions except Emergency Service and Polyclinics; Covid, Delivery Room, Oncology, Hematology Polyclinics; and all inpatient services. Hekimsen warned that if their demands are not met, they might stop working again in February.

The Turkish Medical Association (TTB), the main physicians organization not participating in todays work stoppage, together with various health care workers organizations, issued an action program yesterday as none of its demands of the 16 December strike were met. They will go on one-day national strike on February 8 with demands similar to those of Hekimsen. In following weeks, they will organize Great Health Rallies in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir and Diyarbakir.

Opposition and determination to struggle among health care workers and other sections of the working class are growing as the pandemic explodes due to the uncontrolled spread of the Omicron variant in Turkey and internationally.

The number of daily cases is over 70,000 in Turkey, where only around 400,000 COVID-19 tests are performed each day, which is not enough to find all the cases. According to the latest official incidence data for January 1-7, the number of cases per 100,000 people in Istanbul increased from 663.69 to 1222.37 in a week.

After January 12, which broke a daily record with 77,000 cases, the Health Ministry largely ended PCR testing for unvaccinated people. Rapid antigen screening tests are not used in Turkey. According to new regulations, PCR testing will still be carried out only for employees of rest homes, nursing homes, and prisons and detention houses as well as detainees and convicts in prisons who are unvaccinated or have not had the disease in the last 180 days, and people who will travel abroad.

Moreover, PCR testing will reportedly continue for unvaccinated people who will travel intercity by plane or who have not completed the vaccination process and have not had the disease in the last 180 days. TTB denounced these decisions, stating, The SARS-CoV-2 virus does not have the feature of being transmitted on planes but not on trains or buses. We once again call on those who condemn the society to disease to resign.

At the same time, the quarantine obligations were removed for people who have taken the booster doses or who have had COVID-19 in the last three months. At the beginning of January, the Erdogan government had reduced the isolation period of infected people to 7 days, following its US and European allies. Those who test negative on the fifth day can end the isolation.

Professor Dr. Mehmet Ceyhan from Hacettepe University in Ankara summarized the capitalist impulse behind these criminal decisions as follows: The reason for reducing the isolation period to 7 days is not that the risk of contamination disappears at the end of this period, but to take the risk of contamination and make things work.

Ceyhan added, While the number of Omicron cases is increasing rapidly in all countries, it is 60,000-70,000 per day in Turkey... This [not testing] is not a decision that should be discussed scientifically. This literally means Let Omicron spread, so many people die every day... If we perform [widespread] tests, the [daily case] number will definitely rise to over 200,000.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday evening, President Erdogan emphasized that his government will continue the policy of completely eliminating measures against the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. He said, The spread of the pandemic has not caused a significant problem, interruption on the employment and production side so far, adding, We have not and will not allow any disruptions or unnecessary restrictions that will cause our people to suffer in any field, especially in education.

Public health restrictions that Erdogan calls unnecessary have saved millions of lives since the pandemic began. In China with a population of 1.4 billion, which is still implementing a scientific Zero COVID policy, total deaths have been kept below 5,000 and the total number of cases so far has reached only 105,000 despite widespread screenings involving millions of people.

Erdogan also repeated the false, baseless claim of the international ruling elite and the media that the Omicron variant will end the pandemic, declaring, We hope this latest wave will remove the coronavirus from being a threat and reduce it to the level of routine epidemics.

On January 15, the TTB openly stated that the government has not cared about public health during the entire pandemic, does not act in accordance with scientific data, and a herd immunity policy has been adopted with the latest decisions. It also warned: There will be more serious disruptions in health care services in the coming weeks, and the Omicron variant will be more severe. It is necessary to remove from society the misconception that it is mild.

Speaking to the daily Sozcu on Monday, Istanbul Medical Chamber Chair Pnar Saip warned, There is no longer a policy to deal with the pandemic in Turkey. Unfortunately, cases are increasing. This increase is reflected in both hospitals and intensive care units. Intensive care units reached an 80 percent occupancy rate.

Saip added, New intensive care beds are constantly being opened, but there is no point in opening an intensive care bed if there is no nurse or no doctor to work there. Now, intensive care units are operated with general practitioners, not with specialists, due to staff shortages.

In the interests of the ruling class, the Turkish government is determined to return workers to work whatever the consequences, to ensure that production and supply chains are not disrupted and to boost private profits and stock values. This criminal policy has officially led to 85,000 deaths and more than 10 million infections in Turkey. According to calculations by Guclu Yaman of the TTB Pandemic Working Group, however, excess deaths during the pandemic reached 242,000 as of January 11.

As the first term in schools ends this week, the government is demanding to reopen unsafe schools to in-person education in February. Yesterday, Education Minister Mahmut Ozer said, We will continue with in-person education in the second term, as in the first term, with determination.

This policy of mass infection and death is implemented with support from all the establishment parties and unions. The masses of workers and youth need to mobilize and join the emerging international movement, demanding that the necessary public health measures be taken to end the pandemic and save lives, based on a scientific Zero COVID strategy.
The year-long charade in which the Democratic Party and the Biden administration pretended to be waging a titanic struggle against Republican attacks on voting rights came to a predictable and ignominious end on Wednesday night.

West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin talks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, June 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A motion to bring voting rights legislation to the floor of the Senate was defeated on a party-line vote, with 50 Democrats supporting it and 50 Republicans against. Under Senate rules, 60 votes were required to begin the debate. A subsequent motion, to suspend the rule requiring a 60-vote threshold (the filibuster rule), was defeated 52-48, with two Democrats, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, siding with the Republicans.

The so-called debate over the procedural motions featured endless posturing by Democratic senators claiming to defend the right of minority voters to go to the polls. Republicans responded with a shameless defense of the autonomy of the states against a federal takeover of the elections, a rehash of the states rights slogan employed by the defenders of segregation in the 1950s and 1960s.

The result had been known in advance, as Manchin and Sinema had made repeated statements of opposition to any change in the filibuster rule, while claiming to support the voting rights bill. The bill had been significantly amended by the Senate leadership to win Manchins support, but he still rejected the procedure required to pass it over unanimous Republican opposition.

The outcome was hardly a surprise to the Democratic leadership and the White House. Both Democratic senators had given a public pledge, in late January 2021, to oppose any weakening of the filibuster. It was on the basis of their assurances that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell dropped his procedural delaying tactics and allowed the Democrats to organize the Senate as the new majority party, based on the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Nothing has changed since thenmeaning there never was any possibility of the Senate enacting any version of the voting rights legislation. But month after month, as Republican-controlled legislatures in Georgia, Texas, Florida and other states enacted laws to restrict absentee voting, limit polling stations and drop boxes, and impose tighter voter ID requirements, Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and occasionally even Biden himself would issue public statements declaring their undying commitment to passage of a new federal law to overturn the state actions.

In July, Biden made a major speech on the topic, in which he pointed out the connection between the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, carried out by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and the wave of new restrictive laws. At that point, 17 Republican-controlled states had enacted 28 laws restricting ballot access for working class, poor and minority voters, and a total of 400 such laws had been introduced across the country.

Hear me clearly, he said. Theres an unfolding assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty, an assault on who we are as Americans. The US, he continued, would face a new wave of unprecedented voter suppression and raw and sustained election subversion in the 2022 midterm elections.

We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War, he declared. Thats not hyperbole.  The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on January 6. Im not saying this to alarm you. Im saying this because you should be alarmed.

But the only concrete action he took was to authorize the Democratic National Committee to spend $25 million on a voter registration and education drive in the states affected by the new laws. This was a tacit acknowledgement that the new laws were there to stay, and there was no possibility of overturning them through federal action.

Biden then dropped the subject for six months, while he focused on seeking bipartisan agreement with the Republican Party on an infrastructure billa gigantic boondoggle for construction companies and financiersand sought, unsuccessfully, to convince his own party to pass the Build Back Better legislation to provide increased funding for environmental and social programs.

Only after the December collapse of Build Back Better did he return to the voting rights question, traveling to Georgia to give a demagogic speech presenting the Democrats as the party of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. This was a travesty of history on both counts, since the Democratic Party was actually the party of the Confederate slaveholders and the defenders of Jim Crow.

This set the stage for Wednesdays futile vote, timed for the week of Martin Luther Kings birthday.

Presenting the Republican assault on voting rights as a purely racial question is a distortion typical of the identity politics practiced by the Democratic Party. The Republicans are seeking to make it more difficult for the more impoverished sections of the working class to vote, because they tend to favor the Democratic Party. This social layer is disproportionately drawn from among racial minorities, but it is defined by class and income, not race.

For example, the Florida law depriving released felons of the franchise, by requiring them to pay onerous fines and fees, disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of whites, as well as black and Hispanic ex-prisoners.

For the Democratic Party, however, the sole utility of the voting rights question is to mobilize black and other minority voters to go to the polls in 2022. This is under conditions where the Biden administration has provided no other reason for workers to vote Democratic, since its policies have neither suppressed the pandemic nor raised working class living standards.
The social disaster unleashed on India by Prime Minister Narendra Modis reckless policies amid the latest surge of the COVID-19 pandemic implicates the entire political establishment. The opposition Congress, until recently the Indian bourgeoisies preferred party of rule, the two Stalinist parliamentary partiesthe Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and Communist Party of India (CPI)and various regionalist parties are no alternative to Modi. They all implement the same policies as Modis central government in the states where they are in power.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee (Photo | PTI)

In the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is carrying out herd immunity policies on the pandemic, just like Modis Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP). As a result, COVID-19 is surging across West Bengal. On January 9, it reported 24,287 new cases, the highest since the pandemic began. During the devastating second wave last year, the highest number of cases officially recorded was 20,846 on May 14.

Active cases in the state now number over 158,000. The state capital, Kolkata, has over 30,000 active cases, breaking the previous record. The total number of confirmed deaths in the state has exceeded 20,000 now with over 1.9 million total cases. On January 19, the state recorded 11,447 new cases, over 1,000 more than the previous day, reporting a seven-day average of 15,911.

All these numbers are official figures. It is known that both central and state governments deliberately and massively undercount the real number of deaths so they can keep arguing to keep all businesses and industries to continue to function and make profits despite the pandemic.

Health care workers, who have been forced to work without adequate protection from the virus, are among the most vulnerable sections of society. According to the West Bengal health officials, more than 1,000 health care workers, including doctors and nurses, were tested positive in Kolkata city alone.

On January 8, a doctor was found infected while on duty in the emergency department of Bishwanathpur hospital in Deganga, North 24 Pargana district. When confronted by an angry patient and his relative, he revealed to their shock and surprise that most doctors in the hospital were infected with COVID-19.

On January 8, Ekalabya Chakraborty, a public relations official for the India railways, told the media that in the Howrah, Sealdha, Asansol, and Malda divisions of West Bengal, more than 1,000 workers were found to be COVID-positive, including local and express train drivers, ticket collectors, guards and higher officials.

On vaccinations against coronavirus, West Bengal still lags far behind. Little more than 80 percent of the people have had their first jab, and just over 60 percent received two. This means about 40 percent of the states population is totally unprotected. Moreover, against the more contagious and vaccine-resistant Omicron variant, even two doses are inadequate.

The increasingly dangerous pandemic situation in this state is replicated by the very rapid surge unfolding across India as a whole. Medical experts are warning that a third wave in the country is expected to arrive at the end of this month with 400,000 to 800,000 infections each day.

On January 3, after the Christmas and New Year festivals, the TMC government announced a partial lockdown and night curfew. Schools and colleges were closed for a fortnight, the last local train departure was announced for 7:00 p.m., later revised to 10:00 p.m. There were certain restrictions on domestic flights from Delhi and Mumbai for two days per week, the latter was revised to three days. These very limited actions will not control COVID-19, particularly the Omicron variant.

Amid the COVID-19 surge in West Bengal and throughout India, the TMC government authorized the Gangasagar Mela (a Hindu religious festival) on January 14 and the International Kolkata Book Fair on January 31, which has now been postponed to February 28. These events would bring hundreds of thousands people together to be exposed to the deadly virus, leading to further surge of the virus. An estimated 2.4 million people will participate in these events.

Another event that would bring together millions of people is the polls announced for 111 civic bodies in two phases, on February 12 and February 27.

Dr. Hiralal Konar, one of the convenors of the Joint Platform of the Doctors in West Bengal, told the media: We appeal to the government to stop the Gangasagar Mela and Municipality vote as they are superspreader events.

Regarding Gangasagar Mela, the Kolkata high court initially raised concerns about permitting the fair amid a rapid spread of COVID-19 cases. But the court changed its position in a January 7 ruling. It finally gave a green light to the religious festival with some conditions, chiefly to set up a three-member committee to monitor the situation. However, this committee does not include a single member of the health department.

The judiciarys ruling is in fact in line with the entire Indian ruling elites handling pf the COVID-19 crisis. All are in favor of allowing and implementing the criminal and disastrous herd immunity policy of allowing the virus to spread, prioritizing profit over human lives.

In a revelation of backwardness and idiocy, the West Bengal advocate general told the Kolkata high court that coronavirus does not spread in salty water. Ridiculing this stupid assertion, Koushik Chaki, the founder of the West Bengal doctor forum, said: If so, then all should be taken to sit in Digha, Mondarmani (seashore area). France is situated beside the sea; why then is COVID spreading there?

The opposition parties in West Bengal have criticized the ruling TMCs decision to allow the festivals and polls to go ahead only for opportunist political gains. They were holding mass election rallies in five poll-bound states, including the most populous Uttar Pradesh until the Election Commission banned them from the beginning of the year.

Last year in the north Indian state of Uttarkhand, the biggest Hindu religious festival, Haridwar Kumbh Mela, was held in April, with the participation of 12 million people from across the country. This turned out to be the main superspreader for Indias disastrous second wave. The festival was allowed to proceed partly as part of BJPs Hindu communal politics and chiefly to pursue a herd immunity policy that cost millions of lives.

Similarly, the TMC governments granting of permission for Gangasagar Mela also aims to appeal to Hindu sentiment and pursue a herd immunity policy.

Dr. Kunal Sarkar, a renowned heart specialist in Kolkata, criticized the TMC governments handling of the pandemic, telling the Bengali daily Anandbazar Patrika: We are looking for the vote bank, not the life bank, looking for votes, not for voters. Now lives have become percentages, we are treated as if we dont have value. He continued, We will suffer if the government is not sensitive, the wave would come.  [t]here is the possibility of one hundred thousand infections becoming a million.
Travel with Storm Team 10's Kevin Orpurt!

The ultimate Northern Rockies touring experience with breathtaking natural wonders in three famous national parks.

Witness spectacular views atop Whitefish Mountain Resort in Montana, then board classic red vintage touring cars for an exciting drive along Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Learn about the Lewis & Clark Trail in Great Falls and Helena. In Yellowstone National Park, enjoy a tour of this incredible land with a park guide. Watch for wildlife! Next, experience jaw-dropping views in Grand Teton National Park.

Delicious meals on tour include a covered wagon ride and barbecue cookout in Jackson, Wyoming and in Salt Lake City, a gourmet dinner buffet with extraordinary views of downtown at The Roof Restaurant.

Departs: August 1, 2022
Weather Alert

...The Flood Warning continues for the following rivers and locations in Indiana... White River at Edwardsport and Elliston. 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. Be especially cautious at night when it is harder to recognize the dangers of flooding. Additional information is available at www.weather.gov/ind. This statement will be updated within the next 12 to 24 hours. && ...FLOOD WARNING REMAINS 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 &&
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - A trial date is set for the man accused of ambushing and killing a Terre Haute police detective.

According to court documents, Shane Meehan will go to trial for killing Detective Greg Ferency on March 28.

The jury trial is scheduled to start at 9:00 A.M. at the United States Courthouse on Ohio Street in Terre Haute.

Meehan has entered a not guilty plea for Ferency's murder.

July 7, 2021

Meehan is accused of killing Terre Haute Police Detective and FBI Task Force Officer Greg Ferency on July 7 of last year.

According to court documents, Meehan drove his truck to the gate of the FBI resident agency building in Terre Haute.

Meehan got out of his truck and threw a Molotov cocktail toward the building. A short time later, Ferency walked out of the FBI building and was confronted by Meehan, who was holding a firearm.

Meehan allegedly shot Ferency, who died of his injuries.

Meehan was arrested the same day at Regional Hospital on the city's southside.

Indictment and reaction

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment for 45-year-old Shane Meehan.

The DOJ says the murder and firearms charges are capital-eligible offenses, punishable by life in prison or the death penalty.

"This indictment is another step forward in bringing resolution to the ambush of Task Force Officer Greg Ferency, who was one of 73 law enforcement officers intentionally killed in the line of duty last year, and one of three of our own FBI family to lose their lives at the hands of others," said FBI Indianapolis Acting Special Agent in Charge Gregory Nelsen. "We continue to mourn Greg's tragic loss and are reminded every day of the ultimate sacrifice he made while serving his community and country. We are committed to a thorough and meticulous investigation to bring resolution to this case and ensure accountability."

FBI Director Christopher released a statement following the federal indictment of Meehan.
Oscar Mayer's bologna-inspired face mask sold out less than a day after its release on Amazon.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) warns any Russian 'invasion' of Ukraine would be met with a 'severe and a united response' following Lavrov meeting.
To get involved

As the Cheyenne Transit Program reshapes its vision for local transportation in the next five years, planning officials want the community to make their voice heard.

The Cheyenne Metropolitan Planning Organization and private planning consultants hosted an open house Wednesday to begin listening to concerns and requests from residents. But for those who could not attend, there is also an online option to give feedback.

An online bilingual community transportation survey is currently available until Feb. 3. The survey asks about public transportation needs and answers will help identify priorities for the 2022 Transit Development Plan.

English Survey Questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/cheyennetransit

Spanish Survey Questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/cheyennetransit-spanish

For more information, visit the project website: www.plancheyenne.org/project/2022-cheyenne-transit-development-plan/
Mass, A Hero, and Nobody are all new to streaming this week (Sky/Prime Video/Universal Pictures)

This week, master dramatist Asghar Farhadi releases his latest film A Hero on Prime, while Cabin in the Woods star Fran Kranz makes a powerful directorial debut with Mass on Sky Cinema.

Meanwhile, Netflix drops multiple fun, schlocky action flicks with Nobody and Monster Hunter.

Please note that a subscription may be required to watch.

Pick of the week: A Hero - Prime Video

Asghar Farhadi's A Hero (Prime Video)

From writer-director Asghar Farhadi, the filmmaker behind the Oscar-winning A Separation, comes A Hero: an intimately staged drama of a seemingly small incident spiralling beyond his protagonists control. Set in the Iranian city of Shiraz, the film follows Rahim  a captivating Amir Jadidi. Stuck in debtors prison because of money still owed, Rahim is released on two days' leave at the movies beginning, returning home to spend time with his family, including his young son, borne from a previous marriage.

Read more: Everything new on Prime Video in January

When Rahims girlfriend finds a handbag in the street containing gold coins, the two try and sell it to pay off Rahims debts - when they realise it wont be enough, they set a plan in motion to find the owner, and engineer positive PR for his seeming act of pure benevolence.

Farhadis scripting only gets more complicated from there, as it interrogates the cruelty of Irans prison system, the moral ambiguity of his protagonists decisions reflecting back on the media circuses that quickly arise in circumstances such as his. But Farhadi doesnt moralise over Rahims circumstances itself. Though pessimistic about the institutions of his country hes sympathetic to his struggling characters.

Also on Prime Video: My Son

Mass - NOW with a Sky Cinema Membership

Years after an unspeakable tragedy, two sets of parents (Reed Birney & Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs & Martha Plimpton) agree to talk privately in an attempt to move forward. (Sky Cinema)

For the feature film debut of Fran Kranz, on its face, Mass doesnt feel wholly cinematic, restrained to a single-room location, focused on a long conversation taking place in real time. But the sense of intimacy and vulnerability that the Cabin in the Woods star finds behind the camera wholly justifies its taking place in this medium. It never feels like theatre or a simple reading, even with that commitment to an unflashy setting and various expository monologues.

Story continues

Watch a clip from Mass

Taking place years after a tragic shooting, the parents of both the victim and the perpetrator meet face-to-face to have a difficult conversation, a heartbreaking study of the differing kinds of grief that follow in the wake of the mass shooting events that have long been identified as a kind of American epidemic in itself.

Read more: Everything new on NOW in January

Its tricky filmmaking that, despite a perhaps overly decompressed running time, packs a hell of a punch regardless.

Nobody - NOW with a Sky Cinema Membership

Bob Odenkirk as Hutch Mansell in Nobody, directed by Ilya Naishuller. (Universal Pictures)

In the years since John Wick, the franchise has received the honour of being the latest film to inspire a new trend of copycats, much like the Die Hard in a stadium/plane/school/etc school of filmmaking of the 90s. This particular John Wick clone gains credibility from being co-written by Derek Kolstad, who penned much of the Wick series, but distinguishes itself through the direction of Ilya Naishuller, perhaps best known for his first person actioner Hardcore Henry.

Watch a trailer for Nobody

Nobody is far more messy and morally dubious than even the John Wick films, its character motivated by a sort of malaise and midlife crisis rather than righteous vengeance. Bob Odenkirk plays suburban dad Hutch Mansell, feeling emasculated after leaving his job as a CIA hitman behind for a quieter and apparently less fulfilling life. So two robbers breaking into his house is the perfect catalyst for Hutchs long-simmering fury, perhaps most strikingly realised by Naishuller in a savage fight aboard a moving bus.

Also on Sky Cinema: Pig
Thelma Sutcliffe

Mike Kelly/The World-Herald via AP

Thelma Sutcliffe, the oldest supercentenarian in the United States, has died. She was 115.

The Nebraska woman's nephew confirmed the news to CNN, and said she died Monday.

"She passed away peacefully in Omaha at an assisted living facility," Robert Sorenson, 94, told the outlet.

Sutcliffe, who was born in 1906, became the oldest living American this spring after a 115-year-old woman from North Carolina died in April. At the time, the Gerontology Research Group also said that Sutcliffe was the seventh oldest living person in the world.

In another record, the group also reported that she was one of just 19 known living supercentenarians  anyone who is 110 years or older  in the world. All of them were women, the Gerontology Research Group said

Thelma Sutcliffe

Sunrise Senior Living Facebook

RELATED: Meet the 114-Year-Old Woman Who Is Now the Oldest Person in America: 'She Doesn't Believe in Worrying'

After she passed, Sutcliffe's longtime friend Luella Mason told CNN that her pal was "still very sharp" at the end of her life.

Throughout her life, Sutcliffe lived through World War I and World War II, the 1918 Spanish flu and most recently, the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Omaha World-Herald, the supercentenarian married her husband Bill in 1924. The couple never had children, and Bill died in the 1970s.

Speaking to the newspaper in the spring, Mason said one of Sutcliffe's secrets was never fretting.

"As far as her age, she doesn't believe in worrying at all," her friend said. "She always says, 'What good does it do to worry?' I think that's how you live to be 114 years old."

RELATED: Boy and Girl Got Polio Vaccine Together in 1955  Now They're Husband and Wife Getting COVID Shots

In conversation with CNN, Mason said that Sutcliffe credited her longevity to not having children, not smoking and not worrying.

Sorenson, who lives near Phoenix, told the network it had been two years he had been able to visit Sutcliffe because of the pandemic.

"We had plans to meet, but the pandemic took place; we talked on the phone frequently," he said. "I am the last closest relative that she has. She was very important to me. She was good to me and my siblings all throughout the years."
Robert Breck Denny Jr., the writer, actor and Groundlings performer best known as just Breck Denny, died Monday. He was 34.

Family members said Denny, who was amassing a run of impressive credits in TV series such as The Shrink Next Door, Ratched and Curb Your Enthusiasm, died of a rare spontaneous splenic artery rupture in Santa Barbara.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

He was described by those close to him as equal parts brilliant and humble, radiant and deeply thoughtful, kind in the most genuine way, strong and sensitive, generous to others and self-reflective, intellectually curious and funny beyond measure. Those who saw him perform with the Groundlings Sunday Company no doubt got to experience the latter firsthand.

Originally from Cleveland, Denny graduated from New York University with a bachelors degree in creative writing before pursuing a career as a writer and performer. His sketch comedy was featured in LA Weekly as the Comedy Pick of the Week, his play Nickel Dickers won the Encore! Producers Award at the 2018 Hollywood Fringe Festival and he wrote, produced and starred in the short film The Last Piece.

Denny is survived by fiancee Emily Levitan (director of original series at Netflix), parents Robert Breck Denny Sr. and Ninna Denny, sisters Liza Oneglia, Carter Denny Adams and Louise Denny Considine and dog Yankee Doodle Denny.

No one could make him laugh harder than himself, read a statement from the family, and his goofy, wicked, deep belly laugh had a ripple effect that made every room erupt with tangible sound waves.

In lieu of flowers, mourners are encouraged to consider giving to The Groundlings Theatre & School in Los Angeles or Kieve Wavus Education Inc. and to donate blood to Vitalant in California or the Red Cross nationwide.

Click here to read the full article.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make another effort Friday to convince Russia to back away from its aggressive positioning around Ukraine, but the low expectations for success are reflected in the U.S.' decision this week to surge lethal weaponry to Ukraine's military in an effort to quickly shore up its defenses.

The Biden administration told Congress late Wednesday that it gave approval for four fellow NATO members that had purchased U.S.-produced weapons systems to instead send that equipment to Ukraine, as it tries to defend itself from a potential invasion by neighboring Russia.

Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have been given the green light to send Javelin anti-tank weapons and Stinger air-defense systems to Ukraine's forces, and the U.S. has also approved the transfer of light anti-tank weapons from the United Kingdom. Some of these systems could also ease air transport of troops. Under U.S. law, permitting allies to send U.S.-origin equipment requires State Department permission due to export controls.

In what a State Department official called the "fastest transfer ever" for the U.S. government, the Biden administration will also hand over to the Ukrainian government five Mi-17 transport helicopters. These five helicopters were already positioned in Ukraine for servicing.

The Russian-made helicopters had been purchased by the U.S. for Afghan forces but since the Afghan military no longer exists, the U.S. can just essentially hand over the keys. Congress was informed that this transfer will be carried out under the Excess Defense Articles program.

FILE: FARAH, AFGHANISTAN - 2018/03/08: An Mi-17 helicopter of the Afghan Air Force, equipped with gun on the side door, sitting on the tarmac of the main road somewhere in Bolo Bluk district, Farah province. / Credit: Photo by Franz J. Marty/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

During his visit to Berlin today in an effort to use diplomacy to de-escalate the growing tensions at Ukraine's borders, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked about the Biden administration's decision to help surge weaponry there and stipulated that the military hardware had defensive purposes to protect against aggression that Russia had initiated.

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"And so the idea that the provision by the United States, by European countries, by NATO of defensive military equipment to Ukraine is somehow provocative or cause for Russia's actions has the world upside down," Blinken said. "All that we are trying to do is to make sure to the best of our ability that, as I said, Ukraine has the means to defend itself, and that might perhaps deter further aggression by Russia,"

On Friday, Blinken will meet with Russia's top diplomat Sergey Lavrov in Geneva to see if there is any diplomatic off-ramp that can be found to avoid conflict. The Biden administration has made it clear that Russia is considering a variety of ways to attack Ukraine that span from sending tanks across the land borders once the ground freezes to cyber attacks to scaler scale acts of sabotage or provocations by non-uniformed operatives.

A Ukrainian official and a senior Democratic aide each told CBS News that there is concern about the ability of Ukraine's air defense to withstand a Russian air assault. The Ukrainians want an "Iron Dome"-type system similar to what the U.S. provides to Israel, but such a defense could take some time to produce and deploy.

In recent days, U.S. officials have warned that the estimated 100,000 Russian troops near the borders of Ukraine could launch an attack at any point. Ukraine estimates it now has roughly 127,000 Russian troops encircling it.

The arrival of Russian troops in Belarus this week for war games now means that Vladimir Putin is positioned to potentially launch an attack from the north in addition to the eastern flank where his troops have been positioned since November. Russian forces also are to the south in Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.

Blinken said Wednesday that the U.S. knows there are plans in place to increase those forces even more on very short notice.

"And that gives President Putin the capacity also on very short notice to take further aggressive action against Ukraine," Blinken said following his visit in Kyiv with Ukraine's President Zelensky.

Over the course of 2021, the U.S. supplied Ukraine with $450 million in defensive aid, according to a U.S. defense official. The State Department recently approved $200 million more in military aid, which is expected to start shipping to Ukraine this month.

FILE: RIVNE REGION, UKRAINE - MAY 26, 2021 - Anti-tank missile system FGM-148 Javelin is seen during tactical battalion exercises of a separate mechanized brigade of the North operational command of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. / Credit: Volodymyr Tarasov/ Ukrinform/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

The aid from the U.S. has included both lethal and non-lethal weapons, from Javelin anti-tank missiles, to patrol boats, to small arms and ammunition.

The Javelin anti-tank missiles, first given to Ukraine in 2018, use thermal imaging and can hit tanks from above, where the armor is the thinnest. The decision by the Trump administration to authorize the sale of Javelins marked the first time the U.S. government directly sold lethal weaponry to Ukraine, though private commercial sales had been approved on a case-by-case basis since 2015, according to the Atlantic Council.

Blinken said Wednesday that the U.S. would provide additional material not yet in the pipeline if Russia carries through with any aggressive intent or further invades Ukraine.

Top U.S. officials warn of possible Russian invasion of Ukraine

Voting rights legislation fails to advance in the Senate

Omicron batters states with low vaccination rates
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Footwear News may receive an affiliate commission.

Heidi Klum promotes her new single in a major way.

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The former Project Runway host and judge posted a video on Instagram today that showed the model filming her new song with Snoop Dogg titled Chai Latte. Klum opted for a houndstooth bodysuit that featured mesh cutouts that created an edgy moment. She accessorized with a pair of glittering earrings.

When it comes to the shoes, Klum slipped on a pair of leather thigh-high slouch boots.

Klum has a trendy and unique sartorial aesthetic that prompts her to wear pieces that provide her with a multitude of options. Shes a big fan of matching sets and glimmering garments that align with her keen eye for fit and design. Riddled all over her Instagram feed are pictures of her wearing intricate swimsuits, printed separates and dashing outerwear. For shoes, she has an affinity for boots, heels, sneakers and sandals that finish off her attire effortlessly.

The Germanys Next Topmodel host and judge has made a name for herself within the fashion industry. She has starred in campaigns for Liz Claiborne, Marc Jacobs and Victorias Secret. Klum was also an Angel for Victorias Secret and hosted the labels famous fashion shows in 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Click through the gallery to see Klums best red carpet style.

Pop on a pair of black leather boots for a sleek elevation.

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ROCHESTER  City officials received a petition to place a warrant article intended to eliminate the use of vote-counting machines in elections and to return to hand counts. However, City Manager Blaine Cox said the petition has no basis in law for the city.

Cox said this is because Rochester does not use the town meeting form of government. It appears the proposal submitted in Rochester is similar to those submitted in some towns around the state, including Greenland, where the town's voters overwhelmingly rejected the bid to eliminate voting machines.

"The request to insert by petition a warrant article does not pertain to Rochesters city form of government," Cox said.

Greenland: Residents reject bid to eliminate vote-counting machines. It wasn't close.

Voters at Rochester's Ward 5 wait their turn to be checked in at the community center in order to vote on Election Day.

However, state Sen. Jim Gray, R-Rochester, who is also a city councilor, said there is a way the question could be brought forward. He said Mayor Paul Callaghan could place the question on a city council agenda for a vote.

'Immense fatigue': Will hospitals see the worst of omicron COVID surge soon? Doctors weigh in.

Callaghan did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his views on vote-counting machines.

"Current law allows a community to decide whether or not to use the voting machines," Gray said. "There are requests to use a durable paper ballot and that would restrict the machines. There are also enough people out there who want some type of audit done for the machines."

Gray leads state legislation seeking to audit AccuVote machines

Gray, in his role the state Senate, is the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 366. If passed and signed into law, it would require an audit of the AccuVote machines used in New Hampshire elections. The bill specifies 1-3% of machines statewide would be randomly selected and audited.

"If we did that and it turned out to be accurate, it would go a long way to reassuring voters," Gray said. "I am not implying they are not accurate, just responding to a need to be sure, for simple reasons. Why do you balance your checkbook? To be sure there are no errors. Why do you stop at a stop sign? In case someone else does not. If you don't look, you do not find out if there are errors."

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'Our intention is to help': Sober house shut down by Rochester now on 'pathway' to reopen.

Doubt in election results has been fueled by former President Donald Trump, who maintains without evidence a claim there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, including in New Hampshire, and spread conspiracy theories that voting machines are susceptible to hacks. These claims came despite dozens of losses in courts across the country in which Trump attempted to overturn President Joe Biden's victory.

David Scanlan, N.H. deputy secretary of state, said in three decades the state has been using the AccuVote machines, their experience is that they have been reliable.

Acting New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan has said in the more than 30 years the machines have been in use, there have been no major issues with their reliability, calling them "strong workhorses." And if there is ever a question, he added, that is why the state requires paper ballots. Under state law, the ballots are hand-counted when there is a recount.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has said in response to recent petitions seeking to eliminate vote-counting machines that elections in New Hampshire in 2020 were "safe, secure, and reliable."

Sen. Gray calls voting machines 'accurate and fair'

Cox said Rochester has a population of 32,492. According to the Deputy City Clerk Cassie Givera, there are 18,150 registered voters, so approving this move would mean thousands of ballots that would need to be counted by hand.

New Hampshire state Sen. Jim Gray, R-Rochester, is also a city councilor.

"Asking 15-20 ballot clerks to stay after an election to count all those votes would be challenging," Gray said. "I think the AccuVote machines are accurate and fair. I also think having an audit might put some of that concern to rest."

Gray served Rochester as a moderator, before and since voting machines were used. He has participated in recounts, at his local level and at the state level.

"I don't believe voter fraud is happening in New Hampshire," Gray said. "I think there could be accuracy issues if we are asking people to count thousands of ballots long into the night."

Who is behind the Rochester petition?

One person who signed the petition seeking to remove voting machines in Rochester was Bethany Duntley, who did not win her bid for election to the City Council in November 2021.

"I honestly believe hand counting is better than using the computer system that we use now," she said. "There are so many ways computers can be hacked or adjusted when it comes to computer input. Over the years technology has advanced and so have criminals. Do we really think that elections can't be hijacked by other countries or even public officials? There needs to be checks and balances just like in every business. I hope we can do all elections by using hand counts along with supervision."

Scanlan, New Hampshire's acting secretary of state, has said the AccuVote machines are completely disconnected from the internet. In 2010, the state required all modems in the machines to be disconnected and all ports permanently disabled and sealed.

"The only cord that comes out of it, that is of any use, is the power cord," Scanlan said.

'We become one team': Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan, city elected officials sworn in

Reporting by Patrick Cronin is included in this article.

This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: Rochester NH community petitions to eliminate vote-counting machines
The Mississippi Senate Education Committee on Thursday advanced SB 2113, a bill aimed at preventing lessons based on critical race theory from being presented in any classroom statewide.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Michael McLendon, R-Hernando, would prevent K-12 school districts, public and charter schools and universities in Mississippi from providing any lessons that suggest one race is better or worse than another. Educators would also be prevented from teaching that a person should be treated differently based on their race, gender, religion or ethnicity.

"I've had so many of my constituents ask me ... 'is there a chance of this ever going on in our schools?' So that's the reason for this bill," McLendon said.

Under the proposed legislation, any school or university teaching a course regarding any of those subjects would no longer receive funding for it from the state Department of Education.

It was unclear when the bill will proceed to a full vote.

Critical race theory widely criticized in conservative states

Many Mississippi lawmakers have echoed negative sentiments heard in other conservative states regarding the framework of critical race theory, including Gov. Tate Reeves.

In what world are we living in where its OK to teach children that theyre born racist? Reeves said in a speech at the Neshoba County Fair in August. In what world is it OK to teach children that theyll be judged by the color of their skin, not by the content of their character?"

Other lawmakers say anti-critical race theory legislation would prevent children from learning meaningful history about the state and the nation.

During debate Thursday, Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, said he believed it was more important to embrace lessons around the history of racism in the classroom so children can learn from past mistakes.

"This (bill) is causing more problems than it solves," he said. "Let's teach history and let's teach the subject matter."

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Officials at the Mississippi Department of Education confirmed in August that critical race theory is not being taught in any Mississippi school and is not part of the state's college and career readiness standards.

What is critical race theory?

Critical race theory was originally developed in the 1970s and 80s as a way to analyze how systemic racism came about in the United States through public policy and institutional application. Taught primarily in law schools, the theory can be used to study how discriminatory practices created through legislation, such as Black homeowners purposefully being kept from purchasing houses in certain areas or "redlining," affected communities of color.

The theory has also been used to analyze how majority-Black and Hispanic districts have been historically underfunded due to legislation that has funneled money into predominantly white schools over time.

The ideas have become a hot button topic, especially among conservatives. Several Republican-led states, including Arkansas, Florida and Tennessee, have attempted to or successfully banned its implementation in public school districts.

Experts say, however, the theory has been mischaracterized or conflated with other frameworks over the past few years.

"People are using it inappropriately and incautiously, making generalizations and claims they probably shouldnt make," Charles A. Price, a Temple University professor, said in August. "Critics are pointing to the worst examples of critical race theory applications rather than the best, and rather than considering its original purpose."

While scholars and educators, including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, say little evidence exists that critical race theory has been presented in K-12 classrooms, other frameworks such as culturally relevant teaching have.

Culturally relevant teaching differs in that it focuses on encouraging students to think critically to help identify and debate what causes social inequities in their daily lives. Experts say many teachers support culturally relevant teaching in some form because it helps form safe spaces for Black and brown students in the classroom.

New social studies standards already on the horizon in Mississippi

Lawmakers pushing for the curriculum not to appear in the state's classrooms come at a time when social studies standards in Mississippi are already garnering scrutiny due to changes proposed by state education leaders.

The newly-proposed standards would push back mention of specific mention of some events and figures in history, such as major leaders of the civil rights movement, back and into higher grade levels. Mentions of some specific labor organizations, like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, are stricken from the standards entirely.

The Mississippi Department of Education will host a public comment meeting on Jan. 28 at the Mississippi Agricultural Museum Sparkman Auditorium in Jackson to discuss the changes.

Have an education-related news tip? Contact Keisha Rowe at nrowe@gannett.com, on Twitter or at (601) 760-2483.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi Senate advances anti-critical race theory bill
An Oath Keepers member charged with overseeing a "quick reaction force" on January 6 was ordered to remain jailed as he faces charges stemming from the Capitol attack. REUTERS/Jim Bourg/File Photo

Oath Keepers member Edward Vallejo was accused of overseeing a "quick reaction force" on January 6.

He's among 11 militia members charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot.

The Arizona man was charged the same day as Oath Keepers leader Edward Stewart Rhodes.

A member of the far-right Oath Keepers group will remain behind bars as he awaits trial on a seditious conspiracy charge and other allegations tied to what prosecutors have described as a wide-ranging plot to storm the Capitol and forcibly disrupt the handoff of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

At a court hearing Thursday in Phoenix, Magistrate Judge John Boyle granted federal prosecutors' request for Edward Vallejo to remain in custody as he faces some of the most serious charges stemming from the Justice Department's expansive investigation into the January 6 attack.

"Undoubtedly here, this indictment alleges a conspiracy to threaten the very fabric of democracy," Boyle said.

Vallejo and Oath Keepers leader Elmer Steward Rhodes were arrested last week and charged  along with nine previously arrested members of the militia group  with seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors on Thursday emphasized Vallejo's alleged role overseeing a stash of weapons the Oath Keepers kept in a hotel room outside Washington, DC. The weapons were allegedly available for a so-called "quick reaction force" that would be deployed at the direction of Rhodes.

Boyle said that while Rhodes is not alleged to have given the order mobilizing the quick reaction force, "I'm convinced that had it been given, you believe so passionately in this cause that you would have responded on that day and followed out that order."

Vallejo and Rhodes have both been in custody since their arrests last week in Arizona and Texas, respectively. Rhodes, a Yale-educated military veteran, is set to appear in federal court on Monday for a hearing on whether he will remain detained ahead of trial.

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The arrests marked a significant development in the Justice Department's sprawling investigation into the attack on the Capitol. Rhodes, Vallejo, and their 9 co-defendants are the first to face sedition charges among the more than 700 accused rioters charged so far with participating in the assault on the seat of American democracy.

"This is not an individual staying at home yelling at his television screen," one of the federal prosecutors told Boyle, asking the judge to "recognize the danger Mr. Vallejo presents to the United States."

The prosecutor described the stash of weapons as an "arsenal" and said Vallejo "stood ready for deployment" during the deadly siege. Vallejo said he was prepared to engage in guerilla warfare and was "calling for bloody massive revolution," the prosecutor said.

A public defender appointed to represent Vallejo, Debbie Jang, said Vallejo does not have a passport, has never left the country, and is "neither a flight risk nor a danger." Jang suggested that Vallejo was willing to accept an ankle monitor and restrictions on his possession of firearms, among other conditions for release.

"There are 11 named defendants in this indictment listed in descending order of culpability," Jang said. "At the very bottom of that list is Mr. Edward Vallejo."

Vallejo can appeal his pre-trial detention to Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC.

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington. Brent Stirton/Getty Images

The prosecutor disputed Jang's claim about the order of defendants, calling Vallejo a "key member of this conspiracy."

The seditious conspiracy charges came a week after Attorney General Merrick Garland delivered remarks urging patience as the Justice Department conducts its Capitol riot inquiry, which Garland described as "one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history.

"Those involved must be held accountable, and there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice," he said on the eve of the first anniversary of the deadly siege.

Legal scholars pointed out that Thursday's indictment confirmed Garland's remarks.

"Those who say DOJ hasn't delivered on the most serious charges have to be quieted today," the former federal prosecutor Harry Litman wrote after the indictment was unsealed. "Seditious conspiracy is about as serious as it gets."

If convicted, a seditious conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The Justice Department last brought a sedition charge in 2010, when it accused members of a Michigan militia of plotting to provoke an armed conflict with the government. The militia members were acquitted, underscoring the challenges of proving such a case.

In their 48-page indictment, prosecutors detailed the Oath Keepers' activities in the immediate aftermath of Biden's victory, quoting from encrypted messaging apps the militia group used to communicate ahead of January 6.

"We aren't getting through this without a civil war," Rhodes wrote on the encrypted chat app Signal, according to the indictment. "Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit."

Prosecutors alleged that, within days of the 2020 election, Rhodes presided over a plot "to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force." On January 6, some Oath Keepers members stormed the Capitol in a military-style "stack" formation and went looking for the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The nine other Oath Keepers named in the indictment had previously been charged in connection with the January 6 attack. Prosecutors have described the Oath Keepers as a large but loosely organized group that focuses its recruitment on current and former military, law enforcement, and first-responder personnel.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Celebrities are wishing late rock legend and actor Meat Loaf a peaceful journey into his paradise by the dashboard light.

Following the Grammy-winning musician's death Thursday night at age 74, pop icon Cher honored her "Dead Ringer for Love" collaborator with sweet memories, saying she had "so much fun" with him while recording the 1981 single, which became a smash hit in the United Kingdom.

"Am Very Sorry For His Family,Friends,& Fans. Am I imagining It, or Are Amazing Ppl In The Arts Dying every other Day" she tweeted.

Had So Much Fun With Meatloaf When We Did Dead Ringer. Am Very Sorry For His Family,Friends,& Fans. Am I imagining It, or Are Amazing Ppl In The Arts Dying every other Day

  Cher (@cher) January 21, 2022

Fellow pop singer Boy George tweeted a memorable moment he shared with the Rocky Horror Picture Show star after sending "love and prayers" to his family and friends: "He once turned me upside down in a Chinese Restaurant in St Johns Wood."

R.I.P Meatloaf. Love and prayers to all his family and close friends. He once turned me upside down in a Chinese Restaurant in St Johns Wood.  Boy George (@BoyGeorge) January 21, 2022

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber posted a short but emotional remembrance to the Bat Out of Hell singer-songwriter, indicating that "the vaults of heaven will be ringing with rock" now that Meat Loaf is gone.

The vaults of heaven will be ringing with rock. RIP Meatloaf. Give my best to Jim. - ALW  Andrew Lloyd Webber (@OfficialALW) January 21, 2022

"Total Eclipse of the Heart" performer Bonnie Tyler said she was "shocked & saddened" by Meat Loaf's death, which fell 33 years after the duo released their collaborative album, Heaven & Hell, in 1989.

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Tyler posted several photos from the album's accompanying photo shoot, calling Meat Loaf "a larger than life character with a voice & stage presence to match" in a touching tribute.

I am shocked & saddened by the sudden death of Meat Loaf. He was, as you might imagine, a larger than life character with a voice & stage presence to match & is one of those rare people who truly was a one off talent and personality. Rest In Peace  Bonnie Tyler (@BonnieTOfficial) January 21, 2022

"[He was] one of those rare people who truly was a one off talent and personality," she finished. "Rest In Peace."

Meat Loaf's Rocky Horror costar Susan Sarandon remembered the singer and actor in a statement to PEOPLE on Saturday. "Big man, big voice, big heart. In my experience, always a gentleman," Sarandon said. "Condolences to his family."

Cher; Meat Loaf; Boy George

Mike Marsland/WireImage (2); Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic Cher, Boy George, and more celebrities have paid tribute to Meat Loaf after he died at 74.

See more celebrity tributes to Meat Loaf below.

 he had the quality of being simultaneously frightening and cuddly, which is rare and rather wonderful   Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) January 21, 2022

So sad to hear about Meat Loaf I spent many days in my youth attempting to belt out Id do anything for love and always failing miserably to get the top notes! He was a great talent, thank you for your Art  Rest in peace   Rebecca Ferguson (@RebeccaFMusic) January 21, 2022

Meat Loaf was a LEGEND. Rest in Paradise by the Dashboard Light, sweet sweaty tuxedo lunatic.  Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) January 21, 2022

He was passionate. A softie. Kind. And talented as hell. And he was my friend. My heart is broken into a million pieces. RIP my friend, Meat Loaf. pic.twitter.com/SP0BPJ9AaX  Marlee Matlin (@MarleeMatlin) January 21, 2022

Heartachebut with warm memorieswith news of Meat Loafs passing. A man of gentle kindness, generous spirit and exceptional talent. The unique quality of his music will stand the test of time. Like many who knew him, I will miss his friendship. https://t.co/fqdCm1RcAM  Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) January 21, 2022

Meat Loaf. What a legend. Rest in peace - Rick x pic.twitter.com/oKfdfetUhh  Rick Astley (@rickastley) January 21, 2022

RIP Meat Loaf, 74.

One of rock musics all-time great characters whose seminal iconic album Bat Out Of Hell is one of the biggest-selling records in history.

A wondrously talented, flamboyant, funny, outrageous and rebellious chameleon. Sad news. pic.twitter.com/J0UNQgGahn  Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 21, 2022

My dear friend, Meat Loaf, has passed away. I just heard the sad news this morning. He was my golf buddy and great soundboard for me in our talks from sports to politics. We just talked a few months ago. RIP



Meat Loaf Dead at 74 from COVID https://t.co/uwnNXQCJpH via @TMZ  Kevin Sorbo (@ksorbs) January 21, 2022

Hear more on all of this week's must-see picks in EW's What to Watch podcast, hosted by Gerrad Hall.

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From left: Founders Brewing Co. Co-founders Dave Engbers, Mike Stevens and Thomas Group Consulting principal Buzz Thomas on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, at Founders' Detroit taproom.

Mike Stevens, who co-founded Founders Brewing Co. with Dave Engbers in 1997 and grew it into Michigan's largest brewery, is stepping away from his role as chief executive officer and will transition to the role of board member, the Grand Rapids-based beer maker announced Wednesday.

Engbers will remain president of the company as Founders seeks a new CEO.

Stevens is stepping down to pursue other personal ambitions and to spend more time with his family, Founders said in a news release.

"Building this company from the ground up and watching it grow into a successful business has truly been the honor of a lifetime," Stevens said in a statement. "To find something I love doing and then create an entire brand and business from it was an incredible experience. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished, and I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for our organization, and to be part of that progress in my new position as a member of the board."

Erik dAuchamp, the Grand Rapids-based director of international business for Founders' parent company, Mahou San Miguel, will assume CEO duties in the interim.

Stevens and Engbers founded Founders Brewing Co. in 1997 in Grand Rapids and grew it into one of America's largest craft breweries, surpassing Bell's Brewery in Comstock as Michigan's largest in 2018. Known for several award-winning beers, including Centennial IPA, Breakfast Stout and the barrel-aged Kentucky Breakfast Stout, the west Michigan brewery's rapid growth has been led by the All Day IPA, which debuted in 2011 as a popular session IPA at 4.7% alcohol-by-volume. Founders' beer is sold in all 50 states.

More: Detroit native's nonprofit saved his life. Now it's getting national attention.

More: Here are the top 12 Michigan craft beers I tasted in 2021

In 2019, Stevens and Engbers sold a 90% majority stake of Founders to Spanish beer company Mahou San Miguel, which already held a 30% stake as a minority owner. That same year, Founders was embroiled in a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee that was later settled for an undisclosed amount.

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In the news release, d'Auchamp indicated no major changes to Founders' operation with Stevens' departure as CEO.

"We are so grateful for Mike and Daves vision and direction in developing and executing a brand and strategic plan that enabled Founders to gain a leadership position in the craft beer space, d'Auchamp said in the news release. When we very first met with Mike and Dave back in 2014 to discuss a partnership between our two brands, we could tell that we were building a connection to something special.

"After working closely with the Founders team for years, we are excited to continue down the path of innovation with this group of talented and passionate individuals. We will continue to pave our way forward in the craft beer space while retaining everything that makes Founders unique, including their incredible team.

Spirits of Detroit writer Brian Manzullo covers craft alcohol for the Free Press. Contact him: bmanzullo@freepress.com and on Untappd, bmanzullo and Twitter, @BrianManzullo and @SpiritsofDET.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Founders Brewing co-founder Mike Stevens steps down as CEO
Deidre Graham Silas

Flags in Illinois will fly at half-staff through Saturday in honor of Deidre (Graham) Silas, the Department of Children and Family Services child protection specialist from Springfield who was fatally stabbed while making a visit to a home in Thayer on Jan. 4.

Silas' funeral is at Union Baptist Church on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Howard Reed's hearing in Sangamon County court Thursday was continued until Feb. 3.

See also: Animal Protection League of Springfield receives $10,000 from #BettyWhiteChallenge

Last week, Associate Judge Jennifer Ascher ordered a fitness evaluation of Reed at the defense's request.

Dr. Terry Killian, a Springfield psychiatrist, has met with Reed, but Killian's report is not complete.

Like last week, Reed, 32, appeared by video. About 15 or so DCFS workers were in the courtroom Thursday. Many were wearing green "Justice for Deidre" stickers while others were wearing "DCP strong" T-shirts. "DCP" stands for Division of Child Protection, where Silas worked.

Some Illinois lawmakers are continuing to stump for a bill that will increase penalties for individuals who commit crimes against DCFS employees.

The legislation, known as the Knight-Silas Bill, comes in response to deaths of Silas and Pam Knight, another caseworker who was killed while on the job. It is still in assignments.

"This penalty enhancement for attacking a DCFS investigator or case worker needs to be passed so we can get word out to the public," said Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, a co-sponsor of the legislation. "People do treat, for example, police officers differently, typically, in most situations because they know if they do something to a police officer, it's going to be a harsher penalty.

"If we can put DCFS (employees) in that same category, the word will get out and it will in some instances prevent people from trying to attack them or hurt them."

AFSCME is asking for additional safety measures for DCFS caseworkers and investigators like adequate staffing, expanded training, tools to keep workers safe in the field, improved threat assessments and better collaboration with law enforcement.

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UBC's pastor, the Rev. T. Ray McJunkins, met Silas 20 years ago when he was interviewing for the job in Springfield.

"I do remember in the interview process," McJunkins recalled, "she was one of the youths who asked me about my vision, my plans for youth ministry (at the church). I was impressed with her articulating her questions."

Last March, when Silas and her husband, Andre, and their two children decided to move back to Springfield from Kansas, Silas was in touch with McJunkins about a job.

Silas, a criminal justice major at Illinois State University who once worked at the Illinois Youth Center in St. Charles, wanted to work with young people again, McJunkins said, and interviewed at the Sangamon County Juvenile Detention Services, where she once interned.

Earlier: 'Someone in your corner': Silas showed her care for children up until the very end

"She did not get that position and I remember she was really disappointed over that, but then this investigator position opened up," McJunkins recalled. "She was offered the job in July and was back here in August and working."

Silas was "happy. Everything was going well," McJunkins said. "The doors were opening, getting back here to where she called home."

McJunkins said "it's evident, and unfortunately it's at the expense of a life, that DCFS needs to be overhauled. It needs to be revamped. Serious oversight needs to be given.

"I'm concerned about (DCFS) policy. Is policy and protocol being followed?"

McJunkins called Silas' family  her father and mother, Roy and Barie Graham, and brother, Mario, "god-fearing" and said Silas herself was a devout Christian.

"From the spiritual perspective, we have to encourage the family," he said. "Of course, there are so many things we don't understand as to why things happen. But it's the will of God and I wish I had a dollar for every time I did not understand the will of God.

"As I've been telling the people, and more so the family, and I will continue to tell them, when you cannot trust the hand of God, meaning when you don't understand, you can always trust the heart of God because he knows best."

McJunkins, who will preside at Silas' funeral Saturday, said he would want people to know the best attributes of Silas' life.

"Saturday is going to be a celebration of her life," he said.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Flags in Illinois fly at half-staff in honor of slain DCFS worker
If youve watched her in shows like Ozark and Inventing Anna, you may be wondering about Julia Garners net worth and how much she makes compared to her characters.

Garner, who was born in The Bronx, New York, started acting when she was 15 years old as a way to overcome her shyness. I had a hard time talking, she told The Cut in 2017. Thats why I liked acting. Because I could say other peoples words. When she was 17, she made her movie debut as Sarah in 2011s Martha May Marlene. She went on to star in movies like Not Fade Away, Electrick Children (which was her first lead role in a film), The Last Exorcism Part II, We Are What We Are, Sin City: A Dame to Kill, Grandma and HBOs Girls before her scene-stealing role in Netflixs Ozark, which won her two Emmy awards.

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In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2020, Garner revealed that a casting director was skeptical of her success as an actor when she was a teenager because of how she looked. [The casting director] is like, You should do independent films,' Garner said. I was too natural maybe in terms of acting. I was just too weird-looking. When you think about teen actors, you think of them having this gorgeous, luscious hair and being so pretty that youre like, You would never be the shy girl in high school. I was definitely not [the luscious hair girl]. My style, its still the same. Its been the same since I was 6 years old, which is a black turtleneck.

So what is Julia Garners net worth? Read on for what we know about Julia Garners net worth and how much she could make from shows like Ozark and Inventing Anna.

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What does Julia Garner make from Ozark?

Click here to read the full article.

Image: Steve Dietl / Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection.

What does Julia Garner make from Ozark? Garner starred as Ruth Langmore, a young woman who is part of a local criminal family, in Netflixs Ozark for four seasons from 2017 to 2022. She won two Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the role in 2019 and 2020. I love playing Ruth so much, and every single day I just feel so lucky to be doing this, Garner said during her Emmys speech in 2019. This is so special. Ill remember this forever.

How much does Julia Garner make from Ozark? Garners Ozark salary hasnt been confirmed, but its assumed that she makes around the same amount as her co-stars, Jason Bateman, who plays Marty Byrde, and Laura Linney, who plays Wendy Byrde. According to Variety, both Bateman and Linney made $300,000 per episode on Ozark as of 2017. If their salary remained the same, the rate wouldve paid them $3 million for 10 episodes in season one, $3 million for 10 episodes in season two, $3 million for 10 episodes in season 3 and $4.2 million for 10 episodes in season four, the final season. In total, Bateman and Linney wouldve made at least $13.2 million for all four seasons of Ozark though its assumed they made even more after the shows success and Emmy nominations for Outstanding Drama Series in 2019 and 2020. Bateman has also been nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series from 2018 to 2020, while Linney has been nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2019 and 2020. Given that Garner is a supporting actor for Bateman and Linneys lead characters in Ozark, its assumed that she makes close to what her co-stars earn but not the exact same amount. Considering that shes the only cast member to win an Emmylet alone twofor her role in Ozark, we estimate that Garners salary is at least six figures per episode of Ozark, which wouldve paid her millions of dollars by the time the series ended in 2022.

Garner told The Los Angeles Times in 2020 that she was cast as Ruth in Ozark after she became obsessed with the role. I had an obsession with Ruth the moment I saw the mock sides for the audition and I dont get obsession with characters and parts. Im very good, she said. If I have to audition for something, Im like, One bus comes, one bus goes kind of thing. Thats the business were in. But I remember I kept thinking, I have to get this part. I will have a hard time watching this show, seeing someone else doing this part. And I never think like that. So, I remember thinking I had to get this part. I just did. There was something, I just understood her for some reason. Even though shes so different from me.

She continued, I went to the audition. I prepared the lines with the accent. So, I memorised my lines with the accent. I did a movie the year before with an accent. So I had the Missouri accent down. There were 15 girls going for the role in the casting office which was the size of a biggish closet with paper-thin walls.'

She revealed that she was the only actress to audition with a Missouri accent. Every single girl that went in the room was saying the lines that I was going to say, none of them had accents and I was like, Oh my god. Im going to look like one of those actors who are like Im an actor, Im in theatre,' she said. Those over-the-top actors that overact. Im going to look like that actor. When she tried to audition without an accent, Garner forgot her lines. She said, I only remembered it with an accent. Garner didnt hear back about her audition for a few days and assumed she had lost the role. Well, Im going to forget about this. Im not going to hear from this project. Its just not happening, she said. Then, a week after her audition, she received the call that she had booked the part of Ruth. It worked out for me. I thought there was no chance, she said.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2021, Garner opened up about how she relates to Ruth. I feel like, when a child goes through something, the first heartbreak, they lose their innocence, and theyre stuck at that age, she said. To me, trauma is trauma. With Ruth, her main thing is she doesnt have women. She only knows how to be with men. But shes not with men who respect women, or theyre not good men. She continued, Ruth doesnt know what a normal and healthy relationship is. She doesnt know what unconditional love is.

What did Julia Garner make from Inventing Anna?

Image: RCF/Everett Collection.

What did Julia Garner make from Inventing Anna? Garner played Anna Delvey (also known as Anna Sorokin) in Netflixs Inventing Anna, which premieres on February 4, 2022. The show, which was created by Shonda Rhimes, is based on New York Magazine writer Jessica Presslers 2018 article, How Anna Delvey Tricked New Yorks Party People, which investigated how a Russian woman named Anna Sorokin pretended to be a wealthy German heiress under the name Anna Delvey to defraud banks, hotels and wealthy friends between 2013 to 2017. Sorokin was convicted of multiple counts of attempted grand larceny, larceny in the 2nd degree and theft of services in 2019.

While Garners salary for Inventing Anna hasnt been confirmed, Insider reported in 2021 that Sorokin was paid $320,000 by Netflix for the rights to adapt her life into Inventing Anna. According to court records obtained by Insider, Sorokin used $199,000 of the money to pay restitution to the banks she defrauded and used another $24,000 to settle state fines. She also used $75,000 in attorney fees and will owe more once her case is concluded. Sorokin was released from prison in February 2021 and was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whee she awaits deportation to Germany. After what she paid in restitution, fines and attorney fees, Sorokin will have little left from the $320,000 Netflix paid her.

Rhimes told Town & Country in 2022 about why she cast Garner as Sorokin. Julia approaches her roles from an intellectual place that allows for the precision and dexterity needed to delve into the mind and spirit of a character, she said.Anna Delvey is a person who goes through many transformations to reach her goals. Given Julias range, we knew this was something she could deliver on. She also revealed to The Hollywood Reporter in 2020 that she met Sorokin at the Albion Correctional Facility in New York, where Sorokin asked Garner to re-create her accent. She might be the hardest character Ive ever played, Garner said. It got super meta because shes like, So how are you playing me? She continued, I said, Well, youre very complex. Your accents really hard. Shes like, Oh my God, how do you sound like me? You have to do it. She just was freaking out, she said.

What is Julia Garners net worth

What is Julia Garners net worth? Julia Garners net worth is $3 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Garners net worth is $7 million less than her Ozark co-star Laura Linney (who is worth $10 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth) and $27 million less than Jason Bateman (who is worth $30 million.) Along with what she made from Ozark and Inventing Anna, Julia Garners net worth also includes her pay for shows like The Americans, Maniac, Dirty John, and movies such as Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, We Are What We Are, Grandma and The Assistant.

In an interview with Harpers Bazaar Singapore in 2022, Garner revealed that her I made it moment was when she was watching a episode of Jeopardy in a yellow cab and saw a question about herself. The words Who is Jason Bateman and Julia Garner? were blaring from a rerun of Jeopardy on Taxi TV, she said. That was when I thought to myself, Oh, I made it! My names on Jeopardy. Thats cool. She also told Town & Country in 2022 about why she relates to Sorokin. Shes a big dreamer, and I would consider myself a dreamer, Garner said. In the business that were in, you have to be. As for what else she wants to accomplish in her career, Garner told the magazine: I want to continue playing strong, complex women. I love switching peoples minds when theyre going back and forth about a character.

Ozark is available to stream on Netflix.

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Jan. 21LEWISTON  Nearly 50 members of the Maine National Guard arrived at area hospitals Thursday morning on COVID-19 response orders as the health care system statewide struggles under the pressure of surging infections and staffing shortages.

Gov. Janet Mills activated up to 169 members of the Guard last week to assist health care facilities across the state, including at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center, Central Maine Medical Center, both in Lewiston, Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington and Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway.

They joined the more than 200 members already on COVID response orders, some of whom have been deployed since late November.

Officials from St. Mary's offered a warm welcome to the 12 members who arrived Thursday. The hospital, like many across the state, was faced with a crush of COVID hospitalizations over the past few weeks, while cases among staff grew as well.

Although all health care workers except those with medical exemptions are fully vaccinated, and those from St. Mary's who tested positive are fully vaccinated and are experiencing mild or no symptoms, according to spokesperson Steve Costello, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that individuals who have tested positive isolate for at least five days.

But with the dozens of staff out due to exposure or a positive test on any given day, St. Mary's informed employees earlier this month that it is prepared to go into "crisis staffing" mode should the situation warrant it. Under interim guidelines issued by the U.S. CDC in December, fully vaccinated and asymptomatic health care workers can forgo the isolation period. They can only work with COVID patients, however.

The hospital has not yet gone into crisis staffing mode, and the members will help fill in the gaps left by these staffing shortages. Eight of them will stay at the Lewiston hospital while the other four will go across the street to d'Youville Pavillion, a long-term care facility within the St. Mary's system.

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This was the first time any of the members deployed to St. Mary's had been called to serve in a hospital setting.

To prepare, each of them had to take an eight-hour training course to become a temporary certified nursing assistant. This allows them to perform in patient-facing settings as CNAs up to the point of administering medication.

"No one in this room has been activated yet, so we're all new to this environment in this situation," Lt. Melissa Willette of Oakland said.

"But I think part of your Army training is just to adapt and overcome and just support any mission that gets thrown your way. So while it's not the norm for any of us here, I think we're all prepared to take on what we have to do."

Willette, who has been in the Guard for four years and is the officer-in-charge of the mission, grew up in Lewiston and said she and her husband only moved away recently. She got to know St. Mary's when her grandparents lived at d'Youville Pavillion, a long-term care facility that's a part of the St. Mary's system.

"It's kind of come full circle for me," she said of returning to the hospital in this capacity.

Most of the members are from the area, Willette said.

"I think it's nice for them to be able to have that opportunity to help their local hospital," she said.

Another local, Staff Sgt. Amanda Breton of Sabattus, said she was excited to "help out where we can" and to learn something new in the process.

This is Breton's second humanitarian deployment in her 14 years in the Guard, her first being to Hurricane Irene-battered Vermont in 2011. She also spent a year on a combat mission in Bagram, Afghanistan. For her, serving in Afghanistan and serving in her local hospital aren't that different.

"It's all the same. Like, you're assigned a task and we've got to complete that task to the best of our ability, just like going overseas," she said. "It's all just like this. We're going into the unknown. I went into the unknown over there (in Afghanistan) terrified and came back and you learn from every experience you have."

Meanwhile at Central Maine Medical Center, 20 Guard members joined the roughly 15 members who have been deployed since mid-December. As with the previous deployment, these members will help set up post-acute care beds, or "swing" beds, Jennifer Bodger, Central Maine Healthcare's system director of care management, told reporters outside the hospital Thursday morning.

Swing bed units have been critical for relieving the bottleneck of patients who are ready to be discharged but, due to a lack of open beds at long-term care facilities, have to wait days and sometimes weeks before they can leave the hospital.

Bodger said they hope to add eight beds to the six-bed unit. The extra beds make "a huge difference," she said.

"Our post-acutes, you know, they're closed (due) to COVID. Our (Emergency Department) is surging with COVID cases with the omicron variant," she said. "And those eight beds are eight people from our community that would be waiting in an inpatient bed for access to additional physical therapy, occupational therapy and were able to provide that for them."

Another five members will go to Rumford Community Home and Bolster Heights Residential Care in Auburn, which are long-term care facilities in the CMH network, where they will also be focused on opening up more beds.

Capt. Joseph White has been on COVID response orders since Dec. 13. Like many members of the National Guard, his civilian job is not in the medical field.

"When they get here, it's kind of overwhelming in the beginning," he said. "But once they get their feet wet, they're able to jump right in and help out the hospital staff."

One of the most surprising aspects of the mission has also been one of the most "amazing," he said. It's not often that Guard members have the opportunity to work in their own communities and "help out your fellow Mainers."

Sometimes that hits close to home, White said.

"Because when you come to the hospital, you don't realize that, 'Hey, I may be taking care of my next-door neighbor or my relative.'"
Now that the Supreme Court has blocked enforcement of a federal mandate requiring millions of workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine, businesses must weigh how to move forward.

Some companies are pressing ahead with a vaccine requirement. Others are putting such mandates on pause, and still others may be breathing a sigh of relief that they don't have to impose a policy that could turn off prospective hires in a tight job market.

Theyre all over the map, says David Miller, a labor and employment attorney with Bryant Miller Olive in Miami.

Last week, the Supreme Court barred the Biden administration from enforcing a federal mandate that businesses with more than 100 employees require that their workforce get COVID-19 vaccinations or be tested weekly and wear masks.

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Supreme Court blocks COVID-19 vaccine mandates for businesses

Vaccine mandate barred

The mandate, which was set to take effect on Feb. 9, would have affected an estimated 84 million workers.

Many companies already require that their employees get a vaccine  or undergo regular testing if they don't  and they're likely to keep those policies in place no matter what the nation's highest court says.

Some companies may be pretty far down the road in investing resources, says Scott Hecker, a labor and employment attorney at Seyfarth Shaw in Washington, D.C. I dont think theyre going to walk them back.

Among U.S. workers, 36% say their company requires employees to be vaccinated, according to a Gallup survey conducted Nov. 29-Dec. 5. Another 43% say their employer encourages vaccination but doesnt require it.

About 74% of Americans 18 and older are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Where's the barista? You may wait longer for your latte: Some Starbucks stores cut hours with staff shortages

Mandates remain at United Airlines, Carhartt, Citigroup

Citigroup is sticking to its vaccination mandate, which required all U.S. employees to be inoculated by Jan. 14.

The company says more than 99% of its roughly 65,000 U.S. employees have received the shots. Those who havent done so were placed on unpaid leave and will be let go by the end of the month if they arent eligible for an exemption or dont take steps to comply.

United Airlines, meanwhile, required its workforce to be vaccinated by Sept. 27 and is not changing its policy.

"Our vaccine requirement is working and saving lives,'' United CEO Scott Kirby said in a message to employees earlier this month. "Since our vaccine policy went into effect, the hospitalization rate among our employees has been 100 (times) lower than the general population in the U.S. ... Weve now gone eight straight weeks with zero COVID-related deaths among our vaccinated employees.''

Carhartt, a Dearborn, Michigan-based maker of rugged workwear for laborers, ranchers and others is also moving ahead with its vaccination mandate.

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We put workplace safety at the top of our priority list and the Supreme Courts recent ruling doesnt impact that core value, Carhartt CEO Mark Valade said in an email to employees that was shared on Twitter. While we appreciate that there may be differing views, workplace safety is an area where we and the union that represents our associates cannot compromise.

But the backlash Carhartt experienced from critics who said its policy runs counter to the sentiments of its largely blue-collar customer base highlights the tightrope many companies are walking.

Pretty rich from a company sustained by the ranchers, farmers, laborers, etc. who make this country great and celebrate her values of freedom and liberty, Molly McCann, a lawyer, tweeted in response to Carhartt's decision.

The National Association of Manufacturers, which represents 14,000 companies across the country, said the Supreme Court ruling doesnt change the fact that getting vaccinated is the best defense against COVID-19 and central to keeping businesses and schools open and to preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed.

We call on all Americans to make the choice to get vaccinated, get boosted when eligible and wear the appropriate mask in public places  so that we can save lives, protect our economy and get through this latest wave of infection, said Jay Timmons, the groups president and chief executive officer.

Well @Carhartt has labelled the unvaccinated dangerous and implemented a vaccine mandate. Pretty rich from a company sustained by the ranchers, farmers, laborers, etc. who make this country great and celebrate her values of freedom and liberty.



Boycott Carhartt until they break.  Molly McCann (@molmccann) January 18, 2022

Imposing mandate was 'extra hurdle'

Meanwhile, businesses that were reluctant to impose mandates may be relieved that at least for now, they are off the hook, workforce experts and labor attorneys say.

It's a very tight labor market right now where companies are struggling mightily to find enough workers,'' says Andy Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement company. "For some of them, this mandate was an extra hurdle theyll be glad is not in their way of hiring.

That may be particularly true for retail, restaurant and hotel companies which are among the businesses that have had the most difficulty finding staff during the pandemic.

Some employers in those industries are reluctant to impose mandates that may make it harder to hire or hold onto workers who do not want to get a vaccine, says Andreas Deptolla, CEO of ThrivePass, which provides benefits administration services for businesses. But those front-line workers face greater health risks if they're unvaccinated.

"We continue to strongly encourage all partners to get fully vaccinated and boosted, John Culver, Starbucks chief operating officer told employees in a message.

Starbucks did not put a vaccine mandate in place but it encouraged its 228,000 workers in the U.S. to get fully vaccinated by Feb. 9, the date the federal mandate was to go into effect or start undergoing weekly testing. It also said that workers had to note their vaccination status by Jan. 10.

Now, in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision, the company has lifted those deadlines.

We respect the Courts ruling and will comply, John Culver, Starbucks chief operating officer, wrote in a message to employees on Tuesday.

However, though the federal mandate cant currently be enforced, Culver said we continue to believe strongly in its spirit and intent and we continue to strongly encourage all partners to get fully vaccinated and boosted.

Starbucks will also continue paying workers for the time they spend going to get the shots, recovering from any side effects, or isolating if they are exposed to the virus.

Lacking staff to deal with vaccinations, testing

For some businesses, a mandate would be costly.

Mehtab Bhogal, co-CEO of Forever Floral, which sells handcrafted, artificial floral bouquets online, says he doesnt have the HR staff to deal with the vaccination or testing of his 130 employees.

It will eat up time, and time is money, he says, figuring the tasks will consume 150 to 200 hours for his chief operating officer and production manager.

Bhogal says hes already struggling to attract and hold onto employees because of the worker shortages, and a mandate would intensify those strains. He notes the company is based in Ogden, Utah, a conservative stronghold that tends to view such mandates skeptically.

I assume Ill lose 30% of my workforce if he imposes a vaccine requirement, Bhogal says. Once you factor in the constrained labor pool, political situation, and our growth rate, it would make hiring even harder than it already is.

Struggling with worker shortages

Neema Hospitality, which owns 12 hotel franchises in Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, also has no plans to require vaccination, says company President Sandeep Thakrar.

The company, he says, is already struggling to add housekeepers, front desk clerks and others to a workforce of about 150.

We are strongly encouraging everyone to get vaccinated and boosted but not mandating it, Thakrar says. About 70% of Neemas staff is inoculated, he estimates.

Other companies, particularly in the finance and professional service sectors, are taking the opposite path, imposing vaccine mandates in order to entice employees working remotely to come back on site.

Theres a big desire to try to get employees back to the office, Deptolla of ThrivePass says. You have a talent war ... Employees can just say, I dont want to do that.

Demonstrators protest on the Roosevelt Bridge against the federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate on Nov. 26, 2021, in Stuart, Fla. The protest was in support of health care workers who will face unemployment because of the mandate.

Vaccination rules may vary by region

State and local policies may also affect whether workplaces can mandate the vaccine.

In Florida, for instance, companies that impose vaccination requirements may be at least partly thwarted by a state law that provides exceptions. Workers can evade the requirement by wearing masks. And businesses cant make workers show proof of vaccination, Miller says.

Roughly a dozen states, mostly in the South, have banned or limited employer vaccination mandates.

Republican governors see vaccines as an important tool against COVID and continue to encourage Americans to get vaccinated but also believe that workers who decline to get the shots should not lose their jobs over a personal medical decision, said Joanna Rodriguez, spokeswoman for the Republican Governors Association.

At the end of the day, the decision was what a lot of governors wanted, Rodriguez said of the Supreme Court ruling. They wanted state rights to be protected, first and foremost, and secondly, for people to be able to make their personal medical decision without the federal government taking away their jobs.

Conversely, roughly 20 states have some kind of vaccination requirement for health care workers. Illinois, meanwhile, has adopted the broader federal mandate while New York City has imposed a vaccination requirement for all employees who perform in-person work or interact with the public.

Ultimately, businesses in states with Democratic leadership that have or are likely to pass mandates will be more likely to set up vaccination and testing protocols, says Deptolla. Companies in Republican-leaning states, however, in which theres more opposition to the directives are more likely to steer clear of them.

Contributing: Michael Collins

You can follow Charisse Jones and Paul Davidson on Twitter @charissejones and @PDavidsonusat, and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter here for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court vaccine mandate ruling means businesses chart own course
Jan. 21CONCORD  Voters without proper identification would get a different-colored ballot and could have their votes nullified up to 10 days after the election with legislation a state Senate panel considered Thursday.

Secretary of State David Scanlan said creating these different "affidavit" ballots would help deal with the erosion of confidence many have with election results.

"We have leaders in both political parties that say things that shake this confidence and instill doubt in the results," Scanlan told the Senate Election Laws and Municipal Affairs Committee.

Sen. Bob Giuda, R-Warren, admitted his amended bill (SB 418) could result in a new winner being declared more than a week later in a very tight election if enough affidavit ballots were tossed out.

"That's a possibility but I will state for the record the integrity of our elections is paramount," Giuda said.

This provisional outcome wouldn't damage the state's first-in-the-nation primary reputation, he said.

"We need to do it first, we also need to do it best; that's what New Hampshire is known for," Giuda said.

At Thursday's hearing, Scanlan said this amendment from Giuda made it clear these affidavit ballots would not be given to same-day registered voters who present proof of residency.

Giuda pointed out 220 people who voted without identification in the 2020 election here never turned in proof they were eligible to vote.

Henry Klementowicz, a senior staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, said the bill would be rejected in court as unconstitutional.

He said it could deny the right to vote for the homeless and those seeking U.S. citizenship.

"What are we doing is passing voting laws potentially throwing out thousands of votes," Klementowicz said.

He said in the 2020 election, this would have affected 637 voters who cast ballots without an ID, and another 816 who lacked proof of citizenship.

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Scanlan: Supreme Court should weigh in

In the 2016 election, Klementowicz said 20 people were charged with voting twice. He questioned if any of them would have been caught with this new system.

Scanlan urged the Senate to consider tabling this bill and asking the Supreme Court to issue an advisory opinion on whether it was constitutional.

Liz Tantarelli, president of the New Hampshire League of Women Voters, said these changes are aimed at such a tiny amount of alleged voter fraud that it wasn't worth this effort.

"The more complicated that gets, the harder it is for us to explain it in terms that people can understand," Tantarelli said.

Senate Democratic Leader Donna Soucy of Manchester criticized another provision that those with affidavit ballots would be given a unique identification number and the moderator would keep a list of them by name.

In a very small town, disallowing such a ballot could end up revealing who the person voted for, Soucy said.

Giuda said that's no reason against making this change.

"If you voted illegally, you are going to be prosecuted so your right to privacy doesn't exist," Giuda added.

klandrigan@unionleader.com
Travelers heading to Spain will now be required to show proof of a COVID-19 booster dose, becoming the latest country to rely on the extra shot.

Starting Feb. 1, most international travelers, including those from the United States, will be required to show proof they have received a booster if more than 270 days (about 9 months) have passed since the last dose of their initial vaccine series, according to Spain's tourism site.

The new booster dose rule is in addition to the current requirement that travelers fill out a Spain Health Control form, which can be obtained through the Spain Travel Health portal or through apps (on Android or iOS devices).

When in Spain, face masks are required to be worn both in indoor public spaces and outdoors.

Spain is classified as a "Level 4" destination by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency's highest travel warning. Destinations are designated as "Level 4" if they report more than 500 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people over the last 28 days.

View of the emblematic San Francisco street in the historic center of Aviles,

Joaquin Gomez Sastre/Getty Images

Currently, Spain is reporting about 97,194 new cases on average each day, according to Reuters, which is a significant decrease from earlier in January.

Booster shots of a coronavirus vaccine are becoming an increasingly common requirement. Last year, Israel started requiring booster shots for anyone looking to obtain a "green pass," which is required to access public spaces like restaurants, and France recently started requiring a booster shot seven months after being vaccinated to obtain a "sanitary pass," mandatory in public places like restaurants and cafes as well as on long-distance trains.

In the U.S., Hawaii is considering adding a COVID-19 booster requirement to its Safe Travels program, while the island of Maui has already changed the definition of "fully vaccinated" to include a booster shot. And earlier this month, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City started requiring all performers, employees, and audience members to show proof of a COVID-19 booster shot.

Alison Fox is a contributing writer for Travel + Leisure. When she's not in New York City, she likes to spend her time at the beach or exploring new destinations and hopes to visit every country in the world. Follow her adventures on Instagram.
Jan. 20A stressed-out worker cannot be fired for the use of medical marijuana off the job, the New Hampshire Supreme Court has ruled.

The Supreme Court overturned a trial court ruling that allowed a company to fire a worker who started to use medical marijuana and asked to be exempt from the company's drug testing.

Scott Paine brought the lawsuit against Ride-Away Inc., a Londonderry company that sells, leases and equips vehicles adapted for use by handicapped people.

The company hired Paine in May 2018 as an automotive detailer. But they fired him in September 2018 when he told bosses he had enrolled in the state's therapeutic cannabis program and his doctor had approved cannabis use for his PTSD.

Paine sued under the state's anti-discrimination law, which requires employers to make a reasonable accommodation for a worker's disability.

"We agree with the plaintiff that (the state anti-discrimination law) does not contain any language categorically excluding the use of therapeutic cannabis as an accommodation," reads the unanimous opinion, written by Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald.

Both the ACLU-New Hampshire and Disability Right Center-NH filed briefs in support of Paine.

In a statement, the ACLU said people with disabilities should not be denied a job based on medical treatments.

"This Supreme Court ruling is a victory for the over ten thousand Granite Staters enrolled in the state's medical cannabis program who were at were at risk of experiencing employment discrimination due to their disability," said senior staff attorney Henry Klementowicz in a statement.

A lawyer for Ride-Away did not immediately return a telephone call.

The ruling does not mean that Paine can use or possess marijuana on the job, the justices pointed out.

The justices returned the case to Rockingham County Superior Court Judge Daniel St. Hilaire to work out details about how the process would work.

mhayward@unionleader.com
Last Saturday, four rescued manatees experienced life in the water and the air as they landed at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport after a flight from Orlando.

After arriving in Cincinnati, the manateesLizzo, Cardi-Tee, MaryKate and Ashleywere loaded onto trucks and transported to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, where they will begin the next phase in their rehabilitation.

The manatees were moved to Columbus to make additional room for rescued manatees in need of emergency critical care at SeaWorld's Rescue and Rehabilitation Center.

Four manatees: Lizzo, Cardi-Tee, MaryKate and Ashley, were transported from Orlando to Columbus, making a pit stop at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to move to their next phase of rehabilitation.

DHL, which donated the transportation network, created custom-built containers for the manatees during the flight from Orlando and drive to Columbus. A Columbus Zoo staff veterinarian and animal care curator was also on the flight, monitoring the manatees condition.

During their trip, the manatees were placed in containers made of high-density foam that kept them light and insulated. The containers were secured on palettes attached to the floor for stability. They were monitored with laser thermometers and covered in wool and space blankets to maintain a healthy body temperature.

To keep their bodies moist during the flight, the manatees were misted with water under the blankets.

Now that the manatees are in Columbus, they have joined five others currently part of the zoos manatee rehabilitation program. With nine manatees total, its the most ever housed there at one time, according to a press release.

They will remain in Columbus until they gain enough weight to return to Florida.

Four manatees: Lizzo, Cardi-Tee, MaryKate and Ashley, were transported from Orlando to Columbus, making a pit stop at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to move to their next phase of rehabilitation.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Watch: Manatees fly from SeaWorld Orlando to Cincinnati
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About 350 people march down Yakima Avenue during the Walk For Life on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020 in Yakima, Wash. The march started at Grace Of Christ Presbyterian Church and ended at Millennium Plaza.
Toppenish and Highland school districts in the Yakima Valley have changed their school calendars and schedules this year. They aren't alone. Schools across Washington are considering calendar changes as a tool for knowledge retention and social support during pandemic era learning.
Press Release

January 21, 2022 Bong Go on 'no vax, no ride policy': 'Ipaintindi sa tao kaysa pag-awayan upang mahikayat ang tao na magpabakuna' Senator and Chair of the Senate Committee on Health Christopher "Bong" Go remarked earlier that he welcomes any investigation on the "no vaccine, no ride" policy if warranted and stressed the need to help the public understand better the policies being implemented in the fight against COVID-19. "I welcome any investigation, if warranted. Dapat ipaintindi sa tao ang polisiya kaysa pag-awayan ito," Go emphasized. The statement came after a lawmaker filed House Resolution No. 2451 on Tuesday, urging the House of Representatives' committees on health and transportation to conduct a joint inquiry on the alleged "illegal and discriminatory" policy which prohibits certain unvaccinated individuals from accessing public transport in Metro Manila. "The 'no vax, no ride' policy, I am told, is designed to protect the unvaccinated individuals, considering that 85% of COVID-19 patients at the ICUs requiring mechanical ventilators in DOH hospitals in Metro Manila are not vaccinated," he noted. The senator reiterated that he supports warranted measures that would help curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country. He also underscored the need to come up with a comprehensive solution to protect the welfare of Filipinos while the government continues to strike a balance between public health and economic concerns. "This policy, after all, is just one of the many pandemic measures, including guidelines on non-essential travels, health protocols, and activities, among others, that we had been implementing to regulate movements of people particularly amid increasing number of cases," Go said. The senator acknowledged that the said policy is aimed at ensuring the safety of the riding public and keeping public transportation running amid the surge in COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila, which is still under Alert Level 3. According to the Department of Transportation, 23 passengers have tested positive in the free, random, and voluntary COVID-19 antigen testing being conducted in Metro Manila's railways. Eight out of 96 tested passengers were from Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT-3),12 out of 85 from Light Rail Transit 2 (LRT-2), and three out of 47 from Philippine National Railways (PNR) stations. Meanwhile, Go reiterated his appeal to eligible Filipinos to get vaccinated against COVID-19 saying, "Bagama't hindi mandatory ang vaccination laban sa COVID-19 at hindi pwede pilitin ang tao, hikayatin pa rin natin ang mga hindi pa bakunado na magpabakuna na dahil maiiwasan natin ang malubhang sakit o maging kamatayan dahil sa COVID-19." "Ang bakuna ang susi natin para malampasan ang pandemya at makabalik na tayo sa normal na pamumuhay. Alalahanin natin na ang pagiging bakunado ay pagiging parte ng solusyon sa laban natin kontra COVID-19," he ended. As of January 19, the government has successfully administered 121.49 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines nationwide. Out of these numbers, about 56.44 million Filipinos are fully vaccinated while 59.43 million have received their first dose. Meanwhile, 5.61 million Filipinos already got their booster shots.
After two pandemic-laden years, and so much civil unrest and disagreement, sometimes the world of community service seems like a roller coaster. Events are planned, and then canceled. Strong opinions within club leadership can make coming to a consensus difficult at times, and when peoples emotions are stretched thin to begin with, there are times when we are all ready to throw in the towel and just go have a margarita somewhere. Then a new day dawns, we awaken refreshed and renewed, and realize, ok, it was just a bad day. Well reschedule that event, and we love our Family of Rotary - strong opinions come from strong leaders. Lets go have that margarita TOGETHER!

One of those great new days is dawning in the world of Rotary very soon and its one we are all very excited about. In July 2022, Rotary International and Rotarians around the world will see its first female International President step to the podium. That woman is Jennifer Jones and we cant imagine anyone more deserving.

President Elect Jennifer wants Rotarians to dare to dream and to open their hearts and minds to the possibilities before them. She wants us to Imagine Rotary and has given us those two simple, powerful words as her theme for the 2022-23 Rotary year.

PE Jennifer is a member of the Rotary Club of Windsor-Roseland, Ontario, Canada, I urge Rotarians, she says to dream big and harness (your) connections and the power of Rotary to turn those dreams into reality. Imagine a world that deserves our best, where we get up each day knowing that we can make a difference.

Meeting virtually recently with incoming Governors Elect from around the world, PE Jennifer told a story about a club member who asked for her help in getting a young peace activist out of Afghanistan during the U.S. troop withdrawal last year. What a frightening situation that would be. She was at first unsure if she could help/should help/or how she could make it happen. She told the group she dug deep to find that certain Rotary magic and made contact with a Rotary Peace Fellow she had met years earlier. Less than 24 hours later, it happened - the activist was on the evacuation list, and was soon thereafter safely in Europe.

To better engage members, Rotary needs to adapt and retool she continued and heres a personal example. Windsor was once the automotive hub of Canada. But after plant closings left thousands without work, the city needed to retool, in the same way an auto plant would, preparing for new parts or a new model. Now Windsor is a leader in agribusiness and medical and aerospace technology. For Rotary, finding the right part to engage each member should be our core function. It comes down to the comfort and care of our members Engaging members is crucial to retaining members. We need to ask members what they want to get from Rotary and give them meaningful responsibilities.

In closing she said It is our offer of hands-on service, personal growth, leadership development, and lifelong friendships that creates purpose and passion in our organization... Lets make sure we engage our members so they love their clubs and their Rotary experience. We have been entrusted with leadership in our great organization. Now it is up to us to be brave and intentional in our actions, and let others help us lead.

What an inspirational leader, and yes, we CAN imagine the amazing things that await us on this journey. Cheers Jennifer! Its going to be A Beautiful Thing!
Mark C. Alexander, The Arthur J. Kania Dean of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, was recently elected as the President-Elect of The Association of American Law Schools (AALS).

As President-Elect, he will succeed Erwin Chermerinsky, Dean of University of California, Berkeley School of Law, as President next year. Dean Alexander joins Kevin Washburn, Dean of University of Iowa College of Law and Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Florida International University College of Law on the Executive Committee.

Being chosen as the President-Elect by my peers is one of the greatest honors of my career said Dean Alexander. I am looking forward to supporting Dean Chemerinsky this year and learning from him. Choosing to be a lawyer is to choose a path of service and I look forward to serving the legal education community and my fellow deans.

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), founded in 1900, is a nonprofit association of 176 member and 18 fee-paid law schools. Its members enroll most of the nations law students and produce the majority of the countrys lawyers and judges, as well as many of its lawmakers. The mission of AALS is to uphold and advance excellence in legal education. In support of this mission, AALS promotes the core values of excellence in teaching and scholarship, academic freedom, and diversity, including diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints, while seeking to improve the legal profession, to foster justice, and to serve its many communitieslocal, national and international.
German car maker BMW will start production at a plant in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary, in 2025, the company announced at a press conference on annual sales in Budapest.

Work on the base is proceeding according to plan and building construction will start in the first half of 2022. The more than 1 billion euro plant, with 1,000 workers, will have capacity to turn out 150,000 cars a year when production starts in 2025.



BMW was to have started construction of the plant in the spring of 2020, but management revisited plans for the base because of the impact of the coronavirus crisis.



BMW Group Magyarorszag managing director Maciej Galant said BMW brand sales in Hungary rose 16% to 4,063 last year.



Sales of the MINI brand increased 25% to 457.



BMW had a 3.3% share of the new passenger car market, but a 29.5% share in the premium category.



Next year, BMWs share of the premium segment could reach 30%, Galant said.



There are 15 BMW and six MINI brand dealerships in Hungary.
Hungary views Russia as a strategically important partner in the areas of economic cooperation, energy security and the protection against the coronavirus pandemic, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said.

Attending the announcement of Russian-owned Arnest Groups first Hungarian investment on Thursday, Szijjarto said the proportion of investments from the East in the Hungarian economy was growing, vindicating the countrys policy of opening to the East.



The 17 billion forint (EUR 47m) aerosol filling and metal container production facility to be built in Alsozsolca by end-2024 is receiving a 7 billion forint state grant and training subsidies, and the investment will create 256 jobs.



Agreement on the development project went ahead despite sanctions against Russia and in the face of criticism of pragmatic bilateral cooperation, he said.



Several international players wanted to prevent cooperation, but, he added, the Hungarian government had a vested interest in partnership based on mutual respect from which both sides profited equally.



He accused western European countries of aiming for the same cooperation while resorting to hostile remarks, driven by political correctness, and signing huge business deals in or with Russia.





Photo Courtesy: FM's Facebook Page
The fresh newsletter for the International Community in Hungary - described by readers as a "Great read each week" - is now available for your interest and use via the link below.

You can see the new edition of the Xpat E-Magazine here:

xpatloop.com/newsletters/2022/20-january.html



1. In focus is Hungary's 'House of Music' official opening this Saturday

Designed by Japanese star architect Sou Fujimoto, it topped the renowned

World Architecture Communitys list of most anticipated buildings in 2021.



2. Also below is an essential selection of fresh News, Info & Inspiration:

E.g. Watch: Thousands Attend 'Our Homeland' Anti-Vax Protest in Budapest.

Quarantine Restrictions Eased & Hungary Starts Giving 4th Covid Vaccine Dose.



3. Plus there's Calendar highlights, new Specials & Movies now showing in Budapest:

E.g. Healthy Winter Holiday Opportunity At Hotel Pelion In Tapolca near Balaton

Movies: Dangerous / The Matrix Resurrections / Spider-Man: No Way Home.



As always you can see Contemporary, Classical & Community events in Xpat Calendar.

Here's hoping you enjoy & even benefit from what's in it for you below.

Yours with best wishes & kind regards, Team XpatLoop



Photo - 'Winter sunset on the top of the Basilica, Budapest)' - courtesy of Krenn Imre Photography

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"Two thumbs up on XpatLoop's website and newsletter. A really great resource for us expats. Easy to navigate and loads of excellent ideas on what's on in Budapest, plus activities for the weekend. Keep up the good work!"



Sandra Knibbs, Principal at Dance Craze Academy:

"XpatLoop - great work informing us about the most compelling events in the city!"



Ephie Christodoulides, Client Manager at KPMG:

"I just wanted to say thank you for all the work you are doing on the site".



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Thanks to XpatLoop for an excellent working relationship of over 20 years!



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Just a short note of deep appreciation to you all at XpatLoop. At these difficult and potentially solitary times your mailings are doing a wonderful job at keeping us expats in the loop, and ensuring that we still feel part of the vibrant community which is Budapest.



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Naomi Judd died Saturday at age 76. Here are some of the entertainers, leaders, athletes and other notable people we've lost so far this year.
OKLAHOMA CITY  As more and more schools go to distance learning in the wake of the latest COVID-19 surge, Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday announced a plan to let state employees serve as substitute teachers.

Stitt signed an executive order directing state agencies to create mechanisms for state employees to substitute teach. The order is effective for 120 days.

We expect state employees to be mobilized tomorrow and be reaching out to the school districts, the governor said. That is our intent.

The governor has criticized schools for not having an in-person option for instruction, saying students suffer mentally and academically without it.

State employees would not be paid a substitute teaching rate but would still be paid by their respective agencies, said Steven Harpe, the states chief operating officer.

Oklahoma has 32,000 state employees, Stitt said.

The governor was asked about critics who suggest that the state employees will be merely babysitters.

No. 1, we know that the best solution is our wonderful teachers across the state, in-person teaching young people, Stitt said. The second-best thing is obviously the substitute teachers.

Kids are home alone when parents have to go to work, the governor said, and he would much rather have students in the classroom and believes most parents would agree with him.

State employees would have to pass a background check to be placed in a classroom, said Ryan Walters, education secretary.

Walters came under criticism last week for social media remarks he made saying schools werent doing enough to keep in-person learning a viable option.

Chad Warmington, State Chamber CEO and president, said his group also has launched a program to allow members of the business community to substitute teach in schools.

State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said the gesture of flooding schools with untrained volunteers is a meager effort.

We all agree the best place for our students is for schools to be open, Hofmeister said. I appreciate that Stitt has finally recognized this crisis. Unfortunately, he has brought a cup of water to a raging fire. This is not leadership. This is political.

Hofmeister recently announced that she is switching parties to Democrat from Republican to run for governor. Stitt, a Republican, is seeking reelection. Walters, also a Republican, is running for state superintendent.

Like many Oklahomans, I have more questions than answers after the press conference, Hofmeister said. If the governor had consulted with the State Department of Education, he would know that substitute teachers require an FBI criminal background check that takes four to six weeks to complete.

El Reno Superintendent Craig McVay said it was noteworthy that the governor was not flanked by a throng of school district leaders and teachers in making his announcement on Tuesday because they were looking yesterday afternoon for people to stand on that podium from public schools to say how wonderful an idea that was.

For McVay, the executive order is a slap in the face and of little help, practically speaking, to schools overrun by employee and student illnesses right now.

Twenty months ago if the governor would have not stuck his head in the sand and said, `Hey, what can we do to help our schools deal with this? and to put out the APB for help then, that would have been nice. Im flabbergasted, said McVay.

Anyone who volunteers in our district is subject to state law, which requires a federal background check showing 10 years with no felonies, for anyone to be around children. There is an absolute barrier to just calling in mom and pop off the streets, McVay said.

Its about 60 days from the time we submit paperwork to when we get the background check back.

In El Reno, the school district already had a dedicated corps of background-checked substitutes from long-standing agreements with the local police and fire unions, as well as a local ministers alliance.

On top of leaning on all of that outside help, El Reno Public Schools has had every central office administrator, including McVay, plus every principal, assistant principal, counselor and secretarial staffer substituting in classrooms for absent teachers  and that has resulted in 100% of them testing positive for COVID after substituting.

Its not like that we arent doing everything we can because we dont believe its better for us to be face to face with our kids. We have the same belief Gov. Stitt has about that, McVay said. Todays press conference did not help us. There are no state employees that want to get in that Petri dish, and I dont blame them.

Asked what he would tell Stitt if asked what help was needed, McVay responded: Trust.

Let us determine locally  seriously locally  when we can and cannot be in person based on whether or not we have the number of adults needed to take care of kids. And honor that decision as if you were sitting in that room with us, he said.

Trust us  we prefer to be face to face because we know its better. And get out of our way.

In a prepared statement, Jenks Public Schools officials said they appreciate anyone who is willing to be a substitute teacher and are grateful to community members who have stepped up to serve so far.

Asking state employees to substitute could be helpful, but there are still unanswered questions about how volunteers will be mobilized to districts across the state, the statement reads. Teachers are not a disposable resource. Teachers are highly qualified professionals, and they cannot simply be replaced. At JPS, in-person learning has always been the priority, and we believe a professional educator is still the most effective leader for a classroom.

Tulsa Public Schools released a statement saying that the pandemic has exacerbated Oklahomas longstanding teacher shortage and state funding challenges. The district is once again pleading for all Tulsans to do what they can to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 to maximize students opportunities for in-person instruction.

While we are grateful that Oklahoma is recognizing the critical need for substitutes across the state, we are also mindful that Oklahoma has quite a long way to go to meaningfully invest in our public education system, the statement reads. Time and time again, weve seen what Tulsans can do when we come together to support our educators, and substitute teaching is a great opportunity for any Tulsan to make a meaningful difference for our children and families.
The following questions were asked recently on the Wonderline:

Q: During that tornado warning day in December, the auditorium was locked and not available as a storm shelter. Years ago, it was designated as a storm shelter in town for people who needed one. Is it still considered a storm shelter for residents in York?

A: Cheree Folts, director of York Parks and Recreation, said, The York City Auditorium is no longer considered a community storm shelter. Years ago the City Auditorium was taken off the community storm shelter list because it could not be left unlocked without supervision due to security breaches. City and county officials are currently discussing ideas for addressing the need for a storm shelter in the downtown area that can be reliably available.

Q: Due to some commissioners comments during county board meetings about their concerns regarding high bills, I have started to take more of an interest in the countys claims every two weeks. And I agree, there have been some really large claims for court-appointed counsel through the past year. In particular, there was one for $27,000 to a single attorney in their last set of claims. How was that claim explained?

A: Yes, there was a single claim for $27,000 for court-appointed attorney fees in the last set of claims before the county commissioners.

Commissioner Daniel Grotz also asked about this claim.

It was the understanding of the commissioners that this claim was for work the attorney performed over the course of multiple months.

Q: Does the Four Corners Health Department keep track of the number of active cases of other types of illnesses going around right now, besides COVID? Because there are a lot of people sick right now who do not have COVID  so do local health officials keep track of all those other cases?

A: No. Four Corners keeps track of COVID cases that are confirmed by lab tests and not of the other random illnesses that are going around right now.

Q: How long do you have to stay stopped behind a school bus when it is stopped?

A: As long as the stop arm is extended from a school bus, drivers cannot proceed forward.

Q: What is the smallest town in Nebraska?

A: The town with the smallest population in the state is Monowi which has one resident.

Monowi is located in Boyd County.

Q: Did the county board end up approving the purchase of an evacuation stair chair for handicapped and/or unconscious people in the event of an emergency?

A: They havent yet.

They are still investigating different products and services.

At this time, it appears they might be interested in exploring the theory of purchasing stair chairs with York General Health Care Services which could maybe provide them with a lower cost because of bulk buying. This is a new idea that is being explored and the safety committee will report back the findings at the county boards next meeting.

This piece of apparatus will likely cost in the average range of $4,000. There is also the possibility that the county can apply for a grant to pay for half the cost, if the grant was to be awarded in the future.

This piece of equipment would allow for two people to move a handicapped and/or injured and/or unconscious person from one floor to the other of the courthouse in the event of an emergency when the elevator cannot be used.

Q: I hear there are 60,000 illegal immigrants in Nebraska. How many are in York?

A: Thats something we cant answer. If it were known they are here illegally, they would likely be picked up and turned over to immigration agents. So if they are here and illegal, its likely no one knows about it as they are concealing their illegal status.

Q: What does it mean when people are cited for assault by mutual consent?

A: Assault by mutual consent means a person assaulted another person who also assaulted the first person back. In other words  two people physically fighting with the end result being both being cited with a misdemeanor charge of assault by mutual consent.

Q: Does anyone in the York area sell Shaklee products?

A: We arent sure. The reader could go online and see if the product they are interested in purchasing is being offered on Shaklees website. Meanwhile, if someone does sell this product line in the York area, they can contact the Wonderline and we will pass that information along.

Q: There are quite a few people leaving office at the end of this year, regarding state lawmakers and top office holders like the governor and our state senator for District 24, Mark Kolterman. My question is how long has Nebraska had term limits for state officials? And when that took place, was it a law made by state lawmakers themselves or by a vote of the people?

A: Nebraskas term limit for state officials was a decision by the people.

Term limits for these offices began in Nebraska in 1992 when voters approved the Term Limits Act of 1992 with 68.2% of the vote. It limited state legislators and statewide officials to two consecutive terms.
New Delhi: With the Covid-19 pandemic throwing usual office and personal life out of gear, a new pilot project (six-month long program) has been signed by over 30 companies in the United Kingdom for a four-day work week.

The trial program will begin in June, while the participating companies will allow employees to work for 32 hours per week. This, however, will not affect teh compensation and employee benefits of the workers, said a Bloomberg report.

The Bloomberg report further added that companies that have signed up for the pilot project will ask employees to these 32 hours have to be allocated over the work week.

A lot of it is similar with India's New Wage Code.

The four labour codes on wages, social security, industrial relations and occupation safety, health and working conditions are likely to be implemented by the next fiscal year, a senior official had told news agency PTI a couple of weeks ago. Once implemented, the new wage code will impact working hours, salary restructuring and PF contribution among the prominent ones.

Experts also believe that the new draft will impact the working hours of employees with some media reports saying that employees may be allowed a four-day work week from next fiscal, but they will have to work for 12 hours on those four days. The labour ministry has apparently made it clear that 48-hour weekly work requirement is a must.

Live TV

#mute
New Delhi: Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Friday asserted that the danger of COVID-19 has subsided in the national capital and the situation is "quite under control".

He also said that the virus was the primary cause of death in only three of the 43 fatalities recorded the previous day. The national capital is expected to record 10,500 cases on Friday with a positivity rate of 17 to 18 per cent, Jain said.

Considering the dip in daily cases and the positivity rate, he said, the government has written to Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on withdrawing the weekend curfew, lifting the odd-even rule for the opening of shops and allowing private offices to operate at 50 per cent capacity.

"Experts had warned that Delhi can record one lakh cases daily during this wave but that danger has been averted. We will take a call on lifting of more restrictions within three-four days," the minister told reporters here.

Delhi has passed the peak of the ongoing wave of the pandemic, Jain said. He said that after recording around 28,000 Covid infections last week, Delhi is now reporting a sharp decline in the number of daily cases and the positivity rate. The "grave danger of coronavirus has subsided in Delhi", Jain said.

The city had recorded 28,867 COVID-19 cases last Thursday, the sharpest single-day spike since the beginning of the pandemic. The number then declined to 24,383 on Friday, 20,718 on Saturday, 18,286 on Sunday, 12,527 on Monday, 11,684 on Tuesday, 13,785 on Wednesday and 12,306 on Thursday.

The positivity rate stood at 30.6 per cent on Saturday, the highest in the ongoing wave of the pandemic so far, 27.9 per cent on Sunday, 28 per cent on Monday, 22.5 per cent on Tuesday, 23.9 per cent on Wednesday and 21.5 per cent on Thursday.

"Of the 43 fatalities recorded on Thursday, coronavirus was the primary cause in only three," Health Minister Jain said.

The capital has reported 396 deaths due to the infection in January so far. According to officials, most of these patients had comorbidities and Covid was not the primary cause of death.

Live TV
In a step taken to facilitate consumers who want to buy electric vehicles, the Delhi government has made a move to make sure that they have all the information they need. Delhi government launched a dedicated portal that will be updated with all the required information on electric vehicles.

"The government's website contains information on EV models available in the market, savings and charging facility among others", Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said at the launch event, adding that the Delhi government wanted to give a user-friendly, interactive and resourceful platform to the public.

"This new website will be able to provide all required information to potential EV consumers and keep up to date with sales and daily growing charging infrastructure data, too," Gahlot said.

Read also: Hyundai partners quantum computer maker IonQ to develop better EV batteries

The website also provides information on the location of charging stations and specifications of the chargers. Currently, Delhi has 377 charging points at 170 locations, increasing the number. According to a statement issued by the transport department, the website will also provide real-time updated numbers to the users.

The portal also features an 'EV calculator' that estimates the savings on fuel by a specific EV compared to its equivalent conventional vehicle. "It enables the consumers to make a rational choice and identify the cost reduction that an EV can provide," Gahlot said.

Besides the price, brand and range provided by a given EV, the portal's dashboard also carries updates on Delhi's EV ecosystem, including sales and uptake of vehicles in Delhi in real-time.

The website also has a feedback and grievance section where stakeholders can make suggestions. Especially for grievances and requests, an auto-generated e-mail will be sent to the consumer and the transport department, the statement mentioned.

With inputs from PTI

Live TV

#mute
New Delhi: The majority of the Delhi residents are not in favour of lifting Covid-19 curbs right away, a survey has found.

Lt Governor Anil Baijal on Friday (January 21) rejected the Delhi government's proposal on lifting weekend curfew and removing odd-even rule for the opening of shops in the markets. Albeit, the LG has allowed private offices to function with 50 per cent staff.

The Delhi government brought the proposal to remove the stringent curbs in the wake of decline in daily Covid-19 cases and its effect on livelihood and business activities. However, as per a survey conducted by LocalCircles, around 63 per cent Delhi residents will support the removal of restrictions if the test positivity rate (TPR) falls down to 5 per cent.

The survey collected 7,598 responses aross Delhi, out of which 66 per cent were men while 34 per cent women. Only 5 per cent residents were in favour of removing restrictions currently without any delay.

Meanwhile, Delhi on Thursday reported 12,306 fresh coronavirus cases and 43 fatalities, the highest number of deaths reported in a day since June 10, 2021. The positivity rate dropped to 21.48 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department.

Out of the 15,589 beds for Covid patients in Delhi hospitals, 2,698 (17.31 per cent) are occupied. A total of 2,539 Covid patients are in hospitals and 152 of them are on ventilator support, the bulletin added.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said on Thursday it seems that the national capital has passed the peak of the third wave of Covid-19, adding that the city is not out of the danger zone yet.

Live TV
New Delhi: The decision to merge the flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti with the flame at the National War Memorial has led to a political slugfest, with several leaders, especially from the Congress, slamming the BJP for this move. While Congress said it's a shame that "the immortal flame that used to burn for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today", the BJP hit back, clarifying that the "Amar Jawan Jyoti is not being extinguished, but merged with the National War Memorial (NMW)."

Several political leaders including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi have questioned the Central Government's intent in shutting the Eternal Flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate in the national capital and instead of putting a permanent one at the National War Memorial. The Government sources on Friday said that a lot of misinformation is being spread with regards to the same and it clarified that the flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti is not being extinguished. It is being merged with the flame at the National War Memorial, the sources said. It said that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid tributes to the martyrs of 1971 and other wars however none of the names who made that supreme sacrifice for the country were present there.

"It was an odd thing to see that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid homage to the martyrs of the 1971 and other war heroes but none of their names are present there but now the names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial. This would be a true tribute to our fallen heroes," the sources added.

The Central Government lashed out at the Congress party and said that though it was in power for close to 7 decades, it did not even think of making the iconic National War Memorial, something that present-day Prime Minister Narendra Modi did in his very first term in office in January 2019. NWM was inaugurated in February 2019.

Lt. Gen. Vinod Bhatia (Retd.), former DGMO Indian Army, also welcomed the move: "Today is a great occasion, the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate is (being) merged with the National War Memorial. It's a good decision. Time has come to shift the Amar Jawan Jyoti, to merge it with National War Memorial."

Earlier, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had slammed the Central Government over its decision to extinguish the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate.Taking to Twitter, the Congress MP said, "It is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame that used to burn for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today. Some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice - never mind. We will once again light the Amar Jawan Jyoti for our soldiers."

Here's Rahul Gandhi's tweet, which is in Hindi:

               ,             -   

           !  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 21, 2022

Congress MP Manish Tewari on Friday tweeted, "Extinguishing Amar Jawan Jyoti tantamounts to extinguishing history. For it commentates sacrifice of those 3,483 brave soldiers who cleaved Pakistan into 02 parts and redrew the map of South Asia post-partition It is ironical that in 50th year of liberation of Bangladesh, Government seems to be working overtime to erase India's finest hour in Post Independent History".

He said Amar Jawan Jyoti is imbued in the National Consciousness and a billion people have grown up venerating it. "Why can't India have two eternal flames - Amar Jawan Jyoti and National War Memorial," he questioned. "Redeveloping the Central Vista was hubris enough but extinguishing the eternal flame at India gate is nothing short of a crime. I am surprised that the nation is silent as a national icon would be snuffed out in the project to re-write History," he added in the tweet.

Days ahead of Republic Day, today (Jan 21, 2022), the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at the India Gate lawns is being merged with the flame at the National War Memorial. The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914-1921. However, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was included in the memorial structure in the 1970s after the massive victory of India over Pakistan in which 93,000 troops of the enemy country surrendered.

After a long wait and multiple considerations, the National War Memorial was built in the India Gate complex by the Narendra Modi government and was inaugurated in 2019. After the inauguration of the building in War memorial, all military ceremonial events were shifted to it from the India Gate memorial.The National War Memorial has the names of all the Indian Defence personnel who have lost their lives in different operations from the 1947-48 war with Pakistan to the Galwan valley clash with Chinese troops. The names of troops who lost lives in the counter-terrorist operations are also included on the walls of the memorial. The existence of Amar Jawan Jyoti was questioned two years ago after the National War Memorial came into being and the nation got a new eternal flame there.


New Delhi: India will witness a momentous and historic moment today (January 21, 2022). Days ahead of India's Republic Day, the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at the India Gate lawns would be merged with the flame at the National War Memorial. It had been burning for 50 years.

"The Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at India Gate will be extinguished and merged with the flame at the National War Memorial on Friday in a ceremony," an Indian Army official had said, as quoted by ANI.

The ceremony would be presided over by the Integrated Defence Staff chief Air Marshal Balabadhra Radha Krishna who would merge the two flames, officials said. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 3.30 pm today.

The Amar Jawan Jyoti

The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914-1921. However, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was included in the memorial structure in the 1970s after the massive victory of India over Pakistan in which 93,000 troops of the enemy country surrendered.

The eternal flame known as Amar Jawan Jyoti was built in 1972 underneath the India Gate arch to commemorate the soldiers martyred in the Indo-Pak War of 1971. It is a memorial symbolised by an inverted bayonet and soldier's helmet over it with an eternal flame burning beside it.

The existence of Amar Jawan Jyoti was questioned two years ago after the National War Memorial came into being and the nation got a new eternal flame there.

Back then, the Indian Army had stated that Amar Jawan Jyoti will continue as it is an "inseparable" part of the country`s history.

Earlier, tri-services chiefs and visiting delegates used to pay respect at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Even on all important days like Republic Day and Independence Day, tri-services chiefs used to pay respect at Amar Jawan Jyoti.

But with the new eternal flame at the National War Memorial and wreath-laying ceremony on all designated days being carried out at the memorial, the force will now merge the Amar Jawan Jyoti with the other.

The National War Memorial

After a long wait and multiple considerations, the National War Memorial - constructed over 40 acres at a cost of  176 crore - was built in the India Gate complex by the Narendra Modi government and was inaugurated in February 2019. After the inauguration of the building in War memorial, all military ceremonial events were shifted to it from the India Gate memorial.

The National War Memorial has the names of all the Indian Defence personnel who have lost their lives in different operations from the 1947-48 war with Pakistan to the Galwan valley clash with Chinese troops. The names of troops who lost lives in the counter-terrorist operations are also included on the walls of the memorial. In total, the names of 25,942 soldiers have been inscribed in golden letters on granite tablets.

Live TV
New Delhi: As Covid-19 cases continue to dip in the capital, the Delhi government had recommended the lifting of certain curbs and had sought Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal's nod. The government wanted to do away with weekend curfew and end odd-even for shops. The Arvind Kejriwal government also suggested that private offices may be permitted to call 50% of staff as opposed to 100% work from home.

The proposal was sent to the LG for his consent. The decision to ease the restrictions was taken by the Kejriwal government in view of the declining number of Covid cases in the city.

But Baijal, later in the day, refused to lift the weekend curfew. Agreed to 50% attendance in private offices. But suggested that status quo be maintained with regards to weekend curfew and opening of markets and decision be taken on the subject once the Covid situation improves further, LG House said in a statement.

Currently, as a part of the weekend curfew, from 10 pm Fridays to 5 am Mondays, all movements are restricted across Delhi. During the ongoing weekend curfew, only those involved in essential services and those facing an emergency situation are allowed to step out. Government passes or valid identity cards are required. Even all shops, except those dealing in essential items such as groceries and medicines, were closed.

When it came to public transport, Metros, and buses, they were allowed to operate at full capacity, but without standing commuters. To keep a check on the crowd in public spaces, shops and commercial establishments had been allowed to operate on the odd-even basis.

Delhi on Thursday reported 12,306 fresh Covid-19 cases and 43 more fatalities due to the viral disease, while the positivity rate dipped to 21.48 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department.

Meanwhile, on Friday (January 21), India recorded 3,47,254 new Covid-19 cases, 703 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the total death toll to 4,88,396, according to the data released by the Ministry of Health on Friday (January 21, 2022). The active cases stand at 20,18,825.

Live TV
New Delhi: Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Friday (January 21, 2022) rejected Arvind Kejriwals proposal to ease Covid-19 restrictions and lift weekend curfew in the national capital. However, the Lieutenant Governor agreed to allow private offices to reopen with 50 per cent capacity.

Agreed to 50% attendance in Pvt offices. But suggested that status quo be maintained with regards to weekend curfew and opening of markets and decision be taken on the subject once the COVID situation improves further, LG House said in a statement.

#UPDATE | Agreed to 50% attendance in Pvt offices. But suggested that status quo be maintained with regards to weekend curfew and opening of markets and decision be taken on the subject once the COVID situation improves further: LG House  ANI (@ANI) January 21, 2022

Earlier today, the Delhi government had recommended the lifting of certain curbs as Covid-19 cases continue to dip in the national capital and has sought LG's nod.

The government had suggested that relaxations such as lifting weekend curfew and ending odd even rule for shops can now be given as the situation improves. The Arvind Kejriwal government had also suggested that private offices may be permitted to call 50% staff as opposed to the current 100 percent work from home.

However now, as a part of the weekend curfew, all movements will remain restricted across Delhi from 10 pm Fridays to 5 am Mondays. During the ongoing weekend curfew, only those involved in essential services and those facing an emergency situation are allowed to step out. Government passes or valid identity cards are required. Even all shops, except those dealing in essential items such as groceries and medicines, were closed.

When it came to public transport, Metros, and buses, they were allowed to operate at full capacity, but without standing commuters. To keep a check on crowd in public spaces, shops and commercial establishments had been allowed to operate on the odd-even basis.

Meanwhile, Delhi on Thursday reported 12,306 fresh Covid-19 cases and 43 more fatalities due to the viral disease, while the positivity rate dipped to 21.48 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department.

Live TV
New Delhi: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have launched Uttar Pradesh's Youth Manifesto at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) HQ in Delhi.

Both leaders addressed a special press conference at the party's headquarters. This was one of the rare occasions when both leaders of the Congress Party jointly addressed the media. Addressing the media, Rahul Gandhi said that the views of the youth are reflected in the manifesto. "The Congress has consulted the youth of Uttar Pradesh and their views are reflected in party's 'youth manifesto'."

Rahul also said that the youth in Uttar Pradesh needs a new vision, and only Congress - not the smaller parties - can give that vision to the state. "We don't spread hatred, we united people; we want to create a new Uttar Pradesh with the strength of youth," said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Priyanka Gandhi spoke about employment. "The biggest problem in UP is recruitment, youth are disappointed; we have given a vision of how their problems will be solved." She added, "Vacancies to various posts will be filled; job calendar will be created which will have specifics of the recruitment process."

Earlier on Thursday, Congress released its second list of 41 candidates, including 16 women, for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. Of the 41 assembly seats, 16 seats have been given to women candidates, which is 40 per cent of the total seats in the second list. These 16 women candidates include Poonam Pandit, who was an active participant in farmers' agitation and Sangeeta Tyagi, wife of late Rajiv Tyagi, former Congress spokesperson. Sangeeta Tyagi is fielded from the Sahibabad assembly constituency.

Live TV

Education will be Congress' focus area too, said Priyanka. "If our govt comes to power, budget allocation for education will be increased," she said.

The Congress party is going to the polls with youth and women in focus and has announced that it will reserve 40% of tickets for women in Uttar Pradesh.
New Delhi: Utpal Parrikar, son of late Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, will fight the upcoming Assembly polls as an independent candidate from Panaji constituency.

Parrikar also quit BJP ahead of the Goa polls, PTI reported.

I will be contesting as an Independent candidate from Panaji constituency: Utpal Parrikar, son of late former CM Manohar Parrikar#GoaElections pic.twitter.com/FsBomEeRwk  ANI (@ANI) January 21, 2022

Talking to reporters, Parrikar said, I was left with no other choice. I have resigned from the party and I would be contesting as an independent from Panaji.

He added that resignation was a formality but the BJP will "always remain in my heart.

Calling it a difficult choice, Parrikar said he took the decision for the people of Goa. It is a difficult choice for me, I am doing it for the people of Goa. No one should be worried about my political future, people of Goa will do it, he was quoted as saying by PTI.

On whether he would seek support from other political parties, he said the only platform for him was the BJP. If not BJP, then I would go for (contesting as) independent. I will not go for any other political party, he added.

On Thursday, BJP had released its first list of 34 candidates for the Goa assembly election from which Utpal Parrikar's name was missing. BJP denied Utpal a ticket from the Panaji Assembly seat that was represented by his late father since 2019.

The BJP leaders said they were in talks with him to offer him a ticket from another seat. BJP has fielded Atanasio Monserrate Babush from Panaji.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday had also said that the central leaders of BJP are in conversation with Utpal Parrikar and have offered him two constituencies to contest the election.

Taking a dig at the BJP, AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had offered a ticket to Utpal. Taking to Twitter, Kejriwal wrote, "Goans feel very sad that BJP has adopted use and throw policy even with the Parrikar family. I have always respected Manohar Parrikar. Utpal is welcome to join and fight elections on the AAP ticket."

Goa will vote in a single-phase election on February 14.

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New Delhi: Concurring with the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Friday (January 21) hit out at the Congress and said it should be held responsible if BJP comes back to power in Goa.

Raut further alleged that Congress did not respond to Senas proposal to form a pre-poll alliance along with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Goa Forward Party (GFP). Congress is already in a pre-poll alliance with GFP in Goa.

"Shiv Sena had presented the proposal before Congress as per which the Sonia Gandhi-led party would contest 30 seats, while the rest of the 10 seats could be distributed amongst the alliance partners, including NCP, Sena and GFP. These are the 10 seats in Goa, where Congress has never won," PTI quoted the Shiv Sena leader as saying.

Earlier on Thursday, TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee had said that if the Congress wrest power from the BJP in Goa, the Congress' state in-charge P Chidambaram should take the onus and resign. He said the TMC had reached out to Chidambaram with a formal offer for pre-poll alliance, but nothing happened.

Commenting on Banerjee's remark, Raut said, "I agree with the comments of Abhishek Banerjee. We had also tried to hold talks with Congress. We had held a meeting with (Congress leaders) Dinesh Gundu Rao, Digambar Kamat and Girish Chodankar with the proposal that Congress, NCP, GFP and Sena should form an alliance."

Raut's statement comes after announcing the Shiv Sena's first list of nine candidates for the Goa polls on February 14. Shiv Sena is jointly contesting the 40-member House Goa election with Sharad Pawar-led NCP.

Goa is witnessing a multi-cornered battle with the entry of TMC and aggressive campaigning by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

(With PTI inputs)

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New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2022 seems to be shaping up as a high-voltage neck-to-neck political race for the throne with almost all the key players, including Narendra Modi, Yogi Adityanath, Akhilesh Yadav, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra among others firmly on the ground.

As the voters in the state are gearing up to vote for the 403 assembly constituencies that hold the potential to set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in the country and deviate the so-called swaying political waves, there are some villages in Uttar Pradesh, which are going to vote independently after a long wait of 30 years while for some this will be the last polling altogether.

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary, in his highly popular prime time show DNA aired on January 21, 2022, talked about two famous villages in Uttar Pradesh- Bikru, where voters after a long wait of 30 years will vote democratically for the first time and Sonbhadra, where 11 remote villages will be voting for the last time.

The beginning of democracy for Bikru village

Situated in the outskirts of Uttar Pradeshs Kanpur, Bikru village was once home to dreaded gangster Vijay Dubey for the past 30 years and like several other crusades, who, when and how to vote was Dubeys discretion.

According to locals. Vijay Dubey and his men never let them vote as per their wishes and whosoever defied his orders were given violent punishments.

In July 2020, Vikas Dubey was arrested by UP police after a heavy exchange of fire that killed as many as 8 police officials. Later, Dubey was also killed in a controversial encounter.

On February 20, 2022, Bikru village will vote independently within the spirit of the Indian Constitution for the first time in over 3 decades.

The end of democracy for Sonbhadra

While locals in Bikru village as well as in the entire state are prepping to vote for the next government in Uttar Pradesh, almost 11 villages in the Sonbhadra region are waiting for their last elections as, by the next polls, these villages will not remain on the map of Uttar Pradesh.

All these villages, situated in the Sombhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, will be submerged underwater by the next assembly elections owing to a dam construction scheme under the Uttar Pradesh governments irrigation project.

The construction of this dam will be completed by the end of this year shoving around 11 villages with 25 thousand locals underwater. Now, all these 25 thousand voters want the government to help them so that their future does not sink like that of their villages.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh, the largest Indian state in terms of population will go to polls from February 10 in a phased manner. The polling will be held in 7 phases till March 7.

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New Delhi: Expelled BJP minister Harak Singh Rawat on Friday (January 21) joined Congress in Delhi ahead of the Uttarakhand Assembly polls.

Harak along with his daughter-in-law Anukriti Gusain joined the grand old party in the presence of party campaign head for Uttarakhand Harish Rawat. Uttarakhand Congress chief Ganesh Godiyal, Leader of Opposition in Uttarakhand Assembly Pritam Singh, state party incharge Devender Yadav and other leaders were also present.

Attacking BJP, the Kotdwar MLA said, When Congress wins with full majority on Mar 10, that'll be my apology (on saying there are no apologies in politics). BJP thought of me as a 'use & throw'; I was very upset. I didn't break my friendship with HM Amit Shah till the last moment, as I had promised.

When Congress wins with full majority on Mar 10, that'll be my apology (on saying there are no apologies in politics). BJP thought of me as a 'use & throw'; I was very upset. I didn't break my friendship with HM Amit Shah till the last moment, as I had promised: Harak Singh Rawat pic.twitter.com/3OgPVzY25t  ANI (@ANI) January 21, 2022

Harak Singh Rawat was dismissed from the Uttarakhand Cabinet and expelled from the BJP on Monday for "anti-party activities". Speaking to ANI, Rawat had said, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi called me to meet in Delhi, due to traffic there was a bit of delay. I wanted to meet him and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, but as soon as I reached Delhi, I saw on social media that they (BJP) have expelled me.

Harak Singh Rawat is back to his old party, Congress. In 2016, Harak Singh Rawat was among the 10 MLAs who had rebelled against the then chief minister Harish Rawat-led state government and joined the BJP, bringing the Congress to a minority in the House.

Elections to 70-seat Uttarakhand Assembly will take place on February 14.

(With agency inputs)

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Srinagar: In August 2020, the United States withdrew its military troops from Afghanistan ending historys longest war on terror following a political coup by the militant group Taliban. This controversial step down left behind a large pool of arms and ammunition in the hands of the Afghan National Army under the hope that they would stand against the Taliban.

However, these arms are being misused by several insurgent groups and terrorists, the impact of which can be seen in Kashmir as well, giving rise to a threat of terrorist activities in the region.

Following the US withdrawal, the Afghan Army fell like a house of cards with the majority of its rank deserting their units or posts with weapons.

These including some captured by the Taliban found their way to the Arms market in Afghanistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of neighbouring Pakistan.

Thus, these weapons were now up for sale in the open market.

Impact on Kashmir insurgency

Recently, a video released by Peoples Anti-fascist Force ( PAFF) Kashmir based terror group showed terrorists using the most sophisticated American made weaponry. The terror group has uploaded some pictures too of their people carrying those weapons.

Here's the video!

WATCH: #ViralVideo by local #Kashmir terror outfit 'People's Anti-Fascist Force' shows local terrorists using American made arms and ammunition left in #Afghanistan by the U.S. army pic.twitter.com/ZWyA8ABQmi  Zee News English (@ZeeNewsEnglish) January 21, 2022

The militants claimed that they have used it in a recent pooch attack against the Indian army where 9 Indian army soldiers got martyred.

In the video, terrorists can be seen using M249 Automatic Rifles 509 tactical guns, M1911 pistols and M4 Carbine rifles as identified by security experts. All these weapons are being used by the American army as well.

Defence experts had already indicated that US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan will have an impact on the Kashmir situation. And now when this weaponry has reached Kashmir its an indication that terrorists are getting American made modern sophisticated weapons in Kashmir which were leftover by the US army in Afghanistan.

Media reports suggest that American troops when left Afghanistan left behind weaponry worth 80 million USD. There are more than 6 lakh sophisticated small arms like rifles, machine guns, pistols, grenade launchers and RPGs. Apart from this, surveillance equipment, radio systems, drones, night-vision goggles are also included in all this. The reports suggest.

The heads of terror groups operating in India used the money obtained through narco-terror to buy these weapons and supply them to the terrorist group using drones and cross-border smuggling.

This has once again changed the terror equation in Kashmir. The recent capture of a few foreign terrorists with US-made assault Rifles has become a cause of worry for the security forces.

Such weapons provide an edge to the terrorists who enjoy the initiative of first-use or pre-emption. Security forces will soon find a counter to it.

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New Delhi: Isolation facility will not be mandatory for international travellers arriving in India from at risk countries from January 22, said Union Health Ministry in the order released on Thursday (January 20).

The ministry also released revised Covid protocols to be followed by international travellers upon arrival in India.

As per the new guidelines, travellers arriving in India will be placed in immediate isolation if they are found to be symptomatic during thermal screening.

Passengers arriving from at-risk countries will be treated or isolated as per the standard protocol if tested positive for Covid upon arrival.

"If tested positive, their samples should be further sent for genomic testing at INSACOG laboratory network. They shall be treated/isolated as per laid down standard protocol, the order said.

Here is the list of revised Covid guidelines for international passengers arriving in India.

From Jan 22nd, isolation facility not mandatory for int'l travelers arriving from at-risk countries. "If tested positive, their samples should be further sent for genomic testing at INSACOG laboratory network. They shall be treated/isolated as per laid down standard protocol." pic.twitter.com/E3eApIEPWa  ANI (@ANI) January 21, 2022

Meanwhile, India, which is currently witnessing a probable third wave of coronavirus reported 3,47,254 new Covid-19 cases, 703 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the total death toll to 4,88,396, according to the data released by the Ministry of Health on Friday.

The active cases stand at 20,18,825.

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Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai will chair a high-level meeting on Friday (January 21, 2022) to take crucial decisions on easing the weekend and night curfews, as well as reopening of schools.

In the last 24 hours, 47,754 new Covid cases were reported in Karnataka, of which Bengaluru logged the highest of 30,540 infections.

However, the discharge of 22,143 patients in the state, 13,195 in Bengaluru and the lack of severity of the disease has influenced the decision-makers to announce the lifting of curbs.

On January 18 and 19, 8,353 and 23,209 patients were discharged, respectively.

Bommai and state Health Minister Sudhakar K said that pro-people decisions would be taken in the meeting and avoiding deaths is their only concern as pressure is mounting on the government from the business community, private school managements to ease restrictions.

The private school managements are demanding the reopening of schools in Bengaluru. In the rest of the state, schools are running and discretion is given to the concerned district commissioners to take calls.

It has also been advised not to take blanket decisions for the entire district.

The business community, film exhibitors, bar, pub and hotel owners are also demanding the lifting of weekend and night curfew in the state and especially Bengaluru.

The film exhibitors in Mysuru have taken to protest by cancelling exhibitions demanding 100 per cent seat occupancy along with weekend and night curbs.

Opposition Congress leaders have also heavily criticised the ruling BJP for clamping restrictions.

State Congress President D.K. Shivakumar and Opposition leader Siddaramaiah held the BJP responsible for disrupting the livelihood of people.

However, Revenue Minister R. Ashok has maintained that rules cannot be eased for one`s convenience and a decision that will serve the whole society, has to be made.

Meanwhile, a study by experts suggests that the peak period is nearing while the state government is planning to announce an easing of weekend and night curfews.

A source in the government also confirmed that a favorable decision would be made in connection to the reopening of schools in Bengaluru.

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Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to include Kerala's tableau in the coming Republic Day parade.

Drawing the Prime Minister's attention to the non-inclusion of Kerala's tableau in the parade, the Chief Minister said the proposed tableau of the southern State has a social message and relevance in the contemporary social scenario.

The Kerala Chief Minister tweeted, "Wrote to Hon. PM @narendramodi ji on non-inclusion of Kerala`s tableau in the Republic Day parade. It featured the great philosopher and social reformer Sree Narayana Guru, who led Kerala's renaissance movement. Sought his urgent intervention to include our tableau in the parade." He attached a photo of the letter sent to the PM along with his tweet.

Wrote to Hon. PM @narendramodi ji on non-inclusion of Kerala's tableau in the Republic Day parade. It featured the great philosopher and social reformer Sree Narayana Guru, who led Kerala's renaissance movement. Sought his urgent intervention to include our tableau in the parade. pic.twitter.com/QpRpKOokNo  Pinarayi Vijayan (@vijayanpinarayi) January 20, 2022

CM Vijayan in his letter to PM Modi said, "Our tableau included the image of Sree Narayana Guru, a great philosopher and social reformer, who led the renaissance movement of Kerala in the last century. His thoughts and actions attracted not only national but also worldwide attention," the letter said.

It said Guru had fought obscurantist practices which led to division among human beings and he propagated the philosophy of universal brotherhood, freedom and the right to education for all. "The message the tableau can send to the younger generation of the country is very valuable", the letter said while seeking the urgent intervention of the Prime Minister to get the tableau included in the parade.

Also, he told the Prime Minister that Kerala's tableaux have in the past won honours more than once.

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has written to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin as the exclusion of the two States' proposed tableaux from the Republic Day snowballed into a major controversy. On Sunday, Mamata Banerjee had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the "rejection of proposed tableau of West Bengal for the ensuing Republic Day Parade" and requested to "include the tableau of freedom fighters from West Bengal in the parade". Responding to her letter, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had said, "I would like to assure you that the selection process of the tableaux participating in the Republic Day Parade is very transparent."

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday (January 21, 2022) announced that a grand statue of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will be installed at India Gate as a symbol of India's indebtedness to him. The iconic statue will honour his contribution to the independence movement.

PM Modi announced that till Netaji Subhas Chandra Boses statue, made of granite, is completed, a hologram statue of his would be present at the same place. The prime minister added that he will unveil the hologram statue on January 23, the 125th birth anniversary of the Azad Hind Fauj founder.

The prime minister tweeted, "At a time when the entire nation is marking the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, I am glad to share that his grand statue, made of granite, will be installed at India Gate. This would be a symbol of India's indebtedness to him."

At a time when the entire nation is marking the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, I am glad to share that his grand statue, made of granite, will be installed at India Gate. This would be a symbol of Indias indebtedness to him. pic.twitter.com/dafCbxFclK  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 21, 2022

Till the grand statue of Netaji Bose is completed, a hologram statue of his would be present at the same place. I will unveil the hologram statue on 23rd January, Netajis birth anniversary. pic.twitter.com/jsxFJwEkSJ  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 21, 2022

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New Delhi: Anita Bose-Pfaff, daughter of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose called Prime Minister Narendra Modis announcement about the erection of an iconic statue dedicated to Neta Ji at India Gate a nice gesture.

Welcoming the decision as "better late than never", Bose-Pfaff said the announcement took her by surprise.

"I am very happy about the decision. It is a very good location. I am certainly glad that his statue would be put up at such a prominent place. What surprises me is it came all of a sudden now. One might have prepared a bit earlier, but better late than never, I must say, PTI quoted her as saying.

Addressing the Republic Day tableau rejection controversy that erupted between the West Bengal government and the Centre, Anita said that she hoped that the statute announcement will put an end to the friction.

I hope that the controversy about the tableau can also be put to rest in a satisfactory manner," Bose-Pfaff told PTI over the telephone from Germany, where she lives.

Neta Ji Subhash Chandra Bose statue

Ahead of Bose's 125th birth anniversary on January 23, the prime minister announced on Friday that a grand statue of the iconic freedom fighter will be installed at India Gate as a symbol of India's "indebtedness" to him.

Till the statue, made of granite, is completed, a hologram statue of his will be present at the same place, he said. Modi said he will unveil the hologram statue on January 23.

Republic Day tableau controversy

The Central government has rejected the tableau sent by the West Bengal government to be displayed on the Republic Day parade in New Delhi.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Banerjee had expressed "shock" at the rejection of the state's tableau, themed on Bose and his Indian National Army. It also featured other Bengal icons like Rabindranath Tagore, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo.

As the rejection of West Bengal's tableau for the Republic Day parade snowballed into a major row, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh wrote to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee informing her that the CPWD's float for the occasion pays homage to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, but her TMC was implacable, saying the state's "dignity has been hurt."

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi: The Ministry of Education on Thursday (January 20, 2022) extended the deadline for registration for the fifth edition of "Pariksha pe Charcha" with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to January 27, 2022.

"The last date to participate in the fifth edition of Pariksha pe Charcha has been extended till January 27. Prime Minister Narendra Modi conceptualised the unique interactive programme, wherein students, parents and teachers from across the nation and also from overseas interact with him to discuss and overcome the stress emerging out of examinations in order to celebrate life," an Ministry of Education official said.

Good news! The registration date to participate in #PPC2022 has been extended to 27th January 2022. Now become #ExamWarriors and interact with Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi to talk about your exam anxiety. Visit : https://t.co/oYeFu1ZlAU #PPC2022 pic.twitter.com/4h2orhKfLG  Ministry of Education (@EduMinOfIndia) January 20, 2022

Now, those students who are interested in participtaing in the fifth edition of Pariksha pe Charcha can register themselves on the official website or mygov.in. It may be noted that this year PM Modi has made a call for interested parents and teachers to register for the event as well.

Pariksha Pe Charcha 2022: How to register

Step 1. Visit the official website of Pariksha pe Charcha or mygov.in

Step 2. On the homepage, click on the Participate Now button

Step 3. Enter required details and register yourself under the suitable category  Student/Parent/Teacher

The first edition of the prime minister's interactive programme with school and college students, "Pariksha Pe Charcha 1.0", was held at the Talkatora Stadium here on February 16, 2018.

"The format of this programme is proposed to be in the online mode like in 2021. An online creative writing competition is being conducted on various topics from December 28 to January 20 to select the participants. The questions asked by the selected winners will be featured in the Pariksha Pe Charcha programme," the official said.

The topics for creative writing for students include exam stress management strategies during COVID-19, Azadi Ka Amrit Mahostav, self-reliant schools for a self-reliant India, Clean India, Green India, digital collaboration in the classrooms, environmental conservation and climate change resilience.

Similarly, the theme for the teachers is "National Education Policy (NEP) for Naya Bharat" while the themes for the parents are "Beti Padhao, Desh Badhao", "Local to Global - Vocal for Local", "Lifelong Students' Yearning for Learning".

"About 2,050 participants selected through competitions on the MyGov portal will be presented with a certificate of appreciation from the Director, NCERT and a special Pariksha Pe Charcha kit comprising the 'Exam Warriors' book in Hindi and English written by the prime minister," the official said.

(With PTI inputs)

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday (January 21, 2022) is scheduled to inaugurate the new Circuit House near Somnath Temple in Gujarat at 11:00 am via video conferencing.

According to the release issued by the Prime Minister`s Office (PMO) on Thursday, the inauguration will be followed by PM Modi`s address on the occasion.

Earlier on Thursday, the prime minister took it to Twitter to make an announcement for the same. "At 11 AM tomorrow, 21st January, would be inaugurating a new Circuit House at Somnath. It is situated near the Temple and will benefit many pilgrims," PM Modi tweeted.

At 11 AM tomorrow, 21st January, would be inaugurating a new Circuit House at Somnath. It is situated near the Temple and will benefit many pilgrims. pic.twitter.com/LAMi9osNyj  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 20, 2022

Somnath Temple is visited by lakhs of devotees from India and abroad every year. The need for the new Circuit House was felt as the existing government facility was located far off from the temple. The new Circuit House has been built at a cost of over Rs 30 crore and is located near the Somnath Temple, the PMO said.

The release also added that the temple is equipped with top-class facilities including suites, VIP and deluxe rooms, conference room, auditorium hall etc. The landscaping has been done in such a manner that a sea view is available from every room.

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil a 216-foot tall statue of 11th-century social reformer and saint, Ramanujacharya in Hyderabad on February 5. According to a statement issued by Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji`s ashram, the statue billed as the world`s second-largest statue in a sitting position is situated at a 45-acre complex area on the outskirts of the city.

Later on February 13, President Ram Nath Kovind will unveil the inner chamber`s golden statue of Ramanuja, weighing 120 kg.

In his comments, Chinna Jeeyar Swami, said, "We heartily welcome everyone including chief guests, dignitaries, devotees, and people from all walks of life for the grand opening of Statue of Equality. Bhagavad Ramanujacharya has remained a true icon of equality for 1,000 years and this project will ensure his teachings are practiced for at least another 1,000 years."

All you need to know about the Statue of Equality:

- The outdoor 216-ft Statue of Equality will be the world`s second tallest statue featuring a sitting posture. The Buddha statue in Thailand is said to be world`s tallest statue in a sitting pose.

- It is composed of `panchaloha`, a combination of five metals comprising gold, silver, copper, brass, and zinc.

- The inner sanctorum deity of Sri Ramanujacharya is made of 120 kilos of gold to commemorate the 120 years the saint spent on earth.

- The Rs 1,000-crore project was funded by donations from devotees globally.

- The complex has identical recreations of 108 Divya Desams, the 108 ornately carved Vishnu temples mentioned in the works of the Alvars, mystic Tamil saints.

(Credits: statueofequality.in)

(Credits: statueofequality/Facebook)

(Credits: Twitter)

"Our mission is to make Statue of Equality a culturally paramount destination for people across the globe and inspire everyone to make the world a more equal place to live. Today, as the world is fraught with divisiveness and populism, the need of the hour is Sri Ramanujacharya`s ideology. A torch bearer of Vaishnavism, Bhagavad Ramanuja distilled the essence of Vedas and ancient wisdom to promote the timeless message of equality. Inherently, non-discrimination and equality are the cornerstones of life," the Chinna Jeeyar Swami explained. The foundation stone for the project was laid in 2014.

1,000th birth anniversary of Sri Ramanujacharya:

To celebrate the 1,000th birth anniversary of the saint, several events including a 1035 yajna (fire ritual), and spiritual activities such as mass mantra chanting are to be conducted as part of Sri Ramanuja Sahasrabdi `Samaroham`. Events will begin from February 2, and Telangana Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao will be co-hosting the event with Chinna Jeeyar Swami. Several other chief ministers, politicians, celebrities, and actors are also expected to attend the function.

About Sri Ramanujacharya:

Born in 1017 in Sri Perumbudur, Tamil Nadu, Sri Ramanujacharya liberated millions from social, cultural, gender, educational and economic discrimination with the foundational conviction that every human is equal regardless of nationality, gender, race, caste, or creed. He opened the doors of temples to all people, including those subjected to extreme discrimination. For many sections of society, he is a timeless icon of equality for social reformists around the world.

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi: In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Thursday (January 21) said the daughters of a male Hindu, dying intestate, would be entitled to inherit the self-acquired and other properties obtained in the partition by the father and get preference over other collateral members of the family.

The judgment, which came on an appeal against the Madras High Court verdict, dealt with the property rights of Hindu women and widows under the Hindu Succession Act.

"If a property of a male Hindu dying intestate (without a will) is a self-acquired property or obtained in the partition of a coparcenary or a family property, the same would devolve by inheritance and not by survivorship, and a daughter of such a male Hindu would be entitled to inherit such property in preference to other collaterals (such as sons/daughters of brothers of deceased father)," a bench of justices S Abdul Nazeer and Krishna Murari said.

The bench was dealing with the legal issue concerning the right of the daughter to inherit the self-acquired property of her father, in the absence of any other legal heir.

Justice Murari, writing the 51-page judgment for the bench, also dealt with the question of whether such property will devolve on to the daughter upon the death of her father, who died without a will, by inheritance or shall devolve on to "father's brother's son by survivorship". "Right of a widow or daughter to inherit the self-acquired property or share received in the partition of a coparcenary property of a Hindu male dying intestate is well recognized not only under the old customary Hindu Law but also by various judicial pronouncements...," the verdict said.

Referring to the legal provision, it said the legislative intent was to remedy the limitation of a Hindu woman who could not claim an absolute interest in the properties inherited by her but only had a life interest in the estate so inherited.

"Section 14 (I) converted all limited estates owned by women into absolute estates and the succession of these properties in the absence of a will or testament would take place in consonance with Section 15 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956...," it said.

If a female Hindu dies intestate without leaving any issue, then the property inherited by her from her father or mother would go to the heirs of her father whereas the property inherited from her husband or father-in-law would go to the heirs of the husband, it said. "The basic aim of the legislature in enacting Section 15(2) (of the Hindu Succession Act) is to ensure that inherited property of a female Hindu dying issueless and intestate, goes back to the source," it said.

Dealing with the facts of the case, the bench set aside the trial court and the high court's findings dismissing the partition suit of the daughters.

The apex court said, "...Since the property in question was admittedly the self-acquired property of a father despite the family being in a state of jointness upon his death intestate, his sole surviving daughter will inherit the same by inheritance and the property shall not devolve by survivorship. Thus, the impugned judgment and decree dated March 1, 1994, passed by the Trial Court and confirmed by the High Court vide judgment and order dated January 21, 2009, are not liable to be sustained and are hereby set aside," it said.

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Chennai: Indias National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has issued a notice to Tamil Nadus Director General of Police over a tragic incident involving a 17-year old girl. As per the complaint received by the NCPCR, the victim, a student from Ariyalur, pursuing her 12th grade in Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School, Thanjavur, had allegedly attempted to end her life after being forced by school authorities to convert to Christianity.

The higher secondary girl had attempted suicide on January 9 and had died on January 19. As per NCPCR, the complaint also mentions that the said Sacred Heart school had been illegally converting children into Christianity and was imposing corporal punishments on those who resisted. It is mentioned that this was causing mental agony to students and driving them to extreme steps.

In the said case, as per the complaint, the 17-year old victim (a Hindu, girl student staying in the hostel) was allegedly forced to convert into Christianity and when she resisted, she was refused permission to return home from the hostel. She was forced to clean toilets and wash dishes, following which she attempted to end her life and eventually succumbed.

In front of me also they asked my parents about converting me to Christianity so that she would make me study. She would also keep scolding me and not let me stay there, the victim is heard saying in a feeble voice, in an unverified video shared by Legal Rights Protection Forum. Later, when asked who she was referring to, the victim is heard saying, Sister Rachel Mary. When asked if she was tortured because she refused to convert to Christianity, the victim is heard saying it could be possible. As mentioned, this is an unverified video and Zee News could not independently verify it.

EXTREMELY SHOCKING: "They (school) asked my parents in my presence, if they can convert me to Christianity, they would help her for further studies. Since I didnt accept, they kept torturing me. - Statement of a girl who committed suicide (1/n) pic.twitter.com/HPxkU8MpFL  Legal Rights Protection Forum (@lawinforce) January 20, 2022

With a copy of the said testimony video, a Twitter page known as Legal Rights Protection Forum had highlighted the issue and filed a complaint with the NCPCR. In response, NCPCR Chairman, Priyank Kanoongo has urged the Tamil Nadu DGP to act on the issue, immediately.

As per the NCPCR response letter, this incident of alleged forced conversion is in contravention of Article 25 and Article 28(3) of the Indian Constitution, provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, and various provisions of the Indian Penal Code. It was also mentioned that, within seven days, Tamil Nadus top police official is required to file a report with the NCPCR, on the action that has been taken. At the time of writing, a hashtag has been trending on social media, demanding justice for the deceased victim.

Following our complaint, @NCPCR_ issued notice to DGP-TamilNadu to take immediately necessary action in the matter of suicide committed by minor Hindu girl due to pressure mounted by Sacred Heart Hr. Sec. School, Tirukattupalli in order to convert her to Christianity. (1/n) https://t.co/YTw7EMfHaf pic.twitter.com/A0jr5AgTrC  Legal Rights Protection Forum (@lawinforce) January 20, 2022

However, according to Ravali Priya, Superintendent of Police, Thanjavur, the said juvenile girl had consumed poisonous material on January 9. On the night of January 15, we got information from her parents. Immediately Police took a video and recorded the statement and filed a case under sections of the Juvenile Justice Act. The Judicial Magistrate of Thanjavur has also taken the dying declaration of the girl, based on a doctor certifying her mental and health condition. In the first information given by the parents, a police video statement or the Judicial Magistrate - one accused was being made out and Police have secured and remanded that individual. The case is under investigation she added.

The IPS officer also mentioned that cops had filed a case to add whoever was responsible for the victims dying declaration video (being circulated on social media), as an accused in the case. Only the first information report given by parents we have with us, in that they have not given any angle of conversion. Today, they have given us one petition and we are going to investigate that she said.

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday (January 21) said that the double engine government (a reference to BJP government at the Centre and state) is working to meet the needs of the common people of Tripura.

Addressing people virtually on the 50th statehood day of Tripura, Modi said the state is turning into a land of opportunities and a hub for trade connectivity. "Today Tripura is becoming a land of opportunities. The double engine government is working continuously to meet the small needs of the common people of Tripura. That is why Tripura is performing well today on many parameters of development, ANI quoted him as saying.

"Today on one hand Tripura is doing commendable work in providing pucca houses to the poor, and on the other hand, it is also adopting new technology rapidly. Tripura is also one of the six states in the country where new technology is being used in housing construction," the PM added.

PM Modi also spoke about the recent inauguration of the Rs 438 crore new terminal building of the Maharaja Bir Bikram airport at Agartala. "The history of Tripura has always been full of dignity. From the majesty of the Manikya dynasty emperors to the present day, Tripura has strengthened its role as a state. Be it tribal society or other community, all have worked hard and unitedly for the development of Tripura," PM Modi said.

He further stated that the work of the last three years is only a beginning and Tripura's "real potential is yet to be realized".

Modi said as India will mark 100 years of Azadi, Tripura will complete 75 years of statehood and would be a developed state by that time. "This is a great period for new resolutions and new opportunities", he said.

As per the North-Eastern Areas (Re-organisation) Act, 1971, Tripura, Manipur and Meghalaya attained statehood on January 21, 1972.

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi: The Central Government has convened an all-party meet likely at 3 pm on January 31 to discuss Budget Session. The Budget Session will get underway on the same day with the Presidential address at 11 am followed by the laying of the Economic Survey.

The Union Budget will be presented on February 1, 2022.

The all-party meeting has been called by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi to deliberate with the opposition on issues that they would like to discuss during the session while the government will also give them a close view of the agenda and Legislative business that they would likely follow in the next one year.

Sources also said that the all-party meeting would be followed by a meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Executive Committee and then the NDA floor leaders meeting.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been attending these meetings and is often seen urging the opposition to allow smooth functioning of the House and that his government would allow debate on all issues.

The last two Sessions of Parliament were stormy as the Monsoon Session was completely washed out because of the opposition`s insistence on a discussion on Pegasus.

On the other hand, Winter Session was completely washed out over the opposition`s insistence for the resignation of MOS of Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni, whose son is currently in jail for allegedly mowing down protesting farmers.

The Budget Session will be held from January 31 till February 11 and the second part of the Budget Session will get underway on March 14 and will continue till April 8.

March 18 will be a holiday on account of Holi.

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New Delhi: Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will release the party's youth manifesto for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on Friday (January 21, 2022).

The Congress leaders will release the UP youth manifesto at a special press conference at the party's headquarters today. This is one of the rare occasions when both leaders of the Congress Party will be jointly addressing the media.

According to the reports, Randeep Surjewala and KC Venugopal will also be present at the event. Congress will also launch a social campaign highlighting the major key promises that it will make in this 'Youth' manifesto.

The party is going to the polls with youth and women in focus and has announced that it will reserve 40 percent of tickets for women in Uttar Pradesh.

Earlier on Thursday, Congress released its second list of 41 candidates, including 16 women, for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.

Of the 41 assembly seats, 16 seats have been given to women candidates, which is 40 per cent of the total seats in the second list. These 16 women candidates include Poonam Pandit, who was an active participant of farmers` agitation and Sangeeta Tyagi, wife of late Rajiv Tyagi, former Congress spokesperson. Sangeeta Tyagi is fielded from the Sahibabad assembly constituency.

Till now, the Congress party has announced a total of 166 candidates for the first two phases of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.

Meanwhile, elections to 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.

(With agency inputs)

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Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Friday decided to lift the weekend curfew that was in place with an aim to control the spread of COVID-19 infections. However, the night curfew hours between 10 pm to 5 am every day will continue.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai held a meeting with experts, senior ministers and officials of his government to assess the COVID-19 situation in the state and curbs that were in place to control its spread.

"The weekend curfew on Saturday and Sunday is being lifted. This decision has been taken based on the experts' report and is subject to conditions. Now, the rate of hospitalisation is about 5 per cent. In case it increases, we will re-impose the weekend curfew," Revenue Minister R Ashoka said.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he appealed to people not to allow weekend curfew to be put in place again by urging them to follow COVID guidelines and precautionary measures.

"There has been demand from people, various organisations and political leaders from across party lines to lift the weekend curfew, but we have taken this decision based on experts' reports. However, the night curfew between 10 pm to 5 am every day will continue, along with a 50 per cent occupancy rule among others," he added.

With a surge in cases, the government had last week decided to extend the existing COVID curbs such as night curfew and the weekend curfew till the end of January. The minister further said the restrictions on protests, rallies, fairs and events will continue.

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New Delhi: The police on Thursday (January 20, 2022) booked four hospital staff for death of a toddler after it was administered the wrong injection by a nursing home sweeper in Baiganwadi, Govandi in Mumbai.

The police booked four staffers: the sweeper, a doctor, a resident medical officer and a nurse for the incident, sources told Zee Media.

The sweeper, who administered the injection, has been booked under Juvenile Justice Act as she is 17-year-old. However, no arrests were made till late Thursday on the issue.

According to the police, the two-year-old boy, Taha Khan was admitted at Noor nursing home on January 12 with complaints of fever.

On the day of the incident, the RMO wasnt available, so he asked the nurse to inject a 16-year-old, another patient, with Azithromycin. However, the nurse paid no heed and let the sweeper administer the jab, which was meant for another patient, to the toddler. Within minutes Taha became critical and succumbed.

The RMO wasnt available and he asked the nurse to give the drug to the teen. The nurse paid no heed, and the sweeper asked if she could administer the jab. But instead of giving it to the teen she injected the two-year-old, who died immediately, police said.

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MUMBAI: Maharashtra Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant on Friday said the CBI probe into actor Sushant Singh Rajput has been a hoax and a disgrace to the renowned institution.

Taking to Twitter, Sawant said that at least 534 days after the CBI took charge and 474 days since the AIIMS ruled out murder in the case of Rajput's death, the investigation has been a hoax and disgrace to the renowned institution. The Congress leader took to social media to pay tribute to the actor on his birth anniversary.

"Tribute to a talented actor #SushantSinghRajput on his birth anniversary. His unfortunate death was horribly misused by Modi govt & BJP for cheap electoral gains in Bihar. Cheap stunt to defame & destabilise MVA govt," Sawant said. "534 days of CBI took charge & 474 days since the AIIMS ruled out murder. CBI, which shows extraordinary efficiency in investigating matters related to opposition leaders, continues to drag its feet on the SSR case. This investigation has been a hoax & disgrace to this renowned institution," he tweeted.

The 34-year-old actor was found dead in his apartment in Bandra on June 14, 2020. Starting with the Mumbai Police, Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) were brought in to investigate various angles in the actor's death.

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NEW DELHI: Bollywood Salman Khan has filed a defamation case against Ketan Kakkad, his neighbour at Panvel farmhouse. The 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan' star, through his lawyer, has accused his neighbour of unnecessarily dragging his religious identity and defaming him in public. The Bollywood actor's legal team has requested the court to remove or block all abusive content against him on social networking sites.

For the unversed, Salman Khan, who lives in suburban Mumbai, owns a farmhouse in Panvel in Raigad district of Maharashtra. Ketan, who is also a Mumbai resident, owns a plot on the hill, next to Salman Khan's farmhouse. According to Salman's suit, Ketan made slanderous comments against the actor while speaking to a YouTuber.

As per a report in Live Law, Salman has filed a civil suit alleging that Ketan Kakkad defamed him during an interview with a YouTube channel.

The report stated that the actor's lawyer Pradeep Gandhi read out substantial portions of Ketan Kakkad's posts and interviews in front of the court on Thursday. He said that Ketan had accused the actor of being a front for the D Gang, commenting on his religious identity and implying that he was connected to the ruling party at the central and state level, levelling allegations of child trafficking, further alleging that bodies of film stars are buried in his farmhouse.'

At this, Salman responded through his lawyer, saying, "Without proper proof, all these allegations are a figment of the defendant's imagination. In a property dispute, why are you tarnishing my personal reputation. Why are you bringing in religion? My mother is a Hindu, my father is a Muslim and my brothers have married Hindus. We celebrate all festivals."

He further said, "You are an educated person... not a Gunda-chhap to make such allegations. The easiest thing now-a-days is to gather some people, get on social media and vent out all your anger." He added that he had no aspirations to join politics.

Meanwhile, Salman Khan has made social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and search engine giant Google, parties to the suit, demanding that they be directed to block and remove the 'defamatory content' from their websites. Salman wants a permanent order restraining Ketan from posting or publishing defamatory content about the actor or his farmhouse.
New Delhi: Actress Kajal Aggarwal, who is expecting her first child with hubby Gautam Kitchlu is glowing like never before. The couple managed to keep the pregnancy news under wraps for some months before her husband confirmed it with a cutesy emoticon on social media.

A picture of Kajal Aggarwal flaunting her baby bump in a black dress has hit the internet and needless to say it has gone viral. Fans are loving the new pregnancy glow on Kajal's face and she looks adorable. Take a look at the picture here:

The actress has also been roped in as a brand ambassador for a pregnancy kit brand for which she recently shared a video online. A few days back, Kajal and her husband Gautam were in Goa for the New Year's and even dropped stunning photos on social media.

Kajal Aggarwal tied the knot with businessman Gautam Kitchlu on October 30, 2020, in a private ceremony with family and close friends in attendance. The gala wedding took place at Mumbai's plush Taj Hotel.

On the work front, she has a packed work calendar with Mosagallu, Acharya, Mumbai Saga, Hey Sinamika, Indian 2, Paris Paris, That is Mahalakshmi keeping her busy this year and 2021.
New Delhi: Actress Zareen Khan made her debut in Bollywood with the 2010 release Veer opposite Salman Khan. She was compared to Katrina Kaif and for the longest identified as her lookalike. Many years later, the actress has made a name for herself and reveals she can't be a monkey on mentor Salman's back all the time.

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Zareen Khan thanked the superstar Bhaijaan for helping her out and giving her an opportunity to enter the showbiz world. She said, "Im thankful to Salman because I wouldve never entered the industry if it was not for me. He gave me an entrance to the industry. But my struggle started after I became a part of the industry because then I knew nothing. Salman is an amazing person but he is also a busy man. I cannot be a monkey on his back and bother him for little things. A lot of people to date think that all the work I do is through him and thats not true. Salman is a friend and just a phone call away but Im not pestering him. And that undermines the struggle, the hard work that Ive done."

She also opened up on her initial personal struggles, saying "My dad had left us, therefore it was me who had to take the responsibility, to take care of my family financially. I did not have anybody helping me or guiding me. It was intimidating. I was intimidated and many took it as arrogance. There have been times when I felt lost in the industry. I wanted to do good work but I wasnt allowed to show my acting talent and what I could bring to the table. There were preconceived notions about me, as I was just a pretty face."

Zareen was last seen in the 2021 release 'Hum Bhi Akele Tum Bhi Akele", which was released on ZEE5.
New Delhi: Bigg Boss 15 fame Umar Riaz, who was recently evicted from the show for indulging in violence with contender Pratik Sehajpal, has been regularly talking about his journey in the show. We all know Umar's bond with his brother Asim and he has admitted to it several times in public. This time, Umar remembered late actor and Bigg Boss 13 winner Sidharth Shukla and what he meant for his brother Asim.

Asim and Sidharth first met on Bigg Boss 13. They came extremely close to each other and shared a close bond. Both Sidharth and Asim were tagged as 'brothers' in the house and stood besides each other. However, their friendship went kaput after some time and soon Asim and Sidharth turned into arch-rivals in the show. While Sidharth lifted the trophy, Asim ended up being the first runner-up. It didn't end here as fans of both Asim and Sidharth clashes with each other on social media and accused each other of being bully.

After the show ended, both Sidharth and Asim tried to end the differences with each other and be cordial to each other.

In September 2021, when Sidharth passed away after suffering a massive cardiac arrest, Asim was one of the first people to have arrived at the Mumbai hospital and also visited his residence in Mumbai to offer his condolence to the family.

Asim was also captured attending the funeral of Sidharth Shukla and his pictures from the crematorium ground had gone viral on the internet.

Talking about Asim's condition in the aftermath of Sidharth Shukla's demise, Umar told Bollywood Hungama that his brother just couldn't stop crying. Meanwhile, Umar's tweet about Sidharth pushing Asim went viral recently when he got evicted for pushing Pratik Sehjapl in the show. After coming out of the house, Umar clarified how it didnt make sense for the fan clubs to call his tweet against Sidharth 'karma' since he never asked the makers to evict Sidharth because he had pushed his brother.

Watch this space for all the latest updates on Bigg Boss 15!
New Delhi: The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) on Friday said it will discuss with the Centre a proposal to raise equity exposure in NPS to up to 75 per cent for the willing government employees, as is the case with the private sector employees.

The equity exposure for the NPS subscribers from other than the government sector was increased to 75 per cent three years ago.

The investment option for government employees was eased after a lot of discussions in 2019 and became effective from April 2019, PFRDA Chairman Supratim Bandyopadhyay said at a webinar organised by Centre for Policy Research.

"Currently, they have a maximum equity exposure of 50 per cent but that too 50 per cent we call auto kind of investment. So this auto choice is nothing but it follows a lifecycle fund pattern where up to the age of 35, it will be 50 per cent in equity and balance will be going into bonds and government securities. It follows the same dictum that as the age goes up, your ability to take risk goes down," he said.

So, he said, from 36 years onwards with every passing year, the equity component comes down and debt component rises.

"We will be in touch with the Government of India also and ...(will) tell them to slowly allow other things like we have allowed 75 per cent equity exposure (for)... Private sector. So, if somebody is ready to take that kind risk and invest up to 75 per cent in equity may be allowed whether it is government sector, or private sector (employees)," he said.

Since the government investment pattern basically comes from the Government of India only PFRDA will be in touch with them, he said.

Last year, the asset under management crossed the milestone of Rs 6 lakh crore under the National Pension System (NPS) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) after 13 years since the PFRDA came into being.

Subscribers other than government employees are allowed to allocate their investments in a mix of instruments such as government securities, debt instruments, asset-backed and trust-structured investments, short-term debt investments, and equities and related investments.

Separately, the subscribers are also allowed to change their fund managers once a year. The fund managers invest subscribers' pension assets in the prescribed investment schemes, as per their choice. Also Read: Centre denies reports claiming CoWIN data breach, says Covid-19 information safe on digital platform

Currently, pension fund managers under NPS are ICICI Prudential Pension Funds Management Company, LIC Pension Fund, Kotak Mahindra Pension Fund, SBI Pension Fund, UTI Retirement Solutions, HDFC Pension Management Co, and Birla Sun Life Pension Management. Also Read: SBI customers ALERT! UPI, internet banking, Yono services will remain impacted tomorrow, check timings

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The Mauritius government has decided to name one of the country's major metro stations as Mahatma Gandhi station to pay gratitude for India's support to the metro express project, said the country's Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth. "I have the privilege to inform you that to pay gratitude for India's support to the metro express project, My government has decided to name one of the major metro stations as Mahatma Gandhi station," said Jugnauth.

He jointly inaugurated and launched projects with Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually on Thursday. "I am proud to say that this event demonstrates once again, the very special and privileged relations between Mauritius and India," he added. The prime minister also emphasised that like metro express, the implementation of these projects would not have been possible without the Lines of Credit and grants generously provided by the government of India.

"This once again illustrates profound and continued commitments to the progress of Mauritius and well being of its people. Bharat ne Mauritius ko pragati ke liye hamesha sahyog diya h iske liye mauirtus ki janta hamesha Bharat ki aabhari rahegni," he added.

Also read: Indian Railways cancel more than 400 trains, check the full list here

Further, Jugnauth said that adequate housing for families in various income groups is at the top of his government`s agenda. "We have pledged to alleviate the housing programmes by building more houses and without losing side on the need to provide other facilities. Thanks to the generous grant of 20 million USD by government of India and add some 25 million USD under the Indian Line of Credit," he added.

PM Modi and Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Kumar Jugnauth on Thursday jointly inaugurated the India-assisted social housing units project in Mauritius virtually. They also launched the Civil Service College and 8 MW Solar PV Farm projects in Mauritius that are being undertaken under India's development support.

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New Delhi: Talented actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu and former husband Naga Chaitanya fans were hugely disappointed when news of their separation hit the internet. The couple issued a joint statement and made the announcement. Now, a recent activity has triggered patch-up rumours.

Well, Samantha had also posted the separation announcement on social media. However, looks like she has deleted the post now. Well, this cryptic move is being seen as a happy development sparking patch-up rumours.

Nothing is known as of now and the duo has not made any statement regarding the reunion.

Earlier in October last year, Samantha and Naga Chaitanya announced their split on social media by sharing identical posts.

Samantha and Naga Chaitanya met on the set of Gautham Menon's Ye Maaya Chesave in 2010 and dated for a while. The couple tied the knot in Goa on October 6, 2017, followed by a Christian wedding on October 7, 2017, respectively.

A few days back, Rajinikanth's daughter Aishwaryaa and South superstar Dhanush announced the separation on social media, ending their 18 years of marriage. The couple issued a joint statement and informed their fans about the decision. This broke a million hearts as they were seen as one of the perfect power couples in the south movie industry.
New Delhi: The Indian government, on Friday (January 21), refuted media reports claiming that personal data, stored on the CoWIN platform, of thousands of Indians, were leaked online.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare said, Regarding data leak from CoWIN - We are getting the matter examined. However, prima facie it appears that the alleged leak is not related to Co-WIN as we neither collect any information on address or the #COVID19 status of beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, the Indian government clarified that no data has leaked from Co-WIN portal and the entire data of residents is safe and secure on this digital platform.

There have been several media reports claiming that the data stored in Co-WIN portal has been leaked online. It is clarified that no data has leaked from Co-WIN portal and the entire data of residents is safe and secure on this digital platform: Government of India pic.twitter.com/rOAhTrTW9m  ANI (@ANI) January 21, 2022

It is also clarified that while Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare will enquire into the substance of the news, prima facie the assertion is not correct,as Co-WIN collects neither the address of the person nor the RT-PCR test results for #COVID19 vaccination, the government added.

Earlier in the day, reports have claimed that leaked data has been put on sale on Raid Forums website where a cybercriminal claimed to have personal data of over 20,000 people. Also Read: AGS Transact Tech IPO subscribed over 8 times: Check latest GMP, expected listing price

Cyber Security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia had also tweeted that personally identifiable information (PII) including name and Covid-19 results are made public through a content delivery network (CDN). Also Read: Vodafone Idea Q3 FY22 loss widens to Rs 7,231 crore

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New Delhi: Personal data of thousands of people in India has been leaked from a government server which includes their name, mobile number, address and Covid test result, and these information can be accessed through online search.

The leaked data has been put on sale on Raid Forums website where a cyber criminal claims to have personal data of over 20,000 people.

The data put on Raid Forums shows name, age, gender, mobile number, address, date and result of Covid-19 report of these people.

Cyber Security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia also tweeted that personally identifiable information (PII) including name and Covid-19 results are made public through a content delivery network (CDN).

He said that Google has indexed lakhs of data from the affected system.

"PII including Name, MOB, PAN, Address etc of #Covid19 #RTPCR results & #Cowin data getting public through a Govt CDN. #Google indexed almost 9 Lac public/private #GovtDocuments in search engines. Patient's data is now listed on #DarkWeb. Need fast deindex," Rajaharia said in his tweet.

An email query sent to the Ministry of Electronics and IT did not elicit any reply.

The sample document shared on Raid Forums shows that the leaked data was meant for upload on Co-WIN portal.

The government has heavily relied on digital technologies in terms of controlling and creating awareness about the Covid-19 pandemic as also its vaccination programme. Several government departments mandate people to use Aarogya Setu app for Covid-19 related services and information.

Rajaharia in a follow-up tweet on January 20 said that he is not reporting any vulnerability in this incidence but cautioning people to remain alert from fraud calls, offers related to Covid-19, etc that they may get as their data is being sold in the dark web. Also Read: Good news for Instagram creators! Soon, you could earn money from paid subscriptions

Data sold in the dark web is often exploited by cyber criminals and fraudsters for various kind of frauds. Also Read: Companies in UK starting four-day work week, any cue for India to opt for same soon?

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New Delhi: Meta-owned social media platform Instagram has reportedly started testing a new way to help creators rake in more money. According to a media report, Instagram has announced Instagram Subscriptions, a new business model that will let creators make moolah with the support of their communities.

Meta had launched a similar feature, Facebook Subscriptions, in June 2020 for creators of the popular social media platform. The company is now expanding the same business model to Instagram, as per the GSM Arena report.

Instagram said that with the introduction of Instagram Subscriptions, it aims to "develop deeper connections with their most engaged followers and grow their recurring monthly income by giving subscribers access to exclusive content and benefits."

On the other hand, subscribers will receive the benefits of Subscriber Lives, Subscriber Stories, and Subscriber Badges, upon subscription.

Instagram will roll out Instagram Subscriptions to a limited number of creators in the US. However, the social media platform has said it plans to expand this feature to more creators over the next few months.

The newly launched Subscriptions feature will let creators unlock and add a subscribe button on their Instagram profile. Creators will be allowed to set a monthly price of their choice.

Instagram has also added that the platform wont charge any fees for these subscriptions from the creators until 2023, showing its commitment to support the platforms creators. Also Read: SC to Supertech: Refund money to all homebuyers

As of now, its unclear when Instagram will launch Instagram Subscriptions globally. According to media reports, if the testing in the US goes smooth, Instagram will roll out the feature in other key markets in a few months. Also Read: EPS pension disbursal rule 2022: Check when pension money will be credited in your account

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New Delhi: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday virtually pitched herself as the party's face in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections but did not confirm whether she would contest the polls or not.

"Do you see any other face from the Congress party," she said when asked who would be the party's chief ministerial face in UP polls. "You are seeing my face everywhere," the Congress leader added while addressing a press conference to release the party's 'youth manifesto' along with her brother and former president Rahul Gandhi.

#WATCH Do you see anyone else's face from the Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh? You can see my face everywhere: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on being asked about the chief ministerial face of Congress in the upcoming UP Assembly elections pic.twitter.com/NOt1uZKBU6  ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) January 21, 2022

When asked whether she would herself contest the assembly polls, Priyanka Gandhi said, "We have not yet decided." She said it would be known once that is decided.

Priyanka Gandhi, who is the general secretary in charge of Congress in Uttar Pradesh, said the party would certainly look into supporting other parties if the situation were to arise after the elections.

She, however, said that the Congress would have implemented its vision for youth, especially women, in Uttar Pradesh as a priority while extending any such support for government formation.

Both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka earlier launched Uttar Pradesh's Youth Manifesto at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) HQ in Delhi.

Both leaders addressed a special press conference at the party's headquarters. This was one of the rare occasions when both leaders of the Congress Party jointly addressed the media. Addressing the media, Rahul Gandhi said that the views of the youth are reflected in the manifesto. "The Congress has consulted the youth of Uttar Pradesh and their views are reflected in party's 'youth manifesto'."

Rahul also said that the youth in Uttar Pradesh needs a new vision, and only Congress - not the smaller parties - can give that vision to the state. "We don't spread hatred, we united people; we want to create a new Uttar Pradesh with the strength of youth," said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Priyanka Gandhi spoke about employment. "The biggest problem in UP is recruitment, youth are disappointed; we have given a vision of how their problems will be solved." She added, "Vacancies to various posts will be filled; job calendar will be created which will have specifics of the recruitment process."

The Congress party is going to the polls with youth and women in focus and has announced that it will reserve 40% of tickets for women in Uttar Pradesh.

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HASAKA: Kurdish-led forces in Syria killed 23 Islamic State militants including foreigners in clashes after the jihadist group attacked a prison in the northeastern city of Hasaka on Thursday, a military source in the Kurdish-led forces said.

Seven members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and an allied security force called the Asayish were killed in the attack, an attempt by Islamic State to free prisoners in the jail, the SDF military source said on Friday.

Across the border in neighbouring Iraq, 11 Iraqi soldiers including an officer were killed on Friday when Islamic State militants attacked their base in Diyala province, Iraqi Defence Minister Jouma Anad said on Twitter.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in Diyala on Friday on its affliated Telegram channels.

Islamic State controlled swathes of Syria and Iraq until it was driven from the territory in 2017-19 by adversaries including a U.S.-led coalition, the SDF, and Iraqi security forces. Islamic State cells continue to carry out attacks in both countries.

The SDF said it had detained 89 militants in the area of the prison, where clashes were continuing. A witness said warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition could be heard overhead.

It was the second time since December that Islamic State had attacked the prison in an effort to free inmates.

The SDF military source said the attack on the prison coincided with Islamic State attacks in Iraq and what he described as movements by the militant group in the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zor.

"Islamic State is trying to impose its control on the area and to revive its organisation once again," the source said.

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January 21, 2022 Gordon wants PH to push for education reform Senator Richard J. Gordon underscored the importance of the government's continued support of education, as it serves a primary role towards positive nation-building. Gordon, one of the co-authors of Republic Act No. 11635, said that everyone must take up the mantle in keeping the student body informed so that they could step up as the next generation's leaders. "Papaano tayo makakalikha ng opportunities for the young people of this country if we are hamstrung by all kinds of taxes that limit our capability to expand our universities and colleges so that we could better come out with the products of the Filipinos that can analyze the problems of our country?" said Gordon. It may be recalled that Gordon fought for the passage of RA 11635 that reduced the preferential tax rate of proprietary educational institutions from 10 percent to 1 percent, which will remain in effect until June 30, 2023. The law was crafted to relieve the financial burden on schools that were severely hit by the pandemic, which has ravaged the education sector since March 2020. For this, Gordon was recognized by the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA) for its monumental impact that will be felt by numerous generations of educators and school leaders. COCOPEA is an umbrella organization of five member private higher education associations that is composed of around 1,900 schools across the country. Gordon, a lawyer by profession, also credited COCOPEA for their role in striving to shape the next generations of Filipino leaders. "I thank you because you are not mere spectators. You are not outsiders, you are not watchers, but active in the role not just as educators but making sure to protect your culture of outstanding achievement para nang sa ganoon our country will be a lot brighter, safer, healthier," said Gordon. "Definitely we must not forget that universities and colleges, especially the private ones, have their roles to play to make sure na makaabante ang mga tao natin sa tulong ng private education," he added. Born shortly after the end of World War II, Gordon grew up in a Philippines that saw economic growth just second to Japan. Gordon noted that an effort to safeguard education is a commitment that must be undertaken by everybody, not just educators and schools. "It's important that we all realize that it takes everybody, the solidarity that you have must be shared by the whole country to make sure that we are focused on one vision - to educate our people well and to come up with laws that must be enforced," pointed out Gordon during an acceptance speech. "We do the right thing rather than do the popular thing. Make sure that the enforcement of law is secure and done well. Otherwise, we will forever be slipping and every time there's a pandemic, other people will try to do a fastbreak and steal from you as in Pharmally," he continued.
Press Release

January 21, 2022 A Tale of Two Victims: Lacson Digs Deeper into Lolo Narding's Case More at: https://pinglacson.net/article/a-victim-of-poverty-a-victim-of-bullying-lacson-digs-deeper-into-lolo-nardings-case A victim of poverty, and a victim of bullying due to "disinformation." This is the latest sad twist in the case of Lolo Narding Floro, who went viral after he was arrested for stealing three sacks of mangoes from a property in Asingan town in Pangasinan. Partido Reporma Chairman and standard-bearer Sen. Panfilo "Ping" M. Lacson bared Thursday that there is a second victim in the case - Robert Hong, the caretaker of the lot from where the mangoes were taken. Hong - who lodged a complaint against Floro for stealing three sacks of mangoes in April last year - is now in hiding after the story of Floro became viral, as he is now being bullied by bloggers and netizens, noted Lacson, who initiated his own investigation in Asingan town on Thursday. "Before offering any assistance to resolve Lolo Narding's problem, I would like to know the facts first," Lacson said. "Both Lolo Narding and Robert are victims. Lolo Narding can be considered a victim of poverty, while Robert, the new caretaker and complainant representing the owner of the lot, is a truck driver who now cannot go to work because of the bad publicity generated by the story of Lolo Narding's plight. Thus he is also a victim - in this case, of bullying stemming from unintended inaccurate information," Lacson said, citing initial information reaching him. Lacson said his investigation showed Hong, as caretaker of the property, filed a complaint against Floro for stealing three sacks of mangoes before selling them in the local talipapa (market) in April 2021. "Robert's family says he is willing to settle but requests that the apparent disinformation be rectified. Meanwhile, Lolo Narding couldn't settle with the property owner through the caretaker because he already spent the proceeds in the amount of P7,000," he said, even as he noted the Public Information Office of Asingan town has apologized to Hong for the bashing he has suffered online. "This should also be an eye-opener for us. On social media, things may not always be what they seem at first glance," Lacson added. On the other hand, Lacson lamented that Lolo Narding's case was a microcosm of Philippine society where the poor who steal out of necessity are arrested quickly while the wealthy and corrupt remain scot-free. "May nagnanakaw out of necessity. Ako naniniwala na kung ganoon ang reason, they deserve a second chance. Ang nakakagalit ng loob, ang nagnakaw ng malaking halaga sa pera ng gobyerno (There are those who steal out of poverty and necessity and I believe they deserve a second chance. But what makes my blood boil are those who steal huge amounts of money, and from public funds to boot)," he said in an interview on Bombo Radyo Philippines Thursday morning. Lacson said the first step to correct this is to clean the bureaucracy of corruption so the criminal justice system may be implemented fairly and properly. But this must be accompanied by a change in mindset on the part of the people - to demand accountability from public servants.
El derrame de petroleo de Repsol en Ventanilla, es el peor desastre ecologico ocurrido en Lima en los ultimos tiempos, y ha ocasionado un grave perjuicio a cientos de familias de pescadores. Repsol debe resarcir este dano de manera inmediata.
Canciller Maurtua coordina con agencias internacionales, la Comision Permanente del Pacifico Sur y el Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente, el apoyo al Peru para atender la emergencia en Ventanilla ocasionada por el derrame de petroleo de la refineria La Pampilla.
" " Penguins cannot fly because they have very short wings and proportionately heavy bodies. Wang Jianwei/Xinhua/Getty Images

Ask most people what they'd want their superpower to be, and many would say they'd want to fly like a bird. But do the birds that can't fly wish that they too had the superpower to take to the skies? While we can't possibly know what's in those little bird brains of theirs, the surprisingly large number of birds that can't fly are likely quite content given that they've evolved to protect and feed themselves without the need for flight.

Roger J. Lederer, expert ornithologist, Professor Emeritus at California State University, Chico, and author of various books about birds, shares in an email interview, "There are 126 species of birds that have lost the ability to fly. In most cases they are island dwelling birds on an island with few or no large predators, so they save energy by not flying. Or they are big birds that can protect themselves." He also says that a few species of ducks live in fast flowing waters that deter predators while others are nocturnal to keep themselves safe.

How did they lose the ability to fly? For years scientists have debated the cause and examined the genes of various species to understand why. For the ratites, a group of mostly flightless, long-legged birds, the extinction of the dinosaurs changed their course. Scientists have now shown through DNA samples that these birds could at one time fly, but without dinosaurs lurking around, they had their pickings of food, allowing them to grow larger and larger and eventually able to run from predators instead of taking flight.

Other species of birds found themselves in the position of using their wings for better purposes and evolved over time. Lederer explains that some birds, like penguins, use their wings to swim, some use them to remain waterproof, and the largest ones use them for balance and/or display.

Let's take a look at seven birds that can no longer fly:

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1. Ostrich

The largest living bird, the ostrich can grow to be bigger than even the largest of men, coming in at up to 9 feet tall (around 3 meters) and 300 pounds (136 kilograms). They can run up to 45 mph (75 kph), so there's not much reason to fly when you've got legs like that. Not to mention getting up in the air would be really difficult with all that weight. Lederer explains that ostriches often use their wings for balance and put them on display to attract a mate.

" " The ostrich has puny wings that can't possibly lift its heavy body off the ground. Kirill Kukhmar/TASS/Getty Images

2. Penguin

Penguins' inability to fly creates a major cute factor that we humans just can't resist  their adorable waddle as they move their plump bodies back and forth across the ground. None of the 18 species of penguins can fly, but their wings are still put to good use as flippers that help them swim quickly and avoid predators when they go hunting for fish.

" " Penguins are great swimmers, but are unable to fly. Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times/Getty Images

3. Kiwi

Despite being shy and nocturnal, these birds have managed to become pretty iconic. Kiwis are the national bird of New Zealand and, of course, the namesake for a uniquely brown and green fuzzy little fruit. They're also quite unique. Kiwi's don't nest, rather they burrow into the ground. Whisker-like feathers surround their long beaks that even have nostrils at the end to help them navigate in the dark. They don't have a tail, and while it appears they don't have wings, they're actually just so small  only 1 inch (3 centimeters) long  that they're hidden under all their feathers and are no help for flying.

" " The little gray kiwi (Apteryx owenii) has tiny wings under all those feathers, but it still can't fly. DeAgostini/Getty Images

4. Cassowary

The cassowary's black, hair-like feathers, colorful wattle and "helmet" on top of its head draw our curiosity, but this is one bird you definitely don't want to mess with. The cassowary lives in the rainforests of Australia and New Guinea and is the heaviest bird in Australia and the second heaviest in the world. But it's not just its size that makes it dangerous  it has a huge, sharp toenail on the innermost of its three toes that can tear apart large animals or humans.

" " The flat breastbone of the cassowary (shown on the right here) lacks the keel that anchors the strong pectoral muscles required for flight. GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images

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5. Steamer Duck

They may look like the typical duck, but these stout, South American sea ducks are known to be aggressive, and three out of the four species of steamer ducks are flightless. They flap their wings into the surface of the water and use their feet to swim, causing water to go flying in similar fashion to a steamboat. This approach, along with their aggression and large size, allows them to protect themselves despite not being able to fly.

" " The flying steamer duck is the one species of four capable of flight, while the Falkland steamer duck (Tachyeres brachypterus), shown here, is totally flightless. David Tipling/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

6. Galapagos Flightless Cormorant

The heaviest of the cormorant species, the Galapagos flightless cormorant is the only one that can't fly. They make up for it with their strong legs and their ability to dive for food in shallow ocean waters. They are endemic to the Galapagos Islands and are often recognized by their small wings that they spread out to dry after a swim.

" " A Galapagos flightless cormorant perches on a lava rock on Fernandina Island in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. It is the heaviest of the cormorant species and the only one that cannot fly. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket/Getty Images

7. Inaccessible Island Rail

The smallest flightless bird in the world, the Inaccessible Island rail measures only 5 to 6 inches (13 to 15 centimeters) in length and can only be found in one fittingly small place on Earth: Inaccessible Island. The unpopulated island is an extinct volcano in the South Pacific that's, you guessed it, really hard to get to.

" " The Inaccessible Island rail (Atlantisia rogersi) is a tiny flightless bird  the smallest in the world that cannot fly  and since it has no predators on Inaccessible Island and nothing to fly away from, natural selection removed its ability to fly. Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Flightless birds definitely prove that a bird is still a bird whether it stays earthbound or explores the skies, and they've become beautiful and unique examples of the nature of evolution. Perhaps the group will even grow larger as time passes, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Now That's Interesting Many people believe that peacocks are flightless, but this is not strictly true. Making up to 60 percent of its body length, a peacock's tail feathers are up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) long, but this doesn't get it very high off the ground. The maximum height it can cover is up to the lowest branch of a tree.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian parliament adopted amendments to the Law on Advertising, banning all kinds of gambling advertisements.

The bill passed first reading with 56 votes in favor, 8 against and 16 lawmakers voted present.

The law bans gambling advertisements of all types, including via television, radio, internet with few exceptions: the casinos or bookmakers will still be able to advertise their services through their own official websites or on their own buildings.

During the debates, ruling Civil Contract party MP Babken Tunyan said 3,2 trillion drams in gambling bets were made from January to November of 2021 in Armenia.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan met today with the delegation consisting of representatives of the European Councils presidency and the European Union, his Office reports.

The delegation included EUs Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar, Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia Andrea Wiktorin, French Ambassador to Armenia Anne Louyot, Advisor for Continental Europe and Turkey at the Office of the French President Isabelle Dumont and others.

The sides praised the Armenia-EU active cooperation during their conversation. The Secretary of the Security Council highlighted Armenias readiness to continue the partnership with the European Union in the processes of preserving Armenias democratization and the regions security.

At the meeting the sides also touched upon the current situation around the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. In this context the quick launch of the border delimitation and demarcation process and the creation of a respective environment for that were emphasized.

Isabelle Dumont and Toivo Klaar touched upon the humanitarian problems and stated that the EU is working actively to quickly solve the crisis around the prisoners of war.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a meeting with EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar and the French presidencys representative at the Council of the European Union, advisor to the French presidential office Isabelle Dumont.

The meeting addressed the situation in the South Caucasus region after the 44-day war, the steps aimed at de-escalating the situation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and ensuring stability. In particular, views were exchanged regarding the implementation of agreements and results of meetings held in mediation of the President of the Russian Federation in Sochi, as well as the President of the European Council and President of France in Brussels. The necessity for the full launch of the peace process under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship and intensifying the activity of the Co-Chairs in the direction of a lasting resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was underscored, the Armenian Prime Ministers Office said in a statement.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Parliament is debating the issue of electing a new Human Rights Defender.

The parliamentary standing committee on protection of human rights and public affairs proposed Kristine Grigoryans candidacy for the position of the Ombudsman.

Mrs Grigoryan has been nominated by the ruling Civil Contract faction.

Introducing the candidate for the Ombudsman, lawmaker from the Civil Contract faction Vladimir Vardanyan said that Kristine Grigoryan has a higher education in two specialties  Oriental studies and Law. She has an experience of professional work for more than 12 years, mainly in the public administration system, such as the justice ministry, the parliaments staff and the office of the first deputy prime minister. In July 2019 she was appointed deputy minister of justice, and since April 2021 she has been serving as the first deputy minister of justice. Grigoryan was relieved from the position of the first deputy justice minister on January 20, 2022.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. As of February, Ucom plans to establish a new call center in Vanadzor, thanks to which about 20 vacancies will be created in the city during the current year. Until today, 100 residents of Vanadzor, aged 22-25, have applied for the position for the call center operator. Among the applicants there are lawyers, psychologists, economists, linguists, as well as pedagogues, ARMENPRESS was informed from Ucom.

When making a decision, it was clear to us that a new call center should be opened in one of the regions. Moreover, we have tried to contribute to the development of the labor market in the regions by offering completely equal working conditions to the Yerevan Call Center. It should be noted, that the Vanadzor applicants are not inferior to the Yerevan applicants in terms of education and professional skills. I am sure that they will make a special contribution to the process of improving the quality of Ucom's service and, of course, they will take it to " " level (which in Lori dialect means "for the better"  edited) , told Sophie Bondarenko, Acting Director of Customer Service at Ucom.

The applicants who have passed the interview stage are currently taking in-depth training for a call center employee, studying all the fixed and mobile services provided by the company, the necessary work programs, and so on.

One of the participants, 23-year-old Martin Martirosyan, a graduate of Yerevan State University's Service Department, said that Ucom first attracted him with its Level Up packages, Mediaroom mobile TV app, and its working style in general: I have always been interested in Ucom, its services and, when I came across the announcement about the opening of a new call center in Vanadzor, I immediately applied. As an inhabitant of Vanadzor, I prefer to work in my hometown.

Another participant, 22-year-old psychologist Ani Khachatryan, decided to apply for this job, as she has always been interested in communicating with the customers, as well as resolving various conflict situations. She said, that she has always observed the work style at Ucom and, in her words, is well aware of the "friendly working atmosphere" in the Company: "The fact that the call center will operate in Vanadzor is very encouraging, because until now we could find such a job only in Yerevan, now Ucom gives us, the residents of Vanadzor, a great opportunity to have a favorite job in our city."
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. A child who was seriously injured in a car accident in Chartar town of Artsakh on January 19 was taken to Yerevan by a Russian peacekeeping helicopter, ARMENPRESS reports the State Minister of the Artsakh Republic Artak Beglaryan wrote on his "Facebook" page.

"Four children were injured in a car accident in Chartar on January 19, three of them with moderate and one with severe spinal fracture. Given the complexity and danger of this fracture, doctors advised to transport him to Yerevan by helicopter. The Government of Artsakh applied to the Russian peacekeeping forces with a request to provide a helicopter, which was granted by them, but due to bad weather yesterday, the flight took place this morning. The child is now in Yerevan under medical supervision. His life is not in danger, but heavy and complicated surgeries are planned. We hope he will be able to recover as much as possible," said the State Minister of Artsakh.

He added that this is the first time after the 2020 war that such an urgent need for the use of a helicopter has arisen, and, fortunately, the problem has been solved. "I would like to express special thanks to the Russian peacekeeping force, Commander Major-General Andrei Volkov, for resolving this urgent humanitarian problem quickly and effectively. This is another example of the humanitarian activities of Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh and our cooperation," Artak Beglaryan said.
Press Release

January 21, 2022 Pangilinan: Kasangga ng private schools ang gobyerno sa pag-aaral ng kabataan ngayong pandemya A FEW weeks after the signing of a law allowing preferential tax treatment to private schools, Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan stresses the important role that these institutions play in the continuous delivery of quality education to Filipino students amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In his acceptance speech during the thanksgiving tribute for the lawmakers who supported the measure hosted by the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations of the Philippines (COCOPEA) Thursday afternoon, Pangilinan said the government has the duty to ensure that students have access to quality education even during a crisis. "[K]ayo ang dapat naming pasalamatan dahil ginawa ninyo ang lahat ng inyong makakaya upang mapanatili at makapagpatuloy ng edukasyon ang milyon-milyon nating mga kabataan sa gitna ng napakalaki at napakatagal na hamon ng Covid 19," Pangilinan said. "Naging kasangga kayo ng pamahalaan upang magampanan natin ang tungkulin natin sa ating mga anak," he added. By virtue of Republic Act No. 11635, private schools, regardless if for profit or non-profit, are qualified to apply for a concessionary tax rate of one percent through the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act. This rectifies the previous regulation by the Bureau of Internal Revenue imposing a sky-high 150 percent tax to private educational institutions. According to Pangilinan, the CREATE Law was passed to aid private institutions greatly affected by the pandemic, thus the entire House membership was caught off-guard when wrong interpretations of the law arose. COCOPEA, through its chairman Dr. Anthony Tamayo, earlier lauded the lawmakers who pushed for the passage of the law, saying the private schools needed the reprieve more than ever. "Education, as a public good, certainly deserves such significance and priority being given by our honorable senators," Tamayo said. In the past two years that the education sector reeled from the ill effects of the pandemic, Pangilinan mentioned that he kept in touch with Tamayo, who personally provided him pertinent information about the situation of some private schools. "Dahil lugmok sa kahirapan ang marami nating mga kababayan at lubhang naapektuhan ang sektor ng edukasyon, marami ang nagsarang mga paaralan," Pangilinan said. But despite these lingering problems, the lawmaker is confident that the private educational institutions will overcome all these as long as they continue working hand-in-hand with the government. "Kung mayroon akong natutunan dito sa karanasan natin sa dalawang taon ng Covid ay kinakailangan natin ang isa't isa. Sa pamamagitan ng ating pakikipagtulungan, pakikipag-kapwa, pakikipagdamayan, malalagpasan din natin ang pagsubok na ito," Pangilinan said. "Sa patuloy na pagtutulungan ng gobyerno at ng pribadong sektor gaya ninyo, malalampasan din natin hindi lamang ang krisis sa kalusugan at ekonomiya, at pati na rin ang krisis sa ating sistema ng ating edukasyon," he added. Pangilinan also thanked COCOPEA's leadership along with the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU) for the commendation given to him and his fellow lawmakers who backed the Senate counterpart of the law. ____________________ https://drive.google.com/file/d/16v0NE9mc3Edti-Eruhj_ZdWMKGY2wWmd/view?usp=sharing [VIDEO] ACCEPTANCE MESSAGE OF SENATOR FRANCIS "KIKO" PANGILINAN DURING THE THANKSGIVING TRIBUTE FOR THE AUTHORS OF REPUBLIC ACT NO. 11635, OR AN ACT AMENDING SECTION 27(B) OF THE NATIONAL INTERNAL REVENUE CODE OF 1997
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. Vice President of the National Assembly of Armenia, Special Representative of Armenia for the Armenia-Turkey dialogue Ruben Rubinyan received Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Armenia Sergey Kopirkin on January 21.

The parties highly assessed the Armenian-Russian allied relations and attached importance to their continuous development.

The sides also touched upon the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey. As Armenia's Special Representative for the Armenia-Turkey dialogue, Ruben Rubinyan thanked the Russian side for hosting the meeting between him and the Turkish Special Representative in Moscow a few days ago and for supporting the normalization process.

The Vice President of the National Assembly assessed the first meeting of the special representatives as constructive, noting that the Armenian side is interested in solving specific problems through a substantive process.

The Ambassador assured that the Russian side will continue making efforts for the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, ARMENPRESS. The FBI on Wednesday raided Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar's home and campaign office in Texas as part of a wide-ranging federal probe relating to the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan and several U.S. businessmen, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.

A federal grand jury in Washington is investigating the matter, but it's unclear if Cuellar is a target of the grand jury's probe, ABC News was told.

After FBI agents executed a search warrant at Cuellar's home in Laredo, Texas, an aide to Cuellar said in a statement that the congressman "will fully cooperate in any investigation."

"He is committed to ensuring that justice and the law are upheld," the statement said.

Cuellar, who represents Texas' 28th Congressional District along the U.S.-Mexico border, has been in Congress since 2005. In recent years he has served as a co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, and repeatedly met with Azerbaijan officials, including the ambassador of Azerbaijan, Elin Suleymanov.

The Armenian National Committee of America wrote on its Facebook page that Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijans longtime ambassador in Washington, skipped town one step ahead of high-profile FBI raid and major federal criminal corruption probe into Azerbaijani bribery schemes (long an open secret in DC circles).
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is not expecting any breakthroughs from his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva while hoping to hear what Moscow decided following previous consultations with the US and NATO, according to his interview with Germanys ZDF TV channel on Thursday made public by the press service of the US Department of State, Tass informs.

January 21, 2022, 09:53 Blinken does not expect any breakthroughs from Geneva talks with Lavrov

STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: "I dont anticipate any breakthroughs," he said responding to a question on the best possible outcome of the upcoming talks.

Blinken reiterated that on January 10, the US and Russia held consultations on security issues in Geneva, a session of the NATO-Russia Council was held on January 12 in Brussels and a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council where these issues were also discussed took place on January 13 in Vienna. "And weve now had a chance to reflect on what weve each heard. I think the Russian team has had a chance to consult with President Putin. All of us have had a chance to consult among ourselves, all of the allies and partners," he emphasized.

"And this is an important moment, I think, to take stock of where we are with Foreign Minister Lavrov, to see what conclusions Russia draws from these diplomatic conversations," he added. The US top diplomat noted that the US delegation intends to convey the joint position of the US and its European allies and partners to the Russian side.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the end of COVID-19 measures including mandatory face masks in England as he looks to live with the virus after a peak in cases caused by the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, Reuters reported.

January 21, 2022, 15:24 Boris Johnson lifts COVID restrictions in England

STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: Johnson's light touch approach to dealing with Omicron saw him introduce work-at-home advice and vaccine passes as well as more mask-wearing on Dec. 8, although he stopped short of more onerous restrictions seen globally.

While cases soared to record highs, hospitalisations and deaths have not risen by the same extent, in part due to Britain's booster rollout and the variant's lesser severity.

"Many nations across Europe have endured further winter lockdowns... but this government took a different path," Johnson told lawmakers, saying the government had got the toughest decisions right and that numbers going into intensive care were falling.

"Our scientists believe it is likely that the Omicron wave has now peaked nationally... because of the extraordinary booster campaign, together with the way the public have responded to the Plan B measures, we can return to Plan A."

Johnson said none of the so-called Plan B measures would remain in England when they lapse on Jan. 26, as face masks would not be legally enforced anywhere and COVID passes would not be mandatory.

Thegovernment said it would also no longer ask people to work from home, effective immediately.

Johnson cited official figures that showed infection prevalence levels falling from a record high. read more

But scientists warned that cases could still turn higher again if people's behaviour returned to normal quickly.
Round two of US-Russia talks over Ukraine and security have started on Friday, AFP reports.

January 21, 2022, 15:57 Blinken and Lavrov convene in Geneva over Ukraine crisis

STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: Anthony Blinken and Sergei Lavrov, respectively Washington and Moscow's top diplomats, are meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

These new talks, which seek to de-escalate the crisis at the Ukrainian border, came 11 days after the first round of discussions in the Swiss city yielded little result.

As the source said, Russia has amassed some 100,000 troops on the border and is being accused by the US of planning an invasion, which it denies.

Instead, it accuses the West of plotting provocations in Ukraine, citing the delivery of weapons to the country by British military transports in recent days.

Russia wants binding security guarantees, including a permanent prohibition on Ukrainian membership in NATO, to which Kyiv aspires, and the removal of most of the US and allied military presence in eastern Europe. Washington, Brussels and NATO have rejected these demands and warned that any attack on Ukraine would have costly consequences.
Germany's new coalition government wants to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad each year to tackle both a demographic imbalance and labour shortages in key sectors that risk undermining the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.

January 21, 2022, 16:57 Germany wants to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad each year

STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: "The shortage of skilled workers has become so serious by now that it is dramatically slowing down our economy," Christian Duerr, parliamentary leader of the co-governing Free Democrats (FDP), told business magazine WirtschaftsWoche.

"We can only get the problem of an ageing workforce under control with a modern immigration policy... We have to reach the mark of 400,000 skilled workers from abroad as quickly as possible," Duerr added.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats, Duerr's libertarian FDP and the environmentalist Greens agreed in their coalition deal on measures like a points system for specialists from countries outside the European Union and lifting the national minimum wage to 12 euros ($13.60) per hour to make working in Germany more attractive.

The employer-friendly German Economic Institute estimates that the labour force will shrink by more than 300,000 people this year as there are more older workers retiring than younger ones entering the labour market.

This gap is expected to widen to more than 650,000 in 2029, leaving an accumulated shortage of people of working age in 2030 of roughly 5 million. The number of Germans in employment grew to nearly 45 million last year despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Every Friday, The Citizen features a pet available for adoption from the Finger Lakes SPCA of Central New York. This week, we spotlight Keno.

AGE: 1 1/2 years old

BREED: Domestic shorthair, gray tiger with white

COMMENTS: Our poor Keno is growing despondent. He's thinking that he will never get adopted, and he's asked us to showcase him one more time. It's OK, Keno! Not to worry. It will happen. Here is an updated version of Keno's last interview.

Keno came to the shelter as a younger kitten. His litter was abandoned and they were in foster care for a period of time. He is the last of his litter and is looking to move on to his new home  soon! He's been here far too long.

Keno is a friendly little boy  on his own terms. We are recommending a family that will give Keno his personal space and allow him to slowly acclimate to his new environment. He is also extraordinarily handsome and has beautiful markings, as you can tell from his picture. He spends his time out of his condo and gets along very well with the other guys in his room.

Keno is up to date on vaccinations (rabies, distemper, feline kennel cough), has been tested for FIV/FeLV and is negative, and is neutered.

Please stop by to make his acquaintance! He will be very grateful if you would consider giving him a much-needed second chance.

Q. Who is your best friend?

A. I was making eye contact with sweet Bella the other day. I think we have a serious connection going on, and I have chosen her to be my BFF. Please don't think that I am taking pity on Bella because she is FIV-positive. That is far from the case. Unfortunately, most people don't have a good understanding of FIV, and therefore my sweet Bella is languishing in her condo. So I have taken it upon myself to be her promoter in addition to her BFF. Please, good people, come and check out my Bella. Please tell her I sent you.

Q. Tell us something interesting about yourself.

A. Well, I have an interesting name! I'm not sure who named me after a casino card game, but it's kind of cool.

Q. If you could have a job, what would that be?

A. Since I am named after a card game, I think that I might try my hand at being a blackjack dealer in Vegas! I hope my new family won't mind moving to Nevada.

Q. Is it true that cats will choose a favorite person?

A. Well, if we cats choose a favorite person, I believe it comes down to a matter of communication! Though we are quite often portrayed as aloof and independent, nothing could be further from the truth. We like to communicate and we  or at least I  have a special appreciation for people who can make that a two-way street.

Q. There is this controversy about whether humans should let their felines sleep with them. What is your opinion?

A. Well, there are those who say, without question, that there are positives to allowing your cat into your bed each night, including giving both of you a sense of security, emotionally and physically. Having a guest in bed with you also reduces stress, as well as brings warmth and comfort. I'm hoping my new human(s) will at least give me a try as a bed buddy!

Q. There are lots of famous cats out there? If you could meet one, who would that be?

A. Meeting this famous cat would require some international travel, but I would really like to meet Maru, the master of boxes. He lives in Japan and his specialty is squeezing himself into any box he can find. Maru has his own blog and has made many YouTube videos. Maybe one day I can have my own blog and YouTube can show me dealing cards. Then I will be famous too!

Q. Do you have any advice for our Citizen readers?

A. I do! Many people believe that giving cow's milk to cats is OK. The truth is that most of us cats are lactose intolerant, so giving us cow's milk can actually cause significant health issues. Milk isn't part of what we cats need for proper nutrition, and many cats suffer stomach upsets or other related issues because their owners thought they were giving them a treat. Please  be on the safe side. Buy milk specifically designed for felines. Your fur-friends will thank you, and so do I. My feline and canine friends and I wish you all a happy new year! Much love, and many licks and purrs, Keno and friends.

The Finger Lakes SPCA of Central New York is a New York state-registered shelter/rescue, registration No. RR-181. Pursuant to Article 26-A, Section 408 of the Agriculture and Markets Law, the registrant is authorized to operate as a registered pet rescue, in compliance with such law.

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Active COVID-19 cases in Cayuga County jumped by nearly 100 in one day, but the seven-day average positivity and case rates are beginning to decline.

The Cayuga County Health Department reported 224 new cases on Wednesday. The active case total increased from 598 to 688 in a day. Ten days ago, there were 850 active cases.

While case numbers remain high, there are indications that the omicron surge is beginning to wane. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the case rate is 1,059.08, a 30.68% decrease in the last seven days. The positivity rate remains high  22.53%  but is down 1.66% over the last week.

Hospitalizations also decreased for the second consecutive day, from 25 to 24. A majority of the patients (13) are vaccinated, while 11 are unvaccinated.

The vaccinated patients include three in their 80s, three in their 70s, four in their 60s, two in their 40s and one in their 30s. The unvaccinated individuals in the hospital include two in their 80s, one in their 70s, three in their 60s, three in their 50s, one in their 40s and one in their 30s.

No deaths were reported on Wednesday. There have been nine COVID-19 deaths in January and 124 since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Cayuga County's COVID vaccination rate is 57.5%, and 60.5% among individuals ages 5 and older who are eligible for the vaccine.

In other news:

 The health department will hold four vaccination clinics through the end of the month, including one on Friday.

The clinic on Friday will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Fingerlakes Mall Event Center. Moderna and Pfizer boosters, along with second shots of the Pfizer vaccine, will be offered at the clinic.

An appointment is required. More information about the clinics, including how to register for an appointment, can be found at cayugacounty.us/health.

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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A SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry student has been expelled after the school discovered they were involved in a video "depicting a grotesque and violent demonstration of abhorrent racist behavior."

SUNY ESF President Joanie Mahoney wrote in an email to the campus community that social media posts identified one of the participants as a student at the college. Additional details about the video weren't released.

Mahoney said although the student's act was off campus and outside of Onondaga County, they violated the college's conduct policy. In addition to being expelled, the student is prohibited from entering SUNY ESF buildings and properties.

"I am very angry and disappointed by the actions recorded in this video," Mahoney said. "The abhorrent behavior displayed goes against everything ESF stands for. Our community has not and will not tolerate racism, hatred, or violence. We commit to holding our students, faculty and staff accountable for any unacceptable behavior and most certainly when it is in direct violation of our code of student conduct."

The student's actions were condemned by two top state officials, Gov. Kathy Hochul and interim SUNY Chancellor Deborah Stanley.

Hochul, who said she was "disgusted by the racist behavior," directed the New York State Police Hate Crimes Task Force to assist the Syracuse Police Department and Syracuse University Campus Safety.

"I want to make it clear that New York state has zero tolerance for these repugnant acts of hate and intolerance, any attempts at causing fear or threats of violence against any individual or community," she said. "Racism is not welcome here, and I will continue doing everything I can to make sure all New Yorkers are safe from acts of bigotry and hatred."

Stanley praised Mahoney's response to the social media posting and the action she took to expel the student.

"I know that all of us in the SUNY community of students, faculty, and staff stand with SUNY ESF in this difficult time in sending a strong message that these disgusting displays of racism and hate will always be met with immediate response of condemnation and unity, and have no place on our campuses or anywhere in our society," she said.

The incident and the college's response occurred as students are preparing to return to campus. SUNY ESF is scheduled to begin spring semester classes on Monday.

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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The state Office of General Services has awarded four contracts worth more than $1.4 million to build a new concession stand for one of the New York State Fair's popular food vendors.

The largest of the contracts went to Upstate Companies I, a Chenango County-based construction company. With a low bid of $1,039,000, the company won the contract to construct the concession stand.

Two Auburn-area companies will be part of the project. Knapp Electric in Sennett won a $139,490 contract to handle the electrical work for the new stand. King & King Mechanical, also in Sennett, won the heating and ventilation contract with a $103,193 bid.

Burn Bros Contractors, of Syracuse, will install the stand's plumbing after bidding $136,080 for the work.

The contracts must be approved by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. But if they are, it will help give a major state fair vendor a permanent home.

Dave Bullard, a state fair spokesman, said the contracts are for the construction of a new stand for Tully's. The stand will be located between The Eatery and the midway.

"A concrete pad will be laid down for the building this year and the stand will be built after the 2022 fair in time to open for 2023," Bullard said.

Before the 2021 fair, Tully's, which has 13 locations in New York and Pennsylvania, had a temporary stand in the same location at the fair. The vendor skipped the 18-day fair last year due to a staffing shortage.

Bullard confirmed Tully's will return to the fair this year.

The state Office of General Services awarded more than $16.7 million in construction contracts, including the state fair concession stand project. The largest contract awarded was $5 million to Mega Builders, a Westbury-based contractor, for masonry repairs and maintenance at Empire State Plaza in Albany.

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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RTHK: US, Russia agree to come back 'next week' on Ukraine

Washington and Moscow's top diplomats agreed at high-stakes talks on Friday to keep working to ease tensions over Ukraine, with the United States promising a written response to Russian security demands next week.

As fears grow that Russian could invade its pro-Western neighbour, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sat down for 90 minutes of hastily-arranged talks in Geneva.

Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border, denying it plans to invade but demanding security guarantees, including a permanent ban on the country joining Nato.

Blinken said after the talks that Washington will share written ideas with Russia next week, voicing hope for more diplomacy.

"We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clear path in terms of understanding each other's concerns and each other's positions," Blinken told reporters.

"We anticipate that we will be able to share with Russia our concerns and ideas in more detail in writing next week and we agreed to further discussions after that," he added.

"We ended up with an agreement that we will receive written responses to all our proposals next week," Lavrov said in a separate press conference.

"Antony Blinken agreed that we need to have a reasonable dialogue, and I hope emotions will decrease," Lavrov said.

"I cannot say whether or not we are on the right track. We will know when we get an answer," Lavrov said.

He added that another meeting could be held between the two, but that it was "premature" to start talking about a summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin.

Biden bluntly assessed on Wednesday that Putin is likely to "move in" on Ukraine and warned of a "disaster for Russia".

The United States and its allies have warned of severe economic sanctions for an invasion.

Russia, which already fuels a deadly insurgency in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014, has demanded guarantees that Nato never admit the former Soviet republic or expand otherwise in Moscow's old sphere.

The United States has declared the idea a "non-starter" and accused Russia of undermining Europe's post-Cold War order by bullying another country into submission.

Russia on Friday reiterated demands for the "withdrawal of foreign forces, hardware and arms" from countries that were not Nato members before 1997, this time singling out Bulgaria and Romania, two former Warsaw Pact countries that joined Nato in 2004.

Romania's foreign ministry quickly hit back, calling saying the demand "is unacceptable and cannot be part of a negotiation."

Blinken headed to Geneva after a solidarity trip to Kyiv and talks with Britain, France and Germany in Berlin.

Even while rejecting the core Russian demands, the Biden administration has said it is willing to speak to Moscow about its security concerns.

One proposal by the United States is to revive restrictions on missiles in Europe that had been set by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War deal trashed by former president Donald Trump's administration as it accused Moscow of violations.

The Biden administration has also offered more transparency on military exercises.

Russia has not rejected the proposals but says that its core concern is Ukraine and on Thursday announced massive naval drills in the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and Mediterranean as a show of force.

The United States has warned that the clock is ticking, putting forward intelligence alleging that an invasion could come shortly and be preceded by a "false-flag" operation as Russia tries to trigger a pretext against Ukraine.

Lawmakers in Russia's parliament have presented a bill that would ask Putin to recognise the independence of two pro-Moscow separatist territories in Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk.

Lower house speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Friday that such a move - sure to enrage Ukraine and prompt Western condemnation - would be "a solution to provide for the security of our citizens and countrymen" in the two regions.

Ukraine's military intelligence service on Friday accused Russia of sending fresh arms and equipment to the rebels since the start of this month, including tanks, artillery and ammunition. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2022-01-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Press Release

January 21, 2022 Tolentino panel okays renaming of CDO Convention Center in honor of late statesman Nene Pimentel MANILA - The Senate Committee Local Government has recommended for plenary approval a proposed legislation that seeks to rename the convention center in Cagayan de Oro City in honor of one of the country's renowned statesman, the late former Senate President Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr. Senator Francis 'Tol' N. Tolentino, panel chair said the committee endorsement of House Bill No. 8842 is very timely in recognition to the vast contributions in the society of one of Cagayan de Oro's favorite son, Pimentel, who is considered "The Father of the Local Government Code." Principally authored by House Deputy Speaker and Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, HB 8842 seeks to rename the Cagayan de Oro Convention Center located along Barangay Indahag as "Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr. International Convention Center." Born in Cagayan de Oro City on December 11, 1933, Pimentel served as senator from 1987 to 1992 and from 1998 to 2010. He held various committee chairmanships during his stellar run in the Upper House especially as chair of the powerful Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and as head of the Senate Committee on Local Government, in which during his stint spearheaded the approval and enactment of Republic Act No. 7160 or the Local Government Code of 1991. He was elected as 19th Senate President from November 2000 until June 2001. Pimentel also served in other various capacities in the government such as Minister of the Interior and Local Government from 1986 to 1987, as well as Mayor of Cagayan de Oro City and Assemblyman for his hometown during the First Regular Batasang Pambansa from 1984 to 1986. The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the National Historical Institute are both supportive of the said measure. Meanwhile, Tolentino's panel also endorsed for plenary approval other pending local bills such as H.B. 6535--renaming Barangay Sta. Maria in Presentacion, Camarines Sur as Barangay Parubcan; and H.B. 9452--renaming the Municipality of San Isidro in Davao Del Norte as the Municipality of Sawata.
Tata Motors has launched its passenger lineup in Bhutan. The automaker has partnered with Samden Vehicles Private Limited and the latter is also going to be the sole authorised distributor of Tata vehicles in the country.

Tata Motors has introduced its entire range that includes Tiago, Tigor, Nexon, Altroz, Harrier and Safari. All the models feature the latest Impact 2.0 design language and are BS 6-compliant. The price of Tata Tiago in Bhutanese denomination (Nu) stands at 7.34 lakh Nu while the Tigor will cost 7.99 lakh Nu. The Nexon compact SUV along with Altroz hatch will be available for 10.55 lakh Nu and 8.95 lakh Nu respectively whereas the Harrier can be availed by customers for a price of 8.38 lakh Nu. Tata Safari SUV will cost one 24.42 lakh Nu.

(Also read | Tata Motors follows Maruti Suzuki in announcing another price hike)

Mayank Baldi, Head  International Business, Passenger Vehicles, Tata Motors informed how important is Bhutan's market for the growth of the company and with these launches, the automaker is looking ahead to capture the market. "Engineered on three main pillars  design, safety and driving pleasure, the New Forever range comes with best-in-class features and latest tech. Nexon has been Indias first five-star GNCAP rated car, while Altroz is the only hatchback in its segment with a five-star GNCAP safety rating. The Tiago and Tigor with four-star GNCAP safety ratings are safest in their categories. With the support and commitment of our esteemed partners, Samden Vehicles Pvt. Ltd., we promise to deliver superior sales and after-sales experience to our customers," said Baldi reportedly.

(Also read | Tata Safari Dark Edition launched in a meaner shade of black. Details here)

Meanwhile, the automaker recently launched the CNG versions Tiago and Tigor in India. The former has been priced at 6.09 lakh (ex-showroom) and 7.69 lakh (ex-showroom) respectively. Tata Motors has dubbed its CNG range of cars as iCNG models. It has stated it has launched the CNG range of cars keeping in mind the rising price of petrol and diesel along with better fuel efficiency and eco-friendliness.

First Published Date:
Beijing (Gasgoo)- Dongfeng Motor Group (DFG), the Hong Kong-listed subsidiary of Dongfeng Motor Corporation, announced its decision to sell 732 million worth of 40,000,000 Stellantis shares through DFGs subsidiary DMHK.

Photo credit: Dongfeng Motor



According to the announcement, the said shares will not affect the companys income statement. The earnings from the sale will be put towards Dongfeng Motors primary business.

At this stage, DFG has already reached an agreement with BNP Paribas for the latter to represent as its exclusive global coordinator and bookkeeping administrator. BNP Paribas has finished corresponding book-building work, looking for qualified international investors for the 1.28% Stellantis shares. for DFG.

The shares are priced at 18.30 per share11% less than Stellantis closing price at the end of the day before. The settlement will be completed around January 26th, 2022. After the placing, DFG will still own 3.2% of Stellantis share capital.

Additionally, Dongfeng Motor Corporation reported an annual sales volume of 2.7751 million vehicles in 2021, down 3.25% from a year ago. Nonetheless, the auto group still set an ambitious annual sales target of 3.471 million vehicles for 2022, more than the groups record of 3.28 million in 2017.
With Gasgoo Daily, we will offer daily important automotive news in China. For those we have reported, the title of the piece will include a hyperlink, which will provide detailed information.

WM Motor M7 completes extreme weather test under -30

WM Motors first sedan, the M7, has finished extreme weather tests under -30. The vehicles energy consumption resulted in 17kWh/100km. The car can heat up to a comfortable inside temperature in 17 minutes, with the AC consuming less than 10% of the energy. Moreover, the M7 can be charged from 30% to 80% in half an hour.

WM Motor M7; photo credit: WM Motor

China to promote battery-swapping technology nationwide



Ten Chinese government departments co-issued an opinion of application promoting the EV charging infrastructure service, enhancing battery-swapping technology in the country. The opinion encourages the industry to develop new charging technologies, including wireless charging and crew-less automated charging. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the network should be able to accomodate at least 20 million EVs.

Shanghai encourages intelligent V2X pilot application in logistics, transportation

The municipal government of Shanghai stated that the city welcomes more companies in the freight delivery, short-distance transportation, intelligent buses, maintenance industries to adopt intelligent connected vehicle tests, with moderate fee allowed. The city focuses on constructing an innovative smart transportation system.

GAC Groups component arm builds semiconductor joint venture with CRRCs subsidiary

GAC Component Co., Ltd., whose majority shareholder is GAC Group, and Zhuzhou CRRC Times Semiconductor Co., Ltd. have set up a semiconductor joint venture dubbed Guangzhou Qinglan Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (called Qinglan Semiconductor for short), representing the first IGBT investment project in South China, GAC Group said on Jan. 20 via its WeChat account.

Chinas Black Sesame Technologies, MAXIEYE to promote ADAS localization

Chinas chip developer, Black Sesame Technologies, reached cooperation with local ADAS developer, MAXIEYE, to build advanced autonomous and intelligent driving products.

New energy passenger vehicles helps carbon emission cut by 15 mln tonnes per year in China

The use of the new energy passenger vehicles currently running on roads in China can result in around 15 million tonnes of carbon emissions cut annually compared to that of traditional oil-fueled passenger vehicles, China's governmental agencies including National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Commerce said on Jan. 21 at a press conference.

Dongfeng Motor to sell Stellantis shares for 732 million to recover

Dongfeng Motor Group (DFG), the Hong Kong-listed subsidiary of Dongfeng Motor Corporation, announced its decision to sell 732 million worth of 40,000,000 Stellantis shares through DFGs subsidiary DMHK.

NIO launches 800th battery swap station via cooperation with IKEA

Chinese NEV startup NIO announced via its WeChat account its 800th battery swap station was launched on Jan. 21 at IKEA Hangzhou store.

Geely Auto, Renault sign framework agreement to launch new car lineup for South Korea

Geely Automobile Holdings Limited (Geely Auto or the Company) on Jan. 21 signed a framework agreement with French automaker Groupe Renault to launch an all-new vehicle lineup for the South Korean market, according to Geely Auto's announcement.

Geely said to acquire local handphone maker Meizu

After announcing its foray into the smartphone field, Chinas automaker Geely is reportedly planning to acquire local smartphone company, Meizu, on January 21st.

VOYAHs 10,000th vehicle rolls off line, new sedan model coming in 2022

On January 21st, Dongfeng Motors high-end EV brand, VOYAH, celebrated its 10,000th vehicle rolling off the production line at the brands 4.0 digital factory.
LOS ANGELES  Technology companies, adult industry firms and other online businesses may face new restrictions on how they conduct business after the European Parliament and Council for the European Union gave initial approval to the landmark Digital Services Act, according to the Washington Post.

The legislative body for the 27-nation bloc gave preliminary approval to the legislation that aims to give governments greater control over online content and business practices by digital firms. The approval paves the way for additional discussion and debate for the legislation which would now return to the body for final approval in a few months.

To read the full story, click here.

The legislation approved Thursday allows governments to force companies to remove content that they consider illegal, like Holocaust denial material, which is illegal in Germany, or racist content, which is banned in France.

The measure, if approved, would significantly impact how companies interact with users and the types of content and advertising material they post, making it easier for Europeans to opt out of targeted advertising and prohibiting companies from targeting children with advertising.

The action could influence how Congress deals with social media firms who have been the focus of efforts to increase transparency and how they allow questionable content and manage user data.
D.J. Carusos historical drama/romance/morality play Redeeming Love opens with the Shakespeare quote all that glitters is not gold, and a pair of hands thrusting a pan into a river, searching for treasure. It sets the time and place in Gold Rush-era California, in the town of Pair-a-Dice circa 1850, but the quote has no bearing on the tale that unfolds over the next two hours, based on the smash hit 1991 novel by Francine Rivers. There may be gold in them thar hills, but Redeeming Love doesnt yield any cinematic riches.

Our heroine in need of redeeming is Angel (Abigail Cowen), a sex worker and the hottest ticket in Pair-a-Dice, her time raffled off by the Duchess (Famke Janssen) to a frothing mob of men that gathers daily in front of the Palace brothel. As a child, Angel was trafficked into sex work by a smooth pimp named Duke (Eric Dane) after the death of her destitute mother (Nina Dobrev), who seems to waste away from shame after she and her daughter are rejected by Angels father, who is married to another woman. For her part, Angel doesnt seem to mind her life in Pair-a-Dice all that much, though a knight in dusty denim will soon shake things up.

Her redeemer is Michael (Tom Lewis), a folksy farmer who prays for a wife who likes to go fishing. When he lays eyes on Angel, he chuckles that God has a sense of humor, as his heaven-sent intended wife is the highest-priced prostitute in town. Nevertheless, he persists, much to Angels chagrin, showing up to chat as often as he can afford.

One could look at the plot of this film from two different perspectives, one Pollyannaish, the other deeply cynical. The filmmakers behind Redeeming Love want the audience to see Michael as a faithful farmer who falls in love at first sight with a local sex worker and rescues her from her life of exploitation, marrying her and bringing her to his farm and teaching her what it means to be loved, always offering forgiveness when she strays. On the other hand, one could see Michael as an isolated religious zealot who believes he receives a message from God that a local sex worker is intended to be his wife, spurring him to kidnap her from the brothel while shes in a weakened state, pressing her into a life of wifely duties though she attempts repeatedly to escape.

Every female character in Redeeming Love is a wife, a whore or dead, and the story lacks any imagination to envision a womans redemption (if she even needs that) outside of a heteropatriarchal family structure, arguing that what women need is for men to carry them off to the country to save them from themselves with some fresh air and brisk housework. It begs the question, why adapt this source material now? Dig too deep and we might not like the answer.

Stuck in this largely infantilized role, Cowen imbues Angel with as much verve and spunk as she can; shes often funnier and darker than necessary, offering a refreshing dash of acid to temper the sickly sweetness. But its so hard to shake the lingering icky feelings about this text, which plays like tradwife fan fiction, the 19th-century setting protecting the story from the pesky womens lib movement, which would suggest that Angel have her own autonomy, that she might be redeemed by her own self-love. However, such radical concepts have no purchase here.

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According to an auditor general report released last week, Flagstaff Unified School District (FUSD) was one of six school districts at high financial risk statewide at the end of 2021.

FUSD had high-risk marks in five of 10 financial risk measures analyzed in the report. A summary of the report stated that the measures relate to a districts overall financial risk of not being able to operate within its available cash resources and budget constraints.

Risk points were assigned based on thresholds for each measure, with the total determining the districts most at risk.

FUSD is one of two districts added to the high-risk category since September 2021. A total of 207 (of 236 statewide) were included in the risk analysis report.

Financial challenges FUSD faced in 2021 (years refer to fiscal years unless otherwise noted) are listed in the district report summary as including current year funding, declining enrollment, continued increases to minimum wage, and a distance learning adjustment."

FUSDs risk summary also noted its use of federal COVID-19 relief funds to maintain operations in 2021 (over $3.8 million) as an area to focus on to avoid future financial risk.

The district further reported it plans to spend 21.6%, or $3.7 million, of its remaining relief monies to maintain operations," it said. "As these are one-time monies, to avoid future financial risk and to ensure it will be able to spend within its available cash resources and budget capacity when these relief monies are no longer available to spend after Sept. 30, 2024, the district should plan how it will adjust its spending in areas where its remaining monies are used."

FUSD was first notified of its risk in November 2021, according to the report. The auditor generals office plans to continue meeting with the district during 2022 to discuss its response.

The report listed five measures as areas of high financial risk for FUSD.

A decrease in weighted student count (WSC, an average of full-time students 100 days into the school year) was Arizonas most common risk category, with 81 districts statewide listed as high risk.

In [2021] many Arizona school districts experienced unprecedented decreases in WSCs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report. The financial risk of those decreases may not have been as significant as similar decreases in other years due to available federal relief monies.

FUSDs Group A WSC was 11,139 in 2018 and fell slightly in the subsequent two years (10,897 in 2019 and 10,795). And 2021 saw a larger drop to 9,702. FUSDs Group A WSC has risen in 2022 so far (to 10,409), though not to pre-pandemic levels.

WSC determines much of each districts state and local tax revenues, with Group A WSC determining funding for common student needs such as career exploration and specific learning disabilities. WSC is higher for smaller school districts and for students in grades nine through 12.

For a district of FUSDs size (it's in the large and very large category, with a 2021 enrollment of 9,080), a high-risk decline would be 2.5% or more over two years or 5% or greater over four years.

FUSDs weighted student count was down 6.6% from 2018 (four-year change), and down 3.6% over the past two years, with substantial decreases coming after 2020.

FUSD was at high risk for both of the budget limit reserves measured in the report. The state assigns budget limits for both Maintenance and Operation (M&O) and Unrestricted Capital Outlay (UCO), which are in part determined by the districts weighted student count. Spending under or over those limits affects the budget limit reserve amount and can carry over to next years budget limits.

Overspending the budget limit by more than 0.5% of the total in 2021, decreasing the limit reserve by more than 25% in one year or 50% in four years, or having an unfunded limit reserve of 10% or more in 2021 with a frozen tax rate and a per pupil refund balance under the Arizona average would put a district at high risk for either category.

FUSDs operating budget limit reserve (M&O) decreased from $3,096,466 in 2017 to $2,536,943 in 2020 and $368,375 in 2021. The report calculates its one-year decrease as 85.5% and a four-year decrease of 88.1%.

The districts capital budget limit reserve (UCO) decreased from $3,799,689 in 2017 to $913,607 in 2020 and $443,940. Its one-year decrease was 51.4% and its four-year decrease was 88.3%.

According to the district response section of the report, the reduced capital reserve is due to the Mount Elden Middle School renovation ($675,400) and the final year of the district additional assistance reduction ($709,327). The lowered operating reserve is due to the distance learning adjustment of $2.4 million that would have been available for carry forward had the modification not been required.

FUSD's other high-risk categories were two of the three measures the report used to determine a districts financial position. These three -- change in fund balance, operating margin ratio and operating reserve ratio -- are based on analysis of a districts general fund, which is used for day-to-day operations.

The operating margin looks at the percent of district revenues not spent in the year received over the past two years. Any district with a negative-margin ratio (meaning it spent over its budget) in the past two years and a 2020 per pupil general fund ending balance less than 25% of the statewide average, is considered high risk by the report.

In both 2020 and 2021, FUSD was in the 10 districts with the lowest operating margin ratio statewide, -3% and -8.2%, respectively. FUSDs revenue in 2020 (audited) was $76,116,406 and its expenditures totaled $82,323,123. In 2021, its revenue (unaudited) was $66,302,979 and its expenditures were $68,315,831.

Change in fund balance was the other metric for which FUSD was listed as high risk. Districts with a general fund decrease of 25% or higher in 2020 or 2021 and those with a negative fund balance were listed as high risk.

Between 2019 and 2020 (audited), FUSDs general fund increased 7.6% ($1,792,888). The district is at high risk for this category because the fund decreased by 26.6% ($1,905,799) between 2020 and 2021 (unaudited).

FUSD was not at risk in the final financial position measure: general fund operating reserve ratio. This compares the fund balance held for future spending with the previous year's total spending and districts with a negative ratio in 2020 or 2021 are considered high risk.

In 2020, FUSD's reserve ratio was 31% and in 2021 it was 7.7%. The general fund balance in 2020 (audited) was $25,506,526. In 2021, it was $5,258,384 (unaudited).

There was one other category in which FUSD was not high risk. It has not redirected any capital monies to operations over the last five years.

Three categories did not apply to the district: small-school budget limit adjustment, frozen tax rate and receivership.

The district is expected to discuss its response publicly to the report soon. Additional details can be found at frisk.azauditor.gov.

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Northern Arizona Healthcare's (NAH) announcement of two January public meetings about its new Flagstaff Medical Center Campus included several documents it had submitted to the city as part of the approval process for the plan, with details of topics such as fire risk, traffic and cultural resources being analyzed.

The Amended Applications for Adoption of Specific Plan and Concept Zoning Map Amendment for the project, dated Nov. 29, 2021, gives details of NAHs approach to city requirements, analysis of the site and its plans. More detailed reports on aspects of the developments potential impacts on the area were also included.

Most analyzed the development's impact over its 23-year planned construction period ending in 2045.

Traffic

A traffic impact analysis (TIA) conducted by CivTech and dated Oct. 2021, looks at potential traffic patterns in 2025, 2030 and 2045. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the project's transit needs to determine whether the planned system is able to accommodate traffic from the development and to recommend mitigation measures if necessary.

Plans for the location currently include 16 proposed access points and seven public roads.

The study recorded traffic volumes at several intersections throughout Flagstaff (28 with peak hour turning counts and five 24-hour bi-directional traffic volumes on Sept.1, with an additional four Oct. 19).

Of the intersections studied, all but eight had acceptable levels of service under existing conditions.

Crash data from the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) shows a total of 613 incidents over the last three years, 393 at intersections. Rear-end collisions were most common and head-on collisions were least common. Only one involved a fatality.

The number of proposed trips to the site is projected to grow through 2045. The report anticipated 26,982 external weekday daily trips in 2025, more than doubling in 2045 (53,190).

Three future roadway improvements that had already secured funding were suggested in the reports conclusion, as well as an extension of Woody Mountain Road that is assumed to obtain grant funding for a four-lane roadway section by 2045 (between Woodlands Village Boulevard and Woody Mountain Road.

Other future improvements include a realignment of University Avenue at Milton Road (by 2025), improvements and extensions to Woody Mountain Road from Dartmoor Street to south of Fire Road 532 (by 2030) and to J. W. Powell Boulevard between Pulliam Drive and Fourth Street (by 2045). Several others were considered in another section of the report.

Dedicated right-turn lanes were recommended at 13 intersections, and left-turn lanes were recommended at 10.

Public transit plans were also considered in the TIA, based in part on analysis of Northern Arizona Intergovernmental Public Transportation Authority's (NAIPTA) long-term goals.

Pre-COVID ridership at the two bus stops near NAHs current campus averaged to a total of 245 boardings/disembarkings a day, around 11% of hospital employees.

An airport route of the Mountain Line bus system, as outlined in the report, would likely run on weekdays at 20-minute intervals from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and 30-minute intervals from 6 to 10 p.m. On weekends, it would be expected to run every 30 minutes between 7 a.m, and 8 p.m.

The report noted that CivTech plans to analyze 2035 and 2040 once the project moves forward with development that exceeds what is shown in the TIA in the 2030 horizon year or creates an increase in traffic beyond that shown for the 2030 horizon year. [This] allow[s] for the consideration of needed infrastructure improvements once actual traffic volumes and patterns can be observed.

Wildfire risk

According to a Wildfire Risk Assessment and Mitigation Report by Fire Management Group and dated Nov. 20, 2021, the majority of this area, including the proposed development, is currently at low risk for wildland fire. Most of the site was last thinned in 2009.

Fire modeling showed a low likelihood of crown fire, but if one should occur, it has the potential for high severity, particularly in the southern portion (which was not included in 2009s thinning) that could be mitigated with aggressive thinning.

Flame height and fire spread would be minimal in the area, especially with the addition of roadways to break up grass fuels. A burn probability model found that a fire started in this area would have a 10% or less chance of large fire growth.

The report recommended ecological restoration activities on the site to reduce fire risk and improve stand condition. Another treatment was recommended of the entire site and especially of the southern section, a dense and even-aged stand of trees that are unhealthy and at risk of undesirable fire behavior and disease.

With the development and establishment of a water system and installation of fire hydrants on this property, any fire suppression, both on the property and for the surrounding areas, will be greatly enhanced, according to the report.

Economic impact

The total economic impact of the construction is estimated at $1.34 billion, according to an Applied Economics report in May 2021. The majority (68%) will be used in the first eight years of the 23-year construction period.

The multiplier effect of this increase in jobs and labor income in the city and county could result in a total annual output impact of $388.9 million at build out, [representing]...the annual gross revenues created by the businesses within the project, plus the increase in purchases from local suppliers and local purchases by employees. The businesses in the Northern Arizona Healthcare Campus could directly and indirectly support close to 3,200 jobs and $159.6 million in annual labor income, according to the report.

Construction expenditures are projected to cost $935.6 million, supporting 8,800 direct construction jobs and 2,800 indirect jobs in Flagstaff and Coconino County during the 23-year process, an estimated $587.1 million in labor income.

Once built, the various businesses in the development could directly employ 2,045 people and indirectly another 1,100. Each year, these businesses are estimated to generate a total of $159.6 million in labor income (direct, indirect and induced).

Combined, operations and visitor impacts are projected to create an annual economic impact of $403.3 million at buildout.

Sales, lodging and property taxes generated by the development are projected to total $32.3 million to the City of Flagstaff and $28.8 million to Coconino County through 2045. Employee and visitor tax revenues are estimated to total $32.4 million.

All total, the direct and indirect jobs generated by the Northern Arizona Healthcare Campus could support a local population of close to 2,700 people (in addition to the residents at the 177 housing units within the NAH property and the 260 additional units within the activity center).

The report expected that about half of these employees would live in Flagstaff.

Cultural resources

An April 1 inventory of cultural resources on the site (190 acres) conducted by EnviroSystems Management found a historic fence row (along the property line between Fort Tuthill and the NAH site) and a section of historical railroad grade (along the Flagstaff Urban Trails System). Since neither were eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), the proposed site contains no NRHP-eligible cultural resources.

The findings were presented to Flagstaffs heritage preservation commission July 1. It was approved with recommended conditions to be included in the specific site plans: to avoid identified stone piers, fence remains and rail alignment and, if that is not possible, to conduct archival research and appropriate mitigation such as installing interpretive signs.

Neither of these locations is intended to be substantially disturbed from current conditions and so the Commissions conditions will be honored, according to the specific plan.

More details, including recordings of the two January public participation meetings, can be found at nahealth.com/expansion.

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PHOENIX -- Hate crimes in Arizona in 2020 were the highest reported since 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, according to new FBI statistics, but advocates and experts say many more hate crimes mostly likely were unreported.

According to the FBIs voluntary Uniform Crime Report, Arizona recorded 282 hate crimes in 2020, continuing an upward trend from 2019 and registering one of the highest in the past 30 years.

Nationally, hate crimes increased to 8,263 in 2020 from 7,287 in 2019, according to the data.

The rise in 2020 occurred alongside spikes in political and racial divisions in the United States, with deep conflicts over such issues as immigration, police mistreatment of people of color and COVID-19 pandemic.

When we demonize groups, unfortunately, what happens then is that some people take that as permission to go out and commit a hate crime, said Jack McDevitt, director of the Institute for Race and Justice at Northeastern University.

In another alarming trend, fewer police departments sent data on hate crimes to the FBI reporting system, or reported the number of crimes as zero, leading many to believe that the 2020 numbers are not a complete picture of the problem.

Of the 125 law enforcement agencies in Arizona, only 81 sent in data to the FBIs reporting system. The 2019 report used data from 92 agencies.

In 2020, 15,138 of 18,625 law enforcement agencies across the country submitted data, compared with 15,772 of 18,674 in 2019.

The vast majority of agencies around the country  affirmatively report to the FBI that they had zero hate crimes in 2020, said Michael Lieberman, senior policy counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Only 2,389 of the 15,138 reported one or more hate crimes, so obviously the numbers are incomplete.

The FBI defines a hate crime as a committed criminal offense which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offenders bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.

In Arizona, crimes motivated by race, ethnicity and ancestry made up the majority of hate crimes in 2020, accounting for 198 of the 282 incidents reported. Of the racially motivated hate crimes, Black Americans reported the most, accounting for 114 of the total 198.

Crimes against Hispanics or Latinos was the second highest reported, with 31, followed by whites, with 29.

Carlos Galindo-Elvira, director of community engagement and partnerships for Chicanos Por La Causa, called the data alarming and said one hate crime is too many.

Hate crimes are message crimes, he said. While there may be a victim or victims of the crime, it is a clear message to the rest of the community: You are not wanted here, We do not like your kind. That has to be terrifying for the individual, but also for the community at large.

Religious bias was the second most-frequent reason for hate crimes in Arizona, with 36 (13%).

Marc Krell, associate regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of Arizona, said rhetoric from state and local political levels has heightened hate. In September, state Sen. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, likened COVID-19 vaccines to the Holocaust and tweeted an image of needles in the shape of a swastika.

This is an example of people having a platform, Krell said. When we see this kind of messaging coming out of elected officials, it is very troubling because it sets an example for people that this is OK.

Sexual orientation remained as the third most-frequent reason for hate crimes, with 33 in Arizona in 2020. Fourth was crimes against gay men, with 25.

Nationally, hate crimes against Asians increased to 279 in 2020, up from 161 in 2019. This comes in the wake of anti-Asian rhetoric surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, including former President Donald Trump referring to the virus as kung flu and Wuhan virus. In Arizona, 4 hate crimes targeting Asians were reported in 2020, up from 1 in 2019.

Counting quandaries

But these statistics show an incomplete picture of how many hate crimes occur in the country, advocates and experts say.

The extent of the undercount is hard to tell, McDevitt said.

In some cases, victims do not report.

Lieberman said there are many reasons why people do not report, including fear of police, language barriers, documentation status and LGBTQ+ individuals who have not come out to family or colleagues.

Galindo-Elvira said some victims may not recognize that the crime committed against them was a hate crime.

And in other cases, McDevitt said, hateful behavior occurs but isnt considered a crime by law enforcement.

Sometimes we think of things that are hurtful, and wed like to report those but they dont qualify as crimes, he said.

Additionally, the FBIs data collection system is voluntary, and an agency is counted even if it reports zero hate crimes.

Lieberman said about 70 cities with populations more than 100,000 -- including Tucson -- either did not report any hate crimes or affirmatively reported zero. The Pima County Sheriffs Department reported 26 hate crimes last year.

Tucson police officials did not respond when asked about hate crimes in 2020. This is the first time since 2007 that the city did not report any hate crimes; in 2019, Tucson police reported 16.

In 2020, Phoenix had the most reported hate crimes in the state, with 187, up from 151 in 2019.

Glendale, Chandler and Gilbert reported several incidents each.

The safety of our community is the top priority for the Phoenix Police Department, and we have a team of detectives dedicated to investigating crimes motivated by bias, police spokesperson Ann Justus said in an email. We are aware of the UCR data, and we constantly evaluate crime trends in an effort to decrease the victimization of our community members.

To decrease hate crimes nationally and in Arizona, advocates and experts said, more needs to be done to educate the public and provide support to those who have been victimized.

Fear motivates people who are committing hate crimes, Galindo-Elvira said, but fear also holds people back from reporting.

Galindo-Elvira said Chicanos Por La Causa seeks to help victims by speaking out against hate and supporting victims in times of need.

Local leaders and government officials throughout the state should speak out against hate and insist that it is not normalized, he said, because when youre silent, it gives an opportunity for believed permission.

Its incumbent upon all of us to shine a light against hate, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric to ensure that we have a society that embraces all and embraces diversity, he said.

McDevitt echoed similar sentiments, adding that diversity in our communities makes us stronger, it doesnt make us weaker.

As a society, we have to understand that hate crimes can tear us apart, he said. If we dont take them seriously and we dont react to them positively, our communities are going to fall apart.

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Before US President Joe Biden's one-year anniversary in office, Laura Rosenberger, director for China at the White House National Security Council, delivered a specialized elaboration on US China policy on Wednesday local time. She said the US will strengthen deterrence against China in the Taiwan Straits and the Indo-Pacific region to ensure that the US will win in the competition against China. Meanwhile, the US will make efforts to manage its competition with China, maintain communication channels with the latter, and set up guardrails to restrain competition and control potential risks.

Over the past year, we have heard such rhetoric so many times. "Competition" is a key word repeatedly emphasized by the Biden administration when it comes to ties with China. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken once proposed the "3C" policy - "competition, confrontation, cooperation." A refined formulation is "responsible competition," "cooperation from a position of strength," and "building common sense guardrails to avoid conflicts." Among these "3Cs," "cooperation" has been increasingly marginalized, and "competition" has become more and more prominent, taking the central role. But what exactly does Washington mean by "competition?" We can only?see it by taking US practical actions into consideration.

Rosenberger noted that the US is about to launch a so-called Indo-Pacific Economic Framework with regional partners. This plan is aimed at China. The US hopes to create a small economic and trade circle that surrounds but excludes China, wishing to cut the ground from under China's feet in terms of China's economic and trade cooperation with other countries (including the US). Rosenberger specifically mentioned the Taiwan Straits, where the US has been playing increasing tricks. This is a provocation to China's core interests and continues to undermine the political foundation of China-US relations.

Rosenberger mentioned that the US is committed to working with its allies to shape a strategic environment around China. Before her words had faded away, China immediately saw their actions. On Thursday local time, Japan and France would hold 2+2 talks between foreign and defense ministers. On Friday, Biden will meet virtually with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Also on Friday, a 2+2 meeting between the UK and Australia will take place. The three events have a common theme - countering China's influence.

We want to ask Washington: Is that the so-called responsible competition? China has been listening to US words and watching its deeds for two years. It is not hard to come to this conclusion: Deep down in Washington's heart, confrontation and containment are the essence, cooperation is an expedient measure, and competition is a discourse trap. The master of the White House has changed, but its China policy has not. Biden said repeatedly that he does not want to mess up ties with China and he did not want a conflict between the two countries. But the actual deeds of the US are constantly crippling the foundation of China-US cooperation, creating and accumulating the risk of a China-US conflict.

US officials keep saying and showing off the concept of "competion with China" almost on every occasion. But they know what they really mean, which is also understood by others. Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating once described the US mentality in a nutshell. He said China's "great problem" is that "it is now a state as large as the US, and with the potential of being much larger - an unforgivable sin for American triumphalists."

In recent years, the US has abused the concept of national security to suppress Chinese enterprises for no reason, frequently used its unilateral long-arm jurisdiction, openly interfered in China's internal affairs on issues related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan, and tried its best to provoke China's relations with other countries. These are unethical and underhanded tactics. At the same time, Washington has deliberately created a discourse trap, using "competition," a neutral term in the Western context, to cover up its hegemonic arbitrariness in suppressing and containing China.

It must be pointed out that the US is not knocking China down or weakening it despite all the unethical punches. On the contrary, China is steadily getting stronger and the Chinese cannot be intimidated. Historically, we were not afraid of anyone when we were poor and with only millet plus rifles, and now we have no reason to be scared of any "competition." More importantly, China has no intention of competing with the US, but rather pursuing a continuous transcendence and breakthrough; China has no strategy of hegemony, but one of development with the purpose of promoting people's livelihood and achieving their aspirations for a better life. This is something that no one can "contain!"

Rosenberger said that US officials "feel a sense of general urgency" to put the US in the best position to be able to compete. To be sure, if the "urgency" of the US pursuit of "winning" is equal to the "defeat" of China, then the US will never achieve its goal. Under the banner of "competition" to suppress the development of other countries and deprive them of their legitimate rights and interests, this is immoral competition without a way out.

Washington should understand that for a great power, the decline of ideas is more dangerous than that of strength. In the era of multi-polarity and globalization in the 21st century, the US is still thinking about finding tools from the Cold War toolbox, thinking every day about how to contain other countries, pulling "small gangs" and engaging in group confrontation, which will only harm themselves and will eventually be abandoned by the times.
A man wanted on felony drug charges remained in custody Thursday after leading U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement on a chase before barricading himself in a shed between Billings and Laurel.

Robert George Medina was indicted, along with three others, in June 2021 on five counts of possessing, distributing and conspiring to possess meth. U.S. Marshals and other members of the Montana Violent Offender Task Force arrested the 38-year-old on a federal warrant for possession with intent to distribute meth. He surrendered peacefully to officers after barricading himself for hours in a shed.

This inter-agency cooperation among what appears to be six other agencies in our task force, thats pretty awesome, said Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Timothy Hornung.

Investigators with the U.S. Marshals Service found Medina at a residence on Beartooth Way in Laurel, Hornung told The Gazette. They watched him leave the home and get into a Chevy Silverado. When they tried to stop him, he drove off, leading them out of Laurel and onto 56th Street West. When he reached Danford Road, he came to a dead end, ditched the pickup truck and ran into a shed on a nearby property.

Assuming that Medina could be armed, task force members set up a perimeter around the shed and tried negotiating with him to surrender. The SWAT team with the Yellowstone County Sheriffs Office arrived and parked its armored truck at the sheds entrance. Medina came out, and neither he nor any of the task force members were harmed. Investigators found several firearms during a search of the pickup truck, Hornung said.

Joining U.S. Marshals in responding to the chase and standoff were members of the Montana Highway Patrol, Yellowstone and Carbon County sheriffs offices, the Laurel and Billings Police departments and a game warden with Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Billings officers provided support in the form of patrol officers and a K9 unit, Billings Police Lt. Brandon Wooley told The Gazette in an email. He also said Medina is a person of interest in several active BPD investigations. Because Medina has not been charged in any of the cases, and they are all still ongoing, he could not provide any additional details at this time.

Medina is scheduled to appear in United States District Court before Magistrate Judge Timothy J. Cavan on Friday. He is currently is custody at Yellowstone County Detention Facility.

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A federal health agency said Thursday it will review and follow-up with the Montana State Hospital about an inspection that captured a workforce shortage crisis at the psychiatric facility in Warm Springs.

A September inspection survey from the Montana State Hospital became public earlier this month, outlining several deficiencies: An in-house investigation failed to determine if neglect played a role in a patient's death, and the in-house investigator discarded their records of the internal probe; staffing levels were below the levels needed to prevent patients from falling, and inspectors found patients fell 113 times between June and August 2021; employees told inspectors staffing documentation was "not accurate," and did not list patients whose needs required one-on-one attention from staff.

A probe of the patient's death in August found the person in the hospital's geriatric wing had come to staff on Aug. 13 and told them she was unable to catch her breath. According to the survey, staff told her to "return to your room and stop being so dramatic."

The patient was found dead in her room 45 minutes later, the 19-page survey states.

In a letter to state hospital administrator Kyle Fouts on Nov. 9, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which has oversight of the facility, said the federal survey found the facility in compliance and no corrective plan was required.

Last week, the Montana State News Bureau asked CMS how the hospital could be in compliance in light of the deficiencies. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid said Thursday it would revisit the matter.

"CMS holds patient safety and access to quality care as top priorities," a spokesperson said in an email Thursday. "CMS is reviewing the survey findings and will follow up with the State Survey Agency and hospital to discuss those items."

The spokesperson did not identify what the further review would entail, and did not respond to an email with follow-up questions by press time. A DPHHS spokesperson declined to comment on what "further review" CMS would conduct without clarification from the federal agency.

The inspection in September was conducted by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, which operates the state hospital at the center of the dispute. Most units of state hospital are under federal certification and oversight of CMS, although DPHHS conducts federal surveys on behalf of the federal agency. State inspectors likewise survey nursing homes on behalf of CMS to ensure Montana facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid payments meet federal regulations required by CMS, according to Jon Ebelt, a spokesperson for DPHHS.

The facility is the only state-run psychiatric hospital in the state, and provides psychiatric evaluation, treatment and rehabilitation services with severe mental illness. In December, the Montana State News bureau published claims by current and former staff that an unresponsive and inadequately trained staff was driving an employee exodus at the hospital. DPHHS reports 40% of the 524 full-time positions are vacant, although many of those functions are being conducted by contract staff at a more expensive rate.

In November, DPHHS put out a request for bids for a third party to fill a temporary management role at the state's medical facilities and to help stabilize the workforce. The department said the $2.2 million contract was part of an effort to bring each of its health care facilities under one division, Ebelt said concerns brought forward about staffing at the Warm Springs facility "certainly points to the need for it."

It's unclear if CMS has loosened its staffing requirements during the pandemic, when the health care industry is suffering from a depleted workforce; CMS did not answer the question in its email Thursday.

The Children, Families, Health and Human Services Committee on Friday will hear from a panel presentation on staffing issues at the state hospital. That panel includes Sen. Mark Sweeney, a Democrat whose district includes the state hospital; Jeremy Hoscheid, the Mental Disabilities Board of Visitors executive director, which represents patients of the state hospital; and Robin Haux, labor program director at the Montana Nurses Association, the largest nurses' union in the state.

Following the panel on the state hospital "staffing and patient care concerns," the committee will question DPHHS Director Adam Meier, who previously told lawmakers he would look into those concerns.

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KEMMERER, Wyoming  In this sleepy Wyoming town that has relied on coal for over a century, a company founded by the man who revolutionized personal computing is launching an ambitious project to counter climate change: A nationwide reboot of nuclear energy technology.

Until recently, Kemmerer was little-known for anything except J.C. Penney's first store and some 55-million-year-old fish fossils in quarries down the road.

Then in November, a company started by Bill Gates, TerraPower, announced it had chosen Kemmerer for a nontraditional, sodium-cooled nuclear reactor that will bring on workers from a local coal-fired power plant scheduled to close soon.

The demonstration project comes as many U.S. states see nuclear emerging as an answer to fill the gap as a transition away from coal, oil and natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Many residents in Kemmerer, where the population of 2,700 is little-changed since the 1990s, see the TerraPower project as a much-needed economic boost because Rocky Mountain Power's Naughton power plant will close 2025. The plant employs about 230 and a mine that supplies coal exclusively to the plant  and is also at risk of closing if it can't find another customer  almost 300.

Kemmerer needs something or itll become a dust bowl, said Ken Spears, a 69-year-old retired coal mine worker whose family has depended on the mine and power plant for generations.

Spears was among a group of men who gathered recently in a downtown bar, Grumpies, near a park with statue of James Cash Penney and his first store. They played pool near an antique piano and signs reading Lets go Brandon and Trump 2020 No More Bull..."

Kemmerer is a quaint town of old-time storefronts and rolling hills, off the beaten path other than for occasional tourists who pass through on a slower, more scenic route to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Residents speak proudly of the coal heritage, quiet lifestyle and easy access to open lands where they can fish, hunt and hike. A river that is iced over in the winter runs through town nearby a railroad track that is down the hill from neighborhoods of older houses where families of deer roam at sunset.

Wyoming has the biggest coal industry in the U.S. by far. Trump won the state with some of his highest margins, almost 70%, in 2016 and 2020 on promises to shore up coal mining.

Yet concerns about TerraPower's unusual, coal-replacing nuclear plant seem few and far between in this town.

This isnt a Chernobyl-type thing, said Spears, wearing a camouflaged jacket and University of Wyoming cap with the bucking-horse-and-rider logo. Kemmerer needs something.

The U.S. nuclear industry has been at a standstill, providing a steady 20% of the nations power for decade amid the costly and time-consuming process of building huge conventional nuclear plants.

Only one new commercial nuclear project, the Tennessee Valley Authoritys Watts Bar No. 2, has come online in the U.S. in the past 25 years.

By cooling the planned Kemmerer reactor with liquid sodium, a metal that boils at a temperature much higher than water and solidifies at well above room temperature, TerraPower says its relatively small, 345-megawatt plant, able to power about 345,000 homes, will be safe and less expensive than conventional, water-cooled nuclear plants. The company's Natrium plant will use a simpler and less expensive system of unpressurized coolant and vents not dependent on electricity to halt fission during an emergency.

The approach isnt new. Russia has had a commercial sodium-cooled reactor in use at full capacity since 2016 and such designs have been tested in the U.S.

TerraPower plans to make its plant useful for today's energy grid of growing renewable power. A salt heat battery will allow the plant to ramp up electricity production on demand, offsetting dips in electricity when the wind isnt blowing and sun isnt shining.

It should provide a more useful reactor, really, for operating on a grid that has a much greater amount of wind and solar than in the past," said TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque.

At peak capacity, the plant could generate 500 megawatts, enough for 500,000 homes, he said.

The project will cost up to $4 billion, half of it from the U.S. Department of Energy, but costs should come down as demand for carbon-free energy grows and more are built, said Levesque.

If we can show that the plant can be built affordably and on time, well have orders for additional Natrium reactors even before the first one starts up. In the 2030s, there will be massive demand for this kind of power," Levesque said.

One downside: The plant's fuel, at least at first, would need to come from Russia. The plant will require uranium fuel enriched to 20%, four times higher than in conventional nuclear plants. The U.S. doesn't currently enrich fuel to that level for commercial power.

For that matter, Levesque pointed out, about one-fifth of conventional nuclear fuel also is imported.

So far, concerns in Wyoming about the project have been few. The Wyoming Outdoor Council, noting the declining cost of solar and wind power, points out that nuclear remains costly and sodium-cooled in other countries have had leaks leading to fires and shutdowns.

In between games of pool at Grumpies bar, Colt Quintard, a 30-year-old coal mine worker, said he isnt as convinced as others the nuclear plant will be as big a boon to the community.

He fears many of the plant's full-time workers will come from out of town due to the training needed and others will live in larger cities and commute. Hes open to getting training to work at the nuclear plant, but said more likely hell have go back to working around the county as a diesel mechanic, keeping him from being able to see his 2-year-old daughter each night.

I dont think this community is going to benefit from it the way a lot people think its going to, said Quintard. Change is going to happen, regardless. There is nothing we can do.

Rocky Mountain Power employee Crystal Bowen has no such misgivings, saying the plant should allow her and others with Rocky Mountain Power to shift to jobs at the new plant. Bowen said her online research about the nuclear technology eased any concerns.

It was pretty shocking, back in 2019, when we heard that the fate of the plant wasnt as long-lived as we thought, said Bowen, who works in payroll and is a lifelong resident of the community. I did not want to have to leave. I have children here. I have parents here and the idea of having to move to another location was pretty scary.

She added: I dont know if Kemmerer would have survived if we lost the power plant and the coal mine. It may have just turned into a ghost town.

TerraPower has pledged to train workers so anyone interested can transition to working at the nuclear plant when it opens, said Rodger Holt, manager of the Naughton coal plant.

Kemmerer beat out three other Wyoming cities for the nuclear plant: nearby Rock Springs, Gillette in a coal-rich northeastern part of the state and Glenrock in east-central Wyoming. The Naughton plant employees, with experience on equipment such as generators that are used in both coal and nuclear plants, were a major reason for putting the plant in Kemmerer, according to TerraPower.

The plant remains years off  2028 is the current estimate  but already has triggered interest in real estate and breathes new life into the town, Mayor Bill Thek said.

Gates reputation as a global supporter of developing and distributing vaccines  against COVID-19, malaria and other diseases that have killed millions worldwide  also have earned him skepticism in Wyoming, a deeply conservative state among the least vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Gates, the famous co-founder Microsoft, started Bellevue, Washington-based TerraPower in 2008 and is chairman of its board. When asked about the billionaire, most in town held their tongues.

Thek laughed when asked and said he didnt want to pick apart Bill Gates and said everyone knows who Bill Gates is, while reminding that the U.S. government will pay for half of the project.

Hes put his money into this and thats it, period, Thek said.

One thing Gates and Thek agree on: TerraPowers planned Natrium plant could be key to cleaner energy not just for Kemmerer and Wyoming, but the world.

Im not really on that bandwagon that everything is going to be green, said Thek, who describes himself as a conservative. But Im absolutely for saving our environment. If we get in on the ground floor of being part of saving and making our environment better, Im all for that.

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ST. IGNATIUS  As a beautifully restored portrait of Kootenai Chief Koostata was revealed by conservator Joe Abbrescia on Thursday afternoon at the Three Chiefs Cultural Center outside of St. Ignatius, a collective gasp could be heard from the crowd gathered.

The oil painting, which had been damaged in the September 2020 arson fire at the Confederated Salish and Kootenai People's Center in Pablo, looked as good as new, complete with a gorgeous new frame. It has been over a year since the fire and nine months since the painting restoration process began.

"It's an honor for me to be able to do this, to be a guy that can save these and give them a new life ... this is somebody's legacy as an artist," Abbrescia said Thursday.

A lot was taken and damaged on that dark September day, but community resilience and tremendous individual efforts by program director Marie Torosian, as well as a number of others, have helped bring some of the pieces back to life.

Eight paintings from the fire were restored and returned to the tribes on Thursday, including several large ones that used to hang in the rotunda of the People's Center. Over a dozen other pieces were not able to be restored.

"All the years we've had students and schools and groups, they've been a part of us and they were part of us through the fire as well and through the loss and devastation and the healing as well, they've been there for us," Torosian said.

Some of the paintings will likely hang in the Three Chiefs Cultural Center in St. Ignatius, Torosian said. The People's Center building was badly damaged in the fire and is currently unfit for use.

Restoration continues on beadwork as well as on paper and on photo negatives. One specialist in Colorado is currently working on document and photo restoration.

A drum and other artifacts have also been cleaned, albeit slowly  one restorer at the museum noted that saliva had been used to clean a drum and that during some points, cleaning beadwork was bead by bead.

"Everything comes with a story that connects to who made them and who wore them and who held them before and now they've got this story of how they survived the fire," Torosian said.

Abbrescia, who has worked full time in art restoration for over two decades, lives and works out of Kalispell and gave a detailed explanation of the process used to restore damaged paintings. The paintings are first tested along the edges to see if they can be restored  sometimes there is not much a conservator can do that would not harm the painting more.

The process to actually restore the paintings was complex and tedious. Abbrescia uses a chopstick with a cotton ball on the end to slowly clean the paintings, sometimes doing just one square-inch at a time.

The paintings also had to be stored a specific way and aired out to remove the smell of the smoke and soot. New backings were installed on all the restored pieces.

Insurance money and grants helped pay for the restoration, Torosian said. Abbrescia stressed painting restoration is not for amateurs and that pieces could be damaged forever if expert, painstaking care isn't used.

"If I can save something from going in the trash, that means a lot," Abbrescia said.

Community support for the museum and restoration process has been significant. Torosian said the day of the fire and immediately afterward, hundreds of community members came and volunteered.

At one point, locals were lined up at the People's Center passing artifacts one to another out the door. Work is still ongoing to catalog everything that was both able to be saved and lost in the fire.

"I can't begin to say thank you enough to everybody," Torosian said.

Jordan Hansen covers news and local government for the Missoulian. Shout at him on Twitter @jordyhansen or send him an email at Jordan.Hansen@Missoulian.com

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If theres one thing Montanans are about, its common sense. We work hard, play by the rules and dont like when Washington elites impose laws that go against what works for Montana. Thats why I fought against President Biden and the Democrats attempt to pass their partisan bill to enact a federal takeover of elections every step of the way  because what they were trying to do didnt make sense, and its not what Montanans wanted.

In Montana, thanks to the leadership of Gov. Greg Gianforte and Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, the Montana Legislature passed election integrity laws that make it harder to cheat, like strengthening voter ID laws. Its not only Montanans who agree that voters should show an ID before casting a ballot, according to the Honest Elections Project, nearly 80% of Americans feel the same way.

This seems like a no-brainer to most of us Montanans because after all, you need an ID to get a hunting or fishing license, to rent a car, or to get on an airplane. And now, in many liberal-run cities across our nation, Democrats are even enforcing ID checks to get into a coffee shop or sit down for dinner. So, its no wonder why were all left a little confused how President Biden, Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, including the senior senator from Montana, tried to override the will of Montana voters and undermine state voter ID laws when it comes to something as foundational to our democracy as maintaining integrity in our elections.

Why should the federal government reach their hands into business that Montanans already settled? If the Democrats multiple attempts to steamroll the Constitution, undercut Montanas election laws and make it easier to cheat seem to go against every ounce of your common sense, thats because it is.

Although the Democrats tried hard to mislead the American people, including Chuck Schumer going to the Senate floor and lying about Montanas election integrity laws, their effort was never about voting rights. It was always about power and ensuring one party rule forever. It was simply an attempt to tip the scales in their favor and control Washington, D.C.

Undermining state voter ID laws was just the icing on the cake; their bill was jammed full with far-left priorities to support their partisan power grab. If my colleagues had it their way, their so-called voting rights bill would have spent your tax dollars on political campaigns, mandated unsupervised ballot drop boxes, allowed for the counting of votes received after election day and prohibited states from cleaning up out-of-date voter rolls.

I think most Montanans would agree these efforts just dont make sense.

Our Founding Fathers feared concentrated power in the federal government and they knew what they were doing when they put the power to administer elections in the hands of the states. To abandon that founding principle would be a disservice to Montanans and all Americans who want safe, secure and trustworthy elections.

Republican Steve Daines is Montana's junior U.S. Senator.

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25 Years Ago  1997

North Dakotans enjoyed a break from brutal winter weather conditions this week after enduring five blizzards that ripped through the state since November. Temperatures stayed above zero for three consecutive days, with no new storms in the forecast. On Jan. 21, temps soared to a high of 37 degrees above zero; the low was 8 above.

Under the recent federal disaster declaration requested by Gov. Ed Schafer -- the states first ever in the winter -- the federal government is paying 75% of road-clearing costs during January, allowing counties to authorize overtime hours and hire extra personnel to clear blocked roads. North Dakotas National Guard soldiers are also working around the clock to assist county personnel with extra dozers and rotary snow blowers.

According to the weather bureau, the record high for Jan. 21 was 53 degrees, set in 1942; the record low is 37 degrees below zero, set in 1954.

50 Years Ago  1972

H.A. Kautzmann, city commissioner, has announced his candidacy for the mayor of Mandan. Kautzmann has served on the commission since 1960. Current mayor, A.R. Shaw, will not seek reelection.

C.E. Fristad, of Fristad Farm Real Estate, has made an 80-acre tract of land, two miles north of Mandan on the Collins Avenue Road, available for public use of snowmobiles this winter. Fristads sign is posted on the west side of the road, one mile north of the Heskett station.

Directors and officers of the Mandan Security Bank were reelected this week at the annual stockholders meeting. Directors are Ben Meier and A.P. Rausch, both of Bismarck; William R. Russell, Bernard Toman, William Joersz, Leland Ulmer and E.M. Dahlen, all of Mandan. Officers are: Ben Meier, president; E.M. Dahlen, vice president; Emil Kautzmann, vice president and cashier; L.F. Gerhart, vice president; E.W. Steinbrueck, assistant cashier; and Mrs. Floy Olson, auditor. Dahlen announced the bank experienced a gain in deposits amounting to $1.36 million, which is a 23% increase over the previous year.

Playing at the Mandan Theatre this weekend is Night of the Dark Shadows starring Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins. This is a sequel to last years movie Dark Shadows. The two movies, featuring vampires, were based on the successful Dark Shadows weekly show that appeared on ABC television from 1966 to 1971.

75 Years Ago  1947

Funeral services were held at Hoople for Lynn J. Frazier, 72, former U.S. Senator, and the 12th governor of North Dakota. After winning the Republican primary as the Non-Partisan League candidate, Frazier, who had never run for public office, was elected in a landslide as governor in 1916 with 79% of the vote. He was extremely popular with the farmers of the state and implemented several reforms such as the establishment of the Bank of North Dakota and the North Dakota Mill and Elevator. Frazier was reelected twice, in 1918 and 1920, but then an economic depression hit the agricultural sector, resulting in a successful business-led movement, that opposed the governors reforms, to press for his recall, and in 1921, Frazier became the first governor in the United States to be removed from office. In 1923, he was elected to the Senate, again as the NPL candidate on the Republican ticket, serving until 1940, when unseated by William Langer. Survivors include his wife, and five children.

Dr. Claude A. Henderson, who has been a Jamestown resident for the past 26 years, will be opening a chiropractic office in his new home at 405 3rd Ave. N.W. Henderson is a Mandan native, graduating from Mandan High School in 1916 and Palmer College in 1920. He is also a veteran of World War I. His father, the late Dr. A.O. Henderson, also operated a chiropractic office in Mandan for more than 30 years.

A meeting was held at the Chamber of Commerce rooms this week to form an association of tavern keepers for the City of Mandan; The associations purpose is to encourage public compliance with City ordinances and State laws regarding the sale of liquor as they are desirous of helping in making and keeping Mandan a clean city. The meeting was attended by the operators of the Main Tavern, Joes Bar, The Havana Club, The Terrace, Siegels Bar, the Recreation Parlor, Bullingers Bar, The Tap Room, Kopps Coffee Shop and Petes Beer Parlor.

Born on Thursday, Jan. 16, twins, a son and a daughter, to Mr. and Mrs. Matt Barnhardt of Mandan.

Other births announced this week: Boys to Mr. and Mrs. Art Hetland and to Mr. and Mrs. George Kadlec, both of Mandan; and to Mr. and Mrs. Vern Stayton, New Salem. Girls to Mr. and Mrs. Earl Schoonover, to Mr. and Mrs. Ken Simons, to Mr. and Mrs. Frank Basting, and to Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Toepke, all of Mandan; to Mr. and Mrs. Walter Holle, New Salem; and to Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Snobeck, Glen Ullin.

Correction: Mandans first 1947 baby was a girl born on Jan. 2 (not the 1st as previously reported) to Mr. and Mrs. Anton A. Wetsch Jr. of St. Anthony. The little girl, delivered by Dr. Wheeler, has been named Gloria.

100 Years Ago  1922

The annual Fortnightly Club party held last Friday at the home of Mrs. Bernard Nickerson proved to be the most enjoyable affair of the clubs season. Mrs. A. H. Petersons famous 'Bagpipe Orchestra,' a literary contest and a little farce entitled 'Mechanical Jane' were some of the stunts that kept the club members in a gale of merriment. However, the hit of the afternoon was an original song with 57 verses, using the names and characteristics of the ladies present. Delicious refreshments were served at the close of the afternoon.

A heavy truck went partly through the ice in the Missouri River at the regular crossing early this morning and temporarily blocked traffic. After the truck was finally removed, a touring car also went into the same hole. There were no injuries. The mishaps were caused by an opening in the river near the railroad bridge, causing the water to flow over the ice and covering the signs indicating the safe passage to the Bismarck side of the river.

Funeral services were held from the private chapel of the Kennelly undertaking establishment at 110 1st Ave. N.W., for Elizabeth Mary Connolly, the 4-year-old daughter of States Attorney and Mrs. L.H. Connolly. Little 'Betty' had been staying with her grandparents at Algoma, Wisconsin, when she contracted diphtheria and died after two days illness. Funeral services were strictly private in keeping with the public health laws, permitting only members of immediate families for victims of contagious diseases. Interment was in the Union cemetery.

Mrs. Anna Cermak, age 75, died last night at the farm home of her son, James Cermak, 12 miles south of Mandan. Mrs. Cermak was born in Bohemia in 1847 and came to this country with her husband and family in 1893. Four children survive: Anton, James, Mrs. Mary Stack and Mrs. Agnes Stastny.

Charles P. ORourke of Mandan, for 30 years a Morton County commissioner, and most of that time was chairman of the county board, has been elected president of the N.D. Association of County Commissioners during their annual meeting held at Jamestown. Mandan was also selected as the site of the 1923 meeting.

Sons were born this week at the Mandan Deaconess hospital to Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Erickson; to Mr. and Mrs. LaRue Shaw; to Mr. and Mrs. Joe Schlitter and Mr. and Mrs. E.M. Steinbrueck.

125 Years Ago  1897

At 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21, the thermometer recorded 28 degrees above zero.

The weather is of a very changeable turn of mind.

A baby girl arrived at the home of Attorney B.W. Shaw on Saturday evening.

Smith & Dooleys ice houses are being filled with ice that is said to be the best that has been harvested for some years. The cakes are 32 inches square, and some are so clear that a newspaper can be read through them.

A state certificate has been issued to Mr. Mackin of this city, and he is now properly enrolled as a practicing veterinarian. The certificate is signed by F.H. Farmer, president of the examining board.

An untied team of horses ran away last Saturday and collided with a cutter containing Mrs. Bingenheimer and Mrs. Pilcher. The ladies escaped uninjured, but the cutter was damaged. The owner was fined and paid damages.

After being thoroughly overhauled, the Mandan roller mill will resume operations next week. The rollers have all been re-corrugated and with the added improvements to machinery, management expects to turn out better grades of flour than ever before. That is saying a great deal, for at the present time, the Gold Heart and other brands made at this mill enjoy an enviable popularity from coast to coast.

Diane Boit can be reached at dboit46@gmail.com.

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Several Republicans have announced their plans to run for state legislative seats in a district that encompasses the heart of North Dakota's coal country.

Sen. Jessica Unruh Bell of Beulah will face a challenge from Keith Boehm, a farmer and small business owner who lives northwest of Mandan. They both seek the Republican nomination for District 33's Senate seat.

Unruh Bell has served in the Senate since 2012 and chairs the Senate Finance and Taxation Committee. She also holds a leadership position on the 17-member Legislative Management.

Unruh Bell has been a leader on energy and agricultural issues, according to a statement announcing her reelection plans. She works as an environmental manager for the North American Coal Corp.

Boehm recently retired after 42 years with Minnkota Power in Center, including nine years in management. He runs a family farm with his children. He also has over 25 years of experience as a part-owner and financial manager of the Flying J Travel Center west of Mandan.

Boehm said in a statement that he will address issues of "high property taxes and maintaining property rights," and that he "intends to protect the families, livelihoods, and liberties of all North Dakotans."

He also said he sees "how the parents of North Dakota are facing ever-growing challenges with preserving parental rights and providing children with a safe and productive learning environment."

District 33 comprises Mercer and Oliver counties and parts of McLean and Morton counties.

Delzer, Tveit running

Longtime Rep. Jeff Delzer, R-Underwood, intends to seek the District 33 Republican nomination.

Redistricting, done every 10 years with updated census data, moved him from the old District 8 to 33. Delzer, who is a farmer, chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

In 2020, he lost the Republican primary to two newcomers endorsed by Gov. Doug Burgum, who gave more than $1.8 million to a political group run by former advisers that successfully targeted Delzer's seat. Delzer and Burgum, both Republicans, have sparred over budget issues.

In October 2020, nominee David Andahl died from COVID-19, but his name remained on the ballot after his death, and he won a House seat. Burgum sought to appoint a successor, and a three-way legal fight played out in front of the state Supreme Court.

In the end, District 8 Republicans appointed Delzer to the seat. In response to the fallout, the 2021 Legislature passed a law for filling seats of dead election victors.

Delzer was first elected to the Legislature in 1990.

District 33 Rep. Bill Tveit, R-Hazen, also has announced his reelection plans.

Tveit, a retired farm equipment dealer, was first elected in 2018 and has served on the House Human Services and Agriculture committees the past two legislative sessions. He is now vice chair of the interim Natural Resources Committee and serves on the interim Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

Tveit is the former chairman of the Mercer County Commission.

District 33 Republican Chairman Fred Stern said the district's Republicans plan to hold their endorsement meeting on Feb. 16.

Ninety-eight seats in the Legislature are on the ballot this year, more than is usual, due to redistricting.

Republicans control the House of Representatives 80-14 and the Senate 40-7.

Reach Jack Dura at 701-250-8225 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com.

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My dad spent 26 years of his career as the executive vice president of the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives. I remember accompanying him to a few local annual co-op meetings where a free lunch, door prizes and self-government would attract hundreds of co-op member/owners. Dad and I would go through the lunch line and hed get so distracted by folks wanting to chat with him so it didnt take me long to realize that I was on my own. So Id just grab a plate full and find a seat.

The meetings were usually held in a small town gym or community center/church/fallout shelter and they were always packed. I was always hungry back then and rural folks were notably masterful at stuffing your feed bag. Better yet, their hospitality always made me feel comfortable.

The purpose of these annual meetings is to nominate and elect the board of directors of their co-ops. Quite often the races for the jobs were very competitive. Each member, basically anyone who was connected to rural electric electricity, got a vote and only members present were allowed to vote; proxy votes were not permitted. Many folks would travel a long way so the free lunch became more of a necessity than luxury.

Sometimes it would take awhile to nominate candidates and count the votes, the voids were filled with speeches and door prizes were awarded during the downtime. Actually it was quite an event and Dad was in his element.

These were the '60s/'70s when the rural electric cooperatives created the electric system we still rely on today. Back in those days investing in building power plants and mining coal in North Dakota were barely blueprints that would require billions in investments to complete. So Dad would give his statewide and national membership speech hoping to convince members to risk the investment. Not every meeting welcomed Dad to the podium. It was not uncommon to hear some better dead than red John Birchers heckle with This government funded cooperative stuff is socialism and youre a communist! This always bothered me because these were the days of McCarthyism; but Dad seemed to take it in stride by explaining that there werent any private investment utilities willing to risk their capital based on one customer every six or so miles, so the rural electric co-ops had to fill the void.

In the end the member owners voted to proceed with the low interest government backed (REA) loans to electrify rural America. Dads job was to convince the state and federal governments to make the loans the cooperatives needed to build the plants, power lines, and mine the coal.

Dad didnt do all this on his own; he knew that his people/member owners would back him because they knew he cared about the little guy at the end of the line. Next thing you know his members owned coal mines, power plants and power lines that led right up to their homestead.

The rides home allowed Dad and l long chats about all sorts of stuff and Im quite sure it was here that my interest in political science eventually led to my major in college. My studies involved a massive amount of in-depth appreciation of all types of government and political shenanigans that convinced me there is no perfect form of government but the ones that work best understand that the little guy at the end of the line is just as important as the guy on top of the heap. Those meetings were a prime example of how we can do better at governing ourselves.

Dan Ulmer is a parent, grandparent, as well as a retired teacher, counselor, politician, lobbyist, public employee, nonprofit executive and opinionated citizen who believes that we need to do what we can to leave the world better off than we found it.

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Military officials are preparing to put on an air show at Ellsworth Air Force Base for the first time in seven years. The Rapid City Journal reported Friday that the Ellsworth Air & Space Show is set for May 14 and May 15. The show will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the base north of Rapid City as well as the 80th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid and the 75th birthday of the Air Force. The show will feature a science booth and flyovers by the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels aerial acrobatics team. COVID-19 forced officials to scuttle plans for the 2020 and 2021 shows.
One man is in custody and a warrant has been issued for another in connection with the theft last fall of drugs from the Glen Ullin Pharmacy that police said could be worth $160,000 on the street.

Maurice Delage, 31, of Mandan, faces felony theft, burglary, criminal mischief, tampering with evidence and drug charges, court records show. Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Jordan Ward, 29, of Dickinson, for theft, burglary and criminal mischief.

Morton County sheriffs deputies on Tuesday executed a search warrant at a Cascade Way Northwest apartment in Mandan after gathering information that showed the two men were linked to the pharmacy theft in September, according to an affidavit. The search netted 14 grams of heroin, 6 grams of methamphetamine and scales. Deputies said they also found evidence that someone attempted to destroy the drugs before authorities entered the apartment.

The men were identified as suspects in the pharmacy burglary through surveillance video, police said. The pharmacy lost narcotic pills, pain patches and overdose medication valued at just more than $12,000. The pharmacy suffered about $3,500 in damage to windows, doors and security systems.

Attorneys arent listed for the men in court documents.

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Active COVID-19 cases in North Dakota on Friday soared to 10,860, with the pandemic record set 14 months ago poised to fall as early as this weekend.

Meanwhile, North Dakota's court system has begun to take measures to deal with impacts from the omicron wave of COVID-19.

Active virus cases have been increasing by double-digit percentages in recent days, on pace to soar past the previous high reported by the state Health Department -- 11,656 on Nov. 11, 2020. The agency often later revises the numbers it posts daily.

The highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus is pushing the recent spike in case numbers. Another 2,695 confirmed cases were posted on the state's virus dashboard Friday, raising the total number of new cases since the start of the week to nearly 14,000. That in turn has pushed the pandemic total past 200,000, to an even 208,000 on Friday, with 195,073 recoveries.

The 14-day rolling test positivity rate hit 18.98%, a seventh straight day of a new pandemic high. The state target for that rate is less than 5%.

The state reported six new virus-related deaths, raising the pandemic toll to 2,067. The Health Department no longer publicly reports the county, sex and age range of newly confirmed deaths. The dashboard death totals for Burleigh and Morton counties did not change Friday, at 287 and 136, respectively. The total for state-leading Cass County, home to Fargo, rose by three, to 299.

COVID-19 hospitalizations fell slightly, to 166, after four consecutive days of increases. The most recent state data showed about 8% of staffed inpatient beds available statewide and about 7.5% of intensive care unit beds open. In Bismarck, CHI St. Alexius Health had three open general care beds and five available ICU beds; Sanford Health had four staffed inpatient beds available but no ICU beds. Total hospitalizations during the 23-month pandemic total 7,277.

Court impacts

The presiding judge of the South Central Judicial District has issued an order that expands the use of remote court proceedings as COVID-19 cases rise.

Bismarck-based Judge Bruce Romanick in an order signed Wednesday said most court proceedings will be held by "reliable electronic means" until further notice. Defendants in custody will not be transported to the courthouse. A defendant can request an in-person hearing, but moving prisoners is difficult and can result in (virus-related) isolation for the defendant, the judge said.

Jury trials will continue in the district under social distancing guidelines. Jurors must wear face masks in the courtroom and in juror holding areas.

"The Court had returned to in person hearings for court trials," Romanick wrote. "Due to the continued need for additional courtrooms for jury trials (due to social distancing) and to reduce persons entering the courthouse, the Court finds the need to return to remote hearings for a vast majority of cases."

Judges in the district will review the procedures monthly, Romanick said.

In Fargo, East Central Judicial District Presiding Judge John Irby has issued an order suspending jury trials through Feb. 25 due to the COVID-19 spike.

"The prevalence of the Omicron variant in Cass County is creating stress on the Court systems, including the Clerks office, the States Attorneys Office and the Cass County Jail," Irby wrote. "The Cass County Jail is currently in lock-down due to infections at the jail."

The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation earlier this week said inmate cases at state facilities are rising despite a high vaccination rate. Officials have suspended visitation at several lockups including the State Penitentiary and the Missouri River Correctional Center, both in Bismarck.

More information

North Dakota continues to have one of the worst COVID-19 vaccination rates in the country, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Agency data on Tuesday showed 64.7% of North Dakota adults being fully vaccinated. The rate for all vaccine-eligible people in the state -- age 5 and older -- is 57.8%.

The CDC recommends COVID-19 booster shots for all adults; 45.7% of North Dakota adults have received a third dose of vaccine, according to state data. The federal agency this month also recommended that adolescents ages 12-17 receive boosters as well. North Dakota's vaccine dashboard shows 14.8% of state residents in that age group have received a third dose.

The coronavirus transmission risk is considered high in all of North Dakota's 53 counties, according to the CDC's COVID-19 data tracker website. The CDC recommends people in that risk category wear masks in public indoor settings.

People can go to https://www.ndvax.org or call 866-207-2880 to see where COVID-19 vaccine is available near them. A list of free COVID-19 testing offered by local public health units is at health.nd.gov/covidtesting. For more detailed information on coronavirus in North Dakota, go to www.health.nd.gov/coronavirus. For more information on coronavirus variants, go to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/transmission/variant.html.
Long-term care facilities in North Dakota are feeling the effects of the omicron wave of COVID-19, with hundreds of staff testing positive.

"We're back to some of our worst numbers we've had since November of 2020," North Dakota Long Term Care Association President Shelly Peterson said Thursday.

Late 2020 was the height of the pandemic in the state, before the availability of vaccines. But COVID-19 records are being threatened or surpassed this month due to the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus.

There were 751 COVID-19 cases in long-term care facilities as of Thursday, according to state VP3 Task Force Member Rosanne Schmidt. Of those, 578 were staff cases. VP3 refers to the state's Vulnerable Population Protection Plan.

Peterson said that residents are not as ill as they were during the surge in November 2020 and that there are fewer deaths because of the COVID-19 vaccine.

"Many residents are alive today because of the vaccine," she said.

While the case count isn't as high as it was in 2020 -- Peterson said the previous peak saw around 3,000 long-term care infections -- the increase is taking its toll on staffing.

The long-term care industry in North Dakota is facing employee shortages on top of rising COVID-19 cases. Before the pandemic began, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that about 16,000 people worked in long-term care in the state. More recent data shows that number has dropped to around 14,600, Peterson said.

"What we're seeing is people are not coming back," she said.

The state Health Department on Monday allocated $200,000 for an emergency recruitment program for long-term care facilities. The program allows people to work as an emergency certified nursing assistant after completing an 8-hour training course. Those CNAs are eligible for a $500 bonus after 30 days of work and $1,500 after six months on the job.

Peterson said eight hours is "a bare minimum" training needed to work in a long-term care facility, and a supervising nurse must attest to an applicant's skills. The federal requirement is 75 hours of training, but that has been set aside during the current public health emergency, she said.

Facilities who use the emergency recruitment program will provide additional training, such as how to understand a care plan, to those staff and hopefully get them enrolled in regular CNA training, Peterson said. Emergency employees are often used to bathe, feed or transport residents, she said.

Daily numbers

Active COVID-19 cases in North Dakota on Thursday continued on a trajectory toward a new pandemic high, while the rolling positivity rate of tests increased for a 24th straight day.

The spike is tied to omicron, which continues to dominate in North Dakota, according to weekly data.

The Health Department's virus dashboard on Thursday showed 3,020 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases. The daily total topped the 3,000 mark for the second straight day, and for only the second time during the 23 months of the pandemic.

Active cases jumped 14% from Wednesday, to 9,525, with 1,787 in Burleigh-Morton counties. The state's reported pandemic high is 11,656 on Nov. 11, 2020, before vaccines.

The 14-day rolling test positivity rate hit 18.67%, a sixth straight day of a new pandemic high. The state target for that rate is less than 5%.

COVID-19 hospitalizations also jumped again, to 170, up 22% from the start of the week and the highest reported level in more than six weeks.

The most recent state data showed about 7.5% of staffed inpatient beds available statewide and about 7% of intensive care unit beds open. In Bismarck, Sanford Health had one open general care bed and one available ICU bed; CHI St. Alexius Health had two staffed inpatient beds available but no ICU beds.

The state reported five new virus-related deaths. The Health Department no longer publicly reports the county, sex and age range of newly confirmed deaths. The dashboard death total for Morton County increased by one Thursday, to 136, as did the total for Cass County, home to Fargo, which leads the state with 296. Burleigh County's total was unchanged, at 287.

There have been 205,338 confirmed COVID-19 cases in North Dakota during the pandemic, with 193,752 recoveries, 7,261 hospitalizations and 2,061 deaths.

Dominant omicron

Omicron was first confirmed in North Dakota on Dec. 19. It has since surpassed delta, another highly contagious variant that had dominated for months.

About 5-10% of total positive COVID-19 tests weekly undergo a more complex process through which variants are determined. Two-thirds of the variants identified in the past week were omicron, with the rest being delta, according to Kirby Kruger, head of the Health Department's disease control division and forensic pathology section.

Documented omicron cases in the state increased by 40% in the past week, while delta cases rose just 2%.

There have been no new cases of the alpha, beta, gamma, epsilon or mu variants since late September.

There have been 482 hospitalizations and 87 deaths tied to variants in North Dakota; more than three-fourths of both are linked to delta. There have been two documented omicron hospitalizations and no deaths in the state. Health officials say omicron cases often have mild or no symptoms.

More information

North Dakota continues to have one of the worst COVID-19 vaccination rates in the country, according to the CDC. Agency data on Tuesday showed 64.7% of North Dakota adults being fully vaccinated. The rate for all vaccine-eligible people in the state -- age 5 and older -- is 57.8%.

The CDC recommends COVID-19 booster shots for all adults; 45.5% of North Dakota adults have received a third dose of vaccine, according to state data. The federal agency this month also recommended that adolescents ages 12-17 receive boosters as well. North Dakota's vaccine dashboard shows 14.3% of state residents in that age group have received a third dose.

The coronavirus transmission risk is considered high in all of North Dakota's 53 counties except Slope, according to the CDC's COVID-19 data tracker website. The CDC recommends people in that risk category wear masks in public indoor settings.

People can go to https://www.ndvax.org or call 866-207-2880 to see where COVID-19 vaccine is available near them. A list of free COVID-19 testing offered by local public health units is at health.nd.gov/covidtesting. For more detailed information on coronavirus in North Dakota, go to www.health.nd.gov/coronavirus. For more information on coronavirus variants, go to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/transmission/variant.html.

Reach Blake Nicholson at 701-250-8266 or blake.nicholson@bismarcktribune.com.

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Bismarck-area District 47 Republicans have named a new state lawmaker to fill out the late Rep. George Keiser's term.

Bob Eckert Painting owner and District 47 GOP Vice Chairman Robb Eckert will serve the remaining 10 months of Keiser's term. He will not run for election this year.

Keiser, R-Bismarck, died Dec. 22 at age 75 after battling Lou Gehrig's disease. He had served since 1992.

I am honored to be chosen to serve the people of District 47. I will continue to work for those Republican policies which make Bismarck and North Dakota one of the best places to live," Eckert said in a statement.

District GOP Chairman Karl Lembke said Eckert "will do a great job completing the term. District 47 is fortunate to have Mr. Eckert fill this position. His business experience and community involvement will be valuable as he serves out the rest of the term.

Sen. Ray Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, who leads a panel of lawmakers that guides the Legislature's interim work, will assign Eckert to an interim committee.

Eckert's appointment comes amid the election season, when legislative district political parties will endorse candidates. District 47 Republicans' endorsing convention is Feb. 23.

Incumbent Sen. Mike Dwyer and Rep. Larry Klemin, both R-Bismarck, are seeking reelection. Both are attorneys.

North Dakota Gaming Alliance Executive Director Mike Motschenbacher also is seeking a District 47 House seat.

Ninety-eight seats in the Legislature are on the ballot this year, more than is usual, due to redistricting, which is done every 10 years with new census data.

Republicans control the House of Representatives 80-14 and the Senate 40-7.

Reach Jack Dura at 701-250-8225 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com.

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Authorities in northeastern Montana on Thursday called off the search for a missing Sidney woman following the discovery of human remains.

The remains were found by a team of volunteers organized as part of a massive effort to conduct a grounds search for Katelynn Berry, 26, who has been missing for a month.

The Richland County Sheriffs Office, members of the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, as well as other law enforcement assets have secured the area and are actively processing and documenting the scene, Sidney Police Chief Mark Kraft said in a statement Thursday morning.

The remains still need to be positively identified, but search efforts for Berry have been suspended, the chief said. The body will be sent to the state crime lab for an autopsy.

I would like to express our sincerest gratitude and respect to our civilian volunteers and area law enforcement partners for their overwhelming support in this effort, Kraft said.

Berrys father, Hank Berry, built an apartment for his daughter above his Sidney shop. He told police he last saw her Dec. 21 when they had lunch. Cellphone records showed no activity after that date. Her cellphone, jacket and purse were found inside her residence, with no apparent signs of forced entry.

Berrys mother, Carmell Mattison, is a Grand Forks County prosecutor, according to Forum News Service.

Area law enforcement earlier in the week put out a request for volunteers to search a preplanned area for Berry by dividing the search among teams.

Berry's disappearance has been treated as a missing person case. Richland County Sheriff John Dynneson on Monday said, "There is no evidence, at this point, to suggest anything of a criminal nature." However, he encouraged people to come forward if they have information, including information about any possible criminal activity surrounding her disappearance.

In early 2012, Sidney school teacher Sherry Arnold went missing while out for a morning run. She was missing for more than two months before her body was found in a shallow grave in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota. Two men who had come from out of state to the oil patch looking for work were convicted of killing Arnold.

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Ramona Hill, 2020 Hambletonian winner, has been retired and will be bred in 2022.

Hanover Shoe Farms announced on Thursday (Jan. 20) that Ramona Hill will be joining its broodmare band.

Ramona Hill will be owned in partnership for her breeding career by Hanover Shoe Farms and Crawford Farms. Crawford Farms bred Ramona Hill and owned her for the duration of her racing career in partnership with Bradley Grant, Robert LeBlanc and In The Gym Partners. She was trained by Tony Alagna and driven by Andy McCarthy.

A daughter of leading trotting stallion Muscle Hill and out of the extremely fast Lock Down Lindy 3, 1:51.4, Ramona Hill trotted to her record of 1:50.1 in the final of the Hambletonian one week after winning her elimination in 1:51.2 with a sizzling last quarter of :25.4. In addition to defeating the colts on the greatest stage in the Hambletonian, Ramona Hill also won the Del Miller Memorial, the Zweig, the Simcoe and the Elegantimage at three. A precocious two-year-old, Ramona Hill won six of seven starts as a freshman including the Bluegrass, International Stallion Stakes and Breeders Crown final, taking a two-year-old record of 1:52.2 and amassing over $501,084 in seasonal earnings. Ramona Hill was retired with $1,511,401 in career earnings.

Russell [Williams] and I are extremely excited to add a Hambletonian winner to the broodmare ranks," said Hanovers Dr. Bridgette Jablonsky. "Its an opportunity that doesnt arise very often. Although that victory may define her to a certain extent, she really is the complete package. She is extremely well-bred, is a beautiful, leggy mare and was a sensational two-year-old as well as three-year-old."

"I could not be happier than to see 'Ramona' going to world class Hanover Shoe Farm," said previous owner Brad Grant. "Im also really happy to see that Crawford Farms will continue to be part of Ramona's future, she is their baby."

The Crawfords are also delighted to retain part ownership of their star filly.

Crawford Farms could not be more excited with the joint venture ownership of Ramona Hill and her newest adventure in the breeding shed at Hanover Shoe Farms," said Michelle Crawford. "One of the highlights of our farm has been watching the careers of our homebreds like Ramona Hill, first foal out of one of our premiere mares, Lock Down Lindy, develop a grand circuit stakes-winning resume including the 2019 Breeders Crown and 2020 Hambletonian. We are looking forward to 'Ramona' sharing time between Hanover Shoe Farms and our Kentucky farm in anticipation of stellar dually eligible offspring!



Tony Alagna misses having one of his favourites in the barn but is looking very forward to her foals.

I will forever be grateful for 'Ramona' and the grit and the determination she displayed throughout her career," he said. "I cant wait to see what she produces as a broodmare.

Driver McCarthy added, "Ramona Hill is the most gifted and strong spirited horse I have ever driven. Her speed was absolutely thrilling! She was truly life-changing for me. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to drive her and am looking forward to what is certain to be a prolific career in the breeding shed.

Ramona Hill will be bred to Walner in 2022.

(With files from Hanover Shoe Farms)
The nonprofit Satanic Temple has rented space at at a Lebanon, Ohio elementary school to host one of its "After-School Satan Clubs." According to a flier, the club's activities include "Science Projects! Puzzles & Games! Arts and Crafts Projects! Nature Activities!"

From a Lebanon Schools statement:

A local resident and taxpayer of Lebanon City Schools contacted The Satanic Temple and requested that they begin a chapter in Lebanon and to start the after-school club. They completed the required application, the facility use agreement, and provided the necessary documentation, and were approved.

Nevertheless, the club has raised a helluva pearl-clutching controversy among some parents, sparking "shock" and "anger."

From WCPO:

According to The Satanic Temple, After School Satan Clubs meet at public schools where [Christian] Good News Clubs also exist. The group says meetings do not include religious instruction, instead focusing on "free inquiry and rationalism." [School superintendent Isaac W.] Seevers said the Good News Club, which is also not affiliated with the district or any school, has met at Donovan Elementary School for years. A 2001 Supreme Court ruling states school facilities must be made available to all groups or no groups. The district and board of education's policies allow for community use of its facilities after school. "The district does not and is not legally allowed to discriminate against any groups who wish to rent our facilities, including religiously-affiliated groups," Seevers said.

(Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)
One of the worst sins a person commits while traveling is staying on the beaten path. Some travelersAmericansventure into a new land and play it safe. Instead of exploring and discovering the unique elements of a foreign culture, they stay within the guardrails of their sojourn by visiting the most obvious tourist attractions. I've even heard it said that uninspired American tourists will have dinner at the local McDonald's to "see what it's like in a different country."

Part of their aversion to new experiences comes from fear. Embracing another culture can be overwhelming and intense. Sure, you might want to be adventurous and try a new restaurant, but what should you order when you get there? What do the locals enjoy? The whole process can become intimidating and force you to seek the familiar irrespective of how antithetical it seems to the notion of travel. Luckily for us, not all guides are made equally.

If you happen to find yourself in Japan- you know, once the world gets back to normal- you can use this handy guide from Tabimori Inc, known as Sushi University, to learn about authentic Edoame sushi. Sushi University has a host of comprehensive history lessons and an extensive ingredient guide for a slew of delicious-looking sushi available on their website. If you decide to take the extra step and apply for their service, Sushi University will pair you with a seasoned translator and guide to escort you through the various epicurean delights from the Edo period during your visit to Japan.

Aside from having copious languages available on the site, Sushi University also comes equipped with an irresistible visual guide for some of the best sushi. If you want to order sushi like a pro next time you head to Japan, take a trip to Sushi University first.
Amelia King, a woman upset about mask mandates, told the

Luray, Virginia school board she would "bring every single gun loaded and ready" on Monday with her maskless child. She's not in any trouble for the threat, but the school district said it will be on "alert" for her should she come in shooting. How reassuring.

Page County Public Schools in Luray, Virginia will increase police presence at schools Monday after a mother made a perceived threat during a school board meeting Thursday night. Amelia King was upset about the school mask mandate and said her children would not be wearing masks on Monday and she would "bring every single gun loaded and ready."

"See y'all monday."

Page County schools superintendent Antonia Fox and board chair Megan Gordon released a statement Friday about the threat they're taking lightly, saying "the schools don't take these kinds of threats lightly."

Police said that what she did wasn't a "violation of state code."

In a statement from Luray Police, they said King realized what she said "and immediately contacted law enforcement to apologize because the statement was not intended the way it was perceived. "

White as the driven snow.
A Cincinnati-based affordable housing developer is pushing ahead with plans to bring 147 apartments to Main Street in Buffalo's Cold Springs neighborhood, through a multi-building complex dominated by a new five-story structure.

MVAH Partners wants to redevelop four irregular-shaped properties along Main Street at Masten Avenue that it is purchasing from both a private owner and the city, with plans to construct three buildings aimed at lower-income residents.

The largest, spanning five stories, will contain 140 one- and two-bedroom apartments in a commercial block building. The project also includes a two-story building with five three-bedroom townhouse apartments on the north end of the properties, along Masten, plus a two-story building with two three-bedroom townhouse apartments at the northwest corner of Masten and East Balcom Street.

All of the apartments would be aimed at residents earning 60% or less of the area median income, with rents subsidized through low-income housing tax credits and other sources, including brownfield tax credits.

As part of its $46 million Main Street Lofts project, MVAH is asking the city to combine the four vacant or underused industrial properties, which total 2.1 acres and are located at 1681, 1689, 1703 and 1707 Main. The first two are owned by Robert F. Biniszkiewicz of Buffalo, but are under contract for MVAH to acquire. The latter two are subject to a designated developer agreement approved by the city in October 2021, and will also be acquired by the developer.

All four properties are zoned as "mixed-use center," but MVAH wants to stray from some of the city standards governing a "commercial block building" along the Metro Rail line. So it's seeking a "planned unit development" designation for the project, unifying the parcels under a single package of consistent zoning rules and guidelines that may differ from the Green Code.

Both requests will be considered by the Buffalo Planning Board on Jan. 24.

The PUD would allow:

 A maximum lot width of 315 feet  nearly three times the Green Code limit of 120 feet

 Up to 60% of the ground floor facade  and up to 85% to 90% of the upper floor facades  would be solid, compared to the Green Code mandate that at least 70% and 25%, respectively, must be "transparent" through windows.

 For 10 feet of setback in front and in the corner side yard.

 A minimum height of two stories, instead of the three-story minimum requirement.

According to a documents submitted to the city by MVAH and attorney Corey A. Auerbach , the PUD would help the city achieve its goal of increasing affordable housing, providing "transportation amenities" along a central corridor, and remediating a polluted site through the state Brownfield Cleanup Program.

Following the Green Code would "severely undermine the ability to develop a sufficient number of affordable housing units, varied building type, and accessory parking and amenities that make the project feasible," the developers wrote.

Additionally, the building design would "activate the streetscape and encourage safe and convenient pedestrian connections through the development," the team wrote in its application.

For example, the big building would feature awnings, canopies and large window openings to "engage" pedestrians along the street, while breaking up the large facade into smaller "primary elements," according to the application. The smaller buildings will also step down the massing from Main toward the residential neighborhood to the east.

The project would be accessed by car from Balcom Street, with 70 onsite parking spaces. That's short of the 99 spaces that might be needed, but there's enough nearby street parking to accommodate the extra cars, according to a traffic demand management report. The team noted that the property also would include 36 bicycle parking stalls, a service station and storage, and the site is close to two Metro Rail stations and bus routes for public transportation.

Additional streetscape improvements will also "encourage walking" while enhancing the look of the area, the developers added. An outdoor play area is also included.

If approved, construction by RP Oak Hill Building Co. will take about 16 months.

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General Motors' plan to invest $154 million in its Lockport plant over the next few years is about more than just about ramping up new production and adding 230 jobs.

It's also a vote of confidence in the Lockport site's workforce and secures the plant's future within GM as it goes through a radical transformation of the type of vehicles it makes.

The investment would bring about a 15% increase in employment between 2023 and 2026 at the Lockport plant, which currently has about 1,500 salaried and hourly employees.

It also would position the factory to contribute to GM's transition toward electric vehicles, which are widely viewed as the technology of the future for the auto industry.

And it will expand production into a portion of the factory that hasn't been used for manufacturing for 15 years.

"It shows the kind of workforce we have here," said Ken Johnson, the Lockport plant director. "This workforce has shown they can deliver and the partnership we have here with the (union) is really important. And obviously General Motors wants to put business where there's labor peace and labor harmony, and this is definitely the place they want to be."

Some of the investment will go toward the plant's existing production, as well, GM officials said Friday in announcing the coming upgrades to the facility.

The new project will reactivate Building 9 of GM's vast Lockport complex. GM stopped using that building for production in 2006 and has used it for storage since then.

Renovations to pave the way for new equipment will start right away, and the new production is expected to launch in 2023, said Gerald Johnson, GM's executive vice president of global manufacturing and sustainability.

Gerald Johnson said the new investment reflects "how we are bringing our workforce along on the journey to an all-electric future while we scale our (electric vehicle) production capacity and maintain a flow of parts for our current vehicles."

Regular investment is seen as a key indicator of a factory's future viability, especially within a manufacturer like GM that has a far-flung network of production facilities that all compete with each other for new products and funding.

GMs new, and significant, commitment to the Lockport plant will invigorate a facility that has supported thousands of working families in Western New York for over a century and ensure that it continues to do so for decades to come," said Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo.

"The fact that this new work will represent the first investment in electric motor manufacturing in our region is exciting and shows that Western New York can play a critical role in the next generation of transportation, confronts the climate challenges of our time, and create good jobs for our United Auto Worker neighbors, Higgins said.

GM executives, joined by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., made the announcement at the Lockport factory.

Todays tremendous news is exactly why I fought so hard to expand electric vehicle infrastructure," Schumer said. "Western New Yorks powerhouse workforce is first-class and ready to help drive the world forward into an electric future."

The investment will allow GM to renovate the Lockport factory and to purchase new machinery and equipment that will be used to make stator modules  an important component used in electric motors.

The motors will be used in a variety of GM's future electric trucks and SUVs.

GM's new project is receiving state support. Empire State Development will provide up to $5.65 million in Excelsior Jobs program "green" investment tax credits in return for the automaker meeting its investment commitments.

The Lockport complex is also supported by the New York Power Authority, which supplies 18 megawatts of low-cost power from the Niagara Power Project in Lewiston.

"With this major investment at its Lockport facility, General Motors is taking the next steps to advance an all-electric future," said Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The new investment is also good news for the plant's unionized workforce.

"Our hard and work dedication has ensured the Lockport operations will play a key role in the future of General Motors," said Jeremy Huber, interim chair of Local 686.

Terry Dittes, a UAW vice president and director of the UAW GM department, said the $154 million commitment "recognizes the skilled work of UAW Local 686 members and cements the Lockport facility as a key UAW plant in the transition to future electric vehicles."

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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  A jury has been selected in the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing.

Eighteen jurors were chosen after questioning by the judge on Thursday  12 who will deliberate and six alternates.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority. Separately, they're charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson stressed repeatedly to jurors that fellow Officer Derek Chauvin's conviction on state murder charges and guilty plea to a federal civil rights violation should not influence the proceedings.

Legal experts say prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd's constitutional rights. Specifically, they're accused of unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  Jury selection began Thursday in the federal trial of three Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's killing, with the judge stressing repeatedly that fellow Officer Derek Chauvin's conviction on state murder charges and guilty plea to a federal civil rights violation should not influence the proceedings.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority as Chauvin used his knee to pin the Black man to the street. Separately, they're charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter in the videotaped killing that triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing.

Legal experts say the federal trial will be more complicated than the state trial, scheduled for June 13, because prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd's constitutional rights  unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process.

Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor, said prosecutors must show that officers should have done something to stop Chauvin, rather than that they did something directly to Floyd.

Would-be jurors, who answered an extensive questionnaire, were brought into a St. Paul courtroom in groups on Thursday, and U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson questioned them until 40 were chosen. Each side can now use their challenges to strike jurors. In the end, 18 jurors will be picked, including 12 who will deliberate and six alternates.

Among the jurors Magnuson excused was a man who said he has a problem watching video of Floyd's arrest. Several other excused jurors said they could not be impartial, including a man who said his faith also prevents him from judging a human being.

One woman was excused after she said she had difficulty with vandalism in the community. Afterward, Magnuson said he understood such concerns about "anarchy in streets" but "that fear cannot control in a courtroom."

Magnuson also told jurors they must be able to decide the case based upon its own evidence, setting aside anything else. He singled out some jurors by number and asked them pointedly if they could do so, saying he was "harping and harping and harping" because state and federal law are different and he wanted to ensure they could be objective.

The jury pool for the officers' federal trial was selected from throughout the state  much more conservative and less diverse than the Minneapolis area from which the jury for Chauvin's state trial was drawn. That jury was evenly divided among whites and nonwhites. The federal court declined a request to provide demographic information on jurors in the civil rights trial.

Magnuson has said he believes jury selection could take two days, unlike Chauvin's state trial, where the judge and attorneys questioned each juror individually and spent more than two weeks picking a panel.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air. Kueng knelt on Floyd's back and Lane held down his legs. Thao kept bystanders from intervening.

A statement from attorneys for the Floyd family Thursday said bystander video showed that the three officers "directly contributed to (Floyd's) death and failed to intervene to stop the senseless murder" and that the family expects them to be held accountable.

Several activists gathered in front of the courthouse to call for conviction.

"Considering the fact that he moaned in agony, that he could not breathe for minutes on end until he passed, I believe for a fact that they denied him of his civil rights," said Courteney Ross, Floyd's girlfriend at the time of his death. "I demand justice, and I hope everyone remembers what they did on that day."

Federal prosecutors face a high legal standard to show that an officer willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights. Essentially, prosecutors must prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

Magnuson said he expects the trial will last four weeks.

Kueng, Lane and Thao are all charged with willfully depriving Floyd of the right to be free from an officer's deliberate indifference to his medical needs. The indictment says the three men saw Floyd needed medical care and failed to help him.

Thao and Kueng are also charged with a second count alleging they willfully violated Floyd's right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not stopping Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd's neck. It's not clear why Lane is not mentioned in that count, but evidence shows he asked twice whether Floyd should be rolled on his side.

Both counts allege the officers' actions resulted in Floyd's death.

Such federal civil rights violations are punishable by up to life in prison or even death, but those stiff sentences are extremely rare and federal sentencing guidelines indicate the officers would get much less if convicted.

___

Associated Press writer Tammy Webber contributed from Fenton, Michigan.

___

Find AP's full coverage of the killing of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd
Schools participating in the Covid-19 test-to-stay program appreciate having a way to keep students who were exposed to the virus in the classroom. But they haven't appreciated the financial, labor-intensive and bureaucratic burdens associated with administering the program.

Now, however, those burdens are getting a little lighter.

Erie County rolls out test-to-stay program for all schools as Covid-19 cases skyrocket Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein announced Tuesday that Erie County will now work with schools throughout the county to implement a Covid-19-testing program to keep children who might have been exposed to Covid-19 from being sent home to quarantine.

The Erie County Legislature on Thursday approved a request by County Executive Mark Poloncarz to reimburse schools $10 for every rapid test they administer as part of the test-to-stay effort. While the tests themselves were provided to schools free of charge, the $10-per-test reimbursement can help offset personnel costs associated with running the program.

In addition Thursday, the county Health Department reiterated new guidance from the state that gives individual schools and school districts more discretion and flexibility regarding how much information and paperwork they must provide to the county on positive Covid-19 cases.

By limiting the extensive reporting requirements, which had previously had been necessary as part of the county Health Department's contact tracing protocols, some school officials expect to save hours of work each day, said Michael Cornell, superintendent of Hamburg Central Schools and head of the Erie Niagara School Superintendents Association.

'It's just become unsustainable': Schools getting overwhelmed with contact tracing A survey of school superintendents in Erie County in the fall and again in December found that school districts spend a total of about 2,000 hours a week, on average, doing contact tracing, case investigations and notifications of quarantines.

"I think were in a good place," he said.

The latest efforts are meant to further cement the test-to-stay program as a way to normalize the school experience for students and their families and keep Covid-19 from being a constant disruption to the learning experience, Cornell said. He added that all members of the Erie Niagara School Superintendents Association are either already implementing the test-to-stay program or have committed to implementing one soon.

"This is a sign of hope, we think," he said.

Buffalo Public Schools 'on board' with test-to-stay Buffalo Public Schools will take part in the test-to-stay program to keep healthy children in school, but it is not known when the program will start.

Buffalo Public Schools have not yet implemented the test-to-stay program, but the district is planning eventually do so, according to administrators. Will Keresztes, a district spokesman, said the district's medical team will meet early next week to continue its discussion of how to roll out the test-to-stay program in Buffalo.

Test-to-stay allows unvaccinated students who would normally be subject to quarantine following close contact with an infected person to remain in school as long as their daily rapid test results are negative.

Brian Bray, special assistant to Erie County Health Commissioner Gale Burstein, said the $10-per-test reimbursement to school districts for rapid testing taps into federal funds meant to support school Covid-19 response efforts. The cost should be less than $1 million, especially now that the latest Covid-19 surge appears to be on the decline, he said.

Health Department spokeswoman Kara Kane said the county department has been assisting school districts providing contact tracing services for students and staff, providing documentation and test kits, as well as giving schools access to the licensing required for schools to administer the program.

But the new change giving schools more flexibility over Health Department reporting requirements highlights divergent perspectives on contract tracing for school students and staff.

County officials have repeatedly stated that county contact tracers are making Covid-19 case investigations for children in pre-kindergarten through high school a priority in order to assist schools with their contact tracing and quarantine notification efforts.

But many school district officials said that most of the contact tracing needed is already done by school administrators and nurses, Cornell said. That has been a burden made heavier by the county Health Department requiring schools to complete separate spreadsheets for every positive case and every related close contact.

The spreadsheets required the name and adult contact information for every student testing positive, as well as demographic information for both that student and every close contact.

Under the new guidance, schools and school districts have more flexibility over how much reporting they provide to the county, depending on how much county contact tracing and quarantine notification assistance they need. Districts are still required to notify the county of every positive case involving students or staff.

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For the first time in a month, New York State's positivity rate for Covid-19 tests has fallen below 10%, and the raw number for new cases has fallen by more than two-thirds in the last two weeks.

"We have been waiting for this moment," Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday.

"The trend is great, and if people get their kids vaccinated, I won't worry so much about their kids, either," Hochul told an audience at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island.

However, most of the improvement is downstate. In Western New York, the latest positivity average is 19%, down from a peak of 22.8% on Jan. 11. For Erie County alone, the positivity rate is 19.3%.

Hospitalizations are down statewide, but most of that drop also is in the New York City area.

"There's a lag of about two weeks for upstate New York," Hochul said. "We continue to monitor upstate. We do have a lot of overwhelmed hospitals there."

During a short news conference, the governor told a reporter that she won't commit to lifting her indoor mask mandate Feb. 1.

"I'll tell you about Feb. 1 on Jan. 31," Hochul said. "I really do need to wait until that time. The trend is looking good, and I'm an optimist, but I saw a very good trend just in early November, and then everything changed."

She said she will examine all data, but she isn't looking for any specific statistic that would trigger an end to the mask mandates she imposed Nov. 26.

"We instituted these because we saw the storm coming our way," Hochul said, recalling the rapid onset of the highly contagious Omicron variant of the Covid virus during December.

"I am really looking forward to lifting them. I truly am. I know people are tired," the governor said. "We're looking forward to the day we can lift the school as well as the business requirements. That'll be a really fabulous day. It'll mean we turned the corner in a way that we don't feel like we're going to be sliding backwards anytime soon."

Thursday's statewide figure for positive Covid tests stands at 9.75%, a huge drop from the peak of 23% on Jan. 2. The seven-day average is 12.27%.

On Jan. 7, the daily new caseload number topped 90,000 for a single day. Friday, Hochul reported that number is down to 28,296.

Hochul said the state has obtained 73 million Covid test kits and has distributed 16 million of them so far  more than 11 million to schools.

There were 185 Covid deaths in New York State Thursday, including 17 in Erie County.

"This is still to be taken very seriously," Hochul said. "We are not letting our foot off the pedal until we can declare that we are in a place where we can manage without all the restrictions we put in place."

Statewide, 43.5% of currently hospitalized Covid patients went to the hospital for some other reason.

"They happened to test positive for Covid without the symptoms, so the question is, how severe is this?" Hochul said.

The governor also announced she will send 88 National Guard members without medical training to nine New York City nursing homes, in addition to 120 Guard members with medical training, who are already helping staff in those hard-hit facilities.

"We just need the extra set of hands in our nursing homes to give support to our frontline staff," Hochul said. "We're going to be rolling that out upstate as well."

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Natalie Barnhard realized an important dream last fall when she opened a center to help those with paralysis thrive.

Soon, it also will also help University at Buffalo students better prepare for careers in occupational and physical therapy.

The Natalie Barnhard Center for Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation and Recovery has forged a partnership with UB to provide clinical experience for a select number of students in the schools Department of Rehabilitation.

When students come and see a top-notch center like this, they develop a standard in their minds during their professional training  as they begin to learn about spinal cord injury rehabilitation and the impact of injury on everyday life, said Sue Ann Sisto, department chair. Plus, they have an opportunity to learn about equipment they wont see anywhere else for miles around. Its really going to raise their standards of what a clinic should look like, what equipment should be available to their patients and what they should know about spinal cord injury rehabilitation.

Barnhard, then 24, was a new physical therapy assistant and licensed massage therapist in 2004 when a 608-pound Cybex leg extension machine toppled over on her while she helped a client stretch. The impact shattered a disc in her lower neck and heavily damaged another beneath it, leaving her without movement or feeling in all parts of her body below them.

Quick work by specialists at Erie County Medical Center saved her life. She then spent a decade in Atlanta undergoing intensive, one-on-one physical therapy unavailable in Western New York.

A legal settlement with Cybex International and her former employer provided her the capital to open the center, which will need other financial support to sustain a long-term future.

The 6,000-square-foot rehab building, at 4820 Genesee St. in her native Cheektowaga, includes a rehab workout area, massage therapy and treatment room, kitchen, offices and an all-purpose room with an infrared sauna and enough space for adaptive yoga classes and support group gatherings.

There are no curbs in the parking lot, no stairs inside the center. Wide doorways open easily or automatically. Contractors punched windows into the walls that are closer to the ground.

People dont realize really how profound and important this center is for our community, Barnhard told WNY Refresh for a cover story last October. Having this equipment and this type of rehabilitation, you dont have to leave. There are only so many places like this throughout our country and most of them are in larger cities.

The new center can help address spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injuries, spina bifida, spinal muscle atrophy, myelitis, amputation, stroke, ALS, multiple sclerosis, mitochondrial deficiencies, neuropathy and post-surgery strengthening.

Along with clinical training for UB students, Sisto and Barnhard also aim to create a database that shows what health and wellness programming works best for people with those conditions.

Such research can help establish best practices, they said, and may lead to policy changes. One example: benefits for those who use the center similar to paid gym memberships already offered in many health insurance plans.

Sisto, in a UB new release, said her department also looks to study robotic devices and other interventions at the center with help from the schools Center for Assistive Technology and researchers from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Im so excited, Barnard said, because the sky is the limit for what this center can do.

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President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received Continental Europe and Turkey Advisor in the Office of the French President Isabelle Dumont and European Union Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar, Azertag reported on January 20.

President Ilham Aliyev congratulated France on assuming presidency of the European Union, and expressed hope that the French presidency of the European Union would be successful and effective. The head of state recalled his meetings with President of the European Council Charles Michel and President of France Emmanuel Macron in Brussels on December 15 last year.

Praising the meeting with the participation of representatives of France and the European Union in this format, President Ilham Aliyev noted that it created positive opportunities for the development of the peace agenda discussed in Brussels.

Continental Europe and Turkey Advisor in the Office of the French President Isabelle Dumont thanked President Ilham Aliyev for receiving the delegation on January 20, the Day of Mourning for the people of Azerbaijan. She noted that they were paying this visit together with representatives from France, as the President of the European Union, and the European Union. Isabelle Dumont underlined that this visit was aimed at holding discussions as a continuation of the positive meetings held in Brussels on December 15.

European Union Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar stressed the importance of the meetings held in Brussels as part of the 6th Eastern Partnership Summit of the European Union, noting the significance of the visit to the region in terms of discussing important issues.

The sides exchanged views on ensuring lasting peace and stability in the region, as well as other issues of mutual interest.
To WNY's chagrin, bishop's snow prayers are answered

It took a full year, but Bishop Michael W. Fisher of the Buffalo Catholic Diocese finally got an answer to his prayers for a worthy Buffalo snowfall.

Fisher spent most of his life in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., region, where snowstorms of more than a couple of inches are not very common. So, Fisher was a little giddy when parts of Western New York received more than 2 feet of snow on Monday.

Winter has certainly made itself known these past several days and Im learning what it means to be a true Buffalonian, he said at a kick-off event Wednesday for the 2022 Catholic Charities Appeal. Youre probably going to roll your eyes, but Ive been praying for snow like this since I arrived.

Fisher celebrated his first year as 15th Buffalo bishop on Jan. 15, and he was impressed by how well area residents seemed to shake off the storm.

I can say one thing, he added. I think you Buffalonians dont scare too easily when the snow starts falling.

After this weekend, here's hoping he prays for some warmer temperatures.

 Jay Tokasz

Poloncarz makes it official; he doesn't have Covid

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz doesn't have Covid-19. He's never had Covid-19.

So don't believe everything you read on the internet.

At the county executive's last weekly Covid-19 news briefing, he responded to rumors that he missed giving his weekly Covid briefing the week before because he was out sick with the virus, but was spotted attending the Bills' playoff game against the New England Patriots.

"I have never had Covid, to my knowledge," he said. "If I did have Covid, I'll let the public know about it. I mean, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

Poloncarz, who has been tested often, said he missed the prior week's briefing because he and the health commissioner were just busy, and there's nothing more to it.

He also took a moment to congratulate the Bills for their victory.

"To the team, Josh Allen and everyone else, great job destroying the Patriots. Very happy to say that."

 Sandra Tan

Schumer to Bills fans: Take the over

Sen. Charles Schumer showed up at General Motors' Lockport plant on Friday, ready to hail a big new investment by the automaker.

But he also had a Sunday event on his mind.

Wearing a Bills hat, Schumer worked the crowd and then stepped to the microphone to answer the question sports pundits everywhere are debating as the Bills prepare to play the Chiefs.

"Let me tell you something: When it's Allen vs. Mahomes, I'm with Allen," he said. "Bills by a billion!"

 Matt Glynn

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Sandra Tan Reporter I use the Erie County government beat to find issues and stories that tell us something important about how we live. An alumna of the Columbia Journalism School and Buffalo News staff reporter since 2000, I can be reached at stan@buffnews.com Follow Sandra Tan 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
Beginning Saturday, the United States will require all foreign travelers  including essential workers such as truck drivers  who enter the country by land from Canada or Mexico to be fully vaccinated, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.

The change is in line with current regulations that the Canadian government has placed on Americans crossing the border.

With a handful of exceptions, foreigners entering the United States via air travel are already required to show proof of vaccination at customs, along with proof of a negative Covid-19 test.

Land travelers will not be required to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test.

Starting Saturday, DHS "will require that non-U.S. individuals entering the United States via land ports of entry or ferry terminals along our Northern and Southern borders be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and prepared to show related proof of vaccination," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

According to a DHS statement, the rule excludes U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are returning from Canada or Mexico.

Travelers will be asked to verbally attest to their vaccination status and may be asked to show supporting documentation such as a vaccination card or digital vaccine passport issued by their home country, the department said.

The decision comes after the Biden Administration in November reopened the nation's land borders to nonessential travel following a 20-month-long closure dating to the early days of the pandemic in 2020.

Last week, Canada announced a similar requirement of truckers and other "essential" travelers.

Transportation industry leaders have expressed concerns over the new regulations on multiple fronts. The trucking industry is, like many economic sectors, already struggling to find enough workers, and a vaccine requirement for international commercial truckers could further complicate hiring efforts. Also, the additional layer of paperwork at customs could cause border backups and further disrupt the nation's supply chain, which is already experiencing long delays in shipping many products.

American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello told the industry publication Transport Topics that both governments need to be prepared to endure more problems as a result of their respective vaccination requirements.

Governments, you know, both the U.S. and Canadian governments have to be prepared ... to see real impacts on their sides of the border, Costello said. Im talking about, you know, potentially more food shortages because of this, potentially energy shortages because of this and potentially, you know, manufacturing shortages and so forth.

He predicted that with the backlog of domestic freight, some haulers will elect to focus on shipping routes within the United States and turn down cross-border freight if they're short on vaccinated drivers.

Roughly two-thirds of the goods traded between the United States and Canada, accounting for more than $500 billion in annual commerce, travels over land.

The Canadian government's vaccine requirement went into effect on Jan. 15. Like the United States, the Canadian vaccination requirement also exempts its own citizens and only applies to non-Canadian travelers.

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The Williamsville Village Board on Thursday voted 3-2 to hire attorney Todd Aldinger to fight a $300 fine issued by the Erie County Department of Health following a Jan. 10 Village Board meeting at which the mayor and members of the audience did not wear masks, in violation of county and state mask mandates.

The board met remotely, via online video conferencing, following a 90-minute executive session to discuss the hiring of an attorney. During the online meeting, only members of the Village Board and other village officials were allowed to talk. Village Trustees Christine L. Hunt and Eileen Torre both voted against hiring an outside attorney to defend the village against the fine levied by the county.

Erie County fines Williamsville over village's refusal to enforce mask mandate County Executive Mark Poloncarz confirmed Tuesday that the village is the only local government to be formally sanctioned and fined $300 by the Erie County Health Department for actively and repeatedly flouting the mask-wearing rules.

"I may be considered a freshman in politics, but I am no rookie in balanced decision-making," Hunt said in a prepared statement that she read to the board.

Hunt also noted what she called the development of a lack of respect for others and an environment of mistrust and toxicity on the board that she said caused the former deputy mayor, Matthew Etu, to resign earlier this month. She said that current Deputy Mayor David Sherman and Trustee Matt Carson  who both voted with Mayor Deb Rogers to hire outside counsel  were appointed to their posts by the mayor and not likely to risk any reprisals by voting against her.

"The mask mandate and best practices to reduce the spread of Covid-19 can be a challenging and tension charged environment," Hunt added. "I appreciate the Erie County Department of Health for doing what is recommended to minimize the spread of this highly contagious variant."

Divisive debate over mask mandate roils Williamsville The debate over facts and freedom and rights and restrictions that has roiled the nation since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic has come to a one-square-mile community where complaining about traffic and parking used to rate as the biggest issue.

Rogers, meanwhile, said hiring outside counsel to defend the village against the county's mandate is a common sense decision, and that she trusts reasonable, rational adults to make their own decisions to stem the spread of Covid-19.

"For the life of me, I really have no idea why a billion dollar bureaucracy like Erie County is targeting our one-square mile Village of Williamsville," Rogers said.

Sherman called the county's mandate selective enforcement.

Williamsville says little before meeting to hire mask-fine law firm The Erie County Health Department fined the village $300 for repeatedly flouting the county and state mask-wearing requirement in public spaces, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Tuesday.

"The mandate from on-high is a constitutional quagmire. It's selective enforcement. To my knowledge, I do not believe any other municipality has been cited by the county or the state. Williamsville is going to be the guinea pig, and I don't think that's fair," Sherman said.

It was not discussed at Thursday night's special meeting how much the village will pay Aldinger to fight the fine in court. Sherman, in a text message to The News, said Aldinger was simply retained as counsel by the board, and that it had no financial projections at this time.

In a statement afterward, Torre said: "This $300 ticket could easily cost the village $10,000 or more just to fight it, whether we win or lose our legal defense."

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I would never underestimate the seriousness of a former president leading a palace coup to overturn an election, along with his minions claiming voter fraud that didnt exist. While more Republican representatives are gradually admitting Donald Trump lost, it still is amazing how many people refuse to admit this obvious truth. Combined with voting law changes in some states that clearly are not needed, since no fraud took place, I understand peoples angst about our politics in 2022. Still to think we are heading to civil war is failing to recognize the genius of our political system, one that failed in 1861 because the Founding Fathers couldnt determine how to deal with slavery, the lifeblood of the Southern economy, without war. However, our federal system of government requires the feds to share power with states, something that, except for the Civil War, has held us together through internal and external strife. The main struggle between states today is economic, as all states compete for businesses to enrich their citizens and tax coffers.

This country has always had upheaval with demographic changes, whether through immigration, or domestic change. Gangs of New York, showed the arrival of the Irish in the 19th century, not exactly a time of peace and joy, and the same is true with the growth of virtually every ethnic group in the countrys history.

The most important recognition that needs to be made at this time in our history is that the Founding Fathers set up a system of government that requires compromise, so that no king could control the power of government. The greatest danger we have is not civil war, but those on the extreme left and right who expect their way and are unwilling to compromise. Our system requires moderation and is based on gradual changes necessary to meet the peoples needs. Only autocratic governments can change policy with a command. I have no interest in ever seeing that situation in my homeland.

William Patterson

Lockport
Jan. 22-Feb. 27  Chautauqua Lake Ice Fishing Derby hosted by Chautauqua Reel Outdoors, Lakewood. Enter any time through Feb. 12. Fish categories are walleye, crappie, yellow perch, sunfish, white perch, silver bass. Based on length. All electronic submissions for fish catches. Entry is $25. Call 763-2947 for more info. Open water catches are eligible.

Jan. 22-23  Gun and knife show at Wolcottsville Fire Hall, 6337 Wolcottsville Road, Akron, starting at 9 a.m. nfgshows.com.

Jan. 23  WNY Winter 3D Archery League continues at Collins Conservation Club, 2633 Conger Road, Collins, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. $10 per week for 13 weeks. 3-6 person teams. There are classes for kids with a 20-yard maximum to open shooters with a 50-yard maximum. All targets are at known distances and range finders are allowed. The hosting clubs are Collins, West Falls, Evans, and Glen Coe. Contact is Chris Hogan at 628-4023.

Jan. 23  Niagara Region 3D Winter Archery League continues at Erie County Conservation Club, 13319 Miller Road, Chaffee. Sign in time from 7:30 a.m. to noon. Other participating clubs include Wood and Brook Sportsmens Club, Alden Rod and Gun, Double T and Allied Sportsmen. 14 weeks long. Contact is Marty at 870-2653 or John at 725-5822. New shooters and walk on shooters welcome.

Jan. 23  Winter trap league continues at Allied Sportsmen, 12846 Clinton St., Alden, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. It is a scratch league, 300 birds. There will be open and league shooting every Tuesday, including nonmembers, from 6 to 8 p.m. For more info contact Jim at 683-2224.

Jan. 23  Winter Trap League continues at Alden Rod and Gun Club, 12 County Line Road, Alden. Scratch league, shooting every other Sunday. 250 birds shot by March 6; 300 bird league. For more info call Tom Ess at 431-9292. Next shooting date is Feb. 6.

Jan. 23  Indoor 3-D archery league continues at Alden Rod and Gun Club, 12 County Line Road, Alden. Noon to 3 p.m. every other Sunday. A total of 24 arrows each week. For more info call Phil Williams at 553-7445. Next shooting date is Feb. 6.

Jan. 25  38th Annual indoor Precision Pistol league at Allied Sportsmen, 12846 Clinton St., Alden. Held every second and fourth Tuesday through March. Cost to shoot is $10 per week. For more information contact John Floriano at 725-5822.

Jan. 25  WNY Chapter of Trout Unlimited virtual monthly meeting starting at 7:30 p.m. Guest speaker is DEC Region 9 fisheries biologist Scott Cornett with his annual State of the Streams presentation. Open to the public. Send a request for the Zoom log-on to meeting@wnytroutunlimited.org.

Jan. 27  Indoor 3D Archery League (14 week) continues at Allied Sportsmen, 12846 Clinton St., Alden, at 6:30 p.m. First line is 6:45 p.m. and second line is at 7:30 p.m. Shoot any night or all 14 weeks. Cost is $10 per night. Any questions call John Floriano at 725-5822 or Kevin Ulrich at 430-1059.

Jan. 27  Erie County Federation of Sportsmens Clubs monthly meeting at the Elma Conservation Club, 600 Creek Road, Elma, starting at 7 p.m. for delegates. Board meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.

Jan. 28  SPOT Shoot/League continues at Allied Sportsmen, 12846 Clinton St., Alden, at 6:45 p.m. You can shoot a single spot, a 3-spot, or a 5-spot target for whatever practice you are looking for on the 15-position range. Cost is $10 each night for 14 weeks. Any questions call John Floriano at 725-5822 or Kevin Ulrich at 430-1059.

Jan. 29-30  15th Annual WNY International Rabbit Derby to benefit local charities and families. For more information contact Rick Giermata at 602-5017.

Jan. 29  Niagara Falls Gulls at Goat Island with naturalist Tom Kerr andsponsored by Buffalo Audubon from 10 a.m. to noon. Register at https://buffaloaudubon.salsalabs.org/ and call 585-457-3228 for more info.

Jan. 30  WNY Winter 3D Archery League continues at Glen Coe Conservation, 9869 Foote Road, Glenwood, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. $10 per week for 13 weeks. 3-6 person teams. There are classes for kids with a 20-yard maximum to open shooters with a 50-yard maximum. All targets are at known distances and range finders are allowed. The hosting clubs are Collins, West Falls, Evans and Glen Coe. Contact Pat Abramo at 438-8601.

Jan. 30  Niagara Region 3D Winter Archery League continues at Alden Rod and Gun Club, 12 County Line Road, Alden. Sign in time from 7:30 a.m. to noon. Other participating clubs include Wood and Brook Sportsmens Club, Erie County Conservation, Alden Rod and Gun, Double T and Allied Sportsmen. 14 weeks long. Contact is Marty at 870-2653 or John at 725-5822. New shooters and walk on shooters welcome.

Jan. 30  Winter trap league continues at Allied Sportsmen, 12846 Clinton St., Alden, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. It is a scratch league, 300 birds, every other Sunday (next shoot Feb 13). There will be open and league shooting every Tuesday, including nonmembers, from 6 to 8 p.m. For more info contact Jim at 683-2224.

Jan. 31  Final day to submit nominations to the NYS Outdoorsman Hall of Fame. Check out nysohof.org.

Feb. 1  Double Tap Action Pistol Shoot at Allied Sportsmen, 12846 Clinton St., Alden. First and third Tuesday each month through March at 6:15 p.m. Next shoot is Feb. 15. For more info contact Fred Weymer at 359-2475.

Feb. 1  Lake Ontario Charter Boat Association monthly meeting at 7 p.m. at the Irondequoit Rod and Gun Club, 658 Bay Front S, Rochester (first Tuesday of every month).

Feb. 1  Niagara Musky Association monthly meeting, tentatively set for the Eldredge Club, 17 Broad St., Tonawanda, starting at 7 p.m. Guest speaker is NYS DEC Fish and Wildlife Technician, Chris Driscoll, giving a detailed update of the Buffalo Harbor Telemetry Study.

Feb. 3  Indoor 3D Archery League (14- week) continues at Allied Sportsmen, 12846 Clinton St., Alden, at 6:30 p.m. First line is 6:45 p.m. and second line is at 7:30 p.m. Shoot any night or all 14 weeks. Cost is $10 per night. Any questions call John Floriano at 725-5822 or Kevin Ulrich at 430-1059.

Feb. 4  SPOT Shoot/League continues at Allied Sportsmen, 12846 Clinton St., Alden, at 6:45 p.m. You can shoot a single spot, a 3-spot, or a 5-spot target for whatever practice you are looking for on the 15-position range. Cost is $10 each night for 14 weeks. Any questions call John Floriano at 725-5822 or Kevin Ulrich at 430-1059.

Feb. 4  Ten X Shooting Club Junior Shooting Program continues for ages 9 to 20. Club is located at 853 Ransom Road, Lancaster. First-time shooters arrive at 6 p.m. for instruction. Shooting at 6:30 p.m. Air rifles for 9 and up; .22lr for ages 12-20. Everything is provided by the club. Cost is $5 per night. If shooting .22lr, an additional $5 or bring your own ammo. Membership not required. For more info visit tenxshootingclub.com. Next session is Feb. 18.

Feb. 5  Jim Stearns Memorial Rabbit Hunt hosted by the Enchanted Mountain Beagle Club, end of Oakes Road, Olean. For more info call Joe Tomeno at 607-389-2545.

Feb. 6  Niagara Region 3D Winter Archery League continues at Double T Archery, 1120 North Forest Road, Amherst. Sign in time from 7:30 a.m. to noon. Other participating clubs include Wood and Brook Sportsmens Club, Erie County Conservation, Alden Rod and Gun, and Allied Sportsmen. 14 weeks long. Contact is Marty at 870-2653 or John at 725-5822. New shooters and walk-on shooters welcome.

Feb. 6  WNY Winter 3D Archery League continues at West Falls Conservation, West Falls, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. $10 per week for 13 weeks. 3-6 person teams. There are classes for kids with a 20-yard maximum to open shooters with a 50-yard maximum. All targets are at known distances and range finders are allowed. The hosting clubs are Collins, West Falls, Evans and Glen Coe. Contact Pat Abramo at 438-8601.

Feb. 6  Winter Trap League continues at Alden Rod and Gun Club, 12 County Line Road, Alden. Scratch league, shooting every other Sunday. 250 birds shot by March 6; 300 bird league. For more info call Tom Ess at 431-9292. Next shooting date is Feb. 20.

Feb. 6  Indoor 3-D archery league continues at Alden Rod and Gun Club, 12 County Line Road, Alden. Noon to 3 p.m. every other Sunday. A total of 24 arrows each week. For more info call Phil Williams at 553-7445. Next shooting date is Feb. 20.

Feb. 6  Alexander Gun Show at the Alexander Firemans Rec Hall, 10708 Alexander Road (Route 98), Alexander from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is $5. nfgshows.com

Feb. 8  Erie County Trappers Assn. monthly meeting at Hamburg Rod and Gun Club, 3434 Hickox Road, Hamburg, starting at 7:30 p.m. Theme is Fur Shed, focused on fur preparation and equipment. Open to nonmembers interested in learning more about trapping.

Submit calendar items to billhiltsjr@gmail.com at least three weeks in advance.

Feb. 4-6  BOW in the Snow at Allegany State Park has been canceled due to Covid.

Canceled: Feb. 17-20 - Greater Niagara Fishing and Outdoor Expo at the Conference and Event Center Niagara Falls. Go to niagarafishingexpo.com for more information.
jetcityimage / iStock.com

Its no secret that you can shop at Costco and save money, but you can also make silly mistakes that dont pay off. Mistakes you might make include the ones youll eventually realize, like having to throw out food you couldnt finish before expiration or reaching the end of your membership year and realizing you didnt make the most of the fee you paid. But they also could include mistakes you might not ever realize youre making. Before your next trip to Costco  and definitely before you sign up for or renew a membership  consider these 10 Costco shopping pitfalls that are costing you extra.

See: 10 Popular Products That Costco Doesnt Sell Anymore

Be Aware: 10 New Items Worth Buying at Costco This Month

Buying the Wrong Membership

There are two membership options to choose from at Costco  a Gold Star and an Executive Member for $60 and $120, respectively, said consumer analyst Julie Ramhold of DealNews. The biggest difference in perks for the two memberships is that Executive accounts receive an annual 2% reward on qualified Costco, Costco.com and Costco Travel purchases. But if you arent spending enough to make that reward worth it, then you may be better off going for the cheaper membership. Executive members will also be able to purchase items for resale and receive more benefits and discounts on select Costco services. The good thing is you can try out an Executive membership and then downgrade if you find its not worth it. Many members find they spend enough in a year that the reward certificate basically pays for the membership. But if thats not the case for you, Costco is good about making it easy to drop to the lower tier, and you dont miss out on too much in the long run.

More: 34 Dollar Store Secrets You Need To Know Before You Shop

Not Splitting the Costco Membership Fee

Because a Costco membership comes with two cards, you can split the membership fee with a friend or family member, said Andrew Lokenauth, a personal finance expert and CEO of Fluent in Finance.

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However, the catch is that the person has to be over 18 and reside at the same address, which is great if you have a relative or roommate who lives with you. But what if you dont? As a way around this, Costco does allow you to bring up to two guests with you per warehouse visit, but the Costco member must pay for the purchases. So you could potentially split the cost of the membership with a friend  although you would not be able to give the friend his or her own card  and plan your Costco shopping trips together. After each shopping trip, your friend could reimburse you for his or her portion of the items.

Find Out: How Much Does a Costco Membership Really Save You?

Not Taking Advantage of Costcos Price-Adjust Policy

Costco will price adjust any item you purchased at full price and recently went on sale, for both in store and online, Lokenauth said. If your item went on sale within 30 days after you purchased it, you can bring your item or receipt back and get a refund for the price difference.

Although it might not be practical to monitor Costcos pricing for 30 days following every item you purchase, it could pay off to do so for any large Costco purchases you make.

Check Out: The Secrets Behind These 10 Popular Costco Products

Buying Fresh Produce in Bulk

Its so tempting to stock up on fresh produce in bulk at Costco, but if youre a small household or you just dont have plans for how to use it all, you may want to reconsider, Ramhold advised. While buying a tray of apples or a huge bag of potatoes may be a good deal money-wise, if you end up having to throw out produce because it went bad, its not as good of a deal as it might seem initially.

Its smart to have a plan before you go to Costco. For instance, even if you plan on eating a big salad every day for lunch and buying bulk produce seems to make sense, will you be able to finish all the produce you buy before it expires? Perhaps you can consider splitting bulk food items that have a limited shelf life with a friend or family member, so both of you can benefit from the pricing.

Only Considering Brand-Name Wine

One thing that people absolutely do wrong in the wine aisle is to look for brands that they already know, said Mark Aselstine of Wine Club Reviews. Theres relatively little wiggle room in wine pricing these days for established brands, so you may only save a buck or two buying the Prisoner or Gnarly Head or whatever in the warehouse. Instead of those established names, consumers should absolutely look to some of the Kirkland labeled wines because those are half-off or even cheaper compared to their counterparts.

Aselstine said that oftentimes Costcos Kirkland-label wine is bottled by winemakers who simply label their own wine for Costco, which means that youre getting a brand-name wine at a much lower price than if you bought it with the brand-name label.

Good To Know: 25 Secret Money Traps at Target, Walmart and Other Big-Box Stores

Restricting Yourself to Whatevers in Your Local Store

Costco warehouses are huge and have aisles upon aisles of items to shop, as well as certain things you can only get in-store, Ramhold said. But if youre focusing on what your local warehouse carries, youre missing out. Costco.com has a ton of stuff that may not be in your local store, including different clothing styles, foods, electronics, and more. Youll get way more out of your membership by shopping both in-person and online  be sure to check the whats new and while supplies last sections on the website regularly. They feature new products the company has just begun to carry, as well as price drops on items they may be trying to clear out.

Not Checking Prices

Most Costco members joined to take advantage of the low costs on bulk items, which is convenient for stocking up for the entire family in fewer trips, said Adam Wood, cofounder of Revenue Geeks. Instead of buying a little bottle of olive oil that would run out quickly, you can acquire a two-liter bottle of Kirkland Signature Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil for $15.49 on Costco.com. On Amazon, a two-liter bottle of Mantova Extra Virgin Golden Italian Olive Oil costs $19.89. Thats an extra $4.

However, its important to always check prices and quantities to make sure youre getting the best deal. In Woods example, the two bottles of olive oil are truly the same size, so the savings are apparent. But when youre buying large quantities of items, youll need to do the math to make sure the per-unit price really is saving you money over buying the same item in a smaller quantity elsewhere.

Be Aware: The 37 Mistakes We Make When Shopping at Costco, Amazon, Target and Walmart

Ignoring Gift Cards

Not Costco gift cards  instead, I mean gift cards that are for other businesses, Ramhold said. Costco offers packs of discounted gift cards, and depending on the restaurant or store, you could save 15% to 25% off the face value of the cards. For instance, last year, I purchased $200 worth of gift cards to Texas de Brazil (split up into 4 $50 cards) for $150. Its also not uncommon to see $100 worth of gift cards going for $70 to $80, depending on the restaurant or store theyre for.

Not Buying Fuel

Gas prices at Costco (or any wholesale club) tend to be significantly lower than those at other local stations (often as much as $0.10-$0.40/gal cheaper), said Lauren Keys of Trip of a Lifestyle.

And if you really want to get extra bang for your buck, the Costco Anywhere Visa by Citi, which you must have a Costco membership to acquire, will give you 4% cash back on up to $7,000 worth of eligible gas purchases per year, including gas from Costco. Once you meet the $7,000 spending limit, the card pays 1% cash back. Additionally, youll receive 2% back on purchases from Costco and Costco.com. Another plus? The card has no annual fee.

Cut Now: 35 Useless Expenses You Need To Slash From Your Budget Now

Not Using the Return Policy as Needed

Although you dont want to abuse Costcos generous return policy, you should use it if you need it.

Since Costco sells such large quantities of their food, they dont want people to be discouraged from trying new things, Keys said. Thats why they let you return anything at any time, including food thats been opened, and even your membership itself! There are a couple of exceptions, but Costcos customer service is unmatched when it comes to guaranteed satisfaction.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 10 Silly Mistakes To Stop Making When You Shop at Costco
The UK Government is scrambling to secure supplies of tests from around the world to meet a surge in demand (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire)

A leading scientist has warned it is very worrying that a shortage of Covid-19 tests could lead to people mixing over the New Year without being able to see whether they are infectious.

Professor Peter Openshaw, who sits on the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the conditions at a New Years Eve gathering were perfect for spreading coronavirus.

The UK Government is scrambling to secure supplies of tests from around the world to meet a surge in demand as people try to comply with guidance to limit the spread of the Omicron variant.

(2/2) If you havent been able to get the test you need, please keep checking https://t.co/7WF7e3Vaub every few hours as more #PCR and #LFD tests become available every day. https://t.co/29Ni2bXCAM  UK Health Security Agency (@UKHSA) December 29, 2021

In a letter to MPs, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the supply of lateral flow tests (LFD) was being tripled in January and February from a pre-Omicron plan of 100 million to 300 million per month.

To respond to anticipated demand over the coming few weeks we are buying hundreds of millions more LFD tests, bringing new products on board and accelerating their deployment to the public, he said.

But in light of the huge demand for LFDs seen over the last three weeks, we expect to need to constrain the system at certain points over the next two weeks to manage supply over the course of each day, with new tranches of supply released regularly throughout each day.

The Welsh Government has agreed to loan four million more lateral flow tests to the NHS in England bringing that mutual aid to a total of 10 million.

Story continues

(PA Graphics) (PA Graphics)

First Minister Mark Drakeford said: Wales has a significant stock of lateral flow tests, sufficient to meet our needs over the weeks ahead.

By 9am on Thursday morning, home delivery slots for lateral flow tests were unavailable on the Gov.UK website.

Pharmacies have also complained about patchy supplies of lateral flow kits.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged people in England heading out for New Years Eve festivities on Friday to get tested.

But Prof Openshaw raised concerns about the prospect of people unable to get tested attending gatherings.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said Wales had a significant stock of lateral flow tests (Ben Birchall/PA) (PA Wire)

I think its very worrying indeed, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

We know the situations in which transmission happens and fortunately I dont think we are facing the sort of lockdown that was necessary in order to cope in the very earliest part of this year.

But we do know that crowding together in poorly ventilated spaces, particularly if you are shouting over loud music and so on, is absolutely perfect in terms of transmitting this very, very highly transmissible virus.

In England  unlike other parts of the UK  nightclubs remain open and there are no limits on social mixing.

The NHS Covid Pass is required for entry to nightclubs, but this can be obtained by people who are double-jabbed, rather than requiring proof of a negative test.

(PA Graphics) (PA Graphics)

The UK Health Security Agency said on Wednesday that eight million lateral flow test kits would be made available to pharmacies by New Years Eve.

The Government is under increasing pressure to up the capacity of coronavirus testing as case numbers reached their highest level yet.

A new record was set for the daily number of coronavirus cases on Wednesday, as all four UK nations reported their figures for the first time since Christmas Eve.

The UK Government said that a further 183,037 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases had been recorded in the UK as of 9am on Wednesday.

The total includes reported figures for Northern Ireland covering a five-day period.

(Screengrab from the UK Government website) (PA Media)

But the 138,287 figure for England was also the highest recorded.

Prof Openshaw said: Many of us feel very, very sorry indeed that so many cases are arising but I think it was predictable that we would see this sort of rise given the intense infectivity of the Omicron variant.

We could look at the numbers and we could see that unless some very unexpected miracle were to happen we were going to see numbers of this sort.

The NHS is setting up new Nightingale surge hubs at hospitals across England as it goes on a war footing to prepare for a potential wave of Omicron hospital admissions.

Work on a total of eight hubs, each with a capacity of around 100 patients, is set to begin as early as this week, according to NHS England.

Further sites could also be identified to add a further 4,000 super surge beds.

The move comes as hospitals are using hotels, hospices and care homes to safely discharge as many people who are medically fit to leave as possible  freeing up beds for those who need them most.

NHS national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said: Given the high level of Covid-19 infections and increasing hospital admissions, the NHS is now on a war footing.

A total of 10,462 people were in hospital in England with Covid-19 as of 8am on December 29, according to figures from NHS England.

This is up 48% from a week earlier and is the highest number since March 1.

(PA Graphics) (PA Graphics)

During the second wave of coronavirus, the number peaked at 34,336 on January 18.

Prof Openshaw said: The hospitalisations have now hit about 10,000 and about 70% of those are directly due to Covid.

The daily admissions are increasing, the hospitalisations have roughly doubled in the last 10 days.

Theres always quite a lag in these figures and of course its much too early to know what thats going to translate to in terms of people who will very sadly die.

But I think it is inevitable that over time this will show up as the patients present and go through the course of their disease.
With the American Red Cross declaring its first-ever blood crisis, Madison hospitals and emergency medicine officials are urging people to donate blood if they qualify.

As more blood drives have been canceled due to continued pandemic precautions, blood banks and hospitals are facing an increasingly critical shortage of blood products, SSM Health said in a statement Thursday announcing blood drives at its hospitals in Madison, Janesville and Monroe.

The blood shortage will likely have major impacts on patient management, especially having to triage patients that require blood products, said Dan Williams, coordinator of the South Central Regional Trauma Advisory Council in Madison.

Procedures and lifesaving surgeries that require massive blood transfusions may be declined in the interest of doing the most good for the most patients during this time of limited blood resources, Williams said.

UW Hospital is working with its blood supplier to increase donations, spokesperson Emily Kumlien said Friday. Right now we have a sufficient blood supply, but we are planning for shortages, she said.

The Red Cross last week declared a blood crisis, citing the worst national blood shortage in a decade.

Amid this crisis, doctors have been forced to make difficult decisions about who receives blood transfusions and who will need to wait until more products become available, the Red Cross said in a statement Jan. 11. Blood and platelet donations are critically needed to help prevent further delays in vital medical treatments.

The Red Cross said it has had a 10% decline in people donating blood since the COVID-19 pandemic started and continues to confront blood drive cancellations and staffing limitations.

ImpactLife, which provides blood to 125 hospitals in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin, said it seeks 3,600 donations a week. Over the last month, however, the donation rate has ranged from 2,500 to 2,800 donations per week, the blood bank said in a blog post Wednesday.

The shortage is driven by people experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or quarantine, winter weather and the recent holidays, the blood bank said.

How to help To donate blood, contact: American Red Cross: redcrossblood.org or 800-733-2767. Madison East Blood Donation Center is at 2109 Zeier Road. Madison West Blood Donation Center is at 4860 Sheboygan Ave. ImpactLife: bloodcenter.org or 800-747-5401. Madison donation center at 7475 Mineral Point Road.

SSM Health planned a blood drive Friday at St. Marys Hospital in Madison for staff only. A public blood drive will be held at St. Marys Hospital in Janesville from 1 to 6 p.m. Feb. 3; donors can sign up at bloodcenter.org. A public blood drive for SSM Health Monroe Hospital will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 10 at St. Johns United Church of Christ in Monroe; donors can sign up at monroeclinic.org.

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Hospitals and patients vied against health insurers and businesses Thursday at a public hearing in the state Capitol over a bipartisan bill that would prevent insurers from choosing the pharmacies where hospitals buy some specialty drugs given in hospitals.

Hospitals said the insurer practice, called white-bagging and sometimes requiring the use of insurer-owned pharmacies, can disrupt patient care and pose safety risks by adding more steps to drug delivery.

These decisions have negative consequences on patient safety, drug supply chain, cost, waste and administrative burden on patients and medical care providers, said Joanne Alig, a senior vice president with the Wisconsin Hospital Association, a driving force behind the bill.

Insurers said controlling where certain expensive drugs are purchased saves money by avoiding hospital markups.

The bill removes nearly every existing tool health insurance providers have to encourage lower cost, higher quality, and more convenient drug administration, said Tim Lundquist, a senior director at the Wisconsin Association of Health Plans, which includes Dean Health Plan, Quartz, WEA Trust and Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin, among others.

Introduced in November, the bill has many legislative sponsors from both parties, with hospital and patient groups registering in support and insurance and business groups registering against it. SSM Health  which owns Madison-based Navitus Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager that owns Lumicera, a specialty pharmacy  said it is not supporting or opposing the measure.

The bill concerns some specialty drugs that must be administered at hospitals, including for conditions including cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohns disease and cerebral palsy. More such drugs have been approved in recent years, and many are expensive.

At the hearing Thursday before the state Senate Committee on Insurance, Licensing and Forestry, Koreen Holmes, of Eau Claire, said that in September, while getting immunotherapy infusions for breast cancer, she learned her insurer would no longer cover the treatments at HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital.

The insurer, which Holmes did not identify, said its selected pharmacy would send the medication for her to use at the hospital. Hospitals typically oppose using such drugs, in part because they say delivery can be unreliable.

Holmes, who had recently given birth to a second child, eventually got a 90-day reprieve that allowed her to finish her treatment at the Eau Claire hospital. But she said the ordeal, which involved possibly having to go elsewhere for treatment, was stressful.

That was scary, frustrating and honestly unfair, said Holmes, for whom supporters have dubbed the bill Koreens Law.

Willard Walker, CEO of Clintonville-based Walker Forge, a manufacturer with 350 employees, said white-bagging, or what he called alternate sourcing, saved the company $170,000 in drug costs last year, with no problems reported.

Alternate sourcing has been an important tool for us, and weve been able to use it quite successfully without interruption, without disruption, without delay, Walker said.

Hannet Ambord, pharmacy director at Reedsburg Area Medical Center, said white-bagging has led some patients to switch to less-ideal drugs so they can continue to be treated at the hospital or stop treatments over frustration from repeated delays in drug delivery.

As we continue to disrupt patient-provider relationships, our patients suffer, Ambord said.

Rachel Ver Velde, director of workforce, education and employment policy with Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, pointed to a study done for drug manufacturers that found most hospitals charge patients and insurers more than twice their acquisition cost for medications.

It is quite shocking that the legislature would consider giving hospitals a monopoly on these drugs and push other competition out of the market, Ver Velde said in written testimony.

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By Sabina Mammadli

Prior to the Second Karabakh War in 2020, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provided legal assistance to over 10,000 Azerbaijani refugees.

Guido Ambroso, head of the UNHCR's Azerbaijani representative office, made the remarks at an event to mark the publication of the "Collection of International Instruments and Legal Texts Concerning Refugees and Others of Concern to UNHCR."

Ambroso emphasized that, in addition to financial assistance, the organization offered legal assistance to refugees from 1995 to 1997.

"In addition, the UNHCR provided assistance to stateless people and people whose right to citizenship is under threat. From the late 1990s to the present, 221 stateless people have received legal assistance. These people obtained their citizenship and identity cards," the representative added.

It should be noted that the UNHCR thanked Azerbaijan for upholding international law.

UNHCR is a United Nations refugee agency tasked with assisting refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people in their voluntary repatriation, local integration, or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and employs over 17,300 people in 135 countries.
The state Elections Commission and a group of voting rights advocacy organizations on Thursday filed appeals to a Waukesha County judges ruling last week barring the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the state.

Jeffrey Mandell, an attorney with the liberal law firm Law Forward, said one appeal  filed by Disability Rights Wisconsin, League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice  also seeks a stay on Judge Michael Bohrens ruling to allow absentee ballot drop boxes to be used until after the April 5 spring election. Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul also filed an appeal Thursday on behalf of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

An emergency meeting has been scheduled for Friday on the groups motion for a stay. Mandell filed the appeal shortly after Bohrens order was signed Thursday.

State statutes do not address the use of ballot drop boxes, though the Elections Commission issued guidance in early 2020 to allow election clerks to make use of them. The boxes were widely used in the state that year as an alternative for voters worried that, with the crush of absentee ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic and potential delays in mail delivery, their ballots might not make it back before Election Day.

Bohren last week ruled in a case brought by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty that there is no statutory authority to have drop boxes used for the collection of absentee ballots outside of allowed use at an alternate absentee ballot location or at a clerks office.

We are pleased the court made this clear, providing Wisconsin voters with certainty for forthcoming elections, WILL deputy counsel Luke Berg said in a statement last week.

WILL filed the lawsuit last year just days after the state Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling turned back a separate attempt by a major Republican donor to ban the boxes.

(Bohren) says that drop boxes are illegal under Wisconsin law because theyre not mentioned in the statute, but telephones arent mentioned in the Bible and nobody thinks that means they are evil and sinful, Mandell said Thursday. Absentee drop boxes that are secure and properly monitored are an entirely reasonable way for municipal clerks to accept absentee ballot returns. Theres nothing in the state that says to the contrary.

Bohren also said state law only allows absentee ballots to be mailed in or delivered to the clerk in person, a ruling Mandell called an absurd and preposterous interpretation of the law.

If you complete your absentee ballot, sign and seal it and by mistake you leave it on the kitchen table and you ask your spouse to put it in the mail, it cannot be that in that circumstance that you and your spouse have both committed voter fraud, Mandell said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court also could take up the topic of drop boxes in a lawsuit filed last year by Republican gubernatorial candidate and former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch challenging the commissions guidance on drop boxes. The states high court has not said if it will take up the case before it goes through lower courts.

Another lawsuit was filed earlier this month by a Waukesha County resident represented by WILL. The voter is suing the Elections Commission for rejecting a complaint he filed last year regarding ballot drop boxes.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  The Department of Budget and Management has released the amount of 1.18 billion to serve as additional funds for special risk allowance (SRA) of medical frontliners who are handling COVID-19 patients, it said Friday.

The release came after President Rodrigo Dutertes approval of the funding request, the agencys statement read.

The funds will cover 63,812 eligible public and private health workers who are directly attending to patients who contracted the virus.

Overall, the DBM released a total of P11.856 billion, which benefitted 562,928 HCWs who shall receive an SRA not exceeding P5,000 per month from December 20, 2020 to June 30, 2021, it said.

Health workers have consistently called for the timely release of benefits allotted to them as the country continues to grapple with the health crisis.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez, Jr. confirmed on Friday that the first batch of COVID-19 Pfizer vaccines intended for children aged 5 to 11 will be arriving at the end of the month.

Around 1.2 million vaccines in total will arrive on Jan. 31, of which 780,000 will be allocated to children, the secretary said.

[A]ng ating programa sa national vaccination, nakita natin we started slow dahil kasi nagkaroon ng problema sa ating global supply, he noted while overseeing the second day of the Resbakuna Sa Botika program in Makati City.

[Translation: Our national vaccination started slow because we had a problem with the global supply.]

Galvez mentioned that the support of both private sector and local government units played crucial roles in the procurement of the vaccines.

We were able to procure more than enough for our healthcare workers, for our seniors, for our people, and even for our children, he emphasized.

The official told reporters that the plan is to start vaccinating kids on the first week of February.

He also announced that the second batch of vaccines  around 1.6 million  will arrive on Feb. 7.

The secretary reiterated that Pfizer is the only vaccine brand given emergency use authorization for pediatric use.

The government aims to immunize about 14.7 million children belonging to the 5 to 11 age group.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  A faction of the administration party announced Friday that Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte is its easy pick for vice presidential bet in the 2022 elections, but could not say the same for her running mate, former Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr.

Members of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) led by their president, Energy Secretary Alfonsi Cusi, formally adopted Mayor Duterte as their candidate for VP.

In an online media interview, Cusi said choosing the mayor was an easy task to decide, considering that she was a former member of PDP-Laban which is chaired by her father, President Rodrigo Duterte. However, Cusi stressed it does not mean the party would automatically support the Marcos-Duterte tandem.

We are in the process of evaluating who among the candidates would best continue the programs that this administration has started, Cusi said.

Pressed on whats preventing the Cusi wing from endorsing Marcos, Cusi said, we still have to be convinced.

Kasi kung kumbinsido na tayo, kung talagang ganoon na yan, bakit hindi 'di ba (Because if were already convinced about that, then why not)? Cusi said.

Syempre sa pulitiko ngayon lahat, pati langit, pati impyerno, ipapangako natin, pero ang kwan doon, ano ba talaga ang gagawin natin (Of course for politicians now, we would promise voters heaven, even in hell, but the question is what would we really do). So, its the credibility of the person, he added.

Cusi clarified hes not singling out Marcos, but cited the need to scrutinize the track record of all politicians seeking the presidency.

If you have an argument why Bongbong Marcos or any candidate will fit the PDPs principles and ideology e sabihin niyo sa amin (then tell us), he added.

PDP-Laban is still finalizing the terms of its alliance agreement with the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD), a major party recently joined by its now chairman Mayor Duterte. Cusi said there are currently no talks with Marcos Partido Federal ng Pilipinas.

Marcos' spokesperson, lawyer Vic Rodriguez, called the endorsement a "unilateral move," absent the signing of any accord with Mayor Duterte or her party.

"As far as the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, the party of presidential aspirant Bongbong Marcos, and the UniTeam are concerned, such 'adoption' - though a UNILATERAL move by the PDP-Laban (Cusi faction) - deserves our utmost respect," he said.

But in a separate statement, Lakas-CMD co-chairman Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla thanked PDP-Laban and confirmed that an alliance between the two parties is being forged.

Earlier, Duterte publicly berated Marcos, even calling him a weak leader, but Cusi refused to comment on how this will affect the partys selection process.

The ruling party is not fielding its own candidates for the top two positions following a curious turn of events  Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa backed out of the race for Malacanang and was substituted by former VP bet Senator Christopher Bong Go, who later also withdrew his presidential bid. The other PDP-Laban faction led by their presidential candidate Senator Manny Pacquiao used the Certificate of Nomination and Acceptance of an allied party due to the infighting yet to be settled by the Commission on Elections.

Last week, Comelec dismissed the Cusi groups petition to reopen the filing of certificates of candidacy and suspend the printing of ballots. Cusi said theyre still studying their next move, considering their latest decision to back Mayor Dutertes candidacy.

The group is also not ruling out the possibility of reconciling with the Pacquiao camp but Cusi said there are no talks at the moment.

Cusi said there's also a possibility their group would not to endorse any presidential aspirant and just focus on campaigning for their candidates seeking lower posts.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  COVID-19 cases in Northern Samar and Mountain Province increased on Friday, according to their local health officials.

Both were placed under the second to the highest Alert Level 4 from Jan. 21 to 31, along with two other areas in the Cordillera Administrative Region.

RELATED: Four provinces under Alert Level 4, 15 areas under Alert Level 3 from Jan. 21 to 31

Speaking to CNN Philippines' News Night, Northern Samar provincial health officer Dr. Ninfa Caparroso-Kam said they logged 455 new COVID-19 infections on Friday - slightly higher than Thursday's 359 new cases.

Despite the rise in cases, Caparroso-Kam said their hospitalization rate went down from 69% to 47% on Friday.

She added that Northern Samar has more mild than moderate infections - labeling most as "incidental."

"Pumunta sila sa (They went to the) hospital not because they are having symptoms of COVID, but ito ay manganganak, ito ay naaksidente (they are giving birth or were involved in an accident). It so happened we did a swab (test) and they tested positive so they were brought straight to our COVID ward," Caparroso-Kam explained.

The provincial health officer also said there's still vaccine hesitancy among residents, but the no vaccine, no entry rule has encouraged more people to get inoculated. As of Monday, Caparroso-Kam said Northern Samar's vaccinate rate was at 69%.

Eastern Visayas, where Northern Samar is located, listed 879 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday - the highest since the coronavirus was first detected in 2020.

In a separate interview, Mt. Province health officer II Dr. Annie Claire Pekas said they had 125 confirmed cases on Friday compared to Thursday's 114.

She also said occupancy rates in the province's five hospitals and two infirmaries are above 70%, but added that most infections are mild to moderate - with only 81 of their 407 active cases needing hospitalization.

COVID-19 patients isolated in their homes are being monitored by local health authorities. Pekas said they still have enough supply of medicine, like paracetamol, for those who got infected.

As for vaccination, 49.8% of target residents are already fully vaccinated while 54% are partially immunized, she noted.

Pekas added that the administration of booster shots is ongoing.
(CNN)  According to Machine Gun Kelly, "Love is pain!"

That is what the rapper and actor told Vogue in a joint interview with his new fiancee, actress Megan Fox.

Kelly was explaining the "thoroughbred Colombian emerald" and diamond engagement ring he had designed for Fox with the emerald "just carved into the teardrop, straight out of the mine."

"The concept is that the ring can come apart to make two rings. When it's together, it's held in place by a magnet." Kelly said. So you see how it snaps together? And then it forms an obscure heart. And you see this right here? The bands are actually thorns. So if she tries to take it off, it hurts..."

Ouch.

Kelly posted about the Stephen Webster-designed ring on his verified Instagram account with a video of Fox showing off her bling after he popped the question on January 11. He captioned the video "yes, in this life and every life."

"Beneath the same branches we fell in love under, i brought her back to ask her to marry me," Kelly wrote. "I know tradition is one ring, but i designed it with Stephen Webster to be two: the emerald (her birth stone) and the diamond (my birth stone) set on two magnetic bands of thorns that draw together as two halves of the same soul forming the obscure heart that is our love."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 20)  A Department of Justice (DOJ) panel is set to file murder and frustrated murder charges against nine police personnel for the death of Calbayog City mayor Ronaldo Aquino and three other persons.

In a statement on Thursday, the DOJ said the panel will file the criminal information for four counts of murder and one count of frustrated murder at the Regional Trial Court of Calbayog against the following:

PLTCOL. Harry Villar Sucayre, Team Leader, Philippine National PoliceIntegrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (PNPIMEG)

PMAJ Shyrile Co Tan

PCAPT Dino Laurente Goles

PLT Julio Salcedo Armeza, Jr.

PSSg Neil Matarum Cebu

PSSg Edsel Tan Omega

Pat Nino Cuadra Salem

PCpl Julius Udtujan Garcia

PSSg Randy Caones Merelos, and several John Does

In its preliminary investigation, the panel found that the officers ambushed the mayor on March 8, 2021 at the Labuyao Bridge in Calbayog City, Samar.

Aquino and two of his aides  security escort PSSg Rodeo B. Sario and driver Dennis Abayon  as well as a civilian identified as Clint John Paul Yauder, were killed in the incident.

The DOJ said another security aide was able to survive after receiving timely medical attention.

The panel also determined that the group's defense of denial, alibi and self-defense held no weight due to the statements of witnesses and pieces of evidence collated by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). The policemen earlier maintained that it was Aquinos men who fired first.

The DOJ also mentioned the dismissal of murder and grave threats cases against Ronald Mark Aquino, the late mayors son.

The NBI earlier filed murder charges against the nine police personnel before the DOJ turned the case over to a panel of prosecutors.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 21)  Five persons believed to be behind the massive hacking incident that targeted customers of BDO Unibank last year have been arrested, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said Friday.

Two of the suspects, both Nigerians, were caught in an entrapment operation in Mabalacat, Pampanga on Jan. 18. The bureau identified them as Ifesinachi Fountain Anaekwe, also known as "Daddy Champ," and Chukwuemeka Peter Nwadi.

NBI officer-in-charge Eric Distor identified the other three arrested suspects as Jherom Anthony Taupa y Diawan, Ronelyn Panaligan, and Clay S. Revillosa.

The five men were presented at a news conference, where they refused to answer questions from the NBI or the media.

The bureau said it hatched the operation after an informant, who supposedly had transactions with the suspects, voluntarily appeared to provide information about the leaders, members, or affiliates of the "Mark Nagoyo" group.

In December 2021, more than 700 customers of BDO, the country's biggest bank, fell victim to a heist perpetrated by an unidentified group of hackers. Initial reports showed the bulk of unauthorized online bank transfers from the customers' hacked accounts were allegedly done by a certain Mark Nagoyo.

The informant said the suspects were "engaged in the business of providing access devices to anyone looking for options to cash out funds fraudulently obtained." These devices included bank accounts, crypto wallets, and even point-of-sale terminals of otherwise legitimate merchants.

Taupa, the alleged mastermind, was arrested in a buy-bust operation, also on Jan. 18, in Floridablanca, Pampanga. The NBI said according to an informant, Taupa was selling "scampage" or phishing websites  particularly an imitation of the GCash page, which allowed him to steal funds from the victims' portals.

Further investigation revealed Taupa was also involved in a group heist, where he was in-charge of sending a list containing the personal details of various bank customers, the bureau added. The customers will then receive an email which includes a link that will be used for the hacking process.

Panaligan and Revillosa, meanwhile, were arrested for their involvement in the BDO fiasco as web developer and downloader, respectively, the NBI said.

It added that Anaekwe and Nwadi were presented for inquest before the Office of the Prosecutor General for Trafficking in Unauthorized Access Devices.

Taupa was also subjected to inquest procedures for violation of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, particularly Misuse of Devices, the NBI said.

There was no immediate statement from BDO.
Tacloban City (CNN Philippines, January 21)  Eastern Visayas logs 879 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the highest since the virus was first detected in 2020.

The region also recorded its highest positivity rate at 69%.

With these new infections, Eastern Visayas currently has 3, 710 active cases.

Of the 879 new cases, 299 are from Leyte, 180 from Tacloban, 156 from Samar, 121 from Eastern Samar, 47 from Southern Leyte, 42 from Ormoc City, 24 from Biliran province, and 10 from Northern Samar.

Due to increasing cases of COVID-19, the regional office of the Department of Health in Eastern Visayas (DOH-8) is not setting aside the possibility that the Omicron variant has already reached the region.

This will be confirmed once the samples sent by the regional agency to the Philippine Genome Center arrive next week or in the first week of February.

DOH-8 sent 90 samples to the PGC that were taken from areas with clustering of cases.

The regional Health department continues to strongly encourage the remaining unvaccinated yet eligible individuals, especially our senior citizens, those with comorbidities, and children to get vaccinated and boosted immediately.

Vaccines are still our best defense against COVID-19 and its variants and have proven to be safe, effective, and free," it said in a statement.

The public is reminded to do self-isolation at the earliest signs of symptoms and to follow all the health protocols set by authorities to prevent further transmission of the coronavirus in Eastern Visayas.

"Let us guard against COVID-19 and its variants and be responsible not only for your welfare and health but also for your family and community," it added.

Since it was first recorded, the region now has a total of 56,539 confirmed COVID-19 cases with total recoveries at 52,196 and total deaths at 633.
By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

A group of Azerbaijani servicemen has attended parachute training courses in Turkey's Kayseri, the Turkish National Defence Ministry has reported on its Twitter account.

The 113th Term Static Parachute Basic Course was held at the first Commando Brigade Command in Kayseri with the participation of Azerbaijan's Guest Military Personnel, the report added.

Azerbaijan and Turkey periodically hold joint drills to improve interaction and communication between their army units.

Military cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkey first emerged in 1992, with an agreement signed between the Azerbaijani and Turkish governments on military education and weapon equipment and deals to help strengthen the bond between the two nations.

On June 15, the two countries signed a memorandum of alliance that cemented the existing military, political and economic cooperation.

The Shusha Declaration on Allied Relations that President Ilham Aliyev and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed during the first official visit to Shusha eight months after Azerbaijans victory in the war with Armenia, also focuses on defence cooperation.

It affirms joint efforts by the two armies in the face of foreign threats. The declaration also pledges joint efforts for the restructuring and modernization of the armed forces.

Moreover, the two nations affirm to encourage the execution of joint projects with the aim of developing capabilities in the field of sea, air, and space.

In an interview with Turkey's Anadolu Agency on September 27, 2021, President Ilham Aliyev said that the signing of the Shusha Declaration raised bilateral relations to an even higher level.

Earlier, the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry reported that the servicemen will participate in over 30 international drills and competitions in the 2022 academic year.

The servicemen will join the Eternity - 2022, EFES - 2022, Indestructible Brotherhood - 2022, Winter Training  2022, International Army Games - 2022 and other international training and competitions, which will have a positive effect on the improvement of their professional skills, the ministry said.

Moreover, the servicemen are expected to participate in various international seminars and conferences in 2022 as well.
(CNN)  The United States accused Russia of recruiting current and former Ukrainian government officials to attempt to take control of Ukraine's government as it unveiled new sanctions on Thursday.

"Russia has directed its intelligence services to recruit current and former Ukrainian government officials to prepare to take over the government of Ukraine and to control Ukraine's critical infrastructure with an occupying Russian force," the Treasury Department said in a statement, as it rolled out sanctions against four current and former Ukrainian officials it said were involved in Kremlin-directed influence activities to destabilize Ukraine.

The Treasury said the four individuals  two of whom are current members of Ukraine's Parliament  were acting under the direction of a Russian intelligence service sanctioned by the US and played "various roles" in Russia's "global influence campaign to destabilize sovereign countries in support of the Kremlin's political objectives."

Russia recruits Ukrainian officials in top positions to gain access to sensitive information, threaten Ukraine's sovereignty and then leverage these officials to instigate unrest ahead of a potential Russian invasion, according to Treasury.

The department said that the action taken Thursday is "separate and distinct" from the "broad range of high impact measures" the US is prepared if Russia invades Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the sanctions are "in line with other actions that we have taken to target Russian disinformation campaigns."

"The United States will continue to take steps, including through actions like this one, and in partnership with the Ukrainian government, to identify, expose, and undercut Russia's destabilization efforts in Ukraine," he added.

The Biden administration has warned that Russia could invade Ukraine at any point but is also pursuing diplomatic efforts to convince Moscow to deescalate the situation, with Blinken set to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday to see if there's opportunity for common ground.

US approves transfer of American weapons from Baltic states to Ukraine

As the concerns grow about a possible Russian invasion, the State Department told Congress that it has approved export licenses for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which will allow the countries to transfer US-origin weapons to Ukraine, according to an administration official, a State Department official and a congressional aide familiar with the matter.

The approvals  which occurred in recent days  are a signal that the US is looking to inflict a greater cost on Russian President Vladimir Putin if he goes forward with the invasion. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he expects Putin will "move in" to Ukraine and Blinken said this week that the Kremlin has plans for sending more troops to the Ukrainian border.

The weapons include highly sought after, American anti-aircraft weapons systems from Latvia and Lithuania that would help Ukraine fend off Russian aircraft that some officials and experts believe would lead the way in the early stages of a Russian invasion. Estonia was given approval to transfer anti-tank Javelin guided missile systems, which the US has provided Ukraine with in the past.

It's unclear when the weapons will arrive in Ukraine, the senior administration official said the timing  as well as the price for Ukraine  would be up to the countries who were given the approval.

The Biden administration is also working on transferring five Russian-made helicopters into Ukrainian control, the same official said. A notification has been sent to Congress for the helicopters, Mi-17s, which are already in Ukraine for maintenance after being pulled out of Afghanistan during the withdrawal there.

The State Department cited close coordination with European countries and Ukraine when asked about the export licenses transfer.

"European allies have what they need to move forward on additional security assistance from Ukraine in the coming days and weeks," said a State Department spokesperson. "We are in close touch with our Ukrainian partners and our NATO Allies on this, as well as utilizing all available security cooperation tools available to us including expediting authorized transfers of US origin equipment from other allies and partners via our Third Party Transfer process and Excess Defense Articles from DoD inventories, among other mechanisms."

Earlier this week, Blinken visited Ukraine where Ukrainian officials thanked him for US security assistance. But Ukrainians have also routinely sought additional military support.

In late December, the Biden administration quietly approved an additional $200 million in security assistance to Ukraine, which authorized the shipment of defensive equipment that includes small arms and ammunition, four people familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN at the time.

But after multiple diplomatic meetings between the US, NATO, European officials and Russian officials ended last week without any significant breakthroughs, the Biden administration began weighing more military support for Ukraine amid more warning signs that Russia was prepping for an invasion. Biden has ruled out sending US combat troops to Ukraine to defend the country from a Russian invasion.

Russia has amassed about 100,000 troops to the border it shares with Ukraine, which Blinken said Wednesday Russia could double in "relatively short order." Russia plans to also conduct joint military exercises with Kremlin ally Belarus, prompting further concerns from Ukraine that a new potential front line has emerged along its northern border.

Biden on Wednesday acknowledged disunity within NATO over how to respond to a "minor incursion" from Russia, an admission that stunned and shocked Ukrainian officials in Kyiv.

On Thursday, Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Wall Street Journal that Biden's comments could act as an invite to Moscow to attack.

"Speaking of minor and full incursions or full invasion, you cannot be half-aggressive. You're either aggressive or you're not aggressive," Kuleba told the newspaper. "We should not give Putin the slightest chance to play with quasi-aggression or small incursion operations. This aggression was there since 2014. This is the fact."

In a seeming response to Biden's remarks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday wrote on Twitter, "We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones."

Asked about Biden's remarks distinguishing the consequences of a "minor incursion" against Ukraine by Russia, Blinken said on Thursday, "if any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border and commit new acts of aggression against Ukraine, that will be met with a swift, severe, united response from the United States and our allies and partners."

Blinken, who has been traveling Europe this week for meetings on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, also dismissed suggestions that the US and allies' providing defensive military equipment to Ukraine escalates tensions with Russia.

"The idea that the provision by the United states, by European countries, by NATO, of defensive military equipment to Ukraine is somehow provocative or cause for Russia's actions has the world upside down," he told reporters during a press conference in Berlin.

He added that the US is trying to ensure that "Ukraine has the means to defend itself, and that might perhaps deter further aggression by Russia."

This story was first published on CNN.com "US accuses Russia of recruiting officials in attempt to take over Ukrainian government"
(CNN)  Labor Secretary Marty Walsh announced a new federal roadmap to improve job quality and job access on Friday, as Americans continue to leave the workforce in record numbers amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The program, called the Good Jobs Initiative, was unveiled by Walsh -- the former mayor of Boston -- at the US Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington. The initiative, led by the Labor Department, will establish a broad framework across the federal government to inform workers of their rights -- including their right to collectively bargain, engage employers in improving jobs to retain workers and deploy federal agencies to bolster the plan.

"We are going to work across federal agencies to build job quality into all our contracting and grant making. That means not just minimum wage -- but prevailing wages, paid leave, registered apprenticeship, pre-apprenticeships, that open up opportunities for women and people of color and underserved communities all across this great country," Walsh said during his speech at the meeting. "We're going to engage employers to help them improve job quality, so every industry can attract and retain the talent they need. We're going to speak directly to workers -- making sure they have the information they need to exercise their rights, to find a good job, and get in-demand skills."

The new initiative comes as America's job market is facing complex and consequential shifts -- dubbed by some as the "great resignation."

While the country no longer faces the record high unemployment rate seen at the start of the pandemic, there's a labor shortage -- leading many workplaces to struggle to keep up with demand.

A record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November, but many of those departures are young people leaving for other jobs or better pay.

Still, labor force participation -- meaning the number of people in the US working or looking for a job -- hasn't improved at the same pace as the decline in unemployment since the pandemic.

While there have been a variety of issues leading to Americans to exit the workforce, early retirement has made a major impact. Nearly 70% of the 5 million people who left the labor force during the pandemic were older than 55, according to researchers from Goldman Sachs, with many not wanting to return to work.

There are also other factors impacting the labor market, like the many women who were forced to drop out of the labor force during the pandemic who have not returned and the rising number of people saying they're self-employed.

In an interview before announcing the Good Jobs Initiative, Walsh contended that many Americans are leaving their jobs because they want more from their employers.

"I don't think 'the great resignation' is the real story when you look (at the fact that) more people joined the workforce last year than any time last 25 years," Walsh told CNN. "But I think a lot of people did leave the workforce because they weren't earning good wages and, for whatever reason, decided to leave."

The genesis of the initiative, Walsh said, was the sweeping bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law last fall. A priority of the initiative will be to support the implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law, providing guidance on jobs created through infrastructure investments, according to the Labor Department.

"We want to ensure that while implementing the bipartisan infrastructure law, the jobs that are created are high-paying, good quality jobs, and make sure people have access," he said.

Additionally, the initiative will centralize agencies' efforts to provide technical assistance on many job quality standards across the federal government, including anti-discrimination requirements, equal employment opportunity requirements in apprenticeships and supporting environments for free and fair union organizing and collective bargaining, according to the Labor Department. DOL will also partner with the White House to support agencies in their efforts.

In addition to the federal efforts, Walsh on Friday invited mayors to partner with the Biden administration on the initiative, and told CNN he plans to speak to governors next week about states' involvement.

In another federal effort this week aimed at supporting workers amid the pandemic, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced it will award $103 million to help retain health care workers by strengthening long-term efforts to reduce burnout and to promote mental health.

The money for the services comes as about one in four hospitals in the US are reporting a "critical staffing shortage," more than most of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data from HHS.

The funding, part of the American Rescue Plan passed into law last spring, will be "disbursed to numerous organizations that oversee evidence-informed programs and practices and training. The focus will be on providers who do service in underserved and rural communities," Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said during a press conference on Thursday.

DOL and the Department of Transportation also announced new initiatives earlier this month aimed at addressing truck driver shortages and retaining drivers, which comes amid a supply chain crunch nationwide.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Biden administration takes new steps to address job quality amid record-setting resignations."
A nationwide organization that has helped revitalize several communities around the U.S. recently heard the Columbus community's feedback about its downtown.

Downtown Strategies - a division under Retail Strategies, a community development and retail recruitment organization based in Birmingham, Alabama  came to Columbus Thursday to host a workshop with community members in regards to bolstering their downtown. The meeting - held at Henry on 11th, 2521 11th St. - included Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce staff, City of Columbus officials, downtown business owners and various residents.

Theres a huge opportunity in Columbus. The huge historic building inventory is incredible, said Downtown Strategies President Jenn Gregory. (Frankfort) Square is a huge asset and the public investment that has been made with the new police station and city hall thats coming (into Columbus Community Building).

Theres investment and vitality. There are a lot of small businesses that are thriving. But there certainly is opportunity. What we really want to do is expose those opportunities and create strategies to really help bring vitality to the downtown. We want to see it more colorful.

Downtown Strategies goal is to implement a five-year plan for the downtown. The company will use the community's feedback from the workshop in its strategic plan.

Residents noted Frankfort Square and nearby historic buildings  like Glurs Tavern and Dusters - were a plus in regards to the area. However, they said that part of town is also hindered by the railroad tracks  which create noise and a divide to the downtown  and the lack of parking spaces.

Downtown Strategies Community Development Specialist Jeremy Murdock said in regards to downtown parking, he doesnt believe Columbus has an issue. However, he noted most people probably arent aware of certain parking locations, citing spots near the railroad tracks off of 12th Street as an example.

Downtown Business Association Coordinator Heather Giffrow  also the owner of downtown business TopStitch Upholstery  said she doesnt believe the railroad is an issue. Others also echoed her sentiments.

Yes, the trains are an issue but you learn to adapt, Giffrow said. Ive lived here (downtown) for about a year-and-a-half and to me, its white noise.

Murdock said the railroad is the reason why Columbus is in existence but it does create challenges.

Others at the workshop also expressed their hopes for potential businesses needed in the downtown.

Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce Membership and Community Engagement Director Sandie Fischer said while most of the downtown is filled with thriving businesses, she would like to see the old movie theater location - which is on 13th Street - be utilized. The building, which is currently unoccupied, is not being used to its full potential, she said.

Its sat there for numerous years, Fischer said. Its falling inside of itself.

Columbus Tire and Service Center owner Bob Stachura said he would also like to see a mens clothing store as current businesses are geared toward women.

Murdock said one of Downtown Strategies goals is to better utilize the shops, as well as buildings with second stories that arent currently being used.

Gregory said Downtown Strategies also hopes to create an identity for the downtown.

That way it can be positioned as a destination, she said.

Downtown Strategies Director of Real Estate Elliott Cook said the company also created a walkability assessment for the downtown and found Columbus meets quite a bit of its requirements. The assessment was based on three factors: walkable distance between boundaries, the presence of a comprehensive network of pathways for both pedestrians and cyclists and a variety of restaurants, retailers and service providers.

Its pretty pedestrian-friendly, Cook said.

Toward the end of last year, the Columbus City Council approved $85,000 for the chamber to bring in Retail and Downtown Strategies as a consultant on potential retail recruitment and downtown development. The funds come from the citys 840 Local Economic Development Fund.

Downtown Strategies staff also spent part of Thursday talking with other Columbus officials and took part in a walking tour of the downtown.

Gregory said she hoped that those who attended the workshop would feel energized by the positivity of what downtown Columbus brings to the community.

There are some challenges, she said. We had time to talk about those but primarily theres excitement. Theres interest. People want to invest in downtown. They want to experience new things downtown. I hope people walk away hopeful and enthusiastic because we are going to need them to help implement this plan. Our team is committed to jump-starting that implementation but were really going to need the entire community to support this and to participate in it. We believe that will happen.

Andrew Kiser is a reporter for The Columbus Telegram. Reach him via email at andrew.kiser@lee.net.

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For years  and even decades for some advocates  those in the industry of caring for adults with intellectual disabilities have fought for better recognition and better pay to help them provide better services.

And though the Arc of Cumberland and Perry Counties stayed afloat during the pandemic with staff hunkering down to help their clients and hazard pay helping temporarily increase those wages, the age of the great resignation and burnout is affecting them just as badly as others in the health care industry.

We have a caring crisis in this country, said Anne Couldridge, executive director of CPARC. Theres not enough people to do the personal care work. Ive had to make decisions I didnt think wed ever have to make.

Those decisions have included paring down the day programs, which has mostly hurt those who need one-on-one attention, and consolidating residential housing. Couldridge said CPARC has 28 properties from apartments for those who are more independent to group homes for those who need 24/7 care and supervision. Three group homes  which housed three people each and employed nine to 12 workers  have been closed due to staffing shortages.

Couldridge said she had to uproot someone who has been a resident with their program for 28 years and move them to another home. Its a concern thats grown into a crisis, and one advocates hope to solve by simply paying their staff higher wages.

In Pennsylvania, the wages for direct support professionals in IDD care are reimbursed by billing the state through Medicaid. The state government sets those reimbursement rates, and Gov. Tom Wolf years ago set up a system where those rates would be reevaluated every three years  a change from flat funding for years with no recourse.

The Wolf administration at the end of December released the newly proposed rates, adding $400 million in funding. Advocates argue that increase isnt enough to prevent the care crisis from getting worse.

In the proposed increase in fee schedule rates, the wage reimbursement would be set at about $15 an hour for community direct service providers, up about a dollar from the previous wage rate.

It is important to note that the Wolf administration does not dictate the wages providers pay, we establish rates, said Brandon Cwalina, press secretary for the state Department of Human Services. The proposed fee schedule increases are projected to be an additional $400 million in funding, which provides us an unprecedented opportunity to support services for people with intellectual disabilities and autism and those who have been supporting individuals and families in our communities throughout the pandemic.

We must consider rates in all human service areas (including home health care for long-term care and veterans care) and cannot provide rates outside of the market wages for just one program without considering the impact that would have on the entire system, he said.

Though Pennsylvania is not one of the states that has raised its minimum wage for all workers, some companies like Amazon, Target and CVS Health made the move on their own by offering wages as high as $15 an hour for starting employees. Its those companies to which advocates say they are losing their employees.

Couldridge also said community nonprofit organizations arent likely to be able to find extra funding to raise those wages above the reimbursement rates given the nature of their work.

We dont have the ability to increase the wages of our staff, she said, adding that she isnt able to cover shortages or increased costs by increasing prices for a product like companies do. But like those companies, she has to worry about costs of doing business, including wages, health insurance for staff, maintaining a fleet of vehicles, providing food for clients and paying for increasing gas prices. I have one budget to absorb all this. I cant shift anything to increase the staff wage.

Other advocates argue that $15 an hour is far lower than what the state pays its own direct service providers. According to Patrick DeMico, executive director of the Provider Alliance, the state sets the reimbursement rate for staff at its state-owned centers at $18.66 an hour, and sets starting wages at $14.29, compared to $12.94 an hour for community workers.

He said that while Pennsylvania regularly raises the wages for its state workers, the wages for community direct service providers will remain fixed for another three years until they are reevaluated again  with no promise that the wage will be raised.

Advocates said the $15-an-hour wage isnt enough to retain workers, with their industry seeing 30% or higher turnover even before the pandemic. Couldridge said that in addition to staff burning out from 70-hour work weeks, shes seeing staff leave because they can get higher wages elsewhere.

And with fewer staff to help with residential housing or day programs, that pushes the duty back onto families.

We cant fill 15,000 shifts on any given day, said Ruth Siegfried, president and CEO of InVision Human Services, which provides services in Pennsylvania. Thats incredibly dangerous if someone doesnt show up. Thousands of families cant leave home or go to work.

Wolfs proposed rates are public, and the state government is accepting comments on the fee schedule through Jan. 31. The governor will make a decision after that if the rates stay at that level, but advocates hope that he will instead use some of the states rainy day fund or American Rescue Plan funds to help increase the investment by another $70 million to $136 million in order to reach the $19-an-hour mark.

With the surplus budget and the other funds currently available, advocates say this may be the best and only time to bridge the gap.

If we lose this chance, it will never come back again, Siegfried said.

Email Naomi Creason at ncreason@cumberlink.com or follow her on Twitter @SentinelCreason

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The amount of control over certain aspects of life may change with aging. People lose spouses, siblings and friends. Various medical ailments deprive them of their mobility, eyesight or memory, and they must depend on others for help.

People experience this loss of control with a range of emotions. It can at least be frustrating. It may lead to a bout of depression. If there is prolonged physical pain or a total loss of bodily control, the person may wish for death to end the suffering.

Enough people have cared for a loved one with cancer or such neurological conditions as Parkinsons disease, multiple sclerosis or ALS that a common question comes up about a persons ability to take control over how the person dies.

Elder law planning is all about anticipating a potential decline in health and making decisions to control how property will be preserved and how medical decisions will be made. When it comes to planning ahead for end-of-life medical decisions, the health care power of attorney and living will empower each of us to name a trusted family member or friend to speak on our behalf to the doctor and make our medical decisions. The essence of the living will is that, for most people, a time will come when aggressive medical care to extend life is no longer compatible with quality of life. Pain medication and comfort measures become the focus.

Across the country, lawmakers have debated another form of end-of-life decision making. Instead of managing pain, discontinuing life-prolonging treatment, and waiting for an inevitable death from a terminal condition, some advocate for the right of a terminal patient to be prescribed medication that will end the patients life quickly and under the patients control. This issue goes by different names: physician-assisted suicide, medical aid in dying, and death with dignity.

Advocates for medical aid in dying believe that, if the patient is able to make an informed choice, it is only humane to give the patient the option of dying before the pain and deterioration become unbearable. Opponents consider it morally and ethically wrong to give active support to someone who may be feeling depressed, hopeless, lonely and fearful to seek death as the solution.

The purpose of this article is not to say whether medical aid in dying should or should not be allowed in Pennsylvania. Instead, the point is help people understand how policy makers have grappled with the issue.

A few states  Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Vermont and the District of Columbia  enacted laws to allow medical aid in dying. It became a lawful option in a couple of other states as a result of court decisions. In Pennsylvania, legislation to allow medical aid in dying has been introduced in every legislative session since 2007, but it has never moved out of the Judiciary Committee. Bills modeled after the Oregon law were introduced in the current session in the Senate and House of Representatives. Neither bill has been considered for a vote in committee.

The pending legislation in Pennsylvania proposes the following. A patient who is a Pennsylvania resident and at least 18 years of age would be eligible to receive a life-ending dose of medication if that patient is certified by two physicians to have a terminal condition that will result in death within six months. A physician or psychologist must confirm that the patient is capable of making an informed decision.

The attending physician would be obligated to inform the patient of alternatives, such as palliative or hospice care. The physician would be obligated to ensure that the patient is not under pressure to take the medication. The medication could not be administered before the patient has made two oral requests and one written request with waiting periods in between each request. The waiting period is seven days in the Senate bill and 15 days in the House bill. With guidance from the physician, the patient would self-administer the medication.

Under this legislation, certain people would be ineligible to receive medical aid in dying in Pennsylvania. The residency requirement would prevent people from traveling from other states to Pennsylvania for the purpose of ending their lives. Residency is typically established by selling the residence in the first state, buying or renting a home, getting a state-issued drivers license or photo ID, registering to vote, and having other indications of the intent to remain in the state.

Children would not be able to end their lives in this way, nor would adults who have lost the ability to speak or whose dementia has compromised their ability to understand the decision. The request for the medication would have to come from the patient, and not through a person acting under a power of attorney or advance health care directive. Although the proposed legislation requires some determination that the patient has the ability to make decisions, this is simply a test for the cognitive capacity to understand alternatives. The terms of the legislation do not disqualify a person whose thinking may be altered by anxiety, depression or grieving.

Those who are opposed to medical aid in dying point to evidence that people do not know enough about palliative and hospice care. They note that in Oregon, interest among eligible patients in the prescribed drug dropped significantly once the patients learned that an interdisciplinary hospice team could work to relieve pain, anxiety and family worries. Hospice care is covered by Medicare so that financial concerns do not add to the terminal patients distress.

The goal of hospice care is not to hasten death or prolong life. Hospice aims to enhance the quality of whatever time the patient has left. Opponents of medical aid in dying challenge the idea that there is power and control to be found in giving up in despair. While relieving physical symptoms, hospice supports the patient and the patients family to find joy, gratitude and connection in the face of a terminal illness.

Regardless of the outcome of the political and ethical debates on this issue in Pennsylvania, there is a broad range of planning available to people long before a diagnosis of terminal illness. There are trusts and powers of attorney for financial arrangements and advance directives to ensure that personal wishes for medical care will be honored. Too many people miss these opportunities to take control of their lives.

Learn about comprehensive estate and Medicaid planning at our free upcoming seminar: Later in Life Legal Planning with attorney Patrick Cawley. Three dates to choose from: Jan. 26, Feb. 2 or Feb. 16. All seminars begin at 6 p.m. and are in-person. The location is 555 Gettysburg Pike, Suite B-300, Mechanicsburg. RSVP by calling 717-697-3223. Seating is limited.

Find additional articles & resources at www.KeystoneElderLaw.com or join their Facebook group Later in Life Planning and Resources. Keystone Elder Law P.C. is located in Mechanicsburg. Call 717-697-3223 for a free telephone consultation with their care coordinator.

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For the third year in a row, Cap America Inc. donated $25,000 to the Marquand Zion School District. The donation will be used for continued building improvements and new ceiling installations.

Phil Page, who has recently transitioned from CEO of the company to chairman of the board, has worked to create a legacy of giving at Cap America. Page, along with his wife Mary, said they strongly believe that a solid educational foundation is essential to a thriving community and generously support local educational programs. Were not only investing in our local youth, but our future workforce, he said.

Maria Weekley, graduate of Marquand Zion High School and Cap America community outreach coordinator, said she was glad to once again be able to present the donation to her alma mater. Weekley states, I appreciate the opportunity to present this donation each year. Im thankful to work for a company with such a generous and giving culture and I hope other Marquand graduates will consider a career path with us as well.

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A group of 14 students from across the region recently graduated from the acclaimed Jefferson College EMT program as the class of 2021. Successful completion of the program and board examinations results in certification with NREMT (National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians) to become licensed in Missouri or work in most states.

2021 EMT graduates and Jefferson College EMT/Paramedic program personnel include: Anna Hanson, Arnold; Claire Parmer, St. Louis; Andrew Nahlik, Festus; Sidney Stewart, Festus; Sarah Lampe, St. Louis; Alexis Thomas, Crystal City; (second row) James Bringer, EMS Assistant Professor; Grant Huelster, Festus; Bryce Stewart, Perryville; Joshua Dacus, Arnold; Makenna LaChance, Farmington; Megan Leutzinger, De Soto; Lillian Ott, Arnold; Aiden Irelan, Festus; Madeline Morlan, Hillsboro; and Kayla Beckemeyer, EMT instructor.

Jefferson Colleges EMT/Paramedic program provides a state-of-the-art learning environment utilizing mannequins and realistic simulators that enable students to be prepared for real life emergencies.

Beyond a variety of individual and large area simulation labs, students are taught using real time video and audio recordings for trauma simulations, medical simulations, pediatric simulations, infant simulations, hospital simulations, and confined-area simulations (restroom, living room, etc.).

A career ladder in Emergency Medical Technology has been established, allowing students to stop at any level with job skills or progress to an Associate of Applied Science degree as a paramedic.

To learn more about the Jefferson College EMT/Paramedic program, related career pathways, and available degree programs, visit www.jeffco.edu/academics/programsdepartments/emt-paramedic, email Program Director Joseph Haack at jhaack@jeffco.edu or call (636) 481-3549 (TDD 789-5772).

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By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

The State Border Service has prevented 22.5 kg of drugs and 1,090 psychotropic substances from being smuggled into Azerbaijan from Iran, the service reported on its website on January 21.

The incidents were reported at the State Border Service's Horadiz and Lankaran border detachments.

On January 5, border guards detained two unknown people attempting to cross the Azerbaijan-Iran state border in the service area of the Horadiz border detachment's border post, which is located near the Karkhulu village in Jabrayil region.

Over 10 kg of drugs and 500 methadone-40 psychotropic pills were seized from Iranian citizens Zeynalli Yasir Aziz (27) and Ashigi Chapar Ismail (40) in two packages as a result of operational measures.

On January 9, border guards noticed two suspicious people approaching the Astara River from the Iranian side in the service area of the border post near Alasha village in Astara region. The suspects threw a package towards a riverbank on Azerbaijani territory.

The area was immediately closed as a result of the search operations, and 1.5 kg of drugs were seized.

On January 17, border guards detained a suspect attempting to flee the scene in the service area of the Horadiz border detachment's border post near Imamverdili village in Imishli region.

Azer Jafarov, a Kurdamir resident, was detained with over 11.1 kg of drugs and 590 methadone-40 psychotropic pills (32).

Ruhin Ismayilov (32), of Sharur region's Arbatan village, was detained and involved in the investigation as a result of search operations carried out to identify drug customers. During the investigation, the detainees admitted to being drug addicts.

An investigation into the cases has been launched. The State Border Service is continuing its search operations with success.
Area firefighters responded to a structure fire on Hillsboro Road outside Park Hills Thursday morning.

Emergency personnel was first dispatched at 5:35 a.m. to a mobile home on the 5600 block of Hillsboro Road near Farmer Road, outside Park Hills.

Park Hills Fire Chief Brad Weiss said crews arrived at the address to find the mobile home fully engulfed.

The chief said temperatures were frigid while firefighters battled the blaze, and they worked the property for just under three hours.

There were no injuries reported during the fire. The homeowner's pets were said to have escaped the burning structure unharmed.

Weiss said the cause of the fire was undetermined, but there was no indication that it was suspicious.

The Missouri Fire Marshal's Office was contacted since this was the second fire at the small mobile home park within about a year. The chief noted that the previous fire was due to an electrical space heater. Weiss speculated that Thursday's fire might also have been caused by some type of portable heater.

The home was declared a total loss. Weiss said he believed family members of the home's occupants were helping with temporary housing accommodations. The chief also provided contact information to the occupants for further assistance through the East Missouri Action Agency and the American Red Cross.

Helping the Park Hills Fire Department with Thursday morning's containment efforts were mutual aid fire companies from Wolf Creek, Farmington, Bonne Terre/Big River, and Bismarck.

Bobby Radford is a reporter for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at bradford@dailyjournalonline.com

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After years of watching Missouri voters amend the state constitution to raise the minimum wage, thwart Right-to-Work, expand Medicaid or legalize medical marijuana, Republican lawmakers are once again pushing to make the initiative petition process harder, according to a Missouri Independent article.

A measure sponsored by Rep. Mike Henderson, R-Bonne Terre, would ask voters to increase the number of signatures needed for initiative petitions to amend the constitution.

It would also ask them to raise the threshold for an initiative petition to be approved by voters, from a simple majority to a two-thirds majority.

We have one of the easiest procedure processes in the country for amending our constitution, Henderson said, about the measure during a committee hearing on Wednesday. Since the last Constitution was written in 1945, our Constitution has been amended more than 60 times.

Hendersons legislation is among nearly 20 proposals filed by Republicans that increase the requirements for initiative petitions to succeed. Republican proponents say the measures impede outside interests from pushing amendments to the Missouri Constitution.

However Democratic legislators, along with a number of voting advocates, spoke against the legislation on Wednesday, saying that it would take away the peoples power and voice.

Rep. David Smith, D-Columbia, said it reminds him of a scene from the 1980s film Wall Street. Michael Douglas plays a stockbroker who obtains a mass amount of wealth and power, and his protege asks him, How much power is enough?

I feel like thats whats going on here, said Smith, adding that its already difficult for Democrats to pass legislation as the minority party in Jefferson City.

My concern is its basically passing that burden on to the citizens now  that high threshold of getting things done, he said, referring to the two-thirds vote threshold. Its almost killing the initiative petition process to some degree, and I feel like we should be honest with people and tell them thats what its doing.

In recent years, Missouris constitution has been amended by initiative petition to rein in campaign spending, expand Medicaid eligibility and legalize medical marijuana.

During the Jan. 12 hearing, Rep. Jeff Coleman, R-Grain Valley, pointed to recent voter-approved constitutional amendments as the reason lawmakers need to take action.

Specifically, Coleman referenced the 2018 Clean Missouri initiative petition, which reworked the legislative redistricting process and was largely funded by out-of-state interests.

You can go back to Clean Missouri as a really good example in the monies that came into our state from outside because they wanted to change our Constitution, Coleman said.

Rep. Kevin Windham, D-Hillsdale, cited a study out of University of Missouri that found four-fifths of all proposed constitutional amendments between 1910 and 2008 were submitted to the voters by the General Assembly. And those proposals were more likely to be approved by the voters than the ones submitted through initiative petitions.

It seems like the General Assembly is the one making the Constitution more thick, Windham said.

Henderson said the General Assemblys proposals would also have to meet the two-thirds vote threshold.

Windham asked Henderson if he believes the changes would make it more expensive and difficult for grassroots initiative-petition efforts to succeed  and not just those backed by out-of-state groups.

Henderson said that he believes it would make it more difficult, but added, I think its worth it when were going to include all the people in the state of Missouri.

Under his proposal, petitions would have to be signed by 10% of the voters in every congressional district in the state. Currently, they must be signed by 8% of voters in two-thirds of the congressional districts in the state.

Last legislative session, Republicans pushed similar measures, but they didnt succeed. And many of the same advocates who fought them last year were there to testify again on Wednesday.

Marilyn McLeod, president of the League of Women Voters of Missouri, said Missouris initiative petition system has been in place for more than 100 years and its a state treasure.

Our organization believes that the two-thirds [vote] of an election is so high that its virtually impossible to reach, McLeod said, so that just seems an unnecessary lift.

The legislation Henderson sponsored, HJR 79, was voted on and passed out of the Elections Committee this week. If the resolution is signed, voters could see a question on the ballot asking them if they would like to raise the requirements to two-thirds of a vote before voters can change Missouri law.

In 2018, Missouri's Right-to-Work referendum initiated by Missouri's Republican Legislature and signed by then-Gov. Eric Greitens, was voted down by just over two-thirds of the voting precincts, 67%, and the medical marijuana issue passed with 66% of the vote. Medicaid expansion and the minimum wage increases would not have passed, having garnered less than 66% of Missouri voters' approval.

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An Albemarle County teen has been charged with making social media threats to Albemarle County High School earlier this month.

Brayan Jafet Galeas Oliva, 18, was charged Wednesday with threatening the high school on Jan. 11, according to a release from the Albemarle County Police Department. Specifically, the felony charge alleges that Oliva made threats of death or bodily injury to a person or member of his family; threats of death or bodily injury to persons on school property; and threats of death or bodily injury to health care providers.

This incident follows three arrests made in December following online threats made against Western Albemarle High School on Nov. 18 and Albemarle High School on Nov. 3. Three juveniles  two of whom are local  were charged in connection with online threats made against the two Albemarle high schools.

No hearings are currently set for Olivas case.
Albemarle County will now pay about $15 an hour to community members who serve on a working group to help county staff work on the countys Comprehensive Plan update.

The Board of Supervisors this week voted unanimously to pay about $1,000 per person for group members who will work on parts of the Comprehensive Plan public engagement process and plan content.

But board members questioned some of the questions on the application for the working group, how members will be caught up to date on planning concepts and how the at-large community will be involved in the process.

The Comprehensive Plan is the countys guiding document for long-term planning, including land use and resource protection. The overall plan includes master plans for designated development areas of the county as well as small area plans.

Michaela Accardi, a county senior planner, said compensating working group members is an approach that has been used to integrate equity and inclusion into planning processes.

The primary goal for compensation is to remove barriers and encourage applicants from communities in Albemarle County that have been underrepresented in our planning processes, she said.

Other agencies and governments in the state have compensated committee members for their service, such as the University of Virginia, the Blue Ridge Health District, Richmond and Arlington County.

Supervisor Diantha McKeel said she was supportive of paying community members and using this effort as a test of the process.

I do think we keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, she said. Its kind of wackadoodle, so Im ready to break out of that model weve been using and try something different.

Some possible barriers staff cited were the additional cost of childcare, time away from work and transportation access.

The document helps guide future zoning changes and other policy priorities. The county is planning to update the document in four phases and estimate it will be completed in 2024.

The eight to 12 members of the group have yet to be selected. Officials hope to attract members of historically underrepresented groups in planning processes. Thats a large target and includes younger than 35; over 65; renters; those with less than a bachelors degree; multi-lingual; Black, Hispanic or Latino; foreign-born or non-U.S. citizens; work in Albemarle; or want to live in the county.

Essentially, this group as a sounding board to ensure that our materials are accessible and understandable before we share out to the general public, said Rachel Falkenstein, a county planning manager. We will also look to the working group to provide input on plan recommendations that would be brought forward to the Planning Commission and board.

Board Chair Donna Price said people between 30 and 50 years old might be the age group from which the county should seek the largest number of working group members.

Those at the younger age scale may not have enough life experiences to be able to fully contribute and those of the upper age scale may be a little more narrowly focused as senior citizens, she said.

Supervisor Ann H. Mallek said all changes supported by the working group should be brought to the whole general public before theyre made in documents.

I understand were trying very hard to reach new but we also have to figure out a way to keep all of the ongoing public discussion happening so those who are interested, no matter where they are, have a chance to learn what the current state of discussion is, she said.

County staff said there will be a project website launched before the end of January with information on upcoming public engagement opportunities and the working group application.

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A new on-demand transit service could be coming to residents in the U.S. 29 North and Pantops areas.

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has agreed to contribute $450,000 towards a possible micro transit demonstration grant for a pilot project through the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

Micro transit is a phone app-based, demand-response service that doesnt have a set route or series of bus stops. Providers typically use vans or specific vehicles for shared rides. The pilot projects were recommended from an Albemarle County Transit Expansion Feasibility Study and Implementation Plan.

If the grant is awarded, the pilot micro transit service could start as early as January 2023.

Were recommending that it would be an 18 month grant that would cover six months of advertising, vehicle acquisition and training, things like that, and then you can have 12 months of service, said Nick Britton with consulting firm Michael Baker International.

After the pilot is complete, Britton said the cost to continue the service would be an estimated $1.75 million a year.

Supervisors were supportive of the pilot.

Our community is really excited and eager for the on-demand model, I think, Supervisor Diantha McKeel said. Weve been talking about this now for a long time, so this gets us started  we can see how to structure it, what we might do to change it.

Charlottesville Area Transit will apply for the grant, and, if awarded, would provide the micro transit service either directly or by contracting the service to a third party.

Garland Williams, CATs director, said his agency is in the process of purchasing 25-seat vehicles that could be used for the project. He said they should be in the city by December.

A study recommended pilot programs in all three study areas  U.S. 29 North, Pantops and the area near and around Monticello  and the study team suggested the U.S. 29 North and Pantops area services would be competitive for state grant funding.

The recommendations were developed based on feedback from stakeholders in transit and the public. The recommendations were gathered through meetings and an online survey that had 159 submissions.

We assumed that this would be a weekday only service operating from about 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. and three micro transit vehicles would need to be in use in order to ensure 15 minute or better wait times, said Boris Palchik, with Foursquare ITP, one of the consultants who worked on the study.

The plan recommends that the U.S. 29 North project provide micro transit service to mainly the countys development area from Rio Road north to Dickerson Road.

Pantops, which would have service in the development area, was also recommended to provide weekday only service with one vehicle in the area regularly and possibly sharing a vehicle with the other service area.

When it comes to the Monticello area, it was recommended that it be tied into a larger micro transit zone that includes the neighborhoods south of Interstate 64.

However, it would require two vehicles to serve this area, and there arent currently two vehicles that are available and programmed for micro transit service, Palchik said. This would need to be a longer term recommendation.

He said CAT was asked to run the services because they would be provided in the regions urbanized area.

It seemed most appropriate for CAT to be the operator and the grant applicant given that its within the urbanized area, which is traditionally CATs service area, Palchik said.

The study and plan were focused on county transit and what could be done immediately said Jessica Hersh-Ballering, the countys principal planner for transportation. There is also a longer Regional Transit Vision Plan study ongoing.

The county board agreed to provide $30,000 for a study to look at how to manage the areas transit operations.

Consultants have already started to consider recommendations for a regional authority, which could collect additional revenue in support of regional transit planning and services.

It should be noted that a regional transit authority will be among the best and funding structures evaluated by this study, but it wont be the only governance structure considered, Hersh-Ballering said.

The Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission will apply for a technical assistance grant to partially fund the study. Technical assistance grants require a 50% local match, which would be divided between the planning district, Albemarle County and Charlottesville.

We could go on forever with the regional transit partnership and keep doing what were doing, but if we really want to move transit forward in our community this is the next step, McKeel said.

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A Louisa County was sentenced by U.S. District Court judge on Thursday to 12 years in prison for possession of images depicting the sexual abuse of children.

Ian Andrew Zearley, 40, pleaded guilty to the charge last summer. Court documents show that Zearley was charged with possessing the materials while free on supervised release for a previous conviction for possession of child pornography.

Because of his prior conviction, and condition of his release, law enforcement was monitoring Zearleys computer usage and discovered he had searched for real hardcore child porn, and boys severely whipped and bleeding.

Police also discovered Zearley had authored two stories that described, in graphic detail, the rape and abuse of young boys.

Police searched Zearleys house and found business cards indicating Zearley was the president of the Pedophile Associates of America.

They also found electric shock equipment, pepper spray, a ski mask, a pellet gun, a list of childrens names and how Zearley knew each child. Childrens items, such as diapers, bottles, and toys were found in the search plus eight computer-generated images of child sex abuse.

Mr. Zearley was on supervised release when he not only possessed images of the sexual abuse of children, but horrific tools that showed he was on the precipice of effectuating his violent fantasies towards children, United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said Thursday. I am grateful to the FBI, U.S. Probation Office, and the U.S. Marshals Service for bringing this defendant to justice before he could commit additional harm to our community.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin will appoint Carrie Roth to lead the Virginia Employment Commission, an embattled state agency that has struggled to process and pay almost two million claims for unemployment benefits in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roth, a Michigan native who grew up in Chesterfield County, has been a prominent Republican political appointee since the administration of Gov. George Allen more than 25 years ago and served as deputy secretary of commerce and trade under Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter confirmed the appointment on Friday.

Roth served as president and CEO of the Virginia Bio+Tech Park in Richmond from 2013, after the retirement of former Allen Cabinet secretary Bob Skunda, until last February, when she founded an entrepreneurial consulting firm, Rerouted.

She also served as press secretary for Allen during his one term in the U.S. Senate.

Former Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, appointed Roth to the Virginia Board of Workforce Development last year.

Roth replaces Ellen Marie Hess, an attorney who had served as a state government employee for more than 25 years, including six as commissioner of the VEC. Unlikely to be reappointed by Youngkin, she announced her retirement to agency staff earlier this month.

Previously, Hess served as deputy commissioner at the Department of Motor Vehicles, another state agency, along with the VEC, that Youngkin has targeted for "transformation" in his emerging administration.

Both agencies have been pilloried by Republicans critical of the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The VEC, in particular, has struggled to promptly handle unemployment claims after the pandemic triggered the loss of more than 400,000 jobs in one month in 2020s.

Hess was the defendant in a federal lawsuit filed last spring by advocates for five unemployed women. The legal action became a de facto class action suit that U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson dismissed last month after finding that the state agency had satisfied the terms of a settlement agreement reached last May to improve its performance.
Virginians with no symptoms should avoid using up the states strained supply of COVID-19 tests, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Thursday, as the state works to refocus its supply on hospitals, nursing homes and schools.

Youngkin, who opposes vaccine mandates, also said the state will boost resources and efforts to encourage the 1.6 million unvaccinated Virginians to get the shot. Youngkin will host and attend vaccination events, according to his office.

The new testing guidelines and vaccine strategy are part of a plan the Youngkin administration announced Thursday to assuage the impact of the COVID-19 surge facing Virginia and the rest of the nation.

The latest surge, fueled by the omicron variant, is straining the states health care resources: On Thursday, 3,871 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, the highest number of hospitalizations since the pandemic started; 635 were in intense-care units.

The new plan is the fourth action on COVID-19 the new administration has issued: On Saturday, his first day in office, Youngkin issued orders allowing parents to opt out of local school mask requirements, doing away with the vaccine mandate for state employees, and calling for a review of the states workplace safety guidelines for COVID-19 crafted by the Northam administration.

Youngkin also promised to fight the federal vaccine mandate for health care workers.

TestingAside from people without symptoms, the state is asking healthy individuals with mild symptoms to stay home and use discretion on testing. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Virginia Department of Health have been advising anyone with a known exposure to COVID-19 to get tested, and those with mild symptoms to isolate until they get a negative test.

Many people relied on tests, particularly rapid tests, during the holidays to avoid spread during social and family gatherings.

Directives from public health experts have been increasingly difficult to follow as the nation and state face a shortage of rapid tests, and backlogs in diagnostic tests, known as PCRs. Former Gov. Ralph Northam said earlier this month that the state had a strong supply of PCRs, but was struggling to open up clinics to administer them because of staffing shortages.

This week, the federal government began taking orders for free rapid tests it will ship to households across the nation. Every address is entitled to four tests, regardless of household size or risk of developing severe illness.

Under the new guidelines, the state will discourage mass testing for the purpose of pre-screening a crowd for infections. Some workplaces and event venues have been using mass testing as a safeguard.

The Youngkin administration said prioritizing testing will help mitigate supply-chain shortages. It has directed the state health commissioner to draft new guidance for the public around how and when people should get tested.

The new guidance will prioritize tests for students exposed to COVID-19, essential workers, vulnerable citizens and their caregivers, nursing home residents over 65, and anyone directed to get a test by their health care provider.

As part of its new plan, it will also redeploy unused tests at non-essential state agencies and facilities to schools, hospitals and nursing facilities.

VaccinesYoungkins new vaccine plan directs the states health secretary to re-prioritize agency resources to vaccine education and outreach, including disproportionately unvaccinated communities.

A statewide look shows rural Southwest Virginia has the lowest vaccination rates compared with the rest of the state. Black Virginians are slightly less likely than Latino and white Virginians to be vaccinated at 55% compared with 68% and 59% respectively, according to data from the Virginia Department of Health.

Children between the ages of 5 and 17 have a 44% vaccination rate, compared with 79% for people above the age of 18, according to VDH.

Youngkins plan includes hosting 120 vaccination events, deploying additional mobile vaccine units to rural communities, and empowering Virginia with choices, not mandates.

HospitalsYoungkin also issued an executive order Thursday giving hospitals and nursing homes regulatory flexibility to ramp up their number of beds and build up their staffsin line with an executive order that Northam issued earlier this month.

The Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association thanked Youngkin for the order on hospital capacity, calling them important flexibilities.

An effective hospital response to this surge necessitates support from the public and partners in government to ensure continuity of operations so that patients can receive the care they need, said VHHA President and CEO Sean Connaughton.
As I awoke Jan. 19, I opened my laptop and clicked onto the E-Edition of the Daily Progress, as is my habit. When I arrived at the editorial page, I found myself tremendously refreshed with the three columns that appeared there. The editorial, along with Editor Lynne Anderson's introduction of the Editorial Page Editor Jim Spencer, in combination with Spencer's piece on keeping our democracy secure gave me great pleasure seeing the emphasis on the importance of pursuing truth in the writings of our daily paper. I'm uncertain where I heard it and, therefore, can't attribute it, but the saying is that America suffers from a strong case of "truth decay" and that a democracy cannot survive without a basic agreement as to facts.

I spent the past six years as a volunteer for One Virginia 2021 working to pursue an end to the infection of gerrymandering in our Commonwealth. It seems that we have made some progress in these past couple of years in doing away with this hyper-partisan process. As I testified on several occasions before the General Assembly, I asked our representatives to remember that we live in the cradle of democracy and that their votes should be cast as though they are truly representatives of we, the people.

In working with One Virginia 2021, I purchased a banner that read Restoring Democracy, and that is still a goal that we should all join together to pursue. It currently is being severely threatened by our hyper-partisan dysfunction. I'd like to be the first to welcome both Lynne and Jim, as it seems they are putting forth a path to accomplish this goal.

Joe Shaver

Crozet
By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Austrian counterpart Alexander Schallenberg have discussed regional security and cooperation, the ministry reported on January 20.

As part of his working visit, Bayramov briefed his counterpart in Vienna on the situation in the region following the conflict with Armenia, as well as the large-scale restoration and construction work carried out by Azerbaijan in its liberated lands.

Noting that the end of the occupation provided opportunities for the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the minister emphasized the importance of adhering strictly to international law principles.

The parties also discussed bilateral cooperation, relationship prospects, and the tremendous potential for bilateral economic cooperation and business ties.

Government officials emphasized the importance of holding a number of events marking the 30th anniversary of Azerbaijani-Austrian diplomatic relations in 2022.

Furthermore, the ministers discussed Azerbaijani-EU cooperation, as well as other topics of mutual interest.

Bayramov left for a working visit to Austria on January 18. As part of the visit, the minister attended the opening meeting of the OSCE Security Cooperation Forum chaired by Azerbaijan.

Bayramov was to attend bilateral meetings with OSCE and Austrian officials of OSCE and Austria during the visit.
Meals on Wheels in Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties has been struggling to meet increased demand for meals for older adults and adults with disabilities.

The program has seen a 20% uptick in requests throughout the pandemic, further isolating a population in need, according to a news release from the organization.

But assistance has come in the form of a $13,000 grant.

The grant was awarded to the Meals on Wheels Program of the Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments by a partnership of the Rotary Club of Corvallis and the Greater Corvallis, Philomath, Albany and Newport clubs to obtain matching grant funding from Rotary District 5110.

The funding allows for procurement, packaging and delivery of 1,106 nutritionally appropriate meals. Research indicates that high nutrition risk, a social determinant of health, often results in increased medical expenses due to frequent hospitalizations and nursing home stays.

This is the second of two grants totaling more than $31,000 provided to the tri-county Meals on Wheels program by partnering Rotary clubs since the pandemic began.

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By Azernews

By Sabina Mammadli

Senior Turkish officials have stated that Azerbaijan's pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020 will increase the country's popularity and strengthen its international trade relations.

During their visit to the UAE, Turkish Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli and Parliament Speaker Mustafa Shentop made similar remarks while visiting the Heydar Aliyev Center's pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020.

"It is an honor to be a guest at Azerbaijan's pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai." After reviewing Azerbaijan's pavilion. I hope this will help popularize Azerbaijan's pavilion and establish trade relations," Shentop wrote in a memorial book.

Meanwhile, Pakdemirli stated that he is pleased "to see that fraternal Azerbaijan exhibits its culture, history, and products in the best possible way".

"I hope that the pavilion will help to popularize Azerbaijan, as well as establish and strengthen trade ties."

Notably, Azerbaijan is represented at the Dubai Expo 2020 by the Heydar Aliyev Center's pavilion.

Expo 2020 is a World Expo that is held in Dubai, UAE, from October 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022.

The event was postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the postponement, organizers retained the name Expo 2020.

On November 27, 2013, the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) general assembly in Paris named Dubai as the host city.

"Connecting Minds, Creating the Future" is the Expo's theme.
Brazil has one of the largest mobile markets in Latin America due to the sheer size of its population. Healthy competition in the mobile market has helped reduce the price of mobile services in Brazil in recent years and mobile service providers have had much success in converting their customers from prepaid to contract plans.

Mobile broadband take-up has been rapid, with around 250 million subscriptions as of October arch 2021, bringing the penetration rate to 117%.

The principal telcos include Telefonica Brasil, operating fixed-line and mobile services under the Vivo brand, as well as America Movil operating services under the Claro brand. Oi also offers a range of services though the companys financial difficulties recently forced the company to sell its mobile, tower and data centre units in a bid to reduce debt.

The multi-spectrum auction, intended to push the development of 5G, was scheduled for March 2020 but was delayed due to interference issues with satellite TV broadcasts and the pandemic. The auction was completed in November 2021, and spectrum was assigned in the following month. The licensees are obliged to provide 5G services to all capital cities by July 2022, as well as about 35,500km of the national highway network.

The country also has one of the largest fixed line broadband markets in Latin America, though broadband penetration is only slightly above the regional average, trailing behind Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. Amendments to the licensing regime adopted in October 2019 also require that ISPs which have switched to authorisations invest money saved from lighter regulations in the expansion of broadband services.

The fixed line broadband market has seen rapid growth for a number of years, with a growing focus on fibre broadband. In 2019 the number of fibre accesses overtook DSL connections. Vivo has the largest share of the fibre market, followed by Oi and Claro.

The country is a key landing point for a number of important submarine cables connecting to the US, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Several new cable systems are due to come into service through to 2022, which will increase bandwidth and push down broadband prices for end-users. Investments have also been made into terrestrial fibre cables between Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.

The traditional fixed-line market continues to suffer from consumers substituting services for mobile and fixed broadband solutions.

This report provides a review of Brazils telecom market, including infrastructure and the regulatory environment. It profiles the main fixed-line operators and provides relevant statistics and analyses. The report also covers the mobile voice and data segments, providing a range of statistics and analyses, as also subscriber forecasts. In addition, the report reviews the fixed and fixed-wireless broadband sectors, including an assessment of technologies and regulatory influences.

Key developments:

Regulator concludes multi-spectrum 5G auction;

IHS completes its acquisition of a 51% stake in FiberCo;

BTG Pactual buys 58% of Ois fibre business Infraco for $2.3 billion;

Regulator allows accredited MVNOs to sign access agreements with more than one MNO;

Algar Telecom acquires Vogel Telecom, adds 3,400 corporate clients;

Regulator allows operators with spectrum in the 850MHz band to extend their concessions until the end of November 2028;

Tannat submarine cable connecting Brazil and Argentina ready for service;

Telefonica Brasil and CDPQ create wholesale fibre broadband business, dubbed FiBrasil;

America Movil spins off towers and other related passive infrastructure in its Latin American markets;

Operators launch 5G services on a limited basis;

Report update includes the regulator's market data updates to June 2021 and operator data to Q3 2021, updated Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the pandemic on the telecom sector, recent market developments.

Get a Full Copy of this Report

Developing Telecoms market report summaries are produced in partnership with BuddeComm, the worlds largest continually updated online telecommunications research service.

The above article is a summary of the following BuddeComm report:

Report title: Brazil - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Edition: December 2021

Lead Analyst: Henry Lancaster

Number of pages: 363

Companies mentioned in this report: Telefonica Brasil (Vivo), Brisanet, BTG Pactual, TIM Brasil, Claro, Huawei, Oi, Nextel Brasil, CTBC/Algar Telecom, Sercomtel Celular, Vodafone Brazil/ARQIA, Embratel, Ericsson, Google, GVT, Universo Online (UOL), Net Servicos de Comunicacao, Intelig, Neovia, Eletropaulo Telecom, Copel, BuscaPe, Global Crossing, Star One, TelesatBrasil, Hispamar, Telebras, Intelig

Single User PDF Licence Price: US$1390

For more information or to purchase a copy of the full report please use the following link: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Brazil-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?r=83

This article is an update to a previous BuddeComm report.
Lebanons state operator Ogero has confirmed it has enough diesel fuel to ensure the continuity of its internet and voice offerings until June.

Last weekend, half of Beirut experience disruptions in Ogeros internet service as a result of insufficient diesel to power its generators. The operators Chairman Director General Imad Kreidieh hit out at the Ministry of Telecommunications, alleging that political red tape was to blame for the supply delays, and threatened to resign if the situation did not improve.

Local news outlet Naharnet quoted telecoms minister Johnny Corm as saying that Ogero had procured sufficient fuel to power its generators for five months. TeleGeography reported that the ministry was in the process of finalising its budget and expected to confirm this next week.

Fuel shortages are a major issue in Lebanon, affecting Ogero along with state mobile operators Alfa and Touch. The scarcity of diesel is causing widespread service outages as the providers are unable to fuel their generators in order to power their networks  and the operators reliance on diesel is an issue in itself, caused by problems with the national grid.

Last October, the countrys two main power plants ran out of fuel, causing a nationwide blackout lasting days. This has resulted in operators relying on generators to ensure service continuity, sending costs skyrocketing. The three state-run providers have forecast fuel to account for up to two-thirds of their costs this year, and the collapse of Lebanons currency has left them unable to acquire network equipment from overseas manufacturers.

Speaking to Reuters, Corm noted that the operators were beset with problems, with cable theft on the rise but more pressingly as much as 50% of the Alfa and Touchs workforce not turning up to work. He added that urgently required tariff changes could not be implemented without cabinet approval, but a clash over the 2020 port explosion in Beirut had left the ministers at loggerheads, refusing to meet for three months.
News

Everyone at the Embassy of Ireland in Denmark would like to give our best wishes to Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II and congratulate her on the 50 year anniversary of her accession to the throne.




Texas Man Arrested for Making Election-Related Threats to Government Officials

A Texas man was arrested today in Travis County, Texas, for allegedly sending threatening election-related communications to government officials on Jan. 5, 2021.

Chad Stark, 54, of Leander, was arrested this morning in a law enforcement operation carried out by the FBI. He is scheduled to make his initial appearance this afternoon at the federal courthouse in Austin, Texas.

This is the first criminal case brought by the Justice Departments Election Threats Task Force. Announced by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and launched by Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco in late June 2021, the task force is leading the departments efforts to address threats of violence against election workers, and to ensure that all election workers  whether elected, appointed or volunteer  are able to do their jobs free from threats and intimidation. The task force engages with the election community and state and local law enforcement to assess allegations and reports of threats against election workers, and investigates and prosecutes these matters where appropriate, in partnership with FBI field offices and U.S. Attorneys Offices throughout the country as warranted.

The Justice Department has a responsibility not only to protect the right to vote, but also to protect those who administer our voting systems from violence and illegal threats of violence, said Attorney General Garland. The departments Election Threats Task Force, working with partners across the country, will hold accountable those who violate federal law by using violence or threatening violence to target election workers fulfilling their public duties.

Todays arrest confirms the FBIs commitment in our pursuit of justice against those who choose to threaten violence against anyone participating in our elections, said FBI Director Christopher Wray. Election workers striving to protect our right to a fair and democratic process deserve nothing less than the utmost safety and assurance they can accomplish their roles without interference. The FBI will continue to focus on our mission of protecting these individuals and the important work they do, as well as every Americans right to vote.

The intimidation of those in charge of carrying out free and fair elections in this country is against the law and cannot go unchecked, said U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine for the Northern District of Georgia. When someone threatens an election official working at any level of the voting process  whether that be an elected office holder or a volunteer poll worker  our democracy is put in jeopardy. We are grateful to all of those who endeavor to secure our elections and our democracy. We must protect them all.According to the indictment, on Jan. 5, 2021, Stark allegedly posted a message to Craigslist entitled, Georgia Patriots its time to kill [Official A] the Chinese agent - $10,000. The message stated:

Georgia Patriots its time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors. Its time to invoke our Second Amendment right its time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges. Its our duty as American Patriots to put an end to the lives of these traitors and take back our country by force we can no longer wait on the corrupt law enforcement in the corrupt courts. If we want our country back we have to exterminate these people. One good loyal Patriot deer hunter in camo and a rifle can send a very clear message to these corrupt governors.. milita up Georgia its time to spill blood. we need to pay a visit to [Official C] and her family as well and put a bullet her behind the ears. Lets be very clear to our local law enforcement who have stood down and watch BLM antifa destroy our country and kill our citizens yet youll step up to stop Patriot supporters youll enforce face mask and youll close American businesses??? Remember one thing local law enforcement the key word being local.. we will find you oathbreakers and were going to pay your family to visit your mom your dad your brothers and sisters your children your wife were going to make examples of traitors to our country death to you and all you communist friends.

Organized by Deputy Attorney General Monaco, the Election Threats Task Force is led by the Criminal Divisions Public Integrity Section and includes several other entities within the Department of Justice, including the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division, the Civil Rights Division, the National Security Division and the FBI, as well as key interagency partners, such as the Department of Homeland Security. For more information regarding the Justice Departments efforts to combat threats against election workers, read the Deputy Attorney Generals memo.

To report suspected threats or violent acts, contact your local FBI office and request to speak with the Election Crimes Coordinator. Contact information for every FBI field office may be found at https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/. You may also contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324) or file an online complaint at tips.fbi.gov. Complaints submitted will be reviewed by the task force and referred for investigation or response accordingly. If someone is in imminent danger or risk of harm, contact 911 or your local police immediately.

Stark is charged with one count of communicating interstate threats. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBIs Atlanta Field Office is investigating the case.

Deputy Director Sean F. Mulryne of the Criminal Divisions Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Alan Gray of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Georgia are prosecuting the case.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

This story has been published on: 2022-01-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
By Trend

Former Ambassador Eldar Hasanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

The case of a former ambassador, who is accused of forgery and a number of other heinous crimes, was still considered at a meeting of the Baku Grave Crimes Court chaired by Judge Afgan Hajiyev on Jan. 21.

During the trial, the accused, not pleading guilty, asked the judge to acquit him. After the deliberations of the judges, the verdict was read to Hasanov.

Hasanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Moreover, Hasanov is banned to hold office for three years. All his property will be confiscated.

During the investigation, there were grounds for suspicion that while working as an ambassador of Azerbaijan to Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro in 2010-2020, Hasanov, colluding with a group of people, squandered and misappropriated 17.9 million manat (16.9 million euros) under the pretext of purchasing new administrative buildings for embassies.

Hasanov also legalized 11.8 million manat (11.1 million euros) under the pretext of carrying out repair and construction work, knowing that these funds were obtained through crime.

Moreover, Hasanov committed official forgery by writing false information into the official documents.

As an official, having abused the official powers, Hasanov caused great damage to the legally protected interests of the state in the amount of 327,373 manat (180,728 euros) and also misused budget funds in the amount of 192,387 manat (101,761 euros).

In this regard, Hasanov was charged upon articles 179.3.2 (misappropriation or embezzlement of funds on a huge scale), 193-1.3.2 (legalization of money in a huge scale or other property obtained through crimes), 308.2 (abuse of power, entailing grave consequences), 308-1.1 (peculation of state budget funds) and 313 (forgery).

The criminal case against other perpetrators of the crimes, in which Hasanov was also charged, has been included in other proceedings and the investigation is underway.




Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a nation to care for an Army, according to former Sgt. Maj. of the Army (SMA) Daniel Dailey.

The retired SMA was the guest speaker at the Fort Rucker  Wiregrass Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) luncheon recently held at the Dothan Civic Center. Dailey serves as the vice president of Noncommissioned Officer and Soldier Programs for AUSA national.

Dailey said AUSA operates with a small staff to oversee the day-to-day business. Still, it is blessed to have a global community of volunteers made up of veterans, military family members, community members, and caring citizens. They comprise an organization made up of seven regions that span across the country and the globe, he said.

Dailey noted those volunteers throughout the regions are the lifeblood of AUSA because they carry out the mission to educate, inform and connect Americans with soldiers and our Army. Members and businesses that are community partners or chapter sponsors not only are part of the oldest military service association, but they also know that 100 percent of their proceeds help the chapter take care of soldiers and their families.

The association serves active-duty soldiers, national guard, reservists, and veterans. These are the men and women, Dailey said, who leave their family, friends, and hometowns to endure some of the most austere conditions, deploy all over the world and defend the rights, freedoms, and liberties of their countrymen and women. In many cases, they will re-enlist to do it again, and again, and again  put their own lives on hold, and accept far less compensation working nights, weekends, and holidays, he said.

We have the best Army in the world because we have the best soldiers in the world, he said. They have spent more time in combat than any previous generation in American history, and they have prevailed.

Dailey said he is proud to be part of an organization like AUSA dedicated to supporting the American soldier, the nations greatest resource.

The pandemic did not slow AUSA down in its fight for soldiers. Dailey said the team conducted more than 100 virtual leaders development sessions with soldiers, ranging from a squad to 6,000. They assisted the national guard and the Army Reserve with the execution of virtual drills to keep those soldiers paid when many of them were losing pay or being laid-off due to COVID-19. We pressed hard on Capitol Hill advocating for important things like pandemic relief, passing of the National Defense Authorization Act, pay raises for soldiers, increases in Basic Allowance for Housing to offset some of the effects of the explosive housing market and more, he said.

At the end of 2020, the national association kept everyone at work, continued to support the chapters, increased membership, and pledged $2 million to the Army Emergency Relief fund to help families struggling with food needs.

Although tough times are not behind us yet, Dailey said there is hope somewhere out in front. Despite hard times, AUSA will be here for our Army, and in fact, it's the hard times when the Army needs us the most, he said. Thank you for sticking with us, thanks for riding out the storm with the Fort Rucker  Wiregrass Chapter and thank you for helping row AUSA through the waves.

For information on how to join the Fort Rucker  Wiregrass Chapter of AUSA go to www.ausawiregrass.org and look under the INFORMATION box.

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Plans for the Moody Building in downtown Dothan include affordable apartments designed for older adults with a special focus on veterans.

Dothan City Manager Kevin Cowper discussed details with members of the Houston County Commission during the commissions Thursday administrative meeting. Monday, county commissioners will vote on Cowpers request for the county to demolish two commercial buildings adjacent to the former hospital.

This project is envisioned to be the same type of project as the Howell School, Cowper said. Well preserve the historic Moody Hospital structure; well construct a second building on the property. There will be a total of, I believe, 58 apartment units for senior housing and will be specifically targeted for veterans to occupy.

Along with senior apartments, the Moody project also involves building a new complex for local veteran services, creating a one-stop-shop for veterans. It would include the Veterans Affairs office currently housed on the grounds of the Houston County Farm Center.

The plan to redevelop the Moody Building is a larger $20 million project that will encompass an entire block around the former hospital. The developer, the Banyan Foundation, is the same group behind the redevelopment of the old Howell School property, which is now senior living apartments, as well as the redevelopment of the former Johnson Homes public housing complex.

Dr. Earle Farley Moody opened Moody Hospital at the North Alice Street site in 1919. The hospital closed in 1965, and the building was later used as offices. The Moody Building has been vacant for more than two decades.

The Dothan City Commission appropriated $1.64 million to the Dothan Downtown Redevelopment Authority to buy properties for the Moody project, which is also bordered by West Adams, North Bell, and West Burdeshaw streets. Demolition of some of the houses on Bell Street has already occurred.

Cowper said the developer is working to secure tax credits for redeveloping the property. The DDRA will eventually sell the property back to the developer and recoup the citys cost of purchasing the properties. The city also plans to dedicate Community Development Block Grant funds and will end up with about a $900,000 investment, the city manager said.

In looking to save money, the city is turning to Houston County to handle the demolition of the commercial buildings. Cowper said the countys Road and Bridge Department has equipment better suited for the demolition of those buildings.

Houston County Commissioners seemed supportive of the overall project as well as the countys participation.

Obviously, budgets are tight here, and were trying to save money anywhere we can, Cowper said. This would help us save some money and deliver this much-needed product to our community.

Other projects on St. Andrews Street and an old motel on Oates Street will provide market-rate housing for downtown, Cowper said. Like the Howell School project, the Moody project will provide more affordable housing downtown while also furthering the citys overall neighborhood redevelopment goals, he said.

If youre going to redevelop your neighborhoods, keep your neighborhoods strong, youve got to seed in some strength and bring some people back into those neighborhoods, establish higher property values and have people reinvest in those neighborhoods, Cowper said. So, this is an important anchor project for that side of town.

Peggy Ussery is a Dothan Eagle staff writer and can be reached at aussery@dothaneagle.com or 334-712-7963. Support her work and that of other Eagle journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at dothaneagle.com.

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Houston County is in a holding pattern when it comes to selling the Houston County Farm Center.

The county hasnt received a formal offer from the City of Dothan and cant move forward with its first offer from a Florida company.

So, for now, the farm center arena will continue to be used as storage and its business as usual at the agencies and groups housed on the grounds.

We cant move forward with any sale of it to any other party without either the city agreeing to sign the purchase agreement or doing a quitclaim deed to us so that we have 100% control, County Commission Chairman Mark Culver said.

The county began quietly seeking offers back in 2020 after the idea to sell the property was brought up during budget hearings. When the county considered its first formal offer during a December meeting, it took many people by surprise because they didnt realize the property was even for sale.

Houston County has been asking $2.5 million for the property. A purchase and sale agreement with Brightwork Real Estate Acquisitions was approved by commissioners in December. Because the City of Dothan owns 16.8% of the farm center property, the county needed a quitclaim deed from the city to move the sale forward.

Instead of a quitclaim deed, the Dothan City Commission voted to make an offer on the property.

Culver said he believes Brightwork is still interested in the property.

It may be they end up dealing with the city rather than with us, Culver said. That just remains to be seen.

City Manager Kevin Cowper has said he expects to have an offer finalized in one to two weeks.

Whoever buys it, Culver said there will be a long process to relocate the entities out there.

If (the City of Dothan) can get the farm center property and turn it into something productive for the community or develop it into something, then thats what we need to do, Culver said. Whatever enhances the community is what were interested in. We just dont feel like its beneficial to us, representing the citizens of the county, as a fiscal drain nor do we have the ability to turn it into something thats beneficial to the citizens.

The farm center has been considered a financial drain on the county due to ongoing maintenance costs, and the curved arena is not considered safe for the public. For years the arena building has been used for storage.

The farm center property is a total of 40 acres and includes the Houston County Water Authority, the local Extension System office, a metal building rented for events, and the Veterans Affairs building. A large open field on the back side of the property once served as the midway for the National Peanut Festival.

The farm center property also houses the Department of Human Resources and the Houston County Health Department, although neither of those buildings are part of the sale.

Peggy Ussery is a Dothan Eagle staff writer and can be reached at aussery@dothaneagle.com or 334-712-7963. Support her work and that of other Eagle journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at dothaneagle.com.

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Thien Long Group, one of Asias leading stationery companies, was ranked among Vietnams 50 Best-performing Companies 2021" by Nhip Cau Dau Tu Magazine in the unprecedented context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

By 2021, Thien Long Group has made this list eight consecutive times.

Vietnams 50 Best-performing Companies (TOP50) is an annual ranking to affirm the value of Vietnamese corporations. This year, the ranking process took counsel from many economists and business experts from Harvard Business School to seek and honor outstanding companies on Vietnams stock exchange.

Lam Van Hai, standing deputy general director of Commercial Division of Thien Long Group, poses with "Vietnams 50 Best-performing Companies" award. Photo by Thien Long Group

To boost the TOP50, experts evaluate the business results of companies for three consecutive fiscal years, based on three growth indicators: revenue, return on equity (ROE) and earnings per share (EPS). The measurement results aim to objectively assess the corporate governance capacity of the enterprise.

During its 40 years of establishment and development, Thien Long Group has risen to become one of the Asia's leading stationery companies, based on strong internal resources. The group develops sustainably in many aspects, including R&D strategy, manufacturing, distribution system development.

Thien Long Group has self-produced many essential materials for production like ink, pen tips..., thereby limiting dependence on the supply of raw materials from international partners. The company is also proactive in self-designing, manufacturing molds and accelerating automation. Currently, its automation rate has risen to over 78.23 percent.

A Thien Long factory. Photo by Thien Long Group

This 40-year-old corporation owns a distribution system in 63 provinces and cities nationwide. In anticipation of new consumer trends, Thien Long heavily invests in its e-commerce site and promotes online sales activities to reach consumers.

Implementing the globalization strategy since 2000, Thien Long has been a supplier for the world's leading brands in the U.S. and Japan, and has exported to all Southeast Asian countries. Currently, Thien Longs products are present in 67 countries on all continents.

Thien Long was awarded top 50 best-performing companies in Vietnam. Photo by Thien Long Group

At the end of 2021, Thien Long received the third-class Labor Medal awarded by the State. Recently, according to VCCI's assessment, Thien Long Group was one of the 100 most sustainable enterprises in Vietnam for 2021.
An international award founded in Vietnam to honor scientific achievements gave out $4.5 million worth of prizes to several global scientists Thursday night.

The annual VinFuture Prize, instituted by the VinFuture Foundation, was launched by Vingroup chairman Pham Nhat Vuong and his wife Pham Thu Huong.

The award aims to recognize ground breaking scientific and technological discoveries around the world.

On Thursday, four prizes were awarded at a ceremony at Hanoi Opera House: a VinFuture Grand Prize valued at $3 million and three special prizes of $500,000 each for female innovators, innovators from developing countries, and innovators with outstanding achievements in emerging fields.

Three scientists: Hungarian biochemist Katalin Kariko, U.S. physician-scientist Drew Weissman and Canadian physicist and biochemist Pieter Rutter Cullis were awarded the VinFuture Grand Prize valued at $3 million for their contributions to the development of the mRNA vaccine technology.

(From L) Scientists Pieter Rutter Cullis, Drew Weissman, and Katalin Kariko receive the VinFuture Grand Prize for contributions to the development of the mRNA vaccine technology, Hanoi, January 20, 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy

"This award is a highlight for sci-tech and for international cooperation," said Kariko, adding that she was glad to be in Vietnam.

"I want to witness mRNA therapies save the lives of so many people suffering from diseases," she said.

Weissman said the prize would open up new opportunities for new generations of vaccines, adding that he hoped the prize would be the beginning of cooperation between Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam.

"The important thing is not the fact that I was awarded the prize, but the fact that thousands of scientists before me and thousands after me would continue to approach new ways to cure diseases," he said.

Cullis meanwhile highlighted the importance of fundamental studies as they would promote innovation and decide the trajectory of future research.

South African scientists Salim Abdool Karim and Quarraisha Abdool Karim were awarded a VinFuture Prize valued at $500,000 for developing country innovators for the invention of a gel with tenofovir, a product for women to prevent HIV infections.

U.S. scientist Zhenan Bao was awarded with a VinFuture Prize for her research on "electronic skins" capable of stretching, healing like normal skins and are biodegradable.

U.S. scientist Omar M.Yaghi was awarded a VinFuture Prize for his research into water and material science.
An aircraft of Vietnam Airlines takes off from Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi. Photo courtesy of Vietnam Airlines

Vietnam Airlines plans to resume regular flights to France, Germany, Russia, and the U.K. starting Monday, after a gap of almost two years caused by the Covid pandemic.

The national flag carrier will operate its first flight to Europe from Hanoi to London in the U.K. on Monday and another flight from Hanoi to Frankfurt in Germany next Thursday.

From February 8, the carrier will operate flights once a week every Tuesday on the Hanoi-London route and the Hanoi-Paris-Frankfurt routes every Thursday.

Another once a week flight between Hanoi and Moscow is set for launch on January 29.

Vietnamese aviation officially reopened regular flights between Hanoi, HCMC and Bangkok, Phnom Penh, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo on January 1 this year.

Tet, Vietnam's 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, passengers are also required to undergo a rapid test on landing at the Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat international airports.
New year brings more of same problems for tourism workers

Many popular tourism destinations remain deserted though domestic travel and international flights have resumed, dashing the hopes of workers in the hospitality and related industries.

Nguyen Thanh Thuy, owner of a cao lau (thick Vietnamese noodles) eatery on Tran Phu Street in tourist hotspot Hoi An, is worried she might have to close down her business permanently since things have been very dull after the Covid-19 lockdown was lifted.

She has already laid off four workers to cut costs.

She says: "I understand it would take time for the tourism industry to recover fully, but I don't think I can hold out much longer.

"It is pointless for me to wait and wait".

Not far from her food stall, Nguyen Huu Tho tries to sell his boat tour on the Thu Bon River to every visitor passing by, but no one is interested.

"I have had only five customers this week," he says while gazing at the empty pedestrians-only street.

The two are among many pandemic-hit tourism businesses struggling to hold on with few tourists in sight and earnings of next to nothing.

Though Vietnam reopened its doors to foreign tourists last November and allowed many domestic tourist activities to resume, Covids long-lasting impacts have left many tourism businesses and workers wondering when people will start traveling again and if they can sustain their businesses if the pandemic drags on.

The country, which expects to receive five million foreign visitors under the vaccine passport program in 2022, has received more than 8,000 since reopening in November, 2021.

Passengers get off a Vietnam Airlines plane arriving from Cambodia at Tan Son Nhat Airport in HCMC on January 1, 2022, the first regular commercial flight to Vietnam in two years. Photo courtesy of Vietnam Airlines

Le Thanh Hoa, owner of a hotel on Phu Quoc Island, says she laid off five employees late last year and might let a few more go as bookings remain sparse even in the new year.

"We simply could not afford to keep all the staff when we were not generating any income".

Her hotel received 50 guests in the first week of 2022 as people flocked to Phu Quoc for the long New Year weekend.

Kien Giang Province, home to Phu Quoc Island, received over 36,000 domestic tourists in the first three days of the year, a slight decrease from last year.

But within a week there was a dramatic change with the number of guests at Hoa's hotel plummeting though it was still the peak holiday season.

She says her hotel used to be packed with Russian tourists this time of the year as they sought to escape of the winter back home and enjoy the warm weather here in Phu Quoc. Some would stay for a few days, and some for up to two weeks.

"We have over 100 vacant rooms, while the number of new inquiries is just around 5 percent of what we received before the pandemic".

She thinks tourism revival is still a pipe dream since travel demand is low even among local tourists as "people still have a cautious mindset and are unwilling to resume traveling domestically".

Many other popular tourism destinations also saw fewer tourists during the New Year holidays.

Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, home to beach town Vung Tau, saw visitor numbers fall 32 percent from last year to 88,700 during the three-day break.

Da Lat in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong received only 55,000 tourists, down 11.6 percent.

In the north, where the pandemic is raging, things are even grimmer with numbers in free fall.

Thanh Truc spent heavily on online advertisements for her hotel in Sa Pa Town in the northern mountains during the year-end season.

Besides, she and many other resort and hotel owners in town had been offering deals with big discounts to attract more visitors.

"I was happy to see decent booking numbers, with 20 families making reservations," she says.

But many canceled the bookings at the last minute after Lao Cai Province, home to Sa Pa, required visitors from areas with high risk of Covid like Hanoi to quarantine for seven days.

This sent visitor numbers plunging by 70 percent from a year earlier year to just 30,200.

"This has been a huge disaster for all of us in the tourism industry," Truc says, adding she has a negative balance in her bank account.

Backing out and taking chances

With Covid bringing the travel industry to a near-complete standstill, people who built their careers in the tourism and hospitality sectors have lost their jobs or seen their work hours and incomes reduced.

According to official statistics, last November more than 9,000 tour guides who had lost their jobs each received government relief of VND3.71 million ($163.73).

Many do side jobs or have simply changed careers, doing whatever they need to do to survive.

Le Trong Hung does not plan to return to his old job as a tour guide for foreigners, saying, "I don't know when this pandemic will end and when people are likely to start traveling".

The man from Hanoi's Ba Dinh District now makes a living by selling dried fruits and snacks online. Though he does not earn as much as he used to, he says it is safer since "the pandemic threat has not subsided".

He says many of his colleagues face the same plight, with many now becoming delivery workers or selling coffee on street corners to survive.

Some leisure and hospitality businesses have no plans to resume anytime soon.

A bar on Bui Vien still has many empty chairs as it reopens after months of closure on January 10, 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Quy

Though HCMC has allowed nighttime activities to resume, Nguyen Thanh Nam, owner of a pub on Bui Vien Street, says he closed it in May and does not plan to reopen it yet.

"I cannot reopen and close again and again. Besides, not many foreigners are back in Saigon, and so I will have few patrons if I reopen now".

After the city detected three Omicron community cases on Jan. 19 tourism workers fear a new outbreak might delay or even derail Vietnam's tourism recovery plans.

"The tourism sector might not recover fully until the pandemic is completely over," Nam says.

In Hoi An, Thuy admits she is still luckier than most people since her eatery remains open despite the waves of Covid that "swept away" many businesses in town.

In a place where once tourists from across the globe walked elbow to elbow, only a few businesses remain open now. The rest are shut, leaving streets quiet and desolate under the baking sun.

Thuys husband has joined friends to work as a fisherman to earn some extra money for the family.

"I know people would love to travel after being cooped up for so long. I will try to sustain this until they come to Hoi An again".
Emirates has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Public Service of The Bahamas to explore joint initiatives to promote tourism to the island nation.

The MoU was signed by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Group Chairman and Chief Executive, and Frederick A Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Public Service, The Bahamas, at the Emirates Group Headquarters.

Also present at the meeting were Adnan Kazim, Emirates Chief Commercial Officer; Salem Obaidalla, Emirates Senior VP Commercial Operations for the Americas; and Tony Joudi, Ambassador of The Bahamas to the UAE.

Sheikh Ahmed said: "Across the world, Emirates plays a key role in boosting tourism to various destinations by providing travellers with reliable, convenient and comfortable flight options for travel. We are delighted to work with The Bahamas to strengthen transport links and to support the country to welcome tourists from around the world. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership."

Mitchell said: "We are happy to be working together with Emirates to promote The Bahamas as a destination of choice for travellers from across the world. The Bahamas is truly an unmatched destination offering a wide variety of leisure experiences that can appeal to every visitor. We are grateful to the support offered by Emirates and we look forward to welcoming tourists from the UAE and other global markets to The Bahamas."

Spread across 16 major islands and boasting more than 100,000 sq miles of the worlds clearest ocean, The Bahamas is one of the most sought-after tourism destinations in the Caribbean offering a rich mix of leisure and cultural activities for visitors.

Through the MoU, Emirates will develop initiatives to promote The Bahamas as a tourism destination to customers across its global network, including developing enhanced connectivity to Nassau Lynden Pindling International Airport (NAS) from American gateways through its codeshare and interline partners.

Additionally, through its tour operating arm Emirates Holidays, the airline is also making available to customers and its travel retail partners across its markets, a range of travel packages including hotels and flights to The Bahamas.

Currently Emirates customers can connect to Nassau airport on codeshare flights with JetBlue from four major US airports including Boston (BOS), Newark (EWR), New York (JFK) and Orlando (MCO). Customers can also opt to fly through Toronto on interline flights with Air Canada to Nassau and George Town. -TradeArabia News Service
After a week of intensive diplomacy in a variety of international for a regarding Russias ongoing and unprovoked military build-up in and near Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is continuing diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis. On January 19, he met with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Kyiv. And he is scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on January 21.

Speaking at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv before his consultations with Ukrainian officials, Secretary Blinken warned that if Russia further invades Ukraine, basic principles that undergird the international system and are key to maintaining peace will be challenged: that one nation cannot change the borders of another by force; that one nation cannot dictate to another its choices; and that nations cannot exert spheres of influence to try to subjugate their neighbors.

If we allow those principles to be violated with impunity, then we will open a very large Pandoras box, and the entire world is watching, Secretary Blinken said.

After meeting with Ukraines top leaders, Secretary Blinken held a press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba. There he reiterated the United States steadfast commitment to Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity. That is why, he said, We will continue our relentless diplomatic efforts to prevent renewed aggression and to promote dialogue and peace.

At the same time, Secretary Blinken noted, We continue to bolster Ukraines ability to defend itself and make clear the costs the United States and Europe will impose on Moscow if it rejects the diplomatic path . . . and proceeds with an unwarranted, unprovoked, unacceptable invasion or destabilization of Ukraine.

Secretary Blinken emphasized that the strength of our diplomacy, our deterrence, and any response to Moscows aggression demands unity among our allies and partners, as well as within Ukraine . . . Ukrainians have to stick together, especially at this time.

He noted that one of Russias longstanding goals has been to try to sow divisions within Ukraine, to make it harder for Ukrainians to work together to realize their Euro-democratic ambitions . . . Dont let Moscow divide you, he said.

As you stand up to efforts to divide, to intimidate, to threaten, Secretary Blinken declared, the United States stands with you resolutely in your right to make decisions for your own future, to shape that future as Ukrainians for Ukraine.
The war in Yemen drags on. Since the Houthi rebels launched their offensive against the Government of Yemen in 2014, the conflict has claimed more than 233,000 lives, and created one of the worlds worst humanitarian disasters -- with nearly 80 percent of Yemens 30 million people relying on aid to survive.

The U.S. government recently imposed sanctions on a Houthi official and military commander, Saleh Mesfer Alshaer, who heads the Houthi-controlled military logistics support organization. According to the Department of the Treasury, Alshaer, who is a close ally of Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, has overseen the Houthis seizure of property in Yemen valued at greater than 100 million dollars, using a variety of unlawful tactics, including extortion. The assets, confiscated from opponents of the Houthis, have been used to fund the Houthis military effort, fueling instability and increasing the already extraordinary suffering of the Yemeni people, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

If Yemeni citizens refuse to comply with Alshaers efforts to confiscate their property, he uses extortion and detention to compel them. Those who have defied Alshaer have been detained and held indefinitely by the Houthi-controlled National Security Bureau and have been falsely labeled as spies, the Treasury Department declared.

Saleh Mesfer Alshaer is the principal Houthi military officer responsible for pilfering assets from Yemeni citizens and directing a campaign of seizures that further prolongs the ongoing conflict, wrote Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the OFAC, Andrea M. Gacki. The United States remains committed to exposing those who seek to exacerbate the crisis in Yemen by denying them access to the global financial system.

As a consequence of the designation, all property and interests in property of Saleh Mesfer Alshaer that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to the OFAC. In addition, U.S. persons are prohibited from all transactions with him.

This action is a message to the people of Yemen that the United States stands with them,

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. We will not relent in targeting those who are perpetuating the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and seeking to profit from the suffering of the Yemeni people.
The visit takes place prior to the 72nd founding anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries (February 3, 1950 - 2022). It is among activities to maintain visits by senior leaders of the Vietnamese and Hungarian law-making bodies, concretising the contents discussed and agreed between the two parliaments' leaders at an online conference held in late July 2021.



During the trip, Matrai paid courtesy calls on NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue and Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan, and met with Permanent member of the Party Central Committees Secretariat Vo Van Thuong.



She also held talks with Standing Vice Chairman of the NA Tran Thanh Man and attended a reception banquet hosted by the latter.



First Officer of the Hungarian National Assembly Marta Matrai hosts by NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue (R) (Photo: VNA)



At these meetings, the two sides said they will maintain and develop the traditional friendship and sound collaboration between the two nations and their legislative bodies. They considered the visit an opportunity for experience sharing and discussion to enhance the two NAs cooperation and mutual support at inter-parliamentary forums.



They also informed each other on their respective nation's socio-economic situation and COVD-19 prevention and control and put forth measures to step up bilateral commercial, economic and parliamentary collaboration.



The Vietnamese leaders thanked Hungary for assisting Vietnam in responding to the pandemic and supporting the signing and ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). Hungary was also the first in the EU to ratify the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA).



Having appreciated Hungarys granting of scholarships to Vietnamese students, they stressed that the NA will push for and monitor the implementation of Hungarys preferential loan package worth 500 million EUR serving development projects.



They also supported the establishment of a Hungarian cultural centre in Vietnam and proposed the two nations deepen their parliamentary cooperation toward effectiveness and practical outcomes.



For her part, Matrai emphasised that Hungary attaches importance to diplomatic and economic relations with Vietnam. Considering Vietnam an important trading partner, Hungary wishes to promote projects and agreements signed during Prime Minister Viktor Orbans visit to Vietnam in 2017, she noted.



The First Officer expressed her delight at the construction of the Can Tho oncology hospital funded by ODA loans from the Hungarian Government, which is expected to be put into operation this year. She thanked Vietnam for sending medical face masks to Hungary since the beginning of COVID-19.



She hoped that the Hungarian cultural centre in Hanoi will soon be inaugurated so that Hungary can share its achievements in science, culture and arts with Vietnamese people.



On the occasion, the Hungarian delegation visited Ha Long Bay in the northern coastal province of Quang Ninh, as well as toured the NAs headquarters, and a number of cultural and economic establishments in Hanoi./.
At the reception (Photo: CPV)

So said Vo Van Thuong, Politburo member and permanent member of the Party Central Committee Secretariat, while receiving First Officer of the Hungarian National Assembly Marta Matrai on January 20.

During the reception, Mr. Vo Van Thuong welcomed Ms. Marta Matrai's visit to Vietnam, evaluating the visit as having an important meaning, contributing to promoting cooperation between the two National Assemblies in particular and the two countries of Vietnam and Hungary in general. He thanked Hungary for the valuable support that Hungary has given Vietnam in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic; and highly appreciated the positive results of the friendship and multifaceted cooperation between the two countries.

He also confirmed that Vietnam attaches great importance to and desires to continue to develop the Vietnam  Hungary comprehensive partnership, as well as the relationship between the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Alliance Party.

Showing her pleasure to visit Vietnam and receive a warm welcome, Ms. Marta Matrai recognized important results in bilateral cooperation, stressing that Hungary attaches great importance to its relationship with Vietnam, considering Vietnam a leading and important partner in Southeast Asia.

The two sides briefed each other on the situation of their respective parties and countries, and exchanged experience in Party building, the pandemic combat, economic recovery and national development.

They also compared notes on measures to foster relations between the Parties and the two countries in the coming time./.
Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan thanked Hungary for assisting Vietnam in the fight against COVID-19, making it easier for the country to restore socio-economic development like today, while actively backing Vietnam at multilateral forums, especially the signing and ratification of the European Union  Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and becoming the first EU nation to approve the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA).



Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan (R) and First Officer of the Hungarian National Assembly Marta Matrai (Photo: VNA)



Following the upgrade of bilateral ties to comprehensive partnership in September 2018 during Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trongs visit, Xuan wished that both sides would enhance cooperation in a more effective and practical manner, firstly the exchange of high-level delegations both online and offline via the National Assembly, Party, Government and people-to-people diplomacy channels, as well as offering mutual support at multilateral forums to maintain traditional friendship.



With two-way trade reaching nearly 1.3 billion USD in 2020 and around 1 billion USD in 2021, the Vietnamese Vice President hoped that more economic and investment promotion activities would be held to lift the figure to a greater height.



Apart from Hungarys support for Vietnam in official development assistance (ODA) and education-training, the host wished that both sides would continue working closely together in other fields such as science-technology, innovation, health care and especially COVID-19 prevention and control. She also hoped for further attention to promoting gender equality to achieve better results.



On the occasion, she also thanked the Hungarian Government for providing support for the Vietnamese community living there, with over 5,000 people.



Matrai, for her part, informed the host that during her meeting with National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, both sides agreed to continue bolstering ties between the two legislatures, including organising the third thematic seminar to uphold the efficiency of their cooperation mechanism, strengthening friendship between friendly parliamentarians groups to contribute to the success of State diplomatic activities, and considering the possibility of holding meetings between NA economic committees to boost trade.



She also wished that joint work across science, economy and education would be further stepped up so that the two cultures would become closer./.




Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son (left) on January 20 holds talks with his Cambodian counterpart Prak Sakhonn during his two-day visit to Cambodia. (Photo: VNA)

Despite COVID-19 impacts, the bilateral trade surged nearly 80 percent to reach 10 billion USD last year.

In 2021, Vietnamese companies poured more than 88.9 million USD in four new projects in Cambodia. This raised Vietnams total investment to over 2.84 billion USD, making it one of the five largest foreign investors in the neighbouring country.

The two FMs agreed to strengthen cooperation and actively enforce agreements reached by both countries leaders on land border demarcation and marker planting.

Son also underscored the importance of maintaining peace, security and stability as well as freedom of navigation and aviation security in the region, saying that disputes must be settled via peaceful negotiations on the basis of international law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is necessary to push for talks to finalise a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC), he said.

Earlier, FM Bui Thanh Son paid a courtesy call to Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen.

Welcoming the Vietnamese diplomat on the first days of the Cambodia  Vietnam Friendship Year 2022, PM Hun Sen expressed his delight at the positive and comprehensive development of the two countries relations in all fields, from politics, security, defence to education-training, culture, science-technology, people-to-people exchange and cooperation between people living the shared border.

He also emphasised that the two Foreign Ministers must coordinate well to organise celebrations of the friendship year and the 55th anniversary of the two countries diplomatic ties.

Son, for his part, reaffirmed Vietnam supports Cambodia in its role as Chair of ASEAN in 2022 and stands ready to join Cambodia and other member states to accelerate the implementation of the blocs agenda, particularly the five-point consensus on Myanmar.

He conveyed greetings and reiterated the invitations of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and other Vietnamese leaders to PM Hun Sen to visit Vietnam in 2022.

The same day, the Vietnamese FM paid courtesy calls to Cambodias President of Senate Samdech Say Chhum and President of the National Assembly Samdech Heng Samrin, and presented gifts to pandemic-hit Vietnamese people in Cambodia on the occasion of Tet, Vietnams traditional Lunar New Year holiday.

FM Bui Thanh Son is on a January 19-20 visit to Cambodia at the invitation of Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn./.




At the reception, Deputy Minister of National Defence Hoang Xuan Chien affirmed that Vietnam and Romania have traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation.

The Vietnamese people always keep in mind the valuable material and spiritual assistance of the Romanian country and people in the struggle for national independence and reunification in the past, and the construction and defense of the country at present.

Thanking Senior Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Chien for taking the time to receive the delegation, Ambassador Cristina Romila affirmed that Romania values and wishes to continue to deepen the traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation with a rich history of more than 70 years between the two countries. She expressed her wish to deepen the relationship between the two countries in the coming time, and promote cooperation in many fields, especially in defense.

The two sides agreed that it is necessary to continue to promote more effective defense cooperation relations in accordance with the capabilities and needs of each country, in a number of areas of maintaining external exchanges and contacts at all levels; staff training; cooperation in overcoming post-war consequences; and exchanging experiences on joining the United Nations peacekeeping missions./.
Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs To Anh Dung at the event. (Photo: VNA)



Both sides reached consensus on a number of measures to further strengthen bilateral ties amid the complicated developments of the pandemic, including online discussions and gradually restoring face-to-face meetings within bilateral and multilateral frameworks.



Deputy Foreign Minister To Anh Dung affirmed that Vietnam treasures and wishes to develop traditional friendship and all-around ties with Uzbekistan, especially in promising fields such as agriculture, apparel, health care, culture, tourism and labour.



Expressing satisfaction about two-way trade, he stressed that there remains room for further cooperation.



Sidikov, for his part, spoke highly of close collaboration between the two foreign ministries over the past time, including maintaining joint work at multilateral forums and mutual support in nomination and election for seats at the United Nations organs.



He emphasised that Uzbekistan wants to step up ties with Vietnam in various areas for the benefit of the two peoples and for development of the two nations.



Both sides also discussed regional and global issues of shared concern, including maintaining peace and stability in the East Sea. They stressed that political consultation is an important mechanism to offer timely opinions and maintain joint work in bilateral and multilateral fields./.


This is the first time a Vietnamese Lunar New Year festival has been held at the Carrefour retail distribution system. The event is part of the activities in the framework of tripartite cooperation between the Vietnam Trade Office in France, importers and retail distributors, to introduce the traditional culture and products of Vietnam to French people.



Carrefour Ormesson hypermarket of French introduces Vietnams cuisine, commodities (Photo: VNA)



Ambassador Dinh Toan Thang affirmed this is a good opportunity for Carrefour to conquer the segment of consumers that have the demand to use healthy food.



He said Vietnamese businesses need to tap opportunities brought about by the EU  Vietnam Free Trade Agreement in order to build a professional and sustainable development strategy in order to participate in "playing fields" of European hypermarkets.



According to CEO of Carrefour supermarket chain Bruno Lebon, the event is an occasion to celebrate the strong relationship between Carrefour and its Vietnamese partners, as well as an opportunity for Carrefours consumers to explore the Vietnamese cuisine and goods.



He further said over 700 products will be introduced at Carrefours supermarket chains during the event.



Nhat Thanh Khiem, an importer of Vietnamese products in France, said the event is hoped to promote Vietnams exports to France.



According to Vu Anh Son, Head of Vietnam Trade Office in France, a project to promote enterprises to directly participate in foreign distribution networks has been deployed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade since 2015.



The tripartite cooperation mode has proven effective in the market, benefiting all the involved parties, and helping develop brand and image of Vietnamese goods in the local market.



Owners of supermarkets and retail distribution chains in France have planned to increase the proportion of Vietnamese goods in their distribution systems./.
BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China's (CPC) top disciplinary agency pledged to maintain strong and persistent crackdown on corruption in a communique released Thursday.

The communique was adopted at the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which was held in Beijing from Tuesday to Thursday.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the plenum and delivered an important speech.

Party and state leaders including Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng attended the session.

The session reviewed the disciplinary work in 2021, made arrangements for tasks in 2022, and deliberated and approved a work report delivered by Zhao Leji on behalf of the CCDI standing committee.

In 2021, the CPC celebrated its centenary and reviewed its major achievements and historical experience over the past century.

In 2022, the CPC will convene its 20th national congress, which is a major event in the political life of the Party and the country, the communique said.

It urged coordination in punishing corruption, strengthening deterrence among officials, tightening institutional restrictions, and improving their political awareness to make more institutional achievements and greater progress in governance.

Discipline inspection commissions and supervision agencies should play a better role in enforcing oversight over decision implementation, the communique said.

Having the courage to reform itself distinguishes the CPC from other political parties. It is the Party's secret to avoiding the historical cycle of rise and fall and remaining vibrant after a century of struggle, the communique stressed.

POLITICAL OVERSIGHT

Political oversight should focus on several vital tasks, including deepening reform and opening-up across the board, advancing common prosperity, building strength in science and technology, and forestalling and defusing major risks, the communique noted.

The document stressed the importance of putting the spotlight on leading officials, also known as the "key few."

It called for strengthened oversight over officials in command and leadership teams, especially concerning their performance in fulfilling their responsibility to exercise strict Party self-governance in all respects, implementation of democratic centralism, and their exercise of power according to laws and regulations.

DEEPENING ANTI-CORRUPTION DRIVE

Calling for unswerving efforts to deepen the anti-corruption drive, the plenum stressed that no mercy will be shown to those who run or are engaged in political factions, cliques or interest groups within the Party, and strict standards will be adopted to educate, manage and supervise young officials.

Efforts will be stepped up to investigate and punish any corruption behind the runaway expansion of capital and the monopoly of platform enterprises in order to sever the connections between power and capital, and financial discipline will be strengthened, said the communique.

DEFENSE AGAINST MALPRACTICE

The communique called for continued efforts to consolidate the defense of the CPC Central Committee's eight-point decision against undesirable work practices, and to persistently address corruption and misconduct occurring on the people's doorsteps.

The practice of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism that affected the implementation of the CPC Central Committee's decisions and policies, and other practices that turned a blind eye to the people's interests or increased the burden on people at primary levels must be resolutely corrected and rectified, it said.

SOUND INSPECTION SYSTEM

The communique also urged the improvement of the discipline inspection system, where inspection authorities at different levels have sound communication and work together to ensure relevant work is conducted at a high quality and with full coverage.

Routine supervision and special inspections should both be strengthened, and the issue regarding "the latter part of the story" of addressing the problems discovered during the inspections into central-level financial institutions should be taken seriously, it said.

The document called for a comprehensive review of the inspection work conducted by the 19th CPC CCDI so that it can be reported to the Party's Central Committee.

According to the communique, the reform of the discipline inspection and supervision system should highlight an integrated system as well as coordination and efficiency to transform institutional advantages into greater governance effectiveness.

LOYAL GUARDIANS

The communique called on discipline inspection personnel to be politically strong and professionally competent, and work hard to be the loyal guardians of the Party and the people.

The plenary session stressed the need to rally more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, promote the great founding spirit of the Party and the spirit of self-reform, and ensure that concrete progress is made by the time the 20th CPC National Congress is convened. 

Editor: JYZ
Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2022 shows the exhibition booth of China at the 42nd edition of the International Tourism Fair FITUR in Madrid, Spain. The International Tourism Fair FITUR 2022 opened its door at the IFEMA Convention Center here on Wednesday. (Photo by Gustavo Valiente/Xinhua)

MADRID, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- The International Tourism Fair FITUR 2022 opened its doors at the IFEMA Convention Center here on Wednesday to ensure support for the tourism sector at a critical time for its full recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The event, open until Jan. 23, brings together almost 7,000 tourism companies and 60,000 professionals globally.

The organizers expect 30,000 visitors, who will be asked to follow strict health regulations, such as wearing face masks, washing their hands and respecting the limits on crowd size in the IFEMA pavilions.

FITUR 2022 comes after a tough year for tourism that saw a timid recovery of the sector in comparison with 2020, but with tourist levels still well below the pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

For example, Spain's tourism revenues totaled 88.55 billion euros (100.4 billion U.S. dollars) last year, 36 billion euros more than in 2020 but over 40 percent less than in 2019. In 2021, tourism generated 7.4 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), which was also well below the 12.4 percent figure in 2019.

FITUR is "starting very strongly," Spain's Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism Reyes Maroto said in an interview on Wednesday morning, emphasizing that the sector was "working so that 2022 is not just the year in which we are able to consolidate our recovery, but in which we can give an impulse to the tourism model."

People visit the 42nd edition of the International Tourism Fair FITUR in Madrid, Spain, Jan. 19, 2022. The International Tourism Fair FITUR 2022 opened its door at the IFEMA Convention Center here on Wednesday. (Photo by Gustavo Valiente/Xinhua)

Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2022 shows the exhibition booth of China at the 42nd edition of the International Tourism Fair FITUR in Madrid, Spain. The International Tourism Fair FITUR 2022 opened its door at the IFEMA Convention Center here on Wednesday. (Photo by Gustavo Valiente/Xinhua)

People visit the 42nd edition of the International Tourism Fair FITUR in Madrid, Spain, Jan. 19, 2022. The International Tourism Fair FITUR 2022 opened its door at the IFEMA Convention Center here on Wednesday. (Photo by Gustavo Valiente/Xinhua)

People visit the 42nd edition of the International Tourism Fair FITUR in Madrid, Spain, Jan. 19, 2022. The International Tourism Fair FITUR 2022 opened its door at the IFEMA Convention Center here on Wednesday. (Photo by Gustavo Valiente/Xinhua)

Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2022 shows the exhibition booth of China at the 42nd edition of the International Tourism Fair FITUR in Madrid, Spain. The International Tourism Fair FITUR 2022 opened its door at the IFEMA Convention Center here on Wednesday. (Photo by Gustavo Valiente/Xinhua)

Editor: GSY
Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2022 shows a beach resort hit by tsunami on the outskirts of Nuku'alofa, capital of Tonga. (Ha'atafu Beach Resort/Handout via Xinhua)

The most pressing needs in Tonga are the availability of safe water, OCHA said. Some 50,000 people need clean water. It might also take weeks to complete the repair work of the underwater communication cable.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The first relief flights arrived at Tonga's just re-opened international airport on Thursday, carrying much-needed water, sanitation and shelter supplies, communications gear and power generators, UN humanitarians said Thursday.

The arrivals came as assessment teams reached most parts of the remote southwest Pacific nation, including far-flung and isolated islands, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Once workers shoveled ashfall from the runway, the office said aircraft from Australia and New Zealand landed.

"The government of Tonga has asked us for urgent assistance," said Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "The resident coordinator, Sanaka Samarasinha, has responded and remains in close contact with the Tongan authorities."

Dujarric said that 23 resident UN staff in Tonga support the government's assessment and response efforts and are helping to distribute aid.

Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2022 shows a beach resort hit by tsunami on the outskirts of Nuku'alofa, capital of Tonga. (Ha'atafu Beach Resort/Handout via Xinhua)

The most pressing needs are the availability of safe water, not only on the main island of Tongatapu, but also on smaller islands in the country, particularly in the Ha'apai island group, OCHA said. Some 50,000 people need clean water. While water testing proceeds, residents rely on bottled water.

The office said water, water purification units and desalination equipment are being shipped to Tonga. Oxfam is operating a water treatment unit.

The humanitarian office said volcanic ash damage to crops, livestock and fisheries, saltwater intrusion and acid rain potentially affects about 60,000 people. There are reports of a fuel shortage. But supplies are expected shortly as part of a regular shipment and support from Australia.

Saturday's eruption of an undersea volcano just 65 km from the main island of Tongatapu cut regular communication between Tonga and the rest of the world through a submarine cable. Communication among the country's 169 islands -- only 36 inhabited -- also was cut.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying aid supplies prepares to leave for Tonga from Base Auckland Whenuapai in Auckland, New Zealand, Jan. 20, 2022. (NZDF/Handout via Xinhua)

A UN telecommunications cluster coordinates with local, regional and global partners on the deployment of critical equipment to ensure that the government and responders have access to communication tools to coordinate the response and allow affected people to contact family, OCHA said.

The office said there is still limited international connectivity, although the situation is gradually improving. There are various initiatives from the government through the UN International Telecommunication Union, phone capability from New Zealand and other donor partners, and Digicel.

Although OCHA said a ship from Papua New Guinea would repair the underwater communication cable, it might take weeks to complete. Communication with outer islands remains very limited.

Editor: GSY
The Government of Canada has offered to provide a loan of up to CAD 120 million to support the economic stability and development of Ukraine.

"Today, the Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of International Development and Minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada, and the Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced that Canada has offered to provide a loan of up to CAD 120 million to the Government of Ukraine to support the country's economic resilience and governance reforms," the Government of Canada said in a statement on Friday.

In addition, Canada has also offered to provide a technical assistance grant of up to CAD 6 million to support the implementation of the loan. Canadian and Ukrainian officials are already meeting to discuss the potential terms of the loan and a timeline for its implementation.

"Ukrainians can always count on Canada to be there for them when needed. By working together, we can strengthen the economy and help advance governance reforms. I authorized this proposed loan to support Ukraine's ability to respond to its populations needs amid Russias aggressive actions. This is just one step in helping build a secure future for Ukrainians, and I will continue to look at ways to support Ukraine," Sajjan said.
USA providing more assistance to Ukraine than any year in history - White House

Washington has recently provided the largest assistance to Ukraine, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

"We've also provided more assistance to Ukraine than any year in history, including defense assistance," Psaki said at a press conference on Thursday.

Last week, CNN reported that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden at the end of December last year, without undue publicity, authorized the allocation of additional security assistance to Ukraine in the amount of $200 million.
Baltic countries with US permission to be able to supply Ukraine with Javelin FGM, Stinger MANPADS

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have received permission from the United States to transfer American Javelin FGMs and Stinger MANPADS to Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing officials in Washington.

In addition, Washington expressed its intention to transfer five Mi-17 helicopters to Ukraine, the edition notes.

Earlier, the American media reported, citing its sources, that the State Department notified Congress of the approval of a permit for the export of American weapons to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with the right of subsequent transfer of these weapons by these countries to Ukraine.

CNN quoted a State Department official saying that the European allies have what they need to contribute to additional security assistance to Ukraine in the coming days and weeks.

He noted that Washington is in close contact with NATO and Kyiv on this issue, including ensuring the transfer of U.S.-made weapons to Ukraine by Washington's allies.

On Wednesday it became known that the eighth flight in the last three days to Ukraine was carried out by heavy military transport aircraft C-17A Globemaster III of the British Royal Air Force. Before that, on Monday, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace, speaking in parliament, said that the United Kingdom would supply Ukraine with anti-tank weapons.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said that sanctions against Russia should be introduced in the near future, before the possible start of large-scale military aggression.

"Today our partners are saying that war may start tomorrow if there is a powerful escalation on the Russian side, and then there will be powerful sanctions applied. But if we are talking about the sanctions policy and the probability of escalation, then the question is, why are you not introducing sanctions now rather than wait until after the escalation?  As a country that is building a powerful economy and undergoing reforms, I support imposing sanctions now. I asked one leader: 'Why do you support sanctions against Russia in case there is an invasion into Ukraine? Why do you need sanctions after we lose the whole territory of Ukraine?'" Zelensky said in an interview with The Washington Post, published on Thursday.

At the same time, he noted that it is highly likely that the sanctions imposed after the outbreak of hostilities do not contain further aggression by Russia.

"Sanctions are considered to be a preventive tool because they can be applied and then lifted. If there is an invasion by Russia, do you introduce powerful sanctions after we might have already lost several territories? Once you introduce sanctions, what will Russia do?  So once you introduce even powerful sanctions, they will look at you and say: 'Listen, we can deal with this, we can continue as it was.' I think this is wrong," the president said.

Zelensky also stressed that Ukraine is ready for a dialogue. Commenting on his initiative of trilateral negotiations with the participation of Ukraine, Russia and the United States, he indicated that he was asking the United States for assistance in creating a suitable format.

"Let's have a dialogue with Russia. I'm asking the United States to help us to find a format. We support dialogue; we are against war," he noted.

"If we are going to protect ourselves against one of the most powerful armies in the world, then this will be war. And if this will be war, it's going to be a very strong war, and everyone will lose. Hundreds of thousands of lives will be lost. Ukraine will suffer; Russia will suffer; European countries adjacent to Ukraine will suffer; and the ones who are further away will be impacted by a migration crisis. For us, the most important thing is to preserve our territory," he added.
Ukraine among top three countries from which largest number of tourists come to Georgia

Ukraine is confidently among the top three countries from which the largest number of tourists come to Georgia.

Tamara Koriauli, the Deputy Head of the National Tourism Administration of Georgia, told Interfax-Ukraine that more than 1.577 million foreign tourists visited her country in 2021, which is 45% more than in 2020, the recovery of this indicator was 31% compared to the pre-COVID period of 2019.

In October 2021, Georgia was visited by 14,600 Ukrainian tourists, in November - about 8,700, in December  7,040.

In addition to Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Armenia and Israel are among the top five countries for inbound tourism to Georgia.

Most foreign tourists arrived in Georgia by air, although the recovery of passenger traffic to the country was only 48% compared to 2019.

The expert emphasized prices for tourist services in Georgia have not changed much compared to the pre-COVID period.

At the same time, she stated the expansion of geography of trips of foreign tourists in Georgia.

"Tourists not only stay in the capital, but have begun to actively travel to the mountains, as well as visit many regions. This is a very good fact, because we tried to make the regional centers of Georgia attractive to international tourists," she said.

Among the regions that are actively developing tourism potential and preparing to receive international tourists, Koriauli named, in particular, the traditional Tbilisi and Batumi, as well as Kutaisi and Svaneti, which presents updated ski resorts.
Estonia has appealed to Germany for approval of deliveries to Ukraine of a 122-mm howitzer manufactured in Germany, Deutsche Welle has reported, citing a spokesman for the German Ministry of Defense.

"Germany has received a request from Estonia to approve the supply of howitzers to Ukraine. The request is being studied and is 'under departmental approval,' the secretary of the German Ministry of Defense said on Thursday evening, January 20. The process should be coordinated with Finland," the ezine reported.

It is clarified that the guns that are planned to be transferred to Ukraine were manufactured in Germany, and sold to Finland in the 1990s.

As reported, the Estonian Ministry of Defense announced its intention to supply Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as 122-mm howitzers. In addition, Estonia also plans to increase the so-called "soft aid", including preparing for the dispatch of a mobile field hospital complex, training Ukrainian military medics to work on it.
PGO appeals against restraint measure for Poroshenko, insists on his arrest with alternative of UAH 1 bln bail

On Friday, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (PGO) filed an appeal against the court's decision on the application of a preventive measure against the fifth President of Ukraine (2014-19), MP Petro Poroshenko in the form of personal guarantees.

"Prosecutors will insist on applying a preventive measure in the form of detention against the suspect with the alternative of posting a bail in the amount of UAH 1 billion," the message published on the website of the Prosecutor General's Office says.
Turkey plans to send logistical assistance to strengthen the capabilities of the services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said during a telephone conversation with Interior Minister of Ukraine Denys Monastyrsky.

"The Turkish counterpart once again assured of the unwavering support of the official Ankara for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the inviolability of its borders. He also announced the intention of the Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs to send logistical assistance in the near future to strengthen the capabilities of the services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine," the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reports.

In addition, the parties discussed issues within the competence of the departments on the eve of the tenth meeting of the Ukraine-Turkey High-level Strategic Council chaired by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The parties also discussed the strengthening of the contractual and legal framework of cooperation through the speedy completion of the procedure for approving and signing a Protocol between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the Republic of Turkey on law enforcement cooperation, as well as the dynamics of cooperation between the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and the Coast Guard of Turkey and strengthening the interaction of the National Guard of Ukraine with the Gendarmerie of the Republic of Turkey.

The parties agreed to work on further strengthening the mutually beneficial strategic partnership between Ukraine and the Republic of Turkey.
Official Kyiv assesses the security situation around the country as serious, but is counting on a diplomatic solution with greater support from international partners. The Ambassador of Ukraine to the State of Israel Yevhen Korniychuk said this on Israeli TV channel I24.

Ukraine believes that the situation is very serious and ready to confront if necessary. We are making every effort to resolve the situation through diplomacy, but, unfortunately, the Russian leadership does not see us as a party to the negotiations. They talk about Ukraine with NATO, the United States - without Ukraine's participation. We are not satisfied with this, we are ready for a direct dialogue, as the Ukrainian leadership has repeatedly stated. We are ready for any kind of escalation, and we expect much more from our Western partners than deep concern, - he said.

The head of the diplomatic mission reminded of the reasons for such support.

Ukraine is counting on the implementation of all positions and guarantees of the Budapest Memorandum, which it has fulfilled since its inception (renounced nuclear weapons), but Russia ignores the implementation. We hope that this will not be ignored by other participants - the United States and Britain, - said the ambassador.

Yevhen Korniychuk also reminded of Israel's initiative to mediate talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials.

The issue of Israeli mediation was raised during a meeting in Sochi (Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Russian President Vladimir Putin - Ed.), But, unfortunately, it did not develop due to the reluctance of the Russian side. Bennett's predecessor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel could be an effective mediator if both sides wanted it, but so far there is only one desire  Ukraine, - the Ambassador said.

He added: Everyone must take into account the wishes of the Ukrainian nation - to be part of NATO and the EU, which is already enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine. And this position of the vast majority of Ukrainians cannot be changed by the threat of military invasion, - Yevhen Korniychuk concluded.
USA not to talk with Russia on NATO's open door policy, considers it unacceptable to change borders by force  Blinken

Following a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States will not negotiate with Russia on the NATO open door policy, and consider it unacceptable to change borders by force.

At a press conference, Blinken said the United States will not revise the fundamental principles that it has and that it will defend, one of them is the NATO's open door policy.

He said this also applies to the principle that countries cannot change the borders of other countries by force and cannot dictate to other countries their choices and their policies.
European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi will visit Kyiv on January 26 and 27, the European Commission told Interfax-Ukraine.

The European Commission said the commissioner will visit Ukraine next week, January 26 and 27, the exact schedule is still being prepared.

The European Commission believes that this visit will provide an opportunity to send a strong signal of support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, EU engagement in promoting resilience to hybrid threats, as well as sustainable economic growth through the Economic and Investment Plan and further integration with the EU based on the Association Agreement.
Everything what is happening right now with the competitive selection of candidates to the position of director of Joint Stock Company Meridian n. S. P. Korolyov is a plain ignorance of an honest selection of top managers of state-owned defense industry companies. MERIDIAN SOYUZ LLC as a private shareholder that owns 40.0753 % of JSC Meridian shares requires the chairman of the selection board Ihor Fomenko to make the repeated competition as transparent, objective, and effective as possible.

We insist on preventing the repetition of a number of violations committed in December 2021 and indicating the falsity of the selection of candidates for the position of director of JSC Meridian, during the new competition. Moreover, we have received no information so far about the State Concerns strategic vision of the further participation of the company in the development of the Ukrainian defense industry complex, so we have no understanding of the targets a new top manager will have to attain.

What is happening today?

In December 2021, Ihor Fomenko conducted a sham competition in one stage with violation of the selection procedure and lack of results.

The selection commission included the security deputy general director of the State Concern Roman Zabarchuk who has a conflict of interest and wrongfully accused us of sabotage by submitting a fraudulent application to law enforcement agencies despite the Memorandum on the fixed principles of the state shareholder of JSC Meridian signed earlier by him.

The conflict of interest arose when Mykhailo Zaitsev was included in the commission because earlier, the State Concern tried to appoint him as director of JSC Meridian without holding a competition.

The commissions time was wasted due to the biased attitude of Ihor Fomenko, even though representatives of the G7 diplomatic missions and independent anti-corruption NGOs were included in the commission, which means that their presence during interviews was just smoke and mirrors.

MERIDIAN SOYUZ LLC request to be included in the commission with an advisory vote was denied, although we will vote during the election of director at the general meeting of shareholders.

Since something went wrong during the interviews and frustrated Ihor Fomenkos plans, no winner was selected, and information about the outcome of the competition has not yet been published for the public and private shareholders.

When Ihor Fomenko announced a re-competition for the position, State Concern Ukroboronprom failed to establish clear evaluation criteria. Moreover, the position was advertised immediately before the New Year and Christmas holidays without due regard to the official holiday days. As a result, the duration of the period when candidates could file their applications was considerably reduced.

As the most recent developments show, Ihor Fomenko makes decisions on the election of director at his own discretion as clear evaluation criteria have never been formulated which is yet another evidence of the biased impact by the chairman of the commission on the outcome of the competitive selection.

Moreover, all our written requests in connection with the competitive selection procedure and our wish to participate in the selection of candidates have been ignored by Ihor Fomenko who prefers not to reply to letters, calls, and messages. We view this attitude to the private shareholder by the representatives of the state shareholders as a blatant breach of our rights and attempts made by Ihor Fomenko to disguise his personal interest in the appointment of the defense companys director that could be controlled by him, which may motivate him to commit corruption.

Finally, everything what State Concern Ukroboronprom does under the guise of the corporate governance reform in line with international principles is sheer propaganda since, as recent events have demonstrated, they have failed to merely read through these principles. This is why it is hard to imagine what is really going on at defense companies with 100 % state ownership considering their so-called transparent and honest approach to private investors.

NB: Joint Stock Company Meridian n. S. P. Korolyov is one of the companies operating in the Ukrainian defense industry complex; the state owns 50 % + 1 share of the company, which is managed by the State Concern Ukroboronprom.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi attended on Monday a celebration of Eid El-Fitr with the families of Egyptian Armed Forces and police personnel killed or injured in the countrys battle against terrorism.
Germany's top court said Tuesday that it has rejected the appeal of a former member of Syria's secret police who was convicted last year of facilitating the torture of prisoners in his home country.
A draft opinion suggests the US Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalize abortion nationwide, according to a Politico report.
Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko announced Monday that his army will conduct military exercises next month with Russian forces and criticised what he said was NATO's growing presence in Europe.

"We made plans for a military exercise in February some time ago. Please go ahead and set a specific date and announce it so nobody can accuse us of having massed troops all of a sudden and of being almost ready to go to war," state media quoted Lukashenko as telling military officials.

The announcement comes as tensions between the West and Russia have been growing in recent months over the security of Ukraine, a close Western ally that borders Belarus and has been battling pro-Moscow separatists for several years.

Moscow has deployed tens of thousands of troops near its border with Ukraine and pressed demands for guarantees that its neighbour and other ex-Soviet states never be admitted to NATO.

Lukashenko said his plans for drills with Russia had been made in December in coordination with his ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, but had not been announced at the time.

He did not specify how many troops would be involved.

He said the drills would be dubbed "Determination of the Union 2022," and should focus on a scenario in which his country's military is forced to "resist forces coming from the West".

The Belarusian leader in power for nearly three decades, justified the drills by what he claimed was a build-up of troops along his country's border in Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States.

He accused Ukraine of massing thousand of troops, without giving evidence for his claims, and said Warsaw had requested from NATO the deployment of "a multi-echelon network of logistics, supply and technical support."

Russia has denied that its deployment of troops near Ukraine is in preparation for a ground assault and instead accused NATO of encroaching on its borders and demanded that the Washington-led defence bloc not admit any new members, specifically naming Ukraine and Georgia.

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The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi insurgents said Monday it had launched airstrikes targeting the rebel-held capital Sanaa after a deadly attack against coalition ally Abu Dhabi.

"In response to the threat and (out of) military necessity, airstrikes have begun in Sanaa," the official Saudi Press Agency said on Twitter.

The Houthis' Al-Masirah TV channel confirmed the raids by the coalition, without immediately reporting any casualties.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Ukraine this week and meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as tensions between the U.S. and Russia escalate over a possible Russian invasion of its neighbor, the State Department said Tuesday.

Blinken will be in Kyiv on the hastily arranged trip to show U.S. support following inconclusive diplomatic talks between Moscow and the West in Europe last week that failed to resolve stark disagreements over Ukraine and other security matters.

Instead, those meetings appear to have increased fears of a Russian invasion, and the Biden administration has accused Russia of preparing a ``false flag operation`` to use as a pretext for intervention. Russia has angrily denied the charge.

Blinken's ``travel and consultations are part of the diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the tension caused by Russia's military build-up and continued aggression against Ukraine,'' the State Department said in a statement.

From Kyiv, Blinken will travel to Berlin, where he will meet with his German, British and French counterparts to discuss a possible response to any Russian military action. Russia has massed some 100,000 troops with tanks and other heavy weapons on its own soil near the Ukrainian border in what many observers believe may be preparation for an invasion.

Blinken will meet with Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday ``to reinforce the United States' commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity,'' the State Department said.

``The trip follows extensive diplomacy with our European Allies and partners about a united approach to address the threat Russia poses to Ukraine and our joint efforts to encourage it to choose diplomacy and de-escalation in the interests of security and stability,'' the department said.

On Monday, Russia's top diplomat rejected the U.S. allegations that it was preparing a pretext to invade Ukraine. Speaking to reporters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the U.S. claim as ``total disinformation.''

Lavrov reaffirmed that Russia expects a written response this week from the U.S. and its allies to Moscow's request for binding guarantees that NATO will not embrace Ukraine or any other ex-Soviet nations or station its forces and weapons there.

Washington and its allies firmly rejected Moscow's demands during last week's Russia-U.S. negotiations in Geneva and a related NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels.

The White House said Friday that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded that Russia had already deployed operatives to rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to carry out acts of sabotage there and blame them on Ukraine to create a pretext for possible invasion.

Ahead of Blinken's visit to Kyiv, a delegation of U.S. senators was visiting Ukraine to emphasize congressional support for the country.

``Our bipartisan congressional delegation sends a clear message to the global community: the United States stands in unwavering support of our Ukrainian partners to defend their sovereignty and in the face of persistent Russian aggression,'' Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, said in a statement.

Speaking Monday on a visit to Kyiv, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that ``any further escalation would carry a high price for the Russian regime _ economic, political and strategic,`` and she emphasized the need to continue negotiations.

``We are prepared to have a serious dialogue with Russia, because diplomacy is the only way to defuse this highly dangerous situation at the moment,'' she said.

Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula after the ouster of Ukraine's Moscow-friendly leader and in 2014 also threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces in the country's industrial heartland called Donbas.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow will take unspecified ``military-technical measures'' if the West stonewalls its demands.

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Producer and director Marianne Khoury was awarded France's Legion of Honor, in the degree of Chevalier (Knight).

The award was given to Khoury by the ambassador of France to Egypt in Cairo.

Born in 1958, Khoury is a graduate of economics from Cairo and Oxford Universities.

She has directed and produced films on controversial issues such as identity, memory, and social exclusion. She worked with renowned Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, and made her first documentary, The Times of Laura (1999). She then worked on Women Who Loved Cinema (2002) and Shadows which tackles personal and social perceptions of the mentally ill.

Shadows premiered at the Opening of Venice Film Festival (2010), and won the FIPRESCI award at Dubai Film Festival (2010) and the Italian television Rai award (2011) at the International Festival of Mediterranean Documentary and Current Affairs Films.

She produced and directed Let's Talk (2019) which received the Audience Award at the 41st Cairo International Film Festival. Very personal in character, the film is a conversation between her and her daughter about ordinary things in life: death, life, illness, identity, marriage etc.

Khoury is a managing partner at the Cairo-based Misr International Films, one of Egypts production companies. She is also a co-founder of the Panorama of the European Film.

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The two sides also tackled cooperation regarding a number proposed climate initiatives to be launched during COP27

The minister welcomed ESCWA's request to offer technical support to Egypt and help in organising the event.

Meanwhile, Dashti shed light on the climate/SDGs debt swap mechanism launched by the ESCWA to serve the interests of both the developing and the developed countries, saying it would be presented as part of the initiatives that Egypt will float during the climate gathering.
Egypt reported 1,403 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, bringing the total infection toll up to 405,393 since the outbreak began in February 2020, the health ministry said.

The ministry also reported 22 new deaths in the past 24 hours nationwide, bringing the total fatalities nationwide to 22,260.

The statement added that 1,632 patients have been discharged from hospitals after recovering from the virus, bringing the total number of recoveries to 339,259.

Egypt announced on Thursday new travel restrictions as the number of coronavirus cases continue to increase.

Starting 22 January, Egyptian and foreign travelers to Egypt, except children below the age of 12, will require certificates of coronavirus vaccination or negative results of coronavirus tests, Acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar said in a statement on Thursday.

Coronavirus tests must be taken within 72 hours of arrival to the Egyptian ports.

A vaccination certificate has to show that the traveler had received the single-dose vaccine or the last dose of the two-shot vaccines at least 14 days before arrival, Abdel-Ghaffar noted.

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Egypt received Thursday evening a new shipment of more than 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine donated by Belgium and Germany, the health ministry announced.

According to the health ministry, Egypt received 667,100 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine presented by Belgium and Germany.

The donation was made via the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) program in cooperation with the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI).

So far, Egypt tops Africa in its coronavirus vaccine stock from Sinopharm, Sinovac, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

Egypt has obtained a total of 132 million doses of various coronavirus vaccines so far, of which 36.6 million first doses and 24.1 million second doses have been administered, the acting health minister said during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The minister also revealed that 489,700 booster doses have been used, bringing the number of total administered doses to 61.3 million.

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Retired general Yair Golan spent a significant part of his military career serving in the occupied West Bank, protecting Jewish settlements. Today, he is one of their most vocal critics.

Golan, a former deputy military chief, is now a legislator with the dovish Meretz party, where he has repeatedly spoken out against settler violence against Palestinians.

His comments, highlighted by his recent description of violent settlers as "subhuman,'' have rattled Israel's delicate governing coalition, and his opponents have labelled him a radical. He joins a cadre of former security personnel who, after not speaking up while in uniform and positions of influence, have in retirement sounded the alarm over Israel's five-decade-long military rule of the Palestinians.

"You can't have a free and democratic state so long as we are controlling people who don't want to be controlled by us,'' Golan told The Associated Press in an interview at his office in the Knesset this week. "What kind of democracy are we building here long term?''

Golan has emerged as a rare critical voice in a society where the occupation is largely an accepted fact and where settlers have successfully pushed their narrative through their proximity to the levers of power. Most members of Israel's parliament belong to the pro-settlement right wing.

Golan, 59, had a long military career, being wounded in action in Lebanon and filling key positions as head of the country's northern command and as commander of the West Bank, among others.

Along the way, he gained a reputation as a maverick for decisions that sometimes landed him in hot water. At one point, he reached an unauthorized deal to remove some settlers from the West Bank city of Hebron. He was reprimanded and promotion was delayed after he permitted the use of Palestinian non-combatants as human shields during arrest raids, a tactic the country's Supreme Court banned.

At the same time, he was credited with permitting thousands of Syrians wounded in their country's civil war to enter Israel for medical treatment.

As the deputy military chief, he was passed over for the top job after comparing what he saw as fascistic trends in modern-day Israel to Nazi Germany. He believes the speech cost him the position.

A few years after retirement, he was elected to parliament and eventually joined Meretz, a party that supports Palestinian statehood and is part of the current coalition headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Meretz has been one of the few parties to make ending Israel's occupation a top priority. But since joining the coalition, which has agreed to focus on less divisive issues to maintain its stability, most of its members have appeared to tone down their criticism.

Golan has not. Earlier this month, he caused a firestorm when he lashed out against settlers who vandalized graves in the Palestinian West Bank village of Burqa.

"These are not people, these are subhumans,'' Golan told the Knesset Channel. "They must not be given any backing.''

His remarks angered Bennett, a former settler leader, and sparked criticism from others within the coalition.

Golan acknowledged his choice of words was flawed but said he stands by the spirit of his remarks.

"Is the problem the expression that I used or is the problem those same people who go up to Burqa, smash graves, damage property and assault innocent Palestinians?'' he said.

Such statements have turned him into a poster boy for what far-right nationalists describe as dangerous forces in the coalition challenging Israel's role in the West Bank. The Palestinians seek the area, captured by Israel in 1967, as the heartland of a future state.

Some on Israel's dovish left also have been hesitant to embrace Golan, who continues to defend the army's actions in the West Bank.

Golan always saw his duty in the territory as primarily combatting Palestinian militants, and he continues to believe that most settlers are law-abiding citizens. The international community overwhelmingly considers all settlements illegal or illegitimate, and the Palestinians and many left-wing Israelis see the military as an enforcer of an unjust occupation.

Breaking the Silence, a whistleblower group for former Israeli soldiers who oppose policies in the West Bank, called for action, not just words, against settler violence.

"Yair Golan knows full well what settler violence looks like and what our violent control over the Palestinian people looks like. That's why his criticism is valuable, but it's not enough,'' the group said in a statement.

Golan said he always saw Israeli control over Palestinian territories as temporary. He said separating from the Palestinians is the only way to keep Israel a democratic state with a Jewish majority.

In 2006, Golan commanded the violent evacuation of the Amona settlement in the West Bank, which was built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

"I can't come to terms with the idea that someone Jewish who holds Jewish values supports the theft of someone else's lands,'' he said.

In recent months, as violence between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank has ticked up, videos have emerged of soldiers standing by as settlers rampage. Golan said he never would have allowed such a thing under his command.

"These people don't accept the essence of Israel and abide by the law only when it's convenient for them,'' he said.

His comments about settlers aren't the first to rankle the establishment. In a 2016 speech marking Israel's Holocaust memorial day, Golan, then deputy military chief, said he was witnessing "nauseating processes'' in Israeli society that reminded him of the fascism of Nazi-era Germany.

He said the remarks were sparked by the fatal shooting of a subdued Palestinian attacker by a soldier. The soldier was embraced by nationalist politicians, including then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Golan said the shooting was nothing short of an execution.

Next to his desk, Golan keeps a photo of Netanyahu arriving for his corruption trial at a Jerusalem courthouse, surrounded by his Likud Party supporters as he rants against police and prosecutors.

Golan said the image is a reminder of what he is fighting against, and for.

"I served the country in uniform for so many years, I really gave it my life,'' Golan said. Pointing to the photo, he said: "I didn't endanger my life countless times for these people.''

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Iran, Russia and China on Friday began a joint naval drill in the Indian Ocean aimed at boosting marine security, state media reported.

Iran's state TV said 11 of its vessels were joined by three Russian ships including a destroyer, and two Chinese vessels. Iran's Revolutionary Guard will also participate with smaller ships and helicopters.

The report said the manoeuvres would cover some 17,000 square kilometres, or 10,600 miles, in the Indian Ocean's north, and include night fighting, rescue operations and firefighting drills.

This is the third joint naval drill between the countries since 2019. It coincided with a recent visit by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Russia that ended on Thursday.

"Improving bilateral relations between Tehran and Moscow will enhance security for the region and the international arena,'' Raisi said upon returning from Russia on Friday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Tehran has sought to step up military cooperation with Beijing and Moscow amid regional tensions with the United States. Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also increased in recent years.

Iran has been holding regular military drills in recent months, as attempts to revive its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers flounder.

Russia is also at loggerheads with the U.S. and the West over its neighbour Ukraine, where it has sent some 100,000 troops that Washington, Kyiv and their allies fear will be used to invade the country.

Russia on Thursday announced sweeping naval manoeuvres in multiple areas involving the bulk of its naval potential _ over 140 warships and more than 60 aircraft _ to last through February. The exercises will be in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the northeastern Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, in addition to the joint exercise with Iran in the Indian Ocean.

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The report, published in the Lancet, also found antimicrobial resistance played a role in up to 3.68 million other deaths.

These new data reveal the true scale of antimicrobial resistance worldwide, and are a clear signal that we must act now to combat the threat, said study co-author Chris Murray of the University of Washington.

While previous estimates said superbugs could kill 10 million people per year by 2050, this study shows that milestone could be reached much sooner, he added.

We need to leverage this data to course-correct action and drive innovation if we want to stay ahead in the race against antimicrobial resistance.

The estimates for 204 countries and territories were based on data from a wide range of sources including public health systems, pharmaceutical surveillance networks, previous studies and more.

Methodological assumptions had to be made for parts of the world where data was lacking, especially low- and middle-income countries, the authors acknowledged.

They urged more investment in laboratory and research facilities in those areas.

Bacteria-eating virus

Antimicrobial resistance occurs as bacteria evolve to be immune to antibiotics.

The World Health Organisation has declared it a global health crisis, setting up a task force to study alternative treatments.

One area of research involves bacteria-eating viruses called bacteriophages or simply phages.
KYODO NEWS - Jan 21, 2022 - 17:29 | All, World

A local journalist in Tonga spoke Friday about a chaotic evacuation situation she was in after the devastating eruption of an undersea volcano and subsequent tsunami last weekend that caused severe damage to the small South Pacific nation.

Marian Kupu, a radio journalist in the capital Nuku'alofa, described the harrowing events following Saturday's eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano in a phone interview with Kyodo News on Friday, providing one of the first eyewitness accounts in the island country still covered in ash.

"All of us here in Tonga...we will never forget what happened on that day -- the explosion, the noise, the queuing, the ashes, the loss," Kupu said. "When the first explosion happened, our ears were ringing and we could not hear each other, so we mimicked at each other to evacuate."

When she managed to get in a vehicle and tried to drive away from the Nuku'alofa area, the road was "already packed and people were just queuing" as residents fled their homes and raced inland, she said.

Kupu began to hear little thumps on her car windshield as she drove away from the shoreline and found out the noise was made by a rainfall of little rocks.

"Then all of a sudden we just saw black dust everywhere," which was a blanket of volcanic ash that covered the nation "from head to toe," Kupu said. "It was harder for us to drive because we couldn't see where we were going, not only that we were queuing but we couldn't see."

The volcanic eruption generated tsunami of up to 15 meters and sent waves across the Pacific, killing at least three people and causing extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure in Tonga. In the capital Nuku'alofa, some 60 kilometers south of the volcano, a 1.2-meter tsunami was observed.

Kupu said people in Tonga are still busy cleaning up the dust.

"Some of us are able to clean the dust from our home, from our clothes, from our vehicle...then when the wind comes, it just blows all the dust from trees and everything else on the ground, and then we just have to keep cleaning up because there's just dust everywhere," she said.

Tonga's population of around 105,000 has largely been cut off from the world since the disaster, with the archipelago's sole undersea communications cable severed by the volcanic eruption.

Some 2G connectivity was restored to Tonga on Thursday, but communications remain limited with demand exceeding capacity, the New Zealand government said.

Power supplies have been restored in the capital and elsewhere, but they remain fragile. "Electricity is back, but it's on and off," Kupu was quoted by Australian Broadcasting Corp. as saying. "Some outages last for hours, some last for days."

Drinking water is now the main concern for Tonga, after ash contaminated most of the islands' supplies.

The delivery of international aid began Thursday from Australia and New Zealand, and the arrival of a second navy ship dispatched by Wellington on Friday brought much-needed relief -- 250,000 liters of water and a desalination plant that can produce 70,000 liters per day.

A second flight from Australia carrying relief supplies was also scheduled to arrive in Tonga on Friday.

According to the United Nations, about 84,000 people in the archipelago have been impacted by the disaster, or more than 80 percent of the population.

Related coverage:

Int'l aid delivery begins in Tonga following eruption, tsunami

Japan to provide over $1 mil., supplies to tsunami-hit Tonga

3 deaths, significant damage confirmed following Tonga eruption
KYODO NEWS - Jan 21, 2022 - 18:57 | All, Japan

The percentage of Japanese who "feel friendly" toward the United States increased to an all-time high of 88.5 percent, a Japanese government poll showed Friday, reflecting strengthened ties between the allies in such areas as security and the economy.

The figure is up 4.5 percentage points from the previous survey a year ago, according to the Cabinet Office survey, which also found that around 85 percent of respondents see ties between Japan and China as "not good" or "not really good."

Similar polls on foreign affairs have been conducted since 1975. The question about a feeling of friendliness toward the United States first appeared in the 1978 survey.

The latest survey also showed a record 91.3 percent view the current Japan-U.S. relationship as "somewhat good" or "good," with up to 98.2 percent saying bilateral ties are "somewhat important" or "important," also a record high.

The results "reflect a good condition" for the Japan-U.S. relationship, a Foreign Ministry official told reporters.

"The Japanese government has been further beefing up its alliance with the United States, and collaboration with (U.S. President Joe) Biden's administration in a variety of fields such as national security, the economy and people-to-people interaction," the official added.

The Cabinet Office cautioned that the latest data, which covered a period from Sept. 30 to Nov. 7, cannot be compared directly with figures before a 2020 survey, as the survey method shifted from in-person interviews to mail-in surveys in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The 2021 survey, meanwhile, found 79.0 percent of Japanese say they "do not feel friendly" toward China, up from 77.3 percent a year earlier and nearly four times the respondents who said they "feel friendly." The latter group accounted for 20.6 percent, down from 22.0 percent.

Those who said ties between Tokyo and Beijing are "not good" or "not really good" came to 85.2 percent, up from 81.8 percent, and 14.5 percent said they are "somewhat good" or "good," down from 17.1 percent.

The official said the two neighbors have "various outstanding problems that have caught Japanese people's attention," specifically the Japan-controlled, China-claimed Senkaku Islands and human rights issues in Hong Kong and China's far-western Xinjiang region.

On another neighbor, South Korea, the survey showed 62.4 percent said they "do not feel friendly" toward the country, down slightly from 64.5 percent, while those with friendly feelings accounted for 37.0 percent, up from 34.9 percent.

On cultural exchanges with other countries, the survey found 40.1 percent said Japan should put the priority on promoting its pop culture represented by anime and manga, compared with 25.3 percent who said traditional culture, such as "ikebana" flower arrangement, tea ceremony and Kabuki, in a question allowing multiple answers.

The survey queried 3,000 adults, with 56.7 percent giving valid responses.

Related coverage:

Japan, U.S. to launch ministerial talks on economy

Japan, U.S. concerned over China bid to undermine rules-based order

U.S. bases in Japan requested to impose curfews amid COVID spread
KYODO NEWS - Jan 21, 2022 - 08:29 | All, Japan

Japan and the United States on Friday urged world leaders to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the cities destroyed by U.S. atomic bombings in World War II, as they aim to build momentum toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

"Recalling the visit by former President (Barack) Obama to Hiroshima, Japan and the United States call on political leaders, youth, and others to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to raise and sustain awareness," the two governments said in a joint statement, referring to the former U.S. president's historic visit in 2016.

The move came after a U.N. conference to review the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, scheduled to be held Jan. 4 to 28 in New York, was put off amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The gathering has been repeatedly postponed from its original date in 2020 due to the pandemic.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official told reporters that it was regrettable that the NPT talks were called off. "After consulting the U.S. side, we concluded that issuing this kind of statement now is the most effective way to maintain and increase the momentum" toward nuclear disarmament, the official said.

The statement was released ahead of an online meeting to be held later in the day between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents a constituency in Hiroshima and was foreign minister when Obama visited, and U.S. President Joe Biden. It will be the first summit of the two leaders since Kishida took office in October.

In April 2015, Tokyo and Washington issued a joint statement when the previous NPT review conference was taking place, but they did not make such a request for leaders to visit the western and southwestern Japan cities, where the world's first and second atomic bombs were dropped on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "serve as stark reminders that the 76-year record of non-use of nuclear weapons must be maintained," the statement said, recognizing the NPT as "indispensable for preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and achieving their total elimination."

Japan also welcomed a joint statement issued earlier this month by the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- the five recognized nuclear powers -- which affirmed that a nuclear war must be avoided, and that such weapons should be limited to defensive purposes and to deter aggression.

The United States said it "was pleased to co-sponsor" a resolution with Japan adopted by the U.N. General Assembly last month.

The resolution, calling for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, was backed by the United States, Britain and France, while Russia and China opposed it.

In the statement, Japan and the United States noted China's "ongoing increase in its nuclear capabilities" and urged Beijing to "contribute to arrangements that reduce nuclear risks, increase transparency, and advance nuclear disarmament."

Japan and the United States also said they are "strongly committed to the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement" of North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The two nations urged Iran to "fully and immediately cooperate" with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog tasked with verifying Tehran's commitments under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
KYODO NEWS - Jan 21, 2022 - 21:28 | World, All

The world's first purpose-built liquefied hydrogen carrier built by a Japanese company arrived in Australia on Friday, as part of a project to create liquefied hydrogen from Australian brown coal and ship it to Japan.

The Suiso Frontier liquid hydrogen carrier built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. docked at the Port of Hastings located southeast of Melbourne.

It will transport hydrogen to Japan as part of a project between the two countries and undertaken by a consortium of companies from Australia and Japan including Australian company AGL Energy Ltd., Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Japanese company Iwatani Corp.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the shipment of liquid hydrogen, which is a part of the project called Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain, is the start of a major new energy export industry for Australia.

"The HESC project puts Australia at the forefront of the global energy transition to lower emissions through clean hydrogen, which is a fuel of the future," Morrison said in a statement, adding the project is key to the two countries' hydrogen industries.

The project involves brown coal from the Latrobe Valley in the southeastern state of Victoria being steamed under high heat to create hydrogen.

The gas is transported some 160 kilometers west to the Port of Hastings where it is cooled to minus 253 C and turned into a liquid, reducing its volume to one-800th of the original gas, ready to be transported to Japan.

It is hoped the hydrogen, which produces only water as an emission when used as fuel, can be used for electric fuel cell vehicles and as an alternative to natural gas, among other uses.

Angus Taylor, the Australian minister for industry, energy and emissions reduction, also commended the arrival of the carrier and said the project would help Australia and Japan reach their goals of zero emissions by 2050.

Later this week, the Suiso Frontier will leave the port and arrive at Kobe in mid-February or later.

To support the project's precommercialization phase, the Australian government said it will provide AU$7.5 million ($5.4 million). Once full commercial production is realized, the project will produce 225,000 tons of hydrogen, which will help reduce global CO2 emissions by some 1.8 million tons per year, the government said.

Related coverage:

Brown coal-to-hydrogen project between Australia, Japan begins
KYODO NEWS - Jan 21, 2022 - 20:50 | All, Japan, Coronavirus

U.S. Forces Japan said Friday it has decided to extend COVID-19 restrictions on its personnel's activities outside bases in Japan by one week through the end of January.

The decision was made "due to the continuing increase of COVID-19 cases throughout Japan," fueled by the rapid spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus, U.S. Forces Japan said in a press release.

The measures have been implemented since Jan. 10 following a surge in virus infections among American military personnel in prefectures such as Okinawa and Yamaguchi.

Clusters of COVID-19 cases at U.S. military facilities in prefectures hosting U.S. military bases have been reported since last month.

The spike in new cases prompted Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi to ask the U.S. side earlier in the month to impose curfews at U.S. military bases in Japan.

Under the measures, the movement of military personnel outside military facilities is restricted to essential activities, and wearing a mask is required even on bases.

The extension comes ahead of a virtual meeting later in the day between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden, the first formal summit between the two leaders since Kishida took office in October.

Hayashi told a parliament session that a total of 6,350 coronavirus cases had been confirmed among U.S. forces personnel stationed in Japan as of Wednesday, of which 4,141 were in the southern island prefecture of Okinawa.

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki has demanded that restrictions on U.S. military personnel be maintained "until the virus spread is brought under control."

Related coverage:

Hayashi points to U.S. forces over COVID surge in parts of Japan

U.S. bases in Japan requested to impose curfews amid COVID spread

Record 235 COVID-19 cases reported from U.S. forces in Okinawa
A lorry drives out of the Hong Leng Huor Dry Port on the western suburb of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Jan. 13, 2022. (Photo by Phearum/Xinhua)

Paul Kim, deputy chief of Hong Leng Huor Transportation, dubbed the RCEP "a huge New Year gift for businesses and peoples in the region and the world at large," saying that the agreement will "serve as a driving force for regional and global economic recovery in the post-COVID-19 pandemic."

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free trade agreement, which entered into force on Jan. 1, is a huge New Year gift for the regional and global economy, business people in Cambodia said.

The RCEP is a mega trade agreement signed by 10 ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member states Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and its five free trade agreements partners, namely China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Paul Kim, deputy chief of Hong Leng Huor Transportation, said the RCEP would eventually eliminate up to 90 percent of regional trade tariff and non-tariff barriers, which will further promote the flows of goods and services, deepen regional economic integration and increase regional competitiveness.

"With preferential tariff rates under the RCEP, I believe that people in the member countries will enjoy buying products and other necessities at a competitive price during the Spring Festival season this year," Paul said.

He dubbed the RCEP "a huge New Year gift for businesses and peoples in the region and the world at large," saying that the agreement will "serve as a driving force for regional and global economic recovery in the post-COVID-19 pandemic."

Collectively covering about one-third of the world's population with 30 percent of the global gross domestic product, the RCEP will increase the member economies' incomes by 0.6 percent by 2030, adding 245 billion U.S. dollars annually to regional income and 2.8 million jobs to regional employment, according to an Asian Development Bank's study.

A crane truck lifts a container at the Hong Leng Huor Dry Port on the western suburb of Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Jan. 13, 2022. (Photo by Phearum/Xinhua)

Focused on trade in goods and services, investment, intellectual property, e-commerce, competition and dispute settlement, Paul said the deal offers opportunities for regional countries to defend multilateralism, trade liberalization and promote economic cooperation.

Hong Leng Huor Transportation specializes in various services ranging from freight forwarding, dry port operations, customs clearance, road transportation, warehousing and distribution to e-commerce and last-mile delivery.

"RCEP will facilitate logistics, distribution and supply chain resilience as it simplifies customs processes, shipment clearances and other provisions," he said. "Despite the pandemic, trade has remained surprisingly strong during the past two years, and we're excited to witness how RCEP would further facilitate trade and, thus, regional economic growth, in the years to come."

He is confident that the RCEP will further boost cross-border trade and investment among the member countries in the long run.

"For Cambodia, with tariff concessions, the deal will definitely further boost goods traded between Cambodia and other RCEP member states, especially with China," he said.

Ly Eng, an assistant to the general manager of Hualong Investment Group (Cambodia) Co., Ltd, said her company had recently imported mandarin oranges to Cambodia from South China's Guangdong province for the first time under the RCEP.

Photo taken on Jan. 13, 2022 shows containers at the Hong Leng Huor Dry Port on the western suburb of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo by Phearum/Xinhua)

She hopes that Cambodian consumers will have more options in buying vegetables and fruits with products from China such as mandarin oranges, apples and crown pears.

"It will make China and other RCEP member countries easy to exchange goods faster," Ly Eng said, adding that the prices would also be lower.

"We also hope that more and more Cambodian tropical fruits and other potential agricultural products will be exported to the Chinese market in the future," she said.

Ny Ratana, a 28-year-old vendor of Lunar New Year decorations at the Chbar Ampov Market in Phnom Penh, said 2022 is a special year for Cambodia and other 14 Asia-Pacific countries now that the RCEP took effect.

"I'm confident that this agreement will boost trade and investment and create new jobs as well as benefit consumers in all 15 participating countries due to preferential tariff rates," he told Xinhua.

"It will definitely facilitate regional economic integration, enhance regional trade flows and bring about economic prosperity for the region and the world," he added. 
Photo taken on Dec. 3, 2021 shows a meeting of the Joint Commission on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, Austria. (EU Delegation in Vienna/Handout via Xinhua)

"Iran has done everything in its power to constructively engage in the talks. It has actively contributed to the progress of the talks through drafting and presenting innovative proposals," Tehran Times said recently.



TEHRAN, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- Western countries involved in the ongoing Vienna nuclear negotiations on Thursday continued to create a sense of urgency by highlighting again that it was now just a matter of weeks to revive the 2015 Iranian nuclear pact, despite Iran's repeated rejection of such "constructed deadlines."



The months-long diplomatic endeavors in the Austrian capital have yet to find a way to break the impasse between Washington and Tehran, which have negotiated indirectly through the mediation of the European Union.

Although there has been no deadline formally set for the end of the talks, it seems that unless the challenges are dealt with fairly, the negotiation may lead to a more complicated and trickier situation.

"DECISIVE MOMENT"

"There is real urgency and it's really now a matter of weeks, where we determine whether or not we can return to mutual compliance with the agreement," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a news conference on Thursday after meeting British, French and German ministers in Berlin.

"We are indeed at a decisive moment," he noted.

Also, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said earlier that the negotiations on the fate of the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), "are underway but from our point of view they are slow, too slow."

"There is a vital urgency on this issue because of Iran's own actions and the trajectory of its nuclear program," he told the French parliament last week.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator in the Vienna talks Ali Bagheri Kani (Front) arrives at the venue of the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, Austria, on Dec. 17, 2021. The seventh round of the Iran nuclear talks concluded here on Friday. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

Meanwhile, the eighth round of negotiations has entered "a critical and relatively decisive stage," the outcome of which can have a significant impact on the outcome of the negotiations, Nour News, a media outlet close to Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said recently.

An examination of the current process in the negotiations reveals the fact that in less complex issues of dispute, progress has accelerated, but disagreement on more difficult areas remains, according to Nour News, which suggested the parties involved "come to the talks with more initiative and authority to pass this stage."

"MEDIA GAMES"

Making media literature on "time constraints" and repeating the threat of "taking advantage of other options" if diplomacy fails is an "old and inefficient tool the Western side of negotiations still insists on using," Nour News said, in an apparent reference to the warning by the Western parties to the deal that "window for diplomacy is closing."



There is no need to repeat "fruitless media games," if the West, especially the United States, prefers "the need for wise decision-making over politicking and extravagance," it added.

"Iran has done everything in its power to constructively engage in the talks. It has actively contributed to the progress of the talks through drafting and presenting innovative proposals," Tehran Times said recently.

"The slow pace of Vienna talks is due to Western obstinacy," it added.

In an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said negotiators in Vienna "are not advancing a lot" on the sanctions-lifting aspect of the deal, because "Americans are yet to make the needed political decisions in their capital."

Photo taken on April 9, 2021 shows a meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, Austria. (EU Delegation in Vienna/Handout via Xinhua)

"BEHAVIORAL CONTRADICTION"

Amir Ali Abolfath, an Iranian international affairs analyst, wrote in Arman Melli newspaper about the "behavioral contradiction of the Americans" in the ongoing nuclear talks in Vienna.

"On the one hand, the Americans are asking for the progress of negotiations, and on the other hand, they are not taking any practical steps to revive the agreement," he said.

If the current U.S. government is critical of the behavior of the previous government and considers leaving the JCPOA "a big mistake", it should take an effective step to solve the problem, Abolfath concluded.

Likewise, Soheil Sabet, a political expert, wrote in a note in Arman Melli that the time for the Western parties has arrived to show their real willingness to reach an agreement by taking "meaningful and action-oriented" steps.

According to the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Western diplomats have warned that the biggest obstacles to the Vienna talks on salvaging the JCPOA is Iran's request for a legal guarantee that the United States would not re-withdraw from a possible deal and re-impose sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh speaks in an interview with Xinhua in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 18, 2022. (Xinhua photo)

Khatibzadeh told Xinhua that the Iranian side wants to ensure that "enough mechanisms are embedded in the new understanding that the United States can get to the deal when there is a reliable and stable new agreement."

Iran demands "objective guarantees that the United States is not going to mock international law" by violating the deal again, Khatibzadeh said, adding Iran wants to "verify that this time they are not going to cheat as previously they did their best to actually make enough obstacles for Iran's economic, trade, and business relations with other countries." 
Shi Pengbin (L) and his colleague check the windproof equipment of the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 19, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (L) and his colleague maintain the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 19, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin fills in the checking record of the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (R) and his colleague prepare to maintain the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin checks the fence on the bridge pier of the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (L), helps his colleague with safety belt at the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (R) and his colleagues return from work on the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin poses for a photo on the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (L) explains to his colleague about maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (C), poses for a photo with his colleagues on the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin and his colleague check the bearing of Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (R) and his colleague work on the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (L) and his colleagues work on the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (L) and his colleague work on the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin (R), arranges his safety belt at the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Aerial photo shows a train crossing the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Shi Pengbin checks the Yuanjiang major bridge over the Yuanjiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Jan. 18, 2022. Shi Pengbin, 28, is a technician responsible for maintaining the Yuanjiang major bridge, a key bridge of the China-Laos Railway project. Spanning a full length of 832.2 meters, the Yuanjiang bridge uses six bridge piers with the No.3 bridge pier, the highest pier, standing at 154 meters. Shi, who started working for the construction of the China-Laos Railway from April 2020, even postponed his wedding to guarantee on-time completion of the bridge. After the operation of China-Laos Railway, Shi's work includes checking the bridge in high places during the day, and repairing the bridge floor during the break time for rail service at night. During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Shi and his colleagues will stick to their posts to secure the railway transportation. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi (R) poses for photos with visiting South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Cairo, Egypt, on Jan. 20, 2022. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his visiting South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in agreed on Thursday on the importance of boosting joint cooperation to support Egypt's vision, the Presidency office of Egypt said in a statement. (Egyptian Presidency/Handout via Xinhua)

CAIRO, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his visiting South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in agreed on Thursday on the importance of boosting joint cooperation to support Egypt's vision, the Presidency office of Egypt said in a statement.

This is the first visit by a South Korean president in 16 years, according to Bassam Rady, spokesperson of the Egypt's presidency.

Moon's visit to Egypt, which will last until Jan. 21, is part of his regional tour that also includes the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

"This visit comes within the framework of our mutual interest in consulting and exchanging views on various topics and issues of common interest, as well as working to strengthen relations of cooperation between Egypt and South Korea," Sisi said.

The two leaders witnessed the ceremony of signing several memoranda of understanding, including a one-billion U.S. dollar deal on financial cooperation from 2022 to 2026 between the two countries, and a 251-million-dollar loan by South Korea to upgrade the Luxor-High Dam railway line.

The two sides also signed a Korean grant of eight million U.S. dollars.

Egypt seeks to attract South Korean companies and investments in major development projects and infrastructure projects, as well as in the fields of energy, mining, transportation, communications, and information technology, according to the statement.

The two leaders also discussed the huge opportunities offered by starting work in the Continental Free Trade Area.

They also exchanged views on regional and international issues of mutual interest.

For his part, Moon hailed the Egyptian role as a cornerstone in safeguarding the security and stability in the Middle East and Africa by reaching political settlements for the regional crises.

He also touched upon Egypt's efforts in combating terrorism and extremist thoughts, as well as prevailing the values of co-existence and tolerance in the region. 

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi (R) holds talks with visiting South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Cairo, Egypt, on Jan. 20, 2022. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his visiting South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in agreed on Thursday on the importance of boosting joint cooperation to support Egypt's vision, the Presidency office of Egypt said in a statement. (Egyptian Presidency/Handout via Xinhua)

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi (R, Front) holds a welcome ceremony for visiting South Korean President Moon Jae-in (L, Front) in Cairo, Egypt, on Jan. 20, 2022. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his visiting South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in agreed on Thursday on the importance of boosting joint cooperation to support Egypt's vision, the Presidency office of Egypt said in a statement. (Egyptian Presidency/Handout via Xinhua)
Photo taken on Feb. 18, 2021 shows missile destroyer Changsha sailing on the sea. (Photo by Wang Jian/Xinhua)

BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- China, Iran and Russia held a second maritime exercise from Tuesday to Thursday at the waters of the Gulf of Oman, according to China's Ministry of National Defense.

The Chinese side sent a missile destroyer, a supply ship and helicopters, as well as 40 members of the Chinese navy marine corps, to participate in the exercise, the ministry said.

The joint exercise aimed to deepen practical cooperation among the three navies, and show the willingness and capabilities of the three countries to jointly safeguard maritime security and build a maritime community with a shared future, the ministry said. 
In the photo, taken on Nov. 21, 2021, in Khartoum, Sudan, Chairman of Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan speaks after signing a political declaration with Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and reappointing him as prime minister. (Xinhua /Mohamed Khidir)

KHARTOUM, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's ruling and military-dominated Transitional Sovereign Council on Thursday agreed to the formation of a government of national competencies led by a civilian prime minister to complete the tasks of the ongoing transitional period.

Chairman of the council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan made clear the council's stand when he received a U.S. delegation, headed by U.S. Assistant State Secretary Molly Phee and Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa David Satterfield, at the Republican Palace, the council said in a statement.

Photo taken on Sept. 21, 2021 shows a view of Khartoum, capital of Sudan. (Xinhua/Mohamed Khidir)

The council expressed readiness to make amendments to the constitution to adapt to the new developments and the conduction of free and fair elections in Sudan by the end of the transitional period.

The Sudanese and American sides stressed the inclusion of all Sudanese parties into a comprehensive round-table national dialogue involving all political and societal forces, excluding the dissolved National Congress Party, to reach a national consensus out of the current crisis, the statement said.

Sudan has been suffering a political crisis after Al-Burhan, who also serves as the general commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, declared a state of emergency on Oct. 25, 2021 and dissolved the Sovereign Council and the government led by then Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. 
A man wearing face mask walks past a bus at Odenplan station in central Stockholm, capital of Sweden, on May 6, 2021. (Photo by Wei Xuechao/Xinhua)

The Swedish Police said that ten percent of their staff were off on Wednesday, and contingency plans were being prepared. Schools and transportation companies have also experienced severe staff shortages -- and this is before the Omicron wave has even reached its peak, according to the Public Health Agency.

STOCKHOLM, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Sweden will relax quarantine rules to prevent the collapse of critical services as the Omicron variant spreads across the country, causing staff shortages.

"We now see a massive impact on society due to COVID-19," said Sara Byfors from the Swedish Public Health Agency at a press conference on Thursday.

Several sectors have struggled with staff shortages recently, since many employees have been off infected with COVID-19, or in seven-day quarantine due to someone else in their household catching the virus.

The Swedish Police said that ten percent of their staff were off on Wednesday, and contingency plans were being prepared. Schools and transportation companies have also experienced severe staff shortages -- and this is before the Omicron wave has even reached its peak, according to the Public Health Agency.

Under the newly relaxed rules, quarantine has been shortened from seven to five days -- without symptoms the last two days, the agency said in a joint press conference together with the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency and the National Board of Health and Welfare.

Photo taken on May 6, 2021 shows a sign asking people to keep social distance in a metro compartment in Stockholm, capital of Sweden.(Photo by Wei Xuechao/Xinhua)

In addition, those who have had three vaccine doses -- which on Thursday accounted for 39.6 percent of the population aged 18 and over -- or have recovered from COVID-19 during the past three months, are exempt from quarantine if a member of the household is infected.

Individuals with key job functions specified by the Civil Contingencies Agency are also exempt, even if they have not yet had a booster dose. However, their workplace must implement measures to minimize the risk for transmission.

Authorities are also urging those who are exempt to refrain from all forms of physical contact outside the home and workplace.

Testing capacity has reached its limit due to a massive increase in the number of individuals reporting symptoms: during the second week of the year, 520,000 tests were carried out. Therefore, authorities have decided to tweak the priorities for COVID-19 testing. Individuals who can work from home have the lowest priority, while children in primary and secondary school are first in line.

According to the latest statistics released by the Public Health Agency, Sweden reported about 41,000 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, taking the national tally to over 1.74 million.

A staff member wearing a face mask and a shield answers a passenger's questions at a subway station in Stockholm, Sweden, on Feb. 10, 2021. (Photo by Wei Xuechao/Xinhua)
New Delhi:

Telecom service major Bharti Airtel has posted loss of Rs 23,405 during the second quarter ended September 30. This is the highest ever loss of Indias second-largest wireless telecom services provider.

Bharti Airtel, which has been hit hard by the Supreme Court ruling on statutory dues, recorded net income of Rs 119 crore in the same quarter a year ago, although it said that amount are not comparable due to adoption of new accounting system.

The consolidated revenue of Bharti Airtel was up by 4.7 per cent at Rs 21,199 crore in the just concluded quarter. The company said that the top court ruling has significant financial implication on the company.

"The Company is hopeful of relief and in the absence of the same, has provided for an additional amount aggregating Rs 28,450 crore as a charge for the quarter with respect to the license fee as estimated based on the court judgement and spectrum usage charges (SUC) as estimated based on the definition of AGR," the company said in a statement.

The amount comprises principal of Rs 6,164 crore, interest of Rs 12,219 crore, penalty of Rs 3,760 crore, and interest on penalty of Rs 6,307 crore, it added.

"These provisions have been made without prejudice to the company's right to contest DoT's demands on facts as well as on rights available in law. Thus the liabilities / provisions as at September 30, 2019 aggregate Rs 34,260 crore comprising of principal of Rs 8,747 crore, interest of Rs 15,446 crore, penalty of Rs 3,760 crore and interest on penalty of Rs 6,307 crore," the statement said.

The Supreme Court, last month, upheld the government's position on including revenue from non-telecommunication businesses in calculating the annual AGR of telecom companies, a share of which is paid as licence and spectrum fee to the exchequer. Old telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea will take the maximum hit on the payment of statutory dues to the government.

Bharti Airtel said that while the net loss after exceptional item was at Rs 23,045 crore, before exceptional item the net loss stood at Rs 1,123 crore.

The company's India revenues increased by 3 per cent on year-on-year basis to Rs 15,361 crore. Bharti Airtel shares closed at Rs 362.65, down by 1.59 per cent compared to previous close on the BSE. The results were announced after market hours.

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New Delhi:

Facebook on Wednesday said that its software is getting more skilled at spying banned content at the social network, then working with humans to quickly remove terrorist videos and more.

While we err on the side of free expression, we generally draw the line at anything that could result in real harm, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said during a briefing on the companys latest report on ferreting out posts that violate its policies.

This is a tiny fraction of the content on Facebook and Instagram, and we remove much of it before anyone sees it. Facebook has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically spot banned content, often before it is seen by users, and human teams of reviewers who check whether the software was on target.

Facebook has more than 35,000 people working on safety and security, and spends billions of dollars annually on that mission, according to Zuckerberg.

Our efforts are paying off, Zuckerberg said. Systems we built for addressing these issues are more advanced. When it comes to detecting hate speech, Facebook software now automatically finds 80 per cent of the content removed in a massive improvement from two years ago, when nearly all such material was not dealt with until being reported by users, according to the California-based firm.

Zuckerberg noted that hate speech is tougher for AI to detect than nudity in images or video because of linguistic nuances that require context that could make even common words menacing.

Add to that videos of attacks driven by bias against a race, gender or religion could be shared to condemn such violence rather than glorify it.

People at Facebook continue to try to share video of a horrific mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, with social network systems blocking 95 per cent of those attempts, according to executives.

A lone gunman opened fire on two mosques in the city of Christchurch killing and wounding scores of Muslims in March, broadcasting the assaults live on Facebook.

Facebook has terrorism experts as part of a team of more than 350 people devoted to preventing terrorist groups from using the social network, according to head of global policy management Monika Bickert.

Systems honed to find and delete banned content on Facebook are being used also at Instagram, which has ramped up efforts to filter out content likely to encourage suicide or self harm while allowing people to share such traumatic experiences in the spirit of recovery or healing, Rules put in place recently at Instagram added drawings and other fictional content to the list to a ban on images that might encourage suicide or self harm.

The Facebook-owned image and video sharing service early this year clamped down on images of self-injury after a British teen who went online to read about suicide took her own life in 2017.

The 14-year-olds social media history revealed that she followed accounts about depression and suicide.

The case sparked a vigorous debate in Britain about parental control and state regulation of childrens social media use.

Instagram has never allowed posts that promote or encourage suicide or self-harm.

With a rule change early this year, Instagram began removing references to non-graphic content related to people hurting themselves from its searches and recommendation features.

The measures were meant to make such images more difficult to find for depressed teens who might have suicidal tendencies.
New Delhi:

After Supreme Court's verdict on Rafale deal where the top court upheld the Rafale mega defence deal and dismissed the review plea filed by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, ex-Union Ministers Yashwant Singha and Arun Shourie, the Congress party held a press briefing where they said that the decision has opened doors for a proper investigation into the matter. They further added that the BJP should stop celebrating and welcome a serious investigation.

The Supreme Courts bench comprising of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice SK Kaul and Justice KM Joseph pronounced the verdict. The mega defence pact was at the centre of political storm during the runup for the Lok Sabha Elections. Pronouncing the verdict, Justice Kaul said that, We do not consider the submissions for the registration of FIR to be fair. The review petition is dismissed found to be without any merit.

"BJP should tell us how will they save their bosses now? Supreme Court cant probe this because the top court cant get into contractual corruption as per Article 32," Surjewala told the reporters.

During the press briefing the Congress party asked nine question to the Bharatiya Janata Party:

1. Why did BJP Government supersede HAL in awarding Rs.30,000 crore 'Offset Contract' to benefit cronies?

2. Why was Offset Contract of Rs.30,000 Cr given to a 12 day old company with zero experience?

3. Why purchase a Rs.526 crore Rafale for a price of Rs.1670 crore and thereby cause a loss of Rs.41,205 crore?

4. Why was National Security compromised by reducing the number of aircrafts from 126 to 36?

5. Why was Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) violated and Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) bypassed by the Prime Minister at the time of announcing the purchase of 36 Rafale aircrafts on 10th April, 2015?

6. Why did BJP Government sacrifice 'Transfer of Technology to India' for manufacture of Rafale aircrafts?

7. Why eight year long delay in delivery of Rafale(s), when it falls under classification of emergency purchase of aircrafts?

8. Why did PM Modi increase the benchmark price of Rafale jets from 5.2 billion Euros to 8.2 billion Euros?

9. Why did BJP Government waive off the condition of seeking 'Sovereign Guarantee despite the objections of Law Ministry & Defence Acquisition Wing?

The CJI-headed Bench had reserved the order on the review plea filed by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, ex-Union Ministers Yashwant Singha and Arun Shourie. The review plea alleged that the government misled the court into delivering its December 14, 2018 judgment upholding the agreement.

On May 10, the top court had reserved the decision on the pleas seeking a re-examination of its findings that there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph is likely to pronounce verdicts on three review petitions filed by the trio, lawyer Vineet Dhandha and Aam Aadmi Party lawmaker Sanjay Singh.

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reached Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia to take part in the BRICS summit. Before the summit, the leaders from BRICS countries clicked a group picture. Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India is the world's most "open and investment friendly" economy. He also urging BRICS leaders to invest in the country and take advantage of its "limitless" possibilities and "countless" opportunities. Addressing the closing ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum, prime minister Modi said the grouping of five countries had led to economic development despite the global economic slowdown.

"India is the most open and investment friendly economy in the world due to political stability, predictable policy and business friendly reforms. By 2024, we want to make India a five trillion dollar economy. The infrastructure alone requires USD 1.5 trillion investment," he said.

Our diversity is our strength.



PM @narendramodi joins other BRICS leaders for a picture-perfect moment. pic.twitter.com/XggZw0lHfi  Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) November 14, 2019

Noting that India has "limitless" possibilities and "countless" opportunities, the prime minister urged the BRICS business leaders to take advantage of them. "I invite the business of BRICS countries to build and grow their presence in India," he said. "BRICS countries account for 50 per cent of the world's economic growth.

Despite the recession in the world, BRICS countries accelerated economic growth, drove millions out of poverty and achieved new breakthroughs in technology and innovation. Now ten years after the founding of BRICS, this forum is a good platform to consider the direction of our efforts in the future," Modi said.

The prime minister said simplifying intra-BRICS business will increase mutual trade and investment. "Tax and customs procedures between us five countries are getting easier. The business environment is getting easier with the collaboration between intellectual property rights, and banks.

I request the BRICS Business Forum to study the necessary business initiatives to take full advantage of the opportunities thus generated," he said. "I would also like to request that priority areas in business be identified among us for the next ten years and based on them blue print of Intra-BRICS collaboration should be made," Modi said.

The prime minister said the market size, diversity and complementarities of the members of the BRICS countries were very beneficial to each other and urged the forum to map such complementarities in the five countries. "If one BRICS country has technology, the other is related to raw materials or markets. Such possibilities are especially in electric vehicles, digital technology, fertilizer, agricultural products, food processing. I would urge the forum to map such complementarities in five countries.

I would also like to suggest that at least five such areas should be identified by the next BRICS Summit in which joint ventures can be formed between us on the basis of complementarities," he said. "Important initiatives like innovation BRICS Network, and BRICS Institution for Future Network will be considered during tomorrow's summit.

I request the private sector to join these efforts focused on human resources. Connecting young entrepreneurs with these initiatives will also give more strength to business and innovation," Modi said. The prime minister said there was a possibility of making travel, business and employment between the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries more easy. He thanked President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro for his government's decision to give Indians visa-free entry in his country.

"I thank the President of Brazil for deciding the visa free entry to Indians. We five countries should also consider mutual social security agreement," Modi said. Prime minister Modi is in Brazil for the 11th BRICS Summit which will focus on building mechanisms for counter-terrorism cooperation and strengthen India's ties with the world's five major economies.

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New Delhi:

Assam High School TET 2019 application form has been released by the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan. According to the Assam TET 2019 official notification, the Assam High School Teacher Eligibility Test will be conducted in Assamese along-with Bengali, Hindi, Bodo and Manipuri medium. It is to note that the Assam High School 2019 TET exam will be conducted on December 22, 2019. Candidates must make sure to read the exam instruction and eligibility criteria carefully before applying for the exam.

All eligible and interested candidates need to visit the official website, i.e. ssa.assam.gov.in to fill the Assam TET 2019 Online application form. The last date to fill the Assam High School TET 2019 application form is November 25 and the last date to pay the application fee is December 28, 2019. Candidates must select the preferred zone accordingly while filling the Assam TET 2019 Application form. All shortlisted candidates in the Assam TET 2019 written exam will be recruited for the selected zone.

Assam High School TET 2019: Exam Pattern

The Assam High School TET 2019 exam will comprise questions of 200 marks and have the sections of Pedagogy & General English, General Studies and Current Affairs along-with the language section. The Current Affairs and GS sections will have 50 MCQs of 1 mark each while the Pedagogy and General English section will have 100 MCQS of 1 mark each. The language section will have 50 questions of 50 marks.

In order to qualify in the Assam High School TET 2019 exam, candidates need to score at-least 60 percent marks. The qualifying marks for reserved category students is 55 percent.
New Delhi:

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday arrested ex-Ranbaxy promoter Malvinder Singh in a money laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL). The central probe agency also arrested ex-CMD of Religare Enterprises Ltd Sunil Godhwani in the case.

Both Singh and Godhwani were taken into custody inside the Tihar Jail, where they are currently lodged in a case filed by the Delhi Police in relation to the alleged scam. The Enforcement Directorate will now produce the accused before a metropolitan magistrate in the prison and seek their custodial interrogation.

According to the agency, Singh Godhwani laundered money for the RFL, a subsidiary of the Religare Enterprises Ltd. They were booked under sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the ED said.

Earlier last month, Malvinder Singh has filed a plea before the Delhi High Court, seeking to quash an FIR against him in the alleged misappropriation of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL) funds, which caused the firm a loss to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore.

Also Read | Former Fortis Promoters Malvinder Singh, Brother Shivinder Seek Bail, Offer Settlement

According to the Delhi Polices Economic Offenders Wing (EOW), a forensic report from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) found that Rs 1,260 crore was diverted from RFL. EOW on March 27 lodged an FIR against Singh and others under sections 420, 409 and 120B of the IPC on a complaint by Manpreet Singh Suri of RFL.

The others named in the FIR are Malvinder's brother Shivinder, Sunil Godhwani (58), the former chairman and managing director of REL, Kavi Arora (48) and Anil Saxena, who occupied important positions in REL and RFL.

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New Delhi:

Senior Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Antu Tirkey on Friday joined the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), leading to his expulsion by the JMM for six years. JVM-P president Babulal Marandi welcomed Tirkey and his supporters at the Milan Samaroh (welcome ceremony) at the party office.

It will be a fight between the JVM and the BJP in the assembly elections. The people of Jharkhand will seize one of the double engines, Marandi said alluding to the BJP government saying the people of Jharkhand are being benefited by the double engine governmentsat the Centre and in the state.

Addressing the welcome ceremony, the former chief minister claimed, The josh (enthusiasm) and junoon (passion) of the JVM workers will help the party win the elections.

Marandi appealed to the party workers to put up a strong fight and turn the tide of change in favour of JVM.

The JVM-P has already announced to contest all the 81 seats on its own in the five-phase assembly elections scheduled between November 30 and December 20. The counting will take place on December 23.

Meanwhile, JMM General Secretary, Vinod Kumar Pandey, issued a statement saying Tirkey has been expelled from the primary membership of the party for six years on disciplinary ground.

Tirkey was the JMMs central committee member (Ranchi district).
New Delhi:

The election of Pravind Jugnauth as Mauritius prime minister has created a buzz in the Rasra area of Uttar Pradesh's Ballia district, from where his ancestors are said to have migrated to the island-nation. Congratulatory messages are being exchanged over social media, celebrating the results of the elections last week in far-off Mauritius.

Incumbent Jugnauth took oath on Tuesday after the elections which consolidated the grip of his Morisian Alliance on parliament. Rasras sub divisional magistrate Vipin Kumar Jain said it has been established that Jugnauths ancestors hailed from the area, but the exact village is yet to be pinpointed.

"Four people in Rasra have claimed that he belongs to their family," the SDM said. Rasra MLA Uma Shankar Singh expressed happiness over Jugnauths success and said people in the area are proud of his achievements.

Also Read | Garbage From India Floats To Los Angeles, Rants Donald Trump Over 'Horrible' Paris Accord

"The central and state governments should make all-out efforts to find Jugnauths village,? he said, accusing them of not doing enough. Jugnauth, 57, took over from his father in 2017 without going through a vote, but his centre-right coalition scored a decisive in the November 7 elections.

Months ago, a diplomat from Mauritius visited Rasra, reportedly in a bid to trace Jugnauths ancestors. Indian-origin people constitute nearly 70 per cent of the population of Mauritius. Their ancestors were sent there as indentured labourers during the British rule.

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New Delhi:

The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Friday shifted detained PDP leader and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti after her daughter urged the officials to shift Mufti to a place equipped to deal with the Valleys harsh winter.

In her letter to Srinagar deputy commissioner Iltija Mufti said that the Centre will be responsible if anything happens to Mehbooba.

Ive repeatedly raised concerns about the wellbeing of my mother. I wrote to DC Srinagar a month ago to shift her someplace equipped for the harsh winter. If anything happens to her, the Indian government will be responsible, Iltija said in a tweet on Tuesday using her mothers Twitter handle.

She also posted a picture of her hand-written letter to the deputy commissioner.

As you are aware my mother Ms Mehbooba Mufti, former CM J&K has been jailed since 5 August. A doctor recently ran multiple tests on her as she was not keeping well. As per those tests, her Vitamin D, hemoglobin and Calcium levels are low, Iltija Mufti wrote.

She said Mehbooba Mufti should be shifted to another location more suitable for the harsh winter.

The accommodation she is currently lodged in is not equipped for Kashmirs harsh winters. Keeping in mind these points, I would like to request you to shift her to another location more suitable. I hope you will address this problem urgently, the PDP leaders daughter said.

Mehbooba is among the many political leaders, including erstwhile Jammu and Kashmirs former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, who have been under detention in Srinagar since August 5, the day the Centre announced the abrogation of Article 370 provisions and the decision to bifurcate the state into two union territories
New Delhi:

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday described people living on borders as no ordinary citizens but Indias strategic assets and said the road to a new India as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi runs through a new North-East.

The Union government is working on a north-east industrial corridor to develop Arunachal Pradesh as a land bridge for South East Asia, he said.

Addressing the Maitree Diwas celebrations here to boost civil-military friendship in the region bordering China, Singh said people living here are important to the country strategically.

He noted that inhabitants of the Ladakh region had given the first information about Pakistans infiltration into Kargil.

This is why I say, that the people living on the border here are not ordinary citizens, but they are our strategic assets.

I dont consider citizens living on the Indo-China border as ordinary citizens. I believe they are our strategic assets, the defence minister said.

The government is working on developing a north-east industrial corridor which, he said, will create employment.

Singh said Arunachal Pradesh will act as a land bridge for South-East Asia where trade, jobs, tourism and economic opportunities will be available in abundance.

Noting that this was his first visit to Tawang, the defence minister said he was deeply affected by seeing this event while lauding the exercise.

Patriotism among people here is clearly visible and the relationship between ordinary citizens and armed forces are very deep, he said and called upon the youth to join the armed forces in large numbers.

Along with Arunachal Pradesh, the whole of North-east is very important for India strategically. It (Arunachal) is surrounded by three countries. This state acts as a gateway for ASEAN countries and South-East Asia, he said.

India is marching forward on the path of all-round progress under Modi... The road to new India runs through New North-East India, he said.

The defence minister said Arunachal Pradesh has been able to preserve its social and cultural heritage and is a role model for other states of the country.

Tradition and modernity walk side by side here, he said.

The two-day socio-military cultural extravaganza has been jointly organised by the Indian Army, Tawang Civil Administration and volunteers at the High-Altitude Stadium.

Underling the governments commitment to improving connectivity in border areas, he said approval to construct a tunnel at Sela pass to Tawang, operationalisation of Pasighat Airport, nod to set up Hollongi Airport near Itanagar and work to establish three strategic railway lines in the region are some of the decisions in that direction.

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BEIJING, Jan. 20 -- The US guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold trespassed into China's territorial waters off the Xisha Islands without Chinese governments permission on January 20. The naval and air forces of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command conducted tracking and monitoring on the US destroyer and warned it off. The Chinese military expresses strong dissatisfaction with and resolute opposition to the behavior of the US side, said Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense (MND) today.

Wu pointed out that the Xisha Islands are China's inherent territory. According to the Law of the People s Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, the Chinese government announced the baselines of the territorial waters of the Xisha Islands in 1996 , and also made clear stipulations on matters related to the entry of foreign warships into China's territorial waters.

The US warships trespassing into China's territorial waters is not the "freedom of navigation" at all as it claims, but a serious provocation that violates China's sovereignty and endangers peace and stability in the South China Sea, Wu stressed.

The defense spokesperson urged the US side to correctly understand the situation and immediately stop such provocative actions. Chinas territorial waters are by no means where the US warships can run amok, and the Chinese military will take all necessary measures to deal with all threats and provocations, resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and security, and firmly protect regional peace and stability, Wu reaffirmed.
New Delhi:

Welcoming the Supreme Courts decision to refer Sabarimala case to a larger bench, the RSS on Thursday said the restrictions on womens entry in the famous Kerala shrine have nothing to do with gender discrimination.

Arun Kumar, Akhil Bhartiya Prachar Pramukh of the RSS, said on the organisations Twitter handle that matters related to traditions and customs are issues of faith and belief.

We welcome the Supreme Court decision to accept the review Petition and refer the matter to a larger Constitutional Bench, he tweeted.

Matters related to traditions and customs are issues of faith and belief. Restriction of women belonging to a particular age-group to the Sabarimala shrine has nothing to (do) with gender inequality or discrimination, and that is strictly based on the speciality of the deity, the senior RSS leader said.

We are of the firm view that the judicial review under whatever pretext in the matter will be violative of the spirit of the freedom of worship guaranteed by our Constitution.

And the opinion of concerned authorities should be given paramount consideration in such matters, Kumar tweeted.

In a 3:2 majority verdict, the Supreme Court Thursday referred to a larger 7-judge bench the pleas seeking review of its historic 2018 judgment allowing women and girls of all ages to enter Keralas Sabarimala temple, along with other contentious issues of alleged discrimination against Muslim and Parsi women.

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New Delhi:

In a bid to motivate farmers of the state to use alternative ways to get rid of their crop waste, the Punjab government on Friday facilitated peasants in Pathankot who didn't burn their stubble. Deputy Commissioner of Pathankot said that these farmers used their stubble as fodder for their cattle instead of burning it. "We've decided to give Rs 2500 per acre to these farmers. There are 570 such farmers. I thank them all," the Deputy Commissioner said.

Stubble burning is a big problem in Punjab and Haryana and smoke emanating from that causes massive air pollution not just in these two states but also in neighbouring Delhi.

Recently, the Supreme Court lashed out at the authorities for failing to curb severe air pollution in the Delhi-NCR region and directed the governments of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to provide support of Rs 100/quintal within 7 days to small and marginal farmers who have not burned their crop stubble -- a major source of air pollution.

Coming down heavily on the state governments, the top court said that if they don't bother about people, they have no right to be in power. "You (states) have forgotten the concept of welfare government. They are not bothered about poor people, this is very unfortunate," said the bench, also comprising Justice Deepak Gupta.

Also Read | 'We Don't Want Your Lecture': How Top Court Slammed Centre, States Over Stubble Burning

Attorney General KK Venugopal, representing the Centre, told the court that farmers can be allowed to burn stubble with certain conditions. The Supreme Court completely rejected the AG's plea. It said this is a question of lives of crores of people. "We cannot allow this."

The AG had suggested to the court that Punjab and Haryana be divided into zones and each zone could be allowed to burn stubble in a few days. Justice Arun Mishra said why the government is not giving any better suggestion to deal with the problem. Burning the stubble is completely wrong. The AG of a democratic country cannot make such suggestions. "Why don't the Center and the state come together to find a solution."

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New Delhi:

The Telangana Public Service Commission (TNPSC) has released the admit card for Senior Steno Exam 2019. The candidates who have applied for the examination can now download the admit card through the official website of TSPSC.i.e. tspsc.gov.in.

The candidates are advised to follow the instructions given in this article to download TSPSC Senior Steno Admit Card 2019.

For the convenience of the students, we have mentioned the steps through which the candidates can download the admit card:

1. Candidates are required to visit the official website of TSPSC.i.e.tspsc.gov.in.

2. Click on TSPSC Senior Steno Admit Card 2019 Download link available in the Hall Ticket's Section.

3. It will redirect you to the login page of the admit card.

4. Candidates are required to enter TSPSC ID, DOB and click on login button.

5. Then, the admit card will be displayed on the screen.

6. Candidates can download and take a printout of the admit card for future reference.

According to the notice released by the Telangana Public Service Commission (TNPSC), the TSPSC Senior Steno Exam 2019 will be conducted on 17 November 2019 in various departments for English while for the Telugu Language, the exam will be held on 18 November 2019.

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New Delhi:

Classic Legends, a subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra, on Friday launched Jawa Perak in India for an introductory price of Rs 1.94 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). It is to be noted that the Perak bobber is the third product from Jawa Motorcycles to be launched in India after Jawa and Jawa Forty Two. Interestingly, Jawa Perak has been launched in India exactly a year after it was showcased at the Jawa brand launch in 2018.

As far as the looks of the Jawa Perak is concerned, the motorcycle keeps the bobber design intact with the low-slung and floating single seat with an integrated taillight, teardrop fuel tank, and a low-set and wide handlebar. The pillion seat is optional on the motorcycle. The distinctive design of the motorcycle also comes with the bullet shell-shaped headlamp long forks and a wheelbase of 1485 mm. The motorcycles engine and spoked wheels get a blacked-out paint job.

Under the hood, Jawa Perak is powered by a BS6-compliant, 334 cc single-cylinder, DOHC liquid-cooled motor that produces 30 bhp and 31 Nm of peak torque. It is mated to a 6-speed transmission.

Suspension duties are handled by telescopic forks upfront and a monoshock unit at the rear, as opposed to twin shocks on other Jawa bikes. Whereas, braking power comes from a disc each at the front and rear. The motorcycle also gets dual-channel ABS. It boasts of features like a single floating seat, bobbed fenders and chopped exhaust.

It is worth mentioning here that on November 15, 2018, Jawa Perak was first unveiled in India. At that time, its price was quoted at Rs 1.89 lakh. A jump of Rs 5,000 in the price of Perak might be attributed to its compliance with the upcoming BS6 (BS-VI) emission norms.

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The bookings for Jawa Perak will begin officially on the Jawa Motorcycles website on January 1, 2020.
New Delhi:

Delhi High Court on Friday rejected the bail application of Congress leader P Chidambaram in connection with the INX media money laundering case, which is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The court had recently reserved the order after the conclusion of the arguments. Chidambaram is former union minister and currently lodged in Tihar jail under judicial custody in the case. The ED had arrested Chidambaram on October 16 and thereafter secured his custody from the court. Subsequently, he was sent to judicial custody in Tihar jail till November 13.

On Wednesday, a special court in New Delhi had extended the judicial custody of Chidambaram till November 27 in connection with the matter which is being investigated by the ED. The Congress leader appeared before the court through video conferencing due to lawyers' strike in the courts across the national capital. He was produced before the court at the end of his judicial custody on Wednesday.

The case pertains to an FIR registered by the CBI for alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to INX Media to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 by Chidambaram when he was the finance minister. Thereafter, a case was registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Chidambaram was granted bail by the Supreme Court on October 22 in the INX Media corruption case being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He had recently sought for regular bail in the money laundering case by asserting that no part of the triple test, which includes flight risk, influencing witnesses and tampering with evidence, has been made out against him.

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New Delhi:

Delhi District Bar Coordination Committee has decided to call off their 11-day-long strike which begun from November 3 following the clash between advocates and police at Tis Hazari court on November 2. All the lawyers will now resume work from Saturday.

Lawyers in all the six district courts in the national capital had decided to abstain from work following the clash. The proxy counsels appeared in courts to take dates in matters and assist the litigants.

Earlier, Dhir Singh Kasana, general secretary of coordination committee of All District Courts Bar Associations in Delhi, said that advocates of all the district courts will protest outside the Parliament on November 20.

Meanwhile important cases were deferred due to non-appearance of counsels, including the judgement in the case of alleged sexual and physical assault of several girls at a shelter home in Bihars Muzaffarpur.

The tension between police personnel and lawyers has been building up since November 2 when a clash over a parking dispute led to at least 20 security personnel and several advocates injured.

Lawyers in six district courts have been on strike since November 4 to protest against the clash.

In unprecedented protests by the Delhi Police, thousands of its personnel had laid siege outside the police headquarters for 11 hours on November 5 and staged a virtual revolt sparked by two attacks on their colleagues by the lawyers.

With PTI Inputs
New Delhi :

Market benchmark Sensex ended 70.21 points higher on Friday, led by gains in Bharti Airtel and SBI, amid positive cues from global equities. The 30-share index, which opened on a firm note, witnessed a sell-off at the fag end of the session as investors turned cautious tracking concerns over slowing economic growth.

After rallying over 363 points during the day, the 30-share Sensex ended 70.21 points, or 0.17 per cent, higher at 40,356.69. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty rose 23.35 points, or 0.20 per cent, to end at 11,895.45.

Bharti Airtel was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying 8.42 per cent. The telecom operator had on Thursday posted a massive Rs 23,045 crore net loss for the September quarter due to provisioning of Rs 28,450 crore in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling on statutory dues.

However, experts said consistently strong operational performance underscores the companys ability to execute amidst a challenging environment. Other gainers included SBI, Kotak Bank, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors, M&M and Tata Steel, rising up to 5.19 per cent. On the other hand, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Maruti, ITC, Vedanta, NTPC and Tech Mahindra fell up to 1.85 per cent.

Investors remained on the edge after weak macroeconomic releases this week, experts said, adding that forecasts of slower GDP growth over the past few days also weighed on market mood.

On Thursday, the Sensex ended 170.42 points, or 0.42 per cent, higher at 40,286.48. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty rose 31.65 points, or 0.27 per cent, to end at 11,872.10.

Foreign institutional investors offloaded shares worth Rs 562.05 crore in the capital market in the previous session, while domestic institutional investors purchased equities worth Rs 82.74 crore, data available with stock exchange showed.

Globally, bourses in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul were trading on a positive note amid reports that the first-phase of trade talks between the US and China is in its final stage.

Stock exchanges on Wall Street ended on a mixed note on Thursday. On the currency front, the rupee appreciated 14 paise (intra-day) against the US dollar to trade at 71.82 in early session.

Global markets showed mixed performance during the week as markets saw profit booking on conflicting signals regarding progress on a trade deal between the US and China, said Sanjeev Zarbade, VP PCG Research, Kotak Securities. Bourses in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul settled on a positive note, while Shanghai ended in the red.

European equities were trading higher in early deals. Meanwhile, the Indian rupee appreciated 14 paise to 71.81 against the US dollar intra-day. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, slipped 0.42 per cent to USD 62.02 per barrel.

(With inputs from PTI)

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New Delhi:

More than 15 days after Manohar Lal Khattar took oath as the Chief Minister of Haryana, the first cabinet expansion of the BJP-JJP coalition government will take place on Thursday. News Nation has learnt that as many as 14 ministers will be inducted in the Khattar-led Cabinet. Sources say that those who will get a place in the Cabinet include 9 lawmakers from the BJP, three from the JJP. Two Independents will also be inducted as ministers. Sources say that the BJP names doing the rounds are Anil Vij, Kanwar Pal Gujjar, Deepak Mangala, Kamal Gupta, Abhay Yadav, Vishambhar Valmiki, Seema Trikha, Banwari Lal and Mahipal Dhanda. Three JJP lawmakers who are likely to get place in the Khattar Cabinet include Ram Kumar Gautam, Ishwar Singh apart from party chief Dushyant Chautala. Ranjeet Singh and Randhir Golan - Independents lawmakers  will also take oath.

Khattar, 65, took oath as the chief minister for the second time on October 27 and Dushyant Chautala, 31, great grandson of former deputy prime minister, late Devi Lal, was sworn-in as his deputy as the BJP formed the government with the help of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) in Haryana. Seven Independents are also supporting the government. Khattar had a lengthy meeting with Union Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah at the latter's residence in Delhi on Sunday, the BJP sources said. A few other senior BJP leaders were also present at the meeting, they said.

The state had thrown a fractured mandate with the ruling BJP emerging as the single largest party with 40 seats. The Congress bagged 31 seats and the Dushyant Chautalas Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) secured 10 seats. The BJP, led by Manohar Lal Khattar, formed an alliance with Chautala to form the government.

Haryana Congress had dubbed the Jannayak Janta Party's support to the BJP in forming the new government a "betrayal" with the voters. Haryana Congress chief Kumari Selja said the 10 seats that the voters of the state gave to the JJP were a mandate against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. "But the JJP betrayed the voters of the state. All those who voted for the JJP are feeling cheated today after it extended the support to the BJP," she said. In a statement, the Congress leader said people of the state gave a befitting reply to the BJP, which was targeted to win more than 75 of the 90 seats.

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New Delhi:

Buoyed by Supreme Courts dismissal of a review petition on Rafale aircraft deal, Union Home Minister and BJP national president Amit Shah on Friday slammed the Congress for its malicious and baseless campaign and demanded an apology from the party. The BJP chief said that the Supreme Court decision has reaffirmed Narendra Modi government's credentials as a "transparent and corruption free" regime.

"Surpeme Court's decision to dismiss the review petition on Rafale is a befitting reply to those leaders and parties who rely on malicious and baseless campaigns. Todays decision, yet again, reaffirms Modi sarkars credentials as a government which is transparent and corruption free," Shah said.

Referring to the continuous disruption of of Parliament over the alleged irregularities in Rafale deal by the Congress, the BJP national president said that today's verdict has proved the those interruptions were "Sham" and the grand old party must "apologise to the nation."

"Now, it has been proved that disruption of Parliament over Rafale was a sham. The time could have been better utilised for welfare of people. After today's rebuke from the Supreme Court, Congress and its leader, for whom politics is above national interest, must apologise to the nation," he added.

Also Read | Rafale Verdict: Supreme Court Dismisses Review Plea, Upholds Modi Govt's Combat Jet Deal

In a major relief for the Narendra Modi government, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Rafale mega defence deal and dismissed the review plea filed by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, ex-Union Ministers Yashwant Singha and Arun Shourie. The Supreme Courts bench comprising of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice SK Kaul and Justice KM Joseph pronounced the verdict.

The mega defence pact was at the centre of political storm during the runup for the Lok Sabha Elections. Pronouncing the verdict, Justice Kaul said that, We do not consider the submissions for the registration of FIR to be fair. The review petition was found to be "without any merit, thus, dismissed by the top court.

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Mumbai:

Farmers from across Maharashtra will launch an agitation if they are not provided immediate relief and assistance for crop damage due to unseasonal rains, the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha said on Thursday. It also condemned the detention of Prahar Janshakti Partys newly-elected MLA Bachchu Kadu and several farmers in Mumbai on Thursday while they were taking out a protest march to Raj Bhawan over their various demands, including non-payment of crop insurance and loan waiver.

The pro-farmer outfits Maharashtra secretary Ajit Navale demanded that a "wet drought" be declared in the state, which is under Presidents rule since Tuesday. Leaders of various political parties are going to the farmers only for a photo-session as tourists. They forget the farmers as soon as they return to Mumbai, he said in a statement issued in Delhi.

Also Read | As Stubble Burning Continues, Javadekar Says Modi Govt Gave Rs 1,100 Crore To Farmers

Navale said an all-party delegation should go to Delhi to seek assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund. The impasse over government formation should end soon and farmers should get immediate relief, he said, adding that crop insurance payments should be done as per the new panchnamas (assessment), Navale said.

"The Kisan Sabha will stage protests outside the offices of all tehsildars (revenue officers) during the week and if there is a delay in providing relief, farmers will start a statewide agitation," he said. Navale, however, did not specify any date for the state-wide protest.

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The Central Military Commission (CMC) holds a ceremony to promote seven senior officers of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army and the Chinese Armed Police Force to the rank of general in Beijing on January 21, 2022. President Xi Jinping (C, front), also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), poses for a group photo with promoted officers after the promotion ceremony in Beijing.

BEIJING, Jan. 21  Chinas Central Military Commission (CMC) held a ceremony to promote seven senior officers of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army and the Chinese Armed Police Force to the military rank of general in Beijing on January 21.

President Xi Jinping, also chairman of the Central Military Commission, presented seven senior officers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese Peoples Armed Police (PAP) Force with certificates of promotion to the military rank of general, the highest rank for officers in active service in China.

The military rank promotion ceremony kicked off at about 5 P.M., at which General Xu Qiliang, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, announced the orders of promotion signed by Chairman Xi Jinping. General Zhang Youxia, also vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, presided over the ceremony.

The promoted officers are Admiral Liu Qingsong, political commissar of the PLA Northern Theater Command, General Wu Yanan, commander of the PLA Central Theater Command, General Xu Deqing, political commissar of the PLA Central Theater Command, General Qin Shutong, political commissar of the PLA Army, Admiral Yuan Huazhi, political commissar of the PLA Navy, General Li Yuchao, commander of the PLA Rocket Force and General Zhang Hongbing, political commissar of the Peoples Armed Police Force.

After the promotion ceremony, Xi posed for a group photo with the promoted officers promoted to the rank of general.

General Wei Fenghe, General Li Zuocheng, Admiral Miao Hua and General Zhang Shengmin, who are members of the CMC, also attended the promotion ceremony.
New Delhi: Amar Jawan Jyoti, which has been burning at India Gate in the country's capital Delhi for the past 50 years, was merged with a burning flame at the National War Memorial on Friday. The event was presided over by Air Marshal Balbhadra Radhakrishna. Amar Jawan Jyoti was established in memory of Indian soldiers who were martyred in the Indo-Pak war of 1971. India won this war. It was then that Bangladesh was formed. On the other hand, now that the flame is merged, the jawans of India will be remembered here.

It was inaugurated by the then PM Indira Gandhi on January 26, 1972. The note here is that the National War Memorial was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi on February 25, 2019. The names of 25,942 seals at this place are written in golden letters. After the inauguration, all military formal ceremonies at India Gate will be shifted there.

#WATCH | Delhi: Amar Jawan Jyoti flame at India Gate merged with the flame at the National War Memorial. pic.twitter.com/Nd1dnfvWYW  ANI (@ANI) January 21, 2022

The sources said the decision was taken after it was found that the maintenance of flames at both places was becoming difficult. Army sources said it was also argued that since the National War Memorial for the martyrs of India has already been built, why should a separate flame be lit at India Gate. According to sources, the National War Memorial also has the names of martyrs written at India Gate. The National War Memorial also names all Indian defence personnel who have lost their lives in all operations.

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New Delhi: Amar Jawan Jyoti, who has been burning at India Gate in the country's capital Delhi for the past 50 years, will be merged with a burning flame at the National War Memorial today. Amar Jawan Jyoti was established in memory of indian soldiers who were martyred in the Indo-Pak war of 1971. India succeeded in this war and Bangladesh was formed. It was inaugurated by the then PM Indira Gandhi on January 26, 1972.

The same government's decision prompted Lt Gen (Retd), former Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Indian Army, Vinod Bhatia on Friday to praise the Centre's decision to merge Amar Jawan Jyoti with the war memorial. He said, 'This is a good decision.' Today is a great opportunity, Amar Jawan Jyoti is being merged with the National War Memorial at India Gate. Amar Jawan Jyoti respects our jawans for 50 years in 1971.

Further, he said, "We have a national war memorial that honors about 25,000 soldiers and sailors who have made the supreme sacrifice in the defence of the country. The time has come for Amar Jawan Jyoti to be transferred to merge with it. Lt Gen JBS Yadav (Retd), a veteran of the 1971 war and former Army Deputy Chief, also supported the Centre's decision and said, 'Amar Jawan Jyoti should be merged with the National War Memorial.

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India and Sri Lanka's scientific and technology cooperation has been extended for another three years, with an emphasis on waste-water technologies, sustainable agriculture, aerospace engineering, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence.

The decision to extend the cooperation was made at the India-Sri Lanka 5th Joint Committee on S&T Cooperation on Thursday, according to a statement from the science and technology ministry.

SK Varshney, Advisor and Head, International Cooperation, Department of Science and Technology (DST), said India and Sri Lanka have a long history of intellectual, cultural, and religious connection and friendship dating back over 2,500 years.

In recent years, trade and investment, as well as cooperation in education and other areas, have increased, and cooperation in S&T (science and technology) has become increasingly important, according to Varshney, who led the Indian delegation and served as the Indian co-chair.

This platform will allow for discussion of several other aspects of possible collaboration in the field of science and technology, he said, adding that there are numerous opportunities for bilateral cooperation. India offers scholarships such as the India S&T Fellowship and e-ITEC, and both countries can collaborate through international platforms like as BIMSTEC, which they are members of, according to Varshney.

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Tanzania: Tanzanian health officials claimed they were working on a plan to track down at least 200,000 unregistered HIV patients to control new infections

Tanzania has 1.7 million HIV patients, but only 1.5 million have been registered, according to Ummy Mwalimu, the Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Seniors, and Children, as per reports.

Mwalimu remarked when she inaugurated a five-year strategy training research on community health in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, "We have to find the 200,000 unregistered HIV patients who might easily contribute to the spread of new infections." She added that the 200,000 HIV patients could be tracked down through tests conducted at the village, ward, and district levels, and that the government's goal is to eradicate HIV by 2030.

Antiretroviral medications (ARVs), which keep the virus under control and support the immune system so that a patient can stay healthy and live a long life, were used by 98 percent of the 1.5 million HIV patients registered, according to Mwalimu. She stated that efforts to track down the 200,000 unaccounted for HIV patients will be coordinated with efforts to limit the number of children infected with HIV by their mothers, which presently stands at 6,000 every year.

"The government's expectation is that all infants be born free of sickness," Mwalimu explained.

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KABUL: The central bank of Afghanistan, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), has stated that the United Nations has transferred USD32 million in cash to the war-torn country as part of the world body's humanitarian relief support, according to media reports.

According to Khaama Press, the DAB claimed the money was delivered to Afghanistan International Bank (AIB) on Thursday in a statement. The DAB welcomed the UN aid, saying it is part of a process in which the UN will pay USD20 million per week to the country until March.

"This will undoubtedly assist Afghanistan's frail economic and banking infrastructures, which are considered to be imploding," it continued. Economic specialists, on the other hand, have predicted that the Afghani, the country's indigenous currency, will continue to fall unless dollars are injected into the market.

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has raised concern about recent airstrikes in Sanaa, Hodeidah, and other parts of Yemen. Guterres also expressed concern about the continuous use of missiles and mortars in several parts of the nation. All of these activities have resulted in human casualties and infrastructure damage, according to spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

At a daily press briefing, the spokesperson said, "The secretary-general reiterates his call on the parties to exercise greatest restraint and prevent any escalation amid heightened tensions in the region, as well as to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law."

Since 2014, when the Houthi militia overran much of the country and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, Yemen has been engulfed in civil war. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has led an Arab military coalition that has intervened to support Yemen's government.

Hans Grundberg, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, has recently returned from a visit to Saudi Arabia. He met with Saudi Vice Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Yemeni Foreign Minister Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak, and other Saudi and Yemeni officials.

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Have you ever wondered how your toothpaste or your sunscreen is made? Do you wish to learn the science and art of cosmetic products? Do you want to explore the lucrative industry of cosmetics and personal care business?

Apparently, such concerns are ever-growing in Nepal. And, Thailand, already a popular gateway to state-of-the-art cosmetic science courses, can be a source of knowledge for this country too.

A forever business

The self-care and beauty industry is showing no signs of slowing down despite the economic downturn due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The industry was able to generate massive sales of more than $450 billion globally in 2020 and the number is estimated to reach a worth $700 billion by 2025.

Not surprising, the growth is a result of people being more concerned with physical well-being and self-care across all demographics. Furthermore, people are growing conscious about their looks, influenced by the desire to portray flawless lives over social media like Instagram and Facebook. Cosmetic products are a staple in the lives of most people. On the other side, cosmetic manufacturers are also influencing people to buy their products using different branding and advertising strategies.

The beauty industry is not much affected by the political or economic downturn, as proposed by the LIPSTICK EFFECT theory. It is a phenomenon when people are willing to spend money on less costly luxury products like beauty products even during an economic crisis. The market trends in the cosmetic industry during the current pandemic have supported this phenomenon.

The increasing allure

Photo by Poko Skincare on Unsplash

The cosmetic products cover basic consumer products like skincare, haircare, and toiletries to speciality products like perfume and makeup such as foundation, mascara, among many others. While the industry is huge, it is mainly dominated by some major multinationals like LOreal, Dior, Chanel, Maybelline, and Revlon. Even many celebrities are entering the industry, either as brand endorsers or launching their cosmetic lines. Kay Beauty by Katrina Kaif, Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez, and Kylie Skin by Kylie Jenner are a few such examples.

Even in the context of Nepal, the cosmetic business is emerging at the local level as more than half a dozen local brands have entered the market with a wide range of cosmetic products in the last five years. These brands have been growing and successfully expanding the market share with new product ranges.

With the market growing tremendously, the industry is offering substantial job opportunities worldwide. There are notable requirements of cosmetic expertise in the field like beauty business consultants, cosmetic scientists, laboratory technicians, and marketers. The cosmetic businesses are looking for specialised knowledge and skills while hiring people.

Cosmetic science education in the world, Thailand and Nepal

Many universities across the globe have been offering specialised courses on cosmetic science to help students build careers in the industry, including bachelors and masters degree courses. Upon the completion of these courses, one can explore various career opportunities in the industry with attractive remuneration packages. For example in the UK, a newly qualified cosmetic scientist earns around 20,000 and with more experience over time, the salary can reach up to 50,000 a year.

A few of the major career highlights of the courses include:

Cosmetic chemists

Skincare and hair scientists

Beauty business consultants

R&D professionals for new product development

Laboratory roles in product development, quality assurance, and testing

Perfumer

Sales and marketing executives

Regulatory affairs and product safety

Consumer affairs

Academicians

Entrepreneurs

Photo: Pixabay

Though the course offers promising career opportunities, it has not been introduced by any of the universities in Nepal so far, and hence interested students will have to pursue abroad studies for this course.

On the other hand, Thailand, the rising academic and education hub, is gaining popularity for cosmetic science studies among international students. Indeed, Thailand has been popular among international students planning for higher studies for very generic to niche courses, not to mention obvious reasons of internationally recognised university programmes, warm hospitality of Thai people, beautiful nature, climate, and authentic Thai food.

For cosmetic science programmes, Thai universities stand out for interested students from all over the world. The universities like Mae Fah Luang, North Chiang Mai, Prince of Songkla, Phranakhon Rajabhat, and many more are providing rigorous programmes in cosmetic science with state-of-the-art facilities, internship opportunities, and a team of highly qualified and experienced academicians. Students are introduced to core courses in fundamental sciences of cosmetics, as well as general courses to develop business and management skills. The programmes are accompanied by hands-on experiences like laboratory practicals, internships, and industry visits.

For example, Thailands one of the renowned universities and the first one to offer cosmetic science programmes, Mae Fah Luang University, has 500 plus students in different programmes of cosmetic science. Many of them are international students from Australia, Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, and others. The courses are being taught by professionally and academically qualified professors with vast industry experience that includes sectors such as pharmaceutical chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, biochemistry, aromatic science, biology, and many more.

In conclusion, pursuing a cosmetic science degree is an excellent choice for Nepali students who have an interest in science as well as the art of beauty. The course is science-based but does require a lot of creativity, too. Many good universities are offering courses to help students build the necessary set of knowledge and skills needed by the ever-growing cosmetic industry. Graduates from cosmetic science are being recruited throughout the industry globally for a wide range of positions, such as a specialist, a business manager, or an entrepreneur. Nepali students can ripe the benefit of this prospering industry as well.
Kathmandu, January 21

Although Nepal is currently going through the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic due to the infection of the Omicron variant, the country says it continues to provide on-arrival visas to foreigners who have been fully vaccinated against the infection.

In a notice on Thursday, the Department of Immigration says people with proof of their vaccination and meeting other criteria can apply for the on-arrival visa at the countrys sole international airport, Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathmandu. The same service will be available at other entry points of the country, bordering India.

Besides the proof of vaccination, the applicants also need to submit a Covid-19 negative test report from a test conducted within the last 72 hours.

Upon arrival, they will be sent to quarantine for five days and will be allowed to come out after another Covid-19 test.

Meanwhile, the department has urged people who are willing to come to Nepal but have not received all required doses of vaccination to apply for a visa at the Nepali diplomatic missions in their own countries.
We are living in what is known as asian century, where global outlooks are shifted towards a rapidly growing economies in asia

Technology based ascent has already begun and smart technology is going to pave the way for India @100, says Dr. Jitendra Singh, Hon'ble Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Science and Technology & Earth Sciences at an ASSOCHAM event. Speaking at the curtain raiser conference for the 2nd edition of The SMARTecIndia Initiative 2021' held today at New Delhi, the Minister highlighted various initiatives taken by the government to promote science and technology for startups. SMARTec India 2021 in partnership with Department of Science & Technology, and Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Govt. of India will be held from December 03 15, 2021."India is emerging as among world top leaders in the area of Science & Technology and recently it entered the list of top 50 innovative countries reaching to 46th position in the Global Innovation Index 2021. The power of collaboration with government, industry and stakeholders needs to be systematically harnessed for realizing the vision of a new resurgent India, Everything cannot be left to government and government should also not be hesitant to involve stake holders outside the government sector because that is not compatible with progressive advancement," the minister said."India has consistently improved its business and innovation environment and is now ranked 63 among 190 economies in the ease of doing business, according to the latest World Bank annual ratings. There is very little correlation between formal and digital literacy, smart literacy which can be acquired without formal education and the government has brought the New Education Policy which has multiple entry/exit options to promote innovation and startup culture," he further added.H.E. Katrin Kivi, Ambassador of Estonia to India said, "We are living in what is known as Asian century, where global outlooks are shifted towards a rapidly growing economies in Asia. Estonia is fully synchronised with this trend. For the last few years, Estonian exports to India have been growing considerably and given the ambitions and the strengths of India and Estonia, I believe that there is room for genuine partnership and true collaboration. India is a strategically important market attractive for Estonian entrepreneurs due to its large market opportunities and growing consumer base. We hope to foster a real collaboration that also advances Indian interest. Our strategic geographical presence, attractive ecosystem of innovation, beneficial tax structure, stable government and highly skilled personnel gives Estonia a distinguished advantage and provide a solid platform for up scaling and expanding business operations".Dr.Sheetal Chopra, Chairperson ASSOCHAM IPR Council, addressing the gathering said, "What we used to dream of is a reality today and we cannot do without our smart phones and smart watches. Doctors are performing remote surgeries and there are connected cars that are saving us fuel and making our commute much safer. We must appreciate the work of global standardisation framework, where there are a handful of companies who over a period of years had taken lot of effort and spent billions ofdollars in coming up with the best of technologies. A 90 minute movie takes 72 hours to download in 2G and with 5G the same can be downloaded in less than 90 seconds. More than 50k+ startups in all sectors including IoT, AI, and robotics are already registered and certified by The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. For India to achieve that global economic scale, it is important that we facilitate these startups and they are able to take advantage of the already standardised technologies. Today we have sufficient eco system like startup India hub, PLI scheme, National IPR policy, national manufacturing policy and other policies".Dr.Lovneesh Channana, Chairperson National Council IT, ITES & Digital Commerce said, "We have moved from the stage of discussing the why of technology to what of technology and now moving into the how of technology. How we apply technology and how do we make technology application are becoming more important. We are getting adept at using technology to improve operational effectiveness. The time is coming where citizen experience data or consumer experience data will be differentiators due to the huge level of digitisation. Very soon we will be managing experiential data in addition to operational data. This revolution we are talking about in Smart tech is not one way, earlier we were creating products and giving it to users, today it's a two way. For India, unless we cover the 63 million SMEs in the larger technology journey, we cannot achieve the desired impact. Awareness, access to low cost tech, creation of digital talent pool and getting global market access for Indian SMEs through technology are some of the areas we must address".The SmartTec India 2021 is one of the initiative that can be partnered with International Trade Council (ITC) where sharing of new technologies and best practices can be of immense benefit to everyone around the worldsaid Ranjini Rangan, Honorary Chair Person, International Trade Counsil (SEA) & Director, Olimea Advisory.The SMARTec India 2021 is a wonderful opportunity for our Australian companies, to engage with tech experts, industry leaders and advance collaborative efforts to build our technological partnership said Petula Thomas, CEO, Indo Australian Chamber of Commerce.The curtain raiser event was also attended by dignitaries from partner countries like Finland, Estonia, Israel, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Japan. The focus areas for SMARTec India 2021 include Aerospace & Defence, Financial Services, Healthcare, Enterprise AI & Automation, Industry 4.0, MSME & Startups, and Smart Mobility. To celebrate the spirit of innovation, awards for 10 top innovations from various sectors and fields or work will be handed out on 3rd December 2021. The curated confluence of smart technologies will experience a 13 days long virtual exhi bition which will be attended by over 50 Exhibitors from India and various leading countries, live demonstrations and product launches of exciting products and services, participation from progressive central & state governments.
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Banco de Costa RicaGlobal Credit Research - 21 Jan 2022New York, January 21, 2022 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Banco de Costa Rica and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review discussion held on 19 January 2022 in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.Key rating considerations are summarized below.Banco de Costa Rica's (BCR) B2 long-term deposit rating is in line with Costa Rica's government bond rating and is at the same level as the bank's b2 baseline credit assessment (BCA). The deposit ratings reflect Moody's assumption of full government support, based on an explicit support set in Costa Rica's Banking Law, as well as the bank's public policy mandate and sizeable deposit base as the country's second largest financial institution.BCR's b2 BCA incorporates the bank's access to low-cost retail funding, as a result of its well-established banking franchise in Costa Rica, and the ample liquidity buffers that are largely held in sovereign securities. However, the BCA is constrained by the bank's modest capitalization and weak profitability, resulting from its narrow interest margins and high mandatory transfers to government entities. Additionally, BCR's asset risks are pressured by its exposure to foreign-currency, derived from the significant proportion of foreign-currency denominated loans granted to borrowers with revenues in local currency.This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.The principal methodology used for this review was Banks Methodology published in July 2021. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.This announcement applies only to EU rated, UK rated, EU endorsed and UK endorsed ratings. Non EU rated, non UK rated, non EU endorsed and non UK endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history. Anna Chabanenko Analyst Financial Institutions Group Moody's de Mexico S.A. de C.V Ave. Paseo de las Palmas No. 405 - 502 Col. Lomas de Chapultepec Mexico, DF 11000 Mexico JOURNALISTS: 1 888 779 5833 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Ceres Lisboa Associate Managing Director Financial Institutions Group JOURNALISTS: 0 800 891 2518 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653  2022 Moodys Corporation, Moodys Investors Service, Inc., Moodys Analytics, Inc. and/or their licensors and affiliates (collectively, MOODYS). 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Abilene, KS (67410)

Today

Cloudy with occasional rain in the afternoon. High 58F. Winds E at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Thundershowers following a period of rain early. Low 52F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
VANCOUVER, BC and TORONTO, Jan. 21, 2022 /CNW/ - The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) today announced the start of the search for candidates for the chief executive officer (CEO) and members of the Board of Directors for the new self-regulatory organization (SRO).

As announced in November 2021, the CSA established a Special Joint Committee to lead the recruitment process. The Special Joint Committee has retained Russell Reynolds Associates, a global leadership advisory and search firm, to assist with recruitment.

The Special Joint Committee is actively seeking candidates for the CEO, who would also be a voting member of the board. It is also recruiting six industry directors and eight independent directors, with one of the independent directors serving as the SRO's Chair.

Candidates should have a strong commitment to the goals and objectives of the new SRO to enhance investor protection and public confidence, ensure fair and efficient markets, accommodate innovation and to adapt to continually evolving industry conditions.

The Special Joint Committee will be seeking broad diversity of thought, background and experience. Consideration will be given to other aspects of diversity, including gender, ethnicity and other qualities and identities to reflect the diverse people of Canada. The Special Joint Committee will also consider geographic representation.

It is expected that some directors will be nominated from the existing board of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA), and others will be new. In this way, the new SRO's board will benefit from the continuity of the knowledge and experience of the current boards, while also adding new voices and perspectives.

All candidates will be interviewed and evaluated by the search firm. Selected candidates will then be interviewed by the Special Joint Committee to determine the final candidates to be recommended to the CSA and the boards of IIROC and the MFDA. The evaluation and selection process has been constructed with the intent to be transparent and fair to all applicants.

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The CSA has posted on its website the role descriptions for the CEO and board director positions; the descriptions are also available on the IIROC and MFDA websites. All candidate enquiries should be directed to newsro@russellreynolds.com.

The CSA, the council of the securities regulators of Canada's provinces and territories, co-ordinates and harmonizes regulation for the Canadian capital markets.

SOURCE Canadian Securities Administrators

Cision

View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2022/21/c3586.html
The Biden administrations push to reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese imports has renewed domestic efforts to produce rare earths minerals, critical to the production of electric vehicles and electronics.

A new bipartisan Senate bill is aiming to accelerate that timeline, by banning defense contractors from sourcing those materials in the first place.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance Live, the bill's co-sponsor Sen. Mark Kelly (D, AZ) called Chinese rare earth minerals "a national security risk" and urged the Pentagon to act quickly to eliminate the metals from military weapons systems.

We've got to stop relying on Chinese rare earths in our defense industry. It's a national security risk to us. If China decided to cut us off on those rare earth minerals right now, this would have a serious impact on our national defense, Kelly said. So, this requires that DOD and the Department of Interior work together to build a stockpile of rare earth minerals.

The bill marks the latest U.S. attempt to break Chinas near monopoly on a group of 17 metals that are crucial to the development of everything from smart electronic devices to wind turbines. The country controls nearly 80% of rare earths imports, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, while the U.S. claims just one rare earth mine and has no capability to process the minerals.

Last month, China moved to strengthen its hold on the market by consolidating key producers within a new conglomerate to double down on the development of mines in China.

Kellys legislation, known as the Restoring Essential Energy and Security Holdings Onshore for Rare Earths Act of 2022, specifically calls for the U.S. Department of Defense and Interior to develop a strategic reserve of rare earths and products large enough to meet the needs of one year, by 2025. It also bans the use of Chinese metals in sensitive military systems by 2026, and requires defense contractors to track and disclose the origins of the metals used in equipment it delivers to the Pentagon.

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This sets the parameters, to put the United States in a position that we have to choose to do this. We build this stockpile, defense contractors will have access to it, and we will build the supply chain of rare earths that we need, Kelly said. We don't want to continue to be in the situation where our adversary, could cut us off from things that we need for our national defense.

Wheel loaders fill trucks with ore at the MP Materials rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, California, U.S. January 30, 2020. Picture taken January 30, 2020. REUTERS/Steve Marcus

The U.S. has been here before.

For decades, the only rare earths mine in the country is in Mountain Pass, California, and it has dominated global supply. But, concerns around its environmental impact, treatment of workers, and regulation slowed output in the 1980s.

That coincided with Chinas aggressive move to capture global market share through government subsidies, lax environmental standards, and lower labor costs. By 2010, China accounted for 97% of global rare earth supply.

Over the years, Beijing has sought to use its leadership in the metals space as leverage in geopolitics. In 2010, China halted all rare earths exports to Japan, after the country detained a Chinese fishing captain near disputed islands in the South China Sea. Later that year, China slashed its export quota for the metals to protect domestic supply, inflaming trade ties with the U.S. and its allies.

But U.S. attempts to revive its domestic metals industry have been fraught with challenges. Fears of a rare earth shortage prompted Molycorp Inc. to reopen the Mountain Pass mine in 2010. That same year, the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, only to see its price collapse. Poor investment decisions ultimately led to its demise, with the company filing for bankruptcy five years later. Las Vegas-based MP Materials (MP), which bought the mine in 2017, has been attempting to revive domestic production since.

The Biden administrations larger focus to reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese supply chains, may provide a tailwind to the industry. Last year, the president signed an executive order, calling for a review of the domestic supply chain on critical resources, including rare earths and electric car batteries. This fall, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $30 million in funding to national labs to build out materials critical to clean energy technology.

Kelly said his legislation will push the U.S. to double down on those efforts.

We do not have a significant enough supply here in the United States today. And this legislation will fix that, he said. We can build this strategic reserve of rare earth minerals over time if we focus on it. And if we choose to do it.

Akiko Fujita is an anchor and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @AkikoFujita

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
The European Union's chief privacy and data protection regulator has urged EU policymakers to strengthen proposed 'transparency' rules for political ads -- calling instead for meaningful limits that would fully ban microtargeting for political purposes.

The Commission proposal to regulate political ads, last fall, fell very far short of that -- offering what this publication characterized at the time as a very "tepid" set of political ads transparency rules, riddled with loopholes which election fiddlers and propaganda muck-spreaders would find all too easy to exploit.

It seems the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Wojciech Wiewiorowski, takes a similar view, recommending in an opinion (PDF) yesterday -- after the usual courtesies welcoming the "overarching aims" of the Commission proposal -- that the regulation needs to be strengthened and that it should include "a full ban on microtargeting for political purposes".

Political communication is essential for citizens, political parties and candidates in order to fully participate in democratic life. To preserve our democracy, we also need strong rules to combat disinformation, voter manipulation and interferences with our elections. We need to do more if we want to tackle the many risks surrounding the use of targeting and amplification techniques for political purposes, he said in a statement accompanying his opinion.

The EDPS' call for a ban on political microtargeting is not a great surprise as Wiewiorowski has previously called for EU lawmakers to ban behavioral advertising entirely.

In February last year he warned that transparency measures may not be enough to prevent the myriad manipulative harms linked to microtargeting (such as discrimination; the exploitation of vulnerable or protected people and groups; the amplification of hate and fraud; and election interference, to name a few).

In his opinion on political ads now he argues that the case for a ban here is even stronger.

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"The existing business models behind many online services have contributed to increased political and idealogical polarisation, disinformation and manipulation. Targeted advertising and amplification mechanisms have been instrumental in provoking such harms," he argues, adding: "The EDPS considers his recommendations about online targeted advertising are even more valid in the political context, having in mind its potential negative impact on the integrity of democracy and its representative institutions."

"Targeted advertising can be used to unduly influence individuals when it comes to political discourse and democratic electoral processes," Wiewiorowski continues. "While 'traditional' offline political campaigning intends to influence voters' behavior via message that are generally available and retrievable (verifiable), the targeted advertising makes it possible to target individual voters as well as group with tailored messages, specific to the particular needs, interests and values of the target audience.

"The EDPS concurs with the Commission's conclusion that such practices have specific detrimental effects on citizens' fundamental rights and freedoms, including their freedoms of opinion and of information, to make political decisions and exercise their voting rights. Moreover, he is convinced that they present increasing risks not only for the fundamental rights of individuals, but also for society as a whole."

He goes on to warn that use of personal data allows for different groups of voters or individuals to be segmented and "characteristics or vulnerabilities exploited" -- such as by serving an ad at a particular moment in time or a place when a person or group may be more sensitive to the messaging.

And of course democratic accountability and oversight over political messaging when, in the case of ads delivered via microtargeting platforms like Facebook, there may be literally hundreds of thousands (or more) permutations of marketing, tweaked and tailored to specific individuals, is simply not realistic.

To be clear, when the EDPS talks about targeted ads, he's specifically concerned about the use of personal data for microtargeting -- and how such data may be analyzed to infer characteristics (or otherwise derive information) about individuals which is then used to selectively target that person with messages judged to be most likely to have the desired impact -- so his call for a ban on political microtargeting is not a call for a blanket ban on being able to target political ads.

(Contextual advertising, for example, which does not rely on processing individuals' personal data to determine which ad to show -- and where targeting is based on a general location, say, or limited to certain (non-sensitive) search keywords -- seems unlikely to invoke the same suite of concerns.)

As well as calling for a full ban on political microtargeting, the EDPS wants to see further restrictions on the categories of data that can be processed for political targeting under the proposed law.

The Commission proposal did suggest some limits on the personal data that can be used for political targeting -- focused on so called "special category" data, which refers to personal data considered the most sensitive (such as health data, political or religious affiliation, ethnic or racial origin, sexuality and so on).

However the EDPS wants the provision strengthened -- pointing out that the Commission's suggested limitations include two gaping exceptions which essentially make the claimed limits worthless (as TechCrunch also pointed out in our analysis last year).

"The EDPS considers that, in practical terms, Article 12 of the Proposal does not appear to offer any additional protection in comparison to existing Union legislation on data protection," writes Wiewiorowski in a particularly awkward line of assessment for the Commission.

He goes further, too -- essentially saying it's unlikely that political microtargeting that makes use of such sensitive personal data would have a valid legal basis under EU data protection law (so, er, legally you probably can't do that anyway) -- with Wiewiorowski pointing out that current cookie consent practices are hardly renowned as paragons of compliance...

He also highlights "the growing use of complex and often opaque algorithms" -- and AI -- being used for ad profiling and targeting, asserting that: "[I]t is questionable to what extent the consent of the citizen will actually be sufficiently and meaningfully informed".

He also adds: "More fundamentally, however, the EDPS questions whether practices which have been identified by the Proposal of having specific detrimental effects should be allowed at all to take place and whether the individual's consent would be sufficient to mitigate the risks posed by them."

In short, this is a very polite -- but very firm -- slapdown to the Commission's whole approach (and its trumpeting of an "ambitious" proposal -- which it claimed last year would usher in "strict conditions" and "secur[e] the use of personal data in context of political targeting, protecting the democratic process").

In essence, the bloc's chief data protection supervisor is saying the proposal will do none of the things claimed in the Commission's PR.

Ouch.

The Commission was contacted for a response to the EDPS' opinion. At the time of writing it had not responded -- but we'll update this report if we get a comment. Update: The Commission did not provide an on the record comment. But in background remarks it defended its approach, arguing that it respects fundamental EU rights to privacy and freedom of expression and preserves plural and open democratic debate by making it easier for people to follow the money funding political messaging.

It's fair to say that the EU's executive is not a fan banning very much when it comes to problematic digital practices.

A proposal to regulate AI introduced by the Commission last year did -- unusually -- propose some outright bans on certain use-cases. However civil society has warned the text added so many limitations, dilutions and exceptions to the suggested prohibitions it's hard to see how they would have a meaningful effect on limiting harms.

When it comes to microtargeting, the Commission evidently also isn't at all keen on a ban.

Indeed, a number of commissioners -- including EVP Margrethe Vestager -- have been straight-up parroting the adtech industry talking points on the topic in recent months (per Politico), seemingly in a bid to influence the European Parliament's negotiating position on the legislation to prevent MEPs adding restrictions on adtech business as usual. (Not very successfully, however -- given MEPs just gave a thumbs up to some major limits on tracking ads.)

Tracking industry lobbyists with links to the adtech duopoly -- who of course have the most to lose if surveillance advertising actually gets banned -- have argued that the survival of small businesses is dependent upon Internet users giving up their privacy en masse in order that everyone can be profiled and targeted cheaply enough to spark joy for SMEs' marketing budgets.

Vestager appears to have made a similar point to a European Parliament committee last November -- apparently favoring transparency and user friendly controls -- aka, exactly the sort of measures adtech lobbyists like to suggest to try to fend off meaningful regulation -- rather than anything more substantial measures. Such as the EDPS' recommended outright ban.

@vestager reminds @EP_Economics MEPs that targeted ads are important for #SMEs with small marketing budgets. More transparency and user friendly options are better than radical solutions. Also political advertising should be treated separated from commercial marketing.#DSA #DMA pic.twitter.com/zLxryZkjjv  KarinaStan (@_Kaari_N) November 18, 2021

Still, the Commission as a whole, and Vestager too, evidently sees the need for political ads to have different rules vs commercial marketing -- so at least for there to be a perception that political ads are being dealt with more strictly in the EU.

In practice, though, their proposal looks closer to delivering yet more tedious and exhausting regulatory theatre than meaningful limits on serious harms. EU citizens should not be impressed.

While adtech lobbying to defend privacy-hostile microtargeting continues to try to chainlink the mass tracking, profiling and behavioral targeting of Internet users to the economic survival of SMEs, a YouGov survey earlier this month (via Euractiv) offers a very different perspective -- finding a majority of French and German SMEs actually oppose microtargeting yet feel they have no choice but to use these ad tools given the market dominance of Facebook and Google.

So not exactly a ringing endorsement of creepy ads from (some) European SMEs.

Vestager -- who remains the bloc's competition chief -- has made it clear for years that she's not a fan of boosting competition by breaking up Big Tech, which could be one way to ensure SMEs have a better choice of ad tools.

Nor indeed is she a fan of blocking Big Tech M&As which may further entrench dominance -- preferring behavioral remedies, and/or regulation, rather than stronger intervention to restore competitive balance to tipped markets.

Such as the ten year ban on Google using Fitbit heath data for advertising -- which was one of the "commitments" Vestager accepted to waive through that particular acquisition back in 2020.

Adtech has been a particular Vestager blindspot -- as the Commission only opened a formal probe of Google's adtech stack last summer, lagging way behind complaints and investigations across multiple jurisdictions.

When it comes to Big (ad)Tech's market power, the Commission EVP has championed a package of ex ante rules as the best way to clean up abusive practices -- aka the Digital Markets Act, which is fast making its way through the EU's co-legislative process. Although here too MEPs have found her approach lacking -- since the parliament voted for restrictions on microtargeting to be added into that law too.

The Commission is duty bound to listen to the other EU institutions as it draws up regulatory proposals. So how long it can keep sticking its fingers in its ears on the need to reform adtech is an interesting question to ponder.
PORT-CARTIER, QC, Jan. 21, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - ArcelorMittal Infrastructure Canada G.P. ("ArcelorMittal") presented the 2022 edition of its steel-headed cane to Captain Aldwin Revelar of the bulk carrier Santa Barbara, the first ship to leave its Port-Cartier port facilities this year.

The ArcelorMittal team at Port-Cartier port facilities presented the steel-headed cane to Captain Aldwin Revelar and Chief Officer Sher William Alvaran of the Santa Barbara. (CNW Group/ArcelorMittal S.A.)

Originating from the Netherlands, the ship will depart ArcelorMittal's port facilities today at 16:01 bound for Asia, carrying more than 155,000 tonnes of iron ore concentrate aboard. The bulk carrier Santa Barbara was built in 2015. It measures 295 metres long by 46 metres wide.

In 2021, ArcelorMittal's port facilities in Port-Cartier welcomed 409 ships, performed more than 900 port entry and exit manoeuvres and handled over 25 million tonnes of iron ore, raw materials, fuel and grain.

ArcelorMittal's internationally recognized port at Port-Cartier is the largest private port in Canada and has been part of our heritage for over 60 years.

About ArcelorMittal Infrastructure Canada G.P.

and ArcelorMittal Mining Canada G.P.

Subsidiaries of ArcelorMittal, the world's leading steel and mining company and among the top five producers of iron ore products globally, ArcelorMittal Infrastructure Canada G.P. ("AMIC") and ArcelorMittal Mining Canada G.P. ("AMMC") are two complementary entities operating on Quebec's North Shore. AMIC ensures the transport of concentrate between Mont-Wright and Port-Cartier, and operates a seaport in Port-Cartier to transport and ship AMMC's products to four continents. AMMC produces iron oxide concentrate and pellets for the steel market. The two companies employ approximately 2,500 people, making ArcelorMittal the largest employer in the North Shore region.

SOURCE ArcelorMittal S.A.

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JOHOR BAHRU, Malaysia, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As an employer, what quality they seek upon the employee? Knowledge? Skills? As future students, what are the expectations after graduation? To secure a job? To survive in the challenging working world?

UTM graduates secured employment worldwide

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) focuses on ensuring that its students are geared towards becoming life-ready graduates with universal talents. Additionally, UTM's motto, "In the Name of God for Mankind", is deeply embedded in the values of the students - simply meaning that one has to take the knowledge gained to prosper and benefit the lives of others or the society.

UTM Graduates are in Demand

UTM has produced 206,301 graduates, including 9,005 international alumni from more than 70 countries, who have been carving their names and serving their workplace worldwide.

According to a report released by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia in 2021, the Graduate Employability rate (GE) of UTM 2020 is 91.5%, exceeding the GE of public universities' average percentage of 84.4%.

On top of that, 13 of UTM's academic programs achieved 100% Graduate Employability with numerous graduates hired locally and abroad. This recognition shows that UTM has successfully produced quality graduates, which are highly demanded by the industry.

Institute for Life-Ready-Graduates

As a premier award-winning research university in engineering, science and technology, one of the keys to UTM success is its unique ecosystem that provides students with a transformative educational experience.

UTM established the Institute for Life-Ready-Graduates (iLeaGue) to develop universal talents who embody wisdom, humanity and entrepreneurial qualities in line with UTM graduate attributes and core values.

UTM's Service-Learning approach integrates classroom concepts with community service in a meaningful way. The uniqueness of UTM's service-learning focuses on enhancing students' understanding of theoretical knowledge through service experience with community.

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"UTM iLeaGue has established a few Community Labs in Tanjung Surat, Benut and Semporna, Malaysia. These service-learning projects focus on education and social development, ICT and technology, economic development, and heritage and eco-tourism within the community", according to the Chair of UTM iLeaGue, Prof. Dr. Mohd Shafry bin Mohd Rahim.

Through this service-learning approach, the students are able to enhance their knowledge as well as their social, personal, interpersonal, leadership and communication skills.

UTM Career Centre

UTM Career Centre also plays a remarkable role. Besides multiple career enhancement programs conducted by career councillors, the Career Carnival also has linked students to employers for employment chances, as the recent event provided 11,602 job opportunities.

During the pandemic era, UTM also implemented Graduate Marketability activities that physically and emotionally prepare the graduates for the job market through the Rise Above COVID-19 Employability program, which emphasizes high impact 'upskilling and reskilling' career training programs.

The Quadruple Helix Model

The quadruple helix mode of Government-University-Community-Industry networking in the UTM ecosystem has indirectly contributed to graduate skills.

Cooperation between the industry and UTM is constantly enhanced from time to time to improve the curriculum and the provision of teaching and learning based on the needs of the current industry.

The university also actively collaborated with the industry to ensure students are exposed to the industry's 'ways of doing things' to be equipped with relevant skills.

5 Excellence Track Program (5 ETP)

The 5 Excellence Track Program (5ETP), a unique program in managing students' exceptional talent, ability, and interest, provides the right platform to nurture and enrich their talent in five individual tracks and achieve their full potential for excellence.

One of the 5 ETP graduates, Yap Sin Yee has been offered to further in doctorate programme by the University of Cambridge, right after her internship with the university. Sin Yee, also Malaysia's prime minister fellow, would be doing her research on the application of machine learning to the analysis of neuroimaging at the prestigious Cambridge University, United Kingdom.

Malaysian-Japan International Institute of Technology, UTM graduate Abdul Hakim Sahidi has been promoted to the position of Director at a Japanese company, Leave a Nest Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., thus making him the very first local appointed to the company key position. UTM graduates are not only having less difficulties in securing jobs, but they also have become successful employers and job creators.

Above all the initiatives and efforts, it is not surprising how UTM graduates have significant advantages in securing employment and being sought after by industry employers worldwide.

About Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)

UTM is an award-winning university in engineering, science and technology ranked #191 in the world according to the QS World University Rankings. It is renowned for being at the forefront of engineering and technological knowledge and expertise. UTM operates based on the core values of Integrity, Synergy, Excellence, and Sustainability. These values guide UTM community practices, and they are embedded in the strategic thrusts that propel the University to greatness. For more information about UTM, visit utm.my. For admission inquiry, visit admission.utm.my.

SOURCE Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)
Indias cryptocurrency ecosystem is eagerly hoping for a hint of regulation from the government on Feb. 1.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the nations budget at the beginning of the month during what is considered to be the most important financial day of the year for the worlds largest democracy.

The speech sets the financial tone for the year, as it indicates how government resources will be allocated and how taxes will be regulated. It also addresses which welfare policies will be introduced and which sector will be aided to boost growth, and most importantly, it reflects the governments balance sheet and therefore tells the state of the economy.

It is possible that cryptocurrency policy gets a mention or more. It is equally possible that the government avoids revealing any new policy or even mentioning crypto.

Cryptocurrencies dont give votes, said one policy expert, who requested anonymity because the individual works closely with the national government. The individual suggested the speech would be populist in nature, geared toward making goods and services cheaper to appease voters ahead of this years elections.

The budget speech is roughly two hours. There are a lot of things to be said. Five states are going to elections. This might not be a priority, the policy expert said.

Voting in the five Indian states starts nine days after the budget speech. That includes voting in Uttar Pradesh, the most-populous state and therefore the most important for the national government.

In the highly unlikely scenario Sitharaman does reveal fresh crypto policy, the proposed rules would need to be passed by parliament. Therefore, it is still unlikely the crypto-sphere will see any immediate regulation implemented.

What have past budgets said

Indias finance minister has mentioned crypto and blockchain in the past on multiple occasions.

On No. 30, Sitharaman told Parliament that a new [cryptocurrencies] bill is in the works, warning that the risk of cryptocurrency and it going in the wrong hands is being monitored.

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She didn't know how much tax had been collected on cryptocurrency transactions at the time.

Over the past several years, mentions of cryptocurrencies in the budget speech have declined.

In the past, language in the budget speech has gone from stating, The government does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system and the government will explore use of block chain technology proactively for ushering in digital economy in 2018 to no mention in 2019, 2020 or 2021.

You can never guess what the government will say in the budget speech, said Subhash Garg, former secretary in the Finance Ministrys Department of Economic Affairs, and the man at the helm of the governments first report to propose actions concerning cryptocurrencies.

That report had recommended a ban and suggested creating a digital rupee. Since his retirement, Gargs stance has changed in favor of regulating crypto.

It is likely to get a mention. But the government may avoid it altogether too. Why enter into a controversy unless there is clarity on how to deal with cryptocurrencies? So far, the government has not made clear how it plans to deal with cryptocurrencies, Garg said.

A mention of cryptocurrency could be seen as legitimizing the unregulated sector, according to at least two policy experts who have worked closely with the government.

Representatives of crypto exchanges have been speaking to the media on TV about their wishes.

Edul Patel, CEO of Mudrex, a crypto asset management platform, said he expects some sort of crypto mention during the speech.

We expect a mention that will be directional in nature, not instructional. We dont expect any reasonably large changes. Purely because the government is taking its time to figure out whats happening, which is a great thing, avoiding knee-jerk reactions, Patel said.

Coming Off Strong Year

Sumit Gupta, co-founder and CEO at CoinDCX, one of the largest exchanges in India, said the crypto situation has changed as last year was a great one for the sector, and therefore a mention of cryptocurrencies is possible.

There has been a lot of new activity, trading, investors and the government has also taken part in discussions. It is now too big to be ignored, Gupta said .

If Sitharaman does address cryptocurrencies, exchanges appear to have some common demands.

The first is that the government classify cryptocurrencies. Most crypto-related companies want crypto to be classified as an asset, not a currency. That seems likely, because a measure has replaced the word "cryptocurrency" with the term "crypto asset."

While the legal implementation still seems a while away, any initiative announced in the budget would at least open a direct line of conversation on crypto classification as an asset class, said Nischal Shetty, co-founder and CEO of WazirX, Indias largest crypto exchange.

Mudrexs Patel said he hoped the budget would categorize cryptocurrency but not necessarily as an asset.

He said he believes treating cryptocurrencies as assets would be fundamentally wrong.

It doesnt necessarily have properties of an asset, things that you can hold, that dont act as a store of value. Most exchanges are trying to define cryptocurrencies as a security and get it under the mandate of SEBI (the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the country's market regulator). Even if that has its own complications, Patel said.

CoinDCXs Gupta felt the 15 to 20 million unique crypto investors cannot be ignored and the market is now a very strong revenue channel for the country.

Taxing Crypto

According to Gupta, policy discussions suggest classifying cryptocurrencies is headed in the direction of crypto assets. That classification goes hand in hand with clarity on taxation.

For example if it is a commercial transaction then appropriate GST (good and service tax) guidelines can be levied. If it is an investment, capital gains tax can be levied. If someone is trading crypto very actively, then they can file for taxes as a business. And if at all, a foreign transaction is involved it should be reported to RBI (the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank) under FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) regulations, Gupta told CoinDesk.

Such a granular classification is not technologically possible and cannot be implemented, according to Gaurav Mehta, founder of Catax, a one-stop-shop for crypto taxes, blockchain auditing and forensics.

It is impossible to keep track of use cases, it is possible to assign an INR (Indian rupee) value to crypto transactions and so satisfy tax compliance requirements, Mehta said.

In his view, cryptocurrency purchases, sales and trades could be regulated at the exchange level, with compliance requirements enforced on trading platforms.

Recently, as many as five exchanges were inspected by tax agencies that visited their offices, paying taxes including, in some cases, penalties, for a total of over 700 million rupees, CoinDesk reported.

According to Mehta, the government may not mention cryptocurrency, but it is likely to reinforce the idea that any income derived from the mobilization of capital would be subjected to the capital gains tax.

Self-Regulation

The lowest-hanging fruit is a demand for giving a thumbs up to certain best practices employed by the crypto exchanges themselves as self-regulation or their own code of conduct as they await government regulation.

This includes licensing requirements such as having know-your-customer (KYC) rules, to satisfy anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism (CFT) obligations, establishing defined paths for money entry and exit points, auditing custodians and allowing self-custody.

The exchanges, though, think it is unlikely the government will touch upon or elaborate on its licensing position in this budget.

We follow strict regulatory practices to ensure customer protection. We hope the budget will help standardize best practices, said Sharan Nair, chief business officer at crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber.

Understanding what best practices require includes spelling out specifics.

Virtual asset service providers can be accountable for enhanced customer due diligence (CDD), transaction monitoring and record-keeping, as well as obligations to report suspicious transactions for higher threshold amounts, similar to traditional finance institutions, said Shivam Thakral, CEO of BuyUcoin.

Virtual asset service providers (VASPs) may include cryptocurrency exchanges, digital wallet providers and banks that support crypto asset transactions.

Several in the crypto industry feel it is too early for the government to give a thumbs up to these best practices.

Meanwhile, some say that the seamless experience is missing for customers.

It is important to clearly define how people can move into crypto and out of it. A lot of banks dont prefer to work with crypto companies. They cant because there might be repercussions, Mudrexs Patel said.

CoinDCXs Gupta thinks reporting requirements should be addressed before licensing, but he doesnt see the upcoming budget touching that issue.

Several in the industry questioned the disproportionate attention given to taxing, trading or investing cryptocurrencies. They seek acknowledgement of the Web 3 sector to help Indias blockchain industry keep pace with the rest of the world. In other words, give the crypto industry clarity on how the tokenization business will work in India.

Government should clarify what is the status of tokens that powers the emerging Web 3 ecosystem,'' Cataxs Mehta said.

Crypto technology and blockchain are long-term phenomena that are not going away, said Pratik Gauri, co-founder and CEO of 5ire, a blockchain-based computer network.

The budget can find ways to provide a groundswell in adoption of blockchain technology in the meat and bones of the largest democracy in the world, Gauri said.
Accessibility.com logo

Accessibility.com logo

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MIAMI, Jan. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Accessibility.com invites business leaders to attend "Are You Next? Trends in Digital Accessibility Lawsuits", on Jan. 25, 2022, at 1 PM ET, for a comprehensive overview of digital accessibility lawsuits filed in 2021. The event is also set to share perspectives from legal accessibility experts on projections for 2022.

Tuesday's event will review the 2021 legal data surrounding web accessibility and how these trends will shape the web accessibility lawsuit landscape for 2022. The key points for the event include:

Exposure by industry.

Costs of non-compliance.

Baseline compliance levels that organizations should strive for.

Recent litigation and settlement agreements.

Existing legal trends in digital accessibility lawsuits.

Projections for 2022 and the impact on the business/customer relationship.

Types of lawsuits and how overlays are bypassed.

Leveraging your relationship with the community to build policy.

Understanding web accessibility requirements and how they impact your organization.

Participants can learn how they can embrace ongoing enforcement activity as a catalyst for adopting accessibility and the best practices that can benefit an organization's bottom-line and relationship with its customers.

The annual Accessibility.com Website Accessibility Lawsuit analysis has shown that New York and California retailers were targeted with the most significant number of lawsuits claiming that their websites are not accessible to consumers with disabilities. The 2,352 lawsuits filed in 2021 and the 711 cases in the fourth quarter are new records in digital accessibility lawsuit filings. Cases were up 14.3% from the previous yearremarkably, more than 56% of all cases were filed by six firms in New York and California. Accessibility.com's legal research team has also identified multiple plaintiffs with triple-digit complaints for the first time in a calendar year. To download the complete report, please click here or visit: https://www.accessibility.com/complete-report-2021-website-accessibility-lawsuits

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Accessibility.com publisher John Griffin says, "The numbers are staggering, particularly in the Consumer Goods, Services & Retail industry group, which accounted for 41% of the year's total; however, they are not unexpected. Surprising? No. Alarming? Should be. Companies that serve the American public are expected to know and understand what federal law and common sense require of them." Griffin continued, "Any company that still is not opening its online doors to everyone should not be surprised when plaintiffs and their attorneys try to force the doors open with litigation."

You can click on the link here to register or go to: https://www.accessibility.com/event/2022/trends-in-digital-accessibility-lawsuits/attendee-register

About Accessibility.com

Accessibility.com provides objective, unbiased, and trustworthy resources to promote awareness of the need for accessible and inclusive environmentsboth physically and digitally. Accessibility.com acts as a catalyst for change through resources, events, and online learning courses, empowering businesses to adopt accessible strategies and become leaders in achieving inclusivityleading to better products, higher-skilled employees, and greater profits.

Lori Litz

Accessibility.com

Lori@Accessibility.com

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Continuing their strategic surge into the American market, Swedish iGaming hosting giant, Internet Vikings, has just announced that they have commenced their operations in the state of Illinois. This is one of 18 compliant U.S. states in which they have set up and begun to offer their world-class iGaming hosting services.

STOCKHOLM, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Internet Vikings has long been considered one of the top iGaming hosting service providers in Europe. They began their pivotal expansion into the U.S. in July last year. Having already established a firm position in 17 other states, their assertive and bold project to offer the finest in bespoke iGaming hosting solutions across the country is fast becoming a reality. The company has begun to see the fruits of its efforts in states like West Virginia, Colorado and New Jersey where they have already attracted various clients.

Home to the iconic city of Chicago, Illinois boasts the fifth-biggest GDP in the country as well as the 6th largest population for a state. Though a latecomer to the party, it is rapidly picking up its pace as it looks to open up to various forms of online gaming, having begun with online sports betting in 2019. Seeing the radical success of online betting in the Garden State in the short time since it was legalized, has spiked a big move towards full regulation in Illinois.

Although "real-money" online casinos are not legal as of yet, social gambling sites are common, offering a variety of popular table and slot games with no deposit required and the chance to win prizes or even cash. iGaming service providers like Internet Vikings are not required to hold any kind of license. They must simply have a client to work with in the state, of which the company already has 2, one of which expanded with them from 2 of the other states in which they have already launched.

In keeping with their decisive and strategic development, Internet Vikings intends to expand its operations into all states where iGaming is legal this year. The company's head of U.S. Expansion Elena Kvakova based in New York expressed her excitement: "As a business we are both proud and very eager to see how rapidly we are keeping up our rate of expansion in the United States. We have no intention of slowing our pace until we have secured a base in all of the 21 states where iGaming has been legalized". When asked how Internet Vikings selects which states to prioritise for their next move, she explained that it was a question of following trends and keeping up with client needs and expectations.

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For press enquiries please contact Julija Lavosnik

+447738878811

julija.lavosnik@internetvikings.com

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SOURCE Internet Vikings International AB
SINGAPORE, Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- JERDE (The Jerde Partnership), an iconic and internationally renowned architecture and urban planning firm, announced that Peter Priebe has replaced Paul Martinkovic as Chief Executive Officer, who has retired after 32 years at the firm. The news came after the announcement of Phil Kim, Managing Director, Asia Pacific who was elevated to Chair of the company's Board of Directors, as well as Mark Liu, Managing Director, China to Board Secretary.

Peter Priebe is appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of JERDE. / Image Ringo Chiu

Peter Priebe named JERDE's new CEO

Priebe comes to JERDE from WATG, a large global architecture firm with projects in 160 countries, where he was Chief Operating Officer. He has also served as WATG's Chief Financial Officer and Interim Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining WATG, Priebe worked at Stantec, a publicly traded planning, engineering and architecture firm where he was corporate controller.

"We are incredibly fortunate Peter accepted our offer to become JERDE's Chief Executive Officer. It was important for us to find an internationally respected business executive with the global experience needed to lead our firm," said Phil Kim, Chairman of JERDE. "In addition to his vast experience, Peter's inclusive approach brings renewed energy to our company at a time when we are looking to grow, in a time of great change."

"In our industry JERDE has a stellar reputation for innovative design, creating some of the world's most memorable places," said Priebe. "We have an incredible pool of talent, and I am looking forward to leveraging that expertise to help developers not only create great places, but unlock value in every square foot of design. I am beyond excited to take the baton from Paul. We are definitely, over the next two to three years, looking at diversification and growth to keep up with our clients' demands. We see an opportunity to double down in Singapore to anchor our presence in Hong Kong, Seoul and Ho Chi Minh city, and grow our business and client based across Asia."

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Phil Kim elevates to Chair of JERDEs Board of Directors / Image JERDE

Phil Kim and Mark Liu continue to drive the firm's presence in Asia and beyond

A Shareholder and Managing Director of Asia Pacific, Kim leads JERDE's operations in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Australia and S.E. Asia, while Liu serves as the General Manager of JERDE's Shanghai office, growing the firm's presence to brand success in the mainland China market.

"Phil and Mark both bring a deep knowledge and history of success guiding projects in North America, Asia, and around the world," said Eduardo Lopez, Design Principal and Shareholder of JERDE. "Their global experience will help navigate the firm and our expanding workload as businesses continue to re-emerge from the pandemic."



As an industry leader with the Urban Land Institute, Kim is a Global Governing Trustee, Co-Chair of the education initiative UrbanPlan, and Chairman of the Hong Kong Council. He expands the firm's vision of experiential placemaking around the world, and is a favored speaker at conferences all over the world on topics of urban mixed-use environments, retail, urban revitalization, precinct strategy, vertical cities, and the sustainable value of place.

"Phil's institutional background, nuanced thinking, and stability contribute are ideal qualities for our Board Chair. Phil knows what works in North America may not work in Asia or Latin America and vice versa," said Lopez.

JERDE has designed award-winning destinations throughout the world including such iconic places as Santa Monica Place, Bellagio in Las Vegas, the Mall of America in Minnesota, Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles, Pacific City in Huntington Beach as well as Langham Place in Hong Kong, Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, and Kanyon in Istanbul. The firm has also designed new innovative mixed-use and retail properties including Shanghai World Trade Center, Oxigeno in Costa Rica, and the Battery in Atlanta.

Background Information

About JERDE

JERDE is a visionary urban design studio creating signature places that deliver memorable experiences and attract more than a billion people each year. For 40 years, JERDE has pioneered the concept of "Placemaking" with more than 120 major projects on six continents. Headquartered in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, each JERDE client works closely with an equity partner to take a boutique, collaborative approach to the creative process of design and architecture. JERDE places attract people providing lasting social, cultural and economic value, spurring further investment and revitalization. JERDE is one of only a few architectural firms awarded six ULI Global Awards for Excellence in addition to many of the industry's other highest honors and recognitions.

JERDE has designed mixed-use, hospitality, and retail destinations throughout the world including Langham Place in Hong Kong, Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, D-Cube City in Seoul, and more recently the Grand Hyatt Sanya Haitang Bay in Hainan, China, a MIPIM Asia Gold Award winner for Best Hotel & Tourism Development. In its home country of the United States, JERDE has designed well known sites such as Bellagio in Las Vegas, Pacific City in Huntington Beach, as well as the makeovers of the world famous Santa Monica Place and Fashion Island Malls.

Logo (PRNewsfoto/JERDE)

SOURCE JERDE
NEXT WEEK: Hawaii Communities Bring Hope, Can-Do Spirit to School Choice Week Celebrations

PR Newswire

HONOLULU, Jan. 20, 2022

As School Disruptions Continue, Families Call Attention to Educational Flexibility, Opportunity During Twelfth Annual Public Awareness Week

HONOLULU, Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Kids learn differently and every family situation is unique: we need school choice. That's the message Hawaii families and educators are bringing to their celebrations of National School Choice Week 2022.

National School Choice Week 2022 (PRNewsfoto/National School Choice Week)

Hawaii schools, organizations, and individuals are planning 69 celebrations for the Week, which will feature more than 26,000 activities nationwide.

More than two dozen U.S. landmarks and notable buildings will light up in special colors to mark the Week. In Hawaii, the Aloha Tower will light up in red and yellow throughout School Choice Week.

The Week's celebrations focus on community building, sharing student and teacher successes, and raising awareness about how to put kids first when it comes to education. The goal? Supporting families and highlighting schools so more kids can find learning fits where they thrive.

Here in Hawaii, there are a variety of educational options available including: traditional public schools, charter schools, private schools, online schools, and homeschooling.

Across the state, communities are celebrating School Choice Week by formally proclaiming it, including the city of Honolulu.

"Hawaii is truly a one-of-a-kind state and approaches educating its children with a unique spirit," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "We are encouraged to see awareness of school choice spreading in Hawaii as families and educators partner to diversify learning opportunities for kids."

To download a guide to Hawaii school choice, use the school finder tool to search schools in your area, or see celebration photos and proclamation updates, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/hawaii.

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Local celebrants are available to discuss their plans with reporters upon request. For more information, send us the specifics of your coverage area at pressoffice@schoolchoiceweek.com , or preview a sampling of Hawaii events at schoolchoiceweek.com/hawaii.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

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SOURCE National School Choice Week
RTHK: IS attacks Syria jail, military base in Iraq

The Islamic State group on Friday attacked a Syria prison housing fellow jihadists and a military base in Iraq in near simultaneous deadly operations that revived fears of an IS resurgence.

The jihadist group claimed both attacks but gave no indication they were coordinated. However, analysts said they strongly suggested IS was trying to boost its ranks and arsenal in an attempt to reorganise across both countries.

In Syria, the ongoing assault on the northeastern detention facility, which holds the largest number of IS suspects in Syria, killed at least 23 Kurdish security forces and set "dozens of IS fighters" free, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The prison break that began late on Thursday was one of the group's most significant attacks since its "caliphate" was declared defeated in the war-torn country nearly three years ago.

The jihadist group said in a statement released by its Amaq news agency that its attack on Ghwayran jail in the city of Hasakeh aimed to "free the prisoners".

As IS operatives launched their bid to free some of the estimated 3,500 fellow fighters jailed at the prison, the jihadists killed 11 soldiers in an attack on an army base in the east of neighbouring Iraq.

The attack marked the jihadists' deadliest operation in Iraq this year.

While the Iraq operation quickly came under wraps, Kurdish forces in Syria continued to battle jihadists in Hasakeh, hours after the prison attack began with an IS car bomb the previous night, the Observatory said.

The war monitor, providing figures that were not immediately confirmed by the authorities of the autonomous Kurdish region, said nearly 40 jihadists were killed in the ongoing fighting which also drew in US-led coalition forces.

The brazen IS operation sowed chaos in Hasakeh, forcing people to flee the area around Ghwayran prison, with at least five civilians reported killed, according to the Observatory.

IS fighters hunkered down in homes around the facility, sometimes using residents as human shields, as Kurdish forces backed by coalition aircraft fought to retake full control of the neighbourhood and hunt down prisoners on the loose.

"IS fighters killed four of our neighbours," said Umm Ibrahim, who was forced to escape her neighbourhood near the prison.

"We left because of the clashes. We feared for our children," said the 38-year-old.

IS has carried out regular attacks against Kurdish and government targets in Syria since the rump of its once-sprawling proto-state was overrun on the banks of the Euphrates in March 2019.

Most of their guerrilla attacks have been against military targets and oil installations in remote areas but the Hasakeh prison break could mark a new phase in the group's resurgence.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurds' de-facto army in northeastern Syria, said it had recaptured 89 IS detainees in its sweep of the area.

"Clashes continue in the vicinity of the prison," the SDF said in a statement.

The US-led coalition formed to battle IS acknowledged the attack and added that the SDF had suffered casualties but did not say how many.

IS "remains an existential threat in Syria and cannot be allowed to regenerate", the coalition said.

The Kurdish authorities have long warned they do not have the capacity to hold, let alone put on trial, the thousands of IS fighters captured in years of operations.

According to Kurdish authorities, more than 50 nationalities are represented in a number of Kurdish-run prisons where more than 12,000 IS suspects are now held.

From France to Tunisia, many of the IS prisoners' countries of origins have been reluctant to repatriate them, fearing a public backlash at home.

Prison breaks have been a recurring part of jihadist strategy in both Iraq and Syria for more than a decade.

Before becoming the world's most wanted man, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of what was later to become known as the "Islamic State", had launched a campaign in 2012 focused on releasing prisoners.

His proclamation of the Islamic State's so-called caliphate in 2014 across swathes of Iraq and Syria came after a wave of operations in Iraq during which several hundred fighters were freed, including from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

"Jailbreaks and prison riots were a central component of IS resurgence in Iraq and is a serious threat in Syria today," said Dareen Khalifa, senior Syria analyst at International Crisis Group.

Since Kurdish forces backed by the US-led coalition flushed out the last die-hard jihadists holding out in the village of Baghuz in 2019, IS has been patiently rebuilding.

The confusion and corruption that are rife in the vast desert expanses on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border have allowed IS remnants to lie low and plot their next moves. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2022-01-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said the state would begin testing nursing home residents antibody levels over the next two weeks to determine if they needed fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

While fourth shots of vaccine have been administered in other parts of the world, they have not yet been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use. But Hogan said Maryland would move ahead of the federal government if the antibody levels indicated waning immunity among many of the states most vulnerable residents.

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We hope [fourth doses] wont be necessary, but we will be prepared to take action if it is deemed necessary, Hogan said at a news conference Thursday in Annapolis.

The virus tore through the states nursing home population in the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic, with many lacking sufficient infection control protocols. Residents were prioritized for COVID-19 vaccinations right after the FDA authorized them for use in December 2020, and they were among the first in the state to receive booster doses.

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Boosters have become critical to the fight against the coronavirus and have been proven to help reduce the risk of serious infection and virus transmission, especially during the latest surge fueled by the more contagious omicron variant. Third doses are now considered part of Pfizer/BioNTech and Modernas full vaccination regimen, and should be given six months after the second dose.

People who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated account for the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths caused by COVID-19, according to state and hospital officials. Hogan, who received his third shot in August and contracted the virus in December, encouraged people who were not yet boosted to reconsider.

No one should think of the booster as a bonus or an extra dose, Hogan said, adding that his wife, Yumi, tested positive for COVID-19 this week and is only experiencing mild symptoms, likely due to her being fully vaccinated. Getting your booster shot as soon as you are eligible is absolutely critical to protecting you from severe illness from this virus and its variants.

The state, in partnership with the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and Johns Hopkins, will start the new round of antibody testing this week, Hogan said. The last round of antibody testing in August among older adults in congregate care settings found more than 60% of those tested had some degree of waning immunity, Hogan said.

Maryland was the first state to move ahead of the federal government in administering booster doses to this population, Hogan said. He said that decision proved to be one of the most critical choices the state made during the pandemic.

Members of the Maryland National Guard, mobilized about two weeks ago by Hogan to help hospitals and health care workers handle a crush of patients seeking care, have begun delivering remdesivir, a lifesaving antiviral medication, to institutional pharmacies that serve nursing homes. The state health department has instructed providers to conserve their supply of antiviral drugs based on need after the federal government determined that only remdesivir proved effective against omicron.

And starting Friday, staff, volunteers and vendors at nursing home facilities in counties with high transmission rates of COVID-19 will be required to get tested twice a week to prevent virus spread there, according to an updated Maryland Department of Health order. People who have tested positive for the virus in the past 90 days are exempt.
NEXT WEEK: National School Choice Week Celebrations in Rhode Island Bring Hope, Help to Families

PR Newswire

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Jan. 20, 2022

As School Disruptions Continue, Families Call Attention to Educational Flexibility, Opportunity During Twelfth Annual Public Awareness Week

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Make school-searching easier for families. That's the message Rhode Island community members are bringing to their celebrations of National School Choice Week 2022.

National School Choice Week 2022 (PRNewsfoto/National School Choice Week)

Rhode Island schools, organizations, and individuals are planning 85 celebrations for the Week, which will feature more than 26,000 activities nationwide. Across the country, more than two dozen U.S. landmarks and notable buildings will light up in special colors to mark the Week.

The Week's celebrations focus on community building, sharing student and teacher successes, and raising awareness about how to put kids first when it comes to education. The goal? Supporting families and highlighting schools so more kids can find learning fits where they thrive.

"With the opening of a new, tuition-free online public school last year, school choice options have expanded for Rhode Island families," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "This school is a welcome addition to the Ocean State's existing public, charter, magnet, private, and home education options."

Here in Rhode Island, there are a variety of educational options to attend including: traditional public schools with open enrollment at the discretion of each district, charter schools, magnet schools, online learning, private schools, and homeschooling. Rhode Island families below a certain income level qualify for a state-run scholarship program.

Across the state, communities are celebrating School Choice Week by formally proclaiming it, including the cities of North Providence, Woonsocket, and Central Falls.

To download a guide to Rhode Island school choice, use the school finder tool to search schools in your area, or see celebration photos and proclamation updates, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/rhode-island.

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Local celebrants are available to discuss their plans with reporters upon request. For more information, send us the specifics of your coverage area at pressoffice@schoolchoiceweek.com , or preview a sampling of Rhode Island events at schoolchoiceweek.com/rhode-island.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

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SOURCE National School Choice Week
NEXT WEEK: National School Choice Week Celebrations in North Dakota Bring Hope, Help to Families

PR Newswire

BISMARCK, N.D., Jan. 20, 2022

Gov. Doug Burgum Issues Proclamation Recognizing Jan. 23-29 as North Dakota School Choice Week

BISMARCK, N.D., Jan. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Put kids first and help parents find out about their education options. That's the message North Dakota families and educators are bringing to their celebrations of National School Choice Week 2022.

National School Choice Week 2022 (PRNewsfoto/National School Choice Week)

North Dakota schools, organizations, and individuals are planning 45 celebrations for the Week, which will feature more than 26,000 activities nationwide. Across the country, more than two dozen U.S. landmarks and notable buildings will light up in special colors to mark the Week.

The Week's celebrations focus on community building, sharing student and teacher successes, and raising awareness about how to put kids first when it comes to education. The goal? Supporting families and highlighting schools so more kids can find learning fits where they thrive.

Here in North Dakota, there are a variety of educational options to attend including: traditional public schools with open enrollment at the discretion of each district, online learning, private schools, and homeschooling.

To raise awareness of these options, Gov. Doug Burgum has officially proclaimed North Dakota School Choice Week. Across the state, additional communities are celebrating School Choice Week by formally proclaiming it, including the city of Hettinger.

"North Dakota families have fewer choices than families in other states when it comes to K-12 education, but we hope that increased opportunity is on the horizon," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "Especially given last year's interrupted learning, there is no time to waste in providing families more opportunity and support to help kids learn."

To download a guide to North Dakota school choice, use the school finder tool to search schools in your area, or see celebration photos and proclamation updates, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/north-dakota.

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Local celebrants are available to discuss their plans with reporters upon request. For more information, preview a sampling of North Dakota events at schoolchoiceweek.com/north-dakota.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

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SOURCE National School Choice Week
ONTARIO, Calif., Jan. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA) Board of Commissioners has received a letter of resignation from Chief Executive Officer Mark Thorpe, effective March 31.

Ontario International Airport (ONT) (PRNewsfoto/Ontario International Airport)

"On behalf of the OIAA, I commend Mark for his leadership in the revival of Ontario International Airport (ONT) as a premier aviation gateway since our return to local ownership," said Alan D. Wapner, President of the OIAA Board of Commissioners. "In his four-plus years as CEO, Mark and his team have helped establish ONT as one of the most competitive and customer-friendly passenger and cargo airports in the United States and a major economic engine for the Inland Empire and Southern California. We thank Mark for his service and wish him well in his future endeavors."

Thorpe joined OIAA as Chief Development Officer in August 2016  three months before the transfer to local ownership became official. He was named CEO the following year. His previous experience includes Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Los Angeles World Airports.

Mark is currently on special assignment for OIAA until March 31.

About Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport (ONT) is the fastest growing airport in the United States, according to Global Traveler, a leading publication for frequent fliers. Located in the Inland Empire, ONT is approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of Southern California. It is a full-service airport which, before the coronavirus pandemic, offered nonstop commercial jet service to 26 major airports in the U.S., Mexico, Central America and Taiwan. More information is available at www.flyOntario.com. Follow @flyONT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario Mayor Pro Tem Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario City Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

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OIAA Media Contact:

Steve Lambert, (909) 841-7527 slambert@flyontario.com

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SOURCE Ontario International Airport
The Russian administration seems to be ignoring a likely short-lived opportunity for simultaneously addressing the nations structural economic challenges while also improving economic ties with the EU, Russias most important trading partner. Windfall gains from todays elevated energy prices could have been greater, were the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in operation, while the outlook for attracting foreign capital and reducing sanctions risks would also have improved were it not for the crisis surrounding Ukraine.

Russias strengthened public finances and accumulation of foreign-exchange and fiscal reserves have enabled a more self-sufficient economy to withstand international sanctions over the recent past and pull through the Covid-19 crisis comparatively well. Higher oil prices have allowed the government to support short-run economic recovery with emergency fiscal stimulus. The Russian economy will grow an above-trend 2.7% in 2022 after an estimated 4.5% in 2021. However, growth projections for this year face substantive downside risk should the Ukraine crisis escalate.

Scope upgraded Russias long-term credit rating to BBB+/Stable last year, based on a strengthened sovereign balance sheet against sanction risks.

Rising energy prices might have set scene for better Russia-EU relations

Current high oil and gas prices could have set the stage for improved relations with Europe considering the EUs current reliance on energy imports from Russia, acknowledging that this geopolitical advantage may diminish over the long term as Europe gradually transitions away from fossil fuels. The planned inclusion of some natural gas in the EU Taxonomy implies that gas will play a larger role as a main transition fuel during the EUs transition into a low carbon economy.

Instead, Russian policies have helped push energy security and sustainability faster and further up the policy-making agenda in Europe. Thus, the leverage that Russia has long held over Western Europe through the regions reliance on imports of Russian energy products now could have an earlier expiry date.

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Figure 1. EU imports of crude oil and natural gas

EUR bn

Source: Eurostat, Scope Ratings GmbH

Significant potential economic, financial costs for Russia from US, EU tensions

The deterioration in relations with the EU and the US could potentially have significant costs for Russias energy sector, banking system and real economy in terms of rouble convertibility as well as for top Russian officials if Washington and Brussels impose tougher sanctions. Such geopolitical and sanction-related risks represent a main constraint on Russias credit rating. Existing sanctions and risk of more to come have discouraged foreign investment. Inbound foreign direct investment fell from an annual average of USD 55bn over 2010-13 to around USD 20bn over 2018-21.

The economic context under which Russia is pressing claims on the West has also changed.

First, Russian exports to the EU could be materially affected by the EUs proposition of a carbon border adjustment mechanism. Mitigating financial consequences of such an EU carbon levy, which might be expanded to include Russian oil and gas, hinges on a lenient approach from Brussels  something that appears unlikely in the current diplomatic climate.

Russia needs to tackle long-term economic, environmental, social challenges

Secondly, the Russian administrations lack of far-reaching reform to curtail economic reliance on energy exports is one manifestation of an intensification of economic, environmental and social challenges.

Transforming Russias economic model requires more than fiscal prudence and protecting the value of the rouble. More profound reform ought to aim at reducing the states significant role in the economy, which has discouraged competition and aggravated outstanding inefficiencies in addition to social inequalities, clouding the business climate and discouraging private investment. In the absence of reform, growth potential over the medium run will remain tepid at around 1.5-2% annually, despite comparatively low per capita incomes and significant economic catch-up potential.

Chances that the government embarks on substantive reform near term are low. Reforms are politically costly, if only because of the competitiveness of Russias energy sector compared with that of other tradable sectors in the short term.

For further reading, please see: Central & Eastern Europe Sovereign Outlook 2022 (published Dec 2021)

For a look at all of todays economic events, check out our economic calendar.

By Levon Kameryan, Senior Analyst, Scope Ratings

Levon Kameryan is Senior Analyst in Sovereign and Public Sector ratings at Scope Ratings GmbH

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

More From FXEMPIRE:
Residents of South Pacific nation made first international calls using SESs C-band capacity following massive eruption and tsunami last weekend

LUXEMBOURG, January 20, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SES announced today that it has enabled Digicel to restore vital communications with the outside world following the Hunga Tonga-Haapai volcano eruption that sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean. First international calls service from Tongatapu provided by Digicel has been up since Wednesday, with both SES and Digicel teams working on restoring more vital communications services in the coming days.

"With satellite partners such as SES, we have been able to establish international calls for our customers as soon as possible, and will increase capacity to provide more services in the next few days. We know how vital it is at times like this that to keep people connected. We take that responsibility very seriously and are focused on doing everything we can to ensure people are able to communicate with their loved ones in these difficult times," said Digicel Tonga CEO Anthony Seuseu.

"We are humbled to be of service to the people of Tonga during this difficult time. The importance of connecting with critical resources, friends and family cannot be overstated, and our technical teams have been working hard to enable Digicel to restore vital connections between Tonga and the rest of the world," said John Turnbull, Director of Pacific Region at SES. "SES and Digicel have a long history of providing multi-orbit capacity into key Pacific markets, and our partnership enabled the first communication services out of Tonga. Our thoughts are with the residents of Tonga as we continue to work relentlessly to increase connectivity to the nation."

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About SES

SES has a bold vision to deliver amazing experiences everywhere on earth by distributing the highest quality video content and providing seamless connectivity around the world. As the leader in global content connectivity solutions, SES operates the worlds only multi-orbit constellation of satellites with the unique combination of global coverage and high performance, including the commercially-proven, low-latency Medium Earth Orbit O3b system. By leveraging a vast and intelligent, cloud-enabled network, SES is able to deliver high-quality connectivity solutions anywhere on land, at sea or in the air, and is a trusted partner to the worlds leading telecommunications companies, mobile network operators, governments, connectivity and cloud service providers, broadcasters, video platform operators and content owners. SESs video network carries over 8,500 channels and has an unparalleled reach of 361 million households, delivering managed media services for both linear and non-linear content. The company is listed on Paris and Luxembourg stock exchanges (Ticker: SESG). Further information is available at: www.ses.com.

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Contacts

Suzanne Ong

External Communications

+352 710 725 500

suzanne.ong@ses.com
DUBLIN, January 20, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Vietnam B2B Database: B2B Contacts and Company Data; 625,493 Companies and 3.5 Million Contacts" database has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This database monitors 625,493 companies in Vietnam, using an artificial-intelligence-powered data crawling system combined with reliable governmental sources. It upgrades the way researchers and salespeople currently operate by reducing the steps needed to reach to necessary information / prospects.

This database, Vietnam's largest B2B contacts and company data portal, covers more than 3.5 million key employee contacts across more than 1,000 industries.

It works like a search engine for companies and B2B contacts in Vietnam, allowing the user to search real-time company data - background data, business descriptions, shareholder/manager names, financial data and employee data, along with e-mail addresses, Linkedin profiles, Facebook, company websites and much more.

The database has made it simple and easy for researchers, salespeople and marketers to search and access company data and direct contact information of key employees across the economically booming Vietnam.

Because the publisher monitors government sources - including tax departments - there are no inactive companies in the database.

For more information about this database visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/16f4k4

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220120005664/en/

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ResearchAndMarkets.com

Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

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Starting a building venture in Australia is risky, but with the right mentor, there is a great chance for success. Integrity Franchising Pty Ltd (0428-536-021) has announced a business opportunity for anyone willing to create a profitable local business while joining a nationally recognised brand.

Coffs Harbour, Australia, Jan. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

The Australian-based construction group has announced a new business opportunity for builders operating within the NSW Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, Orange and Albury regions, offering them the chance to become owners of a licensed home construction franchise.

More information is available at https://www.integrityfranchising.com.au

With its latest announcement, Integrity Franchising seeks to empower aspiring entrepreneurs to benefit from the continuing growth of Australias residential housing market and help them gain a strong competitive edge in their area. By joining the groups nationwide network of franchisee builders, businesses maintain their independence while benefiting from the know-how and resources of an experienced industry player.

Integrity Franchisings offer is suitable for anyone believing to be equipped with the skills to run a building franchise but lacking resources to prosper. Property developers, real estate agents, and tradesmen can now partner with a leading home building expert who will help them meet licensing requirements while providing them with business training and support.

Building professionals who join the franchise scheme will be given access to a catalogue of over 1,600 custom and project home designs, which they can offer to their clients.

From block homes, duplexes, homesteads and investor homes, all designs are available through Integrity Franchisings proprietary software. The projects can be viewed in 3D, enabling building professionals to present future homeowners with virtual walkthroughs of their properties and facilitate more engaging interactions.

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The groups dedicated team also provides would-be business owners with ongoing support in sales and marketing processes, graphic design, accounting, contract preparation, and pre-contract estimation. Interested parties can learn more about the companys iProx rapid estimation program from founder Glenn Leet by visiting https://www.integrityfranchising.com.au/news/article/rapid-estimation-of-new-homes-made-easy-with-iprox

Franchisees can choose from two types of territories, namely regional ($30,000) and metro ($50,000), or translating into a payment plan of 12 monthly instalments of $3,000 and $5,000, respectively. Among the territories on offer are steep sites that many competitors avoid. By utilising Integrity Franchisings creative housing solutions, builders can take advantage of this untapped niche and expand their market share amid the declining supply of flat terrains across the country.

Further details can be found at Integrity Franchising Whats In It For You?

Source: Integrity Franchising News

Website: https://www.integrityfranchising.com.au/

CONTACT: Name: Glenn Leet Organization: Integrity Franchising Pty Ltd Address: Coffs Harbour, Coffs Harbour, NSW 2450, Australia Phone: +61-428-536-021




The VinFuture Prize rewards breakthrough scientific research and technological innovations with humanitarian outcomes

HANOI, VIETNAM --News Direct-- Vingroup

The VinFuture Prize is aligned with one or more of the UNs Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is grounded in recognising proven, real-life impact

Winners demonstrated breakthrough innovations in science and technology focused on driving meaningful and scalable change through improvements in health, prosperity, productivity, equity, and sustainability

Recipients were selected from nearly 600 nominations across 60 countries

HANOI, VIETNAM - Media OutReach - 21 January 2022 - The inaugural VinFuture Award Ceremony honors inventors of core mRNA vaccine technology; metal-organic frameworks (MOFs); flexible semiconductors with the sensing properties of human skin; and tenofovir gel for the prevention of HIV. These projects are exceptional scientific accomplishments that will positively impact the lives of billions of people on Earth in the present and future.

Professor Katalin Kariko (third from right), Professor Pieter Cullis and Professor Drew Weissman (first and second from left) win VinFuture Grand Prize

Honouring exceptional minds whose research and technological innovations will improve quality of life and ensure sustainable living for future generations, The VinFuture Prize was launched on International Solidarity Day 2020 and is uniquely aligned with one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The award programme is part of the VinFuture Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit set up by Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong, the first Vietnamese billionaire and Founder and Chairman of the largest Vietnamese conglomerate, Vingroup Corporate, together with his wife, Mrs. Pham Thu Huong, to create meaningful change in the everyday lives of millions by recognising and rewarding transformative innovation in sci-tech.

Attracting almost 600 nominations across 60 countries in its inaugural year, the Prize represents the best in science and technological breakthroughs in these fields. Of these nominations, nearly 100 came from the worlds top 2% most-cited scientists, many of whom are themselves laureates of distinguished awards, such as the Nobel Prize, Breakthrough Prize and Tang Prize, among others.

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The Grand Prize, valued at US$3 million, is awarded to three scientists: Katalin Kariko (USA), Drew Weissman (USA) and Pieter Cullis (Canada) for their work on mRNA technology, which paved the way for effective COVID-19 vaccines. In their research, they were able to modify mRNA and encapsulate it in lipid nanoparticles, preventing the immune system from reacting to foreign mRNA entering the body and avoiding cytokine induction, toxicity, and off-target effects. Based on Kariko and Weissmans discovery, and Culliss development of lipid nanoparticles, pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were able to produce effective COVID-19 vaccines in record time.

Besides serving as a global line of defense against the increasing infections and deaths caused by the pandemic, mRNA technology also has the potential to generate vaccines against HIV, cancer, autoimmune diseases and genetic diseases, potentially saving the lives of billions of people in the future.

In addition to the Grand Prize, three Special Prizes, each valued at US$500,000, have been dedicated specifically for female innovators and to recognize innovations in emerging fields and in developing countries.

The first Special Prize, dedicated to Innovators with Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields, is awarded to Professor Omar Yaghi (USA) for his work on discovering metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs are a new class of materials formed as networks of charged molecules linked to metal ions, with permanent porosity with high surface area and impressive stability. With tuneable pore sizes that enable the absorption and storage of gas and water molecules, MOFs provide solutions for the capture, storage, separation, and chemical manipulation of different types of gases and particles, and have the potential to create a cleaner environment and cleaner air, energy, and water sources.

In particular, Professor Yaghis MOF water harvester has been proven to have the potential to generate clean water at any time, in any place. If successfully implemented, MOFs can improve the lives of millions of people in regions that lack access to clean water, helping increase water independence and increase quality of life.

The second Special Prize, dedicated to Female Innovators, is awarded to Professor Zhenan Bao (USA) for her work on developing flexible electronics with the sensing properties of human skin. The electronics are made from a type of flexible molecular semiconductor material that has self-healing and biodegradable properties, allowing electronics to be integrated seamlessly into the human body. They have great potential in medical diagnosis and smart healthcare and can also be applied to wearable and implantable electronic devices, enhancing the quality of life of millions of people with disability and sparking future medical breakthroughs.

Professors Salim Abdool Karim (second from right) and Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim (second from left) win VinFuture Special Prize

The Special Prize, for Innovators from Developing Countries, is awarded to Professors Salim Abdool Karim and Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim from South Africa for their research on effective HIV prevention. With extensive experience in the field of epidemiology, the two scientists developed a tenofovir-based gel that prevents sexual transmission of HIV, laying the foundation for the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) method of preventing HIV. Salim Abdool Karim and Quarraisha Abdool Karim also created an oral medicine to create an HIV prevention strategy across the world, including for women and infants.

The Karims research was recognized by UNAIDS and WHO as a pivotal scientific breakthrough, with significant impact on the prevention of an epidemic in the African continent and the world.

Speaking about the results of the inaugural season of the VinFuture Prize, Professor Sir Richard Friend, VinFuture Prize Council Chair, stated: The VinFuture Prize 2021 recognizes truly outstanding scientific work that has made and will make, a positive impact on the lives of millions, or even billions, of people around the world. The winners have brought new solutions for some of the most significant challenges that humanity is facing, such as infectious diseases and meeting the urgent need for zero carbon energy. The VinFuture Prize celebrates the power of science and technology to solve global problems.

On behalf of the Prize Laureates, Professor Katalin Kariko shared: It is an incredible honor to learn that the Prize council selected me, together with my fellow scientists Drew Weissman and Pieter Cullis, to receive the inaugural VinFuture Grand Prize. We, as scientists, work at the bench in the laboratory, performing experiments day-after-day and hope that one day  maybe in our lifetime  we can witness that the advancements we made will be beneficial for the common good. We are all relieved and thrilled that our scientific discoveries laid the foundation for the development of the mRNA vaccines. It is also important to note that the vaccines were developed based on a century of scientific and technological progress and recent discoveries by hundreds of thousands of scientists, doctors, engineers and experts who advanced the knowledge of their respected fields, and the combination of that work led to the creation of these very effective and safe mRNA vaccines. We hope that our scientific adventure will also inspire the next generation of researchers and doctors, and that their contributions will advance our scientific knowledge on a higher level leading to the treatment of patients with unmet medical needs.

The first VinFuture Award Ceremony was broadcasted live on major communication channels across the world, with the appearance of Mr. Pham Minh Chinh, Prime Minister of Vietnam, leaders of domestic ministries and agencies, global ambassadors, industry leaders, and in particular, eminent international scientists.

The Award Ceremony signals the end of the first season of the VinFuture Prize, with results far exceeding the expectations of the Prize Council in terms of both quantity, quality, and practical application potential of the nominations. The early success of the Prize lays the foundation for broadening the Prizes impact in coming years, recognising scientists who seek and deliver solutions to humanitys problems, contributing to creating a better life for everyone, and building a sustainable environment for future generations.

Officially starting the second season of the VinFuture Prize

The second cycle of the VinFuture Prize has now started, immediately following the conclusion of the inaugural VinFuture Award Ceremony. The VinFuture Foundation will open the nomination portal from February 15 running until June 3, 2022.

Contact Details

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Media Contact

v.nammh@vingroup.net

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Editor's note: This story is part of the Lee Enterprises series "Grizzlies and Us." The project examines the many issues surrounding the uneasy coexistence of grizzly bears and humans in the Lower 48, which have come more into focus in recent years as the federally-protected animal pushes farther into human-occupied areas. The 10-part series, comprised of more than 20 stories, was produced by reporters and photojournalists across the Rocky Mountain West. This story also contains an excerpt from The Grizzly in the Driveway: The Return of Bears to a Crowded American West by Robert Chaney, author and long-time reporter for the Missoulian.

The roomful of biologists had lots of funny ideas why Ethyl the grizzly bear logged 2,800 miles arcing from Coeur dAlene past Florence and Missoula and eventually up to Eureka by way of Glacier National Park.

Was she was looking for someone she couldnt find? Maybe she ate a bad chicken and took a long time to walk off the indigestion. She had Alzheimers and couldnt trace her way back to her home range northeast of Bigforkone place she noticeably skipped in her three-year ramble across Montana and Idaho.

The one thing we can say is this was not representative of normal bear movement, and certainly not female grizzly bear movement, said US Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen in 2014. She had some really bizarre travels.

Heres one more thing we can say about Ethyl. The twenty-year-old sow demonstrated that grizzly bears can cross interstate highways, major city boundaries, municipal landfills, and residential backyards without getting in trouble with humans. She added hope that the big omnivores can coexist with people as their populations pooch out of their wilderness core habitat.

Ethyl spent most of her life around Montanas Lake Blaine, between the tourist town of Bigfork and the Swan Mountains. After game wardens captured her while raiding an apple orchard, she was relocated to the Wounded Buck Creek drainage along Hungry Horse Reservoir.

She returned with a two-year-old cub in tow and got busted again in the apples in 2012. This time, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear specialist Rick Mace gave her a satellite-linked radio collar before hauling her and her cub to the more remote Puzzle Creek drainage, hard against the Continental Divide south of Marias Pass.

And then Ethyl took off.

She prowled around the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex for a while, including a few peeks at the eastern Rocky Mountain Front between Lincoln and Augusta. Then she drifted down to the Mission Mountains and the Jocko Lakes area. Passing Arlee, she cleared Highway 93 and headed for the northern fringe of the Bitterroot Mountains.

That meant hopping the Interstate 90 corridor, the biggest single barrier to reunification of the two biggest grizzly ecosystems remaining in the Lower 48 states. Ethyl braved the four-lane freeway and headed west into Idaho.

She may have crossed I-90 several times as she explored the mountains around Kellogg and Wallace until she reached the city limits of Coeur dAlene. A December 15 Kellogg newspaper article printed an Ethyl sighting about ten miles from the high school. She made a den somewhere in the Idaho Panhandle and hibernated through the 201213 winter.

If the story ended here, Ethyl would still warrant a chapter to herself in the bear biology books. Grizzly home ranges average seventy square miles for females and from two hundred to four hundred miles for males. Sow grizzlies rarely travel more than eight and a half miles into new country each year. One of Ethyls fellow grizzly moms in the Mission Mountains alongside the Flathead Indian Reservation had a home range of three square miles, from mountainside den site down to a boggy basin where she foraged all summer.

Ethyls collar went dormant to conserve battery power on November 25, 2012. It revived the following March, showing her moving back east along Interstate 90. She cruised past Superior, Montana, then straight up and over several steep drainages between I-90 and US Highway 12. She reached the southern fringe of Missoula on May 13. In a short day, she zipped through the Blue Mountain Recreation Area and then south a dozen miles to Lolo. She probed the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains as far south as Florence.

On May 20, she goes basically right through downtown Lolo and we didnt have any sightings, Servheen said. She was minding her own business, walking around trying to figure out where she is.

Ten days later, she shot back into Idaho as far as Coeur dAlene, as if she remembered shed left something back at the den. Then she turned around, and safely crossed Interstate 90 again to return to Missoula. She went right past the citys landfill but only sniffed the garbage. She cruised some apple orchards in the meadows east of Evaro Hill. That fall, elk hunters spotted her eating the gut piles they left behind. Each night that fall, shed pad four miles back to the Rattlesnake Wilderness north of Missoula to sleep.

Then she barged north up the Bob Marshall again, bypassing her Lake Blaine denning site, and headed for Glacier Park. After some time there, Ethyl moved west toward Eureka on the western edge of the NCDE. She lost her collar on October 17, 2014.

Thats a total distance of two thousand eight hundred miles, Servheen said. The only place she didnt go in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem was the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

Ethyls ramble capsulizes the problem grizzlies present to those who want to recover them. They wontcantstay still.

Lets start with food. While technically carnivores, grizzly bears come as close to vegetarian as anything with fangs. In some places, grizzlies subsist on almost 90 percent plant matter, supplemented by bugs and the occasional carrion buffet. Those five-inch claws and shoulder humps of muscle get a lot more use digging up roots and ant hills than dismembering elk.

To meet that need, grizzlies have learned to follow a green wave of plant regeneration through the growing season. As soon as they arise from their dens, they look for two things: a shot of protein from some winterkilled fellow mammal and a meadow full of new clover. They often find both in the runout zones of avalanche chutes.

As spring days lengthen, the bears start digging up the carbohydrate-loaded bases of plants like biscuit root, yampa, glacier lily, and wild onion. This serves until the plants reach flowering stage, whereupon the nutritional value of the roots fades. Bears move up and down in altitude, following the retreat of winter snowpack and the aspects of changing sunshine to fresh growth.

When summer sets in, bears look for berries and other fruit. Where possible, they sniff out middens of whitebark pine seeds buried by industrious but forgetful squirrels. In some remarkable spots in the Mission Mountains and the Beartooth Plateau, they climb near the summits of ten-thousand-foot mountain peaks to find the breeding sites of army cutworm moths and ladybugs. They shred rotten logs to dig out ant colonies, and yes, they do raid beehives for honey.

The claws and teeth do get put to more presumptive uses. In May and June, Yellowstone bears zigzag through meadow edges hoping to scare up elk calves (which are born virtually scentless, so bears hunt for them by sight). A rare bear may hunt and kill a bison, elk, or deer. More often, that offensive weaponry goes to chasing off wolves that have already brought down a big meal with their more effective pack-hunting methods. The reintroduction of wolves in the mid-1990s had a marked benefit on bear populations in Yellowstone Park.

Nevertheless, theres no one-stop shopping. Whats the nutritional value of fighting for a berry patch before the berries have ripened? Male grizzlies in particular do not share, and will attack virtually anything that impinges on their meal of the moment. But theyre moving through that habitat like we cruise the farmers market, picking up fast-sprouting lettuce at one stall in April and ignoring another until the good tomatoes appear in August.

When she dropped her satellite-connected Argos collar in 2014, Ethyl disappeared from active research. However, the lopsided W she traced across the maps of Montana and Idaho continues to tantalize her human overseers.

If shed gone twenty miles farther west of Eureka, Ethyl would have tagged three recovery ecosystems. And if she settled in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, fireworks would have gone off in Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters.

Forty years previous, that office braced for more of an implosion. As Dick Knight, the original leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team put it, Every grizzly bear carries our society inside him like a bomb, a ticking bomb, already well advanced toward blowing him off the face of the earth, and continuing relentlessly to tick toward ignition unless we intervene to disarm it.

Before Knight took the job in 1973, perhaps six hundred grizzlies remained alive south of the Canadian border. The 1975 ESA designation listed all grizzlies in the Lower 48 statesa single population destined to subdivide into a legal quagmire.
The Caroline County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing Feb. 8 to get input on redrawing district voting maps.

A proposed redistricting plan could bring changes for voters in Caroline County this year based on the recent census count, including reducing the size of the Madison District and adding more voters to the Reedy Church and Bowling Green districts.

The 2020 census count revealed that Caroline County has grown by 2,300 in population over 10 years, to a total of 30,887. Half of that increase has been in the Madison District.

Localities are required by law to redistrict every 10 years after the national census to account for population and demographic shifts and ensure fair representation on elected boards.

According to Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act, Caroline is required to seek pre-clearance of its voting maps and background data from the Department of Justice. The county must follow federal and state laws when establishing boundaries.

Caroline County Director of Planning and Community Development Mike Finchum presented new district totals to the Board of Supervisors at a meeting earlier this month. With the new growth, the six districts must now average 5,148 people each. A deviation of plus or minus 5 percent is allowed, which means the population in each district can range from 4,891 to 5,405.

Anything over this amount will be problematic for the county in the adoption of ordinances, Finchum told supervisors.

Finchum recommended that the board make minimum changes to the districts to avoid disrupting polling places and representation on the board.

The Bowling Green (4,729) and Reedy Church (4,757) districts fall below the minimum population totals and will require moving people into these districts to reach the minimum requirements.

The Madison District falls well above the maximum requirements at 6,002, and will need to be reduced by at least 597 people to balance the districts. Finchum is recommending moving 854 people to prepare for the next decade of growth in the Madison District.

A population shift from the Madison District to the Port Royal District could require creating a new polling precinct on Ladysmith Road at Wrights Chapel United Methodist Church.

Currently, the county has nine precincts within the districts for the Board of Supervisors and the School Board. A new district, Western Caroline, was created in 2011, along with four new voting precincts.

Finchum said state redistricting divided Caroline into two districts for the House of Delegates: the 66th and 67th. If the election districts are adjusted, then a new polling precinct will have to be established for Bowling Green or Port Royal district, he said.

Congressional seats are on the ballot in Virginia in 2022, but Carolines next Board of Supervisors and School Board elections arent until 2023.
The past two years have made carryout meals feel like less of an occasional indulgence and more of a way of life. (Seriously, is there anyone who has the energy left at the end of the day to cook dinner anymore? Dont answer that question, I dont want to know who you are.) Whatever enthusiasm I might have at one point feigned over food preparation has long since given way to acceptance of the fact that I dont like cooking, and in a pandemic, if Ina Garten can resolve to drink more large cosmos, I, too, can order takeout for dinner.

But all that eating out can get pricey.

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Here are some ideas for carryout meals for two you can pick up in Baltimore for $25  or sometimes much less. Split a meal like the black bean feijoada at Brazil Gourmet, while adding on an appetizer. Or maybe order two of the same delicious item  check out that chicken pot pie at Sugarbees.

Babas Mediterranean Kitchen: Appetizer medley and salmon chermoula

Salmon Charmoula comes with a side of hummus and a house salad at Babas Mediterranean Kitchen and Market. November 12, 2021 (Barbara Haddock Taylor/Baltimore Sun)

During the pandemic, Babas Mediterranean Kitchen on Fort Avenue pivoted from a neighborhood bistro to a mini grocery store and carryout, offering hummus to go as well as an array of local foods like eggs, cheese and Micheles Granola.

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Nearly two years later, its a pivot thats stuck. The inside seats are still gone, and customers are still coming for owner Farid Salloums roster of tasty Levantine fare. Need dinner for two? Id recommend ordering an appetizer medley that comes with hummus and olives, stuffed grape leaves, flaky spanakopita and falafel ($12.50). (Salloum says he hears from Israeli and Palestinian guests alike that his falafel is the best around.) For an entree, share the flavorful Moroccan-style salmon chermoula ($12), served with an incredible garlic tahini sauce that I could eat on anything. The portion is huge, comes with rice and is easily shareable. Trust that no one is going hungry at Babas.

Total: $24.50 before tax and tip

745 E. Fort Ave., Locust Point. 410-727-7482. babaskitchen.net

Brazil Gourmet: Feijoada to share with a side of pao de quiejo

Lukas Oda, cashier at Brazil Gourmet, packs cheese bread for a delivery order. (Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun )

A black bean stew with barbecued meat, feijoada is Brazils national dish, and after my first bite at Brazil Gourmet I wondered why the U.S. hasnt adopted it too. Its just the kind of hearty, meaty stew you want when its blisteringly cold outside. Priced at $20, its served with rice, greens, yucca flour and oranges. Split this entree with a side of pao de quiejo, a chewy baked cheese roll made with manioc starch ($4.98).

The restaurant, which also has a branch in Columbia, is extending its hours and getting a liquor license soon.

Total: $24.98 before tax and tip

2000 Eastern Ave., Upper Fells Point. 410-276-2198. facebook.com/brazilgourmet.baltimore

Mekong Delta: Pho and pork

Share a beef pho and side of pork at Mekong Delta, or order two servings of pho for less than $25. (Christina Tkacik)

Baltimore-area pho connoisseurs know that no one makes it better  or cheaper  than Mekong Delta, an unassuming little stall inside the equally nondescript Charles Street food hall, or as I often refer to it, the place next to Streets. Their delicately-seasoned broth made according to a generations-old family recipe warms me up anytime of year and the fresh basil and jalapeno that accompany help create the ultimate cold busting dish. Eat at the first sign of sniffles.

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Someday, Id love to travel to Vietnam, where owner Luan Leo Nguyen says pho stalls are available on every street corner  its eaten for breakfast. Until then, weekly trips to Mekong Delta must suffice. If feeding two, either pick up two soups ($10 each) or share one and add on a side of grilled, marinated pork with rice (also $10). The total will be less than $25 and youll likely even have leftovers.

Total: $20 before tax and tip

Dish Baltimore Weekly Get the scoop on that new restaurant, learn about chef changes and discover your favorite new recipe. All your Baltimore food news is here. >

222 N. Charles Street, Downtown. 443-955-1100.

Sugarbees: Two chicken pot pies

You could split the gumbo and a pot pie at Sugarbee's for less than $25, or just have two pies. (Christina tkacik)

This longtime Caribbean stall sits next to Mekong Delta and attracts long lines of loyal customers whenever its open. While they serve an array of wallet-friendly dishes: fish and sausage gumbo and the jerk chicken platter with homemade sauce are both $12.99. When it comes to dinner for two, you cant go wrong with their house chicken pot pies ($10.95 each) served with chutney. Perfectly flaky crusts encircle hunks of chicken, carrots and peas in homemade broth, with a side of pungent dipping sauce for an extra kick.

Total: $21.90 before tax and tip

222 N Charles Street, Downtown. 410-443-0475.

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Trinacria: Baked ziti with meat

This family-owned Italian deli has been operating since 1908. (Baltimore Sun Photo)

Frozen lasagna is almost a last-minute, I hate cooking dinner cliche. But the frozen baked ziti with meat ($11.99) or without ($9.99) from Trinacria, the more than century-old Italian market on North Paca Street, might win over even the most lasagna-fatigued eaters. Owner Vince Fava says his Sicilian family has tweaked the recipes slightly over the years  but its primarily the same. (Other options include eggplant parm and lasagna as well as ravioli with Gorgonzola and pear). I picked up a small tray during a recent shopping trip. After an hour in the oven, I had a respectable dinner on the table: tender pasta with meaty red sauce and cheese, with plenty left over for lunch the next day.

Total: $11.99 before tax

406 N Paca Street, Bromo Arts District. 410-685-7285. trinacriabaltimore.com
POLITICS does indeed make strange bedfellows. Look whos sharing the sheets at this years General Assembly.

Some Democratic and Republican legislators have found a common foe: Dominion Energys undue influence.

This session, theres a chance that the lawmakers will finally rein in the power of the states largest corporate donor, and the impetus is from both sides of the aisle.

Del. Lee Ware, RPowhatan, along with state Sens. Richard Stuart, RStafford, and Chap Petersen, DFairfax, are leading the charge. A bill has a good chance of clearing the House of Delegates, with Senate approval a possibility.

Both parties have been happy recipients of Dominions largesse in the past. The electric utility employs an army of lobbyists and media influencers to protect its interests and doles out millions to candidates of both persuasions. There was an uproar last fall when it was learned that a columnist who wrote unsigned editorials for Norfolks VirginianPilot, some of them concerning Dominion, had received $263,000 from the utility over the past four years. Even University of Virginia political guru Larry Sabato got $20,000 (which he righteously gave to the U.Va. Center of Politics).

However, a couple of things have happened that have given Dominion some headwinds.

First, the Democratic Party took control of both legislative houses after the 2017 elections, and many of the new Dems were progressive enough to see that letting a utility monopoly help craft energy policy might be wrong. There already were hard feelings over the rate freeze Dominion was able to finesse in 2015, one which state regulators said brought in hundreds of millions of dollars of profits before it was rescinded in 2018.

Many of the Republicans got on board the Dump Dominion campaign before last years state elections, when a PAC released misleading information to try to suppress voter turnout for now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the rest of the Republican ticket in rural (red) areas. It was revealed that almost half the funds for the PAC were provided by Dominion and its executives. (Dominion, always hoping to back a winner, later donated $50,000 to Youngkins inaugural committee, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.)

Del. Ware is certainly correct in saying that Dominion should go to the State Corporate Commission rather than the legislature when it has needs.

Whether this will succeed is anyones guess at this point. Lawmakers have fulminated for decades about keeping Dominion in check, but the utility gives millions to candidates of both parties, and any threat to the power it wields in Richmond will be vigorously attacked by that army of well-paid influencers.

However, two political parties who cant agree on much of anything seem to be on the same page for once.

There is reason to hope that the influencers will be muted this time.
PLATTSMOUTH  The Plattsmouth Volunteer Fire Department had a busy year in 2021.

And, Chief Mike Wilson has the numbers to prove it as he did before the City Council Monday evening during his annual yearly report.

There were very encouraging statistics.

Each year keeps improving  response time, better training, Wilson said.

The average response time showed improvement in 2021, the council was told. The response time is calculated from when a call is paged to when the first PVFD unit arrives on the location of the incident. This also includes non-emergency responses. In 2021, the average response time was six minutes, 54 seconds, 22 seconds faster than in 2020, Wilson said.

The average time on scene last year was 29 minutes, 39 seconds. That was a decrease of nine minutes and 45 seconds from the previous year.

Youre looking at good times there, Wilson told the council.

The number of incidents the department responded to in 2021 totaled 223, compared to 232 the previous year, Wilson said.

The members-per-call average was 10, the same as 2020.

The department responded to 131 calls within the city last year, compared to 150 in 2020, and 92 rural calls, the same number as the previous year.

There were 18 structure fires the department responded to last year, compared to 16 in 2020.

This included responding to a fire in Malvern, Iowa, for the first time, Wilson said.

The average on-scene time was one hour, 32 minutes, an 18-minute decrease from 2020.

The department responded to 49 motor vehicle accidents last year, compared to 40 in 2020. The average response time was six minutes, 48 seconds, a decrease of two minutes, 30 seconds from the previous year, Wilson said.

There was a seven-minute response time on injury crashes, a decrease of 51 seconds from 2020.

Concerning emergency medical services assist calls, the average response time was four minutes, one minute faster than in 2020.

The second half of 2021 was the busiest with 64 percent of the total number of calls coming in after June 30, Wilson said.

Sundays were the busiest of all the days of the week.

A lot more people are out (on Sundays), Wilson told the council.

Noon was the busiest time of the day, he added.

Among the overall highlights for the PVFD in 2021 were:

Response times decreased by 22 seconds, continuing a five-year trend of faster response times.

Continuing to bring on new members willing to serve their community, including four female firefighters.

Putting a new special operations truck into service that can handle numerous calls like hazardous materials, water/ice calls, vehicle extrications, grain bin/engulfment rescues, firefighter rehab/recovery and refilling air packs on scene.

Wilson mentioned how the PVFD partnered with various agencies, including Adventures with Purpose, in the search and recovery of Buccaneer Bay resident John Zarkowski.

This three-week-long search and subsequent recovery would not have been possible without all of these groups working together for a common purpose, which was to bring a family closure, Wilson said.

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Altrusa International of Fremont is offering two scholarships, one for $700 and one for $500, for 2022 to the students at Fremont High School and Archbishop Bergan High School.

Students are encouraged to pick up the applications at the guidance counselors office or email Marian Brown at mnbrown@q.com to request an application.

Students are asked to return their completed application to the guidance counselors office or email mnbrown@q.com on or before Friday, March 25, 2022.

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Three Rivers Public Health Department is reporting record numbers of COVID-19 cases, even as people across the country now can order free testing kits, courtesy of the federal government.

The Three Rivers District includes Dodge, Saunders and Washington counties.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration confirmed that the website https://www.covidtests.gov/ is up and running, with its official launch happening the following day.

The administration has ordered more than 1 billion tests.

Each residential household in the U.S. can order four COVID-19 tests from the United States Postal Service.

With test-at-home being easier to access, Three Rivers encourages citizens to order tests.

The health department also announced that it is continuing to see a record number of COVID cases across its jurisdiction according to Executive Director Terra Uhing.

Three Rivers Public Health Department reminds individuals that vaccination and booster doses against COVID-19 remains the most important step that individuals can take for their own health and the health of their community, Uhing said. Vaccinated and boosted individuals, who do get the virus, are best equipped to avoid the worst outcomes, including severe illness, hospitalization, and death.

Uhing also stated in a news release that people should continue taking other preventative measures including wearing a mask, staying home when sick, and practicing good hand washing to help prevent the spread of illness.

Three Rivers said it is offering all vaccines at its walk-in clinics, including those for children age 5-11.

The clinic times, dates and locations are as follows:

Noon to 3:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 21, Three Rivers Clinic, 2400 N. Lincoln Ave., Fremont.

3-6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 25, Three Rivers Clinic, 2400 N. Lincoln Ave., Fremont.

Noon to 3:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28, Three Rivers Clinic, 2400 N. Lincoln Ave., Fremont.

9 a.m. to noon, Saturday, Jan. 29, Fort Calhoun High School, 5876 County Road P43, Fort Calhoun.

Three Rivers also has testing in a collaborative partnership with Total Wellness.

The testing site is a drive-through at 210 E. Military Ave., and appointments can be made on Total Wellnesss website. Uhing said due to the large demand for testing kit, citizens must have an appointment to be tested.

The testing hours for the Three Rivers/Total Wellness operation are as follows:

1-5 p.m., Friday, Jan. 21.

8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 25.

8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 26.

8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 27.

1-5 p.m., Friday, Jan. 28.

Uhing said results from at-home-testing should be taken seriously, and for citizens to not use an at-home-test and then go to a health department to confirm it.

Bottom line is if somebody tests positive from home, take those results and go with it due to the limited amount of testing resources we have right now, Uhing said.

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Students are benefitting from a project the late Gary Fouraker began working with years ago.

This month, 490 dictionaries are being given to third-graders in Fremont, Arlington and Cedar Bluffs Public, Trinity Lutheran and Archbishop Bergan Catholic schools.

Most of the books were distributed last week.

Fremont Kiwanis Club sponsors the annual endeavor called, The Dictionary Project, to promote literacy.

Through it, local Kiwanians have provided dictionaries to thousands of third-graders in the last 10 years.

The primary purpose of Kiwanis is to improve the well-being of children not only in our communities, but around the world, said member Marcia Fouraker, a retired teacher. We do things that support academics, their physical health, and in a number of different ways to make life better.

More than a dictionary, the books include weights and measurements, information on U.S. Presidents and other data.

Fouraker has received positive feedback from the book distribution.

Teachers said kids were excited to have their own book.

Fourakers late husband began working with the dictionary project about seven years ago.

Gary Fouraker spent 33 years working in different administrative positions at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln until 2002. Active in the local Kiwanis Club, he was recognized as a George Hixson Fellow by Kiwanis International.

Fouraker was 73 when he died in 2020.

In 2021, the club asked Marcia Fouraker to help with the project and she agreed.

This year, she was asked to run it.

Im continuing on with something he started, so thats pretty cool I think, she said.

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Just 21 years old, the Rev. Dan Cole prepared to speak at the funeral for a teenage accident victim.

Todd Sly was a high school senior whod been killed in a car accident. Sly was only three years younger than Cole, who was asked to preach at the teens funeral.

I was scared, Cole said. I was as nervous as I could be.

Decades later, Cole recalled that time as he sat in the conference room of Fremont Church of the Nazarene. Cole served churches in different states before becoming Nebraska District superintendent for the Church of the Nazarene.

Now, he serves in a dual role as lead pastor of the Fremont church and as the district superintendent.

Like churches of many denominations, the local Nazarene church has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Cole said attendance is moving upward in a church he appreciates for its friendly congregation. He looks forward to the ministry ahead.

Coles journey into ministry began early.

Raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cole was 8 years old when he preached his first sermon.

My mom heard some racket going on in her laundry room one afternoon and she peeked through the door and saw me holding the Bible and preaching to the dirty clothes, he said.

Coles parents, Roy and Edith, explained what preachers do and helped him develop the call of God on his life.

One day, Coles dad asked if hed like to preach a sermon in church.

So at age 8, he preached a sermon  which lasted 10 minutes  at Mount Lookout Church of the Nazarene in Cincinnati.

Coles sermon came from the Old Testament book of First Samuel. He shared the Bible story of when young Samuel thought he heard Eli, the priest, calling for him.

Eli realized it was God and told Samuel to say: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

And God spoke.

Cole was asked to speak again at his church.

The boy and his family, which included an older brother and four younger sisters, began traveling.

Called The Cole Family, they visited different churches.

Wed sing and then I would preach, he said.

A dilemma arose when Cole was 13. He wondered if he was preaching because his parents were promoting it or if it actually was what God wanted for his life.

Cole shared that struggle with his parents and told them he wasnt going to preach anymore.

They respected his decision and the family stopped traveling.

From the time he was 13 until he was 17, Cole said he lived in rebellion, perhaps running from the call of God.

He didnt drink, but went to parties with friends.

I went to church still, but Christ wasnt my center at that time, he said. It felt empty.

Coles family moved to Blanchester, Ohio, where the Rev. A.W. McQueen invited them to a Church of the Nazarene hed planted in that community. Cole was a high school freshman at the time.

When Cole was a senior, McQueen gave an invitation for people to come to the church altar and pray if they were seeking God.

Cole accepted that invitation.

I prayed that God would take control of my life, that if he was calling me to preach that he would somehow reveal that to me and that I would know it as real, Cole said.

Cole was 18 years old at the time.

Before I got up from that prayer time, I knew in my heart that God had called me to preach, Cole said.

Cole graduated from high school in 1976 and became a student at Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois.

He was invited to speak at a church, where he met his future wife, Roxanna, in January 1979. They married that March.

Cole then was invited by the superintendent of the Northwestern Illinois District to become the pastor of a church he was about to close.

It was overwhelming and exciting, said Cole, who hadnt yet completed his university education.

In July 1979, the Coles went to serve the Church of the Nazarene in Lomax, Illinois.

Lomax had a population of about 500.

It was there Cole preached at his first funeral  for the young man whod died in the car accident.

Cole described Todd Sly as a kind, gentle, loving young man, who was respectful of his parents. Sly had been very close to his sister.

They hardly went anywhere without each other, Cole said.

The night Sly was killed, the teen had asked his sister to go with him, but shed decided to stay home.

Cole knew the family quite well and, thus, was asked to preach at the teens funeral  during the first of the three years hed serve in that community.

Many attended the funeral at the First Christian Church.

The funeral director stopped counting people when he reached 600 people, Cole said.

Cole faced the enormity of the situation.

When somebody young like that is killed in that way, it has a way of gripping the hearts of people, he said. I was overwhelmed thinking about preaching that funeral as a 21-year-old with that many people.

But he officiated at the entire service.

I ministered to his mom and dad and to his sister and just loved them the way that I felt like God wanted his love expressed to themto come alongside them in their pain and to remind them that God is a refuge and a strength, ever present to help in times of trouble, Cole said.

Two months later, Cole was asked to speak at the high school ceremony during which the teen would have graduated.

On the chair that would have been his, they placed his cap and gown and a red rose, Cole aid.

In his speech, Cole told students how people never know whats going to happen in their lives.

We dont understand why we have to look at an empty chair and why Todds not here. It causes us to ask why, but God knows all about that so he doesnt mind us asking why. So just ask why, Cole said.

Cole was 22 when he faced another situation.

A woman asked him to check on a man whose truck was parked off the side of the road.

When Cole went to check, he discovered the man had died of an apparent heart attack. Cole called the county sheriff and waited for him and the coroner to arrive.

I grew up quickly, Cole said. Dealing with loss of life at such a young age, it has a way of making you grow up.

Cole said God gave him the strength to serve in different circumstances.

He knew God had called him and wanted him to love and serve people. And people affirmed Cole in his ministry.

Having those experiences shaped me  made me stronger, made me realize what ministry is about, just being relational, loving people, caring about them in good times and in bad times, being with them, he said.

Coles time in Lomax launched his pastoral career.

He continued his education, earning associates, bachelors and masters degrees, before being awarded an Honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree in 2021.

During his career, Cole has served as lead pastor for Nazarene churches in Colorado, California, New Mexico and Indiana.

In January 2015, the Coles moved to Omaha, where he served as lead pastor at Central Church of the Nazarene.

Cole was pastor there for 3  years, when he was elected district superintendent of the Nebraska District of the Church of the Nazarene.

Cole served in the dual role of church pastor and district superintendent for 3  years.

In 2015, he became fulltime district superintendent for the state.

The Coles came to Fremont in mid-April 2021. Cole came to serve as an interim pastor, while still serving as district superintendent.

In September, my plan was to meet with the board here and help them start the process of calling a new pastor, Cole said.

The board asked if hed consider returning to a dual role as district superintendent  and lead pastor of the Fremont church.

Cole, now 63, said he felt God leading him to do this.

The pastor said he likes the warmth of the people and friendliness of the Fremont congregation.

And I just plain like being a pastor again, because theres nothing like it, he said.

The Coles have four married children, Charles, Corey, Christopher and Cassandra, and 11 grandchildren.

In July 2022, they will celebrate 42 years in full-time ministry.

Ive told the congregation I know I have a lot more years of ministry behind me than I may have in front of me, but I believe that this, right now, is Gods plan for my life, Cole said. And I am thrilled to think about closing out ministry as a pastor, who happens to be the district superintendent.

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Whether it was to meet new friends, find new ideas or just to get out of the house for a few days, Nebraska Quilt Company is giving sewers a chance to create alongside others.

From Thursday to Saturday this week, the downtown business is hosting a retreat for almost 30 sewers in the second floor of its building.

Its always good to get away from your home and be with good friends and get to meet new friends, Nebraska Quilt Company owner Karen Paquette said. A lot of the ladies dont know each other, but theyre getting up to talk to each other and building friendships.

Nebraska Quilt Company, previously Country Traditions, was purchased by Paquette and her husband, Loren, last year. Even before the name change, the business hosted retreats in its upstairs space.

Even outside of a business or organization, Paquette said shes taken part in retreats herself.

I personally have a group of friends that weve gone and rented a Vrbo, she said. We take all of our stuff and were just in a house all weekend, and then we bring our own food and prep and everything.

For Nebraska Quilt Companys retreat, sewers get to work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, with each one receiving a personalized gift.

Were having catered meals for the days, and of course they had to pay a fee to come, but then if they need something specific for a project, they can come downstairs and shop and we can help them with that, Paquette said.

During the weekend, Paquette said new iron tables were built in preparation for the retreat. Eventually, she even hopes to have space available in the future for attendees to spend the night.

Weve got a lot more quilts and colors on the wall and got some new cutting mats, and so were really excited, Paquette said. The ladies are really happy.

Paquette said the business has planned three more retreats this year in April, July and October that will be held in a similar structure over the course of three days.

Special retreats are also planned for February and March, including having long-arm educators come in to teach attendees.

We have another retreat planned for the end of March with a national boutique fabric designer coming in, Paquette said. We have an awesome place, were blessed with an awesome space, so we would love to fill it with people.

The story of Mary Mayfields work at the retreat began during a tour to Tanzania in 2004 along with 16 other members of St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church in Omaha.

During the course of 10 days, the women visited hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centers and churches in the area, including Tella Lutheran Congregation on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Upon returning, Mayfield said the congregation was in favor of becoming a partner parish with the church, which was finalized the next year. The two churches have kept in contact through letters and visits since then.

Since then, we tried to figure out what we could do where we could assist this congregation and yet not be pushy, she said. And so we were told to wait two years before we gave them any money.

Soon after, Mayfield was giving a presentation to the Omaha Quilters Guild showcasing the types of fabric from Tanzania, which she had been using to sew.

Tanzania fabrics are smashing, she said. I mean, theyre bright and bold and beautiful.

Mayfield made a proposition to the guilds members, which included making each one a quilt if they bought several yards of fabric for the creation.

I made up packages of 6-inch squares of 36 different fabrics, and they sold like hot cakes, she said. And by the end of the year, I had sold about $2,000 worth of fabric.

With her new income, Mayfield sent the money to the Angaza Womens Training Center, a location she had visited that gave young girls the opportunity to learn new trades.

Mayfield said many Tanzanian women who are not married or have a family member involved in business go into prostitution.

I didnt want to see that happen to the young women that I had met at our church, so as a result, we started a program at our church, she said.

From there, Tanzania Treasures: Fabric and More was formed at Mayfields church, which sells Tanzanian fabric, jewelry, photos, baskets and dresses.

With the programs sales, 50% of each purchase goes to the Tanzanian Scholarship Fund, which has provided scholarships for students to attend the Machame Hospital Nursing School.

Additionally, the sales provide scholarships for women to attend yearlong programs at the training center, some of which work in co-ops creating jewelry and fabric sold by the program.

What is happening is we buy from the co-op who is dyeing the fabric or making boutiques, so were getting money, and were selling and sending back money for scholarships, and its just growing, Mayfield said.

The program also purchases items from a co-op run by the wife of the Tella Lutheran Congregations bishop, who has around 13 people creating fabric or sewing dresses and shirts in her backyard.

Each year, a retreat at Carol Joy Holling Camp is held titled Tanzania Fabric, Fun and Facts, with a pattern selected for each of the members to create.

With this year focusing on African angels, Mayfield said shes working on a few sample pieces for the retreat, held at the end of February.

Today, Im doing just a plain, white background, and then Im going to be doing one with just a plain, black background, she said. But most of them have a myriad of different colors.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayfield said shes had to purchase fabric from other countries, including the Congo, Mali, Ethiopia and Ghana.

Having been at a retreat in Texas and preparing to go to North Carolina, Mayfield said she heard about the Fremont event as a member of the Prairie Piecemakers Quilt Guild, which had a retreat a couple of weeks ago at Nebraska Quilt Company.

A self-proclaimed city girl who had relatives living in the country, Mayfield said she enjoys coming to Fremont and meeting with its people.

I enjoy that and I miss it so much since my grandparents and aunts and uncles arent with us anymore, she said. And so thats part of the reason why I come to Fremont.

Another sewer, Eilene Hengen, is also a member of the Omaha Quilters Guild, which provides to Quilts for Veterans and Helping Hands.

We also provide for different organizations that are raffling quilts as a fundraiser, she said. We do a lot of that, so I do a lot of sewing.

With different organizations to provide quilts for, Hengen said shes spending the retreat to work on projects for them.

These basically will end up as charity quilts, she said. And I cut everything before I left home, so hopefully Ill have two tops done by the time I get done here.

Fremonts retreat was the second for Hengen and her first in the community.

I do a lot of my sewing just at home, but the guild has different sew-ins, she said. Once a month, we get together and do the quilts for the veterans, and then every week on Tuesday, we get together to support the Helping Hands.

Hengen said shes enjoyed the retreats giving her dedicated time for sewing.

You dont have to stop and cook a meal, you dont have to stop and do a load of laundry, whatever, she said. So thats the parts the best. And you get to do it with friends.

Mayfield called Nebraska Quilt Company a wonderful place to have retreats, with room to spread out and equipment readily available.

You always have the interaction with other people, and they exchange ideas, and creative juices flow when you come, she said. And meeting new people is always a plus.

Paquette said the retreats are a great place for camaraderie, with many attendees signing up with their friends for the three-day retreat.

Some people just want to meet new friends, some people just want to be really productive because they get away from their home and their interruptions and their husbands, she said. Its just a good weekend, a good way to get some stuff accomplished.

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The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan had already left free speech and media freedoms out in the cold. A recent spate of mysterious attacks on activists and journalists has raised fears that the worst may be yet to come.



The situation took an alarming turn last week with the brutal assault of a journalist at his home and widespread efforts to track down and detain participants in recent women's rights demonstrations.



Zaki Qais, who was a journalist for 20 years before leaving the independent Khawar TV broadcaster shortly after the Taliban seized control of Kabul in mid-August, sustained cuts and bruises to his head and neck when he opened his front gate to answer a request for help on January 15.



"Someone grabbed me by the back of my hair and another person in front of me pulled the gate toward me," he told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi of the unidentified gunmen awaiting in front of his home in the capital. "They were pulling the gate like scissors on both sides of my neck."

Qais was struck in the head with an unidentified object and narrowly avoided being stabbed with a knife before he was able to close the gate, he said.



Qais was unable to identify his attackers but has said he has been harassed and beaten repeatedly by the Taliban authorities and the group's supporters. The confrontation left Qais rattled enough to go into hiding with his family.



The Taliban has not commented on the assault, which has led to demands for an investigation by media observers.



Afghanistans Taliban rulers must immediately launch an investigation to identify and bring to justice those who attacked journalist Zaki Qais, Steven Butler, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Asia program coordinator, said in a statement on January 19.



Qais is not alone. In the past week, women who have participated in a string of demonstrations in recent months for more freedoms have been beaten and detained by gunmen.



Many of those who have avoided capture have fled in search of safety. One woman protester told Radio Azadi that she and others left their homes in the dead of night after the Taliban started to round up demonstrators on January 19, leaving some of the women in "the open air and snow."



Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parwana Ibrahimkhel were reportedly arrested that night by men claiming to be Taliban intelligence operatives. The two women have participated in demonstrations in Kabul, including an "anti-hijab" protest on January 16 that was broken up when Taliban police fired pepper spray.

Three days later, a self-shot video posted on social media showed Paryani pleading for help as someone pounds on the front door to her apartment.

"Help, please, the Taliban has come to our home," she said. "Only my sisters are home."



There are differing reports about Paryani's and Ibrahimkhel's situation, with some Afghan media outlets reporting their release and others saying their whereabouts remain unknown. Some reports have suggested that three of Paryanis sisters were also arrested.



A Taliban police spokesman publicly dismissed Paryani's video as manufactured drama but attempts by Radio Azadi to obtain comment on the case went unanswered.

A spokesman for Taliban intelligence, meanwhile, did not confirm nor deny the reported arrests of Paryani and Ibrahimkhel, but did offer a cryptic response on Twitter.

Insulting the religious and national values of the Afghan people is not tolerated anymore, Khalid Hamraz tweeted in reference to the Kabul protest, during which demonstrators burned a burqa, the all-encompassing garment Afghan women have been ordered to wear by the Talibans religious police.



Hamraz also accused rights activists of smearing the Taliban to seek asylum abroad.



The extremist group, infamous for its brutal reign in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 during which it barred women from working and banned girls' education, said upon returning to power that it would allow freedom of expression if it was within the framework of Islamic principles and national interests.

But resistance to the return of restrictive measures against women and girls -- including the mandatory wearing of the burqa, orders that women be accompanied by a male relative when in public, and constraints on girls' education -- has been frequently met with Taliban violence.

Journalists covering the women's protests have also been detained, leading to increased concerns about their safety and the future of free media in Afghanistan.



Dozens of media outlets have been closed since August, and nearly eight out of 10 journalists have reportedly been forced to find other work. Those that do remain in operation often do so under pressure and self-censorship, according to media watchdogs.

In its annual World Report 2022, Human Rights Watch said the Afghan media faces threats not only from the Taliban but also from Islamic State militants who have assassinated several journalists.

But ultimately it is up to the Taliban to protect journalists, according to Nasir Ahmad Nuri, a lawyer for the Afghanistan Free Media Support Agency.



"The Emirate group is the mastermind and in control of everything that happens in Afghanistan," Nuri told Radio Azadi. "If they are not accountable and the situation continues like this, the media will not have security and the doors of each media outlet will be closed one after another."
For some restaurants, its enough to just make it through another year.

Not Shugas.

The Colorado Springs eatery makes a point to celebrate its anniversary each year. Sometimes that calls for a toast or food specials.

It always calls for a new painting.

Its been a tradition since the beginning, in 2001, when Alexius Weston opened the eclectic little place in a former grocery store at Cascade Avenue and East Rio Grande Street. She filled Shugas with original and local artwork, including some of her own pieces, and with a staff of people who happened to be artists on the side of some kind.

Artwork, from exterior murals to decor details like origami cranes, became just as important of an ingredient at Shugas as whats on the menu. So it just made sense to celebrate getting a year older with art.

The paintings have been done by a range of artists over the years, the bulk of them coming from Lindsay Hand. When she started bartending at Shugas in the early 2000s, the walls of her workplace served as the aspiring artists first exhibit. She has since exhibited her oil paintings at galleries, museums and cultural centers across the country.

Even as her career took off, she always made time for Shugas.

Past paintings have featured a cuckoo clock, fortune teller and a girl riding a crane holding two bottles of Champagne. On each one, youll spot a number incorporated as a nod to that anniversary. Youll find most of the paintings, each of which are 24 by 48 inches, still hanging up.

Kevin Dexter, who started working at Shugas in 2008 and is the new owner as of 2020, says each piece is inspired in some way by the places specific and methodically maintained aesthetic.

Its a mix of vibes: whimsical, bohemian, handmade and a bit of vintage. Some items are too sacred to change, like the origami cranes and the presence of fresh flowers. These are just as signature as the restaurants famous spicy Brazilian coconut soup.

Shugas is always full of bold surprises, too. When restaurants added outdoor dining options as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shugas stood out by putting a huge tipi in its backyard for dining.

These are the kind of touches that has made Brett Andrus a loyal fan of Shugas. The artist rarely takes commissions, but said yes to the chance to create a recent anniversary painting for his favorite hangout spot.

Ive been going there since day one, Andrus said.

He means that. He stopped by Shugas on the first day their doors opened in 2001. At the time, he had recently moved back here from New York and instantly loved the little gem.

Its not like anywhere else, Andrus said. And thats why it has become a staple in this community.

Marking the milestone of 20 years called for a special painting, he said.

For inspiration, Andrus looked to the face of Shugas: Its simple and well-known logo depicting a face all covered up except for a pair of peering black eyes.

Dexter said hes long wanted to see the mysterious figure turn into something more.

Shes such an iconic piece of Shugas, he said. Ive always thought she needs to be on a poster as a real human being.

Thats what Andrus did in a painting unveiled in December.

This year we came together to give life and body to our iconic Shugas spy girl, who for 20 years has only existed, mysteriously of course, in graphic logo form for the shoulders up, read a Facebook post revealing the poster.

She is seen here from head to toe, cloaked by the protective wings of her striking flock of cranes under a shower of twenty tulips, her favorite flower. So now that she has legs, where do you think they will take her?

The newest poster has been a hit. Since hanging it up, patrons have asked for prints or T-shirts adorned with the picture.

Im obsessed with it, Dexter said.

Andrus said hes happy with how it turned out. And he feels honored to be part of the tradition.

There is no other restaurant in town that does anything like this, he said. Nothing screams cool venue more than a yearly custom painting.

Those kinds of comments remind Dexter of a sort of motto at Shugas: The details matter. Visitors to Shugas notice more and more details each year.

I think (the anniversary paintings) add a lot more than I realized, he said. I thought of it as just something we did for us. Im learning its bigger than us.
For years, the Baltimore Police Department focused resources on reducing violence but failed to face the corruption within its ranks, an outside consultant wrote in a scathing report released earlier this month.

But now, a federal judge overseeing a lengthy, costly and court-ordered reform of the police department, said he is seeing positive changes in oversight and internal investigations.

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Its no longer 2017, said U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar at the quarterly consent decree hearing Thursday, referring to when a group of officers from the now defunct Gun Trace Task Force were indicted on sweeping corruption charges. Significant progress has been demonstrated. There is still a long road ahead, but the court is convinced that the Department is now headed in the right direction.

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The judges remarks came in response to a more than a 600-page report by former U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Bromwich and his team from the law firm Steptoe & Johnson. It detailed how a group of officers were able to terrorize a community, often using excessive force while stealing from residents, lying on court documents and committing other crimes for years, without any oversight or meaningful discipline.

Now five years into the consent decree, Bredar said it is clear to me that city leaders and police commissioners have known for years about a serious integrity problem in the Baltimore Police Department.

Bredar said the citys focus has too often been reducing crime at the expense of rooting out corruption.

This imperative, to slow the shootings and the murders, has repeatedly displaced any priority otherwise given to stopping overly aggressive and dishonest police work, particularly if the misbehaving officers were seizing guns and drugs in significant numbers and quantity, he said.

Bredar has made similar comments in the past in defense on the consent decree process, saying the two objectives of constitutional policing and effective policing are intrinsically interwoven.

Some critics have questioned the expense and the time taken by the consent decree process and raised concerns that the new emphasis on constitutional policing has handcuffed officers. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Baltimore Police union leadership also have questioned whether Baltimores approach has been too lenient on violent criminals.

The $4.47 million report by Bromwich was required as part of the reform process. The city entered into a consent decree with the Department of Justice following a patterns and practice investigation in 2016 that found officers throughout the department routinely violated residents constitutional rights. Seven officers from the Gun Trace Task Force were first indicted by the U.S. Attorneys Office in March 2017, and in April of the same year, the city entered into the decree.

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During the hearing, Bromwich cited past efforts by commissioners to initiate integrity stings that did not lead to the removal of any officers who were accused of misconduct.

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Bredar interrupted, emphasizing that its not enough just to have stings, saying that the department must have follow through, including collaboration with the states attorneys office.

The charges against the GTTF officers really understated the egregious nature of the crimes, Bromwich said. There were home invasions, false affidavits and police reports, over and over again.

The report sought to answer what motivated these officers to engage in these staggering acts of corruption over time? he said, and what weaknesses within the police department let them get away with it?

In his report, Bromwich made 25 recommendations to improve oversight, which Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison agreed with, such as improving screening and background checks for new recruits and better training. It called for stronger oversight of internal affairs and the handing of complaints against officers. The report also calls for increased oversight of specialized units.

Deputy Commissioner Brian Nadeau, who heads the Public Integrity Bureau, has moved to an electronic case management system instead of a paper one, which will help oversight. He also has pushed for better training for all investigators and a reduction in the length of investigations from 300 days to 200, while streamlining the investigatory process. He said the unit has doubled the number of investigators to 35, though that remains short of a target of 56.

Seth Rosenthal, a deputy monitor on the consent decree monitoring team, said the department is starting to see improvements as a result of better training, and more oversight from audits and from review of body worn camera footage. He said there will be additional measures, including improved reviews of stops, searches and arrests once the department implements an electronic field-based reporting system that will allow officers to provide immediate information about arrests.
Migrants walk across the Paso del Norte international border bridge after being deported in January 2021 from the United States in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
New signs and fencing at the Paint Mines Interpretive Park in eastern El Paso County near Calhan on Tuesday, April 27, 2021. The county has added new signs and fencing at the 750-acre park to keep visitors off social trails and climbing the delicate rock formations. Fencing is also placed along steep edges to help prevent people from walking down steep drop offs. (Chancey Bush/ The Gazette)
Career paramedic and firefighter Robert A. Bobby Jones, 59, died Thursday due to complications from COVID-19, according to the Reese and Community Volunteer Fire Company in Westminster.

RVFC career Paramedic / Firefighter Robert "Bobby" Jones, Reese & Community Volunteer Fire Company (Courtesy Photo)

Officials said that Jones was exposed to and contracted COVID-19 while providing patient care, performing his duties serving Carroll County in December.

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After a hard fight and multiple complications, he succumbed to the virus, according to a statement on the Reese VFC website.

Carroll County Commissioner Stephen Wantz, R-Dist. 1, has known Jones since 1982 and served as a firefighter alongside him at several stations in the past.

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One thing Ill never forget about Bobby is his smile, Wantz said.

Jones death was the first line-of-duty death for Reese VFC, according to the fire company.

According to Kati Townsley, public information officer for Reese VFC, COVID-19 vaccinations and masks are encouraged but not required among fire company employees.

Jones joined the Woodlawn Volunteer Fire Company on Sept. 19, 1978, where he remained a member until his death. He entered the Baltimore County Fire Department Academy as a firefighter recruit on Feb. 28, 1982.

Wantz was in the 1982 Baltimore County Fire Department 65th recruit class with Jones.

Back in the day when you were in the same class, you got to know each other very quickly and you become bonded for the rest of your life, Wantz said. We worked together at a couple different stations and we retired the same year. ... One thing Ill never forget about Bobby is his smile.

Wantz said public safety and giving back to citizens was always on the top of Jones priority list.

He was a fine individual and will be missed in Carroll County. ... I cant even imagine how many folks hes touched throughout his career, Wantz said.

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The Carroll County Fire/EMS Department has lost a true legacy who provided many years of lifesaving experience to our citizens, Michael Robinson, director of Carroll County Department of Fire and EMS, said in a statement. The loss of Bobby has impact throughout the region, and he is well known for his dedication and passion to our profession not only in Carroll County but also in Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties.

Jones served Baltimore County as a paramedic/firefighter at various stations, calling Station 4D in Catonsville home until his retirement as a fire lieutenant on April 4, 2012.

Jones called the Reese and Community Volunteer Fire Company in Westminster his second home and family. He joined the staff of Reese as a paramedic in the late 1980s, working part-time until he became a full-time paramedic, firefighter and engineer in January 2007. Since that time, he served the community as a paramedic, firefighter, engineer and shift supervisor.

Jones also volunteered at Lansdowne Volunteer Fire Company from 2011-2013 and Cape St. Claire Volunteer Fire Company from January 2013 until his death. He was promoted on May 19, 2021 to fire lieutenant by the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. Additionally, he was a career-long member of IAFF Local 1311 (Baltimore County Professional Fire Fighters) and Local 5184 (Carroll County Professional Fire Fighters & Paramedics).

Jones is survived by his mother, father, four siblings, two stepdaughters, and two grandchildren. He is preceded in death by his wife.

Editors note: This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
The Hiplet Ballerinas, a performance group based out of the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center, will perform at the Amoss Center at Harford Community College on Jan. 29 at 7 p.m.

The group fuses classical pointe technique with African, Latin, Hip-Hop and urban dance styles. Mixing classical movement with popular songs from Black Violin to Beyonce and Prince, the dance group draws audiences who dont normally attend ballet performances.

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Partnerships with Mercedes-Benz, New York and Paris Fashion Week, Versace, and Old Navy have brought worldwide demand for Hiplets live shows.

Tickets are $35 (premier), $30 (orchestra) and $25 (terrace). To purchase tickets, visit harford.universitytickets.com. For disability-related accommodations, please call 443-412-2211 in advance. Mask wearing is required inside the building.
Jimmy Sengenberger is host of The Jimmy Sengenberger Show Saturdays from 6-9am on News/Talk 710 KNUS. He also hosts Jimmy at the Crossroads, a webshow and podcast in partnership with The Washington Examiner.
After a Westminster teen died from a gunshot wound sustained in a Dundalk home Monday, police are charging a man who they say failed to secure his gun  and wasnt supposed to have firearms in the first place.

At about 7:50 p.m. Monday, police responded to reports of a person suffering from a gunshot wound in a home at 7836 Lockwood Road in Dundalk. They found a young teen with a gunshot wound to his head. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

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Raymond Byrd, 24, told police that his unregistered ghost gun was being stored unsecured behind the television in the homes living room before the shooting took place, according to charging documents. Byrd told police he heard the gun go off in the living room, and he said that the teens wounds were self-inflicted.

Byrd is a friend of one of the teens family members, said Baltimore County Police spokeswoman Joy Stewart.

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The exact circumstances of the incident are unclear, and the teens autopsy results are still pending, according to a spokesman for the state medical examiners office. The teens family could not immediately be reached about the incident.

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He was a ninth grader at Westminster High School, according to Carroll County Public Schools. Support staff were on hand at the school after the incident.

After the shooting, Byrd told police that he hid the gun, which did not have a serial number, behind a panel in the homes upstairs bathroom closet.

That gun, which had a long silencer attached, was found when police searched the home, alongside a Glock handgun and about three pounds of cannabis.

Court records show that Byrd previously pleaded guilty to possession with the intention to distribute narcotics. Because of his felony convictions, Byrd was not allowed to possess any firearms.

Tuesday, he was charged with two counts related to illegally possessing a firearm, allowing a minor to access a firearm and possession of cannabis with the intention to distribute it.

An attorney for Byrd did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Carroll County Times reporter Madison Bateman contributed to this article.
There are very few communities on the continent that can say they've been recognized as an Accredited Economic Development Organization, but Charles City can.

On Thursday morning, the Charles City Area Development Corporation (CCADC) was named an Accredited Economic Development Organization (AEDO) by the International Economic Development Council.

Charles City is the 69th community in North America to receive the recognition.

"This signifies that the Charles City Area Development Corporation has achieved excellence," Tim Fox, the Executive Director of the CCADC, said. "We should all take pride in this achievement."

The AEDO program recognizes a small number of communities whose economic development groups have shown excellence compared to others.

To gain the accreditation, the CCDAC had to go through an extensive review process which included submitting a slew of paperwork to the International Economic Development Council and hosting a site visit last September, according to Fox.

The award was presented to Fox by Iowa Economic Development Authority and Iowa Finance Authority Director Debi Durham, who spoke highly of the community during the presentation.

"Every time I have the chance to visit, I'm impressed with the work you've done here to attract new businesses and people," Durham said. "I hope everyone here understands how big of a deal this is."

Some projects in Charles City that Durham highlighted as key in being recognized included the Main Street renovations, the Charles Theatre and the national praise of the city's whitewater trails.

Fox said he hopes the accreditation will drive further economic development, and that people outside the community will see Charles City as a great destination to create businesses or to settle down in.

"It shows that we've done our due diligence," Fox said.

"Earning the AEDO accreditation... ensures their (prospective business owners) trust is well placed and that their business is in good hands," Durham said.

Charles City is the second community in Iowa to be given the accreditation from the International Economic Development Council, the other being Clinton, according to Fox.

"It's been very gratifying," Fox said. "It's a hard process, but it gives us some national recognition which does not hurt North Iowa."

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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Project IR Butler 2019-20 - Get one IR Question Everyday

Question # 44, Date : 13-Nov-2019

This post is a part of Project IR Butler 2019-20 . Click here for Details Question # 44, Date : 13-Nov-2019

Article 1

News article in an environmental publication.

July 19  If current trends continue, fossil fuels will be exhausted by 2052. Industry and transportation and the inability of governments to put stricter emissions regulations in place means that there will be a greater demand for alternative energy sources. Additionally, recent concerns about the high-cost of implementing new systems such as public transportation in industrialized areas has led many voters to actually strike down propositions to subsidize alternative fuel research.

Article 2

Interview with a well-known scientist.

August 3  Dr. Lisa Goodman, one of the team of architects behind several new battery-operated commercial vehicles, has criticized the governments unwillingness to aggressively lobby voters to pass measures to reduce fossil fuel usage. She suggests that without a significant reduction in per-person fossil fuel consumption, the rate of global warming could soon increase threefold.



I know that voters continue to reject costly measures to reduce widespread fossil fuel consumption such as large-scale public transportation projects, and that politicians are naturally going to avoid stumping for unpopular policies. However, if something isnt done soon, by 2055, a barrel of gasoline may become a luxury that only the rich can afford.

Article 3

Article from a weekly news magazine.

August 29  The price of crude oil has jumped by 500% over the last decade as a decrease in supply has met with an increased demand. This demand has encouraged many new oil wells to launch in the Gulf of Mexico, and some American environmental groups have expressed concern that certain oil companies are not following the safest procedures, emphasizing that the companies are more concerned with the speed of extraction than the well-being of the ecosystem. Some scientists in the Gulf have called for an increase in safety regulations for oil companies drilling off the coast, but the companies warn that this may dramatically increase the cost of crude oil, at a time when many Americans are already struggling to pay the increased price.

Yes ....... No ....... Politicians usually do not agree with one another on issues of global warming and fossil fuel consumption. An increase in worldwide demand for crude oil has made the oil companies' safety standards fall. Dr. Goodman would likely support a public referendum on whether to require the oil companies to have better safety and ecological regulations The actions of the oil companies have led some voters to reject measures they consider costly.

Show Spoiler OA Question 1 Explanation: The answer is No. The statement in question is not necessarily true, as we do not know what politicians usually do, and therefore this is not a valid conclusion just based on the information provided.



Question 2 Explanation: The answer is No. In article 3, we are told that environmental groups have expressed concern that certain oil companies are not following the safest procedures, emphasizing that the companies are more concerned with the speed of extraction than the well-being of the ecosystem. However, if some oil companies are not following the safest procedures, we cannot infer that safety standards have fallen among oil companies due to the increase in worldwide demand. Perhaps those oil companies are choosing not to follow the safest procedures for other reasons.



Question 3 Explanation: The answer is No. In Article 2, Dr. Goodman is shown to have little faith in the public as the solution to the global warming issue, since the public has continually shot down measures it considered costly. Dr. Goodman is primarily interested in seeing a reduction in fossil fuel usage. However, we cannot infer based on the information in the article alone that she would also be interested or not interested in requiring oil companies to have better safety and ecological regulations.



Question 4 Explanation: The answer is No. We cannot infer any direct links between the actions of the oil companies and the votes cast by the public.

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Facing a lawsuit just days into his term over his executive order making masks optional for schoolchildren, Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Thursday night asked the Supreme Court of Virginia to dismiss the complaint.

The filing from the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares cited a state law that says parents have a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parents child.

Tonight, we asked the Supreme Court of Virginia to protect the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing, care, and education of their children," Miyares said in a statement. "Governor Youngkin had every power to issue the executive order and with our filing, we again affirm that parents matter."

Schools in Virginia have been requiring masks in order to comply with an Aug. 12 order from then-Gov. Ralph Northam's administration. Northam noted that a 2021 state law required schools to be open during the pandemic while complying "to the maximum extent practicable" with COVID mitigation guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Currently, that guidance recommends masking.

Youngkin's executive order, which he issued Saturday shortly after he was sworn in, left school boards trying to figure out what to do. The Chesterfield School Board voted Thursday to continue requiring masks for children in schools. Down in Hampton Roads, the Chesapeake School Board voted on Thursday to remove the mask requirement, WAVY-TV reported.

A group of parents in Chesapeake filed the lawsuit against Youngkin, other state officials and local school officials, saying his order conflicts with the 2021 school-opening law.

The group of Chesapeake parents reference a 2016 Supreme Court of Virginia ruling - Howell v. McAuliffe - to make their argument.

In that case, then House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, and others filed suit against then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe over his executive action to restore the voting rights of convicted felons, arguing that McAuliffe's blanket restoration of rights was ignoring state law. In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court of Virginia found McAuliffe overstepped his authority, and the court struck down his executive order.

Kevin Martingayle, the attorney for the Chesapeake parents, says the group filed their lawsuit directly at the Supreme Court to save time and money and go to the final decision-maker as quickly as possible.

The Howell ruling "shows that its appropriate when youre asking for this type of relief to file the case directly in the Supreme Court of Virginia, because it clearly worked in that case in 2016, and the rules havent changed," Martingayle said.

Secondly, the Supreme Court made the point in that opinion that the job of a governor is to follow and enforce the laws, and not just the ones you agree with, but it includes the ones you disagree with. And the flipside is not only are you to enforce the laws as governor, but you do not have the power to suspend the law.

The General Assembly passed a law last year to require K-12 schools to be open, but required the schools to follow CDC guidance to prevent COVID spread.

The legislation was a compromise between Republicans and Democrats. And because there was no way to know exactly what COVID mitigation would be needed in the future, the law simply says schools should adhere to whatever the CDC recommends at the time, Martingayle said.

Im neither a doctor nor a scientist but I know how to read," he said. This was clearly a compromise and it was designed to strike a good balance between in-person education and safety, and I think it actually did that.

But the attorney general, in the Thursday filing, argued that the 2021 law that requires schools to follow CDC guidelines does not conflict with Youngkin's executive order and that neither that law nor the CDC guidelines require a "mask mandate."

"And even if the CDC issued something other than recommendations, Senate Bill 1303 would not require rigid adherence to every CDC promulgation; instead, the bill explicitly provides that in-person instruction should be provided in a manner which adheres 'to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies' provided by the CDC for childcare and education programs," the attorney general wrote in the filing.
State health regulators investigators were on site Wednesday at a short-staffed Thomasville, N.C., long-term care facility where two residents died over the weekend and two more are in the hospital in critical condition.

The N.C. Division of Health Service Regulation is reviewing Pine Ridge Health & Rehabilitation Centers compliance with applicable staffing requirements.

According to Tuesdays Thomasville Police Department report, responding officers determined there was inadequate staffing to accommodate the 98 patients of the facility at 706 Pineywood Road.

One licensed practical nurse and two certified nursing assistants were available at the time of the investigation.

Neither federal nor state law prescribe a minimum staffing ratio for nursing homes, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

Officials with Principle LTC, the Kinston-based operator of Pine Ridge, have not returned requests for comment on the deaths and police investigation. Thomasville police has not commented beyond its report.

DHHS said federal and state regulations require nursing homes to have sufficient staff (particularly nurses) with the appropriate competencies and skills sets to provide nursing and related services to assure resident safety and well-being.

Staffing levels also are dictated by resident assessments and individual plans of care (that) consider the number, acuity and diagnoses of the facilitys resident population.

All nursing homes in North Carolina that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs must also comply with the federal regulations.

COVID-19 clusters

Separately, DHHS reported Wednesday that Pine Ridge has a current outbreak of 13 staff members and seven residents. That was up from eight staff members and two residents as of the Jan. 11 update. There had been no reported COVID-19 related deaths as of Tuesday.

A cluster is defined as at least five cases over a 28-day period. The state does not report when the cases were diagnosed.

A facility must be at least 28 days removed from its last new case to be taken off the list of clusters.

DHHS said there were previous outbreaks at Pine Ridge that began on July 18, 2020, and ended on Feb. 26, 2021, and began on Oct. 13, 2021, and ended on Nov. 10, 2021.

The July 2020 cluster have at its peak 99 infected residents involving nine deaths and 57 staff with no deaths. The October 2021 cluster had three staff and one resident with no deaths.

Staffing protocols

Pine Ridge has been subject of at least 16 complaints to state health regulators since January 2017.

Of those complaints, there were deficiencies cited in six  all of which were corrected following in-person inspections by DHHS-led inspections.

For example, a February 2018 recertification said long-term care facilities must have an emergency preparedness plan  utilizing an all-hazards approach  that complies with applicable local, state and federal requirements.

The DHHS report found that the requirement is not met as evidenced in that the facility failed to have an emergency preparedness plan.

The plan did not include facility- and community-based risk assessments, which included missing residents, the facilities resident population and a process that included collaboration with local, regional, state and federal officials.

The plan did not have any policy or procedures regarding the emergency plan, the provision of needs for staff and residents, evacuation, sheltering of residents and staff that remain in the facility and the transportation of medical records. ... The plan failed to have a training program.

Background

The two unidentified deceased Pine Ridge residents were found during a welfare check conducted Sunday night by Thomasville police and other local first responders and medical personnel.

The police report said the families had been notified of their deaths by staff before the police investigation began. Their bodies were sent to the autopsy center at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

One resident was taken to High Point Medical Center, while the other was transported to Thomasville Medical Center.

The report said the welfare check was requested by residents, who claimed staff members had not been seen by some residents and could not be reached by phone.

Officers contacted Thomasville Fire Department and Davidson County Emergency Medical Services for assistance in conducting a door-to-door assessment of every resident that lasted until 7:30 a.m. Monday.

Obviously, the weather and road conditions contributed to the inadequate staffing issues with this facility, Capt. Brad Saintsing said in the report.

First and foremost, we want to ensure each and every resident of the facility is getting the quality of care they deserve. With these types of facilities, there is a protocol, and we want to ensure it was followed as it relates to the weather and/or emergency situations.

Gov. Roy Cooper said in response to the deaths of the Pine Ridge residents that these reports are deeply troubling and need to be investigated thoroughly.

The health and safety of patients, particularly those in long-term care facilities, are critical.

The investigation has been expanded to include the State Bureau of Investigation, Davidson County District Attorneys Office, N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, and Davidson County Social Services.

According to the Principle website, it operates 56 centers involving about 7,200 beds overall in North Carolina, Virginia and Kentucky, offering services ranging from short-term transitional care to Alzheimers and dementia care.
WASHINGTON  Reprising the rigged-election belief that has become a mantra among their supporters, Republican politicians in at least three states are proposing to establish police forces to hunt exclusively for voter fraud and other election crimes, a category of offenses that experts say is tiny at best.

The plans are part of a new wave of initiatives that Republicans say are directed at voter fraud. They are being condemned by voting rights advocates and even some local election supervisors, who call them costly and unnecessary appeasement of the Republican base that will select primary-election winners for this Novembers midterms and the 2024 presidential race.

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The next round of voting clashes comes after the apparent demise of Democratic voting rights legislation in Washington on Thursday. It is a reminder that although the Democratic agenda in Washington seems dead, Republican state-level efforts to make voting harder show no sign of slowing down.

Supporters say the added enforcement will root out instances of fraud and assure the public that everything possible is being done to make sure that American elections are accurate and legitimate. Critics say the efforts can easily be abused and used as political cudgels or efforts to intimidate people from registering and voting. And Democrats say the main reason Republican voters have lost faith in the electoral system is because of the incessant Republican focus on almost entirely imagined fraud.

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The most concrete proposal is in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis asked the state Legislature last week for $5.7 million to create a 52-person election crimes and security force in the secretary of states office. The plan, which DeSantis has been touting since fall, would include 20 sworn police officers and field offices statewide.

That was followed Thursday by a pledge by David Perdue, the former Georgia senator who is a Republican candidate for governor, to create his own force of election police to make Georgia elections the safest and securest in the country. Perdue, who lost his Senate seat in 2020, claimed that Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican seeking reelection, weakened election standards and refused to investigate claims of fraud after President Joe Bidens narrow win in the state.

In Arizona, state Sen. Wendy Rogers, a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trumps lies about a stolen election, has filed legislation to establish a $5 million bureau of elections in the governors office with the power to subpoena witnesses and impound election equipment.

Rogers bill probably faces an uphill road in the Legislature, where Republicans are only narrowly in control and have been battered for their support of a widely ridiculed multimillion-dollar inquiry into 2020 election results. Prospects for the Florida and Georgia proposals are less clear.

Trump supporters rally outside the Maricopa County Recorder's office where the election ballots are being counted, in downtown Phoenix, Nov. 6, 2020. (Adriana Zehbrauskas/The New York Times)

The proposals are the latest twist in a decadeslong crusade by Republicans against election fraud that has grown rapidly since Trumps election loss in 2020 and his false claim that victory was stolen from him.

DeSantis took a tough line in November when he unveiled his proposal, saying the new unit would chase crimes that local election officials shrug at. Therell be people, if you see someone ballot harvesting, you know, what do you do? If you call into the election office, a lot of times they dont do anything, he said at an appearance in West Palm Beach.

I guarantee you this, he added. The first person that gets caught, no one is going to want to do it again after that.

None of the three states  and for that matter, none of the other 47 and the District of Columbia  reported any more than a minuscule number of election fraud cases after the 2020 races. DeSantis said after the 2020 vote that his was the state that did it right and that other states should emulate. The only notable hint of irregularity in Florida was the recent arrest on fraud charges of four men in a retirement complex north of Orlando. At least two of them appeared to be winter Floridians accused of casting ballots both there and in more frigid states to the north.

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But DeSantis and Perdue say their strike forces are still needed to root out other election irregularities and to bolster their constituents sagging faith in the honesty of the vote. The same rationale has powered so-called audits of election results and clampdowns on election rules by Republican-run legislatures across the country.

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Sweeping election-law revisions enacted by Florida and Georgia legislators last spring sharply limit the use of popular drop boxes for submitting absentee ballots, require identification to obtain mail-in ballots, make it harder to conduct voter-registration drives, and restrict or ban interactions  such as handing out snacks or water  with voters waiting in line to cast ballots.

Trump comfortably won Florida by about 370,000 votes in 2020, and his narrow losses in Arizona and Georgia were confirmed by expert audits, recounts and even the notorious Cyber Ninjas inquiry into the vote in Maricopa County.

We dont need further investigations into elections that are freely and fairly conducted, said Alex Gulotta, Arizona director of the advocacy group All Voting Is Local. Weve established that again and again and again. This is more pablum to the people who believe in fraud and conspiracy theories and lies that the last election was stolen.

Neither the new laws nor election autopsies appear to have shaken the conviction of many Trump supporters that the election system is suspect. Some scholars say they see the police forces as the latest bid by politicians to scratch that itch.

Bids to curb so-called fraud are becoming standard for Republican candidates who want to win over voters, Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an interview. Whoever is the nominee in 2024, whether its Trump or anyone else, it will likely be part of their platform, Burden said.

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The idea of an election police force is not new, even in the states where they are being proposed. In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger already oversees 23 investigators whose purview includes election irregularities, and an assistant state attorney general exclusively prosecutes crimes in elections, the judiciary and local governments. The Arizona attorney general manages a relatively new election integrity investigative unit, and Florida election violations are prosecuted by both state and local authorities, as is true in most states.

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RALEIGH  The continuing fight again the omicron variant forced Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday to take a crucial step and ask for help from the federal government.

Cooper sought help in the Charlotte area as hospitals across the state, including Cone Health, face record numbers of patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The huge surge in cases comes from the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus.

For weeks, North Carolina has broken daily records for hospitalizations, including a new record set on Thursday with 4,741 people hospitalized.

Every day almost seems to bring a new record as the struggle to contain omicron isnt waning. It was like this with omicrons predecessor, the delta variant.

Once again, hospitals and medical staff on the frontlines are bearing the brunt of the new variants surge. For many across the state, its been hard to contain.

Charlottes largest hospital system, Atrium Health, is currently above 95% capacity for hospitalizations. The hospital system has already redeployed staff from urgent care and outpatient centers, limited non-emergency procedures and closed specialty centers to handle the surge in new infections.

On Friday, the governors office announced that Cooper, working with Atrium Health, has requested federal support for staffing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The state is requesting resources  including additional nurses from FEMA  to help hospitals deal with capacity.

The state has previously received federal support to fight the pandemic. Earlier this month, FEMA provided 25 ambulances for North Carolina, which have been deployed to 11 counties, including Guilford, and will remain in the state until early February.

Across North Carolina, 72% of people hospitalized and 83% of coronavirus-related ICU admissions are unvaccinated, according to state health officials.

The vast majority of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, said Kody Kinsley, North Carolinas new secretary of health.

Kinsely urged residents to stay up-to-date with coronavirus vaccinations and wear a well-fitting mask when around other people.

Medical experts have noted that the omicron spread may be beginning to slow in Charlotte and around the state.

Still, hospitalizations is typically called a lagging indicator  meaning they may slow days or weeks after infections begin to plateau, and may even continue to increase.
NC IDEA, one of the states leading foundations for supporting startup businesses, is giving more than half a million dollars in grant money to seven Black-led startups across the state, including one in the Triad.

The new funding comes out of an initiative the foundation launched in the wake of George Floyds death in 2020.

Black-led startups still receive just a small fraction of funding compared to other startups  even as venture capital funding levels hit record heights in the state last year. One study put Black startups share of venture capital money at just 1.2% for the first half of 2021, Crunchbase reported.

In an effort to make sure the foundation was identifying promising Black entrepreneurs, NC IDEA created the Black Entrepreneurship Council, a Black-led board that is directing some of the foundations outreach to the states Black business community.

Having a more inclusive applicant pool is important, said Thom Ruhe, CEO and president of NC IDEA. And weve been trying to do that for the last couple years, really focusing on increasing the number of Black founders that apply.

Ruhe noted that a lot of companies start with a cashed-out 401(k) or tapping into a home equity line. Some of my earliest companies, I funded through taking loans against existing 401(k)s or through my home equity line that I had, he said. But a lot of Black founders dont have those resources.

After working with the council, NC IDEA identified seven startups eligible to receive the seed funding, valued at $75,000 for each company.

Some of the companies receiving the seed grants were:

BatteryXchange

Charlotte-based BatteryXchange makes portable battery charging kiosks.

Founded by Desmond Wiggan Jr. and Aubrey Yeboah in 2019, the company seeks to set up its kiosks at events, universities or businesses, where users can rent a portable battery and charge their phones while walking around.

The company previously received a $50,000 seed grant from NC IDEA last year.

Courtroom 5

Courtroom5, a Durham-based company started by professors Sonja Ebron and Debra Slone, aims to help those who cant afford lawyers in civil cases.

Every year in this country, millions of Americans head to court without a lawyer, even though it leaves them at a distinct disadvantage in many cases. In some states, up to 80% to 90% of civil cases involve an unrepresented litigant  and often they are low-income or a member of a vulnerable population, a 2015 study from the George Washington University Law School found.

Courtroom5 operates as a management platform for people who choose to represent themselves in court. The companys platform offers a step-by-step guide to navigating civil cases, helps litigants know what paperwork or information they will need, and provides automated templates to write pleadings and motions.

Last year, Courtroom 5 was named one of 10 startups to watch by the N.C. Technology Association. The company has raised around $500,000 from investors, according to Crunchbase.

Davos Corp.

Durhams Davos Corp. is an online lender matching platform that helps customers find guarantees for each of their loans.

Founded by Amber Bond, who had previously worked for the Carolina Small Business Development Fund, Davos seeks to make it easier for entrepreneurs to get access to capital, by providing a guarantee to a lender.

Were helping the borrower by taking on some of the risk in the transaction, which makes them more attractive to lenders, Bond told the online publication GrepBeat in 2020.

Freeman Capital

Freeman Capital is a Charlotte-based fintech company that is seeking to close the racial wealth gap by helping more people of color enter into investing and wealth management.

The companys platform teaches financial literacy to its users and provides individual investment management.

Freeman, founded by Calvin Williams Jr., previously received a $50,000 grant from Googles Black Startup Fund. Its now raised $1.7 million from investors, according to Crunchbase.

LoanWell

Durham-based LoanWell is the creator of a loan origination platform for Community Development Financial Institutions, which often serve low-income and minority communities.

The company, founded in 2017 by Bernard Worthy, is helping many of these institutions move their loan originating process online.

Based out of the American Underground campus in downtown Durham, LoanWell has raised $3.1 million from investors and has around 15 employees.

The company previously received a $100,000 grant from Googles Black Startup Fund, The News & Observer previously reported.

Renaissance Fiber

Renaissance Fiber, which counts Winston-Salem and Wilmington as home, is hoping to create more environmental textiles using hemp and other natural fibers.

All of the companys hemp is grown in the U.S., and the company is creating hemp that is able to blend with cotton, polyester, wool and other fibers.

Smart Girls HQ

Founded by Abi Olukeye in 2018, Smart Girls HQ began as an effort to get more young girls involved in science, technology, engineering and math activities.

The Charlotte company is building a digital platform that will provide resources and activities that teachers and parents can provide to young girls around STEM education.

The company received a grant of $256,000 last year from the National Science Foundations Small Business Innovation Research program to advance its platform, the online publication Charlotte Inno reported.

This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
The Helena Regional Airport Authority is waiving all airport use fees for airlines currently serving Helena for the month of January.

"Many small communities around the nation have lost significant air service over the past 2 years, and in recent months many more have seen additional service cuts and in some cases airlines completely exiting markets served for decades," a press release sent out by the authority states. "We decided to take a proactive stance and offer the airlines which operate out of Helena some relief from paying airport use fees for the month of January 2022."

The fees ostensibly amount to rent, and the waivers will be extended to Alaska, Delta, United airlines and their regional affiliates, who have been hit hard in past month with the surge of COVID-19 cases, staffing shortages and inclement weather systems across the country.

Airport Director Jeff Wadekamper said in an interview that the airport use fees vary from month to month and airline to airline and are dependent on a number of factors such as passenger numbers.

Wadekamper said the authority estimated it would be taking about a $40,000 hit for the month of January, though he stressed that number is "a shot in the dark."

"We want to support those airlines and make sure they're doing well in Helena," he said.

During the beginnings of the global COVID-19 pandemic about two years ago, Delta Airlines rerouted some of its flights from Helena to Minneapolis. The authority has been lobbying for the restoration of that service ever since, but Wadekamper said he does not want to see Helena lose any further service.

"It's something we've never done before," he said. "We're doing all we can to maintain the level of service here."

According to the press release, airline traffic in Helena has been recovering from the major slump of two years ago, but remains below 2019 levels.

The move is unusual. While airports will occasionally offer fee waivers, it is typically done to attract new airlines, not retain old ones.

"We want to ensure we can continue our operations without making it an unfriendly environment for the airlines," Wadekamper said.

The authority is heavily recruiting new service as well thanks to a more than $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Small Community Air Service Development Program received last summer.

The bulk of that money will be kept as revenue guarantees for the first three years and offer the same fee waivers for up to a year.

He said the authority was able to waive January's fees due to the airport's diversified revenue streams, airport-wide cost savings and an influx of federal recovery dollars.

"This gesture of continued partnership with the airlines, along with a diversified airport business model and strong demand for air service will ensure that Helena maintains service through these challenging times and ultimately sees future growth in our market to serve a growing state of Montana," the press release states.

Wadekamper said with recent multi-million-dollar upgrades to the terminal and tarmac, the airport is well positioned for that future growth, it just needs to weather the storm.

He said when the industry returns to some semblance of normalcy and airlines look to expand services again, perhaps they will "look more favorably on on Helena."

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The Montana Supreme Court should overturn its 1999 landmark decision that found the state constitutions right to privacy protects access to abortion, the Montana Department of Justice argues in new court filings.

The justice department has appealed to the high court a Yellowstone County District Court judges preliminary injunction halting several new laws restricting abortion from taking effect. On Wednesday, Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed the departments opening brief, which among its arguments calls for overturning the 1999 case Armstrong v. State and accuses Supreme Court justices at the time of judicial activism.

Armstrongs reasoning is a deeply flawed tribute to unrestrained judicial activism, the filing states. Nowhere in Montanas constitutional text is there a right to elective abortion. Instead, the framers intentionally excluded abortion from the Constitution and left to the Legislature the prerogative to permit, prohibit, or regulate it.

A fourth law prohibiting health insurance plans sold on the federal exchange from covering abortion, was not part of the preliminary injunction request.

Judge Michael Moses, who assumed the case, issued the preliminary injunction in October, writing "(Planned Parenthood) and their patients will be irreparably harmed through the loss of their constitutional rights, thus the prevention of the status quo is necessary to prevent that harm.

Moses further ruled that the law banning abortions after 20 weeks gestational age was likely unconstitutional. The judge citied the Armstrong case in finding that abortion is legal in Montana until viability, and that both the state and Planned Parenthood stated that viability occurs after 20 weeks  the state argues 20 weeks falls within the margin of error for its definition of viability.

The Armstrong case stemmed from a challenge to a state law that only allowed physicians to perform abortions. The unanimous decision cited the provision of the Montana Constitution cementing Montanas privacy rights, which go further than the U.S. Constitution, in finding that those rights included the right to an abortion before viability.

Knudsen filed a notice of appeal to the Montana Supreme Court challenging Moses preliminary injunction in October and filed the opening brief on Wednesday. The 62-page brief asks the high court to overrule the injunction, which would allow the laws to go into effect while legal proceedings play out, saying the laws promote the health and safety of pregnant women who are seeking abortion.

All three laws unquestionably enhance the health and safety of Montana women. And they represent basic regulations of the practice of medicine bread-and-butter exercises of the state police power, the filing states.

The filing argues the District Court judge misapplied the legal standard for a preliminary injunction, ignored evidence brought by the state and wrongly reviewed all three laws under a standard of strict scrutiny, meaning the law must be of compelling public interest and narrowly tailored to meet that interest.

But the brief spends significant time asserting that the Armstrong decision was fundamentally flawed and should be overturned.

The right (to an abortion) is entirely judge-made, arising from the sociological convictions of seven justices, the filing states. Armstrong was manifestly wrong the day it was decided. Now, it falls to seven different justices to reaffirm a juridical first principle: courts declare what the law is, not what judges think it should be. This Court should overrule Armstrong.

Planned Parenthood has not yet filed a response to the justice department. Following the District Courts injunction, President and CEO Martha Stahl issued a statement applauding the decision and saying anti-abortion lawmakers sought to undermine access to basic health care.

This is an important and hard-fought victory. Were thrilled that the Montana district court preliminarily blocked these unconstitutional laws, protecting Montanans access to safe, legal abortion," she said.

Tom Kuglin is the deputy editor for the Lee Newspapers State Bureau. His coverage focuses on outdoors, recreation and natural resources.

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A federal health agency said Thursday it will review and follow-up with the Montana State Hospital about an inspection that captured a workforce shortage crisis at the psychiatric facility in Warm Springs.

A September inspection survey from the Montana State Hospital became public earlier this month, outlining several deficiencies: An in-house investigation failed to determine if neglect played a role in a patient's death, and the in-house investigator discarded their records of the internal probe; staffing levels were below the levels needed to prevent patients from falling, and inspectors found patients fell 113 times between June and August 2021; employees told inspectors staffing documentation was "not accurate," and did not list patients whose needs required one-on-one attention from staff.

A probe of the patient's death in August found the person in the hospital's geriatric wing had come to staff on Aug. 13 and told them she was unable to catch her breath. According to the survey, staff told her to "return to your room and stop being so dramatic."

The patient was found dead in her room 45 minutes later, the 19-page survey states.

In a letter to state hospital administrator Kyle Fouts on Nov. 9, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which has oversight of the facility, said the federal survey found the facility in compliance and no corrective plan was required.

Last week, the Montana State News Bureau asked CMS how the hospital could be in compliance in light of the deficiencies. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid said Thursday it would revisit the matter.

"CMS holds patient safety and access to quality care as top priorities," a spokesperson said in an email Thursday. "CMS is reviewing the survey findings and will follow up with the State Survey Agency and hospital to discuss those items."

The spokesperson did not identify what the further review would entail, and did not respond to an email with follow-up questions by press time. A DPHHS spokesperson declined to comment on what "further review" CMS would conduct without clarification from the federal agency.

The inspection in September was conducted by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, which operates the state hospital at the center of the dispute. Most units of state hospital are under federal certification and oversight of CMS, although DPHHS conducts federal surveys on behalf of the federal agency. State inspectors likewise survey nursing homes on behalf of CMS to ensure Montana facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid payments meet federal regulations required by CMS, according to Jon Ebelt, a spokesperson for DPHHS.

The facility is the only state-run psychiatric hospital in the state, and provides psychiatric evaluation, treatment and rehabilitation services with severe mental illness. In December, the Montana State News bureau published claims by current and former staff that an unresponsive and inadequately trained staff was driving an employee exodus at the hospital. DPHHS reports 40% of the 524 full-time positions are vacant, although many of those functions are being conducted by contract staff at a more expensive rate.

In November, DPHHS put out a request for bids for a third party to fill a temporary management role at the state's medical facilities and to help stabilize the workforce. The department said the $2.2 million contract was part of an effort to bring each of its health care facilities under one division, Ebelt said concerns brought forward about staffing at the Warm Springs facility "certainly points to the need for it."

It's unclear if CMS has loosened its staffing requirements during the pandemic, when the health care industry is suffering from a depleted workforce; CMS did not answer the question in its email Thursday.

The Children, Families, Health and Human Services Committee on Friday will hear from a panel presentation on staffing issues at the state hospital. That panel includes Sen. Mark Sweeney, a Democrat whose district includes the state hospital; Jeremy Hoscheid, the Mental Disabilities Board of Visitors executive director, which represents patients of the state hospital; and Robin Haux, labor program director at the Montana Nurses Association, the largest nurses' union in the state.

Following the panel on the state hospital "staffing and patient care concerns," the committee will question DPHHS Director Adam Meier, who previously told lawmakers he would look into those concerns.

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If theres one thing Montanans are about, its common sense. We work hard, play by the rules and dont like when Washington elites impose laws that go against what works for Montana. Thats why I fought against President Biden and the Democrats attempt to pass their partisan bill to enact a federal takeover of elections every step of the waybecause what they were trying to do didnt make sense, and its not what Montanans wanted.

In Montana, thanks to the leadership of Governor Greg Gianforte and Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, the Montana legislature passed election integrity laws that make it harder to cheat, like strengthening voter ID laws. Its not only Montanans who agree that voters should show an ID before casting a ballot, according to the Honest Elections Project, nearly 80% of Americans feel the same way.

This seems like a no-brainer to most of us Montanans because after all, you need an ID to get a hunting or fishing license, to rent a car, or to get on an airplane. And now, in many liberal-run cities across our nation, Democrats are even enforcing ID checks to get into a coffee shop or sit down for dinner. So, its no wonder why were all left a little confused how President Biden, Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, including the senior senator from Montana, tried to override the will of Montana voters and undermine state voter ID laws when it comes to something as foundational to our democracy as maintaining integrity in our elections.

Why should the federal government reach their hands into business that Montanans already settled? If the Democrats multiple attempts to steamroll the Constitution, undercut Montanas election laws and make it easier to cheat seem to go against every ounce of your common sense, thats because it is.

Although the Democrats tried hard to mislead the American people, including Chuck Schumer going to the Senate Floor and lying about Montanas election integrity laws, their effort was never about voting rights. It was always about power and ensuring one party rule forever. It was simply an attempt to tip the scales in their favor and control Washington, D.C.

Undermining state voter ID laws was just the icing on the cake; their bill was jammed full with far-Left priorities to support their partisan power grab. If my colleagues had it their way, their so-called voting rights bill would have spent your tax dollars on political campaigns, mandated unsupervised ballot drop boxes, allowed for the counting of votes received after election day and prohibited states from cleaning up out-of-date voter rolls.

I think most Montanans would agree these efforts just dont make sense.

Our Founding Fathers feared concentrated power in the federal government and they knew what they were doing when they put the power to administer elections in the hands of the states. To abandon that founding principle would be a disservice to Montanans and all Americans who want safe, secure and trustworthy elections.

Republican Steve Daines is Montana's junior U.S. senator.

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Todays Highlight in History:

On Jan. 21, 2010, a bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, vastly increased the power of big business and labor unions to influence government decisions by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress.

On Jan. 21:

In 1793, during the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, was executed on the guillotine.

In 1910, the Great Paris Flood began as the rain-swollen Seine River burst its banks, sending water into the French capital.

In 1915, the first Kiwanis Club, dedicated to community service, was founded in Detroit.

In 1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at age 53.

In 1942, pinball machines were banned in New York City after a court ruled they were gambling devices that relied on chance rather than skill (the ban was lifted in 1976).

In 1950, former State Department official Alger Hiss, accused of being part of a Communist spy ring, was found guilty in New York of lying to a grand jury. (Hiss, who proclaimed his innocence, served less than four years in prison.)

In 1954, the first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton (GRAH-tuhn), Connecticut (however, the Nautilus did not make its first nuclear-powered run until nearly a year later).

In 1976, British Airways and Air France inaugurated scheduled passenger service on the supersonic Concorde jet.

In 1977, on his first full day in office, President Jimmy Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.

In 2003, the Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as Americas largest minority group.

In 2009, the Senate confirmed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

In 2012, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich scored an upset win in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, dealing a sharp setback to Mitt Romney.

In 2016, a day after Donald Trumps inauguration, more than 1 million people rallied at womens marches in the nations capital and cities around the world to send the new president an emphatic message that they wouldnt let his agenda go unchallenged. The Southeast saw the beginning of a weekend outbreak of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms; sixteen people were killed in Georgia, four people died in Mississippi and one death was reported in Florida.

In 2020, the U.S. reported its first known case of the new virus circulating in China, saying a Washington state resident who had returned the previous week from the outbreaks epicenter was hospitalized near Seattle; U.S. officials stressed that they believed the overall risk of the virus to the American public remained low. On his first full day in office, President Joe Biden signed 10 executive orders aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic, including one broadening the use of the Defense Production Act to expand vaccine production; he also signed an order mandating masks for travel, including in airports and on planes, ships, trains, buses and public transportation. After being largely sidelined in the final months of the Trump administration, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the White House briefing room to provide an update on the pandemic. The U.S. said it would resume funding for the World Health Organization; the funding had been halted by the Trump administration

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Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby addresses the media outside her office on a day after her indictment on federal perjury charges on Friday, Jan. 14, 2022. A lawyer for Baltimore's top prosecutor, A. Scott Bolden, has outlined her defense against federal criminal charges stemming from her purchase of two Florida vacation homes. (Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP) (Jerry Jackson/AP)

Its not stupidity and sleaze, its hubris and greed

Dan Rodricks bemoans the recurrent corruption scandals of Baltimore and the indictments of important figures caught up in these scandals year after year (Another year, another indictment. This time Marilyn Mosby, for cryin out loud, Jan. 14). He wonders about the stupidity and the sleaze of the perpetrators. I think that stupidity and sleaze have little to do with these indictments. In my opinion the major reasons are hubris and greed.

Quite a few lawmakers and members of law enforcement who make laws and enforce laws, seem to think theyre above the laws they make and enforce. All over the world there are corrupt lawmakers and law enforcement officers. Its almost as if theyre tempted to test the waters of the laws they make and the laws they must enforce, to see if they will get caught or if they can get away with breaking the law.

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As soon as they get caught these law breakers are ready with defense lawyers, denials and excuses for why they did what they did. They calculate that it is worthwhile to take the risks, that they will come out ahead anyway and their supporters can be bamboozled into reelecting them, so much so their corruption wont have any serious consequences. They dont worry about jail time, they expect mere slaps on the wrist, and they figure they can always claim discrimination to convince and keep their supporters and followers.

This mindset is at the root of corruption in the upper and lower echelons of power. In my opinion, all lawmakers and law enforcement officers should take mandatory ethics courses and earn continuing ethics education credits to operate in their positions of power and privilege, and those who refuse should be given hefty fines and forced to comply by an independent ethics board.

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Usha Nellore, Bel Air,

Whats the real reason for this Mosby open season?

Ive been listening and following and reading with great interest the discussion about Marilyn Mosby and the charges placed upon her by the federal government (Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby indicted on federal charges she lied on financial transactions to buy homes in Florida, Jan. 13). I tried to imagine this young, Black, natural-hair wearing, African American woman with two little beautiful girls and a powerful husband. And I say to myself: Self, what is the real reason for this Mosby season?

Im just a city boy who looked at things as a plain, college-educated, 60-plus, African American Man. Ive asked scholars, activist and media people: What, really, did she do, to garnish all this trouble? Im sorry if I am insulting anyone when I ask, Wheres the beef? Has Marilyn Mosby done anything to anyone, taken any money from anyone? Promised something to anyone and did not keep her promise? You know, like America has promised the African American public.

The haters are going to hate. And not surprising, my hometown Baltimore radio is full of Marilyn Mosby haters. Many hosts and callers, who are great accountants as they begin to count her money by the hours she is at work to put a price on her daily worth.

And then there are the supporters who love this woman for her recognizing that criminal charges were on steroids when it came to targeting Black, poor and, most times, uneducated people. Who else but Marilyn Mosby had the guts to charge police officers  any police officers  when it came to the death of Freddie Gray? Prosecutors partner with police; they dont charge them, is what a police officer friend told me. For me she prioritized Freddie Grays humanity and the pursuit of justice.

Most of us who have been in Baltimore for any amount of time are tired of whose up next. They mostly were imperfect folks who all made laughable decisions during the time they were serving the people. I dont know what is going to happen. I hope absolutely nothing. I hope she can return to her office and her job and keep an eye on a system that has never been fair for me. Yeah, its not been justice for my community, its been just-us.

Michael Eugene Johnson, Baltimore

Taking a page from Donald Trump

Taking a page from the Trump strategy, Marilyn Mosby is screaming fake news, it didnt happen, I am innocent, and I am a victim in this situation (Fight of our lives: Marilyn Mosby speaks at Baltimores Empowerment Temple on Sunday morning, days after federal indictment, Jan. 16). Well, as President Donald Trump discovered, if you yell loud enough and long enough, some people, especially dedicated followers, will believe you and support you all the way to the verdict and even beyond as shown by the attempted Jan. 6 event in Washington. They ignore the facts in face of the charges and facts as they stand. They make excuses for the crimes committed. So holler and protest all you want, but the real truth will come out in court when only true facts will be allowed and all the hoopla and emotional hollering will be ignored for the truth and justice.

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If she is innocent then the court trial will find her innocent, but if guilty as charged then that must be accepted.

Stas Chrzanowski, Baltimore

Mosby targeted for smear campaign

Once again a columnist for The Baltimore Sun is engaged in playing judge and jury in the situation involving Marilyn Mosby, states attorney for Baltimore. Apparently, to many in the media, the rule of law and presumption of innocence does not apply to public officials or those in our Justice system.

Disturbing as well, is the historical legacy of prominent, outspoken Black Americans becoming targets and subjected to smear campaigns by both our federal law enforcement agencies and the media.

I am reminded of this sordid legacy as the nation celebrated the Martin Luther King holiday. Tragically, one of the icons of America was also subject to overzealous law enforcement agencies and smear campaigns by the media in America.

One hopes Ms. Mosby will not resign and will defeat these twisted efforts to unseat her.

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Greg Thrasher, Washington, D.C.

Wheres the hardship in a $250,000 salary?

It is all about values for me! Its not about political and racial animus. Marilyn Mosbys indictment on criminal charges may result in jail time or loss of office or public censure or nothing. The result, however, for me is disappointment, loss of respect and a decision that I can no longer support her in any attempt to stay in office (Im built for this: Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby pledges to fight federal perjury charges, Jan. 14).

I have respected and supported her initiatives to make the justice system more fair. However, I cannot understand how someone whose role is to enforce the rule of law can think it OK to circumvent it. She admits that she withdrew retirement money without penalty using the COVID exception to do so. I find it unconscionable that anyone (especially someone in her position) whose salary is almost $250,000 checks a box that affirms financial hardship.

My understanding is that the purpose of this exemption was to help people who need money to feed themselves and their families, pay their rent or mortgage, or keep a small business going to support themselves or their employees. It wasnt to help the rich get richer.

The truth about the other charges against her will come out as the process continues. Meanwhile, I would hope that Marilyn Mosby would take responsibility for her own behavior.

Sally Neustadt, Baltimore

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Rules for future Maryland politicians

After reading Dan Rodricks column (Financial hardship is Marilyn Mosbys defense? Good luck with that, Jan. 19) it raised the question: Why do so many elected officials in Maryland end up with criminal charges against them? Could it be because of a political witch hunt, a racially biased attack, an overzealous inspector with a bone to pick? Or could it be that maybe, just maybe, those officials were just victims of temptation? Does that mean that we should prosecute them for getting their hands caught in the cookie jar, or is it time to get a sufficiently tighter fitting lid for that cookie jar?

Going back to the days of Spiro T. Agnew, Dale Anderson and Marvin Mandel, we have put up with generations of real estate fraud, tax evasion and cronyism, but in more recent years, we see that our new lawmakers are still struggling to comprehend what the term illegal means. Its apparently an official occupational hazard these days, but its time that the officials finally do something about it.

Here are a few suggestions for future state and city office seekers:

Taxes: Any elected official must be paid up on all taxes, making their most recent tax return public, to avoid any potential conflicts of interest (After all, if you dont pay taxes, why should we pay your salary?).

Side Businesses: Any elected official who feels that its a good idea to have a side business, (real estate interests, travel agencies, book publishing, cozying up to contractors, etc.) should wait until their term has ended to do so. (After all, you were elected to do one job. Do the damn job.)

Nepotism: Any elected official must not have any immediate family members running for elected office while they are serving their term within that same jurisdiction. (After all, would you honestly turn your little sister in for just nabbing a few cookies?).

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With these measures in place, candidates will have to think twice about running for public office, and we will pray that the ones who are elected will do the right thing!

John Ellsberry, Baltimore

Do the right thing and step aside

Comptroller Bill Henry asserts that there is no reason for States Attorney Marilyn Mosby to step aside. I beg to disagree. The fact is there is no justification for Ms. Mosby to continue to hold on to the awesome power of her office while the criminal proceedings against her play out. Every single prosecution in Baltimore City is brought in her name. The charges the U.S. Department of Justice brought against her, if proven, relate directly to a lack of honesty and integrity in several personal financial transactions. While Ms. Mosby has every right to defend herself, she does not have the right to taint the entire criminal justice process with the scent of her own alleged perjury. Please Ms. Mosby, at least this time do the right thing and free the citizens of Baltimore from the burden of your personal baggage.

Benjamin Rosenberg, Baltimore
DECATUR  The future of musicals may have its beginnings at Millikin University.

Millikin seniors Hannah Jackson, Audrey Button and Paul Cushman are members of the New Musicals Workshop immersion course.

They came in with a concept for a new musical, Jackson said. For talking with us and interacting with us, and hearing how we sing and how we act, they continued with that concept of the musical.

The groups contributions would often alter the performances. We would come in the next day, put it together and put it on its feet, Jackson said. They would see their art come to life.

The writers arrived in pairs, creating two separate productions. Gwinn and Chary recently returned to New York after working through their production. Ferrera and Webster began working with the students on Tuesday to create another musical.

Lori Bales, School of Theatre and Dance professor, began the program in 2007. We were one of maybe two colleges and universities doing this, she said. A lot of them do it now. Its very popular.

The instruction earns the students a professional credit, according to Bales. It can stay on their resumes, she said.

The program was built slowly. Bales and Millikin professor Keven Long introduced up-and-coming playwrights to the talented students. For a writer to find the same level of talent, and have them test their play, the process can be expensive. But not here, Bales said. We can set it up. They dont have to pay them equity. Its a really good deal for the writers.

Webster and Ferrera have worked with Millikin in the past. Millikin has sort of been a home away from home for me in a development sense, Webster said. I trust their program and their students with my material, even in the earliest of states, like this week.

Webster said he has hopes for the work accomplished through the workshops.

I want the musical to be a creative and fun experience for all the actors and tech crews that get to work on it, he said. My second hope is that at the end of the development period, we partner with a licensing company to get this show out into the world.

The process is typical for an actor preparing for a production. We get thrown a piece, we learn our vocal parts, and we sing it, Jackson said. Everything that theater musical performers have to do on a regular basis.

According to the students, the process isnt necessarily designed to showcase their skills, but to help the writers see their vision.

Its really interesting learning how to work as an ensemble with this material youve never seen before in your life and some of it that hasnt existed even for 24 hours, Button said.

The professional writing teams have established themselves in the business through similar workshops throughout the country. They appreciate our help, Jackson said. The artists can fully see their vision.

The process of rejecting a musical number can be exciting for the students as well. Getting a song out, being able to get rid of it, and going on from there, its a great opportunity, Button said.

Its much better to find out you dont like the song now, than it is when someones dropped $200,000 on a workshop, Cushman said.

To be a member of the class, students must audition. They must also have musical skills. So that when you get a piece of a song, and you have to learn it the night of, you can be prepared, Jackson said.

The hope is the production will make its way onto a stage, including a Millikin stage.

You never know where these things are going to end up, Button said.

Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR

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DECATUR  An empty building at 141 E. Marietta St. is likely a total loss after a fire on Thursday that the building manager said was probably inevitable.

Building manager Bill England said the building was empty and boarded up, but they have had a lot of trouble with homeless people breaking in and building fires for warmth, which he thought could have caused the fire.

"Homeless guys keep breaking in and starting fires in the fireplace in this apartment up here," England said, gesturing to the upper floor of the building. "I'm assuming that's what happened."

The building and several nearby houses are all owned by the same person, he said, and all need extensive remodeling to make them habitable. The Marietta Street structure was boarded up repeatedly in attempts to keep people from breaking in, but England said they kept finding ways inside anyway. They stripped the insulation off wires to fuel their fires, based on evidence he has found in the past.

"I've been trying to keep them out of there and they keep breaking in, and I keep boarding it up," England said. "It was only a matter of time before this happened."

The building was originally built in 1915, according to History of the Heartland, a local historical group, and was used as an apartment house with four large units. In 1923, the building was converted into a piece-rate factory for Hi-Flier Kites. The company moved to larger quarters in 1928, and the building on Marietta was converted back into apartments until the 1970s.

Bitter cold temperatures made it difficult for firefighters called to the scene around noon Thursday and those who were expected to remain on hand overnight as the fire continued to burn.

Decatur Fire Department Chief Jeff Abbott said the call came in at the same time as another fire on Prairie Avenue, which stretched crews already challenged by the weather conditions.

As a result, rural fire protection district departments provided assistance.

"I know Mount Zion and Hickory Point (responded)," said Deputy Chief Jim Ohl. "When they came in, another fire had come in on East Prairie, so I believe they responded there, and then we had Harristown and Long Creek came in also. The off-duty battalion chiefs were handling all that so I'm not even sure who was where. I know they were called."

He said one of the trucks still on site around 6 p.m. needed to be refueled, and the firefighters who had been on the scene all afternoon were going to rotate with other firefighters so they could get warm and take a break, but he expected at least one engine to be on site the rest of the night.

With an old building like this one, he said, a fire is difficult to put out, and from the street flames were still visible in one corner of the attic even six hours after firefighters arrived.

Thursday was also the day a funeral was held for a St. Louis, Missouri firefighter, Ohl said, who had died when the roof of a similarly aged building had collapsed while fighting a fire.

None of the Decatur firefighters were injured and none had gone inside, Ohl added.

The rolling black smoke could be seen for blocks and Decatur police and street crews temporarily closed the Franklin Street overpass and Water Street itself to allow firefighters to work.

Another complication was the lack of access to good water sources and enough water pressure to run the hoses, Abbott said.

Abbott said firefighters pried the boards off the windows as part of the firefighting efforts because it was a "deep fire," which was worst in the interior.

Damage estimates were not yet available, but England said he assumed the building would be a total loss.

Robin Lash runs the nearby Paul's Confectionery.

Lash said she called 911 after a customer came in with news there was smoke coming from the building next door. The restaurant was evacuated after firefighters began arriving on the scene.

She was thankful for the quick response and the work the firefighters did to prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings.

The fact the building would meet this fate didn't come as a surprise to Lash.

"Since it's getting cold, I've seen the homeless coming in and out of it. I knew it was a matter of time," she said.

Contact Valerie Wells at (217) 421-7982. Follow her on Twitter: @modgirlreporter

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SPRINGFIELD  Republicans will make a tough-on-crime agenda the focus of their 2022 campaigns, Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin said Thursday.

Durkin, R-Western Springs, joined three other House Republicans  Reps. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, and Deanne Mazzochi, R-Elmhurst  at a news conference Thursday in which they criticized Democrats for their criminal justice reforms and claimed public safety as a Republican issue.

We're going to be running on public safety," Durkin said. "What party has the back of law enforcement? What party, more importantly, has the backs of victims? It's the Republicans. The Democrats have abandoned this.

The Republican legislators again called for the repeal of the SAFE-T Act.

A massive criminal justice reform, the SAFE-T Act was passed by the General Assembly in January 2021 and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in February. It requires body cameras for police officers, more phone calls for suspects in police custody, and officer intervention in cases of excessive force.

Many of the acts provisions dont go into effect until 2023.

All four Republicans suggested the SAFE-T Act is to blame for increasing crime rates across the state.

Before the passage of the SAFE-T Act, we warned them what would happen, and it has, said Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis. Innocent victims are in an even more dangerous position than they were a year ago,

Illinois has become the wild wild Midwest, Durkin said.

Rates of violent crime have increased in the past few years, said Dr. Magic Wade, assistant professor of political studies at the University of Illinois Springfield.

But that increase cannot be attributed to the SAFE-T Act, she said, because most of the act has yet to go into effect, and crime rates in some parts of the state have been rising since 2015.

Violent crime was going up before the pandemic, Wade said. So the pandemic sort of put into overdrive a trend that was already happening.

Wade, who studies the criminal justice system, said the increase in crime observed in Illinois is part of a nationwide trend. Criminologists do not agree on why crime rates rise and fall, which leaves room for people to interpret data in more partisan ways.

Politicians in both parties will use crime as a political tool in this years elections, said Dr. Kent Redfield, professor of political science emeritus at the University of Illinois Springfield.

With Democratic supermajorities in the House and the Senate, Republicans simply dont have the votes to repeal the SAFE-T Act, he said. Its especially unlikely in an election year, in which its typical for legislators to avoid major reforms.

But with rising crime rates on the publics mind, its easier for politicians to get public attention on a bill even if it has no chance of passing, Redfield said.

This is not so much about policy arguments as it is about trying to get that major theme out there," he said.

According to Redfield, Democrats will now have to figure out how to more effectively answer to increased pressure from their Republican colleagues and from voters.

The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus responded to Durkin's press conference with a statement accusing Republicans of using racial scare tactics in their repeal attempts.

"As usual with the Republican Party, any effort to make the justice system fairer for Black people is called 'dangerous, the statement read.

Republicans emphasis on the SAFE-T Act ultimately might not be the most effective strategy, Redfield said.

A bill that takes effect next year didn't cause problems," he said.

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New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Becoming partly cloudy and windy. High around 90F. Winds SSE at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies early. Scattered thunderstorms developing late. Low 72F. Winds SSE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
After a record-shattering week of new COVID-19 cases, area health officials are urging people to be vigilant about limiting exposure to others.

Nearly 12,800 people were newly diagnosed with COVID-19 across Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia during the past week  a 60% increase over the previous week.

Ten counties and two cities of Southwest Virginia reported 3,985 new cases between Jan. 14 and Jan 20  more than in the entire month of December and a 51% increase over the 2,629 new cases diagnosed the prior week.

New cases also continue spiraling upward across the 10 counties of Northeast Tennessee, which reported more than 8,800 new cases during the period from Jan. 9-15, compared to 5,400 the prior week  a 63% jump.

More than 25,000 area residents have tested positive for COVID-19 in just the first three weeks of this year.

It is really important that everyone stay home when they are sick. Given the very high amount of disease transmission in our community right now, people should consider that any COVID symptoms could be COVID, no matter how mild, and seek out a test, Breanne Forbes Hubbard, population health manager for the Mount Rogers Health District, said.

We are seeing people test positive who only have one or a few mild symptoms that they thought were allergies or a cold, but turned out to be COVID. Masking remains an important way to stop disease transmission, but is especially critical right now. People should wear the highest-quality mask that they have when out in public, Forbes Hubbard said.

The omicron variant is considered highly transmissible between people and Southwest Virginias highest seven-day testing percentage  38.4% -- was in Bristol, which reported 292 new COVID-19 cases in the past seven days. The regional average reached a near-record 35.3% meaning more than a third of all people tested were positive for the virus.

Health experts also stress the importance of masking and quarantine if someone has been exposed to a person with COVID-19 or if they tested positive.

Anyone who is exposed to a positive COVID-19 case is urged to quarantine for five days, followed by five days of strict mask usage if they are unvaccinated and unboosted. Vaccinated people should commit to a 10-day period of strict mask usage around others, according to information provided by Allie Phillips, population health manager for the Lenowisco and Cumberland Plateau health districts

Anyone who is exposed is urged to get tested five days after the initial exposure, regardless of vaccination status.

Asymptomatic individuals who test positive, or those individuals with mild symptoms that resolve within five days, may end isolation on day five, followed by another five-day period of strict mask usage.

Symptomatic individuals, including those with fever or any other symptoms that have not resolved by day five, should remain in isolation until symptoms have improved.

Virginia Department of Health modeling forecast cases may soon begin declining.

Models project a continued steep rise in cases with a peak around January 23. Case rates may fall just as sharply after the peak, according to the VDH forecast. Omicron is less severe than delta, but this surge will cause a large increase of hospitalizations, which could reach record levels in the coming weeks.

Ballad Health System treated 358 COVID positive inpatients on Thursday, the most in a single day this year and the most since the delta surge in September. There were 72 patients in intensive care units and nine pediatric patients at Niswonger Childrens Hospital.

There have been 87 COVID-related deaths in the past week.

Current cases rates have already exceeded another VDH forecast for the Bristol Virginia-Bristol and Kingsport Tennessee area which predicted new confirmed cases will peak at 2,351 per week during the week ending Feb. 6.

That total was exceeded this week by nearly 150 as Sullivan County reported 2,256 new cases and combined with Bristol Virginias 292, hit 2,548.

Nearly half of the new cases were in populous Sullivan and Washington counties, which combined for more than 4,100 new cases. Greene County had 1,070 new cases and Hamblen County more than 1,200.

Sullivan County added 280 new cases per day over the past 14 days compared to 96 new cases daily over the previous two-week period, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. Washington County added an average of 227 new cases per day over the past 14 days, compared to 83 per day over the previous 14 days.

There are currently more than 13,500 active cases in those 10 Northeast Tennessee counties, including nearly 3,600 in Sullivan County and nearly 3,000 in Washington County.

While the surge has also sparked increased testing, it hasnt impacted turnaround times, Forbes Hubbard said.

We still have plenty of testing capacity at the health department for PCR tests. We have been seeing a good turnaround time for these, usually 24-48 hours. It has been closer on the 24 hours side, but of course we can't make any promises about how it will continue to go, Forbes Hubbard said.

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BRISTOL, Tenn.  In an effort to mitigate the effects of a surging wave of coronavirus infections from the omicron variant, Bristol Tennessee Schools will take the next three Mondays off.

Superintendent Annette Tudor gave an update on COVID case numbers and explained the reasons for their decision during a Bristol Tennessee School Board work session Thursday evening.

"Year to date, we have 725 positive student cases, 476 were in the first semester. In 14 days in the second semester we have had 249 positive students. For teachers and all staff, we've got 155 total year to date, 78 first semester, 77 in the first 14 days of second semester," Tudor said. "That's why we are having a hard time keeping things going, keeping our classrooms open, scrambling, because we've had as many staff out up 'til today as we had last semester, and those are just positive and confirmed cases."

In order to take the coming Mondays off, the Bristol, Tennessee Schools board has tapped into their limited stockpile days. Tudor said, the school system is left with only five days of the 13 allocated to them. That places the schools in a complicated situation if another outbreak happens.

On the Bristol Tennessee Schools website, the school district said the schedule would allow the school system to maximize classroom coverage with part-time educational assistants and substitute teachers. The move will also provide additional time to disinfect the school buildings.

The Bristol, Tennessee School Board is not the only school system in the Tri-Cities to make the decision to use its stockpile days. The Kingsport School Board closed schools Tuesday due to staffing and illness issues related to COVID.

Across Tennessee, various school districts have had to close due to COVID-related complications or sought permission from the Tennessee Department of Education to pivot back to virtual classes temporarily.

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BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn.  Megan Boswell remains in the Sullivan County Jail Friday after a judge denied a motion to reduce her $1 million bond.

Sullivan County Criminal Court Judge James M. Goodwin denied a motion by Boswells attorney Brad Sproles to reduce her bond and give her the opportunity to be out of the Sullivan County Jail prior to her trial, which is scheduled for September.

Bowell, 22, is charged in the 2020 murder of her infant daughter Evelyn Mae Boswell. She faces 19 counts including two counts of felony murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect, false reporting, failure to report a death under suspicious circumstances, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.

She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Her bond was initially set in May 2020.

Our position for filing the second bond motion is the proof has not changed. The only difference is Miss Boswell has been in continuous custody since Feb. 25, 2020, Sproles told the judge during the hearing. She is going on two years that she has been in custody. Through no fault of the state, the discovery process has taken that long due to the volume of information that was given to us.

Sullivan County District Attorney General Barry Staubus opposed the motion, saying the prosecution has been diligent, the case has a trial date and they are working to meet all of the deadlines.

Goodwin decided to make no change to the bond, based on no new factors and on the prior evidence presented.

Boswell, who was wearing a white mask looked straight ahead throughout the hearing. She never spoke during the hearing, only before when she was conferring with her attorney.

Asked by a reporter, Sproles said the ruling wasnt unexpected, following the 17-minute hearing.

Boswells next court appearance will be April 7, when Judge Goodwin will consider a motion for a change of venue, due to the high level of pre-trial publicity the case has received.

Goodwin told both sides the court has provided questionnaires to two different jury panels to try and gauge their knowledge of the case, which received worldwide media attention as it was unfolding in 2020. Evelyn Boswell, who was 15 months old, was reported missing in February 2020. Her remains were found March 6, 2020, on property owned by her grandfather. Authorities searched in multiple states.

It was made clear to the jurors that they would not be considered for the jury in this case, but we needed information, Goodwin said, adding both sides have received that information.

Asked afterward, Sproles supports moving the trial.

I think soIts a very high profile case and it seems like everybody that I talk to has an opinion, Sproles said. We want to avoid that. We want a jury that doesnt have a predisposed opinion and can make their decision based on what is presented at trial.

Sproles said he hasnt had a chance to review the questionnaires yet.

The panels the judge has given those to will not be considered for this case. Were doing that as a gauge to figure out where the level of pre-trial publicity is, Sproles said. Weve just gotten them back so it will take a little time to process those.

276-645-2532

Twitter: @DMcGeeBHC

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The four women, gathered around a table, didnt hold back as they told stories. Some cut to the bone. Some offered evidence of progress. Others evidenced work still needed. As they looked to the future, the women pledged to keep telling those stories, with the hope that conversations will begin anew.

The women  Margaret Edwards, Diane Hayes, Regina Roberts and Deborah Montgomery  serve as leaders of the Mount Pleasant Preservation Society Museum in downtown Marion. Last year, the museum lost its longtime executive director, William Fields, to COVID-19. Now, theyre charting a new path forward with Edwards serving as the executive director.

The four women are bound by the late Evelyn Thompson Lawrence, who taught them all at Carnegie School in Marion, which served Black students until it was closed in 1965 when integration occurred. Then Lawrence moved to Marion Primary School, where she taught until 1985.

Decades of Lawrences life were devoted to collecting and preserving the history of Smyth Countys Black residents. As one of the last members of Mount Pleasant Methodist Church, Lawrence had a vision to convert the church into a museum and community center to preserve that history and foster dialogue.

Lawrence died in 2015, just months after receiving the deed to the church, of which her grandmother, Sallie, who was born into slavery, was a founding member. Mount Pleasant was built by a group of free Blacks and former slaves in 1871 and served its congregation for 131 years.

Lawrence, who lost her daughter as an infant, held two people, both former students, especially close. She considered Fields her son and Edwards her daughter.

Late last year, Edwards and the other women emphasized that they want to keep the museum viable in the community and grow its presence, especially through forums, special events and sharing the history and stories of Smyth Countys Black community.

We want the museum to reflect the community  good and bad, said Edwards, who believes things have to change.  We have to realize as humanity that we cannot survive without each other. We breathe the same air.  The world belongs to all of us.

Edwards believes, We all are going to have to reimagine who we are.

We all have the same Creator, Roberts reflected.

As one people, Edwards said, theres history we do not want to repeat.

She contends, Theres so much we need to learn from history.

Thinking of her adult son and future grandchildren, Edwards said she doesnt want them to face the same experiences of prejudice and discrimination she has.

Roberts noted that they dont want to live in the past, nor do they want the past to hold anyone back. Weve got to keep moving, she declared.

Edwards acknowledged that when she witnesses discrimination, she becomes angry. She told of her own experience of working as a bank vice president in a more urban area but being unable to get a cashiers position locally.

The women told stories that illustrated the racism they experienced.

They spoke of a young Black boy killed in a car wreck and being denied burial in a private county cemetery because of his skin color.

Hayes told of school integration occurring when she was entering the fifth grade. On the school bus, she remembered, no one wanted to sit beside the Black students, and the bus driver told the white kids to kick Hayes long-legged sister.

The change was hard on the Black students who had pride in Carnegie and, Hayes said, knew that at Carnegie you were somebody.

She pointed out that Marion High School didnt name a Black cheerleader until the 1970s.

Hayes also remembered her mother moving the family into a white neighborhood, where no one spoke to them for a decade. She recalled her mom sitting up at night afraid someone would burn a cross in our yard.

Yet, Hayes said, she remains friends with some of the people from that neighborhood to this day.

Hayes also noted that job opportunities have improved over time. Her grandmother worked as a maid and cook, and her mother began her working life cleaning homes but was eventually able to attend nursing school.

While many circumstances have improved, they all agreed that change is still needed.

Roberts told of her 9-year-old and 7-year-old grandchildren recently listening to a Halloween story at school in which an older teacher told a story with a big Black man as the villain.

Big Black man plants a seed.  It plants a seed that festers, Roberts said.

Roberts daughter contacted the school, and the principal promised to address the situation and asked for suggestions to do better. Roberts told her daughter to act  to volunteer to be a storyteller for the school.

Hayes told of having the opportunity to speak to a Marion book club in recent months and how the conversation opened up and covered topics ranging from integration to hair.

We need more conversations, said Hayes, who believes more significant improvement wont be seen until we sit down and talk.

Through the News & Messenger and other forums, the Mount Pleasant leaders want to share more stories to increase understanding of the Black experience in Southwest Virginia.

Edwards said, We want to tell those stories. She reiterated, We need to start a conversation.

All in all, Edwards said of the stories, I think theres more of the good than bad.

She concluded, Wed still be slaves if it wasnt for the good people who said this is wrong.

The museum sits at 320 South Main St. in Marion. Donations may be sent to the nonprofit society at PO Box 733, Marion, VA 24354.

The museum is open regularly on Wednesdays from 1-2 p.m.
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

Many Smyth County residents need stronger access to broadband internet to search for employment, research school projects or just watch The Great British Bake Off on Netflix. Thanks to the Smyth County Public Library (SCPL) residents will be able to borrow better broadband.

Beginning Jan. 24, residents of Smyth County who do not currently have home internet of any kind will be able to borrow one of 50 Wi-Fi hot spots and 25 tablets with Wi-Fi hot spots embedded in them recently purchased by the library. The devices were purchased with a nearly $24,000 grant from the Emergency Connectivity Fund, a federal government program administered by the Federal Communications Commission.

The Orbic hot spots can connect three to five devices, from phones to laptops and can be loaned out for a period of up to two months.

SCPL Director Rose Likins explained that the extended loan period will allow residents to take advantage of internet access to do long-term schoolwork, to seek employment, participate in online training opportunities or online meetings and to access the wealth of online resources provided by the library.

The Samsung Galaxy tablets include an internal hot spot that can support internet access for three to five additional devices. The tablets will be loaned for one month at a time. Likins said because there are fewer of these devices, the library hopes to circulate them more frequently to help more community members.

Likins expects the program to be popular and impactful in the community.

In Smyth County, internet access will be a lifesaver for a lot of families. Hardwire internet hasn't reached a lot of these communities yet, and now they will have full internet access, she said.

According to Likins, only 70% of households in Smyth County currently have broadband internet.

We knew this, that there was this need, Likins said. Thats why we applied for the grant.

Likins said Smyth County residents have asked library staff in the past about receiving internet access, but the library has never had the funding. Now that the money is in place, Likins is excited to see the world that is waiting for residents who will now have complete internet access.

The devices operate on unlimited monthly data plans on the Verizon network. The library did note that download speeds may be slower once 25 gigabytes of data have been used in one month.

Because the grant is federal, the library is also required to monitor the internet activity on all lines to ensure the devices are not used for illicit activities. Additionally, all of the lines will be filtered in compliance with the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA).

The federal grant, with funding for the devices and data plans, will extend for the next year. Likins hopes to keep the program running past that timeline with or without the federal government.

The federal government is considering right now if they'll extend the grant. We hope the government will extend it, but, if not, we will seek local funding, Likins said.
State Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Abingdon and Deputy Majority Leader, Del. Israel OQuinn, R-Bristol, announced steps Thursday designed to help resolve issues with the city of Bristol Virginias landfill.

We are committed to working with the city of Bristol to implement effective and efficient solutions at the city-owned landfill. Everyone can agree that, despite ongoing efforts to address the problems, more assistance is needed," according to the joint statement.

The city has invested more than $3 million in efforts to address emissions that are causing widespread public and health concerns, but the problems remain. Earlier this month the city asked the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to provide expert assistance and funding to resolve the problems.

Pillion and OQuinn said they are working to engage the state agency.

We have introduced budget amendments in the Senate and House that will formally authorize the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to provide emergency technical assistance to the city of Bristol, Virginia in resolving ongoing issues with the city-owned landfill and to facilitate a long-term plan for the operational status of the landfill once any health, environmental, or quality of life issue has been mitigated," the joint statement continued.

The lawmakers also met personally this week with newly appointed DEQ Director Michael Rolband, to brief him on the situation. DEQ has been involved in monitoring the landfill.

"We wanted to immediately brief him on the matter and express our desire for the commonwealth to provide as much assistance as possible, in coordination and cooperation with the city of Bristol and any federal, state, or local agency, according to the statement.

Bristol Virginia Mayor Anthony Farnum said the support of the state legislators is appreciated.

Del. OQuinn and Sen. Pillion understand the complexity of the situation in Bristol. While weve been talking to the Virginia DEQ and the EPA and the engineers hired by the city, I think its important to know that weve got their support, and theyre doing everything they can to help us to help the citizens in Bristol that are dealing with this issue.

Additionally, new proposed legislation is designed to aid landfill gas recovery operations.

Del. OQuinn has introduced HB 558, the Virginia Energy Innovation Act, that will allow methane capture to count as part of a natural gas companys portfolio, to better incentivize the capture of bio-gas that is emitted from the Bristol landfill and other similar facilities.

This bill, along with the other measures we are pursuing, will give the city and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality several avenues to combat this issue, according to the statement.

The lawmakers said they recognize the angst surrounding the ongoing landfill situation.

We hear the concerns and frustrations that have been expressed. As citizen legislators, we live in the communities we represent and desire a solution as much as anyone. Our goal is to help the city achieve that as quickly and completely as possible, according to the statement.

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Its been well known for the better part of a year that Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Council President Nick Mosby were the subject of a federal investigation into their finances. Late Wednesday it was revealed the power couple spent thousands of dollars of campaign funds on high-powered law firms.

In reports filed with the state, both Mosbys reported legal expenses paid out to multiple law firms over the course of the most recent reporting period, which encompassed most of 2021.

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It matters because legal bills can be considered acceptable campaign expenses, but only through a narrow window of allowable circumstances under state law.

Marilyn Mosbys report shows her campaign spent nearly $48,000 on legal expenses  $37,500 to Reed Smith LLP in Washington, D.C. where her criminal defense attorney A. Scott Bolden practices, and $10,200 to Templeton Law Firm, owned by Granville Templeton, in downtown Baltimore.

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Nick Mosby, council president since late 2020, spent $52,500 in campaign funds on attorneys  $12,500 to Reed Smith and $40,000 to Kostelanetz & Fink, a Washington, D.C.-based firm.

Only Marilyn Mosby, Baltimores states attorney since 2015, has been charged with a crime. She was indicted last week on federal charges of perjury and making false statements.

She is accused of lying to avoid penalties for prematurely withdrawing thousands of dollars from her city retirement account, then using the funds to purchase two vacation homes in Florida. Federal prosecutors argue she said 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. Prosecutors also allege she lied on a mortgage loan application about having an outstanding federal tax debt.

What does Maryland law say about campaign funds being used for legal expenses?

Jared DeMarinis, director of the candidacy and campaign finance division of the Maryland State Board of Elections, said it is prohibited for any candidate or political committee to use campaign funds for legal expenses related to investigations or court proceedings that do not have a direct connection with the candidacy.

An opinion from the state Office of the Attorney General issued in 1993 found that an elected official is allowed to use campaign funds to pay debts stemming from the defense of a criminal prosecution directly related to alleged campaign improprieties.

While the state attorney generals opinion states legal fees must be related to a campaign-related criminal prosecution, charges dont have to be filed for a candidate to expense legal fees to their campaign, said Bruce L. Marcus, a Greenbelt defense attorney who in 2012 chaired a panel established by the legislature to recommend changes to Marylands campaign finance laws.

Legal fees incurred in connection with criminal investigations may arise prior to the inception of charges and, if the allegations relate to campaign activities, they may well be legal fees properly attributable to the campaign, he said.

Do the Mosbys legal expenses have a direct connection to their candidacies?

Its not clear.

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Federal investigators subpoenaed Marilyn Mosbys campaign treasurer Sharif Small in March seeking campaign accounting records and tax documents dating back to 2014. But, the charges lodged against Mosby thus far are unrelated to her campaign or her work in office.

Attorney Warren Brown represented Nick Mosbys campaign treasurer Carlton Saunders in relationship to the probe. He said Saunders received subpoenas related to both Marilyn Mosby and Nick Mosbys campaigns.

Marcus said expensing legal fees to a campaign is typically OK, so long as the legal services were campaign-related.

Legal fees incurred by a candidate have to be judged in the light of whether they are personal or related to campaign activities, Marcus said.

Personal expenses of a political candidate are generally not appropriate campaign expenditures.

Maryland Policy & Politics Weekdays Keep up to date with Maryland politics, elections and important decisions made by federal, state and local government officials. >

While the Mosbys both hold elected office, they campaign on different cycles. Marilyn Mosbys current term expires early next year, and she has two Democratic opponents vying to replace her. She has not formally announced plans to run for re-election, but has been fundraising for the effort. Nick Mosby was sworn in in December 2020 and is in the midst of a four-year term.

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What have the Mosbys said about this?

Very little. Both Mosbys have not answered inquiries, nor have campaign officials related to them, to explain how the expenses are related to the campaign. Marilyn Mosbys attorney also did not respond to a request for comment.

The states attorneys campaign, however, has addressed a similar issue in the recent past. Early last year, a complaint was filed with the state prosecutor asking for an investigation into a $3,250 payment made by Marilyn Mosbys campaign fund to her personal attorneys. Baltimore law firm Kramon & Graham represented the states attorney during a seven-month investigation by the Baltimore inspector general into her travel, gifts and businesses.

The Friends of Marilyn Mosby campaign issued a statement in February saying it initially considered the inspector generals investigation a campaign matter because it dealt with her electoral viability.

Once the scope of the investigation evolved and expanded, it became increasingly clear that it was a legal matter that encompassed more than her electoral viability, which is why she ceased using campaign funds, according to the statement. There was never an intent to mislead, which is why she reported the initial expense of $3,250 in her routine campaign finance disclosures.

In a statement Thursday, the campaign said, Following advisement from the State Board of Elections, it was determined that campaign funds could be used for legal services related to campaign finance activity.

But the campaign did not explain how the services were related to the campaign.
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears did not preside over the state Senate on Thursday after coming into contact Wednesday with someone who has COVID-19, spokesman Chris Saxman said.

Earle-Sears tests for COVID-19 daily and tested negative on Thursday, he said. She will remain out on Friday as well.

Signs at the state Capitol recommend masks in order to prevent the spread of COVID; Earle-Sears does not wear a mask.

Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, president pro tempore of the Senate, presided over the chamber Thursday.
UPDATE

The suspect in the officer shooting was taken into custody about 10 a.m. this morning. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will be in charge of investigating the incident.

BRISTOL, Tenn.  A deputy in Sullivan County has been seriously wounded in an officer-involved shooting, authorities said Friday morning.

Deputies encountered a man with active warrants around midnight, Capt. Andy Seabolt with the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office said. The man ran from deputies and barricaded himself in a home on Riley Hollow Road in the Hickory Tree community.

Responding deputies were met with gunfire that came from inside of the home and one deputy was struck, Seabolt said. That deputy was transported to the hospital for medical treatment. His condition is unknown as of 9 a.m.

Seabolt said negotiations are still ongoing with the suspect. Residents are asked to stay away from the scene and those nearby have been asked to remain inside their homes.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will be handling the investigation. No information about the officer or the suspect has been released.

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HICKORY  Would you rather be buying a home for yourself and your family than paying rent? Would you like to create a foundation for building wealth for your family? If so, you may be interested in learning more about homeownership through Habitat for Humanity of Catawba Valley.

Habitat is currently building in the Ridgeview neighborhood of Hickory and looking for individuals interested in being homeowners in this neighborhood. Individuals who are accepted into the homeownership program will be taking on an affordable mortgage loan to purchase a Habitat home. Habitat homes are built to be safe, sturdy, and energy efficient.

Applications for the Habitat for Humanity homeownership program will be available on the Habitat website, by email, by mail, or in person at the Habitat offices (772 Fourth St., SW, Hickory) between Feb. 7-18.

Applications must be returned to the Habitat offices by Feb. 25 before 4 p.m. or mailed and postmarked by Feb. 25.

A selection committee will be looking for those individuals interested in living in the Ridgeview neighborhood of Hickory. Visit the Habitat website at www.habitatcatawbavalley.org for more information. Applications can be found on the Habitat website, requested by phone at 828-328-4663 extension 312, or requested by email at andrew@habitatcatawbavalley.org.

Habitat for Humanity of Catawba Valley was founded in 1985, and is an ecumenical, Christian-based organization dedicated to the premise that everyone should have a safe and affordable place to live. Through engaging homebuyers as partners, Habitat seeks to build homes as well as strength, self-reliance, and stability.
" " Number One Observatory Circle, the residence of the U.S. vice president, is located on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. The Washington Post/Getty Images

Most people probably know that the U.S. president lives and works in the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., in Washington, D.C., one of the most famous homes on the planet, and a symbol of the power and prestige of the presidency.

But what about the vice president, the No. 2 in the line of succession to the nation's highest office? It's a post that's become increasingly important as a source of policy advice and legislative lobbying muscle in presidential administrations, but does it come with an official residence as well?

The answer is yes. Since the mid-1970s, the vice president has had a mansion of his (now her) own as well, and though it's not as well known as the White House, it's pretty fancy and historic in its own right.

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Where Does the VP Live?

The vice president's residence, located on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory about 2.5 miles (4.02 kilometers) northwest of the White House, doesn't have a similarly iconic name. Instead, it's often referred to prosaically as the VPR, or by using its address, Number One Observatory Circle.

"It's probably due to the fact that a catchy name simply didn't develop," explains Kyle Kopko, an adjunct professor of political science at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and the author of two books on vice presidential candidates. "The White House wasn't originally called that. It developed over time. Originally the White House was called the executive mansion, or president's mansion, or various generic combinations throughout history." According to the White House Historical Association, the presidential mansion wasn't officially named the White House until 1901.

But don't let that nondescript nomenclature fool you. No. 1 Observatory Circle, built in 1893, is an ornate three-story Queen Anne-style brick Victorian home with 9,150 square feet (850 square meters) of interior space, according to Gail S. Cleere's 1989 book, "The House on Observatory Hill: Home of the Vice President of the United States."

"The demands of the vice presidency and the need for security necessitate a government-owned house for the vice president and the second family," Kopko says. "The establishment of an official vice presidential residence also coincides with the rise of the office's informal power. Historically, the office of the vice president was not very powerful, and the vice president mainly assumed ceremonial duties. However, that changed over time. Vice presidents now play significant advisory roles, oversee policy, and assume a variety of responsibilities on behalf of the president."

" " Prince Charles of Great Britain talks with Vice President Dan Quayle at the vice president's residence on Feb. 17, 1989. Bettmann/Getty Images

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The History of the Residence

Designed by Washington architect Leon E. Dessez and built by a Philadelphia-based construction firm, the house originally was intended to serve as the home of the superintendent of the Naval Observatory, and to be a "gracious country house after the style of the time," as Cleere wrote.

The ground floor consists of a reception hall, living room, sitting room, sun porch and dining room and pantry, plus offices that were added on the home's north side, according to Cleere's book. The second floor contains two bedrooms, a study, and a den, while the third floor has four more rooms, which originally served as servants' quarters and storage areas. In the basement, there's a kitchen, laundry room and more storage.

A dozen observatory superintendents lived in the house from 1893 to 1927. But the mansion was coveted by various officers who held the post of Chief of Naval Operations, and in 1928, Congress finally passed a law giving it to the CNO at the time, Admiral Charles Frederick Hughes (known as "Handlebars" because of his lush moustache). He moved into the house the following year, according to Cleere's account.

Vice presidents, though, had to find their own places to live. Most either resided in their own homes, or as Calvin Coolidge did during the Warren G. Harding administration, lived in hotels. Coolidge, who became president after Harding's death in 1923, may have been the first to advocate the notion of giving the vice president an official home, in keeping with the dignity of the position. "The great office should have a settled and permanent habitation and a place, irrespective of the financial ability of its temporary occupant," Coolidge wrote in his memoirs.

By the mid-1960s, though, the expense of outfitting vice presidential residences with adequate security and communications equipment prompted Congress to pass a bill authorizing construction of a new home for the vice president on a portion of the Naval Observatory grounds, at a cost of $750,000 (about $6 million in today's dollars). But as the cost of the Vietnam war escalated, then-vice president Hubert Humphrey asked that the project be delayed as "an example of prudent budget practices," and the new house was never built, according to this 2017 Indianapolis Star article.

" " Vice President George H.W. Bush in the vice president's residence in 1983. David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

Meanwhile, the government continued to spend a fortune outfitting vice presidential residences. After President Richard Nixon picked Gerald R. Ford to replace Spiro Agnew as vice president when Agnew resigned in 1973, construction workers descended upon Ford's home in Alexandria, Virginia, to make extensive modifications, including installation of bullet-resistant windows. Those retrofits were only needed for nine months, because Ford eventually replaced Nixon as president.

Eventually, as Cleere's book notes, Congress decided that what was, at the time, called the Admiral House presented another, cheaper alternative. In 1974, Congress passed legislation that took Number One Observatory Circle away from the CNO and made it the vice presidential residence. (The CNO was relocated to Tingey House, an 1804 Georgian-style mansion that stands in the Washington Navy Yard.)

But the transition didn't occur right away. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller never actually moved into Number One Observatory Circle, though he used it for official events. Walter Mondale, who moved into the mansion in 1977, was its first vice presidential occupant.

Over the years, various modifications have been made to the vice presidential residence. Dan Quayle, who served as vice president during the George H.W. Bush administration, added a swimming pool, according to The Hill. Karen Pence, the wife of Donald J. Trump's vice president Mike Pence, added a beehive as a reminder of bees' important role in agriculture, CNN reported in 2017.

After Kamala Harris was sworn in as vice president of the United States in January 2021, she and her husband Doug Emhoff didn't immediately move in. Instead, they temporarily took up residence in Blair House, the presidential guest residence at 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House, so that repairs and maintenance could be completed.

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Now That's Interesting When he was vice president, Al Gore often visited the Naval Observatory's telescope to gaze at the cosmos, as Charles Denyer, author of the 2017 book "Number One Observatory Circle," told USA Today.
Mr. Binder is an HNN intern.

Gary Kornblith is a professor of history at Oberlin College, where he has taught since 1981. His publications includeand, with Carol Lasser,. His most recent work is, the inaugural volume of Rowman & Littlefields American Controversies Series. His books can be located for purchase online In 2005 I was at the book exhibit at the OAH (Organization of American Historians) Convention in San Jose looking for a book to assign undergraduates on the Missouri Compromise. The standard secondary account of the subject was more than 50 years old, and I was hoping to find a collection of primary documents that would be suitable for classroom use. When I asked a sales rep at a publishers booth whether his company had any such volume in the works, he replied, What was the Missouri Compromise?

Heading home from the conference, I ran into Doug Egerton at the airport and told about this disconcerting exchange. Doug said that he was editing a new series for Rowman & Littlefield on major controversies in American history and that I should write a book for the series about slavery as a political issue in the early republic. I jumped at the opportunity. The projected format for the new series was to combine the kind of historiographical discussion found in Harlan Davidsons American History Series with the kind of primary documents featured in the Bedford/St. Martins Series in History and Culture. My hope was to provide undergraduates  and others as well -- with an accessible sourcebook for exploring why slavery was such a bone of contention in the early republic. Todays students know that slavery was wrong, but they find its evil so obvious that they have trouble understanding why people ever supported it and why it proved so difficult to abolish in a country supposedly founded on the principle that all men are created equal.



What attracted you to this period of history?



As a sophomore at Amherst College, I took John William Wards course on Jacksonian America and got hooked on the early nineteenth century. As a graduate student, I  like many others of my generation  looked to E.P. Thompsons Making of the English Working Class for a model, and I wrote my dissertation on master artisans in New England, 1789-1850. The great thing about the early republic as a period is it is full of dramatic change and upheavals. It starts with the first American Revolution and ends with the second (to use Beardian terminology). In between, the country quadruples in size and sextuples in population; the Industrial Revolution launches; and the struggle for African American emancipation moves from the margins to the center of the national narrative. What could be more exciting than all that?



What was the decision process like in deciding what to include or exclude in terms of the primary documents?



Painful! I wanted to include the well-known voices and documents that one would normally learn about but also the more obscure. The idea was to show a wide spectrum and different dimensions of this complicated debate. There were white southerners who pushed for emancipation, white northerners who didnt, and so on; students should have a chance to discover that the historical record is not neat and predictable but instead full of surprises that complicate easy assumptions about how people in the past thought and acted.



Obviously, we are focusing on the Early Republic is there one person whom you would consider the most influential in terms of the slavery debate?



Thomas Jefferson. You cant get around him. He is the author of the greatest polemic for freedom. Both sides in the argument over American slavery quoted himthe Notes on the State of Virginia as well as the Declaration of Independence. He believed that blacks were human beings with equal human rights--though not equal abilities--and he acknowledged that slavery contradicted his most cherished principles. Yet he remained a slaveholder throughout his adult life. He decried miscegenation and could not imagine a racially integrated republic. Yet he fathered children by Sally Hemings and failed to pursue a two-state solution (e.g., a black colony in the Louisiana territory) when he had the opportunity as president. It is easy to attack Jefferson today as a hypocrite or worse, but he epitomized the tragedy of what Edmund Morgan has termed the American paradox of slavery and freedom.



Historians have long argued about whether or not the Civil War was an irrepressible conflict. Much less has been written about the irrepressibility of the Missouri Compromise. Could the Missouri Crisis have turned out differently?



Of course! The Missouri Compromise was not inevitable. It seems to me quite conceivable that disunion would have occurred in 1820 had both sides in the debate hung true to their original positions. Would the result of have been civil war at that point in American history? Many contemporaries feared such an outcome, which was a crucial reason that Clay et al. succeeded in forging a compromise. Yet it is also possible that disunion in 1820 would have been peaceful, at least in the short term, and that the so-called free states would have been better off untethered to the South. John Quincy Adams, for one, thought such a path worth serious consideration  at least in the privacy of his diary, though not in his public pronouncements. I include Adamss reflections in the book.



Throughout your analysis in the first section of the book, you bring in several different scholars each with their differing views about the period. Can you explain your purpose in doing this?



I wish to convey to students and other non-specialists that history is contested terrain even when historians agree about the facts. Doing history involves complex judgments that you cannot score on an AP test. I want students to think for themselves and to join in the debate over competing explanations of why things happened the way they didnot just to scribble down what one expert or textbook says is The Truth.



This is your third book designed more for use in the classroom than the traditional monograph. What draws you to this format?



I certainly value monographs and am engaged in writing one right now. But more than a researcher, I am a teacher, and I am proud of my vocation. I like to raise provocative questions in classroom settings and to push students to think outside the box. If I cant interest a twenty-year-old in a historical problem, then I havent done my job.



What is your current project?



Carol Lasser and I are working on the history of race in Oberlin, Ohio. Antebellum Oberlin was a hotbed of abolitionism and openly welcomed African Americans at a time when that racism ran rampant in the North as well as the South. By 1860, blacks comprised one-fifth of Oberlins population. They comprise the same proportion of the towns population today. Yet over the course of more than 150 years, Oberlin has not achieved racial equality. The average income of black households remains considerably lower than that of white households, while the poverty rate among blacks is much higher. Our goal is to understand why a town that got off to such a progressive start has been unable thus far to resolve the American dilemma.
Steven Lomazow is the co-author (with Eric Fettmann) of FDR's Deadly Secret (PublicAffairs, January 2010).

The four years of research involved in writing my recent book with journalist Eric Fettmann, FDRs Deadly Secret, has brought to light a new degree of insight into the mental status of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the last year of his life and takes the understanding of his thought processes at Yalta to an entirely new level.

Unequivocally, Roosevelt was suffering from frequent episodic lapses of consciousness known to neurologists as complex partial seizures. They were witnessed and reported by dozens of observers, and our book includes graphic descriptions by the likes of Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins, New York Times editor Turner Catledge and Senator Frank Maloney of Connecticut. Perhaps the most dramatic and historically important of all was only recently discovered in the Walter Trohan papers at the Herbert Hoover Library in Iowa.

A January 5, 1948 memo to the editor of the ChicagoTribune by reporter Orville Doc Dwyer reports his interview with a Doctor Louis E. Schmidt, a very close friend and confidante of Roosevelts daughter Anna (then in her second marriage to reporter John Boettinger):

The doctor told me that from what Anna has outlined to him Franklin D. Roosevelt was for a long time before he diedand particularly when he went to Yalta and Tehran (sic)suffering from hemorrhages of the brain. The doctor said he died from a big hemorrhage but for several years before his death he had a lot of little hemorrhages, small blood vessels bursting in his brain. When these burstings occurredand they were frequent during his last yearshe would be unconscious (completely out) although sitting up and apparently functioning for periods of from a few seconds to several minutes. Dr Schmidt said he has no doubt from his conversations with Anna that these were occurring regularly at the time he was meeting with Churchill and Stalin and holding other momentous conferences of the utmost importance to the United States. He said the effect would be that he would be cognizant of what was going on, then suddenly lose the thread completely for anywhere from a few seconds to two or three minutesand that he could not possibly have known what was going on in between.

Through the eyes of a neurologist, this remarkable account tells a dramatic story. First, it is clear that Anna, who was kept in the dark about the whole truth of her fathers health, misinterpreted the seizures as burstings, what today we would call transient ischemic attacks or TIAs. This misinterpretation was compounded by Trohan when he reported them to Dr. Karl Wold, who created a firestorm by reporting them in a long article in Look Magazine in 1948.

Even more importantly, the Dwyer memorandum accurately reflects the historical importance and true impact of President Roosevelts neurological behavior at the end of his life. The report is by no means unique, but it does reflect the observations of one closest of all to the boss. Perkins describes the seizures (which she also did not recognize as such) as frequent and occurring for a few years.

Aside from these frank lapses of consciousness, it is highly probable that less severe episodes had a noticeable yet tangible transitory effect on Roosevelts mental performance. This, combined with the panoply of other medical problems he had, explains quite well how certain observers found him lucid and competent while others met with a quite different state of affairs. It also explains a globally diminished ability to multitask, quite significant in a man who prided himself as the ultimate hub of the wheel in virtually every important matter of policy. Also to be factored into the equation is a greatly diminished ability to read due to a rapidly expanding malignant brain tumor.

With the preceding in mind, the proceedings and aftermath of Yalta can be considered in an entirely new context. It is unlikely that FDR gave away very much at all with respect to Western Europe at Yalta. The Curzon Line had been established as the eastern border of Poland at Teheran, and, by the time of Yalta, Stalin had already recognized the Lublin puppet government. Churchill had been talking to Stalin for months about spheres of influence in the Balkans and his report to Parliament upon his return from the Crimea was equally or more optimistic than that of Roosevelts address to congress on March 1. Roosevelts blind spot for the (non-cancerous) malignancy of Uncle Joe far predated any mental compromise.

Where Roosevelts health did have a significant impact at Yalta was with respect to China. On February 8, 1945 at 3:30 pm, Joseph Stalin walked into a private meeting with Roosevelt and in thirty minutes, without the knowledge or consent of its leader, took everything that China had spent fourteen years and over twenty million lives fighting for. It is unlikely that a mentally intact president would have agreed to such an accommodation. The implications with respect to future American/Chinese/Soviet relations were monumental.

In October 1943, Stalin informed Secretary of State Cordell Hull that the Soviets would enter the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated and asked for nothing in return, reaffirming this promise at Teheran a few weeks later. Despite this, a secret agreement, specifically excluded from the final communique, was drafted and signed by the heads of the three Yalta participants, with the consent of American General George Marshall, Admirals King and Leahy, but over the objection of British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden:

In return for the Soviets entering the war against Japan: The status quo in Outer Mongolia shall be preserved: The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz: (a) the southern portion of Sakhalin as well as all the islands adjacent to it be returned to the Soviet Union, (b) the commercial port of Dairen shall be internationalized, the pre-eminent interests of the Soviet Union in this port being safeguarded and the lease of Port Arthur as a naval base of the U.S.S.R. restored, (c) the Chinese-Eastern Railroad and Southern Manchurian Railroad which provides an outlet to Dairen shall be jointly operated by the establishment of a joint Soviet-Chinese Company it being understood that the pre-eminent interests of the Soviet Union shall be safeguarded and that China shall retain full sovereignty in Manchuria The Kurile Islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union. It is understood, that the agreement concerning Outer Mongolia and the ports and railroads referred to above will require concurrence (emphasis added) of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. The President [sic] will take measures in order to obtain this concurrence on advice from Marshall [sic] Stalin. The heads of the Three Great Powers have agreed that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated. For its part the Soviet Union expresses readiness to conclude with the National Government of China a pact of friendship and alliance between the U.S.S.R. and China in order to render assistance to China with its armed forces for the purpose of liberating China from the Japanese yoke.

As Don Lohbeck succinctly underscores:

By this agreement Roosevelt and Churchill signed to the Soviet Union not only pre-eminent interests in the great Manchurian port of Dairen and full control of the naval base which protects it, but also pre-eminent interests in the railroads which lead from the Soviet Union to Dairen and split Manchuria from the northwest to the south.

Stalins intentions about Manchuria were quite clear, evidenced by the statement the President [sic] will take measures in order to obtain this concurrence on advice from Marshall [sic] Stalin, that refers directly to a delay, agreed to by Roosevelt (on the pretense of a possible security leak in the Chiang Government), in even informing Chiang of the agreement until after the Soviets had transferred twenty-five divisions to the Manchurian border. These troops would ultimately serve to secure the surrender of Japanese war materiel to Communist forces, directly contrary to the American policy that only the Nationalists should receive them.

The China agreement was excluded from the final official protocol of the conference. Likewise, no mention of it, or China whatsoever, was made by Roosevelt in his March 1 report to Congress, despite its having the most radical and long-standing influence upon the future of the world of any decision made at Yalta. Roosevelt instead cryptically announced:

I think the Crimean Conference  ought to spell the end of the system of unilateral action the exclusive alliances the spheres of influence, the balances of power and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries  and have always failed.

The exact opposite was the case. Worse yet, the two Americans with the greatest understanding of the long-term consequences of the agreement, Ambassador to China Patrick Hurley and Chiangs chief of staff, General Albert C. Wedemeyer, were not present or previously consulted! It was also withheld from Douglas MacArthur, the military commander of the Pacific theatre.

Aware of it were Averill Harriman, who facilitated the negotiations, translator and future Ambassador Charles Chip Bohlen, State Department advisor (and later convicted Soviet spy) Alger Hiss, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including George Marshall, who had demanded Soviet entry into the Pacific war at any price. It was also soon known to pro-communist and pro-imperialist members of the State Department. Roosevelts close advisor at Yalta and future secretary of state in the Truman administration, James F. Jimmy Byrnes, was kept completely in the dark.

After getting wind of the agreement, Hurley set out for Washington. The State Department told him that no such agreement had been made (emphasis in text). With his characteristic Oklahoma cowboy panache, with my ears back and my teeth skinned, to have a fight about what had been done, he went to the White House. He had not seen Roosevelt for over six months and was taken aback by the presidents physical condition. When the President [sic] reached up that fine, firm, strong hand of his to shake hands with me, what I found in my hand was a very loose bag of bones the skin seemed to be pasted down on his cheek-bones; and you know, all the fight I had in me went out.

At first, Roosevelt flatly denied that any agreement had been made. Hurley refused to blame his leader for the blunder:

The sickness of death was already upon President Roosevelt when he attended the Yalta Conference I am certain that he believed he was telling the truth when he said that no secret agreement such as I described had been entered into at Yalta.

Afterwards, he met with continued resistance from the pro-communist elements in the State Department, claiming that by accepting British and Soviet spheres of influence, FDR had repudiated the principles of the Atlantic Charter and being taken advantage of [in] (his) physical and mental condition, just as he had been imposed at Yalta (emphasis in text).

On into March, Hurley continued to press the issue, finally prevailing upon Roosevelt to allow him to examine the records from Yalta, in turn discovering the secret Agreement Regarding Japan that he perceived as secretly sabotaging, setting aside and cancelling every principle and objective for which the United States professed to be fighting World War II. He questioned the right of America to give away portions of territory of another sovereign nation.

The president admitted that Hurleys fears appeared justified and gave him a special directive to go to London and Moscow to speak with Churchill and Stalin to ameliorate the betrayal of China and return to the traditional American policy in the Far East.

In a letter to Atlantic Monthly on September 28, 1950, Hurley wrote:

There is a tendency now to charge the Yalta Secret Agreement to President Roosevelt. President Roosevelt is dead, but I can say that he is not guilty. He was a very sick man at Yalta,* and the surrender of China to the Communists in the Secret Agreement of Yalta was engineered by the officials of the American State Department under the brilliant leadership of a young American, Alger Hiss.

Wedemeyer had a similar experience. Accompanying Hurley on his return from China in February, after stopping en route to meet with MacArthur in Manila, he arrived in Washington in March to meet with his commander-in-chief. Like Hurley, he was shocked at Roosevelts physical appearance and demeanor. Catching the president in the midst of one of his frequent seizures:

His color was ashen, his face drawn and his jaw drooping. I had difficulty in conveying information to him because he seemed in a daze. Several times I repeated the same idea because his mind did not seem to retain or register.

As Roosevelts mind began to clear, conversation turned to active support of independence of Indochina from the French, then to China itself. The president mentioned that Chiang had sent communications in praise of Wedemeyers efforts and Wedemeyer, in turn, expressed confidence that Chiang had been most cooperative in supporting Chinese participation in the war effort. When he raised the issue that the Communists would undoubtedly cause problems as soon as the war ended, he noted (Roosevelt) did not seem to understand what I was talking about.

Shortly afterwards, Wedemeyer met over lunch with Secretary of War Stimson, reassuring him of Chiangs sincerity in restoring order to China despite a less than optimal knowledge of modern military techniques. He also signed off on Ambassador Hurleys efforts to remove certain (pro-communist) members of his staff at the embassy. The secretary then pressed him for his opinion on Roosevelts health, to which he replied that he was shocked to find that the President [sic] seemed to be in Never-Never land most of the time he spent with him, picking nervously at his food and going off on tangents. Then, the Secretary admonished me not to mention the Presidents [sic] physical condition to anyone.

Even the staunch Roosevelt supporter Robert Sherwood, while unabashedly defending Roosevelts decisions at Yalta concerning Poland and the United Nations, admitted:

Only at the end of seven days of long meetings, covering a wide range of tremendous subjects, did he make a concession which, in my belief, he would not have made if he had not been tired out and anxious to the negotiations relative to Russias entry into the war with Japan.

He further sustained the objection of diplomat Sumner Welles, quoting him directly:

[T]he restoration to Russia of the right formerly possessed by the Imperial Russian Govermnents to dominate Manchuria through control of the Chinese Eastern and Southern Manchurian railroads, and the lease of Port Arthur as a naval base.make it altogether impossible for a new unified China to exercise full sovereignty within Manchuria, all the more objectionable in view of Chinas absence from the conference table where they were decided.

Sherwood cited the statement the heads of the Three Great Powers have agreed that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated, as the most assailable point in the entire Yalta record, noting if China had refused to agree to any of the Soviet claims, presumably the U.S. and Britain would have been compelled to join in enforcing them.

An enhanced knowledge of Franklin Roosevelts health is essential to the understanding of the processes of his decision making. Nowhere is this more evident than with the events that occurred at and following Yalta.

*This is the first use of the term Sick Man at Yalta, which Hurley later publicly reiterated in his 1951 testimony before a committed of the House of Representatives. Hurley deserves full credit for coining this ignominious term.

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A graduate of Oberlin College, Caroli holds a master's degree in Mass Communications from the Annenberg School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University. She is the author of "First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama," the fourth edition of which will be published by Oxford on July 15.

Eighty-one years ago this summer, an African American woman from Chicagos South Sidejust a couple miles from where Michelle Robinson Obama grew upmade national headlines. Her name was Jessie DePriest. Her husband, a Republican, had achieved an historic first just months earlier when he became the first African American ever elected to Congress from a northern state. The DePriests home is now on the National Register of Historic Places but elsewhere their record has faded.

The election of 1928 is best remembered not for Oscar DePriests achievement but for Herbert Hoovers landslide victory over Al Smith, a Catholic from New York. Five states from the Solid South had broken ranks and voted Republican, and even though many attributed this shift solely to anti-Catholic sentiment, the Republicans were determined to protect these gains and possibly expand upon them.

And that left First Lady Lou Hoover with a problem. As she confronted the job of shaping her first White House social schedule, including a tea for congressmens wives, she realized that noAfrican American had been prominently featured as a White House guest since Theodore Roosevelt dined with Booker T. Washington in 1901. Although Washington had achieved considerable public recognition for his work at the Tuskegee Institute and for his writing and public speaking, many Americans judged him an unworthy guest of the President of the United States. His very presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue grated with some, and one newspaper headline deemed it the most damnable outrage ever.

Although differing accounts of the event raise questions about what really happenedhow the invitation was offered, whether the meal was lunch or dinner, the presence of Edith Rooseveltthere is absolutely no question about the political fallout. It was loud and hurtful, and it continued for years. Whenever a race riot or lynching occurred, someone was sure to blame Theodore Roosevelts hospitality for stirring up trouble.

A close look at Lou Hoovers papers shows that she never considered omittingJessie DePriest, but she understood that one wrong move could do extensive political damage. Both her sharp intelligence and Quaker egalitarianism came into play as she and her staff struggled with how to proceed. Rather than one or two large teas, as had been customary, she decided to give five over a three-week period, and the last one on June 12 would include Jessie DePriest. Each guest that day had been carefully screened for her views on matters involving race, and it is telling that to assemble even fifteen, Lou Hoover included her sister, her secretary, and a couple of congressional wives who had already attended earlier, much larger gatherings. White House staff, accustomed to directing all African Americans to the service entrance, received strict instructions that Mrs. DePriest should be escorted through the main entrance to the Green Room.

The elegant Jessie DePriest, who died in 1961, apparently left no record of her impressions of that day but a photograph of her in fashionable flapper attire shows how carefully she had prepared. The chief usher singled her out as the most dignified woman in the room, and her husband verified that she had received courteous and respectful treatment. White House staff, many of them African Americans who had worked there for decades and knew that other African Americans, both slave and free, had helped construct the presidents house, could hardly believe their eyes. One of Lou Hoovers secretaries recalled that the butler who served the tea cakes seemed particularly moved: You can imagine what this meant to himto see one of his race being entertained by the wife of the President [sic].

Although the Hoovers did not publicize the event, word got out and objections came in from across the nation. Several southern state legislatures passed resolutions condemning the Presidents wife, and an Alabama newspaper insisted she had offered the nation an arrogant insult. Letters from both men and women chastised her for bringing disgrace to the White House, damaging her husbands political standing and setting back race relations. Even the DePriests home town produced critics. One Chicago woman wrote Mrs. Hoover: This nation of white people elected you and your husband to take care of the nationand we did not think we would have to be ashamed of our actions later.

Rather than defend herself, or even acknowledge her critics, Mrs. Hoover stayed focused on her own agenda as she and her staff moved on. In four years as First Lady she piled up a substantial number of firstsinviting noticeably pregnant women to stand with her in the receiving line at official functions and speaking on the radio in feminist terms, telling young boys it was as much their responsibility as their sisters to help around the house. But the Great Depression that marred her husbands tenure also left her courage and innovations unheralded.

The eight decades separating Oscar DePriests election in 1928 and that of Barack Obama in 2008 brought increased prominence for presidents wives. Once written off as trivial footnotes, presidential spouses have captured headlines as they campaigned on their own, spearheaded movements, acted as trusted advisers to the Oval Office, and traveled the world as the nations unofficial ambassadors. Not all have chosen to take advantage of their potentially powerful platform, but those who did changed history.

Although unpaid and unelected, many presidents wives achieved world wide recognition for their own accomplishments. Propelled from the First Lady springboard, Hillary Clinton catapulted to elective office herself, and then challenged old thinking about the viability of a woman candidate for president. When President-elect Obama invited her to join his cabinet, the Boston Globe reported that women in remote villages of Ecuador were beaming at the thought that she would become the next Secretary of State.

Michelle Obama has no doubt studied her predecessors records and noted both their accomplishments and flaws. But in her next walk through the White House, she might want to stop a moment in front of the portrait of Lou Hoover. Monumental changes have occurred since that afternoon tea that included Jessie DePriest. What has not changedin fact, it remains clearer than ever beforeis the power a presidential spouse holdsto take a stand, make a statement, and help set a course.
Robert Tignor (Ph.D. Yale University) is Professor Emeritus and the Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Princeton University and the former three-time chair of the history department.

Millions of Egyptians have taken to the streets in the last week, demanding the removal of President Hosni Mubarak from office and an end to dictatorial rule. These events catch many by surprise. The conventional wisdom is that Egyptians have grown accustomed to autocratic rule, even take comfort when led by a charismatic figure. The names of the great men, and now and then great women, of Egyptian history abound: Ramses II, Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Saladin, Napoleon Bonaparte, Muhammad Ali, Lord Cromer, and last, but far from least, Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak. Although Nasser and Sadat announced that they had restored native-born Egyptians to power and claimed to be from village and poorer city quarter roots, as it turned out they were just as autocratic and repressive as their predecessors.

Is it in fact true that the Egyptian populace has been passive, even desirous to live under the protection of charismatic and powerful rulers? Does their present day protest mark behavior unprecedented in Egypts history? In truth, on quite a few occasions the people have risen up to challenge unpopular and repressive rulers, just as they are doing now. Yet until the present moment foreign armies or the Egyptian army itself have suppressed these rebellions, some of which have been bloody. Let us briefly consider the most dramatic challenges to autocracy in modern times and plot their outcomes.

We begin with the French invasion of 1798. Seeking to create a French colony in Egypt, Napoleon Bonaparte employed the same strategies that had been so effective in his European conquests. He announced that his forces came as liberators. They were in Egypt to rid the country of hated Mamluk rulers and bring the benefits of the French Revolution. The Egyptians did not agree. They saw them as alien conquerors, imposing unwanted values and institutions. They rose in revolt, a rebellion that the French forces brutally repressed. Having driven the French from the country, when prospects for regime change appeared unusually favorable, the people saw a new strong man, Muhammad Ali (ruled 1805-48), install himself and his family in power. He established a dynasty that remained until overthrown in the military coup detat of 1952.

Under Muhammad Alis grandson, Khedive Ismail (ruled 1863-79), popular elements again surfaced to challenge the ruling elite. On this occasion, British troops suppressed a popular movement, seeking representative government. Led by young, Egypt-born military officers, they aspired to lessen growing foreign influence over the country and to create a parliamentary system. The ensuing British invasion of Egypt in 1882 ushered in their occupation of the country, which lasted until 1956.

Next, in 1919, Egyptians fiercely challenged Britains dominance of the country. At the close of World War I, during which Egyptians suffered grievously, Woodrow Wilsons proclamations in favor of national self-determination found a receptive audience among educated Egyptians. His words inspired the people to demand independence and to oppose Britains presence in the country. Their widespread revolt has many parallels with todays uprising. Like the present protest movement, the political authority of the central government collapsed. The countryside hived off from the center; in some areas local notables created independent republics. Only with great difficulty and sleights of hand did the British reestablish their authority. Their shrewdest move was to proclaim Egypts independence in 1922 while reserving for themselves most of the real levers of power, including the stationing of a large contingent of British armed forces in the country.

This awkward situation prevailed until the end of World War II when popular resistance movements once again made their appearance. Their participants agitated in favor of political independence and social and economic change, a movement that culminated in black Saturday (January 22, 1952). Egyptian rioters torched major British properties in Cairo and killed ten British subjects even while a massive British army of 100,000 men sat on their rifles in their military base in the Suez Canal zone. The government had to call in the Egyptian army to restore order. The British occupation was in effect over though it took another two years for the British statesmen to see the new political realities and to sign an agreement with Egypt to evacuate their soldiers from the country. Yet, even here, when so much of the heavy lifting was being done by ordinary folk, the group that took advantage of the power vacuum was the Free Officers movement, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. These men carried out a coup detat in July 1952 and installed themselves in power.

Since the 1952 military takeover, there has been no dearth of popular protest movements, usually kept in check by the security forces, backed up when needed by the military. In 1977 the people rose to oppose government efforts to reduce subsidies on foodstuffs and other vital products, and in 1986 the poorly paid security forces, so omnipresent in the present movement and so greatly reviled, went on a rampage. Yet, in contrast to the present, these uprisings did not involve the millions that are in the streets today.

Does this recounting of popular protest movements and their outcomes offer any guidance for viewing the present events? I believe that it does. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Egyptian men and women outside the halls of power have challenged their rulers and have sought a voice in state affairs, only to be stymied by the forces of order. Up until the 1950s, foreign troops from Britain and France put down the popular uprisings. Foreign interventions to suppress popular demands has left a strong suspicion that the big powers in the world, at present the Americans, will in the final analysis defeat the wishes of the people. Since then, the Egyptian military has put down those movements of popular dissent that proved beyond the capabilities of the security forces. Yet, never before have the soldiers faced such large numbers. If the military is to be taken at its word, it is no longer available to repress protesters. Nor is this surprising, given the fact that the military is a conscript army and those who would be called upon to curb the actions of the people would have to turn against their own relatives and friends. The only hope for Mubarak and his National Democratic Party is that foreign powers will come to the rescue as has occurred so frequently in the past. At the head of these powers would be the United States, which has relied on the Mubarak government to maintain political stability and support for American policies in this volatile region. The Americans may be willing to sacrifice Mubarak, but they are unlikely to view favorably a government in which Muslim elements have a strong voice. Even so, how the ruling elements and the army will restore calm short of allowing free and democratic elections, with possibilities for Muslim Brothers to enter the government, remains the big dilemma for the ruling group in Egypt and its American backers.

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Ms. Spark, an independent scholar, is the author of Hunting Captain Ahab: Psychological Warfare and the Melville Revival.

Recently, in the aftermath of the Pastor Wright controversy, historian Ralph Luker, writing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and HNN, linked Martin Luther King Jr. to black liberation theology. In his first address to the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1955 King had said, Luker noted:

The Almighty God himself is not the only, not the God just standing out saying through Hosea, 'I love you, Israel.' He's also the God that stands up before the nations and said: 'Be still and know that I'm God, that if you don't obey me I will break the backbone of your power, and slap you out of the orbits of your international and national relationships.

And that, wrote Luker, sounds a lot like something that might come out of the mouth of Pastor Wright: "Both African-American preachers have understood prophetic biblical preaching far better than those who feign shock at and condemn Wright's words.  G-d damn, America, indeed. It should have more men like him.

It is puzzling to me that Ralph Luker can partially excerpt a speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. to connect King's prophetic voice to the pastor of black liberation theology who shouted "God damn America," for it was the separatist and militant black power movement (derived from black supremacist Pan-Africanism and Elijah Muhammads Nation of Islam, and later Christianized by James H. Cone) that saw white supremacist America as irrevocably damned, whereas the integrationist King, speaking at the inception of the Montgomery bus boycott movement, protested the failure of American democracy to live up to its stated ideals, and proposed legal, non-violent means to rectify a shameful lapse:

Standing beside love is always justice, and we are only using the tools of justice. Not only are we using the tools of persuasion, but we've come to see that we've got to use the tools of coercion. Not only is this thing a process of education, but it is also a process of legislation.

King did not present a damned America, but one with promise if, as a Christian and democratic nation, its professed universal brotherhood, signified by equality before the law, was to be called to account:

And certainly, certainly, this is the glory of America, with all of its faults. This is the glory of our democracy. If we were incarcerated behind the iron curtains of a Communistic nation, we couldn't do this. If we were dropped in the dungeon of a totalitarian regime, we couldn't do this. But the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right.

One of my areas of research is black history, particularly the ideas of Ralph Bunche, both before he collaborated with Gunnar Myrdal in the research for An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944) and during the years he worked for the United Nations. Bunche, who was always an integrationist with a strong commitment to the welfare of my people, and who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s, distanced himself from separatist movements until the end of his life, despite efforts of Malcolm X and others to enlist his participation in an umbrella movement, or, in the case of UC Berkeley professor Charles P. Henry, to claim Bunche for black power in a late-life conversion. Bunche's biographer Sir Brian Urquhart put a special emphasis on Bunche's as an American life," not the life of a hyphenated American, and that was Bunche's position as well. It was most probably he who gave Myrdal the idea of an American Creed of rationalism, democracy, and egalitarianism, to which even Southern whites gave at least lip service. In a 1941 speech urging black participation in the resistance to Nazism, he reiterated the American Creed, and, referring to Southern white laggards, memorably concluded, Democracy, to be realized, must be lived broadly.

I can also say that the cultural nationalists who are now the primary black voices on Pacifica Radio are frequently just as paranoid as Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Bunche, in his memoranda to Myrdal, observed that ghettoes produce parochialism: the self-destructive suspicion of outsiders that cannot distinguish friends from enemies. Bunches analysis has been vindicated. Listening to Wrights claim that government programs originated the AIDS virus to destroy blacks reminded me of Afrikan Mental Liberation Weekend, a notorious series of radio broadcasts first heard in the early 1990s on Los Angeles Pacifica station KPFK, that virtually damned the ice people. The financial support emanating from black listeners was intense. Such irrationalism was not part of the American Creed as formulated by Bunche, who died in 1971; on the contrary he was ever wary of incendiary language and populist revolts that released pent-up hatred and resentment along with fantastic longings for an idealized past or utopian future. Unfortunately several trends in American life in the last several decades have marginalized Bunches vision of an imperfect America that was yet capable of equal treatment for minorities, especially the right of equal opportunity to get ahead, universally applied to all its citizens.

Some months ago, a prominent libertarian commentator predicted that the 2008 presidential campaign could profitably facilitate a national discussion on the appropriate role of the state in the economy, a prediction based on the assumption that Republicans and libertarians generally favor free markets and limited government, while Democrats and leftists look to statist remedies conferring social justice in order to correct a bogus and skewed free market.

For some progressives Adam Smith was dead wrong: free trade and market economies do not promote peace or create wealth and an ever rising standard of living for ordinary people, but rather imperialist war, accelerating inequality, and the destruction of nature. This could be a productive conversation for all Americans, and would engage such books as Jonah Goldbergs popular polemic Liberal Fascism (2008) and the more nuanced, historically grounded examination of the role of the state in a market economy, Jerry Z. Mullers The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought (2002).

Sadly, that debate is not the one we are having, although it may underlie the current controversy regarding Obamas true beliefs with respect to black liberation theology. On the surface the political class wonders, does Barack Obama silently agree while he publicly disagrees with his ex-pastor and mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Moreover, there are questions about Wrights place within American black history: is he a separatist in the tradition of Malcolm X and other cultural nationalists, or are his Afro-centric jeremiads and his African Christianity a legitimate offspring of the postwar civil rights movement, peacefully opposing segregation, separatism, sectarianism and superiority as Martin Marty has argued in the Chronicle of Higher Education (4-11-08)?

What I find shocking is the erasure of historical memory. The vague and undefined buzz wordsnot just change or hope but the black community, diversity, social justice-- that pervade media commentary were partly produced or ratified by leading universities as their administrations incorporated and co-opted 1960s social movements. Writing in the late 1930s, Bunche and his colleagues had demanded an integrated political, social, and economic history of blacks in America with investigators approaching the problem from diverse antiracist perspectives, but cooperatively developing a scientifically collected knowledge base of use to all reformers. By contrast, in response to the urban riots of the middle and late 1960s, college administrators shoved the often class-based grievances of blacks and other protestors, for instance, women and Latinos, into separate departments defined by gender or race/ethnicity, and eventually taught by members of their racial or gender group. Simultaneously, fields of study bloomed in departments of English and cultural studies that disavowed [WASP-Jewish] Euro-centric white male supremacy and racism, while, oddly, perpetuating a racial and communitarian discourse of diversity. Educational (tax-exempt) public media, supported by the federal government, the liberal foundations, and listener-sponsors quickly followed suit.

Disappeared was the concept of American society as a collection of free-standing individuals whose civil rights were (or should be) guaranteed by the liberal state; taking its place were autonomous racial or ethnic communities whose distinctive cultures (each with its own particular Zeitgeist and heroes, unrecognized or indecipherable to other races or ethnicities) would be celebrated as the antidote to debilitating negative images supposedly dispensed by rich white males and their white supremacist lackeys. Also deseparecido was the Jeffersonian concept of the melting pot, which was now seen as a conspiracy against the regnant cultural pluralism.

Israel Zangwill had explicated The Melting Pot in his popular play of 1908; his was a syncretic view of the unprecedented enriched and enriching American culture-in-formation that would leave European blood feuds behind, but such clarifications were soon viewed as apologetics for a manipulative pseudo-objective science that dissolved precious ancestral ties, leaving deracinated immigrants and ex-slaves victims of either [Jewishly-inspired] proletarian internationalism, or of urban anomie, hence newly susceptible to a debasing jewified mass culture, and consigned to slugging it out in the war of all against all that was the legacy of Locke, Hobbes, and their atomizing doctrines of possessive individualism. That identity politics retains its salience is demonstrated by the New York Times in its report of Obamas speech on race (3-19-08): Mr. Obama stayed up well into the night writing much of the speech himself, aides said. His words carried familiar strains of the biography he wrote more than a decade ago about his search for racial identity.

There were other casualties in the post-60s process of co-opting the movements of women and minorities as they had existed since the entwined Protestant-led reform movements of the antebellum period, including abolitionism and feminism. I have mentioned above the denigration of the Enlightenment concept of individuality and universal civil rights as the individual, dissenting or otherwise, was melted into community (das Volk or integral nationalism as understood by German Romantics). The postmodern revolt against science (science as just another story) jettisoned the notion of free speech also central to the Enlightenment: Free speech was not an excuse for slander and libel or loose talk in general, but that which enabled the no-holds-barred search for truth, that is, a search that would ultimately yield a working consensus on social policy and reform, arrived at through collective deliberation based on universally observable facts, not site-specific group facts. But there are no universally observable facts, nor are there objective histories of conflict, according to those literary theorists who have annexed history and anthropology to their projects of advancing moral and cultural relativism, God or Goddess damning the bigoted imperialist, patriarchal, and ecocidal Amerika/the hypocritical West, and justifying terror as a legitimate weapon against predatory Eurocentric scientific method as wielded by mad scientists and Romantic Wandering Jews. Hence, James Cone, originator of black liberation theology could state in 1971 with conviction (and future support): If the oppressed are to attain their freedom, they must begin to create a new style of communication which is consistent with their struggle for liberation. In part they must deny the accepted canons of logic, allowing the liberation struggle alone to be the logical test for meaningful discourse. Logical consistency, as defined by the oppressors, is irrelevant.

Without understanding the recent submergence of the rational argumentation that sustains productive democratic participation in our progressive institutions, it is difficult to see the scandal of the Obama-Wright controversy and the shallow analysis in some quarters that has accompanied the dissemination of Wrights sermons and Obamas speech on race. Think of the learned political debates of the 1930s or the pre-60s postwar civil rights movement that, in retrospect, were oases of scholarship and empiricism. The very concept of racial diversity as currently deployed was dissected by anti-Nazis, for example Julian Huxley in We Europeans (1936), or by such proponents of an educated and unified industrial union movement as political scientist Bunche and his mentor and colleague at Howard University, the economist Abram L. Harris. Throw in their friend, the anthropologist Melville Herskovits who challenged the myth of the Negro past by arguing for cultural syncretism. These materialists were keenly aware of clashing interests and strategies among blacks, and Bunche, for one, not only challenged the concept of race tout court in his well-known pamphlet A World View of Race (1936) but lamented the fiasco of the 1935 National Negro Congress that he had helped to organize, for he understood that no agreement over tactics could be achieved where black integrationists and Garvey-ite black nationalists, or capitalists and labor union bureaucrats oblivious to the needs of rank and file workers, sat at the same table. As he bitterly noted in his memoranda, There is no such thing as the Negro. For Bunche at that time, there could be no institutional change without independent organization by participants in the labor market, educated through the experience of unified (black-white) class action how best to defend their individual and group interests. Integration signified equal rights; i.e., equal opportunity to pursue the American dream, a goal that was unlikely to be realized without the elimination of ghettoes.

Whether or not Marxist postulations of irreconcilable structural antagonisms between capital and labor are still relevant and helpful, the Bunche cohorts disdain for the toothless strategies of upper-class white foundations who were then advocating interracial understanding and enhanced communication, i.e., [Christian] love not [Jewish] hate, as the primary solution to black poverty and political powerlessness, remains apposite. So much for the black community as posited by todays pundits, dutifully echoing the histrionic cultural nationalists who dominate the public square, claiming to speak for all members of their race, while hoping to mobilize mass (and liberal upper-class) support for the advancement of their own very particular careers.

As long as we allow color and an antiquated discourse of the organic [black] community to define the political divisions that matter, we ignore the urgent question that begs to be addressed: In an era of globalization, what role should government intervention and regulation play in an advanced market economy, and how well have prior interventions and regulations served their purported objectives? The civil rights movements (feminism, gay rights, etc.) that piggy-backed on the black movement (one that was always internally divided between integrationist and separatist strategies) may have exacerbated already existing divisions in the democratic polity, diverting attention from the bigger picture, which is the long-standing polarization over the role of the state in regulating a free market economy. Questions of remedies for exclusionof women, minorities, and gays-- are properly subsumed under this larger problem of government, especially since we are federalists in an enormous nation with diverse and often conflicting belief systems. Barack Obama, former president of the Harvard Law Review, quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., could and should have made that the focus of the ferocious urgency of now.
Wesley Millett and Gerald White are the authors of The Rebel and the Rose.

In April 1865, the Civil War ended for most Americans. The war, and its various aspects, continues to capture the interest and imagination of many Americans who are fascinated by the battles, leaders, and strategy displayed during that conflict. Mysteries endure, too, including the ultimate disposition of the Confederate treasury.

Much of the mystery was engendered by Union officials, who greatly inflated the value of the Confederacys treasury to several million dollars. This was probably done to increase the incentive to Union soldiers combing the villages and roads of the Carolinas and Georgia for the treasury, and for Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who had fled Richmond. The actual value of the treasury was probably not much more than $500,000.

The trek south of the Confederate government has been well documented in a number of first hand accounts written several years after the war. The authors were primarily participants in the evacuation of Richmond and they included Confederate cabinet officials, army officers, and treasury employees. Many of the accounts were published in the papers of the Southern Historical Society, in an effort to dispel rumors that Davis took the money for himself and his family. One treasury clerk  in particular, Micajah Clark  provided a detailed accounting of the disposition of the funds.

An aspect of the treasure that Clark omitted concerned the fate of 39 kegs of Mexican silver dollars. These were coins that the Confederacy received through the sale of cotton to Mexico. The Mexican coins had been transported to Danville, Virginia, and when the Davis party was forced to move further south, primarily by wagon, the more than 9,000 pounds of silver would have considerably slowed down the procession. For this reason, the coins were almost certainly buried in Danville, and evidence suggests, they remain there today.

The various narratives of the disbursement of the treasury end in Washington, Georgia on May 4, 1865, when two Confederate Navy officials, James A. Semple and Edward Tidball, were entrusted with $86,000 in gold. Jefferson Davis stated in his 1881 book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, that the transfer of the treasure was made to Mr. Semple, a bonded officer of the Navy, and his assistant, Mr. Tidball. Davis added only that the instructions to Semple were for him to attempt to deliver the gold abroad to the financial agent of the government. He was referring to the commercial house of Fraser, Trenholm & Company in Liverpool, England. Postmaster General John Reagan, who was with Davis in Danville, added more detail, recalling that the gold was to be hidden in the false bottom of a carriage. The mystery thus began when Semple and Tidball disappeared.

Tidball, for his part, decided that the war was over for him, as he was seen a few days later heading north from Georgia, accompanied by a Confederate judge and a paroled army officer. The former assistant to Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory returned to Winchester, Virginia, where he built an elaborate house, Linden Farm, and became a prominent citizen. He received a pardon in August 1865, and in 1872, was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Given these events, and his extensive property, Tidball very likely profited from a disbursement of the treasury in Georgia. In fact, during a recent renovation of Linden Farm by its owner, a document found hidden in a wall confirms Tidballs possession of a portion of the gold.

For Semple, as with Tidball, history is mute on the activities of both men. In the 1938 book, Flight Into Oblivion, by A.J. Hanna, The Long Surrender by Burke Davis in 1985, and in 2001, An Honorable Defeat: the Last Days of the Confederate Government by Williams C. Davis, the mystery of the disappearing gold was unresolved. The lack of discussion in these books is not surprising. Semple did seem to disappear into the night, for he had to avoid the attention of both the enemy and paroled Confederate soldiers looking to confiscate horses and wagons in returning to their homes. Semple was also given vague instructions, which left a great deal of latitude in where he went and how he got there.

One of the clues to the former Navy paymaster and his survival after the events of May 4 were documented by Robert Seeger in his 1962 book, And Tyler, Too, which provided an in-depth look at the presidency of John Tyler and his family. The travels of James Semple and his infatuation with the widow of the president, Julia Gardiner Tyler, were mentioned in the book and provided evidence of Semples activities on behalf of Davis and the South, even after the surrender of Confederate forces.

Corroborating evidence found in Semples letters to Julia Gardiner Tyler, depicted a man on the run, carrying on underground activities for Davis. Instead of Liverpool, Semple eventually got as far as Nassau, after hiding out in the Okefenokee Swamp along the Georgia-Florida border for months. Ultimately, he took refuge in the North at the home of Julia Gardiner Tyler. Once called the Rose of Long Island for an advertisement that used her image, Julia was strikingly attractive, even at 45. She had long black hair, gray eyes, and a figure that drew dozens of suitors before she had agreed to marry the president, then 30 years her senior.

An ardent Confederate, Julia had made a difficult decision late in the war to leave Virginia for her mothers home on Staten Island, New York. Union soldiers were invading the countryside around Sherwood Forest, the Tyler plantation, and the safety of her young children was paramount. With both her husband and her mother deceased, Julia was alone on Staten Island with the children, surrounded by Yankees unhappy with a Southern sympathizer in their midst, even though she had been a First Lady.

Semple was drawn to Julia, and she to him, by circumstances of war and the aftermath. Unable to accept the end of the Confederacy and Northern domination over the South, he collaborated with other disenfranchised leaders exiled in Canada. Over the course of the next two years, he traveled between the U. S. and Canada in clandestine activities, often using the alias Allen S. James, his travels financed with the Confederate gold.

In Semples mind, if the U.S. could be drawn into a war with Great Britain, the North would need the South and would ease up on letting the former Confederate States back into the Union. The Fenian Brotherhood, which was preparing to attack Canada with a growing army, seemed to be an opportunity; and with the apparent blessing of Jefferson Davis, with whom he was somehow able to exchange messages, though Davis was securely locked up in prison at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, Semple became a courier for the Fenian movement. Between the financial help he provided to Julia, payments to support his estranged wife, Leticia, and the expenses of his clandestine activities, the gold in his possession became depleted during his two years on the run.

Around that time (and probably because he could no longer finance his travels), he finally began to realize there was nothing to be gained for the South, that the Fenian army was more rhetoric than substance and was ill prepared to precipitate war between the U.S. and Great Britain.

Like most Southerners, who strongly believed their cause was right, Semple was ultimately forced to admit that the Confederacy no longer existed and could not be resurrected, that nothing more could be done. He returned to relative obscurity in his native Virginia, near where he was born in New Kent County, and turned his attention to earning a living.

Semple apparently never attempted to recover the Mexican silver dollars in Danville, for various reasons. During the months he was trying to stay ahead of his would-be captors, Danville became an encampment for the Union army. With enemy soldiers occupying the town, any effort to dig up the some 160,000 8-reale coins would have certainly been seen. Besides, Semple was done with any sort of an adventure. He was worn out, saddened by the devastation that existed in his part of the state, and the difficulty he and his neighbors were having in restoring their lives and properties. Simply putting food on the table became an essential concern.

The evidence is strong that no one else managed to dig up the silver either, quite possibly because of where it was buried in a cemetery area. Then too, given the volume and weight of the silver, the digging would have certainly been noticed by soldiers and townspeople, whether during the day or at night under the glow of kerosene lamps. Possibly, the fact that almost 1,400 Union soldiers, former prisoners warehoused in the town, had died of smallpox, dysentery, and other diseases and were buried nearby, could also have discouraged random digging.

In any case, caches of the silver coins have reportedly been detected at several locations in the Danville search area. A Colorado company, hired by a private individual, performed a geophysical survey and employed pulse induction instruments to identify the locations of the silver (and a small amount of gold). With the technology of today, why does the specie remain buried? For one reason only. The coins are buried on city-owned land, and Danville officials, concerned about disturbing graves, continue to refuse all requests to dig, even test holes.

Perhaps the city will ultimately change its mind and enrich its coffers with the largest portion of the estimated $16 million in value.
Erin Case has put thousands of miles on her car as a manager at the Baltimore Abortion Fund, which supports those seeking the procedure by helping foot the cost and offering rides to and from the clinic.

Often, she drives women who, for privacy reasons, dont want to ask a friend or relative to take them. But on a recent day, her passenger was someone in town from Texas, among the many who leave that state for abortions because of a new law known as SB 8, which lets any individual sue those who perform the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy or even help a patient get to a clinic.

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Roughly half of the people the nonprofit Baltimore fund helps are already from out of state, and Case is among those who see the number rising as abortion faces its most serious legal threat in decades. Not only did the U.S. Supreme Court allow the Texas law to go forward last month, it is poised to rule this summer in a case from Mississippi that many say could overturn the courts landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.

Overturning Roe, which marked its 49th anniversary Saturday and established the constitutional right to abortion, would likely create a domino effect of perhaps 26 states banning or restricting it, by one projection. While observers say Maryland is among the states most protective of abortion rights and surely would not be one of those enacting a ban, it would feel ripple effects nonetheless.

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A lot of folks will be needing to travel. Weve already seen folks coming to Maryland from Texas because of SB 8, said Case, who has driven people who are from as far away as Washington state to Maryland providers.

Planned Parenthood of Maryland supporters, including state Sen. Jill Carter and Del. Nicole Williams, second and first from the right, hold signs Friday at a rally at Lawyers Mall in Annapolis, (Ulysses Munoz/Baltimore Sun)

Activists and legislators in Maryland are ramping up efforts for an anticipated greater demand for the procedure, which could strain existing capacities and resources.

Activists on both sides of the issue hosted events, as they do every year, to mark the Jan. 22, 1973, anniversary of Roe. Hovering over all was the prospect that this could be the last year with Roe as the law of the land.

Roes turning 49, said Kristie Hamrick, a spokeswoman for the Students for Life group. It may never turn 50.

In Maryland, as elsewhere, the fight is ongoing. Abortion rights became part of Maryland law in 1992 via a referendum that voters approved by a wide margin.

Proponents say they need to continue improving access and affordability, particularly given the national climate.

If Roe falls, Im horrified about what that means for abortion access in Maryland, said Lily Bolourian, executive director of Pro-Choice Maryland.

[ Redistricting, legalizing marijuana and climate at the top of the agenda as Maryland General Assembly returns ]

We always thought of abortion as settled law, said Del. Ariana Kelly, a Montgomery County Democrat. But theres a big difference: Just because you have a right, doesnt mean you can access it.

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Kelly said she plans to introduce a bill, perhaps in the coming week, that would allow nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physician assistants to perform abortions. In Maryland and most other states, only doctors can do them.

The physician-only provision is outdated, Kelly said, at a time when nurse practitioners and others known collectively as advanced practice clinicians handle much of patient care. Additionally, physician-only laws were enacted before the advent of medication abortions, she said, and these clinicians generally are allowed to write prescriptions.

Del. Ariana Kelly speaks Friday at a Planned Parenthood of Maryland rally at Lawyers Mall in Annapolis. (Ulysses Munoz/Baltimore Sun)

Expanding who can perform abortions is among the measures that states have enacted as shifts in the control of governors mansions and state houses lead to new laws. In 2019, noting seven other states had similar laws, Maine Gov. Janet Mills proposed and ultimately signed legislation allowing advanced clinicians to perform abortions. In 2020, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat like Mills, reversed a series of abortion restrictions that had been previously enacted, and allowed nurse practitioners to perform abortions in during the first trimester of a pregnancy.

Groups like the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Public Health Association have called for the repeal of physician-only laws as a way of increasing access to the procedure.

Kellys bill would also require insurance companies in Maryland to cover abortions and eliminate deductibles for them.

Those opposed to abortion will fight the bill, promised Hamrick, who decried outsourcing the procedure to nonphysicians.

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Michele Hendrickson, a Sykesville resident who is director of strategic initiatives for Students for Life, said abortion opponents are gearing up to make sure women know there are resources out there to support them as they continue their pregnancies.

Theres a real pro-life energy in Maryland, she said. Even in a state that has protected abortion rights, Hendrickson said, we can still change hearts and minds.

As Republican President Donald Trump appointed conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his recent term, some Maryland Democrats suggested including a right to an abortion in the state constitution. That would give it greater protection than state laws that can be repealed or altered by the legislature. However, others felt Maryland had settled that abortion is legal, and the idea of enshrining abortion in the constitution has not advanced.

The Supreme Court cases have spawned other efforts across the country in the last year: Some states see an opportunity to enact abortion restrictions along the lines of what Texas and Mississippi have done. More liberal states, by contrast, are seeking to shore up protections to keep abortion accessible and affordable, said Elizabeth Nash, the lead state policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports reproductive freedom.

Nash said the number of states that could ban abortion would place many women in a bind: Either continue an unwanted pregnancy or travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to another state. Travel requiring an overnight hotel stay, taking time off work or arranging for child care, she said, could put the procedure out of reach.

Each of these costs adds up, Nash said. And these costs may be insurmountable.

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That could make abortion something available only to those of a certain affluence, advocates fear.

This is an equity problem, said Karen Miller, a consultant for Planned Parenthood Maryland.

Already, she said, there are jurisdictions in Maryland where there are no clinics, something that could be helped by expanding who can perform abortions.

If you allow other medical professionals who already deal with miscarriages and prenatal [care], you increase the number of people who can perform abortions safely, Miller said.

Michele Hendrickson of Students for Life was emcee at a March for Life rally Feb. 4, 2021, at Lawyers Mall in Annapolis. (Paul W. Gillespie/Capital Gazette)

Groups like the Baltimore Abortion Fund were working to scale up their operations even before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments last month in the Mississippi case that poses a direct threat to Roe, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization. Also at stake is a case that followed Roe, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed that states cannot ban abortion before the point when a fetus cant survive outside the womb. That generally is around 24 weeks into a pregnancy, but Dobbs bans most abortions past 15 weeks.

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Maryland allows abortions after viability under certain circumstances, which advocates say is part of the reason it has become a destination for women from out of state. Some people dont discover, for example, fetal anomalies or develop health problems until past the point when their states allow abortion, activists said. Or, it takes time to arrange or gather money for the trip, pushing the procedure to later in the pregnancy, they said. In any event, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than 1% of U.S. abortions are performed at or after 21 weeks of gestation.

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[ Despite lack of protection for abortion access in Maryland Constitution, advocates say state solid in protecting abortion rights ]

With the possibility of abortion becoming more restricted elsewhere in the country, advocates in Maryland want to be prepared.

The idea is to be proactive, said Lynn McCann, co-director of the fund.

The fund, supported by donations, provided about $250,000 last year to help people get abortions in Maryland clinics, with about half those assisted coming from out of state, she said. That is more than double the prior years $100,000 outlay, McCann said.

And this year, she said, Were intentionally doubling funding again.

The Baltimore fund is part of the National Network of Abortion Funds. It and other local funds in Washington, D.C.; Virginia and the Carolinas form a pilot program for the national networks Operation Scale Up that will increase staffing, resources, and collaboration.

The question for us has been access, not legality, McCann said. Our main reason for being is to remove barriers to access.
Mr. Thomas is a London based journalist.

LONDON--Hilldrop Crescent is a quiet suburban place, although in the inner ring of the Metropolis, and reasoning specifically, it would be the last spot one would have dreamt of for the scene of a sordid murder. Thus did the British newspaper The Islington Gazette for 15 July 1910 describe the location of one of Edwardian Londons most notorious crimes; the poison murder by Michigan-born Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen of his German-American wife Cora at number 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Holloway. Number 39, in 1910 a semi-detached Victorian villa in a leafy north London street, promptly entered the long and baleful catalogue of London murder sites. Even after almost a centurys passing, what happened here can still draw a shudder. The facts of the case were, and remain, sensational. It started off as a missing persons investigation and became the ultimate in contemporary popular titillation. The burgeoning British popular press of the early 20th century lapped it up with gusto; the drama truly gripped the nation. In 1910, Dr Crippen, an American self-styled physician - he never qualified with a full medical degree  was working in London for Munyons, a firm specialising in homoeopathic remedies. Born in 1862 in Coldwater, Michigan, Crippen had worked all over the United States selling homoeopathic medicines before being sent by Munyon's to work in their London office in 1900.Crippen's move to London was a fateful one. He was questioned by police on 8 July 1910 following the disappearance of his second wife Cora. Cora, also an American - born Kunigunde Mackamotski in Chicago- who took the stage name 'Belle Elmore', was a failed variety performer turned Honorary Treasurer of the Music Hall Ladies Guild. Whilst she was an ardent social climber (to put it mildly), he was a reserved, bespectacled 48 year old, standing five feet three inches tall. Both were involved in extra-marital affairs in a loveless marriage on the brink of collapse. On 9 July 1910, police were surprised to learn that Crippen had suddenly left London with his secretary and mistress, Ethel Le Neve, for Quebec, Canada on board the liner Montrose. Detectives subsequently dug up the coal cellar of number 39 on 13 July where they found what appeared to be the dismembered remains of Cora Crippen. Forensic examination of the corpse revealed the presence of Hyoscine hybromide poison, significant quantities of which Crippen had purchased in January 1910. The murder date was estimated as the previous February.A transatlantic chase ensued. The pursuit of Crippen and Le Neve  the latter disguised as his son - made criminal history. For the first time, police made use of shore-to-ship wireless telegraphy in apprehension of a murder suspect. It caused a British tabloid news feeding frenzy as the public followed accounts of the police pursuit led by Chief Inspector Walter Dew aboard a faster liner, the Laurentic. Both fugitives were arrested as the Montrose docked at Quebec on 31 July. Crippen was subsequently tried at the Old Bailey, found guilty and hanged on 23 November 1910 at Pentonville Prison  barely one mile east from Hilldrop Crescent. Ethel Le Neve was acquitted and lived until 1967 in South London.But the story of this London cellar murder was far from over. After Crippens execution, number 39 became a voyeurs delight. Londons most infamous address in 1910, it provided column inches galore. What is more, the Crippen cases notoriety has not decreased over the past century. If anything the controversy has deepened. Since 2002 alone a series of books, newspaper articles and television documentaries have attempted to prove serious failings in the case and exonerate Crippen from guilt. These accounts allege use of flawed forensics at Crippens trial by pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury and the mistaken conclusions of expert witnesses Doctors Augustus Pepper and William Henry Wilcox; Crippens weak defence versus outstanding prosecution counsel; undue media influence on the jury (the tabloid John Bull paid for Crippens defence but bombarded the public with every lurid detail), paid prosecution witnesses and crime scene contamination by the Metropolitan Police. Enough, the revisionists say, to make Crippens conviction and execution unsound. One ex-FBI toxicologist has even spent the past decade attempting to prove by DNA analysis that the corpse was not that of Cora Crippen at all. More recently, some theories allege that Cora had already left Crippen to return to Chicago with her long time lover, Bruce Miller, a Chicago prizefighter and strongman. Then, even as Crippen awaited execution in 1910, a letter - with a Chicago postmark- reached Pentonville Prison purporting to be from Cora herself. But it was never used as evidence in Crippen's defence trial. The British Home Secretary of the day - one Winston Churchill - decided not to include it in the evidence submissions.Amid the swirl of modern claim and counter claim regarding the criminal case, the story of what happened to the murder location itself is rather less well known. Passers by on this North London street can still find much to ponder, even if little physical evidence of the house remains today. When the Crippens moved to 39 Hilldrop Crescent in 1905, an upmarket move from their lodgings in Bloomsbury, number 39 represented stability, outward respectability and aspiration. A four storey shrubbery-fronted semi-detached Victorian villa, it was a highly desirable location between busy Caledonian and Holloway Roads. Modifying Charles Dickens, The Islington Gazette further described the house as situated in a back wash of the whirling waters of modern Babylon. The Crippens had rented number 39  plus the services of a single servant - for the then expensive 50 per year. The account of one of Cora Crippens acquaintances states that she proceeded to fill several rooms with stage costumes, painted large sections of the interior pink and delighted in holding American-themed cocktail parties for her theatrical set and fellow Music Hall Ladies Guild members. But the pressures of life at number 39 were mounting. Whilst concealing his affair with Ethel Le Neve, Dr Crippens financial worries and his wifes own infidelities and extravagances were also increasing. By early February 1910, he was ensnared in a series of risky business ventures and had been obliged to sublet one floor of number 39 to to meet the yearly rent. Before 1914, London - like large US cities of the era - was a seething melting pot of nationalities. In the run up to the First World War the British capital hosted a large expatriate German community. Crippen sublet the room to several young German students with whom - to his rage - Cora built rather too close a relationship. It was set against this background that Cora Crippen disappeared shortly afterwards.The fate of number 39 Hilldrop Crescent in the years following 1910 was not to be a happy one. Gawked at for years by the curious, it was eventually sold to an entrepreneur, Sandy McNab Esq, who turned it into a Crippen museum of the Grand Guignol type. Dressed in top hat and frock coat  he drew the line at a swirling cape  he was pictured in the national press beckoning paying customers inside. When this venture inevitably failed, number 39 became a lodging house for variety performers, an irony given Cora Crippens failed aspirations as a music hall chanteuse. During the 1920s and 1930s number 39s fortunes dipped further. The bad memories persisted as it became increasingly run down and the surrounding borough of Islington felt the full effects of the Depression years. The end finally arrived on the night of 8th September 1940. Hilldrop Crescent was bombed by German aircraft as the London Blitz intensified. According to local Islington Borough archives, three houses in the Crescent (nos 37-40) were destroyed or badly damaged. The remnants of number 39 remained a bomb site until 1951. In 1953, post war local authority flats were built over number 39s foundations. Named Margaret Bondfield House (after the first British woman MP to become a Cabinet Minister in 1929) these corporation flats were designed to represent the future. Hilldrop Crescent today is mostly post-war housing estate developments festooned with satellite dishes. Only eight Victorian houses are left. The Crescents aura of middle class respectability has long since departed.Yet one can still gain a flavour of the past. In 2008, maisonettes in several of the surviving Victorian villas - identical to the Crippen residence - are for sale. A one bedroom second floor flat was recently on the market for 250,000. At a stretch, one can imagine Dr Crippen walking daily to the end of his quiet crescent to catch tram and omnibus to the bustling central London of 1910. Even as his marriage failed and the clinking bottles of Hyoscine at his workplace turned from innocuous remedies to instruments of murderous wish fulfilment.Today, the site of number 39 Hilldrop Crescent guards its secrets closely. A plaque on Margaret Bondfield House recalling the events of 1910 is unlikely any time soon. Perhaps this is not surprising; most residents still object. Meanwhile, it will likely prove a place of prurient interest for years to come. Like the faint aroma of a dangerous toxin, number 39 Hilldrop Crescent and the vanished Edwardian world of which it was part lingers uneasily in modern imagination.It was also journey's end for American songstress Kunigunde Mackamotski. In death, she would make criminal justice history and achieve the fame she craved in life. Unfortunately, the venue would be a cold London basement.
Mr. Giangreco is the author of Eyewitness D-Day by Barnes & Noble Books. His previous works include Delta: America's Elite Counterterrorist Force and Dear Harry... Truman's Mailroom, 1945-1953: The Truman Administration Through Correspondence With 'Everyday Americans.'

As the tally of American dead in Iraq moved in fits and starts toward the 1,000 mark, both opponents and proponents of the war geared up for the potential effects that the millennium number would have on public opinion. Intriguingly, it was exactly sixty years ago that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced its own "threshold number" -- of 1.5 million casualties -- during World War II.

The increased tempo of combat operations following D-Day in France and the invasion of the Mariana Islands in the Pacific generated a steep jump in dead and wounded Americans that the U.S. Army called the "casualty surge." This increase was not only beyond what the Army anticipated but was so politically sensitive that the Roosevelt War Department changed, for the second time in 1944, how it reported losses to the American public through the civil press, and to the troops, through the Army publication Yank, which distributed up to 2.6 million copies weekly to reading-starved soldiers.

The War Department, through the administration's Office of War Information or its own Bureau of Public Relations, seldom released cumulative casualty data during the first year and a half after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, preferring instead to present this information at the conclusion of individual campaigns like Guadalcanal. By the middle of 1943, cumulative figures began to appear more regularly and were released on a monthly basis starting in the spring of 1944.

From the beginning, the extensive "nonbattle" losses due to sickness among troops in disease-ridden overseas theaters and psychiatric breakdowns, popularly known as "battle fatigue," were never included in these totals because there was no public demand for this information -- no squeaking wheel -- and because of fears that their inclusion would provide the enemy with a much fuller picture of the U.S. Army's effective fighting strength. Wounded were also removed from the totals for the latter reason after a brief appearance.

The exclusion of figures for both the sick and wounded, however, created problems because it drove down the number of reported military losses. At this point in the war, many Americans believed that the United States was shouldering far less of the war effort than its allies. This was a very sensitive subject, often raised in the media, that had a profound impact on everything from congressional elections to global war-planning with Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The Roosevelt administration's diligent efforts to manage this perception ultimately affected what the public was told about the U.S. Army's overall losses.

In the spring of 1944, the criteria for what the War Department publicly released as U.S. losses was expanded to include "honorable discharges" and "other separations" -- categories that had nothing to do with combat but implied that we were pulling a greater share of the load. In the space of one month, the published figures through April, 1944, jumped from 156,676 to 1,163,000 by the next release. The clear implication, if you didn't look too closely at how the number was constructed, was that most or all of these losses were combat related.

Unfortunately, the increased tempo of combat operations following D-Day simultaneously caused real casualties to soar. The casualty surge had begun. By the end of the first three months of fighting in France, it was clear that publicly released -- and inflated -- figures for the Army's total losses were on track to pass the 1.5 million mark late in 1944.

Such huge numbers would not escape notice by a public uneasy over the mounting local, name-by-name casualty lists appearing in nearly every hometown newspaper. The release of loss figures in this range would not only provide a long string of "zeros" guaranteed to command the attention of news writers and pundits, but also coincide with fresh combat along Germany's western frontier and in the Pacific.

Beginning in the fall, the Army publicly experimented with various formulas that narrowed the criteria for the casualty data it made public. A commonality of these new formulas was that they all had the effect of both (1) restarting the publicly released casualty counts from new, lower baselines, and (2) masking the rate of growth. Even this, however, did little to obscure the fact the U.S. was suffering an average of 65,000 casualties each and every month during the casualty surge with November, December, and January figures standing at 72,000, 88,000 and 79,000, respectively, in postwar tabulations.

In January 1945, the end of the war in Europe was in sight but the Roosevelt Administration announced its intention to induct 900,000 men by June to use as "replacements" for the continued effort against Japan. Battles raged in Congress over the tightening of draft deferments and the drafting of women nurses as even the newest casualty formula produced astronomical numbers in spite of its more restricted criteria.

The last cumulative U.S. casualty data released during the war were displayed in Yank's March 9, 1945 edition although Congress continued to receive escalating figures in closed session. Those final published casualty totals reached 782,180 seven months before Japan's surrender.

An irony of the casualty controversy sixty years ago was that a man lauded in the speeches of both American presidential candidates today, Harry S. Truman, has been savaged in recent years as having "made up" huge casualty estimates for the planned invasion of Japan to justify the dropping of atom bombs on Japan. This in spite of the fact that the New York Times and other newspapers ran front-page stories on the near doubling of the draft in January 1945.

The downward manipulation of casualty data in the fall of 1944 -- on the heals of creating radically larger numbers months earlier -- also had nothing to do with that year's presidential elections which the Roosevelt-Truman ticket was expected to win handily. Instead, it was the product of Roosevelt administration fears that the public would become "war weary" after the defeat of Germany and not be willing to fully prosecute the war against Japan, which it was then believed could last into 1947.

In more recent times, the conventional wisdom has been that as the number of Americans coming home in body bags climbs, the popularity of a serving president sinks. The theory, first postulated during the Korean War, seemed all but confirmed after President Lyndon B. Johnson's decision not to run for reelection in 1968. It received added weight when Richard Nixon defeated his Democratic rival in 1972 amid a steep downswing in American's Vietnam casualties which saw all-causes deaths shrink from 16,508 in 1968 to 551 in 1972.

But while pollsters have expressed surprise at the public's willingness to accept casualties in the "war on terror," and Americans have never thrown out a wartime president, much can happen to obliterate the slim lead that George W. Bush holds over his rival. On November 2, Americans will decide if he is to become the first U.S. president to be voted out of office in the midst of a war.

Related Links

D.M. Giangreco and Kathryn Moore: Bill OReilly and Ted Kennedy are Wrong.


Humans have known for generations that milk  natures most nearly perfect food  is a convenient, versatile package of nutrition. For centuries, it was collected, transported, and stored in buckets, jars, barrels, and more so people could bring that nutrition to their families.

Just in the last 150 years, we have learned much more about how important the vessel that milk is stored and delivered in is to product quality, safety, and flavor. Today, milk is processed through stainless steel to limit bacteria and often packaged in plastic to maintain taste.

In between the milk delivery methods of buckets and plastic chugs, though, was an innovation that changed how milk was viewed as part of the home and consumer society: the glass milk bottle.

Single-serve sanitation

Last Tuesday, January 11, was National Milk Day (not to be confused with World Milk Day, the beginning of June Dairy Month), which recognizes the first time milk was delivered to homes in glass bottles sealed with waxed paper. That was in 1878, the same year the first glass milk bottle was patented with the intent to keep the milk that individuals bought cleaner.

Glass bottles allowed milk to be packaged for delivery to individual homes instead of families buying in bulk from a common container milkmen took from customer to customer. This was a clear advancement in both convenience for families and sanitation. The glass bottles were able to be washed and returned when the next delivery arrived. Refrigeration was still years away, so insulated boxes or cubbies on porches kept milk safely stored.

The typical bottle shape included a rounded lip and narrow mouth to make pouring easier. Nearly all bottles were clear, though some amber-colored bottles were used with the (false) belief the color would keep milk from spoiling if exposed to light. Swing stopper caps were used until around the turn of the 20th century when simpler paper fitted caps became the norm. And of course, dairies of all sizes often had their bottles embossed with a company logo. Later, color labels were sometimes used.

Experts say that the heyday of glass milk bottle use in the U.S. was the period between the World Wars. During the 1940s and 1950s, people migrating out of cities to the suburbs made regular milk delivery more time-consuming and challenging, and the more easily transportable waxed paper cartons and plastic jugs began to take the place of glass bottles.

Though they had a relatively short lifespan in common American society, glass bottles were a key stepping stone in safe milk becoming widely available to consumers off the farm. Now, they are often collected, sold, and traded as a piece of history. In some places, consumers can still get milk delivered in glass bottles by dairies that process their own milk. Past or present, National Milk Day recognizes them all!

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.

(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2022

January 17, 2022
Two people are facing animal cruelty charges after three small lizards known as bearded dragons were found at a local storage center, authorities said Thursday.

Jamie Lee Sartin, 24, of Winston-Salem and Taylor Brianne Moore, 25, of Advance are each charged with cruelty to animals, the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office said.

Sartin and Moore are accused of intentionally depriving the animals of food and abandoning them, the sheriffs office said.

Sartin and Moore received criminal summonses for the offenses and are scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 18.

Employees with Public Storage, at 4191 Bethania Station Road, contacted the sheriffs office on Dec. 23 after they found three bearded dragons in a glass habitat while locking the storage unit for non-payment, the sheriffs office said.

Investigators determined the gate code assigned to that unit hadnt been used since late November, the sheriffs office said.

When the animals were discovered, they appeared to be breathing, but they were missing toes and were lethargic due to the cold temperature and possible lack of food and care, the sheriffs office said.

Bearded dragons are lizards with spikes under their chins, according to National Geographic.

The sheriffs offices animal services division took possession of the bearded dragons and contacted a local reptile expert for assistance.

As the animals were being taken from the storage unit, one of the lizards died, the sheriffs office said.

A medical exam showed the other two animals to be severely emaciated and suffering from other health conditions as a result of being kept in an environment uninhabitable for the species, the sheriffs office said.

The dead lizard was taken to the N.C. Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Raleigh for a necropsy, the sheriffs office said. The veterinarian indicated it was underweight and malnourished, but identified no specific diseases or conditions.

The animals cause of death was determined to be malnutrition or starvation, the sheriffs office said.

The two surviving bearded dragons are recovering, although the first few days were critical as caretakers worked to stabilize them, the sheriffs office said.

Since receiving proper care, treatment and nutrition, they are beginning to thrive, the sheriffs office said.

Anyone with information related to animal cruelty can call the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office at 336-727-2112 or Crime Stoppers at 336-727-2800 or its Spanish line at 336-728-3904.

People can submit text information, photos and videos through the Text-A-Tip program at 336-920-8477.

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A Winston-Salem man charged in two shootings earlier this month is now facing drug charges, Winston-Salem police said Friday.

Romelle Raekwon Watkins, 25, of Lewis Street is charged with trafficking in cocaine, trafficking in opioids, possession of a firearm by a felon, maintaining a vehicle for storing or selling controlled substances and manufacturing a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, Winston-Salem police said.

Watkins also is charged with possession with intent to manufacture, sell and deliver illegal drugs, possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, manufacturing, selling, delivering or possessing of illegal drugs within 1,000 feet of a park, possession with intent to manufacture, sell or deliver illegal drugs and possession with intent to sell and deliver cocaine, police said.

Investigators seized equipment to manufacture narcotics, 3.5 ounces of fentanyl mixed with cocaine, 1.53 ounces of fentanyl and 0.67 ounces of marijuana, police said.

Officers arrested Watkins on Wednesday without incident.

Watkins was being held in the Forsyth County Jail. His bond is $1.5 million on the drug offenses, but he is being held without bond the additional charge of possession of a firearm by a felon, police said.

Watkins was initially arrested Jan. 16 after another man was shot and wounded in the citys southern section, police said.

Officers were called to 3260 E. Zuider Zee Drive, near Peters Creek Parkway, in reference to a shooting, police said. Inside one of the apartments there, police found DeAndre Lamonte West with a gunshot wound.

West was taken to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

Police later found the suspect, Watkins, in another apartment and arrested him.

Watkins was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and another count of possession of a firearm by a felon, police said.

At the time of his arrest, Watkins was on probation for felony speeding to elude arrest in Virginia, police said. Because of that charge, Watkins is required to wear an electronic monitoring device.

Watkins also has pending charges of possession of marijuana, possession of a stolen motor vehicle, violation of a domestic protective order, possession of methamphetamine and communicating a threat, police said.

After his Sunday arrest, Watkins posted a $50,000 bond Monday and was released from custody, police said.

In the meantime, investigators were looking into an aggravated assault that happened Jan. 12 in the 3100 block of Peters Creek Parkway, police said. A gun was fired in that incident.

Investigators obtained an arrest warrant for Watkins, charging him with possession of a firearm by a felon in connection in that incident, police said.

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Education is the backbone of society. Learning is foundational to commerce, community building and upward mobility. As an organization, Greater Winston-Salem Inc.s position is to consistently support pre-K, K-12 and our world-class institutions of higher learning for both pragmatic and ideological reasons via our legislative priorities and our talent and workforce initiatives. It is nearly impossible to quantify the positive return on investment I associated with a well-educated workforce.

For these reasons and many other factors, Greater Winston-Salem Inc. supported the local sales tax measure when it was proposed. Our organization advocated for that initiative because of our strong belief that supporting education and local business goes hand-in-hand. In 2020, local voters approved a -cent sales tax to fund local supplement increases for teachers working in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools.

The sales tax referendum passed in early March 2020, just days before our community and our world was changed irrevocably. There is no way anyone could have anticipated the changing needs of our society  particularly in education and small business, which have borne the brunt of the pandemics impact more than almost any other industries except for health care.

A little bit of every purchase you make locally, with the exception of some necessities like gas and groceries, goes to teachers. The rest of your purchases helps a local business succeed. Greater Winston-Salem Inc.s Buy Local or Bye Local campaign has highlighted the need to support businesses in our community. What I would like to add to that message is that this is more important than ever given the state of our education budget. Our teachers are giving their all to our community, and deserve to be rewarded for their efforts.

It hurt everyone to hear that due to a budgeting error, anticipated supplements had to be scaled back. However, we commend school Superintendent Tricia McManus and her team for catching the error, addressing it head on and immediately implementing new procedures to prevent errors in the future. McManus further proved her leadership in this scenario by finding a solution that still includes a pay increase while acknowledging there is still work to be done.

We believe that supporting McManus during this difficult time is imperative to overcoming the instability our schools have faced as a result of COVID-19. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools students, parents, teachers and staff have been resilient despite a pandemic, school disruptions and economic strains. In addition to strong, stable leadership, they need the communitys support to move forward.

Shame and blame gets us nowhere. Support, understanding and grace brings out the best in us and is needed to help support educators through this year of pandemic challenges.

So how can you help?

The Winston-Salem Journal reports that the revised increase in teacher supplements will cost about $10 million with the bulk coming from the local sales tax and recurring funding from Forsyth County. This means that your local purchases support businesses that have done their best to stay open and teachers who have heroically served our students. They also ensure that Winston-Salem remains a great place to live, work and learn.

Your local purchases very literally help to pay the salaries of teachers. As a business organization, it is our intent to strengthen the community and promote economic prosperity for all. To do that we must buy local and buy in to supporting those who stand tall for our community. So the next time you swipe your card at the register, know you are making a difference at the same time.

Now is the chance for you to directly make an even bigger impact for your community. Buy local to support local businesses. Buy Local to support your neighbors. Buy Local to support teachers. Buy Local so that our community can grow and provide opportunities for everyone. It is a challenging time, but it is a time where we can take the opportunity to come together.

Mark Owens is president and CEO of Greater Winston-Salem Inc.
When considering the obscene and unfair practice of gerrymandering voting districts, its worth remembering that two can play that game.

And they do.

As weve mentioned before, Democrats have done the very same thing in the past that North Carolina Republicans are doing now. And, actually, theyre doing it now.

As The New York Times reported last week, majority-Democrat state legislatures are manipulating district lines to their advantage in an attempt to blunt some of the heavy losses they anticipate in the midterm elections.

For instance, the Times points out, using lines so tangled that they resemble a broken-winged pterodactyl, Democrats in Maryland have crafted a congressional district that is frequently cited as one of the worst examples of gerrymandering in the nation.

The 3rd Congressional District may look odder than others in Maryland, but it follows the same playbook of slicing and dicing that Republicans are trying to use here to dilute and minimize Democrats voting power.

In Maryland in 2020, Democrats won 65% of the total statewide voting for members of Congress. But they took seven of the states eight seats anyway.

(In North Carolina, Republicans have stacked the deck to potentially win 10 of 14 seats  71%  in a state where Donald Trump won in 2020 with 49.9% of the vote. Those new districts are still being challenged in the courts.)

Then theres Illinois, where Democrats have feathered their nests with 13 Democratic-leaning seats and three Republican-leaning seats  a net gain of two for the Democrats over the old map.

One of the GOP casualties of those new lines is Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who has been dissed by his party and all but disowned by his family for standing up to Trump.

Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God! family members said to him in a handwritten letter.

Kinzinger was one of only 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot and sits on the House panel investigating Jan. 6. So naturally, Democrats placed him in a district with another incumbent Republican, Darin LaHood.

I know Im not alone  there are many Americans desperately searching for a better way, Kinzinger, a military veteran, said in announcing his decision not to seek reelection in the new district.

They want solutions, not more problems. They want action, not extremism. They want light, not darkness. And the sooner we do it, the better it will be for the land that we love, he said. Now is the time to put country first.

All that got him from Democrats was maybe a pat on the back and a plane ticket home. (Alls fair, apparently, in love and redistricting.)

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which evaluates each states new district maps for fairness and competitiveness rightly gives North Carolina, Maryland and Illinois Fs. Oregon also gets an F for manipulating advantages for Democrats.

This is a desperate map from a desperate party, Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, said in a comment that ought to win him gold medals for sheer nerve and hypocrisy. Kincaid also called Illinois Americas most extreme gerrymander.

As if anyone needed reminding, the power to draw district lines casts the same spell over Democrats and Republicans when it falls into their hands  like Precious over Gollum in Lord of the Rings.

The obvious solution to gerrymandering is independent redistricting commissions, which are not perfect but offer a much better alternative to the fox in the henhouse dynamic that currently exists in most states.

The For the People Act would do precisely that, but supporters lost when they tried to vote it through the Senate on Wednesday night. When the self-interest of politicians trumps the will of the voters, we all lose. And democracy loses.

Though not every gerrymandered district looks like a broken-winged pterodactyl, all of them are ugly.

The sooner theyre voted into extinction, the better.
NEWS PROVIDED BY

Catholic League

Jan. 21, 2022



NEW YORK, Jan. 21, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ -- Catholic League president Bill Donohue (pictured) explains the role of the Rockefellers in legalizing abortion:

Fifty years ago, "The Rockefeller Commission Report on Population Growth and the American Future" was published. One year later, it got what it wanted when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion. It is important to understand the role of the ruling class in making Roe v. Wade possible.

The process began on July 18, 1969 when President Richard Nixon established a body to examine the effects of population growth on America's future. On March 27, 1972, John D. Rockefeller 3rd, chairman of the Commission, transmitted the Final Report to the president and the Congress.

The plea to legalize abortion was a foregone conclusion: the commission was stacked with pro-abortion members. In 1967, the chairman, John D. Rockefeller 3rd, was the recipient of Planned Parenthood's highest honor when he accepted the Margaret Sanger Award; the award was named after the white supremacist founder of Planned Parenthood.

John D. Rockefeller 3rd followed in the footsteps of John D. Rockefeller Jr. "Junior," as he was called, provided funding for eugenics, giving money to the Germans. Some of it was put to use by the Nazis.

The Commission staff was headed by Dr. Charles F. Westoff. He was a member of the American Eugenics Society and Planned Parenthood's National Advisory Council. One of the Special Consultants was Daniel Callahan, a pro-abortion eugenicist who tried desperately to convince Catholics of the merits of abortion and eugenics. When he failed he quit the Church.

In chapter 11, "Human Reproduction," the Final Report did not hide the pro-abortion sentiments of the Commission. "A few of the members of the Commission are opposed to abortion." It also said "the majority" are not.

The number-one population problem in the early 1970s, the Commission said, was "unwanted births." It admitted that only "one percent of first births were never wanted." So where's the problem? It found that "nearly two-thirds of all sixth or higher order births" were unwanted. That sounds plausible but that hardly constitutes a crisis. How many women, even back then, had six or more kids?

It has been historically true that those who can least afford to have children tend to have the most, and vice versa. So it figured that the Commission would find that "Unwanted fertility is highest among those whose levels of education and income are lowest." This, they said, leads to psychological, economic and health problems. "The Commission believes that all Americans, regardless of age, marital status, or income, should be enabled to avoid unwanted births."

The solution to this alleged problem was to (a) allow minors to receive contraception information and services (b) eliminate restrictions on sterilization and (c) liberalize state abortion laws. Regarding the latter, much of its reasoning was based on faulty information.

The Commission maintained that there were between "200,000 and 1,200,000 illegal abortions per year in the United States." In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that in 1972, "130,000 women obtained illegal or self-induced procedures, 39 of whom died." In other words, the Commission's estimates were way off base, and so were the horror stories about all the women who died in "back-alley" abortions.

The Commission was also wrong when it contended that "with the increasing availability of contraceptives and improvements in contraceptive technology, the need for abortion will diminish." We now know that following Roe v Wade both contraceptive use and abortion rates increased dramatically.

If there is one demographic segment of the population that the Rockefeller Commission believed was a problem, it was African Americans.

The Report said that "if blacks could have the number of children they want and no more, their fertility and that of the majority white population would be very similar." The goal could not be more plain: get blacks to stop reproducing. What they need, the Report said, was greater access to "the various means of fertility control."

Some of the Commission's members cited Planned Parenthood's efforts to meet this goal. Mission accomplished: It was reported in 2020 that Planned Parenthood locates 86% of its abortion clinics in or near minority neighborhoods. Though blacks are 13% of the population, they account for one-third of all abortions.

At one point in the Final Report it says, "We share with our fellow citizens an abiding concern for the sanctity of all human life," and therefore "we appreciate the moral decisions involved in abortion." It hastened to add that it shares "a deep commitment to individual freedom and social justice," making clear that this issue was paramount.

The Commission obviously did not have "an abiding concern for the sanctity of all human life," for if it did it would not argue for the legalization of abortion. It should be noted that in 1963, Planned Parenthood actually admitted that "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun."

Abortion has always been one of the ruling class' preferred methods of solving "the urban problem." The Rockefellers epitomized this WASP solution. It teed up Roe v. Wade 50 years ago, making it easier for Supreme Court Justices to rationalize its abortion-on-demand ruling.
Pat Sangimino Night editor Pat Sangimino is a San Francisco native who has been the Journal Stars night news editor since April 2018. Follow Pat Sangimino 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

This is a shoutout to every try-hard parent who enrolled their children in a summertime activity on a whim -- on the chance they might actually like it, or, heaven forbid, somehow love it.

It was about five years ago that Carla Tisdale, looking for a wholesome summertime activity for her seventh-grade daughter, signed her up for musical theater camp with Christina Docter at Youth Actors Academy of Lincoln.

"I really did not want to do it," said Jocelyn Tisdale, now a Lincoln High junior. "I was really upset the whole time.  I just said, 'I cant do this. Im not made for this.'"

Jocelyn, it turned out, was made for it. She just didn't know it. By summer's end, musical theater would become her passion.

Score one for mom.

Two weeks ago, Tisdale performed in the prestigious showcase of the Nebraska State Thespian Festival at Omaha's Holland Center. The showcase consists of the top 10 performers who auditioned and were selected by a panel of judges. This was her third selection to the annual showcase.

She sang a stirring rendition of "I Will Prevail" from "Wonderland" before hundreds of high school students from all over the state.

"It was so much fun," she said. "I didnt know if I would make it again, but then I did and I was ecstatic. I got to see people I havent seen in over a year and to see them perform was almost as much fun for me.

"I love performing, but I also love seeing my friends succeed, too."

This passion, which began with a summer camp, has blossomed to leading roles in Lincoln Community Playhouse performances -- the most recent being the "Fantasticks" last August -- and an upcoming run as the lead in "Cinderella," Lincoln High's musical, which will raise the curtain on opening night in late February.

Tisdale says she's come a long way in five years, adding that she looks back and realizes she wasn't very good early on at either acting or singing.

"I had my natural voice, but I had to fine tune it over the years," she said. "My acting, if I saw it now, Id say it wasnt salvageable. It was horrible. Over the span of all the shows that I have done, Ive taken small things from other people  inspirations  and used it to become better. Ive learned so much."

And it's all created a bit of a dilemma for Tisdale, who is enrolled in Lincoln High's International Baccalaureate program and takes her studies very seriously.

Her original college ambition was to enroll in New York University's global liberal studies program, which includes studying abroad for a year and doing an internship in another country.

"I feel like that would really set me up for living life," she said.

But the left side of her brain has been tickled, and she finds herself now considering a double major to include musical theater.

"I would love to make a living in the theater, but I dont want to be poor in New York, trying to get by auditioning for shows that dont work out."

She already works part-time as a barista. The thought of waiting tables or slinging coffee to pay the bills doesn't excite her.

"The uncertainty of theater is really scary," she said. "In this community I feel like I know the directors. I know the roles I'm built for and who Im up against. I know my boundaries. In a new environment, nothing is guaranteed."

Still, it's been said that those who find jobs they love -- absolutely adore -- will never feel like the daily grind is work. Fortunately, Tisdale doesn't have to make that decision today -- or tomorrow.

For now, she can focus her attention on schoolwork, her stage appearances and spending time with friends.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7391 or psangimino@journalstar.com. On Twitter @psangimino

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We uttered an oh my'' and a wow when the dish my wife, Rebecca, had ordered at Tiru Restaurant arrived at our table. She had chosen the beyeynetu, a vegan entree from Tirus menu, and my description of it here wont do it justice.

Atop a white rectangular plate stretched a long piece of injera (a spongy flatbread) with five colorful and inviting mounds of veggies and legumes. Running parallel to the injera were another four mounds, among them a lettuce mix.

The colors were vivid, and, well, just amazing. The dish included deep purple beets, dark collard greens and a bright, bright yellow split pea stew.

Of course, we took pictures.

The beyeynetu looked too good to eat, but Rebecca dove in anyway. And she came away even more impressed. The dish had been seasoned with a berbere spice, onions, garlic, ginger and turmeric. It packed a flavorful punch.

Co-owner Shimelis Gebru told me the beyeynetu is Tirus most popular item. Yep, a vegan dish has wowed the residents of a beef state.

We were surprised, too, Gebru said. We thought it would be the Tiru Special (a meat lovers combo featuring lamb and chicken).

Gebru came to Lincoln in 2004 as a college anthropology instructor and currently teaches remotely for Northeastern Illinois University. He and his wife, Aynalem Demissie, opened Tiru Restaurant in the Aladdin Tobacco building at 27th and Orchard streets in January 2019. Lincoln diners may remember the spot as the longtime home of Sinbads, a wonderful Middle Eastern restaurant thats no longer around.

Gebru and Demissie are originally from Ethiopia, where Demissies parents ran a popular restaurant. Tiru is Demissies operation, crafting and executing a delicious menu from family recipes.

She really enjoys cooking for people, Gebru said.

Food

Tirus menu is small but scrumptious. It has one appetizer (sambusa with choice of beef or lentil fillings, $2), lentil soup ($4) and seven entrees ranging in price from $9.99 to $14.99.

Each dish is served with injera, a spongy flatbread a diner tears apart and uses to grasp food off the plate. Dont worry; the restaurant also provides tableware for those less inclined to eat with their fingers. Demissie provided us extra injera at no charge.

On our visit, we started with two lentil sambusas, a pastry filled with beef or lentils, onions and green pepper, sealed and fried. They are similar to samosa, a popular Indian appetizer. They served as a nice introduction to the entrees.

For entrees, Rebecca enjoyed the beyeynetu (vegan combo), while I ordered one of the five meat dishes: lamb wot ($11.99). My meal consisted of small, extremely tender lamb pieces simmered in two kinds of flavorful berbere sauces, a greenish mild and a brownish spicy. The spicy one had a bit of a kick to it: I broke out in a sweat and my nose began to run. The sauces included ginger root, cardamom, carrots, potato and turmeric.

With two cups of hot tea ($1/each), our bill came to about $31, and we took home leftovers. Entrees such as the Tiru Special (meat combo) and beyeynetu are portioned to feed two.

As we left, Rebecca said she missed Sinbads, but was happy to see another quality ethnic restaurant replace it. I agreed. Tiru is a welcome addition to Lincolns eclectic dining scene. Grade: A

Atmosphere

Tiru is a cozy and clean room with seating at tables and chairs (no booths) for 40. Demissie pays homage to her homeland with prints and handmade baskets on the walls. She also has set up a display-only, traditional Ethiopian dining area and tea service, where guests would sit on the floor while enjoying meals. It makes for a nice conversation piece. Grade: A

Service

Demissie, at times, is a one-woman operation, taking orders, preparing meals and cashing out customers. So, please, be patient. We dined on a cold Thursday evening, with two other tables occupied when we arrived during the dinner hour. We sat, chatted and perused the menu until Demissie found time to take our order. The appetizer and drinks (hot tea) arrived about 10 to 15 minutes after ordering. Our entrees came about five minutes later. Presentation is part of the experience. These dishes are something to behold, but take some time to prepare. Grade: B

Specialty diets

Nearly half the menu is vegetarian friendly. The sambusa appetizer includes a veggie option (lentil filling). The soup also is made from lentils. Two of the seven entrees are vegetarian/vegan: the beyeynetu and shiro ($9.99), seasoned chickpea powder simmered in canola oil or spiced butter. The menu doesnt designate gluten-free dining, so check with Demissie. Grade: A

Jeff Korbelik is the winery manager at James Arthur Vineyards, former Journal Star features editor and author of Lost Restaurants of Lincoln, Nebraska. He has reviewed restaurants for Ground Zero since 1998.

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311s Nick Hexum has an apology he wants to make to Lincoln -- for failure to appear in the Capital City for, well, who knows how long.
Please see individual websites for your church, cathedral, temple or mosque events and services.

CONCERT

Bell-issimo bell concert at Saint Paul United Methodist Church  12:10 p.m. Feb. 4. A 16-member ensemble of bell ringers, from twelve Lincoln churches, will be performing, under the leadership of Nancy Youngman. Bell-issimo inspires and promotes the distinctive beauty and uniqueness of hand bell ringing. Free concert,

Online Fundraiser

PCAN fundraiser for kids diagnosed with cancer at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church  Previously a pancake fundraiser, this year the PCAN fundraising event is going online to benefit and raise awareness and funds for supporting local families who have a child diagnosed with cancer. The event will be online because COVID-19 continues to be a concern, and the children whose health is compromised from cancer need to be protected. Please donate at pcanaction.org or mail donations to: PCAN, P.O. Box 22992, Lincoln, NE 68542.

IN-PERSON EVENTS

PLEASE CALL AHEAD OR SEE WEBSITE BEFORE ATTENDING EVENTS. If you have an event or your facility is reopening, contact: abukoske@journalstar.com.

Adult Bible Studies at First Lutheran Church in-person and Zoom  5:45 p.m. Tuesdays; 10:45 a.m. Wednesdays. The Tuesday group is studying the Gospel of Luke and the Wednesday group is studying the book of Proverbs. Join anytime, 1551 S. 70th St. More information: pastorerin@flclincoln.org.

AWANA at Faith Bible Church  6:30-8 p.m. Wednesdays. Designed for 3rd-5th graders. Through lessons, games, music and Bible verse memorization, AWANA aims to reach boys and girls with the gospel of Christ, 6201 S. 84th St. More information: Faithbiblelincoln.org/events.

Barnabas  9-10 a.m. (Saturdays), free grab-and-go breakfast; 11 a.m.-1 p.m. free shopping in the store, 931 Saunders Ave.

Barnabas  1-3 p.m. (Tuesdays), free shopping in the store.

Barnabas  3-5 p.m. (Thursdays), free shopping in the store; 5:40 p.m. livestreamed worship service; 6-7 p.m. free grab-and-go meals.

Book Discussion: First Presbyterian Church group at the Eatery  6-8 p.m. Jan. 26. Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues by N.T. Wright. Each week group members will share in fellowship, eat and discuss the current book, 2548 S. 48th St. Register: fpclincoln.org/event/short-stories.

Brock's Boutique event  8 a.m.-noon, Feb. 5. Lots of free clothing for kids and adults, everything is free, in memory of Debbie Boltz's son. Please call Debbie Boltz at 402-430-7569 if you want to donate items or volunteer, or just show up with your donations, Havelock Christian Church, 6520 Colfax Ave.

Celebrating Trees  9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. In-person; 10:30 a.m. livestream. Jan. 30. First-Plymouth Church is celebrating trees and the role they play in God's creation an dour responsibilities to tend to them during tree sabbath services, 2000 D St. More information: Firstplymouth.org.

Choir rehearsal at Lincoln Lutheran  3-5 p.m. Jan. 30. The choir meets weekly with new choir director Jon Marquez leading up to a May 1 concert. All are welcome to join the choir, free event, 23rd and Washington streets.

Coffeehouse Church  6:30-8 p.m. (Wednesdays). Mid-week inspiring service, sharing coffee, a song, poems or a wholesome joke, 1941 N. 68th St. Unitylincoln.org.

Depression support group at St. Mark's  7-8:30 p.m. (Thursdays). Open to anyone on a come-as-you-can basis. Meet in the lower Fellowship Hall, free to attend, 8550 Pioneers Blvd. Stmarks.org/calendar.

Faith to Forest climate series via Zoom  7-8 p.m. Feb. 3, wrap up the series with Lincoln City Libraries Director Pat Leach and State Climatologist Martha Shulski discussing the Faith to Forest community-read book, "The Future We Choose, A Stubborn Optimists Guide to Climate Change"; no registration. More information and Zoom link: Firstplymouth.org/catforest.

FoodNet at Seward United Methodist Church  5-6 p.m. (Thursdays). Offering free produce, boxed and canned items. Anyone in need can drive through the parking lot and pick up boxes of food, please stay in your car, 1400 N. Fifth St., Seward.

FoodNet at SouthPointe Christian Church  5:30 p.m. (Wednesdays). Anyone in need is welcome, also volunteers are welcome to help serve, 7010 Helen Witt Drive.

Friday Night Live at South Street Temple  6:30 p.m. Fridays. Kabbalat Shabbat service, including monthly live music from the Star City Kochavim Temple Band. The band will accompany the regular service with a Klezmer Eastern European Jewish sound. The music and prayers flow from one to the next, connected together with traditional stories and lessons, making the Shabbat service a lively sermon in song, 2061 S. 20th St. More information: Southstreettemple.org.

Friends Book Club: Unity Lincoln  6 p.m. (Tuesdays). "The Time is Now," by Sister Joan Chittister, 1941 N. 68th St., UnityLincoln.org. Please call ahead, 402-476-6887.

Grief Support Group at St. Mark's Church  1-2:30 p.m. Saturdays. This is a safe place to share with others who are experiencing similar issues, feelings and to learn the tools for effectively navigating the grief process. All are welcome, Vermeer Education Center, 8550 Pioneers Blvd.

"Release and Restored" presented by Pastor Ruth Karlsson at Havelock United Methodist Church  10 a.m., Jan. 30 worship service. Pastor Ruth will address the issue of prison overcrowding and preparing individuals for their moral, ethical and productive return to communities after release from prison, 4140 N. 60th St.

Meals for those in need at First Baptist Church  Noon-1 p.m. Saturdays. Anyone in need is welcome to get a grab-and-go sack lunch. Please enter the church through at K street, 1340 K St.

Marian Mantle Silent Strength Prayer group  4-5 p.m. Meets on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month; this month meets Jan. 25. Remaining meeting schedule: Feb. 8 and Feb. 22; March 8 and March 22; April 12 and April 26; May 10 and the May 24; June 14 and June 28; July 12 and 26. The group will pray for the return of the prodigal children to the Church and meets at Rectors Hall, Cathedral of the Risen Christ, 3500 Sheridan Blvd. More information: contact Kathy at 402-423-3810 or kneugeb@gmail.com.

Postcards from Lincoln: History of Lincoln Speaker Series  7-8 p.m. Series schedule: Feb 7, "Lincoln in Black & White: the photographs of African-American photographer John Johnson," speaker is Ed Zimmer; Feb. 21, Lincolns Parking Lots and What They Displaced," speaker is Jim McKee; March 7, The Poet, the Publisher and the Talk Show Host: John G. Neihardt, Virginia Faulkner and Dick Cavett," speaker is Ron Hull; March 21, Saint Paul and the Churches of Lincoln," speakers are Ed Zimmer and Jim McKee, Saint Paul United Methodist Church sanctuary, 1144 M St.

Spiritual Gifts class  9:15 a.m. Sundays at First Baptist Church, 1340 K St. More information: 402-477-4198 or Fbclincoln.org.

True Strength with REFIT fitness class at Faith Bible Church  9:30-10:30 a.m. (Fridays); also 6:30-7:30 p.m. (Tuesdays). Fitness class that combines positive music with movements for the body, soul and spirit. True Strength brings together various fitness levels, shapes, sizes and ages. You are invited to dance, share in devotion and build relationships, strengthening yourself and your body with the Lord, Fellowship Hall, 6201 S. 84th St. More details: email Elisabeth at truestrengthwithrefit@gmail.com or call 402-484-6020.

Walk for Life beginning at Trinity Lutheran Church  Jan. 29. 8:45 a.m. Program begins at 724 S. 12th St.; 9:30 a.m. Walk to State Capitol; 10 a.m. Speakers at Capitol, 1445 K St.. More information and register: lcms-onm.org/need/detail/?need_id=641270

LIVESTREAMED BIBLE STUDY, CLASSES AND EVENTS

Book video series: St. David's Episcopal Church via Zoom  6:30 p.m. (Wednesdays). Interactive Bible study, discussion of a variety of books, followed by a healing service. Stdavids.episcopal-ne.org, click on the Zoom address to join the study.

GriefShare at Sheridan Lutheran Church, online support group  6-8 p.m. Register: Griefshare.org/groups/132575.

Metaphysics class  9 a.m. (Sundays). Facebook.com/UnityLincoln.

Living the Questions class: "Taking the Bible Seriously" via Zoom  7 p.m. (Mondays). The next class is Jan. 24. People know that at its core, Christianity has something good to offer the human race. At the same time, many have a sense that they are alone in being a thinking Christian. Enjoy a safe environment to ask questions. Zoom link and sign-up: fpclincoln.org/groups/ltqgroup.

Trivia night with First Presbyterian Church via Zoom  6 p.m. Next trivia is Feb. 20. Each third Sunday, play as an individual, family or team, prizes given. Each round has seven themed questions. You will need a computer, phone or tablet. You can join a Zoom link or call in on your phone. To register for Zoom link: us02web.zoom.us/j/83625239901?pwd=WHdLTVdJMEdOTEp6TUk5aG04VEsxZz09; password: 510203. To join by phone: 1-312-626-6799; meeting ID: 836 2523 9901; passcode: 510203. More details: fpclincoln.org/event/trivia-night.

Unity Cafe online discussion  6:30 p.m. (Wednesdays). Interactive discussion led by the Revs. Toni and Evan, based on spirituality dealing with a variety of current topics. Facebook.com/UnityLincoln.

Wednesday Night Live Family Night at First-Plymouth  5 p.m. through April 27. EZ Meals by Chef au Chef. Individually packed to-go meals, freewill donations accepted; 5:30 p.m. Kids and youth choir rehearsal and confirmation for 8th grade; 6 p.m. Mid-week groups including: First-Plymouth Littles, birth-age 5; First-Plymouth Kids Studio, grades K-5; middle school, grades 6-8; and high school, grades 9-12. Adult program this week is "Justice 101" with the Rev. Juan Carlos Huertas, Pilgrim Hall; 7:15 p.m. Adult Choir rehearsal, 2000 D St. Firstplymouth.org.

Please see all in-person and virtual worship services listed online at Journalstar.com, search: Religion Notes. Also view on individual church websites.

IN-PERSON WORSHIP SERVICES

Aldersgate Church  8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Worship in-person; livestream available. 8320 S. St. Aldersgatelinc.org.

Calvary Community Church  9 a.m. or 10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Worship services are also available online, 4400 N. First St. Calvarylincoln.online.church. Mycalvary.org/services.

Christ Lincoln  8 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m. (Sundays). Traditional worship service in the Sanctuary, 4325 Sumner St.; 9:30 and 11 a.m., "211 worship" multi-sensory service, 4325 Sumner St.; 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., 6700 Chatsworth Lane (Yankee Hill), "211 worship" multi-sensory service; (Mondays), 7 p.m. traditional worship service in the Sanctuary. Livestreamed worship: Christlincoln.org.

Christ Place Church  (Sundays) One church, multiple locations offering a variety of services. Please see website for a complete listing of worship services and times. Christplace.church/inperson.

Christ United Methodist Church  11 a.m. (Sundays) in-person worship service is beginning, in the sanctuary, must RSVP to attend, 4530 A St. Christumclinc.org. RSVP: rsvp.church/r/ZGLeP87U.

Church of the Holy Trinity (Episcopal)  8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Father Clay Lein leads the worship services, 6001 A St. Holytrinitylincoln.com.

College View Church of Seventh-day Adventists  9:15 a.m. and noon (Saturdays) in the Sanctuary, 4801 Prescott Ave. Livestreamed on Facebook and Collegeviewchurch.org.

CrossBridge Christian Church  10 a.m. (Sundays), worship service, 2800 Crossbridge Place. Crossbridgelincoln.org or Facebook.com/CrossBridgeLincoln.

Elevate Church  9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Worship service (Sundays). Children's Church is available only during the 11 a.m. service, 8251 Pioneers Blvd. Elevatelincoln.com.

Epic Church  10 a.m. (Sundays), 6601 S. 70th St. Eclincoln.com.

Faith Bible Church  8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays), enter and exit through the front doors only, services are in the Worship Center; 9 a.m. services are in Fellowship Hall, enter and exit through the south doors only; Children's Ministry and nursery available during the 10:30 a.m. hour. Services are also livestreamed: Faithbiblelincoln.org.

First Christian Church  10:15 a.m. doors open (Sundays), enter on the west side of building; 10:30 a.m. worship begins, masks are required, 430 S. 16th St. Fcclincoln.org.

First Evangelical Covenant Church  11:30 a.m. (Sundays). In-person worship service, introducing Pastor John Leonard Harris and wife Charlene, 6024 L St. Kingdomoutreach.webs.com.

First Evangelical Free Church  9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Adults and youth can show up for church, 3280 S. 84th St. Must register kids at Firstfreelincoln.org.

First Lutheran Church in person and online  5:30 p.m. (Saturdays); 8:15 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. (Sundays). Must register at Flclincoln.org for any service you want to attend, 1551 S. 70th St.

First-Plymouth  5:30 p.m. (Saturdays); 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 11:59 a.m. (Sundays). In-person service limited to 150 people, must register for services. Masks and social distancing. Online services 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., 2000 D St. Register: Firstplymouth.org.

First Presbyterian  8:30 a.m. (Sundays) In-person worship and Communion services in the Great Hall and online; 10 a.m. worship service in-person in the Sanctuary and watch on Facebook online, masks required, 840 S. 17th St. Firstpresbyterian.org. Instructions for Zoom online Communion services: go to fpclincoln.org/worship-feed or fpclincoln.org/zoom-communion, password is 137049. Call-in live worship services: call anytime 402-200-4940 to listen to the previous Sunday worship service. 7:15 p.m. (Wednesdays), online evening prayer service, scripture and reflection, facebook.com/fpclincoln. All online worship information: fpclincoln.org/Worship-Feed.

Friedens Lutheran  8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays) English services; 1-2:30 p.m. (Sundays) Karen language services; 5-7:30 p.m. (Saturdays and Sundays) Spanish services, 540 D St. Facebook: Search Friedens Lutheran. Friedens.org.

Havelock Christian Church  10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Drive-in style service in the parking lot. Bring your own Communion elements or use pre-packaged elements available, 6520 Colfax Ave. Havelockcc.org.

Horizons Community Church  9 a.m. (Sundays); 10:45 a.m. services beginning May 2, 45-minute service, including live music and teaching, kids are always welcome to worship with their families, must wear a mask, 3 years and up. Kids can join in Discovery Zone or Fusion for kids at the same time of the regular worship service. Must register online for all services, 3200 Grainger Parkway. Register: Horizons.church/experience.

Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church  8 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. (Sundays). In-person worship services with communion, 2001 S. 11th St. Immanuellincolnlcms.com.

Indian Hills Community Church  10 a.m. and 6 p.m. (Sundays), 1000 S. 84th St. Livestreamed: Facebook.com/IndianHillsCommunityChurch.

Lincoln Berean Church  7 p.m. (Saturdays); 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. (Sundays), 6400 S. 70th St. Lincolnberean.org or Facebook.com/lincolnberean.

Mercy City Church  8:30 a.m., 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. (Sundays). Services include live music and teaching. Must register for worship on your Mercy City phone app or rsvp.church/r/1uLDpO1l. City Kids ministry is available for all ages, must register: mercycity.church/city-kids. Mercycity.church.

Mount Zion Baptist Church  10:30 a.m. worship (Sundays), 3301 N. 56th St. Mountzionlincoln.org.

Northeast United Church of Christ  10:30 a.m. (Sundays). In-person worship service, 6200 Adams St.; also virtual worship: northeastucc.com and Facebook.com/northeastucc; 9:30 a.m. Zoom fellowship hour. Please call the church for an invitation at 402-466-0696 or email nucc@inebraska.com.

Sheridan Lutheran Church  8:30 a.m., 9:45 a.m. and 11 a.m. (Sundays). 6 p.m. (Wednesdays), wear a mask, 6955 Old Cheney Road. Sheridanlutheran.org.

Southview Baptist Church  9:30 a.m. (Sundays), 3434 S. 13th St. In-person and livestreamed. Southviewbaptist.org.

Southwood Lutheran Church  8:30 a.m., 9:45 a.m. and 11 a.m. (Sundays) In-person worship offered, 4301 Wilderness Hills Blvd. Online worship available at: Southwoodlutheran.org/worship.

Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church  8:30 a.m. in person; 9 a.m. in person and livestream; 11 a.m. in person and parking lot (Sundays). Register for all service options at: rsvp.church/r/iG6aFLHZ, 5901 NW 1st St. Spiritofhopelincoln.org.

Saints Simon and Jude Eastern Orthodox Church  11 a.m. (Sundays). English-speaking, open-minded, in the canonical tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, 450 E St. SaintsSimonandJude.org.

St. Luke United Methodist Church  5:30 p.m. (Saturdays); 10:30 a.m. (Sundays), limited to 20 people. Must register to attend at: stlukelincoln.org/worship-registration, 1621 Superior St. Livestreamed worship on Youtube.com/channel/UCT3UBj21wfRJKUA_DdUkbNQ. Stlukelincoln.org.

St. Mark's United Methodist Church  5 p.m. (Saturdays) in-person service, Bliss Chapel; 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays) in-person services in the sanctuary, 8550 Pioneers Blvd. Livestream services are available. Stmarks.org/live-stream.

Trinity United Methodist Church  9 and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Worship in-person or watch the livestream service, via website or Facebook, 7130 Kentwell Lane. Livestream: trinitylincoln.org/worship-online.

Unity Lincoln  10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Limit is six people, please call ahead to register for worship service at 402-476-6887, leave a message with your phone number, 1941 N. 68th St. Unitylincoln.org.

Westminster Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)  9:30 a.m. (Sundays) in-person worship. Must register for any in-person service at westminsterlincoln.eventbrite.com and please enter through the East parking lot doors, 2110 Sheridan Blvd.; Also worship virtually at westminsterlincoln.org/youtube-videos. Westiminsterlincoln.org.

IN-PERSON WORSHIP SERVICES AT CATHOLIC PARISHES

All parishes currently utilize social distancing and wearing masks.

* Cristo Rey  Cristoreylincoln.com. Livestreamed: Facebook, search Parroquia de Cristo Rey Lincoln.

* Immaculate Heart of Mary  Lincolndiocese.org/directory/parishes/729-immaculate-heart-of-mary-lincoln.

* North American Martyrs  Namartyrs.org.

* Sacred Heart  Sacredheartlincoln.org.

* St. Francis of Assisi  Stfrancislincoln.org.

* St. George Byzantine-Ukraine Rite  Lincolndiocese.org/directory/parishes/734-st-george-byzantine-ukrainian-rite-lincoln.

* St. Peter's Catholic Parish  9:30 a.m. (Sundays). Saintpeterslincoln.com.

* St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center  Huskercatholic.com.

LIVESTREAMED AND ONLINE WORSHIP SERVICES

* American Lutheran Church  9:30 a.m. (Sundays). Alclincoln.com. View worship on facebook.com/groups/2377189895 and check on YouTube for services.

* Antelope Park Church of the Brethren  10:15-11:15 a.m. (Sundays). Youtube.com/channel/UC0EtGzdojiBIClTJjkvF2MQ.

* Barnabas worship service  5:40 p.m. (Thursdays). Facebook.com/barnabascmtylnk.

* Bennet Community Church  10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Worship service conference call. Dial 425-436-6321, enter access code 871648#. Bennetcommunitychurch.org or Facebook.com/groups/117246951634760.

* Calvary Community Church  9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Mycalvary.org.

* Citylight South Church  9 a.m. (Sundays). Citylightsouth.church/live.

* ConnectioN Point Church  8:30, 9:45 and 11 a.m. worship services, view on: Facebook.com/christumclinc. Connection Point Church is affiliated with Christ United Methodist Church, 4530 A St. Connectionpointlnk.org.

* Contemplate Lincoln Church  4 p.m. (Sundays). Interactive worship, contemplative, silent prayer and meditation. Contemplatelincoln.org.

* Faith Lutheran Church  To view all videos, go to youtube.com/channel/UC_nG2R7cNLPoWiNiInieK_A.

* First Baptist Church of Lincoln  Online worship only: Fbclincoln.org.

* First Lutheran Church  8:15 a.m. (Sundays). Tune in to livestreamed worship services. Flclincoln.org.

* First-Plymouth Church  9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Livestreamed: Featuring Dr. Jim Keck, also including live music; 6:15 p.m. (Wednesdays) Mid-week worship for all ages, Pastor Patrick Messer, music by Will Hutchinson and prayer. Firstplymouth.org/live or Youtube.com/channel/UCXfP1zqh8-8Pnw--uiKPuNg or Facebook.com/FirstPlymouthChurch.

* First United Methodist Church  10:45 a.m. (Sundays) livestreamed: Firstumclincoln.org.

* Good Shepherd Lutheran Church  8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays), 6:30 p.m. (Wednesdays). Goodshepherdlincoln.org.

* Grace Lutheran  Egrace.org or Facebook.com/Live-Worship.

* Heritage Presbyterian  Heritagepres.org.

* Hope Community Church  10 a.m. (Sundays). Hopechurchlincoln.org.

* Horizon Community Church  9 a.m. Online worship service. Horizons.church or Facebook.com/HorizonsCommunityChurch.

* Indian Hills Community Church  10 a.m. (Sundays), Ihcc.org.

* Messiah Lutheran Church  9:30 a.m. (Sundays), Messiah.us.

* Mt. Olive Lutheran Church  Mtolivewels.org/page/sermons.

* Northeast Missionary Church  Northeastmissionary.org.

* Order of the Red Grail Church  Orderoftheredgrail.org.

* Peace Lutheran (Waverly)  Peacewaverly.org.

* Piedmont Park Seventh-day Adventist Church  9:30 a.m. Sabbath school; 11 a.m. worship service (Saturdays), masks and social distancing, 4801 A St. Piedmontparksda.org.

* Redeemer Lutheran worship services  8:30 a.m. (Sundays). View the livestream on: Redeemerlincoln.org.

* Second Church of Christ Scientist  10 a.m. (Sundays), via Zoom. Call 402-488-1255 or email info@christiansciencelincolnne.com to get an invitation for Zoom worship. ChristianScienceLincolnNE.com.

* Sheridan Lutheran Church  9:45 a.m. (Sundays) and 6 p.m. (Wednesdays) are livestreamed: sheridanlutheran.org/watch-online or facebook.com/sheridanluthlnk/live.

* South Street Temple  6:30 p.m. services (Fridays), 9:30 a.m. services (Saturdays). Southstreettemple.org/worship/streaming. 402-435-8004 or office@southstreettemple.org.

* Southern Heights Presbyterian Church  Southernheights.org.

* Southview Christian Church  10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Southviewchristian.church/online-worship.

* St. Luke United Methodist Church  Stlukelincoln.org.

* St. Mark's on the Campus Episcopal Church  10:30 a.m. stmarks-episcopal.org.

* St. Paul United Methodist Church  9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (Sundays). Online worship and archives available for viewing. Saintpaulumc.org.

* Unitarian Church of Lincoln  10 a.m. (Sundays), virtual worship services. Youtube.com/channel/UCbQ6y1CmHO9tg6aAmluXlKQ.

Westminster Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)  Worship virtually any time at westminsterlincoln.org/youtube-videos; Also 9:30 a.m. (Sundays) in-person worship. Must register for any in-person service at westminsterlincoln.eventbrite.com and please enter through the East parking lot doors, 2110 Sheridan Blvd. Westiminsterlincoln.org.

TABITHA ONLINE SUPPORT GROUPS  Register: Tabitha.org/Hospice/Bereavement or call 402-486-8992.

* Grieving Gracefully Book Club  noon. Meets online every second and fourth Tuesday. The next meeting is Jan. 25. The support group will read and discuss Thanks for the Dance: Transforming Grief into Gratitude by Fred Abrams. More information: Juanita Steenbakkers at 402-416-7365.

* Hope Book Club  10 a.m. (Thursdays), the next meeting is Jan. 20. This club will start the year reading Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief by Joan Cacciator. Participation is free, register online at Tabitha.org/Hospice/Bereavement or call 402.486.8506.

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Local and state hospital officials are asking people not to go to hospital emergency rooms just to get a COVID-19 test.

Bryan Health said Friday that it has seen an increase in people showing up at its two emergency departments to get tested.

"Please remember, DO NOT use emergency department locations to obtain a COVID-19 test if you are asymptomatic or experiencing mild symptoms," Bryan said in a news release. "Only utilize emergency department locations if you are experiencing severe symptoms of COVID-19, such as a high fever, chest pain or shortness of breath."

Lincoln has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases, with more than 4,400 recorded last week and more than 2,800 so far this week as of Thursday. Testing options also have been limited the past couple of days by the closure of the Nomi Health testing site at Gateway Mall, the city's largest, because of the cold weather.

The problem appears to be more widespread than just Lincoln.

The Nebraska Hospital Association also Friday encouraged people to stay away from the hospital unless they are severely ill.

Due to the high demands on our hospital emergency rooms, we highly recommend you visit your nearest urgent care if you have mild symptoms, Jeremy Nordquist, president of the Nebraska Hospital Association, said in the release. If you have a cold and youre simply looking for a COVID-19 test, your primary medical provider or nearest urgent care are better options for this need.

Nordquist pointed out that the law requires emergency room staff to provide medical care to anyone who seeks it, even if they do not require treatment.

COVID-19 testing numbers have declined this week in Nebraska. Last week, testing centers and health facilities performed at least 20,000 tests on every weekday, according to the state COVID-19 dashboard. This week, that number was reached only once, on Monday.

The Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department reported Friday that three people had died of COVID-19  a vaccinated man in his 90s, and a woman in her 20s and a man in his 60 who were not vaccinated. They bring the total number of deaths in Lancaster County to 382.

Reach the writer at 402-473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LincolnBizBuzz.

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A bill in the Legislature granting Nebraskans living with certain medical conditions access to cannabis fell two votes short of overcoming a filibuster last year.

Advocates turned their focus to a pair of petition drives following the narrow defeat, seeking to put the issue of legalizing medical marijuana directly before voters this November.

Thousands of Nebraskans have already signed the pair of petitions now circulating, said Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart, who sponsored last years legalization effort (LB474), as well as the ballot initiatives.

A new bill introduced Thursday, the final day for lawmakers to propose legislation in the 60-day session, would legalize cannabis use for a limited number of medical conditions and authorize a defined number of dispensaries to operate in the state.

The proposal (LB1275) from Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte was offered as one last attempt for state lawmakers to enact a policy before voters get their say.

Groene surprised many of his colleagues last year when he came out in support of Wisharts bill, saying he knew several people in western Nebraska and elsewhere who had benefited from medical cannabis.

A close friend dying of brain cancer was able to get off the opioids that kept him in a vegetative state, Groene told the Journal Star on Thursday, and be alert and conversant with visitors in his final weeks of life.

Another associate with severe arthritis experienced a turnaround after taking cannabis, he added.

Good citizens are using it because they dont have a good insurance policy and they cant afford the drugs or the doctors treatments, Groene said. They are looking for relief and it works.

While he believes in medical marijuana as a treatment, Groene, now in his final year in the Legislature, said he doesnt support the medical marijuana system the ballot initiative would put in place if approved by voters.

His bill was written to enact a more restrictive medical cannabis statute in an effort to draw away support from the petition drive, which he believes will pass if it gets on the ballot.

I dont want it to pass, he said. I want the elected officials in charge of the future of this, to define it and change it over time if necessary, to have the medical people in (the Department of Health and Human Services) write the bills.

Under his proposal, patients with stage IV cancers, uncontrollable seizures, severe or persistent muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis or muscular dystrophy, or a terminal illness with a life expectancy of less than one year could possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis in the form of an oil or pill.

Patients over the age of 19 would need a written certification from a participating health care practitioner to enroll in the program; individuals younger than 19 would need written certification from three separate practitioners  something advocates said would create an onerous burden for families.

The bill would also limit where patients could possess cannabis  not on school property, the grounds of a child care facility, at a correctional center or while operating a vehicle  and would not require employers to make accommodations for their employees who use medical cannabis.

Although LB1275 would authorize up five dispensaries to operate in each of Nebraskas three congressional districts, and would require each to employ a pharmacist, cultivation of cannabis would remain illegal in the state.

While the federal government has largely left alone states where recreational or medical marijuana has become legal, it still enforces laws making transporting cannabis  a controlled substance  across state lines illegal.

Wishart, who said she would work with Groene to improve the bill if he asked, said not allowing Nebraskans to cultivate and process cannabis would essentially render dispensaries unable to provide the treatment to qualifying patients.

It would be the status quo, she said. I want a safe system, but there are practical realities patients are living with every day. No one wants a system that doesnt work.

The provisions of the bill may ultimately flip-flop who testifies in support and opposition to the bill when it goes before a committee later this session.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana Nebraska, which has opposed recent efforts to pass medical cannabis legislation, said Groene's bill provided a "tightly regulated dispensary system" for individuals seeking to access cannabis.

"This is a good faith effort and we are willing to look at this as an acceptable alternative to creating a marijuana industry in the state of Nebraska," said John Kuehn, co-chair of SAM Nebraska.

Kuehn said the bill creates safeguards for patient safety, oversight from health care providers, and gives communities a say in how a dispensary would affect them.

"We still believe there is no such thing as medical marijuana, there is just marijuana, but recognize the fact there are very specific groups for which marijuana would provide some degree of palliation, and this looks like a good faith effort to allow patient access," he added.

Shari Lawlor, a member of Nebraska Families for Medical Cannabis, which has mustered support for previous bills, said while the organization was grateful that Groene recognized the benefits of medical marijuana, called the proposal a medical cannabis bill with no cannabis.

It envisions a system with dispensaries but no farmers or cultivators who actually produce the medical cannabis that patients need, Lawlor said, and since patients are not allowed to cultivate medical cannabis themselves under this proposal, there is effectively no way for patients to get the relief they need.

The Marijuana Policy Project, meanwhile, blasted the bill as a "poison pill" and political stunt launched by opponents of the ballot initiatives.

The pair of initiatives were supporting would actually establish a compassionate and functional medical cannabis program in the state, said state campaigns manager Jared Moffat. But this medical cannabis bill being pushed by long-time opponents of medical cannabis clearly would not.

Groene said he would listen to suggestions, but indicated the bill was introduced to give lawmakers one last chance to take action before Nebraska voters potentially weigh in on the issue later this year.

"I don't want something we can't control," he said. "I think this is a better way to do it."

Reach the writer at 402-473-7120 or cdunker@journalstar.com. On Twitter @ChrisDunkerLJS

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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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In his State of the State address last week, Gov. Pete Ricketts hit upon a truth as he called for replacing the aging Nebraska State Penitentiary as part of solving Nebraskas prison overcrowding crisis.

I am not asking anyone to choose between supporting a modern State Penitentiary and pursuing policies that aim to reduce crime and recidivism, he said. These solutions are not at odds, and there is room for both as we work to strengthen Nebraska.

With the penitentiary in Lincoln almost as old as Nebraska itself, physical improvements for the safety of workers and incarcerated people alike are needed there.

However, rather that committing to building a new prison to entirely phase out the State Penitentiary, lawmakers would be wise to retrace the steps that got Nebraska into this mess and rectify them.

Fortunately for them, a detailed roadmap exists that would help to turn the tide on the current path thats given Nebraska the unfortunate honor of having Americas most crowded state prisons. A recently released report by the Crime and Justice Institute gives the state 21 actionable options.

While not all of them generated consensus, they offer far less costly options than building a new prison with a nine-figure price tag  and thats before considering the devastating human toll excessive imprisonment has had on certain communities within this state.

Some well-intended laws in Nebraska have instead ended up creating negative consequences in the states prisons, helping to accelerate the growth of the prison population while all but one other state is seeing declines.

Take a 2009 law that created mandatory minimums and stiffened penalties in an attempt to deter assaults and gun crimes in north Omaha and route offenders into the state prisons rather than federal ones. In the end, having more people with longer sentences in Nebraska prisons has only worsened prisons overcrowding and gang problems.

Yet some senators remain vocal in their thinking that something as simple as drug possession in and of itself is a violent crime. Substance abuse is an illness that has been criminalized, much to the detriment of those who suffer from it, and often masks other mental and physical health concerns.

And Nebraska too often treats it with imprisonment, given that Corrections reports one in seven people in the state prisons has a drug offense as the most serious conviction. Not to mention that the CJI report notes that drug convictions were the leading cause of admission to state prisons in 2020.

Addressing these problems  along with several other suggestions that include parole standards, problem-solving courts and sentencing reform  are the appropriate next step to slow and reverse increases in the states prison population.

And that, we hope, negates the need for a new prison in Nebraska, even as state officials search for a site.

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The bill introduced by state Sen. Rob Clements and his nine co-sponsors ("Proposal would strip Lincoln-Lancaster health departments ability to issue mandates independent of state," Jan. 8) continues the pattern seemingly perfected by President Trump to prevent people from doing what is best for their own and the communitys health.

A political party seems more important than Nebraska citizens with this attempt to dictate how Lancaster County has chosen to control a pandemic. These legislators mistakenly think they know more about COVID than the medical professionals.

They are proposing to mandate that Lancaster County has to do what the rest of the state has done although this is the county with one of the lowest infection and hospitalization rates. Clements is undoubtedly a great banker, friend and parent. If he would consult medical professionals about a medical issue he could be a better legislator!

I dont like wearing masks either, but anyone living in a democracy should realize we all have responsibility for the well-being of the communities in which we live. Since mandates in Lincoln have resulted in a lower number of cases and hospitalizations for local residents, it has made hospital beds available to citizens from those counties that chose to ignore the warnings and helped prolong the pandemic.

Please use the facts and advice from the community of medical professionals to propose rational legislation.

Gary L. Heusel, Lincoln

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BURLINGTON  Burlington Park Board members voted Thursday night for the removal of the Echo Lake dam and draining of the lake, a once-popular recreation site now seen by many as a polluted mess and a safety hazard.

The Park Board recommendation, on a 6-1 vote, goes next before the Burlington City Council for a final decision, expected next month, on an emotional issue about the future of a deteriorated community resource.

The advisory boards action advances a strategy designed to save taxpayers the cost of rebuilding the Echo Lake dam, while also opening up options for new recreational development along a restored White River, which would replace the manmade lake.

The City Council is scheduled in February to consider the matter, based largely on the fate of an aging city-owned dam that state regulators have deemed unsafe.

Park Board President Patricia Hoffman said it was a tough decision for her and the other board members to urge removal of the dam and draining of Echo Lake. But she hopes aldermen on the City Council give serious consideration to the boards recommendation.

Environmentally, and for the long term, its the right thing to do, she said.

One in favor of salvage

Board member Clay Brandt cast the only vote in favor of repairing the dam, arguing in a memo to his board colleagues that the lake remains a popular site for weddings and other gatherings.

Many in Burlington do not accept change very well, he wrote, and removing the dam, and the changes that it would bring, would be very painful to the community.

Joining Hoffman in voting for removal of the dam and draining of the lake were board members Marilee Hoffman, Sara Spencer, Cassie Quist, Annie Roebke and Steve Rauch, an aldermanic representative on the board.

The vote followed another effort by Echo Lake boosters to persuade Park Board members to support making the estimated $5 million investment needed to keep the lake.

Spencer said later she decided that trying to rebuild and recreate the dam could open up taxpayers to unforeseen future expenses. Draining the lake, she said, allows more opportunities for the community to build something new.

Saying she hopes the City Council supports the recommendation, Spencer predicted that people in Burlington would be happy with the results, even if they oppose the move now.

People dont like change, she said. Change is hard.

DNR approval to be sought

The City Council plans to make a decision in February and then seek approval from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

State environmental regulators have notified the city that the dam at Echo Lake no longer meets safety standards. The dam must either be upgraded and expanded, or it must be dismantled.

The issue has divided Burlington residents, some of whom see the lake as a valued community resource worth saving, and others who see it as a nuisance that should go.

The lake was created in the 19th century, when entrepreneurs built a dam on the White River to power a mill. The White River continues to feed the lake and, if the lake were drained, would flow through a 70-acre site that could either be restored naturally or be redeveloped with new amenities such as boardwalks and fishing docks.

City engineers have calculated that maintaining the lake would cost more than $5 million to improve the dam and then dredge the polluted lake. Removing the dam and draining the lake would cost much less, with estimates ranging from $1.1 million to $2 million.

City officials hope to secure state grants, but they also have released projections showing how much the Echo Lake project could cost Burlington taxpayers.

If the city borrowed $5 million to save the lake, property taxes for the average homeowner would increase $68 a year over 20 years, for a total of $1,368. By comparison, borrowing $1.5 million to drain the lake would cost the same homeowner $20 a year, or a total of $409.

Adding boardwalks or other amenities would require additional spending to be decided separately by the city.

Rauch told his fellow Park Board members Thursday that the city could take several years to decide on future redevelopment ideas for the former lake site.

Everything doesnt have to be done at once, he said.

Lake would need some draining either way

If the city elects to try keeping Echo Lake, the lake still will have to be drained partially and temporarily to allow for dam construction and lake-bottom dredging.

Engineers have estimated that 500,000 pounds of phosphorus pollutants would need to be removed through dredging.

The dam expansion project also would require construction of a new above-ground retaining wall that would extend about 200 feet into nearby Veterans Park, encroaching on a hiking path.

Members and supporters of the Save Echo Lake group urged Park Board members to get behind salvaging what many people in the community regard as a treasured resource.

It would be an absolute crime to let this go, supporter Matthew Snorek said.

Another supporter, A.J. Schkeryantz, compared Echo Lake to a diamond ring that has gotten dirty. Rather than discard the entire ring, he said, just clean up the diamond.

Please dont throw out our diamond, he added.

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RACINE  A former elementary school band teacher from Burlington, accused of sexual assault of a minor, was in court on Thursday for arraignment.

UPDATE: $500,000 bond for teacher arrested in Burlington; charged with child pornography & sexual assault Zachary Wendt, who lives in Burlington and teaches at a Kenosha County school, allegedly had "a sexual relationship" with a 16-year-old girl he met while giving music lessons at a Burlington music store. His cash bond was set at half-a-million dollars during his first court hearing Thursday.

Zachary Wendt, 38, of Burlington, pleaded not guilty to six felony counts: two counts of sexual assault by a person who works with children, one count of exposing intimate areas to a child and three counts of possession of child pornography.

He also pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor counts of sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old child.

The defense requested the $500,000 bail be reduced to $10,000  cash only. The Racine County District Attorneys Office did not object. The court granted the reduction.

If released, the defendant may have no contact with female minors; however, he may have visitation with his two sons.

Wendt was a band teacher at Wheatland Center School in Kenosha County and also gave music lessons at a private business in Burlington, where the reported victim in the case was also giving music lessons.

The private business, Musicology, said last month that it had severed ties with Wendt.

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RACINE  The retired Racine County Sheriffs Office sergeant accused of skimming union funds pleaded not guilty to the charge on Thursday.

David Coughlin, 59, was charged with theft on the allegations he took more than $20,000 in union funds for his own use over a period of eight years.

The case was investigated by the Kenosha County Sheriffs Department and is being prosecuted by the Walworth County District Attorneys Office.

Allegations

Coughlin is accused of skimming funds from the Racine Commanding Officers Association between May 2012 and December 2020.

The defendant was the treasurer/secretary for the association.

The Racine County Command Staff Association represents sergeants and lieutenants, but not rank-and-file deputies, from the Racine County Sheriffs Office.

Concerns of theft first arose in November 2020 when a new board was elected to oversee the association, according to a criminal complaint. The new board reported that it requested files from Coughlin in connection to his role as the treasurer/secretary, but he did not supply the files.

According to the complaint, Sgt. Aaron Schmidt, the associations newly elected president, confronted Coughlin about the records on Dec. 13, 2020.

Coughlin allegedly said he would provide the records the next day, but he did not. Allegedly, he did not want to turn the records over to Schmidt, preferring to turn them over to Sgt. Tony Ruffalo, the newly elected treasurer/secretary.

Schmidt then contacted the associations bank where he reportedly learned there was $412 in the account, even though Coughlin reported at the November 2020 meeting that there was $14,000 in the account, the complaint said.

When confronted, the defendant allegedly said he moved the money to a different bank and would turn the records over on the following day, Dec. 15, 2020. In the morning, Schmidt insisted that he and Coughlin go to the bank so that Schmidt could be added to the account, but Coughlin allegedly said he moved the associations money to a personal account.

Because it was a personal account, the defendant allegedly said he did not want to add anyone to it; rather, he would get a check for the associations money.

Coughlin asked Schmidt to keep the conversation between them, the complaint states, and as of Dec. 18, 2020, Coughlins last day on the job, he did not provide any checks to the association.

According to the complaint, on Dec. 26, 2020, during an investigation into the missing money, Coughlin allegedly admitted to taking the associations money to avoid foreclosure on his home.

A subsequent investigation involving bank records reportedly showed the defendant had deposited RCOA checks into his personal account and had further written checks to himself using association funds.

Investigators determined the defendant had taken $20,540 of the associations money; the records also show the last of the checks the defendant wrote to himself was cashed in August 2018.

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My daughter was scared every day." Leonard Larry said she would get out of her car, run until she was inside her house, then quickly lock the door. Brittany Booker, the mother to 6 children, was killed Sunday, the victim of violent crime.
With billions of dollars worth of projects in the works, Wisconsin lawmakers have introduced a bill that would block competition on long-distance power lines.

The bipartisan bill, opposed by both consumer advocates and the free-market group Americans for Prosperity, comes as the Biden administration launches a major grid modernization effort to deliver clean energy.

Sponsored by Sen. Julian Bradley, R-Franklin, and Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-La Crosse, the bill would give incumbent transmission owners the exclusive right to build any transmission project approved by the Midwest grid operator, known as MISO.

That means the states three transmission utilities would have the exclusive right to add to their networks, which opponents say would boost their profits at ratepayers expense.

The authors have framed the bill as a means of maintaining control over the states transmission development, but a coalition of consumer, industry and free market groups say its simply about protecting utility profits by preventing competitive bidding and will lead to higher energy prices.

Billions could be at stake here for Wisconsin customers, said Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, which represents the states largest electricity customers. This is really terrible public policy.

Multiple states  including Iowa, Minnesota and most recently Michigan  have passed similar legislation in the decade since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) abolished federal anti-competition protections known as right of first refusal. Missouris legislature is expected to take up a similar bill next month.

FERC is now considering more policy reforms that could help prepare the grid to deliver clean energy from remote wind and solar farms while supporting new uses like electric vehicles.

But critics of the anti-competition laws point to a more immediate impetus for the legislation: Later this year MISO is expected to approve a batch of new transmission lines it says will be needed over the next two decades to handle new clean energy sources being built to meet member utilities carbon reduction goals.

Those lines are expected to cost between $30 billion and $100 billion, with the costs being passed on to electricity customers throughout the MISO territory.

Bradleys office provided a statement claiming the bill would protect the state from federal control.

This bill ensures Wisconsin  not DC  controls the expansion and operation of our states electric grid, Bradley said. Neighboring states have chosen to control their grids to ensure reliable energy for their citizens, and its time for Wisconsin to do the same.

The federal government does not directly control the grid but sets ground rules for entities such as MISO, an independent nonprofit organization established in 2001 to operate electricity markets and oversee regional planning in 15 states and one Canadian province.

The bill would not change the state Public Service Commissions role in permitting individual projects, such as the controversial Cardinal-Hickory Creek line under construction between Dubuque, Iowa, and Middleton. It would prohibit MISO from awarding contracts to outside developers.

American Transmission Company, which is owned by a group of distribution utilities including Alliant and Madison Gas and Electric, owns most of Wisconsins transmission network. Xcel Energy and Dairyland operate most of the transmission lines in the western part of the state.

More players needed

While the cost of generating electricity has fallen over the past decade, the cost to deliver it has risen as utilities have made substantial investments in the wires, poles, towers and other equipment, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Power line opponents often point to research suggesting it would be cheaper to clean up the grid with rooftop and smaller community-based solar panels coupled with battery storage, but most experts say transmission additions will be needed to do what climate scientists say is necessary to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

Princeton University researchers say the nation could achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 using existing technology, but doing so could require a transmission system up to three times larger.

Earlier this month the Biden administration announced a major initiative to support the construction of even more long-distance power lines to improve grid reliability and deliver clean energy where its needed.

With transmission buildout gaining momentum, consumer advocates say competition is critical to protecting ratepayers, citing studies and real world examples where competitive bidding reduced costs by more than a third on average and in some cases by as much as half.

Under the competitive bidding process, the winning developer would be held to timelines and budgets spelled out in MISOs contract rather than a monopoly utility telling regulators what the project will cost.

If there is a cost overrun, the developer has to eat it, Stuart said. Contrast that to a line by ATC or Xcel. If they have a cost overrun, they go back to the PSC. I cant remember the last time a cost-overrun was disallowed.

Independent energy consultant Rao Konidena said anti-competition laws are defeating the purpose of participating in a regional market like MISO, where electricity flows across state lines in a system designed to use the cheapest energy available.

Konidena said MISO has dozens of qualified transmission developers  some with experience in high-voltage direct current (or DC) lines, underground lines and technologies that make the best use of wires  that could bring innovation to Wisconsins transmission network if allowed to participate.

Healthy competition will motivate incumbent transmission companies to work with them, Konidena said. We need more players in the field to build transmission. Not fewer.

Anti-competition legislation has also drawn fire from conservatives, including the Trump administration, which argued against a bill in the Texas legislature.

Americans for Prosperity state director Eric Bott said the law would likely violate the dormant commerce clause of the Constitution, which prohibits states from passing protectionist policies that discriminate against non-residents doing business.

I anticipate if this bill were to pass wed be sued the next day, Bott said.

Utilities respond

Utilities say competitive bidding hasnt worked and contend the bill is about maintaining state control, although it would not change the PSCs authority.

A significant amount of investment in transmission infrastructure is necessary to accommodate the ongoing transition to a more diversified energy mix, said ATC spokesperson Alissa Braatz. The proposed legislation, which is similar to laws that are in place in many states surrounding Wisconsin, will maintain the states rights to make these important policy decisions.

A coalition of MISO transmission utilities that includes ATC, Dairyland and Xcel argued to FERC that competitive bidding would significantly delay the clean energy transition.

The Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for the nations investor-owned utilities, has encouraged FERC to reinstate a federal right of first refusal, arguing that its elimination stifled the cooperation and collaboration that has historically existed among transmission owners.

This policy has resulted in a near standstill in transmission development for regional projects, the group wrote, and a substantial increase in process-related costs.

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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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Forget the stereotypical images of macrame plant hangers and 1970s barefoot hippies. Hemp has come solidly into the 21st century with surprising range, versatility and renewed popularity.

One of the first companies licensed to grow industrial hemp in New York, Hudson Hemp got its start in 2017 shortly after hemp was legalized in the state.

We decided to go in this direction as hemp is a particularly specialized plant in carbon sequestering, which ties into our regenerative agricultural practices, says Hudson Hemp co-founder Melany Dobson, of the decision to go into the hemp business.

This year, we produced 10 acres of CBD-rich hemp to use in tinctures and salves currently featured on our website. We also partner with external companies to create products for their businesses.

Hemp in regenerative farming

Not only does regenerative farming work to reverse the effects of chemical pollution and decarbonization to improve topsoil health and fertility, it also helps reduce soil erosion and loss that can contribute to climate change.

Together with her sister, Freya, and brother, Ben, Dobson and the Hudson Hemp farm team focus on enriching and leaving the soil of their Old Mud Creek Farm and Stone House Farm properties better off than they found it. Born into a family that raised lettuce and tomatoes, Dobson only decided to follow in her fathers organic farming footsteps after a stint in Northern California opened her eyes to the possibilities the cannabis industry had to offer.

Regenerative farming aims to not only maintain the integrity of the environment, but enhance it with strategic crop rotation and nutrient sequestering, she explains. Organic farming may meet certain guidelines and regulations to achieve certification, but doesnt follow the same format of ecosystem balancing that allows for longevity in sustainable harvesting.

As adopters of the regenerative practice movement, the Dobsons transition began back in 2013 with a move toward diversifying and earning organic, non-GMO status for their farming operations. Hemp has helped them achieve these goals by producing a viable crop that supports biodiversity, sustainability and carbon sequestration  the ability to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and reintroduce it into the soil  through a natural, closed-loop farming system.

All about hemp

Although its receiving renewed attention in recent years, hemp has actually been around for millennia with historical mentions going back as far as 8000 B.C.

Hemp (cannabis sativa) is a type of plant that contains medicinal properties, Dobson describes. Hemp and cannabis are both the same species of plant, only differing in THC content. Cannabis contains higher than 0.3 percent THC content, whereas hemp contains less than said amount.

Cannabis was widely grown in the United States until the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 put the kibosh on the crop until 2018, when the U.S. Farm Bill federally legalized hemp production, ushering in a new generation of CBD growers and suppliers. The versatility of the crop is part of what makes hemp so appealing.

CBD has been known to help treat anxiety, minor aches and pains, Dobson notes. Hemp also provides strong, fibrous material that can be used in the production of food, fuel and fiber.

Hand-in-hand with Hudson Hemp growing operations, Dobson and her sister oversee the production and sales of Treaty, their line of plant extract-enhanced CBD tinctures in four formulas: Calm, Focus, Recover and Balance.

Hemp and marijuana: The same?

Many people mistakenly believe that hemp and marijuana are the same. Not the case, Dobson explains.

It has raised concerns of whether hemp can make someone high, she continues. This is untrue, as hemp and marijuana contain different chemical properties.

Its important to read CBD product labels closely because the regulation of CBD products currently varies by state, which can lead to discrepancies in quality and potency. Hudson Hemp insists on careful in-house analysis and third-party testing to assure high product integrity and standards.

The future of hemp farming

As the CBD industry continues to expand, industrial hemp presents an intriguing proposition for farmers wanting to diversify their crops and venture into new markets. Dobson hopes to continue blazing new trails for others to follow into the world of hemp and regenerative farming.

Now that cannabis has been legalized in multiple states, as well as being in the works for New York, this will provide new opportunities for hemp growers to produce both hemp and cannabis if they so choose, she says.
CHI Health announced Thursday that E.J. Kuiper is the new chief executive officer of CHI Health and president of CommonSpirit Healths Midwest Division. CHI Health is the parent company of Good Samaritan Hospital.

On Monday, Kuiper began providing strategic leadership and overall operational oversight to the health systems 28 hospitals, two stand-alone behavioral health centers and more than 150 employed physician practices in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and North Dakota.

The role previously was held by Dr. Cliff Robertson. Recently, Janette Wojtalewicz served as interim head of CHI Health.

Michael Schnieders is president of CHI Health Good Samaritan in Kearney and Ed Hannon is president of CHI Health St. Francis in Grand Island. They are two of the 14 hospitals in the CHI Health network.

Kuiper comes to CHI Health with significant health care experience, most recently serving as president and CEO at Hospital Sisters Health System Illinois  a nine-hospital division totaling more than 1,150 acute care beds. He received his bachelors degree in physical therapy from the Academy for Physical Therapy in the Netherlands; a masters degree in health science, health services administration from Florida Gulf Coast University; and a doctor of physical therapy degree from St. Augustine University.

Kuipers commitment and the health systems mission  transforming health care and building healthy communities-align, according to a CHI news release. With a comprehensive approach to team building and collaborative problem solving, Kuiper hopes to further strengthen, engage and empower the health systems 16,000-plus employees who he says are instrumental for growth and success.

I believe that as a health care system, our most precious asset is our people, Kuiper said in a statement. Without a highly engaged workforce, our hospitals, our clinics, our office buildings are just real estate.

Kuipers top priority in life and work, from starting out as a staff physical therapist to CEO, remains kindness, based on the news release.

We are all in this together. Genuine and sometimes random gestures of kindness and love can make such a difference in someones day, Kuiper said. It is so important that we create a caring environment in which human kindness is evident from the moment our patients enter our facilities.

When asked about the challenges presented by the pandemic today, he said, Without a doubt, the biggest challenge is the significant strain on our health care workers. Whether directly at the bedside or a few steps away supporting caregivers behind the scenes, everyone has felt the impact of the pandemic. Turnover in health care across the nation is too high, engagement levels are too low and too many of us feel burned out. Working on workforce wellness at CHI Health will be my focus going forward.

Kuiper has significant experience in successful collaboration with strategic partners, as evidenced by his ability to secure a 10-year master agreement relative to clinical, teaching and research activities with the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, which resulted in the construction of a 54-bed neonatal intensive care unit and an 80,000 square-foot ambulatory facility for womens and childrens services, and the comprehensive 10-year agreement with Springfield Clinic around a number of specialty and subspecialty services.

Prior to joining Hospital Sisters Health System in 2013, Kuiper served as the president and chief executive officer of St. Anthonys Health System in Alton, Ill., where his hospitals were recognized by the Joint Commission as a Top Performing Hospital on Key Quality Measures in 2012 and 2013. He also served as the president and chief executive officer of St. Anthonys Health Center and as the chief operating officer of HCA Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center and Gulf Coast Hospital in Fort Myers, Fla. He began his career in health care as a physical therapist, after growing up in the Netherlands.

Kuiper is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, a member of the State of Illinois Hospital Licensing Board and a member of the American Hospital Associations Regional Policy Board.

Kuiper is married to his wife Patty of almost 30 years. The couple has two grown daughters and a son.

CHI Health is part of CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit, Catholic health system dedicated to advancing health for all people. It was created in February 2019 through the alignment of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health.

CommonSpirit Health, headquartered in Chicago, operates 142 hospitals and more than 700 care sites across 21 states

In fiscal 2021, CHI Health invested more than $208.7 million back into the communities it serves. The majority of those dollars went to caring for the poor and underserved.
A plan to spend the remainder of La Crosse Countys federal COVID relief funds was approved by the board Thursday night, reserving millions into eight categories.

County staff will now get to work on the specific plans for the $22.2 million left from the American Rescue Plan Act disbursement the county received. All projects will go to the board for additional approval before any money is spent.

The funds are now reserved for eight project categories: $3.3 million for childcare, $3 million for bridge housing for families, $2.425 million for skilled trades training, $3 million for bridge housing for adults, $2 million for housing redevelopment grants, $5 million for renovations at Hillview Health Care Campus, $1.5 million for solar energy and $2 million for stormwater infrastructure.

These allocations have proposed projects attached to them but the funding is subject to change and just serves as guidelines for staff to work off of.

Supervisor David Hundt proposed moving $90,000 to support several area festivals at Thursday nights meeting.

This is what the funds were meant for, I believe, to help out those individuals and businesses that are struggling, supervisor Jack Pogreba said in support.

Hundt specifically called to support Oktoberfest, Riverfest, Irishfest, Holmen Kornfest, Onalaska Community Days, West Salem June Dairy Days, the La Crosse Interstate Fair, Bangor Fun Daze and Mindoros Spanferkel.

I feel that the spirit of ARPA was to help communities. Was to help the economic sustainability of communities that were hurt by COVID, said supervisor Kevin Hoyer.

Others were concerned that the ask did not follow the correct process the board followed to allocate for the other projects. The county has spent several months narrowing down its priorities and working on task forces to allocate the funds.

We talked a lot about priorities and where we wanted money to go, and this absolutely skirts all of that work that we did, supervisor Tina Tryggestad said.

Some officials were also concerned that this left out several festivals in the community.

Im concerned that the county board should not be handpicking nonprofits. I dont think its a good look for us, supervisor Peg Isola said.

In addition, supervisors stressed that the funds would need to come from one of the other project areas.

None of these categories of ARPA money designations are carved in stone. There will be lots of opportunities down the line for different organizations to make a case for why they deserve to get a piece of that pie, and well definitely be looking at that down the line, board chair Monica Kruse said.

The amendment ultimately failed and supervisors approved the original plan.

Staff will report their progress on implementing this plan back to the county board on a quarterly basis, and all spending will need separate approval from the county board when the time comes.

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A bench warrant has been issued for a 45-year-old La Crosse man accused of punching a man during a dispute that was reportedly triggered by a racial slur.

Daniel J. Getchell was charged Wednesday in La Crosse County Circuit Court with a felony count of substantial battery with intent to cause bodily harm and misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and bail jumping. Judge Ramona Gonzalez issued the warrant after Getchell didnt show for his Wednesday initial appearance.

According to the criminal complaint, police were called Oct. 17 to George Street Pub, where first responders were treating a man who was unconscious and bleeding on the floor. He regained consciousness and told police he was all of a sudden attacked after coming inside the bar look for his brother. He told police he was struck with a bottle and couldnt remember anything after that.

The complaint says police had difficulty getting a coherent statement from the man, who was described as agitated and highly intoxicated. He appeared to believe one of the attackers was a Black man nicknamed Elmo who belonged to the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. The complaint says the man made multiple racist statements during the interview. He reportedly used a racial slur to describe the alleged attacker and said he wanted to lynch him.

The complaint says the mans left cheek was extremely swollen and both his eyes were turning black and blue. During a followup interview, the man told police he received stitches on the inside of his left cheek and may have suffered a broken rib. He reportedly told police he declined to have the rib x-rayed due to the pain it would cause.

Police interviewed the mans brother, who was also reportedly intoxicated. He told police he heard a scuffle and attempted to pull off several people who were hitting his brother. He told police he was struck in the face during the altercation. Getchell was interviewed by police the following day. He said the altercation began after he heard someone direct racial slurs toward the group. The complaint describes Getchell as cooperative while police handcuffed him and transported him to the La Crosse County Jail. He was released on a $1,000 signature bond with no-contact provisions with the alleged victims and George Street Pub.

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A Dane County jury found Chandler Halderson guilty Thursday of the murder and dismemberment of his parents last summer.

After deliberating just over two hours, the jury found 23-year-old Halderson guilty of killing, cutting up and hiding the remains of Bart and Krista Halderson, as well as lying to law enforcement when he initially claimed his parents were missing after they left the Windsor house the family shared for a Fourth of July weekend trip in northern Wisconsin and never returned.

Chandler showed no apparent reaction when the verdicts were read, convicting him of two counts each of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, hiding a corpse and falsifying information about a missing person.

A first-degree intentional homicide conviction carries a mandatory life sentence. Attorneys will be able to argue whether Chandler can ever be eligible for parole at a sentencing hearing scheduled in March.

I hope that it brings some satisfaction, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, who did not prosecute the case, told reporters after the verdicts. We know that we cannot bring Bart and Krista back, but this is the first step to hopefully some finality.

After prosecutors spent a week and a half arguing the case, which has drawn national media attention, the defense rested Thursday morning without calling any witnesses or Chandler testifying.

In a closing statement, Assistant District Attorney Andrea Raymond walked jurors through events from July 1, when Chandler is said to have killed Bart, 50, and Krista, 53, through his arrest on July 8.

She reminded jurors of evidence and testimony seen throughout the trial, such as human bone fragments found in the familys fireplace, cutting tools with DNA matching Bart and Kristas, phone location data showing Chandler near where his parents remains were later found, and neighbors security cameras capturing what vehicles came and went from the house during that time.

We know that Bart and Krista went into that home and never came out, at least as whole people, Raymond said.

She compared solving a criminal case to putting together a puzzle, contending Chandler had eight days to spread pieces of that puzzle all over Wisconsin, at least southern Wisconsin.

They were normal folks just trying to live a normal life. They dont even get to be buried next to each other, Raymond said. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Im asking that you give justice to Krista and Bart Halderson and that you treat them with the dignity and respect that their own son hasnt given them.

Defense attorney Crystal Vera urged the jurors to consider what they dont know with regard to the two first-degree intentional homicide charges, but she seemingly conceded Chandler was guilty of other charges.

Do you know if it was an awful accident, do you know if it was intentional, do you know if there was someone else involved? Vera asked the jurors. You dont, and thats a problem.

She admitted Chandler is a liar and even goes to extreme lengths, if you will, to keep those lies going or to perhaps cover up those lies.

But Vera argued the prosecutions focus on Chandlers lies about attending Madison Area Technical College, working for American Family Insurance or being part of a scuba dive team for Madison police  regardless of how much of the truth was known to his parents  was more about tainting his credibility if he testified rather than a reasonable motive.

You were never told that they were going to kick him out of the house. You were never told that they were going to disown him. You were never told anything about why it matters, Vera said. If this is going to be motive, if this is the reason youre intentionally killing someone, it better matter.

In a rebuttal, Deputy District Attorney William Brown said: He had two options: Own up to his lies, stand up and finally tell the truth for once. Or like a coward, shoot your father in the back, and thats exactly what happened.

Questions remain

The Dane County Medical Examiners Office was unable to determine the precise cause of death for Krista, whose only remains found were her legs. Ozanne said Chandlers motive may never become clear.

The one thing that our traditional criminal justice system never really may get to is the why, he said. It may not. We cannot reach into somebody and figure out the why unless theyre willing to somehow give that information to us. We may never know.

Chandler reported his parents missing to the Dane County Sheriffs Office on July 7, claiming they left for a trip to the family cabin in Langlade County with an unknown couple and hadnt returned. Law enforcement quickly saw that story fall apart and arrested Chandler the following day.

In reality, prosecutors say, Chandler killed them after his father began catching on to his claims of attending MATC, and he spent the following days first trying to burn Bart and Krista in the fireplace before disposing of body parts at various locations.

Hours before Chandlers arrest, investigators discovered Barts gunshot torso in a rural Cottage Grove property. It wasnt until July 14  nearly two weeks after the murders were believed to have happened  that Kristas remains were found on state land in northwestern Dane County.

Given the scope of the investigation, which required searching multiple locations and involved several agencies, Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said it came down to time and resources to put together the case, which he called historical.

He credited the professionalism and outstanding work of the Sheriffs Office detectives, deputies and staff in the first high-profile murder of Barretts tenure.

Despite a weeklong pause in the trial because Chandler tested positive for COVID-19 in the Dane County Jail, it concluded more than a week earlier than originally scheduled.

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EAU CLAIRE  A federal judge in Madison sentenced a former Chippewa Falls man to 10 years in federal prison Thursday for fraudulently getting military contracts.

U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson handed down the sentence to Craig Klund, 58, of Yankton, S.D., for convictions on wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft.

Following his prison sentence, Klund will serve three years on supervised release. Peterson also ordered Klund to pay $435,823 in restitution.

According to a news release from the office of Timothy O'Shea, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, Klund executed a scheme from 2011 to July 2019 to defraud the Department of Defense by obtaining contracts through fraud.

Klund, who had previously been convicted twice of defense contracting fraud, used shell companies, aliases and other deceptive practices to dupe the government into buying from someone it otherwise would not award contracts to, according to O'Shea.

Using his shell companies, Klund won 1,928 military contracts worth a total of nearly $7.47 million. During the fraud scheme, he was paid $2.9 million.

Electrical parts Klund supplied were used by the U.S. military for multiple uses, including in the Patriot Missile System and F-16 jet fighter.

Klund had also knowingly shipped nonconforming parts and requested payment for them, based on O'Shea's news release.

In addition to securing the contracts through fraud, Klund also concealed proceeds from them by not reporting that money on his federal income tax returns and laundering the funds between different accounts, according to the news release.

While Klund's company previously had been located in the Chippewa Valley, he moved it to South Dakota to evade Defense Contract Management Agency inspectors who were suspicious of him in Wisconsin, O'Shea stated.

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Editor's note: This story is part of the Lee Enterprises series "Grizzlies and Us." The project examines the many issues surrounding the uneasy coexistence of grizzly bears and humans in the Lower 48, which have come more into focus in recent years as the federally-protected animal pushes farther into human-occupied areas. The 10-part series, comprised of more than 20 stories, was produced by reporters and photojournalists across the Rocky Mountain West.

Grizzly bear managers sat side-by-side at the Augusta Community Center in June, listening and answering questions for nearly two hours from a restless crowd gathered to talk increasing numbers of the bruins.

Attendees voiced concerns over human safety and livestock conflicts, asked how many bears now occupy the prairie east of the Rocky Mountain Front and where the federal government stands on delisting. But in the world of grizzlies, an animal that can be both revered and yet polarizing at the same time, answers are seldom simple.

Officials such as Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Director Hank Worsech and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear coordinator Hilary Cooley, often delved into the uncertainty of challenging regulatory processes, past legal decisions and strongly divided opinion around the management of the iconic species.

Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras stood in front of the crowd and offered her assessment of the grizzly debate, pointing to gridlock in Congress as one major hurdle standing in the way.

(Montana is) prepared to manage grizzly bears but it has become a political issue at the federal level, she said.

As the grizzly population has grown, so too has the political divide in the country and the state, and the meeting came during a shift in the political landscape. It might be easy to assume that policies around grizzly bears fall along party lines, but that isn't the case, and many of those interviewed for this story still hope to find common ground.

The two attempts to delist grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem came under presidents of both parties, and former Gov. Steve Bullock convened a working group near the end of his administration to offer guidance to state wildlife managers should bears return to state control.

Grizzlies at the federal level

With the election of Democratic President Joe Biden came new appointees overseeing federally protected species  a fact Cooley told the crowd meant she was awaiting direction on grizzlies. Any delisting decision needed to be able to withstand another court challenge, she said.

During a July U.S. Senate hearing, Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines asked Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland if she considered grizzly bears recovered in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems of Montana, citing current populations above targets.

The ongoing recovery is a remarkable success for the (Endangered Species Act), Haaland said, adding the law has done what its meant to do.

Haaland stopped short of support but pledged dialogue with Daines and other GOP senators who introduced a bill in March that would legislatively delist grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone. Similarly to how gray wolves were delisted in the Northern Rockies in 2011, the legislation would restore a 2017 delisting rule currently vacated by a federal judge.

The grizzly bear has more than recovered and now we have seen that grizzly bear conflicts are on the rise, harming Montana families and ranchers. Secretary Haaland and the Biden Administration must follow the science, delist the grizzly bear, and return management back to the state for the sake of our communities, ranchers, wildlife and the bear itself, Daines said in a statement. I have proposed legislation to delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and am pushing for a hearing on this needed bill. This shouldnt be political. I urge Sen. (Jon) Tester to cosponsor my bill and join me in the effort to delist the bear.

Montanas lone representative in the House Republican Matt Rosendale in December introduced a bill to delist grizzlies both in the Greater Yellowstone and also in the Norther Continental Divide ecosystem. Maintaining federal listing ignores science showing recovery, he said, blaming "radical environmentalists" for litigating previous delisting attempts.

This puts the lives of Montanans and the livelihoods of Montana ranchers in jeopardy ," he said in a statement. "Its high time we follow the science and pass my bill to delist the grizzly bear populations in the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystems, and return management back to the states.

Rosendale's bill comes as Gianforte filed a petition with Department of the Interior to delist bears in the Northern Continental Divide. Federal officials have not yet responded.

Tester, a Democrat, has not co-sponsored Daines' bill and his office says he continues to monitor grizzly policy at both the federal and state levels.

When it comes to wildlife management of any type, Sen. Tester continues to believe we need to follow the science and allow the facts on the ground to dictate decision making, not politics, a Tester spokesperson said. He has not signed on to any grizzly-related legislation at this time.

Senator Tester is going to keep pushing to make sure Montanas grizzly populations are responsibly managed, and will continue prioritizing local efforts like nonlethal predator management and improving habitat corridors that will help get grizzlies stable, fully recovered and off the ESA for good.

Grizzlies at the state level

Gov. Greg Gianfortes election shifted Montanas top executive post to the GOP for the first time in 16 years. Now like neighboring grizzly bear states Idaho and Wyoming, both the governors office and the legislature are solid red.

Republican lawmakers also passed a resolution calling for all grizzlies in the entirety of the state to be delisted from the Endangered Species Act  a step further than past resolutions that only called for delisting in recovered areas.

Worsech highlighted the passion around grizzly bears in a recent interview.

A lot of stuff we deal with is divisive, for lack of a better term, he said. On any given day Im going to upset half the people on any given issue. Does some of this divisiveness play into a political realm right now? Is it really political or is really about the animals sometimes?

Sen. Bruce Butch Gillespie, R-Kevin, carried the resolution as well as Senate Bill 98 which puts in state law that a grizzly could be killed for threatening livestock. As the bears are federally protected, federal law currently applies that does not allow bears to be killed for threatening livestock, but does for predation or threatening human life.

I take a lot of phone calls from a lot of people on the Rocky Mountain Front and even those out on the plains are concerned with how many bears there are, he said. The bill wasnt to get rid of all the bears but to at least defend ourselves and our property when bears come around and are aggressive.

Gillespie echoes what many who live in grizzly country say, that if those opposed to delisting had to deal with the bears on a day-to-day basis, they might feel differently. Although it became law, the party-line votes on his legislation were disappointing, he said, adding he believed the message would have had more impact if Democrats voted for it.

A Democrats life is just as valuable as a Republicans life or a Libertarians life, he said. I had a lot of friends on the other side that said they sympathized with me, but I dont know if its pressure from a certain party, but they didnt vote to support me.

In addition to Gillespies legislation, Republicans also passed a bill that reforms the states involvement in relocating conflict bears. FWP has historically worked with federal counterparts to respond and trap bears that get into conflicts. Federal authorities then make a call on whether the bear will be relocated or euthanized. Senate Bill 337 limits the states involvement should a conflict bear be captured outside of a grizzly bear recovery zone, now leaving it up to federal officials to do the actual release. The bill also directs the states wildlife commission to approve relocation areas for bears trapped within recovery zones and released by FWP.

FWP supported the bill, and Worsech said he believes it has gotten the attention of federal officials. But short of delisting, he and counterparts in other states are pushing for changes to federal rules dictating when grizzlies may be killed in the name of self-defense.

What people are worried about is not so much to go and hunt grizzly bears as the protection part of it, he said. ... People are just afraid that if they do shoot a grizzly bear, even if they feel its self-protection, are they going to lose their ranch in legal fees fighting it?

Sen. Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, spoke out against some of the new grizzly bear legislation, and says he and other Democrats understand the frustrations, but contend the issues are far more nuanced. Flowers is a retired regional manager for FWP and worked on previous delisting efforts for the Yellowstone region.

As a caucus, I would characterize it as we are following the science, and when we meet the criteria, lets delist, he said. Id rather see any species in the hands of the state than the federal government.  Its a responsibility we take really seriously and I think we do a darn good job of it.

Flowers agrees with some opponents of the legislation that the bills could do more harm than good when it comes to reaching the ultimate goal of delisting. Federal authorities must consider regulatory mechanisms in place by the state that limit human-caused grizzly deaths and ensure populations dont backslide towards threatened or endangered status.

I think our job is to create a clear runway to make (delisting) happen, Flowers said. If it becomes clear down the road that a barrier is one or both of these laws, Im sure that well be willing to work on both sides of the aisle to provide adequate regulatory mechanisms. If we can meet delisting criteria then absolutely, I think youll see Democrats behind it.

Erin Edge, senior representative with Defenders of Wildlife, felt the laws were flawed in terms of the Endangered Species Act, but also saw less effort to work together in the recent session. She pointed to the majority of public comment and many biologists that opposed the bills contributing to polarization.

This wasnt just the environmental community coming out against these bills, so it doesnt seem like we were heard or even listened to, she said. It was just an opportunity for (Republicans) to run with it and they did. As the years progress I think well start to see some of the fallout from these bills and I think its important for the public to understand some of the possible ramifications.

Edge, like Gillespie and Flowers, hopes to see more bipartisanship in the future and believes state lawmakers could get there.

I feel strongly that there is common ground, she said. When you get this kind of extreme lawmaking or management it polarizes people.  I do think there are places we can come to an agreement and I can only hope well continue working in those kinds of collaborations.

Missoulian reporter Rob Chaney contributed to this story.

Tom Kuglin is the deputy editor for the Lee Newspapers State Bureau. His coverage focuses on outdoors, recreation and natural resources.

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Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Thursday disciplined a lawmaker who falsely claimed that former President Donald Trump won the battleground state and that he wanted to award the states electoral votes to him, even though that is not possible.

Vos, R-Rochester, removed the lone staff member assigned to Rep. Timothy Ramthun, R-Campbellsport, but it appears the reason was not his comments about who won the election. The move was first reported by WisPolitics.com and confirmed Thursday by Vos office.

The move to discipline Ramthun, who has vocally advocated election conspiracy theories, came after he falsely accused Vos of signing a deal with attorneys for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to authorize absentee ballot drop boxes, Vos office said.

After extensive caucus discussions and dozens of members expressing their displeasure with Representative Ramthun and his staff for using state resources to spread bold-faced lies to people outside of his district, the decision was made to move his staff, Vos spokesperson Angela Joyce said.

Every lawmaker gets at least one staff member to answer the phones, respond to emails, handle scheduling and deal with other tasks associated with holding office. Now Ramthun faces doing all of that work himself.

Ramthun did not return a message seeking comment.

Ramthun also proposed a resolution this week to reclaim Wisconsins 10 electoral college votes and recorded a message that demanded lawmakers take action on it. Attorneys for the Legislature have said it is impossible to do what Ramthun wants.

Vos briefly addressed the issue at a news conference Thursday, while defending an ongoing investigation that he ordered into the 2020 election.

We have said over and over that our election review is only to add and figure out the way that there were issues in 2020 going forward, Vos said. But every member has a right to their own beliefs.  Even though every lawyer that we have worked with in Wisconsin says we cannot undo the 2020 elections, Representative Ramthun has that belief. Thats his right.

The entire Republican Assembly leadership team issued a statement backing the decision to discipline Ramthun, saying he and his staffer were spreading lies. Their statement said Ramthun falsely alleged that Vos was working with Clintons attorney and that Republicans could award the states electoral college votes to Trump.

No matter how much Rep. Ramthun and his staffer believe what they are saying is true, it does not make it so, the GOP leaders said. Sending out communications full of lies is doing disservice to all voters. With so much information to parse through on the internet and in traditional media, we all must do a better job of listening and communicating.

The pushback against one of the most conservative Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly comes as Vos tries to balance calls from some who believe President Joe Biden stole the election against those who say its an effort to continue the lie that Trump won. Biden beat Trump by nearly 21,000 votes, an outcome that has withstood recounts, lawsuits and multiple reviews.

Vos ordered an investigation into the election, paid for with $676,000 in taxpayer funds, under pressure from Trump to do more. That review led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman is ongoing and subject to multiple lawsuits, even though Vos has said he wants it to be done next month so the Legislature can vote on recommendations in March.

Ramthun and Gableman both attended a symposium last year in South Dakota by MyPillow founder Mike Lindell where election conspiracy theories were discussed.

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Wisconsin is reporting a daily average of 30 deaths from COVID-19, the highest level in more than a year, as new cases and hospitalizations also remain high among the omicron variant surge.

The state Department of Health Services reported 38 additional deaths Thursday and 66 the day before, bringing the daily average to 30. That is the highest level since Jan. 9, 2021, before vaccinations were widely available.

The figures are from people who died within the past 30 days, with COVID-19 an underlying cause of death or a significant condition contributing to the death.

No information was available on how many of the people who died recently were vaccinated against COVID-19 or had received booster shots. But in December, when the omicron variant emerged, Wisconsin residents not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 were 14 times more likely die from COVID-19 than those fully vaccinated, the state health department said earlier this month.

The state on Thursday reported 15,486 new cases of COVID-19, for a daily average of 18,836, after a data system update over the weekend involving backlogged cases resulted in unusually high figures for a few days.

As of Thursday, 2,099 patients were in hospitals with COVID-19, including 445 in intensive care, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association. Thats down from a pandemic peak of 2,278 patients, including a record 488 in intensive care, on Jan. 12.

Dane County had 183 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, Public Health Madison and Dane County reported Thursday, down from its record of 202 on Jan. 11. As of Thursday, 47 were in intensive care, the highest level since November 2020, when the county had a record of 49 COVID-19 patients in intensive care.

With 95% of intensive care and intermediate care beds occupied, our health care systems are still under tremendous pressure due to an increase in cases and staffing shortages, said Karen Timberlake, health department secretary.

The state is seeing more pediatric hospitalizations with COVID-19, Timberlake said Thursday, though officials didnt provide recent statewide figures. The majority of children in hospitals with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, said Dr. Jasmine Zapata, a chief medical officer with the state health department.

Just 24% of children ages 5 to 11 and 58.9% of those ages 12 to 17 have had at least one dose of vaccine, compared to 63% of all residents statewide. Zapata urged more children to roll up their sleeves.

It not only protects them but also protects their teachers who they are around, their family members in the home and the larger community, she said.

With many people vaccinated and/or recently infected with COVID-19, we could be in a good position once the omicron wave ebbs and the weather gets warmer, said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, another chief medical officer with the state health department.

Were going to have a lot of people that have some level of immune system protection. Thats generally how pandemics end, Westergaard said.

He said the question mark is whether another variant might emerge that escapes the considerable immunity, which is not possible to predict ahead of time.
Witman Auctioneers Inc., of Manheim, conducted a public sale of real estate Jan. 8 for Robin and Christy Lapp at 403 Park Ave., Quarryville. A stone three-bedroom ranch house with a barn on 4.75 acres sold for $570,000 to Frank and Jennifer Seal, of New Providence.

Martin & Rutt Auctioneers, of New Holland, conducted a public sale of real estate Jan. 11 for Edwin N. and Erma V. Hoover at 1312 Red Run Road, Stevens. A three-bedroom rancher on a 0.70-acre lot sold for $231,000 to Dallas Rutt, of Lititz.

H.K. Keller, of Lancaster, conducted a sportsman auction Dec. 30. There were 202 registered bidders. Several items and prices include: metal Pennsylvania hunting licenses, $45; 12-gauge shotgun barrel and more, $150; metal Pennsylvania resident hunting licenses, $44.50; Fenwick FS55 rod and 2 Quantum Micro fishing rods, $55; box of 12-gauge shotgun 3-inch Magnum steel loads, $37.50; Diana model 48/52 pellet rifle with pellets, $237.27; Fenwick fly-fishing two-piece rods and fabric cases, $105; boxes of 25 Remington 12-gauge loads, $31.50; mounted taxidermy muskrat, $65; and a mounted fox with prey, $192.50.

H.K. Keller, of Lancaster, conducted an auction of artisan wooden bowls, baskets, games and household items Jan. 4. There were 213 registered bidders. Several items and prices include: handmade wooden puzzles, pens and more, $35; maple, cherry, walnut and mesquite bowls, and more, $38.50; custom folk art and wooden game, $65; wood knot studio handcrafted wooden tray, $40; three M. Combs handcarved bowls/platters, $50; wooden machinist tool chest, $120; Whittlin Jack woodcarving knives and more, $47.50; Basils American-made wooden spoons and more, $65; burl bowls, $55; Sequence board and other game boards, $35; and a Franklin Mint Aces & Eights poker set, $310.

H.K. Keller, of Lancaster, conducted an auction Jan. 6 at 1819 Willow Street Pike, Lancaster. There were 134 registered bidders. Several items and prices include: Hamilton pocket watches, mens and womens watches, $435; pins and brooches, $30; stoneware jug, vintage scale, bottles and more, $37.50; Frigidaire refrigerator, $190; leather strap bells, vintage locks and more, $332; Sealtest ice cream sign and metal lunch box, $220; wooden corner cabinet, $205; copper boiler pot and kettle, $120; Tiffany-style ceiling lamp with plug, $130; and Tonka dozer, two Bundy L cars, and Nylint pet mobile toy, $95.
SOCIAL BALLROOM DANCE: The York USA Dance Chapter No. 3008 will host a ballroom social dance Sunday, Jan. 23, at Alert Fire Hall, 3118 N. George St., Emigsville. A rumba lesson will be taught from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. by Nonci Tirado, followed by open dancing from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. with music provided by DJ Deb Eppley. The dance is open to the public. Admission is $10 for members, $14 for nonmembers. Hand sanitizer and bottled water will be provided. For more information, visit Facebook, email yorkchapter3008@gmail.com or call 717-885-6370.

Community Calendar runs as space is available. Three weeks notice of an event is appreciated. Please place the date of the event or the deadline date to register at the top of the press release. Email your information to news@lnpnews.com.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Lancaster County dropped to 201 Friday from 212 the day before, a continuing sign the county may be emerging from the worst of the virus latest surge, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Hospitalizations reached their highest mark of the pandemic just nine days prior, when 233 COVID-19 patients were reported admitted to area hospitals on Jan. 12. The 201 number reported is still well above the pre-Omicron variant record for hospitalizations, which stood at 178 in December 2020.

The hospitalization figure has sharply declined as the seven-day average rate of new COVID-19 cases has also declined, reaching about 798 cases per day as of Thursday, down from the pandemic peak of 1,196 cases per day recorded on Jan. 11.

People who are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 continue to comprise nearly three in four of the total COVID-19 patients admitted to Lancaster General, the countys largest hospital, and all but two of its COVID-19 patients on ventilators, according to hospital data.

The county is on pace to record its third-deadliest month of the pandemic in January after 107 died of COVID-19 through Jan. 21, according to data from the county coroners office. The deadliest month was December 2020 with 207 deaths, followed by April 2020 with 182.
In the memories of Lancaster city residents under 40, the only market-related thing about the stately red brick building at the corner of Queen and Vine streets is its name.

But 36 years after the historic Southern Farmers Market closed and the building became picturesque office space, food vendors are returning as the centerpiece of a long-imagined revival. While the new Southern Market maintains the character of the 134-year-old building, the former produce, meat and bakery stands will be replaced with food vendors offering globally-inspired meals next to a large, central bar serving cocktails, wine and beer.

Its a dining experience, said Mary Ellen Davis, Southern Markets manager. Think of it as a (large) dining room.

The new Southern Market, which debuts to the public next Thursday at 4 p.m., is being cheered by city officials and downtown boosters who see the revitalized market house as pushing downtowns prosperity farther south while enhancing a key intersection one block away from the heart of the city, Penn Square. On-site support and business training, gives food startups selected for the market some extra chances to succeed.

Vendors can continue to hone their craft and play with recipes so they can become ready to go out on their own, Davis said.

Southern Market Opening: 4 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 27 Address: 100 S. Queen St., Lancaster Hours: noon-9 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, noon-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Info.: Southernmarketlancaster.com, facebook.com/SouthernMarketLancaster

With customer seating for 250 in the 7,600-square foot food hall, Southern Market will debut with seven vendors working out of spaces that ring the 30-seat central bar. Three vendor spaces are still available. Theres also a coffee shop in the front and a pizza shop in a street-side retail space. In addition, there are three community rooms in the back and 19 small, rentable offices ringing a second-floor mezzanine.

The transformation of the 20,000-square-foot Southern Market into a food hall meant to be a community hub is the culmination of a series of plans by a variety of city officials, downtown boosters and entrepreneurs. But after some starts and stops and apparent dead-ends, remaking Southern Market as a food hall has only become a reality now because of the surprise entrance of a well-capitalized backer: Willow Valley Communities.

When something like this is done, people say, Well of course, this had to happen. But there were so many points along the way where it seemed like it wasnt going to happen, said Dan Jurman, who as president of the nonprofit Lancaster Equity, brought Willow Valley Communities to help with its aspirational plans for Southern Market.

As it was quietly making separate plans for a $90-million-plus, 20-story apartment called Mosaic at Queen and Vine Streets, Willow Valley Communities learned of Lancaster Equitys plans to revive the historic market across the street. Willow Valley Communities eventually became the leading partner, providing the expertise and capital to bring the $7 million project across the finish line.

It just feels like there is a turn here from the Lancaster of yesterday to the Lancaster of today that has an element of our diversity, and also has an economic development aspect, said Lancaster city mayor Danene Sorace. To find the partnership between Lancaster Equity and Willow Valley  that was all just good timing.

Market history

Southern Market, the first major structure designed by renowned local architect C. Emlen Urban, opened in 1888 as a Wednesday and Saturday farmers market. By 1986, when it closed, it was only operating on Saturdays, and more than half its stands were vacant.

After Southern Markets last day on April 26, 1986, many stand holders moved to Lancaster Central Market, a Tuesday and Friday farmers market which then began opening on Saturdays. Despite some ideas for a different kind of redevelopment, the Southern Market building, which was owned by Lancaster city, was subsequently renovated as offices for the Lancaster Chamber and the city, which also had its council chambers there.

After an annex was built at City Hall on North Duke Street, city functions moved out and then Lancaster Chamber left in 2017 for new offices on East King Street. Assets, a nonprofit that aids budding entrepreneurs, remained a tenant and was the first to float the idea of turning the property into a food hall.

But when the city issued a request for Southern Market proposals in late 2017, a food hall plan was not among the submitted options, and the city tentatively selected a $1.2 million bid from a Maryland-based company that wanted to turn Southern Market into a showcase for homebuilding and renovation products and services.

When some key tenants backed out, however, that plan was withdrawn in March 2018 and it was back to square one.

When that fell apart and we went back out with a solicitation and request for proposals for what this could be, it was really important for us to have it return to its market roots, and have the food connection there, said Sorace, who was elected Lancaster city mayor in January 2018.

After four bids were submitted in a second formal request for proposals, the city ultimately accepted a $300,000 bid for the property from Lancaster Equity, which planned to create a food hall and agreed to pay an additional $500,000 for the property down the road.

We really wanted to do something that was going to connect the opportunity from the downtown to the people that desperately need an opportunity in the South Side, said Jurman, who was president of Lancaster Equity at the time. To the citys credit, they approved our bid, even though it had a lot of question marks.

Lancaster Equity is a community development corporation whose all-volunteer board consists of the leaders of local community and housing nonprofits. Jurman, who spearheaded the creation of Lancaster Equity, previously was executive director of Community Action Partnership of Lancaster County. He is now executive director of the state Office of Advocacy and Reform.

Jurman said the Southern Market project was an ambitious one for Lancaster Equity, which was brimming with ambition, but low on cash and in need of an investor/partner.

You start with what youve got, and you pull it together, said Jurman, who marvels at how quickly the renovation of the large, aging building got done after Willow Valley Communities joined as a partner. We saw those issues taking 10 years, and now theyve been finished in two.

Expanding on an urban campus

Located just 5 miles south of Penn Square, Willow Valley Communities has 2,500 residents, the most of any 55-plus age group campus in the county.

John Swanson, CEO of Willow Valley Development Corp., said Willow Valley had identified the former LNP production building at the northwest corner of South Queen and West Vine streets as an ideal site for an urban campus. After Lancaster Equity got the citys blessing for a food hall at Southern Market, Swanson approached them about becoming a partner in that project.

This was really very much an opportunity for us to not only be developers coming in and developing within the city but taking the opportunity to create something for the city that would be an amenity for all the residents of the city, Swanson said.

While Southern Markets proximity to its planned high-rise sparked Willow Valleys interest, Swanson said Willow Valley took some time to think through its involvement.

Running a food hall is not our core business, but we do have significant experience in food service, Swanson said. As I began to understand the incubator model, I began to get more and more excited about executing the vision.

For Jurman, Willow Valley Communities was the ideal partner, bringing the experience and heft to get the project done in a timeline that he could never have imagined.

It was like a gift, Jurman said. Heres this potential partner who is also a nonprofit, who gets the mission and has a stake in what happens in the block.

Lancaster Equity owns Southern Market, but Willow Valley has a master lease on the entire property, which extends until 2048. Willow Valley paid the entire $800,000 for its lease upfront, money Lancaster Equity used to buy the property in November 2019.

As the owner it gives us the ability to ensure that the use of the space long term meets the objectives that are consistent with our mission and vision, said Mike McKenna, whose term as president of Lancaster Equity ended in December.

Renovations, which began in November 2020, gutted the interior and then rebuilt it as a restaurant with a central bar below a second-floor mezzanine with 19 rentable offices and a snack lounge. New mechanical systems were installed and all the brickwork outside was repointed. Some new doors and windows were put in along West Vine Street, additions that required city approval since the deed for the property includes three pages of restrictions.

Creating viable business models

Southern Market offers startup food businesses a viable way to grow by exposing them to a lot of customers, offering business support, and making it inexpensive for them to launch.

Willow Valley sees Southern Markets food hall as a business incubator where up-and-coming chefs can get the support, training and experience that can prepare them to open their own restaurant or catering business. Assets, which is a member of Lancaster Equity and has its offices at Southern Market, will offer startup support and provide industry-specific training.

In addition to their own vendor space that comes with a point-of-sale system, each vendor gets their own area in the commissary kitchen that comes with some standard kitchen equipment.

Rather than a monthly rent, vendors pay a fee that is an undisclosed percentage of their monthly sales. Theres also income for Willow Valley from the 19 offices that ring the second-floor mezzanine as well as the meeting rooms that are available to the public for rent.

While Willow Valley gets some income from food vendors, subtenants and short-term users, its main source of revenue comes from the bar, which it operates with a $50,000 economic development liquor license  it is the only such license issued in Lancaster County. In contrast, a restaurant liquor license bought on the open market in Lancaster County can cost around $350,000.

To get the economic development liquor license, Willow Valley had to get official support from Lancaster City Council and show that it made extensive efforts to buy a liquor license on the open market, which included reaching out to at least 100 liquor license holders in Lancaster County.

Jurman said Lancaster Equitys original proposal for Southern Market also included getting an economic development liquor license since the business of offering high-quality opportunities with a low cost of entry would be hard to make work otherwise.

It would have had a huge impact on the sustainability of the project if they hadnt been able to get the liquor license, Jurman said.
A GoFundMe account is set up to raise money for the West Cocalico woman killed by a York County man in North Carolina earlier this week.

Suzanna Kauffman, 20, was found dead inside a Days Inn hotel in Mocksville, North Carolina, near the northern part of the state. She was found inside a room that was rented to a 26-year-old York man, Quincy Cheeks Hannah.

Police have issued a warrant for Hannah's arrest, but as of Friday, no updates on his whereabouts have been reported.

Money raised in the GoFundMe will help Kauffman's family with funeral and travel expenses, according to the fundraiser's description. It has raised more than $2,700 as of 1:20 p.m.

The fund's goal is $15,000.

Officers were first called to the hotel around 9:50 p.m. Monday after being asked to help two people find several missing telephones. The phones were last known to be in Kauffmans possession, and Kauffman was missing from a camp she had been attending in neighboring Iredell County.

Police ask anyone with information about the killing to contact the Davie County Sheriffs Office by phone at 336-751-6238 or by email at sheriff@dcsonc.com. Tips can be submitted on their website at dcsonc.com.
Pennsylvanias Secretary of Education highlighted higher education disparities as a trial over funding of states public schools entered its eighth week in Harrisburg.

Next week, Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Jubelirer will hear the petitioners final witness. Then, the defendants in the case will make their arguments for two to three weeks, continuing the trial into February.

The lawsuit was filed by the School District of Lancaster and five other districts against several legislative leaders, including Peach Bottom Republican Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, and former Pennsylvania secretary of education and current Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology President Pedro Rivera.

Current state Secretary of Education Noe Ortega testified Tuesday, arguing that Pennsylvania falls behind other states in addressing socio-economic divides in post-secondary attainment, or the number of students who receive degrees within six years of completing high school.

Low-income students and students of color in the state earn a college degree at a lower rate than their white and high-income counterparts, Ortega argued.

Additional funding to public schools could allow for greater increases in college attainment, especially for students of color and economically disadvantaged students, Ortega said.

Pedro Noguera, the dean of University of Californias Rossier School of Education, told the court that, with the right support, schools can compensate for the effects of poverty on student learning.

For example, with adequate funding, the Abington School District outside of Philadelphia in Montgomery County has progressed in reducing academic performance disparities for the 20% of its students who are economically disadvantaged and the 30% who are Black or Hispanic, according to Noguera.

With more funding, schools address educational disparities by providing additional school counselors, social workers and smaller class sizes, Noguera said.

Economist Clive Belfield testified Wednesday and Thursday. According to his research, Belfield said investing in addressing educational disparities could result in billions of dollars in economic benefits for Pennsylvania.

Belfield said that according to his calculations, the net social benefit from an individual earning a bachelors degree as opposed to only a high school diploma is more than $770,000. And, if Pennsylvania closed the gap in college enrollment rates between lower income and higher income students, the total social benefit would be $18.56 billion.
THE ISSUE: A proposed new Chick-fil-A on Lititz Pike in Manheim Township would be the largest location in Pennsylvania, according to the company. What would make it the largest is not the size of the building, but the size of the entire lot. The Lititz Pike location would hold the moniker of biggest in state because of the propertys lot size of 2.5 acres, and its proposed three-lane drive-thru, LNP | LancasterOnline's Tom Lisi reported in the Jan. 15 edition. The three drive-thru lanes, and the large site needed to accommodate them, are part of a companywide move to expand and double down on its drive-thru business, which has boomed during the pandemic.

Traffic congestion is a quality-of-life issue.

Thats why we hope this proposed new Chick-fil-A  which would be configured to accommodate 75 cars at once in its three supersized drive-thru lines  doesnt materialize in this particular location in Manheim Township.

And wed say that for any business that sought to add that much new traffic at the site of the former Hosss Steak & Sea House next to the Ephrata National Bank. The access road for these sites is near the busy intersection of Lititz Pike and West Airport Road, and is just a stones throw from The Shoppes at Bloomfield Village.

The township doesnt need more vehicular congestion there. According to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Lititz Pike at Airport Road averages 20,400 vehicles a day. LNP | LancasterOnline reported in 2016 that four different stretches of Lititz Pike, the main artery connecting Lancaster city and Lititz, were among the countys most-congested intersections and were found to be unacceptable by county planning officials. Manheim Township should be extra cautious about any business additions that have the potential to make the longest slogs on that road even worse.

While Chick-fil-A restaurants are undoubtedly popular, one issue thats fresh in the minds of township residents is the oft-nightmarish traffic at Chick-fil-As Fruitville Pike location. As this newspaper reported in early December, lines at that drive-thru can stretch more than 500 feet  out of the restaurant lot and back onto Fruitville Pike, to the frustration of drivers.

Having three drive-thrus at the proposed new Chick-fil-A might prevent traffic from backing up onto the access road between West Airport Road and Lititz Pike, but theres little doubt it would increase traffic in general in an area that isnt zoned for drive-thrus.

The promising news, for those who are concerned about or opposed to the proposed Chick-fil-A, is that the process is working in Manheim Township government.

As Lisi reported, the township zoning board held a 90-minute hearing Jan. 4 in which Chick-fil-A representatives made a number of requests. The zoning board granted them permission to operate a restaurant on the West Airport Road site in both the industrial zone and overlay district. But the board did not grant the company the crucial variance needed to operate a drive-thru.

A zoning variance is needed when a characteristic of a proposed building or property doesnt comply with municipal zoning rules, Lisi explained.

Variances of the type Chick-fil-A sought are difficult to win, Lancaster County attorney Matt Creme, who was at the Jan. 4 hearing to represent a client in a different application, told LNP | LancasterOnline.

We dont believe that high burden of proof for a variance was met by Chick-fil-A. The companys options now include appealing the zoning boards decision to the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas or lobbying the Manheim Township Board of Commissioners to change the zoning law to allow a drive-thru at that property, Creme said.

When LNP | LancasterOnline asked whether township commissioners would entertain a zoning law change, township manager James Drumm responded on their behalf:

The township certainly welcomes the possible redevelopment of the steakhouse property, Drumm wrote in an email, but it would be premature to ask if the board would approve a change, before legislation has even been requested or evaluated.

That makes sense. Dont put the chicken before the egg.

Lisi also reported that Chick-fil-A hasnt yet presented any traffic studies for the proposed site.

Creme told Lisi that while traffic studies are more relevant for planning commission decisions than zoning board decisions, such information will be needed if the process moves forward.

I like to distinguish zoning and land planning this way: Zoning is about what youre going to do, and land planning is about how youre going to do it, Creme said.

Wed like to know much more about how Chick-fil-A envisions traffic flow in a less-than-ideal spot off that access road adjoining two busy arteries. If it appeals or finds a way to keep moving forward with its proposal, township officials should press the company to share specifics and relevant traffic studies. And the interests of Ephrata National Bank, which also relies on that access road, must be protected.

Better yet, wed like to see Chick-fil-A pick a different location in Lancaster County  a spot thats targeted for growth but isnt as congested  at which to open its first three-lane drive-thru in Pennsylvania.

Manheim Township, which already has one cautionary tale involving this restaurant, doesnt need a second headache-causing location.
Pakistani court sentences woman to death for WhatsApp blasphemy

A Pakistani court has sentenced a Muslim woman to death for committing blasphemy by sharing images deemed to be insulting to Islams Prophet Muhammad and one of his wives, also considered a holy personage by many Muslims.

The trial court in the northern Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Wednesday sentenced Aneeqa Ateeq under the countrys strict blasphemy laws, which impose a mandatory death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

The blasphemous material which was shared/installed by the female accused on her status [on WhatsApp messaging platform] and the messages as well as caricatures which were sent to the complainant are totally unbearable and not tolerable for a Muslim, Judge Adnan Mushtaq wrote in his verdict in the case.

Ateeq, 26, had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were first filed in May 2020.

In a statement to the court, Ateeq said her accuser, Hasnat Farooq, had deliberately pulled her into a religious discussion to frame her after she refused to be friendly towards him. The two had met on a popular online multiplayer game and continued communicating on WhatsApp.

So I feel that he intentionally dragged into this topic for revenge, thats why he got registered [sic] a case against me and during [WhatsApp] chat he collected everything that went against me, she said in an evidentiary statement.

Farooq contends the accused shared the allegedly blasphemous material as a WhatsApp status and refused to delete it when he confronted her on that messaging platform.

Ateeqs death sentence is subject to confirmation by the Lahore High Court, a forum before which she also has the right of appeal.

Blasphemy is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, where the countrys strict laws carry harsh penalties for several types of offences, including sentences of up to life imprisonment for some forms of the crime and the mandatory death sentence for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Increasingly, allegations of blasphemy have led to extrajudicial violence, mob justice or widespread violent protests.

Since 1990, at least 80 people have been killed in connection with blasphemy allegations, according to an Al Jazeera tally. Those killed include people accused of blasphemy, their family members, their lawyers and at least one judge, according to the data.

In the latest such attack, a Sri Lankan textile factory manager was beaten to death by a mob and his body burned publicly in the eastern city of Sialkot in December after he was accused of blasphemy by co-workers.

International rights groups say legal proceedings in blasphemy cases in Pakistan are often biased against the accused due to the charged nature of the allegations.

In a 2015 report, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) found that blasphemy trials in Pakistan were fundamentally unfair, listing concerns ranging from intimidation and harassment of judges, demonstrable bias and prejudice against defendants by judges, and investigations and prosecutions that do not meet due diligence requirements.

Source: Al Jazeera


Australias government has invited backpackers and students to seek work in the country. Backpackers are mostly younger people who travel in a simple way and do not spend very much money.

The move is an effort to fill critical workforce shortages as Australia faces an outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday said his government would not require backpackers or students arriving in the next several weeks to pay the usual $453 visa cost. He also urged such visitors to seek work as they travel around the country.

"Come on down now because you wanted to come to Australia," Morrison said during a televised press conference.

He added that the backpackers and students could seek work in agriculture, hospitality and so many other parts of the economy that lack enough workers.

The announcement comes as Morrison faces criticism at the beginning of an election year. Critics say he has not done well in dealing with the Omicron outbreak.

Australia is experiencing record numbers of new infections and deaths. Officials in Australia reported 67 new deaths and nearly 80,000 new cases on Wednesday. Chief Health Officer Paul Kelly said Australians should expect the pandemic's total death numbers to rise.

Australian businesses are struggling with the growing number of workers who are sick or ordered to isolate. The labor shortage has led to supply shortages. Major food stores have put in place purchase limits on some goods.

Rising hospitalizations have put pressure on the health system. Nearly 1.3 million cases of the country's total of 1.6 million cases have been reported in the past two weeks.

Morrison is also facing criticism over the shortage of at-home rapid tests. On Wednesday, he urged state leaders to drop any requirements for workers in most industries to take daily rapid tests. The federal government also promised to buy 52 million tests this month from Asia and the United States.

As the country faces a shortage of tests, police on Wednesday said 42,000 tests worth about $500,000 were stolen from a freight station in Sydney.

Im Ashley Thompson.

The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted the story for Learning English.

___________________________________________________________



Words in This Story

variant - n. something that is different in some way from others of the same kind

visa - n. an official mark or stamp on a passport that allows someone to enter or leave a country usually for a particular reason

hospitality - n. the activity of providing food, drinks, etc. for people who are the guests or customers of an organization  often used before another noun

isolate - v. to put or keep (someone or something) in a place or situation that is separate from others

rapid - adj. happening in a short amount of time : happening quickly

freight - n. goods that are carried by ships, trains, trucks, or airplanes


Wildlife workers in Sri Lanka say two elephants were recently found dead after eating plastic waste in an open landfill.

The problem is not new in the country. Conservationists and those who treat wildlife said about 20 elephants have died in the last eight years after eating plastic waste. The incidents happened at a landfill near a village in the Ampara District, about 210 kilometers east of the capital, Colombo.

Nihal Pushpakumara is a veterinarian, a doctor for animals. He told The Associated Press that examinations of the dead animals showed they had swallowed large amounts of plastic that is not biodegradable. Biodegradable means a material can break down naturally in the environment.

Different kinds of plastics were discovered inside the elephants along with other substances the animals could not digest, Pushpakumara said.

Elephants are deeply respected in Sri Lanka. They are also endangered. Their numbers have dropped from about 14,000 in the 19th century to 6,000 in 2011, the latest government data shows.

Pushpakumara said hungry elephants can end up eating plastics or sharp objects that can damage their digestive systems.

The elephants then stop eating and become too weak to keep their heavy frames upright, he added. Unable to eat or drink, the animals can quickly die.

In 2017, the government announced a plan to recycle waste in dumps near wildlife areas, or zones, to prevent elephants from eating dangerous materials. Officials also promised to build electric fences around the areas to keep the animals away. But so far, neither plan has been fully carried out.

The government estimates there are 54 waste dumps in wildlife zones around the country. About 300 elephants move around these areas.

The landfill in Ampara was set up in 2008 with aid from the European Union. Waste collected from nine nearby villages is being dumped there but is not being recycled.

In 2014, an electric fence that protected the area was struck by lightning and was never repaired. Villagers said they fear the elephants, which moved closer and settled near the waste area.

Many people use fireworks to chase the animals away when they come into the village.

Others have built electric fences around their homes. But some of the local people do not know how to safely complete the fences. A village councilor in the area told the AP that people setting up electric barriers "could endanger their own lives as well as those of the elephants.

The official added, Even though we call them a menace, wild elephants are also a resource. He called on local officials to find ways to protect both humans and the elephants, and to permit agriculture to continue.

Im Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

____________________________________________

Words in This Story

landfill  n. an area where waste is buried under the ground

conservationist  n. someone who believes that people should protect nature

digest  v. to break down food in the stomach into substances that the body can use

frame  n. the shape of someones body

menace  n. something that is likely to cause harm


Government information from China shows that the number of babies born in China fell again last year to a record low.

The falling number of births could hurt Chinas plans to develop the nation.

The ruling Communist Party plans to develop technology and economic growth that can support the nation instead of depending on exports for development. But the fall in population has brought warnings that China may have too few workers to support a growing number of retired people.

Falling numbers

The government reported this month that about 10.6 million babies were born in 2021. That is down 12 percent from the 12 million reported for 2020.

The National Bureau of Statistics reported that the total population was 1.4 billion at the end of 2021. That is an increase of 480,000 from 2020.

The percentage of people aged 16 to 59, the official working age population, fell to 882.2 million. That is 62.5 percent of Chinas total population, down from 63.3 percent in 2020. Ten years ago, that percentage was 70.1 percent.

The average number of births per mother was 1.3 in 2020. That number is well below the 2.1 necessary to keep the population from falling.

Song Jian is a professor at the Center for Population and Development at Renmin University in Beijing. He said China needs to boost the willingness to have children. He added, We need to make people feel that having children or forming a family is attractive.

History

The ruling Communist Party has restricted births since 1980 to slow population growth using its one-child policy. It enforced this policy with threats of fines or dismissal from jobs. This led to abuses including forced abortions. Parents who wanted to have a son killed baby girls. This created a higher number of males to females in China.

In 2015, the party permitted each family to have two children. But the birth rate continued to fall. This suggests the policy had little effect on the trend of having smaller families. In 2021, China eased restrictions to permit families to have three children.

Families struggling

But families in China say it is difficult to raise a child. They say high costs, the effects at work, and the need to look after aging parents adds difficulties.

Chinese comments on social media about the change to permit more children say the change does nothing to help young parents. They criticized the need for help with medical bills, low incomes, and long working hours popularly known as 996, or 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.

Every stage of the problem hasnt been solved, said a comment on the popular Sina Weibo website signed Tchaikovsky. They added, Who will raise the baby? Do you have time? I go out early and get back late. Kids dont know what their parents look like.

Uyghur population

China hopes to increase the Han majority population. But, it is working to reduce the births of Uyghur and other minorities to reduce the Muslim population, an Associated Press investigation said.

The AP investigation is based on government information, state documents, and speaking with family members, ex-detainees, and a person involved with a detention center.

It found the government regularly subjects women to pregnancy tests and forces the use of birth control devices. It also found the government enforced sterilization, or measures that permanently prevent a person from having a child, and abortion on hundreds of thousands. While the use of birth control devices and sterilization has fallen across China, it is rising in Xinjiang.

Im Gregory Stachel.

Liangping Gao, Tony Munroe, and Ryan Woo reported this story for Reuters. Gregory Stachel adapted it with additional information from Associated Press stories for VOA Learning English.

______________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

professor  n. a teacher especially of the highest rank at a college or university

boost v. to increase the force, power, or amount of (something)

attractive  adj. having a feature or quality that people like

abortion  n. a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the fetus

trend  n. a general direction of change: a way of behaving or proceeding that is developing and becoming more common

sterilize  v. to make (someone or something) unable to produce children or young animals


Nineteen-year-old Zara Rutherford set the world record Thursday as the youngest woman to fly alone around the world.

Rutherford took the Guinness World record that had been held by 30-year-old American flyer Shaesta Waiz since 2017. The youngest male to fly alone is Britains Travis Ludlow. He set that record on July 12, 2021, when he was 18 years and 150 days old.

The British-Belgian pilot started her trip around the world on August 18. It covered 51,000 kilometers over 52 countries and five continents. On Thursday, Rutherford landed her small airplane back in western Belgium.

"It's just really crazy, I haven't quite processed it," she said.

The flight was supposed to take three months. But bad weather and visa delays kept her grounded and extended the trip by about two months.

Rutherford started in Belgium and headed west over Britain, Iceland, and Greenland. The path took her over Canada, the United States, and Latin America.

Rutherford could not leave Alaska for a month because of weather and visa delays. A winter storm forced another long stop in the Russian Far East before she traveled to Korea, Indonesia, India, the Middle East, and back to Europe.



To meet the requirement for a round-the-world flight, Rutherford had to land on two points opposite each other on Earth: Jambi in Indonesia and Tumaco in Colombia.

The teenager said the last part of her trip, from Germany, had been difficult. She had to deal with rain and snow coming out of Frankfurt. But she was happy to be accompanied by the Belgian Air Force's Red Devils team before landing.

The people were incredible, everywhere, she said.

Rutherford said she has been traveling in small planes with her pilot parents since she was six. She gained her pilots license in 2020 and started flying herself at 14.

Rutherford dreams of being an astronaut. She hopes her trip will get more women interested in science, technology, and aviation.

On her website, Rutherford wrote, "Boys learn through toys, street names, history classes and movies that they can be scientists, astronauts, CEOs or presidents.

She added, "Girls are often encouraged to be beautiful, kind, helpful and sweet. With my flight, I want to show young women that they can be bold, ambitious and make their dreams come true."

Im Dorothy Gundy.

Hai Do wrote this story for VOA Learning English with information from Guinness World Record, Reuters and the Associated Press.

____________________________________________________

Words in This Story

crazy adj. very strange or unusual

accompanied adj. the state of going somewhere with someone else

aviation n. the business or activity of flying airplanes, helicopters or similar vehicles

toy n. an object for a child to play with

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A 57-year-old Tonga man survived a night in the ocean after a tsunami wave swept him out to sea last Saturday.

The incident happened after the huge burst of a volcano in the island kingdom of Tonga.

Lisala Folau told Tongas BroadCom Broadcasting that he was painting his house last Saturday when his brother told him a tsunami was moving toward the small island of Atata. The island has a population of about 60.

Folau is disabled and has difficulty walking. He said he climbed a tree to escape the first wave but when he got down, another big wave swept him away.

"I could hear my son calling from land, but I didn't want to answer my son because I didn't want him to swim out to find me," said Folau.

Folau was swept out to sea at about 7 p.m. local time. Then, he said he drifted or swam another eight hours to a second island with no one living on it before finally swimming again to the main island of Tongatapu. The experience lasted more than 27 hours and covered 7.5 kilometers.

Folau said that he went underwater nine times. "On the eighth time I thought, the next time I go underwater that's it, because my arms were the only things that were keeping me above water," said Lisala Folau.

He told Reuters, "So the ninth time I went under and came up and grabbed a log. And that's what kept me going."

In an interview with Britains Sky News, Folau said he was frightened when the waves took him from land into the sea. What came into my mind when I was helpless at sea were two things, he said. He added, One, that I still had faith in God. Two, is my family. And I only remember how my family will think, at that moment, Maybe he died.

New Zealands Acting High Commissioner Peter Lund said Tongan officials told him last Sunday that a man was missing from Atata island. And they werent very optimistic about it, Lund said.

There was even a video recorded by Folaus son Koli Folau, who went searching for his father. The video shows that almost nothing was left standing on the island other than a church, where many of the villagers took shelter.

Its one of these miracles that happens, Lund told the Associated Press.

The story of Folau's survival went viral among Tongan groups on Facebook and other social media. "Real life Aquaman," said one post on Facebook, referring to the comic book and movie character.

When asked if he knew who Aquaman was, Folau said he did not.

Im Greg Stachel.

Nick Perry of the Associated Press and Jill Gralow of Reuters reported this story. Hai Do adapted it for VOA Learning English.

________________________________________________

Words in This Story

sweep v. to remove someone or something from an area

drift v. to slowly move from one place to another, especially on water, with little direction

log n. the main part of a tree

interview n. a meeting in which one person asks questions and another answers them, especially for news reporting

optimistic adj. showing hope for the future

miracle n. an unusual or wonderful event believed to be caused by the power of God

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In a surprise move, the owners of El Dorado Farms on Highway 246 west of Buellton recently withdrew their proposal for 35 acres of cannabis under hoop-houses next to the Pence Vineyards & Winery, county records show.
An ordinance regulating the cultivation of hemp  the nonpsychoactive cousin of cannabis  in Santa Barbara County is scheduled to be introduced at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, giving area farmers a long-awaited avenue to grow the new agricultural product.
EAU CLAIRE  A federal judge in Madison sentenced a former Chippewa Falls man to 10 years in federal prison Thursday for fraudulently getting military contracts.

U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson handed down the sentence to Craig Klund, 58, of Yankton, S.D., for convictions on wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft.

Following his prison sentence, Klund will serve three years on supervised release. Peterson also ordered Klund to pay $435,823 in restitution.

According to a news release from the office of Timothy O'Shea, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, Klund executed a scheme from 2011 to July 2019 to defraud the Department of Defense by obtaining contracts through fraud.

Klund, who had previously been convicted twice of defense contracting fraud, used shell companies, aliases and other deceptive practices to dupe the government into buying from someone it otherwise would not award contracts to, according to O'Shea.

Using his shell companies, Klund won 1,928 military contracts worth a total of nearly $7.47 million. During the fraud scheme, he was paid $2.9 million.

Electrical parts Klund supplied were used by the U.S. military for multiple uses, including in the Patriot Missile System and F-16 jet fighter.

Klund had also knowingly shipped nonconforming parts and requested payment for them, based on O'Shea's news release.

In addition to securing the contracts through fraud, Klund also concealed proceeds from them by not reporting that money on his federal income tax returns and laundering the funds between different accounts, according to the news release.

While Klund's company previously had been located in the Chippewa Valley, he moved it to South Dakota to evade Defense Contract Management Agency inspectors who were suspicious of him in Wisconsin, O'Shea stated.
Martin Medina, 39, grew up in poverty, surrounded by violence and drug activity.

At 14, his friend died from gun violence. Shortly after, his father was imprisoned and deported for selling drugs to support Medinas family. At 18, Medina was sent to prison himself for recklessly endangering safety, and again for attempted homicide a few years later.

School became an afterthought and survival became the focus, Medina said.

Not a single member of his family  including his extended family  had attended college, let alone obtained a degree. But on Friday, Medina changed that pattern, earning his associate degree as part of a growing Milwaukee Area Technical College program that offers college courses to prisoners.

This college program is one opportunity that many of us never thought was possible, Medina said in his speech during an online graduation ceremony Friday. It provided us the means to take one of the lowest points in our lives and turn it into a positive.

Medina was one of 25 Wisconsin prisoners who graduated with associate degrees in either arts or science, a major step toward rehabilitation that more and more inmates are taking each year, officials said. Fourteen of the men and women graduated with honors.

The ceremony was held online to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. In-person visitation at Department of Corrections facilities was suspended last week amid a record surge in cases statewide driven by the omicron variant.

On Thursday, a total of 1,729 inmates were infected with COVID-19 across the departments 37 facilities, according to DOC data. The largest outbreak was at New Lisbon Correctional Institution, which had 534 cases on Thursday.

Graduation speakers gave addresses from different locations across Wisconsin via video conference. Graduates were streamed live as they received their diplomas at 11 prison facilities.

Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, one of the speakers, said formerly incarcerated individuals face many barriers, such as a lack of affordable housing or job opportunities. But having an education can help make that process easier.

Studies show that higher levels of education among former inmates increase employment rates and reduce recidivism. In one study, inmates who participated in educational programs in prison had a 43% lower chance of ending up back in prison compared to those who did not.

Not only are we helping people who are being housed by the DOC, but it helps our entire state as a whole, Barnes said. We are really trying to do the work of rehabilitation.

In spring 2017, just 13 students were part of the Milwaukee Area Technical College associate degree program, but by last spring, that number had grown to 192. DOC has partnered with the college to implement and expand the program, called the Second Chance Pell pilot program.

If this kind of exponential growth continues, I have no doubt that the tide will change by drastically reducing recidivism, Medina said.

Educational opportunities for prisoners in Wisconsin are expected to grow even more because of a federal law change that opens up financial aid to inmates, DOCs education director Ben Jones said.

The Second Chance Pell pilot program was launched in 2015, and allows some inmates to get Pell Grant funding for college programs as part of the pilot, the DOC said.

Prisoners had been banned from getting federal Pell Grants under a sweeping 1994 crime bill. The ban caused some prison education programs in Wisconsin to end, the DOC said. But in December 2020, Congress lifted that ban.

Given that all prisoners  not just those in the pilot  are now eligible for Pell Grants, Jones said the department is working on developing one or more additional educational programs, which are expected launch in fall of 2023.

DOC Secretary Kevin Carr said hes proud to be able to offer educational opportunities to inmates with the help of MATC and other colleges. Over the summer, Wisconsin prisoners graduated with bachelors degrees for the first time through another program.

I can sit here and talk about all the people, partnerships and resources it took to make this happen, but really at the end of the day, it came down to each of you setting a goal and making the commitment to earn your degree, Carr said. No matter the challenges you face in the future, nothing can take away that degree.

Medina said he and the other graduates fought through the struggles of our past and present  including, he said, living in an environment that strips away their voices and their dignity  to accomplish something that will help better their futures. He said it was no small feat.

To all the families and loved ones, thank you for all the support and motivation, Medina said. And to my mom specifically, I hope I finally make you proud.

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A business-minded Milwaukee attorney with no higher education administration experience will lead the University of Wisconsin System as its next president.

Jay Rothman, 62, got the unanimous nod in a closed-door Board of Regents meeting Friday, ending a search process that began in 2019, included a failed search in 2020 and sparked the interim presidency of former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Rothman said he is drawn to the job because his term as CEO and chair of Foley & Lardner, an international law firm based in Milwaukee, is ending soon and he isnt eligible for reelection.

Jay is a servant leader who has chosen to dedicate the remainder of his outstanding career to our students, our faculty and staff, and our taxpayers, Regents Vice President and search committee chair Karen Walsh said in a statement. He has the leadership and executive management skills our university system needs. He understands organizations. He builds consensus. He believes in the profound value of higher education.

Rothman said in a statement that he was humbled by the opportunity and intends to lead by listening first. He emerged as the top choice in a search that yielded 43 other applicants, including finalist Jim Schmidt, 57, who has worked in higher education for most of his life and spent the past nine years as UW-Eau Claire chancellor.

Rothman will take over for Thompson, who plans to resign March 18, on June 1 and earn a $550,000 annual salary. In between the two dates, former Regent Mike Falbo will serve as interim president. The UW-Parkside graduate served 11 years on the board, including two terms as president, and served on the search committee that led to Rothmans hire.

Business background

Hiring Rothman, who graduated from Marquette University and Harvard Law School, marks a departure from the type of person the Regents have historically tapped for the top job.

The last three permanent UW presidents were insiders elevated from within the System. Most earned at least one degree from a public institution. And all of the past presidents, with the exception of Thompson, came into the job with substantial academic experience.

Among the qualities and experience Regents asked for in their job description was an understanding of the unique attributes of higher education and the current opportunities and challenges facing public higher education.

But the board also wanted at least 10 years of experience in a significant senior executive position, a proven track record in strategic planning of a large and complex organization and demonstrated financial acumen.

Experts say Rothmans hire fits a broader national trend of boards turning to people with backgrounds outside of higher education to run colleges or systems.

There is an argument to be made that its a good thing to have someone with experience running a business to lead a multibillion dollar enterprise, but running a higher education system is different in many ways than running a business, said Robert Kelchen, a higher education professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said Rothmans experience with the states business community and relationships he has with state and local leaders will be a tremendous asset.

Jay will bring a fresh perspective to higher education, she said in a statement.

Rothman highlighted his business experience in a 24-minute, eight-question interview last week with news outlets. He called the System the states crown jewel, suggested meeting lawmakers in their districts and vowed to continually share the Systems value with the public.

Rothman spoke in broad general terms about the problems facing the System, whereas Schmidt gave more detailed solutions to what he believes needs fixing. Rothman also drew connections between his firms non-hierarchical structure and how campuses run on a system of shared governance, a decision-making process that requires consultation with faculty, students and staff.

Wisconsin roots

A lifelong Wisconsinite save for the stint in law school, Rothman was raised on a small farm outside Wausau. Both of his parents attended UW-Stevens Point. His mom is now a retired school teacher, and his dad is a dentist. Rothman has two adult children, one of whom is a UW-Madison graduate.

Rothman brings a background in business law, with a focus on mergers, acquisitions, corporate disclosures and governance matters. He joined Foley & Lardner in 1986 and has led the firms more than 1,100 lawyers and 1,000 staff since 2011.

Childrens Wisconsin CEO Peggy Troy worked with Rothman when he served on the hospitals board from 2014 to 2018. She said he sought out differing opinions, listened and pressed on after making hard calls.

What I appreciated most about Jay as board member was that his leadership always started with mission: how can we better serve the kids of Wisconsin? Troy said in a statement. Before anything else, that was the question that drove his counsel and his decision-making.

Other statements from those who have worked with Rothman praised his intellect, integrity and work ethic.

Federal and state campaign finance records show Rothman has donated to politicians from both parties, including at least $10,000 to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers over the past two years, though the majority has flowed to Republicans.

A spokesperson for Evers did not immediately respond to an email and voicemail seeking reaction to Rothmans hire. Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, was unavailable to comment Friday. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, tweeted congratulations.

I look forward to working with him and seeing the new perspective he will bring to the UW system, he wrote.

Rothman will inherit many of the challenges his predecessor faced: demographic challenges, COVID-19, fewer state dollars sent to support campuses and a sometimes strained relationship with the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Thompsons tenure began in the summer of 2020 following a failed search where the sole finalist, Jim Johnsen, withdrew amid criticism about the process itself and concern about his record leading the University of Alaska System.

The Regents second try has attracted fewer complaints, though multiple faculty groups this week objected to the lack of a public forum. Its a common step in searches where students and staff can meet the candidates and ask them questions.

UW-Milwaukee professor Nick Fleisher, who leads the Wisconsin conference of the American Association of University Professors, reiterated those concerns again on Friday.

No public interview. Never worked in higher ed. Announced on a Friday afternoon. Not a good look for the Regents, he tweeted. I think we have to reserve judgment on Rothman until we get a chance to know more about him. The process at the end here has ensured that we know very little.

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The state Assembly approved several Republican-authored bills Thursday that would dramatically expand gun rights in Wisconsin and increase gun access in places of worship and school grounds.

The first session of the midterm election year also saw the Assembly pass measures that would tackle rising drug use, increase working hours for teenagers and criminalize the destruction of vaccines.

The gun legislation passed Thursday on voice votes would allow people with concealed carry licenses to go armed on school grounds and in churches attached to private schools; lower the minimum age for obtaining a concealed carry license from 21 to 18; allow high schools to offer a firearm course; and allow anyone with a concealed carry license from any state to go armed in Wisconsin. Right now only people with licenses from states that conduct background checks on applicants can carry concealed in Wisconsin.

With the Assembly approval, the bills are headed to the Senate. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has pushed for stricter gun laws rather than more lenient measures, said Thursday he will review the concealed carry bills if they reach his desk, but came short of saying he would veto the measures.

He added the proposal to lower the minimum age to legally carry a concealed weapon from 21 to 18 sounds pretty bizarre to me.

While the Republican proposals passed on the Assembly floor, gun violence continues to increase; more than 1,400 people have been injured in nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee since January 2020, according to the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission.

But Republican legislators face reelection in 10 months and are looking for ways to please their supporters and give themselves talking points on the campaign trail. Voting on gun rights delivers on both counts regardless of if the bills become law. The proposed gun measures are also a sign of what bills can become law next year if a Republican wins the gubernatorial election.

At an Assembly Democratic press conference ahead of the floor session, Rep. Lisa Subeck, D-Madison, said, Let me be crystal clear that these bills are not about making our schools safer, they are not about making our churches or synagogues or mosques or other places of worship safer. These are about appealing to the big gun lobby.

The bills supporters have long argued that under current law gun owners who forget their weapons in their cars could be charged with a felony if they drive onto school grounds to drop off or pick up their children. The bill that would allow them to bring guns legally in cars on school grounds passed the Assembly Thursday.

They also contend that 18-year-olds can legally possess handguns so they should be allowed to carry concealed and churchgoers should be allowed to go armed so they can defend themselves if theyre attacked during services. Both bills passed the Assembly Thursday.

Our Second Amendment rights, those are just critically important to everybody across Wisconsin, said Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, the chief Assembly sponsor of the bill to lower the concealed carry minimum age, at a news conference before the session began.

Debating on the Assembly floor, Democratic lawmakers in opposition to the bill said teenagers greater access to firearms would result in more violence and suicides.

Rep. Lee Snodgrass, D-Appleton, in opposition to the bill, also mentioned that people do not fully develop the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which controls rational thinking, until the age of 25.

In response, Sortwell said legal adults who can vote and serve in a military should be able to carry a gun.

Im curious what other rights some people on the other side of the aisle would like to deny to 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds, he said.

As for out-of-state concealed carry licenses, they say current law is confusing and requires people to navigate a maze of red tape. The bill that would clear some of the red tape passed the Assembly Thursday.

And as for teaching a gun safety class to high schoolers, Republican lawmakers say that teaching teenagers to use guns safely would potentially save their lives if they needed a gun as well as prevent them from accidentally discharging a gun. A similar bill came up in 2017 when Republicans controlled the Legislature and governors office but did not pass.

The National Rifle Association has registered in support of every gun bill on the Assembly floor Thursday besides the high school gun class, whose only registered supporter is Wisconsin Gun Owners, Inc.

An array of organizations have registered in opposition to the bills, including the city of Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Council of Churches, the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators and the Wisconsin Association of School Boards and End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin: the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Vaccines to be protected

Intentionally damaging vaccines would be a felony under another bill that passed the Assembly on a voice vote Thursday.

The measure comes in response to a pharmacist in a Milwaukee suburb spoiling more than 500 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in January 2021. He pleaded guilty to the federal charges and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Bill supporters say state law needs to be clarified because it doesnt adequately address crimes related to tampering with vaccines and other medical products. The pharmacist who destroyed the vaccine doses at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton was convicted of two federal charges of attempting to tamper with a consumer product.

The proposal in front of the Assembly Thursday would make it a Class I felony to intentionally make a vaccine unsafe, tainted, spoiled, ineffective or otherwise unusable. That is punishable by up to 3 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The Senate passed the bill in June. If the Assembly passes it Thursday, it would then head to Evers for his consideration.

Bill would up teen work hours

Another bill, which would allow teenagers to work longer hours during the busy summer tourism months, passed the Assembly on a voice vote Thursday.

The measure is backed by Republicans and the states hotel, restaurant and grocery industries, but opposed by Democrats and the Wisconsin AFL-CIO. The state Senate passed it on a voice vote in October.

Current law does not allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work later than 7 p.m. from after Labor Day until May 31 and no later than 9 p.m. over the summer.

The bill would allow employees under age 16 to work until 11 p.m. when they dont have school the next day. The changes would not affect businesses covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which includes those with annual sales over $500,000.

Supporters say the changes will help smaller businesses struggling with the states worker shortage and be a particular benefit over the summer and weekends when the need is highest for more workers.

The AFL-CIO opposes the measure, saying it rolls back child labor protection laws and supporters have not shown why the change is needed.

Bills tackle drug use, addiction

With no debate, the Assembly passed a bill on a voice vote Thursday that would allow social workers to treat substance use disorder as a specialty without needing certification or continued education, greatly expanding who can treat people with addictions as opioid use rates skyrocket in Wisconsin.

In 2020, 34% more people died from opioids than in the previous year. The 2020 death rate is the highest on record second only to 2017 in opioid hospitalization rate.

Similarly, the Assembly passed a bill on a voice vote that would allow the Department of Health Services to award grants to train substance use disorder treatment providers on treatment models for people with methamphetamine addictions.

Speaking about the bill, Rep. Shannon Zimmerman, R-River Falls, who earlier Thursday noted his proximity to people with addictions, said the drug use rate across Wisconsin is crazy, referring in particular to fentanyl.

State Journal reporter Alexander Shur contributed to this report.
Facing mounting pressure to clean up toxic waste at the Dane County Regional Airport, the county is planning to sue the makers of so-called forever chemicals.

County Executive Joe Parisi announced Thursday that he would introduce a resolution authorizing the county to hire outside attorneys to pursue class-action litigation against manufacturers of fluorinated compounds known as PFAS.

PFAS manufacturers made millions selling these products and we owe it to the taxpayers of Dane County to make sure they arent forced to pay for cleaning up the contamination that resulted from using firefighting foam, Parisi said in a statement announcing the resolution. Too often big corporations make huge profits and then walk away when a problem is discovered, leaving taxpayers stuck with the clean-up bills.

Parisi said the county faces substantial costs associated with investigating and cleaning up PFAS contamination linked to firefighting foam used for decades in emergency response and training around the airport.

Deputy Corporation Counsel Carlos Pabellon said the county has not selected an outside law firm but plans to hire one on a contingency basis, meaning there would be no upfront costs.

Parisi likened the multi-jurisdictional litigation process to actions the county has taken against opioid manufacturers.

Cardinal-Hickory Creek: Judge blocks Mississippi River crossing for $492M power line Judge William Conleys ruling throws the fate of the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line into question just months after utilities began construction on the $492 million project.

The city of La Crosse, facing similar cleanup challenges at its airport, last year sued nearly two dozen chemical companies it says knew for decades that their products were hazardous to human health but failed to warn customers. The state has hired the Sher Edling law firm to go after manufacturers.

It has been almost four years since the Department of Natural Resources informed the county, along with the Wisconsin National Guard and the city of Madison, that they were responsible for PFAS contamination on and around the base.

The National Guard Bureau is conducting cleanup under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA, a process under which actual cleanup may not begin for at least a decade.

Last year the DNR approved a plan to find where PFAS-contaminated groundwater is seeping into the stormwater system and seal up leaky pipes while the county continues testing an experimental technology that the DNR previously said had failed to keep PFAS out of lakes and streams.

The county notified the DNR last fall that storm sewer repairs had been delayed until sometime in 2022.

Used in firefighting foam, stain-resistant fabrics and thousands of other products, PFAS have been linked to illnesses including cancer and liver disease. The chemicals have contaminated a municipal well about a mile from the airport, as well as Starkweather Creek and Lake Monona, which are now under fish consumption advisories.

The EPA has said drinking water is safe with combined PFOS and PFOA concentrations up to 70 parts per trillion, though new agency documents suggest that level should be just 1 ppt. Groundwater samples from the airport have shown PFOS alone at concentrations reaching 48,000 ppt.

The DNR is finalizing rules that would set drinking and groundwater standards at 20 ppt, in line with the recommendations of state health officials. If approved by the Legislature, those standards would be in place by 2023.

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Citing ongoing dependence on fossil fuels, a group of Republican lawmakers has introduced a resolution supporting development of petroleum pipelines, a policy that scientists say is incompatible with slowing climate change.

The nonbinding resolution introduced Tuesday says Wisconsins economy will continue to rely for many years on petroleum products and calls on the Legislature to support continued and increased development and delivery of oil derived from North American oil reserves to American refineries.

It goes on to say everything should be done to support continued and increased development and delivery of oil from Canada to the United States and support the development, maintenance and operation of pipelines.

Authored by Rep. John Spiros, R-Marshfield, and Sen. Julian Bradley, R-Franklin, the bill has one Democratic sponsor, Rep. Nick Milroy of South Range, whose northern Wisconsin district is crossed by a controversial Enbridge Energy pipeline.

The resolution has backing from petroleum and convenience store industry groups, as well as Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the states largest business lobby. Wisconsin Conservation Voters and other environmental advocates have registered against, with the Sierra Club calling it foolish.

Doubling down on the dirty fuels and infrastructure of the last century will set our economy back and cause ecological disaster, said Peg Shaeffer, spokesperson for Midwest Environmental Advocates.

Now is not the time for meaningless resolutions to appease oil, gas and pipeline interests, said Clean Wisconsin spokesperson Amy Barrilleaux. Its time for Wisconsin to focus on real solutions to the climate crisis that confronts us.

Greg Nemet, a professor of public policy at UW-Madison, said expansion of fossil fuel use and infrastructure to deliver them is not compatible with widely accepted goals associated with mitigating the effects of climate change.

The alternatives to fossil fuels, especially wind, solar, and electric vehicles, are now competitive and high-performing, Nemet said. We may need some fossil fuels available to manage the multi-decade transition, but certainly not more than we use now.

The resolution is being introduced amid mounting public opposition to Enbridges plans to reroute its Line 5 around the Bad River Reservation with about 41 miles of new pipeline through Ashland, Bayfield and Iron counties.

A draft environmental review by the state Department of Natural Resources has drawn criticism from individuals, tribal governments and environmental advocates who delivered more than 1,300 signatures opposing the pipeline project, which they say will lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

A United Nations panel of scientists last year reported unprecedented changes to the global climate as a direct result of human activity and warned that greenhouse gas emissions must be virtually eliminated by 2050 to avoid the most catastrophic outcomes.

To meet that goal, the International Energy Agency says new investments in fossil fuel supply projects must stop immediately. Another recent study found oil and gas production must decline 3% annually over the next three decades in order to have a 50-50 shot at meeting international climate goals.

Earlier this year, the Madison City Council and Dane County Board passed resolutions opposing the Line 5 reroute, as well as a recently completed expansion of Enbridges Line 3 in Minnesota, which connects to a pipeline that cuts through Dane County.

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U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan on Friday asked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for a Justice Department investigation into 10 Republican electors who submitted false paperwork last year saying former President Donald Trump had won in the battleground state.

President Joe Biden carried Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes. The Republicans who met have defended the move, saying they were submitting the votes in case Trump's loss was overturned by the courts.

Pocan, D-Black Earth, said it was imperative for the Justice Department to act "to deter other officials who may seek to engage in election fraud." He urged Garland to act quickly "for Wisconsin, for the Department, and for the nation."

Earlier this week, an assistant Milwaukee County prosecutor responded to a year-old complaint filed by a liberal law firm based in Madison seeking an investigation. The letter to Law Forward attorney Jeffrey Mandell said it was up to state and federal authorities to decide whether to conduct such a probe.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has not ruled out a state investigation and has also called on federal prosecutors to consider one.

Republicans in seven states  Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  submitted paperwork to the U.S. Senate and National Archives saying they believe Trump actually won, even though he didn't. New Mexico and Pennsylvania Republicans added a caveat saying it was done in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors.

Michigan's and New Mexico's attorneys general have asked federal prosecutors to investigate the Republican officials' false filings.

Politico reported earlier this month the U.S. House committee investigating the insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, also is investigating documents submitted by Republican electors in several states.

The Washington Post reported Thursday the effort was coordinated by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. The Republican plan was to present Vice President Mike Pence with conflicting slates of electors so that he could throw the election to a House vote that would hand the election to Trump, something Pence refused to do.

In Wisconsin, Republicans who signed the paperwork include former chair of the state Republican Party Andrew Hitt; Robert Spindell, a Republican who sits on the state Elections Commission; 8th Congressional District GOP chair Kelly Ruh; 1st Congressional District GOP vice chair Carol Brunner; Dane County Republican Party chair Scott Grabins; La Crosse County Republican Party chair Bill Feehan; 5th Congressional District GOP chair Kathy Kiernan; 6th Congressional District GOP chair Darryl Carlson; 1st Congressional District GOP vice chair Pam Travis; and Mary Buestrin, vice chair of the Midwest region for the Republican National Convention.
The Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office has suggested that state or federal officials take up a complaint filed almost a year ago alleging 10 Wisconsin Republicans committed fraud by signing official-looking documents seeking to hand the states Electoral College votes to former President Donald Trump.

Assistant District Attorney Matthew Westphal sent a letter Wednesday to Jeffrey Mandell, a lawyer with the liberal law firm Law Forward who filed the complaint, suggesting that the state or federal justice department would be best suited to determine what steps, if any, should be taken on the matter.

This office has already consulted with the Wisconsin DOJ to discuss these matters, Westphal wrote in the letter. The Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office will be available to provide any necessary assistance to the extent available.

The complaint was filed early last year after 10 Republicans convened in the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign official-looking documents purporting that Trump had won the state. On the same day, the Democratic slate of Wisconsin electors also met at the building to deliver the states 10 electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden.

The meeting of Republicans occurred an hour after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Biden had won the election and a month after Wisconsin county clerks canvassed the presidential election results. A recount and court decisions have affirmed that Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes.

I understand the letter to say that the district attorneys office has conducted a legal analysis and believes that there are significant issues here and possible legal violations, Mandell said Thursday.

An envelope used by Republicans to mail the paperwork to the archivist of the United States provided by Mandell shows that it was mailed on Dec. 16, 2020, two days after the Republicans met, as well as two days after the Supreme Court ruled that Biden had won the November election. The return address on the envelope lists the Chairperson of the Electoral College of Wisconsin.

A matter of jurisdiction

Westphal noted in the letter that a statewide agency would be better suited to take up the matter because the 10 Republicans listed reside across Wisconsin. Westphal also noted that Mandells allegations are comparable to those made in six other states where Republicans signed similar paperwork alleging that Trump won the 2020 election.

The behaviors you describe are matters effecting statewide and nationwide interests, Westphal wrote.

Mandell also noted that he believes the Dane County District Attorneys office may have a level of jurisdiction over the matter, as the meeting of Republicans occurred at the Capitol building in Madison.

The letter, first reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, could put the matter before Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who has not ruled out the possibility that he may look into the complaint.

Michigans attorney general last week asked federal prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into 16 Republicans who submitted false certificates stating they were the states presidential electors despite Bidens victory in 2020.

I believe its critical that the federal government fully investigates and prosecutes any unlawful actions in furtherance of any seditious conspiracy, Kaul said last week. Kauls office reiterated his statement when asked Thursday if he plans to take up Mandells complaint.

Multiple agencies, including the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission and the Office of Lawyer Regulation, the agency that handles complaints against lawyers, have yet to rule on the complaints, which were filed almost a year ago.

Republican Party of Wisconsin chair Paul Farrow on Monday described the allegations as a frivolous complaint that doesnt deserve the time of day.

Signed documents

Liberal watchdog group American Oversight last March obtained official-looking certificates submitted by Republicans claiming to be electors in Wisconsin and six other states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania. New Mexico and Pennsylvania Republicans added a caveat saying it was done in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors.

Whats more, Politico reported earlier this month the U.S. House committee investigating the insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, also is investigating documents submitted by Republican electors in several states. The implication is that Republicans were trying to present Vice President Mike Pence with conflicting slates of electors so that he could throw the election to a House vote that would hand the election to Trump, something Pence refused to do.

In Wisconsin, Republicans who signed the paperwork include former chair of the state Republican Party Andrew Hitt; Robert Spindell, a Republican who sits on the state elections commission; 8th Congressional District GOP chair Kelly Ruh; 1st Congressional District GOP vice chair Carol Brunner; Dane County Republican Party chair Scott Grabins; La Crosse County Republican Party chair Bill Feehan; 5th Congressional District GOP chair Kathy Kiernan; 6th Congressional District GOP chair Darryl Carlson; 1st Congressional District GOP vice chair Pam Travis; and Mary Buestrin, vice chair of the Midwest region for the Republican National Convention.

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Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Thursday disciplined a lawmaker who falsely claimed that former President Donald Trump won the battleground state and that he wanted to award the states electoral votes to him, even though that is not possible.

Vos, R-Rochester, removed the lone staff member assigned to Rep. Timothy Ramthun, R-Campbellsport, but it appears the reason was not his comments about who won the election. The move was first reported by WisPolitics.com and confirmed Thursday by Vos office.

The move to discipline Ramthun, who has vocally advocated election conspiracy theories, came after he falsely accused Vos of signing a deal with attorneys for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to authorize absentee ballot drop boxes, Vos office said.

After extensive caucus discussions and dozens of members expressing their displeasure with Representative Ramthun and his staff for using state resources to spread bold-faced lies to people outside of his district, the decision was made to move his staff, Vos spokesperson Angela Joyce said.

Every lawmaker gets at least one staff member to answer the phones, respond to emails, handle scheduling and deal with other tasks associated with holding office. Now Ramthun faces doing all of that work himself.

Ramthun did not return a message seeking comment.

Ramthun also proposed a resolution this week to reclaim Wisconsins 10 electoral college votes and recorded a message that demanded lawmakers take action on it. Attorneys for the Legislature have said it is impossible to do what Ramthun wants.

Vos briefly addressed the issue at a news conference Thursday, while defending an ongoing investigation that he ordered into the 2020 election.

We have said over and over that our election review is only to add and figure out the way that there were issues in 2020 going forward, Vos said. But every member has a right to their own beliefs.  Even though every lawyer that we have worked with in Wisconsin says we cannot undo the 2020 elections, Representative Ramthun has that belief. Thats his right.

The entire Republican Assembly leadership team issued a statement backing the decision to discipline Ramthun, saying he and his staffer were spreading lies. Their statement said Ramthun falsely alleged that Vos was working with Clintons attorney and that Republicans could award the states electoral college votes to Trump.

No matter how much Rep. Ramthun and his staffer believe what they are saying is true, it does not make it so, the GOP leaders said. Sending out communications full of lies is doing disservice to all voters. With so much information to parse through on the internet and in traditional media, we all must do a better job of listening and communicating.

The pushback against one of the most conservative Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly comes as Vos tries to balance calls from some who believe President Joe Biden stole the election against those who say its an effort to continue the lie that Trump won. Biden beat Trump by nearly 21,000 votes, an outcome that has withstood recounts, lawsuits and multiple reviews.

Vos ordered an investigation into the election, paid for with $676,000 in taxpayer funds, under pressure from Trump to do more. That review led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman is ongoing and subject to multiple lawsuits, even though Vos has said he wants it to be done next month so the Legislature can vote on recommendations in March.

Ramthun and Gableman both attended a symposium last year in South Dakota by MyPillow founder Mike Lindell where election conspiracy theories were discussed.
Hospitals and patients vied against health insurers and businesses Thursday at a public hearing in the state Capitol over a bipartisan bill that would prevent insurers from choosing the pharmacies where hospitals buy some specialty drugs given in hospitals.

Hospitals said the insurer practice, called white-bagging and sometimes requiring the use of insurer-owned pharmacies, can disrupt patient care and pose safety risks by adding more steps to drug delivery.

These decisions have negative consequences on patient safety, drug supply chain, cost, waste and administrative burden on patients and medical care providers, said Joanne Alig, a senior vice president with the Wisconsin Hospital Association, a driving force behind the bill.

Insurers said controlling where certain expensive drugs are purchased saves money by avoiding hospital markups.

The bill removes nearly every existing tool health insurance providers have to encourage lower cost, higher quality, and more convenient drug administration, said Tim Lundquist, a senior director at the Wisconsin Association of Health Plans, which includes Dean Health Plan, Quartz, WEA Trust and Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin, among others.

Introduced in November, the bill has many legislative sponsors from both parties, with hospital and patient groups registering in support and insurance and business groups registering against it. SSM Health  which owns Madison-based Navitus Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager that owns Lumicera, a specialty pharmacy  said it is not supporting or opposing the measure.

The bill concerns some specialty drugs that must be administered at hospitals, including for conditions including cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohns disease and cerebral palsy. More such drugs have been approved in recent years, and many are expensive.

At the hearing Thursday before the state Senate Committee on Insurance, Licensing and Forestry, Koreen Holmes, of Eau Claire, said that in September, while getting immunotherapy infusions for breast cancer, she learned her insurer would no longer cover the treatments at HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital.

The insurer, which Holmes did not identify, said its selected pharmacy would send the medication for her to use at the hospital. Hospitals typically oppose using such drugs, in part because they say delivery can be unreliable.

Holmes, who had recently given birth to a second child, eventually got a 90-day reprieve that allowed her to finish her treatment at the Eau Claire hospital. But she said the ordeal, which involved possibly having to go elsewhere for treatment, was stressful.

That was scary, frustrating and honestly unfair, said Holmes, for whom supporters have dubbed the bill Koreens Law.

Willard Walker, CEO of Clintonville-based Walker Forge, a manufacturer with 350 employees, said white-bagging, or what he called alternate sourcing, saved the company $170,000 in drug costs last year, with no problems reported.

Alternate sourcing has been an important tool for us, and weve been able to use it quite successfully without interruption, without disruption, without delay, Walker said.

Hannet Ambord, pharmacy director at Reedsburg Area Medical Center, said white-bagging has led some patients to switch to less-ideal drugs so they can continue to be treated at the hospital or stop treatments over frustration from repeated delays in drug delivery.

As we continue to disrupt patient-provider relationships, our patients suffer, Ambord said.

Rachel Ver Velde, director of workforce, education and employment policy with Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, pointed to a study done for drug manufacturers that found most hospitals charge patients and insurers more than twice their acquisition cost for medications.

It is quite shocking that the legislature would consider giving hospitals a monopoly on these drugs and push other competition out of the market, Ver Velde said in written testimony.

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The Republican-appointed special counsel reviewing the November 2020 election in Wisconsin is not seeking to jail the mayors of Madison and Green Bay if they refuse to be questioned.

But that possibility remains open if Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich continue to object to private interviews with the special counsel, said conservative former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, according to a memo one of his attorneys filed with a Waukesha County court Thursday.

The five-page memo was referenced Friday during a hearing in which Genrichs attorney questioned whether Gableman even had the authority to pursue sanctions against the mayors, given that his contract with the Republican-controlled state Legislature expired at the end of December.

It is far from clear that Mr. Gableman has any authority to act for the Legislature at this point, Jeffrey Mandell told Circuit Judge Ralph Ramirez. Absent that authority, his petition to this court must evaporate.

Fridays hearing came after Gableman issued subpoenas in October seeking election records from the states five largest cities and demanding their mayors submit to questioning, even though mayors dont play any role in conducting elections.

He later backed off those subpoenas, but in early December filed petitions in Waukesha County asking that the county sheriff force Rhodes-Conway and Genrich to answer his questions under the October subpoenas. Those petitions, called writs of attachment, can lead to jail for people who are found in contempt for not complying with a subpoena.

In the memo, Kevin Scott says the special counsels office is seeking the writs under a section of state law that gives judges discretion in whether to jail someone found in contempt or to impose other sanctions, such as fines, and not under a different section of state law that requires judges to jail those found in contempt of a legislative subpoena.

The office chose to proceed under the former statute to avoid (if possible) the incarceration of any official involved in this matter, Scott writes in the memo. The upshot is that the Special Counsels intent ... is to induce compliance with the subpoenas at issue, not to seek the incarceration of two elected officials.

Rhodes-Conway has said she is open to testifying publicly about the citys handling of last years election. An attorney for Genrich has criticized Gablemans petition as illegal and followed up earlier this month with a demand that the court sanction Gableman for his frivolous and factually inaccurate effort to force Genrich to submit to questioning.

Expired contract

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, hired Gableman last summer  at a cost of $676,000 to taxpayers  to look into how the 2020 election was conducted after former President Donald Trump complained that Wisconsin Republicans werent doing enough to promote the lie that Democrat Joe Biden stole the state from him.

Gableman made a baseless claim at a pro-Donald Trump rally in 2020 that the election in Wisconsin had been stolen by bureaucrats, and he has met with and hired people for his investigation who formerly worked for Trump and espoused conspiracy theories about the election.

Biden defeated Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. A recount, multiple court challenges and two in-depth reviews of election processes  including one by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty  have revealed no evidence of widespread fraud.

Although Gablemans contract expired last month, Vos has said the review will likely go longer and cost more money.

Gablemans and Vos offices did not respond to questions Friday seeking comment on the current status of Gablemans contract. Madison City Attorney Mike Haas said it seemed clear that the court expects attorney Gableman to address whether he is still authorized to act as special counsel.

More to come

Ramirez didnt hear arguments or make any decisions Friday on whether or how to enforce Gablemans subpoenas, or whether Gableman should be sanctioned for issuing them, including a request by Genrich that he take out full-page newspaper ads to correct the record.

Instead he asked the parties to submit briefs on the courts authority to issue the writs, the correct procedure to follow and the factual basis for the writs. A hearing to consider those arguments was scheduled for April 22.

Haas said the city does not believe there is a subpoena pending for Rhodes-Conway and there are no current plans for her to be deposed.

As we have told the special counsel, we are open to discussions about an appropriate scope and forum for any interviews or depositions of city officials, he said.

Earlier this week, the immigration rights group Voces de la Frontera Action went to court to try to block a subpoena Gableman issued in late December for emails and other communications related to the 2020 election, as well as information about the groups finances and contacts with government officials and other nonprofits.

The groups executive director called the attempt modern-day McCarthyite political theater designed to perpetuate lies about the 2020 election and silence and intimidate voters of color from exercising their right to free speech and their right to vote.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Sunday that Gableman has also subpoenaed two companies that manufacture voting machines and software, Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems and Nebraska-based Electronic Systems & Software.

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Last weekend in Florence, Arizona, supporters of former President Donald Trump gathered to attend one of his infamous rallies, to bond with like-minded MAGA cohorts and bathe in Trumps ill-fated promises and unhinged conspiracy theories.

They got their moneys worth. Trump pushed the debunked theory that the FBI had plants among the insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. He pushed the so-called massive evidence that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen, evidence that has yet to reveal itself, despite Republicans in statehouses looking really, really hard for it.

And he continued to lie about the role of Democrats in the violent insurrection. The crowd, unsurprisingly, ate it all up.

Cool, cool.

But one conspiracy theory Trump has yet to publicly embrace is the idea that John F. Kennedy Jr.  who definitely died more than 22 years ago in a tragic plane crash  is alive and poised to be Trumps running mate in 2024.

Go to any MAGA gathering and it isnt hard to find the folks who earnestly believe this lunacy. And if maskless rallies arent on your 2022 agenda, just go to TikTok or YouTube. Jaw-dropping interviews with JFK Jr. truthers abound.

Politico caught up with one in Arizona, who admitted, I dont want to sound too much like a conspiracy theorist, about the return of a man who definitely is no longer living, but hes coming back. Hes supposed to reveal himself on the 17th if hes truly alive. I think well see him.

For those of you with access to a calendar  admittedly an evil apparatus of the deep state  Jan. 17 has come and gone, and John-John has yet to make an appearance. That we know of.

Fear not, however. These predictions are merely suggestions, it would seem. According to QAnon adherents, John-John was also supposed to arrive on Nov. 23 of last year.

That was after he was going to appear on Nov. 3, 2021.

And that was after he was definitely arriving on July 4, 2019.

Youd think that all these disappointing no-shows would pierce the infallibility of the JFK Jr. resurrection-or-revival-or-reemergence theory, but alas, evidence is the domain of the elite, the establishment, the deep state, the left, the so-called scientists and the lamestream media.

But youd also think the fact that Trump himself hasnt endorsed this conspiracy (yet) would also provoke some gentle chin-scratching.

Or at the very least, youd wonder why the newly alive son of a beloved Democratic dynasty would reemerge from hiding after two decades to run for president with a reviled Republican loser.

Obviously, there are good explanations for all this. According to one Trump supporter, JFK Jr. was in fact at the Arizona rally, but he was disguised  you guessed it  as Trump. (You didnt guess that?)

If you think this sounds more like a kooky cult than a major political movement, I have two words for you: Harold Camping. Camping was an engineer-turned-evangelist who launched California-based Family Radio in the late 1950s. Camping was bit by the doomsday bug hard, and first predicted the Biblical End of Times would occur on Sept. 6, 1994.

When the day came and went, he pushed his prediction back a bit, to the end of the month, Sept. 29.

Then he changed it to just a few days later, Oct. 2. Eventually giving up on the year 1994, he predicted March 31 of 1995 would be the end of the world as we knew it.

In the decade that followed, Camping raised millions in donations and gained an international following off of these failed predictions. In 2011, he returned to the doomsday business, announcing a new date for the Rapture  May 21. When that day disappointed, he gave his final prediction, Oct. 21. He retired that year following a stroke, after leading his company into financial ruin. Many of his former followers described becoming disillusioned and coming to view him as a cult leader.

Science reporter Tom Bartlett studied Campings followers, and described one, a gifted young musician.

He continued: Because he was convinced the world was ending, he had abandoned music, quit his job, and essentially put his life on hold for four years. It had cost him friends and created a rift between some members of his family.

It all seemed so real, like it made so much sense, but it wasnt right, the former follower said.

Well have to wait and see if QAnon and the JFK Jr. truthers have the same wake-up call one day, if anything can pull them out of the cult of Trump, where Im sure it all seems so real.

Until then, no need for alarm  only the fate of our next election and the future of democracy on Earth hang in the balance.

Cupp writes for Tribune Content Agency and is host of S.E. Cupp Unfiltered on CNN: secuppdailynews@yahoo.com.
It is a travesty that UW-Madison, my alma mater, choose to invite Nikole Hannah-Jones to speak on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

King's outlook was the polar opposite of the narrative Jones espouses. King rejected the idea that racism was a permanent characteristic of "whiteness," and set as his goal the dissolution of race itself.

The well-heeled Hannah-Jones and her "1619 Project" (which rarely mentions King) are not "left wing" but entirely part of the big business aim of splintering the working class on racial grounds. UW-Madison should be ashamed of promoting a work that has been so thoroughly discredited by world-class historians including James McPherson, Gordon Wood and Victoria Bynum.

The attempts by both the Trump right and the pseudo-left proponents of identity politics serve the same overarching policy: Divide the working class and allow stock shares to continue to soar.

I became a socialist during my wonderful years at UW-Madison and gratefully recall the political lessons I learned there. I urge others who want to fight racism, injustice, poverty and war to examine the collection of essays entitled, "The New York Times' 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History."

Nancy Hanover, Bloomfield, Michigan
According to the new White House coronavirus testing program, health insurance companies are now required to cover the cost of eight at-home COVID-19 tests per month for their members. But the program leaves the exact reimbursement and coverage processes up to the insurance companies  and perhaps unsurprisingly, thus far the systems for getting test costs covered are sometimes difficult and often confusing.

The White House issued a mandate that insurance companies begin covering testing costs as of Jan. 15. Insurers are required to reimburse members for FDA-authorized tests purchased on or after that date, up to $12 per test. Companies may also choose to set up partnerships with retailers and pharmacies to make the tests available at no cost at checkout, and with no need for reimbursement. If the insurer doesnt have a partnership program where you can get upfront coverage at certain retailers, they must reimburse the full price, even if it exceeds $12 per test.

This week, several of the nations largest health insurance companies  including Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealthcare and others  have begun releasing details on exactly how you can get your at-home tests reimbursed and/or where to purchase the tests if you want them covered upfront, at the point of sale.

Staying healthy has never been more important. Protect yourself and your loved ones with a comprehensive and affordable health insurance plan. Click your state to learn more.

Many insurers have not yet publicly released details on their coverage plans. Of the ones that have, Money found that the process is often vague and may require physically mailing (or faxing!) in reimbursement forms and COVID-19 test receipts. In some cases, even the barcodes on the testing-kit package may need to be included.

The core requirement for insurers is that they arent allowed to design their reimbursement process in a way that unduly delays your reimbursement, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). But that doesnt necessarily mean the process is easy.

This program is only for privately insured Americans and is separate from the home-delivery program through COVIDtests.gov  which provides a one-time shipment of four free at-home COVID-19 tests to anyone, regardless of health insurance status.

How to get insurance to cover COVID-19 test costs

Heres a look at what some of the largest insurers in the country are requiring.

Aetna

Details on at-home COVID-19 test coverage from Aetna have been trickling out this week. The company has released an FAQ page on the program, which it has been updating frequently.

In most cases, OTC [over-the-counter] tests will be covered under your pharmacy benefits, its website states. Just check your benefits card to find your prescription benefits manager.

You can find a list of nearby Aetna partner pharmacies using this pharmacy locator tool. Tests purchased through partner pharmacies should be free at checkout (assuming you can find them available). Tests you purchase outside of those partners are eligible for reimbursement. In those cases, Aetna says you will have to submit a reimbursement claim but did not provide details beyond that.

Anthem

Anthem has recently updated its website with new details on the at-home testing program, but details are still sparse.

You may have to pay out of pocket at the time of purchase, but keep your receipt to submit a claim online, its website states.

To do so:

Log in to your account on anthem.com.

Go to the Claims & Payment section.

Select Submit a Claim.

Anthem has not publicly released a list of partner pharmacies or retailers that offer upfront coverage, and the company did not respond to Moneys request for comment.

A quality Health Insurance Plan can cover most unexpected incidents. With a Health Insurance Plan that meets your needs while remaining affordable, you'll be good to go. Click below to find out more.

Cigna

If you have health coverage through Cigna, you will need to print and fill out this at-home COVID-19 test reimbursement form.

For now, the only submission instructions are to fax the completed form to 859-410-2422 or physically mail it  along with any receipts  to the address on the back of your health insurance card.

Cigna has not released a list of partner pharmacies or retailers for upfront coverage and didnt respond to Moneys request for comment.

Humana

To receive reimbursement with Humana, the company is requiring you to print and fill out a reimbursement form, save your receipts and UPC numbers (aka barcodes) for the tests and mail them all to the address on the back of your insurance card. If you live in Puerto Rico, you must use a separate reimbursement form (which is in English and Spanish).

To avoid that reimbursement process, you may get upfront coverage at certain partner pharmacies. Humana has a pharmacy finder tool on its website that you can use to find nearby in-network drugstores.

The company did not respond to Moneys request for more information on its partner pharmacies and retailers.

UnitedHealthcare

UnitedHealthcare has released detailed information on the new federal program and how it will cover at-home COVID-19 tests for you.

The company is partnering with Walmart Pharmacies, Sams Club, Rite Aid and Bartell Drugs to provide free at-home COVID-19 tests to members. You can go to those locations and receive tests at no cost so long as you show them your UnitedHealthcare card with an OptumRx logo on it.

If you purchase at-home tests outside of those four pharmacy retailers, you can get reimbursed by submitting a claim online at myuhc.com or by filling out this reimbursement form and mailing it to the address on the back of your insurance card.

Have you had trouble getting your health insurance company to cover your at-home COVID-19 tests? We want to hear about it. Send an email to Adam.Hardy@money.com about your experience.

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TWIN FALLS  Although Betty White wasnt alive to see her 100 birthday, the south-central Idaho community kept her spirit going.

Fans of The Golden Girls star donated to local shelters and nonprofits in her name on Monday in honor of her birthday.

A long-standing board member for the L.A. Zoo and a recipient of American Humane Societys highest honor, the National Humanitarian Medal and the Legacy Award, Betty White adored animals.

Betty White was amazing and we love her for what she did for animals, said Beckie Wagoner, the founder of Broken Hearts Rescue based in Twin Falls.

Broken Hearts Rescue raised over $500 to help cover animal supplies and medical needs.

A nonprofit, the rescue is 100% volunteer-operated and relies on donations to cover expensive vet visits.

We cant live without them, Wagoner said. Without the support from the community, a rescue has nowhere to go.

In November, the rescue took in four puppies that were found roaming in a cornfield after being left to fend for themselves.

The dogs were incredibly emaciated and had a skin condition that required medical attention. In total the vet bills were close to $2,000, Wagoner said.

Their story is not a unique one.

Our volunteers, none of them are paid, none of them get gas money, its all done out of the kindness of their hearts, she said.

People for Pets, Magic Valley Humane Society Inc., raised $4,000, director Debbie Blackwood said.

It was a highly successful campaign, Blackwood said.

The shelter was at crisis level in July with 109 cats at one point. In December the shelter again had no room for new intakes.

We have zero space left and more animals scheduled to come in from their owners and we are bound to get in more strays, a shelter Facebook post said. We are drowning.

The shelter takes in anywhere from five to 25 cats and dogs as strays each day and another three to five owner surrenders each day.

Funds raised during the Betty White challenge will go towards food, vaccinations, medical bills, kennel enrichment and more, Blackwood said.

There are a lot of important things to donate to and we appreciate being included in peoples thoughts, she said.

If anyone in the community still would like to donate, the facility needs dog food. To prevent gastrointestinal problems, the shelter feeds a specific kind of food. Nutra Nugget lamb and rice dog food can be found at Costco, Fred Meyer and Winco.

Jerome Shelter, a dog-only facility, raised $1,115 on Facebook for its medical fund. The shelter also received donations of food, blankets and chew toys, said Brittney Stirling, an animal shelter technician.

This is the first one (campaign) that weve ever had a huge outreach of people donate to us, Stirling said.

The facility has 14 kennels and is operated by two staff members.

Donations beyond money and food can often be overlooked, she said. Peanut butter to fill Kong toys can be just as crucial in helping dogs stay happy and healthy while in the facility.

Currently, the Jerome Shelter needs more Busy Bones, a dog treat that supports sensory play.

Other local animal rescue organizations also raised money in Betty Whites name. Friends Furever Animal Rescue raised $1,782 on Facebook, Magicats raised $395, and Anythings Pawsable Foundation raised $265.

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BOISE  Three months after a state investigation disproved MyPillow CEO Mike Lindells accusations of voter fraud in Idaho, the information remains on Lindells website. Idaho government officials want it gone.

They also want Lindell to pay the state for the money it spent proving Lindells allegations wrong.

Secretary of State Lawerence Denney and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden sent a cease-and-desist letter to Lindell on Tuesday. They asked Lindell to promptly remove all false statements about Idahos elections from your website and refrain from making similar statements in the future.

Despite knowing your statements about Idahos elections are false, you have not removed your Big Lie chart and continue to perpetuate your false statements, the letter stated.

Idaho is also coming for Lindells wallet. The letter requested he send $6,558.83 to the secretary of states office to cover the money it spent refuting his claims. The office first announced plans to seek payment in October.

The Idaho Statesman reached out to Lindell by email but received no response as of Wednesday evening.

He promoted the big lie

Since Trump lost the 2020 election, there has perhaps been no voice besides Trumps louder than Lindells when it comes to claims that the election was stolen.

The pillow seller built a website, sponsored a two-week bus tour and held pillow sales, all in an effort to promote the conspiracy theory. He launched a three-day Cyber Symposium last August that promised to present irrefutable evidence of Chinas involvement in Bidens victory. No evidence was ever produced.

And Lindell is showing no signs of stopping his crusade. Just last week he told Real Americas Voice, a far-right streaming service, that he has enough evidence to put more than 300 million people in prison for their involvement in the election. A Washington Post analysis said that comes to one out of every 26 people in the world. By that math, nearly 29,000 people in the Treasure Valley would be locked away.

Idaho isnt the only one wanting to make Lindell pay up for his false statements. Voting machine company Smartmatic filed a defamation lawsuit against Lindell on Tuesday for asserting that the companys machines were used for election fraud.

Denney and Wasden take issue to a section of Lindells website that still lists all 44 counties of Idaho as having participated in election fraud in 2020. They pointed out that seven of Idahos counties that Lindell claimed were subject to electronic manipulation do not use electronic voting.

Lindells own expert, the letter notes, is shown elsewhere on the website saying he does not believe there was election fraud anywhere in Idaho except Ada County.

Idaho official results showed 63.8% of votes went to former President Donald Trump. But Lindell, in a document titled The Big Lie, alleged that presidential election results across the state were electronically manipulated to switch 35,357 votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

In response to Lindells widely circulated document, the Idaho government conducted an election audit. It chose three counties, Butte, Camas and Bonner, to see if Lindells claims had merit. The investigation found a 0.1% margin of error. The letter said that is well below the manipulation (Lindell) claimed.

False statements ... harm the election process

The letter tells Lindell that his statements of fraud are defamatory toward Denney and those who work for him.

Those false statements injure Secretary Denneys reputation and subjected him to public threats, criticism and ridicule, the letter said. Your false statements caused the same harm to the honest and hardworking civil servants and volunteers that supported the election process in Idaho.

Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck told the Idaho Statesman those threats came to Denney and other Idaho election officials through postal service, email, phone calls and in-person confrontations. Lindell supporters targeted their family members and extended office staff, he said.

There have been people that have called in and yelled at our receptionists, at our election staff, wanting to know how we could attack a patriot like Mike Lindell, Houck said in a phone interview.

Scott Graf, spokesperson for the attorney generals office, declined to comment on how long government officials planned to give Lindell to respond to the letter and what they would do if he did not comply.

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BOISE  Senate Republican leadership met Wednesday morning to discuss a pair of profane Statehouse exchanges Tuesday afternoon, involving GOP state superintendents candidate Branden Durst and GOP state Sen. Jim Woodward.

The exchange came moments after the Senate Education Committee rejected a parental rights bill proposed by Durst and Sen. Christy Zito, R-Hammett. The committee voted down the bill on a deadlocked 4-4 vote. Woodward, R-Sagle, voted against the bill.

Capitol police interceded during both exchanges  the first in the Senate Education meeting room moments after Tuesdays vote, and the second in Woodwards Statehouse office.

Both Durst and Woodward accuse each other of using profanities, but they agree on one central point. During their exchange in the committee room, Durst said he would use Woodwards vote against him in the 2022 elections.

Their accounts differ on other key points.

Woodward says he did not feel physically threatened. Durst says Woodward poked a finger in my chest.

Durst says he went to Woodwards office to apologize, repeatedly, for approaching him after the vote to threaten political retribution. That wasnt the time and the place, and I acknowledged it, Durst told Idaho Education News. Woodward told Idaho Education News he had no recollection of such an apology, and says Durst came to the office to continue the exchange that started in the committee room.

On Wednesday, Woodward said he did not file a police report, and hopes the matter will go away. Durst said he contacted Senate leadership and asked them to retain security footage from Tuesday. Frankly, when the video that comes out, itll be clear who was really the aggressor in the situation, Durst said Wednesday.

Idaho Education News requested the same footage, via a public records request with the Department of Administration, and is yet to receive a response. Idaho Education News also filed a public records request seeking documents and internal communications related to the exchange. Police responded Wednesday night that no such records existed. And spokesperson Lynn Hightower said, in part, via email that no enforcement action was taken in the interaction with Durst, but didnt elaborate further.

Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, and GOP Caucus Chair Mark Harris, R-Soda Springs, confirmed that leadership met to discuss the matter Wednesday morning, but declined further comment.

The Durst-Zito bill, dubbed the Idaho Parental Freedom in Education Act, would have allowed parents to review all documents pertaining to their childs education, visit schools and classrooms without prior consent or notification, and refuse medical devices or treatments.

On Wednesday, Woodward said he was concerned with one section of the bill, which would have left schools subject to civil penalties of up to $1,000. But Woodward did not debate or discuss the bill before casting his vote.

It was really shocking that, as we walked out, he approached me and singled me out as a problem in this, Woodward told Idaho Education News.

But Woodward also said it would be naive for him to think the exchange was unrelated to the 2022 elections.

In a tweet from his campaign account Tuesday night, Durst criticized Woodward and Sen. Carl Crabtree, R-Grangeville, another opponent of his bill.

Two so-called Republican Senators joined with liberal Democrats on the Senate Education Committee this afternoon, he wrote. Republicans need to know how their Senators are voting.

The confrontation comes at the beginning of a heated Republican primary season.

Woodward already has an announced primary opponent: Scott Herndon of Sagle, chairman of the Bonner County Republican Central Committee. Durst is one of two announced GOP candidates for state superintendent, along with former State Board of Education President Debbie Critchfield. GOP incumbent Sherri Ybarra has not announced whether she will seek re-election.

And it also comes at the start of a session when legislators could consider several parental rights bills. The Durst-Zito bill was the first such bill to surface this session.

Durst said he will not change his approach at the Statehouse. Im going to continue to work with folks in the Legislature to get things done  The fact that two liberal Republicans dont like my ideas is really immaterial to me.

Woodward said he had never met Durst until Tuesday, but said the exchange made clear their differences on the bill in question.

I think he knows where I stand on it. We talked it out a little bit.

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On three occasions last year  June 4, then in July and again in August  Gerald Pizzuto asked that he be executed by a firing squad.

Condemned to die for the 1985 murders of Berta Herndon and her nephew, Del Herndon, in an Idaho County cabin north of McCall, Pizzuto would prefer being shot to death to being strapped to a gurney and injected with a cocktail of lethal chemicals.

The use of pentobarbital at my execution is too risky under the Eighth Amendment (banning cruel and unusual punishment), Pizzuto wrote. My medication history ... will make it very painful. The firing squad can be used and would be more humane.

Pore over the extensive review of Idahos lethal injection regimen by the Idaho Statesmans Kevin Fixler on Sunday and you might agree with him.

Pizzuto suffers from terminal bladder cancer, COPD, Type 2 diabetes and chronic and coronary artery disease. He has survived two heart attacks and is now on hospice care. A 4-to-3 majority on the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Paroles concluded against executing a dying man  regardless of his horrific crimes  and settled on Pizzuto living out his final days in prison. But Gov. Brad Little overruled them. Who has the final say under Idahos Constitution  the board or the governor  is now headed to a court battle.

Here are only a few things to consider about the 65-year-old Pizzutos request:

Given his health and age, Pizzuto fits the profile of other botched executions involving frail inmates.

An individual with a lot of compromised organ systems is not as predictable as what we may think, Jim Ruble, an attorney and doctor of pharmacy at the University of Utahs College of Pharmacy, told Fixler. How they react to it introduces a lot more variability. It could potentially be much less effective. Because of the complications of their overall health condition, it could also hasten their death, too.

Quality control is compromised. Since the turn of the century, major pharmaceutical manufacturers refused to allow the of use products intended to spare lives in an execution. The door slammed shut above five years ago when Pfizer acquired ownership of drug provider Hospira and closed that supply chain to death penalty states. The alternative has been a collection of local compound pharmacies, which are not monitored by the Food and Drug Administration. So the federal regulator warns about compound pharmacy products safety, effectiveness or quality before they reach patients. Add to that questions about whether the compounds are stable or sterile.

Working with these sources has led to some unsavory encounters. In preparing for the 2011 execution of Paul Ezra Rhoades, the state prisons system employed a staff pharmacist at State Hospital South at Blackfoot to obtain the drugs from a Salt Lake City compound pharmacist. A year later when the state was gearing up for the execution of Richard Leavitt, two future Department of Correction directors  Kevin Kempf and Josh Tewalt  flew by a state-chartered plane to Tacoma with as much as $15,000 in cash to obtain chemicals from a compound pharmacy. The transaction occurred in a Walmart parking lot.

None of this came to light until University of Idaho law professor Aliza Cover took the agency to court under the states public records act. By the time she prevailed, the state was ordered to pay more than $170,000 for Covers attorneys fees and court costs.

So why doesnt the state avoid all of these medical and ethical dilemmas by granting Pizzutos request?

In 2014, the correction department considered asking the Legislature for authority to use a firing squad as an alternative. At the time, the Department of Corrections decided against it because of the $300,000 costs and how the idea would have diverted our attention from other important initiatives, a public information officer told Betsy Russell, then of the Spokesman-Review.

Diversion sums it up. The public would have recoiled at that gruesome idea  or any other method in use before lethal injection was developed.

According to a 2015 YouGov poll:

Hanging  67 percent consider it cruel and unusual.

Gas chamber  52 percent say this is cruel and unusual.

Electric chair  54 percent object to this method.

Firing squad  53 percent find this cruel and unusual.

Beheading  81 percent would oppose.

At the time, 66 percent told pollsters they did not believe execution by lethal injection constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

But Pizzutos macabre request suggests lethal injection is less about treating the condemned prisoner in a humane fashion and more about creating an illusion  one that allows the people of Idaho to maintain capital punishment while still sleeping soundly at night.  M.T.

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Social media use tied to poor physical health

Its critical that we understand how engagement across these platforms contributes to physical health. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  Social media use has been linked to biological and psychological indicators associated with poor physical health among college students, according to the results of a new study by a University at Buffalo researcher.

Research participants who used social media excessively were found to have higher levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a biological marker of chronic inflammation that predicts serious illnesses, such as diabetes, certain cancers and cardiovascular disease. In addition to elevated CRP levels, results suggest higher social media use was also related to somatic symptoms, like headaches, chest and back pains, and more frequent visits to doctors and health centers for the treatment of illness.

Social media use has become an integral part of many young adults daily lives, said David Lee, PhD, the papers first author and assistant professor of communication in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. Its critical that we understand how engagement across these platforms contributes to physical health.

The findings appear in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

For decades, researchers have devoted attention to how social media engagement relates to users mental health, but its effects on physical health have not been thoroughly investigated.

Recent surveys indicate social media usage is particularly high for people in their late teens and early 20s, a population that spends about six hours a day texting, online or using social media. And though a few studies have found links between social media usage and physical health, that research relied largely on self-reporting or the effects of usage with exclusively one platform.

Our goal was to extend prior work by examining how social media use across several platforms is associated with physical health outcomes measured with biological, behavioral and self-report measures, said Lee, an expert on health outcomes related to social interactions.

Researchers recruited a diverse sample of 251 undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 24 for the study. Blood samples were collected through finger sticks, and participants also completed questionnaires on physical health and social media usage on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram, the most popular platforms at the time the data were collected in 2017. Those responses were crosschecked with another survey that measured validity by determining the degree to which participants took their role in the study seriously.

We were able to establish a correlation between the amount of social media use and these physical health indicators, said Lee. The more participants used social media, the more somatic symptoms they experienced and visits to the doctor they reported. They also showed higher levels of chronic inflammation.

Lee says this study is just the beginning of understanding the relationship between social media and physical health.

By looking at a biological marker in the blood, we were able to find a relatively more objective association between social media usage and physical health, but this correlational finding cant rule out the possibility that poor health impacts social media usage, said Lee.

Lee says the aphorism could hold true with social media use and physical health: The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. In our previous research, we found those high in self-esteem benefited from using social media, but people low in self-esteem did not. So, the effect may be more nuanced.

Theres still work to be done, said Lee. But right now, I wanted to get the word out there that social media use may have a link to important physical health outcomes.

Lees research team for the current study included colleagues from The Ohio State University: Tao Jiang, a graduate student; Jennifer Crocker, PhD, professor of social psychology; and Baldwin Way, PhD, associate professor of psychology.
Even before they blew into Boise for the 2022 legislative session, Idaho legislators were rhapsodizing about the gigantic tax cuts they were going to bestow upon their voters$350 million, $400 million, $600 million, the skys the limit in an election year. There is certainly enough surplus revenue in State coffers to sweeten the hearts of voters toward their incumbents, but it seems the process is backwards. Shouldnt we take a lesson from most Idaho families and provide for all of the spending necessities before reveling over how much largesse is to be handed over to voters?

With increasing prices for food, gas, rent, you name it, many budgets, particularly those of modest-income families, are being stretched to breaking. Families have to make sure enough of their income is set aside for basic necessities before laying plans to spend on non-necessities.

Over the last decade, our legislators have perfected a handy refrain when chronically underfunding important governmental functions like education, infrastructure, drug treatment, foster care, mental health, whatever elseThis is a tight budget year, we know we should do better, just wait for a fat year. Well, the fat year is here and, just like a modest-means family, we should be hearing about how legislators are going to meet important funding obligations before they go about depleting the entire surplus.

Education is at the top of the funding list, having been shortchanged for well over a decade. One education advocacy group contends Idaho education is underfunded by about $1.3 billion per year. That includes $700 million for K-12, $340 million for higher education, $52 million to fund full-day kindergarten and covering $216 million in school district levies.

Before rushing into setting massive tax cuts in stone, the Legislature should make an in-depth examination of education and other important funding priorities that have been dramatically underfunded over the years. The funding levels should be increased to make programs properly functional before obligating the surplus for tax cuts and rebates.

When it is determined how much is not needed for important programs, any tax cuts should be parceled out in a more equitable manner than just favoring high earners. Bill Parks of Moscow, a retired business professor and founder of outdoor gear retailer NRS, hit the nail on the head with his suggestion to target those who need it most, rather than just our highest income residents.

He continued, Individuals with gross income less than $12,550 and married couples with less than $25,100 are not subject to the income tax, but even people with modest incomes reach the maximum tax rate shortly after that. A single taxpayer hits the maximum rate of 6.5% at $7,939 in taxable income. For joint filers it is $15,878. It is obscene that a couple barely over the poverty level is paying taxes at the same marginal rate as those with incomes in the millions. Why not at least triple the five tax brackets so that the 6.5% rate kicks in at around $23,817 for single filers and $47,634 for joint filers? That would provide tax relief where it is most needed.

It is hard to fault Bills suggestion in these difficult times. While the State has a revenue surplus, there are many thousands of Idahoans who are struggling financially through no fault of their own. Many are on the verge of homelessness with Idahos unprecedented housing market. Revenues not urgently needed to restore proper funding for important State programs should be targeted for those struggling souls.

Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served eight years as Idaho attorney general (1983-1991) and 12 years as justice of the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). He is currently a regular contributor to The Hill online news. He blogs at JJCommonTater.

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A Marion man has been sentenced to prison for sex crimes, including paying to watch a livestream of abuse of children overseas, authorities said Friday.

Chief U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger sentenced Jacob Daylen Ross, 47, of Marion, to 660 months in prison on child pornography charges, announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

In addition to the prison term imposed, Reidinger ordered Ross to serve a lifetime under court supervision upon completion of his prison term. A federal jury convicted Ross in March 2021 of five counts of production of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.

According to filed court documents, evidence presented at Rosss trial and sentencing hearing, in June 2020, law enforcement became aware that Ross was involved in the online sexual exploitation of children overseas.

As trial evidence established, Ross paid individuals abroad in exchange for livestream videos depicting children being sexually abused. Specifically, the evidence showed that Ross communicated via the WhatsApp messenger application with a woman residing in the Philippines on multiple occasions and paid the woman to sexually abuse her young children while Ross watched a livestream video of the abuse.

A forensic analysis of Rosss seized cellphone revealed that he possessed 28 images of child pornography, which were screenshots taken during a livestream video chat. Furthermore, law enforcement located in Rosss Google accounts additional screenshot images of the livestreamed sexual abuse of children.

Ross is currently in federal custody and will be transferred to the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.

King was joined in making Fridays announcement by Ronnie Martinez, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in North Carolina and South Carolina, and Sheriff Ricky T. Buchanan of the McDowell County Sheriffs Office.

Rosss lengthy sentence reflects the depravity of his actions, said King. Perpetrators who rely on the anonymity of the internet to skirt our nations laws and engage in webcam sex tourism, or any other lewd conduct harmful to minors, ought to know that federal prosecutors and our law enforcement counterparts will do whatever it takes to protect all children  within our borders and beyond.

This sentence sends a strong message that HSI and our law enforcement partners are unified in our shared commitment to protect children here and abroad from predators such as Ross, said Martinez. Thanks to the unique global investigative reach of HSI, coupled with the outstanding work of our special agents and the detectives with the McDowell County Sheriffs Office and federal prosecutors, we have ensured that Ross is being held fully accountable for his horrific actions.

I am very proud of the dedicated efforts from our investigators. These types of crimes that prey on our children sicken me. Our children depend on others to keep them safe and protect them, not hurt them. I appreciate our relationships with our federal partners, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorneys Office, and appreciate their attention to such heinous crimes, said Sheriff Buchanan.

In making Fridays announcement, King commended HSI and the McDowell County Sheriffs Office for their investigation of this case and thanked the Wilkes County Sheriffs Office for its invaluable assistance.

The U.S. Attorneys Office in Asheville prosecuted the case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys Offices and the Criminal Divisions Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE.
The European Union has urged Israel to halt demolitions in occupied East Jerusalem, calling the displacement of Palestinians illegal under international law.

The EU urged Israel not to proceed with its plan to construct 1,450 settlement-housing units between Har Homa and Givat Hamatos, according to a statement issued late Wednesday night by Peter Stano, the lead spokesperson for the blocs diplomatic service.

Settlement expansion, demolitions and evictions are illegal under international law, he said.

He called the increasing number of demolitions and evictions in the West Bank a worrying trend, and stressed that the possibility of further evictions of Palestinian families would fuel tensions.

Israels construction plan would further undermine the possibility of Jerusalem serving as the future capital of both States and to halt all settlement activities, he added.

The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is seen as an occupied territory under international law, thus making all Jewish settlements there illegal.

Like much of the international community, the EU does not recognize Israels sovereignty over the territories it has occupied since 1967.

Since 2001, the bloc has repeatedly called on Israel to end all settlement activities and to dismantle the already existing ones.
Kuwaits Minister of Education and Scientific Research, Ali Al Mudhaf has presented his resignation, citing political uneasiness, Gulf News has reported.

Al Mudhaf, appointed less than a month, has reportedly offered his resignation to Prime Minister Sabah Al Khalid after felt political uneasiness after two family lawmakers have backed a motion to withdraw confidence from Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Hamad Jaber Al Ali.

The resignation offer comes out of feeling political uneasiness in which MPS Muhlal and Abdullah Al Mudhaf have landed him [the minister] in by giving their early support to the no-confidence request, sources told Al Anba newspaper.
Orcas, a Cairo-based learning platform connecting parents and students to trust tutors and babysitters, is planning to expand to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Co-Founder and CEO Hossam Taher has revealed.

The plan is coming after the company closed its third funding round, of $2.1 million, Arab Finance reports citing Al Mal Newspaper.

The company, Tahar indicated, so far raised $3.5 million in total.

The new funding, Tahar added, will be used for Orcas expansion plans by developing its technological platform and increasing the number of its employees.

Orcas, the CEO also revealed, is expecting a new funding round, but he did revealed the purpose of the future financing.
The Sultanate of Oman is in talks with regional banks to refinance a $2.2 billion loan it took out early last year, seeking to increase its size to between $3 billion and $4 billion, Market Screener reports citing two sources familiar with the matter.

The Gulf country subscribed for the loan in February last year and offered a 15-month tenor with a one-year extension option at the borrowers discretion, the sources told the media.

Oman, Market Screener reports, was originally seeking up to $1 billion with last years loan but more than doubled its size due to strong appetite from banks.

Pricing talk for the refinancing is around 350 basis points over LIBOR, one of the sources indicated. The original loans all-in pricing, including fees, was between 375 and 390 basis points over LIBOR.

The Sultanates budget this year is expected to include a deficit accounting for 5% of gross domestic product (GDP), well within the limits of a medium-term fiscal plan it launched in 2020 to fix its heavily-indebted finances.

At the same it expects public debt to reach 75% of GDP in 2022, down from previous estimates of an 86% debt-to-GDP ratio. The country, according to the sources, may still need to tap international debt markets to fill its funding needs this year.

Fitch in December revised Omans outlook to stable from negative as higher oil prices and fiscal reforms improve its balance sheet, Market Screener reports.

In October, Moodys did the same and S&P revised its outlook to positive from stable.
At least ten people died Thursday in an explosion in Apiate, a small township in western Ghana, officials said.

Francis Abeiku Yankah, the Prestea-Huni Valley District Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), said: I have witnessed the complete devastation of the Apiate township. As we speak, the commune is dead, it can no longer be inhabited by anyone.

He added to the microphone of local TV3: The governor, who was also informed of the news, quickly sent excavators to the scene to rescue victims after the collapse of some buildings.

Police said that according to the initial investigation, a vehicle carrying mining explosives collided with a motorcycle.

Authorities said most of the victims have been rescued and are in hospitals and clinics in the municipality of Bogoso.

The population has been advised to leave the area and move to nearby towns for their own safety while rescue operations are underway, a police statement said.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo offered his condolences on Twitter and said the police, armed forces and NADMO are coordinating efforts to bring the situation under control.

The president also called on NADMO services to provide emergency relief to residents of the district.
Mali has refused to allow a German army plane to fly over its territory on its way to Niger, the German Air Force said Thursday.

An Airbus A400M of the Bundeswehr, coming from Germany, with about 80 soldiers on board was denied the right to fly over Mali while on its way to Niamey, Niger, the German air force lamented on Twitter.

The flight was then diverted to Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands (Spain), the army said, warning that the facts would be clarified.

The Malian authorities have recently limited the air movements of the international military mission Minusma, stationed in the country and in which Germany participates.

About a thousand Bundeswehr soldiers are engaged in the Minusma in Mali.

The junta in power in Bamako since the August 2020 putsch has closed its borders to the countries of the Organization of West African States after the latter did the same in early January to sanction the militarys plan to remain in power for several years without elections.

Since January 12, the question of the freedom of movement of military aircraft entering or leaving the airspace of the West African states in question has been raised, starting with those of the French army and the Minusma.
Patient Disease Network for the Utah Data Resource. Panel A. Graphical representation of the Patient Disease Network. 39,055 ICD 10 diagnosis codes, 5,716 CPT procedure codes, and 1,764 RxNorm medication codes comprising 50 million comorbidities are represented by the map. To render the patient disease network more readily interpretable, we utilized Minimum Description Length clustering, so that nodes with similar comorbidity patterns lay near to one another in the network. The comorbidities of Heart Transplant are labeled red for reference purposes. See Methods for details. Panel B. Term trajectory for Adult Heart Transplant. Nodes represent diagnosis (black), procedures (red), and medications (blue). Edges are temporally ordered comorbidities (Bonferroni alpha = 10E-9.5), arrows denote direction. Edges are labeled with transition probabilities (e.g. patient flux). For example, an adult patient with viral myocarditis has a 17% chance of developing a heart failure diagnosis, and a 4.9% chance of undergoing heart transplantation. See Methods for additional details and S5 Table for code references for the highlighted terms. Credit: DOI: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0000004

For the first time, University of Utah Health scientists have shown that artificial intelligence could lead to better ways to predict the onset and course of cardiovascular disease. The researchers, working in conjunction with physicians from Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital, developed unique computational tools to precisely measure the synergistic effects of existing medical conditions on the heart and blood vessels.

The researchers say this comprehensive approach could help physicians foresee, prevent, or treat serious heart problems, perhaps even before a patient is aware of the underlying condition.

Although the study only focused on cardiovascular disease, the researchers believe it could have far broader implications. In fact, they suggest that these findings could eventually lead to a new era of personalized, preventive medicine. Doctors would proactively contact patients to alert them to potential ailments and what can be done to alleviate the problem.

"We can turn to AI to help refine the risk for virtually every medical diagnosis," says Martin Tristani-Firouzi, M.D. the study's corresponding author and a pediatric cardiologist at U of U Health and Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital, and scientist at the Nora Eccles Harrison Cardiovascular Research and Training Institute. "The risk of cancer, the risk of thyroid surgery, the risk of diabetesany medical term you can imagine."

The study appears in the online journal PLOS Digital Health.

Current methods for calculating the combined effects of various risk factorssuch as demographics and medical historyon cardiovascular disease are often imprecise and subjective, according to Mark Yandell, Ph.D., senior author of the study, a professor of human genetics, H.A. and Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chair at U of U Health, and co-founder of Backdrop Health. As a result, these methods fail to identify certain interactions that could have profound effects on the health of the heart and blood vessels.

To more accurately measure how these interactions, also known as comorbidities, influence health, Tristani-Firouzi, Yandell, and colleagues from U of U Health and Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital, used machine learning software to sort through more than 1.6 million electronic health records (EHRs) after names and other identifying information were deleted.

These electronic records, which document everything that happens to a patient, including lab tests, diagnoses, medication usage, and medical procedures, helped the researchers identify the comorbidities most likely to aggravate a particular medical condition such as cardiovascular disease.

In their current study, the researchers used a form of artificial intelligence called probabilistic graphical networks (PGM) to calculate how any combination of these comorbidities could influence the risks associated with heart transplants, congenital heart disease, or sinoatrial node dysfunction (SND, a disruption or failure of the heart's natural pacemaker).

Among adults, the researchers found that:

Individuals who had a prior diagnosis of cardiomyopathy (disease of the heart muscle) were at 86 times higher risk of needing a heart transplant than those who didn't.

Those who had viral myocarditis had about a 60 times higher risk of requiring a heart transplant.

Usage of milrinone, a vasodilating drug used to treat heart failure, pushed the transplant risk 175 times This was the strongest individual predictor of heart transplant.

In some instances, the combined risk was even greater. For instance, among patients who had cardiomyopathy and were taking milrinone, the risk of needing a heart transplant was 405 times higher than it was for those whose hearts were healthier.

Comorbidities had a significantly different influence on the transplant risk among children, according to Tristani-Firouzi. Overall, the risk of pediatric heart transplant ranged from 17 to 102 times higher than children who didn't have pre-existing heart conditions, depending on the underlying diagnosis.

The researchers also examined influences that a mother's health during pregnancy had on her children. Women who had high blood pressure during pregnancy were about twice as likely to give birth to infants who had congenital heart and circulatory problems. Children with Down syndrome had about three times greater risk of having a heart anomaly.

Infants who had Fontan surgery, a procedure that corrects a congenital blood flow defect in the heart, were about 20 times more likely to develop SND heart rate dysfunction than those who didn't need the surgery

The researchers also detected important demographic differences. For instance, a Hispanic patient with atrial fibrillation (rapid heartbeat) had twice the risk of SND compared with Blacks and Whites, who had similar medical histories.

Josh Bonkowsky, M.D. Ph.D., Director of the Primary Children's Center for Personalized Medicine, who is not an author on the study, believes this research could lead to development of a practical clinical tool for patient care.

"This novel technology demonstrates that we can estimate the risk for medical complications with precision and can even determine medicines that are better for individual patients." Bonkowsky says.

Moving forward, Tristani-Firouzi and Yandell hope their research will also help physicians untangle the growing web of disorienting medical information enveloping them every day.

"No matter how aware you are, there's no way to keep all of the knowledge that you need in your head as a medical professional in this day and age to treat patients in the best way possible," Yandell says. "The computational machines we are developing will help physicians make the best possible patient care decisions, using all of the pertinent information available in our electronic age. These machines are vital to the future of medicine."

This research was published online on January 18, 2022 as, "An Explainable Artificial Intelligence Approach for Predicting Cardiovascular Outcomes using Electronic Health Records."

More information: Sergiusz Wesoowski et al, An explainable artificial intelligence approach for predicting cardiovascular outcomes using electronic health records, PLOS Digital Health (2022). Sergiusz Wesoowski et al, An explainable artificial intelligence approach for predicting cardiovascular outcomes using electronic health records,(2022). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0000004